degree of grandeur; but there was more of pageantry in them than of dialogue, and almost every thing in them had a military air. Devotion, however, had some share in them. There were both jocular and religious dramas. They were distinguished into mysteries, in which remarkable events in Scripture, or the lives of saints were represented; allegories, in which faith, hope, and charity, and other mystic beings, spoke and acted in personification; and moralities, in which, sometimes real, and sometimes fictitious characters were brought upon the stage. Some general moral was usually drawn from the exhibition of these entertainments. The mysteries were the most popular; they were some times performed in churches. Grossness and buffoonery too often found a place in them. Such were the Feast of Fools, and the Feast of the Ass. Some of these dramas have reached us : grossiereté abounds in them; yet grave ministers, and dignitaries of the state frequently attended them. This shocks our feelings; "but the difference of the times," says the prudent Hennault, "solves the difficulty; and while it shews the simplicity and ignorance, proves the good nature and simplicity of the age." The church often protested against them; but they were protected by

the state.

The theatre, according to the description of it in the Resume now before us, consisted of a scaffold containing seven stages. The highest was filled by a representation of heaven; the next was a representation of the earth; the third contained the palace of Herod, Pilate's house, or some other representation suited to the drama of the day. The lowest stage of the scaffold was assigned to hell; it was guarded by a large dragon, which opened its mouth to admit, or let out, the passing devils. Side apartments were left for the actors, or for the furniture of the theatre, and for performers upon musical instruments. A splendid flag announced far and near the locality of the scenic exhibition.

Some of the dramas performed on these stages have been preserved; the most famous is the Avocat Pathelin. It had great celebrity in its day. The dialogue is well sustained throughout, and in some places approaches to grace and humour. The title of it has become proverbial in France: there, a low tricking lawyer is yet called l'Avocat Pathelin.

Such was the drama of France, at the period of which we are speaking. A brighter view of its literature appears in its Chroniclers. The principal of these are, during the period of which we are now writing, Joinville and Froissart: their characters are thus drawn in the work before us.

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In all the years, during which the first crusade lasted, Joinville was constantly near the person of the king; (Louis IX). But, after the monarch's return to France, nothing could induce Joinville to engage the second crusade. He retired to the court of the king of Navarre; there, he wrote his memoirs, a faithful mirror of the opinions of the author, and

of the age in which he lived. We seem to live with Joinville, to travel with him, and to fight at his side. His language is rude, his style is any thing but classical; but it breathes truth. Joinville knew how to choose with discernment; how to give a full view of any object, which interested him, and to pass slightly over those of smaller moment. His allurements are undisguised, and his manners friendly. He wishes to make his readers share his own enthusiastic admiration of his hero, and seldom fails. But sometimes he overpasses his mark; and a desire of shewing his royal master in the most favourable point of view, sometimes carries him from recollection to recollection, from anecdote to anecdote, into the most vulgar details. He generally contrives to find, in the midst of his narratives, a place for himself.-His simplicity often degenerates into the burlesque and the low.

- Froissart's history partakes, in some measure, of the nature of an epic poem: he strove to elevate history to poetry, or to a chivalrous romance; he knew no other means of effecting this object, than introducing the marvellons; but the marvellous existed in the events of his times. He wished rather to please than to instruct. He has not the judgment of Philip de Comines, who came after him: but this does not detract from the merit of his memoirs-they paint the spirit of his age, and fill up a chasm in history.'

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We add, that he appears to have anxiously sought for information upon every fact to which his subject led his work is so diffuse, that it is almost impossible to get through it. Sleidan published an abridgment of it; but as the Marquis d'Argenson excellently observes, though it is possible to abridge a history, it is impossibe to abridge a historian. French writers loudly accuse Froissart of partiality to the English, and attribute it to the kindness shewn him by our Edward the Third, and his queen, the daughter of the Count of Hainault.

To the early part of the period which intervened between the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the reign of Lewis XIV., belongs the celebrated Philip de Comines.

• Philip de Comines,' says our author, was descended from one of the most distinguished families in Flanders: he was brought up in the brilliant court of Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy; but the flatteries and intrigues of Louis XI. drew him to the court of France. Persons are not agreed on the morality of his character, but all do justice to his judgment. He never has the appearance of a bustling advocate, who endeavours to cast a veil over a bad part of his cause: it is with the tranquil dignity of a man above public clamour, that he writes of his monarch; and he expresses himself with the same liberty, as if he had written under Trajan or Marcus Aurelius. The style of Comines has not the natural charm of the writings of Joinville; but Joinville has nothing of the sagacity or experience of the historiographer of Louis XI. His narratives excite reflection, even when they relate to the most ordinary circumstance. He possesses in the highest degree the talent of reasoning, while he merely seems to relate; and of insinuating his own opinions, while he merely seems to tell his story.'

French writers often compare Froissart to Herodotus, Comines

to Tacitus; it is much easier to shew in what they are unlike, than in what they are like. Nothing can resemble the Ionic purity of simple language and simple narrative of Herodotus, less than the Doric roughness and gorgeous exhibitions of Froissart. Between Tacitus and Comines, there is even less resemblance. The style of Tacitus is abrupt, sententious, inverted, ambitious, full of figures and the boldest imagery, and abounding in malignity. The style of Comines is flowing, graceful, and natural. Like Homer, he makes his actors develope their own characters. Very differently from those of Tacitus, all his reflections seem to be inspired by good nature. It must be confessed that the English possess no chronicler, who can be compared to Comines; but we doubt if the French can produce any historian, in the middle ages, who is equal to Matthew Paris.

We must mention another writer to whom England has none similar, and to whom, at the time in which he wrote, England had none equal-the celebrated Michael Montaigne. He was a phenomenon in the age in which he lived. Equally removed from pedantry and fanaticism, his manner has neither hardness nor enthusiasm. Having formed himself upon the great models of antiquity, he placed himself at an immeasurable distance above his contemporaries: though he wrote in an unformed language, his style is classical. He possessed both genius and learning in the highest degree, and when the age of good taste finally arrived, he not only retained his celebrity, but because his merit was then better appreciated, he was then more admired. the reign of Charles IX., his Essays were to be found on the table, on the window seat, of every gentleman who could read, and were often his only library. In the reign of Lewis XIV. they were to be found in the collections of all men of taste; and these sometimes turned from the master-pieces of their own times, to breathe the simpler and purer air of the more ancient pages of Michael Montaigne.

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The times of which we are writing, also produced a poet, whose works, even now, are frequently in the hands of men of taste the celebrated Clement Marot. He greatly excelled all the former poets of France: he was the first whose works discover a mind familiarised with the classical poets of antiquity, and desirous of transferring their beauties into his own strains. pastoral poetry and epigrams, he was very successful; but he principally shines in his epistles; they are composed in verses of ten syllables, wit and humour abound in them, and exhibit every where a certain naiveté and antique cast, which has an unspeakable charm. They have been frequently imitated by authors of the first eminence; as Jean Baptiste Rousseau and Voltaire: these imitations of him, form what is called in France, the style marotique. It is admirably suited to grave pleasantry. It corresponds with the English verses of ten syllables; but for

reasons which have not yet been explained, the vers marotique has not, at least, to English ears, the sonorous rhythm of the English ten-syllable metre.

After Marot, we must mention his protectress, and in some respects his rival, Margaret the Queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis I. She is celebrated by her contemporaries for her encouragement of every gay and every elegant art; and is yet known by her sprightly, but not always decent tales. The following verses, however, shew, that she sometimes moralised her song.

'Pour etre un digne et bon chretien,

Il faut a Christ etre semlable;
Il faut renoncer à tout bien,
A tout honneur qui est damnable;
A la dame belle et jolie,

A plaisir que la chair s'emeut,
Lasser biens, honnaurs et amie,
Ne faire pas tout ce qu'on veut.

'Les biens au pauvres faut donner,
D'un ceur joyeux et volontaire ;
Faut les injures pardonner,
Et a ses ennemis bien faire ;
S'ejouir en melancholie

Et tournement dont la chair s'emeut;
Aimer la mort come la vie,

Ne faire pas tout çe qu'on veut.'

With Marot, the ancient line of the poets of France may be said to close. Between him and those who compose the modern line of the poets of France, the French Pleiad held the temple. They derived their appellation from the following circumstance: Ptolomy Philadelphus, one of the most celebrated of the Macedonian kings of Egypt, favoured seven poets. In reference to one of the heavenly constellations, they were said to form the Pleiad of Alexandria, the seat of this monarch's government. In imitation of the association, the French public formed seven poets of their nation, Ronsard, Irdelle, Dubillay, Ponthus, Rèmi, Belleau and Daurat, into a constellation, and appointed Ronsard, Lord of the Ascendant. The French Pleiad aimed at a total alteration of the language and structure of French poetry. Shocked at its uncouthness and dissonance, they wished to introduce into it Latin inflections and terminations, and the ancient metre. But the experiment did not succeed it has been tried in many other languages; and in all, with the same want of success. Still the attempt produced some good effects. It caused the Greek and Latin tongues to be studied; it introduced a multitude of happy expressions and well-sounding words, into the French language, and these greatly added both to its strength and melody. Some, however, have asserted, that these improvements effected too great an alteration of the true

French style, and that in consequence of the innovation, much of the raciness of the real French idiom evaporated, and that much of its naiveté vanished. In support of this observation, it has been remarked, that wherever the poets of subsequent times aimed at this naiveté, they have generally abandoned the modern style, and adopted much of the ancient Gaulois.

To the period of French literature to which our subject has now led us, their ancient romances belong. They may be divided into the chivalrous, the allegorical, the pastoral, and the historical: they were once perused with avidity, but now have few readers; none of them, we believe, excels Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia.

Enfin MALHERBE vint, et le premier en Françe,
Fit sentir dans les vers, un juste cadence,
D'un mot mis en sa place enseigna le pouvoir
Et reduisit la muse au regles du devoir.'

With Malherbe, modern French poetry commences. The lofty epic has not yet appeared in France; but there is no other species of poetry, in which the French have not eminently succeeded. We wish the works of Jean Baptiste Rousseau were more read in this country almost all his sacred odes, and many of his other odes, are exquisite: the same may be generally said of his cantatas, allegories and epistles: no person of taste has ever read them, who has been contented with a single perusal of them.

We left the French drama on its scaffold of seven stages: sometime after it reached these exalted honours, an association, under the appellation of the Confraternity of the Holy Passion, obtained from the parliament of Paris, a patent, which conferred on its members, the exclusive right of representing sacred subjects. At a much earlier period, the exhibition of them in churches had been prohibited by the clergy. When the sacred exhibitions were interdicted to the confraternists of the Holy Passion, they assigned their patent to a troop of comic actors, called the Enfans sans souçi. Other companies existed, but these were always the favourite performers. Their patent was revoked in 1584; they were then succeded by the Gelosi; and those, by l'Elite Royal. These, in 1641, were indirectly sanctioned by an edict of Louis XIII.-the Magna Charta of the French theatre. This company afterwards diverged into two branches; one was established at the Hotel de Bourgogne; the other, at the Hotel d'Argent au Marais

It was at the Hotel de Bourgogne, that the immortal Cid of Corneille was first performed: it is the first drama performed on the continent, which, at this time, is perused with pleasure.-It was so greatly admired, that " Beau comme le Cid," became an ordinary phrase in every civilised nation of Europe. Cardinal Richélieu's jealousy of this tragedy, and his unsuccessful efforts to lower it in public estimation, is one of the few circumstances in the life of that terrific minister, which amuse.