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the Government which has just been formed, to render the formation of that party possible.

There can be no doubt-so far as the subject matter admits of such an expression-that Mr. Gladstone intends to adhere to the democratic policy he has already announced. It is doubtful whether he intends now to head the movement for suffrages still lower than those which he proposed. He does not disdain apparently to act as the recognised leader of Mr. Potter and Mr. Lucraft, To what extent he has by that act accepted their doctrines may be a matter of dispute; but he clearly sees in them nothing to repel him. It may, therefore, be assumed that if he moves at all from the seven pound limit, it will be to go lower and not higher. He is evidently in no mood to win back by concession those who have left him, or to calm those, who, though they voted for him, watched his proceedings with undisguised alarm. Opposition, as is usually the case with him, has made him more bitter and more extravagant. He is trying to put himself at the head of a great democratic agitation. It is quite clear that if he comes into office again he comes in as the nominee and champion of the Radicals — pledged to their measures, accepting their principles, and relying upon them to inflame the populace out of doors against his antagonists. And he will come in again as the inevitable Minister: as a last resource after all alternatives have been exhausted: not upon his trial, as this year, but in triumph. In such a position it is needless to point out how terrible his strength will be. He will then level again the blow, which this year he has narrowly missed, and which will hardly fail again. He will introduce, and, supported by the belief that no other Ministry but his own can exist, he will pass a Reform Bill that shall build up his future power on the attachment of the Trades Unions of the great towns, and shall rid him for ever of aristocratic opposition.

It is for the Constitutional Whigs to consider how far they will be partakers in this enterprise. If they allow Lord Derby's Government to be thrown out upon any vote of confidence, no other result can follow but that Mr. Gladstone will come back again. We will not urge the title Lord Derby's Cabinet has to their confidence the agreement upon the one vital point, the paucity of subjects on which any difference can be found, the real identity of interest and of sympathy in presence of the movement which Mr. Gladstone leads, and which Mr. Potter and Mr. Lucraft represent. We will content ourselves with pointing to the inevitable result of their defeat. There may be members of that Government of whose appointment they disapprove, or to whose views on particular subjects they are opposed. Questions Vol. 120.-No. 239.

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may

may arise on which they may dislike the course of the Government, or may feel inclined to censure the bearing of some particular member of it. If they could replace it by something which they liked better there would be nothing unreasonable in their giving effect to their objections. From their own point of view they would be acting logically and consistently, if they could replace a Conservative Government by a moderate Liberal Government, free from the reproach of any democratic leanings. But they are bound in this momentous crisis to take all the elements of the calculation together, and to work out from the whole the result which according to their views will be most beneficial to the community. They must not sacrifice to their feelings upon a secondary question, or their dislike to this or that individual, the issues of the one all-important conflict. It is not a moment to quarrel about party badges, when the common enemy is at the gate. If Mr. Gladstone comes back upon the shoulders of the politicians who hold their debates in Trafalgar Square, the personal controversies that are keenly canvassed now will become matter of faint but melancholy historical interest. The classes who now are divided among themselves upon differences merely personal, or on questions of altogether subsidiary importance, will have leisure in the retirement of absolute political annihilation to reflect on the wisdom and opportuneness of their mutual distrust.

The decisions that are taken within the next two or three years will determine in all probability the future character and complexion of our constitution. The public apathy upon all questions of domestic policy is profound. The nation is too intent on other matters to point out to its rulers the course it would have them take. Our destiny is in the hands of a score or so of influential politicians of various schools. If they sufficiently understand the supreme importance of the crisis to forget awhile for their country's sake old antipathies or personal aspirations, the men who really love our ancient constitution will be gathered under one banner, and their united force may defy democracy. But if the opportunity is squandered in personal self-assertion or sectional bickering, they must fall before an enemy who at least may claim the praise of never suffering private ambition to impede the attainment of a great end. Our system may fairly be said to be on its trial. If the virtue of our public men is not equal to an exigency which for objects so precious asks for sacrifices so small, the world will think we have little cause for boasting over the less pretentious selfishness of more democratic communities.

ART

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne. Par Gaston Paris. Paris, 1865. 8vo.

2. La Chanson de Roland. Nach der Oxforder Handschrift, von neuen herausgegeben von Theodor Müller. Erste Hälfte. Göttingen, 1863. 8vo.

3. Renaus de Montauban, oder die Haimonskinder, herausgegeben von Dr. Heinrich Michelant. Stuttgart, 1862. 8vo. 4. Li Romans de Berte aus grans Piés. Publié par M. Paulin Paris. Paris, 1832, in 12mo.

5. Li Romans de Garin le Loherain.

Publié par M. Paulin

Paris. Paris, 1833-36. 2 vols. 12mo. 6. Les Anciens Poëtes de la France; publiés sous les auspices de S. Exc. M. le Ministre de l'Instruction Publique et sous la direction de M. F. Guessard. Paris, 1859-65. 8 vols. 16mo. 7. Histoire Littéraire de la France par des religieux Benedictins de la Congregation de Saint Maur. Continuée par les Membres de l'Institut. Paris, 1733-1864. 24 vols. 4to.

WH

HEN Voltaire was writing the 'Henriade,' he was advised by a French nobleman, one of the arbiters of taste of his day, not to go on with his project. Les Français,' he said, 'n'ont pas la tête épique.' Until the last few years this aphorism passed as indisputable truth; and those most conversant with French literature remained entirely unaware of the existence of an immense body of epic poetry in the French language. Up to the time of the discovery of the 'Chanson de Roland,' French literature, it was believed, commenced with the Roman de la Rose.' Boileau speaks of the origin of French poetry in these

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'Durant les premiers ans du Parnasse français,
Le caprice tout seul faisait toutes les lois,

La rime au bout des mots assemblés sans mesure
Tenait lieu d'ornement, de nombre et de césure.
Villon fut le premier qui dans ces temps grossiers,
Débrouilla l'art confus de nos vieux romanciers.'

Never, it has been truly said, was ignorance more unfortunately mistaken than in this fancy sketch of the old romanciers Vol. 120.-No. 240.

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by Boileau; for the versification of the old 'Trouvères' in their 'chansons' is nearly irreproachable, and the laws of rhythm and metre which they invented are carefully observed. Such obscure notions about the early state of French poetry and the French language were in part dissipated by the discovery, in 1822, by M. Bourdillon, of Geneva, of the Chanson de Roland,' which, as English readers know, was sung by the jongleur Taillefer at the battle of Hastings, when he rode beyond the ranks of the Normans, chanting the prowess of Roland and his peers with a loud voice, throwing his sword and lance aloft in the air, and catching them again as they fell. Taillefer is thus described on that occasion in the Roman de Brut of Wace. 'Taillefer, who was a skilful singer, mounted on a steed of swift pace, went before them all, singing of Charlemagne and of Roland, and of Olivier and of the vassals who died at Roncesvaux:'

'Taillefer qui moult bien cantoit
Sur un ceval qui tost aloit
Devant eus s'en aloit cantant
De Carlemaine et de Rolant
Et d'Olivier et des vassaus

Qui moururent à Roncesvaux.'

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Till the discovery by M. Bourdillon of a MS. Chanson de Roland-which had formerly been in the 'Bibliothèque du Roi' at Versailles it was supposed that the song of Taillefer was some short ballad composition respecting the great disaster of Roncesvaux. However, it is clear now, from the knowledge obtained of the habits of the jongleurs, that this was the very poem of which short snatches were sung by the Norman minstrel at the battle of Hastings. Subsequently to M. Bourdillon's discovery, other manuscripts of the same poem have been found. One of them came to light at Oxford, and is called the Oxford Text, and is recognised as being of greater antiquity than the others and more correct. There are three printed texts now in existence, of which that of M. Genin deserves special notice.

The discovery of this poem-which is supposed to have been composed by the trouvère Theroulde*-in its primitive vigour and

*The question is by no means free from doubt. The last line of the poem is 'Ci falt (finit) la geste que Turoldus declinet.'

Some consider that 'declinet' means no more than transcribe,' others that it signifies to recite' only; these interpretations we think, however, not probable. M. Genin thinks Theroulde was in the service of William the Conqueror, and died Abbot of Peterborough. If so, his monastic character would account for the Latinisation of his name 'Turoldus.'

originality,

originality, roused a cry of admiration on all sides; and an entire Homeric age was brought to light in the early history of France of whose existence no one had any suspicion. The labours, besides, of some of the most eminent French men of letters in another important publication have recovered from the dust and neglect of five centuries an immense body of French epical poetry, of the same cycle as that of Roland, which has thrown a most unexpected light on the character and society of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.

About the middle of the last century the learned congregation of the Benedictines of St. Maur engaged in as vast and important a literary enterprise as has ever been attempted in any country, namely, a collection and examination of all the original documents which concern in any way the literature of France, beginning from the dawn of French history. They began their undertaking and conducted their researches with immense patience, industry, and perseverance; but the age was not favourable to such archæological labours and looked coldly on them. They nevertheless produced eleven quarto volumes, when the general indifference of the literary world had its effect in arresting their progress, and their institution itself was dissolved, with all other monastic foundations, at the Revolution. Subsequently to the Restoration archæological studies were looked on with a more favourable eye, and the Académie des Inscriptions took in hand the unfinished work of the learned Benedictines, and have now brought the 'Histoire Littéraire de la France' up to the twenty-fourth volume and the commencement of the fourteenth century, and collected together a mass of materials which no student of history can afford to overlook. In the progress of this latter portion of the work it was imagined that three volumes would suffice for the literature of the thirteenth century; but so vast was the amount of new materials discovered that it has been found that it was necessary to occupy eight quarto volumes with their examination.*

As this Literary History of France quotes nearly one hundred 'Chansons de Geste,' belonging to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries alone, many of them containing ten thousand lines, and others ranging between that number and seventy thousand, it may be conceived how prodigiously active was the poetic faculty in France during those ages, as might, indeed, have been

*M. Quinet was one of the first to call attention to this vast cycle of then inedited French epic poetry in a Report which he presented to the Minister of Public Works in 1831. The labours of M. Paulin Paris, and the recent work of his son, M. Gaston Paris, have laid all students of ancient literature under great obligations.

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