and he is, as it were, beside a red looking-glass, wherein he admires himself, and gleans from that joyful contemplation the majesty of his countenance, the freedom of gesticulation, the diversity of motion, and all the vigour of his intellect.” The writer terminates this novel and curious work with the following lines : Chacun met dans son goût le prix de chaque livre ; Mais toute prévention à part, Ou y lit des endroits bien exempts de critîque. The author, no doubt, conceived that the rhetoric of money and wine, above all, influenced the taste of the world at large. NO. V. Pliny's Natural History. In Latin, folio. This manuscript, upon beautiful vellum, is remarkable not only from its perfect state of preservation, but on account of the correctness and beauty of the character; it may truly be esteemed a chef-d'euvre of the calligraphic art; the letters being of a round form, and not interrupted by columns, as is usual with manuscripts of this description. The majuscules are enluminated and highly embellished with gold, and the frontispiece, enclosed within a coronet, is decorated in a similar manner, the first page displaying vignettes and a beautiful miniature, delineating stags grazing on the borders of a stream; while upon the broad margins of the manuscript are indicated the subjects of the respective chapters. Pliny, a native of Verona, acquired the esteem of the Emperor Vespasian; he was intendant in Spain, and was swallowed up in the year 79, during the terrible eruption recorded of Mount Vesuvius, which the philosopher approached too near, in his eagerness to witness that dreadful convulsion of nature. Pliny's Natural History, the greatest work of the kind handed down to us from antiquity, was first printed at Rome in 1470. The manuscript of which we are speaking appears to owe its date the year 1400; it was purchased by Claude de Rola, a physician of Montbrison, who acquired considerable celebrity in the sixteenth century. In 1782 it became the property of the Library at Lyons, of which it ranks one of the most conspicuous ornaments, and is particularly quoted in the writings of Father Hardouin. NO. VI. Prophecies of Father Thelesphorus, Hermit of Cusance. In Latin, folio. This precious and very curious calligraphic specimen contains the prophecies of the Hermit Thelesphorus upon popes and emperors, the future state of the Holy See, and of the empire, from 1386 until the end of the world. The style of the penmanship is gothic, and difficult to decipher ; while the titles, initials, and indications of the drawings, are in purple characters. These designs, consisting of forty-five, are coloured, representing the popes, with divers attributes, as well as angel The writer styles himself hermit of Cusance, a village in the ancient province of Franche-Comté, at which spot, after the author's demise, a priory of monks was established. This work, in 1624, was presented to the library of Lyons by Francis de Chevriers, son of Gabriel de Chevriers, lord of St. Mauris, a knight of St. Louis, and one of the gentlemen of the king's chamber, who was instituted in 1614 one of the judges of the French arms, in which place he was succeeded by the learned Peter Hozier. This Francis de Chevrier, who died in 1641, must not be confounded with another, bearing the same name, who married Claudine de Paranges, and who was eulogised in Latin by Papire Masson. NO. VII. The Metamorphosis of Ovid. Folio. The manuscript at Lyons is esteemed the most ancient translation extant in French of this universally esteemed Latin poet, being written in verses of eight syllables. The volume containing this laborious undertaking is of vellum, comprising 546 pages, beautifully written, and in fine preservation; it is decorated by enluminated majuscules, and vignettes descriptive of the principal metamorphoses. The designs are not very correct, but the selection of the subjects, and the manner in which they are treated, render them peculiarly interesting. With regard to the style of the translator, the following quotation will prove amply illustrative; herein Jupiter is made to address himself to lo: En cestui bois ou en celui, Je fais tonner et foudroier. All the books of Ovid are thus translated, being a work of incalculable labour. The most ancient translations of Ovid in print are, those of Walley, published at Bruges by Celard Ransien in 1484, reprinted at Paris in 1493, folio; mentioned by Maittaire. The Great Olympus, printed at Paris in Gothic characters in 1539, octavo. The first and second books were translated by Marot, in lines of ten syllables, which he read to Francis the First, in the Castle of Amboise. Bartholomew Aneau, head of the College of Lyons, added the third book, and caused the whole to be printed in this city by Mace Bonhomme, in 1556, in 12mo. The translation of Francis Habert, of Issoudun, in Berry, appeared at Paris in 1573, which was presented by the author to Henry the Third ; that of Christopher Desfrans, of Niori, equally, in verse, appeared in Paris in 1595; in which edition the writer inserted musical notes, in order that his lines inight be sung; while Raymond and Massac's edition appeared in 1617, which, though loudly extolled by the writers of the time, is now scarcely known. in the two succeeding centuries the Metamorphoses were translated into prose by Nicholas Renouard, Peter du Ryer, la Barre de Beaumarchais, and Abbé Banier; and in verse by Thomas Corneille, who produced the first four books; by Isaac Benserade, who gave the whole in rondeaus; by the Abbé Marolles, who reduced each fable into four verses; by La Fontaine, who imitated some; and lastly, by M. Saint Auge, who had courage and talent sufficient to issue a complete translation. The manuscript at Lyons now under review is of 1450 to 1480, and was the property of Octavius Mey, a Lyonese merchant, famous alike for his knowledge, his inventions, and his great fortune, which he placed to an excellent use, by storing a cabinet with medals and the rarest antiques; and it was from this valuable collection that his heir, William Pilata, selected the well-known beautiful shield representing the continence of Scipio, which he gave to Louis the Fourteenth. FROM THE LONDON MAGAZINE. THE EARLY FRENCH POETS. a Philippe Desportes. Boileau, in the first canto of his Art Poetique, has drawn a slight and rapid sketch of the progress which the French poetry had made before his own time. To Villon he attributes the first improvement on the confusion and grossness of the old romancers. Soon after, Marot succeeded; and under his hands, flourished the ballad, triolet, and mascarade; the rondeau assumed a more regular form, and a new mode of versifying was struck out. Ronsard next embroiled every thing by his ill-directed efforts to reduce the art into order. In the next generation, bis muse, who had spoken Greek and Latin in French, saw her high-swelling words and her pedantry fallen into disesteem; and the failure of the boastful bard rendered Desportes and Bertaut more cautious. Ce poëte orgueilleux trébuché de si haut Rendit plus retenus Desportes et Bertaut. Boileau would have done well to temper the severity of this censure on Ronsard, who had more genius than himself. 'Í'here is, however, some truth in what he has said of Desportes and Bertaut. They are much less bold than their predecessor; nor is it unlikely that the excesses into which he had run might have increased their natural timidity; though it will be seen, that the latter of these two writers, especially, held him in the utmost veneration. They both in a great measure desisted from the attempt made by those who had gone before them, to separate the language of poetry from that of prose, not more by its numbers than by the form and mould of its phrases and words; and although they were not ambitious of that extreme purity and refinement, which Malherbe afterwards affected, and on which his countrymen have since so much prided themselves, yet by their sparing use of the old licenses, they made the transition less difficult than it would otherwise bave been. of the works of Desportes, printed at Rouen in 1611, a few years after his death, a large proportion consists of sonnets. They amount all together to about four hundred in number, and turn for the most part on the subject of love. The following bears some resemblance to an exquisite song of Mrs. Barbauld's, beginning Come here, fond youth, whoe'er thou be, Que parler bas, que soupirer souvant, Brûlé d'un feu qui point ne diminuë, Semer sur l'eau, jetter ses cris au vant, Et le soleil quand la nuit est venuë. Haïr sa vie, embrasser son trespas, Tous les amours sont campés en mon ame. Qu'il n'est prison, ni torture, ni flame, Diane, Sonnet xxix. p. 23. To speak in whispered sounds, and often sigh, Fix'd on the fire that ceaseth day nor night, To sow on waves, and to the winds to cry, And when the darkness comes, to look for light: To loathe one's life, and for one's death implore; Then all the loves do in my bosom dwell. That neither racks, imprisonment, nor flame, Avowal of my passion can compel. The invitation to a weary traveller, in another of his sonnets, is unusually elegant : “Cette fontaine si froide, et son eau doux-coulante A la couleur d'argent semble parler d'amour; Et les aunes font ombre à la chaleur brulante: Soupirant amoureux en ce plaisant sejour : Et la terre se fend de l'ardeur violante. Brûlé de la chaleur, et de la soif pressé, L'ombrage et le vent frais ton ardeur chassera, Bergeries, p. 595. In gentle murmurs seem to tell of love; And the close alders weave their shade above; And as the west-wind fans them, scarcely move; The sun is high in mid-day splendour sheen, And heat has parch'd the earth and soil'd the grove. Faint with the thirst, and worn with heat and toil; Where thy good fortune brings thee, traveller, stay. The wind and shade refresh thee from the heat, And the cool fountain chase thy thirst away. The character of ease and sweetness, which he maintains in such verses as these, is often deserted for quaintness and conceit. At times, indeed, he is most extravagant, as in Sonnet Ixi, where he tells his mistress that they shall both go to the infernal regions,-she for her rigour, and himself for having foolishly followed his desires ; that, provided Minos adjudges them to the same place, all will be well, her suffering will be exasperated by their being near to each other, and his will be turned into joy by the sight of her charms. “Car mon ame ravie en l'objet de vos yeux De la gloire eternelle abondamment pourveuë : Pour empescher ma gloire, ils n'auront le pouvoir Pourveu qu'estant là bas je ne perde la veuë.” In another place (Diane, L. 2, S. xlviii. p. 137) he has the same thought of their being both condemned, but draws a different conclusion from it. In the Chant d'Amour, (p. 66,) there is a mixture of metaphysics and allegory, such as we sometimes meet in Spenser, and that would not have disgraced that writer. “ La Grace quand tu marche est tousiours au devant, Flees at thy coming like the wind away. In his Procez contre Amour au Siege de la Raison, (p 70,) he introduces himself pleading at the bar of Reason against Love, who refutes the poet's charges with much eloquence. “ Je l'ay fait ennemy du tumulte des villes, a Je luy ay fait dresser et la veuë et les ailes I made him from the city's crowd retire, |
