»*V M Mr- '. « #5 -t ff^ y \tl^, .% m^ ^^ t;^' i^ -|i^ ^^ r^j A -^^ ^ iv .• i-p^ ^^i^^^ ^ i-lfv ^' "*«: THE GIFT OF A.-a...U.3..«f^ /2.,^;4 7673-1 CORNELL UNIVEHSHY LIBRARY 924 072 601 374 I^gl ^«^" ^/ Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924072601374 THE EARL^EDITIONS OF THE ROMAIC DE LA ROSE ByF. w. bourdillon Illustrated Monographs issued by^the Biblio- graphical Society. No. XIV. ILLUSTRATED MONOGRAPHS. No. XIV. THE EARLY EDITIONS OF THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE f By F. W. BOURDILLON ^ LONDON PRINTED FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AT THE CHISWICK PRESS December, 1906 45 PREFACE. HOPE that this overgrown booklet will be found to justify its existence, if not its size, by providing a full and trustworthy account of its special subjeft, and further by setting forth in detail a typical frag- ment of French book-history — the story of one among the numerous non-religious works whose period of popu- larity coincided with the transition from the Manuscript to the Printed Book. This, and the desire to do just honour to a great but now negledted poem, must be my excuse for making so large a book concerning the twenty-one editions of a single work. I have long been interested in the Roman de la Rose and its bibliography; but the moving impulse towards the undertaking of this task was the desire to solve the puzzle of the first three — or, as Brunet thought, four — editions, and decide their order of priority. After I had got some way in working out this question for myself, I became aware that M. Claudin had settled the matter on other lines, mainly typographical; and had his great work, and especially the Lyons portion of it, appeared some years ago, this monograph would not have been written. In the meantime, how- ever, I had found many other points to decide, and much interest- V ing work to be done; and in the case of several of the undated editions I have been able to fix dates more accurately, I believe, than has yet been done. For this purpose I have made large use of the method of- internal, or textual, comparison, a method w^hich has been unaccountably neglefted in bibliography. It is a method which (like all others) requires caution in handling, and cannot always be counted on to give decisive results. But when it does so, the decisions are often splendidly sure and final. In the case of a series of editions of a work like the Roman de la Rose, careful and observant search is nearly sure to be rewarded by an occasional important find — some minute but decisive feature showing that this or that edition must necessarily have preceded or followed some other; and thus it becomes possible by means of the editions with a date to fix the order of those without. An instance of this occurs in the puzzling edition of Alain Lotrian, O on the list, the last of the Quartos. Here, in the course of the interpolation of 104 lines, first introduced by Du Pre, appears (line 73) the mis- reading droit for dort; a misreading which is inexplicable until we observe that in the 1526 Quarto (N) the reading was drot, obviously a mere compositor's inversion of the right letters. The change to droit, then, was an attempt to correct this unintelligible word; and we are quite justified — having no indications to the contrary — in assuming that the undated edition O is derived direftly from the edition of 1526, The same feature also shows that it preceded the edition of Clement Marot's Recension, pub- lished in 1529 (Q); for there this same interpolation has been introduced afresh containing the very same misreading droit (besides others), showing it to have been copied from the Alain Lotrian edition. The usually pleasant task of acknowledgement is saddened in this case by the recalling of irreparable loss. To Mr. Prodlor I was indebted not only for direft information on certain points. VI given ungrudgingly and without reserve, but also for much en- couragement and stimulating suggestion. To M. Claudin — per- sonally unknown to me — I was deeply grateful for the privilege of seeing proof sheets of his Lyons volumes some considerable time before their publication; and for his permission to quote from them. It will be seen in my account of the earliest editions- how much I have availed myself of his authority. My thanks are also due to M. Delisle, late Diredor of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and to the other authorities there for much courtesy and helpfulness ; and to the Librarians of the Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal and the Musee Conde for affording me every convenience and assistance in visiting those Libraries. The Library of the Palais des Arts at Lyons was kind enough to allow the facsimile to be made of their precious copy of the Second Folio. The authorities of the British Museum and of the Bodleian have also been most kind and obliging, both in the matter of fac- similes and in other ways. Among private owners I must specially thank M. Masson, of Amiens, for his great kindness in sending over his own two copies of the Second Folio for my inspection, and for his permission to have the Facsimile, Plate Xllla, made from one of them. Mr. Dyson Perrins was equally courteous in sending me his copy of the same Folio to examine. Mrs. Christie Miller was obliging enough to allow her fine copy of the First Folio to be brought to the Museum, and facsimiles made from it; and I am also indebted ta Mr. Graves for his services in this matter. Mr. Quaritch procured for me the permission of Mr. Pierpont Morgan to examine hi& copies of the Second and Third Folios. Mr. G. Locker-Lampson welcomed me to Rowfant to see the copy of the First Folio which was then there. To M. Paul Meyer I am grateful for his good-nature in vii b turning the high-power lens of his great erudition upon an in- significant trifle of bad verse (p. 164). To M. Louis Polain I am indebted for certain references, mentioned in place, and also for very material service in finding books at the Bibliotheque Nationale. Also to M. Ernest Langlois for his kind reply upon certain points as to which I consulted him (p. 98). Lastly, and chiefly, is my gratitude due to the Hon. Secretary of the Bibliographical Society for a quite colossal sum of general help and particular services; of which the acknowledgment here is — like an LO.U. — some relief to the debtor's feelings, but in no way a discharge of the debt. I have taken the utmosf pains to avoid mistakes, verifying every number and -every reference, usually twice over. But in such a work I fear it is beyond hoping for that no error should be found, and I would follow the example of the printers of old, and pray the reader who may light on such to be gracious and amend the fault for himself. ADDENDUM. The original French version of the late M. Gaston Paris' Sketch of Mediaeval French Literature, alluded to on page 5, has just been published for the first time, with corredtions and addi- tions from his own MS. Its title is Esquisse historique de la Li- terature fran^aise au moyen age, Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1907. November 2irf, 1906. Vlll CONTENTS. Preface Introduction PAGE V PART I. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Section I. General Bibliographical Account: The Manuscripts . The Early Printed Editions The Folios The Qxiartos . Clement Marot's Recension Molinet's Prose Version . Section II. Description of the Twenty-one Editions II 12 28 32 33 35 PART II. THE ILLUSTRATIONS. Section I. General Description Section II. The Eight Series of Special Illustrations, and the Mathhlus Cuts: Ser Ser: Ser Ser; Ser; Seri Sen Ser es L.i. The Earliest Lyons Woodcuts es L.ii. The Second Lyons Woodcuts ies L.iii. Recuttings of the Second Lyons Series es V.i. V^rard's First Series es V.ii. V6rard's Second Series . es Le N. The Le Noir Quartos es P. V.i. Galliot du Pr6's . es P. V.ii. Jehan Longis (and others) The Mathhlus Cuts 71 82 83 84 85 85 91 92 IX PAGE Section III. The Verse-Titles, and Illustrations in each Edition : Introduftory 97 Verse-Titles and Illustrations loi Illustrations not allotted to Verse-Titles . . . . ■ ^3^ Section IV. Table of the Illustrations in the Eighteen Editions of THE Poem 135 Section V. Table of the Illustrations in the Three Editions of Molinet's Prose Version 13S PART III. THE TEXT. Section I. Text of the First Folio and pr^-Marotian Editions . 147 Section II. Clement Marot's Recension 157 Section III. Molinet's Prose Version 160 Section IV. Pedigree of the Printed Editions .166 Section V. Two Passages in Parallel Texts 169 Section VI. Interpolations in the MS. followed by Molinet . •174- Section VII. The Edition of 1735 .... . . 187 Appendices : A. The Date of V6rard's Edition of Molinet's Prose Version . . .193 B. Table showing the Relation of the Chapters in Molinet's Prose Version to the Sedlions in the Original Poem ...... 202 C. Table of the Twenty-one Editions .... 205 The Illustrations ... 209 Facsimiles 213 INTRODUCTION. kHE special genius of France — if it were necessary to define it in a single phrase — might be best expressed as the Genius of the Joy of Living. Whereas the , English temperament has an unconquered tendency ^^^^^.^^^^^ _ to ask "What is the Profit?" the French nature seems always to ask " What is the Pleasure ? " Hence in everything French, their philosophies, their religions, their arts, their drudg- eries, there is a certain breathlessness, as of things that have to keep up with the pace of an advancing universe, to ride always in the foam-crest of the foremost wave. It is this charafteristic of the racial force that has made France the leader in so many efforts and at so many epochs. At one time her literature, at another her chivalry, at another her University, at another her military, have set the type and standard to civilization. Not that the first initia- tive or invention has often sprung from her, but that she has per- petually seized the one vital germ among the many doomed to extinftion, and brought it to its full perfection, developing it into a grace or a need of actual human life. And if in this connexion our thoughts fly at once to her secular supremacy in the less in- tellectual functions of dress and cookery, are not these things, after all, the Little Happinesses of adual everyday life for all but a very few saintly or heroic souls, and if not part of the grand machinery of life yet among its most important lubricators ? I B It is evident, however, that this determination to live at the topmost of aftual life will have as its reverse side a certain careless- ness for durability; and it is noteworthy that almost all French work in art or literature has been done with the objeft of immediate success, and not of enduring fame. If the splendid cathedrals of northern France seem an exception, it may be answered that durability is a necessary accident of the finest architefture, and therefore an incidental obje6l to all architeftural ambition. Nor, indeed, in the extreme complexities of civilization, would it be possible to observe this racial French charafteristic often pure, or always in full adion. As a general tendency it is visible enough. At present I draw attention to it in order to explain two matters with regard to my present subject, the Roman de la Rose; first the nature of the poem, and secondly the strange story of its vast temporary success and complete subsequent eclipse. The Roman de la Rose was written in the very opposite spirit to that of Dante. Jean de Meun — for it is his part in it which must be mainly considered — wrote with a vision completely filled with the things of this world, of life as it was being lived around him. His tone is not so much irreligious as simply non-religious. He caught up all the new ideas that were in the air. He recog- nized that the itch for classical names and mythological stories which had long been pedantic was now become popular. He took the latest things in science, literature, and learning, and served them, with a copious seasoning of his own caustic wit, in a form equally appetizing and assimilable to his own generation. To use another metaphor, he clothed the dry bones of old learning and new science with flesh and blood, and made them a most entertaining show of aftual life. And for his own, and several succeeding generations, his, work fulfilled its objedts — absolutely fulfilled. Love is the chief business of all generations; and the book became the text-book of all lovers, " the common paternoster," as Molinet calls it; and, as he says also, " so imbedded in the memories of men that to re- write it in a new style would be like composing a new A B C." 2 There is curious and almost pathetic evidence of this use of the book as a Lover's Bible, in the frequency with which we find copies of the early printed editions scored or marked or under- lined in places, precisely in the same way as religious books are often treated. Even bibliography develops a touch of sentiment in handling these tokens of long-dead loves that were once so warm, so living, so devout; and as we turn pages once so tenderly fingered and read lines once pored over by such bright and kindled eyes, the volume itself seems like a shrine hallowed by the devotions of many worshippers. Perhaps the most afFeding case "of such a use of the book that I have seen is in a copy of the rare little edition of 1 5 1 5, not one of the choicest or most beautiful. Here, across the rude little woodcut representing the loves of Mars and Venus, the first owner has written the date " Jeudi 14 aout 15 16." Guilty or not, how passionate must have been the feeling that could leave such a memorial! At this distance of time the pathos affefts us more than the wrongdoing, even as it does in the story of Francesca da Rimini. More striking, however, even than the immense popularity of the book for three centuries, was its subsequent total eclipse. The work was at the very top of its fortunes, manuscript copies pouring forth in unnumbered quantities, when the invention of printing offered a new means of supplying the unceasing demand; and in something under sixty years, from about 1480 to 1538, twenty-one editions appeared. Six of these were issued in the last twelve years of that period; and the abrupt cessation of its publica- tion after that seems at first sight to show an unaccountably sudden loss of popularity. The change of taste was, no doubt, as immediate and as impetuous as such changes are in France. But it is evident that the vitality of this work, as an a(5lual living book, had been waning for some little time. The editions of the old text published after 1 500 are none of them produced for the same class as the earlier editions, and become more and more akin to Chap-books in their bad paper and printing. The recension by Marot itself was more a resuscitation than a keeping alive, and it is noteworthy that there 3 is only one edition of it in roman letter. The book already belonged to the past. Allegory and the old language and black letter all faded quickly together as the new impulse grew; and the poem, which breathed so much of the Renaissance spirit, and had tended so much to the development of the Renaissance movement, perished as a plant is choked and overpowered by its own seedlings. The poem, therefore, with this long breach of continuity in its history, comes to us as a thing from the dead past, as a buried monument dug up for its archaeological interest, as a ruined building visited for curiosity or admired for beauty, but no longer used for any service to living beings. It has not been, like the works of Shakespeare, or even of Chaucer, in England, handed down as living literature since its first appearing, and kept alive in every succeeding generation. And yet it is far from being a mere antiquarian relic, fit only for the le6lure-room or the collector's cabinet. It is more, even, than a mere " classic," although in its high level of poetic art, and its sustained power it has every claim to rank as such. In spite of its length and its frequent tediousness, there is much in the Roman de la Rose which can still be read with a perfedlly human and everyday pleasure and interest, and passages which a dreamy lover might nowadays mark for their sweet and subtle interpreting of his own moods ; while in some of the later parts it seems to give pointed and pungent expression to ideas we usually consider absolutely modern. An account of the work is to be found in every text book of literary history, so I will give but a very brief one here. It con- sists, as everyone knows, of two parts of very unequal length, written by two separate authors of very different quality. The date accepted for the first part is about 1237.^ In this year, or the ' Jean de Meun speaks of writing his continuation, Ans trespasses plus de qua- rente (line 10972), He wrote not later than 1277, as he does not mention the crown- ing of Charles d'Anjou as king of Jerusalem, which took place in that year; and since he extols Charles in the poem, it seems certain he would have mentioned this had he been writing later. He must have written after 1268, since he alludes to the beheading of Conradin in that year. But the terminus a quo is more precisely fixed 4 year before, a youthful poet, who tells us himself that he was twenty-five (1. 23 and 1. 48) began a very pretty and graceful allegory, a love story in dreamland, with a background of summer weather and bright landscape, ot gardens and garden-walls which are frescoed without and full of greenery within, of roses and singing birds and delightful young people, who are all personifica- tions — or a^ we might phrase it to-day visualizations — of charming qualities and pleasant feelings. Beauty, Courtesy, and the like. Gaiety and happiness are in the air; the very difficulties appear made for the pleasure of overcoming them. All is fresh, innocent, buoyant, light-hearted, and in spite of the allegory full of a certain reality in the scenery and the situations. This part of the poem is only a little over four thousand lines in length; and the work would probably have been finished in less than the same number again. But here the author died; and perhaps his fragment would have perished, like so much else of good and bad, had not another poet, less romantic, but of stronger wing, been moved to adopt it and complete it on his own lines. It would seem to have lain un- known and uncopied for some forty years, when Jean de Meun,^ about the same age himself as the first author had been when he began the poem, found it, and saw in the fresh and vigorous Rose of Guillaume de Lorris a stock whereon to graft a Rose of his own of very different nature. In his hands the refined and delicate Damask bourgeons and spreads into a prodigious and rather coarse Rambler. There is some pretence and profession of following the plan of the original poem, which is indeed at last worked out to a kind of conclusion. But the whole charadter of the work is changed. The light-heartedness has disappeared, and gives place to a cynical humour. The atmosphere of romance is changed for that of satire. In the words of M. Gaston Paris :^ "The subje6t of by the fail that Guillaume de Lorris was acquainted with the Tourmiement cP Antechrist of Huon de M6ri, written in 1235 (Gaston Paris, Litter ature fran^aise au moyen age, § iii). ' Born about 1250. Gaston Paris, loc. cit. * Gaston Paris, Mediaeval French Literature (Temple Primers), p. 122. This 5 the poem, the conquest of the Rose by TAmant, is often but an accessory lost to sight; I'Amant himself, instead of suffering and afting, is but the benevolent ^ listener to interminable discourses addressed to him by Raison, Ami, Faux-Semblant, which unfold a kind of disordered Encyclopaedia, taken from various sources, but penetrated with the author's spirit, a bold, cynical, nowise religious, eminently bourgeois spirit, and at times quite modern. . . . We also find a coarse naturalism which appears again with a certain grandeur, in the episode where Nature confesses to her priest Genius, and complains that man alone in the world refuses to obey her with docility." The strange incongruity between the two parts of the poem did not hinder its success, nor, hybrid though it was, did it suffer from the usual law of hybrids, sterility. For in the succeeding generations it became the parent, direfl or indiredt, of several works of some length and importance, chief among which was the Pelerinaige de rhomme, through the line of which it is possible to say that in some sense the Roman de la Rose was the ancestor of the Pilgrim's Progress. For over two hundred and fifty years, first in manuscript and then in printed editions, it enjoyed a vast popularity; and in spite of the fulminations of Gerson, and the shrieks of Christine de Pisane, the healthy good sense of the public persisted in seeing in it more than the mere sensuality, refined or coarse, which is only a conspicuous feature to the eyes of the prurient-minded. There are, certainly, passages too outspoken for modern ears, and some things less pleasing even than mere coarse- ness. But these might be cut out, and leave the poem little mutilated. Although the author of the "Jardin de Plaisance ^ links the Roman de la Rose and xh&Livre de Matheolus in one condemna- tion, the difference is vast between them; and the popular judge- ment was right in refusing to resign the former to the dirty-minded most delightful and valuable little book is, unfortunately, disfigured by the appalling translation. It has not, I believe, been published in French. ^ I do not know what the original French word was. ' F5 cliiii, edition of Oliver Arnoulet, Lyon, s. d. 6 for whom the latter was written. It is very significant that the small illustration of Mars and Venus, alluded to above, which belonged originally to the Livre de Mathhlus and is in that book one of the less improper, was found too much so for the readers of the Roman de la Rose, and is replaced in the next edition by another cut/ * See pp. 31 and 92. PART I. BIBLIOGRAPHY. SECTION I. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT. The Manuscripts. REGRET that I must leave this important and interesting part of the subject quite untouched. But any real study of it would involve enormous labour, besides much travelling, owing to the immense number of manuscripts in existence. The literary side of it will, I hope, be treated in M. Ernest Langlois' new edition, when the eagerly-awaited day of its appear- ance arrives. The artistic side — including the grouping of the manuscripts according to the subjects chosen for illustration, and the style of the illustrations — would be a work of very great interest to any one with the necessary time and knowledge, and I hope somebody will some day undertake it. The study of the manuscripts is in truth of greater importance than of the printed editions; for, apart from any question of the text, the actual number of the manuscripts cannot be much, if at all, less than the number of copies left of the early printed editions. Indeed, if we omit the four editions of Clement Marot's Recension, the later of which exist in some quantities, the manuscripts are pro- bably the more plentiful. They could, no doubt, be traced into groups which might almost be called "editions," more and more 1 1 numerous as the work grew famous, more and more beautiful as it became the favourite of the rich, more and more cheaply written as its popularity spread downwards. Many libraries have no copy of any of the early printed editions, but hardly a library of any importance, public or private, but possesses at least one manuscript; and the student of booksellers' catalogues knows that a manuscript appears in them quite as often as a printed copy, at least of any of the rarer editions. In the British Museum there are thirteen manuscripts, five of the fourteenth century, eight of the fifteenth, the finest of all, Harley 4425, being copied as to its text from the third Lyons edition (Le Roy). Full accounts of all but one of these are found in Mr, H. D. L. Ward's catalogue. The Bodleian has five, all of the fifteenth century. In the Bibliotheque Nationale there were sixty-seven when M. Paulin Paris wrote the account in the Histoire hitteraire^ vol. xxiii. Several of these are described in the same writer's Manuscrits franpis. Three of them are earlier than the fourteenth century. There are eight in the Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal; five in the Musee Conde, The total spread over the world must be several hundred. The Early Printed Editions. In the list of these (Appendix C) it will be observed that there are certain omissions, as well as additions, as compared with the usual enumeration in bibliographical works. But having examined all copies, or at least all of whose identity there could be any doubt, in the British Museum, Bodleian, Bibliotheque Nationale, Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal, and the Musee Conde, as well as many copies in private hands, I have been able to discover no edition not in this list; and I am driven to believe that some of those mentioned by bibliographers either do not exist, or are merely duplicates differently described. This seems to be the case with the third edition mentioned by Brunet (vol. iii, col. 1 172, top), which will be spoken of below; and of the eleven numbers in 12 Dr. Copinger's Supplement to Hain, I cannot make more than seven separate editions.^ A glance at the list will show that there is a pleasing and unusual straightforwardness, not to say symmetry, in the general sequence of the editions. In fadl the plaguey little demon who digs pitfalls for bibliographers, and sooner or later catches every one of them tripping, seems to have been temporarily off duty when the Roman de la Rose was issuing from the various presses, although it must be acknowledged that in some of the details he shows signs of great aftivity. The bibliography, as a whole, is kind enough to arrange itself unasked in a simple and easily-remembered scheme, the editions falling naturally into four well-marked groups : (i) The Folios; (2) The Quartos; (3) The editions of Clement Marot's Recension; (4) The editions of Molinet's Prose Version. There is another point in which this work shows consideration for bibliographers, and that is in the numerical symmetry of the editions, which run into sevens as neatly as a Hebrew genealogy. The Folios are seven, the Quartos seven, and the other two groups of four and three respeftively are together seven. These twenty- one editions, with some small variations in particular copies due probably to different impressions of the same edition, make up the whole series, as far as I can discover. They range from about 1480 to 1538, a period of nearly sixty years. After this there is a long blank of nearly two hundred years, during which no edition appears to have been printed; and the next edition to that of 1538 is the edition of 1735, edited by Lenglet Du Fresnoy. The Folios. In the first group, the Folios, not one of the seven bears a date; and the first three are also without name of place or printer. * His 5149 is Folio VII; 5150, 5152, SI53 appear to be all Folio I (5152 an imperfeS copy); 5151 is Folio IV; 5154 and 5159 are Folio 11; 5155 is Quarto I; 5156, 5157 are Folio III; 5158, Folio VI. 13 It is, therefore, only by means of the type, the woodcuts, and other indirect evidence that their order can be ascertained. No less than five of the seven, however, are illustrated by the same series of woodcuts, printed from the same blocks, and by the state of these cuts, the gradually increasing breaks and cracks, and the gradual disappearance of a certain number of them, it is a comparatively easy and safe matter to arrange them in chronological order. But this method was not adopted by the earlier bibliographers, no doubt owing to the fadt that all these editions are rare, and that it has been hardly possible to find all the five editions -together in any one library, public or private. And there has been till recently a great ignorance of the relation of all the early editions to one another, and especially of the aftual identity of the wood blocks in five of them. Thus in 1878 a type-imitated, so-called facsimile, was issued of one of these five editions, with copies of the woodcuts; copies which were doubtless obtained by tracing, and which in these days of photographic facsimile seem rather poor. But the edition chosen for this expensive and careful reproduftion was neither of the two earlier, which contain the complete series of cuts, but the edition of Jean Du Pre, in which two of the cuts are missing; and it seems difficult to believe that the proje6tors of this facsimile edition knew of its relation to the Lyons Folios, or that they would not have chosen one of those for reprodudlion in preference, with the full series of woodcuts, had they known of their previous appearance. It was, again, from Du Pre's edition also, with its incomplete series of cuts, that the well-known edition in the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne got its imitations of these same cuts, also apparently traced.^ Of these woodcuts, the famous Lyons series, I shall have more to say direftly; but first comes the question, " Which is the first edition of the Roman de la Rose} " Brunet gave up the question in despair. He mentions three ^ Though these two sets of facsimiles appeared in the same year, 1878, they are, as far as I can make out, independent of one another, and not printed from the same blocks. ^ These appear to be really only two, See/«/?(7, p. 22. H editions of forty-one lines printed at Lj'ons, and says frankly that he is unable to say which is the most ancient of the three. After enumerating these three, however, he gives a brief notice of an edition of thirty-four lines, containing one hundred and seventy^ seven (it should be one hundred and eighty) leaves. This edition also is without date, place, or printer's name, and Brunet has no- thing to say of it except void encore une edition fort ancienne. It seems now certain that this is earlier than those he described before it, and is the real first edition. In the third volume of his Histoire de Vlmprimerie^ M. Claudin goes at length into the typo- graphy of these earliest editions, and establishes on typographical grounds the priority of the 34-line edition. His reasons will be found briefly stated in the account of that edition given below (P* 3S)- ^ "^^y ^^^ s^y ^^^ some time before M. Claudin's third volume appeared, I had consulted the late Mr. Proftor on the subjeft, showing him my reasons on internal grounds for thinking this edition earlier than those of Syber and Le Roy, and that he, without hesitation, took the same view, on typographical grounds alone. After the consensus of two such experts, there is no need of corroborative proofs, but as the evidence of the woodcuts is interest- ing, and I think would be even by itself conclusive, I will give it here in detail, in the same form as I set it forth in the paper I had the honour to read before the Bibliographical Society in February, 1904. The most superficial examination is enough to show that there is some very close relation between this edition, A on the list (Appendix C), and the two succeeding editions, B and C, especially with regard to the illustrations. Not only does the total number of woodcuts in Folios II and III correspond exaftly to the number in Folio I, viz., ninety-two, but both series represent, cut for cut, the same scenes, the same figures, and the same anions. In fa6t, the one set is without doubt more or less closely copied or imitated from the other .^ The examples of the two series reproduced show the imitation quite clearly. ' The fad that several of the cuts have been reversed in the copying seems to 15 But then, of course, comes the question— which copied which? That the cuts in Folio I, which may be called the Ortuin cuts, are ruder in style than the cuts in Folios II, III, etc., which may be called the Syber cuts, and show less proficiency in the art of wood-cutting, seems plain, when the whole of the two series are considered together. But it is obvious to suggest, especially to any one familiar with the extent to which cheap and bad copying of famous woodcuts was carried in France a few years later than this, that the ruder cuts were copies by an unskilled workman of the more sophisticated cuts of Folio II. Indeed, some years ago, when I first became acquainted with the two series, and found the Le Roy edition universally accepted as the first, I naturally took for granted that this was the case. But on closer examination not only does the general impression negative this idea, but there are par- ticular indications which seem conclusive as to the copying having been the other way about. Thus the cuts in Folio I are habitually more faithful to the description in the text than those in Folio II, and details striftly carrying out the words of the poem are again and again found in the Ortuin cuts, but ignored in the Syber, especially where not very obtrusively shown in the former. Often, indeed, the Syber cuts show a certain amplification of scenery and elaboration of background and details; but these details are never drawn from the text, but are merely general heightenments of the pifture, the wood-cutter seeming to show throughout a desire to improve on the rude style of the earlier craftsman, and to be thinking more of displaying his own technical superiority than of illustrating the text. Indeed in some examples, to be given presently, it seems hardly possible that he can have had the text before his eyes at all. It is remarkable, however, that the earlier wood-cutter, in spite of his inferior technique, has often contrived to give more expression to the features in his cuts than his successor, and in the facsimiles, §§ 15 and 29, on Plates IV and X, the grace both of the figures and the faces in the earlier representation con- exclude altogether the remote alternative that both followed independently a common series of drawings. 16 trasts strikingly with the ineptness and conventionality of the" later. Particularly noteworthy is the earlier artist's bold and not unsuccessful effort to give beauty to the reflexion of the face of Narcissus in the fountain, showing his keen interest in the story he was illustrating. Two other pairs, §§ 78 and 10 1, Plates VI and XII, have been selected for facsimile as the most striking examples of the superiority, as illustrations, of the Ortuin cuts. In the former, § 78, thd designer has brought into one illustration several different objefts or actions, which are mentioned in the text as examples of the "-Force of Nature." Thus we see the bird in the cage, who would gladly exchange his good food and comfort for liberty; the fish in the trap, whose companions think he is enjoy- ing himself, and seek to join him; the cat, whom instindl teaches to go for rat or mouse, although she has never seen one before; and lastly and chiefly, the objedt of which the others are parables, namely, the young man who regards wistfully the consolation and repose of the monastic life, but is warned that he will find himself in the same position as the bird in the cage or the fish in the trap, and feel the calls of Nature irresistible: S'il ne fait de necessity Vertu par grant humilitd. Now if we compare the two illustrations, it quickly becomes apparent that the ruder cut is an almost anxious effort to represent or suggest the precise things mentioned in the text, with a naive determination to bring in everything, and no thought at all of making a harmonious pi<5lure. What particularly strikes the eye is the birdcage hanging in the air with nothing to hang from; and it was no doubt this particular feature which offended the more sophis- ticated wood-cutter, and led him to try to improve the pi6ture into a more conneiled and logical form. With this objeft he has changed the scene from plein-air to indoors, and his birdcage hangs from the very definite joist of an undoubted ceiling. But the awk- ward part of the business for him is that, in order to get the ceil- 17 D ing to hang the birdcage from, he has had to bring the fish in the fish-trap indoors as well; and the lines which in the earlier piiSure represent, with the simple but efficient suggestiveness of early art, the flowing stream in which the trap is lying, he has turned into the straight lines of the floor of his chamber; while in an even more awkward way, he is driven to depi<3t the whole building representing the monastery at which the young man is staring, door, windows, roof and all, as also within the same chamber. In the second example, § loi. Plates VI and XII, the evidence is equally clear. The cut illustrates the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who, as the text tells fully, asked counsel of Themis how to re-people the earth ; and were told in reply to throw behind them " the bones of the great Mother." This Pyrrha, with proper filial feeling, objected to doing, till Deucalion interpreted the words as referring to Mother Earth, and her framework of rocks. Deucalion then cast stones from which sprang men, and Pyrrha others from which sprang women. The first illustrator, the artist of the Ortuin cuts, as usual read his text with a care which some mo- dern illustrators would do well to imitate; and depifts in his usual naive but efFe