THE English have lately been charged, officially, with neglecting the study of living languages, with shutting themselves up in insular arrogance, with being content to cast a grudging, transitory eye upon Latin and Greek, and to ignore the splendid achievements of the modern world. Mr Tilley's treatise upon 'The Dawn of the French Renaissance,'1 therefore, comes to us at an opportune moment. It is welcome not only for the sound scholarship and admirable taste which it displays, but because it refutes a general and undeserved charge. The French and the English are approaching a mutual understanding by more paths than one. On either side the Channel the universities are proving a wise appreciation of the literature of their neighbours and Allies. And Mr Tilley has played his part well in studying profoundly a little-known period of French art.

In calling his book 'The Dawn of the French Renaissance,' Mr Tilley has accepted perforce the common terminology of the historians. Had he not accepted it, his purpose might have been obscure. But it would have been better for the proper understanding of literature

that the word "Renaissance" had never been used. And, since it has been persistently opposed to the imagined "Dark Ages," it is responsible for a vast deal of error in history and criticism. "The ages are

all equal," said William Blake, "but genius is always above its age." There is no wiser clue than that to lead us through the labyrinth of literature. And the term "Renaissance" was especially ill-chosen, because it implies re-birth after death, light out of darkness. The beauty and intelligence of the world did not die, and the darkest age was not without illumination. But happily there are signs to-day of a clearer interpretation. Pater, for instance, admits an earlier Renaissance than that of the fifteenth century, and traces the "outbreak of the human spirit" far into the Middle Age itself. We no longer believe with J. A. Symonds that "the arts and inventions, the knowledge and the books, which suddenly became vital at the time of the Renaissance, had long lain neglected on the shores of the Dead Sea which we call the Middle Ages." That was no Dead Sea upon which Chaucer, and Froissart, and Villon sailed their ships; the arts and in

ventions had not been forgotten on any shore frequented by the heroic builders of the Gothio cathedrals, by the artists of illuminated manuscripts and storied windows. No longer is the term "Gothie" a term of barbarous reproach. No longer does any sane oritic involve in impenetrable darkness a thousand years of effort. Poets and architects differed, with the passage of time, in style and intention, but seldom was genius an outoast from the earth. And we shall best appreciate the wayward progress of the arts if we escape from the tyranny of periods, and repeat once more the saying of Blake: "The ages are all equal, but genius is always above its

age.

Not even of a knowledge of classical literature_may what is known as the Renaissance claim an exclusive possession. The Court of Charlemagne took a just pride in its writers of prose and poetry, and showed an enthusiastic delight in the classical models which were before it. Alouin and his fellows were humanists, despite their ignorance of Greek. Virgil and Lucretius they knew, and they could not if they would escape the influence of Plato at secondhand. As Mr W. P. Ker says, "the paradox of the Dark Ages is that this period, which at first seems to be so distinctly marked as a gap and interval between the ancient and modern worlds, is in its educational work and general culture both ancient and modern. Most of the in

tellectual things on which it set most store are derived, on the one hand, from ancient Greece, and on the other are found surviving as respectable commonplaces, scarcely damaged, in the Augustan Ages of Louis XIV. and Queen Anne."

And if the danger of dividing up the world of poetry and intellect into arbitrary periods needed confirmation, it could be afforded by Mr Tilley's own book. He chooses the year 1494 to mark the Renaissance in France. It is then that he sees upon the eastern horizon the first glimmer of the dawn. On September the 2nd Charles VIII. crossed the Alps; seven days later he arrived at Asti; and from that time Guicciardini dates the beginning of "the innumerable calamities" which overwhelmed his country. At Asti it was that an attempt was made to dissuade Charles VIII. from his expedition, and it was at this dramatic moment that, in Mr Tilley's view, the French Renaissance began. But Mr Tilley himself is beset by doubts. He deals, in one of the most interesting chapters of his book, with the " premonitions" of this Renaissance. He admits that the Princes of the House of Valois had encouraged learning more than a hundred and fifty years before the adventurous journey of Charles VIII. The library of Charles V. was famous, and his brother Jean, Duc de Berry, surpassed him in the justice and opulence of his taste. In 1396, says Renan, cited by Mr

Tilley, "on se oroirait à deux pas de la Renaissance dont on est separé par plus d'un siècle." But how were they separated from the Renaissance, who were already familiar with the works of Aristotle and Plato, of Ovid and Lucan, of Virgil and Terence, of Seneca and Valerius Maximus? These are authors enough upon which to base the claim of humanism, and if there were no enlightened sovereign to take up the work of patronage when Charles V. laid it down, if a period of warfare interrupted the study of letters, those were the accidents of history, and they do not change the spirit and temper of the time.

Moreover, the greatest names mentioned in Mr Tilley's book belong in point of time to what are still called the Middle Ages. Alain Chartier, though he was born before the end of the fourteenth century, is a devout student of the ancients. Seneca was his model, both in the style and in the search after moral commonplaces, and he wrote a prose which is olassical in both senses. Nor can we drive into the obscurity of barbarism the witty cynicism of Charles d'Orléans, the gaiety of the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles,' or the closely observed reality of that mordant little masterpiece, 'Les Quinze Joyes de Mariage.' Whencever the inspiration of these works came, it did not come from the darkness of ignorance. Their authors loved the light and lived in it. They clamoured from no re-birth, for the seeds of death were not in

them. They had the genius which was above its age.

The poet comes and goes as he chooses, recking little of the "movements" which it is the historian's business to note. Villon disappears from knowledge thirty years before Mr Tilley marks the beginning of the French Renaissance, and yet he belongs not to the Middle Ages but to all time. Villon is a modern of the moderns, because he speaks to us in his own voice of beauty and sincerity. It is true that he knew no Greek, and only such Latin as he might pick up in the University of Paris; but he was no worse off than Keats; and the one recked as little as the other of any movement in history or literature. The flame of genius burned clearly within each of them, and makes them part of the universal inheritance. Had Villon been rich in all the knowledge that was being gathered in his day on the other side of the Alps, he could not have turned to better account the life of the tavern and the prison, as he knew it. That he knew that life better than any other was an accident. What was essential to him was the poet's genius. He had no greater need to learn than had Keats, for being a poet he divined all things. With equal passion and pathos he could write a ballade for his mother, pour prier nostre dame"Femme je suis povrette et ancienne, Ne riens ne sçay; oncques lettre me

leuz,"

or describe the regrets of La Belle Heaulmiaire—

"Ainsi le bon temps regretons
Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes,
Assises bas, à croppetons
Tout en ung tas comme pelottes,
A petit feu de chevenottes,
Tost allumées, tost estainctes;
Et jadis fusmes si mignottes !
Ainsi en prend à maintz et maintes."

And it should be remembered that Clement Marot, the first of the poets to win a place in the French Renaissance, was the editor and panegyrist of Villon. The works of Villon, said he, are "of such an art, so full of good doctrine, and so finely painted in a thousand beautiful colours, that time, which effaces all, has not effaced them, and still less shall it efface them presently and hereafter, when the good writings of France shall be better known and collected." This is a noble tribute composed by a poet who has been placed by the historians on the other side of the hedge, and yet urged the young poets of his time to cull Villon's sentences like beautiful flowers.

Truly, the poets who followed Villon may have been nearer to the Renaissance; truly, also, they are farther from poetry. So much is said, not in any opposition to Mr Tilley, but to suggest that too great a burden should not be laid upon a convenient word. Nor can it be said that the Chronicle of Comines was conceived and written in the outer darkness of barbarism. It does not recall to mind the shores of the Dead Sea. In spite of the fact that it belongs to the time which was before Charles VIII.'s visit to Italy, it seems still a

fresh and living book. To dismiss it as "mediæval" is to misunderstand its scope and purpose. It is far nearer to our own time and to universal acceptance, for instance, than the Chronicles of Stow and Speed, which it preceded by & century. There is nothing of the spirit of the "big gooseberry" about it. Comines is singularly free from the vice of anecdotage. He is no gossip bent upon whiling away an idle hour. He is a statesman as well as a historian, and it was his intention not only to celebrate the genius of his master, Louis XI, but to set forth a sound method of statecraft. His love of character and his passion for politics separate him sharply from the chroniolers. He sketches, with a keen perception, the kings of his times, and also the countries. He finds that the English are choleric, after the fashion of those who inhabit cold countries, that they hunt fiercely after offices and estates, that with them everything is in extreme, that they lack discretion and are not so subtle in treaties as the French. He notes in the Italians a love of change, jealousy, and avarice. He says that it is in their nature to favour the stronger side, and that the best that may be expected from them is neutrality. Towards men as towards peoples he strives to be just. He spent the greater part of his active life in opposition to the Duke of Burgundy, once his master; and he sketches his character without a hint of malevolence. Even though

he deplores the Duke's lack of wisdom, he praises unstintingly his noble qualities. "Undoubtedly," says he, "he was endued with many goodly virtues, for never was Prince more desirous to entertain noble men and to keep them in good order than he. His liberality seemed not great, because he made all men partakers thereof. Never Prince gave audience more willingly to his servants and subjects than he. While I served him he was not cruel, but grew marvellous oruel towards his end, which was a sign of short life. . . . Covetous he was of glory, which was the chief cause which made him move so many wars, for he desired to imitate those ancient Princes whose fame continueth till this present. Lastly, hardy was he and a valiant, as any man that lived in his time, but all his great enterprises and attempts ended with himself and turned to his own loss and dishonour, for honour goeth ever with the victory." Honour goeth ever with the victory that is a true saying, true to-day as when it was written, and it is a saying which we should do well to ponder now, when a German viotory would establish upon a firm foundation "honour rooted in dishonour.'

Comines is just not only to the Duke of Burgundy. He is just also to Edward IV. of England, whom he finds the handsomest and most munificent prince that ever he saw, though too much inclined to take his ease. But the hero of his life and book is Louis XI.

He recognised the heavy burden which was laid upon him. "I knew this mighty king, he wrote, "and served him in the flower of his age, and in his great prosperity; yet never saw I him free from toil of body and trouble of mind." He praises his policy and his conduct, noting that he was always ready to humble himself at the call of wisdom, for "when pride rideth before, shame and damage follow after." A king, modest in prosperity, brave in adversity, he knew whom he ought to fear, and was free from panic. So he gave his life to the profit of France, and dreamed of emulating Charlemagne, whom he thought he resembled, as many lesser men since have thought they resembled Napoleon. And Comines sketches his superstitions and his craft and his oruelties, leaving the balance of good always upon the right side, until he comes to his death at his castle of Plessis. "After all these fears, sorrows, and suspicions," he writes, "God (according to His accustomed goodness) wrought a miracle upon him, healing him both in soul and body, for He took him out of this miserable world, being perfect of sense, understanding, and memory, having received all his saoraments, without all grief to man's judgment, and talking continually even within a Pater Noster while of his death,"

Such is the writer who Mr Tilley, following Brunetière, says, "had nothing in him of the Renaissance.” If this be