Whose form was light and graceful as the palm,
Whose heart was pure and jocund as the fount,
And spread a freshness and a verdure round.
This was permitted in my pilgrimage,
And loth am I to take my staff again.
Say that I fall not in this enterprise-
Still must my life be full of hazardous turns,
And they that house with me must ever live
In imminent peril of some evil fate.
-Make fast the doors; heap wood upon the fire;
Draw in your stools, and pass the goblet round,
And be the prattling voice of children heard.
Now let us make good cheer—but what is this?
Do I not see, or do I dream I see,

A form that midmost in the circle sits

Half visible, his face deformed with scars,

And foul with blood?—Oh yes I know it—there

Sits Danger with his feet upon the hearth!'-pp. 59, 60.

From the exquisite love scene which follows this, we extract a fragment. We hope it will be intelligible :

Artevelde. If hitherto we have not said we loved,

Yet hath the heart of each declared its love
By all the tokens wherein love delights.
We heretofore have trusted in each other,
Too wholly have we trusted to have need
Of words or vows, pledges or protestations.
Let not such trust be hastily dissolved.
Adriana. I trusted not. I hoped that I was loved,

Hoped and despaired, doubted and hoped again,
Till this day, when I first breathed freelier,
Daring to trust—and now-Oh God, my heart!
It was not made to bear this agony —

Tell me you love me, or you love me not.
Artevelde. I love thee, dearest, with as huge a love

As e'er was compassed in the breast of man.
Hide then those tears, beloved, where thou wilt,
And find a resting place for that so wild
And troubled heart of thine; sustain it here,
And be its flood of passion wept away.
Adriana. What was it that you said then? If you
Why have you thus tormented me?
Artevelde.

love,

Be calm;

And let me warn thee, ere thy choice be fixed,
What fate thou may'st be wedded to with me.
Thou hast beheld me living heretofore

As one retired in staid tranquillity.

The dweller in the mountains, on whose ear
The accustomed cataract thunders unobserved;

The

The seaman, who sleeps sound upon the deck,
Nor hears the loud lamenting of the blast,
Nor heeds the weltering of the plangent wave;
These have not lived more undisturbed than I.
But build not upon this; the swollen stream
May shake the cottage of the mountaineer,
And drive him forth; the seaman, roused at length,
Leaps from his slumber on the wave-washed deck;
And now the time comes fast, when here in Ghent,
He who would live exempt from injuries

Of armed men, must be himself in arms.
This time is near for all,-nearer for me.
I will not wait upon necessity,

And leave myself no choice of vantage ground,
But rather meet the times where best I may,
And mould and fashion them as best I can.
Reflect then that I soon may be embarked
In all the hazards of these troublous times,
And in your own free choice take or resign me.
Adriana. Oh, Artevelde, my choice is free no more:

Be mine, all mine, let good or ill betide.'-pp. 65-67. These passages must have sufficiently illustrated our author's manner. We have not room to follow him through the highly spirited action of his first drama. Adriana is carried off in the course of it by a rival lover, a knight of Bruges, faithful to the party of the Earl; and thus is supplied a strong additional motive to Artavelde in the resolution which he at length adopts, of leading a chosen band of the men of Ghent from the gates of their now straitened and exhausted city, to the sudden assault of the Earl's own capital. The battle-the seizure of Bruges-the deliverance of Adriana—and the narrow escape of the Earl of Flanders, are powerfully dramatized; but we are tempted, instead of quoting any part of these scenes, to give the authority for their most striking incident in the words of Froissart.

The Gauntoise pursewed so fiersly their enemyes that they entred into the towne with them of Bruges; and as soon as they were within the towne, the first thyng they dyd, they went streyght to the market place, and there set themselfe in array. The Erle as then had sent a knight of his, called Sir Robert Marescault, to the gate, to see what the Gauntoise dyd; and when he came to the gate, he founde the gate beaten downe, and the Gauntoise maisters therof: and some of them of Bruges met with hym and sayd: "Sir Robert, returne and save yourselfe if ye can, for the towne is won by them of Gaunt." Then the knight returned to the Erle as fast as he might, who was comyng out of his lodginge a-horsebacke, with a great number of cressettes and lyghtes with hym, and was goyng to the market place; then the knight shewed the Erle all that he knewe; howbeit, the Erle, wyllyng

to

to recover the towne, drewe to the market place; and as he was entreng, such as were before hym, seeing the place all raynged with the Gauntoise, sayd to the Erle: "Sir, returne agayne; if ye go any farther, ye are but dead, or taken with your enemyes, for they are raynged on the market place, and do abyde for you." They shewed hym truthe. And when the Gauntoise sawe the clearnesse of the lyghtes comyng downe the strete, they sayd: "Yonder cometh the Erle, he shall come into oure handes.' And Philyppe Dartuell had commaunded, from strete to strete as he wente, that if the Erle came amonge theym, no man shulde do hym any bodily harme, but take hym alyve, and then to have hym to Gaunt, and so to make their peace as they lyst. The Erle who trusted to have recovered all, came ryght near to the place whereas the Gauntoise were. Then dyvers of his men sayd: "Sir, go no farther, for the Gauntoise are lordes of the market place and of the towne; if ye entre into the market place, ye are in danger to be slayne or taken: a great number of the Gauntoise are goynge from strete to strete, seekinge for their ennemyes: they have certayne of them of the towne with them, to bringe them from house to house, whereas they wolde be: and Sir, out at any of the gates ye cannot issue, for the Gauntoise are lordes therof; nor to your owne lodginge ye cannot returne, for a great number of the Gauntoise are goyng thither."-And when the Erle herde those tidynges, which were right harde to hym, as it was reason, he was greatly then abasshed, and imagined what peryll he was in: then he commanded to put out all the lyghtes, and said: "I see well there is no recovery; let every man save himselfe as well as he may." And as he commanded it was done : the lyghtes were quenched and cast into the stretes, and so every man departed. The Erle then went into a backe lane, and made a varlette of his to unarme him, and dyd cast away his armour, and put on an olde cloke of his varlettes, and then say to hym, "Go thy way from me, and save thyselfe if thou canst."

The Erle went from strete to strete, and by backe lanes, so that at last he was fayne to take a house, or else he had been found by them of Gaunt; and so he entred into a poore woman's house, the whiche was not meant for suche a lorde; there was neither hall, parlour, nor ehamber; it was but a poore smoky house; there was nothyng but a poore hall blacke with smoke, and above a small plancher, and a ladder of seven steppes to mount upon; and on the plancher there was a poore couche, where the poore woman's chyldren lay. Then the Erle sore abasshed and trymblyng at his entreng said: "O good woman, save me; I am thy lorde the Erle of Flanders; but now I must hyde me, for mine enemyes chase me, and if you do me good now, I shall rewarde you hereafter therefore.' The poore woman knewe hym well, for she had been oftentymes at his gate to fetche alms, and had often seene hym as he went in and out a-sportyng; and so incontynent as hap was she answered; for if she had made any delay, he had been taken talkynge with her by the fyre. Then she sayd: "Sir, mount up this ladder, and lay yourselfe under the bedde that ye fynde thereas my

chyldren

66

chyldren sleep ;"-and so in the meane tyme the woman sat downe by the fyre with another chylde that she had in her armes. So the Erle mounted up the plancher as well as he myght, and crept in between the couche and the strawe, and lay as flatte as he could; and even there with some of Gaunt entered into the same house, for some of them sayd how they had seen a man enter into the house before them; and so they found the woman sytting by the fyre with her chylde. Then they sayd, "Good woman, where is the man that we saw enter before us into this house, and dyde shutte the door after hym?” Sirs, (quoth she,) I saw no man enter into this house this nyght; I went out right now and cast out a little water, and dyd close my door agayne; if any were here, I coulde not tell howe to hyde hym; ye see all the easement that I have in this house; here ye may see my bedde, and above this plancher lyeth my poore chyldren." Then one of them took a candle and mounted up the ladder, and put up his head above the plancher, and saw there none other thyng but the poore couche, where her chyldren lay and slept; and so he looked all about, and then sayde to his company :-" Go we hence, we lose the more for the lesse; the poore woman sayth truth: here is no creature but she and her chyldren." Then they departed out of the house: and after that there was none entred to do any hurt. All these wordes the Erle herde ryght well whereas he laye under the poore couche: ye may well imagine that he was in great feare of his lyfe: he might well saye, I am as nowe one of the poorest princes of the worlde, and that the fortunes of the worlde are nothynge stable; yet it was a good happe that he scaped with his lyfe; howbeit, this hard and perilous adventure myght well be to hym a spectacle all his lyfe after, and an ensample to all other.'

This is a long extract; but we know no passage in which the peculiar liveliness and simplicity of Froissart's narration are more delightfully exhibited-and every justice is done to them by good Lord Berners. In the succeeding chapters of the same chronicle our readers will find a description equally clear and interesting of the success which attended, for several years, the progress of D'Artevelde's arms-how city after city embraced his alliance, or yielded to his force-how sagaciously and justly he ruled-in what magnificence he lived as 'Regent of Flanders,' and how nearly he missed founding a permanent dynasty in what was then the richest of the transalpine states. But that the insurrections of Jack Straw, Wat Tyler, &c. were connected in the minds of the English king and nobility with the effect of this prosperous revolt among the Flemings, and that the apprehension spread throughout this country that all these movements were but the first outbreakings of a storm, destined to bury in ruins the whole actual system of European society, there can be little doubt that an English army would have interfered,

to

to prevent France from strengthening herself so largely as she did by being the sole instrument of crushing Philip van Artevelde, and replacing a feudatory of her own crown in the fairest province of the Netherlands.

Our poet represents his hero as at length maddened by these circumstances into the full fervour of democratic feeling. The Regent exclaims—

'Lo! with the chivalry of Christendom

I wage my war-no nation for my friend,
Yet in each nation having hosts of friends!
The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords
Are bound with chains of iron, unto me
Are knit by their affections. Be it so.
From kings and nobles will I seek no more
Aid, friendship, nor alliance. With the poor
I make my treaty, and the heart of man
Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there,
And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs,
Ye that are bent with unrequited toil,

Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness
Through years that knew not change of night and day—
Tatlerdemalions, lodgers in the hedge,

Lean beggars with raw backs and rumbling maws,
Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,--

I hail you my auxiliars and allies,

The only potentates whose help I crave!

Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw; But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives.'vol. ii. pp. 190, 191. This speech, however, occurs in the second part of Philip van Artevelde,' and belongs to the man altered by circumstances.

In the interval between the first and second parts, Adriana, the noble and beloved wife of the regent, has died; and he has sustained in that bereavement a deeper injury than grief. It has powerfully assisted the other great mutations of his lot to unsettle the originally pure and beautiful framework of his mind. He has come to have a vein of recklessness entwisted in his being; he has rebelled against a higher authority than that of his earthly sovereign; and sought relief, from what he dared to consider as unjust affliction, in a certain hardly definable, but poetically conceived mixture, of Cynicism and Epicureanism. With consummate art, however, the author represents Artevelde as himself unconscious how he has been changed. He has brought with him into his new position, nay, transferred, as it were, into the composition of a new man, the

same