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and even of the battle that ensued, as set forth in the romance, we must content ourselves with the closing scene. The reader is to understand, however, that the Knight of Heurlée, by whose hand the Flemish regent is made to fall, has been a busy character throughout the second part of the romance; that he is a traitor double-dyed in infamy-who had on a former occasion broken his parole to D'Artevelde, and been, in consequence, disgraced and dishonoured in the then chivalrous court of France. Stung with shame and remorse, he deserts from the French camp at dawn of day, and offers his services to the man whom he had before outraged. Philip receives him with calm contempt-and, maddened with hopeless contumely, the deserter assassinates him in the course of the battle on the fatal bridge of the dream. The stage direction now gives

'A PART OF THE FIELD ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE LIS. It is strewn with the dead and wounded, and other wreck of the battle. In front is the body of VAN ARTEVELDE. ELENA is kneeling beside it. VAN RYK and one of VAN ARTEVELDE'S Pages are standing near. Trumpets are heard from time to time at a distance.

Van Ryk. Bring her away. Hark! hark!
Page.

Van Ryk.

Elena.
Van Ryk.

Elena.
Van Ryk.

Elena.

She will not stir.

Either she does not hear me when I speak,
Or will not seem to hear.

Leave her to me.

Fly, if thou lovest thy life, and make for Ghent. [Exit Page.
Madam, arouse yourself; the French come fast:
Arouse yourself, sweet lady; fly with me!

I

pray you hear: it was his last command
That I should take you hence to Ghent by Olsen.
I cannot go on foot.

You shall not need;
Let me but take you
Take him then too.

No, lady, no,

horses are close at hand.
hence. I pray you, come.

[blocks in formation]

Duke of Burgundy.

Van Ryk.

Enter Duke of Burgundy.

What hideous cry was that?

What are ye? Flemings? Who art thou, old sir?
Who she that flung that long funereal note

Into the upper sky? Speak.

What I am,

* We question if any poet has ever surpassed this exclamation. The speech of Burgundy is not unworthy to follow it.

Yourself

Yourself have spoken. I am, as you said,
Old and a Fleming. Younger by a day
I could have wished to die; but what of that?
For death to be behindhand but a day

Is but a little grief.

Duke of Burgundy.

Van Ryk.

And who is she?

Well said, old man.

Sir, she is not a Fleming.

Enter the King, the Duke of Bourbon, the Earl of Flanders, Sir Fleureant of Heurlée, the Constable, Tristram of Lestovel, the Lord of Coucy, and many other Lords and Knights, with Guards and Attendants.

King. What is your parley, uncle; who are these?

Duke of Burgundy. Your majesty shall ask them that yourself;
I cannot make them tell.

King.

Come on! come on!

We've sent a hundred men to search the field
For Artevelde's dead body.

Sir Fleureant.

King.

You shall need seek no farther; there he lies.
What, say you so?

Sire, for that

What! this Van Artevelde?

God's me! how sad a sight!

But are you sure?

Lift up his head.

Duke of Burgundy.

Sir Oliver of Clisson. Sir Fleureant, is it he?
Sir Fleureant. Sirs, this is that habiliment of flesh
Which clothed the spirit of Van Artevelde
Some half an hour agone. Between the ribs
You'll find a wound, whereof so much of this

King.

(Drawing his dagger)

As is imbrued with blood denotes the depth.
Oh me! how sad and terrible he looks!
He hath a princely countenance. Alas!
I would he might have lived, and taken service
Upon the better side!

Duke of Burgundy.

And who is she?

(Elena raises her head from the body.) Duke of Bourbon. That I can answer: she's a traitress vile!—

Sir Fleureant.

The villain's paramour.

Beseech you, sir,

[mour.

Believe it not; she was not what you think.
She did affect him, but in no such sort

As you impute, which she can promptly prove.*

Elena (springing upon her feet). 'Tis false! thou liest! I was his paraDuke of Bourbon. Oh, shameless harlot! dost thou boast thy sin?

The reader recollects that Sir Fleureant had visited the regent's camp on an earlier occasion, before the close connexion between Philip and Elena took place; hence this speech in which the lost man believes himself to be saying the truth. Ay,

Ay, down upon the carrion once again!

Ho! guards! dispart her from the rebel's carcass,
And hang it on a gibbet. Thus, and thus,

I spit upon and spurn it.

Elena (snatching Artevelde's dagger from its sheath). Miscreant foul! Black-hearted felon!

(Aims a blow at the Duke of Bourbon, which Sir Fleureant intercepts.)

Ay, dost baulk me! there—

As good for thee as him!

(Stabs Sir Fleureant, who falls dead.)

Duke of Burgundy. Seize her! secure her! tie her hand and foot! What! routed we a hundred thousand men,

Here to be slaughtered by a crazy wench!

(The guards rush upon Elena; Van Ryk interposes
for her defence; after some struggle, both are
struck down and slain.)

Duke of Bourbon. So! curst untoward vermin! are they dead?
His very corse breeds maggots of despite !

Duke of Burgundy. I did not bid them to be killed.

Captain of the Guard.

King.

Sanxere.

They were so sturdy and so desperate,
We could not else come near them.

My lord,

Uncle, lo!

By Heaven,

The Knight of Heurlée, too, stone dead!

This is the strangest battle I have known!
First we've to fight the foe, and then the captives!

Duke of Bourbon. Take forth the bodies. For the woman's corse,
Let it have Christian burial. As for his,

The arch-insurgent's, hang it on a tree,
Where all the host may see it.

Duke of Burgundy.

Brother, no:

It were not for our honour, nor the king's,
To use it so. Dire rebel though he was,
Yet with a noble nature and great gifts
Was he endowed: courage, discretion, wit,
An equal temper and an ample soul,
Rock-bound and fortified against assaults
Of transitory passion, but below

Built on a surging subterranean fire
That stirred and lifted him to high attempts.
So prompt and capable, and yet so calm,

He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right;
Nothing in soldiership except good fortune.
Wherefore with honour lay him in his grave,
And thereby shall increase of honour come
Unto their arms who vanquished one so wise,

So

So valiant, so renowned! Sirs, pass we on,
And let the bodies follow us on biers.
Wolf of the weald, and yellow-footed kite,
Enough is spread for you of meaner prey.
Other interment than your maws afford
Is due to these. At Courtray we shall sleep,
And there I'll see them buried side by side.'

264-272.

-vol. ii. pp. We have perhaps some reason to apologise for the length of these extracts. We can only repeat what we alleged at the outset-namely, that years and years have passed since it came in the way of our office to call attention to the appearance of a new English poem at once of such pretensions and such execution. If Mr. Taylor should devote himself to dramatic composition with a view to the stage, he must learn to brace his dialogue somewhat more tightly, and to indulge less in discursive reflection; but he has already done enough to secure himself a place among the real artists of his time.

We have not thought it worth our while to point attention to the numberless passages in which Mr. Taylor's fiction speaks home to the feelings and facts of our own day. He is not, we can perceive, of our own school as to politics; indeed, in spite of his motto, and, although, by taking Philip van Artevelde, whose father had rebelled while he was in infancy, for his hero, he has escaped most of the difficulties which would naturally have attached to the choice of a rebel-hero, he has, we cannot but feel, indicated his own sympathy with the movement cause in general. But still, being a true poet, and, therefore, a sagacious man, he has let fall many things which are by no means likely to gratify the powers that be-or rather, indeed, we ought to say, the powers that seem. His account of the ministers of Philip van Arteveldeof the versatile orator De Vaux, in particular, (vol. ii. p. 24)— appears to us to be little else than a bitter contemporary satire,

ART. IV.-Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créqui, 1710 à 1800. Tomes premier et second. Paris. 1834.

IN

NFINITE are the shapes of falsehood, and depuis feu Protée, as Madame du Deffand pleasantly says, nothing can equal the versatility of a Parisian manufacturer of memoirs. One day he is a dramatist-the next a bishop-by and by a monarch-then a jacobin-and in succession, a minister of state, and a thief-takera damsel of the Palais Royal, and a duchess of the Louvre. That there was a Madame de Créqui, who lived to a great old age, and was

remarkable

remarkable for a lively youth and an aimable vieillesse, is very well known; but that she wrote these volumes is, we confidently believe to be, the most insigne mensonge that ever was propounded. The fabricators are hard pushed; they find that the memoirs of men, and particularly of men of the present, or even of the last, generation, are liable to be tried, and, if false, detected, by tests which no ingenuity can elude. A man is either a statesman or a soldier-a cleric or a commis-a lawyer or a littérateur-and the sayings and doings of such men leave traces in their several walks of life which can neither be imitated nor obliterated. A forgery is in such cases easily detected, and the trade, instead of being profitable, becomes a losing concern. They have now, therefore, thought it prudent to try what they can do in female attire. The commérage of an old lady deals little in that class of facts or dates which, being preserved in authentic history, afford the best test of the authenticity of memoirs; and they are now trying how far the public may be deluded by that trivial gossip, as to the truth or falsehood of which few care, and still fewer examine.

Some of these manufacturers, looking about for a subject proper for their purpose, have lighted upon Madame de Créqui, a lady who-as the Biographies tell us and them—' died at a very advanced age in 1803; who was remarkable for social and conversational talents; and who left behind her several manuscripts.'' Upon that hint they speak;' and this, we believe, is all that the author of this work knows of the lady, in whose name and character he writes. He found, in two or three authentic works, notices of a Madame de Créqui-stated to have been born under Louis XIV., and to have died under Napoleon; and he therefore adopted her life as a canvass on which he might fearlessly spread all the anecdotic colours which he could collect from Dangeau, St. Simon, Bachaumont, Marmontel, Walpole, and Mesdames de Sévigné, Maintenon, De Staël, and Du Deffand.

The French critics believe-(it is wonderful how credulous French critics are prior to a detection, and how clear-sighted they become when a forgery is proved)-the French critics, we say, affect to believe that there is a petit noyeau de vérité which is swelled into its present bulk by a vast deal of supposititious matter: in short, that some scattered manuscripts of Madame de Créqui have fallen into the hands of the editor, who has diluted her spirit into the gallons of washy stuff which fill these two octavos, and which are destined-if the public will but consent to be duped-to fill ten or a dozen similar tomes. This theory we absolutely disbelieve. We do not think that there is one genuine drop of Madame de Créqui in the whole publication; we are confident, and shall prove, that the Mémoires'

are,

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