those which now pass under the name of Marie de
France, are narrative poems in octosyllabic verse and varying in length
considerably. It is agreed that the term and the thing are of Breton
origin; and the opinion which seems most probable is that the word
originally had reference rather to the style of music with which the
harper accompanied his verse, than to the measure, arrangement, or
subject of the latter. As to Marie herself[75], nothing is known about
her with certainty. She lived in England in the reign of Henry III, and
often gives English equivalents for her French words. The _lais_ which
we possess, written by her and attributed to her, are fourteen in
number. They bear the titles of _Gugemer_, _Equitan_, _Le Fresne_, _Le
Bisclaveret_, _Lanval_, _Les Deux Amants_, _Ywenec_, _Le Laustic_,
_Milun_, _Le Chaitivel_, _Le Chevrefeuille_, _Eliduc_, _Graalent_ and
_L'Espine_. Mr. O'Shaughnessy has paraphrased several of these in
English[76]; they are all narrative in character. Their distinguishing
features are fluent and melodious versification, pure and graceful
language--among the purest and most graceful, though decidedly Norman in
character, of the time--true poetical feeling, and a lively faculty of
invention and description. After Marie there was a tendency to
approximate the _lai_ to the Provencal _descort_, and at last, as we
have said, it acquired rules and a form quite alien from those of its
earlier examples. There is a general though not a universal inclination
to melancholy of subject in the early lays, a few of which are
anonymous.

* * * * *

_Note to Third Edition._--M. Gaston Paris has expressed some surprise at
my remarks on metre (p. 63). This from so accomplished a scholar is a
curious instance of the difficulty which Frenchmen seem to feel in
appreciating quantity. To an English eye and ear which have been trained
to classical prosody the trochaic rhythm of, for instance, the
Pastourelle quoted on p. 65, is unmistakable, and there are anapaestic
metres to be found here and there in early poems of the same kind.
Indeed, all French poetry is easily scanned quantitatively, though the
usual authorities protest against such scansion. Voltaire, it is said,
took Turgot's hexameters for prose, and the significance of this is the
same whether the mistake, as is probable, was mischievous or whether it
was genuine.

FOOTNOTES:

[67] Leipsic, 1870.

[68] See note at end