du Cheval
et du Levrier_, etc., are sprightly and agreeable enough. For the most
part, however, Froissart's poems, like almost all the poems of the
period, suffer from the disproportion of their length to their matter.
If the romances of the time, which are certainly not destitute of
incident, be tedious from the superabundance of prolix description, much
more tedious are these recitals of hyperbolical passion tricked out with
all the already stale allegorical imagery of the _Roman de la Rose_ and
with inappropriate erudition of the fashion which Jean de Meung had
confirmed, if he did not set it.

[Sidenote: Christine de Pisan.]

Christine de Pisan, who was born in 1363, was a pupil of Deschamps, as
Deschamps had been a pupil of Machault. She was an industrious writer, a
learned person, and a good patriot, but not by any means a great
poetess. So at least it would appear, though here again judgment has to
be formed on fragments, a complete edition of Christine never having
been published, and even her separate poems being unprinted for the most
part, or printed only in extract. Besides a collection of Ballades,
Rondeaux, and so forth, she wrote several _Dits_ (the _Dit de la
Pastoure_, the _Dit de Poissy_, the _Dittie de Jeanne d'Arc_, and some
_Dits Moraux_), besides a _Mutation de Fortune_, a _Livre des Cent
Histoires de Troie_, etc., etc.

[Sidenote: Alain Chartier.]

Alain Chartier, who was born in or about 1390, and who died in 1458, is
best known by the famous story of Margaret of Scotland, queen of
France, herself an industrious poetess, stooping to kiss his poetical
lips as he lay asleep. He also awaits a modern editor. Like Froissart,
he devoted himself to allegorical and controversial love poems, and like
Christine to moral verse. In the former he attained to considerable
skill, and a ballade, which will presently be given, will show his
command of dignified expression. On the whole he may be said to be the
most complete example of the scholarliness which tended more and more to
characterise French poetry at this time, and which too often degenerated
into pedantry. Chartier is the first considerable writer of original
work who Latinises much; and his practice in this respect was eagerly
followed by the _rhetoriqueur_ school both in prose and verse. He
himself observed due measure in it; but in the hands of his successors
it degraded French to an almost Macaronic jargon.

In all the earlier work of this s