French possessor of a Shakespeare. The catalogue, it is true, reveals
the fact that he preserved it "in his garret":

"Livres in folio qui se trouvent dans le grenier:
Comedies de Jazon [_i.e._, Ben Jonson] en anglois,
2 vol., London, 1640 _3l._
Idem, comedies angloises _10s._
Shakespeares comedies angloises _1l._
Fletcher commedies angloises _1l._"

(MS. 9,438 francais, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)

The second in date of the French possessors of copies of Shakespeare
was, strange to say, no less a person than the patron of Racine and
Boileau, the Roi-Soleil himself. Looking over, some time ago, at the
Bibliotheque Nationale, the original manuscript slips made in 1684 by
the royal librarian, Nicolas Clement, for his catalogue of the books
confided to his care, I found one inscribed: "Will. Shakspeare, poeta
Anglicus. Opera poetica, continentia tragoedias, comoedias et
historiolas, Anglice, Londres, Th. Cotes, 1632, fol." And to this,
considering that he had to deal with a thoroughly unknown person,
Clement was careful to add a note that people might be informed what was
to be thought of the poet. This is (so far as now known) the earliest
French allusion to Shakespeare: "Ce poete anglois a l'imagination asses
belle, il pense naturellement; mais ces belles qualitez sont obscurcies
par les ordures qu'il mele dans ses comedies."

[243] Vol. xv. published in 1731.

[244] "Essai sur la pastorale," prefacing "Estelle."

[Illustration: ELIZABETHAN GAIETIES. KEMP'S DANCE FROM LONDON TO
NORWICH.]

CHAPTER VI.

THOMAS NASH; THE PICARESQUE AND REALISTIC NOVEL.

I.

"There is nothing beside the goodnesse of God, that preserves health so
much as honest mirth, especially mirth used at dinner and supper, and
mirth toward bed.... Therefore, considering this matter, that mirth is
so necessary a thing for man, I published this booke ... to make men
merrie.... Wherefore I doe advertise every man in avoiding pensivenesse,
or too much study or melancholic, to be merrie with honesty in God and
for God, whom I humbly beseech to send us the mirth of heaven.
Amen."[245] Such was the advice attributed to a man whose opinion should
carry weight, for he had been a "doctor of physicke" and had published
with great success a "Breviary of helth" which was a household book in
his time.

The pensive Sir