him, and he loved to use it; he had
also that character of right verse, by which the poet loves to put
little separate pictures like medallions into the body of his writing:
this Villon loved, as I shall show in other examples, and he has it
here.

The end of the middle ages also is strongly in this appeal or confession
of mortality; their legends, their delicacy, their perpetual
contemplation of death.

But of all the Poem's qualities, its run of words is far the finest.

_THE DEAD LADIES._

_Dictes moy ou, n'en quel pays
Est Flora la belle Rommaine;
Archipiada, ne Thais,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine
Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
Qui beaulte ot trop plus qu'humaine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?_

_Ou est la tres sage Hellois,
Pour qui fut chastre et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart a Saint-Denis?
Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.
Semblablement, ou est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust gecte en ung sac en Saine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!_

_La Royne Blanche comme un lis,
Qui chantoit a voix de seraine;
Berte au grant pie Bietris, Allis;
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan;
Ou sont elles, Vierge souvraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!_

_ENVOI._

_Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,
Que ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!_

AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.
(_Stanzas 75-79._)

Villon's whole surviving work is in the form of two rhymed wills--one
short, one long: and in the latter, Ballads and Songs are put in each in
their place, as the tenour of the verse suggests them.

Thus the last Ballade, that of the "Dead Ladies," comes after a couple
of strong stanzas upon the necessity of death--and so forth.

One might choose any passage, almost, out of the mass to illustrate the
character of this "Testament" in which the separate poems are imbedded.
I have picked those round about the 800th line, the verses in which he
is perhaps least brilliant and most tender.

_AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT._

LXXV.

_Premier je donne ma povre ame
A la benoiste Trinite,
Et la commande a Nostre Dame
Chambr