Jean de Meung, joyous of heart, belongs absolutely to the mediæval revival of learning. He was less of a poet than a scholar, more pleased with a display of knowledge than of beauty, and yet so far undamped by his learning as to be always ready to put plainly out such observations upon life as keep a reader smiling to-day at their shrewdness and applicability. His share of _The Romance of the Rose_ is a strange and suggestive contrast with the beginning that was written by Guillaume de Lorris. The first part, earlier by forty years than the second, and about a fifth of the length, is a delicious allegory on love, with the sweetness and purity of _Aucassin and Nicolete_; the second opens solidly with a good round speech by Reason, filling something like two thousand lines, and ransacking antiquity to fit her wise saws with ancient instances according to the new fashion of the time. Taine finds this garrulous Jean 'the most tedious of doctors'; but it is difficult not to throw yourself into his own delight in his new-won knowledge, hard not to enjoy his continual little revelations of character, as when you read:-- 'Let one demand of some wise clerk Well versed in that most noble work "Of Consolation" foretime writ By great Boethius, for in it Are stored and hidden most profound And learned lessons: 'twould redound Greatly to that man's praise who should Translate that book with masterhood,' and know that he made the translation himself. [The world at school.] The very popularity of the book proves that the whole world was at school then, and eager to be taught. Lorris, poet though he is, reminds his readers that his embroidered tale hides something really valuable, that it is 'fair wit with wisdom closely wed,' knowing well that he could find no better bait to keep them with him to the end. And Jean, when it comes to his turn, admirably expresses the contemporary point of view. He has no doubts at all between the comparative worths of manner and matter. He justifies the classics by saying:-- 'For oft their quip and crank and fable Is wondrous good and profitable.' [One of the schoolmasters.]