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 of chapter. [69] This miscellaneous lyric for the most part awaits collection and publication. M. G. Raynaud has given a valuable _Bibliographie des Chansonniers Francais des XIII'e et XIV'e siecles_. 2 vols., Paris, 1884. Also a collection of _motets_. Paris, 1881. [70] Philippe Mouskes. This is it: La terre fut pis en cest an Quar li vieux Quesnes estoit mors. [71] The best edition is in Scheler's _Trouveres Belges_. Brussels, 1876. [72] Rheims, 1851. [73] The most convenient place to look for Adam's history and work is _Le Theatre Francais au Moyen Age_. Par Monmerque et Michel. Paris, 1874. There are also separate editions of him by Coussemaker, and more recently by A. Rambeau. Marburg, 1886. [74] By A. Jubinal. 2nd edition. 3 vols. Paris, 1874. [75] Ed. Roquefort. 2 vols. Paris, 1820. The first volume contains the lays; the later the fables, which have been noticed in the last chapter. Later edition, Warnke. Halle, 1885. Marie also wrote a poem on the Purgatory of St. Patrick. Three other lays, _Tidorel_, _Gringamor_, and _Tiolet_ have been attributed to her, and are printed in _Romania_, vol. viii. [76] _Lays of France_, London, 1872. CHAPTER VII. SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY.