43. I have said that there was not a new book written within these ten years. In the days of our fathers, it would have been necessary at least to mention as a forgery the celebrated poems attributed to Thomas Rowley. But, probably, no one person living believes in their authenticity; nor should I have alluded to so palpable a fabrication at all, but for the curious circumstance that a very similar trial of literary credulity has not long since been essayed in France. A gentleman of the name of Surville published a collection of poems, alleged to have been written by Clotilde de Surville, a poetess of the fifteenth century. The muse of the Ardèche warbled her notes during a longer life than the monk of Bristow; and having sung the relief of Orleans by the Maid of Arc in 1429, lived to pour her swan-like chant on the battle of Fornova in 1495. Love, however, as much as war, is her theme; and it was a remarkable felicity that she rendered an ode of her prototype Sappho into French verse, many years before any one else in France could have seen it. But having, like Rowley, anticipated too much the style and sentiments of a later period, she has, like him, fallen into the numerous ranks of the dead who never were alive.[362] [362] Auguis, Recueil des Poètes, vol. ii. Biogr. Univ., Surville. Villemain, Cours de Littérature, vol. ii. Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xiii. 593. The forgery is by no means so gross as that of Chatterton; but, as M. Sismondi says, “We have only to compare Clotilde with the Duke of Orleans, or Villon.” The following lines, quoted by him, will give the reader a fair specimen:-- Suivons l’amour, tel en soit le danger; Cy nous attend sur lits charmans de mousse. A des rigueurs; qui voudroit s’en venger? Qui (meme alors que tout désir s’émousse) Au prix fatal de ne plus y songer? Règne sur moi, cher tyran, dont les armes Ne me sauroient porter coups trop puissans! Pour m’epargner n’en crois onc a mes larmes; Sont de plaisir, tant plus auront de charmes Tes dards aigus, que seront plus cuisans. It has been justly remarked, that the extracts from Clotilde in the Recueil des Anciens Poètes occupy too much space, while the genuine writers of the fifteenth century appear in very scanty specimens. SECT. IV. 1471-1480. _The same Subjects continued--Lorenzo de’ Medici--Physical Controversy--Mathematical Sciences._ |Number of books printed in Italy.| 44. The books printed in Italy during these ten years amount, according to Panzer, to 1297; of which 234 are editions of ancient classical authors. Books without date are of course not included; and the list must not be reckoned complete as to others.