It is a branch of the subject which I have not yet fully considered; but MR. SPEDDING will observe that the view I take does not interfere with the supposition that Fletcher revised the play, {403} with additions for its revival in 1613; a task for the performance of which he would probably have the consent of his early master. SAMUEL HICKSON. * * * * * ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. IX. _Eustache Deschamps._ Except in the two centuries next after the conquest, contemporaneous French notices of early English writers seem to be of rather infrequent occurrence. On this account, and on other accounts, the ballad addressed to Geoffrey Chaucer by Eustache Deschamps deserves repetition. Its text requires to be established, in order that we may be aware of its real obscurities--for no future memoir of Chaucer can be considered as complete, without some reference to it. The best authorities on Eustache Deschamps are MM. Crapelet, Raynouard, and Paulin Paris. To M. Crapelet we are indebted for the publication of _Poesies morales et historiques d'Eustache Deschamps_; to M. Raynouard, for an able review of the volume in the _Journal des Savants_; and to M. Paulin Paris, for an account of the manuscript in which the numerous productions of the author are preserved. Of the author himself, the learned M. Paris thus writes:-- "On pourroit surnommer Eustache Deschamps le Rutebeuf du XIVe siecle.--Ses oeuvres comprennent des epitres, des discours en prose, des jeux dramatiques, des ouvrages latins, des apologues, un grand poeme moral, et un infinite de ballades et rondeaux pieux, bouffons, satiriques," &c. Two impressions of the ballad in question are before me; one, in the _Life of Geoffrey Chaucer by sir Harris Nicholas_, dated 1843--and the other in a volume entitled _Geoffrey Chaucer, poete anglais du XIVe siecle. Analyses et Fragments par H. Gomont_, Paris, 1847.--I transcribe the ballad from the latter volume, as less accessible to English students:-- "BALLADE INEDITE ADRESSEE A GEOFFREY CHAUCER PAR EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS. O Socrates, plains de philosophie, Seneque en meurs et _Anglais_ en pratique, _Oui des grans_ en ta poeterie, Bries en parler, saiges en rethorique, _Virgiles_ tres haulz qui, par ta theorique, Enlumines le regne d'Eneas, Lisle aux geans, ceuls du Bruth, et qui as Seme les fleurs et plante le rosier, Aux ignorants, de la langue pandras Grant translateur, noble Geffroy Chaucier. Tu es d'amours mondains Dieux en Albie, Et de la rose en la terre angelique, Qui _d'Angela_ Saxonne et (est) puis flourie Angleterre (d'elle ce nom s'applique). Le derrenier en l'ethimologique En bon angles le livre translatas; Et un Vergier, ou du plant demandas De ceuls qui _sont_ pour eulx auctorisier, _A ja_ long teams que tu edifias, Grant tranlslateur noble Geffroy Chaucier.