‘Si ne semble pas qui la voit Qu’ele puisse grant fès porter,’ and these of Frère Angier, ‘Ses merites et ses vertuz, Ses jeünes, ses oreisons, . . . . . . . Et sa volontaire poverte Od trestote s’autre desserte,’ are quite in accordance with the rules of French verse, but very few such lines will be found in the _Mirour_. Some there are, no doubt, as 3327: ‘D’envie entre la laie gent,’ or 3645: ‘Que nuls en poet estre garny.’ So also 2925, 3069, 4310 &c., but they are exceptional and attract our notice when they occur. An illustration of the difference between the usage of our author and that of the Continent is afforded by the manner in which he quotes from Hélinand’s _Vers de la Mort_. The text as given in the _Hist. Litt. de la France_, xviii. p. 88, is as follows (with correction of the false reading ‘cuevre’): ‘Tex me couve dessous ses dras, Qui cuide estre tous fors et sains.’ Gower has it ‘Car tiel me couve soubz ses dras, Q’assetz quide estre fortz et seins.’ He may have found this reading in the original, of which there are several variants, but the comparison will none the less illustrate the difference of the rhythms. SUBJECT-MATTER AND STYLE.--The scheme of the _Speculum Hominis_ is, as before stated, of a very ambitious character. It is intended to cover the whole field of man’s religious and moral nature, to set forth the purposes of Providence in dealing with him, the various degrees of human society and the faults chargeable to each class of men, and finally the method which should be followed by man in order to reconcile himself with the God whom he has offended by his sin. This is evidently one of those all-comprehending plans to which nothing comes amiss; the whole miscellany of the author’s ideas and knowledge, whether derived from books or from life, might be poured into it and yet fail to fill it up. Nevertheless the work is not an undigested mass: it has a certain unity of its own,--indeed in regard to connexion of parts it is superior to most medieval works of the kind. The author has at least thought out his plan, and he carries it through to the end in a laboriously conscientious manner. M. Jusserand in his _Literary History of the English People_ conjectured reasonably enough that if this work should ever be discovered, it would prove to be one of those tirades on the vices of the age which in French were known as ‘bibles.’ It is this and much more than this. In fact it combines the three principal species of moral compositions all in one framework,--the manual of vices and virtues, the attack on the evils of existing society from the highest place downwards, and finally the versified summary of Scripture history and legend, introduced here with a view to the exaltation and praise of the Virgin. In its first division, which extends over nearly two-thirds of the whole, our author’s work somewhat resembles those of Frère Lorenz, William of Waddington and