The description of Blanche, in the "Booke of the Duchesse," shows how trifling is the difference between a perfect female character in the thirteenth century, and what would now be considered as such. It is a very lively and animated picture. Her golden hair and laughing eyes; her skill in dancing, and her sweet carolling; her "goodly and friendly speech;" her debonair looks; her gaiety, that was still "so womanly;" her indifference to general admiration; her countenance, "that was so simple and so benigne," contrasted with her high-spirited modesty and consciousness of lofty birth, No living wight might do her shame, _She loved so well her own name_; her disdain of that coquetterie which holds men "in balance," By half-word or by countenance; her wit, "without malice, and ever set upon gladnesse;" and her goodness, which the Poet, with a nice discrimination of female virtue, distinguishes from mere ignorance of evil--for though in all her actions was perfect innocence, he adds, I say not that she had no knowing What harm was; for, else, she Had known no good--so thinketh me; are all beautifully and happily set forth, and are charms so appropriate to woman, as _woman_, that no change of fashion or lapse of ages can alter their effect. Time "Can draw no lines there with his antique pen." But afterwards follows a trait peculiarly characteristic of the women of that chivalrous period. She was not, says Chaucer, one of those ladies who send their lovers off To Walachie, To Prussia, and to Tartary, To Alexandria, ne Turkie; and on other bootless errands, by way of displaying their power. She used no such _knacks small_. That is, she was superior to such frivolous tricks. John of Gaunt, who is the principal speaker and chief mourner in the poem, gives a history of his courtship, and tells with what mixture of fear and awe, he then "right young," approached the lovely heiress of Lancaster: but bethinking him that Heaven could never have formed in any creature so great beauty and bounty "withouten mercie,"--in that hope he makes his confession of love; and he goes on to tell us, with exquisite _naïveté_,-- I wot not well how I began, Full evil rehearse it, I can: ....*....*....*....* For many a word I overskipt In telling my tale--for pure fear, Lest that my words misconstrued were. Softly, and quaking for pure dred, And shame,-- Full oft I wax'd both pale and red; I durst not once look her on, For wit, manner, and all was gone; I said, "Mercie, sweet!"--and no more. Then his anguish at her first rejection, and his rapture when, at last, he wins from his ladye The noble gift of her mercie;