199. Therefore the Greek dynasties are finally expressed in the kinghoods of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, who judge infallibly, and divide arithmetically. But the dynasty of the Gothic king is in equity and compassion, and his arithmetic is in largesse, "Whose moste joy was, I wis, When that she gave, and said, Have this." So that, to put it in shortest terms of all, Greek law is of Stasy, and Gothic of Ecstasy; there is no limit to the freedom of the Gothic hand or heart, and the children are most in the delight and the glory of liberty when they most seek their Father's precepts. 200. The two lines I have just quoted are, as you probably remember, from Chaucer's translation of the French Romance of the Rose, out of which I before quoted to you the description of the virtue of Debonnaireté. Now that Debonnaireté of the Painted Chamber of Westminster is the typical figure used by the French sculptors and painters for 'franchise,' frankness, or Frenchness; but in the Painted Chamber, Debonnaireté, high breeding, 'out of goodnestedness,' or gentleness, is used, as an English king's English, of the Norman franchise. Here, then, is our own royalty,--let us call it Englishness, the grace of our proper kinghood;--and here is French royalty, the grace of French kinghood--Frenchness, rudely but sufficiently drawn by M. Didron from the porch of Chartres. She has the crown of fleur-de-lys, and William the Norman's shield. 201. Now this grace of high birth, the grace of his or her Most Gracious Majesty, has her name at Chartres written beside her, in Latin. Had it been in Greek, it would have been [Greek: *elevtheria*]. Being in Latin, what do you think it must be necessarily?--Of course, Libertas. Now M. Didron is quite the best writer on art that I know,--full of sense and intelligence; but of course, as a modern Frenchman,--one of a nation for whom the Latin and Gothic ideas of libertas have entirely vanished,--he is not on his guard against the trap here laid for him. He looks at the word libertas through his spectacles;--can't understand, being a thoroughly good antiquary, [1] how such a virtue, or privilege, could honestly be carved with approval in the twelfth century;--rubs his spectacles; rubs the inscription, to make sure of its every letter; stamps it, to make surer still;--and at last, though in a greatly bewildered state of mind, remains convinced that here is a sculpture of 'La Liberte' in the twelfth century. "C'est bien la liberte!" "On lit parfaitement libertas." [Footnote 1: Historical antiquary; not art-antiquary I must limitedly say, however. He has made a grotesque mess of his account of the Ducal Palace of Venice, through his ignorance of the technical characters of sculpture.]