Rough as it is, the piece
certainly possesses this high quality of poetry, that it aims at a
purely artistic effect. Its subject is a great sorrow, yet it claims to
be a thing of joy and refreshment, to be entertained not for its matter
only, but chiefly for its manner; it is cortois, it tells us, et bien
assis.
*Recently, Aucassin and Nicolette has been edited and translated into
English, with much graceful scholarship, by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon. More
recently still we have had a translation--a poet's translation--from the
ingenious and versatile pen of Mr. Andrew Lang. The reader should
consult also the chapter on "The Out-door Poetry," in Vernon Lee's most
interesting Euphorion; being Studies of the Antique and Mediaeval in the
Renaissance, a work abounding in knowledge and insight on the subjects
of which it treats.
For the student of manners, and of the old language and literature, it
has much interest of a purely antiquarian order. To say of an ancient
literary composition that it has an antiquarian interest, often means
that it has no distinct aesthetic interest for the reader of to-day.
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