Seleucia. The former was founded by the Emperor Claudius; the other by Seleucus King of Syria. VI. Obverse. A similar head and legend. Reverse. ΚΛΑΥΔ......ΛΕΥΚΕΩΝ. Hercules to the right; his right hand raising aloft his club, his left grasping the hydra by one of its necks. Æ. 9. [In the British Museum.] The earliest coins of this city, quoted by Mionnet from Vaillant, are of Gordianus the Third. They are all of great rarity. J. Y. AKERMAN. Yours, &c. ON NORMAN FRENCH POETRY.* M. FRANCISQUE MICHEL, who is already so well known by his elegant and judicious editions of the old Norman French romances and other poetry, and who is at present pursuing his researches amongst our English libraries, by direction of the French Government, has just given to the world two most valuable additions to the results of his former labours. The first of the books to which we allude, the beautiful romance of La Violette, written in about 1225 by Gibert de Montreuil, is interesting to Englishmen, as being the grand representative of that series of romances and tales which contained the story that afterwards entered into the plot of Shakespeare's Cymbeline. Once there was in France, as the roman tells us, a good king called Louis "Il ot en Franche .j. roi jadis "There was formerly a king in France, He made wise men his councellors, He was well-instructed and wise, He esteemed ladies and maidens, Often he held for them splendid festivals. This was Louis the Eighth, the father of St. Louis: to one of his festivals we are introduced at the beginning of the poem, and the amusements of the court are described at some length. Among the most distinguished of the courtiers who were present at this entertainment, was Gérard of Nevers, the hero of the story, who boasted that his love, the fair Euriaus, was the most beautiful and most faithful lady between Metz and Pontoise. Now there chanced to be there k Vaillant's Num. Græca, p. 228. * Roman de la Violette, ou de Gérard de Nevers, en vers du xiije siècle, par Gibert de Montreuil, publié pour la première fois, d'après deux manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale, par Francisque Michel. A Paris, chez Silvestre. 1834. Roman d'Eustache le Moine, pirate fameux du xiiie siècle, publié pour la première fois d'après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Royale, par Francisque Michel. Paris, chez Silvestre. Londres, Pickering. 1834. Des Vilains. III.-La Riote du Monde. Le Roi d'Angleterre et le Jongleur d'Ely. (xiiie siècle). Publié d'après deux manuscrits, l'un de la Bibliothèque Royale, l'autre du Musée Britannique. A Paris, chez Silvestre. 1834. Hugues de Lincoln: Recueil de Ballades Anglo-Normande et Ecossoises relatives au meurtre de cet enfant, commis par les Juifs en 1255. Publié avec une introduction et des notes, par Francisque Michel. Paris, chez Silvestre. Londres, chez Pickering. 1834. a courtier named Lisiart, who was count and lord of Forez, a small province near Lyons, a bad and malicious man, who, envious of the happiness of Gérard, declared publicly before the King in his court that the lady Euriaus was not such as she had been represented, and offered to wager all his estates against those of the count of Nevers, that within eight days he would bring sufficient proofs of having gained her favours. The wager was accepted; Lisiart immediately went to Nevers, taking with him an escort of ten knights, and was hospitably received by the lady. The Count of Forez found all his endeavours to overthrow the constancy of Euriaus vain, and was on the point of losing his wager, when an old woman, ugly and malevolent, who was the mistress or " dueña " of Euriaus, observed him as he sat pensively at the table, and ever seeking opportunities of exercising her malicious disposition, inquired the cause of his sadness, and immediately offered her service in accomplishing the object of his visit. The lady Euriaus, it appears, had on her right breast the figure of a violet, a mark only known to herself and her lover Gérard, and which she had promised to keep secret from every one else. This mark Gondrée, the mistress of Euriaus, discovered while the lady was in her bath, and immediately she brought Lisiart privately to the door of the room where she was bathing, and showed him, through a hole which she had previously made for this purpose, the lady and the mark on her breast. The count, having taken leave of Gondrée, to whom he promised great honour and reward, left Nevers with his company, and rode after the court, which he found at Melun. He immediately appeared before the King, and declared that he had gained his wager, stating before Gérard and Euriaus, who had been brought to court, in proof of his success, that, when with the lady, he had seen the violet on her left breast, and that he had learnt from her that Gérard had said, if any one but himself ever knew of this mark, he should consider it a proof of her infidelity. Gérard, convinced of the unfaithfulness of his mistress, carried her to a distant forest, where they dismounted, and he, placing her upon her knees on the ground, was on the point of cutting off her head with his sword, when she saw at no great distance a terrible serpent approaching, breathing flames from its mouth and nostrils. She exclaimed, in terror," Sir, mercy! fly hence for the love of God, for I see a fiend approaching, and, unless you take care, you will certainly be killed." Gérard attacked, and, after a severe conflict, slew the serpent; but, softened down by this proof of the affection of his mistress, who had shown so much anxiety for his safety even when death was before her eyes, he no longer persisted in his design of killing her, but left her alone in the forest, where she in her grief tore her face and her garments with her hands, and he rode away scarcely knowing where he would go. While she lay more dead than alive, not far from the body of the serpent, it happened that the Duc de Miès (Metz) passed by, with about tweuty of his knights. The duke became enamoured of the lady, and carried her to his castle, intending to make her his wife, in spite of all her intreaties to the contrary. Meanwhile, Gérard resolved to go to Nevers, to witness the change which had taken place in his affairs, and, in the disguise of a jogelour, with his viol hung about his neck, he introduced himself into the hall where Lisiart was seated at table with the treacherous Gondrée, and he began to sing before them a stanza of the roman of Guillaume le Marchis au cort nés.* While Gérard was here, he overheard a conversation between Lisiart and Gondrée, which discovered to him at once the stratagem that had been employed against him, * A poem which is still preserved. and convinced him of the innocence of his mistress. Gérard immediately left the hall, threw off his disguise, mounted his horse, and rode in search of the lovely and injured Euriaus. A large portion of the poem is, as in most of the old romances, devoted to a detailed account of the adventures of the Count Gérard, and his deeds of chivalry, during his long search after his mistress. In the mean time Euriaus remained at Miès. The duke had been prevailed upon to relinquish his intention of marrying her, and she was in her chamber thinking of Gérard and her country, when a varlet brought her a lark which he had caught, and which it now became her amusement to feed. One day the lark took in its beak a valuable ring which had been given her by her lover, which by some accident passed over its head and round its neck, and flew away never to return. Whilst Euriaus lay in her chamber, almost dead with grief for the loss of her ring, there entered a bad and uncourteous knight, called Meliatir, who attempted to offer violence to her, but she struggled, and escaped into the hall, where she met Ysmaine, the sister of the duke, with whom she was accustomed to sleep. In the night, the traitor who had attempted her honour, entered the chamber where the two ladies were sleeping, struck his dagger to the heart of Ysmaine, and then placed it in the hand of Euriaus. In the morning Euriaus was accused of the murder, and judgment was only delayed until the duke's uncle, the duke of Bar-le-Duc, a wise and eloquent man, should arrive to give his counsel on the occasion. Gérard, at Cologne, had fallen in love with Aiglente, the daughter of the Duke Milo, and ceased to think of Euriaus. One day, as he was hawking, his hawk pounced upon a lark, which proved to be the same bird that had carried away the ring. Gérard knew the ring, thought of his former mistress, and, though the parting was difficult, left his new love to go in search of her. And he wandered about, sometimes singing songs of faithful love, at others rescuing ladies from danger, and performing many chivalrous feats, till at last he came near to Miès. Here he fell into company with some knights, who told him they were going to see the execution of a beautiful lady, who had been found in a wood, and who had since been guilty of a cruel murder. The count immediately conjectured that this fair lady must be no other than his Euriaus, whom he had so long sought in vain. When he arrived at Miès, he found her on her knees in prayer, beside the fire in which she was immediately to be burnt, and he demanded that the judgment should be reconsidered. The cause of Euriaus was, accordingly, pleaded again, and it was finally submitted to a trial in single combat between Gérard and the false but courageous Meliatir, who was overcome, and compelled to confess his own guilt. We will not attempt to describe the joy of Gérard de Nevers, when he had thus found and recovered his love, and it is almost needless to add, that he immediately accused Lisiart before the king, that he challenged and overcame him in combat, that the latter confessed his evil deeds, and that Gérard recovered his lands, that Gondrée was boiled in a chaldron, and that Gérard and Euriaus were immediately married. "Li rois et li baron plus haut [robe "The king and the chief barons Never did King Arthur in Wales Ne tint onques si riche ostel." (v. 6576.) Hold so rich a house." We cannot give too much praise to M. Michel for the care and skill with which he has edited this elegant romance from the two remaining manuscripts. In the introductory notice he has given a detailed account of all the forms under which the story has appeared; and his notes, equally learned, are invaluable to all those who would be acquainted with the language of the Norman minstrels. The volume, of which only two hundred copies have been printed,* is a beautiful specimen of typography, and is splendidly adorned with seven admirable fac-similes of the illuminations of the prose Roman de la Violette, besides coloured fac-similes of the two MSS. of the poem. The other of the two books to which we have alluded, which is still more valuable and interesting to Englishmen, is the roman of Eustace the Monk. In our chronicles, Eustace figures only as a partisan of the English barons against John, as having brought a powerful fleet to their aid, and as having been defeated and slain on the sea, in his attempt at a descent upon England, but from the manner in which he is mentioned, it is evident that his name and story must have been well known at the time. Our roman, a name, by the way, which does not in the least preclude the supposition of the history being true, gives us the whole life of this extraordinary man, and it is full of humorous adventures and daring acts. In a long and very interesting introductory notice, M. Michel has collected together every thing that is known of Eustace, and he has also printed several documents concerning him and his English possessions, which have been discovered among the close letters and the patent rolls in the Tower of London. The roman of Eustache le Moine consists of 2306 lines. It tells us that, before he became a black monk, he had studied magic at Toledo in Spain, at that period the chief school of this art, and that his instructor was the evil one himself. When he left Toledo for his native land, the devil told him the outline of his His first exploit was, to take a most ludicrous vengeance, by means of his magic art, upon the people of Montferrant. On the road from this place another opportunity occurred for the exercise of Eustace's art, on the person of a The French publications of the old Norman literature are generally confined to small numbers, and have not been advertised, so that it has been impossible to obtain copies of them through the London booksellers. We are, therefore, rejoiced to learn that Pickering has lately made arrangements with those of the French booksellers who publish them, and that in future there will be no difficulty in procuring all of them through him. waggoner, who provoked him by his boorish behaviour. Eustace became a monk "Illuec fist mainte dyablie Wistaces lor faisoit mesdire (v. 223.) At St. Saumer "There he performed much devilry, He caused the monks to fast When they ought to have broken fast; When they ought to have gone with feet Eustace made them say wrong When they ought to say their service. When they ought to give thanks.” After the quarrel between Eustace and the Count of Boulogne (which originated in the death of the father of Eustace, Bauduins Buskés, by the hand of Hainfrois de Heresinguehans), the former became what M. Michel very justly calls "a kind of Boulonois Robin Hood," and the stories, often exceedingly droll, of his encounters with, and escapes from, the Count, occupy the greater part of the poem. We will give one as a specimen. One day a spy informed the Count that Eustace was in the forest. The Count, with his retainers, followed the spy on foot, and lay in ambush in a ditch. One of Eustace's spies, however, had seen them, and immediately Eustace went to a colcarried information of their movements to his master. lier who was carrying charcoal upon an ass, blackened his own face, neck, and hands with the coal, put on the collier's frock and black cap, giving his own in exchange, and set out for Boulogne with his ass and burden. When he passed by the spot where the Count lay concealed, the latter took no notice of him, but Eustace cried out, "My Lord, what are you doing there?" "What con cern is it of yours, Sir villain?" was the reply. "By St. Omer," said Eustace, "I will go and tell it to the Count, how the men of Eustace the Monk are always injuring and insulting us. I dare not bring out my beast to carry my charcoal to sell, but Eustace must rob me of it. Meanwhile he is sitting at his ease by a good fire, for he has burnt all my charcoal, which has cost me so much labour to make." Is he near this place?" asked the Count. "He is close by. Go straight along this path, if you wish to speak with him." Eustace goaded his beast onwards, and the Count and his people entered the forest, where they found the collier, drest in the garments of the monk. They insulted and beat him much, for they thought, sure enough, it was Eustace they had caught at last, till he cried out, " For the love of God, my Lord, mercy! Why do you beat me so? You may take my coat, if you will, for it is all the property I have. It is the coat of Eustace the Monk, who has gone with my ass and charcoal towards Boulogne, his hands, face, and neck blackened, and my cap on his head. He took my frock, and left me this coat of silk." The Count, in a rage, hurried on in pursuit of Eustace, who, in the meanwhile, had washed his face, and, meeting with a potter, had exchanged his ass and charcoals for pots and jugs, and his collier's garments for those of the potter. Eustace was marching along, and crying lustily, "Pots! pots!" when the Count and his men suddenly issued from a thicket, and asked him if he had seen a collier riding along that way. "Sir," said Eustace, "he is gone straight to Boulogne, with an ass laden with charcoal." The Count and his party put spurs to their horses, and overtook the collier, whom they immediately began to beat and insult, and, tying his feet and hands, they mounted him upon a horse, with his face towards the tail. The man began to roar and shout. "My Lord," said he, "I pray you, for God's sake, have mercy upon me! Why have you taken me? If I "Aha! Aha! have done any thing wrong, I will willingly make amends." you vagabond!" said the Count, "you think to escape. In due time I'll have you hanged, safely enough." A knight, however, who had often seen the potter, and chanced now to look at him and recognise him, said, "What devil has made thee a collier? Thou wast formerly a potter. No man will ever thrive that has |