Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/59

Rh jects of the Welsh and Armoric lays, and the event justifies the choice she had made. To the singularity of such a measure was owing its celebrity. By treating of love, and the various emotions which it excites; of chivalry, and the acts of valour which beauty inspires in its professors, she was certain of attuning her lyre to the feelings of the age, and consequently of insuring success. Upon this account her lays were extremely well received by the people. Denis Pyramus, an Anglo-Norman poet, and the contemporary of Mary, informs us that they were heard with pleasure in all the castles of the English barons, but that they were particularly relished by the women of her time. He even praises them himself, and this from the mouth of a rival could not but have been sincere and well deserved, since our equals are always the best judges of our merit.

Inasmuch as Mary was a foreigner, she expected to be criticised with more severity, and therefore applied herself with great care to the due polishing of her works. Besides, she thought, as she says herself, that the chief reward of a poet consists in first perceiving the superiority of his own performance, and the claims to public esteem which it deserves. Hence the unremitted attention to the one for the purpose of laying claim to the other; hence the repeated efforts to attain so honourable a distinction, and the constant apprehension of that chagrin which results from disappointment, and which she has expressed with so much natural simplicity.

She has dedicated her Lays to some king whom she thus addresses in her prologue: En