Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/9

Rh "Two customes had this Virago (call her now John or Joan), which can no way be defended: one was her constant going in man's clothes, flatly against Scripture; beside she shaved her hair in the fashion of a Frier, against God's express word: it being also a solecism in nature, all women being born votaries and the veil of their long hair minds them of their obedience they naturally owe to man: yea, without this comely ornament of hair, their most glorious beauty appears as deformed, as the sun would be prodigious without beams."

I have placed the death of Salisbury later, and of the Talbots earlier than these events occurred, and I believe these to be the only liberties taken with facts. The fall of the bridge at Orleans, a circumstance that the reader might deem invention, is historically true. The ninth book is the Original Sin of the poem. That it is a defect, I am myself sensible; but it is not uncommon at the age of twenty-one for the imagination to out-run the judgment. For the sake of variety, I thought it essential to introduce rough lines occasionally, and this I mention, lest some might suspect me of carelessness. Such as it is, the poem is before the world. I shall not witness its reception, and it will be long before the tidings will reach me in a distant part of Europe. Liberal criticism I shall attend to, and I hope profit by, in the execution of my Madoc, an Epic Poem on the discovery of America by that Prince, on which I am at present engaged. From line 121 to 131 in the tenth Book, of my writing, has been seen already by the public in another work; but as it is at present out of print and improbable that another edition will appear: on account of the appropriate sentiments they contained, I did not scruple to place them in their present situation.

is now occupied in collecting whatever has been written concerning the Maid of Orleans. The result of his enquiries I anxiously expect. Of the various productions to the memory of JOAN of ARC, I have collected only a few titles, and if report may be trusted, need not fear a heavier condemnation than to be deemed equally bad. A regular Canon of St. Euverte has written un tres mauvaise poeme, intitled, The Modern Amazon. There is a prose tragedy called La Pucelle D'Orleans, variously attributed to Benserade, to Boyer, and to Menardiere. The Abbe Daubignee published a prose tragedy with