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viii either one or two other contemporary hands, of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-eight lines, no attempt has been made to present it in any other European language, with the single exception of a German rendering into verse of the first part, by H. Fahrmann, printed in 1839.

The new literature which arose in France, when once the renaissance had taken firm hold, effectually clouded the fame of the “Romance of the Rose” for close upon two hundred years; but in 1735 a new edition was given by L. du Fresnoy, followed in 1737 by a volume of notes by M. Lantin de Damerey. In 1798 appeared a second edition of Du Fresnoy’s text accom­panied by the notes, and in 1814 M. Méon published a new text from better MSS. in four volumes, which was reproduced in 1865 under the editorship of M. Francisque Michel. In 1878-80 Mons. Croissandeau (under the pseudonym of Pierre Marteau) put forth an edition at Orleans, accompanied by a translation into modern French, in five volumes. Now happily we may look forward to the critical edition which is to be published in 1901 under the able editorship of M. Ernest Langlois.

Mr. Hallam in his “History of the Literature of Europe” has no more to say of so great a landmark in the field he is earing than that “a very celebrated poem, the ‘Roman de la