Setting aside, of course, the language and poems of the troubadours of Southern France, we shall find, in French poesy previous to the Renaissance, only three works which, through their popularity in their own time, still live in the memory of the erudite, and one only which, by its grand character and its superior beauties, attests the poetical genius of the middle ages and can claim national rights in the history of France.

_The Romance of the Rose_ in the erotic and allegorical style, the _Romances of Renart_ in the satirical, and the _Farce of Patelin,_ a happy attempt in the line of comedy, though but little known nowadays to the public, are still and will remain subjects of literary study.

_The Song of Roland_ alone is an admirable sample of epic poesy in France, and the only monument of poetical genius in the middle ages which can have a claim to national appreciation in the nineteenth century.

It is almost a pity not to reproduce here the whole of that glorious epopee, as impressive from the forcible and pathetic simplicity of its sentiments and language as from the grandeur of the scene and the pious heroism of the actors in it.

It is impossible, however, to resist the pleasure of quoting some fragments of it.