representatives of one class; Guillaume de Lorris' new version of the art of love, in The Romance of the Rose, is the type of the other. The former conception breathes its spirituality into the beautiful characters of Shakespeare's women, making the unselfishness of Viola, the patience of Imogen, and the purity of Isabella, at once ideal and credible. The latter inspires the elaborate code framed by the female canonists and casuists of the Cours d Amour, which, embodied first of all in the treatise of André le Chapelain, De Amore, and adapted to the manners of a later time by Castiglione, in his Cortegiano, formed the basis of social etiquette in every Court of Europe, and was reflected with all the hectic colouring of decline in the comedy of Fletcher. Thou art a bountiful and brave spring (said Ben Jonson in dedicating his Cynthia's Revels "to the special fountain of manners, the Court" of James I.), and waterest all the noble plants of this island. In thee the whole kingdom dresseth itself, and is ambitious to use thee as her glass. Beware then thou render men's figures truly, and teach them no less to hate their deformities, than to love their forms; for to grace there should come reverence; and no man can call that lovely which is not also venerable. It is not powdering, perfuming, and every day smelling of the tailor that converteth to a beautiful object; but a mind shining through any suit, which needs no false light either of riches or honours to help it." How far the Court of Charles II. and his successor adopted this view of its duties may be inferred from the character of the conversation between Mirabell and Mrs. Fainal cited above. In the far-off infancy of chivalry an old Latin rhyme had set forth the then familiar duties of the newly-initiated knight : Accingatur gladio super femur miles Ut a factis vetitis discat emundari.1 Even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century the grave pages of Castiglione show that perfection of 1 Vol. i. p. 203. manners could be acquired by the youthful courtier only from conversation with accomplished and virtuous women. Images of men and women educated on these principles stand out before us in the dramas of Shakespeare. But when men like Mirabell set the standard of honour; when a Millamant represented the "venerableness" of love; when the innermost thoughts of her sex were revealed by a Lady Brute,—it is evident that prose was the only vehicle of expression suitable to the stage. Chivalry, as an institution, was dead, and with it had expired the poetic drama. manners could be acquired by the youthful courtier only from conversation with accomplished and virtuous women. Images of men and women educated on these principles stand out before us in the dramas of Shakespeare. But when men like Mirabell set the standard of honour; when a Millamant represented the "venerableness" of love; when the innermost thoughts of her sex were revealed by a Lady Brute,—it is evident that prose was the only vehicle of expression suitable to the stage. Chivalry, as an institution, was dead, and with it had expired the poetic drama, |