tWn time, trior e particularly of thofe which enfuèë lifter the battle of Poitiers. Four years afterwards* hayiiig gone to England, fië'prefented a part of this hiftory to queen Fhilippa of Hainauhj the wife of Edward III. Young as he then was, he had already travelled into the moft diftarit provinces oF France. The objeat of his vifit to England was td teaf himfelf from an attachment which had tori tnetited him for a long time; This paffion took pofleflion of his heart from his infancy; it làfted tea years, and fparks of it were again rekindled in 4 more advanced àge, in fpite òf his bald head and white hairs\ % v "* When j)oets fing their loves, they are not always believed on their word ; as Froiffart only mentions^ his in poetry, all he fays may be treated afe pura fi&ion ; but the portrait he draws is fo natural, that we cannot but acknowledge the charaSer of a young man in love, and the fimple etfpreffiofts of a real paffion. He feigns, that when twelve years old Mercury appeared to him followed by the three Góddeffes tvhofe difference Paris had formerly decided ; thafc this God, calling to mind the protedion he had given him from four years of age, ordered him to revife the difpute of thefe three divinities ; that he had Confirmed the judgment of Paris ; and that Venusi had promifed him* as a refcompenoe, a miftrefs more beautiful than the fair Helen, and of fuch high birth, that from the fcene of the poem to Con* itantinople there was not earl, duke, king, nor emperor, who would not have efteemed hiinfelf a a fortunate