its first conception is easy and natural, and when it
was novel to boot, was neither commonplace nor ill-chosen.

After writing about one-fifth of the 22,000 verses of which the
original French poem consists, Guillaume de Lorris, who had executed
his part of the task in full sympathy with the spirit of the chivalry
of his times, died, and left the work to be continued by another
trouvere, Jean de Meung (so-called from the town, near Lorris, in which
he lived). "Hobbling John" took up the thread of his predecessor's
poem in the spirit of a wit and an encyclopaedist. Indeed, the latter
appellation suits him in both its special and its general sense.
Beginning with a long dialogue between Reason and the Lover, he was
equally anxious to display his freedom of criticism and his
universality of knowledge, both scientific and anecdotical. His vein
was pre-eminently satirical and abundantly allusive; and among the
chief objects of his satire are the two favourite themes of medieval
satire in general, religious hypocrisy (personified in "Faux-Semblant,"
who has been described as one of the ancestors of "Tartuffe"), and the
foibles of women. To the gross salt of Jean de Meung, even more than
to the courtly perfume of Guillaume de Lorris, may be ascribed the
long-lived popularity of the "Roman de la Rose"; and thus a work, of
which already the theme and first conception imply a great step
forwards from the previous range of mediaeval poetry, became a
favourite with all classes by reason of the piquancy of its flavour,
and the quotable applicability of many of its passages. Out of a
chivalrous allegory Jean de Meung had made a popular satire; and though
in its completed form it could look for no welcome in many a court or
castle,--though Petrarch despised it, and Gerson in the name of the
Church recorded a protest against it,--and though a bevy of offended
ladies had well-nigh taken the law into their own hands against its
author,--yet it commanded a vast public of admirers. And against such
a popularity even an offended clergy, though aided by the sneers of the
fastidious and the vehemence of the fair, is wont to contend in vain.

Chaucer's translation of this poem is thought to have been the cause
which called forth from Eustace Deschamps, Machault's pupil and nephew,
the complimentary ballade in the refrain of which the Englishman is
saluted as

Grant translateur, noble Gelfroi Chaucier.

But whether or not such was