first trade he has
become a wine-grower. However, he cannot resist the feast days, when he
brings us his old books, and reads to us as long as we choose, such works
as the 'Calondrier des Bergers,' 'Fables d'Esope,' 'Le Roman de la Rose,'
'Matheolus,' 'Alain Chartier,' 'Les Vigiles du feu Roy Charles,' 'Les deux
Grebans,' and others. Neither, with his old habit of warbling, can he help
singing on Sundays in the choir; and he is called Huguet. The other
sitting near him, looking over his shoulder into his book, and wearing a
sealskin belt with a yellow buckle, is another rich peasant of the
village, not a bad villain, named Lubin, who also lives at home, and is
called the little old man of the neighbourhood."

After this artistic sketch, the author dilates on the goodman Anselme. He
says: "This good man possessed a moderate amount of knowledge, was a
goodish grammarian, a musician, somewhat of a sophist, and rather given to
picking holes in others." Some of Anselme's conversation is also given,
and after beginning by describing in glowing terms the bygone days which
he and his contemporaries had seen, and which he stated to be very
different to the present, he goes on to say, "I must own, my good old
friends, that I look back with pleasure on our young days; at all events
the mode of doing things in those days was very superior and better in
every way to that of the present.... O happy days! O fortunate times when
our fathers and grandfathers, whom may God absolve, were still among us!"
As he said this, he would raise the rim of his hat. He contented himself
as to dress with a good coat of thick wool, well lined according to the
fashion; and for feast days and other important occasions, one of thick
cloth, lined with some old gabardine.

[Illustration: Fig. 70.--The Shepherds celebrating the Birth of the
Messiah by Songs and Dances.--Fifteenth Century.--Fac-simile of an
Engraving on Wood, from a Book of Hours, printed by Anthony Verard.]

"So we see," says M. Le Roux de Lincy, "at the end of the fifteenth
century that the old peasants complained of the changes in the village
customs, and of the luxury which every one wished to display in his
furniture or apparel. On this point it seems that there has been little
or no change. We read that, from the time of Homer down to that of the
excellent author of 'Rustic Discourses,' and even later, the old people
found fault with the manners of the present generation and extolled