' fatal folly has estranged him
from her sister, and plays it at great length, but with much less tedium
than might be expected. But the author is an "incurable feminist," as
some one else was once described with a mixture of pity and admiration:
and he is not contented with two heroines. There is a third, Persewis,
maid of honour to Urraque, and also a fervent admirer of the
incomparable Partenopeus, on whose actual beauty great stress is
laid, and who in romance, other than his own, is quoted as a modern
paragon thereof, worthy to rank with ancient patterns, sacred and
profane. Persewis, however, is very young--a "flapper" or a
"[bread-and-]buttercup," as successive generations have irreverently
called the immature but agreeable creature. The poet lays much emphasis
on this youth. She did not "kiss and embrace," he says, just because she
was too young, and not because of any foolish prudery or propriety,
things which he does not hesitate to pronounce appropriate only to ugly
girls. His own attitude to "the fair" is unflinchingly put in one of the
most notable and best known passages of the poem (l. 7095 _sq._):

When God made all creation, and devised their forms for his
creatures, He distributed beauties and good qualities to
each in proportion as He loved it. He loved ladies above all
things, and therefore made for them the best qualities and
beauties. Of mere earth made He everything [else] under
Heaven: but the hearts of ladies He made of honey, and gave
to them more courtesy than to any other living creature. And
as God loves them, therefore I love them: hunger and thirst
are nothing to me as regards them: and I cry "Quits" to Him
for His Paradise if the bright faces of ladies enter not
therein.

It will be observed, of course, how like this is to the most famous
passage of _Aucassin et Nicolette_. It is less dreamily beautiful, but
there is a certain spirit and downrightness about it which is agreeable;
nor do I know anywhere a more forcible statement of the doctrine, often
held by no bad people, that beauty is a personal testimonial of the
Divinity--a scarcely parabolic command to love and admire its
possessors.[62]

If, however, our poet has something of that Romantic morality to which
Ascham--in a conjoined fit[63] of pedantry, prudery, and
Protestantism--gave such an ugly name, he may excuse it to less
strait-laced judges by other traits. Even the "r