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Mr. J. S. Forbes's Millet Drawings

with a range of rocky heights beyond, and one tree with a crooked stem standing out apart from the rest. We are reminded of Millet's saying: Which is the finer-a straight tree or a crooked one? The one that we find in its place. The beautiful is the suitable. For one may truly say that everything is beautiful in its own time and place.' As he said in one of his last talks to Mr. Wyatt Eaton: The man who finds any phase or effect of nature that is not beautiful may be quite sure that the want is in his own heart.'

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Millet's love for trees extended to shrubs and plants of every description, in fact to all growing things. The laurel in his father's garden at Gruchy lived in his memory as a perfect type of its kind, worthy of Apollo himself! To see creepers and honeysuckle cut gave him real pain, and when he gave up his share in the old home to his younger brother he made him promise never to cut the ivy which grew on the doorposts and hung over the well in the courtyard. He sketched the cabbages in his garden and the thistles and dandelions in the grass with the same delight. A pot of moon-daisies in a cottage window forms the subject of one of his pastels, a bunch of cuckoo flowers and a cluster of daffodils growing at the foot of a group of birch trees is the theme of another. The young wheat springing up in the furrows, the coarse herbage of the plain, the weeds in the arable land, the very clods of earth in the fallow ground-all had for him their charm. La terre, la terre!' he sometimes exclaimed, 'il n'y a que la terre! rien n'y meurt.'

(To be concluded.)

POSTSCRIPT.-Since these lines were written, we have, to our deep regret, received the news of the death of the great collector by whose kindness these drawings of Millet were placed at our disposal. Mr. James Staats Forbes died on April 5, at

Garden Corner, after a short illness, at the age of eighty-one. By his death a striking figure is removed from our midst, and modern art loses one of her ablest and most generous patrons. Early in life his keen instinct for beauty led him to delight in painting, and throughout his active and busy career, amid the most harassing and absorbing business cares, this resource never failed him. To the last he retained his passionate love both of nature and of art. Pictures and country walks,' he wrote only a few months ago, ' are still my greatest joy.' During the years that he spent in Holland, between 1854 and 1860, as manager of the Dutch and Rhenish Railway, he became greatly interested in modern Dutch painting, and formed a close friendship with the veteran master Josef Israels, who was his guest when he visited London last spring. French art, more especially the works of the school of Fontainebleau, soon attracted his attention, and long before the public had learnt to appreciate these masters Mr. Forbes knew and loved them, and bought many fine examples by their hand. So by slow degrees he formed his magnificent collection. Mr. Forbes lent his treasures freely to exhibitions both in London and in the provinces. Visitors of all ranks and nationalities were cordially welcomed to his beautiful Chelsea home, and he was never happier than when he could find a sympathetic friend to share the unbounded delight and admiration with which his Corots and Millets inspired him. He was sorely disappointed when, last January, an attack of bronchitis detained him at Folkestone, and prevented him from receiving M. Rodin and the other distinguished French masters who came to London for the opening of the International Exhibition. His presence will be missed by many in the coming days, and he will be long remembered as one of the most far-seeing and enlightened connoisseurs of modern painting, as well as one of the truest and most intelligent lovers of art in England.

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THE SECOND

BY SIR EDWARD MAUNDE THOMPSON, K.C.B. ❤

PART I

HE tragic story of the
deposition and death of
Richard the Second has
still a living interest, even
after the lapse of five hun-
dred years. To the general
he is the pathetic central
figure of Shakespeare's play; to the student
of history he is one of those characters
whose weakness we condemn, but whose
misfortunes appeal to our sympathies, in-
clining us, in spite of our better judgement,
to range ourselves on their side and to re-
gard with even unfair hostility the rivals
who overthrew them.

One of the most interesting contemporary
accounts of Richard's fall is contained in the
French chronicle written, chiefly in verse,
by Jehan Creton, 'varlet de chambre' of
Charles the Sixth of France. There are
several copies of the text in the Bibliothèque
Nationale of Paris; but the handsomest MS.
is that in the Harleian collection (No. 1,319)
in the British Museum, adorned with six-
teen miniatures which it is proposed to re-
produce in these pages.

The name of the author of this chronicle does not appear in our MS., but it is found in one of the copies at Paris (No. 275, fonds St. Victor); and from other sources we learn his official position in the household of the French king.

Creton's narrative is that of an eye-witness of the events which he describes; and no doubt it was on account of his personal acquaintance with Richard that he was selected, at a later date, to proceed on a mission to Scotland, in order to ascertain the truth of the rumour that the unfortunate king had not perished, but that he had escaped from prison and was alive in that country. At the first whisper of this rumour Creton had given expression to his joy in a

letter of congratulation addressed to Richard, which is added to the St. Victor MS. referred to above. It was indeed most essential that all doubt of the English king's existence should be set at rest, for Charles was about to marry his daughter Isabella, Richard's young widowed queen, to the son of the duke of Orleans. That Creton was satisfied by his inquiries in Scotland that the rumour was baseless is evident from the fact that the projected marriage took effect on June 6,

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1404.

The chronicle was edited, in 1819, from the Harleian MS., with a translation and very full notes, for the Society of Antiquaries, by the Rev. John Webb; and it was published in volume xx of Archaeologia.' This edition is accompanied by outline engravings of the miniatures, somewhat beautified, but faithful in details. Thirteen of the series had at an earlier date been engraved in Strutt's 'Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England,' 1773, the third, sixth, and seventh being omitted; but the quality of the work is very poor, and the engravings convey an imperfect idea of the originals. Strutt's work was re-edited by Planché in 1842, and the miniatures were reproduced in colours by chromo-lithography. But that process leaves much to be desired, and the plates are mere travesties. Three of the scenes from Richard's expedition to Ireland are also reproduced in colours in the 'Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Ireland' (Vol. iii, Plates xxxii, xxxiii), but not very successfully. The difficulties which still bar the way to a satisfactory presentment in colours of facsimiles of illuminations in mediaeval MSS. compel recourse to the less ambitious process of simple photography, whereby the student has at least a faithful reproduction untouched by the copyist's hand.

The Harleian MS. is a quarto of 77 leaves of vellum, measuring 11 by 8 inches. It has no contemporary title, that which appears at the head of the text, as printed in 'Archaeologia,''Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre, Richard, traictant particulierement la rebellion de ses subiectz et prinse de sa personne, etc. Composée par un gentilhomme François de marque, qui fut a la suite dudict Roy avecque permission du Roy de France,' being only an inscription on the fly-leaf in a French hand of the end of the sixteenth century. But a memorandum of ownership added at the end of the text suggests a title : Ce livre de la prinse du Roy Richart dangleterre est a monseigneur Charles daniou, Conte du Maine et de Mortaing et gouverneur de Languedoc. CHARLES.' Charles of Anjou, count of Maine and Mortain, was born in 1414, became governor of Languedoc in 1443, and died in 1472. He was brother of René of Anjou, titular king of Naples, who was the father of Margaret of Anjou, queen of our Henry the Sixth. There was a taste for art in the family. Both René and Charles possessed collections of MSS., and René himself was an artist of no mean ability. The text is written in a French court-hand of the first quarter of the fifteenth century, without ornamentation, except a few initial letters simply coloured and gilt, which mark the openings of the principal sections of the work, and a border of ivy-leaf branches surrounding the first page. Of the sixteen miniatures, which are here reproduced fullsize, the greater number occupy the upper portion of the several pages on which they are painted. Their narrow gilt frames are decorated with ivy-leaf tendrils, running into the margins: the rather meagre adornments of the usual pattern of this period, which it has not been thought necessary to repeat in the plates. As works of art the miniatures cannot be said to rank very high. They are wanting in the delicate finish which is conspicuous in the best miniature-paint

The Fall of Richard the Second

ing of the time; but as illustrations they hold a respectable position, and, especially for details of costume and for an attempted consistency in the portraiture of the principal personages, they are of more than usual interest. Although not absolutely contemporary with the period of the events which are described, the pictures are near enough to entitle them to be regarded as generally authoritative representations, in regard to dress and personal appearance, of the principal actors in the several scenes. Richard, Bolingbroke, Northumberland, and the bishop of Carlisle are, in this respect, treated with some care; and the artist may be credited with having transmitted to us conventional portraits at least of the king and his rival, whose appearance would have been traditionally known. We may go further, and may even assert that he had before him authentic contemporary drawings which he copied. There is evidence in the text that Creton's poem was actually illustrated with drawings or miniatures, if not from his own hand, at least executed under his eye. When describing MacMorogh, he refers the reader to the Irish chieftain's portraiture (Miniature iv): La semblance, ainsi comme il estoit, veez pourtraite' (His appearance, just as he was, see here pourtrayed'). And again, in his account of the meeting of Richard and Bolingbroke at Flint, he states that Henry was in full armour, save his basinet, comme vous povez veoir en ceste ystoire' (as you may see in this picture'), using histoire in the sense of illustration or miniature (Miniature xiv). Whether Creton's original text was provided with as many drawings or miniatures as our MS. it is, of course, impossible to say; but, knowing as we do the general practice of mediaeval artists to transmit copies with variations only in details, we are justified in assuming that we have here a repetition of a series which ornamented the author's original

text.

1 Plate II, page 165.

The style of the paintings is quite of the conventional type of the period. In none of them is the sky represented, the background being in all instances filled with diapered or other ornamental patterns. The only attempt at landscape consists in the introduction of a few rocks and trees; and of course the buildings are pure inventions of the artist, with no pretence to be representative. The character of the drawing is not very good, being rather coarse and clumsy; and the common inability of the ordinary mediaeval draughtsman to represent animal life is here exemplified by the impossible horses which could never have carried their riders in safety. The colours employed are usually vivid, vermilion and deep blue being much in favour; and gold is freely applied to the decoration of the costumes and to the details of the backgrounds.

We may now proceed to follow the narrative of the MS. with sufficient fullness to render the miniatures intelligible to the reader; first stating that the greater part of the text is composed in quatrains of three rhyming lines and a fourth which leads the rhyme of the first three lines of the next quatrain:

Au departir de la froide saison,
Que printemps a fait reparacion

De verdure, et quau champs maint buisson
Voit on flourir,

Et les oyseaulx doulcement resjoir;
Le roussignol peut on chanter oir,

Qui maint amant fait souvent devenir
Joyeux et gay, etc.

Then, after a lapse into prose, which will
be explained in its proper place, the author
reverts to poetry, first in a ballad, and then
in narrative verse in rhyming couplets.

The story opens with some pretty verses (just quoted) on the season of spring, when, five days before the first day of May, in the year 1399, comes an invitation to Creton from a certain knight, whose name is not disclosed, to accompany him into

'Albion.' In the first miniature2 stands the knight, clad in a long flowing robe of vermilion, powdered with small rings of gold and lined with white; the ample sleeve scalloped, and showing a blue lining where it is turned back at the wrist; the high standing collar fitting close to the neck and meeting the hat at the back of the head; the hat itself, like most of the head-gear of the nobles in the different scenes, made of some material arranged in loose folds and lappets; and a gold chain about the shoulders. Creton approaches him bareheaded, making obeisance, his hat in his left hand; his dress of a yellowish green, not so long or so handsome as the knight's, and scalloped round the bottom as well as at the edge of the sleeve.

The friends hastened without halt to London, and found the city in a bustle, for good king Richard had set out for Ireland on his last campaign, to subdue the rebels, and especially the chieftain MacMorogh. The two travellers joined the king at Milford Haven, where the expedition waited ten days for a favourable wind, and, sailing at last, landed at Waterford on the 1st of June. Thence, after a halt of six days, the army marched north to Kilkenny and into the rebel country, which was harried in an abortive attempt to hunt down MacMorogh. On this occasion Richard knighted in the field his young cousin Henry, the son of Bolingbroke, and afterwards king Henry the Fifth, then a mere lad, whom he kept about him for political reasons. This episode is the subject of the second miniature, in which the king, who is distinguished by the crown surmounting his helmet, wears a surcoat of vermilion with a semée of single ostrich-feathers in gold, his horse's housings being the same; and above the heads of the company, in addition to the royal standard, there is displayed his pennon of dark blue, powdered also with the golden ostrich-feather, a badge

2 Plate I, page 163.

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