A Letter Book / Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing :: APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION I GREEK LETTERS. SYNESIUS ( c. 375-430)

APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION I GREEK LETTERS. SYNESIUS ( c. 375-430)

English readers may know something, from Kingsley's Hypatia, of the excellent bishop of Ptolemais who, at the meeting of the fourth and fifth centuries, combined the functions of neo-Platonist philosopher, Christian prelate, country gentleman, and most efficient yeomanry officer against the ancestors, or at least forerunners, of the present Senussi, who were constantly raiding his diocese and its neighbourhood. These two letters—to Hypatia herself and to his brother—show him in different, but in each case favourable lights.

Letter CVIII. (to his Brother)

I have already got 300 spears and as many cutlasses, though I had, even before, only half a score two-edged swords: and these long flat blades are not forged with us. But I think the cutlasses can be struck more vigorously into the enemies' bodies, and so we shall use them. And at need we shall have bludgeons—for the wild olive trees are good with us.[60] Some of our men have single-bladed axes at their belts with which those of us who have no defensive armour shall chop their[61] shields and make them fight on equal terms. The fight will, at a guess, come off to-morrow: for when some of the foe had fallen in with scouts of ours and pursuing them at their best speed had found them too good to catch, they bade them tell us what pleased us mightily—if indeed we may no more have to wander in the footsteps of those fellows who made off into the wastes of the interior. For they said they were going to stay where they were and wanted to find out what sort of fellows we were, who dared to separate ourselves so many days' journey from our own place that we might fight with men of war, nomads in way of life, and whose civil polity was like our discipline in war-time. Therefore, as one who by God's help shall to-morrow conquer—nay, conquer again if needful (for I would say nothing of bad omen) I commit to thee the care of my children: for it is fitting that thou, their uncle, shouldest carry over thine affection to them.

Letter CXXIV

"But if oblivion be the lot of the dead in Hades yet will I, even there, remember" my dear Hypatia. Beset as I am by the sufferings of my country, and sick, as I see daily weapons of war about me and men slaughtered like altar-victims; drawing as I do breath infected by rotting corpses; expecting myself a similar fate, (for who can be hopeful when the very atmosphere is weighed down and dusky with the shadow of carnivorous birds?) yet do I cling to my country. For what else would my feeling be, born and bred as I am, and with the not ignoble tombs of my fathers before my eyes? For thee alone does it seem to me that I could neglect my country, and if I could get leisure, force myself to run away.[62]

LATIN LETTERS.—PLINY (62-114)

The most famous letters of the younger Pliny are those which describe his country houses, that which gives account of his uncle's death in the great eruption of Vesuvius, and his correspondence with Trajan. But the first mentioned are rather long and require a good deal of technical annotation;[63] the second is to be found in many books; and the letters which make up the third (except those concerning Christianity, which are again to be found in many places) are mostly short and on points of business merely. The one I have chosen is extremely characteristic, in two respects, of the author and of Roman ways generally. It shows Pliny's good-nature and right feeling, but it shows also a certain "priggishness" with which he has been specially and personally charged, but which, to speak frankly, he shared with a great many of his famous countrymen. Priggishness was almost unknown among the Greeks—though one may suspect its presence among those Spartans who have told so few tales of themselves. But it flourished at Rome, and was one of Rome's many—and one of her worst—legacies to us moderns. Secondly, the letter is amusing because one thinks what an English judge would surely think and would probably say, if counsel for a lady were to inform the court uberius et latius what an extremely good opinion that lady's father had of him, the learned speaker. A minor but still interesting difference is in Pliny's slight hesitation about taking a brief against a consul-elect. The subtleties of Roman etiquette are endless.

Plinius to his Asinius Gallus—Health

You both advise[64] and ask me to take up the cause of Corellia in her absence against C. Caecilius, Consul elect. I am obliged to you for advising me but I complain of your asking. I ought to be advised that I may know the fact, but not asked to do what it would be most disgraceful for me not to do. Could I doubt about protecting the daughter of Corellius? True, there is between me and him against whom you call on me, not exactly close friendship but still some friendship. There is also to be taken into account the man's worth and the honour to which he is destined, a thing which I ought to hold in the greater respect that I have myself already enjoyed it. For it is natural that things which one has oneself attained, one should wish to be regarded with the greatest respect. But when I think that I am to help Corellius' daughter, all this appears idle and empty. I seem to see the man than whom our age had no one more dignified, more pious, of an acuter mind; the man whom, when I had begun to like him out of admiration I admired more, contrary to what usually happens, the more thoroughly I knew him. For I did know him thoroughly; he kept nothing hid from me, neither jocular nor serious, neither sad nor glad. I was quite a young man: but already he held me in honour and I will dare to say respect—as if I were his contemporary. He gave me his vote and interest in my standings for honours; he, when I entered upon them, was my introducer and companion; when I carried them out, my adviser and guide. In fact, in every business of mine, though he was an old man and in weak health, he was as forward as if he were young and strong. How much he furthered my reputation, privately, publicly, and even with the Chief of the State! For when by chance, in the presence of the Emperor Nerva, the conversation had turned on young men of worth, and several persons spoke in praise of me, he kept silence for a little, which gave him the more authority. Then in the weighty manner you know, "I must needs," he said, "say all the less about Secundus[65] because he never does anything but by my advice." By saying this he gave me the credit (which it would have been extravagant in me to hope for) of never doing anything in other than the wisest way, seeing that I always acted on the advice of the wisest man. Moreover, when dying, he said to his daughter, as she is wont to declare, "I have provided you, as if I were myself to live longer, many friends: but for the chief of them Secundus and Cornutus." Now when I remember this, I see I must take care not in any way to disappoint the trust in me of this most fore-thoughtful man. Therefore I will come to Corellia's help without the least delay and will not refuse to undergo inconveniences: though I think I shall secure not merely pardon but even praise from the very person who as you say is bringing a new action as against a woman, if it should happen to me to say these same things in court more amply and fully than the narrow room of a letter permits, either to excuse or indeed commend myself. Farewell.

LETTER OF THE "DARK" AGES

SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS (431?-482-4)

Caius Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris is one of the most interesting figures of the troubled and obscure period intervening between the fall of the Roman Empire proper and the rise of mediaeval Europe. He was born at Lyons, married Papianilla, daughter of Flavius Avitus, who was to be one of the ephemeral "Emperors" of the West and the Decadence, but was not injured by his father-in-law's dethronement, and enjoyed various civil honours and posts. In 471, though a married layman, he was peremptorily made a bishop, and accordingly took orders, put away his wife, and discharged his sacred duties as creditably as he had discharged his profane ones. Sidonius was a not contemptible poet, and an interesting letter-writer. Like most literary men of his class he was given to what we call flattery; and this Ecdicius, of whom he made a sort of Dark Age Admirable Crichton, was his brother-in-law, an Emperor's son, and Count or Duke (the titles were often interchangeable) of the district. But it is fair to say that Gregory of Tours, the accepted historian of the period, and living only in the next century, makes the exploit over the Goths even more signal—for he reduces the troopers to ten. The Arverni (inhabitants of Auvergne and its neighbourhood) were the strongest tribe in Southern Gaul when the Romans first came into contact with them, retained much prominence in Caesar's time, and had not lost individuality, if they had lost independence, by this (5th) century. The mixture of "Arms" and the "Gown" is noteworthy.

Book III. Letter III

Sidonius to his Ecdicius—Health

If ever, now you are longed for by my Arvernians, whose love for you subdues them remarkably, and indeed for all sorts of reasons. First, because a man's native land has the greatest part in creating affection for him.[66] Then, because in your time you are about the only mortal who was longed for before his birth as much as he was rejoiced in after it.... I say nothing of such things—common to all, but no mean incitement to affection—as that you crawled as a child on the same turf with them. I pass over the grass which you first trod, the river you first swam, the woods you broke through in hunting. I leave out the fact that it was here you first played ball[67] and backgammon,[68] that you hawked, coursed, rode, shot with the bow. I omit the fact that for the sake of your boyish presence students of letters came hither from all parts; and that it was due to you as an individual that our nobility, anxious to shed the slough of Celtic speech, imbued itself now with the style of oratory, now with the measures of the Muse. And this specially kindled the love of the community[69] that you forbade those whom you had already made Latins[70] to remain barbarians.[71] For it could never slip the memory of our citizens what and how great you seemed, to every age and rank and sex on the half-ruined mounds of our walls, when, accompanied by scarcely eighteen horsemen, you cut your way through some thousands of Goths in full daylight and (which posterity will hardly believe) in the open field. A well trained army stood aghast at the sound of your name and the sight of your person: so that the leaders of the enemy, in their astonishment, hardly knew how many were their followers, how few yours. Their line was then withdrawn to the brow of a steep hill; it had before been gathered together to storm, but on your appearance was not deployed for battle. Meanwhile you, having slain some of their best men whom not sloth but courage had made the rearmost of the troop, occupied the level ground alone, though such a fight gave you not so many comrades as your table is wont to contain guests. And when you returned to the town at your leisure what came to meet you in the way of official compliments, applause, tears, rejoicings can be better guessed than described. One might see in the crammed halls of the spacious palace that happy ovation for your thronged return. Some caught up the dust of your footsteps to kiss it: others took out the horses' curbs stained with blood and foam; others prepared the stands for the saddles drenched with the horses' sweat; others, when you were about to put off your helmet, unbuckled the clasps of its plated chin-straps, or busied themselves with unlacing your greaves. Yet others counted the notches on the swords, blunted with slaughter, or measured with livid[72] fingers the rings of the corslets, slashed or pierced by weapons.[73]

EARLY MEDIAEVAL LETTER (Twelfth Century)

Of the other persons mentioned in this letter besides the widowed Duchess and King Louis VII., the first is Ralph, Count of (Peronne and) Vermandois, a leper. The lady's name was Eleanor, and she also was probably a widow; the Duchess's son Hugh was third of that name as Duke of Burgundy. Ivo, Count of Soissons, was the guardian of the Count of Vermandois, incapacitated legally by his plague. The proposed marriage did not come off. The business-like tone of the letter will only surprise those who do not really know the "Ages of Romance." I owe the selection of it to my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., who came to my aid in the dearth of books of this period which circumstances imposed on me.

To Louis[74] most excellent King of the Franks by the grace of God, and her most beloved Lord, Mary, Duchess of Burgundy—health and due respect. It is known to your Majesty that my son is your liegeman, and, if it please you, your kinsman also. Whatsoever he can do is yours: and if he could do more it were yours. And so I all the more confidently ask your highest affection for my son. For it has been told me that Count Ralph of Peronne has a certain marriageable sister who, as has been reported to me and her own people, would be a suitable wife for my son. For this reason, most beloved Lord, I and he ask that you would look to this matter yourself and speak about it to the Count of Soissons, and settle how this marriage may be contracted. You must know that though my son might marry in another kingdom, I greatly prefer that he should take a wife in yours, rather than in any other. The nearer he becomes connected with you the more will he be yours and altogether a profit to you.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It may of course be "illustrated" in the other sense by a second use of the pen; and we shall have instances of this kind to notice.

[2] As has often been pointed out Ben Jonson's exquisite "Drink to me only with thine eyes" is a verse-paraphrase or mosaic from this writer's prose.

[3] Pliny, if he did not always "write for publication," deliberately "published," as we should say, his letters. Indeed, he is one of the first to use the word in this sense, even if he uses it immediately of an oration not a letter. Some think Cicero meant publication; and he was very likely to do so.

[4] The Latin statesman, like the Greek bishop, condescends to write about wine and even more fully. One of the most interesting and informing things on the subject is his discourse on vinum acinaticium, a sort of Roman Imperial Tokay made from grapes kept till the frost had touched them.

[5] Genuine letters of Sappho would have been of the first interest to compare with those of Heloise, and the "Portuguese Nun" and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's, sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good.

[6] It is part of the plan to give, as a sort of Appendix to the Introduction, and extension of it towards the main body of text, some specimens of Greek, Roman (classical and post-classical) and Early Mediaeval letter-writing, translated for the purpose by the present writer. The continuity of literary history is a thing which deserves to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to confine attention to things modern—albeit so soon to be antiquated! I owe the last of these specimens, in the Latin from which I translate it, to the kindness of my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., to whom I had recourse as not myself having access to a large library at the moment, and who has assisted me in other parts of this book.

[7] Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by all competent scholarship.

[8] Benjamin Constant and Madame de CharriÈre.

[9] Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over. Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes in.

[10] Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most important of all—the periodical and the novel.

[11] The danger being of many sorts—usually in the direction of various kinds of excess. A quietly tragic letter may be a masterpiece: perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of Mrs. Carlyle's.

[12] Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the space between Heaven and Hell.

[13] It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that "Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest decrier called in his own protegÉe Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity," that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the writer only.

[14] It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr. Paul is a hearty "Marian."

[15] Johnson is again the chief and by no means trustworthy witness for this "insolence." But in the same breath he admitted that Chesterfield was "dignified." Now dignity is almost as doubtfully compatible with insolence as with impudence.

[16] It is difficult to think of anyone who has combined statesmanship (Chesterfield's accomplishments in which are constantly forgotten), social gifts and literary skill in an equal degree.

[17] Excluding of course purely historical and public things like the trials of the '45 and the riots of '80.

[18] They were travelling together (always rather a test of friendship) in Italy, and Horace, as he confesses, no doubt gave himself airs. But it is pretty certain that Gray had not at this time, if he ever had, that fortunate combination of good (or at least well-commanded) temper and good breeding which enables a gentleman to meet such conduct with conduct on his own side as free from petulant "touchiness" as from ignoble parasitism.

[19] Gray was not, like Walpole, a richly endowed sinecurist. But to use a familiar "bull" he seems never to have had anything to do, and never to have done it when he had. His poems are a mere handful; his excellent Metrum is a fragment; and as Professor of History at Cambridge he never did anything at all.

[20] They do not seem to have known each other personally. But (for reasons not difficult to assign but here irrelevant) Johnson was on the whole, though not wholly, unjust to Gray, and Gray seems to have disliked and spoken rudely of Johnson.

[21] The varieties of what may be called literary exercise which have been utilised for educational or recreative purposes, are almost innumerable. Has anyone ever tried "breaking up" a letter (such as those to be given hereafter) into a conversation by interlarded comment, questions, etc.?

[22] As far as the accidents are concerned. The essentials vary not. Marianne is eternal, whether she faints and blushes, or jazzes and—does not blush.

[23] One unfortunate exception, the ex-post facto references to the split with Lady Austin, may be urged by a relentless prosecutor. But when William has to choose between Mary and Anna it will go hard but he will have to be unfair to one of them.

[24] This "swan's" utterances in poetry were quite unlike those of Tennyson's dying bird: and her taste in it was appalling. She tells Scott that the Border Ballads were totally destitute of any right to the name.

[25] For a singular misjudgment on this point see Prefatory Note infra.

[26] Particularly when he is able to apply the Don Juan mood of sarcastic if rather superficial life-criticism in which he was a real master.

[27] I.e. "violently and vulgarly absurd."

[28] It may, however, be suggested that the extraordinary bluntness (to use no stronger word) of both is almost sufficiently evidenced in the fact that in his last edition of Keats Mr. Forman committed the additional outrage of distributing these letters according to their dates among the rest. The isolation of the agony gives almost the only possible excuse for revealing it.

[29] It is of course true that Shelley himself did not at first quite appreciate Keats. But Adonais cancels the deficit and leaves an almost infinite balance in favour. One can only hope that, had the circumstances been reversed, Keats would have set the account right as triumphantly.

[30] This tendency makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the particular context of the Belle Dame there is nothing whatever to cavil at.

[31] The recent centenary saw, as usual, with much welcome appreciation some uncritical excesses.

[32] In not a few cases they may be said to have been deliberately unprepared—intended though not labelled as "private and confidential."

[33] In which, be it remembered, the "Life-and-Letters" system only came in quite late.

[34] At the very moment when this is being written a considerable new body of them is announced for sale.

[35] The word "restraint" may be misunderstood: but it is intended to indicate something of the general difference between "classical" ages on the one side and "romantic" or "realist" on the other.

[36] Chesterfield's deafness might, without frivolity, be brought in. It is a hindrance to conversation, but none to letter-writing.

[37] Or at least expression of themselves.

[38] Idly: because he himself expressly and repeatedly disclaims mere "translation."

[39] Dryden, in reference to Shadwell.

[40] "The Great God Pan" piece ("A Musical Instrument"), one of the last, was perhaps her very best. But he may have been thinking of Poems before Congress, which are poor enough.

[41] Lucy, daughter of that curious Quaker banker's clerk Bernard Barton, whose poetry is negligible, but who must have had some strong personal attraction. For he was a favourite correspondent of two of the greatest of contemporary letter-writers, Lamb and FitzGerald, though he constantly misunderstood their letters; he received from Byron—on an occasion likely to provoke one of the "noble poet's" outbursts of pseudo-aristocratic insolence—a singularly wise and kindly answer; and having as a perfect stranger lectured Sir Robert Peel he was—invited to dinner!

[42] Some have attempted to make a distinction, alleging that there are Franceses who can be called "Fanny" and others who can not. But it is doubtful whether this holds. Of two great proficients of "letter-stuff" in overlapping generations Fanny Burney was eminently a "Fanny." Fanny Kemble, though always called so, was not.

[43] She was the niece of Mrs. Siddons and of John Kemble, generally considered the greatest tragic actor and actress we have had; the daughter of Charles Kemble, a player and manager of long practice and great ability; while she had yet another uncle and any number of more distant relations in the profession.

[44] See Prefatory Note on her letters infra, for an illustration of what is said of her here and of Mrs. Carlyle a little further.

[45] Gray may not produce this effect of slight repulsion on everyone: but on the other hand it is pretty generally admitted that the more you read Walpole the more does the prejudice, which Macaulay and others have helped to create against him, crumble and melt.

[46] They grow more and more numerous; a fresh batch having been announced while this Introduction was being written.

[47] I see that Mr. Paul also has made special reference to this letter and no wonder. From the time of its first publication I have regarded it as matchless. But it seems to me that while it is lawful to mention it, it should not have been published and that to republish it here would be at least questionable.

[48] The present writer remembers as a boy reading (he supposes in the newspaper to which it was addressed but is not sure) this very remarkable epistle of Reade's to an editor: "Sir, you have brains of your own and good ones. Do not echo the bray of such a very small ass as the...." There was more, but this was the gist of it. Whether it has ever reappeared he cannot say.

[49] Anthony Trollope did not choose to make his Autobiography a "Life-and-Letters." But he has used the inserted letter very freely and sometimes with great effect in his novels, for instance Mr. Slope's to Eleanor Harding in Barchester Towers.

[50] In his Essay mentioned in Preface.

[51] The "Answer to the Introductory Epistle" of The Monastery.

[52] This plan was older than the "novel by letters," and had, as noticed above, been largely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century "heroic" romance.

[53] There is of course a class exactly opposite to the love-letter—that of more or less modified hate or at least dislike. Johnson's epistle to Chesterfield is an example of the dignified form of this; Hazlitt's to Gifford of the undignified. But considering our deserved reputation for humour we are less strong than might be expected in letters which make the supposed writer make himself ridiculous. Sydney Smith's "Noodle's Oration" is the sort of thing in another kind: and some of the letters in the Spectator class of periodical are fun in the kind itself. Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters comes near. But we have nothing like the famous Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, which are the very triumph of the style.

[54] See the extensive classification of the Greeks, as noticed and reproduced before.

[55] The "Letter to Sir W. Windham" of the one and the "Letter to a noble Lord" of the other, have ample justification. Letters on a Regicide Peace, great as they are in themselves, have less claim to their title. But it was a favourite with both writers.

[56] The King was William and the Queen Mary, which limits considerably the otherwise rather illimitable "concerning the kingdom."

[57] This word is of course a vox nihili, being neither French nor English. But it has usage in its favour, and I do not see that it is improved by writing it "dishabille." If anyone prefers the actual French form he can add the accents.

[58] The account of the journey with Lintot the publisher is sometimes quoted in disproof of this. It is amusing, but has still to some tastes Pope's factitiousness without the technical charm of his verse to carry it off.

[59] There is one small but rather famous class of letters which perhaps should receive separate though brief notice. It is that of laconic and either intentionally or unintentionally humorous utilisations of the letter-form. Of one sort Captain Walton's "Spanish fleet taken and destroyed as per margin" is probably the most noted type: of another the equally famous rejoinder of the Highland magnate to his rival "Dear Glengarry, When you have proved yourself to be my chief, I shall be happy to admit your claim. Meanwhile I am Yours, Macdonald." In pure farce of an irreverent kind, the possibly apocryphal interchange between a Royal Duke and a Right Reverend Bishop, "Dear Cork, Please ordain Stanhope, Yours, York," and "Dear York, Stanhope's ordained. Yours, Cork," has the palm as a recognised "chestnut." But these things are only the frills if not even the froth of the subject; and those who imitate them should exercise caution in the imitation. The police-courts, and even more exalted, but still more unwholesome abodes of Justice, have sometimes been the consequences of misguided satire in letters. Even in Captain Walton's case the Spaniards are said to have endeavoured to show that his ironical laconism (which, moreover, tradition has perhaps exaggerated in form) was not strictly in accordance with fact.

[60] Wild olive, with more peaceful uses, was also the usual material for the unpeaceful club, or quarter-staff, often iron-shod, of the ancients. It was probably like the lathi which the mild Hindoo takes with him to political meetings. The p??e??? of the ancients was generally double-bladed, hence the limitation here. This would be lighter and more convenient to carry in the belt.

[61] Of course "the enemies'."

[62] Synesius addresses his letters to Hypatia t? f???s?f?—"To the Philosophess." This contains at least two of the unapproachable "portmanteau" words in which Greek, and especially late Greek abounds—f????????, "loving one's country," and eta?aste?e??, a rare and complicated compound in which I have ventured to see a hint of ironic intention. He feels that he will be a sort of shirker or deserter (et? often imparts this meaning) but he will be coming to her.

[63] This necessity of annotating beyond suitable limits was what prevented me, after due re-reading for the purpose, from giving any letter of Cicero's.

[64] Admoneo in Latin not unfrequently has our commercial sense of "advise" = inform, or remind of a fact. It will be remembered that in Elizabethan English this sense was not limited to business, as in "Art thou avisÉd of that."

[65] The younger Pliny's full name was C. Plinius Secundus.

[66] Among other natives of course.

[67] Doubtless the game still played in Italy (pallone) and the South of France, with a wooden hand-guard strapped to the arm.

[68] Pyrgus is not exactly backgammon. The Romans had a sort of combined dice-box and board—the latter having a kind of tower fixed on the side with interior steps or stops, among which the dice tumbled and twisted before they fell out.

[69] Universitas: but though the context seems tempting, it is too early for "university" as a translation.

[70] I.e. in citizenship.

[71] I.e. in speech.

[72] Why livescentibus I am not sure. "Bruised by the rough mail"? But Lucretius has digiti livescunt: and Sidonius, like other poets of other decadences, is apt to borrow the phrases of his great predecessors.

[73] Sidonius has nearly as much more of this curious story: but the picture of the excitable Celts mobbing their heroes is vivid enough to make a good stopping-place. If things really went as described, one must suppose that a sudden panic came on the Goths, and that they took Ecdicius and his handful of troopers as merely Éclaireurs of a sally in force, and drew back to the higher ground to resist it.

[74] His own experience of marriage cannot have made the subject wholly agreeable to him: for he was, it may not be quite impertinent to remind the reader, the first husband of Eleanor of Guienne.

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