Eclogue that never was; and then awhile,
Of France, and Frenchmen, and our native isle,
They talked; pre-insular above the rest,
My friend his ardent politics expressed;
France was behind us all, he saw in France
Worse retrogression, and the least advance.
Her revolutions had but thrown her back.
Powerful just now, but wholly off the track;
They in religion were, as I had seen,
About where we in Chaucer’s time had been;