[157] The reader will find the fullest particulars relating to this once-distinguished family, in Halstead's Genealogical Memoirs of Noble Families, &c.: a book it is true, of extreme scarcity. In lieu of it let him consult Collin's Noble Families.
[158] [Mons. Licquet tells us, that in 1439, a Seigneur of Gratot, ceded the rock of Granville to an English Nobleman, on the day of St. John the Baptist, on receiving the homage of a hat of red roses. The Nobleman intended to build a town there; but Henry VI. dispossessed him of it, and built fortifications in 1440. Charles VII. in turn, dispossessed Henry; but the additional fortifications which he built were demolished by order of Louis XIV. &c.]
[159] An epitomised account of these civil commotions will be found in the Histoire Militaire des Bocains, par M. RICHARD SEGUIN; a Vire, 1816; 12mo. of which work, and of its author, some notice will be taken in the following pages.
[160] "Les Distiques de Muret, traduits en vers Français, par Aug. A. Se vend à Vire, chez Adam imprimeur-lib. An. 1809. The reader may not be displeased to have a specimen of the manner of rendering these distichs into French verse:
1.
Dum tener es, MURETE, avidis hæc auribus hauri:
Nec memori modò conde animo, sed et exprime factis.
2.
Imprimis venerare Deum; venerare parentes:
Et quos ipsa loco tibi dat natura parentum.
&c.
1.
Jeune encore, ô mon fils! pour être homme de bien,
Ecoute, et dans ton coeur grave cet entretien.
2.
Sers, honors le Dieu qui créa tous les êtres;
Sois fils respectueux, sois docile à tes maîtres.
&c.
[161] [Smartly and felicitously rendered by my translator Mons. Licquet; "Jamais bouche Normande ne m'avait paru plus éloquente que celle de M. Adam." vol. ii. p. 220.]
[162] The present seems to be the proper place to give the reader some account of this once famous Bacchanalian poet. It is not often that France rests her pretensions to poetical celebrity upon such claims. Love, romantic adventures, gaiety of heart and of disposition, form the chief materials of her minor poems; but we have here before us, in the person and productions of OLIVIER BASSELIN, a rival to ANACREON of old; to our own RICHARD BRAITHWAIT, VINCENT BOURNE, and THOMAS MOORE. As this volume may not be of general notoriety, the reader may be prepared to receive an account of its contents with the greater readiness and satisfaction. First, then, of the life and occupations of Olivier Basselin; which, as Goujet has entirely passed over all notice of him, we can gather only from the editors of the present edition of his works. Basselin appears to have been a Virois; in other words, an inhabitant of the town of Vire. But he had a strange propensity to rusticating, and preferred the immediate vicinity of Vire--its quiet little valleys, running streams, and rocky recesses--to a more open and more distant residence. In such places, therefore, he carried with him his flasks of cider and his flagons of wine. Thither he resorted with his "boon and merry companions," and there he poured forth his ardent and unpremeditated strains. These "strains" all savoured of the jovial propensities of their author; it being very rarely that tenderness of sentiment, whether connected with friendship or love, is admitted into his compositions. He was the thorough-bred Anacreon of France at the close of the fifteenth century.