From  the  very  idleness  of  the  man's  mind,  and  not
from  intensity  of  feeling,  it  happens  that  all  his  poems
are  more  or  less  autobiographical.  But  they  form  an
autobiography  singularly  bald  and  uneventful.  Little
is  therein  recorded  beside  sentiments.  Thoughts,  in
any  true  sense,  he  had  none  to  record.  And  if  we
can  gather  that  he  had  been  a  prisoner  in  England,
that  he  had  lived  in  the  Orleannese,  and  that  he
hunted  and  went  in  parties  of  pleasure,  I  believe  it  is
about  as  much  definite  experience  as  is  to  be  found  in
all  these  five  hundred  pages  of  autobiographical  verse.
Doubtless,  we  find  here  and  there  a  complaint  on  the
progress  of  the  infirmities  of  age.  Doubtless,  he  feels
the  great  change  of  the  year,  and  distinguishes  winter
from  spring  ;  winter  as  the  time  of  snow  and  the  fire-


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS.  271

side  ;  spring  as  the  return  of  grass  and  flowers,  the
time  of  St.  Valentine's  day  and  a  beating  heart.  And
he  feels  love  after  a  fashion.  Again  and  again,  we
learn  that  Charles  of  Orleans  is  in  love,  and  hear  him
ring  the  changes  through  the  whole  gamut  of  dainty
and  tender  sentiment.  But  there  is  never  a  spark  of
passion  ;  and  heaven  alone  knows  whether  there  was
any  real  woman  in  the  matter,  or  the  whole  thing  was
an  exercise  in  fancy.  If  these  poems  were  indeed  in-
spired by  some  living  mistress,  one  would  think  he
had  never  seen,  never  heard,  and  never  touched  her.
