Pour ce furent li tornoi fait. Car au jour d'ui est moult crueus Si fais geus, et moult perilleus.' —('Cléomadès,' 6537-48.) Of interest for the complacent esteem in which the French held their own tongue is this passage from 'Berte'; Tout droit à celui tans que je ci vous devis, Avoit une coustume ens el tiois pays Que tout li grant seignor, li conte et li marchis -('Berte,' 147-156.) Like many other medieval poets, Adenet preached the virtues claimed by the noble classes: honour, valour, generosity, humility, pity, frankness, courtesy, and he anathematised the 'vilain' with his lack of shame, his greed, his indifference to all appeals of honour and disinterestedness. Our poet's chief merit, however, consists not in his utterance of these commonplaces, but in certain of his brief realistic word-pictures, where, as in the following instances, he is most happily inspired. As Ogier and Karahuel the Saracen ride along toward the Christian army, the following conversation takes place between these two men of different faiths, whom circumstance had brought so close together: "Ogier," said Karahuel, "you are going soon to see the place where many a heart yearns for you; you ought to thank your God that, while yet so young, you are so esteemed and loved by all." Ogier replied: "My lord, you are so kindly disposed toward me that it makes you think this to be the case; but if I were such a man as you think me to be, I should be much better than I am." Karahuel continued : "Upon my life, I think all that I say is true, and more. May Mahomet in his goodness grant that you may soon be so minded as to yield your service to him. It is a great pity that you are a Christian." "Rest assured," said Ogier, “that on that point my will is so fixed that my heart can never be shaken." Said Karahuel: "I understand very well what you mean: that you would sooner be cut in pieces than deny your God." "Yes," said Ogier, “that is the truth."' We do not recall in medieval poetry any more tolerant expressions than these. In 'Berte' (1756–73), when Queen Blancheflor traverses France in search for her daughter, she is apprised by all signs that her pseudo-daughter is cordially hated. Note this vivid picture of the tax-ridden peasant and his sullen threat of vengeance : 'Upon the road she met a humble peasant, who, seeing Blancheflor, seized her horse's rein. "Lady, mercy in God's name; about your daughter I have to complain. I had only one horse to help me earn my bread, and keep myself and my wife Margain alive, and my little children, who are now doomed to starve. The horse with which I used to carry the stubble, wood and straw to Paris, cost me sixty sous a year ago. Now she has taken it from me, and God give her an evil morrow! To my sorrow, I fed the horse this winter with my fodder; but by the God who formed Eve from Adam, I will curse her so roundly from morning to night, that I shall have vengeance from the Father above." The lady's pity was aroused, and for grief she felt sick at heart, as she quickly put into his hand a hundred sous; at which he gratefully kissed her stirrup and bridle, saying: "Lady, may God bless you, for now my heart is glad and healed, and I'll not curse Berte any more, so help me Saint Germain!"' Such is the 13th century peasant muttering against his rulers before the Jacquerie, and five hundred years before the Revolution! Shortly before Cléomadès' marriage with Clarmondine (15627 f.) word came to Seville of the death of the bride's mother in Italy. All are concerned to spare her the shock, and yet to acquaint her with her loss before her bereaved father should arrive for the wedding: 'Cléomadès took counsel with his mother . . . and said that they ought to tell her before King Carmans should come, so that she might have time to recover a little before her father saw her.... And the Queen said she would do so after dinner. So, after dinner she took Clarmondine into her bedroom, where Clarmondine's bed stood close beside her own until she should marry Cléomadès and be crowned. The three sisters of Cléomadès slept there too, close by her side. Beside her bed their beds were made, for they wished to show her all the love they could, both for their own and their brother's sake. . . . Lady Ynabele broke to her the truth about her mother's death. Her heart was so filled with pain and grief that she fainted quite away from sorrow when she heard the Queen's words. Grievous was the news to her. But the girls threw their arms about her and did all they could to comfort her. With all their kindly arts they consoled her, so that she was somewhat comforted.' The simple, natural expression of family affection, comparatively rare in medieval literature, is abundantly developed in Adenet's poems, and from it he has obtained some of his best effects. The respective families of King Floire in Hungary, of Aymeri de Narbonne, of Cléomadès and of Clarmondine, seem bound together by no common ties of affection. For example, when Blancheflor, after accompanying Berte on her way to her husband and a new home, finally parts from her, we have this dialogue: ""Daughter, I am going back now, and shall give your love to your brother. If all does not turn out well with you, I shall die of grief. I am going to take away with me this ring from your finger, and shall often kiss it with tearful eyes." "Dear mother," says she, "I feel as if I had a knife thrust into my heart." 'Daughter," says the Queen, choking her emotion, "be joyous and glad; I am delighted that you are going to France. For in no country are the people more gentle and true"' (203-221). 66 Despite the lack of information about the life of Adenet, we are fortunate to have such a corpus of his poetry. From a study of this poetry some idea may be gained of the state of the poetic art and inspiration in France at the end of the 13th century. The narrative poetry which had preceded him had been profoundly impersonal. We do not know, and we are not greatly concerned to know, who put to words the throb of the nation's pulse in the primitive epic songs. Their very impersonality enhances their nationality. Adenet's poems, on the other hand, leave no doubt as to the personal satisfaction which he took in his authorship. Though clinging almost pathetically to the heroes of whom his forerunners had loved to sing, he is, in spite of himself, a member of the new generation, and a victim of new demands in literature. He is a personage with a professional reputation. Of this period of transition A. Lecoy de la Marche has well said: 'At the end of the reign of Saint Louis ... the French race was already fully matured and civilised. Manners were sensibly refined; they were soon to become effeminate. Just as there was still to be found a certain number of knights of the old style, so there was a school of classic poets, so to speak, who still cultivated the great Carolingian epic. But we can see rising a new chivalry, more elegant, more refined and gallant, and this too has its peculiar kind of poetry: namely, the poems of chivalry properly so called-the interminable romances of the Round Table.' ('Le treizième siècle,' p. 184.) From the indistinct background of the Middle Ages this poet projects himself with a real personality. He is still a trouvère, a ‘finder' of legendary lore, but with a grain of art added. We have seen how he found his material and what he did with it. The next few generations witness many changes; among others, history turns irrevocably into prose, and modern personality stands out at last, with lyric or didactic poetry as its expression, in Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps, Alain Chartier, Jean Lemaire, Christine de Pisan, and Charles d'Orléans-the elegant forerunners of the French Renaissance. Gaston Paris has called the 14th and 15th centuries an epoch of transition in literature. But the authors of these centuries look forward rather than backward; they are preparing a new birth rather than burying the dead. Adenet, for his part, is medieval-one of the last craftsmen to try to put old wine into new bottles. When the death of Charles IV brought to a close the direct line of the Capetians in 1328, the curtain was rung down on medieval France and on the school of poetry to which Adenet by inheritance belonged. WILLIAM WISTAR COMFORT. Art. 7. THE TERRITORIAL WATERS AND THE SEA FISHERIES. 1. Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. Annual Report of Proceedings under Acts relating to Sea Fisheries for the year 1911. [Cd 6291.] London: Wyman, 1912. 2. Thirtieth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1911. [Cd 6182.] London: Wyman, 1912. 3. Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries of Ireland for 1911. [Cd 6473.] London: Wyman, 1912. 4. The Sovereignty of the Sea. By T. Wemyss Fulton. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1911. 5. British Fisheries: their administration and their problems. By James Johnstone. London: Williams and Norgate, 1905. No less than three several Committees, appointed by Government, are at the present moment investigating the conditions of our sea fisheries or the regulations under which they are conducted. In June 1912 Mr Asquith appointed a Departmental Committee 'to consider if it be practicable or desirable to extend for fishing purposes the limits of territorial waters, and whether prohibition or further regulation as to the methods or times of sea fishing are desirable, more particularly in relation to trawling for herring, and to report accordingly.' On January 1, 1913, Mr Runciman announced the appointment of another Committee to advise the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on the elucidation through scientific research of problems affecting fisheries. About a month later a third Committee was appointed 'to enquire into the present state of the inshore fisheries and to advise the Board as to the steps which may with advantage be taken for their preservation and development.' The appointment of these Committees raises anew the whole question of fishery administration in the British Isles. To understand properly the bearings of the question of the extension of the territorial waters on the future prosperity of our sea fisheries, a brief summary of the changes that have taken place during |