"unmistakeable traits" of Fletcher's hand, and that, by whomsoever written,
is about the weakest in the whole play.

It is a branch of the subject which I have not yet fully considered; but
MR. SPEDDING will observe that the view I take does not interfere with the
supposition that Fletcher revised the play, {403} with additions for its
revival in 1613; a task for the performance of which he would probably have
the consent of his early master.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

* * * * *

ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. IX.

_Eustache Deschamps._ Except in the two centuries next after the conquest,
contemporaneous French notices of early English writers seem to be of
rather infrequent occurrence.

On this account, and on other accounts, the ballad addressed to Geoffrey
Chaucer by Eustache Deschamps deserves repetition. Its text requires to be
established, in order that we may be aware of its real obscurities--for no
future memoir of Chaucer can be considered as complete, without some
reference to it.

The best authorities on Eustache Deschamps are MM. Crapelet, Raynouard, and
Paulin Paris. To M. Crapelet we are indebted for the publication of
_Poésies morales et historiques d'Eustache Deschamps_; to M. Raynouard, for
an able review of the volume in the _Journal des Savants_; and to M. Paulin
Paris, for an account of the manuscript in which the numerous productions