Stockwell, Oct. 15.
_Langue Pandras._--In the Life of Chaucer prefixed to the Aldine edition
of his poetical works, there is published, for the first time, "a very
interesting ballad," "addressed to him by Eustache Deschamps, a
contemporary French poet," of which I beg leave to quote the first
stanza, in order to give me the opportunity of inquiring the meaning of
"_la langue Pandras_," in the ninth line:
"O Socrates, pleins de philosophie,
Seneque en moeurs et angles en pratique,
Ovides grans en ta poeterie,
Bries en parier, saiges en rethorique,
Aigles tres haulte qui par ta theorique
Enlumines le regne d'Eneas
L'isle aux geans, ceulx de Bruth, et qui as
Semé les fleurs et planté le rosier
Aux ignorans de _la langue Pandras_;
Grant translateur, noble Geoffroy Chaucier."
May I ask, further, whether any particulars are known of this
contemporary and admirer of Chaucer?
I hope I shall not be deemed presumptuous if I add that I should have
doubted of the _genuineness_ of the poem quoted from, if Sir Harris
Nicolas had not stated that it had been communicated to him by "Thomas
Wright, Esq., who received it from M. Paulin Paris," gentlemen in every
way qualified to decide on this point, and being sanctioned by them, I
have no wish to appeal from their judgment.