Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/838

802 F R F R The verses are monotonous ; the thoughts are not without poetical grace, but they are expressed at tedious length. It would be, however, absurd to expect in Froissart the vigour and verve possessed by none of his predecessors. The time was gone when Marie cle France, Ruteboeuf, and Thibaut do Champagne made the 13th century language a medium for verse of which any literature might be proud. Briefly, Froissart s poetry, unless the unpublished portion be better than that before us, is monotonous and me chanical. The chief merit it possesses is in simplicity of diction. This not infrequently produces a pleasing effect. As for the character of his Chronicle, little need be said. There has never been any difference of opinion on the dis tinctive merits of this great work. It presents a vivid and faithful drawing of the things done in the 14th century. No more graphic account exists of any age. No historian has drawn so many and such faithful portraits. They are, it is true, portraits of men as they seemed to the writer, not of men as they were. Froissart was uncritical; he accepted princes by their appearance. Who, for instance, would recognize in his portrait of Gaston Phoebus de Foix the cruel voluptuary, stained with the blood of his own son, which we know him to have been ] Froissart, again, had no sense of historical responsibility ; he was no judge to inquire into motives and condemn actions ; he was simply a chronicler. He has been accused by French authors of lacking patriotism. Yet it must be remembered that he was neither a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but a Fleming. He has been accused of insen sibility to suffering. Indignation against oppression was not, however, common in the 14th century; why demand of Froissart a quality which is rare enough even in our own time 1 Yet there are moments when, as in describing the massacre of Limoges, he speaks with tears in his voice. Let him bo judged by his own aims. "Before I com mence this book," he says, " I pray the Saviour of all the world, who created every thing out of nothing, that He will also create and put in me sense and understanding of so much worth, that this book, which I have begun, I may con tinue and persevere in, so that all those who shall read, see, and hear it may find in it delight and pleaaance." To give delight and pleasure, then, was his sole design. As regards his personal character, Froissart depicts it himself for us. Such as ho was in youth, he tells us, so he remained in more advanced life; rejoicing mightily in dances and carols, in hearing minstrels and poems ; inclined to love all those who love dogs and hawks ; pricking up his ears at the uncorking of bottles, " Car au voire prens grand plaisir;" pleased with good cheer, gorgeous apparel, and joy ous society, but no commonplace reveller or greedy volup tuary, -everything in Froissart was ruled by the good manners which he set before all else ; and always eager to listen to tales of war and battle. As we have said above, he shows, not only by his success at courts, but also by the whole tone of his writings, that he possessed a singularly winning manner and strong personal character. He lived wholly in the present, and had no thought of the coming changes Born when chivalrous ideas were most widely spread, but the spirit of chivalry itself, as inculcated by the best writers, in its decadence, he is penetrated with the sense of knightly honour, and ascribes to all his heroes alike those qualities which only the ideal knight possessed. The first edition of Froissart was published in Paris. It bears no date; the next editions are those of the years 1505, 1514, 1518, and 520. _Thc best and most complete edition is that of Buehon, 1824, Which ia a continuation of one commenced by Dacier. An abridg ment ^was made in Latin, by Belleforest, and published in 1672. An English translation was made by Bourchier, Lord Berners, and published in London, 1525. The translation now in use is that made by Thomas Jolmes, and originally published in 1802- (W, BE.) FROME, a parliamentary borough and market town of Somersetshire, is situated on the small river Frome, an affluent of the Avon, 11 miles S. of Bath. It was formerly called Frome Selwood, from its situation on the borders of the extensive forest of Selwood. The river is crossed at Frome by a stone bridge of five arches. The town is ir regularly built on an acclivity, and the older streets, with the exception of the principal one, are somewhat narrow and irregular. The parish church is an elegant edifice in the later Gothic style, with a tower and a fine octagonal spire 120 feet in height, and the church of St Marys, a fine structure in the First Pointed style, was erected in 1864. The other public buildings of importance are the market- house, and the museum. Among the educational and charitable institutions are the free grammar school, founded in the time of Edward VI., the national school, the asylum for the education and maintenance of 25 poor girls, the blue-coat school, and the almshouses for old men and women. Frome also possesses a literary institute, a mechanics 7 institute, and a school of art. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the manufacture of broadcloth and other fine woollens, but there are also foundries, wire-card manufactories, and edge-tool works, and the town has been long noted for its ale. The vicinity is fertile and pictur esque, and is ornamented with numerous fine mansions. Frome returns a member to parliament. The population in 1871 was 9753. FROMENTIN, EUGKNE (1820-1876), French painter, was born at LaRochelle in December 1820. After leaving school he studied for some years under Louis Cabat, the landscape painter. Fromentin was one of the earliest pictorial interpreters of Algeria, having been able, while quite young, to visit the land and people that suggested the subjects of most of his works, and to store his memory as well as his portfolio with the picturesque and charac teristic details of North African life. In 1849 he obtained a medal of the second class. In 1852 he paid a second visit to Algeria, accompanying an archaeological mission, and then completed that minute study of the scenery of the country and of the habits of its people which enabled him to give to his after work the realistic accuracy that comes from intimate knowledge. In a certain sense his works are not more artistic results than contribu tions to ethnological science. His first great success was produced at the Salon of 1847, by the Gorges de la Chiffa. Among his more important works are La Place de la Breche a Constantino, 1849 ; Enterrement Maure, 1853 ; Bateleurs Negres and Audience chez un Chalife, 1859; Berger Kabyle and Courriers Arabes, 1861 ; Bivouac Arabe, Chasse au Faucon, Fauconnier Arabe (now at the Luxembourg), 1863 ; Chasse au Heron, 1865; Voleurs de Nuit, 1867; Centaurs and Arabes attaqucis par une Lionnc, 1868 ; Halte de Muletiers, 1869 ; Le Nil and Un Souvenir d Esneh, 1875. Fromentin was much influenced in style by Eugene Delacroix. His works are distinguished by striking com position, great dexterity of handling, and brilliancy of colour. In them is given with great truth and refine ment the unconscious grandeur of barbarian and animal attitudes and gestures. His later works, however, show signs of an exhausted vein, and of an exhausted spirit, accompanied or caused by physical enfeeblement. But it must be observed that Fromentin s paintings show only one side of a genius that was perhaps even more felicitously expressed in literature, though of course with less profu sion. "Dominique," first published in the Revue des Deux Maudes in 1862, and dedicated to George Sand, is remarkable among the fictions of the century for delicate and imaginative observation and for emotional earnestness. Fromentin s other literary works are Visites Artistiquea, 1852; Simvles Pthrinagcs, 1856; Untiti dans k Sahara,