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and obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a mofi: amufingly T-Mifical
account of the condition and manners of the fcholars of that time. Soon
convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the univerfity
in deipair, and he refolves to enter one of the monaflic Orders, the
charafter of all which he paffes in review. The greater part of the poem
conIiIi:s of a very bitter fatire on the corruptions of the monkifh Orders
and of the Church in general. While {till hefitating which Ofdivf t0
choofe, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old mailer, from whom he
had run away in order to feek his fortune in the World, and he is
compelled to pafs the reit of his days in the fame humble and fewile
condition in which he had begun them.
A more direet imitation of " Reynard the Fox " is found in the early
French romance of" Fauvel," the hero of which is neither a fox nor an afs,
but a horfe. People of all ranks and claH'es repair to the court of Fauvel,
the horfe, and furnifh abundant matter for fatire on the moral, political,
and religious hypocrify which pervaded the whole frame of fociety. At
length the hero refolves to marry, and, in a finely illuminated manufcript
of this romance, preferved in the Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage
furnifhes the fubject of a picture, which gives the only reprclentation I
have met with of one of the popular burlefque ceremonies which were fo
common in the middle ages.
Among other fuch ceremonies, it was cuftomary with the populace,
on the occaiion of a man's or womanls fecond marriage, or an ill-forted
match, or on the efpoufals of people who were obnoxious to their
neighbours, to allemble outfide the houfe, and greet them with difcordant
Inufic. This cuftom is faid to have been practifed efpecially in France,
and it was called a clzarivari. There is {till a laft remnant of it in our
country in the mufic of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the
marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation of the
French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin documents,
for it gave rife to fuch fcandalous fcenes of riot and licentiousneis, that
the Church did all it could, though in vain, to fupprefs it. The earlieft
mention of this cutiorn, furnilhed in the Glqjhrium of Ducange, is
contained in the fynodal itatutes of the church of Avignon, paifed in the
Year