His infancy armouncedwhat he would one day be. Hé early marrifefted that eager and inquifitive mind which\ during the courfe of his life, never allowed him to remain long attached to the fame occupations, nor to continue long in the fame place; The different games fuitable to that age, of which he gives ^us a picture equally curious and amufing, kept up in his mind'a natural propenfity to diffipation, which during his early ftudies moft have tried the patience, as well .as exercifed the feverity of his matters. ' He loved hunting, mufic, aflèmblies, feafts, dancing, drefs, good living, wine and women : thefe taftes, which almoft all fliowed themfelves from twelve years of age, being confirmed by habit, were continued even to his old age, and perhaps never left him. Neither the ferious thoughts nor the affections of Troiûart being yet fufficiently engaged,- his love for hiftory filled up the void which his paffion for pleafure left, and became to » him an inexhauftible fource of amufement.. He had juft left fchool, and was fcareely twenty years old, when, at the entreaty of his * dear lord and patron fir Robert de Namur, knight, Tord of. Beaufort,' he undertook to write the hiftory of tht wars of his own time,, more particularly of thofe which enfued after the battle of Poitiers. Four years afterwards, having gone to England, he prefeuted a part of this hiftory to queen Philippa of Hainauit, the confort of Edward HI, Young as he then was, he had already travelled into the moft diftaot provinces of France. The object of his vifit to England was to tear himfelf from an attachment which had tormented him for a long time; This paffion took pouefiton of his heart from his infancy : it lafted ten years; and fparks of it were again •. rekindled in a more advanced age,.' u fpite of his bald head, and grey, hairs.* When poets fing their loves* they are not always believed on their word: as Froiflàrt only mentions his in poetry, all he lays may be treated as pure fiction; but the portrait he draws is fb- natural, that we-cannot-but acknowledge the character of a young man in love, and the fimple expreffions of a real paffion. He feigns that when twelve years old Mercury appeared to hinv followed by the three goddjeflb whofe diflèrence Paris had formerly decided;