There has been no greater artist in French verse, as there has been no greater poet; and the main part of the history of poetry in France is the record of a long forgetting of all that Villon found out for himself.

Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.

But where is last year's snow? This was the greatest care that Villon, the Parisian poet, took.

The Large Testament is a hurly-burly of cynical and sentimental reflections about life, jesting legacies to friends and enemies, and, interspersed among these …