"Two customes had this Virago (call her now John or Joan), which can no way be defended: one was her constant going in man's clothes, flatly against Scripture; beside she shaved her hair in the fashion of a Frier, against God's express word: it being also a solecism in nature, all women being born votaries and the veil of their long hair minds them of their obedience they naturally owe to man: yea, without this comely ornament of hair, their most glorious beauty appears as deformed, as the sun would be prodigious without beams."
I have placed the death of Salisbury later, and of the Talbots earlier than these events occurred, and I believe these to be the only liberties taken with facts. The fall of the bridge at Orleans, a circumstance that the reader might deem invention, is historically true. The ninth book is the Original Sin of the poem. That it is a defect, I am myself sensible; but it is not uncommon at the age of twenty-one for the imagination to out-run the judgment. For the sake of variety, I thought it essential to introduce rough lines occasionally, and this I mention, lest some might suspect me of carelessness. Such as it is, the poem is before the world. I shall not witness its reception, and it will be long before the tidings will reach me in a distant part of Europe. Liberal criticism I shall attend to, and I hope profit by, in the execution of my Madoc, an Epic Poem on the discovery of America by that Prince, on which I am at present engaged. From line 121 to 131 in the tenth Book, of my writing, has been seen already by the public in another work; but as it is at present out of print and improbable that another edition will appear: on account of the appropriate sentiments they contained, I did not scruple to place them in their present situation.
M. Laverdy is now occupied in collecting whatever has been written concerning the Maid of Orleans. The result of his enquiries I anxiously expect. Of the various productions to the memory of JOAN of ARC, I have collected only a few titles, and if report may be trusted, need not fear a heavier condemnation than to be deemed equally bad. A regular Canon of St. Euverte has written un tres mauvaise poeme, intitled, The Modern Amazon. There is a prose tragedy called La Pucelle D'Orleans, variously attributed to Benserade, to Boyer, and to Menardiere. The Abbe Daubignee published a prose tragedy
