“ Jean de Meun added an “art of love,” exposing with brutality the vices of women, their arts of deception, and the means by which men may outwit them. Jean de Meun embodied the mocking, sceptical spirit of the fabliaux. He did not share in current superstitions, he had no respect for established institutions, and he scorned the conventions of feudalism and romance. His poem shows in the highest degree, in spite of the looseness of its plan, the faculty of keen observation, of lucid reasoning and exposition, and it entitles him to be considered the greatest of French medieval poets. ”

“ His translation of the De consolatione philosophiae of Boëtius is preceded by a letter to Philip IV. in which he enumerates his earlier works, two of which are lost—De spirituelle amitié from the De spirituali amicitia of Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1166) , and the Livre des merveilles d’Hirlande from the Topographia Hibernica, or De Mirabilibus Hiberniae of Giraldus Cambrensis (Giraud de Barry) . His last poems are doubtless his Testament and Codicille. The Testament is written in quatrains in monorime, and contains advice to the different classes of the community. ”