SOURCE: "Poets of the French Renaissance: Villon," in The Living Age, Vol. XX, No. 3089, September 19, 1903, pp. 763-65.

At the turn of the century Belloc was one of England's premier literary figures. His characteristically truculent stance as a proponent of Roman Catholicism and economic reform—and his equally characteristic clever humor—drew either strong support or harsh attacks from his audience, but critics have found common ground for admiration in his poetry. W. H. Auden called Belloc and his longtime collaborator G. K. Chesterton the best lightverse writers of their era, with Belloc's Cautionary Tales (1907) considered by some his most successful work in the genre. Here, Belloc compares and contrasts the medieval and renaissance qualities of Villon's poetry.

I have said that in Charles of Orleans the middle ages are at first more apparent than the advent of the Renaissance. His forms are inherited from an earlier time, his...