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different countries to which they belong, it is not meant to attempt learned disquisitions on obscure subjects, which the author has neither opportunity nor information sufficient to enable him to fathom. The object of this volume is merely to exhibit some specimens of the early lyric poets of Germany, illustrated at the same time by a few selections from the Troubadour schools of other countries, so as to enable the reader to form some judgement of their comparative merits and influence on the poetic literature of modern Europe.

The selections are offered with diffidence, as the result of hours rather of amusement and leisure from graver pursuits than of laborious research. Strictly speaking, the field belongs to the professed antiquary; and to him it may be thought should properly be left the exposition of its objects of interest and curiosity but a casual wanderer may be suffered sometimes to enter the appropriated ground; and if he pluck a few of its wild flowers by the way, and venture yet further (in the absence of more experienced guides) to point out their beauties and talk of the scenes in which they grew and flourished, who will altogether condemn him?

The middle ages have never appeared to the author to be "a blank in the history of the human mind," or a period of which it may with truth be said, that art and science had perished "that their resurrection might

appear something more wonderful and sublime." We cannot take one step in the examination of the feelings, customs and literature of that singular epoch, which will not add somewhat to the ardour of our curiosity, and fill us with a deeper interest in the march of that intellect in whose fashionless beginnings we trace the elements of a new and nobler frame of society. This period stands indeed as a mighty barrier between two worlds: the social and political institutions of the old were falling into decay, and the new was putting forth the vigorous shoots of opening promise; the inventive genius of man was every where expanding; Rome and Greece had sunk into second childhood, while barbarians were training up to firm and intellectual manhood.

In contemplating the manners and early institutions of these new actors on the stage of human affairs abstractedly, we may see much to disapprove and little to applaud; yet the most questionable of their policies have ripened into results so unexpectedly beneficial as to make even the deformities of their infancy interesting. The shades of the picture of society are dark and often revolting; but its lights are bright, and beam a cheering and reviving influence.

The wholesome animating influence of the Gothic tribes upon European literature, intellect and policy is every where apparent. Under Theodoric appeared the opening of a healthful system, though it was

for a time retarded by the renewed ascendancy of the slothful empire of the East. When the lights of knowledge again appeared, they were found in the remote regions of the North, in the cloisters of Ireland and Scotland. The Saxons speedily caught the spirit of inquiry, and from them it found its way to France and Germany, where the noble example of another Teutonic monarch, Charlemagne, roused a creative national genius, which manifested itself in the cultivation of the vernacular language in preference to a corrupted Latin. With him must be ranked the glory of our own land, the great and virtuous Alfred, the proper father of English literature. From the time of these worthies we may date a steady progress in the formation of the modern languages, and their gradual adaptation to the purposes of a new school of literature.

The 11th, 12th and 13th centuries form a great period of fermentation, during which the elements of European civilization were separating and fashioning themselves for the reception of new forms. Principles were yet crude and indigested, but feeling was every where strong. The fervour of religious zeal often misled the mind and inflamed the passions; yet we should not forget that this religion was the medium of civilization, the guardian angel that watched over the walls of the sanctuaries of learning, shielding them from the devastations of ignorant and lawless power,

The wild dreams of chivalry outraged common sense; yet in an age when might would have been right, it turned the arm of power itself into a protection for the defenceless*, controlled those for whom there was as yet no other law, and mellowed in the process of time into that principle of honourable courtesy which forms the ornament and cement of modern society. The servile worship of the female sex may raise a smile, and the solemn manner in which this "prostration of the understanding and the will" was carried on may excite a momentary feeling of contempt; yet this was the beginning of that important revolution in society, which, however extravagant in its commencement, fixed on the firm basis of religious justice the destinies of one half of the human race. We may laugh at the whimsical folly which

* A good picture of a character formed on chivalric principles is drawn by Herbers, a poet of the 13th century, in Dolopatos:

Onkes ne trouva en sa vie
Son pareil de chevalerie;
Les uns par armes sorprenoit,
Les autres par dons qu'il donoit,
Les autres par belles paroles;
C'est un ars ki maint home afole.
As pauvres gens qui le doutoient
Et qui a lui sougiet estoient,
Estoit si dous et debonere
Com s'il nul mal ne seust fere;
Plus fu lor pere que lor sire
Ce puis-je bien par raison dire.

suddenly transformed women from slaves into goddesses, mighty to save and omnipotent to destroy; but the fetters which kings, emperors and warriors thus voluntarily forged for themselves held them in no ungentle thraldom: they felt themselves tamed and humanized they knew not how or why; they were taught to respect one another, and thus they gradually learnt to respect themselves. Public opinion now came to be regarded as of importance, and even Courts of love may in this view have had a beneficial operation; for any thing was good that raised a countervailing power to curb the injustice of the strong, and bring mankind within the control of social regulations and conventional discipline. A writer of Sirventes, who acted honestly and fearlessly up to the impartial principle laid down by the Troubadour Pons Barba,

Sirventes no es leials,

S'om no i ausa dir los mals
Dels menors e dels comunals,
E maiorment dels maiorals:

must have been a powerful agent upon society for the production of good, in days when poetry exercised so strong an influence. The conduct of the politic emperors of Germany in encouraging it as a counterpoise to the encroachments of ignorant superstition and of papal enthralment, will show the value they attached to that influence; and the resistance from

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