life, he had roved through the fairy regions of the East, and had held his court in the poetic lands of the South of Europe; but while he admired the songs of the Provençaux, he loved and cultivated the muse of his native land; he rigidly enforced the use of its language for all court and state purposes; and Germany has to thank his patriotic hand for stimulating her sons to a literary emulation of their cotemporaries.

His niece Richilda having married Raymond Berengar III. count of Provence, Frederic became intimately connected with that court; and Nostradamus relates how, on the confirmation at Turin, in 1162, of the investiture of Provence, "l'illustre Remond Berenguier, (dict le jeune Comte de Barcelonne, et de Provence, fils de Berenguier Remond fils troisième de Doulce Comtesse de Provence,) accompagné d'une grande trouppe d'orateurs et poëtes Provensaux et des gentils-hommes de sa cour, avec la princesse Rixende ou Richilde sa femme, vint trouver l'Empereur, qui lui feist une grande bien-venue pour la bonne renommée de ses faits.-E le Comte Remond Berenguier feist reciter plusieurs beaux chants en langue Provensalle a ses poëtes en la presence de l'Empereur; lequel, du plaisir qu'il y print, estant esbay de leurs belles et plaisantes inventions et façon de rithmer, leur feist de beaux presens et feist une epigramme en langue Provensalle à la louange des toutes les nations qu'il avoit suyvies en ses victoires,

H

au quel epigramme il loue la langue Provensalle, di

sant ainsi ;

Plas my cavallier Francés,

E la donna Catallana,

E l'onrar del Gynoés,

E la cour de Kastellana,
Lo cantar Provensallés,

E la dansa Trevizana,
E lo corps Aragonés,

E la perla (?) Julliana,
Los mans e cara d'Anglés,

E lo donzel de Thuscana."

The sense, though it is not very clear to what some of the lines refer, may be thus expressed :

I like a cavalier Francés'

And a Catalonian dame;
The courtesy of the Genoese,
And Castilian dignity;

The Provence songs my ears to please,
And the dance of the Trevisan;
The graceful form of the Arragoneze,
And the pearl (?) of the Julian;
An English hand and face to see,
And a page of Tuscany.

This little piece is curious as a commentary on the manners of the age. It has by some been ascribed to Frederic II.; but probability is much in favour of its being composed by (or, as may perhaps be suspected, for) the elder Emperor. His successors were all brought up more or less in the habits and literature of foreign lands, and were themselves composers in

more than one language. The epigram better suits the position of one who came fresh into the busy scene, and took a panoramic view of the objects that struck his attention; regarding the prospect around him as from a centre, without identifying himself with any part of it. Frederic I. was a very popular prince, and his memory is still preserved and connected with many local traditions. The ruins of his palace at Gelnhausen are said still to carry with them the traditional attachment of the neighbourhood; and even in the dark recesses of the Hartz forest, the legend places him in a subterranean palace in the caverns of the Kyffhaus mountain, his beard flowing on the ground, and himself reposing in a trance upon his marble throne, awakening only at intervals to reward any votary of song who seeks his lonely court.

Henry VI. partook of his father's spirit, and was himself a Minnesinger. But Frederic II. was the most ardent patron of literature. He was educated in Sicily, and his active exertions were directed towards imparting to his German subjects the benefit of the Southern schools. In Italy, where he almost constantly resided, he revived the academy of Salernum, promoted the study of Grecian and Arabic learning, and called to his court the most celebrated poets, orators and philosophers of the age. We have already seen one of his attempts in Italian song, of which he and his chancellor may be properly stiled

the founders, though it must be confessed that he does not personally appear calculated to shine as a poet. He was also a writer in the Provençal tongue; and that his exertions in exciting a literary taste in Germany were successful is amply proved by the numerous writers who adorned his reign.

He, too, took a part in the wars of the Holy Land; and it is perhaps not discreditable to him, that while other monarchs marched as slaves, obedient to the will of the bishop of Rome, and under the promise of a heavenly recompense, Frederic toiled with no other reward than the ban of excommunication. His prudent policy, in spite of the treachery and calumny of the church, achieved more for the cause of the Christian armies than the exertions of the most favoured and bigoted of their leaders. His fault, says Denina, was, that "he knew not how to adapt himself to the opinions of the age: perhaps the force of political circumstances was opposed to his vast designs, and thus it was that the glory he acquired was far beneath what his rare talents were capable of achieving." "Had he but been a true Catholic," says the Dominican Salimbene, "and loved God, and the church, and his own soul, few of the rulers of this world would have been worthy to have been accounted equal unto him."

Some valuable memorials of this great monarch's talents and zeal for the promotion of knowledge sur

vive in the correspondence of his learned chancellor Pietro delle Vigne, or Petrus de Vineis,

Pietro, whom we have already seen associated with his master in Italian song, was an able political coadjutor, and annoyed the court of Rome with energetic replies to its bulls, comprising and anticipating many of the most weighty arguments which the reformers long afterwards employed against the temporal power and corruption of the church. His untimely fate left a stain on Frederic's fame; but historians seem agreed that he was falsely accused, and that the Emperor, when too late, lamented the precipitate credulity with which he had listened to the treacherous arts employed by their mutual enemies.

Misfortunes fell frequent and heavy on the succeeding members of the house of Suabia. Conrad IV. struggled vainly against the storm; and Conrad the Younger, or Conradin, another Minnesinger, succeeded to the crown of Sicily and Naples only to be murdered on the scaffold, in 1268, by the united efforts of the Pope and Charles of Anjou. Both these monarchs, even in the midst of their troubles, retained their poetic taste; and Conradin's funeral anthem was sung by the Troubadour Barthelemi Zorgi, "un gentils home de la ciutat de Venise."