the ancient southern tongue with the following specimen of the modern Languedocien spoken at Nismes, which is said to be more harmonious than the dialect of Provence, Cevennes, or even Montpellier. It is a translation of the 37th ode of Anacreon [from "Odes d' Anacréon, traduites en vers Languedociens par Le Cen Aubanel l'ainé-à Nismes, an. 10."], and has more of the Troubadour spirit than of faithfulness to the original.

Tenen la sesoun de l'amour,

Eiço n'en senblo uno aoutro vido,
Lou gai printen es de retour,
Dujà sa grasso es espandido.

L'aiguo es lindo coumo l'arjen;
L'agralio a gagna la mountanio;
Vesés lou pouli ver neissen
Que couvris touto la canpanio.

Lou sourel es aou e luzis,
Ven l'escanpilia leis ourages,
Sa presenço leis enclaouzis,
Escoubo touteis leis nuajes.
La tero se couvris de flous,
E leis renouvelo à touto ouro
Leis aoubres chanjou seis colous
L'oulivo nai, la vigno plouro.
L'iroundelo a passa la mar,
A fa soun nis, es in familio;
Vesés cabussa lou canar,
Entendés l'aoussel que brezilio.

Tou cantejo, tou es counten,
Tou fai l'amour sus nosto tero,
E la vengudo d'aou printen
N'a fa lou peïs de Citero.

of

The selections in this volume are generally confined to the love-pieces, as illustrative of the songs the Minnesingers. A complete estimate of the varied character of a Troubadour knight can only be formed by tracing its bold lineaments in his various works; one while breathing the fire of martial glory, animating his followers on to heroic enterprise; another time turning his muse into a powerful political engine, that shook the thrones of kings, or made profligate churchmen tremble in their corrupt hypocrisy, and yet soon afterwards melting into the soft and luxuriant harmony of a chanson.

Such was Bertrand de Born,-restless, ambitious, and impetuous in his counsels,-a faithless friend and a rebellious subject. From his castle of Hautefort he sent forth lyrics which bade defiance to France, England and Spain, while his biting satires excited distrust and divisions among his enemies. At another time he rushed to arms, and carried havoc among the vassals of Philip Augustus, and of Henry II., in whose family he was perpetually sowing discords, and making

il padre e'l figlio in se ribelli:
Achitophel non fe piu d' Assalone,
E di Dauid, co malvaggi punzelli.

DANTE, INF. c. 28.

Among our selections will be found one of the songs with which this extraordinary being stimulated the appetite of his followers for blood and war, in

strains almost as sanguinary as the funeral anthem of Regner Lodbrok : and yet it will be seen in a subsequent specimen that the same fierce spirit could, when it suited him, "turn to words of love," and sigh out a plaintive ditty-a "dolz pleurai "—at the feet of his mistress.

It has been usual to mark a broad line of distinction between the productions of the Northern and Southern schools of early French poetry, between the writers in the Langue d'oeil and the Langue d'oc. The Provençaux are supposed to have confined themselves to their love-lyrics, pastorals, tensons, and sirventes; while the Normans are stated to have devoted themselves as entirely to romances, lais, and fabliaux. Both assumptions are probably equally incorrect; and we shall hereafter see that the Northern school was almost as prolific as the Southern, in what are usually considered as the peculiar characteristics of the latter, though few specimens of this class of Northern poetry have as yet been published: and there is as little doubt that the Provençaux were the authors of very many tales and romances, although hitherto few of such productions have reached us in the Southern language. It is strange indeed that these latter subjects should be supposed never to have been handled by the very class of men who, we are told almost in the same breath, took a prominent part in introducing into Europe (as the spoils of the

Crusades, or the results of their contiguity to the Spanish Arabs,) the splendid ornaments of romantic fiction, the gay tales and fairy imagery of the East. The most popular or fashionable effusions of the Provençaux seem undoubtedly to have been the lyric and amatory. No where did the courts of love, which M. Raynouard traces up beyond the commencement of the 12th century, obtain such sway as in Provence and Catalonia; and their influence probably directed the talents of the poet to kindred topics. But that the Troubadours neglected the celebration of warlike gests and romantic adventure, or that they abstained from amusing their hearers with tales of fiction, cannot be believed in any sort of consistency with probability or with direct historic testimony. "Il n'y avoit maison noble en Provence," says Nostradamus, "qu'elle n'eust un registre en forme de Romant, auquel estoyent descripts les hauts faicts et gestes de leurs ancestres en langage Provençal." These too have perished, but we do not on that account entertain any doubts of their having once existed.

The tale of the Parroquet, very briefly told by Mr. Dunlop, but now published in the elegant and spirited language of the original by M. Raynouard, and the fabliau "Castia Gilos" of Raymond Vidal, cannot have been singular instances. Several fragments of longer romances survive, and innumerable refe

rences to others exist in the published poetry of the Troubadours*; and it is not probable that they contented themselves with perusing their favourite works of amusement in a foreign tongue. The beautiful tale of " Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelone" was undoubtedly first written in Provençal by Bernard de Treviez, canon of Maguelone, in the 12th century; and in this form it must have been, that Petrarch "polit et donna des graces nouvelles" to this delightful tale. The French romance is only a version, printed first at Lyons in 1457, and, as the title confesses, then "mis en cestui languaige."

Arnaud Daniel, a Troubadour poet, who, in the opinion of Dante,

versi d'amore e prose de romanzi

Soverchiò tutti

* Pierre de Vidal, indeed, expressly mentions the repetition of romances and lays as one of the regular qualifications of a Troubadour joglar,