sionally interspersed with combats and battles, which seem to have been mightily to the taste of the bulk of mankind in all ages. Those two works having been translated into the vulgar tongue of every nation in Europe, were read with extreme avidity by those who could read, and listen. ed to with wondering attention by those who could not. They produced different effects on different dispositions and in different climates. That they should excite a general enthusiasm for arms and adventure, was to be expected but that the martial gallantry they encouraged should, even in the most luxurious climate in Europe, be refined and sublimated into that enthusiastic species of love which was felt or affected by some of the Troubadours of Provence, was what could hardly have been i, magined.

Those men were called Troubadours, or inventors, from their inventing poetical romances and songs, which an inferior class, called Jongleurs, sung to the harp at feasts and solemnities. They sung of war and battles; of the wonderful adventures of knights; of the beauty and virtues of damsels. As they adorned those damsels with every possible grace and accomplishment, the poet sometimes fell in love with the creature of his own ima gination, and continued to make sonnets and love-songs on women who existed nowhere else; and if any of them afterwards met with a lady more interesting than usual, all the virtues and graces which he had collected in his sonnets, for the use of his ideal mistress, were applied to this real lady, whom perhaps he would continue to cele brate in his poems for years. Thus it often happened among the Troubadours, that instead of love making the poet, the poet made the love. Many have believed that this was the case with Petrarch.

But however that may be, the works of the Trouba dours came every day more into vogue. The profession was highly respected; and the most distinguished of those who followed it were cherished in private society, and great favourites at the courts. They were even freed

from taxes. Some sovereign princes became so intoxicat ed with the works of the Troubadours, that they were vain of being inrolled in their number. The most eminent of these was Richard I of England. This prince had a passionate taste for poetry. He had composed some poetical romances, and was afterwards the subject of many; par, ticularly of one, entitled, The Romance of Richard Cœur de Lion, which, with added fictions, celebrates his warlike exploits during his crusade. From this poem Mr. Thomas Warton gives several extracts. In that which describes the duel between Richard and the Soldan, at the siege of Babylon, it is said of the latter,

A faucon brode in honde he bare

For he thoght he wolde thare

Have slayne Richarde with treasowne.

The learned gentleman imagines, that by this faucon brode is meant a hawk; and that the Soldan is represented with this bird on his fist, to shew his indifference or contempt for the adversary with whom he was going to fight. Mr. Warton supports this conjecture by mentioning a curious Gothic picture, the subject of which is supposed to be this same duel; and some very old tapestry, on which heroes are represented on horseback with hawks on their fists. He adds, that in fedual times, no gentleman appeared on horseback but with a hawk so placed. But with all due respect to the authority of the picture and tapestry, and all possible deference to Mr. Warton's opinion, I cannot help thinking that the faucon brode signified a broad faulchion which the Soldan had in his hand, with which he certainly had a better chance of killing Richard than with a hawk on his fist, unless indeed the Soldan had reason to expect the same assistance from his hawk that Valerius Corvus received from the crow, in his duel with the Gaul.†

In the same poem we are informed that Richard car,

History of English Poetry, p. 166.

Vid. Tit. Livii Histor. lib. vij.

ried a battle-axe from England, that made him more than a match for the Soldan.

King Richarde I understonde

Or he went out of Engelonde

Let him make an axe for the nones
To brake therewith the Saracyns bones,
The heed was wrought right well
Therein was twenti bounde of stele.
And when he come into Cypros londe
The axe toke he in his honde
All that he hytte he all to frapped

The Gryffons away faste rapped.

But nothing in this poem can give a higher notion of the terror with which Richard's prowess had struck the infidels than what is recorded, in plain prose, by Joinville, that when the Saracens were riding, and their horses started at any unusual object, they said to their horses, spurring them at the same time, Et cuides tu que ce soit le roy Richart?

What contributed, as much as the favour of princes, to prompt young men to become Troubadours, was the great favour with which they were beheld by the ladies; many of whom were exceedingly solicitous to have those poets for their lovers, merely for the pleasure of being celebrated in their poems. That the avowed passion of a Troubadour, and his addressing love-sonnets to a lady, was not injurious to her reputation, or, at least, that many husbands were of this opinion, is evident, for the husbands in general were as vain of having a Troubadour attached to their ladies, as the ladies themselves could be. It is highly probable, therefore, that this species of attachment of a Troubadour to the married lady he chose for the theme of his poetry laid the foundation for the Cicisbeism of modern Italy.

The compositions of those Provençal poets were numerous, and some of them contained the best specimens of writing of the age; yet they would have perhaps for ever remained in the oblivion into which they had fallen, had it not been for M. de Sainte Palaye, of the Academy

of Inscriptions at Paris, by whom the literary history of the Troubadours was written.

A few manuscripts which he found in the library of the king of France, respecting this subject, seem to have excited his curiosity; and understanding that there were many more in Italy, he went to that country for the express purpose of examining them. Having obtained from the Pope free access to those manuscripts, he found the collection immense. In the abridgment that was made, some account of the lives of a considerable number of Troubadours is given, with as much of their compositions as was thought to contain any poetical merit, or tended to give an idea of the genius of the age in which they were written. Whatever seemed ridiculous or indecent was omitted. To too many of the originals the latter epithet was justly to be applied.

It is natural to imagine, that a more genuine notion of the customs, manners, and prevailing opinions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries will be gathered from the writings of men who mixed with the world, and visited different countries, than from the chronicles of monks, secluded from mankind, and whose minds were contracted by local and professional prejudices. The monkish chronicles treat only of public events, or of the pretended miracles of saints; the writings of the Troubadours give a view of domestic society. The works of poets often have this advantage over those of historians. In the compositions of the Troubadours, lively and even sublime images are to be found. They treat sometimes of warlike, at other times of religious subjects; and when the poem is intended to animate the prince and people to regain the sepulchre of Christ from the infidels, it is at once warlike and religious. Some of those compositions are boldly satirical on sovereign princes; and, what in that age required still more intrepidity, they even attack the vices of priests. Others are cruelly severe on the women: but in general they are full of the praises of the fair sex, and sometimes that praise swells to profanity.

It seems a little surprising, that the husbands in those days, and in a country so near to Spain, should have been so very much at their ease while those Troubadours, some of them in the flower of youth, and remarkably handsome, were singing love-songs to their wives. They were lulled into this security, perhaps, by the Platonic sentiments occasionally transfused into their verses; for the passion of several of the Troubadours seems to have been of so refined and spiritual a nature, that the husband might think he had as little to fear from them as from any singers whatever. The lover sometimes dwells with such persevering praise on the virtue of chastity, that however tender-hearted his mistress naturally might be, she must have thought herself obliged to continue cruel, on purpose to please him.

After declaring that the lady of his choice inflames his heart and transports his soul, one of those fervent lovers requests that she will permit him to kiss her gloves; and adds, that he never would presume to ask a higher mark of her favour.

In a poem of William of Montagnogout, addressed to his mistress, are the following sentiments.

• That man cannot love, nor ought to be beloved, who asks of his mistress what virtue condemns. It is desire, not love, that seeks the dishonour of virtue. A loyal lover is never attached from passion, but from tenderness and reason. Never did I form a wish that could wound the heart of my beloved! No pleasure could be a delight to me that reflected on her delicacy.'

However excellent this doctrine is in itself, it seems extraordinary that it should have been inculcated by a set of men whose mistresses were generally other men's wives.

What is recorded of some of those Troubadours seems as extraordinary as the adventures of any of the heroes of romance. Of this the reader may judge, from a few examples which I shall abridge from their literary history. Pons de Capdueil united the advantages of high birth, a fine figure, a great fortune, to that of a talent for poet