French, for the edification of the Queen of France, to whom his work was dedicated, as well as of all others, who might not understand the Provensal language. This language, according to his own account, had, in 1575, the time this book was published, degenerated into a sort of patois, the obscure unwritten dialect of a province, abandoned to the illiterate. It would appear, however, that some of its original beauty and purity was to be observed in the metrical compositions current in the mouths of the people, for the author says in his preface

"In the church of St. Saviour of Aix, and throughout all the diocese thereto appertaining, they sing, on the feast and day of Stephen the martyr, a hymn in our Provensal language. And in what choice expression, and beautiful rhithm, are composed the seven penitential psalms, sung by those who go begging alms from door to door, than which no finer verses were ever made."-p. 17.

We are told by Moreri, in his Historical Dictionary, that this John of Nostradamus, for a period of many years exercised the profession of procureur or attorney, at the parliament of Provence, with great diligence and reputation. The following eulogium of the Provensal laws, is therefore entitled to some credit, as coming from one who was well acquainted with the subject, though we cannot be certain that some deductions are not to be made from it, on the score of professional prejudice. "But in what perspicuous and beautiful language are written the statutes of Provence, in our Provensal tongue, which are the laws and customs of the country; wherein also are comprised the requests and demands which the general assemblies of the three estates made to the counts of Provence, and to the kings of Naples and of Sicily, with the answers returned by their majesties."—pp. 17, 18.

If this praise be rightly bestowed, the days of Nostradamus were the golden age of the law-of its subjects we mean, not of its professors-for we suspect that the gains of the latter are somewhat increased, by the prolixity and obscurity of statutes. What a pity the conquest of England, in 1066, was not a Provensal instead of a Norman conquest, that we might have inherited this beautiful and intelligible body of laws! How unfortunate, that a copy of these exceedingly perspicuous ordinances had not been preserved, to serve as a model för the legislators of England and America! If no other good consequence had followed, it would at least have been a delightful recreation to look over a collection of statutes, whose meaning,

like that of any other compositions, we could comprehend as we read, or at most after one or two perusals, instead of being obliged to hunt the sense, through pages of verbiage, and a thousand doublings of expression, in danger every moment of being lost in the maze of words, and sent back to begin the pursuit anew, and, perhaps, after all our labor, to remain uncertain of the true construction.

The book of Nostradamus, though exceedingly meagre and imperfect in most of its details, is the source from which nearly all the knowledge we have of the history of the Troubadours is drawn. Sismondi, in his History of the literature of the south of Europe, and other authors who have written of the Provensal poets, have made a liberal use of its materials. It contains the biographies of about eighty of the Provensal writers, who flourished between the middle of the twelfth century, and. the year 1382. This period commences with the time, when Raymond Berenger, count of Barcelona and Provence, espoused Rixenda, or Richilda, queen of Spain, and extends to the end of the reign of Joanna I. queen of Naples and Sicily, and countess of Provence. This was the most flourishing period—indeed, it was nearly the whole duration of Provensal literature. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, René king of Naples, and count of Provence, made an attempt to revive it; but the race of the troubadours was extinct, and the invasions of the English, which desolated France, left her inhabitants little leisure or disposition for the cultivation of letters. It lingered a little later in Toulouse, and its last steps were in Catalonia, about the beginning of the fifteenth century.*

It is, however, an exceedingly curious and interesting picture, notwithstanding the looseness of its outlines, and its utter want of fulness and exactness, that this little book gives us of the age of the Troubadours. It would seem as if there was, in the literature of Provence, a presentiment of its early decline, and as if it hastened to make amends by its sudden luxuriance, for the shortness of its duration. The very air of that country breathed the infection of poetry. Illustrious and learned strangers visited the courts of its princes and nobles, and went away poets. Grave jurisconsults opened their mouths in verse; gloomy astrologers, laborious mathematicians, and fierce warriors, addressed songs to high-born and beautiful ladies. Probably in no age of the world, were men of letters so highly honored, or so liberally rewarded, as those who then cultivated

* Sismondi. De la litérature du midi de l'Europe, vol. i.

the vernacular literature of Provence. The history of the Troubadours, is the history of riches amassed and distinctions gained, by the successful exercise of their art. It is a circumstance not a little remarkable, that this munificence of patronage and encouragement, which is ordinarily the fruit of a very advanced stage of civilization and refinement, should have existed at a period when Europe was just emerging from the darkness of the middle ages, and that its objects should have been those who cultivated the earliest among the modern dialects, which assumed any thing like the form of a regular language. In speaking of the poets of that age, our author says

"The greater number of them were men of gentle blood, or lords of castles, in love with queens, dutchesses, marchionesses, countesses, and other princesses and gentlewomen, whose husbands esteemed themselves exceedingly fortunate, when our poets addressed to them some new song in our Provensal tongue. The most honourable recompense which they could make the said poets, was to furnish them with clothing, horses, armour, and money, which they did with great liberality; for which reason the authors often attributed their poems to their Mecœnases, and to those who bestowed on them honors and favors."-p. 14.

The love which the poets cherished towards these illustrious ladies, was generally, if we may believe Nostradamus, of a Platonic nature. It was a sort of poetical worship, which clothed the breathings of earthly passion in the terms and ideas appropriated to devotion. It was not unusual for the poet to address to his patroness, strains secretly intended for some fair one of greater charms, but less splendid title, the real object of his affections. The lady, however, was always flattered by being made the subject of his songs, and the poet was always rewarded.

Even when his homage was unwelcome or inconvenient, -as when it alarmed the jealousy of a husband, or provoked the malicious interpretation of the envious and ill-natured,-the poet was not the less well paid for it. The lady, in such cases, sent him a munificent present of horses, arms, and money, and prayed him, "de se déporter de cet amour," or, in plain English, to make love elsewhere, a mandate which the complying troubadour, who was generally well satisfied with the consideration, implicitly obeyed, and withdrew to make his fortune at some other court. Many of the ladies, themselves, became troubadours; and among the most extraordinary institutions of that or any other age, were the courts of love, which they es VOL. I.

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tablished, for the decision of questions relating to a subject always exceedingly interesting to the sex, but which, in that age, seems to have interwoven itself with all their thoughts, and to have become the sole business of their lives. Of these, Nostradamus gives the following account:

"The Tençons were disputes of love, between the knights or the ladies who composed in rhyme, communing together concerning some delicate and subtle question of love; and when they could not agree, they sent to have them decided by the illustrious lady-presidents, who held open and full court of love at Signe, and at Pierrefeu, and at other places, who thereupon made decrees, which were called Lous Arrests d'Amour, the decrees of Love."-pp. 15, 16.

From Provence, the spirit of poetical emulation went abroad into other countries. The sovereigns of Europe, not only received the troubadours at their courts with great favor and distinction, but became troubadours themselves, and composed verses in the Provensal language. Among those royal poets, we find the names of Frederick II. emperor of Germany, and of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Even the poets of Italy-of that Italy which boasts, at the present day, the sweetest and most harmonious of modern languages, were in that age troubadours, and wrote in the Provensal dialect, their own being considered as too barbarous and unsettled for the purposes of litera

ture.

But it was not in verse alone that the troubadours wrote, nor were their subjects always love and war. They composed books on all the sciences, and topics of knowledge, with which Christendom was then acquainted. They were the authors of numerous histories of the wars, and other transactions of their age. They also wrote works upon the mathematics--a science, which in that age was confounded with astrology--books on natural history, treatises upon morals and law, and theological tracts. Among these latter, was one against the Errors of the Arians-contra l'errour dels Arians; written by Peyre Raymond lou Proux. It is impossible to know of how many keen and effectual weapons of controversy the combatants on both sides of the question have been deprived, by the loss of this work.

The Sirvente was a species of poetical composition, which one would suppose was invented on purpose to relax the overstrained imaginations of the troubadours, after their extravagant and far-sought panegyrics of the ladies. It was a kind of satirical poem, in which the author abandoned himself to the

uttermost bitterness of invective. It was generally levelled against the pride, cruelty, and oppression of the princes and nobles of Europe. No rank or degree was safe from these attacks; lords, dukes, emperors, bishops, cardinals, the pope himself, were denounced in terms of the boldest and most unmingled censure. The Provensal was then the language of all the European courts, and wherever the songs of the troubadours were sung, their sirventes also obtained currency. The very scandal they contained would make them sought after with greater avidity, as a libel is always read with more interest than a panegyric. What is extraordinary, in those times of violence and of arbitrary power, the satirist, who thus boldly attacked the wearers of crowns and mitres, seems to have been even more safe, than he would now be in many of the governments of Europe. From the court of his patron, whom he was of course expected to praise, he pointed with impunity the hand of scorn against all other princes of the continent. Along with some abuse, he told them many truths; and it is always a good omen for the age, when there is any means of conveying truth to the ears of the great.

The rapid decline of Provensal literature, was not less extraordinary than its sudden growth. After a brilliant existence of three centuries, the smiles of the great were withdrawn from those who cultivated it; its poets, its historians, and its moralists ceased to write; other languages acquired consistence and regularity, and produced a literature of their own. The works in the Provensal language, were written before the age of printing, and existed only in manuscript,--they ceased to be generally read,-they were gradually forgotten-and the beautiful, rich, and flexible dialect in which they were composed, became one of the dead languages. Nothing, however, that had been gained in the progress of modern literature was lost. The spirit of the Provensal poetry passed into that of Italy, which followed close upon its decline. The great founders of Italian literature, enriched and harmonized their language, by the study of Provensal models, and they have not been slow to acknowledge their obligations to their masters. The precise extent, however, to which they were indebted to the troubadours, it would be impossible to ascertain, without recourse to the remains of the Provensal poets, which exist in manuscript, in the great libraries of France. Nostradamus says, that any one who reads Dante, Boccacio, and Petrarch, and many other Italian Poets, may see whence they have taken