In the Vatican library, in a large manufcript of Provençal poetry, is a song upon the death of this prince, by Anfelm Faiditt, a celebrated Troubadour, to whom Petrarch is much indebted for his Triumfo d'amore, and who had accompanied him to the holy war, with the original melody by that bard, whose genius was as much admired in mufic as in poetry. He married a beautiful nun, who wandered with him from court to court, finging her hufbands fongs (68).

As a fhort and familiar fpecimen of the Provençal fong, one may produce that written by the emperor Frederick Barbaroffa, about the year 1160.

minstrels is related by Fauchet, on the authority of an old anonymous French chronicler. Richard, in his return from the Holy Land, was taken prifoner by the duke of Austria, who fold him to the emperor. He was fo closely and fecretly confined that his fubjects, for more than a twelvemonth, were unable to discover where he was. A minstrel, named Blondel de Nesle, who, having been trained up in the English court, had imbibed the strongest affection for his royal mafter, took his abfence so much to heart, that he resolved not to reft till he knew what was become of him. After fome time spent in travel, he came near a castle, in which, he was told, a ftrange knight had been imprisoned upwards of a year. This information caufed the trufty minstrel to employ the perfuafive eloquence of his profeffion to gain admittance into the caftle. One day, fitting oppofite a window of the ftrangers apartment, he began a Provençal fong, which the king and he had fometime before compofed together: and, paufing in the midft, the king, who knew it must be Blondel that fung, began the other half and finished it. The musician having thus obtained the knowlege he wanted, returned to England, and making the barons acquainted with the place of their fovereigns confinement, he was foon after ranfomed, and brought home. The fong itself is fortunately preferved. Recueil de l'origine de la langue & poefie Françoife. Paris, 1581. p. 93. La tour tenebreufe, &c. Paris 1705. Percys Keliques, I. xxix.

(68) Burney, II. 241, where both the fong and the mufic are preferved.

Las mans e kara d'Anglés

E lou donzel de Thuicana. (69)

The Troubadours feem to have poffeffed a great affection for agreeable pictures of nature, the relation of pleafing dreams, and other fanciful and amourous allegories. Chaucers Cuckow and Nightingale, Flower and Leaf (fo beautifully modernifed by mr. Dryden), and fome other of his poems, are quite in the Provençal mode, and, not improbably, from Provençal compofitions. But it was not to the men alone that the cultivation of this enchanting art was confined; ladies of the firft rank became profeffors of the Gay Science, and piqued themfelves on making verfes, and giving an elegant or pointed turn to a fong. They, likewife, held Courts of Love, where they determined thofe nice questions, which the Provençal gallantry had brought into vogue. Their judgements were termed Arrêts d'amour, fentences of love. Of these the countess of Champagne had pronounced several, and, amongst them, one in a celebrated parliament compofed of fixty ladies (70). An appeal against a decifion of this fair judge was brought before the Queen of France: " God forbid," faid the Queen, as foon as the had heard the complaint, "God forbid, that I fhould meddle with a decree of the countess of Champagne!"

On the death of Raimond Berenger, the laft count of Provence, of his family, in 1245, the court was removed to Naples, and the Gay Science began to decline. Its profeffors had likewife the misfortune to incur the dif pleasure of Philip the Auguft, who banished them his court and eftates.

In 1320, however, a college or academy of poetry was founded at Touloufe. The poets recited their compofitions every Sunday evening, in a garden of the city;

(69) That is: I am beit pleased with the French gentleman, the Catalan girl, the (perhaps ovrar, work) of the Genoefe, the court of Caftile, the Provençal fong, the dance of Treves, the Arragonian fhape, the Juliers fpeech, the hands and face of the English, and the boy of Tufcany. See Duverdier, Bibliotheque. Lyons, 1585. p. 423. Rymer, Short View of Tragedy, p. 75.

(70) M. de Querlon.

and

and flowers of gold or filver were given by the ladies to those who excelled (71). This establishment flourished a confiderable time. And fome Troubadours and fome Jongleurs are faid to have remained fo low as the fifteenth century.

The Gay Science, under the counts of Provence, afforded an eafy mode for a man to enrich hisfelf, and even to acquire honours and employments. It, likewise, gave great privileges; and, in courts, with the ladies, frequently leveled the disparity of rank. At one time there was scarce a great lord or lady who had not fome Troubadour in their suite (72).

A gentleman, who had only the fourth part of a caftle, if, with the requifite talents, he became a Troubadour, was foon in a capacity of acquiring the reft. Indeed this fort of life was frequently the whole fortune of a younger brother. It was an agreeable pilgrimage, or continual promenade. He went from houfe to houfe, from castle to caftle, always welcomed, and entertained according to his merit (73).

Many of the Troubadours followed their lords to the wars. Where we have inftances of their being knighted, and arriving to extraordinary honours and preferments (74).

They received confiderable prefents of ftuffs, robes, horfes, &c. Kings and queens would fometimes pull off their finest vestments to give to a Troubadour of extra, ordinary genius; who made his appearance in them at the next court he came to. The ladies were now and then content to crown their favourites with peacocks feathers; and, frequently, the price of the beft fong was a kifs, which the poet generally claimed from the greatest beauty prefent (75).

The Troubadour, amourous by profeffion, ufually concealed the name of his mistress with care, and fung her praises under an appellation agreed on between them, or which he took care the understood. The gallantries in

tended for the wife were, likewife, not unfrequently, addreffed to the husband(76). These gentlemen did not, however, always worship terreftrial deities; Folquet de Lunel profeffed hisfelf an admirer of the Virgin Mary, and celebrated her as his mistress in his fongs and poems.

Arnaud Daniel, a diftinguished Troubadour, who is imitated by Petrarch, and praised by Dante, was enamoured of a beautiful Gafcon lady. To gain her good graces, he tells us, he heard a thousand maffes a day; but his moft extravagant with centered in a kifs of her fweet mouth (77).

It must be confeffed that the lives of thefe poets abound with the marvellous; and differ very little from Romance. But then it is to be remembered that this was the age of Chivalry. Many of them died of love. Geoffrey Rudel, upon the relation of two Pilgrims, became defperately enamoured of a countess of Tripoli; he flew to fee her, and, with an excess of fondnefs, expired in her arms. One of the fongs he compofed in his paffage is ftill extant (78). The princess was fo affected with the circumftance that, after having ordered him to be fumptuously interred, and his fonnets to be finely copied and illuminated, fhe buried herself in a

nunnery.

Guillaume de Cabeftan, the defcendant of an ancient family, of which gentility was the fole inheritance, was page to Raimond, lord of the caftle of Rouffillon, who afterwards made him gentleman uiner to his wife Marguerita. This lady became enamoured of Cabeftan; but her vanity, greater than her love, induced her to fhew his poetical addreffes to her husband. Raimond, mad with jealoufy, drew Cabeftan to a diftance from the castle, ftabbed him, tore out his heart, and cut off his head: he got the heart dreffed, and having perfuaded his lady to eat it, produced the head, to acquaint her with what fhe had done. As foon as the revived from the fwoon into which the difcovery threw her, he up

(76) M. de Querlon.

(77) Idem. (78) Rymer, p. 71.
braided

braided Raimond for his barbarity, and declared that what she had eaten was fo delicious that he was determined never to lofe the tafte of it by any other food: fhe immediately flew to a balcony, and, precipitating herself to the ground, was killed on the fpot. The cruelty of Raimond appeared fo horrible in the eyes of that age, that Alphonfo king of Arragon was induced to throw him into prison and raze his caftle. He likewife caufed the two lovers to be interred together near the church of Perpignan, and the ftory of their loves, which has been pronounced worthy of the pencil of Ovid (79), to be engraven on the tomb. The history of Cabestan is related, with fome variation, in the Decameron. (Gior. 4. No. 9.)

One of these Troubadours, Pierre de Châteauneuf, was feized by robbers, who, after they had ftripped him, were about to take his life: he befought them, for Gods fake, to her firit one of his fongs; and the villains were fo charmed with it, that they restored him all they had. taken (80).

Many remains of the poetry of the Provençal bards are ftill preserved in manufcript; of these the late Mr. Crofts, whofe memory will be ever dear to those who enjoyed the honour and happinefs of his acquaintance, and in whom literature loft one of its beft friends, and hu manity one of its greatest ornaments, had a confiderable volume.

It has been advanced" that the Troubadours, by finging and writing a new tongue, occafioned a revolution not only in literature but in the human mind; "and [that] as almoft every fpecies of Italian poetry is "derived from the Provençals, fo AIR, the most cap

tivating part of fecular vocal melody, feems to have had the fame origin. At leaft [that] the most an"cient strains that have been fpared by time, are fuch as were fet to the fongs of the Troubadours (81).” The hiftory of these people is fo exceedingly curious, agreeable and interesting that it has totally eclipsed that (79) M. de Querlon. (81) Burney, II, 233.

(80) Idem.

of