of Europe was song and verse, in which their traditions were preserved. The letters of Greece and Rome never totally supplanted them; and when about this period classical learning ceased to be cultivated as the basis of the popular speech, the native languages grew up in their own vigour, but more or less mingled with Latin and Greek. The subjects treated of in these new tongues were also derived from different sources, as well the words in which they were treated. They are often identical with subjects, preserved in the classics; and often of as purely an unclassical origin, as the subjects of the songs of the native Africans, Americans, or South Sea islanders, which they resemble.

In the south of France, the use of Latin in common speech was certainly extinguished towards the end of the niuth century, when some barbarous Latin romances were written. The Latin was followed by the formation of the Romance; and fragments remain of the earliest compositions in romance of the tenth century. The chief subjects of these works are the wars of the population of the south of Gaul against the German invaders from the north, and against the Saracens of Spain. Towards the end of the eleventh century, the Provençal language shared the improvements then becoming general in society in the South of France, and M. Fauriel has produced numerous examples of narrative, and other poems in the Provençal language before the twelfth century; particularly of a class of little tales, called Fabliaux, usually attributed to the French poets, to the entire exclusion of the Provençals. Vol. ii. 387. He afterwards gives numerous romances upon the subject of Charlemagne in the Provençal language; and proceeds to prove that they preceded the existing French romances on the same subject. 1st. He argues that the Provençals possessed poems on analogous subjects before the French had any literature at all. 2nd. The French are admitted to have borrowed their lyrical poetry from the Provençals.

3rd. The Charlemagne romances can be carried back to the year 1170, which is earlier than any similar French compositions.

4th. Chretien de Troyes is the oldest French poet that can be carried to anything like this period; and there is no ground whatever for placing him in 1170; it is besides certain, that he has borrowed much from the Provençals.*

Hence it is to be fairly conjectured, that the Charlemagne series of romances were written in the Provençal before they were written in French.

* 'It is difficult to ascertain whence Chretien de Troyes procured his subjects.'-Sir Walter Scott's 'Sir Tristram,' p. 32.

But more positive proof remains to be stated. There is a famous romance upon Guillaume Courtnez, both in French and Provençal, of which the subject, and materials, and manners, are Provençal, and some of its materials can be traced even to the tenth century; which was long before French literature existed.

But besides this, the Charlemagne series are more complete in the Provençal, than in the French romances, and some Provençal poems exist on the subject of Charlemagne, without any analogous French poems. This fact of itself is conclusive in favour of the Provençal origin of this series; for it is a general rule that the origin of all pictures is the country in which they are most abundant and most varied. In this case, the very country of the South is covered with proof of the fact in question by the vast number of places to which Charlemagne and his knights have given their names, and this at a period long before the dates of the poems in question.

By an analogous train of reasoning, M. Fauriel shews, that the romances of the series of the Round Table, or those upon apparently British subjects, are really of Provençal origin; he admits

The subject to be obscure for want of materials, and difficult in consequence of the reiteration of rash assertion without proofs. The advocates of an Armorican origin for these romances have never produced any genuine documents to support the claim. It is otherwise as to the supposed British or Welsh origin of them. In that case two sources deserve examination; namely, 1, the Triads in the Welsh language; and 2, the Chronicles of British history in Welsh and Latin. Some of the Triads refer to very ancient events, such, for example, as the deluge, in a manner different from the text of the Bible. They have passages strongly resembling the Hindoo traditions. They were never written in Latin, a singular circumstance, which seems to attest a genuine British original for these documents; but, in their present form, an earlier date cannot be claimed for them than the thirteenth century, although they contain traditions of far higher antiquity, and such as must be the remains of traditions preserved among the people from the earliest times. The passages cited commonly from the Triads, to prove that the Round Table romances came from a British source, are not of this ancient character. These passages bave been introduced into the collections from the romances themselves, with which the British became familiar at a late period. Such passages are quite foreign to the Welsh language and to the Welsh history. An example of such foreign words is that of Graal, the title of one great series of the Round Table romances. It is a Provençal word, not British. So when the Triads mention the character of Lancelot du Lac, the very words would be unintelligible to a Briton without a knowledge of

French. These portions of the Triads resemble the romances of the Round Table; but they are of a comparatively modern date, and additions to the ancient British documents. The portions of the Triads which are genuine and ancient bear no resemblance whatever to the romances. The Arthur of the Triads is altogether a different person from the Arthur of those romances.'-vol, ii. p. 312-322.

On these grounds, a Welsh or British original for the series of romances into which the machinery of Arthur and the knights of the Round Table is introduced, so far as the claim depends upon the evidence of the Triads, is rejected by M. Fauriel. He treats the evidence of the Chronicles as less important. The principal one is that of Geoffry of Monmouth, which must have been dated between 1138 and 1150, when it is certain many of the romances in question were already written.

The substance, too, of the romances of the Round Table presents no historical features of the British, or any other nation. They are altogether fictions, presenting pictures of chivalry, in the state which that institution had reached after it had become imbued with the new germ of civilization of the twelfth century, a gay spirit of adventurous gallantry, as distinguished from a gloomy spirit of religious fervour and mysticism, which the church still endeavoured to spread through the agency of its own knighthood-the Hospitallers and Templars.

The romances describing the chivalry of amorous adventure, of which the famous Sir Tristram is the great model, differ entirely from those which are devoted to the chivalry of religion. The latter are called the series of the Graal. Their principal example is the Perceval of Christian of Troyes. Their object is to describe the guardianship of the cup, (in the Provençal language called Grazal, Graal,) in which our Lord celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples.

This cup, endowed with miraculous powers, was borne off by angels to be kept in heaven until a line of heroes should appear on earth, worthy to be entrusted with its keeping. Titurel, the hero of the romances, was chosen for that office. He built a temple to receive the cup; and became the chief of a body of knights, under the sanction of the church, to guard it, and protect its worship. Perpetual plenty surrounded this abode of the symbol of holiness, and perpetual youth, with other gifts, rewarded its chivalrous defenders. The descendants of Titurel became degenerate, and the holy cup was carried to the east. Its return to the west was to be the new reward of an ecclesiastical reform, which, with the obvious connection of the knights

destined to protect the cup, with the order of Templars and Hospitallers, formed at this period, seems to render this fiction of the Graal a branch of the great efforts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries which had that object in view.

Having shown that neither of these two classes of the Round Table romances, neither those of a gay, nor those of a grave chivalrous character, can be traced to a British original, M. Fauriel proceeds by an ingenious train of reasoning, which hardly admits of abridgment or extract, to prove them to be purely Provençal.

In the dispute, he says, between the French, Breton, Scottish, Welsh, and German claimants for the honour of having written the original poem of Sir Tristram, and those of the same class, it has been overlooked that the Provençal literature really produced those romances. At least, twenty-five well-known Troubadours have quoted the story of Sir Tristram as familiar to them. Of these Provençal writers, Raimbaud d'Orange the oldest, must have written, in 1150, the passages referring to Sir Tristram. That romance was therefore known in that year in the Provençal language. In the same way, other Round Table romances may be proved to have existed at that period in the same language. From their familiarity with the story of King Arthur, and his expected return to reign in Britain, the Troubadours used to call the hope which never despairs, notwithstanding every disappointment, the hope of a Briton. It was the familiarity of the Troubadour, or Provençal writers, with the poetical history of the Graal, and with the superstitious expectation, attributed in it to the Briton, that gave rise to the proverb. These romances are full of Pyrenean scenery, and words belonging to the South of France, besides the word Graal; of the true Provençal meaning of which the French poets are known to have been ignorant.

But a positive testimony of a very remarkable character confirms these arguments in a way not to be resisted.

In the thirteenth century, the German Minnesinger, Wolfram, wrote two romances on the Graal; and he expressly rebukes Christian of Troyes for not having scrupulously adhered to the older Provençal romance on the same subject rather than to the French poet, whom he had copied.

In support of his views, M. Fauriel offers a conjecture deserv ing of careful appreciation, upon the motives which led the Provençal poets to adopt the subject of Arthur and the Round Table for their romances.

The poets of the eleventh, and of the first years of the twelfth century, had made very great improvements in the literature of their predecessors. Their language was exceedingly melodious,

and their sentiments a pure expression of chivalrous attainments. It was an entirely new system of poetry, and addressed to the higher circles in courts and castles, where what had belonged to a coarser age was now abandoned. The people adhered to old, rude verses, the image of semi-barbarous feelings, and written in a style slightly influenced by lingering classical traditions. But that older class of compositions had also been influenced by recent refinements, so that a perceptible change had taken place in a large portion of it, consisting of historical songs, heroic fictions, and romantic narratives of the wars against the Arabs. Hence, the more frequent beauties of their language, and their more successful development of the passions. These works, however, although they still pleased the people, had lost their charm for the more elevated classes. Therefore the Troubadours, in order to gratify the latter, who were their auditors and patrons, were compelled to seek for fresh topics. The Oliver and Roland of the ancient romance were too gross for the men who were seriously disposed towards the new ideas; and the character of those grim heroes offered nothing in unison with what were henceforth to be the principles of chivalry, namely, homage to the fair, and a love of romantic adventure.

In this state of things, those Troubadours, who the more zealously aimed at the triumph of chivalry, sought for some distinguished personages to whom they might safely attribute its virtues without violating established associations. Such heroes they found in the court and camp of the last prince of the Britons. This supposes some knowledge of Arthur to have existed among the Troubadours from tradition, or it supposes the existence of songs before 1150, now lost, but not any acquaintance with the work of Geoffry of Monmouth, which had not then appeared. This knowledge was, however, limited to a few names stripped of all historical life, seeing that the ideas and actions presented in the Round Table series along with such British names, are purely Provençal, and chivalrous, as chivalry was understood at the beginning of the twelfth century.

This constituted the twofold system of poetry, established at that time in Provence, and throughout the South of France. It spread thence all over Europe; and certainly not less towards the north of France than elsewhere. It flourished two hundred years; and only fell into disuse in consequence of a series of persecutions to which the refined people of the South of France, and chiefly the Albigenses were exposed by the cruel combination of temporal and ecclesiastical tyranny. These persecutions ended in the utter extinction of the Provençal