146 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OP FRENCH LITERATURE. 



sipid, the poetry of the Proven9als ; and happy had it been for that 

 poetry if this portion at least had been lost in the wreck of ages ; 

 the remaining fragments would, like the sacred leaves of the Sybil, 

 have increased in value by diminution in number, and Posterity 

 would gladly have received from Time the gift, two-thirds of which 

 he had consigned to a well-merited Oblivion. 



If, however, we peruse these productions with a more attentive 

 and less jealous eye, we cannot deny to some few at least the ho- 

 nourable* meed of a well-deserved praise. Some of their fugitive 

 pieces are perfect in their kind, and possess a sensibility altogether 

 intellectual, and a passion as fervent as it is pure. Some of their 

 most pleasing productions are those where we find the sturdy war- 

 rior, the knight that mocks at steel and thirsts for danger, sinking 

 before the eye of beauty into the gentle, tender, and submissive 

 lover. These productions breathe a strange combination of amorous 

 and chivalrous feelings ; the inborn sympathies of the heart are 

 seldom extinguished : and from the scenes of slaughter and desola- 

 tion the knight gladly turned to the eye of compassion, and with a 

 heart untainted with bloodshed chaunts alike the loveliness of his 

 mistress and the prowess of his arm. 



Exquisite, however, as are some of these amatory productions, it 

 must be confessed that love, as a passion, is too generally miscon- 

 ceived, and addresses itself rather to the head than to the hearts of 

 its hearers. The passion which inspired the Troubadour was essen- 

 tially artificial, and emanated more frequently from the advantages 

 of present convenience than from any actual passion. This artificial 

 tendency arose, in part at least, from the spirit of chivalry itself — a 

 spirit which, at first sight, would seem to authorise a very oppo- 

 site conclusion. Chivalry, though it extended the apparent, cur- 

 tailed the real, influence of love ; for by erecting it into a regular 

 system, it degenerated from a generous impulse into a frivolous pas- 

 sion, till at length the knight selected a mistress not from any prin- 

 ciple of love, not from any glowings of enthusiasm, but as a proper 

 and indispensable appendage to his knighthood ; an object of devo- 

 tion, to whom he might dedicate his effusions, and desecrate the 

 name of love by giving it to the heartless connection. Chivalry 

 gave scope to many virtues, but it often fostered gigantic vices and 

 sheltered innumerable crimes ; and though we may believe that 

 the days of its dominion were as we wish them to have been, 

 though we may fancy that all the ladies were lovely and chaste, 

 and all the knights gentle and brave, we cannot but know that 

 thoughts like these are but the day-dreams of the mind, and that 



