89 



lime. Tlieir language and expressions were glowing, and 

 not unlike those of the Orientals or American savages. 

 It appears they had great singularity, prodigious artifice, 

 and almost endless variety, in the kinds and measures of 

 their verses. Music was equally admired and cultivated: 

 the halls of kings, princes and nobles, rung with the uni- 

 ted melody of the voice and harp. Some skill in vocal 

 and instrumental music seems to have been necessary to 

 every man, Avho Avished to mix in polite society; and the 

 Avant of it was disgmceful. 



The Normans surpassed the Saxons, and their OAvn pro- 

 genitors, the Danes, not in arms alone, but in policy, arts 

 6f life, and cultivation of all that was then held refined 

 and beautiful. They gave the tone to the rest of Europe. 

 They excelled in generosity of sentiment, in heroism, and 

 in poetry. The first and favourite themes of romantic 

 song, Avere produced by their story, by the deeds of Char- 

 lemao;ue and Roland.* 



We also see Iioav much the state of the fine arts is in- 

 fluenced by the political circumstances of a countrj^ fi"om 

 the greater advancement Avhich some of them make, the 



VOL. X. 31 degree 



* Jullifer, a soldier in tho army of William the Conqueror, who first broke 

 the ranks of the Ei)j;lisli at the battle of Hastings, is said to have advanced, 

 on that occasion, singing the song of Roland. 



About tlie year 1100, a grand prose narrative, compiled in Latin, from the 

 songs of Roland and Olivier, two of the principal peers of Charlemagne, 

 was published, in the name of Tiirpin, archbishop of Rheims. He was fol- 

 lowed by GeoH'ry of Monmontb, and by Robert VVace, who wrote Brut 

 d'Angleterre. 



