252 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FRENCH LITERATURE. 



the tenth, let us pass on to the eleventh century. At this period we 

 find the original Romance subdivided into two great branches or 

 dialects, that spoken to the north of the Loire (their common boun- 

 dary) was called the Romance Wallon,* while that used in the 

 southern provinces was the Romance Provencal. These dialects, 

 though founded on the same basis, the ancient Latin, were very 

 different, and the dissimilarity became every day more apparent. In 

 a country favoured by nature, under a serene sky, where the genial 

 warmth of the atmosphere enlivens the imagination without enervat- 

 ing the body, the Proven9al was soft-flowing and harmonious. The 

 Romance Wallon, on the contrary, adulterated by a mixture of 

 Frankish and Norman words, was harsh and dissonant. The rise 

 of the Provencal may be dated from the commencement of the 

 eleventh century : while it is from the twelfth century that the Wal- 

 lon became a literary language. We have no literary monuments, 

 no poems, no songs, which show the Wallon in its primitive state. 

 The earliest specimen possessed by us is the code of laws imposed by 

 William the Conqueror upon his English subjects. In Normandy, the 

 Wallon appears to have acquired a more grammatical form and a great- 

 er polish than in any other French province ; William the Conqueror 

 was much attached to it, encouraged it greatly among his Norman 

 subjects, and even introduced it into England, where the people were 

 forced by rigorous punishments and severe enactments to adopt it, in 

 preference to their native language. 



Having thus given a faint sketch of the decline of Roman learning, 

 an imperfect memorial of the degradation and degeneracy of the 

 tenth century, and having thus followed learning to the last stage of 

 its depression, we will reserve for a future article the more grate- 

 ful task of tracing its revival, and stating the apparent causes, their 

 operations and effects. 



CRITES. 



[To be continued.'] 



" The Wallon was called Langue tTOil or <fOui, and the Proven9al the 

 Langue d'Oc, from the affirmative word of each nation, as the Italian for the 

 same reason was Langue de si, and the German Langue de ju. — Sismondi. 



