990 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FRENCH LITERATURE. 
encouraged and cultivated by men whose productions are now, as 
they were then, the wonder and the admiration of the world ; if these 
adverse circumstances be duly remembered and carefully weighed, we 
shall then clearly see the reasons of the rapid decay of the Trouba- 
dours ; we shall then observe the causes of the extinction of a school 
of poetry which, useless and trivial as it has been thought by many, 
may be regarded as the twilight of modern excellence. . And though 
the songs of the Provengals contain no exquisitely given morals or 
beautifully turned metaphors, let us never forget that they introduced 
a love for reading and a taste for poetry, and that the firm and solid 
foundation, on which the literature of the present day is based, had its 
origin with the Troubadours. 
The compositions of the Troubadours are altogether lyric ; and we 
are astonished to find that, despite the love of poetry which seized, as 
it were an epidemic, the whole nation, they have not made a single 
attempt at an epic ora tragic style. The education of the Provengals 
was altogether calculated to render them enthusiasts ; this feeling 
was, in fact, the ruling passion of the age, aad we have seen that the 
“ preux chevalier” was ever taught to be enthusiastic in religion, in 
love, and in war. Enthusiasm also is the leading characteristic of 
lyric poesy ; this feeling it is which, if properly directed, fires the 
imagination of the poet, animates the dormant faculties of his mind, 
and hurries him into those impetuous transports of fancy which, soar- 
ing far beyond all definite limits, produce those fascinating effects 
which far transcend the regularity of the most studied compositions. 
Under its benign influence, descriptions rich, happy, and sublime, 
expressions noble and harmonious, metaphors striking and lively, 
spontaneously arise to captivate the imagination and enchant the mind 
of the reader: and the man of genuine taste cannot read or hear a 
production of this divine enthusiasm of the mind without feeling some 
of that poetic rapture which produced it. 
The literary relics of the Troubadours have, by criticism, been 
divided into the gallant, historical, satirical, didactic, and pastoral. 
Their gallant or love poems are, perhaps, their most numerous per- 
formances, but have not now much to recommend them. The spirit 
of chivalry is everywhere perceptible ; and we find an enthusiastic 
and almost idolatrous love of the fair sex. The tender passion is, 
however, generally, grossly misconceived: the lover’s was a mere 
trial of wit, in which sentiment played round the head, but came not 
near the heart. It is also much to be regretted that too many of 
