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TROUBADOURSTROY. 



mantic poetry. In their rhymed metre, they have 

 seldom gone beyond the simple iambic, which they 

 exchanged, mostly in those feet of the verse upon 

 which there is no stress, for the trochee, pyrrhichius 

 and spondee ; so that if their verses (usually often 

 syllables) only had the caesura and the final sylla- 

 ble sufficiently accented, they cared little about the 

 measure of the other syllables. But they were very 

 fond of complicated rhymes. We find in their 

 stanzas not only the same rhyme repeated through 

 a long series of verses, or the same rhymed word re- 

 turning at the end of every other verse, but variously 

 intertwined rhymes, in tor/inns and other metres, 

 distinctly point out the pattern of Petrarca's can- 

 zone and sonnets. As a specimen of the Provencal 

 Romance idiom, and of their metres, we give the 

 following stanza of a sirvente of William de St 

 Gregory, with its translation, taken from Roscoe's 

 translation of Sismomli : 



lie m play lo dour temps <\e pascor 



Que fai fuelhaa f floras venir ; 

 E play mi quant aug la vamlor 



!).;- nii/i-U que fan ivti-ntir 

 I .or i-Iiiin ])i-r hi bosoatjfe 

 E plai mi quan vry BUS els pratz, 

 Tenclas e parallos'fermatz ; 



K jilai mVn mon coratge 

 Ounn ycy JMT campanhas rengatz 

 Caralliers ab i-avals armatz. 



The beautiful spring delights me well. 



v. hen flowers ana leaves are growing ; 

 And it pleases my heart to hear the swell 

 Of the birds' sweet chorus (lowing 



In the echoing wood ; 

 And 1 love to see all scattered around, 

 Pavilions and tents on the martial ground ; 



And my spirit finds it good 

 To gee, on the level plain:- beyond, 

 Gay knights and steeds caparisoned. 



What we have left of the poetry of the Trouba- 

 dours are songs of contention (tensones), satires, 

 martial and other serious songs (sirventes), and nu- 

 merous small songs (cAanros), war songs, songs of 

 pastoral life and love (soulas, lais, pastourelles), 

 morning songs and serenades (aubades and sere- 

 nades'', retrouanges and redondes, the latter dis- 

 tinguished by artificial burdens. The poetry of the 

 Troubadours, as in the course of time it became 

 more common, was degraded, not unfrequently, to 

 mere ballad singing, and was exposed to much 

 mockery, of which the nobler singers often bitterly 

 complain. It flourished most at the court of Aries, 

 especially under the counts of Provence, in the 

 twelfth century. The biographies of the Trouba- 

 dours furnish us with a greater variety of matter 

 than their poetry, which, through all its periods, 

 turns continually upon the same subjects. The 

 works of Nostradamus and Crescimbeni are well 

 worthy of being read, and with them the critical 

 extracts of Millot, from the collection of St Palaye. 

 Some of the most remarkable Troubadours were 

 the following : in the van of the royal and princely 

 singers is William IX., count of Poitou and duke of 

 Aquitaine, equally famous as a poet and a warrior 

 (born 1071). He was followed by the foreign 

 princes and lords, who gladly saw the exotic plant 



of gallant poetry transplanted to their courts the 



emperor Frederic Barbarossa, Roger of Naples, 

 Richard Co?ur de Lion, with his famous minstrel 

 Blondel, who composed, also, Proven9al verses, and 

 who, according to tradition, discovered the prison 

 of his king by means of his harp ; the kings Alfonso 

 and Peter of Arragon, and a vast number of princes 

 and counts in Spain, France and Italy. The most 

 renowned of the rest of more than 200 Troubadours 



whose names and poems have been preserved, are 

 Sordello of Mantua, celebrated for his chivalrous 

 exploits and the praises of Dante: Peyrols, the 

 I happy as well as unfortunate servant of the sister of 

 the dauphin of Auvergne, wife of the baron of Mer- 

 cosur ; Bertrand de Born, who is connected with 

 the romantic adventures of Richard Cosur de Lion ; 

 Arnald de Maraviglia, who was devoted to the no- 

 ble lady De Beziers, an eminent Troubadour and 

 valiant knight, whose motto was " A Dieu mon aim , 

 ma vie au roi, mon cantr aux dames, Vhonneur pour 

 moi." See Diez, Die Poesie der Troubadours nuch 

 gedruckten und handschriftlichen Werken dargeiteUt 

 (Zwickau, 1827 Poetry of the Troubadours ac- 

 cording to printed Works and Manuscripts) : Sis 

 mondi's Literature of the South of Europe (1st vol.). 

 The chief work on this subject is by Raynouard, 

 Choix des Poesies oriyinales des Troubadours (Pa- 

 ris, 1818 21), and contains a grammar of the an- 

 cient Romance language and its history, besides 

 biographical notices of 350 Troubadours. 



TROUGH, in marine language; the interval be- 

 tween two waves. 



TROUT. Many of the species of salmo, which 

 pass their lives altogether in fresh water, never 

 visiting the ocean, have received this appellation ; 

 it is not however always thus strictly applied, and, 

 besides, is often improperly given to fish of entirely 

 different habits and conformation. Trout are found 

 only in the clearest streams, and are particularly 

 fond of mountain torrents and alpine lakes. They 

 are remarkable for the beauty of their colours; are 

 very voracious, and have always been the favourite 

 fish of the angler. (For an account of the generic 

 characters, see Salmon.) The common trout is a 

 beautiful fish: the back is mottled; the sides dark- 

 brown, with yellow spots, which have a scarlet dot 

 in the centre. It sometimes attains the weight of 

 four and a half pounds, but is usually much smaller. 

 It is much in request for the table. A gigantic 

 species of trout, from lake Huron, has been described 

 by doctor Mitchill. It is said to attain the weight 

 of a hundred and twenty pounds. The flesh is re- 

 markably fat, rich and savoury. The specific name 

 amethystinus was applied on account of the purplish 

 tinge and hyaline tips of the teeth. 



TROVER; an action against a man who is in 

 possession of the goods of another, and refuses to 

 deliver them to the owner, or sells or converts 

 them to his own use, without the consent of the 

 owner. It was originally confined to cases in which 

 one man had actually found the goods of another, 

 and refused to deliver them on demand, but con- 

 verted them to his own use ; hence the names of 

 trover and conversion. 



TROY. See Troad. 



TROY, CITY OF ; capital of Rensselaer county. 

 New York, 151 miles north of the city of New 

 York, lat. 42 44' N.; population in 1801, 1500; 

 in 18-10, 19,334. There are nine places of public 

 worship, three banks, two insurance companies, 

 and a savings bank ; a court-house, county jail, 

 female seminary, Lancasterian school, an infant 

 school, and the Rensselaer school, a very respect- 

 able institution, intended particularly to teach the 

 practical application of knowledge. Large quanti- 

 ties of lumber, flour, grain, beef, pork, wool, &c., 

 besides manufactured goods, are shipped to the river 

 towns, and New York, New Jersey and Boston. 

 The united Champlain and Hudson canals enter the 

 Hudson at Troy. Steam-boats run daily between 

 Troy and New York, and between Troy and Albany. 



