"and that'll make you right;" and he turned Compasses and the Triangle, who seemed to be and pirouetted away again. The Violet did as he was bid, and in a moment O delightful sensation!-all weariness had vanished; and, like the others, he felt impelled to dance and sing. It was as though all the dull bliss of growing was pressed or concentrated into a single instant of time. So he mixed with the rest, and gave himself up to the spirit of the party, and poured forth his thoughts to any one that would listen, in language so sweet and convincing that he wondered at himself. A Drumhead was very attentive and proved a remarkably good listener, gaining the Violet's respect immensely by his quietness, and his easy way of saying "Ha, ha!" "Yes, yes!" "So!" "Quite so!" " Re-ally!" "Do you say so!"" Hum!" "Well, never!" and so forth. The awkward thing was, that they were followed by a Trombone, whose weakness was not to listen, but to make himself heard, as he went alongside blowing every now and then, on which the Drumhead once or twice whispered to the Violet, "He's a good fellow, and very useful to me, but he's cracked, quite cracked with vanity,"-here touching his forehead significantly-" and one must just humour him." When the first faint light of morning came, all the Fairies vanished, and the Violet felt solitary and worn out. But whenever he thought of his great object, he resolved to go on. So he wandered for a while, till the sun became strong, and, reaching the border of a field, he thought to himself that he had better lie down and rest. But the buzzing of bees, and the chirping of crickets, and the singing of birds, and the very sound of the branches as they waved in the breeze that languidly stirred now and then, distressed him, and wouldn't let him sleep; and while he listened, as he really could not help doing, he began to fancy he heard words distinctly. At first it was just a vague hum, such as you, my reader, may sometimes have heard on suddenly coming close to a village school; but by-and-by he could more and more clearly make out words: "The Violet is full; the Violet is full!" He felt flattered at this notice; but turned round desiring sleep. He could not banish the words, however. They kept ringing in his ears, till his brain was quite in a fever, and he rose and walked on through the wood. The sun had sunk, and he had some difficulty in finding his way, as he had nothing to guide him aright now. He was sorry that he had not asked some advice on the point from the so grave and so knowing; but he had not mentioned his secret to them, as he had not had any opportunity of asking the Fairy if it would be right for him to do so. The windings of the wood and the confused state of his mind at length made him lose all reckoning. He tried and tried to discover his exact whereabouts, but could not manage it, and went round and round in a maze as it seemed to him. To his horror, as he sat on a bank looking about, he beheld a great red bull feeding quite close to him, and at sight of it he rose and ran, for he was afraid of being eaten up and dying the most terrible of deaths. He was sure it was following him, and held on wildly, till his breath was almost spent in his breast. He fell prone into a field, over a treeroot, from beneath which, as it chanced, a Mole was just then looking out. "Ah!" said the Mole, "you're in haste, and hasty folks are seldom well served. You look faint-can I do anything for you?" "I want water sorely," said the Violet. "You'll have plenty of it soon enough," said the Mole. "If it hadn't been for that, you wouldn't have found me here just at this moment." And as he spoke, thunder pealed through the wood, lightning darted through the trees, and struck some of them, rending their strong trunks in pieces. "Come into my house!" said the Mole, roughly pulling the Violet, "till I close the door against the rain. It was for that I came up, and I may be too late, and we may both be ruined." And he at once set to throwing up earth in all directions. The atmosphere was so close, and the place so dark, that the Violet thought he would have died; but the Mole pulled him along passage after passageup and down, and down and up-till they came to a round hall, and there they sat down. "I wonder to see you out at such a time," said the Mole. "I was seeking for my home-I'd lost my way," answered the Violet; for he remembered what the Fairy had said about keeping his great search a secret; but his chief reason was that he thought the Mole would laugh if he was told that a Violet had been trying to find where the sun went to when it set and sank out of sight. And then he began to describe the hill at the foot of which he had lived for so long. "Oh, that must be Snow-cap," said the Mole; "you're very nearly lost in your own castle, for it's just at the border of the wood. If you keep round to the left, five minutes, or even less, will bring you to it. But you can stay here quietly for the night, and then leave in the morning." To this the Violet, faint to exhaustion, at length agreed, and lay down. But there was little rest for him. The Mole was busy most part of the night. Now and again, the Violet heard the rain patter-pattering on the earth above, and a thunder-peal would rise over all else, and then he would tremble, so that the Mole would stop working, and look at him, and laugh to himself quietly, as he poked his sharp nose and his hand-like paws in the wet earth. "He's a tender fellow," thought the Mole: "but Violets are a good sort, and not given to travel. He looks as if he'd had trouble, and so I'm glad I befriended him. His folk may serve me some day, who knows?" At length the morning came, clear and calm; the air and the sky, with their freshness and odour, seeming as though Nature strove through them to atone for her angry passion of the night. The Mole pointed out the way to the Violet, and after warm expressions of gratitude, he bade the Mole good-bye, and soon found himself at his old home, where he at once went to bed, and slept soundly for a good many hours. When he awoke, he found changes among his neighbours, though his absence had been so short. Some had gone away, others had come. The Wood-Sorrels and the Starworts were in the lodgings the Cousins Primrose and Cowslip had had, and the Ferns had added to their family, and were all the prouder and more overbearing-looking that they had got a little red-headed. once more and ascend the hill; they can't follow me there!" The days passed slowly and heavily, and the Violet did not feel any more at peace; his neighbours treated him coldly, and seemed to combine against him, and kept up a constant chatter in which he was sure he heard himself named. So one fine morning he started, saying to himself It may be all for the best. Why should I remain to disturb their peace or destroy my own self-respect by staying among people who despise me? I've heard say it's cold up there, but I deserve no better, and perhaps even there I may grow a little!" So with a sore and humbled heart he set forth on his road. He journeyed for three days, only resting as long as to enable him to take refreshment. On the evening of the third day he found himself resting on a jutting spur of the mountain. The sun was sinking, and as he looked he suddenly exclaimed "I have found the secret, when I no more hoped to gain it, but only peace and quietness. Instead of travelling the plains, one must clamber higher and higher up towards the cold snow-peaks to see the sun the longer. Perhaps if I struggle to the top of this mountain it may be made all clear to So, nerved with a new hope, he pushed on day by day, higher and higher, till he reached near to the summit, where patches of snow lingered in the shaded hollows even until summer time. There was a murmur of water and a cold air stirring, but he said to himself "I like it; this is the place for me." And planting himself in a crevice where some grass grew sweet and green on a little ridge, he settled himself and waited for the sunset. It was so glorious that it completely overwhelmed him; for long after the sun was lost to all below he could see it, and see it grow ing more brilliant and beautiful every moment. The Violet took in these facts as he opened his eyes in a half-dreamy way, and he felt that he was being scanned and criticized by all and sundry around, and that the Ferns were speaking about him to the others in a very disparaging manner. At first the Violet could not make out the words, but he shut his "It is worth the trouble and the sacrifice," eyes and listened intently, and was sure he said the Violet; "here will I abide and do my caught, amongst the gabble of flower-dialects, duty, and strive to grow in the added light of "The Violet is full! the Violet is full!" and the sun; and though men may call me the he was seized with terrible chagrin and self- Mountain Violet, and tell of my past foolish contempt in thinking of the airs he had given ambitions, that will not matter, since they himself towards his neighbours before he had will once more speak of me with respect, if not set out to find the secret of the sun. "And, with honour, and since, in spite of the coldness here I am again," he thought, "and perhaps of my dwelling, I shall be longer than any of they will contrive to make the place too hot my old friends in the blessed light of the for me. If they do, I'll take staff in hand | sun." THE TROUBADOURS. [Henry Hallam, LL.D., born 1778; died 21st JanuEducated at Eton and Oxford. One of the ary, 1859. greatest historians of our century. View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, from which the following is taken; The Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II., and the Introduction to the Literature of Europe in Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, are his principal works. He was a cordial co-operator with Wilberforce for the suppression of the slave-trade; and in 1830 received one of the two fifty-guinea gold medals awarded by George IV. for eminence in historical composition; the other medal was given to Washington Irving. "In extent and variety of learning, and a deep acquaintance with antiquarian lore, the historian of the middle ages may deservedly take a place with the most eminent writers in that style that Europe has produced."-Sir A. Alison.] For three or four centuries after what was called the Romance tongue was spoken in France, there remain but few vestiges of its employment in writing; though we cannot draw an absolute inference from our want of proof, and a critic of much authority supposes translations to have been made into it for religious purposes from the time of Charlemagne. During this period the language was split into two very separate dialects, the regions of which may be considered, though by no means strictly, as divided by the Loire. These were called the Langue d'Oil, and the Langue d'Oc: or in more modern terms, the French and Provençal dialects. In the latter of these I know of nothing which can even by name be traced beyond the year 1100. About that time, Gregory de Bechada, a gentleman of Limousin, recorded the memorable events of the first crusade, then recent, in a metrical history of great length. This poem has altogether perished; which, considering the popularity of its subject, as M. Sismondi justly remarks, would probably not have been the case if it had possessed any merit. But very soon afterwards a multitude of poets, like a swarm of summer insects, appeared in the southern provinces of France. These were the celebrated Troubadours, whose fame depends far less on their positive excellence, than on the darkness of preceding ages, on the temporary sensation they excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry. From William, count of Poitou, the earliest troubadour on record, who died in 1126, to their extinction about the end of the next century, there were probably several hundred of these versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France. Millot has published the lives of one hundred and forty-two, besides the names of many more whose history is unknown; and a still greater number, it cannot be doubted, are unknown by name. Among those poets are reckoned a king of England (Richard I.), two of Aragon, one of Sicily, a dauphin of Auvergne, a count of Foix, a prince of Orange, many noblemen, and several ladies. One can hardly pretend to account for this sudden and transitory love of verse; but it is manifestly one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human mind received in the twelfth century, and contemporaneous with the severer studies that began to flourish in the universities. It was encouraged by the prosperity of Languedoc and Provence, undisturbed, comparatively with other countries, by internal warfare, and disposed by the temper of their inhabitants to feel with voluptuous sensibility the charm of music and amorous poetry. But the tremendous storm that fell upon Languedoc in the crusade against the Albigeois shook off the flowers of Provençal verse; and the final extinction of the fief of Toulouse, with the removal of the counts of Provence to Naples, deprived the troubadours of their most eminent patrons. An attempt was made in the next century to revive them. by distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher antiquity. This institution perhaps still remains; but, even in its earliest period, it did not establish the name of any Provençal poet. Nor can we deem those fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate, however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for poetry, and the manners of those chivalrous ages. The great reputation acquired by the trou badours, and panegyrics lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of Provençal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed. Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet with passages in his three be settled, as scarcely any written specimens of romance, even of that age, have survived. In the eleventh century, among other more obscure productions, both in prose and metre, there appears what, if unquestioned as to authenticity, would be a valuable monument of this language, the laws of William the Conqueror. These are preserved in a manuscript of Ingulfus's History of Croyland, a blank being left in other copies where they should be inserted (Gale, xv. Script. t. i. p. 88). They are written in an idiom so far removed from the Provençal, that one would be disposed to think the separation between these two species of romance of older standing than is commonly allowed. But it has been thought probable that these laws, which in fact were a mere repetition of those of Edward the Confessor, were originally published in AngloSaxon, the only language intelligible to the people, and translated at a subsequent period, by some Norman monk, into French (Ritson's Diss. on Romance, p. 66). This, indeed, is not quite satisfactory, as it would have been more natural for such a transcriber to have rendered them into Latin; and neither William the Conqueror nor his successors were accustomed to promulgate any of their ordinances in the vernacular language of England. volumes which give us any poetical pleasure. | disputable; but the question is not likely to Some of the original poems have since been published, and the extracts made from them by the recent historians of southern literature are rather superior. The troubadours chiefly confined themselves to subjects of love, or rather gallantry, and to satires (sirventes), which are sometimes keen and spirited. No romances of chivalry, and hardly any tales are found among their works. There seems a general deficiency of imagination, and especially of that vivid description which distinguishes works of genius in the rudest period of society. In the poetry of sentiment, their favourite province, they seldom attain any natural expression, and consequently produce no interest. I speak of course on the presumption that the best specimens have been exhibited by those who have undertaken the task. It must be allowed, however, that we cannot judge of the troubadours at a greater disadvantage than through the prose translations of Millot. Their poetry was entirely of that class which is allied to music, and excites the fancy or feelings rather by the power of sound than any stimulancy of imagery and passion. Possessing a flexible and harmonious language, they invented a variety of metrical arrangements perfectly new to the nations of Europe. The Latin hymns were striking but monotonous, the metre of the northern French unvaried; but in Provençal poetry almost every length of verse, from two syllables to twelve, and the most intricate disposition of rhymes were at the choice of the troubadour. The canzoni, the sestine, all the lyric metres of Italy and Spain, were borrowed from his treasury. With such a command of poetical sounds, it was natural that he should inspire delight into ears not yet rendered familiar to the artifices of verse; and even now the fragments of these ancient lays, quoted by M. Sismondi and M. Ginguené, seem to possess a sort of charm that has evaporated in translation. Upon this harmony, and upon the facility with which mankind are apt to be deluded into an admiration of exaggerated sentiment in poetry, they depended for their influence. And, however vapid the songs of Provence may seem to our apprehensions, they were undoubtedly the source from which poetry for many centuries derived a great portion of habitual language. The use of a popular language became more common after the year 1100. Translations of some books of Scripture and acts of saints were made about that time, or even earlier, and there are French sermons of St. Bernard, from which extracts have been published, in the royal library at Paris. In 1126, a charter was granted by Louis VI. to the city of Beauvais in French. Metrical compositions are in general the first literature of a nation, and even if no distinct proof could be adduced, we might assume their existence before the twelfth century. There is, however, evidence, not to mention the fragments printed by Le Boeuf, of certain lives of saints translated into French verse by Thibault de Vernon, a canon of Rouen, before the middle of the preceding age. And we are told that Taillefer, a Norman minstrel, recited a song or romance on the deeds of Roland, before the army of his countrymen, at the battle of Hastings, in 1066. Philip de Than, a Norman subject of It has been maintained by some antiquaries Henry I., seems to be the earliest poet whose that the northern romance, or what we pro- works as well as name have reached us, unless perly call French, was not formed until the we admit a French translation of the work of tenth century, the common dialect of all one Marbode upon precious stones to be more France having previously resembled that of ancient. This de Than wrote a set of rules for Languedoc. This hypothesis may not be in-computation of time, and an account of different 2D SERIES, VOL. II. 126 |