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Northern birth, but from the circumstances in which their compositions had their origin.

The oral relations fitted to seize the attention of an audience, must necessarily, be rapid, select, conversant only with leading objects; rejecting uninteresting minutiæ; and full of energy and brevity. These are the essence of the poetic manner, and the relics that are still handed down to us of the Troubadours, fully justify this character. reader of taste, combined with critical penetration' must be struck with their fire; their traits of real feeling; their natural sentiments; and their abrupt' select, and picturesque forms of expression.

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But who can read the early written Romances of the Trouveurs, except as an Antiquary, or an Historian? There Art overlays Nature: all is cold and too often absurd. Many of the inventions of the Trouveurs are fictions without ingenuity: departures from reality, not to wander into regions of higher beauty, or grandeur; but to deal with impossibilities, as dull and ridiculous, as untrue.

The Troubadours, when they sung in the Halls of Princes, and Counts, and great Barons, were Poets occupied in their proper calling. The

employ might be dangerous; their passions might often lead them astray: the spirit of adventure might throw them into inextricable dangers: and the nets of Love might make them victims to captivity and despair.

But if there was danger in this occupation, there was also high delight, and high use in it. The mind impelled forward in this ambition of intellectual excellence by passions uniting refinement with gallantry, has unexpected beauties open before it; and catches unexpected grandeur, polish, and excellence.

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