signed by the seven Troubadours, were sent round the country, promising a violet of gold to the author of the piece which should be judged the best at an assembly to be held the 3d of May, 1324. Arnauld Vidal obtained the prize, and was honoured with the title of Doctor of the gay science, Docteur en la gaïe science. The candidates were at first confined to odes, elegies, and hymns, in honour of God, the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints;-singular subjects for the recreation of a gay society! The meeting, which was annually held, soon became public, and was at length transferred to the townhouse. About the end of the same century, the institution acquired new lustre by the munificence of a lady of Toulouse, Clémence d'Isaure, who settled funds in perpetuity for defraying the expenses, and a rose, an eglantine, and some other flowers were added to the violet. In 1694, letters of confirmation were granted by Lewis XIV. the number of prizes was increased by an amaranth of gold, and the society placed under the protection of the Chancellor of France.

The learning of the Troubadours has been much questioned; and it is generally supposed that they were, in this respect, very inferior to their rivals on the other side of the Loire. If we are, however, to rely upon their own assertions, there was scarcely any subject in the circle of human knowledge, as it was then constituted, with which they were unacquainted. Pierre de Corbian, who wrote at the end of the thirteenth century, though speaking of his own accomplishments, gives us, in his Deux Troubadours Rivaux, a rare "taste of the quality" of the brotherhood. The specimen is taken from the sirvente preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. He says, "Although I have neither castles nor domains, I am not poor. I am even richer than others with a thousand marks of gold. My income is small, but my understanding and my manners are much above it. I hold my head as high as he who enjoys power and fortune. I possess a treasure more precious than silks and jewels, a treasure which can neither perish nor be taken from me by thieves, and which, far from diminishing, increases every day. It is the treasure of knowledge." Here he enters into a detail of all the particulars that constitute this knowledge, the origin of which he attributes to God. "It is God," he says, "who created the hierarchy of angels. It is God who created heaven and earth, and finally Adam and Eve, who, tempted by the serpent, were driven out of the terrestrial paradise." He next recapitulates the history of the patriarchs, of the judges and kings of the Israelites, and evinces his knowledge of the Old and New Testament. After some comments on the Apocalypse, and predicting the events that are to happen on the day of judgment, he concludes the first part of his treasure.

The second part, on which he seems to set less value, though more difficult to be acquired, comprehends all the liberal arts, somewhat of the theory and practice of physic and surgery, judicial astrology, and magic in all its forms and relations. "I know," observes the learned Troubadour, "mythology better than the ingenious Ovid. I can recite the history of Thebes, Troy, and Rome. I am acquainted with the exand passages from the Erotic poets of antiquity in justification of the theory and practice of the Courts of Love, by a learned civilian, Benôit-de-Cour, who published the work in 1541. The title was, "Les Déclamations, Procédures, et Arrêts d'Amour donnés en la cour et parquet de Cupidon, à cause d'aucuns différends entendus sur cette police."

ploits of Romulus, Pompey, Julius Cæsar, and Augustus. I can speak of all the Cæsars down to the reign of Constantine. The history of Rome is as familiar to me as that of France from the conversion of Clovis by Saint Remigius to the death of the good king Louis, who was killed in battle, and who was the most equitable of sovereigns, having neither gained nor lost any possession, but in conformity to justice. He also declares his perfect knowledge of the history of England, and after enumerating his poetical talents, which cannot fail to give equal delight to knights and ladies, he exclaims, "This is my treasure and happiness, this constantly employs my mind. It causes no anxiety, and nothing prevents me from being gay every day of the week."

The decline and fall of the Troubadours are to be attributed to their own degeneracy and corruption. They gradually gave up the natural and simple, for affectation and obscurity in thought and expression. The naïveté, to which their predecessors had been indebted for their popularity, was laid aside, or forgotten; and their disgrace was sealed by the coarseness of their manners and the obscenity of their lives.

No. II.-The Cid's Funeral Procession.*

THE Moor had beleaguer'd Valencia's towers,
And lances gleam'd up through her citron bowers,
And the tents of the Desert had girt her plain,
And camels were trampling the vines of Spain;
For the Cid was gone to rest.

There were men from wilds where the death-wind sweeps,
There were spears from hills where the lion sleeps,
There were bows from sands where the ostrich runs,

For the shrill horn of Afric had call'd her sons
To the battles of the West.

The midnight bell, o'er the dim seas heard,
Like the roar of waters the air had stirr'd;
The stars were shining o'er tower and wave,
And the camp lay hush'd, as a wizard's cave:
But the Christians woke that night.

They rear'd the Cid on his barbed steed,
Like a warrior mail'd for the hour of need,
And they fix'd the sword in the cold right hand,
Which had fought so well for his father's land,
And the shield from his neck hung bright.

There was arming heard in Valencia's halls,
There was vigil kept on the rampart-walls;
Stars had not faded, nor clouds turn'd red,
When the Knights had girded the noble Dead,
And the burial-train moved out.

With a measured pace, as the pace of one,
Was the still death-march of the host begun;
With a silent step went the cuirass'd bands,
Like a lion's tread on the burning sands,
And they gave no battle-shout.

* See the Legends recorded in Southey's Chronicle of the Cid.

When the first went forth, it was midnight deep,
In heaven was the moon, in the camp was sleep:
When the last through the city's gates
had gone,

O'er tent and rampart the bright day shone,

With a sun-burst from the sea!

There were Knights five hundred went arm'd before,
And Bermudez the Cid's green standard bore;

To its last fair field, with the break of morn,
Was the glorious banner in silence borne,
On the glad wind streaming free.

And the Campeador came stately then,
Like a leader circled with steel-clad men!

The helmet was down o'er the face of the Dead,
But his steed went proud, by a warrior led,

For he knew that the Cid was there.

He was there, the Cid, with his own good sword,
And Ximena following her noble lord
Her eye was solemn, her step was slow,
But there rose not a sound of war or woe,
Not a whisper on the air.

The halls in Valencia were still and lone,
The churches were empty, the masses done;
There was not a voice through the wide streets far,
Nor a foot-fall heard in the Alcazar;

-So the burial-train moved out.

With a measured pace, as the pace of one,
Was the slow death-march of the host begun;
With a silent step went the cuirass'd bands,
Like a lion's tread on the burning sands,
And they gave no battle-shout.

But the deep hills peal'd with a cry ere long,
When the Christians burst on the Paynim throng!
With a sudden flash of the lance and spear,
And a charge of the war-steed in full career,
It was Alvar Fanez came!

He that was wrapt with no funeral shroud,
Had pass'd before, like a threatening cloud!
And the storm rush'd down on the tented plain,
And the archer-queen, with her bands, lay slain;
-For the Cid upheld his fame.

Then a terror fell on the King Bucar,
And the Libyan Kings who had join'd his war!
And their hearts grew heavy, and died away,
And their hands, could not wield an Assagay,
For the dreadful things they saw !

For it seem'd, where Minaya his onset made,
There were seventy thousand Knights array'd!
All white as the snow on Nevada's steep,
And they came like the foam of a roaring deep;
-Twas a sight of fear and awe!

And the crested form of a warrior tall,
With a sword of fire, went before them all;
With a sword of fire, and a banner pale,

And a blood-red cross on his shadowy mail,
He rode in the battle's van.

Alvar Fanez Minaya, one of the Cid's bravest warriors.

There was fear in the path of his dim white horse,
There was death in the giant-warrior's course!
Where his banner stream'd with its ghostly light,
Where his sword blazed out, there was hurrying flight,
For it seem'd not the sword of man!

The field and the river grew darkly red,

As the kings and leaders of Afric Яed :

There was work for the men of the Cid that day!
-They were weary at eve, when they ceased to slay,
As reapers whose task is done.

The kings and the leaders of Afric fled!
The sails of their galleys in haste were spread:
But the sea had its share of the Paynim-slain,
And the bow of the Desert was broke in Spain,
-So the Cid to his grave pass'd on!

No. III.-The Cid's Rising.

'Twas the deep mid-watch of the silent night,
And Leon in slumber lay,

When a sound* went forth in rushing might,
Like an army on its way!

In the stillness of the hour,

When the dreams of sleep have power,
And men forget the day.

Through the dark and lonely streets it went,
Till the sleepers woke in dread—

The sound of a passing armament,
With the charger's stony tread!
There was heard no trumpet's peal,
But the heavy tramp of steel,

As a host's, to combat led.

Through the dark and lonely streets it pass'd,
And the hollow pavement rang,

And the towers, as with a sweeping blast,
Rock'd to the stormy clang!

But the march of the viewless train
Went on to a royal fane,

Where a priest his night-hymn sang.

There was knocking that shook the marble floor,
And a voice at the gate, which said,

That the Cid Ruydiez, the Campeador,

Was there in his arms array'd;

And that with him from the tomb,
Had the Count Gonzalez come,

With a host, uprisen to aid!

"And they came for the buried King that lay At rest, in that ancient fane,

For he must be arm'd on the battle-day,

With them, to deliver Spain !"

-Then the march went sounding on,
And the Moors, by noontide sun,

Were dust on Tolosa's plain.

* See the Chronicle of the Cid, p. 352.

DRAMATIC TRAVELS.

The Diligence from Paris to Lyons.

MADAME de Staël (and hers is the best name I know to lead off an essay) declared, that, were she going to the gallows, she would be busied all the way in scrutinizing the characters of her fellow-convicts. No doubt, she was thinking of the old times, when one was sure to meet with good company, and plenty of it, in a trip to the guillotine. Not being over-particular, I must prefer, for the scene of my observations, a vehicle of less dispatch; for in running post to the other world, according to the supposition of the ever-supposing Baroness, I should be a deal too absorbed in number One to be at all dramatic. Such scenes are rather too much for a joke-and I here may mention having been for the first time highly disgusted with the facetious Pierce Egan, for representing the last scene of the condemned in one of his variegated caricatures. No-give me a Diligence, that pleasant misnomer, that with sixteen, eighteen, nay, twenty passengers, stowed in three cabins, and a parachute-looking affair called a Cabriolet, at top, together with I know not how many tons weight of baggage, rolls along the pavé at the rate of two-miles-and-a-half per hour, stoppages non-included. "Didst ever see a Diligence?"-Wert thou ever, then, at Chelsea or Battlebridge, at Greenwich or Brook-Green fair ?-Saw'st thou the elephant's vehicle and habitation, or that of the lions?" Walk in, gentlemen!"You may remember these. Such is a Diligence! And lumbering vehicles as they are, enough indeed to drown any John Bull in a flood of spleen, yet, let me tell you, the yard of the Messageries Royales beats out and out your White Horse Cellar, or your Swan with Two Necks. I don't talk of Portsmouth, or Liverpool, or voyages in the sea-way, for "that beats Banagher," as we Irishmen say; but in the quiet, well-behaved, rowleypowley mode of travelling on dry land, the very sublime of tantalization is the Messageries. Only suppose one of our island brethren dropt there, one of those fellows, greedy of travel, with the organ of space protruding like a horn from the midst of his forehead, with what feelings must he peruse the inscriptions on the Diligence and over the bureaus,-to Bayonne and Madrid-to Lyons, Turin, Milan, Rome, &c. to Strasburg, Munich, Vienna-to Berlin-to St. Petersburg. Lord bless you, sir, 'twould be as much as his life's worth!

"En route," cries the conducteur, "Montez, Messieurs;" but before getting in, and, consequently, describing my company, I must premise that the Diligence has five horses ;-'tis strange, but I have always found that French postilions, like poets, (is it poets?) delight in odd numbers. For many a cogitative post was this point a subject of puzzle and annoyance to me. I asked the reason of all and every postilion; they shook their enormous cues, but answered nothing, till, at last, one fellow, more knowing than the rest, told me, with a sly look at his legboxes, that the odd horse was for his boots. This reason was fully adequate.

Being all seated, we trotted off, and ere the coach reached Fontainbleau, I was in full possession of the country, profession, and opinions of my fellow-passengers. In spite of my wishing to be a bit of a republican, I never yet encountered a society, great or small, without being thoroughly convinced of the non-existence and moral impossi