Taylor, Edgar [Editor]; Austin, Sarah [Editor]: Lays of the minnesingers or German troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Illustr. by specimens of the contemporary lyric poetry of Provence and other parts of Europe ; With histor. and crit. notes, and engravings from the ms. of the minnesingers in the king's library at Paris, and from other sources (London, 1825)

CASTILLE. 43

perhaps the most enlightened in Europe. The work
is continually interspersed with selections from the
Moorish poetry of the time ; and certainly the tone
and character of none of these extracts give the
least countenance to the supposition that the Trou-
badour poetry was borrowed from, or had the least
affinity to, the early Arabian school. The burden of
them in general is warlike or didactic, and the allu-
sions to the female sex are just what would be ex-
pected to characterize Eastern manners, and as much
the reverse of Troubadour feelings.

To illustrate this observation, we need only quote
the little song of Hemad de Taharti, who concealed his
verses in a rose, where it was likely to meet the eye,
not of his mistress, as a Troubadour would have done,
but of his king. It has more of the Troubadour turn
than any other of the pieces in Conde : yet the singu-
lar and unchivalric mode of addressing and compli-
menting the lady, by reminding her of her being made
for a slave, is sufficiently distinctive of this class of
poetry from the Provencal taste.

Woman, though but the dross of man,

Created to obey,
Reverses nature's wisest plan,

And soon usurps the sway.

When,—not in summer-hours,—the rose

Through many a field we seek,
"fis vain ; but no ! the sweetest blows,

Fair damsel, on thy cheek.