Taylor, Edgar [Hrsg.]; Austin, Sarah [Hrsg.]: 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)

FKANCE. 81

Our selections from the Norman French poets,
some of which have never before been in print, will
be found to be very scanty; and it is difficult to have
it otherwise, considering the little pains which have
hitherto been taken, even in France, with this branch
of its early literature.

A great deal might be done in this department,
from the stores of the King's Library at Paris: but
even in what will be found hereafter, and in the
volumes which have just appeared, entitled " Les
Poetes Francois depuis le XIIe Siecle jusqu'a Mal-
herbe; Paris, 1824," (miserably deficient as those
volumes are, in the exhibition of hitherto unpublish-
ed matter,) it will be plain that Boileau gave rather
a precipitate judgement when he said—

Villon * fut le premier, dans ces siecles grossiers
Debrouiller l'art confus de nos vieux Romanciers.
Marot bient6t apres fit fleurir les Ballades, &c

m » # »

Knfi 11 Malherbe vint; et le premier en France
Fit sentir dans les vers une juste cadence; &c.

A comparison of the Northern and Southern lan-
guages of France leads to the conclusion, that even
in its best days the former was greatly the inferior
in melody and power, though not perhaps in a pecu-
liar naivete and sweetness. Of these qualities, its

* Of the 15th century.
G