and carried it always in her bosom; and his remains were inclosed in a magnificent mausoleum of porphyry, with an Arabic inscription, commemorating his genius and his love for her.

It is in allusion to this well-known story, that Petrarch has introduced Rudel into the Trionfo d'Amore.

Gianfré Rudel ch' uso la vela e 'l remo,

A cercar la suo morte.

The song which the minstrel composed when he fell sick on this romantic expedition, and found his strength begin to fail, and which the Countess wore, folded within her vest, to the end of her life, is extant, and has been translated into most of the languages of Europe; of these translations, Sismondi's is the best, preserving the original and curious arrangement of the rhymes, as well as the piety, naïveté, and tenderness of the sentiment.

Irrité, dolent partirai

Si ne vois cet amour de loin,
Et ne sais quand je le verrai
Car sont par trop nos terres loin.

2

Dieu, qui toutes choses as fait

Et formas cet amour si loin,

Donne force à mon cœur, car ai
L'espoir de voir m'amour au loin.
Ah, Seigneur, tenez pour bien vrai
L'amour qu'ai pour elle de loin.
Car pour un bien que j'en aurai
J'ai mille maux, tant je suis loin.
Ja d'autr'amour ne jouirai

Sinon de cet amour de loin

Qu'une plus belle je n'en sçais

En lieu qui soit ni près ni loin !

Mrs. Piozzi and others have paraphrased this little song, but in a spirit so different from the antique simplicity of the original, that I shall venture to give a version, which has at least the merit of being as faithful as the different idioms of the two languages will allow; I am afrnid, however, that it will not appear worthy of the honour which the Countess conferred on it.

"Grieved and troubled shall I die,

If I meet not my love afar;

Alas! I know not that I e'er

Shall see her-for she dwells afar.

O God! that didst all things create,

And formed my sweet love now afar;
Strengthen my heart, that I may hope
To behold her face, who is afar.

O Lord! believe how very true
Is my love for her, alas! afar,
Tho' for each joy a thousand pains
I bear, because I am so far.
Another love I'll never have,

Save only she who is afar,

For fairer one I never knew

In places near, nor yet afar."

Bertrand d'Allamanon, whom I have mentioned as the companion of Rudel on his romantic expedition, has left us a little ballad, remarkable for the extreme refinement of the sentiment, which is quite à la Petrarque: he gives it the fantastic title of a demi chanson, for a very fantastic reason: it is thus translated in Millot. (vol. i. 390).

"On veut savoir pourquoi je fais une demi chanson? c'est parceque je n'ai qu'un demi sujet de chanter. Il n'y a d'amour que de ma part;

la dame que j'aime ne veut pas m'aimer ! mais au défaut des oui qu'elle me refuse, je prendrai les non qu'elle me prodigue:—espérer auprès d'elle vaut mieux que jouir avec tout autre !”

This is exactly the sentiment of Petrarch :

Pur mi consola, che morir per lei

Meglio è che gioir d'altra

But it is one of those thoughts which spring in the heart, and might often be repeated without once being borrowed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LOVES OF THE TROUBADOURS

CONTINUED.

IN striking contrast to the tender and gentle Rudel, we have the ferocious Bertrand de Born: he, too, was one of the most celebrated Troubadours of his time. As a petty feudal sovereign, he was, partly by the events of the age, more by his own fierce and headlong passions, plunged in continual wars. Nature however had made him a poet of the first order. In these days he would have been another Lord Byron; but he lived in a terrible and convulsed state of society, and it was only in the intervals snatched from his usual pursuits,—that is, from burning the castles, and ravaging the lands of his neighbours, and