ion to readers, except by a literary critic who is equally
competent in Eastern and Western history and literature, a person who
certainly has not shown himself as yet. What can be said with some
confidence is, that the Saracen theory of Literature, like the Saracen
theory of Architecture, so soon as it is carried beyond the advancing
of a possible but slight and very indeterminate influence and
colouring, has scarcely the slightest foundation in known facts, and
is very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with facts that are
known, while it is intrinsically improbable to the very highest
degree. As has been pointed out above, the modern prosody of Europe is
quite easily and logically explicable as the result of the
juxtaposition of the Latin rhythms of the Church service, and the
verse systems indigenous in the different barbaric nations. That the
peculiar cast and colour of early Italian poetry may owe something of
that difference which it exhibits, even in comparison with Provencal,
much more with French, most of all with Teutonic poetry, to contact
with Arabian literature, is not merely possible but probable. Anything
more must be regarded as not proven, and not even likely.

[Sidenote: _The "folk-song" theory._]

[Sidenote: _Ciullo d'Alcamo._]

Of late, however, attempts have been made to assign the greater part
of the matter to no foreign influence whatever, but to native
folk-songs, in which at the present time, and no doubt for a long time
back, Italy is beyond all question rich above the wont of European
countries. But this attempt, however interesting and patriotic,
labours under the same fatal difficulties which beset similar attempts
in other languages. It may be regarded as perfectly certain that we do
not possess any Italian popular poem in any form which can have
existed prior to the thirteenth century; and only such poems would be
of any use. To argue, as is always argued in such cases, that existing
examples show, by this or that characteristic, that in other forms
they must have existed in the twelfth century or even earlier, is only
an instance of that learned childishness which unfortunately rules so
widely in literary, though it has been partly expelled from general,
history. "May have been" and "must have been" are phrases of no
account to a sound literary criticism, which insists upon "was." And
in reference to this particular subject of Early Italian Poetry the
reader may be referred to