as had a marked influence on the
Arabian "Thousand and One Nights." In this poem of Ferdusi's we note
the contest between light and darkness (an idea nowhere found in Greek
poetry). It seemed to touch the poetical thought of the age of
chivalry; for we find it reproduced in their songs, mingled with
Scriptural and love scenes.

Next to Chivalric poetry, the age of the Crusaders was essentially a
period of love songs. They attained their greatest perfection in
Provence, whence they spread over the whole of France, and from there
into Germany in the twelfth century.

Love poetry in Italy failed to attain any degree of perfection until
the time of Petrarch in the fourteenth century; and its real era in
Spain was not until a century later. Love poetry developed in different
ways in Europe, and, as we have seen, at different times. Except among
the Italians it was not so much borrowed from one nation to another as
had been the case with other branches of literature.

It is different with Chivalric poetry, which was considered the common
property of all. The form of poetical composition also varied in each
country, and the only thing common to all the nations was rhyme. Almost
all the love poems seem to have been written to be sung, and this was
carried to such lengths that in the reign of Lewis the Pious of
Germany, an edict had to be sent to the nuns of the German Cloisters by
their Bishops, forbidding them to sing their love songs, or Mynelieder.

THE DRAMA.

The history of the drama may be divided into two classes, the
Christian, which began with the Mystery and Morality plays; and the
Greek, which was eminently classic. These two types were the foundation
of all that came after them.

The first dawn of the drama was in Greece; for although the Hindus also
had dramatic poetry, it did not arise until there had been a lengthened
intercourse between Greece and India, so that the latter undoubtedly
borrowed from the former. The learned writers of ancient times agree
that both tragedy and comedy were originally choral song. It has been
said that poetry and song are divided into three periods of a nation's
history, that the Epic has to do with the first awakening of a people,
telling of their legends, or of some great deeds in remote antiquity.
This is followed by the second stage, which embraces elegiac and lyric
poetry and arose in stirring and martial times, during the development
of new forms of government, when