than Gascon, detected in his poems many comparatively unknown
words,--not indeed of his own creation, but merely the result of his
patient and long-continued investigation of the Gascon dialect. Yet they
found the language, as written and spoken by him, full of harmony--rich,
mellifluous, and sonorous. Gascon resembles the Spanish, to which it
is strongly allied, more than the Provencal, the language of the
Troubadours, which is more allied to the Latin or Italian.

Hallam, in his 'History of the Middle Ages,' regards the sudden outburst
of Troubadour poetry as one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human
mind received in the twelfth century, contemporaneous with the improved
studies that began at the Universities. It was also encouraged by the
prosperity of Southern France, which was comparatively undisturbed by
internal warfare, and it continued until the tremendous storm that fell
upon Languedoc during the crusade against the Albigenses, which shook
off the flowers of Provencal literature.{1}

The language of the South-West of France, including the Gascon, was then
called Langue d'Oc; while that of the south-east of France, including
the Provencal, was called Langue d'Oil. M. Littre, in the Preface to his
Dictionary of the French language, says that he was induced to begin the
study of the subject by his desire to know something more of the Langue
d'Oil--the old French language.{2}

In speaking of the languages of Western Europe, M. Littre says that the
German is the oldest, beginning in the fourth century; that the French
is the next, beginning in the ninth century; and that the English is
the last, beginning in the fourteenth century. It must be remembered,
however, that Plat Deutsch preceded the German, and was spoken by the
Frisians, Angles, and Saxons, who lived by the shores of the North Sea.

The Gaelic or Celtic, and Kymriac languages, were spoken in the middle
and north-west of France; but these, except in Brittany, have been
superseded by the modern French language, which is founded mainly on
Latin, German, and Celtic, but mostly on Latin. The English language
consists mostly of Saxon, Norse, and Norman-French with a mixture of
Welsh or Ancient British. That language is, however, no test of the
genealogy of a people, is illustrated by the history of France itself.
In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Franks, a powerful German race,
from the banks of the Rhine, invaded and conquered the people north