mpt was made in the next century to revive them, by
distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of
Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher
antiquity.[855] This institution perhaps still remains; but even in its
earliest period it did not establish the name of any Provencal poet. Nor
can we deem these fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where
ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical
advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much
calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate,
however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for
poetry and the manners of those chivalrous ages.[856]

[Sidenote: Their poetical character.]

The great reputation acquired by the troubadours, and panegyrics
lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity
among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further
acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de
St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of
Provencal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed.
Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the
writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet
with passages in his three volumes which give us any poetical
pleasure.[857] Some of the original poems have since been published, and
the extracts made from them by the recent historians of southern
literature are rather superior. The troubadours chiefly confined
themselves to subjects of love, or rather gallantry, and to satires
(sirventes), which are sometimes keen and spirited. No romances of
chivalry, and hardly any tales, are found among their works. There seems
a general deficiency of imagination, and especially of that vivid
description which distinguishes works of genius in the rudest period of
society. In the poetry of sentiment, their favourite province, they
seldom attain any natural expression, and consequently produce no
interest. I speak, of course, on the presumption that the best specimens
have been exhibited by those who have undertaken the task. It must be
allowed, however, that we cannot judge of the troubadours at a greater
disadvantage than through the prose translations of Millot. Their poetry
was entirely of that class which is allied to music, and excites the
fancy or feelings rather by th