those extravagances which afterward became so common in Spanish poetry,
when Gongora introduced the _estilo culto_, as it was called.

Page 148.

LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY.

This personification of the passion of Love, by Peyre Vidal, has been
referred to as a proof of how little the Provencal poets were indebted
to the authors of Greece and Rome for the imagery of their poems.

Page 149.

THE LOVE OF GOD.--(FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARD RASCAS.)

The original of these lines is thus given by John of Nostradamus, in his
Lives of the Troubadours, in a barbarous Frenchified orthography:

"Touta kausa mortala una fes perira,
Fors que l'amour de Dieu, que touiours durara.
Tous nostres cors vendran essuchs, come fa l'eska,
Lous Aubres leyssaran lour verdour tendra e fresca,
Lous Ausselets del bosc perdran lour kant subtyeu,
E non s'auzira plus lou Rossignol gentyeu.
Lous Buols al Pastourgage, e las blankas fedettas
Sent'ran lous agulhons de las mortals Sagettas,
Lous crestas d'Aries fiers, Renards, e Loups espars
Kabrols, Cervys, Chamous, Senglars de toutes pars,
Lous Ours hardys e forts, seran poudra, e Arena.
Lou Daulphin en la Mar, lou Ton, e la Balena,
Monstres impetuous, Ryaumes, e Comtas,
Lous Princes, e lous Reys, seran per mort domtas.
E nota ben eysso kascun: la Terra granda,
(Ou l'Escritura ment) lou fermament que branda,
Prendra autra figura. Enfin tout perira,
Fors que l'Amour de Dieu, que touiours durara."

Page 150.

FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y ANAYA.

_Las Auroras de Diana_, in which the original of these lines is
contained, is, notwithstanding it was praised by Lope de Vega, one of
the worst of the old Spanish Romances, being a tissue of riddles and
affectations, with now and then a little poem of considerable beauty.

Page 160.

EARTH.

The author began this poem in rhyme. The following is the first draught
of it as far as he proceeded, in a stanza which he found it convenient
to abandon:

A midnight black with clouds is on the sky;
A shadow like the first original night
Folds in, and seems to press me as I lie;
No image meets the vainly wandering sight,
And shot through rolling mists no starlight gleam
Glances on glassy pool or rippling stream.

No ruddy blaze, from dwellings bright within,
Tinges the flowering summits of the grass;
No sound of life is heard, no village din,
Wings rustling overhead