nd whom he adored was the gay and beautiful Eleanor of Poitou, the
Queen of Henry II., who filled the heart of many a Crusader with unholy
thoughts. Her daughter, too, Mathilde, who was married to Henry the Lion
of Saxony, inspired many a poet of those days. Her beauty was celebrated
by the Provencal Troubadours; and at the court of her husband, she
encouraged several of her German vassals to follow the example of the
French and Norman knights, and sing the love of Tristan and Isolt, and the
adventures of the knights of Charlemagne. They must have been happy times,
those times of the Crusades! Nor have they passed away without leaving
their impress on the hearts and minds of the nations of Europe. The Holy
Sepulchre, it is true, is still in the hands of the Infidels, and the
bones of the Crusaders lie buried in unhallowed soil, and their deeds of
valor are well-nigh forgotten, and their chivalrous Tournaments and their
Courts of Love are smiled at by a wiser generation. But much that is noble
and heroic in the feelings of the nineteenth century has its hidden roots
in the thirteenth. Gothic architecture and Gothic poetry are the children
of the same mother; and if the true but unadorned language of the heart,
the aspirations of a real faith, the sorrow and joy of a true love, are
still listened to by the nations of Europe; and if what is called the
Romantic school is strong enough to hold its ground against the classical
taste and its royal patrons, such as Louis XIV., Charles II., and
Frederick the Great,--we owe it to those chivalrous poets who dared for the
first time to be what they were, and to say what they felt, and to whom
Faith, Love, and Honor were worthy subjects of poetry, though they lacked
the sanction of the Periclean and Augustan ages.

The new edition of the Poems of the "Minnesaenger" is a masterpiece of
German scholarship. It was commenced by Lachmann, the greatest critic,
after Wolf, that Germany has produced. Lachmann died before the work was
finished, and Professor Haupt, his successor at Berlin, undertook to
finish it. His share in the edition, particularly in the notes, is greater
than that of Lachmann; and the accuracy with which the text has been
restored from more than twenty MSS., is worthy of the great pupil of that
great master.

1858.

III. YE SCHYPPE OF FOOLES.(9)

The critical periods in the history of the world are best studied in the
lives of a few representative men. The