To the comparison of the two Romances, and the similarity of their origin, I may now with confidence add the authority of Fontanini[AR] to prove, that they are one and the same language. This author, speaking of the ancient Gallic Romance, asserts that it is now spoken in the country of the Grisons; though, not attending to the variety of dialects, some of which have certainly nothing of the Italian, he supposes it to have been altogether adulterated by a mixture of that modern tongue. Whilst the Grisons neglected to improve their language, and rejected, or indeed were out of the reach of every refinement it might have derived from polished strangers, the taste and fertile genius of the Troubadours, fostered by the countenance and elegance of the brilliant courts and splendid nobility of Provence, did not long leave theirs in the rough state in which we find it in the ninth century. But the change having been gradual and almost imperceptible, the French historians have fixed no epocha for the transition of the Romance into the Provençal. That the former language had not received any considerable alteration in the twelfth Century may be gathered from the comparison in the appendix: and, that it still bore the same name, appears from the titles of several books which are said to have been written in, or translated into, the Romance. But though mention is made of that name even after this aera, yet upon examining impartially what is given us for that language in this period, it will be found so different from the Romance of the ninth century, that to trace it any further would be both a vain and an extravagant pursuit. Admitting, however, the universal use of the Romance all over France down to the twelfth century, which no French author has yet doubted or denied; and allowing that what the writers of those times say of the Gallic is to be understood of the Romance, as appears from chronological proofs, and the expressions of several authors prior to the fifth century;[AS] who, by distinguishing the _Gallic_ both from the _Latin_ and the _Celtic_, plainly indicate that they thereby mean the Romance, those being the only three languages which, before the invasion of the Franks, could possibly have been spoken, or even understood in Gaul: admitting these premises, I say, it necessarily follows, that the language introduced into England under Alfred, and afterwards more universally established by Edward the Confessor, and William the Conqueror, must have been an emanation of the Romance, very near akin to that of the abovementioned oath, and consequently to that which is now spoken in the Alps.