With regard to the derivation of the word “Romance,” we trace it to the fact that the dialects which were formed in Western Europe, from the admixture of Latin with the native languages, took the name of _Langue Romaine_. The French language was divided into two dialects. The river Loire was their common boundary. In the provinces to the south of that river the affirmative, _yes_, was expressed by the word _oc_; in the north it was called _oil_ (_oui_); and hence Dante has named the southern language _langue d’oc_, and the northern _langue d’oil_. The latter, which was carried into England by the Normans, and is the origin of the present French, may be called the French Romane; and the former the Provençal, or Provencial Romane, because it was spoken by the people of Provence and Languedoc, southern provinces of France. These dialects were soon distinguished by very opposite characters. A soft and enervating climate, a spirit of commerce encouraged by an easy communication with other maritime nations, the influx of wealth, and a more settled government, may have tended to polish and soften the diction of the Provencials, whose poets, under the name of Troubadours, were the masters of the Italians, and particularly of Petrarch. Their favorite pieces were _Sirventes_ (satirical pieces), love-songs, and _Ténsons_, which last were a sort of dialogue in verse between two poets, who questioned each other on some refined points of loves’ casuistry. It seems the Provencials were so completely absorbed in these delicate questions as to neglect and despise the composition of fabulous histories of adventure and knighthood, which they left in a great measure to the poets of the northern part of the kingdom, called Trouveurs.