In the first place, English was not, until quite the end of the flourishing period of Provencal poetry, and specially at the period above referred to, in a condition to profit by Provencal models; while in the fourteenth century, when English connection with the south of France was closer still, Provencal was in its decadence. And, in the second place, the structure and spirit of the two tongues almost forbade imitation of the one in the other. It was Northern, not Southern, French that helped to make English proper out of Anglo-Saxon; and the gap between Northern French and Southern French themselves was far wider than between Provencal and the Peninsular tongues. To which things, if any one pleases, he may add the difference of the spirit of the two races; but this is always vague and uncertain ground, and is best avoided when we can tread on the firm land of history and literature proper. Such a rhyme-arrangement as that above set forth is probably impossible in English; even now it will be observed that Mr Swinburne, the greatest master of double and treble rhymes that we have ever had, rarely succeeds in giving even the former with a full spondaic effect of vowel such as is easy in Provencal. In "The Garden of Proserpine" itself, as in the double rhymes, where they occur, of "The Triumph of Time" (the greatest thing ever written in the Provencal manner, and greater than anything in Provencal), the second vowels of the rhymes are never full. And there too, as I think invariably in English, the poet shows his feeling of the intolerableness of continued double rhyme by making the odd verses rhyme plump and with single sound. Of poetry so little remarkable in individual manner or matter it is impossible to give abstracts, such as those which have been easy, and it may be hoped profitable, in some of the foregoing chapters; and prolonged analyses of form are tedious, except to the expert and the enthusiast. With some brief account, therefore, of the persons who chiefly composed this remarkable mass of lyric we may close a notice of the subject which is superficially inadequate to its importance, but which, perhaps, will not seem so to those who are content not merely to count pages but to weigh moments. The moment which Provencal added to the general body of force in European literature was that of a limited, somewhat artificial, but at the same time exquisitely artful and finished lyrical form, so adapted to the most inviting of the perennial motives of literature that it was sure to lead to imitation and development. It gave means and held up models to those who were able to produce greater effects than are to be found in its own accomplishment: yet was not its accomplishment, despite what is called its monotony, despite its limits and its defects, other than admirable and precious. [Sidenote: _Some troubadours._]