The greater number of these forms originated with the Troubadours, and here, for mere brevity’s sake, only a very few words must be said. The subject of their loves and their lives has been so fully discussed that a mere _résumé_ of all that is known would fill many parts of this magazine. Hallam says “the earliest records cannot trace them beyond A.D. 1100, and they became extinct at the end of the next century. While they flourished they numbered many hundreds of versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France.” It would be interesting, if space allowed, to quote from some of the many histories. I had intended to do so, but the growing material forbade the idea of using it here, and so I must refer would-be inquirers to some of the more easily accessible works. Foremost is Dr. Francis Hueffer’s “The Troubadours,” published in 1878; it gives a scholarly and full account of the most salient members of the school and their works. “The Troubadours: their Loves and Lives,” by Mr. John Rutherford, is also interesting; while a work by M. Theodore de Banville, the “Petit Traité de Poésie Française,” affords an exhaustive analysis of the rules of their verse and its modern imitations. Their verse was distinguished by its being subject to very strict and subtle laws, often involved and carried to an artificial complexity, perilously near the triumph of sound over sense; yet it has a charm peculiarly its own. The forms of this school being still exotic, and not (except the sonnet) incorporated into English literature, gives them a special fitness when employed for fanciful trifles on subjects of an older time. The qualities termed “conceits” by the old English writers, are admirably expressed through the medium of these old shapes; a certain amount of extravagance of compliment and affectation is not out of place here. The flavour of the verse smacks of the “Moyen Age,” or “Powder and Fan” period beloved by artists. In these forms the shape of the verse itself takes the place somewhat of the costume and accessories of a painting, and gives local colour to the subject. When used in this way, as Mr. Austin Dobson has so often shown, they can be made (like a picture by Abbey) to reproduce the past in a living way, with its own domestic sentiment, far removed from a mere archæological or academic study of olden days, which often appeals to the intellect rather than the feeling, and moves us to criticise the method employed, instead of falling under the charm of the subject described. But they are by no means limited to this class of subject, as Mr. Swinburne’s Roundels show. Nature and her moods may be sung as fitly in these, as in the most free forms of poetry.