In the North, or more specifically speaking in the land of France north of the Loire, the twelfth century brought better metrical poetry than in Italy. Yet it had something of the deadness of imitation, since the _vis vivida_ of song had passed over into rhyming verse. Still from the academic point of view, metre was the proper vehicle of poetry; as one sees, for instance, in the _Ars versificatoria_ of Matthew of Vendome,[293] written toward the close of the twelfth century. “Versus est metrica descriptio,” says he, and then elaborates his, for the most part borrowed, definition: “Verse is metrical description proceeding concisely and line by line through the comely marriage of words to flowers of thought, and containing nothing trivial or irrelevant.” A neat conception this of poetry; and the same writer denounces leonine rhyming as unseemly, but praises the favourite metre of the Middle Ages, the elegiac; for he regards the hexameter and pentameter as together forming the perfect verse. It was in this metre that Hildebert wrote his almost classic elegy over the ruins of Rome. A few lines have been quoted from it;[294] but the whole poem, which is not long, is of interest as one of the very best examples of a mediaeval Latin elegy: “Par tibi, Roma, nihil, cum sis prope tota ruina; Quam magni fueris integra fracta doces. Longa tuos fastus aetas destruxit, et arces Caesaris et superum templa palude jacent. Ille labor, labor ille ruit quem dirus Araxes Et stantem tremuit et cecidisse dolet; Quem gladii regum, quem provida cura senatus, Quem superi rerum constituere caput; Quem magis optavit cum crimine solus habere Caesar, quam socius et pius esse socer, Qui, crescens studiis tribus, hostes, crimen, amicos Vi domuit, secuit legibus, emit ope; In quem, dum fieret, vigilavit cura priorum: Juvit opus pietas hospitis, unda, locus. Materiem, fabros, expensas axis uterque Misit, se muris obtulit ipse locus. Expendere duces thesauros, fata favorem, Artifices studium, totus et orbis opes. Urbs cecidit de qua si quicquam dicere dignum Moliar, hoc potero dicere: Roma fuit. Non tamen annorum series, non flamma, nec ensis Ad plenum potuit hoc abolere decus. Cura hominum potuit tantam componere Romam Quantam non potuit solvere cura deum. Confer opes marmorque novum superumque favorem, Artificum vigilent in nova facta manus, Non tamen aut fieri par stanti machina muro, Aut restaurari sola ruina potest. Tantum restat adhuc, tantum ruit, ut neque pars stans Aequari possit, diruta nec refici. Hic superum formas superi mirantur et ipsi, Et cupiunt fictis vultibus esse pares. Non potuit natura deos hoc ore creare Quo miranda deum signa creavit homo. Vultus adest his numinibus, potiusque coluntur Artificum studio quam deitate sua. Urbs felix, si vel dominis urbs illa careret,