The second cause of transformation and re-formation already inherent in the Latin language of the second and third centuries (A.C.) is what philologists term the analytic or dissolving principle. Synthetic or primitive languages indicate the declension of a noun or the conjugation of a verb by a modification of the word itself; analytical languages by the addition of other words. Thus, _patris_ in Latin answers to our three words _of the father_, or to the French _de le_ (contracted _du_) _père_. The addition of the article subsequently makes the modification of the noun itself superfluous; hence _père_ answers to the four modifications of the Roman _pater_. But the same tendency existed in the late-Latin speech itself, and the _de le père_ presupposes a _de illo patre_. In an analogous manner, the _j’ai fait_ or _ho fatto_ of the French and Italian languages is beyond doubt derived from a Latin _habeo factum_, instead of the simpler and older _feci_. Of the various languages of Latin growth, the Provençal was the first to attain to an independent characteristic type of expression. The limits of its domain have been variously defined; but it extended far beyond the boundaries of the later Provence, even beyond those of modern France, comprising, for instance, parts of Spain, such as Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands. Its northern limit may be roughly stated to be the line drawn from the mouth of the Gironde to that of the Saone. The political autonomy of the south of France, which secured it from the international and national troubles of its northern neighbour, greatly favoured peaceful progress and enjoyment of life. Moreover, the rich, bountiful soil, and the prosperity and natural gaiety of the inhabitants, were conducive to the early growth of poetic feeling; and it may be assumed that long before the time of the Troubadours, rustic lays, accompanied by the sounds of the viola, used to enliven the harvest homes of Provençal villages. Of this popular epoch no record now remains, except the language itself—at once the result and embodiment of a nation’s longing for utterance. The generic term applied to the language of southern France seems to have been ‘Provençal,’ in allusion no doubt to the Provincia Romana of the Cæsars. For this term we have the weighty authority of Dante, also that of an old Provençal grammar called ‘Donatus Provincialis.’ The Troubadours themselves, however, never use this perhaps more scientific denomination. They generally speak of Lengua Romana, a term which of course applies with equal propriety to all the languages derived from the Latin. But what do poets care about philological distinctions? Another term, _langue d’oc_, afterwards transferred to a province of France, was undoubtedly known in the middle ages. It is derived from the affirmative particle _oc_, i.e. ‘yes,’ and chiefly used to distinguish Provençal from its sister-languages, the