From such passages as these M. Fauriel concludes that of all the subjects mentioned in them elaborate treatments in the shape of epics or romances existed in the _langue d’oc_. But this supposition surely is quite unsupported by the evidence direct or indirect. The myths and semi-historic facts referred to, such as the deeds of Charlemagne or King Arthur, were the common stock of European nations in the Middle Ages, migrating from the Welsh shores of the Atlantic to the eastern confines of Germany, and back again to Saxo-Norman England. Trouvères, Troubadours, and Minnesingers were equally well acquainted with these inexhaustible sources of amusement, and a wayfaring minstrel was naturally expected to give a more or less original version of the familiar theme. But none of the passages mentioned above refers to any existing poem on the subjects it enumerates, or indeed to any written document at all, which latter, moreover, in nine cases out of ten would have been of little use to the popular singer. The existence, therefore, of an extensive epical literature in the Provençal language remains a mere conjecture in spite of M. Fauriel’s eloquent special pleading. There is, however, no reason to deny that more than one narrative poem may have fallen a victim to time, and in some instances at least we have strong circumstantial evidence pointing that way. One of these cases leads to considerations so interesting in other respects that a short statement of it may be welcome to the reader. It is well known that the works of the Troubadours were at an early period read and admired in the neighbouring country of Italy, and that the poets in the _lingua volgare_ recognised in them at once their models and allies in the struggle against the predominance of Latin scholarship. Students of the ‘Divina Commedia’ or of Petrarch’s ‘Trionfi’ are aware of the prominent position assigned to the Provençal singers amongst the poets of the world, and they may also remember that of the Troubadours themselves none is mentioned with higher praise than Arnaut Daniel. Petrarch calls him _gran maestro d’amore_, the ‘great master of love, whose novel and beautiful style still (i.e. about the middle of the fourteenth century) does honour to his country;’ and Dante, in his philological and metrical treatise ‘De vulgari Eloquio,’ declares himself indebted to Arnaut for the structure of several of his stanzas. The ‘sestina,’ for instance, a poem of six verses in which the final words of the first stanza appear in inverted order in all the others, is an invention of this troubadour adopted by Dante and Petrarch, and, most likely through the medium of French models, by Mr. Swinburne, as we shall presently see. But another far more lasting monument has been erected to Arnaut in the immortal lines of the ‘Purgatorio,’ where Guido Guinicelli, in answer to Dante’s enthusiastic praise of his poetry, points to another shade, and