The number and variety of these efforts would defy all attempts at perfect classification and nomenclature. The troubadours altogether were sparing in the use of technical terms, but even the later grammarians found it impossible to affix names to all the metrical refinements and _tours de force_ in which Provençal poets delighted. It is amusing to observe the different attitude in this respect of the poets and metrical theorists of Northern France. The rhyming capacities of their language were as inferior as their own craftsmanship to the language and the art of the troubadours. In consequence they found it desirable ‘to make a little go a long way,’ and, for example, dubbed with the sonorous name of ‘Chant Royal’ the mere repetition of the rhymes of a somewhat complicated stanza throughout a poem of moderate length: a feat performed almost unconsciously by the troubadours in numberless canzos and sirventeses. The _ballade_ made celebrated, although by no means invented, by the genius of Villon, and which, by the way, differs as widely from the Provençal _balada_ on the one hand, as it does from the Scotch ‘ballad’ on the other, is a similar contrivance of a still simpler nature. This simplicity, of course, by no means detracts from the poetic merit of these poems, and the manner, for instance, in which the refrain is used in both cases betrays considerable skill. But compared with the consummate workmanship of the troubadours, these efforts appear mere child’s play.[14] Of the elaborate rules of Provençal metrical science and practice, both as regards the rhyme and the construction of stanzas, full account will be given in the technical section. For the present it will suffice to name a few examples chosen for their quaintness and originality rather than for any extraordinary display of workmanship.