We here once again touch upon that pride and bane of Provençal poetry—form. That much freshness of expression, much genuine fervour of inspiration, has been sacrificed to this moloch, is not a matter of doubt. The sameness of type observable in a whole galaxy of gifted and no doubt variously gifted poets cannot be explained from any other cause. For not only did the observance of certain external niceties absorb a great part of the poet’s energy, but the habit of such observance gradually encroached even on his cast of thought. Certain feelings and ideas gradually grew into established formulas. The absence of a true sympathy with nature in the works of the troubadours is a case in point. Originally such a feeling must have existed; the very common occurrence at the beginning of a love-song of some remarks on the beauties of spring, the song of birds, and the like, tends to prove it. But unfortunately the similarity of these preludes and the narrow range of objects to which they refer are a proof equally strong of the detrimental force of the ‘set speech’ above alluded to. For one Gaucelm Faidit, who feels genuine delight in the ‘_rossinholet salvatge_,’ the ‘wild nightingale,’ there are twenty troubadours who speak of the sweet-toned songster with perfect indifference and merely as a matter of custom. Even the main and moving subject of the _canzo_, the lady, does not always escape the same fate. She also frequently becomes a barren symbol to be described according to a certain code of beauty and to be addressed in certain well-turned phrases. Another striking defect in Provençal poetry may to a great extent be derived from the same source. This is the want of continuity in most of the _canzos_. Few of these show a necessary organic growth. In most cases stanzas might be added or taken away without detracting from or increasing the general merit of the poem. The reason is the wonderful elaborateness and symmetry of the single stanzas, which make them appear in the light of independent and compact units, the stringing together of which may delight the hearer for a time, but can never produce the impression of an organic whole. I could cite modern instances in which the same cause has had exactly the same effect.