de Meun, while the Troubadours are only curforily mentioned. This deficiency would have been amply fupplied by the labors of M. de Sainte Palaie, who had collected Provençal manufcripts enough to fill 15 folio volumes, and had compiled a copious vocabulary to illuftrate them. This fupendous defign was, for different reafons, after wards relinquifhed: and, as fome compenfation for the lofs, M. Millot publifhed, in 3 octavo volumes, a literary hiftory of the Troubadours, with tranfla tions of extracts from their writings. But we must regret, that he has given us no fpecimens of the original compofitions, as the Provençal language itfelf would form a very interefting part in an enquiry of this kind. The intended volumes of M. de Sainte Palaie might perhaps have frightened fome by their being too expenfive, and others by their being too tedious; but if a few of the beft poems had been selected, and printed with explanatory notes, the curiofity of the public would have been fufficiently excited and gratified. But we are now obliged to recur to Crefcimbeni for almoft the only remains of the Provençal poetry that are extant, and thefe are fometimes fo obfcure, and fometimes fo inaccurately printed, as to deter one a good deal from the perufal of them. Encouraged, however, by the hope of drawing the attention of others more fkilful than myself to this fubject, I fhall venture to tranfmit to you fome of thefe curious relics, with curfory remarks on them, and on the lives of the Troubadours. The name of Troubadour is commonly derived from trovare or trouver, to invent; though it is faid by fome to take its origin from tromba, a trumpet. The other names given to them, fuch as Violars and Mufars, were expreffive of the mufical inftruments with which they accompanied their fongs. The art was for fome time in high repute, till it was fuperfeded by the more po lifhed imitations of the Italians. An academy, however, under the name of Jeux Floraux, was established for its cultivation, ar Toulouse, in 1324, which, perhaps, was the strongest mark of its decline. Crefcimbeni places at the † head of this honorable profeffion the name of William the eighth Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, who, if we may truft the report of William of Malmsbury, does not reflect great credit on his followers, by the purity of his principles, or the decency of his life. He was a contumacious oppofer of priestly authority; and inftituted a fociety of females, which he impiously dignified with the name of a Nunnery, for purposes very different from the exercifes of devotion. added to his crimes the guilt of adultery; as he deferred his legitimate wife, and carried off the confort of a viscount, whofe portrait, in miniature, he afterwards carried on his fhield, affigning a reafon, which, though related by the reverend hiftorian, is too grofs for modern ears. He was born in 1071, and died in 1122; his compofitions are faid to have fome wit, but more obfcenity. He The fame of Arnaud Daniel refts on a furer ground than his own compofitions; it is fecured by the united and honourable teftimonies of Dante and Petrarch. In the 26th Canto of the Purgatory, he is introduced in the company of Guido Guinicelli; and they are both reprefented, by Dante, as having excelled all their contemporaries in the different languages in which they wrote; the latter he calls, il padre Mio, e degli altri miei miglior, che mai Rinte d'amore ufar dolci e leggiadre; and the latter is faid to be, Miglior fabbro del parlar materno. The Italian poet gives us a fpecimen of his own fkill in the Provençal language, when he makes the Troubadour addrefs him in the following words: Tan m'abellis votre cortois deman, * Etablillemen des Jeux Floraux a Touloufe (1324) c'est ce qui nous est resté de ces anciens Troubadours, qui etoient les Chevaliers errans de la galanterie, et qui alloient chantant l'amour de chateau eu chateau. Henault, p. 300. + Millot difputes his claim to priority, but does not mention any Troubadour before his time, tom. 1, p. 16. W. Malm. de geft. Reg. Ang. lib. V. It appears, from this anecdote, that it was customary in those days to bear fome device on the fhield. The President Henault attri. butes the origin of arms and heraldry to the crufades, when the nobles, being covered with fteel, were under the neceffity of diftinguishing themfelves from each other by fome exterior mark on their armour. Abregé, &c. tom. 1, p. 191. William was engaged in the first crufade. GENT. MAG. June, 1793. Jeu Jeu fui Arnaut, che plor e vai cantan, Dante mentions him again in his Treatife de Vulgar. Eloq. 1. 2, b. 6 13. Petrarch, in the 4th canto of his Triumphs of Love, describes him leading a company of Troubadours, who contributed to fwell the victories of the Di portamenti e di vulgari strani. The fragments of this Troubadour, which are to be met with in Crefcimbeni, do not juftify fuch high panegyrics; and the two following extracts teem to poffets the most merit: Arvei vermeile, vers, blans, blanc, gruecs, Qan dels aufels qe lor latin fau prees Da'mars con pars, altrefi come nos fam, E las amigas en cui cutendem, E donca cu, qem la genfor entendi, Deg far chançon fobre toz de bei obra, Qe non aia mox fals ni rima eftrampa. Thefe verfes are tolerably perfp cu ous; but of the word "gruecs" I cannot difcover the meaning." In the f cond extract "latin" is ufed in a fin gular feule; Latin was the learned and devotional language of the day; and it is fancifully applied to the fuppofed prayers of the male bird to his feathered confort. Confult the article "Romanus," Ducange, Glof. Med. et Inf. Latinitatis. "Genfor" is an abridgement of Gentil Signora. In the following two or three lines he difplays a tendernels of fentiment not unworthy the pen of Petrarch: Pois qan le vei non fai tan lai qe dire, &c. Si cu fui Arnaut gamars Laura F catz la lepre ab lo bou. Like the Italian poet, the object of his paffion was a married woman; and our Troubadour amufed himself with punning on the unfortunate name of her hufband Guillaume de Bouville *. He lived in the 12th century; and an im probable ftory is related of him in the English court . Yours, &c. M——s. June 3. Mr. URBAN, CAVE the goodnefs to inform your H Conftant Reader, p 391, who enqui es after Richard Waring, gent. fome years fince of Prefton, near Shorebam, in Kent, that Mr. Hafted, I. 317, gives no account of fuch a perfon at that place, which belonged, from the reign of Henry VI. to the Polbills, who fold it to D'Aranda in the beginning of this century, who again fold it Borreit, whole it ftill is. Dr. Wall was vicar of Shore ham from 1674 to 1727. His grandion, Mr. Sampfon Wating, of Rochester, held one-third of a manor at Orford, but he fold it to Amherst (324). Wm. Ball Waring, of Dunfton, Berks, married Mary, daughter of Sir Orlando Winton, of Hever, and died 1746 (397). Mr. Sampfon W. died feiled of Great Delee manor, Rochester, 1769, leaving his brother Mr. W. and his fifter Smith his executors (II. 550). This is all that Hafted fays of this family. No mention of Waring in the Twifleton family, Lord Say and Sele. June 4. N the lift of Wood's Works, pub. thed with his life in Mr. Gurch's edition of his Hiftory and Antiquities of Oxford hire, vol. I. reviewed p. 439, are, No. 8474, in 90 pages, Collections relating to the Antiquities of several Towns and Villages in Oxfordshire; 8505, Collections of Epitaphs and Arms in most of the Churches in the county, 4to; and, 8586, the like in 8vo. Mr. URBAN, IN Qu. Is it not Caernarvonthire instead of Caermarthenshire, the defcription of which is referred to p. 400? In the title-page it is called Glamorgan; and epitaphs from Waltham abbey, though in reality but one epitaph. P. 397. The painting on glafs feems to represent the unequal diflribution of worldly gifts by Folly. I learn from the Foreign Journals, || Millot, t. II. p.490. Exactly the fame anecdote is told of Voltaire at the Court of Frederic. that that a life of the late Profeffor Michaelis, written by bimfelf, is in the prefs, and will be accompanied with remarks by Haffencamp, an eloge of the author by Hume, and review of his literary character by Elchorn and Schulz; a complete catalogue of his works, and his portrait; and that an English tranflation of it is preparing See, Analytical Review, May, 1793, p. 118. D. H. Mr. URBAN, obtain an June 5. TILL ILL your correfpondent M. M. (vol. LV. p. 861) can anfwer to his repeated enquiries after Weffeling's opinion concerning the taxation under Quirinius, he may not be difpleafed with a mode of adjufting the point in difpute propofed by a writer, in the Mifcell. Obferv. in Aultores vet. rec. printed at Amfterdam, 1733, 8vo, for the months of May and June that year. He deduces the æra of our Lord's birth from the death of Herod, the taxation under Quirinius, and a very fearce coin of Philip the tetrarch. Philip was in the 37th year of his tetrarchate, A.U. 787; confequently began it A. U. 750, after his father Herod's death. Quirinius was engaged in war with the Homonadenfes, A. U. 748; confequently the taxation could not be performed that year; nor after A. U. 750, when Herod was dead. It is therefore to be referred to A. U. 749, when Herod was reconciled to Augutus, and Sentius Saturninus fucceeded Quintilius Varius in the proconfulate of Syria; and, as it was in the fpring of that year, it follows that it took place before Quirinius's triumph over the Homonadenfes, and was finished before the affembly at Berytus. Confequently the Chriftian æra began A. U. 749 of the Julian period 41. The coin of Philip above referred to has, on one fide, the head of Auguftus laureate, CEBALTOY KAILAPOĽ; on the other, a temple with four columns, ΦΙΛ ..... ΤΕΤΡΑΡΧΟΥ ; and between the columns, LAT. This temple is fuppofed to reprefent that of Panium, built by his father Herod at Paneas, where Philip afterwards built the city of Cæfarea Augufla Paneas, or Cæfarea Philippi. The letters LAF mark the year 33, which is to be referred to fome æra uled in Syria and Palestine in his time; that of Auguftus, whole reign began A. U. 723. It fixes the death of The differtation of Weffeling has "O, God! how fweet it were to think, that BOWLES, the Poet of Philanthropy. Mr. URBAN, Cambridge, April 24. I HAD thought that, if there were an object within the influence of human faculties, which immediately claims the benevolence of the good and the counfels of the wife, that object must be to ameliorate the conditions of animal and moral existence to the lower rank of fociety amongst us. I had alfo thought, that the obliquities of party zeal, and much less the guilt of feditious inftigation, could never be charged on any fimple ftatement, however melan choly, of the diftreffes of the poor. But even to the advocate of mifery is denied the candour of charitable interpretation : and a caufe, which might unite the po litician of every principle, and the religious of every fect, a caufe to which every feeling of humanity might vibrate in unifon, is loaded with the odious "tendency, if not the defign, to excite tumult and revolt!" Such is the imputation of the Warwick Supervifor (vol. LXII. p. 1194); which, as it affects not only the pathetic defcription of Mr. Thickneffe, but every tale of woe that is meant to touch the heart, and awaken the energies of the the generous, I must beg leave to treat with the freedom his example requires and juftifies. And in the first outfet let me remark, that it betrays a ftrange ignorance of common life in the faid Supervifor, in Simplicius (p. 34), in the very worthy Bishop Watson, and in fome other writers, to fuppofe that aught of what they give to the world in the ordinary courfe of publication reaches the eye or the ear of ruftic poverty t. And I may very fafely affert, that feveral late writings, to demonftrate the duty of acquiefcence, and point out ideal fources of comfort to the poor, have had an evident tendency to weaken the public compaffion for their fufferings, without the chance to prefent the leffon of duty, and ftill lefs the conviction of their own happiness, to the parties immediately concerned. However, if Simplicius would be kind enough to delude the common people into a sense of happiness, they are too well-difpofed, and more efpecially in the villages, to be deluded by the language of fedition to lofe fuch a fenfe from their own forgetfulness. We all of us know with what a voice of triumph, during the debates on the flave-trade, the affertion refounded from certain quarters, that the Africans in our colonies were beyond difpute more happy and more refpectable than the dav-labourers in our own fland. For my part, I exulted to hear it then-I have fince witneffed its general confirmation from unquestionable evidenceand I exult ftill in the reflexion. For, if my poor countrymen are to toil under the fame given weight of penury, let the mental fight, aching from fome dif mat views at home, feaft on any and every spot of foft and cheerful green, wherever fuch may be found abroad. Of that trade, or of that argument, I need not fay more; the national fenfe, which has condemned, and wili abolish, the former, pronounces the feverest re. probation on itself if it yields to the intimations of the latter. Shame indeed to that country, which, after nobly ref cuing a diftant race from fuch a flate, because precarious in fervitude, rivets faft the long chain of calamities on its own independent peafantry, by a neglect In the first paragraph of his late Appendix to the Sermon in 1785. + To the peasants in various parts of this country even the white-brown Rights of Man have never yet found their way; and how Should they? aggravated in the contraft of preceding benevolence! But what fhall we fay to an affertion of a very different ftamp, which it has been much the fathion to repeat, the more effectually to filence the wishes of a feditious charity? an affertion, in plain English, "that in no part of the world are the poor lefs miferable than in Eng. land." Would to God that every fon of poverty throughout the world had a thoufand times more reason to rejoice than the leaft unhappy among our own! What a miferable comfort of comparifon is this, which, in other provinces, might eafily operate to repress every defire, and damp every hope, of advancement to the explorer of useful fcience, to the reformer of abufes in the State, to the cultivator of virtue in his own breaft! To all, who can elevate their fouls above this forry taste of hu miliating comparifon, it is enough, that there exifts before their eyes an absolute measure of pofitive evil, fufficient to demand every effort of domeftic patriotifm, inviting and admitting a gra dual diminution, of which the remedies are not far to seek, nor difficult to ap ply, fince duty is ever commenfurate to power, and the knowledge of the cause gives the ready inftrument of action to the hand of Wifdom. If this question has been on one fide infidioufly perverted to recommend the purposes of faction, it has been not lefs abufed by the other, to crown the expreffions of loyalty and contentment. The language of affociated addreffers has been extremely lavish in high terms of unqualified exultation; and those, who bask in the sunshine of prosperity, have attached to the indigent and the wretched that happinefs which their own opulence might purchafe for themfelves and others. I impeach not the defign, but I deprecate the tendency, of thefe high-founding parades of felicitat on. Do they afford a home to the orphan, or fupport to the widow? Do they clothe the naked, or feed the hungry? Do they amend the vicious, or fofter the innocent children of forlorn parents? Do they furnish a single comfort, or redress a hngle grievance, for the toiling peafantry? Alas! they interefts of our common nature; but wear no fuch favourable afpect to the tend rather, by charming the car, to lull the confcience of thofe, with whom refts the obligation to medicate the fufferings of their brethren as foon as they art |