their descent from Aeneas, Hector, or some other of the Trojan
heroes.

With regard to the derivation of the word "Romance," we trace it
to the fact that the dialects which were formed in Western Europe,
from the admixture of Latin with the native languages, took the
name of Langue Romaine. The French language was divided into two
dialects. The river Loire was their common boundary. In the
provinces to the south of that river the affirmative, YES, was
expressed by the word oc; in the north it was called oil (oui);
and hence Dante has named the southern language langue d'oc, and
the northern langue d'oil. The latter, which was carried into
England by the Normans, and is the origin of the present French,
may be called the French Romane; and the former the Provencal, or
Provencial Romane, because it was spoken by the people of Provence
and Languedoc, southern provinces of France.

These dialects were soon distinguished by very opposite
characters. A soft and enervating climate, a spirit of commerce
encouraged by an easy communication with other maritime nations,
the influx of wealth, and a more settled government, may have
tended to polish and soften the diction of the Provencials, whose
poets, under the name of Troubadours, were the masters of the
Italians, and particularly of Petrarch. Their favorite pieces were
Sirventes (satirical pieces), love-songs, and Tensons, which last
were a sort of dialogue in verse between two poets, who questioned
each other on some refined points of loves' casuistry. It seems
the Provencials were so completely absorbed in these delicate
questions as to neglect and despise the composition of fabulous
histories of adventure and knighthood, which they left in a great