Note 25 — BOOK I. FROM THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Sarmiento has written at sufficient length on the origin of the Castilian romances, but the information he gives is more copious than satisfactory. It would require the most laborious investigation, joined to the highest critical sagacity, to penetrate the obscurity in which this part of the history of literature is involved. How indeed can it be ascertained to what age a ballad belongs, the author of which is unknown, and which, in the progressive improvement of the language and the national taste, has been, without scruple, altered by the singers?