Volume 1 / Book 1 — BOOK I. FROM THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

PROBABLE PERIOD OF THE FIRST ROMANCES.

The origin of Castilian poetry is lost in the obscurity of the middle ages. The poetic spirit which then awoke in the north of Spain, doubtless first manifested itself in romances and popular songs. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, called El Campeador, (the Champion), and still better known by the Arabic title of the Cid, (the Lord or Leader), assisted in founding the kingdom of Castile for his prince, Ferdinand I. about the year 1036, and the name and the exploits of that favorite hero of the nation were probably celebrated during his own age in imperfect redondillas. That some of the many romances which record anecdotes of the life of the Cid may be the offspring of that period, is a conjecture which, to say the least of it, has never been disproved; and indeed the whole character impressed upon Spanish poetry from its rise, denotes that the era which gave birth to the first songs of chivalry must be very remote. In the form, however, in which these romances now exist, it does not appear that even the oldest can be referred to the twelfth, far less to the eleventh century.25

POEMA DEL CID.

Some examples of Old Castilian verse, which are held to be more ancient than any known romance or ballad in that language, have been preserved.26 Of these the rhymed chronicle, Of the Exile and Return of the Cid, (Poema del Cid, el Campeador), is considered the oldest. This chronicle can scarcely be called a poem; and that it could not have been the result of a poetic essay made in the spirit of the national taste, is evident, from the nature of the verse, which is a kind of rude alexandrine. It is the more difficult to speak with any certainty respecting its age, as there also exists a very old prose account of the Cid, which corresponds in all the principal facts with this rhymed chronicle. Though it may be true that the author lived about the middle of the twelfth century, as his editor Sanchez supposes, still it is not with this work that the history of Spanish poetry ought to commence. As a philological curiosity, the rhymed chronicle is highly valuable; but any thing like poetry which it contains must be considered as a consequence of the poetic character of the nation to which the versifier belonged, and of the internal interest of the subject. The events are narrated in the order in which they succeed each other, and the whole work scarcely exhibits a single mark of invention. The small portion of poetical colouring with which the dryness of the relation is occasionally relieved, is the result of the chivalrous cordiality of the writer’s tone, and of a few happy traits in the description of some of the situations.27

POEMA DE ALEXANDRO MAGNO.

Still less of the character of poetry belongs to the fabulous chronicle of Alexander the Great (Poema de Alexandro Magno), respecting the origin and age of which the Spanish critics are far from being agreed. Whether it be, as some pretend, a Spanish original of the twelfth or thirteenth century, or as others assert, the translation of a French work of the same age, in verse, or, what is still more probable, a versified translation of a latin legend, with the manufacture of which some monk had occupied his solitary hours, are questions which a writer of the history of Spanish poetry cannot, with propriety, stop to discuss, even though alexandrine verse should, as some suppose, have taken its name from this chronicle. Next to stringing together his rhymes,28 the chief object of the author probably was to dress the biography of Alexander the Great in the costume of chivalry. Accordingly he relates how the Infante Alexander, whose birth was distinguished by numerous prodigies, seemed, while yet a youth a Hercules; how he was taught to read in his seventh year; how he then every day learned a lesson in the seven liberal arts, and maintained a daily disputation thereon; and many other wonders of this sort.29 Alexander’s officers are counts and barons. The real history only feebly glimmers through a grotesque compound of puerile fictions and distorted facts. But perhaps this mode of treating the materials is not to be laid to the account of the versifier.

GONZALO BERCEO.

There are some prayers, monastic rules, and legends in Castilian alexandrines, which are regarded as of very ancient date, but they were probably composed by Gonzalo Berceo, a benedictine, about the middle of the thirteenth century. Spanish authors have made the dates of the birth and death of this monk objects of very minute research, and have exerted great industry in recovering his rude verses.30 In this field, however, the poetical historian can find nothing worth the gleaning.

ALPHONSO X.; HIS LITERARY MERITS—NICOLAS AND ANTONIO DE LOS ROMANCES, &c.

The names of several early writers of rude Castilian verse are recorded by different authors. A notice, however, of the literary merits of Alphonso X. called the Wise, by which is meant the learned, forms the most suitable commencement for a history of Spanish poetry. This sovereign, who was a very extraordinary man, for the age in which he lived, was ambitious, among his other distinctions, of being a poet. Scarcely any romance or song of true poetic feeling can be attributed to him; but he loved to embody his science and learning in verse. He disclosed his Alchymical Secrets in the dactylic stanzas, called versos de arte mayor. Alchymy was his favourite study; and if his assertions in verse may be relied on, he several times made gold, and in times of difficulty turned his power of producing that precious metal to his own advantage. His verses are, in some degree, harmonious, and ingeniously constructed; but no trait of poetic description enlivens the dry and uninteresting precepts he details.31 It is not, therefore, on account of his rhymes that Alphonso the Wise deserves to be placed at the head of the Castilian poets. His claim to occupy that station can only be founded on the attention he devoted to the cultivation of the Castilian language, an attention which is easily recognized even in his unpoetic verses, and which could not fail to prove a most powerful incitement to emulation, since he who set the example was the king of the country, and possessed a reputation for learning which was flattering to the national pride. The greater purity and precision which was thus introduced into the dialect of Castile and Leon, enabled the poetic genius of the nation to unfold itself with increasing vigour and freedom. But the benefits which Alphonso conferred on the Spanish language and literature, did not stop here. The bible was, by his command, rendered into Castilian; and a Paraphrase of Scripture History accompanied the translation. A General Chronicle of Spain, and a History of the Conquest of the Holy Land, founded on the work of William of Tyre, were also written by his order. Finally, he introduced the use of the national language into legal and judicial proceedings. No direct interest was, however, taken by Alphonso in the improvement of the popular Castilian poetry. He probably thought it too destitute of art and learning to deserve much consideration. It appears to have been on this account, and not from vanity, that he favoured the Troubadours, assembled at his court, in whose more elegant verse his praises were unceasingly proclaimed.32 His influence had an extensive operation; but his death, which happened in the year 1284, was no loss to the national bards of Castile, who still sung their Romances in obscurity.

The history of Spanish poetry continues barren of names until towards the end of the fourteenth century; and yet, according to all literary probability, the greater part of the ancient Castilian romances, which have, in the progress of time, been collected, and have undergone more or less improvement, were composed at a much earlier period. One Nicolas, and an abbot named Antonio, are mentioned as celebrated writers of romances in the thirteenth century, anterior to the reign of Alphonso X.33 But until the period of the invention of printing, no regard was paid by the learned, or by those who wished to be considered learned, to popular ballads; and when the attention of men of letters began at last to be directed to the old romances, the authors were either forgotten, or no trouble was taken to preserve or recover their names. With a view, therefore, to the convenience of historical arrangement, a particular account of the ancient romance poetry of Castile may, with propriety, be postponed until the period when the first instance of literary publicity, which was given to it, must be recorded. In the mean while, some little known, though not unimportant memorials of the state of poetical and rhetorical culture in the fourteenth century, may here be brought to recollection.

ALPHONSO XI.

That the example of Alphonso X. operated powerfully among the grandees of Castile, cannot be doubted; and to its influence must, in a great measure, be attributed the encouragement given to the cultivation of knowledge by Alphonso XI. This prince, amidst all the troubles of his busy reign, maintained the character of a protector of learning, and endeavoured to distinguish himself as a writer in his native tongue. In the accounts of his labours given by Spanish authors, he is stated to have composed a General Chronicle in Redondillas,34 which is either lost, or still remains buried in some of the old archives of Spain. However slight may be the merits of this work, in a poetical point of view, it is rendered interesting by the circumstance, that the king chose for the rhythmic structure of his narrative, the easy flowing verse of the romances, instead of stiff monkish alexandrines, and the ungraceful dactylic stanzas. This brought the redondillas more into favour. Alphonso XI. also caused books to be written in Castilian prose, among which were a kind of Peerage, or Register of the noble families of Castile, with an account of their hereditary estates and possessions, and a Hunting Book, (Libro de Monteria,) in the composition of which several persons assisted. Though rhetorical art might derive no advantage from these books, they contributed to give consideration to the national dialect, and to incite persons of rank to engage in literary labour.

EARLY CULTIVATION OF CASTILIAN PROSE—DON JUAN MANUEL; HIS CONDE LUCANOR; HIS ROMANCES.

But the most valuable monument of the cultivation of Spanish eloquence in the fourteenth century is El Conde Lucanor, a book of moral and political maxims, written by Don Juan Manuel, a Castilian prince. This Don Juan was one of the most distinguished men of his age.35 He was descended, in a collateral line with the reigning family of Castile, from king Ferdinand III. usually called the Saint. He served his sovereign Alphonso XI. with chivalrous fidelity, and by the judicious policy of his conduct, retained the favour of that prince, who certainly had reason to regard him with jealousy. After distinguishing himself by a number of honourable and gallant deeds, Alphonso appointed him governor (adelantado mayor) of the country bordering on the Moorish kingdom of Grenada. In this station he became the terror of the hereditary enemy of Castile. He made an irruption into Grenada, and defeated the Moorish king in a great battle. After this brilliant victory, he always acted one of the first parts in the internal troubles of Castile, and during twenty years conducted the war against the Moors. He died in 1362, leaving behind him some of the ripest fruits of his experience in his Count Lucanor. A Spanish book, so full of sound practical good sense, of a character so truly unostentatious, and clothed in a simple, homely, but far from inanimate garb, could scarcely be expected to belong to the fourteenth century. In estimating the merit of this work, it ought also to be recollected, that at the period in which it appeared, the taste for the wild tales of chivalry called romances had begun to prevail. Amadis de Gaul, the prototype of all subsequent knight-errantry romances, had then obtained general circulation. There is, however, in the Count Lucanor, no trace of romantic extravagance, none of the dreaming flights of an irregular imagination; for in every passage of the book the author shews himself a man of the world and an observer of human nature. In the course of his long experience he had formed maxims for the conduct of life which he was desirous of pursuing. He gave to many of these axioms a laconic expression in verse; and, to impress them the more forcibly, invented his Count Lucanor, a prince conscious of too limited an understanding to trust to his own judgment in cases of difficulty. He gives the Count a minister (consejero), whose wisdom fortunately supplies the deficiency of his master’s intellect. When the Count asks advice of his minister, the latter relates a story, or sometimes a fable. The application comes at the close, and the narrative is the commentary of the verse or couplet with which it terminates. In this manner forty-nine moral and political tales are told. They are not of equal merit; but though some are inferior to others, the difference is not great, and they have all the same rhetorical form. Sometimes it is the idea that gives the chief interest, sometimes the execution. Among the versified maxims are the following.

“If you have done something good in little, do it also in great, as the good will never die.”36

“He who advises you to be reserved to your friends, wishes to betray you without witnesses.”37

“Hazard not your wealth on a poor man’s advice.”38

“He who has got a good seat should not leave it.”39

“He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what you have.”40

This last axiom is deduced from the well-known fable of the fox and the raven. It is curious to observe the resemblance between the unconscious artless simplicity with which Don Juan Manuel relates his fable, and the finely-studied simplicity with which the elegant La Fontaine tells the same story. Who would expect to find in an old Spanish book of the fourteenth century, the same knowledge of the world and mankind, as distinguished the refined age of Louis XIV.41

This work appears to have been preserved without alteration, as it was originally written. It is only occasionally that the difference of the language in single words,42 betrays the officious industry of some transcriber. In a short preface, the author gives a candid explanation of the object of this collection of tales.

Don Juan Manuel was also the author of a Chronicle (Chronica de España); the Book of the Sages, (Libro de los Sabios); a Book of Chivalry, (Libro del Caballero); and several other works in prose of a similar nature.43 It appears that these works are now lost, though they were preserved in manuscript in the sixteenth century. A collection of Don Juan Manuel’s poems also existed at that time, according to the express testimony of Argote y Molina, who published El Conde Lucanor in the sixteenth century, and intended to publish those poems likewise. He calls them coplas; and they certainly were not alexandrines. After this testimony, it can scarcely be doubted that some of the romances and songs, which are attributed, in the Cancionero general, to a Don Juan Manuel, have this prince for their author.44 But if such be the fact, then how many of the similar romances which are still preserved, may, considering the greater antiquity of their form, be yet more ancient!

SATIRICAL POEM OF JUAN RUYZ, ARCH-PRIEST OF HITA.

Don Juan Manuel had for his contemporary the author of an allegorical satire, written in Castilian alexandrines, or in a kind of verse which may be called doggrel. The result of the researches of the Spanish critics ascribes this very singular work to Juan Ruiz, arch-priest of Hita, in Castile.45 This writer evidently possessed a lively imagination; he has personified with great drollery Lent, the Carnival, and Breakfast, under the titles of Doña Quaresma, Don Carnal, and Don Almuerzo; and these and other personages are placed in a very edifying connection with Don Amor. The object of the satire is thus apparent, but the execution is as unskilful as the language is rude. Only a part of the work has been preserved.46

He, however, who has to record the developement of true poetic genius, must hasten from this and other examples of monastic humour and rugged versification, in order to speak with something like historical precision of the romances and other lyric compositions which form the real commencement of Spanish poetry.

MORE PRECISE ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SPANISH POETIC ROMANCES AND SONGS—PROBABLE RISE OF THE ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY IN PROSE—ORIGINAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE POETIC AND THE PROSE ROMANCES.

The latter half of the fourteenth century is the period when the history of the Spanish romances and songs, the unknown authors of which yet live in their verse, though still very defective, begins to acquire some degree of certainty.47 In the absence, however, of that particular information which would be desirable, it becomes necessary to take a view of the manner of thinking of the Spaniards of that age, in order to connect the general idea which ought to be formed of their literary culture, with those scattered notices which must supply the place of a more systematic account. It will here be recollected that the cultivation of Spanish literature received at its commencement a national poetic impulse. In constant conflict with the Moors, and acquainted with oriental manners and compositions, the Spaniards felt the proper distinction between poetry and prose, less readily than that distinction was perceived by any other people on the first attempt to give a determinate form to their literature. Popular songs of every kind were probably indigenous in the Peninsula. The patriotic Spaniards, like many other ancient nations, were fond of preserving the memory of remarkable events in ballads. They also began, at a very early period, to consider it of importance to record public transactions in prose. The example of their learned king Alphonso X. who caused a collection of old national chronicles to be made, gave birth to many similar compilations of the history of the country. But historical criticism, and the historical art, were then equally unknown. As the giving to an accredited fact a poetical dress in a song fit to be sung to a guitar, was not thought inconsistent with the spirit of genuine national history, still less could the relating of a fabricated story as a real event in history seem hostile to the spirit of poetry. Thus the historical romance in verse, and the chivalric romance in prose, derived their origin from the confounding of the limits of epic and historical composition. The history of Spanish poetical romance is therefore intimately interwoven with the history of the prose chivalric romance.

Whoever may have been the author of Amadis de Gaul, his genius lives in his invention; this work soon obscured, even in France, all the other histories of knights-errant written in latin or french, by many of which it had been preceded. From the very careful investigations of several Spanish and Portuguese writers, it appears that the name of the real author of the first or genuine Amadis was Vasco Lobeira, or, according to the Spanish orthography and pronunciation, Lobera, a native of Portugal, who flourished about the end of the thirteenth century, and lived to 1325. It is probable, however, that before the period at which the work obtained its highest celebrity both in Spain and France, it had passed through the hands of several emendators, and it is therefore impossible to know how much of the book, as it now exists, belongs to the original author, and how far it is indebted to the labours of Spanish or French editors.48 From these circumstances too, it appears that the work could scarcely be generally known in Spain before the middle of the fourteenth century; and its influence on the national literature must, on that account, have been the greater; for it would be operating with all the force of novelty, precisely at the time when the poetic genius of the nation began to display itself in youthful vigour. What other book could have produced an effect so fascinating on the minds of the Spanish nobles, as Amadis de Gaul? The monstrous perversions of history and geography in that work, did not disturb the illusion of readers who knew little or nothing of either history or geography. The prolixity of the narrative gave as little offence as the stiff formality of the style. Indeed the virtues of gothic chivalry appear more pure as they shine through the formal stateliness of the narration. The author has borrowed nothing from the Arabian tale-tellers, except the attraction of fairy machinery. This was, however, a powerful charm, and gave an epic-colouring to the Amadis, which, joined to the pathetic descriptions of romantic heroism, produced an influence over the imagination and feelings of the age which no former work had possessed. The moral character of the plan and execution is strangely blended with a peculiar kind of delicately veiled licence, which appears to have very well accorded with the spirit of Spanish chivalry. While the gentle knights, amidst innumerable adventures of love and heroism, observe as the chief law of chivalry, the most inviolable fidelity in all situations towards females as well as males, they and the ladies with whom they have pledged their faith, by a secret betrothing, live together without scruple before marriage, as husband and wife. But a picture, so true and glowing, of the noblest heroic feelings and the most unshaken fidelity,—circumscribing with no anxious care the boundaries of love’s dominion, yet admitting no offensively indecorous or immoral trait,—displaying the enthusiastic flights of an imagination often exalted beyond nature, but redeemed by an ingenuous simplicity of description with which even a refined taste must be delighted,—well deserved at the time of its appearance that favour which it continued for ages to enjoy. It is obvious that more of Spanish than of French features enter into the character of the chivalry exhibited in this work. The romantic self-torment of Amadis on the Peña pobre (barren rock) is one of the striking Spanish traits. Even the name Beltenebros, given on this occasion by a pious hermit to the disconsolate knight, contributes to prove that the work is not of French origin; for the French paraphrastic translation, Le beau tenebreux, is not only in itself very insipid, but poor Amadis appears quite ridiculous when made to pronounce it from his own mouth as his name.49

When the Amadis, after being widely circulated, became the object of numerous imitations, the particular account of which may be left to the explorers of literary curiosities, it was no longer possible for the prose romance of knight-errantry and the ballad romance to disown their relationship. At this period the romance poetry obtained a consideration which it had not previously enjoyed. Songs which were formerly disregarded were now carefully noted down. Those poetic romances, the materials for which are taken from histories of knights-errant, are among the oldest of the Spanish ballads which have been preserved in the ancient language and form. Some are imitations from the Spanish Amadis, others are translations from the French; and it may here be observed, that the Spaniards and the French possessed at this period a body of romantic literature, which was throughout its whole extent nearly the same to both countries.—With the old poetic romances, derived from books of chivalry, are closely connected the most ancient of the historical ballads founded on the history of the country. The latter, it may be presumed, soon transferred their national tone and character into the former. But it was not until after they had given to each other a reciprocal support, that the historical romance found a place in Spanish literature. They also mutually declined from the height of their common celebrity, and at last sunk again into the obscurity attached to pieces of mere popular recreation. In this way, however, they have retained an oral currency among the common people down to the present age. The Spanish critics notice them too briefly, as if they were afraid to depreciate the dignity of their literature by dwelling on the antiquated and homely effusions of the poetic genius of their unlettered ancestors. But a people free from this prejudice who can admire simple and natural, as well as learned and artificial poetry, and who set little or no value on the latter, when it entirely separates itself from the former, will be disposed to see justice more impartially distributed to the old Spanish romances.50

THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF POETIC ROMANCE.

The romances composed on subjects derived from the fictions of chivalry, which have been preserved in the collections, are distinguished by the old forms of the language, and the primitive mode of repeating a single rhyme, which often becomes a mere assonance, from the romances of a later date, though even these have long since been called old. Amadis de Gaul appears to have contributed very little to this kind of ballad.51 The great number and the longest of the romances are taken from the fabulous adventures of Charlemagne and his Paladins. In them we again meet with the twelve peers of France, who figure in the poems of Boyardo and Ariosto, with the addition of Don Gayferos, the Moor Calaynos, and other poetic characters, to whom the Spanish public were the more readily disposed to grant an historical existence, in consequence of the chivalric history of Charlemagne’s Paladins (who are represented to have fought like the Spaniards against the Moors,) being held in great respect as a supplemental part of Spanish National History. In progress of time, however, the romance of the Moor Calaynos became the subject of a proverb, employed to denote verses in an old exploded and vulgar style.52 The ballad of the Conde Alarcos, who with his own hands strangled his lady in satisfaction to the honour, and in obedience to the commands of his king, appears to have had its origin in some romantic work of chivalry. This and two other romances which relate how the youthful Don Gayferos avenged the death of his father, are among the best to which knight-errantry has given birth; though in the remaining specimens of this kind of ballad, the poetic genius of the age occasionally displays itself in all its energetic simplicity. The authors of these romances paid little regard to ingenuity of invention, and still less to correctness of execution. When an impressive story of poetical character was found, the subject and the interest belonging to it were seized with so much truth and feeling, that the parts of the little piece, the brief labour of untutored art, linked themselves together, as it were, spontaneously; and the imagination of the bard had no higher office than to give to the situations a suitable colouring and effect. This he performed without study or effort, and painted them more or less successfully according to the inspiration, good or bad, of the moment. These antique, racy effusions of a pregnant poetic imagination, scarcely conscious of its own productive power, are nature’s genuine offspring. To recount their easily recognized defects and faults is as superfluous, as it would be impossible by any critical study to imitate a single trait of that noble simplicity which constitutes their highest charm.53

The simplicity of the old historical romances is still more remarkable. They form altogether a mere collection of anecdotes of Spanish history, from the invasion of the Moors, to the period when the authors of the romances flourished. Neither the materials nor the interest of the situations owe any thing to the invention of these simple bards. They never ventured to embellish with fictitious circumstances, stories which were already in themselves interesting, lest they should deprive their ballads of historical credit. In the historical romances the story displays none of those entanglements and developements which distinguish some of the longer romances of chivalry. They are simple pictures of single situations only. The poetic representation of the details which give effect to the situation is almost the only merit which can be attributed to the narrators, and they employed no critical study to obtain it. In this way were thousands of these romances destined to be composed, and partly preserved, partly forgotten, without one of their authors acquiring the reputation of a great poet. It was regarded rather as an instance of good fortune than a proof of talent, when the author of a romance was particularly successful in painting an interesting situation. In general their efforts did not carry them beyond mediocrity, but mediocrity was not discouraged, for it depended entirely on accident, or perhaps some secondary causes, whether a romance became popular or sunk into oblivion. It would require a separate treatise to discuss in a satisfactory manner, the degree of merit which belongs to these national ballads, the immense number of which defies calculation. Many little, and upon the whole very unimportant specimens are still worthy of preservation, on account of some one single trait which each exhibits. Others, on the contrary, excite attention by the happy combination of a number of traits in themselves minute and of little value; again, a third class is distinguished by a sonorous rhythm not to be found in the rest. Unfortunately, no literary critic has yet taken the trouble to arrange these pieces in anything like a chronological order. Until this be done, it cannot be discovered how the historical romance gradually advanced from its original rudeness to the degree of relative beauty which it at last attained, though it could not rise to classic perfection, as that kind of composition never acquired the rank or consideration of classic poetry in Spain.

Among the most ancient historical romances are several, the subjects of which have been taken from the earliest periods of Spanish history, anterior to the age of the Cid. Like the romances derived from the prose works of chivalry, they have only a single rhyme which interchanges with blank verse, and which is frequently lost in a simple assonance.54 The romances of the Cid, of which more than a hundred still exist, are either of a more recent date, or have, at least, been in a great measure modernized.55 In some a series of regularly arranged assonances may be perceived.56 Others are divided into stanzas, with a burden repeated at the close of each.57 In the greater part, however, the rhyme almost wholly disappears, and only an accidental assonance occasionally occurs. This form also prevails in most of the romances founded on the history of the Moors. Their number is very great, perhaps greater than that of those derived from events of Spanish history; and this abundance might well excite as much astonishment in the critic as it has given offence to some orthodox Spaniards.58 But even the Spaniards of old Castilian origin found a certain poetic charm in the oriental manners of the Moors. On the other hand, the European chivalry, in so far as it was adopted by the Moors, became more imposing from its union with oriental luxury, which favoured the display of splendid armour, waving plumes, and emblematical ornaments of every kind. The Moorish principalities or kingdoms were even more agitated by internal troubles, and acts of violence, than the christian states; and in the former, particularly, when different races powerfully opposed each other, the lives of celebrated warriors were more fertile in interesting anecdotes than in the latter. The Christian warriors, it also appears, had sufficient generosity to allow justice to be done, at least to the distinguished leaders of their enemies, who are described in an old romance, as gentlemen, though infidels.59 Besides, all these romances, whether of Moorish or Spanish history, whether more ancient or more modern, present nearly the same unsophisticated character and the same artless style of composition. The subject is generally founded on a single fact. Thus, for example, Roderick, or Don Rodrigo, the last king of the Goths in Spain, before the Moorish invasion, takes flight after his total overthrow, and bewails his own and his country’s fate; and this is sufficient for a romance.60 The Cid returns victorious from his exile, alights from his horse before a church, and delivers a short energetic speech; this again forms the whole subject of a romance.61 In others, with equal simplicity of story:— the king joins the hands of the Cid and Ximena, invests him with fiefs of castles and territories, the names of which are all recorded, and thus makes preparation for the marriage of the lovers.—The Cid lays aside his armour and puts on his wedding garments, which are minutely described from the hat to the boots.—At a tournament the Moorish knight Ganzul enters the lists on a fiery steed; the beautiful Zayda, who has been unfaithful to him, once more yields up her heart to her lover, and confesses to the Moorish ladies who surround her the emotion she experiences.62—The Moorish hero Abenzulema, who has filled the prisons with Christian knights,63 being exiled by his jealous prince, takes leave of his beloved Balaja.64 Such is the nature of a countless number of these ballads. In general, the ornaments of the armour, and the device of the knight, which must harmonize with these ornaments, are minutely described. Were an artist of genius to study these interesting situations, he would open to himself a new field for historical painting.

There is a kind of mythological romance in which the heroes of Greece appear in Spanish costume, which may be regarded as an imitation of the species already described. The history of the siege of Troy, having been clothed in the garb of a chivalric romance, it followed, as a matter of course, that the Grecian heroes should be exhibited as knights-errant in the poetic romances. It is obvious, on examination, that most of these mythological romances are very old.65 Even christianity is made to contribute to this kind of composition, and anecdotes from the bible are related in the favourite romance form; as, for example, the lamentation of king David on the death of his son Absalom.66

CASTILIAN POETRY IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES.

In ancient Spanish poetry the strictly lyric romances do not form a different class from the narrative romances. On the contrary, these kinds are inseparably confounded. In like manner, no essential distinction between what was called a cancion (song), and a lyric romance, was established either in theory or in practice. A custom prevailed of classing, without distinction, under the general name of romance, any lyric expression of the feelings which ran on, in the popular manner, in a string of redondillas, without distinct strophes, and which, in that respect resembled the greater part of the narrative romances. When, however, the composition was divided into little strophes, or coplas, it was usually called a cancion, a term employed in nearly the same indeterminate sense as the word song in English, or lied in German, but which does not correspond with the Italian canzone. The same name, however, came afterwards to be applied to lyric pieces of greater research and more elevated character, if they were divided into strophes. Compositions in coplas must have been common in Spain about the middle of the fourteenth century; for the traces of their origin lead back to the ancient Spanish custom of accompanying such songs, in the true style of national poetry, with dances. The saraband is one of those old national dances, during the performance of which coplas were sung. Hence the Spanish proverb denoting antiquated and trivial poetry, when it is said of verses that “they are not worth as much as the coplas of the saraband,” in the same way as the romance of Calainos is quoted proverbially.67 But many lyric compositions which are preserved in the collections of the most ancient of the pieces known by the general name of romances, are probably of an older date than those in coplas which appear in the Cancioneros. They have, like the older romances, only a single rhyme, alternating with assonances and blank verses; but, independently of this proof, their old language, which corresponds so naturally with the ingenuous simplicity of their manner, is sufficient to mark their antiquity.68

The Castilian lyric poetry seems to have begun to confer reputation on those who cultivated it, in the latter half of the fourteenth century. The Marquis of Santillana, who lived in the first half of the fifteenth century, relates that his grandfather composed very good songs, and among others some, the first lines of which he quotes.69 According to the statement of the Marquis, a Spanish jew, named Rabbi Santo, celebrated as the author of maxims in verse, flourished about the same time. He also informs us, that during the reign of John I. from 1379 to 1390, Alfonso Gonzales de Castro, and some other poets, were esteemed for their lyric compositions. But all these names, so honoured in their own age, were forgotten in the commencement of the fifteenth century, when under the reign of John II. there arose a new race of poets, who outshone all their predecessors.

POETICAL COURT OF JOHN II.

The Spanish authors make the reign of John II. the commencement of an epoch in their poetry. But though some poetic essays of greater compass than had previously been undertaken, were then produced, still this period ought really to be regarded only as that in which the ancient poetry received its last improvement, and by no means as constituting a new era. The old national muse of Castile continued the favourite of many of the grandees of the kingdom who were ambitious, in imitation of Alphonso X. of uniting the reputation of learning to the fame of their poetry, but who had more true poetic feeling than that monarch. These noble authors thought they could acquire little honour by devoting their attention to the composition of romances, properly so called, but preferred distinguishing themselves by giving to lyric poetry a higher degree of art in its forms, and more ingenuity of invention. As a consequence of this taste, they displayed a particular fondness for allegory, and ingenious difficulties and subtilties of every kind were the great objects of their labours. Their best works are some compositions in which they seem unconsciously to have allowed nature to speak, and these specimens possess about the same value as the anonymous romances. They brought the dactylic stanzas (versos de arte mayor,) again into vogue, because such artificial strophes had a more learned air than the easy flowing redondillas. Mythological illusions and moral sentences were, with these authors, the usual substitutes for true poetic dignity. But barbarous as was their taste, nature, which they wished to renounce, sometimes worked so powerfully within them, that she triumphed over the pedantic refinement to which they had surrendered their understandings;—and the graceful facility of the popular manner occasionally appeared in their writings. In this way the ancient national poetry became amalgamated with works distinguished for laborious efforts of art, and ultimately attained a higher degree of consideration. There resulted, however, no revolution in the literature of Spain; and it cannot be said, that the authors of the age of John II. formed an epoch, unless it be for having introduced, with more success than Alphonso X. learning and philosophy into the sphere of poetry; and for having, besides, by their united endeavours, given to the ancient lyric forms of their maternal language, that sort of improvement which, consistently with the spirit of the age, they were capable of receiving, and which finally brought them to their highest state of perfection.

But this period of brilliant improvement in the ancient national poetry of Spain is, in another respect, more memorable than the writers on Spanish literature appear to have regarded it. During the whole period the Castilian monarchy was convulsed by internal troubles. Even in the last ten years of the fourteenth century, the powerful barons of the kingdom had almost wrested the sceptre from the hands of John I. and Henry III. Under John II. the celebrated patron of poetry, who reigned from 1407 to 1454, the monarchy was more than once menaced with destruction. The grandees sported with the royal prerogatives, and John II. had not sufficient firmness of character to render his authority respected. In the difficult situations in which he was involved, he derived, in a certain measure, his security from his love of literature, which yielded a valuable return for the favours he had bestowed. It won and preserved for him the attachment of many of the most considerable noblemen of the country, who formed around him a poetical court, which was not without influence on public affairs. It would not be easy to find in the history of states and of literature, another instance of a similar court, with the members composing it, at once poets, warriors, and statesmen, surrounding and supporting a learned sovereign, in spite of his imbecility, during a period of civil commotion. This phenomenon proves the supremacy of the poetic spirit at this time in Spain, since it was not to be subdued even by the spirit of political faction, which is always hostile to poetry, and which was, at this time, particularly powerful.

THE MARQUIS OF VILLENA.

Previously to this period, before the poets had rendered the court of John II. the most brilliant society of the age, an eminent nobleman, the Marquis Enrique de Villena, was distinguished for his literary efforts. He sought to adorn his erudition with the lyric graces of the Limosin Troubadours, who had then attained their highest and final celebrity at the court of Arragon; and, thus united, to adapt both the learning and the poetry to the Castilian taste. He seemed called by birth to the performance of this task; for he was descended by the paternal side from the kings of Arragon, and by the maternal from those of Castile. His reputation for metaphysical and natural knowledge was so great, that he came, at last, in that ignorant age, to be regarded as a magician, and on that account he and his books were never mentioned but with horror. His talent for poetic invention was, however, an object of particular admiration with many of the poets of the age of John II. and among others of the Marquis de Santillana and Juan de Mena.

The Marquis of Villena was the author of an allegorical drama, which was performed at the court of Arragon in celebration of a marriage, and which may, therefore, be supposed to have been written in the Limosin rather than in the Castilian language. Among the characters stated to have been introduced into this drama, are Justice, Truth, Peace, and Clemency.70 Rhetorical and poetical competitions were instituted at Toulouse, in the year 1324, under the name of the Floral Games, to foster, by prizes and gallant ceremonies, the Troubadour spirit. This institution, which was soon after imitated in Arragon, was transplanted by the Marquis of Villena to Castile, but the result of that enterprize was not successful.71 The Marquis died at Madrid in 1434. A work supposed to have been printed at Burgos in 1499, under the title of Los trabajos de Hercules, (The Labours of Hercules), used formerly to be quoted as one of his poems; but from more recent investigations, it appears that this pretended poem was a mythological tale in prose.72 A translation of the Æneid by the Marquis, is besides mentioned, but this work appears also to be lost. A kind of art of poetry, which he wrote under the title of La Gaya Ciencia, has been more fortunate; for it has been partially preserved, and is still regarded with respect as the oldest work of the kind in the Spanish language.73 This treatise, however, does not deserve to be called an Art of Poetry, except in a very limited sense. It must have been intended as a necessary instruction, in the first place, for the Marquis of Santillana, to whom it is directly addressed, and doubtless, in the next, for the other members of the Institute of the Gay Science, (El Consistorio de la gaya Ciencia), which the Marquis of Villena had formed in Castile. In conformity with this object, the author relates the history of the Institute, endeavours to prove its utility, takes that opportunity of expressing his opinion on the object of poetry in general, and concludes with laying down the principles of Castilian prosody. These principles appear to have been particularly useful with reference to the conflict which then subsisted between the Castilian and Limosin tongues. Among his general observations on poetry, he says—“Great are the benefits which this science confers on civil society, by banishing indolence, and employing noble minds in laudable speculations: other nations have, accordingly, wished for and established among themselves, schools of this science, by which it has been diffused over different parts of the world.”74 It is obvious that this active nobleman was full of zeal for the improvement of the poetry of his country, and for the honour of that art which was cultivated with method and dignity in the Arragonian provinces, but which in Castile, where it was left to itself, appeared to stand in need of direction and encouragement. The difference between science and art was not more clearly perceived by the Marquis of Villena than by the other poets and men of learning of his age; and to distinguish the Castilian forms of romantic poetry from the Limosin, did not appear to him necessary. Thus, while his labours contributed to heighten the respect in which poetry and liberal pursuits were held, they had only an indirect influence on the improvement of Castilian poetry.

THE MARQUIS OF SANTILLANA; HIS POETICAL WORKS; HIS HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL LETTER.

After the death of the Marquis of Villena, his pupil, Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, Marquis of Santa Juliana, or Santillana, appears at the head of the brilliant society of poets who adorned the court of John II. Whenever a Marquis of Santillana is mentioned in the history of Spanish literature, without any more particular description, it is this nobleman that is meant. He was born in the year 1398. His elevated rank and great fortune, joined to the military and political talents by which he was distinguished from youth upwards, placed him in a situation in which he was called upon to perform a principal part among the nobles of Castile. His intellectual culture had for its basis the philosophy of Socrates; and his strict morality procured him no less celebrity than his sound understanding and love of science.75 This uncommon union of rank, influence, character, talents, and learning, could not fail to render the Marquis of Santillana highly respected; and he was indeed regarded as so extraordinary a man, that foreigners are said to have undertaken journies to Castile for the sole purpose of seeing him. He was greatly esteemed by king John, who, during the civil wars, constantly received from him, in return, the homage which was due to a protector of learning, though the Marquis was not always of that prince’s party. After the death of John II. in the latter years of his life, this eminent man assisted with his counsels Henry IV. under whom the regal authority in Castile was subsequently almost annihilated. He died in the year 1458.

The Marquis of Santillana possessed no uncommon poetic talent. But he studied to give to the poetry of his age a moral tendency, to extend its sphere by allegorical invention, and to adorn poetic description with the stores of learning. Two poems, in which he has best succeeded in realizing these objects, are also the most celebrated of his works. The first is an elegy on the death of the Marquis of Villena;76 a lyric allegory in twenty-five dactylic stanzas, constructed according to the ancient form. The idea is very simple, and the commencement of the piece brings to recollection the hell of Dante, of which it is probably an imitation.77 The poet loses himself in a desert, finds himself surrounded by wild and frightful animals, advances forward, hears dismal tones of lamentation, and finally discovers some nymphs in mourning, who bewail the loss and chaunt the merits of the deceased Marquis of Villena. On this poem, which does not discover much ingenuity of invention, the Marquis of Santillana probably expended all his stock of learning. He cites as many deities and ancient authors, as the nature of his work will permit him to notice.78 Such a display of erudition had never before been seen in the Castilian language. No genial poetic spirit is to be found except in the descriptions and in some other scattered passages of this lyric allegory;79 but the verse is not destitute of harmony. The other considerable poem of the Marquis, consists of a series of moral reflections, occasioned by the unfortunate fate of Don Alvaro de Luna, the favourite of John II.; the Marquis called this work, El doctrinal de Privados, (the Manual of Favourites.) It must be regarded as the earliest didactic poem in the Spanish language, unless that title be given to any series of moral maxims in verse. The work which is divided into fifty-three stanzas in redondillas, receives a poetic colouring from the manner in which the shade of Don Alvaro is introduced confessing his faults, and uttering those moral truths, which the author wished to impress on the hearts of the restless Castilians.80 He was less successful in his love songs composed in the Castilian manner, to which he unfortunately thought a new dignity would be given, by rendering them the vehicles of learned allusions. He possessed, however, the art of reconciling this pedantry with a pleasing style of versification.81 A kind of hymn, which he composed, under the title of Los Gozos de neustra Señora, (the Joys of our Lady) has been preserved, but it possesses no poetic merit.82 He also wrote a collection of proverbs and maxims in verse, for the use of the Prince Royal of Castile, who afterwards ascended a tottering throne under the title of Henry IV.83 However low a critical examination might reduce the value of these works, still the Marquis of Santillana deserves to retain the place assigned to him in the history of Spanish literature by his contemporaries, by whom he was generally admired, as the “representative of the honour of poetry.”

Among the literary remains of the Marquis of Santillana, the critical and historical letter is particularly remarkable. This letter, which is frequently mentioned in the early accounts of Spanish poetry,84 is instructive in various respects. It affords the means of accurately observing the infancy of Spanish criticism in that age, for the Marquis has added to the letter a collection of his ingenious maxims, (decires,) and of his poems for Don Pedro, a Portuguese prince; and from the embarrassment evinced by the Marquis when he attempts to give the prince an account of the rise of Castilian poetry, it is obvious, that with respect to the real origin of that poetry, less was understood at that time than is known at the present day. Poetry, or the gay science, is, according to the Marquis of Santillana, “an invention of useful things, which being enveloped in a beautiful veil, are arranged, exposed, and concealed according to a certain calculation, measurement, and weight.”85 Thus, allegory appeared to him to belong to the essence of poetry. He could scarcely have imbibed this opinion from Dante. In Spain, as well as in Italy and France, it seems to have issued forth from the monkish cells, when endeavours were made to unite poetry with philosophy, and to make the poetic art the symbol of knowledge, in order to ensure to it estimation among the learned. The allegorical spirit which pervades the half gothic poetry of that period, is therefore inseparably connected with the characteristic origin of modern poetry. The Marquis of Santillana would have come to a totally different conclusion, had he taken an unprejudiced view of the genuine national poetry of his country. But he imagined he was laying down a principle which would ennoble it, when, according to his theory, he held allegory to be indispensable. Without scruple, therefore, he confounded the Castilian and Limosin poetry together in one mass. Respecting the origin of the former, he entered into no investigation. He commences the history of poetry with Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, and Job,86 gives a copious account of the changes which the art of the Troubadours had undergone in the Arragonian provinces, and adds a notice of some of the earliest Galician and Portuguese poets: among the Castilian poets, he mentions king Alphonso and some others, without saying a syllable on the subject of the ancient romances.

JUAN DE MENA.

Juan de Mena, who is by some writers, styled the Spanish Ennius, ranks, as a poet, in a somewhat higher scale than the Marquis of Santillana, though he was less favoured by fortune, and was not distinguished by so many various merits as the latter. He was born in Cordova, about the year 1412. In this southern district of Spain, which but a short time before had been recovered from the Moors, the Castilian genius was doubtless very rapidly naturalized. Juan de Mena, though not descended from a family of rank,87 was not of mean origin, and at the early age of three-and-twenty he was invested with a civil appointment in his native city. His own inclination, however, prompted him to devote himself to philosophy, and particularly to the study of ancient literature and history. From Cordova he went to the University of Salamanca. But in order more nearly to approach the source of ancient literature, he undertook a journey to Rome, where he zealously prosecuted his studies. Enriched with knowledge, he returned to his native country, and immediately attracted the notice of the Marquis of Santillana, and shortly after of king John. Both received him into their literary circles with distinguished approbation. The Marquis of Santillana attached himself with more friendship to Juan de Mena than to any other poet who enjoyed the favour of the king, although their political opinions did not always coincide. The king nominated him one of the historiographers, who, according to the arrangement which had subsisted since the time of Alphonso X. were appointed to continue the national chronicles. Juan de Mena lived in high favour at the court of John II. and was a constant adherent of the king. He died in 1456, at Guadalaxara, in New Castile, being then about forty-five years of age. The Marquis of Santillana erected a monument to his memory.

From the history of Juan de Mena’s life, it might be expected that his endeavours to extend the boundaries of Castilian poetry would be made under the influence of Italian taste, more or less of which he may be presumed to have adopted, and on his return introduced into his native country. But no Italian poet, save Dante, appears to have produced any remarkable impression on him. Indeed, with the exception of Dante and Petrarch, there was, at that period, no Italian poet of classic consideration; and in the first half of the fifteenth century Italian poetry suddenly declined. Sonnets were still in favour throughout the whole of Italy, but Juan de Mena continued faithful to the old forms of the Castilian poetry, perhaps from a feeling of national pride. He certainly did not imitate the sonnet; and even from Dante himself, he copied neither metrical form nor style. In allegory alone he followed the footsteps of the Italian poet. His most celebrated poem is, the Labyrinth, (el Labyrintho) or, the Three Hundred Stanzas (las trecientas,) an allegorical historical didactic work, in old dactylic verse (versos de arte mayor.88) Had the Labyrinth proved what, according to the idea of the author, it was intended to be, it would have been proper, merely on account of that single work, to commence a new epoch of Spanish poetry with the reign of John II. But with all its merits, which have been highly extolled by some authors, and which are certainly by no means trivial, it can only be regarded as a mere specimen of gothic art.89 It belongs to the period which gave it birth, and bears no traces of the superiority of a genius which might have ruled the spirit of the age. Juan de Mena formed the grand design of executing in this work an allegorical picture of the whole course of human life. His intention was, to embrace every age, to immortalize great virtues, to stigmatize with opprobrium great vices, and to represent in striking colours the irresistible power of destiny.90 But the poetical invention of Juan de Mena was subordinate to his false learning. The three hundred stanzas, of which the poem consists, are divided into seven orders, (ordenes), in imitation of the seven planets, the influence of which, according to Juan de Mena’s doctrine, is wisely prescribed by Providence. To represent this influence figuratively, Mena resorted to a most insipid and grotesque invention. After invoking Apollo and Calliope, and earnestly apostrophising Fortune,91 he loses himself in imitation of Dante in an allegorical world, where a female of astonishing beauty appears to him, and becomes his guide. This female is Providence:92 she conducts him to three wheels, two of which are motionless, while the third is in a state of continual movement. These wheels, it will readily be conjectured, represent the past, the present, and the future. Human beings drop down through this mill of time. The centre wheel turns them round. Each has his name and destiny inscribed on his forehead. While the wheel of the present is revolving with all the existing human race, it is controlled astrologically in its motion by the seven orders or circles of the seven planets under the influence of which men are born. Whether or not these circles are perceptible on the wheel itself, is not clearly stated. To this description succeeds, in the order of the seven planets, a long gallery of mythological and historical pictures, which presents abundant fruits of the poet’s extensive reading. This grotesque composition is interspersed with individual passages of great interest and beauty, though none of the traits call to mind similar traits in Dante. The most glowing passages of the lyric, didactic, and narrative class, are those in which Juan de Mena gives utterance to the language of Spanish patriotism.93 He is particularly successful in the description of the death of the Count de Niebla, a Spanish naval hero, who attempted to recover Gibraltar from the Moors; but through ignorance of the return of the tide, fell a sacrifice to the waves, because he preferred perishing with his men, to saving himself singly.94 But particular attention is bestowed on Don Alvaro de Luna,95 the favourite of the king, who is introduced in this poem with great pomp, under the constellation of Saturn. When Juan de Mena wrote this poem, and thus proclaimed the glory of de Luna, the latter had not yet fallen, and the energy of his character seemed to promise, as the poet prophesied, that he would ultimately triumph over all the Castilian nobles who had excited the hostility of the country against him. King John, as may naturally be supposed, is in Juan de Mena’s Labyrinth complimented on every suitable occasion. A genealogy of the kings of Spain forms the conclusion of the poem; and thus were the Spaniards made to feel a kind of national interest for the whole work, which in some measure subsists, at least among their writers at the present day. Even in Juan de Mena’s time, the learned solecisms with which he endeavoured to elevate his poetic language were uncommon;96 but other essential faults, such, for instance, as Aristotelian definitions in verse, were then esteemed great beauties; and the gothic and fantastic hyperboles in praise of king John, with which the poem opens, as if intended to appal the reader at the outset, were not at that period considered unpoetic.97

But king John was not satisfied with the torrent of praise which was poured upon him by Mena’s Labyrinth. The king, with critical gravity, signified his wish that the poet should add sixty-five stanzas to the three hundred which he had already written, so that by making the number of stanzas correspond with the number of days in the year, the beauty of the composition might be heightened. The sixty-five new stanzas were also to have a political tendency, with the view of recalling the rebellious nobles to their allegiance. Juan de Mena proceeded to the prescribed task; but he could produce no more than twenty-four additional stanzas (coplas añadidas.) They are contained in the Cancionero general.

Another work of Juan de Mena, very celebrated at the period when the poet flourished, is his Ode for the Poetical Coronation of the Marquis of Santillana.98 That Mecænas sometimes vied with him in the composition of ingenious questions, or enigmas and their answers, which were versified by both in dactylic stanzas.99 His other poems are, for the most part, love songs, in the style of the age, and according to the perverted taste of the poet, loaded with mythological learning. In the course of this work further notice will be taken of these songs, together with other amatory poems of the same period. During the last year of his life, Juan de Mena was engaged in a moral allegorical poem, which, however, he did not complete. It was entitled a Treatise on Vices and Virtues, (Tractado de Vicios y Virtudes.) The author intended in an epic poem to represent the “more than civil war,” which the will, instigated by the passions, maintains with reason.100 The will and reason are in the end personified.

To collect biographical notices of the other poets and writers of verse who enjoyed the favour of king John II. and whose works are partly contained in the Cancionero general, or to give an extensive account of their productions, is a task which must be resigned to the author who has made this department of Spanish literature his particular study. As to poetic value, the writings of all those authors are in the main the same; and it may therefore be presumed that it will prove more instructive to consider works so nearly related to each other, under the comprehensive view of general criticism. A few notices, however, of men worthy of more particular remembrance, may precede the critical comparison of their works.101

PEREZ DE GUZMAN, RODRIGUEZ DEL PADRON, AND OTHER SPANISH LYRIC POETS OF THE AGE OF JOHN II.

Fernan Perez de Guzman was held in no trifling consideration at the court of John II. His family, which was one of the most distinguished in Castile, was related to all the other great families in the country. As a poet, he studied to combine the peculiar tone of moral and spiritual poetry with that of the old romances. His Representation of the Four Cardinal Virtues, dedicated to the Marquis of Santillana, which consists of sixty-four strophes or couplets, is versified in redondillas, as are also his Ave Maria, his Paternoster, and his other spiritual songs.

Rodriguez del Padron seems likewise to have been held in some esteem at the court of John II. His family name is not known, and as little are the dates of his birth and death, but he is named after the place of his nativity, the little town El Padron in Galicia. It is remarkable that in his poetry he dropped his Galician idiom and adopted the Castilian. Besides the reputation he obtained by his poetic productions, which are chiefly love songs, he is celebrated for his friendship with the Galician poet Macias, who will be further mentioned in the history of Portuguese poetry. The tragical death of Macias, who fell a sacrifice to his romantic susceptibility, made such an impression on Rodriguez del Padron, that he shut himself up in a Dominican cloister, which he had erected at his own expense. He became a monk, and terminated his life in that convent.

Alonzo de Santa Maria, called also Alonzo de Cartagena, wrote love songs, probably in his youth, and then devoted himself to spiritual affairs. He died Archbishop of Burgos, in the year 1456.

Several other poets whose works fill the Cancionero general, also lived in the reign, or rather under the anticipated domination of queen Isabella, who, in the year 1465, vouchsafed to her almost dethroned brother, Henry IV. the little authority, which, as a nominal king he retained till his death in 1474. At this troubled period Garci Sanchez de Badajoz sang his passionate and glowing songs of love; and at the same time flourished the two Manriques, Gomez Manrique and Jorge Manrique; the latter was nephew to the former. Both owed the consideration they enjoyed no less to their poetical works than to their high and pure Castilian descent. The Bachelor de la Torre, of whom nothing further is known than what his own songs express, lived at the same period.

OF THE CANCIONERO GENERAL, AND THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANCIENT SPANISH SONGS.

Between the works of the above poets, all of which are to be found in the Cancionero general, and the other poems contained in the same collection, whether their authors lived in the first or the second half of the fifteenth century, there is a very striking resemblance. This collection, so remarkable in its kind, may therefore be regarded as a single work, which, together with a portion of the General Romance Book (Romancero general), embraces nearly all the Castilian poetry of the fifteenth century. No other remains of Spanish poetry, belonging to the same age, are sufficiently important to be brought into comparison with this national treasure. It may not, then, be improper to introduce here, a few particulars respecting the history of the Cancionero general. Of the Romancero general some further account must hereafter be given.

The bibliographic notices towards the history of the collections of Spanish poetry, to be found in the works of various authors, readily explain why many old Spanish poems and names of poets have been either totally lost, or are still only preserved in manuscript in a way which renders them foreign to literature. It appears that having been withheld from the press, on the introduction of printing into Spain,102 they were forgotten as soon as other collections were made known by means of that art. In the reign of John II. Alphonso de Baena, who himself wrote in verse, prepared a collection of old lyric pieces, under the title of Cancionero de Poetas Antiguos. This collection, though still preserved in the library of the Escurial, was never printed;103 but a list of the poets whose works are contained in it, has appeared, and includes names which do not occur elsewhere. Alvarez de Villapandino is mentioned as a particularly excellent “master and patron of the said art,” namely, poetry. Sanchez Salavera, Ruy Paez de Ribera, and others, of whom besides their names, nothing else is known, are also cited. It is not very probable that Alphonso de Baena’s collection was the origin of that which subsequently appeared under the title of the Cancionero general. Of this celebrated collection it is merely known that it was originally produced by Fernando del Castillo, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and within a short period frequently augmented and reprinted. Fernando del Castillo began his collection with the poets of the age of John II. He did not, however, take the trouble to carry on the series in chronological order through the fifteenth century. He places the spiritual poems before the rest. He then gives the works of several poets of the reign of John II. mingled with others of more recent date, but so arranged, that the productions of each author seem to be kept distinct. After, however, the works are thus apparently given, other poems follow under particular heads, partly by the same and partly by different authors, whose names are sometimes mentioned and sometimes not: there are also a few Italian sonnets, and some coplas in the Valencian language. In proportion as the collection extended, the additions were always inserted at the end of the book. In the oldest editions the number of poets mentioned amounts to one hundred and thirty-six.104

A nation which can enumerate one hundred and thirty-six song writers in a single century, and which also possesses a great number of songs by unknown authors, produced within the same period, may well boast of its lyric genius; and the literary historian, before he proceeds to a closer review of this collection, may reasonably expect to find in it a full and true representation of the national character. Thus the old Spanish Cancionero is even more interesting to the philosophic observer of human nature than to the critic.

The Spiritual Songs, (Obras de Devocion,) at the head of the collection, probably will not fulfil the expectations which may be formed respecting them. It is natural to presume that in a nation so poetically inclined, and in an age when, for the most part, nature was followed without reference to the rules of art, the poets could not fail to view Christianity on its poetic side. But the scholastic forms of the existing theology crushed the genius of poetry; and the unpoetic side of Christianity, because it was the most learned, was alone deemed worthy the strains of the Spanish poets of the fifteenth century. They likewise seldom ventured to give scope to the fancy in devotional verses, because the nation was accustomed to the most implicit faith in every dogma of the church, and the recognition of the sacredness of literal interpretation was identified with orthodoxy, long before the terrors of the inquisition and its burning piles were known. This rigid orthodoxy of the Spanish Christians was a consequence of their war of five hundred years duration with the Moors. Throughout that long period the Spanish knight invariably fought for religion and his country; and from the constant hostility that prevailed between the Christian and Mahometan faiths, the Spanish Christians were wont to make a parade of their creed, as the Christians of the east are accustomed to do at the present day. Hence the strictest formality was observed in all matters connected with religion; and great as was the enthusiasm of the Spaniards in the fifteenth century, it produced few, if any, lyric compositions, containing more poetry than a common hymn. Whether reference be made to the Twenty Perfections of the Holy Virgin,105 (Obra en loor de veinte excellencias de nuestra Señora), by Juan Tulante, who is the author of most of the spiritual songs in the Cancionero general; to the play on the five letters of the name Maria,106 by the Visconde de Altamira; or to Fernan Perez de Guzman’s versions of the Ave Maria and Paternoster,107 which could not have been more dryly and formally written in prose; we find in all the same monotony without any poetic adaptation of the materials.

The moral poems of this collection do not weigh heavier in the scale of poetic merit. The art which the ancients possessed of introducing moral ideas into the region of poetry, was not attainable by the pupils of the monastic schools. They allegorized either virtues or vices according to the catalogue and definitions of the scholastic philosophy; or they made common place observations on human life, sometimes with declamatory pomp, sometimes with real warmth of feeling, and occasionally in agreeable verse, though destitute of any poetic spirit. Gomez Manrique with commendable frankness addressed a didactic poem on the Duties of Sovereigns (Regimiento de Principes) in redondillas, to Queen Isabella and her husband Ferdinand of Arragon; but however valuable the truths which he wished to impart to the royal pair, he could only express them in versified prose.108 The moral coplas of his nephew Jorge Manrique present somewhat stronger claims to poetic merit; they were subsequently glossed as a National Book of Devotion, and were held in high estimation up to a recent period.109 In the moral as well as in the spiritual songs the character of the nation is manifest. With equal warmth of feeling, with the same disposition for light and sportive gaiety, the Spaniards were invariably distinguished from the Italians by moral gravity. Hence, they have in all times set a high value on rules of conduct, sentences, and useful proverbs, and have never regarded the principles of genuine rectitude as less important than maxims of worldly wisdom.

But love songs form by far the principal part of the contents of the old Spanish Cancioneros. To read them regularly through, would require a strong passion for compositions of this class, for the monotony of the authors is interminable. To extend and spin out a theme as long as possible, though only to seize a new modification of the old ideas or phrases, was, in their opinion, essential to the truth and sincerity of their poetic effusions of the heart. That loquacity which is an hereditary fault of the Italian Canzone, must also be endured in perusing the amatory flights of the Spanish redondillas, while in them the Italian correctness of expression would be looked for in vain. From the desire perhaps of relieving their monotony, by some sort of variety the authors have indulged in even more witticisms and plays of words than the Italians, but they also sought to infuse a more emphatic spirit into their compositions than the latter.110 The Spanish poems of this class, exhibit, in general, all the poverty of the compositions of the Troubadours, but blend with the simplicity of these bards, the pomp of the Spanish national style in its utmost vigour. This resemblance to the Troubadour songs was not however produced by imitation; it arose out of the spirit of romantic love, which at that period, and for several preceding centuries, gave to the south of Europe the same feelings and taste. Since the age of Petrarch, this spirit had appeared in classical perfection in Italy. But the Spanish amatory poets of the fifteenth century had not reached an equal degree of cultivation; and the whole turn of their ideas required rather a passionate than a tender expression. The sighs of the languishing Italians became cries in Spain. Glowing passion, despair and violent ecstacy, were the soul of the Spanish love songs. The continually recurring picture of the contest between reason and passion is a peculiar characteristic of these songs. The Italian poets did not place so much importance on the triumph of reason. The rigidly moral Spaniard was, however, anxious to be wise even in the midst of his folly. But this obtrusion of wisdom in its improper place, frequently gives an unpoetic harshness to the lyric poetry of Spain, in spite of all the softness of its melody. It would be no unprofitable or useless task to pursue this comparison still further. But the limited extent of this work can afford space for only a few notices and examples.

How successful the Spanish poets of the fifteenth century were in gay and graceful love songs, when guided only by their own feelings, is manifest from some of the compositions of Juan de Mena; but the charm vanishes the instant the poet begins to display his skill and erudition.111 In a love song by Diego Lopez de Haro, reason and the mind enter into a prolix conversation on the value to be attached to affections of the heart; and the thinking faculty admits reason at the expense of poetry.112 In the other songs of the same author, in which the mind obeys only the heart, he is poetic in all the simplicity of passion, though in search of wit he sometimes involves himself in obscure subtilties.113 The fire of passion is excellently painted, even amidst sports of wit,114 in several songs by Alonzo de Cartagena, afterwards archbishop of Burgos; and it seems to rage incessantly in the love songs of Guivara, to one of which he has given the emphatic title of El Infierno de Amores; or, The Hell of Love.115 Sanchez de Badajoz, when, like a despairing lover, he wrote his will in poetry, thought he might avail himself of some passages from the book of Job to express his suffering. He divided this strange kind of will into nine lessons, (leciones). The ideas are very extravagant, but the execution is vigorous, and in many parts not unpoetic.116 It might be presumed that profane applications of the doctrines and language of the bible would have given offence to the Spanish public, or at least alarmed the guardians of catholic orthodoxy. But such was not the case. Rodriguez del Padron chose the Seven Joys of Love as the subject of one of his songs, the title of which calls to mind the Marquis of Santillana’s Joys of the Holy Virgin; he also versified Love’s Ten Commandments, (Los diez Madamientos de Amor.)

The other kinds of lyric poems, for example, the laudatory poems, which are dispersed through the Cancionero general, are not distinguished by any peculiar features; but the poems under miscellaneous titles in this collection deserve particular attention. They exhibit the natural style, amalgamated with a conventional, and thus form the model of a species of national poetry, which has descended to the present age. Certain short lyric poems, usually called songs, (canciones,) in the more strict sense of the term are distinguished by a peculiar character and a decided metrical form. They have always a sententious or an epigramatic turn. The number of lines is generally twelve, which are divided into two parts. The first four lines comprehend the idea on which the song is founded. And this idea is developed or applied in the eight following lines. The Cancionero general contains one hundred and fifty-six of these little songs, some of which are the best poems in the whole book. For this advantage they are probably indebted to their conventional form, which confined the romantic verbosity within narrow bounds. These little songs were to the Spaniards of the fifteenth century, what the epigram had been to the Greeks, and what the madrigal was to the Italians and French. Like the latter, they are generally devoted to some theme of gallantry; and though they do not possess so high a polish, yet the interest excited by the truth with which they paint the character of the age, and their ingenious simplicity, entitles them to be ranked among the sweetest blossoms of the ancient spirit of romance.117

The Villancicos bear an immediate affinity to these little songs. The idea which forms the subject of the Villancico, is sometimes contained in two, but more commonly in three lines. The developement, or application, may be completed in one short stanza, but often extends to several similar stanzas. These stanzas always include seven lines. It was, perhaps, by way of irony that the name Villancico was originally applied to productions of this kind; for the spiritual motets, which are sung during high mass on Christmas eve, are also called Villancicos. At least no satisfactory etymology has yet been found for the name. The Cancionero general contains fifty-four Villancicos, and among them are some which possess inimitable grace and delicacy.118

These remarkable compositions, whose origin appears to be lost in the early periods of the formation of the Spanish language, doubtless gave rise to the poetic gloss (glosa,) a kind of poem scarcely known, even by name, on this side of the Pyrenees, but to which the Spaniards and Portuguese of the fifteenth century were particularly attached, and which subsequently even after the introduction of the Italian forms, continued to be preserved as national poetry in Spain and Portugal.

The poetic glosses may, in some measure, be compared to musical variations. The musician selects as his theme some well known melody, which he paraphrases or modifies into variations; in like manner in Spain and Portugal, well known songs and romances were paraphrased or modified into new productions, but in such a manner that the original composition was, without any alteration in the words, intertwined line after line, at certain intervals into the new one. A poem of this kind was called a gloss. By this operation the connection of the glossed poem was broken, and the comparison of the poetic glosses to musical variations is therefore not in all respects exactly just. But the distinction between them arises out of the different nature of the arts of music and poetry; and it is indeed more surprising that these compositions have not flourished beyond the boundaries of Spain and Portugal, than that they should have been peculiar favourites in those two countries. At first, the old romances were glossed;119 then, as it appears, mottos, or sentiments, (motes,) in the style of gallantry peculiar to the age,120 and, at length, every thing that was capable of being glossed. There is a particular class of jeux d’esprit, in the Cancionero general, namely, versified questions and answers, and versified interpretations of devices (letras,) which, together with corresponding emblems, lords and ladies drew by lot at festivals, tourneys, bull fights, &c. But these questions, answers, and devices, are in general more whimsical than ingenious.

OF THE ROMANCERO GENERAL.

The latter half of the fifteenth century seems also to have given birth to the greater portion of those Spanish romances, which wrested the approbation of criticism and public favour from the older productions of the same class; and which, therefore, in the sequel, formed the bulk of the Romancero general, or General Romance Book. This Romancero of the Spaniards is so closely related to their Cancionero general, that some account of it may not be out of place here, though it was not printed as a complete collection until the close of the sixteenth century. With the exception of the narrative romances, the Romancero may be considered merely as a continuation of the Cancionero. The poetry of the lyric pieces contained in it, which are extremely numerous, is both in spirit and metrical form, precisely the same as that which appears in the Cancionero, but more polished in manner and language. The title of romance indicates no essential difference. The narrative romances, which occupy the greater portion of the Romancero, have, in some measure, been characterized in this history in treating of the old romances of the same class; for most of them, particularly those of the historical kind, differ little from the more ancient. But a considerable portion of compositions of every class have been contributed to the Romancero by poets of the sixteenth century. The collectors have mingled these romances and the older ones together, without any attention to critical arrangement or chronological order; and in no instance is there any mention or indication of an author. In a history of literature, it therefore becomes necessary to speak of the Romancero as a whole; and for this purpose, the present is perhaps the most convenient opportunity; for, even at the period when this collection was produced, the poets who wrote romances in the old national style, merely improved that style without essentially altering it.

Among the historical romances, contained in the Romancero, those in which anecdotes of the Moorish war, or the heroic and gallant adventures of Moorish knights, are poetically treated, seem, for the most part, to belong to the latter half of the fifteenth century. All these romances relate to the civil wars of Granada, the last Moorish principality in Spain. The civil dissensions of Castile retarded for upwards of half a century the conquest of Granada, which was at length effected in the year 1492, by the united power of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Arragon. During this last period of the conflict between the Christians and the Mahometans of Spain, the former became more intimately acquainted with the history of the latter. As the last blow for the deliverance of the Peninsula was now about to be struck, all that related to the Moors was doubly interesting to the Castilians. The two rival factions, the Zegris and the Abencerrages, whose mutual enmity accelerated the fall of Granada, were, in a particular manner, the objects of their adversaries attention.

About this period it seems to have become a fashion among the Spanish romance writers, to select from the events of Moorish history, materials for their songs; and in these romances the heroes of the Zegri and Abencerrage tribes sustain the principal characters. Even after the conquest of Granada, the interest excited throughout Spain by that great national event, still continued; and, doubtless, many romances, the subjects of which are borrowed from Moorish history, were produced in the sixteenth century.121

The first Spanish pastoral romances, were probably produced during the last ten years of the fifteenth century. But no distinct traces exist of the rise of this species of poetry in Spain. In the poetry of the age of John II. neither pastoral names nor ideas appear, except in the satyrical poem, entitled, Mingo Rebulgo, which will be hereafter noticed. Pastoral dramas are, however, to be found in the works of Juan de la Enzina, who flourished towards the close of the fifteenth century, and of whom we shall also have occasion to speak more at large. The Spanish pastoral poetry seems, shortly after its rise, to have been blended with the romantic poetry. Many of the most beautiful narrative pieces in the Romancero general are properly pastoral romances. It is quite impossible to ascertain correctly to what age these bucolicks belong;122 and it has, hitherto, proved equally impossible to obtain any positive information respecting the origin of the facetious and satyrical romances and songs, dispersed through the Romancero general.123

Finally, the history of the Romancero general itself still waits for bibliographic illustration; and in order to throw any light on this subject, it would be necessary to have the opportunity of examining the Spanish libraries and old collections of manuscripts, and to be able to bestow on them the most indefatigable attention. Of all the collections, bearing the common title of Romancero general, only two are quoted by authors; one was edited by Miguel de Madrigal, in the year 1604; and the other by Pedro de Flores in 1614.124 Another publication, however, under the same title, which also appeared in 1604, and which contains upwards of a thousand romances and songs, professes to be a new and augmented collection of this kind.125 At what time, then, was the first collection made or published?

Those, however, who may think it unimportant to enquire how many of these anonymous poems, which have for ages delighted the Spanish public, were produced in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and who may merely wish to see a selection of the best Spanish poems in the old national style, have only to turn to the Romancero general. Many of the narrative romances which it contains, vie, in romantic simplicity, with those of apparently older date in other collections, and exceed them in elegance; and still more do a number of the songs in the Romancero surpass those in the Cancionero general. Thus the historian of literature has additional cause to lament that through the absence of all chronological and bibliographical notices, he is deprived of even the slight satisfaction of paying a just tribute to the memory of the authors of the best of these romances and songs, which really deserve to be immortal. The poets themselves, it is true, do not seem to have attached much value to fame. If their songs, accompanied by the guitar, interested the hearts and charmed the ears of their auditors, they sought no laurels in addition to that true reward of the poet. Yet, for this very reason, in an age when the lowest degree of poetic merit presumptuously claims literary distinction, the task would be the more pleasing to do honour to those venerable authors, by raising the veil beneath which their names have too long been concealed.

FIRST TRACES OF THE ORIGIN OF SPANISH DRAMATIC POETRY IN THE MINGO REBULGO—JUAN DEL ENZINA—CALLISTUS AND MELIBŒA, A DRAMATIC TALE.

All that now remains to be stated respecting the poetic literature of the Spaniards during the fifteenth century, must be comprehended in a notice of their first essays in dramatic poetry.

In lieu of those poetic works which are styled dramatic in the true sense of the word, and which afterwards formed the most brilliant portion of Spanish poetry, the Spaniards of the fifteenth century possessed merely spiritual or temporal farces, written in the style which prevailed in the middle ages, and which can scarcely be said to belong to literature. At Saragossa, the residence of the Court of Arragon, attempts towards the improvement of dramatic amusements were earlier made than in the Castilian court. There, as has already been observed, the Marquis de Villena devoted his learning and inventive talents to the drama. Allegorical dramas, indeed, do not seem to have been in favour at the court of Castile, notwithstanding the taste for allegory which distinguished the poets of the reign of John II. A singular union of pastoral and satirical poetry first gave birth to a species of dramatic poem in the Castilian language.

In the reign of John II. an anonymous poet amused himself by describing the court of that monarch in satirical coplas. It is impossible to account for the whim which induced him to throw his rhymes into the form of a dialogue, and to select shepherds for his interlocutors. The work extends to thirty-two coplas, and critics have sometimes classed it among the eclogues, and sometimes among the first satirical productions of the Spanish poets. Some make Rodrigo de Cota the author of these coplas; and others, who ascribe them to Juan de Mena, seem to forget that the latter was zealously devoted to the court party. This singular composition is usually mentioned under the title of Mingo Rebulgo, from the names of the two shepherds who carry on the dialogue. Supposing pastoral poetry to have been in vogue at that period in Spain, and particularly at the court of John II. it would be easy to explain how a witty author might conceive the bold idea of converting a pastoral dialogue into a satire; but in that case the ideas of a poetic pastoral existence must have been diffused through Spain, as they were through Italy. It is probable, however, that in both countries the revived study of classical literature, and particularly of Virgil’s eclogues, gave rise to the practice of clothing modern ideas in a garb imitated from the ancient bucolic poetry; and it seems the effect of mere accident that a Spaniard should have been the first to devote a work of this kind to the purposes of satire.126

Doubtless neither the eclogue of Mingo Rebulgo, nor the colloquial stanzas in the Cancionero can properly be regarded as the commencement of dramatic poetry in Spain. But all these preliminary essays in dialogue, are in a literary point of view connected together; and about the close of the fifteenth century, pastoral dialogues were converted into real dramas, by a musical composer, named Juan de la Enzina, or del Enzina, as he is styled in the old collections of his works. This ingenious man who was born in Salamanca during the reign of Queen Isabella, though in what year is not precisely known, was equally celebrated as a poet and musician. He travelled to Jerusalem in company with the Marquis de Tarifa, and this journey could not fail to store his mind with many new ideas. He lived for some time at Rome in the quality of chapel-master, or musical director to Pope Leo; who, it is well known, afforded great encouragement to dramatic amusements. But at Rome, as well as in Palestine, Juan de la Enzina still remained a Spaniard. His poetry imbibed no tincture of the Italian taste, and he continued to write songs and lyric romances in the old Castilian style. He also exercised his fancy in making jests, consisting of ridiculous combinations or heterogeneous conceits, called disparates, which he wrote in the form of romances. For instance, he talks with an absurd but harmless humour of a “cloud which at night, at day break in the afternoon arrived from a pilgrimage, having in its train a domestic utensil which appeared in pontificalibus,” &c.127 These oddities rendered his name a proverb in Spain. He converted Virgil’s eclogues into romances, in which he displayed singular simplicity, and applied to his patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella, the duke and duchess of Alba, and others, the compliments which Virgil addressed to the emperor Augustus. Accident had introduced into Spain a mixture of pastoral poetry with the drama, and Juan de la Enzina wrote sacred and profane eclogues, in the form of dialogues, which were represented before distinguished audiences on Christmas eve, during the carnival, and on other festivals. They are, however, entirely lost to literature.128

The dramatic romance of Callistus and Melibœa is, however, more celebrated than Juan de la Enzina’s eclogues. It was probably commenced in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; though some authors assign this singular production of popular descriptive talent and well meant plainness to the age of John II. The author is supposed to be Rodrigo de Cota, to whom the pastoral dialogue of Mingo Rebulgo is also attributed. This dramatic romance was continued and completed at the commencement of the fifteenth century by Fernando de Roxas, who has recorded his own name in the initials of the introductory stanzas.129 Fernando de Roxas did not possess the forcible descriptive powers of the unknown author, though he appears to have fully entered into the plan traced out by the latter. Either he or his precursor entitled the work a tragi-comedy. It consists of twenty-one acts, and consequently its vast length renders it unfit for theatrical representation. This production may be regarded as original in a certain sense, for there existed no work of the same kind which the author could have chosen as his model. But in a higher and truly critical point of view, it possesses as little originality as real poetic merit. Natural description and moral precept seem to have formed the great object of both authors. They both aimed at exhibiting a series of dramatic lessons to warn youth against the seductive arts of base agents employed to promote intrigues. In order to attain this moral end, the authors deemed it necessary to paint in glowing colours the disgusting picture of a brothel, and through a series of scenes unconnected by the unities of time or place, to exhibit in the most striking point of view, the tragical end of an intrigue conducted by a woman of infamous character. Owing to its moral object, the book has found admirers in all ages, though many have not unreasonably conceived it more advisable to withdraw such scenes of vice from the eye of youth, than to paint them with the minuteness and vivid colouring of truth. But, even allowing that an inconsiderate young person may have occasionally been deterred from an intrigue by the sad history of Callistus and Melibœa, yet the whole dramatic tale, both in the subject and execution, is nevertheless revolting to good taste. The story is as follows:—Callistus, a young man of noble family, entertains a romantic passion for Melibœa. The young lady is also attached to him; but her own prudence, as well as the strict observation to which she is subject in the house of her parents, prevents all communication between the lovers. In this difficulty, Callistus applies to an artful and abandoned woman, to whom the author has given the elegant name of Celestina. She easily devises a pretence for insinuating herself into the house of Melibœa’s parents, where she succeeds in bribing the servants. The intrigue then proceeds in the most common manner, though the author thinks it necessary to call in the aid of witchcraft and magic. Callistus at length attains his object, and Melibœa’s parents discover the mischief when it is too late. Murder is committed among the servants of Melibœa; Celestina’s house likewise becomes the scene of bloodshed; the profligate woman is herself murdered in the most horrible manner imaginable; Callistus is assassinated, and Melibœa closes the tragedy by throwing herself from the top of a lofty tower. Such is the ground-work of the twenty-one acts of this tragi-comedy. It must be admitted, that the authors appear to have wished to paint the scenes in the house of Celestina in as decorous a manner as the nature of the subject would permit. The profligate personages, particularly Celestina, are drawn with great truth; and in the list of the characters their description is unreservedly added to their names. The first act, which is by the unknown author, is distinguished above the rest for the easy flow of the dialogue.130 Considered in this point of view alone, the work is extremely interesting. It affords a fair proof that the fluent and natural style of conversation which the dramatic poets of the north did not attain, until after much labour and repeated failures, arose spontaneously in Spain, on the first attempt made by a writer of talent to make dramatic characters speak in prose.131 This tragi-comedy, as it is styled, has, however, but little relation to poetry.132