Note 178 — Chapter VI

Speaking of the ballad verses, he says, (Prólogo á las Rimas Humanas, Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV., Madrid, 1776, 4to, p. 176,) “I regard them as capable, not only of expressing and setting forth any idea whatever with easy sweetness, but carrying through any grave action in a versified poem.” His prediction was fulfilled in his own time by the “Fernando” of Vera y Figueroa, a long epic published in 1632, and in ours by the very attractive narrative poem of Don Ángel de Saavedra, Duke de Rivas, entitled “El Moro Exposito,” in two volumes, 1834. The example of Lope de Vega, in the latter part of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, no doubt did much to give currency to the asonantes, which, from that time, have been more used than they were earlier.