Note 193 — Chapter IX

Spanish can scarcely be said to have shared, to an extent commensurate with its interest, in the benefit of recent study of the older forms of modern languages. There is, at any rate in English, and I think elsewhere, still nothing better than Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature (3 vols., London, 1849, and reprinted since), in the early part of which he had the invaluable assistance of the late Don Pascual de Gayangos. Some scattered papers may be found in Romania. Fortunately, almost all the known literary materials for our period are to be found in Sanchez' Poesias Castellanas Anteriores al Siglo XV., the Paris (1842) reprint of which by Ochoa, with a few valuable additions, I have used. The Poema del Cid is, except in this old edition, rather discreditably inaccessible—Vollmöller's German edition (Halle, 1879), the only modern or critical one, being, I understand, out of print. It would be a good deed if the Clarendon Press would furnish students with this, the only rival of Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland in the combination of antiquity and interest.