the inheritance of the Spaniard, as well as of the Moslem, for eight hundred years. What remarkable qualities was this situation not calculated to call out! Loyalty, heroism, the patriotic feeling, and the loftier feeling of religious enthusiasm. What wonder that the soldier of the cross should fancy that the arm of Heaven was stretched out to protect him? That St. Jago should do battle for him, with his celestial chivalry? That miracles should cease to be miracles? That superstition, in short, should be the element, the abiding element, of the national character? Yet this religious enthusiasm, in the early ages, was tempered by charity towards a foe whom even the Christian was compelled to respect for his superior civilization. But, as the latter gained the ascendant, enthusiasm was fanned by the crafty clergy into fanaticism. As the Moslem scale became more and more depressed, fanaticism rose to intolerance, and intolerance ended in persecution when the victor was converted into the victim. It is a humiliating story, more humiliating even to the oppressors than to the oppressed. The literature, all the while, with chameleon-like sensibility, took the color of the times; and it is for this reason that we have always dwelt with greater satisfaction on the earlier period of the national literature, rude though it be, with its cordial, free, and high, romantic bearing, than on the later period of its glory-brilliant in an intellectual point of view, but in its moral aspect, dark and unrelenting. Mr. Ticknor has been at much pains to unfold these peculiarities of the Castilian character, in order to explain by them the peculiarities of the literature, and indeed, to show their reciprocal action on each other. He has devoted occasional chapters to this subject, not the least interesting in his volumes, making the history of the literature a running commentary on that of the nation; and thus furnishing curious information to the political student, no less than to the student of letters. His acute, and at the same time accurate, observations, imbued with a spirit of sound philosophy, give the work a separate value, and raise it above the ordinary province of literary criticism. or But it is time that we should turn to the ballads, romances, as they are called in Spain, the first of the great divisions already noticed. Nowhere does this popular min strelsy flourish to the same extent as in Spain. The condition of the country, which converted every peasant into a soldier, and filled his life with scenes of stirring and romantic incident, may in part account for it. We have ballads of chivalry, of the national history, of the Moorish wars, mere domestic ballads, — in short, all the varieties of which such simple poetical narratives are susceptible. The most attractive of these to the Spaniards, doubtless, were those devoted to the national heroes. The Cid here occupies a large space. His love, his loyalty, his invincible prowess against the enemies of God, are all celebrated in the frank and cordial spirit of a primitive age. They have been chronologically arranged into a regular series, as far as the date could be conjectured, like the Robin Hood ballads in England, so as to form a tolerably complete narrative of his life. It is interesting to observe, with what fondness the Spaniards are ever ready to turn to their ancient hero, the very type of Castilian chivalry, and linked by so many glorious recollections with the heroic age of their country. The following version of one of these ballads, by Mr. Ticknor, will give a fair idea of the original. The time chosen is the occasion of a summons made by the Cid to Queen Urraca to surrender her castle, which held out against the arms of the warrior's sovereign, Sancho the Brave. "Away! away! proud Roderic! Confessed thee for a son. He gave thee then thy knightly arms, Thy spurs were buckled by these hands, That thou no grace might'st need. And had not chance forbid the vow, I thought with thee to wed; But Count Lozano's daughter fair With her came wealth, an ample store, But power was mine, and state: Broad lands are good, and have their grace, Thy wife is well; thy match was wise; A vassal's daughter sits by thee, And not a royal bride !" Our author has also given a pleasing version of the beautiful romance of "Fonte frida, fonte frida," -"Cooling fountain, cooling fountain," which we are which we are glad to see rendered faithfully, instead of following the example of Dr. Percy, in his version of the fine old ballad in a similar simple style, "Rio verde, rio verde," which, we remember, he translates by "Gentle river, gentle river," &c. Indeed, to do justice to Mr. Ticknor's translations, we should have the text before Nowhere do we recall so close fidelity to the original, unless in Cary's Dante. Such fidelity does not always attain the object of conveying the best idea of the original. But in this humble poetry it is eminently successful. To give these rude gems a polish would be at once to change their character, and defeat the great object of our author, to introduce his readers to the peculiar culture of a primitive age. us. A considerable difficulty presents itself in finding a suitable measure for the English version of the romances. In the original they are written in the eight-syllable line, with trochaic feet, instead of the iambics usually employed by us. But the real difficulty is in the peculiarity of the measure the asonante, as it is called, in which the rhyme depends solely on the conformity of vowel sounds, without reference to the consonants, as in English verse. Thus the words dedo, tiempo, viejos, are all good asonantes, taken at random from one of these old ballads. An attempt has been made by more than one clever writer to transplant them into English verse. But it has had as little success as the attempt to naturalize the ancient hexameter, which neither the skill of Southey nor of Longfellow will, probably, be able to effect. The Spanish vowels have, for the most part, a clear and open sound, which renders the melody of the versification sufficiently sensible to the ear; while the middle station which it occupies between the perfect rhyme and blank verse seems to fit it, in an especial manner, for these simple narrative compositions. The same qualities have recommended it to the dramatic writers of Spain as the best medium of poetical dialogue, and, as such, it is habitually used by the great masters of the national theatre. No class of these popular compositions have greater interest than the Moorish romances, affording glimpses of a state of society in which the Oriental was strangely mingled with the European. Some of them may have been written by the Moriscoes, after the fall of Granada. They are redolent of the beautiful land which gave them birth,-springing up like wild-flowers amidst the ruins of the fallen capital. Mr. Ticknor has touched lightly on these in comparison with some of the other varieties, perhaps because they have been more freely criticized by preceding writers. Every lover of good poetry is familiar with Mr. Lockhart's picturesque version of these ballads, which has every merit but that of fidelity to the original. The production of the Spanish ballads is evidence of great sensibility in the nation; but it must also be referred to the exciting scenes in which it was engaged. A similar cause gave rise to the beautiful border minstrelsy of Scotland. But the adventures of robber chieftains and roving outlaws excite an interest of a very inferior order to that created by the great contest for religion and independence which gave rise to the Spanish ballads. This gives an ennobling principle to these compositions, which raises them far above the popular minstrelsy of every other country. It recommended them to the more polished writers of a later period, under whose hands, if they have lost something of their primitive simplicity, they have been made to form a delightful portion of the national literature. We cannot do better than to quote on this the eloquent remarks of our author. "Ballads, in the seventeenth century, had become the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier solaced himself with them in his tent, and the muleteer amidst the sierras; the maiden danced to them on the green, and the lover sang them for his serenade; they entered into the low orgies of thieves and vagabonds, into the sumptuous entertainments of the luxurious nobility, and into the holiday services of the Church; the blind beggar chanted them to gather alms, and the puppet-showman gave them in recitative to explain his exhibition; they were a part of the very foundation of the theatre, both secular and religious, and the theatre carried them everywhere, and added everywhere to their effect and authority. No poetry of modern times has been so widely spread through all classes of society, and none has so entered into the national character. The ballads, in fact, seem to have been found on every spot of Spanish soil. They seem to have filled the very air that men breathed." The next of the great divisions of this long period, is the Chronicles, a fruitful theme, like the former, and still less explored. For much of this literature is in rare books, or rarer manuscripts. There is no lack of materials, however, in the present work, and the whole ground is mapped out before us, by a guide evidently familiar with all its intricacies. The Spanish Chronicles are distributed into several classes, as those of a public and of a private nature, romantic chronicles, and those of travels. The work which may be said to lead the van of the long array is the "Cronica General" of Alfonso the Wise, written by this monarch probably somewhere about the middle of the thirteenth century. It covers a wide ground, from the Creation to the time of the royal writer. The third book is devoted to the Cid, ever the representative of the heroic age of Castile. The fourth records the events of the monarch's own time. Alfonso's work is followed by the "Chronicle of the Cid," in which the events of the champion's life are now first detailed in sober prose. There is much resemblance between large portions of these two chronicles. This circumstance has led to the conclusion that they both must have been indebted to a common source, or, as seems more probable, that the "Chronicle of the Cid" was taken from that of Alfonso. This latter opinion Mr. Ticknor sustains by internal evidence not easily answered. There seems no reason to doubt, however, that both one and the other were indebted to the popular ballads, and that these, in their turn, were often little more than a versification of the pages of Alfonso's Chronicle; Mr. Ticknor has traced out this curious process by bringing together the parallel passages, which are too numerous and nearly allied to leave any doubt on the matter. Sepulveda, a scholar of the sixteenth century, has converted considerable fragments of the "General Chronicle" into verse, without great violence to the original, a remark -- |