be pleased to adventure with them, and so gain honor for themselves, and the fame of valiant and bold knights for the gentlemen of Castile.' "A state of society like this was the natural result of the extraordinary development which the institutions of chivalry had then received in Spain. Some of it was suited to the age, and salutary; the rest was knight-errantry, and knight-errantry in its wildest extravagance. When, however, the imaginations of men were so excited as to tolerate and maintain, in their daily life, such manners and institutions as these, they would not fail to enjoy the boldest and most free representations of a corresponding state of society in works of romantic fiction. But they went farther. Extravagant and even impossible as are many of the adventures recorded in the books of chivalry, they still seemed so little to exceed the absurdities frequently witnessed or told of known and living men, that many persons took the romances themselves to be true histories, and believed them. Thus, Mexia, the trustworthy historiographer of Charles the Fifth, says, in 1545, when speaking of the Amadises, Lisuartes, and Clarions,' that their authors do waste their time and weary their faculties in writing such books, which are read by all and believed by many. For,' he goes on, 'there be men who think all these things really happened, just as they read or hear them, though the greater part of the things themselves are sinful, profane, and unbecoming.' And Castillo, another chronicler, tells us gravely, in 1587, that Philip the Second, when he married Mary of England, only forty years earlier, promised, that, if King Arthur should return to claim the throne, he would peaceably yield to that prince all his rights; thus implying, at least in Castillo himself, and probably in many of his readers, a full faith in the stories of Arthur and his Round Table. "Such credulity, it is true, now seems impossible, even if we suppose it was confined to a moderate number of intelligent persons; and hardly less so, when, as in the admirable sketch of an easy faith in the stories of chivalry by the innkeeper and Maritornes in Don Quixote, we are shown that it extended to the mass of the people. But before we refuse our assent to the statements of such faithful chroniclers as Mexia, on the ground that what they relate is impossible, we should recollect, that, in the age when they lived, men were in the habit of believing and asserting every day things no less incredible than those recited in the old romances. The Spanish Church then countenanced a trust in miracles, as of constant recurrence, which required of those who believed them more credulity than the fictions of chivalry; and yet how few were found wanting in faith! And how few doubted the tales that had come down to them of the impossible achievements of their fathers during the seven centuries of their warfare against the Moors, or the glorious traditions of all sorts, that still constitute the charm of their brave old chronicles, though we now see at a glance that many of them are as fabulous as any thing told of Palmerin or Launcelot ! "But whatever we may think of this belief in the romances of chivalry, there is no question that in Spain, during the sixteenth century, there prevailed a passion for them such as was never known elsewhere. The proof of it comes to us from all sides. The poetry of the country is full of it, from the romantic ballads that still live in the memory of the people, up to the old plays that have ceased to be acted and the old epics that have ceased to be read. The national manners and the national dress, more peculiar and picturesque than in other countries, long bore its sure impress. The old laws, too, speak no less plainly. Indeed, the passion for such fictions was so strong, and seemed so dangerous, that in 1553 they were prohibited from being printed, sold, or read in the American colonies; and in 1555 the Cortes earnestly asked that the same prohibition might be extended to Spain itself, and that all the extant copies of romances of chivalry might be publicly burned. And finally, half a century later, the happiest work of the greatest genius Spain has produced bears witness on every page to the prevalence of an absolute fanaticism for books of chivalry, and becomes at once the seal of their vast popularity and the monument of their fate." We can barely touch on the Drama, the last of the three great divisions into which our author has thrown this period. It is of little moment, for down to the close of the fifteenth century, the Castilian drama afforded small promise of the brilliant fortunes that awaited it. It was born under an Italian sky. Almost its first lispings were at the vice-regal court of Naples, and, under a foreign influence, it displayed few of the national characteristics which afterwards marked its career. Yet the germs of future excellence may be discerned in the compositions of Encina and Naharro; and the "Celestina," though not designed for the stage, had a literary merit that was acknowledged throughout Europe. masters. Mr. Ticknor, as usual, accompanies his analysis with occasional translations of the best passages from the ancient From one of these-a sort of dramatic eclogue, by Gil Vicente-we extract the following spirited verses. The scene represents Cassandra, the heroine of the piece, as refusing all the solicitations of her family to change her state of maiden freedom for married life. "They say, 'Tis time, go, marry! go!' But I'll no husband! not I! no! "So, mother, think not I shall wed, What grace the heavens bestow. "The man has not been born, I ween, Who as my husband shall be seen; And since what frequent tricks have been In vain they say, 'Go marry! go!' For I'll no husband! not I! no!" She escapes to the woods, and her kinsmen, after in vain striving to bring her back, come in dancing and singing as madly as herself. "She is wild! She is wild! Who shall speak to the child? As a shepherdess free; She is fair as the flowers, She is wild as the sea! Who shall speak to the child?" During the course of the period we have been considering there runs another rich vein of literature, the beautiful Provençal, — those lays of love and chivalry poured forth by the Troubadours in the little court of Provence, and afterwards of Catalonia. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the voice of the minstrel was hardly heard in other parts of Europe, the northern shores of the Mediterranean, on either side of the Pyrennees, were alive with song. But it was the melody of a too early spring, to be soon silenced under the wintry breath of persecution. Mr. Ticknor, who paid, while in Europe, much attention to the Romance dialects, has given a pleasing analysis of this early literature, after it had fled from the storms of persecution to the south of Spain. But few will care to learn a language which locks up a literature that was rather one of a beautiful promise than performance, that prematurely perished and left no sign. And yet it did leave some sign of its existence, in the influence it exerted both on Italian and Castilian poetry. This was peculiarly displayed at the court of John the Second of Castile, who flourished towards the middle of the fifteenth century. That prince gathered around him a circle of wits and poets, several of them men of the highest rank; and the intellectual spirit thus exhibited shows like a bright streak in the dawn of that higher civilization which rose upon Castile in the beginning of the following century. In this literary circle King John himself was a prominent figure, correcting the verses of his loving subjects, and occasionally inditing some of his own. In the somewhat severe language of Mr. Ticknor, "he turned to letters to avoid the importunity of business, and to gratify a constitutional indolence." There was, it is true, something ridiculous in King John's most respectable tastes, reminding us of the character of his contemporary, René of Anjou. But still it was something, in those rough times, to manifest a relish for intellectual pleasures; and it had its effect, in weaning his turbulent nobility from the indulgence of their coarser appetites. The same liberal tastes, with still better result, were shown by his daughter, the illustrious Isabella, the Catholic. Not that any work of great pretensions for its poetical merits was then produced. The poetry of the age, indeed, was pretty generally infected with the meretricious conceits of the Provençal and the old Castilian verse. We must except from this reproach the "Coplas " of Jorge Manrique, which have found so worthy an interpreter in Mr. Longfellow, and which would do honor to any age. But the age of Isabella was in Castile what that of Poggio was in Italy. Learned men were invited from abroad, and took up their residence at the court. Native scholars went abroad, and brought back the rich fruits of an education in the most renowned of the Italian universities. The result of this scholarship was the preparation of dictionaries, grammars, and various philological works, which gave laws to the language, and subjected it to a classic standard. Printing was introduced, and, under the royal patronage, presses were put in active operation in various cities of the kingdom. Thus, although no great work was actually produced, a beneficent impulse was given to letters, which trained up the scholar, and opened the way for the brilliant civilization of the reign of Charles the Fifth. Our author has not paid the tribute to the reign of Isabella to which, in our judgment, it is entitled even in a literary view. He has noticed with commendation the various efforts made in it to introduce a more liberal scholarship, but has by no means dwelt with the emphasis they deserve on the importance of the results. With the glorious rule of Ferdinand and Isabella closes the long period from the middle of the twelfth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, a period which, if we except Italy, has no rival in modern history for the richness, variety, and picturesque character of its literature. It is that portion of the literature which seems to come spontaneously like the vegetation of a virgin soil, that must lose something of its natural freshness and perfume when brought under a more elaborate cultivation. It is that portion which is most thoroughly embued with the national spirit, unaffected by foreign influences; and the student who would fully comprehend the genius of the Spaniards must turn to these pure and primitive sources of their literary culture. We cannot do better than close with the remarks in which Mr. Ticknor briefly, but with his usual perspicuity, sums up the actual achievements of the period. 66 Poetry, or at least the love of poetry, made progress with the great advancement of the nation under Ferdinand and Isabella; though the taste of the court in whatever regarded Spanish literature continued low and false. Other circumstances, too, favored the great and beneficial change that was everywhere becoming apparent. The language of Castile had already asserted its supremacy, and, with the old Castilian spirit and cultivation, it was spreading into Andalusia and Aragon, and planting itself amidst the ruins of the Moorish power on the shores of the Mediterra |