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