"He looks easier," said Craggs. "Ay, and he feels it," continued Billy. "Just notice the respiratory organs, and see how easy the intercostials is doing their work now. Bring me a bowl of clean water, some vinegar, and any ould rags you have." Craggs obeyed, but not without a sneer at the direction.

"All over the head," said Billy; "all over it-back and front and with the blessing of the Virgin, I'll have that hair off of him if he isn't cooler towards evening."

So saying he covered the sick man with the wetted cloths, and bathed his hands in the cooling fluid.

"Now to exclude the light and save the brain from stimulation and excitation," said Billy, with a pompous enunciation of the last syllables; "and then quies-rest-peace!"

And with this direction, imparted with a caution to enforce its benefit, he moved stealthily towards the door and passed out."

"What do you think of him?" asked the Corporal, eagerly.

"He'll do he'll do," said Billy. "He's a sanguineous temperament, and he'll bear the lancet. It's just like weatherin' a point at say. If you have a craft that will carry canvas, there's always a chance for you."

"He perceived that you were not a doctor," said Craggs, when they reached the corridor.

66

"Did he faix?" cried Billy, half indignantly. He might have perceived that I didn't come in a coach; that I hadn't my hair powdered, nor gold knee-buckles in my smallclothes; but, for all that, it would be going too far to say, that I wasn't a doctor.

'Tis

the same with physic and poetryyou take to it, or you don't take to it! There's chaps, ay, and far from stupid ones cither, that couldn't compose you ten hexameters, if ye'd put them on a hot griddle for it; and there's others that would talk rhyme rather than rayson! And so with the ars medicatrix everybody hasn't an eye for a hectic, or an ear for a cough. contigit cuique adire Corintheam. 'Tisn't every one can toss pancakes, as Horace says.

non

Hush-be still!" muttered Craggs, "here's the young master;" and as he spoke, a youth of about fifteen, wellgrown and handsome, but poorly, even meanly clad, approached them.

"What could I do, sir?" was the answer; "it was this fellow or nothing.""

"And better, a thousand times better, nothing," said the boy, "than trust his life to the coarse ignorance of this wretched quack." And in his passion the words were uttered loud enough for Billy to overhear them.

"Don't be hasty, your honour," said Billy, submissively, "and don't be unjust. The realms of disaze is like an unknown tract of country, or a country that's only known a little-just round the coast, as it might be; once ye'r beyond that, one man is as good a guide as another, cæteris paribus, that is, with equal lights.'

"What have you done? Have you given him anything?" broke in the boy, hurriedly.

6

"I took a bleeding from him, little short of sixteen ounces, from the temporial," said Billy, proudly, and I'll give him now a concoction of meadow saffron with a pinch of saltpetre in it, to cause diaphoresis, dy'e mind? Meanwhile, we're disgorging the arachnoid membranes with cowld applications, and we're releeven the cerebellum by repose. I challenge the Hall," added Billy, stoutly, "to say isn't them the grand principles of traitment.' Ah! young gentleman," said he, after a few seconds' pause, "don't be hard on me, because I'm poor and in rags, nor think manely of me because I spake with a brogue, and maybe bad grammar, for you see, even a crayture of my kind can have a knowledge of disaze, just as he may have a knowledge of nature, by observation. What is sickness, after all, but just one of the phenomenons of all organic and inorganic matter a regular sort of shindy in a man's inside, like a thunderstorm, or a hurry-cane outside? Watch what's coming, look out and see which way the

mischief is brewin', and make your preparations. That's the great study of physic."

The boy listened patiently and even attentively to this speech, and when Billy had concluded, he turned to the Corporal and said, "Look to him, Craggs, and let him have his supper, and when he has eaten it send him to my room."

Billy bowed an acknowledgment, and followed the Corporal to the kitchen.

"That's my lord's son, I suppose," said he, as he seated himself, "and a fine young crayture, too-puer ingennuus, with a grand frontal development; and with this reflection he addressed himself to the coarse but abundant fare which Craggs placed before him, and with an appetite that showed how much he relished it.

"This is elegant living ye have here,

Mr. Craggs," said Billy, as he drained his tankard of beer, and placed it with a sigh on the table; "many happy years of it to ye-I couldn't wish ye anything better."

66

"The life is not so bad," said Craggs, "but its lonely sometimes."

"Life need never be lonely so long as a man has health and his faculties," said Billy; "give me nature to admire, a bit of baycon for dinner, and my fiddle to amuse me, and I wouldn't change with the king of Sugar Candy."

"I was there," said Craggs, "it's a fine island."

"My lord wants to see the doctor," said a woman entering hastily.

"And the doctor is ready for him," said Billy, rising and leaving the kitchen, with all the dignity he could

assume.

A CLASSIFICATION of the Spanish ballads, according to the respective eras in which, from internal evidence, they appear to have been composed, has been attempted in the preceding paper of this series-a classification most desirable and useful, by means of which we were enabled to trace the progress of Castilian poesy from a period but little less remote than the birth of the language which was its instrument, down to the time of its highest artistic perfection, as elaborated and perfected by the great poets of the seventeenth century. Any distribution of the ballads, however regular, which would wholly omit this literary link, would be necessarily defective; but a rigid adherence to it, at least when we come to present specimens of the various compositions of which Spanish ballad poetry is made up, would lead to much inconvenience and confusion. The same subject is frequently treated by poets of different eras; the fragment of an ancient ballad of the primitive class often forms the foundation of an exquisite elaboration by a comparatively modern writer, which could nowhere be so appropriately introduced

as in connexion with the venerable relic on which it was modelled; the phantoms of the imagination would be intermingled with the well-defined outlines of historical characters, and a vague, chaotic crowd would perplex the memory and fatigue the fancy, instead of the eye being delighted and the ear charmed with spectacles of order and harmonious sounds. We shall follow, then, the example of the Spanish critics themselves, and distribute the ballads under four or five distinct heads, having reference, when they are historical, not so much to the supposed periods at which they were composed, as to the time at which the events narrated shall have taken place, and when fabulous, to their mutual bearing or dependance upon each other. This classification of the ballads according to their subjects, need not exclude a constant reference to

those questions of age and authorship which are so interesting in a literary point of view, when materials for such an investigation shall be found to exist. The Spanish ballads may be divided, in a general way, into the five following classes :-First, Ballads

founded on romantic circumstances, generally of a fictitious character, or on subjects connected with chivalry: Second, Those referring to the history of Spain and the popular heroes, such as Bernardo del Carpio, Fernan Gonsalez, the Lords of Lara, and the Cid: Third, Ballads founded on foreign history, principally that of ancient Greece and Rome, on classical mythological fables, or on sacred subjects: Fourth, Moorish ballads, which are the most picturesque and poetical of the entire: And fifth, miscellaneous ballads, whether amatory, sentimental, burlesque, satirical, or essentially popular, which could not well be grouped under any of the previous heads. In the "Romancero General" of Duran these are again subdivided into a great number of lesser divisions, which we shall notice in their proper order. At present we shall commence our panoramic view of Spanish ballad poetry with the stately cavalcade of the knights, either riding hawk in hand gracefully and leisurely to the hunting ground, or spurring with fatal haste to that celebrated valley, wherein, according to the pleasing delusion of Spanish national pride—

"Charlemain and all his peerage fell
By Fontarabbia."

The spirit of chivalry, and the adventures of that fabulous heraldic order in which the knights-errant of romance were enrolled, though amusing enough in the splendid exaggeration of Cervantes, were still so intrinsically noble, and expressed so high and so elevated an ideal, that even burlesqued as they are in that immortal satire, they awaken feelings of admiration and affection on behalf of the poor crazed knight that long survive the ludicrous impressions which are excited by his misfortunes. The spirit of chivalry was the spirit of strength, of justice, and of self-denial, called into existence by the imagination of the people who pined for a protector, and created for the purpose of opposing force with the only weapon which force would then regard-namely, a sword sharper and more powerful than its own. In the middle ages, ere yet the first seeds of a public opinion were thrown upon the hard surface of society, there for a long time to be trodden down by the iron heel of the freebooter or devoured by the vulture beak of some titled de

The

spoiler; at such a period, the feeble and the industrious-all those whose position left them weak, or whose pursuits made them pacific- all, indeed, except the comparatively few, whose kindred tastes or idle and dissipated habits rendered them the fit instruments of employers in whose pleasures and plunders they shared; all those classes-and they comprised nearly the bulk of what we would now call society were almost literally defenceless, and had to submit to wrong, or to purchase an immunity from it, or a subsequent relaxation of its severity, on terms, the pecuniary proportion of which, though exacting and oppressive, was often the least degrading and the most endurable. people, no doubt, had then, as they have still, a powerful and an undying defender in the Church-that spiritual army, with its mitred captains and its croziered chiefs, and its ranks filled by innumerable pious souls, all marshalled by the lieutenants of the faith, and all making interminable war upon the invisible enemy, whose agents are the evil-doers of this world. They had then, as they have still, in the material temples and cloisters of the Church, and in the feeling of reverence with which they were regarded, an asylum and a protection which was seldom violated. These were the castles of the weak, the fortresses of the feeble, the hospitia of the poor, the lyceums of the ignorant, the armories in which the young of both sexes

"Wrought linkéd armour for their souls, before

They dared walk forth to battle with mankind"—

the homes of those who had no other home; but the spiritual panoply of religion, which could render the soul invulnerable, was not always capable of protecting the body from indignity, and the hearth from spoliation. Any mitigation of the evils incidental to a period of disorder and barbarism, of individual power and social weakness, came from it; but, notwithstanding thi minution, a great deal of injustice, a great deal of oppression had to be endured without appeal and without redress. The people who heard the principles of justice laid down, and the terms of retribution threatened by the anointed dispensers of the law, saw them broken and set at nought at every turn. To them the Sword of the Spirit seemed of too fine an edge, and

of a temper too ethereal to cope with the rude weapons to which it was opposed. How natural for them, then, to imagine, and to love to dwell upon, a race of heroic champions, endowed with supernatural strength, gifted with superhuman bravery, cased in magic armour, bearing charmed lances, actuated by motives of justice and of generosity, uninfluenced by selfish considerations, bearing fatigues, enduring hardships, and all for the sake of succouring the weak, and resisting the oppressor? What were the paladins and knights of romance but the incarnations in a warlike and chivalrous age of those instinctive longings after a state of security, protection and responsibility, which modern society aims at through all its mingled and manifold machinery? At that time the altar was the only court of equity, within whose sacred precincts alone were heard those principles of justice and of mutual right, and those limitations of privilege and power, without which labour would tremble at its own success, beauty would bewail "the fatal gift," which exposed it to more certain danger, and virtue, that refinement which would be regarded only as a pervading grace, which rendered every other charm the more attractive. The words that came through the altar-rails were words of power, for they were the words of God; they fell soft and sweet, like notes of heavenly music, on the hearts of those who listened; they were the only sounds of consolation and of hope that were heard for many a long era; they spoke of the destiny of the soul, of its present trials and its future recompense. How-like love in the description of the poet

"Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest

It here is tried and purified,

And hath in heaven its perfect rest;

It soweth here in toil and care,

But the harvest time of love is there."*

But the lips from which those instructive lessons issued, and the hands that were seldom raised but in benediction, were consecrated to peace. It was not for the minister of religion to rush in his silken vestments and sacerdotal robes to intercept the robber in

*

his foray, or overtake the ravisher in his flight; although his personal interference was never wanting when it could be beneficially used for the protection of innocence and the prevention of guilt. The popular imagination, which dislikes abstractions and delights in the creation of palpable things, saw the necessity of an intermediate order of beings a sort of armed priesthood, bound frequently by the same vows, influenced generally by kindred motives, and devoting themselves, after a rude fashion, and in a bloody manner, with sword in hand and shield on arm, to the prevention or punishment of crimes, only reached by the tranquil homily or the spiritual anathema. Bolts fired in this life to explode in the next, have far too long a range for the irreverent malefactors of all times and places. So thought the minstrels and prose romancists of the middle ages. According to their material notions, the vigilance of Providence should be public, palpable, and present. A battle-axe in the hand of an avenging knight, and thundering on the gates of a robber-baron, they thought would strike more terror to his heart than the tinkling of the bell of excommunication in the distant chancel. The insecurity of the female sex led to that chivalrous and romantic devotion to some ideal mistress, which Cervantes perhaps unwisely ridicules in the "Don Quixote;" since with all its extravagance it greatly assisted religion in assigning and securing to woman her dignified and beneficent position in society. The hold which books of knight-errantry, whether in prose or verse, took upon the people did not arise so much from the interest of their adventures as mere stories, but from the conviction that the heroes whose prowess they chronicled were their own champions, having their interests at heart, and standing before others, as helpless as themselves, powerful to punish as well to protect. It was so in the early ages of Grecian history. The adventures of Hercules and Theseus, those famous knights-errant of antiquity, which we may be sure were received with greatest favour, and remembered most fondly, were not those which would appear to us to possess the greatest inherent attraction, but such as

VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXII.

N

recorded the destruction of some monster too terrible for ordinary courage to subdue, or the chastisement of some oppressor whom it required a demigod to curb; in either case a blessing and a boon to the people. The Ama

dises and Orlandos of modern song and story were not mere Gothic imitations of those classical heroes, as some have been inclined to imagine. They were original creations arising out of circumstances in some degree similar, from a consciousness of weakness and oppression on the part of the people, and from an indefinable longing after some authority which could effectually check and control the recklessness of passion and the lust of power. This, we conceive, was the original source of the strong attachment felt for ballads and narrative tales of this description during the earlier portions of the middle ages. Subsequently, no doubt,

the romantic interest of the stories themselves, the use of supernatural machinery, the introduction of monstrous exaggerations, such as giants, dragons, &c., the influence of enchanters, and other magical personages, principally of Oriental origin, and perhaps the lax morality that gradually replaced the simple and innocent naturalness that were their earliest characteristics, may have invested them with new but fatal attractions. The spirit of chivalry, which was at first a semi-religious instinct, began to deteriorate. Instead of the knight being, as he was originally, the armed ideal of authority, a male effigy of Justice, still holding the uplifted sword, but replacing the fluctuating scales by the decisive shield, he became the mere representative of brute force, and differed only from those evil-doers that popular imagination had called him into existence to oppose, by surpassing them all in rudeness, rapacity, and voluptousness. Their numbers increased, but their comeliness and vigour diminished, until at length the whole shadowy army of doughty paladins and wandering knights, with all their paraphernalia of giants, enchanters, and their magic menagerie of winged dragons, fell prostrate before the strokes of a single pen (the lance and the sword of the new civilisation), wielded by a one-armed and indigent soldier, who had with difficulty escaped from the battle of Lepanto; thus receiving on the same soil à more

fatal discomfiture than that which was believed to have befallen the bravest of them exactly eight hundred years before

"When Rowland brave and Olivier,
And ev'ry paladin and peer
On Roncesvalles died."

Nothing, perhaps, indicates more strongly the exceeding richness and interest of Spanish history itself, than the reserve with which the early balladists received the knights and champions, whose exploits were the common property of western Europe, as the heroes of their songs. A people, who could boast of such heroic children as Bernardo del Carpio, Fernan Gonzalez and the Cid, and whose historical traditions were varied by such romantic episodes as those contained in the legend of "The Children of Lara," and many others, had little need to search for subjects of interest outside their own immediate history and soil. It is for this reason that, in the early tales of chivalry, whether in prose or verse, we find little or no trace of Prince Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table of Launcelot of the Lake of Palmerin of England, and his numerous namesakes- and of the other famous champions, with whom, for a long period, the rest of Christendom were familiar. As long as the struggle for national independence continued, the Spanish ear could find no music in any strain that had not that darling theme for its burden and inspiration. -no Spanish heart could be thrilled by narratives which were not only fictitious, but foreign to those patriotic feelings which were cherished almost to the exclusion of every other. When the absorbing interest of the great national struggle was over, and when poetry, instead of being the spontaneous expression of popular opi

nion

- an irrepressible outburst of the hopes and fears, the hatred and enthusiasm that lay in the inmost core of the Spanish heart-when poetry became a mere art, and the poet, instead of kindling the ardour, and keeping alive the enthusiasm of his countrymen, merely contributed to the amusement of their leisure hours then, indeed, the shadowy paladins of chivalry, such as the Amadises, and Sir Tristrams, and others, are found to mingle with the more clearly defined outlines of Spanish historical or traditional heroes pot, indeed, before the former had be