come localised as it were upon the Spanish soil, by means of the prose romances which recorded their prowess, and which attained an extraordinary, though short-lived, popularity. The principal exception to these remarks is to be found in those ballads which are founded upon stories connected with Charlemagne and his peers. "That great Sovereign," says Mr. Ticknor,

who in the darkest period of Europe since the days of the Roman Republic, roused up the nations, not only by the glory of his military conquests, but by the magnificence of his civil institutions-crossed the Pyrennees in the latter part of the eighth century, at the solicitation of one of his Moorish allies, and ravaged the Spanish marches, as far as the Ebro, taking Pamplona and Saragossa. The impression he made there seems to have been the same he made everywhere; and from this time the splendour of his great name and deeds was connected in the minds of the Spanish people with wild imaginations of their own achievements, and gave birth to that series of fictions which is embraced in the story of Bernardo del Carpio, and ends with the great rout at Roncesvalles."

But even in those romances (we speak of the series devoted to the exploits of the twelve Peers, and of the Christian or Saracenic Knights of Spain engaged with them) the Spanish national spirit maintains its usual predominance. It was not so much the greatness of Charlemagne, or the marvellous valour of his peers, that excited the Spanish balladists to record their glories; it was rather to exhibit Spanish heroism on a newer and more splendid stage, and to show how in the presence of the great Emperor Spanish or Moorish valour could hold itself, if not always with triumph, yet never with disgrace, even against those peers whom the voice of fame and popular prestige pronounced to be the bravest in the world. Spain is seldom if ever lost sight of. Many episodes are narrated, of which the chronicle of Turpin makes no mention that famous storehouse from which Boiardo, Pulci, and Ariosto drew the materials of their poems, which was circulated all over Europe, and translated out of the

original Latin, not only into the various Roman dialects, but even into Irish a curious version in that language existing to the present day in the celebrated Celtic MS., known as the "Book of Lismore," the date of which is certainly not later than the first half of the fifteenth century. The Spanish balladists were not content with surveying Charlemagne and his peers at a distance-in one way or the other they contrive to mingle them so with Spanish and Moorish persons and circumstances, as to leave the impression that they belong more to the history of the Peninsula, than to the fair land of France. Thus the Moor Calaynos departs alone, at the simple request of his Moorish mistress, and rides boldly into the city of Paris, and blowing his bugle on the banks of Seine, challenges not only one of the great paladins to meet him in combat, but the three very bravest of the entire band. Then there is the expedition of Orlando and Rinaldo into the Moorish territory. The subsequent disgrace and banishment of Orlando, bis disguise as a Moorish knight, and his laying siege to Paris itself. Then we have the steadfastness of the Admiral Guarinos in the halls of Marlotes, and the gallant foray of Gayféros, as far as Saragossa, to rescue his captive bride. There are, in fact, innumerable instances of this blending the two countries and the three races, wherein full justice is done to the peculiar merits of each, and to the valour of all. In point of style, these ballads are very simple and inartificial in their construction.

"The author of these romances," says Bouterwek, "paid little regard to the ingenuity of invention, and still less to correctness of execution. When an impressive story of poetical character was found, the subject and the interest belonging to it were seized with so much truth and feeling, that the parts of the little piece, the brief labour of untutored art, linked themselves together as it were spontaneously, and the imagination of the bard had no higher office than to give to the situations a suitable colouring and effect. This task was performed without study or effort, and the situations painted more or less successfully, according to the inspiration, good or bad, of the moment. These antique racy effusions of a fertile poetic imagination, scarcely conscious of its own

productive power, are nature's genuine offspring. To recount their easily-recognised defects and faults, is as superflous as it would be impossible, by any critical study, to imitate a single trait of the noble simplicity which constitutes their highest charm."

Mr. Ticknor, referring to the romantic events which form the subject of the ballads of which we are at present treating, says" These picturesque adventures, chiefly without countenance from history, in which the French paladins appear associated with fabulous Spanish heroes, such as Montesinos and Durandarte, and once with the noble Moor Calaynos, are represented with some minuteness in the old Spanish ballads."

The largest number, including the longest and best, are to be found in the Ballad Book of 1550-1555, to which may be added a few from that of 1593-1597, making together somewhat more than fifty, of which only twenty occur in the collection expressly devoted to the Twelve Peers, and first published in 1608. Some of them are evidently very old, as, for instance, that on the Conde d'Irlos, that on the Marquis of Mantua, two on Claros of Montalban, and both the fragments on Durandarte, the last of which can be traced back to the Cancionero of 1511.

"The ballads of this class are occasionally quite long, and approach the character of the old French and English metrical romances; that of the Count d'Irlos extending to about thirteen hundred lines. The longer ballads, too, are generally the best; and those, through large proportions of which the same asonante, and sometimes even the same consonante, or full rhyme, is continued to the end, have a solemn harmony in their protracted cadences, that produce an effect on the feelings like the chanting of a rich and well-sustained recitative.

"Taken as a body, they have a grave tone, combined with the spirit of a picturesque narrative, and entirely different from the extravagant and romantic air afterwards given to the same class in Italy; and even from that of the few Spanish ballads which, at a later period, were constructed out of the imaginative and fantastic materials found in the poems of Bojardo and Ariosto. But in all ages, and in all forms, they have been favourites with the Spanish people. They were alluded to as such above five hundred years ago, in the oldest of the national chronicles; and when at the end of the last century, Sarmiento notices the ballad-book of the Twelve Peers, he speaks of it as one which the peasantry and the children of Spain still knew by heart."

The first ballad in this division of the Romancero of Duran, is that of Count d'Irlos, the extreme length of which has been already alluded to. The story on which it is founded is an imaginary expedition to the East, which was commanded by Charlemagne to be undertaken for the conquest of the kingdom of a great Moorish Prince, called Aliarde. The Count of Irlos was selected to conduct this expedition; he obeyed with alacrity, although grieving much at the separation from his young and beautiful wife, to whom he had been but recently united. His instructions to her were, that if tidings should not be heard of him for seven years, she should consider him to have perished; and that then she would be at liberty to enter into a new marriage, should she think it advisable to do so. He departs on his distant expedition, succeeds in landing on King Aliarde's territory, and reduces it to subjection in three years. Twelve years, in addition, however, roll by, before his power is so sufficiently consolidated as to permit him to think of returning, during which period no intelligence of him had reached France. He is at length startled by a dream that his wife is about being united to another husband; he suddenly abandons his conquest, and returns to France. His beard and hair had grown to such a length, and his long endurance of the fatigues of war had so changed his appearance, that he was enabled to inquire into his private affairs without being discovered. He learns that his wife had been compelled to betroth herself to the young Prince Celinos, another of the Peers of Charlemagne, that his castles were already in the possession of the bridegroom, but that the lady herself, by an express stipu lation required by her, and enforced by the Emperor, was never to be asked to live with Celinos as his wife. poor Count is sadly perplexed what to do; he is strongly inclined to kill the audacious semi-bridegroom, and all those among the Peers who abetted his pretensions; but he is fortunately recognised in time, and thus a good deal of mischief is prevented. castles and his wife are returned to him, and Charlemagne honours the reunion with a banquet, to which all the twelve Peers, who ate bread at the one table, were invited, and where, it is to be hoped, they received a more

The

His

sumptuous entertainment than is recorded in that celebrated and oftrepeated couplet. Count Irlos delivers up to Charlemagne the keys of the conquered cities of Aliarde, and all ends happily.

Lockhart describes this ballad as "extremely flat and tedious" a verdict in which, probably, most modern critics must agree; but it could not have been considered so by the Spanish people themselves, as it is one of those primitive compositions handed down by tradition, but which, previous to its being printed, underwent many changes at the hands of those minstrels and others who have transmitted it to us. "The narrative," says Duran, "is told generally with simplicity and vigour, although occasionally weakened by heaviness and monotony; but the dialogue is uniformly interesting and well-sustained."

The next ballad in the collection, or rather the first of a series of ballads, which form one continuous narrative, is of still greater length. It is on the subject of the Marquis of Mantua, and is more famous than the preceding one, from the use Cervantes makes of it in the fifth chapter of the "Don Quixote," where he represents the poor knight consoling himself with various quotations from this romance, after his discomfiture by the swine-drivers. It relates the treachery of Carloto, one of the sons of Charlemagne, who inveigles Count Baldwin into a forest, and there mortally wounds him, with the intention of marrying his widow after his decease. The Marquis of Mantua, his uncle, happening to pass through the forest at the time, hears him lamenting, after the manner so admirably burlesqued by Cervantes. Owing to this circumstance, the crime of Carloto is discovered; the Marquis vows that until Carloto is punished, he will act in the manner Don Quixote determined to imitate; and the assassin is accused before the Emperor, his father.

This forms the subject of a separate ballad; another is devoted to his sentence; and a fourth terminates with his execution on a public scaffold, in Paris. The Spanish editors of the "Don Quixote" consider that Jeronimo Trevino, who published the first of

this series of ballads, in 1598, at Alcala, was its author; but the simplicity of the narrative, and its freedom from any traces of elaborate poetical ornament, lead Duran to the conclusion, that Trevino acted merely in an editorial capacity, and confined himself to the task of correcting and modifying a much more ancient production. Though condemned by the fastidious Lockhart, in his notes to an edition of Motteux' "Don Quixote," edited by him, in which a considerable number of his celebrated translations first appeared, "as a very flat and unprofitable composition," it is considered by Duran to present a most beautiful picture of chivalrous manners, and is full of interesting sentiments, which, by their naturalness and simplicity, arrest the attention of the reader, and give an appearance of truth and reality to the conceptions of the poet. The story must have been very popular, as we find Lope de Vega making use of it as the subject of one of his dramas, which he entitles El Marques de Mantua, and which is to be found in the twelfth volume of his Dramatic Works. In addition to the longer ballads on the subject of Sir Baldwin (or Baldovinos, as he is called in the Spanish), there are several shorter and still more ancient ones, which have served for the glosses of later poets; they are all fragmentary, and generally refer to some incident or circumstance more fully detailed in those we have referred to. The Spanish minstrels seem to have had an especial hatred to Carloto, the supposed murderer of Sir Baldwin, which is inexplicable to the Spanish critics themselves, as of the three sons of Charlemagne, this Carlos, or Carloto, seems to have been the favourite, and history records nothing to his disadvantage. Had the Spanish minstrels selected Pepin, or Pipino, as they call him, the son of Charlemagne by his first wife, whom he repudiated, as the object of their satire and hatred, there might be some reason for it, in the circumstance that, like the popular notion of the English Richard the Third, he was known by the sobriquet of El Jorobado, or the crooked-back, from his personal deformity. He was also at variance with his father, entered

into conspiracies against him, and would probably have met with a violent death, but from the circumstance of his having received a vocation for a religious life in a monastery, a calling which he eventually embraced.

a

The ballads on the subject of Count Claros de Montalban's love for one of the daughters of Charlemagne which follow, are among the very earliest of those which appeared in print, fragments of them being given in the first Cancionero General, which was published at Valencia, in 1511. Although the name of Count Claros is frequently to be met with in Spanish poetry as the very type of a true lover, no trace of his adventures can be found in the old historical chronicles: unless, indeed, we consider with the German critic, Depping, that the actual story of Eginhard, the secretary, and afterwards the son-in-law of Charlemagne, forms the original and authentic foundation on which they are constructed. In the first of them (the opening line of which Cervantes uses as the commencement of the ninth chapter of the second part of "Don Quixote," "It was midnight by the thread". mode of computation which would indicate, says some annotator, that the ballad was composed before the use of clocks was known) the story is told with the happy denouement which attended the suit of Eginhard. In some others a more tragical catastrophe is recorded; but on the whole, the general resemblance between the two narratives is too striking to be accidental. The loves of Eginhard and the daughter of Charlemagne form the subject of a prose romance, in which a picturesque but somewhat primitive stratagem is resorted to by the lovers. From the position of Eginhard in the emperor's court, the addresses of his future son-in-law had first to be made to the princess in secret. On one occasion that they thus met in the garden of the palace, a heavy shower of snow fell, and the lady, fearing that the impress of a man's foot on the white surface would betray their meeting, took Eginhard in her arms and carried him out of the garden. The emperor, who was an early riser, beheld the circumstance from his window, and though at first indignant, was eventually appeased, and united his daughter to the fortunate secretary, who showed his gratitude by writing the valuable chro

nicle of his imperial father-in-law which still exists.

The best known portion of those ballads is that fragment already alluded to, which was printed in the Cancionero of Valencia, in the year 1511. It is a dialogue between the imprisoned count and his uncle, the Archbishop, after the former has been condemned to death for his ambitious love of the Emperor's daughter. It has been translated by Dr. Bowring and Mr. Ticknor. The following is the graceful and correct version of the latter:

"PESAME DE VOS, EL conde. "It grieves me, count, it grieves my heart, That thus they urge thy fate, Since this fond guilt upon thy part

Was still no crime of state;
For all the errors love can bring

Deserve not mortal pain,
And I have knelt before the king,
To free thee from thy chain.
But he, the king, with angry pride
Would hear no word I spoke :
'The sentence is pronounced,' he cried,
'Who may its power revoke ?'
The infanta's love you won, he says,
When you her guardian were,
O, nephew, less, if you were wise,
For ladies you would care.
For he that labours most for them

Your fate will always prove;
Since death or ruin none escape

Who trust their dangerous love.'
'O, uncle, uncle, words like these
A true heart never hears;
For I would rather die to please,

Than live and not be theirs.'"

We now have reached the celebrated ballad of Count Alarcos, which the critics of all countries have agreed in pronouncing one of the most affecting and beautiful that can be found in any language. Although the story is rather one of love than chivalry, a certain resemblance which it bears to the preceding ballads on Count Claros, and still more, the view which it gives of the arbitrary power exercised by the Spanish princes over their feudatories and subjects during the middle ages, appropriately place it in the present division of our subject. In reading this ballad, we should remember that the king, who exercises the tremendous authority which it records, acted but literally in the spirit of the ancient Gothic laws, which, under circumstances of a similar nature, empowered not only the father of a family to put his wife or