in fact form the most popular portion of her poetry. The story of the Cid is familiar to us from the work of Mr. Southey, and the latter from the selected specimens so exquisitely translated by Mr. Lockhart. The injustice of Alphonso the Sixth to the illustrious Rodrigo de Bivar furnished the cause of those exploits which the unknown author of the Cid' has taken for his theme. Of those estates, the reunion of which formed his glory, Ferdinand the First devised Castile to Don Sancho, Leon to Alonzo, Galicia to Don Garcia, and the city of Zamora to Donna Urraca. Sancho immediately attacked Alonzo, forced him to fly to the Moorish court at Toledo, despoiled his brother Garcia of Galicia, hastened to seize Zamora from his sister, and fell by an assassin's poniard. Alphonzo returned: in that wild age the crime of fratricide was not uncommon: the barons (los ricos hombres) of Castile, thought it necessary for the honour of the throne, that, previous to their oath of allegiance, the king himself should swear upon the altar, that he was guiltless of his brother's blood. All but Rodrigo de Bivar shrunk from making the proposal. His bold demand excited the resentment of the monarch, and he was driven into exile. His departure, his expeditions, and his victories have furnished to the writer materials which he has improved by admirable illustrations of manners, by bold and vivid portraitures, and narratives of exploits, in quaint but vigorous language, and a versification singularly wild, but by no means deficient in rude harmony whilst the writer has the skill to wind up the poem by the satisfactory reconciliation of his hero with the king, and his union with the royal houses of Arragon and Navarre. În departIn ing into banishment, Rodrigo passes through Burgos:

• My Cyd the bolde Ruy Diaz into Burgos enterede strayte, With sprtic penselles lyftede as hys trapne passyd thorowe the gate, Worth the Barones and ther laydyes wende to see hym in moche haste, And the burgesse and hys burgesse wyfe atte the wyndowes al weren placed;

With weepynde eies outbrakeing, theyr anguisse was soe sore,

‘O God! what a rygt gode vassale, an he hadde but a gode Senor!'
To grete and entertapne him hadde bene a wyshful thyng,
But no fole durst speke to hym, so preful was the kyng.
And ere dewekal com hys letteres rygt stronglyche seled Ich trowe,
That non to my Cyd Ruy Diaz scholde slepe or foode allowe;
And if ony gebe hym wassaile he scholde lese-not hys londes and fame,
But the barie even from owte hys hede, and the swete lyfe from hys
frame.

Grete greefe hadde then the Chrystians albe thii nogt mote seye,
And in pepne, in fere and pytec tornde theyr weepynde eies awaye.'

The poem of the Cid was succeeded by the verses of Gonzalo, a native

VOL. I. NO. I.

E

a native of Berceo in Guipuscoa, and brother of the Benedictine convent of San Milan, who, to judge from his more polished language, more deficient in Arabic than in Provençal words, flourished about 1240, in the first years of the reign of San Fernando. The subjects on which he treated correspond with his monastic life; he celebrates, in verses of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen syllables, marked by more devotion than poetic spirit, the Signs of the Day of Judgment, the Tears and Sorrows of our Lady, and the Lives of San Milan and San Domingo de Silos. He has left also a poem on the battle of Simancas, where the Moors were beaten by Ramirez the Second, king of Navarre, which, from the nature of the subject, we regret should remain in manuscript. A yet purer Castilian distinguishes the poem on Alexander the Great, by Juan Lorenzo, a clerk of Astorga, who wrote towards the year 1280. His performance, though deformed by the most grotesque singularities, and the wildest defects of invention, contains some passages of no mean merit, as in the following description of Babylon :—

'It standes in a salubrious spot, wele planted, in a clyme
Nor mistye with the vernal rayne, nor chilled by wynter ryme;
In all riche bounties bountifull beyonde desyre, and Tyme
Has with the gyftes of mony an age still stored it from his pryme.

The folke that in that citye bide wan sickenesse hurteth ne'er;
There the choice gummes and balsames be, and spice beyonde compare;
Of ginger, frankincense and myrrhe the place is nothyng spare,
Nor of the nuttemeg, nor the clove, nor spikenard moche more rare.
The verie treen give odours forth soe swete that they dispell
Or strippe disease of all its force; the people there that dwelle
Are of a ryght gode tynte, and men may soothlie swear that well
The tribes that jorneye farre and neare perceyve the plesaunt smelle.
The three most holie rivers flowe neare, beneath whose stremes
O mony a perle and precious stone of richest vertue gleames!
Some that all nyght illumine earth with their resplendente beames,
And some that to the sycke give strength, when dead the patient seemes.

*

*

*

And all throughout the citye daunce fountaynes fresh and gay,
Lukewarme in the colde mornynge and coole at noone of day;
Within them neither newt nor frogge is ever born, for they
Ryghte helthfull are, and verie cleare, and never know decay.

And founded on a spacious plaine, most plesaunt was the site,
Riche in all kyndes of game wherein the hunter takes delyte;
By verdaunt mountaynes compassed round, by nibbling flockes made
whyte,

Well tempered passed the vernal daye and eke the wynter nighte.

There

There fly the brilliaunt loorie and the curious paroqueete
That somtimes even men of brayne with their sage conynge beat;
And when the lesser birdes too sing, the motheres, wele I weet,
Forget their own dere babies in lystening soundes soe swete.
The men are men of substaunce, and generous in their pryde;
They all goe robed in garments with goodlie colours dyed;
Caparisoned sleeke palfries and ambling mules they ryde,
And the poore in satyn and in silke goe marchyng at their side.
Built by a rare gode master were the palaces soe vaste,

Wele mesured by the quadrante and the tymbers morticed fast;
With mervellous care and labour were the deep foundacyons caste,
Stronge to withstande the fyre and floode, the erthquake and the blaste.
The gates were all of marble, natyve marble pure and whyte,
All shyning like fyne cristal, and brave as they were brighte
With sculptured werke; the quarter that soared to greatest height
Was the Kynge's own home, and kyngly it might be termed of ryghte.
Four hundred columns had they, those mansions every one,
With base and capital of goolde, reflecting backe the sunne;
Had they been polished brasiers they colde not more have shone,
Their partes so welle the chizel and burnisher had done.

There too was musicke chanted to the harp and pastoral quille,
The quavers soothing sorrowe and the trebles rising shrill;
The milde flute's grieving pathos and the lute's ecstaticke thrille
Of all excepte the verie deaf entranced the captive wille.

There is not in the worlde a man that fytlie can declare
The perfect sweetnesse and delight that filled all places there;
For whilst in that faire Eden a mortal lived, he ne'er

Felt hunger or the parchinge thirst, or paine, or vexing care.'

The verses written by King Alphonso the Wise, the son of San Fernando, in the thirteenth century, are interesting, as well from the rank of the writer, as from their strong harmonious tone. His Querellas celebrate his misfortunes; the Tesoro, a kind of treatise on the philosopher's stone, his love of science; and the Cantigos, in praise of our Lady, his devotion. The last are curious, from being written in the Valencian dialect, but they want the elucidations of a commentator to render them perfectly intelligible. His entire works exist only in a manuscript folio volume, in the library at Toledo; but the fame and merits of Alphonso by no means rest exclusively upon his verses. If he trifled away the powers of his mind upon the dark pursuit of alchemy, he enlarged its limits by the study of astronomy, the less illusive sister-science of the age. The celebrated calculations which he caused to be made, and which are named after him the Alphonsine Tables, are still, we believe, preserved as precious monuments

of his glory, in the cathedral of Seville; and these, no less than the perfection which he gave to the Spanish code, (called las siete Partidas, as being divided into seven sections, correspondent with the number of letters in his name,) attest his right to the surname of the Wise. A great number of works were also, by his order, translated into Castilian, and he has the praise of introducing the vulgar tongue in all judicial acts and instruments, which were before engrossed in Latin, an example shortly imitated in England by Edward the Third. His political career was less happy: a competitor with Richard Duke of Cornwall, for the imperial crown, he had the mortification to see his rival's claims preferred; his fancied discovery of the philosopher's stone could not fill his coffers, and he was compelled to impose yet heavier taxes on his people. They testified their impatience of the burden by a revolt, in which they were commanded by his second son, Don Sancho, who usurped his father's crown, a crime which not even the honour he obtained by that victory over the Moors, which has given him in history the surname of the Brave, can teach us to forget. The horrors associated with the tempestuous reign of Pedro the Cruel, are softened by the writings of Don Juan Manuel, a cousin of the unfortunate Alphonso, and by those of Juan Ruiz, archpriest of Hita, who lived in 1330. The work of the former, entitled El Conde Lucanor, is composed of forty-nine novels, each of which enforces some slight moral; that of Ruiz is one long history of his gallantries, and satire on the manners of the times, which, in its extreme license and keen irony, not unfrequently reminds us of Rabelais and Petronius. The versatility of the ecclesiastic is full as striking as his wit: he passes recklessly in his descriptions from the grave moral to the broad free jest, and again from laughing satire to absolutely beautiful hymns of devotion, with the most curious unconcern; and in the rambling incidents which he narrates, leaves the reader in doubt whether to be most amused with his vivacity, or scandalized by his licentious gaiety. He is a fellow,' however, of infinite wit,' and we cannot refuse ourselves the pleasure of presenting what he says upon the advantages of Money, that unspiritual,' but allworshipped god, which is fraught with much satire and amusing humour.

Monies do much in this vile world; they're good in love-they make A man of consequence, and clear transforme the wildest rake; They make the cripple run, the dumbe to speke, the blinde to wake,— Yea, he who has noc hands to use, desires goode coine to take. Or be a man an ignorant clowne, a real countreye elf,

He soone becomes a lorde and sage when graced by princely pelfe; A man is prized the more, the more there's money on his shelfe, He who no money has is not the master of his owne selfe.

If

If you
sholde have moche money, you will have moche consolation;
Pleasure; and of the Pope milde terms; in Lente a goodlie ration;
You soone will purchase Paradise, you soon will get salvation;
Where moche coine chinks moche blessinge flowes and kind con-
gratulation.

I in the court of Rome have seene, where lives moche sanctitié,
That all to money paye their courte, and bowe the reverente knee;
Grete honour do they yielde to it, with greetings grave to see,-
All falle downe to it as to one in Power's most highe degree.

Money has manie an Abbote made, Archebisschopes, Bischopes, Priors,
Doctors and Patriarchs, Mayors and Monkes; to thousande brainlesse
friers

Money has given acquirements soche as genius' selfe inspires;
Lies it has made of truth, and truth of lies,-as right requires !
Money has laid down muche good law, given muche bad condemnation;
Money with manie an Advocate has bene the sole foundation
Of covenants and support of pleas where wrong outlaughs vexation;
With money, in fine, you may have law-grief and excellent reparation.
I have known it compasse marvels, where muche has beene employde,
Many have death deserved who still thereby have life enjoyed;
Others have strait bene slaine whose life noe crime hath e'er alloyde;
Its pleadings manie a soule have saved, and manie a soul destroyde.
It has made the poor their vineyardes lose and homes, without a hinte,
Bed, boarde and furniture-all, all has melted in its minte ;
Through all the worlde the scurvie goes,―hands itch to take its printe;
Where money rings, as a man may saye, the eye is sure to squinte.

I have seene coine holde the best estates and palaces of price,
Tall, costlie, and with paintings filled, arranged with taste moste nice;
Villas, and lawnes, and castled towers of admirable device,—
All things serve money, all fulfil its wishes in a trice.

I have heard a number of preachinge monkes, with wondrous elocution,
Denounce on money and all its snares I ken not what confusion;
But though they in the streetes and squares cry up its persecution,
They hoarde it in convent cuppes and bagges with the fondest resolution.
Every householde Joane in her village cot and ladie of condition
Has her toile and dowrie paide in coine, for comforte or nutrition;
I never kenned a beauty yet that did not as an apparition
Hate poverty; where there is money, there is state to her full ambition.
Money's a subtle Advocate, a silver-slippered thinge

Money's the worlde's revolver, for it makes a clowne a kinge;

For money and love and soche like giftes a woman will take winge,
Albeit the latch sholde be shut within, and mamma shulde holde the

stringe.

It beates downe walls, it beates downe towers inviolate as a nunne;
And ye may take my worde for troth, there's not beneath the sunne

A slave