THE AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE. JUNE, 1836. THE CID. THE charm which invests the days of chivalry to the youthful imagination is soon dispelled by maturer reason. When we turn to history instead of fable, we find few traces of their boasted purity of feeling; and their elevated courage degenerates into the fierce rapacity of lust, avarice, or ambition. Our eyes are opened to all the disorder, confusion, and misery, which desolated the world in those days of lawless oppression. In place of the magnificence with which the glittering court and proud baronial castle are invested in our eyes, we see only rudeness and discomfort; all the splendors of knighthood and its times vanish when closely viewed, in the same way as the gaudy trappings of the stage are found, on a nearer approach, to cover only coarse walls and dirty boards. At the same time there are some of the great names of this period whom truth as well as fiction has delighted to honor; in whom were combined that mounting, adventurous courage which the calculating spirit of modern times has extinguished for ever; and that heartfelt devotion of the gentle knight to his lady love, his liege lord, and his religion, which are now replaced by mercenary attachments, interested patriotism, and hollow hypocrisy. The exploits of Orlando are indeed as false as the legends of his enchanted 'horn and resistless sword, and the splendors of the court of Charlemagne as unreal as those of Fairy-land; but the careless courage and showy virtues of Cœur de Lion, and the brief but brilliant career of the Black Prince, are as celebrated in the pages of the historian as of those of the poet; the memory of Bayard is without reproach, as his life was without fear; and the name and fame of the Cid are associated not merely with the songs and fictions, but with the proudest historical recollections of his countrymen. He was not a mere hero of romance, but the most sucsessful champion of Spanish independence against its African invaders, and the first who planted the standard of the Cross in those fair regions where the Moorish crescent had gleamed for centuries. His name is celebrated in the earliest memorials of their literature; their first poems were composed in his praise, and the Spaniard yet swears à fé de Rodrigo, by the faith of Rodrigo; as though invoking his truth and loyalty. His grave and proud martial spirit, and the romantic adventures thickly scattered through his life, are interesting in themselves, but doubly so from the people and the scene in which they were exhibited. The institutions of knighthood were never established in Spain, but the character of the nation was always chivalrous. Their untameable fierceness won for them, from the masters of the world, the title of "the Cantabrian untaught to bear the yoke," (Hor.) and Numantia offered the same desperate self-devoted resistance to the flower of the Roman legions as did Zaragoza, two thousand years afterwards, to the victorious eagles of Napoleon. The Goths, who conquered the country in the latter days of the Roman empire, were of the same fierce and warlike temper as the native Cantabrians and Iberians. Under their government, the unrestrained enjoyment of liberty kept alive 'the national spirit; and long before chivalry was known in France and England, the people of Castile and Arragon were distinguished by impetuous feelings, keen sense of honor, and haughty courage and contempt of danger; by all the merits and defects, in short, of what we usually deem the knightly character. In process of time religious zeal was engrafted on the other stormy emotions of their nature; and their daring warlike spirit, their national pride and religious prejudices, were still farther excited by the deadly strife they waged unceasingly against the infidels of Africa. At the time of the Cid's birth, the Musselmen had been established in Spain for some centuries. The battle in which Rodrigo, the last Gothic king, lost his life with his crown, brought the whole country under their yoke; only a few scattered bands of warriors, with Pelayo at their head, maintained their independence in the mountainous fastnesses of the Asturias. A war of skirmishes and undecisive but desperate struggles was continually carried on against their invaders by these high-spirited patriots. They were successful in wresting one fortress after another from their hands; and at the time of which we speak, Castile, Leon, and the northern provinces were occupied by the Christians, while the Moors held undisputed sway over the rich countries of the south. Both Arabs and Spaniards had the same brave and haughty spirit, and the same deadly religious enmities; and their contests were bloody and exterminating. Yet mutual respect for each other's hardihood, and the intercourse and acquaintance which the length of the strife necessarily produced, mingled much of generous knightly courtesy with their hostility. There was something akin to the proud Castilian spirit in the daring gallantry of their foes, and they did full justice to their splendid achieve ments, their brilliant and noble qualities. Their ballads celebrate the exploits of Musselmen almost as often as those of Christian champions; they speak of their enemies as "the cavaliers of Granada, gentlemen, albeit Moors;" they felt, as a more modern poet has sung "False their creed, misguided men, Heaven their unbelief forgive, There was no strong bond of union between the Christians of the different provinces, and when disputes arose among them, they invariably courted the alliance of their gallant and accomplished invaders. It was with Moors that Bernardo del Carpio overcame the French at Roncesvalles; in the 13th century, two princes of Castile, with eight hundred Spanish gentlemen, served in the army of the king of Tunis ; and the Cid, when banished by his sovereign, took refuge with the Moorish king of Zaragoza, and fought under the standard of the Cres cent. The Moors, in fact, exercised a far more powerful influence over Spain than arose from the mere subjugation of the soil. The splendor of their dominion endeared it to their subjects, whose hearts were further won by the toleration which was liberally extended to their religion. The traces of their sway are yet distinctly visible throughout the provinces where they were so long established. Great numbers of unchanged Arabic words have been incorporated into the Spanish language, and the strong guttural sounds which characterize it, are all of Moorish origin. A name still spoken with pride, “Cristiano viejo," an old Christian, is derived from the times when any admixture of Moorish or Jewish blood was looked upon as a stain; and the words, Jew and heretic, are yet among the strongest terms of opprobrium in the language. The contests of the Christian and the Moor are the theme of the ballad which the peasant sings at his work, and of the tale which enlivens his winter hearth; and the remembrance of them is freshly preserved in the national manners and customs. Their influence did not extend, indeed, to the northern provinces; and hence the marked difference which can still be seen between them and the Spaniards of the south. The Asturians and Arragonese have much of the old Gothic character; they are brave, honest, hardy, fierce, and illiterate; the Valencians and Andalusians have other features, manners, and spirit; with the dark eye, light, active form, and graceful movements of the south, they are ardent, mercurial, impassioned, yet fickle, imaginative, and extravagant. Their buildings and gardens are Oriental; the ruins of Eastern palaces and mosques rise at every step; and so strong is the delusion, that, as a general of the French invading |