With all their respect for the Eighth Commandment, the Seventh, in its spirit at least, does not seem to have met with the same attention. We need scarcely remind our readers of the frequency with which the circumstances of pregnancy and parturition are brought forward in our ballads, and of the complacent tone in which such incidents are generally related. We rather think the allusions to this subject are less frequent in the Spanish, and they are certainly free from that libertine air which characterises our own; but enough remains to show, that, on these points, a very accommodating system of morality prevailed-very inconsistent, no doubt, with the ideal of chivalry, but, we believe, exceedingly consonant to its practice. The number of romances which are either founded entirely on such incidents or in which allusions to them occur, are almost innumerable. Those of Reynaldos de Montalban-Conde Aleman-De las reales Bodas-De la Hija del Rey de Francia-and Don Galvan, occur to us at this moment. Conde Claros, which bears a considerable resemblance in its opening to the ballad of Sir Cauline in Percy's collection, and to Boccaccio's Gismunda, the interest arises from the consequences of an illicit amour. In the Romance del Hijo del Rey de Francia, the Infanta complains "Tiempo es el Caballero-tiempo es de andar d'aqui, In To which she receives a reply more remarkable for its sang froid than its politeness. 46 Paridlo, Señora, paridlo, que asi hizo mi madre á mi.” In the Romance de Baldovinos y de la linda Sevilla, the lady convicts Nuño of a falsehood with regard to the death of her lover, by proving a clear alibi. "Nuño vero, Nuño vero-mal Caballero probado Yo te pregunto per nuevas-tú me respondes al contrario Que aquesta noche pasada-conmigo durmiera el Franco; And in another we find no less a personage than Virgil doing penance in person for seven years,* "Por una traicion que hizo en los palacios del Rey, Before concluding these general remarks on the characteristics of the Spanish Ballads, we may notice, that while the Arabian mythology and fictions seem never to have made any figure in the early poetry of Spain, few traces are to be found of those darker and more gloomy imaginations which are so common in the literature of the Northern nations. Voices, apparitions, and spirits, that ride in mists and storms, are peculiar with the Spanish Romances. The dream of Doña Alda, before she receives the intel Those who are acquainted with the figure which Virgil makes in the writings of the middle ages, will not be surprised at the odd situation in which he is placed by the Spanish poet. The writers of that day seem to have delighted in exhibiting the great characters of antiquity as victims of love. In the Romance of Vergilius, a story is given of his having been pulled half-way up a tower in a basket, by a lady of whom he was enamoured, and then left suspended and exposed to the ridicule of the multitude. The story has been transferred to Hippocrates, and occurs in the Fabliaux. It is one of those, we believe, that has been verified by Imbert. VOL. 1. ligence of the death of her husband at Roncesvalles, is quite in the style of the Northern ballad. We use Mr. Lockhart's translation : "O my maidens, quoth the lady, my heart it is full sore," I have dreamt a dream of evil, and ean never slumber more. Our Teutonic Minstrel is a little more rude : "I dreamt in my sweven on Thursday eve, In my bed whereon I lay I dreamt a grype and a grimtie breast My gorget and my kirtle of gold, And he would worry me with his beak, Saving there came a little grey hawke, A merlin him we call, Which unto the ground did strike the grype, That dead he down did fall."-Sir Aldingar. The absence of the darker features of the marvellous, is certainly one of those national peculiarities which may safely be attributed to the influence of climate. The imagination of the North has taken a tinge of gloom from their stormy and inconstant skies; but the sunshine of the South scatters the mists in which spirits find their origin and their refuge. We recollect no instance in the Fabliaux, of any tale, in which such machinery as spectres or evil spirits is employed-and, in the prose romances of chivalry, only the adventure of the haunted chamber in Ysaie le Triste. In the early literature of Italy, the ghostly story of Nastagio in the Decameron is the first and almost the only instance of its occurrence; and that tale was not the invention of Boccaccio, but borrowed from the chronicle of a monk of the thirteenth century, named Helinandus.* * We must here close this sketch of the state of Spanish literature, antecedent to the age of Charles V. We have not attempted to treat the subject historically; because, in the absence of all early biography, any investigation as to the dates of particular poems is out of the question, and because the compositions of this whole era are connected by so many points of resemblance, and such a similarity of tone, that even if we possessed that information which is wanting, it would be impossible to present any definite notion of the characteristic differences of their authors. One or two names only, before the age of Juan II., have escaped oblivion; and, among the learned men and poets of his court, Juan de Mena is perhaps the only one In addition to these interesting remarks on the Spanish ballads, and the causes in which they originated, the reviewer has given many brilliant examples, both in the original and translated. The limits to which this department of my work is confined prevent me from adding them to the foregoing essay, which reflects so much credit on the taste and erudition of the writer. (See pages 409-430.) In the next Essay the same writer gives a copious account of the lyric poetry of Spain during the age of Charles who enjoys among the Spaniards any degree of reputation. But those who are acquainted with his Labyrinto will probably think that the praise he has received must have been accorded rather to the boldness of his design, than to the happiness of its execution. It is, like Fazio d'Uberti's "Dettamondo," a laborious imitation of the Divina Commedia, the most inimitable of poems; with some few passages of interest and beauty, amidst a profusion of pedantry and bad taste. But such productions do not properly fall under our general view of national poetry; and, we doubt not, our readers will readily dispense with an analysis which could not be relieved even by the variety of agreeable selection. It is difficult to look back upon this early period of Spanish literature, without some melancholy recollections, and some gloomy anticipations. No where, perhaps, are the traces of the mutability of literature more strongly marked, or exhibited in more affecting colours. Centuries have already elapsed, since Arabia, that country that communicated to Spain and to Europe the stores of her vast knowledge, has relapsed into her primitive barbarism. The Arab again wanders, as rude as ever, over countries as wild as before. The colleges of Bagdad, of Balsora, and Sarmarcand, now appear only in fiction ;-the vast libraries of Arabian literature are only to be traced in the collections of the Escurial;-and those poets who were once honoured with the title of Divine, are passed over in silence by D'Herbelot. Granada, on which the Arabians had lavished all the labours of art, now owes its beauties to nature alone;the site of the Albaycin is disputed; the Generalife is a desert, and the Alhambra a ruin! "Giace l'alta Cartago-e appena i segni Dell' alte sue ruine il lido serba; Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba!" The beautiful Provençal-the first-born of European languages, which had also imbibed, through its intercourse with Spain, the knowledge and refinement of the East,-after a blaze of three centuries, has expired. The language in which kings delighted to compose-in which Thibaut and Alphonso sung-and Coeur-de-Lion gave vent to his feelings in prison, has already become a dead language, a labour and a study-and its Troubadours, once so celebrated, are now known only by the voluminous industry of St. Palaye, and the eulogies of Dante and Petrarca. Over that period of Spanish literature which we have been considering the same obscurity has spread. Its poets, whose compositions are now read, admired, and commented on, have left behind them no trace to which the imagination can attach itself. They have "died, and made no sign.' We pass from the infancy of Spanish poetry, to the age of Charles, as through a long vista of monuments without inscriptions, as the traveller approaches the noise and bustle of modern Rome through the lines of silent and unknown tombs that border the Appian Way. And who shall say how soon the same principle of mutability may render the fall of our literature, in its turn, a subject of regret and enquiry;-how soon the philosopher may have to point out the operation of those principles, unseen by us, which have occasioned its decline;-how soon the poet may collect and weep over its scattered fragments; and the antiquary speculate among the ruins of our palaces, as he now does in the silent chambers of the Alhambra, or the nameless temples of Palmyra or Persepolis! SKETCH OF THE LYRIC POETRY OF SPAIN DURING THE AGE OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.* An elegant translation of an elegant poet induces us to resume the subject of Spanish Literature, and to present, not a detailed account, but a rapid sketch, of the lyric poetry of Spain during the age of Charles V., a period which Spanish critics seem to consider as the golden age of their poetry. The remarkable feature of this period, is the decline of that old chivalrous poetry to which we had occasion lately to direct the attention of our readers, and the general introduction of the Italian taste. Till the labours of Herder, Dieze, and other critics in Germany, had brought to light those rich collections of ballads in which the poetry of Spain abounds, foreigners seem scarcely to have been aware that there existed any thing like a poetical literature in Spain before Garcilaso. To them Spain seemed to have made her appearance at once in the field of letters and of European politics. They were acquainted with her literature, only after it had approximated so closely to the Italian as to render it no easy matter to point out a characteristic difference independently of language, and were ignorant of the remarkable phenomenon exhibited by the decline of a national literature, among a people peculiarly attached to old habits and associations, and the introduction of a foreign taste, opposed in almost every point to that which it supplanted. From the Spanish critics little information was to be derived. Their notices of their older poets and their productions, are given in the same brief, patronising style, in which, until lately, it was the custom for French critics to speak of their own poetry before the age of Louis XIV. and the change from the old Castilian poetry to the Italian is generally mentioned as a matter of course- an exchange of rudeness for refinement-which almost necessarily took place as soon as a fair opportunity of comparison was afforded, by the temporary connection occasioned by the political relations of the two countries. But the publication of the early monuments of Spanish poetry which the industry of modern critics has accumulated, while it has introduced juster views of the state of literature during that period which her national critics have passed over in silence, has tended materially to increase the difficulty of accounting for the decline of this captivating style of poetry, and the adop tion of the Italian. Whatever may have been the opportunities of intercourse afforded by the wars of Charles, and whatever the talent of Boscan and Garcilaso, by whom the new system was first practised, it is difficult for us to ascribe to their individual efforts such a revolution, or to doubt that it had its origin in remoter and more general causes. Nor is it to be inferred that these had no existence, because they are little noticed by the critical historians of that period, who find a sufficient explanation of the phenomenon in the influence which a more artful and elaborate style of composition was likely to exert over a nation whose first forms of versification were of a ruder nature. It is probable, that we are, at the present day more capable of appreciating the effect of such causes, than those who wrote at a period more nearly approaching to the events which they describe 1. The Works of Garcilaso de la Vega. 2. Floresta de Rimas Antiguas Castellanas. Translated into English verse, by J. H. Wiffer Men have a tendency to over-rate the importance of events in which they have themselves participated, or which still operate on their minds by a kind of personal interest. To them, a small object in the foreground is sufficient to shut out miles of distance. The birth or death of a king-the loss or gaining of a battle-the opinions of some insulated critic-the labours of some favourite poet, magnified by their proximity, appear sufficient to account for revolutions which have in truth been the silent work of centuries. It is only when events have ceased to agitate with this personal feeling-when, at the distance of a century or two, they have all subsided into their proper position in the chain of causes, that we learn to appreciate their relative influence on literature, and to perceive, as we generally do, how powerless is any single event, or the efforts of any individual, to arrest or accelerate its course of progression or decay. To enable us, then, to understand properly the extent of the change now introduced into Spanish literature, it is necessary to state briefly the character of Italian poetry at this period, and the circumstances out of which it had originated. In Italy, a number of causes had concurred to give to poetry a peculiar tone, to limit its objects, and to repress the development of those feelings which give dignity and stability to national poetry; but, at the same time, to communicate, by these very restraints, a degree of polish and elegance, certainly far superior to any thing that had preceded them, and in itself not a little attractive and imposing. Amidst the general activity of intellect and fancy that accompanied the rise of chivalry, the descendants of the former masters of the world alone partook of no spark of the common enthusiasm. The wild romantic legends, and the heroic fictions, which elsewhere animated the courage and exalted the sentiments of Europe, though sufficiently known in Italy, are sought for in vain in its literature. A few passing allusions in Dante-an occasional adoption of some incident from the French romances in the Cento Novelle-a contemptuous expression in Petrarca, are almost the only traces to be met with; and it may certainly be said, that before the time of Zinabi or Pulci, these fictions had never exercised any influence on the literature of Italy. This might be owing to many causes. Agitated by intestine tumults, or overrun by foreign enemies, the various provinces of Italy were united by no connecting link. Since the removal of the empire to Constantinople, her history had been little but a record of disasters. There were no national and brilliant recollections, therefore, to which, as to a bond of fellowship, the inhabitants of her scattered states might appeal; and that mercantile and commercial spirit which even at this period prevailed in every province where war allowed some intervals of repose, seemed to have quenched for ever the sparks of national enthusiasm. But the evil did not terminate here. States originally despotic became gradually more so; and, even in those which still retained the name of republican, the subjects found they had only exchanged one tyrant for many. It is true that, among the petty sovereigns of Italy, there were some that affected to patronise and encourage literature. Even among the families of Sforza, Visconti, Gonzaga, Scala, and "the antique brood of Este," those turbulent spirits whose names are associated with ideas of rudeness and ferocity, a desire to add the lustre of learning to the splendour of a military This is peculiarly visible in the Decameron, the spirit of which, like that of the Arabian Tales, is entirely commercial. |