And all that saw them prais'd them; they lauded man and horse, As matched well, and rivalless for gallantry and force;

Ne'er had they look'd on horseman, might to this knight come

near,

Nor on other charger worthy of such a cavalier.

Thus to and fro a-rushing the fierce and furious steed

He snapt in twain his hither rein-" God pity now the Cid!
"God pity Diaz!” cried the lords--but when they look'd again,
They saw Ruy Diaz ruling him with the fragment of his rein;
They saw him proudly ruling with gesture firm and calm,
Like a true lord commanding, and obey'd as by a lamb.

And so he led him foaming and panting to the king,
But, "No," said Don Alfonso, "it were a shameful thing
That peerless Bavieca should ever be bestrid

By any mortal but Bivar-mount, mount again, my Cid."

The Excommunication of the Cid is certainly of a very apocryphal character. The ballad, however, is an entertaining and curious one.

It was when from Spain across the main, the Cid was come to Rome,

He chanced to see chairs four and three, beneath St. Peter's

dome ;

"Now tell, I pray, what chairs be they?"

sit thereon,

"Seven kings do

As well doth suit, all at the foot of the holy father's throne.

The pope he sitteth above them all, that they may kiss his toe, Below the keys the Flower-de-lys doth make a gallant show; For his puissance the king of France next to the pope may sit, The rest more low, all in a row, as doth their station fit."

"Ha!" quoth the Cid, 66 now God forbid! it is a shame, I wis, To see the Castle* planted beneath the Flower-de-lys.†

No harm I hope, good father pope, although I move thy chair;"
In pieces small he kick'd it all ('twas of the ivory fair.)

The pope's own seat, he from his feet, did kick it far away,
And the Spanish chair he planted upon its place that day;
Above them all he planted it, and laugh'd right bitterly,
Looks sour and bad I trow he had, as grim as grim might be.
Now when the pope was aware of this, (he was an angry man,)
His lips that night, with solemn rite, pronounced the awful ban;
The curse of God who died on rood, was on that sinner's head,
To Hell and woe man's soul must go, if once that curse be
said.

I wot when the Cid was aware of this, (a woeful man was he,) At dawn of day he came to pray at the blessed father's knee; "Absolve me, blessed father, have pity upon me,

Absolve my soul, and penance I for my sin will dree?"

"Who is this sinner," quoth the pope, "who at my foot doth

kneel?"

"I am Rodrigo Diaz, a poor baron of Castile-"”

Much marvell'd all were in the hall, when that word they heard

him say,

"Rise up, rise up," the pope he said, "I do thy guilt away:
I do thy guilt away," he said—" and my curse I blot it out;
God save Rodrigo Diaz, my Christian champion stout!
I trow if I had known thee, my grief it had been sore
To curse Ruy Diaz de Bivar, God's scourge upon the Moor."

I feel no regret in having so long dwelt upon the times of the Cid. The brilliant reputation

*The arms of Castile.

+ The arms of France.

190

LITERATURE OF THE SPANIARDS.

of that hero, at the commencement of the Spanish monarchy, eclipses the glory of all who either preceded or followed him. Never was a reputation more completely national, and never, in the estimation of men, has there been a hero in Spain who has equalled Don Rodrigo. He occupies the debateable ground between history and romance, and the historian and the poet both assert their claims to him. The ballads which we have been examining are considered by Muller as authentic documents; while the poets of Spain have chosen them as the most brilliant subjects for their dramatic compositions. Diamante, an old poet, and subsequently Guillen de Castro, have borrowed from the early romances the plots of their tragedies of the Cid, both of which furnished a model to Corneille. Lope de Vega, in his Almenas de Toro, has dramatised the second period of the warrior's life, and the death of Sancho the Strong. Other writers have introduced other incidents of his life upon the stage. No hero, in short, has ever been so universally celebrated by his countrymen, nor is the fame of any individual so intimately connected as his, with all the poetry and the history of his native land.

CHAPTER XXV.

On Spanish Literature, during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.

In the formation of her language and her poetry Spain preceded Italy very considerably, though the progress which she afterwards made was so slow, that it was difficult to distinguish it. From the twelfth, until the end of the fifteenth century, when the spirit of Italian literature began to exert an influence in Spain, every production of value which proceeded from the pen of a Spaniard is anonymous and without date; and although, perhaps, in the songs and romances of these four centuries, the progress of the language and of the versification may be traced, yet in the ideas, in the sentiments, and in the images, there is so much similarity as to prevent us from dividing this portion of the literary history of Spain into separate epochs, and from assigning to each a distinctive character.

This uniformity in its literary history is likewise observable in the political history of Spain. During these four centuries, the Spanish charac

ter was strengthened, confirmed, and developed, but not changed, by the national successes. There was the same chivalric bravery exercised in combats against the Moors, and exercised too without ferocity, and even with feelings of mutual esteem. There was the same high feeling of honour, and the same gallant bearing, nourished by rivalry with a nation as honourable and gallant as themselves; a nation with whom the knights of Spain had been often mingled, with whom they had sought an asylum, and with whom they had even served under the same banners; and lastly, there was the same independence amongst the nobles, the same national pride, the same patriotic attachments which were nourished by the division of Spain into separate kingdoms, and by the right of every vassal to make war upon the crown, provided he restored the fiefs which he held from it.

Spain, from the commencement of the eleventh century, was divided into five Christian kingdoms. It would be no easy task to present, in a few words, a picture of the various revolutions to which these states were exposed, though the dates of their progress and decline may be succinctly stated. The kingdom of Navarre, which was separated very early from the Moors by the Castilians, gradually extended itself on the side of Gascony. But, notwithstanding its frequent wars with the neighbouring states, notwithstanding