And there in middle of the path, a Leper did appear;

In a deep slough the leper lay, none would to help come near;
With a loud voice he thence did cry, "For God our Saviour's sake,
From out this fearful jeopardy a Christian brother take."

When Roderic heard that piteous word, he from his horse came down,
For all they said, no stay he made, that noble champion;
He reach'd his hand to pluck him forth, of fear was no account,
Then mounted on his steed of worth, and made the leper mount.
Behind him rode the leprous man; when to their hostelrie
They came he made him eat with him at table cheerfully;
While all the rest from that poor guest with loathing shrunk away,
To his own bed the wretch he led, beside him there he lay.

All at the mid hour of the night, while good Rodrigo slept,

A breath came from the leprous man, it through his shoulders crept;
Right through the body, at the breast, pass'd forth that breathing cold,
I wot he leap'd up with a start, in terrors manifold.

He groped for him in the bed, but him he could not find,
Through the dark chamber groped he with very anxious mind,
Loudly he lifted up his voice, with speed a lamp was brought,
Yet no where was the leper seen, though far and near they sought.
He turn'd him to his chamber, God wot perplexed sore
With that which had befallen; when lo! his face before
There stood a man all clothed in vesture shining white,

Thus said the vision, "Sleepest thou, or wakest thou, Sir Knight?"
"I sleep not," quoth Rodrigo, "but tell me who art. thou,
For, in the midst of darkness, much light is on thy brow?"
"I am the holy Lazarus, I come to speak with thee;
I am the same poor leper thou savedst for charity.

Not vain the trial, nor in vain thy victory hath been;

God favours thee, for that my pain thou didst relieve yestreen.
There shall be honour with thee in battle and in peace,
Success in all thy doings, and plentiful increase.

Strong enemies shall not prevail thy greatness to undo,

Thy name shall make men's cheeks full pale, Christians and Moslems too;
A death of honour shalt thou die, such grace to thee is given,
Thy soul shall part victoriously, and be received in heaven.”

When he these gracious words had said, the spirit vanish'd quite;
Rodrigo rose and knelt him down-he knelt till morning light;
Unto the heavenly Father, and Mary Mother dear,

He made his prayer right humbly till dawn'd the morning clear.

The subject of the next ballad is Bavieca, the Cid's charger, whose fame has been celebrated in almost every romance which has recorded the exploits of his master. He is also mentioned in the Cid's will. "When ye bury Bavieca, dig deep; for shameful thing were it that he should be eat by

curs who hath trampled down so much currish flesh of Moors." Rodrigo likewise directed that his dead body should be placed in armour, upon Bavieca, and so led to the church. After this ceremony had been performed, no man was again suffered to bestride the gallant charger. Bavieca survived his master about two years, having lived, according to the history, full forty years.

The king look'd on him kindly, as on a vassal true,

Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due :

O king, the thing is shameful that any man beside
The liege lord of Castile himself should Bavieca ride.
For neither Spain nor Araby could another charger bring
So good as he, and certes the best befits my king;

But that you may behold him and know him to the core,

I'll make him go as he was wont when his nostrils smelt the Moor."
With that the Cid, clad as he was in mantle furr'd and wide,
On Bavieca vaulting, put the rowel in his side,

And up and down, and round and round, so fierce was his career,
Stream'd like a pennon on the wind, Ruy Diaz' minivere.

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 peeiless 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?" "Seven kings do sit thereon,
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, "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 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 The arms of France.

* The arms of Castile.

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 character 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 various accessions of territory, followed invariably by new partitions, Navarre remained within nearly the same limits until the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, who conquered it in 1512. The kingdom of Portugal, which was founded in 1090, by Alfonso VI. of Castile, as a provision for his son-in-law, extended itself during the twelfth century along the shores of the Atlantic, and at that period was comprised within the limits which, notwithstanding its long wars with Castile, it has since preserved. The kingdom of Leon, which formerly extended over Galicia and the Asturias, was the most ancient of all, and the true representative of the monarchy of the Visigoths. Having been founded by Pelagius and his descendants, it was to extend its frontiers that those heroic combats were fought, which, at the present day, fill the poetical history of Spain; and it was for the purpose of establishing the independence of this country, that the semifabulous hero Bernard del Carpio slew the Paladin Orlando at Roncevalles. The ancient house of the Visigoth kings became extinct in 1037, in the person of Bermudez III., and the kingdom of Leon then fell into the hands of Ferdinand the Great of Navarre, who united under his sceptre all the Christian states of Spain. On his death, he again severed Navarre and Castile in favour of one of his sons; and the kingdom of Leon, governed by the house of Bigorre, preserved an independent but inglorious existence until the year 1230, when it was for the last time united to Castile by an intermarriage of the sovereigns.

In the east of Spain the resistance of the Christians had been less effectual. At the foot of the Pyrenees, around the towns of Jaca and Huesca, and in the little county of