[422]. See Professors Gayley and Scott’s invaluable book so often cited, p. 447, a passage based on Blankenburg’s older Zusätze (3 vols., Leipsic, 1796-98).
[423]. Venice, 1613.
[424]. Blankenburg is the sinner here.
[425]. Padua, 1681, pp. 1025-1088.
[426]. Henry Cary, Earl of Monmouth, translated the book in 1656.
[427]. Spain can boast, however, perhaps the very best History of its criticism as a whole that any European language has—if not as yet the only good one—in the Historia de las Ideas Estéticas en España of Don Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (Ed. 2, 9 vols., Madrid, 1890-1896)[1890-1896)]. This is fortunate for me, inasmuch as I do not pretend to any extensive familiarity with Spanish literature beyond the early poets, and indeed do not read the language with very great facility. Besides Señor Menéndez I have relied chiefly on the texts and comments recently furnished (v. inf.) by M. Morel-Fatio (who will, I hope, continue in so good a road), on Ticknor, on the short but valuable notices of this period in Mr Spingarn, op. cit., on those in my friend Mr Hannay’s The Later Renaissance (Edinburgh and London, 1898), and on Mr James Fitzmaurice Kelly’s History of Spanish Literature (London, 1898). I am particularly obliged to Mr Kelly for a copy of the recent (undated) Spanish translation of his book, with a few corrections, and a preface by Señor Menéndez himself. The Spanish critic combines, with a just praise of the book, a mild remonstrance as to the small space which Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly has given to this very critical subject—a fact in which I own I myself had felt some comfort. The silence of the specialist is the shield of the expatiator. I have not failed, wherever I could, to verify all the critical deliverances in the text, and examine almost all, if not all, the books mentioned; but I do not know the circumference of them as I do elsewhere. And as I began this History on the principle of going to the sources, I think myself bound to warn the reader of any case in which I have been obliged to modify that principle.
[428]. This was written before M. Morel-Fatio had expressed the same view in his Les Défenseurs de la Comedia (Bulletin Hispanique, ubi cit. inf.) See also on the point Mr Ker’s Essays of Dryden, i. lxvi, and the references in his index to Dryden’s mention of Spanish plays. Of course the main interest of the matter lies in the much stronger resemblances that exist between the great English and Spanish dramas than between any other two national branches of the European theatre.
[429]. They say now that he was not only not (as used to be said) the premier and only Marquis of Spain, but not a Marquis at all. Non moror: non sum invidus—especially as the next monographer will probably restore the Marquisate.
[430]. I have duly looked this up in what appears to be the only accessible place (a place valuable for other documents), the Orígenes de La Lengua Española, Madrid, 1737, of Mayáns y Siscar. It is merely a tissue of troubadours’ names, scholastic citations, and minute details of pronunciation and versification. Señor Menéndez has reprinted part of it in the Appendix to his second volume.
[431]. Poesias Castellanas anteriores al siglo xv. (Paris, 1842) pp. 13-17.