And gave their grateful praise to God,
Who thus vouchsafed his gracious aid.
It is a misfortune that this poem is lost.
[122] Slight extracts from the Beneficiado de Ubeda are in Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 116-118. The first stanza, which is like the beginning of several of Berceo’s poems, is as follows:—
Si me ayudare Christo · è la Virgen sagrada,
Querria componer · una faccion rimada
De un confesor que fizo · vida honrada,
Que nació en Toledo, · en esa Cibdat nombrada.
[123] See, for his life, Sanchez, Tom. I. pp. 100-106, and Tom. IV. pp. ii.-vi.;—and for an excellent criticism of his works, one in the Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur, 1832, Band LVIII. pp. 220-255. It is by Ferdinand Wolf, and he boldly compares the Archpriest to Cervantes.
[124] Sanchez, Tom. IV. p. x.