Devenla guardar Reyes · é la tien olvidada,
Siendo piedra preciosa · de su corona onrrada.
Muchos ha que por cruesa · cuydan justicia fer;
Mas pecan en la maña, · ca justicia ha de ser
Con toda piedat, · e la verdat bien saber:
Al fer la execucion · siempre se han de doler.
Don José Amador de los Rios has given further extracts from the Rimado de Palacio in a pleasant paper on it in the Semanario Pintoresco, Madrid, 1847, p. 411.
[164] Alfonso el Sabio says of his father, St. Ferdinand: “And, moreover, he liked to have men about him who knew how to make verses (trobar) and sing, and Jongleurs, who knew how to play on instruments. For in such things he took great pleasure, and knew who was skilled in them and who was not.” (Setenario, Paleographía, pp. 80-83, and p. 76.) See, also, what is said hereafter, when we come to speak of Provençal literature in Spain, [Chap. XVI].
[165] The Edinburgh Review, No. 146, on Lockhart’s Ballads, contains the ablest statement of this theory.
[166] The passage in Strabo here referred to, which is in Book III. p. 139, (ed. Casaubon, fol., 1620,) is to be taken in connection with the passage (p. 151) in which he says that both the language and its poetry were wholly lost in his time.