[376] See the mourning about his own time, as a period of great suffering (Lib. IV. c. 53). This could not have been a just description of any part of the reign of the Catholic kings in Spain; and must therefore, I suppose, have been in the original work of Lobeira, and have referred to troubles in Portugal.
[377] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6. Cervantes, however, is mistaken in his bibliography, when he says that the Amadis was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain. It has often been noted that this distinction belongs to “Tirant lo Blanch,” 1490; though Southey (Omniana, London, 1812, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 219) thinks “there is a total want of the spirit of chivalry” in it; and it should further be noted now, as curious facts, that “Tirant lo Blanch,” though it appeared in Valencian in 1490, in Castilian in 1511, and in Italian in 1538, was yet, like the Amadis, originally written in Portuguese, to please a Portuguese prince, and that this Portuguese original is now lost;—all remarkable coincidences. See note on Chap. XVII. of this Period. On the point of the general merits of the Amadis, two opinions are worth citing. The first, on its style, is by the severe anonymous author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas,” temp. Charles V., who, after discussing the general character of the book, adds, “It should be read by those who wish to learn our language.” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 163.) The other, on its invention and story, is by Torquato Tasso, who says of the Amadis, “In the opinion of many, and particularly in my own opinion, it is the most beautiful, and perhaps the most profitable, story of its kind that can be read, because, in its sentiment and tone, it leaves all others behind it, and, in the variety of its incidents, yields to none written before or since.” Apologia della Gerusalemme, Opere, Pisa, 1824, 8vo, Tom. X. p. 7.
[378] I possess of “Esplandian” the curious edition printed at Burgos, in folio, double columns, 1587, by Simon de Aguaya. It fills 136 leaves, and is divided into 184 chapters. As in the other editions I have seen mentioned or have noticed in public libraries, it is called “Las Sergas del muy Esforçado Cavallero Esplandian,” in order to give it the learned appearance of having really been translated, as it pretends to be, from the Greek of Master Elisabad;—“Sergas” being evidently an awkward corruption of the Greek Ἔργα, works or achievements. Allusions are made to it, as to a continuation, in the Amadis, Lib. IV.; besides which, in Lib. III. cap. 4, we have the birth and baptism of Esplandian; in Lib. III. c. 8, his marvellous growth and progress; and so on, till, in the last chapter of the romance, he is armed as a knight. So that the Esplandian is, in the strictest manner, a continuation of the Amadis. Southey (Omniana, Vol. I. p. 145) thinks there is some error about the authorship of the Esplandian. If there is, I think it is merely typographical.
[379] There are two Canciones in Amadis, (Lib. II. c. 8 and c. 11,) which, notwithstanding something of the conceits of their time, in the Provençal manner, are quite charming, and ought to be placed among the similar Canciones in the “Floresta” of Bohl de Faber. The last begins,—
Leonoreta, fin roseta,
Blanca sobre toda flor;
Fin roseta, no me meta
En tal cuyta vuestro amor.
[380] The whole subject of these twelve books of Amadis in Spanish and the twenty-four in French belongs rather to bibliography than to literary history, and is among the most obscure points in both. The twelve Spanish books are said by Brunet never to have been all seen by any one bibliographer. I have seen, I believe, seven or eight of them, and own the only two for which any real value has ever been claimed,—the Amadis de Gaula, in the rare and well-printed edition of Venice, 1533, folio, and the Esplandian in the more rare, but very coarse, edition already referred to. When the earliest edition of either of them, or of most of the others, was printed cannot, I presume, be determined. One of Esplandian, of 1510, is mentioned by N. Antonio, but by nobody else in the century and a half that have since elapsed; and he is so inaccurate in such matters, that his authority is not sufficient. In the same way, he is the only authority for an edition in 1525 of the seventh book,—“Lisuarte of Greece.” But, as the twelfth book was certainly printed in 1549, the only fact of much importance is settled; viz., that the whole twelve were published in Spain in the course of about half a century. For all the curious learning on the subject, however, see an article by Salvá, in the Repertorio Americano, Lóndres, Agosto de 1827, pp. 29-39; F. A. Ebert, Lexicon, Leipzig, 1821, 4to, Nos. 479-489; Brunet, article Amadis; and, especially, the remarkable discussion, already referred to, by F. W. V. Schmidt, in the Wiener Jahrbücher, Band XXXIII. 1826.
[381] Like whatever relates to the series of the Amadis, the account of the Palmerins is very obscure. Materials for it are to be found in N. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, Tom. II. p. 393; in Salvá, Repertorio Americano, Tom. IV. pp. 39, etc.; Brunet, article Palmerin; Ferrario, Romanzi di Cavalleria, Tom. IV. pp. 256, etc.: and Clemencin, notes to Don Quixote, Tom. I. pp. 124, 125.