Ferreira. 45. But, though no Portuguese of the sixteenth century has come near to this illustrious poet, Ferreira endeavoured with much good sense, if not with great elevation, to emulate the didactic tone of Horace, both in lyric poems and epistles, of which the latter have been most esteemed.[1181] The classical school formed by Ferreira produced other poets in the sixteenth century; but it seems to have been little in unison with the national character. The reader will find as full an account of these as, if he is unacquainted with the Portuguese language, he is likely to desire, in the author on whom I have chiefly relied.
[1181] Id. p. 111.
Spanish ballads. 46. The Spanish ballads or romances are of very different ages. Some of them, as has been observed in another place, belong to the fifteenth century; and there seems sufficient ground for referring a small number to even an earlier date. But by far the greater portion is of the reign of Philip II., or even that of his successor. The Moorish romances, in general, and all those on the Cid, are reckoned by Spanish critics among the most modern. Those published by Depping and Duran have rarely an air of the raciness and simplicity which usually distinguish the poetry of the people, and seem to have been written by poets of Valladolid or Madrid, the contemporaries of Cervantes, with a good deal of elegance, though not much vigour. The Moors of romance, the chivalrous gentlemen of Granada, were displayed by these Castilian poets in attractive colours;[1182] and much more did the traditions of their own heroes, especially of the Cid, the bravest and most noble-minded of them all, furnish materials for their popular songs. Their character, it is observed by the latest editor, is unlike that of the older romances of chivalry, which had been preserved orally, as he conceives, down to the middle of the sixteenth century, when they were inserted in the Cancionero de Romances at Antwerp, 1555.[1183] I have been informed that an earlier edition printed in Spain has lately been discovered. In these there is a certain prolixity and hardness of style, a want of connection, a habit of repeating verses or entire passages from others. They have nothing of the marvellous, nor borrow anything from Arabian sources. In some others of the more ancient poetry there are traces of the oriental manner, and a peculiar tone of wild melancholy. The little poems scattered through the prose romance, entitled, Las Guerras de Granada, are rarely, as I should conceive, older than the reign of Philip II. These Spanish ballads are known to our public, but generally with inconceivable advantage, by the very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lockhart.[1184]
[1182] Bouterwek, Sismondi, and others, have quoted a romance, beginning Tanta Zayda y Adalifa, as the effusion of an orthodox zeal, which had taken offence at these encomiums on infidels. Whoever reads this little poem, which may be found in Depping’s collection, will see that it is written more as a humorous ridicule on contemporary poets, than a serious reproof. It is much more lively than the answer, which these modern critics also quote. Both these poems are of the end of the sixteenth century. Neither Bouterwek nor Sismondi have kept in mind the recent date of the Moorish ballads.
[1183] Duran in preface to his Romancero of 1832. These Spanish collections of songs and ballads, called Cancioneros and Romanceros, are very scarce, and there is some uncertainty among bibliographers as to their editions. According to Duran, this of Antwerp contains many romances unpublished before and far older than those of the fifteenth century, collected in the Cancionero General of 1516. It does not appear, perhaps, that the number which can be referred with probability to a period anterior to 1400 is considerable, but they are very interesting. Among these are Los Fronterizos, or songs which the Castilians used in their incursions on the Moorish frontier. These were preserved orally, like other popular poetry. We find in these early pieces, he says, some traces of the Arabian style, rather in the melancholy of its tone than in any splendour of imagery, giving as an instance some lines quoted by Sismondi, beginning, “Fonte frida, fonte frida, Fonte frida y con amor,” which are evidently very ancient. Sismondi says (Littérature du Midi, iii. 240) that it is difficult to explain the charm of this little poem, but “by the tone of truth and the absence of all object;” and Bouterwek calls it very nonsensical. It seems to me that some real story is shadowed in it under images in themselves of very little meaning, which may account for the tone of truth and pathos it breathes.
The older romances are usually in alternate verses of eight and seven syllables, and the rhymes are consonant, or real rhymes. The assonance is however older than Lord Holland supposes, who says (Life of Lope de Vega, vol. ii. p. 12), that it was not introduced till the end of the sixteenth century. It occurs in several that Duran reckons ancient.
The romance of the Conde Alarcos is probably of the fifteenth century. This is written in octosyllable consonant rhymes, without division of strophes. The Moorish ballads, with a very few exceptions, belong to the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III., and those of the Cid, about which so much interest has been taken, are the latest, and among the least valuable of all. All these are, I believe, written on the principle of assonances.
[1184] An admirable romance on a bull-fight, in Mr. Lockhart’s volume, is faintly to be traced in one introduced in Las Guerras de Granada; but I have since found it much more at length in another collection. It is still, however, far less poetical than the English imitation.
Sect. III.—On French and German Poetry.
French Poetry—Ronsard—His Followers—German Poets.