GHOSTLY WARRIORS.
So strong a resemblance exists between a battle-scene of a mediaeval Spanish poet and the culminating incidents of Lord Macaulay's Battle of the Lake Regillus, as to justify somewhat extended citations. Of the Spanish writer, Professor Longfellow says, in his note upon the extract from the Vida de San Millan given in the Poets and Poetry of Europe, "Gonzalo de Berceo, the oldest of the Castilian poets whose name has reached us, was born in 1198. He was a monk in the monastery of Saint Millan, in Calahorra, and wrote poems on sacred subjects in Castilian Alexandrines." According to the poem, the Spaniards, while combating the Moors, were overcome by "a terror of their foes," since "these were a numerous army, a little handful those."
And whilst the Christian people stood in this uncertainty,
Upward toward heaven they turned their eyes and fixed their thoughts on high;
And there two persons they beheld, all beautiful and bright,—
Even than the pure new-fallen snow their garments were more white.
They rode upon two horses more white than crystal sheen,
And arms they bore such as before no mortal man had seen.
Their faces were angelical, celestial forms had they,—