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pressions are easily understood in the spirit which prompted them, but are less easily understood in the spirit of the schools. If all the Biblical figures were arranged into a system, and if, when thus classified, they were reasoned upon as literal and dogmatic truths, we should have, on an extended scale, the same allegorical logic, which we now have on a scale so limited as to conceal many of its injurious effects. Perhaps we should then begin to shape the Copernican and Newtonian philosophy in the mould of the passage, "The Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down." Some errors are most easily refuted by carrying them out to their entire length with all possible consistency. An extreme view of them develops their essential nature. What is a large part of Quakerism, and even Swedenborgianism, but a collection of fancies, interesting as such, but now flattened into theories?

ARTICLE VII.

TICKNOR'S SPANISH LITERATURE.

History of Spanish Literature. By George Ticknor. In three volNew York: Harper & Brothers, 1849.

umes.

By Prof. C. C. Felton, Cambridge.

THE appearance of a work like the present is an important event in our literary history. For completeness of plan, depth of learning, and thoroughness of execution, nothing superior has been produced in the English language, in our day. It will take at least an equal rank with either of the works of Hallam, and with the best historical productions of the continent. Mr. Ticknor has had ample time, abundant means, and every opportunity which travel and residence in Europe, and extensive acquaintance with the most eminent men in literature could give him. He has surveyed his subject in all its bearings with unwearied industry and the most conscientious determination to understand it thoroughly. Possessing a comprehensive knowledge of ancient and modern literature, he has been able to illustrate the literature of Spain by just comparisons, and to assign to it its true position in the history of the achievements of the human mind. The breadth of his culture and the catholic spirit with which all his judgments seem to have been formed, have saved him from giving an undue importance or prominence to the literature for which he evi. dently has a strong predilection, and which he understands better than any scholar ever understood before. If we compare this work with

the volumes of Sismondi and Bouterwek the best which had hitherto been published in Europe-we shall be at once aware of the immense superiority of Mr. Ticknor over all his rivals.

In his preface, written with candor and liberality, Mr. Ticknor gives an account of the origin and progress of this work. At an early period of his life, and while still pursuing his studies at the great seats of learning abroad, he was appointed Professor of French and Spanish literature in Harvard College. The lectures he gave after his return were the first form into which the results of his researches were cast. At a later period, Mr. Ticknor made a second visit to Europe, and used the opportunities thus afforded him, to complete the studies of preceding years, consulting the libraries, public and private, which were thrown open to him everywhere. His own collection of printed and manuscript works, connected with or constituting portions of Spanish literature is probably unrivalled in the world. Returning to the United States, he first undertook the preparation of his college lectures for the press, with such additional matter as he had recently collected. Further reflection, however, led him to change his plan entirely. The lectures were thrown aside, and a systematic work was commenced de novo, in which the whole subject is carefully laid out, and all the details wrought up with the most deliberate reference to the whole, and so arranged that the multiplicity of the particulars, each finding its appropriate place, and none exceeding a just proportion, present themselves to the mind in lucid order, and leave there an unbroken impressionThe classical completeness of the plan. and the exquisite purity of the style, next to the exact and affluent learning by which every page is distinguished, form the most remarkable characteristics of the book. The political history of Spain is interwoven so far as it is necessary to illustrate the literary character of the successive periods. The great historical events, which have given a peculiar turn to each of the changing fortunes of Spain, are set forth in the various bearings on the intellectual and literary phenomena of that romantic land. The struggle between contending influences, as they came up one after another, until the distinctive features of the Spanish character, were shaped, is unfolded with singular clearness of view, fulness of knowledge, and steadiness of power. We see the country passing from the Roman to the Gothic sway; then the fierce struggle of more than seven centuries with the Moorish invaders from Africa; and finally the consolidation of its feudal kingdoms under a single sovereign head. We are spectators of the contest, often remitted but never abandoned, between the Christian faith and the Mohammedan imposture, until the crescent was driven back to the regions whence it rose; and we be

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hold the gradual development of that fierce religious bigotry which first endured and then embraced the dreadful tyranny of the Inquisition, spreading terror through the land, and filling its history with scenes the bare imagination of which makes the flesh to creep, and the hair to stand on end at the wickedness of man usurping the prerogatives of God.

The whole work is divided into three parts or periods. The first commences at the end of the twelfth century and extends to the beginning of the sixteenth. Within these dates are comprehended

many of the richest and most original phenomena of Spanish literature. Mr. Ticknor remarks:

"Indeed, if we look at the condition of Spain, in the centuries that preceded and followed the formation of its present language and poetry, we shall find the mere historical dates full of instruction. In 711, Roderic rashly hazarded the fate of his Gothic and Christian empire on the result of a single battle against the Arabs, then just forcing their way into the western part of Europe from Africa. He failed; and the wild enthusiasm which marked the earliest age of the Mohammedan power achieved almost immediately the conquest of the whole of the country that was worth the price of a victory. The Christians, however, though overwhelmed, did not entirely yield. On the contrary, many of them retreated before the fiery pursuit of their enemies, and established themselves in the extreme northwestern portion of their native land, amidst the mountains and fastnesses of Biscay and Asturias. There, indeed, the purity of the Latin tongue, which they had spoken for so many ages, was finally lost, through that neglect of its cultivation which was a necessary consequence of the miseries that oppressed them. But still, with the spirit which so long sustained their forefathers against the power of Rome, and which has carried their descendants through a hardly less fierce contest against the power of France, they maintained, to a remarkable degree, their ancient manners and feelings, their religion, their laws, and their institutions; and, separating themselves by an implacable hatred from their Moorish invaders, they there, in those rude mountains, laid deep the foundations of a national character, of that character which has subsisted to our own times."

It was during the centuries of conflict with the Moors, that the elements of the Spanish language and the materials of the Spanish poetry developed themselves. This was in truth the heroic age of Spain. The contrast of nationalities, the warfare of adverse religions, and the spirit of chivalry, filled up this long period with enterprises of great pith and moment, with personal adventures of more romantic daring than are to be found in the spring time of any other modern literature. This long struggle is the source from which the Spanish poets have drawn their most abundant materials; and the memorable ex

ploits of the champions of the Christian Faith against the misbelieving intruders from Africa, kindled the enthusiasm of successive generations as they were recounted in the nameless and numberless ballads with which the kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula resounded ; — these subjects, and the metrical poetry in which they were celebrated were of the highest epic interest; and though the form never reached the perfect and harmonious development which the happy genius of Ionia achieved for the legends of the heroes on the plains of Troy, yet as we read those "Iliads without a Homer," we feel that the costume has indeed been changed, but the genuine epic strain still lives and breathes, as true to the instincts of the Castilian character as the glorious rhapsodies of Homer were to the exuberant heroism that blazed in the morning glow of Hellenic life.

The oldest written monument of the Spanish language with an ascertained date belongs to the year 1155; and Castilian verse may be traced very nearly back to this period, not only in ballads but in works of more elaborate character and greater extent. The first or one of the first of these is the famous poem of the Cid. The Cid, or Lord, was the impersonation of Spanish chivalry, and he has always been the foremost figure in the poetry and traditions of the country. This personage was born in the northwestern part of Spain about the middle of the eleventh century, and died towards its end, at Valencia. He was one of the powerful barons of the country, bearing originally the name of Ruy or Rodrigo Diaz. He received the title of Cid from the circumstance that five Moorish kings were conquered by him in one battle, and acknowledged him as their Seid, or Lord; he is also known generally as the campeador or champion. In truth, he passed his whole life either in fighting the enemies of his country, or in exile to which he was more than once driven by the princes in whose service he had so often breasted the shock of the Moslem hosts. No doubt there is much of fable blended with the history of this great champion's achievements. Says Mr. Ticknor:

"He comes to us in modern times as the great defender of his nation against its Moorish invaders, and seems to have so filled the imagination and satisfied the affections of his countrymen, that centuries after his death, and even down to our own days, poetry and tradition have delighted to attach to his name a long series of fabulous achievements, which connect him with the mythological fictions of the Middle Ages, and remind us almost as often of Amadis and Arthur as they do of the sober heroes of genuine history."

The poem of the Cid may be compared in various respects with

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the Iliad, or rather with single books of the Iliad. Some have considered it in the light of versified history. Mr. Southey was inclined to this view; but from the very nature of the case it must be erroneous. Its spirit is epical and not historical; and as Mr. Ticknor remarks "the very marriage of the daughters of the Cid has been shown to be all but impossible; and thus any real historical foundation seems to be taken away from the chief event which the poem records." The poem has not been preserved entire; a few pages of the beginning, and a short passage in the middle being lost. The name of the author has not been preserved. This most interesting monument of the early poetical genius of Spain is now tolerably well known, in its leading characteristics, by the writings of Mr. Southey, especially his paraphrase of the Chronicle of the Cid, in the appendix to which he published the fine translations by the Hon. John Hookham Frere. Mr. Ticknor draws the character of the poem in the following finely expressed passage:

very

"Of course there can be no doubt about the subject or purpose of the whole. It is the development of the character and glory of the Cid, as shown in his achievements in the kingdoms of Saragossa and Valencia, in his triumph over his unworthy sons-in-law, the Counts of Carrion, and their disgrace before the king and Cortes, and, finally, in the second marriage of his two daughters with the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon; the whole ending with a slight allusion to the hero's death, and a notice of the date of the manuscript.

"But the story of the poem constitutes the least of its claims to our notice. In truth, we do not read it at all for its mere facts, which are often detailed with the minuteness and formality of a monkish chronicle; but for its living pictures of the age it represents, and for the vivacity with which it brings up manners and interests so remote from our own experience, that, where they are attempted in formal history, they come to us as cold as the fables of mythology. We read it because it is a contemporary and spirited exhibition of the chivalrous times of Spain, given occasionally with an Homeric simplicity altogether admirable. For the story it tells is not only that of the most romantic achievements, attributed to the most romantic hero of Spanish tradition, but it is mingled continually with domestic and personal details, that bring the character of the Cid and his age near to our own sympathies and interests. The very language in which it is told is the language he himself spoke, still only half developed; disencumbering itself with difficulty from the

1

Mr. Southey's Chronicle of the Cid was republished a few years ago by Mr. Bixby in Lowell, in a very handsome form. But that enterprising publisher found that the age of chivalry had gone," at least from Lowell. Spindles left no space for spears, and cotton was a stronger interest than martial combats. The book scarcely paid for the binding.