Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/240

216 216 CASTILIAN LITERATURE. PART to a high degree of literary merit. Perhaps such — a result might have been achieved, but for the sub- lime parody of Cervantes, which cut short the whole race of knights-errant, and by the fine irony, which it threw around the mock heroes of chivalry, extinguished them for ever. "^ Ballads or The uiost poDular poetry of this period, that romances. ••■■'■ i. j i ' springing from the body of the people, and most intimately addressed to it, is the ballads, or roman- ces, as they are termed in Spain. These indeed were familiar to the Peninsula as far back as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; but in the present reign they received a fresh impulse from the war with Granada, and composed, under the name of the Moorish ballads, what may perhaps be regarded, without too high praise, as the most exquisite pop- ular minstrelsy of any age or country. Early cui- Thc humblc narrative lyrics makine; up the mass of ballad poetry, and forming the natural expres- sion of a simple state of society, would seem to be most abundant in nations endowed with keen sen- sibilities, and placed in situations of excitement and powerful interest, fitted to develope them. The light and lively French have little to boast of ' The labors of Bowles, Rios, bal criticism, which is not always Arrieta, Pellicer, and Navarrete, joined with such extensive erudi- would seem to liave left little to tion. Unfortunately, the prema- desire in regard to the illustration ture death of Clemencin lias left of Cervantes. But the commen- the work unfinished ; but the frag- tarics of Clemencin, published mcnt completed, whicii reaches to since this chapter was written, in the close of the First Part, is of 1833, show bow much yet remained sufficient value permanently to as- to be sup])lied. They afford the sociate the name of its author with most copious illustrations, botli lit- tlint of the greatest genius of his crary and historical of bis author, country. and exhibit that nice taste in ver- tivation in Spain