Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/243

219 ROMANTIC FICTION AND POETRY, 219 two countries vanishes, however, as we approach chapter the Moorish ballads. The Moorish wars had al- ^^' ways afforded abundant themes of interest for the Castilian muse ; but it was not till the fall of the capital, that the very fountains of song were brok- en up, and those beautiful ballads were produced, which seem like the echoes of departed glory, lin- gering round the ruins of Granada. Incompetent as these pieces may be as historical records, they are doubtless sufficiently true to manners. " They present a most remarkable combination, of not merely the exterior form, but the noble spirit of European chivalry, with the gorgeousness and effeminate luxury of the east. They are brief, seizing single situations of the highest poetic inter- est, and striking the eye of the reader with a bril- liancy of execution, so artless in appearance withal as to seem rather the effect of accident than study. We are transported to the gay seat of Moorish power, and witness the animating bustle, its pomp 11 1 have already noticed the in prose, embodied many of the insufficiency of the romances to old Moorish ballads in it, whose authentic history. Part. I. Chap, singular beauty, combined with the 8, Note 30. My conclusions there romantic and picturesque character have been confirmed by Mr. Ir- of the work itself, soon made it ving, (whose researches have led extremely popular, until at length him in a similar direction,) in his it seems to have acquired a degree " Alhambra," published nearly a of the historical credit claimed for year after the above note was writ- it by its author as a translation ten. from an Arabian chronicle ; a cred- The great source of the pop- it which has stood it in good stead ular misconceptions respecting the with the tribe of travel-mongers domestic history of Granada, is and raconteurs, persons always of Gines Perez de Hyta, whose work, easy faith, who have propagated under the title of " Historia de los its fables far and wide. Their Vandos de los Zegries y Abencer- credulity, however, may be par- rages, Cavalleros Moros de Grana- doned in what has imposed on da, y las Guerras Civiles que huvo the perspicacity of so cautious au en ella," was published at Alcala historian as Miiller. Allgemeine in I6O4. This romance, written Geschichte, (1817,'> band ii. p. 504.