Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/250

226 226 CASTILIAN LITERATURE. PART I. Cancionero General. Fortunately the new art of printing was employed here, as in the case of the romances, to arrest those fugitive sallies of imagination, which in other coun- tries were permitted, from want of this care, to pass into oblivion ; and caricioneros, or collections of lyrics, were published, embodying the produc- tions of this reign and that of John the Second, thus bringing under one view the poetic culture of the fifteenth century. The earliest cancionero printed was at Saragossa, in 1492. It comprehended the works of Mena, Manrique, and six or seven other bards of less note.^^ A far more copious collection was made by Fernando del Castillo, and first published at Valen- cia, in 1511, under the title of "Cancionero Gen- eral," since which period it has passed into repeated editions. This compilation is certainly more cred- itable to Castillo's industry, than to his discrimina- tion or power of arrangement. Indeed, in this latter respect it is so defective, that it would almost seem to have been put together fortuitously, as the pieces came to hand. A large portion of the au- thors appear to have been persons of rank ; a cir- 22 Tlie title of this work was " Coplas de VitaCliristi,dela Cena con I'l Pasion, y de la Veronica con la Resurreccion de niiestro Redem- tor. E las siete Anprustias e siete Gozos de nuestra SeHora, con otras obras mucho provechosas. " It con- cludes with the following notice, " Fiie la presents obra emprentada en la insitrne Ciudad de Zaragoza de Aragon por industria e cxpetisas de Paulo Hurus do Constancia ale- man. A 27 dias de Noviembre, 1492." (Mendez, Typographia EspaiTola, pp. 134, 136.) It ap- pears there were two or three oth- er cancioneros compiled, none of which, however, were admitted to the honors of the press. (Bouter- wek, Literatura Espaiiola, nota.) The learned Castro, some fifty years since, published an analysis with copious extracts from one of these made by IJaena, the Jewish physician of John II., a copy of which existed in the royal library of the Escurial. Bibliotheca Es- paiiola, torn. i. p. 265 et seq.