Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/251

227 ROMANTIC FICTION AND POETRY. 227 cumstance to which perhaps they were indebted, chapter XX. more than to any poetic merit, for a place in the — 1— — miscellany, which might have been decidedly in- creased in value by being diminished in bulk.^^ The works of devotion with which the collection i'^ nterary ^ value. opens, are on the whole the feeblest portion of it. We discern none of the inspiration and lyric glow, which were to have been anticipated from the de- vout, enthusiastic Spaniard. We meet with ana- grams on the Virgin, glosses on the creed and pater noster, canciones on original sin and the like unpromising topics, all discussed in the most bald, prosaic manner, with abundance of Latin phrase, scriptural allusion, and commonplace precept, un- enlivened by a single spark of true poetic fire, and presenting altogether a farrago of the most fantastic pedantry. The lighter, especially the amatory poems, are much more successfully executed, and the primitive forms of the old Castilian versification are developed with considerable variety and beauty. Among the most agreeable effusions in this way, may be no- ticed those of Diego Lopez de Haro, who, to bor- row the encomium of a contemporary, was " the mirror of gallantry for the young cavaliers of the time." There are few verses in the collection 23 Cancionero General, passim. Cancionero passed through several — Moratin has given a list of the editions, the latest of which ap- men of rank who contributed to this peared in 1573. See a catalogue, miscellany ; it contains the names not entirely complete, of the differ- of the highest nobility of Spain, ent Spanish Cancioneros in Bou- (Orig. del Teatro Espanol, Obras, terwek,LiteraturaEspanola, trad., torn. i. pp. 85, 86.) Castillo's p. 217.