342 



SPAIN (LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND ART). 



a part, will come to be given in the Supplement to 

 this work. For the history of Spain, see Mariana's 

 Historia General de Espana (to 1612) ; Bossi's 

 Storia della Spagna Antica e Moderna (Milan, 1822, 

 seq.) ; Robertson's Charles V. ; Watson's Lives of 

 Philip II. and Philip III. ; Sempere's Considera- 

 tions sur la Grandeur et la Decadence de la Mon- 

 archie Espagnole (Paris, 1826), &c. ; Southey's 

 History of the War in the Peninsula; Napier's work 

 on the same subject ; Foy's Hist, de la Guerre de 

 la Peninsule (Paris, 1827) ; History of Spain and 

 Portugal, in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (London, 

 1831). 



Spanish Language, Poetry, Literature and Art. 

 To understand these subjects, it will be necessary 

 to say a few words respecting the character and 

 situation of the Spaniard. Nature has given him a 

 beautiful country, the excellencies of which were 

 acknowledged even by the Romans. Claudian says, 

 Dives equis, frugum facilis, pretiosa metallis. On 

 account of the situation of Spain, separated from 

 the rest of Europe, the character of the people de- 

 veloped itself, in a great degree, independently of 

 the influences of other nations a case the reverse 

 of that which has prevailed in Italy, lying, like 

 Spain, beneath a southern sun, but always 

 visited by all the nations of Europe. Gravity, 

 fire, national pride, originality, became charac- 

 teristic traits of the Spaniards, whose peculiari- 

 ties were heightened at a later period by their 

 mixture with the Moors a gallant and chivalrous 

 people and by a struggle of 700 years against the 

 Crescent, whence originated their peculiar mixture 

 of romantic spirit and religious fervour, not unfre- 

 quently rising to fanaticism. The Spaniard is 

 brave, provided his soul is in his cause ; but when 

 he becomes excited, he is also cruel, and shows the 

 untamed spirit of the African. The conquest of 

 America affords a dreadful example of what he is 

 capable under the influence of religious hatred, pride 

 and avarice. The deep earnestness of the Spanish 

 character made it capable of carrying chivalry to 

 the highest degree of development; and with all 

 his pride and exquisite sense of honour, the Span- 

 iard has been famous for unconditional submission 

 to the fair, the church, and the king, and could 

 even endure the horrid fetters of the inquisition. 

 The ease of obtaining the necessaries of life in a 

 country so highly favoured by nature, and the 

 wretched government under which it has laboured 

 for a long series of years, are the reasons why in- 

 dustry is much neglected, so that thousands suffer 

 from want. The government is extremely poor, 

 and the country very thinly peopled, compared with 

 other countries in the south of Europe. The Span- 

 iard dislikes to adopt foreign manners, and fights 

 with obstinacy if his national pride is offended. 

 The ancient Celts, before the times of the Romans, 

 carried on wars with the Phoenicians and Cartha- 

 ginians. The Romans then colonized the country. 

 The Visigoths conquered it in the fifth century. 

 The unfortunate struggle of their descendants 

 against the Moors, in the eight century, obliged 

 them to retire into the mountains and to the sea- 

 shore, where, however, they soon acquired new 

 strength, until, after a contest of seven hundred 

 years, they again delivered their country The 

 oldest language of the country was that of the 

 ancient Cantabrians, which may yet exist in the 

 Basque language, spoken by the people of the 

 Pyrenees. This, perhaps already enriched by PhoB- 

 nician and Carthaginian words, was followed by the 



Latin during the Roman sway ; and Spain gave to 



Rome herself her best writer on eloquence Quino 



tilian. Under the Visigoths, however, there grew 

 up in Spain a romanzo or romance dialect, yet with- 

 out extinguishing the Latin before the invasion of 

 the Moors, and without having an opportunity to 

 develope itself much. When the Moors conquered 

 most of Spain, they treated the inhabitants gener- 

 ously and the Moorish dialect, then already a fine 

 one, and much cultivated for the purposes of poetry, 

 was soon adopted by the people, and within a short 

 time was fluently spoken every where. But in 

 the small kingdoms which originated during the 

 struggle with the Moors, in the mountainous dis- 

 tricts and on the sea-shore, the romanzo again gained 

 ground with the victories of the people. The de- 

 scendants of the Visigoths had retired before the 

 Moors, leaving them in possession of the greatest 

 part of the country, and confining themselves to the 

 shores of the Atlantic ocean, to the mountains of 

 the regions subsequently called Asturia, Galicia and 

 Biscay, to the chain of the Pyrenees, and the ter- 

 ritories of Navarre and Arragon ; and a number of 

 small principalities were formed, all united against 

 the Moors, but, from jealousy and other causes, 

 often at war with each other when not contending 

 against the common enemy. The kingdom of 

 Leon, originally including the whole of what> was 

 afterwards called Portugal, became very powerful, 

 and Arragon was the centre of the most vigorous 

 resistance to the Moors. Between the two lay 

 Old and New Castile, Navarre, Catalonia, Valen- 

 cia, &c. Among the latter, Castile, including the 

 greatest part of the north-west of Spain, having 

 become independent, attained to the highest power, 

 and surpassed even Arragon, with which, after the 

 expulsion of the Moors in the fifteenth century, 

 under Ferdinand, it was permanently united by his 

 marriage with Isabella. This division of Spain 

 naturally had an effect on the Spanish language; 

 and, during the period of the struggle with the 

 Moors, we find as many dialects of the Spanish ro- 

 manzo as Spanish kingdoms. These dialects, how- 

 ever, became blended with each other, on the grad- 

 ual union of these kingdoms. The romanzo became 

 developed at an early period, peculiarly on the 

 coasts of Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and" Portu- 

 gal as far as Galicia, where it even took the name 

 of Galician language. The Galician language, at 

 a later period, developed itself into the Portuguese 

 an idiom which vies with the Castilian. The 

 Catalonian dialect flourished in the time of the 

 Troubadours, and continued, after having spread to 

 the kingdom of Arragon, as long as Proven9al 

 poetry existed in Spain. But it was entirely su- 

 perseded by its neighbour, the Castilian dialect, 

 when Arragon and Castile were united under one 

 sceptre. In the heart of Spain, the provinces of 

 Asturia and Leon, which were subjected to the 

 new sceptre, now gave rise, during the struggle 

 against the Moors, to a kingdom which was des- 

 tined, bv its situation, to exercise a commanding 

 influence in the peninsula, viz. the kingdom of the 

 two Castiles. The mountains of Castile were in- 

 habited by a valiant race, among whom the Span- 

 ish character was most developed. Here the Cas- 

 tilian poetry and language grew up, and soon ob- 

 tained the predominance over the poetry and lan- 

 guage of the neighbouring Catalonia, which was at 

 last united to Castile. But the Portuguese dia- 

 lect remained, because Portugal, as early as the 

 twelfth century, formed a separate kingdom. The 



