STUDY OF ROMANCE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 437 



mances 6 cantares de que las gentes de baxa e servil condicion se 

 alegran." 1 But this art, this knowledge, this culture, powerless to 

 produce anything vital, became fatal to the preservation even of what 

 preceding centuries had produced, and which they themselves had, 

 besides, hardly cared to make widely known. Indeed, was it not pos- 

 sible to lose even the certainly precious collection of the poetical 

 works of an ingenious prince, who flourished as late as the first half 

 of the fourteenth century, of Don Juan Manuel? And it is due to the 

 contempt of the ancient style, that the history of the Amadis is still so 

 obscure. 2 The national spirit that I spoke of continued nevertheless 

 to expand greatly. The sixteenth century produced "romances" 

 lavishly, which exalted, vilified, lamented ancient deeds and persons, 

 although not restricted to these subjects alone, preluding thereby the 

 most fertile theatre, which sprang also from the most intimate fibres 

 of the Spanish people. But we would gladly give up this new wealth 

 in order to recover, more numerous and in better shape, the humble 

 popular models which we now laboriously seek amongst that luxuri- 

 ant growth. It w r ould, however, be absurd to blame any one. Let us 

 rather praise Spain for having preceded other nations in the gen- 

 eral review of her literary past. This she did with the two Biblio- 

 thecae of Nicolas Antonio, of w T hich, if the Nova is a mere dictionary, 

 the Vctus, which here alone concerns us, has the order if not the 

 connection of history. It is true that what followed was not worthy 

 of such a beginning. We have a mere outline in the Origencs (which 

 come down to the times of the author) de la Poesia caslillana of Ve- 

 lasquez, published towards the middle of the eighteenth century; 3 

 and the Mcmorias of Sarmiento are rich, but a jumble. 4 But Spain 

 makes up for this, and surprises us again with the Colcccion de Poesias 

 Castcllanas anterior es al siglo XV of Sanchez, which began to appear 

 in 1779, in which collection the Cid, amongst other things, first saw 

 the light. 



The neglect of medieval literature was nowhere so great as in the 

 country in which it had been incomparably the most fertile, that is in 

 France. Nowhere was the voice of the past so completely stifled by 

 the mutable present. Only the historians, the Romance of the Rose, 

 and certain Romances of the Round Table, escaped oblivion. As for 



1 " Prohomio e carta quel marque's de Santillana onvio al Condestable de 

 Portugal con las obras suyas," sect. ix. 



2 Observe Hie title at the beginning of our Oastilian text: '' Aqm comienza el 

 primcro libro del esforzado e virtuoso caballcro Amadis, liijo del Rev Perion de 

 Gaula, y de la Reyna Elisena; el cual fu<5 corregido y emendado por el honrado e 

 virtuoso caballero Garci-Ordonez de Montalbo, regidor de la noble villa de Medina 

 del Campo, e corregiolo de los antiguos or'm'malos, que estaban corruptos e eom- 

 puestos en antiguo estilo por falta de los ditVivntr-s escriptores; quitando muchas 

 palabras superfluas, c poniendo otras de mas polido y elegante estilo. . ." 



3 Malaga. 1754. 



4 Metniiriafi parti la lu'sforia dc la pncfu'a >/ pnrtns cspnTwleft. They were published 

 in 1775. ihree years after the death of the author, by whom they had been com- 

 posed Jong before. 



