[43] The works attributed to Alfonso are:—In Prose: 1. Crónica General de España, to be noticed hereafter. 2. A Universal History, containing an abstract of the history of the Jews. 3. A Translation of the Bible. 4. El Libro del Tesoro, a work on general philosophy; but Sarmiento, in a MS. which I possess, says that this is a translation of the Tesoro of Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, and that it was not made by order of Alfonso; adding, however, that he has seen a book entitled “Flores de Filosofía,” which professes to have been compiled by this king’s command, and may be the work here intended. 5. The Tábulas Alfonsinas, or Astronomical Tables. 6. Historia de todo el Suceso de Ultramar, to be noticed presently. 7. El Espéculo ó Espejo de todos los Derechos; El Fuero Real, and other laws published in the Opúsculos Legales del Rey Alfonso el Sabio (ed. de la Real Academia de Historia, Madrid, 1836, 2 tom., fol.). 8. Las Siete Partidas.—In Verse: 1. Another Tesoro. 2. Las Cántigas. 3. Two stanzas of the Querellas. Several of these works, like the Universal History and the Ultramar, were, as we know, only compiled by his order, and in others he must have been much assisted. But the whole mass shows how wide were his views, and how great must have been his influence on the language, the literature, and the intellectual progress of his country.

[44] Castro, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 632, where he speaks of the MS. of the Cántigas in the Escurial. The one at Toledo, which contains only a hundred, is the MS. of which a fac-simile is given in the “Paleographía Española,” (Madrid, 1758, 4to, p. 72,) and in the notes to the Spanish translation of Bouterwek’s History (p. 129). Large extracts from the Cántigas are found in Castro, (Tom. II. pp. 361, 362, and pp. 631-643,) and in the “Nobleza del Andaluzia” de Argote de Molina, (Sevilla, 1588, fol., f. 151,) followed by a curious notice of the king, in Chap. 19, and a poem in his honor.

[45] Mondejar, Memorias, p. 438.

[46] Mondejar, Mem., p. 434. His body, however, was in fact buried at Seville, and his heart, which he had desired should be sent to Palestine, at Murcia, because, as he says in his testament, “Murcia was the first place which it pleased God I should gain in the service and to the honor of King Ferdinand.” Laborde saw his monument there. Itinéraire de l’Espagne, Paris, 1809, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 185.

[47] J. P. Ribeiro, Dissertaçoes, etc., publicadas per órdem da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, Lisboa, 1810, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 180. A glossary of French words occurring in the Portuguese, by Francisco de San Luiz, is in the Memorias da Academia Real de Sciencias, Lisboa, 1816, Tom. IV. Parte II. Viterbo (Elucidario, Lisboa, 1798, fol., Tom. I., Advert. Preliminar., pp. viii.-xiii.) also examines this point.

[48] Paleographía Española, p. 10.

[49] A. Ribeiro dos Santos, Orígem, etc., da Poesía Portugueza, in Memorias da Lett. Portugueza, pela Academia, etc., 1812, Tom. VIII. pp. 248-250.

[50] J. P. Ribeiro, Diss., Tom. I. p. 176. It is possible the document in App., pp. 273-275, is older, as it appears to be from the time of Sancho I., or 1185-1211; but the next document (p. 275) is dated “Era 1230,” which is A. D. 1192, and is, therefore, the oldest with a date.

[51] Europa Portugueza, Lisboa, 1680, fol., Tom. III. Parte IV. c. 9; and Diez, Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, Bonn, 1836, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 72.

[52] Bibl. Española, Tom. II. pp. 404, 405.

[53] Sanchez, Tom. I., Pról., p. lvii.

[54] After quoting the passage of Santillana just referred to, Sarmiento, who was very learned in all that relates to the earliest Spanish verse, says, with a simplicity quite delightful, “I, as a Galician, interested in this conclusion, should be glad to possess the grounds of the Marquis of Santillana; but I have not seen a single word of any author that can throw light on the matter.” Memorias de la Poesía y Poetas Españoles, Madrid, 1775, 4to, p. 196.

[55]

he says (Castro, Tom. II. p. 637); and Xerez was taken in 1263. But all these Cántigas were not, probably, written in one period of the king’s life.

[56] Ortiz de Zuñiga, Anales, p. 129.

[57] Take the following as a specimen. Alfonso beseeches the Madonna rather to look at her merits than at his own claims, and runs through five stanzas, with the choral echo to each, “Saint Mary, remember me!”

Castro, Bibl., Tom. II. p. 640.

This has, no doubt, a very Provençal air; but others of the Cántigas have still more of it. The Provençal poets, in fact, as we shall see more fully hereafter, fled in considerable numbers into Spain at the period of their persecution at home; and that period corresponds to the reigns of Alfonso and his father. In this way a strong tinge of the Provençal character came into the poetry of Castile, and remained there a long time. The proofs of this early intercourse with Provençal poets are abundant. Aiméric de Bellinoi was at the court of Alfonso IX., who died in 1214, (Histoire Littéraire de la France, par des Membres de l’Institut, Paris, 4to, Tom. XIX. 1838, p. 507,) and was afterwards at the court of Alfonso X. (Ibid., p. 511.) So were Montagnagout, and Folquet de Lunel, both of whom wrote poems on the election of Alfonso X. to the throne of Germany. (Ibid., Tom. XIX. p. 491, and Tom. XX. p. 557; with Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. IV. p. 239.) Raimond de Tours and Nat de Mons addressed verses to Alfonso X. (Ibid., Tom. XIX. pp. 555, 577.) Bertrand Carbonel dedicated his works to him; and Giraud Riquier, sometimes called the last of the Troubadours, wrote an elegy on his death, already referred to. (Ibid., Tom. XX. pp. 559, 578, 584.) Others might be cited, but these are enough.

[58] The two stanzas of the Querellas, or Complaints, still remaining to us, are in Ortiz de Zuñiga, (Anales, p. 123,) and elsewhere.

[59] First published by Sanchez, (Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 148-170,) where it may still be best consulted. The copy he used had belonged to the Marquis of Villena, who was suspected of the black art, and whose books were burnt on that account after his death, temp. John II. A specimen of the cipher is given in Cortinas’s translation of Bouterwek (Tom. I. p. 129). In reading this poem, it should be borne in mind that Alfonso believed in astrological predictions, and protected astrology by his laws. (Partida VII. Tít. xxiii. Ley 1.) Moratin the younger (Obras, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 61) thinks that both the Querellas and the Tesoro were the work of the Marquis of Villena; relying, first, on the fact that the only manuscript of the latter known to exist once belonged to the Marquis; and, secondly, on the obvious difference in language and style between both and the rest of the king’s known works,—a difference which certainly may well excite suspicion, but does not much encourage the particular conjecture of Moratin as to the Marquis of Villena.

[60] Mariana, Hist., Lib. XIV. c. 7; Castro, Bibl., Tom. I. p. 411; and Mondejar, Memorias, p. 450. The last, however, is mistaken in supposing the translation of the Bible printed at Ferrara in 1553 to have been that made by order of Alfonso, since it was the work of some Jews of the period when it was published.

[61] La Gran Conquista de Ultramar was printed at Salamanca, by Hans Giesser, in folio, in 1503. That additions are made to it is apparent from Lib. III. c. 170, where is an account of the overthrow of the order of the Templars, which is there said to have happened in the year of the Spanish era 1412; and that it is a translation, so far as it follows William of Tyre, from an old French version of the thirteenth century, I state on the authority of a manuscript of Sarmiento. The Conquista begins thus:—

“Capitulo Primero. Como Mahoma predico en Aravia: y gano toda la tierra de Oriente.

“En aql. tiēpo q̄ eraclius emperador en Roma q̄ fue buē Xpiano, et mātuvo gran tiēpo el imperio en justicia y en paz, levantose Mahoma en tierra de Aravia y mostro a las gētes necias sciēcia nueva, y fizo les creer q̄ era profeta y mensagero de dios, y que le avia embiado al mundo por saluar los hombres qēle creyessen,” etc.

The story of the Knight of the Swan, full of enchantments, duels, and much of what marks the books of chivalry, begins abruptly at Lib. 1. cap. 47, fol. xvii., with these words: “And now the history leaves off speaking for a time of all these things, in order to relate what concerns the Knight of the Swan,” etc.; and it ends with Cap. 185, f. lxxx., the next chapter opening thus: “Now this history leaves off speaking of this, and turns to relate how three knights went to Jerusalem,” etc. This story of the Knight of the Swan, which fills 63 leaves, or about a quarter part of the whole work, appeared originally in Normandy or Belgium, begun by Jehan Renault and finished by Gandor or Graindor of Douay, in 30,000 verses, about the year 1300. (De la Rue, Essai sur les Bardes, etc., Caen, 1834, 8vo, Tom. III. p. 213. Warton’s English Poetry, London, 1824, 8vo, Vol. II. p. 149. Collection of Prose Romances, by Thoms, London, 1838, 12mo, Vol. III., Preface.) It was, I suppose, inserted in the Ultramar, when the Ultramar was prepared for publication, because it was supposed to illustrate and dignify the history of Godfrey of Bouillon, its hero; but this is not the only part of the work made up later than its date. The last chapter, for instance, giving an account of the death of Conradin of the Hohenstauffen, and the assassination in the church of Viterbo, at the moment of the elevation of the host, of Henry, the grandson of Henry III. of England, by Guy of Monfort,—both noticed by Dante,—has nothing to do with the main work, and seems taken from some later chronicle.

[62] There is a curious collection of documents, published by royal authority, (Madrid, 1829-33, 6 tom. 8vo,) called “Coleccion de Cédulas, Cartas, Patentes,” etc., relating to Biscay and the Northern provinces, where the Castilian first appeared. They contain nothing in that language so old as the letter of confirmation to the Fueros of Avilés by Alfonso the Seventh already noted; but they contain materials of some value for tracing the decay of the Latin, by documents dated from the year 804 downwards. (Tom. VI. p. 1.) There is, however, a difficulty relating both to the documents in Latin and to those in the early modern dialect; e. g. in relation to the one in Tom. V. p. 120, dated 1197. It is, that we are not certain that we possess them in precisely their original form and integrity. Indeed, in not a few instances we are sure of the opposite. For these Fueros, Privilegios, or whatever they are called, being but arbitrary grants of an absolute monarch, the persons to whom they were made were careful to procure confirmations of them from succeeding sovereigns, as often as they could; and when these confirmations were made, the original document, if in Latin, was sometimes translated, as was that of Peter the Cruel, given by Marina (Teoría de las Cortes, Madrid, 1813, 4to, Tom. III. p. 11); or, if in the modern dialect, it was sometimes copied and accommodated to the changed language and spelling of the age. Such confirmations were in some cases numerous, as in the grant first cited, which was confirmed thirteen times between 1231 and 1621. Now it does not appear from the published documents in this Coleccion what is, in each instance, the true date of the particular version used. The Avilés document, however, is not liable to this objection. It is extant on the original parchment, upon which the confirmation was made in 1155, with the original signatures of the persons who made it, as testified by the most competent witnesses. See post, Vol. III., Appendix (A), near the end.

[63] Fuero Juzgo is a barbarous phrase, which signifies the same as Forum Judicum, and is perhaps a corruption of it. (Covarrubias, Tesoro, Madrid, 1674, fol., ad verb.) The first printed edition of the Fuero Juzgo is of 1600; the best is that by the Academy, in Latin and Spanish, Madrid, 1815, folio.

[64] See the Discurso prefixed to the Academy’s edition, by Don Manuel de Lardizabal y Uribe; and Marina’s Ensayo, p. 29, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1805. Perhaps the most curious passage in the Fuero Juzgo is the law (Lib. XII. Tít. iii. Ley 15) containing the tremendous oath of abjuration prescribed to those Jews who were about to enter the Christian Church. But I prefer to give as a specimen of its language one of a more liberal spirit, viz., the eighth Law of the Primero Titolo, or Introduction, “concerning those who may become kings,” which in the Latin original dates from A. D. 643: “Quando el rey morre, nengun non deve tomar el regno, nen facerse rey, nen ningun religioso, nen otro omne, nen servo, nen otro omne estrano, se non omne de linage de los godos, et fillo dalgo, et noble et digno de costumpnes, et con el otorgamiento de los obispos, et de los godos mayores, et de todo el poblo. Asi que mientre que fórmos todos de un corazon, et de una veluntat, et de una fé, que sea entre nos paz et justicia enno regno, et que podamos ganar la companna de los angeles en el otro sieglo; et aquel que quebrantar esta nuestra lee sea escomungado por sempre.”

[65] For the Setenario, see Castro, Biblioteca, Tom. II. pp. 680-684; and Marina, Historia de la Legislacion, Madrid, 1808, fol., §§ 290, 291. As far as it goes, which is not through the first of the seven divisions proposed, it consists, 1. of an introduction by Alfonso; and 2. of a series of discussions on the Catholic religion, on Heathenism, etc., which were afterwards substantially incorporated into the first of the Partidas of Alfonso himself.

[66] Opúsculos Legales del Rey Alfonso el Sabio, publicados, etc., por la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, 1836, 2 tom. fol. Marina, Legislacion, § 301.

[67] “El Setenario” was the name given to the work begun in the reign of St. Ferdinand, “because,” says Alfonso, in the preface to it, “all it contains is arranged by sevens.” In the same way his own code is divided into seven parts; but it does not seem to have been cited by the name of “The Seven Parts” till above a century after it was composed. Marina, Legislacion, §§ 292-303. Preface to the edition of the Partidas by the Academy, Madrid, 1807, 4to, Tom. I. pp. xv.-xviii.

[68] Much trouble arose from the attempt of Alfonso X. to introduce his code. Marina, Legislacion, §§ 417-419.

[69] Marina, Legis., § 449. Fuero Juzgo, ed. Acad., Pref., p. xliii.

[70] See a curious and learned book entitled “The Laws of the Siete Partidas, which are still in Force in the State of Louisiana,” translated by L. Moreau Lislet and H. Carleton, New Orleans, 1820, 2 vols. 8vo; and a discussion on the same subject in Wheaton’s “Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of the United States,” Vol. V. 1820, Appendix; together with various cases in the other volumes of the Reports of the Supreme Court of the United States, e. g. Wheaton, Vol. III. 1818, p. 202, note (a). “We may observe,” says Dunham, (Hist. of Spain and Portugal, Vol. IV. p. 121,) “that, if all the other codes were banished, Spain would still have a respectable body of jurisprudence; for we have the experience of an eminent advocate in the Royal Tribunal of Appeals for asserting, that, during an extensive practice of twenty-nine years, scarcely a case occurred which could not be virtually or expressly decided by the code in question.”

[71] Partida II. Tít. I. Ley 10, ed. Acad., Tom. II. p. 11.

[72] Partida II. Tít. VII. Ley 10, and Tít. V. Ley 16.

[73] Partida II. Tít. VII. Ley 11.

[74] Partida II. Tít. XXI. Leyes 9, 13.

[75] The laws about the Estudios Generales,—the name then given to what we now call Universities,—filling the thirty-first Título of the second Partida, are remarkable for their wisdom, and recognize some of the arrangements that still obtain in many of the Universities of the Continent. There was, however, at that period, no such establishment in Spain, except one which had existed in a very rude state at Salamanca for some time, and to which Alfonso X. gave the first proper endowment in 1254.

[76] Marina, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo, p. 52.

[77] As no more than a fair specimen of the genuine Castilian of the Partidas, I would cite Part. II. Tít. V. Ley 18, entitled “Como el Rey debe ser granado et franco”: “Grandeza es virtud que está bien á todo home poderoso et señaladamente al rey quando usa della en tiempo que conviene et como debe; et por ende dixo Aristóteles á Alexandro que él puñase de haber en si franqueza, ca por ella ganarie mas aina el amor et los corazones de la gente: et porque él mejor podiese obrar desta bondat, espaladinol qué cosa es, et dixo que franqueza es dar al que lo ha menester et al que lo meresce, segunt el poder del dador, dando de lo suyo et non tomando de lo ageno para darlo á otro, ca el que da mas de lo que puede non es franco, mas desgastador, et demas haberá por fuerza á tomar de lo ageno quando lo suyo non compliere, et si de la una parte ganare amigos por lo que les diere, de la otra parte serle han enemigos aquellos á quien lo tomare; et otrosi dixo que el que da al que non lo ha menester non le es gradecido, et es tal come el que vierte agua en la mar, et el que da al que lo non meresce es como el que guisa su enemigo que venga contra él.”

[78] The Alexandro fills the third volume of the Poesías Anteriores of Sanchez, and was for a long time strangely attributed to Alfonso the Wise, (Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, ed. Bayer, Matriti, 1787-8, fol., Tom. II. p. 79, and Mondejar, Memorias, pp. 458, 459,) though the last lines of the poem itself declare its author to be Johan Lorenzo Segura.

[79] Walter de Chatillon’s Latin poem on Alexander the Great was so popular, that it was taught in the rhetorical schools, to the exclusion of Lucan and Virgil. (Warton’s English Poetry, London, 1824, 8vo, Vol. I. p. clxvii.) The French poem begun by Lambert li Cors, and finished by Alexandre de Paris, was less valued, but much read. Ginguené, in the Hist. Lit. de la France, Paris, 4to, Tom. XV. 1820, pp. 100-127.

[80] Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol. I Part II. pp. 5-23, a curious paper by Sir W. Ouseley.

[81] Coplas 225, 1452, and 1639, where Segura gives three Latin lines from Walter.

[82]

[83] Coplas 78, 80, 83, 89, etc.

[84] Coplas 1086-1094, etc.

[85] Coplas 299-716.

[86] Coplas 300 and 714.

[87] Coplas 386, 392, etc.

[88] Southey, in the notes to his “Madoc,” Part I. Canto xi., speaks justly of the “sweet flow of language and metre in Lorenzo.” At the end of the Alexandro are two prose letters supposed to have been written by Alexander to his mother; but I prefer to cite, as a specimen of Lorenzo’s style, the following stanzas on the music which the Macedonians heard in Babylon:—

Las dobles in modern Spanish means the tolling for the dead;—here, I suppose, it means some sort of sad chanting.

[89] Los Votos del Pavon is first mentioned by the Marquis of Santillana (Sanchez, Tom. I. p. lvii.); and Fauchet says, (Recueil de l’Origine de la Langue et Poésie Française, Paris, 1581, fol., p. 88,) “Le Roman du Pavon est une continuation des faits d’Alexandre.” There is an account of a French poem on this subject, in the “Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale,” etc., (Paris, an VII. 4to,) Tom. V. p. 118. Vows were frequently made in ancient times over favorite birds (Barante, Ducs de Bourgogne, ad an. 1454, Paris, 1837, 8vo, Tom. VII. pp. 159-164); and the vows in the Spanish poem seem to have involved a prophetic account of the achievements and troubles of Alexander’s successors.

[90] The extracts are in Castro, (Tom. II. pp. 725-729,) and the book, which contained forty-nine chapters, was called “Castigos y Documentos para bien vivir, ordenados por el Rey Don Sancho el Quarto, intitulado el Brabo”; Castigos being used to mean advice, as in the old French poem, “Le Castoiement d’un Père a son Fils”; and Documentos being taken in its primitive sense of instructions. The spirit of his father seems to speak in Sancho, when he says of kings, “que han de governar regnos e gentes con ayuda de çientificos sabios.”

[91] Argote de Molina, Sucesion de los Manueles, prefixed to the Conde Lucanor, 1575. The date of his birth has been heretofore considered unsettled, but I have found it given exactly by himself in an unpublished letter to his brother, the Archbishop of Toledo, which occurs in a manuscript in the National Library at Madrid, to be noticed hereafter.

[92] In his report of his conversation with King Sancho, when that monarch was on his death-bed, he says, “The King Alfonso and my father in his lifetime, and King Sancho and myself in his lifetime, always had our households together, and our officers were always the same.” Farther on, he says he was brought up by Don Sancho, who gave him the means of building the castle of Peñafiel, and calls God to witness that he was always true and loyal to Sancho, to Fernando, and to Alfonso XI., adding cautiously, “as far as this last king gave me opportunities to serve him.” Manuscript in the National Library at Madrid.

[93] Crónica de Alfonso XI., ed. 1551, fol., c. 19-21.

[94] Ibid., c. 46 and 48.

[95] Crónica de Alfonso XI., c. 49.

[96] Mariana, Hist., Lib. XV. c. 19.

[97] Ibid., Lib. XVI. c. 4. Crónica de Alfonso XI., c. 178. Argote de Molina, Sucesion de los Manueles.

[98] Mariana, in one of those happy hits of character which are not rare in his History, says of Don John Manuel, that he was “de condicion inquieta y mudable, tanto que a muchos parecia nació solamente para revolver el reyno.” Hist., Lib. XV. c. 12.

[99] Argote de Molina, Life of Don John, in the ed. of the Conde Lucanor, 1575. The accounts of Argote de Molina, and of the manuscript in the National Library, are not precisely the same; but the last is imperfect, and evidently omits one work. Both contain the four following, viz.:—1. Chronicle of Spain; 2. Book of Hunting; 3. Book of Poetry; and 4. Book of Counsels to his Son. Argote de Molina gives besides these,—1. Libro de los Sabios; 2. Libro del Caballero; 3. Libro del Escudero; 4. Libro del Infante; 5. Libro de Caballeros; 6. Libro de los Engaños; and 7. Libro de los Exemplos. The manuscript gives, besides the four that are clearly in common, the following:—1. Letter to his brother, containing an account of the family arms, etc.; 2. Book of Conditions, or Libro de los Estados, which may be Argote de Molina’s Libro de los Sabios; 3. Libro del Caballero y del Escudero, of which Argote de Molina seems to make two separate works; 4. Libro de la Caballería, probably Argote de Molina’s Libro de Caballeros; 5. La Cumplida; 6. Libro de los Engeños, a treatise on Military Engines, misspelt by Argote de Molina, Engaños, so as to make it a treatise on Frauds; and 7. Reglas como se deve trovar. But, as has been said, the manuscript has a hiatus, and, though it says there were twelve works, gives the titles of only eleven, and omits the Conde Lucanor, which is the Libro de los Exemplos of Argote’s list.

[100] Mem. de Alfonso el Sabio, p. 464.

[101] Note to Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Parte II. Tom. I. p. 284.

[102] Poesías Anteriores, Tom. IV. p. xi.

[103] I am aware there are poems in the Cancioneros Generales, by a Don John Manuel, which have been generally attributed to Don John Manuel, the Regent of Castile in the time of Alfonso XI., as, for instance, those in the Cancionero of Antwerp (1573, 8vo, ff. 175, 207, 227, 267). But they are not his. Their language and thoughts are quite too modern. Probably they are the work of Don John Manuel who was Camareiro Mòr of King Emanuel of Portugal, († 1524,) and whose poems, both in Portuguese and in Spanish, figure largely in the Cancioneiro Gerale of Garcia Rresende, (Lisboa, 1516, fol.,) where they are found at ff. 48-57, 148, 169, 212, 230, and I believe in some other places. He is the author of the Spanish “Coplas sobre los Siete Pecados Mortales,” dedicated to John II. of Portugal, († 1495,) which are in Bohl de Faber’s “Floresta,” (Hamburgo, 1821-25, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 10-15,) taken from Rresende, f. 55, in one of the three copies of whose Cancioneiro then existing (that at the Convent of the Necessidades in Lisbon) I read them many years ago. Rresende’s Cancioneiro is now no longer so rare, being in course of publication by the Stuttgard Verein. The Portuguese Don John Manuel was a person of much consideration in his time; and in 1497 concluded a treaty for the marriage of King Emanuel of Portugal with Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. (Barbosa, Biblioteca Lusitana, Lisboa, 1747, fol., Tom. II. p. 688.) But he appears very little to his honor in Lope de Vega’s play entitled “El Príncipe Perfeto,” under the name of Don Juan de Sosa. Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, 4to, p. 121.

[104] A similar story is told of Dante, who was a contemporary of Don John Manuel, by Sachetti, who lived about a century after both of them. It is in his Novella 114, (Milano, 1815, 18mo, Tom. II. p. 154,) where, after giving an account of an important affair, about which Dante was desired to solicit one of the city officers, the story goes on thus:—

“When Dante had dined, he left his house to go about that business, and, passing through the Porta San Piero, heard a blacksmith singing as he beat the iron on his anvil. What he sang was from Dante, and he did it as if it were a ballad, (un cantare,) jumbling the verses together, and mangling and altering them in a way that was a great offence to Dante. He said nothing, however, but went into the blacksmith’s shop, where there were many tools of his trade, and, seizing first the hammer, threw it into the street, then the pincers, then the scales, and many other things of the same sort, all which he threw into the street. The blacksmith turned round in a brutal manner, and cried out, ‘What the devil are you doing here? Are you mad?’ ‘Rather,’ said Dante, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘I,’ replied the blacksmith, ‘I am working at my trade; and you spoil my things by throwing them into the street.’ ‘But,’ said Dante, ‘if you do not want to have me spoil your things, don’t spoil mine.’ ‘What do I spoil of yours?’ said the blacksmith. ‘You sing,’ answered Dante, ‘out of my book, but not as I wrote it; I have no other trade, and you spoil it.’ The blacksmith, in his pride and vexation, did not know what to answer; so he gathered up his tools and went back to his work, and when he afterward wanted to sing, he sang about Tristan and Launcelot, and let Dante alone.”

One of the stories is probably taken from the other: but that of Don John is older, both in the date of its event and in the time when it was recorded.

[105] Of this manuscript of Don John in the Library at Madrid, I have, through the kindness of Professor Gayangos, a copy, filling 199 closely written folio pages.

[106] It seems not unlikely that Don John Manuel intended originally to stop at the end of the twelfth tale; at least, he there intimates such a purpose.

[107] That the general form of the Conde Lucanor is Oriental may be seen by looking into the fables of Bidpai, or almost any other collection of Eastern stories; the form, I mean, of separate tales, united by some fiction common to them all, like that of relating them all to amuse or instruct some third person. The first appearance in Europe of such a series of tales grouped together was in the Disciplina Clericalis; a remarkable work, composed by Petrus Alphonsus, originally a Jew, by the name of Moses Sephardi, born at Huesca in Aragon in 1062, and baptized as a Christian in 1106, taking as one of his names that of Alfonso VI. of Castile, who was his godfather. The Disciplina Clericalis, or Teaching for Clerks or Clergymen, is a collection of thirty-seven stories, and many apophthegms, supposed to have been given by an Arab on his death-bed as instructions to his son. It is written in such Latin as belonged to its age. Much of the book is plainly of Eastern origin, and some of it is extremely coarse. It was, however, greatly admired for a long time, and was more than once turned into French verse, as may be seen in Barbazan (Fabliaux, ed. Méon, Paris, 1808, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 39-183). That the Disciplina Clericalis was the prototype of the Conde Lucanor is probable, because it was popular when the Conde Lucanor was written; because the framework of both is similar, the stories of both being given as counsels; because a good many of the proverbs are the same in both; and because some of the stories in both resemble one another, as the thirty-seventh of the Conde Lucanor, which is the same with the first of the Disciplina. But in the tone of their manners and civilization, there is a difference quite equal to the two centuries that separate the two works. Through the French version, the Disciplina Clericalis soon became known in other countries, so that we find traces of its fictions in the “Gesta Romanorum,” the “Decameron,” the “Canterbury Tales,” and elsewhere. But it long remained, in other respects, a sealed book, known only to antiquaries, and was first printed in the original Latin, from seven manuscripts in the King’s Library, Paris, by the Société des Bibliophiles (Paris, 1824, 2 tom. 12mo). Fr. W. V. Schmidt—to whom those interested in the early history of romantic fiction are much indebted for the various contributions he has brought to it—published the Disciplina anew in Berlin, 1827, 4to, from a Breslau manuscript; and, what is singular for one of his peculiar learning in this department, he supposed his own edition to be the first. It is, on account of its curious notes, the best; but the text of the Paris edition is to be preferred, and a very old French prose version that accompanies it makes it as a book still more valuable.

[108] They are all called Enxiemplos; a word which then meant story or apologue, as it does in the Archpriest of Hita, st. 301, and in the “Crónica General.” Old Lord Berners, in his delightful translation of Froissart, in the same way, calls the fable of the Bird in Borrowed Plumes “an Ensample.”

[109] Cap. 2.

[110] Cap. 3.

[111] Cap. 4.

[112] Capp. 24 and 26. The followers of Don John, however, have been more indebted to him than he was to his predecessors. Thus, the story of “Don Illan el Negromantico” (Cap. 13) was found by Mr. Douce in two French and four English authors. (Blanco White, Variedades, Lóndres, 1824, Tom. I. p. 310.) The apologue which Gil Blas, when he is starving, relates to the Duke of Lerma, (Liv. VIII. c. 6,) and “which,” he says, “he had read in Pilpay or some other fable writer,” I sought in vain in Bidpai, and stumbled upon it, when not seeking it, in the Conde Lucanor, Cap. 18. It may be added, that the fable of the Swallows and the Flax (Cap. 27) is better given there than it is in La Fontaine.

[113] Shakspeare, it is well known, took the materials for his “Taming of the Shrew,” with little ceremony, from a play with the same title, printed in 1594. But the story, in its different parts, seems to have been familiar in the East from the earliest times, and was, I suppose, found there among the traditions of Persia by Sir John Malcolm. (Sketches of Persia, London, 1827, 8vo, Vol. II. p. 54.) In Europe I am not aware that it can be detected earlier than the Conde Lucanor, Cap. 45. The doctrine of unlimited submission on the part of the wife seems, indeed, to have been a favorite one with Don John Manuel; for, in another story, (Cap. 5,) he says, in the very spirit of Petruchio’s jest about the sun and moon, “If a husband says the stream runs up hill, his wife ought to believe him, and say that it is so.”