Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol. 3 (of 3)

MOSEN JORDI.--CANCIONERO.--ALPHONSO X. AND HIS COURT.--ALPHONSO XI. AND HIS COURT.--JUAN DE MENA. In every other country, to treat of its literary men is at the same time to give a history of its literature. In Spain it is otherwise. We have no trace of who the poets were who produced that vast collection of ballads and romances, which, full of chivalry and adventure, love and war, fascinate the imagination, and bestow immortality on heroes--some real, some fictitious--who otherwise had never been known. To understand the merits of the later writers, to know on what their style and spirit was formed, it is necessary to give some account of the early, and also of the anonymous, poetry of Spain. Nor will it be foreign to the subject, nor uninteresting, slightly to trace the progress of literature in the Peninsula from its earliest date. From a thousand causes Spain is the land of romance. There never was any one who has travelled in that country, whatever might be his political opinions, or his view of human nature and society, but admired and loved the Spaniards. There is an originality, an independence, an enthusiasm, in the Spanish character that distinguishes them from every other people. Despotism and the Inquisition, ignorance and superstition, have been unable to level the noble altitude of their souls; and even while the manifestations of genius have been crushed, genius has survived. From early times Spain was the birthplace of men of eminence in literature. We know little of the aborigines, and nothing of their language, except that from the earliest times they appear to have been gifted with that love of song that survives to this day. Silius Italicus hears testimony to this taste, when with all the arrogance of assumed superiority he speaks of the verses sung by the Gallicians in their native dialect, "barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis," and Strabo alludes to immemorial ballads sung by the inhabitants of Betica. When the Spaniards shared the refinements and learning of the capital, several names became distinguished. Lucan was a native of Cordova. We can fancy that we trace the genuine Spanish spirit in this poet--earnestness, enthusiasm, gaudiness, and an inveterate tendency to diffuseness. The two Senecas were natives, also, of the same town.[1] The Spaniards with fond pride collect other names which the tide of time sweeping by, has cast on the shore, too obscure for fame, but sufficiently known to prove that the Spanish nation was always prolific in men who sought to distinguish themselves in literature. These recollections, however, belong to another race. The Visigoths swept over the land, annihilated the Roman power, and, as far as any traces that have come down to us avouch, absorbed the aboriginal Iberian in their invasion. Yet, though they conquered and reigned over the land, it is to be doubted how far they actually amalgamated with the natives. And it is conjectured that one of the causes why the Moors, after conquering Don Roderick in battle, so soon possessed themselves of city and district, and founded what at first was a sway as peaceful as universal, was occasioned by the distinction still subsisting between Iberian and Goth, which led the former the more readily to submit to new masters. The Goths were an illiterate people. There is an anecdote recorded in proof of their barbarism on this point. Queen Amalasunta, who appears to have possessed a more refined and exalted mind than the men of her time, was eager to confer on her son Alaric the graces and accomplishments of literature. The warriors of the land opposed her purpose,--"No," they cried, "the idleness of study is unworthy of the Goth: high thoughts of glory are not fed by books, but by deeds of valour. He is to be a king whom all should dread. He shall not be compelled to fear his instructors."[2] Another proof of the ignorance and small influence of the Goths is their having adopted the language of the conquered country. All that has come down to us from them, with the exception of a few inscriptions, is in the Latin language, and several poems were written in that tongue. Still the Goths loved warlike songs and music. To their days some would trace the redondilla, while it has also been conjectured that the peculiar rhythm of these national ballads had its origin in the camp songs of the Roman soldiers.[3] At length the Gothic power fell--the Moors entered, overran, and conquered Spain. At first the resistance they met was not at all proportionate to what we should consider to have been the resources of the Spanish nation. But a noble spirit of resistance was awakened. Difference of religion kept alive what difference of language and habits originated. The enthusiastic patriotism which had gathered as waters in a mountain tarn, overflowed from the heights to which it had retreated, and finally poured over the whole land. From the struggle that ensued a thousand deeds of heroism had birth, and those circumstances were developed, which became the subjects to be consecrated by those beautiful ballads and songs, "in which," to use the appropriate language of a modern critic, "truth wears the graceful garb of romance, and romance appears the honest handmaid of truth." Spain owed much to the Moor, however, from other causes. The Arabs were a learned and refined race. They built cities, palaces, and mosques; they founded universities, they encouraged learning. The most eminent scholars came from the East to grace their schools, and introduced a spirit of inquiry and a love of knowledge which survived their power. Abdorrhaman III. founded the university at Cordova. He established schools and collected a library, it is said, to the extent of six hundred thousand volumes. The blessings of civilisation was fostered by the Omajad dynasty. Mahometanism never flourished with such true glory as under the Spanish caliphs. One of the most remarkable circumstances of this era is, the prosperity and learning of the Jews settled in Spain. Persecuted by the Goths[4], this hapless nation doubtless welcomed the Moors gladly; and finding toleration under their rule, and their schools open to them, they flocked to the universities of Cordova and Toledo in such numbers, that one Jewish writer tells us that there were twelve thousand Israelitish students at Toledo; and they gave evidence of the perseverance, sagacity, and talent which belong to that people, and which, fostered by the blessed spirit of toleration, bore worthy fruit. A succession of Hebrew scholars may be traced from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. De Castro gives an account of seven hundred different works. Every Jew could read. The higher classes flourished in glory and prosperity, so that many of the noblest Spanish families include Jewish sprouts in the tree of their genealogy. Even to this day the Jews' sons of those driven from Spain to this country remember their Spanish renown, and have preserved a recollection of its language. Of the Arabic authors of Spain the greater portion were natives of Andalusia. The number of their poets was very considerable. Of the _Romances Moriscos_ doubtless many originated in Arabic poetry. The old Roman rhythm, the Gothic love of music, the Arab chivalry, and the noble spirit generated by a generous love of freedom, were the sources of these romances. Before we recur to them however, we will mention the connection between the troubadour and Provençal poetry with the Valentian. It is a singular anomaly, we may almost call it, in literature, that a dialect become a written one, adorned by poets and spoken through extensive provinces, should have become the dead tongue of modern times. The French, Italian, and Castillian absorbed the genius that once took form in a tongue which, whether it be called Provençal, Limousin, or Valentian, is still the same, and in it were written the earliest modern verses. Petrarch and Dante raised their native tongue in opposition; but the poetry they studied as anterior to their own was the Provençal. The peculiar tone of troubadour poetry; the refined and somewhat abstract mode in which love is treated, was adopted by Petrarch, and by Dante also, in his sonnets and canzoni. The rhythm and the subjects were more artful and scientific than the songs of Castille, and thus at one time it was held in higher regard by the Spanish sovereigns who wished to introduce learning and poetry among their subjects. John I. of Arragon invited many Provençal and Narbonne poets to settle at Barcelona and Tortosa. He established an academy in the former city for the cultivation of poetry. The Spanish troubadours became celebrated; Mosen Jordi de Sant Jordi is one of the first and best-known. Petrarch read and, perhaps, imitated him.[5] Though protected and encouraged by the sovereigns of Arragon, and read and lauded, and even imitated, by the nobles of their courts, the Valentian never became the national poetry of Spain, and we turn from poets who will find better place among the early French writers to the genuine productions of Castille. We have seen that it was during the Moorish wars, under the successors of Don Pelayo, that these romances had birth. The kings of the various provinces of Spain, ever at war with the Moors, were, of course, in a state of great dependence on their warrior nobles. They needed their subjects to form expeditions against the enemy or to resist their encroachments. Often, also, the Spanish princes were at enmity with each other; and civil discord, or the war of one Christian kingdom against the other, caused temporary alliance with the Mahometans. This brought the chivalry of the two nations into contact. The Spaniards learned the arts of civilisation from their conquerors--they learned also the language of love. In the midst of these romantic wars, there sprung up a species of poetry which in its simplicity and truth resembles the old English ballads, but which, from the