Roderick Randon, as Don Quixote is to him, collected from chrodtálca and the Galatea.

ballads. We shall quote part of the “It remains to say a few words concern- first note in which he is mentioned. ing this new edition of the first of modern 66 Bernardo del Carpio. Of this romances. The translation is that of Mot- sonage, we find little or nothing in the teux--and this has been preferred, sim- French romances of Charlemagne. He bear ply because, in spite of many defects and longs exclusively to Spanish History, or inaccuracies, it is by far the most spirited. rather to Spanish Romance ; in which the Shelton, the oldest of all our translators, is honour is claimed for him of slaying the the only one entitled to be compared with famous Orlando, or Roland, the nephew Motteux. Perhaps he is even more suc of Charlemagne, in the fatal field of Roncessful in imitating the serious air of cesvalles. His history is as follows: Cervantes ; but it is much to be doubted, “ The continence which procured for whether the English reader of our time Alonzo, who succeeded to the precarious would not be more wearied with the obso- throne of the Christians, in the Asturias, lete turns of his phraseology, than delight- about 795, the epithet of The Chaste, was ed with its occasional felicities.

not universal in his family. By an intrigue “ In the Notes appended to these vo- with Sancho, Count of Saldenha, Donna, lumes, an attempt has been made to furnish Ximena, sister of this virtuous prince, bore a complete explanation of the numerous a son. Some historians attempt to gloss historical allusions in Don Quixote, as well over this incident by alleging that a prias of the particular traits in romantic wri.

vate marriage had taken place betwixt the ting, which it was Cervantes' purpose to lovers ; but King Alphonso, who was well ridicule in the person of his hero. With- nigh sainted for living only in platonic out having access to such information as union with his own wife Bertha, took the lias now been thrown together, it may be scandal greatly to heart. He shut the pecdoubted whether any English reader has cant princess up in a cloister, and impriever been able thoroughly to seize and como soned her gallant in the Castle of Luna, mand the meaning of Cervantes through where he caused him to be deprived of out his inimitable fiction. From the Spa- sight. Fortunately, his wrath did not exnish editions of Bowle, Pellicer, and the tend to the offspring of their stolen affecAcademy, the greater part of the materials tions, the famous Bernardo del Carpio. has been extracted ; but a very considera- When the youth had grown up to manble portion, and perhaps not the least in- hood, Alphonso, according to the Spanish teresting, has been sought for in the old historians, invited the Emperor Charle. histories and chronicles, with which the magne into Spain, and having neglected to Spaniards of the 16th century were familiar. raise up heirs for the kingdom of the Goths Of the many old Spanish ballads, quoted in the ordinary manner, he proposed the or alluded to by Don Quixote and Sancho inheritance of his throne as the price of the Panza, metrical translations have uniform. alliance of Charles. But the nobility, headly been inserted in the Notes ; and as by 'ed by Bernardo del Carpio, remonstrated far the greater part of these compositions against the king's choice of a successor, and are altogether new to the English public, would on no account consent to receive a it is hoped this part of the work may afford Frenchman as heir of their crown. Alsome pleasure to those who delight in com- phonso himself repented of the invitation paring the early literatures of the different he had given to Charlemagne, and when nations of Christendom.”

that champion of Christendom came to exWe shall now proceed to give a few pel the Moors from Spain, he found the

conscientious and chaste Alphonso had specimens of the notes appended to united with the infidels against him. An these volumes. They are very copious; engagement took place in the renowned commonly as much as 40 or 50 close- pass of Roncesvalles, in which the French ly-printed pages to each of the five

were defeated, and the celebrated Roland, volumes of which the edition consists. or Orlando, was slain. The victory was

The name of BERNARD DE CARPIO, ascribed chiefly to the prowess of Bernardo appears continually in the text of Don del Carpio. Quixote; but, except the satisfactory

6 In several of the old ballads, which renota bene, given at the foot of one page, cord the real or imaginary feats of Bernarviz. “ This was an old Spanish Cap- do, his royal uncle is represented as having tain, much renowned in their ballads shewn but little gratitude, for the great and chronicles," no attempt had ever

champion's services, in the campaign heen made to introduce the English king had not relented in favour of Don

against Charlemagne. It appears that the reader into any acquaintance with him. Sancho, although he had come under some Among these notes, we find a great promise of that sort to his son, at the pemany curious particulars concerning riod when his (the son's) services were most necessary. The following is a trans- ballads in which this part of Carpio's story lation of one of the oldest of the Spanish is told:

BERNARDO AND ALPHONSO.
« With some good ten of his chosen men, Bernardo hath appear'd
Before them all in the palace hall, the lying King to beard;
With cap in hand and eye on ground, he came in reverend guise,
But ever and anon he frown'd, and flame broke from his eyes.

A curse upon thee,' cries the King,' who comest unbid to me;
But what from traitor's blood should spring, save traitors like to thee?
His sire, Lords, had a traitor's heart; perchance our Champion brave
May think it were a pious part to share Don Sancho's grave.'

• Whoever told this tale the King hath rashness to repeat,'
Cries Bernard, here my gage I Aling before THE LIAR's feet !
No treason was in Sancho's blood, no stain in mine doth lie-
Below the throne what knight will own the coward calumny ?
• The blood that I like water shed, when Roland did advance,
By secret traitors brought and led, to make us slaves of France ;
The life of King Alphonso I saved at Ronseval,
Your words, Lord King, are recompence abundant for it all.

• Your horse was down---your hope was flown---ye saw the faulchion shine,
That soon had drunk your royal blood, had I not ventured mine ;
But memory soon of service done deserteth the ingrate,
And ye've thank'd the son for life and crown by the father's bloody fate.

Ye swore upon your kingly faith, to set Don Sancho free,
But curse upon your paultring breath, the light he ne'er did see ;
He died in dungeon cold and dim, by Alphonso's base decree,
And visage blind, and mangled limb, were all they gave to me.
• The King that swerveth from his word hath stain'd his purple black,
No Spanish Lord will draw the sword behind a liar's back ;
But noble vengeance shall be mine, an open hate I'll show
The King hath injured Carpio's line, and Bernard is his foe.'..
• Seize---seize him !---loud the King doth scream--- There are a thousand here...
Let his foul blood this instant stream ---What ! Caitiffs, do ye fear?
Seize---seize the traitor !'---But not one to move a finger dareth,---
Bernardo standeth by the throne, and calm his sword he bareth.

He drew the faulchion from the sheath, and held it up on high, And all the hall was still as death---cries Bernard, . Here am I, And here's the sword that owns no lord, excepting heaven and me; Fain would I know who dares his point ---King, Conde, or Grandee,' Then to his mouth the horn he drew--- (it hung below his cloak) His ten true men the signal knew, and through the ring they broke ; With helm on head, and blade in hard, the knights the circle brake, And back the lordlings 'gan to stand, and the false King to quake. • Ha! Bernard,' quoth Alphonso, what means this warlike guise ? Ye know full well I jested---ye know your worth I prize.'--But Bernard turn’d upon his heel, and smiling pass'd awayLong rued Alphonso and Castile the jesting of that day.” Concerning THE CID,-Count Fer- the almost innumerable personages of nan Gonzalez of Castile,-Pedro the Spanish history or romance, whose Cruel—the Infanta Oracca—the Moor deeds are alluded to, and the ballads Abindarraez--the Admiral Guarinos about them quoted by Don Quixote

-Calainos the Moor --" The Great we find notes in the same sort of style Captain”-and, in short, concerning and fulness. The imitations or parodies of Amadis, Belianiss, &c. are ale withdrew to do penance in solitude. Haways pointed out in a manner equally ving no farther occasion for the services

of satisfactory-thus :

his Esquire Gandalin, he appointed him

-as in due " Amadis retiring from his disdainful governor of the

Firm Island

time Sancho himself becomes governor of Oriana, to do penance on the poor rock.

Barataria. Amadis chose to consult AnThis is one of the most beautifully told of dalod, a certain hermit,

who inhabited a all the adventures of Amadis. It was on the suggestion of the old hermit that he midst of the sea, and, by his direction, he

dismal place, called the Poor Rock, in the assumed the name of Beltenebros: Y established there the seat of his miseries, Amadis le pedio que no le llamasse de su nombre mas per otro qual el le quisiesse above mentioned, the name of Beltenebros.

assuming at the same time, for the reasons pôner. El hombre bueno dixo : Yo vos

Here Amadis devoted hiniself to a life of quiero poner un nombre que sera conforme the most exemplary piety, hearing the maa vuestra persona y angustià en que soys tins and vespers of the ancient Andalod, puesto ; y vuestra vida esta en grande am

confessing himself every noon, and spend. argura, y en tenieblas, quiero que ayas ing all the rest of the four-and-twenty nombre Beltenebros. A Amadis pluyo

de hours in tears and lamentations. Now and aquel nombre.'--Amad. de Gaula, c. 48.

then, however, he composed poems on the “ The penitence of Don Quixote is one

rigour of Oriana ; and accordingly we find, of the principal points of his imitation of that Don Quixote also developes a vein Amadis and the imitation is carried as close as is consistent with the general pur- when he sings to the guitar a canzonet of

both of music and poetry in the sequel, pose of Cervantes. Amadis had just finish- his own composition, for the purpose of ed the conquest of the Firm Island an being overheard by Altesidora, the duchenchanted region, seven leagues long by ess's maid. The deliverance of the Don five broad, which was called Insola, or In- from his afflictions

on the Sierra Morena sula, because it was almost surrounded by is also copied from that of Amadis, in the sea, and Firma Insula, by reason of whose history the Damsell of Denmark an isthmus connecting it with the main- plays a part, not unlike that which is deland. From this he departed for the court

vised for the fair Dorothea in this book of of Sobradisa, the sovereignty of which Don Quixote. — Pero Beltenebros se descountry was then in the hands of the beau. pidio del hermitano hayiendole saber que tiful Queen Briolanja. The peerless Ori

aquella donzella per la piedad de Dios alli ana being informed of this new expedition, conceived certain feelings of jealousy, and per su salud era aportada.'-Amad. c. 52.” sent him, by her page Burin, a letter full

Every one remembers how often of haughty complaints, forbidding him Don Quixote compares Rosinante to ever to appear again in her presence. The letter was superscribed, “ I am the dam- BAVIECA, the famous steed of the sel wounded with the point of the sword Campeador. On one of these occasions through the heart, and thou art he that he quotes a line or two from one of hast wounded me. Amadis, on receiving the ancient ballads of the ROMANCERO this communication, sunk forthwith into DEL Cid, which we find thus renderthe profoundest melancholy, left all his ed in one of the notes to Vol. I. of this adventures 6 cut off in the middle,' and edition.

BAVIECA.

" The king looked on him kindly, as on a vassal true ;
Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due,
• O king, the thing is shameful, that any män beside
The liege lord of Castile himself should Bavieca ride :
For neither Spain ndr Araby could another charger bring
So good as he, and, certes, the best befits my king.
But that you may behold him, and know him to the core,
I'll make him go as he was wont when his nostrils smelt the Moor."

With that, the Cid, clad as he was in mantle furr'd and wide,
On Bavieca vaulting, put the towel in his side;
And up and down, and round about, so fierce was his career,
Stream'd like a pennon on the wind Ruy Diaz' minivere.
And all that saw them praised them they lauded man and horse,
As matched well, and rivalless for gallantry and force;
Ne'er had they look'd on horseman might to this knight come néar,
Nor on other charger worthy of such a cavaliers

Thus, to and fro a-rushing, the fierce and furious steed,
He snapt in twain his hither rein :- God pity now the Cid,'

God pity Diaz,' cried the Lords,--but when they look'd again,
They saw Ruy Diaz ruling him with the fragment of his rein ;
They saw him proudly ruling, with gesture firm and calm,
Like a true Lord commanding, and obeyed as by a lamb.
And so he led him foaming and panting to the king,
But No,' said Don Alphonso, it were a shameful thing
That peerless Bavieca should ever be bestrid

By any mortal but Bivar-Mount, mount again, my Cid,'" &c. Even after all that Mr Southey and Mr Frere have done, every thing about the Cid is delightful, so we shall give another of the many ballads concerning him as translated in this edition. The story of it is evidently a very apocryphal one ; but that is no great matter. Don Quixote quotes it as gravely as it were gospel.

THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE CID.
" It was when from Spain across the main the Cid had come to Rome,

He chanced to see chairs four and three beneath Saint Peter's dome.
"Now tell, I pray, what chairs be they ?'— Seven kings do sit thereon,

As well doth suit, all at the foot of the holy father's throne.
• The Pope he sitteth above them all, that they may kiss his toe,
Below the keys the Flower-de-lys doth make a gallant show;
For his great puissance, the King of France next to the Pope may sit,
The rest more low, all in a row, as doth their station fit.'-

Ha!' quoth the Cid, now God forbią ! it is a shame, I wiss,
To see the Castle * planted beneath the Flower-de-lys.t
No harm, I hope, good father Pope, although I move thy chair.'
In pieces small he kick'd it all, ('twas of the ivory fair.)
The Pope's own seat he from his feet did kick it far away,
And the Spanish chair he planted upon its place that day;
Above them all he planted it, and laugh'd right bitterly,
Looks sour and bad I trow he had, as grim as grim might be.
Now when the Pope was aware of this, he was an angry man,
His lips that night, with solemn rite, pronounced the awful ban;
The curse of God, who died on rood, was on that sinner's head-
To hell and woe man's soul must go, if once that curse be said.
I wot, when the Cid was aware of this, a woeful man was he,
At dawn of day he came to pray at the blessed father's knee :
• Absolve me, blessed father, have pity upon me,
Absolve my soul, and penance I for my sin will dree.'-
• Who is this sinner,' quoth the Pope, that at my foot doth kneel?'

I am Rodrigo Diaz, a poor Baron of Castille.'
Much marveli'd all were in the hall, when that name they heard him say,
Rise

up, the Pope he said, 'I do thy guilt away.
I do thy guilt away,' he said, and my curse I blot it out;
God save Rodrigo Diaz, my Christian champion stout.
I trow, if I had known thee, my grief it had been sore,

To curse Ruy Diaz de Bivar, God's scourge upon the Moor.""
The following is of a different class.

a

rise up,'

He was 80 fortunate as to have a wife as was again a fast prisoner in Leon. His heroic as himself, and both in the chroni.' countess, feigning a pilgrimage to St James cles and in the ballads abundant justice is of Compostello, obtained leave, in the first done to her merits. She twice rescued place, to pass through the hostile territory, Fernan Gonsależ from confinement, at the and afterwards, in the course of her prorisk of her own life. He had asked her gress, permission to pass one night in the hand in marriage of her father, Garcias, castle where her husband was confined. King of Navarre, and had proceeded so She exchanged clothes with him; and he far on his way to that prince's court, when was so fortunate as to pass in his disguise he was seized and cast into a dungeon, in through the guards who attended on him

consequence of the machinations of his his courageous wife remaining in his á enemy, the Amazonian Queen of Leon, place...exactly in the same manner in

sister to the King of Navarre..Sancha, which the Countess of Nithsdale effected
the young princess, whose alliance he had the escape of her lord from the tower of
solicited, being informed of the cause of London, on the 23d of February, 1715.
his journey, and of the sufferings to which There is, as might be supposed, a whole
it had exposed him, determined, at all ha* body of old ballads, concerning the adven-
zards, to effect his liberation; and having tures of Fernan Gonsalez. I shall, as a
done so by bribing his jailor, she accom. specimen, translate one of the shortest of
panied his flight to Castille. Many years these that in which the first of his ro-
after, he fell into an ambush prepared for mantic escapes is describedo
him by the same implacable enemy, and

Court FERNAN GONSÁLEZI
« They have carried afar into Navarre the great Count of Castille,
And they have bound him sorely, they have bound him hand and heel ;
The tidings up the mountains go, and down among the valleys,
"To the rescue! to the rescue, ho! they have ta'en Fernan Gonsalez."
d noble knight of Normandy was riding through Navarre,
For Christ his hope he came to cope with the Moorish scymitar ;
To the Alcayde of the tower, in secret thus said he,
• These bezaunts fair with thee l’H share, so I this lord may see."
The Alcayde was full joyful, he took the gold full soon,
And he brought him to the dungeon, ere the rising of the moon;
He let him out at morning, at the grey light of the prime,
But many words between these lords had pass'd within that times
The Norman knight rides swiftly, for he hath made him bowne
To a king that is full joyous, and to a feastful towns
For there is joy and feasting, because that lord is ta'en,
King Garci in his dungeon holds the doughtiest lord in Spain.
The Norman feasts among the guests, but at the evening tide
He speaks to Garci's daughter, within her bower aside;
• Now God forgive us, lady, and God his mother dear,
For on a day of sorrow we have been blithe of cheer.
· The Moors may well be joyful, but great should be our grief,
For Spain has lost her guardian when Castille bas lost her chief ;
The Moorish host is pouring like a river o'er the land ;
Curse on the Christian fetters that bind Gonsalez' hand !
• Gonsalez loves thee, lady, he loved thee long ago,
But little is the kindness that for his love you show }
The curse that lies on Cava's head, it may be shared by thee;
Arise, let love with love be paid, and set Gonsalez free.'.
The lady answer'd little, but at the mirk of night,
When all her maids are sleeping, she hath risen and ta'en her fight ;
She hath tempted the Alcayde with her jewels and her gold,
And unto her his prisoner that jailor false hath sold.
She took Gonsalez by the hand at the dawning of the day,
She said, Upon the heath you stand, before you lies your way;
But if I to my father go, alas ! what must I do?
My father will be angry--I fain would go with you.'
He hath kissed the Infanta, he hath kiss'd her, brow and cheek,
And lovingly together the forest path they seek ;
Till in the greenwood hunting they met a lordly priest,

With his bugle at his girdle, and his hawk upon his wrist.
VOL. XI.

4 P