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being by a fortunate accident mounted once more on his favourite war-horse, and grasping once more his ancient lance, makes his way from Spain. I will give you first a translation as literal as I can make it of the Spanish lines, and next Mr. Lockhart's version. Here is a literal translation of the concluding Spanish lines:

"The Moors who looked upon this

All with one accord sought to slay him;
But Guarinos, as became a brave man,
Began forthwith to fight

With the Moors, who were so many
That they might have darkened the sun.
In such guise then did he fight
That he was able to set himself free,
And to reach once again his own land,
His native soil of France.

Great honour there they showed him,
When they thus saw him return.”

How incomparably finer, how far more abounding in life and fire, is the corresponding stanza of Mr. Lockhart:

66

With that Guarinos, lance in rest, against the scoffer

rode,

Pierced at one thrust his envious breast, and down his turban trode.

Now ride, now ride, Guarinos, nor lance nor rowel spare, Slay, slay, and gallop for thy life, the land of France lies there!"

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But let me make myself clearly understood. While I think that the Spanish lines which close The Admiral Guarinos' are extremely poor and tame, I am far indeed

from applying that character in general to the Spanish ballads, or other lyric pieces. On the contrary, many amongst them possess a natural charm, an inborn simplicity and grace, and sometimes also an exquisite tenderness, which cannot be too highly praised, and which seem almost to defy the power of translation. As combining all these qualities I might mention, for instance, the little poem beginning En los tiempos que me vi, which is the original of Lockhart's Valladolid,' and one other, La niña Morena, which is the original of 'Zara's Ear-rings.' In some of these cases, however, the Spanish poem is marred by later interpolations, as Depping considers them, or as I should rather say, by an original defect in the couleur locale, as the French term it. Thus, in 'Zara's Ear-rings,' the Moorish maiden speaks of herself attending Mass, a rite, of course, peculiar to the Christians; and also of admiring the rich brocade of a Marquis, a title never known among her countrymen.

Excellent as are undoubtedly these translations by Lockhart, taken as a whole, there are yet some few cases in which they have been even surpassed. Thus there is another fine ballad derived from the age of Charlemagne, Lady Alda's Dream,' Lady Alda being the fabulous bride of the scarcely less fabulous Roland. Of this Mr. Ticknor observes, that in its English dress Lockhart must yield the palm to another most accomplished man who is still preserved to us; I mean the former Governor of Canada, Sir Edmund Head. In this ballad Lady Alda being left at Paris with her train, has a dream of a falcon overpowered by an eagle. One

of her damsels seeks to interpret this dream in an ausBut I will leave Sir Edmund Head to

picious sense.

continue the tale.

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Thou art the falcon, and thy knight is the eagle in his pride,

As he comes in triumph from the wars, and pounces on his bride.'

The maidens laughed, but Alda sighed and gravely shook her head:

'Full rich,' quoth she, 'shall thy guerdon be, if thou the truth hast said.'

'Tis morn; her letters stained with blood the truth too plainly tell,

How in the chase of Ronceval Sir Roland fought and fell."

1

But I have not yet done with 'The Admiral Guarinos.' In the passage which I read to you from Don Quixote, you will observe how Cervantes makes his hero declare that he can expect no good fortune that day, since it had begun by the singing of a ballad upon Roncesvalles. It appears, then, that the singing of a ballad upon Roncesvalles was deemed of ill augury among Spaniards. On the other hand, since, as I have lately shown you, the soldiers of William the Conqueror marched forward to the battle of Hastings singing another of these ballads upon Roncesvalles, we may conclude that it was deemed of good augury among Frenchmen. Is not this a strange fact?-I think not hitherto noticed. Here are the songs on the rout of Roncesvalles held to be of ill

'The Lady Alda reappears in | Geste, where she is mentioned as one at least of the Chansons de the sister of Sir Oliver :

"Et si vient belle Aude, la soreur Olivier."

Gui de Bourgogne, p. 39, ed. 1859.

augury among the supposed descendants of the victors, and of good augury among the supposed descendants of the vanquished! Surely this is the very reverse of what on any preconceived idea we might expect to find.

In English poetry we find the rout of Roncesvalles not unfrequently mentioned. There is in the first book of Paradise Lost a reminiscence-no doubt high-toned and sonorous, but a little misty-in which Milton ranks not only the famous Roland, but the great Emperor himself among the slain :

"When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia."

Coming to later times, we find a pathetic ballad by Matthew George Lewis, entitled, Durandarte and Belerma, for which he is only in some part indebted to the Spanish. It begins as follows:—

"Sad and fearful is the story

Of the Roncesvalles fight;
On that fatal field of glory

Perished many a gallant knight."

Nor can you have forgotten the beautiful opening of that poem, one of the very finest of its class, which commemorates the death of the Black Prince at Bordeaux, and which Sir Walter Scott has interwoven with the novel of Rob Roy.

"O for the voice of that wild horn
On Fontarabian echoes borne,

The dying hero's call;

That told imperial Charlemagne
How Paynim sons of swarthy Spain

Had wrought his champion's fall."

وو

Pass we to Italian. Dante has a passage very similar to Milton's, in which he refers to "the dolorous rout,' la dolorosa rotta, and to the sounding of the terrible horn. It is remarkable that in the same place Dante calls the enterprise of Charlemagne "the saintly deed," la santa gesta. A phrase derived, as I conceive, from a later period-the Crusades-when the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre suggested the idea of every conflict with the Moslem as a holy war.

But in Italy the legends of Charlemagne did not merely, as in England, give rise to some passing allusion or to some imitative song. On the contrary, they produced two great epic poems, the epic of Boyardo and the epic of Ariosto, both having for their hero the brave Roland, or as the Italians call him, Orlando.

The poem of Boyardo, founded on an imaginary siege of Paris by the Saracens, is now very little read, at least beyond his own country. But the few among us who are qualified to judge, have judged him very favourably. Thus speaks Mr. Hallam :

"The Orlando Inamorato of Boyardo has hitherto not, received that share of renown which seems to be its du e overpowered by the splendour of Ariosto's poem." 2

Ariosto's poem has indeed cast into the shade nearly all other poems of romantic fiction on his side the Alps. So much was it read and relished by the Italians, as to reflect a share of its own popularity on the older Carlovingian legends, out of which it sprung.

1 Inferno, canto xxxi.

2 Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 313.

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