Chapter XXIII

THE CANCIONEROS OF BAENA, ESTUÑIGA, AND MARTINEZ DE BURGOS.--THE CANCIONERO GENERAL OF CASTILLO.--ITS EDITIONS.--ITS DIVISIONS, CONTENTS, AND CHARACTER.

The reigns of John the Second and of his children, Henry the Fourth and Isabella the Catholic, over which we have now passed, extend from 1407 to 1504, and therefore fill almost a complete century, though they comprise only two generations of sovereigns. Of the principal writers who flourished while they sat on the throne of Castile we have already spoken, whether they were chroniclers or dramatists, whether they were poets or prose-writers, whether they belonged to the Provençal school or to the Castilian. But, after all, a more distinct idea of the poetical culture of Spain during this century, than can be readily obtained in any other way, is to be gathered from the old Cancioneros; those ample magazines, filled almost entirely with the poetry of the age that preceded their formation.

Nothing, indeed, that belonged to the literature of the fifteenth century in Spain marks its character more plainly than these large and ill-digested collections. The oldest of them, to which we have more than once referred, was the work of Juan Alfonso de Baena, a converted Jew, and one of the secretaries of John the Second. It dates, from internal evidence, between the years 1449 and 1454, and was made, as the compiler tells us in his preface, chiefly to please the king, but also, as he adds, in the persuasion that it would not be disregarded by the queen, the heir-apparent, and the court and nobility in general. For this purpose, he says, he had brought together the works of all the Spanish poets who, in his own or any preceding age, had done honor to what he calls “the very gracious art of the _Gaya Ciencia_.”

On examining the Cancionero of Baena, however, we find that quite one third of the three hundred and eighty-four manuscript pages it fills are given to Villasandino,--who died about 1424, and whom Baena pronounces “the prince of all Spanish poets,”--and that nearly the whole of the remaining two thirds is divided among Diego de Valencia, Francisco Imperial, Baena himself, Fernan Perez de Guzman, and Ferrant Manuel de Lando; while the names of about fifty other persons, some of them reaching back to the reign of Henry the Third, are affixed to a multitude of short poems, of which, probably, they were not in all cases the authors. A little of it, like what is attributed to Macias, is in the Galician dialect; but by far the greater part was written by Castilians, who valued themselves upon their fashionable tone more than upon any thing else, and who, in obedience to the taste of their time, generally took the light and easy forms of Provençal verse, and as much of the Italian spirit as they comprehended and knew how to appropriate. Of poetry, except in some of the shorter pieces of Ferrant Lando, Alvarez Gato, and Perez de Guzman, the Cancionero of Baena contains hardly a trace.[706]

[706] Accounts of the Cancionero of Baena are found in Castro,
“Biblioteca Española” (Madrid, 1785, folio, Tom. I. pp. 265-346);
in Puybusque, “Histoire Comparée des Littératures Espagnole et
Française” (Paris, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 393-397); in Ochoa,
“Manuscritos” (Paris, 1844, 4to, pp. 281-286); and in Amador de
los Rios, “Estudios sobre los Judios” (Madrid, 1848, 8vo, pp.
408-419). The copy used by Castro was probably from the library
of Queen Isabella, (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 458,
note,) and is now in the National Library, Paris. Its collector,
Baena, is sneered at in the Cancionero of Fernan Martinez de
Burgos, (Memorias de Alfonso VIII. por Mondexar, Madrid, 1783,
4to, App. cxxxix.,) as a Jew who wrote vulgar verses.

The poems in this Cancionero that are probably not by the persons
whose names they bear are short and trifling,--such as might be
furnished to men of distinction by humble versifiers, who sought
their protection or formed a part of their courts. Thus, a poem
already noticed, that bears the name of Count Pero Niño, was, as
we are expressly told in a note to it, written by Villasandino,
in order that the Count might present himself before the lady
Blanche more gracefully than such a rough old soldier would
be likely to do, unless he were helped to a little poetical
gallantry.

Many similar collections were made about the same time, enough of which remain to show that they were among the fashionable wants of the age, and that there was little variety in their character. Among them was the Cancionero in the Limousin dialect already mentioned;[707] that called Lope de Estuñiga’s, which comprises works of about forty authors;[708] that collected in 1464 by Fernan Martinez de Burgos; and no less than seven others, preserved in the National Library at Paris, all containing poetry of the middle and latter part of the fifteenth century, often the same authors, and sometimes the same poems, that are found in Baena and in Estuñiga.[709] They all belong to a state of society in which the great nobility, imitating the king, maintained poetical courts about them, such as that of the Marquis of Villena at Barcelona, or the more brilliant one, perhaps, of the Duke Fadrique de Castro, who had constantly in his household Puerto Carrero, Gayoso, Manuel de Lando, and others then accounted great poets. That the prevailing tone of all this was Provençal we cannot doubt; but that it was somewhat influenced by a knowledge of the Italian we know from many of the poems that have been published, and from the intimations of the Marquis of Santillana in his letter to the Constable of Portugal.[710]

[707] See _ante_, Chapter XVII. note 543.

[708] The Cancionero of Lope de Estuñiga is, or was lately, in
the National Library at Madrid, among the folio MSS., marked M.
48, well written and filling 163 leaves.

[709] The fashion of making such collections of poetry, generally
called “Cancioneros,” was very common in Spain in the fifteenth
century, just before and just after the introduction of the art
of printing.

One of them, compiled in 1464, with additions of a later date,
by Fernan Martinez de Burgos, begins with poems by his father,
and goes on with others by Villasandino, who is greatly praised
both as a soldier and a writer; by Fernan Sanchez de Talavera,
some of which are dated 1408; by Pero Velez de Guevara, 1422; by
Gomez Manrique; by Santillana; by Fernan Perez de Guzman; and, in
short, by the authors then best known at court. Mem. de Alfonso
VIII., Madrid, 1783, 4to, App. cxxxiv.-cxl.

Several other Cancioneros of the same period are in the National
Library, Paris, and contain almost exclusively the known
fashionable authors of that century; such as Santillana, Juan de
Mena, Lopez de Çuñiga [Estuñiga?], Juan Rodriguez del Padron,
Juan de Villalpando, Suero de Ribera, Fernan Perez de Guzman,
Gomez Manrique, Diego del Castillo, Alvaro Garcia de Santa María,
Alonso Alvarez de Toledo, etc. There are no less than seven
such Cancioneros in all, notices of which are found in Ochoa,
“Catálogo de MSS. Españoles en la Biblioteca Real de Paris,”
Paris, 1844, 4to, pp. 378-525.

[710] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. lxi., with the
notes on the passage relating to the Duke Fadrique.

Thus far, more had been done in collecting the poetry of the time than might have been anticipated from the troubled state of public affairs; but it had been done only in one direction, and even in that with little judgment. The king and the more powerful of the nobility might indulge in the luxury of such Cancioneros and such poetical courts, but a general poetical culture could not be expected to follow influences so partial and inadequate. A new order of things, however, soon arose. In 1474, the art of printing was fairly established in Spain; and it is a striking fact, that the first book ascertained to have come from the Spanish press is a collection of poems recited that year by forty different poets contending for a public prize.[711] No doubt, such a volume was not compiled on the principle of the elder manuscript Cancioneros. Still, in some respects, it resembles them, and in others seems to have been the result of their example. But however this may be, a collection of poetry was printed at Saragossa, in 1492, containing the works of nine authors, among whom were Juan de Mena, the younger Manrique, and Fernan Perez de Guzman; the whole evidently made on the same principle and for the same purpose as the Cancioneros of Baena and Estuñiga, and dedicated to Queen Isabella, as the great patroness of whatever tended to the advancement of letters.[712]

[711] Fuster, Bib. Valenciana, Tom. I. p. 52. All the Cancioneros
mentioned before 1474 are still in MS.

[712] Mendez, Typog., pp. 134-137 and 383.

It was a remarkable book to appear within eighteen years after the introduction of printing into Spain, when little but the most worthless Latin treatises had come from the national press; but it was far from containing all the Spanish poetry that was soon demanded. In 1511, therefore, Fernando del Castillo printed at Valencia what he called a “Cancionero General,” or General Collection of Poetry; the first book to which this well-known title was ever given. It professes to contain “many and divers works of all or of the most notable Troubadours of Spain, the ancient as well as the modern, in devotion, in morality, in love, in jests, ballads, _villancicos_, songs, devices, mottoes, glosses, questions, and answers.” It, in fact, contains poems attributed to about a hundred different persons, from the time of the Marquis of Santillana down to the period in which it was made; most of the separate pieces being placed under the names of those who were their authors, or were assumed to be so, while the rest are collected under the respective titles or divisions just enumerated, which then constituted the favorite subjects and forms of verse at court. Of proper order or arrangement, of critical judgment, or tasteful selection, there seems to have been little thought.

The work, however, was successful. In 1514, a new edition of it appeared; and before 1540, six others had followed, at Toledo and Seville, making, when taken together, eight in less than thirty years; a number which, if the peculiar nature and large size of the work are considered, can hardly find its parallel, at the same period, in any other European literature. Later,--in 1557 and 1573,--yet two other editions, somewhat enlarged, appeared at Antwerp, whither the inherited rights and military power of Charles the Fifth had carried a familiar knowledge of the Spanish language and a love for its cultivation. In each of the ten editions of this remarkable book, it should be borne in mind, that we may look for the body of poetry most in favor at court and in the more refined society of Spain during the whole of the fifteenth century and the early part of the sixteenth; the last and amplest of them comprising the names of one hundred and thirty-six authors, some of whom go back to the beginning of the reign of John the Second, while others come down to the time of the Emperor Charles the Fifth.[713]

[713] For the bibliography of these excessively rare and curious
books, see Ebert, Bibliographisches Lexicon; and Brunet, Manuel,
in verb. _Cancionero_, and _Castillo_. I have, I believe, seen
copies of eight of the editions. Those which I possess are of
1535 and 1573.

Taking this Cancionero, then, as a true poetical representative of the period it embraces, the first thing we observe, on opening it, is a mass of devotional verse, evidently intended as a vestibule to conciliate favor for the more secular and free portions that follow. But it is itself very poor and gross; so poor and so gross, that we can hardly understand how, at any period, it can have been deemed religious. Indeed, within a century from the time when the Cancionero was published, this part of it was already become so offensive to the Church it had originally served to propitiate, that the whole of it was cut out of such printed copies as came within the reach of the ecclesiastical powers.[714]

[714] A copy of the edition of 1535, ruthlessly cut to pieces,
bears this memorandum:--

“Este libro esta expurgado por el Expurgatorio del Santo Oficio,
con licencia.

F. Baptista Martinez.”

The whole of the religious poetry at the beginning is torn out of
it.

There can be no doubt, however, about the devotional purposes for which it was first destined; some of the separate compositions being by the Marquis of Santillana, Fernan Perez de Guzman, and other well-known authors of the fifteenth century, who thus intended to give an odor of sanctity to their works and lives. A few poems in this division of the Cancionero, as well as a few scattered in other parts of it, are in the Limousin dialect; a circumstance which is probably to be attributed to the fact, that the whole was first collected and published in Valencia. But nothing in this portion can be accounted truly poetical, and very little of it religious. The best of its shorter poems is, perhaps, the following address of Mossen Juan Tallante to a figure of the Saviour expiring on the cross:--

O God! the infinitely great,
That didst this ample world outspread,--
The true! the high!
And, in thy grace compassionate,
Upon the tree didst bow thy head,
For us to die!

O! since it pleased thy love to bear
Such bitter suffering for our sake,
O Agnus Dei!
Save us with him whom thou didst spare,
Because that single word he spake,--
Memento mei![715]

[715]
Imenso Dios, perdurable,
Que el mundo todo criaste,
Verdadero,
Y con amor entrañable
Por nosotros espiraste
En el madero:

Pues te plugo tal passion
Por nuestras culpas sufrir,
O Agnus Dei,
Llevanos do está el ladron,
Que salvaste por decir,
Memento mei.

Cancionero General, Anvers, 1573, f. 5.

Fuster, Bib. Valenciana, (Tom. I. p. 81,) tries to make out
something concerning the author of this little poem; but does
not, I think, succeed.

Next after the division of devotional poetry comes the series of authors upon whom the whole collection relied for its character and success when it was first published; a series, to form which, the editor says, in the original dedication to the Count of Oliva, he had employed himself during twenty years. Of such of them as are worthy a separate notice--the Marquis of Santillana, Juan de Mena, Fernan Perez de Guzman, and the three Manriques--we have already spoken. The rest are the Viscount of Altamira, Diego Lopez de Haro,[716] Antonio de Velasco, Luis de Vivero, Hernan Mexia, Suarez, Cartagena, Rodriguez del Padron, Pedro Torellas, Dávalos,[717] Guivara, Alvarez Gato,[718] the Marquis of Astorga, Diego de San Pedro, and Garci Sanchez de Badajoz,--the last a poet whose versification is his chief merit, but who was long remembered by succeeding poets from the circumstance that he went mad for love.[719] They all belong to the courtly school; and we know little of any of them except from hints in their own poems, nearly all of which are so wearisome from their heavy sameness, that it is a task to read them.

[716] In the Library of the Academy of History at Madrid (Misc.
Hist., MS., Tom. III., No. 2) is a poem by Diego Lopez de Haro,
of about a thousand lines, in a manuscript apparently of the
end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, of
which I have a copy. It is entitled “Aviso para Cuerdos,”--A Word
for the Wise,--and is arranged as a dialogue, with a few verses
spoken in the character of some distinguished personage, human
or superhuman, allegorical, historical, or from Scripture, and
then an answer to each, by the author himself. In this way above
sixty persons are introduced, among whom are Adam and Eve, with
the Angel that drove them from Paradise, Troy, Priam, Jerusalem,
Christ, Julius Cæsar, and so on down to King Bamba and Mahomet.
The whole is in the old Spanish verse, and has little poetical
thought in it, as may be seen by the following words of Saul and
the answer by Don Diego, which I give as a favorable specimen of
the entire poem:--

SAUL.

En mi pena es de mirar,
Que peligro es para vos
El glosar u el mudar
Lo que manda el alto Dios;
Porque el manda obedecelle;
No juzgalle, mas creelle.
A quien a Dios a de entender,
Lo que el sabe a de saber.

AUTOR.

Pienso yo que en tal defecto
Cae presto el coraçon
Del no sabio en rreligion,
Creyendo que a lo perfecto
Puede dar mas perficion.
Este mal tiene el glosar;
Luego a Dios quiere enmendar.

Oviedo, in his “Quinquagenas,” says that Diego Lopez de Haro was
“the mirror of gallantry among the youth of his time”; and he is
known to history for his services in the war of Granada, and as
Spanish ambassador at Rome. (See Clemencin, in Mem. de la Acad.
de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 404.) He figures in the “Inferno de Amor”
of Sanchez de Badajoz; and his poems are found in the Cancionero
General, 1573, ff. 82-90, and a few other places.

[717] He founded the fortunes of the family of which the Marquis
of Pescara was so distinguished a member in the time of Charles
V.; his first achievement having been to kill a Portuguese in
fair fight, after public challenge, and in presence of both the
armies. The poet rose to be Constable of Castile. Historia de D.
Hernando Dávalos, Marques de Pescara, Anvers, 1558, 12mo, Lib.
I., c. 1.

[718] Besides what are to be found in the Cancioneros
Generales,--for example, in that of 1573, at ff. 148-152, 189,
etc.,--there is a MS. in possession of the Royal Academy at
Madrid, (Codex No. 114,) which contains a large number of poems
by Alvarez Gato. Their author was a person of consequence in his
time, and served John II., Henry IV., and Ferdinand and Isabella,
in affairs of state. With John he was on terms of friendship. One
day, when the king missed him from his hunting-party and was told
he was indisposed, he replied, “Let us, then, go and see him; he
is my friend,”--and returned to make the kindly visit. Gato died
after 1495. Gerónimo Quintana, Historia de Madrid, Madrid, 1629,
folio, f. 221.

The poetry of Gato is sometimes connected with public affairs;
but, in general, like the rest of that which marks the period
when it was written, it is in a courtly and affected tone, and
devoted to love and gallantry. Some of it is more lively and
natural than most of its doubtful class. Thus, when his lady-love
told him “he must talk sense,” he replied, that he had lost the
little he ever had from the time when he first saw her, ending
his poetical answer with these words:--

But if, in good faith, you require
That sense should come back to me,
Show the kindness to which I aspire,
Give the freedom you know I desire,
And pay me my service fee.

Si queres que de verdad
Torné a mi seso y sentido,
Usad agora bondad,
Torname mi libertad,
E pagame lo servido.

[719] Memorias de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 404. The
“Lecciones de Job,” by Badajoz, were early put into the Index
Expurgatorius, and kept there to the last.

Thus, the Viscount Altamira has a long, dull dialogue between Feeling and Knowledge; Diego Lopez de Haro has another between Reason and Thought; Hernan Mexia, one between Sense and Thought; and Costana, one between Affection and Hope;--all belonging to the fashionable class of poems called moralities or moral discussions, all in one measure and manner, and all counterparts to each other in grave, metaphysical refinements and poor conceits. On the other hand, we have light, amatory poetry, some of which, like that of Garci Sanchez de Badajoz on the Book of Job, that of Rodriguez del Padron on the Ten Commandments, and that of the younger Manrique on the forms of a monastic profession, irreverently applied to the profession of love, are, one would think, essentially irreligious, whatever they may have been deemed at the time they were written. But in all of them, and, indeed, in the whole series of works of the twenty different authors filling this important division of the Cancionero, hardly a poetical thought is to be found, except in the poems of a few who have already been noticed, and of whom the Marquis of Santillana, Juan de Mena, and the younger Manrique are the chief.[720]

[720] The Cancionero of 1535 consists of 191 leaves, in large
folio, Gothic letters, and triple columns. Of these, the
devotional poetry fills eighteen leaves, and the series of
authors mentioned above extends from f. 18 to f. 97. It is worth
notice, that the beautiful Coplas of Manrique do not occur in any
one of these courtly Cancioneros.

Next after the series of authors just mentioned, we have a collection of a hundred and twenty-six “Canciones,” or Songs, bearing the names of a large number of the most distinguished Spanish poets and gentlemen of the fifteenth century. Nearly all of them are regularly constructed, each consisting of two stanzas, the first with four and the second with eight lines,--the first expressing the principal idea, and the second repeating and amplifying it. They remind us, in some respects, of Italian sonnets, but are more constrained in their movement, and fall into a more natural alliance with conceits. Hardly one in the large collection of the Cancionero is easy or flowing, and the following, by Cartagena, whose name occurs often, and who was one of the Jewish family that rose so high in the Church after its conversion, is above the average merit of its class.[721]

[721] The Canciones are found, ff. 98-106.

I know not why first I drew breath,
Since living is only a strife,
Where I am rejected of Death,
And would gladly reject my own life.

For all the days I may live
Can only be filled with grief;
With Death I must ever strive,
And never from Death find relief.
So that Hope must desert me at last,
Since Death has not failed to see
That life will revive in me
The moment his arrow is cast.[722]

[722]
No se para que nasci,
Pues en tal estremo esto
Que el morir no quiere a mi,
Y el viuir no quiero yo.

Todo el tiempo que viviere
Terne muy justa querella
De la muerte, pues no quiere
A mi, queriendo yo a ella.

Que fin espero daqui,
Pues la muerte me negó,
Pues que claramente vió
Quera vida para mi.

f. 98. b.

This was thought to be a tender compliment to the lady whose coldness had made her lover desire a death that would not obey his summons.

Thirty-seven Ballads succeed; a charming collection of wild-flowers, which have already been sufficiently examined when speaking of the ballad poetry of the earliest age of Spanish literature.[723]

[723] These ballads, already noticed, _ante_, Chap. VI., are in
the Cancionero of 1535, ff. 106-115.

After the Ballads we come to the “Invenciones,” a form of verse peculiarly characteristic of the period, and of which we have here two hundred and twenty specimens. They belong to the institutions of chivalry, and especially to the arrangements for tourneys and joustings, which were the most gorgeous of the public amusements known in the reigns of John the Second and Henry the Fourth. Each knight, on such occasions, had a device, or drew one for himself by lot; and to this device or crest a poetical explanation was to be affixed by himself, which was called an _invencion_. Some of these posies are very ingenious; for conceits are here in their place. King John, for instance, drew a prisoner’s cage for his crest, and furnished for its motto,--

Even imprisonment still is confessed,
Though heavy its sorrows may fall,
To be but a righteous behest,
When it comes from the fairest and best
Whom the earth its mistress can call.

The well-known Count Haro drew a _noria_, or a wheel over which passes a rope, with a series of buckets attached to it, that descend empty into a well and come up full of water. He gave, for his _invencion_,--

The full show my griefs running o’er;
The empty, the hopes I deplore.

On another occasion, he drew, like the king, an emblem of a prisoner’s cage, and answered to it by an imperfect rhyme,--

In the gaol which you here behold--
Whence escape there is none, as you see--
I must live. What a life must it be![724]

[724] “Saco el Rey nuestro señor una red de carcel, y decia la
letra:--

Qualquier prision y dolor
Que se sufra, es justa cosa,
Pues se sufre por amor
De la mayor y mejor
Del mundo, y la mas hermosa.

“El conde de Haro saco una noria, y dixo:--

Los llenos, de males mios;
D’ esperança, los vazios.

“El mismo por cimera una carcel y el en ella, y dixo:--

En esta carcel que veys,
Que no se halla salida,
Viuire, mas ved que vida!”

The _Invenciones_, though so numerous, fill only three leaves,
115 to 117. They occur, also, constantly in the old chronicles
and books of chivalry. The “Question de Amor” contains many of
them.

Akin to the _Invenciones_ were the “Motes con sus Glosas”; mottoes or short apophthegms, which we find here to the number of above forty, each accompanied by a heavy, rhymed gloss. The mottoes themselves are generally proverbs, and have a national and sometimes a spirited air. Thus, the lady Catalina Manrique took “Never mickle cost but little,” referring to the difficulty of obtaining her regard, to which Cartagena answered, with another proverb, “Merit pays all,” and then explained or mystified both with a tedious gloss. The rest are not better, and all were valued, at the time they were composed, for precisely what now seems most worthless in them.[725]

[725] Though Lope de Vega, in his “Justa Poética de San Isidro,”
(Madrid, 1620, 4to, f. 76,) declares the _Glosas_ to be “a most
ancient and peculiarly Spanish composition, never used in any
other nation,” they were, in fact, an invention of the Provençal
poets, and, no doubt, came to Spain with their original authors.
(Raynouard, Troub., Tom. II. pp. 248-254.) The rules for their
composition in Spain were, as we see also from Cervantes, (Don
Quixote, Parte II. c. 18,) very strict and rarely observed; and
I cannot help agreeing with the friend of the mad knight, that
the poetical results obtained were little worth the trouble they
cost. The _Glosas_ of the Cancionero of 1535 are at ff. 118-120.

The “Villancicos” that follow--songs in the old Spanish measure, with a refrain and occasionally short verses broken in--are more agreeable, and sometimes are not without merit. They received their name from their rustic character, and were believed to have been first composed by the _villanos_, or peasants, for the Nativity and other festivals of the Church. Imitations of these rude roundelays are found, as we have seen, in Juan de la Enzina, and occur in a multitude of poets since; but the fifty-four in the Cancionero, many of which bear the names of leading poets in the preceding century, are too courtly in their tone, and approach the character of the _Canciones_.[726] In other respects, they remind us of the earliest French madrigals, or, still more, of the Provençal poems, that are nearly in the same measures.[727]

[726] The author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y
Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 151) gives the _refrain_ or
_ritornello_ of a _Villancico_, which, he says, was sung by every
body in Spain in his time, and is the happiest specimen I know of
the genus, conceit and all.

Since I have seen thy blessed face,
Lady, my love is not amiss;
But, had I never known that grace,
How could I have deserved such bliss?

[727] The _Villancicos_ are in the Cancionero of 1535 at ff.
120-125. See also Covarrubias, Tesoro, in verb. _Villancico_.

The last division of this conceited kind of poetry collected into the first Cancioneros Generales is that called “Preguntas,” or Questions; more properly, Questions and Answers; since it is merely a series of riddles, with their solutions in verse. Childish as such trifles may seem now, they were admired in the fifteenth century. Baena, in the Preface to his collection, mentions them among its most considerable attractions; and the series here given, consisting of fifty-five, begins with such authors as the Marquis of Santillana and Juan de Mena, and ends with Garci Sanchez de Badajoz, and other poets of note who lived in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Probably it was an easy exercise of the wits in extemporaneous verse practised at the court of John the Second, as we find it practised, above a century later, by the shepherds in the “Galatea” of Cervantes.[728] But the specimens of it in the Cancioneros are painfully constrained; the answers being required to correspond in every particular of measure, number, and the succession of rhymes with those of the precedent question. On the other hand, the riddles themselves are sometimes very simple, and sometimes very familiar; Juan de Mena, for instance, gravely proposing that of the Sphinx of Œdipus to the Marquis of Santillana, as if it were possible the Marquis had never before heard of it.[729]

[728] Galatea, Lib. VI.

[729] The _Preguntas_ extend from f. 126 to f. 134.

Thus far the contents of the Cancionero General date from the fifteenth century, and chiefly from the middle and latter part of it. Subsequently, we have a series of poets who belong rather to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, such as Puerto Carrero, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Don Juan Manuel of Portugal, Heredia, and a few others; after which follows, in the early editions, a collection of what are called “Jests provoking Laughter,”--really, a number of very gross poems which constitute part of an indecent Cancionero printed separately at Valencia, several years afterwards, but which were soon excluded from the editions of the Cancionero General, where a few trifles, sometimes in the Valencian dialect, are inserted, to fill up the space they had occupied.[730] The air of this second grand division of the collection is, however, like the air of that which precedes it, and the poetical merit is less. At last, near the conclusion of the editions of 1557 and 1573, we meet with compositions belonging to the time of Charles the Fifth, among which are two by Boscan, a few in the Italian language, and still more in the Italian manner; all indicating a new state of things, and a new development of the forms of Spanish poetry.[731]

[730] The complete list of the authors in this part of the
Cancionero is as follows:--Costana, Puerto Carrero, Avila, the
Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Count Castro, Luis de Tovar, Don Juan
Manuel, Tapia, Nicolas Nuñez, Soria, Pinar, Ayllon, Badajoz el
Músico, the Count of Oliva, Cardona, Frances Carroz, Heredia,
Artes, Quiros, Coronel, Escriva, Vazquez, and Ludueña. Of most
of them only a few trifles are given. The “Burlas provocantes
a Risa” follow, in the edition of 1514, after the poems of
Ludueña, but do not appear in that of 1526, or in any subsequent
edition. Most of them, however, are found in the collection
referred to, entitled “Cancionero de Obras de Burlas provocantes
a Risa” (Valencia, 1519, 4to). It begins with one rather long
poem, and ends with another,--the last being a brutal parody of
the “Trescientas” of Juan de Mena. The shorter poems are often
by well-known names, such as Jorge Manrique, and Diego de San
Pedro, and are not always liable to objection on the score of
decency. But the general tone of the work, which is attributed to
ecclesiastical hands, is as coarse as possible. A small edition
of it was printed at London, in 1841, marked on its title-page
“Cum Privilegio, en Madrid, por Luis Sanchez.” It has a curious
and well-written Preface, and a short, but learned, Glossary.
From p. 203 to the end, p. 246, are a few poems not found in the
original Cancionero de Burlas; one by Garci Sanchez de Badajoz,
one by Rodrigo de Reynosa, etc.

[731] This part of the Cancionero of 1535, which is of very
little value, fills ff. 134-191. The whole volume contains
about 49,000 verses. The Antwerp editions of 1557 and 1573 are
larger, and contain about 58,000; but the last part of each is
the worst part. One of the pieces near the end is a ballad on
the renunciation of empire made by Charles V. at Brussels, in
October, 1555; the most recent date, so far as I have observed,
that can be assigned to any poem in any of the collections.

But this change belongs to another period of the literature of Castile, before entering on which we must notice a few circumstances in the Cancioneros characteristic of the one we have just gone over. And here the first thing that strikes us is the large number of persons whose verses are thus collected. In that of 1535, which may be taken as the average of the whole series, there are not less than a hundred and twenty. But out of this multitude, the number really claiming any careful notice is small. Many persons appear only as the contributors of single trifles, such as a device or a _cancion_, and sometimes, probably, never wrote even these. Others contributed only two or three short poems, which their social position, rather than their taste or talents, led them to adventure. So that the number of those appearing in the proper character of authors in the Cancionero General is only about forty, and of these not more than four or five deserve to be remembered.

But the rank and personal consideration of those that throng it are, perhaps, more remarkable than their number, and certainly more so than their merit. John the Second is there, and Prince Henry, afterwards Henry the Fourth; the Constable Alvaro de Luna,[732] the Count Haro, and the Count of Plasencia; the Dukes of Alva, Albuquerque, and Medina Sidonia; the Count of Tendilla and Don Juan Manuel; the Marquises of Santillana, Astorga, and Villa Franca; the Viscount Altamira, and other leading personages of their time; so that, as Lope de Vega once said, “most of the poets of that age were great lords, admirals, constables, dukes, counts, and kings”;[733] or, in other words, verse-writing was a fashion at the court of Castile in the fifteenth century.

[732] There is a short poem by the Constable in the Commentary
of Fernan Nuñez to the 265th Copla of Juan de Mena; and in the
fine old Chronicle of the Constable’s life, we are told of him,
(Título LXVIII.,) “Fue muy inventivo e mucho dado a fallar
_invenciones_ y sacar entremeses, o en justas o en guerra; en las
quales invenciones muy agudamente significaba lo que queria.”
He is also the author of an unpublished prose work, dated 1446,
“On Virtuous and Famous Women,” to which Juan de Mena wrote a
Preface; the Constable, at that time, being at the height of his
power. It is not, as its title might seem to indicate, translated
from a work by Boccaccio, with nearly the same name; but an
original production of the great Castilian minister of state.
Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 464, note.

[733] Obras Sueltas, Madrid, 1777, 4to, Tom. XI. p. 358.

This, in fact, is the character that is indelibly impressed on the collections found in the old Cancioneros Generales. Of the earliest poetry of the country, such as it is found in the legend of the Cid, in Berceo, and in the Archpriest of Hita, they afford not a trace; and if a few ballads are inserted, it is for the sake of the poor glosses with which they are encumbered. But the Provençal spirit of the Troubadours is everywhere present, if not everywhere strongly marked; and occasionally we find imitations of the earlier Italian school of Dante and his immediate followers, which are more apparent than successful. The mass is wearisome and monotonous. Nearly every one of the longer poems contained in it is composed in lines of eight syllables, divided into _redondillas_, almost always easy in their movement, but rarely graceful; sometimes broken by a regularly recurring verse of only four or five syllables, and hence called _quebrado_, but more frequently arranged in stanzas of eight or ten uniform lines. It is nearly all amatory, and the amatory portions are nearly all metaphysical and affected. It is of the court, courtly; overstrained, formal, and cold. What is not written by persons of rank is written for their pleasure; and though the spirit of a chivalrous age is thus sometimes brought out, yet what is best in that spirit is concealed by a prevalent desire to fall in with the superficial fashions and fantastic fancies that at last destroyed it.

But it was impossible such a wearisome state of poetical culture should become permanent in a country so full of stirring interests as Spain was in the age that followed the fall of Granada and the discovery of America. Poetry, or at least the love of poetry, made progress with the great advancement of the nation under Ferdinand and Isabella; though the taste of the court in whatever regarded Spanish literature continued low and false. Other circumstances, too, favored the great and beneficial change that was everywhere becoming apparent. The language of Castile had already asserted its supremacy, and, with the old Castilian spirit and cultivation, it was spreading into Andalusia and Aragon, and planting itself amidst the ruins of the Moorish power on the shores of the Mediterranean. Chronicle-writing was become frequent, and had begun to take the forms of regular history. The drama was advanced as far as the “Celestina” in prose, and the more strictly scenic efforts of Torres Naharro in verse. Romance-writing was at the height of its success. And the old ballad spirit--the true foundation of Spanish poetry--had received a new impulse and richer materials from the contests in which all Christian Spain had borne a part amidst the mountains of Granada, and from the wild tales of the feuds and adventures of rival factions within the walls of that devoted city. Every thing, indeed, announced a decided movement in the literature of the nation, and almost every thing seemed to favor and facilitate it.