In history, too, Alfonso sought distinction; and he found it. The _Crónica_ or _Estoria de Espanna_, composed between the years 1260 and 1268, the _General e grand Estoria_, begun in 1270, owe to him their inspiration. The latter, ranging from the Creation to Apostolic times, glances at such secular events as the Babylonian Empire and the fall of Troy; the former extends from the peopling of Europe by the sons of Japhet to the death of St. Ferdinand. Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and Lucas de Tuy are the direct authorities, and their testimonies are completed by elaborate references that stretch from Pliny to the _cantares de gesta_. Moreover, the Arab chronicles are avowedly utilised in the account of the Cid's exploits: "thus says Abenfarax in his Arabic whence this history is derived." A singular circumstance is the inferiority of style in these renderings from the Arabic. Elsewhere a strange ignorance of Arabs and their history is shown by the compiler's inclusion of such fables as Muhammad's crusade in Córdoba. The inevitable conclusion is that the _Estorias_, like the _Siete Partidas_, are compilations by several hands; and the idea is supported by the fact that the prologue to the _Estoria de Espanna_ is scarcely more than a translation of Jiménez de Rada's preface. Late traditions give the names of Alfonso's collaborators in one or the other _History_ as Egidio de Zamora, Jofre de Loaysa, Martín de Córdoba, Suero Pérez, Bishop of Zamora, and Garci Fernández de Toledo; and even though these attributions be (as seems likely) a trifle fantastical, they at least indicate a long-standing disbelief in the unity of authorship. It is proved that Alfonso gathered from Córdoba, Seville, Toledo, and Paris some fifty experts to translate Ptolemy's _Quadri partitum_ and other astronomic treatises; it is natural that he should organise a similar committee to put together the first history in the Castilian language. Better than most of his contemporaries, he knew the value of combination. As with astronomy so with history: in both cases he conceived the scheme, in both cases he presided at the redaction and stamped the crude stuff with his distinctive seal. Judged by a modern standard, both _Estorias_ lend themselves to a cheap ridicule; compared with their predecessors, they imply a finer appreciation of the value of testimony, and this notable evolution of the critical sense is matched by a manner that rises to the theme. Side by side with a greater care for chronology, there is a keener edge of patriotism which leads the compilers to embody in their text whole passages of lost _cantares de gesta_. And these are no purple patches: the expression is throughout dignified without pomp, and easy without familiarity. Spanish prose sheds much of its uncouthness, and takes its definitive form in such a passage as that upon the Joys of Spain: "More than all, Spain is subtle,—ay! and terrible, right skilled in