conflict, mirthful in labour, stanch to her lord, in letters studious, in speech courtly, fulfilled of gifts; never a land the earth overlong to match her excellence, to rival her bravery; few in the world as mighty as she." It may be lawful to believe that here we catch the personal accent of the King. Compilations abound in which Alfonso is said to have shared, but they are of less importance than his _Cantigas de Santa María_ (Canticles of the Virgin)—four hundred and twenty pieces, written and set to music in the Virgin's praise. Strictly speaking, these do not belong to Castilian literature, being written in the elaborate Galician language, which now survives as little better than a dialect. But they must be considered if we are to form any just idea of Alfonso's accomplishments and versatility. At the outset a natural question suggests itself: "Why should the King of Castile, after drawing up his code in Castilian, write his verses in Galician?" The answer is simple: "For the reason that he was an artist." Velázquez, indeed, asserts that Alfonso was reared in Galicia; but this is assertion, not evidence. The real motive of the choice was the superior development of the Galician, which so far outpassed the Castilian in flexibility and grace as to invite comparison with the Provençal. Troubadours in full flight from the Albigensian wars found grace at Alfonso's court; Aimeric de Belenoi, Nat de Mons, Calvo, Riquier, Lunel, and more. That Alfonso wrote in Provençal seems probable enough, especially as he derides the incapacity in this respect of his father's _trovador_, Pero da Ponte; still, the two Provençal pieces which bear his name are spurious, and are the work of Nat de Mons and Riquier. Howbeit, the Provençal spell mastered him, and drove him to reproduce its elaborate rhythms. The first impression given by the _Cantigas_ is one of unusual metrical resource. Verses of four syllables, of five, octosyllabics, hendecasyllabics, are among the singer's experiments. From the popular _coplas_, not unlike the modern _seguidillas_, he strays to the lumbering line of seventeen syllables; in five strophes he commits an acrostic as the name _María_; and half a thousand years before Matilda's lover went to Göttingen, he anticipates Canning's freak in the _Anti-Jacobin_ by splitting up a word to achieve a difficult rhyme; he abuses the refrain by insistent repetition, so as to give the echo of a litany, or fit the ready-made melody of a _juglar_ (clxxii.);—puerilities perhaps, but characteristic of a school and an epoch. Subjects are taken as they come, preference being given to the more universal version, and local legends taking a secondary place. A living English poet has merited great praise for his _Ballad of a Nun_. Six hundred years before Mr. Davidson, Alfonso gave six splendid variants of the famous story. Two men of genius have treated the legend of the statue and the ring—Prosper Mérimée in his _Vénus d'Ille_, and