is the oldest fragment embodied in the text. In these respects Dozy’s views are admitted to be correct. The _Crónica rimada_, which in its present form is assigned to about the end of the fourteenth century, is an amalgam of diverse and inappropriate materials, and scarcely deserves to be regarded as an original poem at all. If it is probable that the author of the _Poema del Cid_ had heard the _Chanson de Roland_, it is still more probable that the author of the _Crónica rimada_ had heard _Garin le Lohérain_. Not only does he incorporate part of a lost _cantar de gesta_ on King Fernando; he borrows from other lost Spanish epics, from the existing _Poema del Cid_, from degraded oral traditions, and perhaps from foreign sources not yet identified. The patchwork is a poor thing pieced together by an imitator who has lost the secret of the primitive epic, and insincerely commemorates exploits which he must have known to be fabulous—such as the Cid’s expedition to France, and his triumph under the walls of Paris. But, though greatly inferior to the _Poema_, the _Crónica rimada_ is interesting in substance and manner. It includes primitive versions of legends which, in more refined and elaborate forms, were destined to become famous throughout Europe: the quarrel between the Cid’s father and Count Gómez de Gormaz (not in consequence of a blow, or anything connected with an extravagantly artificial code of honour, but over a matter of sheep-stealing); the death of the Count at the hands of the Cid, not yet thirteen years of age; and the marriage of the Count’s daughter Jimena to her father’s slayer, who is represented as a reluctant bridegroom:— Ally despossavan a doña Ximena Gomes con Rodrigo el Castellano. Rodrigo respondió muy sannudo contra el rey Castellano: Señor, vos me despossastes mas a mi pessar que de grado. The Cid in the _Poema_ is a loyal subject, faithful to his alien King under extreme provocation. In the _Crónica rimada_ he is transformed into a haughty, turbulent feudal baron, more like the Cid of the later Spanish ballads or _romances_; and it is worth noting that the irregular versification of the _Crónica rimada_, in which lines of sixteen syllables predominate, approximates roughly to the metre of the _romances_, to which I shall return in a later lecture. For the moment it is enough to say that by 1612 there were enough ballads on the Cid to form a _romancero_, and that in the most complete modern collection they amount to 205. Southey and Ormsby, both ardent admirers of the _Poema_, thought that the _romances_ on the Cid impressed ‘more by their number than their light,’ and no doubt these ballads vary greatly in merit. But a few are really admirable—such as the _romance_ adapted with masterly skill by Lope de Vega in _Las Almenas de Toro_.