and seventeenth centuries, written by professional poets like Lope de Vega and Góngora, were composed in the form which Durán describes. We are not concerned this afternoon, however, with these brilliant artificial imitations, but with the authentic, primitive ballads of the people. These old Spanish _romances_, I repeat, are written normally in lines of sixteen syllables, every line ending in a uniform assonance. They should be printed so as to make this clear, and indeed they are so printed by the celebrated scholar Antonio de Nebrija who, in his _Gramática sobre la lengua castellana_ (1492), quotes three lines from one of the Lancelot ballads:— Digas tu el ermitaño que hazes la vida santa: Aquel ciervo del pie blanco donde haze su morada. Por aqui passo esta noche un hora antes del alva. There are other erroneous theories respecting the _romances_ against which you should be warned at the outset. Sancho Panza, in his pleasant way, informed the Duchess that these ballads were ‘too old to lie’; but he gives no particulars as to their age, and thereby shows his wisdom. Most English readers who are not specialists take their information on the subject from Lockhart’s Introduction to his _Ancient Spanish Ballads_, a volume containing free translations of fifty-three _romances_, published in 1823. Lockhart, who drew most of his material from Depping,[7] probably knew as much about the matter as any one of his time in England; but, though we move slowly in our Spanish studies, we make some progress, and Lockhart’s opinions on certain points relating to the _romances_ are no longer tenable. He notes, for example, that the _Cancionero general_ contains ‘several pieces which bear the name of Don Juan Manuel,’ identifies this writer with the author of the _Conde Lucanor_, states that these pieces ‘are among the most modern in the collection,’ and naturally concludes that most of the remaining pieces must have been written long before 1348, the year of Don Juan Manuel’s death. Lockhart goes on to observe that the Moors undoubtedly exerted ‘great and remarkable influence over Spanish thought and feeling—and therefore over Spanish language and poetry’; and, though he does not say so in precise terms, he leaves the impression that this reputed Arabic influence is visible in the Spanish _romances_. These views, widely held in Lockhart’s day, are now abandoned by all competent scholars; but unfortunately they still prevail among the general public.