He, however, who has to record the developement of true poetic genius, must hasten from this and other examples of monastic humour and rugged versification, in order to speak with something like historical precision of the romances and other lyric compositions which form the real commencement of Spanish poetry. MORE PRECISE ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SPANISH POETIC ROMANCES AND SONGS--PROBABLE RISE OF THE ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY IN PROSE--ORIGINAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE POETIC AND THE PROSE ROMANCES. The latter half of the fourteenth century is the period when the history of the Spanish romances and songs, the unknown authors of which yet live in their verse, though still very defective, begins to acquire some degree of certainty.[47] In the absence, however, of that particular information which would be desirable, it becomes necessary to take a view of the manner of thinking of the Spaniards of that age, in order to connect the general idea which ought to be formed of their literary culture, with those scattered notices which must supply the place of a more systematic account. It will here be recollected that the cultivation of Spanish literature received at its commencement a national poetic impulse. In constant conflict with the Moors, and acquainted with oriental manners and compositions, the Spaniards felt the proper distinction between poetry and prose, less readily than that distinction was perceived by any other people on the first attempt to give a determinate form to their literature. Popular songs of every kind were probably indigenous in the Peninsula. The patriotic Spaniards, like many other ancient nations, were fond of preserving the memory of remarkable events in ballads. They also began, at a very early period, to consider it of importance to record public transactions in prose. The example of their learned king Alphonso X. who caused a collection of old national chronicles to be made, gave birth to many similar compilations of the history of the country. But historical criticism, and the historical art, were then equally unknown. As the giving to an accredited fact a poetical dress in a song fit to be sung to a guitar, was not thought inconsistent with the spirit of genuine national history, still less could the relating of a fabricated story as a real event in history seem hostile to the spirit of poetry. Thus the _historical romance_ in verse, and the _chivalric romance_ in prose, derived their origin from the confounding of the limits of epic and historical composition. The history of Spanish poetical romance is therefore intimately interwoven with the history of the prose chivalric romance.