Those who have time and opportunity to peruse Spanish manuscripts of the fifteenth century, will doubtless find many more documents to prove the high degree of cultivation which Spanish prose had attained at that period. In spite of the lofty poetic flight which then characterized the genius of Spain, and the powerful charm of the poetic prose of the chivalrous romances, the national gravity of the Spaniards, when their minds were directed, not to sports of the imagination, but to things, made them incline to what may be termed the style of affairs, in the same degree as the genius of the Italians, which attached itself exclusively to beautiful forms, had been accustomed to manifest an indifference for true prose. The philosophic writings of Aristotle were, in the same age, translated into Spanish by a scholar, whose name, as well as his work, have fallen into oblivion.[143] JUAN DE LA ENZINA’S ART OF CASTILIAN POETRY. The literature of this period possesses, however, not the slightest trace of true criticism. Though the poetical and rhetorical rules of Aristotle were known to a few scholars, they were of little utility to writers who either applied them erroneously, or considered them impracticable. Of the state of poetry in Spain, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, a correct notion may be formed from a Treatise on Castilian Poetry, (_Arte de Poesia Castellana_,) by Juan de la Enzina. In this work, addressed to the Prince Royal of Spain, the author wished to prove that he thoroughly understood the art on which he wrote, and that he was not an unskilful Troubadour.[144] The commencement of the treatise might teach the reader to expect some profound investigation. Juan de la Enzina observes, “that poetry is so excellent an art, that it merits the particular favour of princes and nobles”, who being reared “in the bosom of sweet philosophy,”[145] know how to unite the virtues both of peace and war; it was therefore, he continues, his intention to write a theory (_arte_) of Castilian poetry, which might facilitate the distinction between good and bad. He treats of the origin of poetry among the ancients and among the Italians, and marks the difference between a poet and a Troubadour. The former, he says, is, with respect to the latter, “what a composer or learned musician is to a singer or musical performer, a geometrician to a mason, or a captain to a private soldier.”[146] After all these high promises, Juan de la Enzina merely gives an Essay on Castilian prosody in a few chapters. Such is his art of poetry. * * * * *