Somewhat farther on, when he speaks of justice, whose administration had been so lamentably neglected in the civil wars during which he lived, he takes his graver tone, and speaks with a wisdom and gentleness we should hardly have expected:-- True justice is a noble thing, · that merits all renown; It fills the land with people, · checks the guilty with its frown; But kings, that should uphold its power, · in thoughtlessness look down, And forget the precious jewel · that gems their honored crown. And many think by cruelty · its duties to fulfil, But their wisdom all is cunning, · for justice doth no ill; With pity and with truth it dwells, · and faithful men will still From punishment and pain turn back, · as sore against their will.[163] [163] The original reads thus:-- _Aqui fabla de la Justicia._ Justicia que es virtud · atan noble e loada, Que castiga los malos · e ha la tierra poblada, Devenla guardar Reyes · é la tien olvidada, Siendo piedra preciosa · de su corona onrrada. Muchos ha que por cruesa · cuydan justicia fer; Mas pecan en la maña, · ca justicia ha de ser Con toda piedat, · e la verdat bien saber: Al fer la execucion · siempre se han de doler. Don José Amador de los Rios has given further extracts from the Rimado de Palacio in a pleasant paper on it in the Semanario Pintoresco, Madrid, 1847, p. 411. There is naturally a good deal in the Rimado de Palacio that savors of statesmanship; as, for instance, nearly all that relates to royal favorites, to war, and to the manners of the palace; but the general air of the poem, or rather of the different short poems that make it up, is fairly represented in the preceding passages. It is grave, gentle, and didactic, with now and then a few lines of a simple and earnest poetical feeling, which seem to belong quite as much to their age as to their author. * * * * * We have now gone over a considerable portion of the earliest Castilian literature, and quite completed an examination of that part of it which, at first epic, and afterwards didactic, in its tone, is found in long, irregular verses, with quadruple rhymes. It is all curious. Much of it is picturesque and interesting; and when, to what has been already examined, we shall have added the ballads and chronicles, the romances of chivalry and the drama, the whole will be found to constitute a broad basis, on which the genuine literary culture of Spain has rested ever since.