Among the more poetical passages are two at the end of the Second Part, which are introduced, as contrasts to each other, with a degree of art and skill rare in these simple-hearted old chronicles. They relate to what was long called “the Ruin of Spain,”[243] or its conquest by the Moors, and consist of two picturesque presentments of its condition before and after that event, which the Spaniards long seemed to regard as dividing the history of the world into its two great constituent portions. In the first of these passages, entitled “Of the Good Things of Spain,”[244] after a few general remarks, the fervent old chronicler goes on: “For this Spain, whereof we have spoken, is like the very Paradise of God; for it is watered by five noble rivers, which are the Duero, and the Ebro, and the Tagus, and the Guadalquivir, and the Guadiana; and each of these hath, between itself and the others, lofty mountains and sierras;[245] and their valleys and plains are great and broad, and, through the richness of the soil and the watering of the rivers, they bear many fruits and are full of abundance. And Spain, above all other things, is skilled in war, feared and very bold in battle; light of heart, loyal to her lord, diligent in learning, courtly in speech, accomplished in all good things. Nor is there land in the world that may be accounted like her in abundance, nor may any equal her in strength, and few there be in the world so great. And above all doth Spain abound in magnificence, and more than all is she famous for her loyalty. O Spain! there is no man can tell of all thy worthiness!” [243] “La Pérdida de España” is the common name, in the older writers, for the Moorish conquest. [244] “Los Bienes que tiene España” (ed. 1541, f. 202);--and, on the other side of the leaf, the passage that follows, called “El Llanto de España.” [245] The original, in _both_ the printed editions, is _tierras_, though it should plainly be _sierras_ from the context; but this is noticed as only one of the thousand gross typographical errors with which these editions are deformed. But now reverse the medal, and look on the other picture, entitled “The Mourning of Spain,” when, as the Chronicle tells us, after the victory of the Moors, “all the land remained empty of people, bathed in tears, a byword, nourishing strangers, deceived of her own people, widowed and deserted of her sons, confounded among barbarians, worn out with weeping and wounds, decayed in strength, weakened, uncomforted, abandoned of all her own.... Forgotten are her songs, and her very language is become foreign and her words strange.”