Some of the touches of manners in this little passage, such as the allusion to the judgment-seats at his gate, where the Cid in patriarchal simplicity had administered justice to his vassals, and the hint of the poor augury gathered from the old woman’s wish, which seems to be of more power with him than the prayer he had just uttered, or the bold hopes that were driving him to the Moorish frontiers,--such touches give life and truth to this old chronicle, and bring its times and feelings, as it were, sensibly before us. Adding its peculiar treasures to those contained in the rest of the General Chronicle, we shall find, in the whole, nearly all the romantic and poetical fables and adventures that belong to the earliest portions of Spanish history. At the same time, we shall obtain a living picture of the state of manners in that dark period, when the elements of modern society were just beginning to be separated from the chaos in which they had long struggled, and out of which, by the action of successive ages, they have been gradually wrought into those forms of policy which now give stability to governments and peace to the intercourse of men. CHAPTER IX. EFFECTS OF THE EXAMPLE OF ALFONSO THE TENTH.--CHRONICLES OF HIS OWN REIGN, AND OF THE REIGNS OF SANCHO THE BRAVE AND FERDINAND THE FOURTH.--CHRONICLE OF ALFONSO THE ELEVENTH, BY VILLAIZAN.--CHRONICLES OF PETER THE CRUEL, HENRY THE SECOND, JOHN THE FIRST, AND HENRY THE THIRD, BY AYALA.--CHRONICLE OF JOHN THE SECOND.--TWO CHRONICLES OF HENRY THE FOURTH, AND TWO OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.