The principle of such a work is, of course, nearly the same with that of the modern historical romance. What, at the time it was written, was deemed history was taken as its basis from the old chronicles, and mingled with what was then the most advanced form of romantic fiction, just as it has been since in the series of works of genius beginning with Defoe’s “Memoirs of a Cavalier.” The difference is in the general representation of manners, and in the execution, both of which are now immeasurably advanced. Indeed, though Southey has founded much of his beautiful poem of “Roderic, the Last of the Goths,” on this old Chronicle, it is, after all, hardly a book that can be read. It is written in a heavy, verbose style, and has a suspiciously monkish prologue and conclusion, which look as if the whole were originally intended to encourage the Romish doctrine of penance, or, at least, were finally arranged to subserve that devout purpose.[350] [350] To learn through what curious transformations the same ideas can be made to pass, it may be worth while to compare, in the “Crónica General,” 1604, (Parte III. f. 6,) the original account of the famous battle of Covadonga, where the Archbishop Orpas is represented picturesquely coming upon his mule to the cave in which Pelayo and his people lay, with the tame and elaborate account evidently taken from it in this Chronicle of Roderic (Parte II. c. 196); then with the account in Mariana, (Historia, Lib. VII. c. 2,) where it is polished down into a sort of dramatized history; and, finally, with Southey’s “Roderic, the Last of the Goths,” (Canto XXIII.,) where it is again wrought up to poetry and romance. It is an admirable scene both for chronicling narrative and for poetical fiction to deal with; but Alfonso the Wise and Southey have much the best of it, while a comparison of the four will at once give the poor “Chronicle of Roderic or the Destruction of Spain” its true place.