In the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1846, Band CXVI., M. Francisque Michel, the scholar to whom the literature of the Middle Ages owes so much, published, for the first time, what remains of an old poetical Spanish chronicle,--“Chrónica Rimada de las Cosas de España,”--on the history of Spain from the death of Pelayo to Ferdinand the Great;--the same poem that is noticed in Ochoa, “Catálogo de Manuscritos,” (Paris, 1844, 4to, pp. 106-110,) and in Huber’s edition of the Chronicle of the Cid, Preface, App. E. It is a curious, though not important, contribution to our resources in early Spanish literature, and one that immediately reminds us of the old Poem of the Cid. It begins with a prose introduction on the state of affairs down to the time of Fernan Gonzalez, compressed into a single page, and then goes on through eleven hundred and twenty-six lines of verse, when it breaks off abruptly in the middle of a line, as if the copyist had been interrupted, but with no sign that the work was drawing to an end. Nearly the whole of it is taken up with the history of the Cid, his family and his adventures, which are sometimes different from those in the old ballads and chronicles. Thus, Ximena is represented as having three brothers, who are taken prisoners by the Moors and released by the Cid; and the Cid is made to marry Ximena, by the royal command, against his own will; after which he goes to Paris, in the days of the Twelve Peers, and performs feats like those in the romances of chivalry. This, of course, is all new. But the old stories are altered and amplified, like those of the Cid’s charity to the leper, which is given with a more picturesque air, and of Ximena and the king, and of the Cid and his father, which are partly thrown into dialogue, not without dramatic effect. The whole is a free version of the old traditions of the country, apparently made in the fifteenth century, after the fictions of chivalry began to be known, and with the intention of giving the Cid rank among their heroes. The measure is that of the long verses used in the older Spanish poetry, with a cæsural pause near the middle of each, and the termination of the lines is in the _asonante_ a-o.[*] But in all this there is great irregularity;--many of the verses running out to twenty or more syllables, and several passages failing to observe the proper _asonante_. Every thing indicates that the old ballads were familiar to the author, and from one passage I infer that he knew the old poem of the Cid:-- Veredes lidiar a porfia · e tan firme se dar, Atantos pendones obrados · alçar e abaxar, Atantas lanças quebradas · por el primor quebrar, Atantos cavallos caer · e non se levantar, Atanto cavallo sin dueño · por el campo andar. vv. 895-899.