[135] Stanzas 1221, 1229 etc., 1277 etc., 1289, 1491, 1492 etc., 1550 etc., 1553-1681. The tone of the Archpriest’s poetry is very various. In general, a satirical spirit prevails in it, not unmingled with a quiet humor. This spirit often extends into the gravest portions; and how fearless he was, when he indulged himself in it, a passage on the influence of money and corruption at the court of Rome leaves no doubt.[136] Other parts, like the verses on Death, are solemn, and even sometimes tender; while yet others, like the hymns to the Madonna, breathe the purest spirit of Catholic devotion; so that, perhaps, it would not be easy, in the whole body of Spanish literature, to find a volume showing a greater variety in its subjects, or in the modes of managing and exhibiting them.[137] [136] Stanzas 464, etc. As in many other passages, the Archpriest is here upon ground already occupied by the Northern French poets. See the “Usurer’s Pater-Noster,” and “Credo,” in Barbazan, Fabliaux, Tom. IV. pp. 99 and 106. [137] Stanzas 1494 etc., 1609 etc. The happiest success of the Archpriest of Hita is to be found in the many tales and apologues which he has scattered on all sides to illustrate the adventures that constitute a framework for his poetry, like that of the “Conde Lucanor” or the “Canterbury Tales.” Most of them are familiar to us, being taken from the old store-houses of Æsop and Phædrus, or rather from the versions of these fabulists common in the earliest Northern French poetry.[138] Among the more fortunate of his very free imitations is the fable of the Frogs who asked for a King from Jupiter, that of the Dog who lost by his Greediness the Meat he carried in his Mouth, and that of the Hares who took Courage when they saw the Frogs were more timid than themselves.[139] A few of them have a truth, a simplicity, and even a grace, which have rarely been surpassed in the same form of composition; as, for instance, that of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse, which, if we follow it from Æsop through Horace to La Fontaine, we shall nowhere find better told than it is by the Archpriest.[140]