But I have heard in former days The story of another king, Who--fled from and betrayed like me-- Resolved all fears away to fling, And launch upon the wide, wide sea, And find adventurous fortune there, Or perish in its rolling waves, The victim of his brave despair. This ancient monarch far and near-- Old Apollonius--was known: I’ll follow where he sought his fate, And where he found it find my own.[36] [36] The “Cantos de Fuentes,” in the Epístola to which this ballad is found, were printed three times, and in the edition of Alcalá, 1587, 12mo, fill, with their tedious commentary, above eight hundred pages. Fuentes is noted by Zuñiga, in his “Annals of Seville,” 1677, p. 585, as a knight of Seville “of an illustrious lineage.” See also, _ante_, Vol. I. pp. 36-38. Juan de Timoneda, partly bookseller and partly poet,--the friend of Lope de Rueda, and, like him, the author of farces acted in the public squares of Valencia,--was, both from his occupations and tastes, a person who would naturally understand the general poetical feeling and wants of his time. In consequence of this, probably, he published, in 1573, a collection of ballads, entitled “The Rose,” consisting, in no small degree, of his own compositions, but containing, also, some by other and older poets. Taken together, they constitute a volume of nearly seven hundred pages, divided into “The Rose of Love”; “The Spanish Rose”; “The Gentile Rose,” so called, because its subjects are heathen; and “The Royal Rose,” which is on the fates and fortunes of princes;--the whole being followed by about a hundred pages of popular, miscellaneous verse, rustic songs, and fanciful glosses. The best parts of this large collection are the ballads gathered by its author from popular tradition, most of which were soon published in other Romanceros, with the variations their origin necessarily involved. The poorest parts are those written by himself,--such as the last division, which is entirely his own, and is not superior to the similar ballads in Sepúlveda and Fuentes. As a collection, however, it is important; because it shows how true the Spanish people remained to their old traditions, and how constantly they claimed to have the best portions of their history repeated to them in the old forms to which they had so long been accustomed. In another point of view, also, it is of consequence. It furnishes ballads on the early heroes of Spain, some of which are needed to fill up two or three of the best among their traditional stories, while others come down, with similar accounts of later heroes, to the end of the Moorish wars.[37]