Spanish literature [it has been said] takes its root in French and Italian soil ... yet it may be claimed for Spain ... that she used her models without compromising her originality, absorbing here, annexing there, and finally dominating her first masters. Her era of literary fame was to dawn under the Emperor Charles V., and reach its zenith with his son; but tokens of the coming glory may be traced to a much earlier date when, amid the florid weeds of imitation or pedantry, there yet bloomed occasional flowers of genuine beauty and sweetness. Such are the _Coplas de Manrique_, stanzas written on the death of his father by the brilliant young soldier Jorge Manrique, a partisan of Queen Isabel in her early struggles. Longfellow has rendered them into English verse with a charm, that, if it does not attain to the imperishable grandeur of the original, yet in its quick sympathy bridges the centuries. [Illustration: COINS, FERDINAND FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII. ] [Illustration: COINS, FERDINAND FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII. ] Behold of what delusive worth The bubbles we pursue on earth, The shapes we chase; Amid a world of treachery; They vanish ere death shuts the eye, And leave no trace. Time steals them from us,—chances strange, Disastrous accidents, and change, That come to all; Even in the most exalted state, Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate; The strongest fall. Who is the champion? Who the strong? Pontiff and priest, and sceptred throng? On these shall fall As heavily the hand of Death, As when it stays the shepherd’s breath Beside his stall.... Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye, And scarf and gorgeous panoply, And nodding plume,— What were they but a pageant scene? What but the garlands, gay and green, That deck the tomb?... His soul to Him, Who gave it, rose; God lead it to its long repose, Its glories rest! And though the warrior’s sun has set, Its light shall linger round us yet, Bright, radiant, blest. These are a few of the forty-two stanzas, in which with almost flawless simplicity of style Manrique mourns in his own personal loss the sorrow and regret of all the human race. He begins with the vanity of life; he ends with a plea for resignation; not an Omar Khayyam’s bitter surrender to inevitable destiny but a confident trust in a God who is both Creator and Saviour.