Few Spanish romanceros celebrate incidents more tragic or memorable than those which cluster round the massacre of the unfortunate Infantes or Princes of Lara by their treacherous uncle, Ruy or Roderigo Velásquez. Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly thinks that one of these originated from a lost epic written between 1268 and 1344, "or perhaps from a lost recast of this lost epic." Strange that such epics should all be lost! He pleads that Lockhart might have utilized other more 'energetic' ballads to illustrate this legend, but I think in this does some despite to the very fine and spirited translation entitled "The Vengeance of Mudara": Oh, in vain have I slaughter'd the Infants of Lara; There's an heir in his halls--there's the bastard Mudara, There's the son of the renegade--spawn of Mahoun: If I meet with Mudara, my spear brings him down. As I read these lines I recall a big drawing-room, the narrow casements of which look upon a wilderness of garden woodland made magical by the yellow shadows of the hour when it is neither evening nor afternoon. Upon a table of mottled rosewood lies a copy of the Spanish Ballads in the embossed and fretted binding of the days when such books were given as presents and intended for exhibition. A child of ten, I had stolen into this Elysium redolent of rose-leaves and potpourri, and, opening the book at random, came upon the lines just quoted. For the first time I tasted the delights of rhythm, of music in words. The verses photographed themselves on my brain. Searching through the book until darkness fell, it seemed to me that I could find nothing so good, nothing that swung along with such a gallop. But the cup had been held to my lips, and my days and nights became a quest for words wedded to music. I had to look for some time before I encountered anything better than, or equal to, the haunting rhythm of "The Vengeance of Mudara." The years have brought discoveries beside which the first pales into insignificance, adventures in books of a spirit more subtle, carrying the thrill of a keener amazement; but none came with the force of such revelation as was vouchsafed by that page in an unforgotten book in an unforgettable room. The first of the ballads in which Lockhart deals with the subject of the Infantes of Lara--for the one we have been discussing follows it--is entitled "The Seven Heads," and details the circumstance of the massacre of the unhappy princes. From the Historia de España of Juan de Marinia (1537-1624) we learn that in the year 986 Ruy Velásquez, lord of Villaren, celebrated his marriage with Donna Lombra, a lady of high birth, at Burgos. The festivities were on a scale of great splendour, and among the guests were Gustio González, lord of Salas of Lara, and his seven sons. These young men, of the blood of the Counts of Castile, were celebrated for their chivalric prowess, and had all been knighted on the self-same day.