is it a happy contention that Portuguese _romances_ were not printed owing to _desleixo_, since the publication of Spanish _romances_ at Lisbon cannot be attributed merely to a craze for things foreign. More persuasive is the theory, developed by D. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos,[151] that many _romances_ in Spanish were the work of Portuguese poets, especially those related to the Breton cycle, such as _Ferido está Don Tristan_, those concerned with the sea, and those of a soft lyrical character, as _Fonte Frida_ and _La Bella Malmaridada_. However that may be, the fact that _romances_ appear on the lips of the people in Gil Vicente, that is, before the publication of the _romanceros_, indicates how rapidly their popularity spread,[152] and accounts for their numerous progeny in Portugal, collected in the nineteenth century. True historical _romances_ the Portuguese did not possess, unless we are to consider that certain lines which occur in Vicente’s parody of _Yo me estaba allá en Coimbra_, in Garcia de Resende’s _Trovas_, and elsewhere, are echoes of a Portuguese _romance_ on the death of Inés de Castro.[153] But that is not to say that they did not possess _romances_, and many of these might be almost as old as their Spanish models, although not derived directly from _cantares de gesta_. These Portuguese _romances_ or _xacaras_ (in the Azores _estorias_ and _aravias_) often differ from the Spanish in a certain vagueness of outline and sentimental tone. They are frequently of considerable length. Many of them are undoubtedly of popular origin and have a large number of variants in different parts of the country. If there are none to compare with _Fonte Frida_ or _Conde Arnaldos_ (which belong to Castilian literature, whatever the nationality of their authors), they nevertheless, with a total lack of concentration, present many natural scenes and incidents of affecting pathos and an attractive simplicity. One of the best and most characteristically Portuguese is _A Nau Catharineta_, and others almost equally famous are _Santa Iria_, _Conde Nillo_, and _Brancaflor e Flores_. The second edition of Dr. Theophilo Braga’s _Romanceiro_ runs to nearly two thousand pages. The first two volumes contain over 150 _romances_ (together with numerous variants). Of these 5 belong to the Carolingian, 8 to the Arthurian cycle, 63 are _romances sacros_ or _ao divino_, 11 treat of the cruel husband or unfaithful wife. In the third volume are reprinted _romances_ composed by well-known Portuguese authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It must be admitted that Spain generously repaid to Portugal the loan of the Galician language for lyrical composition--although in each case it was the lender’s literature that profited (especially if some of the most beautiful Spanish _romances_ were the work of Galician or Portuguese poets). But even after the birth of the _romance_ Spain continued to