Good and kind. I had a letter from the war, Good and kind. I had a letter from the war, Good and kind. Which said my brave marine was dead, I thought it true; again I wed, Good and kind. The brave marine drank out his glass, Good and kind. The brave marine drank out his glass, Good and kind. Without a word, while soft tears flowed, To his corps went back his road, Good and kind. SOME ANCIENT PORTUGUESE BALLADS. |The larger and more important literature of Spain has naturally drawn a wider attention than that of its smaller neighbor in the Iberian peninsula. The great achievements of Spanish genius in the era of its intellectual efflorescence have compelled the intellectual world to study its language and familiarize itself with its literature. And not only have the great works of Cervantes and Calderon and Lope de Yega been studied and criticised, and reproduced in all the cultivated languages of Europe, but the treasures of popular Spanish poetry, with their rich elements of chivalry and romantic passion, have been carefully studied and exemplified by foreign scholars, and been the inspiration of foreign poets and translators. Hardly any country in Europe has a more valuable collection of popular poetry in the times of its military and intellectual greatness, or which more thoroughly illustrates its history or the characteristics of its national temperament. The long chronicles of the Cid, and the ballad narratives of the exploits of the heroes of the great struggles for the expulsion of the Moors, form in themselves a rich body of national poetry, but they are supplemented by an immense number of episodical ballads relating to events in national history, and lyrical poems and songs expressing the strong feeling and intellectual energy of the people. Many scholars and poets of eminence in European countries have devoted themselves to the reproduction of these Spanish national poems in their own languages, and in England during the early part of the present century there was a strong bent of scholarship in that direction, induced to a considerable extent, probably, by the national interest in the Peninsular war. Southey, Scott, and John Hookham Frere gave admirable translations of Spanish national poems, and the spirited versions of ancient Spanish ballads by Lockhart have been justly considered a permanent addition to English poetry.