Of Lull’s verses many are narrative or doctrinal: the hymns entitled ‘Hours of Our Lady St. Mary’ (_Horas de Nostra Dona Sancta Maria_), for example; the ‘Sin of Adam’ (_Lo Peccat de n’Adam_), written ‘at the request of the King of Majorca’; the short ‘Song of Ramón’ (_Lo Cant de Ramón_), and above all the ‘Medicine for Sin’ (_Medicina de Peccat_) and the purely didactic verse ‘Application’ of the _Art General_. The collection of a hundred songs on the Names of God (_Els Cent Noms de Deu_), on the other hand, is more mystical than doctrinal, and suggests, in matter as well as in title, the mystical treatise ‘Of the Names of Christ’ (_De los Nombres de Cristo_) written almost exactly three hundred years later by the Salamancan friar, Luis de León. Mystical too, as well as autobiographical, is the dialogue poem _El Desconort_, ‘made in his old age,’ though its spirit is that of disillusion at the refusal of those in high places to help forward his schemes of evangelisation. But neither of these has either the strength or the beauty of the collection of prose poems here translated, a collection which forms part of the novel-like _Blanquerna_, Lull’s chief contribution to mystical literature. His chief contribution it is, mainly, though not entirely, by virtue of the sections entitled the _Art of Contemplation_ and our _Book of the Lover and the Beloved_. _Blanquerna_, as a whole, is a somewhat fantastic, and in places extravagant, religious romance--a religious _Utopia_, if parallels to it must be found, or a Catholic _Pilgrim’s Progress_. The story is of a certain gallant and wealthy youth named Evast, who marries a beautiful and virtuous girl called Aloma. They live together in great piety and happiness, but have no children, until Aloma in her sorrow prays to God, and a boy, Blanquerna, is born to them. The child is brought up with great care, and in the fear of God; and when his father sees that he is a youth of discretion, he resolves to devote himself to the religious life. Aloma, however, disapproves, saying that they can both serve God best in the state to which He has called them; they decide in the end to lead lives of greater austerity in their home, and to give Blanquerna the oversight of the household. But, on proposing this to the boy, they find that he has resolved to become a hermit. Aloma is grieved, and endeavours to marry Blanquerna to a beautiful girl called Cana. Blanquerna’s reply is to persuade Cana to become a nun, while he himself retires to the desert to carry out his resolve. The story then describes circumstantially and with some prolixity the lives of Evast and Aloma after Blanquerna has left them; it passes on to Cana, who eventually becomes abbess of her convent; and finally, after some long digressions upon convent life, to the later history of Blanquerna, which occupies the rest of the romance.