Looking, then, to human causes, there is hope to be derived from the humanising effects of Literature, which has now first begun to act upon all ranks. Good principles are indeed used as the stalking-horse under cover of which pernicious designs may be advanced; but the better seeds are thus disseminated and fructify after the ill design has failed.
The cruelties of the old criminal law have been abrogated. Debtors are no longer indiscriminately punished by indefinite imprisonment. The iniquity of the slave trade has been acknowledged, and put an end to, so far as the power of this country extends; and although slavery is still tolerated, and must be so for awhile, measures have been taken for alleviating it while it continues, and preparing the way for its gradual and safe removal. These are good works of the government. And when I look upon the conduct of that government in all its foreign relations, though there may be some things to disapprove, and some sins of omission to regret, it has been, on the whole, so disinterested, so magnanimous, so just, that this reflection gives me a reasonable and a religious ground of hope. And the reliance is strengthened when I call to mind that missionaries from Great Britain are at this hour employed in spreading the glad tidings of the Gospel far and wide among heathen nations.
Descending from these wider views to the details of society, there, too, I perceive ground, if not for confidence, at least for hope. There is a general desire throughout the higher ranks for bettering the condition of the poor, a subject to which the government also has directed its patient attention: minute inquiries have been made into their existing state, and the increase of pauperism and of crimes. In no other country have the wounds of the commonwealth been so carefully probed. By means of colonisation, of an improved parochial order and of a more efficient police, the further increase of these evils may be prevented; while, by education, by providing means of religious instruction for all by savings banks, and perhaps by the establishment of Owenite communities among themselves, the labouring classes will have their comforts enlarged, and their well-being secured, if they are not wanting to themselves in prudence and good conduct. A beginning has been made — an impulse given: it may be hoped — almost, I will say, it may be expected — that in a few generations this whole class will be placed within the reach of moral and intellectual gratifications, whereby they may be rendered healthier, happier, better in all respects, an improvement which will be not more beneficial to them as individuals, than to the whole body of the commonweal.
The diffusion of literature, though it has rendered the acquirement of general knowledge impossible, and tends inevitably to diminish the number of sound scholars, while it increases the multitude of sciolists, carries with it a beneficial influence to the lower classes. Our booksellers already perceive that it is their interest to provide cheap publications for a wide public, instead of looking to the rich alone as their customers. There is reason to expect that, in proportion as this is done — in proportion as the common people are supplied with wholesome entertainment (and wholesome it is, if it be only harmless) they will be less liable to be acted upon by fanaticism and sedition.
You have not exaggerated the influence of the newspaper press, nor the profligacy of some of those persons, by whom this unrestrained and irresponsible power is exercised. Nevertheless it has done, and is doing, great and essential good. The greatest evils in society proceed from the abuse of power; and this, though abundantly manifested in the newspapers themselves, they prevent in other quarters. No man engaged in public life could venture now upon such transactions as no one, in their station half a century ago, would have been ashamed of. There is an end of that scandalous jobbing which at that time existed in every department of the State, and in every branch of the public service; and a check is imposed upon any scandalous and unfit promotion, civil or ecclesiastical. By whatever persons the government may be administered, they are now well aware that they must do nothing which will not bear daylight and strict investigation. The magistrates also are closely observed by this self-constituted censorship; and the inferior officers cannot escape exposure for any perversion of justice, or undue exercise of authority. Public nuisances are abated by the same means, and public grievances which the Legislature might else overlook, are forced upon its attention. Thus, in ordinary times, the utility of this branch of the press is so great that one of the worst evils to be apprehended from the abuse of its power at all times, and the wicked purposes to which it is directed in dangerous ones, is the ultimate loss of a liberty, which is essential to the public good, but which when it passes into licentiousness, and effects the overthrow of a State, perishes in the ruin it has brought on.
In the fine arts, as well as in literature, a levelling principle is going on, fatal, perhaps, to excellence, but favourable to mediocrity. Such facilities are afforded to imitative talent, that whatever is imitable will be imitated. Genius will often be suppressed by this, and when it exerts itself, will find it far more difficult to obtain notice than in former times. There is the evil here that ingenious persons are seduced into a profession which is already crowded with unfortunate adventurers; but, on the other hand, there is a great increase of individual and domestic enjoyment. Accomplishments which were almost exclusively professional in the last age, are now to be found in every family within a certain rank of life. Wherever there is a disposition for the art of design, it is cultivated, and in consequence of the general proficiency in this most useful of the fine arts, travellers represent to our view the manners and scenery of the countries which they visit, as well by the pencil as the pen. By means of two fortunate discoveries in the art of engraving, these graphic representations are brought within the reach of whole classes who were formerly precluded by the expense of such things from these sources of gratification and instruction. Artists and engravers of great name are now, like authors and booksellers, induced to employ themselves for this lower and wider sphere of purchasers. In all this I see the cause as well as the effect of a progressive refinement, which must be beneficial in many ways. This very diffusion of cheap books and cheap prints may, in its natural consequences, operate rather to diminish than to increase the number of adventurers in literature and in the arts. For though at first it will create employment for greater numbers, yet in another generation imitative talent will become so common, that neither parents nor possessors will mistake it for an indication of extraordinary genius, and many will thus be saved from a ruinous delusion. More pictures will be painted but fewer exhibited, more poetry written but less published, and in both arts talents which might else have been carried to an overstocked and unprofitable market, will be cultivated for their own sakes, and for the gratification of private circles, becoming thus a source of sure enjoyment and indirectly of moral good. Scientific pursuits will, in like manner, be extended, and pursuits which partake of science, and afford pleasures within the reach of humble life.
Here, then, is good in progress which will hold on its course, and the growth of which will only be suspended, not destroyed, during any of those political convulsions which may too probably be apprehended — too probably, I say, because when you call upon me to consider the sinfulness of this nation, my heart fails. There can be no health, no soundness in the state, till government shall regard the moral improvement of the people as its first great duty. The same remedy is required for the rich and for the poor. Religion ought to be so blended with the whole course of instruction, that its doctrines and precepts should indeed “drop as the rain, and distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass” — the young plants would then imbibe it, and the heart and intellect assimilate it with their growth. We are, in a great degree, what our institutions make us. Gracious God were those institutions adapted to Thy will and word — were we but broken in from childhood to Thy easy yoke — were we but carefully instructed to believe and obey — in that obedience and belief we should surely find our temporal welfare and our eternal happiness!
Here, indeed, I tremble
at the prospect! Could I look beyond the clouds and the darkness which close upon it, I should then think that there may come a time when that scheme for a perpetual peace among the states of Christendom which Henri IV. formed, and which has been so ably digested by the Abbé St. Pierre, will no longer be regarded as the speculation of a visionary. The Holy Alliance, imperfect and unstable as it is, is in itself a recognition of the principle. At this day it would be practicable, if one part of Europe were as well prepared for it as the other; but this cannot be, till good shall have triumphed over evil in the struggles which are brooding, or shall have obtained such a predominance as to allay the conflict of opinions before it breaks into open war.
God in his mercy grant that it be so! If I looked to secondary causes alone, my fears would preponderate. But I conclude as I began, in firm reliance upon Him who is the beginning and the end. Our sins are manifold, our danger is great, but His mercy is infinite.
Sir Thomas More. — Rest there in full faith. I leave you to your dreams; draw from them what comfort you can. And now, my friend, farewell!
The look which he fixed on me, as he disappeared, was compassionate and thoughtful; it impressed me with a sad feeling, as if I were not to see him again till we should meet in the world of spirits.
CHRONICLE OF THE CID
Translated from the Spanish by Robert Southey
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY LL.D.,
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.
BOOK I.
BOOK II
BOOK III.
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
BOOK IX.
BOOK X.
BOOK XI.
Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (circa 1043–1099) was a Castilian nobleman and military leader in medieval Spain. He was called El Cid (the Lord) by the Moors and is regarded as the national hero of Spain.
INTRODUCTION.
Robert Southey’s “Chronicle of the Cid” is all translation from the Spanish, but is not translation from a single book. Its groundwork is that part of the Crónica General de España, the most ancient of the Prose Chronicles of Spain, in which adventures of the Cid are fully told. This old Chronicle was compiled in the reign of Alfonso the Wise, who was learned in the exact science of his time, and also a troubadour. Alfonso reigned between the years 1252 and 1284, and the Chronicle was written by the King himself, or under his immediate direction. It is in four parts. The first part extends from the Creation of the World to the occupation of Spain by the Visigoths, and is dull; the second part tells of the Goths in Spain and of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, and is less dull; the third part brings down the story of the nation to the reign of Ferdinand the Great, early in the eleventh century; and the fourth part continues it to the date of the accession of Alfonso himself in the year 1252. These latter parts are full of interest. Though in prose, they are based by a poet on heroic songs and national traditions of the struggle with the Moors, and the fourth part opens with an elaborate setting forth of the history of the great hero of mediaeval Spain, the Cid Campeador. The Cid is the King Arthur, or the Roland, of the Spaniards, less mythical, but not less interesting, with incidents of a real life seen through the warm haze of Southern imagination. King Alfonso, in his Chronicle, transformed ballads and fables of the Cid into a prose digest that was looked upon as history. Robert Southey translated this very distinct section of the Chronicle, not from the Crónica General itself, but from the Chronica del Cid, which, with small variation, was extracted from it, being one in substance with the history of the Cid in the fourth part of the General Chronicle, and he has enriched it. This he has done by going himself also to the Poem of the Cid and to the Ballads of the Cid, for incidents, descriptions, and turns of thought, to weave into the texture of the old prose Chronicle, brightening its tints, and adding new life to its scenes of Spanish chivalry.
“The Poem of the Cid,” the earliest and best of the heroic songs of Spain, is a romance of history in more than three thousand lines, celebrating the achievements of the hero little more than fifty years after his death. Ruy Diaz, or Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, was born at Burgos about the year 1040, and died in the year 1099. He was called the Cid, because five Moorish Kings acknowledged him in one battle as their Seid, or Lord and Conqueror, and he was Campeador or Champion of his countrymen against the Moors. Thus he was styled The Lord Champion — El Cid Campeador. The Cid died at the end of the eleventh century, and “The Poem of the Cid” was composed before the end of the twelfth. It was written after the year 1135, but before the year 1200.
The Cid is also the foremost hero of the ancient Spanish Ballads. The ballads invent or record more incidents of his life than are to be found in the Poem and the Chronicle; and of these Southey, in the translation here reprinted, has made frequent and skilful use. Thus it is from the Chronicle, the Poem, and the whole group of Ballads, as collated by an English poet with a fine relish for Spanish literature and a keen sense of the charm of old historical romance, that we get the translation from the Spanish which Southey published at the age of thirty-four, in the year 1808, as “The Chronicle of the Cid.”
Robert Southey was born at Bristol on the 12th of August, 1774. He was the son of an unprosperous linen-draper, and was cared for in his childhood and youth by two of his mother’s relations, a maiden aunt, with whom he lived as a child, and an uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, who assisted in providing for his education. Mr. Hill was Chaplain to the British Factory at Lisbon, and had a well-grounded faith in Southey’s genius and character. He secured for his nephew some years of education at Westminster School, and when Southey was expelled by an unwise headmaster for a boyish jest, his uncle’s faith in him held firm, and he was sent on to Balliol College, Oxford. Those were days of wild hope among the young. They felt all that was generous in the aspiration of idealists who saw the golden cities of the future in storm-clouds of revolution. Robert Southey at Oxford dreamed good dreams as a poetical Republican. He joined himself with other young students — Coleridge among them — who planned an experiment of their own in ideal life by the Susquehanna. He became engaged, therefore, at Bristol in mysterious confabulation with strange youths. This alarmed his maiden aunt. Uncle Hill, then in England, and about to return to his work at Lisbon, shrewdly proposed to set his nephew right, and draw him out of any confederacy that he might be in, by tempting him with an offer that would take strong hold of his imagination. He offered to take him for a run through Spain and Portugal. That was a chance not to be lost. Southey went to Lisbon with his uncle, but secured, before he went, the accomplishment of what he considered the best part of his design, by secretly marrying Miss Edith Fricker. During that first run over ground with which he became afterwards familiar, the young husband wrote letters to his wife, thriftily planned for future publication in aid of housekeeping. They were published in 1797, as “Letters from Spain and Portugal.” It was thus that Southey was first drawn to Spanish studies. When he came back, and had to tell his aunt that he was married, he and his wife were thrown upon their own resources. He worked manfully; his uncle still abiding by him. In 1800 Southey went with his wife to visit Mr. Hill, in Lisbon.
While winning his place among the English poets, Robert Southey more than once turned to account his Spanish studies. He produced versions of the old Spanish romances of chivalry. “Amadis of Gaul” he published in 1803, and in 1807 “Palmerin of England.” In 1807 he also published “Espriella’s Letters,” an original book of his own, professing to translate the letters of a Spaniard, who gave, as a traveller, his view of life in England. This was a pleasant book, designed, like Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World,” to help us to see ourselves as others see us. In the following year, 1808, Southey — already known as the author of “Thalaba,” published in 1802, and of “Madoc,” published in 1805 — produced this “Chronicle of the Cid.” It was a time for him of energetic production and of active struggle, with
a manly patience to sustain it through years rich in gentle thoughts and kindly deeds that kept his heart at rest. Sara Coleridge, to whom Southey was giving a father’s care and shelter in the days when the Chronicle was being prepared, saw in him “upon the whole the best man she had ever known.” All qualities that should make a good translator of such a Chronicle as this were joined in Robert Southey. As for the true Cid, let us not ask whether he was ever — as M. Dozy, in his excellent Recherches sur l’Histoire Politique et Líttéraíre de l’Espagne pendant le Moyen Age, says that he could be — treacherous and cruel. What lives of him is all that can take form as part of the life of an old and haughty nation, proud in arms. Let the rest die.
HENRY MORLEY.
August, 1883.
BOOK I.
I. King Don Ferrando succeeded to the states of Castille after the death of his father King Don Sancho el Mayor, in the era 1072, which was the year of the Incarnation 1034, and from the coming of the Patriarch Tubal to settle in Spain 3197, and from the general deluge 3339, and from the creation of the world 4995, according to the computation of the Hebrews, and from the beginning of the false sect of the Moors 413. And in the year 1037 Ferrando slew Bermudo the King of Leon in battle, who was his wife’s brother, and conquered his kingdom, and succeeded to it in right of his wife Doña Sancha. So he was the first person who united the states of Castille and Leon, and the first who was called King of Castille; for till this time the lords of that country had been called Counts. He was a good king, and one who judged justly and feared God, and was bold in all his doings. Before he reigned he had by Doña Sancha his wife the Infanta Doña Urraca, his eldest daughter, who was a right excellent lady, of good customs and bounty and beauty; and after her he had the Infante Don Sancho, his eldest son and heir; and then the Infanta Doña Elvira, whom after the death of the King her father, her brother King Don Alfonso married to the Count Don Garci de Cabra. And after he became King he had the Infante Don Alfonso, and the Infante Don Garcia, who was the youngest of all. And he put his sons to read, that they might be of the better understanding, and he made them take arms, and be shown how to demean themselves in battle, and to be huntsmen. And he ordered that his daughters should be brought up in the studies beseeming dames, so that they might be of good customs, and instructed in devotion and in all things which it behoved them to know.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 243