s famous and rather wickedly wrested saying (a favourite
with Carlyle) about the creation of the world and the possibility of
improvement therein had the Creator taken advice. Even the far more
deservedly famous _Siete Partidas_, with that _Fuero Juzgo_ in which,
though it was issued in his father's time, he is supposed to have had
a hand, are merely noteworthy here as early, curious, and, especially
in the case of the _Partidas_, excellent specimens of Spanish prose in
its earliest form. He could not have executed these or any great part
of them himself: and the great bulk of the other work attributed to
him must also have been really that of collaborators or secretaries.
The verse part of this is not extensive, consisting of a collection of
_Cantigas_ or hymns, Provencal in style and (to the puzzlement of
historians) Galician rather than Castilian in dialect, and an
alchemical medley of verse and prose called the _Tesoro_. These, if
they be his, he may have written for himself and by himself. But for
his _Astronomical Tables_, a not unimportant _point de repere_ in
astronomical history, he must, as for the legal works already
mentioned and others, have been largely indebted. There seems to be
much doubt about a prose _Tresor_, which is or is not a translation of
the famous work of Brunetto Latini (dates would here seem awkward).
But the _Cronica General de Espana_, the Spanish Bible, the Universal
History, and the _Gran Conquesta de Ultramar_ (this last a History of
the Crusades, based partly on William of Tyre, partly on the _chanson_
cycle of the Crusades, fables and all) must necessarily be his only in
the sense that he very likely commissioned, and not improbably
assisted in them. The width and variety of the attributions, whether
contestable in parts or not, prove quite sufficiently for our purpose
this fact, that by his time (he died in 1284) literature of nearly all
kinds was being pretty busily cultivated in the Spanish vernaculars,
though in this case as in others it might chiefly occupy itself with
translations or adaptations of Latin or of French.

This fact in general, and the capital and interesting phenomenon of
the _Poema del Cid_ in particular, are the noticeable points in this
division of our subject. It will be observed that Spain is at this
time content, like Goethe's scholar, _sich ueben_. Her one great
literary achievement--admirable in some respects, incomparable in
itself--is not a novelty in ki