trong a degree
the true national feeling--no other has produced such a uniformly pure,
deeply religious, and elevated tone, in poetry and literature. Their
poetry remained at all times free from any foreign influence, and is
entirely romantic, while the Christian chivalric poetry of the Middle
Ages remained with them longer than with any other nation, and received
from their hands a more finished and elegant polish.

After the Moorish conquest the Spaniards withdrew to the mountains of
Asturias; they took with them a corrupted form of the Latin language,
as they had received it from the Romans; reaching these mountains, they
found themselves thrown with the Iberians (the earliest of the Spanish
races). These people had remained half barbaric, had resisted both
Romans and Goths, and retained their original or Basque language.
Coming now in contact with them, the Christian Spaniards learned their
language. Later they met with another tribe of their own race who had
remained with the Arabians, known as the Mocarabes, a people of
superior refinement and civilization. Hence a new dialect from these
contending elements was gradually formed, and became known, like the
other languages of southern Europe, as the Romanic. The distinguishing
feature of Spanish literature, from its birth, to the time of Ferdinand
and Isabella, is religious faith and knightly loyalty. Qualities which
sustained the whole nation in its struggle against the infidel Moors.

The first great Spanish work is the poem of the Cid. It is the only
epic Spain has ever produced, and is the most ancient of any in the
Romance language. It is also valuable as a faithful picture of the
manners and characters of the eleventh century. Indeed, the chief
characteristic of Spanish song and poetry is its delineation of the
national life. It is said that the Cid is the foremost poem produced in
Europe from the thousand years that marked the decline of Greek and
Roman civilization, to the appearance of the Divine Comedy. The Count
Lucanor, a work of the fourteenth century, was one of the earliest
prose writings in the Spanish tongue, as the Decameron, which was
written about the same time, was the first in Italian. Both are
narrative tales; but their moral tone is very dissimilar--the Decameron
was written to amuse, while the Count Lucanor is addressed to a grave
and serious nation. These stories have frequently been dramatized, and
one of them gave Shakespeare the outline