nd are all excellent each in its style. But these
things are mere waifs, separated from each other in widely different
publications; and until they are put together no general impression of
the author's poetical talent, except a vaguely favourable one, can be
derived from them. The _Spanish Ballads_ form something like a
substantive work, and one of nearly as great merit as is possible to
poetical translations of poetry. I believe opinions differ as to their
fidelity to the original. Here and there, it is said, the author has
exchanged a vivid and characteristic touch for a conventional and feeble
one. Thus, my friend Mr. Hannay points out to me that in the original of
"The Lord of Butrago" the reason given by Montanez for not accompanying
the King's flight is not the somewhat _fade_ one that

Castile's proud dames shall never point the finger of disdain,

but the nobler argument, showing the best side of feudal sentiment, that
the widows of his tenants shall never say that he fled and left their
husbands to fight and fall. Lockhart's master, Sir Walter, would
certainly not have missed this touch, and it is odd that Lockhart
himself did. But such things will happen to translators. On the other
hand, it is, I believe, admitted (and the same very capable authority in
Spanish is my warranty) that on the whole the originals have rather
gained than lost; and certainly no one can fail to enjoy the _Ballads_
as they stand in English. The "Wandering Knight's Song" has always
seemed to me a gem without flaw, especially the last stanza. Few men,
again, manage the long "fourteener" with middle rhyme better than
Lockhart, though he is less happy with the anapaest, and has not fully
mastered the very difficult trochaic measure of "The Death of Don
Pedro." In "The Count Arnaldos," wherein, indeed, the subject lends
itself better to that cadence, the result is more satisfactory. The
merits, however, of these _Ballads_ are not technical merely, or rather,
the technical merits are well subordinated to the production of the
general effect. About the nature of that effect much ink has been shed.
It is produced equally by Greek hexameters, by old French assonanced
_tirades_, by English "eights and sixes," and by not a few other
measures. But in itself it is more or less the same--the stirring of the
blood as by the sound of a trumpet, or else the melting of the mood into
or close to tears. The ballad effect is thus the simplest and mos