Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/238

I. 214 CASTILIAN LITERATURE. PART process as it would have done in a later and more cultivated period. The simple beauties of this fine old romance, its bustling incidents, relieved by the delicate play of oriental machinery, its general truth of portraiture, above all, the knightly character of the hero, vi^ho graced the prowess of chivalry with a courtesy, modesty, and fidelity, unrivalled in the creations of romance, soon recommended it to pop- ular favor and imitation. A continuation, bearing the title of " Las Sergas de Esplandian,'^ was given to the world by Montalvo himself, and grafted on the original stock, as the fifth book of the Amadis, before 1510. A sixth, containing the adventures of his nephew, was printed at Salamanca in the course of the last-mentioned year ; and thus the idle writers of the day continued to propagate dul- ness through a series of heavy tomes, amounting in all to four and twenty books, until the much abused public would no longer sufier the name of Amadis to cloak the manifold sins of his posterity.^ Other knights-errant were sent roving about the world at the same time, whose exploits would fill a library ; but fortunately they have been permitted to pass 5 Nic. Antonio enumerates the Moratin has collected an appal- editions of thirteen of this doughty ling catalogue of jiart of the books family of knights-errant. (Biblio- of chivalry published in Spain at thcca Nova, torn. ii. pp. 394, 395.) the close of the fifteenth and the He dismisses his notice with the following century. The first on reflection, somewhat more charita- the list is the Carcel de Amor , •pox blc than that of Don Quixote's Diego Hernandez de San Pedro, curate, thai " he had felt little in- en Burgos, auo de 1496. Obras, tcrest in investigating these fables, torn. i. pp. 93-98. yet was willing to admit with oth- ers, that their reading was not wholly useless."