Chronicle of the Cid | Page 2

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.

THE CHRONICLE OF THE CID

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