Cabinet of biography

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SOME OF THE CHAPTERS ARE :-

1. His Descent

2. His Birth

3. His Mother's Dream

Already, however, had various kings and nobles of Spain cultivated letters. The first authors whose names appear were less of poets than many whose works appear in the various Cancioneros. Elevated in rank, they addicted themselves to study from a love of knowledge. Eagerly curious about the secrets of nature, or observant of the philosophy of life, they were desirous of instructing their countrymen. They deserve infinite praise for their exertions, and the motives that animated them; but their productions cannot have the same interest for us as the genuine emanations of the feelings. The heart of man, its passions and its emotions, endures for ever the same, and the poet who touches with truth the simplest of its chords remains immortal; but our heads change their fashion and furniture. We disregard obsolete knowledge as a ruin, out of proportion and fallen to pieces; while the language of the passions, like vegetation for ever growing, is always fresh. Alphonso X., surnamed the Wise, loved learning. He rendered a great service to his country by the cultivation he bestowed on the Castillian language. His verses bear the marks of the attention he paid to correctness, and by his command the Spanish language was substituted for Latin in public instruments. Through him the Bible was translated into Castillian, and a Chronicle of Spain was commenced under his directions. He favoured the troubadours, and himself aspired to write verses. There is an entire book of Cantigas or Letras, composed in the Gallician dialect, by him. El Teroso is his principal work; it detailed his alchymical secrets, and is written in Castillian, in versos de arte mayor: much of this work remains still undeciphered. To him also is attributed a poem called Las Querellas, of which two stanzas only are preserved, and those so superior in versification to the Tesoro, that it is doubted whether they can be the production of the same man and age. The most useful work that owed its existence to his superintendence was the Alphonsine Tables, containing calculations truly extraordinary for that period.

Alphonso XI. followed in his footsteps in the cultivation of the Castillian language. He is said to have composed a General Chronicle of Redondillas, which is lost.