the feet of Jewish physicians and Mahometan philosophers *."

This liberality was admirable. It appears, that notwithstanding the hostility which in public life always divided the Moors and Christians, they frequently mingled together in private society on terms of amity. Their Moorish masters studied as much as possible to unite the two parties in civil rights and social amusements, and probably this policy would finally have succeeded in uniting the two nations, except for the baneful religious bigotry of the Christians. This caused friendship with infidels to be regarded as sinful, and resisted to the utmost. When chivalry sprung up, it served still more to unite the Moors and Christians, because the bond of knighthood was held to take place of all other relations, and the mutual toleration it produced, is said to have been very remarkable†. The institution is thought to have originated with the Christians, and spread from them to the Moors; nor does this appear to be the only influence which the manners of the Christians had upon that people, for in the engravings from Moorish pictures, in Murphy's Arabian Antiquities of Spain, women are occasionally represented unveiled.

In the Spanish orders of chivalry, the duties to women were particularly rigid. In an order of merit instituted by Alphonso the Eleventh, the knight

• Their literature consisted of encyclopedias, biography, history, some sciences, as botany, chemistry, medicine, rhetoric, poetry. See LOCKHART.

+ MILLS' Chivalry.

bound himself never to institute an action at law against a lady; and to dismount, whenever he should meet a lady of the court, and offer her his services: if he refused or disregarded her commands, he was branded with the name of the discourteous knight.

He was enjoined to have a "Ladye love," whom he was to attend on foot, or on horseback; and if she were left a widow, his brother knights were bound to exert all their influence to obtain lands or money for her and her daughters, to maintain them in their station.

By the peculiar duties of this order, the knights were bound to be always ready to address the king, either for the good of the country, or of oppressed persons, and to shun flattery or dissimulation towards him. The rules for decorum and politeness were equally rigid.

The social consideration granted to women by the Spanish Arabians, is apparent in the encouragement they gave to their education*. This alone would have been a proof of some degree of practical freedom; for it is certain that neither individually nor collectively, do men ever encourage or even tolerate literature or science among those whom they desire to depress. Mankind always add contumely to tyranny; they have therefore an interest in keeping those despicable, whom they have reduced to passive obedience, in order that their injustice may be the less glaring.

* Historical Introduction to MURPHY's Arabian Antiquities of Spain.

Valada, the daughter of one of the caliphs in Spain, was called the Arabian Sappho. Endowed both with beauty and genius, she applied herself entirely to poetry and rhetoric, and cultivated the friendship of the most eminent poets of her time, in whose conversation she took great delight. Aysha, a princess of Cordova, was pre-eminent for her learning and abilities. Her orations and poems were frequently read in the royal academy of Cordova with great applause. She died about the end of the tenth century, and left an extensive library and many monuments of her abilities. The compositions of a princess may be suspected to have been received, even by learned academicians, without much disposition to critical rigour; but these instances are adduced, not so much as proofs of female abilities as to exhibit the encouragement given to literary acquirements in the female sex. Many other women, inferior in station, but whose talents had rendered them celebrated in their day, are enumerated in the work just referred to, and they were regarded with general respect and admiration. Some remains of the poetical compositions of a lady who was called the Arabian Corinna, are said to possess merit of a very high order.

The ballads which have been translated, illustrate in many of their most important particulars, the view that has been given of the state of society in those times that is to say, the turbulence, violence and insecurity, which gave birth to chivalry, the lofty and generous spirit of that institution, the freedom which Moorish women enjoyed, and he

VOL. I.

H

tenderness and refinement of their love. Poetry and romance indeed seize chiefly upon the adventurous, the terrible, or the unusual. Poetry also chooses, for the most part, the traditionary, or at least the past, so that some caution is required in referring to ballads for a picture of manners. It is perhaps less in the adventure which forms the subject, than in the tone and sentiment of such compositions, that we should look for tests of existing manners. Translations are also fallacious guides; if free, a slight degree of embellishment clothes the sentiments with a degree of refinement or force which perhaps they had not; if very literal, they lose the effect they had in the original. The Spanish ballads relate most commonly to the early wars with the Moors, to domestic tragedies, such as the murder of children, or the crimes occasioned by jealousy, and to feats of arms and contests between rival sovereigns. But the spirit of chivalry is exhibited through them very strongly, and love is expressed with tenderness and delicacy. None of them appear individually very striking in the translation, but the following serenade is simple and pleasing*.

1.

While my lady sleepeth,

The dark blue heaven is bright,
Soft the moonbeam creepeth,

Round her bower all night.

Thou gentle, gentle breeze,
While my lady slumbers,

Waft lightly through the trees
The echoes of my numbers,

Her dreaming ear to please.

• Mr. Lockhart thinks they may be as old as the middle

of the fourteenth century.

Moral and Social Influence of Chivalry.

The much contested question of the moral and social influence of chivalry, cannot be disregarded in sketching out the history of women. For if its lofty and stern morals and its generous spirit had never any existence but in the pages of fiction, if its vices and oppressions were always as great as those of the surrounding masses which they affected to correct, then the apparent elevation of women can have been but a false glare. No caprice of the human mind, no combination of accidents could have raised the

* LOCKHART's Translation of Spanish Ballads.