ROMANCERO DEL CID, a collection of romances or ballads which sing of the mighty deeds of Ruy Diaz de Bivar, the Cid Campea dor, the national hero of Spain. Curiously enough there exists no single romancero in which are included all the Cid ballads. This is due to the fact that new ballads are being constantly found which had not been put into print. The first 'Romancero del Cid of Juan de Escobar' dated 1612 contains only 102 bal lads, the most complete modern collection, that of Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos of 1871, contains 205. It was during the 16th and 17th centuries that the ballads reached the height of their popularity and passed from the oral to the written stage. Most of the ballads we have preserved to-day are not ancient. The tales they tell are those of the old ballads but the language is that of the classic period, and some of them have unknown authors. The early ballads were the most oft-repeated and favorite parts of longer poems. They represent a more demo cratic form of literature than such long works as the 'Poema del Cid' and the (Cronica Rimada,' poems of an aristocratic and chival rous age. Often the ballad is the result of a
popular embellishment of an event found in the longer songs. In the 18th century the Cid ballads decayed somewhat in popularity but during the Romantic period they flourished as never be fore. John G. Lockhart's 'Ancient Spanish Bal lads' though containing only eight Cid ballads is important because it has been accepted as a classic by several generations of English-speak ing peoples. A more scholarly but still poetic translation is James Y. Gibson's (Eighty-three Cid Ballads.' The Cid ballads are dramatic, realistic and virile; they rarely lapse into the puerilities of some other types of folklore poetry. In them the Cid may be idealized from a historical point of view, but to the Spaniard he is the noblest type of warrior carried to the height of perfection. For a fuller account of the 'Romancero del Cid,' consult Fitz Maurice-Kelly, James, 'Chapters on Spanish Literature' (I and IV) ; and Morley, 'Span ish Ballads' containing nine Cid ballads with vocabulary, notes, and excellent bibliography.