36 Page 229.--Of the sublime Wallin.

A distinguished pulpit orator and poet. He is particularly remarkable for the beauty and sublimity of his psalms.

37 Page 245.--Nils Juel.

Nils Juel was a celebrated Danish admiral; and Peder Wessel a vice-admiral, who, for his great prowess, received the popular title of Tordenskiold, or Thunder-shield. In childhood he was a tailor's apprentice, and rose to his high rank before the age of twenty-eight, when he was killed in a duel.

38 Page 269.- Coplas de Manrique.

Don Jorge Manrique, the author of this poem, flourished in the last half of the fifteenth century. He followed the profession of arms, and died on the field of battle. Mariana, in his "History of Spain," makes honourable mention of him, as being present at the siege of Ucles; and speaks of him as "a youth of inestimable qualities, who in this war gave brilliant proofs of his valour. He died young; and was thus cut off from long exercising his great virtues, and exhibiting to the world the light of his genius, which was already known to fame."

He was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Canavete in the year 1479.

The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, Conde de Paredes and Maestre de Santiago, is well known in Spanish history and song. He died in 1476; according to Mariana, in the town of Ucles; but, according to the poem of his son, in Ocana. It was his death that called forth the poem upon which rests the literary reputation of the younger Manrique. In the language of his historian, "Don Jorge Manrique, in an elegant Ode, full of poetic beauties, rich embellishments of genius, and high moral reflections, mourned the death of his father as with a funeral hymn." This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a model in its kind. Its conception is solemn and beautiful; and in accordance with it the style moves on-calm, dignified, and majestic.

This poem of Manrique is a great favourite in Spain. No less than four poetic Glosses, or running commentaries upon it, have been published; not one of which, however, possesses great poetic merit. That of the Carthusian monk, Rodrigo de Valdepenas, is the best. It is known as the Glosa del Cartugo. There is also a prose commentary by Luis de Aranada.

The following stanzas of the poem were found in the author's pocket after his death on the field of battle-

"O World! so few the years we live,

Would that the life which thou dost give
Were life indeed!

Alas! thy sorrows fall so fast,

Our happiest hour is when at last
The soul is freed.

"Our days are covered o'er with grief,
And sorrows neither few nor brief
Veil all in gloom;

Left desolate of real good,

Within this cheerless solitude

No pleasures bloom.

"Thy pilgrimage begins in tears,

And ends in bitter doubts and fears,
Or dark despair;

Midway so many toils appear,

That he who lingers longest here
Knows most of care.

"Thy goods are bought with many a groan,

By the hot sweat of toil alone,

And weary hearts;

Fleet-footed is the approach of woe,

But with a lingering step and slow
Its form departs."

39 Page 297.-- Walter von der Vogelweid.

Walter von der Vogelweid, or Bird Meadow, was one of the principal Minnesingers of the thirteenth century, He triumphed over Heinrich von Ofterdingen, in that poetic contest at the Wartburg Castle, known in literary history as the "War of Wartburg."

40 Page 319.--Like imperial Charlemagne.

Charlemagne may be called by pre-eminence the monarch of farmers. According to the German tradition, in seasons of great abundance, his spirit crosses the Rhine on a golden bridge at Bingen, and blesses the corn-Helds and the vineyards. During his lifetime, he did not disdain, says Montesquieu, "to sell the eggs from the farmyards of his domains, and the superfluous vegetables of his gardens; while he distributed among his people, the wealth of the Lombards and the immense treasures of the Huns.".

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