The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

438 APPENDIX TO THE
Roderici ultimi Gothorum Regis animum infelix curiositas subiit, sciendi quid sub tot vetitis claustris observaretur; ingentes ibi superiorum regum opes et
arcanos thesauros servari ratus. Seras et pessulos
perfringi curat, invitis omnibus; nihil prieter arculam
repertum, et in ea linteum, quo explicato novra et
insolentes hominum facies habitusque apparuere, cum
inscriptione Latina, Hispanice excidiu?n ab illa gente
imminere; Vultus habitusque Maurorum erant.Quamobrem ex Africa tantam cladem instare regi
cseterisque persuasum; nec falso ut Hispania annales
etiamnum queruntur."-UHispania Ludovic. Nonij.
cap. lix.
But, about the term of the expulsion of the Moors
from Grenada, we find, in the "Historia Verdadeyra
del Rey Don Rodrigo," a (pretended) translation from
the Arabic of the sage Alcayde Abulcacim Tarif
Abentarique, a legend which puts to shame the modesty of the historian Roderick, with his chest and prophetic picture. The custom of ascribing a pretended
Moorish original to these legendary histories, is ridiculed by Cervantes, who affects to translate the History of the Knight of the Woful Figure, from the
Arabic of the sage Cid Hamet Benengeli. As I
have been indebted to the Historia Verdadeyra for
some of the imagery employed in the text, the following literal translation from the work itself may gratify
the inquisitive reader:" One mile on the east side of the city of Toledo,
among some rocks, was situated an ancient tower, of a
magnifibent structure, though much dilapidated by time
which consumes all; four estadoes (i. e. four times a
man's height) below it, there was a cave with a very nar