necessarily influenced the national genius and manners. The Spanish character and language were derived from the combination of these various elements. A fifth class of strangers, however, early invited into Spain, brought new modes of expression, and wonderfully improved the rising language. These were the Troubadours, who have formed the taste of modern poetry on both sides of the Pyrenees. A number of celebrated names belonging to this class might be given. But not to enter into detail, the fact recorded by Zurita in his annals may be noticed, that towards the end of the fourteenth century, King Don Juan the Second of Arragon, himself a writer of verses, sent a formal deputation into France, to request of the College of Toulouse suitable directions and laws for the introduction of the Gay Science into his states. The monarch's wishes were complied with, and two of the principal minstrels of Toulouse were despatched to Barcelona, and there established a Consistory of Troubadours.

The degree of influence which has been exercised by these various tribes of people upon the character and formation of Spanish poetry and language, would be an interesting subject for investigation. In forming a rude estimate, as regards the language, supposing it to be divided into one hundred parts, sixty have been assigned as derived from the Latin, ten from the Greek, ten from the idiom of the Visigoths, ten from the Arabic and Hebrew ; and from the Teutonic, the Italian, French, and words from the two Indies, a like number altogether. After the disuse of Latin verse, the cultivation of the oriental style of poetry flourished for five hundred years, when the Provençal and Valencian dialects prevailed and continued for a century. A concurrence of happy circumstances then paved the way for the Castilian, which was formed insensibly towards the twelfth century. To the commencement of the thirteenth, may be ascribed the production of the poem of the "Cid," the first rude effort of the Castilian Muse. The period from the construction of this curious old poem, to the more refined productions of Boscan and Garcilaso, onstitutes the first marked era of poetical history, and comprises some of those spirited ballads which paint with such simplicity the chivalric middle age of Spain, and in fact form the most popular portion of her poetry. The story of the Cid is familiar to us from the work of Dr. Southey, and the latter from the selected specimens so exquisitely translated by Mr. Lockhart. The injustice of Alphonso the Sixth to the illustrious Rodrigo de Bivar furnished the cause of those exploits which the unknown author of the "Cid" has taken for his theme.

Up to Lydgate and Gower's era in England, the date to which the first period of the poetic art in Spain extends, Spanish poetry may be placed by the side of English poetry without suffering much by the comparison. There had been a considerable number of

poets in the former country during this first stage; and although there be much in their productions which is tiresome in narrative and dull in subject, part of this is to be ascribed to the legendary and monastic spirit of the age; while much of what is inanimate and rude in style, is to be set down to the wildness of an unfixed language, which takes, notwithstanding, as it advances, a tone of greater pomp and compass. Finally, the indulgent critic will overlook the constant want of unity of the longer poems, in the beautiful simplicity, originality, and effect so remarkable in the older ballads, which often carry with them more real pathos and enchantment than are to be met with in the imitative grace and studied ornaments of a later and correcter age.

The second period of poetry in Spain, which presents the Castilian Muse with an aspect altogether new, began with the accession of Charles the Fifth. Garcilaso flourished in this period, and may be regarded as the first Spanish poet who combined, in a very great degree, the two essential qualities of excellence, genius and good taste. It is true that his disposition inclined him rather to Virgil and Petrarch, than to Dante, and his admiration and study of their writings, whilst it led to exquisite imitations of their imagery and harmony, induced him to rely less than he needed on his own resources. But considering him not only as the principal agent by whom the new system of versification, commenced by Boscán, became established, but as the founder of a new school of poetry, it is impossible not to ascribe to him much real genius. His talents excite a yet higher estimation, when we reflect that he died at the age of thirty-three, and that, far from enjoying the quiet leisure of his friend Boscán, he accompanied Charles the Fifth both to Pavia and Tunis, fighting in the field, and during the intervals of battle, writing his verses in the tent. His taste was, notwithstanding, superior to his genius; and as he took the Mantuan for his model, his writings have a classical elegance, purity, and charm, unsurpassed by any succeeding poet.

But it is unfortunate that the successors of Garcilaso should have so servilely followed his steps in their unvaried imitation of the classics. What might be necessary in him as the first great refiner of the poetry and language, was superfluous, or worse than superfluous, in them. His example should have engaged them to give deep attention to their principles of taste and composition, but not so utterly to renounce their self-dependence and innate resources. But the spring-tide of admiration for this class of subjects had set in, and every consideration of what was national in the writings of their earlier predecessors was overborne. Hence, properly speaking, they ceased to be original, and were content to occupy but a secondary place in merit and reputation. The bondage in which they were held by Aristotle, whose philosophy long continued to be

taught in their universities, rivetted their chains more closely. It would have been thought a species of literary heresy if they had dared to introduce anything but what was absolutely accordant with his rescripts and with the practice of Virgil and their Garcilaso. We meet accordingly, in the poets of the time of Charles the Fifth, with little that is purely Spanish, either in subject or in imagery.

In the reign of Philip, however, flourished two admirable poets, who, whilst studying the classics with the greatest assiduity, left behind them some fine odes upon subjects purely Spanish,-Herrera and Fray Luis de Leon. But Gongora arose, whose name, on account of the corrupt taste which he laboured to establish, is become the synonyme for a bad poet. And now, to simple thoughts, natural expressions and true enthusiasm, succeeded the heartless frippery of point, antithesis, flourish, and far-fetched illustration, which being encouraged by the courtiers and popular preachers of the day, mounted to a rage for innovation that was altogether ridiculous. Lope de Vega, however, the poet who of all others formed in his time the delight of his country, and who reigned like a monarch on the Spanish stage, opposed his talent of ridicule to check the progress of the disorder. But of him it is not necessary to say much. Everybody knows the extraordinary fertility of his genius-how his printed verses are reckoned by millions, and how his biographer Montalban relates, that to his knowledge eighteen hundred of his comedies were actually represented, besides four hundred sacred dramas, and that of these more than a hundred were written in a day. His imagination was, says one writer, an exhaustless fountain, or rather a Vesuvius in continual eruption. The quality of the verses, so vomited forth, may be judged of by their quantity. Apart from those comedies where the sprightliness of the dialogue, the choice of characters, and the rapid succession and ingenuity of incident sustain the reader's attention, in despite of his utter disregard of the unities, we think no one could submit to the drudgery of reading any of his longer compositions, written as they generally were without plan or preparation. Followed, flattered, and caressed as Lope was, from the superfluity of his intellectual wealth, admired by monarchs, adored by the people he amused, and mourned at his death as by a nation that had received a deep wound, his title to a high reputation now may be said to lie interred beneath a mighty mass of writings that serve, indeed, as a monument of his universal genius; but from that monument what mortal hand can disinter it? Who will undertake to collect the spirit of fifty or a hundred volumes into one?

There were others, although but few in number, who were but partially tinctured with the corruption and the conceits of which mention has been made; whilst one or two had the virtue altogether to resist the disorder of the day.

But we jump to the third distinctive stage of Spanish poetry, which

commenced with the restoration of good taste under Luzam, and his followers, towards the year 1730; and conclude our bald not cof the eras of Spanish poetry, with a few sentences from M. Maury's sketch of the last period, as found in his introduction to his selected specimens; the history of the art being closely interwoven with the political fortunes of the country. "What has been," he asks, with a sigh, "for the last twenty years, the success of the Iberian muses? Where indeed have they sojourned? Scattered like leaves by the autumnal blast, our men of letters like our statesmen are departed. An universal silence, with the exception of some few publications of trifling consequence, has left without a vestige the very existence of those rivals who promised the most noble strains. The tribune that resounded to the voice of genius is mute. Spain is agonized in every muscle of her frame, and expects relief from time alone. But time, at least, is infallible, and he will replace in that scale of eminence for which Nature designed it, a country in which she puts forth with profusion the germs of every accomplishment.

Since the period when these sentiments were expressed, Spain has enjoyed but little repose; nor has there, we believe, been any such change or revival in the history of the Castilian muse, as to call for notice in our brief sketch.

NOTICES.

ART. XIII.-France Daguerrotyped or the War Fever. BY CAPTAIN CapSICUM PEPPer.

THIS Anti-Gallic production deals in such exaggerations, gossip, and scandal, as the caricaturists of Paris largely employ in their satires on their public characters. But whether the pictures be true or false in a literal and individual sense, we have no doubt that the spirit of the French factions is given with considerable accuracy; and strange Daguerrotyped impression it leaves, of hostile parties and most excitable materials; the little-great man Thiers, with his set, furnishing subjects for a principal share of the author's speen. or of those from whom he has borrowed the pictures. We shall first quote what is said in general terms of the construction of recent French Ministries Says Capsicum,—

"Almost every administration that has existed in France since the Revolution of 1830 has contained within itself the germ of dissolution in the internal divisions of its members. Envies, jealousies, unprincipled ambition, all, in short, that can spring from exorbitant vanity-a gas with which the French character is as impregnated as the air they breathe with oxygen-thoroughly pervade every department of public as well as private life, aud render it utterly impossible that any set of men can sit together in the same cabinet for a single month without plotting their mutual destruction. A. wants to push out B, because B. is more fluent in the Council. B. is bent upon expelling A., because A.'s long-headed logic is sure to get the better of him at last, and

A., B., C., D., and so on alphabetically down to the last employé, have each an immediate aim at the Premiership. I doubt whether any or all the countries in Europe contain a tithe of the unprincipled schemers who are to be found in Paris alone. Indeed the notion of principle as involved in politics is openly sneered at in almost every salon you enter; and so wretched and heartless a game of hollow intrigue, such an utter prostration of all that is honest, upright, and manly, such undermining, overreaching, lying, knavery and swindling, as the whole political system of France exhibits, is not to be paralleled or even conceived, in any other part of the world-China, perhaps, excepted. During the long administration of the Quinze-Avril (as it was called) Mole was in a perpetual state of disagreement with Montalivet, suspecting him constantly of the most sinister designs, and literally set spies to watch his movements, with a view to countermine him and explode his various artifices. In the administration of the Premier-Mars, Thiers and Remusat led an equally cat-and-dog sort of life-the difference being that their hostility was so intense that neither made the slightest show of concealing it. It sufficed for one to say "white," for the other immediately to shout out "black,” and it was a common saying that by the side of these two confrères, Eteocles and Polynices, Capulet and Montague, were upon the friendly footing of thieves at a fair, or Kings in a coalition. In the present administration MM. Guizot and Duchâtel are strongly opposed, though in their mutual repulsion they do not outrage decency. In France, owing to the deficiency in valuable colonies, there are not three, as amongst us, but two great departments, into which the administration is divided the departments of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior. With the former usually goes the Premiership. In the present instance M. Duchatel holds the Ministry of the Interior, and Guizot being represented (we will suppose in the phraseology of Lloyd's) by A 1, Duchâtel is A 2 in the Ministry. Each has his train of adherents, and the Cabinet is according 1 more or less divided into two parties, which, unless Duchâtel manifests as much good sense as the other Principal, will unquestionably lead to a débácle. M. TanneguyDuchâtel, the Minister of the Interior, a man of ancient descent and considerable abilities, has what the Scotch would call "a strong following" in the Rue de Grenelle, where his hotel is situated. His personal influence causes a species of schism amongst the Doctrinaires, which is rather injurious to the supremacy of M. Guizot, "le pape de la doctrine" as he is sometimes called. Count Mole is ready to grasp strongly at power, and is intriguing vigorously for its resumption; while upon the other hand Thiers's exorbitant vanity, wrought upon by the sickening flattery of his faction, and stimulated by the recent renewal of his invitations to the Tuileries, is filled with fresh hopes of being called to the helm of affairs. In this hope Thiers is mistaken. Unless he be raised to power by a popular commotion, there are three things which effectually exclude him: first, his proved incapacity to guide and regulate great events-secondly, his faithlessness and treachery to the Sovereign, which can never be forgiven-thirdly, the utterly profligate and unprincipled avowal which he made in the Chamber that he had been endeavouring to jockey the Four Powers, and that his real designs were the direct reverse of what he pretended. Such is the state of the French political world."

The war fever, and the anti- British mania, are undoubtedly strong among the French, and will very probably be more furious than usual at the general elecVOL. II. (1842.) No. III.

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