Libro IX

, Cap. VIII_) relates this story, but rejects it and says that the real cause of Alfonso's nickname ("_el rey de la mano horadada_") was his extreme generosity.

13. =circo romano=: to the east of the _Hospital de San Juan Bautista_ of Toledo lies the suburb of Covachuelas, the houses of which conceal the ruins of a Roman amphitheater.

15. =Basílica=: in the lower _Vega_, to the northwest of Toledo, is the hermitage of _El Cristo de la Vega_, formerly known as the _Basílica de Santa Leocadia_, which dated from the fourth century. This edifice was the meeting-place of several Church councils. The ancient building was destroyed by the Moors and has been repeatedly rebuilt.

=95.=--21. =el templo=: the _Ermita del Cristo de la Vega_. See preceding note.

27. =Víase= = _veíase_: _vía_, for _veía_, is not uncommon in poetry.

=105.=--3-5. =Gritan... valor= = _los que en el mercado venden, gritan en discorde son_ =lo vendido y el valor= (= _what they have for sale and its price_).

=107.=--13-14. =y... honor= = _y dispensad que (yo) dudara de vuestro honor acusado_.

=108.=--10. See note, p. 92, l. 15.

=112.=--16. =cada un año= = _cada año_.

Antonio de Trueba (1821-1889) was born at Montellano (Viscaya). At the age of fifteen or sixteen years he removed to Madrid and engaged in commerce. In 1862 he was appointed Archivist and Chronicler of the Señorío de Vizcaya, which post he held for ten years. Trueba, best known as a writer of short stories, published two volumes of mediocre verses which achieved considerable popularity during the author's lifetime, but are now nearly forgotten.

Cf. _Notas autobiográficas_ in _La Ilustración Española y page 275 Americana_, Enero 30, 1889; Blanco García, II, 26-28 and 301-308; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 307-311. For his verses, see _El libro de los cantares_ (1851) and _El libro de las montañas_ (1867).

=113.=--14. =Cantos=: note the double meaning of _canto_.

=114.=--José Selgas y Carrasco (1821-1882) was born in Murcia. A writer on the staff of the satirical and humorous journal, _El Padre Cobos_, Selgas won the attention of the public by his ironical and reactionary articles and was elevated to an important political office by Martínez Campos. He is the author of two volumes of verses, _La Primavera_ (1850) and _El estío_.

See _Introduction_, p. xxxix; and Blanco García, II, 19-23 and 244-250. For Selgas' verses, see his _Poesías_, Madrid, 1882-1883.

=117.=--Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-1891) was born in Guadix. He studied law, served as a volunteer in an African war and became a writer on the staff of several revolutionary journals. His writings, which at first were sentimental or radical, became more subdued in tone and more conservative with his advancing years. In 1877 he was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy. Primarily a journalist and novelist, Alarcón published a volume of humorous and descriptive verses, some of which have merit.

Cf. Blanco García, II, 62-63 and 452-467; and articles in the _Nuevo Teatro Crítico_ (Sept., Oct. and Nov., 1891). For his verses, see _Poesías serias y humorísticas_, 3d ed., Madrid, 1885.

=121.=--Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) was born in Seville, and became an orphan in his tenth year. When eighteen years of age he went penniless to Madrid, where he earned a precarious living by writing for journals and by doing literary hack-work.

See _Introduction_, p. xxxix; Blanco García, II, 79-86 and 274-277. For his works, see his _Obras_, 5th ed., page 276 Madrid, 1898 (with a _Prólogo_ by Correa: the _Rimas_ are in vol. III).

=122.=--12-13. =Del salón... olvidada= = _en el ángulo obscuro del salón, tal vez olvidada de su dueño_. Bécquer, in his striving after complicated metrical arrangements, often inverts the word-order in his verse. See also _Introduction, Versification_, p. lxxii.

19. =arrancarlas=: =las= refers to =Cuánta nota=, which seems to have here the force of a plural.

24. See _Introduction, Versification_, p. lxv.

=124.=--14. =intérvalo=: the standard form is _intervalo_.

=126.=--12. =El nicho á un extremo=: the meaning is, _one end of the recess_, in which the coffin will be placed. The graveyards of Spain and Spanish America have lofty walls with niches or recesses large enough to contain coffins. After receiving the coffin, the niche is sealed with a slab that bears the epitaph of the deceased.

=128.=--The Valencian Vicente W. Querol (1836-1889) gave most of his time to commerce, but he occasionally wrote verses that had the merit of correctness of language and strong feeling.

Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 376-378. For his verses, see _Rimas_ (_Prólogo_ by Pedro A. de Alarcón), 1877; _La fiesta de Venus_, in the _Almanaque de la Ilustración_, 1878.

7. =Ó en el que= = _ó en el día en que_: the reference is to the anniversaries of the wedding day and the saints' days of the parents.

=129.=--19. =las que... son=, _what is..._

=131.=--15-16. =la que... agonía= = _la lenta agonía que sufristeis..._

=133.=--Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio (1817-1901) was born in Navia (Asturias). He studied medicine but soon turned to poetry and politics. A pronounced conservative, he won favor with the government and received appointment page 277 to several important offices including that of governor of Alicante and Valencia.

Cf. _Introduction_, p. xli; Juan Valera, _Obras poéticas de Campoamor_, in _Estudios críticos sobre literatura_, Seville, 1884; Peseux-Richard, in the _Revue hispanique_, I, 236 f.; Blanco García, II, Cap. V. For his works, see _Doloras y cantares_, 16th ed., Madrid, 1882; _Los pequeños poemas_, Madrid, 1882-1883; _Poética_, 1883; _El drama universal_, 3d ed., Madrid, 1873; _El licenciado Torralba_, Madrid, 1888; _Obras escogidas_, Leipzig, 1885-1886; _Obras completas_, 8 vols., Madrid, 1901-03.

=135.=--3. =se va y se viene y se está=: note the use of =se= in the sense of _people_, or an indefinite _we_.

5. =Y... procura= = _y si tu afecto no procura volver_.

=136.=--18. See note, p. 3, l. 7.

=137.=--Valladolid was the birthplace of Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1834-1903). When a child, he removed with his family to Toledo. At the age of nineteen years he entered upon a journalistic career in Madrid. As a member of the Progresista party, Núñez de Arce was appointed Civil Governor of Barcelona, and afterward he became a cabinet minister.

Cf. _Introduction_, p. xlii; Menéndez y Pelayo's essay in _Estudios de crítica literaria_, 1884; Juan Valera's essay on the _Gritos del combate, Revista europea_, 1875, no. 60; Blanco García, Cap. XVIII; José del Castillo, _Núñez de Arce, Apuntes para su biografía_, Madrid, 1904. For his works, see _Gritos del combate_, 8th ed., 1891; _Obras dramáticas_, Madrid, 1879. Most of his longer poems are in separate pamphlets, published by M. Murillo and Fernando Fe, Madrid, 1895-1904.

=137.=--=Tristezas= shows unmistakably the influence of the French poet Alfred de Musset, and especially perhaps of his _Rolla_ and _Confession d'un enfant du siècle_.

=138.=--16 f. Compare with the author's _La duda_ and _Miserere_, and Bécquer's _La ajorca de oro_. page 278 =142.=--1-3. The poet seems to compare the nineteenth century, amidst the flames of furnaces and engines, to the fallen archangel in hell.

16. =mística=, that is, of communion with God, heavenly.

=144.=--=¡Sursum Corda!=: the lines given are merely the introduction to the poem, and form about one fourth of the entire work. They were written soon after the Spanish-American War. See _Sursum Corda!_, Madrid, 1904; and also Juan Valera's _Florilegio_, IV, 413 f.

8. The plains of Old Castile may well be called "austere."

=145.=--10-16. Cf. _Á España_ (1860) and _Á Castelar_ (1873).

=147.=--11-19. There are few stronger lines than these in all Spanish poetry.

=148.=--Manuel del Palacio (1832-1895) was born in Lérida. His parents removed to Granada, and there he joined a club of young men known as La Cuerda. Going to Madrid, he devoted himself to journalism and politics, first as a radical and later as a conservative.

Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 40. For his works, see his _Obras_, Madrid, 1884; _Veladas de otoño_, 1884; _Huelgas diplomáticas_, 1887.

5. =el ave placentera=: a well-known Spanish-American poet calls this a mere _ripio_ (stop-gap), and says it may mean one bird as well as another.

The Catalan Joaquín María Bartrina (born at Reus in 1850) published in 1876 a volume of pessimistic and iconoclastic verses, entitled _Algo_. After his death (1880) his works were published under the title of _Obras en prosa y verso, escogidas y coleccionadas por J. Sardá_, Barcelona, 1881. Cf. Blanco García, II, 349-350.

=148.=--15-19. These lines give expression to the pessimism that has obtained in Spain for two centuries past.

=149.=--14. The reference is, of course, to the paintings, of which there are many, of "The Last Supper" of Jesus.

Manuel Reina (1860-) was born in Puente Genil. Like page 279 Bartrina, Reina is an imitator of Núñez de Arce, in that he sings of the degeneracy of mankind. He undertook, with but little success, to revive the eleven-syllable _romance_ of the neo-classic Spanish tragedy of the eighteenth century.

Cf. Blanco García, II, 354-355. For his verses, see _Andantes y allegros_ and _Cromos y acuarelas, cantos de nuestra época, con un prólogo de D. José Fernández Bremón_.

The Valencian Teodoro Llorente (b. 1836) is best known for his translations of the works of modern poets. He is also the author of verses (_Amorosas_, _Versos de la juventud_, _et al._).

=151=.--=Argentina.= The development of letters was slower in Argentina than in Mexico, Peru and Colombia, since Argentina was colonized and settled later than the others. During the colonial period there was little literary production in the territory now known as Argentina. Only one work of this period deserves mention. This is _Argentina y conquista del río de la Plata_, etc. (Lisbon, 1602), by Martín del Barco Centenera, a long work in poor verses and of little historical value. During the first decade of the nineteenth century there was an outpouring of lyric verses in celebration of the defeat of the English by the Spaniards at Buenos Aires, but to all of these Gallego's ode _Á la defensa de Buenos Aires_ is infinitely superior.

During the revolutionary period the best-known writers, all of whom may be roughly classified as neo-classicists, were: Vicente López Planes (1784-1856), author of the Argentine national hymn; Esteban Luca (1786-1824); Juan C. Lafinur (1797-1824); Juan Antonio Miralla (d. 1825); and, lastly, the most eminent poet of this period, Juan Cruz Varela (1794-1839), author of the dramas _Dido_ and _Argía_, and of the ode _Triunfo de Ituzaingó_ (_Poesías_, Buenos Aires, 1879).

The first Argentine poet of marked ability, and one of the greatest that his country has produced, was the romanticist (who introduced romanticism into Argentina directly from France), Esteban Echeverría page 280 (1805-1851), author of _Los Consuelos_ (1834), _Rimas_ (1837) and _La cautiva_. The latter poem is distinctively "American," as it is full of local color. Juan Valera, in his letter to Rafael Obligado (_Cartas americanas, primera serie_), says truly that Echeverría "marks the point of departure of the Argentine national literature." (_Obras completas_, 5 vols., Buenos Aires, 1870-74).

Other poets of the early period of independence are: the literary critic, Juan María Gutiérrez (1809-1878), one-time rector of the University of Buenos Aires and editor of an anthology, _América poética_ (Valparaíso, 1846); Dr. Claudio Mamerto Cuenca (1812-1866; cf. _Obras poéticas escogidas_, Paris, 1889); and José Mármol (1818-1871), author of _El peregrino_ and of the best of Argentine novels, _Amalia_ (_Obras poéticas y dramáticas, coleccionadas por José Domingo Cortés_, 3d ed., Paris, 1905).

In parenthesis be it said that Argentina also claims as her own the poet Ventura de la Vega (1807-1865), who was born in Buenos Aires, as Mexico claims Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, and as Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is claimed by Cuba.

As in Spain Ferdinand VII had driven into exile most of the prominent writers of his period, so the despotic president, Juan Manuel Rosas (1793-1877: fell from power in 1852), drove from Argentina many men of letters, including Varela, Echeverría and Mármol.

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century it may be said that the Spanish-American writers followed closely the literary movements of the mother country. Everywhere across the sea there were imitators of Meléndez Valdés and Cienfuegos, of Quintana, of Espronceda and Zorrilla. During the early years of romanticism some Spanish-American poets,--notably the Argentine Echeverría,--turned for inspiration directly to the French writers of the period; but, in the main, the Spanish influence was predominant. The Spanish-American page 281 verses, for the most part, showed insufficient preparation and were marred by many inaccuracies of diction; but here and there a group of writers appeared,--as in Colombia,--who rivaled in artistic excellence the poets of Spain. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Spanish-American writers became more independent in thought and speech. It is true that many imitated the mysticism of Bécquer or the pessimism of Núñez de Arce, but many more turned for inspiration to native subjects or to the literary works of other lands than Spain, and

## particularly of France and Italy.

The extreme in local color was reached in the "_literatura gauchesca_," which consists of collections of popular or semi-popular ballads in the dialect of the _gauchos_, or cowboys and "ranchers," of the Pampas. The best of these collections,--_Martín Fierro_ (1872), by José Fernández,--is more artistic than popular. This long poem, which in its language reminds the English reader of Lowell's _Biglow Papers_, is the best-known and the most widely read work by an Argentine author.

The greatest Argentine poets of the second half of the century have been Andrade and Obligado. Olegario Víctor Andrade (1838-1882), the author of _Prometeo_ and _Atlántida_, is generally recognized as one of the foremost modern poets of Spanish America, and probably the greatest poet that Argentina has as yet given to the world. In art, Andrade was a disciple of Victor Hugo; in philosophy, he was a believer in modern progress and freedom of thought; but above all else was his loyal patriotism to Argentina. Andrade's verses have inspiration and enthusiasm, but they are too didactic and they are marred by occasional incorrectness of speech. _Atlantida_, a hymn to the future of the Latin race in America, is the poet's last and noblest work (_Obras_, Buenos Aires, 1887).

It is said of Rafael Obligado (1852-) that he is more page 282 elegant and correct than Andrade, but his muse has less inspiration. He has, moreover, the distinction of showing almost no French influence, which is rare to-day among Spanish-American writers. Juan Valera regrets Obligado's excessive "Americanism," and laments the fact that the poet uses many words of local origin that he, Valera, does not understand. The poet's better works are, for the most part, descriptions of the beauties of nature or the legendary tales of his native land (_Poesías_, Buenos Aires, 1885).

Among recent poets, two have especially distinguished themselves. Leopoldo Díaz (1868-) began as a disciple of Heredia, and has become a pronounced Hellenist, now a rare phenomenon in Spanish America. Besides many sonnets imbued with classicism, he has written odes to the _conquistadores_ and to _Atlántida conquistada_. Like Darío, Blanco-Fombona and many other Spanish-American poets of to-day, Diaz resides in Europe; but, unlike the others, he lives in Morges instead of Paris (_Sonetos_, Buenos Aires, 1888; _Bajo-relieves_, Buenos Aires, 1895; _et al._). A complete "_modernista_" (he would probably scorn the title of "decadent") is Leopoldo Lugones (1875?-), whose earlier verses are steeped in an erotic sensualism rare in the works of Spanish-American poets. He seeks to be original and writes verses on every conceivable theme and in all kinds of metrical arrangements. Thus, in _Lunario sentimental_ there are verses, essays and dramatic sketches, all addressed to the moon. For an example of his _versos libres_, see _Introduction_ to this volume, p. xlvi (_Las montañas de oro, Los crepúsculos del jardín_; _Lunario sentimental_, Buenos Aires, 1909; _Odas seculares_, Buenos Aires, 1910).

For studies of Argentine literature, see Blanco García, _Hist. Lit. Esp._, III, pp. 380 f.; Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am._, IV, pp. lxxxix f.; Juan Valera, _Poesía argentina_, in _Cartas americanas, primera serie_, Madrid, 1889, pp. 51-119; _Literatura argentina_, page 283 Buenos Aires, 1903; _Poetas argentinos_, Buenos Aires, 1904; _Antología argentina_, B.T. Martínez, Buenos Aires, 1890-91; _Compendio de literatura argentina_, E. Alonso Criado, Buenos Aires, 1908; _Miscelánea_, by Santiago Estrada; _La lira argentina_, Buenos Aires, 1824. Other important works, treating of Spanish-American literature, are: _Biblioteca hispano-americana_ (1493-1810), José Toribio Medina, 6 vols., Santiago de Chile, 1898-1902; _Bibliography of Spanish-American Literature_, Alfred Coester, _Romanic Review_, III, 1; _Escritores hispano-americanos_, Manuel Cañete, Madrid, 1884; _Escritores y poetas sud-americanos_, Francisco Sosa, Mex., 1890; _Juicio crítico de poetas hispano-americanos_, M.L. Amunátegui, Santiago de Chile, 1861; _La joven literatura hispano-americana_, Manuel Ugarte, Paris, 1906.

Echeverría: see preceding note.

=Canción de Elvira.= This Gutiérrez calls the "song of the American Ophelia."

=152.=--Andrade: see note to p. 151.

18. =Á celebrar las bodas=, _to be the bride_.

=153.=--3. The Argentines, especially, seem to take delight in calling themselves a Latin, rather than a Spanish, race. This may be due to the fact that fully one third of the population of Argentine is Italian. Both Juan Valera and Menéndez y Pelayo have chided the Argentines for speaking of themselves as a _raza latino-americana_, instead of _hispano-americana_.

15. =arcano=, _secret_, seems to have the force here of a _secret ark_, or _secret sanctuary_, which is broken open that its secrets may be disclosed.

=154.=--6-10. These lines refer, of course, to the Christian religion, spoken of symbolically as an _altar_, which has replaced the heterogeneous pagan cults of ancient Rome, and which the Spaniards first brought to America. page 284 11. =ciclopeas=: note the omission of the accent on _o_ that the word may rime with =ideas=.

=155.=--5. =Tequendama=: see in the _Vocab_. Several Colombian poets, including Don José Joaquín Ortiz and Doña Agripina Montes del Valle, have written odes to this famous waterfall. See Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am._, II; and _Parnaso colombiano_, II, Bogotá, 1887.

17-18. A revolutionary hero, Antonio Ricaurte (b. 1786), blew up the Spanish powder magazine on the summit of a hill near San Mateo, and lost his life in the explosion. See =Mateo= in _Vocab_.

=156.=--5. The colors of the Peruvian flag are red and white, mainly red. The red,--symbolical of bloodshed,--shall be largely replaced by the golden color of ripening grain,--symbolical of industry.

8. Caracas, where Bolivar was born, lies at the foot of Mount Ávila.

11. This line, and line 16, would indicate that =Atlántida= was written soon after the war, begun in 1876, between Chile and the allied forces of Bolivia and Peru, in which Chile was victorious.

12-15. When this was written there was little immediate prospect of other railways than the narrow-gage road from Oruro to the Chilean frontier, about five hundred miles in length; but now Bolivia has the promise of becoming the railway center of lines connecting both Argentina and Chile with Peru. These lines are now completed or building.

27. Andrade died in 1882, and seven years after his death, in 1889, the emperor Dom Pedro II was deposed, and a republican form of government was adopted by Brazil.

=157.=--3. Andrade now sings of his own country, hence =¡De pie para cantarla!=

8. There is a larger immigration of Europeans into Argentina than into any other South-American country. The page 285 immigrants come mostly from northern Italy and from Spain.

12-16. As the =Atlántida= was the last poetic work of Andrade, these lines may refer to the treaty of 1881 between Argentina and Chile, by which Argentina acquired all the territory east of the Andes, including Patagonia and the eastern part of Tierra del Fuego.

By the conquest and settlement of the broad plains (_pampas_) and the frozen region of the south, a new world was created, much as in the United States of America a new world was created by the acquirement and settlement of the western plains, mountain lands and Pacific coast.

21. Vast areas in Argentina are given over to the cultivation of wheat, barley and oats.

=159.=--These are the last stanzas of =Prometeo=, a poem in which the author addresses the human mind and urges it to break its bonds and free itself from tyranny and prejudice: see also in _Vocab_.

=160.=--Obligado: see note to p. 151.

=162.=--=Colombia.= Colombia was formerly known as Nueva Granada, and its inhabitants are still sometimes called _Granadinos_. An older and larger Colombia was organized in 1819, toward the close of the revolutionary war; but this state was later divided into three independent countries, viz., Venezuela, Nueva Granada and Ecuador. In 1861 Nueva Granada assumed the name of Estados Unidos de Colombia, and only recently the Colombian part of the Isthmus of Panama established itself as an independent republic. The present Colombia has, therefore, only about one third the area of the older state of the same name. In treating of literature, the terms Colombia and Colombian are restricted to the present-day Colombia and the older Nueva Granada. The capital of the Republic is Santa Fe de Bogotá, to-day generally known simply as Bogotá. It is at an elevation of 8700 feet above the level of the page 286 sea, and has a cool and equable climate.

It is generally conceded that the literary production of Colombia has excelled that of any other Spanish-American country. Menéndez y Pelayo (_Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am._, III, _Introd._) speaks of Bogotá as the "Athens of South America," and says further: "the Colombian Parnassus to-day excels in quality, if not in quantity, that of any other region of the New World." And Juan Valera in his _Cartas americanas (primera serie_, p. 121 f.) says: "Of all the people of South America the Bogotanos are the most devoted to letters, sciences and arts"; and again: "In spite of the extraordinary ease with which verses are made in Colombia, and although Colombia is a democratic republic, her poetry is aristocratic, cultivated and ornate." Blanco García characterizes Colombia as one of the most Spanish of American countries.

During the colonial period, however, Nueva Granada produced few literary works. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the _conquistador_ of New Granada, wrote memoirs, entitled _Ratos de Suesca_ (1573?), of little historical value. The most important work of the period is the chronicles in verse of Juan de Castellanos (b. 1522? in the Spanish province of Seville). This work is largely epic in character; and, with its 150,000 lines, it is the longest poem in the Spanish language. Though for the most part prosaic and inexact, yet it has some passages of high poetic worth, and it throws much light on the lives of the early colonists. The first three parts of the poem, under the title of _Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias_ (the first part only was published in 1589), occupies all of vol. IV of the _Bibl. de Aut. Esp._ The fourth part is contained in two volumes of the _Colección de Escritores Castellanos_, under the title of _Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada_.

In the seventeenth century the colonists were still too busy with the conquest and settlement of the country to spare time for the cultivation of letters. A long page 287 epic poem, the _Poema heroico de San Ignacio de Loyola_, with much Gongorism and little merit, was published at Madrid in 1696, after the death of the author, the Colombian Hernando Domínguez Camargo. A few short lyrics by the same author also appeared in the _Ramillete de varias flores poéticas_ (Madrid, 1676) of Jacinto Evia of Ecuador.

Early in the eighteenth century Sor Francisca Josefa de la Concepción, "Madre Castillo" (d. 1742), wrote an account of her life and her _Sentimientos espirituales_, in which there is much of the mysticism of Saint Theresa.

About 1738 the printing-press was brought to Bogotá by the Jesuits, and after this date there was an important intellectual awakening. Many colleges and universities had already been founded,--the first in 1554. The distinguished Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, in 1762, took the chair of mathematics and astronomy in the Colegio del Rosario, and under him were trained many scientists, including Francisco José de Caldas. An astronomical observatory was established, the first in America. In 1777 a public library was organized, and a theater in 1794. And of great influence was the visit of Humboldt in 1801. Among the works published in the second half of the eighteenth century mention should be made of the _Lamentaciones de Pubén_ by the canon José María Grueso (1779-1835) and _El placer público de Santa Fe_ (Bogotá, 1804) by José María Salazar (1785-1828).

During the revolutionary period two poets stand preeminent. Dr. José Fernández Madrid (d. 1830) was a physician and statesman, and for a short time president of the Republic. His lyrics are largely the expression of admiration for Bolivar and of hatred toward Spain: his verses are usually sonorous and correct (_Poesías_, Havana, 1822; London, 1828). The "Chénier" of Colombia was Luis Vargas Tejada (1802-1829), the author of patriotic verses, some of which were directed against page 288 Bolivar, and of neo-classic tragedies. He died by drowning at the age of twenty-seven (_Poesías_, Bogotá, 1855).

The four most noted poets of Colombia are J.E. Caro, Arboleda, Ortiz and Gutiérrez González. A forceful lyric poet was José Eusebio Caro (1817-1853), a philosopher and statesman, a man of moral greatness and a devout Christian. In the bloody political struggles of his day he sacrificed his estate and his life to his conception of right. He sang of God, love, liberty and nature with exaltation; but all his writings evince long meditation. Like many Spanish-American poets of his day Caro was influenced by Byron. In his earlier verses he had imitated the style of Quintana (cf. _El ciprés_); but later, under the influence of romantic poets, he attempted to introduce into Spanish prosody new metrical forms. Probably as a result of reading English poetry, he wrote verses of 8 and 11 syllables with regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, which is rare in Spanish. So fond did he become of lines with regular binary movement throughout that he recast several of his earlier verses (_Obras escogidas_, Bogotá, 1873; _Poesías_, Madrid, 1885).

Julio Arboleda (1817-1861), "Don Julio," was one of the most polished and inspired poets of Colombia. He was an intimate friend of Caro and like him a journalist and politician. He was a good representative of the chivalrous and aristocratic type of Colombian writers of the first half of the nineteenth century. His best work is the narrative poem _Gonzalo de Oyón_ which, though incomplete, is the noblest epic poem that a native Spanish-American poet has yet given to the world. After studying in Europe he engaged in journalism and politics. He took part in several civil wars. A candidate for the presidency of the Republic, he was assassinated before election (_Poesías, colección formada sobre los manuscritos originales, con prólogo por M.A. Caro_, New York, 1883).

The educator and journalist José Joaquín Ortiz (1814-1892) page 289 imitated Quintana in form but not in ideas. Though a defender of neo-classicism, he did not entirely reject romanticism. Ortiz was an ultra-catholic, sincere and ascetic. His verses are impetuous and grandiloquent, but often lacking depth of thought (_Poesías_, Bogotá, 1880).

The poet Gregorio Gutiérrez González, "Antioco" (1820-1872), was a jurist and politician. He began as an imitator of Espronceda and Zorrilla and is the author of several sentimental poems (_Á Julia_, _¿Por qué no canto?_ _Una lágrima_, _et al._) that are the delight of Colombian young ladies. His fame will doubtless depend on the rustic Georgic poem, _Memoria sobre el cultivo del maíz en Antioquia_. This work is an interesting and remarkably poetic description of the homely life and labors of the Antioquian country folk (_Poesías_, Bogotá, 1881; Paris, 1908).

The minor poets of this generation are legion. Among these are: Manuel María Madiedo (b. 1815), a sociologist; Germán Gutiérrez de Piñeres (1816-1872), author of melancholy verses; José María Rojas Garrido (1824-1883), a noted orator, one-time president of Colombia; Joaquín Pablo Posada (1825-1880), perhaps the most clever versifier of Spanish America, but whose _décimas_ were mostly written in quest of money; Ricardo Carrasquilla (b. 1827), an educator and author of genial verses; José Manuel Marroquín (b. 1827), a poet and author of articles on customs and a foremost humorist of South America (he was president when Colombia lost Panama); José María Samper (b. 1828), a most voluminous writer; Rafael Núñez (1825-1897), a philosopher and skeptic, and one-time president of the Republic; Santiago Pérez (1830-1900), educator, journalist and one-time president; José María Vergara y Vergara (1831-1872), a Catholic poet and author of a volume of sentimental verses (_Libro de los cantares_); Rafael Pombo (1833-1912), an eminent classical scholar and literary critic, and "perpetual secretary" of the Colombian Academy; Diego Fallón (b. 1834), page 290 son of an English father, and author of several highly finished and beautiful poems; Pinzón Rico (b. 1834), author of popular, romantic songs; César Conto (b. 1836), a jurist and educator; Jorge Isaacs (1837-1895), better known as author of the novel _María_; and Felipe Pérez (b. 1834).

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the most eminent man of letters in Colombia has been Miguel Antonio Caro (1843-1909), a son of J.E. Caro. A neo-Catholic and "traditionalist," a learned literary critic and a poet, the younger Caro, like Bello before him and like his distinguished contemporary Rufino José Cuervo, has worked for purity of diction and classical ideals in literature. Caro is also the translator of several classic works, including one of Virgil which is recognized as the best in Spanish.

Other poets of the closing years of the century are: Diógenes Arrieta (b. 1848), a journalist and educator; Ignacio Gutiérrez Ponce (1850), a physician; Antonio Gómez Restrepo (b. 1856), a lawyer and politician; José María Garavito A. (b. 1860); José Rivas Groot (b. 1864), an educator and literary critic, and editor of _La lira nueva_; Joaquín González Camargo (b. 1865), a physician; Agripina Montes del Valle (b. about the middle of the nineteenth century) noted for her ode to the Tequendama waterfall, and Justo Pastor Ríos (1870-), a philosophic poet and liberal journalist.

The "modernista" poet José Asunción Silva (1860-1896) was a sweet singer, but he brought no message. He was fond of odd forms, such as lines of 8+8, 8+8+8 and 8+8+4 syllables (_Poesías, con Prólogo de Miguelde Unamuno_, Barcelona, 1908).

References: Cf.: Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, III, p. 1 f.; Blanco García, III, 332 f.; Juan Valera, _Cartas Am., primera serie_, p. 121 f.; _Historia de la literatura (1538-1820) en Nueva Granada_, José María Vergara y Vergara, Bogotá, 1867; _Apuntes sobre bibliografía colombiana, con page 291 muestras escogidas en prosa y verso_, Isidoro Laverde Amaya, Bogotá, 1882; _Parnaso colombiano_, J.M. Vergara y Vergara, 3 vols.; _La lira granadina_, J.M. Vergara y Vergara, Bogotá, 1865; _Parnaso colombiano_, Julio Áñez, _con Prólogo de José Rivas Groot_, 2 vols., Bogotá, 1886-87; _La lira nueva_, J.M. Rivas Groot, Bogotá, 1886; _Antología colombiana,_ Emiliano Isaza, Paris, 1895.

Ortiz: see preceding note.

=Colombia y España=: In this poem, dated July 20, 1882, the poet begins by recalling the war of independence that he witnessed as a boy and the heroic figure of Bolivar; then he laments the fratricidal struggles that rent the older and larger Colombia; and, finally, in the verses that are here given, he rejoices over the friendly treaty just made by the mother country, Spain, and Colombia, her daughter.

8. The colors of the Colombian flag are yellow, blue and red.

9. The colors of the Spanish flag are red and yellow. On the Spanish arms two castles (for _Castilla_) and two lions (for _León_) are pictured.

=164.=--J.E. Caro: see note to p. 162.

=167.=--Marroquin: see note to p. 162.

=Los cazadores y la perrilla=: compare with Goldsmith's "Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog."

=168.=--7. =Moratín=: see note to p. 26. _La caza_ is in _Bibl. de Aut. Esp._, II, 49 f.

=169.=--16. =describilla=, archaic or poetic for _describirla_.

=171.=--M.A. Caro: see note to p. 162.

=174.=--14-16. =sombría... alcanzarán= = _(siendo la Eternidad) sombría y eterna, ni el odio ni el amor, ni la fe ni la duda, alcanzarán nada en sus abismos_.

=179.=--=Cuba.= Although the literary output of Cuba is greater than that of some other Spanish-American countries, yet during the colonial period there was in Cuba a dearth of both prose and verse. The Colegio Semanario de San Carlos y San Ambrosio was page 292 founded in 1689 as a theological seminary and was reorganized with lay instruction in 1769. The University of Havana was established by a papal bull in 1721 and received royal sanction in 1728; but for many years it gave instruction only in theological subjects. The first book printed in Cuba dates from 1720. Not till the second half of the eighteenth century did poets of merit appear in the island. Manuel de Zequeira y Arango (1760-1846) wrote chiefly heroic odes (_Poesías_, N.Y., 1829; Havana, 1852). Inferior to Zequeira was Manuel Justo de Rubalcava (1769-1805), the author of bucolic poems and sonnets (_Poesías_, Santiago de Cuba, 1848).

The Cuban poet Don José María Heredia (1803-1839) is better known in Europe and in the United States than Bello and Olmedo, since his poems are universal in their appeal. He is especially well known in the United States, where he lived in exile for over two years (1823-1825), at first in Boston and later in New York, and wrote his famous ode to Niagara. Born in Cuba, he studied in Santo Domingo and in Caracas (1812-1817), as well as in his native island. Accused of conspiracy against the Spanish government, he fled to the United States in 1823, and there eked out a precarious existence by giving private lessons. In 1825 he went to Mexico, where he was well received and where he held several important posts, including those of member of Congress and judge of the superior court. In Heredia's biography two facts should be stressed: that he studied for five years in Caracas, the city that produced Bolivar and Bello, respectively the greatest general and the greatest scholar of Spanish America; and that he spent only twelve years, all told, in Cuba. As he lived for fourteen years in Mexico, that country also claims him as her own, while Caracas points to him with pride as another child of her older educational system.

Heredia was most unhappy in the United States. He admired page 293 the political institutions of this country; but he disliked the climate of New York, and he despaired of learning English. Unlike Bello and Olmedo he was not a classical scholar. His acquaintance with the Latin poets was limited, and seldom does a Virgilian or Horatian expression occur in his verses. Rather did he stand for the manner of Chateaubriand in France and Cienfuegos in Spain. Though strictly speaking not a romantic poet, he was a close precursor of that movement. His language is not seldom incorrect or lacking in sobriety and restraint; but his numbers are musical and his thought springs directly from imaginative exaltation.

Heredia's poorest verses are doubtless his early love-songs: his best are those in which the contemplation of nature leads the poet to meditation on human existence, as in _Niágara_, _El Teocalli de Cholula_, _En una tempestad_ and _Al sol_. In these poems the predominant note is that of gentle melancholy. In Cuba his best known verses are the two patriotic hymns: _Á Emilia_ and _El himno del desterrado_. These were written before the poet was disillusioned by his later experiences in the turbulent Mexico of the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, and they are so virulent in their expression of hatred of Spain that Menéndez y Pelayo refused to include them in his _Anthology_. Heredia undertook to write several plays, but without success. Some translations of dramatic works, however, were well received, and especially those of Ducis' _Abufar_, Chénier's _Tibère_, Jouy's _Sila_, Voltaire's _Mahomet_ and Alfieri's _Saul_. The Garnier edition (Paris, 1893) of Heredia's _Poesías_ contains an interesting introduction by the critic Elías Zerolo (_Poesías_, N.Y., 1825; Toluca, 1832; N.Y., 1875; Paris, 1893).

The mulatto poet Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, better known by his pen-name "Plácido" (1809-1844), an uncultivated comb-maker, wrote verses which were mostly commonplace and often incorrect; but some evince remarkable sublimity and dignity (cf. _Plegaria page 294 á Dios_). Cf. _Poesías_, Matanzas, 1838; Matanzas, 1842; Veracruz, 1845; Paris, 1857; Havana, 1886. The greatest Cuban poetess, and perhaps the most eminent poetess who has written in the Castilian language, is Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (1814-1873). Since Avellaneda spent most of her life in Spain, an account of her life and work is given in the _Introduction_ to this volume, p. xxxviii. Next only to Heredia, the most popular Cuban poet is José Jacinto Milanés y Fuentes (1814-1863), who gave in simple verse vivid descriptions of local landscapes and customs. A resigned and touching sadness characterizes his best verse (_Obras_, 4 vols., Havana, 1846; N.Y., 1865).

A lawyer, educator and patriot, Rafael María Mendive y Daumy (1821-1886) wrote musical verse in which there is spontaneity and true poetic feeling (_Pasionarias_, Havana, 1847; _Poesías_, Madrid, 1860; Havana, 1883). Joaquín Lorenzo Luaces (1826-1867) was more learned than most Cuban poets and fond of philosophizing. Some of his verse has force and gives evidence of careful study; but much is too pedantic to be popular (_Poesías_, Havana, 1857). A poet of sorrow, Juan Clemente Zenea,--"Adolfo de la Azucena" (1832-1871),--wrote verses that are marked by tender melancholy (_Poesías_, Havana, 1855; N.Y., 1872, 1874).

Heredia was not the only Cuban poet to suffer persecution. Of the seven leading Cuban poets, often spoken of as "the Cuban Pleiad," Avellaneda removed to Spain, where she married and spent her life in tranquillity; and Joaquín Luaces avoided trouble by living in retirement and veiling his patriotic songs with mythological names. On the other hand José Jacinto Milanés lost his reason at the early age of thirty years, José María Heredia and Rafael Mendive fled the country and lived in exile; while Gabriel Valdés and Juan Clemente Zenea were shot by order of the governor-general.

Since the disappearance of the "Pleiad," the most popular page 295 Cuban poets have been Julián del Casal, a skeptic and a Parnassian poet who wrote pleasing but empty verses (_Hojas al viento_, _Nieve_, _Bustos y Rimas_); and Francisco Sellén, whose philosophy is to conceal suffering and to put one's hand to the plow again (_Libro íntimo_, Havana, 1865; _Poesías_, N.Y., 1890). José Martí (1853-1895) spent most of his life in exile; but he returned to Cuba and died in battle against the Spanish forces. He wrote excellent prose, but few verses (_Flor y lava_, Paris, 1910(?)).

References: Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am._, II, p. 1 f.; Blanco García, III, p. 290 f.; E.C. Hills, _Bardos cubanos_ (contains a bibliography), Boston, 1901; Aurelio Mitjans, _Estudio sobre el movimiento científico y literario en Cuba_, Havana, 1890; Bachiller y Morales, _Apuntes para la historia de las letras y de la instrucción pública de la Isla de Cuba_, Havana, 1859; _La poesía lírica en Cuba_, M. González del Valle, Barcelona, 1900; _Cuba poética_, Havana, 1858; _Parnaso cubano_, Havana, 1881.

Heredia: see preceding note.

5. This is quite true. On the coast of central and southern Mexico the climate is tropical; on the central plateau it is temperate; and on the mountain slopes, as at the foot of Popocatepetl, it is frigid.

13-14. =Iztaccíhual= and =Popocatepec= are the popular names of these mountains, but their official names are _Iztaccíhuatel_ and _Popocatépetel_. These words are of Nahuatlan origin: see in _Vocab_.

16--18. =do... teñirse= = _donde el indio ledo los mira teñirse en púrpura ligera y oro_.

=181=.--3. This poem was written in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, when Mexico was torn by civil war. There was peace only when some military leader assumed despotic power.

21. Note that the moon set behind =Popocatepec=, a little to the south of west from Cholula, while the sun sank behind =Iztaccíhual=, a little to the north of page 296 west from the city. This might well occur in summer.

=182.=--14. =Fueron= (lit. _they were_), _they are no more_. In this Latinism the preterit denotes that a thing or condition that once existed no longer exists. Cf. _fuit Ilium_ (_Æneid_, II, 325), "Troy is no more."

=186.=--4-5. =Que... seguir= = _que, en su vuelo, la turbada vista quiere en vano seguir_.

=190.=--"Plácido": see note to p. 179.

=Plegaria á Dios=: this beautiful prayer was written a few days before the poet's death. It is said that "Plácido" recited aloud the last stanza on his way to the place of execution, and that he slipped to a friend in the crowd a scrap of cloth on which the prayer was written.

=191.=--4. =del... transparencia= = _á_ (in) _la clara transparencia del aire_.

Avellaneda: see _Introduction_, p. xxxviii.

19. =No... modelo= = _(la historia) no [dió] modelo á tu virtud en lo pasado_.

21. =otra= = _otra copia_.

=192.=--1-2. =Miró... victoria= = _la Europa miró al genio de la guerra y la victoria ensangrentar su suelo_. The =genio= was Napoleon Bonaparte.

4. =Al... cielo= = _el cielo le diera al genio del bien_. Note that =le= is dative and =al genio= accusative. This otherwise admirable sonnet is marred by the numerous inversions of the word-order.

=193.=--=Ecuador= is a relatively small and mountainous country, lying, as the name implies, directly on the equator. The two principal cities are Guayaquil, a port on the Pacific coast, and Quito, the capital. Quito is beautifully situated on a plateau 9300 feet above the level of the sea. The climate is mild and salubrious, and drier than at Bogotá. The early Spanish colonists repeatedly wrote of the beautiful scenery and the "eternal spring" of Quito. page 297 All of the present Ecuador belonged to the Virreinato del Perú till 1721, after which date Quito and the contiguous territory were governed from Bogotá. In 1824 Guayaquil and southern Ecuador were forcibly annexed to the first Colombia by Bolivar. Six years later Ecuador separated from Colombia and organized as a separate state.

In the territory now known as Ecuador the first colleges were established about the middle of the sixteenth century, by the Franciscans, for the natives, and by the Jesuits, as elsewhere in America, for the sons of Spaniards. Several chronicles by priests and other explorers were written during the early years of the colonial period; but no poet appears before the seventeenth century. In 1675 the Jesuit Jacinto de Evia published at Madrid his _Ramillete de varias flores poéticas_ which contains, beside those by Evia, verses by Antonio Bastidas, a Jesuit teacher, and by Hernando Domínguez Camargo, a Colombian. The verses are mediocre or worse, and, as the date would imply, are imbued with culteranism.

The best verses of the eighteenth century were collected by the priest Juan de Velasco (1727-1819) and published in six volumes under the title of _El ocioso de Faenza_. These volumes contain poems by Bautista Aguirre of Guayaquil, José Orozco (_La conquista de Menorca_, an epic poem in four cantos), Ramón Viescas (sonnets, _romances_, _décimas_, etc.) and others, most of whom were Jesuits.

The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 caused the closure of several colleges in Ecuador, and for a time seriously hampered the work of classical education. But even before the edict of expulsion scientific study had been stimulated by the coming of French and Spanish scholars to measure a degree of the earth's surface at the equator. The coming of Humboldt in 1801 still further encouraged inquiry and research. The new spirit was given concrete expression by Dr. Francisco Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo, a physician of native descent, in page 298 _El nuevo Luciano_, a work famous in the literary and the political history of South America. In this work Dr. Espejo attacked the prevailing educational and economic systems of the colonies, and his doctrine did much to start the movement toward secession from the mother country.

Although the poetry of Ecuador is of relatively little importance as compared with that of several other American countries, yet Ecuador gave to the world one of the greatest of American poets, José Joaquín de Olmedo. In the Americas that speak Castilian, Olmedo has only two peers among the classic poets, the Venezuelan Bello and the Cuban Heredia. Olmedo was born in Guayaquil in 1780, when that city still formed part of the Virreinato del Perú. Consequently, two countries claim him,--Peru, because he was born a Peruvian, and because, furthermore, he received his education at the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima; and Ecuador, since Guayaquil became permanently a part of that republic, and Olmedo identified himself with the social and political life of that country. In any case, Olmedo, as a poetic genius, looms suddenly on the horizon of Guayaquil, and for a time after his departure there was not only no one to take his place, but there were few followers of note.

Olmedo ranks as one of the great poetic artists of Spanish literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He is of the same semi-classic school as Quintana, and like him devoted to artistic excellence and lyric grandiloquence. The poems of Olmedo are few in number for so skilled an artist, and thoroughly imbued with the Græco-Latin classical spirit. His prosody nears perfection; but is marred by an occasional abuse of verbal endings in rime, and the inadvertent employment of assonance where there should be none, a fault common to most of the earlier Spanish-American poets. Olmedo's greatest poem is _La victoria de Junín_, which is filled with sweet-sounding phrases and beautiful images, but is logically inconsistent and improbable. Even page 299 Bolivar, the "Libertador," censured Olmedo in a letter for using the _machina_ of the appearance at night before the combined Colombian and Peruvian armies of Huaina-Capac the Inca, "showing himself to be a talkative mischief-maker where he should have been lighter than ether, since he comes from heaven," and instead of desiring the restoration of the Inca dynasty, preferring "strange intruders who, though avengers of his blood, are descendants of those who destroyed his empire."

The _Canto al general Flores_ is considered by some critics to be the poet's most finished work, though of less substance and inspiration than _La victoria de Junín_. This General Flores was a successful revolutionary leader during the early days of the Republic; and he was later as bitterly assailed by Olmedo as he is here praised. Of a different type is the philosophic poem, _Á un amigo en el nacimiento de su primogénito_, which is filled with sincere sympathy and deep meditation as to the future. With the coming of middle age Olmedo's poetic vein had apparently been exhausted, and the Peruvian bard Felipe Pardo addressed to him an ode in which he sought, though to no avail, to stimulate the older poet to renewed

## activity (_Poesías_, Valparaíso, 1848, Paris, 1853;

_Poesías inéditas_, Lima, 1861).

For a time after Olmedo's muse had become mute, little verse of merit was produced in Ecuador. Gabriel García Moreno (1821-1875), once president of the Republic and a champion of Catholicism, wrote a few strong satires in the style of Jovellanos. Dolores Veintemilla de Galindo (1831-1857), who committed suicide on account of domestic infelicity, left a short poem, _Quejas_, which is unique in the older Spanish-American literature by reason of its frank confession of feeling. The reflexive and didactic poet Numa P. Llona (1832-___) was the author of passionate outpourings of doubt and despair after the fashion of Byron and Leopardi (_Poesías_, Paris, 1870; page 300 _Cantos americanos_, Paris, 1866; _Cien sonetos_, Quito, 1881). The gentle, melancholy bard, Julio Zalumbide (1833-1887), at first a skeptic and afterwards a devout believer in Christianity, wrote musical verse in correct language but of little force. Juan León Mera (1832-1894) was one of the most prominent literary historians and critics of the Republic. Besides his _Poesías_ (2d ed., Barcelona, 1893), León Mera left a popular novel, _Cumandá_ (Quito, 1876; Madrid, 1891), an _Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la poesía ecuatoriana_ (2d ed., Barcelona, 1893), and a volume of _Cantares del Pueblo_ (Quito, 1892), published by the Academia del Ecuador, which contains, in addition to many semi-popular songs in Castilian, a few in the Quichua language.

A younger generation that has already done some good work in poetry includes Vicente Pedrahita, Luis Cordero, Quintiliano Sánchez and Remigio Crespo y Toral.

References: Men. Pel., _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, III, p. lxxxiii f.; Blanco García, III, 350 f.; _Ensayo sobre la literatura ecuatoriana_, Dr. Pablo Herrera, Quito, 1860; _Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la poesía ecuatoriana_, Juan León Mera, Quito, 1868, 2d ed., Barcelona, 1893; _Escritores españoles é hispano-americanos_, Cañete, Madrid, 1884; _Lira ecuatoriana_, Vicente Emilio Molestina, Guayaquil, 1865; _Nueva lira ecuat._, Juan Abel Echeverría, Quito, 1879; _Parnaso ecuat._, Manuel Gallegos Naranjo, Quito, 1879; _América poética_, Juan María Gutiérrez, Valparaíso, 1846 (the best of the early anthologies: contains a few poems by Olmedo); _Antología ecuat._, published by the Academy of Ecuador, with a second volume entitled _Cantares del pueblo ecuat._ (Edited by Juan León Mera), both Quito, 1892.

=Peru.= The literature of Ecuador is so closely associated with that of Peru, that the one cannot be properly treated without some account of the other. The Virreinato del Perú was the wealthiest and most cultivated Spanish colony in South America, and in North America only Mexico rivaled it in influence. Lima, an attractive city, thoroughly Andalusian in character and appearance, was the page 301 site of important institutions of learning, such as the famed Universidad de San Marcos. It had, moreover, a printing-press toward the close of the sixteenth century, a public theater by 1602, and a gazette by the end of the seventeenth century. The spread of learning in colonial Peru may be illustrated by the fact that the Jesuits alone, at the time of their expulsion in 1767, had twelve colleges and universities in Peru, the oldest of which dated from the middle of the sixteenth century and offered courses in philosophy, law, medicine and theology.

The Peruvians seem to have been content with their lot as a favored Spanish colony, and they declared for independence only when incited to do so and aided by Bolivar of Colombia and San Martin of Buenos Aires. After the revolution, Peru was torn by internal discord rather more than other Spanish-American countries during the period of adolescence; and it was its misfortune to lose territory after territory. Bolivar took northern Peru, including the valuable seaport of Guayaquil, and made it a part of the first Colombia; and largely through the influence of Bolivar much of Upper Peru was made a separate republic, that of Bolivia. Lastly, Chile, for centuries a dependency of Peru, became independent and even wrested a considerable stretch of the litoral from her former mistress. It is hard to realize that Peru, to-day relatively weak among the American countries, was once the heart of a vast Inca empire and later the colony whose governors ruled the territories of Argentina and Chile to the south, and of Ecuador and Colombia to the north. With the decline of wealth and political influence there has come to Peru a decadence in letters. Lima is still a center of cultivation, a city in which the Castilian language and Spanish customs have been preserved with remarkable fidelity; but its importance is completely eclipsed by such growing commercial centers as Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago de Chile, and by page 302 relatively small and conservative towns such as Bogotá.

In the sixteenth century Garcilasso Inga de la Vega (his mother was an "Inga," or Inca, princess), who had been well trained in the Latin classics by Spanish priests, wrote in excellent prose his famous works, _Florida del Inca_, _Comentarios reales_ and _Historia general del Perú_. The second work, partly historical and largely imaginary, purports to be a history of the ancient Incas, and pictures the old Peru as an earthly paradise. This work has had great influence over Peruvian and Colombian poets. Menéndez y Pelayo (_Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, III, _Introd._) considers Garcilasso, or Garcilaso, and Alarcón the two truly classic writers that America has given to Spanish literature.

In the Golden Age of Spanish letters several Peruvian poets were known to Spaniards. Cervantes, in the _Canto de Calíope_ and Lope de Vega in the _Laurel del Apolo_ make mention of several Peruvians who had distinguished themselves by their verses.

An unknown poetess of Huanuco, Peru, who signed herself "Amarilis," wrote a clever _silva_ in praise of Lope, which the latter answered in the epistle _Belardo á Amarilis_. This _silva_ of "Amarilis" is the best poetic composition of the early colonial period. Another poetess of the period, also anonymous, wrote in _terza rima_ a _Discurso en loor de la poesía_, which mentions by name most of the Peruvian poets then living.

Toward the close of the sixteenth century and in the early decades of the seventeenth century, several Spanish scholars, mostly Andalusians of the Sevillan school, went to Peru, and there continued literary work. Among these were Diego Mexía, who made the happiest of Spanish translations of Ovid's _Heroides_; Diego de Ojeda, the best of Spanish sacred-epic poets, author of the _Cristiada_; Juan Gálvez; Luis de Belmonte, author of _La Hispálica_; Diego de Avalos y Figueroa whose page 303 _Miscelánea austral_ (Lima, 1603) contains a long poem in _ottava rima_ entitled _Defensa de damas_; and others. These men exerted great influence, and to them was largely due the peculiarly Andalusian flavor of Peruvian poetry.

The best Gongoristic _Poetics_ came from Peru. This is the _Apologético en favor de D. Luis de Góngora_ (Lima, 1694), by Dr. Juan de Espinosa Medrano.

In the eighteenth century the poetic compositions of Peru were chiefly "_versos de circunstancias_" by "_poetas de ocasión_." Many volumes of these were published, but no one reads them to-day. Their greatest fault is excessive culteranism, which survived in the colonies a half-century after it had passed away from the mother country. The most learned man of the eighteenth century in Peru was Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo, the erudite author of some fifty volumes of history, science and letters. His best known poem is the epic _Lima fundada_ (Lima, 1732). He wrote several dramas, one of which, _Rodoguna_, is Corneille's play adapted to the Spanish stage, and has the distinction of being one of the first imitations of the French stage in Spanish letters. All in all, the literary output of Peru during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is disappointingly small in quantity and poor in quality, in view of the important position held by this flourishing colony. The Peruvian writers, then and now, lack in sustained effort.

During and immediately following the revolutionary period, the greatest poet is Olmedo, who was born and educated in Peru and became a citizen first of the primitive Colombia and then of Ecuador, only as his native city, Guayaquil, formed a part of one political division after another. It is customary, however, to consider Olmedo a poet of Ecuador, and it is so done in this volume.

After Olmedo, the commanding figure among the classical poets of Peru is Felipe Pardo y Aliaga (1806-1868). Pardo was educated in Spain, where he studied with Alberto Lista. From his teacher he acquired a fondness page 304 for classical studies and a conservatism in letters that he retained throughout his life. In his later years he was induced to adopt some of the metrical forms invented or revived by the romanticists, but in spirit he remained a conservative and a classicist. He had a keen sense of wit and a lively imagination which made even his political satires interesting reading. Besides his _Poesías y escritos en prosa_ (Paris, 1869), Pardo left a number of comedies portraying local types and scenes which are clever attempts at imitation of Spanish drama. As with all the earlier poets of Spanish America, literature was only a side-play to Pardo, although it probably took his time and attention even more than the law, which was his profession. A younger brother, José (1820-1873), wrote a few short poems, but his verses are relatively limited and amateurish. Manuel Ascensión Segura (1805-1871) wrote clever farces filled with descriptions of local customs, somewhat after the type of the modern _género chico_ (_Artículos, poesías y comedias_, Lima, 1866).

The romantic movement came directly from Spain to Peru and obtained a foothold only well on toward the close of the first half of the century. The leader of the Bohemian romanticists of Lima was a Spaniard from Santander, Fernando Velarde. Around him clustered a group of young men who imitated Espronceda and Zorrilla and Velarde with great enthusiasm. For an account of the "Bohemians" of the fourth and fifth decades in Lima [Numa Pompilio Llona (b. 1832), Nicolás Corpancho (1830-1863), Luis Benjamín Cisneros (b. 1837), Carlos Augusto Salaverry (1830-1891), Manuel Ascensión Segura (b. 1805), Clemente Althaus (1835-1881), Adolfo García (1830-1883), Constantino Carrasco (1841-1877) and others, see the introduction to the _Poesías_ (Lima, 1887) of Ricardo Palma (1833-___: till 1912 director of the national library of Peru).]

Not often could the romanticists of America go back to page 305 indigenous legend for inspiration as their Spanish cousins so often did; but this Constantino Carrasco undertook to do in his translation of the famous Quichua drama, _Ollanta_. It was long claimed, and many still believe, that this is an ancient indigenous play; but to-day the more thoughtful critics are inclined to consider it an imitation of the Spanish classical drama, perhaps written in the Quichua language by some Spanish priest (Valdés?). The 8-syllable lines, the rime-scheme and the spirit of the play all suggest Spanish influence. In parenthesis it should be added that Quichua verse is still cultivated artificially in Peru and Ecuador.

The two men of that generation who have most distinguished themselves are Pedro Paz-Soldán y Unanue, "Juan de Arona" (1839-1894), a poet of satire and humor; and Ricardo Palma (1833-___) a leading scholar and literary critic, best known for his prose _Tradiciones peruanas_ (Lima, 1875 and 1899).

The strongest representative of the present-day "_modernistas_" in Peru is José Santos Chocano (1867-___), a disciple of Darío. Chocano writes with much grandiloquence. His many sonnets are mostly prosaic, but some are finished and musical (cf. _La magnolia_). He is more Christian (cf. _Evangeleida_) than most of his contemporaries, and he sings of the _conquistadores_ with true admiration [cf. _En la aldea_, Lima, 1895; _Iras santas_, Lima, 1895; _Alma América_ (_Prólogo_ de Miguel de Unamuno), Madrid, 1906; _La selva virgen_, Paris, 1901; _Fiat lux_, Paris, 1908].

A younger man is Edilberto Zegarra Ballón of Arequipa (1880-___), author of _Vibraciones, Poemas, el al._ His verse is simpler and less rugged than that of the more virile Chocano.

References: Men. Pel., _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, III, p. cxlix f.; Blanco García, III, 362 f.; _Diccionario histórico y biográfico del Perú, formado y redactado por Manuel de Mendíburu_, 9 vols., Lima, 1874-80; _Colección de documentos literarios del Perú_, 11 vols., Manuel de Odriozola, Lima, 1863-74; page 306 _América poética_, Juan María Gutiérrez, Valparaíso, 1846; _Parnaso peruano_, J.D. Cortés, Paris, 1875; _La Bohemia limeña de 1848 á 1860, Prólogo de Poesías de Ricardo Palma_, Lima, 1887; _Lira americana,_ Ricardo Palma, Paris, 1865.

=193.=--Olmedo: see preceding note.

8. =Á=, _with_.

=194.=--15-17. The following is a translation of a note to these lines which is given in _Poesías de Olmedo_, Garnier Hermanos, Paris, 1896: "Physicists have attempted to explain the equilibrium that is maintained by the earth in spite of the difference of mass in its two hemispheres" (northern and southern). "May not the enormous weight of the Andes be one of the data with which this curious problem of physical geography can be solved?"

=195.=--4. The religion of the ancient Peruvians, before they were converted to Christianity by the Spaniards, was based on the worship of the sun. The chief temple of the sun was at Cuzco.

25. Bolivar was a native of Caracas, Venezuela; but, when this poem was written, Colombia comprised most of the present States of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Moreover, Colombia is probably used somewhat figuratively by the poet to designate the "land of Columbus."

26. The Peruvians and the Colombians were allies. It is an interesting fact that in the war for independence waged by the Spanish Americans against Spain, the leaders of the Americans were nearly all of Spanish descent, while the majority of the rank and file of the American soldiery was Indian. To this day, a majority of the population of Spanish America, excepting only Chile, Argentina and the West Indian Islands, is indigenous, and their poets still sing of "indigenous America," but they sing in the Spanish tongue! See p. 211, l. 7. page 307 =196.=--21. See note to p. 162, l. 8. The Peruvian flag has an image of the _sun_ in its center.

23. It is reported that the first onslaught of the Spanish-American cavalry failed, partly by reason of their impetuousness, and that they would probably have been defeated if Bolivar had not rallied them and led them on to victory.

=198.=--10. The battle of Junin began at about five o'clock in the afternoon, and it is said that only night saved the Spaniards from complete destruction.

11. =El dios oía=: destiny did not permit the god to stay his course for an hour, but the god left behind him his circlet of diamonds (the stars).

=199.=--=Mexico.= The Virreinato de Nueva España was a favored colony, where Spanish culture took deepest root. It had the first institution of learning in America (opened in 1553 by decree of Charles I) and the first printing-press (1540?). Some 116 books were printed in Mexico City during the sixteenth century, most of which were catechisms or grammars and dictionaries in the native languages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several Spanish poets, mostly Sevillans, went to Mexico. Among these were Diego Mexía (went to Mexico in 1596); Gutierre de Cetina, Juan de la Cueva, and Mateo Alemán (published _Ortografía castellana_ in Mexico in 1609). _Certámenes poéticos_ ("poetic contests") were held in Mexico, as in other Spanish colonies, from time to time. The first of importance occurred in Mexico City in 1583, to which seven bishops lent the dignity of their presence and in which three hundred poets (?) competed. After the discovery and conquest of the Philippines, great opulence came to Mexico on account of its being on a direct route of Pacific trade between Europe and Asia, and Mexico became an emporium of Asiatic goods (note introduction of Mexican dollar into China).

The first native poet deserving of the name was Francisco page 308 de Terrazas (cf. Cervantes, _Canto de Calíope_, 1584), who left in manuscript sonnets and other lyrics and an unfinished epic poem, _Nuevo mundo y conquista_. It is interesting that in the works of Terrazas and other native poets of the sixteenth century the Spaniards are called "_soberbios_," "_malos_," etc. Antonio Saavedra Guzmán was the first in Mexico to write in verse a chronicle of the conquest (_El peregrino indiano_, Madrid, 1599). _Coloquios espirituales_ (published posthumously in 1610), _autos_ of the "morality" type, with much local color and

## partly in dialect, were written by Fernán González Eslava,

whom Pimentel considers the best sacred dramatic poet of Mexico. Sacred dramatic representations had been given in Spanish and in the indigenous languages almost from the time of the conquest. According to Beristain, at least two plays of Lope were done into Nahuatl by Bartolomé de Alba, of native descent, and performed, _viz._: _El animal profeta y dichoso parricida_ and _La madre de la Mejor_.

The first poet whose verses are genuinely American, exotic and rich in color like the land in which written (a rare quality in the Spanish poetry of the period), was Bernardo de Balbuena (1568-1627: born in Spain; educated in Mexico). Balbuena had a strong descriptive faculty, but his work lacked restraint (cf. _Grandeza mexicana_, Mex., 1604; Madrid, 1821, 1829 and 1837; N.Y., 1828; Mex., 1860). The great dramatist, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón (1581?-1639), was born and educated in Mexico; but as he wrote in Spain, and his dramas are Spanish in feeling, he is best treated as a Spanish poet.

Next only to Avellaneda the most distinguished Spanish-American poetess is the Mexican nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), whose worldly name was Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Cantillana. Sor Juana had intellectual curiosity in an unusual degree and early began the study of Latin and other languages. When still a young girl she became a maid-in-waiting in the viceroy's palace, where her beauty and wit attracted much page 309 attention; but she soon renounced the worldly life of the court and joined a religious order. In the convent of San Jerónimo she turned for solace to books, and in time she accumulated a library of four thousand volumes. Upon being reproved by a zealous bishop for reading worldly books, she sold her entire library and gave the proceeds to the poor. Sor Juana's better verses are of two kinds: those that give evidence of great cleverness and mental acuteness, and those that have the ring of spontaneity and sincerity. As an exponent of erotic mysticism, she is most interesting. In the most passionate of her erotic verses there is an apparent sincerity which makes it difficult for the lay reader to believe that she had not been profoundly influenced by human love,--as when she gives expression to the feelings of a loving wife for a dead husband, or laments the absence of a lover or tells of a great jealousy. In addition to her lyrics Sor Juana wrote several _autos_ and dramas. Her poems were first published under the bombastic title of _Inundación castálida de la única poetisa, Musa décima, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz_, Madrid, 1689 (vol. II, Seville, 1691; vol. III, Madrid, 1700).

During the first half of the eighteenth century the traditions of the preceding century persisted; but in the second half there came the neo-classic reaction. Among the best of the prosaic poets of the century are: Miguel de Reyna Zeballos (_La elocuencia del silencio_, Madrid, 1738); Francisco Ruiz de León (_Hernandía_, 1755, based on the _Conquista de México_ by Solís); and the priest Jorge José Sartorio (1746-1828: _Poesías sagradas y profanas_, 7 vols., Puebla, 1832). The Franciscan Manuel de Navarrete (1768-1809) is considered by Pimentel superior to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz as a philosophic poet (the writer of this article does not so consider him) and is called the "restorer of lyric and objective poetry in Mexico" (cf. Pim., _Hist. Poesía Mex._, p. 442). Navarrete wrote in a variety of styles. His verses are harmonious, but _altisonante_ and often incorrect. His best page 310 lyrics, like those of Cienfuegos, have the personal note of the romanticists to follow (_Entretenimientos poéticos_, Mex., 1823, Paris, 1835; _Poesías_, Mex., 1905).

There were no eminent Mexican poets during the revolutionary period. Andrés Quintana Roo (1787-1851) was a lawyer and journalist and president of the congress which made the first declaration of independence. Pimentel (p. 309) calls him an eminent poet and one of the best of the period. Two of the most important in the period are: Manuel Sánchez de Tagle (1782-1847), a statesman given to philosophic meditation, but a poor versifier (_Poesías_, 1852); and Francisco Ortega (1793-1849), an ardent republican, who opposed Iturbide when the latter had himself proclaimed emperor of Mexico in 1821 (_Poesías líricas_, 1839; cf. _Á Iturbide en su coronación_). To these should be added Joaquín María del Castillo y Lanzas (1781-1878), one-time minister to the United States (_Ocios juveniles_, Philadelphia, 1835); and the priest Anastasio María Ochoa (1783-1833), who translated French, Italian, and Latin (Ovid's _Heroides_) works, and wrote some humorous verses (_Poesías_, N.Y., 1828: contains two dramas).

Next to Alarcón, the greatest dramatist that Mexico has produced is Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza (1789-1851), who wrote few lyric verses, but many dramas in verse and prose. His plays, which are full of humorous contrasts, were written during his residence in Spain and are, for the most part, typically Spanish in all respects. Gorostiza, in manner and style, is considered a bridge between Moratín and Bretón. His best comedy is _La indulgencia para todos_ (cf. _Teatro original_, Paris, 1822; _Teatro escogido_, Bruxelles, 1825; _Obras dramáticas_, _Bibl. Aut. Mex._, vols. 22, 24, 26, 45, Mex.,-1899).

Romanticism came into Mexico through Spain. It was probably introduced by Ignacio Rodríguez Galván (1816-1842), a translator, lyric poet, and page 311 dramatist. His lyrics have the merit of sincerity; pessimism is the prevailing tone and there is much invective. His _Profecías de Guatimoc_ is considered the masterpiece of Mexican romanticism (_Obras_, 2 vols., Mex., 1851; Paris, 1883). Another well-known romantic lyricist and dramatist is Fernando Calderón (1809-1845), who was more correct in form than Rodríguez Galvan (_Poesías_, Mex., 1844 and 1849; Paris, 1883; Mex., 1902).

The revival of letters in Mexico is generally attributed to the conservative poets Pesado and Carpio, both of whom sought to be classic, although they were not altogether so in practise. Probably the best known Mexican poet, though certainly not the most inspired, is José Joaquín Pesado (1801-1861). He translated much from Latin, French and Italian, and in some cases failed to acknowledge his indebtedness (cf. Pimentel, p. 694). His best translations are of the Psalms. The _Aztecas_, which were published as a translation of, or an adaptation from, indigenous legends, are mostly original with Pesado in all probability. He is an unusually even writer, and some of his verses are good (cf. certain sonnets: _Mi amada en la misa del alba_, which reminds one of Meléndez Valdés in _Rosana en los fuegos_; _Elegía al ángel de la guardia de Elisa_; and parts of _La revelación_ in _octavas reales_). Montes de Oca and Menéndez y Pelayo consider Pesado the greatest of Mexican poets; but Pimentel does not (p. 694). Cf. _Poesías originales y traducciones_, Mex., 1839-40 (most complete), 1886 (introduction of Montes de Oca); _Biografía de Pesado_, by José María Roa Bárcena, Mex., 1878. Manuel Carpio (1791-1860) began to write verses after he had reached the age of forty years, and there is, consequently, a certain ripeness of thought and also a lack of feeling in his poetry. His verses are chiefly narrative or descriptive and generally treat of biblical subjects. His language is usually correct, but often prosaic (_Poesías_, Mex., 1849). page 312 Minor poets of this period are: Alejandro Arango (1821-1883), an imitator of León (_Versos_, 1879; _Ensayo histórico sobre Fr. Luis de León_, Mex., 1866); Ignacio Ramírez (1818-1879), of Indian race, who was a free lance in religion and politics, and largely responsible for the separation of Church and State in Mexico (_Poesías_, Mex., 1889, and _Lecciones de literatura_, Mex., 1884); and Ignacio M. Altamarino (1834-1893), an erotic and descriptive poet (_Obras_, Mex., 1899).

The most popular Mexican poets during the second half of the nineteenth century have been Acuña, Flores, Peza and Gutiérrez Nájera. A materialistic iconoclast, Manuel Acuña (1849-1873) was uneven and incorrect in language, but capable of deep poetic feeling. In his _Poesías_ (Garnier, Paris, 8th ed.) there are two short poems that may live: _Nocturno_, a passionate expression of disappointment in love; and _Ante un cadáver_, a poem of dogmatic materialism. Acuña committed suicide at the age of twenty-four years. Manuel María Flores (1840-1885), an erotic poet largely influenced by Musset, is very popular in Mexico (_Pasionarias_, Paris, 1911). Probably the most widely read poet of the period is Juan de Dios Peza (1852-1910). His verses are often incorrect and weak, as he improvised much; but they are interesting, as they usually treat of homely topics (_Poesías completas: El arpa del amor_, 1891; _Hogar y patria_, 1891; _Leyendas_, 1898; _Flores del alma; Recuerdos y esperanzas_, 1899, Garnier, Paris). The romantic pessimist, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (d. 1888), was tormented throughout life by the vain quest of happiness and the thirst of truth. His verses, which are often elegiac or fantastic, are highly admired by the younger generation of Mexican poets. In a letter to the writer of this article, Blanco-Fombona praises Gutiérrez Nájera above all other Mexican poets (_Poesías_, Paris, 1909, 2 vols.).

References: Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, I, p. xiv f.: Blanco García, III, 304 f.; Francisco Pimentel, _Historia crítica de la page 313 poesía en México_, Mex., 1892; _Biblioteca hispano-americana septentrional_, D. José Mariano Beristain de Souza, Mex., 1816-21, 3 vols. (has more than 4000 titles),--reprinted by Fortino Hipólito de Vera, Amecameca, 1883; _Bibliografía mexicana del siglo XVI (catálogo razonado de los libros impresos in México de 1539 á 1600)_; _Biografías de mexicanos distinguidos_, D. Francisco Sosa, Mex., 1884; _Poetas yucatecos y tabasqueños_, D. Manuel Sánchez Mármol y D. Alonso de Regil y Peón, Mérida de Yucatán, 1861; _Poetisas mexicanas_, Bogotá, 1889; _Colección de poesias mexicanas_, Paris, 1836; _El parnaso mexicano_, 36 vols., R.B. Ortega, Mex., 1886; _Biblioteca de autores mexicanos_, some 75 vols. to 1911, Mex.; _Antología de poetas mexicanos_, publ. by Acad. Mex., Mex., 1894; _Poetas mexicanos_, Carlos G. Amézaga, Buenos Aires, 1896; _Los trovadores de México_, Barcelona, 1900.

Pesado: see preceding note.

=La Serenata=: see _Introduction, Versification_, p. lxviii.

=200.=--6-11. These lines of Pesado are similar to those found in the first stanzas of _Su alma_ by Milanés. See Hills' _Bardos cubanos_ (Boston, 1901), p. 69.

Calderón: see note to p. 199.

=202.=--Acuña: see note to p. 199.

=204.=--15. The language is obscure, but the meaning seems to be: _borrarte (á ti que estás) en mis recuerdos_.

19. The forced synalepha of =yo haga= is discordant and incorrect.

=204.=--23 to =205.=--8. That is, when the altar was ready for the marriage ceremony, and the home awaited the bride. The reference, apparently, is to a marriage at an early hour in the morning,--a favored time for marriages in Spanish lands.

=208.=--1. =la alma=, by poetic license, since _el alma_ would make the line too long by one syllable.

=207.=--Peza: see note to p. 199.

=211.=--Darío: with the appearance in 1888 of a small volume of prose and verse entitled _Azul_, by Rubén Darío (1864-) of Nicaragua, there triumphed in Spanish America the "movement of emancipation," the "literary page 314 revolution," which the "decadents" had already initiated in France. As romanticism had been a revolt against the empty formalism of later neo-classicism, so "decadence" was a reaction against the hard, marmoreal forms of the "Parnasse," and in its train there came inevitably a general attack on poetic traditions. This movement was hailed with joy by the young men of Latin America, who are by nature more emotional and who live in a more voluptuous environment than their cousins in Spain; for they had come to chafe at the coldness of contemporary Spanish poetry, at its lack of color and its "petrified metrical forms." With the success of the movement there was for a time a reign of license, when poet vied with poet in defying the time-honored rules, not only of versification, but also of vocabulary and syntax. But as in France, so in Spanish America, "decadence" has had its day, although traces of its passing are everywhere in evidence, and the best that was in it still lingers.

To-day the Spanish-American poets are turning their attention more and more to the study of sociological problems or to the cementing of racial solidarity. These notes ring clear in some recent poems of Darío, and of José S. Chocano of Peru and Rufino Blanco-Fombona of Venezuela. The lines given in the text are an ode which was addressed to Mr. Roosevelt when he was president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. The meter of the poem is mainly the Old Spanish Alexandrine, but with a curious intermingling of lines of nine, ten and eight syllables, and with assonance of the even lines throughout. In all fairness it should be stated here that Señor Darío, in a recent letter to the writer of these _Notes_, said: "I do not think to-day as I did when I wrote those verses" (Darío: _Epístolas y poemas_, 1885; _Abrojos_, 1887; _Azul_, 1888; _Cantos de vida y esperanza_, Madrid, 1905; _El canto errante_, Madrid, 1907). page 315 =212.=--8. Argentina and Chile are the most progressive of the Spanish-American States. The Argentine flag is blue and white, with a _sun_ in the center; the flag of Chile has a white and a red bar, and in one corner a white _star_ on a blue background.

11. This refers, of course, to the colossal bronze Statue of Liberty by the French sculptor, Frédéric Bartholdi, which stands in New York harbor.

14. In a letter to the writer of these _Notes_, Senor Darío explains this passage as follows: "Bacchus, or Dionysius, after the conquest of India (I refer to the semi-historical and not to the mythological Bacchus) is supposed to have gone to other and unknown countries. I imagine that those unknown countries were America. Pan, who accompanied Bacchus on his journey, taught those new men the alphabet. All this is related to the tradition of the arrival of bearded men, strangely dressed, in the American countries.... These traditions exist in the South as well as the North."

16. =Que consultó los astros=: the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans had made considerable progress in the study of astronomy.

=214.=--=Venezuela.= During the colonial period the development of literary culture was slower in the Capitanía de Caracas than in Colombia, Peru and Mexico. The Colegio de Santa Rosa, which was founded at Caracas in 1696, was made a university in 1721. Not till 1806 was the first printing-press set up in the colony.

Poetry in Venezuela begins with Bello, for the works of his predecessors had little merit. Andrés Bello (1781-1865) was the most consummate master of poetic diction among Spanish-American poets, although he lacked the brilliancy of Olmedo and the spontaneity of Heredia. Born in Caracas and educated in the schools of his native city, Bello was sent to England in the year 1810 to further the cause of the revolution, and he remained in that country till 1829, when he was called to page 316 Chile to take service in the Department of Foreign Affairs. His life may, therefore, be divided into three distinct periods. In Caracas he studied chiefly the Latin and Spanish classics and the elements of international law, and he made metrical translations of Virgil and Horace. Upon arriving in England at the age of twenty-nine years, he gave himself with enthusiasm to the study of Greek, Italian and French, as well as to English. Bello joined with the Spanish and Hispano-American scholars in London in the publication of several literary reviews, notably the _Censor americano_ (1820), the _Biblioteca americana_ (1823) and the _Repertorio americano_ (1826-27), and in these he published many of his most important works. Here appeared his studies of Old French and of the _Song of My Cid_, his excellent translation of fourteen cantos of Boiardo's _Orlando innamorato_, several important articles on Spanish syntax and prosody, and the best of all his poems, the _Silvas americanas_.

In 1829, when already forty-eight years of age, Bello removed to Chile, and there entered upon the happiest period of his life. Besides working in a government office, he gave private lessons until in 1831 he was made rector of the College of Santiago. In the year 1843 the University of Chile was established at Santiago and Bello became its first rector. He held this important post till his death twenty-two years later at the ripe age of eighty-four. During this third and last period of his life Bello completed and published his _Spanish Grammar_ and his _Principles of International Law_, works which, with occasional slight revisions, have been used as standard text-books in Spanish America and to some extent in Spain, to the present day. The _Grammar_, especially, has been extraordinarily successful, and the edition with notes by José Rufino Cuervo is still the best text-book of Spanish grammar we have. In the _Grammar_ Bello sought to free Castilian from Latin terminology; but he desired, most of all, to correct the abuses so common to writers page 317 of the period and to establish linguistic unity in Spanish America.

Bello wrote little original verse during these last years of his life. At one time he became exceedingly fond of Victor Hugo and even tried to imitate him; but his classical training and methodical habits made success impossible. His best poetic work during his residence in Chile, however, are translations of Victor Hugo, and his free metrical rendering of _La Prière pour tous_ (from the _Feuilles d'automne_), is amongst his finest and most popular verses.

It is interesting that Andrés Bello, the foremost of Spanish-American scholars in linguistics and in international law, should also have been a preëminent poet, and yet all critics, except possibly a few of the present-day "_modernistas_," place his _American Silvas_ amongst the best poetic compositions of all Spanish America. The _Silvas_ are two in number: the _Alocución á la poesía_ and the _Silva á la agricultura de la zona tórrida_. The first is fragmentary: apparently the poet despaired of completing it, and he embodied in the second poem an elaboration of those passages of the first work which describe nature in the tropics. The _Silvas_ are in some degree imitations of Virgil's _Georgics_, and they are the best of Spanish imitations. Menéndez y Pelayo, who is not too fond of American poets, is willing to admit (_Ant._, II, p. cxlii) that Bello is, "in descriptive and Georgic verse, the most Virgilian of our (Spanish) poets." Caro, in his splendid biography of Bello (in Miguel Antonio Caro's introduction to the _Poesías de Andrés Bello_, Madrid, 1882) classifies the _Silvas_ as "scientific poetry," which is quite true if this sort of poetry gives an esthetic conception of nature, expressed in beautiful terms and adorned with descriptions of natural objects. It is less true of the _Alocución_, which is largely historical, in that it introduces and sings the praises of towns and persons that won fame in the revolutionary wars. The _Silva á la agricultura_, page 318 which is both descriptive and moral, may be best described in the words of Caro. It is, says this distinguished critic, "an account of the beauty and wealth of nature in the tropics, and an exhortation to those who live in the equator that, instead of wasting their strength in political and domestic dissensions, they should devote themselves to agricultural pursuits." Bello's interest in nature had doubtless been stimulated by the coming of Humboldt to Caracas in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In his attempt to express his feeling for nature in poetic terms, he probably felt the influence not only of Virgil, but also of Arriaza, and of the several poems descriptive of nature written in Latin by Jesuit priests, such as the once famous _Rusticatio Mexicana_ by Father Landivar of Guatemala. And yet there is very little in the _Silvas_ that is directly imitative. The _Silva á la agricultura de la zona tórrida_, especially, is an extraordinarily successful attempt to give expression in Virgilian terms to the exotic life of the tropics, and in this it is unique in Spanish literature. The beautiful descriptive passages in this poem, the noble ethical precepts and the severely pure diction combine to make it a classic that will long hold an honored place in Spanish-American letters (_Obras completas_, Santiago de Chile, 1881-93).

During the revolutionary period the most distinguished poets, after Bello, of that part of the greater Colombia which later formed the separate republic of Venezuela, were Baralt and Ros de Olano. Rafael María Baralt (1810-1860) took part in the revolutionary movement of secession from the first Colombia; but later he removed to Spain and became a Spanish citizen. His verses are usually correct, but lack feeling. He is best known as a historian and maker of dictionaries. Baralt was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy (_Poesías_, Paris, 1888).

General Antonio Ros de Olano (1802-1887) also removed to page 319 Spain and won high rank in the Spanish army. He joined the romantic movement and became a follower of Espronceda. Besides a volume of verses (_Poesías_, Madrid, 1886), Ros de Olano wrote _El doctor Lañuela_ (1863) and other novels. Both Baralt and Ros de Olano were identified with literary movements in Spain rather than in Venezuela.

José Heriberto García de Quevedo (1819-1871) was a cultivated and ambitious scholar who collaborated with Zorrilla in _María_, _Ira de Dios_ and _Un cuento de amores_. Among his better works are the three philosophical poems: _Delirium_, _La segunda vida_ and _El proscrito_ (_Obras poéticas y literarias_, Paris, 1863). Among the lesser writers of this period are Antonio Maitín (1804-1874), the best of Venezuelan romanticists (cf. _El canto fúnebre_, a poem of domestic love); Abigail Lozano (1821-1866), a romanticist and author of musical but empty verses ("_versos altisonantes_"); José Ramón Yepes (1822-1881), an army officer and the author of legends in verse, besides the inevitable _Poesías_; Eloy Escobar (1824-1889), an elegiac poet; and Francisco G. Pardo (1829-1872), a mediocre imitator of Zorrilla.

Next to Bello alone, the most distinguished poet of Venezuela is José Pérez Bonalde (1846-1892), who was a good German scholar and left, besides his original verses, excellent translations of German poets. His metrical versions of Heine, especially, exerted considerable influence over the growth of literary feeling in Spanish America (_Estrofas_, N.Y., 1877; _El poema del Niágara_, N.Y., 1880). At least two other writers of the second half of the nineteenth century deserve mention: Miguel Sánchez Pesquera and Jacinto Gutiérrez Coll.

Among the present-day writers of Venezuela, Luis López Méndez was one of the first to introduce into Spanish America a knowledge of the philosophy and metrical theories of Paul Verlaine. Manuel Díaz Rodríguez (1868-___) has written little verse; but he is the best known Venezuelan novelist of to-day [_Sangre page 320 patricia, Camino de perfección_ (essays), _Ídolos rotos_, _Cuentos_, 2 vols., _Confidencias de Psiquis_, _Cuentos de color_, _Sensaciones de viaje_, _De mis romerías_]. The most influential of the younger writers is Rufino Blanco-Fombona, who was expelled from his native country by the present _andino_ ("mountaineer") government and now lives in exile in Paris. At first a disciple of Musset and then of Heine and Maupassant, he is now an admirer of Darío and a pronounced _modernista_. His _Letras y letrados de Hispano-America_ is the best recent work of literary criticism by a Spanish-American author. Blanco-Fombona is a singer of youthful ambition, force and robust love. His verses have rich coloring, but are at times erotic or lacking in restraint (prose works: _Cuentos de poeta_, Maracaibo, 1900; _Más allá de los horizontes_, Madrid, 1903; _Cuentos americanos_, Madrid, 1904; _El hombre de hierro_, Caracas, 1907; _Letras y letrados de Hispano-America_, Paris, 1908. Verses: _Patria_, Caracas, 1895; _Trovadores y trovas_, Caracas, 1899; _Pequeña ópera lírica_, Madrid, 1904; _Cantos de la prisión_, Paris, 1911).

References: Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, II, p. cx f.; Blanco García, III, p. 321 f.; _Reseña histórica de la literatura venezolana_ (1888) and _Estado actual de la literatura en Venezuela_ (1892), both by Julio Calcaño, Caracas; _La literatura venezolana en el siglo XIX_, Gonzalo Picón Febres, Caracas, 1906; _Parnaso venezolano_, 12 vols., Julio Calcaño, Caracas, 1892; _Biblioteca de escritores venezolanos_, José María Rojas, Paris, 1875; _Parnaso venezolano_, Barcelona, 1906.

Bello: see preceding note.

1. The _Lion_ symbolizes Spain, since from the medieval kingdom of Leon modern Spain sprang. The battle of Bailén (see in _Vocab._) took place in 1808 when Bello was twenty-seven years of age and still loyal to Spain.

=214.=--16 to =215.=--3. =Que... concibes= = _que circunscribes el vago curso_ =al= _(= del) sol enamorado, y (tú), acariciada de su luz, concibes_ =cuanto page 321 ser= (= every being that) _se anima en cada vario clima._

18. The use of =quien= referring to inanimate objects is now archaic.

=216.=--19 to =217.=--3. It is said that the banana gives nourishment to more human beings than does any other plant. The fruit is taken when it is still green, before the starch has turned to sugar, and it is boiled, or baked, or it is ground and made into a coarse bread.

6-8. =En que... bondadosa!= = _en que (la) naturaleza bondadosa quiso hacer reseña de sus favores..._

9. The student should compare this and the following lines with _Vida retirada_ by Fray Luis de León, p. 9.

19. The rime requires =habita=, instead of _habitad_.

22-23. =Y... atada= = _y la razón va atada al triunfal carro de la moda, universal señora_.

=219.=--10-16. =¿Esperaréis... ata?= = _¿esperaréis que (el) himeneo forme más venturosos lazos do el interés, tirano del deseo, barata ajena mano y fe por nombre ó plata, que do conforme gusto, conforme edad, y_ (= both) _elección libre y_ (= and) _mutuo ardor ata los lazos?_ Note that, by poetic license, =ata= agrees in number with the nearest subject, although it has two.

=220.=--8-11. As this poem was written after the Spanish-American colonies had revolted against the mother country, Bello no longer rejoices at the success of Spanish arms nor grieves over their losses, as he had done when he wrote _Á la victoria de Bailén_.

Pérez Bonalde: see note to p. 214.

=222.=--5. The Venezuelan flag is yellow, blue and red with seven small white stars in the center.

=225.=--=La carcelera=: the words and music of this song and of the first that follows are taken from the _Cancionero salmantino_ (Dámaso Ledesma), Madrid, 1907.

=227.=--=La cachucha=: the words and music of this song and of the five that immediately follow are taken page 322 from _Poesías populares_ (Tomás Segarra), Leipzig, 1862.

=238.=--=El trágala=: (lit., _the swallow it_) a song with which the Spanish liberals taunted the partizans of an absolute government.

=242.=--=Himno de Riego=: a song to the liberal general, Rafael de Riego (1784-1823), who initiated the revolution of 1820 in Spain and proclaimed at Cabezas de San Juan the constitution of 1812. Cf. _Versification_, p. lxxix.

=251.=--=Himno Nacional de Cuba=, called also the =Himno de Bayamo=, on account of the importance of Bayamo (see in _Vocab._) in the Cuban revolution of 1868. Note the ternary movement of this song, and see _Versification_, p. lxxiii.