Introduction

Introduction

1. SPANISH LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS.--At the period of the subversion of the Empire of the West, in the fifth century, Spain was invaded by the Suevi, the Alans, the Vandals, and the Visigoths. The country which had for six centuries been subjected to the dominion of the Romans, and had, adopted the language and arts of its masters, now experienced those changes in manners, opinions, military spirit, and language, which took place in the other provinces of the empire, and which, were, in fact, the origin of the nations which arose on the overthrow of the Roman power. Among the conquerors of Spain, the Visigoths were the most numerous; the ancient Roman subjects were speedily confounded with them, and their dominion soon extended over nearly the whole country. In the year 710 the peninsula was invaded by the Arabs or Moors, and from that time the active and incessant struggles of the Spanish Christians against the invaders, and their necessary contact with Arabian civilization, began to elicit sparks of intellectual energy. Indeed, the first utterance of that popular feeling which became the foundation of the national literature was heard in the midst of that extraordinary contest, which lasted for more than seven centuries, so that the earliest Spanish poetry seems but a breathing of the energy and heroism which, at the time it appeared, animated the Spanish Christians throughout the peninsula. Overwhelmed by the Moors, they did not entirely yield; a small but valiant band, retreating before the fiery pursuit of their enemies, established themselves in the extreme northwestern portion of their native land, amidst the mountains and the fastnesses of Biscay and Asturias, while the others remained under the yoke of the conquerors, adopting, in some degree, the manners and habits of the Arabians. On the destruction of the caliphat of Cordova, in the year 1031, the dismemberment of the Moslem territories into petty Independent kingdoms, often at variance with each other, afforded the Christians a favorable opportunity of reconquering their country. One after another the Moorish states fell before them. The Moors were driven farther and farther to the south, and by the middle of the thirteenth century they had no dominion in Spain except the kingdom of Granada, which for two centuries longer continued the splendid abode of luxury and magnificence.

As victory inclined more and more to the Spanish arms, the Castilian dialect rapidly grew into a vehicle adequate to express the pride and dignity of the prevailing people, and that enthusiasm for liberty which was long their finest characteristic. The poem of the Cid early appeared, and in the thirteenth century a numerous family of romantic ballads followed, all glowing with heroic ardor. As another epoch drew near, the lyric form began to predominate, in which, however, the warm expressions of the Spanish heart were restricted by a fondness for conceit and allegory. The rudiments of the drama, religious, pastoral, and satiric, soon followed, marked by many traits of original thought and talent. Thus the course of Spanish literature proceeded, animated and controlled by the national character, to the end of the fifteenth century.

In the sixteenth, the original genius of the Spaniards, and their proud consciousness of national greatness, contributed to the maintenance and improvement of their literature in the face of the Inquisition itself. Released by the conquest of Granada (1492) from the presence of internal foes, prosperous at home and powerful abroad, Spain naturally rose to high mental dignity; and with all that she gathered from foreign contributions, her writers kept much of their native vein, more free than at first from Orientalism, but still breathing of their own romantic land. A close connection, however, for more than one hundred years with Italy, familiarized the Spanish mind with eminent Italian authors and with the ancient classics.

During the seventeenth century, especially from the middle to the close, the decay of letters kept pace with the decline of Spanish power, until the humiliation of both seemed completed in the reign of Charles II. About that time, however, the Spanish drama received a full development and attained its perfection. In the eighteenth century, under the government of the Bourbons, and partly through the patronage of Philip V., there was a certain revival of literature; but unfortunately, parties divided, and many of the educated Spaniards were so much attracted by French glitter as to turn with disgust from their own writers. The political convulsions, of which Spain has been the victim since the time of Ferdinand VII., have greatly retarded the progress of national literature, and the nineteenth century has thus far produced little which is worthy of mention.

The literary history of Spain may be divided into three periods:--

The first, extending from the close of the twelfth century to the beginning of the sixteenth, will contain the literature of the country from the first appearance of the present written language to the early part of the reign of Charles V., and will include the genuinely national literature, and that portion which, by imitating the refinement of Provence or of Italy, was, during the same interval, more or less separated from the popular spirit and genius.

The second, the period of literary success and national glory, extending from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the close of the seventeenth, will embrace the literature from the accession of the Austrian family to its extinction.

The third, the period of decline, extends from the beginning of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, or from the accession of the Bourbon family to the present time.

2. THE LANGUAGE.--The Spanish Christians who, after the Moorish conquest, had retreated to the mountains of Asturias, carried with them the Latin language as they had received it corrupted from the Romans, and still more by the elements introduced into it by the invasion of the northern tribes. In their retreat they found themselves amidst the descendants of the Iberians, the earliest race which had inhabited Spain, who appeared to have shaken off little of the barbarism that had resisted alike the invasion of the Romans and of the Goths, and who retained the original Iberian or Basque tongue. Coming in contact with this, the language of those Christians underwent new modifications; later, when they advanced in their conquest toward the south and the east, and found themselves surrounded by those portions of their race that had remained among the Arabs, known as Muçárabes, they felt that they were in the presence of a civilization and refinement altogether superior to their own. As the Goths, between the fifth and eighth centuries, had received a vast number of words from the Latin, because it was the language of a people with whom they were intimately mingled, and who were much more intellectual and advanced than themselves, so, for the same reason, the whole nation, between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, received another increase of their vocabulary from the Arabic, and accommodated themselves in a remarkable degree to the advanced culture of their southern countrymen, and of their new Moorish subjects.

It appears that about the middle of the twelfth century this new dialect had risen to the dignity of being a written language; and it spread gradually through the country. It differed from the pure or the corrupted Latin, and still more from the Arabic; yet it was obviously formed by a union of both, modified by the analogies and spirit of the Gothic constructions and dialects, and containing some remains of the vocabularies of the Iberians, the Celts, the Phoenicians, and of the German tribes, who at different periods had occupied the peninsula. This, like the other languages of Southern Europe, was called originally the Romance, from the prevalence of the Roman and Latin elements.

The territories of the Christian Spaniards were divided into three longitudinal sections, having each a separate dialect, arising from the mixture of different primitive elements. The Catalan was spoken in the east, the Castilian in the centre, while the Galician, which originated the Portuguese, prevailed in the west.

The Catalan or Limousin, the earliest dialect cultivated in the peninsula, bore a strong resemblance to the Provençal, and when the bards were driven from Provence they found a home in the east of Spain, and numerous celebrated troubadours arose in Aragon and Catalonia. But many elements concurred to produce a decay of the Catalan, and from the beginning of the sixteenth century it rapidly declined. It is still spoken in the Balearic Islands and among the lower classes of some of the eastern parts of Spain, but since the sixteenth century the Castilian alone has been the vehicle of literature.

The Castilian dialect followed the fortune of the Castilian arms, until it finally became the established language, even of the most southern provinces, where it had been longest withstood by the Arabic. Its clear, sonorous vowels and the beautiful articulation of its syllables, give it a greater resemblance to the Italian than any other idiom of the peninsula. But amidst this euphony the ear is struck with the sound of the German and Arabic guttural, which is unknown in the other languages in which Latin roots predominate.

PERIOD FIRST.

FROM THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE TO THE EARLY PART OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES V. (1200-1500).

1. EARLY NATIONAL LITERATURE.--There are two traits of the earliest Spanish literature which so peculiarly distinguish it that they deserve to be noticed from the outset--religious faith and knightly loyalty. The Spanish national character, as it has existed from the earliest times to the present day, was formed in that solemn contest which began when the Moors landed beneath the rock of Gibraltar, and which did not end until eight centuries after, when the last remnants of the race were driven from the shores of Spain. During this contest, especially that part of it when the earliest Spanish poetry appeared, nothing but an invincible faith and a not less invincible loyalty to their own princes could have sustained the Christian Spaniards in their struggles against their infidel oppressors. It was, therefore, a stern necessity which made these two high qualities elements of the Spanish national character, and it is not surprising that we find submission to the church and loyalty to the king constantly breathing through every portion of Spanish literature.

The first monument of the Spanish, or, as it was oftener called, the Castilian tongue, the most ancient epic in any of the Romance languages, is "The Poem of the Cid." It consists of more than three thousand lines, and was probably not composed later than the year 1200. This poem celebrates the achievements of the great hero of the chivalrous age of Spain, Rodrigo Diaz (1020-1099), who obtained from five Moorish kings, whom he had vanquished in battle, the title of El Seid, or my lord. He was also called by the Spaniards El Campeador or El Cid Campeador, the Champion or the Lord Champion, and he well deserved the honorable title, for he passed almost the whole of his life in the field against the oppressors of his country, and led the conquering arms of the Christians over nearly a quarter of Spain. No hero has been so universally celebrated by his countrymen, and poetry and tradition have delighted to attach to his name a long series of fabulous achievements, which remind us as often of Amadis and Arthur, as they do of the sober heroes of history. His memory is so sacredly dear to the Spanish nation, that to say "by the faith of Rodrigo," is still considered the strongest vow of loyalty.

The poem of the Cid is valuable mainly for the living picture it presents of manners and character in the eleventh century. It is a contemporary and spirited exhibition of the chivalrous times of Spain, given occasionally with an admirable and Homeric simplicity. It is the history of the most romantic hero of Spanish tradition, continually mingled with domestic and personal details, that bring the character of the Cid and his age very near to our own sympathies and interests. The language is the same which he himself spoke--still only imperfectly developed--it expresses the bold and original spirit of the time, and the metre and rhyme are rude and unsettled; but the poem throughout is striking and original, and breathes everywhere the true Castilian spirit. During the thousand years which elapsed from the time of the decay of Greek and Roman culture down to the appearance of the Divine Comedy, no poetry was produced so original in its tone, or so full of natural feeling, picturesqueness, and energy.

There are a few other poems, anonymous, like that of the Cid, whose language and style carry them back to the thirteenth century. The next poetry we meet is by a known author, Gonzalo (1220-1260), a priest commonly called Berceo, from the place of his birth. His works, all on religious subjects, amount to more than thirteen thousand lines. His language shows some advance from that in which the Cid was written, but the power and movement of that remarkable legend are entirely wanting in these poems. There is a simple-hearted piety in them, however, that is very attractive, and in some of them a story-telling spirit that is occasionally vivid and graphic.

Alfonso, surnamed the Wise (1221-1284), united the crowns of Leon and Castile, and attracted to his court many of the philosophers and learned men of the East. He was a poet closely connected with the Provençal troubadours of his time, and so skilled in astronomy and the occult sciences that his fame spread throughout Europe. He had more political, philosophical, and elegant learning than any man of his age, and made further advances in some of the exact sciences. At one period his consideration was so great, that he was elected Emperor of Germany; but his claims were set aside by the subsequent election of Rudolph of Hapsburg. The last great work undertaken by Alfonso was a kind of code known as "Las Siete Partidas," or The Seven Parts, from the divisions of the work itself. This is the most important legislative monument of the age, and forms a sort of Spanish common law, which, with the decisions under it, has been the basis of Spanish jurisprudence ever since. Becoming a part of the Constitution of the State in all Spanish colonies, it has, from the time Louisiana and Florida were added to the United States, become in some cases the law in our own country.

The life of Alfonso was full of painful vicissitudes. He was driven from his throne by factious nobles and a rebellious son, and died in exile, leaving behind him the reputation of being the wisest fool in Christendom. Mariana says of him: "He was more fit for letters than for the government of his subjects; he studied the heavens and watched the stars, but forgot the earth and lost his kingdom." Yet Alfonso is among the chief founders of his country's intellectual fame, and he is to be remembered alike for the great advancement Castilian prose composition made in his hands, for his poetry, for his astronomical tables--which all the progress of modern science has not deprived of their value--and for his great work on legislation, which is at this moment an authority in both hemispheres.

Juan Lorenzo Segura (1176-1250) was the author of a poem containing more than ten thousand lines, on the history of Alexander the Great. In this poem the manners and customs of Spain in the thirteenth century are substituted for those of ancient Greece, and the Macedonian hero is invested with all the virtues and even equipments of European chivalry.

Don Juan Manuel, (1282-1347), a nephew of Alfonso the Wise, was one of the most turbulent and dangerous Spanish barons of his time. His life was full of intrigue and violence, and for thirty years he disturbed his country by his military and rebellious enterprises. But in all these circumstances, so adverse to intellectual pursuits, he showed himself worthy of the family in which for more than a century letters had been honored and cultivated. Don Juan is known to have written twelve works, but it is uncertain how many of these are still in existence; only one, "Count Lucanor," has been placed beyond the reach of accident by being printed. The Count Lucanor is the most valuable monument of Spanish literature in the fourteenth century, and one of the earliest prose works in the Castilian tongue, as the Decameron, which appeared about the same time, was the first in the Italian. Both are collections of tales; but the object of the Decameron is to amuse, while the Count Lucanor is the production of a statesman, instructing a grave and serious nation in lessons of policy and morality in the form of apologues. These stories have suggested many subjects for the Spanish stage, and one of them contains the groundwork of Shakspeare's "Taming of the Shrew."

Juan Ruiz, arch-priest of Hita (1292-1351), was a contemporary of Don Manuel. His works consist of nearly seven thousand verses, forming a series of stories which appear to be sketches from his own history, mingled with fictions and allegories. The most curious is "The Battle of Don Carnival with Madame Lent," in which Don Bacon, Madame Hungbeef, and a train of other savory personages, are marshaled in mortal combat. The cause of Madame Lent triumphs, and Don Carnival is condemned to solitary imprisonment and one spare meal each day. At the end of forty days the allegorical prisoner escapes, raises new followers, Don Breakfast and others, and re-appears in alliance with Don Amor. The poetry of the arch- priest is very various in tone. In general, it is satirical and pervaded by a quiet humor. His happiest success is in the tales and apologues which illustrate the adventures that constitute a framework for his poetry, which is natural and spirited; and in this, as in other points, he strikingly resembles Chaucer. Both often sought their materials in Northern French poetry, and both have that mixture of devotion and of licentiousness belonging to their age, as well as to the personal character of each.

Rabbi Santob, a Jew of Carrion (fl. 1350), was the author of many poems, the most important of which is "The Dance of Death," a favorite subject of the painters and poets of the Middle Ages, representing a kind of spiritual masquerade, in which persons of every rank and age appear dancing with the skeleton form of Death. In this Spanish version it is perhaps more striking and picturesque than in any other--the ghastly nature of the subject being brought into very lively contrast with the festive tone of the verses. This grim fiction had for several centuries great success throughout Europe.

Pedro Lopez Ayala (1332-1407), grand chancellor of Castile under four successive sovereigns, was both a poet and a historian. His poem, "Court Rhymes," is the most remarkable of his productions. His style is grave, gentle, and didactic, with occasional expressions of poetic feeling, which seem, however, to belong as much to their age as to their author.

2. OLD BALLADS.--From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, the period we have just gone over, the courts of the different sovereigns of Europe were the principal centres of refinement and civilization, and this was peculiarly the case in Spain during this period, when literature was produced or encouraged by the sovereigns and other distinguished men. But this was not the only literature of Spain. The spirit of poetry diffused throughout the peninsula, excited by the romantic events of Spanish history, now began to assume the form of a popular literature, and to assert for itself a place which in some particulars it has maintained ever since. This popular literature may be distributed into four different classes. The first contains the Ballads, or the narrative and lyrical poetry of the common people from the earliest times; the second, the Chronicles, or the half-genuine, half-fabulous histories of the great events and heroes of the national annals; the third class comprises the Romances of Chivalry, intimately connected with both the others, and, after a time, as passionately admired by the whole nation; and the fourth includes the Drama, which in its origin has always been a popular and religious amusement, and was hardly less so in Spain than it was in Greece or in France. These four classes compose what was generally most valued in Spanish literature during the latter part of the fourteenth century, the whole of the fifteenth, and much of the sixteenth. They rested on the deep foundations of the national character, and therefore by their very nature were opposed to the Provençal, the Italian, and the courtly schools, which flourished during the same period.

The metrical structure of the old Spanish ballad was extremely simple, consisting of eight-syllable lines, which are composed with great facility in other languages as well as the Castilian. Sometimes they were broken into stanzas of four lines each, thence called redondillas, or roundelays, but their prominent peculiarity is that of the asonante, an imperfect rhyme that echoes the same vowel, but not the same final consonant in the terminating syllables. This metrical form was at a later period adopted by the dramatists, and is now used in every department of Spanish poetry.

The old Spanish ballads comprise more than a thousand poems, first collected in the sixteenth century, whose authors and dates are alike unknown. Indeed, until after the middle of that century, it is difficult to find ballads written by known authors. These collections, arranged without regard to chronological order, relate to the fictions of chivalry, especially to Charlemagne and his peers, to the traditions and history of Spain, to Moorish adventures, and to the private life and manners of the Spaniards themselves; they belong to the unchronicled popular life and character of the age which gave them birth. The ballads of chivalry, with the exception of those relating to Charlemagne, occupy a less important place than those founded on national subjects. The historical ballads are by far the most numerous and the most interesting; and of those the first in the order of time are those relating to Bernardo del Carpio, concerning whom there are about forty. Bernardo (fl. 800) was the offspring of a secret marriage between the Count de Saldaña and a sister of Alfonso the Chaste, at which the king was so much offended that he sent the Infanta to a convent, and kept the Count in perpetual imprisonment, educating Bernardo as his own son, and keeping him in ignorance of his birth. The achievements of Bernardo ending with the victory of Roncesvalles, his efforts to procure the release of his father, the falsehood of the king, and the despair and rebellion of Bernardo after the death of the Count in prison, constitute the romantic incidents of these ballads.

The next series is that on Fernan Gonzalez, a chieftain who, in the middle of the tenth century, recovered Castile from the Moors and became its first sovereign count. The most romantic are those which describe his being twice rescued from prison by his heroic wife, and his contest with King Sancho, in which he displayed all the turbulence and cunning of a robber baron of the Middle Ages.

The Seven Lords of Lara form the next group; some of them are beautiful, and the story they contain is one of the most romantic in Spanish history. The Seven Lords of Lara are betrayed by their uncle into the hands of the Moors, and put to death, while their father, by the basest treason, is confined in a Moorish prison. An eighth son, the famous Mudarra, whose mother is a noble Moorish lady, at last avenges all the wrongs of his race.

But from the earliest period, the Cid has been the occasion of more ballads than any other of the great heroes of Spanish history or fable. They were first collected in 1612, and have been continually republished to the present day. There are at least a hundred and sixty of them, forming a more complete series than any other, all strongly marked with the spirit of their age and country.

The Moorish ballads form a large and brilliant class by themselves. The period when this style of poetry came into favor was the century after the fall of Granada, when the south, with its refinement and effeminacy, its magnificent and fantastic architecture, the foreign yet not strange manners of its people, and the stories of their warlike achievements, all took strong hold of the Spanish imagination, and made of Granada a fairy land.

Of the ballads relating to private life, most of them are effusions of love, others are satirical, pastoral, and burlesque, and many descriptive of the manners and amusements of the people at large; but all of them are true representations of Spanish life. They are marked by an attractive simplicity of thought and expression, united to a sort of mischievous shrewdness. No such popular poetry exists in any other language, and no other exhibits in so great a degree that nationality which is the truest element of such poetry everywhere. The English and Scotch ballads, with which they may most naturally be compared, belong to a ruder state of society, which gave to the poetry less dignity and elevation than belong to a people who, like the Spanish, were for centuries engaged in a contest ennobled by a sense of religion and loyalty, and which could not fail to raise the minds of those engaged in it far above the atmosphere that settled around the bloody feuds of rival barons, or the gross maraudings of border warfare. The great Castilian heroes, the Cid, Bernardo del Carpio, and Pelayo, are even now an essential portion of the faith and poetry of the common people of Spain, and are still honored as they were centuries ago. The stories of Guarinos and of the defeat at Roncesvalles are still sung by the wayfaring muleteers, as they were when Don Quixote heard them on his journey to Toboso, and the showmen still rehearse the same adventures in the streets of Seville, that they did at the solitary inn of Montesinos when he encountered them there.

3. THE CHRONICLES.--As the great Moorish contest was transferred to the south of Spain, the north became comparatively quiet. Wealth and leisure followed; the castles became the abodes of a crude but free hospitality, and the distinctions of society grew more apparent. The ballads from this time began to subside into the lower portions of society; the educated sought forms of literature more in accordance with their increased knowledge and leisure, and their more settled system of social life. The oldest of these forms was that of the Spanish prose chronicles, of which there are general and royal chronicles, chronicles of particular events, chronicles of particular persons, chronicles of travels, and romantic chronicles.

The first of these chronicles in the order of time as well as that of merit, comes from the royal hand of Alfonso the Wise, and is entitled "The Chronicle of Spain." It begins with the creation of the world, and concludes with the death of St. Ferdinand, the father of Alfonso. The last part, relating to the history of Spain, is by far the most attractive, and sets forth in a truly national spirit all the rich old traditions of the country. This is not only the most interesting of the Spanish chronicles, but the most interesting of all that in any country mark the transition from its poetical and romantic traditions to the grave exactness of historical truth. The chronicle of the Cid was probably taken from this work.

Alfonso XI. ordered the annals of the kingdom to be continued down to his own reign, or through the period from 1252 to 1312. During many succeeding reigns the royal chronicles were continued,--that of Ferdinand and Isabella, by Pulgar, is the last instance of the old style; but though the annals were still kept up, the free and picturesque spirit that gave them life was no longer there.

The chronicles of particular events and persons are most of them of little value.

Among the chronicles of travels, the oldest one of any value is an account of a Spanish embassy to Tamerlane, the great Tartar potentate.

Of the romantic chronicles, the principal specimen is that of Don Roderic, a fabulous account of the reign of King Roderic, the conquest of the country by the Moors, and the first attempts to recover it in the beginning of the eighth century. The style is heavy and verbose, although upon it Southey has founded much of his beautiful poem of "Roderic, the last of the Goths." This chronicle of Don Roderic, which was little more than a romance of chivalry, marks the transition to those romantic fictions that had already begun to inundate Spain. But the series which it concludes extends over a period of two hundred and fifty years, from the time of Alfonso the Wise to the accession of Charles V. (1221-1516), and is unrivaled in the richness and variety of its poetic elements. In truth, these old Spanish chronicles cannot be compared with those of any other nation, and whether they have their foundation in truth or in fable, they strike their strong roots further down into the deep soil of popular feeling and character. The old Spanish loyalty, the old Spanish religious faith, as both were formed and nourished in long periods of national trial and suffering, everywhere appear; and they contain such a body of antiquities, traditions, and fables as has been offered to no other people; furnishing not only materials from which a multitude of old Spanish plays, ballads, and romances have been drawn, but a mine which has unceasingly been wrought by the rest of Europe for similar purposes, and which still remains unexhausted.

4. ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY.--The ballads originally belonged to the whole nation, but especially to its less cultivated portions. The chronicles, on the contrary, belonged to the knightly classes, who sought in these picturesque records of their fathers a stimulus to their own virtue. But as the nation advanced in refinement, books of less grave character were demanded, and the spirit of poetical invention soon turned to the national traditions, and produced from these new and attractive forms of fiction. Before the middle of the fourteenth century, the romances of chivalry connected with the stories of Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, and Charlemagne and his peers, which had appeared in France two centuries before, were scarcely known in Spain; but after that time they were imitated, and a new series of fictions was invented, which soon spread through the world, and became more famous than, either of its predecessors.

This extraordinary family of romances is that of which "Amadis" is the poetical head and type, and this was probably produced before the year 1400, by Vasco de Lobeira, a Portuguese. The structure and tone of this fiction are original, and much more free than those of the French romances that had preceded it. The stories of Arthur and Charlemagne are both somewhat limited in invention by the adventures ascribed to them in the traditions and chronicles, while that of Amadis belongs purely to the imagination, and its sole purpose is to set forth the character of a perfect knight. Amadis is admitted by general consent to be the best of all the old romances of chivalry. The series which followed, founded upon the Amadis, reached the number of twenty-four. They were successively translated into French, and at once became famous. Considering the passionate admiration which this work so long excited, and the influence that, with little merit of its own, it has ever since exercised on the poetry and romance of modern Europe, it is a phenomenon without parallel in literary history.

Many other series of romances followed, numbering more than seventy volumes, most of them in folio, and their influence over the Spanish character extended through two hundred years. Their extraordinary popularity may be accounted for, if we remember that, when they first appeared in Spain, it had long been peculiarly the land of knighthood. Extravagant and impossible as are many of the adventures recorded in these books of chivalry, they so little exceeded the absurdities of living men that many persons took the romances themselves to be true histories, and believed them. The happiest work of the greatest genius Spain has produced bears witness on every page to the prevalence of an absolute fanaticism for these books of chivalry, and becomes at once the seal of their vast popularity and the monument of their fate.

5. THE DRAMA.--The ancient theatre of the Greeks and Romans was continued in some of its grosser forms in Constantinople and in other parts of the fallen empire far into the Middle Ages. But it was essentially mythological or heathenish, and, as such, it was opposed by the Christian church, which, however, provided a substitute for what it thus opposed, by adding a dramatic element to its festivals. Thus the manger at Bethlehem, with the worship of the shepherds and magi, was at a very early period solemnly exhibited every year before the altars of the churches, at Christmas, as were the tragical events of the last days of the Saviour's life, during Lent and at the approach of Easter. To these spectacles, dialogue was afterwards added, and they were called, as we have seen, Mysteries; they were used successfully not only as a means of amusement, but for the religious edification of an ignorant multitude, and in some countries they have been continued quite down to our own times. The period when these representations were first made in Spain cannot now be determined, though it was certainly before the middle of the thirteenth century, and no distinct account of them now remains.

A singular combination of pastoral and satirical poetry indicates the first origin of the Spanish secular drama. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, these pastoral dialogues were converted into real dramas by Enzina, and were publicly represented. But the most important of these early productions is the "Tragi-comedy of Calisto and Meliboea," or "Celestina." Though it can never have been represented, it has left unmistakable traces of its influence on the national drama ever since. It was translated into various languages, and few works ever had a more brilliant success. The great fault of the Celestina is its shameless libertinism of thought and language; and its chief merits are its life- like exhibition of the most unworthy forms of human character, and its singularly pure, rich, and idiomatic Castilian style.

The dramatic writers of this period seem to have had no idea of founding a popular national drama, of which there is no trace as late as the close of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

6. PROVENÇAL LITERATURE IN SPAIN.--When the crown of Provence was transferred, by the marriage of its heir, in 1113, to Berenger, Count of Barcelona, numbers of the Provençal poets followed their liege lady from Arles to Barcelona, and established themselves in her new capital. At the very commencement, therefore, of the twelfth century, Provençal refinement was introduced into the northeastern corner of Spain. Political causes soon carried it farther towards the centre of the country. The Counts of Barcelona obtained, by marriage, the kingdom of Aragon, and soon spread through their new territories many of the refinements of Provence. The literature thus introduced retained its Provençal character till it came in contact with that more vigorous spirit which had been advancing from the northwest, and which afterwards gave its tone to the consolidated monarchy.

The poetry of the troubadours in Catalonia, as well as in its native home, belonged much to the court, and the highest in rank and power were earliest and foremost on its lists. From 1209 to 1229, the war against the Albigenses was carried on with extraordinary cruelty and fury. To this sect nearly all the contemporary troubadours belonged, and when they were compelled to escape from the burnt and bloody ruins of their homes, many of them hastened to the friendly court of Aragon, sure of being protected and honored by princes who were at the same time poets.

From the close of the thirteenth century, the songs of the troubadours were rarely heard in the land that gave them birth three hundred years before; and the plant that was not permitted to expand in its native soil, soon perished in that to which it had been transplanted. After the opening of the fourteenth century, no genuinely Provençal poetry appears in Castile, and from the middle of that century it begins to recede from Catalonia and Aragon; or rather, to be corrupted by the hardier dialect spoken there by the mass of the people. The retreat of the troubadours over the Pyrenees, from Aix to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Saragossa and Valencia, is everywhere marked by the wrecks and fragments of their peculiar poetry and cultivation. At length, oppressed by the more powerful Castilian, what remained of the language, that gave the first impulse to poetic feeling in modern times, sank into a neglected dialect.

7. THE INFLUENCE OF ITALIAN LITERATURE IN SPAIN.--The influence of the Italian literature over the Spanish, though less apparent at first, was more deep and lasting than that of the Provençal. The long wars that the Christians of Spain waged against the Moors brought them into closer spiritual connection with the Church of Rome than any other people of modern times. Spanish students repaired to the famous universities of Italy, and returned to Spain, bringing with them the influence of Italian culture; and commercial and political relations still further promoted a free communication of the manners and literature of Italy to Spain. The language, also, from its affinity with the Spanish, constituted a still more important and effectual medium of intercourse. In the reign of John II. (1407-1454), the attempt to form an Italian school in Spain became apparent. This sovereign gathered about him a sort of poetical court, and gave an impulse to refinement that was perceptible for several generations.

Among those who interested themselves most directly in the progress of poetry in Spain, the first in rank, after the king himself, was the Marquis of Villena (1384-1434), whose fame rests chiefly on the "Labors of Hercules," a short prose treatise or allegory.

First of all the courtiers and poets of this reign, in point of merit, stands the Marquis of Santillana (1398-1458), whose works belong more or less to the Provençal, Italian, and Spanish schools. He was the founder of an Italian and courtly school in Spanish poetry--one adverse to the national school and finally overcome by it, but one that long exercised a considerable sway. Another poet of the court of John II. is Juan de Mena, historiographer of Castile. His principal works are, "The Coronation" and "The Labyrinth," both imitations of Dante. They are of consequence as marking the progress of the language. The principal poem of Manrique the younger, one of an illustrious family of that name, who were poets, statesmen, and soldiers, on the death of his father, is remarkable for depth and truth of feeling. Its greatest charm is its beautiful simplicity, and its merit entitles it to the place it has taken among the most admired portions of the elder Spanish literature.

8. THE CANCIONEROS AND PROSE WRITINGS.--The most distinct idea of the poetical culture of Spain, during the fifteenth century, may he obtained from the "Cancioneros," or collections of poetry, sometimes all by one author, sometimes by many. The oldest of these dates from about 1450, and was the work of Baena. Many similar collections followed, and they were among the fashionable wants of the age. In 1511, Castillo printed at Valencia the "Cancionero General," which contained poems attributed to about a hundred different poets, from the time of Santillana to the period in which it was made. Ten editions of this remarkable book followed, and in it we find the poetry most in favor at the court and with the refined society of Spain. It contains no trace of the earliest poetry of the country, but the spirit of the troubadours is everywhere present; the occasional imitations from the Italian are more apparent than successful, and in general it is wearisome and monotonous, overstrained, formal, and cold. But it was impossible that such a state of poetical culture should become permanent in a country so full of stirring events as Spain was in the age that followed the fall of Granada and the discovery of America; everything announced a decided movement in the literature of the nation, and almost everything seemed to favor and facilitate it.

The prose writers of the fifteenth century deserve mention chiefly because they were so much valued in their own age. Their writings are encumbered with the bad taste and pedantry of the time. Among them are Lucena, Alfonso de la Torre, Pulgar, and a few others.

9. THE INQUISITION.--The first period of the history of Spanish literature, now concluded, extends through nearly four centuries, from the first breathings of the poetical enthusiasm of the mass of the people, down to the decay of the courtly literature in the latter part of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The elements of a national literature which it contains--the old ballads, the old chronicles, the old theatre-- are of a vigor and promise not to be mistaken. They constitute a mine of more various wealth than had been offered under similar circumstances, at so early a period, to any other people; and they give indications of a subsequent literature that must vindicate for itself a place among the permanent monuments of modern civilization.

The condition of things in Spain, at the close of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, seemed to promise a long period of national prosperity. But one institution, destined to check and discourage all intellectual freedom, was already beginning to give token of its great and blighting power. The Christian Spaniards had from an early period been essentially intolerant. The Moors and the Jews were regarded by them with an intense and bitter hatred; the first as their conquerors, and the last for the oppressive claims which their wealth gave them on numbers of the Christian inhabitants; and as enemies of the Cross, it was regarded as a merit to punish them. The establishment of the Inquisition, therefore, in 1481, which had been so effectually used to exterminate the heresy of the Albigenses, met with little opposition. The Jews and the Moors were its first victims, and with them it was permitted to deal unchecked by the power of the state. But the movements of this power were in darkness and secrecy. From the moment when the Inquisition laid its grasp on the object of its suspicions to that of his execution, no voice was heard to issue from its cells. The very witnesses it summoned were punished with death if they revealed the secrets of its dread tribunals; and often of the victim nothing was known but that he had disappeared from his accustomed haunts never again to be seen. The effect was appalling. The imaginations of men were filled with horror at the idea of a power so vast, so noiseless, constantly and invisibly around them, whose blow was death, but whose step could neither be heard nor followed amidst the gloom into which it retreated. From this time, Spanish intolerance took that air of sombre fanaticism which it never afterwards lost. The Inquisition gradually enlarged its jurisdiction, until none was too humble to escape its notice, or too high to be reached by its power. From an inquiry into the private opinions of individuals to an interference with books and the press was but a step, and this was soon taken, hastened by the appearance and progress of the Reformation of Luther.

PERIOD SECOND.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF THE AUSTRIAN FAMILY TO ITS EXTINCTION (1500-1700).

1. THE EFFECT OF INTOLERANCE ON LETTERS.--The central point in Spanish history is the capture of Granada. During nearly eight centuries before that event, the Christians of Spain were occupied with conflicts that developed extraordinary energies, till the whole land was filled to overflowing with a power which had hardly yet been felt in Europe. But no sooner was the last Moorish fortress yielded up, than this accumulated flood broke loose and threatened to overspread the best portions of the civilized world. Charles the Fifth, grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, inherited not only Spain, but Naples, Sicily, and the Low Countries. The untold wealth of the Indies was already beginning to pour into his treasury. He was elected Emperor of Germany, and he soon began a career of conquest such as had not been imagined since the days of Charlemagne. Success and glory ever waited for him as he advanced, and this brilliant aspect seemed to promise that Spain would erelong be at the head of an empire more extensive than the Roman. But a moral power was at work, destined to divide Europe anew, and the monk Luther was already become a counterpoise to the military master of so many kingdoms. During the hundred and thirty years of struggle, that terminated with the peace of Westphalia, though Spain was far removed from the fields where the most cruel battles of the religious wars were fought, the interest she took in the contest may be seen from the presence of her armies in every part of Europe where it was possible to assail the great movement of the Reformation.

In Spain, the contest with Protestantism was of short duration. By successive decrees the church ordained that all persons who kept in their possession books infected with the doctrines of Luther, and even all who failed to denounce such persons, should be excommunicated, and subjected to cruel and degrading punishments. The power of the Inquisition was consummated in 1546, when the first "Index Expurgatorius" was published in Spain. This was a list of the books that all persons were forbidden to buy, sell, or keep possession of, under penalty of confiscation and death. The tribunals were authorized and required to proceed against all persons supposed to be infected with the new belief, even though they were cardinals, dukes, kings, or emperors,--a power more formidable to the progress of intellectual improvement, than had ever before been granted to any body of men, civil or ecclesiastical.

The portentous authority thus given was freely exercised. The first public auto da fé of Protestants was held in 1559, and many others followed. The number of victims seldom exceeded twenty burned at one time, and fifty or sixty subjected to the severest punishments; but many of those who suffered were among the active and leading minds of the age. Men of learning were particularly obnoxious to suspicion, nor were persons of the holiest lives beyond its reach if they showed a tendency to inquiry. So effectually did the Inquisition accomplish its purpose, that, from the latter part of the reign of Philip II., the voice of religious dissent was scarcely heard in the land. The great body of the Spanish people rejoiced alike in their loyalty and their orthodoxy, and the few who differed from the mass of their fellow-subjects were either silenced by their fears, or sunk away from the surface of society. From that time down to its overthrow, in 1808, this institution was chiefly a political engine.

The result of such extraordinary traits in the national character could not fail to be impressed upon the literature. Loyalty, which had once been so generous an element in the Spanish character and cultivation, was now infected with the ambition of universal empire, and the Christian spirit which gave an air of duty to the wildest forms of adventure in its long contest with misbelief, was now fallen into a bigotry so pervading that the romances of the time are full of it, and the national theatre becomes its grotesque monument.

Of course the literature of Spain produced during this interval--the earlier part of which was the period of the greatest glory the country ever enjoyed--was injuriously affected by so diseased a condition of the national mind. Some departments hardly appeared at all, others were strangely perverted, while yet others, like the drama, ballads, and lyrical verse, grew exuberant and lawless, from the very restraints imposed on the rest. But it would be an error to suppose that these peculiarities in Spanish literature were produced by the direct action either of the Inquisition or of the government. The foundations of this dark work were laid deep and sure in the old Castilian character. It was the result of the excess and misdirection of that very Christian zeal which fought so gloriously against the intrusion of Mohammedanism into Spain, and of that loyalty which sustained the Spanish princes so faithfully through the whole of that terrible contest. This state of things, however, involved the ultimate sacrifice of the best elements of the national character. Only a little more than a century elapsed, before the government that had threatened the world with a universal empire, was hardly able to repel invasion from abroad or maintain its subjects at home. The vigorous poetical life which had been kindled through the country in its ages of trial and adversity, was evidently passing out of the whole Spanish character. The crude wealth from their American possessions sustained, for a century longer, the forms of a miserable political existence; but the earnest faith, the loyalty, the dignity of the Spanish people were gone, and little remained in their place but a weak subserviency to unworthy masters of state, and a low, timid bigotry in whatever related to religion. The old enthusiasm faded away, and the poetry of the country, which had always depended more on the state of the popular feeling than any other poetry of modern times, faded and failed with it.

2. INFLUENCE OF ITALY ON SPANISH LITERATURE.--The political connection between Spain and Italy in the early part of the sixteenth century, and the superior civilization and refinement of the latter country, could not fail to influence Spanish literature. Juan Boscan (d. 1543) was the first to attempt the proper Italian measures as they were then practiced. He established in Spain the Italian iambic, the sonnet, and canzone of Petrarch, the terza rima of Dante, and the flowing octaves of Ariosto. As an original poet, the talents of Boscan were not of the highest order.

Garcilasso de la Vega (1503-1536), the contemporary and friend of Boscan, united with him in introducing an Italian school of poetry, which has been an important part of Spanish literature ever since. The poems of Garcilasso are remarkable for their gentleness and melancholy, and his versification is uncommonly sweet, and well adapted to the tender and sad character of his poetry.

The example set by Boscan and Garcilasso so well suited the demands of the age, that it became as much a fashion at the court of Charles V. to write in the Italian manner, as it did to travel in Italy, or make a military campaign there. Among those who did most to establish the Italian influence in Spanish literature was Diego de Mendoza (1503-1575), a scholar, a soldier, a poet, a diplomatist, a statesman, a historian, and a man who rose to great consideration in whatever he undertook. One of his earliest works, "Lazarillo de Tormes," the auto-biography of a boy, little Lazarus, was written with the object of satirizing all classes of society under the character of a servant, who sees them in undress behind the scenes. The style of this work is bold, rich, and idiomatic, and some of its sketches are among the most fresh and spirited that can be found in the whole class of prose works of fiction. It has been more or less a favorite in all languages, down to the present day, and was the foundation of a class of fictions which the "Gil Blas" of Le Sage has made famous throughout the world. Mendoza, after having filled many high offices under Charles V., when Philip ascended the throne, was, for some slight offense, banished from the court as a madman. In the poems which he occasionally wrote during his exile, he gave the influence of his example to the new form introduced by Boscan and Garcilasso. At a later period he occupied himself in writing some portions of the history of his native city, Granada, relating to the rebellion of the Moors (1568-1570). Familiar with everything of which he speaks, there is a freshness and power in his sketches that carry us at once into the midst of the scenes and events he describes. "The War of Granada" is an imitation of Sallust. Nothing in the style of the old chronicles is to be compared to it, and little in any subsequent period is equal to it for manliness, vigor, and truth.

3. HISTORY.--The imperfect chronicles of the age of Charles V. were surpassed in importance by the histories or narratives, more or less ample, of the discoverers of the western world, all of which were interesting from their subject and their materials. First in the foreground of this picturesque group stands Fernando Cortes (1485-1554), of whose voluminous documents the most remarkable were five long reports to the Emperor on the affairs of Mexico.

The marvelous achievements of Cortes, however, were more fully recorded by Gomara (b. 1510), the oldest of the regular historians of the New World. His principal works are the "History of the Indies," chiefly devoted to Columbus and the conquest of Peru, and the "Chronicle of New Spain," which is merely the history and life of Cortes, under which title it has since been republished. The style of Gomara is easy and flowing, but his work was of no permanent authority, in consequence of the great and frequent mistakes into which he was led by those who were too much a part of the story to relate it fairly. These mistakes Bernal Diaz, an old soldier who had been long in the New World, set himself at work to correct, and the book he thus produced, with many faults, has something of the honest nationality, and the fervor and faith of the old chronicles.

Among those who have left records of their adventures in America, one of the most considerable is Oviedo (1478-1557), who for nearly forty years devoted himself to the affairs of the Spanish colonies in which he resided. His most important work is "The Natural and General History of the Indies," a series of accounts of the natural condition, the aboriginal inhabitants, and the political affairs of the Spanish provinces in America, as they stood in the middle of the sixteenth century. It is of great value as a vast repository of facts, and not without merit as a composition.

In Las Casas (1474-1566) Oviedo had a formidable rival, who, pursuing the same course of inquiries in the New World, came to conclusions quite opposite. Convinced from his first arrival in Hispaniola that the gentle nature and slight frames of the natives were subjected to toil and servitude so hard that they were wasting away, he thenceforth devoted his life to their emancipation. He crossed the Atlantic six times, in order to persuade the government of Charles V. to ameliorate their condition, and always with more or less success. His earliest work, "A Short Account of the Ruin of the Indies," was a tract in which the sufferings and wrongs of the Indians were doubtless much overstated by the zeal of its author, but it awakened all Europe to a sense of the injustice it set forth. Other short treatises followed, but none ever produced so deep and solemn an effect on the world.

The great work of Las Casas, however, still remains inedited,--"A General History of the Indies from 1492 to 1525." Like his other works, it shows marks of haste and carelessness, but its value is great, notwithstanding his too fervent zeal for the Indians. It is a repository to which Herrera, and, through him, all subsequent historians of the Indies resorted for materials, and without which the history of the earliest period of the Spanish settlements in America cannot even now be written.

There are numerous other works on the discovery and conquest of America, but they are of less consequence than those already mentioned. As a class, they resemble the old chronicles, though they announce the approach of the more regular form of history.

4. THE DRAMA.--Before the middle of the sixteenth century, the Mysteries were the only dramatic exhibitions of Spain. They were upheld by ecclesiastical power, and the people, as such, had no share in them. The first attempt to create a popular drama was made by Lope de Rueda, a goldbeater of Seville, who flourished between 1544 and 1567, and who became both a dramatic writer and an actor. His works consist of comedies, pastoral colloquies, and dialogues in prose and verse. They were written for representation, and were acted before popular audiences by a strolling company led about by Lope de Rueda himself. Naturalness of thought, the most easy, idiomatic Castilian terms of expression, a good-humored gayety, a strong sense of the ridiculous, and a happy imitation of the tone and manners of common life, are the prominent characteristics of these plays, and their author was justly reckoned by Cervantes and Lope de Vega as the true founder of the popular national theatre. The ancient simplicity and severity of the Spanish people had now been superseded by the luxury and extravagance which the treasures of America had introduced; the ecclesiastical fetters imposed on opinion and conscience had so connected all ideas of morality and religion with inquisitorial severity, that the mind longed for an escape, and gladly took refuge in amusements where these unwelcome topics had no place. So far, the number of dramas was small, and these had been written in forms so different and so often opposed to each other as to have little consistency or authority, and to offer no sufficient indication of the channel in which the dramatic literature of the country was at last to flow. It was reserved for Lope de Vega to seize, with the instinct of genius, the crude and unsettled elements of the existing drama, and to form from them, and from the abundant and rich inventions of his own overflowing fancy, a drama which, as a whole, was unlike anything that had preceded it, and yet was so truly national and rested so faithfully on tradition, that it was never afterwards disturbed, till the whole literature of which it was so brilliant a part was swept away with it.

Lope de Vega (1562-1635) early manifested extraordinary powers and a marvelous poetic genius. After completing his education, he became secretary to the Duke of Alba. Engaging in an affair of honor, in which he dangerously wounded his adversary, he was obliged to fly and to remain several years in exile. On his return to Madrid, religious and patriotic zeal induced him to join the expedition of the Invincible Armada for the invasion of England, and he was one of the few who returned in safety to his native country. Domestic afflictions soon after determined him to renounce the world and to enter holy orders. Notwithstanding this change, he continued to cultivate poetry to the close of his long life, with so wonderful a facility that a drama of more than two thousand lines, intermingled with sonnets and enlivened with all kinds of unexpected incidents and intrigues, frequently cost him no more than the labor of a single day. He composed more rapidly than his amanuensis could transcribe, and the managers of the theatres left him no time to copy or correct his compositions; so that his plays were frequently represented within twenty- four hours after their first conception. His fertility of invention and his talent for versification are unparalleled in the history of literature. He produced two thousand two hundred dramas, of which only about five hundred were printed. His other poems were published at Madrid in 1776, in twenty-one volumes quarto. His prodigious literary labors produced him nearly as much money as glory; but his liberality to the poor and his taste for pomp soon dissipated his wealth, and after living in splendor, he died almost in poverty.

No poet has ever in his lifetime enjoyed such honors. Eager crowds surrounded him whenever he showed himself abroad, and saluted him with the appellation of Prodigy of Nature. Every eye was fixed on him, and children followed him with cries of pleasure. He was chosen President of the Spiritual College at Madrid, and the pope conferred upon him high marks of distinction, not only for his poetical talents, but for his enthusiastic zeal for the interests of religion. He was also appointed one of the familiars of the Inquisition, an office to which the highest honor was at that time attached.

The fame of Lope de Vega rests upon his dramas alone, and in these there is no end to their diversity, the subjects varying from the deepest tragedy to the broadest farce, from the solemn mysteries of religion to the loosest frolics of common life, and the style embracing every variety of tone and measure known to the language of the country. In these dramas, too, the sacred and secular, the tragic and comic, the heroic and vulgar, all run into each other, until it seems that there is neither separate form nor distinction attributed to any of them.

The first class of plays that Lope seems to have invented, and the one which still remains most popular in Spain, are dramas of the cloak and sword, so called from the picturesque national dress of the fashionable class of society from which the principal characters were selected. Their main principle is gallantry. The story is almost always involved and intriguing, accompanied with an under-plot and parody on the principal parties, formed by the servants and other inferior persons. The action is chiefly carried on by lovers full of romance, or by low characters, whose wit is mixed with buffoonery.

To the second class belong the historical or heroic dramas. Their characters are usually kings, princes, and personages in the highest rank of life, and their prevailing tone is imposing and tragical. A love story, filled as usual with hair-breadth escapes, jealous quarrels, and questions of honor, runs through nearly every one of them; but truth, in regard to facts, manners, and customs, is entirely disregarded.

The third class contains the dramas founded on the manners of common life; of these there are but few. Lope de Vega would doubtless have confined himself to these three forms, but that the interference of the church for a time forbade the representations of the secular drama, and he therefore turned his attention to the composition of religious plays. The subjects of these are taken from the Scriptures, or lives of the saints, and they approach so near to the comedies of intrigue, that but for the religious passages they would seem to belong to them. His "Sacramental Acts" was another form of the religious drama which was still more grotesque than the last. They were performed in the streets during the religious ceremonies of the Corpus Christi. The spiritual dramas of Lope de Vega are a heterogeneous mixture of bright examples of piety, according to the views of the age and country, and the wildest flights of imagination, combined into a whole by a fine poetic spirit.

The variety and inexhaustible fertility of the genius of this writer constituted the corner-stone of his success, and did much to make him the monarch of the stage while he lived, and the great master of the national theatre ever since. But there were other circumstances that aided in producing these surprising results, the first of which is the principle, that runs through all his plays, of making all other interests subordinate to the interest of the story. For this purpose he used dialogue rather to bring out the plot than the characters, and to this end also he sacrificed dramatic probabilities and possibilities, geography, history, and a decent morality.

Another element which he established in the Spanish drama, was the comic under-plot, and the witty gracioso or droll, the parody of the heroic character of the play. Much of his power over the people of his time is also to be found in the charm of his versification, which was always fresh, flowing, and effective. The success of Lope de Vega was in proportion to his rare powers. For the forty or fifty years that he wrote, nobody else was willingly heard upon the stage, and his dramas were performed in France, Italy, and even in Constantinople. His extraordinary talent was nearly allied to improvisation, and it required but a little more indulgence of his feeling and fancy to have made him not only an improvisator, but the most remarkable one that ever lived.

Nearly thirty dramatic writers followed Lope de Vega, but the school was not received with universal applause. In its gross extravagances and irregularities, severe critics found just cause for complaint. The opposition of the church to the theatre, however, which had been for a time so formidable, had at last given way, and from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the popular drama was too strong to be subjected either to classical criticism or ecclesiastical rule.

Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681) was the great successor and rival of Lope de Vega. At the age of thirty-two, his reputation as a poet was an enviable one. Soon after, when the death of Lope de Vega left the theatre without a master, he was formally attached to the court for the purpose of furnishing dramas to be represented in the royal theatres. In 1651, he followed the example of Lope de Vega and other men of letters of his time, by entering a religious brotherhood. Many ecclesiastical dignities were conferred upon him, but he did not, however, on this account intermit his dramatic labors, but continued through his long life to write for the theatres, for the court, and for the churches. Many dramas of Calderon were printed without his consent, and many were attributed to him which he never wrote. His reputation as a dramatic poet rests on the seventy-three sacramental autos, and one hundred and eight dramas, which are known to be his. The autos, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were among the favorite amusements of the people; but in the age of Calderon they were much increased in number and importance; they had become attractive to all classes of society, and were represented with great luxury and at great expense in the streets of all the larger cities. A procession, in which the king and court appeared, preceded by the fantastic figures of giants, with music, banners, and religious shows, followed the sacrament through the street, and then, before the houses of the great officers of state, the autos were performed; the giants made sport for the multitude, and the entertainment concluded with music and dancing. Sometimes the procession was headed by the figure of a monster called the Tarasca, half serpent in form, borne by men concealed in its cumbrous bulk, and surmounted by another figure representing the woman of Babylon, --all so managed as to fill with wonder and terror the country people who crowded round it, and whose hats and caps were generally snatched away by the grinning beast, and became the lawful prize of his conductors. This exhibition was at first rude and simple, but under the influence of Lope de Vega it became a well-defined, popular entertainment, divided into three parts, each distinct from the other. First came the loa, a kind of prologue; then the entremes, a kind of interlude or farce; and last, the autos sacramentales, or sacred acts themselves, which were more grave in their tone, though often whimsical and extravagant.

The seventy-three autos written by Calderon are all allegorical, and by the music and show with which they abound, they closely approach to the opera. They are upon a great variety of subjects, and indicate by their structure that elaborate and costly machinery must have been used in their representation. They are crowded with such personages as Sin, Death, Judaism, Mercy, and Charity, and the purpose of all is to set forth the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The great enemy of mankind of course fills a large place in them. Almost all of them contain passages of striking lyrical poetry.

The secular plays of Calderon can scarcely be classified, for in many of them even more than two forms of the drama are mingled. To the principle of making a story that should sustain the interest throughout, Calderon sacrificed almost as much as Lope de Vega did. To him facts are never obstacles. Coriolanus is a general under Romulus; the Danube is placed between Sweden and Russia; and Herodotus is made to describe America. But in these dramas we rarely miss the interest and charm of a dramatic story, which provokes the curiosity and enchains the attention.

In the dramas of the Cloak and Sword the plots of Calderon are intricate. He excelled in the accumulation of surprises, in plunging his characters into one difficulty after another, maintaining the interest to the last. In style and versification Calderon has high merits, though they are occasionally mingled with the defects of his age. He added no new forms to dramatic composition, nor did he much modify those which had been already settled by Lope de Vega; but he showed greater skill in the arrangement of his incidents, and more poetry in the structure and tendency of his dramas. To his elevated tone we owe much of what distinguishes Calderon from his predecessors, and nearly all that is most individual in his merits and defects. In carrying out his theory of the national drama, he often succeeds and often fails; and when he succeeds, he sets before us an idealized drama, resting on the noblest elements of the Spanish national character, and one which, with all its unquestionable defects, is to be placed among the extraordinary phenomena of modern poetry.

The most brilliant period of the Spanish drama falls within the reign of Philip II., which extended from 1620 to 1665, and embraced the last years of the life of Lope de Vega, and the thirty most fortunate years of the life of Calderon. After this period a change begins to be apparent; for the school of Lope was that of a drama in the freshness and buoyancy of youth, while that of Calderon belongs to the season of its maturity and gradual decay. The many writers who were either contemporary with Lope de Vega and Calderon, or who succeeded them, had little influence on the character of the theatre. This, in its proper outlines, always remained as it was left by these great masters, who maintained an almost unquestioned control over it while they lived, and at their death left a character impressed upon it, which it never lost till it ceased to exist altogether.

When Lope de Vega first appeared as a dramatic writer at Madrid, the only theatres he found were two unsheltered courtyards, which depended on such companies of strolling players as occasionally visited the capital. Before he died, there were, besides the court-yards in Madrid, several theatres of great magnificence in the royal palaces, and many thousand actors; and half a century later, the passion for dramatic representations had spread into every part of the kingdom, and there was hardly a village that did not possess a theatre.

During the whole of the successful period of the drama, the representations took place in the daytime. Dancing was early an important part of the theatrical exhibitions in Spain, even of the religious, and its importance has continued down to the present day. From the earliest antiquity it was the favorite amusement of the rude inhabitants of the country, and in modern times dancing has been to Spain what music has been to Italy, a passion with the whole population.

In all its forms and subsidiary attractions, the Spanish drama was essentially a popular entertainment, governed by the popular will. Its purpose was to please all equally, and it was not only necessary that the play should be interesting; it was, above all, required that it should be Spanish, and, therefore, whatever the subject might be, whether actual or mythological, Greek or Roman, the characters were always represented as Castilian, and Castilian of the seventeenth century. It was the same with their costumes. Coriolanus appeared in the costume of Don Juan of Austria, and Aristotle came on the stage dressed like a Spanish Abbé, with curled periwig and buckles on his shoes.

The Spanish theatre, therefore, in many of its characteristics and attributes, stands by itself. It is entirely national, it takes no cognizance of ancient example, and it borrowed nothing from the drama of France, Italy, or England. Founded on traits of national character, with all its faults, it maintained itself as long as that character existed in its original attributes, and even now it remains one of the most striking and interesting portions of modern literature.

5. ROMANCES AND TALES.--Hitherto the writers of Spain had been little known, except in their own country; but we are now introduced to an author whose fame is bounded by no language and no country, and whose name is not alone familiar to men of taste and learning, but to almost every class of society.

Cervantes (1547-1616), though of noble family, was born in poverty and obscurity, not far from Madrid. When he was about twenty-one years of age, he attached himself to the person of Cardinal Aquaviva, with whom he visited Rome. He soon after enlisted as a common soldier in the war against the Turks, and, in the great battle of Lepanto, 1572, he received a wound which deprived him of the use of his left hand and arm, and obliged him to quit the military profession. On his way home he was captured by pirates, carried to Algiers, and sold for a slave. Here he passed five years full of adventure and suffering. At length his ransom was effected, and he returned home to find his father dead, his family reduced to a still more bitter poverty by his ransom, and himself friendless and unknown. He withdrew from the world to devote himself to literature, and to gain a subsistence by his pen.

One of the first productions of Cervantes was the pastoral romance of "Galatea." This was followed by several dramas, the principal of which is founded on the tragical fate of Numantia. Notwithstanding its want of dramatic skill, it may be cited as a proof of the author's poetical talent, and as a bold effort to raise the condition of the stage.

After many years of poverty and embarrassment, in 1605, when Cervantes had reached his fiftieth year, he published the first part of "Don Quixote." The success of this effort was incredible. Many thousand copies are said to have been printed during the author's lifetime. It was translated into various languages, and eulogized by every class of readers, yet it occasioned little improvement in the pecuniary circumstances of the author. In 1615, he published the second part of the same work, and, in the year following, his eventful and troubled life drew to its close.

"Don Quixote," of all the works of all modern times, bears most deeply the impression of the national character it represents, and it has in return enjoyed a degree of national favor never granted to any other. The object of Cervantes in writing it was, as he himself declares, "to render abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in books of chivalry." The fanaticism for these romances was so great in Spain during the sixteenth century, and they were deemed so noxious, that the burning of all copies extant in the country was earnestly asked for by the Cortes. To destroy a passion that had struck its roots so deeply in the character of all classes of men, to break up the only reading which, at that time, was fashionable and popular, was a bold undertaking, yet one in which Cervantes succeeded. No book of chivalry was written after the appearance of "Don Quixote;" and from that time to the present they have been constantly disappearing, until they are now among the rarest of literary curiosities,--a solitary instance of the power of genius to destroy, by a well-timed blow, an entire department of literature.

In accomplishing this object, Cervantes represents "Don Quixote" as a country gentleman of La Mancha, full of Castilian honor and enthusiasm, but so completely crazed by reading the most famous books of chivalry, that he not only believes them to be true, but feels himself called upon to become the impossible knight-errant they describe, and actually goes forth into the world, like them, to defend the oppressed and avenge the injured. To complete his chivalrous equipment, which he had begun by fitting up for himself a suit of armor strange to his century, he took an esquire out of his neighborhood, a middle-aged peasant, ignorant, credulous, and good-natured, but shrewd enough occasionally to see the folly of their position. The two sally forth from their native village in search of adventures, of which the excited imagination of the knight-- turning windmills into giants, solitary turrets into castles, and galley slaves into oppressed gentlemen--finds abundance wherever he goes, while the esquire translates them all into the plain prose of truth, with a simplicity strikingly contrasted with the lofty dignity and the magnificent illusions of the knight. After a series of ridiculous discomfitures, the two are at last brought home like madmen to their native village.

Ten years later, Cervantes published the second part of Don Quixote, which is even better than the first. It shows more vigor and freedom, the invention and the style of thought are richer, and the finish more exact. Both Don Quixote and Sancho are brought before us like such living realities, that at this moment the figures of the crazed, gaunt, and dignified knight, and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire, dwell bodied forth in the imagination of more, among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of human talent. In this work Cervantes has shown himself of kindred to all times and all lands, to the humblest as well as to the highest degrees of cultivation, and he has received in return, beyond all other writers, a tribute of sympathy and admiration from the universal spirit of humanity.

This romance, which Cervantes threw so carelessly from him, and which he regarded only as a bold effort to break up the absurd taste for the fancies of chivalry, has been established by an uninterrupted and an unquestioned success ever since, as the oldest classical specimen of romantic fiction, and as one of the most remarkable monuments of modern genius. But Cervantes is entitled to a higher glory: it should be borne in mind that this delightful romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance of feeling, and a happy external condition; with all its unquenchable and irresistible humor, its bright views, and its cheerful trust in goodness and virtue, it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of a life which had been marked at nearly every step with struggle, disappointment, and calamity; it was begun in prison, and finished when he felt the hand of death pressing cold and heavy upon his heart. If this be remembered as we read, we may feel what admiration and reverence are due, not only to the living power of Don Quixote, but to the character and genius of Cervantes; if it be forgotten or underrated, we shall fail in regard to both.

The first form of romantic fiction which succeeded the romances of chivalry was that of prose pastorals, which was introduced into Spain by Montemayor, a Portuguese, who lived, probably, between 1520 and 1561. To divert his mind from the sorrow of an unrequited attachment, he composed a romance entitled "Diana," which, with numerous faults, possesses a high degree of merit. It was succeeded by many similar tales.

The next form of Spanish prose fiction, and the one which has enjoyed a more permanent regard, is that known as tales in the gusto picaresco, or style of the rogues. As a class, they constitute a singular exhibition of character, and are as separate and national as anything in modern literature. The first fiction of this class was the "Lazarillo de Tormes" of Mendoza, already spoken of, published in 1554,--a bold, unfinished sketch of the life of a rogue from the very lowest condition of society. Forty-five years afterwards this was followed by the "Guzman de Alfarache" of Aleman, the most ample portraiture of its class to be found in Spanish literature. It is chiefly curious and interesting because it shows us, in the costume of the times, the life of an ingenious Machiavelian rogue, who is never at a loss for an expedient, and who speaks of himself always as an honest man. The work was received with great favor, and translated into all the languages of Europe.

But the work which most plainly shows the condition of social life which produced this class of tales, is the "Life of Estevanillo Gonzalez," first printed in 1646. It is the autobiography of a buffoon who was long in the service of Piccolomini, the great general of the Thirty Years' War. The brilliant success of these works at home and abroad subsequently produced the Gil Blas of Le Sage, an imitation more brilliant than any of the originals that it followed.

The serious and historical fictions produced in Spain were limited in number, and with few exceptions deserved little favor. Short stories or tales were more successful than any other form of prose-fiction during the latter part of the sixteenth, and the whole of the seventeenth century. They belonged to the spirit of their own times and to the state of society in which they appeared. Taken together, the number of fictions in Spanish literature is enormous; but what is more remarkable than their multitude, is the fact that they were produced when the rest of Europe, with a partial exception in favor of Italy, was not yet awakened to corresponding efforts of the imagination. The creative spirit, however, soon ceased, and a spirit of French imitation took its place.

6. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE POEMS.--Epic poetry, from its dignity and pretensions, is almost uniformly placed at the head of the different divisions of a nation's literature. But in Spain little has been achieved in this department that is worthy of memory. The old half-epic poem of the Cid--the first attempt at narration in the languages of modern Europe that deserves the name--is one of the most remarkable outbreaks of poetical and national enthusiasm on record. The few similar attempts that followed during the next three centuries, while they serve to mark the progress of Spanish culture, show little of the power manifested in the Cid.

In the reign of Charles V., the poets of the time evidently imagined that to them was assigned the task of celebrating the achievements in the Old World and in the New, which had raised their country to the first place among the powers of Europe. There were written, therefore, during this and the succeeding reigns, an extraordinary number of epic and narrative poems on subjects connected with ancient and modern Spanish glory, but they all belong to patriotism rather than to poetry; the best of these come with equal pretension into the province of history. There is but one long poem of this class which obtained much regard when it appeared, and which has been remembered ever since, the "Araucana." The author of this work, Ercilla (1533-1595), was a page of Philip the Second, and accompanied him to England on the occasion of his marriage with Mary. News having arrived that the Araucans, a tribe of Indians in Chili, had revolted against the Spanish authority, Ercilla joined the adventurous expedition that was sent out to subdue them. In the midst of his exploits he conceived the plan of writing a narrative of the war in the form of an epic poem. After the tumult of a battle, or the fatigues of a march, he devoted the hours of the night to his literary labors, wielding the pen and sword by turns, and often obliged to write on pieces of skin or scraps of paper so small as to contain only a few lines. In this poem the descriptive powers of Ercilla are remarkable, and his characters, especially those of the American chiefs, are drawn with force and distinctness. The whole poem is pervaded by that deep sense of loyalty, always a chief ingredient in Spanish honor and heroism, and which, in Ercilla, seems never to have been chilled by the ingratitude of the master to whom he devoted his life, and to whose glory he consecrated this poem.

These narrative and heroic poems continued long in favor in Spain, and they retained to the last those ambitious feelings of national greatness which had given them birth. Devoted to the glory of their country, they were produced when the national character was on the decline; and as they sprang more directly from that character, and depended more on its spirit than did the similar poetry of any other people in modern times, so they now visibly declined with them.

7. LYRIC POETRY.--The number of authors in the various classes of Spanish lyric poetry, whose works have been preserved between the beginning of the reign of Charles V. and the end of that of the last of his race, is not less than a hundred and twenty; but the number of those who were successful is small. A little of what was written by the Argensolas, more of Herrera, and nearly the whole of the Bachiller de la Torre and Luis de Leon, with occasional efforts of Lope de Vega and Quevedo, and single odes of other writers, make up what gives its character to the graver and less popular portion of Spanish lyric poetry. Their writings form a body of poetry, not large, but one that from its living, national feeling on the one side, and its dignity on the other, may be placed without question among the most successful efforts of modern literature.

The Argensolas were two brothers who flourished in Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth century; both occupy a high place in this department of poetry. The original poems of Luis de Leon (1528-1591) fill no more than a hundred pages, but there is hardly a line of them which has not its value, and the whole taken together are to be placed at the head of Spanish lyric poetry. They are chiefly religious, and the source of their inspiration is the Hebrew Scriptures. Herrera (1534-1597) is the earliest classic ode writer in modern literature, and his poems are characterized by dignity of language, harmony of versification, and elevation of ideas. Luis de Leon and Herrera are considered the two great masters of Spanish lyric poetry.

Quevedo (1580-1645) was successful in many departments of letters. The most prominent characteristics of his verse are a broad, grotesque humor, and a satire often imitated from the ancients. His amatory and religious poems are occasionally marked by extreme beauty and tenderness. The works upon which his reputation principally rests, however, are in prose, and belong to theology and metaphysics rather than to elegant literature. They were produced during the weary years of an unjust imprisonment. His prose satires are the most celebrated of his compositions, and by these he will always be remembered throughout the world.

In the early part of the seventeenth century there arose a sect who attempted to create a new epoch in Spanish poetry, by affecting an exquisite refinement, and who ran into the most ridiculous extravagance and pedantry. The founder of this "cultivated style," as it was called, was Luis Gongora (1561-1627), and his name, like that of Marini in Italy, has become a byword in literature. The style he introduced became at once fashionable at court, and it struck so deep root in the soil of the whole country, that it has not yet been completely eradicated. The most odious feature of this style is, that it consists entirely of metaphors, so heaped upon one another that it is as difficult to find out the meaning hidden under their grotesque mass, as if it were a series of confused riddles. The success of this style was very great, and inferior poets bowed to it throughout the country.

8. SATIRICAL AND OTHER POETRY.--Satirical poetry never enjoyed a wide success in Spain. The nation has always been too grave and dignified to endure the censure it implied. It was looked upon with, distrust, and thought contrary to the conventions of good society to indulge in its composition. Neither was elegiac poetry extensively cultivated. The Spanish temperament was little fitted to the subdued, simple, and gentle tone of the proper elegy. The echoes of pastoral poetry in Spain are heard far back among the old ballads; but the Italian forms were early introduced and naturalized. Two Portuguese writers, Montemayor and Miranda, were most successful in this department of poetry. Equally characteristic of the Spanish genius, with its pastorals, were the short epigrammatic poems which appeared through the best age of its literature. They are generally in the truest tone of popular verse. Of didactic poetry, there were many irregular varieties; but the popular character of Spanish poetry, and the severe nature of the ecclesiastical and political constitutions of Spain, were unfavorable to the development of this form of verse, and unlikely to tolerate it on any important subject. It remained, therefore, one of the feeblest and least successful departments of the national literature.

In the seventeenth century, ballads had become the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier solaced himself with them in his tent, the maiden danced to them on the green, the lover sang them for his serenade, the street beggar chanted them for alms; they entered into the sumptuous entertainments of the nobility, the holiday services of the church, and into the orgies of thieves and vagabonds. No poetry of modern times has been so widely spread through all classes of society, and none has so entered into the national character. They were often written by authors otherwise little known, and they were always found in the works of those poets of note who desired to stand well with the mass of their countrymen.

9. HISTORY AND OTHER PROSE WRITINGS.--The fathers of Spanish history are Zurita and Morales. Zurita (1512-1580) was the author of the "Annals of Aragon," a work more important to Spanish history than any that had preceded it. Morales (1513-1591) was historiographer to the crown of Castile, and his unfinished history of that country is marked by much general ability. Contemporary with these writers was Mendoza, already mentioned. The honor of being the first historian of the country, however, belongs to Mariana (1536-1623), a foundling who was educated a Jesuit. His main occupation for the last thirty or forty years of his life was his great "History of Spain." There is an air of good faith in his accounts and a vividness in his details which are singularly attractive. If not in all respects the most trustworthy of annals, it is at least the most remarkable union of picturesque chronicling with sober history that the world has ever seen. Sandoval (d. 1621) took up the history of Spain where Mariana left it; but while his is a work of authority, it is unattractive in style. "The General History of the Indies," by Herrera, is a work of great value, and the one on which the reputation of the author as a historian chiefly rests.

One of the most pleasing of the minor Spanish histories is Argensola's account of the Moluccas. It is full of the traditions found among the natives by the Portuguese when they first landed there, and of the wild adventures that followed when they had taken possession of the island. Garcilasso de la Vega, the son of one of the unscrupulous conquerors of Peru, descended on his mother's side from the Incas, wrote the "History of Florida," of which the adventures of De Soto constitute the most brilliant portion. His "Commentaries on Peru" is a striking and interesting work.

The last of the historians of eminence in the elder school of Spanish history was Solis, whose "Conquest of Mexico" is beautifully written, and as it was flattering to the national history, it was at once successful, and has enjoyed an unimpaired popularity down to our times.

The spirit of political tyranny in the government, and of religious tyranny in the Inquisition, now more than ever united, were more hostile to bold and faithful inquiry in the department of history than in almost any other. Still, the historians of this period were not unworthy of the national character. Their works abound in feeling rather than philosophy, and are written in a style that marks, not so much the peculiar genius of their authors, perhaps, as that of the country that gave them birth. Although they may not be entirely classical, they are entirely Spanish; and what they want in finish and grace they make up in picturesqueness and originality.

In one form of didactic composition, Spain stands in advance of other countries: that of proverbs, which Cervantes has happily called "short sentences drawn from long experience." Spanish proverbs can be traced back to the earliest times. Although twenty-four thousand have been collected, many thousands still remain known only among the traditions of the humbler classes of society that have given birth to them all.

From the early part of the seventeenth century, Spanish prose became infected with that pedantry and affectation already spoken of as Gongorism, or "the cultivated style;" and from this time, everything in prose as well as in poetry announced that corrupted taste which both precedes and hastens the decay of a literature, and which in the latter half of the seventeenth century was in Spain but the concomitant of a general decline in the arts and the gradual degradation of the monarchy. No country in Christendom had fallen from such a height of power as that which Spain occupied in the time of Charles V. into such an abyss of degradation as she reached when Charles II., the last of the house of Austria, ceased to reign. The old religion of the country, the most prominent of all the national characteristics, was now so perverted from its true character by intolerance that it had become a means of oppression, such as Europe never before witnessed. The principle of loyalty, now equally perverted and mischievous, had sunk into servile submission, and as we approach the conclusion of the century, the Inquisition and the despotism seem to have cast their blight over everything.

PERIOD THIRD.

THE ACCESSION OF THE BOURBON FAMILY TO THE PRESENT TIME (1700-1885).

1. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON THE LITERATURE OF SPAIN.--The death of Charles II., in 1700, was followed by the War of the Succession between the houses of Hapsburg and Bourbon, which lasted thirteen years. It was terminated by the treaty of Utrecht and the accession of Philip V., the grandson of Louis XIV. Under his reign the influence of France became apparent in the customs of the country. The Academy of Madrid was soon established in imitation of that of Paris, with the object of establishing and cultivating the purity of the Castilian language. The first work published by this association was a Dictionary, which has continued in successive editions to be the proper standard of the language. At this time French began to be spoken in the elegant society of the court and the capital, translations from the French were multiplied, and at last, a poetical system, founded on the critical doctrine of Boileau, prevalent in France, was formally introduced into the country by Luzan, in his "Art of Poetry," which from its first appearance (1737) exercised a controlling authority at the court, and over the few writers of reputation then to be found in the country. Though the works of Luzan offered a remedy for the bad taste which had accompanied and in no small degree hastened the decline of the national taste, they did not lay a foundation for advancement in literature. The national mind had become dwarfed for want of its appropriate nourishment; the moral and physical sciences that had been advancing for a hundred years throughout Europe, were forbidden to cross the Pyrenees. The scholastic philosophy was still maintained as the highest form of intellectual culture; the system of Copernicus was looked upon as contrary to the inspired record; while the philosophy of Bacon and the very existence of mathematical science were generally unknown even to the graduates of universities. It seemed as if the faculties of thinking and reasoning were becoming extinct in Spain.

2. THE DAWN OF SPANISH LITERATURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--The first effort for intellectual emancipation was made by a monk, Benito Feyjoo (1676-1764), who, having made himself acquainted with the truths brought to light by Galileo, Bacon, Newton, Leibnitz, and Pascal, devoted his life to the labor of diffusing them among his countrymen. The opposition raised against him only drew to his works the attention he desired. Even the Inquisition summoned him in vain, for it was impossible to question that he was a sincere and devout Catholic, and he had been careful not to interfere with any of the abuses sanctioned by the church. Before his death he had the pleasure of seeing that an impulse in the right direction had been imparted to the national mind.

One of the striking indications of advancement was an attack upon the style of popular preaching, which was now in a state of scandalous degradation. The assailant was Isîa (1703-1781), a Jesuit, whose "History of Friar Gerund" is a satirical romance, slightly resembling Don Quixote in its plan, describing one of those bombastic orators of the age. It was from the first successful in its object of destroying the evil at which it aimed, and preachers of the class of Friar Gerund soon found themselves without an audience.

The policy of Charles III. (1759-1788) was highly favorable to the progress of literature. He abridged the power of the Inquisition, and forbade the condemnation of any book till its writer or publisher had been heard in its defense; he invited the suggestion of improved plans of study, made arrangements for popular education, and raised the tone of instruction in the institutions of learning. Finally, perceiving the Jesuits to be the most active opponents of these reforms, he expelled them from every part of his dominions, breaking up their schools, and confiscating their revenues. During his reign, intellectual life and health were infused into the country, and its powers, which had been so long wasting away, were revived and renewed.

Among the writers of this age are Moratin the elder (1737-1780), whose poems are marked by purity of language and harmony of versification; and Yriarte (1750-1791), who was most successful in fables, which he applied, to the correction of the faults and follies of literary men. To this period may also be referred the school of Salamanca, whose object was to combine in literature the power and richness of the old writers of the time of the Philips with the severer taste then prevailing on the continent. Melendez (1754-1817), who was the founder of this school, devoted his muse to the joys and sorrows of rustic love, and the leisure and amusements of country life. Nothing can surpass some of his descriptions in the graceful delineation of tender feeling, and his verse is considered in sweetness and native strength, to be such a return to the tones of Garcilasso, as had not been heard in Spain for more than a century. Gonzalez (d. 1794), who, with happy success, imitated Luis de Leon, Jovellanos (1744-1811), who exerted great influence on the literary and political condition of his country, and Quintana (b. 1772), whose poems are distinguished by their noble and patriotic tone, are considered among the principal representatives of the school of Salamanca.

The most considerable movement of the eighteenth century in Spain, is that relating to the theatre, which it was earnestly attempted to subject to the rules then prevailing on the French stage. The Spanish theatre, in fact, was now at its lowest ebb, and wholly in the hands of the populace. The plays acted for public amusement were still represented as they had been in the seventeenth century,--in open court-yards, in the daytime, without any pretense of scenery or of dramatic ingenuity. Soon after, through the influence of Isabella, the second wife of Philip V., improvements were made in the external arrangements and architecture of the theatres; yet, owing to the exclusive favor shown to the opera by the Italian queens, the old spirit continued to prevail.

In the middle of the eighteenth century a reform of the comedy and tragedy was undertaken by Montiano and others, who introduced the French style in dramatic compositions, and from that time an active contest went on between the innovators and the followers of the old drama. The latter was attacked, in 1762, by Moratin the elder, who wrote against it, and especially against the autos sacramentales, showing that such wild, coarse, and blasphemous exhibitions, as they generally were, ought not to be tolerated in a civilized and religious community. So far as the autos were concerned, Moratin was successful; they were prohibited in 1768, and since that time, in the larger cities, they have not been heard.

The most successful writer for the stage was Ramon de la Cruz (1731-1799), the author of about three hundred dramatic compositions, founded on the manners of the middle and lower classes. They are entirely national in their tone, and abound in wit and in faithful delineations of character.

While a number of writers pandered to the bad taste of low and vulgar audiences, a formidable antagonist appeared in the person of Moratin the younger (1760-1828), son of that poet who first produced, on the Spanish stage, an original drama written according to the French doctrines. Notwithstanding the taste of the public, he determined to tread in the footsteps of his father. Though his comedies have failed to educate a school strong enough to drive out the bad imitations of the old masters, they have yet been able to keep their own place.

The eighteenth century was a period of revolution and change with the Spanish theatre. While the old national drama was not restored to its ancient rights, the drama founded on the doctrines taught by Luzan, and practiced by the Moratins, had only a limited success. The audiences did as much to degrade it as was done by the poets they patronized and the actors they applauded. On the one side, extravagant and absurd dramas in great numbers, full of low buffoonery, were offered; on the other, meagre, sentimental comedies, and stiff, cold translations from the French, were forced, in almost equal numbers, upon the actors, by the voices of those from whose authority or support they could not entirely emancipate themselves.

3. SPANISH LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--The new life and health infused into literature in the age of Charles III. was checked by the French revolutionary wars in She reign of Charles IV., and afterwards by the restoration of civil despotism and the Inquisition, brought again into the country by the return of the Bourbon dynasty in 1814. Amidst the violence and confusion of the reign of Ferdinand VII. (1814-1833), elegant letters could hardly hope to find shelter or resting-place. Nearly every poet and prose writer, known as such at the end of the reign of Charles IV., became involved in the fierce political changes of the time,--changes so various and so opposite, that those who escaped from the consequences of one, were often, on that very account, sure to suffer in the next that followed. Indeed, the reign of Ferdinand VII. was an interregnum in all elegant culture, such as no modern nation has yet seen,--not even Spain herself during the War of the Succession. This state of things continued through the long civil war which arose soon after the death of that king, and, indeed, it is not yet entirely abated. But in despite of the troubled condition of the country, even while Ferdinand was living, a movement was begun, the first traces of which are to be found among the emigrated Spaniards, who cheered with letters their exile in England and France, and whose subsequent progress from the time when the death of their unfaithful monarch permitted them to return home, is distinctly perceptible in their own country.

The two principal writers of the first half of the century are the satirist José de Larra (d. 1837), and the poet Espronceda (d. 1842); both were brilliant writers, and both died young. Zorrilla (b. 1817), has great wealth of imagination, and Fernan Caballero is a gifted woman whose stories have been often translated. Antonio de Trueba is a writer of popular songs and short stories not without merit, Campoamor (b. 1817) and Bequer represent the poetry of twenty years ago. The short lyrics of the first named are remarkable for their delicacy and finesse. Bequer, who died at the age of thirty, left behind him poems which have already exercised a wide influence in his own country and in Spanish America; they tell a story of passionate love, despair, and death. Perez Galdos, a writer of fiction, attacks the problem of modern life and thought, and represents with vivid and often bitter fidelity the conflicting interests and passions of Spanish life. Valera, the present minister from Spain to the United States, is the author of the most famous Spanish novel of the day, "Pepita Jimenez," a work of great artistic perfection, and his skill and grace are still more evident in his critical essays. Castelar has gained a European celebrity as an orator and a political and miscellaneous writer. The works of these authors, and of many others not named, show clearly that Spain is making vigorous efforts to bring herself, socially and intellectually, into line with the rest of Europe.

Of the Spanish colonies Cuba has produced some writers of enduring renown. The most distinguished for poetic fame is Gertrude de Avelleneda; Heredia and Placido may also be mentioned. In Venezuela, Baralt is known as a historian, poet, and classical writer; Olmedo as a poet of Bolivia, and Caro a writer of the United States of Colombia.

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.

1. The Portuguese Language.--2. Early Literature of Portugal.--3. Poets of the Fifteenth Century; Macias, Ribeyro.--4. Introduction of the Italian Style; San de Miranda, Montemayor, Ferreira.--5. Epic Poetry; Camoëns; The Lusiad.--6. Dramatic Poetry; Gil Vicente.--7. Prose Writing; Rodriguez Lobo, Barros, Brito, Veira.--8. Portuguese Literature in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries; Antonio José, Manuel do Nascimento, Manuel de Bocage.

1. THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE.--Portugal was long considered only as an integral part of Spain; its inhabitants called themselves Spaniards, and conferred on their neighbors the distinctive appellation of Castilians. Their language was originally the same as the Galician; and had Portugal remained a province of Spain, its peculiar dialect would probably, like that of Aragon, have been driven from the fields of literature by the Castilian. But at the close of the eleventh century, Alphonso VI., celebrated in Spanish history for his triumphs over the Moors, gave Portugal as a dowry to his daughter on her marriage with Henry of Burgundy, with permission to call his own whatever accessions to it the young prince might be able to conquer from the Moorish territory. Alphonso Henriquez, the son of this pair, was saluted King of Portugal by his soldiers on the battle-field of Castro-Verd, in the year 1139, his kingdom comprising all the provinces we now call Portugal, except the province of Algarve. Thenceforward the Portuguese became a separate nation from the Spaniards, and their language asserted for itself an independent existence. Still, however, the Castilian was long considered the proper vehicle for literature; and while few Portuguese writers wholly disused it, there were many who employed no other.

Although the Portuguese language, founded on the Galician dialect, bears much similarity to the Spanish in its roots and structure, it differs widely from it in its grammatical combinations and derivations, so that it constitutes a language by itself. It has far more French, and fewer Basque and Arabic elements than the Spanish; it is softer, but it has, at the same time, a truncated and incomplete sound, compared with the sonorous beauty of the Castilian, and a predominance of nasal sounds stronger than those of the French. It is graceful and easy in its construction, but it is the least energetic of all the Romance tongues.

2. EARLY LITERATURE OF PORTUGAL.--The people, as well as the language, of Portugal possess a distinctive character. Early in the history of the country the extensive and fertile plains were abandoned to pasturage, and the number of shepherds in proportion to the rest of the population was so great, that the idea of rural life among them was always associated with the care of flocks. At the same time, their long extent of coast invited to the pursuits of commerce and navigation; and the nation, thus divided into hardy navigators, soldiers, and shepherds, was better calculated for the display of energy, valor, and enterprise than for laborious and persevering industry. Accustomed to active intercourse with society, rather than to the seclusion of castles, they were far less haughty and fanatical than the Castilians; and the greater number of Moçárabians that were incorporated among them, diffused over their feelings and manners a much stronger influence of orientalism. The passion of love seemed to occupy a larger share of their existence, and their poetry was more enthusiastic than that of any other people of Europe.

Although the literature of Portugal, like the character of its people, is marked by excessive softness, elegiac sentimentality, and an undefined melancholy, it affords little originality in the general tone of its productions. Henry of Burgundy and his knights early introduced Provençal poetry, and the native genius was nurtured in the succeeding age by Spanish and Italian taste, and afterwards modified by the influence of French and English civilization. National songs were not wanting in the early history of the country, yet no relics of them have been preserved. The earliest monuments of Portuguese literature relate to the age of the French knights who founded the political independence of the country, and must be sought in the "Cancioneros," containing courtly ballads composed in the Galician dialect, after the Provençal fashion, and sung by wandering minstrels. The Cancionero of King Dionysius (1279-1325) is the most ancient of those collections, the king himself being considered by the Portuguese as the earliest poet. In fact, Galician poetry, modeled after the Provençal, was cultivated at that time all along the western portion of the Pyrenean peninsula. Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile, used this dialect in his poems; and as a poet and patron of the Spanish troubadours, he may be considered as belonging both to the Spanish and Portuguese literatures.

In the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century, Portuguese poetry preserved its Provençal character. The poets rallied around the court, and the kings and princes of the age sang to the Provençal lyre both in the Castilian and the Galician dialects; but only a few fragments of the poetry of the fourteenth century are extant.

3. POETS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.--Early in the fifteenth century, the same chivalrous spirit which had achieved the conquest of the country from the Moors, led the Portuguese to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, and plant their banner on the walls of Ceuta. Many other cities of Africa were afterwards taken; and in 1487, Bartolomeo Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and Vasco da Gama pointed out to Europe the hitherto unknown track to India. Within fifteen years after, a Portuguese kingdom was founded in Hindostan, and the treasures of the East flowed into Portugal. The enthusiasm of the people was thus awakened, and high views of national importance, and high hopes of national glory, arose in the public mind. The time was peculiarly favorable to the development of genius, and especially to the spirit of poetry. Indeed, the last part of the fifteenth century, and the beginning of the sixteenth, the age of King John (1481- 1495), and of Emanuel (1495-1521), may be called the golden age of the Portuguese poetry.

At the head of the poetical school of the fifteenth century, stands Macias, surnamed the Enamored (fl. 1420). He was distinguished as a hero in the wars against the Moors of Granada, and as a poet in the retinue of the Marquis of Villena. He became attached to a lady of the same princely household, who was forced to marry another. Macias continuing to express his love, though prohibited by the marquis from doing so, was thrown into prison; but even there, he still poured forth his songs on his ill-fated love, regarding the hardships of captivity as light, in comparison with the pangs of absence from his mistress. The husband of the lady, stung with jealousy, recognizing Macias through the bars of his prison, took deadly aim at him with his javelin, and killed him on the spot. The weapon was suspended over the poet's tomb, in the Church of St. Catherine, with the inscription, "Here lies Macias the Enamored."

The death of Macias produced such a sensation as could only belong to an imaginative age. All those who desired to be thought cultivated mourned his fate. His few poems of moderate merit became generally known and admired, and his melancholy history continued to be the theme of songs and ballads, until, in the poetry of Lope de Vega and Calderon, the name of Macias passed into a proverb, and became synonymous with the highest and tenderest love.

Ribeyro (1495-1521), one of the earliest and best poets of Portugal, was attached to the court of King Emanuel. Here he indulged a passion for one of the ladies of the court, which gave rise to some of his most exquisite effusions. It is supposed that the lady, whose name he studiously conceals, was the Infanta Beatrice, the king's own daughter. He was so wholly devoted to the object of his love, that he is said to have passed whole nights wandering in the woods, or beside the banks of a solitary stream, pouring forth the tale of his woes in strains of mingled tenderness and despair. The most celebrated productions of Ribeyro are eclogues. The scene is invariably laid in his own country; his shepherds are all Portuguese, and his peasant girls have Christian names. But under the disguise of fictitious characters, he evidently sought to place before the eyes of his beloved mistress the feelings of his own breast; and the wretchedness of an impassioned lover is always his favorite theme.

The bucolic poets of Portugal may be regarded as the earliest in Europe, and their favorite creed, that pastoral life was the poetical model of human life, and the ideal point from which every sentiment and passion ought to be viewed, was first represented by Ribeyro. This idea threw an air of romantic sweetness and elegance over the poetry of the sixteenth century, but at the same time it gave to it a monotonous tone and an air of tedious affectation.

4. INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE.--The poet who first introduced the Italian style into Portuguese poetry was so successful in seizing the delicate tone by which the blending of the two was to be effected that the innovation was accomplished without a struggle. Saa de Miranda (1495-1558) was one of the most pleasing and accomplished men of his age. He traveled extensively, and on his return was attached to the court of Lisbon. It is related of him that he would often sit silent and abstracted in company, and that tears, of which no one knew the cause, would flow from his eyes, while he seemed unconscious of the circumstance, and indifferent to the observation he was thus attracting. These emotions were of course attributed to poetic thought and romantic attachments. He insisted on marrying a lady who was neither young nor handsome, and whom he had never seen, having been captivated by her reputation for amiability and discretion. He became so attached to her, that when she died he renounced all his previous pursuits and purposes in life, remained inconsolable, and soon followed her to the grave. Miranda is chiefly celebrated for his lyric and pastoral poetry.

Montemayor was a contemporary of Miranda, and a native of Portugal, but he declined holding any literary position in his own country. The pastoral romance of "Diana," written in the Castilian language, is his most celebrated work. It was received with great favor, and extensively imitated. With many faults, it possesses a high degree of poetic merit, and is entitled to the esteem of all ages.

Ferreira (1528-1569) has been called the Horace of Portugal. His works are correct and elegant, but they are wanting in those higher efforts of genius which strike the imagination and fire the spirit. The glory, advancement, and civilization of his country were his darling themes, and it was this enthusiasm of patriotism that made him great. In his tragedy of Inez de Castro, Ferreira raised himself far above his Italian contemporaries. Many similar writers shed a lustre on this, the brightest and indeed the only brilliant period of Portuguese literature; but they are all more remarkable for taste and elegance than for richness of invention.

5. EPIC POETRY.--The chief and only boast of his country, the sole poet whose celebrity has extended beyond the peninsula, and whose name appears in the list of those who have conferred honor upon Europe, is Luis de Camoëns (1524-1579). He was descended from a noble, but by no means a wealthy family. After having completed his studies at the university, he conceived a passion for a lady of the court, so violent that for some time he renounced all literary and worldly pursuits. He entered the military service, and in an engagement before Ceuta, in which he greatly distinguished himself, he lost an eye. Neglected and contemned by his country, he embarked for the East Indies. After various vicissitudes there, he wrote a bitter satire on the government, which occasioned his banishment to the island of Macao, where he remained for five years, and where he completed the great work which was to hand down his name to posterity. There is still to be seen, on the most elevated point of the isthmus which unites the town of Macao to the Chinese continent, a sort of natural gallery formed out of the rocks, apparently almost suspended in the air, and commanding a magnificent prospect over both seas, and the lofty chain of mountains which rises above their shores. Here he is said to have invoked the genius of the epic muse, and tradition has conferred on this retreat the name of the Grotto of Camoëns.

On his return to Goa, Camoëns was shipwrecked, and of all his little property, he succeeded only in saving the manuscript of the Lusiad, which he bore in one hand above the water, while swimming to the shore. Soon after reaching Goa, he was thrown into prison upon some unjust accusation, and suffered for a long time to linger there. At length released, he took passage for his native country, which he reached after an absence of sixteen years. Portugal was at this time ravaged by the plague, and in the universal sorrow and alarm, the poet and his great work were alike neglected. The king at length consented to accept the dedication of this poem, and made to the author the wretched return of a pension, amounting to about twenty-five dollars. Camoëns was not unfrequently in actual want of bread, for which he was in part indebted to a black servant who had accompanied him from India, and who was in the habit of stealing out at night to beg in the streets for what might support his master during the following day. But more aggravated evils were in store for the unfortunate poet. The young king perished in the disastrous expedition against Morocco, and with him expired the royal house of Portugal. The independence of the nation was lost, her glory eclipsed, and the future pregnant with calamity and disgrace. Camoëns, who had so nobly supported his own misfortunes, sank under those of his country. He was seized with a violent fever, and expired in a public hospital without having a shroud to cover his remains.

The poem on which the reputation of Camoëns depends, is entitled "Os Lusiadas;" that is, the Lusitanians (or Portuguese), and its design is to present a poetic and epic grouping of all the great and interesting events in the annals of Portugal. The discovery of the passage to India, the most brilliant point in Portuguese history, was selected as the groundwork of the epic unity of the poem. But with this, and the Portuguese conquests in India, the author combined all the illustrious actions performed by his countrymen in other quarters of the world, and whatever of splendid and heroic achievement history or tradition could supply. Vasco da Gama has been represented as the hero of the work, and those portions not immediately connected with his expedition, as episodes. But there is, in truth, no other leading subject than the country, and no episodes except such parts as are not immediately connected with her glory. Camoëns was familiar with the works of his Italian contemporaries, but the circumstance that essentially distinguishes him from them, and which forms the everlasting monument of his own and his country's glory, is the national love and pride breathing through the whole work. His patriotic spirit, devoting a whole life to raise a monument worthy of his country, seems never to have indulged a thought which was not true to the glory of an ungrateful nation.

The Greek mythology forms the epic machinery of the Lusiad. Vasco da Gama, having doubled the Cape of Good Hope, is steering along the western coast of Africa, when the gods assemble on Mount Olympus to deliberate on the fate of India. Venus and Bacchus form two parties; the former in favor, the latter opposed to the Portuguese. The poet thus gratified his national pride, as Portugal was eminently the land of love, and moderation in the use of wine was one of its highest virtues. Bacchus lays many snares to entrap and ruin the adventurers, who are warned and protected by Venus. He visits the palace of the gods of the sea, who consent to let loose the Winds and Waves upon the daring adventurers, but she summons her nymphs, and adorning themselves with garlands of the sweetest flowers, they subdue the boisterous Winds, who, charmed by the blandishments of love, become calm. Vasco is hospitably received by the African king of Melinda, to whom he relates the most interesting parts of the history of his native country. On the homeward voyage, Venus prepares a magic festival for the adventurers, on an enchanted island, and the goddess Thetis becomes the bride of the admiral. Here the poet finds the opportunity to complete the narrative of his country's history, and a prophetic nymph is brought forward to describe the future achievements of the nation from that period to the time of Camoëns.

The Lusiad is one of the noblest monuments ever raised to the national glory of any people, and it is difficult to conceive how so grand and beautiful a whole could be formed on a plan so trivial and irregular. The plan has been compared to a scaffolding surrounded and concealed by a majestic building, serving to connect its parts, but having no share in producing the unity of the effect. One of the most affecting and beautiful of all the passages of the Lusiad, is the narrative of the tragical fate of Iñez de Castro, who, after her death, was proclaimed queen of Portugal, upon the accession of her lover to the throne.

In the poems of Camoëns we find examples of every species of composition practiced in his age and country. Some of them bear the impress of his personal character, and of his sad and agitated career. A wild tone of sorrow runs through them, which strikes the ear like wailings heard through the gloom of midnight and darkness. We know not by what calamity they were called forth, but it is the voice of grief, and it awakens an answering throb within the breast.

6. DRAMATIC POETRY.--The drama is quite a barren field in Portuguese literature. The stage of Lisbon has been occupied almost exclusively by the Italian opera and Spanish comedy. Only one poet of any name has written in the Portuguese spirit. This was Gil Vicente (1490-1556). He resided constantly at the court, and was employed in providing occasional pieces for its civil and religious festivities. It is probable that he was an actor, and it is certain that he educated for the stage his daughter, Paula, who was equally celebrated as an actress, a poetess, and a musician. The dramas of Vicente consist of autos, comedies, tragi- comedies, and farces. The autos, or religious pieces, were written chiefly to furnish entertainment for the court on Christmas night. The shepherds had naturally an important part assigned to them, and the whole was pervaded by the pastoral feeling which distinguishes them remarkably from the Spanish autos. But the best productions of this author are his farces, which approach much nearer to the style of true comedy than the plays published under that name.

Saa de Miranda, desirous of conferring on his country a classical theatre, produced two erudite comedies, but he was born a pastoral poet, and made himself a dramatist only by imitation. Ferreira belonged to the same school, and the favor bestowed by the court on the dramas of these two poets, was one obstacle to the formation of a national drama. Another was, the pertinacious attachment of the Portuguese to pastoral poetry, and nothing could be more contrary to dramatic life than the languor, sentimentality, and monotony peculiar to the eclogue.

7. PROSE WRITING.--After Camoëns, Saa de Miranda, and Ferreira, the language and the literature of Portugal are indebted to no other writer so much as to Rodriguez Lobo (b. 1558). The history of Portuguese eloquence may be said to commence with him, for he laid so good a foundation for the cultivation of a pure prose style that, in every effort to obtain classic perfection, subsequent writers have merely followed in his steps. His verse is nowise inferior to his prose. Among his poetic works appears a whole series of historic romances, written by way of ridiculing that species of composition.

Lobo stood alone, in the sixteenth century, in his efforts to improve the prose of his country. Gongorism had, meanwhile, introduced bombast and metaphorical obscurity, and no writer of eminence arose to attempt a more natural style, till the end of the seventeenth century.

Foremost among those who undertook to relate the history of their country, especially of her oriental discoveries, and who communicated to their records an ardent patriotic feeling, is Barros (1496-1571); he took Livy for his model, and his labors are worthy of honorable notice. India was the favorite topic of Portuguese historians; and several similar works, but inferior to that of Barros, appeared in the same age. Bernardo de Brito (d. 1617) undertook the task of compiling a history of Portugal. His narration begins with the creation of the world, and breaks off where the history of modern Portugal commences. It is eminently distinguished for style and descriptive talent. The biography of Juan de Castro, written by Jacinto de Andrade, is considered as a masterpiece of the Portuguese prose.

The conquered Indians found an eloquent defender in Veira (1608-1697), a Catholic missionary, who spent a great part of his life in the deserts of South America, and wrote catechisms in different languages for the use of the natives. Having returned to the court of John IV., he undertook to defend the natural rights of Indians against the rapacity of the conquerors. He undertook also the defense of the Jews in his native country, and showed so much interest in their cause that he was twice brought before the Inquisition. His sermons and letters are models of prose writings, full of the inspiration which springs from the boldness of his subjects.

8. PORTUGUESE LITERATURE IN THE SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.--Portuguese literature during the seventeenth century would present an utter blank, but for the few literary productions to which we have alluded. Previous to that time, patriotic valor and romantic enterprise expanded the national genius; but before it could mature, the despotism of the monarchy, the horrors of the Inquisition, and the influence of wealth and luxury, had done their work of destruction, and the prostrate nation had in the seventeenth century reaped the bitter fruits. The most brilliant period of Portuguese poetry had passed away, and no new era commenced. The flame of patriotism was extinct, Brazil was the only colony that remained, the spirit of national enterprise was no more, and a general lethargy overspread the nation. Labor was reckoned a disgrace, commerce a degradation, and agriculture too fatiguing for even the lowest classes of the community. Both Spain and Portugal felt the paralyzing influence of their humbled position in the scale of nations, and civil and religious despotism had overthrown, in both countries, the intellectual power which had so long withstood its degrading influence.

Thousands of sonnets, chiefly of an amorous nature, filled up the seventeenth century in Portugal, while Spain was exhausting its expiring energies in dramas. Souza, the most eminent of the sonneteers, alone produced six hundred. In the first, he announces that the collection is designed to celebrate "the penetrating shafts of love, which were shot from a pair of heavenly eyes, and which, after inflicting immortal wounds, issued triumphant from the poet's breast."

In the eighteenth century, the influence of French taste crept quietly into the literature as well as the manners of the Portuguese nation. Royal academies of history and language were founded, and an academy of sciences, which, since 1792, has exercised an influence over literary taste, and given birth to many excellent treatises on philosophy and criticism.

About the year 1735, the nation seemed on the eve of possessing a drama of its own. Antonio José, an obscure Jew, composed a number of comic operas, in the vernacular tongue, which had long been banished from the theatre of Lisbon. In spite of much coarseness, their genuine humor and familiar gayety excited the greatest enthusiasm, and for ten years the theatre was crowded with delighted audiences. But the Jew was seized and burnt, by order of the Inquisition, at the last auto da fé, which took place in 1745, and the theatre was closed.

Although French literature continued to exert its influence in the beginning of the nineteenth century, masterpieces of English literature at that time found their way into Portugal, and excited much admiration and imitation. Manuel do Nascimento (1734-1819) is the representative of the classic style, and his works, both in poetry and prose, are distinguished by purity of language. Manuel de Bocage (1766-1805) is one of the most celebrated modern poets, and though his poems are not examples of refined taste or elegance of style, they evince enthusiasm and poetical fire. Among the poets of the present day, there are some who have emancipated themselves from the imitation of foreign models, and have attempted to combine the earliest national elements of their literature with the characteristic tendencies of the present age.

FINNISH LITERATURE.

1. The Finnish Language and Literature: Poetry; the Kalevala; Lönnrot; Korhonen.--2. The Hungarian Language and Literature: the Age of Stephen I.; Influence of the House of Anjou; of the Reformation; of the House of Austria; Kossuth; Josika; Eötvös; Kuthy; Szigligeti; Petöfi.

1. THE FINNISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.--On passing northward from the Iranian plateaux through Turan to the Uralian mountains, which separate Europe and Asia, we arrive at the primitive seat of the Finnish race. Driven westward by other invading tribes, it scattered through northern Europe, and established itself more particularly in Finland, where, at the present time, we find its principal stock. From the earliest period of the history of the Finns, until the middle of the twelfth century, they lived under their own independent kings. They were then subjected by the Swedes, who established colonies upon their coasts, and introduced Christianity among them. After having been for many centuries the theatre of Russian and Swedish wars, in the beginning of the present century Finland passed under the dominion of Russia; yet, through these ages of foreign domination, its inhabitants preserved their national character, and maintained the use of their native tongue.

The Finnish language is a branch of the Turanian family; it is written with the Roman alphabet, but it has fewer sounds; it is complicated in its declension and conjugation, but it has great capacity of expressing compound ideas in one word; it is harmonious in sound, and free, yet clear, in its construction.

The Finns at an early period had attained a high degree of civilization, and they have always been distinguished for their love of poetry, especially for the melancholy strains of the elegy. They possess a vast number of popular songs or ballads, which are either lyrical or mythological; they are sung by the song-men, to the kantele, a kind of harp with five wire strings, a favorite national instrument. They have also legends, tales, and proverbs, some of which have recently been collected and published at Helsingfors, the capital of Finland.

The great monument of Finnish literature is the "Kalevala," a kind of epic poem, which was arranged in a systematic collection, and given to the world in 1833, by Elias Lönnrot (d. 1884). He wandered from place to place in the remote districts of Finland, living with the peasants, and taking down from their lips the popular songs as he heard them chanted. The importance of this indigenous epic was at once recognized, and translations were made in various languages. The poem, which strongly resembles "Hiawatha," takes its name from the heroes of Kaleva, the land of happiness and plenty, who struggle with three others from the cold north and the land of death. It begins with the creation, and ends in the triumph of the heroes of Kaleva. Max Müller says of this poem that it possesses merits not dissimilar to those of the Iliad, and that it will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, beside that of the "Mahabharata," "Shah Nameh," and "Nibelungen." It is doubtless the product of different minds at different periods, having evidently received additions from time to time.

During the present century there has been considerable literary activity in Finland, and we meet with many names of poets and dramatists. The periodical literature is specially rich and voluminous, and valuable works on Finnish history and geography have recently appeared. Of recent poets the most popular is Korrhoinen, a peasant, whose productions are characterized by their sharp and biting sarcasm. The prose of Finland has a religious and moral character, and is especially enriched by translations from Swedish literature.

2. HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.--The language of the Magyars belongs to the Turanian family, and more particularly to the Finnish branch. The Hungarian differs from most European languages in its internal structure and external form. It is distinguished by harmony and energy of sound, richness and vigor of form, regularity of inflexion, and power of expression.

Towards the close of the seventh century, the Magyars emigrated from Asia into Europe, and for two hundred years they occupied the country between the Don and Dneiper. Being at length pressed forward by other emigrant tribes, they entered and established themselves in Hungary, after subjugating its former inhabitants.

In the year 1000, Stephen I. founded the kingdom of Hungary. He had introduced Christianity into the country, and with it a knowledge of the Latin language, which was now taught in the schools and made use of in public documents, while the native idiom was spoken by the people, and in part in the assemblies of the Diet. On the accession of the House of Anjou to the throne of Hungary, in the fourteenth century, a new impulse was given to the Hungarian tongue. The Bible was translated into it, and it became the language of the court; although the Latin was still the organ of the church and state, and from the fourteenth to the close of the fifteenth century remained the literary language of the country. This Latin literature boasted of many distinguished writers, but so little influence had they on the nation at large, that during this period it appears that many of the high officers of the kingdom could neither read nor write.

The sixteenth century was more favorable to Hungarian literature, and the political and religious movements which took place in the reign of Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II. (1527-1576) proved to be most beneficial to the intellectual development of the people. The Reformation, which was introduced into Hungary through Bohemia, the example of this neighboring country, and the close alliance which existed between the two people, exercised great influence on the public mind. The Hungarian language was introduced into the church, the schools, and the religious controversies, and became the vehicle of sacred and popular poetry. It was thus enriched and polished, and acquired a degree of perfection which it retained until the latter part of the eighteenth century. Translations of the Bible were multiplied; chronicles, histories, grammars, and dictionaries were published, and the number of schools, particularly among the Protestants, was greatly increased.

But these brilliant prospects were soon blighted when the country came under the absolute dominion of Austria. In order to crush the national tendencies of the Magyars, the government now restored the Latin and German languages; and newspapers, calendars, and publications of all kinds, including many valuable works, appeared in Latin. Indeed, the interval from 1702 to 1780 was the golden age of this literature in Hungary. Maria Theresa and Joseph II., however, by prescribing the use of the German language in the schools, official acts, and public transactions, produced a reaction in favor of the national tongue, which was soon after taught in the schools, heard in the lecture-room, the theatre, and popular assemblies, and became the organ of the public press. These measures, however, the good effects of which were mainly confined to the higher classes, were gradually pursued with less zeal. It is only of late that the literature of Hungary has assumed a popular character, and become a powerful engine for the advancement of political objects.

Kossuth may be considered as the founder of a national party which is at the head of the contemporary literature of the Magyars. Through the action of this party and of its leader, the Hungarian Diet passed, in 1840, the celebrated "Law of the Language," by which the supremacy of the Hungarian tongue was established, and its use prescribed in the administration and in the institutions of learning. From 1841 to 1844, Kossuth published a paper, in which the most serious and important questions of politics and economy were discussed in a style characterized by great elegance and simplicity, and by a fervid eloquence, which awakened in all classes the liveliest emotions of patriotism and independence. His writings greatly enriched the national language, and excited the emulation even of those who did not accept his political views. His memoirs, lately published, have been extensively translated.

The novels of Josika (1865), modeled after those of Walter Scott, the works of Eötvös and Kemeny after the writers of Germany, and those of Kuthy and others who have followed the French school, have greatly contributed to enrich the literature of Hungary. The comedies and the dramas of Eötvös and Gal, and particularly those of Szigligeti, show great progress in the Hungarian theatre, while in the poems of Petöfi and others is heard the harmonious yet sorrowful voice of the national muse.

After 1849, the genius of Hungary seemed for a while buried under the ruins of the nation. Many of the most eminent writers either fell in the national struggle, or, being driven into exile, threw aside their pens in despair. But the intellectual condition of the people has of late been greatly improved. Public education has been promoted, scholastic institutions have been established, and at the present time there are eloquent voices heard which testify to the presence of a vigorous life latent in the very heart of the country.

Among many other writers of the present day, are Jokai (b. 1825), the author of various historical romances which have been extensively translated, Varga, a lyric poet, and Arany, perhaps the greatest poet Hungary has produced, some of whose works are worthy of the literature of any age.

3. THE TURKISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.--The Turks, or Osmanlis, are descendants of the Tartars, and their language, which is a branch of the Turanian family, is at the present day the commercial and political tongue throughout the Levant. This language is divided into two principal dialects, the eastern and the western. The eastern, though rough and harsh, has been the vehicle of certain literary productions, of which the most important are the biographies of more than three hundred ancient poets, written by Mir-Ali-Schir, who flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century, and who was the Maecenas of several Persian poets, particularly of Jami; several historical memoirs, and a number of ballads, founded on the traditions of the ancient Turkish tribes, belong also to the literature of this dialect. The western idiom constitutes what is more properly called the Turkish language. It is euphonious in sound and regular in its grammatical forms, though poor in its vocabulary. To supply its deficiencies, the Osmanlis have introduced many elements of the Arabic and Persian. They have also adopted the Arabic alphabet, with some alterations; and, like the Arabians, they write from right to left.

The literature of Turkey, although it is extremely rich, contains little that is original or national, but is a successful imitation of Persian or Arabic. Even before the capture of Constantinople works had been produced which the nation has not let perish. The most flourishing period was during the reign of Solyman the Magnificent and his son Selim in the sixteenth century. Fasli (d. 1563) was an erotic poet, who attained a high reputation; and Baki (d. 1600), a lyric poet, is ranked by the Orientals with the Persian Hafiz. In the seventeenth century a new period of literature arose, though inferior to the last. Nebi was the most admired poet, Nefi a distinguished satirist, and Hadji Khalfa a historian of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature, who is the chief authority upon this subject for the East and West. The annals of Saad-El-Din (d. 1599) are important for the student of the history of the Ottoman Empire. The style of these writers, however, is for the most part bombastic, consisting of a mixture of poetry and prose overladen with figures. Novels and tales abound in this literature, and it affords many specimens of geographical works, many important collections of juridical decisions, and valuable researches on the Persian and Arabian languages.

The press was introduced into Constantinople early in the eighteenth century, and has been actively engaged in publishing translations of the most important works in Persian and Arabic, as well as in the native tongue. Societies are established for the promotion of various branches of science, and many scientific and literary journals are published. There are numerous primary free schools and high scholastic institutions in Constantinople, and some public libraries.

4. THE ARMENIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.--The language of Armenia belongs to the Indo-European family, and particularly to the Iranian variety; but it has been greatly modified by contact with other languages, especially the Turkish. At present the modern dialect is spoken in southern Russia around the sea of Azof, in Turkey, Galicia, and Hungary. The ancient Armenian, which was spoken down to the twelfth century, is preserved in its purity in the ancient books of the people, and is still used in their best works. This tongue, owing to an abundance of consonants, is lacking in euphony; it is deficient in distinction of gender, though it is redundant in cases and inflexions. Its alphabet is modeled after the Greek.

The Armenians, from the earliest period of their existence, through all the political disasters which have signalized their history, have exhibited a strong love for a national literature, and maintained themselves as a cultivated people amidst all the revolutions which barbarism, despotism, and war have occasioned. During so many ages they have faithfully preserved not only their historical traditions, reaching back to the period of the ancient Hebrew histories, but also their national character. Their first abode--the vicinity of Mount Ararat--is even at the present day the centre of their religious and political union. Commerce has scattered them, like the Israelites, among all nations, but without debasing their character; on the contrary, they are distinguished by superior cultivation, manners, and honesty from the barbarians under whose yoke they live. The cause is to be found in their creed and in their religious union.

Until the beginning of the fourth century A.D. the Armenians were Parsees; the literature of the country up to this period was contained in a few songs or ballads, and its civilization was only that which could be wrought out by the philosophy of Zoroaster. In 319, when Christianity was introduced into Armenia, the language and learning of the Greeks were exciting the profound admiration of the most eminent fathers of the church, and this attention to Greek literature was immediately manifest in the literary history of Armenia. A multitude of Grecian works was translated, commented upon, and their philosophy adopted, and the literature was thus established upon a Grecian basis.

About the same period, the alphabet at present in use in the Armenian language was invented, or the old alphabet perfected by Mesrob, in connection with which the language underwent many modifications. Mesrob, with his three sons, especially educated for the task, commenced the translation of the Bible 411 A.D., and its completion nearly half a century later gave a powerful impulse to Armenian learning, and at the same time stamped upon it a religious character which it has never lost. The period from the sixth to the tenth century is the golden age of this literature. Its temporary decline after this period was owing to the invasion of the Arabians, when many of the inhabitants were converted to the Mohammedan faith and many more compelled to suffer persecution for their refusal to abjure Christianity. After the subjection of Armenia to the Greek empire, literature again revived, and until the fourteenth century was in a flourishing condition. In 1375, when the Turks took possession of the country, the inhabitants were again driven from their homes, and from that time their literature has steadily declined. After their emigration, the Armenians established themselves in various countries of Europe and Asia, and amidst all the disadvantages of their position they still preserve not only the unity of their religious faith, but the same unwearied desire to sustain a national literature. Wherever they have settled, in Amsterdam, Leghorn, Venice, Constantinople, and Calcutta, they have established printing presses and published valuable books. Of their colonies or monasteries, the most interesting and fruitful in literary works is that of Venice, which was founded in the eighteenth century by Mechitar, an Armenian, and from him its monks are called Mechitarists. From the time of their establishment they have constantly issued translations of important religious works. They now publish a semi- monthly paper in the Armenian language, which is circulated and read among the scattered families of the Armenian faith over the world. They also translate and publish standard works of modern literature.

About the year 1840, through the influence of American missionaries, the Bible was translated into Armenian, freed as far as possible from foreign elements; school-books were also translated, newspapers established, and the language awoke to new life. Within the last twenty years the intellectual progress in Armenia has been very great. In 1863 Christopher Robert, an American gentleman, established and endowed a college at Constantinople for the education of pupils of all races, religions, and languages found in the empire. This institution, not sectarian, though Christian, has met with great success. It has two hundred and fifty students from fifteen nationalities, though chiefly Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek.

SLAVIC LITERATURES.

The Slavic Race and Languages; the Eastern and Western Stems; the Alphabets; the Old or Church Slavic Language; St. Cyril's Bible; the Pravda Russkaya; the Annals of Nestor.

THE SLAVIC RACE AND LANGUAGES.--The Slavic race, which belongs to the great Indo-European family of nations, probably first entered Europe from Asia, seven or eight centuries B.C. About the middle of the sixth century A.D. we find Slavic tribes crossing the Danube in great multitudes, and settling on both the banks of that river; from that time they frequently appear in the accounts of the Byzantine historians, under different appellations, mostly as involved in the wars of the two Roman empires; sometimes as allies, sometimes as conquerors, often as vassals, and oftener as emigrants and colonists, thrust out of their own countries by the pressing forward of the more warlike Teutonic tribes. In the latter half of the eleventh century the Slavic nations were already in possession of the whole extent of territory which they still occupy, from the Arctic Ocean on the north to the Black and Adriatic seas on the south, and from Kamtschatka and the Russian islands of the Pacific to the Baltic, and along the banks of the rivers Elbe, Muhr, and Ruab, again to the Adriatic. They are represented by early historians as having been a peaceful, industrious, hospitable people, obedient to their chiefs, and religious in their habits. Wherever they established themselves, they began to cultivate the earth, and to trade in the productions of the country. There are also early traces of their fondness for music and poetry.

The analogy between the Slavic and the Sanskrit languages indicates the Oriental origin of the Slavonians, which appears also from their mythology. The antithesis of a good and evil principle is met with among most of the Slavic tribes; and even at the present time, in some of their dialects, everything good and beautiful is to them synonymous with the purity of the white color; they call the good spirit the White God, and the evil spirit the Black God. We find also traces of their Oriental origin in the Slavic trinity, which is nearly allied to that of the Hindus. Other features of their mythology remind us of the sprightly and poetical imagination of the Greeks. Such is the life attributed to the inanimate objects of nature, rocks, brooks, and trees; such are also the supernatural beings dwelling in the woods and mountains, nymphs, naiads, and satyrs. Indeed, the Slavic languages, in their construction, richness, and precision, appear nearly related to the Greek and Latin, with which they have a common origin.

Following the division of the Slavic nations into the eastern and western stems, their languages may he divided into two classes, the first containing the Russian and the Servian idioms, the second embracing the Bohemian and the Polish varieties. The Slavi of the Greek faith use the Cyrillic alphabet, so called from St. Cyril, its inventor, a Greek monk, who went from Constantinople (862 A.D.) to preach to them the gospel. It is founded on the Greek, with modifications and additions from Oriental sources. The Hieronymic alphabet, particularly used by the priests of Dalmatia and Croatia, is so called from the tradition which attributes it to St. Hieronymus. The Bohemians and Poles use the Roman alphabet, with a few alterations.

St. Cyril translated the Bible into the language called the Old or Church Slavic, and from the fact that this translation, made in the middle of the ninth century, is distinguished by great copiousness, and bears the stamp of uncommon perfection in its forms, it is evident that this language must have been flourishing long before that time. The celebrated "Pravda Russkaya," a collection of the laws of Jaroslav (1035 A.D.), and the "Annals of Nestor," of the thirteenth century, are the most remarkable monuments of the old Slavic language. This, however, has for centuries ceased to be a living tongue.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

1. The Language.--2. Literature in the Reign of Peter the Great; of Alexander; of Nicholas; Danilof, Lomonosof, Kheraskof, Derzhavin, Karamzin.--3. History, Poetry, the Drama: Kostrof, Dmitrief, Zhukoffski, Krylof, Pushkin, Lermontoff, Gogol.--4. Literature in Russia since the Crimean War: School of Nature; Turgenieff; Ultra-realistic School; Science: Mendeleéff.

1. THE LANGUAGE.--In the Russian language three principal dialects are to be distinguished; but the Russian proper, as it is spoken in Moscow and all the central and northern parts of European Russia, is the literary language of the nation. It is distinguished by its immense copiousness, the consequence of its great flexibility in adopting foreign words, merely as roots, from which, by means of its own resources, stems and branches seem naturally to spring. Another excellence is the great freedom of construction which it allows, without any danger of becoming ambiguous. It is clear, euphonious, and admirably adapted to poetry.

The germs of Russian civilization arose with the foundation of the empire by the Varegians of Scandinavia (862 A.D.), but more particularly with the introduction of Christianity by Vladimir the Great, who, towards the close of the tenth century, established the first schools, introduced the Bible of St. Cyril, called Greek artists from Constantinople, and became the patron, and at the same time the hero of poetry. Indeed, he and his knights are the Russian Charlemagne and his peers, and their deeds have proved a rich source for the popular tales and songs of succeeding times. Jaroslav, the son of Vladimir, was not less active than his father in advancing the cause of Christianity; he sent friars through the country to instruct the people, founded theological schools, and continued the translation of the church books. To this age is referred the epic, "Igor's Expedition against the Polovtzi," discovered in the eighteenth century, a work characterized by uncommon grace, beauty, and power.

From 1238 to 1462 A.D. the Russian princes were vassals of the Mongols, and during this time nearly every trace of cultivation perished. The invaders burned the cities, destroyed all written documents, and demolished the monuments of national culture; but at length Ivan I. (1462- 1505) delivered his country from the Mongols, and prepared a new era in the history of Russian civilization.

At this early period the first germs of dramatic art were carried from Poland to Russia. In Kief the theological students performed ecclesiastical dramas, and traveled about, during the holidays, to exhibit their skill in other cities. The tragedies of Simeon of Polotzk (1628- 1680), in the old Slavic language, penetrated from the convents to the court, where they were performed in the middle of the seventeenth century. At this time the first secular drama, a translation from Molière, was also represented.

2. THE LITERATURE.--Peter the Great (1689-1725) raised the Russian dialect to the dignity of a written language, introduced it into the administration and courts of justice, and caused many books to be translated from foreign languages. He rendered the Slavic characters more conformable to the Latin, and these letters, then generally adopted, continue in use at the present time. Among the writers of the age of Peter the Great may be mentioned Kirsha Danilof, who versified the popular traditions of Vladimir and his heroes; and Kantemir, a satirist, who translated many epistles of Horace, and the work of Fontenelle on the plurality of worlds.

Peter the Great laid the corner-stone of a national literature, but the temple was not reared above the ground until the reign of Elizabeth and of Catharine II. Lomonosof (1711-1765), a peasant, born in the dreary regions of Archangel, has the honor of being the true founder of the Russian literature. In his Russian grammar he first laid down the principles and fixed the rules of the language; he first ventured to draw the boundary line between the old Slavic and the Russian, and endeavored to fix the rules of poetry according to the Latin standard. Among his contemporaries may be mentioned Sumarokof (1718-1777) and Kheraskof (1733-1807), both very productive writers in prose and verse, and highly admired by their contemporaries.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the dramatic talent of the Russians was awakened, through the establishment of theatres at Jaroslav, St. Petersburg, and Moscow; and several gifted literary men employed themselves in dramatic compositions; but of all the productions of this time, those of Von Wisin (1745-1792) only have continued to hold possession of the stage.

Among the poets of the eighteenth century, Derzhavin (1743-1816) sang the glory of Catharine II., and of the Russian arms. His "Ode to God" has obtained the distinction of being translated into several European languages, and also into Chinese, and hung up in the Emperor's palace, printed on white satin in golden letters.

The reign of Alexander I. (1801-1825) opened a new era in the literature. He manifested great zeal for the mental elevation of his subjects; he increased the number of universities, established theological seminaries and institutions for the study of oriental languages, and founded gymnasia and numerous common schools for the people; he richly endowed the Asiatic museum of St. Petersburg, and for a time patronized the Russian Bible Society, and promoted the printing of books on almost all subjects. But toward the close of his reign, in consequence of certain political measures, literature sank with great rapidity.

Karamzin (1765-1826), the representative of this age, undertook to shake off the yoke of the classical rules established by Lomonosof, and introduced more simplicity and naturalness. His reputation rests chiefly upon his "History of the Russian Empire," which, with many faults, is a standard work in Slavic literature. The reign of the Emperor Nicholas opened with a bloody tragedy, which exhibited in a striking manner the dissatisfied and unhealthy spirit of the literary youth of Russia. Several poets and men of literary fame were among the conspirators; and to awaken patriotism and to counteract the tendencies of the age, the government promoted historical and archaeological researches, but at the same time abolished professorships of philosophy, increased the vigilance of its censorship of the press, lengthened the catalogue of forbidden books, and reduced the term of lawful absence for its subjects. It took the most energetic measures to promote national education, and to cultivate those fields of science where no political tares could be sown.

The leading idea of the time was Panslavism, the object of which was the union of the Slavic race, an opposition to all foreign domination, and the attainment of a higher intellectual and political condition in the general march of mankind. Panslavism rose to a special branch of literature, and its principal writers were Kollar, Grabowski, and Gurowski.

3. HISTORY, POETRY, THE DRAMA.--History is a department of letters which has been treated very successfully in Russia; critical researches have been extended to all branches of archaeology, philology, mythology, and kindred subjects, and valuable works have been produced.

Dmitrief (1760-1827) combined in his poems imagination, taste, correctness, and purity of language. Zhukoffski (b. 1785) a poet of deep feeling, took his models from the Germans.

The fables of Krylof (b. 1768) are equally celebrated among all classes and ages, and are among the first books read by Russian children.

Above all the others, Pushkin (1799-1835) must be considered as the representative of Russian poetry in the nineteenth century. He was in the service of the government, when an ode "to Liberty," written in too bold a spirit, induced Alexander I. to banish him from St. Petersburg. The Emperor Nicholas recalled him, and became his patron. Though by no means a mere imitator, his poetry bears strong marks of the influence of Byron.

Lermontoff (d. 1841) was a poet and novelist whose writings, like those of Pushkin, were strongly influenced by Byron. Koltsoff (d. 1842) is the first song writer of Russia, and his favorite theme is the joys and sorrows of the people. Through the influence of Pushkin and Gogol (d. 1852), Russian literature became emancipated from the classic rule and began to develop original tendencies. Gogol in his writings manifests a deep sentiment of patriotism, a strong love of nature, and a fine sense of humor.

The Russians have few ballads of great antiquity, and these rarely have any reference to the subjects of the heroic prose tales which are the delight of Russian nurseries, the favorite subjects of which are the traditions of Vladimir and his giant heroes, which doubtless once existed in the form of ballads. The Russians have ever been a singing race. Every festival day and every extraordinary event has its accompanying song. Though these songs have been modernized in language and form, that they date from the age of paganism is evident from their frequent invocations of heathen deities and allusions to heathen customs. Allied to these songs are the various ditties which the peasant girls and lads sing on certain occasions, consisting of endless repetitions of words or syllables; yet through this melodious tissue, apparently without meaning, sparks of real poetry often shine.

The Russian songs, like the language, have a peculiar tenderness, and are full of caressing epithets, which are often applied even to inanimate objects. Russian lovers are quite inexhaustible in their endearing expressions, and the abundance of diminutives which the language possesses is especially favorable to their affectionate mode of address. With this exquisite tenderness of the love-song is united a pensive feeling, which, indeed, pervades the whole popular poetry of Russia, and which may be characterized as melancholy musical, and in harmony with the Russian national music, the expressive sweetness of which has been the admiration of all foreign composers to whom it has been known.

In the rich and fertile steppes of the Ukraine, where every forest tree seems to harbor a singer, and every blade of grass on the boundless plains seems to whisper the echo of a song, this pensive character of Russian poetry deepens into a melancholy that finds expression in a variety of sweet elegiac melodies. A German writer says of them, "they are the sorrows of whole centuries blended in one everlasting sigh." The spirit of the past indeed breathes through their mournful strains. The cradle of the Kozak was rocked to the music of clashing swords, and for centuries the country, on both banks of the Dnieper to the northwestern branch of the Carpathian Mountains, the seat of this race, was the theatre of constant warfare. Their narrative ballads, therefore, have few other subjects than the feuds with the Poles and Tartars, the Kozak's parting with his beloved one, his lonely death on the border or on the bloody field of battle.

These ballads have sometimes a spirit and boldness which presents noble relief to the habitual melancholy of this poetry in general. Professional singers, with a kind of guitar in their hand, wander through the country, sure to find a willing audience in whatever village they may stop. Their ballads are not confined to the scenes of their early history, but find subjects in the later wars with the Turks and Tartars, and in the campaigns of more modern times; they illustrate the warlike spirit, as well as the domestic relations of the Kozaks, and their skill in narrative, as well as their power of expressing in lyric strains the unsophisticated emotions of a tender heart.

The poets of the present age exercise little or no influence on a society distracted and absorbed by the political questions of the day.

Although the history of Russia is rich in dramatic episodes, it has failed to inspire any native dramatist. Count Tolstoi has been one of the most successful writers in this line, but, with great merits, he has the fault common to the Russian drama in general, that of great attention to the study of the chief character, to the neglect of other points which contribute to secure interest.

4. LITERATURE IN RUSSIA SINCE THE CRIMEAN WAR.--After the Crimean War, in 1854, the Russian government took the initiative in an onward movement, and by the abolition of serfdom the country awoke to new life. In literature this showed itself in the rise of a new school, that of Nature, in which Turgenieff (1818-1883) is the most prominent figure, a place which he still holds in contemporary Russian literature. The publication of his "Diary of a Sportsman" first made the nobility of Russia aware that the serf was a man capable of feeling and suffering, and not a brute to be bought and sold with the soil, and this work was not without its effect in causing the emancipation. No writer has studied so faithfully and profoundly the Russian peasant and better understood the moral needs of the time and the great questions which agitate it.

Within the last twenty years the new theory of Nihilism has begun to find expression in literature, particularly in fiction. Rejecting all authority in religion, politics, science, and art, this school is the reaction from long ages of oppression. The school of nature lent itself to this new movement until at last it reached the pessimistic standpoint of Schopenhauer.

Of late, the ultra-realistic school has appeared in Russia, the writers of which devote themselves to the study of a low realism in its most repulsive aspects. While it boasts of not idealizing the peasant, like Turgenieff and others, it presents him in an aspect to excite only aversion. Art being thus excluded, and the school having neither authority, principle, nor object, whatever influence it may have cannot but be pernicious.

SCIENCE.--In mathematics and in all the natural sciences Russia keeps pace with the most advanced European nations. In chemistry Mendeleéff formulated the theory relating to atoms and their chemical properties and relations, not then discovered to be the law by which they were governed, as later experiments proved.

THE SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

The Servian alphabet was first fixed and the language reduced to certain general rules only within the present century. The language extends, with some slight variations of dialect, and various systems of writing, over the Turkish and Austrian provinces of Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Dalmatia, and the eastern part of Croatia. The southern sky, and the beauties of natural scenery that abound in all these regions, so favorable to the development of poetical genius, appear also to have exerted a happy influence on the language. While it yields to none of the other Slavic dialects in richness, clearness, and precision, it far surpasses them all in euphony.

The most interesting feature of the literature of these countries is their popular poetry. This branch of literature still survives among the Slavic race, particularly the Servians and Dalmatians, in its beauty and luxuriance, while it is almost extinct in other nations. Much of this poetry is of unknown antiquity, and has been handed down by tradition from generation to generation. From the gray ages of paganism it reaches us like the chimes of distant bells, unconnected, and half lost in the air. It often manifests the strong, deep-rooted superstitions of the Slavic race, and is full of dreams, omens, and forebodings; witchcraft, and a certain Oriental fatalism, seeming to direct will and destiny. Love and heroism form the subject of all Slavic poetry, which is distinguished for the purity of manners it evinces. Wild passions or complicated actions are seldom represented, but rather the quiet scenes of domestic grief and joy. The peculiar relation of brother and sister, particularly among the Servians, often forms an interesting feature of the popular songs. To have no brother is a misfortune, almost a disgrace, and the cuckoo, the constant image of a mourning woman in Servian poetry, was, according to the legend, a sister who had lost her brother.

This poetry was first collected by Vuk Stephanovitch Karadshitch (b. 1786), a Turkish Servian, the author of the first Oriental Servian grammar and dictionary, who gathered the songs from the lips of the peasantry. His work, published at Vienna in 1815, has been made known to the world through a translation into German by the distinguished authoress of the "Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations," from which this brief sketch has been made. Nearly one third of these songs consist of epic tales several hundred verses in length. The lyric songs compare favorably with those of other nations, but the long epic extemporized compositions, by which the peasant bard, in the circle of other peasants, in unpremeditated but regular and harmonious verse, celebrates the heroic deeds of their ancestors or contemporaries, have no parallel in the whole history of literature since the days of Homer.

The poetry of the Servians is intimately interwoven with their daily life. The hall where the women sit spinning around the fireside, the mountain on which the boys pasture their flocks, the square where the village youth assemble to dance, the plains where the harvest is reaped, and the forests through which the lonely traveler journeys, all resound with song. Short compositions, sung without accompaniment, are mostly composed by women, and are called female songs; they relate to domestic life, and are distinguished by cheerfulness, and often by a spirit of graceful roguery. The feeling expressed in the Servian love-songs is gentle, often playful, indicating more of tenderness than of passion. In their heroic poems the Servians stand quite isolated; no modern nation can be compared to them in epic productiveness, and the recent publication of these poems throws new light on the grand compositions of the ancients. The general character of these Servian tales is objective and plastic; the poet is, in most cases, in a remarkable degree above his subject; he paints his pictures, not in glowing colors, but in prominent features, and no explanation is necessary to interpret what the reader thinks he sees with his own eyes. The number and variety of the Servian heroic poems is immense, and many of them, until recently preserved only by tradition, cannot be supposed to have retained their original form; they are frequently interwoven with a belief in certain fanciful creatures of pagan superstition, which exercise a constant influence on human affairs. The poems are often recited, but most frequently sung to the music of a rude kind of guitar. The bard chants two lines, then he pauses and gives a few plaintive strokes on his instrument; then he chants again, and so on. While in Slavic poetry generally the musical element is prominent, in the Servian it is completely subordinate. Even the lyric poetry is in a high degree monotonous, and is chanted rather than sung.

Goethe, Grimm, and "Talvi" drew attention to these songs, many translations of which were published in Germany, and Bowring, Lytton, and others have made them known in England.

At present there is much intellectual activity among the Servians in various departments of literature, tragedy, comedy, satire, and fiction, but the names of the writers are new to Europeans, and not easily remembered.

THE BOHEMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Comenius, and others.

The Bohemian is one of the principal Slavic languages. It is spoken in Bohemia and in Moravia, and is used by the Slovaks of Hungary in their literary productions. Of all the modern Slavic dialects, the Bohemian was the first cultivated; it early adopted the Latin characters, and was developed under the influence of the German language. In its free construction, the Bohemian approaches the Latin, and is capable of imitating the Greek in all its lighter shades.

The first written documents of the Bohemians are not older than the introduction of Christianity into their country; but there exists a collection of national songs celebrating battles and victories, which probably belongs to the eighth or ninth century. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the influence of German customs and habits is apparent in Bohemian literature; and in the thirteenth and fourteenth this influence increased, and was manifest in the lyric poetry, which echoed the lays of the German Minnesingers. Of these popular songs, however, very few are left.

In 1348 the first Slavic university was founded in Prague, on the plan of those of Paris and Bologna, by the Emperor Charles IV., who united the crowns of Germany and Bohemia. The influence of this institution was felt, not merely in the two countries, but throughout Europe.

The name of John Huss (1373-1415) stands at the head of a new period in Bohemian literature. He was professor at the university of Prague, and early became acquainted with the writings of Wickliffe, whose doctrines he defended in his lectures and sermons. The care and attention he bestowed on his compositions exerted a decided and lasting influence on the language. The old Bohemian alphabet he arranged anew, and first settled the Bohemian orthography according to fixed principles. Summoned to appear before the council of Constance to answer to the charges of heresy, he obeyed the call under a safe-conduct from the Emperor Sigismund. But he was soon arrested by order of the council, condemned, and burned alive.

Among the coadjutors of Huss was Jerome of Prague, a professor in the same university, who in his erudition and eloquence surpassed his friend, whose doctrinal views he adopted, but he had not the mildness of disposition nor the moderation of conduct which distinguished Huss. He wrote several works for the instruction of the people, and translated some of the writings of Wickliffe into the Bohemian language. On hearing of the dangerous situation of his friend he hastened to Constance to assist and support him. He, too, was arrested, and even terrified into temporary submission; but at the next audience of the council he reaffirmed his faith, and declared that of all his sins he repented of none more than his apostasy from the doctrines he had maintained. In consequence of this avowal he was condemned to the same fate as his friend.

These illustrious martyrs were, with the exception of Wickliffe, the first advocates of truth a century before the Reformation. Since then, in no language has the Bible been studied with more zeal and devotion than in the Bohemian. The long contest for freedom of conscience which desolated the country until the extinction of the nation is one of the great tragedies of human history.

The period from 1520 to 1620 is considered the golden age of Bohemian literature. Nearly two hundred writers distinguished the reign of Rudolph I. (1526-1611), and among them were many ladies and gentlemen of the court, of which Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and other scientific men, from foreign countries, were the chief ornaments. Numerous historical works were published, theology was cultivated with talent and zeal, the eloquence of the pulpit and the bar acquired a high degree of cultivation, and in religious hymns all sects were equally productive.

The triumph of the Catholic party, which followed the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague (1620), gave a fatal blow to Bohemia. The leading men of the country were executed, exiled, or imprisoned; the Protestant religion was abolished, and the country was declared a hereditary Catholic monarchy. The Bohemian language ceased to be used in public transactions; and every book written in it was condemned to the flames as necessarily heretical. Great numbers of monks came from southern Europe, and seized whatever native books they could find; and this destruction continued to go on until the close of the last century.

Among the Bohemian emigrants who continued to write in their foreign homes, Comenius (1592-1691) surpassed all others. When the great persecution of the Protestants broke out he fled to Poland, and in his exile he published several works in Latin and in Bohemian, distinguished for the classical perfection of their style.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century the efforts to introduce into Bohemia the German as the official language of the country awoke the national feeling of the people, and produced a strong reaction in favor of their native tongue. When the tolerant views of Joseph II. were known, more than a hundred thousand Protestants returned to their country; books long hidden were brought to light, and many works were reprinted. During the reign of his two successors, the Bohemians received still more encouragement; the use of the language was ordained in all the schools, and a knowledge of it was made a necessary qualification for office. Among the writers who exerted a favorable influence in this movement may be mentioned Kramerius (1753-1808), the editor of the first Bohemian newspaper, and the author of many original works; Dobrovsky (1753-1829), the patriarch of modern Slavic literature, and one of the profoundest scholars of the age; and Kollar (b. 1763), the leading poet of modern times in the Bohemian language. Schaffarik (b. 1795), a Slovak, is the author of a "History of the Slavic Language and Literature," in German, which has, perhaps, contributed more than any other work to a knowledge of Slavic literature. Palacky, a Moravian by birth, was the faithful fellow- laborer of Schaffarik; his most important work is a "History of Bohemia."

Since 1848 there has arisen a school of poets whose writings are more in accordance with those of the western nations. Among them are Hálek (d. 1874) and Cech, the most celebrated of living Bohemian poets. Caroline Soêtla (b. 1830) is the originator of the modern Bohemian novel. Since 1879 many poems have appeared, epic in their character, taking their materials both from the past and the present. In various branches of literature able writers are found, too numerous even to name.

THE POLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Rey, Bielski, Copernicus, Czartoryski, Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, and others.

The Polish language is the only existing representative of that variety of idioms originally spoken by the Slavic tribes, which, under the name of Lekhes, in the sixth or seventh century, settled on the banks of the Vistula and Varta. Although very little is known of the progress of the language into its present state, it is sufficiently obvious that it has developed from the conflict of its natural elements with the Latin and German idioms. Of the other Slavic dialects, the Bohemian is the only one which has exerted any influence upon this tongue. The Polish language is refined and artificial in its grammatical structure, rich in its words and phrases, and, like the Bohemian, capable of faithfully imitating the refinements of the classical languages. It has a great variety and nicety of shades in the pronunciation of the vowels, and such combinations of consonants as can only be conquered by a Slavic tongue.

The literary history of Poland begins, like that of Bohemia, at the epoch of the introduction of Christianity. In the year 965, Miecislav, Duke of Poland, married the Bohemian princess Dombrovka, who consented to the marriage on the condition of the duke becoming a convert to Christianity; and from that time the Polish princes, and the greater part of the nation, adopted the new faith. The clergy in those early ages in Poland, as well as elsewhere, were the depositaries of mental light; and the Benedictine monks who, with others, had been invited to the converted country, founded convents, to which they early attached schools. Their example was followed, at a later period, by other orders, and for several centuries the natives were excluded from all clerical dignities and privileges, and the education of the country was directed by foreign monks. They burned the few writings which they found in the vernacular tongue, and excited unnatural prejudices against it. From the ninth to the sixteenth century Polish literature was almost entirely confined to the translation of a part of the Bible and a few chronicles written in Latin. Among these must be noticed the chronicle of Martin Gallus (d. 1132), an emigrant Frenchman, who is considered as the oldest historian of Poland.

Casimir (1333-1370) was one of the few princes who acquired the name of the Great, not by conquests, but by the substantial benefits of laws, courts of justice, and means of education, which he procured for his subjects. In his reign was formed the first code of laws, known by the name of "Statute of Wislica," a part of which is written in the Polish language; and he laid the foundation of the university of Cracow (1347), which, however, was only organized half a century later. Hedevig, the granddaughter of Casimir, married Jagello of Lithuania, and under their descendants, who reigned nearly two centuries, Poland rose to the summit of power and glory. With Sigismund I. (1505-1542), and Sigismund Augustus (1542-1613), a new period of Polish literature begins. The university of Cracow had been organized in 1400, on the model of that of Prague, and this opened a door for the doctrines, first of the Bohemian, then of the German reformers. The wild flame of superstition which kindled the fagots for the disciples of the new doctrines in Poland was extinguished by Sigismund I. and Sigismund II., in whom the Reformation found a decided support. Under their administration Poland was the seat of a toleration then unequaled in the world; the Polish language became more used in literary productions, and was fixed as the medium through which laws and decrees were promulgated.

Rey of Naglowic (1515-1569), who lived at the courts of the Sigismunds, is called the father of Polish poetry. Most of his productions are of a religious nature, and bear the stamp of a truly poetical talent. John Kochanowski (1530-1584) published a translation of the Psalms, which is still considered as a classical work. His other poems, in which Pindar, Anacreon, and Horace were alternately his models, are distinguished for their conciseness and terseness of style. Rybinski (fl. 1581) and Simon Szymonowicz (d. 1629), the former as a lyric poet, the latter as a writer of idyls, maintain a high rank.

The Poles possess all the necessary qualities for oratory, and the sixteenth century was eminent for forensic and pulpit eloquence. History was cultivated with much zeal, but mostly in the Latin language. Martin Bielski (1500-1576) was the author of the "Chronicle of Poland," the first historical work in Polish. Scientific works were mostly written in Latin, the cultivation of which, in Poland, has ever kept pace with the study of the vernacular tongue. Indeed, the most eminent writers and orators of the sixteenth century, who made use of the Polish language, managed the Latin with equal skill and dexterity, and in common conversation both Latin and Polish were used.

Among the scientific writers of Latin is the astronomer Copernicus (1473- 1543). He early went to Italy, and was appointed professor of mathematics at Rome. He at length returned to Poland, and devoted himself to the study of astronomy. Having spent twenty years in observations and calculations, he brought his scheme to perfection, and established the theory of the universe which is now everywhere received.

The interval between 1622 and 1760 marks a period of a general decadence in Polish literature. The perversion of taste which, at the beginning of that age, reigned in Italy, and thence spread over Europe, reached Poland; and for nearly a hundred and fifty years the country, under the influence of the Jesuits, was the victim of a stifling intolerance, and of a general mental paralysis. But in the reign of Stanislaus Augustus (1762-1795), Poland began to revive, and the national literature received a new impulse. Though the French language and manners prevailed, and the bombastic school of Marini was only supplanted by that of the cold and formal poets of France, the cultivation of the Polish language was not neglected; a periodical work, to which the ablest men of the country contributed, was published, public instruction was made one of the great concerns of the government, and the power of the Jesuits was destroyed.

The dissolution of the kingdom which soon followed, its partition and amalgamation with foreign nations, kindled anew the patriotic spirit of the Poles, who devoted themselves with more zeal than ever to the cultivation of their native language, the sole tie which still binds them together. The following are the principal representatives of this period: Stephen Konarski (1700-1773), a writer on politics and education, who devoted himself entirely to the literary and mental reform of his country; Zaluski (1724-1786), known more especially as the founder of a large library, which, at the dismemberment of Poland, was transferred to St. Petersburg; and, above all, Adam Czartoryski (1731-1823), and the two brothers Potocki, distinguished as statesmen, orators, writers, and patrons of literature and art. At the head of the historical writers of the eighteenth century stands Naruszewicz (1753-1796), whose history of Poland is considered as a standard work. In respect to erudition, philosophical conception, and purity of style, it is a masterpiece of Polish literature. Krasicki (1739-1802), the most distinguished poet under Stanislaus Augustus, was called the Polish Voltaire. His poems and prose writings are replete with wit and spirit, though bearing evident marks of French influence, which was felt in almost all the poetical productions of that age.

Niemcewicz (1787-1846) is regarded as one of the greatest poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Having fought by the side of Kosciusko, and shared his fate as a prisoner, he accompanied him to America, where he became the friend and associate of Washington, whose life he afterwards described. His other works consist of historical songs, dramas, and a history of the reign of Sigismund.

There is no branch of literature in which the Poles have manifested greater want of original power than in the drama, where the influence of the French school is decided, and, indeed, exclusive. Novels and tales, founded on domestic life, are not abundant in Polish literature; philosophy has had few votaries, and the other sciences, with the exception of the mathematical and physical branches, have been, till recently, neglected.

The failure of the revolution of 1830 forms a melancholy epoch in Polish history, and especially in Polish literature. The universities of Warsaw and Wilna were broken up, and their rich libraries removed to St. Petersburg. Even the lower schools were mostly deprived of their funds, and changed to Russian government schools. The press was placed under the strictest control, the language and the national peculiarities of the country were everywhere persecuted, the Russian tongue and customs substituted, and the poets and learned men either silenced or banished. Yet since that time the national history has become more than ever a chosen study with the people; and as the results of these researches, since 1830, cannot be written in Poland, Paris has become the principal seat of Polish learning. One of the first works of importance published there was the "History of the Polish Insurrection," by Mochnachi (1804- 1835), known before as the author of a work on the Polish literature of the nineteenth century, and as the able editor of several periodicals. Lelewel, one of the leaders of the revolution, wrote a work on the civil rights of the Polish peasantry, which has exercised a more decided influence in Poland than that of any modern author. Miekiewicz (1798- 1843), a leader of the same revolution, is the most distinguished of the modern poets of Poland. His magnificent poem of "The Feast of the Dead" is a powerful expression of genius. His "Sonnets on the Crimea" are among his happiest productions, and his "Sir Thaddeus" is a graphic description of the civil and domestic life of Lithuania. Mickiewicz is the founder of the modern romantic school in Poland, to which belong the most popular productions of Polish literature. Zalesski, Grabowski, and others of this school have chosen the Ukraine as the favorite theatre of their poems, and give us pictures of that country, alternately sweet, wild, and romantic.

Of all the Slavic nations, the Poles have most neglected their popular poetry, a fact which may be easily explained in a nation among whom whatever refers to mere boors and serfs has always been regarded with the utmost contempt. Their beautiful national dances, however, the graceful Polonaise, the bold Masur, the ingenious Cracovienne, are equally the property of the nobility and peasantry, and were formerly always accompanied by singing instead of instrumental music. These songs were extemporized, and were probably never committed to writing.

The centre of literary activity in Poland is Warsaw, which, in spite of the severe restrictions on the press, has always maintained its preëminence.

ROUMANIAN LITERATURE.

Carmen Sylva.

The kingdom of Roumania, composed of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, united in 1859, has few literary monuments. The language is Wallachian, in which the Latin predominates, with a mixture of Slavic, Turkish, and Tartar, and has only of late been classed with the Romance languages, by the side of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. There are some historical fragments of the fifteenth century remaining; the literature that followed was mostly theological. In recent times a great number of learned and poetical works have been produced, and political movements have led to many political writings and to the establishment of many newspapers.

The most distinguished name in Roumanian literature is that of "Carmen Sylva," the nom de plume of the beautiful and gifted queen of that country, whose writings in prose and verse are remarkable for passionate feeling, grace, and finished execution.

DUTCH LITERATURE.

1. The Language.--2. Dutch Literature to the Sixteenth Century: Maerlant; Melis Stoke; De Weert; the Chambers of Rhetoric; the Flemish Chroniclers; the Rise of the Dutch Republic.--3. The Latin Writers: Erasmus; Grotius; Arminius; Lipsius; the Scaligers, and others; Salmasius; Spinoza; Boerhaave; Johannes Secundus.--4. Dutch Writers of the Sixteenth Century: Anna Byns; Coornhert; Marnix de St. Aldegonde, Bor, Visscher, and Spieghel.--5. Writers of the Seventeenth Century: Hooft; Vondel; Cats; Antonides; Brandt, and others; Decline in Dutch Literature.--6. The Eighteenth Century: Poot; Langendijk; Hoogvliet; De Marre; Feitama; Huydecoper; the Van Harens; Smits; Ten Kate; Van Winter; Van Merken; De Lannoy; Van Alphen; Bellamy; Nieuwland, Styl, and others.--7. The Nineteenth Century: Feith; Helmers; Bilderdyk; Van der Palm; Loosjes; Loots, Tollens, Van Kampen, De s'Gravenweert, Hoevill, and others.

1. THE LANGUAGE.--The Dutch, Flemish, and Frisic languages, spoken in the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, are branches of the Gothic family. Toward the close of the fifteenth century, the Dutch gained the ascendency over the others, which it has never since lost. This language is energetic and flexible, rich in synonyms and delicate shades, and from its fullness and strength, better adapted to history, tragedy, and odes, than to comedy and the lighter kinds of poetry. The Flemish, which still remains the literary language of the southern provinces, is inferior to the Dutch, and has been greatly corrupted by the admixture of foreign words. The Frisic, spoken in Friesland, is an idiom less cultivated than the others, and is gradually disappearing. In the seventeenth century it boasted of several writers, of whom the poet Japix was the most eminent. The first grammar of the Frisic language was published by Professor Rask, of Copenhagen, in 1825. In some parts of Belgium the Walloon, an old dialect of the French, is still spoken, but the Flemish continues to be the common language of the people, although since the establishment of Belgium as an independent kingdom the use of the French language has prevailed among the higher classes.

2. DUTCH LITERATURE TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--When the obscurity of the dark ages began to disappear with the revival of letters, the Netherlands were not last among the countries of Europe in coming forth from the darkness. The cities of Flanders were early distinguished for the commercial activity and industrial skill of their inhabitants. Bruges reached the height of its splendor in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and was for some time one of the great commercial emporiums of the world, to which Constantinople, Genoa, and Venice sent their precious argosies laden with the products of the East. At the close of the thirteenth century Ghent, in wealth and power, eclipsed the French metropolis; and at the end of the fifteenth century there was, according to Erasmus, no town in all Christendom to compare with it for magnitude, power, political institutions, or the culture of its citizens. The lays of the minstrels and the romances of chivalry were early translated, and a Dutch version of "Reynard the Fox" was made in the middle of the thirteenth century. Jakob Maerlant (1235-1300), the first author of note, translated the Bible into Flemish rhyme, and made many versions of the classics; and Melis Stoke, his contemporary, wrote a rhymed "Chronicle of Holland."

The most important work of the fourteenth century is the "New Doctrine," by De Weert, which, for the freedom of its expression on religious subjects, may be regarded as one of the precursors of the Reformation.

Towards the close of the fourteenth century there arose a class of wandering poets called Sprekers, who, at the courts of princes and elsewhere, rehearsed their maxims in prose or verse. In the fifteenth century they formed themselves into literary societies, known as "Chambers of Rhetoric" (poetry being at that time called the "Art of Rhetoric"), which were similar to the Guilds of the Meistersingers. These institutions were soon multiplied throughout the country, and the members exercised themselves in rhyming, or composed and performed mysteries and plays, which, at length, gave rise to the theatre. They engaged in poetical contests, distributed prizes, and were prominent in all national fêtes. The number of the rhetoricians was so immense, that during the reign of Philip II. of Spain more than thirty chambers, composed of fifteen hundred members, often entered Antwerp in triumphal procession. But the effect of these associations, composed for the most part of illiterate men, was to destroy the purity of the language and to produce degeneracy in the literature. The Chamber of Amsterdam, however, was an honorable exception, and towards the close of the sixteenth century it counted among its members distinguished scholars, such as Spieghel, Coornhert, Marnix, and Visscher, and it may be considered as the school which formed Hooft and Vondel.

During the reign of the House of Burgundy (1383-1477), which was essentially French in tastes and manners, the native tongue became corrupted by the admixture of foreign elements. The poets and chroniclers of the time were chiefly of Flemish origin; the most widely known among the latter are Henricourt (d. 1403), Monstrelet (d. 1453), and Chastelain (d. 1475). A translation of the Bible and a few more works close the literary record of the fifteenth century.

The invention of printing, the great event of the age, is claimed by the cities of Mayence, Strasbourg, and Harlem; but if the art which preserves literature originated in the Netherlands, it did not at once create a native literature, the growth of which was greatly retarded by the use of the Latin tongue, which long continued to be the organ of expression with the principal writers of the country, nearly all of whom, even to the present day, are distinguished for the purity and elegance with which they compose in this language.

The Reformation and the great political agitations of the sixteenth century ended in the independence of the northern provinces and the establishment of the Dutch Republic (1581) under the name of the United Provinces, commonly called Holland, from the province of that name, which was superior to the others in extent, population, and influence. The new republic rose rapidly in power; and while intolerance and religious disputes distracted other European states, it offered a safe asylum to the persecuted of all sects. The expanding energies of the people soon sought a field beyond the narrow boundaries of the country; their ships visited every sea, and they monopolized the richest commerce of the world. They alone supplied Europe with the productions of the Spice Islands, and the gold, pearls, and jewels of the East all passed through their hands; and in the middle of the seventeenth century the United Provinces were the first commercial and the first maritime power in the world. A rapid development of the literature was the natural consequence of this increasing national development, which was still more powerfully promoted by the great and wise William I., Prince of Orange, who in 1575 founded the university of Leyden as a reward to that city for its valiant defense against the Spaniards. Similar institutions were soon established at Groningen, Utrecht, and elsewhere; these various seats of learning produced a rivalry highly advantageous to the diffusion of knowledge, and great men arose in all branches of science and literature. Among the distinguished names of the sixteenth century those of the Latin writers occupy the first place.

3. LATIN WRITERS.--One of the great restorers of letters in Europe, and one of the most elegant of modern Latin authors, was Gerard Didier, a native of Rotterdam, who took the name of Erasmus (1467-1536). To profound learning he joined a refined taste and a delicate wit, and few men have been so greatly admired as he was during his lifetime. The principal sovereigns of Europe endeavored to draw him into their kingdoms. He several times visited England, where he was received with great deference by Henry VIII., and where he gave lectures on Greek literature at Cambridge. He made many translations from Greek authors, and a very valuable translation of the New Testament into Latin. His writings introduced the spirit of free inquiry on all subjects, and to his influence may be attributed the first dawning of the Reformation. But his caution offended some of the best men of the times. His treatise on "Free Will" made an open breach between him and Luther, whose opinions favored predestination; his "Colloquies" gave great offense to the Catholics; and as he had not declared for the Protestants, he had but lukewarm friends in either party. It has been said of Erasmus, that he would have purified and repaired the venerable fabric of the church, with a light and cautious touch, fearful lest learning, virtue, and religion should be buried in its fall, while Luther struck at the tottering ruin with a bold and reckless hand, confident that a new and more beautiful temple would rise from its ruins.

Hugo de Groot, who, according to the fashion of the time, took the Latin name of Grotius (1583-1645), was a scholar and statesman of the most diversified talents, and one of the master minds of the age. He was involved in the religious controversy which at that time disturbed Holland, and he advocated the doctrines of Arminius, in common with the great statesman, Barneveldt, whom he supported and defended by his pen and influence. On the execution of Barneveldt, Grotius was condemned to imprisonment for life in the castle of Louvestein; but after nearly two years spent in the prison, his faithful wife planned and effected his escape. She had procured the privilege of sending him a chest of books, which occasionally passed and repassed, closely scrutinized. On one occasion the statesman took the place of the books, and was borne forth from the prison in the chest, which is still in the possession of the descendants of Grotius, in his native city of Delft. The States-General perpetuated the memory of the devoted wife by continuing to give her name to a frigate in the Dutch navy. After his escape from prison, Grotius found an asylum in Sweden, from whence he was sent ambassador to France. His countrymen at length repented of having banished the man who was the honor of his native land, and he was recalled; but on his way to Holland he was taken ill and died before he could profit by this tardy act of justice. The writings of Grotius greatly tended to diffuse an enlightened and liberal manner of thinking in all matters of science. He was a profound theologian, a distinguished scholar, an acute philosopher and jurist, and among the modern Latin poets he holds a high place. The philosophy of jurisprudence has been especially promoted by his great work on natural and national law, which laid the foundation of a new science.

Arminius (1560-1609), the founder of the sect of Arminians or Remonstrants, was distinguished as a preacher and for his zeal in the Reformed Religion. He attempted to soften the Calvinistic doctrines of predestination, in which he was violently opposed by Gomarus. He counted among his adherents Grotius, Barneveldt, and many of the eminent men of Holland. Other eminent theologians of this period were Drusius and Coeceius.

Lipsius (1547-1606) is known as a philologist and for his treatises on the military art of the Romans, on the Latin classics, and on the philosophy of the Stoics. Another scholar of extensive learning, whose editions of the principal Greek and Latin classics have rendered him famous all over Europe, was Daniel Heinsius (1580-1655). Gronovius and several of the members of the Spanheim family became also eminent for their scholarship in various branches of ancient learning.

The two Scaligers, father and son (1483-1554) (1540-1609), Italians, resident in Holland, are eminent for their researches in chronology and archaeology, and for their valuable works on the classics. Prominent among those who followed in the new path of philological study opened by the elder Scaliger was Vossius, or Voss (1577-1649), who excelled in many branches of learning, and particularly in Latin philology, which owes much to him. He left five sons, all scholars of note, especially the youngest, Isaac Vossius (1618-1689).

Peter Burmann (1668-1741) was a scholar of great erudition and industry.

Christian Huyghens (1629-1695) was a celebrated astronomer and mathematician, and many great men in those branches of science flourished in Holland in the seventeenth century. Among the great philologists and scholars must also be mentioned Hemsterhuis, Ruhnkenius, and Valckenaer.

Menno van Coehorn (1641-1704) was a general and engineer distinguished for his genius in military science; his great work on fortifications has been translated into many foreign languages. Helmont and Boerhaave have acquired world-wide fame by their labors in chemistry; Linnaeus collected the materials for his principal botanical work from the remarkable botanical treasures of Holland; and zoology and the natural sciences generally counted many devoted and eminent champions in that country.

Salmasius (1588-1653), though born in France, is ranked among the writers of Holland. He was professor in the University of Leyden, and was celebrated for the extent and depth of his erudition. He wrote a defense of Charles I. of England, which was answered by Milton, in a work entitled "A Defense of the English People against Salmasius' Defense of the King." Salmasius died soon after, and some did not scruple to say that Milton killed him by the acuteness of his reply.

Boerhaave (1668-1738) was one of the most eminent writers on medical science in the eighteenth century, and from the time of Hippocrates no physician had excited so much admiration. Spinoza (1632-1677) holds a commanding position as a philosophical writer. His metaphysical system, as expounded in his principal work, "Ethica," merges everything individual and particular in the Divine substance, and is thus essentially pantheistic. The philosophy of Spinoza exercised a powerful influence upon the mind of Kant, and the master-minds and great poets of modern times, particularly of Germany, have drawn copiously from the deep wells of his suggestive thought.

Among the many Latin poets of Holland, John Everard (1511-1536) (called Jan Second or Johannes Secundus, because he had an uncle of the same name) is most celebrated. His poem entitled "The Basia or Kisses" has been translated into the principal European languages. Nicholas Heinsius (1620- 1681), son of the great philologist and poet Heinsius, wrote various Latin poems, the melody of which is so sweet that he was called by his contemporaries the "Swan of Holland."

4. DUTCH WRITERS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--The first writer of this century in the native language was Anna Byns, who has been called the Flemish Sappho. She was bitterly opposed to the Reformation, and such of her writings as were free from religious intolerance evince more poetic fire than is found in those of her contemporaries. Coornhert (1522-1605) was a poet and philosopher, distinguished not less by his literary works than by his participation in the revolution of the Provinces. In purity of style and vigor of thought he far surpassed his predecessors. Marnix de St. Aldegonde (d. 1598) was a soldier, a statesman, a theologian, and a poet. He was the author of the celebrated "Compromise of the Nobles," and his satire on the Roman Catholic Church was one of the most effective productions of the time. He translated the Psalms from the original Hebrew, and was the author of a lyric which, after two centuries and a half, is still the rallying song of the nation on all occasions of peril or triumph.

Bor (1559-1635) was commissioned by the States to write a history of their struggles with Spain, and his work is still read and valued for its truthfulness and impartiality. Meteren, the contemporary of Bor, wrote the history of the country from the accession of the House of Burgundy to the year 1612--a work which, with some faults, has a high place in the literature.

Visscher (d. 1612) and Spieghel (d. 1613) form the connecting link between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Visscher, the Maecenas of the day, was distinguished for his epigrammatic and fugitive poems, and rendered immense service to letters by his influence on the literary men of his time. His charming daughters were both distinguished in literature. Spieghel is best remembered by his poem, the "Mirror of the Heart," which abounds in lofty ideas, and in sentiments of enlightened patriotism.

5. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--At the close of the sixteenth century, although the language was established, it still remained hard and inflexible, and the literature was still destitute of dramatic, erotic, and the lighter kinds of poetry; but an earnest, patriotic, religious, and national character was impressed upon it, and its golden age was near at hand.

The commencement of the seventeenth century saw the people of the United Provinces animated by the same spirit and energy, preferring death to the abandonment of their principles, struggling with a handful of men against the most powerful monarchy of the time; conquering their political and religious independence, after more than half a century of conflict, and giving to the world a great example of freedom and toleration; covering the ocean with their fleets, and securing possessions beyond the sea a hundred times more vast than the mother country; becoming the centre of universal commerce, and cultivating letters, the sciences, and the arts, with equal success. Poetry was national, for patriotism predominated over all other sentiments; and it was original, because it recognized no models of imitation but the classics.

The spirit of the age naturally communicated itself to the men of letters, who soon raised the literature of the country to a classic height; first among these were Hooft, Vondel, and Jacob Cats.

Hooft (1581-1647), a tragic and lyric poet as well as a historian, greatly developed and perfected the language, and by a careful study of the Italian poets imparted to his native tongue that sonorous sweetness which has since characterized the poetry of Holland. He was the creator of native tragedy, as well as of erotic verse, in which his style is marked by great sweetness, tenderness, and grace. He rendered still greater service to the native prose. His histories of "Henry IV.," of the "House of Medici," and above all the history of the "War of Independence in the Low Countries," without sacrificing truth, often border on poetry, in their brilliant descriptions and paintings of character, and in their nervous and energetic style. Hooft was a man of noble heart; he dared to protect Grotius in the days of his persecution; he defended Descartes and offered an asylum to Galileo.

Vondel (1587-1660), as a lyric, epic, and tragic poet, far surpassed all his contemporaries, and his name is honored in Holland as that of Shakspeare is in England. His tragedies, which are numerous, are his most celebrated productions, and among them "Palamedes Unjustly Sacrificed" is particularly interesting as representing the heroic firmness of Barneveldt, who repeated one of the odes of Horace when undergoing the torture. Vondel excelled as a lyric and epigrammatic poet, and the faults of his style belonged rather to his age than to himself.

No writer of the time acquired a greater or more lasting reputation than Jacob Cats (1577-1660), no less celebrated for the purity of his life than for the sound sense and morality of his writings, and the statesmanlike abilities which he displayed as ambassador in England, and as grand pensioner of Holland. His style is simple and touching, his versification easy and harmonious, and his descriptive talent extraordinary. His works consist chiefly of apologues and didactic and descriptive poems. No writer of Holland has been more read than Father Cats, as the people affectionately call him; and up to the present hour, in all families his works have their place beside the Bible, and his verses are known by heart all over the country. An illustrated edition of his poems in English has been recently published in London.

Hooft and Vondel left many disciples and imitators, among whom are Antonides (1647-1684), surnamed Van der Goes, whose charming poem on the River Y, the model of several similar compositions, is still read and admired. Among numerous other writers were Huygens (b. 1596), a poet who wrote in many languages besides his own; Heinsius (b. 1580), a pupil of Scaliger, the author of many valuable works in prose and poetry; Vallenhoven, contemporary with Antonides, a religious poet; Rotgans, the author of an epic poem on William of England; Elizabeth Hoofman (b. 1664), a poetess of rare elegance and taste, and Wellekens (b. 1658), whose eclogues and idyls occupy the first place among that class of poems. As a historian Hooft found a worthy successor in Brandt (1626-1683), also a poet, but best known by his "History of the Reformation in the Netherlands," which has been translated into French and English, and which is a model in point of style. At this period the Bible was translated and commented upon, and biographies, criticisms, and many other prose works appeared. The voyages and discoveries of the Dutch merchants and navigators were illustrated by numerous narratives, which, for their interest both in style and detail, deserve honorable mention.

From the commencement of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, however, many causes combined to produce a decline in the literature of the Netherlands. The honors which were accorded not only by the Dutch universities, but by all Europe to their Latin writers and learned professors, were rarely bestowed on writers in the native tongue, and thus the minds of men of genius were turned to the study of the classics and the sciences. The Dutch merchants, while they cultivated all other languages for the facilities they thus gained in their commercial transactions, restricted by so much the diffusion of their own. Other causes of this decline are to be found in the indifference of the republican government to the interests of literature, and in the increasing number of alliances with foreigners, who were attracted to Holland by the mildness of its laws, in the growing commercial spirit and taste for luxury, and especially in the influence of French literature, which, towards the close of the seventeenth century, became predominant in Holland as elsewhere.

6. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--For the first three quarters of the eighteenth century the literature of Holland, like that of other countries of Europe, with the exception of France, remained stationary, or slowly declined. But in the midst of universal mediocrity, a few names shine with distinguished lustre. Among them that of Poot (1689-1732) is commonly cited with those of Hooft and Vondel. He was a young peasant, whose rare genius found expression in a sweet and unaffected style. He excelled in idyllic and erotic poetry, and while he has no rival in Holland, he may perhaps be compared to Burns in Scotland, and Béranger in France. The theatre of Amsterdam, the only one of the country, continued to confine itself to translations or imitations from the French. There appeared, however, at the commencement of this period, an original comic author, Langendijk (1662-1735), whose works still hold their place upon the stage, partly for their merit, and partly to do honor to the only comic poet Holland has produced.

Hoogvliet (1689-1763) was distinguished as the author of a poem entitled "Abraham," which had great and merited success, and which still ranks among the classics; for some years after it appeared, it produced a flood of imitations.

De Marre (b. 1696), among numerous writers of tragedy, occupies the first place. From his twelfth year he was engaged in the merchant marine service, and besides his tragedies his voyages inspired many other works, the chief of which, a poem entitled "Batavia," celebrates the Dutch domination in the Asiatic archipelago. Feitama (1694-1758), with less poetic merit than De Marre, had great excellence. He was the first translator of the classics who succeeded in imparting to his verse the true spirit of his originals.

Huydecoper (d. 1778) was the first grammarian of merit, and he united great erudition with true poetic power. His tragedies are still represented.

Onno Zwier Van Haren (1713-1789) was also a writer of tragedy, and the author of a long poem in the epic style, called the Gueux (beggars), a name given in derision to the allied noblemen of the Netherlands in the time of Philip, and adopted by them. This poem represents the great struggle of the country with Spain, which ended in the establishment of the Dutch republic, and is distinguished for its fine episodes, its brilliant pictures, and its powerful development of character.

The only strictly epic poem that Holland has produced is the "Friso" of William Van Haren (1710-1758), the brother of the one already named. Friso, the mythical founder of the Frisons, is driven from his home on the shores of the Ganges, and, after many adventures, finds an asylum and establishes his government in the country to which he gives his name. This work with many faults is full of beauties. The brothers Van Haren were free from all foreign influence, and may justly be regarded as the two great poets of their time. The poems of Smits (1702-1750) are full of grace and sentiment, but, like those of almost all the Dutch poets, they are characterized by a seriousness of tone nearly allied to melancholy. Ten Kate (1676-1723) stands first among the grammarians and etymologists, and his works are classical authorities on the subject of the language.

Preëminent among the crowd of historians is Wagenaar (1709-1773), the worthy successor of Hooft and Brandt, whose "History of the United Provinces" is particularly valuable for its simplicity of style and truthfulness of detail.

Of the lighter literature, Van Effen, who had visited England, produced in French the "Spectator," in imitation of the English periodical, and, like that, it is still read and considered classical.

Towards the conclusion of the century, other periodicals were established, which, in connection with literary societies and academies, exercised great influence on literature. The contemporary writers of Germany were also read and translated, and henceforth in some degree they counterbalanced French influence.

First among the writers who mark the close of the eighteenth century are Van Winter (d. 1795), and his distinguished wife, Madame Van Merken (d. 1789). They published conjointly a volume of tragedies in which the chief merit of those of Van Winter consists in their originality and in the expression of those sentiments of justice, humanity, and equality before the law, which were just then beginning to find a voice in Europe.

Madame Van Merken, who, late in life, married Van Winter, has been called the Racine of Holland. To masculine energy and power she united all the virtues and sweetness of her own sex. Besides many long poems, she was the author of several tragedies, many of which have remarkable merit. Madame Van Merken gave a new impulse to the literature of her country, of which she is one of the classic ornaments, and prepared the way for Feith and Bilderdyk.

The Baroness De Lannoy, the contemporary of Madame Van Merken, was, like her, eminent in tragedy and other forms of poetry, though less a favorite, for in that free country an illustrious birth has been ever a serious obstacle to distinction in the republic of letters.

Nomz (d. 1803) furnished the theatre of Amsterdam with many pieces, original and translated, and merited a better fate from his native city than to die in the public hospital.

The poets who mark the age from Madame Van Merken to Bilderdyk, are Van Alphen, Bellamy, and Nieuwland. Van Alphen (d. 1803) is distinguished for his patriotism, originality, and deeply religious spirit. His poems for children are known by heart by all the children of Holland, and he is their national poet, as Cats is the poet of mature life and old age. Bellamy, who died at the early age of twenty-eight years (1786), left many poems characterized by originality, force, and patriotic fervor, no less than by beauty and harmony of style. Nieuwland (d. 1794), like Bellamy, rose from the lower order of society by the force of his genius; at the age of twenty-three he was called to the chair of philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy at Utrecht, and later to the university of Leyden. He was equally great as a mathematician and as a poet in the Latin language as well as his own. All his productions are marked by elegance and power.

Styl (d. 1804) was a poet as well as a historian; one of the most valuable works on the history of the country is his "Growth and Prospects of the United Provinces." Te Water, Bondam, and Van de Spiegel contributed to the same department.

Romance writing has, with few exceptions, been surrendered to women. Among the romances of character and manners, those of Elizabeth Bekker Wolff (d. 1804) are distinguished for their brilliant and caustic style, and those of Agatha Deken for their earnest and enlightened piety. The works of both present lively pictures of national character and manners.

7. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--The political convulsions of the last years of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, which overthrew the Dutch Republic, revolutionized the literature not less than the state,--and the new era was illustrated by its poets, historians, and orators. But in the elevation of inferior men by the popular party, the more eminent men of letters for a time withdrew from the field, and the noblest productions of native genius were forgotten in the flood of poor translations which inundated the country and corrupted the taste and the language by their Germanisms and Gallicisms.

Among the crowd of poets, a few only rose superior to the influences of the time. Feith (d. 1824) united a lofty patriotism to a brilliant poetical genius; his odes and other poems possess rare merit, and his prose is original, forcible, and elegant.

Helmers (d. 1813) is most honored for his poem, "The Dutch Nation," which, with some faults, abounds in beautiful episodes and magnificent passages.

Bilderdyk (1756-1831) is not only the greatest poet Holland has produced, but he is equally eminent as a universal scholar. He was a lawyer, a physician, a theologian, a historian, astronomer, draftsman, engineer, and antiquarian, and he was acquainted with nearly all the ancient and modern languages. In 1820 he published five cantos of a poem on "The Destruction of the Primitive World," which, though it remains unfinished, is a superb monument of genius and one of the literary glories of Holland. Bilderdyk excelled in every species of poetry, tragedy only excepted, and his published works fill more than one hundred octavo volumes.

Van der Palm (b. 1763) occupies the same place among the prose writers of the nineteenth century that Bilderdyk does among the poets. He held the highest position as a pulpit orator and member of the Council of State, and his discourses, orations, and other prose works are models of style, and are counted among the classics of the country. His great work, however, was the translation of the Bible.

Since the time of Bilderdyk and Van der Palm no remarkable genius has appeared in Holland.

Loosjes (d. 1806) added to his reputation as a poet by his historical romances, and Fokke (d. 1812) was a satirist of the follies and errors of his age. Among the historians who have devoted themselves to the history of foreign countries are Stuart, Van Hamelsveld, and Muntinghe, who, in a short space of time, enriched their native literature with more than sixty volumes of history, of a profoundly religious and philosophical character, which bear the stamp of originality and nationality.

The department of oratory in Dutch literature, with the exception of that of the pulpit, is poor, and this is to be explained in part by the fact that the deliberations of the States-General were always held with closed doors. Holland was an aristocratic republic, and the few families who monopolized the power had no disposition to share it with the people, who, on the other hand, were too much occupied with their own affairs and too confident of the wisdom and moderation of their rulers, to wish to mingle in the business of state. The National Assembly, however, from 1775 to 1800, had its orators, chiefly men carried into public life by the events of the age, but they were far inferior to those of other countries.

The impulse given to literature by Bilderdyk and Van der Palm is not arrested. Among the numerous authors who have since distinguished themselves, are Loots, a patriotic poet of the school of Vondel; Tollens, who ranks with the best native authors in descriptive poetry and romance; Wiselius, the author of several tragedies, a scholar and political writer; Klyn (d. 1856); Van Walré and Van Halmaal, dramatic poets of great merit; Da Costa and Madame Bilderdyk, who, as a poetess, shared the laurels of her husband. In romance, there are Anna Toussaint, Bogaers, and Jan Van Lennep, son of the celebrated professor of that name, who introduced into Holland historical romances modeled after those of Scott, and who contributed much to discard French and to popularize the national literature. In prose, De Vries must be named for his eloquent history of the poetry of the Netherlands; Van Kampen (1776-1839) for his historical works; Geysbeck for his biographical dictionary and anthology of the poets, and De s'Gravenweert, a poet and the translator of the Iliad and Odyssey. Von Hoevell is the author of a work on slavery, which appeared not many years since, the effect of which can be compared only to that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

In Belgium, Conscience is a successful author of fiction and history, and his works have been frequently translated into other languages. De Laet, one of the ablest writers of the country in connection with Conscience, has done much for the revival of Flemish literature, which now boasts of many original writers in various departments.

The literature of the Netherlands, like the people, is earnest, religious, always simple, and often elevated and sublime. It is especially distinguished for its reflective and patriotic character, and bears the mark of that accurate study of the classic models which has formed the basis of the national education, and to which its purity of taste, naturalness, and simplicity are undoubtedly to be attributed. There exists no nation of equal population which, within the course of two or three centuries, has produced a greater number of eminent men.

From the age of Hooft and Vondel to the present day, though the Dutch literature may have submitted at times to foreign influence, and though, like all others, it may have paid its tribute to the fashions and faults of the day, it has still preserved its nationality, and is worthy of being known and admired.

SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE.

1. Introduction. The Ancient Scandinavians; their Influence on the English Race.--2. The Mythology.--3. The Scandinavian Languages.--4. Icelandic, or Old Norse Literature: the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Scalds, the Sagas, the "Heimskringla," The Folks-Sagas and Ballads of the Middle Ages.--5. Danish Literature: Saxo Grammaticus and Theodoric; Arreboe, Kingo, Tycho Brahe, Holberg, Evald, Baggesen, Oehlenschläger, Grundtvig, Blicher, Ingemann, Heiberg, Gyllenbourg, Winther, Hertz, Müller, Hans Andersen, Plong, Goldschmidt, Hastrup, and others; Malte Brun, Rask, Rafn, Magnusen, the brothers Oersted.--6. Swedish Literature: Messenius, Stjernhjelm, Lucidor, and others. The Gallic period: Dalin, Nordenflycht, Crutz and Gyllenborg, Gustavus III., Kellgren, Leopold, Oxenstjerna. The New Era: Bellman, Hallman, Kexel, Wallenberg, Lidnor, Thorild, Lengren, Franzen, Wallin. The Phosphorists: Atterborn, Hammarsköld, and Palmblad. The Gothic School: Geijer, Tegnér, Stagnelius, Almquist, Vitalis, Runeberg, and others. The Romance Writers: Cederborg, Bremer, Carlén, Knorring. Science: Swedenborg, Linnaeus, and others.

1. INTRODUCTION.--It is a singular fact that the progressive and expanding spirit which characterizes the English race should be so universally referred to their Anglo-Saxon blood, while the transcendent influence of the Scandinavian element is entirely overlooked. The so-called Anglo- Saxons were a handful of people in Holstein, where they may still be found in inglorious obscurity, the reluctant subjects of Denmark. The early emigrants who bore that name, were, it is true, from various portions of Germany; but even if the glory of our English ancestry be transferred from Anglen, and spread over the whole country, we find a race bearing no resemblance to the English in their more active and powerful qualities, but an intellectual people, possessed of a patient and conceding nature, which, without other more aspiring attributes, doubtless would have left the English people in the same condition of political slavery that the Germans continue in to this day. Of all those institutions so commonly and gratuitously ascribed to them, of representative government, trial by jury, and such machinery of political and social independence, there is not a vestige to be found in any age in Germany, from the Christian era to the present time. During the period of their dominion in England, the Anglo-Saxons, so far from showing themselves an enterprising people were notoriously weak, slothful, and degenerate, overrun by the Danes, and soon permanently subjected by the Normans. It is evident, from the trifling resistance they made, that they had neither energy to fight, nor property, laws, nor institutions to defend, and that they were merely serfs on the lands of the nobles or of the church, who had nothing to lose by a change of masters. It is to the renewal of the original spirit of the Anglo- Saxons, by the fresh infusion of the Danish conquerors into a very large proportion of the whole population, in the eleventh century, that we must look for the actual origin of the national character and institutions of the English people, and for that check of popular opinion and will upon arbitrary rule which grew up by degrees, and which slowly but necessarily produced the English law, character, and institutions. These belong not to the German or Anglo-Saxon race settled in England previous to the tenth or eleventh century, but to that small, cognate branch of Northmen or Danes, who, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, brought their paganism, energy, and social institutions to conquer, mingle with, and invigorate the inert descendants of the old race. That this northern branch of the common race has been the more influential in the society of modern Europe, we need only compare England and the United States with Saxony, Prussia, Hanover, or any country of strictly ancient Teutonic descent, to be satisfied. From whatever quarter civil, religious, and political liberty and independence of mind may have come, it was not from the banks of the Rhine or the forests of Germany.

The difference in the spirit of the two branches of the same original race was immense, even at the earliest period. When the Danes and Norwegians overran England, the Germans had, for six centuries, been growing more and more pliant to despotic government, and the Scandinavians more and more bold and independent. At home they elected their kings, and decided everything by the general voice of the Althing, or open Parliament. Abroad they became the most daring of adventurers; their Vikings spread themselves along the shores of Europe, plundering and planting colonies; they subdued England, seized Normandy, besieged Paris, conquered a large portion of Belgium, and made extensive inroads into Spain. They made themselves masters of lower Italy and Sicily under Robert Guiscard, in the eleventh century; during the Crusades they ruled Antioch and Tiberias, under Tancred; and in the same century they marched across Germany, and established themselves in Switzerland, where the traditions of their arrival, and traces of their language still remain. In 861 they discovered Iceland, and soon after peopled it; thence they stretched still farther west, discovered Greenland, and proceeding southward, towards the close of the tenth century they struck upon the shores of North America, it would appear, near the coast of Massachusetts. They seized on Novogorod, and became the founders of the Russian Empire, and of a line of Czars which became extinct only in 1598, when the Slavonic dynasty succeeded. From Russia they made their way to the Black Sea, and in 866 appeared before Constantinople, where their attacks were bought off only on the payment of large sums by the degenerate emperors. From. 902 to the fall of the empire, the emperors retained a large body-guard of Scandinavians, who, armed with double-edged battle-axes, were renowned through the world, under the name of Varengar, or the Väringjar of the old Icelandic Sagas.

Such were the ancient Scandinavians. To this extraordinary people the English and their descendants alone bear any resemblance. In them the old Norse fire still burns, and manifests itself in the same love of martial daring and fame, the same indomitable seafaring spirit, the same passion for the discovery of new seas and new lands, and the same insatiable longing, when discovered, to seize and colonize them.

2. THE MYTHOLOGY.--The mythology of the northern nations, as represented in the Edda, was founded on Polytheism; but through it, as through the religion of all nations, there is dimly visible, like the sun shining through a dense cloud, the idea of one Supreme Being, of infinite power, boundless knowledge, and incorruptible justice, who could not be represented by any corporeal form. Such, according to Tacitus, was the supreme God of the Germans, and such was the primitive belief of mankind. Doubtless, the poet priests, who elaborated the imaginative, yet philosophical mythology of the north, were aware of the true and only God, infinitely elevated above the attributes of that Nature, which they shaped into deities for the multitude whom they believed incapable of more than the worship of the material powers which they saw working in everything around them.

The dark, hostile powers of nature, such as frost and fire, are represented as giants, "jotuns," huge, chaotic demons; while the friendly powers, the sun, the summer heat, all vivifying principles, were gods. From the opposition of light and darkness, water and fire, cold and heat, sprung the first life, the giant Ymer and his evil progeny the frost giants, the cow Adhumla, and Bor, the father of the god Odin. Odin, with his brothers, slew the giant Ymer, and from his body formed the heavens and earth. From two stems of wood they also shaped the first man and woman, whom they endowed with life and spirit, and from whom descended all the human race.

There were twelve principal deities among the Scandinavians, of whom Odin was the chief. There is a tradition in the north of a celebrated warrior of that name, who, near the period of the Christian era, fled from his country, between the Caspian and the Black Sea, to escape the vengeance of the Romans, and marched toward the north and west of Europe, subduing all who opposed him, and finally established himself in Sweden, where he received divine honors. According to the Eddas, however, Odin was the son of Bor, and the most powerful of the gods; the father of Thor, Balder, and others; the god of war, eloquence, and poetry. He was made acquainted with everything that happened on earth, through two ravens, Hugin and Munin (mind and memory); they flew daily round the world, and returned every night to whisper in his ear all that they had seen and heard. Thor, the god of thunder, was the implacable and dreaded enemy of the giants, and the avenger and defender of the gods. His stature was so lofty that no horse could bear him, and lightning flashed from his eyes and from his chariot wheels as they rolled along. His mallet or hammer, his belt of strength and his gauntlets of iron, were of wonderful power, and with them he could overthrow the giants and monsters who were at war with the gods. Balder, the second son of Odin, was the noblest and fairest of the gods, beloved by everything in nature. He exceeded all beings in gentleness, prudence, and eloquence, and he was so fair and graceful that light emanated from him as he moved. In his palace nothing impure could exist. The death of Balder is the principal event in the mythological drama of the Scandinavians. It was foredoomed, and a prognostic of the approaching dissolution of the universe and of the gods themselves. Heimdall was the warder of the gods; his post was on the summit of Bifrost, called by mortals the rainbow--the bridge which connects heaven and earth, and down which the gods daily traveled to hold their councils under the shade of the tree Yggdrasil. The red color was the flaming fire, which served as a defense against the giants. Heimdall slept more lightly than a bird, and his ear was so exquisite that he could hear the grass grow in the meadows and the wool upon the backs of the sheep. He carried a trumpet, the sound of which echoed through all worlds. Loke was essentially of an evil nature, and descended from the giants, the enemies of the gods; but he was mysteriously associated with Odin from the infancy of creation. He instilled a spark of his fire into a man at his creation, and he was the father of three monsters, Hela or Death, the Midgard Serpent, and the wolf Fenris, the constant terror of the gods, and destined to be the means of their destruction.

Besides these deities, there were twelve goddesses, the chief of whom was Frigga, the wife of Odin, and the queen and mother of the gods. She knew the future, but never revealed it; and she understood the language of animals and plants. Freya was the goddess of love, unrivaled in grace and beauty--the Scandinavian Venus. Iduna was possessed of certain apples, of such virtue that, by eating of them, the gods became exempted from the consequences of old age, and retained, unimpaired, all the freshness of youth. The gods dwelt above, in Asgard, the garden of the Asen or the Divinities; the home of the giants, with whom they were in perpetual war, was Jotunheim, a distant, dark, chaotic land, of which Utgard was the chief seat. Midgard, or the earth, the abode of man, was represented as a disk in the midst of a vast ocean; its caverns and recesses were peopled with elves and dwarfs, and around it lay coiled the huge Midgard Serpent. Muspelheim, or Flameland, and Nifelheim or Mistland, lay without the organized universe, and were the material regions of light and darkness, the antagonism of which had produced the universe with its gods and men. Nifelheim was a dark and dreary realm, where Hela, or Death, ruled with despotic sway over those who had died ingloriously of disease or old age. Helheim, her cold and gloomy palace, was thronged with their shivering and shadowy spectres. She was livid and ghastly pale, and her very looks inspired horror.

The chief residence of Odin, in Asgard, was Valhalla, or the Hall of the Slain; it was hung round with golden spears, and shields, and coats of mail; and here he received the souls of warriors killed in battle, who were to assist him in the final conflict with the giants; and here, every day, they armed themselves for battle, and rode forth by thousands to their mimic combat on the plains of Asgard, and at night they returned to Valhalla to feast on the flesh of the boar, and to drink the intoxicating mead. Here dwelt, also, the numerous virgins called the Valkyriur, or Choosers of the Slain, whom Odin sent forth to every battle-field to sway the victory, to make choice of those who should fall in the combat, and to direct them on their way to Valhalla. They were called, also, the Sisters of War; they watched with intense interest over their favorite warriors and sometimes lent an ear to their love. In the field they were always in complete armor; led on by Skulda, the youngest of the Fates, they were foremost in battle, with helmets on their heads, armed with flaming swords, and surrounded by lightning and meteors. Sometimes they were seen riding through the air and over the sea on shadowy horses, from whose manes fell hail on the mountains and dew on the valleys; and at other times their fiery lances gleamed in the spectral lights of the aurora borealis; and again, they were represented clothed in white, with flowing hair, as cupbearers to the heroes at the feasts of Valhalla.

In the centre of the world stood the great ash tree Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, of which the Christmas tree and the Maypole of northern nations are doubtless emblems. It spread its life-giving arms through the heavens, and struck its three roots down through the three worlds. It nourished all life, even that of Nedhog, the most venomous of serpents, which continually gnawed at the root that penetrated Nifelheim. A second root entered the region of the frost giants, where was the well in which wisdom and understanding were concealed. A third root entered the region of the gods; and there, beside it, dwelt the three Nornor or Fates, over whom even the gods had no power, and who, every day, watered it from the primeval fountain, so that its boughs remained green.

The gods were benevolent spirits--the friends of mankind, but they were not immortal. A destiny more powerful than they or their enemies, the giants, was one day to overwhelm them. At the Ragnarök, or twilight of the gods, foretold in the Edda, the monsters shall be unloosed, the heavens be rent asunder, and the sun and moon disappear; the great Midgard Serpent shall lash the waters of the ocean till they overflow the earth; the wolf Fenris, whose enormous mouth reaches from heaven to earth, shall rush upon and devour all within his reach; the genii of fire shall ride forth, clothed in flame, and lead on the giants to the storming of Asgard. Heimdall sounds his trumpet, which echoes through all worlds; the gods fly to arms; Odin appears in his golden casque, his resplendent cuirass, with his vast scimitar in his hand, and marshals his heroes in battle array. The great ash tree is shaken to its roots, heaven and earth are full of horror and affright, and gods, giants, and heroes are at length buried in one common ruin. Then comes forth the mighty one, who is above all gods, who may not be named. He pronounces his decrees, and establishes the doctrines which shall endure forever. A new earth, fairer and more verdant, springs forth from the bosom of the waves, the fields bring forth without culture, calamities are unknown, and in Heaven, the abode of the good, a palace is reared, more shining than the sun, where the just shall dwell forevermore.

Traces of the worship of these deities by our pagan ancestors still remain in the names given to four days of the week. Tuesday was consecrated to Tyr, a son of Odin; Wednesday, Odin's or Wooden's day, to Odin; Thursday, or Thor's day, to Thor; and Friday, or Freya's day, was sacred to the goddess Freya.

3. THE LANGUAGE.--The Scandinavian or Norse languages include the Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian dialects.

The Icelandic or Old Norse, which was the common language of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, in the ninth century, was carried into Iceland, where, to the present time, it has wonderfully retained its early characteristics. The written alphabet was called Runic, and the letters, Runes, of which the most ancient specimens are the inscriptions on Rune stones, rings, and wooden tablets.

The Danish and Swedish, may be called the New Norse languages; they began to assume a character distinct from the Old Norse about the beginning of the twelfth century. The Danish language is not confined to Denmark, but is used in the literature, and by the cultivated society of Norway.

The Swedish is the most musical of the Scandinavian dialects, its pronunciation being remarkably soft and agreeable. Its character is more purely Norse than the Danish, which has been greatly affected by its contact with the German.

The Norwegian exists only in the form of dialects spoken by the peasantry. It is distinguished from the other two by a rich vocabulary of words peculiar to itself, and by its own pronunciation and peculiar construction; only literary cultivation is wanted to make it an independent language like the others.

4. ICELANDIC OR OLD NORSE LITERATURE.--In 868 one of the Norwegian vikings or sea rovers, being driven on the coast of Iceland, first made known the existence of the island. Harold, the fair-haired, having soon after subdued or slain the petty kings of Norway, and introduced the feudal system, many of the inhabitants, disdaining to sacrifice their independence, set forth to colonize this dreary and inhospitable region, whose wild and desolate aspect seemed to attract their imaginations. Huge mountains of ice here rose against the northern sky, from which the smoke of volcanoes rolled balefully up; and the large tracts of lava, which had descended from them to the sea, were cleft into fearful abysses, where no bottom could be found. Here were strange, desolate valleys, with beds of pure sulphur, torn and overhanging precipices, gigantic caverns, and fountains of boiling water, which, mingled with flashing fires, soared up into the air, amid the undergroans of earthquakes, and howlings and hissings as of demons in torture. Subterranean fires, in terrific contest with the wintry ocean, seemed to have made sport of rocks, mountains, and rivers, tossing them into the most fantastic and appalling shapes. Yet such was the fondness of the Scandinavian imagination for the wild and desolate, and such their hatred of oppression, that they soon peopled this chaotic island to an extent it has never since reached. In spite of the rigor of the climate, where corn refused to ripen, and where the labors of fishing and agriculture could only be pursued for four months of the year, the people became attached to this wild country. They established a republic which lasted four hundred years, and for ages it was destined to be the sanctuary and preserver of the grand old literature of the North. The people took with them their Scalds and their traditions, and for a century after the peopling of the island, they retained their Pagan belief. Ages rolled away; the religion of Odin had perished from the mainland, and the very hymns and poems in which its doctrines were recorded had perished with it, when, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Rhythmical Edda of Samund was discovered, followed by the Prose Edda of Snorre Sturleson. These discoveries roused the zeal of the Scandinavian literati, and led to further investigations, which resulted in the discovery of a vast number of chronicles and sagas, and much has since been done by the learned men of Iceland and Denmark to bring to light the remote annals of northern Europe.

These remains fall into the three divisions of Eddaic, Scaldic, and Saga literature. Samund the Wise (1056-1131), a Christian priest of Iceland, was the first to collect and commit to writing the oral traditions of the mythology and poetry of the Scandinavians. His collection has been termed the "Edda," a word by some supposed to signify grandmother, and by others derived, with more probability, from the obsolete word oeda, to teach. The elder or poetic Edda consists of thirty-eight poems, and is divided into two parts. The first, or mythological cycle, contains everything relating to the Scandinavian ideas of the creation of the world, the origin of man, the morals taught by the priests, and stories of the gods; the second, or heroic cycle, contains the original materials of the "Nibelungen Lied" of Germany. The poems consist of strophes of six or eight lines each, with little of the alliteration by which the Scalds were afterwards distinguished. One of the oldest and most interesting is the "Voluspa," or Song of the Prophetess, a kind of sibylline lay, which contains an account of the creation, the origin of man and of evil, and concludes with a prediction of the destruction and renovation of the universe, and a description of the future abodes of happiness and misery. "Vafthrudnir's Song" is in the form of a dialogue between Odin, disguised as a mortal, and the giant Vafthrudnir, in which the same subjects are discussed. "Grimner's Song" contains a description of twelve habitations of the celestial deities, considered as symbolical of the signs of the zodiac. "Rig's Song" explains, allegorically, the origin of the three castes: the thrall, the churl, and the noble, which, at a very early period, appear to have formed the framework of Scandinavian society. "The Havamal," or the High Song of Odin, is the complete code of Scandinavian ethics. The maxims here brought together more resemble the Proverbs of Solomon than anything in human literature, but without the high religious views of the Scripture maxims. It shows a worldly wisdom, experience, and sagacity, to which modern life can add nothing. In the Havamal is included the Rune Song.

Runes, the primitive rudely-shaped letters of the Gothic race, appear never to have been used to record their literature, which was committed to the Scalds and Sagamen, but they were reserved for inscriptions on rocks or memorial stones, or they were cut in staves of wood, as a rude calendar to assist the memory. Odin was the great master of runes, but all the gods, many of the giants, kings, queens, prophetesses, and poets possessed the secret of their power. In the ballads of the Middle Ages, long after the introduction of Christianity, we find everywhere the boast of Runic knowledge and of its power. Queens and princesses cast the runic spell over their enemies; ladies, by the use of runes, inspire warriors with love; and weird women by their means perform witchcraft and sorcery. Some of their rune songs taught the art of healing; others had power to stop flying spears in battle, and to excite or extinguish hatred and love. There were runes of victory inscribed on swords; storm runes, which gave power over sails, inscribed on rudders of ships, drink runes, which gave power over others, inscribed on drinking horns; and herb runes, cut in the bark of trees which cured sickness and wounds. These awful characters, which struck terror into the hearts of our heathen ancestors, and which appalled and subdued alike kings, warriors, and peasants, were simple letters of the alphabet; but they prove to what a stupenduous extent knowledge was power in the dark ages of the earth. The poet who sings the Rune Song in the Havamal does it with every combination of mystery, calculated to inspire awe and wonder in the hearer.

The two poems, "Odin's Raven Song" and the "Song of the Way-Tamer," are among the most deeply poetical hymns of the Edda. They relate to the same great event--the death of Balder--and are full of mystery and fear. A strange trouble has fallen upon the gods, the oracles are silent, and a dark, woeful foreboding seizes on all things living. Odin mounts his steed, Sleipner, and descends to hell to consult the Vala there in her tomb, and to extort from her, by runic incantations, the fate of his son. This "Descent of Odin" is familiar to the English reader through Gray's Ode. In all mythologies we have glimpses continually of the mere humanity of the gods, we witness their limited powers and their consciousness of a coming doom. In this respect every mythology is kept in infinite subordination to the true faith, in which all is sublime, infinite, and worthy of the Deity--in which God is represented as pure spirit, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain; and all assumption of divinity by false gods is treated as a base superstition.

The remaining songs of the first part of the Edda relate chiefly to the exploits, wanderings, and love adventures of the gods. The "Sun Song," with which it concludes, is believed to be the production of Samund, the collector of the Edda, In this he retains some of the machinery of the old creed, but introduces the Christian Deity and doctrines.

The second part of the elder Edda contains the heroic cycle of Icelandic poems, the first part of which is the Song of Voland. the renowned northern smith. The story of Voland, or Wayland, the Vulcan of the North, is of unknown antiquity; and his fame, which spread throughout Europe, still lives in the traditions of all northern nations. The poems concerning Sigurd and the Niflunga form a grand epic of the simplest construction. The versification consists of strophes of six or eight lines, without rhyme or alliteration. The sad and absorbing story here narrated was wonderfully popular throughout the ancient Scandinavian and Teutonic world, and it is impossible to say for how many centuries these great tragic ballads had agitated the hearts of the warlike races of the north. It is clear that Sigurd and Byrnhilda, with all their beauty, noble endowment, and sorrowful history, were real personages, who had taken powerful hold on the popular affections in the most ancient times, and had come down from age to age, receiving fresh incarnations and embellishments from the popular Scalds. There is a great and powerful nature living through these poems. They are pictures of men and women of godlike beauty and endowments, and full of the vigor of simple but impetuous natures. Though fragmentary, they stand in all the essentials of poetry far beyond the German Lied, and, in the tragic force of passion which they portray, they are superior to any remains of ancient poetry except that of Greece. Their greatness lies less in their language than their spirit, which is sublime and colossal. Passion, tenderness, and sorrow are here depicted with the most vivid power; and the noblest sentiments and the most heroic actions are crossed by the foulest crimes and the most terrific tragedies. They contain materials for a score of dramas of the most absorbing character.

The Prose or Younger Edda was the work of Snorre Sturleson (1178-1241), who was born of a distinguished Icelandic family, and, after leading a turbulent and ambitious life, and being twice supreme magistrate of the republic, was at last assassinated. The younger Edda repeats in prose the sublime poetry of the elder Edda, mixed with many extravagances and absurdities; and in point of literary and philosophical value it bears no comparison with it. It marks the transition from the art of the Scalds to the prose relation of the Sagaman. This work concludes with a treatise on the poetic phraseology of the Scalds, and a system of versification by Snorre.

The Bard, or Scald (literally smoothers of language, from scaldre, to polish), formed an important feature of the courts of the princes and more powerful nobles. They often acted, at the same time, as bard, councilor, and warrior. Until the twelfth century, when the monks and the art of writing put an end to the Scaldic art, this race of poets continued to issue from Iceland, and to travel from country to country, welcomed as the honored guests of kings, and receiving in return for their songs, rings and jewels of great value, but never money. There is preserved a list of two hundred and thirty scalds, who had distinguished themselves from the time of Ragnor Lodbrok to that of Vladimir II., or from the latter end of the eighth, to the beginning of the thirteenth century. Ragnor Lodbrok was a Danish king, who, in one of his predatory excursions, was taken prisoner in England and thrown into a dungeon, to be stung to death by serpents. His celebrated death song is said to have been composed during his torments. The best of the scaldic lays, however, are greatly inferior to the Eddaic poems. Alliteration is the chief characteristic of the versification.

The word Saga means literally a tale or narrative, and is used in Iceland to denote every species of tradition, whether fabulous or true. In amount, the Saga literature of ancient Scandinavia is surprisingly extensive, consisting of more than two hundred volumes. The Sagas are, for the most part, unconnected biographies or narratives of greater or less length, principally describing events which took place from the ninth to the thirteenth century. They are historical, mythic, heroic, and romantic.

The first annalist of Iceland of whom we have any remains was Ari the Wise (b. 1067), the contemporary of Samund, and his annals, for the most part, have been lost. Snorre Sturleson, already spoken of as the collector of the Prose Edda, was the author of a great original work, the "Heimskringla," or Home-Circle, so called from the first word of the manuscript, a most admirable history of a great portion of northern Europe from the period of the Christian Era to 1177, including every species of Saga composition. It traces Odin and his followers from the East, from Asaland and Asgard, its chief city, to their settlement in Scandinavia. It narrates the contests of the kings, the establishment of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the Viking expeditions, the discovery and settlement of Iceland and Greenland, the discovery of America, and the conquests of England and Normandy. The stories are told with a life and freshness that belong only to true genius, and a picture is given of human life in all its reality, genuine, vivid, and true. Some of the Sagas of the "Heimskringla" are grand romances, full of brilliant adventures, while at the same time they lie so completely within the range of history that they may be regarded as authentic. That of Harold Haardrada narrates his expedition to the East, his brilliant exploits in Constantinople, Syria, and Sicily, his scaldic accomplishments, and his battles in England against Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, where he fell only a few days before Godwin's son himself fell at the battle of Hastings. This Saga is a splendid epic in prose, and is particularly interesting to the English race. The first part of the "Heimskringla" is necessarily derived from tradition; as it advances fable and fact all curiously intermingle, and it terminates in authentic history.

Among the most celebrated Sagas of the remaining divisions are the "Sagas of Erik the Wanderer," who went in search of the Island of Immortality; "Frithiof's Saga," made the subject of Tegnér's great poem; the Saga of Ragnor Lodbrok, of Dietrich of Bern, and the Volsunga Saga, relating to the ancestors of Sigurd or Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen Lied. There are, besides, Sagas of all imaginable fictions of heroes, saints, magicians, conquerors, and fair women. Almost every leading family of Iceland had its written saga. The Sagamen, like the Scalds, traveled over all Scandinavia, visited the courts and treasured up and transmitted to posterity the whole history of the North. This wonderful activity of the Scandinavian mind from the ninth to the thirteenth century, both in amount and originality, throws completely into the shade the literary achievements of the Anglo-Saxons during the same period.

When Christianity superseded the ancient religion, the spirit and traditions of the old mythology remained in the minds of the people, and became their fireside literature under the name of "Folk Sagas." Their legends and nursery tales are diffused over modern Scandinavia, and appear, with many variations, through all the literature of Europe. Among them are found the originals of "Jack the Giant Killer," "Cinderella," "Blue Beard," the "Little Old Woman Cut Shorter," "The Giant who smelt the Blood of an Englishman," and many others.

The Folk Sagas have only recently been collected, but they are the true productions of ancient Scandinavians.

The art of the Scald and Sagaman, which was extinguished with the introduction of Christianity, revived after a time in the Romances of Chivalry and the popular ballads. These ballads are classified as heroic, supernatural, historic, and ballads of love and romance; they successively describe all the changes in the life and opinions of society, and closely resemble those of England, Scotland, and Germany. They are the common expression of the life and feelings of a common race, under the prevailing influences of the same period, and the same stories often inspired the nameless bards of both countries. They are composed in the same form and possess the same curious characteristic of the refrain or chorus which distinguishes this poetry in its transition from the epic to the lyric form. They express a peculiar poetic feeling which is sought for in vain in the epic age--a sentiment which, without art and without name, wanders on until it is caught up by fresh lips, and becomes the regular interpreter of the same feelings. Thus this simple voice of song travels onward from mouth to month, from heart to heart, the language of the general sorrows, hopes, and memories; strange, and yet near to every one, centuries old, yet never growing older, since the human heart, whose history it relates in so many changing images and notes, remains forever the same.

Though the great majority of the popular ballads of Scandinavia are attributed to the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the composition of them by no means ceased then. This voice of the people continued more or less to find expression down to the close of the last century, when it became the means of leading back its admirers to truth and genuine feeling, and, more than anything else, contributed to the revival of a new era in literature.

5. DANISH LITERATURE--In taking leave of the splendid ancient literature of Scandinavia, we find before us a waste of nearly four centuries from the thirteenth, which presents scarcely a trace of intellectual cultivation. The ballads and tales, indeed, lingered in the popular memory and heart; fresh notes of genuine music were from time to time added to them, and they form the connecting link between the ancient and modern literature. Saxo Grammaticus and Theodoric the monk, in the thirteenth century, adopted the Latin language in their chronicles of Denmark and Norway, and from that time it usurped the place of the native tongue among the educated. In the sixteenth century the spirit of the Reformation began to exert an influence, and the Bible was translated into the popular tongue. New fields of thought were opened, a passion for literature was excited, and translations, chiefly from the German, were multiplied; a knowledge of the classics was cultivated, and, in time, a noble harvest of literature followed.

The first author who marks the new era is Arreboe (1587-1637), who has been called the Chaucer of Denmark. His chief work was the "Hexameron," or "The World's First Week." It abounds with learning, and displays great poetic beauty. The religious psalms and hymns of Kingo (1634-1703) are characterized by a simple yet powerfully expressed spirit of piety, and are still held in high esteem. His Morning and Evening Prayers, or, as he beautifully terms them, "Sighs," are admirable.

Many other names of note are found in the literature of this period, but the only one who achieved a world-wide celebrity, was Tycho Brahe (1546- 1601), who, for a time, was the centre of a brilliant world of science and literature. The learned and celebrated, from all countries, visited him, and he was loaded with gifts and honors, in return for the honor which he conferred upon his native land. But at length, through the machinations of his enemies, he lost the favor of the king, and was forced to exile himself forever from his country. The services rendered to astronomy by Tycho Brahe were great, although his theory of the universe, in which our own planet constituted the centre, has given way before the more profound one of Copernicus.

Holberg (1684-1754), a native of Norway, is commonly styled the creator of the modern literature of Denmark, and would take a high place in that of any country. In the field of satire and comedy he was a great and unquestionable master. All his actors are types, and are as real and existent at the present hour as they were actual when he sketched them. Besides satires and numerous comedies, Holberg was the author of various histories, several volumes of letters, and a book of fables.

The principal names which appear in Danish literature, from Holberg to Evald, are those of Stub, Sneedorf, Tullin, and Sheersen. Evald (1743- 1780) was the first who perceived the superb treasury of poetic wealth which lay in the far antiquity of Scandinavia, among the gods of the Odinic mythology, and who showed to his nation the grandeur and beauty which the national history had reserved for the true poetic souls who should dare to appropriate them. But the sound which he drew from the old heroic harp startled his contemporaries, while it did not fascinate them. The august figures which he brought before them seemed monstrous and uncouth. Neglected in life, and doomed to an early death, the history of this poet was painfully interesting; a strangely brilliant web of mingled gold and ordinary thread--a strangely blended fabric of glory and of grief. Solitary, poor, bowed down with physical and mental suffering, from his heart's wound, as out of a dark cleft in a rock, swelled the clear stream of song. The poem of "Adam and Eve," "Rolf Krage," the first original Danish tragedy, "Balder's Death," and "The Fishermen," are his principal productions. "Rolf Krage" is the outpouring of a noble heart, in which the most generous and exalted sentiments revel in all the inexperience of youth. "Balder's Death" is a masterpiece of beauty, sentiment, and eloquence of diction. It is full of the passion of an unhappy love, and thus expresses the burning emotions of the poet's own heart. The old northern gods and mythic personages are introduced, and the lyric element is blended with the dramatic. The lyrical drama of "The Fishermen" is perhaps the most perfect and powerful of all Evald's works. The intense interest it excites testifies to the power of the writer, while the music of the versification delights the ear. His lyric of "King Christian," now the national song of Denmark, is a masterly production of its kind.

During the forty years which succeeded the death of Evald, Denmark produced a great number of poets and authors of various kinds, who advanced the fame of their country; but the chief of those who closed the eighteenth century are Baggesen (1764-1826) and Rahbek (1760-1830). Though they still wrote in the nineteenth century, they belonged in spirit essentially to the eighteenth. The life of Baggesen was a genuine romance, with all its sunshine and shade. He was born in poverty and obscurity, and when a child of seven years old, on one occasion, attracted the momentary attention of the young and lovely Queen Caroline, who took him in her arms and kissed him. "Still, after half a century," he writes, "glows the memory of that kiss; to all eternity I shall never forget it. From that kiss sprang the germ of my entire succeeding fate." After a long and severe struggle with poverty, he suddenly found himself the most popular poet of the country, and for a quarter of a century he was the petted favorite of the nation. Supplanted in public favor by the rising glory of Oehlenschläger, he had the misfortune to see the poetic crown of Denmark placed on the head of his rival; and the last years of his life were embittered by disappointment and care. The works of Baggesen fill twelve volumes, and consist of comic stories, numerous letters, satires and impassioned lyrics, songs and ballads, besides dramas and operas. His "Poems to Nanna," who, in the northern mythology, is the bride of Balder, are among the most beautiful in the Danish language, and no poet could have written them until he had gone through the deep and ennobling baptism of suffering. In these, Nanna is the symbol of the pure and eternal principle of love, and Balder is the type of the human heart, perpetually yearning after it in sorrow, yet in hope. Nanna appears lost--departed into a higher and invisible world; and Balder, while forever seeking after her, bears with him an internal consciousness that there he shall overtake her, and possess her eternally. One of Baggesen's characteristics was the projection of great schemes, which were never accomplished. He was too fond of living in the present--in the charmed circle of admiring friends-- to achieve works otherwise within the limit of his powers. Bat with all his faults, his works will always remain brilliant and beautiful amid the literary wealth of his country.

In the early part of the nineteenth century the new light which radiated from Germany found its way into Denmark, and in no country was the result so rapid or so brilliant. There soon arose a school of poets who created for themselves a reputation in all parts of Europe that would have done honor to any age or country. A new epoch in the language began with Oehlenschläger (1779-1856), the greatest poet of Denmark, and the representative, not only of the North, but, like Scott, Byron, Goethe, and Schiller, the outgrowth of a great era as well, and the incarnation of the broader and more natural spirit of his time. In 1819 he published the "Gods of the North," in which he combines all the legends of the Edda into one connected whole. He entered fully into the spirit of these grand old poems, and condensed and elaborated them into one. In the various regions of gods, giants, dwarfs, and men, in the striking variety of characters, the great and wise Odin, the mighty Thor, the good Balder, the malicious Loke, the queenly Frigga, the genial Freya, the lovely Iduna, the gentle Nanna--in all the magnificent scenery of Midgard, Asgard, and Nifelheim, with the glorious tree Yggdrasil and the rainbow bridge, the poet found inexhaustible scope for poetical embellishment, and he availed himself of it all with a genuine poet's power. The dramas of Oehlenschläger are his masterpieces, but they form only a small portion of his works. His prose stories and romances fill several volumes, and his smaller poems would of themselves have established almost a greater reputation than that of any Danish poet who went before him.

Grundtvig (b. 1783) is one of the most original and independent minds of the North. As a preacher he was fervid and eloquent; as a writer on the Scandinavian mythology and hero-life, he gave, perhaps, the truest idea of the spirit of the northern myths.

Blicher (1782-1868) was a stern realist, who made his native province of Jutland the scene of his poems and stories, which in many respects resemble those of Crabbe.

Ingemann (1789-1862) is a voluminous writer in every department of literature. His historical romances are the delight of the people, who, by their winter firesides, forget their snow-barricaded woods and mountains in listening to his pages.

Heiberg (1791-1860) as a critic ruled the Danish world of taste for many years, and by his writings did much to elevate dramatic art and public sentiment. The greatest authoress that Denmark has produced is the Countess Gyllenbourg (1773-1856). Her knowledge of life, sparkling wit, and faultless style, make her stories, the authorship of which was unknown before her death, masterpieces of their kind.

The greatest pastoral lyrist of this country is Winther (1796-1876). His descriptions of scenery and rural life have an extraordinary charm. Hertz (1796-1870) is the most cosmopolitan Danish writer of his time. Müller (1809-1876) is celebrated for his comedies, tragedies, lyrics, and satires, all of which prove the immense breadth of his compass and the inexhaustible riches of his imagination.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is known to the English reader by his stories and legends for the young, his romances, and autobiography. He was born of humble peasants, and early attracted the attention of persons in power, who, with that liberality to youthful genius so characteristic of Denmark, enabled him to enter the university, and afterwards to travel over Europe. The "Improvisatore" is considered the best of his romances.

Three writers connect the age of romanticism with the present day,--Plong (b. 1812), a vigorous politician and poet; Goldschmidt (b. 1818), author of novels and poems in the purest Danish; Hastrup (b. 1818), the author of a series of comedies unrivaled in delicacy and wit.

Among the names distinguished in science are those of Malte Brun in geography; Rask, Grundtvig, Molbech, Warsaae, Rafn, Finn Magnusen and others in philology and literary antiquities. Of the two brothers Oersted, one, a lawyer and statesman, has done much to establish the principles of state economy, while the discoveries of the other entitle him to the highest rank in physical science.

6. SWEDISH LITERATURE.--The first independent literature of modern Scandinavia was, as we have seen, the popular songs and ballads which, during the Middle Ages, kept alive the germ of intellectual life. The effect of the Reformation was soon seen in the literature of Sweden, as of other countries. The first intellectual development displayed itself in the dramatic attempt of Messenius and his son, who changed and substituted actual history for legendary and scriptural subjects. The genius of Sweden, however, is essentially lyrical, rather than dramatic or epic. Stjernhjelm (1598-1672) was a writer of great merit,--the author of many dramas, lyrics, and epic and didactic poems. He so far surpassed his contemporaries that he decided the character of his country's literature for a century; but his influence was finally lost in the growing Italian and German taste. The principal names of this period are those of Lucidor, a wild, erratic genius; Mrs. Brenner, the first female writer of Sweden, whose numerous poems are distinguished for their neat and easy style; and Spegel (d. 1711), whose Psalms, full of the simplest beauty, give him a lasting place in the literature of the country. The literary taste of Sweden, in the seventeenth century, made great progress; native genius awoke to conscious power, and the finest productions of Europe were quoted and commented on.

During the eighteenth century, French taste prevailed all over Europe; not only the manners, etiquette, and toilets of France were imitated, the fashion of its literature was also adopted. Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Boileau stamped their peculiar philosophy of literature on the greater portion of the civilized world. Imagination was frozen by these cold, glittering models; life and originality became extinct, imitator followed upon imitator, until there was a universal dearth of soul; and men gravely asserted that everything had been said and done in poetry and literature that could be said and done. What a glorious reply has since been given to this utterance of inanity and formalism, in a countless host of great and original names, all the world knows. But in no country was this Gallomania more strongly and enduringly prevalent than in Sweden. The principal writers of the early part of the Gallic period are Dalin, Nordenflycht, Creutz, and Gyllenborg. As a prose writer, rather than a poet, Dalin deserves remembrance. He established a periodical in imitation of the "Spectator," and through this conferred the same benefits on Swedish literature that Addison conferred on that of England,--a great improvement in style, and the origination of a national periodical literature. Charlotte Nordenflycht (b. 1718) is called the Swedish Sappho. Her poetry is all love and sorrow, as her life was; in a better age she would have been a better poetess, for she possessed great feeling, passion, and imagination. She exerted a wide influence on the literary life of her time, in the capital, where the coteries which sprung up about her embraced all the poets of the day. Gyllenborg and Creutz were deficient in lyric depth, and were neither of them poets of the first order.

Of the midday of the Gallic era, the king, Gustavus III. (1771-1792), Kellgren, Leopold, and Oxenstjerna are the chiefs. Gustavus was a master of rhetoric, and in all his poetical tendencies fast bound to the French system. He was, however, the true friend of literature, and did whatever lay in his power to promote it, and to honor and reward literary men. In 1786 he established the Swedish Academy, which for a long time continued to direct the public taste. As an orator, Gustavus has rarely found a rival in the annals of Sweden, and his dramas in prose possess much merit, and are still read with interest.

Kellgren (1751-1795) was the principal lyric poet of this period. His works betray a tendency to escape from the bondage of his age, and open a new spring-time in Swedish poetry. For his own fame, and that of his age, his early death was a serious loss. Leopold (1756-1829) continued to sway the literary sceptre, after the death of Kellgren, for the remainder of the century. He is best known by his dramas and miscellaneous poems. His plays have the faults that belong to his school, but many of his poems abound with striking thoughts, and are elastic and graceful in style. The great writer of this period, however, was Oxenstjerna (1750-1818), a descriptive poet, who, with all the faults of his age and school, displays a deep feeling for nature. His pictures of simple life, amid the fields and woods of Sweden, are full of idyllic beauty and attractive grace.

As the French taste overspread Europe at very nearly the same time, so its influence decayed and died out almost simultaneously. In France itself, long before the close of the eighteenth century, elements were at work destined to produce the most extraordinary changes in the political, social, and literary condition of the world. Even those authors who were most French were most concerned in preparing this astounding revolution. In many countries it was not the French doctrines, but the French events, that startled, dazzled, and excited the human heart and imagination, and produced the greatest effects on literature. Those who sympathized least with French views were often most influenced by the magnificence of the scenes which swept over the face of the civilized world, and antagonism was not less potent than sympathy to arouse the energies of mind. But even before these movements had produced any marked effect, Gallic influence began to give way, and genius began freely to range the earth and choose its materials wherever God and man were to be found.

The heralds of the new era in Sweden were Bellman, Hallman, Kexel, Wallenberg, Lidner, Thorild, and Lengren. Bellman (1740-1795) is regarded by the Swedes with great enthusiasm. There is something so perfectly national in his spirit that he finds an echo of infinite delight in all Swedish hearts. Everything patriotic, connected with home life and feelings, home memories, the loves and pleasures of the past, all seem to be associated with the songs of Bellman. Hallman, his friend, wrote comedies and farces. His characters are drawn from the bacchanalian class described in Bellman's lyrics, but they are not sufficiently varied in their scope and sphere to create an actual Swedish drama. Kexel, the friend of the two last named, lived a gay and vagabond life, and is celebrated for his comedies. Wallenberg was a clergyman, full of the enjoyment of life, and disposed to see the most amusing side of everything. Lidner and Thorild, unlike the writers just named, were grave, passionate, and sorrowful. Lidner was a nerve-sick, over-excited genius; but many of his inspired thoughts struck deep into the heart of the time, and Swedish literature is highly indebted to Thorild for the spirit of manly freedom and the principles of sound reasoning and taste which he introduced into it.

One of the most interesting names of the transition period is that of Anna Maria Lengren (1754-1811). She has depicted the scenes of domestic and social life with a skill and firmness, yet a delicacy of touch that is perhaps more difficult of attainment than the broad lines of a much more ambitious style. Her scenes and personages are all types, and her heroes and heroines continually present themselves in Swedish life in perpetual and amusing reproduction. These poems will secure her a place among the classical writers of her country.

The political revolution of 1809 secured the freedom of the press, new men arose for the new times, and a deadly war was waged between the old school and the new, until the latter triumphed. The first distinguished names of the new school are those of Franzén and Wallin. Franzén (1772-1847), a bishop, was celebrated for his lyrics of social life, and in many points resembles Wordsworth. The qualities of heart, the home affections, and the gladsome and felicitous appreciation of the beauty of life and nature found in his poems, give him his great charm. Archbishop Wallin (1779- 1839) is the great religious poet of Sweden. In his hymns there is a strength and majesty, a solemn splendor and harmony of intonation, that have no parallel in the Swedish language.

Among other writers of the time are Atterbom, Hammarsköld, and Palmblad. The works of Atterbom (b. 1790) indicate great lyrical talent, but they have an airy unreality, which disappoints the healthy appetite of modern readers. Hammarsköld (1785-1827) was an able critic and literary historian, though his poems are of little value. Palmblad, besides being a critic, is the author of several novels and translations from the Greek. These three writers belonged to the Phosphoric School, so called from a periodical called "The Phosphorus," which advocated their opinions.

The most distinguished school in Swedish literature is the Gothic, which took its rise in 1811, and which, aiming at a national spirit and character, embraced in that nationality all the Gothic race as one original family, possessing the same ancestry, original religion, traditions, and even still the same spirit, predilections, and language, although broken into several dialects. This new school had truth, nature, and the spirit of the nation and the times with it, and it speedily triumphed. First in the rank of its originators may be placed Geijer (1783-1847), who was at once a poet, musician, and historian; his poems are among the most precious treasures of Swedish literature. In his "Chronicles of Sweden" he penetrates far into the mists and darkness of antiquity, and brings thence magnificent traces of men and ages that point still onward to the times and haunts of the world's youth. The work presents all that belongs to the North, its gods, its mythic doctrines, its grand traditions, its heroes, vikings, runes, and poets, carrying whole ages of history in their trains. In his hands the dry bones of history and chronology live like the actual flesh and blood of the present time. As Geijer is the first historian of Sweden, so is Tegnér (1782-1848) the first poet; and in his "Frithiof's Saga" he has made the nearest approach to a successful epic writer. Although this poem has rather the character of a series of lyrical poems woven into an epic cycle, it is still a complete and great poem. It is characterized by tender, sensitive, and delicate feeling rather than by deep and overwhelming passion. In the story he has, for the most part, adhered to the ancient Saga. Tegner is as yet only the most popular poet of Sweden; but the bold advance which he has made beyond the established models of the country shows what Swedish poets may yet accomplish by following on in the track of a higher and freer enterprise. The other most prominent poets of the new school are Stagnelius (1793-1828), who bears a strong resemblance to Shelley in his tendency to the mythic and speculative, and in his wonderful power of language and affluence of inspired phrase; Almquist (d. 1866), an able and varied writer, who has written with great wit, brilliancy, and power in almost every department; Vitalis (d. 1828), the author of some religious poetry; Dahlgren, an amusing author, and Fahlcrantz, who wrote "Noah's Ark," a celebrated humorous poem. Runeberg, one of the truest and greatest poets of the North, is a Finn by birth, though he writes in Swedish; with all the wild melancholy character of his country he mingles a deep feeling of its sufferings and its wrongs. His verse is solemn and strong, like the spirit of its subject. He brings before you the wild wastes and the dark woods of his native land, and its brave, simple, enduring people. You feel the wind blow fresh from the vast, dark woodlands; you follow the elk- hunters through the pine forests or along the shores of remote lakes; you lie in desert huts and hear the narratives of the struggles of the inhabitants with the ungenial elements, or their contentions with more ungenial men. Runeberg seizes on life wherever it presents itself in strong and touching forms,--in the beggar, the gypsy, or the malefactor,-- it is enough for him that it is human nature, doing and suffering, and in these respects he stands preeminently above all the poets of Sweden.

Besides the poets already spoken of, there are many others who cannot here be even named.

If the literature of Sweden is almost wholly modern, its romance literature is especially so. Cederborg was not unlike Dickens in his peculiar walk and character, and in all his burlesque there is something kind, amiable, and excellent. He was followed by many others, who displayed much talent, correct sketching of costumes and manners, and touches of true descriptive nature.

But an authoress now appeared who was to create a new era in Swedish novel-writing, and to connect the literary name and interests of Sweden more intimately with the whole civilized world. In 1828, Fredrika Bremer (1802-1865) published her first works, which were soon followed by others, all of which attracted immediate attention. Later they were made known to the English and American public through the admirable translations of Mrs. Howitt, and now they are as familiar as "Robinson Crusoe," or the "Vicar of Wakefield," wherever the English language is spoken. Wherever these works have been known they have awakened a more genial judgment of life, a better view of the world and its destinies, a deeper trust in Providence, and a persuasion that to enjoy existence truly ourselves is to spread that enjoyment around us to our fellow-men, and especially by the daily evidences of good-will, affection, cheerfulness, and graceful attention to the feelings of others, which, in the social and domestic circle, are so small in their appearance, but immense in their consequences. As a teacher of this quiet, smiling, but deeply penetrating philosophy of life, no writer has yet arisen superior to Fredrika Bremer, while she has all the time not even professed to teach, but only to entertain.

The success of Miss Bremer's writings produced two contemporaneous female novelists of no ordinary merit--the Baroness Knorring (d. 1833) and Emily Carlon (b. 1833). The works of the former are distinguished by a brilliant wit and an extraordinary power of painting life and passion, while a kind and amiable feeling pervades those of the latter. Among the later novelists of Sweden are many names distinguished in other departments of literature.

In conclusion, there are in Sweden hosts of able authors in whose hands all sciences, history, philology, antiquities, theology, every branch of natural and moral philosophy and miscellaneous literature have been elaborated with a talent and industry of which any nation might be proud. Among the names of a world-wide fame are those, of Swedenborg (1688-1772), not more remarkable for his peculiar religious ideas than for his profound and varied acquirements in science; Linnaeus (1707-1778), the founder of the established system of botany; and Scheele (1742-1786), eminent in chemistry.

If the literature of Scandinavia continues to develop during the present century with the strength and rapidity it has manifested during the last, it will present to the mind of the English race rich sources of enjoyment of a more congenial spirit than that of any other part of the European continent; and the more this literature Is cultivated the more it will be perceived that we are less an Anglo-Saxon than a Scandinavian race.

The last few years in Sweden have been a period of political rather than literary activity, yielding comparatively few works of high aesthetic value, Rydborg, a statesman and metaphysician, has produced a powerful work of fiction, "The Last Athenian," and other works of minor importance have been produced in various departments of literature.

LITERATURE OF NORWAY.--Norway cannot be said to have had a literature distinct from the Danish until after its union with Sweden in 1814. The period from that time to the present has been one of great literary activity in all departments, and many distinguished names might be mentioned, among them that of Björnson (b. 1832), whose tales have been extensively translated. Jonas Lie who enjoys a wide popularity, Camilla Collett, and Magdalene Thoresen are also favorite writers. Wergeland and Welhaven were two distinguished poets of the first half of the century. Kielland is an able novelist of the realistic school, and Professor Boyesen is well known in the United States for his tales and poems in English. Henrick Ibsen is the most distinguished dramatic writer of Norway and belongs to the realistic school. Among other writers of the present time are Börjesson whose "Eric XIV." is a masterpiece of Swedish drama; Tekla Knös, a poetess whose claims have been sanctioned by the Academy; and Claude Gérard (nom de plume), very popular as a novelist. Charles XV. and Oscar II. are poets of merit.

GERMAN LITERATURE.

INTRODUCTION.--1. German Literature and its Divisions.--2. The Mythology. --3. The Language.

PERIOD FIRST.--1. Early Literature; Translation of the Bible by Ulphilas; the Hildebrand Lied.--2. The Age of Charlemagne; his Successors; the Ludwig's Lied; Roswitha; the Lombard Cycle.--3. The Suabian Age; the Crusades; the Minnesingers; the Romances of Chivalry; the Heldenbuch; the Nibelungen Lied.--4. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries; the Mastersingers; Satires and Fables; Mysteries and Dramatic Representations; the Mystics; the Universities; the Invention of Printing.

PERIOD SECOND.--From 1517 to 1700.--1. The Lutheran Period: Luther, Melanchthon.--2. Manuel, Zwingle, Fischart, Franck, Arnd, Boehm.--3. Poetry, Satire, and Demonology; Paracelsus and Agrippa; the Thirty Years' War.--4. The Seventeenth Century: Opitz, Leibnitz, Puffendorf, Kepler, Wolf, Thomasius, Gerhard; Silesian Schools; Hoffmannswaldau, Lohenstein.

PERIOD THIRD.--1. The Swiss and Saxon Schools: Gottsched, Bodmer, Rabener, Gellert, Kästner, and others.--2. Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland, and Herder. --3. Goethe and Schiller.--4. The Göttingen School: Voss, Stolberg, Claudius, Bürger, and others.--5. The Romantic School: the Schlegels, Novalis; Tieck, Körner, Arndt, Uhland, Heine, and others.--6. The Drama: Goethe and Schiller; the Power Men; Müllner, Werner, Howald, and Grillparzer.--7. Philosophy: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann; Science: Liebig, Du Bois-Raymond, Virchow, Helmholst, Haeckel.--8. Miscellaneous Writings.

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