Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain

Transcriber’s Note: There is a good deal of inconsistency with regard to spelling, accents etc in the Spanish passages of this text. These have been preserved as printed rather than attempting to correct or standardise.

MODERN POETS AND POETRY OF SPAIN.
By JAMES KENNEDY, Esq., HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S JUDGE IN THE MIXED COURT OF JUSTICE AT THE HAVANA.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 1860.


My Lord,
I have sought permission to inscribe your Lordship’s name on this page, as a favour appropriate to my work, under the considerations in which it originated.
I began these translations, partly as a means of acquiring an accurate knowledge of the Spanish language, and partly as a relaxation from other studies and pursuits, about the time when your Lordship, in the course of your statesmanlike visit to America, made, in 1842, a lengthened stay in Cuba, studying the circumstances of those countries, which are soon, perhaps, to take a yet more prominent place, than they do at present, in the history of the world.

The discussions I heard respecting that visit—for it was then considered an extraordinary one—raised in my mind many suggestions, as to the benefits that must accrue to the public from the observations of individual travellers. Accordingly as each one might have his special object in view, his sphere of action or opportunities of learning, so the knowledge he acquired might be proportionately imparted. The community at large had always evinced the greatest interest in the accounts given by travellers of their visits to foreign countries, as was shown by the favourable reception uniformly given to their works. Of these many that were published were well deserving of the popularity they obtained, especially as with regard to Spain there were several that left little for any future writer to supply of ordinary information. In one respect, however, all such works appeared to me to be deficient, though their failure was almost unavoidable, in the case of transient visitors, in their being unable to convey any adequate idea of the state of mental culture among the people they visited.