AVELLAÑEDA AND MILANES.
There is more of this excellent lyric, but we let it pass in order to bring to a moment's attention a few of the most distinguished Cuban and South American dramatic writers. We nowhere discern the evidence of a luxurious dramatic growth among our tropical contemporaries; but as, in the most advanced and varied circles of our own literature, the drama holds but an inferior modern regard, we cannot deem this fact as peculiarly indicative. Almost chief among the writers of Cuba is Doña Avellañeda, to whom we owe the novels of Sab, the Baroness of Youx, the American romance of Guatimozin, and the Undine of the Blue Lake. She wrote four dramas, one of which, her tragedy of Alfonso Munio, is said to have made her famous. For one of her poems she received a crown of gold laurels from the lyceum of Madrid, and her Catholic devotion was signally manifested by her poem of the Cross and her Biblical drama of Saul. Surely, a most prolific, industrious, and vigorous writer was La Avellañeda, as her countrymen admiringly call her, notwithstanding her Isabellist attachments. To the name of Avellañeda let us add that of José Jacinto Milanes as among the ornaments of Cuban literature. His drama of Conde Alarcos, founded upon the celebrated Spanish tradition of the name, is noted by Ticknor for its passionate energy. Milanes seemed to delight in the themes and scenes of his own country; but his usefulness as a writer was cut short, we are informed, by a wasting infirmity.