[Page 267].—l. 9. Desque, i.e., Desde que.
l. 33. Lacio, Latium, i.e., Italy. In 1825, Rivas left London for Italy, intending to settle in Rome; but the Italian government expelled him and he then sought refuge in Malta.
[Page 268].—l. 18. Córdoba: Rivas was a native of Cordova.
[JOSÉ DE ESPRONCEDA]. Considered by many as the most illustrious lyric poet of Spain in the nineteenth century. In Espronceda, the author of the Estudiante de Salamanca, of the fragmentary lyrico-dramatic poem El diablo mundo, and of various short lyrics, are represented both that romantic element of revolt against social and literary conventions which in England is so strongly marked in Byron, and the element of Bohemianism which characterizes many of the French romanticists. Exiled by reason of his liberal opinions, he spent some time in England—where he became deeply imbued with Byronism—and eloped thence to Paris with Teresa, another man’s wife, and the subject of the pathetic and 385 wonderfully harmonious Canto á Teresa. Scepticism, despair and the note of cloyed sensual satiety are everywhere present in the poetry of this ill-starred singer. Back in Spain again, he died at the early age of thirty-two years, after a short and stormy career in politics and journalism. For his poetical methods he owes much to Byron, but he is no servile imitator: his loudest note—that of revolt against the conventional—emanates from his own inner nature. Cf. his Obras poéticas, etc., Madrid, 1884, with an essay by Escosura prefixed; and see E. Rodríguez Solís, Espronceda, su tiempo, su vida y sus obras, Madrid, 1883; E. Piñeyro, Un imitador español de Byron (in his Poetas famosos, etc., Madrid, 1883); Blanco-García, I, 154 ff.
[Page 270].—l. 27. This poem in octavas reales forms the second canto of the Diablo mundo.
[Page 272].—l. 16. orador de Atenas: i.e., Demosthenes.
[Page 273].—l. 29. florece: seems to be used here as an active verb, covers with flowers.
[Page 275].—l. 13. por banda, on each side.
l. 28. Stambul: the Turkish name of Constantinople.
[MANUEL DE CABANYES]. A Catalonian who wrote in Spanish. A pupil of Horace, he disdained the modern verse forms (cf. [p. 279], ll. 22-23) and sought to domesticate the classic metres in Spanish prosody. He was unaffected by the literary movement of his time, probably because he died young. Cf. the collection of his lyrics entitled Preludios de mi lira (1833); Menéndez y Pelayo, Odas de Q. Horacio Flaco, traducidas é imitadas, etc., Barcelona, 1882, pp. 372 ff.; and see Torres Amat, Diccionario de escritores catalanes; Blanco-García, I, 103 ff.