[Page 309].—l. 16. Higuer: a cape of the province of Guipúzcoa, running into the Cantabrian sea.
[VENTURA DE LA VEGA]. Dramatist and poet; born in the Argentine Republic, he was trained in Spain, where he passed the greater part of his life, becoming private secretary to Isabel II. His imitations of the Hebrew poetry of the Bible are praiseworthy. In most of his verse he displays an eclectic tendency, a desire to combine the best in romanticism with the best in classicism. Cf. his Obras poéticas, Paris, 1866; Menéndez y Pelayo, Poetas hispano-americanos, IV, 105 ff. (poems), cxlv. ff. (essay on Vega): J. Valera, Personajes ilustres:—Ventura de la Vega, etc., Madrid, 1891; Blanco-García, I, 315 ff.
[ANDRÉS BELLO]. A Venezuelan by birth, the most important author that South America has yet produced, being remarkable as a poet, grammarian, jurist and patriot. Cf. his Obras completas, Santiago de Chile, 1881-85; his poems in the Colección de escritores castellanos (1881), and in Menéndez y Pelayo, Poetas hispano-americanos, II, 285 ff.: and see ibid., p. cxvii ff.; M. L. Amunátegui, Santiago de Chile, 1882.
[RAMÓN DE CAMPOAMOR]. The humoristic poet par excellence of the Spanish nineteenth century, with a pseudo-philosophical tendency which is not to be taken too seriously. Under the name of doloras he published a number of short poems humorous in tone, full of feeling and ever pointing some moral. Although he is said to have invented the genre, he has really but given a new name to an old genre and developed it more than any one else had done. Cf. his Obras escogidas, Leipzig, 1885-86. There are many editions of his separate works. See also J. Valora: Obras poéticas de Campoamor (in his Estudios críticos sobre literatura, etc., Seville, 1884, pp. 239 ff.); Peseux-Richard in the Revue hispanique, I, 236 ff.; Blanco-García, II, cap. V.
[Page 313].—l. 13. This delightful poetical dialogue is a favorite piece for recitation purposes in Spain.
[Page 314].—l. 20. ¡Quién supiera escribir! If I only knew how to write!
[Page 316].—l. 11. A sonnet on the Italian pessimistic poet, Leopardi, of the early nineteenth century.
[JUAN VALERA Y ALCALÁ GALIANO]. The most eminent Spanish man of letters now alive, justly famed as a novelist, poet and student of general culture. An extended diplomatic career has made him a most cosmopolitan spirit. Everywhere studying men and things, he has acquired an extreme catholicity of taste and has highly developed his powers of critical apperception. Menéndez y Pelayo deems El fuego divino, selections from which are given here, to be Valera’s best poem. Cf. his Canciones, romances y poemas, with notes by Menéndez y Pelayo, in the Colección de escritores castellanos, Madrid, 1885 (containing translations, also, of poems of Lowell, Whittier and other American and English writers); Blanco-García, II, cap. XXVI.
[Page 320].—l. 17. inclinada fuente: so says the edition of 1885. But Señor Valera states that inclinada is an error; he writes: “El 390 primer verso dice de la inclinada fuente, y debe decir de la increada fuente.”
[GASPAR NÚÑEZ DE ARCE]. A popular Spanish poet of our times, widely read in both Spain and America. His most important volume of poems is the Gritos del combate (8th ed. 1891), in which, with patriotic fervor, he cries out against the political evils rampant in Spain and inveighs against the agitators responsible for them. Longer poems than those contained in the Gritos del combate are the Vértigo (a great favorite for declamation purposes), the Última lamentación de Lord Byron, La selva oscura, etc. All have been reprinted in many editions. Núñez de Arce is also a dramatist of considerable power. Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo’s essay on him, published in vol. II of Novo y Colsón’s Autores dramáticos contemporáneos (and in Menéndez y Pelayo’s Estudios de critica literaria, 1884); Blanco-García, II, 328 ff.