His carelessness, his haste, his defective execution are superficial faults which must always injure Zorrilla in the esteem of foreign critics; yet it is certain that the charm which he has exercised over three generations of Spaniards, and which seems likely to endure, implies the possession of considerable powers. And Zorrilla had three essential qualities in no common degree: national spirit, dramatic insight, and lyrical spontaneity. He is an inferior Sir Walter, with an added knowledge of the theatre, to which Scott made no pretence. His _Leyenda de Alhamar_, his _Granada_, his _Leyenda del Cid_ were popular for the same reason that _Marmion_ and the _Lady of the Lake_ were popular: for their revival of national legends in a form both simple and picturesque. The fate that overcame Sir Walter's poems seems to threaten Zorrilla's. Both are read for the sake of the subject, for the brilliant colouring of episodes, more than for the beauty of treatment, construction, and form; yet, as Sir Walter survives in his novels, Zorrilla will endure in such of his plays as _Don Juan Tenorio_, in _El Zapatero y el Rey_, and in _Traidor, inconfeso, y mártir_. His selection of native themes, his vigorous appeal to those primitive sentiments which are at least as strong in Spain as elsewhere—courage, patriotism, religion—have ensured him a vogue so wide and lasting that it almost approaches immortality. In the study Zorrilla's slapdash methods are often wearisome; on the stage his impetuousness, his geniality, his broad effects, and his natural lyrism make him a veritable force. Two of Zorrilla's rivals among contemporary dramatists may be mentioned: ANTONIO GARCÍA GUTIÉRREZ (1813-1884), the author of _El Trovador_, and JUAN EUGENIO HARTZENBUSCH (1806-1880), whose _Amantes de Teruel_ broke the hearts of sentimental ladies in the forties. Both the _Trovador_ and the _Amantes_ are still reproduced, still read, and still praised by critics who enjoy the pleasures of memory and association; but a detached foreigner, though he take his life in his hand when he ventures on the confession, is inclined to associate García Gutiérrez and Hartzenbusch with Sheridan Knowles and Lytton.