dialect, unknown to the nations of the South, clogged with consonants and monosyllables, incapable of sonorous cadences, and in every respect the opposite of his own. Even at the present day, it is remarkable that Southey--with all his faults, the best writer of English prose that our age has produced--was deeply versed in Spanish literature; and in spite of our acquisitions in physical science, a native of the South, to whom his own beautiful dialect is familiar, might be forgiven when he reads the clumsy prose and prosaic verse of the present day, if he reflect with delight on the Ciceronian eloquence of Cervantes, and the finished periods of Saavedra Faxardo. A Spanish artisan would be ashamed to write like our learned men, or to speak like many members of the House of Commons--so true and so universal is the doctrine of compensation. In the year 1754, Velasquez assures us that there was in Spain no single translation of an English author. But the aversion was not reciprocal. In the days of our great Elizabeth, when the English intellect was at a height from which it has ever since been travelling downwards, Spanish novels and romances were diligently studied, and perpetually translated. There is strong evidence to show that the great dramatists of that day were not ignorant of the Spanish stage. A translation, or rather an abridgment, of the _Celestina_, was printed in London in 1530, and in 1580 the story was acted in a London theatre. But as all our readers may not have heard--and many of them probably have not read a line of the _Celestina_--we will, before we proceed farther, explain the nature of this most remarkable--and if the age when it was written be considered--this quite unequalled production.