Such were the commencements of the Spanish theatre, destined to take so high a place hereafter in the history of the drama. We now come to a new era, and names more known. We have arrived at the age of Cervantes: these were the men who preceded him. There is something very peculiar in the state of literature at this time. The infancy of Spanish poetry was such as might have been expected from a chivalrous nation; its themes were love and war, its heroes national, and its style such as to render it popular. The continued struggle with a foreign conqueror gave an ardent and gallant turn to the national character: and while the superior excellence of the enemy in arts and literature imparted some portion of refinement, national enthusiasm inspired independence. But now the enemy was quelled, the country overflowed with money, the harvest of the most nefarious cruelties, and the inquisition was established. Even these circumstances were not enough to subdue the heroism of the Spanish character: they made a stand for freedom against the encroachments of the monarchs; their disjointed councils caused them to fail, and from that moment they sank. The wars of Charles V. drained the country of men and money; the Lutheran heresy put fresh powers into the hands of the inquisition; a career of arms in a foreign country was all that was left; the gates of inquiry and free thought were closed and barred. Intercourse with Italy opened fresh fields of poetry, which all other countries have found unlimited in the variety of subjects, and manner of treating them. Not so the Spaniards; they stopt short at once with elegies, and pastorals, and songs. Boscan, a man of gentle disposition and retired habits, naturally dwelt with complacency on descriptions of rural pleasures, or the sentiments of his own heart. Garcilaso de la Vega, a gallant soldier, found in poetry a recreation, a mode to gratify his taste; and retired from the world of arms to brood over the graceful and passionate reveries of a young lover. Mendoza, a man of harder temperament, was the servant of a king: a sort of worldly philosophy, Horatian in its expression, or the passion of love, inspired his writings at first; and when, later in life, he might be supposed to entertain the design of making his talents subservient to the good of mankind, he found, when he wrote the wars of Granada, the political and inquisitorial yoke so heavy that he could only hint at injuries, and allude to wrongs. The poets who came after were men of an inferior grade; they wrote in a great measure to please their contemporaries; they adopted, therefore, pastoral themes, they wrote elegies, sonnets; and love and scenic descriptions were the subjects of their compositions.