The "Jerusalem" was his next attempt at an epic; of this Richard Cœur de Lion is the hero, though the English of course are rendered subordinate to the Spaniards. We have not read it. Lord Holland pronounces it a failure; and the critic of the Quarterly observes, "A failure indeed it is, and a total one; the plan, when compared to that of the 'Angelica' is as 'confusion worse confounded,'--it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; neither method, nor purpose, nor proportion; and many of the parts might be extirpated, or, what is more extraordinary, might change places without any injury to the whole. But there is more vigour of thought in it, and more felicity of expression than in any other of his longer poems." And thus Spaniards alone write; with them a poem resembles a pathless jungle: you come to a magnificent tree, a wild and balmy breathing flower, a mossy pathway, and clear bubbling fountain; and beside these objects you linger a moment, but soon you plunge again among tangled underwood and uncultivated interminable wilds. When Lope takes a subject in hand he does not follow it up as a traveller who has a bourne in view; but he scrambles up every mountain, visits every waterfall, and plunges into every cavern; and like a tourist without a guide in an unknown country, he often loses his way, and often leads his reader a wild chase after objects, which, when reached, were not worth visiting. This prodigality of verse, which caused him to be named the Potosi of rhymes, was indulged in to the utmost, when, on the canonisation of St. Isidro, he entered into the lists to win the prize instituted for poems in celebration of the event. Isidro had been elevated into a saint at the solicitation of Philip III., who had been cured of a fever by the body of the defunct miracle-maker being brought to him. Every Spanish poet of the age, and they were all but innumerable, entered the lists. There are two volumes of Lope's productions, some in his own name, consisting of a sort of epic, composed in quintillas, or stanzas of five short lines each, a measure more suited to the genius of the Spanish language than longer ones; and a play, and a vast quantity of lyrics given under the name of Burguillos. These were all burlesque; but subsequently Lope continued to adopt the name, and published several poems under it, among others, the "Gatomaquia, or War of Cats," a mock heroic, which is a great favourite in Spain. The "Corona Tragica," a poem written on the death of Mary, queen of Scots, brought him an increase of reputation: it is bigoted to the excess of blind Spanish inquisitorial bigotry, and, except in a few passages, does not rise above mediocrity. It is impossible to give even a cursory account of Lope's lyrics and sacred poems. The best of the former are to be found in the "Arcadia" and the "Dorotea."