In every other country, to treat of its literary men is at the same time to give a history of its literature. In Spain it is otherwise. We have no trace of who the poets were who produced that vast collection of ballads and romances, which, full of chivalry and adventure, love and war, fascinate the imagination, and bestow immortality on heroes--some real, some fictitious--who otherwise had never been known. To understand the merits of the later writers, to know on what their style and spirit was formed, it is necessary to give some account of the early, and also of the anonymous, poetry of Spain. Nor will it be foreign to the subject, nor uninteresting, slightly to trace the progress of literature in the Peninsula from its earliest date. From a thousand causes Spain is the land of romance. There never was any one who has travelled in that country, whatever might be his political opinions, or his view of human nature and society, but admired and loved the Spaniards. There is an originality, an independence, an enthusiasm, in the Spanish character that distinguishes them from every other people. Despotism and the Inquisition, ignorance and superstition, have been unable to level the noble altitude of their souls; and even while the manifestations of genius have been crushed, genius has survived. From early times Spain was the birthplace of men of eminence in literature. We know little of the aborigines, and nothing of their language, except that from the earliest times they appear to have been gifted with that love of song that survives to this day. Silius Italicus hears testimony to this taste, when with all the arrogance of assumed superiority he speaks of the verses sung by the Gallicians in their native dialect, "barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis," and Strabo alludes to immemorial ballads sung by the inhabitants of Betica. When the Spaniards shared the refinements and learning of the capital, several names became distinguished. Lucan was a native of Cordova. We can fancy that we trace the genuine Spanish spirit in this poet--earnestness, enthusiasm, gaudiness, and an inveterate tendency to diffuseness. The two Senecas were natives, also, of the same town.[1] The Spaniards with fond pride collect other names which the tide of time sweeping by, has cast on the shore, too obscure for fame, but sufficiently known to prove that the Spanish nation was always prolific in men who sought to distinguish themselves in literature.