of Numantia how pardonable was the self-deception of which he could not divest himself. Cervantes was entitled to consider himself endowed with a genius for dramatic poetry. But he could not preserve his independence in the conflict he had to maintain with the conditions required by the Spanish public in dramatic composition; and when he sacrificed his independence, and submitted to rules imposed by others, his invention and language were reduced to the level of a poet of inferior talent. The intrigues, adventures, and surprises which in that age characterized the Spanish drama, were ill suited to the genius of Cervantes. His natural style was too profound and precise to be reconciled to fantastical ideas, expressed in irregular verse. But he was Spaniard enough to be gratified with dramas, which, as a poet, he could not imitate; and he imagined himself capable of imitating them, because he would have shone in another species of dramatic composition, had the public taste accommodated itself to his genius. With all its imperfections and faults, Cervantes’s tragedy of Numantia is a noble production, and, like Don Quixote, it is unparalleled in the class of literature to which it belongs. It proves that under different circumstances the author of Don Quixote might have been the Æschylus of Spain. The conception is in the style of the boldest pathos, and the execution, at least taken as a whole, is vigorous and dignified. The ancient Roman History from which Cervantes selected the story of the destruction of Numantia, afforded but few positive facts of which he could avail himself in his heroic tragedy. He therefore invented along with the subject of his piece a peculiar style of tragic composition, in doing which he did not pay much regard to the theory of Aristotle. His object was to produce a piece full of tragic situations, combined with the charm of the marvellous. The tragedy is written in conformity with no rules save those which Cervantes prescribed to himself; for he felt no inclination to imitate the Greek forms. The play is divided into four acts (_jornadas_), and no chorus is introduced. The dialogue is sometimes in tercets, and sometimes in redondillas, and for the most part in octaves, without any regard to rule. The diction does not maintain equal dignity throughout; but it is in no instance affected or bombastic. Cervantes has evinced admirable skill in gradually heightening the tragic interest to the close of the piece. The commencement is, however, somewhat cold and tedious. Scipio appears with his generals in the Roman camp before Numantia. In a speech which might have been improved by abridgment, he reprimands his troops, whose spirit has begun to give way to effeminacy. The soldiers are re-inspired with courage. Numantian ambassadors enter with proposals for peace, which are rejected. It is here that the tragedy properly begins. Spain appears as an allegorical character, and she summons the