Nothing poetical produced at this period, or at least nothing sung and written in the lyric or other styles of poetry in Spain, obtained literary celebrity. It would, however, be unjust to pass over in silence some works which made their appearance about this time, and which are interesting, inasmuch as they afford instances of the continuation of the taste for old Spanish poetry. Among these, the most remarkable are the numerous productions of a Spanish American poetess, named Doña Juana Inez de la Cruz, who was much celebrated in Mexico about the latter end of the seventeenth century. On the title-page of her works, which, however, she did not publish herself, this distinguished woman is styled the tenth muse.[576] Respecting the history of her life, nothing is known, save what is mentioned in her poems. She was a nun in a Mexican convent; and she complains of her weak state of health in the verses which form the preface to her poems. Her writings sufficiently prove that she lived on terms of intimacy with the viceroy and the other Spanish grandees in Mexico, and that frequent demands were made upon her talent for the celebration of festivals, both spiritual and temporal. Much as Inez de la Cruz was deficient in real cultivation, her productions are eminently superior to the ordinary standard of female poetry. Of all the Spanish ladies who have turned their attention to poetry, she deserves to rank the highest; though, perhaps, this station may not be deemed very honourable, as Spanish women have so little distinguished themselves in poetry. But for this very reason it seems the more worthy of recollection, that under the sky of America, flowers of genius were permitted to bloom, which in Spain would in all probability have been blighted in the bud. The poems of Inez de la Cruz, moreover, breathe a sort of masculine spirit. This ingenious nun possessed more fancy and wit than sentimental enthusiasm; and whenever she began to invent, her creations were on a bold and great scale. Her poems are of very unequal merit; and are all deficient in critical cultivation. But in facility of invention and versification, Inez de la Cruz was not inferior to Lope de Vega; and yet she by no means courted literary fame. The complete collection of her poems, which seems to have been first printed by order of the Vice-Queen of Mexico, occupies a volume, consisting of twenty-five sheets in octavo. Of some of her sonnets the subjects are ingenious plays of romantic wit;[577] of others, serious poetic reflections.[578] She also wrote burlesque sonnets on rhymed endings, which, though sometimes deficient in delicacy, have all the freedom and sprightliness that can be required in that species of composition. A kind of poetic self-deception, which assumes the tone of philosophic reasoning, is disclosed in several of the lyric romances of Inez de la Cruz. She evidently took considerable pains to persuade herself that she was happy.[579] A great portion of her poems