were to restore the Spanish national comedy to its honourable place in literature, and to vent his feelings of indignation against the Gallicists. He treats the Italian authors, who had openly avowed their disapproval of the Spanish drama, with no less severity than he had evinced towards the French critics. Quadrio, Tiraboschi, Bettinelli, and other writers “of the same breed,” (_de la misma raza_), are denounced by La Huerta as malignant and envious critics. He accuses Signorelli, of “notorious falsehood.” “Childish egotism,” he says, is the soul of French criticism. The icy coldness of French tragedy was with him more offensive than the neglect of rules in the Spanish drama. Racine, the favourite tragic writer of the French school, owed his fame solely to the “tedious scrupulosity,” which he observed in composing his tragedies, but not to the “masculine vigour of genius, or the fire and spirit of fancy.” The “natural sublimity” of Spanish genius could not be restrained by the fetters of the French school. Luzan, though in many respects a very estimable author, was imbued with prejudices. Velasquez, with all his delicacy and erudition had fallen into the errors and misconceptions of Luzan. In general, Spanish poetry had, like the Spanish nation, a certain _oriental_ character, which it was fit it should preserve. French imitations of Spanish dramas of intrigue are declared perfectly insupportable; and, in particular, the Marriage of Figaro, “a comedy altogether contemptible,” (_despreciada en todas sus partes_.[612]) La Huerta remained a debtor to the public for the critical grounds of these denunciations, which called forth the bitterest answers from the adverse party, and also for a reply to his opponents. He asserted briefly and bluntly that those opponents were merely “a ludicrous pack of cynical and drivelling critics, the vehicles of envy, ignorance, and imbecility.” What might not this patriotic author have effected had he been as energetic in his reasoning as in his abuse! He nevertheless appears to have contributed more than any of his contemporaries to produce a re-action in Spanish literature, which was indispensable to give to that literature the opportunity of again acquiring a poetic elevation. SEDANO.