III. The deficiency of one kind of riches in Spanish literature, is amply compensated by the abundance of another kind, which is in a great measure peculiar to that literature, and which has manifested itself in an inconceivable number of works. The portion of lyric poetry in which the Spaniards have imitated the Italian forms, tolerably counterbalances the amount of Italian poetry in the same style. But if to that portion be added the whole store of lyric romances and songs in the old popular style, a multitude appears which sets calculation at defiance. Nothing, however, could be more absurd, than to estimate the poetic fertility of a nation according to the number of works called poems, which it may possess. It is from the sum of genuine poetry actually existing in any considerable number of such works, though it should be visible only in the seed or in the bud which has withered in the opening, that the balance must be struck when the poetic riches of nations is the subject of comparison. If the mere number of productions were to decide, Italy would be as rich in dramatic literature as Spain. But in Italy, it unfortunately happened that scarcely any writers except those of middling and even inferior talent laboured to increase the stock of Italian dramas to infinity. In Spanish dramatic literature, on the contrary, the most fertile writers shew themselves to be great poets even amidst their faults. According to the same principle the multitude of nominal epic poems, which have appeared in Spain, and in which scarcely a feeble spark of true epopee is discernible, must not be taken into account in estimating the poetic treasures of Spanish literature. A single canto of Ariosto or Tasso, is worth all the Spanish epic poetry that ever was written. IV. Of all the poets of modern times, the Spanish can alone be regarded as the inventors of the poetry of catholic mysticism, which they have employed in a very ingenious, though, it must be confessed, not in an exemplary manner. He must indeed be completely dazzled by the brilliant side of Spanish poetry, who refuses to acknowledge that the character of the sacred comedy is monstrous, even as it appears in the Autos of the estimable Calderon. But, on the other hand, the affectation of philosophic criticism must have deadened all susceptibility for that bold style of spiritual poetry in him who denies to the Spanish Autos the possession of beauties, which deserve to be admired. What might not this poetry have become, had reason extended her influence over it in a more powerful degree, not, indeed, to reduce it to the level of prose, but to divest it of the mask of caricature, while soaring in the lofty regions of mystic invention! END OF VOL. I. AND OF THE HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE. _E. Justins, Printer, 41, Brick Lane, Whitechapel._ ERRATA FOR VOL I. Page 27, title of Book I. for _end of the sixteenth_, read _commencement of the sixteenth century_.