General view of the state of poetical and rhetorical cultivation in Spain during this period 540 CHAP. II. Decay of the old Spanish poetry and eloquence, and introduction of the French style into Spanish literature 547 Candamo, Zamora and Cañizares, dramatists in the old national style ibid Doña Juana Inez de la Cruz 551 Gerardo Lobo 556 Diffusion of the French taste--Luzan, his art of poetry, &c. 557 Luzan’s poetic compositions 568 Mayans y Siscar and Blas Nasarre 570 Montiano’s tragedies in the French style 571 Velasquez 574 CHAP. III. Concluding period of the history of Spanish poetry and eloquence 575 La Huerta 576 His tragedies 580 His Spanish theatre 584 Sedano 587 Yriarte 588 Leon de Arroyal 593 Juan Melendez Valdes 595 Brief notice of some of the more recent literary productions of Spain 600 Conclusion 605 INTRODUCTION. GENERAL VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF ROMANTIC POETRY AND ELOQUENCE, IN THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. When modern refinement began, during the thirteenth century, to emerge from the rudeness of the middle ages, that part of Europe which geographers have called the Pyrenean Peninsula, and which, according to its present political division, forms Spain and Portugal, contained four Christian kingdoms and some Mahometan principalities, to which the title of kingdom has also been given. More than five hundred years had elapsed since the battle of Xerez de la Frontera;[4] and the Moors, who, by the result of that conflict, obtained the dominion of the greater part of Spain and Portugal, had, by the repeated victories of the Christians, been, in their turn, driven back to the southern extremity of the country, and were obviously not destined to maintain themselves much longer even in that quarter.