Essayists of the English type are numerous in America. They import European ideas, freely discuss the great problems of existence. If they apply themselves to the criticism of letters, they discover {266} general ideas; in place of minute analysis they write artistic commentaries. José Enrique Rodo, of Uruguay, is the master in this department of literature. He has published an essay on Dario, and his two books, _Motivos de proteo_, a collection of essays of great beauty, and _Ariel_, a noble address to the youth of South America, have become classics. There are other critics as brilliant: Manuel Ugarte, at once thinker and artist, writer of short stories, poet, ideologist, and the author of a remarkable book dealing with the future of South America; the Colombian, Sanin Cano, who treats of ideas; two Argentines, Emilio Becher, who writes admirable analyses of ideas and books, and Ricardo Rosas, who is, by reason of his nationalism and his wide culture, the master of the rising generation; two Venezuelans, Manuel Diaz Rodriguez and Pedro Emilio Coll, the first a noble idealist and prose artist, the second a dreamer, who has been influenced by the sceptical irony of Renan; the Peruvian, Manuel Gonzala Prada, whose aggressive and sonorous style reveals a lofty moral unrest: in his essay on life and death are pages which Guyau might have signed, and his study of Castelar is a magnificent satire; José de la Riva Agüero, a historian, a critic, and a polemist of unusual vigour; in San Domingo a powerful mind with an extraordinary knowledge of literatures, classic and foreign, Pedro Henriquez Ureña; while in Uruguay, Carlos Reyles has just proved by his book, _La Mort da Cygne_, his acquaintance with all the new ideas and his ability to make a powerful synthesis of them. Two Brazilian essayists, Oliveira Lima (also a great historian) and José Verissimo have written remarkable studies of civilisations and books. [Illustration: MANUEL UGARTE (ARGENTINA). Contemporary poet, novelist, and essayist. To face p. 266.]