Quintana has published a small collection of short poems, which deservedly classes him among those Spaniards who are just allowed to give a specimen of their powers, and shew us the waste of talents for which our oppressive system of government is answerable to civilized Europe. He has embellished the title-page of his book with an emblematical vignette, where a winged human figure is seen chained to the threshold of a gloomy Gothic structure, looking up to the Temple of the Muses in the attitude of resigned despondency. I should not have mentioned this trifling circumstance, were it not a fresh proof of the pervading feeling under which every aspiring mind among us is doomed hopelessly to linger. It is not, however, the Gothic structure of our national system alone which confines the poetic genius of Spain. There is (if I may venture some vague conjectures upon a difficult and not yet fairly tried subject) a want of flexibility in the Spanish language, arising from the great length of most of its words, the little variety of its terminations, and the bulkiness of its adverbs, which must for ever, I fear, clog its verse. The sound of our best poetry is grand and majestic indeed; but it requires an uncommon skill to subdue and modify that sound, so as to relieve the ear and satisfy the mind. Since the introduction of the Italian measures by Boscan and Garcilaso, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, our best poets have been servile imitators of Petrarch, and the writers of that school. Every Spanish poet has, like the knight of La Mancha, thought it his bounden duty to be desperately in love, deriving both his subject and his inspiration from a minute dissection of his lady. The language, in the mean time, condemned for centuries, from the unexampled slavery of our press, to be employed almost exclusively in the daily and familiar intercourse of life, has had its richest ornaments tarnished and soiled, by the powerful influence of mental association. Scarcely one third of its copious dictionary can be used in dignified prose, while a very scanty list of words composes the whole stock which poetry can use without producing either a sense of disgust or ridicule. In spite of these fetters, Quintana’s poetical compositions convey much deep thought and real feeling; and should an unexpected revolution in politics allow his mind that freedom, without which the most vigorous shoots of genius soon sicken and perish, his powerful numbers might well inspire his countrymen with that ardent and disinterested love of liberty which adds dignity to the amiableness of his character.