The genius of Espronceda was kindred to Byron’s, of whom he has been accused of having been an imitator. But this seems to me unquestionably a mistake. During his residence in England he had certainly acquired a good knowledge of the English language and literature, much to his advantage; but he could scarcely have acquired such a knowledge of either as to put him in the position of an imitator. The utmost that can be alleged of him in this respect is, that the style of Byron’s writing was so congenial to his own taste and talent, as to make him imbibe it intuitively, and so obtain a more decided character for his own than perhaps it would have otherwise attained. It is certain that Spanish poetry never before presented such depth of thought and feeling, and such fulness and vigour of expression, as he gave to it; and it is apparent, in every page of his works, that he had studied in a higher school and become imbued with a brighter inspiration than he could have done on the Continent. But what ordinary imitators would have considered the characteristics of Byron as models to follow, he had the good sense entirely to discard. He has none of the egotism and affectation which distinguish that school; and if he indulged in some of its propensities, it is clear that they were the natural results of the circumstances in which he was placed, and not the wilful perversions of misdirected abilities. His poem to Harifa is written with an earnestness of feeling that must be felt, even through the haze of translation, giving tokens of its origin too distinct to admit any supposition of its being a suggestion from any other source than his own experience of life. Neither in this poem nor in any other of his works is there any of those mysterious suggestions of dark histories, or of those morbid denunciations of imaginary wrongs which abound in the productions of the Byronian school. His complaints are the evident effusions of a mind maddened at finding itself in a state unworthy of its powers, and thus, instead of venting his rage on others, he turned it against his own misdeeds, in giving way to excesses that he scorned, and which he felt degraded him. But even in his aspirations for higher thoughts, he had the same leaven of earth to keep him from attaining them. He had not learned the lessons which Jovellanos inculcated in the Epistle to Bermudez, to seek wisdom where only it ought to be sought; as he might have done even from the heathen poet, that the hidden things of God could not be found out, though he were to traverse over all space in search of them. Ἀλλ’ οὐ γὰρ ἆν τὰ θεία, κρύπτοντος Θεοῦ, Μάθεις ἆν, οὐδ’ εἰ πάντ’ ἐπεξελθοις σκότων.