Con mostrarse mi zagala, De blanco lino vestida, Fresca y pura, Condena la inutil gala Y se esconde confundida La hermosura. Dò hallar en climas helados Sus negros ojos graciosos, Que son fuego? Ora me miren airados Ora roben cariñosos Mi sosiego. Dò la negra caballera Que al èbano se aventaja? Y el pie leve Que al triscar por la pradera Ni las tiernas flores aja, Ni aun las mueve? Doncellas las del Genil Vuestra tez escurecida No trocara Por los rostros de marfil Que Albion envanecida Me mostrara. Padre Dauro! manso rio, De las arenas doradas, Dìgnate oir Los votos del pecho mio, Y en tus màrgenes sagradas Logre morir! Works of Martinez de la Rosa, edition of Barcelona, 1838, vol. iv. p. 1. The other translations are taken from the same, pages 113, 104, 48 and 34 respectively. In the prologue, he enters on the discussion, so common a few years since, as to the relative merits of what were called the Classical and Romantic schools of poetry, which discussion, it is to be hoped, may now be considered at an end. The pretensions of different writers, who affected to range themselves under one or other of these denominations, were in fact generally only the devices of mediocrity to shelter their deficiencies. Those who write spontaneously from the true inspiration of genius, will never submit to the shackles of any system, and for all writers the wisest aim is to seek the clearest style of expressing those thoughts which they have to convey. As Martinez de la Rosa has well observed in this prologue, “I do not remember any one sublime passage, in whatever language it may be, that is not expressed with the utmost simplicity; and without this most essential quality, they cannot excite in the mind that lively and instantaneous impression which distinguishes them.” 35. Page 184. “The light foot that never stirs,” &c. An Andalusian poet may be excused entering into hyperbolical praise of his countrywomen, but we find an English traveller almost as hyperbolical in praise of them also. “It is beyond the power of language to describe those slow and surpassingly graceful movements which accompany every step of the Andalusa; her every attitude is so flowing, at the same time so unforced, that she seems upborne by some invisible power that renders her independent of the classically moulded foot she presses so lightly on the ground.”--_Murray’s Cities and Wilds of Andalusia._ 36. Page 216. “His biographer, Pastor Diaz,” &c.