In the other lives he maintains the high tone of feeling shown in his beautiful Ode to Balmis, the philanthropic introducer of vaccination into America, where the ravages of the disease, so graphically described by Humboldt, had made this benefit more peculiarly desirable. The generous sentiments expressed in this ode are such as to do honour not only to Quintana, but also to the nation, where they are in the present generation adopted, as we find them repeated emphatically by so popular a writer as Larra. More than thirty years had elapsed after writing that ode, when Quintana, in the Life of the enthusiastic Las Casas, proved his consistency of character and principles, by maintaining them in a work of historical character, as he had done in poetry in his youth. In the prologue to the third volume he says, “The author will be accused of little regard for the honour of his country, when he so frankly adopts the sentiments and principles of the Protector of the Indians, whose imprudent writings have been the occasion of so much opprobrium, and of subministering such arms to the detractors of Spanish glories. But neither the extravagance or fanatical exaggerations of Las Casas, nor the abuse which the malignity of strangers have made of them, can erase from deeds their nature and character. The author has not gone to imbibe them from suspicious fountains; nor to judge them as he has done, has he regarded other principles than those of natural equity, or other feelings than those of his own heart. Documents carefully appended for this purpose, and the attentive perusal of Herrera, Oviedo, and others our own writers as impartial and judicious as those, give the same result in events and opinions. What then was to be done? To deny the impressions received, and repel the decision which humanity and justice dictate, on account of not compromising what is called the honour of the country? But the honour of a country consists in actions truly great, noble and virtuous of its inhabitants; not in gilding with justifications, or insufficient exculpations, those that unfortunately bear on themselves the seal of being iniquitous and cruel. To strangers who to depress us, accuse us of cruelty and barbarity in our discoveries and conquests of the New World, we might reply with other examples on their own part, as or more atrocious than ours, and in times and under circumstances sufficiently less excusable.…