Not victory that o’ershadows him, sees he! No airy and light passion stirs abroad To ruffle or to sooth him; all are quell’d Beneath a mightier, sterner stress of mind: Wakeful he sits, and lonely and unmoved, Beyond the arrows, views, or shouts of men: As oftentimes an eagle, when the sun Throws o’er the varying earth his early ray, Stands solitary, stands immoveable Upon some highest cliff, and rolls his eye, Clear, constant, unobservant, unabased, In the cold light, above the dews of morn. _Act 5. Scene 2._ Parts of this tragedy are as fine in their kind as any thing which can be found in the whole compass of English poetry. Juan de Mena places Count Julian with Orpas, the renegado Archbishop of Seville, in the deepest pit of hell. _No buenamente te puedo callar Orpas maldito, ni a ti Julian, Pues soys en el valle mas hondo de afan, Que no se redime jamas por llorar: Qual ya crueza vos pudo indignar A vender un dia las tierras y leyes De Espana, las quales pujança de reyes En años a tantos no pudo cobrar._ Copla 91. A Portugueze poet, Andre da Sylva Mascarenhas, is more indulgent to the Count, and seems to consider it as a mark of degeneracy in his own times, that the same crime would no longer provoke the same vengeance. His catalogue of women who have become famous by the evil of which they have been the occasion, begins with Eve, and ends with Anne Boleyn. _Louvar se pode ao Conde o sentimento Da offensa da sua honestidade, Se o nam vituperara co cruento Disbarate da Hispana Christandade; Se hoje ouvera stupros cento e cento Nesta nossa infeliz lasciva idade, Non se perdera nam a forte Espanha, Que o crime frequentado nam se estranha._ _Por mulheres porem se tem perdido Muitos reynos da outra e desta vida; Por Eva se perdeo o Ceo sobido, Por Helena a Asia esclarecida; Por Cleopatra o Egypto foi vencido, Assiria por Semiramis perdida, Por Cava se perdeo a forte Espanha, E por Anna Bolena a Gram Bretanha._ Destruiçam de Espanha, p. 9. * * * * * _Inhuman priests with unoffending blood Had stain’d their country._—I. p. 1. Never has any country been so cursed by the spirit of persecution as Spain. Under the Heathen Emperors it had its full share of suffering, and the first fatal precedent of appealing to the secular power to punish heresy with death, occurred in Spain. Then came the Arian controversy. There was as much bigotry, as much rancour, as little of the spirit of Christianity, and as much intolerance, on one part as on the other: but the successful party were better politicians, and more expert in the management of miracles.