The Spanish American people, as we have remarked, are of a poetical and sentimental temperament, given to oratory, and they produce many poets, many of which, however, would, if criticism is harsh, be termed versifiers. They are fond of what might be termed descriptive embroidery; what, indeed, one of their own race has termed _desarollos lyricos_ ("lyric developments"). Love verses are an absorbing theme, and their small magazines overflow therewith, and even the daily Press does not disdain such. It might be said that versifying in Spanish in matters amorous may be facile, because _amores_ (love), _flores_ (flowers), _olores_ (perfume), and _dolores_ (grief) all rhyme! One cynical Spanish American poet, however, has propounded the following, descriptive of the social and natural ambient: Flores sin olor Hombres sin honor Mujeres sin pudor! That is to say: "Flowers without perfume, men without honour, women without modesty." It is true that the flowers in the New World here sometimes lacks perfume, where we might have expected to find such, and that at times men and women lack the cardinal virtues, but the same could be said anywhere, and is merely an epigram. The verse-making of the young poets is often erotic and neurotic, addressed to the object of undying affection, or to the shades of night, or the cruelty of destiny--which tears lovers apart or carries them off to early graves. In this connexion Byron is well regarded (but let us say nothing derogatory of Byron) and Shakespeare appreciated. However, it is to be recollected that these are rather symptoms of youth in a nation, and if the more blasé and practical Briton--and the still more practical and less poetical North American--finds their verse hackneyed (if he be able to read it, which is not frequently the case), this sentiment has its valuable psychical attribute. The English, indeed, are regarded by the Spanish American as of a romantic temperament, or of having a reputation for romance, and this is possibly due in part to Byron. But let it not be forgotten that there are famous Latin American poets, to which space here forbids even the barest justice to be done. The Spanish Americans are great panegyrists, moreover. The most extraordinary adulations of public personages are made and published, such as it might be supposed would cause the object thereof to blush. The late President Diaz of Mexico was always to his admirers--or those who hoped to gain something by his adulation, and this it is not necessarily unkind to say is often the motive of the panegyric--a "great star in a Pleiades or constellation of the first magnitude," and similar matters are found in all the republics. A stroke of ordinary policy becomes thus "_un acto de importancia transcendental_," which sufficiently translates itself; and so forth.