play, _Electra_, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have always enjoyed, or, at least, since mediæval times, and has nothing in common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves. Galdós, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction. Pedro Alarcón is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His _Sombrero de Tres Picos_ is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet grace, while _El Escándalo_ and _La Pródiga_ are of the sensational order. He writes, like Galdós, in series, such as _Historietas Nacionales_, _Narraciones Inverosímiles_, and _Viajes por España_. Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen. _Sotilezas_, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town. Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible for foreign readers. The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company subjects which it would not be thought good taste to mention under the same circumstances with us. _Una Cristiana_ and _La Prueba_, its sequel, are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand, if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her articles on intellectual and social questions show an amount of education and a breadth of view which place her among the best writers of her nation. She is not in the least blinded by her patriotism to the faults of her country, especially to the hitherto narrow education of its women. She holds up an ideal of a higher type--a woman who shall be man's intellectual companion, and his helper in the battle of life. She is by no means the only woman writer in Spain at the present time; but she is the most talented, and occupies certainly the highest place. Her