These compositions doubtless give us a better idea of the interior thought of Mexican monasticism than some yellow-covered speculations. In that life grew the finest genius, the greatest woman, perhaps the most remarkable character in all respects that Mexico ever produced. Considering the time and place in which she wrote, the New World has scarcely produced her superior among women of genius. Up to the nineteenth century America had, doubtless, no, literary product comparable to the poems of Sor Juana Ines. What Cabrera, was to the art, Sor Juana seems to have been to the literature of her country; and both these workers of genius gave their powers to the service of religion. It is here worthy of remark that not only were the greatest painter and poet of Mexico studious servants of the church, but that its most celebrated scientist was the Jesuit Siguenza y Gongora, author of a funeral eulogy of Sor Juana Ines, whom he knew and appreciated, for he, too, was a poet. Without social helps, without emulation, such as is ordinarily understood, such proofs of her high intelligence as we possess have come to light. Perplexed as it was with the mannered erudition of the schools, her poetry nevertheless reveals noble sensibility and thought in superior forms. Thus she sings in her verses entitled "Sentiments of Absence:" "Hear me with eyes, Now that so distant are thine ears; Of absence my laments; In echoes from my pen the groans; And as can reach thee not my voice so rude, Hear thou me deaf, since dumbly I complain." This is like a voice of the Elizabethan age; but what _woman_ even of that day has left us so rare a record of poetry and piety combined as the nun of San Geronimo, she who lived in 1670 in far-off, outlandish Mexico? What chapter of literature would seem too good to entertain this Tenth Muse, to whom we owe such sonnets as these: TO A PAINTER OF OUR LADY, OF MOST EXCELLENT PENCIL. If pencil, although grand in human wise, Could make a picture thus most beautiful, Where even clearest vision not refines Thy light, O admirable--yet in vain: How did the author of thy sovereign soul Proportion space to his creation fair! What grace he painted, and what loveliness! The scope more ample, greater was the hand. Was found within the sphere of purest light The pencil, schooled within the morning-star, When thou wert dawned, Aurora most divine? Yea, thus indeed it was; but verily The sky has not paid back thy cost to him Who spent in thee more light than it has now. THE LOVERS.