And now, allowing that there was something Spanish which found adequate expression in the Golden Age, and is also the best of the national literature, there comes the difficulty, which I dread to find insuperable, of finding a definition of that something. To say that there is Spanish quality in _las cosas de España_, and that this is why they are Spanish, is the explanation of Molière’s doctors. Again, it is mere reasoning in a circle to begin by taking it for granted that the learned poets who copied the Italian forms were not truly Spanish, and that therefore Spain was not in essentials influenced by the Renaissance. Either form of absurdity is to be avoided. Perhaps the only way of escape lies in defining what we mean by the spirit of the Renaissance. Without professing to be equal to so great a task, it is permissible to assert that there are certain notes which we describe as of the Renaissance, and to which the Italian, the Frenchman, or the Englishman gave expression in forms proper to himself. A love of beauty, a sense of joy, a vehement longing for strong expressions of individual character and of passion, a delight in the exercise of a bold, inquisitive intellect--all these, and the reaction from them, which is a deep melancholy, are the notes of the Renaissance. In the learned poetry of Spain they are rarely heard. The commonplaces of form, with here and there a piety and patriotism which are mediæval and Spanish, are given in their stead. Therefore it is quite fair to say that the Spaniard was not greatly influenced by the Renaissance--that there was something in it not congenial to him.