It may be thought that too little attention has been paid to the Portuguese. I will not venture to assert that the criticism is ill founded. Still I shall plead by way of excuse that what the lesser Peninsular nation did in literature was hardly sufficiently original to deserve fuller notice in a general survey of a very fertile period. Sà de Miranda and his contemporaries, even Camoens and his follower Corte-Real, were after all little more than adapters of Italian forms. They were doing in kindred language what was also being done by the Spanish “learned poets.” In Camoens there was no doubt a decided superiority of accomplishment, but the others seem to me to have been inferior to Garcilaso, Luis de Leon, or Hernan de Herrera. And this “learned poetry” is in itself the least valuable part of the literature of the Peninsula. In what is original and important, the share of the Portuguese is dubious or null. They have a doubtful right to the _Libros de Caballerías_. They have a very insignificant share in the stage, and no part in the _Novelas de Pícaros_. Barros and the other historians were men of the same class as the Spaniards Oviedo or Gómara. For these reasons, I have thought it consistent with the scheme of the book to treat them as very subordinate. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN. The unity of Spanish literature--Limits of treatment--A prevailing characteristic--The division into native and imitative--The inheritance from the fifteenth century--Spanish verse--The _Cancioneros_--The romances--The _Romanceros_--The quality of this poetry--Spain and Italy--The _Diálogo de la Lengua_--Prose of the early sixteenth century--The influence of the Inquisition 1 CHAPTER II. THE SPANISH LEARNED POETS. The starting-point of the classic school--The natural influence of Italy--Prevalence of the classic school--Its aristocratic spirit--What was imitated from the Italians--Its technique and matter--Artificiality of the work of the school--Boscan--Garcilaso--Their immediate followers--The schools of Salamanca and Seville--Góngora and Góngorism--The epics--The _Araucana_--The _Lusiads_ 30 CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH AND DECADENCE OF THE SPANISH DRAMA. The national character of the Spanish drama--The first beginnings of the religious plays--The starting-point of the secular play--Bartolomé de Torres Naharro--Lope de Rueda--Lope de Vega’s life--His influence on the drama--The conditions of the work--Contemporaries and followers of Lope--Calderon--Calderon’s school 60 CHAPTER IV. FORMS OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.