As, then, the Golden Age of Spain is one, we are justified in taking it as a whole, even though we appear to violate the harmony of the arrangement of the series to which this volume belongs. And this division of the matter imposes an obvious limitation on the treatment to be adopted. Spanish literature is, in one sense, exceedingly rich. During the century and a half, or so, of its vigour, it produced a vast number of books, and the catalogue of its authors is very long. Don Nicolas Antonio, the industrious compiler of the _Biblioteca Hispana_, has calculated the number of mystic and ascetic works (of which some are among the best of Spanish books) at over three thousand. The fecundity of its theatre is a commonplace; the fluency of its poets is boundless; the bulk of its prose stories is considerable; its historians are many, and not a few are good. It is needless to add that much was written on law, theology, and the arts which has value. In dealing with all this mass of printed matter in the space at our disposal, it is clearly necessary to remember the injunction, “il faut savoir se borner.” We must, to begin with, leave aside all that is not primarily literature, except when it can be shown to have influenced that which is. Again, even in dealing with our proper subject, we must submit to limits. It is manifestly necessary to omit scores--nay, hundreds--of minor names. But that is not all. In making a survey of a fertile literature in a brief space, we are always obliged to go by kinds and classes rather than by individual writers. But in Spanish literature this is more especially true. [SN: _A prevailing characteristic._]