shock and flow of vowels, scarcely interrupted by their setting of slurred consonants, we seem to hear a rumour of battle, and their words can be, like those of St. Francis of Assisi preaching, _a modo che saette acute_--very sharp arrows. This native vigour corrects the tendency to rich magnificence and trailing growth of words; while without this richness the Castilian language might be like staccato Catalan--a succession of quick pistol-shots, as it were, not the stately tones of an organ. It is not too much to say that Castilian--not the miserable Castilian of many of the newspapers and many modern authors, but Castilian at its best--has been excelled only by Greek. It is thus a language truly worth studying, and it is easily learnt; it has, next to English, the widest extension in the world, and it possesses a splendid literature of eight centuries, continued at the present day in a number of characteristic and fascinating novels. Yet the Castilian language, literarily, is so little studied that it seems to be considered to be “properly none at all;” and these novels when read in translations lose their savour. Cervantes prophesied that “Don Quixote” would be translated into all nations and languages, but, as Dante said that poetry cannot be translated “senza rompere tutta sua dolcezza e armonia,” so Cervantes likens translations to the reverse side of Flemish tapestries--the figures still visible, but obscured by a crowd of thread-ends. The best Spanish is still to be found in the writers of the golden age of Spanish literature, and especially in the writings of the mystics.