one tortured words, the other bricks. It is a very pretty quarrel as it stands between the Italians and the Spaniards-a question left open by Mr. Ticknor, who thinks much may be said on both sides-whether Marina (1569-1625) or Gongora had the dishonour of originating this cultismo, a contagion which spread over Europe in the seventeenth century, when men, as Sancho Panza has it, wanted better bread than could be made from wheat. Optimi corruptio pessima-the decline from excellence is always worse than the rude efforts which train up to it. Even in the title-pages of books printed at this period, a sign is held out of the straining at the quaint and unnatural within; but le dégoût du beau, amène le goût du singulier. Gongora, like the Ronsards of France, the Lillys of England, aspired to create a new phraseology, and tried to mask poverty of idea by tinsel of conceit; and yet both Quevedo and Gongora were fitted by nature for better things, and in their earlier lyrical productions breathe a higher, more poetic feeling than can be recognised in either of the brothers Argensola-(Lupercio, 1565-1613—Bartolomé, 1566-1631)—although these came, said Lope de Vega, 'from Arragon to Spain, to teach Spaniards to write Spanish.' Being taken to Naples by the Mæcenas viceroy, Count de Lemos, who thought keeping a poet' an appanage of his state, and each appointed by him to a place, which everywhere gilds commonplace, poor Cervantes flattered these men in office, in the hopes of picking up some crumbs from their table, which he did not. These socalled Horaces of Spain, whether writing lyrics, or didactic truisms on stilts, libels on Flaccus, were but pompous prigs, without vigour, genius, or originality— Coldly correct and classically dull. For the other lyrical authors of Spain we must refer to Mr. Ticknor, who possesses the works of no less than 123 poetasters after Charles V., or to the tiresome Laurel of Lope de Vega, or the entertaining Viaje of Cervantes, wherein the tuneful legions are enumerated, and whose numbers and length warn us to hold our hand. They ushered in their country's fall. With Charles II., feeble in mind and body, the worn-out Austrian dynasty and best nationality of Spain fell like Lucifer. The decline announced by Italian influences was completed by the intrusive Bourbons, who brought into the cold and severe Escorial the language of the gay and gaudy Versailles, which was no less repugnant to the fixed, formal, and lofty Castilian idiom, than the tastes and characters of the speakers; in both the antipathy of an antithesis is absolute. The seed of royal academies founded in order to purify the dic tionary, tionary, when none could write, was sown by the poor creature Philip V., who wanted nothing but a wife and a mass-book; and the crop produced its usual stubble. It is unfortunate in the history of Spain's literature that the subject deteriorates as it advances, and all interest is lost before the catastrophe, as the feudal German Rhine terminates in the swamps and sands of plodding Holland. The pure old Castilian metal rings dull and dead when alloyed with Gallicisms, French translations, and their frozen theatre. Spain, from whence even Corneilles and Molières were once proud to borrow, is now reduced, like a poor gentleman, to subsist on scraps doled out by the children of those whose forefathers she had enriched, and whom in her heart she hates. As the national mind sank, arts and letters, the exponents, kept pace. Under Charles III., born at Naples, and destined by nature to be a gamekeeper, Mengs (eclectic mediocrity in art) became what wooden West was to our George III., who knew not Reynolds and Wilson. In Spain wiser heads, who governed while Charles hunted, restrained the Inquisition and expelled the Jesuits, who now walk about England. But darkness still brooded over the Peninsula. There the Benedictine Feyjoo (1676-1764) passes for a philosopher, because in the eighteenth century, and a hundred years after our Browne's exposition of vulgar errors, he had ventured to show that the sun did not stand still to prolong Spanish bush-fightings, nor the event-portending bells of Velilla ring of themselves. Salamanca, the venerable Alma Mater of Spain, when urged to reform her antiquated course of studies, replied in 1771, Newton teaches us nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician, and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does.' Among the few names deserving of note, petty oasises in the wide zahara, are those of the Padre Isla (1703-1781) already mentioned in connexion with Gil Blas, and of Juan Valdez Melendez (1754-1817), in whom Spanish nature for a moment cast off France, but was not taken up by Spain, for this charming Burns of the Tormes died in exile and poverty, and not even an exciseman. Gaspar Melchior de Jovellanos (1744-1812), a good man, a worthy magistrate, and a prudential reformer, was also a respectable author, but one considerably over-puffed by English Whiggery. When the Boston censor, either from good nature, or a desire to conciliate-for we acquit him of irony-eulogises Quintana, the quintessence of commonplace, or Martinez de la Rosa, the impersonation of the moderate in letters and politics, or his colleague and compeer the Duque de Rivas, it is high time to conclude the History of Spanish Literature. It is in the multitude of mediocrities that Mr. Ticknor's difficulty must have consisted, when elaborating a complete companion and guide to the Spanish library. From necessity he was compelled to deal with a wide swoop, of good, bad, and indifferent. An extensive work, destined for constant consultation, will in some degree partake of a catalogue, where quantity must exceed quality, and the entertaining give way to the useful. But infinite credit is due to our author for the great number of rare and curious books which he has pointed out, for his careful tracing of their editions, and the exact indications of chapter and verse on his margin. Those only who have gone over the same ground can duly estimate the amount of unpretending industry, the absence of second-hand quotation, and the prolonged labours condensed in his thousand foot-notes. We sometimes have fancied that the amiable American, from over intimate knowledge and love of his subject, has become impregnated with Spanish prolixity and monotony; to our tastes an occasional sun-lit tower, the shadow of a dark rock in a thirsty land, the dancing sparkle of a rivulet, pleasant companion to the dry high road, gives life to table-landsbut in truth our well-beloved Transatlantic brethren are somewhat too business-like, too utilitarian, to cultivate the gentler amenities which restore the indolent sated old world. Young in the literary race, and timid, perhaps from fancied insecurity of position, they scarcely venture to descend from the dignified propriety of the chair, and prefer instructing like Don Manuel to enlivening like Boccaccio. Occasionally we could have wished that our pilot had guided the helm with more decision, and sounded with bolder plummet the philosophy of his subject; where a cursory reader may be satiated with facts, the thoughtful one, who hungers for causes, may be sent away. Mr. Ticknor's gentlemanlike and elegant remarks, couched in a calm tone, and expressed in a clear unaffected style, seem framed more on the Addisonian models in the Spectator than after the sifting searching criticism of the present age; if, however, he dives into no unfathomed depths, soars to no unscaled heights, he never creeps the ground, but pursues with sure and modest success the even tenor of his way ;-neither aspiring to the suggestive originality of Bouterwek, nor to the terse and powerful analysis of Hallam, he has produced a record which may be read with general satisfaction, and will be lastingly valued for reference. ART. ART. II.-1. Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the state of Education in Wales. 1847. 2. Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the National Society. 1847. 3. A Charge by Connop Thirlwall, D.D., Bishop of St. David's. 1848. 4. A Charge, by Thomas Williams, M.A., Archdeacon of Llandaff. Cardiff. 1849. 5. A Visitation Sermon, by Rowland Williams, A.M., Canon of St. Asaph. 1847. 6. Keltische Studien, von Friedr. Körner. Halle. 1849. IT has been found that, although the first outbreak of religious fervour may tend to schism, it not unfrequently subsides into the channel of sober piety, and gravitates by degrees towards the great living centre and standard of doctrine. Some traces of such a process have appeared in our own time in Wales, as in England: but we are sorry to say that the prospect of a general return seems nowhere so little hopeful as in the Principality. Not only is Dissent organized into an energetic system; but its principles are engrained into the popular mind, partly endeared to men by certain national prejudices as something peculiarly their own, and partly considered as motives emphatically religious, in contradistinction to others of a secular or prudential order. It is true that the statement of the number of Dissenters, which we recently extracted from Sir Thomas Phillips, does not present them in such formidable proportion to the whole of the people as might have been anticipated. Nor have we been able, on comparison with the Methodist Dyddiadur, or Calendar for 1850, to detect any error as regards the number of communicating members, who amount in the various Dissenting bodies to about 133,000. But the estimate of hearers, or ordinary attendants, which rates them at 300,000, professes only to be an approximation; and it certainly falls short of the impression which a casual observer would carry away. If, however, it is correct, it suggests the painful inference that a considerable portion, perhaps half of the entire people, are swayed to and fro by an alternation of * Some admirable remarks on the danger of a too intrusive church discipline of a personal kind, may be found in the Memoir of Alexander Knox, prefixed by Bishop Jebb to his edition of Burnet's Lives. It may, however, be noticed as a fact, that the apparent absence of such a discipline is the weak point of the Church in the eyes of the more religious among Welsh Methodists. Their classes or societies, in which the discipline is analogous to that of the confessional, are to many of them what the Eleusinian mysteries were to some of the ancients, or religious orders to warriors of the Middle Ages-something to be entered as a scene of probation or direct preparation for death. caprice, caprice, or do not attend any place of worship so regularly as to be reckoned in strictness members of the congregation. Such an irregularity may perhaps be considered, with all that it involves, as one of the most deplorable effects engendered by Dissent on a large scale. It would at all events be a mere delusion to persuade ourselves that, as far as the lower or even the middle classes are concerned, the Church either assembles an equal number habitually within her walls, or impresses them with the same fervour of attachment. Whether we enter the Principality from Shrewsbury by the old road leading to the masterpiece of Telford's art, or touch either extremity by railway, we find signs of division and estrangement among the one-tongued Cymry' as great as if they had just been scattered from Babel. Such is the position of the Church amid conflicting agencies, that we have heard clergymen compare themselves, with no very extravagant hyperbole, to missionaries in a strange land. In the towns indeed, and generally in the more educated districts, good congregations may be found; and even in remote parishes eminent ability and untiring zeal occasionally reap their merited harvest. Nor has a certain feeling of hereditary respect altogether died away, but manifests itself in some places by receiving the eucharist in church on the greater festivals, and, in most, by taking advantage of the occasional or domestic services; while in its faintest form perhaps it lingers in the habit of resorting eagerly to a consecration, and to the Plygain, or carolsinging before daybreak, on Christmas-day. Such influence as the Church retains is most beneficially exercised; but it is, on the whole, of a personal or a social, rather than of a religious kind. In the diocese of St. Asaph perhaps the picture is least discouraging. The material fabric and outward machinery of the Church in this see and that of Bangor have improved of late, and are improving. Each is of a manageable size; and in both churches have been repaired, schools and parsonages built, new districts created. In St. Asaph the average value of benefices reaches 2717., and in Bangor 2527.,-a sum which, though not excessive, falls not very far short of the English average, and which, when its results are compared with those of smaller incomes elsewhere, cannot be alleged to damage the theory of endowments. The clergy have certainly advanced since the last generation both in refinement and social standing, not only far beyond the caricature of such writers as Mr. Macaulay, but beyond the reality of former times; though whether their hold on men's minds has strengthened in proportion may be a question. The necessity of dealing with two languages is no trivial embarrassment. Perhaps also a repug nance |