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She has since then suffered from civil and foreign wars and from internal dissensions, but she has grown in wealth and strength and intellectual cultivation, until there is once more in the heart of her people the hope of ultimate and complete redemption.

The work is devoted to the praise of about three hundred contemporary poets. In 1632 the poet published his prose romance, Dorotea, written in the form of drama, but not adapted to representation on the stage. It is a very interesting work drawn from the author's youth and styled by him as "the posthumous child of my Muse, the most beloved of my long-protracted life."

Literary comparisons have been made occasionally and modern forms or equivalents for archaic words and expressions have been given, but usually these have been limited to words not found in the better class of dictionaries commonly used in the study of such works. The editor is especially indebted to Sr.

And through it all the peninsula was rent by civil discord. Spain sank to the lowest level of inefficiency and corruption, and was forced to drink the bitter dregs of humiliation and despair. But from her travail there came a new birth. With the expulsion of Isabel II in 1868, Spain entered upon a new life.

Pereda's language is academically correct, with some of the flavor of Cervantes; but his thought is often ponderous, or even obscure. He is at his best when he pictures the uncouth homely life of his highland peasants or simple fisher-folk. This he does with the truthfulness of the most scrupulous realist, but without stooping to pornographic detail.

Before this time he was known as a great author and worshiped by the element interested in the drama, but on both these occasions he had an opportunity to declaim his incomparable verses and those of the other contesting poets, revealing his majestic bearing and versatility to the great populace of Madrid, his native city.

Larra's most enduring works are his critical reviews and his essays on manners. This volume was published in 1847, but many of the articles had appeared much earlier in periodicals. The author was a kindly scoffer, and in this work he gave merry pictures of Madrid customs, written simply and accurately in language that was chosen but diffuse.

He was extravagant in description and intemperate in criticism, keen of observation but shallow; and he showed a lack of sense of proportion; but he had a versatility and dash that brought him some meed of popularity. In later life Alarcón passed over from radicalism to conservatism in politics, and his writings became more sober in tone.

The Spanish stories in this collection have been arranged, so far as possible, in the order of difficulty; but some instructors will doubtless prefer to read them in chronological order, or, better still, in an order determined by the "school", or literary affiliations, of each author. This latter arrangement is difficult to make, and it must be, at the best, somewhat arbitrary.

For his employer he composed about this time the pastoral romance Arcadia, which was not published until 1598. The remaining years of his banishment, which was evidently remitted in 1595, were uneventful enough, but this last year brought to him a great sorrow in the death of his faithful wife.