in direct literary history. Neither has it been cultivated by all the nations of modern Europe. At least, in some of them it has met with very limited success. In England, one might have thought, from the free scope given to the expression of opinion, it would have flourished beyond all other countries. But Italy, and even Spain, with all the restraint imposed on intellectual movement, have done more in this way than the whole Anglo-Saxon race. The very freedom with which the English could enter on the career of political action has not only withdrawn them from the more quiet pursuits of letters, but has given them a decided taste for descriptions of those stirring scenes in which they or their fathers have taken part. Hence the great preponderance with them, as with us, of civil history over literary.

It may be further remarked, that the monastic institutions of Roman catholic countries have been peculiarly favorable to this, as to some other kinds of composition. The learned inmates of the cloister have been content to solace their leisure with those literary speculations and inquiries which had no immediate connection with party excitement and the turmoils of the world. The best literary histories, from whatever cause, in Spain and in Italy, have been the work of members of some one or other of the religious fraternities.

Still another reason of the attention given to this study in most of those countries may be found in the embarrassments existing there to the general pursuit of science, which have limited the powers to the more exclusive cultivation of works of imagination, and those other productions of elegant literature that come most properly within the province of taste and of literary criticism.

Yet in England, during the last generation, in which the mind has been unusually active, if there have been few elaborate works especially devoted to criticism, the electric fluid has been imperceptibly carried off from a thousand minor points, in the form of essays and periodical reviews, which cover nearly the whole ground of literary inquiry, both foreign and domestic. The student who has the patience to consult these scattered notices, if he cannot find a system ready made to his hands, may digest one for himself by a comparison of contradictory judgments on every topic under review. Yet it may be doubted if the multitude of cross

lights thrown at random over his path will not serve rather to perplex than to enlighten him.

Wherever we are to look for the reasons, the fact will hardly be disputed, that, since Warton's learned fragment, no general literary history has been produced in England which is likely to endure, with the exception of Hallam's late work, that, under the modest title of an "Introduction," gives a general survey of the scientific and literary culture of Europe during three centuries. If the English have done so little in this way for their own literature, it can hardly be expected that they should do much for that of their neighbors. If they had extended their researches to the Continent, it might probably have been in the direction of Spain; for no country has been made with them the subject of so large historical investigation. One or two good histories devoted to Italy and Germany, as many to the revolutionary period of France, the country with which they are most nearly brought into contact, make up the sum of what is of positive value in this way. But for Spain, a series of writers, - Robertson, Watson, Dunlop, Lord Mahon, Coxe, some of the highest order, all respectable, have exhibited the political annals of the monarchy under the Austrian and Bourbon dynasties. Even at the present moment, a still livelier interest seems to be awakened to the condition of this romantic land. Two excellent works, by Head and by Stirling- the latter of especial value-have made the world acquainted for the first time with the rich treasures of art in the Peninsula. And last, not least, Ford, in his Hand-Book and other works, has joined to a curious erudition that knowledge of the Spanish character and domestic institutions that can be obtained only from singular acuteness of observation combined with a long residence in the country he describes.

Spain, too, has been the favorite theme of more than one of our own writers, in history and romance; and now the long list is concluded by the attempt of the work before us to trace the progress of intellectual culture in the Peninsula.

No work on a similar extended plan is to be found in Spain itself. Their own literary histories have been chiefly limited to the provinces, or to particular departments of letters. We may except, indeed, the great work of Father Andres, which, comprehending the whole circle of European science

and literature, left but a comparatively small portion to his own country. To his name may also be added that of Lampillas, whose work, however, from its rambling and its controversial character, throws but a very partial and unsatisfactory glance on the topics which he touches.

The only books on a similar plan, which cover the same ground with the one before us, are the histories of Bouterwek and Sismondi. The former was written as part of a great plan for the illustration of European art and science since the revival of learning, - projected by a literary association in Göttingen. The plan, as is too often the case in such copartnerships, was very imperfectly executed. The best fruits of it were the twelve volumes of Bouterwek, on the elegant literature of modern Europe. That of Spain occupies one of these volumes.

It is written with acuteness, perspicuity, and candor. Notwithstanding the writer is perhaps too much under the influence of certain German theories then fashionable, his judginents, in the main, are temperate and sound, and he is entitled to great credit as the earliest pioneer in this untrodden field of letters. The great defect in the book is the want of proper materials on which to rest these judgments. Of this the writer more than once complains. It is a capital defect, not to be compensated by any talent or diligence in the author. For in this kind of writing, as we have said, books are facts, the very stuff, out of which the history is to be made.

Bouterwek had command of the great library of Göttingen. But it would not be safe to rely on any one library, however large, for supplying all the materials for an extended literary history. Above all this is true of Spanish literature. The difficulty of making a literary collection in Spain is far greater than in most other parts of Europe. The booksellers' trade there is a very different affair from what it is in more favored regions. The taste for reading is not, or, rather, has not been, sufficiently active to create a demand for the republication always of even the best authors, the ancient editions of whose works have become scarce and most difficult to be procured. The impediment to a free expression of opinion has condemned many more works to the silence of manuscript. And these manuscripts are preserved, or, to say truth, buried, in the collections of old families, or of public institutions,

where it requires no ordinary interest with the proprietors, private or public, to be allowed to disinter them. Some of the living Spanish scholars are now busily at work in these useful explorations, the result of which they are giving from time to time to the world, in the form of livraisons, or numbers, which seem likely to form an important contribution to historical science. For the impulse thus given to these patriotic labors the world is mainly indebted to the late venerable Navarrete, who, in his own person, led the way by the publication of a series of important historical documents. It is only from these obscure and uncertain repositories, and from booksellers' stalls, that the more rare and recondite works in which Spain is so rich can be procured; and it is only under great advantages that the knowledge of their places of deposit can be obtained, and that, having obtained it, the works can be had, at a price proportioned to their rarity. The embarrassments caused by this circumstance have been greatly diminished under the more liberal spirit of the present day, which, on a few occasions, has even unlocked the jealous archives of Simancas, that Robertson, backed by the personal authority of the British ambassador, strove in vain to penetrate.

Spanish literature occupies also one volume of Sismondi's popular work on the culture of Southern Europe. But Sismondi was far less instructed in literary criticism than his German predecessor, of whose services he has freely availed himself in the course of his work. Indeed, he borrows from him, not merely thoughts, but language, translating from the German page after page, and incorporating it with his own eloquent commentary. He does not hesitate to avow his obligations; but they prove at once his own deficiencies in the performance of his critical labors, as well as in the possession of the requisite materials. Sismondi's ground was civil history, whose great lessons no one had meditated more deeply; and it is in the application of these lessons to the character of the Spaniards, and in tracing the influence of that character on their literature, that a great merit of his work consists. He was, moreover, a Frenchman, — or, at least, a Frenchman in language and education; and he was prepared, therefore, to correct some of the extravagant theories of the German critics, and to rectify some of their judg

ments by a moral standard, which they had entirely overlooked in their passion for the beautiful.

With all his merits, however, and the additional grace of a warm and picturesque style, his work, like that of Bouterwek, must be admitted to afford only the outlines of the great picture, which they have left to other hands to fill up in detail, and on a far more extended plan. To accomplish this great task is the purpose of the volumes before us; we are now to inquire, with what result. But, before entering on the inquiry, we will give some account of the preparatory training of the writer, and the materials which he has brought together.

Mr. Ticknor, who now first comes before the world in the avowed character of an author, has long enjoyed a literary reputation which few authors who have closed their career might not envy. While quite a young man, he was appointed to fill the chair of Modern Literature in Harvard College, on the foundation of the late Samuel Eliot, a name to be honored by the scholar, not only for its generous patronage, but for the important services it has rendered, and still renders to the cause of letters. To prepare himself for this post, Mr. Ticknor visited Europe, and passed several years there, to study the languages and literatures of the different countries on their own soil. A long time was passed in diligent study at Göttingen. In Paris, he explored, under able teachers, the difficult romance dialects, the medium of the beautiful Provençal.

During his residence in Spain, he perfected himself in the Castilian, and established an intimacy with her most eminent scholars, who aided him in the collection of rare books and manuscripts, to which he assiduously devoted himself. It is a proof of the literary consideration which, even at that early age, he had obtained in the society of Madrid, that he was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of History. His acquisitions in the early literature of modern Europe attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who, in a letter to Southey, printed in Lockhart's Life, speaks of his young guest (Mr. Ticknor was then at Abbotsford) as "a wonderful fellow for romantic lore."

On his return home, Mr. Ticknor entered at once on his academic labors, and delivered a series of lectures on the