Spanish can cover all these styles. It can sail majestically over seas of Miltonian eloquence :

Voz de dolor y canto de gemido

Y espiritu de miedo envuelto en ira,

Hagan principio acerbo a la memoria De aquel dia fatal, aborrecido,

Que Lusitania misera suspira,

Desnuda de valor, falta de gloria. . . .

F. de Herrera ;

it can vie in musical plenitude with the organ-like cadences of German :

De la viva y creciente incertidumbre

Que en lucha esteril nuestra fuerza agota ; Del huracAn de sangre que alborota

El mar de la revuelta muchedumbre ;

De la insaciable y honda podredumbre

Que el rostro y la conciencia nos azota.

G. Nunez de Arce.

But those are its best-known virtues. Not so widely recognized is its sprightly grace for dancing tunes,' witness this delightful quatrain of that exquisite musician, Don Ramon del Valle Inclan :

Como en la gaita del galaico

Pastor, de la orilla del Mino,

Salte la gracia del trocaico

Verso, ligero como un nitro.

La Marquesa Rosalinda, Preludio.

or the Verlainian sonority which it can yield under an emotional strain ; thus, Ruben Dario :

Juventud, divino tesoro,

Ya to vas para no volver. Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro, Y a veces lloro sin querer.

Its energy is proverbial and in its assertive octosyllabic it possesses an unrivalled instrument for the expression of manly strength or for the rendering of pithy proverb-like sentences. It is well known that

Corneille frequently endeavoured to imitate the sudden discharges of energy of our dramatic octosyllabic. But Racine, though a genius of so different a type and so much less dependent on stage effect, does not seem averse from seeking in Spain the model for some of his neatest and most telling phrases. Thus, his famous

Trop pour la concubine et trop peu pour l'epouse

seems to me to be directly imitated from Alarcon, in Las Paredes oyen:

Grande para dama soy

Si pequeria para esposa.

Act III, Sc. ii.

Energy, again, is a quality too well known in the Spanish language, and by insisting on it we may be led to overlook how tender this language can be with St. John of the Cross ; how classically elegant with Fray Luis de Leon; peasant-like in its fervid simplicity with St. l-seresa ; how refined and courtly with Garcilaso ; how eloquent with Herrera ; how direct and effective with Lope ; how moving in some lyrical sonnets of Quevedo, and how complex, resourceful, and adaptable in the moderns. Yet, all these qualities are not equally inherent in its nature ; and as the most typical of the Spanish language and character, even above its energy, I would select a rare power, difficult to define, a kind of genius for direct utterance which enables it to attain great emotional or spiritual effects by means of daily, humble words, expressive of daily, humble ideas, precisely that poetic quality—it will be recognized—which Wordsworth strove all his life to acquire. Thus, in Becquer :

Cerraron sus ojos

Que aun tenia abiertos ; Taparon su cara

Con un blanco lienzo ;