empty houses, the people flocked to hear the sainetes of Ramon de la Cruz, a new type of theatre which was in direct line with the Golden Century and which, though transformed, survives to this day, in the genero chico.

Thus from the birth of our epics down to the present day the creative faculty of the nation evolves in a steady direction, according to the law of the national genius. It ignores or resists all intellectual dictation, and follows the instinct which prompts it to contemplate reality as it is and to interpret it freely and directly. This is the fact which gives to Spanish literature its independence, its originality, and its strong character.

The contrast is great between the steady development of Spain's creative impulse and the hesitating course of her culture. The national impulse which opposes to outside influences a vitality of its own, vigorous in her creative faculty, is weak or altogether absent in her intellectual life. From the philosophical point of view Spanish culture has its roots in latinity. But from the purely literary point of view Spanish culture, that is the conscious attitude of the learned towards works of art, starts under the influence of France. Vague and rudimentary as it no doubt was, the art poetique which prevailed when Myo Cid was written was, on the whole, French. Later on Italy dethroned France. Dante was to Santillana as exalted a figure as Virgil was to Dante ; and Boccaccio came to be considered as a scholar of almost Aristotelian eminence. Favoured by historical circumstances, the Italian influence prevails all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, reinforced,,,if anything, by the progress of classic studies. The great creators of the Golden Century, Cervantes, Lope, Gemgora, Quevedo, consider themselves as humble disciples of the classic and of the Italian masters. The eighteenth century in Spain, as everywhere, belongs to France, and it is

significant that in its last year the usual divorce between the intellect and the instinct of the country should have attained its maximum and culminated in the act of open hostility mentioned above. It would be foolish to deny that these successive influences under which Spanish culture found itself placed in the course of time, have played an important part in the literary development of the country. They have improved both the substance and the form of Spanish literature. They have countered the Spanish tendency toward self-absorption and isolation, and that attitude of inhibition before ideas for the sake of mere life and movement which is typical of Spanish art, with the opposite tendencies towards universality and ideological development which distinguish the Franco-Italian genius. They have also helped to correct the impatience and carelessness of the Spanish artist by setting before him models of form and high standards of literary finish. But the too-ready acceptance of foreign ideals of form has undoubtedly hindered the fusion of the conscious and scholarly with the unconscious and popular flow of art in Spanish literature.

The opinion may perhaps be risked that the distinctive feature of Spanish contemporary literature, and that which gives it a certain minimum of harmony and unity, is a more or less conscious effort towards achieving this fusion between the creative instinct and the cultivated intellect of the nation.

We must resist a strong temptation to place the origin of this effort at the Romantic period. It is true that Romanticism brought about a revival of interest in all Spanish subjects, the rejection of the three-unities standard and the return to the traditional liberty of our theatre. But these are only external and, some, accidental, features of Spanish art. What really typifies the creative spirit of Spain is its capacity