reflection upon men and things, all the various play of fancy, all the fine gold of the imagination, and all the humor, gay or grotesque, which the plain prose of life itself does not contain.  Working freely, unawed by classic models whose perfection they would attain, they were easy in their motions, frank of conception, and ready to follow their matter wherever it might lead them.  They had no dread of being dull or unpoetical or undignified; the best of them were constantly all these.  But for this very reason they were large and free and powerful, scornful of trivial difficulties and obstacles, and able to attain success where all the chances were against them.  The thought and feeling, the hopes and aspirations, the delusions and absurdities of Spain in the period of her greatest power and splendor are all mirrored in their verse.  Like the Elizabethan dramatists, furthermore, they exacted tribute from all other literatures and spent it as they would.  And though their work has seldom the rare distinction of ultimate perfection of form (indeed, in this respect falls below the best Elizabethan standard), no one can read it without perceiving that he is engaged with the rich and vital utterance of artists who are masters of their craft.

Hardly less remarkable than the Spanish drama is the Spanish novel.  Obviously, much the same qualities are demanded for success in the one form as in the other; and from the earliest period Spanish story-tellers have known how to do their work well.  There are tales in the fourteenth-century collection by Don Juan Manuel, known as El Conde Lucanor, that are as skillfully contrived as could possibly be.  In spite of its prolixity, the once famous romance of Amadis of Gaul, which was given its Spanish form in the end of the fifteenth century, must still be regarded as a highly successful piece of narration.  At the close of the same century, the often indecent, but never dull ‘tragi-comedy’ of Celestina (a novel in fact, though dramatic in form) proved its excellence as a piece of literary workmanship by attaining speedily a European reputation.  The sixteenth century saw the evolution of so-called novela picaresca, or rogue novel, one of the most important and influential of modern literary forms.  And, finally, in 1605 Cervantes published the first part of one of the greatest of modern books, Don Quixote,—­a novel in which the art of story-telling is brought to almost unrivaled perfection.

In more recent times, the Spanish novel has, of course, suffered from the general intellectual decline of Spain as a whole.  Its originality has been impaired by the inevitable and generally baneful influence exercised by foreign models upon the taste of a people not confident in its own strength and superiority.  The eighteenth century, in particular, produced little deserving even casual mention.  Yet in no period have evidences of the old power been entirely lacking;