Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/318

272 pestri, Le quattro parti del giorno,' to which, therefore, justice requires the acknowledgement to be given. It is much to be regretted that Heredia did not distinguish his original compositions in all cases from imitations, as there is no statement with regard to this one, of its having been taken from another author. There are other instances of the same neglect, as in a close translation from Campbell of 'The Ode to the Rainbow,' equally unacknowledged. The interests of literature require that such acknowledgements should be uniformly made, that we should know gold from imitations, and give every one his right and place. As the same Italian poet remarked in his 'Opinioni Politiche,'

Conosco anch'io negli ordini civili L'oro dal fango, ed anch'io veggio che altra Cosa è il nascere Inglese, ed altra Turco.

Heredia's original poems, many of them written to, or respecting his near relatives or other friends, betoken so much true poetic feeling, as well as flow of poetical ideas, that we cannot suppose the neglect of which we have complained to have been more than an oversight. He might even in some cases have lost remembrance of his obligations, and repeated from memory when he thought he was writing from inspiration. The latter part of his first volume is entirely taken up with "Imitations;" but those we have noticed above are in the second volume, without any distinction from the original poems.

He had, however, in early life so many privations to endure, and so many daily necessities for which to make a daily provision, that we may not be surprised at his inexactness in minor matters. In the preface to the second edition, he says, that "the revolutionary whirlwind had made him traverse over a vast course in a short time, and that with better or worse fortune he had been an advocate, a soldier, a