Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/377

Rh conclusion of his literary works has not been fulfilled. Since then he has published 'Songs of the Troubadour,' in three volumes, and other minor poems and plays separately. A larger work he meditated on the conquest of Granada, to be entitled 'The Cross and the Crescent,' has not been completed; and another he projected with the title 'Maria,' intending to celebrate the different characters under which the Holy Virgin is venerated in Roman Catholic countries, he has published, with the greater part supplied by a friend, all very inferior to what might have been expected from him.

It is much to be regretted that Zorrilla has in all his works allowed carelessnesses to prevail, which too often mar the effect of his verses, and still more that he has often inserted some that were of very inferior merit compared with the rest. It is not to be supposed that an author can be equally sustained in all his productions, but it is somewhat extraordinary in his volumes to find some poems of such transcendent merit, and others so inferior. These, however, are very few, and probably were hastily composed and hastily published, to supply the demand arising for the day. He is probably the only author in Spain who has profited by the sale of his writings to any extent, and to do this he must have been often under the necessity of tasking his mind severely, without regard to its spontaneous suggestions. Thus then, when he found his inspiration failing, he has often had recourse to memory, and repeated from himself, and even from others, verses previously published. It is to be hoped that he may be induced soon to give the world a revised edition of his works, in which the oversights may be corrected, and the poems unworthy of his fame may be omitted.

On reading over dispassionately the 'Lines to Larra,' by which he was first brought so prominently into notice, it may occasion some surprise to learn they had produced so