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332 remarkable an effect. If they had previously been read over alone to any one of the auditors, he probably might not have considered them so ideal, so beautiful, or so original as they seemed at the public recital. Some phrase might have appeared incomprehensible, some sentiment exaggerated or not true; some expression or line, hard or weak or forced. He might have observed a want of order or connection in the ideas, or the whole to be vague and leaving no fixed thought in the mind; or he might have pronounced them, as they have been since pronounced, an imitation of Victor Hugo or Lamartine. But to the auditors assembled, in the excited state of their feelings, there was no time for reflection or criticism. It was a composition of the hour for that particular scene,—for themselves, in language and feelings with which they could sympathize. Thus the verses seized on their minds and electrified them, so that they had no time to dwell on any discussion or dispute of their merits, but yielded at once to the fascination of the melodious verse they heard, and the appropriate application of the homage they testified.

In the first volume of poems that Zorrilla published, containing his earliest productions, are to be found all the selections made for translation in this work. They may not be so highly finished as some afterwards published, nor so marked by that distinctive character he has made his own; but they show the first promises of the fruit that was in store, to be afterwards brought to such maturity. As he had scarcely emerged from boyhood when he began to tread the path to fame, his first steps could scarcely fail to betray that sort of uncertainty which attends on all who are going on an unknown road. Thus then through the volume he appears to be seeking a ground whereon to fix his energies and build the temple for his future fame, without being able confidently to fix on any place in preference. His poetry from the first,