Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/419

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NOTES.
373

pally of a political character. He has been several times chosen member of the legislature, and had to undertake his share of public duties, but he has declined office, and in his whole public life shown a freedom from ambition, remarkable, as Del Rio intimates, from the contrast it presents with the conduct of other men of far inferior abilities. He has announced 'A History of the Regency of Queen Christina,' of which he has published a preliminary volume, comprising a detail of antecedent events. He has also written various plays and poems, but not of such a character as to be worthy of his fame as a public speaker and journalist. His life of Martinez de la Rosa, given in a publication entitled 'Galeria de Españoles celebres contemporáneos, 1842,' (which work has now extended to many volumes, including persons of distinction in all ranks of life,) is very pleasingly written, and has been taken as the principal authority in this compilation.

31. Page 176. "Rights of the Basque people."

For a just statement of these rights, see the late Earl of Carnarvon's ' Portugal and Galicia,' vol. ii.

32. Page 180. "Observation may apply to English verse."

Our best poets, and Milton especially, afford many exemplifications of this practice.

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death
*******Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things
Abominable, inutterable and worse.

Many of our syllables also are in effect double syllables, as in the words brave, grave, clave, &c, as singers often have to regret, causing them, on that account, to slur over them. But these rules are only a continuation of Quinctilian's maxim, "Op time de ilia judicant aures. Quædam arte tradi non possunt."

33. Page 181. "The Roman friend," &c.

See note 23 to the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.