their Dictionary might, without great difficulty, have been improved into a splendid display of one of the richest among modern languages, and the philosophical spirit of the age would have been applied to the elucidation of its elements. That Academy has published a volume of prize essays and poems, the fruits of a very feeble competition, in which the poetry partakes largely of the servility of imitation to which I have already alluded, and the prose is generally stiff and affected. Our style, in fact, is, at present, quite unsettled-fluctuating between the wordy pomposity of our old writers, without their ease, and the epigrammatic conciseness of second-rate French writers, stripped of their sprightliness and graces. As long, however, as we are condemned to the dead silence in which the nation has been kept for centuries, there is little chance of fixing any standard of taste for Spanish eloquence. Capmany, probably our best living philologist and prose writer, insists upon our borrowing every word and phrase from the authors of the sixteenth century, the golden age (as it is called) of our literature, while the Madrid translators, seem determined to make the Spanish language a dialect of the Frencha sort of Patois, unintelligible to either nation. The true medium certainly lies between both.

The greatest part of our language has been allowed to become vulgar or obsolete. The languages which, during the mental progress of Europe, have been made the vehicles and instruments of thought, have left ours far behind in the powers of abstraction and precision; and the rich treasure which has been allowed to lie buried so long must be re-coined and burnished before it can be recognised for sterling currency. It is neither by rejecting as foreign whatever expressions cannot be found in the writers under the Austrian dynasty, nor by disfiguring our idiom with Gallicisms, that we can expect to shape it to our present wants and fashions. Our aim should be to think for ourselves in our own language-to think, I say, and express our thoughts with clearness, force, and precision; not to imitate the mere sound of the empty periods which generally swell the pages of the old Spanish writers.

I do not mean, however, to pester you with a dissertation. Wretched as is the present state of Spanish literature, it would require a distinct series of letters to trace the causes of its decay, to relate the vicissitudes it has suffered, and to weigh the comparative merits of such as, under the deadening influence of the most absolute despotism, are still endeavouring to

feed the smouldering fire, which, but for their efforts, would have long since been extinguished.

You will, I trust, excuse this short digression, in the sure hope that I shall resume the usual gossip in my next.

LETTER XII.

Seville, July 25, 1808.

ACQUAINTED as you must be with the events which for these last two months have fixed the eyes of Europe on this country, it can give you little surprise to find me dating again from my native town. I have arrived just in time to witness the unbounded joy which the defeat of Dupont's army, at Baylen, has diffused over this town. The air resounds with acclamations, and the astounding clangour of the Cathedral-bells announces the arrival of the victorious General Castaños, who, more surprised at the triumph of his arms than any one of his countrymen, is just arrived to give thanks to the body of Saint Ferdinand, and repose a few days under his laurels.

There is something very melancholy in the wild enthusiasm, the overweening confidence, and mad boasting which prevail in this town. Lulled into a security which threatens instant death to any who should dare disturb it

with a word of caution, both the Junta and the people look on the present war as ended by this single blow; and while they spend, in processions and Te-Deums, the favourable moments when they might advance on Madrid, their want of foresight, and utter ignorance of the means of retaliation possessed by the enemy, induce them loudly to call for the infraction of thecapitulation which has placed a French army in their power. The troops, which the articles agreed upon entitle to a conveyance to their own country, are, by the effect of popular clamour, to be confined in hulks in the Bay of Cadiz. General Dupont is the only individual who, besides being treated with a degree of courtesy and respect which, were it not for the rumours afloat, would bring destruction upon the Junta, has been promised a safe retreat into France. He is now handsomely lodged in a Dominican Convent, and attended by a numerous guard of honour. The morning after his private arrival, the people began to assemble in crowds, and consequences fatal to the General were dreaded. Several meinbers of the Junta, who were early to pay the general their respects, and chiefly one Padre Gil*, a wild half-learned monk, whose

*See Letter X. p. 347.