at
female writers have, in considerable number, entered into competition
with the other sex. One of the most remarkable of these, as a writer of
both prose and poetry, is Carolina Coronado de Perry, the author of the
little poem here given. The poetical literature of Spain has felt the
influence of the female mind in the infusion of a certain delicacy and
tenderness, and the more frequent choice of subjects which interest the
domestic affections. Concerning the verses of the lady already
mentioned, Don Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, one of the most accomplished
Spanish critics of the present day, and himself a successful dramatic
writer, says:

* * * * *

"If Carolina Coronado had, through modesty, sent her productions from
Estremadura to Madrid under the name of a person of the other sex, it
would still have been difficult for intelligent readers to persuade
themselves that they were written by a man, or at least, considering
their graceful sweetness, purity of tone, simplicity of conception,
brevity of development, and delicate and particular choice of subject,
we should be constrained to attribute them to one yet in his early
youth, whom the imagination would represent as ingenuous, innocent, and
gay, who had scarce ever wandered beyond the flowery grove or pleasant
valley where his cradle was rocked, and where he has been lulled to
sleep by the sweetest songs of Francisea de la Torre, Garcilaso, and
Melendez."

* * * * *

The author of the _Pajaro Perdido_, according to a memoir of her by
Angel Fernandez de los Rios, was born at Almendralejo, in Estremadura,
in 1823. At the age of nine years she began to steal from sleep, after a
day passed in various lessons, and in domestic occupations, several
hours every night to read the poets of her country, and other books
belonging to the library of the household, among which are mentioned, as
a proof of her vehement love of reading, the "Critical History of
Spain," by the Abbe Masuden, "and other works equally dry and prolix."
She was afterward sent to Badajoz, where she received the best education
which the state of the country, then on fire with a civil war, would
admit. Here the intensity of her application to her studies caused a
severe malady, which has frequently recurred in after-life. At the age
of thirteen years she wrote a poem entitled _La Palma_, which the author
of her biography declares to be worth