arity. These
notes ring clear in some recent poems of Dario, and of
Jose S. Chocano of Peru and Rufino Blanco-Fombona of
Venezuela. The lines given in the text are an ode which
was addressed to Mr. Roosevelt when he was president of
the United States from 1901 to 1909. The meter of the poem
is mainly the Old Spanish Alexandrine, but with a curious
intermingling of lines of nine, ten and eight syllables,
and with assonance of the even lines throughout. In all
fairness it should be stated here that Senor Dario, in a
recent letter to the writer of these _Notes_, said: "I
do not think to-day as I did when I wrote those verses"
(Dario: _Epistolas y poemas_, 1885; _Abrojos_, 1887;
_Azul_, 1888; _Cantos de vida y esperanza_, Madrid, 1905;
_El canto errante_, Madrid, 1907).
page 315
=212.=--8. Argentina and Chile are the most progressive of
the Spanish-American States. The Argentine flag is blue
and white, with a _sun_ in the center; the flag of Chile
has a white and a red bar, and in one corner a white
_star_ on a blue background.

11. This refers, of course, to the colossal bronze Statue
of Liberty by the French sculptor, Frederic Bartholdi,
which stands in New York harbor.

14. In a letter to the writer of these _Notes_, Senor
Dario explains this passage as follows: "Bacchus, or
Dionysius, after the conquest of India (I refer to the
semi-historical and not to the mythological Bacchus) is
supposed to have gone to other and unknown countries. I
imagine that those unknown countries were America. Pan,
who accompanied Bacchus on his journey, taught those new
men the alphabet. All this is related to the tradition
of the arrival of bearded men, strangely dressed, in the
American countries.... These traditions exist in the South
as well as the North."

16. =Que consulto los astros=: the ancient Peruvians and
Mexicans had made considerable progress in the study of
astronomy.

=214.=--=Venezuela.= During the colonial period the
development of literary culture was slower in the
Capitania de Caracas than in Colombia, Peru and Mexico.
The Colegio de Santa Rosa, which was founded at Caracas in
1696, was made a university in 1721. Not till 1806 was the
first printing-press set up in the colony.

Poetry in Venezuela begins with Bello, for the works
of his predecessors had little merit. Andres Bello
(1781-1865) was the most consummate master of poetic
diction among