Spanish-American poets, although he lacked
the brilliancy of Olmedo and the spontaneity of Heredia.
Born in Caracas and educated in the schools of his native
city, Bello was sent to England in the year 1810 to
further the cause of the revolution, and he remained in
that country till 1829, when he was called to page 316
Chile to take service in the Department of Foreign
Affairs. His life may, therefore, be divided into three
distinct periods. In Caracas he studied chiefly the Latin
and Spanish classics and the elements of international
law, and he made metrical translations of Virgil and
Horace. Upon arriving in England at the age of twenty-nine
years, he gave himself with enthusiasm to the study of
Greek, Italian and French, as well as to English. Bello
joined with the Spanish and Hispano-American scholars in
London in the publication of several literary reviews,
notably the _Censor americano_ (1820), the _Biblioteca
americana_ (1823) and the _Repertorio americano_
(1826-27), and in these he published many of his most
important works. Here appeared his studies of Old French
and of the _Song of My Cid_, his excellent translation of
fourteen cantos of Boiardo's _Orlando innamorato_, several
important articles on Spanish syntax and prosody, and the
best of all his poems, the _Silvas americanas_.

In 1829, when already forty-eight years of age, Bello
removed to Chile, and there entered upon the happiest
period of his life. Besides working in a government
office, he gave private lessons until in 1831 he was made
rector of the College of Santiago. In the year 1843 the
University of Chile was established at Santiago and Bello
became its first rector. He held this important post
till his death twenty-two years later at the ripe age of
eighty-four. During this third and last period of his life
Bello completed and published his _Spanish Grammar_ and
his _Principles of International Law_, works which, with
occasional slight revisions, have been used as standard
text-books in Spanish America and to some extent in Spain,
to the present day. The _Grammar_, especially, has been
extraordinarily successful, and the edition with notes by
Jose Rufino Cuervo is still the best text-book of Spanish
grammar we have. In the _Grammar_ Bello sought to free
Castilian from Latin terminology; but he desired, most of
all, to correct the abuses so common to writers page 317
of the period and to establish lingui