dgments, its candid temper
and generous spirit. Cultivated Spaniards were amazed that a foreigner
had so thoroughly traced the stream of their literature from its
fountain-heads, omitting nothing, overlooking nothing, and doing justice
to all.

Such a work could never attain any very wide popularity, and this from
the nature of its subject. To the general reader books about books are
never so attractive as histories and biographies, which deal with the
doings of men, and glow with the warmth of human interests. But every
man of literary taste, though but superficially acquainted with Spanish
literature, could recognize the merits of Mr. Ticknor's work, its
philosophical spirit, its lucid arrangement, its elegant and judicious
criticisms, and its neat, correct, and accurate style. He could not fail
to see that the works of Bouterwek and Sismondi were, by comparison,
merely a series of graceful sketches, with no claim to be called a
complete and thorough history. It took its place at once as the highest
authority in any language upon the subject of which it treated, as the
very first book which everybody would consult who wanted any information
upon that subject.

The present edition of the "History of Spanish Literature" is by no
means identical with those which have preceded it. It omits nearly the
whole of the inedited, primitive Castilian poems which have heretofore
filled about seventy pages at the end of the last volume; and in other
parts of the work a corresponding, and even more than a corresponding,
amount of new matter has been introduced, which will, it is believed, be
accounted of greater interest than the early poetry it displaces. These
additions and changes have been derived from very various sources. In
the first place, Mr. Ticknor was in Europe himself in 1856 and 1857, and
visited the principal libraries, public and private, in England, France,
Germany, and Italy, in which any considerable collection of Spanish
books was to be found, and by examination of these supplied any wants
there might be in his own very ample stores. In the second place, his
History has been translated into German and Spanish, the former version
being illustrated with notes by Dr. Ferdinand Wolf, perhaps the best
Spanish scholar in Germany, and the latter by Don Pascual de Gayangos,
one of the best scholars in Spain. From the results of the labors of
these distinguished annotators Mr. Ticknor has taken--with generous
acknowledg