To write an account of contemporary literature is an undertaking not less tempting than to write the history of contemporary politics. Its productions are likely to be familiar to us; its authors have probably expressed ideas with which we are more or less in sympathy; and in dealing with these we are free from the burdens of authority and tradition. On the other hand, criticism of contemporaries is so prone to be coloured by the prejudice of sects and cliques, that the liberal historian of the past is in danger of exhibiting himself as a blind observer of the present, or as a ludicrous prophet of the future. A book on current literature is often, like Hansard, a melancholy register of mistaken forecasts. Probably no critic of 1820 would have ventured to place Keats among the greatest poets of the world. But the risk of failing to recognise a Keats is, in the nature of things, very slight; and for our present purpose we are only concerned with those who, by general admission, are among the living influences of the moment, the chiefs of a generation which is now almost middle-aged.

No Spaniard would contest the title of the Asturian, RamÓn de Campoamor y Campoosorio (b. 1817), to be considered as the actual doyen of Spanish literature. He purposed entering the Society of Jesus in his youth, then turned to medicine as his true vocation, and finally gave himself up to poetry and politics. A fierce conservative, Campoamor has served as Governor of Alicante and Valencia, and has combated democracy by speech and pen; but he has never been taken seriously as a politician, and his few philosophic essays have caused his orthodoxy to be questioned by writers with an imperfect sense of humour. His controversy with Valera on metaphysics and poetry is a manifest joke to which both writers have lent themselves with an affectation of profound solemnity; and it may well be doubted if Campoamor's professed convictions are more than occasions for humoristic ingenuity.

He has attempted the drama without success in such pieces as El Palacio de la Verdad and in El Honor. So also in the eight cantos of a grandiose poem entitled El Drama Universal (1873) he has failed to impress with his version of the posthumous loves of Honorio and Soledad, though in the matter of technical execution nothing finer has been accomplished in our day. His chief distinction, according to Peninsular critics, is that he has invented a new poetic genre under the names of doloras, humoradas or pequeÑos poemas (short poems). It is not, however, an easy matter to distinguish any one of these from its brethren, and Campoamor's own explanation lacks clearness when he lays it down that a dolora is a dramatised humorada, and that a pequeÑo poema is an amplified dolora. This is to define light in terms of darkness. An acute critic, M. Peseux-Richard, has noted that this definition is not only obscure, but that it is an evident afterthought.[31] The dolora is the first in order of invention, and it is also the performance upon which, to judge by his PoÉtica, Campoamor sets most value. What, then, is a dolora? It is, in fact, a "transcendental" fable in which men and women, their words and acts, are made to typify eternal "verities": a poem which aims at brevity, delicacy, pathos, and philosophy in an ironical setting. The "transcendental" truth to be conveyed is the supreme point: exquisiteness of form is unimportant.

M. Peseux-Richard dryly remarks that humoradas are as old as anything in literature, and that Campoamor's exploit consists in inventing the name, not the thing. This is true; and it is none the less true that the writing of doloras (and the rest), after the recipe of the master, has become a plague of recent Spanish literature. Fortunately Campoamor is better than his theories, which, if he were consistent, would lead him straight to conceptismo. Doubtless, at whiles, he condescends upon the banal, mistakes sentimentalism for sentiment, substitutes a commonplace for an aphorism, a paradox for an epigram; doubtless, also, he is wanting in the right national note of exaltation and rhetorical splendour. But for all his profession of indifference to form, he is—at his best—a most accomplished craftsman, an admirable artist in miniature, an expert in the art of concise expression, and, in so much, a healthy influence—though not without a concealed germ of evil. For if in his own hands the ingenious antithesis often reaches the utmost point of condensation, in the hands of imitators it is degraded to an obscure conceit, a rhymed conundrum. His vogue has always been considerable, and he is one of the few Spanish poets whose reputation extends beyond the Pyrenees; still, he is not in any sense a national poet, a characteristic product of the soil, and with all his distinguished scepticism, his picturesque pessimistic pose, and his sound workmanship, he is more likely to be remembered for a score of brilliant apophthegms than for any essentially poetic quality.

It was as a poet that Juan Valera y AlcalÁ Galiano (b. 1827) made his first appearance in literature in 1856. Few in Europe have seen more aspects of life, or have snatched more profit from their opportunities. Born at CÓrdoba, educated at MÁlaga and Granada, Valera has so enjoyed life from the outset that his youth is now the subject of a legend. Passing from law to diplomacy, he learned the world in the legations at Naples, Lisbon, Rio Janeiro, Dresden, St. Petersburg; he helped to found El Contemporaneo, once a journal of great influence; he entered the Cortes, and became minister at Frankfort, Washington, Brussels, and Vienna. His native subtlety, his cosmopolitan tact, have served him no less in literature than in affairs. To literature he has given the best that is in him. He has protested, with the ironical humility in which he excels, against the public neglect of his poems; and when one reflects upon what has found favour in this kind, the protest is half justified. Valera's verses, falling short as they do of inspired perfection, are wrought with curious delicacy of technique. But his very cultivation is against him: such poems as SueÑos or Último AdiÓs or El Fuego divino, admirable as they are, recall the work of predecessors. Memories of Luis de LeÓn, traces of Dante and Leopardi, are encountered on his best page; and yet he brings with him into modern verse qualities which, in the actual stage of Spanish literature, are of singular worth—repose and refinement and dignity and metrical mastery.

As a critic his diplomatic training has been a hindrance to him. He rarely writes without establishing some ingenious and suggestive parallel or pronouncing some luminous judgment; but he is, so to say, in fear of his own intelligence, and his instinctive courtesy, his desire to please, often stay him from arriving at a clear conclusion. His manifold interests, the incomparable beauty of his style, his wide reading, his cold lucidity, are an almost ideal equipment for critical work. Expert in ingratiation as he is, his suave complaisance becomes a formidable weapon in such a performance as the Cartas Americanas, where excessive urbanity has all the effect of commination: you set the book down with the impression that the writers of the South American continent have been complimented out of existence by a stately courtier.

But whatever reserves may be made in praising the poet and the critic, Valera's triumph as a novelist is incontestable. Mr. Gosse has so introduced him to English readers as to make further criticism almost superfluous. Valera, for all his polite scepticism, is a Spaniard of the best: a mystic by intuition and inheritance, a doubter by force of circumstances and education. He himself has told us in the Comendador Mendoza how Pepita JimÉnez came into life as the result of much mystic reading, which held him fascinated but not captive; and were we to accept his humorous confession literally, we should take it that he became a novelist by accident. It is, however, true that when he wrote Pepita JimÉnez he still had much to learn in method. Writers with not a tithe of his natural gift would have avoided his obvious faults—his digressions, his episodes which check the current of his story. But Pepita JimÉnez, whatever its defects, is of capital importance in literary history, for from its publication dates the renaissance of the Spanish novel. Here at last was a book owing nothing to France, taking its root in native inspiration, arabesquing the motives of Luis de Granada, LeÓn, Santa Teresa, displaying once more what Coventry Patmore has well described as "that complete synthesis of gravity of matter and gaiety of manner which is the glittering crown of art, and which, out of Spanish literature, is to be found only in Shakespeare, and even in him in a far less obvious degree."

And Valera has continued to progress in art. In construction, in depth, in psychological insight, DoÑa Luz exceeds its predecessor, as the Comendador Mendoza outshines both in vigour of expression, in tragic conception, in pathetic sincerity. Las Ilusiones del Doctor Faustino has found less favour with critics and with general readers, perhaps because its humour is too refined, its observation too merciless, its style too subtle. Nor is Valera less successful in the short story, and in the dialogue, in which sort Asclepigenia may be held for an absolute masterpiece in little. His work lies before us, complete for all purposes; for though he still publishes for our delight, advancing age compels him to dictate instead of writing—a harassing condition for an artist whose talent is free from any touch of declamation. It is hard for us who have undergone the spell of Prospero, who have been fascinated by his truth and grace and sympathy, to judge him with the impartiality of posterity. But we may safely anticipate its general verdict. It may be that some of his improvisations will lack durability; but these are few. Valera, like the rest of the world, is entitled to be judged at his best, and his best will be read as long as Spanish literature endures; for he is not simply a dexterous craftsman using one of the noblest of languages with an exquisite delicacy and illimitable variety of means, nor a clever novelist exercising a superficial talent, nor even (though he is that in a very special sense) the leader of a national revival. He is something far rarer and more potent than an accomplished man of letters: a great creative artist, and the embodiment of a people's genius.

A less cosmopolitan, but scarcely less original talent is that of JosÉ MarÍa de Pereda (b. 1834), who comes, like so many distinguished Spaniards, from "the mountain." Born at Polanco, trained as a civil engineer in his province of Santander, Pereda was—and, perhaps, still is, theoretically—a stout Carlist, an intransigent ultramontane whose social position has enabled him to despise the politics of expediency. His earliest essays in a local newspaper, La Abeja MontaÑesa, attracted no attention; nor was he much more fortunate with his amazingly brilliant Escenas MontaÑesas (1864). FernÁn Caballero, and a gentle sentimentalist now wholly forgotten, Antonio Trueba (1821-89), satisfied readers with graceful insipidities, beside which the new-comer's manly realism seemed almost crude. The conventional villager, simple, Arcadian, and impossible, held the field; and Pereda's revelation of unveiled rusticity was esteemed displeasing, unnecessary, inartistic. He had to educate his public. From the outset he found a few enthusiasts to appreciate him in his native province; and, by slow degrees, he succeeded in imposing himself first upon the general audience, and then, with much more difficulty, upon official critics. It is commonly alleged against him that even in his more ambitious novels—in Don Gonzalo GonzÁlez de la Gonzalera, in Pedro SÁnchez, where he deals with town life, and in Sotileza, which is salt with the sea—his personages are local. The observation is intended as a reproach; but, in truth, Pereda's men and women are only local as Sancho Panza and Maritornes are local—local in particulars, universal as types of nature. His true defects are his tendency to abuse his knowledge of dialect, to insist on a moral aim, to caricature his villains. These are spots on the sun. On the whole, he pictures life as he sees it, with unblenching fidelity; his people live and move; and—not least—he is a master of nervous, energetic phrase. No writer outdoes him as a landscape-painter in rendering the fertile valleys, the cold hills, the vexed Cantabrian sea, to which he returns with the intimate passion of a lover.

The representative of a younger school is Benito PÉrez GaldÓs (b. 1845), who left the Canary Islands in his nineteenth year with the purpose of reading law in Madrid. A brief trial of journalism, previous to the revolution of 1868, led to the publication of his first novel, La Fontana de Oro (1870), and since 1873 he has shown a wondrous persistence and suppleness of talent. His Episodios Nacionales alone fill twenty volumes, and as many more exist detached from that series. He has composed the modern national epic in the form of novels: novels which have for their setting the War of Independence, and the succeeding twenty years of civil combat; novels in which not less than five hundred characters are presented. GaldÓs is in singular contrast with his friend Pereda. The prejudiced Tory has educated his public; the Liberal reformer has been educated by his contemporaries. GaldÓs has always had his fingers on the general pulse; and when the readers in the late seventies wearied of the historico-political novel, GaldÓs was ready with La Familia de LeÓn Roch, with Gloria, and with DoÑa Perfecta, in which the religious difficulty is posed ten years before Robert Elsmere was written. His third stage of development is exampled in Fortuna y Jacinta, a most forcible study of contemporary life. A prolific inventor, a minute observer of detail, GaldÓs combines realism with fantasy, flat prose with poetic imagination, so that he succeeds best in drawing psychological eccentricities like Ángel Guerra. He is perhaps too Spanish to endure translation, too prone to assume that his readers are familiar with the minutiÆ of Peninsular life and history, and his construction, broad as it is, lacks solidity; but that he deserves the greater part of his fame is unquestionable, and if there be doubters, Fortuna y Jacinta and Ángel Guerra are at hand to vindicate the judgment.

In all the length and breadth of Spain no writer (with the possible exception of that slashing, incorrigible, brilliant reviewer, Antonio de Valbuena) is better known and more feared than Leopoldo Alas (b. 1852), who uses the pseudonym of ClarÍn. Alas is often accused of fierce intolerance as a critic; and the charge has this much truth in it—that he is righteously, splendidly intolerant of a pretender, a mountebank, or a dullard. He may be right or wrong in judgment; but there is something noble in the intrepidity with which he handles an established reputation, in the infinite malice with which he riddles an enemy. An ample knowledge of other literatures than his own, a catholic taste, as pretty a wit as our days have seen, and a most combative, gallant spirit make him a critical force which, on the whole, is used for good. He is not mentioned here, however, as the formidable gladiator of journalism, but as the author of one of the best contemporary novels. La Regenta (1884-1885) is, in the first place, a searching analysis of criminal passion, marked by fine insight; and the examination of false mysticism which betrays Ana Ozores is among the subtlest, most masterly achievements in recent literature. GaldÓs is realistic and persuasive: Alas is real and convincing. He has not the cunning of the contriver of situations, and as he never condescends to the novelist's artifice, he imperils his chance of popularity. In truth, far from enjoying a vulgar vogue, La Regenta has had the distinction of being condemned by criticasters who have never read it. Su Único Hijo, and the collection of short stories entitled PipÁ, interesting and finished in detail, are of slighter substance and value. The duties of a law professorship at the University of Oviedo, the tasks of journalism, have occupied Alas during the last four years. Literature in Spain is but a poor crutch, and even the popular Valera has told us that he must perish did he depend upon his pen. Spanish men of letters have to be content with fame. Meanwhile, it is known that Alas is at work upon the long-promised Esperaindeo, in which we may fairly hope to find a companion to La Regenta.

Of Armando Palacio ValdÉs (b. 1853) it can hardly be said that he has fulfilled the promise of Marta y MarÍa and La Hermana de San Sulpicio. Alas, with whom Palacio ValdÉs collaborated in a critical review of the literature of 1881, has succeeded in absorbing the good elements of the modern French naturalistic school without losing his Spanish savour. Palacio ValdÉs has surrendered great part of his nationality in Espuma and in La Fe, which might, with a change of names, be taken for translations of French novels. He has abundant cleverness, a sure hand in construction, a distinct power of character-drawing, which have won him more consideration out of Spain than in it, and he has a fair claim to rank as the chief of the modern naturalistic school. His most distinguished rival is the Galician, the Sra. Quiroga, better known by her maiden name of Emilia Pardo BazÁn (b. 1851), the best authoress that Spain has produced during the present century. Her earliest effort was a prize essay on FeijÓo (1876), followed by a volume of verses which I have never seen, and upon which the writer is satisfied that oblivion should scatter its poppy. She pleases most in picturesque description of country life and manners in her province, of scenes in La CoruÑa, which she glorifies in her writings as Marineda. Her foundation of a critical review, the Nuevo Teatro CrÍtico, written entirely by herself, showed confidence and enterprise, and enabled her to propagate her eclectic views on life and art. Women have hitherto been more impressionable than original, and DoÑa Emilia has been drawn into the French naturalistic current in Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886) and in La Madre Naturaleza (1887). Both novels contain episodes of remarkable power, and La Madre Naturaleza is an almost epical glorification of primitive instincts. But Spain has a native realism of her own, and it is scarcely probable that the French variety will ever supersede it. It is as a naturalistic novelist that the Sra. Pardo BazÁn is generally known; but the fashion of naturalism is already passing, and it is by the rich colouring, the local knowledge, the patriotic enthusiasm, and the exact vision of such transcripts of local scene and custom as abound in De mi tierra that she best conveys the impressions of an exuberant and even irresistible temperament. What Pereda has accomplished for the land of the mountain the Sra. Pardo BazÁn has, in lesser measure, done for Galicia.

One must hold it against her that she should have aided in establishing the trivial vogue of the Jesuit, Luis Coloma (b. 1851), whose PequeÑeces (1890) caused more sensation than any novel of the last twenty years. Palacio ValdÉs has been severely censured for writing, in Espuma, of "society" in which he has never moved. "What," asked Isaac Disraeli, "what does my son know about dukes?" The Padre Coloma's acquaintance with dukes is extensive and peculiar. Born at Jerez de la Frontera, he came under the influence of FernÁn Caballero, whom he has pictured in El Viernes de Dolores, and with whom he collaborated in Juan Miseria. His lively youth was spent in drawing-rooms where Alfonsist plots were hatched; and when, at the age of twenty-three, he joined the Society of Jesus after receiving a mysterious bullet-wound which brought him to death's door, he knew as much of Madrid "society" as any man in Spain. His literary mission appears to be to satirise the Spanish aristocracy, and PequeÑeces is his capital effort in that kind. An angry controversy followed, in which Valera made one of his few mistakes by taking the field against Coloma, who, with all his superficial smartness, is a special pleader and not an artist. A roman À clef is always sure of ephemeral success, and readers were too intent on identifying the originals of Currita Albornoz and VillamelÓn to observe that PequeÑeces was a hasty improvisation, void of plot and character and truth and style. Certain scenes are good enough to pass as episodical caricatures, and had the Padre Coloma the endowment of wit and gaiety and distinction, he might hope to develop into a clerical Gyp. As it is, he has shot his bolt, achieved a notoriety which is even now fading, and is in a fair way to be dethroned from his position by Vicente Blasco IbÁÑez, the author of Flor de Mayo, and by Juan Ochoa, the writer of Un Alma de Dios. These two novelists, the rising hopes of the immediate future, are rapidly growing in repute as in accomplishment. NarcÍs Oller y Moragas (b. 1846) has shown singular gifts in such tales as L'Escanyapobres, VilanÍu, and Viva Espanya. But, as he writes in Catalan, we have no immediate concern with him here.

Of the modern Spanish theatre there is little originality to report. Tamayo's successor in popular esteem is JosÉ Echegaray (1832), who first came into notice as a mathematician, a political economist, a revolutionary orator, and a minister of the short-lived republic. Writing under the obvious anagram of Jorge Hayeseca, Echegaray first attempted the drama so late as 1874, and has since then succeeded and failed with innumerable pieces. He is essentially a romantic, as he proves in La Esposa del Vengador and in Ó Locura Ó Santidad; but there is nothing distinctively national in his work, which continually reflects the passing fashions of the moment. His plays are commonly well constructed, as one might expect from a mathematician applying his science to the scene, and he has a certain power of gloomy realisation, as in El Gran Galeoto, which moves and impresses; yet he has created no character, he delights in cheap effects, and when he betakes himself to verse, is prone to a banality which is almost vulgar. A delightfully middle-class writer, his appreciation by middle-class audiences calls for no special comment. It even speaks for itself.

The drama has also been attempted by Gaspar NÚÑez de Arce (b. 1834), whose Haz de LeÑa, in which Felipe II. figures, is the most distinguished historical drama of the century, written with a reserve and elegance rare on the modern Spanish stage. NÚÑez de Arce, however, though he began with a successful play in his fifteenth year, was well advised when he forsook the scene and gave himself to pure lyrism. His disillusioning political experiences as Secretary of State for the Colonies have reduced him to silence during the last few years. He was born to sing songs of victory, to be the poet of ordered liberty, and circumstances have cast his lot in times of disaster and revolutionary excess. He has had no opportunity of celebrating a national triumph, and his hopes of a golden age, to be brought about by a few constitutional changes, have been grievously disappointed. Yet it is as a political singer that he has won a present fame and that he will pass onward to renown. His Idilio is a rustic love story of fine simplicity, of an impressive, pure realism which lifts it above the common level of pastoral poems, and its sincerity, its austere finish, are characteristic of the poet, who is always a scrupulous artist, a passionate devotee and observer of nature, as he has proved once more in La Pesca. In Raimundo Lulio, NÚÑez de Arce's superb execution is displayed with a superb result which almost tempts the coldest reader into pardoning the confusion of two separate themes—allegory and amorism. But a political poet he remains, and the famous Gritos de Combate (1875), in which he denounces anarchy, pleads for freedom and for concord, with a civic courage beyond all praise, is a lasting monument in its kind. Modern Castilian shows no poetic figure to compare with him, and the only promises of our time are Jacinto Verdaguer and Joan Maragall, two Catalan singers who fall without our limit.

The present century has produced no great Spanish historian, though there has been an active movement of historical research, headed by scholars like Fidel Fita, specialists like CÁrdenas, AzcÁrate, Costa, PÉrez Pujol, Ribera, JimÉnez de la Espada, FernÁndez Duro, and Hinojosa, all of whom have produced brilliant monographs, or have accumulated valuable materials for the Mariana of the future. In criticism also there has been a marked advance of scholarship and tolerance, thanks to the example of Marcelino MenÉndez y Pelayo (b. 1856), whose extraordinary learning and argumentative acuteness were first shown in his Ciencia EspaÑola (1878), and his Historia de los Heterodoxos EspaÑoles (1880-81). Since then the slight touch of acerbity, of provincial narrowness, has disappeared, the writer's talent has matured, and, starting as the standard-bearer of an aggressive party, anxious to recover lost ground, his sympathies have widened as his erudition has taken deeper root, till at the present moment he is accepted by his ancient foes as the most sagacious and accomplished of Spanish critics. His Odas, EpÍstolas y Tragedias, is a signal instance of technical excellence in versification, containing as good a version of the Isles of Greece as any foreigner has achieved. But, after all, it is not as poet, but as critic, as literary historian, that he is hailed by his countrymen as a prodigy. He has, perhaps, undertaken too much, and the editing of Lope de Vega may cause the Historia de las Ideas EstÉticas en EspaÑa to remain an unfinished torso; but his example and influence have been wholly exercised for good, and are evident in the excellent work of the younger generation—the work of Emilio Cotarelo y Mori, of Rafael Altamira y Crevea, of RamÓn MenÉndez Pidal. It would be a singular thing if the bright, improvident Spain, which to most of us stands for the embodiment of reckless romanticism, were to produce a race of writers of the German type, a breed absorbed in detail and minute observation; and as a nation's genius is no more subject to change than is the temperament of individuals, the development may not come to pass. But, as the century closes, the tendency inclines that way.