In these days of pessimism in literature, when Tourgueneff and Sacher-Masoch represent man as the victim of blind Chance and annihilation his greatest happiness, it is pleasant to turn to a writer who still believes in God, his country and the family, and recognizes an overruling Providence that directs the world. It is not strange that these old-fashioned ideas should be found in Spain, where, in spite of much ignorance and superstition, the lower classes are deeply religious in the best sense of the word, and distinguished for their patriotism and intense love for their homes.

Antonio de Trueba, the subject of this sketch, was born in 1821 at Montellano, a little village in Biscay. He thus describes the home of his childhood in the preface to his collected poems: "On the brow of one of the mountains that surround a valley of Biscay there are four little houses, white as four doves, hidden in a grove of chestnut and walnut trees—four houses that can only be seen at a distance when the autumn has removed the leaves from the trees. There I spent the first fifteen years of my life. In the bottom of the valley there is a church whose belfry pierces the arch of foliage and rises majestic above the ash and walnut trees, as if to signify that the voice of God rises above Nature; and in that church two masses were said on Sunday—one at sunrise and the other two hours later. We children rose with the song of the birds and went down to the first mass, singing and leaping through the shady oak-groves, while our elders came down later to high mass. While our parents and grand-parents were attending it I sat down beneath some cherry trees that were opposite my father's house—for from that spot could be seen the whole valley that ended in the sea—and shortly after four or five young girls came to seek me, red as the cherries that hung over my head or as the graceful knots of ribbon that tied the long braids of their hair, and made me compose couplets for them to sing to their sweethearts in the afternoon, to the sound of the tambourine, under the walnut trees where the young people danced and the elders chatted and enjoyed our pleasure."

The young poet's parents were simple tillers of the soil, who gave their son a meagre education. In one of his letters he says that his father's library consisted of the Fueros de Viscaya (the old laws of Biscay), the Fables of Samaniego, Don Quixote, some ballads brought from Valmaseda or Bilbao, and two or three lives of the saints. Antonio seems to have had from his earliest childhood an ardent love of poetry, and in the passage quoted above he mentions his own compositions. He continues by saying, "I remember one day one of those girls was very sad because her sweetheart was going away for a long time. She wanted a song to express her grief, and I composed one at her request. A few days later she did not need my aid to sing her sorrow: in proportion as it had increased her ability to sing it herself had also increased, for poetry is the child of feeling. Her songs, as well as those I composed, soon became popular in the valley."

When the poet was fifteen years old the civil war waged by Don Carlos was desolating Spain. The inhabitants of Biscay espoused his cause, but Antonio's parents were unwilling to expose their son to the dangers he must run if he remained at home, and therefore decided to send him to a distant relative in Madrid who kept a hardware-shop. "One night in November," says Trueba, "I departed from my village, perhaps—my God!—never to return. I descended the valley with my eyes bathed in tears. The cocks began to crow, the dogs barked, the owls hooted in the mountains, the wind moaned in the tops of the walnut trees, and the river roared furiously rushing down the valley; but the inhabitants of the village slept peaceably, except my parents and brothers, who from the window followed weeping the sound of my footsteps, about to be lost in the noise of the valley. I was just leaving the last house of the village when one of those girls who had so often sought me under the cherry trees approached the window and took leave of me sobbing. On crossing a hill, about to lose the valley from my sight, I heard a distant song, and stopped. That same girl was sending me her last farewell in a song as beautiful as the sentiment that inspired it."

Antonio devoted himself to his duties during the day and pursued his studies with eagerness during the night. What he suffered from home-sickness the reader can easily imagine. All through his later works are scattered reminiscences of those unhappy years in Madrid, when his memory fondly turned to the mountains and cherry-groves of his beloved Encartaciones.[1] Often dreaming of the country, which, he says, is his perpetual dream, he imagined the moment in which God would permit him to return to the valley in which he was born. "When this happens, I say to myself, my brow will be wrinkled and my hair gray. The day on which I return to my native valley will be a festal day, and on crossing the hill from which I can behold the whole valley, I shall hear the bells ringing for high mass. How sweetly will resound in my ears those bells that so often rilled my childhood with delight! I shall enter the valley, my heart beating, my breathing difficult and my eyes bathed with tears of joy. There will be, with its white and sonorous belfry, the church where the holy water of baptism was poured upon the brows of my parents and my own; there will be the walnut and chestnut trees beneath whose shade we danced on Sunday afternoons; there will be the wood where my brothers and I looked for birds' nests and made whistles out of the chestnut and walnut bark; there, along the road, will be the apple trees whose fruit my companions and I knocked off with stones when we went to school; there will be the little white house where my grand-parents, my father, my brothers and I were born; there will be all that does not feel or breathe. But where will be, my God, all those who with tears in their eyes bade me farewell so many years ago? I shall follow the valley down: I shall recognize the valley, but not its inhabitants. Judge whether there will be among sorrows a greater sorrow than mine! The people gathered in the portico of the church waiting for mass to begin will look over the wall along the road, and others will look out of the windows, all to see the stranger pass. And they will not know me, and I shall not know them, for those children and those youths and those old men will not be the old men nor the youths nor the children whom I left in my native valley. I shall follow sadly the valley down. 'All that has felt,' I shall exclaim, 'has changed or died. What is it that preserves here pure and immaculate the sentiments which I inspired?' And then some village-woman will sing one of those songs in which I enclosed the deepest feelings of my soul, and on hearing her my heart will want to leap from my breast, and I shall fall on my knees, and, if emotion and sobs do not stifle my voice, I shall exclaim, 'Holy and thrice holy, blessed and thrice blessed, poetry which immortalizes human sentiment!'"

Antonio after a time left his relative's shop to enter another in the same business, from which he was relieved by the owner's financial difficulties. He then determined to devote himself to literature, and became a writer for the papers. In 1852 he published Libro de Cantares (Book of Songs), which at once made his name a household word throughout Spain. He tells us that most of the poems in it were composed mentally while dreaming of his native country and wandering about the environs of Madrid, "wherever the birds sing and the people display their virtues and their vices, for the noble Spanish people have a little of everything." He warns his readers not to expect from him what he cannot give them: "Do not seek in this book erudition or culture or art. Seek recollections and feeling, and nothing more. Fifteen years ago I left my solitary village: these fifteen years, instead of singing under the cherry trees of my native country, I sing in the midst of the Babylon which rises on the banks of the Manzanares; and, notwithstanding, I still amuse myself with counting from here the trees that shade the little white house where I was born, and where, God willing, I shall die: my songs still resemble those of fifteen years ago. What do I understand of Greek or Latin, of the precepts of Horace or of Aristotle? Speak to me of the blue skies and seas, of birds and boughs, of harvests and trees laden with golden fruit, of the loves and joys and griefs of the upright and simple villagers, and then I shall understand you, because I understand nothing more than this."

These poems are what the author calls them, nothing more—pure and simple records of the life of the people around him, their loves and griefs, their hopes and disappointments. The most usual metre is the simple Spanish asonante, or eight-syllable trochaic verse, with the vowel rhyme called asonante.[2] They are pervaded by a tender spirit of melancholy, very different from the Weltschmerz of Heine, with some of whose lyrics the Spanish poet's cantares may be compared without losing anything by the comparison. In one poem he says: "In the depths of my heart are great sorrows: some of them are known to men, others to God alone. But I shall rarely mention my griefs in my songs, for I have no hope that they can be alleviated; and where is the mortal who, in passing through this valley, has not encountered among the flowers some sharp thorn?" In the same poem he says: "All ask me, Who taught you to sing? No one: I sing because God wills it—I sing like the birds;" and he explains his method by a touching incident. One evening he was singing on the bank of the Manzanares when he saw a child smiling on the breast of its mother. The poet went and caressed it, and the child threw its arms about Antonio's neck and turning to its mother cried, "Mother, Antonio, he of the songs, is a blind man who sees."[3] The poet continues: "I am a blind man who sees: that angel told the truth. With my guitar resting on my loving heart, you may see me wandering from the city to the valley, from the cabin of the poor to the palace of the great, weeping with those who weep, singing with those who sing, for my rude guitar is the lasting echo of all joys and all sorrows. I shall sing my songs in the simple language of the laborer and the soldier, of the children and the mothers, of those who have not frequented learned schools.... In this language I shall extol the faith and the holy combats of the soldiers of Christ with the sacrilegious Saracen; I shall sing the heroic efforts of our fathers to conquer the proud legions of Bonaparte; and the beauty of the skies, and the flowers of the valley, and love and innocence—all that is beautiful and great—will find a lasting echo in my rude guitar."

Many of these songs are ingenious variations on a theme supplied by some old and well-known poem, a few lines of which are woven into each division of the new song.

The success of the Libro de los Cantares was immediate and great; the first three editions were exhausted in a few months; the duc de Montpensier wished to defray the expenses of the fourth, and Queen Isabella of the fifth; since then others have followed. Some years later the poet married, and since then has written chiefly in prose.

In 1859 appeared a volume of short tales entitled Rose-colored Stories (Cuentos de Color de Rosa): these were followed by Tales of the Country (Cuentos campesinos), Popular Tales (Cuentos popolares), Popular Narrations (Narraciones popolares), Tales of Various Colors, Tales of the Dead and Living, etc.[4]

Before examining in detail any of these collections it may be well to learn the author's views of his task and definition of his subject. In the introduction to the Popular Tales he says, addressing his friend Don JosÉ de Castro y Serrano: "The object of this preface is simply to tell you why I have given the name of Popular Tales to those contained in this volume, what I understand by popular literature, and why I write tales instead of writing novels or comedies or cookbooks. There are two reasons why I have called these tales popular. First, because many of them are told by the people; and, secondly, because in retelling them I have used the simple and plain style of the people.... In my conception, popular literature can be defined in this manner: That literature which by its simplicity and clearness is within the reach of the intelligence of the people.... However, in popular literature the simplicity of form is not enough: it is necessary to reproduce Nature, because if not reproduced there will be no truth in it; and if there is no truth in it the people will not believe it; and if they do not believe it they will not feel it. For my part, I take such pains in studying Nature, in order that my pictures may be true, that I fear you will accuse me of extravagance, and will laugh at me when you read the two examples I am going to cite. On a very severe night in January I was writing in the fourth story of the street Lope de Vega, No. 32, the tale which I named De Patas en el Infierno ('The Feet in Hell'), and when a detail occurred which consisted in explaining the changes in the sound made by water in filling a jar at a fountain, I found that I had never studied these changes, and I did not have in the house at that moment water enough to study them. The printers were going to send for the story early in the morning, and it must be finished that night. Do you know what I did to get out of my difficulty? At three o'clock in the morning, facing the darkness, rain and wind, I went to the little fountain near by with a jar under my cloak, and spent a quarter of an hour there listening to the sound of the water as it fell into the jar. A short time after I was preparing to write the rural tale called Las Siembras y las Cosechas ('Seed-time and Harvest'), and the description of a sunrise in the country entered into my plan. I had often seen the sun rise in the country, but it was necessary to contemplate and study anew that beautiful spectacle in order to describe it exactly; and early one morning, long before the dawn, accompanied by two friends, I went to the hills of Vicalvaro, where we made some good studies, but were very much frightened by some thieves who attacked us knife in hand, believing we were people who carried watches."

These words of the author reveal better than we could explain his aim and method. He is a follower of Fernan Caballero, in so far as he has devoted himself to illustrate the every-day life of the Spanish people. The former writer has filled her pages with brilliant pictures of the life of Andalusia. Her canvas is, however, larger than Trueba's: she depicts the society of the South in all its grades; Trueba has chosen a more limited circle on which he has lavished all his care.

The volume of Rose-colored Tales is in many respects the best that Trueba has produced. The dedication to his wife explains the title and reveals the author's optimistic views. He says: "I call them Rose-colored Tales because they are the reverse of that pessimistic literature which delights in representing the world as a boundless desert in which no flower blooms, and life as a perpetual night in which no star shines. I, poor son of Adam, in whom the curse of the Lord on our first parents has not ceased to be accomplished a single day since the time when, still a child, I left my beloved valley of the Encartaciones,—I shall love this life, and shall not believe myself exiled in the world while God, friendship, love and the family exist in it, while the sun shines on me every morning, while the moon lights me every night and the flowers and birds visit me every day."

The scene of all the stories of this collection is in the Encartaciones, and an examination of a few of them will make us acquainted with the usual range of characters and the author's mode of treatment. The first is entitled "The Resurrection of the Soul" (La Resurreccion del Alma), and opens with an account of the village of C——, one of the fifteen composing the Encartaciones. Here lived Santiago and Catalina, the latter a foundling whom Santiago's parents had found at their door one winter morning. The good people, who had always desired a daughter, cared tenderly for the little stranger, and she grew up with their son, who was a few years older. It had been decided that when Santiago was fifteen he should go to his uncle in Mexico; which country, for the simple inhabitants of Biscay, is still "India," and the retired merchants who return to spend their last days in their native towns are "Indians"—a class that often play an important part in the dÉnouement of Trueba's simple plots. At the beginning of the story the two children (Santiago was nearly fifteen) had gone off to play and allowed the goats to get into the fields. The angry father is about to punish Catalina, who has assumed all the blame, but his wife mollifies him by reminding him that they have received a piece of good news. Ramon good-humoredly says, "You women always have your own way," and proceeds to tell a story to illustrate it. We give it as an example of the popular tales that Trueba often weaves into his stories:

"Once upon a time, when Christ went through the world healing the sick and raising the dead, a woman came out to meet him and said to him, seizing hold of his cloak and weeping like a Magdalen, 'Lord, do me the favor to come and raise my husband, who died this morning.'

"'I cannot stop,' answered the Lord. 'I am going to perform a great miracle—that is, find a good mother among the women who are fond of bull-fights; but everything will turn out well if the ass doesn't stop. All I can do for you is that if you take it into your head to raise your husband, your husband will be raised.'

"And indeed the wife took it into her head that her husband must be raised, and her husband was raised, for even the dead can't resist the whims of women."

The good news that Ramon had received was a letter from his brother, who wished Santiago to be sent to him by the first steamer leaving Bilbao. It was the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption, when Santiago, accompanied by his father, prepared to start for Bilbao.

"Quica, who until the moment of departure had not shed a tear, because she had only seen her son on the way to happiness, as you saw yours, disconsolate mother, who now see only a sepulchre in the Americas,—Quica now wept without restraint. Poor Catalina had wept so much for a month and a half that there were no tears left in her eyes: she did not weep, but she felt the faintness and sorrow which the dying must experience. Santiago's eyes were moist at times, but soon shone with joy.

"'Come, come! You are like a lot of crying children,' exclaimed Ramon, tearing his son from the arms of Quica and Catalina. 'One would say that it is a matter to cry over. Don't you see me? I too have a soul in my soul-case....'

"And indeed he had, for tears as large as nuts rolled from his eyes. Santiago and Ramon departed. Quica and Catalina sorrowfully followed them with their eyes until they crossed a neighboring hill. Then the young girl made an almost supernatural effort to calm herself, and said, 'Mother, I am going to take the sheep to the mountain.'

"'Do what you wish, my daughter,' answered Quica mechanically.

"It was Catalina's custom to open, the gate every morning to a flock of sheep and lead them a stone's throw from the farmhouse, where she left them alone; but this day she went with them as far as the hill that Ramon and Santiago had just crossed, and from that hill she went on to the next and the next, with her eyes always fixed on the road to Bilbao, until, overcome by fatigue and dying with grief, she bowed her beautiful head, and instead of retracing her steps to the farmhouse of Ipenza, she went to the church in the valley and fell on her knees before the altar of the Virgin of Solitude."

Santiago reaches Mexico in safety, and is kindly received by his uncle, who dies ten years later and leaves him an immense fortune. Santiago at once plunges into every species of dissipation, and soon destroys his health. His physician recommends him as a last resort to return to his native country and try the effect of the mountain-air. Meanwhile, Catalina had grown up one of the prettiest girls of the village, and Santiago's parents had died, leaving her a handsome dowry and the use of the farm until it should be claimed by Santiago.

"One dark and rainy night Santiago returned to his home, broken down in health and profoundly weary of life. Catalina receives him, and is amazed at his changed appearance.

"'Are you ill, Santiago?' asked Catalina with infinite tenderness.

"'Yes—ill in body and mind.'

"'How do you feel, brother of my heart?'

"'I do not feel anything: that is my greatest misfortune.'"

In truth, the unfortunate Santiago had lost all the better feelings of his heart. His return to the home of his innocent boyhood failed to evoke any pure and noble sentiments: his heart continued paralyzed, cold, indifferent to everything. But it was impossible for him to remain in this condition under the influence of Catalina. He gradually began to take an interest in the life around him and employ his wealth for the benefit of his neighbors. Gradually, he awoke from his lethargy and became well in body and mind. As the reader can imagine, the story closes with his marriage to Catalina, who had such a great share in his recovery.

In the story called "From One's Country to Heaven" (Desde la Patria al Cielo) the author's endeavors show that the surest happiness is to be found in one's native village. He begins with an ironical description of the village of S—— in the Encartaciones, in which he depicts the simplicity of the inhabitants and their backwardness, in regard to the spirit of the age. In this village lived, among others, Teresa, a poor widow, and her only child, Pedro. One day, while passing the palace of a wealthy "Indian," he called her and said he was obliged to return to America, and wished her to take care of his house during his absence. The poor woman now saw herself relieved from want and able to educate her son. The latter found in the rich library of the "Indian" food for many years of study, and soon became dissatisfied with his quiet life in the village, and eager to travel and see the countries about which he had read such charming tales. He soon grew to despise everything around him, and treated with scorn his neighbor Rose, who had long loved him tenderly.

One day news arrived from Mexico that the "Indian" had died, leaving to Teresa his palace at S—— and a large sum of money besides. Pedro was now able to fulfil his dreams of travel, and started on his journey. He first visits the Pass of Roncesvalles, and is nearly killed by the indignant Frenchmen whom he asks about the defeat of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers. Pedro then proceeds to Bayonne, where he is so shocked by the sight of young girls selling their hair to the highest bidder that he determines to leave France, and we next find him in a Swiss chalet, where he is disgusted by the lack of cleanliness. His feelings can be imagined when he finds that the peasants have no popular traditions and are not acquainted even with the name of William Tell. In despair, Pedro directs his course to Germany, but finds no sylphs or sirens on the banks of the Rhine, while maidens with blue eyes and golden hair are no more abundant there than elsewhere. Greece next receives the wanderer, who hears in Athens of railroads and consolidated funds: on Olympus he finds a guano manufactory, and on Pindus a poet writing fourteen-syllable endecasyllabics. He visits with a similar disenchantment Constantinople, and then makes his way to England. There poor Pedro is disgusted by the sordid, selfish spirit of the people. An absurd scene at a village church fills him with horror. The bare walls of the temple chill his heart, and after the service a domestic quarrel between the curate and his jealous wife caps the climax and Pedro flees to America. On landing in New York he is robbed of his watch: the thief is arrested, but gives the watch to the magistrate, keeping the chain for himself, and Pedro is condemned to pay the costs and the damages suffered by the thief's character. On returning that evening from the theatre he is garroted and robbed of all he has with him. The landlord tells him that no one thinks of going out at night without a pair of six-shooters, and adds that what happens in New York is nothing to what goes on at Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans. The next day he reads an editorial in the New York Herald advising American merchants to repudiate their foreign debts. He then determines to visit the different States, and on passing through the South thanks God that slavery is unknown in Europe. Railroad accidents, murders and political and social corruption cause him to regard with profound horror the young republic, which seems to him old in vice, and he starts for South America, the Spanish part of which reminds him of a virgin overwhelmed with misfortunes, but still full of youth and faith. In Vera Cruz, Pedro visits the sepulchre of the "Indian" to whom he owes his fortune. A letter from his mother is awaiting him there, and he bursts into tears, and sails at once for his beloved home, which he reaches one beautiful Sunday morning in May. His meeting with his mother takes place in the church, and there also he sees Rose, whose constancy is now rewarded. The story closes with the lines from Lista: "Happy he who has never seen any other stream than that of his native place, and, an old man, sleeps in the shade where he played a boy!"

Another story of the same collection, and one of the author's best, is entitled Juan Paloma. The principal characters are Don Juan de Urrutia, nicknamed Juan Paloma ("dovelike"), a wealthy and crusty old bachelor, and Antonio de Molinar, a poor peasant, and his wife. The moral of the story is in Don Juan's last words: "Blessed be the family!" and in Juana's remark: "Alas for him who lives alone in the world, for only his dogs will weep for him when he dies!"

The other stories of this volume, "The Mother-in-Law," "The Judas of the Household" and "I Believe in God," all contain many charming scenes. In the last a young girl is educated by an infidel father, and after his death marries Diego, a village lad. She becomes a mother, but still retains in her heart the seeds of atheism sown there by her father. Her child, a girl, becomes ill, and a doctor is sent for from Bilbao.

"The doctor was long in coming, and Ascensita was devoured by impatience and uncertainty. He arrived at last, and examined the child attentively, observing a deep silence, which caused the poor mother the most sorrowful anxiety.

"'Will the daughter of my heart recover?' Ascensita asked him in tears. 'For God's sake, speak to me frankly, for this uncertainty is more cruel than the death of my daughter.'

"'SeÑora,' answered the doctor, 'God alone can save the child.'

"Ascensita fell senseless by the side of the cradle containing her dying child. When she returned to herself Diego alone was at her side. The unhappy mother placed her ear to the child's lips, and perceived that it still breathed.

"'Diego,' she exclaimed, 'take care of the child of my soul!' and flying down the stairs hastened to a hermitage near by, and falling on her knees before the Virgin of Consolation exclaimed in grief, 'Holy Virgin! pity me! Save the child of my heart! And if she has flown to heaven since I left her side to fall at thy feet, beg thy holy Son to restore her to life, as He did the maid of Galilee!'

"A woman who was praying in a corner of the temple arose weeping with joy and grief, and hastened to clasp the unhappy mother in her arms and call her daughter. It was her husband's mother, Agustina, who had also gone to the temple to pray for the restoration of the child.

"'Mother,' exclaimed Ascensita, 'I believe in God! I believe in God and hope in His mercy!'

"'My daughter, no one believes in it in vain,' answered Agustina, bursting into tears. And both again knelt and prayed."

The mother's prayer was heard and the child recovered.

In the Popular Narrations, Trueba works up themes already popular among the people, but clothes them in his own words and varies them to suit his own taste. He says in the preface: "The task which I undertook some time ago, and still continue, consists in collecting the narrations, tales or anecdotes that circulate among the people and are the work of the popular invention, which sometimes creates and at others imitates, if it does not plagiarize, trying when it imitates to give to the imitation the form of the original. Some of the writers or collectors abroad, and especially in Germany, who have devoted themselves to a similar task, have followed a method different from mine; since, like the Brothers Grimm, they reproduce the popular tales almost as they have collected them from the lips of the people. This system is not to my taste, because almost all popular tales, although they have a precious base, have an absurd form, and in order to enter worthily into the products of the literary art they need to be perfected by art, and have a moral or philosophical end, which nothing in the sphere of art should be without."

The subjects of some of these stories are well known out of Spain. "St. Peter's Doubts" (Las Dudas de San Pedro) is as old as the Gesta Romanorum (cap. 80), and is familiar to English readers from Parnell's Hermit. Another, "A Century in a Moment" (Un Siglo en un Momento), is the story of the woman allowed after death to come back to the earth and see her lover, whom she finds faithless. Still another, Tragaldabas, is familiar to the readers of Grimm's Household Tales, where it figures as "Godfather Death."

The volume of Popular Tales contains nineteen stories of the most varying description. Some are popular in the broadest sense, as "The Three Counsels" (Los Consejos), in which a soldier whose time of service has expired buys from his captain with his pay three pieces of advice: Always take the short cut on a road, Do not inquire into what does not concern you, and Do nothing without reflection. The soldier on his way home has occasion to put in practice all three counsels, and thereby saves his life and property. Others, are legendary, as Ofero, the legend of St. Christopher, and Casilda, the story of the Moorish king's daughter converted to the Christian religion by a physician from Judea, who proves to be Our Lord. One, "The Wife of the Architect" (La Mujer del Arquitecto), is a local tradition of Toledo, and another, "The Prince without a Memory" (El Principe Desmemoriado), is taken from Gracian Dantisco's Galateo EspaÑol.

We may say of this collection, as of the last, that, although the stories show much humor and skill, they are not among the author's best. He is most at home in the simple pictures of life in the Encartaciones or in the country near Madrid. The latter is the scene of the stories in the volume entitled Rural Tales (Cuentos campesinos), which contains some of the author's most charming productions. They are generally longer than the others—one, "Domestic Happiness" (La Felicidad domestica), filling over ninety-two octavo pages. "Seed-time and Harvest" (Las Siembras y las Cosechas) is a charming story of Pepe and his wife Pepa, the former of whom sows wheat in his fields, and the latter economy, love and virtue by the fireside. The best story of the collection, however—and, to our mind, one of the best that Trueba has written—is the one called "The Style is the Man" (El Estilo es el Hombre), which is so well worth a translation that we will not spoil it by an analysis.

We have said that Trueba's works have been great popular successes. He has endeared himself to all who love poetry and the simple, honest life of the Spanish people. His beloved province has not forgotten him, and in 1862 unanimously elected him archivist and chronicler of Biscay, with a salary of nine hundred dollars a year. The poet henceforth turned his attention to a history of Biscay, which has not yet appeared, though some preliminary studies have been published in a work entitled Chapters of a Book (Capitulos de un Libro). Trueba resided at this period of his life at Bilbao, which he was obliged to leave in haste during the last Carlist war, and he has since lived in Madrid. He has published there several volumes of romances and historical novels, some of which have been very successful; but Trueba's real strength is in his poetry and short stories, which may be favorably compared with the best of this class of literature—with Auerbach's Tales of the Black Forest, for example. The reader is at once attracted to the author, whose personality shines through most of his stories and is always apparent in his poetry. Simple, honest, patriotic, religious, he is a type of the best class of Spaniards—a class that will some day win for their country the respect of other nations and bring back a better glory than that founded on conquest.

T.F. Crane.