George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[261] has yet put me to shame, for I have gained an endless amount of new information from it. The chapters on the Romances seemed to me especially new and instructive, and I rejoice in the prospect of repeated readings, that I may study and learn more. It was new to me, also, that you had travelled in Spain.

I confess that I cannot feel much admiration for the modern poetry, in comparison with the earlier poetry and literature. These modern ideas, this French style, this degraded language, do not suit the grave Spaniard.

I could have wished the chapters on the Drama more minute still, and it seems to me that we Protestants, by education, habit, and daily intercourse, lack a power of entering into the mythical religious poetry. For, while Calderon inclined to allegory, we find in Lope religious mythical views, and poetic representations which have exercised an extraordinary magic power over me for many years. Just so Lope's contemporaries, such as Mira de Mesqua and others, are very remarkable in representations of miracles, legends, apparitions. This point seems to me to have been too little regarded by all friends; for I cannot speak of those caricatures which, for a time, tried to attract attention by much noise; when even young Jews were indefatigable in painting Madonnas and Christs.

Remember me to your lady, and think sometimes of your admiring friend,

Ludwig Tieck.

Having thus met with a solid and most gratifying success, the ‘History of Spanish Literature’ maintained its place, and in 1863, when he had accumulated additional materials, and had profited by all the suggestions contained in the Spanish and German translations of his work, as well as in such reviews and private criticisms as seemed to him of value, Mr. Ticknor brought out a third edition of the book, ‘corrected and enlarged.’ The Preface to this gives a full account of the means and methods by which he had acquired the new matter, and of the changes he saw fit to make.¹

He continued, as long as he lived, to gather from every accessible source whatever could add to the accuracy and the merit