Excerpt from Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain Formed originally of very different races, Celts and Goths, mixed with the descendants of Romans and Phoenicians or Carthaginians, the Spaniards had against the Moors become amalgamated into one people, whose great bond of union was their religion more even than their country. This holy cause ennobled their conduct, and gave them higher aims and mo tives than any ordinary warfare could do; so that acting con stantly under the sense of such feelings, their national cha racter assumed the staid bearing, which has always since so favourably distinguished it. Hence also the national litera ture, even in its lightest productions, assumed the tone of high moral and practical tendency which it has generally borne, far removed from the comparatively trifling topics which formed the staple subjects of the literature of neigh hoaring countries. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.