En la nevada ribera haré yo mi lecho y cama: haré yo mi mesa y foguera de ginestas y retama : cobijarme he con la rama de una garza solombrera, y toda la noche entera no cesaré de llorar.

Si viere que mucho hela andaréme paseando, so la luna canticando, mi cayado por vihuela: passaré la noche en vela platicando yo comigo, solo el cielo por testigo y las aves del pinar.

On the snow-o'ermantled mountain
Shall my bed of silence be;
By the beach-tree, near the fountain,
I will dwell and think of thee.
'Neath the cypress, dark and shady,
Long my mournful vigils keep,
Never through the night-tides, Lady!
Shall these eyelids cease to weep.

When the crippling frost is stalking
O'er the palsied earth-I'll go
With the moon unsocial walking:
Sending thoughts to thee, and woe.
Waking dreams of vanish'd sweetness,
Watching in thy solitude;

Nought but heaven to be my witness,
And the birdlets of the wood.

Cancionero de Juan de Linares.

Of the species of Romances with which the fair were serenaded, a thousand specimens exist, and they are as varied as they are original. Among a people overflowing with poetic genius, and harassed by an oppressive and tormenting government, which allowed only of a bounded flight to the Muse, it may well be fancied how the imagination would revel among the subjects which were not interdicted, such as chivalry and love. These are treated with an infinite variety of form and language, and though often degenerating into excess, their general character is lively and poetical, and they are seldom tainted with any thing like grossness or indelicacy.

WHO'LL BUY A HEART? WHO'LL BUY? WHO'LL BUY?

Pues que no me sabeis dar

sino tormento y pasion,

yo vendo mi corazon :

¿hay quien le quiera comprar?

Quiérole poner en precio: tres blancas me dan por él, no es fugitivo y es fiel antes se venda por recio: vendo por ejecucion

á quien mas quisiera dar : que vendo mi corazon,

¿hay quien le quiera comprar?

Sabe darme mil enojos

y nunca placer jamas:

Poor heart of mine! tormenting heart!
Long hast thou teazed me-thou and I
May just as well agree to part.

Who'll buy a heart? who'll buy? who'll buy?

They offer'd three testoons-but, no!
A faithful heart is cheap at more:
'Tis not of those that wandering go,
Like mendicants from door to door.
Here's prompt possession-I might tell
A thousand merits; come and try.

I have a heart-a heart to sell:

Who'll buy a heart? who'll buy? who'll buy?

How oft beneath its folds lay hid
The gnawing viper's tooth of woe-

hay quien puje? hay quien dé mas? Will no one buy? will no one bid?

allá va con su ocasion

pues que mas no puedo hallar
que vendo mi corazon:
¿quien me le quiere comprar?

Sin él quedaré sin pena, téngala quien le quisiere! quien le compra? quien le quiere? ¡ea! que buena! que buena! este es el postrer pregon, ya se habrá de rematar :

que vendo mi corazon,

¿hay quien le quiera comprar?

"Tis going now. Yes! it must go!
So little offer'd-it were well
To keep it yet-but, no! not I,
I have a heart-a heart to sell:
Who'll buy a heart? who'll buy? who'll buy?
I would 'twere gone! for I confess
I'm tired--and longing to be freed;
Come, bid, fair maiden! more or less-
So good-and very cheap indeed.
Once more-but once-I cannot dwell
So long 'tis going-going-fie!
No offer-I've a heart to sell:

Who'll buy a heart? who'll buy? who'll buy?

O THOU GAY SPRING TIME.

El Alamo y el pino

The elm tree and the pine sirven de estorbos a la luz de Febo, Shade from the dazzling of the noon-tide brinda el vaso contino

beam ; del claro arroyo con aljófar nuevo, A golden amber line y la tendida grama

Plays ever sparkling on the gentle stream mesa á la gula es, al sueño cama. Which rolls across the mead

Food for the mouth,--a pillow for the head. Tu solamente bella

But thou being absent, all, nos haces falta, Tindaris graciosa, Fair maiden! loses every beauty now; y si tu blanca huella

For thy sweet footsteps fall no se nos presta como el alba her. As fall the morn-rays from the mountain mosa,

brow, lo dulce y lo suave

And gladness and soft joy cuan amargo será, cuan duro y Without thee are but sorrow and annoy. grave!

Amatorias de Estevan Manuel de Villegas, p. 10.

It has been before mentioned, that festal songs always accompany the religious holidays of Spain ; here is one on the Carnival (Antruejo). These festivals have always been more joyous than devout; and so, the old proverb sagely says, A las romerias de cerca mucho vino y poca cera.

COME, LET US EAT AND DRINK TO-DAY. Hoy comamos y bebamos

Come, let us eat and drink to-day, y cantemos y holguemos

And sing and laugh and banish sorrow, que mañana ayunaremos.

For we must part to-morrow. Por honra de san antruejo In Antruejo's honor-fill parémonos hoy bien anchos, The laughing cup with wine and glee, embutamos estos panchos, And feast and dance with eager will, recalquemos el pellejo :

And crowd the hours with revelry, que costumbre es de concejo For that is wisdom's counsel stillque todo hoy nos hartemos, To-day be gay,—and banish sorrow, pues mañana ayunaremos. For we must part to-morrow.

Honremos á tan buen santo Honor the saint--the morning ray que mañana viene la muerte, Will introduce the monster deathcomamos, bebamos huerte, There's breathing space for joy to-day, que mañana habrá quebranto : To-morrow ye shall gasp for breath; comamos, bebamos tanto

So now be frolicksome and gay, hasta que nos reventemos, And tread joy's round, and banish sorrow, pues mañana ayunaremos. For we must part to-morrow.

Juan de Encina, p. 54, Burgos, 1505.

SERENADE.

(From an unpublished Poem.) As the stars are to evening And whilst Eve loves the star-light, Or sun to the day,

Or April its bloom,
Or blossoms to April,

Or Day the bright sun-rays,
Or fragrance to May,

Or May its perfume;
Or dews to the flowrets,

Whilst dews greet the flowerets,
Or showers to the green-

Or showers tint the green
Art thou to this bosom,

I'll love thee, I'll love thee,
My fair Geraldine.

Thou fair Geraldine. V. D.

RECENT POETICAL PLAGIARISMS AND IMITATIONS.

The

THERE is a difficulty in saying what are plagiarisms; and, as a first step to clear it away, let us lay down what plagiarisms are. Darwin's idea of them requires correction: "Where the sentiment and the expression are both borrowed, there can be no doubt;-single words, on the contrary, taken from other authors, cannot convict a writer of plagiarism; they are lawful game, wild by nature, the property of all who can capture them; and, perhaps, a few common flowers of speech may be gathered, as we pass over our neighbour's enclosure, without stigmatising us with the title of thieves; but we must not therefore plunder his cultivated fruits." Here is the mischief of metaphor when a man is defining. As to single words, they are dictionary matter, and of course all that can be borrowed is their position and application, which may constitute plagiarism as much as any thing else. If, by common flowers of speech, it is meant that there is no individual jus rerum, they are, therefore, incapable of being stolen; if common means vulgar, they are not worth stealing. However we may now class the flowers of the botanic garden (once supposed perennial), Darwin would not have been well pleased to see them transplanted into another man's waste: therefore, so long as the proprietor and the thief give the value to the article, which their respective relations to it imply, there is no distinction to be made between flow-To free the hollow heart from paining

the useless possession of them: if
they are known to the world, to him,
as their author, will the world sure-
ly attribute them, with whomsoever
else they may be found. There is,
therefore, no cause for the indigna-
tion which many authors have felt
at being robbed, unless we suppose
it purely moral indignation.
only way in which the theft can in-
jure the owner is, by making his rival
richer, which he may think equiva-
lent to making himself poorer; but,
when men are sufficiently on a level
to be rivals for fame, they are both
too well known in their works not to
have their rights and claims properly
adjusted. Lord Byron has borrowed
the most beautiful passage Mr. Cole-
ridge ever wrote; and in point of
genius, though by no means in re-
gard to the employment and produc-
tions of genius, these men may be
considered as two great poetical ri-
vals. Mr. Coleridge has not suffer-
ed by this, and the plagiarism has
availed nothing to Lord Byron, be-
cause it is obvious and unqualified;
and therefore, by every reader ac-
quainted with poetry, it is appro-
priated to its author. Mr. Cole-
ridge's original is in Christabel.
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above:
And life is thorny; and youth is vain:
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain:
They parted ne'er to meet again,-

are, as far as advancing one compe- would cheat himself by saying he titor equals impeding the other, more had his idea from another for a injurious to the plundered. A man's reader will not take the trouble to assistance may be had without taking examine a detail of the case, and the work of his hands whole, and allot each his portion of merit); if, leaving it as he left it; and it is the on the contrary, the merit of the implagiarist by halves whom there is a provement is slight in proportion to difficulty in convicting. According that of the original, he who conceals to the terms of our definition there his original commits plagiarism. It must be a negation of improvement is highly expedient, that a man of to constitute culpability, for the great genius should plagiarize;-that cause of poetry requires, that every he should regenerate the thoughts of man should be allowed to start from his inferiors, giving them the cast of his his predecessor's ground, provided own mind in order that they may put he over-stretches his goal; and thus on immortality after their new birth; far no one has a right to complain; but in so doing he should, for his for it is to be presumed each took own sake, conform to the above rule the same advantage which he affords. of avowal. Thus the treasures of In this, as in other cases, if a gene- poetry would descend from hand to ral law be observed, all men's op- hand, improved by every succession. portunities will measure alike; and Isolated ideas, originating with men the law ought to be laid down upon of scanty imagination, would not be the principle of what makes most for merged in the barrenness of their the cause of poetry. Principles may works, like the Arabian rivulets in be understood (which is the main the sand, but bring their tribute to matter), yet their application to par- some great stream, quæ labitur et ticular cases remains for casuists to labetur, &c. deriving permanency and determine. We shall look into a affording strength. few cases presently.-Thus we have Of the modes of plagiarism the shown, 1st. That the only way in most common and easy is the ampliwhich plagiarism can injure the pla- fying and adorning some metaphor, giarized is, by benefiting the plagi- which has been left by the author in arist, he being a rival. 2d. That, its bold and naked beauty : the least occurring between rivals, it is inno- common process is the reverse of cent when obvious,—whence it fol- this-reducing an ornate or diffuse lows, that to be culpable it must be metaphorical description into its own for the worse or for the better. 3dly. elements. These are the dressing That with improvement there is no and stripping modes of plagiarism. right of complaint against the pla- The first sometimes spoils, the latter giarist. Now, 4thly. Without im- often improves upon the original. provement what can it profit him? Examples of these, as of every other -And (by the first) if there is no sort of plagiarism, may be given profit there is no injury.

from Lord Byron. 1st. 2d. Of the fault. Since the mischief falls entirely upon the plagi. animal has perished, but the skin remains.

Why should I say more of Athens ? the arist, the fault lies in the motive,

Theodore Zygomalas and not in the effect of the act.

ap. Chateaubriand. There may be many motives for plagiarism, some of them praise-wor

We need not transcribe Lord Bya thy; but for withholding the avowal ron's highly wrought protraction of of it there can be only one motive,

the simile.-20.and that disingenuous; the wish to I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen obtain credit upon false pretences. Upon a parchment ; and against this fire

Having stated the general princi- Do I shrink up. King John, A. 5. ples which relate to the subject, we come now to particular manners of Tell him what thou dost behold

A shrivell'd scroll. plagiarism. We have said, generally, that it is innocent where says the Giaour. there is an improvement; but this Sometimes similes are dismembermust depend upon the degree of im- ed, and the fragments put together provement; if it outweighs the me- again with good or ill effect, accordrit of the original passage, an authoring to the art of the redintegrator.