8. The plains of Old Castile may well be called "austere."
=145.=--10-16. Cf. _Á España_ (1860) and _Á Castelar_ (1873).
=147.=--11-19. There are few stronger lines than these in all Spanish poetry.
=148.=--Manuel del Palacio (1832-1895) was born in Lérida. His parents removed to Granada, and there he joined a club of young men known as La Cuerda. Going to Madrid, he devoted himself to journalism and politics, first as a radical and later as a conservative.
Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 40. For his works, see his _Obras_, Madrid, 1884; _Veladas de otoño_, 1884; _Huelgas diplomáticas_, 1887.
5. =el ave placentera=: a well-known Spanish-American poet calls this a mere _ripio_ (stop-gap), and says it may mean one bird as well as another.
The Catalan Joaquín María Bartrina (born at Reus in 1850) published in 1876 a volume of pessimistic and iconoclastic verses, entitled _Algo_. After his death (1880) his works were published under the title of _Obras en prosa y verso, escogidas y coleccionadas por J. Sardá_, Barcelona, 1881. Cf. Blanco García, II, 349-350.
=148.=--15-19. These lines give expression to the pessimism that has obtained in Spain for two centuries past.
=149.=--14. The reference is, of course, to the paintings, of which there are many, of "The Last Supper" of Jesus.
Manuel Reina (1860-) was born in Puente Genil. Like page 279 Bartrina, Reina is an imitator of Núñez de Arce, in that he sings of the degeneracy of mankind. He undertook, with but little success, to revive the eleven-syllable _romance_ of the neo-classic Spanish tragedy of the eighteenth century.
Cf. Blanco García, II, 354-355. For his verses, see _Andantes y allegros_ and _Cromos y acuarelas, cantos de nuestra época, con un prólogo de D. José Fernández Bremón_.
The Valencian Teodoro Llorente (b. 1836) is best known for his translations of the works of modern poets. He is also the author of verses (_Amorosas_, _Versos de la juventud_, _et al._).
=151=.--=Argentina.= The development of letters was slower in Argentina than in Mexico, Peru and Colombia, since Argentina was colonized and settled later than the others. During the colonial period there was little literary production in the territory now known as Argentina. Only one work of this period deserves mention. This is _Argentina y conquista del río de la Plata_, etc. (Lisbon, 1602), by Martín del Barco Centenera, a long work in poor verses and of little historical value. During the first decade of the nineteenth century there was an outpouring of lyric verses in celebration of the defeat of the English by the Spaniards at Buenos Aires, but to all of these Gallego's ode _Á la defensa de Buenos Aires_ is infinitely superior.