It was not till yester-evening that I received your volume of Spanish poetry,

& the obliging note which accompanied it. A most interesting volume it is. Among the pieces which were new to me are those of Gil Vicente,

– there is no volume book in the language which I am so desirous of seeing as the Comedias

of that writer but I never could hear of any other copy than one which was said to be in the Royal Library at Lisbon & now in danger of being devoured by insects in Brazil.

You have succeeded most happily with the Coplas of Manrique.

Lord Holland attempted them once, & gave up the attempt in despair. I thought the attempt so hopeless, that I did not venture to make a trial when verse flowed more fluently from my pen than it would at present. But you have shown us el impossible veneido.

The same feeling which made you suppress your intended introduction

would deter me from entering upon the subject in the Q Review. There are too many chasms in my knowledge of it.

You have recorded your confident hope of Spanish regeneration.

In our estimate of the Spanish character I believe we are well agreed, & in our wishes for the welfare of the Spaniards, their improvement, & their emancipation from political & ecclesiastical despotism. But the late contest

was between two parties, both in my judgement, so absolutely bad, that I could not throw away a wish on either side. – Had I been born a Spaniard, I should probably at this hour have been a thorough-paced Liberal. I am therefore well aware how much may be pleaded in excuse of their errors: but those errors are not the less fatal in their consequences, because so excusable in their cause: & it is my firm persuasion that liberty in the present state of the world has nothing to fear from its enemies, but every thing from its injudicious friends.

So much evil has been done in Spain, that I can see nothing but evil in long prospective there, & know not even what to hope for. But in Portugal it appears to me that there is a plain & easy course to be pursued, by restoring the old Cortes,

& administering justice regularly. If this were done & provision made for the liberty of the subject by a Habeas Corpus act,

it is as much as the Nation is ripe for, & might content all whose who desire the reformation of abuses. The Inquisition

might be managed as long as any thing were to be apprehended from the Queens party,

to whom its suppression would afford a popular pretext, – & in a few years quietly & safely abolished.