The
editor's part is performed with great assiduity and conscience. Yet
amidst this enumeration of all the geniuses, and beauties, and
sanctities of France, what has the greatest man in France, at that
period, Michael de Montaigne, done, or left undone, that his name
should be quite omitted?
_The Spanish Student. A Play in Three Acts_.
By H. W. Longfellow.
A pleasing tale, but Cervantes shall speak for us out of _La
Gitanilla_.
"You must know, Preciosa, that as to this name of _Poet_, few
are they who deserve it, -- and I am no _Poet_, but only a lover of
Poesy, so that I have no need to beg or borrow the verses of others.
The verses, I gave you the other day, are mine, and those of to-day
as well; -- but, for all that, I am no poet, neither is it my prayer
to be so."
"Is it then so bad a thing to be a poet?" asked Preciosa.
"Not bad," replied the Page, "but to be a poet and nought else,
I do not hold to be very good. For poetry should be like a precious
jewel, whose owner does not put it on every day, nor show it to the
world at every step; but only when it is fitting, and when there is a
reason for showing it.
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