Note 177 — FIRST SECTION. History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence, from the Introduction of the Italian Style to the Age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega.

Words on which elisions are permitted in Italian, as for example, dar, legger, amor, peggior, instead of dare, leggere, amore, peggiore, are in Spanish, by an invariable rule of the language, written dar, leèr, amor, peòr; and, on the other hand, no poet can presume to omit the terminating vowels in Spanish words. A succession of pure feminine rhymes is, therefore, as unnatural in the Spanish language as in the German. In the Spanish, however, the unnatural effect is easily concealed; while in the German, the incessant recurrence of the semi-mute e, in feminine rhymes, is intolerable.