Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/393

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A GLANCE AT MEXICAN LITERATURE.
387

Ethnological Society of New York, and a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Berlin, and of the Spanish Institute.

The journalists now residing in the Federal capital are so numerous that it will not, in this limited space, be possible to mention more than a few of the most brilliant and useful writers—such as José Maria Vigil, Ireano Paz, Arroyo de Anda, Francisco de Sosa, who is also a poet, a historian, and the biographer of many distinguished Mexicans; Enrique Chavarri, best known by his nom de plume "Juvenal;" Cassasus, whose excellent translation of Longfellow's Evangeline received the approval of El Licco Hidalgo; Garcia, editor of El Monitor Republicano: young Lombardo, who, in his Impressions During a Tour of the United States, makes a very just appreciation of our country; Alberto Bianchi, the author of a work on the United States; Juan Mateos, a publicist, poet, and novelist, whose Buccaneers of the Gulf while historically true, is a wonderful piece of word-painting; Bernabe Bravo, a facile and agreeable writer; the " Duque Job," whose real name we have forgotten; and Justo Sierra, who has won many laurels as a poet, and is the author of a history of Mexico that is considered a reliable text-book.

An entire volume might be devoted to the poets of Mexico, most of them rarely gifted men. The poems of Manuel Flores, entitled Pasionarias, equal some of the best productions of Byron. José Maria Ramirez, a popular poet during the second empire, edited La America Literaria, La Tarantula, and contributed to other journals. Later in life Ramirez professed atheism, and styled himself a philosopher.

Jesus de D. Cuevas merits distinction among the poets of the day, for his aspirations are pure and noble. Señor Cuevas has written several dramas, two of which have been translated into English.

Yucatan, the land of song and romance, is justly proud of the poet and dramatist Peon Contreras, who now resides in the Federal capital. Some of his dramas have been performed in all the large cities of the Republic, and are always well received.

Campeachy is the birthplace and present home of the gifted writer Don Pablo Araos, whose poems are not merely sentimental, but of a