BOOK II

.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH TO THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

INTRODUCTION.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE OF POETICAL AND RHETORICAL CULTIVATION IN SPAIN DURING THE ABOVE PERIOD.

The union of the kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, in consequence of the marriage of Isabella, the heiress of the Castilian throne, with Ferdinand king of Arragon, forms an epoch in Spanish literature, as well as in Spanish power. Hitherto Spain had been occupied only with her own internal affairs. The monarchs contended for their prerogatives with the powerful barons of their respective states; and the two kingdoms waged war against each other. The only object which they pursued in common, was the overthrow of the Moorish principality of Granada, which was enabled to resist them, as long as their political jealousy of each other counter-balanced their mutual zeal for religion and conquest. Spain, in her detached situation to the west of the Pyrenees, never appeared so completely separated from the rest of Europe as in the middle of the fifteenth century. With Italy, Spain maintained no relations, except such as were purely ecclesiastical. A marked change, however, took place on the union of the crowns of Castile and Arragon, though the union of the two monarchies was not properly consolidated until after Ferdinand’s death, which happened in 1516. Since the year 1492, Granada had been a Castilian province. The poets had no longer the feats of the Zegris and Abencerrages to record; and the Spanish knights had no infidels to vanquish, unless they travelled to Africa in quest of them. If, however, they were successful in that quarter of the world, their victories did not present subjects of such interest to the Castilian muse as former achievements had afforded. The love of industry and social order, which distinguished the people of Arragon, at length extended to Castile; and the old chivalrous spirit declined in proportion as the use of gunpowder, which was at this period rapidly increasing, became more general. The manners of the Spaniards of both monarchies, had now approximated to those of the Italians; and the analogy between the Castilian and Italian languages, could not fail to be remarked, whenever opportunities for making that observation occurred. Ferdinand soon afforded such an opportunity; his ambition induced him to take an active part in the transactions of Italy, and his interference was attended with success. The victorious Gonsalvo Fernandez de Cordova, admired as the conqueror of Granada, and a second Cid, and surnamed, by way of distinction, _El gran Capitan_, presented the crown of Naples to his sovereign in the year 1504. The political union which then took place between Spain and Italy, and which continued longer than a century, paved the way for that influence of the Italian poetry on the Spanish, which soon after became manifest.

About the same period that Ferdinand and Isabella united their dominions, they also co-operated in the establishment of that terrible tribunal which soon became known throughout Europe by the name of the Spanish Inquisition, and which to the disgrace of human reason exercised during two centuries and a half its monstrous powers in their fullest extent. A crafty policy contrived to render religion its instrument, in subjugating to one common tyranny the reason and the rights of mankind; for the establishment of regal despotism in both kingdoms was the great object of this institution, and its whole organization corresponded with the end for which it was destined. The pope, who penetrated the design of the founders, viewed their proceedings with much dissatisfaction; but even the pope was obliged to support the pretended interest of the church, and to honour Ferdinand by bestowing on him, as a peculiar distinction, the title of “Catholic King.” Thus the court of Rome contributed to annul the privileges of the Cortes of Castile and Arragon, and to invest the whole powers of government, without limitation, in the hands of an absolute monarch: and thus did political artifice triumph over the energy of one of the noblest nations in the world, at the very moment when the genius of that nation had begun to expand, when the promising flower had burst forth from the bud, and was about to unfold itself in full vigour and beauty. A simultaneous and concordant cultivation of the different powers of the human mind was now as little to be hoped for in Spain as the improvement of her political constitution. Under these circumstances the literary genius of the country could not be expected to reach that high maturity of taste which always presupposes a certain degree of harmony in the moral and intellectual faculties. Poetic freedom was circumscribed by the same shackles which fettered moral liberty. Thoughts which could not be expressed without fear of the dungeon and the stake, were no longer materials for the poet to work on. His imagination instead of improving them into poetic ideas, and embodying them in beautiful verse, had to be taught to reject them. But the eloquence of prose was more completely bowed down under the inquisitorial yoke than poetry, because it was more closely allied to truth, which, of all things, was the most dreaded.

The yoke of this odious tribunal weighed, however, far less heavily on the imagination than on the other faculties of the mind; and it must be confessed that a wide field still remained open for the range of fancy, though the boundaries of religious doctrine were not permitted to be overstepped. To suppose that the Spanish inquisition could have entirely annihilated the poetic genius of the nation, it must also be supposed, that at the period of its establishment, there had existed a style of poetry altogether hostile to such an institution, and that the spirit of the inquisition was directly opposed to the spirit of the nation. But it would be forming a false notion of the horrors of the inquisition, to imagine that they were ever felt in Spain in the same manner as in other countries, and particularly in the Netherlands, where that tribunal was introduced hand in hand with foreign despotism. When the inquisition was established in Spain, it harmonized to all appearance, that is to say, as far as orthodox faith was concerned, with the prevailing opinions of the Spanish Christians. It was ostensibly directed not so much against heretics as against infidels, namely, Mahometans and Jews. Its operations were accordingly commenced by waging war against those infidels, for no sect of Christian heretics existed at that period in Spain, and the inquisition took care that none should be afterwards formed. To maintain the purity of the ancient faith was the avowed object of the inquisition; and its wrath was poured out on the unfortunate Jews, Moors, and Moriscos, (the descendants of the Moors), with the view of removing every blemish from the faith of a nation, which prided itself in its orthodoxy. This bigotted pride was a consequence of the contest maintained in Spain during four centuries and a half, between Catholic Christianity and Mahometanism. The Spanish Christians celebrated the conquest of Granada as the triumph of the church; and the inquisition, which at first excited terror, soon became an object of veneration with men in whose hearts religious enthusiasm was inseparably blended with patriotism.

This view of the subject may serve to explain how it happened in the sequel, and particularly during the reign of Philip II. that while, throughout all the rest of Europe men shuddered at the very name of the Spanish inquisition, the Spaniards still lived under it as happily and cheerfully as ever; and also how, from the operation of the same cause, the ecclesiastical shackles had not a more injurious effect on the developement of the poetic genius of the nation. The conduct of the inquisition was no subject of alarm to those who were confident that they never could have any personal concern with it; for the suspicion of deficiency in Catholic orthodoxy, the ground on which that tribunal acted, was more degrading in Spain than the most odious crimes in other countries. Before the establishment of the inquisition, fanaticism was so firmly rooted in the minds of the Spaniards, that all scepticism in matters of religion was abhorred as a deadly sin. He, however, who submitted with blind devotion to the decrees of the church, was held to have a clear conscience, and in that sort of clear conscience the Spaniards prided themselves. The inquisition disturbed the good Catholic as little in his social enjoyments, as criminal justice the citizen who lived in conformity with the laws. The Spaniard was cruel only to heretics and infidels, because he thought it his duty to hate them; but in the orthodox bosom of his native country, he was animated by a spirit of gaiety of which the literature of Spain presents abundant proofs. While the Duke of Alba in the Netherlands ruled with the axe of the executioner, Cervantes, in Spain, wrote his Don Quixote, and Lope de Vega, who himself held a post connected with the inquisition, produced his admirable comedies. The dramatic literature of Spain flourished with most brilliancy during the reigns of the three Philips, from 1556 to 1665, and that is precisely the period when the Spanish inquisition exercised its power with the greatest rigour and the most sanguinary cruelty. Many melancholy traces of fanaticism are certainly observable in the literature of Spain during the reigns of the three Philips; but those traces are so insulated, and the painful impression which they naturally produce on liberal minds is so far compensated, by the noblest traits of humanity, that to him, who, from reading the works of the Spanish poets, should turn to the perusal of the political history of the Spaniards during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and particularly to the history of their transactions in the Netherlands and America, it might well appear that he had become acquainted with two distinct nations.

Indeed, notwithstanding the generally prejudicial effects of the restrictions imposed by the inquisition on intellectual freedom, those restrictions could not fail, under the circumstances which have been described, to prove in one respect favourable to the polite literature of Spain. The poetic genius which, at the period of the establishment of this tribunal, was energetically developing itself throughout the Peninsula, was not now to be annihilated. Its strength was even augmented by that growing national pride, which the union of the Castilian and Arragonian monarchies fostered. During the period marked by the reign of Charles I. better known by his Germanic imperial title of Charles V. which was nearly half a century, namely, from the year 1516 to the year 1555, the Austrian and Spanish monarchies were also united, and Spain acquired rich possessions in a new quarter of the world. The Spanish arms were not so victorious under the three Philips as under Charles V. But, sacrificed as this gallant nation was to fanaticism and the most despicable of governments, its spirit never sunk under disaster, and its genius vented itself in the cultivation of poetry, because it was excluded by religious despotism from every graver study, except the scholastic philosophy of the convent. It is also to be considered, that the influence of the ever debasing despotism of the Spanish government could operate only gradually in extinguishing the energies of national genius. The bold manifestation of the spirit of freedom in Castile and Arragon on the accession of Charles V. was attended with discouraging results, because the nobility and the third estate did not unite in support of their common interests. Had that union existed, Spain would probably have presented the first model of a constitutional, and at the same time a vigorous monarchy. That honour was withheld by fate: but the genius of the Spanish people was not so easily suppressed as their political and religious freedom. Kings might rule as they pleased; they might madly shed the blood of their subjects, or waste the treasures drawn from America; but the people, who had yielded to despotism only for the sake of religion, continued in their hearts to be what they had always been, till the influence of time consummated their subjugation. The Spanish patriot, who fought in the cause of his king and country, was until then, in his own estimation, still a free man. Kings received homage in verse as well as in prose; but a court poetry, like that which existed in France in the reign of Lewis XIV. was never known in Spain. The kings of Spain, too, never bestowed any very liberal encouragement on the poetic literature of their country. Charles V. honoured a few Spanish and Italian poets with some degree of attention, according to the fashion of the princes of that age; for in the sixteenth century a poet was accounted an extremely useful man for business of every sort; but that sovereign seems to have taken a more particular interest in Italian than in Spanish literature. Philip II. from his joyless throne, occasionally cast a glance of favour on a man of talent; but restless ambition and blind bigotry occupied his gloomy mind, and deprived him of all susceptibility for the beautiful. His son, Philip III. though of a more amiable character, was too indolent to take a warm interest in any thing whatever. Philip IV. however, did more for Spanish literature than any of his predecessors since the time of John II. His taste for pomp and splendour, to which he thoughtlessly gave himself up, while decay and disorder preyed upon the vitals of the state, disposed him to favour the Spanish theatre. Calderon, whom he pensioned, was indebted to him for that leisure which enabled him to devote his life to dramatic poetry. But Calderon only improved on the labours of predecessors, who, without receiving the pay of kings, produced works which did honour to the nation, and were approved and rewarded by the public. Spanish literature owes nothing to kings, and has to thank only the popular spirit for all its brightest flowers. The drama, therefore, remained wholly national, even after the imitation of Italian forms had long prevailed in the lyric and epic poetry of Spain. Writers for the stage must of necessity obey the voice of a public possessing sufficient energy of character to condemn every piece which does not pay homage to the popular taste. The whole history of the Spanish theatre exhibits this dominion of the public over authors; and the

## particular taste of the dramatists being formed under the influence

of the general poetic genius of the nation, they very willingly, like Lope de Vega, followed the stream, even though, like him, they well knew what the true theory of their art required. The cultivation of prose was more completely left to the individual taste of the authors; but any instance of encouragement from the throne was as uncommon with respect to it as to poetry. Antonio de Solis, who received a pension from Philip IV. as historiographer, for writing the History of Spanish America, was indebted for that honour in some measure to his reputation as a poet, and his various acquirements, but by no means for any

## particular esteem he had obtained on account of his talent for prose

composition.

During the whole of this period, however, intellectual talents were never undervalued, either by the kings, or the nobles of Spain. In that country, as well as in Italy, the higher orders considered it a duty to seek distinction through learning, and poetry was the soul both of Spanish and Italian literature. Most of the Spanish poets of this period, if not of noble birth, belonged, at least, to families of consideration. Heroes, statesmen, ecclesiastics, all composed verses, and poetry was most intimately interwoven with all the relations of social life. No where did chivalrous gallantry so long survive the extinction of real chivalry as in Spain; and poetry was the exhaustless language of that gallantry, whether it displayed itself in secret love intrigues, or at public entertainments and festivals. Every characteristic national amusement, as for instance, a bull fight, proved an incitement to the writing of sonnets and romances. There are found in various Spanish poems of this period many expressions and allusions which have reference to popular amusements, but the poetic sense of which is only intelligible to readers who bear in their recollection the favourite diversions of the nation. The romantic intrigues which were common in high life, formed models for the intricate plots of the Spanish comedies; but no ordinary powers of invention were necessary to enable the dramatic author to maintain on the stage a competition with the scenes which actually occurred in society. Throughout the whole country, singing and dancing were essential ingredients in every amusement. Learned musical composition had, at this time, little attraction for the Spaniards; but wherever joy was, musicians were not wanting, and every dance had its song.

In the mean time the cultivation of the other fine arts, afforded little aid to Spanish poetry, as the overwhelming interest attached to it in its golden age directed the intellectual energies of the nation almost exclusively to that one object. All other liberal pursuits were consequently left far behind.

Spanish taste was, at this period, entirely left to form itself, being abandoned to the influence of Italian literature, and the authority of eminent national authors. The Italian system of academies found little favour in Spain. Perhaps the jealousy of the inquisition foreboded evil from meetings of men of letters. Be this as it may, Spanish literature sustained little loss by the want of those institutions. The Royal Academy for the Spanish language and literature was not established until the eighteenth century.

The intimate union, which, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, subsisted between the eloquence of prose and poetry in Spain, renders a separate history of each unnecessary. A division may, however, be advantageously made in the whole body of the Spanish literature of this period, though the two sections cannot form two distinct epochs. From the introduction of the Italian style into Spanish poetry, until the decline of learning in the latter years of the reign of Philip IV. no literary revolution was experienced in Spain. The _corrupters of taste_, as certain writers who appeared in the latter half of this period are called by some of the Spanish critics, only continued a movement, the impulse of which had been given long before by various authors, and particularly by the dramatic poets. Several of these writers were contemporaries with authors who placed a high value on classical correctness, and yet they exercised a much greater influence over the general literature of Spain than the latter. To confound Calderon, who perfected the Spanish comedy, according to its true national character, with the corrupters of taste, is an idea which could only have been entertained in the eighteenth century, when it became customary in Spain, as every where else, to measure all productions of genius by the rules of French criticism. But at the same time, that Spanish poetry approximated as closely to the Italian, as the necessary connection of the former with the national style would permit, that national style, with all its faults and beauties, still maintained the pre-eminence; and the passion for Italian correctness again declined. This crisis in Spanish literature, occasioned by the struggle between Italian refinement and the bold eccentricity of the national manners, occurred in the age of Cervantes. At that time Lope de Vega shone with more brilliancy in the eyes of his countrymen than Cervantes, and the party of the former gained the victory and kept the field. The taking of a distinct view of the progress of poetry and eloquence in Spain, will therefore be facilitated, if the period of the influence of Cervantes and Lope de Vega be made an historical resting point. It is doubtless very remarkable, that Cervantes, who created an epoch in the general literature of Europe, should not have produced sufficient effect on the Literature of his own country, to justify the choosing him as the founder of a new epoch in its literary history. An opportunity will hereafter arise for reverting to this subject.[147]

FIRST SECTION.

_History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence, from the Introduction of the Italian Style to the Age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega._

OCCASION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ITALIAN STYLE.

After the complete consolidation of the monarchies of Castile and Arragon by the accession of Charles of Austria, the grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, there appears to have been, for a short time, a suspension of all literary activity in Spain. The political convulsions which then agitated the interior of the two united kingdoms, occupied the public mind too powerfully to allow any interest to be felt in calmer and more agreeable objects. But as soon as the civil contests were terminated by the success of the Austrian party, and the enterprising Charles, incited by Francis I. employed the force of his Spanish states to win new dominions in Italy, the poetic genius of Spain revived in all its pristine vigour. In the meantime, the ancient dialect of the Arragonian provinces began to be supplanted by the Castilian, which became the language of the state and of public business throughout Spain. Castile was then considered the heart of the whole monarchy. Madrid rose to the rank of the capital of Spain, and Saragossa sunk into the condition of a provincial town. It was therefore no very extraordinary event, that a Catalonian, whose maternal language still possessed a certain degree of poetic consideration, should, in connection with a Castilian, produce a revolution in Castilian poetry.

BOSCAN.

Juan Boscan Almogavèr, who, in concert with his friend Garcilaso de la Vega, introduced the Italian style into Castilian poetry, was born in Barcelona, towards the close of the fifteenth century. He belonged to one of the Patrician families of that city, of equal rank with the nobility of the country. Though possessing a liberal education, and sufficient fortune to enable him to gratify his inclination for literary studies, without regard to any secondary views, he embarked, notwithstanding, on his first outset in life for a short period in the profession of arms. He afterwards travelled, but the countries he visited are not mentioned in the brief notices which remain of him. If, however, it be supposed that he went at this time to Italy, and rendered himself intimately acquainted with the literature of that country, it appears that he was still far from entertaining the idea of transplanting the forms and manner of Italian poetry into Spain; for the Castilian verses, which he wrote in his youth, were all in the ancient lyric style, which, since the time of Juan de Mena no one had thought it necessary to try to improve. It was not until 1526, when, after having flourished at the court of Charles V. he had made a happy marriage, and was settled in his native city, that a Venetian induced him to imitate the Italian poetry in the Castilian language. The emperor resided for some time in Granada; and, among the foreign ministers who repaired to his court, was Andrea Navagero, the envoy from Venice, a man of great literary and historical knowledge, and, like every well-educated Italian of that age, a writer of canzoni and sonnets. Boscan, having formed an intimate friendship with this minister, was taught by him to view the Italian poetry and also the classical latin in quite a new light. The Spanish lyric poetry, which with all its gothic excrescences was still pleasing to the nation, if not so barbarous in his eyes as in those of his Italian friend, appeared to him, when compared with a sonnet of Petrarch, at least, in the point of good taste greatly inferior. He now readily perceived the nature and felt the value of the precision and correctness of the great works of antiquity. Animated by his new ideas, he fearlessly ventured to follow the counsel of Navagero, in spite of the menacing clamour of the friends of the old national forms. He took upon himself the character of a reformer of the lyric poetry of his nation, and commenced his labours by writing sonnets in the manner of Petrarch.

The metrical structure of the sonnet had long been known in Spain;[148] but the genius of Castilian poetry was adverse to that form, and the Spaniards had manifested very little predilection for any thing like the elegant correctness of Petrarch. Boscan had therefore elevated himself above the literature of his country, when he perceived that it was necessary to infuse a new spirit into Castilian poetry before it could be reconciled to the Italian forms. His friend Garcilaso de la Vega participated in this opinion. But thousands of voices were raised against the reformers. Some insisted that preference was to be given to the old Castilian verse on the ground of euphony. Others went further, and asserted that the ear could perceive no distinction between the new verse and prose. Finally, a third party discovered that Italian poetry was effeminate, and was fit only for Italians and women. Boscan relates that this violent opposition made him reflect seriously on the propriety of proceeding with his design; but as he was soon convinced of the futility of the reasons urged against him, he persisted in his undertaking. His party rapidly increased and soon obtained the superiority, not indeed throughout the whole mass of the public, but in that portion of society which was most enlightened and refined.[149]

The other circumstances of Boscan’s life, in so far as they are known, have little interest for the literary historian. The mature part of his age was chiefly spent in his native city Barcelona, or in the neighbouring country. The urbanity of his manners and his talents recommended him to the family of Alba, which was then one of the most brilliant of the noble houses of Castile, and to which the homage of the Spanish poets was from that time constantly paid. Boscan was for some time Ayo, or first governor of the young Don Fernando de Alba, who was afterwards the terror of the enemies of the Spanish monarchy. He appears, however, to have soon resigned this employment, in order to divide his time between study and the society of literary friends. The year in which he died is not exactly known; it is only ascertained that his death happened before the year 1544.[150] He prepared for the press a collection of his poems, to which he added those of his friend Garcilaso; but the work was not published until after his death.[151]

From the point at which Boscan found Castilian poetry, to that in which it was necessary it should be placed before he could open for himself a new path, the distance was considerable, and the transition was to be accomplished by a single bound. That he succeeded in this undertaking was owing not so much to his genius, as to a natural susceptibility for the real beauties of Italian and ancient poetry, accidentally excited at the favourable moment, and to a talent for the imitation of classical models, without altogether discarding that tone of feeling which was properly his own. To estimate, however, the full value of Boscan’s talent, it is not only necessary to examine the works by which he introduced a new style into Spanish poetry, but to take a retrospective view of the productions of the Castilian muse in the ancient manner. It is only by this comparison that a just conception can be formed of the surprise with which the Spaniards must have regarded the bold attempt of Boscan. He was the first among his countrymen who had an idea of classical perfection in works of imagination; and though the greater part of his poems fall below that standard, they all afford evidence of his endeavours to reach it. An aspiration so entirely unaffected and unembarrassed, had never been manifested by any previous Spanish poet. Between the kind of poetry which he introduced into his native land and that which he abandoned, there was no visible passage. But lest the merits of Boscan should be too highly rated, it is proper to observe, that at this time a reform of the Spanish poetry, precisely such as that to which his efforts gave birth, was, notwithstanding the clamour of his opponents, desired by the more cultivated part of the Spanish public, though, perhaps, there no where existed any distinct perception of the wished-for object. Had it been otherwise, Boscan must have stood alone, and the numerous poets of his nation, who have equalled or surpassed him in the new style, never would have followed his example.

The early productions of Boscan, which form the first book of his works, are scarcely distinguishable by any trace of superior delicacy or correctness from the poems of the same descriptions contained in the _Cancionero general_. The very title of the longest of these youthful essays, namely, _Mar de Amor_ (the Sea of Love) excites an anticipation of the fantastic flights of the old Spanish muse; and it is impossible to read the first strophe without being convinced that the author still adhered to the original character of Castilian song.[152] It was, however, only at the request of his friend Garcilaso de la Vega, who said that he received from these poems the same sort of pleasure as from pretty children, that Boscan renounced his intention of entirely suppressing them.

The second book of Boscan’s poems, contains _sonetos_ and _canciones_, in the style of the Italian _sonetti_ and _canzoni_. They all betray, in a greater or less degree, the disciple of the school of Petrarch; but the spirit of Spanish poetry still displays itself throughout the whole. The language, though it successfully imitates the precision of Petrarch, seldom attains the sweetly flowing melody of its model. In painting the feelings, the shadows are charged with stronger colours than the Italian Petrarchists of the sixteenth century permitted themselves to employ. Impetuous passion, which, with higher pretensions, was, on account of its very violence, less capable of commanding sympathy than a mild enthusiasm, strikingly distinguished Boscan’s poetry from that which was the object of his imitation. The contrast was farther increased by the constantly recurring picture of a struggle between passion and reason. But these were precisely the traits which disclosed the true Spanish character. It was not individual feeling that prevented Boscan from equalling the delicacy and softness of the Italian sonetto and canzone, for as his biography, and still more his other poems, shew he was a man of a very mild disposition. But it was necessary that the language of love, to appear natural and true to a Spaniard, should burn and rage. At the same time, to satisfy Spanish taste, reason was to be introduced to deliver her precepts amidst the storm of passion, to prove its force by her feebleness, and to give to lyric composition a moral gravity which was not desired by the Italians. In so far however as the Spanish character permitted the experiment to go, the fascinating tone of Petrarch was very happily seized by Boscan;[153] and in the expression of tender passion he has even sometimes surpassed the Italian poet.[154]

The greater part of the third book of these poems is occupied by a paraphrastic translation of the Greek poem of Hero and Leander. Nothing of the kind had been previously known in the Spanish language. The metrical form which Boscan chose for his translation, was that of rhymeless iambics, or an imitation of the blank verse of the Italians. The language is so pure and elegant, the versification so natural, and the tone of the narrative so soft, and at the same time so elevated, that it is impossible not to be pleased even with the prolixity which the influence of the taste for romantic poetry has introduced into this free translation. To this translation succeeds a poem in the Italian style, entitled a _Capitulo_, and some epistles in tercets. The _Capitulo_, as it is called, is a love elegy, abounding in pleasing ideas and images, but on the whole too much spun out, like most Italian poems of the same kind. It has also its full share of genuine Spanish hyperbole and amorous despair.[155] The best of his epistles is, “The Answer to Diego Mendoza,” who was himself the first epistolary poet among the Spaniards, and whom it will soon be necessary to notice more at length. After the new poetical career was opened, these authors vied in imitating the epistles of Horace; but it is plain that the elegiac tenderness of Tibullus was constantly present to the mind of Boscan. In his Answer to Mendoza, the descriptions of domestic and rural life charm by their exquisite delicacy, and possess a still more powerful interest than the moral reflections, though these are unaffected and noble, and conceived in the true spirit of didactic poetry.[156]

Boscan’s works conclude with a narrative poem in the Italian style, which has no other title than that which denotes the structure of the verse, namely, _octava rima_. Some ideas and images are borrowed from the Italian poets; but the whole invention and the execution of the greater part of the details belong to Boscan. The merit of the fable, however, is not great. A mythological allegory, describing the empire of love, forms the introduction to a poetical relation of a festal meeting of Venus, Cupid, and the other inhabitants of that imaginary region. Little Cupids are dispatched all over the world by Venus to defend her against the reproaches of unreasonable men, and to make known the real blessings of love. One of those winged envoys directs his course towards Barcelona, the natal city of the poet, gives a

## particular account of his mission to the fair ladies of that town, and

takes the opportunity of saying many gallant things to them. As to the construction of the fable of this poem, Boscan certainly gave himself very little trouble. His object appears merely to have been to compose a romantic picture of greater extent than a sonnet or a cancion, and to make his countrymen sensible of the charm of descriptive poetry in the Italian manner. It is impossible not to admire the grace and facility with which Boscan has accomplished this purpose. The descriptions are so animated,[157] and all the details so elegant and engaging, that the tediousness of some of the parts is amply compensated by the happy execution of the whole. Light plays of fancy embellish the lyric and romantic passages; and, upon the whole, this is a work which no other of the same kind by later Spanish poets has excelled.[158]

If a comprehensive view be taken of the merits of Boscan, it will be impossible, notwithstanding the striking faults which appear in his works, and particularly in his sonnets, to withhold from him the title of the first classical poet of Spain. Some of his expressions are now antiquated, but upon the whole his language has continued a model for succeeding ages. Simplicity and dignity had never, in the same degree, and under a form so correct, been united with poetic truth and feeling by any previous Spanish author. The partizans of the old national poetry reproached him with being an imitator; but without the kind of imitation by which he naturalized in his language a taste for the literature of Italy and the ancient classics, it would have been impossible for Spanish poetry to have gained that field in which it afterwards competed with the Italian. That he did not obtrude upon his countrymen a kind of poetry irreconcilable with the genius of the language and the national character, is evident from the rapidity with which the new taste spread over the whole of Spain, and extended into Portugal, and from its duration in both kingdoms. The poetic innovators, at whose head Boscan stood, were certainly blameable, in so far as they wished to banish entirely the ancient Spanish style, which was also, in its own manner, susceptible of classical improvement. But it is doubtful whether the partizans of that style would have thought of perfecting it after classical models, had not the disciples of the Italian school unexpectedly shewn the high cultivation of which Spanish poetry was capable under new forms. This Boscan first made manifest, not by critical reasoning, but by example; and his modesty contributed not a little to attract to his party the more liberal minded of his countrymen. Had he commenced his reform by trying to beat down the old style with theoretical argument, or egotistical declamation, he would only have rendered himself an object of ridicule; for the public he had to deal with was not indisposed to improvement, but would not submit to have lessons read to it magisterially.

After Boscan, his friends, who participated in the fame of that reform to which he shewed the way, are justly entitled to the next place in the history of Spanish poetry.

GARCILASO DE LA VEGA.

The first Spanish poet who followed the example of Boscan was Garcilaso de la Vega, a young Castilian, descended from a family of consideration in Toledo, and born, according to the statements of different authors, either in 1500 or 1503. His poetic talent was early developed, and he had written several lyric pieces in the old Spanish style, when his acquaintance with Boscan, which soon grew into friendship, commenced. The character of the poetry of the ancients and of Italy was then seen by him in a new light. He proceeded with ardour to the study of classical models, and of Petrarch and Virgil in particular. The improvement of pastoral poetry in his native tongue, appears to have been his first object. But it was his lot to follow the restless profession of arms; and the wars of Charles V. carried him abroad, and dragged him from country to country. In the year 1529, he distinguished himself in the Spanish corps, which was attached to the imperial army opposed to the Turks. While in Vienna he was involved in a romantic intrigue, between a near relation of his own and a lady of the court. The imperial dignity, it appears, was conceived to be compromised by this intrigue, and Garcilaso was punished for his interference by imprisonment in an Island of the Danube. There he composed one of his canciones, in which he bewails his destiny, but at the same time celebrates the Danube and the countries through which it flows.[159] His imprisonment probably was not of long duration. In the year 1535, he served in the adventurous expedition of Charles V. against Tunis, in which he acquired both glory and wounds. In Naples and Sicily, he devoted, as far as circumstances would permit, his moments of relaxation to poetry. He execrated war, and exerted all the powers of his imagination in painting an Arcadian pastoral life, but still remained a soldier.[160] It may be presumed, however, that his military talents were not inconsiderable, for when the imperial army in the year 1536, penetrated into the South of France, Garcilaso de la Vega, who could then be only thirty-three, or at most thirty-six years of age, commanded eleven companies of infantry. That campaign, which did not terminate so fortunately as it commenced, was the last to Garcilaso, and tore him from the world in the bloom of life. The emperor in person ordered him to take by assault, a fort, the garrison of which harrassed the army in its retreat. Garcilaso executed this command with more gallantry than prudence. He wished to be the first to scale the walls. He attained his object, but was struck with a stone on the head, and thrown down from the ramparts. Being mortally wounded, he was removed to Nice, where, a few weeks after, he died.

It would be difficult to discover from the works of Garcilaso, that the author had spent a considerable portion of his short life in camps, and had died in the bed of military honour, the victim of his courage; for he approaches even more closely than Boscan to the tenderness of Petrarch. The general tone of his poetry is so soft and melancholy, that it is only by occasional characteristic traits, that the Spaniard is recognized; but it must be confessed that when such passages do occur, the exaggeration is striking enough.[161] In his sonnets, which are not numerous, the imitation of Petrarch is obvious; but he sometimes betrays that affectation of wit, which was still in Spain regarded as an ingenious manner of expressing vehement and profound passion.[162] One however exhibits throughout a delicacy of style and sweetness of manner, equalled by few pieces of the same kind, in the Spanish language.[163] He was not equally successful in seizing the character of the Italian canzone, of which he, as well as Boscan, was an imitator; and his reputation rests chiefly on his pastoral poems, which therefore deserve to be more particularly noticed.

Since the rude dramatic eclogues of Juan de la Enzina pastoral poetry had made no progress in Spain. But Garcilaso de la Vega imitated Virgil and Sanazzar, and so happily united the romantic character with the correctness of the ancients, that his eclogues, though only one of them can be regarded as a masterpiece, surpass all Italian poems of the kind, those in the Arcadia of Sanazzar alone excepted. The fine Neapolitan sky appears to have had the same influence on Garcilaso as on Virgil and Sanazzar; and he seems to have regarded Naples as his poetical country. The first of his eclogues is by far the most beautiful, and marks an epoch in Spanish pastoral poetry. The whole composition has the metrical form of an Italian canzone. The invention is very simple. In the four introductory strophes, in which is interwoven a dedication to the Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca, the author describes, with all the simplicity which belongs to true pastoral poetry, the meeting of two shepherds, Salicio and Nemoroso, who alternately give vent to their feelings in melancholy strains. These elegiac songs reply to each other without interruption, and the relation subsisting between them gives to the whole lyric composition a proper consistence and unity. This is all the plan of the eclogue. But the glow of enthusiastic feeling, the happy choice of expression, and the harmony of versification so completely satisfactory to the ear, to be found in almost every line of these songs of sorrow, cannot fail to give delight to every mind susceptible of elegiac and beauty. Accordingly the Spanish critics are nearly unanimous in pronouncing this eclogue one of the finest works in their language. The subject of the first song is the infidelity--of the second, the death of a mistress; and the latter complaint appears to be founded in fact. But Garcilaso would have better secured the sympathy of the more scrupulous Spanish reader, had he entirely passed over the cause of the lamented fair one’s decease. The lady whom he describes as a pastoral nymph, lost her life it seems in childbed; for an apostrophe of the complaining shepherd to Lucina, indicates plainly enough the nature of her death. But is the affected delicacy which takes offence at a trait so truly natural and pathetic, worthy of the attention of an author? In the first strain in which the shepherd Salicio deplores the infidelity of his mistress, the interest appears to be raised as far as it is possible to carry it.[164] Passion is here elevated to the highest pitch, and then lost in a most affecting self sacrifice.[165] But the song in which Nemoroso laments the death of his mistress, even surpasses the former in elegiac force, perhaps because it possesses greater softness. In retracing his recollections the mourner draws a series of melancholy pictures which have an indescribable charm. The beauty of the poem rises with the description of the beauty of the departed shepherdess.[166] The passage in which Nemoroso relates how he carries in his bosom a lock of his Eliza’s hair, from which he is never separated--how when alone he spreads it out, weeps over it, dries it with his sighs, and then examines and counts every single hair--is unexampled either in ancient or modern literature.[167] Occasional imitations of Virgil have been pointed out, but they harmonize so completely with the romantic spirit of the poem, that were it not for the particular references which critics have made, they would in general escape the notice of even the most erudite. The poem, as a whole, is evidently the genuine offspring of the author’s soul. Materials of an affecting but prosaic nature are, by his art, converted into the most graceful and impressive poetry.

As Garcilaso only imitated the ancients by the introduction of certain ideas and images, and not in the structure of his eclogues, he considered himself at liberty to vary their form at pleasure. But here his good taste abandoned him. The second and longest of his eclogues is an unnatural mixture of heterogeneous styles. An unfortunate shepherd deplores his unsuccessful love. Another shepherd joins him, and their conversation proceeds unconstrained in a romantic pastoral tone; but it is impossible to discover any reason for the changes which take place in the verse. Tercets are succeeded by rhymeless iambics, after which the tercets re-appear and are followed by the syllabic measure of a canzone. The simple dialogue suddenly becomes dramatic. The fair huntress, whose indifference is the subject of the first shepherd’s lament, appears upon the scene. The lover seizes and refuses to let her go, until she swears to listen to his addresses. She makes the required vow, and when at liberty flies. The despair of the shepherd then becomes frenzy; and a third shepherd, who has in the mean time arrived, enters into conversation with the one who first joined the unhappy lover, on the means of restoring him to reason. The author seizes this opportunity to convert his eclogue into a most unseasonable eulogium on the house of Alba. One of the shepherds proposes that medical assistance should be obtained, and mentions a physician named Severo; but this name is assigned to a learned friend of Garcilaso and the Alba family. Nothing more is necessary, according to the critical conception of the author, to warrant the making a poetical digression from his account of the merits of the physician, whose miraculous skill is to recover the frantic shepherd, to the history of the house of Alba, which he details in iambic blank verse.

In the third and last of Garcilaso’s eclogues, the genuine pastoral character is resumed. The lyric dialogue in octaves, or Italian stanzas, pleasingly harmonizes with the soft description of amatory sorrows given in this poem.

Garcilaso made essays in other kinds of poetry, but with less success. An elegy written to console the Duke of Alba for the death of his brother, is an imitation, or rather a translation of an Italian poem by Frascatoro, and is at once cold and verbose. More of interest belongs to another elegy which is addressed to Boscan, and which the author wrote at the foot of Mount Etna. Mythological recollections excited by that classic ground, melancholy complaints of the miseries of war, and tender anxieties for a loved object in the poet’s native land, diffuse a charm over the whole of this elegant poem, which is besides remarkable for comparisons and images full of novelty and truth.[168]

Garcilaso is also the author of a small epistle in which he has endeavoured to seize the true horatian tone. It is not sufficiently important to deserve particular notice, but it is easy to recognize in it the fine tact of this author, to whom the critic, however severely he may judge his faults, cannot deny the title of the second classic poet of Spain.

DIEGO DE MENDOZA.

The third classic poet, and at the same time the first classic prose writer of Spain, is Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza,[169] a native of Granada, where he was born in the beginning of the sixteenth century, but in what year is not known. Descended from one of the first familes of the country, he had before him the prospect of high honours, which, as he was one of five children, his parents destined him to reach through the church. Being educated for the clerical profession, he received what was then considered a learned education. Besides the classical languages of antiquity, he acquired the Hebrew and Arabic. At the university of Salamanca, he studied scholastic philosophy, theology, and ecclesiastical law. While yet a student he was the inventor of the comic romance or novel, for it was at Salamanca that he wrote his celebrated work, the Life of Lazarillo de Tormes. Having become as conspicuous for a vigorous and sound understanding as for his wit and learning, the Emperor Charles V. who perceived that his talents might be employed with advantage in public business, drew him from his studies. He had not long left the university when he was appointed imperial envoy to Venice. He availed himself of the opportunities which this situation afforded to cultivate an intercourse with learned Italians, and to obtain an intimate knowledge of the spirit of Italian literature. Before his departure for Italy, he appears to have formed an acquaintance with Boscan; but he was patriot enough not to despise the old Spanish poetry. Though he loved the Italian poets, he preferred the ancients, and in particular Horace, who, like himself a man of the world, might occasionally assist him in his journey through the slippery path of political life; and certainly few poets could have divided themselves between literature and politics with as much dexterity as Mendoza. He was, however, far from being a cringing courtier. His low opinion of diplomatic dignity is stated frankly, and even somewhat coarsely, in one of his epistles, in which he exclaims:--“O these ambassadors, the perfect ninnies! when kings wish to cheat they begin with us. Our best business is to take care that we do no harm, and indeed never to do or say any thing that we may not run the risk of making ourselves understood.”[170] The ambassador of a prince of such deep dissimulation as Charles V. might naturally enough form an unfavourable opinion of his office; but he who could speak his mind in this manner, even when at his post, must have retained some of the spirit of old Spanish freedom.

The emperor made no mistake in the choice of his ambassador, of whose turn of thinking he doubtless was not ignorant, but on the exercise of whose talents he knew he could rely. He considered him the fittest person that could be selected to go to the council of Trent, and recommend, by an elegant manner, the truths he wished to be told to the assembled fathers in the name of the Spanish nation. This commission Mendoza executed to the satisfaction of the emperor. The speech which he delivered before the council in 1545 was highly admired, and Charles was convinced that it was impossible to confide the affairs of Italy to better hands. In the year 1547, Mendoza appeared at the papal court, then the centre of all political intrigues, as imperial ambassador, and invested with powers which rendered him the terror of the French party in Italy. The emperor at the same time appointed him captain-general and governor of Sienna, and other strong places in Tuscany. He was ordered to humble the pope, Paul III. even in his own court; and to repress, by force, the movements of the restless Florentines, who still hoped, under the protection of France, to shake off the yoke of the Medicis. A man of less firmness of character would have been totally unfit for such a task; but the terrible energy with which Mendoza performed it, exasperated in the highest degree the opposite party, and more particularly the Florentines. The repeated insurrections in Tuscany could not be suppressed without measures of great severity, and Mendoza was consequently detested as a tyrant by all Italians who were not reconciled to the introduction of Spanish garrisons. In Sienna he was constantly exposed to assassination; and on one occasion, a musket ball directed against him killed the horse on which he rode. His intrepidity, however, was not to be shaken, and he continued to administer his difficult government until Paul III. died, and was succeeded by Julius III. a pope inclined to the Spanish party. The new pope wishing to bestow on Mendoza a particular mark of respect, appointed him Gonfalonier, or Standard-bearer to the church. In this character, Mendoza marched against the rebels in the ecclesiastical territories, and made them submit to the pope.

Thus did a Spanish poet, alike feared and admired, govern Italy for the space of six years. During this stormy period of his life, Mendoza composed verses, visited the Italian universities, purchased Greek manuscripts, and collected a large library. Since the days of Petrarch no friend of literature had shewn so much zeal for the acquisition of Greek manuscripts. He spared no pains nor expense to procure them even from Greece, and sent special messengers for that purpose to the convent of Mount Athos. He availed himself of a service he had rendered to the Ottoman sultan, to obtain supplies of corn for the empty granaries of Venice, and of manuscripts for his own library. Many a Greek work came first to the press from his valuable collection. Whoever wished to promote the study of ancient literature, found in him a friend and protector; and to him the learned bookseller, Paulus Manutius, dedicated his edition of the philosophic writings of Cicero, to the study of which Mendoza was particularly attached, and for the correct publication of which he even made critical observations on the manuscripts.

Literature and politics, it appears, did not afford sufficient occupation for this extraordinary man. He chose also to engage in affairs of gallantry; and, according to the manners of the age, gave to such pursuits, at least in verse, the character of romantic passion. His looks, however, were not calculated to recommend him to the fair sex; for his biographers state that he was far from handsome, and that the glance of his fiery eye was more repulsive than inviting. But Mendoza was active, accomplished, and in the possession of power; and the favour which these advantages obtained for him with some Roman ladies, was numbered among the offences with which his enemies loudly reproached him. The repeated charges brought against him made at last an impression on the emperor; and that monarch, who had begun to contemplate the resignation of his crown, and who was now desirous of establishing tranquillity in his states, thought fit, in the year 1554, to recall this too rigid governor to Spain.

The latter part of the history of Mendoza’s life is not uniformly related by his biographers. According to some he retired to the country, devoted himself to poetry and philosophy, and appeared very seldom at the court of Philip II. Others assert that, though he no longer retained his former influence, he continued a member of the council of state under Philip II. and was present with that monarch at the great battle of St. Quintin, fought in the year 1557. This much is certain, that he was soon after engaged in an adventure at the court, which, for a man of his age and knowledge of the world, was of a very singular nature. An altercation arose in the palace between him and a courtier, who, according to Mendoza’s own declaration, was his rival in the affections of a lady. This man, whose name is not mentioned, in a fit of violent exasperation, drew a dagger; upon which Mendoza seized him, and threw him from a balcony into the street. What afterwards became of his antagonist is not recorded; but the transaction was the subject of serious observation, and the grave Philip regarded it as a high offence against the dignity of his person and his court. He was, however, content to inflict a moderate punishment, and merely condemned Mendoza to a short imprisonment. The old statesman occupied the period of his imprisonment in the ancient Spanish style, namely, in composing lamentations on the unkindness of his mistress:[171] and these romantic effusions do not appear to have been considered by his contemporaries as absurd and ridiculous at his time of life. But the sorrows expressed in his amatory ditties did not drive the venerable lover to despair; for when he was soon after set at liberty, though still exiled from court, he observed with the eye of a politician the insurrection of the Moriscoes, or converted Arabs of Granada; and when the insurrection broke out into a formal war, he noted down all the remarkable events, and afterwards detailed them in an historical work, which has obtained for him the name of the Spanish Sallust. He profited of this opportunity to collect a great number of Arabic manuscripts. Observations on the works of Aristotle, a translation of the Mechanics of that philosopher, and some political treatises, were, it appears, the last of his literary labours. He was thus actively and usefully employed until his death, which happened when he was upwards of seventy, at Valladolid, in the year 1575. He bequeathed his collection of books and manuscripts to the king, and it still forms one of the most valuable portions of the library of the Escurial.[172]

A detailed account of the life of this distinguished man, cannot be regarded as a biographical excrescence in a history of Spanish Literature; for in no other poet’s life and works is the real Castilian spirit of the age of Charles V. so clearly displayed as in those of Diego de Mendoza. The universality of his literary talent will be best understood, when it is known with what energy, precision, and facility he accommodated himself to, and controuled the circumstances in which he happened to be placed in all the practical relations of life. That trait too in the portrait of his mind, which is most worthy of observation, namely, the constancy with which, instead of abandoning one species of mental activity for another, he continued throughout the different periods of his life, from youth to extreme old age, always to unite in his person the poet, the man of letters, and the statesman, gives reason to expect that his works, however differing in kind, will be found to possess a certain common character.

Diego de Mendoza did more for the poetic literature of his country than his countrymen seem to have acknowledged. Spanish writers, it is true, place him next in rank to Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega, among the poets who introduced the Italian style into Castilian poetry. But they cannot pardon the harshness of his versification in those poems in which he adopted the metrical forms of Italy. Rendered fastidious by the rhythmical harmony which a Castilian ear can never dispense with, the Spaniards have held in very trifling estimation the epistles of Mendoza; though those compositions, in a striking manner, extended the boundaries of Castilian poetry. As an epistolary poet, he might justly be styled the Spanish Horace, if his tercets flowed as smoothly as the hexameters of the latin poet. Making allowance, however, for the want of that pure harmony and that didactic delicacy in which Horace is inimitable, Mendoza’s epistles may rank among the best productions of the kind in modern literature. With the exception of Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega, no Spanish poet had evinced any traces of that horatian spirit with which this author was endowed. In the collection of Mendoza’s poems, these epistles are merely called _cartas_ (letters.) Some of them are of a romantic cast, and overloaded with tedious love complaints. But the rest, like Horace’s epistles, are didactic, full of agreeable but sound philosophy, precise and yet unconstrained in expression, and rescued from the monotonous effect of moral instruction, by a happy interchange of precepts, images, and characters. A masculine understanding, which clearly penetrates all social relations, and a noble spirit, which estimates the blessings of life according to their real value, diffuse over these epistles a charm at once serene and attractive. Some of the most beautiful, for example, that addressed to Boscan, which is best known, and which on account of the answer is printed among Boscan’s poems, were composed in Italy during the more early part of the author’s life. But in estimating the poetical works of Mendoza, chronological arrangement is of little importance, for as a poet he preserved equality from the commencement to the close of his career. His epistle to Boscan is in part an imitation of that of Horace to Numicius.[173] The latter half, however, belongs exclusively to Mendoza. In this portion of the epistle he presents to his friend the outline of the charming picture of domestic happiness, to which Boscan himself, in the answer already mentioned, has given a higher finish; and the taste which can overlook the beauty of this picture on account of want of smoothness in the versification, must be depraved by the affectation of refinement.[174] Another epistle, addressed to Don Luis de Zuñiga, contains an ingenious and striking comparison of the character of two heterogeneous and equally foolish classes of men. The one wholly attached to the vulgar pleasures of the moment, and stupidly indifferent to the affairs of the world;[175] while the other, on the contrary, is cheated by restless cares and anxieties out of the enjoyment of the present.[176] In these epistles, Mendoza unfolded the result of his experience, as the Infante Juan Manuel did a century and a half earlier, in his Count Lucanor, though in a totally different manner. Mendoza’s style is that of an accomplished man of the world, formed in the school of the latin poets.

Mendoza’s sonnets possess neither the grace nor the harmony essential to that species of composition. They owe their existence to the amatory spirit of the age rather than to the poetic inspiration of the author. Though he composed in the Italian manner with less facility than Boscan and Garcilaso, he felt more correctly than they or any other of his countrymen, the difference between the Spanish and Italian languages, with respect to their capabilities for versification. The Spanish admits of none of those pleasing elisions, which, particularly when terminating vowels are omitted, render the mechanism of Italian versification so easy, and enable the poet to augment or diminish the number of syllables according to his pleasure; and this difference in the two languages renders the composition of a Spanish sonnet a difficult task. Still more does the Spanish language seem hostile to the soft termination of a succession of feminine rhymes, for the Spanish poet, who adopts this rule of the Italian sonnet, is compelled to banish from his rhymes, all infinitives of verbs, together with a whole host of sonorous substantives and adjectives.[177] Mendoza, therefore, availed himself of the use of masculine rhymes in his sonnets; but this metrical license was strongly censured by all

## partizans of the Italian style. Nevertheless had he given to his

sonnets more of the tenderness of Petrarch, it is probable that they would have found imitators. Some of them, indeed, may be considered as successful productions, and throughout all the language is correct and noble.[178]

Mendoza’s canciones have nearly the same character as his sonnets, except that they more obviously mark the influence of the horatian ode on the lyric fancy of the author. The versification, which is sonorous, though deficient in harmony, is occasionally united with a degree of obscurity from which the other productions of Mendoza are totally exempt.[179] The least successful of his poems in the Italian style is a mythological tale in octave verse, founded on the history of Adonis, but along with which the author has interwoven the history of Atalanta. The story is, however, related in a very pleasing manner.

The Spaniards give the preference, not to this first class of the poetic works of Mendoza, but to the second, which consists of lyric poems in the old national style, the origin of which it is, however, easy to perceive must be referred to a more highly cultivated age. The similarity between these poems and others of the same sort in the _Romancero general_, clearly proves that many of the poets of the age of Charles V. had tacitly agreed to improve the old national poetry, without, like the impetuous Castillejo, (of whom further mention will soon be made) waging open war against the reformers of the school of Boscan. Many of Mendoza’s lyric pieces are inserted in the _Romancero general_ without the author’s name. In these compositions the syllabic measure seems to have been the chief object of improvement. But this improvement, however successful, was at the same time necessarily limited; and the beautiful forms of the Italian canzone possessed too striking a superiority over the most cultivated forms of rhyme in the old redondillas, to yield to the latter in any collision. All Mendoza’s lyric compositions are in stanzas of four lines; and the pieces of this description now obtained, by way of distinction, the name of redondillas, which seems originally to have been applied to all trochaic verses in lines of four feet.[180] But songs in stanzas of five lines, though in other respects similar to those just mentioned, are called in Mendoza’s collection _quintas_ or _quintillas_. The trochaic stanza in four lines of three feet,[181] of which the _Romancero general_ also contains several specimens, was found to be most suitable to _endechas_, or funeral songs, in the old national style, and to compositions of that class Mendoza applied it. He wrote many romantic epistles in the redondilla stanza of four lines; and did not neglect the other old lyric forms, such as the _Villancicos_, &c. The improvement of style, which is an essential feature of all these poems, was limited by Mendoza to accuracy of expression, and to softening the quaintness of the old subtilties: to these, however, he himself sometimes resorted; and he seems to have been of opinion, that the character of this kind of poetry rendered their occasional introduction indispensable. In compositions of a tender and melancholy character,[182] he is less successful than in those of a comic cast.[183]

Considering Mendoza’s wit and knowledge of mankind, it may naturally be presumed that his satyrical poems, which however exist only in manuscript, mark a great advancement in this species of poetry in Spain. These poems are mentioned by all Mendoza’s biographers; one is called _La Pulga_ (the Flea,) another _La Caña_ (the Reed), and a third bears the comical title of _Elogio de la Zanahoria_ (Eulogy on the Parsnip.) None, however, have yet passed the ordeal of the inquisition. Their titles seem to indicate a kind of coarse humour in the style of the burlesque satyres of the Italians.

Some of Mendoza’s prose compositions have, however, obtained greater celebrity than his poems; and they unquestionably form an epoch in the history of Spanish prose. The comic romance of _Lazarillo de Tormes_, which Mendoza wrote while he was a student at Salamanca, is either the very first production of its kind, or at least the first that obtained any thing like literary consideration. Soon after its publication it was translated into Italian, and subsequently into French, and by the means of this French translation it has been read throughout all Europe. Relations of interesting tricks of roguery, probably formed at a more early period a favourite amusement with the Spaniards; for that adroit feats of cunning and deception have had for them a charm of a peculiar kind, the whole history of their comic literature sufficiently proves. Mendoza, therefore, gave to his humorous fancy a direction conformable to the spirit of his country, when he chose, as the subject of his work, the Adventures of a Beggar Lad, who makes a kind of fortune by dint of cheating and roguery; and the comic interest of the production was enhanced by its contrast with the pompous romances of chivalry. In the perusal of such a tale, the Spanish reader willingly descended from the romantic ideal world to the sphere of common life. The skill with which Mendoza has sketched the vices of avarice and selfishness in the persons into whose service Lazarillo enters, is no less remarkable than the bold regard for truth which led him to include priests in the number of his odious characters. The inquisition of course could not expect that the Spaniards should regard the ecclesiastic profession as a security against every vice; and Lazarillo de Tormes sufficiently proves that in Mendoza’s time the priesthood was not guaranteed against public satire in Spain. Under the reign of Philip II. however, satires of this kind became subject to a certain degree of restraint; and since that period Mendoza’s romance has only been suffered to escape because its free circulation was once permitted by the inquisition. No critic has hitherto called in question the truth and accuracy of the pictures of vulgar life in Lazarillo de Tormes; but an author named de Luna, who styles himself an interpreter of the Castilian language, published a new edition of the romance with the view of correcting the diction. De Luna likewise added a second part to the story, for Mendoza in his maturer years never felt inclined to finish the comic work which he had commenced in his youth.[184]

A very different spirit animates the historical work in which Mendoza traces the history of the rebellion of Granada.[185] Mendoza formed his style, as a historian, principally on that of Sallust, and only occasionally imitated Tacitus for the sake of variety. Were it not that he sometimes oversteps the bounds of true elegance and falls into an overstudied and artificial manner, this work might be ranked, without reserve, among the best historical models; and notwithstanding the affectation with which it is here and there disfigured,[186] it is, unquestionably, after the works of Machiavell and Guicciardini, the first production of modern literature that deserves to be compared with the classic histories of antiquity.

However carefully Mendoza polished the rhetorical form of his history, still the importance of the materials and a true philosophic spirit are every where prominent throughout his representation of facts. Being himself a native of Granada, his power of rightly viewing the events, and the impression he received from them, must have been much the same as if he had been an eye witness of all that passed. Besides, he derived his information from the most authentic sources; for at the period in question he was residing on his estate in the vicinity of the theatre of the war. His nephew, the Marquis de Mondejar, was for some time commander in chief of the army against the rebels; and Mendoza himself had long been so intimately connected with the government at Madrid, that no individual in Spain had better opportunities of obtaining that knowledge of the secret as well as of the ostensible springs of transactions which is necessary for a just historical representation of events. The atrocious measures adopted by Phillip II. to suppress the insurrection in Granada, were, however, no less opposed to the sound political views of Mendoza, than the fanatic cruelty and glaring injustice by which the unhappy Moriscos had been driven into rebellion appear, however good a catholic he may have been, to have revolted his feelings. But neither his opinion nor his compassion could be openly avowed. He therefore availed himself of all the subtle windings of the historical art, to render his representation of events easily intelligible to those who thought as he did, and at the same time to secure himself against any literal interpretation which spiritual or temporal despotism might have employed to his disadvantage. Wherever undeniable facts, which the government according to its own maxims could not venture to conceal, clearly expose the folly and inhumanity by which the Moors were reduced to despair, Mendoza apparently refrains from pronouncing any judgment, while the poignant manner in which he relates the facts, is in itself a sufficient condemnation.[187]

When the fault rests rather with the agents of the government than with the government itself, he seems to attack only the former. In order that the just cause of the Moriscos might be, for once, powerfully vindicated, he puts, after the manner of the ancients, a speech into the mouth of one of the chiefs of the conspirators.[188] This is the only speech in the work which seems sufficient to shew that at least it was not inserted from a spirit of servile imitation; but he occasionally ventures, contrary to the practice of modern languages, to approximate his narrative style to that of the writers of antiquity; as for example, where he employs a succession of verbs in the infinitive mood.[189] The Spaniards, however, seem to have regarded the grammatical freedom used by Mendoza as perfectly conformable to the genius of their language. During the gloomy and suspicious government of Philip II. this excellent work was only to be read in manuscript. It was first published at Madrid, in the year 1610, five-and-thirty years after the death of the author, and was reprinted at Lisbon in 1617; but both editions were purposely mutilated.[190] The text was at last given complete in the edition of the work, which appeared in 1776.

SAA DE MIRANDA.

The fame of the great reform of the Castilian poetry having penetrated into Portugal, a similar reform took place in the poetry of that nation. At this time the Castilian language was held in such high consideration in Portugal, that even Portuguese poets, without undervaluing their national tongue, thought themselves bound occasionally to write verses in Castilian, to entitle them to be regarded as perfect masters of the poetic art. In the first half of the sixteenth century, two of the most celebrated of these Portuguese poets laboured with such success to extend the dominion of Castilian pastoral poetry, that the thread of the history of Spanish literature would be broken, were a notice of the poetic merits of these two celebrated men confined solely to the history of the literature of Portugal. One of them, Francisco de Saa de Miranda, who was born in 1494, and died in 1558, belongs, however, in so eminent a degree, to his own nation, and the circumstances of his life are so closely connected with the history of Portuguese poetry, that it would be an injustice to Portuguese literature to rank him exclusively among the poets of Spain. Besides, most of his poetic works, with the exception of his pastoral poems, are written in the Portuguese language.[191] The other Portuguese poet, who claims attention in the history of Spanish poetry, is Jorge de Montemayor. He, through his residence in Spain, became wholly a Spaniard:--the work to which he chiefly owes his celebrity is written in Spanish; and he had so decided an influence on Spanish literature, that this would be the proper place for introducing an account of his short life and of his poetry, did not Saa de Miranda’s Castilian pastorals, which are of older date, demand a previous notice.[192]

The bucolic effusions of Saa de Miranda exhibit in their general tone more traits of resemblance to Theocritus, than are to be found in the writings of Garcilaso de la Vega. Garcilaso’s pastoral style, with all its simplicity, was not sufficiently rural for Saa de Miranda. Like Theocritus his feelings seem to have dictated to him pure rural ideas; and he transferred this characteristic of his Portuguese eclogues to those which he wrote in Spanish, which are the most numerous. Nevertheless, even in his rural poems he did not wish to renounce the attributes of the loftier style of poetry. He was, however, heedless of all critical distinction of the different kinds of poetry, and would, without scruple, commence a poem, in the metre of an Italian canzone, as an ode, proceed with it in epic metaphors,[193] and conclude it in the simplest idyllic style. With equal indifference he chose sometimes octave verse, sometimes tercets for his pastoral poems, which thus alternately assume a lyric and a dramatic tone. This capricious mixture of poetic genera and styles deteriorates in no slight degree the quality of Saa de Miranda’s poetry. The elevated tone of the ode forms a singular contrast when introduced in the same composition along with the easy familiar style, which, in the opinion of Saa de Miranda, the pure pastoral character of his poetry required. But no modern poet has succeeded so well in the union of simplicity and grace; and in this respect the eclogues of Saa de Miranda are unequalled. When he describes the gambols of the nymphs, with whom his fancy animates his native woodland scenes;[194]--when he sketches impetuous storms of passion, softened by the charm of his colouring, yet kept true to nature;[195]--when he introduces nymphs discoursing;[196]--or, when he abandons himself to a tone of elegiac melancholy;[197]--one knows not whether most to admire, the delicate truth and penetrating depth of his ideas, or the artless precision and facility of his expression. In such cases he often abandons the natural style of Theocritus for a more lofty or ideal manner. When, in some of his other eclogues, his shepherds converse on their occupations or superstitions,[198] he likewise departs from the prosaic nature of real pastoral life, such as he had the opportunity of observing in his native country, and gradually elevates it to romantic ideality. It happened, however, that he occasionally found the prosaic truth of his pictures sufficiently interesting, and then to be truly natural he avoided all embellishment.[199]

Some of Saa de Miranda’s popular songs, called _Cantigas_, a term which in Portuguese corresponds with _Villancicos_ in Spanish, are inimitable for grace and simplicity.[200]

MONTEMAYOR.

The poet who is celebrated in Spanish literature by the name of Jorge de Montemayor, was born in the year 1520, at Montemor, a little town of Portugal, not far from Coimbra. He took for his name that of his native city, spelt and pronounced in the Spanish way, probably because his own family name was not deemed sufficiently sonorous; and thus the latter has been entirely lost. The talent of this young Portuguese developed itself without the aid of a previous literary cultivation. At an early period of life he served in the Portuguese army, and, as there is reason to believe, in the rank of a common soldier. His taste for music, and the reputation he had acquired as a singer, induced him to visit Spain, where the Infant Don Philip, afterwards Philip II. had formed a company of court musicians, who were to accompany him on his travels through Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Jorge de Montemayor, being admitted as a vocal member of this travelling musical company, gained an opportunity of seeing the world, and at the same time making himself master of the Castilian language, which became to him a second mother tongue. He was, however, attached to Spain by a still closer link, namely, his love for a beautiful Castilian lady, whom he occasionally introduces in his poems under the name of Marfida. This Marfida became the deity of his poetry; and when, on his return to Spain, he found her wedded to another, he endeavoured to divert his sorrow by poetic effusions, in which he represented the faithless beauty as a romantic shepherdess; and, uniting these with several of his other compositions, he formed the whole into a romance. This romance, which he entitled _Diana_, was received by the Spanish public with a degree of favour never before extended to any Spanish book, Amadis de Gaul excepted; and it speedily found no fewer imitators than Amadis itself. The Queen of Portugal was desirous that the celebrated author of Diana should return to his native country. She recalled him, and he obeyed the honourable mandate. No further particulars of his history are known. He died by some violent means, either in 1561 or 1562. He was upwards of forty at the period of his death, which, according to some accounts, took place in Portugal, and according to others in Italy.[201]

The Diana of Montemayor is one of the few romantic works which belong entirely to the soul of the inventor, which are embued throughout with individual interest, and which on that very account exercise the more influence over unsophisticated minds, because the author possessed sufficient poetic genius successfully to convey the joys and sorrows of his own heart under the forms of a general interest. But this romance can never be to any other cultivated people what it was to the Spaniards of the sixteenth century. Still less can it be regarded as a classical fragment, even though judged according to the lenient rules by which every fragment is estimated; unless, indeed, after the manner of some modern critics, new rules of art be deduced from defective examples, for the sake of admiring as incomparable the grossest absurdities, under the title of romantic complexity. But with all its faults, this unfinished pastoral romance (for it was not brought to a conclusion by Montemayor) possesses a poetic merit, which entitles it to the esteem of all ages.

The design of the work, so far as Montemayor’s ideas render his intention obvious, sometimes charms by its graceful simplicity, and at others becomes grotesque, through an illegitimate romantic combination of heterogeneous species of composition. The shepherd Sireno, who represents the poet himself, on his return to his native country, visits the scene of the innocent joys which the inconstant shepherdess Diana once shared along with him. Overwhelmed with grief, he draws out first a lock of hair belonging to his mistress; and then one of her letters, which he reads. While he is thus communing with himself, he is joined by another romantic adorer of the beautiful Diana. This shepherd, whose love had always been unrequited, now joins his lamentations to those of the once happy Sireno, and each vies with the other in claiming to himself the heaviest load of misery. They are joined by a shepherdess, named Selvagia, who has been no less unfortunate in love than themselves. She relates her history very circumstantially, and thus terminates the first book. In the second, the conversation of these lovers is continued, until three nymphs appear, one of whom relates Sireno’s history in a song of some length. Up to the conclusion of this song, the pastoral simplicity of the story is preserved uninterrupted by any incident approximating to the terrible; but suddenly a party of savage robbers completely armed appears. The nymphs are about to fly, but are detained by the robbers. A battle then ensues between the robbers and the shepherds, the latter attacking the former with stones. The robbers are on the point of overcoming their rustic antagonists, when a heroine, habited as a huntress, rushes from a wood, and bending her bow, pierces the robbers with her arrows, and liberates the nymphs. The fair huntress then joins the party of nymphs and shepherds, and in her turn also relates her history. This narrative, together with the conversations and songs to which it gives rise, concludes the second book. In the third book the story assumes the character of a fairy tale. The nymphs lead their protectress, together with the rest of the party, through a thick forest to the castle of the wise Felicia, who is represented as a kind of priestess to the goddess Diana. The description of the wonders and magnificence of the castle occupies a great portion of the third book. The wise Felicia conducts the party to a superb hall of state, where they behold a numerous collection of majestic statues, representing Roman emperors, Castilian knights, and Castilian ladies. Even a place is found for the statue of a Moorish knight, of whose conflicts with the Christians a long history is related in this sanctuary of the goddess Diana. By means of enchantment Felicia cures Sireno of the torments of love. At length, in the sixth book, the poet releases his shepherds and shepherdesses from Felicia’s palace, and the reader for the first time becomes acquainted with the shepherdess Diana. She attaches the blame of her infidelity to her parents, by whom, during the absence of Sireno, she was forced to give her hand to another. In the following scenes, to the conclusion of the seventh book, where Montemayor’s labour terminates, the history of the principal characters makes no further progress. Some of the other lovers in the romance are, however, united according to their wishes.

This composition, in which it is easy to recognize the uncultivated genius of a poet, who, to give vent to the emotions of his soul, deemed it necessary to wander through the whole region of romance, can only be regarded by the unprejudiced critic as a fantastical frame-work, serving to display pictures of the feelings and a philosophy of the heart, which constitute the prominent features of the whole poem. To paint romantic fidelity under the most fascinating and various forms, and at the same time to exhibit in a poetic point of view the theory of that fidelity, which even in a poem could only be verified by facts, was the idea which guided Montemayor’s inventive fancy, and the execution of which bears the full impression of his genius. The versified portion of the romance is the soul of the whole composition. A series of lyric poems, partly in the Italian and partly in the old Castilian style, are introduced; but these compositions are strikingly distinguished from the eclogues of Saa de Miranda by an epigrammatic poignancy, which frequently degenerates into antiquated subtlety.[202] But this epigrammatic turn usually imparts a more pointed precision to the lyrical expression, and a degree of consistency to the whole composition, which in no way injures its pastoral simplicity;[203] and when judged according to the characteristic form of the popular songs, called _Villancicos_, it by no means presents, to Spaniards in particular, the idea of too much refinement or incongruity with rustic nature.[204] In order to judge candidly of the pastoral truth of these compositions, it is necessary to have the Spanish romantic ideas of nature present to the mind. Montemayor is inexhaustible in new turns and images for the expression of tenderness. In depth of feeling he vies with Saa de Miranda; and, though his poetry is occasionally deficient in rhythmical polish, it in general presents so exquisite a union of the grace of language, with a happy concordance of ideas, that the reader must soon become warmed by the spirit of the poet, even though he should begin to peruse the work with indifference.[205]

Montemayor’s style of romantic prose has been a model for all writers of pastoral romances in the Spanish language. How far he himself imitated the prose of Sanazzar, cannot easily be ascertained, as it is not known whether or not Sanazzar’s Arcadia[206] was the prototype of his Diana. Though it is certain that Montemayor carefully endeavoured to give precision and dignity of expression, and to impart harmony to every line of his composition, his language nevertheless appears neither laboured nor affected. His taste seems to have been in only a few instances seduced by the influence of that ostentatious solemnity, which distinguished the common chivalrous romances, written in imitation of Amadis de Gaul. In general he remained faithful to the dignified simplicity, which the author of the Amadis appears to have regarded as the genuine characteristic of the lofty style of romantic prose. To this style his protracted but rhythmically pleasing sentences may justly be said to belong.[207] It is but seldom that a low expression escapes him.[208] His descriptions are never deficient in vividness and force.[209] It is only in the didactic passages in which he propounds his philosophy of love, that his language becomes tinged with the scholastic formality, which at the period in which he wrote, was considered indispensable when any scholastic ideas were to be expressed; for though Montemayor had not received that kind of education, which in his age was considered learned, he had picked up some notions of the scholastic philosophy, which, when they interested him, he was fond of introducing into the romance of his heart.[210]

The other works of Montemayor, which are not so celebrated as his Diana, are to be found in a collection of his poems, which, according to the old custom, is entitled a _Cancionero_.[211]

HERRERA.

Fernando de Herrera, a poet very different in character from Montemayor, must next be included among the authors who chiefly contributed to reform Castilian poetry, during the first half of the sixteenth century. Of the history of his life but little is known. He was a native of Seville, and was born, according to the conjectures of his Spanish biographers, about the commencement of the sixteenth century. Thus he flourished at the same time as Diego de Mendoza, and afforded another instance of the light of poetical improvement being directed from the south of Spain. It appears that he did not enter into the ecclesiastical state, to which he finally devoted himself, until he attained a mature age; but he must have received a literary education, as he possessed no ordinary knowledge of the ancient and modern languages, geography, mathematics, and scholastic philosophy. According to a portrait which has been preserved of him, he appears to have been a handsome man; and some of the editors of his works alledge that the lady whom he has celebrated in his verses under various names, was not merely an ideal object of the poet’s tenderness. The admirers of his poetry have applied to him, after the Italian manner, the surname of the _divine_; and this epithet, rendered so equivocal by its application to Pietro Aretino, was never bestowed on any other Spanish poet. These few particulars are all that are known relative to the life of Fernando de Herrera. He died at an advanced age, probably soon after the year 1578.[212]

Why Herrera should have obtained the title of divine, in preference to all the other poets of his nation, would appear almost incomprehensible, were it not known that two opposite parties vied with each other in exalting him; and, to avoid the appearance of yielding on either side, considered themselves reciprocally bound to pronounce compositions sublime which neither could regard as natural. Herrera was, notwithstanding, a poet of powerful talent, and one who evinced undaunted resolution in pursuing the new path which he had struck out for himself. The novel style, however, which he wished to introduce into Spanish poetry, was not the result of a spontaneous essay, flowing from immediate inspiration, but was theoretically constructed on artificial principles. Thus, amidst traits of real beauty, his poetry every where presents marks of affectation. The great fault of his language is too much singularity; and his expression, where it ought to be elevated, is merely far-fetched.

Herrera fancied he had discovered that the diction of the Spanish poets, even in their best works, was too common, too nearly allied to the language of prose, and consequently very far removed from the classical dignity which distinguishes the Greek and Roman poetry. This opinion induced him to form for himself a new style. He classed words according to his fancy, into elegant and inelegant, and was careful to employ in his verse only those to which he attributed the former character. He connected words, under significations which they do not bear in common language; and in contradistinction to the spirit of prose, he regarded certain repetitions, for example, the conjunction _and_ as very appropriate to poetry. He also introduced into his verse, a free arrangement of words, after the model of the latin construction. Finally, he thought he could enrich the language of poetry by new words, which he formed by analogy from existing Castilian words, or adopted immediately from the latin.[213] This peculiarity of style was regarded as the perfection of poetry, by the party who idolized Fernando de Herrera.[214]

Those, however, who have no inclination to confound pompous with poetic language, or diction with the essence of poetry, must still allow to Herrera the possession of poetic ideas and precision of manner, as well as a true dignity of expression, and an elegant harmony of versification. His language is not always affected, and his thoughts and descriptions, though frequently overstrained, are never trivial.[215] Notwithstanding all the faults of his style, he must be accounted the first classical ode writer in modern literature, for the attempts of the Italian poet Chiabrera to emulate Pindar, are of more recent date; and here it is worthy of remark, that the Spanish odes of Herrera and the Italian odes of Chiabrera resemble each other in a mixture of the style of the Pindaric ode, with the style of the canzone. Through the medium of that lyric form only, was the spirit of Pindar felt by these imitators; and both were the more easily deceived, as the genius of the Spanish and Italian languages has a relation to the metrical structure of the canzone, somewhat similar to that which the genius of the Greek language bears to Pindaric verse. But the rapid and bold succession of thoughts and images, which animates the odes of Pindar, could not be imitated by poets, who, even in their boldest flights of fancy were bound down by the laws of the Italian canzone, to the luxurious harmony of its protracted verbose periods. Thus Herrera’s odes, like those of Chiabrera, bear only a remote resemblance to their prototypes. Odes, however, they must be termed, though Herrera himself has classed them, under the general title of _canciones_, along with imitations of the Italian style, purely romantic, but versified according to similar rules. In his celebrated odes on the battle of Lepanto, in which the Spaniards under Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V. obtained a brilliant victory over the Turks, the magnificence of the rhythm would be sufficiently attractive, though the ideas conveyed in the torrent of sonorous syllables possessed less poetic beauty than really belong to them.[216] Occasionally, however, Herrera’s ideas degenerate into fantastical hyperboles; for instance, when boasting of his hero, he says, that Don John of Austria, that glorious conqueror of the infidels and the elements, combines within himself “whatever of heavenly power animates terrestrial bodies;” and that therefore “the fixed earth, the extended waters, the circumambent air, and the ever glowing flames depend on him, so that through the secret control which he exercises over earth, water, air, and fire, all these elements are his works.”[217] But passages of real beauty occur in Herrera’s odes, which afford a sufficient compensation for this sort of bombast.[218] Among the odes for which Herrera has chosen a softer theme, the prize of superiority has been justly awarded to the Ode to Sleep. It is one of those compositions which may be said to be single in their kind. The graceful choice of language, the picturesque effect, the delicate keeping in the composition, and the finish given to all the details in strict conformity with the true spirit of the theme, impart to this ode or cancion a lyric beauty which must render it in all ages an object of admiration, not only to the lover, but to the critic of poetry.[219]

The other poems of Herrera, though extremely numerous, require only a slight notice.[220] His best sonnets, which are among the happiest imitations of Petrarch in the Spanish language, are characterized by the recurrence of some of the author’s favourite images, as for example, the comparison of his mistress to light, or the evening star,[221] &c. He is frequently very successful in the management of these similes; but at other times he falls into strange absurdities, such as making the “curling waves of gold of his sweet light float in the wind.”[222] But extravagant tropes of this kind could not be very offensive to Spanish taste, which had been accustomed to indulge the orientalisms of the old national style, and they were indeed not only tolerated but esteemed. It might have been expected that a writer possessing so much critical judgment as Herrera, would, as an imitator of Petrarch, have endeavoured to naturalize in his native tongue, the simplicity of the Italian poet; but he was too much a Spaniard to be pleased with such simplicity. His elegies, and other lyric compositions in the Italian syllabic measure, have all the same character.

Herrera endeavoured, by other means than poetical composition, to give to the national taste of the Spaniards a direction conformable to his own principles. He wrote a “Critical Commentary on the Poems of Garcilaso de la Vega.”[223] This commentary has served as a model for many similar works, which have been the means of circulating various kinds of useful knowledge without having contributed in any remarkable degree to the advancement of taste. Herrera, as a theorist, failed to establish any fixed point or station from which he might have taken a clear and consistent view of the whole region of poetry. His criticism everlastingly turns on detached ideas and words; and whenever opportunities for displaying his learning occur, he digresses into all the regions of philosophy and literature. Of the indistinctness of his notions, relative to the different species of poetry, some idea may be formed from his definition of the elegy. He says--“an elegy should be simple, soft, tender, amiable, terse, clear, and if it may be so called, noble; affecting to the feelings, and moving them in every way; neither very inflated nor very humble, nor obscured by affected phrases or far-fetched fables.”[224]

LUIS DE LEON.

Luis Ponce de Leon, the next lyric poet to be noticed, pursued a course very different from that of Herrera, whose contemporary he was. He is usually called, by abbreviation, merely Luis de Leon, and did not obtain the surname of divine, to which, however, he might have laid claim with infinitely more justice than Herrera, if his pious humility would have permitted him to entertain the idea of maintaining any competition for earthly honours.[225]

This poet, who for classical purity of style and moral dignity of ideas, had never been surpassed in Spanish literature, was, like Herrera and Mendoza, a native of the south of Spain. He was born at Granada, in the year 1527, where the family of the Ponces de Leon, which was connected with the most distinguished of the Spanish nobility, flourished. At an early period of life, Luis de Leon felt a poetic inspiration, and cherished a love of retirement, which rendered him indifferent to outward show, and all the pleasures of the great world. He found only in poetry and in the contemplation of a superior existence that food for which his soul longed. His tranquil and gentle mind exhibited none of the gloomy features of monkish fanaticism, but was devoted to moral and religious meditation. As soon as he had finished his scholastic studies, he entered, of his own free choice, into the ecclesiastical state. He was sixteen years of age when he made his profession in the order of St. Augustine at Salamanca. Theology now became his proper occupation. In Spain, especially at that period, a man of the character of Luis de Leon, even if he possessed a mind capable of divesting itself of prejudice, could scarcely be expected to doubt the dogmas of the catholic faith; but his poetic imagination, which was not to be satisfied with their dry and scholastic interpretation, irresistibly impelled him to adorn them. Luis transferred the mild enthusiasm of his pious feelings into the theological studies, to which his vocation devoted him. On religious subjects he was a learned and diligent author; but his heart found, at least during the first years of his monastic life, only in poetry, the faithful interpreter of his love for that pure truth, to the attainment of which all his arduous efforts were directed. Though invested in his thirty-third year with the dignity of doctor of theology, he maintained, even within the cloister, his intimacy with the classic writers of antiquity. The Hebrew poetry also worked powerfully on his imagination; and on one occasion he nearly fell a martyr to an attempt to translate and comment on the Song of Solomon. He was very far from wishing to give a too liberal interpretation of the amatory language of the original. He explained the sacred poem in perfect accordance with the sense attributed to it by the church. But the inquisition had, at that time, strictly prohibited the translation of any part of the bible into the vulgar tongue. Luis de Leon, therefore, ventured to communicate his version in confidence to one friend only; but that friend was not faithful to his trust, and the translation found its way into the hands of several individuals. It was soon denounced to the inquisition, and the author was immediately thrown into prison by that terrible tribunal. He himself mentions, in one of his letters, that for the space of five years he was deprived of all communication with mankind, and was not even permitted to see the light of day.[226] Conscious of his innocence, he enjoyed during his captivity, according to his own testimony, a tranquillity and satisfaction of mind which he never afterwards so fully experienced, when restored to freedom, and the society of his friends.[227] At length justice was done to him, he returned in triumph to his monastery, and was reinstated in his ecclesiastical dignities. From that period, he appears to have been wholly devoted to the duties of his order and the study of theology. He died in 1591, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, being at that time general and provincial vicar of Salamanca.

The poems of this amiable enthusiast are, according to his own testimony,[228] for the most part the productions of his youth; but no other Spanish poet has succeeded in expressing the intense feelings of the heart under the control of so sound a judgment. It is only by reference to the pious tranquillity of a cultivated mind wrapt up in self communion, that the extraordinary correctness of this author’s style can be explained, for Luis de Leon is, without exception, the most correct of all the Spanish poets, though he constantly regarded the metrical clothing of his ideas as a very secondary object. To use his own language, he wrote poetry rather in fulfilment of his destiny, than purposely and by dint of study. At an early age he became intimately acquainted with the odes of Horace, and the elegance and purity of style which distinguish those compositions made a deep impression on his imagination. Classical simplicity and dignity were the models constantly present to his creative fancy. He, however, appropriated to himself the character of Horace’s poetry, too naturally ever to incur the danger of servile imitation. He discarded the prolix style of the canzone, and imitated the brevity of the strophes of Horace, in romantic syllabic measures and rhymes. More just feeling for the imitation of the ancients was never evinced by any modern poet. His odes have, however, a character totally different from those of Horace, though the sententious air which marks the style of both authors, imparts to them a deceptive resemblance. The religious austerity of Luis de Leon’s life was not to be reconciled with the epicurism of the latin poet; but, notwithstanding this very different disposition of the mind, it is not surprising that they should have adopted the same form of poetic expression, for each possessed a fine imagination, subordinate to the control of a sound understanding. Which of the two is the superior poet, in the most extended sense of the word, it would be difficult to determine, as each formed his style by free imitation, and neither overstepped the boundaries of a certain sphere of practical observation. Horace’s odes exhibit a superior style of art, and from the relationship between the thoughts and images, possess a degree of attraction which is wanting in those of Luis de Leon; but on the other hand, the latter are the more rich in that natural kind of poetry, which may be regarded as the overflowing of a pure soul, elevated to the loftiest regions of moral and religious idealism.[229]

Luis de Leon himself published a collection of his poetic works, divided into three books. The first, contains his original poems--the second, translations from some of the ancient classics--and the third, metrical versions of several of the psalms, and some parts of the book of Job.

The reader who peruses the poems of Luis de Leon, which are all odes, in the spirit in which the author wrote them, will fancy himself transported to a better world. No furious zeal disturbs the gentle piety that pervades them; no extravagant metaphor destroys the harmony of the ideas and expression; and no discordant accent breaks the pleasing melody of the rhythm. The idea of the perishableness of all earthly things,[230] is united with smiling pictures of nature.[231] The imitations of Horace are only introduced to aid the poetic light in which the poet views those objects which were peculiarly interesting to his contemporaries.[232] One of Luis de Leon’s most celebrated odes is the _Noche Serena_, but the concluding stanzas do not correspond with the beauty of the commencement.[233] In the ode to Felipe Ruiz, the ardent aspiration for heavenly truth is very picturesquely expressed.[234] But the exalted inspiration and tender enthusiasm in which Luis de Leon so widely departs from Horace, are most prominently evinced in his ode on Heavenly Life (_De la Vida del Cielo_). Here his fancy is bold without launching into extravagant metaphors. What an etherial effulgence glows through his lyric picture of “the soft bright region, the meadow of holiness, never blighted by frost, nor withered by the sun’s rays;--where the good shepherd, his head crowned with blossoms of purple and white, without either sling or staff, leads his beloved flock to the sweet pasture covered with everblooming roses;--where the shepherd, reclining in the shade at noon, blows his heavenly pipe, whose feeblest tone, should it descend on the ear of the poet, would transform his whole soul to love.”[235] The ode in which the genius of the Tagus prophecies to King Roderick the misfortunes of Spain, is more in Horace’s style, and possesses a very happy uniformity of character. In some other imitations of a similar kind, the fancy of the pious poet willingly descends from the heavenly regions. The poems contained in the first part of the collection are few in number. Those which Luis de Leon himself inserted, amount only to twenty-seven, and among them is an indifferent elegy, and a cancion in the Italian style of not much greater merit. Several other compositions, which he seems to have rejected, have been recently printed from manuscripts.[236]

The greater portion of the poetic works of Luis de Leon consists of translations; but these translations form an epoch in the department of literature to which they belong. Those in the second book of the collection are the first classical specimens, in modern literature, of the art of renewing the ancient poetry in modern forms. Luis de Leon has himself explained the principles by which he was guided in bringing the ancient poetry within the sphere of the romantic. He endeavoured to make the ancient poets speak, “as they would have expressed themselves, had they been born in his own age in Castile, and had they written in Castilian.”[237] However bold this attempt may appear, and whatever defects a translation of this kind may present to the eye of the connoisseur who wishes for a faithful resemblance of the original, and not a flowery imitation, yet if the validity of the principle be once admitted, Luis de Leon will be found to have fulfilled all that the most rigid critic can desire. Besides, it must be considered that translations of a more literal character would scarcely have found readers in Spain at that period. Luis de Leon translated Virgil’s eclogues, partly in tercets, and partly in coplas;[238] a considerable series of Horace’s odes in the same romantic syllabic measure which he chose for his own odes;[239]--and a portion of Virgil’s georgics in stanzas. But the easy flowing style of his Spanish version of Pindar’s first ode, excels all the rest.[240] To these translations are also added two imitations of Italian sonnets, which prove that he succeeded very well in that species of composition, though among his own original poems there is not a single sonnet. He translated the psalms of David, according to the rule he had prescribed to himself. His translations speedily obtained the rank in Spanish literature to which they were entitled; and they have served as models for all succeeding versions of Greek and Latin poetry in the Spanish language. Luis de Leon may indeed be blamed for having thwarted, by the style of translation which he introduced, all the attempts made to form Spanish poetry on the model of that of the ancients. But on the other hand, to his example the Spaniards are indebted for numerous translations of Greek and Latin poetry, which have all the air of Spanish originals.

If Luis de Leon had not confined his prose writings exclusively to spiritual subjects, he would doubtless have also exercised a very decided influence on the rhetorical cultivation of Spain. His sermons (_oraciones_) are, however, invariably mentioned in terms of praise by Spanish writers, whenever they allude to the theological literature of their country.[241] Among his other works intended for edification, The Woman as she should be, or The Perfect Wife, (_La Perfecta Casada_), will perhaps be found the most interesting to the untheological class of readers; though it constantly turns on the positive morality of Catholicism, and therefore, like every mixed treatise of theology and morals, is no legitimate specimen of the developement of ideas in the didactic style.[242]

Luis de Leon terminates the series of distinguished Spanish authors, who during the first half of the sixteenth century, composed after the model of the great poets of Italy, or the ancient classics, and who, by the superiority of their genius, mainly contributed to give a new character to Spanish poetry. There are, however others, whose poetic works ought not to be passed over in silence; but to follow the example of those writers, who have hitherto related the history of Spanish poetry, without separating subordinate from eminent talent, would be to prolong an act of injustice. At the same time to the continuation which must be made of the history of the lyric and pastoral poetry of Spain, during the first half of the sixteenth century, may be very properly added some account of a few unsuccessful efforts in epic composition, and a notice of the further progress of the old national poetry during the same period.

MINOR SPANISH POETS DURING THE PERIOD OF THIS SECTION, VIZ. ACUÑA--CETINA--PADILLA--GIL POLO.

Fernando de Acuña, one of the first of the distinguished men who became the disciples of Boscan and Garcilaso, was of Portuguese extraction, but born in Madrid, probably about the beginning of the sixteenth century.[243] He signalized himself in the campaigns of Charles V. and was also a person of consideration at the court of that monarch. He lived on terms of intimate friendship with Garcilaso de la Vega, whom he survived for a considerable period, for it appears that his death did not take place until the year 1580. He proved his taste for classical literature by translations and imitations. He paraphrased in iambic blank verse, several passages from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and among the rest, the dispute between Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles, in very correct and harmonious language. He likewise translated some of the Heroides of the same author in tercets. In his own sonnets, cancions, and elegies, which are replete with sentiment and grace, it is easy to recognise a poet who successfully laboured to attain classical elegance of style.[244] He was also one of the first poets, who, by composing in short strophes, endeavoured to form an intermediate style between the Italian canzone and the Spanish cancion.[245]

Gutierre de Cetina is less known, though there is no doubt of his having lived about the same period, as he is mentioned by Herrera in his Commentary on the Works of Garcilaso. He was, like Herrera, a native of Seville; and having removed to Madrid, was there invested with an ecclesiastical dignity. Few of his poems have been printed;[246] but from those few it is obvious that he had a fair chance of becoming the Anacreon of Spain. That glory, however, was reserved for Villegas. Still Gutierre de Cetina’s imitations of the anacreontic style are not without their share of sweetness and grace; and they are moreover remarkable as being the first productions in the class to which they belong.[247] His madrigals also seem to have had no prototype in Spanish literature.[248] In his canciones, however, the romantic enthusiasm occasionally degenerates into absurdity.[249]

Pedro do Padilla, a knight of the spiritual order of St. Jago, must be ranked in the same class with Gutierre. He vied with Garcilaso in pastoral poetry; and in order to conciliate the partizans of both the old and the new styles, he introduced alternately in the same eclogue the Italian and the ancient Spanish metres.[250] His poetry is still esteemed in Spain. He followed the old national custom by making the events connected with the war in the Netherlands serve as subjects for romances.[251]

But a poet still more celebrated, and in a great degree indebted for his fame to the immoderate encomium bestowed upon him by the pen of Cervantes, is Gaspar Gil Polo, a native of Valencia, who continued and concluded Montemayor’s Diana under the title of _La Diana enamorada_.[252] A continuation of this pastoral romance had previously been undertaken by a writer named Perez; but without success. Gil Polo in one respect effected more than did Montemayor himself; but in point of invention he is inferior, notwithstanding the faults of the original plan. After Sireno has been cured of his love by the sage Felicia, Gil Polo makes the passion of Diana revive, and renders her more unhappy for Sireno’s sake, than he had previously been for hers. Thus the romantic story is reversed; but the new relations under which it now appears are few. In the sequel the aid of the sage Felicia is again obtained, and she finally unites the long separated lovers. The narrative style in the prose portion of the romance presents a very correct imitation of Montemayor; but neither the merit of this imitation, nor the continuation of the metaphysical reflections on love, with which the romance is interspersed, would have gained for Gil Polo the approbation of the critic. What must have raised him higher than Montemayor in the estimation of such a judge as Cervantes, is the precision and clearness of the ideas, and the perfect polish of style in the poetic part of the romance. Montemayor has often indulged in too subtle or sophistical plays of wit. Gil Polo in painting the feelings has exercised a sounder judgment, without, however, descending to the coldness of prose. His sonnets may be regarded as models; for he has succeeded in combining the unity of ideas, which ought to distinguish that species of composition, with the most elegant rounding and regularity of structure.[253] In his canciones he has occasionally, for the sake of variety, imitated the Provençal rhymes (_rimas Provenzales_) with such happy dexterity, that the reader might fancy himself perusing some of the best opera songs, though no such thing as an opera then existed.[254] In like manner, he endeavoured to naturalize the metrical structure of French verse (_rimas Franceses_) in the Spanish language, upon which the burthen of alexandrines had already been inflicted.[255] In compliment to the old Spanish taste, he bedecked his romance with a profusion of versified riddles (_preguntas_,) which are, for the most part, so exceedingly dull, that it is difficult to conceive how they could be endured by a man of Gil Polo’s talent.[256] In honour of Valencia, his native city, he composed a poem, in which the genius of the little river Turia is made to sing the praises of the celebrated men to whom Valencia had given birth. This song of Turia (_Canto de Turia_) has found patriotic commentators, without whose laborious explanations it would have been unintelligible to foreign readers.[257]

OBSTACLES TO THE IMITATION OF THE ROMANTIC EPOPEE IN SPAIN--UNSUCCESSFUL ESSAYS IN SERIOUS EPOPEE--TRANSLATIONS OF CLASSICAL EPIC POETRY.

Though Spanish literature was in the manner just recorded, enriched during half a century by numerous lyric and pastoral compositions, which deserve to be handed down with honour to posterity, yet within the same interval epic poetry made but little advancement in Spain.

Early in this period the absurd name of idyls (_idyllios_) appears to have been applied to such narrative poems as were not romances, and to have marked out a particular field for a kind of poetic tales, which were in some measure imitations from the ancients, and yet were executed in the romantic style. Such, for example, was Boscan’s free translation of the story of Hero and Leander from Musæus, which the Spaniards call their first idyl. Thus the term idyls in Spanish, conveys no idea of pastoral poems, which are always called eclogues (_eglogas_.)[258] Castillejo, of whom further mention will shortly be made, imitated in old Castilian verse, stories from Ovid, and gave to them the name of idyls. The spurious heroic style which the authors of these tales introduced, proved, without doubt, one of the obstacles to the cultivation of chivalrous epic poetry in Spain; but it is also to be recollected, that the luxuriant mixture of the comic with the serious, which is the very soul of the romantic epopee of the Italians, was by no means congenial to Spanish taste. In Spain the works of Boyardo and Ariosto were known only through the medium of bad translations, and were read merely with the interest attached to all books of chivalry. Finally, the spirit of the old romance poetry was also hostile to the chivalric epopee. To descend from the cordial gravity of the national narrative romances, to the careless levity with which the venerable heroes of chivalry were treated by the Italian writers, was a transition repugnant to the patriotic feelings of the Spaniards; who, in their wars with the Italians, were the more disposed to be proud of the preservation of their national spirit of chivalry, when they found that it facilitated their victories over men who were better fitted for intrigue than for defending their freedom sword in hand. Thus, to the chivalrous epopee of the Italians, the Spaniards remained as completely strangers, as if they had been excluded from all opportunity of becoming acquainted with that kind of composition; and yet the period when the Spaniards and Italians maintained the closest political and literary relations, precisely corresponds with that of Ariosto’s first celebrity, and of the numerous imitations of the _Orlando Furioso_, which appeared in the Italian language.[259]

On the contrary, several Spanish poets, during the first half of the sixteenth century, zealously competed for the palm in the serious epopee; but obstacles again arose, which all the force of Spanish genius was not sufficient to surmount. Torquato Tasso had not yet shewn what the serious epic was capable of becoming, and what it must be, in order to be reconciled to the taste of modern times. The Spaniards were so little prepared for the new poetry with which they had suddenly been made acquainted on the first imitation of the Italian style, that they could not be expected to enter without a guide into the true spirit of the modern epopee. The men, who at this time boldly attempted to become the Homers of their country, appear to have felt that they could not select from ancient history the materials for an epic poem. But on the other hand, their patriotic feelings prepossessed them too much in favour of events of recent occurrence. The age in which they themselves lived was, in their eyes, the most illustrious and the most worthy of epic glory; a Spanish Homer could record no achievements save those of the Spaniards under Charles V.; and the hero, who in their poems eclipsed all others, was their favourite Charles, the never conquered, (_el nunca vencido_,) as he was styled by all the Spanish writers of the sixteenth century. Thus arose the _Caroliads_, or heroic poems, in praise of Charles V. all of which speedily sunk into oblivion. Among them were the _Carlos Famoso_, by Luis de Zapata; the _Carlos Victorioso_, by Geronymo de Urrea; _La Carolea_, by the Valencian poet, Geronymo Sampèr, &c. Alonzo Lopez, surnamed Pinciano, who flourished at the commencement of the sixteenth century, was more happy in his choice of an epic subject. The hero of his story is Pelayo, the brave descendant of the visigothic kings, who, in his turn, was the first to subdue the Arabs. But Pinciano’s poem, which he entitled _El Pelayo_, had no better fate than the Caroliads.[260]

The present seems a fit opportunity for mentioning _La fuente de Alcover_, a narrative poem, which though of humbler pretensions than the Caroliads, experienced considerable success. The author, Felipe Mey, who was of Flemish extraction, was a bookseller in Valencia. Encouraged by his patron, Antonio Agustin, bishop of Tarragona, he chose a few stanzas, written by that ingenious prelate, as the ground work of a mythological poem. The idea originated in the name given to a plant (_capillus veneris_), through which the water trickling drop by drop, at length forms a little fountain. This pretty poem makes, along with some others by Felipe Mey, an appendix to his unfinished translation of _Ovid’s Metamorphoses_ in octave verse. It deserves also to be mentioned, that this translation reads like a modern poem; both language and versification are excellent.[261]

Some other translations of the ancient classic poets which appeared, during this period, remain to be noticed. Gonzalo Perez, a native of Arragon, is the author of a poetic translation of Homer’s Odyssey, in the Castilian language. The first edition was printed in 1552, and the second in 1562; so that it seems the Spanish public felt an interest in this extension of their poetic literature. Gregorio Fernandez translated the Æneid and several of Virgil’s eclogues in verse; and in the like manner Juan de Guzman executed a complete version of the georgics. All these translations, however, like those of Luis de Leon, must be regarded as re-casts of ancient materials into modern moulds, rather than translations, in the strict sense of the term. But, in an age and country, in which both the people and the language were imbued with the spirit of the romantic poetry, to have attempted to introduce the classic poets of Greece or Rome in any other way than in a romantic dress, would have been to do violence to the genius of the language and the nation.[262]

PROGRESS OF THE ROMANTIC POETRY--CASTILLEJO: HIS CONTEST WITH THE

## PARTIZANS OF THE ITALIAN STYLE.

The rapid success of the imitators of the Italian and classic styles, did not, however, deprive the old romance poetry of its rank, either in literature or in public estimation. The first half of the sixteenth century, was doubtless the period when most of the old romances, then first brought together in collections, received the form which they have retained down to the present day; and, in all probability, not less than half the romances and canciones collected in the _Romanceros generales_, particularly the mythological, anacreontic, and comic kinds, had no existence previous to that period.

But no poet of that age defended the cause of the old Castilian poetry, in all its various forms, with so much talent and zeal as Christoval de Castillejo, the most illustrious of the literary opponents of the Italian style. Castillejo obtained the post of secretary in the service of the Emperor Ferdinand I. an appointment which was a consequence of the relations still subsisting between the courts of Madrid and Vienna, after the death of Charles V. notwithstanding that the German empire was then separated from the Spanish monarchy. The greater part of Castillejo’s poems were written in Vienna; and are full of allusions to the gay sphere of life in which he moved at the imperial court. A young German lady, named Schomburg, of whom he seems to have been an ardent admirer, figures in his poems, under the name of Xomburg, because nothing like the hissing sound of the German _sch_, could be expressed by the same characters in the Castilian language. Advanced in life, and tired of gallantry and the gay world, he returned to Spain, became a Cistercian monk, and died in a convent in 1596. The admirers of Castillejo[263] assign to him the first rank among Spanish poets; but the unprejudiced critic cannot, in justice, elevate him to so high a station. His poetic horizon was very limited. He was determined to be nothing but an old Castilian in poetic taste, as in every thing else. He ridiculed Boscan, Garcilaso, and all the Spanish poets of the new party, with more wit than judgment.[264] He asserted, though without foundation, that the old Castilian metres and forms of rhyme were alone suited to the Castilian language; and for want of better arguments to urge against the amatory poetry of Italy, he asserted that all poetry of love was to be regarded as mere raillery, without reflecting, that in supporting this opinion he cast more reproach on the old Spaniards than on the Italians.[265] The structure of Italian verse appeared constrained to a poet, who confounded rapidity with facility of style. The loose rhythm of the redondillas, was with him an exclusive beauty of the syllabic structure of his mother tongue, for he had no taste for a more regular style of poetry; and some of his happiest productions are limited merely to graceful plays of the imagination. His fertility in these sports of fancy, could not fail to obtain for him the esteem of his countrymen, who were ever too ready to tolerate, and even to admire, the subtle twisting of quaint and fanciful conceits; but of all other poetic faults, most reluctant to pardon heaviness of manner, particularly in versification.

Some of Castillejo’s canciones are, however, so exquisite, that it is scarcely possible to resist the temptation of placing their author in the very foremost rank of poets.[266] But in spite of his captivating fluency of style and power of expression, most of his works bear traces of a mental boundary which every great poet oversteps. A sort of affected verbosity often usurps the place of real wit, particularly in his longer poems; and it not unfrequently happens that whole pages of Castillejo’s flowing verse are to the reader nothing more than lively prose. The strong inclination to levity, which he cannot resist, even when he wishes to be serious, is a distinguishing feature in all the poetic essays of this ingenious author, who has thus sometimes given to his works more of a French than a Spanish character.

Castillejo arranged his lyric works in three books, and they are so printed under the title of _Obras Liricas_. Only a small portion of these poems, however, properly belongs to the lyric class;[267] and the author doubtless collected them together, under this general title, for the purpose of distinguishing them from his comedies, which are but little known. The first book contains amatory poems, (_Obras amatorias_), songs, jests, epistles, glosses after the old fashion, and in conclusion, a piece which he styled a (_Capitulo_) on love. The songs, for the most part, commence in a serious tone,[268] but speedily assume a comic turn, with which they usually conclude.[269] Some are burlesque parodies on the affected ecstasies and extravagant metaphors of the Spanish sonnet writers. Such, for example, is the “Tower of Lamentation,” or the “Wind Tower,” (_Torre de Viento_,) which is supposed to be built entirely of lovers’ sighs. Some shorter poems, in the madrigal style, are among the best in this first book.[270] There is also an “Exclamatory Epistle,” (_Epistola Exclamatoria_,) the spirit and style of which are sufficiently indicated by the title. Among the popular verses which the playful humour of Castillejo prompted him to gloss in the form of _Villancicos_, is one which merely says, “If you tend my cows, my love, I will give you a kiss; but give me a kiss and I will tend yours.”[271] Productions of this description found favour with the readers for whom they were intended. His humorous poems, which are all more or less disguised under an air of seriousness, contain a tale (_historia_) imitated from Ovid, which may be called an idyl according to the literary terminology of the Spaniards. The second book contains conversational and diverting pieces, (_obras de conversacion y de pasatiempo_.) At the commencement appear the railleries of Castillejo against the Petrarchists. The longest poem in this book is a Dialogue on Women, (_Dialogo de la Condicion de las Mugeres_,) which is here and there enlivened by admirable sallies of wit;[272] but upon the whole it is nothing more than burlesque prose ideas dressed in easy verse.[273] The third book, which contains moral works, (_obras morales_,) is most prolix of all. The satires contained in this third book have certainly a moral tendency, though that object is in a great measure defeated by Castillejo’s sportive style. The moral is lost in a torrent of words, while the serious thoughts of which the verse is the vehicle, are for the most part trivial.[274] Notwithstanding the moral design of this third book, the Spanish inquisition was for some time undecided with respect to its fate. The publication of all the poems of Castillejo was prohibited; but after some further deliberation the inquisition permitted the sale of an edition, after it had undergone a rigid revisal by the censor.

HISTORY OF SPANISH DRAMATIC POETRY, DURING THE FIRST HALF AND TEN SUCCEEDING YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

In the reign of Charles V. amidst a throng of diversified talent, and during the conflict between the old and new poetic styles, the Spanish drama began to flourish. Considered in a literary point of view, it can scarcely be said to have existed before that period; but it arose under happier auspices than those which about the same period accompanied the birth of the Italian drama, to which the struggle between the learned and the popular burlesque styles afforded less hope of success. The sacred and profane pastoral dialogues of Juan de la Enzina were, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, still the only dramatic compositions in the Spanish language, to which any degree of literary respect was attached, and they were, by especial favour, allowed to be performed at court.[275] With the exception of mysteries, spiritual moralities, and burlesque representations of religious ceremonies, the Spanish nation, at this time, knew nothing of dramatic entertainments. No poet of reputation had hitherto devoted his attention to this species of composition; but the nation evinced by its attachment to those rude exhibitions, that tenacity which is a great feature in its character, and which even in matters of taste permits no reform to take place which does not perfectly accord with the inclination of the public. This constancy of the national character must never for a moment be lost sight of, while tracing the history of the Spanish drama; but even with this peculiar circumstance carefully kept in view, it is still impossible to give a very satisfactory account of the early progress of dramatic poetry among the Spaniards; for the notices which must be resorted to for that purpose, are both defective and confused.[276]

It is above all things necessary to begin by distinguishing the three or four parties, which on totally different principles endeavoured to cultivate dramatic poetry in Spain, and which appear to have been hitherto overlooked by the writers on Spanish literature, merely because each of those parties pursued its object, without openly declaring war against the others. Critical cultivation was not yet so far advanced in Spain as to open a field for literary warfare. But the heterogeneous nature of the Spanish dramas of the first half and ten following years of the sixteenth century, renders it evident, on a very slight examination, that the authors who composed them must have been influenced by different views.[277]

The party called the erudite, was the first which at that period laboured to introduce into Spain a style of dramatic literature, worthy to be called national. This party consisted of men of information and taste, though possessing but little knowledge of the true art of dramatic poetry, and still less of imagination. These men, like a similar party in Italy, endeavoured to form the modern drama on the model of the antique. As, however, the most zealous among them did not possess sufficient talent to imitate the ancient models, they began to translate them, and performed their task in prose. A Spanish translation of the Amphitryon of Plautus, by Villalobos, physician to Charles V. was printed in 1515. Shortly afterwards there appeared a new translation of the same drama, by Perez de Oliva, a prose writer of considerable merit, who will be further noticed in the course of this history. Perez de Oliva even ventured to make a prose version of the Electra of Sophocles. This unfortunate attempt appeared under the title of _La Venganza de Agamemnon_.[278] He also translated the Hecuba of Euripides. At a somewhat later period the Portuguese comedies of Vasconcellos, written in the manner of Plautus, were published in the Castilian language. Translations of several comedies of Plautus subsequently appeared, and at length Pedro Simon de Abril published a complete translation of Terence, which is still much esteemed by the Spaniards.[279] Thus it was not the fault of the erudite party that the Spanish drama did not resemble the ancient. But to introduce in Spain the tragic style of the classic drama, in all its poetic purity, or even the style of the ancient comedies in iambic verse, was an idea which could only have originated with scholars who did not understand the character of the Spanish public. The translators, therefore, even those who endeavoured to conciliate the public taste by prose versions, formed, with their learned friends, a solitary party. No first rate poet arose in Spain, like Ariosto in Italy, to amuse and instruct the public by original dramatic compositions on the classic model. It is possible that essays in the ancient manner may have been performed on some Spanish stage, particularly at Seville, but they are now totally lost; and no attempt seems ever to have been made to represent Spanish translations of Greek and Latin plays.

The party of the dramatic moralists approximated the closest to that which has just been described. The interlocutory romance of Cœlestina,[280] or Calistus and Melibœa, poor in invention, but possessing in its natural descriptions of common life, an attraction for many readers, was, on account of its moral tendency, admired as a master-piece of dramatic art. As this dramatic romance was called a comedy or tragi-comedy, some of its admirers conceived themselves bound to write comedies and tragi-comedies in the same style for the moral benefit of society. Whether these productions were, or were not, calculated for representation, seems never to have been a subject of consideration with their authors. They were content if the scenes which they strung together exhibited in natural language the lowest pictures of common life, and forcibly marked the dangers attendant on vice. To do this requires only an ordinary share of talent, and accordingly Cœlestina was followed by a torrent of similar “Mirrors of Sin” in the Castilian language. The greater number appeared during the first half of the sixteenth century, or shortly afterwards; and among them were _Policiana_, entitled a tragedy;[281] _Perseus and Tibaldea_, a comedy; _De la hechicera_ (of the Witch), a comedy; _Florinea_, a comedy, &c. The author of a work of this kind, entitled _La Doleria del Sueño del Mundo_, (the Anguish of the Sleep of the World,) mentions in his title-page, that it is a comedy in the style of philosophic morality, (_Comedia tratada por via de philosophia moral_.) All these insipid moral lessons were read and admired in their day; but their extreme length prevented them from getting possession of the stage.[282]

Equally removed from the moral and the erudite party, was Bartholomè Torres Naharro, a man doubtless of extraordinary talent. He was the founder of a third party, which uniting with a fourth, that had for a short interval preceded it, ultimately triumphed as the only national party, and obtained exclusive control over the Spanish drama. It is a singular circumstance, and yet one to which the historians of Spanish literature have not called the attention of their readers, that Cervantes in his comic sketch of the early History of the Spanish Drama, mentions not a syllable respecting Torres Naharro, while the editor of Cervantes’s comedies, who has prefixed to them that sketch, declares, in his preface, Torres Naharro to be the real inventor of the forms of the Spanish comedy. Torres Naharro was born in the little town of Torre, on the Portuguese frontiers, and flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Of the history of his life but little is known. All accounts, however, agree in describing him to have been an ecclesiastic and a man of learning. After a shipwreck which involved him in various adventures, he arrived at Rome during the pontificate of Leo X. In that friend of genius he found a distinguished patron. It is, however, extremely improbable, that his comedies were performed before the pope at Rome, though such an assertion has been made by Spanish writers, and has given offence to some Italians. It is certainly by no means likely, that an occurrence so unusual, should have escaped the notice of all Italian authors; and Pope Leo can scarcely be supposed to have had any strong inducement to study the Spanish language which is not agreeable to Italian ears. It is more probable that Naharro’s comedies were represented in Naples, for there a Spanish audience was to be found; and Naharro himself proceeded to Naples when the difficulties into which his satirical writings involved him, obliged him to quit Rome.

The above are the only particulars that can be obtained respecting the life of this extraordinary man; and it is not certain how far they can be relied on, as they are gathered from writers who do not mention the sources from whence they derived their information.[283] It is not improbable that Naharro’s comedies were performed only in Naples, and not in Spain, where there was no theatre suited to their representation; for according to the account of Cervantes, who speaks as an eye-witness, the whole apparatus of a Spanish theatre, about the middle of the sixteenth century, consisted of a few boards and benches, and a wardrobe, and decorations, which were contained in a sack.

But whatever may have been the fate of the comedies of Naharro, with respect to the stage in Spain, they were certainly printed along with the other poetic works of the author, in the year 1521, or at latest in 1533, under the learned title of _Propaladia_, intended to signify exercises in the school of Pallas.[284] Judging from the accounts given of these dramas by various writers, there is very little doubt that Torres Naharro was the real inventor of the Spanish comedy. He not only wrote his eight comedies in redondillas in the romance style, but he also endeavoured to establish the dramatic interest solely on an ingenious combination of intrigues, without attaching much importance to the developement of character, or the moral tendency of the story. It is besides probable, that he was the first who divided plays into three acts, which being regarded as three days labour in the dramatic field, were called _jornadas_.[285] It must, therefore, be unreservedly admitted, that these dramas, considered both with respect to their spirit and their form, deserve to be ranked as the first in the history of the Spanish national drama; for in the same path which Torres Naharro first trod, the dramatic genius of Spain advanced to the point attained by Calderon, and the nation tolerated no dramas except those which belonged to the style which had thus been created.

It would appear, however, that there was something in the plays of Naharro which did not precisely harmonize with the taste of the Spanish public, for they were banished from literature and thrown into oblivion by the prose dramas which Cervantes saw represented in his youth. The author of these pieces, in which songs are sometimes episodically introduced, was Lope de Rueda, a native of Seville. This man, who was a gold-beater by trade, and who had received no literary education, was notwithstanding endowed with a strong genius for the dramatic art. Cervantes styles him the great Lope de Rueda. He did not compose his plays in the character of an author. He was at the head of a little company of players of whom he was himself the ablest; and his own taste and that of the public required only such pieces as could be easily represented on his wretched stage which consisted merely of a few planks of wood. The most prominent characters in Lope de Rueda’s dramatic compositions, were those which the author himself performed, and which, according to the testimony of Cervantes, he delineated in a highly natural style. In fools, roguish servants, biscayan boors, and such like characters, he particularly excelled. He did not neglect to avail himself of the accidental union of the Spanish drama with pastoral poetry, and he wrote some pastoral dialogues (_coloquios pastoriles_) in prose. On this account his theatrical wardrobe, of which Cervantes gives a humorous description, contained four shepherds dresses of white fur, trimmed with gold, an equal number of wigs and shepherds crooks, and likewise four beards. The beards, it would appear were indispensable in comedies of every kind; and the public became so accustomed to call an old man’s part in comedy the _beard_, that the theatrical term _barba_ was retained even after the custom of wearing beards had long been exploded from the stage.

Juan Timoneda has made careful collections of the comedies and pastoral dramas of Lope de Rueda, by which we are enabled to judge of the literary merit of these works, divested of the advantage which they must have derived from the living representation of their author. Timoneda, who was a bookseller in Valencia, was the friend and enthusiastic admirer of Lope de Rueda; but in regard to literary acquirements he ranked somewhat higher than that actor. He was indeed a man of genius and talent, as is evident from his novels, which are little known, and which have yet to be more particularly noticed in this work. He printed in small collections, the pastoral dialogues and plays of Lope de Rueda, making such alterations as were necessary both in the language and style.[286] These productions equally indicate the experienced master in the developement of character, and the untutored pupil of nature following his own caprice. Lope de Rueda’s pastoral dialogues possess more dignity, if the term may be used, than his plays, and they are moreover imbued with a certain poetic character which harmonizes admirably with the songs occasionally introduced. With regard to invention and style, however, there is but little difference between the dialogues and the plays, but the pastoral costume of the dramatis personæ produces a certain heterogeneous effect; for the half Arcadian, and half Spanish shepherds, are brought in contact with negresses, barbers, and other characters of common life and modern stamp. Lope de Rueda was not inattentive to general character, as is proved by his delineation of old men, clowns, &c. in which he was

## particularly successful. But his principal aim was to interweave in

his dramas, a succession of intrigues; and, as he seems to have been a stranger to the art of producing stage effect by striking situations, he made complication the great object of his plots. Thus mistakes, arising from personal resemblances, exchanges of children, and such like common place subjects of intrigue, form the ground work of his stories, none of which are remarkable for ingenuity of invention. There is usually a multitude of characters in his dramas, and jests and witticisms are freely introduced, but these in general consist of burlesque disputes in which some clown is engaged.[287]

It would appear that many comedies in Rueda’s style were at one time acted, though they are now lost to literature. Cervantes, for instance, praises the perfection to which that style of comic drama had been brought by a player, named Naharro of Toledo, who must not be confounded with Torres Naharro. Cervantes informs us, that this Naharro augmented the theatrical wardrobe so considerably, that it could no longer be contained in a bag, but was packed up in boxes and chests. He exploded the custom of dressing the old characters in beards, and removed the orchestra, which had previously been stationed behind the scenes, to the front of the stage. He moreover exhibited imitations of clouds, of thunder and lightning, made other great improvements in the scenic machinery, (_tramoyas_), and even introduced single combats and battles on the stage. His name certainly deserves to be preserved from oblivion; and it is unfortunate that Cervantes has neglected to mention what kind of poetry or prose was spoken by the actors in these new dramatic spectacles.

A Spanish author of learning and merit, named Juan de la Cueva, who lived about this period, seems to have been the first to perceive that the Spanish drama could never succeed, if men of literary acquirements, endowed with genius for dramatic composition, continued opposed to the popular party. This meritorious author was a native of Seville, which at that time appears to have been the cradle of every kind of talent. The history of his life is enveloped in obscurity, and his various writings, in every class of poetry, notwithstanding the praises which critics have bestowed on them, are, though not totally sunk into oblivion, very little known.[288] His copious Art of Poetry in tercets, which was lately, for the first time, published from manuscript, contains some important information relative to the history of Spanish poetry. It is, however, merely written in good versified prose, and pure language, but is in no respect poetical.[289] This Art of Poetry, if so it must be called, shews, among other things, how numerous was the party which at that time endeavoured to give to the Spanish drama the form of the antique. An author, named Malara, a native of Seville, who was called the Betisian Menander, in allusion to the Betis or Gaudalquivir, and six other poets of that city, among whom is Gutierre de Cetina, the celebrated author of several Spanish comedies in the ancient style, are honourably mentioned by Juan de la Cueva. But this judicious writer maintained that there were peculiarities in the ancient drama, which, though excellent in themselves, would not accord with the spirit of the moderns. The dramatic laws of the ancients had, in his opinion, ceased to be obligatory; and he conceived it to be reasonable that dramatic fictions should be accommodated to the taste of the age and to the circumstances in which they are written.[290] The Spanish public had already manifested a strong predilection for plays in the modern style, and an aversion equally decided from all the imitations of the dramatic works of the ancients. It was therefore designedly and with a persevering industry that the Spaniards had struck out for themselves a new course in dramatic literature. In genius and taste they could only have vied with the Greeks and Romans, without surpassing them; but invention, grace, ingenious arrangement, and a certain art of involving and unravelling the plot, which foreigners could not imitate, were the qualities on which the glory of the Spanish drama was destined to be founded.[291] Juan de la Cueva proceeds to state, that on these principles he had no scruple in contributing to overthrow the ancient boundary between tragedy and comedy; and to introduce on the stage, for the sake of variety, characters clad in the rustic peasant’s garb, along with others attired in the robes of royalty. Thus far he trod in the footsteps of Torres Naharro. And yet he appears to have had no distinct knowledge of the writings of that author; for he never mentions them; while, on the other hand, speaking of his own works, he observes that he had abandoned the old custom of dividing dramatic pieces into five acts, and chose in preference the new method, then in vogue, of arranging them in jornadas.[292] Cervantes must of course have been ignorant of the decided testimony thus given by Juan de la Cueva, since he imagines that he was himself the first to introduce the three divisions of the Spanish drama. The approbation bestowed on Cueva’s dramatic works, in the new style, seems, however, to have been but feeble and transitory; and this explains how the editor of Cervantes’s comedies, in his account of the early history of the Spanish drama, has omitted to mention the name of Cueva.

It will, perhaps, be proper to defer entering more fully into the investigation of the peculiar spirit of the Spanish national drama, until the writings of Lope de Vega come under consideration; for during the brilliant career of that author, the new form of the drama took complete possession of the Spanish theatre, and the older pieces, which did not fall in with the popular taste, were speedily forgotten by the public, as the notices of Cervantes clearly shew. But it may be proper here once for all to remind the reader of a truth now historically demonstrated, namely, that it was by no means ignorance, or want of intimacy with the dramatic works of the ancients, which facilitated the triumph of the modern Spanish drama.

No sufficiently authenticated particulars enable the literary historian to furnish any thing like positive information respecting the history of the spiritual dramas of the Spaniards at the period now under review. Considered generally their origin is sufficiently known; for dramas of this kind, intended either for amusement or instruction, were, in the middle ages, performed throughout the whole of the south of Europe. In Spain, pilgrims assiduously devoted themselves to the dramatic representation of sacred histories, when they wished to find an edifying and agreeable relaxation from their severer duties of praying and journeying from place to place. In these sacred dramas, the authors often interwove the adventures, whether serious or comic, in which they had been engaged, or described what they had seen and learnt in their holy pilgrimages; and the whole was usually seasoned with a sufficient quantity of jests in the popular style. To manifest in as palpable a way as possible the power of the sacrament, and the miraculous effects of faith, were the great objects of the pilgrims; and there seems to be no doubt that their rude efforts formed the origin of that class of spiritual plays, which, at a subsequent period, were performed on the festival of Corpus Christi, and on other solemn occasions; and which, from their allusion to the mystery of the sacrament, were styled _Autos Sacramentales_. But at what

## particular period examples of these spiritual exhibitions were first

committed to writing, and formed a portion of literature, cannot now be ascertained. They have sometimes been confounded with the lives of the saints (_vidas de santos_[293]), which were originally dramatized in monasteries, and performed by the pupils of the monks, but which are in fact quite a distinct class of representations. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century the practice of acting these biographical dramas was continued in monasteries in different parts of Spain, particularly in Galicia;[294] and perhaps in that province they yet afford a source of amusement and edification on festival days, to the pilgrims who visit the shrine of St. Iago de Compostela.

The burlesque interludes, called _Entremeses_ and _Saynetes_, which were subsequently divided into various kinds, and were performed between the preludes (_loas_) and the play, properly so called, appear also to have had their origin in the first half of the sixteenth century. Cervantes could refer to no entremeses of an older date, when he contributed to give to this class of dramatic compositions a literary form and character.

What has been stated sufficiently proves the powerful control which the public exercised over the stage. The popular taste demanded an agreeable amusement, created by the boldest and most varied mixture of the serious and the comic, of intrigues, sallies of the imagination and ingenious thoughts, of surprises and animated situations; but it was not required that either a comic or a tragic scene should tend to produce any moral impression on the heart, except indeed in so far as that object may be attributed to the spiritual pieces. But how did it happen that a people in whom moral gravity has ever been a national characteristic, should thus shew themselves indifferent to the moral effects of their dramatic entertainments. The history of the formation of the Spanish character appears to disclose the cause of this incongruity so clearly, that it might be said, nature would have contradicted herself, had not such been the consequence resulting from that cause. When the treasures of America came to be dispersed through Spain, luxury and extravagance superseded the old Spanish simplicity. The age of chivalry was past; and the ecclesiastical fetters imposed upon opinion and conscience, afforded so little freedom to the mind, that it was not possible the public could endure, still less enjoy, moral reflection on the stage. The Spaniard, as a catholic Christian, devoutly and implicitly submitted his understanding to the doctrines and mandates of the church; but as a man he ardently longed for amusements, in which he might allow his heart freely to participate. Moral reflection then could not be pleasing in any place where he sought to be gratified by the unconstrained exercise of his feelings; for every moral thought tended to revive the recollection of the inquisition. Meanwhile the progress of luxury and the love of pleasure stimulated the imagination, and increased the appetite for sports of wit and fancy, which were pushed to the most extravagant excess. A people of an ardent and enthusiastic temperament, which a genial climate fostered, were always eager to partake of pleasures which no king or grand inquisitor threatened to disturb. With a taste thus formed, and with such claims on dramatic entertainment, the Spaniards were not to be satisfied with the most ingenious comedies or tragedies, unless the wildest revels of the imagination and a succession of joyous and luxuriant forms agitated and interested the mind, and freed it from all the fetters of maxims and rules of art. To see a variegated ideal world, a diversified picture of romantic existence, was the object for which the Spaniard visited the theatre, where he could endure no sort of regularity, not even that which the nature of the subject seemed most to require.

This portion of the history of Spanish dramatic poetry must not be terminated without a particular notice of two tragedies by Geronymo Bermudez, a Dominican monk of Galicia, who, at the period when he wrote them, was probably the inmate of a cloister.[295] He did not think proper to acknowledge himself the author of these dramas, and he published them under the assumed name of Antonio de Silva.[296] Among his other poetical works, some Spanish writers mention in terms of respect, a dull encomium on the Duke of Alba, of whom this ecclesiastic was an enthusiastic admirer.[297] He lived until the year 1589. His two tragedies are imitations of the ancient drama, but they must not be confounded with the essays of the same kind, which have already been mentioned. Bermudez conceived the happy idea of selecting a subject from the history of Spain and Portugal, and dramatizing it according to the rules of the Greek tragedy, without destroying the modern character of his materials. The well known story of the unfortunate Ines de Castro, seemed particularly suited to the object he had in view. Being a Galician, he had, through his native language, a national relationship to Portugal, and he consequently took more personal interest in the tragical fate of his heroine, than was felt by Spaniards in general. He did not commence his task without apprehension of its success; for, as a Spaniard, he wished to write in Castilian, and he was, therefore, in some measure, under the necessity of studying a foreign language. This difficulty he mentions in his preface. But with all its faults, his attempt proved so fortunate, that his two tragedies may justly be styled the first in their kind. Though they are intimately connected, yet each forms in itself a complete tragic drama. Their titles are whimsical and affected: the first is denominated, _Nise Lastimosa_, (the Lamentable Nise); and the second, _Nise Laureada_, (Nise Crowned with Glory).[298] The characters preserve their historical names. The first of these tragedies sufficiently proves what may be effected by a poet, even of moderate talent, when thoroughly penetrated with a poetic subject, and at the same time possessing the power of expression. The Nise Lastimosa, it is true, is far from approaching the ideal of tragic perfection; but some of the scenes fulfil all that the theory of the dramatic art can require; and energy and dignity of expression are not wanting even in those passages where the action is tedious and the incidents ill-connected. The plot is simple, and towards the conclusion its interest declines. But Bermudez has introduced, with alternate instances of remarkable dexterity and clumsiness, a chorus composed of Coimbran women, which is sometimes interwoven with the action of the drama, and sometimes quite independent of it. The unities of time and place the author has totally disregarded. The first act opens with a soliloquy by the Prince Don Pedro, which is beautiful, though somewhat too long. In it the prince deplores his separation from his beloved wife.[299] This soliloquy is succeeded by a long conversation between the prince and his secretary, in which the latter, with all due courtesy, hints that the attachment of the prince for a lady, not of royal birth, is incompatible with the welfare of the state.[300] The scene then changes, and the chorus of Coimbran women is very absurdly introduced to moralize on love. Thus closes the first act. In the second, the scene changes to the court, and exhibits the king amidst his assembled council; the advice of the ministers prevails over the good disposition of the monarch, and he consents to the death of Ines de Castro. A soliloquy by the king follows, in which he offers up his prayers. The scene again changes, and the fair Coimbrans once more appear to moralize on human happiness. In the third act, however, a new spirit is infused into the piece, and the chorus partakes in the action. Ines de Castro appears. The women of the chorus form her attendants, and offer her consolation and advice. Ines is informed of the reports that are circulated respecting her fate;[301] but throughout this act, the progress of the story is nearly suspended. The fourth act may, however, be accounted almost a masterpiece. Ines attended by her children and the chorus, appears before the king to receive her sentence. Nothing can be more impressive than the dignity with which she demands justice, or more affecting than the tenderness towards her children, which continually breaks forth in her discourse; at length she pictures to herself in vivid colours, the sorrows that await her husband, till exhausted by the vehemence of her feelings, and gradually losing the use of her faculties, she begins for the first time to think of her own situation, anticipates the horrors of death, and swoons, exclaiming _Jesus Maria!_ This scene exhibits a picture so replete with real pathos, that it may be truly said, modern tragic art has seldom attained so high a point of perfection.[302] The fifth act is merely a tedious supplement. The prince is made acquainted with the death of his wife, and he vents his sorrow in long lamentations.

The tragedy of _Nise Laureada_ is far inferior to that just described. The story is below criticism; and towards the end becomes revolting to feelings, which are not blunted by inquisitorial horrors, or sunk to the level of brutality. The Prince Don Pedro who has now ascended the throne, orders the remains of his judicially murdered wife to be taken from the tomb; he then, with great solemnity, invests the corpse with the dignity of queen, and the ceremony of the coronation is succeeded by a marriage. Two of the counsellors, whose perverted and inhuman patriotism had urged them to sacrifice the unhappy Ines, receive sentence of death and are executed. This is the whole plot, if so it may be called; and among the acting and speaking characters the executioners play a prominent part. The first act contains many beautiful passages; but when the last judicial ceremonies commence, horror and disgust fill the mind of the reader. The hearts of both culprits are extracted from their bodies, the one through the breast, and the other through the back. The most brutal exclamations accompany the execution of the royal sentence, and the chorus utters shouts of joy, while the executioner discharges his barbarous task. That these horrors might be regarded as pathetic incidents by the Spaniards of that age, accustomed as they were from early childhood to stifle every sentiment of humanity, and to allow fanatical exultation to overcome the natural emotions of the heart, whenever a brutal sentence was pronounced by ecclesiastical, or royal authority, is unfortunately but too probable. Had it not been for this perversion of feeling, a people, otherwise so noble-minded, could not have attended the cruel festivals of their church, and witnessed the burning of Jews and heretics with as much pleasure as the exhibition of a bull fight.

In order to form a just estimate of the talent of Bermudez, it must be recollected that he was the first who conceived the idea of giving a poetic colouring to the history of Ines de Castro. Camoens had not, at that time, written his Lusiad, in which the same story forms the subject of a celebrated episode. It may also be observed, that the labour which Bermudez bestowed on his versification, and particularly on the varied metres of the choruses of his dramas, ought to have served as an example to his successors in tragic composition.

HISTORY OF SPANISH PROSE DURING THE FIRST HALF AND TEN SUCCEEDING YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Among the works of the poets which come within the period allotted to the first section of this book, it has already been necessary to notice some writings in prose. The connexion then subsisting between Spanish poetry and prose, has thus been rendered more apparent, and the different works of the same author have been kept together in examining them. But the poetic talent of some authors of that age, for example, Perez de Oliva, will not bear a comparison with their merits as prose writers; and many others who have obtained reputation for prose composition, must be totally excluded from the rank of poets. In general the good sense of the Spanish writers has constantly impelled them to mark a distinct boundary between poetry and prose; and this separation was never more rigorously maintained than during the first half of the sixteenth century, when the torrent of romances of chivalry which then inundated Spain, threatened the common annihilation of genuine poetry and eloquent prose. As very little has hitherto been done in this department of literature, advantage cannot fail to be derived from the labour which may be employed in endeavouring to obtain something like an accurate introduction to the knowledge of several good Spanish prose writers, whose names have hitherto scarcely appeared in the history of modern literature.

Every one who has read Don Quixote must be aware of the enthusiasm with which romances of chivalry were admired by the Spaniards, at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the reign of Charles V. this passion became epidemic; for then the art of printing gave general circulation to the old romances, and new imitations were not wanting. But the particular account of this portion of Spanish literature, does not belong to the present subject, and ought to form the conclusion of the history of the romantic literature of the middle ages. Besides, the influence of the chivalrous romances of the sixteenth century, operated on the public only in a peculiar sense of the term, for every poet and prose writer, of cultivated talent, laboured to oppose the contagion. There were, however, many literary partizans, who did not scruple to flatter the public taste by the grossest absurdities. A writer, named Geronymo de Sanpedro, with the most devout piety, selected stories from the bible, and clothed them, as he expresses himself, in the allegoric costume of romance. He entitled his fantastical work, “The Book of Celestial Chivalry from the Foot of the Fragrant Rose-bush.[303]” God the Father is introduced in this edifying production as emperor, and Christ as the knight of the Lion, (_Caballero del Leon_). In the meantime an opponent of the zealots of chivalry, named Doctor Alexio de Venegas, anathematized all romances, which he styled, “Devil’s Sermon Books,” (_Sermonarios de Satanas_).[304] In this manner parties contended one with another in Spain, until at length the romantic literature disappeared like a stream lost amidst sand.

At this period there appears to have existed no novels or romances in the modern style, except the _Lazarillo de Tormes_ of Diego de Mendoza. The well known imitations of this first romance of knavery (_del gusto picaresco_) did not come into circulation before the end of the sixteenth century. Little stories in the style of the Italian novels were, it is true, written at an earlier period; but their author, the bookseller Timoneda, the same individual who collected the comedies and pastoral dramas of Lope de Rueda, did not venture to prefix to them the title of _Novelas_. He was aware that he could better recommend his works to the Spanish public, by giving them the old denomination of _Patrañas_ (Tales).[305] Timoneda evidently imitated the Italian novelists, though he by no means equalled them. Still, however, these antiquated tales may be perused with pleasure, particularly by those who have a taste for complicated intrigue. The author, it would appear, endeavoured to surpass the Italian writers in romantic adventures and unexpected incidents; at least in his preface he expressly promises this kind of entertainment to his readers.

But it was not merely with romances and novels that genuine prose literature had to contend in Spain. Several men of distinguished talent, however far they carried their notions of patriotism in other respects, were of opinion that the Spanish language was incapable of expressing grave and noble ideas in prose. Some would write only in Latin, and others only in Italian. Alphonso de Ulloa, who was an assiduous historical and political author, wrote chiefly in Italian.[306] He was, it is true, born in Italy; but he was of a Spanish family, and the Spanish language was perfectly familiar to him. The want of confidence thus shewn by Spanish writers in the force and precision of their own language seems inexplicable, when it is recollected at how early a period Spanish prose began to be cultivated. Their intercourse with the Italians had, however, made the Spaniards perceive a want of elegance both in their colloquial phraseology and literary style; but that grace which their poets soon began to imitate from the Italians, is but feebly indicated in the works of the early Spanish prose writers, whatever other rhetorical merits they might possess, and a frank simplicity of expression appears still to have constituted the main character of Spanish prose. Besides, the Italian prose, which with the exception of the writings of Machiavell and Guicciardini is distinguished by a playful and too often superficial elegance, could not be very congenial to the Spanish taste, which required a grave and energetic style. To imitate the ancient classics was the only means whereby the prose literature of Spain could have been cultivated in a manner answerable to the demands of enlightened men in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately the ecclesiastical and political despotism of this period left no free scope for the exercise of the mental powers of those Spaniards who were desirous of constructing a national prose style on the ancient models. Neither the didactic nor the historical styles could be freely developed; and for the formation of the oratorical style, circumstances were, if possible, still more unfavourable. Impeded by such obstacles, and permitted only to copy in the strictest sense the rhetorical forms of the ancients, without their energy and solidity of thought, and their force of expression, the Spanish prose writers certainly could not be expected to produce works worthy to be ranked on a level with the classic examples they would have wished to emulate; but their efforts to open the career of genuine eloquence to their national literature, deserves, notwithstanding, to be honourably recorded.

1. DIDACTIC PROSE is, in the Spanish language, indebted for its first formation to Fernan Perez de Oliva of Cordova. At the commencement of the sixteenth century this learned man travelled through Italy and France, and during three years which he spent in Paris delivered public lectures on philosophy and ancient literature. On his return to Spain he settled at Salamanca, where he became professor (_cathedratico_) of theology, and delivered lectures on the Aristotelian philosophy. He died in 1533, before he had completed his thirty-sixth year.[307] His philosophic and theological studies, and his intimacy with Grecian and Roman literature, did not withhold him from the cultivation of his native language; and he even endeavoured, by his translations which have already been mentioned,[308] to naturalize the Greek tragedy in Spain. He also wrote several poems, which in honour of his memory, are still preserved. But Perez de Oliva was no poet; and to judge from his translations he appears to have had scarcely any true poetic feeling, though he possessed a correct and delicate taste for the rhetorical beauty of prose. His most celebrated work is his Dialogue on the Dignity of Man (_Dialogo de la Dignidad del Hombre_) in the manner of Cicero.[309] It would be vain to seek in this didactic dialogue for ideas which present the merit of novelty in the present age; and it can by no means be regarded as a model of dialogue style any more than the similar works of Cicero. But it was the first specimen in Spanish literature, of clear and connected discussion, maintained in correct dignified and elegant language. The colloquial form serves to connect, though somewhat loosely, the two portions into which the work is divided. Two philosophic friends meet, and their conversation turns on solitude: they endeavour to explain the causes which induce man to seek retirement, and which render him dissatisfied with the society of his fellow creatures. One of the friends inveighs against human society, while the other extols its advantages. In the mean while they are joined by a third philosopher who becomes the arbiter. Before this judge each disputant propounds his opinions in an uninterrupted discourse. Thus the oratorical style is now mingled with the didactic, which had before superseded the colloquial style. This blending of the didactic and oratorical styles, must doubtless be a subject of critical censure to many readers; but with the exception of the oratorical passages, the dialogue of Perez de Oliva is written, in a natural and easy manner.[310] The ideas are for the most part clearly and accurately developed,[311] and the oratorical language,

## particularly where it is appropriately introduced, is powerful and

picturesque.[312]

Perez de Oliva had a successful pupil in his nephew Ambrosio de Morales, who was also a native of Cordova. This learned writer was born in the year 1513; after having finished his academic studies at the university of Alcala de Henares, he delivered public lectures on philosophy and ancient literature, by which he soon acquired an honourable reputation. Charles V. appointed him classical tutor to his natural son Don John of Austria, who afterwards became so celebrated. On the death of Charles V. Ambrosio de Morales was installed by King Philip II. in the vacant post of historiographer or chronicler (_coronista_) of Castile. From the period when he entered upon this office he appears to have devoted himself exclusively to historical studies. He died at an advanced age. His didactic works consist of treatises (_discursos_) on various subjects of practical philosophy and literature. In one of these treatises, he expressly and urgently recommends the rhetorical cultivation of the Spanish language, which the writers of that age so unjustly disowned and neglected to the great prejudice of literature and even of philosophy.[313] The other dissertations of this meritorious writer, which are not so much known, relate to the importance of rhetorical studies; the distinction between Plato’s and Aristotle’s methods of instruction; the duty of man to exert himself to the utmost when he wishes for the assistance of the Almighty; the difference between a great and a good understanding; the value of wealth, independent of personal merit in the possessor; and such like objects of general utility. He only occasionally casts a side glance on the region of speculative philosophy, so that among Germans he might with propriety be called the Spanish Garve. Like that author his views were clear rather than profound; and like him also his object was to write pure didactic prose. His style, though not energetic nor impressive, is natural, clear, and precise, and not unfrequently adorned with pleasing images.[314] The pedantic allusions to the scriptures and to classical literature must be attributed to the age and country to which Morales belonged.[315]

Pedro de Valles, another native of Cordova, followed the example of Perez de Oliva, in cultivating prose; but he inclined to the pomp and antitheses of Seneca, which he was perhaps induced to imitate from respect for his countryman; for the learned of Cordova have always prided themselves in being natives of a city which had produced an ancient author of so much celebrity. Morales, in his collection of his own and his uncle’s works, has inserted a treatise by Valles on the Fear of Death.[316]

Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, who lived about the same period, likewise followed the tract which had been marked out by Perez de Oliva. Respecting the life of this writer but few particulars are known; and the resemblance of his name to that of the celebrated Cervantes Saavedra, does not appear to be a sufficient reason for concluding that he was related to that distinguished author. Cervantes de Salazar wrote a continuation of Oliva’s Dialogue on the Dignity of Man; for he regarded it as unfinished, because Oliva allows the friend and the enemy of human nature to deliver their opinions, while the third party, who is appointed the philosophic arbiter, draws no inference from the arguments he hears. Through the medium of this third character, Salazar circumstantially recapitulates the whole theme, and arrives at a decided conclusion. Salazar is a more contemplative writer than Oliva, who, in other respects appears to have been his model. He translated from the Greek the Tabla of Cebes, and from the Latin the _Introductio ad sapientiam_ of Luis Vives, one of the learned Spaniards who did not choose to write in their native tongue. He published his continuations and translations along with the original works.[317]

Among the various works which Cervantes de Salazar published and elucidated, is an allegorical romance, entitled “_Labricio_, or the fable (_Apologo_) of Idleness and Industry.” This romance may be placed if not among, at least beside didactic works, for the allegorical form serves merely to clothe the ideas, which are very methodically developed. The author, Luis Mexia, or Messia, was a learned theologian and jurist. His object was to draw an interesting and animated picture of the dangers of idleness, the pleasures of occupation, and the value of well directed industry. Notwithstanding the faults inseparable from the class of writing to which this work belongs, it presents the charm of an animated picture conveyed in language, which, though occasionally declamatory, is, upon the whole, pure and elegant.[318]

2. HISTORICAL PROSE was, during this period, cultivated by no author in so high a degree as by Diego de Mendoza, whose history of the wars of Granada, has already been particularly mentioned; all the other Spanish historians were inferior to Mendoza in every thing that constitutes the historical art. But they had begun to study that art, in which they would no doubt have distinguished themselves, had they not on the one hand been intimidated by the despotism of the government, and on the other, influenced by a spirit of contradiction, which induced them to banish from genuine history every trace of imaginative colouring, lest they should be confounded with the romance writers of the age.

The historical institution, established by Alphonso the Wise, still subsisted; for the Spanish government was afraid to incur the shame of allowing it to perish. National historiographers or chroniclers were accordingly appointed, and paid in the same manner as formerly; but after the accession of Charles V. those chroniclers could not venture to write with freedom, even in favour of the court party. Charles V. thought it prudent to obliterate as far as possible the recollection of the powerful opposition he had experienced on his succession to the Spanish crown. His chronicler, Florian de Ocampo, was a man of talent and information; and these qualifications soon enabled him to perceive the necessity of protracting as much as possible the duty assigned to the old Spanish chroniclers of writing the history of their own age. Fortunately for him there existed at that period no ancient history of Spain; and this was a subject on which he could enter, without fear or constraint, while, at the same time, it afforded scope for a singular display of erudition. Ocampo accordingly wrote his five books of a General Chronicle of Spain. By the selection of this deceiving title, Ocampo appeared to be fulfilling the duties of his office; but the five books of his General Chronicle contain nothing more than the history of ancient Hispania, from the deluge to the second punic war.[319] The work is not badly written, though it presents nothing particularly attractive either in the style or in the handling of the subject. Ocampo selected his materials chiefly from the ancient authors, with whom he must have been intimately acquainted; but as far as relates to historical art he avoided imitating his classical models, because, as he says, he was afraid to substitute for truth “the rhetorical flourishes and vanities, which appear in other books of the present time.”[320] Like some German historians, he seems to have prided himself in his dulness.

Those truths which dared not be publicly told in the reign of Charles V. still remained secrets under the government of Philip II. But even the latter monarch did not suffer the office of national chronicler to be discontinued; and he nominated a particular historiographer for the provinces of Castile, and another for those of Arragon. The learned Ambrosio de Morales, who took so lively an interest in the advancement of the rhetorical art, was, as has already been mentioned, appointed chronicler for the Castilian provinces. But with all his talent and information, Morales was not the man precisely calculated to occupy this situation, had he wished strictly to discharge its duties. He had little taste for politics, and modern history was not the branch of literature in the cultivation of which he was likely to find the employment best suited to his talents. He therefore could do nothing which better accorded with his own inclination, and the circumstances in which he was placed, than to follow the footsteps of Ocampo, and to continue the ancient history of Spain from the second punic war to the establishment of christianity.[321] He vied with his predecessor in research and erudition; while, at the same time, he devoted far more attention to composition and style. In his preface, he states that he availed himself of this opportunity of proving the dignity and majesty of the Spanish language; and in that respect he rose far superior to the usual chronicle style. In point of elegance, however, he did not equal cardinal Bembo, while he really had no more idea than that author, of the soul of the historical art, of which elegance is merely an accessary.[322] Towards the close of his work, when he came to the christian ages, his zeal induced him to insert the lives of the saints of Spanish origin; and certainly no writer before his time ever gave to that description of biography so much elegance and historical dignity. Indeed the simplicity to which Morales was always faithful, is a remarkable feature in the works of an author who was so ambitious of distinguishing himself by his style.

There appeared, however, at this time, another author, who might have become, if not the Livy, at least the Machiavell of Spain, had he been placed in more favourable circumstances, and been disposed to devote himself to the rhetorical cultivation of his talent for historical composition. He was a native of Arragon, and his name was Geronymo Zurita, Surita or Curita, for it is written in these different ways. Philip II. appointed him historiographer of the Arragonian provinces, an office which he was well qualified to fill. Like all educated Arragonese, he wrote Castilian with as much facility as his mother tongue. As a politician, however, he entertained views respecting the practical application of history, which though clear and well founded, were not likely to be very acceptable to a despotic sovereign. Zurita undertook, not merely the tedious task of exploring the old chronicles and records, to which he had access, in order to produce a complete history of the kingdom of Arragon, from the Moorish invasion to the reign of Charles V. he was moreover desirous that his historical labour should exhibit a faithful view of the rise and formation of the national constitution of Arragon. The modern historian, who may wish to investigate this particular point, ought to resort to the pages of Zurita, for it will be difficult for him to find a more instructive author. Zurita gave to his historical work the title of Annals,[323] which he conceived to be more appropriate than that of chronicle. But he felt the difficulty of the task he had undertaken, when he attempted to develope the republican principles of the Arragonian provinces, and at the same time to do homage to the caprice of an absolute monarch. He must necessarily have written this part of his work in the total absence of inspiration, for the only practical conclusion he draws from his researches is the trite maxim, “that subjects ought to be content if peace and tranquillity prevail in the country in which they live;”[324] and it must be confessed that for peace and tranquillity, in a certain sense, Philip II. with the help of the Duke of Alba and the inquisition, had sufficiently provided. But in order to judge how Zurita would have written, had he been permitted to write freely, the grounds of the decision must be collected only from detached passages of his work. His execution indeed is not so inviting as to excite a strong desire for the perusal of the whole. He seems during his laborious researches unconsciously to have imbibed the formal style of the chroniclers, their constantly recurring _and_ not excepted; while he did not allow himself time to separate the important from the unimportant, and by a judicious distribution of his materials to compose a pleasing historical picture. In a literary contest, which arose respecting the merits and defects of these Annals of Arragon, their value, in a rhetorical point of view, was never taken into consideration.

3. ORATORICAL PROSE.--To other classes of prose writing, the Spaniards at this time devoted but little attention; but two printed discourses by Perez de Oliva well deserve to be more generally known. The one was delivered at the request of a society of patriotic citizens of Cordova, and it relates to the advantages to be derived from the navigation of the Guadalquivir. In the first part of this discourse, the learned orator certainly wanders far from his subject, for he speaks of the Greeks and Romans, and even of the Trojan war; but the second part contains a view of the business in hand, which is vigorously unfolded, full of sound sense, and divested of all affectation and pedantry. The second discourse promises but little, for it is merely described as an academic occasional and defensive address; but it contains a very good explanation of the literary duties of a professor of moral philosophy, together with some particulars respecting the literary life of the author, which are related in an excellent oratorical style.[325]

4. Of the EPISTOLARY PROSE of this age but few printed specimens exist; and it may be presumed that the Spaniards could not experience much pleasure in written correspondence, after their epistolary style had, like that of their social conversation, become subject to the restraint of the ceremonial forms with which the Italians and the Germans were about the same time infected. With whatever ease _vuessa merced_ (your grace or your worship) especially when contracted in conversation into _usté_, might glide, as a mere form of courtesy through Spanish lips, its frequent occurrence could not fail to have a very embarrassing effect in the periods of familiar letters. This formula which every man of education employed in addressing his equals, exhibits a striking contrast to the higher ceremonial style, which the king himself observed in corresponding with his relatives. Among the Spanish epistolary documents of the sixteenth century, there has been preserved a letter from Philip II. to his natural brother, Don John of Austria. This letter appears to be a kind of supplement, written by the king himself, to the commission by which Don John was appointed high admiral of the Spanish fleets (_capitan general de la mar_). The king with old Spanish cordiality calls Don John, “brother,” (_hermano_), without any other title; and when he addresses him in the course of the letter, he uses the pronoun _you_, after the old fashion. In reminding his natural brother of his duties, he recommends to him integrity, as next in importance to religion.[326]

There is also preserved a letter from the Duke of Alba, of odious celebrity, to Don John of Austria. It contains military instructions expressed with precision and dignified simplicity; but the style is encumbered by the repetition of titles. Both letters are contained in a collection published by the diligent Gregorio Mayans y Siscar.[327]

SPANISH CRITICISM DURING THE PERIOD OF THIS SECTION.

It would scarcely be worth while to say any thing relative to Spanish criticism during the period this section embraces, were it not that among the books of instruction on poetry and rhetoric which then appeared, there was one, which besides being extraordinary for the age in which it was produced, may be regarded as the first of its kind in modern literature. It is entitled, the Philosophy of the Ancient Style of Poetry, which in Spanish is somewhat fantastically expressed, _Philosophia Antigua Poetica_. This work is the production of Alonzo Lopez Pinciano, physician to Charles V. who as has been mentioned, was likewise the author of an unsuccessful heroic poem.[328] Though Pinciano possessed few qualifications for a poet, he had nevertheless conceived the idea of writing an Art of Poetry, which should be something more than a mere introduction to versification and instructions relative to correct and figurative expression. Speculations on the elements of poetry constituted his chief occupation, when relieved from the duties of his profession. He had so carefully studied Aristotle’s Art of Poetry, and so attentively compared it with the other writings of the same author, that of all the admirers of that work, he was probably the first who discovered its imperfection. He says--“what is called Aristotle’s Art of Poetry cannot, if rightly understood, be regarded in any other light than as a fragment; for Aristotle, in various passages of his other works, refers to a second part of this Art of Poetry, which is lost.” Pinciano’s conjectures respecting the contents of the lost part, and its connection with the fragment now existing, have, it is true, been contradicted by more modern critics; but this physician was nevertheless the first to observe that imperfection which had escaped the notice of all previous philologists and commentators on Aristotle. He remarks, that the philologists and commentators have written very learned works; which, however, are as imperfect as the text which they elucidate. With the view of restoring poetry to its ancient dignity, and establishing and developing its true spirit, Lopez Pinciano commences with an Analysis of the Wants of Human Nature. He treats minutely of the senses, of the affections, the faculties of the soul, wisdom, and the pleasures peculiar to cultivated minds, but always with reference to the works of Aristotle, whom, like other writers of that age, he merely designates by the title of the _philosopher_. Like Aristotle, he makes imitation the essence of poetry; but with a particular and more precise definition of what in his opinion constitutes poetic imitation. He then enters upon reflections concerning poetic language, and gives a detailed theory of the several kinds of poetry. The present, however, is not the proper place to present an explanation of this theory. Whenever Lopez Pinciano abandons Aristotle, his notions respecting the different poetic styles are as confused as those of his contemporaries; and only a few of his notions and distinctions can be deemed of importance at the present day. But his name is deserving of honourable remembrance, for he was the first writer of modern times who endeavoured to establish a philosophic art of poetry; and with all his veneration for Aristotle, he was the first scholar who ventured to think for himself, and to go somewhat further than his master. He also evinced a laudable perseverance in the execution of his task. Pinciano’s learned and ingenious work was not quite so useful as it might have been, owing in a great measure to its artificial and formal manner of composition, which, however, the author considered singularly easy and natural. This Art of Poetry is written in the form of letters, (which was in itself a novelty at that age), and in these letters, conversations are occasionally introduced. The friend who answers, invariably gives an abstract of the letter he has last received, as a proof that he understands its contents and its object. Lopez Pinciano, however, cannot be regarded as a model in epistolary and conversational prose any more than in poetry.

The authors of the other arts of poetry which appeared about this time in the Spanish language, merely confined themselves to the explanation of metrical forms and the establishment of subordinate principles. Among these authors were Sanchez de Viena, Geronymo de Mondragon, and Juan Diaz.[329] An Art of Poetry of the same description in verse, by Juan de la Cueva, has already been mentioned. From a philosophic treatise of this kind, Spanish poetry could derive no advantage, unless its origin had been totally different from what it really was. Theories, even the most popular, can contribute only in a very slight degree to the formation of the poetic genius, either of nations or individuals.

Several works on the art of rhetoric, in which the principles of Aristotle were followed, appeared about this time in Spain; but they produced nothing valuable with respect to theory, and exercised no remarkable influence on the improvement of Spanish prose.

SECOND SECTION.

_History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence, from the Age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century._

Spanish literature had now assumed a new character. Classical poets wrote in the Castilian language; and elegant prose was cultivated with equal rapidity and success on the model of the ancients. No great advantage could henceforth be derived from the imitation of the Italian poets, for the genius of the Spanish nation had well nigh decided how far and under what limitations the Italian poetry could be naturalized in Spain. But laurels were yet to be gathered on the new Parnassus; and the conflict between the ancient and modern styles, had, through the disputes of the different parties, who sought to rule the Spanish drama, at length arrived at a crisis. Under these circumstances, Cervantes and Lope de Vega entered upon the career which their predecessors had opened for them.

CERVANTES.

The life of this extraordinary man, whom, for the space of two centuries, civilized Europe has admired above every other Spanish writer, has been so frequently related, that a brief abstract of his biography, derived from the most authentic sources, will be sufficient for the purpose of this history.[330]

It is a singular fact, that the contemporaries of this celebrated man, whom every town, not merely in Spain, but throughout the world, would be proud to have produced, should have neglected to record his native place. After long investigations and warm disputes, which call to mind the contests of the seven Greek towns, for the honour of having given birth to Homer, it is at length agreed that the greatest share of probability belongs to the conjecture, according to which Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born at Alcalà de Henàres in the year 1547. His parents, who were not rich, were merely enabled to give him a moderate, but at the same time a literary education. They sent him to the schools of Madrid, where he acquired some knowledge of classical learning. At Madrid he had an opportunity of witnessing the dramas which the ingenious Lope de Rueda represented on his wretched stage. Juan Lopez, the tutor of Cervantes, was an indefatigable writer of poetry,

## particularly of romances, and he sought every means of cherishing his

pupils’ taste for poetic composition. Some verses by Cervantes were introduced in a description of the funeral of a Spanish princess, which Lopez published in 1569.

But young Cervantes, who had now attained his twenty-second year, seems to have had no certain means of gaining a subsistence. He wrote numerous romances and sonnets; and it was probably about this period that he composed a pastoral romance, entitled _Filena_, which, if we may give credit to his own testimony, was very generally read.[331] It appears that he thought he could better his condition by travelling; and he resolved to proceed to Italy. Here commences the period of his adventures. In Rome, cardinal Acquaviva for a short time became his patron and protector. But impelled either by necessity or choice, he entered into the military profession. He enlisted under the banners of his sovereign, to serve in the wars against the Turks and African corsairs, who at that time disturbed the tranquillity of Spain and Italy. During the war he proved himself to be wholly devoted to his new profession; but being engaged in the great battle of Lepanto, in 1572, he received a wound which deprived him of his left hand together with a part of the arm. This honourable mutilation, to which he proudly alludes in his latter writings, obliged him to return to Spain. The ship, however, in which he had embarked, was captured by an Algerine corsair, and Cervantes was conveyed to Algiers and sold for a slave. His captivity which lasted for nearly eight years, must have been of the most romantic description, if the fact be, as has frequently been conjectured, that Cervantes described his own adventures in the novel of the Captive.[332] He was at length ransomed, and in the year 1581 he returned to his native country.

The third period of the life of Cervantes was exclusively devoted to literature. He had now attained his thirty-second year, and with a matured understanding, joined to considerable practical knowledge of the world, and an ardent passion for literature, he resolved to withdraw from the busy scene of life. In his retirement he wrote his second pastoral romance, entitled _Galatea_, which has so eclipsed Filena, that the latter is quite neglected and forgotten. He shortly afterwards married, and in all probability lived for some time on his wife’s dowry. At length he began to write for the stage; but the dramas which he composed at this period of his life, though about thirty in number, are nearly all lost.[333]--About this time arose the rivalry between Cervantes and Lope de Vega, whose dramas were so much admired that they bore away the palm of public favour. Mortified, as it would appear, by the ill success of his dramatic efforts, Cervantes laid aside his pen for a considerable period. It is conjectured, that in the meanwhile he obtained a post in Seville, the emoluments of which enabled him to subsist. He did not again appear in the literary world until the death of Philip II. in the year 1598.

It can scarcely be doubted, though no Spanish writer has made the conjecture, that the death of Philip II. had a favourable influence on the genius of Cervantes. After the accession of the indolent Philip III. every man in Spain felt that he might then have more freedom than he dared to take during the gloomy intolerance of the preceding reign. The Spaniards now ventured to sport with the chains which they had not the power to break, and delicate satire was soon freely employed. Cervantes quickly found a subject for ridicule, in an outrageous contest which arose in Seville between the spiritual and municipal authorities, concerning the funeral obsequies of the deceased monarch. There is reason to believe that he composed, about the same period, some of the Instructive Novels (_Novelas Exemplares_), which he subsequently published. What accident gave rise to the idea of his Don Quixote is unknown; for his having, while travelling through the province of la Mancha, become engaged in disputes with some of the inhabitants, and his being on that account for a short time imprisoned, can at most be only supposed to have suggested the idea of making that province the scene of the first part of his romance. Some fortunate circumstance, which cannot now be traced, seems to have impressed Cervantes, who was then in his fiftieth year, with the consciousness of the true bent of his genius. The commencement of Don Quixote was first published at Madrid, in 1606; but the enthusiastic reception which this original romance experienced from the Spanish public, produced very little change in the author’s fortune; for the folly which felt itself disturbed in its security united with envy in seeking to discover the most offensive allusions in the work. Cervantes accordingly continued poor, and had now to contend with exasperated enemies, who imagined they had completely defeated him, when an unknown writer of their own party, under the name of Avellaneda, published a continuation of Don Quixote, full of invective against the original author. Precisely at the period when this continuation appeared, Cervantes published the sequel of his Instructive Novels, which he dedicated to the Count of Lemos. In that nobleman he found a protector who never withdrew his favour, and who, as it appears, afforded him support in various ways. Pecuniary necessity seems, however, to have urged him, as a last resource, to write for the stage.

The latest works of Cervantes, were the genuine continuation and completion of Don Quixote, the Journey to Parnassus, which was first published in 1614, and finally the romance of Persiles and Sigismunda, for which, a few days previous to his death, he wrote a dedication to the Count of Lemos. From various passages in the prefaces and introductions to these last works, it is obvious how highly Cervantes prized that celebrity which, after many abortive efforts, he had at length obtained in his old age. But even where his vanity is not disguised, it is easy, from the candid tone in which he speaks of himself, to recognize the man of firm and upright spirit, the declared enemy of every sort of affectation, and the honest and liberal judge of himself and others. He died in poverty, though not in extreme want, at Madrid, in 1616, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He was buried privately, without any kind of distinction, and not even a common tomb-stone marks the spot where the ashes of Cervantes repose.

Were we to arrange the works of Cervantes according to their merits, the first place must be assigned to Don Quixote, which is moreover entitled to the supremacy, inasmuch as it is single in its kind.

To enter into a description of the contents of this universally known master-piece, or to give a circumstantial analysis of its plan, would be equally superfluous. A few words, however, on the happy and original idea which forms the foundation of the whole work may here be introduced. It has often been said, though the opinion has, perhaps, not been fully weighed, nor even expressed with sufficient precision, that the venerable knight of La Mancha is the immortal representative of all men of exalted imagination, who carry the noblest enthusiasm to a pitch of folly; because with understandings in other respects sound, they are unable to resist the fascinating power of a self-deception, by which they are induced to regard themselves as beings of a superior order. None but an experienced observer of mankind, endowed with profound judgment, and a genius to the penetrating glance of which one of the most interesting recesses of the human heart had been newly disclosed, could have seized the idea of such a romance with energetic decision. None but a poet and a man of wit could have thrown so much poetic interest into the execution of that idea; and none but an author who had at his disposal all the richness and variety of one of the finest languages in the world, could have diffused over such a work that classical perfection of expression, which gives the stamp of excellence to the whole. The originality of the idea of Don Quixote is not only historically demonstrated, by no romance of a similar kind having previously existed--for pictures of ingenious roguery in the style of Lazarillo de Tormes, belong to a totally different species of comic romance--but it is also physiologically certain, that a creative fancy, which was only capable of continuing to invent where another had stopt, could not, with the boldness of Cervantes, have combined traits, apparently heterogeneous, in order thereby to exhaust to the utmost the idea by which he was inspired. Those who are acquainted with Don Quixote only through the medium of the common translations, will not certainly be inclined to regard it as a work of inspiration, in the highest sense of the word. But it is impossible to form a more mistaken notion of this work, than to consider it merely as a satire, intended by the author to ridicule the absurd passion for reading old romances of chivalry. Doubtless this is one of the objects which Cervantes had in view; for among the romances which the Spanish public indefatigably perused, few were tolerable, and only one or two possessed first-rate merit. We must not, however, attribute to him the absurd conceit of wishing to prove the prejudicial influence, which the reading of bad romances produced on the taste of the Spanish nation, by exhibiting the individual folly of an enthusiast, who would have been just as likely to have lost his senses by the study of Plato or Aristotle, as by the reading of romances of chivalry. The merit and the richness of the idea of a man of elevated character, excited by heroic and enthusiastic feelings to the extravagant pitch of wishing to restore the age of chivalry, must be regarded as the seed of inspiration whence the whole work originated. As a poet, Cervantes was aware of the resources which this idea furnished; and he must also have been satisfied with his power to prosecute it, as he has proved in the execution what he was capable of accomplishing. In the invention of a series of comic situations in the most burlesque style, he found full scope for the exercise of his fancy. The painting of these situations afforded opportunities for the free and energetic developement of his poetic talent. Finally, he knew how to combine the knowledge of human nature, which he had acquired during a life of fifty years, with the most delicate satire, so as to render his comic romance also a book of moral instruction, to which no parallel existed. These brief remarks on the idea which forms the foundation of the romance of Don Quixote, must be allowed to supply the place of a detailed analysis of the manner in which that celebrated work is composed. Other critics have sufficiently proved that the composition is by no means faultless. In the preface to the second part, Cervantes has himself pointed out some inadvertences which produce incongruities in the history, but he disdained to correct them, because he conceived that they had been too severely condemned.

The character of the execution of this comic romance, is no less original than the invention. Character in the strictest sense of the term is here meant. The superficial sketches of a sportive fancy, for which the Spaniards in the age of Cervantes entertained so high a predilection, had not sufficient interest for him. He felt a passion for the vivid painting of character, as all his successful works prove. Under the influence of this feeling, he not only drew the natural and striking portrait of his heroic Don Quixote, so truly noble-minded, and so enthusiastic an admirer of every thing good and great, yet having all those fine qualities, accidentally blended with a relative kind of madness; but he likewise pourtrayed, with no less fidelity, the opposite character of Sancho Panza, a compound of grossness and simplicity, whose low selfishness leads him to place blind confidence in all the extravagant hopes and promises of his master. The subordinate characters of the great picture exhibit equal truth and decision: but the characteristic tone of the whole is still more remarkable. A translator cannot commit a more serious injury to Don Quixote, than to dress that work in a light anecdotical style. A style perfectly unostentatious and free from affectation, but at the same time solemn, and penetrated, as it were, with the character of the hero, diffuses over this comic romance an imposing air, which, were it not so appropriate, would seem to belong exclusively to serious works, and which is certainly difficult to be seized in a translation. But it is precisely this solemnity of language, which imparts a characteristic relief to the comic scenes. It is the genuine style of the old romances of chivalry, improved and applied in a totally original way; and only where the dialogue style occurs is each person found to speak, as he might be expected to do, and in his own peculiar manner. But wherever Don Quixote himself harangues, the language re-assumes the venerable tone of the romance style;[334] and various uncommon expressions of which the hero avails himself, serve to complete the delusion of his covetous squire, to whom they are only half intelligible.[335] This characteristic tone diffuses over the whole a poetic colouring, which distinguishes Don Quixote from all comic romances in the ordinary style; and that poetic colouring is moreover heightened by the judicious choice of episodes. The essential connection of these episodes with the whole has sometimes escaped the observation of critics, who have regarded, as merely parenthetical, those parts in which Cervantes has most decidedly manifested the poetic spirit of his work. The novel of _El Curioso Impertinente_, cannot indeed be ranked among the number of these essential episodes; but the charming story of the shepherdess Marcella, the history of Dorothea, and the history of the rich Camacho and the poor Basilio, are unquestionably connected with the interest of the whole. These serious romantic parts, which are not, it is true, essential to the historical connection, but strictly belong to the characteristic dignity of the whole picture, also prove how far Cervantes was from the idea usually attributed to him of writing a book merely to excite laughter. The passages which common readers feel inclined to pass over, are, in general, precisely those in which Cervantes has shewn himself more a poet, and for which he has manifested an evident predilection. On such occasions he also introduces among his prose, episodical verses, which are for the most part excellent in their kind, and which no translator can omit without doing violence to the spirit of the original.

Were it not for the happy art with which Cervantes has contrived to preserve an intermediate tone between pure poetry and prose, Don Quixote would not deserve to be cited as the first classic model of the modern romance or novel. It is, however, fully entitled to that distinction. Cervantes was the first writer who formed the genuine romance of modern times on the model of the original chivalrous romance, that equivocal creation of the genius and the barbarous taste of the middle ages. The result has proved that modern taste, however readily it may in other respects conform to the rules of the antique, nevertheless requires in the narration of fictitious events, a certain union of poetry with prose which was unknown to the Greeks and Romans in their best literary ages. It was only necessary to seize on the right tone, but that was a point of delicacy which the inventors of romances of chivalry were not able to comprehend. Diego de Mendoza, in his Lazarillo de Tormes, departed too far from poetry. Cervantes, in his Don Quixote, restored to the poetic art the place it was entitled to hold in this class of writing: and he must not be blamed if cultivated nations have subsequently mistaken the true spirit of his work, because their own novelists had led them to regard common prose as the style peculiarly suited to romance composition. Don Quixote is moreover the undoubted prototype of the comic novel. The humorous situations are, it is true, almost all burlesque, which was certainly not necessary, but the satire is frequently so delicate, that it escapes rather than obtrudes on unpractised attention; as for example in the whole picture of the administration of Sancho Panza in his imaginary island. Besides, the language even in the description of the most burlesque situations, never degenerates into vulgarity. Throughout the whole work it is in general noble, correct, and so highly polished, that it would not disgrace even an ancient classic of the first rank.[336] This explanation of a part of the merits of a work, which has been so often wrongly judged, may, perhaps, seem to belong rather to the eulogist than the calm and impartial historian. Let those who may be inclined to form this opinion, study Don Quixote in the original language, and study it rightly, for it is not a book to be judged by a superficial perusal. But care must be taken that the intervention of many subordinate traits, which were intended to have only a transient national interest, does not produce an error in the estimate of the whole.

It would be scarcely possible to arrange the other works of Cervantes according to a critical judgment of their importance; for the merits of some consist in the admirable finish of the whole, while others exhibit the impress of genius in the invention, or some other individual feature. A distinguished place must, however, be assigned to the _Novelas Exemplares_ (Moral or Instructive Tales.) They are unequal in merit as well as in character. Cervantes, doubtless, intended that they should be to the Spaniards nearly what the novels of Boccacio were to the Italians: some are mere anecdotes, some are romances in miniature, some are serious, some comic, and all are written in a light, smooth, conversational style. With regard to the practical knowledge which these novels are intended to convey to the reader, Cervantes has effected more than Boccacio; and at all events he extended the literature of his country by their publication, for no similar compositions had previously existed in the Spanish language. In them Cervantes has again proved himself the experienced judge of mankind, and has given, with admirable success, truly genuine and judicious representations of nature, in the various situations of real life. The reader must naturally feel inclined to pardon the want of plan which this little collection of novels occasionally exhibits, when he finds that the author through the medium of his characters relates and describes all that he had himself seen and experienced under similar circumstances, particularly during his abode in Italy and Africa. The history of the _Licenciado Vidriera_, (the Glass Licentiate) which is the fifth in the collection, is totally destitute of plan, and is related in simple prose like a common anecdote. But the novel of _La Gitanilla_, (the Gipsey Girl) is ingeniously conceived and poetically coloured; and the same may be said of some others. The story of _Rinconete y Cortadilla_, or the Lurker and the Cutter, as the names with reference to their etymology may be translated,[337] is a comic romance in miniature.

_Galatea_, the pastoral romance which Cervantes wrote in his youth, is a happy imitation of the Diana of Montemayor, but exhibiting a still closer resemblance to Gil Polo’s continuation of that poem.[338] Next to Don Quixote and the _Novelas Exemplares_, this pastoral romance is

## particularly worthy of attention, as it manifests in a striking way

the poetic direction in which the genius of Cervantes moved even at an early period of life, and from which he never entirely departed in his subsequent writings. As, however, the Galatea possesses but little originality, it constantly excites the recollection of its models, and

## particularly of the Diana of Gil Polo. Of the invention of the fable

likewise, but little can be said, for though the story is continued through six books, it is still incomplete. In composing this pastoral romance, Cervantes seems to have had no other object than to clothe in the popular garb of a tale, a rich collection of poems in the old Spanish and Italian styles, which he could not have presented to the public under a more agreeable form. The story is merely the thread which holds the beautiful garland together; for the poems are the portion of the work most particularly deserving attention. They are as numerous as they are various: and should the title of Cervantes to rank, with respect to verse as well as to prose, among the most eminent poets, or his originality in versified composition, be called in question, an attentive perusal of the romance of Galatea must banish every doubt on these points. It was remarked by the contemporaries of Cervantes that he was incapable of writing poetry, and that he could compose only beautiful prose; but that observation had reference solely to his dramatic works. Every critic, sufficiently acquainted with his lyrical compositions, has rendered justice to their merits. From the romance of Galatea it is obvious that Cervantes composed in all the various kinds of syllabic measure which were used in his time. He even occasionally adopted the old dactylic stanza.[339] He appears to have experienced some difficulty in the metrical form of the sonnet, and his essays in that style are by no means numerous;[340] but his poems in Italian octaves display the utmost facility; and among the number, the song of Calliope in the last book of the Galatea is remarkable for the graceful ease of the versification.[341] In the same manner as Gil Polo in his Diana makes the river Turia pronounce the praises of the celebrated Valencians, the poetic fancy of Cervantes summoned the muse Calliope before the shepherds and shepherdesses, to render solemn homage to those contemporaries whom he esteemed worthy of distinction as poets. But the critic can scarcely venture to place reliance on praises which are dealt out with such profuse liberality. The most beautiful poems in the Galatea are a few in the cancion style, some of which are in iambics,[342] and some in trochaic or old Spanish verse.[343] Cervantes has here and there indulged in those antiquated and fantastic plays of wit, which at a subsequent period he himself ridiculed.[344] The prose of the Galatea, which is in other respects so beautiful, is also occasionally overloaded with a sort of epithetical ostentation.[345]

Cervantes displays a totally different kind of poetic talent in the _Viage al Parnaso_, (Journey to Parnassus) a work which cannot properly be ranked in any particular class of literary composition, but which, next to Don Quixote, is the most exquisite production of its extraordinary author. The chief object of the poem is to satirize the false pretenders to the honours of the Spanish Parnassus, who lived in the age of the author. But this satire is of a peculiar character: it is a most happy effusion of sportive humour, and it yet remains a matter of doubt whether Cervantes intended to praise or to ridicule the individuals whom he points out as being particularly worthy of the favour of Apollo. He himself says--“Those whose names do not appear in this list, may be just as well pleased as those who are mentioned in it.” To characterize true poetry according to his own poetic feelings; to manifest in a decided way his enthusiasm for the art even in his old age; and to hold up a mirror for the conviction of those who were only capable of making rhymes and inventing extravagances, seem to have been the objects which Cervantes had principally in view when he composed this satirical poem. Concealed satire, open jesting, and ardent enthusiasm for the beautiful, are the boldly combined elements of this noble work. It is divided into eight chapters, and the versification is in tercets. The composition is half comic and half serious. After many humorous incidents, Mercury appears to Cervantes, who is represented as travelling to Parnassus in the most miserable condition; and the god salutes him with the title of the “Adam of poets.”[346] Mercury after addressing to him many flattering compliments, conducts him to a ship entirely built of different kinds of verse, and which is intended to convey a cargo of Spanish poets to the kingdom of Apollo. The description of the ship is an admirable comic allegory.[347] Mercury shews him a list of the poets with whom Apollo wishes to become acquainted; and this list, owing to the problematic nature of its half ironical and half serious praises, has proved a stumbling block to commentators. In the midst of the reading Cervantes suddenly drops the list. The poets are now described as crowding on board the ship in numbers as countless as drops of rain in a shower, or grains of sand on the sea coast; and such a tumult ensues, that to save the ship from sinking by their pressure, the sirens raise a furious storm. The flights of imagination become more wild as the story advances. The storm subsides, and is succeeded by a shower of poets, that is to say, poets fall from the clouds. One of the first who descends on the ship is Lope de Vega, on whom Cervantes seizes this opportunity of pronouncing a pompous eulogium. The remainder of the poem, a complete analysis of which would occupy too much space, proceeds in the same spirit. One of the most beautiful pieces of verse ever written by Cervantes, is his description of the goddess Poesy, whom he sees in all her glory in the kingdom of Apollo.[348] To this fine picture the portrait of the goddess Vain-Glory, who afterwards appears to the author in a dream, forms an excellent companion.[349] Among the passages which for burlesque humour vie with Don Quixote is the description of a second storm, in which Neptune vainly endeavours to plunge the poetasters to the bottom of the deep. Venus prevents them from sinking, by changing them into empty gourds and leather bottles.[350] At length a formal battle is fought between the real poets and some of the poetasters. The poem is throughout interspersed with singularly witty and beautiful ideas; and only a very few passages can be charged with feebleness or langour. It has never been equalled, far less surpassed by any similar work, and it had no prototype. The language is classical throughout; and it is only to be regretted, that Cervantes has added to the poem a comic supplement in prose, in which he indulges a little too freely in self-praise.

The dramatic compositions of Cervantes, were they all extant, would be the most voluminous, though, certainly, not the best portion of his works. Perhaps those which are now lost may yet be recovered; for a fortunate accident brought to light two dramas, which had remained concealed in manuscript till near the end of the eighteenth century.[351] Cervantes includes some of his dramas among those productions with which he was himself most satisfied; and he seems to have regarded them with the greater self-complacency in proportion as they experienced the neglect of the public.[352] This conduct has sometimes been attributed to a spirit of contradiction, and sometimes to vanity. The editor of the eight plays (chiefly heroic) and eight interludes, which were the last dramatic productions of Cervantes, has adopted the absurd notion, that Cervantes in writing these pieces, intended to parody and ridicule the style of Lope de Vega;[353] which is merely saying that he attacked the whole literary public of Spain in the most discourteous way. No traces of parody appear in any of those dramas. They are, however, with the exception of a few successful scenes, so dull and tedious, that one might be inclined to regard them as counterfeit productions by another author, were it not that their authenticity seems to be sufficiently proved. The little interludes alone exhibit burlesque humour and dramatic spirit. That the penetrating and profound Cervantes should have so mistaken the limits of his dramatic talent, would not be sufficiently accounted for even by his vanity, had he not unquestionably proved by his tragedy of Numantia how pardonable was the self-deception of which he could not divest himself. Cervantes was entitled to consider himself endowed with a genius for dramatic poetry. But he could not preserve his independence in the conflict he had to maintain with the conditions required by the Spanish public in dramatic composition; and when he sacrificed his independence, and submitted to rules imposed by others, his invention and language were reduced to the level of a poet of inferior talent. The intrigues, adventures, and surprises which in that age characterized the Spanish drama, were ill suited to the genius of Cervantes. His natural style was too profound and precise to be reconciled to fantastical ideas, expressed in irregular verse. But he was Spaniard enough to be gratified with dramas, which, as a poet, he could not imitate; and he imagined himself capable of imitating them, because he would have shone in another species of dramatic composition, had the public taste accommodated itself to his genius.

With all its imperfections and faults, Cervantes’s tragedy of Numantia is a noble production, and, like Don Quixote, it is unparalleled in the class of literature to which it belongs. It proves that under different circumstances the author of Don Quixote might have been the Æschylus of Spain. The conception is in the style of the boldest pathos, and the execution, at least taken as a whole, is vigorous and dignified. The ancient Roman History from which Cervantes selected the story of the destruction of Numantia, afforded but few positive facts of which he could avail himself in his heroic tragedy. He therefore invented along with the subject of his piece a peculiar style of tragic composition, in doing which he did not pay much regard to the theory of Aristotle. His object was to produce a piece full of tragic situations, combined with the charm of the marvellous. The tragedy is written in conformity with no rules save those which Cervantes prescribed to himself; for he felt no inclination to imitate the Greek forms. The play is divided into four acts (_jornadas_), and no chorus is introduced. The dialogue is sometimes in tercets, and sometimes in redondillas, and for the most part in octaves, without any regard to rule. The diction does not maintain equal dignity throughout; but it is in no instance affected or bombastic. Cervantes has evinced admirable skill in gradually heightening the tragic interest to the close of the piece. The commencement is, however, somewhat cold and tedious. Scipio appears with his generals in the Roman camp before Numantia. In a speech which might have been improved by abridgment, he reprimands his troops, whose spirit has begun to give way to effeminacy. The soldiers are re-inspired with courage. Numantian ambassadors enter with proposals for peace, which are rejected. It is here that the tragedy properly begins. Spain appears as an allegorical character, and she summons the river Duero, or Durius, on whose banks Numantia stands. The old river god appears, attended by a retinue of the deities of the smaller rivers of the surrounding country. These ideal characters consult the book of fate, and discover that Numantia cannot be saved. Whatever may be said against the bold idea of endeavouring to augment the tragic pathos by means of allegorical characters, it must be acknowledged that in this case the result of the experiment is not altogether unsuccessful, and Cervantes justly prides himself in the novelty of the idea. The scene is now transferred to Numantia. The senate is assembled to deliberate on the affairs of the city, and among the members the character of Theagenes shines with conspicuous lustre. Bold resolutions are adopted by the senate. The transition into light redondillas, for the purpose of interweaving with the serious business of the fable, the loves of a young Numantian named Morandro, and his mistress, is certainly a fault in the composition of the tragedy. But to this fault we are indebted for some of the finest scenes in the following act. A solemn sacrifice is prepared; but amidst the ceremony an evil spirit appears, seizes the victim, and extinguishes the fire. The confusion in the town increases. A dead man is resuscitated by magic, and the scene in which this incident occurs has a most imposing effect.[354] All hope has now vanished. After the return of a second unsuccessful embassy, the Numantians, by the advice of Theagenes, resolve to burn all their valuable property, then to put their wives and children to death, and lastly to throw themselves in the flames, lest any of the inhabitants of the town should become the slaves of the Romans. Scenes of the most heart-rending domestic misery, and the noblest traits of patriotism then ensue.[355] Famine rages in Numantia.[356] Morandro, accompanied by one of his friends, ventures to enter the Roman camp. He returns with a piece of bread smeared with blood, and, presenting it to his famished mistress, falls at her feet mortally wounded.[357] The action proceeds with unabated interest to the end. An allegorical character of Fame enters at the close of the piece, and announces the future glory of Spain.

Allegorical characters, for instance, Necessity and Opportunity, likewise appear in Cervantes’s comedy, _El Trato de Argel_ (Life in Algiers, or Manners in Algiers). But their introduction amidst scenes of common life injures the story, which is besides by no means ingenious, and imparts a cold and whimsical character to the piece. This comedy, however, which is divided into five acts, is not destitute of interest and spirit.

The romance of Persiles and Sigismunda, which Cervantes finished shortly before his death, must be regarded as an interesting appendix to his other works.[358] The language and the whole composition of the story, exhibit the purest simplicity, combined with singular precision and polish. The idea of this romance was not new, and scarcely deserved to be reproduced in a new manner. But it appears that Cervantes at the close of his glorious career took a fancy to imitate Heliodorus. He has maintained the interest of the situations, but the whole work is merely a romantic description of travels, rich enough in frightful adventures, both by sea and land. Real and fabulous geography and history are mixed together in an absurd and monstrous manner; and the second half of the romance, in which the scene is transferred to Spain and Italy, does not exactly harmonize with the spirit of the first half.

If we cast a glance on the collected works of Cervantes, in order to ascertain what their author was entitled to claim as his original property, independently of his contemporaries and predecessors, we shall find that the genius of that poet, who is in general only

## partially estimated, shines with the brighter lustre the longer it is

contemplated. That kind of criticism which is to be learnt, contributed but little to the developement and formation of his genius. A critical tact, which is a truer guide than any rule, but which abandons genius when it forgets itself, secured the fancy of Cervantes against the aberrations of common minds, and his sportive wit was always subject to the control of solid judgment. The vanity which occasionally made him mistake the true bent of his talent, must be confessed to have been pardonable, considering how little he was known to his contemporaries. He did not even know himself, though he felt the consciousness of his genius. From the mental height to which he had raised himself, he might, without too highly rating his own abilities, look down on all the writers of his age. More than one poet of great, of immortal genius, might be placed beside him in his own country; but of all the Spanish poets Cervantes alone belongs to the whole world.

LOPE DE VEGA.

Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, the rival and conqueror of Cervantes in the conflict of dramatic art, was born at Madrid, in the year 1562. He was consequently fifteen years younger than Cervantes. Marvellous stories are related respecting the early developement of his poetic genius and his talent for composing verses. Though his parents were not rich, yet he received a literary education; and he is also said to have distinguished himself in corporeal exercises. He lost his parents before he was old enough to attend the university; but through the assistance of Don Geronymo Manrique, the grand inquisitor, and Bishop of Avila, who was much attached to him, he was enabled to complete a course of philosophy at Alcala. After obtaining his degree at that university, he returned to Madrid, where he became secretary to the Duke of Alba. He shortly afterwards married; and from this period, which seemed to promise a career of tranquil happiness, the stormy vicissitudes of his life commenced. He became engaged in a quarrel, fought a duel, wounded his antagonist dangerously, and was obliged to fly. For several years he lived an exile from Madrid; and on his return his wife unfortunately died. Harrassed by this series of calamities, and being as warm a patriot as he was a sincere catholic, he entered into one of the military corps which were embarked on board the invincible armada for the invasion of England. Though he himself returned in safety to Madrid, yet he was deeply grieved at the ill success of the armada. His vigorous constitution, however, enabled him to keep up his spirits; he again became a secretary, once more entered into the married state, and passed some time in uninterrupted domestic happiness. On the death of his second wife, who survived her marriage only a few years, he resolved to forego the pleasures of the world, and for that purpose took holy orders. He did not, however, retire to a convent; but he devoted himself wholly to the study of poetry,--to that study, which from childhood upwards, had principally engrossed his mind, and in the active prosecution of which he produced so extraordinary a result, that it is difficult to conceive how any man could even during the most protracted existence, write as much as Lope de Vega: and yet he spent a part of his life in civil business, and in the discharge of military duties. He composed in all the various kinds of verse which were in use in his time; and he succeeded in all. But his dramas in particular were received with an enthusiasm which the labours of no other Spanish poet had ever excited. He so precisely struck the chord which harmonized with the taste of the Spanish public, that he has been worshipped as the inventor of the national comedy, though he only pursued the tract which Torres Naharro originally opened.

Lope de Vega’s fertility of invention is as unparalleled in the history of poetry, as the talent which enabled him to compose regular and well constructed verses with as much facility as if he had been writing prose. Cervantes styles him _el monstruo de naturaleza_, (the prodigy of nature) and this name was not given him merely in levity. He was constrained by no rules of criticism; not that he was ignorant of the theory of the ancient poetry, but he took delight in letting his verses flow freely from his pen, confident in the success of whatever he might produce. The public, he observed, paid for the drama, and he thought it but fair that those who paid should be served with that which suited their taste. Lope de Vega required no more than four-and-twenty hours to write a versified drama of three acts in redondillas, interspersed with sonnets, tercets and octaves, and from beginning to end abounding in intrigues, prodigies, or interesting situations. This astonishing facility enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre with upwards of two thousand original dramas, of which not more than three hundred have been preserved by printing. In general the theatrical manager carried away what he wrote before he had even time to revise it; and immediately a fresh applicant would arrive to prevail on him to commence a new piece. He sometimes wrote a play in the short space of three or four hours. The profits which the theatrical managers derived from the writings of Lope de Vega, enabled them to bestow such liberal payment on the author, that at one time he is supposed to have been possessed of upwards of a hundred thousand ducats. But he did not long preserve his fortune, though from the commencement of his celebrity he always possessed enough to enable him to live with comfort. His purse was ever open to the poor of Madrid.

But Lope de Vega’s poetic talent procured him even more glory than gain. No Spanish poet was ever so much honoured during his life. The nobility and the public vied in expressing their admiration of him. He was chosen president (_capellan mayor_) of the spiritual college of Madrid, of which he had previously been admitted as a member. Pope Urban VIII. sent him the cross of Malta, and the degree of doctor of theology, accompanied by a flattering letter. The pope also appointed him fiscal of the apostolic chamber. For these distinctions Lope de Vega was not indebted merely to his poetic talents. No Spanish poet of celebrity had hitherto manifested in his writings such enthusiastic interest for the triumph of the catholic religion. He was accordingly appointed familiar to the inquisition, a post which was at that period regarded as singularly honourable. But the Spanish public adopted another mode of expressing their admiration of their favourite dramatist. Whenever Lope de Vega appeared in the streets, he was surrounded by crowds of people, all eager to gain a sight of the prodigy of nature. The boys ran shouting after him, and those who could not keep pace with the rest, stood and gazed on him with wonder as he passed. He died in 1631, in the sixty-third year of his age. His funeral was conducted with princely magnificence. The ceremony was directed by his patron, the Duke of Susa, whom he appointed executor of his will. The music of the high mass which was celebrated at his funeral, was executed by the performers of the chapel royal. During the exequies, which lasted three days, three bishops officiated in their pontifical robes. The memory of the “Spanish Phenix,” as he was usually styled by the publishers of his plays, was celebrated with no less pomp in all the theatres of Spain. Arithmetical calculations have been employed, in order to arrive at a just estimate of Lope de Vega’s facility in poetic composition. According to his own testimony, he wrote on an average five sheets per day; it has therefore been computed that the number of sheets which he composed during his life, must have amounted to one hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty-five, and that allowing for the deduction of a small portion of prose, Lope de Vega must have written upwards of twenty-one millions, three hundred thousand verses.[359]

Nature would have overstepped her bounds and have produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this rapidity of invention and composition, attained perfection in any department of literature. Nature, however, did her utmost for Lope de Vega; for even the rudest, most incorrect, and verbose of his works, are imbued with a poetic spirit which no methodical art can create. This poetic spirit is, at the same time so national and so completely Spanish, that without an intimate acquaintance with the works of other Spanish poets, and

## particularly those who flourished at an early period, it is impossible

to perceive Lope de Vega’s merits and defects, or to understand their connection with each other. On this account, however, he was in a peculiar manner the poet of the Spanish public, the favourite of all ranks; and on this account have his writings always been partially or erroneously judged.

Lope de Vega was born for dramatic poetry. In every other class of composition, he was merely an accurate imitator, or if he struck out a new course, it was in so imperfect a way, that his example was injurious to the cause of literature. But as a dramatic poet, if he did not create the Spanish comedy, properly so called, his inexhaustible fancy and the fascinating ease of his animated composition confirmed to it that character which has since distinguished it. All subsequent Spanish dramatic poets trod in the footsteps of Lope de Vega, until genius was banished from the sphere it occupied by the introduction of the French taste in Spain. The successors of Lope de Vega merely improved on the models which he had created. He fixed for a century and a half the spirit and the style of nearly all the different kinds of dramatic entertainment in Spain. It may therefore be proper to unite with a notice of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, a sketch of the characteristics of the various species of plays then performed in Spain; and this sketch will at the same time serve as a key to all the peculiarities of the Spanish drama.

Since the age of Lope de Vega, the word comedy (_comedia_) has had in the dramatic language of Spain a totally different signification from that which was attached to it by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and which it retains in most countries of modern Europe. It is the generic name of several species of drama, some of which, according to our established notions, are neither comedies nor tragedies; but all of which approximate to one common spirit of invention and execution. The critic will inevitably form an erroneous judgment of these works, if he be guided by notions deduced from the Greek and Roman drama, and which, with certain limitations, are applicable to all dramatic compositions except the Spanish comedy. The spirit of the Spanish comedy must not be sought for in that popular satire, which constitutes the very essence of the ancient and modern comedy, properly so called. The compositions in which it is to be found are of a totally different nature. In them stories of country and city life are clothed in romantic poetic colours, and blended with the interesting inventions of a bold and irregular fancy, without any distinction between the gay and the serious, or the comic and the tragic. In a word, a Spanish comedy is in its principle a dramatic novel; and as there are tragic, comic, historical, and purely imaginative novels, so, in like manner, the Spanish comedy readily adopts those various modes of exciting interest on the stage. In Spanish comedies as in novels, princes and potentates are no more out of place than jockeys and fops; and these dissimilar characters may all be introduced on the stage at once, should the progress of the intrigue require so heterogeneous an approximation. Satire is therefore merely an agreeable accessary in the Spanish comedy, of which the poet may avail himself at his pleasure. In these comedies the powerful delineation of character is no more essential than in novels. Even a motley combination of burlesque and serious, vulgar and pathetic scenes, is not hostile to the spirit of a Spanish comedy, the object of which is not to maintain the interest in a particular direction. The subject of the piece may be a moving or a horrific story; still the picture presented is entertaining, but entertaining in a manner totally different from that kind of comedy which exhibits the follies of life in a satirical point of view. A continuance of the pathetic or the horrific would be as little congenial to the spirit of those dramatic novels which the Spaniards call comedies, as a continuance of the ludicrous. In this is manifested the first of the peculiar conditions required by the Spanish public, of which notice has already been taken in treating of the origin of the Spanish comedy. With any other people than the Spaniards these dramatic novels would have assumed a somewhat different character, without, however, departing from their original spirit. But this class of dramatic composition, which admits of the most singular mixture of the pompous and the ludicrous, was particularly suited to the Spaniards of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as by it they were relieved from any long duration of serious impressions. With this first requisite of a changeable dramatic form, which Lope de Vega completely satisfied, was associated a second. A complicated plot was indispensable in every drama, the subject of which was drawn from the sphere of common life. As a substitute for that sort of plot in historical comedies, extraordinary and striking adventures were introduced, and in spiritual comedies, miracles. According to the universally received notion of a Spanish comedy, in Lope de Vega’s time, no distinction was made between the sacred and the profane styles; for a legend was dramatized as a spiritual novel.

Whether a nation which was satisfied with such comedies did or did not beguile itself of the purest and most perfect developement of dramatic genius, is a question for separate discussion. But the Spanish comedy considered in all its modifications, as a particular species of drama, may stand the test of sound criticism; and Lope de Vega in a great measure contributed to fix the national taste in these modifications. In his time the classification was first made of sacred and profane dramas, or as the Spaniards called them, _comedias Divinas y Humanas_. The profane comedies were again divided into _comedias Heroycas_, (Heroic comedies); and _comedias de Capa y Espada_, (comedies of the Cloak and Sword.) The heroic comedies were originally the same as the historical, but the title was subsequently extended to mythological and allegorical dramas. The comedies of the _Capa y Espada_, were founded on subjects selected from the sphere of fashionable life, and exhibited the manners of the age; they were likewise performed in the costume of the times. At a later period a subdivision of these _comedias de Capa y Espada_ was formed under the name of _comedias de Figuròn_, because the principal character was either a needy adventurer representing himself as a rich nobleman, or a lady of the same class. In Lope de Vega’s time also, the sacred comedies began to be divided into dramatized _Vidas de Santos_ and _Autos Sacramentales_. Both classes were founded on the model of the dramas, which used to be represented in the cloisters. The _Autos Sacramentales_, which had all a reference to the administration of the sacrament, according to catholic notions, seem to have had their origin in the age of Lope de Vega; at least in the prelude to one of his _Autos_ (the word literally signifies acts) a countrywoman questions her husband respecting the nature of these dramas.[360] Finally, to the different kinds of Spanish comedy existing in Lope de Vega’s age, must be added the little preludes or recommendatory pieces, called _loas_, and the interludes, or _entremeses_, introduced between the prelude and the principal comedy, and which when interspersed with music and dancing, are denominated _saynetes_.

Heroic and historical comedies form a considerable portion of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, in so far as they have been preserved. The tragic scenes in many of these comedies, so well harmonized with the national taste of the Spaniards, that they readily dispensed with genuine tragedy; and as vivid a recollection of the old national history was maintained by these theatrical representations as by the old romances. But few of Lope’s historical comedies relate, like his _Gran Duque de Moscovia_, to foreign subjects. In point of composition, his dramas do not materially differ one from the other. Even in his historical pieces, he uses such freedoms with respect to the unity of

## action, that only a slight similitude connects the acts and scenes

together; and he totally disregards the unities of time and place. The execution of these dramas is no less irregular than their composition. According to the humour in which the author happened to be when engaged in his literary labour, his descriptions and language are vigorous or feeble, noble or mean, unpolished or highly refined. A description of _Las Almenas de Toro_ (the Battlements of Toro), one of the best productions in the class to which it belongs, will afford a tolerably correct idea of Lope de Vega’s historical comedies. The subject of this piece is the murder of King Don Sancho, by Bellido Dolfos, a knight whom the king had offended by a violation of his promise, a story which has likewise furnished materials for several old romances. The Cid Ruy Diaz is a principal character in this comedy, which, like all others of the same kind, is divided into three acts.[361] The scene opens with a view of the country before the strongly fortified town of Toro in Leon. The King Don Sancho, the Cid, and a Count Anzures enter. The king explains to the two knights, that state reasons prevent him from fulfilling his father’s will, and that he cannot leave his two sisters, the infantas Elvira and Urraca, in possession of the strong fortresses of Toro and Zamora.[362] The Cid with noble sincerity avows his opinion of the king’s injustice towards his sisters, and offers himself as a mediator in the dispute. The king and Count Anzures retire. The Cid advances to the walls, and meets a knight named Ordonez, who has just come out of the fortress to execute some enterprize in favour of the infanta Elvira. Both knights are about to draw; but they recognize each other, and embrace. The Cid is pourtrayed in all the greatness of his character.[363] The infanta appears on the walls, and states to the Cid her reasons for not opening the gates to her brother. The king re-appears, and orders preparations for storming the garrison. The scene changes--Don Vela, an old knight who has withdrawn from the tumult of public life, appears in front of his country residence. He communes with himself in a speech full of dignity and beauty, but in some passages too poetical for the drama.[364] His daughter enters singing, and surrounded by a rustic group. This

## scene introduces a romantic episode which is interwoven with the main

## action, and the hero of which is a prince of Burgundy, disguised as a

peasant, who is enamoured of the daughter of Don Vela. The scene again changes to the neighbourhood of Toro. The infanta Elvira appears on the battlements, and negotiations are once more set on foot. The king himself holds a conversation with his sister, which, however, produces no conciliatory result. This brief, pointed, and not very courteous dialogue, is interspersed with plays of wit on the word _Toro_, the name of the fortress, which in Spanish signifies a bull.[365] The king instantly commands scaling ladders to be brought, and the storming of the fortress commences, but the besiegers are repulsed. Thus the first act concludes. With the commencement of the second act the rural episode becomes more nearly allied to the main action. A sonnet in which the disguised prince of Burgundy, and his mistress Sancha, express their sentiments of mutual attachment, affords an instance of that protracted kind of metaphor, which Lope de Vega employed on such occasions, and which, a hundred years afterwards, Metastasio likewise adopted in his opera songs, as the poetic language of passion.[366] Don Bellido Dolfos prevails on the king to promise him the hand of the infanta Elvira, on condition of his taking the fortress. By dint of the vilest perfidy Bellido Dolfos succeeds; but the king, who is of opinion that a traitor should be rewarded with treachery, refuses to abide by his promise. Bellido Dolfos meditates revenge. Meanwhile Elvira escapes in the disguise of a peasant, and takes refuge in the house of Don Vela. With this combination of heroic and tender, domestic and rural situations, the action proceeds, until Bellido Dolfos murders the king; an incident, however, which does not take place oh the stage. The infanta Elvira returns to Toro, where she receives the homage of her people, and the prince of Burgundy avowing his real character, is united to his beloved Sancha.

Lope de Vega’s _Comedias de Capa y Espada_, or those which may properly be denominated his dramas of intrigue, though wanting in the delineation of character, are romantic pictures of manners, drawn from real life. They present, in their peculiar style, no less interest with respect to situations than his heroic comedies; and the same irregularity in the composition of the scenes. The language, too, is alternately elegant and vulgar, sometimes highly poetic, and sometimes, though versified, reduced to the level of the dullest prose. Lope de Vega seems scarcely to have bestowed a thought on maintaining probability in the succession of the different scenes; ingenious complication is with him the essential point in the interest of his situations. Intrigues are twisted and entwined together, until the poet, in order to bring his piece to a conclusion, without ceremony cuts the knots he cannot untie; and then he usually brings as many couples together as he can by any possible contrivance match. He has scattered through his pieces occasional reflections and maxims of prudence, but any genuine morality which might be conveyed through the stage, is wanting, for its introduction would have been inconsistent with that poetic freedom on which the dramatic interest of the Spanish comedy is founded. His aim was to paint what he observed, not what he would have approved, in the manners of the fashionable world of his age; but he leaves it to the spectator to draw his own inferences. In this indirect way only, could the Spanish public tolerate useful applications in the drama; for the Spaniard always considered the morality with which he was occupied in church sufficient. An exuberant gallantry, which may or may not be veiled by decorum, and which is at all times only slightly restrained by notions of honour, but never by a sense of moral duty, constitutes the very essence of these dramas, _de Capa y Espada_. Where the passion is vehement, it advances with true Spanish ardour to the attainment of its object; where it is tender and sentimental, the romantic tirades and far-fetched plays of wit are inexhaustible. That _love excuses every thing_, was at this time the darling maxim of the gay world in Madrid; and in conformity with its spirit, Lope de Vega’s young heroes and heroines plunge headlong into intrigue. Free scope is given to the basest artifice and perfidy; the man of fashion draws his sword on the slightest provocation; and whether he desperately wounds, or even kills his adversary, is a matter of indifference. Disguises, too, abound in these dramas. One of the most interesting of Lope’s comedies in this class, is _La Villana de Xetafe_, (the Peasant Girl of Xetafe, a village in the vicinity of Madrid). It exhibits a series of the boldest and most dexterous impostures, by means of which the interesting heroine succeeds in entrapping her lover, who is a man of condition, into the bonds of matrimony. The confessors must have found some difficulty in counteracting the ill effects which could not fail to be occasionally produced by such examples, though they were by no means set up as models. The fascinating natural painting of these intrigues, which at the same time always possess a certain poetic elevation, constitutes the chief charm of Lope de Vega’s comedies. The deviation from nature in expression, which has frequently been a subject of reproach to this prolific writer, is in most instances merely attributable to negligence or rapidity of composition. He faithfully embodies the general forms of character, which, to be sure, are all alike in the class of Spanish comedies now under consideration. The _vejete_ (old man), the _galan_ (lover), the _dama_ (young lady), together with a suitable number of servants and waiting women, are the standing characters which are constantly introduced with no variety, except in the situations; but at the same time, they are drawn in such animated colours, that the perusal of one or two of these dramas of intrigue is sufficient to render the reader familiar with the whole world which the poet describes. In Lope’s comedies, as in real life, the (_gracioso_) buffoon and the fool are occasionally the same character. They have also superfluous parts; personages totally unconnected with the business of the drama are sometimes introduced.

In order to afford an idea of the composition of this portion of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, we may select, as a specimen, the comedy entitled, _La Viuda de Valencia_ (the Widow of Valencia). It is one of the pieces of this master in the art of intrigue in which the complication is best contrived, and it is besides remarkable in the class to which it belongs for the unity which is preserved in the

## action. The scene is laid in Valencia in the time of the carnival.

Leonarda, a young rich and handsome widow, living according to her own fancy, has resolved never to re-marry. She enters with a book in her hand; for she reads works of all sorts, sacred and profane, not from piety or love of literature, but merely to amuse herself, while she never deigns to bestow a thought on the suitors by whom she is surrounded. On the subject of her reading she discourses very reasonably with her waiting woman.[367] Her arch attendant turns the conversation in such a way, that the young widow, with all her pretended wisdom, is induced to view herself in a looking glass, and in the very act of doing so, she is surprised by a visit from her uncle. The old gentleman assures his fair niece, who is highly vexed at the surprise, that she does well to convince herself of the power of her charms by such indisputable testimony.[368] When, however, he begins to talk of marriage, the lady contemptuously sketches a burlesque portrait of a Madrid beau,[369] and describes, though in a less happy style the unfortunate consequences of an imprudent match. The old uncle takes his leave, and the scene changes, or rather it is transferred to the other division of the stage. The three admirers of the beautiful Leonarda meet each other in front of her house. They express their wishes and hopes in sonnets, the subjects of which are long-winded metaphors. As none of the party can boast of his mistress’s favour, they mutually acknowledge their ill success, and each describes a burlesque adventure, which has occurred to him during the night, in front of Leonarda’s house. One relates, that under the supposition that he was stabbing a rival, he thrust his poignard into a skin of stolen wine.[370] Meanwhile Leonarda hastily returns from church, where she has seen a young gentleman with whom she has fallen deeply in love. She immediately forms a plan to induce this gentleman, whose name is Camillo, to visit her, without either knowing who she is or whither he is conducted. The whole intrigue is managed by Leonarda’s coachman Urbano, who is at the same time the _gracioso_, or buffoon of the piece.[371] While Urbano is gone out in quest of Camillo, the three suitors, without any previous arrangement with each other, arrive disguised as dealers in books and copper-plate prints. They obtain an interview with Leonarda, and make avowals of their passion; but she receives them very unfavourably, and they are all obliged to make a rapid retreat to avoid being roughly handled by the servants. This scene is highly amusing. In the second act Camillo appears, and after long hesitation, he consents to engage in the romantic adventure. Urbano dresses him in a doctor’s cloak, and drawing the hood (_capirote_) over his eyes, he conducts him blindfold, with comic effect, through a variety of windings, to the house of Leonarda. The lady receives him in the dark. Lights are afterwards brought in, but Leonarda remains masked. A sumptuous collation is prepared, of which the young gentleman’s doubt and embarrassment will not permit him to taste a morsel. He compares himself to Alexander, when he took the suspected goblet from the hand of his physician.[372] A tender dialogue ensues, after which the hood is again drawn over the eyes of Camillo, and he is conducted from Leonarda’s house. In this manner the intrigue proceeds; but between many of the scenes, whole days, and even weeks are supposed to intervene. Leonarda and her lover become more and more intimate, though he neither knows who she is, nor where she resides. All his endeavours to discover these secrets are unavailing; and at length he begins to suspect that his unknown mistress is an old cousin of Leonarda. In the mean time the three rejected suitors, who still mix in the plot, become jealous of the coachman Urbano; and one spirited scene succeeds another until an affray occurs in which an honourable suitor of Leonarda is wounded. This accident produces the denouement. Camillo recognizes in his unknown mistress the beautiful widow with whom he was previously acquainted, and whose hand he joyfully accepts. Thus the piece is a comedy from beginning to end.

Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedies, afford a picture of the religious notions of the Spaniards in the age in which he lived, not less faithfully pourtrayed than that by which his dramas of intrigue represent the manners of Spanish society. Pure piety, according to catholic ideas, wildly blended with the most contradictory chimeras, and these chimeras again ennobled by the boldest flights of imagination, form altogether a monstrous and extravagant patch-work; but this heterogeneous variety is, nevertheless, united by the ramifications of a poetic spirit, into a whole, to which no European imagination could now be expected to produce a resemblance. But Lope de Vega seems not to have come to a positive determination respecting what ought to have been the true spirit of these dramatic pictures of religious faith. The mixture of poetic and unpoetic elements is very unequal in his different spiritual comedies. His Lives of the Saints possess far more dramatic spirit than his Autos Sacramentales; while on the other hand, allegory imparts a higher dignity to the religious mysticism of the latter. Both, however, have in common a kind of operatic style, combined with the display of theatrical machinery and decoration, calculated to captivate the senses. Of all the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, the Lives of the Saints are in every respect the most irregular. Allegorical characters, buffoons, saints, peasants, students, kings, God, the infant Jesus, the devil, and all the most heterogeneous beings that the wildest imagination could bring together, are introduced. Music seems always to have been an indispensable accessary. Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedy, entitled the Life of Saint Nicolas de Tolentino,[373] commences with a conversation maintained by a party of students, who make a display of their wit and scholastic learning. Among them is the future saint, whose piety shines with the brighter lustre when contrasted with the disorderly gaiety of those by whom he is surrounded. The devil disguised by a mask joins the party. A skeleton appears in the air; the sky opens, and the Almighty is discovered sitting in judgment attended by Justice and Mercy, who alternately influence his decisions. Next succeeds a love intrigue between a lady named Rosalia, and a gentleman named Feniso. The future saint then re-enters attired in canonicals, and delivers a sermon in redondillas. The parents of the saint congratulate themselves on possessing such a son; and this scene forms the conclusion of the first act. At the opening of the second a party of soldiers are discovered; the saint enters accompanied by several monks, and offers up a prayer in the form of a sonnet. Brother Peregrino relates the romantic history of his conversion. Subtle theological fooleries ensue, and numerous anecdotes of the lives of the saints are related. St. Nicolas prays again through the medium of a sonnet. He then rises in the air, either by the power of faith, or the help of the theatrical machinery; and the Holy Virgin and St. Augustin descend from heaven to meet him.[374] In the third act the scene is transferred to Rome, where two cardinals exhibit the holy sere cloth to the people by torch light. Music performed on clarionets adds to the solemnity of this ceremony, during which pious discourses are delivered. St. Nicolas is next discovered embroidering the habit of his order; and the pious observations which he makes, while engaged in this occupation, are accompanied by the chaunting of invisible angels. The music attracts the devil, who endeavours to tempt St. Nicolas. The next scene exhibits souls in the torments of purgatory. The devil again appears attended by a retinue of lions, serpents, and other hideous animals; but in a scene, which is intended for burlesque, (_graciosamente_) a monk armed with a great broom drives off the devil and his suite.[375] At the conclusion of the piece the saint whose beatification is now complete, descends from heaven in a garment bespangled with stars. As soon as he touches the earth, the souls of his father and mother are released from purgatory and rise through a rock; the saint then returns hand-in-hand with his parents to heaven, music playing as they ascend.

The _Autos Sacramentales_ of Lope de Vega must have been far less attractive than his Lives of the Saints. Compared with the latter, their construction appears very simple, and they are executed in a style of theological refinement which could not have been perfectly intelligible to the multitude. But the allegorical characters, which are the most prominent in these pieces, produce an imposing effect. The dramas themselves are in general short. In one which represents the fall, Man disputes with Sin and the Devil, and Earth and Time take

## part in the dialogue. Next are discovered Justice and Mercy seated

beneath a canopy, and at a table furnished with writing materials. Man is interrogated before this tribunal. The Prince of heaven, or Saviour, enters. Reflection, or Care, (_Cuidado_) kneels and delivers a letter to him. The Saviour, who takes his station behind a grating, makes Man undergo another judicial examination, and pardons him.[376] But the devil re-appears and protests against the pardon.[377] Man has next to contend with Vanity and Folly, who are introduced as allegorical characters. Christ again appears with the crown of thorns. In conclusion, the heavens open and Christ ascends to his celestial throne, with the usual accompaniment of music. Direct allusions to the sacrament of the altar were seldom necessary in the Autos, as the whole tendency of the allegorical action was directed to that object.

Lope de Vega’s _Loas_, and more particularly his _Entremeses_ and _Saynetes_, seem to have been intended to indemnify the audience for the theological allegory of the sacramental dramas; for it is only in connection with the Autos that these preludes and interludes are to be found. The Loas are not always comic, and are sometimes only spirited monologues. The interludes, or Entremeses and Saynetes, may also be called preludes, for though they were performed after the Loa, which was properly the prologue, yet they preceded the Auto: these interludes are burlesque from beginning to end, and form a preparation for the devotion of the Auto, quite in the Spanish taste. Farces of this kind, pourtraying the incidents of common life, never destitute of genuine comic spirit, and written for the most part in verse, soon became indispensable to the Spaniards, and even to this day are never omitted in their dramatic performances. The interludes of Lope de Vega and Cervantes seem to have been the models of all that succeeded them.

The dramatic genius of Lope de Vega has rendered him immortal. In the seventeenth century his plays were universally read and performed throughout Spain. In general they were first published singly, and for the most part with the bookseller’s epithet--_Comedia Famosa_, (the Celebrated Comedy), which subsequently became a universal device, affixed to all comedies printed in Spain. In this manner Lope de Vega’s most popular comedies were, partly during the life of the author, and

## partly after his death, collected in five-and-twenty volumes;[378]

exclusively of the Autos, preludes, and interludes, which afterwards formed a separate publication.[379] Among Lope’s scattered dramas which have been printed at a later period, are some which are expressly denominated tragedies.[380]

The other poetic works of this prolific writer, must be very briefly noticed; for to give any thing like a particular account of them would require the space of a considerable volume.[381] In epic poetry he maintained an unsuccessful contest with Tasso. His _Jerusalem Conquistada_,[382] consists indeed of twenty cantos in octaves, and contains some beautiful passages, but it will in no respect bear a comparison with the Italian poem. Lope de Vega also augmented the number of the continuers of Ariosto’s Orlando, by the publication of _La Hermosura de Angelica_,[383] (the Beauty of Angelica), which is also a narrative poem in twenty cantos, though shorter than those of the Jerusalem. His other attempts at epic composition are--_La Corona Tragica_,[384] (the Tragic Crown), or the history of the unfortunate Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland; and the _Circe_ and _Dragontea_.[385] The _Corona Tragica_ is full of furious invective against the protestants and against Queen Elizabeth in particular.[386] The hero of the _Dragontea_ is Admiral Drake, who is introduced in this poem as the tool of Satan, in order that he may finally serve as an example of poetic justice. To compete with Sanazzar, Lope wrote a second Arcadia,[387] in the style of the Italian. He likewise wrote several poems, which may be called eclogues in the proper sense of the term. His _Arte Nueva de Hazer Comedias_, (New Art of Writing Comedies), is a humorous satire on his opponents under the appearance of ridiculing himself.[388] He anonymously supplied the _Romancero General_ with thirty-six romances.[389] His spiritual poems are to be found in great profusion; and the number of his sonnets, some of which possess first-rate merit, is considerable. His _Laurel de Apolo_, a Eulogy on various Spanish Poets, which has been frequently quoted, is but an indifferent production.[390] His epistles are sufficiently numerous. Among his miscellaneous poems, those of the comic kind have most originality, as for example: _La Gatomachia_, (the Battle of Cats),[391] and the whole collection of miscellaneous poems which he published under the assumed name of the Licentiate Tomè de Burguillos.[392] Among his most celebrated prose works, are _El Peregrino en su Patria_, (the Stranger in his own Country), a tolerably long novel.[393] _Dorothea_, a dramatic story, or as it is called, _Accion en Prosa_;[394] and a Collection of Novels.[395]

THE BROTHERS LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA.

Among the poets who flourished during the period now under consideration, the place next in rank to Cervantes and Lope de Vega, must be assigned to two brothers, whom their countrymen have surnamed the Horaces of Spain. Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola born in 1565, and Bartholemè Leonardo de Argensola, born in 1566, belonged to a respectable family, of Italian origin, but settled in Arragon. Lupercio, who pursued his academic studies in Saragossa, had the satisfaction to witness the successful performance of three tragedies, which he wrote in the twentieth year of his age, and which are honourably mentioned by Cervantes in his Don Quixote. His taste, however, led him to cultivate another style of poetry, in which he could imitate Horace, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer. His family connection facilitated his introduction to persons of rank; and he became secretary to the Empress Maria of Austria, who at that time resided in Spain. He was soon after appointed chamberlain to the Archduke Albert of Austria. King Philip III. nominated him one of the chroniclers or historiographers of Arragon, and directed him to continue the annals of Zurita; and the states of Arragon, which already possessed their own particular chronicler, seized some plausible excuse for dismissing him, in order that Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola might also be appointed historiographer for them. He then determined to devote himself exclusively to the duties of his office; but he was induced to go to Italy in company with the Count de Lemos, the celebrated patron of Cervantes, who was at that time viceroy of Naples. Lupercio was appointed secretary of state and of war for Naples; but amidst the varied and laborious duties attached to such a situation, he actively pursued his poetic studies, and did not even discontinue his Arragonese annals. He was the principal founder of the academy at Naples. While prosecuting this honourable career he died in 1613, in the fortieth year of his age. Like Virgil, when he felt the approach of death, he burnt a considerable portion of his poems.

Bartholemè, the younger Leonardo de Argensola, entered the ecclesiastical state. During the first half of his life, his success in the world was inseparably connected with the fortunes of his brother. He was chaplain to the Empress Maria of Austria, then a canon in Saragossa; and afterwards proceeded to Naples in company with his brother and the Count de Lemos. He quitted Italy on the death of his brother, and was appointed to complete the continuation of the annals of Arragon which Lupercio had left in an imperfect state; a task which he executed in a way that gave universal satisfaction. While the Count de Lemos was president of the council of the Indies, Bartholemè Leonardo de Argensola wrote a history of the conquest of the Molucca islands. He was indefatigable in the pursuit of his historical and poetic studies; and after passing a tranquil and honourable life, he died at Saragossa in 1631, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.[396]

The poetry of these two brothers, who, in a critical point of view, may both be regarded as one individual, is not characterized by originality, or by depth of genius, in the extended sense of the word. It is, however, remarkable for a fine poetic feeling distinct from enthusiasm, a vigorous and aspiring spirit, a happy talent for description, poignant wit, classic dignity of style, and above all, singular correctness of taste. Both pursued the same course with equal ardour and adroitness; but Bartholemè had the better opportunity of cultivating his talent, because he lived longest. Next to Luis de Leon, they are the most correct of all Spanish poets.

The tragedies with which Lupercio commenced his poetic career, considered as youthful essays, are worthy to be remembered, though they do not merit the unbounded praise which Cervantes bestowed on them in a fit of panegyrical enthusiasm. It appears that they did not long maintain their place on the stage. Two of the three mentioned by Cervantes were, at no very remote period, rescued from oblivion, and the third still remains undiscovered.[397] The two which have been recovered, and which are entitled, the one _Isabella_, and the other _Alexandra_, afford excellent specimens of language and versification. The Alexandra contains scenes, particularly in the second and third acts, which the greatest tragic writer might advantageously adopt and interweave into a better constructed piece.[398] The Isabella is a trivial web of love intrigues, and terminates in a manner sufficiently awful; but the piece is totally destitute of tragic dignity, notwithstanding that it exhibits the languishing and raging of two Moorish kings, with all the pomp of oriental accessaries. Alexandra presents more numerous and correct traits of resemblance to the ancient drama; and yet towards the close the action becomes most extravagant, and is marked by all the tumult of a modern theatrical spectacle.

But the poetic fame of Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, does not rest on his tragedies. His lyric poems, epistles, and satires in the manner of Horace, have transmitted his name, without the aid of any recommendation to posterity. Lupercio formed his style after that of Horace, with no less assiduity than Luis de Leon; but he did not possess the soft enthusiasm of that pious poet, who in the religious spirit of his poetry is so totally unlike Horace. An understanding at once solid and ingenious, subject to no extravagant illusion, yet full of true poetic feeling, and an imagination more plastic than creative, impart a more perfect horatian colouring to the odes, as well as to the canciones and sonnets of Lupercio. He closely imitated Horace in his didactic satires, a style of composition in which no Spanish poet had preceded him. But he never succeeded in attaining the bold combination of ideas which characterizes the ode style of Horace; and his conceptions have therefore seldom any thing like the horatian energy. On the other hand, all his poems express no less precision of language, than the models after which he formed his style. His odes, in particular, are characterized by a picturesque tone of expression, which he seems to have imbibed from Virgil rather than from Horace.[399] The extravagant metaphors by which some of Herrera’s odes are deformed, were uniformly avoided by Lupercio. His best sonnets are those of a sententious cast, which have some moral idea for their subject.[400] He was likewise successful in the composition of popular songs in redondillas. His epistles in tercets present, in their kind, about the same degree of resemblance to the epistles of Horace, as is observable between his odes and those of his classic model. The ideas are expressed in a clear, precise, and pleasing style; and these compositions are not destitute of poetic and didactic interest. Still, however, the vigour of Horace is wanting.[401] Lupercio did not enter, with sufficient decision, into the true spirit of horatian satire. He consigned to his brother the task of cultivating that class of composition, in which poetry is scarcely distinguishable from spirited prose. Among his writings, which escaped the flames, there is only one piece of satirical raillery, in the form of an epistle to a coquette.[402]

The poetic works of Bartholemè, the younger Leonardo de Argensola, which have been preserved, are twice as numerous as those of Lupercio. The style of the two brothers is so similar, that in some cases it is difficult, and in others totally impossible to distinguish the one from the other. This extraordinary conformity of character, talent and taste, appears at first sight no less singular a phenomenon than the inexhaustible fertility of Lope de Vega. But it will be recollected, that these brothers, who were nearly of an age, and almost inseparable companions, and who were constantly occupied in the study and imitation of the same models, could not fail, by the cultivation of similar, and in neither original talents, closely to approximate. Still, however, traces of difference are discoverable in their works. Bartholemè, by his numerous epistles and satires, performed greater services to Spanish poetry than his brother Lupercio. He was the first Spanish writer who introduced concentrated satire in sonnets, which he probably did after he became acquainted with the Italian poems of that class, but he has imitated them with the spirit of Horace, and has avoided every thing like Italian flippancy. His spiritual canciones, which are not equalled by any in the poetic works of Lupercio, are among the best in the style to which they belong. His most esteemed works bear the impress of a more cultivated talent than is discernible in the writings of his brother. His longer and properly didactic satires are characterized by more causticity than gaiety in the ridicule of general and particular follies.[403] But the enthusiasm of the moralist never leads him into declamation in the manner of Juvenal; and these satires are equally replete with traits of mild philanthropy and sound judgment. His epistles on human felicity and human weakness have nearly the same character, but they are for the most part serious and devoid of irony.[404] His satirical sonnets present unequal degrees of merit; but in the best, the pupil of Horace is more obviously recognisable.[405] That Bartholemè should have succeeded in spiritual canciones, may at first sight be deemed a psychological enigma. But it was precisely his critical and reflective turn of mind which proved most essentially serviceable in guiding him through the gloomy regions of catholic mysticism. Being an enthusiastic catholic, he wanted no extraordinary inspiration to furnish him with religious ideas; and the faculties of a language eminently picturesque, supplied him with new views and images which he alternately developed in majestic descriptions,[406] and pleasing comparisons.[407]

The praises lavished on the Argensolas by all parties, would afford sufficient ground for the conjecture that their poetic works had produced some influence on their contemporaries. But that influence is chiefly obvious from the poetic style of the men of talent with whom they lived on terms of intimacy, of one of whom, named Alonzo Esquerro, there is extant a short but excellent epistle, published along with the answer of Bartholemè de Argensola.

The historical works of the younger Argensola, are also deserving of honourable mention in an account of the polite literature of Spain. Few narratives of Indian affairs are written with so much judgment and elegance as his History of the Conquest of the Molucca Islands;[408] and his continuation of the Annals of Zurita,[409] exceeds in rhetorical merit the work of the original historiographer. The circumstances connected with the accession of Charles V. and the Castilian rebellion, subjects to which no Spanish writer had previously ventured to allude, are related by Argensola with no less freedom and fidelity than other events; though of course without his attempting to urge any apology for the rebels. In the reign of Philip III. but little danger was to be apprehended from such freedom; and when, in the year 1621, Philip IV. ascended the throne in the seventeenth year of his age, Argensola did not hesitate to dedicate his Arragonian Annals to the Duke of Olivarez, who in the name of the young king was invested with unlimited sovereign authority. The Duke of Olivarez on receiving this dedication little imagined that the recollection of the ancient privileges of the Arragonian states, which had been solemnly ratified by Charles V. and which were so much expatiated on in these annals, would, at no very remote period, be the means of rousing the people of Arragon to take up arms in defence of their constitution, on which the duke wished to encroach, in order to recruit the exhausted strength of Castile.

CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF SPANISH POETRY AND ELOQUENCE DURING THE AGE OF CERVANTES AND LOPE DE VEGA.

A very accurate idea of the general spirit of elegant literature in Spain, during the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, will be obtained, if, to an examination of the works of those eminent men and the two Argensolas, be added a recollection of the labours of their immediate predecessors; for the other Spanish poets of this period followed in the beaten path as far as they were able to go, and if any one ventured on a new course he only wandered into insipidity. These authors, though deficient in originality, are not without merit; but so great is their number, that it would be impossible to find room for even a very brief notice of all their works in a general history of literature. There was at this time a sort of poetical ferment in Spain, which can only be compared with that which prevailed in Italy during the sixteenth century. The blending of the Italian style with the old Spanish, had excited a new enthusiasm throughout the whole nation; and in proportion as the Spaniards were excluded from philosophic thinking, their passion for works of fancy was augmented. Under these circumstances eloquence could only follow in the train of poetry.[410]

FRESH FAILURES IN EPIC POETRY--ERCILLA’S ARAUCANA.

Success in epic poetry was still denied to the Spanish muse. The confounding of epic poetry with relations of actual events embellished with poetic language, seems to have perverted the talent for true epopee. The Spanish poets who attempted this style, studied after the deceitful model of Lucan, and, according to an old critical phrase, endeavoured to be more _Lucanists_ than Lucan himself. The imagination which possessed unbounded dominion over the stage, seems to have obtained in narrative poetry only the scanty privilege of inventing a few ornaments.

Among the unsuccessful attempts at epopee, particular distinction is due to the _Araucana_ of the heroic and amiable Alonzo de Ercilla y Zuñiga, a poem which has the accidental advantage of being better known on this side of the Pyrenees than many other Spanish works of far superior merit. Ercilla has recorded the most remarkable events of his own biography in the _Araucana_, and the remainder of the poem also reflects an interest on the author. He was born at Madrid in 1540, or according to some in 1533, and became page to the prince of Asturias, Don Philip, with whom he travelled to Italy, the Netherlands, and England. At the age of twenty-two, he embarked as an officer for America, along with a newly appointed viceroy of Peru. He distinguished himself in the war against the Araucans, the bravest of the South American tribes. In the midst of his exploits, he conceived with a youthful ambition the plan of writing a narrative of the conquest of Arauco in an epic form, but with the strictest regard to historical truth. He executed his project in spite of the dangers which surrounded him, and the fatigues he had to undergo. In a wilderness inhabited by savages, in the midst of enemies, and under no other cover than that of heaven, he composed at night the verses which were to be the memorials of the events of the day. In prosecution of his purpose, he was obliged to use scraps of waste paper, which often could not contain more than six lines, or to make pieces of leather supply the total want of paper. In this way he completed the first part of his poem, consisting of fifteen cantos. Before he was thirty years of age he returned to Spain, full of hope, both as a soldier and a poet; but the gloomy Philip, to whom he enthusiastically dedicated the _Araucana_, took little notice of him, and less of his work. Ercilla deeply felt this neglect; but nothing could damp his romantic attachment to his cold-hearted sovereign, whom he still persisted in celebrating in the sequel of his poem. He received no mark of favour except from the Emperor Maximilian II. who appointed him one of his chamberlains. Dissatisfied with his fate, Ercilla travelled from place to place; but his journies did not prevent him from proceeding with his poem until he completed it by the addition of a third part. When he died is not known, but it was after he had attained his fiftieth year.

The _Araucana_, so called from the country Arauco, is really no poem. It is, however, impossible to read the work without becoming attached to the author, and being delighted by his talent for lively description, and for painting situations, his possession of which no just critic can call in question. But notwithstanding that talent, Ercilla is merely a versifying historian, capable of clothing his subject in a poetic garb, but not of elevating it to the sphere of true poetry. His diction is natural and correct; and to this the _Araucana_ is in a great measure indebted for its celebrity. Its descriptive beauties, and some scenes in the style of romantic love, certainly make the composition approximate to poetry; but the heroic spirit which pervades the whole work, is by no means a poetic spirit. The principal events follow each other in chronological order. The combats are described in succession, as they actually arose, without any regard to poetic interest. Ercilla, indeed, prided himself on this historical precision, and he challenged any of his countrymen who were acquainted with the war in Arauco, to detect a single inaccuracy in his narrative. The historical succession of events imparts, however, a sort of epic unity to the work. The Spaniards in Arauco are surrounded by dangers, which gradually augment until they reach a crisis; when a reinforcement arrives from Peru, and the Spaniards experience a favourable change of fortune. The capture of Caupolican, the Araucan commander, who is put to death in a way repugnant to humanity, closes the narrative, though it does not terminate the war; but the barbarous and unjust execution of this brave chief being decreed by a Spanish council of war, is not censured by Ercilla. From the manner in which the poem concludes, it must be regarded as incomplete, considered as an historical narrative. Even the moral interest of the events operates in a way contrary to the intention of the author; for the feelings of the unprejudiced reader are, from the commencement excited in favour of the brave savages, who half-naked, and destitute of fire arms, contend for their natural freedom against enemies so superior in the art of war. The style of historical truth in which the principal events are narrated, forms a disagreeable contrast with the fiction in the details, which is intended to diffuse a poetic character over the whole work; for Ercilla at length found it necessary to depart from his plan in order to escape from the monotony into which he had fallen. In the first fifteen cantos the poetic colouring is merely confined to the descriptions; but in the two following parts,[411] the author has interwoven a number of fabulous accessaries. He has introduced, for example, a poetic account of the magician Fiton’s wonderful skill and garden of paradise,[412] and also the story of the fair savage Glaura, who recounts the incidents of her life in the style of a Spanish romance.[413] Ercilla likewise relates the death of Dido after Virgil, and in honour of his king he gives a detailed account of the battle of Lepanto. In addition to the descriptions, some of the speeches, particularly that delivered by the Cacique Colocolo in the second canto,[414] may be referred to as the best parts of this unpoetic poem.

Meanwhile the passion for epic poetry, which took possession of so many Spanish writers in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, gave birth to a torrent of heroic poems. To the Caroliads, which have already been noticed, there succeeded _La Restauracion de España_, (the Restoration of Spain), by Christoval de Mesa; _Las Navas de Tolosa_, (the Plains of Toulouse), by the same author; _La Numantina_, by Francisco de Mesquera; _La Invencion de la Cruz_, (the Invention of the Cross), by Lopez Zarate; _Maltea_, by Hyppolyto Sanz; _El Leon de España_, (the Spanish Lion), by Pedro de Vezilla; _Saguntina_, by Lorenzo de Zamora; _Mexicana_, by Gabriel Laso de Vega; _Austriada_, by Rufo Guttieraz; &c. None but men who make this branch of literature their particular study, now think of perusing these and similar patriotic effusions, which were at the period of their publication regarded as epic poems,[415] but which only serve to prove, with the greater certainty, that Spain is incapable of producing a Homer. A genuine subject for epopee was scarcely to be found in the national history of Spain, even during the ages of chivalry; and modern history was not then more susceptible than now of receiving a truly epic form.

LYRIC AND BUCOLIC POETS OF THE CLASSIC SCHOOL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Lyric and bucolic poetry and also elegant satire, after the two Argensolas had given the tone to that species of composition, continued to be cultivated by various pupils of the classic school of the sixteenth century. This school which was then on the decline in Italy, still maintained its ground in Spain, and preserved its reputation in spite of the opposition made by the different parties who contended for their respective styles, particularly by that of Lope de Vega, and by one of a still more dangerous kind, which will soon be more distinctly noticed. The disciples of this classic school, together with those writers who, since the time of Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega, had formed their style on the model of the ancients and the most esteemed poets of Italy, may be called the Spanish _Cinquecentisti_, in a favourable sense of the term, though some of them wrote in the seventeenth century. The most distinguished among them really flourished in the sixteenth century; and the rest, whose number is incalculable, possessed, at least, the merit of endeavouring, like the Italian _Cinquecentisti_, to express sensible ideas in correct language.

To this classic school belongs Vicente Espinel, an ecclesiastic of the province of Granada. He was likewise celebrated as a musician, and he perfected the Spanish guitar by the addition of the fifth string. He died in poverty, in the ninetieth year of his age, at Madrid in 1634. His canciones, idyls, and elegies, though destitute of originality, are distinguished by a spirited and inartificial character, and they abound in beautiful images and descriptions. Espinel’s poetic style is extremely melodious. In his idyls he has very successfully imitated the pleasing syllabic measure which Gil Polo introduced into Spanish literature under the name of _Rimas Provenzales_;[416] and he was one of those writers who most contributed to bestow a metrical polish on the redondilla stanzas of ten lines, (_decimas_). He translated Horace’s Art of Poetry, in iambic blank verse, and several of Horace’s Odes after the manner of Luis de Leon. Some of this author’s prose works will hereafter be noticed.[417]

Christoval de Mesa, an ecclesiastic of Estremadura, was contemporary with Tarquato Tasso, with whom he maintained the most friendly intercourse. He made, however, very little improvement in epic art through his intimacy with that celebrated man. Of three compositions, which Christoval de Mesa intended for epic poems, not one has been preserved from oblivion. His tragedy of Pompey is likewise forgotten. He was nevertheless a good translator; and his translations of the Æneid and the Iliad are esteemed even at the present day. He also published a Spanish version of Virgil’s Georgics.

Juan de Morales obtained a similar reputation through his translation of Horace’s Odes and Virgil’s Georgics. The particulars of his life are not known. He wrote some good sonnets.[418] This writer must not be confounded with his namesake, Ambrosio de Morales, the historian.

Agustin de Texada, or Tejada, who was born in the year 1635, is distinguished as a writer of spiritual odes and canciones. His poems in this class vie with those of the younger Argensola in poetic dignity of composition and genuine lyric diction.[419] He has, however, committed the error of introducing mythological images in his christian poetry. But in this respect he merely conformed with the bad taste of his age, which in Spain and Portugal favoured the most absurd misapplication of the Greek mythology; for, to humour the prejudices of the church, it was necessary that the heathen deities should appear only as allegorical characters in catholic poetry.

Andres Rey de Artieda, a brave Arragonian officer, was a very learned scholar and a particular friend of the Argensolas. Among other works, he wrote poetic epistles which are full of good sense and natural feeling.[420] His sonnets are remarkable for their novel and poignant style.[421]

Gregorio Morillo imitated Juvenal in his didactic satires, and vented his spleen in well-turned verses.[422]

Luis Barahona de Soto is, in preference to many of his contemporaries, entitled to an honourable place among Spanish poets. He was born in the province of Granada, and was a physician by profession. His eclogues resemble those of Garcilaso de la Vega; and his canciones abound in romantic grace.[423] His satires, which were lately republished, have the spirit of Juvenal, but want the delicacy of Horace; they are, however, written in a clear and energetic style. This writer moreover gained celebrity by a continuation of the Orlando Furioso, which was highly esteemed by Cervantes, and which is entitled, _Las Lagrimas de Angelica_, (the Tears of Angelica).[424]

Pedro Soto de Rojas, who was a particular favourite of Lope de Vega, endeavoured to introduce the academic systems of Italy, which had never been successfully imitated in Spain. A literary society established at Madrid, after the Italian fashion, received the ludicrous title of _Academia Selvaje_, (Academy of Savages;) and in this society Soto de Rojas was distinguished by the surname of _l’Ardiente_. His eclogues have the usual character of Spanish poems of that class, clothed in elegant and harmonious language.[425]

Luis Martin, or Martinez de la Plaza, an ecclesiastic of Granada, a province fertile in literary talent, was particularly celebrated for the grace of his madrigals, and other small poems of a similar kind.[426]

Balthazar del Alcazar, who appears to have been a native of Andalusia, sought to distinguish himself as a writer of epigrammatic madrigals. In his comic madrigals,[427] he was, however, less successful than in those of gallantry.[428] He also appears to have been one of the first Spanish poets who wrote odes in sapphic feet, in so far as the Spanish language would permit the employment of that measure.[429]

Gonzalo de Argote y Molina, one of those brave men, who, in the reign of Philip II. combated with enthusiasm for the honour of their country and their king, but whose valour remained unrequited, was more distinguished as an historian than as a poet. To his literary patriotism the Spaniards were indebted for the publication of the Infante Don Manuel’s _Conde Lucanor_.[430] His poems are, however, worthy of honourable notice. An ardent love of country is the soul of his canciones and other lyric compositions.[431]

Francisco de Figueroa spent a portion of his life in Italy, in the twofold capacity of an officer and a statesman. During his residence among the Italians, he enjoyed a degree of public esteem which was extended to few of his countrymen. He wrote poems in Italian as well as in Spanish. Among his friends and admirers he was called the _divine_, and he was ranked among the most eminent Petrarchists of his age. His amatory sonnets are written in a pleasing and natural style, and abound in the softest touches of romantic melancholy.[432] The admirers of Francisco de Figueroa likewise conferred on him the surname of the Spanish Pindar; but that was a mere whim.[433]

Christoval Suarez de Figueroa, who was an imitator of Montemayor, wrote a pastoral romance, entitled _Amarillis_, which was very generally read at the time of its publication. He also made a translation of Guarini’s Pastor Fido, and cultivated with some degree of success the Italian lyric forms of pastoral romance. Some of the poems of the latter class contained in the _Romancero General_, appear to be written by this author. His _Endechas_, or Elegiac Songs in the popular style, though not particularly rich in ideas, are nevertheless pleasing with respect to language and versification.[434]

Another poet of this name, Bartholomè Cayrasco de Figueroa, is the author of a long series of spiritual canciones and tales called _cantos_, which were much esteemed on account of the edification attributed to their contents. In these poems he explains the mysticism of the christian religion, according to the catholic dogmas and the scholastic ideas of christian virtue, in a manner more pedantic than poetic; but yet in pure and elegant language. He was likewise one of the Spanish imitators of the Italian verse with dactyllic terminations, called _versos esdrujolos_, from the Italian _versi sdruccioli_.[435]

Juan de Arguijo, a native of Seville, seems to have enjoyed high reputation among the poets of his time. Lope de Vega formally dedicated several of his works to him. Some well written sonnets and other small poems are the only productions of this author now extant.[436]

Pedro Espinosa, an ecclesiastic who possessed some poetic talent, and who wrote on various subjects, compiled a lyric anthology of the works of the above and other Spanish poets, who adhered more or less rigidly to the principles of the old school, but whose fancy sometimes roamed unrestrained with Lope de Vega, or sometimes degenerated into affectation with Gongora.[437]

RISE OF A NEW IRREGULAR AND FANTASTICAL STYLE IN SPANISH POETRY.

It is impossible to draw a rigid line of separation between the disciples of the classic school, and the partizans of lyric irregularity, who indulged in no less freedom than Lope de Vega, while at the same time they endeavoured to exceed him in forced conceits. Even the disciples of the classic school are not totally exempt from extravagant ideas and unnatural metaphors; and they occasionally pour forth a torrent of words, which though sometimes big with brilliant ideas, more frequently wastes itself in mere froth and foam. It cannot be doubted that the Italian school of the Marinists exercised an influence on these Spanish poets. But Marino, being a Neapolitan by birth, was a Spanish subject, and educated among Spaniards. It is therefore more natural to regard his style as originally Spanish, than to trace to Italy the source of those aberrations of fancy, which, in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, again found admirers in Spain. Marino’s was the old Spanish national style, with all its faults, divested of its ancient energy and purity, polished after a new fashion, stripped of its simplicity, tortured into the most absurd affectation of refinement, and that affectation displayed in a boundless prolixity.

One of the most zealous adherents of this party was Manuel Faria y Sousa, a Portuguese by birth. Some cause of discontent had induced him to quit his native country and to fix his residence in Spain; and in composing both poetry and prose, he in general preferred the Castilian to his vernacular tongue.[438] It can scarcely be supposed that he introduced this perverted taste from Portugal; though his Portuguese poems exhibit no less affectation of style than those which he composed in Castilian, and in which a judicious direction of the fancy is seldom observable. His ideas are, for the most part, intolerably fantastic. One of his Castilian songs, for example, is composed in honour of his mistress’s eyes, “in whose beauty, (he says) love has inscribed the poet’s fate, and which are as large as his pain, and as black as his destiny, &c.”[439] He displays similar extravagance in most of his Castilian sonnets: in one, for instance, he relates “how ten lucid arrows of chrystal, were darted at him from the eyes of his Albania, which produced a _rubious_ effect on his pain, though the cause was chrystaline,” &c.[440] In this absurd style he composed hundreds of sonnets. Faria y Sousa, however, wrote several good works on history and statistics;[441] and it must be recollected that in his poetry he merely followed the party which he most admired, and which indeed had its precursors in Portugal as well as in Spain.

This party which soon became powerful, imitated the negligence of Lope de Vega. But Lope de Vega was not a pedant; and when he failed in producing real beauties, he did not coin false ones. His pretended imitators, however, used the alloy of pedantry most unsparingly, and thereby carried the affectation of ingenious thoughts, in the style of the Italian Marinists, to an incredible height.

GONGORA AND HIS ESTILO CULTO--THE CULTORISTOS--THE CONCEPTISTOS.

Luis de Gongora de Argote was the founder and the idol of the fantastical sect, which at this period led the fashion in literature, and attempted to create a new epoch in Spanish poetry by dint of exquisite cultivation and refinement. Gongora was a man of shrewd and powerful mind; but his natural faculties were perverted by a systematic prosecution of absurd critical reveries. Through life he had to maintain a constant struggle with the frowns of fortune. He was born in Cordova, in the year 1561; and after completing his studies in his native city found himself without any provision for the future. He took holy orders, and after eleven years of solicitation at the court of Madrid, obtained a scanty benefice. The dissatisfied turn of mind, occasioned by his adverse fortune, contributed to develope that caustic wit, for which he was particularly distinguished. He wrote satirical sonnets, which for bitterness of spirit can scarcely be exceeded;[442] and he was still more successful in romances and songs in the burlesque satirical style. Works of this kind, did not, it is true, possess the merit of novelty in Spanish literature; but Gongora’s satirical poems are vastly superior to those of Castillejo. It would be scarcely possible to preserve, in a translation, the caustic spirit of Gongora’s romances and songs. To give full effect to these compositions, the genuine national spirit of the serious romances and canciones must never be lost sight of. In Gongora’s satirical works the language and versification are correct and elegant, and the piquant simplicity of the whole style would never lead to the supposition that the ambition of marking an epoch in literature could have betrayed the author into the most intolerable affectation.[443] He was less successful in seizing the cordial tone of the old narrative romances. But his canciones in the ancient Spanish style are in general masterly compositions, full of true natural and poetic feeling.[444]

It was doubtless in one of his moments of ill-humour that Gongora conceived the idea of creating for serious poetry a peculiar phraseology, which he called the _estilo culto_, meaning thereby the highly cultivated or polished style. In fulfilment of this object, he formed for himself, with the most laborious assiduity, a style as uncommon as affected, and opposed to all the ordinary rules of the Spanish language, either in prose or verse. He particularly endeavoured to introduce into his native tongue the intricate constructions of the greek and latin, though such an arrangement of words had never before been attempted in Spanish composition. He consequently found it necessary to invent a particular system of punctuation, in order to render the sense of his verses intelligible. Not satisfied with this patchwork kind of phraseology he affected to attach an extraordinary depth of meaning to each word, and to diffuse an air of superior dignity over his whole style. In Gongora’s poetry the most common words received a totally new signification; and in order to impart perfection to his _estilo culto_, he summoned all his mythological learning to his aid. Such was Gongora’s _New Art_. In this style he wrote his _Soledades_, his _Polyphemus_, and several other works. Even the choice of the title _Soledades_, (Solitudes), was an instance of Gongora’s affectation; for he did not intend to express by that term the signification attached to a similar Portuguese word, (_Saudade_), which is the title for a work relating to the thoughts and aspirations of a recluse. Gongora wished by his fantastic title to convey an idea of solitary forests, because he had divided his poem into _sylvas_, (forests), according to a particular meaning which the word bears in latin. This work, like all Gongora’s productions in the same style, is merely an insipid fiction, full of pompous mythological images, described in a strain of the most fantastic bombast.[445] The Duke of Bejar, to whom the work is inscribed, must, if he only read the dedicatory lines, have imagined himself transported to some foreign region, in which the Spanish language was tortured without mercy.[446] Gongora appears to have been peculiarly anxious to develope the spirit of his _New Art_, both at the commencement and the close of his whimsical compositions.[447]

Gongora’s innovations did not, however, tend to better his fortune; for when he died in 1627, he held merely the post of titular chaplain to the king. But his works were universally read in Spain; and in proportion as men of sound judgment emphatically protested against the absurd innovations of the Gongorists, the more vehemently did these assert their pretensions.[448] Thus Gongora in some measure attained his object. His arduous exertions to establish his style did not, it is true, promote him to a lucrative post; but they were rewarded with the unlimited admiration of a numerous party, composed of men of half-formed taste, who found it easy in the crisis of the conflict between the Spanish national style and the Italian, to raise themselves into importance. Proud of their half cultivation, they regarded every writer who did not admire and imitate the style of their master, as a man of limited talent, incapable of appreciating the beauties of their _estilo culto_.[449] But none of Gongora’s partizans possessed the talent of their leader, and their affectation became on that account still more insupportable. They soon separated into two similar yet distinct schools, one of which represented the pedantry of its founder, while the other, in order to render the art of versifying the easier, even dispensed with that precision of style which Gongora, in his wildest flights, still sought to preserve. The disciples of the first school were proud to be the commentators of their master; and in their voluminous illustrations of Gongora’s unintelligible works, they did not neglect to pour forth all the stores of their erudition.[450] These were called the _Cultoristos_, a name which was applied to them in derision. The second school of the Gongorists more nearly resembled that of the Marinists; and its disciples were distinguished by the name of _Conceptistos_, in imitation of the Italian term _Concettisti_, which was applied to the followers of Marino. The _Conceptistos_ revelled in the wildest regions of fancy, without the least regard to propriety or precision, and were only desirous of expressing preposterous and extravagant ideas (_concetti_) in the unnatural language of Gongora. Some individuals of this party were, however, inclined to imitate the careless style of Lope de Vega.

Alonzo de Ladesma, who died a few years before Gongora, obtained admirers for his poems, chiefly spiritual, which he wrote in the obscure phraseology of the _estilo culto_.[451] For example, in paraphrazing the mysteries of the catholic faith in lyric romances, he thus speaks of the birth of the Saviour:--“The star of the east rose at the time ordained by God, so that the enemy of day might lose the prey he had seized, and with it the hope of his false pretensions, as God assumed human flesh in order that man might enjoy him,” &c.[452] To men imbued with superstition, and denied all reasoning in matters of faith, ravings of this kind were well calculated to turn their heads, and involve them in a vortex of romantic mysticism.

Felix de Arteaga was likewise a zealous cultivator of this distorted style, both in sacred and profane poetry. In 1618, he held the post of court chaplain at Madrid, and he lived until the year 1633. The chief portion of his songs, romances, and sonnets, are of the pastoral kind. He extols “the miracles of the fair Amarillis, that angel of the superior class, to whom truth and passion have given the name of Phœnix. She once espied before her door a peasant, who, though not worthy to adore her, was yet worthy to languish for her sake. This happened one evening, which was a morning, since Aurora smiled, and shewed white pearls between rows of glowing carmine. The angel was amused by burning those she had illumined, and this beautiful angel fell from the heaven of her ownself,” &c.[453] This author also wrote, after the manner of Lope de Vega, a comedy, called _Gridonia_, which he styles a royal invention, (_invencion real_), because potentates, princes, and princesses are brought together from the most distant parts of the earth, and introduced with vast scenic pomp.[454]

Some of the adherents of this party, who were distinguished for natural genius and ability, will be hereafter noticed. We must not, however, neglect to mention that the _estilo culto_ likewise gained a footing in Spanish America; and that various works in that style by Alonzo de Castillo Solorzano, were very neatly printed at Mexico in the year 1625.[455]

TWO DRAMATIC POETS OF THE AGE OF LOPE DE VEGA.

Lope de Vega had now become the model of the Spanish dramatic poets, who soon appeared as numerous, and laboured as assiduously as if they had been bound to supply all the theatres in the universe with new pieces. But most of these dramatists, who may altogether be considered as forming one great school, were contemporary with Lope de Vega only during their younger years. The elegant Calderon, who was born in the year 1600, may also have influenced the exercise of their talents. In the history of the Spanish theatre, it will therefore be proper to range together those dramatists on whom it is probable the example of Calderon may have operated.[456] This, however, is the proper place for noticing two contemporaries of Lope de Vega.

The first of these writers, whose talents entitle them to an honourable rank in literature, is Christoval de Virues, a native of Valencia. He fought in the battle of Lepanto, and is usually distinguished by his military title of captain. The period of his death is not known. Both Cervantes and Lope de Vega mention him in terms of commendation. Virues was not the pupil of Lope. Though older, as it would appear, than that distinguished man, he was, like him, inspired with enthusiasm for dramatic poetry; and they entered upon the same career at nearly the same time. Virues did not adhere more attentively than Lope to the strict rules of the ancient drama. But he wanted the fertile imagination of his rival, and he conceived it necessary that the modern drama should approximate in a slight degree to the antique, at least in some of its forms. He was one of the Spanish dramatists by whom the last attempts were made to separate tragedy from comedy; and his efforts in this way are deserving of more praise than has hitherto been conceded to them. Virues was a poet born for tragic art; but his genius wanted cultivation. Pure poetic spirit, and a bold and energetic style, are the distinguishing features of all his works. But, like Lope de Vega, he was every inch a Spaniard. He obeyed the influence of the national taste, and he could not restrain his own genius within the bounds which he had himself prescribed. Among his five tragedies are some which might more properly be termed comedies, according to the Spanish acceptation of the term.[457] It is obvious that Virues endeavoured to create a sphere of his own, and that in proportion as he wrote he made advances in his art. His _Semiramis_, the first tragedy he wrote, which is chiefly in octaves, interspersed here and there with redondillas, is crude both in conception and execution; but the language even of this imperfect drama, makes energetic approaches to that genuine expression of tragic pathos, which Cervantes and the elder Argensola in some measure attained.[458] His tragedy, entitled _La Cruel Casandra_, which is richer in dramatic spirit, and more finished and systematic in its execution, might in the hands of a writer of genius be easily rendered a tragic master-piece. Virues selected from the history of the kingdom of Leon, the subject of this tragedy, in which he intended to unite the ancient and modern styles.[459] That a drama of intrigue, like the _Casandra_, should not have obtained greater popularity in Spain would be inexplicable, were it not for the dislike which the Spanish public manifested towards all dramas in which the tragic character was exhibited without the intervention of comic scenes. Cultivated taste will, however, perceive many faults in this tragedy. The uninterrupted delirium of passion, which prevails from the beginning to the end of the piece, renders the whole more astounding than impressive. The stormy movement of the action has, notwithstanding, in most of the scenes, a very captivating effect; and that passionate vehemence, in the painting of which Virues was eminently successful, is, in this drama, characteristically Spanish. The horrible deaths with which the piece closes, and which, according to the nature of the catastrophe were by no means necessary, are likewise in unison with the spirit of a Spanish national tragedy. The spring of action is the wicked spirit of a revengeful woman whom jealousy betrays into a series of the most treacherous intrigues. The dialogue is occasionally somewhat declamatory; but in its best parts it is energetic and unconstrained.[460] Of all the dramas of Virues, his _Marcella_ in which princes, princesses, robbers, peasants, and servants, are jumbled together in irregular confusion, was doubtless most in unison with the Spanish taste.

The other Spanish dramatist who remains to be noticed among the poetic writers of the age of Lope de Vega, is Juan Perez de Montalvan, whom Lope himself regarded as his first pupil, and who obtained, probably through the interest of his patron, the post of notary to the inquisition. He was a young man of distinguished talent, and even in his seventeenth year he wrote plays in the style of Lope de Vega. He first entered the lists in competition with his master, after whose death he pursued his literary occupations with such assiduity, that when he died in 1639, though aged only thirty-five, the number of his comedies and autos amounted to nearly one hundred. He was also the author of several novels, which will be particularly noticed in another place. He put together in a single volume, some of his dramas and novels, and his moral reflections, full of formal erudition; and this singular compilation was published under the no less singular title of Book for All.[461] His comedies are neither more finished nor more systematic than those of his master, but they prove how easily a Spanish writer of imagination might, in that age, be roused to venture into competition with the inexhaustible Lope de Vega, and also how far a poet of talent, with a certain degree of practice, was capable of succeeding in dramatic intrigue. Montalvan’s comedies possess, however, a more particular interest, inasmuch as they exhibit traces of genius, which under other circumstances would have constituted a painter of dramatic character. In two of his historical comedies, he has introduced Henry IV. of France, and Philip II. of Spain. A kind of moral dignity, almost approaching to sanctity, is falsely attributed to the latter; but the prominent features of his character are truly seized and strikingly delineated.[462] The amiable Henry IV. is, however, pourtrayed to the life.[463] In his _Autos Sacramentales_, Montalvan even ventured to differ from Lope de Vega, in order to give to these dramas the popular character which Lope had sacrificed in his allegorical moralities. He composed an auto on the romantic conversion of Skanderbeg, in which drums, trumpets, clarionets, explosions of squibs and rockets, and all the pomp of spectacle is introduced. But the most extravagant creation of Montalvan’s fancy, is his auto of _Polyphemus_, in which the cyclops of that name appears as the allegorical representative of judaism; and the rest of the cyclops, together with the nymph Galathæa, and other mythological beings, are introduced for the allegorical personation of faith and infidelity, according to christian notions. To these characters are added, Appetite as a peasant, Joy as a lady, and finally the Infant Christ. Drum and trumpet accompaniments are not forgotten in this auto. The cyclops too perform on the guitar; and an island sinks amidst a tremendous explosion of fire works.[464]

NOVELS IN THE AGE OF CERVANTES AND LOPE DE VEGA.

Notwithstanding that poetry, sometimes under heterogeneous, sometimes under harmonizing forms, was, next to religion, the object which principally interested the Spanish public in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, yet elegant prose was not consigned to such obscurity as to engage only the attention of the learned. The old Spanish soundness of understanding which particularly displayed itself in Cervantes and the two Argensolas, still, in some measure maintained its influence. But upon the whole that rhetorical cultivation which had been so early developed in Spain was obviously on the decline.

Novels and romances, either decidedly bad or very indifferent, were as widely circulated as rapidly produced, and so great was their number that they counteracted the good effects which the master-piece of Cervantes must necessarily have produced under more favourable circumstances. If few new romances of chivalry were now written, the old ones were read with the greater avidity. After the Galatea of Cervantes, any very successful production in pastoral romance was scarcely to be expected. Romances, depicting the manners of modern society, were, however, proportionally the more numerous. Among the best of the serious, but yet spirited productions of this class, is the Life of _Marcos de Obregon_;[465] by the poet and musician Vicente Espinel.[466] The object of the author was, in his old age, to transmit useful instruction to the rising generation in the form of a novel. The Spanish title in which the hero of the story is styled an _Escudero_, would seem to indicate a romance of chivalry, but the whole character of the work is modern. The Escudero is a sort of gentleman or squire by courtesy, and by no means a shield-bearer. The book is intended as a moral warning for young men without fortune, who hope to get honourably through the world by attaching themselves to persons of distinction. The story, though entertaining, presents nothing particularly attractive; the narration is rather prolix, but still natural; and the diction plainly denotes the classic pupil of the sixteenth century, though Espinel, as he states in his preface, consigned his romance to the correction of Lope de Vega, whom he styles the “divine genius,” after having himself revised the verses which Lope composed in his youth. The insipid jokes which occur in Marcos de Obregon, for example those in derision of the Portuguese and their language, must be considered as belonging to the natural local colouring of the work.

Among the romances of knavery, (_del gusto picaresco_), the celebrated Don Guzman de Alfarache may claim a distinguished place next to Lazarillo de Tormes.[467] It was published in the year 1599, and consequently before Don Quixote appeared. Like Lazarillo de Tormes it was speedily translated into Italian and French, and was subsequently published in various other languages, not excepting the latin. Mattheo Aleman, the author of Guzman de Alfarache, who had withdrawn from the court of Philip III. and lived in retirement, was not induced by the success of his comic romance, to devote himself to a second production of the same class. The knowledge of the world which he had acquired at court, as well as in the sphere of common life, is doubtless abundantly unfolded in his Guzman de Alfarache. The manners of the lower classes of Spanish society, in particular, seem to be pourtrayed with admirable accuracy. In spite of the vulgarity of the subject, and the burlesque style in which it is treated, no ordinary share of judgment is perceptible throughout the whole of this comic novel; and in his humorous language the author has preserved a certain degree of natural elegance even in describing the lowest scenes.

That the Spaniards were by no means sparing of approbation to works of this class, is obvious from the attention bestowed on the mannered continuation of Aleman’s romance, by a writer styling himself Mattheo Luzan, and still more by the favour lavished upon _La Picara Justina_, a silly and pedantic pendant to Guzman de Alfarache, by a writer named Ubeda. In Cervantes’s Journey to Parnassus, no literary production of the age is so categorically condemned as this _Picara Justina_. And yet it was oftener printed, and probably more read than even the Journey to Parnassus.

Little anecdotal stories of a sprightly character, likewise made their appearance in Spanish literature at this period. A collection of these productions, connected together by means of dialogues, was published in 1610, under the title of Pleasant Dialogues for the Carnival time, (_Dialogos de Apacible Entretenimiento_), by Gaspar Lucas Hidalgo.

The political romance of Argenis, was pompously arranged to suit the taste of the Spaniards of that age, by the Gongorist Pellicer de Salas.

Among the novels which possessed more of an imaginative character, the best then produced were those of Perez de Montalvan, the dramatic poet.[468]

The present is not the proper place to introduce a complete or copious list of all the works in the class above alluded to. Other writers have already enumerated them with sufficient accuracy.[469] Unfortunately even the very best of these novels and narratives present no traces of the advancement of taste and literary cultivation.

The novels of a Spanish lady, named Doña Mariana de Caravajal y Saavedra, must not be passed over without a particular notice. Respecting this authoress, who was a native of the city of Granada, but little is said by the writers on Spanish literature. Her ten novels have been frequently reprinted, and were apparently very well received by the public.[470] Doña Mariana states in her preface, that her novels are intended to afford amusement in “the lazy nights of chill winter;”[471] and they may, even now, be recommended to those who stand in need of such amusement; for they are by no means devoid of fancy though they are written in a style of affected verbosity. The verses with which the tales are interspersed, exhibit no traces of poetic talent. In her preface, the authoress promises to present to the Spanish public, twelve comedies “from her ill-made pen,” as a proof of the “kindness of her intention.”[472] Spain could indeed scarcely be expected to give birth to a poetess in the true sense of the term. The terrible yoke imposed on the conscience and the understanding, against which even masculine genius could only contend by boldly plunging into the wilds of romantic invention, weighed still more heavily on the female mind, which without a certain spirit of freedom can seldom range beyond the boundaries established by custom, and the routine of ordinary thinking. Writers on Spanish literature, however, mention in terms of approbation, several female writers of verses, and also women of erudition, like Aloysia Sigea, distinguished for their knowledge of languages.

PROGRESSIVE CULTIVATION OF THE HISTORICAL ART--MARIANA.

At this period of Spanish eloquence, history was the only kind of composition which maintained its old precision and dignity, while of the perfect cultivation of the other branches of prose literature there remained little hope.

The General History of Spain, by the Jesuit Juan de Mariana, though not a model of historical art in the most extended sense of the term, is, in point of style, unquestionably a classic production. Mariana, who may be said to have transferred the genuine spirit of the eloquence of the sixteenth century into the seventeenth,[473] was not one of the pensioned historiographers or chroniclers who have already been frequently mentioned, and who, it must be confessed, honourably discharged their duties. He obtained reputation both in France and Italy as a professor of scholastic philosophy and theology; but his love of literary retirement induced him to return to Spain. Of his own free choice he undertook to compose a new general History of Spain from the earliest period to the death of Ferdinand the catholic. His predecessors had been sufficiently numerous, and he did not find it necessary to collect the materials for his history by laborious compilations from the old authors and chroniclers of the middle ages. He was thus at liberty to prescribe to himself a more pleasing task, namely, that of judiciously combining the most interesting events, and describing them with rhetorical precision in elegant language. With the view of acquiring a prose style, formed in the spirit of the classic historians of antiquity, Mariana composed his work originally in latin,[474] a method which Cardinal Bembo had adopted in writing his History of Venice. After he had completed this first labour, and dedicated the thirty books of his history in latin to Philip II. he followed the example of Bembo in translating it himself, and he in fact recomposed it in Spanish.[475] This work he also dedicated to the king. Though this twofold dedication might have served to prove that the author was far from being liable to the imputation of cherishing views dangerous to the state, yet a party, with whose designs several passages of this history did not accord, found it easy under the government of the ever jealous Philip, to cast on Mariana the suspicion of favouring wicked and rebellious principles. He was formally brought before the inquisition, and it was with difficulty he escaped destruction. Had he devoted more attention to the philosophy of history, he could not so easily have repelled the charge of impartiality, to aim at which was then considered an unwarrantable assumption not to be tolerated in any Spanish writer. But it is only in his style that Mariana was impartial. To exhibit facts as they stood in their natural connection, was sufficient to give umbrage to the court and the inquisition; and solely to such an exposition was it owing, that the historian’s intentions became a subject of suspicion. Elegant composition was his grand object; and in this respect he far excels Bembo, because he is not, like him, mannered. His diction is perfectly faultless, his descriptions picturesque without poetic ornament; and his narrative style may, on the whole, be accounted a model. He has been very successful in avoiding protracted and artificially constructed sentences.[476] Mariana could not, however, resist the temptation of putting speeches into the mouths of his historical characters, after the manner of the ancient historians. In fine, comparing this history with other works of a similar kind, which previously existed in Spanish literature, it will be found that, though justly entitled to a high share of esteem, it cannot be regarded as forming an epoch either in a philosophic or literary point of view.

Having described the rise and progress of the historical art in Spain, it cannot be necessary to give a minute notice of historical works, which for the most part possess only the negative merit of not being ill written. The age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega was, moreover, the period at which the historical literature of the Spaniards began to form itself into that perfect whole for which it is so peculiarly remarkable. At that time the old chronicles were committed to the press one after another: and the continuation and correction of the national history was the only literary occupation which could be pursued with any hope of success by men of talent, who felt no impulse to poetry; unless, indeed, they preferred to distinguish themselves in scholastic theology, or in writing books of pious edification, in which it was, above all things, necessary to take care to say nothing new.

It is still less necessary to enter upon a detailed examination of various works in the didactic department of Spanish literature, which are upon the whole not badly written, but not one of which exceeds in rhetorical merit the works of Perez de Oliva, Ambrosio de Morales, and other authors, who have already been mentioned. The writings of Balthasar, or Lorenzo Gracian, who endeavoured to introduce a kind of _gongorism_ into Spanish prose, will be more fully noticed at the close of the present book.

FLUCTUATION OF SPANISH TASTE FROM THE CLASSIC TO THE CORRUPT STYLE.

In order to mark, by sensible gradations, the transition from the golden age of Spanish poetry and eloquence, to those sad times, when the energy of the national genius was, after a long conflict with opposing circumstances, destined to be overcome, it will be proper first to notice some poets and prose authors, who during the latter half of the period embraced by the present section, assumed a tone peculiar to themselves; and also, another set of writers who were their immediate successors. Quevedo may with propriety be placed at their head. During a part of his life he was contemporary with Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and the Argensolas, and was, moreover, an opposer of the New Art of Gongora. But both in poetry and prose he deviates so strikingly from the classic, and so obviously approaches the ornamented and artificial style, that by commencing with him the retrograde course which Spanish literature began to take even in the period of its highest cultivation, will be most distinctly perceived.

QUEVEDO.

The circumstances of the life of Francisco de Quevedo Villegas,[477] a man who has almost invariably been praised or censured with partiality, had a most important influence on the developement and employment of his talents. He began even in childhood to breathe the air of courts. He was born, in 1580, at Madrid, of a noble family, and was educated at the court under the care of his widowed mother who was one of the ladies of the royal household. An eager curiosity was the first indication of his active and restless mind; and the impressions which he received in his infancy, induced him to make the scholastic theology of catholicism his first study in preference to every other kind of knowledge. He was sent to the university of Alcala, where he received the degree of doctor in theology in his fifteenth year, a fact which appears almost incredible. Grown weary of theology, he directed his attention to law, philology, natural philosophy, medicine, and elegant literature; and he pursued all these studies without any regular order. It is probable that at this period he injured his sight by indefatigable reading; for in the prime of life he was incapable of distinguishing any object at the distance of three paces, without the aid of glasses. But neither this infirmity nor the crooked legs which he had received from nature, deterred him from mingling in fashionable society. His figure, which was in other respects strong and well proportioned, joined to his prepossessing countenance, contributed in no slight degree to the early developement of his self-esteem.

Quevedo returned to the court of Madrid, with a mind stored with all kinds of academic knowledge. But he soon became engaged in a dispute, fought a duel in which he wounded his antagonist, and was compelled to fly. He proceeded to Italy, where the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Giron, Duke of Ossuna, interested himself for the accomplished fugitive. He procured his pardon at Madrid, and retained him in his service at Naples. Quevedo now became a statesman and a man of business. He played the most prominent part at the court of the Vice-king, executed important commissions, visited the papal court, in quality of ambassador, was rewarded with titles and pensions, and seemed to be the favourite of fortune. But he was suddenly cast down by the fall of his patron, the Duke of Ossuna. Quevedo was connected with that powerful grandee in all his transactions, and thus became involved in his fate. In 1620, in the fortieth year of his age, he was arrested and removed to his country seat, La Torre de Juan Abad, where he was, by the order of the government, confined during three years, notwithstanding his delicate state of health, which this restraint rendered daily worse. So rigidly was this kind of imprisonment enforced, that it was with great difficulty he could obtain leave to go to a neighbouring town to commit himself to the care of a physician in whom he could confide.

At length Quevedo’s papers being strictly examined, his innocence became unquestionable, and he was set at liberty. He now demanded indemnification and the payment of the arrears of his pension. Instead, however, of obtaining attention to his claims, he was threatened with a new exile, and received an order to quit the court. This sentence he found means to evade, and even court intrigue seemed at last inclined to favour him; but in the conflict between vanity and reason, Quevedo in due time proved himself a philosopher. He willingly forsook the court, retired to his estate of La Torre, and devoted himself wholly to literary pursuits. It is probable that at this period he wrote the poems which on their first appearance were published as the works of the Bachelor de la Torre, an old poet of the fifteenth century. The name of his country residence apparently suggested to Quevedo the disguise of the above title. There is also reason to suppose that at this period he wrote the greater portion of his works both in prose and verse. But these writings, which overflow with wit and satire, and display that firmness of judgment and character, which is always so unwelcome at courts, tended to keep alive the attention of those who conceived themselves to be attacked. As the crisis of his varied fate approached, Quevedo seems to have totally forgotten the intrigues of which he had been the victim. He had already passed several years in literary tranquillity, and was upwards of fifty years of age when he married. But his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, did not live long. Quevedo’s evil star once more induced him to visit Madrid, where in 1641, he was arrested at midnight in the house of a friend with whom he resided. The charge preferred against him, was that of being a libeller, who spared neither the government nor public morals; he was thrown into a small and unwholesome prison, and treated with the most rigid severity, not even experiencing the humanity usually extended to the vilest criminals. In the meanwhile his property was sequestrated, and though not convicted of any crime, he was compelled to subsist on charity. He was again seized with a severe fit of illness. His body broke out in ulcers, in consequence of the insalubrity of his prison, but he was even then denied the aid of a surgeon. In this situation Quevedo appealed for justice to the Duke of Olivares, the all-powerful prime minister of Spain, in a letter which has become celebrated. His case was now, for the first time, strictly investigated; and it was ascertained that he had merely been supposed to be the author of a libel, which was subsequently discovered to have been written in a monastery. Quevedo once more regained his freedom, but with the loss of a considerable portion of his fortune, of which indeed he retained so scanty a remnant, that he was unable to continue long enough in Madrid to solicit the indemnification which was so justly due to him, and without which he could not subsist with respectability. A prey to sickness, and deprived of the hope of ever obtaining justice, he retired to his country seat, and there died in the year 1645.

A man who, like Quevedo, reaped the bitterest fruits from political justice, cannot be very heavily reproached for seizing in his satires every opportunity of more severely chastising and ridiculing the ministers of that justice, than any other enemies of truth and equity. But Quevedo was not a mere satirist. He may, without hesitation, be pronounced the most ingenious of all Spanish writers, next to Cervantes; and his mind was, moreover, endowed with a degree of practical judgment, which is seldom found combined with that versatility for which he was distinguished. Could Quevedo have ruled the taste and genius of his nation and his age in the same degree in which that taste and genius influenced him, his versatility, joined to his talent for composing verses with no less rapidity than Lope de Vega, might have rendered him, if not a poet of the first rank in the loftier region of art, at least a classic writer of almost unrivalled merit. But this scholar and man of the world was too early wedded to conventional forms of every kind. It may indeed be said that he was steeped in all the colours of his age. A true feeling of the independence of genius never animated him, lofty as his spirit in other respects was. His taste imbibed some portion of all the conflicting tastes which at that period existed in Spain. His style never acquired originality, and his mind was only half cultivated.

Quevedo’s writings, taken altogether in verse and in prose, resemble a massy ornament of jewellery, in which the setting of some parts is exquisitely skilful, of others extremely rude, and in which the number of false stones and of gems of inestimable value are nearly equal. His most numerous, and unquestionably his best productions, are those of the satirical and comic kind. Though Quevedo did not strike into a totally new course, yet by a union peculiar to himself of sports of fancy, with the maxims of reason and morality, he evidently enlarged the sphere of satirical and comic poetry in Spanish literature. He occasionally approached, though he never equalled, the delicacy and correctness of Cervantes. His wit is sufficiently caustic; but it is accompanied by a coarseness which would be surprising, considering his situation in life, were it not that Quevedo, as an author, sought to indemnify himself for the constraint to which, as a man of the world he was compelled to submit. For this reason, perhaps, he bestowed but little pains on the correction of his satires. His ideas are striking; and are thrown together sometimes with absolute carelessness, sometimes with refined precision; but for the most part in a distorted and mannered strain of language. This mixed character of cultivation and rudeness peculiarly characterizes his satirical and comic works in verse, in which, as he himself says, he has exhibited “truth in her smock, but not quite naked.”[478] He appears as the rival of Gongora in numerous comic canciones and romances in the old national style.[479] In these compositions he humorously parodied the extravagant images of the Marinists,[480] and the affected singularity of the Gongorists.[481] Quevedo wrote no inconsiderable number of his comic and satirical poems in the jargon of the Spanish gypsies; and it is therefore probable that they are not intelligible to many readers on this side of the Pyrenees.[482] These romances and canciones, which were distinguished by the name of Xacaras, were rendered so extremely popular by Quevedo, that even down to the present day the Spaniards continue to admire them.[483] His Bayles, or comic dancing songs, are, on account of their numerous allusions to national peculiarities, no less obscure to foreigners than the Xacaras.

Of all the Spanish poets, Quevedo has been the most successful writer of burlesque sonnets in the Italian manner. Some of these sonnets he shortened by depriving them of the three last of their legitimate number of lines, while the Italians on the contrary, attached to theirs the comic sequel which they called the _Coda_.[484] Quevedo’s productions in this class are, for the most part, like their Italian models, full of allusions which cannot be understood without the assistance of a commentary. Some have a piquant sententious turn. But that licentious humour which distinguishes this species of composition in Italian literature Quevedo renounced, either voluntarily or from fear of the inquisition. Besides his burlesque sonnets, he wrote canciones and madrigals in the same style.

Quevedo’s satires in the manner of Juvenal, naturally connect themselves with his burlesque poems. Like his model he has infused into them nearly as much poetry as the satirical style is capable of receiving.[485] These compositions display the noblest enthusiasm for truth and justice,[486] and the most patriotic zeal for the honour of Spain,[487] forcibly and clearly expressed.

Quevedo’s satires in verse and his poems of humour, are not so well known out of Spain as his prose writings of the same description, of which the most remarkable are his Visions or Dreams, and his novel of the Great Tacaño, or the Captain of Thieves, called Don Pablos, (_Vida del Buscon_, llamado D. Pablos), which certainly may be regarded as the most burlesque of the knavery romances.[488] Lucian furnished him with the original idea of satirical visions; but Quevedo’s were the first of their kind in modern literature. Owing to frequent imitations, their faults are now no longer disguised by the charm of novelty, and even their merits have ceased to interest. Still, however, they must be regarded as ingenious productions abounding in practical truths. They are not, it is true, remarkable either for delicate satire or pure philosophy. But Quevedo’s object was to scourge human folly and vice in the mass; and the severe lashes which he deals out in his Visions, are in excellent unison with the popular nature of the idea and the poignant style of its execution. He has made perverted Justice, with all her servants and satellites, and particularly the Alguazils, figure in the fore ground of his picture; but the melancholy fate of the author may well excuse, though even in the visionary world, these monotonous features in his satirical work. Among the passages for which no just excuse can be found, are some disgusting descriptions of the consequences of physical excess. The reader is occasionally surprised by the humorous sallies with which Quevedo breaks forth in these Visions; for example, in that of the Last Judgment, in which he describes “some merchants who had placed their souls across their bodies, so that their five senses got into the finger nails of their right hand.[489]”

For the serious works of Quevedo, we must refer to his poems, as his serious compositions in prose are in general of a theological and ascetic character. The sonnets, canciones, odes and pastoral poems, which he published under the name of the Bachelor de la Torre, are even at the present day highly extolled by critics;[490] and these poems have certainly more correctness than most of Quevedo’s other works. But they chiefly consist of imitations of the Spanish Petrarchist style, which was always foreign to Quevedo; and notwithstanding the great elegance of language and versification which distinguish them, they are surcharged with antiquated phrases of affected gallantry. The _snows_ which _inflame_ the poet, and similar tropes in which the beauty of a mistress is brilliantly set forth, occasionally call to mind the style of the Italian Marinists. Nevertheless some of these sonnets well deserve the favour which has been extended to them.[491] Quevedo’s _Endechas_, or Laments, have a pleasing national character.[492] The pastoral poems contained in this collection, approximate to the good specimens of the sixteenth century. Quevedo evidently wished to prove what he was capable of producing in this style of composition.

The serious poems of which Quevedo has avowed himself the author, are very unequal in character.[493] His didactic and sententious sonnets are energetic, but deficient in delicacy.[494] Some of the best assume a satirical turn.[495] His odes in the Pindaric style are, however, stiff and formal. He wrote a piece of moral declamation in verse, called _Sermon Estoyco_, (Estoical Sermon), which is in truth precisely what the title denotes.

That Quevedo entertained very vague notions respecting poetry, is

## particularly evident from the whim which induced him to translate in

rhymed verse, the stoical Enchiridion, or Manual of Epictetus. The translation is, however, much esteemed by the Spaniards.[496]

VILLEGAS.

An Anacreon was still wanting to Spanish literature, though various attempts in the Anacreontic style had been made. That a poet penetrated at once with the classic spirit of Anacreon, Horace and Catullus, should now arise, and become the favourite of the Spanish public, was a thing scarcely to be expected; for all the resources of amatory poetry in the only style which had hitherto been found agreeable to Spanish taste, seemed to be exhausted. The poetry of Villegas, however, produced precisely for this reason the more powerful impression on a public which ardently longed for entertainment.

Estèvan Manuel de Villègas, was born in the year 1595, at Nagera, or Naxera, a little town in Old Castile. The history of his life is simple. His parents who were noble, though not rich, sent him to study at Madrid and Salamanca. His taste for poetry was developed at a very early period. Even in his fifteenth year he translated Anacreon, and several of the odes of Horace in verse; and likewise imitated those poets in original compositions. In his twentieth year he gave the finishing touch to his youthful effusions, and added to the collection of his translated and original poems, a second part, which has since been published conjointly with them.[497] He soon after printed the whole collection at his own expence at Naxera, under the title of _Amatorias_; but in the interior of the book, the poems are styled _Eroticas_.[498] Villegas ventured to dedicate these poems, together with the part added to them, to which a particular title might more properly have been assigned, to Philip III. though individual parts of the collection had previously been addressed to other patrons. That so indolent a monarch as Philip III. should have accepted the dedication of such a collection, may not be surprising, and the freedom was pardonable in a young author of three-and-twenty. But this dedication is, in another respect, remarkable in the history of Spanish literature; for the _Eroticas_ of Villegas contain some passages, which though not wanting in delicacy of expression, are nevertheless so extremely free, that it is wonderful how they happened to escape the censure of the inquisition. The dedication was, however, productive of neither good nor evil to the poet. For several years he vainly solicited a lucrative office; and was at last obliged to content himself with the scanty emolument arising from an insignificant post in Naxera, his native town. From that time he devoted his leisure to the composition of philological works in the latin language; and though he produced nothing new for Spanish poetry, he made a prose translation of five books of Boethius. He lived till the year 1669.

The graceful luxuriance of the poetry of Villegas has no parallel in modern literature; and, generally speaking, no modern writer has so well succeeded in blending the spirit of ancient poetry with the modern. But constantly to observe that correctness of ideas, which distinguished the classical compositions of antiquity, was by Villegas, as by most Spanish poets, considered too rigid a requisition, and an unnecessary restraint on genius. He accordingly sometimes degenerates into conceits and images, the monstrous absurdity of which are characteristic of the author’s nation and age. For instance, in one of his odes in which he entreats Lyda to suffer her tresses to flow, he says, that “when agitated by Zephyr, her locks would occasion a thousand deaths, and subdue a thousand lives;”[499] and then he adds, in a strain of extravagance, surpassing that of the Marinists, “that the sun himself would cease to give light, if he did not snatch beams from her radiant countenance to illumine the east.”[500] But faults of this glaring kind, are by no means frequent in the poetry of Villegas; and the fascinating grace with which he emulates his models, operates with so powerful a charm, that the occasional occurrence of some little affectations, from which he could scarcely be expected entirely to abstain, is easily overlooked by the reader.

The order in which the poetic works of Villegas are arranged, is by no means the best; but as it was chosen by the author, it is proper that it should be observed in pursuing a notice of the poems themselves. The first book of the first part commences with thirty-six odes in the style of some of the odes of Horace. The Dedicatory Ode addressed to the king, announces, in language truly charming, the spirit of the whole collection.[501] Then follow in a similar strain, the most delightful plays of fancy, abounding in classical allusions, without the least trace of pedantry. The style of Villegas even imparts a charm of novelty to descriptions of the oftenest described things.[502] In these odes, romantic levity assumes freedoms, which if not always of the most excusable, are invariably of the most graceful description;[503] and the soft and melodious expression of tender passion, which in more than one instance occurs, has never been surpassed.[504]

The second book of the first division of the poems of Villegas, consists of odes, which are free translations of the first book of Horace. It ought not, therefore, to have been ranked under the same title with the other poems in the collection. There is something pedantic in the generical titles by which he distinguishes the different odes; for example--_Memptica_, _Enetica_, _Parænetica_, &c.

With the third book of the first division commence the Anacreontic songs, or as they are styled in the collection, the _Delicias_ of the poet. Their measure is chiefly anacreontic, sometimes in blank verse, and at other times presenting the most pleasing alternation of rhymes and assonances. Light pleasing images and soft luxuriant ideas float through these songs even more gracefully than in the odes attributed to Anacreon.[505] Nothing can exceed the beauty of those in which a certain delicate moral feeling is combined with a pathetic simplicity.[506] Only a few can be said to be absolutely copied from the greek or latin originals.

The fourth book of the first part, contains the complete translation of the greek odes ascribed to Anacreon. The second division is chiefly occupied with elegies and idyls, or _eidillios_, as Villegas, in hellenizing the term, chooses to call them. The elegies which might with greater propriety be denominated epistles, do not belong to the best of the kind in Spanish literature; in the idyls, or mythological tales, as they ought to be called, Villegas appears as one of the _Cultoristos_, or disciples of the school of Gongora.[507]

The collection concludes with several imitations of greek and latin verse, which may be regarded as the first compositions of the kind in Spanish, that were not complete failures. Doubtless the Spanish language adapts itself somewhat more readily to the ancient metres than the Italian; for final syllables sounded in pronunciation, but subject to elision in scanning, do not occur so frequently in Spanish as in Italian.--This difference is, however, in reality but of trivial importance; and Spanish verses in the ancient syllabic measures do not flow much more naturally than the Italian compositions of the same kind; because many words derived from the latin, have received in Spanish, as well as in Italian, a modern quantity,[508] which is generally confounded with the ancient quantity by the imitators of the greek and latin metres. The Spanish hexameters of Villegas, it is true, approach in point of facility to the hexameters of antiquity.[509] But the pentameters defied his imitative talent.[510] In his sapphic verse the measure resolves into iambics: one of these sapphic odes is, however, exquisitely beautiful.[511]

CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF LYRIC, BUCOLIC, EPIC, DIDACTIC, AND SATIRICAL POETRY, TO THE CLOSE OF THE PERIOD EMBRACED BY THIS SECTION.

After Quevedo and Villegas, and before entering upon the notice of a series of dramatic poets, whose works must form a subject of separate consideration, it will be necessary to mention several ingenious writers, who, though endowed with eminent talents, were nevertheless unable to retard the fast approaching close of the golden era of Spanish poesy.

JAUREGUI.

If pure diction, joined to a descriptive style of the most perfect kind, might form a sufficient claim to the title of poet of the first rank, the right of Juan de Jauregui, or Xauregui, to that distinction, among the Spanish poets of the first half of the seventeenth century, could not be disputed. Jauregui, who was of Biscayan origin, but educated in the interior of Spain, first developed his talents in Italy. In that country he prosecuted his poetic studies, and at the same time thought it no degradation to practise painting as a profession, though he was a nobleman and a knight of the order of Calatrava. He is said to have excelled in painting even more than in poetry. While in Italy he made a Spanish translation of Tasso’s Amynta, in which he was so successful, that the translation is still regarded by the educated portion of his countrymen as possessing the characteristics of the happiest original composition. Jauregui was a decided opponent of the Gongorists; but his taste did not coincide with that of Quevedo. He devoted much talent and industry to a free translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia in octaves. He died in 1610; and his poetic remains, exclusive of his translations, are by no means numerous. The translation of Lucan was not published till long after the death of Jauregui; but ever since its appearance, the Spaniards have admired it as a classic composition; and it unquestionably possesses all the merit that the translation of such a work can possibly present. But from a man who could be induced to apply so much labour and time to a translation of Lucan, no very extraordinary proofs of poetic talent were to be expected; and it must be confessed that Jauregui, in none of his compositions has risen above what may be called the poetry of style. He might have carried this kind of merit still farther, had not his Lucan led him into a kind of mannered affectation. Among his original works, his _Orfeo_, a mythological tale, in five cantos, deserves to be distinguished.[512] But his lyric poems, and particularly his sonnets, bear evident traces of the man of genius and of cultivated mind.[513] Jauregui’s dramatic compositions, which were written with the view of reforming the national taste, are now lost to literature, and were at the time of their production indignantly banished from the stage. He is the author of some small works in prose, one of which is a treatise on painting.[514]

BORJA Y ESQUILLACHE.

Prince Francisco de Borja y Esquillache, a knight of the Golden Fleece, and for some time viceroy of Peru, was the most distinguished, in point of birth, of all the Spanish poets of his age.[515] With regard to cultivation, he may be placed on a level with Jauregui; but he deserves to rank higher in poetic invention. Throughout his long life, which when he died in 1658, had extended to nearly eighty years, he seems constantly to have devoted a portion of his time to the study of poetry; and though he was not entitled to the praises lavished on him by his flatterers, who styled him the Prince of Spanish Poets, he may be regarded as the last representative of the classic style of the sixteenth century. The collection of his sonnets, epistles, tales, romances, and canciones, forms a large quarto volume, the last half of which is printed in double columns.[516] Prince Francisco de Borja, was likewise the author of an unsuccessful epic poem, entitled, _Napoles Conquistada_, and various works on sacred subjects. Though he did not contribute to the advancement of Spanish poetry, yet in all his writings, he decidedly opposed that subtlety and affectation which in the time of Gongora usurped the place of real genius. The intimate friendship he had contracted in his youth with the younger Argensola, had no doubt a favourable influence on the early developement of his talent. In the preface to his poems, which is in verse, he explains the principles of his taste with so much accuracy, modesty and elegance, that the reader cannot fail to be prepossessed in his favour, before entering on an attentive perusal of his works.[517] He was

## particularly averse to all kinds of affectation and extravagance.[518]

Most of his sonnets bear traces of mature reflection.[519] His long tale of Jacob and Rachel, (_Cantos de Jacob y Raquel_), in octaves, has indeed no other merit than that of elegant diction.[520] His lyric romances, however, of which he wrote upwards of two hundred and fifty, present at once the richest and most beautiful gleanings in that species of poetic composition.[521]

OTHER POETS OF THIS PERIOD--THE SYLVAS, OR POETIC FORESTS.

To enter into a detailed description of the works of some other Spanish poets, with whom the old national poetry and the Italian style equally perished, would be the more unnecessary here, as these poets, though not without genius, wanted proper cultivation, and merely followed in the general stream. Besides, there is no want of literary notices which furnish abundant information respecting Luis de Ulloa, Francisco de Rioja, Gravina, Manuel de Mela, Juan de Tarsis, Count of Villamediana, and others.[522] It is, however, worthy of remark, that at this period, as in the preceding ages, Spanish noblemen and men of rank were particularly distinguished among the candidates for poetic fame. The Poetic Forests, (_Sylvas_), as they were styled, according to Gongora’s nomenclature, but which were afterwards designated by the common Spanish word _Selvas_, doubtless contributed in no slight degree to hasten the decline of genuine poetry in Spain. In these Forests rhymed prose could flow on without obstruction, and every conceit was in its proper place; for no fixed metre, and no unity of ideas or events restrained the poet or versifier. The works of Count Rebolledo, which are deserving of a particular notice, will afford a sufficient idea of the direction thus given to the lyric, didactic, narrative, and bucolic poetry of Spain, in a general combination of all these styles.

REBOLLEDO.

Bernardino, Count of Rebolledo, was one of the heroes of the latter period of the thirty years war in Germany. After having distinguished himself in the military service both of Spain and Austria, he resided for a considerable time in the quality of Spanish ambassador at Copenhagen, where he watched over the interests of his sovereign with reference to the designs of the king of Sweden. His taste for military and political affairs did not preclude the exercise of his talent for poetry. But it was not until his mission to Copenhagen, when he had attained the age of maturity, that he found leisure to prosecute his poetic studies with assiduity. Thus, for the first time, and perhaps for the last, was Spanish poetry in the middle of the seventeenth century, transplanted to Scandanavia. Count Rebolledo was much pleased with his residence in Copenhagen; and he rendered signal service to his Danish majesty, when Charles Gustavus, King of Sweden, marched across the frozen Belt, and bombarded the Danish capital. Though a zealous catholic, he felt for the royal house of Denmark a kind of personal devotion, which he seized every opportunity of manifesting, both in verse and prose. He took particular interest in the study of the history and geography of Denmark, with the view of describing them in Spanish verse. Having returned to his native country, where he was appointed minister of war, he died in 1676, in the eightieth year of his age. His poems were, during his life, collected and published under various titles.[523] One of these collections, entitled _Ocios_, (Leisure Hours), proves that Count Rebolledo, though he only travelled in a long beaten tract, and even in that tract did not shine above his contemporaries, possessed, nevertheless, a degree of poetic cultivation, which was probably unparalleled in Copenhagen in the age in which he lived. He was particularly successful as a writer of elegant madrigals;[524] and he is the author of a play, entitled, _Amor Despreciando Riesgos_,[525] (Love Dreads no Danger), which possesses considerable interest. But Rebolledo’s name has been rendered still more remarkable in the history of Spanish literature by his dull Forests, for which he himself claimed the title of poetic, though they exhibit only the last traces of Spanish poetry. Other writers had already done their utmost to give importance to the rhymed prose of these Forests. But Rebolledo so completely mistook the essence of poetry, that he really conceived he was executing works of high poetic merit, when he put into verse a compendium of the History and Geography of Denmark, entitled, _Selvas Danicas_, and a treatise on the Art of War and State Policy, entitled, _Selva Militar y Politica_. Whoever attempts to travel through Rebolledo’s Danish Forests, will soon find, especially if he have any recollection of genuine Spanish poetry, that he has undertaken a very disagreeable task. In the first half of the work, not a single poetic or even ingenious trait enlivens the dry enumeration of facts. What the author intended for a narrative poem, is found to be merely an account of the History of Denmark, related in the lowest style of common place prose; and the multitude of northern names, which partly retain their original spelling, and are partly hispanized, have a peculiarly grotesque effect.[526] The geography of Denmark, which constitutes the second part of the work, presents a few poetic passages.[527] But the Military and Political Forest, which is intended for a didactic poem, is rhymed prose from beginning to end. It is difficult to say whether the principles of tactics,[528] or the instructions in the art of government,[529] appear most ridiculous in the versified garb in which Rebolledo has clothed them. The worthy author might with more propriety have applied the title of poems to his _Selvas Sagradas_, (Sacred Forests), which are translations of the psalms in the loose forms of the Forests.

CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.

The feeling of regret with which the decay of Spanish poetry in the age of Rebolledo is beheld, yields to the agreeable surprize which arises on taking a retrospective view of the Spanish drama, the history of which must now be continued to the close of the present period. The history of the Spanish drama should properly be studied as a whole; but that combined mode of viewing the subject was not compatible with a synchronous account of all the remarkable productions of the polite literature of Spain. Having, however, in connexion with Lope de Vega, spoken of Virues, Montalvan, and others, it will, at least, be convenient not to separate the series of dramatic poets, who emulated or imitated Calderon.

CALDERON.

Again, in the history of Spanish poetry a writer occurs, whose name deserves to be transmitted to the latest posterity, and who flourished along with others who are also worthy of honourable remembrance.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca, descended of a noble family, was born in the year 1600. He is said to have written his first dramatic work before he had completed his fourteenth year. Having finished his collegial studies at an early age, he, according to the custom of the times, attached himself to some patrons whom he found among the nobility at the court of Madrid. Not satisfied, however, with this means of introducing himself to the great world, he became a soldier, and served in several campaigns in Italy and the Netherlands. Meanwhile the fame of his talents as a dramatic poet was widely spread; and it was foretold that he would equal, if not exceed, Lope de Vega. King Philip IV. who afforded more liberal encouragement to the drama than any of his predecessors, and who was himself the author of several plays, was gratified by the idea that he had in Calderon a man capable of giving splendour to the court theatre. He called him to Madrid in the year 1636, and shortly after invested him with the order of St. Iago. From this period Calderon became permanently fixed at court, and his young sovereign, whose chief attention was devoted to amusements and festivities, kept him in constant activity. No expence was spared in bestowing pomp and brilliancy on the pieces which Calderon produced for the entertainment of the court; but on the other hand, it was expected of him to accommodate his genius to the conditions required by a courtly audience. Nevertheless his taste was consulted in the arrangement of all public festivities, and the triumphal arch through which the Queen Maria of Austria made her public entrance into Spain, was erected in conformity with his suggestions.

In his fifty-second year Calderon took holy orders, but did not on that account totally relinquish his previous occupations. From that time, however, he applied himself with more particular assiduity to the composition of his _Autos Sacramentales_, which soon superseded throughout the whole of Spain all the older dramas of this class. Calderon lived to an advanced age, admired by his countrymen, and amply rewarded by ecclesiastical dignities, pensions and presents, from his sovereign. In the estimation of the public, his dramas surpassed those of every preceding and contemporary writer. But in his old age, he himself attached but little importance to his temporal productions. The Duke of Veragua addressed to him a flattering letter, requesting to be furnished with a complete list of his dramas, because the booksellers were in the habit of selling the works of other writers under his name. In reply, Calderon, who was then in his eightieth year, supplied the duke only with the list of his _Autos Sacramentales_. He added in a letter, that with regard to his temporal dramas, he felt offended, that in addition to his own faulty works, those of other authors should be circulated in his name; and besides that, his writings were so altered that he himself could not recognize even their titles. He also expressed his determination to follow the example of the booksellers, and to pay as little regard to his plays as they did; but he observed, that on religious grounds he attached more importance to his Autos.[530]

Calderon died in 1687, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. Several collections of his dramas appeared during his life, and among the rest one published by his brother, Joseph Calderon, in 1640, but none were edited by the author himself. In the great edition of the collected comedies of Calderon, which his friend Juan de Vera Tassis y Villaroel began to superintend in 1685, the poet, who was then eighty-five years of age, can scarcely be expected to have indirectly participated even so far as was necessary to certify the authenticity of the component parts. It is therefore questionable whether the hundred and twenty-seven plays, published in Calderon’s name, be all genuine. This doubt may indeed be hazarded with the greater probability, as Juan de Vera Tassis, who undertook to publish the complete collection of Calderon’s dramas, estimates the number of his Autos at ninety-five; while Calderon himself, in his conscientious list furnished to the Duke of Veragua, states their number to be only sixty-eight, including those not printed. It can scarcely be believed that Calderon wrote twenty-seven Autos after he had attained the age of eighty.[531]

On a comparison of the dramas of Calderon and Lope de Vega, it requires no extraordinary critical penetration to discover the essential services which the former rendered to the dramatic literature of Spain. Which of these writers possessed the greater share of inventive talent, is a question which it would be difficult to determine, for Lope de Vega was not the inventor of that species of dramatic composition which was common to both, and Calderon was not behind him in the invention of new combinations of intrigue, ingenious complexities of plot, and interesting situations. In general the invention of Lope may be the bolder, but it is also the more rude of the two; and with regard to whatever may be called refinement, whether in conception or execution, but more particularly in style, Calderon formed for himself an entirely new sphere. The delicate art with which he gave the last polish to the Spanish drama, without changing its nature, carries with it an ennobling dignity in some of his historical, or, as they are styled, heroic comedies. In his comedies of intrigue this delicacy is conspicuous in the execution of the general forms of character, which had now become naturalized on the Spanish stage, and which usurped the place of individuality. Calderon’s comedies are necessarily as little pieces of character as those of Lope de Vega, for with the delineation of particular character they would have ceased to be pure dramas of intrigue. But they abound in characteristic traits, in those traits which develope, as it were, out of the souls of the dramatic personages, the natural course of the gay intrigue in all its various modifications. As an acute observer of the female mind and manners Calderon was infinitely superior to Lope de Vega. This delicacy of observation accords admirably with the almost incredible subtlety of his combinations of intrigue; and the elegance of his language and versification complete the ingenious harmony of these apparently irregular dramas, which though not sufficiently perfect to be regarded as models, are nevertheless true to the rules which the author prescribed to himself. The other merits which belong to his dramas, such as the seductive gracefulness and facility of the dialogue, Calderon shares in common with all the good dramatic writers of Spain. The faults with which he may be reproached, and which in some measure belong to the species of drama he adopted, are more numerous in some of his pieces than in others. It must also be observed, that in some of his heroic comedies, he sinks so completely beneath his own standard that it is difficult to recognize him.

In Calderon’s _Comedias de Capa y Espada_,[532] the plots are usually of so complicated a nature, that no reader except a Spaniard, habituated to this sort of mental exercise,[533] can on a first perusal seize and follow the various threads of the intrigue, by the artful entanglement of which the principal characters of the piece are repeatedly plunged from one unexpected embarrassment into another. Calderon particularly excelled in the accumulation of surprises, in connecting one difficult situation with another, and in maintaining undiminished the strongly excited interest to the close of the piece. But in order to render this task the easier, he paid still less attention than Lope de Vega to probability in the succession of the scenes; and his characters make their entries and their exits just as it happens to suit the convenience of the poet. The Spanish public was, however, disposed to pardon every improbability of this kind, which gave rise to some new situation full of dramatic truth. Calderon appears to have estimated the merits of his dramas of intrigue, in proportion to the effect produced by the situations; and in this respect he was the more an inventor in proportion as he introduced the less variety into his characters. In all Calderon’s comedies of intrigue, the dramatis personæ are the same individuals under various names. Two or three ladies of fashion, two or three lovers, an old man, a few waiting maids, a few male servants, and among these last, one who acts as the _gracioso_, or buffoon; such are the standing characters with which Calderon usually contented himself in his sphere of dramatic composition. The motives on which the plot turns are a licentious gallantry, in which no moral interest is permitted to mix, and a point of honour which gives rise to incessant contests. On the slightest cause of offence swords are drawn, and when passion rages, even daggers are employed. Romantic accessaries are found in wounds, and murders, though the latter, it is true, are not quite so frequent as the former. Among the other passions the fury of jealousy is conspicuous; and in order to bring this passion into play, the author avails himself of disguises, concealments, mistakes of persons, houses or letters, and occasionally some particular local circumstance, such for instance, as the secret door, which appears to be a cupboard, in the lively drama of _La Dama Duende_, (The Fairy Lady.) There is also no want of night scenes in Calderon’s pieces of intrigue. But however astonishing may be the variety of the situations which he has created out of this uniformity of plan, yet they cannot long satisfy a cultivated taste which requires a nobler kind of variety.

How far Calderon in his _Comedias de Capa y Espada_ has correctly represented the fashionable world of Madrid, as it existed in the reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. is a question which cannot now be satisfactorily determined. Modern Spanish writers have conceived they were pronouncing a judicious critical censure, when they cast on Calderon’s dramas the reproach of insulting the whole Spanish nation, by representing it as composed almost solely of romantic coxcombs and intriguing coquettes. These attacks on Calderon, are the consequence of inconsiderate zeal for the principles of the French drama, by which the dramatic literature of Spain must never be judged.[534] It is scarcely necessary to observe, that a representation of one class of men, who were particularly conspicuous in Madrid, could not be intended as a representation of the whole Spanish nation. But attempts have been made to depreciate, by still more plausible sophisms, the merits of Calderon’s sketches of manners. It has been remarked, that he has totally violated nature, by putting into the mouths of valets and waiting women poetic language, which would be extraordinary even if delivered by their masters and mistresses. The Spanish servants of the present day are, doubtless, less likely than those of the seventeenth century, to converse in the poetical style in which the servants in Calderon’s plays, on particular occasions, express themselves. But the spirit of these particular occasions must not be misunderstood. The servants in Calderon’s comedies always imitate the language of their masters. In most cases they express themselves like the latter, in the natural language of real life, and often divested of that colouring of the ideas, without which a dramatic work ceases to be a poem. But whenever romantic gallantry speaks in the language of tenderness, admiration, or flattery, then, according to Spanish custom, every idea becomes a metaphor; and Calderon, who was a thorough Spaniard, seized these opportunities to give the reins to his fancy, and to suffer it to take a bold lyric flight beyond the boundaries of nature. On such occasions the most extravagant metaphoric language, in the style of the Italian Marinists, did not appear unnatural to a Spanish audience; and even Calderon himself had for that style a particular fondness, to the gratification of which he sacrificed a chaster taste. It was his ambition to become a more refined Lope de Vega, or a Spanish Marino. Thus in his play, entitled, _Bien vengas Mal, si vengas Solo_, (Misfortune comes Well, if it comes Alone), a waiting maid, addressing her young mistress who has risen in a gay humour, says--“Aurora would not have done wrong had she slumbered that morning in her snowy chrystal, for that the light of her mistress’s charms would suffice to draw aside the curtains from the couch of Sol.” She adds that, using a Spanish idea, “it might then indeed be said that the sun had risen in her lady’s eyes,”[535] &c. Valets, on the like occasion, speak in the same style; and when lovers address compliments to their mistresses, and these reply in the same strain, the play of far-fetched metaphors is aggravated by antitheses to a degree which is intolerable to any but a Spanish formed taste.[536] But it must not be forgotten that this language of gallantry was in Calderon’s time spoken by the fashionable world, and that it was a vernacular property of the ancient national poetry.

Faults of a less pardonable nature in Calderon’s dramas, are the stale jests and meaningless plays on words uttered by servants,[537] and the burlesque situations to which the disgusting accidents, occasioned by certain nocturnal showers from windows give rise. But according to the testimony of travellers, such accidents are very common at night in the streets of Madrid and Lisbon; and it must be recollected that in Calderon’s time the jests of servants were considered as indispensable in a Spanish drama of intrigue, as the presence of the _gracioso_ himself, who is, for the most part, one of the valets.[538]

But the violations of cultivated taste which occur in Calderon’s comedies of intrigue, are so amply redeemed, that the critic cannot long hesitate to decide whether faults or beauties are most abundant. Some of these dramas are particularly remarkable for those descriptive narratives, by the introduction of which nearly all the Spanish comedies of the same class bring to recollection their original relationship with novels.[539] Though individual character is wanting, yet sometimes in the course of the intrigue, beautiful characteristic traits unexpectedly occur.[540] The delicacy of the point of honour, which in all these dramas supplies the place of morality, is frequently exhibited by Calderon in its most brilliant point of view;[541] and he sometimes with much formality oversteps the Spanish rule, by which moralizing was excluded from this species of drama.[542] The application which may be made of the plot is frequently denoted by the title of the piece, and is still more distinctly developed at the conclusion.[543] Calderon deserves praise for having but seldom introduced sonnets in his comedies of intrigue, though he has amply availed himself of other freedoms, in order to maintain the privilege of poetry in pourtraying the scenes of common life.[544]

Calderon’s heroic comedies are much diversified in their kind, and very unequal in their merits. Some are distinguished from the dramas of intrigue only by the rank of the characters. Of this kind is the well known piece, entitled, _El Secreto a Voces_, (the Published Secret), imitations of which have appeared in the Italian, French, and German languages. The Spaniards number it among their heroic comedies, merely because an Italian prince and princess are introduced in it. Other plays by Calderon, which, according to the Spanish nomenclature, are ranked in the heroic class, are in fact romantic pastoral dramas; as for example, the pleasing piece, entitled, _Eco y Narciso_. Others again are romantic, mythological festival pieces, accompanied by transformations and melo-dramatic splendour; of this kind is _El mayor encanto Amor_, (Love is the greatest Enchantment). Finally, among Calderon’s heroic comedies are included his historical dramas, several of which may properly be called tragedies. Some of these historical dramas are among the best, while others are the most trivial of Calderon’s productions. All are melo-dramatic spectacles, in which armies defile, battles are fought, and sumptuous banquets are given. The scene is, by turns, a palace, a vast landscape, a cavern, or a pleasure garden, while drums and trumpets flourish, and cannon thunder at every opportunity.

In all that regards scenic splendour in the composition of historical plays, even Lope de Vega must yield to Calderon, for the dramas of the latter were represented at the expence of the royal treasury. But in the historical style of dramatic composition Calderon only succeeded when he selected his materials from the events of his own country. Where he has adapted to the Spanish stage, subjects from the Greek and Roman history, as in his Alexander the Great,[545] and in his Coriolanus,[546] the absurd change of costume is almost forgotten amidst the extravagant confusion of the events, by which romantic situations are brought about one after another, but which, on the whole, produce only a mean effect. The great poet seems occasionally to have been forsaken by his good genius, particularly when he makes a display of his erudition in the very same scenes in which he completely perverts ancient history. But Calderon’s historical dramas of this class are very inferior to those of which the story was invented by himself, and the scene arbitrarily laid in ancient Greece. Among the latter is a piece, entitled, _Finezas contra Finezas_, (Generosity for Generosity), a beautiful poem, full of tenderness and mythological piety. But this drama, though, perhaps, single in its kind, must nevertheless yield to the christian drama, of which the history of Portugal furnishes the hero. The tragedy of Don Fernando, entitled, _El Principe Constante_, displays all the lustre of Calderon’s genius. The unities of time and place are lost sight of in the unity of the heroic action, into which Calderon has infused the spirit of the purest pathos, without departing from the Spanish national style of heroic comedy. This tragedy might not improperly be named the Portuguese Regulus. Don Fernando, a Portuguese prince, lands at the head of an army, accompanied by his brother Don Enrique, on the coast of Barbary in Morocco. He is victorious in his first battle, and he makes prisoner the African hero, Muley, who relates to him his history. The prince, moved by generosity, liberates his captive. No sooner has Muley expressed his surprise and gratitude, than the Moors return with a reinforcement, and the Portuguese prince is himself made prisoner. At this point commence the tragic scenes which are prepared by pathetic situations of another kind. The king of Fez and Morocco immediately offers liberty to his royal prisoner, on condition of the surrender of the garrison of Ceuta on the coast of Morocco, which is in possession of the Portuguese. The prince declares that he would rather die in the most degrading captivity, than consent to obtain his freedom by delivering a christian town into the power of the infidels. The moorish king, however, relies so confidently on the acquisition of Ceuta, that he treats the prince with every mark of respect until the return of the envoy from Portugal. The answer of the Portuguese government proves to be, as the king of Fez expected, a compliance with his proposal; but the prince firmly refuses to be ransomed on the required condition. He now receives the most rigorous treatment, which he bears with pious heroism and without complaint, until his bodily strength is exhausted and he expires. The sufferings and fortitude of Fernando;--the conflict between gratitude and religious prejudice in the mind of Muley, who exerts his utmost endeavours to deliver the captive prince;--and, on the other hand, Muley’s romantic passion for the king’s daughter, who is destined to be the bride of another;--and the still more romantic tenderness of the princess,--form altogether a picture so noble and so truly poetic, that it would be unfair in this brief sketch of the piece, to notice the numerous errors which it unquestionably presents. The action seems to terminate with the death of Fernando; but a fresh army arrives from Portugal, and the ghost of the prince, with a torch in his hand, appears at the head of the troops and leads them on to victory. The impression produced by this apparition gives the finishing touch to the romantic pathos of the foregoing scenes.[547] The beautiful flights of fancy which occur at the commencement of the piece are worthy of particular attention. There Calderon has painted his favourite images in his comparison of waves with flowers.[548] On another occasion of a similar kind a comparison of stars with flowers, and of flowers with stars, is introduced in two _concerted_ sonnets.[549] The heroic character of Don Fernando is decidedly evinced in his first speech to his companions in arms; and his noble spirit is still more distinctly developed when he restores Muley to freedom.[550] But a more minute detail of the beauties of this tragedy would carry us beyond the limits of this work.

Calderon’s _Autos Sacramentales_ may be noticed in a few words. In this class of dramatic composition, Calderon pursued the path which had been previously trodden by Perez de Montalvan, but he left his model far behind him. Some of his autos, of which that entitled, _La Devocion de la Cruz_, (the Miracles of the Cross, or literally the Devotion of the Cross), may be cited as an example, are the grandest and most ingenious productions of the kind in the Spanish language. But in these spiritual dramas, reason and moral feeling are so perverted by extravagant and fantastic notions of religious faith, that it is impossible to forbear congratulating those nations whose better fate has excluded them from amusements of this kind.

HISTORY OF THE SPANISH DRAMA CONTINUED TO THE CLOSE OF THE PERIOD OF THIS SECTION.

Never, perhaps, was any dramatic poet accompanied in so long a career by such a number of rivals, friends, and imitators, as Calderon. It was precisely the half century during which he indefatigably laboured for the Spanish theatre that gave birth to the greater part of those dramas, the number of which is better known than the merits. In consequence of the popularity of Lope de Vega and Calderon, the passion for dramatic composition became as epidemic in Spain as that of sonnet writing had formerly been. The encouragement which Philip IV. gave to the drama, doubtless contributed not a little to excite this poetic emulation. But the multitude of writers who entered into the competition were ambitious of rivalling Lope de Vega and Calderon in proofs of fertility of invention. The fecundity of Perez de Montalvan, who, notwithstanding his life was short, wrote nearly one hundred plays in the style of Lope de Vega, was not allowed to remain a solitary example. The impression produced by successive _comedias famosas_ on a public whose greatest mental enjoyment was found in the theatre, was also felt by those who were desirous of producing similar works. Thus every piece which was applauded sowed the seeds of new comedies. No author thought it necessary to reform the principles on which Spanish comedy was composed, or attempted to distinguish himself by any

## particular originality. At the same time the spirit which governed this

emulation was equally remote from an intentional imitation of the more celebrated dramatic poets. He who was ambitious of adding one more to the numberless dramas in the possession of the stage, followed in the general stream under the influence of impressions previously received. To wit and fancy free scope was allowed; but any original traits which the new production might contain, were more or less overshadowed by the general character of this class of composition. The whole of those dramatists, whose works so closely resemble each other, form therefore only one school. Were not the critic assisted by names the most extensive, knowledge of this department of Spanish literature would in most cases be insufficient to enable him to distinguish the labours of different authors. It often happened that several writers formed a co-partnership of their talents for the production of one piece. Hence arose the practice of printing on the titles of some dramas, the words, “by two wits,” or “by three wits,” (_de dos ingenios_, or _de tres ingenios_.) Of the numerous aspirants in this conflict of efforts and of talents, proportionally few succeeded in obtaining a celebrity which entitles them to be placed near Lope de Vega and Calderon. These few, however, whose number, compared with the approved dramatists of other nations, the French comic authors excepted, is still very considerable, vied in ingenuity and delicacy of composition with Calderon, and endeavoured to surpass him in regularity.

Several authors have with much labour endeavoured to discover the number of the Spanish dramas, as if the knowledge of their amount even correctly ascertained, could be worth the pains necessary to acquire it. Of the three thousand eight hundred and fifty-two dramatic works which La Huerta has enumerated,[551] the greater part belongs to the age of Calderon. Those which Calderon himself wrote, appear in the list; and it also includes a considerable number of short interludes, some of which, perhaps, did not cost their authors more than a few hours labour. But this list contains only the printed dramas known to literary collectors. That the number of pieces remaining in manuscript is much greater, may from analogy be presumed; for of the dramatic compositions of the idolized Lope de Vega, which are estimated at more than two thousand, not many more than three hundred have been printed.

It would not be uninteresting to analyze, for the purpose of comparison with the works of Calderon, some of the best of the other dramas of this age; but such details do not fall within the province of this General History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence. Some of the contemporaries of Calderon, however, vied with him in so distinguished a manner, that an express but brief notice of their merits becomes indispensable.

ANTONIO DE SOLIS--MORETO--JUAN DE HOZ--TIRSO DE MOLINA--FRANCISCO DE ROXAS--AUGUSTIN DE SALAZAR--MIRA DE MESCUA, &c.

An honourable station, beside Calderon, belongs to Antonio de Solis, one of the most eminent authors of his age. He was ten years younger than Calderon, whom he survived a few years. His literary activity was not limited to the study of poetry; for morals, politics, and history, also occupied his attention, particularly in his maturer years. He wrote the preludes, (_loas_), to some of Calderon’s dramas, and appears to have been connected by the ties of friendship with that great poet. The fame of his political and historical knowledge obtained for him a place in the administration under Philip IV. and after the death of that monarch he was appointed to the lucrative post of _Coronista de las Indias_, or historiographer of the transactions of the Spaniards in both Indies. While he held this office, he wrote his celebrated History of the Conquest of Mexico, which will be more particularly noticed at the close of the present book. Finally, he entered into holy orders, and devoted himself almost exclusively to exercises of devotion; he died in 1686. His plays do not display so much boldness of imagination as Calderon’s; but they are ingeniously composed in the Spanish national style of intrigue, and exhibit an elegant vivacity of diction. With regard to pleasantries put into the mouths of servants, he does not exactly correspond with other Spanish dramatists. His dramatic compositions are more regular than Calderon’s, because he was less liable to be seduced by the force of his imagination. Among his comedies attributed to the heroic class, _El Alcazar del Secreto_, (the Castle of Mystery), is justly much valued. In his dramas of intrigue he has endeavoured to vary the characters more than his great contemporary. Thus gipseys figure in his piece, called, _La Gitanilla de Madrid_, which is partly founded on Cervantes’s novel of the same title.[552]

Augustin Moreto possessed a higher degree of comic talent than Calderon. This able and industrious writer was also favoured by Philip IV. but he became an ecclesiastic and renounced writing for the theatre. Some of his pieces are comic from beginning to end, and are also comedies of character, though the form of the Spanish drama of intrigue is still preserved. In his piece, entitled, _De fuera vendra, quien de casa nos eschara_,[553] (He will come from without, Who will turn us out), he has introduced an old coquette, a military coxcomb, and a doctor of laws, who besides being cowardly and pedantic, is also amorous. These characters are drawn with a comic force which has seldom been surpassed, though it must be confessed that they partake too much of the caricature style. In general Moreto approximates more than Calderon to Terence, whose comedies became, in the sequel, models for the Spanish dramatists when the principles of the French drama were adopted. But his _gracioso_, who is always the fool of the piece in the character of a servant, repeats too often the same sort of wretched jests.

Juan de Hoz likewise approached to the comic style of the regular dramas representing character. Of this author nothing further is known, except that he wrote an excellent comedy, entitled, _El castigo de la Miseria_, (Avarice Punished,) which presents a considerable resemblance to one of Cervantes’s novels.[554]

Tirso de Molina, or Gabriel Sellez, (as his real name is said to have been) was one of the most prolific dramatic writers among the contemporaries of Calderon. He is the reputed author of upwards of seventy plays still extant. He vied with Lope de Vega and Calderon in the merit of ingenious and bold invention, which is particularly manifested in his historical and spiritual dramas.[555]

The dramas of intrigue by Francisco de Rojas, or Roxas, a knight of the order of Santiago, were, about the middle of the sixteenth century, as much esteemed as those of Calderon; for the art of ingenious complexity which they exhibited, rendered them particularly pleasing to the Spanish taste. A play by this author, entitled, _Entre Bobos anda el Juego_[556], (When Fools play the Game goes well), is even at the present day a distinguished favourite on the Spanish stage. He was not so successful as a writer of heroic comedies. His _Casarse para Vengarse_, (Marriage of Vengeance), which is a sort of tragedy, is disgustingly surcharged with bombastic phrases.

Agustin de Salazar y Torres, was educated in Mexico, and after his return to Spain, lived at the court of Philip IV. He was an admirer of Gongora, and as many of his poems prove, also a faithful disciple; but though an inveterate Gongorist, he was one of the cleverest writers of that school of affectation. His dramatic works are distinguished for ingenuity of invention, and a style which shews that he knew how to elevate himself above the common level, without running into bombast.[557] His heroic comedy, entitled, _Elegir al Enemigo_, (How to choose an Enemy), is full of genuine poetry.

Antonio Mira de Mescua, or Amescua, who lived as an ecclesiastic at the court of Philip IV. must not be omitted in the list of the Spanish dramatic poets of the period now under consideration. He was regarded by many of his contemporaries as a second Lope de Vega;[558] and he doubtless more nearly approached the rude brilliancy of Lope than the elegant manner of Calderon. He remained, however, far behind his model; yet his historical and spiritual dramas are distinguished for conceptions, which, though extravagant, are not devoid of interest, and which were moreover perfectly in unison with the prevailing Spanish taste. In _El Caballero sin Nombre_, (The Knight without a Name), he has even ventured to introduce a wild bear on the stage.

To the historian who makes the dramatic literature of Spain his

## particular object, must be consigned the task of collecting the

necessary information respecting the works of Antonio de Mendoza, Luis Velez de Guevara, Alvaro Cubillo, Luis Coello, Felipe Godinez, Juan Matos Fragoso, and other dramatists, who in the age in which they lived, were frequently placed on a level with Calderon. The writer who devotes his attention to this department of Spanish literature, must likewise take into consideration the older dramatic works which appeared during the latter years of Lope de Vega’s career, as, for example, the comedies of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, Guillen de Castro, &c.[559] Neither must he neglect to furnish bibliographic accounts of the various collections of Spanish dramas published by different editors. In the present work it is only necessary to observe, that these collections, the greater part of which appeared in the seventeenth century, were all speculations of the booksellers. Most of them present abundant traces of haste and negligence, and but few are distinguished for critical discrimination in the selection. The historian of the Spanish national taste will, however, consult those collections with the view of ascertaining what dramas were, at a certain period, the greatest favourites in Spain; for the booksellers published their collections in conformity with the humour of the public. Thus every drama which was printed, was styled a _Comedia famosa_, so that about the middle of the seventeenth century, the epithet _famosa_, had, by frequent repetition, lost all value.

CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORY OF SPANISH ELOQUENCE AND CRITICISM WITHIN THE PERIOD OF THIS SECTION.

The works belonging to the department of elegant prose, which appeared during the period of the ascendency of dramatic poetry in Spanish literature, may be noticed in few words. The authors who still adhered to the spirit of genuine eloquence, gave no new direction to rhetorical cultivation; they merely continued, with laudable perseverance, the task begun by their predecessors, namely, that of opposing the party who methodically endeavoured to introduce into prose composition a new tone of ingenious absurdity.

Romantic prose no longer maintained a conflict with true eloquence, but proceeded in a separate course. The reading portion of the Spanish public continued to be supplied with romances and novels, most of which, however, were the production of obscure writers. Several Spanish ladies contributed their share in this kind of authorship.

The necessary distinction between historical and romantic narrative was now made by the historiographers or chroniclers, whose numbers had been augmented since the extension of the Spanish possessions in India and America. But among all these writers, Antonio de Solis, who has already been noticed as a dramatic poet, is the only one who produced a work deserving to be ranked among the models of historical composition. His history, which he wrote in the quality of historiographer of the Indies, is the last classic relic of the kind of which Spanish literature can boast. It contains an account of the Conquest of Mexico, in a genuine historical form, notwithstanding that the subject was calculated to seduce a poetic author into the romantic narrative style.[560] Those who are unacquainted with the fact of Antonio de Solis being a celebrated poet, will never conjecture it from the general tone of this work. No writer could possibly mark with more solidity of taste the distinction between poetry and prose. Antonio de Solis had, however, attained the age of maturity when he laid down the principles by which he was guided in the discharge of his functions as a historian. He states in his preface that in history all ornaments of eloquence are merely accessaries; and that the accuracy of the relation is true historical elegance. He says, that truth must be of all things the most important to the historian, and that in historical composition what is truly stated, is well stated.[561] According to these principles the very worst style possible would be tolerable in a faithful historical narrative. But it would appear that Antonio de Solis, through a distrust of his own poetic imagination, exaggerated to himself the necessity of self-denial as an homage due to historical fidelity; and this exaggeration, which in reality was only theoretical, proved of essential service to him in the execution of his work. His talent for description, and his cultivated taste, naturally elevated him above the dryness and dulness of the common chronicle style. Though he seems scarcely to have reflected on the more essential requisites of the historical art, yet his work has not suffered by their neglect; for as a dramatic poet he had been accustomed to an arrangement of events which concentrated them in a single point of view; and profound political knowledge was not required for the just exposition of transactions occurring in the expedition of a small party of Spanish adventurers, led on by the daring Hernando Cortes, to the conquest of the kingdom of Mexico. Nothing more was necessary than a simple and unaffected narration, to cause the interest naturally belonging to the subject to be strongly felt.

INTRODUCTION OF GONGORISM INTO SPANISH PROSE--BALTHASAR GRACIAN.

The elegant simplicity of the historical style adopted by Antonio de Solis, forms, with the Gongorism which about this time crept into Spanish prose composition from the poetic school of Gongora, a rhetorical contrast, which is the last remarkable phenomenon in the history of Spanish eloquence. The pedantic commentators of the unintelligible Gongora had long been accustomed to write a strange fantastic prose style; but this prosaic Gongorism had not infected any man of distinguished talent, until Lorenzo, or Balthasar Gracian, became a popular author. Writers on literature mention but few

## particulars respecting the life of this distinguished man, who is

supposed to have died in the year 1652. It is probable that he himself concealed his literary existence; for it is conjectured that the works which on their title-pages bear the name of Lorenzo Gracian, were really written by Balthasar Gracian, who was a Jesuit, and the brother of Lorenzo. Respecting Lorenzo nothing further is known than that he is understood to have lent his name to the productions of his brother; but, be this as it may, the writings which have conferred celebrity on that name, are, in some measure, sufficiently jesuitical.[562] They relate, in general, to the morality of the great world, to theological morality, and to poetry and rhetoric. The most voluminous of these works bears the affected title of _El Criticon_. It is an allegorical picture of the whole course of human life divided into _Crisis_, that is to say, sections according to fixed points of view, and clothed in the formal garb of a pompous romance. It is scarcely possible to open any page of this book without recognizing in the author a man, who is in many respects far from common, but who from the ambition of being entirely uncommon in thinking and writing studiously and ingeniously, avoids nature and good sense. A profusion of the most ambiguous subtleties, expressed in ostentatious language, are scattered throughout the work;[563] and those affected conceits are the more offensive, in consequence of their union with the really grand view of the essential relationship of man to nature and his Creator, which forms the subject of the treatise. Gracian would have been an excellent writer had he not so anxiously wished to be an extraordinary one. His shorter productions, in which he developes his theory of the intellectual faculties, and the conduct of life, are still more disfigured by affected ornament than the tedious Criticon;[564] they, however, occasionally contain striking observations intelligibly expressed.[565] His _Oraculo Manual_ has been more read than any other of his works. It is intended to be a collection of maxims of general utility, but it exhibits good and bad precepts, sound judgments, and refined sophisms, all confounded together. In this work Gracian has not forgotten to inculcate the practical principle of jesuitism “to be all things to all men,” (_hacerse a todos_), nor to recommend his own favourite maxim, “to be common in nothing,” (_en nada vulgar_), which in order to be valid would require a totally different interpretation from that which he has given it.

Gracian’s _uncommon_ prose was formed according to certain principles. His book on the Art of Ingeniously Thinking and Writing,[566] is no inconsiderable contribution to criticism in Spanish literature. He refines to an incredible degree on subtle distinctions and antitheses, with the view of systematically bringing the style of his countrymen to the level of his own. His illustrative examples are selected from Italian and Spanish poets, particularly from Marino, Gongora and Quevedo. Throughout the whole work, ingenious thoughts (_conceptos_,) are constantly the subject of consideration. A man of genius, he says, may receive these ideas from nature; but art enables him to create them at pleasure. “As he who comprehends such ideas is an eagle, so he who is capable of producing them must be ranked among angels; for it is an employment of cherubims and an elevation of man which raises him to sublime hierarchy.”[567] He then proceeds to describe those _conceptos_, which he pronounces to be undefinable, because “they are to the understanding what beauty is to the eye, and harmony to the ear.”[568] Next follows an enumeration and explanation of the numerous combinations by which the various classes of these ideas, for example, the proverbial, the pathetic, the heroic, &c. may be produced. Poetic figures are examined in rotation; and the style of true eloquence is defined according to the same principles. Thus throughout the whole book good sense and good taste are most ingeniously abused.

This art of poetry and rhetoric by Gracian was, in the seventeenth century, the only work of the kind which produced any influence on the taste of writers and the public.

Gongorism peeps forth even in the published letters of the eminent men of this period, which exhibit a strained formality and an affected elegance. The letters of Quevedo form in this respect no exception. Even in those of Antonio de Solis the facility of the true epistolatory style is wanting.[569]

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