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]