SERIOUS AND HISTORICAL ROMANCES.--JUAN DE FLORES, REINOSO, LUZINDARO,
CONTRERAS, HITA AND THE WARS OF GRANADA, FLEGETONTE, NOYDENS, CÉSPEDES,
CERVANTES, LAMARCA, VALLADARES, TEXADA, LOZANO.--FAILURE OF THIS FORM
OF FICTION IN SPAIN.
It was inevitable that grave fiction suited to the changed times should
appear in Spain, as well as fiction founded on the satire of prevalent
manners. But there were obstacles in its way, and it came late. The
old chronicles, so full of the same romantic spirit, and the more
interesting because they were sometimes built up out of the older and
longer-loved ballads; the old ballads themselves, still oftener made
out of the chronicles; the romances of chivalry, which had not yet lost
a popularity that, at the present day, seems nearly incredible;--all
contributed, in their respective proportions, to satisfy the demand for
books of amusement, and to repress the appearance and limit the success
of serious and historical fiction. But it was inevitable that it should
come, even if it should win little favor.
We have already noticed the attempts to introduce it, made in the time
of Ferdinand and Isabella, by Diego de San Pedro and his imitator, the
anonymous author of “The Question of Love.” Others followed, in the
reign of Charles the Fifth. The story, that very imperfectly connects
the discussions between Aurelio and Isabella, on the inquiry, whether
man gives more occasion for sin to woman, or woman to man, is one
of them. It is a slight and meagre fiction, by Juan de Mores, which
dates as far back as 1521, and which, in an early English translation,
was at one time thought to have furnished hints for Shakspeare’s
“Tempest.”[117] “The Loves of Clareo and Florisea,” published in 1552,
by Nuñez de Reinoso, at Venice, where he then lived, is another;--a
fiction partly allegorical, partly sentimental, and partly in the
manner of the romances of chivalry, but of no value for the invention
of its incidents, and of very little for its style.[118] The story
of “Luzindaro and Medusina,” printed as early as 1553, which, in the
midst of enchantments and allegories, preserves the tone and air of
a series of complaints against love, and ends tragically with the
death of Luzindaro, is yet a third of these crude attempts;[119]--all
of which are of consequence only because they led the way to better
things. But excepting these and two or three more trifles of the same
kind, and of even less value, the reign of Charles the Fifth, so far as
grave fiction was concerned, was entirely given up to the romances of
chivalry.[120]
[117] I know only the edition of Antwerp, 1556, 12mo, but there
are several others. Lowndes, Bib. Manual, Article _Aurelio_, and
Malone’s Shakspeare, by Boswell, Vol. XV.
[118] “Historia de los Amores de Clareo y Florisea, por Alonso
Nuñez de Reinoso,” Venecia, 1552, reprinted in the third volume
of Aribau’s Biblioteca, 1846. The author is said by Antonio to
have been a native of Guadalaxara, and, from his poems, published
at the same time with his story, and of no value, he seems to
have led an unhappy life, divided between the law, for which he
felt he had no vocation, and arms, in which he had no success.
[119] It claims to be “_sacado_ del estilo Griego,” and in this
imitates one of the common fictions in the title-pages of the
romances of chivalry. There are several editions of it,--one at
Venice, 1553, 12mo, which is in my library, entitled “Quexa y
Aviso de un Cavallero llamado Luzindaro.”
[120] Historia de la Reyna Sevilla, 1532, and 1551;--and Libro de
los Honestos Amores de Peregrino y de Jinebra, 1548.
In the reign of Philip the Second, when the literature of the country
began to develop itself on all sides, serious romances appeared in
better forms, or at least with higher pretensions and attributes. Two
instances of attempts in new directions, and with more considerable
success, present themselves at once.
The first was by Hierónimo de Contreras, and bears the affected title
of “A Thicket of Adventures.” It was published in 1573, and is the
story of Luzuman, a gentleman of Seville, who had been bred from
childhood in great intimacy with Arboleda, a lady of equal condition
with himself; but when, as he grows up, this intimacy ripens into love,
the lady rejects his suit, on the ground that she prefers a religious
life. The refusal is gentle and tender; but he is so disheartened by
it, that he secretly leaves his home in sorrow and mortification, and
goes to Italy, where he meets with abundance of adventures, and travels
through the whole peninsula, down to Naples. Wearied with this mode
of life, he then embarks for Spain, but on his passage is taken by a
corsair and carried to Algiers. There he remains in cruel slavery for
five years. His master then gives him his freedom, and he returns to
his home as secretly as he left it; but finding that Arboleda had taken
the veil, and that the society to which he belonged had forgotten him,
and had closed over the place he had once filled, he avoids making
himself known to any body, and retires to a hermitage, with the purpose
of ending his days in devotion.[121]
[121] The “Selva de Aventuras” was printed at Salamanca, in 1573,
12mo, and probably earlier, besides which there are subsequent
editions of Barcelona, Saragossa, etc. (Antonio, Bib. Nova,
Tom. I. p. 572); but it is in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667,
p. 529. Philip II., in the _Licencia_, calls Contreras “nuestro
cronista.” The Selva was translated into French by G. Chapuys,
and printed in 1580. (Bibliothèque de Duverdier, Tom. IV. p.
221.) Contreras wrote, also, a volume of allegories in prose and
verse, (Dechado de Varios Subjetos, Zaragoza, 1572, and Alcalá,
1581, 12mo,) which is very formal and dull.
The whole story, somewhat solemnly divided into seven books, is dull,
from want both of sufficient variety in the details, and of sufficient
spirit in the style. But it is of some importance, because it is the
first in a class of fictions, afterwards numerous, which--relying on
the curiosity then felt in Spain about Italy, as a country full of
Spaniards enjoying luxuries and refinements not yet known at home, and
about Algiers, crowded with thousands of other Spaniards suffering the
most severe forms of captivity--trusted, for no small part of their
interest, to the accounts they gave of their heroes as adventurers in
Italy, and as slaves on the coast of Barbary. Lope de Vega, Cervantes,
and several more among the most popular authors of the seventeenth
century, are among the writers of fictions like these.
The other form of grave fiction, which appeared in the time of Philip
the Second, was the proper historical romance; and the earliest
specimen of it, except such unsuccessful and slight attempts as we have
already noticed, is to be found in “The Civil Wars of Granada,” by
Ginés Perez de Hita. The author of this striking book was an inhabitant
of Murcia, and, from the little he tells us of himself, must not only
have been familiar with the wild mountains and rich valleys of the
neighbouring kingdom of Granada, but must have had an intimate personal
acquaintance with many of the old Moorish families that still lingered
in the homes of their fathers, repeating the traditions of their
ancient glory and its disastrous overthrow. Perhaps these circumstances
led him to the choice of a subject for his romance. Certainly they
furnished him with its best materials; for the story he relates is
founded on the fall of Granada, regarded rather from within, amidst the
feuds of the Moors themselves, than, as we are accustomed to consider
it, from the Christian portion of Spain, gradually gathered in military
array outside of its walls.
He begins his story by seeking a safe basis for it in the origin and
history of the kingdom of Granada, according to the best authorities
within his reach. This part of his work is formal and dry, and shows
how imperfect were the notions, at the time he lived, of what an
historical romance should be. But as he advances and enters upon the
main subject he had proposed to himself, his tone changes. We are,
indeed, still surrounded with personages that are familiar to us, like
the heroic Muza on one side and the Master of Calatrava on the other;
we are present with Boabdil, the last of the long line of Moorish
sovereigns, as he carries on a fierce war against his own father in
the midst of the city, and with Ferdinand and his knights, as they lay
waste all the kingdom without. But to these historical figures are
added the more imaginative and fabulous sketches of the Zegris and
Abencerrages, Reduan, Abenamar, and Gazul, as full of knightly virtues
as any of the Christian cavaliers opposed to them; and of Haja, Zayda,
and Fatima, as fair and winning as the dames whom Isabella had brought
with her to Santa Fé to cheer on the conquest.
But while he is thus mingling the creations of his own fancy with the
facts of history, Hita has been particularly skilful in giving to the
whole the manners and coloring of the time. He shows us a luxurious
empire tottering to its fall, and yet, while the streets of its capital
are filled with war-cries and blood, its princes and nobles abate not
one jot of their accustomed revelry and riot. Marriage festivals and
midnight dances in the Alhambra, and gorgeous tournaments and games in
presence of the court, alternate with duels and feuds between the two
great preponderating families that are destroying the state, and with
skirmishes and single combats against the advancing Christians. Then
come the cruel accusation of the Sultana by the false Zegris, and her
defence in arms by both Moors and Christians; the atrocious murder of
his sister Morayma by Boabdil, who suddenly breaks out with all the
jealous violence of an Oriental despot; and the mournful and scandalous
spectacle of three kings contending daily for empire in the squares and
palaces of a city destined in a few short weeks to fall into the hands
of the enemy that already surrounded its walls.
Much of this, of course, is fiction, so far as the details are
concerned; but it is not a fiction false to the spirit of the real
events on which it is founded. When, therefore, we approach the end of
the story, we come again without violence upon historical ground as
true as that on which it opened, though almost as wild and romantic
as any of the tales of feuds or festivals through which we have been
led to it. In this way, the temporary captivity of Boabdil and his
cowardly submission, the siege and surrender of Alhama and Malaga,
and the fall of Granada, are brought before us neither unexpectedly
nor in a manner out of keeping with what had preceded them; and the
story ends, if not with a regular catastrophe, which such materials
might easily have furnished, at least with a tale in the tone of all
the rest,--that which records the sad fate of Don Alonso de Aguilar.
It should be added, that not a few of the finest of the old Spanish
ballads are scattered through the work, furnishing materials for the
story, rich and appropriate in themselves, and giving an air of reality
to the events described, that could hardly have been given to them by
any thing else.
This first part, as it is commonly called, of the Wars of Granada
was written between 1589 and 1595.[122] It claims to be a translation
from the Arabic of a Moor of Granada, and, in the last chapter, Hita
gives a circumstantial account of the way in which he obtained it
from Africa, where, as he would have us believe, it had been carried
in the dispersion of the Moorish race. But though it is not unlikely,
that, in his wanderings through the kingdom of Granada, he may have
obtained Arabic materials for parts of his story, and though, in the
last century, it was more than once attempted to make out an Arabic
origin for the whole of it,[123] still his account, upon the face of
it, is not at all probable; besides which, he repeatedly appeals to the
chronicles of Garibay and Moncayo as authorities for his statements,
and gives to the main current of his work--especially in such passages
as the conversion of the Sultana--a Christian air, which does not
permit us to suppose that any but a Christian could have written
it. Notwithstanding his denial, therefore, we must give to Hita the
honor of being the true author of one of the most attractive books in
the prose literature of Spain; a book written in a pure, rich, and
picturesque style, which seems in some respects to be in advance of the
age, and in all to be worthy of the best models of the best period.
[122] The Chronicle of Pedro de Moncayo, published in 1589, is
cited in Chap. XII., and the first edition of the first part of
the Guerras Civiles, as is well known, appeared at Saragossa in
1595, 12mo. This part was reprinted much oftener than the second.
There are editions of it in 1598, 1603, 1604 (three), 1606, 1610,
1613, 1616, etc., besides several without date.
[123] Bertuch, Magazin der Spanischen und Portugiesischen
Literatur, Tom. I., 1781, pp. 275-280, with the extract there
from “Carter’s Travels.” A suggestion recently reported--not,
however, without expressing doubts of its accuracy--by Count
Albert de Circourt, in his curious and important “Histoire des
Arabes d’Espagne,” (Paris, 1846, 8vo, Tom. III. p. 346,) that
Don Pascual de Gayangos, of Madrid, has in his possession the
Arabic original of the Guerras de Granada, is equally unfounded.
From Don Pascual himself, I learn that the MS. referred to is
one obtained by him in London, where it had been carried from
Madrid as a part of Conde’s collection, and that it is merely an
ill-made translation, or rather abridgment, of the romance of
Hita;--probably the work of some Morisco Spaniard, not thoroughly
acquainted with his own language.
In 1604, he published the second part, on a subject nearly connected
with the first. Seventy-seven years after the conquest of Granada,
the Moors of that kingdom, unable any longer to bear the oppressions
to which they were subjected by the rigorous government of Philip
the Second, took refuge in the bold range of the Alpuxarras, on the
coast of the Mediterranean, and there, electing a king, broke out into
open rebellion. They maintained themselves bravely in their mountain
fastnesses nearly four years, and were not finally defeated till three
armies had been sent against them; the last of which was commanded by
no less a general than Don John of Austria. Hita served through the
whole of this war; and the second part of his romance contains its
history. Much of what he relates is true; and, indeed, of much he had
been an eye-witness, as we can see in his accounts of the atrocities
committed in the villages of Felix and Huescar, as well as in all the
details of the siege of Galera and the death and funeral honors of Luis
de Quijada. But other portions, like the imprisonment of Albexari,
with his love for Almanzora, and the jealousies and conspiracy of
Benalguacil, must be chiefly or wholly drawn from his own imagination.
The most interesting part is the story of Tuzani, which he relates with
great minuteness, and which he declares he received from Tuzani himself
and other persons concerned in it;--a wild tale of Oriental passion,
which, as we have seen, Calderon made the subject of one of his most
powerful and characteristic dramas.
If the rest of the second division of Hita’s romance had been like
this story, it might have been worthy of the first. But it is not.
The ballads with which it is diversified, and which are probably
all his own, are much inferior in merit to the older ballads he had
inserted before; and his narrative is given in a much less rich and
glowing style. Perhaps Hita felt the want of the old Moorish traditions
that had before inspired him, or perhaps he found himself awkwardly
constrained when dealing with facts too recent and notorious to be
manageable for the purposes of fiction. But whatever may have been the
cause of its inferiority, the fact is plain. His second part, regarded
as genuine history, is not to be compared with the account of the
same events by Diego de Mendoza; while, regarded as a romance, he had
already far surpassed it himself.[124]
[124] The second part appeared for the first time at Alcalá, in
1604, but has been reprinted so rarely since, that old copies
of it are very scarce. There is a neat edition of both parts,
Madrid, 1833, 2 tom. 12mo, and both are in the third volume of
Aribau’s Biblioteca, 1846.
The path, however, which Hita by these two works had opened for
historical fiction amidst the old traditions and picturesque manners
of the Moors, tempting as it may now seem, did not, in his time, seem
so to others. His own romance, it is true, was often reprinted and
much read. But, from the nature of his subject, he showed the Moorish
character on its favorable side, and even went so far as to express
his horror at the cruelties inflicted by his countrymen on their hated
enemies, and his sense of the injustice done to the vanquished by the
bad faith that kept neither the promises of Ferdinand and Isabella nor
those of Don John.[125] Such sympathy with the infidel enemy that had
so long held Spain in fee was not according to the spirit of the times.
Only five years after Hita had published his account of the rebellion
of the Alpuxarras, the remainder of the Moors against whom he had there
fought were violently expelled from Spain by Philip the Third, amidst
the rejoicings of the whole Spanish people; few even of the most humane
spirits looking upon the sufferings they thus inflicted as any thing
but the just retributions of an offended Heaven.
[125] Parte I. c. 18, Parte II. c. 25.
Of course, while this was the state of feeling throughout the nation,
it was not to be expected that works of fiction representing the Moors
in romantic and attractive colors, and filled with adventures drawn
from their traditions, should find favor in Spain. A century later,
indeed, a third part of the Wars of Granada--whether written by Hita
or somebody else we are not told--was licensed for the press, though
never published;[126] and, in France, Madame de Scudéri soon began,
in “The Almahide,” a series of fictions on this foundation, that has
been continued down, through the “Gonsalve de Cordoue” of Florian, to
“The Abencerrage” of Chateaubriand, without giving any token that it is
likely soon to cease.[127] But in Spain it struck no root, and had no
success.
[126] In my copy of the second part, printed at Madrid, 1731,
12mo, the _Aprobacion_, dated 10th of September of that year,
speaks distinctly of _three_ parts, mentioning the second as
the one that was printed at Alcalá in 1604, and the _third_ as
being in manuscript. I know no other notice of this _third_ part.
Circourt (Histoire des Maures Mudejares et des Moresques) has
frequently relied on the second part as an authority, and, in
the passage just cited, gives his reasons for the confidence he
reposes in it.
[127] Scott is reported to have said, on being shown the Wars of
Granada in the latter part of his life, that, if he had earlier
known of the book, he might have placed in Spain the scene of
some of his own fictions. Denis, Chroniques Chevalresques, Paris,
1839, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 323.
Perhaps other circumstances, besides a national feeling of
unwillingness that romantic fiction should occupy the debatable ground
between the Moors and the Christians, contributed to check its progress
in Spain. Perhaps the publication of the first part of Don Quixote,
destroying, by its ridicule, the only form of romance much known or
regarded at the time, was not without an effect on the other forms,
by exciting a prejudice against all grave prose works of invention,
and still more by furnishing a substitute much more amusing than
they could aspire to be. But whether this were so or not, attacks on
all of them followed in the same spirit. “The Cryselia of Lidaceli,”
which appeared in 1609,--and which, as well as a dull prose satire on
the fantastic Academies then in fashion, bears the name of Captain
Flegetonte,--assails freely whatever of prose fiction had till then
enjoyed regard in Spain, whether the pastoral, the historical, or the
chivalrous.[128] Its attack, however, was so ineffectual, as to show
only the tendency of opinion to discourage romance-writing in Spain;--a
tendency yet more apparent a little later, not only in some of the best
ascetic writers of the seventeenth century, but in such works as “The
Moral History of the God Momus,” by Noydens, published in 1666, which,
as its author tells us distinctly in the Prologue, was intended to
drive out of society all novels and books of adventure whose subject
was love.[129]
[128] “La Cryselia de Lidaceli, Famosa y Verdadera Historia de
Varios Acontecimientos de Amor y Fortuna,” was first printed
at Paris, 1609, 12mo, and dedicated to the Princess of Conti;
besides which I have seen a _third_ edition, of Madrid, 1720.
At the end a second part is announced, which never appeared.
The other work of El Capitan Flegetonte is entitled “La Famosa
y Temeraria Compañía de Rompe Columnas,” and was also printed
in 1609, with two Dialogues on Love; all as poor as can well be
imagined. The “Cryselia” is a strange confusion of the pastoral
style with that of serious romance;--the whole mingled with
accounts of giants and enchantments, and occasionally with short
poems.
[129] Benito Remigio Noydens was author of a number of moral and
ascetic works. The “Historia Moral del Dios Momo” (4to, Madrid,
1666, 12mo) is an account of the exile of the god Momus from
heaven, and his transmigration through the bodies of persons in
all conditions on earth, doing mischief wherever he goes. Each
chapter of the eighteen into which it is divided is followed
by a moralizing illustration; as, for instance, (c. 5,) the
disturbance Momus excites on earth against heaven is illustrated
by the heresies of Germany and England, in which the Duke of
Saxony and Henry VIII. appear to very little advantage.
Still, serious romance was written in Spain during the whole of the
seventeenth century, and written in several varieties of form and
tone, though with no real success. Thus, Gonzalo de Céspedes, a native
of Madrid, and author of several other works, published the first
part of his “Gerardo” in 1615, and the second in 1617. He calls it a
Tragic Poem, and divides it into discourses instead of chapters. But
it is, in fact, a prose romance, consisting of a series of slightly
connected adventures in the life of its hero, Gerardo, and episodes
of the adventures of different persons more or less associated with
him; in all which, amidst much that is sentimental and romantic, there
is more that is tragic than is common in such Spanish stories. It was
several times reprinted, and was succeeded, in 1626, by his “Various
Fortunes of the Soldier Píndaro,” a similar work, but less interesting,
and perhaps, on that account, never finished according to the original
purpose of its author. Both, however, show a power of invention which
is hardly to be found in works of the same class produced so early,
either in France or England, and both make pretensions to style, though
rather in their lighter than in their more serious portions.[130]
[130] “Poema Trágico del Español Gerardo y Desengaño del Amor
Lascivo” is the title of the story; and, besides the first
edition, it was printed in 1617, 1618, 1623, 1625, 1654, etc. The
“Varia Fortuna del Soldado Píndaro,” who, notwithstanding his
classical name, is represented as a native of Castile, was less
favored. I know only the editions of 1626 and 1661, till we come
to that of Madrid, 1845, 8vo, illustrated with much spirit. Of
Céspedes y Meneses a slight notice is to be found in Baena, Hijos
de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 362.
Again in 1617,--the same year, it will be recollected, in which the
“Persiles and Sigismunda” of Cervantes appeared,--Francisco Loubayssin
de Lamarca, a Biscayan by birth, published his “Tragicomic History of
Don Enrique de Castro”; in which known facts and fanciful adventures
are mingled in the wildest confusion. The scene is carried back, by
means of the story of the hero’s uncle, who has become a hermit in
his old age, to the Italian wars of Charles the Eighth of France, and
forward, in the person of the hero himself, to the conquest of Chili
by the Spaniards; covering meanwhile any intermediate space that seems
convenient to its author’s purposes. As an historical novel, it is an
entire failure.[131]
[131] The “Historia Tragicómica de Don Enrique de Castro” was
printed at Paris, in 1617, when its author was twenty-nine years
old. Two years earlier he had published “Engaños deste Siglo.”
(Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 358.) I believe he sometimes
wrote in French.
A similar remark may be made on another work published in 1625, which
takes in part the guise of imaginary travels, and is called “The
History of Two Faithful Friends”; a story founded on the supposed
adventures of a Frenchman and a Spaniard in Persia, and consisting
chiefly of incredible accounts of their intrigues with Persian ladies
of rank. Much of it is given in the shape of a correspondence, and it
ends with the promise of a continuation, which never appeared.[132]
[132] I do not know who was the author of this foolish fancy,
which is, perhaps, a _chronique scandaleuse_ of the court. It was
printed at Roussillon, and is a small 18mo volume.
Many, indeed, of the works of fiction begun in Spain, during the
seventeenth century, remained, like the Two Faithful Friends,
unfinished, from want of encouragement and popularity; while others
that were written were never published at all.[133] One of these last,
called “The Fortunate Knight,” by Juan Valladares de Valdelomar, of
Córdova, was quite prepared for the press in 1617, and is still extant
in the original manuscript, with the proper licenses for printing and
the autograph approbation of Lope de Vega. It is an historical novel,
divided into forty-five “Adventures”; and the hero, like many others
of his class, is a soldier in Italy, and a captive in Africa; serving
first under Don John of Austria, and afterwards under Sebastian of
Portugal. How much of it is true is uncertain. Regular dates are given
for many of its events, some of which can be verified; but it is full
of poetry and poetical fancies, and several of the stories, like that
of the loves of the knight himself and the fair Mayorinda, must have
been taken from the author’s imagination. Still, in the Prologue, all
books of fiction are treated with contempt, as if the whole class were
so little favored, that it was discreditable to avow the intention of
publishing another, even at the moment of doing it. In the style of its
prose, the Fortunate Knight is as good as other similar works of the
same period; but the poems with which it is crowded, to the number of
about a hundred and fifty, are of less merit.[134]
[133] The names of a good many unpublished manuscripts of such
works can be found in the Bibliotheca of Antonio, and in Baena,
“Hijos de Madrid.”
[134] The MS. of “El Caballero Venturoso,” which is evidently
autograph throughout, belongs to Don Pascual de Gayangos,
Professor of Arabic in the University of Madrid, and fills 289
closely written leaves, in 4to. A second part is announced, but
was probably never written.
The discouragement just alluded to, whether proceeding from the
ridicule thrown on long works of fiction by Cervantes, or from the
watchfulness of the ecclesiastical authorities, or from both causes
combined, was probably one of the reasons that led persons writing
serious romances to seek new directions and unwonted forms in their
composition; sometimes going as far as possible from the truth of fact,
and sometimes coming down almost to plain history. Two instances of
such deviations from the beaten paths--probably the only examples in
their time of the class to which each belonged--should be noticed, for
their singularity, if not for their literary merit.
The first is by Cosmé de Texada, and is called “The Marvellous Lion.”
It was originally published in 1636, and consists of the history of
“the great Lion Auricrino,” his wonderful adventures, and, at last, his
marriage with Crisaura, his lady-love. It is divided into fifty-four
Apologues, which might rather have been called chapters; and if,
instead of the names of animals given to its personages, it had such
poetical names as usually occur in romantic fiction, it would--except
where it involves satirical sketches of the follies of the times--be
a mere love-romance, neither more unnatural nor more extravagant than
many of its fellows.
Such as it is, however, it did not entirely satisfy its author. The
early portions had been written in his youth, while he was a student
in theology at Salamanca; and when, somewhat later, he resumed his
task, and brought it to a regular conclusion, he was already far
advanced in the composition of another romance still more grave and
spiritualized and still farther removed from the realities of life.
This more carefully matured fiction is called “Understanding and Truth,
the Philosophical Lovers”; and all its personages are allegorical,
filling up, with their dreams and trials, a shadowy picture of human
life, from the creation to the general judgment. How long Texada was
employed about this cold and unsatisfactory allegory, we are not
told; but it was not published till 1673, nearly forty years after it
was begun, and then it was given to the public by his brother as a
posthumous work, with the inappropriate title of “The Second Part of
the Marvellous Lion.” Neither romance had a living interest capable of
insuring it a permanent success, but both are written in a purer style
than was common in such works at the same period, and the first of them
occasionally attacks the faults of the contemporary literature with
spirit and good-humor.[135]
[135] “Leon Prodigioso, Apología Moral, por el Licenciado
Cosmé Gomez Texada de los Reyes,” Madrid, 1670, 4to;--“Segunda
Parte del Leon Prodigioso, Entendimiento y Verdad, Amantes
Filosóficos,” Alcalá, 1673, 4to. The first part was licensed in
1634. The author published “El Filósofo,” a miscellany on the
physical sciences and moral philosophy, in 1650. In the “Leon
Prodigioso” is a good deal of poetry; particularly, in the first
part, a poem called “La Nada,” which is very dull, and one in
the second, called “El Todo,” which is still worse. His ridicule
of the _culto_ style, in Parte I. pp. 317, 391-395, is acute and
successful.
Quite different from both of them, “The New Kings of Toledo,” by
Christóval Lozano, introduces only real personages, and contains little
but the facts of known history and old tradition, slightly embellished
by the spirit of romance. Its author was attached to the metropolitan
cathedral of Toledo, and, with Calderon, served in the chapel set
apart for the burial of the New Kings, as the monarchs of Castile were
called from the time of Henry of Trastamara, who there established for
himself a cemetery, separate from that in which the race ending with
the dishonored Don Pedro had been entombed.
The pious chaplain, who was thus called to pray daily for the souls of
the line of sovereigns that had constituted the house of Trastamara,
determined to illustrate their memories by a romantic history; and,
beginning with the old national traditions of the origin of Toledo, the
cave of Hercules, the marriage of Charlemagne with a Moorish princess
whom he converted, and the refusal of a Christian princess to marry a
Moor whom she could not convert, he gives us an account of the building
of the chapel, and the adventures of the kings who sleep under its
altars, down as late as the death of Henry the Third, in 1406. From
internal evidence, it was written at the end of the reign of Philip
the Fourth, when Spanish prose had lost much both of its purity and of
its dignity; but Lozano, though not free from the affectations of his
age, wrote so much more simply than his contemporaries generally did,
and his story, though little indebted to his own invention, was yet
found so attractive, that, in about half a century, eleven editions
of it were published, and it obtained for itself a place in Spanish
literature which it has never entirely lost.[136]
[136] My copy is of the eleventh edition, Madrid, 1734, 4to;
and Lib. III. c. 1, p. 237, was written just at the moment of
the accession of Charles II. The story is connected with the
favorite doctrine of the Spanish Church: that of the immaculate
conception, whose annunciation by the Madonna is described with
dramatic effect in Lib. I. c. 10. The earliest edition I have
seen noticed is of 1667.
After all, however, the serious and historical fictions produced in
Spain, that merit the name of full-length romances, were, from the
first, few in number, and, with the exception of Hita’s “Civil Wars
of Granada,” deserved little favor. Subsequent to the reign of Philip
the Fourth, they almost disappeared for above a century; and even at
the end of that period, they occurred rarely, and obtained little
regard.[137]
[137] The only grave romance of this class, after 1650, that
needs, I believe, to be referred to, is “La Historia de Lisseno
y Fenisa, por Francisco Parraga Martel de la Fuente,” (Madrid,
1701, 4to,)--a very bad imitation of the “Gerardo Español” of
Céspedes y Meneses.