TALES.--VILLEGAS, TIMONEDA, CERVANTES, HIDALGO, FIGUEROA, BARBADILLO,
ESLAVA, AGREDA, LIÑAN Y VERDUGO, LOPE DE VEGA, SALAZAR, LUGO, CAMERINO,
TELLEZ, MONTALVAN, REYES, PERALTA, CÉSPEDES, MOYA, ANAYA, MARIANA
DE CARBAJAL, MARÍA DE ZAYAS, MATA, CASTILLO, LOZANO, SOLORZANO,
ALONSO DE ALCALÁ, VILLALPANDO, PRADO, ROBLES, GUEVARA, POLO, GARCIA,
SANTOS.--GREAT NUMBER OF TALES.--GENERAL REMARKS ON ALL THE FORMS OF
SPANISH FICTION.
Short stories or tales were more successful in Spain, during the latter
part of the sixteenth century and the whole of the seventeenth, than
any other form of prose fiction, and were produced in greater numbers.
They seem, indeed, to have sprung afresh, and with great vigor, from
the prevailing national tastes and manners, not at all connected
with the tales of Oriental origin, that had been introduced above
two hundred years earlier by Don Juan Manuel, and little affected by
the brilliant Italian school, of which Boccaccio was the head; but
showing rather, in the hues they borrowed from the longer contemporary
pastoral, satirical, and historical romances, how truly they belonged
to the spirit of their own times, and to the state of society in which
they appeared. We turn to them, therefore, with more than common
interest.
The oldest Spanish tales of the sixteenth century, that deserve to
be noticed, are two that are found in a small volume of the works of
Antonio de Villegas, somewhat conceitedly called “El Inventario,”
and prepared for the press about 1550, though not published till
1565.[138] The first of them is entitled “Absence and Solitude,” a
pastoral consisting of about equal portions of prose and poetry, and is
as affected and in as bad taste as the ampler fictions of the class to
which it belongs. The other--“The Story of Narvaez”--is much better. It
is the Spanish version of a romantic adventure that really occurred on
the frontiers of Granada, in the days when knighthood was in its glory
among Moors as well as among Christians. Its principal incidents are as
follows.
[138] The “Inventario” of Villegas was twice printed, the first
edition in 4to, 1565, and the second in small 12mo, 1577, 144
leaves;--both times at Medina del Campo, of which its author
is supposed to have been a native, and both times with a note
especially prefixed, signifying that the first license to print
it was granted in 1551.
Rodrigo de Narvaez, Alcayde of Alora, a fortress on the Spanish border,
grows weary of a life of inaction, from which he had been for some
time suffering, and goes out one night with a few followers, in mere
wantonness, to seek adventures. Of course they soon find what, in
such a spirit, they seek. Abindarraez, a noble Moor, belonging to the
persecuted and exiled family of the Abencerrages, comes well mounted
and well armed along the path they are watching, and sings cheerily
through the stillness of the night,--
In Granada was I born,
In Cartama was I bred;
But in Coyn by Alora
Lives the maiden I would wed.
A fight follows at once, and the gallant young Moor is taken prisoner;
but his dejected manner, after a resistance so brave as he had made,
surprises his conqueror, who, on inquiry, finds that his captive was
on his way that very night to a secret marriage with the lady of his
love, daughter of the lord of Coyn, a Moorish fortress near at hand.
Immediately on learning this, the Spanish knight, like a true cavalier,
releases the young Moor from his present thraldom, on condition that
he will voluntarily return in three days and submit himself again to
his fate. The noble Moor keeps his word, bringing with him his stolen
bride, to whom, by the intervention of the generous Spaniard with the
king of Granada, her father is reconciled, and so the tale ends to the
honor and content of all the parties who appear in it.
Some passages in it are beautiful, like the first declaration of
his love by Abindarraez, as described by himself; and the darkness
that, he says, fell upon his very soul, when his lady, the next day,
was carried away by her father, “as if,” he adds, “the sun had been
suddenly eclipsed over a man wandering amidst wild and precipitous
mountains.” His Moorish honor and faith, too, are characteristically
and finely expressed, when, on the approach of the time for his return
to captivity, he reveals to his bride the pledge he had given, and in
reply to her urgent offer to send a rich ransom and break his word,
he says, “Surely I may not _now_ fall into so great a fault; for
if, when formerly I came to you all alone, I kept truly my pledged
faith, my duty to keep it is doubled now that I am yours. Therefore,
questionless, I shall return to Alora, and place myself in the
Alcayde’s hands; and when I have done what I ought to do, he must also
do what to him seems right.”
The original story, as told by the Arabian writers, is found at the
end of “The History of the Arabs in Spain,” by Conde, who says it was
often repeated by the poets of Granada. But it was too attractive in
itself, and too flattering to the character of Spanish knighthood, not
to obtain a similar place in Spanish literature. Montemayor, therefore,
borrowing it with little ceremony from Villegas, and altering it
materially for the worse in point of style, inserted it in the editions
of his “Diana” published towards the latter part of his life, though it
harmonizes not at all with the pastoral scenery which there surrounds
it. Padilla, too, soon afterwards took possession of it, and wrought
it into a series of ballads; Lope de Vega founded on it his play of
“The Remedy for Misfortune”; and Cervantes introduced it into his “Don
Quixote.” On all sides, therefore, traces of it are to be found, but it
nowhere presents itself with such grace or to such advantage as it does
in the simple tale of Villegas.[139]
[139] The story of Narvaez, who is honorably noticed in Pulgar’s
“Claros Varones,” Título XVII., and who is said to have been
the ancestor of Narvaez, the minister of state to Isabella II.,
is found in Argote de Molina (Nobleza, 1588, f. 296); in Conde
(Historia, Tom. III. p. 262); in Villegas (Inventario, 1565,
f. 94); in Padilla (Romancero, 1583, ff. 117-127); in Lope de
Vega (Remedio de la Desdicha; Comedias, Tom. XIII., 1620); in
Don Quixote (Parte I. c. 5), etc. I think, too, that it may
have been given by Timoneda, under the title of “Historia del
Enamorado Moro Abindarraez,” _sine anno_, (Fuster, Bib., Tom.
I. p. 162,) and it is certainly among the ballads in his “Rosa
Española,” 1573. (See Wolf’s reprint, 1846, p. 107.) It is the
subject, also, of a long poem by Francisco Balbi de Corregio,
1593. (Depping’s Romancero, Leipsique, 1844, 12mo, Tom. II. p.
231.) That Montemayor took his version of the story of Narvaez
from Villegas nobody will doubt who compares both together and
remembers that it does not appear in the first edition of the
“Diana”; that it is wholly unsuited to its place in such a
romance; and that the difference between the two is only that the
story, as told by Montemayor, in the “Diana,” Book IV., though
it is often, for several sentences together, in the same words
with the story in Villegas, is made a good deal longer by mere
verbiage. See, _ante_, Chap. XXXIII., note.
In the “Nobiliario” of Ferant de Mexia, (Sevilla, 1492,
folio,)--a curious book, written with Castilian dignity of style,
and full of the feudal spirit of an age that believed in the
inherent qualities of noble blood,--its author (Lib. II. c. 15)
boasts that Narvaez was the brother of his grandfather, calling
him “cavallero de los bienaventurados que ovo en nuestros tiempos
desde el Cid acá batalloso é victorioso.”
Juan de Timoneda, already noticed as one of the founders of the popular
theatre in Spain, was also an early writer of Spanish tales. Indeed, as
a bookseller who sought to make profit of whatever was agreeable to
the general taste, and who wrote and published in this spirit several
volumes of ballads, miscellaneous poetry, and farces, it was quite
natural he should adventure in the ways of prose fiction, now become so
attractive. His first attempt seems to have been in his “Patrañuelo,”
or Story-teller, the first part of which appeared in 1576, but was not
continued.[140]
[140] Rodriguez, Biblioteca, p. 283. Ximeno, Bib., Tom. I. p. 72.
Fuster, Bib., Tom. I. p. 161, Tom. II. p. 530. The “Sobremesa y
Alivio de Caminantes,” by Timoneda, printed in 1569, and probably
earlier, is merely a collection of a hundred and sixty-one
anecdotes and jests, in the manner of Joe Miller, though
sometimes cited as a collection of tales. They are preceded
by twelve similar anecdotes, by a person who is called Juan
Aragones. In all the editions of the “Patrañuelo,” I believe,
except the first and that in Aribau’s Biblioteca, there are only
twenty-one tales;--the eighth, which is a coarse one borrowed
from Ariosto, being omitted.
It is a small work, which draws its materials from widely different
sources, some of them being found, like the well-known story of
Apollonius, Prince of Tyre, in the “Gesta Romanorum,” and some in the
Italian masters, like the story of Griselda in Boccaccio, and the one
familiar to English readers in the ballad of “King John and the Abbot
of Canterbury,” which Timoneda probably took from Sacchetti.[141] Three
or four--of which the first in the volume is one--had already been used
in the construction of dramas by Alonso de la Vega and Lope de Rueda.
All of them tend to show, what is proved in other ways, that such
popular stories had long been a part of the intellectual amusements of
a state of society little dependent on books; and, after floating for
centuries up and down through the different countries of Europe,--borne
by a general tradition or by the minstrels and _Trouveurs_,--were
about this period first reduced to writing, and then again passed
onward from hand to hand, till they were embodied in some form that
became permanent. What, therefore, the _Novellieri_ had been doing
in Italy for above two hundred years, Timoneda now undertook to do
for Spain. The twenty-two tales of his “Patrañuelo” are not, indeed,
connected, like those of the “Decamerone,” but he has given them a
uniform character by investing them all with his own easy, if not very
pure, style; and thus, without anticipating it, sent them out anew to
constitute a part of the settled literature of his country, and to draw
after them a long train of similar fictions, some of which bear the
most eminent names known among those of Spanish prose-writers.
[141] The story of Apollonius,--the same with that in
Shakspeare’s “Pericles,”--was, as we have seen, (Vol. I. p. 24,)
known in Spanish poetry very early, though the old poetical
version of it was not printed till 1844; but it is more likely
to have been taken by Timoneda from the “Gesta Romanorum,”
Tale 153, in the edition of 1488. The story of Griselda he, no
doubt, took from the version of it with which the “Decamerone”
ends, though he may have obtained it elsewhere. (Manni, Istoria
del Decamerone, Firenze, 1742, 4to, p. 603.) As to the story
so familiar to us in Percy’s “Reliques,” he probably obtained
it from the fourth Novella of Sacchetti, written about 1370;
beyond which I think it cannot be traced, though it has been
common enough ever since, down to Bürger’s version of it. Similar
inquiries would no doubt lead to similar results about other
tales in the “Patrañuelo”; but these instances are enough to show
that Timoneda took any thing he found suited to his purpose, just
as the Italian _Novellieri_ and the French _Trouveurs_ had done
before him, without inquiring or caring whence it came.
Indeed, the very next is of this high order. It is that of Cervantes,
who began by inserting such stories in the first part of his “Don
Quixote” in 1605, and, eight years later, produced a collection of
them, which he published separately. Of these tales, however, we
have already spoken, and will, therefore, now only repeat, that, for
originality of invention and happiness of style, they stand at the head
of the class to which they belong.[142]
[142] See, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 84.
Others followed, of very various character. Hidalgo published, in
1605, an account of the frolics permitted during the last three
days of Carnival, in which are many short tales and anecdotes, like
the slightest and gayest of the Italian _novelle_;[143] and Suarez
de Figueroa, who was no friend of Cervantes, if he was his follower,
inserted other tales of a more romantic tone in his “Traveller,”
which he published in 1617.[144] Perhaps, however, no writer of such
fictions in the early part of the seventeenth century had more success
than Salas Barbadillo, who was born at Madrid, about 1580, and died in
1630.[145] During the last eighteen years of his life, he published not
less than twenty different works, all of which, except three or four
that are filled with such dramas and poetry as Lope de Vega had made
fashionable, consist of popular stories, neither so short as the tales
of Timoneda, nor long enough to be accounted regular romances, but all
written in a truly national spirit, and in a strongly marked Castilian
style.
[143] It is in the form of dialogues, and called “Carnestolendas
de Castilla, dividido en las tres Noches del Domingo, Lunes y
Martes de Antruexo, por Gaspar Lucas Hidalgo, Vezino de la Villa
de Madrid,” Barcelona, 1605, 12mo, ff. 108. Editions are also
noted of 1606 and 1618.
[144] “El Pasagero” (Madrid, 1617, 12mo, ff. 492) is in ten
dialogues, carried on in the pauses or rests of two travellers,
and thence affectedly called _Alivios_. I have a small volume
entitled “Historia de los Siete Sabios de Roma, compuesta por
Marcos Perez, Barcelona por Rafael Figuero,” 12mo,--no date;
but, I think, printed in the eighteenth century. It contains the
story of “The Seven Wise Masters,” which is one of the oldest of
modern fictions,--the Emperor, in this version of it, being named
Ponciano, and being called the son of Diocletian. The style is
somewhat better than that of the “Donzella Teodor,” (_ante_, II.
212,) but seems to be of about the same period.
[145] Notices for the life of Barbadillo may be found in Baena
(Hijos de Madrid, Tom. I. p. 42); in Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I.
p. 28); and in the Prefaces to his own “Estafeta del Dios Momo,”
(Madrid, 1627, 12mo,) and his “Coronas del Parnaso” (Madrid,
1635, 12mo). He was associated with Cervantes in the same
religious fraternity, and gave his strong testimony in favor of
the tales of his friend in their first edition. (Navarrete, Vida,
§§ 121, 132.) He seems to have had an office at court, for he
calls himself “Criado de su Magestad.”
“The Ingenious Helen, Daughter of Celestina,” which is one of the
earliest and most spirited of these fictions, appeared in 1612, and was
frequently printed afterwards. It is the story of a courtesan, whose
adventures, from the high game she undertakes to play in life, are
of the boldest and most desperate kind. She is called the daughter of
Celestina, because she is made to deserve that name by her talent and
her crimes; but, with instinctive truth, she is at last left to perish
by the most disgraceful of all the forms of a Spanish execution, for
poisoning an obscure and vulgar lover. One or two minor stories are
rather inartificially introduced in the course of the main narrative,
and so are a few ballads, which have no value except as they serve to
illustrate the ruffian life, as it was called, then to be found in the
great cities of Spain. The best parts of the book are those relating to
Helen herself and her machinations; and the most striking scenes, and
perhaps the most true to the time, are those that occur when she rises
to the height of her fortunes by setting up for a saint and imposing on
all Seville.[146]
[146] “La Ingeniosa Helena, Hija de Celestina,” Lerida, 1612, and
often since. The edition I have is of Madrid, 1737, 12mo.
Of course, with such materials and incidents, the Helena takes much
of its tone from the stories in the _gusto picaresco_, or the style
of Spanish rogues. Quite opposite to it, therefore, in character and
purpose, is “The Perfect Knight,”--a philosophical tale, not without
some touch of the romances of chivalry. It is addressed to all the
noble youth of the realm, at a time when the Cortes were assembled,
and is intended to set the ideal of true knighthood before them, as
before an audience the younger part of which might be excited to strive
after its attributes and honors. To accomplish this, Barbadillo gives
the history of a Spanish cavalier, who, travelling to Italy during the
reign of Alfonso of Aragon, the conqueror of Naples, obtains the favor
of that monarch, and, after serving him in the highest military and
diplomatic posts,--commanding armies in Germany, and mediating between
imaginary kings of England and Ireland,--retires to the neighbourhood
of Baia and enjoys a serene and religious old age.[147]
[147] “El Caballero Perfeto,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo.
Again, “The House of Respectable Amusements” differs from both of the
preceding fictions, and exhibits another variety of their author’s
very flexible talent. It relates the frolics of four gay students of
Salamanca, who, wearied by their course of life at the University,
come to Madrid, open a luxurious house, arrange a large hall for
exhibitions, and invite the rank and fashion of the city, telling
stories for the amusement of their guests, reciting ballads, and
acting plays;--all of which constitute the materials that fill the
volume. Six tales, however, are really the effective part of it; and
the whole is abruptly terminated by the dangerous illness of the most
active among the four gay cavaliers who had arranged these Lenten
entertainments.[148]
[148] “Casa del Plazer Honesto,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo.
But it is not necessary to examine further the light fictions of
Barbadillo. It is enough to say of the rest, that “The Point-Device
Knight,” in two parts, is a grotesque story in ridicule of those
who pretend to be first in every thing;[149]--that “The Lucky Fool”
is what its name implies;[150]--that “Don Diego” consists of the
love-adventures, during nine successive nights, of a gentleman who
always fails in what he undertakes;[151]--and that all of them, and all
Barbadillo’s other productions, are within the range of talent of not a
very high order, but uncommonly flexible, and dealing rather with the
surface of manners than with the secrets of character which manners
serve to hide. His latest work, entitled “Parnassian Crowns and Dishes
for the Muses,” consists of a medley of verse and prose, stories and
dramas, which were arranged for the press, and licensed in October,
1630; but he died immediately afterwards, and they were not printed
till 1635.[152]
[149] “El Caballero Puntual,” Primera Parte, Madrid, 1614;
Segunda Parte, Madrid, 1619, 12mo. At the end of the second part
is a play, “Los Prodigios de Amor.” A work not entirely unlike
the “Caballero Puntual” was printed at Rouen in 1610, 12mo,
called “Rodomuntadas Castellanas.” It is in Spanish, as were many
other books printed at that time in France, from the connection
of the French court with Spain, and it consists of the incredible
boastings of a braggadocio, something like Baron Munchausen. But
it has little value of any sort, and I mention it only because it
preceded the fiction of Barbadillo by four years.
[150] “El Necio bien Afortunado,” Madrid, 1621, 12mo.
[151] “Don Diego de Noche,” Madrid, 1623, 12mo. All nine of
his unhappy adventures occur in the night. For some reason, I
know not what, this story appears among the translated works of
Quevedo, (Edinburgh, 1798, 3 vols. 8vo,) and, I believe, may be
found, also, in the previous translation made by Stevens. There
is a play with the same title, “Don Diego de Noche,” by Roxas (in
Tom. VII. of the Comedias Escogidas, 1654); but it has, I think,
nothing to do with the tale of Barbadillo.
[152] “Coronas del Parnaso y Platos de las Musas,” Madrid, 1635,
12mo. There is some resemblance in the idea to that of the
“Convito” of Dante; but it is not likely that Salas Barbadillo
imitated the philosophical allegory of the great Italian master.
During the life of Barbadillo, and probably in some degree from his
example and success, such fictions became frequent. “The Winter
Evenings” of Antonio de Eslava, published in 1609, belong to this
class, but are, indeed, so early in their date, that they may have
rather given an impulse to Barbadillo than received one from him.[153]
But “The Twelve Moral Tales” of Diego de Agreda, in 1620, belong
clearly to his manner,[154] as does also “The Guide and Counsel for
Strangers at Court,” published the same year, by Liñan y Verdugo,--a
singular series of stories, related by two elderly gentlemen to a
young man, in order to warn him against the dangers of a gay life
at Madrid.[155] Lope de Vega, as usual, followed where success had
already been obtained by others. In 1621, he added a short tale to
his “Philomena,” and, a little later, three more to his “Circe”; but
he himself thought them a doubtful experiment, and they, in fact,
proved an unhappy one.[156] Other persons, however, encouraged by the
general favor that evidently waited on light and amusing collections of
stories, crowded more earnestly along in the same path;--Salazar, with
his “Flowers of Recreation,” in 1622;[157]--Lugo, with his “Novelas,”
the same year;[158]--and Camerino, with his “Love Tales,”[159] only
a year later;--all the last six works having been produced in three
years, and all belonging to the school of Timoneda, as it had been
modified by the genius of Cervantes and the practical skill of Salas
Barbadillo.
[153] The “Primera Parte de las Noches de Invierno, por Antonio
de Eslava,” was printed at Pamplona in 1609, and at Brussels in
1610, 12mo; but, as was so common in these works of amusement, I
believe no second part followed. It is ordered to be expurgated
in the Index of 1667, p. 67.
[154] “Doce Novelas Morales y Exemplares, por Diego de Agreda
y Vargas,” Madrid, 1620; reprinted by one of his descendants,
at Madrid, in 1724, 12mo. Diego de Agreda, of whom there is a
notice in Baena, (Tom. I. p. 331,) was a soldier as well as an
author, and, in the tale he called “El Premio de la Virtud,”
relates, apparently, an event in the history of his own family.
Others of his tales are taken from the Italian. That of “Aurelio
y Alexandra,” for instance, is a _rifacimento_ of Bandello’s
story of “Romeo and Juliet,” used at just about the same time by
Shakspeare.
[155] “Guia y Avisos de Forasteros, etc., por el Licenciado Don
Antonio Liñan y Verdugo,” Madrid, 1620, 4to. In a discourse
preceding the tales, which are fourteen in number, their author
is spoken of as having written other works, and as being an old
man; but I find no notice of him except that in Antonio, (Bib.
Nov., Tom. I. p. 141,) which gives only the titles of the tales,
and mistakes the year in which they were printed. Some of the
stories, it may be added, seem true, and some of the sketches of
manners are lively.
[156] See, _ante_, Vol. II. pp. 156, 157, an account of these
tales of Lope, and the way in which four others that are not his
were added to them, and yet appear in his collected works, Tom.
VIII.
[157] Literally, _Pinks_ of Recreation,--“Clavellinas de
Recreacion, por Ambrosio de Salazar,” Ruan, 1622, 12mo. He wrote
several other Spanish works, printed, as this was, in France,
where he was physician to the queen. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I.
p. 68.
[158] “Novelas de Francisco de Lugo y Avila,” Madrid, 1622, 12mo.
[159] “Novelas Amorosas por Joseph Camerino,” Madrid, 1623
and 1736, 4to. (Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. II. p. 361.) He was
an Italian, as appears from the hint in Lope de Vega’s sonnet
prefixed to his tales, as well as from his own Proemio. His
Spanish, however, is pure enough, except in those affectations of
style which he shared with many Castilian writers of his time.
His “Dama Beata,” a longer tale, was printed at Madrid, in 1655,
in 4to.
This was popular success; but it was so much in one direction, that
its results became a little monotonous. Variety, therefore, was soon
demanded; and, being demanded by the voice of fashion, it was soon
obtained. The new form, thus introduced, was not, however, a violent
change. It was made by a well-known dramatic author, who--taking a hint
from the “Decamerone,” already in part adopted by Barbadillo, in his
“House of Respectable Amusements”--substituted a theatrical framework
to connect his separate stories, instead of the merely narrative one
used by Boccaccio and his followers. This fell in, happily, with
the passion for the stage which then pervaded all Spain, and it was
successful.
The change referred to is first found in the “Cigarrales de Toledo,”
published in 1624, by Gabriel Tellez, who, as we have already
observed, when he left his convent and came before the public as a
secular author, always disguised himself under the name of Tirso de
Molina. It is a singular book, and takes its name from a word of
Arabic origin peculiar to Toledo; _Cigarral_ signifying there a small
country-house in the neighbourhood of the city, resorted to only for
recreation and only in the summer season. At one of these houses Tirso
supposes a wedding to have happened, under circumstances interesting
to a large number of persons, who, wishing in consequence of it to
be much together, agreed to hold a series of entertainments at their
different houses, in an order to be determined by lot and under the
superintendence of one of their company, each of whom, during the
single day of his authority, should have supreme control and be
responsible for the amusements of the whole party.
The “Cigarrales de Toledo” is an account of these entertainments,
consisting of stories that were read or related at them, poetry that
was recited, and plays that were acted,--in short, of all that made up
the various exhibitions and amusements of the party. Some portions
of it are fluent and harmonious beyond the common success of the age;
but in general, as in the descriptions and in the poor contrivance
of the “Labyrinth,” it is disfigured by conceits and extravagances,
belonging to the follies of Gongorism. The work, however, pleased, and
Tirso himself prepared another of the same kind, called “Pleasure and
Profit,”--graver and more religious in its tone, but of less poetical
merit,--which was written in 1632, and printed in 1635. But, though
both were well received, neither was finished. The last ends with the
promise of a second part, and the first, which undertakes to give an
account of the entertainments of twenty days, embraces, in fact, only
five.[160]
[160] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 267. I find no edition
of the “Cigarrales de Toledo” cited earlier than 1631; but my
copy is dated Madrid, 1624, 4to, and is evidently of the first
publication. Covarrubias (ad verb. _Cigarral_) gives the proper
meaning of the word, which is perhaps plain enough from the work
itself. The “Deleytar Aprovechando” was reprinted at Madrid in
1765, in 2 tom. 4to. In the “Cigarrales,” Tirso promises to
publish twelve _novelas_, with an argument to connect them,
adding, satirically, ”_Not_ stolen from the Tuscans”;--but they
never appeared.
The style they adopted was soon imitated. Montalvan, who, like his
master, never failed to follow the indications of the popular taste,
printed, in 1632, his “Para Todos,” or For Everybody, containing the
imaginary amusements of a party of literary friends, who agreed to
cater for each other during a week, and whose festivities are ended, as
those of the “Cigarrales” began, with a wedding. Some of its inventions
are very learnedly dull, and it is throughout less well arranged
than the account of the entertainments near Toledo, and falls less
naturally into a dramatic framework. But it shows its author’s talent.
The individual stories are pleasantly told, especially the one called
“At the End of the Year One Thousand”; and, as a whole, the “Para
Todos” was popular, going through nine editions in less than thirty
years, notwithstanding a very severe attack on it by Quevedo.[161] Its
popularity, too, had the natural effect of producing imitations, among
which, in 1640, appeared, “Para Algunos,”--For a Few,--by Matias de los
Reyes;[162] and, somewhat later, “Para Sí,”--For one’s own Self,--by
Juan Fernandez y Peralta.[163]
[161] Baena, Tom. III. p. 157. I own the _ninth_ edition of “Para
Todos,” Alcalá, 1661, 4to. Quevedo seems to have borne some
personal ill-will against Montalvan, whom he calls “a little
remnant of Lope de Vega,” and says his “Para Todos” is “like the
coach from Alcalá to Madrid, full of all sorts of passengers,
including the worst.” (Obras, Tom. XI. p. 129.) Quevedo does not
appear among those who in 1639 offered verses or other tributes
to the memory of Montalvan, though their number is above a
hundred and fifty, and includes, I think, nearly or quite every
other Spanish author of any note then living. See “Lágrimas
Panegyricas en la Muerte de Montalvan,” 1639.
[162] Matias de los Reyes was the author of other tales besides
those in his “Para Algunos.” His “Curial del Parnaso,” (Madrid,
1624, 8vo,) of which only the first part was published, contains
several. He also wrote for the stage. His “Para Algunos” was
printed at Madrid, 1640, in quarto, and is not ill written.
Baena, Hijos, Tom. IV. p. 97.
[163] I have never seen the “Para Sí” of Peralta, and know it
only from its title in catalogues. Two other similar works, of a
later date, may be added to these. The first is “El Entretenido,”
by Antonio Sanchez Tortoles, which was licensed to be printed
in 1671, but of which I have seen no edition except that of
Madrid, 1729, 4to. It contains the amusements of an academy
during the Christmas holidays; namely, a play, _entremes_, and
poems, with discussions on subjects of natural history, learning,
and theology. But it contains no tales, and goes through only
ten of the fourteen evenings whose entertainments it announces.
The remaining four were filled up by Joseph Moraleja, (Madrid,
1741, 4to,) with materials generally more light and gay, and,
in one instance, with a tale. The other work referred to is
“Gustos y Disgustos del Lentiscar de Cartagena, por el Licenciado
Gines Campillo de Bayle” (Valencia, 1689, 4to). It takes its
name from the “Lentiscar,” a spot near Carthagena where the
Lentisco or mastich-tree abounds; and it consists of twelve days’
entertainment, given at a country-house to a young lady who
hesitated about taking the veil, but, finding her mistake from
the unhappy ending of each of these days of pleasure, returns
gladly to her convent and completes her profession. Neither of
these works is worth the trouble of reading. The four “Academias”
of Jacinto Polo, the amusements of four days of a wedding,
(Obras, 1670, pp. 1-106,) are better, but consist chiefly of
poems.
Meantime the succession of separate tales had been actively kept up.
Montalvan published eight in 1624, written with more than the usual
measure of grace in such Spanish compositions; one of them, “The
Disastrous Friendship,” founded on the sufferings of an Algerine
captivity, being one of the best in the language, and all of them
so successful, that they were printed eleven times in about thirty
years.[164] Céspedes y Meneses followed, in 1628, with a series
entitled “Rare Histories”;[165]--Moya, at about the same time,
published a single whimsical story on “The Fancies of a Fright”; in
which he relates a succession of marvellous incidents, that, as he
declares, flashed through his own imagination while falling down a
precipice in the Sierra Morena;[166]--and Castro y Anaya published, in
1632, five tales called “The Auroras of Diana,” because they are told
in the early dawn of each morning, during five successive days, to
amuse Diana, a lady who, after a long illness, had fallen into a state
of melancholy.[167]
[164] They were translated into French by Rampale, and printed
at Paris in 1644 (see Baena and Brunet); and are in the Index
Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 735.
[165] Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, “Historias Peregrinas,”
Zaragoza, 1628, 1630, and 1647, the last in 12mo. Only the first
part was ever published. It is a curious book. It opens with
“An Abridgment of the Excellences of Spain,” and each of the
six tales of which it consists, having its scene laid in some
famous Spanish city, is preceded by a similar abridgment of the
excellences of the particular city to which it relates. Céspedes
is the author of the “Gerardo Español,” noticed, _ante_, p. 87,
and, like many of the story-writers of his time, was a native of
Madrid.
[166] Juan Martinez de Moya, “Fantasías de un Susto.” It reminds
us of the theory of Coleridge about the rapidity with which a
series of events can be hurried through the mind of a drowning
man, or any person under a similar excitement of mind. It is,
however, a very poor story, intended for a satire on manners, and
is full of bad verses. There is a reprint of it, Madrid, 1738,
12mo.
[167] “Auroras de Diana, por Don Pedro de Castro y Anaya.” He was
a native of Murcia, and there are editions of his “Auroras” of
1632, 1637, 1640, and 1654, the last printed at Coimbra, in 12mo.
The fair sex, too, entered into the general fashionable competition.
Mariana de Carbajal, a native of Granada, and descended from the
ancient ducal families of San Carlos and Rivas, published, in 1638,
eight tales, pleasing both by their invention and by the simplicity
of their style, which she called “Christmas at Madrid,” or “Evening
Amusements.”[168] And in 1637 and 1647, María de Zayas, a lady of
the court, printed two collections; the first called simply “Tales,”
and the last “Saraos,” or Balls; each a series of ten stories within
itself, and both connected together by the entertainments of a party of
friends at Christmas, and the dances and _fêtes_ at the wedding of two
of their number, during the holidays that followed.[169]
[168] Mariana de Carbajal y Saavedra, “Novelas Entretenidas,”
Madrid, 1633, 4to. At the end of these eight stories, she
promises a second part; and in the edition of 1728 there are,
in fact, two more stories, marked as the ninth and tenth, but I
think they are not hers.
[169] Baena, Hijos, Tom. IV. p. 48. Both collections are printed
together in the edition of Madrid, 1795, 4to;--the first being
called _Novelas_ and the second _Saraos_.
Again, slight changes in such fictions were attempted. Mata, in two
dull tales, called “The Solitudes of Aurelia,” published in 1637,
endeavoured to give them a more religious character;[170] and in 1641,
André del Castillo, in six stories misnamed “The Masquerade of Taste,”
sought to give them even a lighter tone than the old one.[171] Both
found successors. Lozano’s “Solitudes of Life,” which are four stories
supposed to be told by a hermit on the wild peaks of the Monserrate,
belong to the first class, and, notwithstanding a somewhat affected
style, were much praised by Calderon, and went through at least six
editions;[172]--while, in the opposite direction, between 1625 and
1640, we have a number of the freest secular tales, by Castillo
Solorzano, among which the best are probably “The Alleviations of
Cassandra,” and “The Country-House of Laura,” both imitations of
Castro’s “Diana.”[173]
[170] Gerónimo Fernandez de Mata, “Soledades de Aurelia,” 1638,
to which, in the edition of Madrid, 1737, 12mo, is added a poor
dialogue between Crates and his wife, Hipparcha, against ambition
and worldliness; originally printed in 1637.
[171] André del Castillo, “La Mogiganga del Gusto,” Zaragoza,
1641. Segunda Impresion, Madrid, 1734. They are written in the
affected style of the _cultos_.
[172] Christóval Lozano, “Soledades de la Vida,” 6a impresion,
Barcelona, 1722, 4to. After the four connected stories told by
the hermit, there follow, in this edition, six others, which,
though separate, are in the same tone and style. Lozano wrote
the “Reyes Nuevos de Toledo,” noticed, _ante_, p. 91; the “David
Perseguido,” and other similar works;--at least, I believe they
are all by one person, though the Index Expurgatorius of 1790
makes the “Soledades” the work of Gaspar Lozano, as if he were
not the same.
[173] Of Alonso del Castillo Solorzano I have spoken, _ante_, p.
72, as the author of _picaresque_ tales. A list of most of his
works may be found in Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 15,) among
which is a sort of suite with the following titles: “_Jornadas_
Alegres,” 1626;--“_Tardes_ Entretenidas,” 1625;--and “_Noches_
de Placer,” 1631. None of these had much success; nor, indeed,
did he succeed much in any of his tales, except “La Garduña
de Sevilla,” already noticed. But his “Quinta de Laura” was
printed three times, and his “Alivios de Cassandra,” which first
appeared in 1640,--and is something like the “Para Todos” of
Montalvan, being a collection of dramas, poetry, etc., besides
six stories,--was translated into French, and printed at Paris,
both in 1683 and 1685.
In the same way, the succession of short fictions was continued
unbroken, until it ceased with the general decay of Spanish literature
at the end of the century. Thus we have, in 1641, “The Various Effects
of Love and Fortune,” by Alonso de Alcalá; five stories, such as may be
imagined from the fact, that, in each of them, one of the five vowels
is entirely omitted;[174]--in 1645, “The Warnings, or Experiences,
of Jacinto,” by Villalpando, which may have been taken from his own
life, since Jacinto was the first of his own names;[175]--in 1663,
“The Festivals of Wit and Entertainments of Taste,” by Andres de
Prado;[176]--and, in 1666, a series collected from different authors,
by Isidro de Robles,[177] and published under the title of “Wonders of
Love.” All these, as their names indicate, belong to one school; and
although there is an occasional variety in their individual tones, some
of them being humorous and others sentimental, and although some of
them have their scenes in Spain and others in Italy or Algiers, still,
as the purpose of all was only the lightest amusement, they may all be
grouped together and characterized in the mass, as of little value, and
as falling off in merit the nearer they approach the period when such
fictions ceased in the elder Spanish literature.
[174] Alonso de Alcalá y Herrera, “Varios Efetos de Amor,”
Lisboa, 1641, 18mo. He was a Portuguese, but was of Spanish
origin, and wrote Spanish with purity, as well as Portuguese.
(Barbosa, Bib. Lus., fol., Tom. I. p. 26.) Clemencin cites
these stories of Alcalá as proof of the richness of the Spanish
language. (Ed. Don Quixote, Tom. IV. p. 286.) There is a tale,
printed by Guevara, called “Los Tres Hermanos,” in the volume
with his “Diablo Cojuelo,” (Madrid, 1733, 12mo,) in which the
letter A is omitted; and in 1654 Fernando Jacinto de Zarate
published a dull love-story, called “Méritos disponen Premios,
Discurso Lírico,” omitting the same vowel;--but the five tales of
Alcalá are better done than either.
[175] Jacinto de Villalpando, “Escarmientos de Jacinto,”
Zaragoza, 1645. He was Marquis of Osera, and published other
works in the course of the next ten years after the appearance of
the “Jacinto,” one of which, at least, appeared under the name of
“Fabio Clymente.” See, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 483.
[176] Literally, _Luncheons_ of Wit, etc. “Meriendas del Ingenio
y Entretenimientos del Gusto,” Zaragoza, 1663, 8vo. Six tales.
[177] Isidro de Robles collected the “Varios Efetos de Amor”
(Madrid, 1666, 4to). They were published again, with the five
tales of Alcalá, already noted, in 1709, 1719, and 1760;--the
number of tales being thus eleven, with three “Sucesos” at the
end, published under the title of “Varios Prodigios de Amor.”
One more variety in the characteristics of this style of writing
in Spain is, however, so distinct from the rest, that it should be
separately mentioned,--that which has sometimes been called the
Allegorical and Satirical Tale, and which generally took the form
of a Vision. It was, probably, suggested by the bold and original
“Visions” of Quevedo; and the instance of it most worthy of notice is
“The Limping Devil” of Luis Velez de Guevara, which appeared in 1641.
It is a short story, founded on the idea that a student releases from
his confinement, in a magician’s vial, the Limping Devil, who, in
return for this service, carries his liberator through the air, and,
unroofing, as it were, the houses of Madrid, during the stillness
of the night, shows him the secrets that are passing within. It is
divided into ten “Leaps,” as they afterwards spring from place to place
in different parts of Spain, in order to pounce on their prey, and
it is satirical throughout. Parts of it are very happy; among which
may be selected those relating to fashionable life, to the life of
rogues, and to that of men of letters, in the large cities of Castile
and Andalusia, though these, like the rest, are often disfigured
with the bad taste then so common. On the whole, however, it is an
amusing fiction,--partly allegorical and partly sketched from living
manners,--and is to be placed among the more spirited prose satires in
modern literature, both in its original form and in the form given to
it by Le Sage, whose _rifacimento_ has carried it, under the name of
“Le Diable Boiteux,” wherever letters are known.[178]
[178] Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 68) and Montalvan (in the
catalogue at the end of his “Para Todos,” 1661, p. 545) make him
one of the principal and most fashionable dramatic authors of
his time. (See, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 293.) The “Diablo Cojuelo”
has been very often reprinted in Spanish since 1641. Le Sage
published his “Diable Boiteux” in 1707, chiefly from Guevara;
and nineteen years afterwards enlarged it by the addition of
more Spanish stories from Santos and others, and more Parisian
scandal. In the mean time, it had been carried upon the stage,
where, as well as in its original form, it had a prodigious
success.
Earlier than the appearance of the Limping Devil, however, Polo had
written his “Hospital of Incurables,” a direct, but poor, imitation
of Quevedo; and in 1647, under an assumed name, he published his
“University of Love, or School for Selfishness,” a satire against
mercenary matches, thrown into the shape of a vision of the University
of Love, where the fair sex are brought up in the arts of profitable
intrigue, and receive degrees according to their progress.[179] It is,
in general, an ill-managed allegory, filled with bad puns and worse
verse; but there is one passage so characteristic of Spanish wit in
this form of fiction, that it may be cited as an illustration of the
entire class to which it belongs.
[179] “Universidad de Amor y Escuela del Interes, Verdades
Soñadas ó Sueño Verdadero.” The first part appeared under the
name of Antolinez de Piedra Buena, and the second under that
of El Bachiller Gaston Daliso de Orozco; but both were printed
subsequently in the works of Jacinto Polo, and both appear
together in a separate edition, 1664, filling sixty-three leaves,
18mo, and including some of Polo’s poetry.
“‘That young creature whom you see there,’ said the God of Love, as he
led me on, ‘is the chief captain of my war, the one that has brought
most soldiers to my feet and enlisted most men under my banners. The
elderly person that is leading her along by the hand is her aunt.’ ‘Her
_aunt_, did you say?’ I replied; ‘her _aunt_? Then there is an end of
all my love for her. That word _aunt_ is a counter poison that has
disinfected me entirely, and quite healed the wound your well-planted
arrow was beginning to make in my heart. For, however much a man may
be in love, there can be no doubt an _aunt_ will always be enough to
purge him clean of it. Inquisitive, suspicious, envious,--one or the
other she cannot fail to be,--and if the niece have the luck to escape,
the lover never has; for if she is envious, she wants him for herself;
and if she is only suspicious, she still spoils all comfort, so
disconcerting every little project, and so disturbing every little nice
plan, as to render pleasure itself unsavory,’ ‘Why, what a desperately
bad opinion you have of aunts!’ said Love. ‘To be sure I have,’ said
I. ‘If the state of innocence in which Adam and Eve were created had
nothing else to recommend it, the simple fact that there could have
been no _aunts_ in Paradise would have been enough for me. Why, every
morning, as soon as I get up, I cross myself and say, “By the sign
of the Holy Rood, from all aunts deliver us this day, Good Lord!”
And every time I repeat the _Paternoster_, after “Lead us not into
temptation,” I always add,--“nor into the way of aunts either.”’”
The example of Quevedo was, again, followed by Marcos Garcia, who in
1657 published his “Phlegm of Pedro Hernandez,” an imaginary, but
popular, personage, whose arms, according to an old Spanish proverb,
fell out of their sockets from the mere listlessness of their owner.
It is a vision, in which women-servants who spend their lives in active
cheating, students pressing vigorously forward to become quacks and
pettifoggers, spendthrift soldiers, and similar uneasy, unprincipled
persons of other conditions, are contrasted with those who, trusting
to a quiet disposition, float noiselessly down the current of life,
and succeed without an effort and without knowing how they do it. The
general allegory is meagre; but some of the individual sketches are
well imagined.[180]
[180] Marcos Garcia, “La Flema de Pedro Hernandez, Discurso
Moral y Político,” Madrid, 1657, 12mo. The author was a surgeon
of Madrid, and wrote “Honor de la Medecina”; and another
“Papelillo,” without his name, which he mentions in his Prólogo.
(Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 83.) He shows, at the beginning
of his “Flema,” that he means to imitate Quevedo; but he has
a good deal of _cultismo_ in his style. For the meaning of
“Flema,” see Covarrubias, _ad verb_.--One more trifle may here
be mentioned; the “Desengaño del Hombre en el Tribunal de la
Fortuna y Casa de Descontentos, ideado por Don Juan Martinez de
Cuellar,” 1663. It is a vision, in which the author goes to the
house of “Desengaño,”--that peculiarly Castilian word, which may
here be translated _Truth_. He is led afterwards to the palace
and tribunal of Fortune, where he is disabused of his errors
concerning all earthly good. The fiction is of little worth, and
the style is that of the school of Góngora.
The person, however, who, in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, succeeded best in this style of composition, as well as in
tales of other kinds, was Francisco Santos, a native of Madrid, who
died not far from the year 1700. Between 1663 and 1697, he gave to
the world sixteen volumes of different kinds of works for popular
amusement;--generally short stories, but some of them encumbered with
allegorical personages and tedious moral discussions.[181] The oldest
of the series, “Dia y Noche en Madrid,” or, as it may be translated,
Life in Madrid, though a mere fiction founded on manners, is divided
into what the author terms Eighteen Discourses. It opens, as such
Spanish tales are too apt to open, somewhat pompously; the first scene
describing with too much elaborateness a procession of three hundred
emancipated captives, who enter Madrid praising God and rejoicing at
their release from the horrors of Algerine servitude. One of these
captives, the hero of the story, falls immediately into the hands of a
shrewd and not over-honest servant, named Juanillo, who, having begun
the world as a beggar, and risen by cunning so far as to be employed
in the capacity of an inferior servant by a fraternity of monks, now
undertakes to make the stranger acquainted with the condition of
Madrid, serving him as a guide wherever he goes, and interpreting to
him whatever is most characteristic of the manners and follies of
the capital. Some of the tales and sketches thus introduced are full
of life and truth, as, for instance, those relating to the prisons,
gaming-houses, and hospitals, and especially one in which a coquette,
meeting a poor man at a bull-fight, so dupes him by her blandishments,
that she sends him back penniless, at midnight, to his despairing wife
and children, who, anxious and without food, have been waiting from
the early morning to have him return with their dinner. This little
volume, several parts of which have been freely used by Le Sage, ends
with an account of the captive’s adventures in Italy, in Spain, and in
Algiers, given by himself in a truly national tone, and with fluency
and spirit.[182]
[181] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 216. There is a coarse
edition of the works of Santos, in 4 tom. 4to, Madrid, 1723.
[182] “Dia y Noche en Madrid, Discursos de lo mas Notable que en
él passa,” Madrid, 1663, 12mo; besides which there are editions
of 1708, 1734, etc.
“Periquillo”--another of these collections of sketches and tales,
less well written than the last, except in the merely narrative
portions--contains an account of a foundling, who, after the ruin and
death of a pious couple that first picked him up at their door on a
Christmas morning, begins the world for himself as the leader of a
blind beggar. From this condition, which, in such Spanish stories,
always seems to be regarded as the lowest possible in society, he
rises to be the servant of a cavalier, who proves to be a mysterious
robber, and after escaping from whom he falls into the hands of yet
worse persons, and is apprehended under circumstances that remind us
of the story of Doña Mencia in “Gil Blas.” He, however, vindicates his
innocence, and, being released from the fangs of justice, returns,
weary of the world, to his first home, where he leads an ascetic life;
makes long, pedantic discourses on virtue to his admiring townsmen; and
proves, in fact, a sort of humble philosopher, growing constantly more
and more devout till the account of him ends at last with a prayer.
The whole is interesting among Spanish works of fiction, because it
is evidently written both in imitation of the _picaresque_ novels and
in opposition to them; since Periquillo, from the lowest origin, gets
on by neither roguery nor cleverness, but by honesty and good faith;
and, instead of rising in the world and becoming rich and courtly,
settles patiently down into a village hermit, or a sort of poor
Christian Diogenes. No doubt, he has neither the wit nor the cunning
of Lazarillo; but that he should venture to encounter that shrewd
little beggar in any way makes Periquillo, at once, a personage of some
consequence.[183]
[183] “Periquillo, él de las Gallineras,” Madrid, 1668, 12mo. He
gets his name from the circumstance, that, as a child, he was
employed to take care of chickens.
Yet one more of the works of Santos should be noticed; an allegorical
tale, called “Truth on the Rack, or the Cid come to Life again.” Its
general story is, that Truth, in the form of a fair woman, is placed
on the rack, surrounded by the Cid and other forms, that rise from the
earth about the scaffold on which she is tormented. There she is forced
to give an account of things as they really exist, or have existed,
and to discourse concerning shadowy multitudes, who pass, in sight of
the company that surrounds her, over what seems to be a long bridge.
The whole is, therefore, a satire in the form of a vision, but its
character is consistently sustained only at the beginning and the end.
The Cid, however, is much the same personage throughout,--bold, rough,
and free-spoken. He is heartily dissatisfied with every thing he finds
on earth, especially with the popular traditions and ballads about
himself, and goes back to his grave well pleased to escape from such
a world, “which,” he says, “if they would give it to me to live in, I
would not accept.”[184]
[184] “El Verdad en el Potro y el Cid Resuscitado,” Madrid, 1679,
12mo, and again, 1686. The ballads cited or repeated in this
volume, as the popular ballads sung in the streets in honor of
the Cid, are, it is curious to observe, _not_ always to be found
in any of the Romanceros. Thus, the one on the insult to the
Cid’s father begins,--
Diego Lainez, el padre
De Rodrigo el Castellano,
Cuidando en la mengua grande
Hecha á un hombre de su grado, etc.
p. 9, ed. 1686.
It is quite different from the ballad on the same subject in
any of the ballad-books. So is the one at p. 33, upon the death
of Count Lozano, as well as the one at p. 105, upon the Cid’s
insult to the Pope at Rome. On hearing the last sung in the
streets, the Cid is made, in the story, to cry out, “Is it
pretended I was ever guilty of such effrontery? I, whom God made
a Castilian,--_I_ treat the great Shepherd of the Church so?--_I_
be guilty of such folly? By St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lazarus,
with whom I held converse on earth, you lie, base ballad-singer!”
Several ballads might be taken from this volume and added even to
the “Romancero del Cid,” Keller, Stuttgard, 1840, which is the
most ample of all the collections on the Cid.
Other works of Santos, like “The Devil let loose, or Truths of the
other World dreamed about in this,” and “The Live Man and the Dead
One,” are of the same sort with the last;[185] while yet others run
even more to allegory, like his “Tarascas de Madrid,”[186] and his
“Gigantones,”[187] suggested by the huge and unsightly forms led about
to amuse or to frighten the multitude in the annual processions of the
Corpus Christi;--the satirical interpretation he gives to them being,
that worse monsters than the Tarascas might be seen every day in Madrid
by those who could distinguish the sin and folly that always thronged
the streets of that luxurious capital. But though such satires were
successful when they first appeared, they have long since ceased to be
so; partly because they abound in allusions to local circumstances now
known only to the curiosity of antiquarians, and partly because, in all
respects, they depict a state of society and manners of which hardly a
vestige remains.
[185] “El Diablo anda Suelto,” (Madrid, 1677,) and “El Vivo y el
Difunto,” (1692,) are both very curious fictions.
[186] “Las Tarascas de Madrid y Tribunal Espantoso,” Madrid,
1664, Valencia, 1694, etc. “La Tarasca de Parto en el Meson
del Infierno y Dias de Fiestas por la Noche,” Madrid, 1671,
Valencia, 1694, are again interesting, partly because they
contain anecdotes and sketches that serve to explain the popular
religious theatre.
[187] “Los Gigantones de Madrid por defuera,” Madrid, 1666, 12mo.
Santos is the last of the writers of Spanish tales previous to the
eighteenth century that needs to be noticed.[188] But though the number
we have gone over is large for the length of the period in which they
appeared, not a few others might be added. The pastoral romances from
the time of Montemayor are full of them;--the “Galatea” of Cervantes,
and the “Arcadia” of Lope de Vega, being little more than a series of
such stories, slightly bound together by yet another that connects
them all. So are, to a certain degree, the _picaresque_ fictions,
like “Guzman de Alfarache” and “Marcos de Obregon”;--and so are such
serious fictions as “The Wars of Granada” and “The Spanish Gerardo.”
The popular drama, too, was near akin to the whole; as we have seen in
the case of Timoneda, whose stories, before he produced them as tales,
had already been exhibited in the form of farces on the rude stage of
the public squares; and in the case of Cervantes, who not only put part
of his tale of “The Captive” in “Don Quixote” into his second play of
“Life in Algiers,” but constructed his story of “The Liberal Lover”
almost wholly out of his earlier play on the same subject. Indeed,
Spain, during the period we have gone over, was full of the spirit of
this class of fictions,--not only producing them in great numbers, and
strongly marked with the popular character, but carrying their tone
into the longer romances and upon the stage to a degree quite unknown
elsewhere.[189]
[188] The Spanish tales of the middle and latter part of the
seventeenth century are much infected with the false taste of
_cultismo_; no portion of Spanish literature more so. As we
approach the end of the century, not one, I think, is free from
it.
[189] Italy is the only country that can enter into competition
with Spain in the department of tales, during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Indeed, I am not certain, considering the
short period (a little more than a century) during which Spanish
tales were fashionable, that as many _in proportion_ were not
produced as were produced of Italian tales in Italy during the
long period--four centuries and a half--in which they have now
been prevalent there. And if, to the Spanish tales found in
books professing and not professing to be collections of them,
we add the thousands used up in Spanish dramas, to which the
elder Italian theatre offers no counterpart, I suppose there can
hardly be a doubt that there are really more Spanish fictions of
this class in existence than there are Italian. If, however, we
were to settle the point only by a comparison of the meagre and
imperfect catalogues of Spanish stories in Antonio’s Bibliotheca
with the admirably complete one of Italian stories in the
“Bibliografia delle Novelle Italiane,” by Gamba, we should settle
it differently. But, in any event, when speaking of the Italian
_novelle_, we should remember, that, until very lately, the whole
spirit and power of fiction in Italy, so to speak, have been
taken from the theatre and romances, and cast into these short
tales.
The most striking circumstance, however, connected with the history
of all romantic fiction in Spain,--whatever form it assumed,--is its
early appearance, and its early decay. The story of “Amadis” filled the
world with its fame, when no other Spanish prose romance of chivalry
was heard of; and, what is singular, though the oldest of its class,
it still remains the best-written in any language;--while, on the
other hand, the book that overthrew this same Amadis, with all his
chivalry, is the “Don Quixote”; again, the oldest and best of all
similar works, and one that is still read and admired by thousands
who know nothing of the shadowy multitudes it destroyed, except what
its great author tells them. The “Conde Lucanor” appeared full half
a century earlier than the “Decamerone.” The “Diana” of Montemayor
soon eclipsed its Italian prototype in popularity, and, for a time,
shone without a successful rival of its class throughout Europe. The
_picaresque_ stories, exclusively Spanish from the very first, and the
multitudes of tales that followed them with attributes hardly less
separate and national, never lose their Spanish air and costume, even
in the most successful of their foreign imitations. Taken together,
the number of these fictions is very great;--so great, that their mass
may well be called enormous. But what is more remarkable than their
multitude is the fact, that they were produced when the rest of Europe,
with a partial exception in favor of Italy, was not yet awakened to
corresponding efforts of the imagination; before Madame de Lafayette
had published her “Zayde”; before Sidney’s “Arcadia” had appeared, or
D’Urfé’s “Astrea,” or Corneille’s “Cid,” or Le Sage’s “Gil Blas.” In
short, they were at the height of their fame, just at the period when
the Hôtel de Rambouillet reigned supreme over the taste of France,
and when Hardy, following the indications of the public will and the
example of his rivals, could do no better than bring out upon the stage
of Paris nearly every one of the tales of Cervantes, and many of those
of Cervantes’s rivals and contemporaries.[190]
[190] Puibusque, Histoire Comparée, Tom. II. c. 3.
But civilization and manners advanced in the rest of Europe rapidly
from this moment, and paused in Spain. Madrid, instead of sending its
influences to France, began itself to acknowledge the control of French
literature and refinement. The creative spirit, therefore, ceased in
Spanish romantic fiction, and, as we shall presently see, a spirit of
French imitation took its place.