PROVERBS: SANTILLANA, GARAY, NUÑEZ, MAL LARA, PALMIRENO, OUDIN,
SORAPAN, CEJUDO, YRIARTE.--DIDACTIC PROSE: TORQUEMADA, ACOSTA, LUIS
DE GRANADA, JUAN DE LA CRUZ, SANTA TERESA, MALON DE CHAIDE, ROXAS,
FIGUEROA, MARQUEZ, VERA Y ZUÑIGA, NAVARRETE, SAAVEDRA, QUEVEDO, ANTONIO
DE VEGA, NIEREMBERG, GUZMAN, DANTISCO, ANDRADA, VILLALOBOS, PATON,
ALEMAN, FARIA Y SOUSA, FRANCISCO DE PORTUGAL.--GONGORISM IN PROSE:
GRACIAN, ZABALETA, LOZANO, HEREDIA, RAMIREZ.--FAILURE OF GOOD DIDACTIC
PROSE.
The last department in the literature of any country, that comes
within the jurisdiction of criticism on account of its style, is that
of Didactic Prose; since in this branch, so remote from every thing
poetical, the ornaments of manner are more accidental than they are
elsewhere, and, beyond it, are not at all to be exacted. In modern
times, the French seem to have been more anxious than any other nation,
not excepting even the Italians, to add the grace of an elegant style
to their didactic prose, while, on the other hand, none have been more
unsuccessful than the Spaniards in their attempts to cultivate it.
In one particular form of didactic composition, however, Spain
stands in advance of all other countries; I mean that of Proverbs,
which Cervantes has happily called “short sentences drawn from long
experience.”[223] Spanish proverbs can be traced back to the earliest
times. One of the best known--“Laws go where kings please they
should”--is connected with an event of importance in the reign of
Alfonso the Sixth, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century,
when the language of Castile had hardly a distinct existence.[224]
Another has been traced to a custom belonging to the days of the
Infantes de Lara, and is itself probably of not much later date.[225]
Others are found in the General Chronicle, which is one of the oldest
of Spanish prose compositions, and among them is the happy one on
disappointed expectations, cited in Don Quixote more than once: “He
went for wool and came back shorn.”[226] Several occur in the “Conde
Lucanor” of Don John Manuel,[227] and many in the poetry of the
Archpriest of Hita,[228] both of whom lived in the time of Alfonso the
Eleventh.
[223] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 39.
[224] In the great contest between the two liturgies, the Roman
and the Gothic, which disturbed the Church of Spain for so
long a period, Alfonso VI. determined to throw a copy of each
into a fire duly kindled and blessed for the purpose, and give
the supremacy to the one that should come out unconsumed. The
Gothic MS. was successful; but the king broke his word, and
tossed it back into the flames, thus giving rise, it is said, to
the proverb, “Alla van leyes adonde quieren reyes”; or, freely
translated, “Laws obey kings.” (Sarmiento, § 411.) A similar
historical origin is given to the proverb, “Ni quito rey, ni
pongo rey”; which is traced to the personal quarrel of Peter the
Cruel and his brother and successor, Don Enrique. Clemencin, ed.
Don Quixote, Tom. VI., 1839, p. 225.
[225] Dissertation of Cortés in Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom.
II. p. 211.
[226] Chrónica General, 1604, Parte III. f. 61, and Don Quixote,
Parte I. c. 7.
[227] For example: “Ayudad vos, y Dios ayudarvos ha,”--“Help
yourself and God will help you,”--near the end; and “El Bien
nunca muere,”--“Good never dies,”--which is in the first tale.
[228] “Quien en l’arenal sembra, non trilla pegujares,”--“He that
sows on the sea-beach reaps little for himself.” Stanza 160.
_Pegujares_, a singular word, which occurs once in Don Quixote,
is said by Clemencin (Tom. IV. p. 34) to come from _peculio_.
See, also, Partida IV. Título xvii. Ley 7.
Thus far, however, we have only separate and isolated sayings,
evidently belonging to the old Spanish race, and always used as
if quite familiar and notorious. But in the reign of John the
Second, and at his request, the Marquis of Santillana collected a
hundred in rhyme, which we have already noticed, besides above six
hundred, he says, such as the old women were wont to repeat in their
chimney-corners. From this period, therefore, or rather from 1508,
when this collection was published, the old and wise proverbs of the
language may be regarded as having obtained a settled place in its
didactic literature.[229]
[229] Reprinted in Mayans, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 179-210. See
also, the Proverbs from Seneca by Pero Diaz, mentioned in note 33
to Period I. chap. 19, and pp. 376, 377, of Vol. I.
The number of proverbs, indeed, was soon so great,--not only those
floating about in the common talk of men, but those collected and
printed,--that they began to be turned to account. Garay, who was
attached to the cathedral of Toledo, and therefore lived in the centre
of whatever was peculiarly Castilian, wrote a long letter, every
sentence of which was a popular saying; to which he added two similar
letters, found, as he says, by accident, and made up, in the same way,
of proverbs.[230] But, in the middle of the century, a still higher
honor awaited the old Spanish adages. Pedro Valles, who wrote the
history of the great Marquis of Pescara, published an alphabetical
series of four thousand three hundred of them in 1549; and the famous
Greek scholar and distinguished nobleman, Hernan Nuñez de Guzman,
Professor successively at Alcalá and at Salamanca, found amusement for
his old age in making another series of them, which amounted in all to
above six thousand. To some he added explanations; to others, various
parallel sayings from different languages; but, finding his strength
fail him, he gave the task to a friend, who, like himself, was a
Professor in Salamanca, and who published the whole in 1555, two years
after the death of Nuñez; rather, as he intimates, from respect to the
person from whom he received it, than from regard to the dignity of the
employment.[231]
[230] I have never seen the Proverbs collected by Pedro Valles,
the Aragonese, but Mayans y Siscar had in his library a copy
of them, which is described in the “Specimen Bibliothecæ
Hispano-Majansianæ, etc., ex Musæo Davidis Clementis,” Hannoveræ,
1753, 4to, p. 67. The “Cartas de Blasco de Garay” have been often
printed; but the oldest and most complete edition I have seen is
that of Venice, 1553, 12mo; probably not the first. The second of
the letters of Garay is not in proverbs, and, in this edition,
is followed by a devout prayer; the whole being intended, as the
author says, “to win the attention not so much of the wise as of
those who are wont to read nothing but Celestina and such like
books.” The “Proverbios” of Francisco de Castilla, in the volume
with his “Theórica de Virtudes,” (1552, ff. 64-69,) are not
proverbs, but an exhortation in verse to a wise and holy life.
[231] “Refranes, etc., que coligio y gloso, el Comendador, Hernan
Nuñez, Profesor de Retórica en la Universidad de Salamanca,”
Madrid, 1619, 4to. The preface, by Leo de Castro, implies that
the volume was printed during the life of Nuñez, who died in
1553; but I find no edition older than that of 1555. See the note
of Pellicer to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 34.
Out of these proverbs, another of the friends of Hernan Nuñez--Mal
Lara, a Sevilian--selected a thousand, and, adding a commentary to
each, published them in 1568, under the not inappropriate title of
“Philosophy of the Common People”; a volume which, notwithstanding its
cumbersome learning, can be read with pleasure, both for the style in
which many parts of it are written, and for the unusual historical
anecdotes with which it abounds. Another collection, made by Palmireno,
a Valencian, in 1569, consisting of above two hundred proverbs
appropriate to the table, shows how abundant popular aphorisms must be
in a language that can furnish so many on one subject. Yet another, by
Oudin, was published at Paris in 1608, for the use of foreigners, and
shows no less plainly how much the Spanish had become spread throughout
Europe. Sorapan, in 1616 and 1617, published two collections, in which
it was intended that the condensation of popular experience and wisdom
should teach medicine, as, in the hands of Mal Lara, they had been
made to teach the philosophy of life. And, finally, in 1675, Cejudo,
a schoolmaster of Val de Peñas, gave the world about six thousand,
with the corresponding Latin adages, whenever he could find them, and
with explanations more satisfactory than had been furnished by his
predecessors.[232]
[232] “La Filosofía Vulgar de Juan de Mal Lara, Vezino de
Sevilla,” (Sevilla, 1558, Madrid, 1618, 4to, etc.,)--a person
of note in his time, whom we have mentioned (_ante_, II. 26)
among the dramatic poets, and who died in 1571, forty-four
years old. (Seman. Pintoresco, 1845, p. 34.) The collection of
Lorenzo Palmireno is reprinted in the fourth volume of Nuñez, ed.
Madrid, 1804, 12mo. Oudin’s collection was reprinted at Brussels
in 1611, 12mo. Juan Sorapan de Rieros, “Medecina Española, en
Proverbios Vulgares de Nuestra Lengua,” was printed at Granada,
1616-17, 4to, in two parts. “Refranes Castellanos con Latinos,
etc., por el Licenciado Gerónimo Martin Caro y Cejudo,” Madrid,
1675, 4to; reprinted 1792. I do not notice the “Apotegmas” of
Juan Rufo, (1596,) nor the “Floresta de Apotegmas of Santa Cruz,”
(first printed in 1574, and often afterwards; e. g. Bruselas,
1629,)--the last of which is a pleasant hook, praised by Lope
de Vega in his first tale,--because both of them are rather
jest-books than collections of proverbs. The “Proverbios Morales”
of Christ. Perez de Herrera (Madrid, 1618, 4to) are in rhyme, and
too poor to deserve notice, even if they had been in prose.
Still, though so many thousands have been collected, many thousands
still remain unpublished, known only among the traditions of the
humbler classes of society, that have given birth to them all. Juan
de Yriarte, a learned man, who was nearly forty years at the head
of the King’s Library at Madrid, collected, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, no less than twenty-four thousand; and yet it is
not to be supposed that a single individual, however industrious,
living in Madrid, could exhaust their number, as they belong rather to
the provinces than to the capital, and are spread everywhere among the
common people, and through all their dialects.[233]
[233] Vargas y Ponce, Declamacion, Madrid, 1793, 4to, App., p. 93.
Why proverbs should abound so much more in Spain than in any other
country of Christendom, it is not possible to tell. Perhaps the Arabs,
whose language is rich in such wisdom, may have furnished some of
them; or perhaps the whole mass may have sprung from the original
soil of the less cultivated classes of Spanish society. But however
this may be, we know they are often among the pleasantest and most
characteristic ornaments of the national literature; and those who
are most familiar with them will be most ready to agree with the wise
author of the “Dialogue on Languages,” when he says, and repeats the
remark, that we must go to the old national proverbs for what is purest
in his native Castilian.[234]
[234] Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. I. pp. 188-191, and the
Diálogo de las Lenguas, p. 12, where the author says, “In our
proverbs, you see the purity of the Castilian language”; and
p. 170, where he says, “The purest Castilian we have is in our
proverbs.” The “Don Quixote” will occur to every body as a book
that proves how much proverbs enter into Spanish literature;
but I should rather cite the “Celestina,” where their number
is, I think, equally great in proportion, and their _serious_
application more effective.
* * * * *
Turning now to the proper Didactic prose of Spanish literature, the
first instance we find--after those formerly noticed as imitating the
Italian philosophical discussions of the sixteenth century--is one that
comes near to the borders of fiction. It is “The Garden of Curious
Flowers,” by Torquemada, originally published in 1570, of which the
curate, in the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library, says, that “he does
not know whether it is more true, or, to speak strictly, less full
of lies,” than the “Olivante de Laura,” a book of chivalry by the
same author, which, for its peculiar absurdities, he sends at once
to the bonfire in the court-yard. “The Garden of Curious Flowers,”
however, is still a curious book. It consists of six colloquies between
friends, who talk for their amusement on such subjects as the monstrous
productions of nature, the terrestrial paradise, phantasms and
enchantments, the influence of the stars, and the history and condition
of those countries that lie nearest to the North Pole. It is, in fact,
a collection of whatever strange and extravagant stories a learned
man could make, beginning with such as he found in Aristotle, Pliny,
Solinus, Olaus Magnus, and Albertus Magnus, and including those told by
the most credulous of his own time. Being put into a form then popular,
and related in a pleasing style, they had no little success. They were
several times printed in the original, and, beside being translated
into Italian and French, are well known to those who are curious in the
literature of Queen Elizabeth’s time, under the much-abused name of
“The Spanish Mandeville.” It may be added, that some of Torquemada’s
accounts of spectres and visions are still pleasant reading; and that,
though Cervantes spoke slightingly of the whole book in his “Don
Quixote,” he afterwards resorted to it, both for facts and for fancies
respecting the wonders of Friesland and Iceland, when he wrote the
first part of his “Persiles and Sigismunda.”[235]
[235] “Jardin de Flores Curiosas, etc., por Ant. de Torquemada,”
1570, 1573, 1587, 1589. The edition of Anveres, 1575, 18mo, fills
536 pages. “The Spanish Mandeville of Miracles, or the Garden
of Curious Flowers,” (London, 1600, 4to,) is a translation into
good old English, by Ferdinand Walker. The original is strictly
prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 68. The
“Coloquios Satíricos,” by the same author, (1553,) I have never
seen.
Christóval de Acosta, a Portuguese botanist,--who was accustomed to
call himself “the African,” because he happened to be born in one of
the African possessions of Portugal,--travelled much in the East, and
after his return published, in 1578, a work on Oriental plants and
drugs, to which he added at the end a treatise on the natural history
of the Elephant. But, though he succeeded in attracting the attention
of Europe to this publication, and though the early part of his life
had been that of a soldier, an adventurer, and a captive among pirates
and robbers, he spent many of his later years, if not all of them, in
religious retirement at home, where, besides other things, he wrote a
discourse on “The Benefits of Solitude,” and a treatise on “The Praise
of Women.” The last was printed in 1592, and, except that it is too
full of learning, may still be read with some interest, if not with
pleasure.[236]
[236] “Tractado de las Drogas y Medicinas de las Indias
Orientales, por Christóval Acosta,” Burgos, (1578, 4to,) where
its author was a surgeon; but there are other editions, (1582 and
1592,) and early Italian and French translations. The “Tractado
en Loor de las Mugeres, por Christóval Acosta, Affricano,” was
printed at Venice, 1592, 4to, and I know no other edition.
Barbosa, in his life of Acosta, spells his name Da Costa.
It was not, however, moral and philosophical writers, like Oliva and
Guevara, nor writers on subjects connected with natural history, like
Torquemada and Acosta, that were most favored in the reigns of Philip
the Second and his immediate successors. It was the ascetics and
mystics,--the natural produce of the soil of Spain, and, almost without
exception, faithful to the old Castilian genius.
Among the most prominent of this class was Luis de Granada,
distinguished as a Spanish preacher, but still more remarkable for
his eloquence as a mystic. His “Meditations for the Seven Days and
Nights of a Week,” his treatises “On Prayer” and “On Faith,” and his
“Memorial of a Christian Life,” were early translated into Latin,
Italian, French, and English,--one of them into Turkish, and one into
Japanese,--and, like his other Spanish works, have continued to be
printed and admired in the original down to our own times.
The most effective of them all was his “Guide for Sinners,” first
published in 1556. It makes two moderate volumes, and portions of it
are marked with a diffuse declamation, which is perhaps imitated
from that of Juan de Avila, the Apostle of Andalusia, whose friend
and follower he more than once boasts himself to have been. But its
general tone is that of a moving and harmonious eloquence, which has
made it a favorite book of devotion in Spain ever since it first
appeared, and has spread its reputation so widely, that it has been
translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, including the Greek
and Polish, and, at one time, seemed likely to obtain a place, in
the religious literature of Christendom, very near that of the great
ascetic work which passes under the name of Thomas à Kempis. In its
native country, however, the Guide for Sinners encountered at first not
a little opposition. As early as the year after it was published, it
had been placed on the Index Expurgatorius, and no edition except the
first seems to have been permitted till we find that of Salamanca, in
1570. But the very Index that condemned it became itself the subject
of condemnation; and, in the case of the Guide for Sinners, the
ecclesiastical powers went so far in the opposite direction as to grant
special indulgences by proclamation to all who should have read or
heard a chapter of the very work they had earlier so harshly censured.
Luis de Granada passed all the latter part of his life in
Lisbon,--perhaps because he had been repeatedly annoyed by the
Inquisition at home, perhaps because his duties seemed to lead him
there. But, whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that he
enjoyed much more favor in Portugal than he did in Spain; and when
he died, in 1588, eighty-four years old, he could boast that he had
refused the highest honors of the Portuguese Church, and humbly devoted
the whole of his long life to the reformation and advancement of the
Order of Preachers, of which, during his best years, he had been the
active and venerated head.[237]
[237] Preface to Obras de Luis de Granada, Madrid, 1657, folio,
and Preface to Guia de Pecadores, Madrid, 1781, 8vo. Antonio,
Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 38. Llorente, Hist., Tom. III. p. 123. His
works are numerous, and he enjoys the singular honor of having
had an edition of them published by Planta, at the expense of the
Duke of Alva, the minister and general of Philip II.
San Juan de la Cruz, who was in some respects an imitator of Luis
de Granada, was born in 1542, and, having spent the greater part of
his life in reforming the discipline of the Carmelite monasteries,
died in 1591, and was beatified in 1674. His works, which are chiefly
contemplative, and obtained for him the title of the Ecstatic
Doctor, are written with great fervor. The chief of them are the
allegory of “The Ascent to Mount Carmel,” and “The Dark Night of the
Soul,”--treatises which have given him much reputation for a mystical
eloquence, that sometimes rises to the sublime, and sometimes is lost
in the unintelligible. His poetry, of which a little is printed in some
of the many editions of his works, is of the same general character,
but marked by great felicity and richness of phraseology.[238]
[238] Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, Sevilla, 1703, folio, twelfth
edition.
Santa Teresa, who was associated with Juan de la Cruz in the work of
reforming the Carmelites,--or rather with whom he was associated,
since hers was the leading spirit,--died in 1582, sixty-seven years
old. Her didactic works, the most remarkable of which are “The Path to
Perfection” and “The Interior Castle,” are less obscure than those of
her coadjutor, though more declamatory. But all she wrote, including
an account of her own life, and several discussions connected with the
religious duties to which she dedicated herself, were composed with
apparent reluctance on her part, and in obedience to the commands of
her superiors. She believed herself to be often in direct communion
with God; and as those about her shared her faith on this point, she
was continually urged by them to make known to the world what were thus
regarded as revelations of the Divine will. On one occasion she says:
“Far within, God appeared to me in a vision, as he has been wont to do,
and gave me his right hand, and said,--Behold this print of the nail;
it is a sign that, from this day forth, thou art my spouse. Hitherto,
thou hast not deserved it; but hereafter not only shalt thou regard my
honor as that of thy Creator, and King, and God, but as that of a true
spouse;--for my honor is now thine, and thine is mine.”
Living, as she undoubtedly did, under the persuasion that she was
favored with numberless revelations of this kind, she wrote boldly
and rapidly, and corrected nothing. Her style, in consequence, is
diffuse and open to objections, which, in Spain, the spirit of a merely
literary criticism is too reverent to desire to remove. But whatever
she wrote is full of earnestness, sincerity, and love; and therefore
her works have never ceased to be read by those of her own nation and
faith. During her life, she was persecuted by the Inquisition; but
after her death, her manuscripts were collected with pious care, and
published, in 1588, by Luis de Leon, who exhorts all men to follow in
the bright path she has pointed out to them; adding, “She has seen God
face to face, and she now shows him to you.”[239]
[239] Obras de Santa Teresa, (Madrid, 1793, 2 tom. 4to,) Tom.
I. p. 393. Of her letters I have spoken, _ante_, p. 135, and an
excellent discussion of her character, and that of the mystical
school to which she belonged, may be found in the Christian
Examiner, No. 152, Boston, March, 1849. Her works are accompanied
with many offers of indulgence to those who read a chapter or a
letter of any of them, or hear it read. For her troubles with
the Inquisition, see Llorente, Tom. III. p. 114. Santa Teresa
was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622; besides which, in
1617 and 1626, the Cortes chose her to be the co-patroness and
advocate of Spain with Santiago; an honor that was long resisted,
but was urged anew by the testament of Charles II., and confirmed
by the Cortes of 1812, June 28, at the urgent petition of the
Carmelites, in a spirit worthy of the age in which she lived. See
Southey’s Peninsular War, London, 1832, 4to, Tom. III. p. 539.
This school of spiritualists, to which belonged Juan de Avila and
Luis de Leon, of whom we have before spoken, had, no doubt, a very
considerable effect on Spanish didactic prose. They raised its tone,
and did more towards placing it on the old foundations, where the
chronicles and the earlier writers of the country, like Lucena, had
left it, than had been done for nearly two centuries. Such efforts gave
dignity, if not purity or an exact finish, to the proper Castilian
style; so that, at the end of the reign of Philip the Second, it was
not only of more consequence to an author’s reputation to write well
upon any grave subject in prose than it had ever been before, but,
with such examples before him, it was easier to do so. In all this,
the movement made was in the right direction, and produced happy
results. But, on the other hand, we should remember that it confirmed
in the didactic literature of the country that tendency to a diffuse
and florid declamation, which was early one of its blemishes, and from
which, with such authority in its favor, Castilian prose has never
since been able completely to emancipate itself.
A remarkable proof of this is to be found in “The Magdalen” of Malon
de Chaide, first published in 1592, after the death of its author. It
is a religious work, and is divided into four parts; the first being
merely introductory, and the three others on the three characters
of Mary Magdalen as a sinner, a penitent, and a saint. It has a
very rhetorical air throughout, and sometimes reads almost like a
romance;--so free is its conception of the character and conversations
of the saint. But some of its discussions, like one on fashionable
dress, and one on religious pictures, are curious; and some of its
religious exhortations, like that to repent before old age comes on,
are moving and powerful. The moral tone of the whole is severe. With a
great deal of the spirit of a monk, the author is earnest against books
of chivalry; and he not only rebukes the habit of reading the ancient
classics, but even such Spanish poets as Garcilasso de la Vega, because
he thinks admiration of them inconsistent with a preservation of the
Christian character. Occasionally, he grows mystical; and then, though
his style is more than ever prodigal, his meaning is not always plain.
But, on the whole, and regarded as an exhortation to a religious life,
the Conversion of Mary Magdalen is written with so much richness of
language, and is often so eloquent, that it was much read when it first
appeared, and has not, even in recent times, ceased to be reprinted and
admired.[240]
[240] Malon de Chaide was an Augustinian monk, and Professor
at Salamanca; and there are editions of his Magdalen of 1592,
Alcalá, 12mo, of 1596, 1603, 1794, etc. A somewhat similar
book had preceded it, “The History of the Queen of Sheba, when
she discoursed with King Solomon in Jerusalem.” It was written
by another Augustinian monk, Alonso de Horosco, a somewhat
voluminous writer, and was printed at Salamanca, in 1568, 12mo.
But it is little more than a collection of ordinary sermons, some
of which do not mention the Queen of Sheba at all, and is to be
regarded only as a courtly offering to Isabella, wife of Philip
II., whose chaplain Horosco was.
Quite different from this is “The Amusing Journey” of Roxas,--a book
that hardly falls within the strict limits of any class, but one which
has always been popular in Spain. Its author was an actor; and his
travels consist of an account of some of his personal adventures and
experiences, thrown into the form of dialogues between three of his
fellow-comedians and himself, as they visit some of the principal
cities of Spain in the exercise of their profession as strolling
players. They travel on foot; and their conversations, which are little
molested by scruples of any sort, make up a very amusing book.
In some parts of it, we have sketches of the places they visit, with
notices of the local history belonging to each. In others, Roxas
himself, in a spirit that not unfrequently reminds us of Gil Blas,
relates his own previous adventures, as a soldier, as a captive in
France, and as a play-actor at home. In yet others, we have fictions,
or what seem to be such, and among them, the story on which Shakspeare
founded his Christopher Sly and the Induction to “The Taming of the
Shrew.” But, in general, it is rather an account of what relates to
the theatre and the affairs of the four gay companions at Seville,
Toledo, Segovia, Valladolid, Granada, and on the roads between all of
them, interspersed with forty or fifty _loas_, which Roxas wrote with
recognized success, and of which he is evidently very proud. It is a
pleasant book, loosely and carelessly put together, but important for
the history of the Spanish drama, and with talent enough to attract
the attention of Scarron, who took from it the hint for his “Roman
Comique.” From internal evidence, “The Amusing Journey” was written in
1602, and, at the end, a continuation is announced; but, like so many
other promises of the same sort in Spanish literature, it was never
kept.[241]
[241] An edition of 1583 is cited by Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I.
p. 178,) but this cannot be. See Viage, Madrid, 1640, 12mo, f.
66. a. The first edition must be that of Madrid, 1603, cited in
the Index Expurgatorius, 1667, where it is roughly handled, but
since which it has been often reprinted. Clemencin, (Don Quixote,
Tom. III. p. 395,) when speaking of Spanish actors, rightly calls
the Viage of Roxas “libro magistral en la materia.” Another
work, imputed to Roxas, which I have never seen, called “El Buen
Repúblico,” was wholly prohibited.
Perhaps the work of Roxas served, also, as a hint for the “Pasagero,”
or Traveller, of Suarez de Figueroa. At any rate, the well-known author
of the “Amarillis,” published in 1617, a half-narrative, half-didactic
work with this title, containing ten long discussions, on a great
variety of subjects, held by four persons, as they journey from Madrid
to Barcelona, in order to embark for Italy;--the discussions themselves
being called _alivios_, or rests by the way. The chief conversation
is in the hands of Figueroa, the principal person in his own drama;
and so far as he is concerned, and so far as the discussions relate to
the men of letters of his own time, the Pasagero is somewhat cynical.
His autobiography, which is contained in the eighth dialogue, is
interesting, and so are the ninth and tenth dialogues, in which he
gives his view of the state of Spain at the time he wrote, and the
means of leading an honest and honorable life there. But the most
important conversations are the third, which relates to the theatre,
and the fourth, which is on the popular and courtly mode of preaching.
The whole work is too diffuse in its style, though less declamatory
than much in the didactic prose of the period.[242]
[242] “El Pasagero, Advertencias utilíssimas á la Vida Humana,
por el Doctor Christ. Suarez de Figueroa,” Madrid, 1617, 12mo,
ff. 492. Figueroa also published (Madrid, 1621, 4to) a volume
of five hundred pages, entitled, “Varias Noticias importantes á
la Humana Comunicacion,” which he divides into twenty essays,
entitled “Variedades.” It is less well written than the Pasagero,
falling more into the faults of the time. The seventeenth
Essay, however, which is on Domestic Life, with illustrations
from Spanish history, is pleasant. His “Plaza Universal de las
Ciencias,” first printed at Madrid, in 1615, 4to, and reprinted
in folio, with large changes and additions, in 1737, is an
attempt at a compendium of human knowledge, curious in the first
edition, as showing the state of knowledge and opinion at that
time in Spain, but of little value in either.
A more serious book of travels might here have been added; that
of Pedro Ordoñez de Cevallos, entitled “Viage del Mundo,” and
first printed at Madrid, 1614, 4to. It is an agreeable and often
interesting autobiography of its author, beginning with his birth
at Jaen and his education at Seville, and giving his travels, for
thirty-nine years, all over the world, including China, America,
many parts of Africa, and the northern kingdoms of Europe. Its
spirit is eminently national, and its style simple and Castilian.
Some of the best portions of the didactic literature of Spain during
the seventeenth century were partly or wholly political. Marquez, a
writer in the old style of the reign of Philip the Second, published
in 1612 his “Christian Governor,” a work composed at the request of
the Duke of Feria, then viceroy of Sicily, and intended to serve as
an answer to Machiavelli’s “Prince.”[243] Vera y Zuñiga, author of a
strange epic on the conquest of Seville, who was a better minister of
Philip the Third than he was poet, published in 1620 a treatise, in
four discourses, on the character and duties of an ambassador; full
of learning, and occasionally illustrated with appropriate anecdotes
drawn from Spanish history, but citing indiscriminately books of
authority and no authority on the grave subjects he discusses, and
relying apparently with as much confidence upon an opinion of Ovid
as upon one of Comines.[244] Fernandez de Navarrete, a secretary of
the same monarch, chose his subject a little higher up, and in 1625,
under the disguise of an assumed name, and in a letter to a Polish
prime-minister who never existed, gave the world his notions of what
“a royal favorite” should be; but it is evident that Spain only was in
his thoughts when he wrote, and his little treatise is so encumbered
with ill-assorted learning and ungraceful conceits that it was soon
forgotten.[245]
[243] “El Governador Christiano, deducido de las Vidas de Moyses
y Josua, por Juan Marquez.” There are editions of 1612, 1619,
1634, etc., with translations into Italian and French. The same
author wrote, also, “Dos Estados de la Espiritual Jerusalem,”
1603. He was born in 1564, and died in 1621. Capmany (Eloquencia,
Tom. IV. pp. 103, etc.) praises him highly.
[244] “El Embaxador, por Don Juan Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga,”
Sevilla, 1620, 4to, 280 leaves. I have noticed him as an epic
poet, Vol. II. p. 500.
[245] “El Perfecto Privado, Carta de Lelio Peregrino á Estanislao
Bordio, Privado del Rey de Polonia.” It was first printed in
1625, (Antonio, Bib. Nov.,) but I know it only in a collection
called “Varios Eloquentes Libros recogidos en uno,” (Madrid,
1726, 4to,) a volume which, besides the above work of Navarrete,
contains the “Retrato Político del Rey Alfonso VIII.,” by Gaspar
Mercader y Cervellon, (see Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 99,) the “Govierno
Moral” of Polo, noticed, II. 544, III. 111, with some discussions
which it excited, and the “Lagrimas de Heraclito defendidas,” a
tract by Antonio de Vieyra, read before Christina of Sweden, at
Rome, to prove that the world is more worthy of being wept over
than laughed at; all of them attempts at wisdom and wit in the
worst taste of their times.
Not so the “Idea of a Christian Prince,” by Saavedra Faxardo, who died
at Madrid in 1648, after having been long in the diplomatic service
of the Spanish crown. It was a higher subject than either of those
taken by Navarrete and Figueroa, and managed with more talent. Under
the awkward arrangement of a hundred ingenious Emblems, with mottoes,
that are generally well chosen and pointed, he has given a hundred
essays on the education of a prince;--his relations with his ministers
and subjects; his duties as the head of a state in its internal and
external relations; and his duties to himself in old age and in
preparation for death;--all intended for the instruction of Balthasar,
son of Philip the Fourth, to whom it is dedicated, but who died too
young to profit by its wisdom. It is written in a compact, sententious
style, with much quaint and curious knowledge of history, and with a
large and not always judicious display of learning. But in many points
it reminds us of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Cabinet Council” and Owen
Feltham’s “Resolves”;--a measure of praise that can be given to few
such prose works in the Spanish language. Its success was great; nor is
it yet fallen into neglect. The first edition was published in 1640,
at Munster. Many others followed in the course of the century. It was
translated into all the languages of Europe, and, in Spain at least,
has continued to be printed and valued down to our own days.[246]
[246] “Empresas Políticas, Idea de un Príncipe Christiano, por
Diego Saavedra Faxardo.” The number of editions is very great,
and so is that of the translations. There are, I think, two in
English, one of which is by Sir J. Astry, London, 1700, 2 vols.
8vo. A Latin version which appeared at Brussels in 1640, the year
in which the original Spanish appeared at Munster, has also been
reprinted.
“The Divine Politics” of Quevedo, a part of which was published before
the Christian Prince and a part after it, may have suggested his
subject to Saavedra, but not the mode of treating it; and, in the same
way, the great satirist may have had some influence in determining
Antonio de Vega, the Portuguese, to write his “Political Dream of a
Perfect Nobleman,” in 1620;[247] Nieremberg, the Jesuit, to write his
“Manual for Gentlemen and Princes,” which appeared in 1629;[248] and
Benavente, his “Advice for Kings, Princes, and Ambassadors,” which
appeared in 1643.[249] But none of these works, nor any thing else in
the nature of didactic prose that appeared in the seventeenth century,
is equal to the Christian Prince of Saavedra; unless, indeed, we are
to except his own vision of a state, which he calls “The Literary
Republic,” and in which he discusses somewhat satirically, but in a
vein of agreeable criticism, the merits of the principal writers of
ancient and modern times, foreign and Spanish. The Literary Republic,
however, was not published till after its author’s death, and never
enjoyed a popularity like that enjoyed by his longer and elder work;
a work which leaves far behind every thing in the class of books of
emblems, that so long served to tax the ingenuity of the higher classes
of society in Europe.[250]
[247] “El Perfeto Señor, etc., de Antonio Lopez de Vega,” 1626
and 1652, the latter, Madrid, 4to. He published, also, (Madrid,
1641, 4to,) a series of moral Dialogues, on various subjects
connected with Rank, Wealth, and Letters, under the title of
“Heraclito y Demócrito de nuestro Siglo,” and giving the opposite
views of each, which the names of the interlocutors imply; a book
that affords sketches of manners and opinions at the time it was
written, that are often amusing, and generally delivered in an
unaffected style. The poetry of Antonio de Vega has been noticed,
II. 529.
[248] “Obras y Dias, Manual de Señores y Príncipes, por Juan
Eusebio Nieremberg,” Madrid, 1629, 4to, ff. 220. His father
and mother were Germans, who came to Spain with the Empress
of Austria, Doña Maria, but he himself was born at Madrid in
1595, and died there in 1658. Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p.
686) and Baena (Tom. III. p. 190) give long lists of his works,
chiefly in Latin. The “Contemplations on the State of Man,”
published in 1684, seventeen years after the death of Jeremy
Taylor, _as his work_, turns out to have been substantially
taken from a treatise of Nieremberg, first published as early
as 1654, and entitled “Diferencia de lo Temporal y Eterno”; the
“Contemplations,” however, being a _rifacimento_ of an English
translation of the work of Nieremberg, by Sir Vivian Mullineaux,
published in 1672. (See an interesting pamphlet on this subject,
“Letter to Joshua Watson, Esq., etc., by Edw. Churton, M. A.,
Archdeacon of Cleveland,” London, 1848, 8vo.) Why the fraud
was not earlier detected, since Heber and others had noted the
difference between the style of this work and that of Bishop
Taylor’s works generally, it is difficult to tell. The treatise
of Nieremberg has always been valued in Spanish, and, besides
being early translated into Latin, Italian, French, and English,
was published in Arabic in 1733-34, at the Convent of St. John,
on the Mountain of the Druses. See Brunet.
[249] “Advertencias para Reyes, Príncipes, y Embaxadores, por Don
Christóval de Benavente y Benavides,” Madrid, 1643, 4to, pp. 700.
It a good deal resembles the “Embaxador” of Vera y Zuñiga; and,
like the author of that work, Benavente had been an ambassador of
Spain in other countries, and wrote on the subject of what may
be considered to have been his profession with experience and
curious learning.
[250] His “República Literaria” is a light work, in the manner
of Lucian, written with great purity of language, and was not
printed till 1670. A spirited dialogue between Mercury and
Lucian, on “The Follies of Europe,” in which Saavedra defends the
House of Austria against the attacks of the rest of the world,
remained in manuscript till it was produced, in 1787, in the
sixth volume of the Seminario Erudito.
To these writers of the end of the sixteenth and the first half of the
seventeenth century a few more might be added, of less consequence.
Juan de Guzman, in 1589, published a formal treatise on Rhetoric, in
the seventh dialogue of which he makes an ingenious application of
the rules of the Greek and Roman masters to the demands of modern
sermonizing in Spain.[251] Gracian Dantisco, one of the secretaries of
Philip the Second, published in 1599 a small discourse on the minor
morals of life, which he called the “Galateo,” in imitation of Giovanni
della Casa, whose classical Italian treatise bearing the same name
was already translated into Spanish.[252] In the same year appeared a
curious work by Pedro de Andrada, on “The Art of Horsemanship,” well
written and learned, with amusing anecdotes of horses; and this was
followed, in 1605, by a similar treatise of Simon de Villalobos, but
one which, from its more military character, and from the exaggerated
importance it gives to its subject, might well have been made a part
of Don Quixote’s library.[253] Both of them bear marks of the state of
society at the time they were written.
[251] “Primera Parte de la Rhetórica, etc., por Juan de Guzman,”
Alcalá, 1590, 12mo, 291 leaves. It is divided affectedly into
fourteen “Combites,” or Invitations to Feasts. Its author was a
pupil of the famous Sanctius, “El Brocense.”
[252] The “Galateo” was several times reprinted. It is a small
book, containing, in the edition of Madrid, 1664, only 126 leaves
in 18mo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 17.
[253] “Libro de la Gineta de España, por Pedro Fernandez de
Andrada,” Sevilla, 1599, 4to, 182 leaves.--“Modo de pelear á la
Gineta, por Simon de Villalobos,” Valladolid, 1605, 18mo, 70
leaves.
Paton, the author of several works of little value, published, in
1604, a crude treatise on “The Art of Spanish Eloquence,” founded on
the rules of the ancients;[254] and, in Mexico, Aleman, while living
there, printed, in 1609, a treatise on “Castilian Orthography,” which,
besides what is appropriate to the title, contains pleasant discussions
on other topics connected with the language, over which he has himself
shown a great mastery in his “Guzman de Alfarache.”[255] A series of
conversations on miscellaneous subjects, divided into seven nights,
which their author, Faria y Sousa, intended to have called simply
“Moral Dialogues,” but which his bookseller, without his knowledge,
published in 1624 with the title of “Brilliant Nights,” are dull and
pedantic, like nearly every thing this learned Portuguese wrote; and
the second part, which he offered to the public, was never called
for.[256] And, finally, another Portuguese, Francisco de Portugal, who
died in 1632,[257] wrote a pleasant treatise on “The Art of Gallantry,”
with anecdotes showing the state of fashionable, or rather courtly,
society at the time; but it was not printed till long after its
author’s death.[258]
[254] “Eloquencia Española en Arte, por el Maestro Bartolomé
Ximenez Paton,” Toledo, 1604, 12mo. The extracts from old
Spanish books and hints about their authors, in this treatise,
are often valuable; but how wise its practical suggestions are
may be inferred from the fact, that it recommends an orator to
strengthen his memory by anointing his head with a compound made
chiefly of bear’s grease and white wax.
[255] “Ortografía Castellana, por Mateo Aleman,” Mexico, 1609,
4to, 83 leaves.
[256] “Noches Claras, Primera Parte, por Manoel de Faria y
Sousa,” Madrid, 1624, 12mo, a thick volume. Barbosa, Tom. III. p.
257.
[257] Francisco de Portugal, Count Vimioso, left a son, who
published his father’s poetry with a life prefixed, but I know no
edition of the “Arte de Galantería,” etc., earlier than that of
Lisbon, 1670, 4to.
[258] Before we come into the period when bad taste overwhelmed
every thing, we should slightly refer to a few authors who were
not infected by it, and who yet are not of importance enough to
be introduced into the text.
The first of them is Diego de Estella, who was born in 1524, and
died in 1578. He was much connected with the great diplomatist,
Cardinal Granvelle, and published many works in Latin and
Spanish, the best of which, as to style and manner, are “The
Vanity of the World,” 1574, and “Meditations on the Love of God,”
1578.
Several treatises in the form of biography, but really ascetic
and didactic in their character, were published soon afterwards,
which are written with some purity and vigor; such as the Life
of Pius V., (1595,) by Antonio Fuenmayor, who died at the early
age of thirty; the Life of Santa Teresa, (1599,) by Diego de
Yepes, one of her correspondents, and the confessor of the last
dark years of Philip II.; and the Lives of two devout women, Doña
Sancha Carillo, and Doña Ana Ponce de Leon, (1604,) by Martin de
Roa, a Jesuit, who long represented the interests of his Society
at the court of Rome.
To these may be added three other works of very different
characters.
The “Examen de Ingenios,” or How to determine, from the Physical
and External Condition, who are fit for Training in the Sciences,
by Juan de Huarte, (Alcalá, 1640, 12mo, first published in 1566,)
is one of them. It enjoyed a prodigious reputation in its time,
was often published in Spanish, and was translated into all the
principal languages of Europe; into English by Richard Carew,
1594; and, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century,
into German by a person no less distinguished than Lessing,
whose version, entitled “Prüfung der Köpfe,” was printed for
the second time at Wittenberg, 1785, 12mo. It is a work full of
striking, but often wild, conjectures in physiology, written in
a forcible, clear style, and Lessing aptly compares its author
to a spirited horse, that, in galloping over the stones, never
strikes fire so brilliantly as he does when he stumbles. It is
praised by Forner, (Obras, Madrid, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 61,)
and is on the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 734. The “Examen
de Maridos,” a spirited play of Alarcon, (see, _ante_, II. 322,)
and the “Vexamen de Ingenios,” a lively prose satire of Cancer,
(Obras, 1761, p. 105,) were, I suppose, understood by their
contemporaries to have reference to the title of the “Examen de
Ingenios,” then very popular. A work not unlike the “Examen de
Ingenios” appeared at Barcelona, (1637, 4to,) entitled “El Sol
Solo, etc., y Anatomía de Ingenios,” taking a view of the same
subject more in the nature of Physiognomy, and not without an
approach to what has since been called Phrenology. It was written
by Estevan Pujasol, an Aragonese; and is curious for its manner
of treating the subjects it discusses,--half anatomical, half
spiritual; but is not otherwise interesting.
The second is the “Historia Moral y Philosóphica” of Pero Sanchez
of Toledo, published at Toledo, 1590, folio, when its author,
who was connected with the cathedral there, was already an old
man. It consists of the Lives of distinguished men of antiquity,
like Plato, Alexander, and Cicero, and ends with a treatise
on Death;--each of the Lives being accompanied by moral and
Christian reflections, which are sometimes written in a flowing
and fervent style, but are rarely appropriate, and never original
or powerful.
The last is by Vincencio Carducho, a Florentine painter, who,
when quite a boy, was brought to Spain in 1585, by his brother
Bartolomé, and died there in 1638, having risen to considerable
eminence in his art. In 1634, he published, at Madrid, “Diálogos
de la Pintura, su Defensa, Orígen,” etc. (4to, 229 leaves);
but the _licencias_ are dated 1632 and 1633. It is written in
good plain prose, without particular merit as to style, and is
declared by Cean Bermudez, (Diccionario, Tom. I. p. 251,) in
his notice of the author, to be “el mejor libro que tenemos de
pintura en Castellano.” At the end is an Appendix, in which are
attacks of Lope de Vega, Juan de Jauregui, and others, on a duty
laid upon pictures, which, Cean Bermudez says, “the efforts of
Carducho and his friends succeeded in removing in 1637.”
During the period embraced by the works last mentioned, a false taste
had invaded Spanish prose. It was the same unhappy taste which we have
noticed in Spanish poetry by the name of “Gongorism,” but which its
admirers called sometimes “the polite,” and sometimes “the cultivated,”
style of writing. Traces of it have been sought in the sixteenth
century among some of the best writers of the country; but for this
there seems no foundation, except in the fact, that a rigorous taste
never at any time prevailed in Spain, and that the luxuriant success
of letters towards the end of the reign of Philip the Second, and
the consequent difficulty of obtaining fashionable distinction by
authorship, had led to occasional affectations even in the style of
those who, like Cervantes and Mariana, stood foremost among the better
writers of their time.
But now, the admiration that followed Góngora almost necessarily
introduced conceits into prose writing, such as were thought so worthy
of imitation in poetry. Those, therefore, who most coveted public
favor, began to play with words, and seek to surprise by an unexpected
opposition of ideas and quaintness of metaphor, little consistent with
the old Castilian dignity, until at last they quite left the stately
constructions in which resides so much of what is peculiar to the
sonorous declamations of Luis de Leon and Luis de Granada, and by
excessive efforts at brilliancy became so involved and obscure, that
they were not always intelligible. Instances of such affectation may
be found in Saavedra and Francisco de Portugal. But the innovation
itself is older than either of their published works. It broke out with
Paravicino, who, besides imitating Góngora’s poetry, as we have already
seen, carried similar extravagances of metaphor and construction into
his oratorical and didactic prose; intimating, in a characteristic
phrase, that he claimed the honor of being the Columbus who had made
this great discovery. As early as 1620, it was matter of censure
and ridicule to Liñan, in his “Guide to Strangers in Madrid,” and
soon afterwards to Mateo Velazquez, in his “Village Philosopher”; so
that from this period we may consider _cultismo_ nearly or quite as
prevalent in Spanish prose as it was in Spanish poetry.[259]
[259] See Declamacion, etc., of Vargas y Ponce, 1793, App., § 17;
Marina, Ensayo, in Memorias de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1804;
Liñan y Verdugo, Avisos de Forasteros, 1620, noticed (_ante_, p.
103) under the head of Romantic Fiction; and “El Filosofo del
Aldea, y sus Conversaciones Familiares, su Autor el Alferez Don
Baltazar Mateo Velazquez,” Zaragoza, por Diego de Ormer, 12mo,
106 leaves, s. a.; a singular book, didactic in its main purpose,
but illustrating with stories its homely philosophy. I find no
notice of it, though the author, in his Dedication, intimates
that it is not his first published work. It seems to have been
written soon after the death of Philip III. in 1621, and its last
dialogue is against _cultismo_, of the introduction of which into
Spanish prose I have spoken when noticing the “Pícara Justina” of
Andreas Perez, 1605, _ante_, p. 67.
The person, however, who settled its character, and in some respects
gave it an air of philosophical pretension, was Balthazar Gracian, a
Jesuit of Aragon, who lived between 1601 and 1658; exactly the period
when the cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose, and rose to
its greatest consideration. He began in 1630, by a tract called “The
Hero,” which is not so much the description of a hero’s character
as it is a recipe to form one, given in short, compact sentences,
constructed in the new style. It was successful, and was followed by
five or six other works, written in the same manner; after which, to
confirm and justify them all, there appeared, in 1648, his “Agudeza
y Arte de Ingenio”; a regular Art of Poetry, or rather system of
rhetoric, accommodated to the school of Góngora, and showing great
acuteness, especially in the ingenuity with which the author presses
into his service the elder poets, such as Diego de Mendoza, the
Argensolas, and even Luis de Leon and the Bachiller de la Torre.
The most remarkable work of Gracian, however, is his “Críticon,”
published in three parts, between 1650 and 1653. It is an allegory on
human life, and gives us the adventures of Critilus, a noble Spaniard,
wrecked on the desert island of Saint Helena, where he finds a solitary
savage, who knows nothing about himself, except that he has been nursed
by a wild beast. After much communication in dumb show, they are able
to understand each other in Spanish, and, being taken from the island,
travel together through the world, talking often of the leading men
of their time in Spain, but holding intercourse more with allegorical
personages than with one another. The story of their adventures is
long, and its three portions represent the three periods of human
life; the first being called the Spring of Childhood, the second the
Autumn of Manhood, and the third the Winter of Old Age. In some parts
it shows much talent; and eloquent discussions on moral subjects, and
glowing descriptions of events and natural scenery, can be taken from
it, which are little infected with the extravagances of the Cultivated
Style. Sometimes, we are reminded of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,”--as, for
instance, in the scenes of the World’s Fair,--and might almost say,
that the “Críticon” is to the Catholic religion and the notions of life
in Spain during the reign of Philip the Fourth, what Bunyan’s fiction
is to Puritanism and the English character in the age of Cromwell. But
there is no vitality in the shadowy personages of Gracian. He bodies
nothing forth to which our sympathies can attach themselves as they
do to such sharply-defined creations as Christian and Mr. Greatheart,
and, when we are moved at all by him, it is only by his acuteness and
eloquence.
His other works are of little value, and are yet more deformed by bad
taste; especially his “Politico-Fernando,” which is an extravagant
eulogium on Ferdinand the Catholic, and his “Discreto,” which is a
collection of prose miscellanies, including a few of his letters. It
is singular, that, in consequence of being an ecclesiastic, he thought
it proper that all his works should be printed under the name of his
brother Lorenzo, who lived at Seville; and it is yet more singular,
perhaps, that they were published, not by himself, but by his friend,
Lastañosa, a gentleman of literary taste, and a collector of ancient
works of art, who lived at Huesca in Aragon. But however indirectly
and cautiously the works of Gracian won their way into the world, they
enjoyed great favor there, and made much noise. His “Hero” went early
through six editions, and his collected prose works, most of which were
translated into French and Italian, and some of them into English and
Latin, were often reprinted in the original Spanish, both at home and
abroad.[260]
[260] There are editions of Gracian’s Works, 1664, 1667, 1725,
1748, 1757, 1773, etc. I use that of Barcelona, 1748, 2 tom. 4to.
His Life is in Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. pp. 267, etc., and
a pleasant account both of him and of his friend Lastañosa is
to be found in Aarsens, Voyage d’Espagne, 1667, p. 294, and in
the dedication to Lastañosa of the first edition of Quevedo’s
“Fortuna con Seso,” 1650. His poem on “The Four Seasons,”
generally printed at the end of his Works, is, I believe, the
worst of them; certainly it would be difficult to find much in
any language more absurd and extravagant in its false taste.
From this period, the rich old prose style of Luis de Leon and
his contemporaries may be said to have been driven out of Spanish
literature. Lope de Vega and Quevedo, after resisting the innovations
of _cultismo_ for a time, had long before yielded, and Calderon was
now alternately assailing the depraved taste of his audiences and
gratifying it by running into extravagances almost as great as those
he ridiculed. The language of the most affected poetry passed into the
prose of the age, and took from it the power and dignity which, even
in its more declamatory portions, had constituted its prominent merit.
Style became fantastic, and the very thoughts that were to be conveyed
were not unfrequently covered up with ingenuities of illustration till
they disappeared. In the phrase of Sancho, men wanted better bread
than could be made of wheat, and rendered themselves ridiculous by
attempting to obtain it. Tropes and figures of all kinds were settled
into formulas of speech, and then were repeated appropriately and
inappropriately, till the reader could often anticipate, from the
beginning of a sentence, how it would inevitably end. Every thing,
indeed, in prose composition, as in poetry, announced that corrupted
taste which both precedes and hastens the decay of a literature; and
which, in the case of Spain during the latter half of the seventeenth
century, was but the concomitant of a general decline in the arts and
the gradual degradation of the monarchy.
Among those who wrote best, though still infected with the prevailing
influences, was Zabaleta. His “Moral Problems” and “Famous Errors,”
but especially his “Feast Days at Madrid,” in which he gives lively
satirical sketches of the manners of the metropolis at those periods
when idleness brings the people into the streets and places of
amusement, are worth reading. But he lived in the reign of Philip
the Fourth; and so did Lozano, whose different ascetic works on the
character of King David, if not so good as his historical romance on
the New Kings of Toledo, are better than any thing else of the kind
in the same period. They are, however, the last that can be read. The
reign of Charles the Second does not offer examples even so favorable
as these of the remains and ruins of a better taste. “The Labors of
Hercules,” by Heredia, in 1682, and the “Moral Essays on Boëthius,” by
Ramirez, in 1698, if they serve for nothing else, serve at least to
mark the ultimate limits of dulness and affectation. Indeed, if it were
not for the History of Solís, which has been already noticed, we should
look in vain for an instance of respectable prose composition after
this last and most degenerate descendant of the House of Austria had
mounted the Spanish throne.[261]
[261] Juan de Zabaleta flourished as an author from 1653 to 1667;
and his works, which were soon collected, have been frequently
printed, 1667, Madrid, 1728, 4to, 1754, etc. (Baena, Tom. III.
p. 227.)--Christóval Lozano (noticed, pp. 91, 108) was known as
an author from 1656, by his “David Arrepentido,” to which he
afterwards added his “David Perseguido,” in three volumes, and
yet another work on the subject of David’s Example illustrated by
the Light of Christianity; all of little value.--Juan Francisco
Fernandez de Heredia wrote “Trabajos y Afanes de Hercules,”
Madrid, 1682, 4to. He makes it a kind of book of emblems, but it
is one of the worst of its conceited class. Latassa (Bib. Nov.,
Tom. IV. p. 3) notices him.
Of Antonio Perez Ramirez, I know only the “Armas contra la
Fortuna,” (Madrid, 1698, 4to,) which is a translation of
Boëthius, with dissertations in the worst possible taste
interspersed between its several divisions.
One other author might, perhaps, have been placed at the side of
Lozano,--Joseph de la Vega,--who published (at Amsterdam in 1688,
12mo) three dialogues, entitled, “Confusion de Confusiones,” to
ridicule the passion for stockjobbing which came in with the
Dutch East India Company, in 1602, and was then at the height
of its frenzy. They are somewhat encumbered with learning, but
contain anecdotes, ancient and modern, very well told. The author
was a rich Jew of Antwerp, who had fled thither from Spain, and
published several works between 1683 and 1693, but none, I think,
of much value. Amador de los Rios, Judíos Españoles, p. 633.
Nor is this remarkable. On the contrary, it is rather to be considered
worthy of notice, that didactic prose should have had any merit or
obtained any success in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. For the end it proposes is not, like that of poetry, to
amuse, but, like that of philosophy, to enlighten and amend; and how
dangerous in Spain was the social position of any teacher or moral
monitor, who claimed for himself that degree of independence of opinion
without which instruction becomes a dead form, needs not now to be set
forth. Few persons, in that unhappy country, were surrounded with more
difficulties; none were more strictly watched, or, if they wandered
from the permitted paths, were more severely punished.
Nor was it possible for such persons, by the most notorious earnestness
in their convictions of the just control of the religion of the state,
or any degree of faithfulness in their loyalty, to avoid sometimes
falling under the rebuke of the jealousy that watched each step of
their course; a fact sufficiently apparent, when we recollect that
nearly all the didactic writers of merit during this period, such as
Juan de Avila, Luis de Leon, Luis de Granada, Quevedo, San Juan de la
Cruz, and Santa Teresa, were persecuted by the Inquisition or by the
government, and the works of every one of them expurgated or forbidden.
Under such oppression, free and eloquent writers,--men destined
to teach and advance their generation,--could not be expected to
appear, and the few who ventured into ways so dangerous dwelt as
much as possible in generals, and became mystical, like Juan de la
Cruz, or extravagant and declamatory, like Luis de Granada. Nearly
all,--strictly prevented from using the logic of a wise and liberal
philosophy,--fell into pedantry, from an anxious desire, wherever it
was possible, to lean upon authority; so that, from Luis de Leon down
to the most ordinary writer, who, in a prefatory letter of approbation,
wished to give currency to the opinions of a friend, no man seemed to
feel at ease unless he could justify and sustain what he had to say
by citations from the Scriptures, the fathers of the Church, and the
ancient and scholastic philosophers. Thus, Spanish didactic prose,
which, from its original elements and tendencies, seemed destined to
wear the attractions of an elevated and eloquent style, gradually
became so formal, awkward, and pedantic, that, with a few striking
exceptions, it can only be said to have maintained a doubtful and
difficult existence during the long period when the less suspected and
less oppressed portions of the literature of the country--its drama and
its lyric poetry--were in the meridian of their success.