History of Spanish Literature, vol. 2 (of 3)

by George Ticknor

CHAPTER XXX.

Lyric Poetry, continued. — The Argensolas, Jauregui, Estévan Villegas, Balbuena, Barbadillo, Polo, Rojas, Rioja, Esquilache, Mendoza, Rebolledo, Quiros, Evia, Inez de la Cruz, Solís, Candamo, and others. — Different Characteristics of Spanish Lyrical Poetry, Religious and Secular, Popular and Elegant.

Among the lyric poets who flourished in Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and who were opposed to what began to be called the “Gongorism” of the time, the first, as far as their general influence was concerned, were the two brothers Argensola,—Aragonese gentlemen of a good Italian family, which had come from Ravenna in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. The eldest of them, Lupercio Leonardo, was born about 1564; and Bartolomé Leonardo, the other, was his junior by only a year. Lupercio was educated for the civil service of his country, and married young. Not far from the year 1587 he wrote the three tragedies which have already been noticed, and two years later was distinguished at Alcalá de Henares in one of the public poetical contests then so common in Spain. In 1591, he was sent as an agent of the government of Philip the Second to Saragossa, when Antonio Perez fled into Aragon; and he subsequently became chronicler of that kingdom, and private secretary of the Empress Maria of Austria.

The happiest part of the life of Lupercio was probably passed at Naples, where he went, in 1610, with the Count de Lemos, when that accomplished nobleman was made its viceroy, and seemed to be hardly less anxious to have poets about him than statesmen,—taking both the brothers, as part of his official suite, and not only giving Lupercio the post of Secretary of State and of War, but authorizing him to appoint his subordinates from among Spanish men of letters. But his life at Naples was short. In March, 1613, he died suddenly, and was buried with much solemnity by the Academy of the Oziosi, which he had himself helped to establish, and of which Manso, the friend of Tasso and of Milton, was then the head.

Bartolomé, who, like his brother, bore the name of Leonardo, was educated for the Church, and, under the patronage of the Duke of Villahermosa, early received a living in Aragon, which finally determined his position in society. But, until 1610, when he went to Naples, he lived a great deal at the University of Salamanca, where he was devoted to literary pursuits and prepared his history of the recent conquest of the Moluccas, which was printed in 1609. At Naples, he was a principal personage in the poetical court of the Count de Lemos, and showed, as did others with whom he was associated, a pleasant facility in acting dramas, that were improvisated as they were performed. At Rome, too, he was favorably known and patronized; and before his return home in 1616, he was made chronicler of Aragon; a place in which he succeeded his brother, and which he continued to enjoy till his own death, in 1631.

There is little in what was most fortunate in the career of these two remarkable brothers that can serve to distinguish them, except the different lengths of their lives and the different amounts of their works; for not only were both of them poets and possessed of intellectual endowments able to command general respect, but both had the good fortune to rise to positions in the world which gave them a wide influence, and enabled them to become patrons of men of letters, some of whom were their superiors. But both are now seldom mentioned, except for a volume of poetry, chiefly lyrical, published in 1634, after their deaths, by a son of Lupercio. It consists, he says, of such of his father’s and his uncle’s poems as he had been able to collect, but by no means of all they had written; for his father had destroyed most of his manuscripts just before he died; and his uncle, though he had given about twenty of his poems to Espinosa in 1605, had not, it is apparent, been careful to preserve what had been only an amusement of his leisure hours, rather than a serious occupation.

Such as it is, however, this collection of their poems shows the same resemblance in their talents and tastes that was apparent in their lives. Italy, a country in which their family had its origin, where they had themselves lived, and some of whose poets they had familiarly known, seems almost always present to their thoughts as they write. Nor is Horace often absent. His philosophical spirit, his careful, but rich, versification, and his tempered enthusiasm, are the characteristic merits to which the Argensolas aspired alike in their formal odes and in the few of their poems that take the freer and more national forms. The elder shows, on the whole, more of original power; but he left only half as many poems, by which to judge his merits, as his brother did. The younger is more graceful, and finishes his compositions with more care and judgment. Both, notwithstanding they were Aragonese, wrote with entire purity of style, so that Lope de Vega said “it seemed as if they had come from Aragon to reform Castilian verse.” Both, therefore, are to be placed high in the list of Spanish lyric poets;—next, perhaps, after the great masters;—a rank which we most readily assign them, when we are considering the shorter poems addressed by the elder to the lady he afterwards married, and the purity of manner and sustained dignity of feeling which mark the longer compositions of each.[907]

Among those who followed the Argensolas, the earliest of their successful imitators was probably Jauregui, a Sevilian gentleman, descended from an old Biscayan family, and born about 1570. Having a talent for painting, as well as poetry,—a fact we learn in many ways, and among the rest from an epigrammatic sonnet of Lope de Vega,—he went to Rome and devoted himself to the study of the art to which, at first, he seems to have given his life. But still poetry drew him away from the path he had chosen. In 1607, while at Rome, he published a translation of the “Aminta” of Tasso, and from that time was numbered among the Spanish poets who were valued at home and abroad. On his return to Spain, he seems to have gone to Madrid, where, heralded by a good reputation, he was kindly received at court. This was probably as early as 1613, for Cervantes in that year mentioned in his “Tales” a portrait of himself, painted, as he says, “by the famous Jauregui.”

In 1618, however, he was again in Seville, and published a collection of his works; but in 1624 his “Orfeo” appeared at Madrid,—a poem in five short cantos, on the story of Orpheus. It is written with much less purity of style than might have been expected from one who afterwards denounced the extravagances of Góngora. Still, it attracted so lively an interest, that Montalvan thought it worth while to publish another on the same subject, in competition with it, as soon as possible;—a rivalship in which he was openly abetted by his great master, Lope de Vega.[908] Both poems seem to have been well received, and both authors continued to enjoy the favor of the capital till their deaths, which happened at about the same time; that of Jauregui as late as 1640, when he finished a too free translation, or rather a presumptuous and distasteful rearrangement, of Lucan’s “Pharsalia.”

The reputation of Jauregui rests on the volume of poems he himself published in 1618. The translation of Tasso’s “Aminta,” with which it opens, is elaborately corrected from the edition he had previously printed at Rome, without being always improved by the changes he introduced. But, in each of its forms, it is probably the most carefully finished and beautiful translation in the Spanish language; marked by great ease and facility in its versification, and especially by the charming lyrical tone that runs with such harmony and sweetness through the Italian.

Jauregui’s original poems are few, and now and then betray the same traces of submission to the influence of Góngora that are to be seen in his “Orfeo” and “Pharsalia.” But the more lyrical portions—which, except those on religious subjects, have a very Italian air—are almost entirely free from such faults. The Ode on Luxury is noble and elevated; and the silva on seeing his mistress bathing, more cautiously managed than the similar scene in Thomson’s “Summer,” is admirable in its diction, and betrays in its beautiful picturesqueness something of its author’s skill and refinement in the kindred art to which he had devoted himself. His sonnets and shorter pieces are less successful.[909]

Another of the followers of the Argensolas—and one who boasted that he had trodden in their footsteps from the days of his boyhood, when Bartolomé had been pointed out to his young admiration in the streets of Madrid—was Estévan Manuel de Villegas.[910] He was born at Naxera, in 1596, and was educated partly at court and partly at Salamanca, where he studied the law. After 1617, or certainly as early as 1626, when he was married, he almost entirely abandoned letters, and gave himself up to such profitable occupations connected with his profession as would afford subsistence to those dependent on his labors. He, however, found leisure to prepare for publication a number of learned dissertations on ancient authors; to make considerable progress in a professional commentary on the “Codex Theodosianus”; and to publish, in 1665, as a consolation for his own sorrows, a translation of Boethius, which, besides its excellent version of the poetical parts, is among the good specimens of Castilian prose. But he remained, during his whole life, unpatronized and poor, and died in 1669, an unfortunate and unhappy man.[911]

The gay and poetical part of the life of Villegas—the period when he presumptuously announced himself as the rising sun, and attacked Cervantes, thinking to please the Argensolas[912]—began very early, and was soon darkened by the cares and troubles of the world. He tells us himself that he wrote much of his poetry when he was only fourteen years old; and he certainly published nearly the whole of it when he was hardly twenty-one.[913] And yet there are few volumes in the Spanish language that afford surer proofs of a poetical temperament. It is divided into two parts. The first contains versions of a number of Odes from the First Book of Horace, and a translation of the whole of Anacreon, followed by imitations of Anacreon’s manner, on subjects relating to their author. The second contains satires and elegies, which are really epistles; idyls in the Italian ottava rima; sonnets, in the manner of Petrarch; and “Latinas,” as he calls them, from the circumstance that they are written in the measures of Roman verse.

A poetical spirit runs through the whole. The translations are generally free, but more than commonly true to the genius of their originals. The “Latinas” are curious. They fill only a few pages; but, except slight specimens of the ancient measures in the choruses of the two tragedies of Bermudez, forty years before, they are the first and the only attempt worthy of notice, to introduce into the Castilian those forms of verse which, a little before the time of Bermudez, had obtained some success in France, and which, a little later, our own Spenser sought to establish in English poetry.

But though Villegas did not succeed in this, he succeeded in his imitations of Anacreon. We seem, indeed, as we read them, to have the simple and joyous spirit of ancient festivity and love revived before us, with nothing, or almost nothing, of what renders that spirit offensive. The ode to a little bird whose nest had been robbed; one to himself, “Love and the Bee”; the imitation of “Ut flos in septis,” by Catullus; and, indeed, nearly every one of the smaller pieces that compose the third book of the first division, with several in the first book, are beautiful in their kind, and give such a faithful impression of the native sweetness of Anacreon as is not easily found elsewhere in modern literature. We close the volume of Villegas, therefore, with sincere regret that he, who, in his boyhood, could write poetry so beautiful,—poetry so imbued with the spirit of antiquity, and yet so full of the tenderness of modern feeling; so classically exact, and yet so fresh and natural,—should have survived its publication above forty years without finding an interval when the cares and disappointments of the world permitted him to return to the occupations that made his youth happy, and that have preserved his name for a posterity of which, when he first lisped in numbers, he could hardly have had a serious thought.[914]

We pass over Balbuena, whose best lyric poetry is found in his prose romance;[915] and Salas Barbadillo, who has scattered similar poetry through his various publications and collected more of it in his “Castilian Rhymes.”[916] Both of them flourished before 1630, and, like Polo,[917] whose talent lay chiefly in lighter compositions, and Rojas, who succeeded best in pastorals of a very lyric tone,[918] they lived at a time when Lope de Vega was pouring forth floods of verse, which were not only sufficient to determine the main current of the literature of the country, but to sweep along, undistinguished in its turbulent flood, the contributions of many a stream, smaller, indeed, than its own, but purer and more graceful.

Among these was the poetry of Francisco de Rioja, a native of Seville, who was born in 1600, and died in 1658. From the circumstance that he occupied a high place in the Inquisition, he might have counted on a shelter from the storms of state, if he had not connected himself too much with the Count Duke Olivares, whose fall drew after it that of nearly all who had shared in his intrigues, or sought the protection of his overshadowing patronage. But the disgrace of Rioja was temporary; and the latter part of his life, which he gave to letters at Seville, seems to have been as happy and fortunate as the first.

The amount of his poetry that has come down to us is small, but it is all valued and read. Some of his sonnets are uncommonly felicitous. So are his ode “To Riches,” imitated from Horace, and the corresponding one “To Poverty,” which is quite original. In that “To the Opening Year,” exhorting his young friend Fonseca, almost in the words of Pericles, not to lose the springtime out of his life, there is much tenderness and melancholy; a reflection, perhaps, of the regrets that he felt for mistakes in his own early and more ambitious career. But his chief distinction has generally come from an ode, full of sadness and genius, “On the Ruins of Italica,”—that Roman city, near Seville, which claims the honor of having given birth to Trajan, and which he celebrates with the enthusiasm of one whose childish fancy had been nourished by wandering among the remains of its decaying amphitheatre and fallen palaces. This distinction has, however, been contested; and the ode in question, or rather a part of it, has been claimed for Rodrigo Caro, known in his time rather as an antiquarian than as a poet, among whose unpublished works a sketch of it is found with the date of 1595, which, if genuine, carries the general conception, and at least one of the best stanzas, back to a period before the birth of Rioja.[919]

Among those who opposed the school of Góngora, and perhaps the person who, from his influence in society, could best have checked its power, if he had not himself been sometimes betrayed into its bad taste, was the Prince Borja y Esquilache. His titles—which are, in fact, corruptions of the great names borne by the Italian principalities of Borgia and Squillace—betray his origin, and explain some of his tendencies. But though, by a strange coincidence, he was great-grandson of Pope Alexander the Sixth, and grandson of one of the heads of the Order of the Jesuits, he was also descended from the old royal family of Aragon, and had a faithful Spanish heart. From his high rank, he easily found a high place in public affairs. He was distinguished both as a soldier and as a diplomatist; and at one time he rose to be viceroy of Peru, and administered its affairs during six years with wisdom and success.

But, like many others of his countrymen, he never forgot letters amidst the anxieties of public life; and, in fact, found leisure enough to write several volumes of poetry. Of these, the best portions are his lyrical ballads. His sonnets, too, are good, especially those in a gayer vein, and so are his madrigals, which, like that “To a Nightingale,” are often graceful and sometimes tender. In general, those of his shorter compositions which are a little epigrammatic in their tone and very simple in their language are the best. They belong to a class constantly reappearing in Spanish literature, of which the following may be taken as a favorable specimen:—

Ye little founts, that laughing flow

And frolic with the sands,

Say, whither, whither do ye go,

And what such speed demands?

From all the tender flowers ye fly,

And haste to rocks,—rocks rude and high;

Yet, if ye here can gently sleep,

Why such a wearying hurry keep?[920]

Borja was much respected during his long life; and died at Madrid, his native city, in 1658, seventy-seven years old. His religious poetry, some of which was first published after his death, has little value.[921]

Antonio de Mendoza, the courtly dramatist, who flourished between 1630 and 1660, is also to be numbered among the lyric poets of his time; and so are Cancer y Velasco, Cubillo, and Zarate, all of whom died in the latter part of the same period. Mendoza and Cancer inclined to the old national measures, and the two others to the Italian. None of them, however, is now often remembered.[922]

Not so the Count Bernardino de Rebolledo, a gentleman of the ancient Castilian stamp, who, though not a great poet, is one of those that are still kept in the memory and regard of their countrymen. He was born at Leon, in 1597, and from the age of fourteen was a soldier; serving first against the Turks and the powers of Barbary, and afterwards, during the Thirty Years’ war, in different parts of Germany, where, from the Emperor Ferdinand, he received the title of Count. In 1647, when peace returned, he was made ambassador to Denmark and lived long in the North, connected, as his poetry often proves him to have been, with the Danish court and with that of Christina of Sweden, in whose conversion one of his letters shows that he bore a part.[923] From 1662 he was a minister of state at Madrid; and when he died, in 1676, he was burdened with offices of all kinds, and enjoyed pensions and salaries to the amount of fifty thousand ducats a year.

It is singular that the poetry of a Spaniard should have first appeared in the North of Europe. But so it was in the case of Count Rebolledo. One volume of his works was published at Cologne in 1650, and another at Copenhagen in 1655. Each contains lyrical poems, both in the national and the Italian forms; and if none of them are remarkable, many are written with simplicity, and a few are beyond the spirit of their time.[924]

The names of several other authors might be added to this list, though they would add nothing to its dignity or value. Among them are Ribero, a Portuguese; Pedro Quiros, a Sevilian of note; Barrios, the persecuted Jew; Lucio y Espinossa, an Aragonese; Evia, a native of Guayaquil in Peru; Inez de la Cruz, a Mexican nun; Solís, the historian; Candamo, the dramatist; and Marcante, Montoro, and Negrete;—all of whom lived in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and the last three of whom reached the threshold of the eighteenth, when the poetical spirit of their country seems to have become all but absolutely extinct.[925]

But though its latter period is dark and disheartening, lyric poetry in Spain, from the time of Charles the Fifth to the accession of the Bourbons, had, on the whole, a more fortunate career than it enjoyed in any other of the countries of Europe, except Italy and England, and shows, in each of its different classes, traits that are original, striking, and full of the national character.

Perhaps, from the difficulty of satisfying the popular taste in what was matter of such solemn regard, without adhering to the ancient and settled forms, its religious portions, more frequently than any other, bear a marked resemblance to the simplest and oldest movements of the national genius. Generally, they are picturesque, like the little songs we have by Ocaña on the Madonna at Bethlehem, and on the Flight to Egypt. Sometimes they are rude and coarse, recalling the villancicos sung by the shepherds of the early religious dramas. But almost always, even when they grow mystical and fall into bad taste, they are completely imbued with the spirit of the Catholic faith,—a spirit more distinctly impressed on the lyric poetry of Spain, in this department, than it is on any other of modern times.

Nor is the secular portion less strongly marked, though with attributes widely different. In its popular divisions, it is fresh, natural, and often rustic. Some of the short canciones, with which it abounds, and some of its chanzonetas, overflow with tenderness, and yet end waywardly with an epigrammatic point or a jest. Its villancicos, letras, and letrillas are even more true to the nature of the people, and more fully express the popular feeling. Generally they seize a common incident or an obvious thought for their subject. Sometimes it is a little girl, who, in her childish simplicity, confesses to her mother the very passion she is instinctively anxious to conceal. Sometimes it is one older and more severely tried, deprecating a power she is no longer able to control. And sometimes it is a fortunate and happy maiden, openly exulting in her love as the light and glory of her life. Many of these little lyrical snatches are anonymous, and express the feelings of the lower classes of society, from whose hearts they came as freshly as did the old ballads, with which they are often found mingled, and to which they are almost always akin. Their forms, too, are old and characteristic, and there is occasionally a frolicsome and mischievous spirit in them,—not unimbued with the truest tenderness and passion,—which, again, is faithful to their origin, and unlike any thing found in the poetry of other nations.

In the division of secular lyric poetry that is less popular and less faithful to the traditions of the country a large diversity of spirit is exhibited, and exhibited almost always in the Italian measures. Sonnets, above all, were looked upon with extravagant favor during the whole of this period, and their number became enormously large; larger, perhaps, than that of all the ballads in the language. But from this restricted form up to that of long grave odes, in regularly constructed stanzas of nineteen or twenty lines each, we have every variety of manner;—much that is solemn, stately, and imposing, but much, also, that is light, gay, and genial.

Taking all the different classes of Spanish lyric poetry together, the number of authors whose works, or some of them, have been preserved, between the beginning of the reign of Charles the Fifth and the end of that of the last of his race, is not less than a hundred and twenty.[926] But the number of those who were successful is small, as it is everywhere, and the amount of real poetry produced, even by the best, is rarely considerable. A little of what was written by the Argensolas, more of Herrera, and nearly the whole of the Bachiller de la Torre and Luis de Leon,—with occasional efforts of Lope de Vega and Quevedo, and single odes of Figueroa, Jauregui, Arguijo, and Rioja,—make up what gives its character to the graver and less popular portion of Spanish lyric poetry. And if to these we add Villegas, who stands quite separate, uniting the spirit of Greek antiquity to that of a truly Castilian genius, and the fresh, graceful popular songs and roundelays, which, by their very nature, break loose from all forms and submit to no classification, we shall have a body of poetry, not, indeed, large, but one that, for its living national feeling on the one side, and its dignity on the other, may be placed without question among the more successful efforts of modern literature.

END OF VOL. II.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] In the edition of Madrid, 1573, 18mo, we are told, “La Propaladia estava prohibida en estos reynos, años avia”; and Martinez de la Rosa (Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 382) says that this prohibition was laid soon after 1520, and not removed till August, 1573. The period is important; but I suspect the authority of Martinez de la Rosa for its termination is merely the permission to print an edition, which is dated 21 Aug., 1573; an edition, too, which is, after all, expurgated severely.

[2] These are in the “Catálogo” of L. F. Moratin, Nos. 57 and 63, Obras, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. Parte I.

[3] The fate of this long heroic and romantic drama of Gil Vicente, in Spanish, is somewhat singular. It was forbidden by the Inquisition, we are told, as early as the Index Expurgatorius of 1549 [1559?]; but it was not printed at all till 1562, and not separately till 1586. By the Index of Lisbon, 1624, it is permitted, if expurgated, and there is an edition of it of that year at Lisbon. As it was never printed in Spain, the prohibition there must have related chiefly to its representation. Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Tom. II. p. 384.

[4] The account of this ceremony, and the facts concerning the dramas in question, are given by Sandoval, “Historia de Carlos V.,” (Anvers, 1681, fol. Tom. I. p. 619, Lib. XVI., § 13), and are of some consequence in the history of the Spanish drama.

[5] It was printed in 1523, and a sufficient extract from it is to be found in Moratin, Catálogo, No. 36.

[6] A specimen of the Mysteries of the age of Charles V. may be found in an extremely rare volume, entitled, in its three parts, “Triaca del Alma,” “Triaca de Amor,” and “Triaca de Tristes”;—or Medley for the Soul, for Love, and for Sadness. Its author was Marcelo de Lebrixa, son of the famous scholar Antonio; and the dedication and conclusion of the first part imply that it was composed when the author was forty years old,—after the death of his father, which happened in 1522, and during the reign of the Emperor, which ended in 1556. The first part, to which I particularly allude, consists of a Mystery on the Incarnation, in above eight thousand short verses. It has no other action than such as consists in the appearance of the angel Gabriel to the Madonna, bringing Reason with him in the shape of a woman, and followed by another angel, who leads in the Seven Virtues;—the whole piece being made up out of their successive discourses and exhortations, and ending with a sort of summary, by Reason and by the author, in favor of a pious life. Certainly, so slight a structure, with little merit in its verses, could do nothing to advance the drama of the sixteenth century. It was, however, intended for representation. “It was written,” says its author, “for the praise and solemnization of the Festival of Our Lady’s Incarnation; so that it may be acted as a play [la puedan por farça representar] by devout nuns in their convents, since no men appear in it, but only angels and young damsels.”

The second part of this singular volume, which is more poetical than the first, is against human, and in favor of Divine love; and the third, which is very long, consists of a series of consolations deemed suitable for the different forms of human sorrow and care;—these two parts being necessarily didactic in their character. Each of the three is addressed to a member of the great family of Alva, to which their author seems to have been attached; and the whole is called by him Triaca; a word which means Treacle, or Antidote, but which Lebrixa says he uses in the sense of Ensalada,—Salad or Medley. The volume, taken as a whole, is as strongly marked with the spirit of the age that produced it as the contemporary Cancioneros Generales, and its poetical merit is much like theirs.

[7] Moratin, Catálogo, No. 35, and ante, Vol. I. p. 503.

[8] Oliva died in 1533; but his translations were not printed till 1585.

[9] This extremely curious drama, of which I know no copy, except the one kindly lent to me by M. H. Ternaux-Compans of Paris, is entitled “Egloga nuevamente composta por Juan de Paris, en la qual se introducen cinco personas: un Escudero llamado Estacio, y un Hermitaño, y una Moça, y un Diablo, y dos Pastores, uno llamado Vicente y el otro Cremon” (1536). It is in black letter, small quarto, 12 leaves, without name of place or printer; but, I suppose, printed at Zaragoza, or Medina del Campo.

[10]

Agora reniego de mala fraylia,

Ni quiero hermitaño ni frayle mas ser.

[11]

Huyamos de ser vasallos

Del Amor,

Pues por premio da dolor.

[12] As another copy of this play can be found, I suppose, only by some rare accident, I give the original of the passage in the text, with its original pointing. It is the opening of the first scene:—

Hermitaño.

La vida peñosa; que nos los mortales

En aqueste mundo; terreno passamos

Si con buen sentido; la consideramos

Fallar la hemos; lleno de muy duros males

De tantos tormentos; tan grandes y tales

Que aver de contallos; es cuento infinita

Y allende de aquesto; tan presto es marchita

Como la rosa; qu’ esta en los rosales.

“Una Farça a Manera de Tragedia,” in prose and partly pastoral, was printed at Valencia, anonymously, in 1537, and seems to have resembled this one in some particulars. It is mentioned in Aribau, “Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,” 1846, Tom. II. p. 193, note.

[13] “Comedia llamada Vidriana, compuesta por Jaume de Huete agora nuevamente,” etc., sm. 4to, black letter, 18 leaves, without year, place, or printer. It has ten interlocutors, and ends with an apology in Latin, that the author cannot write like Mena,—Juan de Mena I suppose,—though I know not why he should have been selected, as the piece is evidently in the manner of Naharro.

[14] Another drama, from the same volume with the last two. Moratin (Catálogo, No. 47) had found it noticed in the Index Expurgatorius of Valladolid, 1559, and assigns it, at a venture, to the year 1531, but he never saw it. Its title is “Comedia intitulada Tesorina, la materia de la qual es unos amores de un penado por una Señora y otras personas adherentes. Hecha nuevamente por Jaume de Huete. Pero si por ser su natural lengua Aragonesa, no fuere por muy cendrados terminos, quanto a este merece perdon.” Small 4to, black letter, 15 leaves, no year, place, or printer. It has ten interlocutors, and is throughout an imitation of Naharro, who is mentioned in some mean Latin lines at the end, where the author expresses the hope that his Muse may be tolerated, “quamvis non Torris digna Naharro venit.”

[15] “Comedia intitulada Radiana, compuesta por Agostin Ortiz,” small 4to, black letter, 12 leaves, no year, place, or printer. It is in five jornadas, and has ten personages,—a favorite number apparently. It comes from the volume above alluded to, which contains besides:—1. A poor prose story, interspersed with dialogue, on the tale of Mirrha, taken chiefly from Ovid. It is called “La Tragedia de Mirrha,” and its author is the Bachiller Villalon. It was printed at Medina del Campo, 1536, por Pedro Toraus, small 4to, black letter. 2. An eclogue somewhat in the manner of Juan de la Enzina, for a Nacimiento. It is called a Farza,—“El Farza siguiente hizo Pero Lopez Ranjel,” etc. It is short, filling only 4 ff., and contains three villancicos. On the title-page is a coarse wood-cut of the manger, with Bethlehem in the background. 3. A short, dull farce, entitled “Jacinta”;—not the Jacinta of Naharro. These three, together with the four previously noticed, are, I believe, known to exist only in the copy I have used from the library of M. H. Ternaux-Compans.

[16] It is known that he was certainly dead as early as that year, because the edition of his “Comedias” then published at Valencia, by his friend Timoneda, contains, at the end of the “Engaños,” a sonnet on his death by Francisco Ledesma. The last, and, indeed, almost the only, date we have about him, is that of his acting in the cathedral at Segovia in 1558; of which we have a distinct account in the learned and elaborate History of Segovia, by Diego de Colmenares, (Segovia, 1627, fol., p. 516), where he says, that, on a stage erected between the choirs, “Lope de Rueda, a well-known actor [famoso comediante] of that age represented an entertaining play [gustosa comedia].”

[17] The well-known passage about Lope de Rueda, in Cervantes’s Prólogo to his own plays, is of more consequence than all the rest that remains concerning him. Every thing, however, is collected in Navarrete, “Vida de Cervantes,” pp. 255-260; and in Casiano Pellicer, “Orígen de la Comedia y del Histrionismo en España,” Madrid, 1804, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 72-84.

[18] “Las Quatro Comedias y Dos Coloquios Pastorales del excelente poeta y gracioso representante, Lope de Rueda,” etc., impresas en Sevilla, 1576, 8vo,—contains his principal works, with the “Diálogo sobre la Invencion de las Calzas que se usan agora.” From the Epistola prefixed to it by Juan de Timoneda, I infer that he made alterations in the manuscripts, as Lope de Rueda left them; but not, probably, any of much consequence. Of the “Deleytoso,” printed at Valencia, 1577, I have never been able to see more than the very ample extracts given by Moratin, amounting to six Pasos and a Coloquio. The first edition of the Quatro Comedias, etc., was 1567, at Valencia; the last at Logroño, 1588.

[19] This is the Rufian of the old Spanish dramas and stories,—parcel rowdy, parcel bully, and wholly knave;—a different personage from the Rufian of recent times, who is the elder Alcahuete or pander.

[20] It may be worth noticing, that both the “Armelina” and the “Eufemia” open with scenes of calling up a lazy young man from bed, in the early morning, much like the first in the “Nubes” of Aristophanes.

[21] Troico, it should be observed, is a woman in disguise.

[22] This superstition about Tuesday as an unlucky day is not unfrequent in the old Spanish drama:—

Está escrito,

El Martes es dia aciago.

Lope de Vega, El Cuerdo en su Casa, Acto II. Comedias, Madrid, 1615, 4to, Tom. VI. f. 112. a.

[23] Rivers in the North of Spain, often mentioned in Spanish poetry, especially the first of them.

[24]

Len. Ah, Troico! estás acá?

Tro. Sí, hermano: tu no lo ves?

Len. Mas valiera que no.

Tro. Porque, Leno?

Len. Porque no supieras una desgracia, que ha sucedido harto poco ha.

Tro. Y que ha sido la desgracia?

Len. Que es hoy?

Tro. Jueves.

Len. Jueves? Quanto le falta para ser Martes?

Tro. Antes le sobran dos dias.

Len. Mucho es eso! Mas dime, suele haber dias aziagos así como los Martes?

Tro. Porque lo dices?

Len. Pregunto, porque tambien habrá hojaldres desgraciadas, pues hay Jueves desgraciados.

Tro. Creo que sí!

Len. Y ven acá: si te la hubiesen comido á ti una en Jueves, en quien habria caido la desgracia, en la hojaldre ó en ti?

Tro. No hay duda sino que en mí.

Len. Pues, hermano Troico, aconortaos, y comenzad á sufrir, y ser paciente, que por los hombres (como dicen) suelen venir las desgracias, y estas son cosas de Dios en fin, y tambien segun órden de los dias os podriades vos morir, y (como dicen) ya seria recomplida y allegada la hora postrimera, rescebildo con paciencia, y acórdaos que mañana somos y hoy no.

Tro. Válame Dios, Leno! Es muerto alguno en casa? O como me consuelas ansí?

Len. Ojalá, Troico!

Tro. Pues que fué? No lo dirás sin tantos circunloquios? Para que es tanto preámbulo?

Len. Quando mi madre murió, para decírmelo él que me llevó la nueva me trajó mas rodeos que tiene bueltas Pisuerga ó Zapardiel.

Tro. Pues yo no tengo madre, ni la conoscí, ni te entiendo.

Len. Huele ese pañizuelo.

Tro. Y bien? Ya está olido.

Len. A que huele?

Tro. A cosa de manteca.

Len. Pues bien puedes decir, aquí hué Troya.

Tro. Como, Leno?

Len. Para ti me la habian dado, para ti la embiaba rebestida de piñones la Señora Timbria; pero como yo soy (y lo sabe Dios y todo el mundo) allegado á lo bueno, en viéndola así, se me vinieron los ojos tras ella como milano tras de pollera.

Tro. Tras quien, traidor? tras Timbria?

Len. Que no, válame Dios! Que empapada la embiaba de manteca y azúcar!

Tro. La que?

Len. La hojaldre: no lo entiendes?

Tro. Y quien me la embiaba?

Len. La Señora Timbria.

Tro. Pues que la heciste?

Len. Consumióse.

Tro. De que?

Len. De ojo.

Tro. Quien la ojeó?

Len. Yo, mal punto!

Tro. De que manera?

Len. Asentéme en el camino.

Tro. Y que mas?

Len. Toméla en la mano.

Tro. Y luego?

Len. Prové á que sabia, y como por una vanda y por otra estaba de dar y tomar, quando por ella acordé, ya no habia memoria.

Tro. En fin, te la comiste?

Len. Podria ser.

Tro. Por cierto, que eres hombre de buen recado.

Len. A fe? que te parezco? De aquí adelante si trugere dos, me las comeré juntas, para hacello mejor.

Tro. Bueno va el negocio.

Len. Y bien regido, y con poca costa, y á mi contento. Mas ven acá, si quies que riamos un rato con Timbria?

Tro. De que suerte?

Len. Puedes le hacer en creyente, que la comiste tu, y como ella piense que es verdad, podremos despues tu y yo reir acá de la burla; que rebentarás riyendo! Que mas quies?

Tro. Bien me aconsejas.

Len. Agora bien; Dios bendiga los hombres acogidos á razon! Pero dime, Troico, sabrás disimular con ella sin reirte?

Tro. Yo? de que me habia de reir?

Len. No te paresce, que es manera de reir, hacelle en creyente, que tu te la comiste, habiéndosela comido tu amigo Leno?

Tro. Dices sabiamente; mas calla, vete en buen hora.

Las Quatro Comedias, etc., de Lope de Rueda, Sevilla, 1576, 8vo.

[25] This I infer from the fact, that, at the end of the edition of the Comedias and Coloquios, 1576, there is a “Tabla de los pasos graciosos que se pueden sacar de las presentes Comedias y Coloquios y poner en otras obras.” Indeed, paso meant a passage. Pasos were, however, undoubtedly sometimes written as separate works by Lope de Rueda, and were not called entremeses till Timoneda gave them the name. Still, they may have been earlier used as such, or as introductions to the longer dramas.

[26] There is a Glosa printed at the end of the Comedias; but it is not of much value. The passage preserved by Cervantes is in his “Baños de Argel,” near the end.

[27]

Per.

Señor Fuentes, que mudanza

Habeis hecho en el calzado,

Con que andais tan abultado?

Fuent.

Señor, calzas á la usanza.

Per.

Pense qu’ era verdugado.

Fuent.

Pues yo d’ ellas no me corro.

Que han de ser como las vuesas?

Hermano, ya no usan d’ esas.

Per.

Mas que les hechais de aforro,

Que aun se paran tan tiesas?

Fuent.

D’ eso poco: un sayo viejo

Y toda una ruin capa,

Que á esta calza no escapa.

Per.

Pues, si van á mi consejo,

Hecharan una gualdrapa.

Fuent.

Y aun otros mandan poner

Copia de paja y esparto,

Porque les abulten harto.

Per.

Esos deben de tener

De bestias quizá algun quarto.

Fuent.

Pondrase qualquier alhaja

Por traer calza gallarda.

Per.

Cierto yo no sé que aguarda

Quien va vestido de paja

De hacerse alguna albarda.

I do not know that this dialogue is printed anywhere but at the end of the edition of the Comedias, 1576. It refers evidently to the broad-bottomed stuffed hose, then coming into fashion; such as the daughter of Sancho, in her vanity, when she heard her father was governor of Barrataria, wanted to see him wear; and such as Don Carlos, according to the account of Thuanus, wore, when he used to hide in their strange recesses the pistols that alarmed Philip II.;—“caligis, quæ amplissimæ de more gentis in usu sunt.” They were forbidden by a royal ordinance in 1623. See D. Quixote, (Parte II. c. 50), with two amusing stories told in the notes of Pellicer, and Thuani Historiarum, Lib. XLI., at the beginning.

[28] Comedias, Prólogo.

[29] “Auditores, no hagais sino comer, y dad la vuelta á la plaza.”

[30] In the fifth escena of the “Eufemia,” the place changes, when Valiano comes in. Indeed, it is evident that Lope de Rueda did not know the meaning of the word scene, or did not employ it aright.

[31] The first traces of these simples, who were afterwards expanded into the graciosos, is to be found in the parvos of Gil Vicente.

[32] Cervantes, in the Prólogo already cited, calls him “el gran Lope de Rueda,” and, when speaking of the Spanish Comedias, treats him as “el primero que en España las sacó de mantillas y las puso en toldo y vistió de gala y apariencia.” This was in 1615; and Cervantes spoke from his own knowledge and memory. In 1620, in the Prólogo to the thirteenth volume of his Comedias, (Madrid, 4to), Lope de Vega says, “Las comedias no eran mas antiguas que Rueda, á quien oyeron muchos, que hoy viven.”

[33] Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Tom. I. p. 72, and Fuster, Biblioteca Valenciana, Tom. I. p. 161.

[34] In the Prologue to the Cornelia, one of the speakers says that one of the principal personages of the piece lives in Valencia, “in this house which you see,” he adds, pointing the spectators picturesquely, and no doubt with comic effect, to some house they could all see. A similar jest about another of the personages is repeated a little farther on.

[35] “Con privilegio. Comedia llamada Cornelia, nuevamente compuesta, por Juan de Timoneda. Es muy sentida, graciosa, y vozijada. Año 1559.” 8vo.

[36] It is in the twelfth scene. “Es el mas agudo rapaz del mundo, y es hermano de Lazarillo de Tórmes, el que tuvo trezientos y cincuenta amos.”

[37] “Con privilegio. La Comedia de los Menennos, traduzida por Juan Timoneda, y puesta en gracioso estilo y elegantes sentencias. Año 1559.” 8vo.

[38]

Devotos cristianos, quien

Manda rezar

Una oracion singular

Nueva de nuestra Señora?

Mandadme rezar, pues que es

Noche santa,

La oracion segun se canta

Del nacimiento de Cristo.

Jesus! nunca tal he visto,

Cosa es esta que me espanta:

Seca tengo la garganta

De pregones

Que voy dando por cantones,

Y nada no me aprovecha:

Es la gente tan estrecha,

Que no cuida de oraciones.

Quien manda sus devociones,

Noble gente,

Que rece devotamente

Los salmos de penitencia,

Por los cuales indulgencia

Otorgó el Papa Clemente?

· · · ·

La oracion del nacimiento

De Cristo.

L. F. Moratin, Obras, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 648.

[39] This Paso—true to the manners of the times, as we can see from a similar scene in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco VI.—is reprinted by L. F. Moratin, (Obras, 8vo, Madrid, 1830, Tom. I. Parte II. p. 644), who gives (Parte I. Catálogo, Nos. 95, 96, 106-118) the best account of all the works of Timoneda. The habit of singing popular poetry of all kinds in the streets has been common, from the days of the Archpriest Hita (Copla 1488) to our own times. I have often listened to it, and possess many of the ballads and other verses still paid for by an alms as they were in this Paso of Timoneda.

In one of the plays of Cervantes,—that of “Pedro de Urdemalas,”—the hero is introduced enacting the part of a blind beggar, and advertising himself by his chant, just as the beggar in Timoneda does:—

The prayer of the secret soul I know,

That of Pancras the blessed of old;

The prayer of Acacius and Quirce;

One for chilblains, that come from the cold,

One for jaundice that yellows the skin,

And for scrofula working within.

The lines in the original are not consecutive, but those I have selected are as follows:—

Se la del anima sola,

Y se la de San Pancracio,

La de San Quirce y Acacio,

Se la de los sabañones,

La de curar tericia

Y resolver lamparones.

Comedias, Madrid, 1615, 4to, f. 207.

[40] C. Pellicer, Orígen de la Comedia, Tom. I. p. 111; Tom. II. p. 18; with L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. I. Parte II. p. 638, and his Catálogo, Nos. 100, 104, and 105.

[41] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 116; Tom. II. p. 30.

[42] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, p. 410.

[43] L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. I. Parte I., Catálogo, Nos. 132-139, 142-145, 147, and 150. Martinez de la Rosa, Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 167, etc.

[44] “El Saco de Roma” is reprinted in Ochoa, Teatro Español, Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 251.

[45] “El Infamador” is reprinted in Ochoa, Tom. I. p. 264.

[46] One of the plays, not represented in the Huerta de Doña Elvira, is represented “en el Corral de Don Juan,” and another in the Atarazanas,—Arsenal, or Ropewalks. None of them, I suppose, appeared on a public theatre.

[47] These two pieces are in “Obras de Joachim Romero de Zepeda, Vezino de Badajoz,” (Sevilla, 1582, 4to, ff. 130 and 118), and are reprinted by Ochoa. The opening of the second jornada of the Metamorfosea may be cited for its pleasant and graceful tone of poetry,—lyrical, however, rather than dramatic,—and its air of the olden time. Other authors living in Seville at about the same period are mentioned by La Cueva in his “Exemplar Poético” (Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. VIII. p. 60):—

Los Sevillanos comicos, Guevara,

Gutierre de Cetina, Cozar, Fuentes,

El ingenioso Ortiz;—

who adds that there were otros muchos, many more;—but they are all lost. Some of them, from his account, wrote in the manner of the ancients; and perhaps Malara and Megia are the persons he refers to.

[48] See L. F. Moratin, Catálogo, No. 84.

[49] L. F. Moratin, Catálogo, Nos. 140, 141, 146, 148, 149; with Martinez de la Rosa, Obras, Tom. II. pp. 153-167. The play of Andres Rey de Artieda, on the “Lovers of Teruel,” 1581, belongs to this period and place. Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 263; Fuster, Tom. I. p. 212.

[50] The translation of Boscan from Euripides was never published, though it is included in the permission to print that poet’s works, given by Charles V. to Boscan’s widow, 18 Feb., 1543, prefixed to the first edition of his Works, which appeared that year at Barcelona.

[51] L. F. Moratin, Catálogo, Nos. 86 and 87.

[52] Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles, Tom. II. pp. 145, etc.

[53] Sedano’s “Parnaso Español” (Tom. VI., 1772) contains both the dramas of Bermudez, with notices of his life.

[54] The “Castro” of Ferreira, one of the most pure and beautiful compositions in the Portuguese language, is found in his “Poemas” (Lisboa, 1771, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 123, etc.). Its author died of the plague at Lisbon, in 1569, only forty-one years old.

[55] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 48.

[56] They first appeared in Sedano’s “Parnaso Español,” Tom. VI., 1772. All the needful explanations about them are in Sedano, Moratin, and Martinez de la Rosa. The “Philis” has not been found.

[57] It seems probable that a considerable number of dramas belonging to the period between Lope de Rueda and Lope de Vega, or between 1560 and 1590, could even now be collected, whose names have not yet been given to the public; but it is not likely that they would add any thing important to our knowledge of the real character or progress of the drama at that time. Aribau, Biblioteca, Tom. II. pp. 163, 225, notes.

[58] The two brotherhoods were the Cofradía de la Sagrada Pasion, established 1565, and the Cofradía de la Soledad, established 1567. The accounts of the early beginnings of the theatre at Madrid are awkwardly enough given by C. Pellicer in his “Orígen de la Comedia en España.” But they can be found so well nowhere else. See Tom. I. pp. 43-77.

[59] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 83.

[60] Ibid., p. 56.

[61] Philosophia Antigua Poetica de A. L. Pinciano, Madrid, 1596, 4to, p. 128. Cisneros was a famous actor of the time of Philip II., about whom Don Carlos had a quarrel with Cardinal Espinosa. Cabrera, Felipe II., Madrid, 1619, folio, p. 470. He flourished 1579-86. C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 60, 61.

[62] Obras del M. Fr. Luis de Leon, (Madrid, 1804-16, 6 tom. 8vo, Tom. V. p. 292), where, writing from his prison, he speaks of “those who in the ministry of a tribunal so holy have wreaked the vengeance of their own passions upon me.” Elsewhere he repeats the same accusation against his enemies.

[63] Obras, Tom. V. p. i. and p. 5.

[64] A poetical version of Solomon’s Song was made, not long afterwards, by the famous Arias Montano, on the same principle. When it was first published I do not know; but it may be found in Faber’s “Floresta,” No. 717, and parts of it are beautiful. Montano died in 1598.

[65] Villanueva (Vida, Lóndres, 1825, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 340) says that all the papers relating to the inquisitorial process against Luis de Leon, including admirable answers of the accused, were found, in 1813, in the archives of the tribunal of Valladolid, but were not printed for want of means. They must be very curious documents.

[66] Luis de Leon, Obras, Tom. V. pp. 258-280.

[67] Ibid., Tom. V. p. 281.

[68] Ibid., Tom. III. and IV.

[69] This sermon is in Book First of the treatise. Obras, Tom. III. pp. 160-214.

[70] Obras, Tom. III. pp. 342, 343. This beautiful passage may well be compared to his more beautiful ode, entitled “Noche Serena,” to which it has an obvious resemblance.

[71] Ibid., Tom. IV.

[72] Ibid., Tom. I. and II.

[73] Obras, Tom. VI. p. 2.

[74] The materials for the life of Luis de Leon are to be gathered from the notices of him in the curious MS. of Pacheco, published, Semanario Pintoresco, 1844, p. 374;—those in N. Antonio, Bib. Nova, ad verb.;—in Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. V.;—and in the Preface to a collection of his poetry, published at Valencia by Mayans y Siscar, 1761; the last being also found in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas de Varios Autores” (Valencia, 1773, 12mo, Tom. IV. pp. 398, etc.). His birthplace has been by some supposed to have been Belmonte in La Mancha, or else Madrid. But Pacheco, who is a sufficient authority, gives that honor to Granada, and settles the date of Luis de Leon’s birth at 1528, though it is more commonly given as of 1526 or 1527; adding a description of his person, and the singular fact, not elsewhere noticed, that he amused himself with the art of painting, and succeeded in his own portrait.

[75] The poems of Luis de Leon fill the last volume of his Works; but there are several among them that are probably spurious.

[76] In noticing the Hebrew temperament of Luis de Leon, I am reminded of one of his contemporaries, who possessed in some respects a kindred spirit, and whose fate was even more strange and unhappy. I refer to Juan Pinto Delgado, a Portuguese Jew, who lived long in Spain, embraced the Christian religion, was reconverted to the faith of his fathers, fled from the terrors of the Inquisition to France, and died there about the year 1590. In 1627, a volume of his works, containing narrative poems on Queen Esther and on Ruth, free versions from the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the old national quintillas, and sonnets and other short pieces, generally in the Italian manner, was published at Rouen in France, and dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu, then the all-powerful minister of Louis XIII. They are full of the bitter and sorrowful feelings of his exile, and parts of them are written, not only with tenderness, but in a sweet and pure versification. The Hebrew spirit of the author, whose proper name is Moseh Delgado, breaks through constantly, as might be expected. Barbosa, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 722. Amador de los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 500.

[77] It is the eleventh of Luis de Leon’s Odes, and may well bear a comparison with that of Horace (Lib. I. Carm. 15) which suggested it.

[78] It is in quintillas in the original; but that stanza, I think, can never, in English, be made flowing and easy as it is in Spanish. I have, therefore, used in this translation a freedom greater than I have generally permitted to myself, in order to approach, if possible, the bold outline of the original thought. It begins thus:—

Y dexas, pastor santo,

Tu grey en este valle hondo escuro

Con soledad y llanto,

Y tu rompiendo el puro

Ayre, te vas al immortal seguro!

Los antes bien hadados,

Y los agora tristes y afligidos,

A tus pechos criados,

De tí desposeidos,

A dó convertirán ya sus sentidos?

Obras de Luis de Leon, Madrid, 1816, Tom. VI. p. 42.

[79] In 1837, D. José de Castro y Orozco produced on the stage at Madrid a drama, entitled “Fray Luis de Leon,” in which the hero, whose name it bears, is represented as renouncing the world and entering a cloister, in consequence of a disappointment in love. Diego de Mendoza is also one of the principal personages in the same drama, which is written in a pleasing style, and has some poetical merit, notwithstanding its unhappy subject and plot.

[80] Many lives of Cervantes have been written, of which four need to be mentioned. 1. That of Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, first prefixed to the edition of Don Quixote in the original published in London in 1738, (4 tom., 4to), under the auspices of Lord Carteret, and afterwards to several other editions; a work of learning, and the first proper attempt to collect materials for a life of Cervantes, but ill arranged and ill written, and of little value now, except for some of its incidental discussions. 2. The Life of Cervantes, with the Analysis of his Don Quixote, by Vicente de los Rios, prefixed to the sumptuous edition of Don Quixote by the Spanish Academy, (Madrid, 1780, 4 tom., fol.), and often printed since;—better written than the preceding, and containing some new facts, but with criticisms full of pedantry and of extravagant eulogy. 3. Noticias para la Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, by J. Ant. Pellicer, first printed in his “Ensayo de una Biblioteca de Traductores,” 1778, but much enlarged afterwards, and prefixed to his edition of Don Quixote (Madrid, 1797-1798, 5 tom., 8vo);—poorly digested, and containing a great deal of extraneous, though sometimes curious, matter; but more complete than any life that had preceded it. 4. Vida de Miguel de Cervantes, etc., por D. Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, published by the Spanish Academy (Madrid, 1819, 8vo);—the best of all, and indeed one of the most judicious and best-arranged biographical works that have been published in any country. Navarrete has used in it, with great effect, many new documents; and especially the large collection of papers found in the archives of the Indies at Seville, in 1808, which comprehend the voluminous Informacion sent by Cervantes himself, in 1590, to Philip II., when asking for an office in one of the American colonies;—a mass of well-authenticated certificates and depositions, setting forth the trials and sufferings of the author of Don Quixote, from the time he entered the service of his country, in 1571; through his captivity in Algiers; and, in fact, till he reached the Azores in 1582. This thorough and careful life is skilfully abridged by L. Viardot, in his French translation of Don Quixote, (Paris, 1836, 2 tom., 8vo), and forms the substance of the “Life and Writings of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,” by Thomas Roscoe, London, 1839, 18mo.

In the notice which follows in the text, I have relied for my facts on the work of Navarrete, whenever no other authority is referred to; but in the literary criticisms Navarrete can hardly afford aid, for he hardly indulges himself in them at all.

[81] The date of the baptism of Cervantes is Oct. 9, 1547; and as it is the practice in the Catholic Church to perform this rite soon after birth, we may assume, with sufficient probability, that Cervantes was born on that very day, or the day preceding.

[82] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 29.

[83] “En las riberas del famoso Henares.” (Galatea, Madrid, 1784, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 66.) Elsewhere, he speaks of “nuestro Henares”; the “famoso Compluto” (p. 121); and “nuestro fresco Henares,” p. 108.

[84] Comedias, Madrid, 1749, 4to, Tom. I., Prólogo.

[85] Galatea, Tom. I. p. x., Prólogo; and in the well-known fourth chapter of the “Viage al Parnaso,” (Madrid, 1784, 8vo, p. 53), he says:—

Desde mis tiernos años amé el arte

Dulce de la agradable poesía,

Y en ella procuré siempre agradarte.

[86] “Como soy aficionado á leer aunque sean los papeles rotos de las calles, llevado desta mi natural inclinacion, tomé un cartapacio,” etc., he says, (Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 9, ed. Clemencin, Madrid, 1833, 4to, Tom. I. p. 198), when giving an account of his taking up the waste paper at the silk-mercer’s, which, as he pretends, turned out to be the Life of Don Quixote in Arabic.

[87] The verses of Cervantes on this occasion may be found partly in Rios, “Pruebas de la Vida de Cervantes,” ed. Academia, Nos. 2-5, and partly in Navarrete, Vida, pp. 262, 263. They are poor, and the only circumstance that makes it worth while to refer to them is, that Hoyos, who was a professor of elegant literature, calls Cervantes repeatedly “caro discípulo,” and “amado discípulo”; and says that the Elegy is written “en nombre de todo el estudio.” These, with other miscellaneous poems of Cervantes, are collected for the first time in the first volume of the “Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,” by Aribau (Madrid, 1846, 8vo, pp. 612-620); and prove the pleasant relations in which Cervantes stood with some of the principal poets of his day, such as Padilla, Maldonado, Barros, Yague de Salas, Hernando de Herrera, etc.

[88] “No hay mejores soldados, que los que se trasplantan de la tierra de los estudios en los campos de la guerra; ninguno salió de estudiante para soldado, que no lo fuese por estremo,” etc. Persiles y Sigismunda, Lib. III. c. 10, Madrid, 1802, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 128.

[89] The regiment in which he served was one of the most famous in the armies of Philip II. It was the “Tercio de Flandes,” and at the head of it was Lope de Figueroa, who acts a distinguished part in two of the plays of Calderon,—“Amar despues de la Muerte,” and “El Alcalde de Zalamea.” Cervantes probably joined this favorite regiment again, when, as we shall see, he engaged in the expedition to Portugal in 1581, whither we know not only that he went that year, but that the Flanders regiment went also.

[90] All his works contain allusions to the experiences of his life, and especially to his travels. When he sees Naples in his imaginary Viage del of Parnaso, (c. 8, p. 126), he exclaims,—

Esta ciudad es Nápoles la ilustre,

Que yo pisé sus ruas mas de un año.

[91] “Si ahora me propusieran y facilitaran un imposible,” says Cervantes, in reply to the coarse personalities of Avellaneda, “quisiera ántes haberme hallado en aquella faccion prodigiosa, que sano ahora de mis heridas, sin haberme hallado en ella.” Prólogo á Don Quixote, Parte Segunda, 1615.

[92] One of the most trustworthy and curious sources for this part of the life of Cervantes is “La Historia y Topografia de Argel,” por D. Diego de Haedo, (Valladolid, 1612, folio), in which Cervantes is often mentioned, but which seems to have been overlooked in all inquiries relating to him, till Sarmiento stumbled upon it, in 1752. It is in this work that occur the words cited in the text, and which prove how formidable Cervantes had become to the Dey,—“Decia Asan Bajá, Rey de Argel, que como él tuviese guardado al estropeado Español tenia seguros sus cristianos, sus baxeles y aun toda la ciudad.” (f. 185.) And just before this, referring to the bold project of Cervantes to take the city by an insurrection of the slaves, Haedo says, “Y si á su animo, industria, y trazas, correspondiera la ventura, hoi fuera el dia, que Argel fuera de cristianos; porque no aspiraban á menos sus intentos.” All this, it should be recollected, was published four years before Cervantes’s death. The whole book, including not only the history, but the dialogues at the end on the sufferings and martyrdom of the Christians in Algiers, is very curious, and often throws a strong light on passages of Spanish literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which so often refer to the Moors and their Christian slaves on the coasts of Barbary.

[93] With true Spanish pride, Cervantes, when alluding to himself in the story of the Captive, (Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 40), says of the Dey, “Solo libró bien con él un soldado Español llamado tal de Saavedra, al qual con haber hecho cosas que quedarán en la memoria de aquellas gentes por muchos años, y todos por alcanzar libertad, jamas le dió palo, ni se lo mandó dar, ni le dixo mala palabra, y por la menor cosa de muchas que hizo, temiamos todos que habia de ser empalado, y así lo temió él mas de una vez.”

[94] A beautiful tribute is paid by Cervantes, in his tale of the “Española Inglesa,” (Novelas, Madrid, 1783, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 358, 359), to the zeal and disinterestedness of the poor priests and monks, who went, sometimes at the risk of their lives, to Algiers to redeem the Christians, and one of whom remained there, giving his person in pledge for four thousand ducats which he had borrowed to send home captives. Of Father Juan Gil, who effected the redemption of Cervantes himself from slavery, Cervantes speaks expressly, in his “Trato de Argel,” as

Un frayle Trinitario, Christianísimo,

Amigo de hacer bien y conocido,

Porque ha estado otra vez en esta tierra

Rescatando Christianos; y dió exemplo

De una gran Christiandad y gran prudencia;—

Su nombre es Fray Juan Gil.

Jornada V.

A friar of the blessed Trinity,

A truly Christian man, known as the friend

of all good charities, who once before

Came to Algiers to ransom Christian slaves,

And gave example in himself, and proof

Of a most wise and Christian faithfulness.

His name is Friar Juan Gil.

[95] Cervantes was evidently a person of great kindliness and generosity of disposition; but he never overcame a strong feeling of hatred against the Moors, inherited from his ancestors and exasperated by his own captivity. This feeling appears in both his plays, written at distant periods, on the subject of his life in Algiers; in the fifty-fourth chapter of the second part of Don Quixote; and elsewhere. But except this, and an occasional touch of satire against duennas,—in which Quevedo and Luis Vélez de Guevara are as sever as he is,—and a little bitterness about private chaplains that exercised a cunning influence in the houses of the great, I know nothing, in all his works, to impeach his universal good-nature. See Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Vol. V. p. 260, note, and p. 138, note.

[96] For a beautiful passage on Liberty, see Don Quixote, Parte II., opening of chapter 58.

[97]

“Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know

’Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low”;—

an opinion which Childe Harold found in Spain when he was there, and could have found at any time for two hundred years before.

[98] The “Menina e Moça” is the graceful little fragment of a prose pastoral, by Bernardino Ribeyro, which dates from about 1500, and has always been admired, as indeed it deserves to be. It gets its name from the two words with which it begins,—“Small and young”; a quaint circumstance, showing its extreme popularity with those classes that were little in the habit of referring to books by their formal titles.

[99] “Estas primicias de mi corto ingenio.” Dedicatoria.

[100] “Muchos de los disfrazados pastores della lo eran solo en el hábito.”

[101] “Cuyas razones y argumentos mas parecen de ingenios entre libros y las aulas criados que no de aquellos que entre pagizas cabañas son crecidos.” (Libro IV. Tomo II. p. 90.) This was intended, no doubt, at the same time, as a compliment to Figueroa, etc.

[102] The chief actors in the Galatea visit the tomb of Mendoza, in the sixth book, under the guidance of a wise and gentle Christian priest; and when there, Calliope strangely appears to them and pronounces a tedious poetical eulogium on a vast number of the contemporary Spanish poets, most of whom are now forgotten. The Galatea was abridged by Florian, at the end of the eighteenth century, and reproduced, with an appropriate conclusion, in a prose pastoral, which, in the days when Gessner was so popular, was frequently reprinted. In this form, it is by no means without grace.

[103] In the Dedication to “Persiles y Sigismunda,” 1616, April 19th, only four days before his death.

[104] Parte Primera, cap. 6.

[105] He alludes, I think, but twice in all his works to Esquivias; and, both times, it is to praise its wines. The first is in the “Cueva de Salamanca,” (Comedias, 1749, Tom. II. p. 313), and the last is in the Prólogo to “Persiles y Sigismunda,” though in the latter he speaks, also, of its “ilustres linages.”

[106] See the end of Pellicer’s Life of Cervantes, prefixed to his edition of Don Quixote (Tom. I. p. ccv.). There seems to have been an earlier connection between the family of Cervantes and that of his bride, for the lady’s mother had been named executrix of his father’s will, who died while Cervantes himself was a slave in Algiers.

[107] At the end of the sixth book.

[108] Prólogo al Lector, prefixed to his eight plays and eight Entremeses, Madrid, 1615, 4to.

[109] Adjunta al Parnaso, first printed in 1614; and the Prólogo last cited.

[110] They are in the same volume with the “Viage al Parnaso,” Madrid, 1784, 8vo.

[111] Adjunta al Parnaso, p. 139, ed. 1784.

[112] In the “Baños de Argel,” and the “Amante Liberal.”

[113] The “Esclavos en Argel” of Lope is found in his Comedias, Tom. XXV., (Çaragoça, 1647, 4to, pp. 231-260), and shows that he borrowed very freely from the play of Cervantes, which, it should be remembered, had not then been printed, so that he must have used a manuscript. The scenes of the sale of the Christian children, (pp. 249, 250), and the scenes between the same children after one of them had become a Mohammedan, (pp. 259, 260), as they stand in Lope, are taken from the corresponding scenes in Cervantes (pp. 316-323, and 364-366, ed. 1784). Much of the story, and passages in other parts of the play, are also borrowed. The martyrdom of the Valencian priest, which is merely described by Cervantes, (pp. 298-305), is made a principal dramatic point in the third jornada of Lope’s play, where the execution occurs, in the most revolting form, on the stage (p. 263).

[114] Cervantes, no doubt, valued himself upon these immaterial agencies; and after his time, they became common on the Spanish stage. Calderon, in his “Gran Príncipe de Fez,” (Comedias, Madrid, 1760, 4to, Tom. III. p. 389), thus explains two, whom he introduces, in words that may be applied to those of Cervantes:—

Representando los dos

De su buen Genio y mal Genio

Exteriormente la lid,

Que arde interior en su pecho.

His good and evil genius bodied forth,

To show, as if it were in open fight,

The hot encounter hidden in his heart.

[115]

Aurelio donde vas? para dó mueves

El vagaroso paso? Quien te guia?

Con tan poco temor de Dios te atreves

A contentar tu loca fantasía? etc.

Jornada V.

[116]

Y aquí da este trato fin,

Que no lo tiene el de Argel,

is the jest with which he ends his other play on the same subject, printed thirty years after the representation of this one.

[117] Cervantes makes Scipio say of the siege, on his arrival,—

Diez y seis años son y mas pasados.

The true length of the contest with Numantia was, however, fourteen years, and the length of the last siege fourteen months.

[118] It is well to read, with the “Numancia” of Cervantes, the account of Florus, (Epit. II. 18), and especially that in Mariana, (Lib. III. c. 6-10), the latter being the proud Spanish version of it.

[119]

Duero gentil, que, con torcidas vueltas,

Humedeces gran parte de mi seno,

Ansí en tus aguas siempre veas envueltas

Arenas de oro qual el Tajo ameno,

Y ansí las ninfas fugitivas sueltas,

De que está el verde prado y bosque lleno,

Vengan humildes á tus aguas claras,

Y en prestarte favor no sean avaras,

Que prestes á mis ásperos lamentos

Atento oido, ó que á escucharlos vengas,

Y aunque dexes un rato tus contentos,

Suplícote que en nada te detengas:

Si tú con tus continos crecimientos

Destos fieros Romanos no te vengas,

Cerrado veo ya qualquier camino

A la salud del pueblo Numantino.

Jorn. I., Sc. 2.

It should be added, that these two octaves occur at the end of a somewhat tedious soliloquy of nine or ten others, all of which are really octave stanzas, though not printed as such.

[120]

Marquino.

Alma rebelde, vuelve al aposento

Que pocas horas ha desocupaste.

El Cuerpo.

Cese la furia del rigor violento

Tuyo. Marquino, baste, triste, baste,

La que yo paso en la region escura,

Sin que tú crezcas mas mi desventura.

Engáñaste, si piensas que recibo

Contento de volver á esta penosa,

Mísera y corta vida, que ahora vivo,

Que ya me va faltando presurosa;

Antes, me causas un dolor esquivo,

Pues otra vez la muerte rigurosa

Triunfará de mi vida y de mi alma;

Mi enemigo tendrá doblada palma,

El cual, con otros del escuro bando

De los que son sugetos á aguardarte,

Está con rabia en torno, aquí esperando

A que acabe, Marquino, de informarte

Del lamentable fin, del mal nefando,

Que de Numancia puedo asegurarte.

Jorn. II., Sc. 2.

[121]

Morandro.

No vayas tan de corrida,

Lira, déxame gozar

Del bien que me puede dar

En la muerte alegre vida:

Dexa, que miren mis ojos

Un rato tu hermosura,

Pues tanto mi desventura

Se entretiene en mis enojos.

O dulce Lira, que suenas

Contino en mi fantasía

Con tan suave harmonía

Que vuelve en gloria mis penas!

Que tienes? Que estás pensando,

Gloria de mi pensamiento?

Lira.

Pienso como mi contento

Y el tuyo se va acabando,

Y no será su homicida

El cerco de nuestra tierra,

Que primero que la guerra

Se me acabará la vida.

Morandro.

Que dices, bien de mi alma?

Lira.

Que me tiene tal la hambre,

Que de mi vital estambre

Llevará presto la palma.

Que tálamo has de esperar

De quien está en tal extremo,

Que te aseguro que temo

Antes de una hora espirar?

Mi hermano ayer espiró

De la hambre fatigado,

Y mi madre ya ha acabado,

Que la hambre la acabó.

Y si la hambre y su fuerza

No ha rendido mi salud,

Es porque la juventud

Contra su rigor se esfuerza.

Pero como ha tantos dias

Que no le hago defensa,

No pueden contra su ofensa

Las débiles fuerzas mias.

Morandro.

Enjuga, Lira, los ojos,

Dexa que los tristes mios

Se vuelvan corrientes rios

Nacidos de tus enojos;

Y aunque la hambre ofendida

Te tenga tan sin compas,

De hambre no morirás

Mientras yo tuviere vida.

Yo me ofrezco de saltar

El foso y el muro fuerte,

Y entrar por la misma muerte

Para la tuya escusar.

El pan que el Romano toca,

Sin que el temor me destruya,

Lo quitaré de la suya

Para ponerlo en tu boca.

Con mi brazo haré carrera

A tu vida y á mi muerte,

Porque mas me mata el verte,

Señora, de esa manera.

Yo te traeré de comer

A pesar de los Romanos,

Si ya son estas mis manos

Las mismas que solian ser.

Lira.

Hablas como enamorado,

Morandro, pero no es justo,

Que ya tome gusto el gusto

Con tu peligro comprado.

Poco podrá sustentarme

Qualquier robo que harás,

Aunque mas cierto hallarás

El perderte que ganarme.

Goza de tu mocedad

En fresca edad y crecida,

Que mas importa tu vida

Que la mia, á la ciudad.

Tu podrás bien defendella,

De la enemiga asechanza,

Que no la flaca pujanza

Desta tan triste doncella.

Ansí que, mi dulce amor,

Despide ese pensamiento,

Que yo no quiero sustento

Ganado con tu sudor.

Que aunque puedes alargar

Mi muerte por algun dia,

Esta hambre que porfia

En fin nos ha de acabar.

Morandro.

En vano trabajas, Lira,

De impidirme este camino,

Do mi voluntad y signo

Allá me convida y tira.

Tú rogarás entre tanto

A los Dioses, que me vuelvan

Con despojos que resuelvan

Tu miseria y mi quebranto.

Lira.

Morandro, mi dulce amigo,

No vayas, que se me antoja,

Que de tu sangre veo roxa

La espada del enemigo.

No hagas esta jornada,

Morandro, bien de mi vida,

Que si es mala la salida,

Es muy peor la tornada.

Jorn. III., Sc. 1.

There is, in this scene, a tone of gentle, broken-hearted self-devotion on the part of Lira, awakening a fierce despair in her lover, that seems to me very true to nature. The last words of Lira, in the passage translated, have, I think, much beauty in the original.

[122] A. W. von Schlegel, Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, Heidelberg, 1811, Tom. II. Abt. ii. p. 345.

[123] “Volvíme á Sevilla,” says Berganza, in the “Coloquio de los Perros,” “que es amparo de pobres y refugio de desdichados.” Novelas, Madrid, 1783, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 362.

[124] This extraordinary mass of documents is preserved in the Archivos de las Indias, which are admirably arranged in the old and beautiful Exchange built by Herrera in Seville, when Seville was the great entrepôt between Spain and her colonies. The papers referred to may be found in Estante II. Cajon 5, Legajo 1, and were discovered by the venerable Cean Bermudez in 1808. The most important of them are published entire, and the rest are well abridged, in the Life of Cervantes by Navarrete (pp. 311-388). Cervantes petitioned in them for one of four offices:—the Auditorship of New Granada; that of the galleys of Carthagena; the Governorship of the Province of Soconusco; or the place of Corregidor of the city of Paz.

[125] “Viéndose pues tan falto de dineros y aun no con muchos amigos, se acogió al remedio á que otros muchos perdidos en aquella ciudad [Sevilla] se acogen; que es, el pasarse á las Indias, refugio y amparo de los desesperados de España, iglesia de los alzados, salvo conducto de los homicidas, pala y cubierta de los jugadores, añagaza general de mugeres libres, engaño comun de muchos y remedio particular de pocos.” El Zeloso Estremeño, Novelas, Tom. II. p. 1.

[126] These verses may be found in Navarrete, Vida, pp. 444, 445.

[127] Pellicer, Vida, ed. Don Quixote, (Madrid, 1797, 8vo, Tom. I. p. lxxxv.), gives the sonnet.

[128] Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. IX. p. 193. In the “Viage al Parnaso,” c. 4, he calls it “Honra principal de mis escritos.” But he was mistaken, or he jested,—I rather think the last. For an account of the indecent uproar Cervantes ridiculed, and needful to explain this sonnet, see Semanario Pintoresco, Madrid, 1842, p. 177.

[129] “Se engendró en una cárcel.” Avellaneda says the same thing in his Preface, but says it contemptuously: “Pero disculpan los yerros de su Primera Parte en esta materia, el haberse escrito entre los de una cárcel,” etc. A base insinuation seems implied in the use of the relative article los.

[130] Pellicer’s Life, pp. cxvi.-cxxxi.

[131] One of the witnesses in the preceding criminal inquiry says that Cervantes was visited by different persons, “por ser hombre que escribe y trata negocios.”

[132] Laurel de Apolo, Silva 8, where he is praised only as a poet.

[133] Most of the materials for forming a judgment on this point in Cervantes’s character are to be found in Navarrete, (Vida, pp. 457-475), who maintains that Cervantes and Lope were sincere friends, and in Huerta, (Leccion Crítica, Madrid, 1786, 12mo, pp. 33-47), who maintains that Cervantes was an envious rival of Lope. As I cannot adopt either of these results, and think the last particularly unjust, I will venture to add one or two considerations.

Lope was fifteen years younger than Cervantes, and was forty-three years old when the First Part of the Don Quixote was published; but from that time till the death of Cervantes, a period of eleven years, he does not, that I am aware, once allude to him. The five passages in the immense mass of Lope’s works, in which alone, so far as I know, he speaks of Cervantes are,—1. In the “Dorothea,” 1598, twice slightly and without praise. 2. In the Preface to his own Tales, 1621, still more slightly, and even, I think, coldly. 3. In the “Laurel de Apolo,” 1630, where there is a somewhat stiff eulogy of him, fourteen years after his death. 4. In his play, “El Premio del Bien Hablar,” printed in Madrid, 1635, where Cervantes is barely mentioned (Comedias, 4to, Tom. XXI. f. 162). And 5. In “Amar sin Saber á Quien,” (Comedias, Madrid, Tom. XXII., 1635), where (Jornada primera) Leonarda, one of the principal ladies, says to her maid, who had just cited a ballad of Audalla and Xarifa to her,—

Inez, take care; your common reading is,

I know, the Ballad-book; and, after all,

Your case may prove like that of the poor knight——

to which Inez replies, interrupting her mistress,—

Don Quixote of la Mancha, if you please,—

May God Cervantes pardon!—was a knight

Of that wild, erring sort the Chronicle

So magnifies. For me, I only read

The Ballad-book, and find myself from day

To day the better for it.

All this looks very reserved; but when we add to it, that there were numberless occasions on which Lope could have gracefully noticed the merit to which he could never have been insensible,—especially when he makes so free a use of Cervantes’s “Trato de Argel” in his own “Esclavos de Argel,” absolutely introducing him by name on the stage, and giving him a prominent part in the action, (Comedias, Çaragoça, 1647, 4to, Tom. XXV. pp. 245, 251, 257, 262, 277), without showing any of those kindly or respectful feelings which it was easy and common to show to friends on the Spanish stage, and which Calderon, for instance, so frequently shows to Cervantes, (e. g. Casa con Dos Puertas, Jorn. I., etc.),—we can hardly doubt that Lope willingly overlooked and neglected Cervantes, at least from the time of the appearance of the First Part of Don Quixote, in 1605, till after its author’s death, in 1616.

On the other hand, Cervantes, from the date of the “Canto de Calíope” in the “Galatea,” 1584, when Lope was only twenty-two years old, to the date of the Preface to the Second Part of Don Quixote, 1615, only a year before his own death, was constantly giving Lope the praises due to one who, beyond all contemporary doubt or rivalship, was at the head of Spanish literature; and, among other proofs of such elevated and generous feelings, prefixed, in 1598, a laudatory sonnet to Lope’s “Dragontea.” But at the same time that he did this, and did it freely and fully, there is a dignified reserve and caution in some parts of his remarks about Lope that show he was not impelled by any warm, personal regard; a caution which is so obvious, that Avellaneda, in the Preface to his Don Quixote, maliciously interpreted it into envy.

It therefore seems to me difficult to avoid the conclusion, that the relations between the two great Spanish authors of this period were such as might be expected, where one was, to an extraordinary degree, the idol of his time, and the other a suffering and neglected man. What is most agreeable about the whole matter is the generous justice Cervantes never fails to render to Lope’s merits.

[134] He explains in his Preface the meaning he wishes to give the word exemplares, saying, “Heles dado nombre de exemplares, y si bien lo miras, no hay ninguna de quien no se puede sacar algun exemplo provechoso.” The word exemplo, from the time of the Archpriest of Hita and Don Juan Manuel, has had the meaning of instruction or instructive story.

[135] The “Curioso Impertinente,” first printed in 1605, in the First Part of Don Quixote, was separately printed in Paris in 1608,—five years before the collected Novelas appeared in Madrid,—by Cæsar Oudin, a teacher of Spanish at the French court, who caused several other Spanish books to be printed in Paris, where the Castilian was in much favor from the intermarriages between the crowns of France and Spain.

[136] This story has been dramatized more than once in Spain, and freely used elsewhere. See note on the “Gitanilla” of Solís, post, Chap. 25.

[137] It is an admirable hit, when Rinconete, first becoming acquainted with one of the rogues, asks him, “Es vuesa merced por ventura ladron?” and the rogue replies, “Sí, para servir á Dios y á la buena gente.” (Novelas, Tom. I. p. 235.) And, again, the scene (pp. 242-247) where Rinconete and Cortadillo are received among the robbers, and that (pp. 254, 255) where two of the shameless women of the gang are very anxious to provide candles to set up as devout offerings before their patron saints, are hardly less happy, and are perfectly true to the characters represented. Indeed, it is plain from this tale, and from several of the Entremeses of Cervantes, that he was familiar with the life of the rogues of his time. Fermin Caballero, in a pleasant tract on the Geographical Knowledge of Cervantes, (Pericia Geográfica de Cervantes, Madrid, 1840, 12mo), notes the aptness with which Cervantes alludes to the different localities in the great cities of Spain, which constituted the rendezvous and lurking-places of its vagabond population. (p. 75.) Among these Seville was preëminent. Guevara, when he describes a community like that of Monipodio, places it, as Cervantes does, in Seville. Diablo Cojuelo, Tranco IX.

[138] Coarse as it is, however, the “Tia Fingida” was found, with “Rinconete y Cortadillo,” and several other tales and miscellanies, in a manuscript collection of stories and trifles made 1606-10, for the amusement of the Archbishop of Seville, D. Fernando Niño de Guevara; and long afterwards carefully preserved by the Jesuits of St. Hermenegild. A castigated copy of it was printed by Arrieta in his “Espíritu de Miguel de Cervantes” (Madrid, 1814, 12mo); but the Prussian ambassador in Spain, if I mistake not, soon afterwards obtained possession of an unaltered copy and sent it to Berlin, where it was published by the famous Greek scholar, F. A. Wolf, first in one of the periodicals of Berlin, and afterwards in a separate pamphlet. (See his Vorbericht to the “Tia Fingida, Novela inédita de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,” Berlin, 1818, 8vo.) It has since been printed in Spain with the other tales of Cervantes.

Some of the tales of Cervantes were translated into English as early as 1640; but not into French, I think, till 1768, and not well into that language till Viardot published his translation (Paris, 1838, 2 tom., 8vo). Even he, however, did not venture on the obscure puns and jests of the “Licenciado Vidriera,” a fiction of which Moreto made some use in his play of the same name, representing the Licentiate, however, as a feigned madman and not as a real one, and showing little of the humor of the original conception. (Comedias Escogidas, Madrid, 4to, Tom. V. 1653.) Under the name of “Léocadie,” there is a poor abridgment of the “Fuerza de la Sangre,” by Florian. The old English translation by Mabbe (London, 1640, folio) is said by Godwin to be “perhaps the most perfect specimen of prose translation in the English language.” (Lives of E. and J. Phillips, London, 1815, 4to, p. 246.) The praise is excessive, but the translation is certainly very well done. It, however, extends only to six of the tales.

[139] The first edition is in small duodecimo, (Madrid, 1614), 80 leaves; better printed, I think, than any other of his works that were published under his own care. Little but the opening is imitated from Cesare Caporali’s “Viaggio in Parnaso,” which is only about one fifth as long as the poem of Cervantes.

[140] Among them he speaks of many ballads that he had written:—

Yo he compuesto Romances infinitos,

Y el de los Zelos es aquel que estimo

Entre otros, que los tengo por malditos.

c. 4.

All these are lost, except such as may be found scattered through his longer works, and some which have been suspected to be his in the Romancero General. Clemencin, notes to his ed. of Don Quixote, Tom. III. pp. 156, 214. Coleccion de Poesías de Don Ramon Fernandez, Madrid, 1796, 8vo, Tom. XVI. p. 175. Mayans, Vida de Cervantes, No. 164.

[141] Apollo tells him, (Viage, ed. 1784, p. 55),—

“Mas si quieres salir de tu querella,

Alegre y no confuso y consolado,

Dobla tu capa y siéntate sobre ella.

Que tal vez suele un venturoso estado,

Quando le niega sin razon la suerte,

Honrar mas merecido que alcanzado.”

“Bien parece, Señor, que no se advierte,”

Le respondí, “que yo no tengo capa.”

El dixo: “Aunque sea así, gusto de verte.”

[142] The “Confusa” was evidently his favorite among these earlier pieces. In the Viage he says of it,—

Soy por quien La Confusa nada fea

Pareció en los teatros admirable;

and in the “Adjunta” he says, “De la que mas me precio fué y es, de una llamada La Confusa, la qual, con paz sea dicho, de quantas comedias de capa y espada hasta hoy se han representado, bien puede tener lugar señalado por buena entre las mejores.” This boast, it should be remembered, was made in 1614, when Cervantes had printed the First Part of the Don Quixote, and when Lope and his school were at the height of their glory. It is probable, however, that we, at the present day should be more curious to see the “Batalla Naval,” which, from its name, contained, I think, his personal experiences at the fight of Lepanto, as the “Trato de Argel” contained those at Algiers.

[143] After alluding to his earlier efforts on the stage, Cervantes goes on in the Prólogo to his new plays: “Tuve otras cosas en que ocuparme; dexé la pluma y las comedias, y entró luego el monstruo de naturaleza, el gran Lope de Vega, y alzóse con la monarquía cómica; avasalló y puso debaxo de su jurisdiccion á todos los Farsantes, llenó el mundo de Comedias propias, felices y bien razonadas; y tantas que passan de diez mil pliegos los que tiene escritos, y todas (que es una de las mayores cosas que puede decirse) las ha visto representar, ú oido decir (por lo menos) que se han representado; y si algunos, (que hay muchos) han querido entrar á la parte y gloria de sus trabajos, todos juntos no llegan en lo que han escrito á la mitad de lo que él solo,” etc.

[144] This play, which Cervantes calls “Los Baños de Argel,” (Comedias, 1749, Tom. I. p. 125), opens with the landing of a Moorish corsair on the coast of Valencia; gives an account of the sufferings of the captives taken in this descent, as well as the sufferings of others afterward; and ends with a Moorish wedding and a Christian martyrdom. He says of it himself,—

No de la imaginacion

Este trato se sacó,

Que la verdad lo fraguó

Bien lejos de la ficcion.

p. 186.

The verbal resemblances between the play and the story of the Captive are chiefly in the first jornada of the play, as compared with Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 40.

[145] The part we should least willingly suppose to be true—that of a droll, roistering soldier, who gets a shameful subsistence by begging for souls in Purgatory, and spending on his own gluttony the alms he receives—is particularly vouched for by Cervantes. “Esto de pedir para las ánimas es cuento verdadero, que yo lo ví.” How so indecent an exhibition on the stage could be permitted is the wonder. Once, for instance, when in great personal danger, he prays thus, as if he had read the “Clouds” of Aristophanes:—

Animas de Purgatorio!

Favoreced me, Señoras!

Que mi peligro es notorio,

Si ya no estais en estas horas

Durmiendo en el dormitorio.

Tom. I. p. 34.

At the end he says his principal intent has been—

Mezclar verdades

Con fabulosos intentos.

The Spanish doctrine of the play—all for love and glory—is well expressed in the two following lines from the second jornada:—

Que por reynar y por amor no hay culpa,

Que no tenga perdon, y halle disculpa.

[146]

Se vino á Constantinopla,

Creo el ano de seiscientos.

Jor. III.

[147] The Church prayers on the stage, in this play and especially in Jornada II., and the sort of legal contract used to transfer the merits of the healthy saint to the dying sinner, are among the revolting exhibitions of the Spanish drama which at first seem inexplicable, but which anyone who reads far in it easily understands. Cervantes, in many parts of this strange play, avers the truth of what he thus represents, saying, “Todo esto fué verdad”; “Todo esto fué así”; “Así se cuenta en su historia,” etc.

[148] He uses the words as convertible. Tom. I. pp. 21, 22; Tom. II. p. 25, etc.

[149] In the “Baños de Argel,” where he is sometimes indecorous enough, as when, (Tom. I. p. 151), giving the Moors the reason why his old general, Don John of Austria, does not come to subdue Algiers, he says:—

Sin duda, que, en el cielo,

Debia de haber gran guerra,

Do el General faltaba,

Y á Don Juan se llevaron para serlo.

[150] See the early part of the “Prólogo del que hace imprimir.” I am not certain that Blas de Nasarre was perfectly fair in all this; for he printed, in 1732, an edition of Avellaneda’s continuation of Don Quixote, in the Preface to which he says that he thinks the character of Avellaneda’s Sancho is more natural than that of Cervantes’s Sancho; that the Second Part of Cervantes’s Don Quixote is taken from Avellaneda’s; and that, in its essential merits, the work of Avellaneda is equal to that of Cervantes. “No se puede disputar,” he says, “la gloria de la invencion de Cervantes, aunque no es inferior la de la imitacion de Avellaneda”; to which he adds afterwards, “Es cierto que es necesario mayor esfuerzo de ingenio para añadir á las primeras invenciones, que para hacerlas.” (See Avellaneda, Don Quixote, Madrid, 1805, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 34.) Now, the Juicio, or Preface, from which these opinions are taken, and which is really the work of Nasarre, is announced by him, not as his own, but as the work of an anonymous friend, precisely as if he were not willing to avow such opinions under his own name. (Pellicer’s Vida de Cervantes, ed. Don Quixote, I. p. clxvi.) In this way a disingenuous look is given to what would otherwise have been only an absurdity; and what, taken in connection with this reprint of Cervantes’s poor dramas and the Preface to them, seems like a willingness to let down the reputation of a genius that Nasarre could not comprehend.

It is intimated, in an anonymous pamphlet, called “Exámen Crítico del Tomo Primero del Antiquixote,” (Madrid, 1806, 12mo), that Nasarre had sympathies with Avellaneda as an Aragonese; and the pamphlet in question being understood to be the work of J. A. Pellicer, the editor of Don Quixote, this intimation deserves notice. It may be added, that Nasarre belonged to the French school of the eighteenth century in Spain;—a school that saw little merit in the older Spanish drama.

[151] The extravagant opinion, that these plays of Cervantes were written to discredit the plays then in fashion on the stage, just as the Don Quixote was written to discredit the fashionable books of chivalry, did not pass uncontradicted at the time. The year after it was published, a pamphlet appeared, entitled “La Sinrazon impugnada y Beata de Lavapies, Coloquio Crítico apuntado al disparatado Prólogo que sirve de delantal (segun nos dice su Autor) á las Comedias de Miguel de Cervantes, compuesto por Don Joseph Carillo” (Madrid, 1750, 4to, pp. 25). It is a spirited little tract, chiefly devoted to a defence of Lope and of Calderon, though the point about Cervantes is not forgotten (pp. 13-15.) But in the same year a more formidable work appeared on the same side, called “Discurso Crítico sobre el Orígen, Calidad, y Estado presente de las Comedias de España, contra el Dictámen que las supone corrompidas, etc., por un Ingenio de esta Corte” (Madrid, 1750, 4to, pp. 285). The author was a lawyer in Madrid, D. Thomas Zavaleta, and he writes with as little philosophy and judgment as the other Spanish critics of his time; but he treats Blas de Nasarre with small ceremony.

[152] “Ensayo Histórico-apologético de la Literatura Española,” Madrid, 1789, 8vo, Tom. VI. pp. 170, etc. “Suprimiendo las que verdaderamente eran de él,” are the bold words of the critic.

[153] There can be little doubt, I think, that this was the case, if we compare the opinions expressed by the canon on the subject of the drama in the 48th chapter of the First Part of Don Quixote, 1605, and the opinions in the opening of the third jornada of the “Baños de Argel,” 1615.

[154] It has been generally conceded that the Count de Lemos and the Archbishop of Toledo favored and assisted Cervantes; the most agreeable proof of which is to be found in the Dedication of the Second Part of Don Quixote. I am afraid, however, that their favor was a little too much in the nature of alms. Indeed, it is called limosna the only time it is known to be mentioned by any contemporary of Cervantes. See Salas Barbadillo, in the Dedication of the “Estafeta del Dios Momo,” Madrid, 1627, 12mo.

[155]

“Who, to be sure of Paradise,

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,

Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.”

[156] The only case I recollect at all parallel is that of the graceful Dedication of Addison’s works to his friend and successor in office, Secretary Craggs, which is dated June 4, 1719; thirteen days before his death. But the Dedication of Cervantes is much more genial and spirited.

[157] Bowle says, (Anotaciones á Don Quixote, Salisbury, 1781, 4to, Prólogo ix., note), that Cervantes died on the same day with Shakspeare; but this is a mistake, the calendar not having then been altered in England, and there being, therefore, a difference between that and the Spanish calendar of ten days.

[158] Nor was any monument raised to Cervantes, in Spain, until 1835, when a bronze statue of him larger than life, cast at Rome by Solá of Barcelona, was placed in the Plaza del Estamento at Madrid. (See El Artista, a journal published at Madrid, 1834, 1835, Tom. I. p. 205; Tom. II. p. 12; and Semanario Pintoresco, 1836, p. 249.) Before this I believe there was nothing that approached nearer to a monument in honor of Cervantes throughout the world than an ordinary medal of him, struck in 1818, at Paris, as one of a large series which would have been absurdly incomplete without it; and a small medallion or bust, that was placed in 1834, at the expense of an individual, over the door of the house in the Calle de los Francos, where he died. But, in saying this, I ought to add,—whether in praise or censure,—that I believe the statue of Cervantes was the first erected in Spain to honor a man of letters or science.

[159] At the time of his death Cervantes seems to have had the following works more or less prepared for the press, namely: “Las Semanas del Jardin,” announced as early as 1613;—the Second Part of “Galatea,” announced in 1615;—the “Bernardo,” mentioned in the Dedication of “Persiles,” just before he died;—and several plays, referred to in the Preface to those he published, and in the Appendix to the “Viage al Parnaso.” All these works are now probably lost.

[160] The first edition of Persiles y Sigismunda was printed with the following title: “Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. Historia Setentrional, por M. de Cervantes Saavedra, dirigida,” etc., Madrid, 1617, 8vo, por Juan de la Cuesta; and reprints of it appeared in Valencia, Pamplona, Barcelona, and Brussels, the same year. I have a copy of the first edition; but the most agreeable one is that of Madrid, 1802, 8vo, 2 tom. There is an English translation by M. L., published 1619, which I have never seen; but from which I doubt not Fletcher borrowed the materials for that part of the Persiles which he has used, or rather abused, in his “Custom of the Country,” acted as early as 1628, but not printed till 1647; the very names of the personages being sometimes the same. See Persiles, Book I. c. 12 and 13; and compare Book II. c. 4 with the English play, Act IV. scene 3, and Book III. c. 6, etc., with Act II. scene 4, etc. Sometimes we have almost literal translations, like the following:—

“Sois Castellano?” me preguntó en su lengua Portuguesa. “No, Señora,” le respondí yo, “sino forastero, y bien lejos de esta tierra.” “Pues aunque fuerades mil veces Castellano,” replicó ella, “os librara yo, si pudiera, y os libraré si puedo; subid por cima deste lecho, y éntraos debaxo de este tapiz, y éntraos en un hueco que aquí hallareis, y no os movais, que si la justicia viniere, me tendrá respeto, y creerá lo que yo quisiere decirles.” Persiles, Lib. III. cap. 6.

In Fletcher we have it as follows:—

Guiomar.

Are you a Castilian?

Rutilio.

No, Madam: Italy claims my birth.

Gui.

I ask not

With purpose to betray you. If you were

Ten thousand times a Spaniard, the nation

We Portugals most hate, I yet would save you,

If it lay in my power. Lift up these hangings;

Behind my bed’s head there’s a hollow place,

Into which enter.

[Rutilio retires behind the bed.

So;—but from this stir not.

If the officers come, as you expect they will do,

I know they owe such reverence to my lodgings,

That they will easily give credit to me

And search no further.

Act II. Sc. 4.

Other parallel passages might be cited; but it should not be forgotten, that there is one striking difference between the two; for that, whereas the Persiles is a book of great purity of thought and feeling, “The Custom of the Country” is one of the most indecent plays in the language; so indecent, indeed, that Dryden rather boldly says it is worse in this particular than all his own plays put together. Dryden’s Works, Scott’s ed., London, 1808, 8vo, Vol. XI. p. 239.

[161] In the Aprobacion, dated Sept. 9, 1616, ed. 1802, Tom. I. p. vii.

[162] This may be fairly suspected from the beginning of the 48th chapter of the First Part of Don Quixote.

[163] Once he intimates that it is a translation, but does not say from what language. (See opening of Book II.) An acute and elegant critic of our own time says, “Des naufrages, des déserts, des descentes par mer, et des ravissements, c’est donc toujours plus ou moins l’ancien roman d’Héliodore.” (Sainte Beuve, Critiques, Paris, 1839, 8vo, Tom. IV. p 173.) These words describe more than half of the Persiles and Sigismunda. Two imitations of the Persiles, or, at any rate, two imitations of the Greek romance which was the chief model of the Persiles, soon appeared in Spain. The first is the “Historia de Hipólito y Aminta” of Francisco de Quintana, (Madrid, 1627, 4to), divided into eight books, with a good deal of poetry intermixed. The other is “Eustorgio y Clorilene, Historia Moscovica,” by Enrique Suarez de Mendoza y Figueroa, (1629), in thirteen books, with a hint of a continuation; but my copy was printed Çaragoça, 1665, 4to. Both are written in bad taste, and have no value as fictions. The latter seems to have been plainly suggested by the Persiles.

[164] From the beginning of Book III., we find that the action of Persiles and Sigismunda is laid in the time of Philip II. or Philip III., when there was a Spanish viceroy in Lisbon, and the travels of the hero and heroine in the South of Spain and Italy seem to be, in fact, Cervantes’s own recollections of the journey he made through the same countries in his youth; while Chapters 10 and 11 of Book III. show bitter traces of his Algerine captivity. His familiarity with Portugal, as seen in this work, should also be noticed. Frequently, indeed, as in almost every thing else he wrote, we meet intimations and passages from his own life.

[165] My own experience in Spain fully corroborates the suggestion of Inglis, in his very pleasant book, (Rambles in the Footsteps of Don Quixote, London, 1837, 8vo, p. 26), that “no Spaniard is entirely ignorant of Cervantes.” At least, none I ever questioned on the subject—and their number was great in the lower conditions of society—seemed to be entirely ignorant what sort of personages were Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

[166] He felt this himself as a dreary interval in his life, for he says in his Prólogo: “Al cabo de tantos años como ha, que duermo en el silencio del olvido,” etc. In fact, from 1584 till 1605 he had printed nothing except a few short poems of little value, and seems to have been wholly occupied in painful struggles to secure a subsistence.

[167] This idea is found partly developed by Bouterwek, (Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, Göttingen, 1803, 8vo, Tom. III. pp. 335-337), and fully set forth and defended by Sismondi, with his accustomed eloquence. Littérature du Midi de l’Europe, Paris, 1813, 8vo, Tom. III. pp. 339-343.

[168] Many other interpretations have been given to the Don Quixote. One of the most absurd is that of Daniel De Foe, who declares it to be “an emblematic history of, and a just satire upon, the Duke de Medina Sidonia, a person very remarkable at that time in Spain.” (Wilson’s Life of De Foe, London, 1830, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 437, note.) The “Buscapié”—if there ever was such a publication—pretended that it set forth “some of the undertakings and gallantries of the Emperor Charles V.” See Appendix (D).

[169] In the Prólogo to the First Part, he says, “No mira á mas que á deshacer la autoridad y cabida, que en el mundo y en el vulgo tienen los libros de Caballerías”; and he ends the Second Part, ten years afterwards, with these remarkable words: “No ha sido otro mi deseo, que poner en aborrecimiento de los hombres las fingidas y disparatadas historias de los libros de Caballerías, que por las de mi verdadero Don Quixote van ya tropezando, y han de caer del todo sin duda alguna. Vale.” It seems really hard that a great man’s word of honor should thus be called in question by the spirit of an over-refined criticism, two centuries after his death. D. Vicente Salvá has partly, but not wholly, avoided this difficulty in an ingenious and pleasant essay on the question, “Whether the Don Quixote has yet been judged according to its merits”;—in which he maintains, that Cervantes did not intend to satirize the substance and essence of books of chivalry, but only to purge away their absurdities and improbabilities; and that, after all, he has given us only another romance of the same class which has ruined the fortunes of all its predecessors by being itself immensely in advance of them all. Ochoa, Apuntes para una Biblioteca, Paris, 1842, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 723-740.

[170] Símbolo de la Fé, Parte II. cap. 17, near the end. Conversion de la Magdalena, 1592, Prólogo al Letor. Both are strong in their censures.

[171] “Vemos, que ya no se ocupan los hombres sino en leer libros que es affrenta nombrarlos, como son Amadis de Gaula, Tristan de Leonis, Primaleon,” etc. Argument to the Aviso de Privados, Obras de Ant. de Guevara, Valladolid, 1545, folio, f. clviii. b.

[172] The passage is too long to be conveniently cited, but it is very severe. See Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 157, 158.

[173] See ante, Vol. I. pp. 249-254. But, besides what is said there, Francisco de Portugal, who died in 1632, tells us in his “Arte de Galantería,” (Lisboa, 1670, 4to, p. 96), that Simon de Silveira (I suppose the Portuguese poet who lived about 1500; Barbosa, Tom. III. p. 722) once swore upon the Evangelists, that he believed the whole of the Amadis to be true history.

[174] Clemencin, in the Preface to his edition of Don Quixote, Tom. I. pp. xi.-xvi., cites many other proofs of the passion for books of chivalry at that period in Spain; adding a reference to the “Recopilacion de Leyes de las Indias,” Lib. I. Tít. 24, Ley 4, for the law of 1553, and printing at length the very curious petition of the Cortes of 1555, which I have not seen anywhere else, and which would probably have produced the law it demanded, if the abdication of the Emperor, the same year, had not prevented all action upon the matter.

[175] Allusions to the fanaticism of the lower classes on the subject of books of chivalry are happily introduced into Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 32, and in other places. It extended, too, to those better bred and informed. Francisco de Portugal, in the “Arte de Galantería,” cited in a preceding note, and written before 1632, tells the following anecdote: “A knight came home one day from the chase and found his wife and daughters and their women crying. Surprised and grieved, he asked them if any child or relation were dead. ‘No,’ they answered, suffocated with tears. ‘Why, then, do you weep so?’ he rejoined, still more amazed. ‘Sir,’ they replied, ‘Amadis is dead.’ They had read so far.” p. 96.

[176] Cervantes himself, as his Don Quixote amply proves, must, at some period of his life, have been a devoted reader of the romances of chivalry. How minute and exact his knowledge of them was may be seen, among other passages, from one at the end of the twentieth chapter of Part First, where, speaking of Gasabal, the esquire of Galaor, he observes that his name is mentioned but once in the history of Amadis of Gaul;—a fact which the indefatigable Mr. Bowle took the pains to verify, when reading that huge romance. See his “Letter to Dr. Percy, on a New and Classical Edition of Don Quixote.” London, 1777, 4to, p. 25.

[177] Clemencin, in his Preface, notes “D. Policisne de Boecia,” printed in 1602, as the last book of chivalry that was written in Spain, and adds, that, after 1605, “no se publicó de nuevo libro alguno de caballerías, y dejaron de reimprimirse los anteriores.” (p. xxi.) To this remark of Clemencin, however, there are exceptions. For instance, the “Genealogía de la Toledana Discreta, Primera Parte,” por Eugenio Martinez, a tale of chivalry in octave stanzas, was reprinted in 1608; and “El Caballero del Febo,” and “Claridiano,” his son, are extant in editions of 1617. The period of the passion for such books in Spain can be readily seen in the Bibliographical Catalogue, and notices of them by Salvá, in the Repertorio Americano, London, 1827, Tom. IV. pp. 29-74. It was eminently the sixteenth century.

[178] See Appendix (E).

[179] Cervantes reproaches Avellaneda with being an Aragonese, because he sometimes omits the article where a Castilian would insert it. (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 59.) The rest of the discussion about him is found in Pellicer, Vida, pp. clvi.-clxv.; in Navarrete, Vida, pp. 144-151; in Clemencin’s Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 59, notes; and in Adolfo de Castro’s Conde Duque de Olivares, Cadiz, 1846, 8vo, pp. 11, etc. This Avellaneda, whoever he was, called his book “Segundo Tomo del Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha,” etc., (Tarragona, 1614, 12mo), and printed it so that it matches very well with the Valencian edition, 1605, of the First Part of the genuine Don Quixote;—both of which I have. There are editions of it, Madrid, 1732 and 1805; and a translation by Le Sage, 1704, in which,—after his manner of translating,—he alters and enlarges the original work with little ceremony or good faith. The edition of 1805, in 2 vols. 12mo, is expurgated.

[180] Avellaneda, c. 26.

[181] “Tiene mas lengua que manos,” says Avellaneda, coarsely.

[182] Chapter 8;—just as he makes Don Quixote fancy a poor peasant in his melon-garden to be Orlando Furioso (c. 6);—a little village to be Rome (c. 7);—and its decent priest alternately Lirgando and the Archbishop Turpin. Perhaps the most obvious comparison, and the fairest that can be made, between the two Don Quixotes is in the story of the goats, told by Sancho, in the twentieth chapter of the First Part in Cervantes, and the story of the geese, by Sancho, in Avellaneda’s twenty-first chapter, because the latter professes to improve upon the former. The failure to do so, however, is obvious enough.

[183] The whole story of Barbara, beginning with Chapter 22, and going nearly through the remainder of the work, is miserably coarse and dull.

[184] In 1824, a curious attempt was made, probably by some ingenious German, to add two chapters more to Don Quixote, as if they had been suppressed when the Second Part was published. But they were not thought worth printing by the Spanish Academy. See Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. VI. p. 296.

[185] Parte II. c. 59.

[186] See Appendix (E).

[187] At the end of Cap. 36.

[188] When Don Quixote understands that Avellaneda has given an account of his being at Saragossa, he exclaims, “Por el mismo caso, no pondré los pies en Zaragoza, y así sacaré á la plaza del mundo la mentira dese historiador moderno.” Parte II. c. 59.

[189] Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 4. The style of both parts of the genuine Don Quixote is, as might be anticipated, free, fresh, and careless;—genial, like the author’s character, full of idiomatic beauties, and by no means without blemishes. Garcés, in his “Fuerza y Vigor de la Lengua Castellana,” Tom. II., Prólogo, as well as throughout that excellent work, has given it, perhaps, more uniform praise than it deserves;—while Clemencin, in his notes, is very rigorous and unpardoning to its occasional defects.

[190] The concluding passages of the work, for instance, are in this tone; and this is the tone of his criticism on Avellaneda. I do not count in the same sense the passage, in the Second Part, c. 16, in which Don Quixote is made to boast that thirty thousand copies had been printed of the First Part, and that thirty thousand thousands would follow; for this is intended as the mere rhodomontade of the hero’s folly; but I confess I think Cervantes is somewhat in earnest when he makes Sancho say to his master, “I will lay a wager, that, before long, there will not be a two-penny eating-house, a hedge tavern, or a poor inn, or barber’s shop, where the history of what we have done shall not be painted and stuck up.” Parte II. c. 71.

[191] Los Rios, in his “Análisis,” prefixed to the edition of the Academy, 1780, undertakes to defend Cervantes on the authority of the ancients, as if the Don Quixote were a poem, written in imitation of the Odyssey. Pellicer, in the fourth section of his “Discurso Preliminar” to his edition of Don Quixote, 1797, follows much the same course; besides which, at the end of the fifth volume, he gives what he gravely calls a “Geographico-historical Description of the Travels of Don Quixote,” accompanied with a map; as if some of Cervantes’s geography were not impossible, and as if half his localities were to be found anywhere but in the imaginations of his readers. On the ground of such irregularities in his geography, and on other grounds equally absurd, Nicholas Perez, a Valencian, attacked Cervantes in the “Anti-Quixote,” the first volume of which was published in 1805, but was followed by none of the five that were intended to complete it; and received an answer, quite satisfactory, but more severe than was needful, in a pamphlet, published at Madrid in 1806, 12mo, by J. A. Pellicer, without his name, entitled “Exámen Crítico del Tomo Primero de el Anti-Quixote.” And finally, Don Antonio Eximeno, in his “Apología de Miguel de Cervantes,” (Madrid, 1806, 12mo), excuses or defends every thing in the Don Quixote, giving us a new chronological plan, (p. 60), with exact astronomical reckonings, (p. 129), and maintaining, among other wise positions, that Cervantes intentionally represented Don Quixote to have lived both in an earlier age and in his own time, in order that curious readers might be confounded, and, after all, only some imaginary period be assigned to his hero’s achievements (pp. 19, etc.). All this, I think, is eminently absurd; but it is the consequence of the blind admiration with which Cervantes was idolized in Spain during the latter part of the last century and the beginning of the present;—itself partly a result of the coldness with which he had been overlooked by the learned of his countrymen for nearly a century previous to that period. Don Quixote, Madrid, 1819, 8vo, Prólogo de la Academia, p. [3].

[192] Conde, the learned author of the “Dominacion de los Árabes en España,” undertakes, in a pamphlet published in conjunction with J. A. Pellicer, to show that the name of this pretended Arabic author, Cid Hamete Benengeli, is a combination of Arabic words, meaning noble, satirical, and unhappy. (Carta en Castellano, etc., Madrid, 1800, 12mo, pp. 16-27.) It may be so; but it is not in character for Cervantes to seek such refinements, or to make such a display of his little learning, which does not seem to have extended beyond a knowledge of the vulgar Arabic spoken in Barbary, the Latin, the Italian, and the Portuguese. Like Shakspeare, however, Cervantes had read and remembered nearly all that had been printed in his own language, and constantly makes the most felicitous allusions to the large stores of his knowledge of this sort.

[193] Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 54.

[194] The criticism on Avellaneda begins, as we have said, Parte II. c. 59.

[195] Parte I. c. 46.

[196] “Llegaba ya la noche,” he says in c. 42 of Parte I., when all that had occurred from the middle of c. 37 had happened after they were set down to supper.

[197] Cervantes calls Sancho’s wife by three or four different names (Parte I. c. 7 and 52, and Parte II. c. 5 and 59); and Avellaneda having, in some degree, imitated him, Cervantes makes himself very merry at the confusion; not noticing that the mistake was really his own.

[198] The facts referred to are these. Gines de Passamonte, in the 23d chapter of Part First, (ed. 1605, f. 108), steals Sancho’s ass. But hardly three leaves farther on, in the same edition, we find Sancho riding again, as usual, on the poor beast, which reappears yet six other times out of all reason. In the edition of 1608, Cervantes corrected two of these careless mistakes on leaves 109 and 112; but left the five others just as they stood before; and in Chapters 3 and 27 of the Second Part, (ed. 1615), jests about the whole matter, but shows no disposition to attempt further corrections.

[199] Having expressed so strong an opinion of Cervantes’s merits, I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of citing the words of the modest and wise Sir William Temple, who, when speaking of works of satire, and rebuking Rabelais for his indecency and profaneness, says: “The matchless writer of Don Quixote is much more to be admired for having made up so excellent a composition of satire or ridicule without those ingredients; and seems to be the best and highest strain that ever has or will be reached by that vein.” Works, London, 1814, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 436. See Appendix (E).

[200] There is a life of Lope de Vega, which was first published in a single volume, by the third Lord Holland, in 1806, and again, with the addition of a life of Guillen de Castro, in two volumes, 8vo, London, 1817. It is a pleasant book, and contains a good notice of both its subjects, and judicious criticisms on their works; but it is quite as interesting for the glimpses it gives of the fine accomplishments and generous spirit of its author, who spent some time in Spain when he was about thirty years old, and never afterwards ceased to take an interest in its affairs and literature. He was much connected with Jovellanos, Blanco White, and other distinguished Spaniards; not a few of whom, in the days of disaster that fell on their country during the French invasion, and the subsequent misgovernment of Ferdinand VII., enjoyed the princely hospitality of Holland House, where the benignant and frank kindliness of its noble master shed a charm and a grace over what was most intellectual and elevated in European society that could be given by nothing else.

Lope’s own account of his origin and birth, in a poetical epistle to a Peruvian lady, who addressed him in verse, under the name of “Amarylis,” is curious. The correspondence is found in the first volume of his Obras Sueltas, (Madrid, 1776-1779, 21 tom. 4to), Epístolas XV. and XVI.; and was first printed by Lope, if I mistake not, in 1624. It is now referred to for the following important lines:—

Tiene su silla en la bordada alfombra

De Castilla el valor de la montaña,

Que el valle de Carriedo España nombra.

Allí otro tiempo se cifraba España;

Allí tuve principio; mas que importa

Nacer laurel y ser humilde caña?

Falta dinero allí, la tierra es corta;

Vino mi padre del solar de Vega:

Assí á los pobres la nobleza exhorta;

Siguióle hasta Madrid, de zelos ciega,

Su amorosa muger, porque él queria

Una Española Helena, entonces Griega.

Hicieron amistades, y aquel dia

Fué piedra en mi primero fundamento

La paz de su zelosa fantasía,

En fin por zelos soy; que nacimiento!

Imaginalde vos que haver nacido

De tan inquieta causa fué portento.

And then he goes on with a pleasant account of his making verses as soon as he could speak; of his early passion for Raymond Lulli, the metaphysical doctor then so much in fashion; of his subsequent studies, his family, etc. Lope loved to refer to his origin in the mountains. He speaks of it in his “Laurel de Apolo,” (Silva VIII.), and in two or three of his plays he makes his heroes boast that they came from that part of Spain to which he traced his own birth. Thus, in “La Venganza Venturosa,” (Comedias, 4to, Madrid, Tom. X., 1620, f. 33. b), Feliciano, a high-spirited old knight, says,—

El noble solar que heredo,

No lo daré á rico infame,

Porque nadie me lo llame

En el valle de Carriedo.

And again, in the opening of the “Premio del Bien Hablar,” (4to, Madrid, Tom. XXI, 1635, f. 159), where he seems to describe his own case and character:—

Nací en Madrid, aunque son

En Galicia los solares

De mi nacimiento noble,

De mis abuelos y padres.

Para noble nacimiento

Ay en España tres partes,

Galicia, Vizcaya, Asturias,

O ya montañas le llaman.

The valley of Carriedo is said to be very beautiful, and Miñano, in his “Diccionario Geográfico,” (Madrid, 8vo, Tom. II., 1826, p. 40), describes La Vega as occupying a fine position on the banks of the Sandoñana.

[201] “Before he knew how to write, he loved verses so much,” says Montalvan, his friend and executor, “that he shared his breakfast with the older boys, in order to get them to take down for him what he dictated.” Fama Póstuma, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 28.

[202] In the “Laurel de Apolo” he says he found rough copies of verses among his father’s papers, that seemed to him better than his own.

[203] See Dedication of the “Hermosa Ester” in Comedias, Madrid, 4to, Tom. XV., 1621.

[204] In the “Fama Póstuma.”

[205] This curious passage is in the Epistle, or Metro Lyrico, to D. Luis de Haro, Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 379:—

Ni mi fortuna muda

Ver en tres lustros de mi edad primera

Con la espada desnuda

Al bravo Portugues en la Tercera,

Ni despues en las naves Españolas

Del mar Ingles los puertos y las olas.

I do not quite make out how this can have happened in 1577; but the assertion seems unequivocal. Schack (Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur in Spanien, Berlin, 1845, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 164) thinks the fifteen years here referred to are intended to embrace the fifteen years of Lope’s life as a soldier, which he extends from Lope’s eleventh year to his twenty-sixth,—1573 to 1588. But Schack’s ground for this is a mistake he had himself previously made in supposing the Dedication of the “Gatomachia” to be addressed to Lope himself; whereas it is addressed to his son, named Lope, who served, at the age of fifteen, under the Marquis of Santa Cruz, as we shall see hereafter. The “Cupid in arms,” therefore, referred to in this Dedication, fails to prove what Schack thought it proved; and leaves the “fifteen years” as dark a point as ever. See Schack pp. 157, etc.

[206] These are the earliest works of Lope mentioned by his eulogists and biographers, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 30), and must be dated as early as 1582 or 1583. The “Pastoral de Jacinto” is in the Comedias, Tom. XVIII., but was not printed till 1623.

[207] In the epistle to Doctor Gregorio de Ángulo, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 420), he says: “Don Gerónimo Manrique brought me up. I studied in Alcalá, and took the degree of Bachelor; I was even on the point of becoming a priest; but I fell blindly in love, God forgive it; I am married now, and he that is so ill off fears nothing.” Elsewhere he speaks of his obligations to Manrique more warmly; for instance, in his Dedication of “Pobreza no es Vileza,” (Comedias, 4to, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629), where his language is very strong.

[208] See Dorotea, Acto I. sc. 6, in which, having coolly made up his mind to abandon Marfisa, he goes to her and pretends he has killed one man and wounded another in a night brawl, obtaining by this base falsehood the unhappy creature’s jewels, which he needed to pay his expenses, and which she gave him out of her overflowing affection.

[209] Act. I. sc. 5, and Act. IV. sc. 1, have a great air of reality about them. But other parts, like that of the discourses and troubles that came from giving to one person the letter intended for another, are quite too improbable and too much like the inventions of some of his own plays, to be trusted. (Act. V. sc. 3, etc.) M. Fauriel, however, whose opinion on such subjects is always to be respected, regards the whole as true. Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept. 1, 1839.

[210] Lord Holland treats him as the old Duke (Life of Lope de Vega, London, 1817, 2 vols., 8vo); and Southey (Quarterly Review, 1817, Vol. XVIII. p. 2) undertakes to show that it could be no other; while Nicolas Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 74) speaks as if he were doubtful, though he inclines to think it was the elder. But there is no doubt about it. Lope repeatedly speaks of Antonio, the grandson, as his patron; e. g. in his epistle to the Bishop of Oviedo, where he says,—

Y yo del Duque Antonio dexé el Alva.

Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 289.

He, however, praised the elder Duke abundantly in the second, third, and fifth books of the “Arcadia,” giving in the last an account of his death and of the glories of his grandson, whom he again notices as his patron. Indeed, the case is quite plain, and it is only singular that it should need an explanation; for the idea of making the Duke of Alva, who was minister to Philip II., a shepherd, seems to be a caricature or an absurdity, or both. It is, however, the common impression, and may be found again in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 18. The younger Duke, on the contrary, loved letters, and, if I mistake not, there is a Cancion of his in the Cancionero General of 1573, f. 178.

[211] The truth of the stories, or some of the stories, in the Arcadia may be inferred from the mysterious intimations of Lope in the Prólogo to the first edition; in the “Egloga á Claudio”; and in the Preface to the “Rimas,” (1602), put into the shape of a letter to Juan de Arguijo. Quintana, too, in the Dedication to Lope of his “Experiencias de Amor y Fortuna,” (1626), says of the Arcadia, that, “under a rude covering, are hidden souls that are noble and events that really happened.” See, also, Lope, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIX. p. xxii., and Tom. II. p. 456. That it was believed to be true in France is apparent from the Preface to old Lancelot’s translation, under the title of “Délices de la Vie Pastorale” (1624). It is important to settle the fact; for it must be referred to hereafter.

[212] The Arcadia fills the sixth volume of Lope’s Obras Sueltas. Editions of it were printed in 1599, 1601, 1602, twice, 1603, 1605, 1612, 1615, 1617, and often since, showing a great popularity.

[213] Her father, Diego de Urbina, was a person of some consequence, and figures among the more distinguished natives of Madrid in Baena, “Hijos de Madrid.”

[214] Montalvan, it should be noted, seems willing to slide over these “frowns of fortune, brought on by his youth and aggravated by his enemies.” But Lope attributes to them his exile, which came, he says, from “love in early youth, whose trophies were exile and its results tragedies.” (Epístola Primera á D. Ant. de Mendoza.) But he also attributes it to false friends, in the fine ballad where he represents himself as looking down upon the ruins of Saguntum and moralizing on his own exile:—“Bad friends,” he says, “have brought me here.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVII. p. 434, and Romancero General, 1602, f. 108.) But again, in the Second Part of his “Philomena,” 1621, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. II. p. 452), he traces his troubles to his earlier adventures; “love to hatred turned.” “Love-vengeance,” he declares, “disguised as justice, exiled me.”

[215] His relations with Claudio are noticed by himself in the Dedication to that “true friend,” as he justly calls him, of the well-known play, “Courting his own Misfortunes”; “which title,” he adds, “is well suited to those adventures, when, with so much love, you accompanied me to prison, from which we went to Valencia, where we ran into no less dangers than we had incurred at home, and where I repaid you by liberating you from the tower of Serranos

[216] Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. pp. 430-443. Belardo, the name Lope bears in this eclogue, is the one he gave himself in the Arcadia, as may be seen from the sonnet prefixed to that pastoral by Amphryso, or Antonio Duke of Alva; and it is the poetical name Lope bore to the time of his death, as may be seen from the beginning of the third act of the drama in honor of his memory. (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 494.) Even his Peruvian Amaryllis knew it, and under this name addressed to him the poetical epistle already referred to. This fact—that Belardo was his recognized poetical appellation—should be borne in mind when reading the poetry of his time, where it frequently recurs.

[217] Belisa is an anagram of Isabela, the first name of his wife, as is plain from a sonnet on the death of her mother, Theodora Urbina, where he speaks of her as “the heavenly image of his Belisa, whose silent words and gentle smiles had been the consolation of his exile.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 278.) There are several ballads connected with her in the Romancero General, and a beautiful one in the third of Lope’s Tales, written evidently while he was with the Duke of Alva. Obras, Tom. VIII. p. 148.

[218] For instance, in the fine ballad beginning, “Llenos de lágrimas tristes,” (Romancero of 1602, f. 47), he says to Belisa, “Let Heaven condemn me to eternal woe, if I do not detest Phillis and adore thee”;—which may be considered as fully contradicted by the equally fine ballad addressed to Filis, (f. 13), “Amada pastora mia”; as well as by six or eight others of the same sort; some more, some less tender.

[219]

Volando en tacos del cañon violento

Los papeles de Filis por el viento.

Egloga á Claudio, Obras, Tom. IX. p. 356.

[220] One of his poetical panegyrists, after his death, speaking of the Armada, says: “There and in Cadiz he wrote the Angelica.” (Obras, Tom. XX. p. 348.) The remains of the Armada returned to Cadiz in September, 1588, having sailed from Lisbon in the preceding May; so that Lope was probably at sea about four months. Further notices of his naval service may be found in the third canto of his “Corona Trágica,” and the second of his “Philomena.”

[221] Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Count of Lemos and Marquis of Sarria, who was born in Madrid about 1576, married a daughter of the Duke de Lerma, the reigning favorite and minister of the time, with whose fortunes he rose, and in whose fall he was ruined. The period of his highest honors was that following his appointment as Viceroy of Naples, in 1610, where he kept a literary court of no little splendor, that had for its chief directors the two Argensolas, and with which, at one time, Quevedo was connected. The Count died in 1622, at Madrid. Lope’s principal connections with him were when he was young, and before he had come to his title as Count de Lemos. He records himself as “Secretary of the Marquis of Sarria,” in a sonnet prefixed to the “Peregrino Indiano” of Saavedra, 1599, and on the title-page of the “San Isidro,” printed the same year; besides which, many years afterwards, when writing to the Count de Lemos, he says: “You know how I love and reverence you, and that, many a night, I have slept at your feet like a dog.” Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVII. p. 403. Clemencin, Don Quixote, Parte II., note to the Dedicatoria.

[222] Epístola al Doctor Mathias de Porras, and Epístola á Amarylis; to which may be added the pleasant epistle to Francisco de Rioja, in which he describes his garden and the friends he received in it.

[223] On this son, see Obras, Tom. I. p. 472;—the tender Cancion on his death, Tom. XIII. p. 365;—and the beautiful Dedication to him of the “Pastores de Belen,” Tom. XVI. p. xi.

[224] Obras, Tom. I. p. 472, and Tom. XX. p. 34.

[225] Obras, Tom. IX. p. 355.

[226] “El Remedio de la Desdicha,” a play whose story is from the “Diana” of Montemayor, (Comedias, Tom. XIII., Madrid, 1620), in the Preface to which he begs his daughter to read and correct it; and prays that she may be happy in spite of the perfections which render earthly happiness almost impossible to her. She long survived her father, and died, much reverenced for her piety, in 1688.

[227] The description of his grief and of his religious feelings as she took the veil is solemn, but he dwells a little too complacently on the splendor given to the occasion by the king, and by his patron, the Duke de Sessa, who desired to honor thus a favorite and famous poet. Obras, Tom. I. pp. 313-316.

[228] Obras, Tom. XI. pp. 495 and 596, where his father jests about it. It is a Glosa. He is called Lope de Vega Carpio, el mozo; and it is added, that he was not yet fourteen years old.

[229] Obras, Tom. I. pp. 472 and 316.

[230] In the eclogue, (Obras, Tom. X. p. 362), he is called, after both his father and his mother, Don Lope Felix del Carpio y Luxan.

[231] Pellicer, ed. Don Quixote, Tom. I. p. cxcix.

[232] I notice the title Familiar del Santo Oficio as early as the “Jerusalen Conquistada,” 1609. Frequently afterwards, as in the Comedias, Tom. II., VI., XI., etc., he puts no other title to his name, as if this were glory enough. In his time, Familiar meant a person who could at any moment be called into the service of the Inquisition; but had no special office, and no duties, till he was summoned. Covarruvias, ad verb.

[233]

Tres ángeles á Abraham

Una vez aparecieron,

Que á verle á Mambre vinieron:

Bien que á este número dan

El que en figura trujeron.

Seis vienen á Isidro á ver:

O gran Dios, que puede ser?

Donde los ha de alvergar?

Mas vienen á consolar,

Que no vienen á comer.

Si como Sara, María

Cocer luego pan pudiera,

Y él como Abraham truxera

El cordero que pacia,

Y la miel entre la cera,

Yo sé que los convidara.

Mas quando lo que no ara.

Le dicen que ha de pagar;

Como podrá convidar

A seis de tan buena cara?

Disculpado puede estar,

Puesto que no los convide,

Pues su pobreza lo impide,

Isidro, aunque puede dar

Muy bien lo que Dios le pide.

Vaya Abraham al ganado,

Y en el suelo humilde echado,

Dadle el alma, Isidro, vos,

Que nunca desprecia Dios

El corazon humillado.

No queria el sacrificio

De Isaac, sino la obediencia

De Abraham.

Obras Sueltas, Tom. XI. p. 69.

[234] The “Fiestas de Denia,” a poem in two short cantos, on the reception of Philip III. at Denia, near Valencia, in 1598, soon after his marriage, was printed in 1599, but is of little consequence.

[235] The point where it branches off from the story of Ariosto is the sixteenth stanza of the thirtieth canto of the “Orlando Furioso.”

[236] La Angélica, Canto III.

[237] Cantos IV. and VII.

[238] La Hermosura de Angélica was printed for the first time in 1604, says the editor of the Obras, in Tom. II. But Salvá gives an edition in 1602. It certainly appeared at Barcelona in 1605. The stanzas where proper names occur so often as to prove that Lope was guilty of the affectation of taking pains to accumulate them are to be found in Obras, Tom. II. pp. 27, 55, 233, 236, etc.

[239] “Considerations touching a War with Spain, inscribed to Prince Charles, 1624”; a curious specimen of the political discussions of the time. See Bacon’s Works, London, 1810, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 517.

[240] Mariana, Historia, ad an. 1596, calls him simply “Francis Drake, an English corsair”;—and in a graceful little anonymous ballad, imitated from a more graceful one by Góngora, we have again a true expression of the popular feeling. The ballad in question, beginning “Hermano Perico,” is in the Romancero General, 1602, (f. 34), and contains the following significant passage:—

And Bartolo, my brother,

To England forth is gone,

Where the Drake he means to kill;—

And the Lutherans every one,

Excommunicate from God,

Their queen among the first,

He will capture and bring back,

Like heretics accurst.

And he promises, moreover,

Among his spoils and gains,

A heretic young serving-boy

To give me, bound in chains;

And for my lady grandmamma,

Whose years such waiting crave,

A little handy Lutheran,

To be her maiden slave.

Mi hermano Bartolo

Se va á Ingalaterra,

A matar al Draque,

Y á prender la Reyna,

Y á los Luteranos

De la Bandomessa.

Tiene de traerme

A mí de la guerra

Un Luteranico

Con una cadena,

Y una Luterana

A señora agüela.

Romancero General, Madrid, 1602, 4to, f. 35.

[241] He was in fact of Devonshire. See Fuller’s Worthies and Holy State.

[242] There is a curious poem in English, by Charles Fitzgeffrey, on the Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake, first printed in 1596, which is worth comparing with the Dragontea, as its opposite, and which was better liked in England in its time than Lope’s poem was in Spain. See Wood’s Athenæ, London, 1815, 4to, Vol. II. p. 607.

[243] The time of the story is quite unsettled.

[244] At the end of the whole, it is said, that, during the eight nights following the wedding, eight other dramas were acted, whose names are given; two of which, “El Perseguido,” and “El Galan Agradecido,” do not appear among Lope’s printed plays;—at least, not under these titles.

[245] Among the passages that have the strongest air of reality about them are those relating to the dramas, said to have been acted in different places; and those containing descriptions of Monserrate and of the environs of Valencia, in the first and second books. A sort of ghost-story, in the fifth, seems also to have been founded on fact.

[246] The first edition of the “Peregrino en su Patria” is that of Madrid, 1604, 4to, and it was soon reprinted; but the best edition is that in the fifth volume of the Obras Sueltas, 1776. A worthless abridgment of it in English appeared anonymously in London in 1738, 12mo.

[247] Lope insists, on all occasions, upon the fact of Alfonso’s having been in the Crusades. For instance, in “La Boba para los otros,” (Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 60), he says,—

To this crusade

There went together France and England’s powers,

And our own King Alfonso.

But the whole is a mere fiction of the age succeeding that of Alfonso, for using which Lope is justly rebuked by Navarrete, in his acute essay on the part the Spaniards took in the Crusades. Memorias de la Academia de la Hist., Tom. V., 1817, 4to, p. 87.

[248] See the Prólogo. The whole poem is in Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIV. and XV.

[249]

Pues andais en las palmas,

Angeles santos,

Que se duerme mi niño,

Tened los ramos.

Palmas de Belen,

Que mueven ayrados

Los furiosos vientos,

Que suenan tanto,

No le hagais ruido,

Corred mas passo;

Que se duerme mi niño,

Tened los ramos.

El niño divino,

Que está cansado

De llorar en la tierra:

Por su descanso,

Sosegar quiere un poco

Del tierno llanto;

Que se duerme mi niño,

Tened los ramos.

Rigurosos hielos

Le estan cercando,

Ya veis que no tengo

Con que guardarlo:

Angeles divinos,

Que vais volando,

Que se duerme mi niño,

Tened los ramos.

Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVI. p. 332.

[250] Obras, Tom. XIII., etc.

[251] For instance, the sonnet beginning, “Yo dormiré en el polvo.” Obras, Tom. XIII. p. 186.

[252] Such as “Gertrudis siendo Dios tan amoroso.” Obras, Tom. XIII. p. 223.

[253] Some of them are very flat;—see the sonnet, “Quando en tu alcazar de Sion.” Obras, Tom. XIII. p. 225.

[254] Triumfos de la Fé en los Reynos de Japon. Obras, Tom. XVII.

[255] See ante, Vol. I. p. 338, and [Vol. II. p. 79].

[256] The successful poem, a jesting ballad of very small merit, is in the Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. pp. 171-177.

[257] An account of some of the poetical joustings of this period is to be found in Navarrete, “Vida de Cervantes,” § 162, with the notes, p. 486; and a good illustration of the mode in which they were conducted is to be found in the “Justa Poética,” in honor of our Lady of the Pillar at Saragossa, collected by Juan Bautista Felices de Caceres, (Çaragoça, 1629, 4to), in which Joseph de Valdivielso and Vargas Machuca figured. Such joustings became so frequent at last as to be subjects of ridicule. In the “Caballero Descortes” of Salas Barbadillo, (Madrid, 1621, 12mo, f. 99, etc.), there is a certámen in honor of the recovery of a lost hat;—merely a light caricature.

[258] The details of the festival, with the poems offered on the occasion, were neatly printed at Madrid, in 1620, in a small quarto, ff. 140, and fill about three hundred pages in the eleventh volume of Lope’s Works. The number of poetical offerings was great, but much short of what similar contests sometimes produced. Figueroa says in his “Pasagero,” (Madrid, 1617, 12mo, f. 118), that, at a festival, held a short time before, in honor of St. Antonio of Padua, five thousand poems of different kinds were offered; which, after the best of them had been hung round the church and the cloisters of the monks who originally proposed the prizes, were distributed to other monasteries. The custom extended to America. In 1585, Balbuena carried away a prize in Mexico from three hundred competitors. See his Life, prefixed to the Academy’s edition of his “Siglo de Oro,” Madrid, 1821, 8vo.

[259] “But let the reader note well,” says Lope, “that the verses of Master Burguillos must be supposititious; for he did not appear at the contest; and all he wrote is in jest, and made the festival very savory. And as he did not appear for any prize, it was generally believed that he was a character introduced by Lope himself.” Obras, Tom. XI. p. 401. See also p. 598.

[260] The proceedings and poems of this second great festival were printed at once at Madrid, in a quarto volume, 1622, ff. 156, and fill Tom. XII. of the Obras Sueltas.

[261] The edition which claims a separate and real existence for Burguillos is that found in the seventeenth volume of the “Poesías Castellanas,” collected by Fernandez and others. But, besides the passages from Lope himself cited in a preceding note, Quevedo says, in an Aprobacion to the very volume in question, that “the style is such as has been seen only in the writings of Lope de Vega”; and Coronel, in some décimas prefixed to it, adds, “These verses are dashes from the pen of the Spanish Phœnix”; hints which it would have been dishonorable for Lope himself to publish, unless the poems were really his own. The poetry of Burguillos is in Tom. XIX. of the Obras Sueltas, just as Lope originally published it in 1634. There is a spirited German translation of the Gatomachia in Bertuch’s Magazin der Span. und Port. Literatur, Dessau, 1781, 8vo, Tom. I.

[262] The poems are in Tom. II. of the Obras Sueltas. The discussion about the new poetry is in Tom. IV. pp. 459-482; to which should be added some trifles in the same vein, scattered through his Works, and especially a sonnet beginning, “Boscan, tarde llegamos”;—which, as it was printed by him with the “Laurel de Apolo,” (1630, f. 123), shows, that, though he himself sometimes wrote in the affected style then in fashion, to please the popular taste, he continued to disapprove it to the last. The Novela is in Obras, Tom. VIII.

[263] The three poems are in Tom. III.; the epistles in Tom. I. pp. 279, etc.; and the three tales in Tom. VIII.

[264] Obras Sueltas, Tom. VIII. p. 2; also Tom. III. Preface.

[265] There are editions of the eight at Saragossa, (1648), Barcelona, (1650), etc. There is some confusion about a part of the poems published originally with these tales, and which appear among the works of Fr. Lopez de Zarate, Alcalá, 1651, 4to. (See Lope, Obras, Tom. III. p. iii.) But such things are not very rare in Spanish literature, and will occur again in relation to Zarate.

[266] The account is found in a MS. history of Madrid, by Leon Pinelo, in the King’s Library; and so much as relates to this subject I possess, as well as a notice of Lope himself, given in the same MS. under the date of his death. It is cited, and an abstract of it given, in Casiano Pellicer, “Orígen de las Comedias,” (Madrid, 1804, 12mo), Tom. I. pp. 104, 105.

[267] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIII.

[268] A la Muerte de Carlos Felix, Obras, Tom. XIII. p. 365.

[269] See particularly the two beginning on pp. 413 and 423.

[270] It is in Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV.

[271] The atrocious passage is on p. 5. In an epistle, which he addressed to Ovando, the Maltese envoy, and published at the end of the “Laurel de Apolo,” (Madrid, 1630, 4to, f. 118), he gives an account of this poem, and says he wrote it in the country, where “the soul in solitude labors more gently and easily!”

[272] It is not easy to tell why these later productions of Lope are put in the first volume of his Miscellaneous Works, (1776-79), but so it is. That collection was made by Cerdá y Rico; a man of learning, though not of good taste or sound judgment.

[273] It fills the whole of the seventh volume of his Obras Sueltas.

[274] “Dorotea, the posthumous child of my Muse, the most beloved of my long-protracted life, still asks the public light,” etc. Egloga á Claudio; Obras, Tom. IX. p. 367.

[275] These three poems—curious as his last works—are in Tom. X. p. 193, and Tom. IX. pp. 2 and 10.

[276] “A continued melancholy passion, which of late has been called hypochondria,” etc., is the description Montalvan gives of his disease. The account of his last days follows it. Obras, Tom. XX. pp. 37, etc.; and Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. pp. 360-363.

[277] See Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIX.-XXI., in which they are republished;—Spanish, Latin, French, Italian, and Portuguese. The Spanish, which were brought together by Montalvan, and are preceded by his “Fama Póstuma de Lope de Vega,” may be regarded as a sort of justa poética in honor of the great poet, in which above a hundred and fifty of his contemporaries bore their part.

[278] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 42. For an excellent and interesting discussion of Lope’s miscellaneous works, and one to which I have been indebted in writing this chapter, see London Quarterly Review, No. 35, 1818. It is by Mr. Southey.

[279] Philomena, Segunda Parte, Obras Sueltas, Tom. II. p. 458.

[280]

El capitan Virues, insigne ingenio,

Puso en tres actos la Comedia, que ántes

Andaba en quatro, como pies de niño;

Que eran entonces niñas las Comedias:

Y yo las escribí, de once y doce años,

De á quatro actos y de á quatro pliegos,

Porque cada acto un pliego contenia:

Y era que entonces en las tres distancias

Se hacian tres pequeños entremeses.

Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 412.

[281] Dramatic entertainments of some kind are spoken of at Valencia in the fourteenth century. In 1394, we are told, there was represented at the palace a tragedy, entitled “L’ hom enamorat e la fembra satisfeta,” by Mossen Domingo Maspons, a counsellor of John I. This was undoubtedly a Troubadour performance. Perhaps the Entramesos mentioned as having occurred in the same city in 1412, 1413, and 1415, were of the same sort. At any rate, they seem to have belonged, like those we have noticed (ante, Vol. I. p. 259) by the Constable Alvaro de Luna, to courtly festivities. Aribau, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1846, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 178, note; and an excellent article on the early Spanish theatre, by F. Wolf, in Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, 1848, p. 1287, note.

[282] Jovellanos, Diversiones Públicas, Madrid, 1812, 8vo, p. 57.

[283] In one of his earlier efforts he says, (Obras, Tom. V. p. 346), “The laws help them little.” But of this we shall see more hereafter.

[284] It is probable, from internal evidence, that this eclogue, and some others in the same romance, were acted before the Duke Antonio de Alva. At any rate, we know similar representations were common in the age of Cervantes and Lope, as well as before and after it.

[285] Such dramas are found in the “Pastores de Belen,” Book III., and elsewhere.

[286] “El Verdadero Amante” is in the Fourteenth Part of the Comedias, printed at Madrid, 1620, and is dedicated to his son Lope, who died the next year, only fifteen years old;—the father saying in the Dedication, “This play was written when I was of about your age.”

[287] Montalvan says, “Lope greatly pleased Manrique, the Bishop of Avila, by certain eclogues which he wrote for him, and by the drama of ‘The Pastoral of Jacinto,’ the earliest he wrote in three acts.” (Obras, Tom. XX. p. 30.) It was first printed at Madrid, in 1617, 4to, by Sanchez, in a volume entitled “Quatro Comedias Famosas de Don Luis de Góngora y Lope de Vega Carpio,” etc.; and afterwards in the eighteenth volume of the Comedias of Lope, Madrid, 1623. It was also printed separately, under the double title of “La Selva de Albania, y el Çeloso de sí mismo.”

[288] It fills nearly fifty pages in the third book of the romance.

[289] In the first book. It is entitled “A Moral Representation of the Soul’s Voyage”;—in other words, A Morality.

[290]

Oy la Nabe del deleyte

Se quiere hazer á la Mar;—

Ay quien se quiera embarcar?

Oy la Nabe del contento,

Con viento en popa de gusto,

Donde jamas ay disgusto,

Penitencia, ni tormento,

Viendo que ay prospero viento,

Se quiere hazer á la Mar.

Ay quien se quiera embarcar?

El Peregrino en su Patria, Sevilla, 1604, 4to, f. 36. b.

[291] Book Fourth. The compliment to the actor shows, of course, that the piece was acted. Indeed, this is the proper inference from the whole Prologue. Obras, Tom. V. p. 347.

[292] Miñana, in his continuation of Mariana, (Lib. X. c. 15, Madrid, 1804, folio, p. 589), says, when speaking of the marriage of Philip III. at Valencia, “In the midst of such rejoicings, tasteful and frequent festivities and masquerades were not wanting, in which Lope de Vega played the part of the buffoon.”

[293] In Book Second.

[294] Lope boasts that he has made this sort of commutation and accommodation, as if it were a merit. “This was literally the way,” he says, “in which his Majesty, King Philip, entered Valencia.” Obras, Tom. V. p. 187.

[295] See ante, [p. 90], and Comedias, Madrid, 1615, 4to, Prólogo. The phrase monstruo de naturaleza, in this passage, has been sometimes supposed to imply a censure of Lope on the part of Cervantes. But this is a mistake. It is a phrase frequently used; and though sometimes understood in malam partem, as it is in D. Quixote, Part I. c. 46,—“Vete de mi presencia, monstruo de naturaleza,”—it is generally understood to be complimentary; as, for instance, in the “Hermosa Ester” of Lope, (Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621), near the end of the first act, where Ahasuerus, in admiration of the fair Esther, says,—

Tanta belleza

Monstruo será de la naturaleza.

Cervantes, I have no doubt, used it in wonder at Lope’s prodigious fertility.

[296] Lope must have been a writer for the public stage as early as 1586 or 1587, and a popular writer at Madrid soon after 1590; but we have no knowledge that any of his plays were printed, with his own consent, before the volume which appeared at Valladolid, in 1604. Yet, in the Preface to the “Peregrino en su Patria,” licensed in 1603, he gives us a list of three hundred and forty-one plays which he acknowledges and claims. Again, in 1618, when he says he had written eight hundred, (Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, Prólogo), he had printed but one hundred and thirty-four full-length plays, and a few entremeses. Finally, of the eighteen hundred attributed to him in 1635, after his death, by Montalvan and others, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 49), only about three hundred and twenty or thirty can be found in the volumes of his collected plays; and Lord Holland, counting autos and all, which would swell the general claim of Montalvan to at least twenty-two hundred, makes out but five hundred and sixteen printed dramas of Lope. Life of Lope de Vega, London, 1817, 8vo, Vol. II. pp. 158-180.

[297] This curious list, with the Preface in which it stands, is worth reading over carefully, as affording indications of the history and progress of Lope’s genius. It is to Lope’s dramatic life what the list in Meres is to Shakspeare. It is found in the Obras Sueltas, Tom. V.

[298] In his “New Art of Writing Plays,” he says, “I have now written, including one that I have finished this week, four hundred and eighty-three plays.” He printed this for the first time in 1609; and though it was probably written four or five years earlier, yet these lines near the end may have been added at the moment the whole poem went to the press. Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 417.

[299] In the Prólogo to Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618;—a witty address of the theatre to the readers.

[300] Comedias, Tom. XIV., Madrid, 1620, Dedication of “El Verdadero Amante” to his son.

[301] Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, Preface,—where he says, “Candid minds will hope, that, as I have lived long enough to write a thousand and seventy dramas, I may live long enough to print them.” The certificates of this volume are dated 1624-25.

[302] In the “Índice de los Ingenios de Madrid,” appended to the “Para Todos” of Montalvan, printed in 1632, he says Lope had then published twenty volumes of plays, and that the number of those that had been acted, without reckoning autos, was fifteen hundred. Lope also himself puts it at fifteen hundred in the “Egloga á Claudio,” which, though not published till after his death, must have been written as early as 1632, since it speaks of the “Dorotea,” first published in that year, as still waiting for the light.

[303] Fama Póstuma, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 49.

[304] Art. Lupus Felix de Vega.

[305] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. pp. 3, 19.

[306] “All studied out and written in five days.” Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 72. b.

[307] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52. How eagerly his plays were sought by the actors and received by the audiences of Madrid may be understood from the fact Lope mentions in the poem to his friend Claudio, that above a hundred were acted within twenty-four hours of the time when their composition was completed. Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 368.

[308] As early as 1603, Lope maintains this doctrine in the Preface to his “Peregrino”;—it occurs frequently afterwards in different parts of his works, as, for instance, in the Prólogo to his “Castigo sin Venganza”; and he left it as a legacy in the “Egloga á Claudio,” printed after his death. The “Nueva Arte de Hacer Comedias,” however, is abundantly explicit on the subject in 1609, and, no doubt, expressed the deliberate purpose of its author, from which he seems never to have swerved during his whole dramatic career.

[309] Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, 4to, f. 22, etc.

[310] I know this play, “Dineros son Calidad,” only among the Comedias Sueltas of Lope; but it is no doubt his, as it is in Tom. XXIV. printed at Zaragoza in 1632, which contains different plays from a Tom. XXIV. printed at Zaragoza in 1641, which I have. There is yet a third Tom. XXIV., printed at Madrid in 1638. The internal evidence would, perhaps, be enough to prove its authorship.

[311] Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, f. 277, etc., but often reprinted since under the title of “La Melindrosa.”

[312] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, f. 1, etc.

[313] Comedias, Tom. XI, Barcelona, 1618, f. 1, etc. The Preface to this volume is curious, on account of Lope’s complaints of the booksellers. He calls it “Prólogo del Teatro,” and makes the surreptitious publication of his plays an offence against the drama itself. He intimates that it was not very uncommon for one of his plays to be acted seventy times.

[314] The “Azero de Madrid,” which was written as early as 1603, has often been printed separately, and is found in the regular collection, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, f. 27, etc.

[315]

Teo.

Lleua cordura y modestia;—

Cordura en andar de espacio;

Modestia en que solo veas

La misma tierra que pisas.

Bel.

Ya hago lo que me enseñas.

Teo.

Como miraste aquel hombre?

Bel.

No me dixiste que viera

Sola tierra? pues, dime,

Aquel hombre no es de tierra?

Teo.

Yo la que pisas te digo.

Bel.

La que piso va cubierta

De la saya y los chapines.

Teo.

Que palabras de donzella!

Por el siglo de tu madre,

Que yo te quite essas tretas!

Otra vez le miras?

Bel.

Yo?

Teo.

Luego no le hiziste señas?

Bel.

Fuy á caer, como me turbas

Con demandas y respuestas,

Y miré quien me tuuiesse.

Ris.

Cayó! llegad á tenerla!

Lis.

Perdone, vuessa merced,

El guante.

Teo.

Ay cosa como esta?

Bel.

Beso os las manos, Señor;

Que, si no es por vos, cayera.

Lis.

Cayera un ángel, Señora,

Y cayeran las estrellas,

A quien da mas lumbre el sol.

Teo.

Y yo cayera en la cuenta.

Yd, cauallero, con Dios!

Lis.

El os guarde, y me defienda

De condicion tan estraña!

Teo.

Ya cayste, y vás contenta,

De que te dieron la mano.

Bel.

Y tú lo irás de que tengas

Con que pudrirme seys dias.

Teo.

A que bueluas la cabeça?

Bel.

Pues no te parece que es

Advertencia muy discreta

Mirar adonde cahí,

Para que otra vez no buelua

A tropeçar en lo mismo?

Teo.

Ay, mala pascua te venga,

Y como entiendo tus mañas.

Otra vez, y dirás que esta

No miraste el mancebito?

Bel.

Es verdad.

Teo.

Y lo confiessas?

Bel.

Si me dió la mano allí,

No quieres que lo agradesca?

Teo.

Anda, que entraras en casa.

Bel.

O lo que harás de quimeras!

Comedias de Lope de Vega. Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, f. 27.

[316] The facts relating to this play are taken partly from the play itself, (Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 68. b), and partly from Casiano Pellicer, Orígen y Progresos de la Comedia, Madrid, 1804, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 174-181.

A similar entertainment had been given by his queen to Philip IV., on his birthday, in 1622, at the beautiful country-seat of Aranjuez, for which the unfortunate Count of Villamediana furnished the poetry, and Fontana, the distinguished Italian architect, erected a theatre of great magnificence. The drama, which was much like a masque of the English theatre, and was performed by the queen and her ladies, is in the Works of Count Villamediana (Çaragoça, 1629, 4to, pp. 1-55); and an account of the entertainment itself is given in Antonio de Mendoça (Obras, Lisboa, 1690, 4to, pp. 426-464);—all indicating the most wasteful luxury and extravagance.

[317] Lope himself, in 1624, published a poem on the same subject, which fills thirty pages in the third volume of his Works; but a description of the frolics of St. John’s eve, better suited to illustrate this play of Lope, and much else on St. John’s eve in Spanish poetry, is in “Doblado’s Letters,” (1822, p. 309),—a work full of the most faithful sketches of Spanish character and manners.

[318] Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 45, etc.

[319]

Camilo.

Señora, el Duque es muerto.

Diana.

Pues que se me da á mí? pero si es cierto,

Enterralde, Señores,

Que yo no soi el Cura.

Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635. f. 47.

[320] Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 158, etc.

[321] Ibid., f. 243, etc. It has often been printed separately; once in London.

[322] Comedias, Tom. VIII., Madrid, 1617, and often printed separately; a play remarkable for its gayety and spirit.

[323] Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, f. 187, etc.

[324] Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, f. 96, etc.

[325] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 410.

[326] Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, ff. 177, etc. It is entitled “Tragedia Famosa.”

[327] It is worth while to compare Suetonius, (Books V. and VI.), and the “Crónica General,” (Parte I. c. 110 and 111), with the corresponding passages in the “Roma Abrasada.” In one passage of Act III., Lope uses a ballad, the first lines of which occur in the first act of the “Celestina.”

[328] This scene is in the second act, and forms that part of the play where Nero enacts the gracioso.

[329] Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 121, etc.

[330]

D. Leo.

Principe, qu’ en paz, y en guerra,

Te llama perfeto el mundo,

Oye una muger!

Rey.

Comiença.

D. Leo.

Del gobernador Fadrique

De Lara soy hija.

Rey.

Espera.

Perdona al no conocerte

La cortesia, que es deuda

Digna á tu padre y á ti.

D. Leo.

Essa es gala y gentileza

Digna de tu ingenio claro,

Que el mundo admira y celebra.—

For dos vezes á Castilla

Fue un fidalgo desta tierra,—

Que quiero encubrir el nombre,

Hasta que su engaño sepas;

Porque le quieres de modo,

Que temiera que mis quexas

No hallaran justicia en ti,

Si otro que tu mismo fueras.

Poso entrambas en mi casa;

Solicito la primera

Mi voluntad.

Rey.

Di adelante,

Y no te oprima verguença,

Que tambien con los juezes

Las personas se confiessan.

D. Leo.

Agradeci sus engaños.

Partiose; llore su ausencia;

Que las partes deste hidalgo,

Quando el se parte, ellas quedan.

Boluio otra vez, y boluio

Mas dulcemente Sirena.

Con la voz no vi el engaño.

Ay, Dios! Señor, si nacieran

Las mugeres sin oydos,

Ya que los hombres con lenguas.

Llamome al fin, como suele

A la perdiz la cautela

Del caçador engañoso,

Las redes entre la yerua.

Resistime; mas que importa,

Si la mayor fortaleza

No contradize el amor,

Que es hijo de las estrellas?

Una cedula me hizo

De ser mi marido, y esta

Deuio de ser con intento

De no conocer la deuda,

En estando en Portugal,

Como si el cielo no fuera

Cielo sobre todo el mundo,

Y su justicia suprema.

Al fin, Señor, el se fue,

Ufano con las banderas

De una muger ya rendida;

Que donde hay amor, no hay fuerça.

Despojos traxo á su patria,

Como si de Africa fueran,

De los Moros, que en Arcila

Venciste en tu edad primera,

O de los remotos mares,

De cuyas blancas arenas

Te traen negros esclauos

Tus armadas Portuguesas.

Nunca mas vi letra suya.

Lloro mi amor sus obsequias,

Hize el tumulo del llanto,

Y de amor las hachas muertas.

Caso el Principe tu hijo

Con nuestra Infanta, que sea

Para bien de entrambos reynos.

Vino mi padre con ella.

Vine con el á Lisboa,

Donde este fidalgo niega

Tan justas obligaciones,

Y de suerte me desprecia,

Que me ha de quitar la vida,

Si tu Alteza no remedia

De una muger la desdicha.

Rey.

Viue la cedula?

D. Leo.

Fuera

Error no auerla guardado.

Rey.

Yo conocere la letra,

Si es criado de mi casa.

D. Leo.

Señor, la cedula es esta.

Rey.

La firma dize, Don Juan

De Sosa! No lo creyera,

A no conocer la firma,

De su virtud y prudencia.

Comedias de Lope de Vega, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 143, 144.

This passage is near the end of the piece, and leads to the dénouement by one of those flowing narratives, like an Italian novella, to which Lope frequently resorts, when the intriguing fable of the drama has been carried far enough to fill up the three customary acts.

[331] Comedias, Tom. IV., Madrid, 1614; and also in the Appendix to Ochoa’s “Teatro Escogido de Lope de Vega” (Paris, 1838, 8vo). Fernando de Zarate took some of the materials for his “Conquista de Mexico,” (Comedias escogidas, Tom. XXX., Madrid, 1668), such as the opening of Jornada II., from this play of Lope de Vega.

[332]

No permitas, Providencia,

Hacerme esta sinjusticia;

Pues los lleua la codicia

A hacer esta diligencia.

So color de religion,

Van á buscar plata y oro

Del encubierto tesoro.

El Nuevo Mundo, Jorn. I.

[333]

Una secreta deidad

A que lo intente me impele,

Diciéndome que es verdad,

Que en fin, que duerma ó que vele,

Persigue mi voluntad.

Que es esto que ha entrado en mí?

Quien me lleva ó mueve ansí?

Donde voy, donde camino?

Que derrota, que destino

Sigo, ó me conduce aquí?

Un hombre pobre, y aun roto,

Que ansí lo puedo decir,

Y que vive de piloto,

Quiere á este mundo añadir

Otro mundo tan remoto!

El Nuevo Mundo, Jorn. I.

[334] The story was well known, from its peculiar horrors, though the events occurred in 1405,—more than two centuries before the date of the play. Lope, in the Preface to his version of it, says it was extant in Latin, French, German, Tuscan, and Castilian.

[335] This play contains all the usual varieties of measure,—redondillas, tercetas, a sonnet, etc.; but especially, in the first act, a silva of beautiful fluency.

[336] I possess the original MS., entirely in Lope’s handwriting, with many alterations, corrections, and interlineations by himself. It is prepared for the actors, and has the certificate to license it by Pedro de Vargas Machuca, a poet himself, and Lope’s friend, who was much employed to license plays for the theatre. He also figured at the “Justas Poéticas” of San Isidro, published by Lope in 1620 and 1622; and in the “Justa” in honor of the Vírgen del Pilar, published by Caceres in 1629; in neither of which, however, do his poems give proof of much talent, though there is no doubt of his popularity with his contemporaries. (Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. IV. p. 199.) At the top of each page in the MS. of Lope de Vega is a cross with the names or ciphers of “Jesus, Maria, Josephus, Christus”; and at the end, “Laus Deo et Mariæ Virgini,” with the date of its completion and the signature of the author. Whether Lope thought it possible to consecrate the gross immoralities of such a drama by religious symbols, I do not know; but if he did, it would not be inconsistent with his character or the spirit of his time. A cross was commonly put at the top of Spanish letters,—a practice alluded to in Lope’s “Perro del Hortelano,” (Jornada II.), and one that must have led often to similar incongruities.

[337] Comedias, Tom. II., Madrid, 1609. Thrice, at least,—viz., in this play, in his “Fuente Ovejuna,” and in his “Peribañez,”—Lope has shown us commanders of the great military orders of his country in very odious colors, representing them as men of the most fierce pride and the grossest passions, like the Front-de-Bœuf of Ivanhoe.

[338] Old copies of this play are excessively scarce, and I obtained, therefore, many years ago, a manuscript of it, from which it was reprinted twice in this country by Mr. F. Sales, in his “Obras Maestras Dramáticas” (Boston, 1828 and 1840); the last time with corrections, kindly furnished by Don A. Duran, of Madrid;—a curious fact in Spanish bibliography, and one that should be mentioned to the honor of Mr. Sales, whose various publications have done much to spread the love of Spanish literature in the United States, and to whom I am indebted for my first knowledge of it. The same play is well known on the modern Spanish stage, and has been reprinted, both at Madrid and London, with large alterations, under the title of “Sancho Ortis de las Roelas.” An excellent abstract of it, in its original state, and faithful translations of parts of it, are to be found in Lord Holland’s Life of Lope (Vol. I. pp. 155-200); out of which, and not out of the Spanish original, Baron Zedlitz composed “Der Stern von Sevilla”; a play by no means without merit, which was printed at Stuttgard in 1830, and has been often acted in different parts of Germany.

[339] Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 91, etc., in which Lope has wisely followed the old monkish traditions, rather than either the “Crónica General,” (Parte II. c. 51), or the yet more sobered account of Mariana, Hist., Lib. VI. c. 12.

[340] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, ff. 369, etc. It is called “Tragicomedia.”

[341] The first edition of the first volume of Lope’s plays is that of Valladolid, 1604. See Brunet, etc.

[342] The first two of these plays, which are not to be found in the collected dramatic works of Lope, have often been printed separately; but the last occurs, I believe, only in the first volume of the Comedias, (Valladolid, 1604, f. 98), and in the reprints of it. It makes free use of the old ballads of Durandarte and Belorma.

[343] The “Siete Infantes de Lara” is in the Comedias, Tom. V., Madrid, 1615; and the “Bastardo Mudarra” is in Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641.

[344] Thus, the attractive story of “El Mejor Alcalde el Rey” is, as he himself tells us at the conclusion, taken from the fourth part of the “Crónica General.”

[345] “El Gran Duque de Muscovia,” Comedias, Tom. VII., Madrid, 1617.

[346] “Arauco Domado,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. The scene is laid about 1560; but the play is intended as a compliment to the living son of the conqueror. In the Dedication to him, Lope asserts it to be a true history; but there is, of course, much invention mingled with it, especially in the parts that do honor to the Spaniards. Among its personages is the author of the “Araucana,” Alonso de Ercilla, who comes upon the stage beating a drum. Another and earlier play of Lope may be compared with the “Arauco”; I mean “Los Guanches de Tenerife” (Comedias, Tom. X., Madrid, 1620, f. 128). It is on the similar subject of the conquest of the Canary Islands, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and, as in the “Arauco Domado,” the natives occupy much of the canvas.

[347] “La Santa Liga,” Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621.

[348] “El Valiente Cespedes,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. This notice is specially given to the reader by Lope, out of tenderness to the reputation of Doña María de Cespedes, who does not appear in the play with all the dignity which those who, in Lope’s time, claimed to be descended from her might exact at his hands.

[349] In “Roma Abrasada,” Acto II. f. 89, already noticed, ante, p. 193.

[350] Jornada II. of “Exemplo Mayor de la Desdicha, y Capitan Belisario”; not in the collection of Lope’s plays, and though often printed separately as his, and inserted as such on Lord Holland’s list, it is published in the old and curious collection entitled “Comedias de Diferentes Autores,” (4to, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633), as the work of Montalvan, both he and Lope being then alive.

[351] “Contra Valor no hay Desdicha.” Like the last, it has been often reprinted. It begins with the romantic account of Cyrus’s exposure to death, in consequence of his grandfather’s dream, and ends with a battle and his victory over Astyages and all his enemies.

[352] We occasionally meet with the phrase comedias de ruido; but it does not mean a class of plays separated from the others by different rules of composition. It refers to the machinery used in their exhibition; so that comedias de capa y espada, and especially comedias de santos, which often demanded a large apparatus, were not unfrequently comedias de ruido. In the same way, comedias de apariencias were plays demanding much scenery and scene-shifting.

[353] “La Moza de Cantaro” and “La Esclava de su Galan” have continued to be favorites down to our own times. The first was printed at London, not many years ago, and the last at Paris, in Ochoa’s collection, 1838, 8vo, and at Bielefeld, in that of Schütz, 1840, 8vo.

[354] Comedias, Tom. VI., Madrid, 1615, ff. 101, etc. It may be worth notice, that the character of Mendo is like that of Camacho in the Second Part of Don Quixote, which was first printed in the same year, 1615. The resemblance between the two, however, is not very strong, and I dare say is wholly accidental.

[355]

El que nacio para humilde

Mal puede ser cauallero.

Mi padre quiere morir,

Leonardo, como nacio.

Carbonero me engendró;

Labrador quiero morir.

Y al fin es un grado mas,

Aya quien are y quien caue.

Siempre el vaso al licor sabe.

Comedias, Tom. VI, Madrid, 1615, f. 117.

[356] There is in these passages something of the euphuistical style then in favor, under the name of the estilo culto, with which Lope sometimes humored the more fashionable portions of his audience, though on other occasions he bore a decided testimony against it.

[357] This play, I think, gave the hint to Calderon for his “Alcalde de Zalamea,” in which the character of Pedro Crespo, the peasant, is drawn with more than his accustomed distinctness. It is the last piece in the common collection of Calderon’s Comedias, and nearly all its characters are happily touched.

[358] This is among the more curious of the old popular Spanish tales. N. Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 9) assigns no age to its author, and no date to the published story. Denis, in his “Chroniques de l’Espagne,” etc., (Paris, 1839, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 285) gives no additional light, but, in one of his notes, treats its ideas on natural history as those of the moyen âge. It seems, however, from internal evidence, to have been composed after the fall of Granada. Brunet (Table, No. 17,572) notices an edition of it in 1607. The copy I use is of 1726, showing that it was in favor in the eighteenth century; and I possess another printed for popular circulation about 1845. We find early allusions to the Donzella Teodor, as a well-known personage; for example, in the “Modest Man at Court” of Tirso de Molina, where one of the characters, speaking of a lady he admires, cries out, “Que Donzella Teodor!” Cigarrales de Toledo, Madrid, 1624, 4to, p. 158.

[359] The popular English story of “Fryer Bacon” hardly goes back farther than to the end of the sixteenth century, though some of its materials may be traced to the “Gesta Romanorum.” Robert Greene’s play on it was printed in 1594. Both may be considered as running parallel with the story and play of the “Donzella Teodor,” so as to be read with advantage when comparing the Spanish drama with the English.

[360] Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 27, etc.

[361] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, ff. 231, etc.

[362] These passages are much indebted to the “Trato de Argel” of Cervantes.

[363] See, passim, Haedo, “Historia de Argel” (Madrid, 1612, folio). He reckons the number of Christian captives, chiefly Spaniards, in Algiers, at twenty-five thousand.

[364] Lope, Obras Sueltas, Tom. III. p. 377. I am much disposed to think the play referred to as acted in the prisons of Algiers is Lope’s own moral play of the “Marriage of the Soul to Divine Love,” in the second book of the “Peregrino en su Patria.”

[365] The passages in which Cervantes occurs are on ff. 245, 251, and especially 262 and 277, Comedias, Tom. XXV.

[366] The fusion of the three classes may be seen at a glance in Lope’s fine play, “El Mejor Alcalde el Rey,” (Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635), founded on a passage in the fourth part of the “General Chronicle” (ed. 1604, f. 327). The hero and heroine belong to the condition of peasants; the person who makes the mischief is their liege lord; and, from the end of the second act, the king and one or two of the principal persons about the court play leading parts. On the whole, it ranks technically with the comedias heróicas; and yet the best and most important scenes are those relating to common life, while others of no little consequence belong to the class of capa y espada.

[367] How the Spanish theatre, as it existed in the time of Philip IV., ought to have been regarded may be judged by the following remarks on such of its plays as continued to be represented at the end of the eighteenth century, read in 1796 to the Spanish Academy of History, by Jovellanos,—a personage who will be noticed when we reach the period during which he lived.

“As for myself,” says that wise and faithful magistrate, “I am persuaded there can be found no proof so decisive of the degradation of our taste as the cool indifference with which we tolerate the representation of dramas, in which modesty, the gentler affections, good faith, decency, and all the virtues and principles belonging to a sound morality, are openly trampled under foot. Do men believe that the innocence of childhood and the fervor of youth, that an idle and dainty nobility and an ignorant populace, can witness without injury such examples of effrontery and grossness, of an insolent and absurd affectation of honor, of contempt of justice and the laws, and of public and private duty, represented on the stage in the most lively colors, and rendered attractive by the enchantment of scenic illusions and the graces of music and verse? Let us, then, honestly confess the truth. Such a theatre is a public nuisance, and the government has no just alternative but to reform it or suppress it altogether.” Memorias de la Acad., Tom. V. p. 397.

Elsewhere, in the same excellent discourse, its author shows that he was by no means insensible to the poetical merits of the old theatre, whose moral influences he deprecated.

“I shall always be the first,” he says, “to confess its inimitable beauties; the freshness of its inventions, the charm of its style, the flowing naturalness of its dialogue, the marvellous ingenuity of its plots, the ease with which every thing is at last explained and adjusted; the brilliant interest, the humor, the wit, that mark every step as we advance;—but what matters all this, if this same drama, regarded in the light of truth and wisdom, is infected with vices and corruptions that can be tolerated neither by a sound state of morals nor by a wise public policy?” Ibid., p. 413.

[368] C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Madrid, 1804, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 142-148. Plays were prohibited in Barcelona in 1591 by the bishop; but the prohibition was not long respected, and in 1597 was renewed with increased earnestness. Bisbe y Vidal, Tratado de las Comedias, Barcelona, 1618, 12mo, f. 94;—a curious book, attacking the Spanish theatre with more discretion than any other old treatise against it that I have read, but not with much effect. Its author would have all plays carefully examined and expurgated before they were licensed, and then would permit them to be performed, not by professional actors, but by persons belonging to the place where the representation was to occur, and known as respectable men and decent youths; for, he adds, “when this was done for hundreds of years, none of those strange vices were committed that are the consequence of our present modes.” (f. 106.) Bisbe y Vidal is a pseudonyme for Juan Ferrer, the head of a large congregation of devout men at Barcelona, and a person who was so much scandalized at the state of the theatre in his time, that he published this attack on it for the benefit of the brotherhood whose spiritual leader he was. (Torres y Amat, Biblioteca, Art. Ferrer.) It is encumbered with theological learning; but less so than other similar works of the time.

[369] Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, ff. 110, etc. Such plays were often acted at Christmas, and went under the name of Nacimientos;—a relique of the old dramas mentioned in the “Partidas,” and written in various forms after the time of Juan de la Enzina and Gil Vicente. They seem, from hints in the “Viage” of Roxas, 1602, and elsewhere, to have been acted in private houses, in the churches, on the public stage, and in the streets, as they happened to be asked for. They were not exactly autos, but very like them, as may be seen from the “Nacimiento de Christo” by Lope de Vega, (in a curious volume entitled “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” Madrid, 1664, 4to, f. 346),—a drama quite different from this one, though bearing the same name; and quite different from another Nacimiento de Christo, in the same volume, (f. 93), attributed to Lope, and called “Auto del Nacimiento de Christo Nuestro Señor.” There are besides, in this volume, Nacimientos attributed to Cubillo, (f. 375), and Valdivielso, f. 369.

[370]

Adan.

Aqui, Reyna, en esta alfõbra

De yerua y flores te assienta.

Inoc.

Esso á la fe me contenta.

Reyna y Señora la nombra.

Gra.

Pues no ves que es su muger,

Carne de su carne y hueso

De sus huesos?

Inoc.

Y aũ por esso,

Porque es como ser su ser.

Lindos requiebros se dizen.

Gra.

Dos en una carne son.

Inoc.

Dure mil años la union,

Y en esta paz se eternizen.

Gra.

Por la Reyna dexará

El Rey a su padre y madre.

Inoc.

Ninguno nació con padre,

Poco en dexarlos hará;

Y á la fe, Señor Adan,

Que aunque de Gracia vizarro,

Que los Principes del barro

Notable pena me dan.

Brauo artificio tenia

Vuestro soberano dueño,

Quãdo un mũdo aunq̄ pequeño

Hizo de barro en un dia.

Gra.

Quiẽ los dos mũdos mayores

Pudo hacer con su palabra,

Que mucho que rompa y abra

En la tierra estas labores.

No ves las lamparas bellas,

Que de los cielos colgó?

Inoc.

Como de flores sembró

La tierra, el cielo de estrellas.

Comedias de Lope de Vega. Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 111.

[371]

Baxa esclareciendo el ayre

Con exercitos de estrellas.

[372]

Gracia santa, ya los veo.

Voy á hazer que aquesta noche,

Aunque lo defienda el yelo,

Borden la escarcha las flores,

Salgan los pimpollos tiernos

De las encogidas ramas,

Y de los montes soberbios

Bajen los arroyos mansos

Liquido cristal vertiendo.

Hare que las fuentes manen

Candida leche, y los fresnos

Pura miel, diluvios dulces,

Que aneguen nuestros deseos.

Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 116.

[373] It is in the twenty-fourth volume of the Comedias of Lope, Madrid, 1632, and is one of a very few of his religious plays that have been occasionally reprinted.

[374] “Historia de Tobias,” Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621, ff. 231, etc.

[375] “La Hermosa Ester,” Ibid. ff. 151, etc.

[376] “El Robo de Dina,” Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, ff. 118, etc. To this may be added a better one, in Tom. XXII., Madrid, 1635, “Los Trabajos de Jacob,” on the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren.

[377] The underplot is slightly connected with the main story of Esther, by a proclamation of King Ahasuerus, calling before him all the fair maidens of his empire, which, coming to the ears of Silena, the shepherdess, she insists upon leaving her lover, Selvagio, and trying the fortune of her beauty at court. She fails, and on her return is rejected by Selvagio, but still maintains her coquettish spirit to the last, and goes off saying or singing, as gayly as if it were part of an old ballad,—

For the vulture that flies apart,

I left my little bird’s nest;

But still I can soften his heart,

And soothe down his pride to rest.

The best parts of the play are the more religious; like Esther’s prayers in the first and last acts, and the ballad sung at the triumphant festival when Ahasuerus yields to her beauty; but the whole, like many other plays of the same sort, is intended, under the disguise of a sacred subject, to serve the purposes of the secular theatre.

Perhaps one of the most amusing instances of incongruity in Lope, and their number is not few, is to be found in the first jornada of the “Trabajos de Jacob,” where Joseph, at the moment he escapes from Potiphar’s wife, leaving his cloak in her possession, says in soliloquy,—

So mayest thou, woman-like, upon my cloak

Thy vengeance wreak, as the bull wreaks his wrath

Upon the cloak before him played; the man

Meanwhile escaping safe.

Y assi haras en essa capa,

Con venganza de muger,

Lo que el toro suele hacer,

Del hombre que se escapa.

Yet, absurd as the passage is for its incongruity, it may have been loudly applauded by an audience that thought much more of bull-fights than of the just rules of the drama.

[378] “El Cardenal de Belen,” Comedias, Tom. XIII., Madrid, 1620.

[379] This play is not in the collection of Lope’s Comedias, but it is in Lord Holland’s list. My copy of it is an old one, without date, printed for popular use at Valladolid.

[380] Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 91, etc.

[381] “Bautismo del Príncipe de Marruecos,” in which there are nearly sixty personages. Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 269, etc. C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Tom. I. p. 86.

[382] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 153.

[383] “San Nicolas de Tolentino,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, ff. 167, etc. Each act, as is not uncommon in the old Spanish theatre, is a sort of separate play, with its separate list of personages prefixed. The first has twenty-one; among which are God, the Madonna, History, Mercy, Justice, Satan, etc. It opens with a masquerading scene in a public square, of no little spirit; immediately after which we have a scene in heaven, containing the Divine judgment on the soul of one who had died in mortal sin; then another spirited scene, in a public square, among loungers, with a sermon from a fervent, fanatical monk; and afterwards, successive scenes between Nicholas, who has been moved by this sermon to enter a convent, and his family, who consent to his purpose with reluctance; the whole ending with a dialogue of the rudest humor between Nicholas’s servant, who is the buffoon of the piece, and a servant-maid, to whom he was engaged to be married, but whom he now abandons, determined to follow his master into a religious seclusion, which, at the same time, he is making ridiculous by his jests and parodies. This is the first act. The other two acts are such as might be anticipated from it.

[384] This is not either of the plays ordered by the city of Madrid, to be acted in the open air in 1622, in honor of the canonization of San Isidro, and found in the twelfth volume of Lope’s Obras Sueltas; though, on a comparison with these last, it will be seen that it was used in their composition. It, in fact, was printed five years earlier, in the seventh volume of Lope’s Comedias, Madrid, 1617, and continued long in favor, for it is reprinted in Parte XXVIII. of “Comedias Escogidas de los Mejores Ingenios,” Madrid, 1667, 4to.

[385] A spirited ballad or popular song is sung and danced at the young Saint’s wedding, beginning,—

Al villano se lo dan

La cebolla con el pan.

Mira que el tosco villano,

Quando quiera alborear,

Salga con su par de bueyes

Y su arado otro que tal.

Le dan pan, le dan cebolla,

Y vino tambien le dan, etc.

Comedias, Tom. XXVIII. 1667, p. 54.

[386]

Rio verde, rio verde,

Mas negro vas que la tinta

De sangre de los Christianos,

Que no de la Moreria.

p. 60.

[387] How far these plays were felt to be religious by the crowds who witnessed them may be seen in a thousand ways; among the rest, by the fact mentioned by Madame d’Aulnoy, in 1679, that, when St. Antony, on the stage, repeated his Confiteor, the audience all fell on their knees, smote their breasts heavily, and cried out, Meâ culpâ. Voyage d’Espagne à la Haye, 1693, 18mo, Tom. I. p. 56.

[388] Auto was originally a forensic term, from the Latin actus, and meant a decree or a judgment of a court. Afterwards it was applied to these religious dramas, which were called Autos sacramentales or Autos del Corpus Christi, and to the autos de fé of the Inquisition; in both cases, because they were considered solemn religious acts. Covarrubias, Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana, ad verb. Auto.

[389] Great splendor was used, from the earliest times down to the present century, in the processions of the Corpus Christi throughout Spain; as may be judged from the accounts of them in Valencia, Seville, and Toledo, in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 167; 1840, p. 187; and 1841, p. 177. In those of Toledo, there is an intimation that Lope de Rueda was employed in the dramatic entertainments connected with them in 1561; and that Alonso Cisneros, Cristóbal Navarro, and other known writers for the rude popular stage of that time, were his successors;—all serving to introduce Lope and Calderon.

[390] Pellicer, notes, D. Quixote, Tom. IV. pp. 105, 106, and Covarrubias, ut supra, ad verb. Tarasca. The populace at Toledo called the woman on the Tarasca, Anne Boleyn. Sem. Pint., 1841, p. 177.

[391] The most lively description I have seen of this procession is contained in the loa to Lope’s first fiesta and auto (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. pp. 1-7). Another description, to suit the festival as it was got up about 1655-65, will be found when we come to Calderon. It is given here as it occurred in the period of Lope’s success; and a fancy drawing of the procession, as it may have appeared in 1623, is to be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1846, p. 185. But Lope’s loa is the best authority.

[392] A good idea of the contents of the carro may be found in the description of the one met by Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 11), as he was returning from Toboso.

[393] Montalvan, in his “Fama Póstuma.”

[394] Preface of Joseph Ortis de Villena, prefixed to the Autos in Tom. XVIII. of the Obras Sueltas. They were not printed till 1644, nine years after Lope’s death, and then they appeared at Zaragoza. One other auto, attributed to Lope, “El Tirano Castigado,” occurs in a curious volume, entitled “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” collected by Isidro de Robles, and already referred to.

[395] The manuscript collection referred to in the text was acquired by the National Library at Madrid in 1844. It fills 468 leaves in folio, and contains ninety-five dramatic pieces. All of them are anonymous, except one, which is said to be by Maestro Ferruz, and is on the subject of Cain and Abel; and all but one seem to be on religious subjects. This last is called “Entremes de las Esteras,” and is the only one bearing that title, The rest are called Coloquios, Farsas, and Autos; nearly all being called Autos, but some of them Farsas del Sacramento, which seems to have been regarded as synonymous. One only is dated. It is called “Auto de la Resurreccion de Christo,” and is licensed to be acted March 28, 1568. Two have been published in the Museo Literario, 1844, by Don Eugenio de Tapia, of the Royal Library, Madrid, one of the most eminent Spanish scholars and writers of this century. The first, entitled “Auto de los Desposorios de Moisen,” is a very slight performance, and, except the Prologue or Argument, is in prose. The other, called “Auto de la Residencia del Hombre,” is no better, but is all in verse. In a subsequent number, Don Eugenio publishes a complete list of the titles, with the figuras or personages that appear in each. It is much to be desired that all the contents of this MS. should be properly edited. Meanwhile, we know that saynetes were sometimes interposed between different parts of the performances; that allegorical personages were abundant; and that the Bobo or Fool constantly recurs. Some of them were probably earlier than the time of Lope de Vega; perhaps as early as the time of Lope de Rueda, who, as I have already said in note 38 to this chapter, prepared autos of some kind for the city of Toledo, in 1561. But the language and versification of the two pieces that have been printed, and the general air of the fictions and allegories of the rest, so far as we can gather them from what has been published, indicate a period nearly or quite as late as that of Lope de Vega.

[396] This is the first of the loas in the volume, and, on the whole, the best.

[397] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 367.

[398] Ibid., p. 107.

[399] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 8. “Entremes del Letrado.”

[400] Ibid., p. 114. “Entremes del Poeta.”

[401] Ibid., p. 168. “El Robo de Helena.”

[402] Ibid., p. 373. “Muestra de los Carros.”

[403] It is the last in the collection, and, as to its poetry, one of the best of the twelve, if not the very best.

[404] The direction to the actors is,—“Salen Adan y Eva vestidos de Franceses muy galanes.”

[405] See Historia del Emperador Cárlos Magno, Cap. 26, 30, etc.

[406] The giant says to Adam, referring to the temptation:—

Yerros Adan por amores

Dignos son de perdonar, etc.;

which is out of the beautiful and well-known old ballad of the “Conde Claros,” beginning “Pésame de vos, el Conde,” which has been already noticed, ante, Vol. I. p. 121. It must have been perfectly familiar to many persons in Lope’s audience, and how the allusion to it could have produced any other than an irreverent effect I know not.

[407] The address of the music, “Si dormis, Príncipe mio,” refers to the ballads about those whose lady-loves had been carried captive among the Moors.

[408] “La Siega,” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 328), of which there is an excellent translation in Dohrn’s Spanische Dramen, Berlin, 1841, 8vo, Tom. I.

[409] “La Vuelta de Egypto,” Obras, Tom. XVIII. p. 435.

[410] “El Pastor Lobo y Cabaña Celestial,” Ibid., p. 381.

[411] Primera Parte de Entremeses, “Entremes Primero de Melisendra,” Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, 4to, ff. 333, etc. It is founded on the fine old ballads of the Romancero of 1550-1555, “Asentado está Gayferos,” etc.; the same out of which the puppet-show man made his exhibition at the inn before Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 26.

[412] Comedias, Valladolid, 1604, Tom. I. p. 337.

[413] All three of these pieces are in the same volume.

[414] “Lope de Rueda,” says Lope de Vega, “was an example of these precepts in Spain; for from him has come down the custom of calling the old plays Entremeses.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 407.) A single scene taken out and used in this way as an entremes was called a Paso or “passage.” We have noted such by Lope de Rueda, etc. See ante, pp. 16, 22.

[415] Among the imitators of Juan de la Enzina should be noted Lucas Fernandez, a native of Salamanca, who published in that city a thin folio volume, in 1514, entitled “Farsas y Eglogas al Modo y Estilo Pastoril y Castellano.” Judged by their titles, they are quite in the manner and style of the eclogues and farces of his predecessor; but one of them is called a Comedia, two others are called Farsa ó quasi Comedia, and another Auto ó Farsa. There are but six in all. I have never seen the book; but the notices I have found of its contents show that it is undoubtedly an imitation of the dramatic attempts of its author’s countryman, and that it is probably one of little poetical merit.

[416] Obras, Tom. I. p. 225.

[417] Obras, Tom. XVI., passim, and XIX. p. 278.

[418] For these, see Obras, Tom. III. p. 463; Tom. X. p. 193; Tom. IV. p. 430; and Tom. X. p. 362. The last passage contains nearly all we know about his son, Lope Felix.

[419] See the scene in the Second Part of Don Quixote, where some gentlemen and ladies, for their own entertainment in the country, were about to represent the eclogues of Garcilasso and Camoens. In the same way, I think, the well-known eclogue which Lope dedicated to Antonio Duke of Alva, (Obras, IV. p. 295), that to Amaryllis, which was the longest he ever wrote, (Tom. X. p. 147), that for the Prince of Esquilache, (Tom. I. p. 352), and most of those in the “Arcadia,” (Tom. VI.), were acted, and written in order to be acted. Why the poem to his friend Claudio, (Tom. IX. p. 355), which is in fact an account of some passages in his own life, with nothing pastoral in its tone or form, is called “an eclogue,” I do not know; nor will I undertake to assign to any particular class the “Military Dialogue in Honor of the Marquis of Espinola,” (Tom. X. p. 337), though I think it is dramatic in its structure, and was probably represented, on some show occasion, before the Marquis himself.

[420] This division can be traced back to a play of Francisco de Avendaño, 1553. L. F. Moratin, Obras, 1830, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 182.

[421] “Except six,” says Lope, at the end of his “Arte Nuevo,” “all my four hundred and eighty-three plays have offended gravely against the rules [el arte].” See Montiano y Luyando, “Discurso sobre las Tragedias Españolas,” (Madrid, 1750, 12mo, p. 47), and Huerta, in the Preface to his “Teatro Hespañol,” for the difficulty of finding even these six.

[422] Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias, Obras, Tom. IV. p. 406.

[423] “El Primer Rey de Castilla,” Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, ff. 114, etc.

[424] “El Bastardo Mudarra,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641.

[425] “La Limpieza no Manchada,” Comedias, Tom. XIX., Madrid, 1623.

[426] “El Nacimiento de Christo,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., ut supra.

[427] It is the learned Theodora, a person represented as capable of confounding the knowing professors brought to try her, who declares Constantinople to be four thousand leagues from Madrid. La Donzella Teodor, end of Act II.

[428] This extraordinary disembarkation takes place in the “Animal de Ungria” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 137, 138). One is naturally reminded of Shakspeare’s “Winter’s Tale”; but it is curious that the Duke de Luynes, a favorite minister of state to Louis XIII., made precisely the same mistake, at about the same time, to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, then (1619-21) ambassador in France. But Lope certainly knew better, and I doubt not Shakspeare did, however ignorant the French statesman may have been. Herbert’s Life, by himself, London, 1809, 8vo, p. 217.

[429] See “San Isidro Labrador,” in Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXVIII., Madrid, 1667, f. 66.

[430] “San Nicolas de Tolentino,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 171.

[431] “Arauco Domado,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. After reading such absurdities, we wonder less that Cervantes, even though he committed not a few like them himself, should make the puppet-show man exclaim, “Are not a thousand plays represented now-a-days, full of a thousand improprieties and absurdities, which yet run their course successfully, and are heard, not only with applause, but with admiration?” D. Quixote, Parte II. c. 26.

[432] “Tienen las novelas los mismos preceptos que las comedias, cuyo fin es haber dado su autor contento y gusto al pueblo, aunque se ahorque el arte.” Obras Sueltas, Tom. VIII. p. 70.

[433] Arte Nuevo, Obras, Tom. IV. p. 412. From an autograph MS. of Lope, still extant, it appears that he sometimes wrote out his plays first in the form of pequeñas novelas. Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 19.

[434] See the Dedication of the “Francesilla” to Juan Perez de Montalvan, in Comedias, Tom. XIII., Madrid, 1620, where we have the following words: “And note in passing that this is the first play in which was introduced the character of the jester, which has been so often repeated since. Rios, unique in all parts, played it, and is worthy of this record. I pray you to read it as a new thing; for when I wrote it, you were not born.” The gracioso was generally distinguished by his name on the Spanish stage, as he was afterwards on the French stage. Thus, Calderon often calls his gracioso Clarin, or Trumpet; as Molière called his Sganarelle. The simplé, who, as I have said, can be traced back to Enzina, and who was, no doubt, the same with the bobo, is mentioned as very successful, in 1596, by Lopez Pinciano, who, in his “Philosofía Antigua Poética,” (1596, p. 402), says, “They are characters that commonly amuse more than any other that appear in the plays.” The gracioso of Lope was, like the rest of his theatre, founded on what existed before his time; only the character itself was further developed, and received a new name. D. Quixote, Clemencin, Parte II. cap. 3, note.

[435] The specimens of his bad taste in this particular occur but too frequently; e. g. in “El Cuerdo en su Casa” (Comedias, Tom. VI., Madrid, 1615, ff. 105, etc.); in the “Niña de Plata” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 125, etc.); in the “Cautivos de Argel” (Comedias, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1647, p. 241); and in other places. But in opposition to all this, see his deliberate condemnation of such euphuistical follies in his Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. pp. 459-482; and the jests at their expense in his “Amistad y Obligacion,” and his “Melindres de Belisa” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618).

[436] Sonnets seem to have been a sort of choice morsels thrown in to please the over-refined portion of the audience. In general, only one or two occur in a play; but in the “Discreta Venganza” (Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629) there are five. In the “Palacios de Galiana” (Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, f. 256) there is a foolish sonnet with echoes, and another in the “Historia de Tobias” (Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621, f. 244). The sonnet in ridicule of sonnets, in the “Niña de Plata,” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, f. 124), is witty, and has been imitated in French and in English.

[437] “El Sol Parado,” Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, pp. 218, 219. It reminds one of the much more beautiful serrana of the Marquis of Santillana, beginning “Moza tan formosa,” ante, Vol. I. p. 372.

[438] “Pobreza no es Vileza,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, f. 61.

[439] He has even ventured to take the beautiful and familiar ballad, “Sale la Estrella de Venus,”—which is in the Romancero General, the “Guerras de Granada,” and many other places,—and work it up into a dialogue. “El Sol Parado,” Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, ff. 223-224.

[440] In the same way, he seizes upon the old ballad, “Reduan bien se te acuerda,” and uses it in the “Embidia de la Nobleza,” Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, f. 192.

[441] For example, the ballad in the Romancero of 1555, beginning “Despues que el Rey Rodrigo,” at the end of Jornada II., in “El Ultimo Godo,” Comedias, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1647.

[442] Compare “El Bastardo Mudarra” (Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, ff. 75, 76) with the ballads, “Ruy Velasquez de Lara,” and “Llegados son los Infantes”; and, in the same play, the dialogue between Mudarra and his mother, (f. 83), with the ballad, “Sentados á un ajedrez.”

[443] “El Casamiento en la Muerte,” (Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 198, etc.), in which the following well-known old ballads are freely used, viz.:—“O Belerma! O Belerma!” “No tiene heredero alguno”; “Al pie de un túmulo negro”; “Bañando está las prisiones”; and others.

[444] It is in the last chapter of the “Guerras Civiles de Granada”; but Lope has given it, with a slight change in the phraseology, as follows:—

Cercada está Sancta Fé

Con mucho lienço encerado;

Y al rededor muchas tiendas

De terciopelo y damasco.

It occurs in many collections of ballads, and is founded on the fact, that a sort of village of rich tents was established near Granada, which, after an accidental conflagration, was turned into a town, that still exists, within whose walls were signed both the commission of Columbus to seek the New World, and the capitulation of Granada. The imitation of this ballad by Lope is in his “Cerco de Santa Fé,” Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, f. 69.

[445] He says this apparently as a kind of apology to foreigners, in the Preface to the “Peregrino en su Patria,” 1603, where he gives a list of his plays to that date.

[446] See the curious facts collected on this subject in Pellicer’s note to Don Quixote, ed. 1798, Parte II., Tom. I. pp. 109-111.

[447] This is stated by the well-known Italian poet, Marini, in his Eulogy on Lope, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. p. 19.

[448] Obras Sueltas, Tom. VIII. pp. 94-96, and Pellicer’s note to Don Quixote, Parte I., Tom. III. p. 93.

[449] This is said in a discourse preached over his mortal remains in St. Sebastian’s, at his funeral. Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIX. p. 329.

[450] “Frey Lope Felix de Vega, whose name has become universally a proverb for whatever is good,” says Quevedo, in his Aprobacion to “Tomé de Burguillos.” (Obras Sueltas de Lope, Tom. XIX. p. xix.) “It became a common proverb to praise a good thing by calling it a Lope; so that jewels, diamonds, pictures, etc., were raised into esteem by calling them his,” says Montalvan. (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 53.) Cervantes intimates the same thing in his entremes, “La Guarda Cuidadosa.”

[451] His complaints on the subject begin as early as 1603, before he had published any of his plays himself, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. V. p. xvii.), and are renewed in the “Egloga á Claudio,” (Ib., Tom. IX. p. 369), printed after his death; besides which, they occur in the Prefaces to his Comedias, (Tom. IX., XI., XV., XXI., and elsewhere), as a matter that seems to have been always troubling him.

[452] Montalvan sets the price of each play at five hundred reals, and says that in this way Lope received, during his life, eighty thousand ducats. Obras, Tom. XX. p. 47.

[453] The Duke of Sessa alone, besides many other benefactions, gave Lope, at different times, twenty-four thousand ducats, and a sinecure of three hundred more per annum. Ut supra.

[454] Libro XX., last three stanzas.

[455] “I have a daughter, and am old,” he says. “The Muses give me honor, but not income,” etc. (Obras, Tom. XVII. p. 401.) From his will, an abstract of which may be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 19, it appears that Philip IV. promised an office to the person who should marry this daughter, and failed to keep his word.

[456] Like some other distinguished authors, however, he was inclined to undervalue what he did most happily, and to prefer what is least worthy of preference. Thus, in the Preface to his Comedias, (Vol. XV., Madrid, 1621), he shows that he preferred his longer poems to his plays, which he says he holds but “as the wild-flowers of his field, that grow up without care or culture.”

[457] This might be inferred from the account in Montalvan’s “Fama Póstuma”; but Lope himself declares it distinctly in the “Egloga á Claudio,” where he says, “The printed part of my writings, though too much, is small, compared with what remains unpublished.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 369.) Indeed, we know we have hardly a fourth part of his full-length plays; only twelve autos out of four hundred; only twenty or thirty entremeses out of the “infinite number” ascribed to him.

[458] Bisbe y Vidal, “Tratado de Comedias,” (1618, f. 102), speaks of the “glosses which the actors make extempore upon lines given to them on the stage.”

[459] Viardot, Études sur la Littérature en Espagne, Paris, 1835, 8vo, p. 339.

[460] Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles, (Madrid, 1778, 4to, Tom. I. pp. 89-91), in which there is a curious narrative by Diego, Duke of Estrada, giving an account of one of these entertainments, (a burlesque play on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice), performed before the viceroy and his court.

[461] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52.

[462] A diffuse life of Quevedo was published at Madrid in 1663, by Don Pablo Antonio de Tarsia, a Neapolitan, and is inserted in the tenth volume of the best edition of Quevedo’s Works,—that of Sancha, Madrid, 1791-94, 11 tom., 8vo. A shorter, and, on the whole, a more satisfactory, life of him is to be found in Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. pp. 137-154.

[463] In his “Grandes Anales de Quince Dias,” speaking of the powerful President Acevedo, he says, “I was unwelcome to him, because, coming myself from the mountains, I never flattered the ambition he had to make himself out to be above men to whom we, in our own homes, acknowledge no superiors.” Obras, Tom. XI. p. 63.

[464] The first is the very curious paper entitled “Caida de su Privanza y Muerte del Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the Seminario Erudito (Madrid, 1787, 4to, Tom. III.); and the other is “Memorial de Don F. Quevedo contra el Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the same collection, Tom. XV.

[465] This letter, often reprinted, is in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas Morales,” etc., Valencia, 1773, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 151. Another letter to his friend Adan de la Parra, giving an account of his mode of life during his confinement, shows that he was extremely industrious. Indeed, industry was his main resource a large part of the time he was in San Márcos de Leon. Seminario Erudito, Tom. I. p. 65.

[466] Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. IV. p. xxxi.

[467] His nephew, in a Preface to the second volume of his uncle’s Poems, (published at Madrid, 1670, 4to), says that Quevedo died of two imposthumes on his chest, which were formed during his last imprisonment.

[468] Obras, Tom. X. p. 45, and N. Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 463. A considerable amount of his miscellaneous works may be found in the Seminario Erudito, Tom. I., III., VI., and XV.

[469] Besides these dramas, whose names are unknown to us, he wrote, in conjunction with Ant. Hurtado de Mendoza, and at the command of the Count Duke Olivares, who afterwards treated him so cruelly, a play called “Quien mas miente, medra mas,”—He that lies most, will rise most,—for the gorgeous entertainment that prodigal minister gave to Philip IV. on St. John’s eve, 1631. See the account of it in the notice of Lope de Vega, ante, p. 185, and post, p. 324, note 21.

[470]

Poderoso cavallero

Es Don Dinero, etc.

is in Pedro Espinosa, “Flores de Poetas Ilustres,” Madrid, 1605, 4to, f. 18.

[471] “Not the twentieth part was saved of the verses which many persons knew to have been extant at the time of his death, and which, during our constant intercourse, I had countless times held in my hands,” says Gonzalez de Salas, in the Preface to the first part of Quevedo’s Poems, 1648.

[472] Preface to Tom. VII. of Obras. His request on his death-bed, that nearly all his works, printed or manuscript, might be suppressed, is triumphantly recorded in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 425.

[473] “Los equívocos y las alusiones suyas,” says his editor, in 1648, “son tan frequentes y multiplicados, aquellos y estas, ansí en un solo verso y aun en una palabra, que es bien infalible que mucho número sin advertirse se haya de perder.” Obras, Tom. VII., Elogios, etc.

[474] They are at the end of the seventh volume of the Obras, and also in Hidalgo, “Romances de Germania” (Madrid, 1779, 12mo, pp. 226-295). Of the lighter ballads in good Castilian, we may notice, especially, “Padre Adan, no lloreis duelos,” (Tom. VIII. p. 187), and “Dijo á la rana el mosquito,” Tom. VII. p. 514.

[475] Obras, Tom. VII. pp. 192-200, and VIII. pp. 533-550. The last is somewhat coarse, though not so bad as its model in this respect.

[476] See the cancion (Tom. VII. p. 323) beginning, “Pues quita al año Primavera el ceño”; also some of the poems in the “Erato” to the lady he calls Fili, who seems to have been more loved by him than any other.

[477] Particularly in “The Dream,” (Tom. IX. p. 296), and in the “Hymn to the Stars,” p. 338.

[478] There are several poems about cultismo, Obras, Tom. VIII. pp. 82, etc. The “Aguja de Navegar Cultos” is in Tom. I. p. 443; and immediately following it is the Catechism, whose whimsical title I have abridged somewhat freely.

[479] Perhaps there is a little too much of the imitation of Petrarch and of the Italians in the Poems of the Bachiller de la Torre; but they are, I think, not only graceful and beautiful, but generally full of the national tone, and of a tender spirit, connected with a sincere love of nature and natural scenery. I would instance the ode, “Alexis que contraria,” in the edition of Velazquez (p. 17), and the truly Horatian ode (p. 44) beginning, “O tres y quatro veces venturosa,” with the description of the dawn of day, and the sonnet to Spring (p. 12). The first eclogue, too, and all the endechas, which are in the most flowing Adonian verse, should not be overlooked. Sometimes he has unrhymed lyrics, in the ancient measures, not always successful, but seldom without beauty.

[480] “Poesías que publicó D. Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, Cavallero del Órden de Santiago, Señor de la Torre de Juan Abad, con el nombre del Bachiller Francisco de la Torre. Añadese en esta segunda edicion un Discurso, en que se descubre ser el verdadero autor el mismo D. Francisco de Quevedo, por D. Luis Joseph Velazquez,” etc. Madrid, 1753, 4to.

[481] Quintana denies it in the Preface to his “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1807, 12mo, Tom. I. p. xxxix.). So does Fernandez (or Estala for him), in his Collection of “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1808, 12mo, Tom. IV. p. 40); and, what is of more significance, so does Wolf, in the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1835, Tom. LXIX. p. 189. On the other side are Baena, in his Life of Quevedo; Sedano, in his “Parnaso Español”; Luzan, in his “Poética”; and Bouterwek, in his History. Martinez de la Rosa and Faber seem unable to decide. But none of them gives any reasons. I have in the text, and in the subsequent notes, stated the case as fully as seems needful, and have no doubt that Quevedo was the author, or that he knew and concealed the author.

[482] We know, concerning the conclusion of Ercilla’s life, only that he died as early as 1595; thirty-six years before the publication of the Bachelor, and when Quevedo was only fifteen years old.

[483] It is even doubtful who this Bachiller de la Torre of Boscan was. Velazquez (Pref., v.) thinks it was probably Alonso de la Torre, author of the “Vision Deleytable,” (circa 1465), of which we have spoken, Vol. I. p. 417; and Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. IV. p. 169) thinks it may perhaps have been Pedro Diaz de la Torre, who died in 1504, one of the counsellors of Ferdinand and Isabella. But, in either case, the name does not correspond with that of Quevedo’s Bachiller Francisco de la Torre any better than the style, thoughts, and forms of the few poems which may be found in the Cancionero of 1573, at ff. 124-127, etc., do with those published by Quevedo.

[484] He was exiled there in 1628, for six months, as well as imprisoned there in 1620. Obras, Tom. X. p. 88.

[485] It is among the suspicious circumstances accompanying the first publication of the Bachiller de la Torre’s works, that one of the two persons who give the required Aprobaciones is Vander Hammen, who played the sort of trick upon the public of which Quevedo is accused; a vision he wrote being, to this day, printed as Quevedo’s own, in Quevedo’s works. The other person who gives an Aprobacion to the Bachiller de la Torre is Valdivielso, a critic of the seventeenth century, whose name often occurs in this way; whose authority on such points is small; and who does not say that he ever saw the manuscript or the Approbation of Ercilla. See, for Vander Hammen, post, [p. 273].

[486] These works, chiefly theological, metaphysical, and ascetic, fill more than six of the eleven octavo volumes that constitute Quevedo’s works in the edition of 1791-94, and belong to the class of didactic prose.

[487] Watt, in his Bibliotheca, art. Quevedo, cites an edition of “El Gran Tacaño,” at Zaragoza, 1626; but I do not find it mentioned elsewhere. I know of none earlier than that of 1627. Since that time, it has appeared in the original in a great number of editions, both at home and abroad. Into Italian it was translated by P. Franco, as early as 1634; into French by Genest, the well-known translator of that period, as early as 1644; and into English, anonymously, as early as 1657. Many other versions have been made since;—the last, known to me, being one of Paris, 1843, 8vo, by A. Germond de Lavigne. His translation is made with spirit; but, besides that he has thrust into it passages from other works of Quevedo, and a story by Salas Barbadillo, he has made a multitude of petty additions, alterations, and omissions; some desirable, perhaps, from the indecency of the original, others not; and winds off the whole with a conclusion of his own, which savors of the sentimental and extravagant school of Victor Hugo. There is, also, a translation of it into English, in a collection of some of Quevedo’s works, printed at Edinburgh, in 3 vols., 8vo, 1798; and a German translation in Bertuch’s Magazin der Spanischen und Portug. Litteratur (Dessau, 1781, 8vo, Band II.). But neither of them is to be commended for its fidelity.

[488] They are in Vols. I. and II. of the edition of his Works, Madrid, 1791, 8vo.

[489] The “Cartas del Cavallero de la Tenaza” were first printed, I believe, in 1635; and there is a very good translation of them in Band I. of the Magazin of Bertuch, an active man of letters, the friend of Musäus, Wieland, and Goethe, who, by translations and in other ways, did much, between 1769 and 1790, to promote a love for Spanish literature in Germany.

[490] I know of no edition of “La Fortuna con Seso” earlier than one I possess, printed at Zaragoza, 1650, 12mo; and as N. Antonio declares this satire to have been a posthumous work, I suppose there is none older. It is there said to be translated from the Latin of Rifroscrancot Viveque Vasgel Duacense; an imperfect anagram of Quevedo’s own name, Francisco Quevedo Villegas.

[491] One of these Sueños is dated as early as 1608,—the “Zahurdas de Pluton”; but none, I think, was printed earlier than 1627; and all the six that are certainly by Quevedo were first printed together in a small collection of his satirical works that appeared at Barcelona, in 1635, entitled “Juguetes de la Fortuna.” They were translated into French by Genest, and printed in 1641. Into English they were very freely rendered by Sir Roger L’Estrange, and published in 1668 with such success, that the tenth edition of them was printed at London in 1708, 8vo, and I believe there was yet one more. This is the basis of the translations of the Visions found in Quevedo’s Works, Edinburgh, 1798, Vol. I., and in Roscoe’s Novelists, 1832, Vol. II. All the translations I have seen are bad. The best is that of L’Estrange, or at least the most spirited; but still L’Estrange is not always faithful when he knew the meaning, and he is sometimes unfaithful from ignorance. Indeed, the great popularity of his translations was probably owing, in some degree, to the additions he boldly made to his text, and the frequent accommodations he hazarded of its jests to the scandal and taste of his times by allusions entirely English and local.

[492] The six unquestioned Sueños are in Tom. I. of the Madrid edition of Quevedo, 1791. The “Casa de los Locos de Amor” is in Tom. II.; and as N. Antonio (Bib. Nov., I. 462, and II. 10) says Vander Hammen, a Spanish author of Flemish descent, told him that he wrote it himself, we are bound to take it from the proper list of Quevedo’s works.

[493] Obras, Tom. VII. p. 289.

[494] A violent attack was made on Quevedo, ten years before his death, in a volume entitled “El Tribunal de la Justa Venganza,” printed at Valencia, 1635, 12mo, pp. 294, and said to be written by the Licenciado Arnaldo Franco-Furt; probably a pseudonyme. It is thrown into the form of a trial, before regular judges, of the satirical works of Quevedo then published; and, except when the religious prejudices of the author prevail over his judgment, is not more severe than Quevedo’s license merited. No honor, however, is done to his genius or his wit; and personal malice seems apparent in many parts of it.

In 1794, Sancha printed, at Madrid, a translation of Anacreon, with notes by Quevedo, making 160 pages, but not numbering them as a part of the eleventh volume, 8vo, of Quevedo’s Works, which he completed that year. They are more in the terse and classical manner of the Bachiller de la Torre than the same number of pages anywhere among Quevedo’s acknowledged works; but the translation is not very strict, and the spirit of the original is not so well caught as it is by Estévan Manuel de Villegas, whose “Eróticas” will be noticed hereafter. The version of Quevedo is dedicated to the Duke of Ossuna, his patron, Madrid, 1st April, 1609. Villegas did not publish till 1617; but it is not likely that he knew any thing of the labors of Quevedo.

[495] Quintana, Historia de Madrid, 1630, folio, Lib. III., c. 24-26. Cabrera, Historia de Felipe II., Madrid, 1619, folio, Lib. V., c. 9; where he says Charles V. had intended to make Madrid his capital.

[496] The “Comedia Jacobina” is found in a curious and rare volume of religious poetry, entitled “Libro de Poesía, Christiana, Moral, y Divina,” por el Doctor Frey Damian de Vegas (Toledo, 1590, 12mo, ff. 503). It contains a poem on the Immaculate Conception, long the turning-point of Spanish orthodoxy; a colloquy between the Soul, the Will, and the Understanding, which may have been represented; and a great amount of religious poetry, both lyric and didactic, much of it in the old Spanish measures, and much in the Italian, but none better than the mass of poor verse on such subjects then in favor.

[497] It is ascertained that the Canon Tarrega lived at Valencia in 1591, and wrote eleven plays, two of which are known only by their titles. The rest were printed at Madrid in 1614, and again in 1616. Cervantes praises him in the Preface to his Comedias, 1615, among the early followers of Lope, for his discrecion é inumerables conceptos. It is evident from the notice of the “Enemiga Favorable,” by the wise canon in Don Quixote, that it was then regarded as the best of its author’s plays, as it has been ever since. Rodriguez, Biblioteca Valentina, Valencia, 1747, folio, p. 146. Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Valencia, 1747, Tom. I. p. 240. Fuster, Biblioteca Valentina, Valencia, 1827, folio, Tom. I. p. 310. Don Quixote, Parte I., c. 48.

[498] This farce, much like an entremes or saynete of modern times, is a quarrel between two lackeys for a damsel of their own condition, which ends with one of them being half drowned by the other in a public fountain. It winds up with a ballad older than itself; for it alludes to a street as being about to be constructed through Leganitos, while one of the personages in the farce speaks of the street as already there. The fountain is appropriately introduced, for Leganitos was famous for it. (See Cervantes, Ilustre Fregona, and D. Quixote, Parte II., c. 22, with the note of Pellicer.) Such little circumstances abound in the popular portions of the old Spanish drama, and added much to its effect at the time it appeared.

[499] The “Enemiga Favorable” is divided into three jornadas called actos, and shows otherwise that it was constructed on the model of Lope’s dramas. But Tarrega wrote also at least one religious play, “The Foundation of the Order of Mercy.” It is the story of a great robber who becomes a great saint, and may have suggested to Calderon his “Devocion de la Cruz.”

[500] Laurel de Apolo, (Madrid, 1630, 4to, f. 21), where Lope says, speaking of Tarrega, “Gaspar Aguilar competia con él en la dramática poesía.”

[501]

Dios me guarde de hombre

Que tan pronto se consuela,

Que lo mismo hará de mí.

Mercader Amante, Jorn. I.

Quieres ver que no eres hombre,

Pues el ser tuyo has perdido;

Y que de aquello que has sido,

No te queda sino el nombre?

Haz luego un alarde aquí

De tu perdida notoria;

Toma cuenta á tu memoria;

Pide á tí mismo por tí,

Verás que no eres aquel

A quien dí mi corazon.

Ibid., Jorn. II.

[502] The accounts of Aguilar are found in Rodriguez, pp. 148, 149, and in Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 255, who, as is often the case, has done little but arrange in better order the materials collected by Rodriguez. Aguilar’s nine plays are in collections printed at Valencia in 1614 and 1616, mingled with the plays of other poets. A copy of the “Suerte sin Esperanza” which I possess, without date or paging, seems older.

[503] In the note of Cerdá y Rico to the “Diana” of Gil Polo, 1802, pp. 515-519, is an account of this Academy, and a list of its members.

[504] Rodriguez, p. 177; Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 305; Fuster, Tom. I. p. 235. The last is important on this subject.

[505] Both these plays are in the first volume of his Comedias, printed in 1614; but I have the Don Quixote in a separate pamphlet, without paging or date, and with rude wood-cuts, such as belong to the oldest Spanish publications of the sort. The first time Don Quixote appears in it, the stage direction is, “Enter Don Quixote on Rozinante, dressed as he is described in his book.” The redondillas in this drama, regarded as mere verses, are excellent; e. g. Cardenio’s lamentations at the end of the first act:—

Donde me llevan los pies

Sin la vida? El seso pierdo;

Pero como seré cuerdo

Si fué traydor el Marques?

Que cordura, que concierto,

Tendré yo, si estoy sin mí?

Sin ser, sin alma y sin tí?

Ay, Lucinda, que me has muerto!—

and so on. Guerin de Bouscal, one of a considerable number of French dramatists (see Puybusque, Tom. II. p. 441) who resorted freely to Spanish sources between 1630 and 1650, brought this drama of Guillen on the French stage in 1638.

[506] It is in the second volume of Guillen’s plays; but it is also in the “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” etc., Madrid, 1652.

[507] This comedia de santo does not appear in the collection of Guillen’s plays; but my copy of it (Madrid, 1729) attributes it to him, and so does the Catalogue of Huerta; besides which, the internal evidence from its versification and manner is strong for its genuineness. The passages in which the lady speaks of Christ as her lover and spouse are, like all such passages in the old Spanish drama, offensive to Protestant ears.

[508] Fr. Santos, “El Verdad en el Potro, y el Cid resuscitado,” (Madrid, 1686, 12mo), contains (pp. 9, 10, 51, 106, etc.) ballads on the Cid, as he says they were then sung in the streets by the blind beggars. The same or similar statements are made by Sarmiento, nearly a century later.

[509]

Diego.

No la ovejuela su pastor perdido,

Ni el leon que sus hijos le han quitado,

Balo quejosa, ni bramo ofendido,

Como yo por Rodrigo. Ay, hijo amado!

Voy abrazando sombras descompuesto

Entre la oscura noche que ha cerrado.

Díle la seña, y señaléle el puesto,

Donde acudiese, en sucediendo el caso.

Si me habrá sido inobediente en esto?

Pero no puede ser; mil penas paso!

Algun inconveniente le habrá hecho,

Mudando la opinion, torcer el paso.

Que helada sangre me rebienta el pecho!

Si es muerto, herido, ó preso? Ay, Cielo santo!

Y quantas cosas de pesar sospecho!

Que siento? es él? mas no meresco tanto.

Será que corresponden á mis males

Los ecos de mi voz y de mi llanto.

Pero entre aquellos secos pedregales

Vuelvo á oir el galope de un caballo.

De él se apea Rodrigo! hay dichas tales?

Sale Rodrigo.

Hijo?

Cid.

Padre?

Diego.

Es posible que me hallo

Entre tus brazos? Hijo, aliento tomo

Para en tus alabanzas empleallo.

Como tardaste tanto? pues de plomo

Te puso mi deseo; y pues veniste,

No he de cansarte pregando el como.

Bravamente probaste! bien lo hiciste!

Bien mis pasados brios imitaste!

Bien me pagaste el ser que me debiste!

Toca las blancas canas que me honraste,

Llega la tierna boca á la mexilla

Donde la mancha de mi honor quitaste!

Soberbia el alma á tu valor se humilla,

Como conservador de la nobleza,

Que ha honrado tantos Reyes en Castilla.

Mocedades del Cid, Primera Parte, Jorn. II.

[510] This impeachment of the honor of the whole city of Zamora, for having harboured the murderer of King Sancho, fills a large place in the “Crónica General,” (Parte IV.), in the “Crónica del Cid,” and in the old ballads, and is called El Reto de Zamora,—a form of challenge preserved in this play of Guillen, and recognized as a legal form so far back as the Partida VII., Tít. III., “De los Rieptos.”

[511] The plays of Guillen on the Cid have often been reprinted, though hardly one of his other dramas has been. Voltaire, in his Preface to Corneille’s Cid, says Corneille took his hints from Diamante. But the reverse is the case. Diamante wrote after Corneille, and was indebted to him largely, as we shall see hereafter. Lord Holland’s Life of Guillen, already referred to, ante, [p. 121], is interesting, though imperfect.

[512] “Las Maravillas de Babilonia” is not in Guillen’s collected dramas, and is not mentioned by Rodriguez or Fuster. But it is in a volume entitled “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” Madrid, 1652, 4to.

[513] Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 68, and Montalvan, Para Todos, in his catalogue of authors who wrote for the stage when (in 1632) that catalogue was made out. Guevara will be noticed again as the author of the “Diablo Cojuelo.”

[514] Crónica de D. Sancho el Bravo, Valladolid, 1554, folio, f. 76.

[515] Quintana, Vidas de Españoles Célebres, Tom. I., Madrid, 1807, 12mo, p. 51, and the corresponding passage in the play. Martinez de la Rosa, in his “Isabel de Solís,” describing a real or an imaginary picture of the death of the young Guzman, gives a tender turn to the father’s conduct; but the hard old chronicle is more likely to tell the truth, and the play follows it.

[516] The copy I use of this play was printed in 1745. Like most of the other published dramas of Guevara, it has a good deal of bombast, and some Gongorism. But a lofty tone runs through it, that always found an echo in the Spanish character.

[517] The “Luna de la Sierra” is the first play in the “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” 1652.

[518] The plays last mentioned are found scattered in different collections,—“The Devil’s Lawsuit” being in the volume just cited, and “The Devil’s Court” in the twenty-eighth volume of the Comedias Escogidas. My copy of the “Tres Portentos” is a pamphlet without date. Fifteen of the plays of Guevara are in the collection of Comedias Escogidas, to be noticed hereafter.

[519] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 157;—a good life of Montalvan.

[520] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XI. pp. 501, 537, etc., and Tom. XII. p. 424.

[521] Para Todos, Alcalá, 1661, 4to, p. 428.

[522] It went through several editions as a book of devotion,—the last I have seen being of 1739, 18mo.

[523] Para Todos, 1661, p. 529, (prepared in 1632), where he speaks also of a picaresque novela, “Vida de Malhagas,” and other works, as ready for the press; but they have never been printed.

[524] “Lágrimas Panegiricas á la Temprana Muerte del Gran Poeta, etc., J. Perez de Montalvan,” por Pedro Grande de Terra, Madrid, 1639, 4to, ff. 164. Quevedo, Montalvan’s foe, is the only poet of note whom I miss.

[525] “Orfeo en Lengua Castellana,” por J. P. de Montalvan, Madrid, 1624, 4to. N. Ant., Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 757, and Lope de Vega, Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, in the Preface to which he says the Orfeo of Montalvan “contains whatever can contribute to its perfection.”

[526] His complaints are as loud as Lope’s or Calderon’s, and are to be found in the Preface to the first volume of his plays, Alcalá, 1638, 4to, and in his “Para Todos,” 1661, p. 169.

[527] The date of the first volume is 1639 on the title-page, but 1638 at the end.

[528] It should perhaps be added, that another religious play of Montalvan, “El Divino Nazareno Sanson,” containing the history of Samson from the contest with the lion to the pulling down of the Philistine temple, is less offensive.

[529] I shall have occasion to recur to this subject when I notice a long poem published on it by Yague de Salas, in 1616. The story used by Montalvan is founded on a tradition already employed for the stage, but with an awkward and somewhat coarse plot, and a poor versification, by Andres Rey de Artieda, in his “Amantes,” published in 1581, and by Tirso de Molina, in his “Amantes de Teruel,” 1635. These two plays, however, had long been forgotten, when an abstract of the first, and the whole of the second, appeared in the fifth volume of Aribau’s “Biblioteca” (Madrid, 1848); a volume which contains thirty-six well-selected plays of Tirso de Molina, with valuable prefatory discussions of his life and works. There can be no doubt, from a comparison of the “Amantes de Teruel” of Tirso with that of Montalvan, printed three years later, that Montalvan was largely indebted to his predecessor; but he has added to his drama much that is beautiful, and given to parts of it a tone of domestic tenderness that, I doubt not, he drew from his own nature. Aribau, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Tom. V. pp. xxxvii. and 690.

[530] “El Principe Don Carlos” is the first play in the twenty-eighth volume of the Comedias Escogidas, 1667, and gives an account of the miraculous cure of the Prince from an attack of insanity; the other, entitled “El Segundo Seneca de España,” is the first play in his “Para Todos,” and ends with the marriage of the king to Anne of Austria, and the appointment of Don John as generalissimo of the League.

[531] Henry IV. is in “El Mariscal de Viron”; Don John in the play that bears his name.

[532] Both of them are in the fifth day’s entertainments of his “Para Todos.”

[533] Preface to “Para Todos.”

[534] The story of “El Zeloso Estremeño” is altered from that of the same name by Cervantes, but is indebted to it largely, and takes the names of several of its personages. At the end of the play entitled “De un Castigo dos Venganzas,” a play full of horrors, Montalvan declares the plot to be—

Historia tan verdadera,

Que no ha cincuenta semanas,

Que sucedió.

Almost all his plays are founded on exciting and interesting tales.

[535] Pellicer de Tobar, in the “Lágrimas,” etc., ut supra, gives this account of his friend Montalvan’s literary theories, pp. 146-152. In the more grave parts of his plays, he says, Montalvan employed octavas, canciones, and silvas; in the tender parts, décimas, glosas, and other similar forms; and romances everywhere; but that he avoided dactyles and blank verse, as unbecoming and hard. All this, however, is only the system of Lope, in his “Arte Nuevo,” a little amplified.

[536] Para Todos, 1661, p. 508.

[537] Ibid., p. 158.

[538] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 202.

[539] Quevedo, Obras, Tom. XI., 1794, pp. 125, 163. An indignant answer was made to Quevedo, in the “Tribunal de la Justa Venganza,” already noticed.

[540] Deleytar Aprovechando, Madrid, 1765, 2 tom., 4to, Prólogo. Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 267.

[541] Of these five volumes, containing fifty-nine plays, and a number of entremeses and ballads, whose titles are given in Aribau’s Biblioteca, (Madrid, 1848, Tom. V. p. xxxvi.), I have never seen but four, and have been able with difficulty to collect between thirty and forty separate plays. Their author says, however, in the Preface to his “Cigarrales de Toledo,” (1624), that he had written three hundred; and I believe about eighty have been printed.

[542] There are some details in this part of Lope’s play, such as the mention of a walking stone statue, which leave no doubt in my mind that Tirso de Molina used it. Lope’s play is in the twenty-fourth volume of his Comedias (Zaragoza, 1632); but it is one of his dramas that have continued to be reprinted and read.

[543] For the way in which this truly Spanish fiction was spread through Italy to France, and then, by means of Molière, throughout the rest of Europe, see Parfaicts, “Histoire du Théatre François” (Paris, 12mo, Tom. VIII., 1746, p. 255; Tom. IX., 1746, pp. 3 and 343; and Tom. X., 1747, p. 420); and Cailhava, “Art de la Comédie” (Paris, 1786, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 175). Shadwell’s “Libertine” (1676) is substantially the same story, with added atrocities; and, if I mistake not, is the foundation of the short drama which has often been acted on the American stage. Shadwell’s own play is too gross to be tolerated anywhere now-a-days, and besides has no literary merit.

[544] That the popularity of the mere fiction of Don Juan has been preserved in Spain may be seen from the many recent versions of it; and especially from the two plays of “Don Juan Tenorio,” by Zorrilla, (1844), and his two poems, “El Desafío del Diablo,” and “Un Testigo de Bronce,” (1845), hardly less dramatic than the plays that had preceded them.

[545] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, ad ann.

[546] The “Vergonzoso en Palacio” was printed as early as 1624, in the “Cigarrales de Toledo,” (Madrid, 1624, 4to, p. 100), and took its name, I suppose, from a Spanish proverb, “Mozo vergonzoso no es para palacio.”

[547] “Todo es dar en una Cosa.”

[548] “Por el Sotano y el Torno.”

[549] “Escarmientos para Cuerdos.”

[550] Cigarrales de Toledo, 1624, pp. 183-188.

[551] The notices of Mira de Mescua, or Amescua, as he is sometimes called, are scattered like his works. He is mentioned in Roxas, “Viage” (1602); and I have his “Desgraciada Raquel,” both in a printed copy, where it is attributed to Diamante, and in an autograph MS., where it is sadly cut up to suit the ecclesiastical censors, whose permission to represent it is dated April 10th, 1635. Guevara indicates his birthplace and ecclesiastical office in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco VI. Antonio (Bib. Nov., ad verb.) gives him extravagant praise, and says that his dramas were collected and published together. But this, I believe, is a mistake. Like his shorter poems, they can be found only separate, or in collections made for other purposes. See also, in relation to Mira de Mescua, Montalvan, Para Todos, the Catalogue at the end; and Pellicer, Biblioteca, Tom. I. p. 89. The story on which the “Raquel” is founded is a fiction, and therefore need not so much have disturbed the censors of the theatre. (Castro, Crónica de Sancho el Deseado, Alonso el Octavo, etc., Madrid, 1665, folio, pp. 90, etc.) Two autos by Mira de Mescua are to be found in “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” Madrid, 1664, 4to.

[552] Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 821. His dramatic works which I possess are “Doce Autos Sacramentales y dos Comedias Divinas,” por el Maestro Joseph de Valdivielso, Toledo, 1622, 4to, 183 leaves. Compare the old ballad, “Ya cabalga Diego Ordoñez,” which can be traced to the Romancero of 1550-1555, with the “Crónica del Cid,” c. 66, and the “Cautivos Libres,” f. 25. a. of the Doce Autos. It will show how the old ballads rung in the ears of all men, and penetrated everywhere into Spanish poetry. There is a nacimiento of Valdivielso in the “Navidad y Corpus Christi,” mentioned in the preceding note; but it is very slight and poor.

[553] His works were not collected till long after his death, which happened in 1644, and were then printed from a MS. found in the library of the Archbishop of Lisbon, Luis de Souza, under the affected title, “El Fenix Castellano, D. Antonio de Mendoza, renascido,” etc. (Lisboa, 1690, 4to). The only notices of consequence that I find of him are in Montalvan’s “Para Todos,” and in Antonio, Bib. Nova, where he is called Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza; probably a mistake, for he does not seem to have belonged to the old Santillana family. A second edition of his works, with trifling additions, appeared at Madrid in 1728, 4to.

[554] Alarcon seems, in consequence of these remonstrances, or perhaps in consequence of the temper in which they were made, to have drawn upon himself a series of attacks, from the poets of the time, Góngora, Lope de Vega, Mendoza, Montalvan, and others. See Puibusque, Histoire Comparée des Littératures Espagnole et Française, 2 tom., 8vo, Paris, 1843, Tom. II. pp. 155-164, and 430-437;—a book written with much taste and knowledge of the subject to which it relates. It gained the prize of 1842.

[555] Repertorio Americano, Tom. III. p. 61, Tom. IV. p. 93; Denis, Chroniques de l’Espagne, Paris, 1839, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 231; Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXVIII., 1667, p. 131. Corneille’s opinion of the “Verdad Sospechosa,” which is often misquoted, is to be found in his “Examen du Menteur.” I will only add, in relation to Alarcon, that, in “Nunca mucho costó poco,” he has given us the character of an imperious old nurse, which is well drawn, and made effective by the use of picturesque, but antiquated, words and phrases.

[556] The plays of these authors are found in the large collection entitled “Comedias Escogidas,” Madrid, 1652-1704, 4to, with the exception of those of Sanchez and Villaizan, which I possess separate. Of Belmonte, there are eleven in the collection, and of Godinez, five. Those of Miguel Sanchez, who was very famous in his time, and obtained the addition to his name of El Divino, are nearly all lost.

[557] The plays of Salas Barbadillo, viz., “Victoria de España y Francia,” and “El Galan Tramposo y Pobre,” are in his “Coronas del Parnaso,” left for publication at his death, but not printed till 1635, Madrid, 12mo.

[558] It is called “El Mayorazgo,” and is found with its loa at the end of the author’s “Alivios de Casandra,” 1640.

[559] These are, “Las Firmezas de Isabela,” “El Doctor Carlino,” and “La Comedia Venatoria,”—the last two unfinished, and the very last allegorical.

[560] The play written to please the Count Duke was by Quevedo and Antonio de Mendoza, and was entitled “Quien mas miente medra mas,”—He that lies most will rise most. (C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Tom. I. p. 177.) This play is lost, unless, as I suspect, it is the “Empeños del Mentir” that occurs in Mendoza’s Works, 1690, pp. 254-296. There are also four entremeses of Quevedo in his Works, 1791, Vol. IX.

[561] Philip IV. was a lover of letters. Translations of Francesco Guicciardini’s “Wars in Italy,” and of the “Description of the Low Countries,” by his nephew, Luigi Guicciardini, made by him, and preceded by a well-written Prólogo, are said to be in the National Library at Madrid. (C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 162; Huerta, Teatro Hespañol, Madrid, 1785, 12mo, Parte I., Tom. III. p. 159; and Ochoa, Teatro, Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. V. p. 98.) “King Henry the Feeble” is also among the plays most confidently ascribed to Philip IV., who is said to have often joined in improvisating dramas, an amusement well known at the court of Madrid, and at the hardly less splendid court of the Count de Lemos at Naples. C. Pellicer, Teatro, Tom. I. p. 163, and J. A. Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, Tom. I. pp. 90-92, where a curious account, already referred to, is given of one of these Neapolitan exhibitions, by Estrada, who witnessed it.

[562] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 184, note; Suplemento al Índice, etc., 1805; and an excellent article by Louis de Vieil Castel, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1840. To these should be added the pleasant description given by Blanco White, in his admirable “Doblado’s Letters,” (1822, pp. 163-169), of a representation he himself witnessed of the “Diablo Predicador,” in the court-yard of a poor inn, where a cow-house served for the theatre, or rather the stage, and the spectators, who paid less than twopence apiece for their places, sat in the open air, under a bright, starry sky.

[563] El Pinciano, Filosofía Antigua Poética, Madrid, 1596, 4to, p. 381, etc.; Andres Rey de Artieda, Discursos, etc., de Artemidoro, Çaragoça, 1605, 4to, f. 87; C. de Mesa, Rimas, Madrid, 1611, 12mo, ff. 94, 145, 218, and his Pompeyo, Madrid, 1618, 12mo, with its Dedicatoria; Cascales, Tablas Poéticas, Murcia, 1616, 4to, Parte II.; C. S. de Figueroa, Pasagero, Madrid, 1617, 12mo, Alivio tercero; Est. M. de Villegas, Eróticas, Najera, 1617, 4to, Segunda Parte, f. 27; Los Argensolas, Rimas, Zaragoza, 1634, 4to, p. 447. I have arranged them according to their dates, because, in this case, the order of time is important, and because it should be noticed that all come within the period of Lope’s success as a dramatist.

[564] D. Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. III. p. 402, note.

[565] Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, Tom. I. p. 11.

[566] As a set-off to this alleged religious effect of the comedias de santos, we have, in the Address that opens the “Tratado de las Comedias,” (1618), by Bisbe y Vidal, an account of a young girl who was permitted to see the representation of the “Conversion of Mary Magdalen” several times, as an act of devotion, and ended her visits to the theatre by falling in love with the actor that personated the Saviour, and running off with him, or rather following him to Madrid.

[567] The account, however, was sometimes the other way. Bisbe y Vidal (f. 98) says that the hospitals made such efforts to sustain the theatres, in order to get an income from them afterwards, that they themselves were sometimes impoverished by the speculations they ventured to make; and adds, that in his time (c. 1618) there was a person alive, who, as a magistrate of Valencia, had been the means of such losses to the hospital of that city, through its investments and advances for the theatre, that he had entered a religious house, and given his whole fortune to the hospital, to make up for the injury he had done it.

[568] Roxas (1602) gives an amusing account of the nicknames and resources of eight different kinds of strolling companies of actors, beginning with the bululu, which boasted of but one person, and going up to the full compañía, which was required to have seventeen. (Viage, Madrid, 1614, 12mo, ff. 51-53.) These nicknames and distinctions were long known in Spain. Four of them occur in “Estebanillo Gonzalez,” 1646, c. 6.

[569] On the whole subject of the contest between the Church and the theatre, and the success of Lope and his school, see C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 118-122, and 142-157; Don Quixote, ed. J. A. Pellicer, Parte II., c. 11, note; Roxas, Viage, 1614, passim (f. 66, implying that he wrote in 1602); Montalvan, Para Todos, 1661, p. 543; Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. p. 66; and many other parts of Vols. XX. and XXI.;—all showing the triumph of Lope and his school. A letter of Francisco Cascales to Lope de Vega, published in 1634, in defence of plays and their representation, is the third in the second decade of his Epistles; but it goes on the untenable ground, that the plays then represented were liable to no objection on the score of morals.

[570] There has been some discussion, and a general error, about the date of Calderon’s birth; but in a rare book, entitled “Obelisco Fúnebre,” published in his honor, by his friend Gaspar Augustin de Lara, (Madrid, 1684, 4to), written immediately after Calderon’s death, it is distinctly stated, on the authority of Calderon himself, that he was born Jan. 17th, 1600. This settles all doubts. The certificate of baptism given in Baena, “Hijos de Madrid,” Tom. IV. p. 228, only says that he was baptized Feb. 14th, 1600; but why that ceremony, contrary to custom, was so long delayed, or why a person in the position of Vera Tassis y Villarroel, who, like Lara, was a friend of Calderon, should have placed the poet’s birth on January 1st, we cannot now even conjecture.

[571] See the learned genealogical introduction to the “Obelisco Fúnebre,” just cited. The name of Calderon, as its author tells us, came into the family in the thirteenth century, when one of its number, being prematurely born, was supposed to be dead, but was ascertained to be alive by being unceremoniously thrown into a caldron—calderon—of warm water. As he proved to be a great man, and was much favored by St. Ferdinand and Alfonso the Wise, his nickname became a name of honor, and five caldrons were, from that time, borne in the family arms. The additional surname of Barca came in later, with an estate—solar—of one of the house, who afterwards perished, fighting against the Moors; in consequence of which, a castle, a gauntlet, and the motto, Por la fé moriré, were added to their escutcheon, which, thus arranged, constituted the not inappropriate arms of the poet in the seventeenth century.

[572] See the notice of Calderon’s father in Baena, Tom. I. p. 305; that of Calderon himself, Tom. IV. p. 228; and that of Lope de Vega, Tom. III. p. 350; but, especially, see the different facts about Calderon scattered through the dull prose introduction to the “Obelisco Fúnebre,” and its still more dull poetry. The biographical sketch of him by his friend Vera Tassis y Villarroel, originally prefixed to the fifth volume of his Comedias, and to be found in the first volume of the editions since, is formal, pedantic, and unsatisfactory, like most notices of the old Spanish authors.

[573] His sonnet for this occasion is in Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XI. p. 432; and his octavas are at p. 491. Both are respectable for a youth of twenty. The praises of Lope, which are unmeaning, are at p. 593 of the same volume. Who obtained the prizes at this festival of 1620 is not known.

[574] The different pieces offered by Calderon for the festival of May 17, 1622, are in Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XII. pp. 181, 239, 303, 363, 384. Speaking of them, Lope (p. 413) says, a prize was given to “Don Pedro Calderon, who, in his tender years, earns the laurels which time is wont to produce only with hoary hairs.” The six or eight poems offered by Calderon at these two poetical joustings are valuable, not only as being the oldest of his works that remain to us, but as being almost the only specimens of his verse that we have, except his dramas. Cervantes, in his Don Quixote, intimates, that, at these poetical contests, the first prize was given from personal favor, or from regard to the rank of the aspirant, and the second with reference only to the merit of the poem presented. (Parte II. c. 18.) Calderon took, on this occasion, only the third prize for a cancion; the first being given to Lope, and the second to Zarate.

[575] Silva VII.

[576] Para Todos, ed. 1661, pp. 539, 540. But these sketches were prepared in 1632.

[577] It has been said that Calderon has given to none of his dramas the title Vera Tassis assigns to this one, viz., “Certámen de Amor y Zelos.” But this is a mistake. No play with this precise title is to be found among his printed works; but it is the last but one in the list of his plays furnished by Calderon himself to the Duke of Veraguas, in 1680.

[578] “He knew how,” says Augustin de Lara, “to unite, by humility and prudence, the duties of an obedient child and a loving father.”

[579] “Murió sin Mecenas.” Aprobacion to the “Obelisco,” dated Oct. 30th, 1683. All that relates to Calderon in this very rare volume is important, because it comes from a friend, and was written,—at least the poetical part of it,—as the author tells us, within fifty-three days after Calderon’s death.

[580] “Estava un auto entonces en los fines, como su autor.” (Obelisco, Canto I., st. 22. See also a sonnet at the end of the volume.) Solís, the historian, in one of his letters, says, “Our friend Don Pedro Calderon is just dead, and went off, as they say the swan does, singing; for he did all he could, even when he was in immediate danger, to finish the second auto for the Corpus. But, after all, he went through only a little more than half of it, and it has been finished in some way or other by Don Melchior de Leon.” (Cartas de N. Antonio y A. Solís, publicadas por Mayans y Siscar, Leon de Francia, 1733, 12mo, p. 75.) I cite three contemporary notices of so small a fact, to show how much consequence was attached to every thing regarding Calderon and his autos.

[581] Lara, in his “Advertencias,” speaks of “the funeral eulogies printed in Valencia.” Vera Tassis mentions them also, without adding that they were printed. A copy of them would be very interesting, as they were the work of “the illustrious gentlemen” of the household of the Duke of Veraguas, Calderon’s friend. The substance of the poet’s will is given in the “Obelisco,” Cant. I., st. 32, 33.

[582] An account of the first monument and its inscription is to be found in Baena, Tom. IV. p. 231; and an account of the removal of the poet’s ashes to the convent of “Our Lady of Atocha” is in the Foreign Quarterly Review, April, 1841, p. 227. An attempt to do still further honor to the memory of Calderon was made by the publication of a life of him, and of poems in his honor by Zamacola, Zorilla, Hartzenbusch, etc., in a folio pamphlet, Madrid, 1840, as well as by a subscription.

[583] His fine capacious forehead is noticed by his eulogist, and is obvious in the print of 1684, which little resembles the copies made from it by later engravers:—

Considerava de su rostro grave

Lo capaz de la frente, la viveza

De los ojos alegres, lo suave

De la voz, etc.

Canto I., st. 41.

[584] Prólogo to the “Obelisco.”

[585] The account of the entrance of the new queen into Madrid, in 1649, written by Calderon, was indeed printed; but it was under the name of Lorenço Ramirez de Prado, who, assisted by Calderon, arranged the festivities of the occasion.

[586] The unpublished works of Calderon, as enumerated by Vera Tassis, Baena, and Lara, are:—

(1.) “Discurso de los Quatro Novísimos”; or what, in the technics of his theology, are called the four last things to be thought upon by man: viz., Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Lara says Calderon read him three hundred octave stanzas of it, and proposed to complete it in one hundred more. It is, no doubt, lost.

(2.) “Tratado defendiendo la Nobleza de la Pintura.”

(3.) “Otro tratado, Defensa de la Comedia.”

(4.) “Otro tratado, sobre el Diluvio General.” These three tratados were probably poems, like the “Discurso.” At least, that on the Deluge is mentioned as such by Montalvan and by Lara.

(5.) “Lágrimas, que vierte un Alma arrepentida á la Hora de la Muerte.” This, however, is not unpublished, though so announced by Vera Tassis. It is a little poem in the ballad measure, which I detected first in a singular volume, where probably it first appeared, entitled “Avisos para la Muerte, escritos por algunos Ingenios de España, á la Devocion de Bernardo de Obiedo, Secretario de su Majestad, etc., publicados por D. Luis Arellano,” Valencia, 1634, 18mo, 90 leaves; reprinted, Zaragoza, 1648, and often besides. It consists of the contributions of thirty poets, among whom are no less personages than Luis Vélez de Guevara, Juan Perez de Montalvan, and Lope de Vega. The burden of Calderon’s poem, which is given with his name attached to it, is “O dulce Jesus mio, no entres, Señor, con vuestro siervo en juicio!” The two following stanzas are a favorable specimen of the whole:—

O quanto el nacer, O quanto,

Al morir es parecido!

Pues, si nacimos llorando,

Llorando tambien morimos.

O dulce Jesus mio, etc.

Un gemido la primera

Salva fué que al mundo hizimos,

Y el último vale que

Le hazemos es un gemido.

O dulce Jesus mio, etc.

How much resembles here our birth

The final hour of all!

Weeping at first we see the earth,

And weeping hear Death’s call.

O, spare me, Jesus, spare me, Saviour dear,

Nor meet thy servant as a Judge severe!

When first we entered this dark world,

We hailed it with a moan;

And when we leave its confines dark,

Our farewell is a groan.

O, spare me, Jesus, spare me, Saviour dear,

Nor meet thy servant as a Judge severe!

The whole of the little volume in which it occurs serves curiously to illustrate Spanish manners, in an age when a minister of state sought spiritual comfort by such means and in such sources.

[587] Lara and Vera Tassis, both personal friends of Calderon, speak of the number of these miscellanies as very great.

[588] There were four volumes in all, and Calderon, in his Preface to the Autos, 1676, seems to admit their genuineness, though he abstains, with apparent caution, from directly declaring it, lest he should seem to imply that their publication had ever been authorized by him.

[589] “All men well know,” says Lara, “that Don Pedro never sent any of his comedias to the press, and that those which were printed were printed against his will.” Obelisco, Prólogo.

[590] The earliest of these fraudulent publications of Calderon’s plays that I have seen is in the very rare collection of “Comedias compuestas por Diferentes Autores,” Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633, 4to, where is Calderon’s “Astrólogo Fingido,” given with a recklessness as to omissions and changes that is the more remarkable, because Escuer, who published the volume, makes great professions of his editorial care and faithfulness. (See f. 191. b.) In the larger collection of Comedias, in forty-eight volumes, begun in 1652, there are fifty-three plays attributed, in whole or in part, to Calderon, some of which are certainly not his, and all of them, so far as I have examined, scandalously corrupted in their text. All of them, too, were printed as early as 1679; that is, two years before Calderon’s death, and therefore before there was sufficient authority for publishing any one of them.

[591] Probably several more may be added to the list of dramas that are attributed to Calderon, and yet are not his. I have observed one, entitled “El Garrote mas bien dado,” in “El Mejor de los Mejores Libros de Comedias Nuevas,” (Madrid, 1653, 4to), where it is inserted with others that are certainly genuine.

[592] This correspondence, so honorable to Calderon, as well as to the head of the family of Columbus, who signs himself proudly, El Almirante Duque,—as Columbus himself had required his descendants always to sign themselves, (Navarrete, Tom. II. p. 229),—is to be found in the “Obelisco,” and again in Huerta, “Teatro Hespañol” (Madrid, 1785, 12mo, Parte II. Tom. III.). The complaints of Calderon about the booksellers are very bitter, as well they might be; for in 1676, in his Preface to his Autos, he says that their frauds took away from the hospitals and other charities—which yet received only a small part of the profits of the theatre—no less than twenty-six thousand ducats annually.

[593] All the loas, however, are not Calderon’s; but it is no longer possible to determine which are not so. “No son todas suyas” is the phrase applied to them in the Prólogo of the edition of 1717.

[594] Vera Tassis tells us, indeed, in his Life of Calderon, that Calderon wrote a hundred saynetes, or short farces; about a hundred autos sacramentales; two hundred loas; and more than one hundred and twenty comedias. But he collected for his edition (Madrid, 1682-91, 9 tom., 4to) only the comedias mentioned in the text, and a few more, probably twelve, intended for an additional volume that never was printed. Nor do any more appear in the edition by Apontes, Madrid, 1760-63, 11 tom., 4to; nor in the more correct one published at Leipzig in 1827-30, 4 bände, 8vo, by J. J. Keil, an accomplished Spanish scholar of that city. It is probable, therefore, that their number will not hereafter be much increased. And yet we know the names of nine plays, recognized by Calderon himself, which are not in any of these collections; and Vera Tassis gives us the names of eight more, in which he says, Calderon, after the fashion of his time, wrote a single act. Some of these ought to be recovered. But though we should be curious to see any of them, we should be more curious, considering how happy Calderon is in many of his graciosos, to see some of the hundred saynetes Vera Tassis mentions, of which not one is known to be extant, though the titles of six or seven are given in Huerta’s catalogue. The autos, being the property of the city of Madrid, and annually represented, were not permitted to be printed for a long time. (Lara, Prólogo.) They were first published in 1717, in 6 volumes, 4to, and they fill the same number of volumes in the edition of Madrid, 1759-60, 4to. These, however, are all the editions of Calderon’s dramatic works, except a sort of counterfeit of that of Vera Tassis, printed at Madrid in 1726, and the selections and single plays printed from time to time both in Spain and in other countries. Two, however, have been undertaken lately in Spain, (1846), and one in Havana, (1840), but probably none of them will be finished. See notices of Calderon, by F. W. V. Schmidt, in the Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur, Bände XVII., XVIII., and XIX., 1822, to which I am much indebted, and which deserve to be printed separately, and preserved.

[595] Roxas, Viage Entretenido, 1614, ff. 51, 52, and many other places.

[596] Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Parte II. c. 11, with the notes.

[597] Voyage d’Espagne, Cologne, 1667, 18mo, with Barbier, Dictionnaire d’Anonymes, Paris, 1824, 8vo, No. 19,281. The auto which the Dutch traveller saw was, no doubt, one of Calderon’s; since Calderon then, and for a long time before and after, furnished the autos for the city of Madrid. Madame d’Aulnoy describes the same gorgeous procession as she saw it in 1679, (Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. III. pp. 52-55), with the impertinent auto, as she calls it, that was performed that year.

[598] La Verdad en el Potro, Madrid, 1686, 12mo, pp. 291, 292. The Dutch traveller had heard the same story, but tells it less well. (Voyage, p. 121.) The Tarasca was no doubt excessively ugly. Montalvan (Comedias, Madrid, 4to, 1638, f. 13) alludes to it for its monstrous deformity.

[599] C. Pellicer, Orígen de las Comedias, 1804, Tom. I. p. 258.

[600] Quevedo, Obras, 1791, Tom. I. p. 386.

[601] It is in the fourth volume of the edition printed at Madrid in 1759.

[602] Viage, 1614, ff. 35-37.

[603] Lope de Vega, Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, f. 133, El Animal de Ungria.

[604] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. xii.

[605] Doblado’s Letters, 1822, pp. 296, 301, 303-309; Madame Calderon’s Life in Mexico, London, 1843, Letters 38 and 39; and Thompson’s Recollections of Mexico, New York, 1846, 8vo, Chap. 11. How much the autos were valued to the last, even by respectable ecclesiastics, may be inferred from the grave admiration bestowed on them by Martin Panzano, chaplain to the Spanish embassy at Turin, in his Latin treatise, “De Hispanorum Literatura,” (Mantuæ, 1759, folio), intended as a defence of his country’s literary claims, in which, speaking of the autos of Calderon, only a few years before they were forbidden, he says they were dramas, “in quibus neque in inveniendo acumen, nec in disponendo ratio, neque in ornando aut venustas, aut nitor, aut majestas desiderantur.”—p. lxxv.

[606] These representations in private houses had long been common. Bisbe y Vidal (Tratado, 1618, c. 18) speaks of them as familiar in Barcelona, and treats them, in his otherwise severe attack on the theatre, with a gentleness that shows he recognized their influence.

[607] It is not easy to make out how much the theatre was really interfered with during these four or five years; but the dramatic writers seem to have felt themselves constrained in their course, more or less, for a part of that time, if not the whole of it. The accounts are to be found in Casiano Pellicer, Orígen, etc., de la Comedia, Tom. I. pp. 216-222, and Tom. II. p. 135;—a work important, but ill digested. Conde, the historian, once told me, that its materials were furnished chiefly by the author’s father, the learned editor of Don Quixote, and that the son did not know how to put them together. A few hints and facts on the subject of the secular drama of this period may also be found in Ulloa y Pereira’s defence of it, written apparently to meet the particular case, but not published till his works appeared in Madrid, 1674, 4to. He contends that there was never any serious purpose to break up the theatre, and that even Philip II. meant only to regulate, not to suppress it. (p. 343.) Don Luis Crespé de Borja, Bishop of Orihuela and ambassador of Philip IV. at Rome, who had previously favored the theatre, made, in Lent, 1646, an attack on it in a sermon, which, when published three years afterwards, excited a considerable sensation, and was answered by Andres de Avila y Heredia, el Señor de la Garena, and sustained by Padre Ignacio Camargo. But nothing of this sort much hindered or helped the progress of the drama in Spain.

[608] The clergy writing loose and immoral plays is only one exemplification of the unsound state of society so often set forth in Madame d’Aulnoy’s Travels in Spain, in 1679-80;—a curious and amusing book, which sometimes throws a strong light on the nature of the religious spirit that so frequently surprises us in Spanish literature. Thus, when she is giving an account of the constant use made of the rosary or chaplet of beads,—a well-known passion in Spain, connected, perhaps, with the Mohammedan origin of the rosary, of which the Christian rosary was made a rival,—she says, “They are going over their beads constantly when they are in the streets, and in conversation; when they are playing ombre, making love, telling lies, or talking scandal. In short, they are for ever muttering over their chaplets; and even in the most ceremonious society it goes on just the same; how devoutly you may guess. But custom is very potent in this country.” Ed. 1693, Tom. II. p. 124.

[609] The “Vida y Purgatorio del Glorioso San Patricio,” of which I have a copy, (Madrid, 1739, 18mo), was long a popular book of devotion, both in Spanish and in French. That Calderon used it is obvious throughout his play. Wright, however, in his pleasant work on St. Patrick’s Purgatory, (London, 1844, 12mo, pp. 156-159), supposes that the French book of devotion was made up chiefly from Calderon’s play; whereas they resemble each other only because both were taken from the Spanish prose work of Montalvan. See ante, [p. 298].

[610] When Enio determines to adventure into the cave of Purgatory, he gravely urges his servant, who is the gracioso of the piece, to go with him; to which the servant replies,—

I never heard before, that any man

Took lackey with him when he went to hell!

No,—to my native village will I haste,

Where I can live in something like content;

Or, if the matter must to goblins come,

I think my wife will prove enough of one

For my purgation.

Comedias, 1760, Tom. II. p. 264.

There is, however, a good deal that is solemn in this wild drama. Enio, when he goes to the infernal world, talks, in the spirit of Dante himself, of

Treading on the very ghosts of men.

[611] See Chapters 4 and 6 of Montalvan’s “Patricio.”

[612] It is beautifully translated by A. W. Schlegel. A drama of Tirso de Molina, “El Condenado por Desconfiado,” goes still more profoundly into the peculiar religious faith of the age, and may well be compared with this play of Calderon, which it preceded. It represents a reverend hermit, Paulo, as losing the favor of God, simply from want of trust in it; while Enrico, a robber and assassin, obtains that favor by an exercise of faith and trust at the last moment of a life which had been filled with the most revolting crimes.

[613] An interesting, but somewhat too metaphysical, discussion of the character of this play, with prefatory remarks on the general merits of Calderon, by Karl Rosenkranz, appeared at Leipzig in 1829, (12mo), entitled, “Ueber Calderon’s Tragödie vom wunderthätigen Magus.”

[614] How completely a light, worldly tone was taken in these plays may be seen in the following words of the Madonna, when she personally gives St. Ildefonso a rich vestment,—the chasuble,—in which he is to say mass:—

Receive this robe, that, at my holy feast,

Thou mayst be seen as such a gallant should be.

My taste must be consulted in thy dress,

Like that of any other famous lady.

Comedias, 1760, Tom. VI. p. 113.

The lightness of tone in this passage is the more remarkable, because the miracle alluded to in it is the crowning glory of the great cathedral of Toledo, on which volumes have been written, and on which Murillo has painted one of his greatest and most solemn pictures.

Figueroa (Pasagero, 1617, ff. 104-106) says, with much truth, in the midst of his severe remarks on the drama of his time, that the comedias de santos were so constructed, that the first act contained the youth of the saint, with his follies and love-adventures; the second, his conversion and subsequent life; and the third, his miracles and death; but that they often had loose and immoral stories to render them attractive. But they were of all varieties; and it is curious, in such a collection dramas as the one in forty-eight volumes, extending over the period from 1652 to 1704, to mark in how many ways the theatre endeavoured to conciliate the Church; some of the plays being filled entirely with saints, demons, angels, and allegorical personages, and deserving the character given to the “Fenix de España,” (Tom. XLIII., 1678), of being sermons in the shape of plays; while others are mere intriguing comedies, with an angel or a saint put in to consecrate their immoralities, like “La Defensora de la Reyna de Ungria,” by Fernando de Zarate, in Tom. XXIX., 1668.

In other countries of Christendom besides those in which the Church of Rome bears sway, this sort of irreverence in relation to things divine has more or less shown itself among persons accounting themselves religious. The Puritans of England in the days of Cromwell, from their belief in the constant interference of Providence about their affairs, sometimes addressed supplications to God in a spirit not more truly devout than that shown by the Spaniards in their autos and their comedias de santos. Both felt themselves to be peculiarly regarded of Heaven, and entitled to make the most peremptory claims on the Divine favor and the most free allusions to what they deemed holy. But no people ever felt themselves to be so absolutely soldiers of the cross as the Spaniards did, from the time of their Moorish wars; no people ever trusted so constantly to the recurrence of miracles in the affairs of their daily life; and therefore no people ever talked of divine things as of matters in their nature so familiar and commonplace. Traces of this state of feeling and character are to be found in Spanish literature on all sides.

[615] “La Púrpura de la Rosa” and “Las Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo” are both of them plays in the national taste, and yet were sung throughout. The last is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lib. IV. and V., and was produced before the court with a magnificent theatrical apparatus. The first, which was written in honor of the marriage of Louis XIV. with the Infanta Maria Teresa, 1660, was also taken from Ovid (Met., Lib. X.); and in the loa that precedes it we are told expressly, “The play is to be wholly in music, and is intended to introduce this style among us, that other nations may see they have competitors for those distinctions of which they boast.” Operas in Spain, however, never had any permanent success, though they had in Portugal.

[616] “Zelos aun del Ayre matan,” which Calderon parodied, is on the same subject with his “Cephalus and Procris,” to which he added, not very appropriately, the story of Erostratus and the burning of the temple of Diana.

[617] For instance, the “Armas de la Hermosura,” on the story of Coriolanus; and the “Mayor Encanto Amor,” on the story of Ulysses.

[618] Calderon was famous for what are called coups de théâtre; so famous, that lances de Calderon became a sort of proverb.

[619]

La novela mas notable

Que en Castellanas comedias,

Sutil el ingenio traza

Y gustoso representa.

El Alcayde de sí mismo, Jorn. II.

[620] No hay Burlas con el Amor, Jorn. II.

[621] Armas de la Hermosura, Jorn. I., II.

[622] Afectos de Odio y Amor, Jorn. II.

[623] El Mayor Monstruo los Zelos, Jorn. III.

[624] La Vírgen del Sagrario, Jorn. I. The pious bishop who is here represented as talking of America, on the authority of Herodotus, is, at the same time, supposed to live seven or eight centuries before America was discovered.

[625]

Un frayle,—mas no es bueno,—

Porque aun no ay en Roma frayles.

Los Dos Amantes del Cielo, Jorn. III.

[626] El Mayor Encanto Amor, Jorn. II.; El Joseph de las Mugeres, Jorn. III., etc.

[627] Huerta, Teatro Hespañol, Parte II., Tom I., Prólogo, p. vii. La Niña de Gomez Arias, Jorn. III.

[628] Compare the eloquent speeches of El Zaguer, in Mendoza, ed. 1776, Lib. I. p. 29, and Malec, in Calderon, Jorn. I.; or the description of the Alpujarras, in the same jornada, with that of Mendoza, p. 43, etc.

[629] The story of Tuzani is found in Chapters XXII., XXIII., and XXIV. of the second volume of Hita’s “Guerras de Granada,” and is the best part of it. Hita says he had the account from Tuzani himself, long afterwards, at Madrid, and it is not unlikely that a great part of it is true. Calderon, though sometimes using its very words, makes considerable alterations in it, to bring it within the forms of the drama; but the leading facts are the same in both cases, and the story belongs to Hita.

[630] While they are fighting in a room, with locked doors, suddenly there is a great bustle and calling without. Mendoza, the Spaniard, asks his adversary,—

What’s to be done?

Tuzani.

First let one fall, and the survivor then

May open straight the doors.

Mendoza.

Well said.

[631] This character of Lope de Figueroa may serve as a specimen of the way in which Calderon gave life and interest to many of his dramas. Lope is an historical personage, and figures largely in the second volume of Hita’s “Guerras,” as well as elsewhere. He was the commander under whom Cervantes served in Italy, and probably in Portugal, when he was in the Tercio de Flándes,—the Flanders regiment,—one of the best bodies of troops in the armies of Philip II. Lope de Figueroa appears again, and still more prominently, in another good play of Calderon, “El Alcalde de Zalamea,” the last in the common collection. Its hero is a peasant, finely sketched, partly from Lope de Vega’s Mendo, in the “Cuerdo en su Casa”; and it is said at the end that it is a true story, whose scene is laid in 1581, at the very time Philip II. was advancing toward Lisbon, and when Cervantes was probably with this regiment at Zalamea.

[632] About this time, there was a strong disposition shown by the overweening sensibility of Spanish loyalty to relieve the memory of Peter the Cruel from the heavy imputations left resting on it by Pedro de Ayala, of which I have taken notice, (Period I., chap. 9, note 17), and of which traces may be found in Moreto, and the other dramatists of the reign of Philip IV. Pedro appears also in the “Niña de Plata” of Lope de Vega, but with less strongly marked attributes.

[633]

El amor te adora, el honor te aborrece,

Y así el uno te mata, y el otro te avisa:

Dos horas tienes de vida; Christiana eres;

Salva el alma, que la vida es imposible.

Jorn. III.

[634]

Don Gutierre.

Assomate á esse aposento;

Que ves en él?

Lud.

Una imagen

De la muerte, un bulto veo,

Que sobre una cama yaze;

Dos velas tiene a los lados

Y un Crucifixo delante:

Quien es, no puedo decir,

Que con unos tafetanes

El rostro tiene cubierto.

Ibid.

[635]

Rey.

Para todo avrá remedio.

D. Gut.

Posible es que á esto le aya?

Rey.

Sí, Gutierre.

D. Gut.

Qual, Señor?

Rey.

Uno vuestro.

D. Gut.

Que es?

Rey.

Sangrarla.

D. Gut.

Que dices?

Rey.

Que hagais borrar

Las puertas de vuestra casa,

Que ay mano sangrienta en ellas.

D. Gut.

Los que de un oficio tratan,

Ponen, Señor, á las puertas

Un escudo de sus armas.

Trato en honor; y assi, pongo

Mi mano en sangre bañada

A la puerta, que el honor

Con sangre, Señor, se laba.

Rey.

Dadsela, pues, á Leonor,

Que yo sé que su alabanza

La merece.

D. Gut.

Sí, la doy

Mas mira que va bañada

En sangre, Leonor.

Leon.

No importa,

Que no me admira, ni espanta.

D. Gut.

Mira que medico he sido

De mi honra; no está olvidada

La ciencia.

Leon.

Cura con ella

Mi vida en estando mala.

D. Gut.

Pues con essa condicion

Te la doy.

Jorn. III.

[636] “El Médico de su Honra,” Comedias, Tom. VI.

[637] “El Pintor de su Deshonra,” Comedias, Tom. XI.

[638] “A Secreto Agravio, Secreta Venganza,” Comedias, Tom. VI. Calderon, at the end, vouches for the truth of the shocking story, which he represents as founded on facts that occurred at Lisbon just before the embarkation of Don Sebastian for Africa, in 1578.

[639] “El Mayor Monstruo los Zelos,” Comedias, Tom. V.

[640] Josephus de Bello Judaico, Lib. I. c. 17-22, and Antiq. Judaicæ, Lib. XV. c. 2, etc. Voltaire has taken the same story for the subject of his “Mariamne,” first acted in 1724. There is a pleasant criticism on the play of Calderon in a pamphlet published at Madrid, by Don A. Duran, without his name, in 1828, 18mo, entitled, “Sobre el Influjo que ha tenido la Crítica Moderna en la Decadencia del Teatro Antiguo Español,” pp. 106-112.

[641]

Calla,

Que sé, que tienes razon,

Pero no puedo escucharla.

· · · ·

Esferas altas,

Cielo, sol, luna y estrellas,

Nubes, granizos, y escarchas,

No hay un rayo para un triste?

Pues si aora no los gastas,

Para quando, para quando

Son, Jupiter, tus venganzas?

Jorn. II.

[642]

Ven, muerte, tan escondida,

Que no te sienta venir,

Porque el placer del morir

No me buelva á dar la vida.

Jorn. III.

See, also, Calderon’s “Manos Blancas no ofenden,” Jorn. II., where he has it again; and Cancionero General, 1573, f. 185. Lope de Vega made a gloss on it, (Obras, Tom. XIII. p. 256), and Cervantes repeats it (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 38);—so much was it admired.

[643]

El labio mudo

Quedó al veros, y al oiros

Su aliento le restituyo,

Animada para solo

Deciros, que algun perjuro

Aleve, y traydor, en tanto

Malquisto concepto os puso.

Mi esposo es mi esposo; y quando

Me mate algun error suyo,

No me matará mi error,

Y lo será si dél huyo.

Yo estoy segura, y vos mal

Informado en mis disgustos;

Y quando no lo estuviera,

Matandome un puñal duro,

Mi error no me diera muerte,

Sino mi fatal influxo;

Con que viene á importar menos

Morir inocente, juzgo.

Que vivir culpada á vista

De las malicias del vulgo.

Y assi, si alguna fineza

He de deberos, presumo,

Que la mayor es bolveros.

Jorn. III.

[644] “El Príncipe Constante,” Comedias, Tom. III. It is translated into German by A. W. Schlegel, and has been much admired as an acting play in the theatres of Berlin, Vienna, Weimar, etc.

[645] Colecçaõ de Livros Ineditos de Hist. Port., Lisboa, folio, Tom. I., 1790, pp. 290-294; an excellent work, published by the Portuguese Academy, and edited by the learned Correa de Serra, formerly Minister of Portugal to the United States. The story of Don Ferdinand is also told in Mariana, Historia (Tom. II. p. 345). But the principal resource of Calderon was, no doubt, a life of the Infante, by his faithful friend and follower, Joam Alvares, first printed in 1527, of which an abstract, with long passages from the original, may be found in the “Leben des standhaften Prinzen,” Berlin, 1827, 8vo. To these may be added, for the illustration of the Príncipe Constante, a tract by J. Schulze, entitled “Ueber den standhaften Prinzen,” printed at Weimar, 1811, 12mo, at a time when Schlegel’s translation of that drama, brought out under the auspices of Goethe, was in the midst of its success on the Weimar stage; the part of Don Ferdinand being acted with great power by Wolf. Schulze is quite extravagant in his estimate of the poetical worth of the Príncipe Constante, placing it by the side of the “Divina Commedia”; but he discusses skilfully its merits as an acting drama, and explains, in part, its historical elements.

[646]

No prosigas;—cessa,

Cessa, Enrique, porque son

Palabras indignas essas,

No de un Portugués Infante,

De un Maestre, que professa

De Christo la Religion,

Pero aun de un hombre lo fueran

Vil, de un barbaro sin luz

De la Fé de Christo eterna.

Mi hermano, que está en el Cielo,

Si en su testamento dexa

Essa clausula, no es

Para que se cumpla, y lea,

Sino para mostrar solo,

Que mi libertad desea,

Y essa se busque por otros

Medios, y otras conveniencias,

O apacibles, ó crueles;

Porque decir: Dese á Ceuta,

Es decir: Hasta esso haced

Prodigiosas diligencias;

Que un Rey Católico, y justo

Como fuera, como fuera

Possible entregar á un Moro

Una ciudad que le cuesta

Su sangre, pues fué el primero

Que con sola una rodela,

Y una espada, enarboló

Las Quinas en sus almenas?

Jorn. II.

When we read the Príncipe Constante, we seldom remember that this Don Henry, who is one of its important personages, is the highly cultivated prince who did so much to promote discoveries in India.

[647] “’T is Better than it was” and “Worse and Worse.” “These two comedies,” says Downes, (Roscius Anglicanus, London, 1789, 8vo, p. 36), “were made out of Spanish by the Earl of Bristol.” There can be little doubt that Calderon was the source here referred to. Tuke’s “Adventures of Five Hours,” in Dodsley’s Collection, Vol. XII., is from Calderon’s “Empeños de Seis Horas.” But such instances are rare in the old English drama, compared with the French.

[648] Dryden took, as he admits, “An Evening’s Love, or the Mock Astrologer,” from the “Feint Astrologue” of Thomas Corneille. (Scott’s Dryden, London, 1808, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 229.) Corneille had it from Calderon’s “Astrólogo Fingido.”

[649]

Mas facil sana una herida

Que no una palabra.

And again, in “Amar despues de la Muerte,”—

Una herida mejor

Se sana que una palabra.

Comedias, 1760. Tom. II. p. 352.

[650] “Antes que todo es mi Dama.”

[651] “La Dama Duende,” Comedias, Tom. III.

[652]

Oy el bautismo celebra

Del primero Balthasar.

Jorn. I.

[653] I should think he refers to it eight times, perhaps more, in the course of his plays: e. g. in “Mañanas de Avril y Mayo”; “Agradecer y no Amar”; “El Joseph de las Mugeres,” etc. I notice it, because he rarely alludes to his own works, and never, I think, in the way he does to this one. The Dama Duende is well known in the French “Répertoire” as the “Esprit Follet” of Hauteroche.

[654]

Como sombra se mostró;

Fantástica su luz fué.

Pero como cosa humana,

Se dexó tocar y ver;

Como mortal se temió,

Rezeló como muger,

Como ilusion se deshizó,

Como fantasma se fué:

Si doy la rienda al discurso,

No sé, vive Dios, no sé,

Ni que tengo de dudar,

Ni que tengo de creer.

Jorn. II.

[655] “La Vanda y la Flor,” Comedias, Tom. V. It is admirably translated into German, by A. W. Schlegel.

[656] In Jornada I. there is a full-length description of the Jura de Baltasar,—the act of swearing homage to Prince Balthasar, as Prince of Asturias, which took place in 1632, and which Calderon would hardly have introduced on the stage much later, because the interest in such a ceremony is so short-lived.

[657]

Lisid.

Pues como podeis negarme

Lo mismo que yo estoy viendo?

Enriq.

Negando que vos lo veis.

Lisid.

No fuisteis en el passeo

Sombra de su casa?

Enriq.

Sí.

Lisid.

Estatua de su terrero

No os halló el Alva?

Enriq.

Es verdad.

Lisid.

No la escrivisteis?

Enriq.

No niego,

Que escriví.

Lisid.

No fué la noche

De amantes delitos vuestros

Capa obscura?

Enriq.

Que la hablé

Alguna noche os confiesso.

Lisid.

No es suya essa vanda?

Enriq.

Suya

Pienso que fué.

Lisid.

Pues que es esto?

Si ver, si hablar, si escrivir,

Si traer su vanda al cuello,

Si seguir, si desvelar,

No es amar, yo, Enrique, os ruego

Me digais como se llama,

Y no ignore yo mas tiempo

Una cosa que es tan facil.

Enriq.

Respondaos un argumento:

El astuto cazador,

Que en lo rapido del buelo

Hace á un atomo de pluma

Blanco veloz del acierto,

No adonde la caza está

Pone la mira, advirtiendo,

Que para que el viento peche,

Le importa engañar el viento.

El marinero ingenioso,

Que al mar desbocado, y fiero

Monstruo de naturaleza,

Halló yugo, y puso freno,

No al puerto que solicita

Pone la proa, que haciendo

Puntas al agua, desmiente

Sus iras, y toma puerto.

El capitan que esta fuerza

Intenta ganar, primero

En aquella toca al arma,

Y con marciales estruendos

Engaña á la tierra, que

Mal prevenida del riesgo

La esperaba; assi la fuerza

Le da á partido al ingenio.

La mina, que en las entrañas

De la tierra estrenó el centro,

Artificioso volcan,

Inventado Mongibelo,

No donde preñado oculta

Abismos de horror inmensos

Hace el efecto, porque,

Engañando al mismo fuego,

Aquí concibe, allá aborta;

Allí es rayo, y aquí trueno.

Pues si es cazador mi amor

En las campañas del viento;

Si en el mar de sus fortunas

Inconstante marinero;

Si es caudillo victorioso

En las guerras de sus zelos:

Si fuego mal resistido

En mina de tantos pechos,

Que mucho engañasse en mí

Tantos amantes afectos?

Sea esta vanda testigo;

Porque, volcan, marinero,

Capitan, y cazador;

En fuego, agua, tierra, y viento;

Logre, tenga, alcanze, y tome

Ruina, caza, triunfo, y puerto.

[Dale la vanda.

Lisid.

Bien pensareis que mis quexas,

Mal lisonjeadas con esso,

Os remitan de mi agravio

Las sinrazones del vuestro.

No, Enrique, yo soy muger

Tan sobervia, que no quiero

Ser querida por venganza,

Por tema, ni por desprecio.

El que á mí me ha de querer,

Por mí ha de ser; no teniendo

Conveniencias en quererme

Mas que quererme.

Jorn. II.

[658] I think there are six, at least, of Calderon’s plays taken from the Metamorphoses; a circumstance worth noting, because it shows the direction of his taste. He seems to have used no ancient author, and perhaps no author at all, in his plays, so much as Ovid, who was a favorite classic in Spain, six translations of the Metamorphoses having been made there before the time of Calderon. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 407.

[659] It is possible Calderon may not have gone to the originals, but found his materials nearer at hand; and yet, on a comparison of the triumphal entry of Aurelian into Rome, in the third jornada, with the corresponding passages in Trebellius, “De Triginta Tyrannis,” (c. xxix.), and Vopiscus, “Aurelianus,” (c. xxxiii., xxxiv., etc.), it seems most likely that he had read them.

Sometimes Calderon is indebted to his dramatic predecessors. Thus, his fine play of the “Alcalde de Zalamea” is compounded of the stories in Lope’s “Fuente Ovejuna” and his “Mejor Alcalde el Rey.” But I think his obligations of this sort are infrequent.

[660] For instance, the exact enumeration of the troops at the opening of the play. Comedias, Tom. III. pp. 142, 149.

[661] It ends with a voluntary anachronism,—the resolution of the Emperor to apply to Pope Paul III. and to have such duels abolished by the Council of Trent. By its very last words, it shows that it was acted before the king, a fact that does not appear on its title-page. The duel is the one Sandoval describes with so much minuteness. Hist. de Carlos V., Anvers, 1681, folio, Lib. XI. §§ 8, 9.

[662] “Las Armas de la Hermosura,” Tom. I., and “El Mayor Encanto Amor,” Tom. V., are the plays on Coriolanus and Ulysses. They have been mentioned before.

[663] Good, but somewhat over-refined, remarks on the use Calderon made of Portuguese history in his “Weal and Woe” are to be found in the Preface to the second volume of Malsburg’s German translation of Calderon, Leipzig, 1819, 12mo.

[664] Comedias, 1760, Tom. IV. See, also, Ueber die Kirchentrennung von England, von F. W. V. Schmidt, Berlin, 1819, 12mo;—a pamphlet full of curious matter, but quite too laudatory, so far as Calderon’s merit is concerned. Nothing will show the wide difference between Shakspeare and Calderon more strikingly than a comparison of this play with the grand historical drama of “Henry the Eighth.”

[665] Of these duels, and his notions about female honor, half the plays of Calderon may be taken as specimens; but it is only necessary to refer to “Casa con Dos Puertas” and “El Escondido y la Tapada.”

[666] Fuero Juzgo, ed. de la Academia, Madrid, 1815, folio, Lib. III. Tít. IV. Leyes 3-5 and 9. It should be remembered, that these laws were the old Gothic laws of Spain before A. D. 700; that they were the laws of the Christians who did not fall under the Arabic authority; and that they are published in the edition of the Academy as they were consolidated and reënacted by St. Ferdinand after the conquest of Córdova in 1241.

[667] Howell, in 1623, when he had been a year in Madrid, under circumstances to give him familiar knowledge of its gay society, and at a time when the drama of Lope was at the height of its favor, says, “One shall not hear of a duel here in an age.” Letters, eleventh edition, London, 1754, 8vo, Book I. Sect. 3, Letter 32.

[668] In “El Canto Junto al Encanto,” and in “Pedir Favor.”

[669] Things had not been in an easy state, at any time, since the troubles already noticed in the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III., as we may see from the Approbation of Thomas de Avellaneda to Tom. XXII., 1665, of the Comedias Escogidas, where that personage, a grave and distinguished ecclesiastic, thought it needful to step aside from his proper object, and defend the theatre against attacks, which were evidently then common, though they have not reached us. But the quarrel of 1682-85, which was a violent and open rupture, can be best found in the “Apelacion al Tribunal de los Doctos,” Madrid, 1752, 4to, (which is, in fact, Guerra’s defence of himself written in 1683, but not before published), and in “Discursos contra los que defienden el Uso de las Comedias,” por Gonzalo Navarro, Madrid, 1684, 4to, which is a reply to the last and to other works of the same kind.

[670] The description of Philip IV. on horseback, as he passed through the streets of Madrid, suggests a comparison with Shakspeare’s Bolingbroke in the streets of London, but it is wholly against the Spanish poet. (Jorn. I.) That Calderon meant to be accurate in the descriptions contained in this play can be seen by reading the official account of the “Juramento del Príncipe Baltasar,” 1632, prepared by Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, of which the second edition was printed by order of the government, in its printing-office, 1605, 4to.

[671] It is genuine Spanish. The hero says,—

En Italia estaba,

Quando la loca arrogancia

Del Frances, sobre Valencia

Del Po, etc.

Jorn. I.

[672] He makes the victory more important than it really was, but his allusions to it show that it was not thought worth while to irritate the French interest; so cautious and courtly is Calderon’s whole tone. It is in Tom. X. of the Comedias.

[673] The account, in “Guárdate de la Agua Mansa,” of the triumphal arch, for which Calderon furnished the allegorical ideas and figures, as well as the inscriptions, (both Latin and Castilian, the play says), is very ample. Jornada III.

[674] Here, again, we have the courtly spirit in Calderon. He insists most carefully, that the Peace of the Pyrenees and the marriage of the Infanta are not connected with each other; and that the marriage is to be regarded “as a separate affair, treated at the same time, but quite independently.” But his audience knew better.

From the “Viage del Rey Nuestro Señor D. Felipe IV. el Grande á la Frontera de Francia,” por Leonardo del Castillo, Madrid, 1667, 4to,—a work of official pretensions, describing the ceremonies attending both the marriage of the Infanta and the conclusion of the peace,—it appears, that, wherever Calderon has alluded to either, he has been true to the facts of history. A similar remark may be made of the “Tetis y Peleo,” evidently written for the same occasion, and printed, Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIX., 1668;—a poor drama by an obscure author, Josef de Bolea, and probably one of several that we know, from Castillo, were represented to amuse the king and court on their journey.

[675] This flattery of Charles II. is the more disagreeable, because it was offered in the poet’s old age; for Charles did not come to the throne till Calderon was seventy-five years old. But it is, after all, not so shocking as the sort of blasphemous compliments to Philip IV. and his queen in the strange auto called “El Buen Retiro,” acted on the first Corpus Christi day after that luxurious palace was finished.

[676] I think Calderon never uses blank verse, though Lope does.

[677] “El Carro del Cielo,” which Vera Tassis says he wrote at fourteen, and which we should be not a little pleased to see.

[678] The audience remained in the same seats, but there were three stages before them. It must have been a very brilliant exhibition, and is quaintly explained in the loa prefixed to it.

[679] This is stated in the title, and gracefully alluded to at the end of the piece:—

Fué el agua tan dichosa,

En esta noche felice,

Que merecia ser Teatro.

[680] Vera Tassis makes this statement. See also F. W. V. Schmidt, Ueber die italienischen Heldengedichte, Berlin, 1820, 12mo, pp. 269-280.

[681] The two decided attempts of Calderon in the opera style have already been noticed. The “Laurel de Apolo” (Comedias, Tom. VI.) is called a Fiesta de Zarzuela, in which it is said (Jorn. I.): “Se canta y se representa”;—so that it was probably partly sung and partly acted. Of the Zarzuelas we must speak when we come to Candamo.

[682] Goethe had this quality of Calderon’s drama in his mind when he said to Eckermann, (Gespräche mit Goethe, Leipzig, 1837, Band I. p. 251), “Seine Stücke sind durchaus bretterrecht, es ist in ihnen kein Zug, der nicht für die beabsichtigte Wirkung calculirt wäre, Calderon ist dasjenige Genie, was zugleich den grössten Verstand hatte.”

[683] A good many of Calderon’s graciosos, or buffoons, are excellent, as, for instance, those in “La Vida es Sueño,” “El Alcayde de sí mismo,” “Casa con Dos Puertas,” “La Gran Zenobia,” “La Dama Duende,” etc.

[684] Calderon, like many other authors of the Spanish theatre, has, as we have seen, been a magazine of plots for the dramatists of other nations. Among those who have borrowed the most from him are the younger Corneille and Gozzi. Thus, Corneille’s “Engagements du Hasard” is from “Los Empeños de un Acaso”; “Le Feint Astrologue,” from “El Astrólogo Fingido”; “Le Géolier de soi même,” from “El Alcayde de sí mismo”; besides which, his “Circe” and “L’Inconnu” prove that he had well studied Calderon’s show pieces. Gozzi took his “Pubblico Secreto” from the “Secreto á Voces”; his “Eco e Narciso” from the play of the same name; and his “Due Notti Affanose” from “Gustos y Disgustos.” And so of others.

[685] These few meagre facts, which constitute all we know about Moreto, are due mainly to Ochoa (Teatro Español, Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. IV. p. 248); but the suggestion he makes, that Moreto was probably concerned in the violent death of Medinilla, mourned by Lope de Vega in an elegy in the first volume of his Works, seems to rest on no sufficient proof, and to be quite inconsistent with the regard felt for Moreto by Lope, Valdivielso, and other intimate friends of Medinilla. As to Moreto’s works, I possess his Comedias, Tom. I., Madrid, 1677 (of which Antonio notes an edition in 1654); Tom. II., Valencia, 1676; and Tom. III., Madrid, 1681, all in 4to;—besides which I have about a dozen of his plays, found in none of them. Calderon, in his “Astrólogo Fingido,” first printed by his brother in 1637, alludes to Moreto’s “Lindo Don Diego,” so that Moreto must have been known as early as that date; and in the “Comedias Escogidas de los Mejores Ingenios,” Tom. XXXVI., Madrid, 1671, we have the “Santa Rosa del Perú,” the first two acts of which are said to have been his last work, the remaining act being by Lanini, but with no intimation when Moreto wrote his part of it. This old collection of Comedias Escogidas contains forty-six plays attributed in whole or in part to Moreto.

[686] “Los mas Dichosos Hermanos.” It is the first play in the third volume; and though it does not correspond in its story with the beautiful legend as Gibbon gives it, there is a greater attempt at the preservation of the truth of history in its accompaniments than is common in the old Spanish drama.

[687] Comedias de Lope de Vega, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 16.

[688] “The Aunt and the Niece” is from Lope’s “De quando acá nos vino,” and “It cannot be” from his “Mayor imposible.” There are good remarks on these and other of Moreto’s imitations in Martinez de la Rosa, Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 443-446. But the excuses there given for him hardly cover such a plagiarism as his “Valiente Justiciero” is, from Lope’s “Infanzon de Illescas.” As usual, however, in such cases, Moreto improved upon his model. Cancer y Velasco, a contemporary poet, in a little jeu d’esprit, represents Moreto as sitting down with a bundle of old plays to see what he can cunningly steal out of them, spoiling all he steals. (Obras, Madrid, 1761, 4to, p. 113.) But in this, Cancer was unjust to Moreto’s talent, if not to his honesty.

[689] In 1664 Molière imitated the “Desden con el Desden” in his “Princesse d’Élide,” which was represented at Versailles by the command of Louis XIV., with great splendor, before his queen and his mother, both Spanish princesses. The compliment, as far as the king was concerned in it, was a magnificent one;—on Molière’s part, it was a failure, and his play is now no longer acted. The original drama of Moreto, however, is known wherever the Spanish language is spoken, and a good translation of it into German is common on the German stage.

[690]

Atento, Señor, he estado,

Y el successo no me admira,

Porque esso, Señor, es cosa,

Que sucede cada dia.

Mira; siendo yo muchacho,

Auia en mi casa vendimia,

Y por el suelo las ubas

Nunca me dauan codicia.

Passó este tiempo, y despues

Colgaron en la cocina

Las ubas para el Inuierno;

Y yo viendolas arriba,

Rabiaua por comer dellas,

Tanto que, trepando un dia

Por alcançarlas, caí,

Y me quebré las costillas.

Este es el caso, el por el.

Jorn. I.

[691] Both volumes of the Comedias de Roxas were reprinted, Madrid, 1680, 4to, and both their Licencias are dated on the same day; but the publisher of the first, who dedicates it to a distinguished nobleman, is the same person to whom the second is dedicated by the printer of both. Autos of Roxas may be found in “Autos, Loas, etc.,” 1655, and in “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” collected by Pedro de Robles, 1664. But they are no better than those of his contemporaries generally.

[692] His “Persiles y Sigismunda” is from Cervantes’s novel of the same name. On the other hand, his “Casarse por vengarse” is plundered, without ceremony, for the story of “Le Mariage de Vengeance,” (Gil Blas, Liv. IV. c. 4), by Le Sage, who never neglected a good opportunity of the sort.

[693] “Del Rey abaxo Ninguno” has been sometimes printed with the name of Calderon, who might well be content to be regarded as its author; but there is no doubt who wrote it. It is, however, among the Comedias Sueltas of Roxas, and not in his collected works.

[694] T. Corneille’s play is “Don Bertrand de Cigarral,” (Œuvres, Paris, 1758, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 209), and his obligations are avowed in the Dedication. Scarron’s “Jodelet” (Œuvres, Paris, 1752, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 73) is a spirited comedy, desperately indebted to Roxas. But Scarron constantly borrowed from the Spanish theatre.

[695] Three persons were frequently employed on one drama, dividing its composition among them, according to its three regular jornadas. In the large collection of Comedias printed in the latter half of the seventeenth century, in forty-eight volumes, there are, I think, about thirty such plays. Two are by six persons each. One, in honor of the Marquis Cañete, is the work of nine different poets, but it is not in any collection; it is printed separately, and better than was usual, Madrid, 1622, 4to.

[696] The plays of Cubillo that I have seen are,—ten in his “Enano de las Musas” (Madrid, 1654, 4to); five in the Comedias Escogidas, printed as early as 1660; and perhaps two or three more scattered elsewhere. The “Enano de las Musas” is a collection of his works, containing many ballads, sonnets, etc., and an allegorical poem on “The Court of the Lion,” which, Antonio says, was published as early as 1625, and which seems to have been liked and to have gone through several editions. But none of Cubillo’s poetry is so good as his plays. See Prólogo and Dedication to the Enano, and Montalvan’s list of writers for the stage at the end of his “Para Todos.”

[697] There are a few of Leyba’s plays in Duran’s collection, and in the Comedias Escogidas, and I possess a few of them in pamphlets. But I do not know how many he wrote, and I have no notices of his life. He is sometimes called Francisco de Leyba; unless, indeed, there were two of the same surname.

[698] Obras de Don Gerónimo Cancer y Velasco, Madrid, 1761, 4to. The first edition is of 1651, and Antonio sets his death at 1654. The “Muerte de Baldovinos” is in the Index of the Inquisition, 1790; as is also his “Vandolero de Flandes.” A play, however, which he wrote in conjunction with Pedro Rosete and Antonio Martinez, was evidently intended to conciliate the Church, and well calculated for its purpose. It is called “El Mejor Representante San Gines,” and is found in Tom. XXIX., 1668, of the Comedias Escogidas,—San Gines being a Roman actor, converted to Christianity, and undergoing martyrdom in the presence of the spectators in consequence of being called on to act a play written by Polycarp, which was ingeniously constructed so as to defend the Christians. The tradition is absurd enough certainly, but the drama may be read with interest throughout, and parts of it with pleasure. It has a love-intrigue brought in with skill. Cancer, I believe, wrote plays without assistance only once or twice. Certainly, twelve written in conjunction with Moreto, Matos Fragoso, and others, are all by him that are found in the Comedias Escogidas.

[699] “Academias Morales de las Musas,” Madrid, 4to, 1660; but my copy was printed at Barcelona, 1704, 4to.

[700] Flor de las Mejores Comedias, Madrid, 1652, 4to. Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 227. A considerable number of the plays of Zabaleta may be seen in the forty-eight volumes of the Comedias Escogidas, 1652, etc. One of them, “El Hijo de Marco Aurelio,” on the subject of the Emperor Commodus, was acted in 1644, and, as the author tells us, being received with little favor, and complaints being made that it was not founded in truth, he began at once a life of that Emperor, which he calls a translation from Herodian, but which has claims neither to fidelity in its version, nor to purity in its style. It remained long unfinished, until one morning in 1664, waking up and finding himself struck entirely blind, he began, “as on an elevation,” to look round for some occupation suited to his solitude and affliction. His play had been printed in 1658, in the tenth volume of the Comedias Escogidas, and he now completed the work that was to justify it, and published it in 1666, announcing himself on the title-page as a royal chronicler. But it failed, as his drama had failed before it. In the “Vexámen de Ingenios” of Cancer, where the failure of another of Zabaleta’s plays is noticed, (Obras de Cancer, Madrid, 1761, 4to, p. 111), a punning epigram is inserted on his personal ugliness, the amount of which is, that, though his play was dear at the price paid for a ticket, his face would repay the loss to those who should look on it.

[701] The plays of Zarate are, I believe, easiest found in the Comedias Escogidas, where twenty-two of them occur;—the earliest in Tom. XV., 1661; and “La Presumida y la Hermosa,” in Tom. XXIII., 1666. In the Index Expurgatorius of 1792, p. 288, it is intimated that Fernando de Zarate is the same person with Antonio Enriquez Gomez;—a mistake founded, probably, on the circumstance, that a play of Enriquez Gomez, who was a Jew, was printed with the name of Zarate attached to it, as others of his plays were printed with the name of Calderon. Amador de los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 575.

[702] His “Coro de las Musas,” at the end of which his plays are commonly added separately, was printed at Brussels in 1665, 4to, and in 1672. In my copy, which is of the first edition, and which once belonged to Mr. Southey, is the following characteristic note in his handwriting: “Among the Lansdowne MSS. is a volume of poems by this author, who, being a ‘New Christian,’ was happy enough to get into a country where he could profess himself a Jew.” There is a long notice of him in Barbosa, Biblioteca Lusitana, Tom. III. p. 464, and a still longer one in Amador de los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, pp. 608, etc.

[703] The “Comedias de Diamante” are in two volumes, 4to, Madrid, 1670 and 1674; but in the first volume eight plays are paged together, and for the four others there is a separate paging; though, as the whole twelve are recognized in the Tassa and in the table of contents, they are no doubt all his.

[704] The “Cid” of Corneille dates from 1636, and Diamante’s “Honrador de su Padre” is found earliest in the eleventh volume of the Comedias Escogidas, licensed 1658. Indeed, it may be well doubted whether Diamante was a writer for the stage so early as 1636; for I find no play of his printed before 1657. Another play on the subject of the Cid, partly imitated from this one of Diamante, and with a similar title,—“Honrador de sus Hijas,”—is found in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIII., 1662. Its author is Francisco Polo, of whom I know only that he wrote this drama, whose merit is very small, and whose subject is the marriage of the daughters of the Cid with the Counts of Carrion, and their subsequent ill-treatment by their husbands, etc.

[705] Huerta, who reprints the “Castigo de la Miseria” in the first volume of his “Teatro Hespañol,” expresses a doubt as to who is the inventor of the story, Hoz or María de Zayas. But there is no question about the matter. The “Novelas” were printed at Zaragoza, 1637, 4to, and their Aprobacion is dated in 1635. See, also, Baena’s “Hijos de Madrid,” Tom. III. p. 271. In the Prólogo to Candamo’s plays, (Madrid, Tom. I., 1722), Hoz is said to have written the third act of Candamo’s “San Bernardo,” left unfinished at its author’s death in 1704. If this were the case, Hoz must have lived to a good old age.

[706] The first of these scenes is taken, in a good degree, from the “Novelas,” ed. 1637, p. 86; but the scene with the astrologer is wholly the poet’s own, and parts of it are worthy of Ben Jonson. It should be added, however, that the third act of the play is technically superfluous, as the action really ends with the second. But we could not afford to part with it, so full is it of spirit and humor.

[707] I have already noticed plays of Lope and Cervantes that set forth the cruel condition of Christian Spaniards in Algiers, and must hereafter notice the great influence this state of things had on Spanish romantic fiction. But it should be remembered here, that many dramas were founded on it, besides those I have had occasion to mention. One of the most striking is by Moreto, which has some points of resemblance to the one spoken of in the text. It is called “El Azote de su Patria,” (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXIV., 1670),—and is filled with the cruelties of a Valencian renegade, who seems to have been an historical personage.

[708] In the Comedias Escogidas, there are, at least, twenty-five plays written wholly or in part by Matos, the earliest of which is in Tom. V., 1653. From the conclusion of his “Pocos bastan si son Buenos,” (Tom. XXXIV., 1670), and, indeed, from the local descriptions in other parts of it, there can be no doubt that Matos Fragoso was at one time in Italy, and very little that this drama was written at Naples, and acted before the Spanish Viceroy there. One volume of the plays of Matos Fragoso, called the first, was printed at Madrid, 1658, 4to. Other separate plays are in Duran’s collection, but not, I think, the best of them. Villaviciosa wrote a part of “Solo el Piadoso es mi Hijo,” of “El Letrado del Cielo,” of “El Redentor Cautivo,” etc. The apologue of the barber, in the second act of the last, is, I think, taken from one of Leyba’s plays, but I have it not now by me to refer to, and such things were too common at the time on a much larger scale to deserve notice, except as incidental illustrations of a well-known state of literary morals in Spain. Fragoso’s life is in Barbosa, Tom. II. pp. 695-697. I have eighteen of his plays in separate pamphlets, besides those in the Comedias Escogidas.

[709] The “Triunfos de Amor y Fortuna” appeared as early as 1660, in Tom. XIII. of the Comedias Escogidas.

[710] The “Varias Poesías” of Solís were edited by Juan de Goyeneche, who prefixed to them an ill-written life of their author, and published them at Madrid, 1692 (4to). His Comedias were first printed in Madrid, 1681, as Tom. XLVII. of the Comedias Escogidas. The “Gitanilla,” of which I have said that it has been occasionally reproduced from Cervantes, is to be found in the “Spanish Gypsy” of Rowley and Middleton; in the “Preciosa,” a pleasant German play by P. A. Wolff; and in Victor Hugo’s “Notre Dame de Paris”; besides which certain resemblances to it in the “Spanish Student” of Professor Longfellow are noticed by the author.

[711] Candamo’s plays, entitled “Poesías Cómicas, Obras Póstumas,” were printed at Madrid, in 1722, in 2 vols., 4to. His miscellaneous poems, “Poesías Lyricas,” were published in Madrid, in 18mo, but without a date on the title-page, while the Dedication is of 1729, the Licencias of 1720, and the Fe de Erratas, which ought to be the latest of all, is of 1710. This, however, is a specimen of the confusion of such matters in Spanish books; a confusion which, in the present instance, is carried into the contents of the volume itself, the whole of which is entitled “Poesías Lyricas,” though it contains idyls, epistles, ballads, and part of three cantos of an epic on the expedition of Charles V. against Tunis; nine cantos having been among the papers left by its author to the Duke of Alva. The life of Candamo, prefixed to the whole, is very poorly written. Huerta (Teatro, Parte III. Tom. II. p. 196) says he himself bought a large mass of Candamo’s poetry, including six cantos of this epic, for two rials; no doubt, a part of the manuscripts left to the Duke.

[712] He boasts of it in the opening of his “Cesar Africano.”

[713] At first, only airs were introduced into the play, but gradually the whole was sung. (Ponz, Viage de España, Madrid, 12mo, Tom. VI., 1782, p 152. Signorelli, Storia dei Teatri, Napoli, 1813, 8vo, Tom. IX. p. 194.) One of these zarzuelas, in which the portions that were sung are distinguished from the rest, is to be found in the “Ocios de Ignacio Alvarez Pellicer de Toledo,” s. l. 1635, 4to, p. 26. Its tendency to approach the Italian opera is apparent in its subject, which is “The Vengeance of Diana,” as well as in the treatment of the story, in the theatrical machinery, etc.; but it has no poetical merit. A small volume, by Andres Dávila y Heredia, (Valencia, 1676, 12mo), called “Comedia sin Música,” seems intended, by its title, to ridicule the beginnings of the opera in Spain; but it is a prose satire, of little consequence in any respect. See ante, pp. 160, 237, 361, 399.

[714] See “Selva sin Amor,” with its Preface, printed by Lope de Vega at the end of his “Laurel de Apolo,” Madrid, 1630, 4to;—Benavente, Joco-Seria, 1645, and Valladolid, 1653, 12mo, where such pieces are called entremeses cantados;—Calderon’s Púrpura de la Rosa;—Luzan, Poética, Lib. III. c. 1;—Diamante’s Labyrinto de Creta, printed as early as 1667, in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXVII.;—Parra, El Teatro Español, Poema Lírico, s. l. 1802, 8vo, notas, p. 295;—C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Tom. I. p. 268;—and Stefano Arteaga, Teatro Musicale Italiano, Bologna, 8vo, Tom. I., 1785, p. 241. The last is an excellent book, written by one of the Jesuits driven from Spain by Charles III., and who died at Paris in 1799. The second edition, 1783-88, is the amplest and best.

[715] Comedias de Antonio de Zamora, Madrid, 1744, 2 tom., 4to. The royal authority to print the plays gives also a right to print the lyrical works, but I think they never appeared. His life is in Baena, Tom. I. p. 177, and notices of him in L. F. Moratin, Obras, ed. Acad., Tom. II., Prólogo, pp. v.-viii.

[716] These and many others, now entirely forgotten, are found in the old collection of Comedias Escogidas, published between 1652 and 1704, where they occur in the later volumes; e. g. of Lanini, nine plays; of Martinez, eighteen; and of Rosete and Villegas, eleven each. I am not aware that any one of them deserves to be rescued from the oblivion in which they are all sunk.

[717] Two volumes of the plays of Cañizares were collected, but more can still be found separate, and many are lost. In Moratin’s list, the titles of above seventy are brought together. Notices of his life are in Baena, Tom. III. p. 69, and in Huerta, Teatro, Parte I. Tom. II. p. 347.

[718] The “Dómine Lucas” of Cañizares has no resemblance to the lively play with the same title by Lope de Vega, in the seventeenth volume of his Comedias, 1621, which, he says in the Dedication, is founded on fact, and which was reprinted in Madrid, 1841, 8vo, with a Preface, attacking, not only Cañizares, but several of the author’s contemporaries, in a most truculent manner. The “Dómine Lucas” of Cañizares, however, is worth reading, particularly in an edition where it is accompanied by its two entremeses, improperly called saynetes;—the whole newly arranged for representation in the Buen Retiro, on occasion of the marriage of the Infanta María Luisa with the Archduke Peter Leopold, in 1765.

[719] The habit of using too freely the works of their predecessors was common on the Spanish stage from an early period. Cervantes says, in 1617, (Persiles, Lib. III. c. 2), that some companies kept poets expressly to new-vamp old plays; and so many had done it before him, that Cañizares seems to have escaped censure, though nobody, certainly, had gone so far.

[720] See Appendix (F).

[721] Mariana, in his treatise “De Spectaculis,” Cap. VII., (Tractatus Septem, Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 1609, folio), earnestly insists that actors of the low and gross character he gives to them should not be permitted to perform in the churches, or to represent sacred plays anywhere; and that the theatres should be closed on Sundays. But he produced no effect against the popular passion.

[722] For Hardy and his extraordinary career, which was almost entirely founded on the Spanish theatre, see the “Parfaits,” or any other history of the French stage. Corneille, in his “Remarks on Mélite,” says, that, when he began, he had no guide but a little common sense and the example of Hardy, and a few others no more regular than he was. The example of Hardy led Corneille directly to Spain for materials.

[723] D. Quixote, Parte I. c. 48. The Primera Dama, or the actress of first parts, was sometimes called the Autora. Diablo Cojuelo, Tranco V.

[724] Villegas was one of the last of the authors who were managers. He wrote, we are told, fifty-four plays, and died about 1600. (Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 21.) After this, the next example of any prominence is Diamante, who was an actor before he wrote for the stage, and died about 1700. The managing autor was sometimes the object of ridicule in the play his own company performed, as he is in the “Tres Edades del Mundo” of Luis Vélez de Guevara, where he is the gracioso. Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXVIII., 1672.

[725] Pasagero, 1617, ff. 112-116.

[726] “Garduña de Sevilla,” near the end, and the “Bachiller Trapaza,” c. 15. Cervantes, just as he is finishing his “Coloquio de los Perros,” tells a story somewhat similar; so that authors were early ill-treated by the actors.

[727] See the Preface and Dedication of the “Arcadia,” by Lope, as well as other passages, noted in his Life;—the letter of Calderon to the Duke of Veraguas;—his Life by Vera Tassis, etc.

[728] Thus, Mira de Mescua, at the conclusion of “The Death of St. Lazarus,” (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. IX., 1657, p. 167), says:—

Here ends the play

Whose wondrous tale Mira de Mescua wrote

To warn the many. Pray forgive our faults.

And Francisco de Leyba finishes his “Amadis y Niquea” (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XL., 1675, f. 118) with these words:—

Don Francis Leyba humbly bows himself,

And at your feet asks,—not a victor shout,—

But rather pardon for his many faults.

In general, however, as in the “Mayor Venganza” of Alvaro Cubillo, and in the “Caer para levantarse” of Matos, Cancer, and Moreto, the annunciation is simple, and made, apparently, to protect the rights of the author, which, in the seventeenth century, were so little respected.

[729] Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, 1797, Tom. IV. p. 110, note. One account says there were three hundred companies of actors in Spain about 1636; but this seems incredible, if it means companies of persons who lived by acting. Pantoja, Sobre Comedias, Murcia, 1814, 4to, Tom. I. p. 28.

[730] Pellicer, Orígen de las Comedias, 1804, Tom. I. p. 185.

[731] Ibid., pp. 226-228. When Philip III. visited Lisbon in 1619, the Jesuits performed a play before him, partly in Latin and partly in Portuguese, at their College of San Antonio;—an account of which is given in the “Relacion de la Real Tragicomedia con que los Padres de la Compañía de Jesus recibieron á la Magestad Católica,” etc., por Juan Sardina Mimoso, etc., Lisboa, 1620, 4to,—its author being, I believe, Antonio de Sousa. Add to this that Mariana (De Spectaculis, c. 7) says that the entremeses and other exhibitions between the acts of the plays, performed in the most holy religious houses, were often of a gross and shameless character,—a statement which he repeats, partly in the same words, in his treatise “De Rege,” Lib. III. c. 16.

[732] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. II., passim, and Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage en Espagne, ed. 1693, Tom. I. p. 97. One of the best-known actors of the time was Sebastian Prado, mentioned above, the head of a company that went to France after the marriage of Louis XIV. with María Teresa, in 1659, and performed there some time for the pleasure of the new queen;—one of the many proofs of the spread and fashion of Spanish literature at this period. (C. Pellicer, Tom. I. p. 39.) María de Córdoba is mentioned with admiration, not only by the authors I have cited, but by Calderon in the opening of the “Dama Duende,” as Amarilis. For the names of other actors in the seventeenth century, see Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Parte II. c. 11, note.

[733] Alonso, Mozo de Muchos Amos, Parte I., Barcelona, 1625, f. 141. A little earlier, viz. 1618, Bisbe y Vidal speaks of women on the stage frequently taking the parts of men (Tratado de Comedias, f. 50); and from the directions to the players in the “Amadis y Niquea” of Leyba, (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XL., 1675), it appears that the part of Amadis was expected to be played always by a woman.

[734] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 183, Tom. II. p. 29; and Navarro Castellanos, Cartas Apologéticas contra las Comedias, Madrid, 1684, 4to, pp. 256-258. “Take my advice,” says Sancho to his master, after their unlucky encounter with the players of the Auto Sacramental,—“take my advice and never pick a quarrel with play-actors: they are privileged people. I have known one of them sent to prison for two murders, and get off scot-free. For mark, your worship, as they are gay fellows, full of fun, every body favors them; every body defends, helps, and likes them; especially if they belong to the royal and privileged companies, where all or most of them dress as if they were real princes.” Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 11, with the note of Clemencin.

[735] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. II. p. 53, and elsewhere throughout the volume.

[736] In the tale of the “Licenciado Vidriera.”

[737] Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 138. The necessities of the actors were so pressing, that they were paid their wages every night, as soon as the acting was over.

Un Representante cobra

Cada noche lo que gana.

Y el Autor paga, aunque

No hay dinero en la Caxa.

El Mejor Representante, Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIX., 1668, p. 199.

The Actor gets his wages every night;

For the poor Manager must pay him up,

Although his treasure-chest is clear of coin.

[738] “Pondus iners reipublicæ, atque inutile,” said Mariana, De Spectaculis, c. 9.

[739] Hugalde y Parra, Orígen del Teatro, p. 312.

[740] Familiar Letters, London, 1754, 8vo, Book I. Sect. 3, Letter 18.

[741] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 220. Aarsens, Voyage, 1667, p. 29.

[742] Relation du Voyage d’Espagne, par Madame la Contesse d’Aulnoy, La Haye, 1693, 18mo, Tom. III. p. 21,—the same who wrote beautiful fairy tales. She was there in 1679-80; but Aarsens gives a similar account of things fifteen years earlier. Voyage, 1667, p. 59.

[743] Figueroa, Pasagero, and Guevara, Diablo Cojuelo.

[744] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 53, 55, 63, 68.

[745] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage, Tom. III. p. 21. Spectator, No. 235.

[746] Aarsens, Relation, at the end of his Voyage, 1667, p. 60.

[747] Manuel Morchon, at the end of his “Vitoria del Amor,” (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. IX., 1657, p. 242), says:—

Most honorable Mosqueteros, here

Don Manuel Morchon, in gentlest form,

Beseeches you to give him, as an alms,

A victor shout;—if not for this his play,

At least for the good-will it shows to please you.

In the same way, Antonio de Huerta, speaking of his “Cinco Blancas de Juan Espera en Dios,” (Ibid., Tom. XXXII., 1669, p. 179), addresses them:—

And should it now a victor cry deserve,

Señores Mosqueteros, you will here,

In charity, vouchsafe to give me one;—

That is, in case the play has pleased you well.

Perhaps we should not have expected of such a condescension from Solís, but he stooped to it. At the conclusion of his well-known “Doctor Carlino,” (Comedias, 1716, p. 262), he turns to them, saying:—

And here expires my play. If it has pleased,

Let the Señores Mosqueteros cry a victor

At its burial.

Every thing, indeed, that we know about the mosqueteros shows that their influence was great at the theatre in the theatre’s best days. In the eighteenth century we shall find it governing every thing.

[748] Aarsens, Relation, p. 59. Zavaleta, Dia de Fiesta por la Tarde, Madrid, 1660, 12mo, pp. 4, 8, 9. C. Pellicer, Tom. I. Mad. d’Aulnoy, Tom. III. p. 22.

[749] Guillen de Castro, “Mal Casadas de Valencia,” Jorn. II. It may be worth notice, perhaps, that the traditions of the Spanish theatre are still true to its origin;—aposentos, or apartments, being still the name for the boxes; patio, or court-yard, that of the pit; and mosqueteros, or musketeers, that of the persons who fill the pit, and who still claim many privileges, as the successors of those who stood in the heat of the old court-yard. As to the cazuela, Breton de los Herreros, in his spirited “Sátira contra los Abusos en el Arte de la Declamacion Teatral,” (Madrid, 1834, 12mo), says:—

Tal vez alguna insípida mozuela

De tí se prende; mas si el Patio brama,

Que te vale un rincon de la Cazuela?

But this part of the theatre is more respectable than it was in the seventeenth century.

[750] Zabaleta, Dia de Fiesta por la Tarde, p. 2.

[751] Cervantes, Viage al Parnaso, 1784, p. 148.

[752] Cervantes, Prólogo á las Comedias. Lope, Prefaces to several of his plays. Figueroa, Pasagero, 1617, p. 105. Benavente, Joco-Seria, Valladolid, 1653, 12mo, f. 81. One of the ways in which the audiences expressed their disapprobation was, as Cervantes intimates, by throwing cucumbers (pepinos) at the actors.

[753] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage, Tom. I. p. 55. Tirso de Molina, Deleytar, Madrid, 1765, 4to, Tom. II. p. 333. At the end of a play the whole audience is not unfrequently appealed to for a “Victor” by the second-rate authors, as we have seen the mosqueteros were sometimes, though rarely. Diego de Figueroa, at the conclusion of his “Hija del Mesonero,” (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XIV., 1662, p. 182), asks for it as for an alms, “Dadle un Vitor de limosna”; and Rodrigo Enriquez, in his “Sufrir mas por querer menos,” (Tom. X., 1658, p. 222), asks for it as for the vails given to servants in a gaming-house, “Venga un Vitor de barato.” Sometimes a good deal of ingenuity is used to bring in the word Vitor just at the end of the piece, so that it shall be echoed by the audience without an open demand for it, as it is by Calderon in his “Amado y Aborrecido,” and in the “Difunta Pleyteada” of Francisco de Roxas. But, in general, when it is asked for at all, it is rather claimed as a right. Once, in “Lealtad contra su Rey,” by Juan de Villegas, (Comedias Escogidas, Tom. X., 1658), the two actors who end the piece impertinently ask the applause for themselves, and not for the author; a jest which was, no doubt, well received.

[754] Cervantes, Viage, 1784, p. 138. Novelas, 1783, Tom. I. p. 40.

[755] Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 51. Benavente, Joco-Seria, 1653, f. 78. Alonso, Mozo de Muchos Amos;—by which (Tom. I. f. 137) it appears that the placards were written as late as 1624, in Seville.

[756] This title he gave to “Como han de ser los Amigos,” “Amor por Razon de Estado,” and some others of his plays. It may be noted that a full-length play was sometimes called Gran Comedia, as twelve such are in Tom. XXXI. of “Las Mejores Comedias que hasta oy han salido,” Barcelona, 1638.

[757] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage, Tom. III. p. 22, and Zabaleta, Fiesta por la Tarde, 1660, pp. 4, 9.

[758] Cigarrales de Toledo, Madrid, 1624, 4to, p. 99. There is a good deal of learning about loas in Pinciano, “Filosofía Antigua,” Madrid, 1596, 4to, p. 413, and Salas, “Tragedia Antigua,” Madrid, 1633, 4to, p. 184.

[759] The loa to the “Vergonzoso en Palacio”: it is in décimas redondillas.

[760] It gives an account of the reception of the news at the palace, (Obras de Mendoza, Lisboa, 1690, 4to, p. 78), and may have been spoken before Calderon’s well-known play, “El Sitio de Breda.”

[761] Four persons appear in this loa,—a part of which is sung,—and, at the end, Seville enters and grants them all leave to act in her city. Viage, 1614, ff. 4-8.

[762] Lyra Poética de Vicente Sanchez, Zaragoza, 1688, 4to, p. 47.

[763] Joco-Seria, 1653, ff. 77, 82. In another he parodies some of the familiar old ballads (ff. 43, etc.) in a way that must have been very amusing to the mosqueteros: a practice not uncommon in the lighter dramas of the Spanish stage, most of which are lost. Instances of it are found in the entremes of “Melisandra,” by Lope (Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1609, p. 333); and two burlesque dramas in Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XLV., 1679,—the first entitled “Traycion en Propria Sangre,” being a parody on the ballads of the “Infantes de Lara,” and the other entitled “El Amor mas Verdadero,” a parody on the ballads of “Durandarte” and “Belerma”;—both very extravagant and dull, but showing the tendencies of the popular taste not a whit the less.

[764] These curious loas are found in a rare volume, called “Autos Sacramentales, con Quatro Comedias Nuevas y sus Loas y Entremeses,” Madrid, 1655, 4to.

[765] A loa entitled “El Cuerpo de Guardia,” by Luis Enriquez de Fonseca, and performed by an amateur company at Naples on Easter eve, 1669, in honor of the queen of Spain, is as long as a saynete, and much like one. It is—together with another loa and several curious bayles—part of a play on the subject of Viriatus, entitled “The Spanish Hannibal,” and to be found in a collection of his poems, less in the Italian manner than might be expected from a Spaniard who lived and wrote in Italy. Fonseca published the volume containing them all at Naples, in 1683, 4to, and called it “Ocios de los Estudios”; a volume not worth reading, and yet not wholly to be passed over.

[766] Roxas, Viage, ff. 189-193.

[767] Cigarrales de Toledo, 1624, pp. 104 and 403. Figueroa, Pasagero, 1617, f. 109. b.

[768] Sarmiento, the literary historian and critic, in a letter cited in the “Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua Castellana,” (Madrid, 1793, 4to, p. 149), says: “I never knew what the true Castilian idiom was till I read entremeses.”

[769] The origin of entremeses is distinctly set forth in Lope’s “Arte Nuevo de hacer Comedias”; and both the first and third volumes of his collection of plays contain entremeses; besides which, several are to be found in his Obras Sueltas;—almost all of them amusing. The entremeses of Cervantes are at the end of his Comedias, 1615.

[770] Novelas, 1783, Tom. II. p. 441. “Coloquio de los Perros.”

[771] A good many are to be found in the “Joco-Seria” of Quiñones de Benavente. Those by Cancer are in the Autos, etc., 1655, cited in note 44.

[772] “El Castillo de Lindabridis,” end of Act I. There is an entremes called “The Chestnut Girl,” very amusing as far as the spirited dialogue is concerned, but immoral enough in the story, to be found in Chap. 15 of the “Bachiller Trapaza.”

[773] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Tom. I. p. 56.

[774] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 277. The entremeses of Cancer are to be found in his Obras, Madrid, 1761, 4to; those of Deza y Avila, in his “Donayres de Tersicore,” 1663; and those of Benavente, in his “Joco-Seria,” 1653. The volume of Deza y Avila—marked Vol. I., but I think the only one that ever appeared—is almost filled with light, short compositions for the theatre, under the name of bayles, entremeses, saynetes, and mogigangas; the last being a sort of mumming. Some of them are good; all are characteristic of the state of the theatre in the middle of the seventeenth century.

[775]

Al fin con un baylezito

Iba la gente contenta.

Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 48.

[776] The Gaditanæ Puellæ were the most famous; but see, on the whole subject of the old Spanish dances, the notes to Juvenal, by Ruperti, Lipsiæ, 1801, 8vo, Sat. XI. vv. 162-164, and the curious discussion by Salas, “Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua,” 1633, pp. 127, 128. Gifford, in his remarks on the passage in Juvenal, (Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Philadelphia, 1803, 8vo, Vol. II. p. 159), thinks that it refers to “neither more nor less than the fandango, which still forms the delight of all ranks in Spain,” and that in the phrase “testarum crepitus” he hears “the clicking of the castanets, which accompanies the dance.”

[777] Jornada III. Every body danced. The Duke of Lerma was said to be the best dancer of his time, being premier to Philip IV., and afterwards a cardinal. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. VI., 1839, p. 272.

[778] “Danzas habladas” is the singular phrase applied to a pantomime with singing and dancing in Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 20. The bayles of Fonseca, referred to in a preceding note, are a fair specimen of the singing and dancing on the Spanish stage in the middle of the seventeenth century. One of them is an allegorical contest between Love and Fortune; another, a discussion on Jealousy; and the third, a wooing by Peter Crane, a peasant, carried on by shaking a purse before the damsel he would win;—all three in the ballad measure, and none of them extending beyond a hundred and twenty lines, or possessing any merit but a few jests.

[779] Some of them are very brutal, like one at the end of “Crates y Hipparchia,” Madrid, 1636, 12mo; one in the “Enano de las Musas”; and several in the “Ingeniosa Helena.” The best are in Quiñones de Benavente, “Joco-Seria,” 1653, and Solís, “Poesías,” 1716. There was originally a distinction between bayles and danzas, now no longer recognized;—the danzas being graver and more decent. See a note of Pellicer to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 48; partly discredited by one of Clemencin on the same passage.

[780] Covarrubias, ad verbum Çarabanda. Pellicer, Don Quixote, 1797, Tom. I. pp. cliii.-clvi., and Tom. V. p. 102. There is a list of many ballads that were sung with the zarabandas in a curious satire entitled “The Life and Death of La Zarabanda, Wife of Anton Pintado,” 1603;—the ballads being given as a bequest of the deceased lady. (C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 129-131, 136-138.) Lopez Pinciano, in his “Filosofía Antigua Poética,” 1596, pp. 418-420, partly describes the zarabanda, and expresses his great disgust at its indecency.

[781] Dorotea, Acto I. sc. 5.

[782] Other names of dances are to be found in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco I., where all of them are represented as inventions of the Devil on Two Sticks; but these are the chief. See, also, Covarrubias, Art. Zapato.

[783] Cuevas de Salamanca. There is a curious bayle entremesado of Moreto, on the subject of Don Rodrigo and La Cava, in the Autos, etc., 1655, f. 92; and another, called “El Médico,” in the “Ocios de Ignacio Alvarez Pellicer,” s. l. 1685, 4to, p. 51.

[784] See the “Gran Sultana,” as already cited, note 57.

[785] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 102.

[786] Figueroa, Pasagero, 1617, f. 105. Villegas, Eróticas Najera, 1617, 4to, Tom. II. p. 29. Diablo Cojuelo, Tranco V. Figueroa, Plaza Universal, Madrid, 1733, folio, Discurso 91.

[787] Mad. d’Aulnoy, fresh from the stage of Racine and Molière, then the most refined and best appointed in Europe, speaks with great admiration of the theatres in the Spanish palaces, though she ridicules those granted to the public. (Voyage, etc., ed. 1693, Tom. III. p. 7, and elsewhere.) One way, however, in which the kings patronized the drama was, probably, not very agreeable to the authors, if it were often practised; I mean that of requiring a piece to be acted nowhere but in the royal presence. This was the case with Gerónimo de Villayzan’s “Sufrir mas por querer mas.” Comedias por Diferentes Autores, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633, f. 145. b.

[788] Schack’s Geschichte der dramat. Lit. in Spanien, Berlin, 1846, Tom. III. 8vo, pp. 22-24; a work of great value.

[789] Relation du Voyage d’Espagne, ed. 1693, Tom. I. p. 55.

[790] “La Carolea,” Valencia, 1560, 2 tom. 12mo. The first volume ends with accounts of the author’s birthplace, in the course of which he commemorates some of its merchants and some of its scholars, particularly Luis Vives. Notices of Sempere are to be found in Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 135, in Fuster, Tom. I. p. 110, and in the notes to Polo’s “Diana,” by Cerdá, p. 380.

A poem entitled “Conquista de la Nueva Castilla,” first published at Paris in 1848, 12mo, by J. A. Sprecher de Bernegg, may, perhaps, be older than the “Carolea.” It is a short narrative poem, in two hundred and eighty-three octave stanzas, apparently written about the middle of the sixteenth century, by some unknown author of that period, and devoted to the glory of Francisco Pizarro, from the time when he left Panamá, in 1524, to the fall of Atabalipa. It was found in the Imperial Library at Vienna, among the manuscripts there, but, from a review of it in the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Band CXXI., 1848, it seems to have been edited with very little critical care. It does not, however, deserve more than it received. It is wholly worthless;—not better than we can easily suppose to have been written by one of Pizarro’s rude followers.

[791] “Carlo Famoso de Don Luis de Çapata,” Valencia, 1565, 4to. At the opening of the fiftieth canto, he congratulates himself that he has “reached the end of his thirteen years’ journey”; but, after all, is obliged to hurry over the last fourteen years of his hero’s life in that one canto. For Garcilasso, see Canto XLI.; and for Torralva’s story, which strongly illustrates the Spanish character of the sixteenth century, see Cantos XXVIII., XXX., XXXI., and XXXII., with the notes of the commentators to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 41.

[792] Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 323) gives the date and title, and little else. The only copy of the poem known to me is one printed at Alcalá de Henares, 1579, 4to, 149 leaves, double columns. It is dedicated to the great Duke of Alva, under whom its author had served, and consists chiefly of the usual traditions about the Cid, told in rather flowing, but insipid, octave stanzas.

In the Library of the Society of History at Madrid, MS. D. No. 42, is a poem in double redondillas de arte mayor, by Fray Gonzalo de Arredondo, on the achievements both of the Cid and of the Count Fernan Gonzalez, the merits of each being nicely balanced in alternate cantos. It is hardly worth notice, except from the circumstance that it was written as early as 1522, when the unused license of Charles V. to print it was given. Fray Arredondo is also the author of “El Castillo Inexpugnable y Defensorio de la Fé,” Burgos, 1528, fol.

[793] Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 179, and Velazquez, Dieze, p. 385.

[794] The “Historia Parthenopea,” in eight books, by Alfonso Fernandez, was printed at Rome in 1516, says Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 23). Nicolas de Espinosa’s second part of the “Orlando Furioso” is better known, as there are editions of it in 1555, 1556, 1557, and 1559, the one of 1556 being printed at Antwerp in 4to. Juan de Coloma’s “Década de la Pasion,” in ten books, terza rima, was printed in 1579, in 8vo, at Caller (Cagliari) in Sardinia, where its author was viceroy, and on which island this has been said to be the first book ever printed. There is an edition of it, also, of 1586. (Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 175.) It is praised by Cervantes in his “Galatea,” and is a sort of harmony of the Gospels, not without a dignified movement in its action, and interspersed with narratives from the Old Testament. The story of St. Veronica, (Lib. VII.), and the description of the Madonna as she sees her son surrounded by the rude crowd and ascending Mount Calvary under the burden of his cross, (Lib. VIII.), are passages of considerable merit. Coloma says he chose the terza rima “because it is the gravest verse in the language and the best suited to any grave subject.” In a poem in the same volume, on the Resurrection, he has, however, taken the octave rhyme; and half a century earlier, the terza rima had been rejected by Pedro Fernandez de Villegas, as quite unfitted for Castilian poetry. See ante, Vol. I. p. 486, note.

[795] In Canto XXVII. he says: “Behold the rough soil of ancient Biscay, whence it is certain comes that nobility now extended through the whole land; behold Bermeo, the head of Biscay, surrounded with thorn-woods, and above its port the old walls of the house of Ercilla, a house older than the city itself.”

[796] “Arauco,” says Ercilla, “is a small province, about twenty leagues long and twelve broad, which produces the most warlike people in the Indies, and is therefore called The Unconquered State.” Its people are still proud of their name.

[797] The accounts of himself are chiefly in Cantos XIII., XXXVI., and XXXVII.; and besides the facts I have given in the text, I find it stated (Seman. Pintoresco, 1842, p. 195) that Ercilla in 1571 received the Order of Santiago, and in 1578 was employed by Philip II. on an inconsiderable mission to Saragossa.

[798] The great praise of this speech by Voltaire, in the Essay prefixed to his “Henriade,” 1726, first made the Araucana known beyond the Pyrenees; and if Voltaire had read the poem he pretended to criticize, he might have done something in earnest for its fame. (See his Works, ed. Beaumarchais, Paris, 1785, 8vo, Tom. X. pp. 394-401.) But his mistakes are so gross as to impair the value of his admiration.

[799] The best edition of the Araucana is that of Sancha, Madrid, 1776, 2 tom. 12mo; and the most exact life of its author is in Baena, Tom. I. p. 32. Hayley published an abstract of the poem, with bad translations of some of its best passages, in the notes to his third epistle on Epic Poetry (London, 1782, 4to); but there is a better and more ample examination of it in the “Caraktere der vornehmsten Dichter aller Nationen,” Leipzig, 1793, 8vo, Band II. Theil I. pp. 140 and 349.

[800] The last edition of the continuation of the Araucana, by Diego de Sanisteban Osorio, of which I have any knowledge, was printed with the poem of Ercilla at Madrid, 1733, folio.

[801] The injustice, as it was deemed by many courtly persons, of Ercilla to Garcia de Mendoza, fourth Marquis of Cañete, who commanded the Spaniards in the war of Arauco, may have been one of the reasons why the poet was neglected by his own government after his return to Spain, and was certainly a subject of remark in the reigns of Philip III. and IV. In 1613, Christóval Suarez de Figueroa, the well-known poet, published a life of the Marquis, and dedicated it to the profligate Duke de Lerma, then the reigning favorite. It is written with some elegance and some affectation in its style, but is full of flattery to the great family of which the Marquis was a member; and when its author reaches the point of time at which Ercilla was involved in the trouble at the tournament, already noticed, he says: “There arose a difference between Don Juan de Pineda and Don Alonso de Ercilla, which went so far, that they drew their swords. Instantly a vast number of weapons sprang from the scabbards of those on foot, who, without knowing what to do, rushed together and made a scene of great confusion. A rumor was spread, that it had been done in order to cause a revolt; and from some slight circumstances it was believed that the two pretended combatants had arranged it all beforehand. They were seized by command of the general, who ordered them to be beheaded, intending to infuse terror into the rest, and knowing that severity is the most effectual way of insuring military obedience. The tumult, however, was appeased; and as it was found, on inquiry, that the whole affair was accidental, the sentence was revoked. The becoming rigor with which Don Alonso was treated caused the silence in which he endeavoured to bury the achievements of Don Garcia. He wrote the wars of Arauco, carrying them on by a body without a head;—that is, by an army, with no intimation that it had a general. Ungrateful for the many favors he had received from the same hand, he left his rude sketch without the living colors that belonged to it; as if it were possible to hide the valor, virtue, forecast, authority, and success of a nobleman whose words and deeds always went together and were alike admirable. But so far could passion prevail, that the account thus given remained in the minds of many as if it were an apocryphal one; whereas, had it been dutifully written, its truth would have stood authenticated to all. For, by the consent of all, the personage of whom the poet ought to have written was without fault, gentle, and of great humanity; and he who was silent in his praise strove in vain to dim his glory.” Hechos de Don Garcia de Mendoza, por Chr. Suarez de Figueroa, Madrid, 1613, 4to, p. 103.

The theatre seemed especially anxious to make up for the deficiencies of the greatest narrative poet of the country. In 1622, a play appeared, entitled “Algunas Hazañas de las muchas de Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza”; a poor attempt at flattery, which, on its title-page, professes to be the work of Luis de Belmonte, but, in a sort of table of contents, is ascribed chiefly to eight other poets, among whom are Antonio Mira de Mescua, Luis Vélez de Guevara, and Guillen de Castro. Of the “Arauco Domado” of Lope de Vega, printed in 1629, and the humble place assigned in it to Ercilla, I have spoken, ante, [p. 207]. To these should be added two others, namely, the “Governador Prudente” of Gaspar de Avila, in Tom. XXI. of the Comedias Escogidas, printed in 1664, in which Don Garcia arrives first on the scene of action in Chili, and distinguishes his command by acts of wisdom and clemency; and in Tom. XXII., 1665, the “Españoles en Chili,” by Francisco Gonzalez de Bustos, devoted in part to the glory of Don Garcia’s father, and ending with the impalement of Caupolican and the baptism of another of the principal Indians; each as characteristic of the age as was the homage of all to the Mendozas.

[802] “Arauco Domado, compuesto por el Licenciado Pedro de Oña, Natural de los Infantes de Engol en Chile, etc., impreso en la Ciudad de los Reyes,” (Lima), 1596, 12mo, and Madrid, 1605. Besides which, Oña wrote a poem on the earthquake at Lima in 1599. Antonio is wrong in suggesting that Oña was not a native of America.

[803] “Cortés Valeroso, por Gabriel Lasso de la Vega,” Madrid, 1588, 4to, and “La Mexicana,” Madrid, 1594, 8vo. Tragedies and other works, which I have not seen, are also attributed to him. (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 264.) “El Peregrino Indiano, por Don Antonio de Saavedra Guzman, Viznieto del Conde del Castellar, nacido en Mexico,” Madrid, 1599, 12mo. It is in twenty cantos of octave stanzas; and though we know nothing else of its author, we know, by the laudatory verses prefixed to his poem, that Lope de Vega and Vicente Espinel were among his friends. It brings the story of Cortés down to the death of Guatimozin.

[804] The poem of Castellanos is singularly enough entitled “Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias,” and we have some reason to suppose it originally consisted of four parts. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 674.) The first was printed at Madrid, 1589, 4to; but the second and third, discovered, I believe, in the National Library of that city, were not published till they appeared in the fourth volume of the Biblioteca of Aribau, Madrid, 1847, 8vo. Elegias seems to have been used by Castellanos in the sense of eulogies. Of their author the little we know is told by himself.

[805] “Argentina, Conquista del Rio de la Plata y Tucuman, y otros Sucesos del Peru,” Lisboa, 1602, 4to. There is a love-story in Canto XII., and some talk about enchantments elsewhere; but, with a few such slight exceptions, the poem is evidently pretty good geography, and the best history the author could collect on the spot. I know it only in the reprint of Barcia, who takes it into his collection entirely for its historical claims.

One thing has much struck me in this and all the poems written by Spaniards on their conquests in America, and especially by those who visited the countries they celebrate. It is, that there are no proper sketches of the peculiar scenery through which they passed, though much of it is among the most beautiful and grand that exists on the globe, and must have been filling them constantly with new wonder. The truth is, that, when they describe woods and rivers and mountains, their descriptions would as well fit the Pyrenees or the Guadalquivir as they do Mexico, the Andes, or the Amazon. Perhaps this deficiency is connected with the same causes that have prevented Spain from ever producing a great landscape painter.

[806] “La Conquista del Nuevo Mexico, por Gaspar de Villagra,” was printed at Alcalá in 1610, 8vo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 535.

[807] “Universal Redencion de Francisco Hernandez Blasco,” Toledo, 1584, 1589, 4to, Madrid, 1609, 4to. He was of Toledo, and claims that a part of his poem was a revelation to a nun.

[808] “El Cavallero Assisio, Vida de San Francisco y otros Cinco Santos, por Gabriel de Mata,” Tom. I., Bilbao, 1587, with a wood-cut of St. Francis on the title-page, as a knight on horseback and in full armour; Tom. II., 1589, 4to. A third volume was promised, but it never appeared. The five saints are St. Anthony of Padua, St. Buenaventura, St. Luis the Bishop, Sta. Bernadina, and Sta. Clara, all Minorites. St. Anthony preaching to the fishes, whom he addresses (Canto XVII.) as hermanos peces, is very quaint.

[809] In a hermitage on a mountain near Córdova, where about thirty hermits lived in stern silence and subjected to the most cruel penances, I once saw a person who had served with distinction as an officer at the battle of Trafalgar, and another who had been of the household of the first queen of Ferdinand VII. The Duke de Rivas and his brother, Don Angel,—now wearing the title himself, but more distinguished as a poet, or for his eminent merits in the diplomatic and military service of his country, than for his high rank,—who led me up that rude mountain, and filled a long and beautiful morning with strange sights and adventures and stories, such as can be found in no other country but Spain, assured me that cases like those of the Spanish officers who had become hermits were still of no infrequent occurrence in their country. This was in 1818.

[810] Of Virues a notice has been already given, (ante, [p. 28]), to which it is only necessary to add here that there are editions of the Monserrate of 1588, 1601, 1602, 1609, and 1805; the last (Madrid, 8vo) with a Preface written, I think, by Mayans y Siscar. A poem by Francisco de Ortega, on the same subject, appeared about the middle of the eighteenth century, in small quarto, without date, entitled “Orígen, Antiguedad é Invencion de nuestra Señora de Monserrate.” It is entirely worthless.

[811] “La Benedictina de F. Nicolas Bravo,” Salamanca, 1604, 4to. Bravo was a professor at Salamanca and Madrid, and died in 1648, the head of a rich monastery of his order in Navarre. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 151.) Of Valdivielso I have spoken, ante, [p. 316]. His “Vida, etc., de San Josef,” printed 1607 and 1647, makes above seven hundred pages in the edition of Lisbon, 1615, 12mo; and his “Sagrario de Toledo,” Barcelona, 1618, 12mo, fills nearly a thousand;—both in octave stanzas, as are nearly all the poems of their class.

[812] “La Christiada de Diego de Hojeda,” Sevilla, 1611, 4to. It has the merit of having only twelve cantos, and, if this were the proper place, it might well be compared with Milton’s “Paradise Regained” for its scenes with the devils, and with Klopstock’s “Messiah” for the scene of the crucifixion. Of the author we know only that he was a native of Seville, but went young to Lima, in Peru, where he wrote this poem, and where he died at the head of a Dominican convent founded by himself. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 289.) There is a rifacimento of the “Christiada,” by Juan Manuel de Berriozabal, printed Madrid, 1841, 18mo, in a small volume; not, however, an improvement on the original.

[813] “Poema Castellano de nuestra Señora de Aguas Santas, por Alonso Diaz,” Seville, 1611, cited by Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 21).—“San Ignacio de Loyola, Poema Heróico,” Valladolid, 1613, 8vo, and “Historia de la Vírgen Madre de Dios,” 1608, afterwards published with the title of “Nueva Jerusalen María,” Valladolid, 1625, 18mo; both by Antonio de Escobar y Mendoza, and both the work of his youth, since he lived to 1668. (Ibid., p. 115.) The last of these poems, my copy of which is of the fourth edition, absurdly divides the life of the Madonna according to the twelve precious stones that form the foundations of the New Jerusalem in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation; each fundamento, as the separate portions or books are called, being subdivided into three cantos; and the whole filling above twelve thousand lines of octave stanzas, which are not always without merit, though they generally have very little.—“Creacion del Mundo de Alonso de Azevedo,” Roma, 1615. (Velazquez, Dieze, p. 395.)—“La Verdadera Hermandad de los Cinco Martires de Arabia, por Damian Rodriguez de Vargas,” Toledo, 1621, 4to. It is very short for the class to which it belongs, containing only about three thousand lines, but it is hardly possible that any of them should be worse.—“David, Poema Heróico del Doctor Jacobo Uziel,” Venetia, 1624, pp. 440; a poem in twelve cantos, on the story of the Hebrew monarch whose name it bears, written in a plain and simple style, evidently imitating the flow of Tasso’s stanzas, but without poetical spirit, and in the ninth canto absurdly bringing a Spanish navigator to the court of Jerusalem.—“La Mejor Muger Madre y Vírgen, Poema Sacro, por Sebastian de Nieva Calvo,” Madrid, 1625, 4to. It ends in the fourteenth book with the victory of Lepanto, which is attributed to the intercession of the Madonna and the virtue of the rosary.—“Grandezas Divinas, Vida y Muerte de nuestro Salvador, etc., por Fr. Duran Vivas,” found in scattered papers after his death, and arranged and modernized in its language by his grandson, who published it, (Madrid, 1643, 4to); a worthless poem, more than half of which is thrown into the form of a speech from Joseph to Pontius Pilate.—“Pasion del Hombre Dios, por el Maestro Juan Dávila,” Leon de Francia, 1661, folio, written in the Spanish décimas of Espinel, and filling about three-and-twenty thousand lines, divided into six books, which are subdivided into estancias, or resting-places, and these again into cantos.—“Sanson Nazareno, Poema Eróico, por Ant. Enriquez Gomez,” Ruan, 1656, 4to, thoroughly infected with Gongorism, as is another poem by the same author, half narrative, half lyrical, called “La Culpa del Primer Peregrino,” Ruan, 1644, 4to.—“San Ignacio de Loyola, Poema Heróico, escrivialo Hernando Dominguez Camargo,” 1666, 4to, a native of Santa Fé de Bogotá, whose poem, filling nearly four hundred pages of octave rhymes, is a fragment published after his death.—“La Christiada, Poema Sacro y Vida de Jesu Christo, que escrivió Juan Francisco de Encisso y Monçon,” Cadiz, 1694, 4to; deformed, like almost every thing of the period when it appeared, with the worst taste.

[814] “Segunda Parte de Orlando, etc., por Nicolas Espinosa,” Zaragoza, 1555, 4to, Anveres, 1656, 4to, etc. The Orlando of Ariosto, translated by Urrea, was published at Lyons in 1550, folio, (the same edition, no doubt, which Antonio gives to 1656), and is treated with due severity by the curate in the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library, and by Clemencin in his commentary on that passage. Tom. I. p. 120.

[815] “Orlando Enamorado de Don Martin Abarca de Bolea, Conde de las Almunias, en Octava Rima,” Lerida, 1578;—“Orlando Determinado, en Octava Rima,” Zaragoza, 1578. (Latassa, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 54.)—The “Orlando Enamorado” of Boiardo, by Francisco Garrido de Villena, 1577, and the “Verdadero Suceso de la Batalla de Roncesvalles,” by the same, 1683. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 428.)—“Historia de las Hazañas y Hechos del Invencible Cavallero Bernardo del Carpio, por Agustin Alonso,” Toledo, 1585. Pellicer (Don Quixote, Tom. I. p. 58, note) says he had seen one copy of this book, and Clemencin says he never saw any.—I have never met with either of those referred to in this note.

[816] “Primera Parte de la Angélica de Luis Barahona de Soto,” Granada, 1586, 4to. My copy contains a license to reprint from it, dated July 15, 1805; but, like many other projects of the sort in relation to old Spanish literature, this one was not carried through. A notice of De Soto is to be found in Sedano (Parnaso, Tom. II. p. xxxi.); but the pleasantest idea of him and of his agreeable social relations is to be gathered from a poetical epistle to him by Christóval de Mesa (Rimas, 1611, f. 200);—from several poems in Silvestre (ed. 1599, ff. 325, 333, 334);—and from the notices of him by Cervantes in his “Galatea,” and in the Don Quixote, (Parte I. c. 6, and Parte II. c. 1), together with the facts collected in the two last places by the commentators.—Gerónimo de Huerta, then a young man, published in 1588, at Alcalá, his “Florando de Castilla, Lauro de Cavalleros, en Ottava Rima,”—an heroic poem it is called, but still, it is said, in the manner of Ariosto. It is noticed, Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 587, and Mayans, Cartas de Varios Autores, Tom. II., 1773, p. 36; but I have never seen it.

[817] “El Bernardo, Poema Heróico del Doctor Don Bernardo de Balbuena,” Madrid, 1624, 4to, and 1808, 3 tom. 8vo, containing about forty-five thousand lines, but abridged by Quintana, in the second volume of his “Poesías Selectas, Musa Épica,” with skill and judgment, to less than one third of that length.

[818] The story of “Leander” fills a large part of the third book of Boscan and Garcilasso’s Works in the original edition of 1543.—Diego de Mendoza’s “Adonis,” which is about half as long, and on which the old statesman is said to have valued himself very much, is in his Works, 1610, pp. 48-65.—Silvestre’s poems, mentioned in the text, with two others, something like them, make up the whole of the second book of his Works, 1599.—Montemayor’s “Pyramus,” in the short ten-line stanzas, is at the end of the “Diana,” in the edition of 1614.—The “Pyramus” of Ant. de Villegas is in his “Inventario,” 1577, and is in terza rima, which, like the other Italian measures attempted by him, he manages awkwardly.—The “Daphne” of Perez is in various measures, and better deserves reading in old Bart. Yong’s version of it than it does in the original.—I might have added to the foregoing the “Pyramus and Thisbe” of Castillejo, (Obras, 1598, ff. 68, etc.), pleasantly written in the old Castilian short verse, when he was twenty-eight years old, and living in Germany; but it is so much a translation from Ovid, that it hardly belongs here.

[819] Obras de Romero de Cepeda, Sevilla, 1582, 4to. The poem alluded to is entitled “El Infelice Robo de Elena Reyna de Esparta por Paris, Infante Troyano, del qual sucedió la Sangrienta Destruycion de Troya.” It begins ab ovo Ledæ, and, going through about two thousand lines, ends with the death of six hundred thousand Trojans. The shorter poems in the volume are sometimes agreeable.

The poem of Manuel de Gallegos, entitled “Gigantomachia,” and published at Lisbon, 1628, 4to, is also, like that of Cepeda, on a classical subject, being devoted to the war of the Giants against the Gods. Its author was a Portuguese, who lived many years at Madrid in intimacy with Lope de Vega, and wrote occasionally for the Spanish stage, but returned at last to his native country, and died there in 1665. His “Gigantomachia,” in about three hundred and forty octave stanzas, divided into five short books, is written, for the period when it appeared, in a pure style, but is a very dull poem.

[820] These poems are all to be found in the works of their respective authors, elsewhere referred to, except two. The first is the “Atalanta y Hipomenes,” by Moncayo, Marques de San Felice, (Zaragoza, 1656, 4to), in octave stanzas, about eight thousand lines long, in which he manages to introduce much of the history of Aragon, his native country; a general account of its men of letters, who were his contemporaries; and, in canto fifth, all the Aragonese ladies he admired, whose number is not small. The other poem is the “Amor Enamorado,” which Jacinto de Villalpando published (Zaragoça, 1655, 12mo) under the name of “Fabio Clymente”; and which, like the last, is in octave stanzas, but only about half as long. See, also, Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom III. p. 272.

[821] “Los Amantes de Teruel, Epopeya Trágica, con la Restauracion de España por la Parte de Sobrarbe y Conquista del Reino de Valencia, por Juan Yague de Salas,” Valencia, 1616, 12mo. The latter part of it is much occupied with a certain Friar John and a certain Friar Peter, who were great saints in Teruel, and with the conquest of Valencia by Don Jaume of Aragon. The poetry of the whole, it is not necessary to add, is naught. The antiquarian investigation of the truth of the story of the lovers is in a modest pamphlet entitled “Noticias Históricas sobre los Amantes de Teruel, por Don Isidro de Antillon” (Madrid, 1806, 18mo);—a respectable Professor of History in the College of the Nobles at Madrid. (Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. VI. p. 123). It leaves no reasonable doubt about the forgery of Salas, which, moreover, is done very clumsily. Ford, in his admirable “Hand-Book of Spain,” (London, 1845, 8vo, p. 874), implies that the tomb of the lovers is still much visited. It stands now in the cloisters of St. Peter, whither, in 1709, in consequence of alterations in the church, their bodies were removed;—much decayed, says Antillon, notwithstanding the claim set up that they are imperishable. The story of the lovers of Teruel has often been resorted to, and, among others in our own time, by Juan Eugenio Harzenbusch, in his drama, “Los Amantes de Teruel,” and by an anonymous author in a tale with the same title, that appeared at Valencia, 1838, 2 tom. 18mo. In the Preface to the last, another of the certificates of Yague de Salas to the truth of the story is produced for the first time, but adds nothing to its probability. See ante, pp. [301]-[304].

[822] “El Macabeo, Poema Heróico de Miguel de Silveira,” Nápoles, 1638, 4to. Castro (Biblioteca, Tom. I. p. 626) makes Silveira a converted Jew, and Barbosa places his death at 1636; but the Dedication of “El Sol Vencido,” a short, worthless poem, written to flatter the Vice-Queen of Naples, is dated 20 April, 1639, and was printed there that year.

[823] “Poema Heróico de la Invencion de la Cruz, por Fr. Lopez de Zarate,” Madrid, 1648, 4to; twenty-two cantos and four hundred pages of octave stanzas. The infernal councils and many other parts show it to be an imitation of Tasso. The notice of his life by Sedano (Parnaso, Tom. VIII. p. xxiv.) is sufficient; but that by Antonio is more touching, and reads like a tribute of personal regard. Zarate died in 1658, above seventy years old. Semanario Pintoresco, 1845, p. 82.

[824] The continual parody of the gracioso on the hero shows what was the tendency of the Spanish stage in this particular. But there are also plays that are entirely burlesque, such as “The Death of Baldovinos,” at the end of Cancer’s Works, 1651, which is a parody on the old ballads and traditions respecting that paladin; and the “Cavallero de Olmedo,” a favorite play, by Francisco Felix de Monteser, which is in the volume entitled “Mejor Libro de las Mejores Comedias,” Madrid, 1653, and which is a parody of a play with the same title in the Comedias de Lope de Vega, Vol. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641.

[825] Cosmé was editor of the poems of his brother, Francisco de Aldana, in 1593. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 256.) He wrote in Italian and printed at Florence as early as 1578; but Velasco did not go as governor to Milan till after 1586. (Salazar, Dignidades, f. 131.) The only account I have seen of the “Asneida” is in Figueroa’s “Pasagero,” 1617, f. 127.

[826]

En la concavidad del tejadillo,

Hazia los paredones del gallego,

Junto adonde morava antaño el grillo,

En un rincon secreto, oscuro y ciego,

Escondidos debaxo de un ladrillo,

Estan cinco sardinas, lo que os ruego

Como hermanos partays, y seays hermanos

En quanto mas viniere á vuestras manos.

Hallareys, item mas, amontonadas,

De gloria y fama prosperos deseos,

Alas y patas de mil aves tragadas,

De quadrupides pieles y manteos,

Que vuestro padre alli dexo allegadas

Por victoriosas señas y tropheos;

Estas tened en mas que la comida,

Qu’el descanso, qu’el sueño, y que la vida.

p. 14.

[827] “La Muerte, Entierro y Honras de Chrespina Maranzmana, Gata de Juan Chrespo, en tres cantos de octava rima, intitulados la Gaticida, compuesta por Cintio Merctisso, Español, Paris, por Nicolo Molinero,” 1604, 12mo, pp. 52. I know nothing of the poem or its author, except what is to be found in this volume, of which I have never met even with a bibliographical notice, and of which I have seen only one copy,—that belonging to my friend Don Pascual de Gayangos, of Madrid.

[828] The first edition of the “Mosquea” was printed in small 12mo at Cuenca, when its author was twenty-six years old;—the third is Sancha’s, Madrid, 1777, 12mo, with a life, from which it appears, that, besides being a faithful officer of the Inquisition himself, and making a good fortune out of it, Villaviciosa exhorted his family, by his last will, to devote themselves in all future time to its holy service with grateful zeal. See, also, the Spanish translation of Sismondi, Sevilla, 8vo, Tom. I., 1841, p. 354.

[829] A vast number of tributes were paid by contemporary men of letters to Don John of Austria; but among them none is more curious than a Latin poem in two books, containing seventeen or eighteen hundred hexameters and pentameters, the work of a negro, who had been brought as an infant from Africa, and who by his learning rose to be professor of Latin and Greek in the school attached to the cathedral of Granada. He is the same person noticed by Cervantes as “el negro Juan Latino,” in a poem prefixed to the Don Quixote. His volume of Latin verses on the birth of Ferdinand, the son of Philip II., on Pope Pius V., on Don John of Austria, and on the city of Granada, making above a hundred and sixty pages in small quarto, printed at Granada in 1573, is not only one of the rarest books in the world, but is one of the most remarkable illustrations of the intellectual faculties and possible accomplishments of the African race. The author himself says he was brought to Spain from Ethiopia, and was, until his emancipation, a slave to the grandson of the famous Gonsalvo de Córdova. His Latin verse is respectable, and, from his singular success as a scholar, he was commonly called Joannes Latinus, a sobriquet under which he is frequently mentioned, and which was made the title of a play, I presume about him, by Lopez de Enciso, called “Juan Latino.” He was respectably married to a lady of Granada, who fell in love with him, as Eloisa did with Abelard, while he was teaching her; and after his death, which occurred later than 1573, his wife and children erected a monument to his memory in the church of Sta. Ana, in that city, inscribing it with an epitaph, in which he is styled “Filius Æthiopum, prolesque nigerrima patrum.” Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 716. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. I. p. lx., note.

It may not be amiss here to add, that another negro is celebrated in a play, written in tolerable Castilian, and claiming, at the end, to be founded in fact. It is called “El Valiente Negro en Flandes,” and is found in Tom. XXXI., 1638, of the collection of Comedias printed at Barcelona and Saragossa. The negro in question, however, was not, like Juan Latino, a native African, but was a slave born in Merida, and was distinguished only as a soldier, serving with great honor under the Duke of Alva, and enjoying the favor of that severe general.

[830] “Felicissima Victoria concedida del Cielo al Señor Don Juan d’Austria, etc., compuesta por Hierónimo de Cortereal, Cavallero Portugues,” s. l. 1578, 8vo, with curious wood-cuts; probably printed at Lisbon. (Life, in Barbosa, Tom. II. p. 495.) His “Suceso do Segundo Cerco de Diu,” in twenty-one cantos, on the siege, or rather defence, of Diu, in the East Indies, in 1546, was published in 1574, and translated into Spanish by the well-known poet, Pedro de Padilla, who published his version in 1597. His “Naufragio y Lastimoso Suceso da Perdiçaõ de Manuel de Souza de Sepúlveda,” etc., (Lisboa, 1594), in seventeen cantos, was translated into Spanish by Francisco de Contreras, with the title of “Nave Trágica de la India de Portugal,” 1624. This Manuel de Souza, who had held a distinguished office in Portuguese India, and who had perished miserably by shipwreck near the Cape of Good Hope, in 1553, as he was returning home, was a connection of Cortereal by marriage. Denis, Chroniques, etc., Tom. II. p. 79.

[831] “La Austriada de Juan Rufo, Jurado de la Ciudad de Córdoba,” Madrid, 1584, 12mo, ff. 447. There are editions of 1585 and 1587, and it is extravagantly praised by Cervantes, in a prefatory sonnet, and in the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library. Rufo, when he was to be presented to Philip II.,—probably at the time he offered his poem and dedication,—said he had prepared himself fully for the reception, but lost all presence of mind, from the severity of that monarch’s appearance. (Baltasar Porreño, Dichos y Hechos de Philipe II., Bruselas, 1666, 12mo, p. 39.) The best of Rufo’s works is his Letter to his young Son, at the end of his “Apotegmas,” already noticed;—the same son, Luis, who afterwards became a distinguished painter at Rome.

[832] “Primera y Segunda Parte del Leon de España, por Pedro de la Vezilla Castellanos,” Salamanca, 1586, 12mo, ff. 369. The story of the gross tribute of the damsels has probably some foundation in fact; one proof of which is, that the old General Chronicle (Parte III., c. 8) seems a little unwilling to tell a tale so discreditable to Spain. Mariana admits it, and Lobera, in his “Historia de las Grandezas, etc., de Leon,” (Valladolid, 1596, 4to, Parte II. c. 24) gives it in full, as unquestionable. Leon is still often called Leon de España, as it is in the poem of Castellanos, to distinguish it from Lyons in France, Leon de Francia.

[833] “Sitio y Toma de Amberes, por Miguel Giner,” Zaragoza, 1587, 8vo.—“La Conquista que hicieron los Reyes Católicos en Granada, por Edoardo Diaz,” 1590, 8vo, Barbosa, Tom. I. p. 730; besides which, Diaz, who was long a soldier in the Spanish service, and wrote good Castilian, published, in 1592, a volume of verse in Spanish and Portuguese.—“De la Historia de Sagunto, Numancia, y Cartago, compuesta por Lorencio de Zamora, Natural de Ocaña,” Alcalá, 1589, 4to,—nineteen cantos of ottava rima, and about five hundred pages, ending abruptly and promising more. It was written, the author says, when he was eighteen years old; but though he lived to be an old man, and died in 1614, having printed several religious books, he never went farther with this poem. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 11.

[834] “Las Navas de Tolosa,” twenty cantos, Madrid, 1594, 12mo;—“La Restauracion de España,” ten cantos, Madrid, 1607, 12mo;—“El Patron de España,” six books, Madrid, 1611, 12mo, with Rimas added. My copy of the last volume is one of the many proofs that new title-pages with later dates were attached to Spanish books that had been some time before the public. Mr. Southey, to whom this copy once belonged, expresses his surprise, in a MS. note on the fly-leaf, that the last half of the volume should be dated in 1611, while the first half is dated in 1612. But the reason is, that the title-page to the Rimas comes at p. 94, in the middle of a sheet, and could not conveniently be cancelled and changed, as was the title-page to the “Patron de España,” with which the volume opens. Mesa’s translations are later;—the Æneid, Madrid, 1615, 12mo; and the Eclogues of Virgil, to which he added a few more Rimas and the poor tragedy of “Pompeio,” Madrid, 1618, 12mo. The ottava rima seems to me very cumbrous in both these translations, and unsuited to their nature, though we are reconciled to it, and to the terza rima, in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, by Viana, a Portuguese, printed at Valladolid, in 1589, 4to; one of the happiest translations made in the pure age of Castilian literature. The Iliad, which Mesa is also supposed to have translated, was never printed. In one of his epistles, (Rimas, 1611, f. 201), he says he was bred to the law; and in another, (f. 205), that he loved to live in Castile, though he was of Estremadura. In many places he alludes to his poverty and to the neglect he suffered; and in a sonnet in his last publication, (1618, f. 113), he shows a poor, craven spirit in flattering the Count de Lemos, with whom he was offended for not taking him to Naples.

[835] “Conquista de la Bética, Poema Heróico de Juan de la Cueva,” 1603, reprinted in the fourteenth and fifteenth volumes of the collection of Fernandez, (Madrid, 1795), with a Preface, which is, I think, by Quintana, and is very good. A notice of Cueva occurs in the Spanish translation of Sismondi, Tom. I. p. 285; and a number of his unpublished works are said to be in the possession of the Counts of Aguila in Seville. Semanario Pintoresco, 1846, p. 250.

[836] “El Pelayo del Pinciano,” Madrid, 1605, 12mo, twenty cantos, filling above six hundred pages, with a poor attempt at the end, after the manner of Tasso, to give an allegorical interpretation to the whole. I notice in N. Antonio “La Iberiada, de los Hechos de Scipion Africano, por Gaspar Savariego de Santa Anna,” Valladolid, 1603, 8vo. I have never seen it. “La Patrona de Madrid Restituida,” by Salas Barbadillo, an heroic poem in honor of Our Lady of Atocha, printed in 1608, and reprinted, Madrid, 1750, 12mo, which I possess, is worthless and does not need to be noticed.

[837] “La Numantina del Licenciado Don Francisco Mosquera de Barnuevo, etc., dirigida á la nobilissima Ciudad de Soria y á sus doce Linages y Casas á ellas agregadas,” Sevilla, 1612, 4to. He says “it was a book of his youth, printed when his hairs were gray”; but it shows none of the judgment of mature years.

“La Liga deshecha por la Expulsion de los Moriscos de los Reynos de España,” Madrid, 1612, 12mo. It was printed, therefore, long before Vasconcellos fought against Spain, and contains fulsome compliments to Philip III., which must afterwards have given their author no pleasure. (Barbosa, Tom. II. p. 701.) The poem consists of about twelve hundred octave stanzas.

“La España Defendida,” by Christ. Suarez de Figueroa, Madrid, 1612, 12mo, and Naples, 1644, belongs to the same date, making, in fact, three heroic poems in one year.

[838] “Hespaña Libertada, Parte Primera, por Doña Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda, dirigida al Rey Católico de las Hespañas, Don Felipe Tercero deste Nombre, nuestro Señor,” (Lisboa, 1618, 4to), was evidently intended as a compliment to the Spanish usurpers, and, in this point of view, is as little creditable to its author as it is in its poetical aspect. Parte Segunda was published by her daughter, Lisboa, 1673, 4to. Bernarda de Lacerda was a lady variously accomplished. Lope de Vega, who dedicated to her his eclogue entitled “Phylis,” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. X. p. 193), compliments her on her writing Latin with purity. She published a volume of poetry, in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, in 1634, and died in 1644.

“El Fernando, ó Sevilla Restaurada, Poema Heróico, escrito con los Versos de la Gerusalemme Liberata, etc., por Don Juan Ant. de Vera y Figueroa, Conde de la Roca,” etc., Milan, 1632, 4to, pp. 654. He died 1658. Antonio, ad verb.

“Nápoles Recuperada por el Rey Don Alonso, Poema Heróico de D. Francisco de Borja, Príncipe de Esquilache,” etc. Zaragoza, 1651, Amberes, 1658, 4to. A notice of his honorable and adventurous life will be given, when we speak of Spanish lyrical poetry, where he was more successful than he was in epic.

There were two or three other poems called heroic that appeared after these; but they do not need to be recalled. One of the most absurd of them is the “Orfeo Militar,” in two parts, by Joan de la Victoria Ovando; the first being on the siege of Vienna by the Turks, and the second on that of Buda, both printed in 1688, 4to, at Malaga, where their author enjoyed a military office; but neither, I think, was much read beyond the limits of the city that produced them.

[839] See what is said in Chap. III. on Acuña, Cetina, Silvestre, etc.

[840] “Obras Poéticas de Lomas de Cantorál,” Madrid, 1578, 12mo. It opens with a translation from Tansillo, and the lyrical portions of the three books into which it is divided are in the Italian manner; but the rest is often more national in its forms.

[841] Figueroa, (born 1540, died 1620), often called El Divino, was perhaps more known and admired in Italy, during the greater part of his life, than he was in Spain; but he died at last, much honored, in Alcalá, his native city. His poetry is dated in 1572, and was circulated in manuscript quite as early as that date implies; but it was not printed, I think, till it appeared in 1626, at Lisbon, in a minute volume under the auspices of Luis Tribaldo de Toledo, chronicler of Portugal. It is also in the twentieth volume of the collection of Fernandez, Madrid. But, though it is highly polished, it is not inspired by a masculine genius.

[842] “Diversas Rimas de V. Espinel,” Madrid, 1591, 18mo. His lines on Seeking Occasions for Jealousy (f. 78) are very happy, and his Complaints against Past Happiness (f. 128) are better than those on the same subject by Silvestre, Obras, 1599, f. 71.

[843] Montemayor, as we shall see hereafter, introduced the prose pastorals, in imitation of Sannazaro, into Spanish in 1542; and a collection of his poetry, called a “Cancionero,” was printed in 1554. In the edition of Madrid, 1588, 12mo, which I use, about one third of the volume is in the Castilian measures and manner; after which it is formally announced, “Here begin the sonnets, canciones, and other pieces in the measures of Italian verse.” A cancion occurs in the first book of the “Diana,” on the regrets of a shepherdess who had driven her lover to despair, which is very sweet and natural, and is well translated by old Bartholomew Yong in his version of the Diana (London, 1598, folio, p. 8). Polo, who continued the Diana, pursued the same course in the poems he inserted in his continuation, and good translations of several of them may be found in Yong.

“The works of Montemayor touching on Devotion and Religion”—those, I presume, in his “Cancionero”—are prohibited in the Index of 1667, and in that of 1790.

[844] The lyric poetry of Barahona de Soto is to be sought among the works of Silvestre, 1599, and in the “Flores de Poetas Ilustres,” by Espinosa, Valladolid, 1605, 4to.

[845] “Las Seyscientas Apotegmas de Juan Rufo, y otras Obras en Verso,” Toledo, 1596, 8vo. The Apotegmas are, in fact, anecdotes in prose. His sonnets and canciones are not so good as his Letter to his Son and his other more Castilian poems, such as the one relating to the war in Flanders, where he served.

[846] “Libro de Poesía, por Fray Damian de Vegas,” Toledo, 1590, 12mo, above a thousand pages; most of it religious; most of it in the old manner; and nearly all of it very dull.

[847] “Pedro de Padilla, Eglogas, Sonetos,” etc., Sevilla, 1582, 4to, ff. 246. There are many lyrics in this collection, glosas, villancicos, and letrillas, that are quite Castilian, some of them spirited and pleasant. Others may be found in his “Thesoro de Varias Poesías,” (Madrid, 1587, 12mo), where, however, there are yet more in the Italian forms.

[848] The “Cancionero” of Maldonado was printed at Madrid, 1586, in 4to, and the best parts of it are the amatory poetry, some of which is found in the third volume of Faber’s “Floresta.” One more poet might have been added here, as writing in the old measures,—Joachim Romero de Çepeda,—whose works were printed at Seville, 1582, in 4to, and contain a good many canciones, motes, and glosas; among the rest, three remarkable sonnets, presented by him to Philip II. as he passed through Badajoz, where Çepeda lived, to take possession of Portugal, in 1580. But the whole volume is marked with conceits and quibbles.

[849] Herrera’s praises of Seville and the Guadalquivir sufficiently betray his origin, so constant are they. They are, too, sometimes among the happy specimens of his verse; for instance, in the ode in honor of St. Ferdinand, who rescued Seville from the Moors, and in the elegy, “Bien debes asconder sereno cielo.”

[850] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, 1819, p. 447. The date of Herrera’s death is given on the sure authority of some MS. notes of Pacheco, his friend, published in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1845, p. 299; before which it was unknown. These notes are taken from an interesting MS. which seems to have been the rough and imperfect draft of the “Imágines” and “Elogia Virorum Illustrium,” which Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 456) says Pacheco gave to the well-known Count Duke Olivares. They are in the Semanario Erudito, 1844, pp. 374, etc. See also Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 536-537. Pacheco was a good painter, and Cean Bermudez (Diccionario, Tom. IV. p. 3) gives a life of him. He was a man of some learning, and entered into a controversy with Quevedo on the question of making Santa Teresa a copatroness of Spain with Santiago, which Quevedo resisted; besides which, in 1649, he published in 4to, at Seville, his “Arte de la Pintura, su Antiguedad y Grandezas,” a rare work, praised by Cean Bermudez, which I have never seen. Pacheco died in 1654. Sedano (Parnaso Español, Tom. III. p. 117, and Tom. VII. p. 92) gives two epigrams of Pacheco, which are connected with his art, and which Sedano praises, I think, more than they deserve to be praised.

[851] Pacheco’s edition is accompanied with a fine portrait of the author from a picture by the editor, which has often been engraved since.

[852] “In our Spain, beyond all comparison, Garcilasso stands first,” he says, (p. 409), and repeats the same opinion often elsewhere.

[853] The edition of Fernandez, the most complete of all, and twice printed, is in the fourth and fifth volumes of his “Poesías Castellanas.” The longer poems of Herrera, which we know only by their unpromising titles, are “The Battle of the Giants,” “The Rape of Proserpine,” “The Amadis,” and “The Loves of Laurino and Cærona.” Perhaps we have reason to regret the loss of his unpublished Eclogues and “Castilian Verses,” which last may have been in the old Castilian measures. In 1572, he published a descriptive account of the war of Cyprus and the battle of Lepanto, and, in 1592, a Life of Sir Thomas More, taken from the Latin “Lives of the Three Thomases,” by Stapleton, the obnoxious English Papist. (Wood’s Athenæ, ed. Bliss, Tom. I. p. 671.) A History of Spain, said by Rioja to have been finished by Herrera about 1590, is probably lost.

[854] In some remarks by the Licentiate Enrique de Duarte, prefixed to the edition of Herrera’s poetry printed in 1619, he says, that, a few days after Herrera’s death, a bound volume, containing all his poetical works, prepared by himself for the press, was destroyed, and that his scattered manuscripts would probably have shared the same fate, if they had not been carefully collected by Pacheco.

[855] In his commentary on Garcilasso he says, “The sonnet is the most beautiful form of composition in Spanish and Italian poetry, and the one that demands the most art in its construction and the greatest grace.” p. 66.

[856] The lady to whom Herrera dedicated his love, in a spirit of pure and Platonic affection, little known to Spanish poetry, is said to have been the Countess of Gelves.

[857] There is a book on this subject which should not be entirely overlooked in a history of Spanish literature. It is an account of a pastry-cook of Madrigal, who, seventeen years after the rout in Africa, passed himself off in Spain as Don Sebastian, and induced Anna of Austria, a cousin of that monarch and a nun, to give him rich jewels, which led to the detection of the fraud. The story is interesting and well told, and was first printed in 1595, at Cadiz, under the title of “A History of Gabriel de Espinosa, the Pastry-cook of Madrigal, who pretended to be King Don Sebastian of Portugal.” Of course, Philip II. did not deal gently with one who made such pretensions to the crown he himself had clutched, or with any of his abettors. The pastry-cook and a monk on whom he had imposed his fictions were both hanged, after undergoing the usual appliances of racks and tortures; and the poor princess was degraded from her rank, and shut up in a conventual cell for life. There is an anonymous play of small merit, which seems to have been written in the time of Philip IV., and is entitled “El Pastelero de Madrigal.”

[858]

Ai de los que passaron, confiados

En sus cavallos, y en la muchadumbre

De sus carros, en tí, Libia desierta!

Y en su vigor y fuerças engañados,

No alçaron su esperança á aquella cumbre

D’eterna luz; mas con sobervia cierta

S’ofrecieron la incierta

Victoria, y sin bolver á Dios sus ojos,

Con ierto cuello y coraçon ufano,

Solo atendieron siempre á los despojos!

Y el Santo de Israel abrió su mano,

Y los dexó;—y cayó en despeñadero

Versos de Fern. Herrera, Sevilla, 1619, 4to, p. 350.

[859] See the address of Quevedo to his readers in the “Poesías del Bachiller de la Torre.” Some of the words, however, to which he objects, like pensoso, infamia, dudanza, etc., have been recognized since as good Castilian, which from their nature they were when Herrera used them.

[860] Obras de Garcilasso, 1580, pp. 75, 120, 126, 573, and other places.

[861] “Primera Parte de las Flores de Poetas Ilustres de España, ordenada por Pedro Espinosa, Natural de la Ciudad de Antequera,” Valladolid, 1605, 4to, ff. 204. Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 190) says Espinosa was attached to the great Andalusian family of the Dukes of Medina-Sidonia, the Guzmans, and of the three or four works he produced, two are in honor of his patrons, and one was published by himself as late as 1644. Much of the poetry in the “Flores” is Andalusian,—a circumstance that renders the omission of Herrera the more striking; some of it is to be found nowhere else; and, unhappily, the book itself is among the rarest in Spanish poetry.

[862] Of the ladies whose poems occur in Espinosa, I think one, Doña Christovalina, is noticed by Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 349). Of the others I know nothing, nor of Pedro de Liñan. Texada, as we are told by Antonio, died in 1635, at the age of sixty-seven;—the five poems printed thirty years before by Espinosa being all we have of his works.

[863] Andres Rey de Artieda, better known under his academical name of Artemidoro, is praised by Cervantes as a well-known poet in 1584, though his works were not printed till they appeared at Çaragoça, 1605, 4to. (Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 262.) Manoel de Portugal, one of those Portuguese who, in the time of Philip II. and III., sought favor of the oppressors of their country by writing in Spanish, was known from 1577; but the collection of his poems in nearly a thousand pages, some in Portuguese, and all of little value, did not appear till it was printed at Lisbon, 1605, 12mo, the year before his death. (Barbosa, Tom. III. p. 345.) Luys de Carrillo y Sotomayor’s poems were published after his death by his brother, at Madrid, 1611, 4to, and were reprinted in 1613; but they had been circulated in MS. from the time he was at the University of Salamanca, where he resided six years. He died in 1610. Pellicer, Bib., Tom. II. p. 122.

[864] “Rimas de Christóval de Mesa,” Madrid, 1611, 12mo; to which add about fifty sonnets in the volume of his translation of Virgil’s Eclogues, Madrid, 1618, 12mo. His notice of himself is in a poetical epistle to the Count de Lemos, when he was going as viceroy to Naples, (Rimas, f. 155), and is such as to show that he was anxious to be a member of that poetical court, and much disappointed at his failure.

[865] The poetry of both of them was printed in 1603; but I do not find any mention of the exact time when either of them lived, and am not quite certain that Lope de Sosa is not the poet who occurs often in the old Cancioneros. I might have added to the notice of their poetry that of some of the poetry in an ascetic work by Malon de Chaide, called “La Conversion de la Magdalena,” consisting of sonnets, versions of the Psalms, etc., which are very pleasing. The best, however,—an ode on the love of Mary Magdalen to the Saviour after his resurrection,—is so grossly amatory in its tone, that its poetical merit is quite dimmed by it. Ed. Alcalá, 1592, 12mo, f. 336.

[866] Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. V. p. xxxi. Lope de Vega praises Ledesma more than once, unreasonably. His “Conceptos,” in the first edition, Madrid, 1600, is a small volume of 258 leaves, but I believe the subsequent editions contain more poems. His “Juegos de la Noche Buena,” Barcelona, 1611, which I have never seen, is strictly forbidden by the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 64.

[867] Moro Expósito, Paris, 1834, 8vo, Tom. I. p. xvii.

[868] It is a striking and important fact, to be taken in this connection, that Lope de Vega, though opposed to the new school upon principle, was a correspondent and admirer of Marini, to whom he sent his portrait and dedicated a play; and of whom, in the extravagance of his flattery, he said that Tasso was but as a dawn to the full glory of Marini. Through this channel, therefore, and through many others, traces of which may be found in the collection of Italian eulogies on Lope de Vega, we can at once see how Marini may easily have exercised an influence over the poets of Spain contemporary with him. See Lope’s “Jardin,” (Obras, Tom. I. p. 486), first printed in 1622, and his Dedication to “Virtud, Pobreza y Mujer” (Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, f. 203).

Of the influence of classical antiquity in corrupting the proper Castilian style, I know of no instance earlier than that of Vasco Diaz de Frexenal, who published as early as 1547. His object seems to have been to introduce Latin words and constructions, just as the Pleiades did in France, at the same time and a little later. This can be seen in his “Veinte Triunfos,” chiefly devoted to a poetical account of events in the life of Charles V.; such as his marriage, the birth of his son Philip II., his coronation at Bologna, etc.,—all written in the old measures, and published without notice of the place or year, but, necessarily, after 1530, since that was the date of the Emperor’s coronation. Thus, in the “Prohemio,” where he speaks of dedicating his “Twenty Triumphs” to the twenty Spanish Dukes, Frexenal says, “Baste que la ferventisima afeccion, y la observantisima veneracion, que á vuestras dignisimas y felicisimas Señorias devo, á la dedicacion de mis veinte triunphos me han convidado. Como quiera que mas coronas ducales segun mi noticia en la indomita España no hay, verdaderamente el presente es de poco precio, y las obras del de menos valor, y el autor dellas de menos estima. Pero su apetitosa observancia, su afeccionada fidelidad, y su optativa servidumbre, por las nobilisimas bondades, y prestantisimas virtudes de vuestras excelentes y dignisimas Señorias en algun precio estimadas ser merecen.”

He Latinizes less in the poems that follow, because it is more difficult to do it in verse, but not because he desires it less, as the following lines from the “Triumpho Nuptial Vandalico” (f. ix.) prove plainly:—

Al tiempo que el fulminado

Apolo muy radial

Entrava en el primer grado,

Do nasció el vello dorado

En el equinocial;

Pasado el puerto final

De la hesperica nacion,

Su machina mundanal,

Por el curso occidental

Equitando en Phelegon.

This is very different from what was attempted by Juan de Mena a century before; he having desired only to take individual Latin words, and knowing little of classical antiquity; whereas Frexenal wishes, in Montaigne’s phrase, “to Latinize,” and give to his Castilian sentences a Roman air and construction, and so may have been, to a certain extent, the predecessor of Góngora. Antonio mentions two or three other works of Frexenal in prose, chiefly religious, which I have never seen; but I have some ridiculous verses, printed at the end of his treatise entitled “Jardin del Alma Christiana,” 1552, 4to.

[869] Galatea, ed. 1784, Tom. II. p. 284.

[870] Pellicer, Vida de Cervantes, in Don Quixote, Tom. I. p. cxiv.

[871] Mayans y Siscar, Cartas, Tom. I. p. 125.

[872] See his life, by his friend Hozes, prefixed to his Works, Madrid, 1654, 4to.

[873]

La mas bella niña

De nuestro lugar;

Oy viuda, y sola,

Y ayer por casar.

Obras de Góngora, 1654, f. 84.

[874]

Frescos ayrecillos,

Que á la primauera

Destexeis guirnaldas,

Y esparceis violetas.

Obras de Góngora, 1654. f. 89.

[875] A la Tercera Parte de la Historia Pontifical, que escriuió el Doctor Bavia, Capellan de la Capilla Real de Granada.

Este que Bavia al mundo oy ha ofrecido

Poema, si no á numeros atado,

De la disposicion antes limado,

Y de la erudicion despues lamido,

Historia es culta, cuyo encanecido

Estilo, sino metrico, peinado,

Tres ya Pilotos del vagel sagrado

Hurta al tiempo, y redime del oluido.

Pluma, pues, que claueros celestiales

Eterniza en los bronces du su historia,

Llaue es ya de los siglos, y no pluma.

Ella á sus nombres puertas immortales

Abre, no de caduca no memoria,

Que sombras sella en tumulos de espuma.

Góngora, Obras, 1654, f. 5.

The commentary is in Coronel, Obras de Góngora Comentadas, Tom. II. Parte I., Madrid, 1645, pp. 148-159; but it should be noted, that the concluding lines are so obscure, that Luzan (Poética, Lib. II. c. 15) gives them a different interpretation, and understands the phrase, “stamping shadows on masses of foam,” to refer to the art of printing, which so often praises those who do not deserve it. The whole sonnet is cited with admiration by Gracian, “Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio,” Discurso XXXII.; a work which we must mention hereafter as the art of poetry for the culto school; and the editors of the “Diario de los Literatos de España”—men of better taste than was common in their times—reproached Luzan, when they reviewed his “Poética” in 1738, with being too severe on this extraordinary nonsense. Lanuza, Discurso Apologético de Luzan, Pamplona, 1740, 12mo, pp. 46-78.

[876] Obras, f. 32.

[877] In the second coro.

[878] I suppose he changed his style about the time he went to court; and the very first of his sonnets in Espinosa’s “Flores” is proof that he had changed it as early as 1605.

[879] Jos. Pellicer, in his “Lecciones Solemnes,” (Madrid, 1630, 4to, col. 610-612 and 684), explains his position in relation to Góngora, and his trouble about finding the meaning of some passages in his works; thus justifying what the Prince of Esquilache said, probably in reference to these very commentaries:—

Un docto comentador

(El mas presumido digo)

Es el mayor enemigo

Que tener pudo el autor.

El Príncipe á su Libro.

[880] “Ilustracion y Defensa de la Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe de Christóval de Salazar Mardones,” Madrid, 1636, 4to.

[881] There is a notice of Coronel in Antonio, Bib. Nova. The three volumes of his commentary (Madrid, 4to, 1636-46) contain six or seven hundred pages each;—the second being divided into two parts. As a poet himself, he printed in Madrid, 1650, 4to, a volume which he called “Crystals from Helicon,” one of the worst productions of the school of Góngora.

[882] Antonio, article “Ludovicus de Góngora,” mentions the inferior commentators. The attack of Cascales, who seems afraid to be thorough with it, is in his “Cartas Philológicas.”

[883] The queen, who was a daughter of Henry IV. of France, was one day passing through a gallery of the palace, when some one came behind her and covered her eyes with his hands. “What is that for, Count?” she exclaimed. But, unhappily for her, it was not the Count;—it was the king. Soon afterwards Villamediana received a hint to be on his guard, as his life was in danger. He neglected the friendly notice, and was assassinated the same evening. He had been very open in his admiration of the queen, having, on occasion of a tournament, covered his person with silver reals and taken the punning motto,—“Mis amores son reales.” (Velazquez, Dieze, Göttingen, 1796, 8vo, p. 255.) An edition of his Works, Madrid, 1634, 4to, is a little more ample than that of Çaragoça, 1629, 4to; but not the better for it. The story of the Count’s unhappy presumption and fate may be found in Mad. d’Aulnoy’s “Voyage d’Espagne,” ed. 1693, Tom. II. pp. 17-21, and in the striking ballads of the Duke of Rivas, Romances Históricos, Paris, 1841, 8vo.

[884] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 389. His entire name was Hortensio Felix Paravicino y Arteaga. Why the whole of it was not given with his poems, which were not printed till after his death, it is not easy to tell. There are editions of them in 1641, 1645, and 1650; the last, Alcalá, 12mo.

[885] Ambrosio de la Roca y Serna was a Valencian, and died in 1649. (Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 359, and Fuster, Tom. I. p. 249.) He seems to have been valued little, except as a religious poet, but he was valued long. I have a copy of his “Luz del Alma,” without year or place, but printed as late as 1725, 12mo.

[886] “El Perfeto Señor, Poesías Varias,” etc., Madrid, 1652, 4to. He wrote silvas darker than Góngora’s “Soledades.” His madrigals and shorter poems are more intelligible, though none are good. He was a Portuguese by birth, but lived in Madrid, where he died after 1656. (Barbosa, Tom. I. p. 310.) There are two editions of his works.

[887] Baena, Tom. I. p. 93. The works of Pantaleon are obvious imitations of Góngora, as may be seen in his “Fábula de Prosérpina,” “Fábula de Alfeo y Aretusa,” etc., though perhaps still more in his sonnets and décimas. They were first printed in 1634, but appeared several times afterwards, with slight additions. My copy is of Madrid, 1648, 18mo.

[888] Violante del Cielo (do Ceo, in Portuguese) died in 1693, ninety-two years old, having written and published many volumes of Portuguese poetry and prose, some of the contents of which are too gallant to be very nun-like. Her “Rimas,” chiefly Spanish, were printed in Ruan, 1646, 12mo. One of the few poems among them that can be read is an ode on the death of Lope de Vega (p. 44); though it should be added, that some of her short religious poems, scattered elsewhere in her works, are better.

[889] Melo, who died in 1666, was one of the most successful Portuguese authors of his time. (Barbosa, Tom. II. p. 182.) His “Tres Musas del Melodino,” a volume containing his Spanish poetry, and consisting, in a great measure, of sonnets, ballads, odes, and other short lyrics, much in the manner of Quevedo, as well as of Góngora, was printed twice, in 1649 and 1665,—the former, Lisboa, 4to.

[890] Moncayo is also known by his title of Marques de San Felices. His poems are entitled “Rimas de Don Juan de Moncayo í Gurrea,” (Çaragoça, 1652, 4to), and consist of sonnets, a “Fábula de Venus í Adonis,” ballads, etc. Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. p. 320.

[891] “Entretenimiento de las Musas en esta Baraxa Nueva de Versos, dividida en Quatro Manjares, etc., por Fenix de la Torre,” Çaragoça, 1654, 4to. The title speaks for itself. His proper name was Francisco, and he was a Murcian.

[892] “Ydeas de Apolo y Dignas Tareas del Ocio Cortesano,” Madrid, 1661, 4to; abounding in sonnets, religious ballads, and courtly lyrics. A few of its poems are narrative, like one in the ballad form on the story of Danae, and another at the end in ottava rima, on the finding of the Virgin of Balvanera.

[893] “Noche de Invierno; Conversacion sin Naypes,” Madrid, 1662, 4to. The second part of this volume consists of burlesque poems, full of miserable puns and rudenesses.

[894] “Obras de Don Luis de Ulloa, Prosas y Versos,” of which the second edition was published by his son, at Madrid, 1674, 4to. Some of the religious poems, in the old measures, are among the best of the volume; but the very best is the “Raquel,” in about eighty octave stanzas, on the story of the love of Alfonso VIII. for the fair Jewess of Toledo.

[895] “Cythara de Apolo,”—published after its author’s death by Vera Tassis y Villarroel, “his greatest friend”;—the same person who collected and published the plays of Calderon. Among his works is a Soledad, in professed imitation of Góngora, and Fábulas or Stories of Venus and Adonis, and Orpheus and Eurydice, in the manner of Villamediana. Aug. de Salazar was born in 1642, and died in 1675.

[896] Of Quevedo and Calderon I have already spoken; and Montalvan, Zarate, Tirso de Molina, and most of the dramatists of note, might have been added. Cervantes, in his old age, heeded the new school little, but he complains of the obscure style of poetry in his “Ilustre Fregona,” 1613, giving a specimen of it, and alludes to it again in the second part of his Don Quixote, c. 16.

[897] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. pp. 271, 342; Tom. XII. pp. 231-234; Tom. XIX. p. 49; and Tom. IV. pp. 459-482. In the last cited passage, Lope says he always placed Fernando de Herrera as a model before himself.

[898] National Library, Madrid, Estante M, Codex 132, 4to. At least, it was there in 1818, at which date I saw it.

[899] Tablas Poéticas, ed. 1779, p. 103. One of Góngora’s friends, Mardones, answered Cascales, (Cartas Philológicas, 1771, Dec. I. Cartas 8 and 10), who rejoined, and is again answered in Carta 9.

[900] I have never seen this book, but Antonio, in his article on Jauregui, gives its title, and Flögel (Gesch. der Komischen Literatur, Tom. II. p. 303) gives the date of its publication. Jauregui, however, in his translation of the “Pharsalia” of Lucan, falls into the false style of Góngora. Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua Castellana, 1793, p. 138.

[901] Tragedia Antigua, Madrid, 1633, 4to, pp. 84, 85.

[902] See Appendix (G).

[903] We know nothing of Medrano, except his poems, printed at Palermo, in 1617, at the end of an imitation, rather than a translation, of Ovid by Venegas. But Pedro Venegas de Saavedra was a Sevilian gentleman, and Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 246) hints that the imprint of the volume may not show the true place of its publication.

[904] He is mentioned in Cervantes, “Canto de Calíope,” and there is a life of him in the notes to Sismondi, Spanish translation (Tom. I. p 274). His poems are found in the “Flores” of Espinosa, and in the eighteenth volume of Fernandez.

[905] Varflora, Hijos de Sevilla, No. III. p. 14; Sismondi’s Lit. Española por Figueroa, Tom. I. p. 282; Espinosa, Flores; and Fernandez, Coleccion, Tom. XVIII. pp. 88-124. It may, perhaps, be noted here, that the “Hijos de Sevilla Ilustres en Santidad, Letras, Armas, Artes ó Dignidad,” published in that city in 1791, in 8vo, is a poor book, but one that sometimes contains facts not elsewhere to be found, and one that is now become very rare, from the circumstance that it was published in separate numbers. On its title-page it is said to have been written by Don Firmin Arana de Varflora; but Blanco White, in “Doblado’s Letters,” 1822, p. 469, says its author was Padre Valderrama.

[906] “El Poeta Castellano, Antonio Balvas Barona, Natural de la Ciudad de Segovia,” Valladolid, 1627, 12mo.

[907] All needful notices of the two Argensolas and their works—and more too—can be found in the elaborate lives of them by Pellicer, in his “Biblioteca de Traductores,” 1778, pp. 1-141; and by Latassa, in the “Biblioteca Nueva de Escritores Aragoneses,” Tom. II. pp. 143, 461. Besides the original edition of their Rimas, (Zaragoza, 1634, 4to), two editions are found in Fernandez, “Coleccion,” the last being of 1804. The sonnet of Bartolomé on Sleep is commonly much admired; but of his poems I prefer the sonnet on Providence, (p. 330), and the ode in honor of the Church after the battle of Lepanto, ed. 1634, p. 372.

[908] It is a curious fact, and one somewhat characteristic of the carelessness with which works in Spain were attributed to persons who did not write them, that the “Orfeo” of Jauregui is printed in the “Cythara de Apolo,” a collection of the posthumous poems of Agustin de Salazar, (which appeared at Madrid, 1694, 4to), as if it were his. So far as I have compared the two, I find nothing altered but the first stanza, and the title of the poem, which, instead of being simply called “Orfeo,” as it was by its author, is entitled, in imitation of Góngora’s school, “Fábula de Euridice y Orfeo.”

[909] Sedano, Tom. IX. p. xxii. Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 38. Signorelli, Storia de’ Teatri, 1813, Tom. VI. p. 13. Cervantes, Novelas, Prólogo. Orfeo de Juan de Jauregui, Madrid, 1624, 4to. Fernandez, Coleccion, Tom. VII. and VIII., containing the “Farsalia”; and Rimas de Juan de Jauregui, Sevilla, 1618, 4to, reprinted by Fernandez, Tom. VI. But the best text of the “Amynta” is that in Sedano, (Parnaso, Tom. I.), which is made by a collation of both the editions that were prepared by Jauregui himself. Of this beautiful version it may be noted that Cervantes (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 62) says, as he does of the “Pastor Fido” by Figueroa, “We happily doubt which is the translation and which the original.” The “Farsalia” of Jauregui was not printed till 1684.

Jauregui’s silva on seeing his mistress bathing can be compared, much to its advantage and honor, with a longer silva on the same subject, entitled “Anaxarete,” and published at the end of his “Gigantomachia,” by Manuel de Gallegos, Lisboa, 1628, 4to, ten years after the appearance of Jauregui’s poem. The “Anaxarete” is not without graceful passages, but it is much too long, and shows frequent traces of the school of Góngora.

[910] This allusion occurs in a satire on the culto style of poetry, not found in his collected works, but in Sedano, (Tom. IX., 1778, p. 8), where it appeared for the first time.

[911] An excellent life of Villegas is prefixed to the edition of his Works, Madrid, 1774, 2 tom. 8vo, said by Guarinos (Biblioteca de Escritores del Reinado de Carlos III., Madrid, 1785, 8vo, Tom. V. p. 19) to have been written by Vicente de los Rios.

[912] In the edition of his poetry published by himself and at his own expense, in 1617, 4to, at Naxera, his birthplace, he gives on the title-page a print of the rising sun, with the stars growing dim, and two mottoes to explain its meaning: the first, “Sicut sol matutinus,” and the other, “Me surgente, quid istæ?“—the istæ whom he thus slights being Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and indeed the whole galaxy of the best period of Spanish literature. Lope seems to have been a little annoyed at this impertinence and vanity of Villegas; for, in allusion to it, he says, in the midst of a passage otherwise laudatory,—

Aunque dixo que todos se escondiesen,

Quando los rayos de su ingenio viesen.

Laurel de Apolo, Madrid, 1630, 4to, Silva iii.

For the harsh words of Villegas about Cervantes, see Navarrete, Vida, § 128.

[913]

Mis dulces cantilenas,

Mis suaves delicias,

A los veinte limadas

I á los catorce escritas.

Ed. 1617, f. 88.

[914] There is an interesting notice of Villegas and his works by the kindred spirit of Wieland, in the Deutsche Merkur, 1774, Tom. V. pp. 237, etc.; the first time, I suspect, that his name had been mentioned with the praise it deserves, out of Spain, for a century. It should be remembered, however, that Villegas, though he generally wrote with very great simplicity, and, in his Elegy to Bartolomé de Argensola (Eróticas, 1617, Tom. II. f. 28) and elsewhere, censures the obscure and affected writers of his time, yet sometimes himself writes in the bad style he condemns, and devotes his sixth Elegy to praise of the absurd “Phaeton” of the Count Villamediana.

[915] In the Academy’s edition of the “Siglo de Oro,” Madrid, 1821, 8vo, there is other poetry besides that contained in the pastoral itself.

[916] Poems are found in all the stories of Salas Barbadillo, which would, perhaps, double the amount published by himself in his “Rimas Castellanas,” Madrid, 1618, 12mo, and by his friends after his death, in the “Coronas del Parnaso,” Madrid, 1635, 12mo. The volume of Rimas is more than half made up of sonnets and epigrams.

[917] “Obras de Salvador Jacinto Polo,” Zaragoça, 1670, 4to. His “Apollo and Daphne” is partly in ridicule of the culto style.

[918] “Desengaño del Amor en Rimas por Pedro Soto de Rojas,” Madrid, 1623, 4to. He was of Granada, and, as his sonnets show, a great admirer of Góngora.

[919] The poetry of Rioja was not published till near the end of the eighteenth century, when it appeared in the collections of Sedano and Fernandez in 1774 and 1797. The two odes of Rioja and Caro are printed together in the Spanish translation of Sismondi’s “History of Spanish Literature,” Sevilla, 1842, in the notes to which is the best account to be found of Rioja. (Tom. II. p. 173.) Rioja, it may be added, was a friend of Lope de Vega, who addressed to him a pleasant poetical epistle on his own garden, which was first printed in 1622.

[920]

Fuentecillas, que reis,

Y con la arena jugais,

Donde vais?

Pues de las flores huis,

Y los peñascos buscais.

Si reposais

Donde risueña dormis,

Porque correis, y os cansais?

Obras en Verso de Borja, Amberes, 1663, 4to, p. 395.

[921] The life of Borja is in Baena, Tom. II. p. 175; and his opinions on poetry, defending the older and simpler school, are set forth in some décimas prefixed to his “Obras en Verso,” of which there are editions of 1639, 1654, and 1663. Of his lyrical ballads, I would notice particularly, in the edition of Amberes, 1663, 4to, Nos. 40, 66, and 129. The trifle translated in the text is No. 20 among the poems which he calls Bueltas, a sort of refrain, with a gloss, where much poetical ingenuity is shown, in the turn both of the thought and of the phraseology.

[922] “El Fenix Castellano de Ant. de Mendoza,” Lisboa, 1690, 4to; “Obras Poéticas de Gerónimo Cancer y Velasco,” 1650, and Madrid, 1761, 4to; with Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. p. 224; “El Enano de las Musas de Alvaro Cubillo de Aragon,” Madrid, 1654, 4to, who was, however, of Granada; and “Obras Varias de Fr. Lopez de Zarate,” Alcalá, 1651, 4to, which, after a great deal of worthless poetry, both in Spanish and Italian measures, contains, at the end, his equally worthless tragedy, “Hercules Furens y Œta, con todo el rigor del Arte.”

[923] Obras, Madrid, 1778, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 571.

[924] There is a notice of Rebolledo, which must have been prepared by his own authority, in the Preface to his “Ocios,” printed at Antwerp, 1650, 18mo; but there is a better life of him in the fifth volume of Sedano’s “Parnaso”; and his poetry, and every thing relating to him, is found in his Works printed at Madrid, 1778, 3 tom. 8vo, the first volume being in two parts. Some of his poetry falls into Gongoresque affectations. He wrote a single play, “Amar despreciando Riesgos,” which he called a tragicomedy, and which is not without merit.

[925] Ant. Luiz Ribero de Barros, “Jornada de Madrid,” Madrid, 1672, 4to; a poor miscellany of prose and verse, whose author died in 1683. (Barbosa, Bib., Tom. I. p. 313.)—Pedro Quiros, 1670, best found in Sismondi, Lit. Esp., Sevilla, 1842, Tom. II. p. 187, note; and Varflora, No. IV. p. 68.—Miguel de Barrios, “Flor de Apolo,” Bruselas, 1665, 4to, and “Coro de las Musas,” Bruselas, 1672, 18mo.—“Ociosidad Ocupada y Ocupacion Ociosa de Felix de Lucio y Espinossa,” Roma, 1674, 4to; a hundred bad sonnets. (Latassa, Bib. Nov., Tom. IV. p. 22.)—Jacinto de Evia, “Ramillete de Flores Poéticas,” Madrid, 1676, 4to, which contains other poems besides his own.—Inez de la Cruz, la Décima Musa, “Poemas,” Zaragoza, 1682-1725, 3 tom. 4to, etc.—Ant. de Solís, “Poesías,” Madrid, 1692, 4to.—Candamo, “Obras Líricas,” s. a. 18mo.—Joseph Perez de Montoro, “Obras Póstumas Lyricas, Humanas y Sagradas,” Madrid, 1736, 2 tom. 4to; not printed, I think, till that year, though their author died in 1694.—Manuel de Leon Marcante, “Obras Póstumas,” Madrid, 1733, 2 tom. 4to; where some of the villancicos, by their rudeness, not their poetry, recall Juan de la Enzina.—And, Joseph Tafalla Negrete, “Ramillete Poético,” Zaragoça, 1706, 4to; to which last add Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. IV. p. 104.—Perhaps a volume printed in Valencia, 1680, 4to, and entitled “Varias Hermosas Flores del Parnaso,” will, especially if compared with the similar work of Espinosa printed in 1605, give the fairest idea of the low state of poetry at the time it appeared. It contains poems by Ant. Hurtado de Mendoza, by Solís, and by the following poets, otherwise unknown to me: namely, Francisco de la Torre y Sebil, Rodrigo Artes y Muñoz, Martin, Juan Barcelo, and Juan Bautista Aguilar;—all worthless. Of the persons mentioned in this note, the one that produced the greatest sensation, after Solís, was Inez de la Cruz,—a remarkable woman, but not a remarkable poet, who was born in Guipuzcoa in 1651, and died in the city of Mexico in 1695. Semanario Pintoresco, 1845, p. 12.

[926] I possess, I believe, works of more than one hundred and twenty lyric poets of this period.

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Transcriber’s note

• Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected.
• Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant usage was found.
• The following words have been changed:
• p. [57]:
• Sesa
• →
• Sessa
• pp. [283], [424]:
• Benevente
• →
• Benavente
• pp. [359], [360]:
• Copacobana
• →
• Copacabana
• Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the book.

p. [57]:	Sesa	→	Sessa
pp. [283], [424]:	Benevente	→	Benavente
pp. [359], [360]:	Copacobana	→	Copacabana

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