CHAPTER XXXVII.
Eloquence, Forensic and Pulpit. — Luis de Leon. — Luis de Granada. — Paravicino and the School of Bad Taste. — Epistolary Correspondence. — Zurita. — Perez. — Santa Teresa. — Argensola. — Lope de Vega. — Quevedo. — Cascales. — Antonio. — Solís.
We shall hardly look for forensic or deliberative eloquence in Spain. The whole constitution of things there, the political and ecclesiastical institutions of the country, and, perhaps we should add, the very genius of the people, were unfriendly to the growth of a plant like this, which flourishes only in the soil of freedom.
The Spanish tribunals, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whether in the ordinary course of their administration of justice, or in the dark proceedings of the Inquisition, took less cognizance of the influences of eloquence than those of any other Christian country of modern times. They dealt with the wheel and the fagot,—not with the spirit of persuasion. Nor was this spirit truly known or favored in the political assemblies of the kingdom, though it was not supplanted there by the formidable instruments familiar in the courts of justice. In the ancient Cortes of Castile, and still more in those of Aragon, there may have been discussions which were raised by their fervor to something like what we now call deliberative eloquence. We have, in fact, intimations of such discussions in the old chronicles; especially in those that record the troubles and violence of the great nobles in the reigns of John the Second and Henry the Fourth. But a free, living debate on a great political principle, or on the conduct of those who managed the affairs of the country,—such a debate as sometimes shook the popular assemblies of antiquity, and in modern times has often controlled the destinies of Christendom,—was, in Spain, a thing absolutely unknown.
Even the grave and dry discussions, to which the pressure of affairs gave rise, were rare and accidental. There was no training for them; and they could be followed by none of the great practical results that are at once the only sufficient motive and reward that can make them enter freely into the institutions of a state. Indeed, whatever there was of discussion in any open assembly could occur only in the earlier period of the monarchy, when the language and culture of the nation were still too little advanced to produce specimens of careful debate; for from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella and the days of the Comunidades, the Cortes were gradually restrained in their privileges, until at last they ceased to be any thing but a part of the pageantry of the empire, and served only to record the laws they should themselves have discussed and modelled. From this period, all opportunity for the growth of political eloquence in Spain was lost. It would have been no more tolerated by one of the Philips than Lutheranism.
The eloquence of the pulpit was checked by similar causes, but in a different way. The Catholic religion has maintained in Spain, down to a late period, more than it has in any other country, the character it had during the Middle Ages. It has been to an extraordinary degree a religion of mysteries, of forms, and of penance;—a religion, therefore, in which such modes of moving the understanding and the heart as have prevailed in France and England since the middle of the seventeenth century have been rarely attempted, and never with great success.
If any exception is to be made to this remark, it must be made in the case of Luis de Leon and in that of Luis de Granada. Of the first we have already spoken. He printed, indeed, no sermons as such; but he inserted in his other works, and especially in his “Names of Christ” and in his “Perfect Wife,” long declamations, sometimes preceded by a text and sometimes not, but regularly divided into heads, and wearing the general appearance and attributes of religious discourses. These, since they were printed as early as 1584, may be accounted the earliest specimens of Spanish eloquence fitted for the pulpit, and, if not actually delivered, are still worthy of notice.[191]
The case of Luis de Granada is one more directly in point. That remarkable man was head of the Dominican order, or the order of the Preaching Monks, so that both his place and his profession led him to the cultivation of the eloquence of the pulpit. But, besides this, he seems to have devoted himself to it with the strong preference of genius, preaching extemporaneously, it is said, with great power and unction. In 1576, he published a Latin treatise on the subject of Pulpit Eloquence; and in 1595, after his death, his friends printed, in addition to those published during his lifetime, fourteen of his more formal discourses, in which he has been thought, not only to have given a full illustration of the precepts he inculcated, but to have placed himself at the head of the department of eloquence to which he devoted so much of his life.
They are in a bold and affluent style,—somewhat mystical, as were his own religious tendencies,—and often more declamatory than seems in keeping with the severe and solemn nature of their subjects; but they are written with remarkable purity of idiom, and breathe everywhere the spirit of the religion that was so deeply impressed on his age and country. Perhaps a more characteristic specimen of Spanish eloquence can hardly be found, than that in which Luis de Granada describes the resurrection of the Saviour; adding to it his descent into hell to rescue the souls of the righteous who were pining there because they had died before his great sacrifice was completed,—a doctrine of the Catholic Church capable of high poetical ornament, and one which, from the time of Dante, has been often set forth with the most solemn effect.
“On that glorious day,” exclaims Luis de Granada, in his sermon on the Resurrection, “the sun shone more brightly than on all others, serving its Lord in dutiful splendor amidst his rejoicings, as it had served him in darkness through his sufferings. The heavens, which had been veiled in mourning to hide his agonies, were now bright with redoubled glory as they saw him rise conquering from the grave. And who would not rejoice in such a day? The whole humanity of Christ rejoiced in it; all the disciples of Christ rejoiced in it; heaven rejoiced, earth rejoiced; hell itself shared in the general jubilee. For the triumphant Prince descended into its depths, clothed with splendor and might. The everlasting darkness grew bright before his steps; the eternal lamentations ceased; the realms of torment paused at his approach. The princes of Edom were disturbed, and the mighty men of Moab trembled, and they that dwelt in the land of Canaan were filled with fear. And the multitude of the suffering murmured and said, ‘Who is this mighty one, so resplendent, so powerful? Never before was his likeness seen in these realms of hell; never hath the tributary world sent such a one to these depths,—one who demands judgment, not a debtor; one who fills us with dread, not one guilty like ourselves; a judge, and not a culprit; a conqueror, not a sinner. Say, where were our watchmen and our guards, when he burst in victory on our barred gates? By what might has he entered? And who is he, that can do these things? If he were guilty, he were not thus bold; if the shade of sin lay on his soul, how could our darkness be made bright with his glory? If he be God, why should hell receive him? and if he be man, whence hath he this might? If he be God, why dwelt he in the grave? and if man, by what authority would he thus lay waste our abodes?’
“Thus murmured the vassals of hell, as the Conqueror entered in glory to free his chosen captives. For there stood they, all assembled together,—all the souls of the just, who from the foundation of the world till that day had passed through the gates of the grave; all the prophets and men of might who had glorified the Lord in the manifold agonies of martyrdom;—a glorious company!—a mighty treasure!—the richest inheritance of Christ’s triumph! For there stood the two original parents of the generations of mankind,—the first in sin and the first in faith and hope. There stood that aged saint who rescued in the ark of safety those that repeopled the world when the waters of the deluge were spent. There stood the father of the faithful, who first received by merit the revelation of God’s will, and wore, in his person, the marks of his election. There stood his obedient son, who, bearing on his shoulders the wood of his own sacrifice, showed forth the redemption of the world. There stood the holy progenitor of the Twelve Tribes, who, winning his father’s blessing in the stranger guise of another’s garb, set forth the mystery of the humanity and incarnation of the Divine Word. There stood, also, as it were, guests newly arrived in that strange land, the Holy Baptist and the blessed Simeon, who prayed that he might not be taken from the earth till with his own eyes he had seen its salvation; who received it in his arms, and sang gently its canticle of peace. And there, too, found a place the poor Lazarus of the Gospel, who, for the patience with which he bore his wounds, deserved to join so noble a company, and share its longing hopes. And all this multitude of sanctified spirits stood there mourning and grieving for this day; and in the midst of them all, and as the leader of them all, the holy king and prophet repeated without ceasing his ancient lamentation: ‘As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God! My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?’ O blessed and holy king, if this be the cause of thy lamentation, let it cease for ever; for behold thy God! behold thy Saviour! Change, then, thy chant, and sing as thou wast wont to sing of old: ‘Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land; thou hast pardoned the offences of thy people; thou hast hidden thy face from the multitude of their sins.’”[192]
It would not be easy to select a more striking example than this of the peculiar rhetoric that was most sought in the Spanish pulpit. But the portions of equal merit are few, and the amount of the whole is small. After the beginning of the seventeenth century, the affected style of Góngora and the conceits of the school of Ledesma found their way into the churches generally, and especially into the churches of Madrid. This was natural. No persons depended more on the voice of fashion than the preachers of the court and the capital, and the fashion of both was thoroughly infected with the new doctrines. Paravicino, at this period, was at the head of the popular preachers; himself a poet devoted to the affectations of Góngora; a man of wit, a gentleman, and a courtier. From 1616 he was, during twenty years, pulpit orator to Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth, and enjoyed, as such, a kind and degree of popularity before unknown. As might have been expected, he had many followers, each of whom sought to have a fashionable audience. Such audiences were soon systematically provided. They were, in fact, collected, arranged, and seated by the friends and admirers of the preacher himself,—generally by those who, from their ecclesiastical relations, had an interest in his success; and then the crowds thus gathered were induced in different ways to express their approbation of the more elaborate passages in his discourse. From this time, and in this way, religious dignity disappeared from the Spanish pulpit, and whatever there was of value in its eloquence was confined to two forms,—the learned discussions, often in Latin, addressed to bodies of ecclesiastics, and the extemporaneous exhortations addressed to the lower classes;—the latter popular and vehement in their tone, and, by their coarseness, generally unworthy of the solemn subjects they touched.[193]
There is little in Spanish epistolary correspondence that requires notice as a portion of the elegant literature of the country. The heartiness of a simpler age gives, indeed, a charm to such letters as those which claim to have been written by Cibdareal, and in a less degree to those of Pulgar and Diego de Valera. Later, the despatches of Columbus, in which he made known to the world his vast discoveries, are occasionally marked by the fervor of an enthusiasm inspired by his great subject; and those of his queen and patron, though few in number and less interesting, are quite as characteristic and quite as true-hearted.
But, with the stately court brought from the North by Charles the Fifth, all this was changed. Added forms, and more than the old national gravity, passed into the intercourse of social life, and infected the style of the commonest correspondence. Genial familiarity disappeared from the letters of friends, and even private affections and feelings were either seldom expressed, or were so covered up as to be with difficulty recognized. Thus, what was most valued in this department at the time, and for a century afterwards, were Guevara’s “Golden Epistles,” which are only formal dissertations, and the “Epistles” of Avila, which are sermons in disguise, that moved the hearts of his countrymen because they were such earnest exhortations to a religious life.[194]
From these remarks, however, we should except portions of the correspondence of Zurita, the historian, extending over the last thirty years of his life, and ending in 1582, just before his death. They give us the business-like intercourse of a man of letters, carried on with all classes of society, from ministers of state and the highest ecclesiastics of the realm down to persons distinguished only because they were occupied in studies like his own. The number of letters in this collection is large, amounting to above two hundred. More of them are from Antonio Agustin, Archbishop of Tarragona, an eminent scholar in Spanish history and civil law, than from any other person; but the most interesting are from Zurita himself, from his friend Ambrosio Morales, from Diego de Mendoza, the historian, Argote de Molina, the antiquarian, and Fernan Nuñez, the Greek Commander. Each of these series is marked by something characteristic of its author, and all of them, taken together, show more familiarly the interior condition of a scholar’s life in Spain, in the sixteenth century, than it can be found anywhere else.[195]
But the principal exception to be made in favor of Spanish epistolary correspondence is found in the case of Antonio Perez, secretary of Philip the Second, and for some time his favorite minister. His father, who was a scholar, and made a translation of the “Odyssey,”[196] had been in the employment of Charles the Fifth, so that the younger Perez inherited somewhat of the court influence which was then so important; but his rapid advancement was owing to his own genius, and to a love of intrigue and adventure, which seemed to be a part of his nature. At last, in 1578, at the command of his master, he not unwillingly brought about the murder of Escovedo, a person high in the confidence of Don John of Austria, whose growing influence it was thought worth while thus to curtail;—a crime which, perpetrated as it was in consequence of the official connection of the secretary with the monarch, brought Perez to the very height of his favor.
But it was not long before the guilty agent became as unwelcome to his guilty master as their victim had been. A change in their relations followed, cautiously brought on by the unscrupulous king, but deep and entire. At first, Philip permitted Perez to be pursued by the kinsmen of the murdered man, and afterwards, contriving plausible pretexts for hiding his motives, began himself to join in the persecution. Eleven long years the wretched courtier was watched, vexed, and imprisoned, at Madrid; and once, at least, he was subjected to cruel bodily tortures. When he could endure this no longer, he fled to Aragon, his native kingdom, whose freer political constitution did not permit him to be crushed in secret. This was a great surprise to Philip, and, for an instant, seems to have disconcerted his dark schemes. But his resources were equal to the emergency. He pursued Perez to Saragossa, and finding the regular means of justice unequal to the demands of his vengeance, caused his victim to be seized by the Inquisition, under the absurd charge of heresy. But this, again, in the form in which Philip found it necessary to proceed, was a violation of the ancient privileges of the kingdom, and the people broke out into open rebellion, and released Perez from prison;—a consequence of his measures, which, perhaps, was neither unforeseen by Philip nor unwelcome to him. At any rate, he immediately sent an army into Aragon, sufficient, not only to overwhelm all open resistance, but to strike a terror that should prevent future opposition to his will; and the result, besides a vast number of rich confiscations to the royal treasury, was the condemnation of sixty-eight persons of distinction to death by the Inquisition, and the final overthrow of nearly every thing that remained of the long-cherished liberties of the country.
Meantime, Perez escaped secretly from Saragossa, as he had before escaped from Madrid, and, wandering over the Pyrenees in the disguise of a shepherd, sought refuge in Bearn, at the little court of Catherine of Bourbon, sister of Henry the Fourth. Public policy caused him to be well received both there and in France, where he afterwards passed the greater part of his long exile. During the troubles between Elizabeth and Philip, he instinctively went to England, and, while there, was much with Essex, and became more familiar with Bacon than the wise and pious mother of the future chancellor thought it well one so profligate as Perez should be. Philip, who could ill endure the idea of having such a witness of his crimes intriguing at the courts of his great enemies, endeavoured to have Perez assassinated both in Paris and London, and failed more from accident than from want of well-concerted plans to accomplish his object.
At last peace came between France and England on one side, and Spain on the other; and Perez ceased to be a person of consequence to those who had so long used him. Henry the Fourth, indeed, with his customary good nature, still indulged him even in very extravagant modes of life, which rather resembled those of a prince than of an exile. But his claims were so unreasonable, and were urged with such boldness and pertinacity, that every body wearied of him. He therefore fell into unhonored poverty, and dragged out the miserable life of a neglected courtier till 1611, when he died at Paris. Four years later, the Inquisition, which had caused him to be burnt in effigy as a heretic, reluctantly did him the imperfect justice of removing their anathemas from his memory, and thus permitted his children to enter into civil rights, of which nothing but the most shameless violence had ever deprived them.
From the time of his first imprisonment, Perez began to write the letters that are still extant; and their series never stops, till we approach the period of his death. Some of them are to his wife and children; others, to Gil de Mesa, his confidential friend and agent; and others, to persons high in place, from whose influence he hoped to gain favor. His Narratives, or “Relations,” as he calls them, and his “Memorial” on his own case, occasionally involve other letters, and are themselves in the nature of long epistles, written with great talent and still greater ingenuity, to gain the favor of his judges or of the world. All these, some of which his position forbade him ever to send to the persons to whom they were addressed, he carefully preserved, and during his exile published them from time to time to suit his own political purposes;—at first anonymously, or under the assumed name of Raphael Peregrino; afterwards under the seeming editorship of his friend Mesa; and finally, without disguise of any sort, dedicating some of them to Henry the Fourth, and some to the Pope.
Their number is large, amounting in the most ample collection to above a thousand pages. The best are those that are most familiar; for even in the slightest of them, as when he is sending a present of gloves to Lady Rich, or a few new-fashioned toothpicks to the Duke of Mayenne, there is a nice preservation of the Castilian proprieties of expression. Many of them sparkle with genius; sometimes most unexpectedly, though not always in good taste; Thus, to his innocent wife, shamefully kept in prison during his exile, he says: “Though you are not allowed to write to me, or to enjoy what to the absent is the breath of life; yet here [in France] there is no punishment for the promptings of natural affection. I answer, therefore, what I hear in the spirit, your complaints of the punishment laid on your own virtues and on the innocence of your children,—complaints, which reach me from that asylum of darkness and of the shadow of death, in which you now lie. But when I listen, it seems as if I ought to hear you no less with my outward ears, just as the words and cries that come from the caves under the earth only resound the louder, as they are rolled up to us from their dark hiding-places.”[197] And again, when speaking of the cruel conduct of his judges to his family, he breaks out: “But let them not be deceived. Their victims may be imprisoned and loaded with irons; but they have the two mightiest advocates of the earth to defend them,—their innocence and their wrongs. For neither could Cicero nor Demosthenes so pierce the ears of men, nor so stir up their minds, nor so shake the frame of things, as can these two, to whom God has given the especial privilege to stand for ever in his presence, to cry for justice, and to be witnesses and advocates for one another in whatsoever he has reserved for his own awful judgment.”[198]
The letters of Perez are in a great variety of styles, from the cautious and yet fervent appeals that he made to Philip the Second, down to the gallant notes he wrote to court ladies, and the overflowings of his heart to his young children. But they are all written in remarkably idiomatic Castilian, and are rendered interesting from the circumstance, that in each class there is a strict observance of such conventional forms as were required by the relative social positions of the author and his correspondents.[199]
The letters of Santa Teresa, who was a contemporary of the secretary of Philip the Second, and died in 1582, are entirely different; for while nothing can be more practical and worldly than those of Perez, the letters of the devout nun are entirely spiritual. She believed herself to be inspired, and therefore wrote with an air of authority, which is almost always solemn and imposing, but which sometimes, through its very boldness and freedom from all restraint, becomes easy and graceful. Her talents were versatile and her perceptions acute. To each of her many correspondents she says something that seems suited to the occasion on which she is consulted;—a task not easy for a nun, who lived forty-seven years in retirement from the world, and during that time was called upon to give advice to archbishops and bishops, to wise and able statesmen like Diego de Mendoza, to men of genius like Luis de Granada, to persons in private life who were in deep affliction or in great danger, and to women in the ordinary course of their daily lives. Her letters fill four volumes, and though, in general, they are only to be regarded as fervent exhortations or religious teachings, still, by the purity, beauty, and womanly grace of their style, they may fairly claim a distinguished place in the epistolary literature of her country.[200]
Some portions of the correspondence of Bartolomé de Argensola about 1625, of Lope de Vega before 1630, and of Quevedo a little later, have been preserved to us; but they are too inconsiderable in amount to have much value. Of Cascales, the rhetorician, we have more. In 1634, he printed three Decades of Letters; but they are almost entirely devoted to discussions of points that involve learned lore; and, even where they are not such, they are stiff and formal. A few by Nicolas Antonio, the literary historian, who died in 1684, are plain and business-like, but are written in a hard style, that prevents them from being interesting. Those of Solís, who closes up the century and the period, are better. They are such as belong to the intercourse of an old man, left to struggle through the last years of a long life with poverty and misfortune, and express the feelings becoming his situation, both with philosophical calmness and Christian resignation.[201]
But no writer in the history of Spanish epistolary correspondence can be compared for acuteness and brilliancy with Antonio Perez, or for eloquence with Santa Teresa.