The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2

by William Hickling Prescott

FOOTNOTES

[1] Eichhorn, Geschichte der Kultur und Litteratur der Neueren Europa, (Göttingen, 1796-1811,) pp. 129, 130.—See also the conclusion of the Introduction, Sec. 2, of this History.

[2] Nic. Antonio seems unwilling to relinquish the pretensions of his own nation to the authorship of this romance. (See Bibliotheca Nova, tom. ii. p. 394.) Later critics, and among them Lampillas, (Ensayo Historico- Apologético de la Literatura Española, (Madrid, 1789,) tom. v. p. 168,) who resigns no more than he is compelled to do, are less disposed to contest the claims of the Portuguese. Mr. Southey has cited two documents, one historical, the other poetical, which seem to place its composition by Lobeira in the latter part of the fourteenth century beyond any reasonable doubt. (See Amadis of Gaul, pref.,—also Sarmiento, Memorias para la Historia de la Poesía y Poetas Españoles, Obras Posthumas, (Madrid, 1775,) tom. i. p. 239.) Bouterwek, and after him Sismondi, without adducing any authority, have fixed the era of Lobeira's death at 1325. Dante, who died but four years previous to that date, furnishes a negative argument, at least, against this, since, in his notice of some doughty names of chivalry then popular, he makes no allusion to Amadis, the best of all. Inferno, cantos v., xxxi.

[3] The excellent old romance "Tirante the White," Tirant lo Blanch, was printed at Valencia in 1490. (See Mendez, Typographia Española, tom. i. pp. 72-75.) If, as Cervantes asserts, the "Amadis" was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, it must have been anterior to this date. This is rendered probable by Montalvo's prologue to his edition at Saragossa, in 1521, still preserved in the royal library at Madrid, where he alludes to his former publication of it in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. (Cervantes, Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Discurso Prelim.)

Mr. Dunlop, who has analyzed these romances with a patience that more will be disposed to commend than imitate, has been led into the error of supposing that the first edition of the "Amadis" was printed at Seville, in 1526, from detached fragments appearing in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and subsequently by Montalvo, at Salamanca, in 1547. See History of Prose Fiction, vol. ii. chap. 10.

[4] The following is Montalvo's brief prologue to the introduction of the first book. "Aqvi comiença el primero libro del esforçado et virtuoso cauallero Amadis hijo del rey Perion de Gaula; y dela reyna Elisena: el qual fue coregido y emendado por el honrado y virtuoso cauallero Garciordoñes de Montalvo, regidor dela noble uilla de Medina del campo; et corregiole delos antiguos originales que estauan corruptos, et compuestos en antiguo estilo: por falta delos diferentes escriptores. Quitando muchas palabras superfluas; et poniendo otras de mas polido y elegante estilo: tocantes ala caualleria et actos della, animando los coraçones gentiles de manzebos belicosos que con grandissimo affetto abrazan el arte dela milicia corporal animando la immortal memoria del arte de caualleria no menos honestissimo que glorioso." Amadis de Gaula, (Venecia, 1533,) fol. 1.

[5] Nic. Antonio enumerates the editions of thirteen of this doughty family of knights-errant. (Bibliotheca Nova, tom. ii. pp. 394, 395.) He dismisses his notice with the reflection, somewhat more charitable than that of Don Quixote's curate, that "he had felt little interest in investigating these fables, yet was willing to admit, with others, that their reading was not wholly useless."

Moratin has collected an appalling catalogue of part of the books of chivalry published in Spain at the close of the fifteenth and the following century. The first on the list is the Carcel de Amor, por Diego Hernandez de San Pedro, en Burgos, año de 1496. Obras, tom. i. pp. 93-98.

[6] Cervantes, Don Quixote, tom. i. part. 1, cap. 6.

The curate's wrath is very emphatically expressed. "Pues vayan todos al corral, dixo el Cura, que a trueco de quemar a la reyna Pintiquïniestra, y al pastor Darinel y a sus eglogas, y a las endiabladas y revueltas razones de su autor, quemara con ellos al padre que me engendro si andubiera en figura de caballero andante." The author of the "Dialogo de las Lenguas" chimes in with the same tone of criticism. "Los quales," he says, speaking of books of chivalry, "de mas de ser mentirossissimos, son tal mal compuestos, assi por dezir las mentiras tan desvergonçadas, como por tener el estilo desbaraçado, que no ay buen estomago que lo pueda leer." Apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, tom. ii. p. 158.

[7] The labors of Bowles, Rios, Arrieta, Pellicer, and Navarrete would seem to have left little to desire in regard to the illustration of Cervantes. But the commentaries of Clemencin, published since this chapter was written, in 1833, show how much yet remained to be supplied. They afford the most copious illustrations, both literary and historical, of his author, and exhibit that nice taste in verbal criticism, which is not always joined with such extensive erudition. Unfortunately, the premature death of Clemencin has left the work unfinished; but the fragment completed, which reaches to the close of the First Part, is of sufficient value permanently to associate the name of its author with that of the greatest genius of his country.

[8] The fabliaux cannot fairly be considered as an exception to this. These graceful little performances, the work of professed bards, who had nothing further in view than the amusement of a listless audience, have little claim to be considered as the expression of national feeling or sentiment. The poetry of the south of France, more impassioned and lyrical in its character, wears the stamp, not merely of patrician elegance, but refined artifice, which must not be confounded with the natural flow of popular minstrelsy.

[9] How far the achievements claimed for the Campeador are strictly true, is little to the purpose. It is enough that they were received as true, throughout the Peninsula, as far back as the twelfth, or, at latest, the thirteenth century.

[10] One exception, among others, readily occurs in the pathetic old ballad of the Conde Alarcos, whose woful catastrophe, with the unresisting suffering of the countess, suggests many points of coincidence with the English minstrelsy. The English reader will find a version of it in the "Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain," from the pen of Mr. Bowring, to whom the literary world is so largely indebted for an acquaintance with the popular minstrelsy of Europe.

[11] I have already noticed the insufficiency of the romances to authentic history, Part I. Chap. 8, Note 30. My conclusions there have been confirmed by Mr. Irving, (whose researches have led him in a similar direction,) in his "Alhambra," published nearly a year after the above note was written.

The great source of the popular misconceptions respecting the domestic history of Granada is Gines Perez de Hyta, whose work, under the title of "Historia de los Vandos de los Zegries y Abencerrages, Cavalleros Moros de Granada, y las Guerras Civiles que huvo en ella," was published at Alcalá in 1604. This romance, written in prose, embodied many of the old Moorish ballads in it, whose singular beauty, combined with the romantic and picturesque character of the work itself, soon made it extremely popular, until at length it seems to have acquired a degree of the historical credit claimed for it by its author as a translation from an Arabian chronicle; a credit which has stood it in good stead with the tribe of travel-mongers and raconteurs, persons always of easy faith, who have propagated its fables far and wide. Their credulity, however, may be pardoned in what has imposed on the perspicacity of so cautions an historian as Müller. Allgemeine Geschichte, (1817,) band ii. p. 504.

[12] Thus, in one of their romances, we have a Moorish lady "shedding drops of liquid silver, and scattering her hair of Arabian gold" over the corpse of her murdered husband!

"Sobre el cuerpo de Albencayde
Destila liquida plata,
Y convertida en cabellos
Esparce el oro de Arabia."

Can anything be more Oriental than this imagery? In another we have "an hour of years of impatient hopes;" a passionate sally, that can scarcely be outmatched by Scriblerus. This taint of exaggeration, however, so far from being peculiar to the popular minstrelsy, has found its way, probably through this channel in part, into most of the poetry of the Peninsula.

[13] The redondilla may be considered as the basis of Spanish versification. It is of great antiquity, and compositions in it are still extant, as old as the time of the infante Don Manuel, at the close of the thirteenth century. (See Cancionero General, fol. 207.) The redondilla admits of great variety; but in the romances it is most frequently found to consist of eight syllables, the last foot, and some or all of the preceding, as the case may be, being trochees. (Rengifo, Arte Poetica Espanola, (Barcelona, 1727,) cap. 9, 44.) Critics have derived this delightful measure from various sources. Sarmiento traces it to the hexameter of the ancient Romans, which may be bisected into something analogous to the redondillas. (Memorias, pp. 168-171.) Bouterwek thinks it may have been suggested by the songs of the Roman soldiery. (Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, band iii., Einleitung, p. 20.)—Velazquez borrows it from the rhyming hexameters of the Spanish Latin poets, of which he gives specimens of the beginning of the fourteenth century. (Poesía Castellana, pp. 77, 78.) Later critics refer its derivation to the Arabic. Conde has given a translation of certain Spanish-Arabian poems, in the measure of the original, from which it is evident, that the hemistich of an Arabian verse corresponds perfectly with the redondilla. (See his Dominacion de los Arabes, passim.) The same author, in a treatise, which he never published, on the "poesía oriental," shows more precisely the intimate affinity subsisting between the metrical form of the Arabian and the old Castilian verse. The reader will find an analysis of his manuscript in Part I. Chap. 8, Note 49, of this History.

This theory is rendered the more plausible by the influence which the Arabic has exercised on Castilian versification in other respects, as in the prolonged repetition of the rhyme, for example, which is wholly borrowed from the Spanish Arabs; whose superior cultivation naturally affected the unformed literature of their neighbors, and through no channel more obviously than its popular minstrelsy.

[14] The asonante is a rhyme made by uniformity of the vowels, without reference to the consonants; the regular rhyme, which obtains in other European literatures, is distinguished in Spain by the term consonante. Thus the four following words, taken at random from a Spanish ballad, are consecutive asonantes; regozijo, pellico, luzido, amarillo. In this example, the two last syllables have the assonance; although this is not invariable, it sometimes falling on the antepenultima and the final syllable. (See Rengifo, Arte Poética Española, pp. 214, 215, 218.) There is a wild, artless melody in the asonante, and a graceful movement coming somewhere, as it does, betwixt regular rhyme and blank verse, which would make its introduction very desirable, but not very feasible, in our own language. An attempt of the kind has been made by a clever writer, in the Retrospective Review. (Vol. iv. art. 2.) If it has failed, it is from the impediments presented by the language, which has not nearly the same amount of vowel terminations, nor of simple uniform vowel sounds, as the Spanish; the double termination, however full of grace and beauty in the Castilian, assumes, perhaps from the effect of association, rather a doggerel air in the English.

[15] This may be still further inferred from the tenor of a humorous, satirical old romance, in which the writer implores the justice of Apollo on the heads of the swarm of traitor poets, who have deserted the ancient themes of song, the Cids, the Laras, the Gonzalez, to celebrate the Ganzuls and Abderrahmans and the fantastical fables of the Moors.

"Tanta Zayda y Adalifa, tanta Draguta y Daraxa, tanto Azarque y tanto Adulce, tanto Gazul, y Abenamar, tanto alquizer y marlota, tanto almayzar, y almalafa, tantas emprisas y plumas, tantas cifras y medallas, tanta roperia Mora. Y en vanderillas y adargas, tanto mote, y tantas motas muera yo sino me cansan."

* * * * *

"Los Alfonsos, los Henricos, los Sanchos, y los de Lara, que es dellos, y que es del Cid? tanto olvido en glorias tantas? ninguna pluma las buela, ninguna Musa las canta? Justicia, Apollo, justicia, vengadores rayos lança contra Poetas Moriscos."

Dr. Johnson's opinions are well known, in regard to this department of English literature, which, by his ridiculous parodies, he succeeded for a time in throwing into the shade, or, in the language of his admiring biographer, made "perfectly contemptible."

Petrarch, with like pedantry, rested his hopes of fame on his Latin epic, and gave away his lyrics, as alms to ballad-singers. Posterity, deciding on surer principles of taste, has reversed both these decisions.

[16] "Algunos quieren que sean la cartilla de los Poetas; yo no lo siento assi; antes bien los hallo capaces, no solo de exprimir y declarar qualquier concepto con facil dulzura, pero de prosequir toda grave accion de numeroso Poema. Y soy tan de veras Español, que por ser en nuestro idioma natural este genero, no me puedo persuadir que no sea digno de toda estimacion."(Coleccion de Obras Sueltas, (Madrid, 1776-9,) tom. iv. p. 176, Prólogo.) In another place he finely styles them "Iliads without a Homer."

[17] See, among others, the encomiastic and animated criticism of
Fernandez and Quintana. Fernandez, Poesías Escogidas, de Nuestros
Cancioneros y Romanceros Antiguos, (Madrid, 1796,) tom. xvi., Prólogo.—
Quintana, Poesías Selectas Castellanas, Introd. art. 4.

[18] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. ii. p. 10.—The Spanish translators of Bouterwek have noticed the principal "collections and earliest editions" of the Romances. This original edition of Sepulveda has escaped their notice. See Literatura Española, pp. 217, 218.

[19] See Grimm, Depping, Herder, etc. This last poet has embraced a selection of the Cid ballads, chronologically arranged, and translated with eminent simplicity and spirit, if not with the scrupulous fidelity usually aimed at by the Germans. See his Sämmtliche Werke, (Wien, 1813,) band iii.

[20] Sarmiento, Memorias, pp. 242, 243.—Moratin considers that none have come down to us, in their original costume, of an earlier date than John II.'s reign, the first half of the fifteenth century. (Obras, tom. i. p. 84.) The Spanish translators of Bouterwek transcribe a romance, relating to the Cid, from the fathers Berganza and Merino, purporting to exhibit the primitive, uncorrupted diction of the thirteenth century. Native critics are of course the only ones competent to questions of this sort; but, to the less experienced eye of a foreigner, the style of this ballad would seem to resemble much less that genuine specimen of the versification of the preceding age, the poem of the Cid, than the compositions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

[21] The principle of philosophical arrangement, if it may so be called, is pursued still further in the latest Spanish publications of the romances, where the Moorish minstrelsy is embodied in a separate volume, and distributed with reference to its topics. This system is the more practicable with this class of ballads, since it far exceeds in number any other. See Duran, Romancero de Romances Moriscos.

The Romancero I have used is the ancient edition of Medina del Campo, 1602. It is divided into nine parts, though it is not easy to see on what principle, since the productions of most opposite date and tenor are brought into juxtaposition. The collection contains nearly a thousand ballads, which, however, fall far short of the entire number preserved, as may easily be seen by reference to other compilations. When to this is added the consideration of the large number which insensibly glided into oblivion without ever coming to the press, one may form a notion of the immense mass of these humble lyrics, which floated among the common people of Spain; and we shall be the less disposed to wonder at the proud and chivalrous bearing that marks even the peasantry of a nation, which seems to breathe the very air of romantic song.

[22] The title of this work was "Coplas de Vita Christi, de la Cena con la Pasion, y de la Veronica con la Resurreccion de nuestro Redemtor. E las siete Angustias e siete Gozos de nuestra Señora, con otras obras mucho provechosas." It concludes with the following notice, "Fue la presente obra emprentada en la insigne Ciudad de Zaragoza de Aragon por industria e expensas de Paulo Hurus de Constancia aleman. A 27 dias de Noviembre, 1492." (Mendez, Typographia Española, pp. 134, 136.) It appears there were two or three other cancioneros compiled, none of which, however, were admitted to the honors of the press. (Bouterwek, Literatura Española, nota.) The learned Castro, some fifty years since, published an analysis with copious extracts from one of these made by Baena, the Jewish physician of John II., a copy of which existed in the royal library of the Escurial. Bibliotheca Española, tom. i. p. 265 et seq.

[23] Cancionero General, passim.—Moratin has given a list of the men of rank who contributed to this miscellany; it contains the names of the highest nobility of Spain. (Orig. del Teatro Español, Obras, tom. i. pp. 85, 86.) Castillo's Cancionero passed through several editions, the latest of which appeared in 1573. See a catalogue, not entirely complete, of the different Spanish Cancioneros in Bouterwek, Literatura Española, trad., p. 217.

[24] Cancionero General, pp. 83-89.—Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.

[25] Cancionero General, pp. 158-161.—Some meagre information of this person is given by Nic. Antonio, whose biographical notices may be often charged with deficiency in chronological data; a circumstance perhaps unavoidable from the obscurity of their subjects. Biblioteca Vetus, tom. ii. lib. 10, cap. 6.

[26] There are probably more direct puns in Petrarch's lyrics alone, than in all the Cancionero General. There is another kind of niaiserie, however, to which the Spanish poets were much addicted, being the transposition of the word in every variety of sense and combination; as, for example,

"Acordad Vuestros olvidos
Y olvida vuestros acuerdos
Porque tales desacuerdos
Acuerden vuestros sentidos," etc.

Cancionero General, fol. 226.

It was such subtilties as these, entricadas razones, as Cervantes calls them, that addled the brains of poor Don Quixote. Tom. i. cap. 1.

[27] Velasquez, Poesía Castellana, p. 122.—More than half a century later, the learned Ambrosio Morales complained of the barrenness of the Castilian, which he imputed to the too exclusive adoption of the Latin upon all subjects of dignity and importance. Obras, tom. xiv. pp. 147, 148.

[28] L. Marineo, speaking of this accomplished nobleman, styles him "virum satis illustrem.—Eum enim poetam et philosophum natura formavit ac peperit." He unfortunately fell in a skirmish, five years after his father's death, in 1479. Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 531.

[29] An elaborate character of this Quixotic old cavalier may be found in Pulgar, Claros Varones, tit. 13.

[30] "Don Jorge Manrique," says Lope de Vega, "cuyas coplas Castellanas admiren los ingenios estrangeros y merecen estar escritas con letras de oro." Obras Sueltas, tom. xii. Prólogo.

[31] Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique, ed. Madrid, 1779.—Diálogo de las Lenguas, apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, tom. ii. p. 149.—Manrique's Coplas have also been the subject of a separate publication in the United States. Professor Longfellow's version, accompanying it, is well calculated to give the English reader a correct notion of the Castilian bard, and, of course, a very exaggerated one of the literary culture of the age.

[32] After proscribing certain profane mummeries, the law confines the clergy to the representation of such subjects as "the birth of our Saviour, in which is shown how the angels appeared, announcing his nativity; also his advent, and the coming of the three Magi kings to worship him; and his resurrection, showing his crucifixion and ascension on the third day; and other such things leading men to do well and live constant in the faith." (Siete Partidas, tit. 6, ley 34.) It is worth noting, that similar abuses continued common among the ecclesiastics, down to Isabella's reign, as may be inferred from a decree, very similar to the law of the Partidas above cited, published by the council of Aranda, in 1473. (Apud Moratin, Obras, tom. i. p. 87.) Moratin considers it certain, that the representation of the mysteries existed in Spain, as far back as the eleventh century. The principal grounds for this conjecture appear to be, the fact that such notorious abuses had crept into practice by the middle of the thirteenth century, as to require the intervention of the law. (Ibid., pp. 11, 13.) The circumstance would seem compatible with a much more recent origin.

[33] Cervantes, Comedias y Entremeses, (Madrid, 1749,) tom. i. prólogo de Nasarre.—Velazquez, Poesía Castellana, p. 86.—The fifth volume of the Memoirs of the Spanish Royal Academy of History contains a dissertation on the "national diversions," by Don Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, replete with curious erudition, and exhibiting the discriminating taste to have been expected from its accomplished author. Among these antiquarian researches, the writer has included a brief view of the first theatrical attempts in Spain. See Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. v. Mem. 6.

[34] Moratin, Obras, tom. i. p. 115.—Nasarre (Cervantes, Comedias, pról.), Jovellanos (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. v. Memor. 6), Pellicer (Orígen y Progreso de la Comedia, (1804,) tom. i. p. 12), and others, refer the authorship of this little piece, without hesitation, to Juan de la Encina, although the year of its representation corresponds precisely with that of his birth. The prevalence of so gross a blunder among the Spanish scholars, shows how little the antiquities of their theatre were studied before the time of Moratin.

[35] This little piece has been published at length by Moratin, in the first volume of his works. (See Orígenes del Teatro Español, Obras, tom. i. pp. 303-314.)

The celebrated marquis of Santillana's poetical dialogue, "Comedieta da Ponza," has no pretensions to rank as a dramatic composition, notwithstanding its title, which is indeed as little significant of its real character, as the term "Commedia" is of Dante's epic. It is a discourse on the vicissitudes of human life, suggested by a sea-fight near Ponza, in 1435. It is conducted without any attempt at dramatic action or character, or, indeed, dramatic development of any sort. The same remarks may be made of the political satire, "Mingo Revulgo," which appeared in Henry IV.'s reign. Dialogue was selected by these authors as a more popular and spirited medium than direct narrative for conveying their sentiments. The "Comedieta da Ponza" has never appeared in print; the copy which I have used is a transcript from the one in the royal library at Madrid, and belongs to Mr. George Ticknor.

[36] Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, (Alcalá, 1586,) Introd.—Nothing is positively ascertained respecting the authorship of the first act of the Celestina. Some impute it to Juan de Mena; others with more probability to Rodrigo Cota el Tio, of Toledo, a person who, although literally nothing is known of him, has in some way or other obtained the credit of the authorship of some of the most popular effusions of the fifteenth century; such, for example, as the Dialogue above cited of "Love and an Old Man," the Coplas of "Mingo Revulgo," and this first act of the "Celestina." The principal foundation of these imputations would appear to be the bare assertion of an editor of the "Dialogue between Love and an Old Man," which appeared at Medina del Campo, in 1569, nearly a century, probably, after Cota's death; another example of the obscurity which involves the history of the early Spanish drama. Many of the Castilian critics detect a flavor of antiquity in the first act which should carry back its composition as far as John II.'s reign. Moratin does not discern this, however, and is inclined to refer its production to a date not much more distant, if any, than Isabella's time. To the unpractised eye of a foreigner, as far as style is concerned, the whole work might well seem the production of the same period. Moratin, Obras, tom. i. pp. 88, 115, 116.—Diálogo de las Lenguas, apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, pp. 165- 167.—Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. ii. p. 263.

[37] Such is the high encomium of the Abate Andres, (Letteratura, tom. v. part. 2, lib. 1.)—Cervantes does not hesitate to call it "libro divino;" and the acute author of the "Diálogo de las Lenguas" concludes a criticism upon it with the remark, that "there is no book in the Castilian which surpasses it in the propriety and elegance of its diction." (Don Quixote, ed. de Pellicer, tom. i., p. 239.—Mayans y Siscar, tom. ii. p. 167.)

Its merits indeed seem in some degree to have disarmed even the severity of foreign critics; and Signorelli, after standing up stoutly in defence of the precedence of the "Orfeo" as a dramatic composition, admits the "Celestina" to be a "work, rich in various beauties, and meriting undoubted applause. In fact," he continues, "the vivacity of the description of character, and faithful portraiture of manners, have made it immortal." Storia Critica de' Teatri Antichi e Moderni, (Napoli, 1813,) tom. vi. pp. 146, 147.

[38] Bouterwek, Literatura Española, notas de traductores, p. 234.— Andres, Letteratura, tom. v. pp. 170, 171.—Lampillas, Letteratura Spagnuola, tom. vi. pp. 57-59.

[39] Rojas, Viage Entretenido, (1614,) fol. 46.—Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 684.—Moratin, Obras, tom. i. pp. 126, 127.—Pellicer, Orígen de la Comedia, tom. i. pp. 11, 12.

[40] They were published under the title "Cancionero de todas las Obras de Juan de la Encina con otras añadidas." (Mendez, Typographia Española, p. 247.) Subsequent impressions of his works, more or less complete, appeared at Salamanca in 1509, and at Saragossa in 1512 and 1516.—Moratin, Obras, tom. i. p. 127, nota.

[41] The comedian Rojas, who flourished in the beginning of the following century, and whose "Viage Entretenido" is so essential to the knowledge of the early histrionic art in Spain, identifies the appearance of Encina's Eclogues with the dawn of the Castilian drama. His verses may be worth quoting.

"Que es en nuestra madre España, porque en la dichosa era, que aquellos gloriosos Reyes dignos de memoria eterna Don Fernando e Ysabel (que ya con los santos reynan) de echar de España acabavan todos los Moriscos, que eran De aquel Reyno de Granada, y entonces se dava en ella princípio a la Inquisicion, se le dio a nuestra comedia. Juan de la Encina el primero, aquel insigne poeta, que tanto bien empezo de quien tenemos tres eglogas Que el mismo represento al Almirante y Duquessa de Castilla, y de Infantado que estas fueron las primeras Y para mas honra suya, y de la comedia nuestra, en los dias que Colon descubrio la gran riqueza De Indias y nuevo mundo, y el gran Capitan empieza, a sugetar aquel Reyno de Napoles, y su tierra. A descubrirse empezo el uso de la comedia porque todos se animassen a emprender cosas tan buenas."

Fol. 46, 47.

[42] Signorelli, correcting what he denominates the "romance" of Lampillas, considers Encina to have composed only one pastoral drama, and that, on occasion of Ferdinand's entrance into Castile. The critic should have been more charitable, as he has made two blunders himself in correcting one. Storia Critica de' Teatri, tom. iv. pp. 192, 193.

[43] Andres, confounding Torres de Naharro, the poet, with Naharro the comedian, who flourished about half a century later, is led into a ludicrous train of errors in controverting Cervantes, whose criticism of the actor is perpetually misapplied by Andres to the poet. Velasquez seems to have confounded them in like manner. Another evidence of the extremely superficial acquaintance of the Spanish critics with their early drama. Comp. Cervantes, Comedias y Entremeses, tom. i. prólogo.—Andres, Letteratura, tom. v. p. 179.—Velazquez, Poesía Castellana, p. 88.

[44] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 202.—Cervantes, Comedias, tom. i. pról. de Nasarre.—Pellicer, Orígen de la Comedia, tom. ii. p. 17.—Moratin, Obras, tom. i. p. 48.

[45] Bartolomé Torres de Naharro, Propaladia, (Madrid, 1573.)—The deficiency of the earlier Spanish books, of which Bouterwek repeatedly complains, has led him into an error respecting the "Propaladia," which he had never seen. He states that Naharro was the first to distribute the play into three jornadas or acts, and takes Cervantes roundly to task for assuming the original merit of this distribution to himself. In fact, Naharro did introduce the division into five jornadas, and Cervantes assumes only the credit of having been the first to reduce them to three. Comp. Bouterwek, Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, band iii. p. 285,—and Cervantes, Comedias, tom. i. pról.

[46] In the argument to the "Seraphina," he thus prepares the audience for this colloquial olla podrida.

"Mas haveis de estar alerta por sentir los personages que hablan quatro lenguages, hasta acabar su rehyerta no salen de cuenta cierta por Latin e Italiano Castellano y Valenciano que ninguno desconcierta."

Propaladia, p. 50.

[47] The following is an example of the precious reasoning with which Floristan, in the play above quoted, reconciles his conscience to the murder of his wife Orfea, in order to gratify the jealousy of his mistress Seraphina. Floristan is addressing himself to a priest.

"Y por mas daño escusar no lo quiero hora hazer, sino que es menester, que yo mate luego a Orfea do Serafina lo vea porque lo pueda creer. Que yo bien me mataria, pues toda razon me inclina; pero se de Serafina que se desesperaría. y Orfea, pues que haria? quando mi muerte supiesse; que creo que no pudiesse sostener la vida un dia. Pues hablando aca entre nos a Orfea cabe la suerte; porque con su sola muerte se escusaran otras dos: de modo que padre vos si llamar me la quereys, a mi merced me hareys y tambien servicio a dios.

* * * * *

porque si yo la matare morira christianamente; yo morire penitente, quando mi suerte llegare."

Propaladia, fol. 68.

[48] Signorelli waxes exceedingly wroth with Don Blas Nasarre for the assertion, that Naharro first taught the Italians to write comedy, taxing him with downright mendacity; and he stoutly denies the probability of Naharro's comedies ever having been performed on the Italian boards. The critic seems to be in the right, as far as regards the influence of the Spanish dramatist; but he might have been spared all doubts respecting their representation in the country, had he consulted the prologue of Naharro himself, where he asserts the fact in the most explicit manner. Comp. Propaladia, pról., and Signorelli, Storia Critica de' Teatri, tom. vi. pp. 171-179.—See also Moratin, Orígenes, Obras, tom. i. pp. 149, 150.

[49] Propaladia; see the comedies of "Trofea" and "Tinelaria."— Jovellanos, Memoria sobre las Diversiones Públicas, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. v.

[50] Cervantes, Comedias, tom. i. pról.

[51] Pellicer, Orígen de la Comedia, tom. ii. pp. 58-62.—See also American Quarterly Review, no. viii. art. 3.

[52] Oliva, Obras, (Madrid, 1787.)—Vasco Diaz Tanco, a native of Estremadura, who flourished in the first half of the sixteenth century, mentions in one of his works three tragedies composed by himself on Scripture subjects. As there is no evidence, however, of their having been printed, or performed, or even read in manuscript by any one, they hardly deserve to be included in the catalogue of dramatic compositions. (Moratin, Obras, tom. i. pp. 150, 151.—Lampillas, Letteratura Spagnuola, tom. v. dis. 1, sec. 5.) This patriotic littérateur endeavors to establish the production of Oliva's tragedies in the year 1515, in the hope of antedating that of Trissino's "Sophonisba," composed a year later, and thus securing to his nation the palm of precedence, in time at least, though it should be only for a few months, on the tragic theatre of modern Europe. Letteratura Spagnuola, ubi supra.

[53] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 386.—Oliva, Obras, pref. de Morales.

[54] The following passage, for example, in the "Venganza de Agamemnon," imitated from the Electra of Sophocles, will hardly be charged on the Greek dramatist.

"Habed, yo os ruego, de mi compassion, no querais atapar con vuestros consejos los respiraderos de las hornazas de fuego, que dentro me atormentan." See Oliva, Obras, p. 185.

[55] Compare the diction of these tragedies with that of the "Centon Epistolario," for instance, esteemed one of the best literary compositions of John II.'s reign, and see the advance made, not only in orthography, but in the verbal arrangement generally, and the whole complexion of the style.

[56] Notwithstanding some Spanish critics, as Cueva, for example, have vindicated the romantic forms of the drama on scientific principles, it is apparent that the most successful writers in this department have been constrained to adopt them by public opinion, rather than their own, which would have suggested a nearer imitation of the classical models of antiquity, so generally followed by the Italians, and which naturally recommends itself to the scholar. See the canon's discourse in Cervantes, Don Quixote, ed. de Pellicer, tom. iii. pp. 207-220,—and, more explicitly, Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, tom. iv. p. 406.

[57] "Ya en Italia, assi entre Damas, como entre Caballeros, se tiene por gentileza y galania, saber hablar Castellano." Diálogo de las Lenguas, apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, tom. ii. p. 4.