Having described the rise and progress of the historical art in Spain, it cannot be necessary to give a minute notice of historical works, which for the most part possess only the negative merit of not being ill written. The age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega was, moreover, the period at which the historical literature of the Spaniards began to form itself into that perfect whole for which it is so peculiarly remarkable. At that time the old chronicles were committed to the press one after another: and the continuation and correction of the national history was the only literary occupation which could be pursued with any hope of success by men of talent, who felt no impulse to poetry; unless, indeed, they preferred to distinguish themselves in scholastic theology, or in writing books of pious edification, in which it was, above all things, necessary to take care to say nothing new.
It is still less necessary to enter upon a detailed examination of various works in the didactic department of Spanish literature, which are upon the whole not badly written, but not one of which exceeds in rhetorical merit the works of Perez de Oliva, Ambrosio de Morales, and other authors, who have already been mentioned. The writings of Balthasar, or Lorenzo Gracian, who endeavoured to introduce a kind of gongorism into Spanish prose, will be more fully noticed at the close of the present book.
FLUCTUATION OF SPANISH TASTE FROM THE CLASSIC TO THE CORRUPT STYLE.
In order to mark, by sensible gradations, the transition from the golden age of Spanish poetry and eloquence, to those sad times, when the energy of the national genius was, after a long conflict with opposing circumstances, destined to be overcome, it will be proper first to notice some poets and prose authors, who during the latter half of the period embraced by the present section, assumed a tone peculiar to themselves; and also, another set of writers who were their immediate successors. Quevedo may with propriety be placed at their head. During a part of his life he was contemporary with Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and the Argensolas, and was, moreover, an opposer of the New Art of Gongora. But both in poetry and prose he deviates so strikingly from the classic, and so obviously approaches the ornamented and artificial style, that by commencing with him the retrograde course which Spanish literature began to take even in the period of its highest cultivation, will be most distinctly perceived.
QUEVEDO.
The circumstances of the life of Francisco de Quevedo Villegas,[477] a man who has almost invariably been praised or censured with partiality, had a most important influence on the developement and employment of his talents. He began even in childhood to breathe the air of courts. He was born, in 1580, at Madrid, of a noble family, and was educated at the court under the care of his widowed mother who was one of the ladies of the royal household. An eager curiosity was the first indication of his active and restless mind; and the impressions which he received in his infancy, induced him to make the scholastic theology of catholicism his first study in preference to every other kind of knowledge. He was sent to the university of Alcala, where he received the degree of doctor in theology in his fifteenth year, a fact which appears almost incredible. Grown weary of theology, he directed his attention to law, philology, natural philosophy, medicine, and elegant literature; and he pursued all these studies without any regular order. It is probable that at this period he injured his sight by indefatigable reading; for in the prime of life he was incapable of distinguishing any object at the distance of three paces, without the aid of glasses. But neither this infirmity nor the crooked legs which he had received from nature, deterred him from mingling in fashionable society. His figure, which was in other respects strong and well proportioned, joined to his prepossessing countenance, contributed in no slight degree to the early developement of his self-esteem.
Quevedo returned to the court of Madrid, with a mind stored with all kinds of academic knowledge. But he soon became engaged in a dispute, fought a duel in which he wounded his antagonist, and was compelled to fly. He proceeded to Italy, where the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Giron, Duke of Ossuna, interested himself for the accomplished fugitive. He procured his pardon at Madrid, and retained him in his service at Naples. Quevedo now became a statesman and a man of business. He played the most prominent part at the court of the Vice-king, executed important commissions, visited the papal court, in quality of ambassador, was rewarded with titles and pensions, and seemed to be the favourite of fortune. But he was suddenly cast down by the fall of his patron, the Duke of Ossuna. Quevedo was connected with that powerful grandee in all his transactions, and thus became involved in his fate. In 1620, in the fortieth year of his age, he was arrested and removed to his country seat, La Torre de Juan Abad, where he was, by the order of the government, confined during three years, notwithstanding his delicate state of health, which this restraint rendered daily worse. So rigidly was this kind of imprisonment enforced, that it was with great difficulty he could obtain leave to go to a neighbouring town to commit himself to the care of a physician in whom he could confide.
At length Quevedo’s papers being strictly examined, his innocence became unquestionable, and he was set at liberty. He now demanded indemnification and the payment of the arrears of his pension. Instead, however, of obtaining attention to his claims, he was threatened with a new exile, and received an order to quit the court. This sentence he found means to evade, and even court intrigue seemed at last inclined to favour him; but in the conflict between vanity and reason, Quevedo in due time proved himself a philosopher. He willingly forsook the court, retired to his estate of La Torre, and devoted himself wholly to literary pursuits. It is probable that at this period he wrote the poems which on their first appearance were published as the works of the Bachelor de la Torre, an old poet of the fifteenth century. The name of his country residence apparently suggested to Quevedo the disguise of the above title. There is also reason to suppose that at this period he wrote the greater portion of his works both in prose and verse. But these writings, which overflow with wit and satire, and display that firmness of judgment and character, which is always so unwelcome at courts, tended to keep alive the attention of those who conceived themselves to be attacked. As the crisis of his varied fate approached, Quevedo seems to have totally forgotten the intrigues of which he had been the victim. He had already passed several years in literary tranquillity, and was upwards of fifty years of age when he married. But his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, did not live long. Quevedo’s evil star once more induced him to visit Madrid, where in 1641, he was arrested at midnight in the house of a friend with whom he resided. The charge preferred against him, was that of being a libeller, who spared neither the government nor public morals; he was thrown into a small and unwholesome prison, and treated with the most rigid severity, not even experiencing the humanity usually extended to the vilest criminals. In the meanwhile his property was sequestrated, and though not convicted of any crime, he was compelled to subsist on charity. He was again seized with a severe fit of illness. His body broke out in ulcers, in consequence of the insalubrity of his prison, but he was even then denied the aid of a surgeon. In this situation Quevedo appealed for justice to the Duke of Olivares, the all-powerful prime minister of Spain, in a letter which has become celebrated. His case was now, for the first time, strictly investigated; and it was ascertained that he had merely been supposed to be the author of a libel, which was subsequently discovered to have been written in a monastery. Quevedo once more regained his freedom, but with the loss of a considerable portion of his fortune, of which indeed he retained so scanty a remnant, that he was unable to continue long enough in Madrid to solicit the indemnification which was so justly due to him, and without which he could not subsist with respectability. A prey to sickness, and deprived of the hope of ever obtaining justice, he retired to his country seat, and there died in the year 1645.
A man who, like Quevedo, reaped the bitterest fruits from political justice, cannot be very heavily reproached for seizing in his satires every opportunity of more severely chastising and ridiculing the ministers of that justice, than any other enemies of truth and equity. But Quevedo was not a mere satirist. He may, without hesitation, be pronounced the most ingenious of all Spanish writers, next to Cervantes; and his mind was, moreover, endowed with a degree of practical judgment, which is seldom found combined with that versatility for which he was distinguished. Could Quevedo have ruled the taste and genius of his nation and his age in the same degree in which that taste and genius influenced him, his versatility, joined to his talent for composing verses with no less rapidity than Lope de Vega, might have rendered him, if not a poet of the first rank in the loftier region of art, at least a classic writer of almost unrivalled merit. But this scholar and man of the world was too early wedded to conventional forms of every kind. It may indeed be said that he was steeped in all the colours of his age. A true feeling of the independence of genius never animated him, lofty as his spirit in other respects was. His taste imbibed some portion of all the conflicting tastes which at that period existed in Spain. His style never acquired originality, and his mind was only half cultivated.
Quevedo’s writings, taken altogether in verse and in prose, resemble a massy ornament of jewellery, in which the setting of some parts is exquisitely skilful, of others extremely rude, and in which the number of false stones and of gems of inestimable value are nearly equal. His most numerous, and unquestionably his best productions, are those of the satirical and comic kind. Though Quevedo did not strike into a totally new course, yet by a union peculiar to himself of sports of fancy, with the maxims of reason and morality, he evidently enlarged the sphere of satirical and comic poetry in Spanish literature. He occasionally approached, though he never equalled, the delicacy and correctness of Cervantes. His wit is sufficiently caustic; but it is accompanied by a coarseness which would be surprising, considering his situation in life, were it not that Quevedo, as an author, sought to indemnify himself for the constraint to which, as a man of the world he was compelled to submit. For this reason, perhaps, he bestowed but little pains on the correction of his satires. His ideas are striking; and are thrown together sometimes with absolute carelessness, sometimes with refined precision; but for the most part in a distorted and mannered strain of language. This mixed character of cultivation and rudeness peculiarly characterizes his satirical and comic works in verse, in which, as he himself says, he has exhibited “truth in her smock, but not quite naked.”[478] He appears as the rival of Gongora in numerous comic canciones and romances in the old national style.[479] In these compositions he humorously parodied the extravagant images of the Marinists,[480] and the affected singularity of the Gongorists.[481] Quevedo wrote no inconsiderable number of his comic and satirical poems in the jargon of the Spanish gypsies; and it is therefore probable that they are not intelligible to many readers on this side of the Pyrenees.[482] These romances and canciones, which were distinguished by the name of Xacaras, were rendered so extremely popular by Quevedo, that even down to the present day the Spaniards continue to admire them.[483] His Bayles, or comic dancing songs, are, on account of their numerous allusions to national peculiarities, no less obscure to foreigners than the Xacaras.