GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE OF POETICAL AND RHETORICAL CULTIVATION IN SPAIN DURING THIS PERIOD.
Within the century composed of the reigns of the three Philips, from 1556 to 1665, that is to say, the golden age of Spanish literature, the national spirit, which the vicious system of the government was calculated to repress, became at last like the national resources, completely exhausted. Under Charles II. the wounds of the body politic which had long profusely bled, began to exhibit frightful gangrenes. In every quarter of the world Spanish valour had done its uttermost for the support of the perverse measures of a despotic government, and the state at length seemed on the verge of dissolution. The enormous treasures which poured into Spain from the mines of America, were immediately consigned to foreign nations. Thus the richest country in the world was overwhelmed with debt. Agriculture and industry languished particularly in the interior of the monarchy, where a near view of the splendour of an ostentatious court still served to gratify Castilian vanity, but where every blow levelled against the whole state was most directly felt. The occupation of one half of America carried off men from the mother country by thousands at a time; and in addition to this drain, the population had been suddenly diminished to the extent of nearly half a million, by the tyrannical expulsion of the Moriscos, or baptized Arabs. Spain was also engaged in uninterrupted warfare during the whole of the century in which the three Philips reigned. Continual levies of troops, combined with oppressive taxation, at length so reduced the nation, that the government lost the instrument it had abused; and every sacrifice made to meet cases of imperious urgency, served only to produce a new humiliation. The little kingdom of Portugal, by a fortunate effort threw off the Spanish yoke, and became once more an independent state. Torrents of Spanish blood were shed in the Netherlands, with the view of suppressing, at any price, the freedom of the United Provinces; yet those provinces flourished in full vigour, while Spain was reduced to the last stage of political inanition. Still, however, Spanish genius appeared to soar superior to all the evils that assailed the state, as long, at least, as the semblance of the ancient national greatness remained. But with the death of Philip IV. even that semblance vanished. The widowed queen, who was appointed guardian of the young king, then only five years of age, acting under the influence of father Neidhart, a German Jesuit, offered the last insult to the feelings of the nobility and the people. No sooner was father Neidhart driven away by the party of Don John of Austria, the natural son of Philip IV. than France obtained possession of a considerable portion of the provinces which Spain still held in the Netherlands. In the West Indies a republic of pirates was established. This new enemy grew out of the remarkable association of the Flibustiers, or Buccaneers, men who regarded Spanish America as a booty on which they were entitled to prey. This state of things was not improved when the full powers of government were placed in the hands of the weak Charles II. the period of whose reign is the most melancholy in Spanish history.
The circumstance of a French prince being called to the Spanish throne, in obedience to that will of Charles II. which has been so much censured, was by no means unfortunate for Spain, either in a literary or political point of view. The war, which was partly a civil contest, and which was maintained for twelve years before the new Philip, the fifth of that name, was tranquilly seated on his throne, seemed, however, to threaten the annihilation of the last remnant of Spanish national vigour. The mild and rigidly pious Philip V. was, by his personal character and mode of thinking, previously related to the nation to which he now belonged. He manifested no desire to transplant into Spain the literature of France, which at that time began to exercise an influence over the whole of Europe. The foreigners whose promotion to important posts during the reign of the first Bourbon in Spain, rendered them the objects of much patriotic jealousy, were Italians and Irishmen, but in no instance Frenchmen. The French influence operated in Spain, only on the wavering politics of the cabinet of Madrid; the change of the reigning dynasty produced therefore little or no influence on Spanish literature. All that Philip V. did to promote the advancement of learning on the French model, was wholly confined to the celebrated institution of royal academies, among which the academy of history, and still more, the academy of the Spanish language and polite literature,[570] may be regarded as having operated influentially on the literature of Spain. But this last-mentioned academy, which was established in the year 1714, was never intended for the annihilation of the spirit and peculiar forms of Spanish poetry and eloquence. The cultivation of the Spanish language was its especial care, and its labours for the accomplishment of that object were crowned by the production of its excellent dictionary. The efforts made by some members of this academy to form the taste of their countrymen on the model of that of France, must be attributed to themselves individually. They merely followed the new current of French taste, in common with almost every person in Europe, who had then any pretensions to polite education. If these innovators must be called a literary court party, the term can only be employed in the sense in which it would, with equal propriety, apply to the same sort of party existing in other countries, where the French style became the fashionable style of courts, and was, with courtier-like complaisance, generally adopted by authors both in verse and in prose.
The French taste spontaneously penetrated into Spanish literature when the age of Louis XIV. began to exercise an imposing influence over the whole world. But the French taste would have operated on the literature of Spain, which had already been carried so far beyond that of France, in a very different manner, had not the old national energy been crippled in every direction. Had it not been for this unfortunate circumstance crowds of servile imitators and pseudo critics would never have obtained a footing in Spain. Men of rightly cultivated understanding would have reconciled their purer taste to the yet unexhausted national genius, in order to enhance the advantages of Spanish literature in its competition with the literature of France, and to learn true elegance from the French, without, like them, sacrificing to mere elegance beauties of a higher order. But the age of vigour was past; and yet feeble pride would in no respect renounce its pretensions. Two parties now arose in the polite literature of Spain. The leading and would-be elegant party, included persons of rank and fashion, who had begun to be ashamed of the ancient national literature, and who yet wished to prove that that national literature, even when estimated according to the rules of French criticism, possessed many beauties. That the French might no longer boast of superior taste, this party sought to improve Spanish poetry, and particularly the Spanish drama, by translations of French works and imitations of the French style. To this party of fashionable innovators was opposed the old national party, composed of persons distinguished for their obstinate attachment to the ancient taste, and even to the ancient rudeness. This party continued, as heretofore, to be that of the Spanish public; but it remained for a time without any literary representative. Thus was it reduced to the necessity of seeing writers, who laid claim to the title of Spanish patriots, publicly attack its old favourites, particularly Lope de Vega and Calderon, while no zealous pen took up their public defence. Nevertheless this party continued unshaken in its opinions. Even during the extreme crisis of the conflict between the French and the national taste, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish theatre preserved its own peculiar forms. It assumed, however, a character no less varied than the German theatre at present exhibits. Plays in the national style were performed on the Spanish stage alternately with translations and imitations of French and even of English dramas; and if this heterogeneous variety did not degenerate into the monstrous, as it now does on the German stage, where a national style never prevailed, yet nothing could be more inconsistent than the contrast formed by plays in the French and English taste with the old Spanish comedies. But these comedies, and in general all the old national poetry, once more obtained spirited defenders among Spanish critics and authors, after the shock of the last crisis had been withstood by the ancient taste in its conflict with the modern. Thus another literary triumph was gained by the tenacity of the Spanish public, to which, in matters of taste, monarchs otherwise despotic, readily granted perfect freedom.
The mixture of national and foreign taste in the modern literature of Spain, was promoted in no slight degree by the introduction of French manners, which had at this period spread over Europe, but which were in Spain less encouraged by court example than in other countries. At the court of Madrid, old Spanish formality was still preserved; and among the nobility, as well as the people, the national costume was only gradually superseded by the French style of dress. Bull fights continued to be the favourite amusements of the Spaniards from the highest to the lowest ranks. But the solemn Autos de Fe,[571] in which the inquisition appeared in all the splendour of its power, and in which heretics were burnt amidst the approving shouts of the spectators, no longer insulted humanity. The last of these horrible festivals of fanaticism was performed with extraordinary pomp at Madrid in the year 1680, in compliance with the pious wish of King Charles II. The Bourbons who succeeded to the Spanish throne, whatever might be the ardour of their catholic zeal, appeared to regard such barbarous spectacles with disgust, and thus set an example of refinement which honourably marked their relationship to the French royal family. At this period, too, when the storm of the reformation had subsided, religion as well as manners assumed a milder character throughout all Europe. The Spaniards, however, could not be induced to renounce their sacred comedies, until in the year 1765 they were formally prohibited by a royal decree, because they excited the derision of foreigners.
Finally, in the second half of the eighteenth century, scientific learning gained an ascendancy over polite literature in Spain, as in every other part of Europe. A philosophy in the sense of the French encyclopædists inflicted wounds equally mortal on fanaticism and poetic enthusiasm. The spirit of experiment which sought by an accumulation of facts to scan the furthest depths of human knowledge and the principles of all science, and styled that accumulation sound philosophy, had, since the time of the French encyclopædists, found favour in Spain, as in every part of Europe, Germany excepted. True poetry, to which this spirit of experiment is the most dangerous of all enemies, could not easily revive in its former magnificence. But a wider field of general utility was, under certain restrictions, opened to elegant prose; and criticism at least obtained the negative advantage of being able to impede any new encroachments of ingenious extravagance.
CHAP. II.
DECAY OF THE OLD SPANISH POETRY AND ELOQUENCE, AND INTRODUCTION OF THE FRENCH STYLE INTO SPANISH LITERATURE.
The last branch of Spanish national poetry still flourished in the reign of Charles II. The French drama, which then appeared in the first dawn of its celebrity, had as yet no influence on the drama of Spain. Several assiduous writers continued to enrich Spanish literature with new pieces in the manner of Calderon; and these writers have here the first claim to consideration.