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.