[663] Good, but somewhat over-refined, remarks on the use Calderon made of Portuguese history in his “Weal and Woe” are to be found in the Preface to the second volume of Malsburg’s German translation of Calderon, Leipzig, 1819, 12mo.
[664] Comedias, 1760, Tom. IV. See, also, Ueber die Kirchentrennung von England, von F. W. V. Schmidt, Berlin, 1819, 12mo;—a pamphlet full of curious matter, but quite too laudatory, so far as Calderon’s merit is concerned. Nothing will show the wide difference between Shakspeare and Calderon more strikingly than a comparison of this play with the grand historical drama of “Henry the Eighth.”
[665] Of these duels, and his notions about female honor, half the plays of Calderon may be taken as specimens; but it is only necessary to refer to “Casa con Dos Puertas” and “El Escondido y la Tapada.”
[666] Fuero Juzgo, ed. de la Academia, Madrid, 1815, folio, Lib. III. Tít. IV. Leyes 3-5 and 9. It should be remembered, that these laws were the old Gothic laws of Spain before A. D. 700; that they were the laws of the Christians who did not fall under the Arabic authority; and that they are published in the edition of the Academy as they were consolidated and reënacted by St. Ferdinand after the conquest of Córdova in 1241.
[667] Howell, in 1623, when he had been a year in Madrid, under circumstances to give him familiar knowledge of its gay society, and at a time when the drama of Lope was at the height of its favor, says, “One shall not hear of a duel here in an age.” Letters, eleventh edition, London, 1754, 8vo, Book I. Sect. 3, Letter 32.
[668] In “El Canto Junto al Encanto,” and in “Pedir Favor.”
[669] Things had not been in an easy state, at any time, since the troubles already noticed in the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III., as we may see from the Approbation of Thomas de Avellaneda to Tom. XXII., 1665, of the Comedias Escogidas, where that personage, a grave and distinguished ecclesiastic, thought it needful to step aside from his proper object, and defend the theatre against attacks, which were evidently then common, though they have not reached us. But the quarrel of 1682-85, which was a violent and open rupture, can be best found in the “Apelacion al Tribunal de los Doctos,” Madrid, 1752, 4to, (which is, in fact, Guerra’s defence of himself written in 1683, but not before published), and in “Discursos contra los que defienden el Uso de las Comedias,” por Gonzalo Navarro, Madrid, 1684, 4to, which is a reply to the last and to other works of the same kind.
[670] The description of Philip IV. on horseback, as he passed through the streets of Madrid, suggests a comparison with Shakspeare’s Bolingbroke in the streets of London, but it is wholly against the Spanish poet. (Jorn. I.) That Calderon meant to be accurate in the descriptions contained in this play can be seen by reading the official account of the “Juramento del Príncipe Baltasar,” 1632, prepared by Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, of which the second edition was printed by order of the government, in its printing-office, 1605, 4to.
[671] It is genuine Spanish. The hero says,—
En Italia estaba,