[677] “El Carro del Cielo,” which Vera Tassis says he wrote at fourteen, and which we should be not a little pleased to see.
[678] The audience remained in the same seats, but there were three stages before them. It must have been a very brilliant exhibition, and is quaintly explained in the loa prefixed to it.
[679] This is stated in the title, and gracefully alluded to at the end of the piece:—
Fué el agua tan dichosa,
En esta noche felice,
Que merecia ser Teatro.
[680] Vera Tassis makes this statement. See also F. W. V. Schmidt, Ueber die italienischen Heldengedichte, Berlin, 1820, 12mo, pp. 269-280.
[681] The two decided attempts of Calderon in the opera style have already been noticed. The “Laurel de Apolo” (Comedias, Tom. VI.) is called a Fiesta de Zarzuela, in which it is said (Jorn. I.): “Se canta y se representa”;—so that it was probably partly sung and partly acted. Of the Zarzuelas we must speak when we come to Candamo.
[682] Goethe had this quality of Calderon’s drama in his mind when he said to Eckermann, (Gespräche mit Goethe, Leipzig, 1837, Band I. p. 251), “Seine Stücke sind durchaus bretterrecht, es ist in ihnen kein Zug, der nicht für die beabsichtigte Wirkung calculirt wäre, Calderon ist dasjenige Genie, was zugleich den grössten Verstand hatte.”
[683] A good many of Calderon’s graciosos, or buffoons, are excellent, as, for instance, those in “La Vida es Sueño,” “El Alcayde de sí mismo,” “Casa con Dos Puertas,” “La Gran Zenobia,” “La Dama Duende,” etc.