Why proverbs should abound so much more in Spain than in any other country of Christendom, it is not possible to tell. Perhaps the Arabs, whose language is rich in such wisdom, may have furnished some of them; or perhaps the whole mass may have sprung from the original soil of the less cultivated classes of Spanish society. But however this may be, we know they are often among the pleasantest and most characteristic ornaments of the national literature; and those who are most familiar with them will be most ready to agree with the wise author of the “Dialogue on Languages,” when he says, and repeats the remark, that we must go to the old national proverbs for what is purest in his native Castilian.[234]
Turning now to the proper Didactic prose of Spanish literature, the first instance we find—after those formerly noticed as imitating the Italian philosophical discussions of the sixteenth century—is one that comes near to the borders of fiction. It is “The Garden of Curious Flowers,” by Torquemada, originally published in 1570, of which the curate, in the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library, says, that “he does not know whether it is more true, or, to speak strictly, less full of lies,” than the “Olivante de Laura,” a book of chivalry by the same author, which, for its peculiar absurdities, he sends at once to the bonfire in the court-yard. “The Garden of Curious Flowers,” however, is still a curious book. It consists of six colloquies between friends, who talk for their amusement on such subjects as the monstrous productions of nature, the terrestrial paradise, phantasms and enchantments, the influence of the stars, and the history and condition of those countries that lie nearest to the North Pole. It is, in fact, a collection of whatever strange and extravagant stories a learned man could make, beginning with such as he found in Aristotle, Pliny, Solinus, Olaus Magnus, and Albertus Magnus, and including those told by the most credulous of his own time. Being put into a form then popular, and related in a pleasing style, they had no little success. They were several times printed in the original, and, beside being translated into Italian and French, are well known to those who are curious in the literature of Queen Elizabeth’s time, under the much-abused name of “The Spanish Mandeville.” It may be added, that some of Torquemada’s accounts of spectres and visions are still pleasant reading; and that, though Cervantes spoke slightingly of the whole book in his “Don Quixote,” he afterwards resorted to it, both for facts and for fancies respecting the wonders of Friesland and Iceland, when he wrote the first part of his “Persiles and Sigismunda.”[235]
Christóval de Acosta, a Portuguese botanist,—who was accustomed to call himself “the African,” because he happened to be born in one of the African possessions of Portugal,—travelled much in the East, and after his return published, in 1578, a work on Oriental plants and drugs, to which he added at the end a treatise on the natural history of the Elephant. But, though he succeeded in attracting the attention of Europe to this publication, and though the early part of his life had been that of a soldier, an adventurer, and a captive among pirates and robbers, he spent many of his later years, if not all of them, in religious retirement at home, where, besides other things, he wrote a discourse on “The Benefits of Solitude,” and a treatise on “The Praise of Women.” The last was printed in 1592, and, except that it is too full of learning, may still be read with some interest, if not with pleasure.[236]
It was not, however, moral and philosophical writers, like Oliva and Guevara, nor writers on subjects connected with natural history, like Torquemada and Acosta, that were most favored in the reigns of Philip the Second and his immediate successors. It was the ascetics and mystics,—the natural produce of the soil of Spain, and, almost without exception, faithful to the old Castilian genius.
Among the most prominent of this class was Luis de Granada, distinguished as a Spanish preacher, but still more remarkable for his eloquence as a mystic. His “Meditations for the Seven Days and Nights of a Week,” his treatises “On Prayer” and “On Faith,” and his “Memorial of a Christian Life,” were early translated into Latin, Italian, French, and English,—one of them into Turkish, and one into Japanese,—and, like his other Spanish works, have continued to be printed and admired in the original down to our own times.
The most effective of them all was his “Guide for Sinners,” first published in 1556. It makes two moderate volumes, and portions of it are marked with a diffuse declamation, which is perhaps imitated from that of Juan de Avila, the Apostle of Andalusia, whose friend and follower he more than once boasts himself to have been. But its general tone is that of a moving and harmonious eloquence, which has made it a favorite book of devotion in Spain ever since it first appeared, and has spread its reputation so widely, that it has been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, including the Greek and Polish, and, at one time, seemed likely to obtain a place, in the religious literature of Christendom, very near that of the great ascetic work which passes under the name of Thomas à Kempis. In its native country, however, the Guide for Sinners encountered at first not a little opposition. As early as the year after it was published, it had been placed on the Index Expurgatorius, and no edition except the first seems to have been permitted till we find that of Salamanca, in 1570. But the very Index that condemned it became itself the subject of condemnation; and, in the case of the Guide for Sinners, the ecclesiastical powers went so far in the opposite direction as to grant special indulgences by proclamation to all who should have read or heard a chapter of the very work they had earlier so harshly censured.
Luis de Granada passed all the latter part of his life in Lisbon,—perhaps because he had been repeatedly annoyed by the Inquisition at home, perhaps because his duties seemed to lead him there. But, whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that he enjoyed much more favor in Portugal than he did in Spain; and when he died, in 1588, eighty-four years old, he could boast that he had refused the highest honors of the Portuguese Church, and humbly devoted the whole of his long life to the reformation and advancement of the Order of Preachers, of which, during his best years, he had been the active and venerated head.[237]
San Juan de la Cruz, who was in some respects an imitator of Luis de Granada, was born in 1542, and, having spent the greater part of his life in reforming the discipline of the Carmelite monasteries, died in 1591, and was beatified in 1674. His works, which are chiefly contemplative, and obtained for him the title of the Ecstatic Doctor, are written with great fervor. The chief of them are the allegory of “The Ascent to Mount Carmel,” and “The Dark Night of the Soul,”—treatises which have given him much reputation for a mystical eloquence, that sometimes rises to the sublime, and sometimes is lost in the unintelligible. His poetry, of which a little is printed in some of the many editions of his works, is of the same general character, but marked by great felicity and richness of phraseology.[238]
Santa Teresa, who was associated with Juan de la Cruz in the work of reforming the Carmelites,—or rather with whom he was associated, since hers was the leading spirit,—died in 1582, sixty-seven years old. Her didactic works, the most remarkable of which are “The Path to Perfection” and “The Interior Castle,” are less obscure than those of her coadjutor, though more declamatory. But all she wrote, including an account of her own life, and several discussions connected with the religious duties to which she dedicated herself, were composed with apparent reluctance on her part, and in obedience to the commands of her superiors. She believed herself to be often in direct communion with God; and as those about her shared her faith on this point, she was continually urged by them to make known to the world what were thus regarded as revelations of the Divine will. On one occasion she says: “Far within, God appeared to me in a vision, as he has been wont to do, and gave me his right hand, and said,—Behold this print of the nail; it is a sign that, from this day forth, thou art my spouse. Hitherto, thou hast not deserved it; but hereafter not only shalt thou regard my honor as that of thy Creator, and King, and God, but as that of a true spouse;—for my honor is now thine, and thine is mine.”
Living, as she undoubtedly did, under the persuasion that she was favored with numberless revelations of this kind, she wrote boldly and rapidly, and corrected nothing. Her style, in consequence, is diffuse and open to objections, which, in Spain, the spirit of a merely literary criticism is too reverent to desire to remove. But whatever she wrote is full of earnestness, sincerity, and love; and therefore her works have never ceased to be read by those of her own nation and faith. During her life, she was persecuted by the Inquisition; but after her death, her manuscripts were collected with pious care, and published, in 1588, by Luis de Leon, who exhorts all men to follow in the bright path she has pointed out to them; adding, “She has seen God face to face, and she now shows him to you.”[239]