But he was ill rewarded for it. Much of what had been done by the representatives of the Spanish people in the name of Ferdinand the Seventh, during his forced detention in France, was unwelcome to that shortsighted monarch; and, as soon as he returned to Madrid, in 1814, a persecution was begun of those who had most contributed to the adoption of these unwelcome measures. Among the more obnoxious persons was Quintana, who was thrown into prison in the fortress of Pamplona, and remained there six miserable years, interdicted from the use of writing-materials, and cut off from all intercourse with his friends. The changes of 1820 unexpectedly released him, and raised him for a time to greater distinction than he had enjoyed before. But, three years later, another political revolution took from him all his employments and influence; and he retired to Estremadura, where he occupied himself with letters till new changes and the death of the king restored him to the old public offices he had filled so well, adding to his former honors that of a peer of the realm. But from the days when he first attracted public regard by his noble Odes on the Ocean, and on the beneficent expedition sent to America with the great charity of Vaccination, letters have been his chosen employment;—his pride, when he cheered on his countrymen to resist oppression; his consolation in prison and in exile; his crown of honor in an honored old age.[364]
CHAPTER VI.
Theatre in the Eighteenth Century. — Translations from the French. — Original Plays. — Operas. — National Theatre. — Castro. — Añorbe. — Imitations of the French Theatre. — Montiano. — Moratin the Elder. — Cadahalso. — Sebastian y Latre. — Trigueros. — Yriarte. — Ayala. — Huerta. — Jovellanos. — Autos forbidden. — Public Theatres and their Parties. — Ramon de la Cruz, Sedano, Cortés, Cienfuegos, and others. — Huerta’s Collection of Old Plays. — Discussions. — Valladares. — Zavala. — Comella. — Moratin the Younger. — State of the Drama at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century.
The most considerable literary movement of the eighteenth century in Spain, and the one that best marks the poetical character of the entire period, is that relating to the theatre, which it was earnestly attempted to subject to the rules then prevailing on the French stage. Intimations of such a design are found in the reign of Philip the Fifth, as soon as the War of the Succession was closed. The Marquis of San Juan began, in 1713, with a translation of the “Cinna” of Corneille;—the first tragedy under the French rules that appeared in the Spanish language, and one that was probably selected for this distinction, because it was well suited to the condition of a country, that had so much reason to seek the clemency of its prince in favor of many distinguished persons, whom the civil war had led to resist his power.[365] But it was never represented, and was soon forgotten. Cañizares, the last of the elder race of dramatists that showed any of the old spirit, yielded more than once to the new school of taste, and regarded his “Sacrifice of Iphigenia”—an absurd play, for which the “Iphigénie” of Racine is very little responsible—as an imitation of the French school.[366] Neither these, however, nor plays of an irregular and often vulgar cast, like those written by Diego de Torres, professor of natural philosophy, by Lobo, the military officer, and by Salvo, the tailor, obtained any permanent favor, or were able to constitute foundations on which to reconstruct a national drama. As far as any thing was heard on the public stage worthy of its pretensions, it was the works of the old masters and of their poor imitators, Cañizares and Zamora.[367]
The Spanish theatre, in fact, was now at its lowest ebb, and wholly in the hands of the populace, from whom it had always received much of its character, and who had been its faithful friends in the days of its trial and adversity. Nor could its present condition fairly claim a higher patronage. All Spanish plays acted for public amusement in Madrid were still represented, as they had been in the seventeenth century, in open court-yards, with galleries or corridors that surrounded them. To these court-yards there was no covering except in case of a shower, and then the awning stretched over them was so imperfect, that, if the rain continued, and those of the spectators who were always compelled to stand during the performance were too numerous to find shelter under the projecting seats of the corridors, the exhibition was broken up for the day, and the crowd driven home. There was hardly any pretence of scenery; the performance always took place in the day-time; and the price of admission, which was collected in money at the door, did not exceed a few farthings for each spectator.
The second queen of Philip the Fifth, Isabel Farnese, who had been used to the enjoyment of all kinds of scenic exhibitions in Italy, was not satisfied with this state of things. Finding an ill-arranged theatre, in which an Italian company had sometimes acted, she caused material additions to be made to it, and required regular operas to be brought out for her amusement from 1737. The change was an important one. The two old court-yards took the alarm. First one and then the other began to erect a new and more commodious structure for theatrical entertainments; and as they had been each other’s rivals for a century and a half in the awkwardness of their arrangements, no less than in their claims for public patronage, so now they became rivals in a struggle for improvement. Under such impulses, the new “Theatre of the Cross” was finished in 1743, and that of “The Prince,” in 1745.
But, in most respects, there was little change. True to the traditions of their origin, the new structures were still called court-yards, and their boxes, rooms;—the cazuela, or “stewpan,” was still kept for the women, who sat there veiled like nuns, but acting very little as if they were such;—the Alcalde de Corte, or Judge of the Municipality, still appeared in the proscenium, with his two clerks behind him, to keep the peace or bear record to its breach;—Semiramis wore a hooped petticoat and high-heeled shoes, and Julius Cæsar was assassinated in a curled periwig and velvet court coat, with a feathered Spanish hat under his arm. The old spirit, therefore, it is plain, prevailed, however great might be the improvements made in the external arrangements and architecture of the theatres.
One cause of this was the exclusive favor shown to the opera by two Italian queens, and encouraged by the new political relations of Spain with Italy. The theatre of the Buen Retiro, where Calderon had so often triumphed, was fitted up with unwonted magnificence, by Farinelli, the first singer of his time, who had been brought to the Spanish court in order to soothe the melancholy of Philip the Fifth, and who still continued there, enjoying the especial protection of Ferdinand the Sixth. Luzan translated Metastasio’s “Clemency of Titus” for the opening of the new and gorgeous saloon in 1747; and both then, and for a considerable period afterwards, all that the resources of the court could command in poetry and music, or in the show and pomp of theatrical machinery, was lavished on an exotic, which at last failed to take healthy root in the soil of the country.[368]
Meantime the national theatre, neglected by the court and the higher classes, was given up to such writers as Francisco de Castro, an actor who sought the applause of the lowest part of his audience by vulgar farces,[369] and Thomas de Añorbe, the chaplain of a nunnery at Madrid, whose “Paolino,” announced as “in the French fashion,” provoked the just ridicule of Luzan, and whose “Virtue conquers Fate,” if no less extravagant, has the merit of being an attack on astrology and a belief in planetary influences.[370] With the success of such absurdities, however, scholars and men of taste seem to have grown desperate. Montiano, a Biscayan gentleman, high in office at court, and a member of the Academy of Good Taste, that met at the house of the Countess of Lemos, led the way in an attack upon them. He began, in 1750, with a tragedy on the Roman story of Virginia, which he intended should be a model for Spanish serious theatrical compositions, and which he accompanied with a long and well-written discourse, showing how far Bermudez, Cueva, Virues, and a few more of the old masters, had been willing to be governed by doctrines similar to his own.