Moratin determined, however, to tread in the footsteps of his father, for whose example and memory he always felt the sincerest reverence. He therefore wrote his first comedy, “The Old Husband and the Young Wife,” quite within the rules, finishing every part of it with the greatest exactness, but dividing it, as the old Spanish plays were divided, into three acts, and using throughout the old short verse which was always popular. But when, in 1786, he offered his comedy for representation, the simplicity of the action, so unlike the involved plots on which the common people still loved to exercise their extraordinary ingenuity, and the very quietness and decorum that reigned throughout it, made the actors alarmed for its success. Objections were made, and these, with other untoward circumstances, prevented it from being brought out for four years. When it finally appeared, it was received with a moderate applause, which satisfied neither of the extreme parties into which the audiences at Madrid were then divided, and yet was not perhaps unjust to the comedy, whose action is somewhat cold and languid, though its poetical merits, in other respects, are far from being inconsiderable.
But, whatever may have been the effect on the public, the effect on its author was decisive. He had been heard. His merit had been, in part at least, acknowledged; and he now determined to bring the pretensions of the popular dramatists, who were disgracing the stage, to the test of a public trial on the stage itself. For this purpose, he wrote his “New Play,” as he called it, which is an exposition of the motives of a penniless author for composing one of the noisy, extravagant dramas then constantly acted with applause, and an account of its first representation;—the whole related by the author himself and his friends, in a coffee-house contiguous to the theatre, at the very moment the fatal representation is supposed to be going on.
It is in two acts; and the catastrophe—which consists of the confusion of the author and his family at the failure of his performance—is brought on with skill, and with an effect much greater than the simplicity of the action had promised. The piece, therefore, was received with a favor which even Moratin and his friends had not anticipated. The poet, who is its victim, was recognized at once to be Comella. Some of the inferior characters, whether justly or not, were appropriated to other persons who figured at the time, and the “New Play” was acknowledged to be a brilliant satire;—severe indeed, but well merited and happily applied. From this time, therefore, which was 1792, Moratin, notwithstanding the exasperated opposition of the adherents of the old school, had secured for himself a permanent place on the national stage, and, what is more remarkable, this little drama, almost without a regular action and founded on interests purely local, was, for the sake of its wit and originality, translated and successfully represented both in France and Italy.[386]
“The Baron,” which is in two acts and in verse, was at first prepared to be sung; and, without the permission of the author, was altered to an acting drama and performed in public during his absence from Spain. On his return, he improved it by material additions, and produced it again in 1803. It is the least effective of his theatrical performances; but it triumphed over a cabal, which supported a drama written on the same subject and represented at the same time, in order to interfere with its success.
At the moment Moratin was making arrangements for bringing out “The Baron,” he was occupied with the careful preparation of another comedy in verse, that was destined still further to increase his reputation. This was “The Female Hypocrite,” which was written as early as 1791, and was soon afterwards represented in private, but which was not finished and acted publicly till 1804. It is an excellent specimen of character-drawing; the two principal personages being a girl, made, by the severity of her family, to assume the appearance of being very religious, while her cousin, who is well contrasted with her, is rendered frank and winning by an opposite treatment. The very subject, however, was one that brought Moratin upon dangerous ground, and his play was forbidden by the Inquisition. But that once formidable body was now little more than an engine of state; so that the authority of the Prince of the Peace was not only sufficient to prevent any disagreeable consequences to Moratin himself, but was able soon afterwards to indulge the public in a pleasure for which they were only the more eager, because it had for a time been interdicted.
Moratin’s last original effort on the stage was a full-length prose comedy in three acts, which he called the “Little Girl’s Consent,” and which was acted in 1806. Its general movement is extremely natural, and yet it is enlivened with a little of the intrigue and bustle that were always so much liked on the Spanish theatre. A young girl, while in the course of her education at a convent, becomes attached to a handsome officer of dragoons. Her mother, ignorant of this, undertakes to bring her home and marry her to an excellent, benevolent old gentleman, whom the daughter has never seen, but whom, out of mere weakness, she has been unable to refuse. At an inn on the road, where the younger lover falls in with them on purpose to break up this match, they all meet; and he discovers, to his dismay, that his rival is an uncle to whom he is sincerely attached, and to whom he owes many obligations. The mistakes and intrigues of the night they pass together at this inn give great life to the action, and are full of humor; while the disinterested attachment of the young lovers to each other, and the benevolence of the uncle, add to the conflicting claims and relations of the different parties a charm quite original in itself, and very effective in its exhibition. The play ends by the discovery of the real state of the daughter’s heart, and the renunciation of all the pretensions of the uncle, who makes his nephew his heir.
Nothing on the Spanish stage had been so well received for a long period. It was acted twenty-six nights successively to audiences who were in the habit of demanding novelties constantly; and then it was stopped only because Lent came to shut up the theatres. No criticism appeared except to praise it. The triumph of Moratin was complete.
But he was not destined long to enjoy it. The troubles of his country were already begun, and in three years the French were its temporary masters. He prepared, indeed, afterwards two spirited translations from Molière, with alterations that made them more attractive to his countrymen; one from the “École des Maris,” which was acted in 1812, and the other from the “Médecin Malgré Lui,” which was acted in 1814; but, except these and an unfortunate prose version of Shakspeare’s “Hamlet,” which was printed in 1798, but never performed, he wrote nothing for the theatre except the five comedies already noticed. These, if they form no very broad foundation for his fame, seem yet to constitute one on which it may rest safely; and, if they have failed to educate a school strong enough to drive out the bad imitations of the old masters that have constantly pressed upon them, have yet been able to keep their own place, little disturbed by the changes of the times.[387]
That the Spanish drama, during the century which elapsed between the establishment of the House of Bourbon on the throne and the temporary expulsion of that house from Spain by the arms of Bonaparte, had, in some respects, made progress, cannot be doubted. More convenient and suitable structures for its exhibitions had been erected, not only in the capital, but in all the principal cities of the kingdom. New and various forms of dramatic composition had been introduced, which, if not always consistent with the demands of the national genius, nor often encouraged by the general favor, had still been welcome to the greater part of the more cultivated classes, and served both to excite attention to the fallen state of the theatre generally, and to stir the thoughts of men for its restoration. Actors, too, of extraordinary merit had from time to time appeared, like Damian de Castro, for whom Zamora and Cañizares wrote parts; Maria L’ Advenant, who delighted Signorelli in the higher characters of Calderon and Moreto; the Tirana, whose tragic powers astonished the practised taste of Cumberland, the English dramatist; and Maiquez, who enjoyed the friendship and admiration of nearly all the Spanish men of letters in his time.[388]
But still the old spirit and life of the drama of the seventeenth century were not there. The audiences, who were as unlike those of the cavalier times of Philip the Fourth as were the rude exhibitions they preferred to witness, did as much to degrade the theatre as was done by the poets they patronized and the actors they applauded. The two schools were in presence of each other continually struggling for the victory, and the multitude seemed rather to rejoice in the uproar, than desire so to use it as to promote changes beneficial to the theatre. On the one side, extravagant and absurd dramas in great numbers, full of noise, show, and low buffoonery, were offered with success. On the other, meagre sentimental comedies, and stiff, cold translations from the French, were forced, in almost equal numbers, upon the actors by the voices of those from whose authority or support they could not entirely emancipate themselves. And between the two, and with the consent of all, the Inquisition and the censors forbade the representation of hundreds of the dramas of the old masters, and among them not a few which still give reputation to Calderon and Lope. The eighteenth century, therefore, so far as the Spanish theatre is concerned, is entirely a period of revolution and change; and while, at its conclusion, we perceive that the old national drama can hardly hope to be restored to its ancient rights, it is equally plain that a drama founded on the doctrines taught by Luzan, and practised by the Moratins, is not destined to take its place.[389]