A last faint breath of mysticism is found in the Tratado de la Hermosura de Dios (1641) by the Jesuit, Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1590-1658), whose prose, though elegant and relatively pure, lacks the majesty of Luis de León's and the persuasiveness of Granada's. More familiar in style, the letters of Felipe IV.'s friend, María Coronel y Arana (1602-65), known in religion as Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, may still be read with pleasure. Professed at sixteen, she was elected abbess of her convent at twenty-five, and her Mística Ciudad de Dios has gone through innumerable editions in almost all languages; her Correspondencia con Felipe IV. extends over twenty-two years, from 1643 onwards, and is as remarkable for its profound piety as for its sound appreciation of public affairs. The common interest of King and nun began with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which both desired to have defined as an article of faith; domestic and foreign politics come under discussion later, and it soon becomes plain that the nun is the man. While Felipe IV. weakly laments that "the Cortes are seeking places, taking no more notice of the insurrection than if the enemy were at the Philippines," Sor María de Jesús strives to steady him, to lend him something of her own strong will, by urging him to "be a King," "to do his duty." There is a curious reference to the passing of Cromwell—"the enemy of our faith and kingdom, the only person whose death I ever desired, or ever prayed to God for." Her practical advice fell on deaf ears, and when she died, no man seemed left in Spain to realise that the country was slowly bleeding to death, becoming a cypher in politics, in art, in letters.
One single ecclesiastic rises above his fellows during the ruinous reign of Carlos the Bewitched, and his renown is greater out of Spain than in it. Miguel de Molinos (1627-97), the founder of Quietism, was a native of Muniesa, near Zaragoza; was educated by the Jesuits; and held a living at Valencia. He journeyed to Rome in 1665, won vast esteem as a confessor, and there, in 1675, published his famous Spiritual Guide in Italian. Mr. Shorthouse, an English apostle of Quietism, mentions a Spanish rendering which "won such popularity in his native country that some are still found who declare that the Spanish version is earlier than the Italian." It is almost certain that Molinos wrote in Spanish, and to judge by the translations, he must have written with admirable force. But, as a matter of fact, no Spanish version was ever popular in Spain, for the reason that none has ever existed. This is not the place to discuss the personal character of Molinos, who stands accused of grave crimes; nor to weigh the value of his teaching, nor to follow its importation into France by Mme. de la Mothe Guyon; nor to look into the controversy which wrecked Fénelon's career. Still it should be noted as characteristic of Carlos II.'s reign, that a book by one of his subjects was influencing all Europe without any man in Spain being aware of it.
Footnotes:
[26] According to Lope de Vega, the word culteranismo was invented by Jiménez Patón, Villamediana's tutor.
[27] See M. Farinelli's learned study, Don Giovanni: Note critiche (Torino, 1896), pp. 37-39.
[28] Cp. Mr. Norman MacColl's Select Plays of Calderón (London, 1888), pp. xxvi.-xxx., and Gallardo's Ensayo de una Biblioteca Española (Madrid, 1866), vol. ii. col. 367, 368.