A History of Spanish Literature

by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

It is curious to note that Mabbe's rendering appeared in the same year as Shakespeare's First Folio, to which Ben Jonson also contributed; but while the Rogue reached its fourth edition in 1656, the third edition of the First Folio was not printed till 1664.

The pragmatical cant and the moral reflections which weary us as much as they wearied the French translator, Le Sage, were clearly to the liking of Ben Jonson and his contemporaries. Guzmán's experiences as boots at an inn, as a thief in Madrid, as a soldier at Genoa, as a jester at Rome, are told with a certain impudent spirit; but the "moral intention" of the author obtrudes itself with an insistence that defeats its own object, and the subsidiary tales of Dorido and Clorinia, of Osmín and Daraja—a device imitated in Don Quixote—are digressions of neither interest nor relevancy. The popularity of the book was so great as to induce imitation. While Alemán was busied with his devout Vida de San Antonio de Padua (1604), or perhaps with his fragmentary versions of Horace, a spurious sequel was published (1601) by a Valencian lawyer, Juan Martí, who took the pseudonym of Mateo Luján de Sayavedra. Martí had somehow managed to see Alemán's manuscript of the Second Part, and, in so much, his trick was far baser than Avellaneda's. Alemán's self-control under greater provocation contrasts most favourably with Cervantes' petulance. In the true Second Part he good-humouredly acknowledges his competitor's "great learning, his nimble wit, his deep judgment, his pleasant conceits"; and he adds that "his discourses throughout are of that quality and condition that I do much envy them, and should be proud that they were mine." And having thus put his rival in the wrong, Alemán proceeds to introduce among his personages a Sayavedra who would pass himself off as a native of Seville:—"but all were lies that he told me; for he was of Valencia, whose name, for some just causes, I conceal." Sayavedra figures as Guzmán's bonnet and jackal till he ends by suicide, and he is made to supply whatever entertainment the book contains. Far below Lazarillo de Tormes in caustic observation and in humour, Guzmán de Alfarache is a rapid and easy study of blackguardism, forcible and diverting despite its unctuousness, and written in admirable prose.

So much cannot be claimed for the Pícara Justina (1605) of Francisco López de Úbeda, who is commonly identified as the Dominican, Andrés Pérez, author of a Vida de San Raymundo de Peñafort and of other pious works. His Pícara Justina was long in maturing, for he confesses to having "augmented after the publication of the admired work of the pícaro," Guzmán; whom Justina, in fact, ends by marrying. Pérez has acquired a notorious reputation for lubricity; yet it is hard to say how he came by it, since he is no more indecent than most picaresque writers. He lacks wit and invention; his style, the most mannered of his time, is full of pedantic turns, unnatural inversions and verbal eccentricities wherewith he seeks to cover his bald imagination and his witless narrative. But his freaks of vocabulary, his extravagant provincialisms, lend him a certain philological importance which may account for the reprints of his volume. It may be added that, in his Pícara, Pérez anticipates Cervantes' trifling find of the versos de cabo roto; and, from the angry attack upon the monk in the Viaje del Parnaso, it seems safe to infer that Cervantes resented being forestalled by one who had probably read the Quixote in manuscript.[25]

A more successful attempt in the same kind is the Relaciones de la Vida del Escudero Marcos de Obregón by Vicente Espinel (?1544-1634), a poor student at Salamanca, a soldier in Italy and the Low Countries, and finally a priest in Madrid. His Diversas Rimas (1591) are correct, spirited exercises, in new metrical forms, including versions of Horace which, in the last century, gave rise to a bitter polemic between Iriarte and López de Sedano. Moreover, Espinel is said to have added a fifth string to the guitar. But it is by his Marcos de Obregón (1618) that he is best known. Voltaire alleged that Gil Blas was a mere translation of Marcos de Obregón, but the only foundation for this pretty exercise in fancy is that Le Sage borrowed a few incidents from Espinel, as he borrowed from Vélez de Guevara and others. The book is excellent of its kind, brilliantly phrased, full of ingenious contrivance, of witty observation, and free from the long digressions which disfigure Guzmán de Alfarache. Espinel knew how to build a story and how to tell it graphically, and his artistic selection of incident makes the reading of his Marcos a pleasure even after three centuries.

As the picaresque novel was to supply the substance of Charles Sorel's Francion and of Paul Scarron's Roman Comique, so the Almahide of Mlle. de Scudéry and the Zayde of Mme. de Lafayette find their root in the Hispano-Mauresque historical novel. This invention we owe to Ginés Pérez de Hita of Murcia (fl. 1604), a soldier who served in the expedition against the Moriscos during the Alpujarra rising. His Guerras civiles de Granada was published in two parts—the first in 1595, and the second, which is distinctly inferior, in 1604. The author's pretence of translating from the Arabic of a supposititious Ibn Hamin is refuted by the fact that the authority of Spanish chroniclers is continually cited as final, and the fact that the point of view is conspicuously Christian. Some tittle of history there is in Pérez de Hita, but the value of his work lies in his own fantastic transcription of life in Granada during the last weeks before its surrender. Challenges, duels between Moorish knights, personal encounters with Christian champions, harem intrigues, assassinations, jousts, sports, and festivals held while the enemy is without the gates—such circumstances as these make the texture of the story, which is written with extraordinary grace and ease. Archæologists join with Arabists in censuring Pérez de Hita's detail, and historians are scandalised by his disdain for facts; yet to most of us he is more Moorish than the Moors, and his vivid rendering of a great and ancient civilisation on the eve of ruin is more complete and impressive than any that a pile of literal chronicles can yield. As a literary artist he is better in his first part than in his second, where he is embarrassed by a knowledge of events in which he bore a part; yet, even so, he never fails to interest, and the beauty of his style would alone suffice for a reputation. A story of doubtful authority represents Scott as saying that, if he had met with the Guerras civiles de Granada in earlier days, he would have chosen Spain as the scene of a Waverley Novel. Whatever be the truth of this report, we cannot doubt that Sir Walter must have read with delight his predecessor's brilliant performance in the province of the historical novel.

The Romancero General, published at Madrid in 1600, and amplified in the reprint of 1604, is often described as a collection of old ballads, made in continuation of the anthologies arranged by Nucio and Nájera. Old, as applied to romances, has a relative meaning; but even in the lowest sense the word can scarcely be used of the songs in the Romancero General, which is very largely made up of the work of contemporary poets. Another famous volume of lyrics is Pedro Espinosa's Flores de Poetas ilustres de España (1605), which includes specimens of Camões, Barahona de Soto, Lope de Vega, Góngora, Quevedo, Salas Barbadillo, and others of less account. Of minor singers, such as López Maldonado, the friend of Cervantes and of Lope, there were too many; but Maldonado's Cancionero (1586) reveals a combination of sincerity and technical excellence which distinguishes him from the crowd of fluent versifiers typified by Pedro de Padilla. Devout songs, as simple as they are beautiful, are found in the numbers of Juan López de Úbeda and of Francisco de Ocaña, who may be studied in their respective cancioneros (1588, 1604), or—much more briefly, and perhaps to better purpose—in Rivadeneyra's Romancero y Cancionero sagrados. The chief of these pious minstrels was José de Valdivielso (?1560-1636), the author of a long poem entitled Vida, Excelencias y Muerte del gloriosísimo Patriarca San José; but it is neither by this tedious sacred epic nor by his twelve autos that Valdivielso should be judged. His lyrical gift, scarcely less sweet and sincere than Lope's own, is best manifested in his Romancero Espiritual, with its romances to Our Lady, its pious villancicos on Christ's birth, which anticipate the mingled devotion and familiarity of Herrick's Noble Numbers.

Antonio Pérez (1540-1611), once secretary to Felipe II., and in all probability the King's rival in love, figures here as a letter-writer of the highest merit. No Spaniard of his age surpasses him in clearness, vigour, and variety. Whether he attempt the vein of high gallantry, the flattery of "noble patrons," the terrorising of an enemy by hints and innuendos, his phrase is always a model of correct and spirited expression. In a graver manner are his Relaciones and his Memorial del hecho de su causa, which combine the dignity of a statesman with the ingenuity of an attorney. But in all circumstances Pérez never fails to interest by the happy novelty of his thought, the weighty sententiousness of his aphorisms, and by his unblushing revelation of baseness and cupidity.

To this period belongs also the Centón Epistolario, a series of a hundred letters purporting to be written by Fernán Gómez de Cibdareal, physician at Juan II.'s court. It is obviously modelled upon the Crónica of Juan II.'s reign, and the imitation goes so far that, when the chronicler makes a blunder, the supposed letter-writer follows him. The Centón Epistolario is now admitted to be a literary forgery, due, it is believed, to Gil González de Ávila, who wrote nothing of equal excellence under his own name. In these circumstances the Centón loses all historic value, and what was once cited as a monument of old prose must now be considered as a clever mystification—perhaps the most perfect of its kind.

Contemporary with Cervantes and Lope de Vega was the greatest of all Spanish historians, Juan de Mariana (1537-1624). The natural son of a canon of Talavera, Mariana distinguished himself at Alcalá de Henares, was brought under the notice of Diego Láinez, General of the Jesuits, and joined the order, whose importance was growing daily. At twenty-four Mariana was appointed professor of theology at the great Jesuit College in Rome, whence he passed to Sicily and Paris. In 1574 he returned to Spain, and was settled in the Society's house at Toledo. He was appointed to examine into the charges made by Léon de Castro against Arias Montano, whose Polyglot Bible appeared at Antwerp in 1569-72. Montano was accused of adulterating the Hebrew text, and among the Jesuits the impression of his trickery was general. After a careful examination, extending over two years, Mariana pronounced in Montano's favour. In 1599 there appeared his treatise entitled De Rege, with official sanction by his superiors. No Spaniard raised his voice against the book; but its sixth chapter, which laid it down that kings may be put to death in certain circumstances, created a storm abroad. It was sought to prove that, if Mariana had never written, Ravaillac would not have assassinated Henri IV.; and, eleven years after publication, Mariana's book was publicly burned by the hangman. His seven Latin treatises, published at Köln in 1609, do not concern us here; but they must be mentioned, since two of the essays—one on immortality, the other on currency questions—led to the writer's imprisonment.

The main work of Mariana's lifetime was his Historia de España, written, as he says, to let Europe know what Spain had accomplished. It was not unnatural that, with a foreign audience in view, Mariana should address it in Latin; hence his first twenty books were published in that language (1592). But he bethought him of his own country, and, in a happy hour, became his own translator. His Castilian version (1601) almost amounts to a new work; for, in translating, he cut, amplified, and corrected as he saw fit. And in subsequent editions he continued to modify and improve. The result is a masterpiece of historic prose. Mariana was not minute in his methods, and his contempt for literal accuracy comes out in his answer to Lupercio de Argensola, who had pointed out an error in detail:—"I never pretended to verify each fact in a history of Spain; if I had, I should never have finished it." This is typical of the man and his method. He makes no pretence to special research, and he accepts a legend if he honestly can: even as he follows a common literary convention when he writes speeches in Livy's manner for his chief personages. But while a score of writers cared more for accuracy than did Mariana, his work survives not as a chronicle, but as a brilliant exercise in literature. His learning is more than enough to save him from radical blunders; his impartiality and his patriotism go hand in hand; his character-drawing is firm and convincing; and his style, with its faint savour of archaism, is of unsurpassed dignity and clearness in his narrative. He cared more for the spirit than for the letter, and time has justified him. "The most remarkable union of picturesque chronicling with sober history that the world has ever seen"—in such words Ticknor gives his verdict; and the praise is not excessive.