1626.
Ætat.
25.
At the age of five and twenty he entered the military service, and served his king first in the Milanese and afterwards in Flanders, the old fields of war for Spain, whereon had fought and fallen so many heroes of both countries, and so many human beings had fallen victims to religious and political persecution. He spent ten years in this manner. Sismondi says, that his life is sprinkled with few events. How do we know this? Throughout these campaigns, during these years of youthful ardour and enterprise, how much may have occurred, what dangers he may have run—what generosity, what valour he may have displayed—how warmly he may have loved, how deeply have suffered! As a poet and a master of the passions he must have felt them all. But a blank meets us when we seek to know more of these things. A poet's life is ever a romance. That Calderon's was such we cannot doubt; but we must find its traces in the loves, the woes, the courage, and the joys of his dramatic personages: he infused his soul into these; what the events might be that called forth his own personal interest and sympathy we are totally ignorant. 1637.
Ætat.
36. An order from his sovereign recalled him to court. Philip IV. was passionately fond of the theatre, and himself wrote plays. Innumerable dramas appeared under his patronage, the names of the authors being utterly unknown; and even of those of acknowledged writers few have been collected and published under the name of their author. Single plays, in pamphlets, we find in plenty, all very similar the one to the other; a better arrangement in the plot, more or less poetry or spirit in the dialogue, being almost all the difference we find among them. Several of the most entertaining are given forth as by a Wit of the Court (un Ingenio de esta Corte), and attributed to Philip IV. himself; though this honour has been disputed him. Moreto also, the gayest and most comic of the Spanish dramatists, flourished at this time. Lope was dead; but his place was filled up, not by one, but by many, who, under royal patronage, were eager to pay the tribute of a play to the theatre of Spain.
Philip IV. saw Calderon's dramas represented. He perceived their merit, and thought he might serve his king much better by residing in Spain and writing for the theatre, than by bearing arms in Flanders, where there were so many men who could not write plays, much more fit to be knocked on the head. He summoned Calderon to court, by a royal order, for the sake of writing a drama for a palace festival; bestowed on him also the habit of Santiago, and excusing him his military duties commanded him, instead, to furnish a play. Calderon wrote the "Certamen de Amor" (the Combat of Love), and "Zelos" (Jealousy), which were acted at the palace of Buen-Retiro. Calderon wrote as he was commanded; but, unwilling to leave the army, he obtained a commission in the company of the count-duke of Olivarez, which he followed to Catalonia, and remained till the peace, when he returned to court; when the king conferred on him the pay of thirty crowns a month in the artillery.
1650.
Ætat.
49.
On another occasion, while staying in the country with the duke of Alva, the king sent for him to celebrate the festivals that occurred on his marriage with Maria Ana of Austria.
At the age of fifty-one he quitted the military career, to which for many years he had been passionately attached, and, being ordained, he became a priest. The king, who always favoured him, made him chaplain of a royal chapel at Toledo, of which he took possession on the 19th of June of the same year. 1654.
Ætat.
53. But the king, dissatisfied with his distance from court, and his consequent inability to assist properly at the royal feasts, gave him a royal chaplaincy, and recalled him to Madrid; bestowing on him besides a pension, derived from the revenues of Sicily, besides other presents and rewards, the ever-renewing recompence of his labours. Calderon now wrote a play at each celebration of the king's birth-day, not only for Madrid, but for Toledo, Seville, and Granada. As he advanced in age, he obtained other church preferments. 1687.
Ætat.
86. He died on the 29th of May, 1687, at the age of eighty-six. He left the congregation of St. Peter heir to all he possessed.
In describing his character, his biographer indulges in Spanish hyperbole instead of original traits. He calls him the oracle of the court, the envy of strangers, the father of the Muses, the lynx of learning, the light of the drama. He adds, that his house was ever the shelter of the needy; that his modesty and humility were excessive; attentive in his courtesy; a sure friend, and a good man.
Calderon never collected nor published his plays. The duke of Veragua at one time addressed him a flattering letter, requesting to be furnished with a complete list of his dramas, as the booksellers were in the habit of selling the works of other writers under his name. Calderon, who was then in his eightieth year, supplied the duke with a list only of "Autos Sacramentales." He added, in a letter, that with regard to his temporal dramas, of which he had written an hundred and eleven, he felt offended, that in addition to his own faulty works, those of other authors should be ascribed to him; and besides that his writings were so altered, that he himself could not recognise even their titles. He also expressed his determination of following the example of the booksellers, and to pay as little regard to his plays as they did. He observed, that on religious grounds, he attached more importance to his "Autos."
Several collections of Calderon's plays appeared during his life; one of them being edited by his brother, and another by his friend and biographer, Don Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel, who published a hundred and twenty-seven plays, and ninety-five autos; but it is doubted whether all these are really his. This doubt, of course, appertains to the more mediocre ones. In the best, the stamp of Calderon's original genius cannot be doubted.
Bouterwek and Sismondi have both entered into considerable detail with regard to Calderon's plays, but we have no space to indulge in a similar analysis, although, with our admiration for this great poet, we should be glad to enter with minute detail on his merits; but we must confine ourselves to some description of his characteristics.