There are few objects more touching, more humiliating, than those scenes sacred once to liberty and to literature, and associated with the names of the noblest and “the wisest of our race;” but now become the fortresses of ignorance, profligacy and despotism. Who would not sigh over Cordoba?
When I remember what thou wert of old,
Birth-place of Senecas;—nurse of arms and arts;
When to thy schools from earth’s remotest parts
The nations crowded—while thy sons unroll’d
Thy chronicles of wisdom;—when I see
The spot Averröes lov’d, and tread the sod
Maimonides and Abenezra trod;
Or seek the umbrage of some rev’rend tree,
Beneath whose shade Mena or Cespedes
At noon-tide mus’d:—when I remember these
Or other hallow’d names, and see thee now
Shrouded in ignorance and slavery:—
O Cordoba! my spirit weeps o’er thee,
And burning blushes kindle on my brow. [13]
While the majority of the most distinguished writers of Spain have been expatriated, it may be supposed literature is at a very low ebb there. Melendez and Estála have died in exile,—while Moratin and Llorente will probably never again revisit their native land. Marina, Quintana, Argüelles, Gallego, and other estimable men, occupy the hopeless dungeons to which tyranny has consigned them; while this island, in particular, has had the honour of welcoming and of sheltering many a generous patriot and many an enlightened scholar, whose virtues and talents are lost to a country which has so much reason to deplore their removal.
I trust, however, that a work which has been so long a desideratum, viz. a History of Spain under the dominion of the Moors, compiled from Arabic documents, will, ere long, be published, by Don José Antonio Conde, the learned Orientalist, whose erudition and diligent research promise a most valuable and interesting narration.
The Spanish Academy are now printing, at Madrid, a new edition of Don Quixote, in five volumes, which will be prefaced by a Life of Cervantes, by Navarrete. This piece of biography will be peculiarly gratifying, as many documents connected with the history of Cervantes have lately been discovered, especially the records of the proceedings against him, before his imprisonment. [14a]
Herrera’s celebrated work on Agriculture is also being printed by the Academy. The biographical notices are written by Don Mariano Lagasca, whose name is a sufficient pledge for their excellence.
The Spanish Drama had been in a progressive state of decay from the death of Candamo, till Moratin’s [14b] attempts to introduce the regularity and unity of the Parisian theatre were crowned with complete success. It is a different, and will be considered as a lower order of merit, by all who place Nature and Shakespeare above Art and the French Drama. If, however, Calderon and Lope, Moreto and Montalvan, Solis and Candamo, seldom occupy the Spanish stage, it is because the national taste, or the national indifference, has chosen to sanction or permit the puerile trifles imported from the other side of the Pyrenees, to occupy the seats which might be so much more honourably filled by native genius. An active controversy is going on as to the respective merits of the French and Spanish theatres; but it does not seem to excite much interest beyond the immediate circle of combatants. A new dramatic writer (Gorostiza [15]) has lately appeared, and his first effort, “Indulgencia para todos,” in spite of some improbabilities in the story, and some vulgarisms in the style, gives fair hopes for the future.
By way of conclusion, I would remark, that ultra-royalism and bigotry may receive from the present wretchedness of Spain a salutary and corrective lesson. They may there see the unalloyed triumph of their principles, and study the consequences in the degradation, the disquietude and the wretchedness of a once renowned and illustrious nation. They have there a king reigning in “all the glory” of uncontrolled majesty, and a state-religion undisturbed by heretics or schismatics;—there is the dull death-like silence of abhorred submission, unbroken by any hated shouts of liberty—“the prostration of the understanding and the will,” that neither dares nor wishes to inquire.
As to the character of Ferdinand, it has been greatly misunderstood or greatly misrepresented. It has been well said of him, that he has all the crimes and none of the merits of his ancestors. He appears to care little about the church or the clergy, except inasmuch as he can make them the instruments of civil despotism. [16] His habits are gross and licentious; yet he is inaccessible to any sentiment of benevolence or generosity.—He never forgave a fancied enemy, and perhaps he never possessed a real friend.—From his very childhood his untameable and barbarous propensities made him the object of fear and dread; and adversity (that touchstone of character) has served only to excite and heighten the dark ferocity of his disposition. What, indeed, could be expected from an ingrate, who rewarded those that replaced in his worthless hand the sceptre he had cast away, with persecution and exile, imprisonment and death?
Was it for this through seven long years of war
We bore the miserable wants of woes
Pour’d on our naked heads by barb’rous foes,
While thou a patient captive—absent far,
Nor heard’st our cries, nor saw’st the bloody star
That o’er our helpless, hapless country rose?
Did we not break the intolerable bar
Forged by the master-tyrant? Interpose
To rescue—not our country—but mankind?
Did we not break thy prison-doors, unbind
Thy fetters, and with shouts of joy that rent
The very arches of the firmament
Receive thee?—And is this our destiny?
Insults and slavery, and a wretch like thee!