Who could preach with more wit a brief sermon like this than Alarcon? It is no small honor to the dramatist born in Mexico that the great Corneille, who, if we may credit the biographers of Alarcon, partly translated and partly imitated La Verdad Sospechosa in his famous Menteur, could avow that he would give two of his best plays to have invented the happy argument of the Spanish original. Molière and Voltaire were also among the admirers of the Spanish comedy, which Corneille at first judged to be the work of Lope de Vega. Of the general merits of Alarcon, the following estimate by his German critic, Schack, which we find in a Mexican notice of the dramatist, will doubtless suffice: "Happy in painting comic characters in order to chastise vice, as in the invention and development of heroes to make virtue adorable; rapid in action, sober in ornament; inferior to Lope in tender respect of feminine creations, to Moreto in liveliest comedy, to Firso in travesty, to Calderon in grandeur and stage effect, he excelled all of them in the variety and perfection of his figures, in the tact of managing them, in equality of style, in carefulness of versification, in correctness of language." To this large and discriminating praise we may add George Ticknor's comprehensive dictum: "On the whole, he is to be ranked with the very best Spanish dramatists during the best period of the National Theatre."
SOR JUANA INEZ DE LA CRUZ.
It would not be proper to dismiss from the list of Spanish-American dramatic writers Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, although the subjects to which this pious woman yielded her inventive imagination were mainly or wholly religious. She wrote, be it remembered, in that remarkable seventeenth century when a muse of religion walked through the scenes of the stage as well as through the gardens of the convent. Then were the patriarchs and apostles, the prophets and saints, the chief personages of a peculiar drama; and events and circumstances of the divine tragedy inspired such compositions as the Loas and Autos. It is upon one of these latter compositions that her merit as a dramatic writer rests; and we are glad to confirm in great part an opinion of her genius hitherto expressed by us, by here recalling the judgment of that eminent European critic of Spanish literature, Bouterwek, the more especially as our own Spanish scholar, Ticknor, seems to have inflicted such ungracious disparagement upon the subject of our notice: "Much as Inez de la Cruz was deficient in real cultivation," says Bouterwek, "her productions are eminently superior to the ordinary standard of female poetry.... The poems of Inez de la Cruz breathe a sort of masculine spirit. This poetic nun possessed more fancy and wit than sentimental enthusiasm, and whenever she began to invent her creations were on a bold and great scale. Her poems are of very unequal merit, and are all deficient in critical cultivation. But in facility of invention and versification Inez de la Cruz was not inferior to Lope de Vega; and yet she by no means courted literary fame.... In her dramatic works the vigor of her imagination is particularly conspicuous. The collection of her poems contains no comedies properly so-called, but it comprises a series of boldly conceived preludes (loas) full of allegorical invention, and it concludes with a long allegorical auto, which is superior to any of the similar productions of Lope de Vega. It is entitled El Divino Narciso, a name by which the author designates the heavenly bridegroom.... It would be impossible to give a brief and at the same time intelligible sketch of this extraordinary drama. With regard to composition, it is very unequal; in some respects offending by its bad taste, and in others charming by its boldness. Many of its scenes are so beautifully and romantically constructed that the reader is compelled to render homage to the genius of the poetess, while at the same time he cannot but regret the pitch of extravagance to which ideas really poetic are carried. There is one peculiarly fine scene, in which human nature, in the shape of a nymph, seeks her beloved, the real Narcissus, or the Christian Saviour." The pastoral passage, which in our notice of the writings of Sor Juana we laid before our readers, would seem to justify the best praises of our literary historian, Bouterwek. Ticknor, on the other hand, speaks of her as a remarkable woman, and not as a remarkable poetess; and, upon the whole, our thanks for the appreciative reburnishing of the ancient fame of an American genius—which, had it shone in Massachusetts three hundred years ago, would be deemed a very rare jewel among Northern scholars—are due rather to the European Bouterwek than the American Ticknor. The latter observes that she was born at Guipuzcoa; her Mexican biographer says at San Miguel de Nepantla, not far from the city of Mexico, one of whose convents she seems to have directed latterly. Time, place, the inferior standard of feminine culture, and the prevalence of a false poetic school, may account for Sor Juana's defects; for the rest, the issue (a large one) is between Bouterwek and Ticknor.
EDWARD GOROSTIZA.
After Alarcon, the principal lights of the actual Mexican stage are Gorostiza, Calderon, and Galvan; and, indeed, whatever original triumph that stage has enjoyed is almost if not quite limited to these few excellent though not glorious names. We cannot with propriety name that extraordinary woman, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, in the list of Mexico's dramatists, although, along with other poetry, she wrote some religious pieces in dramatic form. Nevertheless, the credit which remains to the literature of the country, after its few phenomenal names are omitted, is not inappreciable. Concerning Gorostiza, Madame Calderon de la Barca wrote: "Don José Eduardo Gorostiza, a native of Vera Cruz, is the son of a Spanish officer, and when very young went to Spain, where he was known politically as a liberal. He was distinguished as a writer of theatrical pieces, which have been and still are very popular. One of his pieces which we saw the other evening at the theatre—Con Tigo Pan y Cebolla (With Thee, Bread and Onions)—is delightful." Let us add to Madame Calderon's brief notice that Gorostiza won the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the war against Napoleon; that in 1823, while an exile from Spain in London, he wrote for the Edinburgh Review; and that since then, as minister to England and to the United States, and as secretary of state and finance, he has been eminent in the politics of his native land. In 1836, he was made intendant-general of the army, and during the war between Mexico and the United States took an active and heroic part in the defence of Churubusco. His efforts as a director of the poor-house, as a friend of education, and as the founder of a house of correction, are also deemed worthy of record. He died in 1851, at the age of sixty-two.
The best known of Gorostiza's comedies are those called The Intimate Friend, Last Year's Fashions, Don Dieguito, and Pardon for All, the last being mentioned by his biographer as celebrated. In the play of Don Dieguito, which may serve as well as any other to exhibit the character of Gorostiza's plots, Don Anselmo, a rich uncle, sends his nephew and heir, Don Dieguito, to Madrid to complete his education. While there, Dieguito falls in love with Doña Adelaida, whose father, Don Cleto, is a lawyer. Don Anselmo goes to Madrid to attend the wedding of his nephew, but does not like the family of his son's fiancée, and, accordingly, he schemes to break off the match. The mother, Doña Maria, sees from a worldly point of view the great advantage of her daughter's marriage with Don Dieguito. But now Anselmo tells her that he intends to marry, which excites her fear that his nephew will inherit nothing from him. She, therefore, proposes to her husband that Doña Adelaida shall marry the uncle, Anselmo, instead of the nephew, Dieguito. Don Simplicio, a friend of Don Cleto, endeavors to effect a general reconciliation of interests, and bring about the marriage of the young couple; but, finding that father and mother alike wish to break off the match, joins them in insulting the apparently hapless Dieguito. Don Anselmo at once perceives that his nephew has been fooled, and that the family of his betrothed would be glad to cast off Dieguito in order to capture his uncle's wealth. He concludes, therefore, to make his exit on the very day of the proposed marriage, taking with him his disenchanted nephew. When the day arrives, he announces that he has been ruined by the shipwreck of a vessel from Vera Cruz, and that he is compelled to return to his old business of selling pork, beans, chocolate, and sausages to make good his loss. Don Dieguito, though asked to return to his allegiance as a lover, declares that he is no fool, and prefers a wife who will not speculate at the expense of good faith, but will look after her children. As Don Anselmo has told the family of Doña Adelaida that his principal loss is in a cargo of chocolate, that spirited young lady vows she will not drink chocolate again; and the play ends in amusing recriminations.
FERNANDO CALDERON.
The next of our dramatists, Fernando Calderon, was born in 1809, and died at the age of thirty-six, having been a colonel, a state legislator, a magistrate, and the secretary of the government of Zacatecas, as well as an industrious writer. The most striking of his dramas are: The Tourney, Anne Boleyn, and The Return of the Crusader, which, says one of his admirers, are full of noble and chivalrous sentiments and spirited action. Calderon's talent was nothing if not dramatic; for even his lyrics, and especially his Soldier of Liberty, are characterized by a personal fire and animation. His plays, remarkable for warmth of sentiment, and his poems, chiefly lyrical, gained for him not only in Mexico, but in other Spanish-American republics, a degree of favor not often enjoyed by writers in the southern part of the New World. One of his most admired passages is the soliloquy of Isabella in The Tourney:
And this is life. Seeing the sable bier
Profoundest cowardice the mortal moves,
When is the tomb the sole asylum where
True peace abides. Where is the life that knows
Not weight of woe? For ever in torment,
For ever in tears, so runs our human fate
From infancy unto decrepit age.
Child, man, and most unfortunate womankind,
Pursue the magic and illusory shade
Which they call happiness, yet never find.
The gray-beard sad, complaining of his age,
Youth would enjoy; but, imbecile, forgets
The tortures that afflict his junior.
Life is a fever, a remediless fever,
It is a frenzy violent and mad.
Alas! its pleasures pass us like a flash,
Whence follows gloom of soul with rain of tears
Yet ever springs desire and fervid hope
To cheat our souls with what can never be.
Care and vacuity, and ephemeral joy.
These make themselves our poor reality.
So fades our youth, and our declining life's
A dismal light of undeception cast
Upon the narrow confines of the tomb....
The black cloth ... and the coffin miserable ...
Thus darkly flows the tide of life. Alas!
My end draws near, for which my spirit hopes,
As the wrecked sailor for a happy shore.
O cause of all my mourning my heart's balm,
Not thou, not even thou, wouldst me console:
None grieve for one that is already dead.
Albert! Albert! shalt thou o'er my grave
Pour out thy tears until our patient souls
Unite within the pure eternity.
With good reason is this thoughtful and feeling soliloquy prized by Calderon's countrymen, whose vicissitudes have taught them peculiar sympathy with the tristful mood to which he lends expression. The tone and style of the passage are tragic in a most dignified sense, and reflect much credit upon Mexican literature. A supplement to the views of mortality and eternity set forth in The Tourney is contained in a fragment written by Calderon in 1825; and as it may interest a Northern public to know what a Mexican poet thinks of the future state, we extract from it these hopeful lines: