[30] "Don Jorge Manrique," says Lope de Vega, "cuyas coplas Castellanas admiren los ingenios estrangeros y merecen estar escritas con letras de oro." Obras Sueltas, tom. xii. Prólogo.
[31] Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique, ed. Madrid, 1779.—Diálogo de las Lenguas, apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, tom. ii. p. 149.—Manrique's Coplas have also been the subject of a separate publication in the United States. Professor Longfellow's version, accompanying it, is well calculated to give the English reader a correct notion of the Castilian bard, and, of course, a very exaggerated one of the literary culture of the age.
[32] After proscribing certain profane mummeries, the law confines the clergy to the representation of such subjects as "the birth of our Saviour, in which is shown how the angels appeared, announcing his nativity; also his advent, and the coming of the three Magi kings to worship him; and his resurrection, showing his crucifixion and ascension on the third day; and other such things leading men to do well and live constant in the faith." (Siete Partidas, tit. 6, ley 34.) It is worth noting, that similar abuses continued common among the ecclesiastics, down to Isabella's reign, as may be inferred from a decree, very similar to the law of the Partidas above cited, published by the council of Aranda, in 1473. (Apud Moratin, Obras, tom. i. p. 87.) Moratin considers it certain, that the representation of the mysteries existed in Spain, as far back as the eleventh century. The principal grounds for this conjecture appear to be, the fact that such notorious abuses had crept into practice by the middle of the thirteenth century, as to require the intervention of the law. (Ibid., pp. 11, 13.) The circumstance would seem compatible with a much more recent origin.
[33] Cervantes, Comedias y Entremeses, (Madrid, 1749,) tom. i. prólogo de Nasarre.—Velazquez, Poesía Castellana, p. 86.—The fifth volume of the Memoirs of the Spanish Royal Academy of History contains a dissertation on the "national diversions," by Don Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, replete with curious erudition, and exhibiting the discriminating taste to have been expected from its accomplished author. Among these antiquarian researches, the writer has included a brief view of the first theatrical attempts in Spain. See Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. v. Mem. 6.
[34] Moratin, Obras, tom. i. p. 115.—Nasarre (Cervantes, Comedias, pról.), Jovellanos (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. v. Memor. 6), Pellicer (Orígen y Progreso de la Comedia, (1804,) tom. i. p. 12), and others, refer the authorship of this little piece, without hesitation, to Juan de la Encina, although the year of its representation corresponds precisely with that of his birth. The prevalence of so gross a blunder among the Spanish scholars, shows how little the antiquities of their theatre were studied before the time of Moratin.
[35] This little piece has been published at length by Moratin, in the first volume of his works. (See Orígenes del Teatro Español, Obras, tom. i. pp. 303-314.)
The celebrated marquis of Santillana's poetical dialogue, "Comedieta da Ponza," has no pretensions to rank as a dramatic composition, notwithstanding its title, which is indeed as little significant of its real character, as the term "Commedia" is of Dante's epic. It is a discourse on the vicissitudes of human life, suggested by a sea-fight near Ponza, in 1435. It is conducted without any attempt at dramatic action or character, or, indeed, dramatic development of any sort. The same remarks may be made of the political satire, "Mingo Revulgo," which appeared in Henry IV.'s reign. Dialogue was selected by these authors as a more popular and spirited medium than direct narrative for conveying their sentiments. The "Comedieta da Ponza" has never appeared in print; the copy which I have used is a transcript from the one in the royal library at Madrid, and belongs to Mr. George Ticknor.
[36] Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, (Alcalá, 1586,) Introd.—Nothing is positively ascertained respecting the authorship of the first act of the Celestina. Some impute it to Juan de Mena; others with more probability to Rodrigo Cota el Tio, of Toledo, a person who, although literally nothing is known of him, has in some way or other obtained the credit of the authorship of some of the most popular effusions of the fifteenth century; such, for example, as the Dialogue above cited of "Love and an Old Man," the Coplas of "Mingo Revulgo," and this first act of the "Celestina." The principal foundation of these imputations would appear to be the bare assertion of an editor of the "Dialogue between Love and an Old Man," which appeared at Medina del Campo, in 1569, nearly a century, probably, after Cota's death; another example of the obscurity which involves the history of the early Spanish drama. Many of the Castilian critics detect a flavor of antiquity in the first act which should carry back its composition as far as John II.'s reign. Moratin does not discern this, however, and is inclined to refer its production to a date not much more distant, if any, than Isabella's time. To the unpractised eye of a foreigner, as far as style is concerned, the whole work might well seem the production of the same period. Moratin, Obras, tom. i. pp. 88, 115, 116.—Diálogo de las Lenguas, apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, pp. 165- 167.—Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. ii. p. 263.
[37] Such is the high encomium of the Abate Andres, (Letteratura, tom. v. part. 2, lib. 1.)—Cervantes does not hesitate to call it "libro divino;" and the acute author of the "Diálogo de las Lenguas" concludes a criticism upon it with the remark, that "there is no book in the Castilian which surpasses it in the propriety and elegance of its diction." (Don Quixote, ed. de Pellicer, tom. i., p. 239.—Mayans y Siscar, tom. ii. p. 167.)
Its merits indeed seem in some degree to have disarmed even the severity of foreign critics; and Signorelli, after standing up stoutly in defence of the precedence of the "Orfeo" as a dramatic composition, admits the "Celestina" to be a "work, rich in various beauties, and meriting undoubted applause. In fact," he continues, "the vivacity of the description of character, and faithful portraiture of manners, have made it immortal." Storia Critica de' Teatri Antichi e Moderni, (Napoli, 1813,) tom. vi. pp. 146, 147.