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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bd89b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55771 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55771) diff --git a/old/55771-0.txt b/old/55771-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d95f4c2..0000000 --- a/old/55771-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14099 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Spanish Literature, by -James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A History of Spanish Literature - -Author: James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - -Release Date: October 18, 2017 [EBook #55771] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE *** - - - - -Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Nahum Maso i Carcases and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/American -Libraries.) - - - - - - Transcriber's Notes: - -Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected. - -Text in italics is indicated between _underscores_ whereas superscripted -text is indicated with a single caret (^). - -Small capitals have been replaced by regular uppercase text. - -Blank pages present in the printed original have been deleted in the -e-text version. - - * * * * * - - - - - _Short Histories of the Literatures - of the World_ - - - _Edited by Edmund Gosse_ - - - - - A HISTORY OF - - SPANISH LITERATURE - - BY - - JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY - - C. DE LA REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK AND LONDON - - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - - 1921 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1898, - BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. - - - Printed in the United States of America - - - - - PREFACE - - -Spanish literature, in its broadest sense, might include writings -in every tongue existing within the Spanish dominions; it might, at -all events, include the four chief languages of Spain. Asturian and -Galician both possess literatures which in their recent developments -are artificial. Basque, the spoiled child of philologers, has not -added greatly to the sum of the world's delight; and even if it had, -I should be incapable of undertaking a task which would belong of -right to experts like Mr. Wentworth Webster, M. Jules Vinson, and -Professor Schuchardt. Catalan is so singularly rich and varied that -it might well deserve separate treatment: its inclusion here would -be as unjustifiable as the inclusion of Provençal in a work dealing -with French literature. For the purposes of this book, minor varieties -are neglected, and Spanish literature is taken as referring solely to -Castilian—the speech of Juan Ruiz, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Tirso de -Molina, Quevedo, and Calderón. - -At the close of the last century, Nicolas Masson de Morvilliers -raised a hubbub by asking two questions in the _Encyclopédie -Méthodique_:—"Mais que doit-on à l'Espagne? Et depuis deux siècles, -depuis quatre, depuis six, qu'a-t elle fait pour l'Europe?" I have -attempted an answer in this volume. The introductory chapter has -been written to remind readers that the great figures of the Silver -Age—Seneca, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian—were Spaniards as well as -Romans. It further aims at tracing the stream of literature from its -Roman fount to the channels of the Gothic period; at defining the -limits of Arabic and Hebrew influence on Spanish letters; at refuting -the theory which assumes the existence of immemorial _romances_, and -at explaining the interaction between Spanish on the one side and -Provençal and French on the other. It has been thought that this -treatment saves much digression. - -Spanish literature, like our own, takes its root in French and in -Italian soil; in the anonymous epics, in the _fableaux_, as in Dante, -Petrarch, and the Cinque Cento poets. Excessive patriotism leads men -of all lands to magnify their literary history; yet it may be claimed -for Spain, as for England, that she has used her models without -compromising her originality, absorbing here, annexing there, and -finally dominating her first masters. But Spain's victorious course, -splendid as it was in letters, arts, and arms, was comparatively brief. -The heroic age of her literature extends over some hundred and fifty -years, from the accession of Carlos Quinto to the death of Felipe IV. -This period has been treated, as it deserves, at greater length than -any other. The need of compression, confronting me at every page, -has compelled the omission of many writers. I can only plead that -I have used my discretion impartially, and I trust that no really -representative figure will be found missing. - -My debts to predecessors will be gathered from the bibliographical -appendix. I owe a very special acknowledgment to my friend Sr. D. -Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, the most eminent of Spanish scholars and -critics. If I have sometimes dissented from him, I have done so with -much hesitation, believing that any independent view is better than the -mechanical repetition of authoritative verdicts. I have to thank Mr. -Gosse for the great care with which he has read the proofs; and to Mr. -Henley, whose interest in all that touches Spain is of long standing, I -am indebted for much suggestive criticism. For advice on some points of -detail, I am obliged to Sr. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, to Sr. D. Adolfo -Bonilla y San Martín, and to Sr. D. Rafael Altamira y Crevea. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. INTRODUCTORY 1 - - II. THE ANONYMOUS AGE (1150-1220) 43 - - III. THE AGE OF ALFONSO THE LEARNED, AND OF SANCHO - (1220-1300) 57 - - IV. THE DIDACTIC AGE (1301-1400) 74 - - V. THE AGE OF JUAN II. (1419-1454) 93 - - VI. THE AGE OF ENRIQUE IV. AND THE CATHOLIC KINGS - (1454-1516) 109 - - VII. THE AGE OF CARLOS QUINTO (1516-1556) 129 - - VIII. THE AGE OF FELIPE II. (1556-1598) 165 - - IX. THE AGE OF LOPE DE VEGA (1598-1621) 211 - - X. THE AGE OF FELIPE IV. AND CARLOS THE BEWITCHED - (1621-1700) 275 - - XI. THE AGE OF THE BOURBONS (1700-1808) 343 - - XII. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 363 - - XIII. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 383 - - - BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 399 - - INDEX 413 - - - - - A HISTORY OF - - SPANISH LITERATURE - - - - - CHAPTER I - - INTRODUCTORY - - -The most ancient monuments of Castilian literature can be referred -to no time later than the twelfth century, and they have been dated -earlier with some plausibility. As with men of Spanish stock, so -with their letters: the national idiosyncrasy is emphatic—almost -violent. French literature is certainly more exquisite, more brilliant; -English is loftier and more varied; but in the capital qualities of -originality, force, truth, and humour, the Castilian finds no superior. -The Basques, who have survived innumerable onsets (among them, the -ridicule of Rabelais and the irony of Cervantes), are held by some -to be representatives of the Stone-age folk who peopled the east, -north-east, and south of Spain. This notion is based mainly upon the -fact that all true Basque names for cutting instruments are derived -from the word _aitz_ (flint). Howbeit, the Basques vaunt no literary -history in the true sense. The _Leloaren Cantua_ (_Song of Lelo_) has -been accepted as a contemporary hymn written in celebration of a -Basque triumph over Augustus. Its date is uncertain, and its refrain -of "_Lelo_" seems a distorted reminiscence of the Arabic catchword _Lā -ilāh illā 'llāh_; but the _Leloaren Cantua_ is assuredly no older than -the sixteenth century. - -A second performance in this sort is the _Altobiskarko Cantua_ (_Song -of Altobiskar_). Altobiskar is a hill near Roncesvalles, where -the Basques are said to have defeated Charlemagne; and the song -commemorates the victory. Written in a rhythm without fellow in the -Basque metres, it contains names like Roland and Ganelon, which are in -themselves proofs of French origin; but, as it has been widely received -as genuine, the facts concerning it must be told. First written in -French (_circa_ 1833) by François Eugène Garay de Monglave, it was -translated into very indifferent Basque by a native of Espelette named -Louis Duhalde, then a student in Paris. The too-renowned _Altobiskarko -Cantua_ is therefore a simple hoax: one might as well attribute -_Rule Britannia_ to Boadicea. The conquerors of Roncesvalles wrote -no triumphing song: three centuries later the losers immortalised -their own overthrow in the _Chanson de Roland_, where the disaster is -credited to the Arabs, and the Basques are merely mentioned by the way. -Early in the twelfth century there was written a Latin _Chronicle_ -ascribed to Archbishop Turpin, an historical personage who ruled the -see of Rheims some two hundred years before his false _Chronicle_ was -written. The opening chapters of this fictitious history are probably -due to an anonymous Spanish monk cloistered at Santiago de Compostela; -and it is barely possible that this late source was utilised by such -modern Basques as José María Goizcueta, who retouched and "restored" -the _Altobiskarko Cantua_ in ignorant good faith. - -However that may prove, no existing Basque song is much more than three -hundred years old. One single Basque of genius, the Chancellor Pero -López de Ayala, shines a portent in the literature of the fourteenth -century; and even so, he writes in Castilian. He stands alone, isolated -from his race. The oldest Basque book, well named as _Linguæ Vasconum -Primitiæ_, is a collection of exceedingly minor verse by Bernard -Dechepare, curé of Saint-Michel, near Saint-Jean Pied de Port; and -its date is modern (1545). Pedro de Axular is the first Basque who -shows any originality in his native tongue; and, characteristically -enough, he deals with religious matters. Though he lived at Sare, in -the Basses Pyrénées, he was a Spaniard from Navarre; and he flourished -in the seventeenth century (1643). It is true that a small knot of -second-class Basque—the epic poet Ercilla y Zúñiga, and the fabulist -Iriarte—figure in Castilian literature; but the Basque glories are -to be sought in other field—in such heroic personages as Ignacio -Loyola, and his mightier disciple Francisco Xavier. Setting aside -devotional and didactic works, mostly translated from other tongues, -Basque literature is chiefly oral, and has but a formal connection -with the history of Spanish letters. Within narrow geographical -limits the Basque language still thrives, and on each slope of the -Pyrenees holds its own against forces apparently irresistible. But -its vitality exceeds its reproductive force: it survives but does not -multiply. Whatever the former influence of Basque on Castilian—an -influence never great—it has now ceased; while Castilian daily tends -to supplant (or, at least, to supplement) Basque. Spain's later -invaders—Iberians, Kelts, Phœnicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Alani, -Suevi, Goths, and Arabs—have left but paltry traces on the prevailing -form of Spanish speech, which derives from Latin by a descent more -obvious, though not a whit more direct, than the descent of French. -So frail is the partition which divides the Latin mother from her -noblest daughter, that late in the sixteenth century Fernando Pérez -de Oliva wrote a treatise that was at once Latin and Spanish: a thing -intelligible in either tongue and futile in both, though held for -praiseworthy in an age when the best poets chose to string lines into a -polyglot rosary, without any distinction save that of antic dexterity. - -For our purpose, the dawn of literature in Spain begins with the -Roman conquest. In colonies like Pax Augusta (Badajoz), Cæsar Augusta -(Zaragoza), and Emerita Augusta (Mérida), the Roman influence was -strengthened by the intermarriage of Roman soldiers with Spanish women. -All over Spain there arose the _odiosa cantio_, as St. Augustine calls -it, of Spanish children learning Latin; and every school formed a fresh -centre of Latin authority. With their laws, the conquerors imposed -their speech upon the broken tribes; and these, in turn, invaded -the capital of Latin politics and letters. The breath of Spanish -genius informs the Latinity of the Silver Age. Augustus himself had -named his Spanish freedman, Gaius Julius Hyginus, the Chief Keeper -of the Palatine Library. Spanish literary aptitude, showing stronger -in the prodigious learning of the Elder Seneca, matures in the -altisonant rhetoric and violent colouring of the Younger, in Lucan's -declamatory eloquence and metallic music, in Martial's unblushing -humour and brutal cynicism, in Quintilian's luminous judgment and wise -sententiousness. - -All these display in germ the characteristic points of strength and -weakness which were to be developed in the evolution of Spanish -literature; and their influence on letters was matched by their -countrymen's authority on affairs. The Spaniard Balbus was the first -barbarian to reach the Consulship, and to receive the honour of a -public triumph; the Spaniard Trajan was the first barbarian named -Emperor, the first Emperor to make the Tigris the eastern boundary of -his dominion, and the only Emperor whose ashes were allowed to rest -within the Roman city-walls. And the victory of the vanquished was -complete when the Spaniard Hadrian, the author of the famous verses— - - "_Animula vagula blandula, - Hospes comesque corporis, - Quæ nunc abibis in loca, - Pallidula rigida nudula, - Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos?_"— - -himself an exquisite in art and in letters—became the master of -the world. Gibbon declares with justice that the happiest epoch in -mankind's history is "that which elapsed from the death of Domitian -to the accession of Commodus"; and the Spaniard, accounting Marcus -Aurelius as a son of Córdoba, vaunts with reasonable pride, that of -those eighty perfect, golden years, three-score at least were passed -beneath the sceptre of the Spanish Cæsars. - -Withal, individual success apart, the Spanish utterance of Latin teased -the finer ear. Cicero ridiculed the accent—_aliquid pingue_—of -even the more lettered Spaniards who reached Rome; Martial, retired -to his native Bilbilis, shuddered lest he might let fall a local -idiom; and Quintilian, a sterner purist than a very Roman, frowned at -the intrusion of his native provincialisms upon the everyday talk of -the capital. In Rome incorrections of speech were found where least -expected. That Catullus should jeer at Arrius—the forerunner of a -London type—in the matter of aspirates is natural enough; but even -Augustus distressed the nice grammarian. _A fortiori_, Hadrian was -taunted with his Spanish solecisms. Innovation won the day. The century -between Livy and Tacitus shows differences of style inexplicable by the -easy theory of varieties of temperament; and the two centuries dividing -Tacitus from St. Augustine are marked by changes still more striking. -This is but another illustration of the old maxim, that as the speed of -falling bodies increases with distance, so literary decadences increase -with time. - -As in Italy and Africa, so in Spain. The statelier _sermo urbanus_ -yielded to the _sermo plebeius_. Spanish soldiers had discovered -"the fatal secret of empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere -than at Rome"; no less fatal was the discovery that Latin might be -spoken without regard for Roman models. As the power of classic forms -waned, that of ecclesiastical examples grew. Church Latin of the -fourth century shines at its best in the verse of the Christian poet, -the Spaniard Prudentius: with him the classical rhythms persist—as -survivals. He clutches at, rather than grasps, the Roman verse -tradition, and, though he has no rhyming stanzas, he verges on rhyme -in such performances as his _Hymnus ad Galli Cantum_. Throughout the -noblest period of Roman poetry, soldiers, sailors, and illiterates -had, in the _versus saturnius_, preserved a native rhythmical system -not quantitative but accentual; and this vulgar metrical method was to -outlive its fashionable rival. It is doubtful whether the quantitative -prosody, brought from Greece by literary dandies, ever flourished -without the circle of professional men of letters. It is indisputable -that the imported metrical rules, depending on the power of vowels and -the position of consonants, were gradually superseded by looser laws of -syllabic quantity wherein accent and tonic stress were the main factors. - -When the empire fell, Spain became the easy prey of northern -barbarians, who held the country by the sword, and intermarried but -little with its people. To the Goths Spain owes nothing but eclipse -and ruin. No books, no inscriptions of Gothic origin survive; the -Gongoristic letters ascribed to King Sisebut are not his work, and -it is doubtful if the Goths bequeathed more than a few words to the -Spanish vocabulary. The defeat of Roderic by Tarik and Mūsa laid Spain -open to the Arab rush. National sentiment was unborn. Witiza and -Roderic were regarded by Spaniards as men in Italy and Africa regarded -Totila and Galimar. The clergy were alienated from their Gothic rulers. -Gothic favourites were appointed to non-existent dioceses carrying huge -revenues; a single Goth held two sees simultaneously; and, by way of -balance, Toledo was misgoverned by two rival Gothic bishops. Harassed -by a severe penal code, the Jew hailed the invading Arabs as a kindred, -oriental, circumcised race; and, with the heathen slaves, they went -over to the conquerors. So obscure is the history of the ensuing years -that it has been said that the one thing certain is Roderic's name. -Not less certain is it that, within a brief space, almost the entire -peninsula was subdued. The more warlike Spaniards, - - "_Patient of toil, serene among alarms, - Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms,_" - -foregathered with Pelayo by the Cave of Covadonga, near Oviedo, among -the Pyrenean chines, which they held against the forces of the Berber -Alkamah and the renegade Archbishop, Don Opas. "Confident in the -strength of their mountains," says Gibbon, these highlanders "were the -last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first who threw off -the yoke of the Arabs." While on the Asturian hillsides the spirit of -Spanish nationality was thus nurtured amid convulsions, the less hardy -inhabitants of the south accepted their defeat. The few who embraced -Islamism were despised as Muladíes; the many, adopting all save the -religion of their masters, were called Muzárabes, just as, during the -march of the reconquest, Moors similarly placed in Christian provinces -were dubbed Mudéjares. - -The literary traditions of Seneca, Lucan, and their brethren, passed -through the hands of mediocrities like Pomponius Mela and Columella, -to be delivered to Gaius Vettius Aquilinus Juvencus, who gave a -rendering of the gospels, wherein the Virgilian hexameter is aped with -a certain provincial vigour. Minor poets, not lacking in marmoreal -grace, survive in Baron Hübner's _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum_. -Among the breed of learned churchmen shines the name of St. Damasus, -first of Spanish popes, who shows all his race's zeal in heresy-hunting -and in fostering monkery. The saponaceous eloquence that earned him -the name of _Auriscalpius matronarum_ ("the Ladies' Ear-tickler") is -forgotten; but he deserves remembrance because of his achievement -as an epigraphist, and because he moved his friend, St. Jerome, to -translate the Bible. To him succeeds Hosius of Córdoba, the mentor of -Constantine, the champion of Athanasian orthodoxy, and the presiding -bishop at the Council of Nicæa, to whom is attributed the incorporation -in the Nicene Creed of that momentous clause, "_Genitum non factum, -consubstantialem Patri_." - -Prudentius follows next, with that savour of the terrible and agonising -which marks the Spagnoletto school of art; but to all his strength -and sternness he adds a sweeter, tenderer tone. At once a Christian, -a Spaniard, and a Roman, to Prudentius his birthplace is ever _felix -Tarraco_ (he came from Tarragona); and he thrills with pride when he -boasts that Cæsar Augusta gave his Mother-Church most martyrs. Yet, -Christian though he be, the imperial spirit in him fires at the thought -of the multitudinous tribes welded into a single people, and he plainly -tells you that a Roman citizen is as far above the brute barbarian as -man is above beast. Priscillian and his fellow-sufferer Latrocinius, -the first martyrs slain by Christianity set in office, were both clerks -of singular accomplishment. As disciple of St. Augustine, and comrade -of St. Jerome, Orosius would be remembered, even were he not the -earliest historian of the world. Like Prudentius, Orosius blends the -passion of universal empire with the fervour of local sentiment. Good, -haughty Spaniard as he is, he enregisters the battles that his fathers -gave for freedom; he ranks Numancia's name only below that of the -world-mother, Rome; and his heart softens towards the blind barbarians, -their faces turned towards the light. Cold, austere, and even a trifle -cynical as he is, Orosius' pulses throb at memory of Cæsar; and he -glows on thinking that, a citizen of no mean city, he ranges the world -under Roman jurisdiction. And this vast union of diverse races, all -speaking one single tongue, all recognising one universal law, Orosius -calls by the new name of Romania. - -Licinianus follows, the Bishop of Cartagena and the correspondent -of St. Gregory the Great. A prouder and more illustrious figure is -that of St. Isidore of Seville—"_beatus et lumen noster Isidorus_." -Originality is not Isidore's distinction, and the Latin verses which -pass under his name are of doubtful authenticity. But his encyclopædic -learning is amazing, and gives him place beside Cassiodorus, Boëtius, -and Martianus Capella, among the greatest teachers of the West. St. -Braulius, Bishop of Zaragoza, lives as the editor of his master -Isidore's posthumous writings, and as the author of a hymn to that -national saint, Millán. Nor should we omit the names of St. Eugenius, -a realist versifier of the day, and of St. Valerius, who had all the -poetic gifts save the accomplishment of verse. Naturalised foreigners, -like the Hungarian St. Martin of Dumi, Archbishop of Braga, lent -lustre to Spain at home. Spaniards, like Claude, Bishop of Turin and -like Prudentius Galindus, Bishop of Troyes, carried the national fame -abroad: the first in writings which prove the permanence of Seneca's -tradition, the second in polemics against the pantheists. More rarely -dowered was Theodolphus, the Spanish Bishop of Orleans, distinguished -at Charlemagne's court as a man of letters and a poet; nor is it likely -that Theodolphus' name can ever be forgotten, for his exultant hymn, -_Gloria, laus, et honor_, is sung the world over on Palm Sunday. And -scarcely less notable are the composers of the noble Latin-Gothic -hymnal, the makers of the _Breviarum Gothicum_ of Lorenzana and of -Arévalo's _Hymnodia Hispanica_. - -Enough has been said to show that, amid the tumult of Gothic supremacy -in Spain, literature was pursued—though not by Goths—with results -which, if not splendid, are at least unmatched in other Western lands. -Doubtless in Spain, as elsewhere, much curious learning and insolent -ignorance throve jowl by jowl. Like enough, some Spanish St. Ouen -wrote down Homer, Menander, and Virgil as three plain blackguards; -like enough, the Spanish biographer of some local St. Bavo confounded -Tityrus with Virgil, and declared that Pisistratus' Athenian -contemporaries spoke habitually in Latin. The conceit of ignorance is -a thing eternal. Withal, from the age of Prudentius onward, literature -was sustained in one or other shape. For a century after Tarik's -landing there is a pause, unbroken save for the _Chronicle_ of the -anonymous Córdoban, too rashly identified as Isidore Pacensis. The -intellectual revival appears, not among the Arabs, but among the Jews -of Córdoba and Toledo; this last the immemorial home of magic where -the devil was reputed to catch his own shadow. It was a devout belief -that clerks went to Paris to study "the liberal arts," whereas in -Toledo they mastered demonology and forgot their morals. Córdoba's -fame, as the world's fine flower, crossed the German Rhine, and -even reached the cloister of Roswitha, a nun who dabbled in Latin -comedies. The achievements of Spanish Jews and Spanish Arabs call -for separate treatises. Here it must suffice to say that the roll -contains names mighty as that of the Jewish poet and philosopher Ibn -Gebirol or Avicebron (d. ? 1070), whom Duns Scotus acknowledges as his -master; and that of Judah ben Samuel the Levite (b. 1086), whom Heine -celebrates in the _Romanzero_: - - "_Rein und wahrhaft, sonder Makel - War sein Lied, wie seine Seele._" - -In one sense, if we choose to fasten on his favourite trick of closing -a Hebrew stanza with a romance line, Judah ben Samuel the Levite may -be accounted the earliest of known experimentalists in Spanish verse; -and an Arab poet of Spanish descent, Ibn Hazm, anticipated the Catalan, -Auzías March, by founding a school of poetry, at once mystic and -amorous. - -But the Spanish Jews and Spanish Arabs gained their chief distinction -in philosophy. Of these are Ibn Bājjah or Avempace (d. 1138), the -opponent of al-Gazāli and his mystico-sceptical method; and Abū Bakr -ibn al-Tufail (1116-85), the author of a neo-platonic, pantheistic -romance entitled _Risālat Haiy ibn Yakzān_, of which the main thesis -is that religious and philosophic truth are but two forms of the same -thing. Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd (1126-98), best known as Averroes, -taught the doctrine of the universal nature and unity of the human -intellect, accounting for individual inequalities by a fantastic -theory of stages of illumination. Arab though he was, Averroes was -more reverenced by Jews than by men of his own race; and his permanent -vogue is proved by the fact that Columbus cites him three centuries -afterwards, while his teachings prevailed in the University of Padua -as late as Luther's time. A more august name is that of "the Spanish -Aristotle," Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides (1135-1204), the greatest -of European Jews, the intellectual father, so to say, of Albertus -Magnus and St. Thomas of Aquin. Born at Córdoba, Maimonides drifted -to Cairo, where he became chief rabbi of the synagogue, and served as -Saladin's physician, having refused a like post in the household of -Richard the Lion-hearted. It is doubtful if Maimonides was a Jew at -heart; it is unquestioned that at one time he conformed outwardly to -Muhammadanism. A stinging epigram summarises his achievement by saying -that he philosophised the Talmud and talmudised philosophy. It is, of -course, absurd to suppose that his critical faculty could accept the -childish legends of the _Haggadah_, wherein rabbis manifold report that -the lion fears the cock's crow, that the salamander quenches fire, and -other incredible puerilities. In his _Yad ha-Hazakah_ (The Strong Hand) -Maimonides seeks to purge the Talmud of its _pilpulim_ or casuistic -commentaries, and to make the book a sufficient guide for practical -life rather than to leave it a dust-heap for intellectual scavengers. -Hence he tends to a rationalistic interpretation of Scriptural records. -Direct communion with the Deity, miracles, prophetic gifts, are not -so much denied as explained away by means of a symbolic exegesis, -infinitely subtle and imaginative. Spanish and African rabbis received -the new teaching with docility, and in his own lifetime Maimonides' -success was absolute. A certain section of his followers carried -the cautious rationalism of the master to extremities, and thus -produced the inevitable reaction of the _Kabbala_ with its apparatus -of elaborate extravagances. This reaction was headed by another -Spaniard, the Catalan mystic, Bonastruc de Portas or Moses ben Nahman -(1195-1270); and the relation of the two leaders is exemplified by -the rabbinical legend which tells that the soul of each sprang from -Adam's head: Maimonides, from the left curl, which typifies severity of -judgment; Moses ben Nahman from the right, which symbolises tenderness -and mercy. - -On literature the pretended "Arab influence," if it exist at all, is -nowise comparable to that of the Spanish Jews, who can boast that -Judah ben Samuel the Levite lives as one of Dante's masters. Judah -ranks among the great immortals of the world, and no Arab is fit -to loosen the thong of his sandal. But it might very well befall a -second-rate man, favoured by fortune and occasion, to head a literary -revolution. It was not the case in Spain. The innumerable Spanish-Arab -poets, vulgarised by the industry of Schack and interpreted by the -genius of Valera, are not merely incomprehensible to us here and now; -they were enigmas to most contemporary Arabs, who were necessarily -ignorant of what was, to all purposes, a dead language—the elaborate -technical vocabulary of Arabic verse. If their own countrymen failed -to understand these poets, it would be surprising had their stilted -artifice filtered into Castilian. It is unscientific, and almost -unreasonable, to assume that what baffles the greatest Arabists of -to-day was plain to a wandering mummer a thousand, or even six hundred, -years ago. There is, however, a widespread belief that the metrical -form of the Castilian _romance_ (a simple lyrico-narrative poem in -octosyllabic assonants) derives from Arabic models. This theory is as -untenable as that which attributed Provençal rhythms to Arab singers. -No less erroneous is the idea that the entire assonantic system is an -Arab invention. Not only are assonants common to all Romance languages; -they exist in Latin hymns composed centuries before Muhammad's birth, -and therefore long before any Arab reached Europe. It is significant -that no Arabist believes the legend of the "Arab influence"; for -Arabists are not more given than other specialists to belittling the -importance of their subject. - -In sober truth, this Arab myth is but a bad dream of yesterday, a -nightmare following upon an undigested perusal of the _Thousand and One -Nights_. Thanks to Galland, Cardonne, and Herbelot, the notion became -general that the Arabs were the great creative force of fiction. To -father Spanish _romances_ and Provençal _trobas_ upon them is a mere -freak of fancy. The tacit basis of this theory is that the Spaniards -took a rare interest in the intellectual side of Arab life; but the -assumption is not justified by evidence. Save in a casual passage, -as that in the _Crónica General_ on the capture of Valencia, the -Castilian historians steadily ignore their Arab rivals. On the other -hand, there is a class of _romances fronterizos_ (border ballads), -such as that on the loss of Alhama, which is based on Arabic legends; -and at least one such ballad, that of Abenamar, may be the work of a -Spanish-speaking Moor. But these are isolated cases, are exceptional -solely as regards the source of the subject, and nowise differ in form -from the two thousand other ballads of the _Romanceros_. To find a case -of real imitation we must pass to the fifteenth century, when that -learned lyrist, the Marqués de Santillana, deliberately experiments in -the measures of an Arab _zajal_, a performance matched by a surviving -fragment due to an anonymous poet in the _Cancionero de Linares_. These -are metrical audacities, resembling the revival of French _ballades_ -and _rondeaux_ by artificers like Mr. Dobson, Mr. Gosse, and Mr. Henley -in our own day. On the strength of two unique modern examples in the -history of Castilian verse, it would be unjustifiable to believe, in -the teeth of all other evidence, that simple strollers intuitively -assimilated rhythms whose intricacy bewilders the best experts. This -is not to say that Arabic popular poetry had no influence on such -popular Spanish verse as the _coplas_, of which some are apparently but -translations of Arabic songs. That is an entirely different thesis; for -we are concerned here with literature to which the halting _coplas_ can -scarcely be said to belong. - -The "Arab influence" is to be sought elsewhere—in the diffusion of -the Eastern apologue, morality, or maxim, deriving from the Sanskrit. -M. Bédier argues with extraordinary force, ingenuity, and learning, -against the universal Eastern descent of the French _fabliaux_. -However that be, the immediate Arabic origin of such a collection as -the _Disciplina Clericalis_ of Petrus Alfonsus (printed, in part, -as the _Fables of Alfonce_, by Caxton, 1483, in _The Book of the -subtyl Historyes and Fables of Esope_), is as undoubted as the source -of the apologue grafted on Castilian by Don Juan Manuel, or as the -derivation of the maxims of Rabbi Sem Tom of Carrión. To this extent, -in common with the rest of Europe, Spain owes the Arabs a debt which -her picaresque novels and comedies have more than paid; but here again -the Arab acts as a mere middleman, taking the story of _Kalilah and -Dimna_ from the Sanskrit through the Pehlevī version, and then passing -it by way of Spain to the rest of the Continent. Nor should it be -overlooked that Spaniards, disguised as Arabs, shared in the work of -interpretation. - -It is less easy to determine the extent to which colloquial Arabic -was used in Spain. Patriots would persuade you that the Arabs brought -nothing to the stock of general culture, and the more thoroughgoing -insist that the Spaniards lent more than they borrowed. But the point -may be pressed too far. It must be admitted that Arabic had a vogue, -though perhaps not a vogue as wide as might be gathered from the -testimony of Paulus Alvarus Cordubiensis, whose _Indiculus Luminosus_, -a work of the ninth century, taunts the writer's countrymen with -neglecting their ancient tongue for Hebrew and Arabic technicalities. -The ethnic influence of the Arabs is still obvious in Granada and other -southern towns; and intermarriages, tending to strengthen the sway of -the victor's speech, were common from the outset, when Roderic's widow, -Egilona, wedded Abd al-Aziz, son of Musa, her dead husband's conqueror. -An Alfonso of León espoused the daughter of Abd Allah, Emir of Toledo; -and an Alfonso of Castile took to wife the daughter of an Emir of -Seville. "The wedding, which displeased God," of Alfonso the Fifth's -sister with an Arab (some say with al-Mansūr), is sung in a famous -_romance_ inspired by the _Crónica General_. - -In official charters, as early as 804, Arabic words find place. A local -disuse of Latin is proved by the fact that in this ninth century the -Bishop of Seville found it needful to render the Bible into Arabic for -the use of Muzárabes; and still stronger evidence of the low estate of -Latin is afforded by an Arabic version of canonical decrees. It follows -that some among the very clergy read Arabic more easily than they read -Latin. Jewish poets, like Avicebron and Judah ben Samuel the Levite, -sometimes composed in Arabic rather than in their native Hebrew; and it -is almost certain that the lays of the Arab _rāwis_ radically modified -the structure of Hebrew verse. Apart from the evidence of Paulus -Alvarus Cordubiensis, St. Eulogius deposes that certain Christians—he -mentions Isaac the Martyr by name—spoke Arabic to perfection. Nor can -it be pleaded that this zeal was invariably due to official pressure: -on the contrary, a caliph went the length of forbidding Spanish Jews -and Christians to learn Arabic. Neither did the fashion die soon: -long after the Arab predominance was shaken, Arabic was the modish -tongue. Álvar Fáñez, the Cid's right hand, is detected signing his -name in Arabic characters. The Christian _dīnār_, Arabic in form and -superscription, was invented to combat the Almoravide _dīnār_, which -rivalled the popularity of the Constantinople besant; and as late as -the thirteenth century Spanish coins were struck with Arabic symbols on -the reverse side. - -Yet, even so, the rude Latin of the unconquered north remained -well-nigh intact. Save in isolated centres, it was spoken by countless -Christians and by the Spaniards who had escaped to the African province -of Tingitana. Vast deduction must be made from the jeremiads of Paulus -Alvarus Cordubiensis. As he bewails the time wasted on Hebrew and -Arabic by Spaniards, so does Avicebron lament the use of Arabic and -Romance by Jews. "One party speaks Idumean (Romance), the other the -tongue of Kedar (Arabic)." If the Arab flood ran high, the ebb was no -less strong. Arabs tended more and more to ape the dress, the arms, -the customs of the Spaniards; and the Castilian-speaking Arab—the -_moro latinado_—multiplied prodigiously. No small proportion of Arab -writers—Ibn Hazm, for example—was made up of sons or grandsons -of Spaniards, not unacquainted with their fathers' speech. When -Archbishop Raimundo founded his College of Translators at Toledo, where -Dominicus Gundisalvi collaborated with the convert Abraham ben David -(Johannes Hispalensis), it might have seemed that the preservation -of Arabic and Hebrew was secure. There and then, there could not -have occurred such a blunder as that immortal one of the Capuchin, -Henricus Seynensis, who lives eternal by mistaking the _Talmud_—"Rabbi -Talmud"—for a man. But no Arab work endures. And as with Arab -philosophy in Spain, so with the Arabic language: its soul was required -of it. Hebrew, indeed, was not forgotten; and for Arabic, a revival -might be expected during the Crusades. Yet in all Europe, outside -Spain, but three isolated Arabists of that time are known—William of -Tyre, Philip of Tripoli, and Adelard of Bath; and in Spain itself, -when Boabdil surrendered in 1492, the tide had run so low that not a -thousand Arabs in Granada could speak their native tongue. Nearly two -centuries before (in 1311-12) a council under Pope Clement V. advised -the establishment of Arabic chairs in the universities of Salamanca, -Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. Save at Bologna, the counsel was ignored; -and in Spain, where it had once swaggered with airs official, Arabic -almost perished out of use. - -Save a group of technical words, the sole literary legacy bequeathed -to Spain by the Arabs was their alphabet. This they used in writing -Castilian, calling their transcription _aljamía_ (_ajami_ = foreign), -which was the original name of the broken Latin spoken by the -Muzárabes. First introduced in legal documents, the practice was -prudently continued during the reconquest, and, besides its secrecy, -was further recommended by the fact that a special sanctity attaches -to Arabic characters. But the peculiarity of _aljamía_ is that it -begot a literature of its own, though, naturally enough, a literature -modelled on the Spanish. Its best production is the _Poema de Yusuf_; -and it may be noted that this, like its much later fellow, _La Alabanza -de Mahoma_ (The Praise of Muhammad), is in the metre of the old Spanish -"clerkly poems" (_poesías de clerecía_). So also the Aragonese Morisco, -Muhammad Rabadán, writes his cyclic poem in Spanish octosyllabics; and -in his successors there are hendecasyllabics manifestly imitated from -a characteristic Galician measure (_de gaita gallega_). The subjects -of the _textos aljamiados_ are frankly conveyed from Western sources: -the _Compilation of Alexander_, an orientalised version of the French; -the _History of the Loves of Paris and Viana_, a translation from -the Provençal; and the _Maid of Arcayona_, based on the Spanish poem -_Apolonio_. In the _Cancionero de Baena_ appears Mahomat-el-Xartosse, -without his turban, as a full-fledged Spanish poet; and the old -tradition of servility is continued by an anonymous refugee in Tunis, -who shows himself an authority on the plays and the lyric verse of Lope -de Vega. - -It is therefore erroneous to suppose that the northern Spaniards on -their southward march fell in with numerous kinsmen, of wider culture -and of a higher civilisation, whose everyday speech was unintelligible -to them, and who prayed to Christ in the tongue of Muhammad. Such -cases may have occurred, but as the rarest exceptions. Not less -unfounded is the theory that Castilian is a fusion of southern -academic Arabic with barbarous northern Latin. In southern Spain Latin -persisted, as Greek, Syriac, and Coptic persisted in other provinces -of the Caliphate; and in the school founded at Córdoba by the Abbot -Spera-in-Deo, Livy, Cicero, Virgil, Quintilian, and Demosthenes were -read as assiduously as Sallust, Horace, and Terence were studied in -the northern provinces. Granting that Latin was for a while so much -neglected that it was necessary to translate the Bible into Arabic, it -is also true that Arabic grew so forgotten that Peter the Venerable -was forced to translate the Ku'rān for the benefit of clerks. Lastly, -it must be borne in mind that the variety of Romance which finally -prevailed in Spain was not the speech of the northern highlanders, -but that of the Muzárabes of the south and the centre. Long before -"the sword of Pelagius had been transformed into the sceptre of the -Catholic kings," the linguistic triumph of the south was achieved. The -hazard of war might have yielded another issue; and to adopt another -celebrated phrase of Gibbon's, but for the Cid and his successors, the -Ku'rān might now be taught in the schools of Salamanca, and her pulpits -might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of -the revelation of Muhammad. As it chanced, Arabic was rebuffed, and -the Latin speech (or _Romance_) survived in its principal varieties of -Castilian, Galician, Catalan, and _bable_ (Asturian). - -Gallic Latin had already bifurcated into the _langue d'oui_ and the -_langue d'oc_, though these names were not applied to the varieties -till near the close of the twelfth century. Two hundred years before -Roderic's overthrow a Spanish horde raided the south-west of France, -and, in the corner south of the Adour, reimposed a tongue which Latin -had almost entirely supplanted, and which lingered solely in the Basque -Provinces and in Navarre. In the eighth century this Basque invasion -was avenged. The Spaniards, concentrating in the north, vacated the -eastern provinces, which were thereupon occupied by the Roussillonais, -who, spreading as far south as Valencia, and as far east as the -Balearic Islands, gave eastern Spain a new language. Deriving from the -_langue d'oc_, Catalan divides into _plá Catalá_ and _Lemosí_—the -common speech and the literary tongue. Vidal de Besalu calls his own -Provençal language _limosina_ or _lemozi_, and the name, taken from -his popular treatise _Dreita Maneira de Trobar_, was at first limited -to literary Provençal; but endless confusion arises from the fact that -when Catalans took to composing, their poems were likewise said to be -written in _lengua lemosina_. - -The Galician, akin to Portuguese, though free from the nasal element -grafted on the latter by Burgundians, is held by some for the -oldest—though clearly not the most virile—form of Peninsular Romance. -It was at least the first to ripen, and, under Provençal guidance, -Galician verse acquired the flexibility needed for metrical effects -long before Castilian; so that Castilian court-poets, ambitious of -finer rhythmical results, were driven to use Galician, which is -strongly represented in the _Cancionero de Baena_, and boasts an -earlier masterpiece in Alfonso the Learned's _Cantigas de Santa María_, -recently edited, as it deserved, after six centuries of waiting, by -that admirable scholar the Marqués de Valmar. Galician, now little -more than a simple dialect, is artificially kept alive by the efforts -of patriotic minor poets; but its literary influence is extinct, -and the distinguished figures of the province, as Doña Emilia Pardo -Bazán, naturally seek a larger audience by writing in Castilian. -So, too, _bable_ is but another dialect of little account, though a -poet of considerable charm, Teodoro Cuesta (1829-95), has written in -it verses which his own loyal people will not willingly let die. -The classification of other characteristic sub-genera—Andalucían, -Aragonese, Leonese—belongs to philology, and would be, in any event, -out of place in the history of a literature to which, unlike Catalan -and unlike Galician, they have added nothing of importance. What befell -in Italy and France befell in Spain. Partly through political causes, -partly by force of superior culture, the language of a single centre -ousted its rivals. As France takes its speech from Paris and the -Île de France, as Florence dominates Italy, so Castile dictates her -language to all the Spains. The dominant type, then, of Spanish is the -Castilian, which, as the most potent form, has outlived its brethren, -and, with trifling variations, now extends, not only over Spain, but -as far west as Lima and Valparaiso, and as far east as the Philippine -Islands: in effect, "from China to Peru." And the Castilian of to-day -differs little from the Castilian of the earliest monuments. - -The first allusion to any distinct variety of Romance is found in the -life of a certain St. Mummolin who was Bishop of Noyen, succeeding St. -Eloi in 659. A reference to the Spanish type of Romance is found as far -back as 734; but the authenticity of the document is very doubtful. -The breaking-up of Latin in Spain is certainly observable in Bishop -Odoor's will under the date of 747. The celebrated Strasburg Oaths, -the oldest of Romance instruments, belong to the year 842; and, in -an edict of 844, Charles the Bald mentions, as a thing apart, "the -customary language"—_usitato vocabulo_—of the Spaniards. There is, -however, no existing Spanish manuscript so ancient, nor is there any -monument as old, as the Italian _Carta di Capua_ (960). The British -Museum contains a curious codex from the Convent of Santo Domingo de -Silos, on the margin of which a contemporary has written the vernacular -equivalent of some four hundred Latin words; but this is no earlier -than the eleventh century. The Charter called the _Fuero de Avilés_ of -1155 (which is in _bable_ or Asturian, not Castilian), has long passed -for the oldest example of Spanish, on the joint and several authority -of González Llanos, Ticknor, and Gayangos; but Fernández-Guerra y Orbe -has proved it to be a forgery of much later date. - -These intricate questions of authority and ascription may well be -left unsettled, for legal documents are but the dry bones of letters. -Castilian literature dates roughly from the twelfth century. Though -no Castilian document of extent can be referred to that period, the -_Misterio de los Reyes Magos_ (The Mystery of the Magian Kings) and -the group of _cantares_ called the _Poema del Cid_ can scarcely -belong to any later time. These, probably, are the jetsam of a cargo -of literature which has foundered. It is unlikely that the two most -ancient compositions in Castilian verse should be precisely the two -preserved to us, and it is manifest that the epic as set forth in the -_Poema del Cid_ could not have been a first effort. Doubtless there -were other older, shorter songs or _cantares_ on the Cid's prowess; -there unquestionably were songs upon Bernaldo de Carpio and upon -the Infantes de Lara which are rudely preserved in assonantic prose -passages of the _Crónica General_. An ingenious, deceptive theory lays -it down that the epic is but an amalgam of _cantilenas_, or short -lyrics in the vulgar tongue. At most this is a pious opinion. - -To judge by the analogy of other literatures, it is safe to say -that as verse always precedes prose (just as man feels before he -reasons), so the epic everywhere precedes the lyric form, with the -possible exception of hymns. The _Poema del Cid_, for instance, shows -no trace of lyrical descent; and it is far likelier that the many -surviving _romances_ or ballads on the Cid are detached fragments -of an epic, than that the epic should be a _pastiche_ of ballads -put together nobody knows why, when, where, how, or by whom. But in -any case the _cantilena_ theory is idle; for, since no _cantilenas_ -exist, no evidence is—or can be—forthcoming to eke out an attractive -but unconvincing thesis. In default of testimony and of intrinsic -probability, the theory depends solely on bold assertion, and it -suffices to say that the _cantilena_ hypothesis is now abandoned by all -save a knot of fanatical partisans. - -The exploits of the battle-field would, in all likelihood, be -the first subjects of song; and the earliest singers of these -deeds—_gesta_—would appear in the chieftain's household. They sang to -cheer the freebooters on the line of march, and a successful foray was -commemorated in some war-song like Dinas Vawr's: - - "_Ednyfed, King of Dyfed, - His head was borne before us; - His wine and beasts supplied our feasts, - And his overthrow our chorus._" - -Soon the separation between combatants and singers became absolute: -the division has been effected in the interval which divides the -_Iliad_ from the _Odyssey_. Achilles himself sings the heroes' glories; -in the _Odyssey_ the _ἀοιδός_ or professional singer appears, to be -succeeded by the rhapsode. Slowly there evolve in Spain, as elsewhere, -two classes of artists known as _trovadores_ and _juglares_. -The _trovadores_ are generally authors; the _juglares_ are mere -executants—singers, declaimers, mimes, or simple mountebanks. Of -these lowlier performers one type has been immortalised in M. Anatole -France's _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_, a beautiful re-setting of the -old story of _El Tumbeor_. But between _trovadores_ and _juglares_ -it is not possible to draw a hard-and-fast line: their functions -intermingled. Some few _trovadores_ anticipated Wagner by eight or nine -centuries, composing their own music-drama on a lesser scale. In cases -of special endowment, the composer of words and music delivered them to -the audience. - -Subdivisions abounded. There were the _juglares_ or singing-actors, the -_remendadores_ or mimes, the _cazurros_ or mutes with duties undefined, -resembling those of the intelligent "super." Gifted _juglares_ at -whiles produced original work; a _trovador_ out of luck sank to -delivering the lines of his happier rivals; and a stray _remendador_ -struggled into success as a _juglar_. There were _juglares de boca_ -(reciters) and _juglares de péñola_ (musicians). Even an official label -may deceive; thus a "Gómez _trovador_" is denoted in the year 1197, but -the likelihood is that he was a mere _juglar_. The normal rule was that -the _juglar_ recited the _trovador's_ verses; but, as already said, an -occasional _trovador_ (Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino, at Seville, -in the fifteenth century, is a case in point) would declaim his own -ballad. In the _juglar's_ hands the original was cut or padded to suit -the hearers' taste. He subordinated the verses to the music, and gave -them maimed, or arabesqued with _estribillos_ (refrains), to fit a -popular air. The monotonous repetition of epithet and clause, common -to all early verse, is used to lessen the strain on the _juglar's_ -memory. The commonest arrangement was that the _juglar de boca_ sang -the _trovador's_ words, the _juglar de péñola_ accompanying on some -simple instrument, while the _remendador_ gave the story in pantomime. - -All the world over the history of early literatures is identical. -With the Greeks the minstrel attains at last an important post in -the chieftain's train. Seated on a high chair inlaid with silver, he -entertains the guests, or guards the wife of Agamemnon, his patron and -his friend. Just so does Phemios sing amid the suitors of Penelope. It -was not always thus. Bentley has told us in his pointed way that "poor -Homer in those circumstances and early times had never such aspiring -thoughts" as mankind and everlasting fame; and that "he wrote a sequel -of songs and rhapsodies to be sung by himself for small earnings and -good cheer, at festivals, and other days of merriment." This rise -and fall occurred in Spain as elsewhere. For her early _trovadores_ -or _juglares_, as for Demodokos in the _Odyssey_, and as for Fergus -MacIvor's sennachie, a cup of wine sufficed. "_Dat nos del vino si non -tenedes dinneros_," says the _juglar_ who sang the Cid's exploits: -"Give us wine, if you have no money." Gonzalo de Berceo, the first -Castilian writer whose name reaches us, is likewise the first Castilian -to use the word _trovador_ in his _Loores de Nuestra Señora_ (The -Praises of Our Lady): - - "_Aun merced te pido por el tu trobador._" - - (Thy favour I implore for this thy troubadour.) - -But, though a priest and a _trovador_ proud of his double office, -Berceo claims his wages without a touch of false shame. In his -_Vida del glorioso Confesor Sancto Domingo de Silos_ he proves the -overlapping of his functions by styling himself the saint's _juglar_; -and in the opening of the same poem he vouches for it that his song -"will be well worth, as I think, a glass of good wine": - - "_Bien valdrá, commo creo, un vaso de bon vino._" - -As popularity grew, modesty disappeared. The _trovador_, like the -rest of the world, failed under the trials of prosperity. He became -the curled darling of kings and nobles, and haggled over prices and -salaries in the true spirit of "our eminent tenor." In a rich land -like France he was given horses, castles, estates; in the poorer Spain -he was fain to accept, with intermittent grumblings, embroidered -robes, couches, ornaments—"_muchos paños é sillas é guarnimientos -nobres_." He was spoon-fed, dandled, pampered, and sedulously ruined -by the disastrous good-will of his ignorant betters. These could not -leave Ephraim alone: they too must wed his idols. Alfonso the Learned -enlisted in the corps of _trovadores_, as Alfonso II. of Aragón had -done before him; and King Diniz of Portugal followed the example. To -pose as a _trovador_ became in certain great houses a family tradition. -The famous Constable, Álvaro de Luna, composes because his uncle, -Don Pedro, the Archbishop of Toledo, has preceded him in the school. -Grouped round the commanding figure of the Marqués de Santillana stand -the rivals of his own house-top: his grandfather, Pedro González de -Mendoza; his father, the Admiral Diego Furtado de Mendoza, a picaroon -poet, spiteful, brutal, and witty; his uncle, Pedro Vélez de Guevara, -who turns you a song of roguery or devotion with equal indifference and -mastery. Santillana's is "a numerous house, with many kinsmen gay"; -still, in all save success, his case typifies a dominant fashion. - -In the society of clerkly magnates the _trovador's_ accomplishments -developed; and the equipped artist was expected to be master of several -instruments, to be pat with litanies of versified tales, and to have -Virgil at his finger-tips. Schools were founded where aspirants were -taught to _trobar_ and _fazer_ on classic principles, and the breed -multiplied till _trovador_ and _juglar_ possessed the land. The world -entire—tall, short, old, young, nobles, serfs—did nought but make or -hear verses, as that _trovador_ errant, Vidal de Besalu, records. It -may be that Poggio's anecdote of a later time is literally true: that a -poor man, absorbed in Hector's story, paid the spouter to adjourn the -catastrophe from day to day till, his money being spent, he was forced -to hear the end with tears. - -Troubadouring became at last a pestilence no less mischievous than its -successor knight-errantry, and its net was thrown more widely. Alfonso -of Aragón led the way with a celebrated Provençal ballad, wherein he -avers that "not snow, nor ice, nor summer, but God and love are the -motives of my song": - - "_Mas al meu chan neus ni glatz - No m'ajuda, n'estaz, - Ni res, mas Dieus et amors._" - -Not every man could hope to be a knight; but all ranks and both sexes -could—and did—sing of God and love. To emperors and princes must be -added the lowlier figures of Berceo, in Spain, or—to go afield for the -extremest case—the _Joculator Domini_, the inspired madman, Jacopone -da Todi, in Italy. With the _juglar_ strolled the primitive actress, -the _juglaresa_, mentioned in the _Libre del Apolonio_, and branded -as "infamous" in Alfonso's code of _Las Siete Partidas_. At the court -of Juan II., in the fifteenth century, the eccentric Garci Ferrandes -of Jerena, a court poet, married a _juglaresa_, and lived to lament -the consequences in a _cántica_ of the _Cancionero de Baena_ (No. -555). In northern Europe there flourished a tribe of jovial clerics -called Goliards (after a mythical Pope Golias), who counted Catullus, -Horace, and Ovid for their masters, and blent their anacreontics with -blasphemy—as in the _Confessio Goliæ_, wrongly ascribed to our Walter -Map. The repute of this gentry is chronicled in the _Canterbury Tales_: - - "_He was a jangler and a goliardeis, - And that was of most sin and harlotries._" - -And the type, if not the name, existed in the Peninsula. So much might -be inferred from the introduction and passage of a law forbidding -the ordination of _juglares_; and, in the _Cancioneiro Portuguez -da Vaticana_ (No. 931), Estevam da Guarda banters a _juglar_ who, -taking orders in expectance of a prebend which he never received, was -prevented by his holy estate from returning to his craft. But close at -hand, in the person of Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita—the greatest name -in early Castilian literature—is your Spanish Goliard incarnate. - -The prosperity of _trovador_ and _juglar_ could not endure. First of -foreign _trovadores_ to reach Spain, the Gascon Marcabru treats Alfonso -VII. (1126-57) almost as an equal. Raimbaud de Vaquerias, in what must -be among the earliest copies of Spanish verse (not without a Galician -savour), holds his head no less high; and the apotheosis of the -_juglar_ is witnessed by Vidal de Besalu at the court of Alfonso VIII. -(1158-1214). - - "_Unas novas vos vuelh comtar - Que auzi dir a un joglar - En la cort del pus savi rei - Que anc fos de neguna lei._" - -"Fain would I give ye the verses which I heard recited by a _juglar_ -at the court of the most learned king that ever any rule beheld." This -was the "happier Age of Gold." A century and a half later, Alfonso the -Learned, himself, as we have seen, a _trovador_, classes the _juglar_ -and his assistants—_los que son juglares, e los remendadores_—with -the town pimp; and fathers not themselves _juglares_ are empowered to -disinherit any son who takes to the calling against his father's will. -The Villasandino, already mentioned, a pert Galician _trovador_ at Juan -II.'s court, was glad to speak his own pieces at Seville, and candidly -avowed that, like his early predecessors, he "worked for bread and -wine"—"_labro por pan e vino_." - -The foreign singer had received the half-pence; the native received the -kicks. And in the last decline the executants were blind men who sang -before church-doors and in public squares, lacing old ballads with what -they were pleased to call "emendations," or, in other words, intruding -original banalities of their own. This decline of material prosperity -had a most disastrous effect upon literature. A popular _cantar_ or -song was written by a poor man of genius. Accordingly he sold his -copyright: that is to say, he taught his _cantar_ to reciters, who paid -in cash, or in drink, when they had it by heart, and thus the song -travelled the country overlong with no author's name attached to it. -More: repeated by many lips during a long period of years, the form of -a very popular _cantar_ manifestly ran the risk of change so radical -that within a few generations the original might be transformed in such -wise as to be practically lost. This fate has, in effect, overtaken the -great body of early Spanish song. - -It is beyond question that there once existed _cantares_ (though we -cannot fix their date) in honour of Bernaldo de Carpio, of Fernán -González, and of the Infantes de Lara; the point as regards the -Infantes de Lara is proved to demonstration in the masterly study of -D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal. The assonants of the original songs are found -preserved in the chronicles, and no one with the most rudimentary idea -of the conditions of Spanish prose-composition (whence assonants are -banned with extreme severity) can suppose that any Spaniard could write -a page of assonants in a fit of absent-mindedness. Two considerable -_cantares de gesta_ of the Cid survive as fragments, and they owe their -lives to a happy accident—the accident of being written down. They -must have had fellows, but probably not an immense number of them, as -in France. If the formal _cantar de gesta_ died young, its spirit lived -triumphantly in the set chronicle and in the brief _romance_. In the -chronicle the author aims at closer exactitude and finer detail, in -the _romance_ at swifter movement and at greater picturesqueness of -artistic incident. The term _romanz_ or _romance_, first of all limited -to any work written in the vernacular, is used in that sense by the -earliest of all known troubadours, Count William of Poitiers. - -In the thirteenth century, _romanz_ or _romance_ acquires a fresh -meaning in Spain, begins to be used as an equivalent for _cantar_, -and ends by supplanting the word completely. Hence, by slow degrees, -_romance_ comes to have its present value, and is applied to a -lyrico-narrative poem in eight-syllabled assonants. The Spanish -_Romancero_ is, beyond all cavil, the richest mine of ballad poetry -in the world, and it was once common to declare that it embodied -the oldest known examples of Castilian verse. As the assertion is -still made from time to time, it becomes necessary to say that it -is unfounded. It is true that the rude _cantar_ was never forgotten -in Spain, and that its persistence partly explains the survival of -assonance in Castilian long after its abandonment by the rest of -Europe. In his historic letter to Dom Pedro, Constable of Portugal, -the Marqués de Santillana speaks with a student's contempt of singers -who, "against all order, rule, and rhythm, invent these _romances_ -and _cantares_ wherein common lewd fellows do take delight." But no -specimens of the primitive age remain, and no existing _romance_ is -older than Santillana's own fifteenth century. - -The numerous _Cancioneros_ from Baena's time to the appearance of the -_Romancero General_ (the First Part printed in 1602, with additions in -1604-14; the Second Part issued in 1605) present a vast collection of -admirable lyrics, mostly the work of accomplished courtly versifiers. -They contain very few examples of anything that can be justly called -old popular songs. Alonso de Fuentes published in 1550 his _Libro -de los Cuarenta Cantos de Diversas y Peregrinas Historias_, and in -the following year was issued Lorenzo de Sepúlveda's selection. Both -profess to reproduce the "rusticity" as well as the "tone and metre" of -the ancient _romances_; but, in fact, these songs, like those given -by Escobar in the _Romancero del Cid_ (1612), are either written by -such students as Cesareo, who read up his subject in the chronicles, -and imitated the old manner as best he could, or they are due to others -who treated the oral traditions and _pliegos sueltos_ (broadsides) of -Spain with the same inspired freedom that Burns showed to the local -ditties and chapbooks of Scotland. The two oldest _romances_ bearing -any author's name are given in Lope de Stúñiga's _Cancionero_, and -are the work of Carvajal, a fifteenth-century poet. Others may be -of earlier date; but it is impossible to identify them, inasmuch as -they have been retouched and polished by singers of the fifteenth -and sixteenth centuries. If they exist at all—a matter of grave -uncertainty—they must be sought in the two Antwerp editions of Martin -Nucio's _Cancionero de Romances_ (one undated, the other of 1550), and -in Esteban de Nájera's _Silva de Romances_, printed at Zaragoza in 1550. - -There remains to say a last word on the disputed relation between -the early Castilian and French literatures. Like the auctioneer in -_Middlemarch_, patriots "talk wild": as Amador de los Ríos in his -monumental fragment, and the Comte de Puymaigre in his essays. No fact -is better established than the universal vogue of French literature -between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, a vogue which lasted -till the real supremacy of Dante and Boccaccio and Petrarch was -reluctantly acknowledged. It is probable that Frederic Barbarossa wrote -in Provençal; his nephew, Frederic II., sedulously aped the Provençal -manner in his Italian verses called the _Lodi della donna amata_. Marco -Polo, Brunetto Latini, and Mandeville wrote in French for the same -reason that almost persuaded Gibbon to write his _History_ in French. -The substitution of the Gallic for the Gothic character in the eleventh -century advanced one stage further a process begun by the French -adventurers who shared in the reconquest. - -With these last came the French _jongleurs_ to teach the Spaniards the -gentle art of making the _chanson de geste_. The very phrase, _cantar -de gesta_, bespeaks its French source. As the root of the Cid epic lies -in _Roland_, so the _Mystery of the Magian Kings_ is but an offshoot -of the Cluny Liturgy. The earliest mention of the Cid, in the Latin -_Chronicle of Almería_, joins the national hero, significantly enough, -with those two unexampled paragons of France, Oliver and Roland. -Another French touch appears in the _Poem of Fernán González_, where -the writer speaks of Charlemagne's defeat at Roncesvalles, and laments -that the battle was not an encounter with the Moors, in which Bernaldo -del Carpio might have scattered them. But we are not left to conjecture -and inference; the presence of French _jongleurs_ is attested by -irrefragable evidence.[1] Sancho I. of Portugal had at court a French -_jongleur_ who in name, if in nothing else, somewhat resembled Guy de -Maupassant's creation, "Bon Amis." It is not proved that Sordello ever -reached Spain; but, in the true manner of your bullying parasite, he -denounces St. Ferdinand as one who "should eat for two, since he rules -two kingdoms, and is unfit to govern one":— - - "_E lo Reis castelás tanh qu'en manje per dos, - Quar dos regismes ten, ni per l'un non es pros._" - -Sordello, indeed, in an earlier couplet denounces St. Louis of France as -"a fool"; but Sordello is a mere bilk and blackmailer with the gift of -song. - -Among French minstrels traversing Spain are Père Vidal, who vaunts the -largesse of Alfonso VIII., and Guirauld de Calanson, who lickspittles -the name of Pedro II. of Aragón. Upon them followed Guilhem Azémar, a -_déclassé_ noble, who sank to earning his bread as a common _jongleur_, -and later on there comes a crowd of singing-quacks and booth-spouters. -It is usual to lay stress upon the influx of French among the pilgrims -of the Milky Way on the road to the shrine of the national St. James -at Santiago de Compostela in Galicia; and it is a fact that the first -to give us a record of this pious journey is Aimeric Picaud in the -twelfth century, who unkindly remarks of the Basques, that "when they -eat, you would take them for hogs, and when they speak, for dogs." -This vogue was still undiminished three hundred years later when our -own William Wey (once Fellow of Eton, and afterwards, as it seems, -an Augustinian monk at Edyngdon Monastery in Wiltshire) wrote his -_Itinerary_ (1456). But though the pilgrimage to Santiago is noted as -a peculiarly "French devotion" by Lope de Vega in his _Francesilla_ -(1620), it is by no means clear that the French pilgrims outnumbered -those of other nations. Even if they did, this would not explain the -literary predominance of France. This is not to be accounted for by -the scampering flight of a horde of illiterate fakirs anxious only to -save their souls and reach their homes: it is rather the natural result -of a steady immigration of clerks in the suites of French bishops and -princes, of French monks attracted by the spoil of Spanish monasteries, -of French lords and knights and gentlemen who shared in the Crusades, -and whose _jongleurs_, mimes, and tumblers came with them. - -Explain it as we choose, the influence of France on Spain is puissant -and enduring. One sees it best when the Spaniard, natural or -naturalised, turns crusty. Roderic of Toledo (himself an archbishop -of the Cluny clique) protests against those Spanish _juglares_ who -celebrate the fictitious victories of Charlemagne in Spain; and Alfonso -the Learned bears him out by deriding the songs and fables on these -mythic triumphs, since the Emperor "at most conquered somewhat in -Cantabria." A passage in the _Crónica General_ goes to show that some, -at least, of the early French _jongleurs_ sang to their audiences in -French—clearly, as it seems, to a select, patrician circle. And this -raises, obviously, a curious question. It seems natural to admit that -in Spain (let us say in Navarre and Upper Aragón) poems were written -by French _trouvères_ and _troubadours_ in a mixed hybrid jargon; and -the very greatest of Spanish scholars, D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, -inclines to believe in their possible existence. There is, in _L'Entrée -en Espagne_, a passage wherein the author declares that, besides the -sham _Chronicle_ of Turpin, his chief authorities are - - "_dous bons clerges Çan-gras et Gauteron, - Çan de Navaire et Gautier d'Arragon._" - -John of Navarre and Walter of Aragón may be, as Señor Menéndez y -Pelayo suggests, two "worthy clerks" who once existed in the flesh, -or they may be imaginings of the author's brain. More to the point is -the fact that, unlike the typical _chanson de geste_, this _Entrée -en Espagne_ has two distinct types of rhythm (the Alexandrine and -the twelve-syllable line), as in the _Poema del Cid_; and not less -significant is the foreign savour of the language. All that can be -safely said is that Señor Menéndez y Pelayo's theory is probable enough -in itself, that it is presented with great ingenuity, that it is backed -by the best authority that opinion can have, and that it is incapable -of proof or disproof in the absence of texts. - -But if Spain, unlike Italy, has no authentic poems in an intermediate -tongue, proofs of French influence are not lacking in her earliest -movements. Two of the most ancient Castilian lyrics—_Razón feita -d'Amor_ and the _Disputa del Alma_—are mere liftings from the French; -the _Book of Apolonius_ teems with Provençalisms, and the poem called -the _History of St. Mary of Egypt_ is so gallicised in idiom that Milá -y Fontanals, a ripe scholar and a true-blue Spaniard, was half inclined -to think it one of those intermediary productions which are sought in -vain. At every point proofs of French guidance confront us. Anxious to -buffet and outrage his father's old _trovador_, Pero da Ponte, Alfonso -the Learned taunts him with illiteracy, seeing that he does not compose -in the Provençal vein:— - - "_Vos non trovades como proençal._" - -And, for our purpose, we are justified in appealing to Portugal for -testimony, remembering always that Portugal exaggerates the condition -of things in Spain. King Diniz, Alfonso the Learned's nephew, plainly -indicates his model when in the Vatican _Cancioneiro_ (No. 123) -he declares that he "would fain make a love-song in the Provençal -manner":— - - "_Quer' eu, en maneyra de proençal, - Fazer agora um cantar d'amor._" - -And Alfonso's own _Cantigas_, honeycombed with Gallicisms, are frankly -Provençal in their wonderful variety of metre. Nor should we suppose -that the Provençaux fought the battle alone: the northern _trouvères_ -bore their part. - -The French school, then, is strong in Spain, omnipotent in Portugal, -and, were the Spanish _Cancioneros_ as old as the Portuguese Song-book -in the Vatican, we should probably find that the foreign influence was -but a few degrees less marked in the one country than in the other. -As it is, Alfonso the Learned ranks with any Portuguese of them all; -and it is reasonable to think that he had fellows whose achievement -and names have not reached us. For Spanish literature and ourselves -the loss is grave; and yet we cannot conceive that there existed in -early Castilian any examples comparable in elaborate lyrical beauty to -the _cantars d'amigo_ which the Galician-Portuguese singers borrowed -from the French _ballettes_. In the first place, if they had existed, -it is next to incredible that no example and no tradition of them -should survive. Next, the idea is intrinsically improbable, since the -Castilian language was not yet sufficiently ductile for the purpose. -Moreover, from the outset there is a counter-current in Castile. The -early Spanish legends are mostly concerned with Spanish subjects. Apart -from obvious foreign touches in the early recensions of the story of -Bernaldo de Carpio (who figures as Charlemagne's nephew), the tone of -the ballads is hostile to the French, and, as is natural, the enmity -grows more pronounced with time. That national hero, the Cid, is -especially anti-French. He casts the King of France in gaol; he throws -away the French King's chair with insult in St. Peter's. Still more -significant is the fact that the character of French women becomes -a jest. Thus, the balladist emphasises the fact that the faithless -wife of Garci-Fernández is French; and, again, when Sancho García's -mother, likewise French, appears in a _romance_, the singer gives her -a blackamoor—an Arab—as a lover. This is primitive man's little -way, the world over: he pays off old scores by deriding the virtue of -his enemy's wife, mother, daughter, sister; and in primitive Spain -the Frenchwoman is the lightning-conductor of international scandals, -tolerable by the camp-fire, but tedious in print. - -In considering early Spanish verse it behoves us to denote facts -and to be chary in drawing inferences. Thus, while we admit that -the _Poema del Cid_ and the _Chanson de Roland_ belong to the same -_genre_, we can go no further. It is not to be assumed that similarity -of incident necessarily implies direct imitation. The introduction of -the fighting bishop in the Cid poem is a case in point. His presence -in the field may be—almost certainly is—an historic event, common -enough in days when a militant bishop loved to head a charge; and the -chronicler may well have seen the exploits which he records. It by -no means follows, and it is extravagant to suppose, that the Spanish -_juglar_ merely filches from the _Chanson de Roland_. That he had -heard the _Chanson_ is not only probable, but likely; it is not, to -say the least, a necessary consequence that he annexed an episode as -familiar in Spain as elsewhere. Nothing, if you probe deep enough, is -new, and originality is a vain dream. But some margin must be left for -personal experience and the hazard of circumstance; and if we take -account of the chances of coincidence, the debt of Castilian to French -literature will appear in its due perspective. Nor must it be forgotten -that from a very early date there are traces of the reflex action of -Castilian upon French literature. They are not, indeed, many; but they -are authentic beyond carping. In the ancient _Fragment de la Vie de -Saint Fidès d'Agen_, which dates from the eleventh century, the Spanish -origin is frankly admitted:— - - "_Canson audi que bellantresca - Que fo de razon espanesca_"— - -"I heard a beauteous song that told of Spanish things." Or, once more, -in Adenet le Roi's _Cléomadès_, and in its offshoot the _Méliacin_ of -Girard d'Amiens, we meet with the wooden horse (familiar to readers -of _Don Quixote_) which bestrides the spheres and curvets among the -planets. Borrowed from the East, the story is transmitted to the -Greeks, is annexed by the Arabs, and is passed on through them to -Spain, whence Adenet le Roi conveys it for presentation to the western -world. - -More directly and more characteristically Spanish in its origin is the -royal epic entitled _Anséis de Carthage_. Here, after the manner of -your epic poet, chronology is scattered to the winds, and we learn that -Charlemagne left in Spain a king who dishonoured the daughter of one -of his barons; hence the invasion by the Arabs, whom the baron lets -loose upon his country as avengers. The basis of the story is purely -Spanish, being a somewhat clumsy arrangement of the legend of Roderic, -Cora, and Count Julian; the city of Carthage standing, it may be, for -the Spanish Cartagena. Hence it is clear that the mutual literary debt -of Spain and France is, at this early stage, unequally divided. Spain, -like the rest of the world, borrows freely; but, with the course of -time, the position is reversed. Molière, the two Corneilles, Rotrou, -Sorel, Scarron, and Le Sage, to mention but a few eminent names at -hazard, readjust the balance in favour of Spain; and the inexhaustible -resources of the Spanish theatre, which supply the arrangements -of scores of minor French dramatists, are but a small part of the -literature whose details are our present concern. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] See Milá y Fontanals, _Los Trovadores en España_ (Barcelona, 1889), -and the same writer's _Resenya histórica y crítica dels antichs poetas -catalans_ in the third volume of his _Obras completas_ (Barcelona, -1890). - - - - - CHAPTER II - - THE ANONYMOUS AGE - - 1150-1220 - - -In Spain, as in all countries where it is possible to observe the -origin and the development of letters, the earliest literature bears -the stamp of influences which are either epic or religious. These -primitive pieces are characterised by a vein of popular, unconscious -poetry, with scarce a touch of personal artistry; and the ascription -which refers one or other of them to an individual writer is, for -the most part, arbitrary. Insufficiency of data makes it impossible -to identify the oldest literary performance in Spanish Romance. Jews -like Judah ben Samuel the Levite, and _trovadores_ like Rambaud de -Vaqueiras, arabesque their verses with Spanish tags and refrains; -but these are whimsies. Our choice lies rather between the _Misterio -de los Reyes Magos_ (Mystery of the Magian Kings) and the so-called -_Poema del Cid_ (Poem of the Cid). Experts differ concerning their -respective dates; but the liturgical derivation of the _Misterio_ -inclines one to hold it for the elder of the two. If Lidforss were -right in attributing it to the eleventh century, the play would rank -among the first in any modern language. Amador de los Ríos dates it -still further back. As these pretensions are excessive, the known facts -may be briefly given. The _Misterio_ follows upon a commentary on -the Lamentations of Jeremiah, written by a canon of Auxerre, Gilibert -l'Universel, who died in 1134; and its existence was first denoted at -the end of the last century by Felipe Fernández Vallejo, Archbishop of -Santiago de Compostela between 1798 and 1800, who correctly classified -it as a dramatic scene to be given on the Feast of the Epiphany, and -considered it a version from some Latin original. Both conjectures -have proved just. Throughout Europe the Christian theatre derives from -the Church, and the early plays are but a lay vernacular rendering of -models studied in the sanctuary. Simplified as the liturgy now is, -the Mass itself, the services of Palm Sunday and Good Friday, are the -unmistakable _débris_ of an elaborate sacred drama. - -The Spanish _Misterio_ proceeds from one of the Latin offices used at -Limoges, Rouen, Nevers, Compiègne, and Orleans, with the legend of the -Magi for a motive; and these, in turn, are dramatic renderings of pious -traditions, partly oral, and partly amplifications of the apocryphal -_Protevangelium Jacobi Minoris_ and the _Historia de Nativitate Mariæ -et de Infantiâ Salvatoris_.[2] These Franco-Latin liturgical plays, -here mentioned in the probable order of their composition during the -eleventh and twelfth centuries, reached Spain through the Benedictines -of Cluny; and as in each original redaction there is a distinct advance -upon its immediate predecessor, so in the Spanish rendering these -primitive exemplars are developed. In the Limoges version there is -no action, the rudimentary dialogue consisting in the allotment of -liturgical phrases among the personages; in the Rouen office, the -number of actors is increased, and Herod, though he does not appear, is -mentioned; a still later redaction brings the shepherds on the scene. -The Spanish _Misterio_ reaches us as a fragment of some hundred and -fifty lines, ending at the moment when the rabbis consult their sacred -books upon Herod's appeal to - - "_the prophecies - Which Jeremiah spake_." - -Its _provenance_ is proved by the inclusion of three Virgilian lines -(_Æneid_, viii. 112-114), lifted by the arranger of the Orleans rite. -The Magi are mentioned by name, and one speech is given by Gaspar: -important points which help to fix the date of writing. A passage -in Bede speaks of Melchior, _senex et canus_; of Baltasar, _fuscus, -integre barbatus_; of Gaspar, _juvenis imberbis_; but this appears to -be interpolated. The names likewise appear in the famous sixth-century -mosaic of the Church of Sant' Apollinare della Città at Ravenna; -and here, again, the insertion is probably a pious afterthought. If -Hartmann be justified in his contention, that the traditional names of -the Magi were not in vogue till after the alleged discovery of their -remains at Milan in 1158, the Spanish _Misterio_ can be, at best, no -older than the end of the twelfth century. - -Enough of it remains to show that the Spanish workman improved upon his -models. He elaborates the dramatic action, quickens the dialogue with -newer life, and gives his scene an ampler, a more vivid atmosphere. -Led by the heavenly star, the three Magi first appear separately, then -together; they celebrate the birth of Christ, whom they seek to adore, -at the end of their thirteen days' pilgrimage. Encountering Herod, -they confide to him their mission; the King conjures his "abbots" -(rabbis), counsellors, and soothsayers to search the mystic books, and -to say whether the Magis' tale be true. The passages between Herod -and his rabbis are marked by intensity and passion, far exceeding the -Franco-Latin models in dramatic force; and there is a corresponding -progress of mechanism, distribution, and rapidity. - -There is even a breath of the critical spirit wholly absent from -all other early mysteries, which accept the miraculous sign of the -star with a simple, unquestioning faith. In our play, the first and -third Magi wish to observe it another night, while the second King -would fain watch it for three entire nights. Lastly, the scale of the -_Misterio_ is larger than that of any predecessor; the personages are -not huddled upon the scene at once, but appear in appropriate, dramatic -order, delivering more elaborate speeches, and expressing at greater -length more individual emotions. This fragmentary piece, written in -octosyllabics, forms the foundation-stone of the Spanish theatre; and -from it are evolved, in due progression, "the light and odour of the -flowery and starry _Autos_" which were to enrapture Shelley. Important -and venerable as is the _Misterio_, its freer treatment of the liturgy, -its effectual blending of realism with devotion, and its swiftness of -action are so many arguments against its reputed antiquity. It is still -old if we adopt the conclusion that it was written some twenty years -before the _Poema del Cid_. - -This misnamed epic, no unworthy fellow to the _Chanson de Roland_, is -the first great monument of Spanish literature. Like the _Misterio -de los Reyes Magos_, like so many early pieces, the _Poema del Cid_ -reaches us maimed and mutilated. The beginning is lost; a page in the -middle, containing some fifty lines following upon verse 2338, has -gone astray from our copy; and the end has been retouched by unskilful -fingers. The unique manuscript in which the _cantar_ exists belongs to -the fourteenth century: so much is now settled after infinite disputes. -The original composition is thought to date from about the middle third -of the twelfth century (1135-75), some fifty years after the Cid's -death at Valencia in 1099. Hence the _Poem of the Cid_ stands almost -midway between the _Chanson de Roland_ and the _Niebelungenlied_. -Nevertheless, in its surviving shape it is the result of innumerable -retouches which amount to botching. Its authorship is more than -doubtful, for the Per Abbat who obtrudes in the closing lines is, -like the Turoldus of _Roland_, the mere transcriber of an unfaithful -copy. Our gratitude to Per Abbat is dashed with regret for his -slapdash methods. The assonants are roughly handled, whole phrases are -unintelligently repeated, are transferred from one line to another, or -are thrust out from the text, and in some cases two lines are crushed -into one. The prevailing metre is the Alexandrine or fourteen-syllabled -verse, probably adopted in conscious imitation of that Latin chronicle -on the conquest of Almería which first reveals the national champion -under his popular title— - - "_Ipse Rodericus, Mio Cid semper vocatus, - De quo cantatur, quod ab hostibus haud superatus._" - -However that may be, the normal measure is reproduced with curious -infelicity. Some lines run to twenty syllables, some halt at ten, and -it cannot be doubted that many of these irregularities are results of -careless copying. Still, to Per Abbat we owe the preservation of the -Cid _cantar_ as we owe to Sánchez its issue in 1779, more than half a -century before any French _chanson de geste_ was printed. - -The Spanish epic has a twofold theme—the exploits of the exiled Cid, -and the marriage of his two (mythical) daughters to the Infantes de -Carrión. Diffused through Europe by the genius of Corneille, who -conveyed his conception from Guillén de Castro, the legendary Cid -differs hugely from the Cid of history. Uncritical scepticism has -denied his existence; but Cervantes, with his good sense, hit the white -in the first part of _Don Quixote_ (chapter xlix.). Unquestionably -the Cid lived in the flesh: whether or not his alleged achievements -occurred is another matter. Irony has incidentally marked him for its -own. The mercenary in the pay of Zaragozan emirs is fabled as the -model Spanish patriot; the plunderer of churches becomes the flower of -orthodoxy; the cunning intriguer who rifled Jews and mocked at treaties -is transfigured as the chivalrous paladin; the unsentimental trooper -who never loved is delivered unto us as the typical _jeune premier_. -Lastly, the mirror of Spanish nationality is best known by his Arabic -title (_Sidi_ = lord). Yet two points must be kept in mind: the facts -which discredit him are reported by hostile Arab historians; and, -again, the Cid is entitled to be judged by the standard of his country -and his time. So judged, we may accept the verdict of his enemies, who -cursed him as "a miracle of the miracles of God and the conqueror of -banners." Ruy Diaz de Bivar—to give him his true name—was something -more than a freebooter whose deeds struck the popular fancy: he stood -for unity, for the supremacy of Castile over León, and his example -proved that, against almost any odds, the Spaniards could hold their -own against the Moors. In the long night between the disaster of -Alarcos and the crowning triumph of Navas de Tolosa, the Cid's figure -grew glorious as that of the man who had never despaired of his -country, and in the hour of victory the legend of his inspiration was -not forgotten. From his death at Valencia in 1099, his memory became a -national possession, embellished by popular poetic fancy. - -In the _Poema_ the treatment is obviously modelled upon the _Chanson de -Roland_. But there is a fixed intent to place the Spaniard first. The -Cid is pictured as more human than Roland: he releases his prisoners -without ransom; he gives them money so that they may reach their homes. -Charlemagne, in the _Chanson_, destroys the idols in the mosques, -baptizes a hundred thousand Saracens by force, hangs or flays alive -the recalcitrant; the Cid shows such humanity to a conquered province -that on his departure the Moors burst forth weeping, and pray for his -prosperous voyage. The machinery in both cases is very similar. As the -archangel Gabriel appears to Charlemagne, he appears likewise to the -Cid Campeador. Bishop Turpin opens the battle in _Roland_, and Bishop -Jerome heads the charge for Spain. Roland and Ruy Diaz are absolved -and exhorted to the same effect, and the resemblance of the epithet -_curunez_ applied to the French bishop is too close to the _coronado_ -of the Spaniard to be accidental. But allowing for the fact that the -Spanish _juglar_ borrows his framework, his performance is great by -virtue of its simplicity, its strength, its spirit and fire. Whether -he deals with the hungry loyalty of the Cid in exile, or his reception -into favour by an ingrate king; whether he celebrates the overthrow of -the Count of Barcelona or the surrender of Valencia; whether he sings -the nuptials of Elvira and Sol with the Infantes de Carrión, or the -avenging Cid who seeks reparation from his craven son-in-law, the touch -is always happy and is commonly final. - -There is an unity of conception and of language which forbids our -accepting the _Poema_ as the work of several hands; and the division -of the poem into separate _cantares_ is managed with a discretion -which argues a single artistic intelligence. The first part closes -with the marriage of the hero's daughters; the second with the shame -of the Infantes de Carrión, and the proud announcement that the kings -of Spain are sprung from the Cid's loins. In both the singer rises to -the level of his subject, but his chiefest gust is in the recital of -some brilliant deed of arms. Judge him when, in a famous passage well -rendered by Ormsby, he sings the charge of the Cid at Alcocer:— - - "_With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low, - With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow, - All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe. - And he that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out, - And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout, - 'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity! - The Champion of Bivar is here—Ruy Diaz—I am he!' - Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight, - Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white; - Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow; - And, when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go. - It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day; - The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay; - The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red; - The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead; - While Moors call on Muhammad, and 'St. James!' the Christians cry._" - -Indubitably this (and it were easy to match it elsewhere in the -_Poema_) is the work of an original genius who redeems his superficial -borrowings of incident from _Roland_ by a treatment all his own. That -he knew the French models is evident from his skilful conveyance of the -bear episode in _Ider_ to his own pages, where the Cid encounters the -beast as a lion. But the language shows no hint of French influence, -and both thought and expression are profoundly national. The poet's -name is irrecoverable, but the internal evidence points strongly to -the conclusion that he came from the neighbourhood of Medina Celi. -The surmise that he was an Asturian rests solely upon the absence of -the diphthong _ue_ from his lines, an inference on the face of it -unwarrantable. Against this is the topographical minuteness with which -the poet reports the sallies of the Cid in the districts of Castejón -and Alcocer; his marked ignorance of the country round Zaragoza and -Valencia, his detailed description of the central episode—the outrage -upon the Cid's daughters in the wood of Corpes, near Berlanga; and -the important fact that the four chief itineraries in the _Poema_ -are charged with minutiæ from Molina to San Esteban de Gormaz, while -they grow vague and more confused as they extend towards Burgos and -Valencia. The most probable conjecture, then, is that the unknown maker -of this primitive masterpiece came from the Valle de Arbujuelo; and -it is worth adding that this opinion is supported by the authority -of Sr. Menéndez Pidal. Perhaps the greatest testimony to the early -poet's worth is to be found in this: that his conception of his hero -has outlived the true historic Cid, and has forced the child of his -imagination upon the acceptance of mankind. - -Even more fantastic is the personality of Ruy Diaz as rendered by -the anonymous compiler of the _Crónica Rimada_ (Rhymed Chronicle of -Events in Spain from the Death of King Pelayo to Ferdinand the Great, -and more especially of the Adventures of the Cid). The composition -which bears this clumsy and inappropriate title is better named the -_Cantar de Rodrigo_, and consists of 1125 lines, preceded by a scrap -of rugged prose. Not till after digressions into other episodes, -and irrelevant stories of Miro and Bernardo, Bishops of Palencia, -probably fellow-townsmen of the compiler, does the Cid appear. He is -no longer, as in the _Poema_, a popular hero, idealised from historic -report; he is a purely imaginary figure, incrusted with a mass of -fables accumulated in course of time. At the age of twelve he slays -Gómez Górmaz (an almost impossible style, compounded of a patronymic -and the name of a castle belonging to the Cid), is claimed by the -dead man's daughter, weds her, vanquishes the Moors, and leads his -King's—Fernando's—troops to the gates of Paris, defeating the Count -of Savoy upon the road. One legend is heaped upon another, and the -poem, the end of which is lost, breaks off with the Pope's request -for a year's truce, which Fernando, acting as ever upon the Cid's -advice, magnanimously extends for twelve years. It is hard to say -whether the _Cantar de Rodrigo_ as we have it is the production of -a single composer, or whether it is a patchwork by different hands, -arranged from earlier poems, and eked out by prose stories and by oral -traditions. The versification is that of the simple sixteen-syllabled -line, each hemistich of which forms a typical _romance_ line. This -in itself is a sign of its later date, and to this must be added -the traces of deliberate imitation of the _Poema_, and the writer's -familiarity with such modern devices as heraldic emblems. Further, -the use of a Provençal form like _gensor_, the unmistakable tokens of -French influence, the anticipation of the metre of the clerkly poems, -the writer's frank admission of earlier songs on the same subject, -the metamorphosis of the Cid into a feudal baron, and, above all, the -decadent spirit of the entire work: these are tokens which imply a -relative modernity. Much of the obscurity of language, which has been -mistaken for archaism, is simply due to the defects of the manuscript; -and the evidence goes to show that the _Rodrigo_, put together in the -last decade of the twelfth century or the first of the thirteenth, was -retouched in the fourteenth by Spanish _juglares_ humiliated by the -recent French invasions. Even so, much of the primitive _pastiche_ -remains, and the _Rodrigo_, which is mentioned in the _General -Chronicle_, interests us as being the fountain-head of those _romances_ -on the Cid whose collection we owe to that enthusiastic and most -learned investigator, Madame Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos. Far -inferior in merit and interest to the _Poema_, the _Rodrigo_ ranks with -it as representative of the submerged mass of _cantares de gesta_, and -is rightly valued as the venerable relic of a lost school. - -To these succeed three anonymous poems, the _Libro de Apolonio_ (Book -of Apollonius), the _Vida de Santa María Egipciaqua_ (Life of St. Mary -the Egyptian), and the _Libre dels Tres Reyes dorient_ (Book of the -Three Eastern Kings), all discovered in one manuscript in the Escurial -Library by Pedro José Pidal, and first published by him in 1844. The -story of Apollonius, supposed to be a translation of a Greek _romance_, -filters into European literature by way of the _Gesta Romanorum_, -is found even in Icelandic and Danish versions, and is familiar to -English readers of _Pericles_. The nameless Spanish arranger of the -thirteenth century (probably a native of Aragón) gives the story of -Apollonius' adventures with force and clearness, anticipating in the -character of Tarsiana the type of Preciosa, the heroine of Cervantes' -_Gitanilla_ and of Weber's opera. Unfortunately the closing tags of -moralisings on the vanity of life destroy the effect which the writer -has produced by his free translation. His text is suffused with -Provençalisms, and his mono-rhymed quatrains of fourteen syllables -are evidence of French or Provençal origin. This metrical novelty, -extending over more than six hundred stanzas, is properly regarded by -the author as his chief distinction, and he implores God and the Virgin -to guide him in the exercise of the new mastery (_nueva maestría_). It -is fair to add that his experiment has the interest of novelty, that -it succeeded beyond measure in its time, and that its monotonous vogue -endured for some two hundred years. - -To the same period belongs the _Vida de Santa María Egipciaqua_, the -earliest Castilian example of verses of nine syllables. In substance it -is a version of the _Vie de Saint Marie l'Egyptienne_, ascribed without -much reason to the veritable Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste (? -1175-1253), among whose _Carmina Anglo-Normannica_ the French original -is interpolated. The Spanish version follows the French lead with -almost pedantic exactitude; but the metre, new and well suited to the -common ear, is handled with an easy grace remarkable in a first effort. -As happens with other works of this time, the title of the short _Libre -dels Tres Reyes dorient_ is misleading. The visit of the Magi is -briefly dismissed in the first fifty lines, the poem turning chiefly -upon the Flight into Egypt, the miracle wrought upon the leprous child -of the robber, and the identification of the latter with the repentant -thief of the New Testament. Like its predecessor, this legend is given -in nine-syllabled verse, and is undoubtedly borrowed from a French or -Provençal source not yet discovered. - -In the _Disputa del Alma y el Cuerpo_ (Argument betwixt Body and Soul), -a subject which passes into all mediæval literatures from a copy of -Latin verses styled _Rixa Animi et Corporis_, there is a recurrence, -though with innumerable variants of measure, to the Alexandrine type. -Thus it is sought to reproduce the music of the model, an Anglo-Norman -poem, written in rhymed couplets of six syllables, and wrongly -attributed to Walter Map. With it should go the _Debate entre el Agua -y el Vino_ (Debate between Water and Wine), and the first Castilian -lyric, _Razón feita d'Amor_ (the Lay of Love). Composed in verses of -nine syllables, the poem deals with the meeting of two lovers, their -colloquy, interchanges, and separation. Both pieces, discovered within -the last seventeen years by M. Morel-Fatio, are the productions of a -single mind. It is tempting to identify the writer with the Lope de -Moros mentioned in the final line, "_Lupus me feçit de Moros_"; still -the likelihood is that, here as elsewhere, the copyist has but signed -his transcription. Whoever the author may have been—and the internal -evidence tends to show that he was a clerk familiar with French, -Provençal, Italian, or Portuguese exemplars—he shines by virtue -of qualities which are akin to genius. His delicacy and variety of -sentiment, his finish of workmanship, his deliberate lyrical effects, -announce the arrival of the equipped artist, the craftsman no longer -content with rhymed narration, the singer with a personal, distinctive -note. Here was a poet who recognised that in literature—the least -moral of the arts—the end justifies the means; hence he transformed -the material which he borrowed, made it his own possession, and -conveyed into Castile a new method adapted to her needs. But time and -language were not yet ripe, and the Spanish lyric flourished solely -in Galicia: it was not to be transplanted at a first attempt. Yet the -attempt was worth the trial; for it closes the anonymous period with -a triumph to which, if we except the _Poema del Cid_, it can show no -fellow. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[2] Joannes Karl Thilo, _Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti_. Lipsiæ, -1833. Pp. 254-261, 388-393. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - THE AGE OF ALFONSO THE LEARNED, AND OF SANCHO - - 1220-1300 - - -If we reject the claim of Lope de Moros to be the author of the -_Razón feita d'Amor_, the first Castilian poet whose name reaches us -is GONZALO DE BERCEO (?1198-?1264), a secular priest attached to the -Benedictine monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, in the diocese of -Calahorra. A few details are known of him. He was certainly a deacon in -1220, and his name occurs in documents between 1237 and 1264. He speaks -of his advanced age in the _Vida de Santa Oria, Virgen_, his latest and -perhaps most finished work; and his birthplace, Berceo, is named in his -_Historia del Señor San Millán de Cogolla_, as in his rhymed biography -of _St. Dominic of Silas_. His copiousness runs to some thirteen -thousand lines, including, besides the works already named, the -_Sacrificio de la Misa_ (Sacrifice of the Mass), the _Martirio de San -Lorenzo_ (Martyrdom of St. Lawrence), the _Loores de Nuestra Señora_ -(Praises of Our Lady), the _Signos que aparecerán ante del Juicio_ -(Signs visible before the Judgment), the _Milagros de Nuestra Señora_ -(Miracles of Our Lady), the _Duelo que hizo la Virgen María el día de -la Pasión de su hijo Jesucristo_ (The Virgin's Lament on the day of her -Son's Passion), and three hymns to the Holy Ghost, the Virgin, and God -the Father. In most editions of Berceo there is appended to his verses -a poem in his praise, attributed to an unknown writer of the fourteenth -century. This poem is, in fact, conjectured to be an invention of -Tomás Antonio Sánchez, the earliest editor of Berceo's complete works -(1779). The chances are that Berceo and his writings had passed out of -remembrance within two hundred years of his death, and he was evidently -unknown to Santillana in the fifteenth century. But a brief extract -from him is given in the _Moisén Segundo_ (Second Moses) of Ambrosio -Gómez, published in 1653. With the exception of the _Martirio de San -Lorenzo_, of which the end is lost, all Berceo's writings have been -preserved, and he suffers by reason of his exuberance. - -He sings in the vernacular, he declares, being too unlearned in the -Latin; but he has his little pretensions. Though he calls himself a -_juglar_, he marks the differences between his _dictados_ (poems) and -the _cantares_ (songs) of a plain _juglar_, and he vindicates his title -by that monotonous metre—the _cuaderna vía_—which was taken up in -the _Libro de Apolonio_ and became the model of all learned clerks in -the next generations. Berceo uses the rhythm with success, and if his -results are not splendid, it was not because he lacked perseverance. -On the contrary, his industry was only too formidable. And, as a -little of the mono-rhymed quatrain goes far, he must have perished had -he depended upon execution. Beside Dante's achievement, as Puymaigre -notes, the paraphrases of Berceo in the _Sacrificio de la Misa_ -(stanzas 250-266) seem thin and pale; but the comparison is unfair to -the earlier Castilian singer, who died in his obscure hamlet without -the advantage of Dante's splendid literary tradition. Berceo is -hampered by his lack of imagination, by the poverty of his conditions, -by the absence of models, by the narrow circle of his subjects, and by -the pious scruples which hindered him from arabesquing the original -design. Yet he possesses the gifts of simplicity and of unction, and -amid his long digressions into prosy theological commonplace there -are flashes of mystic inspiration unmatched by any other poet of his -country and his time. Even when his versification, clear but hard, is -at its worst, he accomplishes the end which he desires by popularising -the pious legends which were dear to him. He was not—never could have -been—a great poet. But in his own way he was, if not an inventor, the -chief of a school, and the necessary predecessor of such devout authors -as Luis de León and St. Teresa. He was a pioneer in the field of devout -pastoral, with all the defects of the inexperienced explorer; and, -for the most part, he had nothing to guide him but his own uncultured -instinct. Some specimen of his work may be given in Hookham Frere's -little-known fragmentary version of the _Vida de San Millán_:— - - "_He walked those mountains wild, and lived within that nook - For forty years and more, nor ever comfort took - Of offer'd food or alms, or human speech a look; - No other saint in Spain did such a penance brook._ - - _For many a painful year he pass'd the seasons there, - And many a night consumed in penitence and prayer— - In solitude and cold, with want and evil fare, - His thoughts to God resigned, and free from human care._ - - _Oh! sacred is the place, the fountain and the hill, - The rocks where he reposed, in meditation still, - The solitary shades through which he roved at will: - His presence all that place with sanctity did fill._" - -This is Berceo in a very characteristic vein, dealing with his own -special saint in his chosen way—the way of the "new mastery"; and -he keeps to the same rhythm in the nine hundred odd stanzas which he -styles the _Milagros de Nuestra Señora_. Here his devotion inspires -him to more conscientious effort; and it has been sought to show -that Berceo takes his tales as he finds them in the _Miracles de la -Sainte Vierge_, by the French _trouvère_, Gautier de Coinci, Prior of -Vic-sur-Aisne (1177-1236). Certain it is that Gautier's source, the -Soissons manuscript, was known to Alfonso the Learned, who mentions it -in the sixty-first of his Galician songs as "a book full of miracles":— - - "_En Seixons ... un liuro a todo cheo de miragres._" - -There were doubtless earlier Latin collections—amongst others, Vincent -de Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ and Pothon's _Liber de miraculis -Sanctæ Dei Genitricis Mariæ_—which both Berceo and Alfonso used. But -since Alfonso, a middle-aged man when Berceo died, knew the Soissons -collection, it seems possible that Berceo also handled it. A close -examination of his text converts the bare possibility into something -approaching certainty. Of Berceo's twenty-five Marian legends, eighteen -are given by Gautier de Coinci, whose total reaches fifty-five. This -is not by itself final, for both writers might have selected them from -a common source. Yet there are convincing proofs of imitation in the -coincidences of thought and expression which are apparent in Gautier -and Berceo. These are too numerous to be accidental; and still more -weight must be given to the fact that in several cases where Gautier -invents a detail of his own wit, Berceo reproduces it. Taken in -conjunction with his known habit of strict adherence to his text, it -follows that Berceo took Gautier for his guide. He did what all the -world was doing in borrowing from the French, and in the _Virgin's -Lament_ he has the candour to confess the northern supremacy. - -Still, it would be wrong to think that Berceo contents himself with -mere servile reproduction, or that he trespasses in the manner of -a vulgar plagiary. Seven of his legends he seeks elsewhere than in -Gautier, and he takes it upon himself to condense his predecessor's -diffuse narration. Thus, where Gautier needs 1350 lines to tell the -legend of St. Ildefonsus, or 2090 to give the miracle of Theophilus, -Berceo confines himself to 108 and to 657 lines. Gautier will spare -you no detail; he will have you know the why, the when, the how, the -paltriest circumstance of his pious story. Beside him Berceo shines by -his power of selection, by his finer instinct for the essential, by -his relative sobriety of tone, by his realistic eye, by his variety of -resource in pure Castilian expression, by his richer melody, and by the -fleeter movement of his action. In a word, with all his imperfections, -Berceo approves himself the sounder craftsman of the two, and therefore -he finds thirty readers where the Prior of Vic-sur-Aisne finds one. -Small and few as his opportunities were, he rarely failed to use -them to an advantage; as in the invention of the singular rhymed -octosyllabic song—with its haunting refrain, _Eya velar!_—in the -_Virgin's Lament_ (stanzas 170-198). This argues a considerable lyrical -gift, and the pity is that the most of Berceo's editors should have -been at such pains to hide it from the reader. - -In the ten thousand lines of the _Libro de Alexandre_ are recounted -the imaginary adventures of the Macedonian king, as told in Gautier -de Lille's _Alexandreis_ and in the versions of Lambert de Tort and -Alexandre de Bernai. Traces of the Leonese dialect negative the -ascription to Berceo, and the Juan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga mentioned -in the last verses is a mere copyist. The _Poema de Fernán González_, -due to a monk of San Pedro de Arlanza, embodies many picturesque and -primitive legends in Berceo's manner. But the value of both these -compositions is slight. - -So much for verse. Castilian prose develops on parallel lines with -it. A very early specimen is the didactic treatise called the _Diez -Mandamientos_, written by a Navarrese monk, at the beginning of the -thirteenth century, for the use of confessors. Somewhat later follow -the _Anales Toledanos_, in two separate parts (the third is much more -recent), composed between the years 1220 and 1250. Rodrigo Jiménez -de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo (1170-1247), wrote a Latin _Historia -Gothica_, which begins with the Gothic invasion, and ends at the year -1243. Undertaken at the bidding of St. Ferdinand of Castile, this work -was summarised, and done into Castilian, probably by Jiménez de Rada -himself, under the title of the _Historia de los Godos_. Its date would -be the fourth decade of the thirteenth century, and to this same time -(1241) belongs the _Fuero Juzgo_ (_Forum Judicum_). This is a Castilian -version of a code of so-called Gothic laws, substantially Roman in -origin, given by St. Ferdinand (1200-1252) to the Spaniards settled in -Córdoba and other southern cities after the reconquest; but though of -extreme value to the philologer, its literary interest is too slight to -detain us here. Two most brilliant specimens of early Spanish prose -are the letters supposed to have been written by the dying Alexander -to his mother; and the accident of their being found in the manuscript -copied by Lorenzo Segura de Astorga has led to their being printed at -the end of the _Libro de Alexandre_. There is good reason for thinking -that they are not by the author of that poem; and, in truth, they -are mere translations. Both letters are taken from _Hunain ibn Ishāk -al-'Ibādī's_ Arabic collection of moral sentences; the first is found -in the _Bonium_ (so called from its author, a mythical King of Persia), -and the second on the Castilian version of the _Secretum Secretorum_, -of which the very title is reproduced as _Poridat de las Poridades_. -Further examples of progressive prose are found in the _Libro de los -doce Sabios_, which deals with the political education of princes, -and may have been drawn up by the direction of St. Ferdinand. But -the authorship and date of these compilations are little better than -conjectural. - -These are the preliminary essays in the stuff of Spanish prose. Its -permanent form was received at the hands of ALFONSO THE LEARNED -(1226-84), who followed his father, St. Ferdinand, to the Castilian -throne in 1252. Unlucky in his life, balked of his ambition to wear the -title of Emperor, at war with Popes, his own brothers, his children, -and his people, Alfonso has been hardly entreated after death. -Mariana, the greatest of Spanish historians, condenses the vulgar -verdict in a Tacitean phrase: _Dum cœlum considerat terra amissit_. -A mountain of libellous myth has overlaid Alfonso's fame. Of all the -anecdotes concerning him, the best known is that which reports him -as saying, "Had God consulted me at the creation of the world, He -would have made it differently." This deliberate invention is due -to Pedro IV. (the Ceremonious); and if Pedro foresaw the result, -he must have been a scoundrel of genius. Fortunately, nothing can -rob Alfonso of his right to be considered, not only as the father of -Castilian verse, but as the centre of all Spanish intellectual life. -Political disaster never caused his intellectual activity to slacken. -Like Bacon, he took all knowledge for his province, and in every -department he shone pre-eminent. Astronomy, music, philosophy, canon -and civil law, history, poetry, the study of languages: he forced his -people upon these untrodden roads. To catalogue the series of his -scientific enterprises, and to set down the names of his Jewish and -Arab collaborators, would give ample work to a bibliographer. Both the -_Tablas Alfonsis_ and the colossal _Libros del Saber de Astronomía_ -(Books on the Science of Astronomy) are packed with minute corrections -of Ptolemy, in whose system the learned King seems to have suspected -an error; but their present interest lies in the historic fact, that -with their compilation Castilian makes its first great stride in the -direction of exactitude and clearness. - -Similar qualities of precision and ease were developed in encyclopædic -treatises like the _Septenario_[3] which, together with the _Fuero -Juzgo_, Alfonso drew up in his father's lifetime; and in practical -guides such as the _Juegos de Açedrex, Dados, et Tablas_ (Book of -Chess, Dice, and Chequers). This miraculous activity astounded -contemporaries, and posterity has multiplied the wonder by attributing -well-nigh every possible anonymous work to the man whose real activity -is a marvel. It has been sought to prove him the author of the _Libro -de Alexandre_, the writer of Alexander's _Letters_, the compiler of -treatises on the chase, the translator of _Kalilah and Dimnah_, and -innumerable more pieces. Not one of these can be brought home to him, -and some belong to a later time. Ticknor, again, foists on Alfonso two -separate works each entitled the _Tesoro_, and the authorship has been -accepted upon that authority. It is therefore necessary to state the -real case. The one _Tesoro_ is a prose translation of Brunetto Latini's -_Li Livres dou Trésor_ made by Alfonso de Paredes and Pero Gómez, -respectively surgeon and secretary at the court of Sancho, Alfonso's -son and successor; the other _Tesoro_, with its prose preamble and -forty-eight stanzas, is a forgery vamped by some parasite in the train -of Alonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, during the fifteenth century. - -Alonso de Fuentes, writing three hundred years after Alfonso's death, -names him as author of a celebrated _romance_—"_I left behind my -native land_"; the rhythm and accentuation prove the lines to belong -to a fifteenth-century maker whose attribution of them to the King is -palpably dramatic. Great authorities accept as authentic the _Libro de -Querellas_ (Book of Plaints), which is represented by two fine stanzas -addressed to Diego Sarmiento, "brother and friend and vassal leal" of -"him whose foot was kissed by kings, him from whom queens sought alms -and grace." One is sorry to lose them, but they must be rejected. No -such book is known to any contemporary; the twelve-syllabled octave in -which the stanzas are written was not invented till a hundred years -later; and these two stanzas are simply fabrications by Pellicer, who -first published them in the seventeenth century in his _Memoir on the -House of Sarmiento_, with a view to flattering his patron. - -This to some extent clears the ground: but not altogether. Setting -aside minor legal and philosophic treatises which Alfonso may have -supervised, it remains to speak of more important matters. A great -achievement is the code called, from the number of its divisions, the -_Siete Partidas_ (Seven Parts). This name does not appear to have been -attached to the code till a hundred years after its compilation; but it -may be worth observing that the notion is implied in the name of the -_Septenario_, and that Alfonso, regarding the number seven as something -of mysterious potency, exhausts himself in citing precedents—the seven -days of the week, seven metals, seven arts, seven years that Jacob -served, seven lean years in Egypt, the seven-branched candlestick, -seven sacraments, and so on. The trait is characteristic of the time. -It would be a grave mistake to suppose that the _Siete Partidas_ in -any way resembles a modern book of statutes, couched in the technical -jargon of the law. Its primary object was the unification of the -various clashing systems of law which Alfonso encountered within his -unsettled kingdom; and this he accomplished with such success that all -subsequent Spanish legislation derives from the _Siete Partidas_, which -are still to some extent in force in the republican states of Florida -and Louisiana. But the design soon outgrows mere practical purpose, -and expands into dissertations upon general principles and the pettier -details of conduct. - -Sancho Panza, as Governor of Barataria, could not have bettered the -counsels of the _Siete Partidas_, whose very titles force a smile: -"What things men should blush to confess, and what _not_," "Why -no monk should study law or physics," "Why the King should abstain -from low talk," "Why the King should eat and drink moderately," "Why -the King's children should be taught to be cleanly," "How to draw -a will so that the witnesses shall not know its tenor," with other -less prudish discussions. The reading of this code is not merely -instructive and curious; apart from its dry humouristic savour, the -_Siete Partidas_ rises to a noble eloquence when the subject is the -common weal, the office of the ruler, his relations to his people, and -the interdependence of Church and State. No man, by his single effort, -could draw a code of such intricacy and breadth, and it is established -that Jacobo Ruiz and Fernán Martínez laboured on it; but Alfonso's is -the supreme intelligence which appoints and governs, and his is the -revising hand which leaves the text in its perfect verbal form. - -In history, too, Alfonso sought distinction; and he found it. The -_Crónica_ or _Estoria de Espanna_, composed between the years 1260 and -1268, the _General e grand Estoria_, begun in 1270, owe to him their -inspiration. The latter, ranging from the Creation to Apostolic times, -glances at such secular events as the Babylonian Empire and the fall -of Troy; the former extends from the peopling of Europe by the sons of -Japhet to the death of St. Ferdinand. Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and Lucas -de Tuy are the direct authorities, and their testimonies are completed -by elaborate references that stretch from Pliny to the _cantares de -gesta_. Moreover, the Arab chronicles are avowedly utilised in the -account of the Cid's exploits: "thus says Abenfarax in his Arabic -whence this history is derived." A singular circumstance is the -inferiority of style in these renderings from the Arabic. Elsewhere -a strange ignorance of Arabs and their history is shown by the -compiler's inclusion of such fables as Muhammad's crusade in Córdoba. -The inevitable conclusion is that the _Estorias_, like the _Siete -Partidas_, are compilations by several hands; and the idea is supported -by the fact that the prologue to the _Estoria de Espanna_ is scarcely -more than a translation of Jiménez de Rada's preface. - -Late traditions give the names of Alfonso's collaborators in one or -the other _History_ as Egidio de Zamora, Jofre de Loaysa, Martín de -Córdoba, Suero Pérez, Bishop of Zamora, and Garci Fernández de Toledo; -and even though these attributions be (as seems likely) a trifle -fantastical, they at least indicate a long-standing disbelief in the -unity of authorship. It is proved that Alfonso gathered from Córdoba, -Seville, Toledo, and Paris some fifty experts to translate Ptolemy's -_Quadri partitum_ and other astronomic treatises; it is natural that he -should organise a similar committee to put together the first history -in the Castilian language. Better than most of his contemporaries, -he knew the value of combination. As with astronomy so with history: -in both cases he conceived the scheme, in both cases he presided at -the redaction and stamped the crude stuff with his distinctive seal. -Judged by a modern standard, both _Estorias_ lend themselves to a -cheap ridicule; compared with their predecessors, they imply a finer -appreciation of the value of testimony, and this notable evolution of -the critical sense is matched by a manner that rises to the theme. Side -by side with a greater care for chronology, there is a keener edge of -patriotism which leads the compilers to embody in their text whole -passages of lost _cantares de gesta_. And these are no purple patches: -the expression is throughout dignified without pomp, and easy without -familiarity. Spanish prose sheds much of its uncouthness, and takes -its definitive form in such a passage as that upon the Joys of Spain: -"More than all, Spain is subtle,—ay! and terrible, right skilled in -conflict, mirthful in labour, stanch to her lord, in letters studious, -in speech courtly, fulfilled of gifts; never a land the earth overlong -to match her excellence, to rival her bravery; few in the world as -mighty as she." It may be lawful to believe that here we catch the -personal accent of the King. - -Compilations abound in which Alfonso is said to have shared, but they -are of less importance than his _Cantigas de Santa María_ (Canticles -of the Virgin)—four hundred and twenty pieces, written and set to -music in the Virgin's praise. Strictly speaking, these do not belong to -Castilian literature, being written in the elaborate Galician language, -which now survives as little better than a dialect. But they must be -considered if we are to form any just idea of Alfonso's accomplishments -and versatility. At the outset a natural question suggests itself: "Why -should the King of Castile, after drawing up his code in Castilian, -write his verses in Galician?" The answer is simple: "For the reason -that he was an artist." Velázquez, indeed, asserts that Alfonso was -reared in Galicia; but this is assertion, not evidence. The real motive -of the choice was the superior development of the Galician, which so -far outpassed the Castilian in flexibility and grace as to invite -comparison with the Provençal. Troubadours in full flight from the -Albigensian wars found grace at Alfonso's court; Aimeric de Belenoi, -Nat de Mons, Calvo, Riquier, Lunel, and more. - -That Alfonso wrote in Provençal seems probable enough, especially as -he derides the incapacity in this respect of his father's _trovador_, -Pero da Ponte; still, the two Provençal pieces which bear his name are -spurious, and are the work of Nat de Mons and Riquier. Howbeit, the -Provençal spell mastered him, and drove him to reproduce its elaborate -rhythms. The first impression given by the _Cantigas_ is one of unusual -metrical resource. Verses of four syllables, of five, octosyllabics, -hendecasyllabics, are among the singer's experiments. From the popular -_coplas_, not unlike the modern _seguidillas_, he strays to the -lumbering line of seventeen syllables; in five strophes he commits -an acrostic as the name _María_; and half a thousand years before -Matilda's lover went to Göttingen, he anticipates Canning's freak -in the _Anti-Jacobin_ by splitting up a word to achieve a difficult -rhyme; he abuses the refrain by insistent repetition, so as to give -the echo of a litany, or fit the ready-made melody of a _juglar_ -(clxxii.);—puerilities perhaps, but characteristic of a school and an -epoch. Subjects are taken as they come, preference being given to the -more universal version, and local legends taking a secondary place. -A living English poet has merited great praise for his _Ballad of a -Nun_. Six hundred years before Mr. Davidson, Alfonso gave six splendid -variants of the famous story. Two men of genius have treated the legend -of the statue and the ring—Prosper Mérimée in his _Vénus d'Ille_, and -Heine in _Les Dieux en Exile_—with splendid effect. Alfonso (xlii.) -anticipated them by rendering the story in verses of incomparable -beauty, pregnant with mystery and terror. - -For his part, Alfonso rifles Vincent de Beauvais, Gautier de Coinci, -Berceo, and, in his encyclopædic way, borrows a hint from the old -Catalan _Planctus Mariæ Virginis_; but his touch transmutes bold -hagiology to measures of harmony and distinction. He was not—it -cannot be claimed for him—a poet of supreme excellence; yet, if he -fail to reach the topmost peaks, he vindicates his choice of a medium -by outstripping his predecessors, and by pointing the path to those -who succeed him. With the brain of a giant he combined the heart of -a little child, and, technique apart, this amalgam which wrought his -political ruin was his poetic salvation. Still an artist, even when -he stumbles into the ditch, his metrical dexterity persists in such -brutally erotic and satiric verse as he contributes to the Vatican -_Cancioneiro_ (Nos. 61-79). Withal, he survives by something better -than mere virtuosity; for his simplicity and sincere enthusiasm, -sundered from the prevalent affectation of his contemporaries, ensure -him a place apart. - -His example in so many fields of intellectual exercise was followed. -What part he took (if any) in preparing _Kalilah and Dimnah_ is not -settled. The Spanish version, probably made before Alfonso's accession -to the throne, derives straight from the Arabic, which, in its turn, -is rendered by Abd Allah ibn al-Mukaffa (754-775) from Barzoyeh's lost -Pehlevī (Old Persian) translations of the original Sanskrit. This -last has disappeared, though its substance survives in the remodelled -_Panchatantra_, and from it descend the variants that are found in -almost all European literatures. The period of the Spanish rendering is -hard to determine exactly, but 1251 is the generally accepted date, and -its vogue is proved by the use made of it by Raimond de Béziers in his -Latin version (1313). It does not appear to have been used by Raimond -Lull (1229-1315), the celebrated _Doctor illuminatus_, in his Catalan -Beast-Romance, inserted in the _Libre de Maravelles_ about the year -1286. The value of the Spanish lies in the excellence of the narrative -manner, and in its reduction of the oriental apologue to terms of the -vernacular. Alfonso's brother, Fadrique, followed the lead in his -_Engannos é Assayamientos de las Mogieres_ (Crafts and Wiles of Women), -which is referred to 1253, and is translated from the Arabic version of -a lost Sanskrit original, after the fashion of _Kalilah and Dimnah_. - -Translation is continued at the court of Alfonso's son and successor, -SANCHO IV. (d. 1295), who, as already noted, commands a version of -Brunetto Latini's _Tesoro_; and the encyclopædic mania takes shape -in a work entitled the _Luçidario_, a series of one hundred and six -chapters, which begins by discussing "What was the first thing in -heaven and earth?" and ends with reflections on the habits of animals -and the whiteness of negroes' teeth. The _Gran Conquista de Ultramar_ -(Great Conquest Oversea) is a perversion of the history originally -given by Guillaume de Tyr (d. 1184), mixed with other fabulous -elements, derived perhaps from the French, and certainly from the -Provençal, which thus comes for the first time in direct contact with -Castilian prose. The fragmentary Provençal _Chanson d'Antioche_ which -remains can scarcely be the original form in which it was composed by -its alleged author, Grégoire de Bechada: at best it is a _rifacimento_ -of a previous draught. But that it was used by the Spanish translator -has been amply demonstrated by M. Gaston Paris. The translator has been -identified with King Sancho himself; the safer opinion is that the work -was undertaken by his order during his last days, and was finished -after his death. - -With these should be classed compilations like the _Book of Good -Proverbs_, translated from Hunain ibn Ishāk al-'Ibādī; the _Bonium_ -or _Bocados de Oro_, from the collections of Abu 'l Wafā Mubashshir -ibn Fātik, part of which was Englished by Lord Rivers, and thence -conveyed into Caxton's _Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers_; and -the _Flowers of Philosophy_, a treatise composed of thirty-eight -chapters of fictitious moral sentences uttered by a tribe of thinkers, -culminating—fitly enough for a Spanish book—in Seneca of Córdoba. -In dealing with these works it is impossible to speak precisely as to -source and date: the probability is that they were put together during -the reign of Sancho, who was his father's son in more than the literal -sense. Like Alfonso's, his ambition was to force his people into the -intellectual current of the age, and in default of native masterpieces -he supplied them with foreign models whence the desired masterpieces -might proceed; and, like his father, Sancho himself entered the lists -with his _Castigos y Documentos_ (Admonitions and Exhortations), -ninety chapters designed for the guidance of his son. This production, -disfigured by the ostentatious erudition of the Middle Ages, is saved -from death by its shrewd common-sense, by its practical counsel, and -by the admirable purity and lucidity of style that formed the most -valuable asset in Sancho's heritage. With him the literature of the -thirteenth century comes to a dramatic close: the turbulent fighter, -whose rebellion cut short his father's days, becomes the conscientious -promoter of his father's literary tradition. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[3] So called because it embraced the seven subjects of learning: the -_trivio_ (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and the _quadrivio_ (music, -astrology, physics, and metaphysics). - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - THE DIDACTIC AGE - - 1301-1400 - - -Only the barest mention need be made of a "clerkly poem" called the -_Vida de San Ildefonso_ (Life of St. Ildephonsus), a dry narrative -of over a thousand lines, probably written soon after 1313, when the -saint's feast was instituted by the Council of Peñafiel. Its author -declares that he once held the prebend of Úbeda, and that he had -previously rhymed the history of the Magdalen. No other information -concerning him exists; nor is it eagerly sought, for the Prebendary's -poem is a colourless imitation of Berceo, without Berceo's visitings of -inspiration. More merit is shown in the _Proverbios en Rimo de Salomón_ -(Solomon's Rhymed Proverbs), moralisings on the vanity of life, -written, with many variations, in the manner of Berceo. The author of -these didactic, satiric verses is announced in the oldest manuscript -copy as one Pero Gómez, son of Juan Fernández. He has been absurdly -confounded with an ancient "Gómez, _trovador_," and, more plausibly, -with the Pero Gómez who collaborated with Paredes in translating -Brunetto Latini's _Tesoro_; but the name is too common to allow of -precise opinion as to the real author, whom some have taken for Pero -López de Ayala. Whoever the writer, he possessed a pleasant gift of -satirical observation, and a knowledge of men and affairs which he puts -to good use, with few lapses upon the merely trite and banal. - -Of more singular interest is the incomplete _Poema de José_ or -_Historia de Yusuf_, named by the writer, _Al-hadits de Jusuf_. This -curious monument, due doubtless to some unconverted Mudéjar of Toledo, -is the typical example of the literature called _aljamiada_. The -language is correct Castilian of the time, and the metre, sustained for -312 stanzas, is the right Bercean: the peculiarity lies in the use of -Arabic characters in the phonetic transcription. A considerable mass -of such compositions has been discovered (and in the discovery England -has taken part); but of them all the _Historia de Yusuf_ is at once -the best and earliest. It deals with the story of Joseph in Egypt, not -according to the Old Testament narrative, but in general conformity -with the version found in the eleventh _sura_ of the Ku'rān, though -the writer does not hesitate to introduce variants and amplifications -of his own invention, as (stanza 31) when the wolf speaks to the -patriarch whose son it is supposed to have slain. The persecution -of Joseph by Potiphar's wife, who figures as Zulija (Zuleikah), is -told with considerable spirit, and the mastery of the _cuaderna vía_ -(the Bercean metre of four fourteen-syllabled lines rhymed together) -is little short of amazing in a foreigner. At whiles an Arabic word -creeps into the text, and the invocation of Allah, with which the poem -opens, is repeated in later stanzas; but, taken as a whole, apart from -the oriental colouring inseparable from the theme, there is a marked -similarity of tone between the _Historia de Yusuf_ and its predecessors -the "clerkly poems." An oriental subject handled by an Arab gave the -best possible opportunity for introducing orientalism in the treatment; -the occasion is eschewed, and the lettered Arab studiously follows in -the wake of Berceo and the other Castilian models known to him. There -could scarcely be more striking evidence of the irresistible progress -of Castilian modes of thought and expression. The Arabic influence, if -it ever existed, was already dead. - -JUAN RUIZ, Archpriest of Hita, near Guadalajara, is the greatest name -in early Castilian literature. The dates of his birth and death are -not known. A line in his _Libro de Cantares_ (stanza 1484) inclines us -to believe that, like Cervantes, he was a native of Alcalá de Henares; -but Guadalajara also claims him for her own, and a certain Francisco -de Torres reports him as living there so late as 1415. This date is -incompatible with other ascertained facts in Ruiz' career. We learn -from a note at the end of his poems that "this is the book of the -Archpriest of Hita, which he wrote, being imprisoned by order of the -Cardinal Don Gil, Archbishop of Toledo." Now, Gil Albornoz held the -see between the years 1337 and 1367; and another clerk, named Pedro -Fernández, was Archpriest of Hita in 1351. Most likely Juan Ruiz was -born at the close of the thirteenth century, and died, very possibly -in gaol, before his successor was appointed. On the showing of his -own writings, Juan Ruiz was a cleric of irregular life at a time when -disorder was at its worst, and his thirteen years in prison proclaim -him a Goliard of the loosest kind. He testifies against himself with -a splendid candour; and yet there have been critics who insisted on -idealising this libidinous clerk into a smug Boanerges. There was -never a more grotesque travesty, a more purblind misunderstanding of -facts and the man. - -The Archpriest was a fellow of parts and of infinite fancy. He -does, indeed, allege that he supplies, "incentives to good conduct, -injunctions towards salvation, to be understanded of the people and -to enable folk to guard against the trickeries which some practise in -pursuit of foolish loves." He comes pat with a text from Scripture -quoted for his own purpose:—"_Intellectum tibi dabo, et instruam te in -via hac, qua gradieris._" He passes from David to Solomon, and, with -his tongue in his cheek, transcribes his versicle:—"_Initium sapientiæ -timor Domini._" St. John, Job, Cato, St. Gregory, the Decretals—he -calls them all into court to witness his respectable intention, and at -a few lines' distance he unmasks in a passage which prudish editors -have suppressed:—"Yet, since it is human to sin, if any choose -the ways of love (which I do not recommend), the modes thereof are -recounted here;" and so forth, in detail the reverse of edifying. -Ovid's erotic verses are freely rendered, the Archpriest's unsuccessful -battle against love is told, and the liturgy is burlesqued in the -procession of "clerks and laymen and monks and nuns and duennas and -gleemen to welcome love into Toledo." The attempt to exhibit Ruiz as an -edifying citizen is, on the face of it, absurd. - -Much that he wrote is lost, but the seventeen hundred stanzas that -remain suffice for any reputation. Juan Ruiz strikes the personal -note in Castilian literature. To distinguish the works of the clerkly -masters, to declare with certainty that this Castilian piece was -written by Alfonso and that by Sancho, is a difficult and hazardous -matter. Not so with Ruiz. The stamp of his personality is unmistakable -in every line. He was bred in the old tradition, and he long abides -by the rules of the _mester de clerecía_; but he handles it with a -freedom unknown before, imparts to it a new flexibility, a variety, a -speed, a music beyond all precedent, and transfuses it with a humour -which anticipates Cervantes. Nay, he does more. In his prose preface he -asserts that he chiefly sought to give examples of prosody, of rhyme -and composition:—"_Dar algunas lecciones, é muestra de versificar, -et rimar et trobar._" And he followed the bent of his natural genius. -He had an infinitely wider culture than any of his predecessors in -verse. All that they knew he knew—and more; and he treated them in -the true cavalier spirit of the man who feels himself a master. His -famous description of the tent of love is manifestly suggested by the -description of Alexander's tent in the _Libro de Alexandre_. The entire -episode of Doña Endrina is paraphrased from the _Liber de Amore_, -attributed to the Pseudo-Ovid, the Auvergnat monk who hides beneath the -name of Pamphilus Maurilianus. - -French _fableaux_ were rifled by Ruiz without a scruple, though he -had access to their great originals in the _Disciplina clericalis_ of -Petrus Alphonsus; for to his mind the improved treatment was of greater -worth than the mere bald story. He was familiar with the _Kalilah and -Dimnah_, with Fadrique's _Crafts and Wiles of Women_, perhaps with the -apologues of Lull and Juan Manuel. Vast as his reading was, it had -availed him nothing without his superb temperament, his gift of using -it to effect. Vaster still was his knowledge of men, his acquaintance -with the seamy side of life, his interest in things common and rare, -his observation of manners, and his lyrical endowment. The name of "the -Spanish Petronius" has been given to him; yet, despite a superficial -resemblance between the two, it is a misnomer. Far nearer the truth, -though the Spaniard lacks the dignity of the Englishman, is Ticknor's -parallel with Chaucer. Like Chaucer, Ruiz had an almost incomparable -gust for life, an immitigable gaiety of spirit, which penetrates his -transcription of the Human Comedy. Like Chaucer, his adventurous -curiosity led him to burst the bonds of the prison-house and to -confer upon his country new rhythms and metres. His four _cánticas de -serrana_, suggested by the Galician makers, anticipate by a hundred -years the _serranillas_ and the _vaqueiras_ of Santillana, and entitle -him to rank as the first great lyric poet of Castile. Ruiz, likewise, -had a Legend of Women; but his reading was his own, and Chaucer's -adjective cannot be applied to it. His ambition is, not to idealise, -but to realise existence, and he interprets its sensuous animalism in -the spirit of picaresque enjoyment. Jewesses, Moorish dancers, the -procuress _Trota-conventos_, her finicking customers, the loose nuns, -great ladies, and brawny daughters of the plough,—Ruiz renders them -with the merciless exactitude of Velázquez. - -The arrangement of Ruiz' verse, disorderly as his life, foreshadows the -loose construction of the picaresque novel, of which his own work may -be considered the first example. One of his greatest discoveries is the -rare value of the autobiographic form. Mingled with parodies of hymns, -with burlesques of old _cantares de gesta_, with glorified paraphrases -of both Ovids (the true and the false), with versions of oriental -fables read in books or gathered from the lips of vagrant Arabs, with -peculiar wealth of popular refrains and proverbs—with these goes the -tale of the writer's individual life, rich in self-mockery, gross in -thought, abundant in incident, splendid in expression, slyly edifying -in the moral conclusion which announces an immediate relapse. Poet, -novelist, expert in observation, irony, and travesty, Ruiz had, -moreover, the sense of style in such measure as none before him and -few after him, and to this innate faculty of selection he joined a -great capacity for dramatic creation. Hence the impossibility of -exhibiting him in elegant extracts, and hence the permanence of his -types. The most familiar figure of _Lazarillo de Tormes_—the starving -gentleman—is a lineal descendant of Ruiz' Don Furón, who is scrupulous -in observing facts so long as there is nothing to eat; and Ruiz' two -lovers, Melón de la Uerta and Endrina de Calatayud, are transferred -as Calisto and Melibea to Rojas' tragi-comedy, whence they pass into -immortality as Romeo and Juliet. Lastly, Ruiz' repute might be staked -upon his fables, which, by their ironic appreciation, their playful -wit and humour, seem to proceed from an earlier, ruder, more virile La -Fontaine. - -Contemporary with Juan Ruiz was the Infante JUAN MANUEL (1282-1347), -grandson of St. Ferdinand and nephew of Alfonso the Learned. In his -twelfth year he served against the Moors on the Murcian frontier, -became Mayordomo to Fernando IV., and succeeded to the regency -shortly after that King's death in 1312. Mariana's denunciation of -"him who seemed born solely to wreck the state" fits Juan Manuel so -exactly that it is commonly applied to him; but, in truth, its author -intended it for another Don Juan (without the "Manuel"), uncle of -the boy-king, Alfonso XI. Upon the regency followed a spell of wars, -broils, rebellions, assassinations, wherein King and ex-Regent were -pitted against each other. Neither King nor soldier bore malice, and -the latter shared in the decisive victory of Salado and—perhaps with -Chaucer's Gentle Knight—in the siege of Algezir (_Algeciras_). Fifty -years of battle would fill most men's lives; but the love of literature -ran in the blood of Juan Manuel's veins, and, like others of his -kindred, he proved the truth of the old Castilian adage:—"Lance never -blunted pen, nor pen lance." - -He set a proper value on himself and his achievement. In the General -Introduction to his works he foresees, so he announces, that his books -must be often copied, and he knows that this means error:—"as I have -seen happen in other copies, either because of the transcriber's -dulness, or because the letters are much alike." Wherefore Juan -Manuel prepared, so to say, a copyright edition, with a prefatory -bibliography, whose deficiencies may be supplemented by a second list -given at the beginning of his _Conde Lucanor_. And he closes his -General Introduction with this prayer:—"And I beg all those who may -read any of the books I made not to blame me for whatever ill-written -thing they find, until they see it in this volume which I myself have -arranged." His care seemed excessive: it proved really insufficient, -since the complete edition which he left to the monastery at Peñafiel -has disappeared. Some of his works are lost to us, as the _Book of -Chivalry_,[4] a treatise dealing with the _Engines of War_, a _Book -of Verses_, the _Art of Poetic Composition_ (_Reglas como se debe -Trovar_), and the _Book of Sages_. The loss of the _Book of Verses_ is -a real calamity; all the more that it existed at Peñafiel as recently -as the time of Argote de Molina (1549-90), who meant to publish it. -Juan Manuel's couplets and quatrains of four, eight, eleven, twelve, -and fourteen syllables, his arrangement (_Enxemplo XVI._) of the -octosyllabic _redondilla_ in the _Conde Lucanor_, prove him an adept -in the Galician form, an irreproachable virtuoso in his art. It seems -almost certain that his _Book of Verses_ included many remarkable -exercises in political satire; and, in any case, his example and -position must have greatly influenced the development of the courtly -school of poets at Juan II.'s court. - -A treatise like his _Libro de Caza_ (Book of Hawking), recently -recovered by Professor Baist, needs but to be mentioned to indicate -its aim. His histories are mere epitomes of Alfonso's chronicle. The -_Libro del Caballero et del Escudero_ (Book of the Knight and Squire), -in fifty-one chapters, of which some thirteen are missing, is a -didacticism, a _fabliella_, modelled upon Ramón Lull's _Libre del Orde -de Cavallería_. A hermit who has abandoned war instructs an ambitious -squire in the virtues of chivalry, and sends him to court, whence he -returns "with much wealth and honour." The inquiry begins anew, and the -hermit expounds to his companion the nature of angels, paradise, hell, -the heavens, the elements, the art of posing questions, the stuff of -the planets, sea, earth, and all that is therein—birds, fish, plants, -trees, stones, and metals. In some sort the _Tratado sobre las Armas_ -(Treatise on Arms) is a memoir of the writer's house, containing a -powerful presentation of the death of Juan Manuel's guardian, King -Sancho, passing to eternity beneath his father's curse. - -Juan Manuel follows Sancho's example by preparing twenty-six chapters -of _Castigos_ (Exhortations), sometimes called the _Libro infinido_, or -Unfinished Book, addressed to his son, a boy of nine. He reproduces -Sancho's excellent manner and sound practical advice without the -flaunting erudition of his cousin. The _Castigos_ are suspended to -supply the monk, Juan Alfonso, with a treatise on the _Modes of -Love_, fifteen in number; being, in fact, an ingenious discussion on -friendship. Juan Manuel is seen almost at his best in his _Libro de -los Estados_ (Book of States), otherwise the _Book of the Infante_, -and thought by some to be the missing _Book of Sages_. The allegorical -didactic vein is worked to exhaustion in one hundred and fifty -chapters, which relate the education of the pagan Morován's son, Johas, -by a certain Turín, who, unable to satisfy his pupil, calls to his -aid the celebrated preacher Julio. After interminable discussions and -resolutions of theological difficulties, the story ends in the baptism -of father, son, and tutor. Gayangos gives us the key; Johas is Juan -Manuel; Morován is his father, Manuel; Turín is Pero López de Ayala, -grandfather of the future Chancellor; and Julio represents St. Dominic -(who, as a matter of fact, died before Juan Manuel's father was born). -This confused philosophic story, suggestive of the legend of Barlaam -and Josaphat, is in truth the vehicle for conveying the author's ideas -on every sort of question, and it might be described without injustice -as the carefully revised commonplace book of an omnivorous reader with -a care for form. A postscript to the _Book of States_ is the _Book of -Preaching Friars_, a summary of the Dominican constitution expounded -by Julio to his pupil. A very similar dissertation is the _Treatise -showing that the Blessed Mary is, body and soul, in Paradise_, directed -to Remón Masquefa, Prior of Peñafiel. - -Juan Manuel's masterpiece is the _Conde Lucanor_ (also named the _Book -of Patronio_ and the _Book of Examples_), in four parts, the first -of which is divided into fifty-one chapters. Like the _Decamerone_, -like the _Canterbury Tales_—but with greater directness—the _Conde -Lucanor_ is the oriental apologue embellished in terms of the -vernacular. The convention of the "moral lesson" is maintained, and -each chapter of the First Part (the others are rather unfinished notes) -ends with a declaration to the effect that "when Don Johan heard this -example he found it good, ordered it to be set down in this book, -and added these verses"—the verses being a concise summary of the -prose. The _Conde Lucanor_ is the Spanish equivalent of the _Arabian -Nights_, with Patronio in the part of Scheherazade, and Count Lucanor -(as who should say Juan Manuel) as the Caliph. Boccaccio used the -framework first in Italy, but Juan Manuel was before him by six years, -for the _Conde Lucanor_ was written not later than 1342. The examples -are taken from experience, and are told with extraordinary narrative -skill. Simplicity of theme is matched by simplicity of expression. The -story of father and son (_Enxemplo II._), of the Dean of Santiago and -the Toledan Magician (_Enxemplo XI._), of Ferrant González and Nuño -Laynez, a model of dramatic presentation (_Enxemplo XVI._), are perfect -masterpieces in little. - -Juan Manuel is an innovator in Castilian prose, as is Juan Ruiz -in Castilian verse. He lacks the merriment, the genial wit of the -Archpriest; but he has the same gift of irony, with an added note of -cutting sarcasm, and a more anxious research for the right word. He -never forgets that he has been the Regent of Castile, that he has -mingled with kings and queens, that he has cowed emirs and barons, and -led his troopers at the charge; and it is well that he never unbends, -since his unsmiling patrician humour gives each story a keener point. -In mind as in blood he is the great Alfonso's kinsman, and the relation -becomes evident in his treatment of the prose sentence. He inherited -it with many another splendid tradition, and, while he preserves -entire its stately clearness, he polishes to concision; he sets with -conscience to the work, sharpening the edges of his instrument, -exhibits its possibilities in the way of trenchancy, and puts it to -subtler uses than heretofore. In his hands Castilian prose acquires a -new ductility and finish, and his subjects are such that dramatists of -genius have stooped to borrow from him. In him (_Enxemplo XLV._) is the -germ of the _Taming of the Shrew_ (though it is scarcely credible that -Shakespeare lifted it direct), and from him Calderón takes not merely -the title—_Count Lucanor_—of a play, but the famous apologue in the -first act of _Life is a Dream_, an adaptation to the stage of one of -Juan Manuel's best instances (_Enxemplo XXXI._). Pilferings by Le Sage -are things of course, and _Gil Blas_ benefits by its author's reading. -Translations apart—and they are forthcoming—the _Conde Lucanor_ -is one of the books of the world, and each reading of it makes more -sensible the loss of the verses which, one would fain believe, might -place the writer as high among poets as among prose writers. - -The _Poema de Alfonso Onceno_, also known as his _Rhymed Chronicle_, -was unearthed at Granada in 1573 by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, and an -extract from it, printed fifteen years later by Argote de Molina, -encouraged the idea that Alfonso XI. wrote it. That King's sole exploit -in literature is a handbook on venery, often attributed to Alfonso the -Learned. The fuller, but still incomplete text of the _Poema_, first -published in 1864, discloses (stanza 1841) the author's name as RODRIGO -YAÑEZ or Yannes. It is to be noted that he speaks of rendering Merlin's -prophecy in the Castilian tongue:— - - "_Yo Rodrigo Yannes la noté - En lenguaje castellano._" - -Everything points to his having translated from a Galician original, -being himself a Galician who hispaniolised his name of Rodrigo Eannes. -Strong arguments in favour of this theory are advanced by great -authorities—Professor Cornu, and that most learned lady, Mme. Carolina -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos. In the first place, the many technical -defects of the _Poema_ vanish upon translation into Galician; and -next, the verses are laced with allusions to Merlin, which indicate a -familiarity with Breton legends, common enough in Galicia and Portugal, -but absolutely unknown in Spain. Be that as it prove, the _Poema_ -interests as the last expression of the old Castilian epic. Here we -have, literally, the swan-song of the man-at-arms, chanting the battles -in which he shared, commemorating the names of comrades foremost in -the van, reproducing the martial music of the camp _juglar_, observing -the set conventions of the _cantares de gesta_. His last appearance -on any stage is marked by a portent—the suppression of the tedious -Alexandrine, and the resolution into two lines of the sixteen-syllabled -verse. Yañez is an excellent instance of the third-rate man, the -amateur, who embodies, if he does not initiate, a revolution. His own -system of octosyllabics in alternate rhymes has a sing-song monotony -which wearies by its facile copiousness, and inspiration visits him at -rare and distant intervals. But the step that costs is taken, and a -place is prepared for the young _romance_ in literature. - -No precise information offers concerning Rabbi SEM TOB of Carrión, -the first Jew who writes at length in Castilian. His dedication to -Pedro the Cruel, who reigned from 1350 to 1369, enables us to fix -his date approximately, and to guess that he was, like others of his -race, a favourite with that maligned ruler. Written in the early -days of the new reign, Sem Tob's _Proverbios Morales_, consisting of -686 seven-syllabled quatrains, are more than a metrical novelty. His -collection of sententious maxims, borrowed mainly from Arabic sources -and from the Bible, is the first instance in Castilian of the versified -epigram which was to produce the brilliant _Proverbs_ of Santillana, -who praises the Rabbi as a writer of "very good things," and reports -his esteem as a "_grand trovador_." In Santillana's hands the maxims -are Spanish, are European; in Sem Tob's they are Jewish, oriental. The -moral is pressed with insistence, the presentation is haphazard; while -the extreme concision of thought, the exaggerated frugality of words, -tends to obscurity. Against this is to be set the exalted standard -of the teaching, the daring figures of the writer, his happiness of -epithet, his note of austere melancholy, and his complete triumph in -naturalising a new poetic _genre_. - -It has been sought to father on Sem Tob three other pieces: the -_Treatise of Doctrine_, the _Revelation of a Hermit_, and the _Danza de -la Muerte_. The _Treatise_, a catechism in octosyllabic triplets with -a four-syllabled line, is by Pedro de Berague, and is only curious for -its rhythm, imitated from the _rime couée_, and for being the first -work of its kind. Sem Tob was in his grave when the ancient subject -of the _Argument between Body and Soul_ was reintroduced by the maker -of the _Revelation of a Hermit_, wherein the souls are figured as -birds, gracious or hideous as the case may be. The third line of this -didactic poem gives its date as 1382, and this is confirmed by the -evidence of the metre and the presence of an Italian savour. In the -case of the anonymous _Danza de la Muerte_ the metre once more fixes -the period of composition at about the end of the fourteenth century. -Most European literatures possess a _Danse Macabré_ of their own; yet, -though the Castilian is probably an imitation of some unrecognised -French original, it is the oldest known version of the legend. It is -not rash to assume that its immediate occasion was the last terrific -outbreak of the Black Death, which lasted from 1394 to 1399. Death -bids mankind to his revels, and forces them to join his dance. The -form is superficially dramatic, and the thirty-three victims—pope, -emperor, cardinal, king, and so forth, a cleric and a layman always -alternating—reply to the summons in a series of octaves. Whoever -composed the Spanish version, he must be accepted as an expert in the -art of morbid allegory. Odd to say, the Catalan Carbonell, constructing -his _Dance of Death_ in the sixteenth century, rejects this fine -Castilian version for the French of Jean de Limoges, Chancellor of -Paris. - -A writer who represents the stages of the literary evolution of his -age is the long-lived Chancellor, PERO LÓPEZ DE AYALA (1332-1407). His -career is a veritable romance of feudalism. Living under Alfonso XI., -he became the favourite of Pedro the Cruel, whom he deserted at the -psychological moment. He chronicles his own and his father's defection -in such terms as Pepys or the Vicar of Bray might use:—"They saw that -Don Pedro's affairs were all awry, so they resolved to leave him, not -intending to return." Pedro the Cruel, Enrique II., Juan I., Enrique -III.—Ayala served all four with profit to his pouch, without flagrant -treason. Loyalty he held for a vain thing compared with interest; yet -he earned his money and his lands in fight. He ever strove to be on the -winning side, but luck was hostile when the Black Prince captured him -at Nájera (1367), and when he was taken prisoner at Aljubarrota (1385). -The fifteen months spent in an iron cage at the castle of Oviedes after -the second defeat gave Ayala one of his opportunities. He had wasted no -chance in life, nor did he now. It were pleasant to think with Ticknor -that some part of Ayala's _Rimado de Palacio_ "was written during his -imprisonment in England,"—pleasant, but difficult. To begin with, -it is by no means sure that Ayala ever quitted the Peninsula. More -than this: though the _Rimado de Palacio_ was composed at intervals, -the stages can be dated approximately. The earlier part of the poem -contains an allusion to the schism during the pontificate of Urban VI., -so that this passage must date from 1378 or afterwards; the reference -to the death of the poet's father, Hernán Pérez de Ayala, brings us to -the year 1385 or later; and the statement that the schism had lasted -twenty-five years fixes the time of composition as 1403. - -_Rimado de Palacio_ (Court Rhymes) is a chance title that has attached -itself to Ayala's poem without the author's sanction. It gives a false -impression of his theme, which is the decadence of his age. Only within -narrow limits does Ayala deal with courts and courtiers; he had a wider -outlook, and he scourges society at large. What was a jest to Ruiz was -a woe to the Chancellor. Ruiz had a natural sympathy for a loose-living -cleric; Ayala lashes this sort with a thong steeped in vitriol. The -one looks at life as a farce; the other sees it as a tragedy. Where -the first finds matter for merriment, the second burns with the white -indignation of the just. The deliberate mordancy of Ayala is impartial -insomuch as it is universal. Courtiers, statesmen, bishops, lawyers, -merchants—he brands them all with corruption, simony, embezzlement, -and exposes them as venal sons of Belial. And, like Ruiz, he places -himself in the pillory to heighten his effects. He spares not his -superstitious belief in omens, dreams, and such-like fooleries; he -discovers himself as a grinder of the poor man's face, a libidinous -perjurer, a child of perdition. - -But not all Ayala's poem is given up to cursing. In his 705th stanza -he closes what he calls his _sermón_ with the confession that he had -written it, "being sore afflicted by many grievous sorrows," and in the -remaining 904 stanzas Ayala breathes a serener air. In both existing -codices—that of Campo-Alange and that of the Escorial—this huge -postscript follows the _Rimado de Palacio_ with no apparent break of -continuity; yet it differs in form and substance from what precedes. -The _cuaderna vía_ alone is used in the satiric and autobiographical -verses; the later hymns and songs are metrical experiments—echoes of -Galician and Provençal measures, _redondillas_ of seven syllables, -attempts to raise the Alexandrine from the dead, results derived from -Alfonso's _Cantigas_ and Juan Ruiz' _loores_. In his seventy-third -year Ayala was still working upon his _Rimado de Palacio_. It was -too late for him to master the new methods creeping into vogue, and -though in the _Cancionero de Baena_ (No. 518) Ayala answers Sánchez -Talavera's challenge in the regulation octaves, he harks back to the -_cuaderna vía_ of his youth in his paraphrase of St. Gregory's _Job_. -If he be the writer of the _Proverbios en Rimo de Salomón_—a doubtful -point—his preference for the old system is there undisguised. Could -that system have been saved, Ayala had saved it: not even he could stay -the world from moving. - -His prose is at least as distinguished as his verse. A treatise -on falconry, rich in rarities of speech, shows the variety of his -interests, and his version of Boccaccio's _De Casibus Virorum -illustrium_ brings him into touch with the conquering Italian -influence. His reference to _Amadís_ in the _Rimado de Palacio_ (stanza -162), the first mention of that knight-errantry of Spain, proves -acquaintance with new models. Translations of Boëtius and of St. -Isidore were pastimes; a partial rendering of Livy, done at the King's -command, was of greater value. In person or by proxy, Alfonso the -Learned had opened up the land of history; Juan Manuel had summarised -his uncle's work; the chronicle of the Moor Rasis, otherwise Abu Bakr -Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Mūsā, had been translated from the Arabic; -the annals of Alfonso XI. and his three immediate predecessors were -written by some industrious mediocrity perhaps Fernán Sánchez de Tovar, -or Juan Núñez de Villaizán. These are not so much absolute history -as the raw material of history. In his _Chronicles of the Kings of -Castile_, Ayala considers the reigns of Pedro the Cruel, Enrique II., -Juan I., and Enrique III., in a modern scientific spirit. Songs, -legends, idle reports, no longer serve as evidence. Ayala sifts his -testimonies, compares, counts, weighs them, checks them by personal -knowledge. He borrows Livy's framework, inserting speeches which, -if not stenographic reports of what was actually said, are complete -illustrations of dramatic motive. He deals with events which he had -witnessed: plots which his crafty brain inspired, victories wherein -he shared, battles in which he bit the dust. The portraits in his -gallery are scarce, but every likeness, is a masterpiece rendered with -a few broad strokes. He records with cold-blooded impartiality as a -judge; his native austerity, his knowledge of affairs and men, guard -him from the temptations of the pleader. With his unnatural neutrality -go rare instinct for the essential circumstance, unerring sagacity in -the divination and presentment of character, unerring art in preparing -climax and catastrophe, and the gift of concise, picturesque phrase. -A statesman of genius writing personal history with the candour of -Pepys: as such the thrifty Mérimée recognised Ayala, and, in his own -confection, so revealed him to the nineteenth century. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[4] The contents of this work are summarised in the author's _Book of -States_ (chap. xci.). - - - - - CHAPTER V - - THE AGE OF JUAN II. - - 1419-1454 - - -Ayala's verse, the conscious effort of deliberate artistry, contrasts -with those popular _romances_ which can be divined through the varnish -of the sixteenth century. Few, if any, of the existing ballads date -from Ayala's time; and of the nineteen hundred printed in Durán's -_Romancero General_ the merest handful is older than 1492, when -Antonio de Nebrija examined their structure in his _Arte de la Lengua -Castellana_. Yet the older _romances_ were numerous and long-lived -enough to supplant the _cantares de gesta_, against which chronicles -and annals made war by giving the same epical themes with more detail -and accuracy. In turn these chronicles afforded subjects for _romances_ -of a later day. An illustration suffices to prove the point. Every one -knows the spirited close of the first in order of Lockhart's _Ancient -Spanish Ballads_:— - - "_Last night I was the King of Spain—to-day no King am I. - Last night fair castles held my train—to-night where shall I lie? - Last night a hundred pages did serve me on the knee— - To-night not one I call my own: not one pertains to me._" - -The original is founded on Pedro de Corral's _Crónica de Don Rodrigo_ -(chapters 207, 208), which was not written till 1404, and from the -same source (chapters 238-244) comes the substance of Lockhart's second -ballad:— - - "_It was when the King Rodrigo had lost his realm of Spain._" - -The modernity of almost every piece in Lockhart's collection were as -easily proved; but it is more important at this point to turn from the -popular song-makers to the new school of writers which was forming -itself upon foreign models. - -Representative of these innovations is the grandson of Enrique II., -ENRIQUE DE VILLENA (1384-1434), upon whom posterity has conferred a -marquisate which he never possessed in life.[5] His first production is -said to have been a set of _coplas_ written, as Master of the Order of -Calatrava, for the royal feasts at Zaragoza in 1414; his earliest known -work is his _Arte de trovar_ (Art of Poetry), given in the same year -at the Consistory of the Gay Science at Barcelona. Villena, of whose -treatise mere scraps survive, shows minute acquaintance with the works -of early _trovadores_; of general principles he says naught, losing -himself in discursive details. Early in 1417 followed the _Trabajos de -Hércules_ (Labours of Hercules), first written in Catalan by request -of Pero Pardo, and done into Castilian in the autumn of the year. This -tedious allegory, crushed beneath a weight of pedantry, is unredeemed -by ingenuity or fancy, and the style is disfigured by violent and -absurd inversions which bespeak long, tactless study of Latin texts. -Juan Manuel's dignified restraint is lost on his successor, itching -to flaunt inopportune learning with references to Aristotle, Aulus -Gellius, and St. Jerome. In 1423, at the instance of Sancho de Jaraba, -Villena wrote his twenty chapters on carving—the _Arte cisoria_, an -epicure's handbook to the royal table, compact of curious counsels -and recipes expounded with horrid eloquence by a pedant who tended to -gluttony. Still odder is the _Libro de Aojamiento_ (Dissertation on -the Evil Eye) with its three "preventive modes," as recommended by -Avicenna and his brethren. Translations of Dante and Cicero are lost, -and three treatises on leprosy, on consolation, and on the Eighth Psalm -are valueless. Villena piqued himself on being the first in Spain—he -might perhaps have said the first anywhere—to translate the whole -_Æneid_; but he marches to ruin with his mimicry of Latin idioms, his -abuse of inversion, and his graces of a cart-horse in the lists. No -contemporary was more famed for universal accomplishment; so that, -while he lived, men held him for a wizard, and, when he died, applauded -the partial burning of his books by Lope de Barrientos, afterwards -Bishop of Segovia, who put the rest to his private uses. Santillana -and Juan de Mena assert that Villena wrote Castilian verse, and Baena -implies as much; if so, he was probably a common poetaster, the loss of -whose rhymes is a stroke of luck. A Castilian poem on the labours of -Hercules, ascribed to him by Pellicer, is a rank forgery. Measured by -his repute, Villena's works are disappointing. But if we reflect that -he translated Dante, that he strove to naturalise successful foreign -methods, and that in his absurdest moments he proves his susceptibility -to new ideas, we may explain his renown and his influence. Nor did -these end with his life; for Lope de Vega, Alarcón, Rojas Zorrilla, -and Hartzenbusch have brought him on the boards, and he has appealed -with singular force to the imaginations of both Quevedo and Larra. - -To Villena's time belong two specimens of the old encyclopædic school: -the _Libro de los Gatos_, translated from the _Narrationes_ of the -English monk, Odo of Cheriton; and the _Libro de los Enxemplos_ of -Clemente Sánchez of Valderas, whose seventy-one missing stories were -brought to light in 1878 by M. Morel-Fatio. Sánchez' collection, -thus completed, shows the entrance into Spain of the legend of -Buddha's life, adapted by some Christian monk from the Sanskrit -_Lalita-Vistara_, and popular the world over as the _Romance of Barlaam -and Josaphat_. The style is carefully modelled on Juan Manuel's manner. - -The _Cancionero de Baena_, named after the anthologist Juan Alfonso -de Baena above mentioned, contains the verses of some sixty poets -who flourished during the reign of Juan II., or a little earlier. -This collection, first published in 1851, mirrors two conflicting -tendencies. The old Galician school is represented by Alfonso Álvarez -de Villasandino (sometimes called de Illescas), a copious, foul-mouthed -ruffian, with gusts of inspiration and an abiding mastery of technique. -To the same section belong the Archdeacon of Toro, a facile versifier, -and Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara, whose name is inseparable from that -of Macías, _El Enamorado_. Macías has left five songs of slight -distinction, and, as a poet, ranks below Rodríguez de la Cámara. Yet he -lives on the capital of his legend, the type of the lover faithful unto -death, and the circumstances of his passing are a part of Castilian -literature. The tale is (but there are variants), that Macías, once a -member of Villena's household, was imprisoned at Arjonilla, where a -jealous husband slew the poet in the act of singing his platonic love. -Quoted times innumerable, this more or less authentic story of Macías' -end ensured him an immortality far beyond the worth of his verses: it -fired the popular imagination, and enters into literature in Lope de -Vega's _Porfiar hasta morir_ and in Larra's _El Doncel de Don Enrique -el Doliente_. - -A like romantic memory attaches to Macías' friend, Juan Rodríguez -de la Cámara (also called Rodríguez del Padrón), the last poet of -the Galician school, represented in Baena's _Cancionero_ by a single -_cántica_. The conjectures that make Rodríguez the lover of Juan -II.'s wife, Isabel, or of Enrique IV.'s wife, Juana, are destroyed by -chronology. None the less it is certain that the writer was concerned -in some mysterious, dangerous love-affair which led to his exile, and, -as some believe, to his profession as a Franciscan monk. His seventeen -surviving songs are all erotic, with the exception of the _Flama del -divino Rayo_, his best performance in thanksgiving for his spiritual -conversion. His loves are also recounted in three prose books, of -which the semi-chivalresque novel, _El Siervo libre de Amor_, is still -readable. But Rodríguez interests most as the last representative of -the Galician verse tradition. - -Save Ayala, who is exampled by one solitary poem, the oldest singer in -Baena's choir is Pero Ferrús, the connecting link between the Galician -and Italian schools. A learned rather than an inspired poet, Ferrús -is remembered chiefly because of his chance allusion to _Amadís_ in -the stanzas dedicated to Ayala. Four poets in Baena's song-book herald -the invasion of Spain by the Italians, and it is fitting that the -first and best of these should be a man of Italian blood, Francisco -Imperial, the son of a Genoese jeweller, settled in Seville. Imperial, -as his earliest poem shows, read Arabic and English. He may have met -with Gower's _Confessio Amantis_ before it was done into Castilian by -Juan de la Cuenca at the beginning of the fifteenth century—being -the first translation of an English book in Spain. Howbeit, he quotes -English phrases, and offers a copy of French verses. These are trifles: -Imperial's best gift to his adopted country was his transplanting of -Dante, whom he imitates assiduously, reproducing the Florentine note -with such happy intonation as to gain for him the style of poet—as -distinguished from _trovador_—from Santillana, who awards him "the -laurel of this western land." Thirteen poems by Ruy Paez de Ribera, -vibrating with the melancholy of illness, shuddering with the squalor -of want, affiliate their writer with Imperial's new expression, and -vaguely suggest the realising touch of Villon. At least one piece by -Ferrant Sánchez Talavera is memorable—the elegy on the death of the -Admiral Ruy Díaz de Mendoza, which anticipates the mournful march, -the solemn music, some of the very phrases of Jorge Manrique's noble -_coplas_. In the Dantesque manner is Gonzalo Martínez de Medina's -flagellation of the corruptions of his age. Baena, secretary to -Juan II., in eighty numbers approves himself a weak imitator of -Villasandino's insolence, and is remembered simply as the arranger of -a handbook which testifies to the definitive triumph of the compiler's -enemies. - -A poet of greater performance than any in the _Cancionero de Baena_ is -the shifty politician, Íñigo López de Mendoza, Marqués de SANTILLANA -(1398-1458), townsman of Rabbi Sem Tob, the Jew of Carrión. Oddly -enough, Baena excludes Santillana from his collection, and Santillana, -in reviewing the poets of his time, ignores Baena, whom he probably -despised as a parasite. A remarkable letter to the Constable of -Portugal shows Santillana as a pleasant prose-writer; in his rhetorical -_Lamentaçion en Propheçia de la segunda Destruyçion de España_ he -fails in the grand style, though he succeeds in the familiar with his -collection of old wives' fireside proverbs, _Refranes que diçen las -Viejas tras el Huego_. His _Centiloquio_, a hundred rhymed proverbs -divided into fourteen chapters, is gracefully written and skilfully -put together; his _Comedieta de Ponza_ is reminiscent of both Dante -and Boccaccio, and its title, together with the fact that the dialogue -is allotted to different personages, has led many into the error of -taking it for a dramatic piece. Far more essentially dramatic in spirit -is the _Diálogo de Bias contra Fortuna_, which embodies a doctrinal -argument upon the advantages of the philosophic mind in circumstances -of adversity; and grouped with this goes the _Doctrinal de Privados_, -a fierce philippic against Álvaro de Luna, Santillana's political foe, -who is convicted of iniquities out of his own mouth. - -It is impossible to say of Santillana that he was an original genius: -it is within bounds to class him as a highly gifted versifier with -extraordinary imitative powers. He has no "message" to deliver, no wide -range of ideas: his attraction lies not so much in what is said as in -his trick of saying it. He is one of the few poets whom erudition has -not hampered. He was familiar with writers as diverse as Dante and -Petrarch and Alain Chartier, and he reproduces their characteristics -with a fine exactness and felicity. But he was something more than -an intelligent echo, for he filed and laboured till he acquired a -final manner of his own. Doubtless to his own taste his forty-two -sonnets—_fechos al itálico modo_, as he proudly tells you were his -best titles to glory; and it is true that he acclimatised the sonnet -in Spain, sharing with the Aragonese, Juan de Villapando, the honour -of being Spain's only sonneteer before Boscán's time. Commonplace -in thought, stiff in expression, the sonnets are only historically -curious. It is in his lighter vein that Santillana reaches his full -stature. The grace and gaiety of his _decires_, _serranillas_ and -_vaqueiras_ are all his own. If he borrowed suggestions from Provençal -poets, he is free of the Provençal artifice, and sings with the -simplicity of Venus' doves. Here he revealed a peculiar aspect of -his many-sided temperament, and by his tact made a living thing of -primitive emotions, which were to be done to death in the pastorals of -heavy-handed bunglers. The first-fruits of the pastoral harvest live in -the house where Santillana garnered them, and those roses, amid which -he found the milkmaid of La Finojosa, are still as sweet in his best -known—and perhaps his best—ballad as on that spring morning, between -Calateveño and Santa María, some four hundred years since. Ceasing to -be an imitator, Santillana proves inimitable. - -The official court-poet of the age was JUAN DE MENA (1411-56), known to -his own generation as the "prince of Castilian poets," and Cervantes, -writing more than a hundred and fifty years afterwards, dubs him -"that great Córdoban poet." A true son of Córdoba, Mena has all the -qualities of the Córdoban school—the ostentatious embellishment -of his ancestor, Lucan, and the unintelligible preciosity of his -descendant, Góngora. The Italian travels of his youth undid him, -and set him on the hopeless line of Italianising Spanish prose. A -false attribution enters the Annals of Juan II. under Mena's name: -the mere fact that Juan II.'s _Crónica_ is a model of correct prose -disposes of the pretension. Mena's summary of the _Iliad_, and the -commentary to his poem the _Coronación_, convict him of being the -worst prose-writer in all Castilian literature. Simplicity and -vulgarity were for him synonyms, and he carries his doctrine to its -logical extreme by adopting impossible constructions, by wrenching -his sentences asunder by exaggerated inversions, and by adding absurd -Latinisms to his vocabulary. These defects are less grave in his verse, -but even there they follow him. Argote de Molina would have him the -author of the political satire called the _Coplas de la Panadera_; -but Mena lacked the lightness of touch, the wit and sparkle of the -imaginary baker's wife. If he be read at all, he is to be studied in -his _Laberinto_, also known as the _Trescientas_, a heavy allegory -whose deliberate obscurity is indicated by its name. The alternative -title, _Trescientas_; is explained by the fact that the poem consisted -of three hundred stanzas, to which sixty-five were added by request of -the King, who kept the book by him of nights and hankered for a stanza -daily, using it, maybe, as a soporific. The poet is whisked by the -dragons in Bellona's chariot to Fortune's palace, and there begins the -inevitable imitation of Dante, with its machinery of seven planetary -circles, and its grandiose vision of past, present, and future. The -work of a learned poet taking himself too seriously and straining after -effects beyond his reach, the _Laberinto_ is tedious as a whole; yet, -though Mena's imagination fails to realise his abstractions, though -he be riddled with purposeless conceits, he touches a high level in -isolated episodes. Much of his vogue may be accounted for by the -abundance with which he throws off striking lines of somewhat hard, -even marmoreal beauty, and by the ardent patriotism which inspires -him in his best passages. A poet by flashes, at intervals rare and far -apart, Mena does himself injustice by too close a devotion to æsthetic -principles, that made failure a certainty. Careful, conscientious, -aspiring, he had done far more if he had attempted much less. - - * * * * * - -Meanwhile Castilian prose goes forward on Alfonso's lines. The -anonymous _Crónica_ of Juan II., wrongly ascribed to Mena and Pérez de -Guzmán, but more probably due to Álvar García de Santa María and others -unknown, is a classic example of style and accuracy, rare in official -historiography. Mingled with many chivalresque details concerning the -hidalgos of the court is the central episode of the book, the execution -of the Constable, Álvaro de Luna. The last great scene is skilfully -prepared and is recounted with artful simplicity in a celebrated -passage:—"He set to undoing his doublet-collar, making ready his long -garments of blue camlet, lined with fox-skins; and, the master being -stretched upon the scaffold, the executioner came to him, begged his -pardon, embraced him, ran the poniard through his neck, cut off his -head, and hung it on a hook; and the head stayed there nine days, the -body three." Passionate declamation of a still higher order is found -in the _Crónica de Don Álvaro de Luna_, written by a most dexterous -advocate, who puts his mastery of phrase, his graphic presentation -and dramatic vigour, to the service of partisanship. Perhaps no man -was ever quite so great and good as Álvaro de Luna appears in his -_Crónica_, but the strength of conviction in the narrator is expressed -in terms of moving eloquence that would persuade to accept the -portrait, not merely as a masterpiece—for that it is—but, as an -authentic presentment of a misunderstood hero. - -After much violent controversy, it may now be taken as settled that -the _Crónica del Cid_ is based upon Alfonso's _Estoria de Espanna_. -But it comes not direct, being borrowed from Alfonso XI.'s _Crónica -de Castilla_, a transcript of the _Estoria_. The differences from -the early text may be classed under three heads: corruptions of the -early text, freer and exacter quotations from the _romances_, and -deliberate alterations made with an eye to greater conformity with -popular legends. Valuable as containing the earliest versions of many -traditions which were to be diffused through the _Romanceros_, the -_Crónica del Cid_ is of small historic authority, and Alfonso's stately -prose loses greatly in the carrying. - -Ayala's nephew, FERNÁN PÉREZ DE GUZMÁN (1378-1460), continues his -uncle's poetic tradition in the forms borrowed from Italy, as well as -in earlier lyrics of the Galician school; but his mediocre performances -as a poet are overshadowed by his brilliant exploit as a historian. He -is responsible for the _Mar de Historias_ (The Sea of Histories), which -consists of three divisions. The first deals with emperors and kings -ranging from Alexander to King Arthur, from Charlemagne to Godfrey de -Bouillon; the second treats of saints and sages, their lives and the -books they wrote; and both are arrangements of some French version of -Guido delle Colonne's _Mare Historiarum_. The third part, now known -as the _Generaciones y Semblanzas_ (Generations and Likenesses), is -Pérez de Guzmán's own workmanship. Foreign critics have compared him to -Plutarch and to St. Simon; and, though the parallel seems dangerous, it -can be maintained. This amounts to saying that Pérez de Guzmán is one -of the greatest portrait-painters in the world; and that precisely he -is. He argues from the seen to the unseen with a curious anticipation -of modern psychological methods; and it forms an integral part of his -plan to draw his personages with the audacity of truth. He does his -share, and there they stand, living as our present-day acquaintances, -and better known. Take a few figures at random from his gallery: -Enrique de Villena, fat, short, and fair, a libidinous glutton, ever in -the clouds, a dolt in practice, subtle of genius so that he came by all -pure knowledge easily; Núñez de Guzmán, dissolute, of giant strength, -curt of speech, a jovial roysterer; the King Enrique, grave-visaged, -bitter-tongued, lonely, melancholy; Catherine of Lancaster, tall, fair, -ruddy, wine-bibbing, ending in paralysis; the Constable López Dávalos, -a self-made man, handsome, taking, gay, amiable, strong, a fighter, -clever, prudent, but—as man must have some fault—cunning and given -to astrology. With such portraits Pérez de Guzmán abounds. The picture -costs him no effort: the man is seized in the act and delivered to -you, with no waste of words, with no essential lacking, classified -as a museum specimen, impartially but with a tendency to severity; -and when Pérez de Guzmán has spoken, there is no more to say. He is -a good hater, and lets you see it when he deals with courtiers, whom -he regards with the true St. Simonian loathing for an upstart. But -history has confirmed the substantial justice of his verdicts, and has -thus shown that the artist in him was even stronger than the malignant -partisan. It is saying much. And to his endowment of observation, -intelligence, knowledge, and character, Pérez de Guzmán joins the -perfect practice of that clear, energetic Castilian speech which his -forebears bequeathed him. - -An interesting personal narrative hides beneath the mask of the _Vida -y Hazañas del gran Tamarlán_ (Life and Deeds of the Mighty Timour). -First published in 1582, this work is nothing less than a report of the -journey (1403-6) of Ruy González de Clavijo (d. 1412), who traversed -all the space "from silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon," and more. -Clavijo tells of his wanderings with a quaint mingling of credulity -and scepticism; still, his witness is at least as trustworthy as Marco -Polo's, and his recital is vastly more graphic than the Venetian's. -A very similar motive informs the _Crónica del Conde de Buelna, Don -Pero Niño_ (1375-1446), by Pero Niño's friend and pennon-bearer, -Gutierre Díaz Gámez. An alternative title—the _Victorial_—discloses -the author's intention of representing his leader as the hero of -countless triumphs by sea and land. A well-read esquire, Díaz Gámez -quotes from the _Libro de Alexandre_, flecks his pages with allusions, -and—with a true traveller's lust for local colouring—comes pat with -technical French terms: his _sanglieres_, _mestrieres_, _cursieres_, -_destrieres_. These affectations apart, Díaz Gámez writes with sense -and force; exalting his chief overmuch, but giving bright glimpses -of a mad, adventurous life, and rising to altisonant eloquence in -chivalresque outbursts, one of which Cervantes has borrowed, and not -bettered, in Don Quixote's great discourse on letters and arms. - -Knight-errantry was, indeed, beginning to possess the land, and, as -it chances, an account of the maddest, hugest tourney in the world's -history is written for us by an eye-witness, Pero Rodríguez de Lena, -in the _Libro del Paso Honroso_ (Book of the Passage of Honour). Lena -tells how the demon of chivalry entered into Suero de Quiñones, who, -seeking release from his pledge of wearing in his lady's honour -an iron chain each Thursday, could hit on no better means than by -offering, with nine knightly brethren, to hold the bridge of San Marcos -at Órbigo against the paladins of Europe. The tilt lasted from July 10 -to August 9, 1434, and is described with simple directness by Lena, who -looks upon the six hundred single combats as the most natural thing in -the world: but his story is important as a "human document," and as -testimony that the extravagant incidents of the chivalrous romances had -their counterparts in real life. - -The fifteenth century finds the chivalrous romance established in -Spain: how it arrived there must be left for discussion till we come -to deal with the best example of the kind—_Amadís de Gaula_. Here and -now it suffices to say that there probably existed an early Spanish -version of this story which has disappeared; and to note that the -dividing line between the annals, filled with impossible traditions, -and the chivalrous tales, is of the finest: so fine, in fact, that -several of the latter—for example, _Florisel de Niquea_ and _Amadís -de Grecia_—take on historical airs and call themselves _crónicas_. -The mention of the lost Castilian _Amadís_ is imperative at this point -if we are to recognise one of the chief contemporary influences. For -the moment, we must be content to note its practical manifestations -in the extravagances of Suero de Quiñones, and of other knights whose -names are given in the chronicles of Álvaro de Luna and Juan II. The -spasmodic outbursts of the craze observable in the serious chapters of -Díaz Gámez are but the distant rumblings before the hurricane. - -While _Amadís de Gaula_ was read in courts and palaces, three -contemporary writers worked in different veins. ALFONSO MARTÍNEZ DE -TOLEDO (1398-?1466), Archpriest of Talavera, and chaplain to Juan -II., is the author of the _Reprobación del Amor mundano_, otherwise -_El Corbacho_ (The Scourge). The latter title, not of the author's -choosing, has led some to say that he borrowed from Boccaccio. The -resemblance between the _Reprobación_ and the Italian _Corbaccio_ -is purely superficial. Martínez goes forth to rebuke the vices of -both sexes in his age; but the moral purpose is dropped, and he -settles down to a deliberate invective against women and their ways. -Amador de los Ríos suggests that Martínez stole hints from Francisco -Eximenis' _Carro de la donas_, a Catalan version of Boccaccio's _De -claris mulieribus_: as the latter is a panegyric on the sex, the -suggestion is unacceptable. The plain fact stares us in the face that -Martínez' immediate model is the Archpriest of Hita, and in his fourth -chapter that jovial clerk is cited. Indiscriminate, unjust, and even -brutal, as Martínez often is, his slashing satire may be read with -extraordinary pleasure: that is, when we can read him at all, for his -editions are rare and his vocabulary puzzling. He falls short of Ruiz' -wicked urbanity; but he matches him in keenness of malicious wit, in -malignant parody, in picaresque intention, while he surpasses him as -a collector of verbal quips and popular proverbs. The wealth of his -splenetic genius (it is nothing less) affords at least one passage to -the writer of the _Celestina_. Last of all—and this is an exceeding -virtue—Martínez' speech maintains a fine standard of purity at a time -when foreign corruptions ran riot. Hence he deserves high rank among -the models of Castilian prose. - -Another chaplain of Juan II., JUAN DE LUCENA (fl. 1453), is the -author of the _Vita Beata_, lacking in originality, but notable for -excellence of absolute style. He follows Cicero's plan in the _De -finibus bonorum et malorum_, introducing Santillana, Mena, and García -de Santa María (the probable author, as we have seen, of the King's -_Crónica_). In an imaginary conversation these great personages discuss -the question of mortal happiness, arriving at the pessimist conclusion -that it does not exist, or—sorry alternative—that it is unattainable. -Lucena adds nothing to the fund of ideas upon this hackneyed theme, -but the perfect finish of his manner lends attraction to his lucid -commonplaces. - -The last considerable writer of the time is the Bachelor ALFONSO DE -LA TORRE (fl. 1461), who returns upon the didactic manner in his -_Visión deleitable de la Filosofía y Artes liberales_. Nominally, -the Bachelor offers a philosophic, allegorical novel; in substance, -his work is a mediæval encyclopædia. It was assuredly never designed -for entertainment, but it must still be read by all who are curious -to catch those elaborate harmonies and more delicate refinements of -fifteenth-century Castilian prose which half tempt to indulgence for -the writer's insufferable priggishness. Alfonso de la Torre figures by -right in the anthologies, and his elegant extracts win an admiration of -which his unhappy choice of subject would otherwise deprive him. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[5] Strictly speaking, this writer should be called Enrique de Aragón; -but, since this leads to confusion with his contemporary, the Infante -Enrique de Aragón, it is convenient to distinguish him as Enrique de -Villena. He was not a marquis, and never uses the title. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - THE AGE OF ENRIQUE IV. AND THE CATHOLIC KINGS - - 1454-1516 - - -The literary movement of Juan II.'s reign is overlapped and continued -outside Spain by poets in the train of Alfonso V. of Aragón, who, -conquering Naples in 1443, became the patron of scholars like George -of Trebizond and Æneas Sylvius. It is notable that, despite their new -Italian environment, Alfonso's singers write by preference in Castilian -rather than in their native Catalan. Their work is to be sought in -the _Cancionero General_, in the _Cancionero de burlas provocantes á -risa_, and especially in the _Cancionero de Stúñiga_, which derives -its name from the accident that the first two poems in the collection -are by Lope de Stúñiga, cousin of that Suero de Quiñones who held the -_Paso Honroso_, mentioned under Lena's name in the previous chapter. -Stúñiga prolongs the courtly tradition in verses whose extreme finish -is remarkable. Juan de Tapia, Juan de Andújar, and Fernando de la -Torre practise in the same school of knightly hedonism; and at the -opposite pole is Juan de Valladolid, son of the public executioner, a -vagabond minstrel, who passed his life in coarse polemics with Antón de -Montero, with Gómez Manrique, and with Manrique's brother, the Conde -de Paredes. A notorious name is that of Pero Torrellas, whose _Coplas -de las calidades de las donas_ won their author repute as a satirist -of women, and begot innumerable replies and counterpleas: the satire, -to tell the truth, is poor enough, and is little more than violent but -pointless invective. The best as well as the most copious poet of the -Neapolitan group is CARVAJAL (or CARVAJALES), who bequeaths us the -earliest known _romance_, and so far succumbs to circumstances as to -produce occasional verses in Italian. In Castilian, Carvajal has the -true lyrical cry, and is further distinguished by a virile, martial -note, in admirable contrast with the insipid courtesies of his brethren. - -To return to Spain, where, in accordance with the maxim that one -considerable poet begets many poetasters, countless rhymesters -spring from Mena's loins. The briefest mention must suffice for the -too-celebrated _Coplas del Provincial_, which, to judge by the extracts -printed from its hundred and forty-nine stanzas, is a prurient lampoon -against private persons. It lacks neither vigour nor wit, and denotes -a mastery of mordant phrase: but the general effect of its obscene -malignity is to make one sympathise with the repeated attempts at -its suppression. The attribution to Rodrigo Cota of this perverse -performance is capricious: internal evidence goes to show that the -libel is the work of several hands. - -A companion piece of far greater merit is found in thirty-two -octosyllabic stanzas entitled _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_. Like the -_Coplas del Provincial_, this satirical eclogue has been referred -to Rodrigo Cota, and, like many other anonymous works, it has been -ascribed to Mena. Neither conjecture is supported by evidence, and -Sarmiento's ascription of _Mingo Revulgo_ to Hernando del Pulgar, who -wrote an elaborate commentary on it, rests on the puerile assumption -that "none but the poet could have commented himself with such -clearness." Two shepherds—Mingo Revulgo and Gil Aribato—represent -the lower and upper class respectively, discussing the abuses of -society. Gil Aribato blames the people, whose vices are responsible for -corruption in high places; Mingo Revulgo contends that the dissolute -King should bear the blame for the ruin of the state, and the argument -ends by lauding the golden mean of the burgess. The tone of _Mingo -Revulgo_ is more moderate than that of the _Provincial_; the attacks -on current evils are more general, more discreet, and therefore more -deadly; and the aim of the later satire is infinitely more serious and -elevated. Cast in dramatic form, but devoid of dramatic action, _Mingo -Revulgo_ leads directly to the eclogues of Juan del Encina, so often -called the father of the Spanish theatre; but its immediate interest -lies in the fact that it is the first of effective popular satires. - -Among the poets of this age, the Jewish convert, ANTÓN DE MONTORO, _el -Ropero_ (1404-?1480), holds a place apart. A fellow of parts, Montoro -combined verse-making with tailoring, and his trade is frequently -thrown in his teeth by rivals smarting under his bitter insolence. -Save when he pleads manfully for his kinsfolk, who are persecuted and -slaughtered by a bloodthirsty mob, Montoro's serious efforts are mostly -failures. His picaresque verses, especially those addressed to Juan -de Valladolid, are replenished with a truculent gaiety which amuses -us almost as much as it amused Santillana; but he should be read in -extracts rather than at length. He is suspected of complicity in the -_Coplas del Provincial_, and there is good ground for thinking that -to him belong the two most scandalous pieces in the _Cancionero de -burlas provocantes á risa_—namely, the _Pleito del Manto_ (Suit of -the Coverlet), and a certain unmentionable comedy which purports to -be by Fray Montesino, and travesties Mena's _Trescientas_ in terms of -extreme filthiness. Montoro's short pieces are reminiscent of Juan -Ruiz, and, for all his indecency, it is fair to credit him with much -cleverness and with uncommon technical skill. His native vulgarity -betrays him into excesses of ribaldry which mar the proper exercise of -his undeniable gifts. - -A better man and a better writer is JUAN ÁLVAREZ GATO (?1433-96), the -Madrid knight of whom Gómez Manrique says that he "spoke pearls and -silver." It is difficult for us to judge him on his merits, for, though -his _cancionero_ exists, it has not yet been printed; and we are forced -to study him as he is represented in the _Cancionero General_, where -his love-songs show a dignity of sentiment and an exquisiteness of -expression not frequent in any epoch, and exceptional in his own time. -His sacred lyrics, the work of his old age, lack unction: but even -here his mastery of form saves his pious _villancicos_ from oblivion, -and ranks him as the best of Encina's predecessors. His friend, Hernán -Mexía, follows Pero Torrellas with a satire on the foibles of women, in -which he easily outdoes his model in mischievous wit and in ingenious -fancy. - -GÓMEZ MANRIQUE, Señor de Villazopeque (1412-91), is a poet of -real distinction, whose entire works have been reprinted from two -complementary _cancioneros_ discovered in 1885. Sprung from a family -illustrious in Spanish history, Gómez Manrique was a foremost leader -in the rebellion of the Castilian nobles against Enrique IV. In -allegorical pieces like the _Batalla de amores_, he frankly imitates -the Galician model, and in one instance he replies to a certain Don -Álvaro in Portuguese. Then he joins himself to the rising Italian -school, wherein his uncle, Santillana, had preceded him; and his -experiments extend to adaptations of Sem Tob's sententious moralisings, -to didactic poems in the manner of Mena, and to _coplas_ on Juan de -Valladolid, in which he measures himself unsuccessfully with the -rude tailor, Montoro. Humour was not Gómez Manrique's calling, and -his attention to form is an obvious preoccupation which diminishes -his vigour: but his chivalrous refinement and noble tenderness are -manifest in his answer to Torrellas' invective. His pathos is nowhere -more touching than in the elegiacs on Garcilaso de la Vega; while in -the lines to his wife, Juana de Mendoza, Gómez Manrique portrays the -fleetingness of life, the sting of death, with almost incomparable -beauty. - -His _Representación del Nacimiento de Nuestro Señor_, the earliest -successor to the _Misterio de los Reyes Magos_, is a liturgical -drama written for and played at the convent of Calabazanos, of which -his sister was Superior. It consists of twenty octosyllabic stanzas -delivered by the Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St. -Raphael, an angel, and three shepherds, the whole closing with a -cradle-song. Simple as the construction is, it is more elaborate than -that of a later play on the Passion, wherein the Virgin, St. John, and -the Magdalen appear (though the last takes no part in the dialogue). -The refrain or _estribillo_ at the end of each stanza goes to show -that this piece was intended to be sung. These primitive essays in -the hieratic drama have all the interest of what was virtually a new -invention, and their historical importance is only exceeded by that of -a secular play, written by Gómez Manrique for the birthday of Alfonso, -brother of Enrique IV., in which the Infanta Isabel played one of the -Muses. In all three experiments the action is of the slightest, though -the dialogue is as dramatic as can be expected from a first attempt. -The point to be noted is that Gómez Manrique foreshadows both the lay -and sacred elements of the Spanish theatre. - -His fame has been unjustly eclipsed by that of his nephew, JORGE -MANRIQUE, Señor de Belmontejo (1440-1478), a brilliant soldier and -partisan of Queen Isabel's, who perished in an encounter before -the gates of Garci-Múñoz, and is renowned by reason of a single -masterpiece. His verses are mostly to be found in the _Cancionero -General_, and a few are given in the _cancioneros_ of Seville and -Toledo. Like that of his uncle, Gómez, his vein of humour is thin and -poor, and the satiric stanzas to his stepmother border on vulgarity. -In acrostic love-songs and in other compositions of a like character, -Jorge Manrique is merely clever in the artificial style of many -contemporaries—is merely a careful craftsman absorbed in the technical -details of art, with small merit beyond that of formal dexterity. The -forty-three stanzas entitled the _Coplas de Jorge Manrique por la -muerte de su padre_, have brought their writer an immortality which, -outliving all freaks of taste, seems as secure as Cervantes' own. An -attempt has been made to prove that Jorge Manrique's elegiacs on his -father are not original, and that the elegist had some knowledge of Abu -'l-Bakā Salih ar-Rundi's poem on the decadence of the Moslem power in -Spain. Undoubtedly Valera has so ingeniously rendered the Arab poet as -to make the resemblance seem pronounced: but the theory is untenable, -for it is not pretended that Jorge Manrique could read Arabic, and -lofty commonplaces on death abound in all literature, from the Bible -downwards. - -In this unique composition Jorge Manrique approves himself, for once, -a poet of absolute genius, an exquisite in lyrical orchestration. The -poem opens with a slow movement, a solemn lament on the vanity of -grandeur, the frailty of life; it modulates into resigned acceptance of -an inscrutable decree; it closes with a superb symphony, through which -are heard the voices of the seraphim and the angelic harps of Paradise. -The workmanship is of almost incomparable excellence, and in scarcely -one stanza can the severest criticism find a technical flaw. Jorge -Manrique's sincerity touched a chord which vibrates in the universal -heart, and his poem attained a popularity as immediate as it was -imperishable. Camões sought to imitate it; writers like Montemôr and -Silvestre glossed it; Lope de Vega declared that it should be written -in letters of gold; it was done into Latin and set to music in the -sixteenth century by Venegas de Henestrosa; and in our century it has -been admirably translated by Longfellow in a version from which these -stanzas are taken:— - - "_Behold of what delusive worth - The bubbles we pursue on earth, - The shapes we chase - Amid a world of treachery; - They vanish ere death shuts the eye, - And leave no trace._ - - _Time steals them from us,—chances strange, - Disastrous accidents, and change, - That come to all; - Even in the most exalted state, - Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate; - The strongest fall._ - - _Tell me,—the charms that lovers seek - In the clear eye and blushing cheek, - The hues that play - O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, - When hoary age approaches slow, - Ah, where are they?..._ - - _Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye, - And scarf, and gorgeous panoply, - And nodding plume,— - What were they but a pageant scene? - What but the garlands gay and green, - That deck the tomb?..._ - - _O Death, no more, no more delay; - My spirit longs to flee away, - And be at rest; - The will of Heaven my will shall be,— - I bow to the divine decree, - To God's behest...._ - - _His soul to Him who gave it rose: - God lead it to its long repose, - Its glorious rest! - And though the warrior's sun has set, - Its light shall linger round us yet, - Bright, radiant, blest._" - -By the side of this achievement the remaining poems of Enrique IV.'s -reign seem wan and withered. But mention is due to the Sevillan, Pedro -Guillén de Segovia (1413-74), who, beginning life under the patronage -of Álvaro de Luna, Santillana, and Mena, passes into the household of -the alchemist-archbishop Carrillo, and proclaims himself a disciple -of Gómez Manrique. His chief performance is his metrical version of -the Seven Penitential Psalms, which is remarkable as being the first -attempt at introducing the biblical element into Spanish literature. - -Prose is represented by the Segovian, Diego Enríquez del Castillo (fl. -1470), chaplain and privy councillor to Enrique IV., whose official -_Crónica_ he drew up in a spirit of candid impartiality; but there is -ground for suspecting that he revised his manuscript after the King's -death. Charged with speeches and addresses, his history is written with -pompous correctness, and it seems probable that the wily trimmer so -chose his sonorous ambiguities of phrase as to avoid offending either -his sovereign or the rebel magnates whose triumph he foresaw. Another -chronicle of this reign is ascribed to Alfonso Fernández de Palencia -(1423-92), who is also rashly credited with the authorship of the -_Coplas del Provincial_; but it is not proved that Palencia wrote any -other historical work than his Latin _Gesta Hispaniensia_, a mordant -presentation of the time's corruptions. The Castilian chronicle which -passes under his name is a rough translation of the _Gesta_, made -without the writer's authority. Its involved periods, some of them a -chapter long, are very remote from the admirably vigorous style of -Palencia's allegorical _Batalla campal entre los lobos y los perros_ -(Pitched Battle between Wolves and Dogs), and his patriotic _Perfección -del triunfo militar_, wherein he vaunts, not without reason, his -countrymen as among the best fighting men in Europe. Palencia's gravest -defect is his tendency to Latinise his construction, as in his poor -renderings of Plutarch and Josephus. But at his best he writes with -ease and force and distinction. The _Crónica de hechos del Condestable -Miguel Lucas Iranzo_, possibly the work of Juan de Olid, is in no sense -the history it professes to be, and is valuable mainly because of its -picturesque, yet simple and natural digressions on the social life of -Spain. - - * * * * * - -The very year of the Catholic King's accession (1474) coincides with -the introduction of the art of printing into Spain. Ticknor dates -this event as happening in 1468, remarking that "there can be no -doubt about the matter." Unluckily, the book upon which he relies -is erroneously dated. _Les Trobes en lahors de la Verge María_—the -first volume printed in Spain—is a collection of devout verses in -Valencian, by forty-four poets, mostly Catalans. Of these, Francisco -de Castellví, Francisco Barcelo, Pedro de Civillar, and an anonymous -singer—_Hum Castellá sens nom_—write in Castilian. From 1474 onward, -printing-presses multiply, and versions of masters like Dante, -Boccaccio, and Petrarch, made by Pedro Fernández de Villegas, by Álvar -Gómez, and by Antonio de Obregón, are printed in quick succession. -Henceforward the best models are available beyond a small wealthy -circle; but the results of this popularisation are not immediate. - -Íñigo de Mendoza, a gallant and a Franciscan, appears as a disciple -of Mena and Gómez Manrique in his _Vita Christi_, which halts at the -Massacre of the Innocents. Fray Íñigo is too prone to digressions, -and to misplaced satire mimicked from _Mingo Revulgo_, yet his verses -have a pleasing, unconventional charm in their adaptation to devout -purpose of such lyric forms as the _romance_ and the _villancico_. His -fellow-monk, Ambrosio Montesino, Isabel's favourite poet, conveys to -Spain the Italian realism of Jacopone da Todi in his _Visitación de -Nuestra Señora_, and in hymns fitted to the popular airs preserved in -Asenjo Barbieri's _Cancionero Musical de los siglos xv. y xvi_. This -embarrassing condition, joined to the writer's passion for conciseness, -results in hard effects; yet, at his best, he pipes "a simple song -for thinking hearts," and, as Menéndez y Pelayo, the chief of Spanish -critics, observes, Montesino's historic interest lies in his suffusing -popular verse with the spirit of mysticism, and in his transmuting the -popular forms of song into artistic forms. - -Space fails for contemporary authors of _esparsas_, _decires_, -_resquestas_, more or less ingenious; but we cannot omit the name of -the Carthusian, JUAN DE PADILLA (1468-?1522), who suffers from an -admirer's indiscretion in calling him "the Spanish Homer." His _Retablo -de la Vida de Cristo_ versifies the Saviour's life in the manner of -Juvencus, and his more elaborate poem, _Los doce triunfos de los doce -Apóstoles_, strives to fuse Dante's severity with Petrarch's grace. -Rhetorical out of season, and tending to abuse his sonorous vocabulary, -Padilla indulges in verbal eccentricities and in sudden drops from -altisonance to familiarity; but in his best passages—his journey -through hell and purgatory, guided by St. Paul—he excels by force -of vision, by his realisation of the horror of the grave, and by his -vigorous transcription of the agonies of the lost. The allegorical form -is again found in the _Infierno del Amor_ of Garci Sánchez de Badajoz, -who ended life in a madhouse. His presentation of Macías, Rodríguez -del Padrón, Santillana, and Jorge Manrique in thrall to love's -enchantments, was to the taste of his time, and a poem with the same -title, _Infierno del Amor_, made the reputation of a certain Guevara, -whose scattered songs are full of picaresque and biting wit. For the -rest, Sánchez de Badajoz depends upon his daring, almost blasphemous -humour, his facility in improvising, and his mastery of popular forms. - -Of the younger poetic generation, PEDRO MANUEL DE URREA (1486-? 1530) -is the most striking artist. His _Peregrinación á Jersualén_ and his -_Penitencia de Amor_ are practically inaccessible, but his _Cancionero_ -displays an ingenious and versatile talent. Urrea's aristocratic -spirit revolts at the thought that in this age of printing his songs -will be read "in cellars and kitchens," and the publication of his -verses seems due to his mother. His _Fiestas de Amor_, translated from -Petrarch, are tedious, but he has a perfect mastery of the popular -_décima_, and his _villancicos_ abound in quips of fancy matched by -subtleties of expression. Urrea fails when he closes a stanza with a -Latin tag—a dubious adonic, such as _Dominus tecum_. He fares better -with his modification of Jorge Manrique's stanza, approving his skill -in modulatory effects. His most curious essay is his verse rendering of -the _Celestina's_ first act; for here he anticipates the very modes of -Lope de Vega and of Tirso de Molina. But in his own day he was not the -sole practitioner in dramatic verse. - -A distinct progress in this direction is made by RODRIGO COTA DE -MAGUAQUE (fl. 1490), a convert Jew, who incited the mob to massacre his -brethren. Wrongly reputed the author of the _Coplas del Provincial_, -of _Mingo Revulgo_, and of the _Celestina_, Cota is the parent of -fifty-eight quatrains, in the form of a burlesque wedding-song, -recently discovered by M. Foulché-Delbosc. But Cota's place in -literature is ensured by his celebrated _Diálogo entre el Amor y un -Viejo_. In seventy stanzas Love and the Ancient argue the merits of -love, till the latter yields to the persuasion of the god, who then -derides the hoary amorist. The dialogue is eminently dramatic both in -form and spirit, the action convincing, clear, and rapid, while the -versification is marked by an exquisite melody. It is not known that -the _Diálogo_ was ever played, yet it is singularly fitted for scenic -presentation. - -The earliest known writer for the stage among the moderns was, -as we have already said, Gómez Manrique; but earlier spectacles -are frequently mentioned in fifteenth-century chronicles. These -may be divided into _entremeses_, a term loosely applied to balls -and tourneys, accompanied by chorus-singing; and into _momos_, -entertainments which took on a more literary character, and which found -excuses for dramatic celebrations at Christmas and Eastertide. Gómez -Manrique had made a step forward, but his pieces are primitive and -fragmentary compared to those of JUAN DEL ENCINA (1468-1534). A story -given in the scandalous _Pleito del Manto_ reports that Encina was the -son of Pero Torrellas, and another idle tale declares him to be Juan de -Tamayo. The latter is proved a blunder; the former is discredited by -Encina's solemn cursing of Torrellas. Encina passed from the University -of Salamanca to the household of the Duke of Alba (1493), was present -next year at the siege of Granada, and celebrated the victory in his -_Triunfo de fama_. Leaving for Italy in 1498, he is found at Rome in -1502, a favourite with that Spanish Pope, Alexander VI. He returned -to Spain, took orders, and sang his first mass at Jerusalem in 1519, -at which date he was appointed Prior of the Monastery of León. He is -thought to have died at Salamanca. - -Encina began writing in his teens, and has left us over a hundred and -seventy lyrics, composed before he was twenty-five years old. Nearly -eighty pieces, with musical settings by the author, are given in -Asenjo Barbieri's _Cancionero Musical_. His songs, when undisfigured -by deliberate conceits, are full of devotional charm. Still, Encina -abides with us in virtue of his eclogues, the first two being given -in the presence of his patrons at Alba de Tormes, probably in 1492. -His plays are fourteen in number, and were undoubtedly staged. Ticknor -would persuade us that the seventh and eighth, though really one piece, -"with a pause between," were separated by the poet "in his simplicity." -Even Encina's simplicity may be overstated, and Ticknor's "pause" must -have been long: for the seventh eclogue was played in 1494, and the -eighth in 1495. His eclogues are eclogues only in name, being dramatic -presentations of primitive themes, with a distinct but simple action. -The occasion is generally a feast-day, and the subject is sometimes -sacred. Yet not always so: the _Égloga de Fileno_ dramatises the -shepherd's passion for Lefira, and ends with a suicide suggested by the -_Celestina_. In like wise, Encina's _Plácida y Vitoriano_, involving -two attempted suicides and one scabrous scene, introduces Venus and -Mercury as characters. Again, the _Aucto del Repelón_ dramatises the -adventures in the market-place of two shepherds, Johan Paramas and -Piernicurto; while _Cristino y Febea_ exhibits the ignominious downfall -of a would-be hermit in phrases redolent of Cota's _Diálogo_. Simple -as the motives are, they are skilfully treated, and the versification, -especially in _Plácida y Vitoriano_, is pure and elegant. Encina -elaborates the strictly liturgical drama to its utmost point, and his -younger contemporary, Lucas Fernández, makes no further progress, for -the obvious reason that no novelty was possible without incurring a -charge of heresy. As Sr. Cotarelo y Mori has pointed out, the sacred -drama remains undeveloped till the lives of saints and the theological -mysteries are exploited by men of genius. Meanwhile, Encina has begun -the movement which culminates in the _autos_ of Calderón. - -In another direction, the Spanish version of _Amadís de Gaula_ (1508) -marks an epoch. This story was known to Ayala and three other singers -in Baena's chorus; and the probability is that the lost original was -written in Portuguese by Joham de Lobeira (1261-1325), who uses in -the Colocci-Brancuti _Canzoniere_ (No. 230) the same _ritournelle_ -that Oriana sings in _Amadís_. GARCÍA ORDÓÑEZ DE MONTALVO (fl. 1500) -admits that three-fourths of his book is mere translation; and it may -be that he was not the earliest Spaniard to annex the story, which, in -the first instance, derives from France. Amadís of Gaul is a British -knight, and, though the geography is bewildering, "Gaul" stands for -Wales, as "Bristoya" and "Vindilisora" stand for Bristol and Windsor. -The chronology is no less puzzling, for the action occurs "not many -years after the Passion of our Redeemer." Briefly, the book deals -with the chequered love of Amadís for Oriana, daughter of Lisuarte, -King of Britain. Spells incredible, combats with giants, miraculous -interpositions, form the tissue of episode, till fidelity is rewarded, -and Amadís made happy. - -Cervantes' Barber, classing the book as "the best in that kind," -saved it from the holocaust, and posterity has accepted the Barber's -sentence. _Amadís_ is at least the only chivalresque novel that -man need read. The style is excellent, and, though the tale is too -long-drawn, the adventures are interesting, the supernatural machinery -is plausibly arranged, and the plot is skilfully directed. Later -stories are mostly burlesques of _Amadís_: the giants grow taller, -the monsters fiercer, the lakes deeper, the torments sharper. In his -_Sergas de Esplandián_, Montalvo fails when he attempts to take up -the story at the end of _Amadís_. One tedious sequel followed another -till, within half a century, we have a thirteenth _Amadís_. The -best of its successors is Luis Hurtado's (or, perhaps, Francisco de -Moraes') _Palmerín de Inglaterra_, which Cervantes' Priest would have -kept in such a casket as "that which Alexander found among Darius' -spoils, intended to guard the works of Homer." Nor is this mere -irony. Burke avowed in the House of Commons that he had spent much -time over _Palmerín_, and Johnson wasted a summer upon _Felixmarte de -Hircania_. Wearisome as the kind was, its popularity was so unbounded -that Hieronym Sempere, in the _Caballería cristiana_, applied the -chivalresque formula to religious allegory, introducing Christ as -the Knight of the Lion, Satan as the Knight of the Serpent, and the -Apostles as the Twelve Knights of the Round Table. Of its class, -_Amadís de Gaula_ is the first and best. - -From an earlier version of _Amadís_ derives the _Cárcel de Amor_ of -Diego San Pedro, the writer of some erotic verses in the _Cancionero -de burlas_. San Pedro tells the story of the loves of Leriano and -Laureola, mingled with much allegory and chivalresque sentiment. -The construction is weak, but the style is varied, delicate, and -distinguished. Ending with a panegyric on women, "who, no less than -cardinals, bequeath us the theological virtues," the book was banned -by the Inquisition. But nothing stayed its course, and, despite all -prohibitions, it was reprinted times out of number. The _Cárcel de -Amor_ ends with a striking scene of suicide, which was borrowed by many -later novelists. - -The first instance of its annexation occurs in the _Tragicomedia de -Calisto y Melibea_, better known as the _Celestina_. This remarkable -book, first published (as it seems) at Burgos, in 1499, has been -classed as a play, or as a novel in dialogue. Its length would make -it impossible on the boards, and its influence is most marked on the -novel. As first published, it had sixteen acts, extended later to -twenty-one, and in some editions to twenty-two. On the authority of -Rojas, anxious as to the Inquisition, the first and longest act has -been attributed to Mena and to Cota; but the prose is vastly superior -to Mena's, while the verse is no less inferior to the lyrism of Cota's -_Diálogo_. There is small doubt but that the whole is the work of the -lawyer FERNANDO DE ROJAS, a native of Montalbán, who became Alcaide of -Salamanca, and died, at a date unknown, at Talavera de la Reina. - -The tale is briefly told. Calisto, rebuffed by Melibea, employs the -procuress Celestina, who arranges a meeting between the lovers. But -destiny works a speedy expiation: Celestina is murdered by Calisto's -servants, Calisto is accidentally killed, and Melibea destroys herself -before her father, whom she addresses in a set speech suggested by the -_Cárcel de Amor_. Celestina is developed from Ruiz' Trota-conventos; -Rojas' lovers, Calisto and Melibea, from Ruiz' Melón and Endrina; -and some hints are drawn from Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. But, -despite these borrowings, we have to deal with a completely original -masterpiece, unique in its kind. We are no longer in an atmosphere -thick with impossible monsters in incredible circumstances: we are in -the very grip of life, in commerce with elemental, strait passions. - -Rojas is the first Spanish novelist who brings a conscience to his -work, who aims at more than whiling away an idle hour. He is not great -in incident, his plot is clumsily fashioned, the pedantry of his age -fetters him; but in effects of artistry, in energy of phrasing, he -is unmatched by his coevals. Though he invented the comic type which -was to become the _gracioso_ of Calderón, his humour is thin; on the -other hand, his realism and his pessimistic fulness are above praise. -Choosing for his subject the tragedy of illicit passion, he hit on -the means of exhibiting all his powers. His purpose is to give a -transcript of life, objective and impersonal, and he fulfils it, adding -thereunto a mysterious touch of sombre imagination. His characters -are not Byzantine emperors and queens of Cornwall: he traffics in -the passions of plain men and women, the agues of the love-sick, the -crafts of senile vice, the venality and vauntings of picaroons, the -effrontery of croshabells. Hence, from the first hour, his book took -the world by storm, was imprinted in countless editions, was continued -by Juan Sedeño and Feliciano da Silva—the same whose "reason of the -unreasonableness" so charmed Don Quixote—was imitated by Sancho Muñón -in _Lisandro y Roselia_, was used by Lope de Vega in the _Dorotea_, and -was passed from the Spanish stage to be glorified as _Romeo and Juliet_. - -Between the years 1508-12 was composed the anonymous _Cuestión de -Amor_, a semi-historical, semi-social novel wherein contemporaries -figure under feigned names, some of which are deciphered by the -industry of Signor Croce, who reveals Belisena, for example, as Bona -Sforza, afterwards Queen of Poland. Though much of its first success -was due to the curiosity which commonly attaches to any _roman à clef_, -it still interests because of its picturesque presentation of Spanish -society in Italian surroundings, and the excellence of its Castilian -style was approved by that sternest among critics, Juan de Valdés. - -History is represented by the _Historia de los Reyes católicos_ of -Andrés Bernáldez (d. 1513), parish priest of Los Palacios, near -Seville, who relates with spirit and simplicity the triumphs of the -reign, waxing enthusiastic over the exploits of his friend Columbus. -A more ambitious historian is HERNANDO DEL PULGAR (1436-?1492), whose -_Claros Varones de Castilla_ is a brilliant gallery of portraits, -drawn by an observer who took Pérez de Guzmán for his master. Pulgar's -_Crónica de los Reyes católicos_ is mere official historiography, the -work of a flattering partisan, the slave of flagrant prejudice; yet -even here the charm of manner is seductive, though the perdurable value -of the annals is naught. As a portrait-painter, as an intelligent -analyst of character, as a wielder of Castilian prose, Pulgar ranks -only second to his immediate model. He is to be distinguished from -another Hernando del Pulgar (1451-1531), who celebrated the exploits of -the great captain, Gonzalo de Córdoba, at the request of Carlos V. In -this case, as in so many others, the old is better. - -One great name, that of Christopher Columbus or CRISTÓBAL COLÓN -(1440-1506) is inseparable from those of the Catholic kings, who -astounded their enemies by their ingratitude to the man who gave them -a New World. Mystic and adventurer, Columbus wrote letters which are -marked by sound practical sense, albeit couched in the apocalyptic -phrases of one who holds himself for a seer and prophet. Incorrect, -uncouth, and rugged as is his syntax, he rises on occasion to heights -of eloquence astonishing in a foreigner. But it is perhaps imprudent to -classify such a man as Columbus by his place of birth. An exception in -most things, he was probably the truest Spaniard in all the Spains; and -by virtue of his transcendent genius, visible in word as in action, he -is filed upon the bede-roll of the Spanish glories. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - THE AGE OF CARLOS QUINTO - - 1516-1556 - - -With the arrival of printing-presses in 1474 the diffusion of foreign -models became general throughout Spain. The closing years of the reign -of the Catholic Kings were essentially an era of translation, and -this movement was favoured by high patronage. The King, Fernando, was -the pupil of Vidal de Noya; the Queen, Isabel, studied under Beatriz -Galindo, _la latina_; and Luis Vives reports that their daughter, Mad -Juana, could and did deliver impromptu Latin speeches to the deputies -of the Low Countries. Throughout the land Italian scholars preached -the gospel of the Renaissance. The brothers Geraldino (Alessandro and -Antonio) taught the children of the royal house. Peter Martyr, the -Lombard, boasts that the intellectual chieftains of Castile sat at his -feet; and he had his present reward, for he ended as Bishop of Granada. -From the Latin chair in the University of Salamanca, Lucio Marineo lent -his aid to the good cause; and, in Salamanca likewise, the Portuguese, -Arias Barbosa, won repute as the earliest good Peninsular Hellenist. -Spanish women took the fever of foreign culture. Lucía de Medrano and -Juana de Contreras lectured to university men upon the Latin poets -of the Augustan age. So, too, Francisca de Nebrija would serve as -substitute for her father, ANTONIO DE NEBRIJA (1444-1522), the greatest -of Spanish humanists, the author of the _Arte de la Lengua Castellana_ -and of a Spanish-Latin dictionary, both printed in 1492. Nebrija -touched letters at almost every point, touching naught that he did not -adorn; he expounded his principles in the new University of Alcalá de -Henares, founded in 1508 by the celebrated Cardinal Francisco Jiménez -de Cisneros (1436-1517). Palencia had preceded Nebrija by two years -with the earliest Spanish-Latin dictionary; but Nebrija's drove it from -the field, and won for its author a name scarce inferior to Casaubon's -or Scaliger's. - -The first Greek text of the New Testament ever printed came from -Alcalá de Henares in 1514. In 1520 the renowned Complutensian Polyglot -followed; the Hebrew and Chaldean texts being supervised by converted -Jews like Alfonso de Alcalá, Alfonso de Zamora, and Pablo Coronel; the -Greek by Nebrija, Juan de Vergara, Demetrio Ducas, and Hernán Núñez, -"the Greek Commander." Versions of the Latin classics were in all men's -hands. Palencia rendered Plutarch and Josephus, Francisco Vidal de Noya -translated Horace, Virgil's _Eclogues_ were done by Encina, Cæsar's -_Commentaries_ by Diego López de Toledo, Plautus by Francisco López -Villalobos, Juvenal by Jerónimo de Villegas, and Apuleius' _Golden Ass_ -by Diego López de Cartagena, Archdeacon of Seville. Juan de Vergara -was busied on the text of Aristotle, while his brother, Francisco -de Vergara, gave Spaniards their first Greek grammar and translated -Heliodorus. Nor was activity restrained to dead languages: the Italian -teachers saw to that. Dante was translated by Pedro Fernández de -Villegas, Archdeacon of Burgos; Petrarch's _Trionfi_ by Antonio -Obregón and Álvar Gómez; and the _Decamerone_ by an anonymous writer of -high merit. - -If Italians invaded Spain, Spaniards were no less ready to settle -in Italy. Long before, Dante had met with Catalans and had branded -their proverbial stinginess:—"_l'avara povertà di Catalogna_." A -little later, and Boccaccio spurned Castilians as so many wild men: -"_semibarbari et efferati homines_." Lorenzo Valla, chief of the -Italian scholars at Alfonso V.'s Neapolitan court, denounced the King's -countrymen as illiterates:—"_a studiis humanitatis abhorrentes_." -Benedetto Gareth of Barcelona (1450-?1514) plunged into the new -current, forswore his native tongue, wrote his respectable _Rime_ in -Italian, and re-incarnated himself under the Italian form of Chariteo. -A certain Jusquin Dascanio is represented by a song, half-Latin, -half-Italian, in Asenjo Barbieri's _Cancionero Musical de los Siglos -xv. y xvi._ (No. 68), and a few anonymous pieces in the same collection -are written wholly in Italian. The Valencian, Bertomeu Gentil, and the -Castilian, Tapia, use Italian in the _Cancionero General_ of 1527, the -former succeeding so far that one of his eighteen Italian sonnets has -been accepted as Tansillo's by all Tansillo's editors. The case of the -Spanish Jew, Judas Abarbanel, whom Christians call León Hebreo, is -exceptional. Undoubtedly his famous _Dialoghi di amore_, that curious -product of neo-platonic and Semitic mysticism which charmed Abarbanel's -contemporaries no less than it charmed Cervantes, reaches us in Italian -(1535). Yet, since it was written in 1502, its foreign dress is the -chance result of the writer's expulsion from Spain with his brethren in -1492. It is unlikely that Judas Abarbanel should have mastered all the -secrets of Italian within ten years: that he composed in Castilian, the -language most familiar to him, is overwhelmingly probable. - -But the Italian was met on his own ground. The Neapolitan poet, Luigi -Tansillo, declares himself a Spaniard to the core:—"_Spagnuolo -d'affezione_." And, later, Panigarola asserts that Milanese fops, -on the strength of a short tour in Spain, would pretend to forget -their own speech, and would deliver themselves of Spanish words and -tags in and out of season. Meanwhile, Spanish Popes, like Calixtus -III. and Alexander VI., helped to bring Spanish into fashion. It is -unlikely that the epical _Historia Parthenopea_ (1516) of the Sevillan, -Alonso Hernández, found many readers even among the admirers of the -Great Captain, Gonzalo de Córdoba, whose exploits are its theme; but -it merits notice as a Spanish book issued in Rome, and as a poor -imitation of Mena's _Trescientas_, with faint suggestions of an Italian -environment. A Spaniard, whom Encina may have met upon his travels, -introduced Italians to the Spanish theatre. This was BARTOLOMÉ TORRES -NAHARRO, a native of Torres, near Badajoz. Our sole information -concerning him comes from a Letter Prefatory to his works, written by -one Barbier of Orleans. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, -and no proof supports the story that he was driven from Rome because -of his satires on the Papal court. Neither do we know that he died in -extreme poverty. These are baseless tales. What is certain is this: -that Torres Naharro, having taken orders, was captured by Algerine -pirates, was ransomed, and made his way to Rome about the year 1513. -Further, we know that he lived at Naples in the service of Fabrizio -Colonna, and that his collected plays were published at Naples in -1517 with the title of _Propaladia_, dedicated to Francisco Dávalos, -the Spanish husband of Vittoria Colonna. That Torres Naharro was a -favourite with Leo X. rests on no better basis than the fact that in -the Pope's privilege to print he is styled _dilectus filius_. - -His friendly witness, Barbier, informs us that, though Torres Naharro -was quite competent to write his plays in Latin, he chose Castilian of -set purpose that "he might be the first to write in the vulgar tongue." -This phrase, taken by itself, implies ignorance of Encina's work; in -any case, Torres Naharro develops his drama on a larger scale than that -of his predecessor. His _Prohemio_ or Preface is full of interesting -doctrine. He divides his plays into five acts, because Horace wills it -so, and these acts he calls _jornadas_, "because they resemble so many -resting-points." The personages should not be too many: not less than -six, and not more than twelve. If the writer introduces some twenty -characters in his _Tinellaria_, he excuses himself on the ground that -"the subject needed it." He further apologises for the introduction -of Italian words in his plays: a concession to "the place where, and -the persons to whom, the plays were recited." Lastly, Torres Naharro -divides dramas into two broad classes: first, the _comedia de noticia_, -which treats of events really seen and noted; second, the _comedia de -fantasía_, which deals with feigned things, imaginary incidents that -seem true, and might be true, though in fact they are not so. - -Of the _comedia de fantasía_ Torres Naharro is the earliest master. He -adventures on the allegorical drama in his _Trofea_, which commemorates -the exploits of Manoel of Portugal in Africa and India, and brings Fame -and Apollo upon the stage. The chivalresque drama is represented by -him in such pieces as the _Serafina_, the _Aquilana_, the _Himenea_; -while he examples the play of manners by the _Jacinta_ and the -_Soldadesca_. Each piece begins with an _introyto_ or prologue, wherein -indulgence and attention are requested; then follows a concise summary -of the plot; last, the action opens. The faults of Torres Naharro's -theatre are patent enough: his tendency to turn comedy to farce, his -inclination to extravagance, his want of tact in crowding his stage—as -in the _Tinellaria_—with half-a-dozen characters chattering in -half-a-dozen different languages at once. - -Setting aside these primitive humours, it is impossible to deny that -Torres Naharro has a positive, as well as an historic value. His -versification, always in the Castilian octosyllabic metre, with no -trespassing on the Italian hendecasyllabic, is neat and polished, -and, though far from splendid, lacks neither sweetness nor speed; his -dialogue is pointed, opportune, dramatic; his characters are observed -and are set in the proper light. His verses entitled the _Lamentaciones -de Amor_ are in the old, artificial manner; his satirical couplets -on the clergy are vigorous and witty attacks on the general life of -Rome; his devout songs are neither better nor worse than those of his -contemporaries; and his sonnets—two in Italian, one in a mixture of -Italian and Latin—are mere curiosities of no real worth, yet they -testify to the writer's uncommon versatility. Versatile Torres Naharro -unquestionably was, and his gift serves him in the plays for which he -is remembered. He is the first Spaniard to realise his personages, to -create character on the boards; the first to build a plot, to maintain -an interest of action by variety of incident, to polish an intrigue, to -concentrate his powers within manageable limits, to view stage-effects -from before the curtain. In a word, Torres Naharro knew the stage, -its possibilities, and its resources. For his own age and for his -opportunities he knew it even too well; and his _Himenea_—the theme -of which is the love of Himeneo for Febea, with the interposition of -Febea's brother, petulant as to the "point of honour"—is an isolated -masterpiece, unrivalled till the time of Lope de Vega. The accident -that Torres Naharro's _Propaladia_ was printed in Italy; the misfortune -that its Spanish reprints were tardy, and that his plays were too -complicated for the primitive resources of the Spanish stage: these -delayed the development of the Spanish theatre by close on a century. -Yet the fact remains: to find a match for the _Himenea_ we must pass to -the best of Lope's pieces. - -Thus the Spaniard in Italy. In Portugal, likewise, he made his way. GIL -VICENTE (1470-1540), the Portuguese dramatist, wrote forty-two pieces, -of which ten are wholly in Castilian, while fifteen are in a mixed -jargon of Castilian and Portuguese which the author himself ridicules -as _aravia_ in his _Auto das Fadas_. An important historical fact is -that Vicente's earliest dramatic attempt, the _Monologo da Visitação_, -is in Castilian, and that it was actually played—the first lay piece -ever given in Portugal—on June 8, 1502. Its simplicity of tone and -elegance of manner are reminiscent of Encina, and it can scarce be -doubted that Vicente's imitation is deliberate. Still more obvious -is the following of Encina's eclogues in Vicente's _Auto pastoril -Castelhano_ and the _Auto dos Reis Magos_, where the legend is treated -with Encina's curious touch of devotion and modernity, the whole -closing with a song in which all join. Once again Encina's influence -is manifest in the _Auto da Sibilla Cassandra_, wherein Cassandra, -niece of Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah, is wooed by Solomon. In _Amadís de -Gaula_ and in _Dom Duardos_ there is a marked advance in elaboration -and finish; and in the _Auto da Fé_ Vicente proves his independence by -an ingenuity and a fancy all his own. Here he displays qualities above -those of his model, and treats his subject with such brilliancy that, -a century and a half later, Calderón condescended to borrow from the -Portuguese the idea of his _auto_ entitled _El Lirio y la Azucena_. Gil -Vicente is technically a dramatist, but he is not dramatic as Torres -Naharro is dramatic. His action is slight, his treatment timid and -conventional, and he is more poetic than inventive; still, his dramatic -songs are of singular beauty, conceived in a tone of mystic lyricism -unapproached by those who went before him, and surpassed by few who -followed. That Vicente was ever played in Spain is not known; but that -he influenced both Lope de Vega and Calderón is as sure as that he -himself was a disciple of Encina. - -A more immediate factor in the evolution of Spanish letters was the -Catalan Boscá, whom it is convenient to call by his Castilian name, -JUAN BOSCÁN ALMOGAVER (?1490-1542). A native of Barcelona, Boscán -served as a soldier in Italy, returned to Spain in 1519, and, as we -know from Garcilaso's Second Eclogue, was tutor to Fernando Álvarez -de Toledo, whom the world knows as the Duque de Alba. Boscán's -earliest verses are all in the old manner; nor does he venture -on the Italian hendecasyllabic till the year 1526, just before -resigning his guardianship of Alba. His conversion was the work of -the Venetian ambassador, Andrea Navagiero, an accomplished courtier, -ill represented by his _Viaggio fatto in Spagna_. Being at Granada -in the year 1526, Navagiero met Boscán, who has left us an account -of the conversation:—"Talking of wit and letters, especially of -their varieties in different tongues, he inquired why I did not try -in Castilian the sonnets and verse-forms favoured by distinguished -Italians. He not only suggested this, but pressed me urgently to the -attempt. Some days later, I made for home, and, because of the length -and loneliness of the journey, thinking matters over, I returned to -what Navagiero had said, and thus I first attempted this sort of verse; -finding it hard at the outset, since it is very intricate, with many -peculiarities, varying greatly from ours. Yet, later, I fancied that I -was progressing well, perhaps because we all love our own essays; hence -I continued, little by little, with increasing zeal." This passage is -a _locus classicus_. Ticknor justly observes that no single foreigner -ever affected a national literature more deeply and more instantly -than Navagiero, and that we have here a first-hand account, probably -unique in literary history, of the first inception of a revolution by -the earliest, if not the most conspicuous, actor in it. We have at -last reached the parting of the ways, and Boscán presents himself as -a guide to the Promised Land. The astonishing thing is that Boscán, a -Barcelonese by birth and residence, ignores Auzías March. - -There were many Italianates before Boscán—as Francisco Imperial and -Santillana; but their hour was not propitious, and Boscán is with -justice regarded as the leader of the movement. He was not a poet of -singular gifts, and he had the disadvantage of writing in Castilian, -which was not his native language; but Boscán had the wit to see -that Castilian was destined to supremacy, and he mastered it for his -purpose with that same dogged perseverance which led him to undertake -his more ambitious attempt unaided. He does not, indeed, appear to -have sought for disciples, nor were his own efforts as successful -as he believed: "perhaps because we all love our own essays." His -Castilian prose is evidence of his gift of style, and his translation -of Castiglione's _Cortegiano_ is a triumph of rendering fit to take -its place beside our Thomas Hoby's version of the same original. But, -it must be said frankly, that Boscán's most absolute success is in -prose. Herrera bitterly taunts him with decking himself in the precious -robes of Petrarch, and with remaining, spite of all that he can do, "a -foreigner in his language." And the charge is true. In verse Boscán's -defects grow very visible: his hardness, his awkward construction, his -unrefined ear, his uncertain touch upon his instrument, his boisterous -execution. Still, it is not as an original genius that Boscán finds -place in history, but rather as an initiator, a master-opportunist -who, without persuasion, by the sheer force of conviction and example, -led a nation to abandon the ancient ways, and to admit the potency and -charm of exotic forms. That in itself constitutes a title, if not to -immortality, at least to remembrance. - -Boscán's influence manifested itself in diverse ways. His friend, -Garcilaso de la Vega, sent him the first edition of Castiglione's -_Cortegiano_, printed at Venice in 1528. This—"the best book that -ever was written upon good breeding," according to Samuel Johnson—was -triumphantly translated into Castilian by Boscán at Garcilaso's prayer; -and, though Boscán himself held translation to be a thing meet for -"men of small parts," his rendering is an almost perfect performance. -Moreover, it was the single work published by him (1534), for his poems -appeared under his widow's care. Once more, in an epistle directed -to Hurtado de Mendoza, Boscán re-echoes Horace's note of elegant -simplicity with a faithfulness not frequent in his work; and, lastly, -it is known that he did into Castilian an Euripidean play, which, -though licensed for the press, was never printed. Truly it seems that -Boscán was conscious of his very definite limitations, and that he -felt the necessity of a copy, rather than a direct model. If it were -so, this would indicate a power of conscious selection, a faculty -for self-criticism which cannot be traced in his published verses. -His earlier poems, written in Castilian measures, show him for a -man destitute of guidance, thrown on his own resources, a perfectly -undistinguished versifier with naught to sing and with no dexterity of -vocalisation. Yet, let Boscán betake himself to the poets of the Cinque -Cento, and he flashes forth another being: the dauntless adventurer -sailing for unknown continents, inspired by the enthusiasm of immediate -suggestion. - -His _Hero y Leandra_ is frankly based upon Musæus, and it is -characteristic of Boscán's mode that he expands Musæus' three hundred -odd hexameters into nigh three thousand hendecasyllabics. Professor -Flamini has demonstrated most convincingly that Boscán followed Tasso's -_Favola_, but he comes far short of Tasso's variety, distinction, and -grace. He annexes the Italian blank verse—the _versi sciolti_—as it -were by sheer force, but he never subdues the metre to his will, and -his monotony of accent and mechanical cadence grow insufferable. Not -only so: too often the very pretence of inspiration dissolves, and the -writer descends upon slothful prose, sliced into lines of regulation -length, honeycombed with flat colloquialisms. Conspicuously better is -the _Octava Rima_—an allegory embodying the Court of Love and the -Court of Jealousy, with the account of an embassage from the former to -two fair Barcelonese rebels. Of this performance Thomas Stanley has -given an English version (1652) from which these stanzas are taken:— - - "_In the bright region of the fertile east - Where constant calms smooth heav'n's unclouded brow, - There lives an easy people, vow'd to rest, - Who on love only all their hours bestow: - By no unwelcome discontent opprest, - No cares save those that from this passion flow, - Here reigns, here ever uncontroll'd did reign; - The beauteous Queen sprung from the foaming main._ - - _Her hand the sceptre bears, the crown her head, - Her willing vassals here their tribute pay: - Here is her sacred power and statutes spread, - Which all with cheerful forwardness obey: - The lover by affection hither led, - Receives relief, sent satisfied away: - Here all enjoy, to give their last flames ease, - The pliant figure of their mistresses ..._ - - _Love every structure offers to the sight, - And every stone his soft impression wears. - The fountains, moving pity and delight, - With amorous murmurs drop persuasive tears. - The rivers in their courses love invite, - Love is the only sound their motion bears. - The winds in whispers soothe these kind desires, - And fan with their mild breath Love's glowing fires._" - -Ticknor ranks this as "the most agreeable and original of Boscán's -works," and as to the correctness of the first adjective there can -be no two opinions. But concerning Boscán's originality there is much -to say. Passage upon passage in the _Octava Rima_ is merely a literal -rendering of Bembo's _Stanze_, and the translation begins undisguised -at the opening line. Where the Italian writes, "_Ne l'odorato e lucido -Oriente_," the Spaniard follows him with the candid transcription, "_En -el lumbroso y fértil Oriente_"; and the imitation is further tesselated -with mosaics conveyed from Claudian, from Petrarch, and Ariosto. -None the less is it just to say that the conveyance is executed with -considerable—almost with masterly—skill. The borrowing nowise -belittles Boscán; for he was not—did not pose as—a great spirit -with an original voice. He makes no claim whatever, he seeks for no -applause—the shy, taciturn experimentalist who published never a line -of verse, and piped for his own delight. Equipped with the ambition, -though not with the accomplishment, of the artist, Boscán has a prouder -place than he ever dreamed of, since he is confessedly the earliest -representative of a new poetic dynasty, the victorious leader of a -desperately forlorn hope. That title is his laurel and his garland. -He led his race into the untrodden ways, triumphing without effort -where men of more strenuous faculty had failed; and his results have -successfully challenged time, inasmuch as there has been no returning -from his example during nigh four hundred years. Not a great genius, -not a lordly versifier, endowed with not one supreme gift, Boscán ranks -as an unique instance in the annals of literary adventure by virtue of -his enduring and irrevocable victory. - -His is the foremost post in point of time. In point of absolute merit -he is easily outshone by his younger comrade, GARCILASO DE LA VEGA -(1503-36), the bearer of a name renowned in Spanish chronicle and song. -Grandson of Pérez de Guzmán, Garcilaso entered the Royal Body-guard in -his eighteenth year. He quitted him like the man he was in crushing -domestic rebellion, and, despite the fact that his brother, Pedro, -served in the insurgent ranks, Garcilaso grew into favour with the -Emperor. - -At Pavia, where Francis lost all save honour, Garcilaso distinguished -himself by his intrepidity. For a moment he fell into disgrace -because of his connivance at a secret marriage between his cousin -and one of the Empress' Maids of Honour: interned in an islet on the -Danube,—_Danubio, rio divino_, he calls it,—he there composed one -of his most admired pieces, richly charged with exotic colouring. His -imprisonment soon ended, and, with intervals of service before Tunis, -and with spells of embassies between Spain and Italy, his last years -were mostly spent at Naples in the service of the Spanish Viceroy, -Pedro de Toledo, Marqués de Villafranca, father of Garcilaso's friend, -the Duque de Alba. In the Provençal campaign the Spanish force was held -in check by a handful of yeomen gathered in the fort of Muy, between -Draguignan and Fréjus. Muy recalls to Spanish hearts such memories -as Zutphen brings to Englishmen. In itself the engagement was a mere -skirmish: for Garcilaso it was a great and picturesque occasion. The -accounts given by Navarrete and García Cerezeda vary in detail, but -their general drift is identical. The last of the Spanish Cæsars named -his personal favourite, the most dashing of Spanish soldiers and the -most distinguished of Spanish poets, to command the storming-party. -Doffing his breastplate and his helmet that he might be seen by all -beholders—by the Emperor not less than by the army—Garcilaso led -the assault in person, was among the first to climb the breach, and -fell mortally wounded in the arms of Jerónimo de Urrea, the future -translator of Ariosto, and of his more intimate friend, the Marqués de -Lombay, whom the world knows best as St. Francis Borgia. He was buried -with his ancestors in his own Toledo, where, as even the grudging -Góngora allows, every stone within the city is his monument. - -His illustrious descent, his ostentatious valour, his splendid -presence, his seductive charm, his untimely death: all these, joined -to his gift of song, combine to make him the hero of a legend and the -idol of a nation. Like Sir Philip Sidney, Garcilaso personified all -accomplishments and all graces. He died at thirty-three: the fact must -be borne in mind when we take account of his life's work in literature. -Yet Europe mourned for him, and the loyal Boscán proclaimed his debt -to the brilliant soldier-poet. Pleased as the Catalan was with his -novel experiments, he avows he would not have persevered "but for the -encouragement of Garcilaso, whose decision—not merely to my mind, but -to the whole world's—is to be taken as final. By praising my attempts, -by showing the surest sign of approval through his acceptance of my -example, he led me to dedicate myself wholly to the undertaking." -Boscán and Garcilaso were not divided by death. The former's widow, Ana -Girón de Rebolledo, gave her husband's verses to the press in 1543; -and, more jealous for the fame of her husband's friend than were any of -his own household, she printed Garcilaso's poems in the Fourth Book. - -Garcilaso is eminently a poet of refinement, distinction, and -cultivation. What Boscán half knew, Garcilaso knew to perfection, and -his accomplishment was wider as well as deeper.[6] Living his last -years in Naples, Garcilaso had caught the right Renaissance spirit, and -is beyond all question the most Italianate of Spanish poets in form -and substance. He was not merely the associate of such expatriated -countrymen as Juan de Valdés: he was the friend of Bembo and Tansillo, -the first of whom calls him the best loved and the most welcome of -all the Spaniards that ever came to Italy. To Tansillo, Garcilaso was -attached by bonds of closest intimacy, and the reciprocal influence -of the one upon the other is manifest in the works of both. This -association would seem to have been the chief part of Garcilaso's -literary training. His few flights in the old Castilian metres, his -songs and _villancicos_, are of small importance; his finest efforts -are cast in the exotic moulds. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say -that fundamentally he is a Neapolitan poet. - -The sum of his production is slight: the inconsiderable _villancicos_, -three eclogues, two elegies, an epistle, five highly elaborated songs, -and thirty-eight Petrarchan sonnets. Small as is his work in bulk, -it cannot be denied that it was like nothing before it in Castilian. -Auzías March, no doubt, had earlier struck a similar note in Catalan, -and Garcilaso, who seems to have read everything, imitates his -predecessor's harmonies and cadences. His trick of reminiscence is -remarkable. Thus, his first eclogue is plainly suggested by Tansillo; -his second eclogue is little more than a rendering in verse of picked -passages from the _Arcadia_ of Jacopo Sannazaro; while the fifth of -his songs—_La Flor de Gnido_—is a most masterly transplantation of -Bernardo Tasso's structure to Castilian soil. And almost every page is -touched with the deliberate, conscious elegance of a student in the -school of Horace. In simple execution Garcilaso is impeccable. The -objection most commonly made is that he surrenders his personality, and -converts himself into the exquisite echo of an exhausted pseudo-classic -convention. And the charge is plausible. - -It is undeniably true that Garcilaso's distinction lacks the force -of real simplicity, that his eternal sweetness cloys, and that the -thing said absorbs him less than the manner of saying it. He would -have met the criticism that he was an artificial poet by pointing -out that, poetry being an art, it is of essence artificial. That he -was an imitative artist was his highest glory: by imitating foreign -models he attained his measure of originality, enriching Spain, with -not merely a number of technical forms but a new poetic language. -Without him Boscán must have failed in his emprise, as Santillana -failed before him. Besides his technical perfection, Garcilaso owned -the poetic temperament—a temperament too effeminately delicate for the -vulgarities of life. As he tells us in his third eclogue, he lived, -"now using the sword, now the pen:"— - - "_Tomando ora la espada, ora la pluma._" - -But the clank of the sabre is never heard in the fiery soldier's verse. -His atmosphere is not that of battle, but is rather the enchanted haze -of an Arcadia which never was nor ever could be in a banal world. As -thus, in Wiffen's version:— - - "_Here ceased the youth his Doric madrigal, - And sighing, with his last laments let fall - A shower of tears; the solemn mountains round, - Indulgent of his sorrow, tossed the sound - Melodious from romantic steep to steep, - In mild responses deep; - Sweet Echo, starting from her couch of moss, - Lengthened the dirge; and tenderest Philomel, - As pierced with grief and pity at his loss, - Warbled divine reply, nor seemed to trill - Less than Jove's nectar from her mournful bill. - What Nemoroso sang in sequel, tell, - Ye sweet-voiced Sirens of the sacred hill._" - -This is, in a sense, "unnatural"; but if we are to condemn it as such, -we must even reject the whole school of pastoral, a convention of which -the sixteenth century was enamoured. When Garcilaso introduced himself -as Salicio, and, under the name of Nemoroso, presented Boscán (or, as -Herrera will have it, Antonio de Fonseca), he but took the formula as -he found it, and translated it in terms of genius. He was consciously -returning upon nature; not upon the material facts of existence as it -is, but upon a figmentary nature idealised into a languid and ethereal -beauty. He sought for effects of suavest harmony, embodying in his song -a mystic neo-platonism, the _morbidezza_ of "love in the abstract," set -off by grace and sensibility and elfin music. It may be permissible -for the detached critic to appreciate Garcilaso at something less than -his secular renown, but this superior attitude were unlawful and -inexpedient for an historical reviewer. - -Time and unanimity settle many questions: and, after all, on a -matter concerning Castilian poetry, the unbroken verdict of the -Castilian-speaking race must be accepted as weighty, if not final. -Garcilaso may not be a supreme singer; he is at least one of the -greatest of the Spanish poets. Choosing to reproduce the almost -inimitable cadences of the Virgilian eclogue, he achieves his end with -a dexterity that approaches genius. Others before him had hit upon -what seemed "pretty i' the Mantuan": he alone suggests the secret -of Virgil's brooding, incommunicable, and melancholy charm. What -Boscán saw to be possible, what he attempted with more good-will than -fortune, that Garcilaso did with an instant and peremptory triumph. -He naturalised the sonnet, he enlarged the framework of the song, he -invented the ode, he so bravely arranged his lines of seven and eleven -syllables that the fascination of his harmonies has led historians -to forget Bernardo Tasso's priority in discovering the resources of -the _lira_. In rare, unwary moments he lets fall an Italian or French -idiom, nor is he always free from the pedantry of his time; but -absolute perfection is not of this world, and is least to be asked of -one who, writing in moments stolen from the rough life of camps, died -at thirty-three, full of immense promise and immense possibilities. To -speculate upon what Garcilaso might have become is vanity. As it is, -he survives as the Prince of Italianates, the acknowledged master of -the Cinque Cento form. Cervantes and Lope de Vega, agreed upon nothing -else, are at one in holding him for the first of Castilian poets. With -slight reservations, their judgment has been sustained, and even to-day -the sweet-voiced, amatorious paladin leaves an abiding impress upon -the character of his national literature. - -An early sectary of the school is discovered in the person of the -Portuguese poet, FRANCISCO DE SÂ DE MIRANDA (1495-1558), who so -frequently forsakes his native tongue that of 189 pieces included in -Mme. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos' edition, seventy-four are -in Castilian. Sâ de Miranda's early poems written before 1532—the -_Fábula de Mondego_, the _Canção á Virgem_, and the eclogue entitled -_Aleixo_—are in the old manner. His later works, such as _Nemoroso_, -with innumerable sonnets and the three elegies composed between 1552 -and 1555, are all undisguised imitations of Boscán and Garcilaso, for -whom the writer professes a rapturous enthusiasm. Sâ de Miranda ranks -among the six most celebrated Portuguese poets; and, stranger though -he be, even in Castilian literature he distinguishes himself by his -correctness of form, by his sincerity of sentiment, and by a genuine -love of natural beauty very far removed from the falsetto admiration -too current among his contemporaries. - -The soldier, GUTIERRE DE CETINA (1520-60) is another partisan of the -Italian school. Serving in Italy, he pursued his studies to the best -advantage, and won friendship and aid from literary magnates like the -Prince of Ascoli, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza; but soldiering was -little to his taste, and, after a campaign in Germany, Cetina retired -to his native Seville, whence he passed to Mexico about the year 1550. -He is known to have written in the dramatic form, but no specimen of -his drama survives, unless it be sepultured in some obscure Central -American library. Cetina is a copious sonneteer who manages his -rhyme-sequences with more variety than his predecessors, and his songs -and madrigals are excellent specimens of finished workmanship. His -general theme is Arcadian love—the beauty of Amaríllida, the piteous -passion of the shepherd Silvio, the grief of the nymph Flora for -Menalca. His treatment is always ingenious, his frugality in the matter -of adjectives is edifying, though it scandalised the exuberant Herrera, -who, as a true Andalucían, esteems emphasis and epithet and metaphor as -the three things needful. Cetina's sobriety is paid for by a certain -preciosity of utterance near akin to weakness; but he excels in the -sonnet form, which he handles with a mastery superior to Garcilaso's -own, and he adds a touch of humour uncommon in the mannered school that -he adorns. - -FERNANDO DE ACUÑA (? 1500-80) comes into notice as the translator -of Olivier de la Marche's popular allegorical poem, the _Chevalier -Délibéré_, a favourite with Carlos Quinto. The Emperor is said to have -amused himself by translating the French poem into Spanish prose, -and to have commissioned Acuña to a poetic version. A courtier like -Van Male gives us to understand that some part of Acuña's _Caballero -determinado_ is based upon the Emperor's prose rendering, and the -insinuation is that Acuña and his master should share the praise of -the former's exploit. This pleasant tale is scarce plausible, for we -know that the Cæsar never mastered colloquial Castilian, and that he -should shine in its literary exercise is almost incredible. Be that -as it may, Acuña's _Caballero determinado_, a fine example of the old -_quintillas_, met with wide and instant appreciation; yet he never -sought to follow up his triumph in the same kind. The new influence -was irresistible, and Acuña succumbed to it, imitating the _lira_ of -Garcilaso to the point of parody, singing as "Damon in absence," -practising the pastoral, aspiring to Homer's dignity in his blank -verses entitled the _Contienda de Ayax Telamonio y de Ulises_. Three -Castilian cantos of Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_ won applause in -Italy; but Acuña's best achievements are his sonnets, which are almost -always admirable. One of them contains a line as often quoted as any -other in all Castilian verse:— - - "_Un Monarca, un Imperio, y una Espada,_" - -"One Monarch, one Empire, and one Sword." And this pious aspiration -after unity had perhaps been fulfilled if Spain had abounded with such -prudent and accomplished figures as Fernando de Acuña. - -A more powerful and splendid personality is that of the illustrious -DIEGO HURTADO DE MENDOZA (1503-1575), one of the greatest figures in -the history of Spanish politics and letters. Educated for the Church at -the University of Salamanca, Mendoza preferred the career of arms, and -found his opportunity at Pavia and in the Italian wars. Before he was -twenty-nine he was named Ambassador to the Venetian Republic, became -the patron of the Aldine Press, and studied the classics with all the -ardour of his temperament. One of the few Spaniards learned in Arabic, -Mendoza was a distinguished collector: he ransacked the monastery of -Mount Athos for Greek manuscripts, secured others from Sultan Suliman -the Magnificent, and had almost all Bessarion's Greek collection -transcribed for his own library, now housed in the Escorial. The first -complete edition of Josephus was printed from Mendoza's copies. He -represented the Emperor at the Council of Trent, and saw to it that -Cardinals and Archbishops did what Spain expected of them. In 1547 he -was appointed Plenipotentiary to Rome, where he treated Pope Julius -III. as cavalierly as his Holiness was accustomed to treat his own -curates. In 1554 Mendoza returned to Spain, and the accession of Felipe -II. in 1556 brought his public career to a close. He is alleged to have -been Ambassador to England; and one would fain the report were true. - -His wit and picaresque malice are well shown in his old-fashioned -_redondillas_; which delighted so good a judge as Lope de Vega, and -his real strength lay in his management of these forms. But his long -Italian residence and his sleepless intellectual curiosity ensured his -experimenting in the high Roman manner. Tibullus, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, -Homer, Pindar, Anacreon: all these are forced into Mendoza's service, -as in his epistles and his _Fábula de Adonis, Hipómenes y Atalanta_. -It cannot be said that he is at his best in these pseudo-classical -performances, and he dares to eke out his hendecasyllabics by using a -final _palabra aguda_; but the extreme brilliancy of the humour carries -off all technical defects in the burlesque section of his poems, which -are of the loosest gaiety, most curious in a retired proconsul. Yet, if -Mendoza, who excelled in the old, felt compelled to pen his forty odd -sonnets in the new style, how strong must have been its charm! Whatever -his formal defects, Mendoza's authority was decisive in the contest -between the native and the foreign types of verse: he helped to secure -the latter's definitive triumph. - -The greatest rebel against the invasion was CRISTÓBAL DE CASTILLEJO (? -1494-1556), who passed thirty years abroad in the service of Ferdinand, -King of Bohemia. Much of his life was actually spent in Italy, but -he kept his national spirit almost absolutely free from the foreign -influence. If he compromises at all, the furthest he can go is in -adopting the mythological machinery favoured by all contemporaries, and -even for this he could plead respectable Castilian precedent; but in -the matter of form, Castillejo is cruelly intransigent. Boscán is his -especial butt. - - "_Él mismo confesará - Que no sabe donde va_"— - -"He himself will confess that he knows not whither he goes." That, -indeed, appears to have been Castillejo's fixed idea on the subject, -and he expends an infinite deal of sarcasm and ridicule upon the -apostates who, as he thinks, hide their poverty of thought in tawdry -motley. His own subjects are perfectly fitted to treatment in the -_villancico_ form, and when he is not simply improper—as in _El Sermón -de los Sermones_—his verses are remarkable for their sprightly grace -and bitter-sweet wit, which can, at need, turn to rancorous invective -or to devotional demureness. Had he lived in Spain, it is probable that -Castillejo's mordant ridicule might have delayed the Italian supremacy. -As it was, his flouts and jibes arrived too late, and the old patriot -died, as he had lived, a brilliant, impenitent, futile Tory. - -In one of his sonnets, conceived in the most mischievous spirit of -travesty, Castillejo singles out for reprobation a poet named Luis de -Haro, as one of the Italian agitators. Unluckily Haro's verses have -practically disappeared from the earth, and the few specimens preserved -in Nájera's _Cancionero_ are banal exercises in the old Castilian -manner. A practitioner more after Castillejo's heart was the ingenious -Antonio de Villegas (fl. 1551), whose _Inventario_, apart from tedious -paraphrases of the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in the style of Bottom -the Weaver, contains many excellent society-verses, touched with -conceits of extreme sublety, and a few more serious efforts in the -form of _décimas_, not without a grave urbanity and a penetration of -their own. Francisco de Castilla, a contemporary of Villegas, vies with -him in essaying the hopeless task of bringing the old rhythms into -new repute; but his _Teórica de virtudes_, dignified and elevated in -style and thought, had merely a momentary vogue, and is now unjustly -considered a mere bibliographical curiosity. - -A student in both schools was the Portuguese GREGORIO SILVESTRE -(1520-70), choirmaster and organist in the Cathedral of Granada, -who, beginning with a boy's admiration for Garci Sánchez and Torres -Naharro, practised the _redondilla_ with such success as to be esteemed -an expert in the art. A certain Pedro de Cáceres y Espinosa, in a -_Discurso_ prefixed to Silvestre's poems (1582), tells us that his -author "imitated Cristóbal de Castillejo, in speaking ill of the -Italian arrangements," and that he cultivated the novelties for the -practical reason that they were popular. It is certain that Silvestre -is as attractive in the new as in the old kind, that his elegance never -obscures his simplicity, that he shows a rare sense of ordered outline, -an exceptional finish in the technical details of both manners. His -conversion is the last that need be recorded here. The _villancico_ -still found its supporters among men of letters, and, as late as -the seventeenth century, both Cervantes and Lope de Vega profess a -platonic attachment to it and kindred metres; but the public mind was -set against a revival, and Cervantes and Lope were forced to abandon -any idea (if, indeed, they ever entertained it) of breathing life into -these dead bones. - -Didactic prose was practised, according to the old tradition, by Juan -López de Vivero Palacios Rubios, who published in 1524 his _Tratado -del esfuerzo bélico heróico_, a pseudo-philosophic inquiry into the -origin and nature of martial valour, written in a clear and forcible -style. Francisco López de Villalobos (1473-1549), a Jewish convert -attached to the royal household as physician, began by translating -Pliny's _Amphitruo_ in such fashion as to bring down on him the -thunders of Hernán Núñez. Villalobos works the didactic vein in his -rhymed _Sumario de Medicina_ which Ticknor ignores, though he mentions -its late derivatives, the _Trescientas preguntas_ of Alonso López de -Corelas (1546) and the _Cuatrocientas respuestas_ of Luis de Escobar -(1552). But the witty physician's most praiseworthy performance is -his _Tratado de las tres Grandes_—namely, talkativeness, obstinacy, -and laughter—where his familiar humour, his frolic, fantasy, and -perverse acuteness far outshine the sham philosophy and the magisterial -intention of his other work. A graver talent is that of Fernando -Pérez de Oliva (1492-1530), once lecturer in the University of Paris, -and, later, Rector of Salamanca, who boasts of having travelled three -thousand leagues in pursuit of culture. His _Diálogo de la Dignidad del -Hombre_, written to show that Castilian is as good a vehicle as the -more fashionable Latin for the discussion of transcendental matters, -is an excellent example of cold, stately, Ciceronian prose, and the -continuation by his friend, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, is worthy -of the beginning; but the hold of ecclesiastical Latin was too fast to -be loosed at a first attempt. - -Oliva's reputation is strictly Spanish: not so that of Carlos Quinto's -official chronicler, ANTONIO DE GUEVARA (d. 1545), a Franciscan monk -who held the bishopric of Mondoñedo. His _Reloj de Príncipes_ (Dial -of Princes), a didactic novel with Marcus Aurelius for its hero, was -originally composed to encourage his own patron to imitate the virtues -of the wisest ancient. Unluckily, however, Guevara passed his book off -as authentic history, alleging it to be a translation of a non-existent -manuscript in the Florentine collection. This brought him into trouble -with antagonists as varied as the court-fool, Francesillo de Zúñiga, -and a Sorian professor, the Bachelor Pedro de Rhua, whose _Cartas -censorias_ unmasked the imposture with malignant astuteness. But this -critical faculty was confined to the Peninsula, and North's English -translation, dedicated to Mary Tudor, popularised Guevara's name in -England, where he is believed by some authorities to have exercised -considerable influence on the style of English prose. This, however, -is not the place to discuss that most difficult question. An instance -of Guevara's better manner is offered by his _Década de los Césares_, -though even here he interpolates his own unscrupulous inventions -and embellishments, as he also does in his _Familiar Epistles_, -Englished by Edward Hellowes, Groom of the Leash, from whose version -an illustration may be borrowed:—"The property of love is to turn -the rough into plain, the cruel to gentle, the bitter to sweet, the -unsavoury to pleasant, the angry to quiet, the malicious to simple, the -gross to advised, and also the heavy to light. He that loveth, neither -can he murmur of him that doth anger him: neither deny that they ask -him: neither resist when they take from him: neither answer when they -reprove him: neither revenge if they shame him: neither yet will he -be gone when they send him away." These pompous commonplaces abound -in the _Familiar Epistles_, which, though still the most readable of -Guevara's performances, are tedious in their elaborate accumulation of -saws and instances, unimpressively collected from the four quarters of -the earth. But the rhetorical letters went the round of the world, were -translated times out of number, and were commonly called "The Golden -Letters," to denote their unique worth. - -More serious and less attractive historians are Pedro Mexía -(1496-1552), whose _Historia Imperial y Cesárea_ is a careful -compilation of biographies of Roman rules from Cæsar to Maximilian, -and Florián de Ocampo (1499-1555), canon of Zamora, and an official -chronicler, who, taking the Deluge as his starting-point, naturally -enough fails to bring his dry-as-dust annals later than Roman times, -and endeavours to follow the critical canons of his time with better -intention than performance. The _Comentarios de la Guerra en Alemania_ -of Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga are valuable as containing the evidence of an -acute, direct observer of events; but Ávila's exaggerated esteem for -his master causes him to convert his history into an elaborate apology. -Carlos Quinto's own dry criticism of the book is final:—"Alexander's -achievements surpassed mine—but he was less lucky in his chronicler." -The conquest of America begot a crowd of histories, of which but few -need be named here. González Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557), -once secretary to the Great Captain, gives an official picture of the -New World in his _Historia general y natural de Indias_, and a similar -study from an opposed and higher point of view is to be found in the -work of Bartolomé de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa (1474-1566), whose -passionate eloquence on behalf of the American Indians is displayed in -his _Brevísima relación de la destrucción de Indias_ (1552); but here -again history declines into polemics, the offices of judge and advocate -overlapping. The famous HERNÁN CORTÉS (1485-1554), _El Conquistador_, -was a man of action; but his official reports on Mexico and its -affairs are drawn up with exceeding skill, and in energy of phrase and -luminous concision may stand as models in their kind. Cortés found his -panegyrist in his chaplain, Francisco López de Gómara (1519-60), whose -interesting _Conquista de Méjico_ is an uncritical eulogy on his chief, -whom he extols at the expense of his brother adventurers. The antidote -was supplied by BERNAL DÍAZ DEL CASTILLO (fl. 1568), whose _Historia -verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España_ is a first-class example -of military indignation. "Here the chronicler Gómara in his history -says just the opposite of what really happened. Whoso reads him will -see that he writes well, and that, with proper information, he could -have stated his facts correctly: as it is, they are all lies." The -manifest honesty and simplicity of the old soldier, who shared in one -hundred and nineteen engagements and could not sleep unless in armour, -are extremely winning; his prolix ingenuousness has been admirably -rendered in our day by a descendant of the Conquistadores, M. José -María Heredia, whose French version is a triumph of translation. - -Incredible tales from the Western Indies stimulated the popular -appetite for miracles in terms of fiction. Paez de Ribera added a sixth -book to _Amadís_, under the title of _Florisando_ (1510); Feliciano de -Silva wrote a seventh, ninth, tenth, and eleventh—_Lisuarte_ (1510), -_Amadís de Grecia_ (1530), _Florisel de Niquea_ (1532), and _Rogel de -Grecia_; and he would certainly have supplied the eighth book had he -not been anticipated by Juan Díaz with a second _Lisuarte_. Parallel -with _Amadís_ ran the series of _Palmerín de Oliva_ (1511), which -tradition ascribes to an anonymous lady of Augustobriga, but which -may just as well be the work of Francisco Vázquez de Ciudad Rodrigo, -as it is said to be in its first descendant _Primaleón_ (1512). -_Polindo_ (1526) continues the tale, and an unknown author pursues it -in the _Crónica del muy valiente Platir_ (1533), while _Palmerín de -Inglaterra_ (1547-48) closes the cycle. Curious readers may study this -last in the English version of Anthony Munday (1616), who commends -it as an excellent and stately history, "wherein gentlemen may find -choice of sweet inventions, and gentlewomen be satisfied in courtly -expectations." These are but a few of the extravagances of the press, -and the madness spread so wide that Carlos Quinto, admirer as he was -of _Don Belianís de Grecia_, was forced to protect the New World -against invasion by books of this class. Scarcely less numerous are the -continuations of the _Celestina_, due to the indefatigable Feliciano de -Silva, to Gaspar Gómez de Toledo, to Sancho Muñoz, and others. - -A new species begins with the first picaroon novel, _Lazarillo de -Tormes_, long ascribed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, an attribution -now commonly rejected on the authority of that distinguished Spanish -scholar, M. Alfred Morel-Fatio. There is something to be said in favour -of Mendoza's claim which may not be said for lack of space. As to -_Lazarillo de Tormes_, authorship, date and place of publication are -all uncertain: the three earliest editions known appeared at Antwerp, -Burgos, and Alcalá de Henares in 1554. It is the autobiography of -Lázaro, son of the miller, Tomé González, and the trull, Antonia -Pérez. He describes his adventures as leader of a blind man, as servant -to a miserly priest, to a starving gentleman, to a beggar-monk, to a -vendor of indulgences, to a signboard painter, to an alguazil, ending -his career in a Government post—_un oficio real_—as town-crier -of Toledo. There we leave him "at the height of all good fortune." -Lázaro's experience with the hungry hidalgo may be quoted from the -admirable archaic rendering by David Rowland, of Anglesea:— - -"It pleased God to accomplish my desire and his together, for when as I -had begun my meat, as he walked, he came near to me, saying: 'Lázaro, -I promise thee thou hast the best grace in eating that ever I did see -any man have; for there is no man that seest thee eat, but seeing thee -feed, shall have appetite, although they be not a-hungered.' Then -would I say to myself, 'The hunger which thou sustainest causeth thee -to think mine so beautiful.' Then I trusted I might help him, seeing -that he had so helped himself, and had opened me the way thereto. -Wherefore I said unto him, 'Sir, the good tools make the workmen good: -this bread hath good taste, and this neat's-foot is so well sod, and -so cleanly dressed, that it is able, with the flavour of it only, to -entice any man to eat of it.' 'What? is it a neat's-foot?' 'Yes, sir.' -'Now, I promise thee it is the best morsel in the world: there is no -pheasant that I would like so well.' 'I pray thee, sir, prove of it -better and see how you like it.'... Whereupon he sitteth down by me, -and then began to eat like one that hath great need, gnawing every one -of those little bones better than any greyhound could have done for -life, saying, 'This is a singular good meal: by God, I have eaten it -with a good stomach, as if I had eaten nothing all this day before.' -Then I, with a low voice, said, 'God send me to live long as sure as -that is true.' And, having ended his victuals, he commanded me to reach -him the pot of water, which I gave him even as full as I had brought it -from the river.... We drank both, and went to bed, as the night before, -at that time well satisfied. And now, to avoid long talk, we continued -after this sort eight or nine days. The poor gentleman went every day -to brave it out in the street, to content himself with his accustomed -stately pace, and always I, poor Lázaro, was fain to be his purveyor." - -Written in the most debonair, idiomatic Castilian, _Lazarillo de -Tormes_ condenses into nine chapters the cynicism, the wit, and the -resource of an observer of genius. After three hundred years, it -survives all its rivals, and may be read with as much edification and -amusement as on the day of its first appearance. It set a fashion, a -fashion that spread to all countries, and finds a nineteenth-century -manifestation in the pages of _Pickwick_; but few of its successors -match it in satirical humour, and none approach it in pregnant -concision, where no word is superfluous, and where every word tells -with consummate effect. Whoever wrote the book, he fixed for ever the -type of the comic prose epic as rendered by the needy, and he did it -in such wise as to defy all competition. Yet ill-advised competitors -were found: one, who has the grace to hide his name, at Antwerp, -continuing Lázaro's adventures by exhibiting the gay scamp as a tunny, -and a certain Juan de Luna, who, so late as 1620, converted Lázaro to a -sea-monster on show. - -Mysticism finds two distinguished exponents, of whom the earlier is -the Apostle of Andalucía, the Venerable JUAN DE ÁVILA (1502-69), a -priest, who, educated at the University of Alcalá, is famous for his -sanctity, his evangelic missions in Granada, Córdoba, and Seville. -The merest accident prevented his sailing for the New World in the -suite of the Bishop of Tlaxcala, and his inopportune fervour led to -his imprisonment by the Inquisition. Most of his religious treatises, -beautiful as they are, are too technical for our purpose here; but -his _Cartas Espirituales_ are redolent of religious unction combined -with the wisest practical spirit, the most sagacious counsel, and the -rarest loving-kindness. Long practice in exhorting crowds of unlettered -sinners had purged Juan de Ávila's style of the Asiatic exuberance in -favour with Guevara and other contemporaries; and, though he considered -letters a vanity, his own practice shows him to be a master in the -accommodation of the lowliest, most familiar language to the loftiest -subject. - -In the opposite camp is JUAN DE VALDÉS (d. 1541), attached in some -capacity to the court of Carlos Quinto, and suspect of heterodox -tendencies in the eyes of all good Spaniards. Francisco de Encinas -reports that Valdés found it convenient to leave Spain on account of -his opinions; but, as his twin-brother, Alfonso, continued in the -service of Carlos Quinto, and as Juan himself lived unmolested at Rome -and Naples from 1531 to his death, this story cannot be accepted. None -the less is it certain that Valdés, possibly through his friendship -with Erasmus, was drawn into the current of the Reformation. His -earliest work, written, perhaps, in collaboration with his brother, -is the anonymous _Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón_ (1528), an ingenious -fable in Lucian's manner, abounding in political and religious malice, -charged with ridicule of abuses in Church and State. Apart from its -polemical value, it is indisputably the finest prose performance of the -reign. Boscán's version of the _Cortegiano_ most nearly vies with it; -but Valdés excels Boscán in the artful construction of his periods, in -the picturesqueness and moderation of his epithets, in the variety of -his cadence, and in the refined selection of his means. It is possible -that Cervantes, at his best, may match Valdés; but Cervantes is one -of the most unequal writers in the world, while Valdés is one of the -most scrupulous and vigilant. Hence, sectarian prejudice apart, Valdés -must be accounted, if not absolutely the first, at least among the very -first masters of Castilian prose. - -A curious fact in connection with one of Valdés' most popular works, -the _Ciento y diez Consideraciones divinas_, is that it has never been -printed in its original Castilian.[7] Even so the book was translated -into English by Nicholas Farrer (1638), and found favour in the eyes of -George Herbert, who commends Signior Iohn Valdesso as "a true servant -of God," "obscured in his own country," and brought by God "to flourish -in this land of light and region of the Gospel, among His chosen." It -may be expedient to give an illustration of Valdés from the version -to which Herbert stood sponsor:—"Here I will add this. That, as -liberality is so annexed to magnanimity that he cannot be magnanimous -that is not liberal, so hope and charity are so annexed unto faith -that it is impossible that he should have faith who hath not hope and -charity; it being also impossible that one should be just without -being holy and pious. But of these Christian virtues they are not -capable who have not experience in Christian matters, which they only -have who, by the gift of God and by the benefit of Christ, have faith, -hope, and charity, and so are pious, holy, and just in Christ." The -Arian flavour of this work explains its non-appearance in Castilian, -and we must suppose that Herbert esteemed it for its austere doctrinal -asceticism rather than its crude anti-trinitarianism. A Quaker before -his time, Valdés owes no small part of his recent vogue to Wiffen, who -first heard of the _Consideraciones_ through a friend as an "old work -by a Spaniard, which represented essentially the principles of George -Fox." Whatever its defects, it is the one logical presentation of the -dogmas of German mysticism, at the same time that it is a powerful, -searching psychological study of the springs of motives and the -innermost recesses of the human heart. - -In another and a less contested field, we owe to Valdés the admirable -_Diálogo de la Lengua_, written at Naples in 1535-36. The personages -are four: two Italians, named Marcio and Coriolano; and two Spaniards, -Valdés himself, and a Spanish soldier, called indifferently Pacheco -and Torres. For all purposes this dialogue is as important a monument -of literary criticism as was the conversation in Don Quixote's library -between the Priest and the Barber. In almost every case posterity has -ratified the personal verdict of Valdés, who approves himself the -earliest, as well as one of the most impartial and most penetrating -among Spanish critics. Moreover, he conducts his dialogue with -extraordinary dramatic skill in the true vein of highest comedy. The -courtly grace of the two Italians, the military swagger of Pacheco, -the unwearied sagacity, the patrician wit and disdainful coolness of -Valdés himself, are given with incomparable lightness of touch and -felicity of accent. For the first time in Castilian literature we have -to do with a man of letters, urbane from study, and accomplished from -commerce with a various world. Valdés overtops all the literary figures -of Carlos Quinto's reign in natural gift and acquired accomplishment; -nor in later times do we easily find his match. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[6] Garcilaso's forty-eight Latin stanzas, written after the Danubian -imprisonment, are sufficiently unknown to justify a brief quotation -here. They occur in Antonius Thylesius' _Opera_ (Naples, 1762), pp. -128-129: _Garcilassi di Vega Toletani ad Antonium Thylesium_:— - - "_Uxore, natis, fratribus et solo - Exul relictis, frigida per loca - Musarum alumnus, barbarorum - Ferre superbiam, et insolentes - Mores coactus jam didici, et invia - Per saxa voce in geminantia - Fletusque, sub rauco querelas - Murmure Danubii levare._" - - -[7] Boehmer gives thirty-nine _Consideraciones_ in the _Tratatidos_ -(Bonn, 1880); for the sixty-fifth see Menéndez y Pelayo, _Historia de -los Heterodoxos Españoles_ (Madrid, 1880), vol. ii. p. 375. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - THE AGE OF FELIPE II. - - 1556-1598 - - -In Spain, as elsewhere, the secular battle waged between classicism -and romanticism. As poets sided with Boscán and Garcilaso, or with -Castillejo, so dramatists declared for the _uso antiguo_ or for the -_uso nuevo_. The partisans of the "old usage" put their trust in -prose translations. We have already seen that the roguish Villalobos -translated the _Amphitruo_ of Plautus, and Pérez de Oliva not only -repeated the performance, but gave a version of Euripides' _Hecuba_. -Encina's successor was found in the person of Miguel de Carvajal, whose -_Josefina_ deals, in classic fashion, with the tale of Joseph and his -brethren. Carvajal draws character with skill, and his dialogue lives; -but he is best remembered for his division of the play into four acts. -Editions of Vasco Díaz Tanco de Fregenal are of such extreme rarity -as to be practically inaccessible. So are the _Vidriana_ of Jaime de -Huete and the _Jacinta_ of Agustín Ortiz—two writers who are counted -as followers of Torres Naharro. A farce by the brilliant reactionary, -Cristóbal de Castillejo, entitled _Costanza_, is only known in extract, -and is as remarkable for ribaldry as for good workmanship. The _Preteo -y Tibaldo_ of Pero Álvarez de Ayllón and the _Silviana_ of Luis Hurtado -are insipid pastorals. Many contemporary plays, known only by rumour, -have disappeared—suppressed, no doubt, because of their coarseness. -Torres Naharro's _Propaladia_ was interdicted in 1540, and, eight -years later, the Cortes of Valladolid petitioned that a stop be put to -the printing of immoral comedies. The prayer was heard. Scarce a play -of any sort survives, and the few that reach us exist in copies that -are almost unique. The time for the stage was not yet. It is possible -that, had Carlos Quinto resided habitually in some Spanish capital, a -national theatre might have grown up; but the lack of Court patronage -and the classical superstition delayed the evolution of the Spanish -drama. This comes into being during the reign of Felipe _el Prudente_. - -Encina's precedence in the sacred pastoral is granted; but his eclogues -were given before small, aristocratic audiences. We must look elsewhere -for the first popular dramatist, and Lope de Vega, an expert on -theatrical matters, identifies our man. "Comedies," says Lope, "are no -older than Rueda, whom many now living have heard." The gold-beater, -LOPE DE RUEDA (fl. 1558), was a native of Seville. A prefatory sonnet -to his _Medora_, written by Francisco Ledesma, informs us that Rueda -died at Córdoba, and Cervantes adds the detail that he was buried in -the cathedral there. This would go to show that a Spanish comedian was -not then a pariah; unluckily, the cathedral archives do not corroborate -the story. Taking to the boards, Lope de Rueda rose to be an _autor -de comedias_—an actor-manager and playwright. Cervantes, who speaks -enthusiastically of Rueda's acting, describes the material conditions -of the scene. "In the days of this famous Spaniard, the whole equipment -of an _autor de comedias_ could be put in a bag: it consisted of four -white sheepskins edged with gilt leather, four beards and wigs, and -four shepherd's-staves, more or less.... No figure rose, or seemed to -rise, from the bowels of the earth or from the space under the stage, -which was built up by four benches placed square-wise, with four or -six planks on top, about four hand's-breadths above ground. Still -less were clouds lowered from the sky with angels or spirits. The -theatrical scenery was an old blanket, hauled hither and thither by -two cords. This formed what they called the _vestuario_, behind which -were the musicians, who sang some old _romance_ without a guitar." This -account is substantially correct, though official documents in the -Seville archives go to prove that Cervantes unconsciously exaggerated -some details—a thing natural enough in a man recalling memories -fifty years old. A passage in the _Crónica del Condestable Miguel -Lucas Iranzo_ implies that women appeared in the early _momos_ or -_entremeses_. But Spaniards inherited the Arab notion that women are -best indoors. The fact that Rueda was the first man to choose his pitch -in the public place, and to appeal to the general, would explain his -substitution of boys for girls in the female characters. Rueda was the -first in Spain to bring the drama into the day. One of his personages -in _Eufemia_—the servant Vallejo—makes a direct appeal to the -public:—"Ye who listen, go and dine, and then come back to the square, -if you wish to see a traitor's head cut off and a true man set free." -Thenceforward the theatre becomes a popular institution. - -Lope de Rueda is often called _el excelente poeta_, and his verse -is exampled in the _Prendas de Amor_, as also in the _Diálogo sobre -la Invención de las Calzas_. The _Farsa del Sordo_, included by the -Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle in his admirable new edition of -Rueda's works, is almost certainly due to another hand. Cervantes -commends Rueda's _versos pastoriles_, but these only reach us in the -fragment which Cervantes himself quotes in _Los Baños de Argel_. -Still, it is not as a poet that Rueda lives: he is rightly remembered -as the patriarch of the Spanish stage. For his time and station he -was well read: López Madera will have it that he knew Theocritus, and -it may be so. More manifest are the Plautine touches in the _paso_ -which Moratín names _El Rufián Cobarde_, with its bully, Sigüenza, -a lineal descendant of the _Miles Gloriosus_. It has been inferred -that, in choosing Italian themes, Rueda followed Torres Naharro. -This gives a wrong impression, for his debt to the Italians is far -more direct. The _Eufemia_ takes its root in the _Decamerone_, being -identical in subject with _Cymbeline_; the _Armelina_ is compounded of -Antonio Francesco Ranieri's _Attilia_, with Giovanni Maria Cecchi's -_Servigiale_; the _Engaños_ is a frank imitation of Niccolò Secchi's -_Commedia degli Inganni_; and the _Medora_ is conveyed straight from -Gigio Arthenio Giancarli's _Zingara_.[8] - -Neither in his fragments of verse nor in his Italian echoes is the true -Rueda revealed. His historic importance lies in his invention of the -_paso_—a dramatic interlude turning on some simple episode: a quarrel -between Torubio and his wife Águeda concerning the price of olives not -yet planted, an invitation to dinner from the penniless licentiate -Xaquima. Rueda's most spirited work is given in the _Deleitoso -Compendio_ (1567) and in the _Registro de Representantes_ (1570), both -published by his friend, Juan de Timoneda. In a longer flight the -effect is less pleasing; the prose _Coloquio de Camila_ and its fellow, -the _Coloquio de Timbria_, are long _pasos_, complicated in development -and not drawn to scale. Still, even here there is a keen dramatic sense -of situation; while the comic extravagance of the themes—farcical -incidents in picaresque surroundings—is set off by spirited dialogue -and vigorous style. Rueda had clearly read the _Celestina_ to his -profit; and his prose, with its archaic savour, is of great purity -and power. The patriotic Lista comes as near flat blasphemy as a good -Spaniard may by mentioning Rueda in the same breath as Cervantes, and -that the latter learned much from his predecessor is manifest; but the -point need be pressed no further. Considerable as were Rueda's positive -qualities of gay wit and inventive resource, his highest merit lies in -this, that he laid the foundation-stone of the actual Spanish theatre, -and that his dramatic system became a capital factor in his people's -intellectual history. - -He found instant imitators: one in a brother actor-manager, Alonso -de la Vega (d. 1566), whose _Tolomea_ is adapted from _Medora_; the -other in Luis de Miranda (fl. 1554), who dramatised the story of -the Prodigal, to which, in a monstrous fit of realism, he gave a -contemporary setting. Of Pedro Navarro or Naharro, whom Cervantes ranks -after Rueda, naught survives. Francisco de Avendaño's verse comedy -concerning Floriseo and Blancaflor had long since been forgotten were -it not for the fact that here, for the first time, a Spanish play is -divided into three acts—a convention which has endured, and for which -later writers, like Artieda, Virués, and Cervantes, ingenuously claimed -the credit. JUAN DE TIMONEDA (d. ? 1598), the Valencian bookseller who -printed Rueda's _pasos_, is a sedulous mimic in every sort. He began by -arranging Plautus' _Comedy of Errors_ in _Los Menecmos_; his _Cornelia_ -is based upon Ariosto's _Nigromante_; and his _Oveja Perdida_ adapts -an early morality on the Lost Sheep with scarcely a suggestion of -original treatment. Torres Naharro is the inspiration of Timoneda's -_Aurelia_; but his chief tempter was Lope de Rueda. In the volume -entitled _Turiana_ (1565), issued under the anagrammatic name of Joan -Diamonte, he attempts the _paso_ (which he also calls the _entremés_) -to good purpose. An imitator he remains; but an imitator whose pleasant -humour takes the place of invention, and whose lively prose dialogue -is in excellent contrast with his futile verse. His _Patrañuelo_, a -collection of some twenty traditional stories, is a well-meant attempt -to satisfy the craving created by _Lazarillo de Tormes_. If Timoneda -experimented in every field, it is not unjust to infer that, taking -the tradesman's view of literature, he was moved less by intelligent -curiosity than by the desire to supply his customers with novelties. -Withal, if he be not individual, his unpolished drolleries are vastly -more engaging than the ambitious triflings of many contemporaries. - -Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velázquez, notes that Juan de Malara -(1527-71) composed "many tragedies" both in Latin and Castilian; and -Cueva, in his _Ejemplar poético_, gives the number hyperbolically:— - - "_En el teatro mil tragedias puso._" - -That Malara, or any one save Lope de Vega, "placed a thousand tragedies -on the boards," is incredible; but by general consent his fecundity -was prodigious. None of his plays survives, and we are left to gather, -from a chance remark of the author's, that he wrote a tragedy entitled -_Absalón_ and another drama called _Locusta_. His repute as a poet -must be accepted, if at all, on authority; for his extant imitations -of Virgil and renderings of Martial are mere technical exercises. -For us he is best represented by his _Filosofía vulgar_ (1568), an -admirable selection made from the six thousand proverbs brought -together by Hernán Núñez, who thus continued what Santillana had begun. -A contemporary, Blasco de Garay (fl. 1553), had striven to prove the -resources of the language by printing, in his _Cartas de Refranes_, -three ingenious letters wholly made up of proverbial phrases; and in -our own day the incomparable wealth of Castilian proverbs has been -shown in Sbarbi's _Refranero General_ and in Haller's _Altspanische -Sprichtwörter_. But no later and fuller collection has supplanted -Malara's learned and vivacious commentary. - -His friend, JUAN DE LA CUEVA DE GAROZA of Seville (?1550-?1606), -matched Malara in productiveness, and perhaps surpassed him in talent. -Little is known of Cueva's life, save that he had certain love passages -with Brígida Lucía de Belmonte, and that he became almost insane -for a short while after her death. He distinguishes himself by his -independence of the Senecan example, which he roundly declares to be -at once inartistic and tedious (_cansada cosa_), and by urging the -Spanish dramatists to abjure abstractions and to treat national themes -without regard for Greek and Latin superstitions. Incident, character, -plot, situation, variety: these are to be developed with small regard -for "the unities" of the classic model. And Cueva carried out his -doctrines. Ignoring Carvajal, he took a special pride in reducing -plays from five acts to four, and he enriched the drama by introducing -a multitude of metrical forms hitherto unknown upon the stage. The -cunning fable of the people—_la ingeniosa fábula de España_—is -illustrated in his _Siete Infantes de Lara_, in his _Cerco de Zamora_ -(Siege of Zamora), where he utilises subjects enshrined in _romances_ -which half his audience knew by heart. It is literally true that he -had been preceded by Bartolomé Palau, who, as far back as 1524, had -written a play on a national subject—the _Historia de la gloriosa -Santa Orosia_, published in 1883 by Fernández-Guerra y Orbe; but this -was an isolated, fruitless essay, whereas Cueva's was a deliberate, -well-organised attempt to shape the drama anew and to quicken it -into active life. Nor did Cueva's mission end with indicating the -possibilities of dramatic motive afforded by heroico-popular songs and -legends. His _Saco de Roma y Muerte de Borbón_ exploits an historical -actuality by dramatising Carlos Quinto's Italian triumphs (1527-30); -and his _El Infamador_ (The Calumniator) not merely foreshadows the -_comedia de capa y espada_, but gives us in his libertine, Leucino, the -first sketch of the type which Tirso de Molina was to eternalise as Don -Juan. - -It is certain that Cueva was often less successful in performance than -in doctrine, and that his gods and devils, his saints and ruffians, -too often talk in the same lofty vein—the vein of Juan de la Cueva. -It is no less certain that he improvises recklessly, placing his -characters in difficulties whence escape is impossible, and that -he takes the first solution that offers—a murder, a supernatural -interposition—with no heed for plausibility. But his bombast is the -trick of his school, and, to judge by his epical _Conquista de la -Bética_ (1603), he showed remarkable self-suppression in his plays. -In his later years, after visiting the Western Indies, he seems to -have abandoned the theatre which he had so courageously developed, -and to have wasted himself upon his epic and the poor confection of -old ballads which he published in the ten books entitled _Coro Febeo -de Romances historiales_. Yet, despite these backslidings, he merits -gratitude for his dramatic initiative. - -The Galician Dominican, Gerónimo Bermúdez (1530-89), apologises for his -presentation in Castilian of the _Nise Lastimosa_, which he published -under the name of Antonio de Silva in 1577. Bermúdez has seemingly done -little more than rearrange the _Inez de Castro_ of the distinguished -Portuguese poet, Antonio Ferreira, who had died eight years earlier. -Though this "correct" play has tirades of remarkable beauty in the -Senecan manner, its loose construction unfits it for the stage. All -that it contains of good is due to Ferreira, and its continuation—the -_Nise Laureada_—is a mere collection of incoherent extravagances and -brutalities, conceived in Thomas Kyd's most frenzied mood. - -The Captain ANDRÉS REY DE ARTIEDA (1549-1613) is said to have been -born at Valencia, and he certainly died there; yet Lope de Vega, -once his friend, speaks of him as a native of Zaragoza. Artieda was -a brilliant soldier, who received three wounds at Lepanto, and his -conspicuous bravery was shown in the Low Countries, where he swam the -Ems in mid-winter under the enemy's fire, with his sword between his -teeth. He is known to have written plays entitled _Amadís de Gaula_ and -_Los Encantos de Merlín_, but his one extant drama is _Los Amantes_: -the first appearance on the stage of those lovers of Teruel who were -destined to attract Tirso de Molina, Montalbán, and Hartzenbusch. -Artieda is essentially a follower of Cueva's, and he has something of -his model's clumsy manipulation; but his dramatic instinct, his pathos -and tenderness, are his personal endowment. In his own day he was an -innovator in his kind: his opposition to the methods of Lope made him -unpopular, and condemned him to an unmerited neglect, which he bitterly -resented in the miscellaneous _Discursos, epístolas y epigramas_, -published by him (1605) under the name of Artemidoro. - -Another dramatist and friend of Lope de Vega's was the Valencian -Captain CRISTÓBAL DE VIRUÉS (1550-1610), Artieda's comrade at Lepanto -and in the Low Countries. Unfortunately for himself, Virués had his -share of learning, and misused it in his _Semíramis_, an absurd -medley of pedantry and horror. His _Átila Furioso_, involving more -slaughter than many an outpost engagement, is the maddest caricature of -romanticism. He appears to think that indecency is comedy, and that the -way to terror lies through massacre. It is the eternal fault of Spain, -this forcing of the note; and it would seem that Virués repented him in -_Elisa Dido_, where he returns to the apparatus of the Senecan school. -Yet, with all their defects, his earlier attempts were better, inasmuch -as they presaged a new method, and a determination to have done with a -sterile formula. He essayed the epic in his _Historia del Monserrate_, -and once more courted disaster by his choice of subject: the outrage -and murder of the Conde de Barcelona's daughter by the hermit Juan -Garín, the Roman pilgrimage of the assassin, and the miraculous -resurrection of his victim. As in his plays, so in his epic, Virués is -an inventor without taste, brilliant in a single page and intolerable -in twenty. His tactless fluency bade for applause at any cost, and -his incessant care to startle and to terrify results in a monstrous -monotony. Yet, if he failed himself, his exaggerated protest encouraged -others to seek a more perfect way, and, though he had no direct -influence on the stage, he is interesting as an embodied remonstrance. - -His mantle was caught by Joaquín Romero de Cepeda of Badajoz (fl. -1582), whose _Selvajía_ is a dramatic arrangement of the _Celestina_, -with extravagant episodes suggested by the chivalresque novels; and -in the opposite camp is the Aragonese LUPERCIO LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA -(1559-1613), whom Cervantes esteemed almost as good a dramatist as -himself—which, from Cervantes' standpoint, is saying much. Cervantes -praises Argensola, not merely because his plays "delighted and amazed -all who heard them," but for the practical reason that "these three -alone brought in more money than thirty of the best given since their -time." If it be uncharitable to conceive that this aims at Lope de -Vega, we are bound to suppose that Argensola's popularity was immense. -It was also fleeting. His _Filis_ has disappeared, and his _Isabela_ -and _Alejandra_ were not printed till 1772, when López de Sedano -included them in his _Parnaso Español_. The _Alejandra_ is a tissue -of butcheries, and the _Isabela_ is scarcely better, the nine chief -characters being killed out of hand. Argensola's excuse is that he -was only a lad of twenty when he perpetrated these iniquities; where, -for the rest, he already proves himself endowed with that lyrical -gift which was to win for him the not excessive title of "the Spanish -Horace." But he was never reconciled to his defeat as a dramatist, and -he avenged himself in 1597 by inditing a spiteful letter to the King, -praying that the prohibition of plays on the occasion of the Queen -of Piedmont's death should be made permanent. The urbanity of men of -letters is, it will be seen, constant everywhere. - - * * * * * - -The school founded by Boscán and Garcilaso spread into Portugal, -and bifurcated into Spanish factions settled in Salamanca and in -Seville. BALTASAR DE ALCÁZAR (1530-1606), who served under that stout -sea-dog the Marqués de Santa Cruz, is technically an adherent of the -Sevillan sect; but his laughing muse lends herself with an ill grace -to artificial sentiment, and is happiest in stinging epigrams, in -risky jests, and in gay _romances_. DIEGO GIRÓN (d. 1590), a pupil of -Malara's, is an ardent Italianate: prompt to challenge comparison with -Garcilaso by reproducing Corydon and Tirsis from the seventh Virgilian -eclogue, to mimic Seneca—"him of Córdoba dead"—or to echo the note of -Giorolamo Bosso. His verses, mostly hidden away among the annotations -made by Herrera in his edition of Garcilaso, deserve to be better known -for specimens of sound craftsmanship. - -The greatest poet of the Sevillan group is indisputably FERNANDO DE -HERRERA (1534-97), who comes into touch with England as the writer of -an eulogy on Sir Thomas More. Cleric though he were, Herrera dedicated -much of his verse (1582) to Leonor de Milán, Condesa de Gelves, wife -of Álvaro de Portugal, himself a fashionable versifier. Herrera being -a clerk in minor orders, the situation is piquant, and opinions differ -as to whether his erotic songs are, or are not, platonic. It is another -variant of the classic cases of Laura and Petrarch, of Catalina de -Atayde and Camões. All good Sevillans contend that Herrera, as the -chief of Spanish _petrarquistas_, indited sonnets to his mistress in -imitation of the master:— - - "_So the great Tuscan to the beauteous Laura - Breathed his sublime, his wonder-working song._" - -Disguised as Eliodora, Leonor is Herrera's firmament: his _luz_, -_sol_, _estrella_—light, sun, and star. And no small part of the -love-sequence is passionless and even frigid. Yet not all the elegies -are compact of conceit; a genuine emotion bursts forth elsewhere than -in the famous line:— - - "_Now sorrow passes: now at length I live._" - -In view of the poet's metaphysical refinements no decisive judgment is -possible, and the dispute will continue for all time; perhaps the real -posture of affairs is indicated by Latour's happy phrase concerning -Herrera's "innocent immorality." - -Fine as are isolated passages in these "vain, amatorious" rhapsodies, -the true Herrera is best revealed in his ode to Don Juan de Austria on -the occasion of the Moorish revolt in the Alpujarra, in his elegy on -the death of Sebastian of Portugal at Alcázar al-Kebir, in his song -upon the victory of Lepanto. In patriotism Herrera found his noblest -inspiration, and in these three great pieces he attains an exceptional -energy and conciseness of form. He sings the triumph of the true -faith with an Hebraic fervour, a stateliness derived from biblical -cadences, as he mourns the overthrow of Christianity, "the weapons of -war perished," in accents of profound affliction. His sincerity and -his lyrical splendour place him in the foremost rank of his country's -singers; and hence his title of _El divino_. - -Differing in temperament from Garcilaso, Herrera may be considered as -the true inheritor of his predecessor's unfulfilled renown. Two of -his finest sonnets—one to Carlos Quinto, the other to Don Juan de -Austria—are superior to any in Garcilaso's page. The latter may be -exampled here in Archdeacon Churton's rendering:— - - "_Deep sea, whose thundering waves in tumult roar, - Call forth thy troubled spirit—bid him rise, - And gaze, with terror pale, and hollow eyes, - On floods all flashing fire, and red with gore. - Lo! as in list enclosed, on battle-floor - Christian and Sarzan, life and death the prize, - Join conflict: lo! the batter'd Paynim flies; - The din, the smouldering flames, he braves no more. - Go, bid thy deep-toned bass with voice of power - Tell of this mightiest victory under sky, - This deed of peerless valour's highest strain; - And say a youth achieved the glorious hour, - Hallowing thy gulf with praise that ne'er shall die,— - The youth of Austria, and the might of Spain._" - -Herrera takes up the tradition of his forerunner, perfects his form, -imparts a greater sonority of expression, a deeper note of pathos and -dignity. The soldier, with his languid sentiment, might be the priest; -the priest, with his martial music, might be the soldier. Yet Herrera's -fealty never wavers; for him there is but one model, one pattern, one -perfect singer. "In our Spain," he avers, "Garcilaso stands first, -beyond compare." And in this spirit, aided by suggestions from the -poet's son-in-law, Puerto Carrero, aided also by illustrations from -the whole Sevillan group,—Francisco de Medina, Diego Girón, Francisco -Pacheco, and Cristóbal Mosquera de Figueroa,—Herrera undertook his -commentary, _Anotaciones á las obras de Garcilaso de la Vega_ (1580). -Its publication caused one of the bitterest quarrels in Spanish -literary history. - -Four years earlier Garcilaso had been edited by the learned Francisco -Sánchez (1523-1601), commonly called _El Brocense_, from Las Brozas, -his birthplace, in Extremadura; and an excitable admirer of the poet, -Francisco de los Cobos, denounced Sánchez for exhibiting his author's -debts by means of parallel passages. The partisans of Sánchez took -Herrera's commentary as a challenge, and were not mollified by the fact -that Herrera nowhere mentioned Sánchez by name. It had been bad enough -that an Extremaduran pundit should edit a Castilian poet; that a mere -Andalucían should repeat the outrage was insufferable. It was as though -an Englishman edited Burns. The Clan of Clonglocketty (or of Castile) -rose as one man, and Herrera was flagellated by a tribe of scurrilous, -illiterate patriots. Among his more urbane opponents was Juan Fernández -de Velasco, Conde de Haro, son of the Constable of Spain, who published -his _Observaciones_ under the pseudonym of Prete Jacopín, and was -rapturously applauded for calling Herrera an ass in a lion's skin. It -is discouraging to record that Haro's impertinence went through several -editions, while Herrera's commentary has never been reprinted.[9] Yet -this monument of enlightened learning reveals its author, not only -as the best lyrist, but as the acutest critic of his age. Cervantes -knew it almost by heart, and he honoured it by writing his dedication -of _Don Quixote_ to the Duque de Béjar in the very words of Medina's -preface and of Herrera's epistle to the Marqués de Ayamonte. So that, -since countless readers have admired a passage from the _Anotaciones_ -without knowing it, Herrera the prose-writer has enjoyed a vicarious -immortality. - -The most eminent poet of the Salamancan school is LUIS PONCE DE LEÓN -(1529-91), a native of Belmonte de Cuenca, who joined the Augustinian -order in his eighteenth year, and became professor of theology at the -University of Salamanca in 1561. He soon found himself in the midst of -a theological squabble as to the comparative merits of the Septuagint -and the Hebrew MSS. Rivals spread the legend—fatal in Spain—that -he was of Jewish descent, and that he conspired with the Hebrew -professors, Martínez de Cantalapiedra and Grajal, in interpreting -Scripture according to Jewish traditions. His chief opponent was -León de Castro, who held the Greek chair. Public discussions were -the fashion, and debates waxed acrimonious, after the custom of -professors at large. On one occasion Luis de León went so far as to -threaten Castro with the public burning of the latter's treatise -on Isaiah. Castro was not the man to flinch, and anticipated his -enemy by denouncing Fray Luis to the Inquisition. The matter would -doubtless have ended here, had it not been discovered that Fray Luis -had translated the _Song of Solomon_ into Castilian: a grave offence -in the eyes of the Holy Office, which, rejecting the Lutheran formula -of "every man his own pope," forbade the circulation of Bibles in the -vernacular. In March 1572 Luis de León was arrested, and was kept a -prisoner by the local authorities for four and a half years, during -which he was baited with questions calculated to convict him of heresy -and to involve his friend Benito Arias Montano. Notwithstanding the -efforts of Bartolomé Medina and his brother-Dominicans, Fray Luis -was acquitted on December 7, 1576. Judged by modern standards, he -was harshly treated; but toleration is a modern birth, begotten by -indifference and fear. In the sixteenth century men believed what they -professed, and acted on their beliefs—the Spaniards by imprisoning -their own countryman, Luis de León; Calvin by burning Harvey's -forerunner, the Spaniard Miguel Servet. Fray Luis was the last of -men to whine and whimper: he was judged by the tribunal of his own -choosing, the tribunal with which he had menaced Castro: and the result -vindicated his choice.[10] _Ex forti dulcedo_. The indomitable nobility -of his character is visible in the first words he uttered on his return -to the chair which Salamanca had kept for him:—"Gentlemen, as we were -saying the other day." In 1591 he was elected Vicar-General of Castile, -was chosen Provincial of his order, and was then commanded, against his -will, to publish all his writings. He died ten days later. - -In prison Fray Luis wrote his celebrated treatise, the greatest -of Spanish mystic books, _Los Nombres de Cristo_, a series of -dissertations, in Plato's manner, on the symbolic value of such names -of Christ as the Mount, the Shepherd, the Arm of God, the Prince of -Peace, the Bridegroom. Published in 1583, the exposition is cast in -the form of a dialogue, in which Marcelo, Sabino, and Julián examine -the theological mysteries implied by the subject. With Fray Luis's -theology we have no concern; nor with his learning, save in so far as -it is curious to see the Hellenic-Alexandrine leaven working through -in his imitation of St. Clement's _Epistle to the Corinthians_. But -his concise eloquence and his classic purity of expression rank him -among the best masters of Castilian prose. The like great qualities -are shown in his _Exposición del libro de Job_, drawn up by request of -Santa Teresa's friend, Sor Ana de Jesús, and in his rendering of and -commentary on the _Song of Solomon_, which he holds for an emblematic -eclogue to be interpreted as a poetic foreshadowing of the Divine -Espousal of the Church with Christ. A book still held in great esteem -is his _Perfecta Casada_ (The Perfect Wife), suggested, it may be, by -Luis Vives' _Christian Woman_, and composed (1583) for the benefit of -María Varela Osorio. It is not, indeed, - - "_That hymn for which the whole world longs, - A worthy hymn in woman's praise._" - -It is rather a singularly brilliant paraphrase of the thirty-first -chapter of the _Book of Proverbs_, a code of practical conduct for the -ideal spouse, which may be read with delight even by those who think -the friar's doctrine reactionary. - -Great in prose, Luis de León is no less great in verse. With San Juan -de la Cruz he heads the list of Spain's lyrico-mystical poets. Yet he -set no value on his poems, which he regarded as mere toys of childhood: -so that their preservation is due to the accident of his collecting -them late in life to amuse the leisure of the Bishop of Córdoba. -We owe their publication to Quevedo, who issued them in 1631 as a -counterblast to _culteranismo_. Of the three books into which they are -divided, two consist of translations—from Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, -Euripides, and Pindar; and from the Psalms, the Book of Job, and St. -Thomas of Aquin's _Pange lingua_. "I have tried," says Fray Luis of his -sacred renderings, "to imitate so far as I might their simple origin -and antique flavour, full of sweetness and majesty, as it seems to me;" -and he succeeds as greatly in the primitive unction of the one kind -as in the faultless form of the other. Still these are but inspired -imitations, and the original poet is to be sought for in the first -book. Some idea of his ode entitled _Noche Serena_ may be gathered from -Mr. Henry Phillips' version of the opening stanzas:— - - "_When to the heavenly dome my thoughts take flight, - With shimmering stars bedecked, ablaze with light, - Then sink my eyes down to the ground, - In slumber wrapped, oblivion bound, - Enveloped in the gloom of darkest night._ - - _With love and pain assailed, with anxious care, - A thousand troubles in my breast appear, - My eyes turn to a flowing rill, - Sore sorrow's tearful floods distil, - While saddened, mournful words my woes declare._ - - _Oh, dwelling fit for angels! sacred fane! - The hallowed shrine where youth and beauty reign! - Why in this dungeon, plunged in night, - The soul that's born for Heaven's delight - Should cruel Fate withhold from its domain?_" - -In his _Profecía del Tajo_ (Prophecy of the Tagus) Luis de León -displays a virility absent from his other pieces, and the impetuosity -of the verse matches the speed which he attributes to the Saracenic -invaders advancing to the overthrow of Roderic; and, if he still -abide by his Horatian model, he introduces an individual treatment, -a characteristic melody of his own invention. A famous devout song, -_Á Cristo Crucifijado_ (To Christ Crucified), appears in all editions -of Fray Luis; but as its authenticity is disputed—some ascribing it -to Miguel Sánchez—its quotation must be foregone here. The ode _Al -Apartamiento_ (To Retirement) exhibits the contemplative vein which -distinguishes the singer, and, as in the _Ode to Salinas_, seems an -early anticipation of Wordsworth's note of serene simplicity. Luis -de León is not splendid in metrical resource, and his adherence to -tradition, his indifference to his fame, his ecclesiastical estate, all -tend to narrow his range of subject; yet, within the limits marked out -for him, he is as great an artist and as rich a voice as Spain can show. - -In the same year (1631) that Quevedo issued Luis de León's verses, he -also published an exceedingly small volume of poems which he ascribed -to a Bachelor named FRANCISCO DE LA TORRE (1534-?1594). From this arose -a strange case of mistaken identity. Quevedo's own account of the -matter is simple: he alleges that he found the poems—"by good luck and -for the greater glory of Spain"—in the shop of a bookseller, who sold -them cheap. It appears that the Portuguese, Juan de Almeida, Senhor de -Couto de Avintes, saw them soon after Torre's death, that he applied -for leave to print them, and that the official licence was signed by -the author of _La Araucana_, Ercilla y Zúñiga, who died in 1595. For -some reason Almeida's purpose miscarried, and, when Quevedo found the -manuscript in 1629, Torre was generally forgotten. Quevedo solved -the difficulty out of hand in the high editorial manner, evolved the -facts from his inner consciousness, and assured his readers that the -author of the poems was the Francisco de la Torre who wrote the _Visión -deleitable_.[11] - -Ticknor lays it down that "no suspicion seems to have been whispered, -either at the moment of their first publication, or for a long time -afterwards," of the correctness of this attribution; and he implies -that the first doubter was Luis José Velázquez, Marqués de Valdeflores, -who, when he reprinted the book in 1753, started the theory that the -poems were Quevedo's own. This is not so. Quevedo's mistake was pointed -out by Manuel de Faria y Sousa in his commentary to the _Lusiadas_, -printed at Madrid in 1639. That Quevedo should make a Bachelor of a -man who had no university degree, that he should call the writer of -the _Visión deleitable_ Francisco when in truth his name was Alfonso, -were trifles: that he should antedate his author by nearly two -centuries—this was a serious matter, and Faria y Sousa took pains to -make him realise it. It must have added to the editor's chagrin to -learn that Torre had been friendly with Lope de Vega, who could have -given accurate information about him; but Lope and Quevedo were not on -speaking terms, owing to the mischief-making of the former's parasite, -Pérez de Montalbán. Quevedo had made no approach to Lope; Lope saw the -blunder, smiled, and said nothing in public. Through Pérez de Montalbán -the facts reached Faria y Sousa, who exulted over a mistake which was, -indeed, unpardonable. The discomfiture was complete: for the first and -last time in his life Quevedo was dumb before an enemy. Meanwhile, -Velázquez' theory has found some favour with López Sedano and with many -foreign critics: as, for example, Ticknor. - -What we know of Francisco de la Torre is based upon the researches of -Quevedo's learned editor, Aureliano Fernández-Guerra y Orbe.[12] A -native of Torrelaguna, he matriculated at Alcalá de Henares in 1556, -fell in love with the "_Filis rigurosa_" whom he sings, served with -Carlos Quinto in the Italian campaigns, returned to find Filis married -to an elderly Toledan millionaire, remained constant to his (more -or less) platonic flame, and ended by taking orders in his despair. -The unadorned simplicity of his manner is at the remotest pole from -Quevedo's frosty brilliancy. No small proportion of his sonnets is -translated from the Italian. Thus, where Benedetto Varchi writes -"_Questa e, Tirsi, quel fonte in cui solea_," Torre follows close with -"_Ésta es, Tirsi, la fuente do solia_;" and when Giovanni Battista -Amalteo celebrates "_La viva neve e le vermiglie rose_," the Spaniard -echoes back "_La blanca nieve y la purpúrea rosa_." Schelling finds -the light fantastic rapture of the Elizabethan lover expressed to -perfection in the eighty-first of Spenser's _Amoretti_: line for line, -and almost word for word, Torre's twenty-third sonnet is identical, -and, when we at length possess a critical edition of Spenser, it will -surely prove that both poems derive from a common Italian source. -Such examples are numerous, and are worth noting as germane to the -general question. No man in Europe was more original than Quevedo, -none less disposed to lean on Italy. To conceive that he should seek -to reform _culteranismo_ by translating from Italians of yesterday, or -to suppose that he knowingly passed as original work imitations made -by a man who—_ex hypothesi_—died before his models were born, is to -believe Quevedo a clumsy trickster. That conclusion is untenable; and -Torre deserves all credit for his graceful renderings, as for his more -original poems—gallant, tender, and sentimental. He is one of the -earliest Spanish poets to choose simple, natural themes—the ivy fallen -to the ground, the widowed song-bird, the wounded hind, the charms -of landscape and the enchantment of the spring. A smaller replica of -Garcilaso, with a vision and personality of his own: so Francisco de la -Torre appears in the perspective of Castilian song. - -An allied poet of the Salamancan school is Torre's friend, FRANCISCO DE -FIGUEROA (1536-?1620), a native of Alcalá de Henares, whom his townsman -Cervantes introduces in the pastoral _Galatea_ under the name of Tirsi. -Little is recorded of his life save that he served as a soldier in -Italy, that he studied at Rome, Bologna, Siena, and perhaps Naples, -that the Italians called him the _Divino_ (the title was sometimes -cheaply given), and that some even ranked him next to Petrarch. He -returned to Alcalá, where he married "nobly," as we are told; and he is -found travelling with the Duque de Terranova in the Low Countries about -1597. On his deathbed he bethought him of Virgil's example, and ordered -that all his poems should be burned; those that escaped were published -at Lisbon in 1626 by the historian Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, who -reports what little we know concerning the writer. That he versified -much in Italian appears from Juan Verzosa's evidence:— - - "_El lingua perges alterna pangere versus._" - -And a vestige of the youthful practice is preserved in the elegy to -Juan de Mendoza y Luna, where one Spanish line and two Italian lines -compose each tercet. One admirable sonnet is that written on the death -of the poet's son, Garcilaso de la Vega _el Mozo_, who, like his famous -father, fell in battle. Figueroa's bent is towards the pastoral; he -sings of sweet repose, of love's costly glory, of Tirsi's pangs, -of Fileno's passion realised, and of _ingrata_ Fili. His points of -resemblance with Torre are many; but his talent is more original, his -mood more melancholy, his taste finer, his diction more exquisite. He -ranks so high among his country's singers, it is not incredible that -he might take his stand with the greatest if we possessed all his -poems, instead of a few numbers saved from fire. And, as it is, he -deserves peculiar praise as the earliest poet who, following Boscán -and Garcilaso, mastered the blank verse, whose secrets had eluded -them. He avoids the subtle peril of the assonant; he varies the -mechanical uniformity of beat or stress; and, by skilful alternations -of his cæsura, diversifies his rhythm to such harmonic purpose as no -earlier experimentalist approaches. At his hands the most formidable -of Castilian metres is finally vanquished, and the _verso suelto_ -is established on an equality with the sonnet. That alone ensures -Figueroa's fame: he sets the standard by which successors are measured. - -Ariosto's vigorous epical manner is faintly suggested in twelve cantos -of the _Angélica_, by a Seville doctor, LUIS BARAHONA DE SOTO (fl. -1586). Lope de Vega, in the _Laurel de Apolo_, praises - - "_The doctor admirable - Whose page of gold - The story of Medora told_," - -and all contemporaries, from Diego Hurtado de Mendoza downwards, -swell the chorus of applause. The priest who sacked Don Quixote's -library softened at sight of Barahona's book, which he calls by its -popular title, the _Lágrimas de Angélica_ (Tears of Angelica):—"I -should shed tears myself were such a book burned, for its author is -one of the best poets, not merely in Spain, but in all the world." -Cervantes was far from strong in criticism, and he proves it in this -case. The _Angélica_, which purports to continue the story of _Orlando -Furioso_—itself a continuation of the _Orlando Innamorato_—looks -mean beside its great original. Yet, though Barahona fails in epic -narrative, his lyrical poems, given in Espinosa's _Flores de poetas -ilustres_, are full of grace and melody. - -The epic's fascination also seduced the Córdoban, JUAN RUFO GUTIÉRREZ. -We know the date of neither his birth nor his death, but he must have -lived long if his collection of anecdotes, entitled _Las seiscientas -Apotegmas_, were really published in 1548. His _Austriada_, printed in -1584, takes Don Juan de Austria for its hero, and contains some good -descriptive stanzas; but Rufo's invention finds no scope in dealing -with contemporary matters, and what might have been a useful chronicle -is distorted to a tedious poem. Great part of the _Austriada_ is but a -rhymed version of Mendoza's _Guerra de Granada_, which Rufo must have -seen in manuscript. When, leaving Ariosto in peace, he becomes himself, -as in the verses at the end of the _Apotegmas_, he gives forth a -natural old-world note, reminiscent of earlier models than Boscán and -Garcilaso. Since Luis de Zapata (1523-? 1600) wrote an epic history -of the Emperor, the _Carlos famoso_, he must have read it; and it is -possible that Cervantes (who delighted in it) was familiar with its -fifty cantos, its forty thousand lines. It is more than can be said -of any later reader. Zapata wasted thirteen years upon his epic, and -witnessed its failure; but he was undismayed, and lived to maltreat -Horace—it sounds incredible—beyond all expectation. It is another -instance of a mistaken calling. The writer knew his facts, and had a -touch of the historic spirit. Yet he could not be content with prose -and history. - -A nearer approach to the right epical poem is the _Araucana_ of ALONSO -DE ERCILLA Y ZÚÑIGA (1533-95), who appeared as Felipe II.'s page at his -wedding with Mary Tudor in Winchester Cathedral. From England he sailed -for Chile in 1554, to serve against the Araucanos, who had risen in -revolt; and in seven pitched battles, not to speak of innumerable small -engagements, he greatly distinguished himself. His career was ruined by -a quarrel with a brother-officer named Juan de Pineda; he was judged to -be in fault, was condemned to death, and actually mounted the scaffold. -At the last moment the sentence was commuted to exile at Callao, whence -Ercilla returned to Europe in 1562. With him he brought the first -fifteen cantos of his poem, written by the camp-fire on stray scraps -of paper, leather, and skin. The first book ever printed in America -was, as we learn from Señor Icazbalceta, Juan de Zumárraga's _Breve -y compendiosa Doctrina Cristiana_. The first literary work of real -merit composed in either American continent was Ercilla's _Araucana_. -It was published at Madrid in 1569; and continuations, amounting to -thirty-seven cantos in all, followed in 1578 and 1590. Ercilla never -forgave what he thought the injustice of his general, García Hurtado de -Mendoza, Marqués de Cañete, and carefully omits his name throughout the -_Araucana_. The omission cost him dear, for he was never employed again. - -His is an exceeding stately poem on the Chilian revolt; but epic it -is not, whether in spirit or design, whether in form or effect. In -the Essay Prefatory to the _Henriade_, Voltaire condescends to praise -the _Araucana_, the name of which has thus become familiar to many; -and, though he was probably writing at second hand, he is justified -in extolling the really noble speech which Ercilla gives to the aged -chief, Colocolo. It is precisely in declamatory eloquence that Ercilla -shines. His technical craftsmanship is sound, his spirit admirable, -his diction beyond reproach, or nearly so; and yet his work, as a -whole, fails to impress. Men remember isolated lines, a stanza here -and there; but the general effect is blurred. To speak truly, Ercilla -had the orator's temperament, not the poet's. At his worst he is -debating in rhyme, at his best he is writing poetic history; and, -though he has an eye for situation, an instinct for the picturesque, -the historian in him vanquishes the poet. He himself was vaguely -conscious of something lacking, and he strove to make it good by means -of mythological episodes, visions by Bellona, magic foreshadowings of -victory, digressions defending Dido from Virgil's scandalous tattle. -But, since the secret of the epic lies not in machinery, this attempt -at reform failed. Ercilla's first part remains his best, and is still -interesting for its martial eloquence, and valuable as a picture -of heroic barbarism rendered by an artist in _ottava rima_ who was -also a vigilant observer and a magnanimous foe. His omission of his -commander's name was made good by a copious Chilian poet, Pedro de -Oña, in his _Arauco domado_ (1596), which closed with the capture of -"Richerte Aquines" (as who should say Richard Hawkins); and, in the -following year, Diego de Santisteban y Osorio added a fourth and fifth -part to the original _Araucana_. Neither imitation is of real poetic -worth, and, as versified history, they are inferior to the _Elegías -de Varones ilustres de Indias_ of Juan de Castellanos (?1510-?1590), -a priest who in youth had served in America, and who rhymed his -reminiscences with a conscientious regard for fact more laudable in a -chronicler than a poet. - -But we turn from these elaborate historical failures to religious work -of real beauty, and the first that offers itself is the famous sonnet -"To Christ Crucified," familiar to English readers in a free version -ascribed to Dryden:— - - "_O God, Thou art the object of my love, - Not for the hopes of endless joys above, - Nor for the fear of endless pains below - Which those who love Thee not must undergo: - For me, and such as me, Thou once didst bear - The ignominious cross, the nails, the spear, - A thorny crown transpierced Thy sacred brow, - What bloody sweats from every member flow! - For me, in torture Thou resign'st Thy breath, - Nailed to the cross, and sav'dst me by Thy death: - Say, can these sufferings fail my heart to move? - What but Thyself can now deserve my love? - Such as then was and is Thy love to me, - Such is, and shall be still, my love to Thee. - Thy love, O Jesus, may I ever sing, - O God of love, kind Parent, dearest King._" - -The authorship is referred to Ignacio Loyola, to Francisco Xavier, to -Pedro de los Reyes, and to the Seraphic Mother, SANTA TERESA DE JESÚS, -whose name in the world was Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada (1515-82). None -of these attributions can be sustained, and _No me mueve, mi Dios, -para quererte_ must be classed as anonymous.[13] Yet its fervour and -unction are such as to suggest its ascription to the Saint of the -Flaming Heart. Santa Teresa is not only a glorious saint and a splendid -figure in the annals of religious thought: she ranks as a miracle of -genius, as, perhaps, the greatest woman who ever handled pen, the -single one of all her sex who stands beside the world's most perfect -masters. Macaulay has noted, in a famous essay, that Protestantism has -gained not an inch of ground since the middle of the sixteenth century. -Ignacio Loyola and Santa Teresa are the life and brain of the Catholic -reaction: the former is a great party chief, the latter belongs to -mankind. - -Her life in all its details may be read in Mrs. Cunninghame Graham's -minute and able study. Here it must suffice to note that she sallied -forth to seek martyrdom at the age of seven, that she entered -literature as the writer of a chivalresque romance, and that in her -sixteenth year she made her profession as a nun in the Carmelite -convent of her native town, Ávila. Years of spiritual aridity, of -ill-health, weighed her down, aged her prematurely. But nothing -could abate her natural force; and from 1558 to the day of her -death she marches from one victory to another, careless of pain, -misunderstanding, misery, and persecution, a wonder of valour and -devotion. - - "_Scarce has she blood enough to make - A guilty sword blush for her sake; - Yet has a heart dares hope to prove - How much less strong is Death than Love.... - Love touch't her heart, and lo! it beats - High, and burns with such brave heats, - Such thirst to die, as dares drink up - A thousand cold deaths in one cup._" - -What Crashaw has here said of her in verse he repeats in prose, -and the heading of his poem may be quoted as a concise summary of -her achievement:—"Foundress of the Reformation of the Discalced -Carmelites, both men and women; a woman for angelical height of -speculation, for masculine courage of performance more than a woman; -who, yet a child, outran maturity, and durst plot a martyrdom." And all -the world has read with ever-growing admiration the burning words of -Crashaw's "sweet incendiary," the "undaunted daughter of desires," the -"fair sister of the seraphim," "the moon of maiden stars." - -Simplicity and conciseness are Santa Teresa's distinctive qualities, -and the marvel is where she acquired her perfect style. Not, we may -be sure, in the numerous prose of _Amadís_. Her confessor, the worthy -Gracián, took it upon him to "improve" and polish her periods; but, -in a fortunate hour, her papers came into the hands of Luis de León, -who gave them to the press in 1588. Himself a master in mysticism and -literature, he perceived the truth embodied later in Crashaw's famous -line:— - - "_O 'tis not Spanish but 'tis Heaven she speaks._" - -Her masterpiece is the _Castillo interior_, of which Fray Luis -writes:—"Let naught be blotted out, save when she herself emended: -which was seldom." And once more he commends her to her readers, -saying:—"She, who had seen God face to face, now reveals Him unto -you." With all her sublimity, her enraptured vision of things heavenly, -her "large draughts of intellectual day," Santa Teresa illustrates -the combination of the loftiest mysticism with the finest practical -sense, and her style varies, takes ever its colour from its subject. -Familiar and maternal in her letters, enraptured in her _Conceptos del -Amor de Dios_, she handles with equal skill the trifles of our petty -lives and—to use Luis de León's phrase—"the highest and most generous -philosophy that was ever dreamed." And from her briefest sentence -shines the vigorous soul of one born to govern, one who governed -in such wise that a helpless Nuncio denounced her as "restless, -disobedient, contumacious, an inventress of new doctrines tricked out -with piety, a breaker of the cloister-rule, a despiser of the apostolic -precept which forbiddeth a woman to teach." - -Santa Teresa taught because she must, and all that she wrote was -written by compulsion, under orders from her superior. She could -never have understood the female novelist's desire for publicity; -and, had she realised it, merry as her humour was, she would -scarcely have smiled. For she was, both by descent and temperament, -a gentlewoman—_de sangre muy limpia_, as she writes more than once, -with a tinge of satisfaction which shows that the convent discipline -had not stifled her pride of race any more than it had quenched her -gaiety. She always remembers that she comes from Castile, and the fact -is evidenced in her writings, with their delicious old-world savour. -Boscán and Garcilaso might influence courtiers and learned poets; but -they were impotent against the brave Castilian of Sor Teresa de Jesús, -who wields her instrument with incomparable mastery. It were a sin to -attempt a rendering of her artless songs, with their resplendent gleams -of ecstasy and passion. But some idea of her general manner, when -untouched by the inspiration of her mystic nuptials, may be gathered -from a passage which Froude has Englished:— - -"A man is directed to make a garden in a bad soil overrun with sour -grasses. The Lord of the land roots out the weeds, sows seeds, and -plants herbs and fruit-trees. The gardener must then care for them -and water them, that they may thrive and blossom, and that the Lord -may find pleasure in his garden and come to visit it. There are four -ways in which the watering may be done. There is water which is drawn -wearily by hand from the well. There is water drawn by the ox-wheel, -more abundantly and with greater labour. There is water brought in -from the river, which will saturate the whole ground; and, last and -best, there is rain from heaven. Four sorts of prayer correspond to -these. The first is a weary effort with small returns; the well may run -dry: the gardener then must weep. The second is internal prayer and -meditation upon God; the trees will then show leaves and flower-buds. -The third is love of God. The virtues then become vigorous. We converse -with God face to face. The flowers open and give out fragrance. The -fourth kind cannot be described in words. Then there is no more toil, -and the seasons no longer change; flowers are always blowing, and -fruit ripens perennially. The soul enjoys undoubting certitude; the -faculties work without effort and without consciousness; the heart -loves and does not know that it loves; the mind perceives, yet does -not know that it perceives. If the butterfly pauses to say to itself -how prettily it is flying, the shining wings fall off, and it drops -and dies. The life of the spirit is not our life, but the life of God -within us." - -And, as Santa Teresa excelled in spiritual insight, so she has the -sense of affairs. Durtal, in M. Joris-Karl Huysmans' _En Route_, first -says of her:—"Sainte Térèse a exploré plus à fond que tout autre -les régions inconnues de l'âme; elle en est, en quelque sorte, la -géographe; elle a surtout dressé la carte de ses pôles, marqué les -latitudes contemplatives, les terres intérieures du ciel humain." -And he shows the reverse of the medal:—"Mais quel singulier mélange -elle montre aussi, d'une mystique ardente et d'une femme d'affaires -froide; car, enfin, elle est à double fond; elle est contemplative hors -le monde et elle est également un homme d'état: elle est le Colbert -féminin des cloîtres." The key to Durtal's difficulties is given in -the Abbé Gévresin's remark, that the perfect balance of good sense is -one of the distinctive signs of the mystics. In Santa Teresa's case -the sign is present. An uninquiring world may choose to think of her -as a fanatic in vapours and in ecstasies. Yet it is she who writes, -in the _Camino de Perfección_:—"I would not have my daughters be, or -seem to be, women in anything, but brave men." It is she who holds -that "of revelations no account should be made"; who calls the usual -convent life "a shortcut to hell"; who adds that "if parents took my -advice, they would rather marry their daughters to the poorest of -men, or keep them at home under their own eyes." Her position as a -spiritual force is as unique as her place in literature. It is certain -that her "own dear books" were nothing to her; that she regarded -literature as frivolity; and no one questions her right so to regard -it. But the world also is entitled to its judgment, which is expressed -in different ways. Jeremy Taylor cites her in a sermon preached at the -opening of the Parliament of Ireland (May 8, 1661). Protestant England, -by the mouth of Froude, compares Santa Teresa to Cervantes. Catholic -Spain places her manuscript of her own _Life_ beside a page of St. -Augustine's writing in the Palace of the Escorial. - -In some sense we may almost consider the Ecstatic Doctor, SAN JUAN DE -LA CRUZ (1542-91), as one of Santa Teresa's disciples. He changed his -worldly name of Juan de Yepes y Álvarez for that of Juan de la Cruz -on joining the Carmelite order in 1563. Shortly afterwards he made -the acquaintance of Santa Teresa, and, fired by her enthusiasm, he -undertook to carry out in monasteries the reforms which she introduced -in convents. In his _Obras espirituales_ (1618) mysticism finds its -highest expression. There are moments when his prose style is of -extreme clearness and force, but in many cases he soars to heights -where the sense reels in the attempt to follow him. St. John of the -Cross holds, with the mystics of all time, with Plotinus and Böhme and -Swedenborg, that "by contemplation man may become incorporated with the -Deity." This is a hard saying for some of us, not least to the present -writer, and it were idle, in the circumstances, to attempt criticism of -what for most men must remain a mystery. Yet in his verse one seizes -the sense more easily; and his high, amorous music has an individual -melody of spiritual ravishment, of daring abandonment, which is not -all lost in Mr. David Lewis' unrhymed version of the _Noche oscura del -Alma_ (Dark Night of the Soul):— - - "_In an obscure night, - With anxious love inflamed, - O happy lot! - Forth unobserved I went, - My house being now at rest...._ - - _In that happy night, - In secret, seen of none, - Seeing nought but myself, - Without other light or guide - Save that which in my heart was burning._ - - _That light guided me - More surely than the noonday sun - To the place where he was waiting for me - Whom I knew well, - And none but he appeared._ - - _O guiding night! - O night more lovely than the dawn! - O night that hast united - The lover with his beloved - And charged her with her love._ - - _On my flowery bosom, - Kept whole for him alone, - He reposed and slept: - I kept him, and the waving - Of the cedars fanned him._ - - _Then his hair floated in the breeze - That blew from the turret; - He struck me on the neck - With his gentle hand, - And all sensation left me._ - - _I continued in oblivion lost, - My head was resting on my love; - I fainted at last abandoned, - And, amid the lilies forgotten, - Threw all my cares away._" - -St. John of the Cross has absorbed the mystic essence of the _Song of -Solomon_, and he introduces infinite new harmonies in his re-setting of -the ancient melody. The worst that criticism can allege against him is -that he dwells on the very frontier line of sense, in a twilight where -music takes the place of meaning, and words are but vague symbols of -inexpressible thoughts, intolerable raptures, too subtly sensuous for -transcription. The _Unknown Eros_, a volume of odes, mainly mystical -and Catholic, by Coventry Patmore, which has had so considerable an -influence on recent English writers, was a deliberate attempt to -transfer to our poetry the methods of St. John of the Cross, whose -influence grows ever deeper with time. - -The Dominican monk whose family name was Sarriá, but who is only known -from his birthplace as LUIS DE GRANADA (1504-88), is usually accounted -a mystic writer, though he is vastly less contemplative, more didactic -and practical, than San Juan de la Cruz. He is best known by his _Guía -de Pecadores_, which Regnier made the favourite reading of Macette, and -which Gorgibus recommends to Célie in _Sganarelle_:— - - "_La Guide des pécheurs est encore un bon livre: - C'est là qu'en peu de temps on apprend à bien vivre._" - -Unluckily for Granada, his _Guía de Pecadores_ and his _Tratado de -la Oración y Meditación_ were placed on the Index, chiefly at the -instigation of that hammer of heretics, Melchor Cano, the famous -theologian of the Council of Trent. Certain changes were made in the -text, and the books were reprinted in their amended form; but the -suspicion of _iluminismo_ long hung over Granada, whose last years were -troubled by his rash simplicity in certifying as true the sham stigmata -of a Portuguese nun, Sor María de la Visitación. The story that Granada -was persecuted by the Inquisition is imaginary. - -His books have still an immense vogue. His sincerity, learning, and -fervour are admirable, and his forty years spent between confessional -and pulpit gave him a rare knowledge of human weakness and a mastery -of eloquent appeal. He is not declamatory in the worst sense, though -he bears the marks of his training. He sins by abuse of oratorical -antithesis, by repetition, by a certain mechanical see-saw of the -sentence common to those who harangue multitudes. Still, the sweetness -of his nature so flows over in his words that didacticism becomes -persuasive even when he argues against our strongest prepossessions. -It may interest to quote a passage from the translation made by that -Francis Meres whose _Palladis Tamia_ contains the earliest reference to -Shakespeare's "sugared sonnets":— - -"This desire which doth hold many so resolutely to their studies, and -this love of science and knowledge under pretence to help others, -is too much and superfluous. I call it a love too much and desire -superfluous; for when it is moderate and according to reason, it is -not a temptation, but a laudable virtue and a very profitable exercise -which is commended in all kind of men, but especially in young men who -do exercise their youth in that study, for by it they eschew many vices -and learn that whereby they will counsel themselves and others. But -unless it be moderately used it hurteth devotion.... There be some that -would know for this end only, that they might know—and it is foolish -curiosity. There be some that would know, that they might be known—and -it is foolish vanity; and there be some that would know, that they -might sell their knowledge for money or for honours—and it is filthy -lucre. There be also some that desire to know, that they may edify—and -it is charity. And there are some that would know, that they may be -edified—and it is wisdom. All these ends may move the desire, and, in -choice of these, a man is often deceived, when he considereth not which -ought especially to move; and this error is very dangerous." - -This distrust of profane letters is yet more marked in the Augustinian, -PEDRO MALÓN DE CHAIDE of Cascante (1530-?1590), who compares the -"frivolous love-books" of Boscán, Garcilaso, and Montemôr and the -"fabulous tales and lies" of chivalresque romance to a knife in -a madman's hand. His practice clashes with his theory, for his -_Conversión de la Magdalena_, written for Beatriz Cerdán, is learned to -the verge of pedantry, and his elaborate periods betray the imitation -of models which he professed to abhor. More ascetic than mystic, -Malón de Chaide lacks the patrician ease, the tolerant spirit of Juan -de Ávila, Granada, and León; but his austere doctrine and sumptuous -colouring have ensured him permanent popularity. His admirable verse -paraphrases of the _Song of Solomon_ have much of the unction, without -the sensuous exaltation, of Juan de la Cruz. A better representative of -pure mysticism is the Extremaduran Carmelite, JUAN DE LOS ÁNGELES (fl. -1595), whose _Triumphos del Amor de Dios_ is a profound psychological -study, written under the influence of Northern thinkers, and not less -remarkable for beauty of expression than for impassioned insight. With -him our notice of the Spanish mystics must close. It is difficult -to estimate their number exactly; but since at least three thousand -survive in print, it is not surprising that the most remain unread. A -breath of mysticism is met in the few Castilian verses of the brilliant -humanist, BENITO ARIAS MONTANO (1527-98), who gave up to scholarship -and theology what was meant for poetry. His achievement in the two -former fields is not our concern here, but it pleases to denote the -ample inspiration and the lofty simplicity of his song, which is hidden -from many readers, and overlooked even by literary historians, in Böhl -de Faber's _Floresta de rimas antiguas_. - - * * * * * - -The pastoral novel, like the chivalresque romance, reaches Spain -through Portugal. The Italianised Spaniard, Jacopo Sannazaro, had -invented the first example of this kind in his epoch-making _Arcadia_ -(1504); and his earliest follower was the Portuguese, Bernardim Ribeiro -(?1475-?1524), whose _Menina e moça_ transplants the prose pastoral -to the Peninsula. This remarkable book, which derives its title from -the first three words of the text, is the undoubted model of the first -Castilian prose pastoral, the unfinished _Diana Enamorada_. This we -owe to the Portuguese, JORGE DE MONTEMÔR (d. 1561), whose name is -hispaniolised as Montemayor. There is nothing strange in this usage -of Castilian by a Portuguese writer. We have already recorded the -names of Gil Vicente, Sâ de Miranda, and Silvestre among those of -Castilian poets; the lyrics and comedies of Camões, the _Austriada_ of -Jerónimo Corte Real, continue a tradition which begins as early as the -_General Cancioneiro_ of García de Resende (1516), wherein twenty-nine -Portuguese poets prefer Castilian before their own language. A -Portuguese writer, Innocencio da Silva, has gone the length of -asserting that Montemôr wrote nothing but Castilian. This only proves -that Silva had not read the _Diana_, which contains two Portuguese -songs, and Portuguese prose passages spoken by the shepherd, Danteo, -and the shepherdess, Duarda. Nor is Silva alone in his bad eminence; -the date of the earliest edition of the _Diana_ is commonly given as -1542. Yet, as it contains, in the _Canto de Orpheo_, an allusion to the -widowhood of the Infanta Juana (1554), it must be later. The time of -publication was probably 1558-59,[14] some four or five years after the -printing of his _Cancionero_ at Antwerp. - -Little is known of Montemôr's life, save that he was a musician at -the Spanish court in 1548. He accompanied the Infanta Juana to Lisbon -on her marriage to Dom João, returning to Spain in 1554, when he is -thought to have visited England and the Low Countries in Felipe II.'s -train. He was murdered in 1651, apparently as the result of some amour. -Faint intimations of pastoralism are found in such early chivalresque -novels as _Florisel de Niquea_, where Florisel, dressed as a shepherd, -loves the shepherdess, Sylvia. Ribeiro had introduced his own flame -in _Menina e moça_ in the person of Aonia, and Montemôr follows with -Diana. The identification of Aonia with the Infanta Beatriz, and with -King Manoel's cousin, Joana de Vilhena, has been argued with great -heat: in Montemôr's case the lady is said to have been a certain Ana. -Her surname is withheld by the discreet Sepúlveda, who records that she -was seen at Valderas by Felipe III. and his queen in 1603. - -In all pastoral novels there is a family likeness, and Montemôr is not -successful in avoiding the insipidity of the _genre_. He endeavours -to lighten the monotony of his shepherds by borrowing Sannazaro's -invention of the witch whose magic draughts work miracles. This -wonder-worker is as convenient for the novelist as she is tedious for -the reader, who is forced to cry out with Don Quixote's Priest:—"Let -all that refers to the wise Felicia and the enchanted water be -omitted." The bold Priest would further drop the verses, honouring the -book for its prose, and for being the first of its class. Montemôr -accepts the convention by making his shepherds—Sireno, Silvano, and -the rest—mouth it like grandiloquent dukes; but the style is correct, -and pleasing in its grandiose kind. The _Diana's_ vogue was immense: -Shakespeare himself based the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ upon the -episode of the shepherdess Felismena, which he had probably read in -the manuscript of Bartholomew Young, whose excellent version, although -not printed until 1598, was finished in 1583; and Sidney, whose own -pastoral is redolent of Montemôr, has given Sireno's song in this -fashion:— - - "_Of this high grace with bliss conjoin'd - No further debt on me is laid, - Since that is self-same metal coin'd, - Sweet lady, you remain well paid. - For, if my place give me great pleasure, - Having before me Nature's treasure, - In face and eyes unmatchèd being, - You have the same in my hands, seeing - What in your face mine eyes do measure._ - - _Nor think the match unev'nly made, - That of those beams in you do tarry; - The glass to you but gives a shade, - To me mine eyes the true shape carry: - For such a thought most highly prizèd, - Which ever hath Love's yoke despisèd, - Better than one captiv'd perceiveth, - Though he the lively form receiveth, - The other sees it but disguisèd._" - -Montemôr closes with the promise of a sequel, which never appeared. -But, as his popularity continued, publishers printed new editions, -containing the story of Abindarraez and Jarifa, boldly annexed from -Villegas' _Inventario_, which was licensed so early as 1551. The -tempting opportunity was seized by Alonso Pérez, a Salamancan doctor, -whose second _Diana_ (1564) is extremely dull, despite the singular -boast of its author that it contains scarcely anything "not stolen or -imitated from the best Latins and Italians." Pérez alleges that he -was a friend of Montemôr's; but, as that was his sole qualification, -his third _Diana_—written, though "not added here, to avoid making -too large a volume"—has fortunately vanished. In this same year, -1564, appeared Gaspar Gil Polo's _Diana_, a continuation which, says -Cervantes, should be guarded "as though it were Apollo's"—the praise -has perplexed readers who missed the pun on the author's name. The -merits of Polo's sequel, excellent in matter and form, were recognised, -as Professor Rennert notes, by Jerónimo de Texeda, whose _Diana_ (1627) -is a plagiary from Polo. Though the contents of the one and the other -are almost identical, Ticknor, considering them as independent works, -finds praise for the earlier book, and blame for the later. An odd, -mad freak is the versified _Diez libros de Fortuna de Amor_ (1573), -wherein Frexano and Floricio woo Fortuna and Augustina in Arcadian -fashion. Its author, the Sardinian soldier, Antonio Lo Frasso, shares -with Avellaneda the distinction of having drawn Cervantes' fire—his -one title to fame. Artificiality reaches its full height in the -_Pastor de Fílida_ (1582) of Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, who presents -himself, Silvestre, and Cervantes as the (Dresden) shepherds Siralvo, -Silvano, and Tirsi. Almost every Spanish man of letters attempted a -pastoral, but it were idle to compile a catalogue of works by authors -whose echoes of Montemôr are merely mechanical. The occasion of much -ornate prose, the pastoral lived partly because there was naught to -set against it, partly because born men of action found pleasure in -literary idealism and in "old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy." Its -unreality doomed it to death when Alemán and others took to working -the realistic vein first struck in _Lazarillo de Tormes_. Meanwhile -the spectacle of love-lorn shepherds contending in song scandalised -the orthodox, and the monk Bartolomé Ponce produced his devout parody, -the _Clara Diana á lo divino_ (1599) in the same edifying spirit that -moved Sebastián de Córdoba (1577) to travesty Boscán's and Garcilaso's -works—_á lo divino, trasladadas en materias cristianas_. - -Didactic prose is practised by the official chronicler, JERÓNIMO DE -ZURITA (1512-80), author of the _Anales de la Corona de Aragón_, six -folios published between 1562 and 1580, and ending with the death of -Fernando. Zurita is not a great literary artist, nor an historical -portrait-painter. Men's actions interest him less than the progress -of constitutional growth. His conception of history, to give an -illustration from English literature, is nearer Freeman's than -Froude's, and he was admirably placed by fortune. Simancas being thrown -open to him, he was first among Spanish historians to use original -documents, first to complete his authorities by study in foreign -archives, first to perceive that travel is the complement of research. -Science and Zurita's work gain by his determination to abandon the -old plan of beginning with Noah. He lacks movement, sympathy, and -picturesqueness; but he excels all predecessors in scheme, accuracy, -architectonics—qualities which have made his supersession impossible. -Whatever else be read, Zurita's _Anales_ must be read also. His -contemporary, AMBROSIO DE MORALES (1513-91), nephew of Pérez de Oliva, -was charged to continue Ocampo's chronicle. His nomination is dated -1580. His authoritative fragment, the result of ten years' labour, -combines eloquent narrative with critical instinct in such wise as to -suggest that, with better fortune, he might have matched Zurita. - -Hurtado de Mendoza as a poet belongs to Carlos Quinto's period. Even -if he be not the author of _Lazarillo_, he approves himself a master -of prose in his _Guerra de Granada_, first published at Lisbon by -the editor of Figueroa's poems, Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, in 1627. -Mendoza wrote his story of the Morisco rising (1568-71) in the -Alpujarra and Ronda ranges, while in exile at Granada. On July 22, -1568 (if Fourquevaulx' testimony be exact), a quarrel arose between -Mendoza and a young courtier, Diego de Leiva. The old soldier—he was -sixty-four—disarmed Leiva, threw his dagger out of window, and, by -some accounts, sent Leiva after it. This, passing in the royal palace -at Madrid, was flat _lèse majesté_, to be expiated by Mendoza's exile. -To this lucky accident we owe the _Guerra de Granada_, written in the -neighbourhood of the war. - -Mendoza writes for the pleasure of writing, with no polemical or -didactic purpose. His plain-speaking concerning the war, and the part -played in it by great personages whom he had no cause to love, accounts -for the tardy publication of his book, which should be considered as -a confidential state-paper by a diplomatist of genius. Yet, though -he wrote chiefly to pass the time, he has the qualities of the great -historian—knowledge, impartiality, narrative power, condensation, -psychological insight, dramatic apprehension, perspective and -eloquence. His view of a general situation is always just, and, though -he has something of the credulity of his time, his accuracy of detail -is astonishing. His style is a thing apart. He had already shown, in -a burlesque letter addressed to Feliciano de Silva, an almost unique -capacity for reproducing that celebrity's literary manner. In his -_Guerra de Granada_ he repeats the performance with more serious aim. -One god of his idolatry is Sallust, whose terse rhetoric is repeatedly -echoed with unsurpassable fidelity. Another model is Tacitus, whose -famous description of Germanicus finding the unburied corpses of Varus' -legions is annexed by Mendoza in his account of Arcos and his troops -at Calalín. This is neither plagiarism nor unconscious reminiscence; -it is the deliberate effort of a prose connoisseur, saturated in -antiquity, to impart the gloomy splendour of the Roman to his native -tongue. To say that Mendoza succeeded were too much, but he did not -altogether fail; and, despite his occasional Latinised construction, -his _Guerra de Granada_ lives not solely as a brilliant and picturesque -transcription. It is also a masterly example of idiomatic Castilian -prose, published without the writer's last touches, and, as is plain, -from mutilated copies.[15] Mendoza may not be a great historian: as a -literary artist he is extremely great. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[8] The sources are carefully traced by L. A. Stiefel in the -_Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie_ (vol. xx. pp. 183 and 318). One -specimen suffices here:— - -GIANCARLI, iii. 16. - - _Falisco._ Padrone, o che la imaginatione m'inganna, o pur quella è la - vuestra Madonna Angelica. - - _Cassandro._ Sarebbe gran cosa che la imaginatione inganassa me - anchora, perch' io voleva dirloti, etc. - -RUEDA, _Escena_ iii. - - _Falisco._ Señor, la vista ó la imaginacion me engaña ó es aquella - vuestra muy querida Angélica. - - _Casandro._ Gran cosa seria si la imaginacion no te engañase, antes yo - te lo quería decir, etc. - -[9] I learn that D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo is preparing a new -edition of the _Anotaciones_. - -[10] For a full and very able account of the proceedings, see Alejandro -Arango y Escandon's _Ensayo histórico_ (Méjico, 1866). - -[11] The Christian name of the author of the _Visión deleitable_ was -Alfonso. - -[12] See the second volume (pp. 79-104) of the _Discursos leidos en -las recepciones públicas que ha celebrado desde 1847 la Real Academia -Española_ (Madrid, 1861). - -[13] A very able discussion of these ascriptions is presented by M. -Foulché-Delbosc in the _Revue hispanique_ (1895), vol. ii. pp. 120-45. - -[14] The question is discussed in the _Revue hispanique_ (1895), vol. -ii. pp. 304-11. - -[15] See two very able studies in the _Revue hispanique_ (vol. i. pp. -101-65, and vol. ii. pp. 208-303), by M. Foulché-Delbosc, whose edition -of the _Guerra de Granada_ is now printing. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - THE AGE OF LOPE DE VEGA - - 1598-1621 - - -The death of Felipe II. in 1598 closes an epoch in the history of -Castilian letters. Not merely has the Italian influence triumphed -definitively: the chivalresque romance has well-nigh run its course; -while mysticism and the pastoral have achieved expression and -acceptance. Moreover, the most important of all developments is the -establishment of the stage at Madrid in the Teatro de la Cruz and in -the Teatro del Príncipe. There is evidence to prove that theatres were -also built at Valencia, at Seville, and possibly at Granada. Nor was a -foreign impulse lacking. Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_ records the invasion -of England by Italian actors:— - - "_The Italian tragedians were so sharp of wit, - That in one hour's meditation - They could perform anything in action._" - -In like wise the famous Alberto Ganasa and his Italian histrions -revealed the art of acting to the Spains. Thenceforth every province is -overrun by mummers, as may be read in the _Viaje entretenido_ (1603) of -Agustín de Rojas Villandrando, who denotes, with mock-solemn precision, -the nine professional grades. - -There was the solitary stroller, the _bululú_, tramping from village -to village, declaiming short plays to small audiences, called together -by the sacristan, the barber, and the parish priest, who—_pidiendo -limosna en un sombrero_—passed round the hat, and sped the vagabond -with a slice of bread and a cup of broth. A pair of strollers (such as -Rojas himself and his colleague Ríos) was styled a _ñaque_, and did no -more than spout simple _entremeses_ in the open. The _cangarilla_ was -on a larger scale, numbering three or four actors, who gave Timoneda's -_Oveja Perdida_, or some comic piece wherein a boy played the woman's -part. Five men and a woman made up the _carambaleo_, which performed in -farmhouses for such small wages as a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, -a stew of cabbage; but higher fees were asked in larger villages—six -_maravedís_, a piece of sausage, a roll of flax, and what not. Though -"a spider could carry" its properties, says Rojas, yet the _carambaleo_ -contrived to fill the bill with a set piece, or two _autos_, or four -_entremeses_. More pretentious was the _garnacha_, with its six men, -its "leading lady," and a boy who played the _ingénue_. With four set -plays, three _autos_, and three _entremeses_ it would draw a whole -village for a week. A large choice of pieces was within the means of -the seven men, two women, and a boy that made up the _bojiganga_, -which journeyed from town to town on horseback. Next in rank came the -_farándula_, the stepping-stone to the lofty _compañía_ of sixteen -players, with fourteen "supers," capable of producing fifty pieces at -short notice. To such a troupe, no doubt, belonged the Toledan Naharro, -famous as an interpreter of the bully, and as the foremost of Spanish -stage-managers. "He still further enriched theatrical adornment, -substituting chests and trunks for the costume-bag. Into the body of -the house he brought the musicians, who had hitherto sung behind the -blanket. He did away with the false beards which till then actors had -always worn, and he made all play without a make-up, save those who -performed old men's parts, or such characters as implied a change of -appearance. He introduced machinery, clouds, thunder, lightning, duels, -and battles; but this reached not the perfection of our day." - -This is the testimony of the most renowned personality in Castilian -literature. MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (1547-1616) describes himself -as a native of Alcalá de Henares, in a legal document signed at Madrid -on December 18, 1580: the long dispute as to his birthplace is thus -at last settled. His stock was pure Castilian, its _solar_ being at -Cervatos, near Reinosa: the connection with Galicia is no older than -the fourteenth century. His family surname of Cervantes probably comes -from the castle of San Cervantes, beyond Toledo, which was named after -the Christian martyr Servandus. The additional name of Saavedra is not -on the title-page of the writer's first book, the _Galatea_. However, -Miguel de Cervantes uses the Saavedra in a petition addressed to Pope -Gregory XIII. and Felipe II. in October 1578; and, as Cervantes was -not then, though it is now, an uncommon name, the addition served to -distinguish the author from contemporary clansmen. He was the second -(though not, as heretofore believed, the youngest) son of Rodrigo -de Cervantes Saavedra and of Leonor Cortinas. Of the mother we know -nothing: garrulous as was her famous son, he nowhere alludes to her, -nor did he follow the usual Spanish practice by adding her surname to -his own. The father was a licentiate—of laws, so it is conjectured. -Research only yields two facts concerning him: that he was incurably -deaf, and that he was poor. - -Cervantes' birthday is unknown. He was baptized at the Church of -Santa María Mayor, in Alcalá de Henares, on Sunday, October 9, 1547. -One Tomás González asserted that he had found Cervantes' name in the -matriculation lists of Salamanca University; but the entry has never -been verified since, and its report lacks probability. If Cervantes -ever studied at any university, we should expect to find him at that -of his native town, Alcalá de Henares. His name does not appear in -the University calendar. Though he made his knowledge go far, he was -anything but learned, and college witlings bantered him for having -no degree. No information exists concerning his youth. He is first -mentioned in 1569, when a Madrid dominie, Juan López de Hoyos, speaks -of him as "our dear and beloved pupil"; and some conjecture that he -was an usher in Hoyos' school. His earliest literary performance is -discovered (1569) in a collection of verses on the death of Felipe -II.'s third wife. The volume, edited by Hoyos, is entitled the -_Historia y relación verdadera de la enfermedad, felicísimo tránsito -y suntuosas exequias fúnebres de la Serenísima Reina de España, Doña -Isabel de Valois_. Cervantes' contributions are an epitaph in sonnet -form, five _redondillas_, and an elegy of one hundred and ninety-nine -lines: this last being addressed to Cardinal Diego de Espinosa in the -name of the whole school—_en nombre de todo el estudio_. These poor -pieces are reproduced solely because Cervantes wrote them: it is very -doubtful if he ever saw them in print. He is alleged to have been -guilty of _lèse-majesté_ in Hurtado de Mendoza's fashion; but this is -surmise, as is also a pendant story of his love passages with a Maid -of Honour. It is certain that, on September 15, 1569, a warrant was -signed for the arrest of one Miguel de Cervantes, who was condemned to -lose his right hand for wounding Antonio de Sigura in the neighbourhood -of the Court. There is nothing to prove that our man was the culprit; -but if he were, he had already got out of jurisdiction. Joining the -household of the Special Nuncio, Giulio Acquaviva, he left Madrid for -Rome as the Legate's chamberlain in the December of 1568. - -He was not the stuff of which chamberlains are made; and in 1570 he -enlisted in the company commanded by Diego de Urbina, captain in Miguel -de Moncada's famous infantry regiment, at that time serving under Marc -Antonio Colonna. It is worth noting that the _Galatea_ is dedicated -to Marc Antonio's son, Ascanio Colonna, Abbot of St. Sophia. In 1571 -Cervantes fought at Lepanto, where he was twice shot in the chest and -had his left hand maimed for life: "for the greater honour of the -right," as he loved to think and say with justifiable vainglory. That -he never tired of vaunting his share in the great victory is shown by -his frequent allusions to it in his writings; and it should almost seem -that he was prouder of his nickname—the Cripple of Lepanto—than of -writing _Don Quixote_. He served in the engagements before Navarino, -Corfu, Tunis, the Goletta; and in all he bore himself with credit. -Returning to Italy, he seems to have learned the language, for traces -of Italian idioms are not rare even in his best pages. From Naples he -sailed for Spain in September 1575, with recommendatory letters from -Don Juan de Austria and from the Neapolitan Viceroy. On September 26, -his caravel, the _Sol_, was attacked by Moorish pirates, and, after a -brave resistance, all on board were carried as prisoners into Algiers. -There for five years Cervantes abode as a slave, writing plays between -the intervals of his plots to escape, striving to organise a general -rising of the thousands of Christians. Being the most dangerous, -because the most heroic of them all, he became, in some sort, the chief -of his fellows, and, after the failure of several plans for flight, -was held hostage by the Dey for the town's safety. His release was due -to accident. On September 19, 1580, the Redemptorist, Fray Juan Gil, -offered five hundred gold ducats as the ransom of a private gentleman -named Jerónimo Palafox. The sum was held insufficient to redeem a man -of Palafox's position; but it sufficed to set free Cervantes, who was -already shipped on the Dey's galley bound for Constantinople.[16] He -is found at Madrid on December 19, 1580, and it is surmised that he -served in Portugal and at the Azores. There are rumours of his holding -some small post at Oran: however that may be, he returned to Spain, at -latest, in the autumn of 1582. And henceforth he belongs to literature. - -The plays written at Algiers are lost; but there survive two sonnets -of the same period dedicated to Rufino de Chamberí (1577). A rhymed -epistle to the Secretary of State, Mateo Vázquez, also belongs to this -time. We must suppose Cervantes to have written copiously on regaining -his liberty, since Gálvez de Montalvo speaks of him as a poet of repute -in the _Pastor de Fílida_ (1582); but the earliest signs of him in -Spain are his eulogistic sonnets in Padilla's _Romancero_ and Rufo -Gutiérrez' _Austriada_, both published in 1583. Padilla repaid the debt -by classing the sonneteer among "the most famous poets of Castile." -In December 1584, Cervantes married Catalina de Palacios Salazar y -Vozmediano, a native of Esquivias, eighteen years younger than himself. -It is often said that he wrote the _Galatea_ as a means of furthering -his suit. It may be so. But the book was not printed by Juan Gracián -of Alcalá de Henares till March 1585, though the _aprobación_ and the -privilege are dated February 1 and February 22, 1584. In the year after -his marriage, Cervantes' illegitimate daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, -was born. We shall have occasion to refer to her later. Our immediate -concern is with the _Primera Parte de Galatea_, an unfinished pastoral -novel in six books, for which Cervantes received 1336 _reales_ from -Blas de Robles; a sum which, with his wife's small dowry, enabled him -to start housekeeping.[17] As a financial speculation the _Galatea_ -failed: only two later editions appeared during the writer's lifetime, -one at Lisbon in 1590, the other at Paris in 1611. Neither could have -brought him money; but the book, if it did nothing else, served to make -him known. - -He trimmed his sails to the popular breeze. Montemôr had started -the pastoral fashion, Pérez and Gaspar Gil Polo had followed, and -Gálvez de Montalvo maintained the tradition. Later in life, in the -_Coloquio de los Perros_ (Dialogue of the Dogs), Cervantes made his -Berganza say that all pastorals are "vain imaginings, void of truth, -written to amuse the idle"; yet it may be doubted if Cervantes ever -lost the pastoral taste, though his sense of humour forced him to see -the absurdity of the convention. It is very certain that he had a -special fondness for the _Galatea_: he spared it at the burning of Don -Quixote's library, praised its invention, and made the Priest exhort -the Barber to await the sequel which is foreshadowed in the _Galatea's_ -text. This is again promised in the Dedication of the volume of plays -(1615), in the Prologue to the Second Part of _Don Quixote_ (1615), -and in the Letter Dedicatory of _Persiles y Sigismunda_, signed on -the writer's deathbed, April 19, 1616. For thirty-one years Cervantes -held out the promise of the _Galatea's_ Second Part: five times did he -repeat it. It is plain that he thought well of the First, and that his -liking for the _genre_ was incorrigible. - -His own attempt survives chiefly because of the name on its -title-page. Pastorals differ little in essentials, and the kind offers -few openings to Cervantes' peculiar humoristic genius. Like his -fellow-practitioners, he crowds his stage with figures: he presents his -shepherds Elicio and Erastro warbling their love for Galatea on Tagus -bank; he reveals Mirenio enamoured of Silveria, Leonarda love-sick -for Salercio, Lenio in the toils of Gelasia. Hazlitt, in his harsh -criticism of Sidney's _Arcadia_, hits the defects of the pastoral, and -his censures may be justly applied to the _Galatea_. There, as in the -English book, we find the "original sin of alliteration, antithesis, -and metaphysical conceit"; there, too, is the "systematic interpolation -of the wit, learning, ingenuity, wisdom, and everlasting impertinence -of the writer." Worst of all are "the continual, uncalled-for -interruptions, analysing, dissecting, disjointing, murdering -everything, and reading a pragmatical, self-sufficient lecture over the -dead body of nature." But if Cervantes sins in this wise, he sins of -set purpose and in good company. In his Fourth Book, he interpolates a -long disquisition on the Beautiful which he calmly annexes from Judas -Abarbanel's _Dialoghi_. As Sannazaro opens his _Arcadia_ with Ergasto -and Selvaggio, so Cervantes thrusts his Elicio and Erastro into the -foreground of the _Galatea_; the funeral of Meliso is a deliberate -imitation of the Feast of Pales; and, as the Italian introduced -Carmosina Bonifacia under the name of Amaranta, the Spaniard perforce -gives Catalina de Palacios Salazar as Galatea. Nor does he depart -from the convention by placing himself upon the scene as Elicio, for -Ribeiro and Montemôr had preceded him in the characters of Bimnardel -and Sereno. Lastly, the idea and the form of the _Canto de Calíope_, -wherein the uncritical poet celebrates whole tribes of contemporary -singers, are borrowed from the _Canto del Turia_, which Gil Polo had -interpolated in his _Diana_. - -Prolixity, artifice, ostentation, monotony, extravagance, are -inherent in the pastoral school; and the _Galatea_ savours of these -defects. Yet, for all its weakness, it lacks neither imagination nor -contrivance, and its embroidered rhetoric is a fine example of stately -prose. Save, perhaps, in the _Persiles y Sigismunda_, Cervantes never -wrote with a more conscious effort after excellence, and, in results -of absolute style, the _Galatea_ may compare with all but exceptional -passages in _Don Quixote_. Yet it failed to please, and the author -turned to other fields of effort. His verses in Pedro de Padilla's -_Jardín Espiritual_ (1585) and in López Maldonado's _Cancionero_ (1586) -denote good-nature and a love of literature; and in both volumes -Cervantes may have read companion-pieces written by a marvellous youth, -Lope de Vega, whom he had already praised—as he praised everybody—in -the _Canto de Calíope_. He could not foresee that in the person of -this boy he was to meet his match and more. Meanwhile in 1587 he -penned sonnets for Padilla's _Grandezas y Excelencias de la Virgen_, -and for Alonso de Barros' _Filosofía cortesana_. Verse-making was his -craze; and, in 1588, when the physician, Francisco Díaz, published a -treatise on kidney disease—_Tratado nuevamente impreso acerca de las -enfermedades de los riñones_—the unwearied poetaster was forthcoming -with a sonnet pat to the strange occasion. - -Still, though he cultivated verse with as sedulous a passion as Don -Quixote spent on Knight-Errantries, he recognised that man does not -live by sonneteering alone, and he tried his fate upon the boards. He -died with the happy conviction that he was a dramatist of genius; his -contemporaries ruled the point against him, and posterity has upheld -the decision. He tells us that at this time he wrote between twenty and -thirty plays. We only know the titles of a few among them—the _Gran -Turquesca_, the _Jerusalén_, the _Batalla Naval_ (attributed by Moratín -to the year 1584), the _Amaranta_ and the _Bosque Amoroso_ (referred -to 1586), the _Arsinda_ and the _Confusa_ (to 1587). It is like enough -that the _Batalla Naval_ was concerned with Lepanto, a subject of which -Cervantes never tired; the _Arsinda_ existed so late as 1673, when Juan -de Matos Fragoso mentioned it as "famous" in his _Corsaria Catalana_; -and our author himself ranked the _Confusa_ as "good among the best." -The touch of self-complacency is amusing, though one might desire a -better security than Bardolph's. - -Two surviving plays of the period are _El Trato de Argel_ and _La -Numancia_, first printed by Antonio de Sancha in 1784. The former deals -with the life of the Christian slaves in Algiers, and recounts the -passion of Zara the Moor for the captive Aurelio, who is enamoured of -Silvia. We must assume that Cervantes thought well of this invention, -since he utilised it some thirty years later in _El Amante Liberal_; -but the play is merely futile. The introduction of a lion, of the -Devil, and of such abstractions as Necessity and Opportunity, is as -poor a piece of machinery as theatre ever saw; the versification -is rough and creaking, improvised without care or conscience; the -situations are arranged with a glaring disregard for truth and -probability. Like Paolo Veronese, Cervantes could rarely resist the -temptation of painting himself into his canvas, and in _El Trato de -Argel_ he takes care that the prisoner Saavedra should declaim his -tirade. The piece has no dramatic interest, and is valuable merely -as an over-coloured picture of vicissitudes by one who knew them at -first-hand, and who presented them to his countrymen with a more or -less didactic intention. Yet, even as a transcript of manners, this -luckless play is a failure. - -A finer example of Cervantes' dramatic power is the _Numancia_, on -which Shelley has passed this generous judgment:—"I have read the -_Numancia_, and, after wading through the singular stupidity of the -First Act, began to be greatly delighted, and at length interested in -a very high degree, by the power of the writer in awakening pity and -admiration, in which I hardly know by whom he is excelled. There is -little, I allow, to be called _poetry_ in this play; but the command -of language and the harmony of versification is so great as to deceive -one into an idea that it is poetry." Nor is Shelley alone in his -admiration. Goethe's avowal to Humboldt is on record:—"Sogar habe -ich ... neulich das Trauerspiel _Numancia_ von Cervantes mit vielem -Vergnügen gelesen;" but eight years later he confided a revised -judgment to Riemer. The gushing school of German Romantics waxed -delirious in praise. Thus Friedrich Schlegel surpassed himself by -calling the play "godlike"; and August Schlegel, not content to hold it -for a dramatic masterpiece, would persuade us to accept it for great -poetry. Even Sismondi declares that "le frisson de l'horreur et de -l'effroi devient presque un supplice pour le spectateur." - -Raptures apart, the _Numancia_ is Cervantes' best play. He has a -grandiose subject: the siege of Numantia, and its capture by Scipio -Africanus after fourteen years of resistance. On the Roman side were -eighty thousand soldiers; the Spaniards numbered four thousand or less; -and the victors entered the fallen city to find no soul alive. With -scenes of valour is mingled the pathetic love-story of Morandro and -Lyra. But, once again, Cervantes fails as a dramatic artist; one doubts -if he knew what a plot was, what unity of conception meant. He has -scenes and episodes of high excellence, but they are detached from the -main composition, and produce all the bad effect of a portrait painted -in different lights. Abstractions fill the stage—War, Sickness, -Hunger, Spain, the river Duero. But the tirades of rhetoric are -unsurpassed by anything from Cervantes' pen, and Marquino's scene with -the corpse in the Second Act is pregnant with a suggestion of weirdness -which Mr. Gibson has well conveyed:— - -Marquino. - - "_What! Dost not answer? Dost not live again, - Or haply hast thou tasted death once more? - Then will I quicken thee anew with pain, - And for thy good the gift of speech restore. - Since thou art one of us, do not disdain - To speak and answer, as I now implore;... - Ye spirits vile, it worketh not ye trust! - But wait, for soon the enchanted water here - Will show my will to be as strong and just - As yours is treacherous and insincere. - And though this flesh were turned to very dust, - Yet being quickened by this lash austere, - Which cuts with cruel rigour like a knife, - It will regain a new though fleeting life. - Thou rebel soul, seek now the home again - Thou leftest empty these few hours ago._ - -The Body. - - _Restrain the fury of thy reckless pain; - Suffice it, O Marquino, man of woe, - What I do suffer in the realms obscure, - Nor give me pangs more fearful to endure. - Thou errest, if thou thinkest that I crave - This painful, pinched, and narrow life I have, - Which even now is ebbing fast away,... - Since Death a second time, with bitter sway, - Will triumph over me in life and soul, - And gain a double palm, beyond control. - For he and others of the dismal band, - Who do thy bidding subject to thy spell, - Are raging round and round, and waiting stand, - Till I shall finish what I have to tell.... - The Romans ne'er shall victory obtain - O'er proud Numantia; still less shall she - A glorious triumph o'er her foemen gain; - 'Twixt friends and foes, both have to a degree, - Think not that settled peace shall ever reign - Where rage meets rage in strife eternally. - The friendly hand, with homicidal knife, - Will slay Numantia and will give her life._ - [He hurls himself into the sepulchre, and says:— - _I say no more, Marquino, time is fleet; - The Fates will grant to me no more delay, - And, though my words may seem to thee deceit, - Thou'lt find at last the truth of what I say._" - -Even in translation—still more in the original—the rhetoric of -this passage is imposing; yet we perceive rhetoric to be contagious -when Ticknor asserts that "there is nothing of so much dignity in -the incantations of Marlowe's _Faustus_." Still more amazing is -Ticknor's second appreciation:—"Nor does even Shakspeare demand from -us a sympathy so strange with the mortal head reluctantly rising to -answer Macbeth's guilty question, as Cervantes makes us feel for this -suffering spirit, recalled to life only to endure a second time the -pangs of dissolution." The school is decently interred which mistook -critics for Civil Service Commissioners, and Parnassus for Burlington -House. It is impossible to compare Cervantes' sonorous periods and -Marlowe's majestic eloquence, nor is it less unwise to match his moving -melodrama against one of the greatest tragedies in the world. His great -scene has its own merit as an artificial embellishment, as a rhetorical -adornment, as an exercise in bravura; but the episode is not only out -of place where it is found—it leads from nowhere to nothing. More -dramatic in spirit and effect is the speech declaimed by Scipio when -the last Numantian, Viriato, hurls himself from the tower:— - - "_O matchless action, worthy of the meed - Which old and valiant soldiers love to gain! - Thou hast achieved a glory by thy deed, - Not only for Numantia, but for Spain! - Thy valour strange, heroical in deed, - Hath robbed me of my rights, and made them vain; - For with thy fall thou hast upraised thy fame, - And levelled down my victories to shame! - Oh, could Numantia gain what she hath lost, - I would rejoice, if but to see thee there! - For thou hast reaped the gain and honour most - Of this long siege, illustrious and rare! - Bear thou, O stripling, bear away the boast, - Enjoy the glory which the Heavens prepare, - For thou hast conquered, by thy very fall, - Him who in rising falleth worst of all._" - -Here, once more, we are dealing with a passage which gains by -detachment from its context. To speak plainly, the interest of the -_Numancia_ is not dramatic, and its versification, good of its kind, -may easily be overpraised, as it was by Shelley. First and last, the -play is a devout and passionate expression of patriotism; and, as -such, the writer's countrymen have held it in esteem, never claiming -for it the qualities invented by well-meaning foreigners. Lope de Vega -and Calderón still hold the stage, from which Cervantes, the disciple -of Virués, was driven three centuries ago; and they survive, the one -as an hundredfold more potent dramatist, the other as an infinitely -greater poet. Yet, like the ghost raised by Marquino, Cervantes was -to undergo a momentary resurrection. When Palafox (and Byron's Maid) -held Zaragoza, during the War of Independence, against the batteries -of Mortier, Junot, and Lannes, the _Numancia_ was played within the -besieged walls, so that Spaniards of the nineteenth century might see -that their fathers had known how to die for freedom. The tragedy was -received with enthusiasm; the marshals of the world's Greatest Captain -were repulsed and beaten; and Cervantes' inspiriting lines helped on -the victory. In life, he had never met with such a triumph, and in -death no other could have pleased him better. - -He asserts, indeed, that his plays were popular, and he may have -persuaded himself into that belief. His idolaters preach the legend -that he was driven from the boards by that "portent of genius," Lope -de Vega. This tale is a vain imagining. Cervantes failed so wretchedly -in art that in 1588 he left the Madrid stage to seek work in Seville; -and no play of Lope's dates so early as that, save one written while -he was at school. In June 1588, Cervantes became Deputy-Purveyor to -the Invincible Armada, and in May 1590 he petitioned for one of four -appointments vacant in Granada, Guatemala, Cartagena, and La Paz. But -he never quite abandoned literature. In 1591 he wrote a _romance_ -for Andrés de Villalba's _Flor de varios y nuevos romances_, and, in -the following year, he contracted with the Seville manager, Rodrigo -Osorio, to write six comedies at fifty ducats each—no money to be paid -unless Osorio should rank the plays "among the best in Spain." No more -is heard of this agreement, and Cervantes disappears till 1594, when -he was appointed tax-gatherer in Granada. Next year he competed at a -literary tournament held by the Dominicans of Zaragoza in honour of -St. Hyacinth, and won the first prize—three silver spoons. His sonnet -to the famous sea-dog, Santa Cruz, is printed in Cristóbal Mosquera -de Figueroa's _Comentario en breve Compendio de Disciplina militar_ -(1596), and his bitter sonnet on Medina Sidonia's entry into Cádiz, -already sacked and evacuated by Essex, is of the same date. - -In 1597, being in Seville about the time of Herrera's death, Cervantes -wrote his sonnet in memory of the great Andalucían. In September of -this year the sonneteer was imprisoned for irregularities in his -accounts, due to his having entrusted Government funds to one Simón -Freire de Lima, who absconded with the booty. Released some three -months later, Cervantes was sent packing by the Treasury, and was never -more employed in the public service. Lost, as it seemed, to hope and -fame, the ruined man lingered at Seville, where, in 1598, he wrote two -sonnets and a copy of _quintillas_ on Felipe II.'s death. Four years of -silence were followed by the inevitable sonnet in the second edition of -Lope de Vega's _Dragontea_ (1602). It is certain that all this while -Cervantes was scribbling in some naked garret; but his name seemed -almost forgotten from the earth. In 1603 he was run to ground, and -served with an Exchequer writ concerning those outstanding balances, -still unpaid after nearly eight years. He must appear in person at -Valladolid to offer what excuse he might. Light as his baggage was, -it contained one precious, immediate jewel—the manuscript of _Don -Quixote_. The Treasury soon found that to squeeze money from him was -harder than to draw blood from a stone: the debt remained unsettled. -But his journey was not in vain. On his way to Valladolid, he found a -publisher for _Don Quixote_. The Royal Privilege is dated September -26, 1604, and in January 1605 the book was sold at Madrid across the -counter of Francisco de Robles, bookseller to the King. Cervantes -dedicated his volume, in terms boldly filched from Herrera and Medina, -to the Duque de Béjar. In a previous age the author's kinsman had -anticipated the compliment by addressing a gloss of Jorge Manrique's -_Coplas_ to Álvaro de Stúñiga, second Duque de Béjar. - -It is difficult to say when _Don Quixote_ was written; later, -certainly, than 1591, for it alludes to Bernardo de la Vega's _Pastor -de Iberia_, published in that year. Legend says that the First Part -was begun in gaol, and so Langford includes it in his _Prison Books -and their Authors_. The only ground for the belief is a phrase in the -Prologue which describes the work as "a dry, shrivelled, whimsical -offspring ... just what might be begotten in a prison." This may be a -mere figure of speech; yet the tradition persists that Cervantes wrote -his masterpiece in the cellar of the Casa de Medrano at Argamasilla de -Alba. Certain it is that Argamasilla is Don Quixote's native town. The -burlesque verses at the end indicate precisely that "certain village -in La Mancha, the name of which," says Cervantes dryly, "I have no -desire to recall." Quevedo witnesses that the fact was accepted by -contemporaries, and topography puts it beyond doubt. The manuscript -passed through many hands before reaching the printer, Cuesta: whence -a double mention of it before publication. The author of the _Pícara -Justina_, who anticipated Cervantes' poor device of the _versos de -cabo roto_—truncated rhymes—in _Don Quixote_, ranks the book beside -the _Celestina_, _Lazarillo de Tormes_, and _Guzmán de Alfarache_; yet -the _Pícara Justina_ was licensed on August 22, 1604. The title falls -from a far more illustrious pen: in a private letter written on August -14, 1604, Lope de Vega observes that no budding poet "is so bad as -Cervantes, none so silly as to praise _Don Quixote_." There will be -occasion to return presently to this much-quoted remark. - -Clearly the book was discussed, and not always approved, by literary -critics some months before it was in print: but critics of all -generations have been taught that their opinions go for nothing -with the public, which persists in being amused against rules and -dogmas. _Don Quixote_ carried everything before it: its vogue almost -equalled that of _Guzmán de Alfarache_, and by July a fifth edition -was preparing at Valencia. Cervantes has told us his purpose in plain -words:—"to diminish the authority and acceptance that books of -chivalry have in the world and among the vulgar." Yet his own avowal -is rejected. Defoe averred that _Don Quixote_ was a satire on Medina -Sidonia; Landor applauded the book as "the most dexterous attack ever -made against the worship of the Virgin"; and such later crocheteers -as Rawdon Brown have industriously proved Sancho Panza to be Pedro -Franqueza, and the whole novel to be a burlesque on contemporary -politics.[18] - -Cervantes was unlucky in life, nor did his misfortunes end with his -days. Posthumous idolatry seeks to atone for contemporary neglect, and -there has come into being a tribe of ignorant fakirs, assuming the -title of "Cervantophils," and seeking to convert a man of genius into a -common Mumbo-Jumbo. A master of invention, a humourist beyond compare, -an expert in ironic observation, a fellow meet for Shakespeare's self: -all that suffices not for these fanatical dullards. Their deity must be -accepted also as a poet, a philosophic thinker, a Puritan tub-thumper, -a political reformer, a finished scholar, a purist in language, -and—not least amazing—an ascetic in private morals. A whole shelf -might be filled with works upon Cervantes the doctor, Cervantes the -lawyer, the sailor, the geographer, and who knows what else? Like his -contemporary Shakespeare, Cervantes took a peculiar interest in cases -of dementia; and, in England and Spain, the afflicted have shown both -authors much reciprocal attention. We must even take Cervantes as he -was: a literary artist stronger in practice than in theory, great by -natural faculty rather than by acquired accomplishment. His learning -is naught, his reasonings are futile, his speculation is banal. In -short passages he is one of the greatest masters of Castilian prose, -clear, direct, and puissant: but he soon tires, and is prone to lapse -into Italian idioms, or into irritating sentences packed with needless -relatives. Cervantes lives not as a great practitioner in style, a -sultan of epithet—though none could better him when he chose; nor -is he potent as a purely intellectual influence. He is immortal by -reason of his creative power, his imaginative resource, his wealth of -invention, his penetrating vision, his inimitable humour, his boundless -sympathy. Hence the universality of his appeal: hence the splendour of -his secular renown. - -It is certain that he builded better than he knew, and that not even -he realised the full scope of his work: we know from Goethe that the -maker has to be taught his own meaning. The contemporary allusions, -the sly hits at foes, are mostly mysteries for us, though they amuse -the laborious leisure of the commentator. Chivalresque romances are -with last year's snows: but the interest of _Don Quixote_ abides for -ever. Cervantes set out intending to write a comic short story, and the -design grew under his hand till at length it included a whole Human -Comedy. He himself was as near akin to Don Quixote as a man may be: -he knew his chivalresque romances by heart, and accounted _Amadís de -Gaula_ as "the very best contrived book of all those of that kind." Yet -he has been accused by his own people of plotting his country's ruin, -and has been held up to contempt as "the headsman and the ax of Spain's -honour." Byron repeats the ridiculous taunt:— - - "_Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; - A single laugh demolished the right arm - Of his own country; seldom since that day - Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm, - The world gave ground before her bright array; - And therefore have his volumes done such harm, - That all their glory, as a composition, - Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition._" - -The chivalresque madness was well-nigh over when our author made his -onset: he but hastened the end. After the publication of _Don Quixote_, -no new chivalresque romance was written, and only one—the _Caballero -del Febo_ (1617)—was reprinted. And the reason is obvious. It was -not that Cervantes' work was merely destructive, that he was simply -a clever artist in travesty: it was that he gave better than he took -away, and that he revealed himself, not only to Spain, but to the -world, as a great creative master, and an irresistible, because an -universal, humourist. - -There is endless discussion as to the significance of his masterpiece, -and the acutest critics have uttered "great argument about it and -about." That an allegory of human life was intended is incredible. -Cervantes presents the Ingenious Gentleman as the Prince of Courtesy, -affable, gallant, wise on all points save that trifling one which -annihilates Time and Space and changes the aspect of the Universe: -and he attaches to him, Sancho, self-seeking, cautious, practical in -presence of vulgar opportunities. The types are eternal. But it were -too much to assume that there exists any conscious symbolic or esoteric -purpose in the dual presentation. Cervantes is inspired solely by the -artistic intention which would create personages, and would divert by -abundance of ingenious fantasy, by sublimation of character, by wealth -of episode and incident, and by the genius of satiric portraiture. He -tessellates with whatsoever mosaic chances to strike his fancy. It may -be that he inlays his work with such a typical sonnet as that which Mr. -Gosse has transferred from the twenty-third chapter of _Don Quixote_ -to _In Russet and Silver_—an excellent example, which shall be quoted -here:— - - "_When I was marked for suffering, Love forswore - All knowledge of my doom: or else at ease - Love grows a cruel tyrant, hard to please; - Or else a chastisement exceeding sore - A little sin hath brought me. Hush! no more! - Love is a god! all things he knows and sees, - And gods are bland and mild! Who then decrees - The dreadful woe I bear and yet adore? - If I should say, O Phyllis, that 'twas thou, - I should speak falsely, since, being wholly good - Like Heaven itself, from thee no ill may come. - There is no hope; I must die shortly now, - Not knowing why, since sure no witch hath brewed - The drug that might avert my martyrdom._" - -Hereunto the writer adds reminiscences of slavery, picaresque scenes -observed during his vagabond life as tax-gatherer, tales of Italian -intrigue re-echoed from Bandello, flouts at Lope de Vega, a treasure -of adventures and experience, a strain of mockery both individual -and general. Small wonder if the world received _Don Quixote_ with -delight! There was nothing like unto it before: there has been nothing -to eclipse it since. It ends one epoch and begins another: it intones -the dirge of the mediæval novel: it announces the arrival of the new -generations, and it belongs to both the past and the coming ages. At -the point where the paths diverge, _Don Quixote_ stands, dominating -the entire landscape of fiction. Time has failed to wither its variety -or to lessen its force, and posterity accepts it as a masterpiece of -humoristic fancy, of complete observation and unsurpassed invention. -It ceases, in effect, to belong to Spain as a mere local possession, -though nothing can deprive her of the glory of producing it. Cervantes -ranks with Shakespeare and with Homer as a citizen of the world, a man -of all times and countries, and _Don Quixote_, with _Hamlet_ and the -_Iliad_, belongs to universal literature, and is become an eternal -pleasaunce of the mind for all the nations. - -Cervantes had his immediate reward in general acceptance. Reprints of -his book followed in Spain, and in 1607 the original was reproduced -at Brussels. The French teacher of Spanish, César Oudin, interpolated -the tale of the _Curious Impertinent_ between the covers of Julio -Iñíguez de Medrano's _Silva Curiosa_, published for the second time -at Paris in 1608; in the same year Jean Baudouin did this story into -French, and in 1609 an anonymous arrangement of Marcela's story was -Gallicised as _Le Meurtre de la Fidélité et la Défense de l'Honneur_. -This sufficed for fame: yet Cervantes made no instant attempt to repeat -his triumph. For eight years he was silent, save for occasional copies -of verse. The baptism of the future Felipe IV., and the embassy of Lord -Nottingham—best known as Howard of Effingham, the admiral in command -against the Invincible Armada—are recorded in courtly fashion by -the anonymous writer of a pamphlet entitled _Relación de lo sucedido -en la Ciudad de Valladolid_. Góngora, who dealt with both subjects, -flouts Cervantes as the pamphleteer; but the authorship is doubtful. -Cervantes is next heard of in custody on suspicion of knowing more -than he chose to tell concerning the death of Gaspar de Ezpeleta, -in June 1605. Legend makes Ezpeleta the lover of Cervantes' natural -daughter, Isabel de Saavedra: "the point of honour" at once suggests -itself, and the incident has inspired both dramatists and novelists. -A conspiracy of silence on the part of biographers has done Cervantes -much wrong, and is responsible for exaggerated stories of his guilt. He -was discharged after inquiry, and seems to have been entirely innocent -of contriving Ezpeleta's end. Many romantic stories have gathered -about the personality of Isabel: she has been passed upon us as the -daughter of a Portuguese "lady of high quality," and the prop of her -father's declining days. These are idolatrous inventions: we now know -for certain that her mother's name was Ana Franca de Rojas, a poor -woman married to Alonso Rodríguez, and that the girl herself (who in -1605 was unable to read and write) was indentured as general servant to -Cervantes' sister, Magdalena de Sotomayor, in August 1599.[19] Thence -she passed to Cervantes' household, and it is even alleged that she was -twice married in her father's lifetime. She has been so picturesquely -presented by imaginative "Cervantophils," that it is necessary to state -the humble truth here and now, for the first time in English. Thus -the grotesque travesty of Cervantes as a plaster saint returns to the -Father of Lies, who begat it. Confirmation of his exploits as a loose -liver in gaming-houses is afforded by the _Memorias de Valladolid_, now -among the manuscripts in the British Museum.[20] - -Such diversions as these left him scant time for literature. The space -between 1605 and 1608 yields the pitiful show of three sonnets in four -years: _To a Hermit_, _To the Conde de Saldaña_, _To a Braggart turned -Beggar_. Even this last is sometimes referred to Quevedo. It should -hardly seem that prosperity suited Cervantes. Meanwhile, his womenfolk -gained their bread by taking in the Marqués de Villafranca's sewing. -Still, he made no sign: the author of _Don Quixote_ sank lower and -lower, writing letters for illiterates at a small fee. The _Letter -to Don Diego de Astudillo Carrillo_, the _Story of what happens in -Seville Gaol_ (a sequel to Cristóbal de Chaves' sketch made twenty -years before), the _Dialogue between Sillenia and Selanio_, the three -_entremeses_ entitled _Doña Justina y Calahorra_, _Los Mirones_, and -_Los Refranes_—all these are of doubtful authenticity. In April -1609, Cervantes took a thought and mended: he joined Fray Alonso de -la Purificación's new Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, and in -1610 wrote his sonnet in memory of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. In 1611 he -entered the Academia Selvaje, founded by that Francisco de Silva whose -praises were sung later in the _Viaje del Parnaso_, and he prepared -that unique compound of fact and fancy, the rarest humour and the -most curious experience—his twelve _Novelas Exemplares_, which were -licensed on August 8, 1612, and appeared in 1613. - -These short tales were written at long intervals of time, as the -internal evidence shows. In the forty-seventh chapter of _Don Quixote_ -there is mention by name of _Rinconete y Cortadillo_, a picaresque -story of extraordinary brilliancy and point included among the -_Exemplary Novels_; and a companion piece is the _Coloquio de los -Perros_, no less a masterpiece in little. Monipodio, master of a school -for thieves; his pious jackal, Ganchuelo, who never steals on Friday; -the tipsy Pipota, who reels as she lights her votive candle—these are -triumphs in the art of portraiture. Not even Sancho Panza is wittier in -reflection than the dog Berganza, who reviews his many masters in the -light of humorous criticism. No less distinguished is the presentation, -in _El Casamiento Engañoso_, of the picaroons Campuzano and Estefanía -de Caicedo; and as an exercise in fantastic transcription of mania the -_Licenciado Vidriera_ lags not behind _Don Quixote_. So striking is the -resemblance that some have held the Licentiate for the first sketch of -the Knight; but an attentive reading shows that he was not conceived -till after _Don Quixote_ was in print. In 1814, Agustín García Arrieta -included _La Tía fingida_ (The Mock Aunt) among Cervantes' novels, and, -in a more complete form, it now finds place in all editions. Admirable -as the story is, the circumstance of its late appearance throws doubt -on its authenticity; yet who but Cervantes could have written it? -Perhaps the surest sign of his success is afforded by the quality and -number of his northern imitators. - - "_The land that cast out Philip and his God - Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod._" - -Despite assertions to the contrary, his _Gitanilla_ is no original -conception, for the character of his gipsy, Preciosa, is developed from -that of Tarsiana in the _Apolonio_; yet from Cervantes' rendering of -her, which - - "_Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life, - Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife,_" - -and from his tale entitled _La Fuerza de la Sangre_, Middleton's -_Spanish Gipsy_ derives. From Cervantes, too, Weber takes his opera -_Preciosa_, and from Cervantes comes Hugo's _Esmeralda_. In _Las dos -Doncellas_ Fletcher, who had already used _Don Quixote_ in the _Knight -of the Burning Pestle_, finds the root of _Love's Pilgrimage_; from _El -Casamiento Engañoso_ he takes his _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_; and -from _La Señora Cornelia_ he borrows his _Chances_. And, as Fielding -had rejoiced to own his debt to Cervantes, so Sir Walter has confessed -that "the _Novelas_ of that author had first inspired him with the -ambition of excelling in fiction." - -The next performance shows Cervantes tempting fate as a poet. His -_Viaje del Parnaso_ (1614) was suggested by the _Viaggio di Parnaso_ -(1582) of the Perugian, Cesare Caporali, and is, in effect, a rhymed -review of contemporary poets. Verse is scarcely a lucky medium for -Cervantic irony, and Cervantes was the least critical of men. His poem -is interesting for its autobiographic touches, but it degenerates -into a mere stream of eulogy, and when he ventures on an attack he -rarely delivers it with force or point. He thought, perhaps, to put -down bad poets as he had put down bad prose-writers. But there was -this difference, that, though admirable in prose, he was not admirable -in verse. In the use of the first weapon he is an expert; in the -practice of the second he is a clever amateur. Cervantes satirising -in prose and Cervantes satirising in verse are as distinct as Samson -unshorn and Samson with his hair cut. Fortunately he appends a prose -postscript, which reveals him in his finest manner. Nor is this -surprising. Apollo's letter is dated July 22, 1614; and we know that, -two days earlier, Sancho Panza had dictated his famous letter to his -wife Teresa. The master had found himself once more. The sequel to _Don -Quixote_, promised in the Preface to the _Novelas_, was on the road at -last. Meanwhile he had busied himself with a sonnet to be published -at Naples in Juan Domingo Roncallolo's _Varias Aplicaciones_, with -quatrains for Barrio Ángulo, and stanzas in honour of Santa Teresa. - -Moreover, the success of the _Novelas_ induced him to try the theatre -again. In 1615 he published his _Ocho Comedias, y ocho Entremeses -nuevos_. The eight set pieces are failures; and when the writer -tries to imitate Lope de Vega, as in the _Laberinto de Amor_, the -failure is conspicuous. Nor does the introduction of a Saavedra -among the personages of _El Gallardo Español_ save a bad play. But -Cervantes believed in his eight _comedias_, as he believed in the -eight _entremeses_ which are imitated from Lope de Rueda. These are -sprightly, unpretentious farces, witty in intention and effect, -interesting in themselves and as realistic pictures of low life seen -and rendered at first hand. Of these farcical pieces one, _Pedro de -Urdemalas_, is even brilliant. - -While Cervantes was writing the fifty-ninth chapter of _Don Quixote's -Second Part_, he learned that a spurious continuation had appeared -(1614) at Tarragona under the name of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda. -This has given rise to much angry writing. Avellaneda is doubtless -a pseudonym. The King's confessor, Aliaga, has been suspected, on -the ground that he was once nicknamed Sancho Panza, and that he thus -avenged himself: the idea is absurd, and the fact that Avellaneda makes -Sancho more offensive and more vulgar than ever puts the theory out of -court. Lope de Vega is also accused of being Avellaneda, and the charge -is based on this: that (in a private letter) he once spoke slightingly -of _Don Quixote_. The personal relations between the two greatest -Spanish men of letters were not cordial. Cervantes had ridiculed Lope -in the Prologue to _Don Quixote_, had belittled him as a playwright, -and had shown hostility in other ways. Lope, secure in his high seat, -made no reply, and in 1612 (in another private letter) he speaks kindly -of Cervantes. "Cervantophils" insist upon being too clever by half. -They first assert that the outward form of Avellaneda's book was an -imitation of _Don Quixote_, and that the intention was "to pass off -this spurious Second Part as the true one"; they then contend that -Avellaneda's was "a deliberate attempt to spoil the work of Cervantes." -These two statements are mutually destructive: one must necessarily -be false. It is also argued, first, that Avellaneda's is a worthless -book; next, that it was written by Lope, the greatest figure, save -Cervantes, in Spanish literature. Lope had many jealous enemies, but no -contemporary hints at such a charge, and no proof is offered in support -of it now. Indeed the notion, first started by Máinez, is generally -abandoned. Other ascriptions, involving Blanco de Paz, Ruiz de Alarcón, -Andrés Pérez, are equally futile. The most plausible conjecture, due -to D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, is that Avellaneda was a certain -Aragonese, Alfonso Lamberto. Lamberto's very obscurity favours this -surmise. Had Avellaneda been a figure of great importance, he had been -unmasked by Cervantes himself, who assuredly was no coward. - -We owe to Avellaneda a clever, brutal, cynical, amusing book, which -is still reprinted. Nor is this our only debt to him: he put an end -to Cervantes' dawdling and procured the publication of the second -_Don Quixote_. Cervantes left it doubtful if he meant to write the -sequel; he even seems to invite another to undertake it. Nine years had -passed, during which Cervantes made no sign. Avellaneda, with an eye to -profit, wrote his continuation in good faith, and his insolent Preface -is explained by his rage at seeing the bread taken out of his mouth -when the true sequel was announced in the Preface to the _Novelas_. -Had not his intrusion stung Cervantes to the quick, the second _Don -Quixote_ might have met the fate of the second _Galatea_—promised for -thirty years and never finished. As it is, the hurried close of the -Second Part is below the writer's common level, as when he rages at -Avellaneda, and wishes that the latter's book be "cast into the lowest -pit of hell." But this is its single fault, which, for the rest, is -only found in the last fourteen chapters. The previous fifty-eight -form an almost impeccable masterpiece. As an achievement in style, the -Second excels the First Part. The parody of chivalresque books is less -insistent, the interest is larger, the variety of episode is ampler, -the spirit more subtly comic, the new characters are more convincing, -the manner is more urbane, more assured. Cervantes' First Part was an -experiment in which he himself but half believed; in the Second he -shows the certainty of an accepted master, confident of his intention -and his popularity. So his career closed in a blaze of triumph. He had -other works in hand: a play to be called _El Engaño á los Ojos_, the -_Semanas del Jardín_, the _Famoso Bernardo_, and the eternal second -_Galatea_. These last three he promises in the Preface to _Los Trabajos -de Persiles y Sigismunda_ (1617), a posthumous volume "that dares -to vie with Heliodorus," and was to be "the best or worst book ever -written in our tongue." Ambitious in aim and in manner, the _Persiles_ -has failed to interest, for all its adventures and scapes. Yet it -contains perhaps the finest, and certainly the most pathetic passage -that Cervantes ever penned—the noble dedication to his patron, the -Conde de Lemos, signed upon April 19, 1616. In the last grip of dropsy, -he gaily quotes from a _romance_ remembered from long ago:— - - "_Puesto ya el pié en el estribo_"— - -"One foot already in the stirrup." With these words he smilingly -confronts fate, and makes him ready for the last post down the Valley -of the Shadow. He died on April 23, nominally on the same day as -Shakespeare, whose death is dated by an unreformed calendar. They were -brethren in their lives and afterwards. Montesquieu, in the _Lettres -Persanes_, makes Rica say of the Spaniards that "le seul de leurs -livres qui soit bon est celui qui a fait voir la ridicule de tous les -autres." If he meant that _Don Quixote_ was the one Spanish book which -has found acceptance all the world over, he spoke with equal truth and -point. A single author at once national and universal is as much as any -literature can hope to boast. - -In his own day Cervantes was shone down by the ample, varied, -magnificent gifts of LOPE FÉLIX DE VEGA CARPIO (1562-1635): a very -"prodigy of nature," as his rival confesses. A prodigy he was from his -cradle. At the age of five he lisped in numbers, and, unable to write, -would bribe his schoolmates with a share of his breakfast to take down -verses at his dictation. He came of noble highland blood, his father, -Félix de Vega, and his mother, Francisca Fernández, being natives of -Carriedo. Born in Madrid, he was there educated at the Jesuit Colegio -Imperial, of which he was the wonder. All the accomplishments were his: -still a child, he filled his copy-books with verses, sang, danced, -handled the foil like a trained sworder. His father, a poet of some -accomplishment, died early, and Lope forthwith determined to see the -world. With his comrade, Hernando Muñoz, he ran away from school. The -pair reached Astorga, and turned back to Segovia, where, being short -of money, they tried to sell a chain to a jeweller, who, suspecting -something to be wrong, informed the local Dogberry. The adventurous -couple were sent home in charge of the police. Lope's earliest -surviving play, _El verdadero Amante_, written in his thirteenth year, -is included in the fourteenth volume of his theatre, printed in 1620. -Nicolás de los Ríos, one of the best actor-managers of his time, -was proud to play in it later; and, crude as it is in phrasing, it -manifests an astonishing dramatic gift. - -The chronology of Lope's youth is perplexing, and the events of this -time are, as a rule, wrongly given by his biographers, even including -that admirable scholar, Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera y Leirado, -whose _Nueva Biografía_ is almost above praise. In a poetic epistle -to Luis de Haro, Lope asserts that he fought at Terceira against -the Portuguese: "in my third lustre"—_en tres lustros de mi edad -primera_: and Ticknor is puzzled to reconcile this with facts. It -cannot be done. Lope was fifteen in 1577, and the expedition to the -Azores occurred in 1582. The obvious explanation is that Lope was in -his fourth lustre, but that, as _cuatro_ would break the rhythm of -the line, he wrote _tres_ instead. Some little licence is admitted in -verse, and literal interpreters are peculiarly liable to error. At -the same time, it should be said that Lope is coquettish as regards -his age. Thus, he says that he was a child at the time of the Armada, -being really twenty-six; and that he wrote the _Dragontea_ in early -youth, when, in fact, he was thirty-five. This little vanity has led to -endless confusion. It is commonly stated that, on Lope's return from -the Azores, he entered the household of Gerónimo Manrique, Bishop of -Ávila, who sent him to Alcalá de Henares. That Lope studied at Alcalá -is certain; but undergraduates then matriculated earlier than they do -now. When Lope's first campaign ended he was twenty-one, and therefore -too old for college. He was a Bachelor before ever he went to the -wars. The love-affair, recounted in his _Dorotea_, is commonly said to -have prevented his taking orders at Alcalá: in truth, he never saw the -lady till he came back from the Azores! He became private secretary to -Antonio Álvarez de Toledo y Beaumont, fifth Duque de Alba, and grandson -of the great soldier; but the date cannot be given precisely. As far -back as 1572 he had translated Claudian's _Rape of Proserpine_ into -Castilian verse, and we have already seen him joined with Cervantes in -penning complimentary sonnets for Padilla and López Maldonado (1584). -It may be that, while in Alba's service, he wrote the poems printed in -Pedro de Moncayo's _Flor de varios romances_ (1589). - -The history of these years is obscure. It is usually asserted that, -while in Alba's service, about the year 1584-5, Lope married, and -that he was soon afterwards exiled to Valencia, whence he set out -for Lisbon to join the Invincible Armada. This does not square with -Lope's statement in the Dedication of _Querer la propia Desdicha_ to -Claudio Conde. There he alleges that Conde helped him out of prison -in Madrid, a service repaid by his helping Conde out of the Serranos -prison at Valencia, and he goes on to say that "before the first down -was on their cheeks" they went to Lisbon to embark on the Armada. He -nowhere alleges that they started from Valencia, or that the journey -followed the banishment. In an eclogue to the same Conde, Lope avers -that he joined the Armada to escape from Filis (otherwise Dorotea), -and he adds:—"Who could have thought that, returning from the war, -I should find a sweet wife?" The question would be pointless if Lope -were already married. Moreover, Barrera's theory that the intrigue -with Dorotea ended in 1584 is disproved by the fact that the _Dorotea_ -contains allusions to the Conde de Melgar's marriage, which, as we know -from Cabrera, took place in 1587. What is certain is that Lope went -aboard the _San Juan_, and that during the Armada expedition he used -his manuscript verses in Filis's praise for gun-wads. - -He was a first-class fighting-man, and played his part in the combats -up the Channel, where his brother was killed beside him during an -encounter between the _San Juan_ and eight Dutch vessels. Disaster -never quenched his spirit nor stayed his pen; for, when what was left -of the defeated Armada returned to Cádiz, he landed with the greater -part of his _Hermosura de Angélica_—eleven thousand verses, written -between storm and battle, in continuation of the _Orlando Furioso_. -First published in 1602, the _Angélica_ comes short of Ariosto's epic -nobility, and is unrelieved by the Italian's touch of ironic fantasy. -Nor can it be called successful even as a sequel: its very wealth -of invention, its redundant episodes and innumerable digressions, -contribute to its failure. But the verse is singularly brilliant and -effective, while the skill with which the writer handles proper names -is almost Miltonic. - -Returned to Spain, Lope composed his pastoral novel, the _Arcadia_, -which, however, remained unpublished till 1598. Ticknor believed it "to -have been written almost immediately" after Cervantes' _Galatea_: this -cannot be, for the _Arcadia_ refers to the death of Santa Cruz, which -occurred in 1588, and it discusses in the conventional manner Alba's -love-affairs of 1589-90. The _Arcadia_, where Lope figures as Belardo, -and Alba as Amfriso, makes no pretence to be a transcript of manners -or life, and it is intolerably prolix withal. Yet it goes beyond its -fellows by virtue of its vivid landscapes, its graceful, flowing verse, -and a certain rich, poetic, Latinized prose, here used by Lope with -as much artistry as he showed in his management of the more familiar -kind in the _Dorotea_. Its popularity is proved by the publication -of fifteen editions in its author's lifetime. About the year 1590 he -married Isabel de Urbina, a distant connection of Cervantes' mother, -and daughter of Felipe II.'s King-at-Arms. Hereupon followed a duel, -wherein Lope wounded his adversary, and, earlier escapades being raked -up, he was banished the capital. He spent some time in Valencia, a -considerable literary centre; but in 1594 he signed the manuscript of -his play, _El Maestro de danzar_, at Tormes, Alba's estate, whence -it is inferred that he was once more in the Duke's service. A new -love-affair with Antonia Trillo de Armenta brought legal troubles upon -him in 1596. His wife apparently died in 1597. - -The first considerable work printed with Lope's name upon the -title-page was his _Dragontea_ (1598), an epic poem in ten cantos -on the last cruise and death of Francis Drake. We naturally love to -think of the mighty seaman as the patriot, the chiefest of Britannia's -bulwarks, as he figures in Mr. Newbolt's spirited ballad:— - - "_Drake lies in his hammock till the great Armadas come ... - Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum ... - Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound, - Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; - Where the old trade's plyin' and the old flag flyin', - They shall find him 'ware an' waking, as they found him long ago._" - -Odd to say, though, Lope has been censured for not viewing Drake -through English Protestant spectacles. Seeing that he was a good -Catholic Spaniard whom Drake had drummed up the Channel, it had been -curious if the _Dragontea_ were other than it is: a savage denunciation -of that Babylonian Dragon, that son of the devil whose piracies had -tormented Spain during thirty years. The _Dragontea_ fails not because -of its national spirit, which is wholly admirable, but because of its -excessive emphasis and its abuse of allegory. Its author scarcely -intended it for great poetry; but, as a patriotic screed, it fulfilled -its purpose, and, when reprinted, it drew an approving sonnet from -Cervantes. - -The _Dragontea_ was written while Lope was in the household of the -Marqués de Malpica, whence he passed as secretary to the lettered -Marqués de Sarriá, best known as Conde de Lemos, and as Cervantes' -patron. In 1599 he published his devout and graceful poem, _San -Isidro_, in honour of Madrid's patron saint. Popular in subject and -execution, the _San Isidro_ enabled him to repeat in verse the triumph -which he had achieved with the prose of the _Arcadia_. From this day -forward he was the admitted pontiff of Spanish literature. His marriage -with Juana de Guardo probably dates from the year 1600. An example of -Lope's art in manipulating the sonnet-form is afforded by Longfellow's -Englishing of _The Brook_:— - - "_Laugh of the mountain! lyre of bird and tree! - Pomp of the meadow! mirror of the morn! - The soul of April, unto whom are born - The rose and jessamine, leaps wild in thee! - Although where'er thy devious current strays, - The lap of earth with gold and silver teems, - To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems - Than golden sands that charm each shepherd's gaze. - How without guile thy bosom, all transparent - As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye - Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count! - How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current! - O sweet simplicity of days gone by! - Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount!_" - -Two hundred sonnets in Lope's _Rimas_ are thought to have been issued -separately in 1602: in any case, they were published that year at the -end of a reprint of the _Angélica_. They include much of the writer's -sincerest work, earnest in feeling, skilful and even distinguished as -art. One sonnet of great beauty—_To the Tomb of Teodora Urbina_—has -led Ticknor into an amusing error often reproduced. He cites from it -a line upon the "heavenly likeness of my Belisa," notes that this -name is an anagram of Isabel (Lope's first wife), and pronounces the -performance a lament for the poet's mother-in-law. The Latin epitaph -which follows it contains a line,— - - "_Exactis nondum complevit mensibus annum_,"— - -showing that the supposed mother-in-law died in her first year. -Manifestly the sonnet refers to the writer's daughter, and, as always -happens when Lope speaks from his paternal heart, is instinct with a -passionate tenderness. - -To 1604 belong the five prose books of the _Peregrino en su patria_, -a prose romance of Pánfilo's adventures by sea and land, partly -experienced and partly contrived; but it is most interesting for the -four _autos_ which it includes, and for its bibliographical list -of two hundred and thirty plays already written by the author. His -quenchless ambition had led him to rival Ariosto in the _Angélica_: -in the twenty cantos of his _Jerusalén Conquistada_ he dares no less -greatly by challenging Tasso. Written in 1605, the _Jerusalén_ -was withheld till 1609. Styled a "tragic epic" by its creator, it -is no more than a fluent historico-narrative poem, overlaid with -embellishments of somewhat cheap and obvious design. In 1612 appeared -the _Four Soliloquies of Lope de Vega Carpio_: _his lament and tears -while kneeling before a crucifix begging pardon for his sins._ These -four sets of _redondillas_ with their prose commentaries were amplified -to seven when republished (1626) under the pseudonym of Gabriel -Padecopeo, an obvious anagram. The deaths of Lope's wife and of his son -Carlos inspired the _Pastores de Belén_, a sacred pastoral of supreme -simplicity, truth, and beauty—as Spanish as Spain herself—which -contains one of the sweetest numbers in Castilian. The Virgin lulls -the Divine Child with a song in Verstegan's manner, which Ticknor has -rendered to this effect:— - - "_Holy angels and blest, - Through those palms as ye sweep - Hold their branches at rest, - For my babe is asleep._ - - _And ye Bethlehem palm-trees, - As stormy winds rush - In tempest and fury, - Your angry noise hush; - More gently, more gently, - Restrain your wild sweep; - Hold your branches at rest, - My babe is asleep._ - - _My babe all divine, - With earth's sorrows oppressed, - Seeks in slumber an instant - His grievings to rest; - He slumbers, he slumbers, - Oh, hush, then, and keep - Your branches all still, - My babe is asleep!_ - - _Cold blasts wheel about him, - A rigorous storm, - And ye see how, in vain, - I would shelter his form. - Holy angels and blest, - As above me ye sweep, - Hold these branches at rest, - My babe is asleep!_" - -Lope lived a life of gallantry, and troubled his wife's last years -by his intrigue with María de Luján. This lady bore him the gifted -son, Lope Félix, who was drowned at sea, and the daughter Marcela, -whose admirable verses, written after her profession in the Convent of -Barefoot Trinitarians, proclaim her kinship with the great enchanter. -A relapsing, carnal sinner, Lope was more weak than bad: his rare -intellectual gifts, his renown, his overwhelming temperament, his -seductive address, his imperial presence, led him into temptation. Amid -his follies and sins he preserved a touching faith in the invisible, -and his devotion was always ardent. Upon the death of his wife in -1612 or later, he turned to religion with characteristic impetuosity, -was ordained priest, and said his first mass in 1614 at the Carmelite -Church in Madrid. It was an ill-advised move. Ticknor, indeed, speaks -of a "Lope, no longer at an age to be deluded by his passions"; but -no such Lope is known to history. While a Familiar of the Inquisition -the true Lope wrote love-letters for the loose-living Duque de Sessa, -till at last his confessor threatened to deny him absolution. Nor is -this all: his intrigue with Marta de Nevares Santoyo, wife of Roque -Hernández de Ayala, was notorious. The pious Cervantes publicly -jeered at the fallen priest's "continuous and virtuous occupation," -forgetting his own coarse pranks with Ana de Rojas; and Góngora hounded -his master down with a copy of venomous verses passed from hand to -hand. Those who wish to study the abasement of an august spirit may -do so in the _Últimos Amores de Lope de Vega Carpio_, forty-eight -letters published by José Ibero Ribas y Canfranc.[21] If they judge by -the standard of Lope's time, they will deal gently with a miracle of -genius, unchaste but not licentious; like that old Dumas, who, in the -matters of gaiety, energy, and strength is his nearest modern compeer. -His sin was yet to find him out. He vanquished every enemy: the child -of his old age vanquished him. - -Devotion and love-affairs served not to stay his pen. His _Triunfo -de la fe en el Japón_ (1618) is interesting as an example of Lope's -practice in the school of historical prose, stately, devout, and -elegant. In honour of Isidore, beatified and then canonised, he -presided at the poetic jousts of 1620 and 1622, witnessing the -triumph of his son, Félix Lope; standing literary god-father to the -boyish Calderón; declaiming, in the character of Tomé Burguillos, -the inimitable verse which hit between wind and water. Perhaps Lope -was never happier than in this opportunity of speaking his own witty -lines before the multitude. His noble person, his facility, his urbane -condescension, his incomparable voice, which thrilled even clowns -when he intoned his mass—all these gave him the stage as his own -possession. Heretofore the common man had only read him: once seen and -heard, Lope ruled Castilian literature as Napoleon ruled France. - -His _Filomena_ (1621) contains a poetic defence of himself (the -Nightingale) against Pedro de Torres Rámila (the Thrush), who, in 1617, -had violently attacked Lope in his _Spongia_, which seems to have -vanished, and is only known by extracts embodied in the _Expostulatio -Spongiæ_, written by Francisco López de Aguilar Coutiño under the -name of Julius Columbarius. Polemics apart, the chief interest of -the _Filomena_ volume lies in its short prose story, _Las Fortunas -de Diana_, an experiment which the author repeated in the three -tales—_La Desdicha por la honra_, _La prudente Venganza_, and _Guzmán -el Bravo_—appended to his _Circe_ (1624), a poem, in three cantos, on -Ulysses' adventures. The five cantos of the _Triunfos divinos_ are -pious exercises in the Petrarchan manner, with forty-four sonnets given -as a postscript. Five cantos go to make up the _Corona Trágica_ (1627), -a religious epic with Mary Stuart for heroine. Lope has been absurdly -censured for styling Queen Elizabeth a Jezebel and an Athaliah, and for -regarding Mary as a Catholic martyr. This criticism implies a strange -intellectual confusion; as though a veteran of the Armada could be -expected to write in the spirit of a Clapham Evangelical! Religious -squabbles apart, he had an old score to settle; for— - - "_Where are the galleons of Spain?_" - -was a question which troubled good Spaniards as much as it delighted -Mr. Dobson. Dedicated to Pope Urban VIII., the poem won for its author -the Cross of St. John and the title of Doctor of Divinity. Three years -later he issued his _Laurel de Apolo_, a cloying eulogy on some three -hundred poets, as remarkable for its omissions as for its flattering -of nonentities. The _Dorotea_ (1632), a prose play fashioned after -the model of the _Celestina_, was one of Lope's favourites, and is -interesting, not merely for its graceful, familiar style, retouched -and polished for over thirty years, but as a piece of self-revelation. -The _Rimas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos_ (1634) closes with the -mock-heroic _Gatomaquia_, a vigorous and brilliant travesty of the -Italian epics, replenished with such gay wit as suffices to keep it -sweet for all time. - -Lope de Vega's career was drawing to its end. The elopement, with a -court gallant, of his daughter, Antonia Clara, broke him utterly.[22] -He sank into melancholy, sought to expiate by lashing himself with the -discipline till the walls of his room were flecked with his blood. -Withal he wrote to the very end. On August 23, 1635, he composed his -last poem, _El Siglo de Oro_. Four days later he was dead. Madrid -followed him to his grave, and the long procession turned from the -direct path to pass before the window of the convent where his -daughter, Sor Marcela, was a nun. A hundred and fifty-three Spanish -authors bewailed the Phœnix in the _Fama póstuma_, and fifty Italians -published their laments at Venice under the title of _Essequie -poetiche_. - -Lope left no achievement unattempted: the epic, Homeric or Italian, -the pastoral, the romantic novel, poems narrative and historical, -countless eclogues, epistles, not to speak of short tales, of -sonnets innumerable, of verses dashed off on the least occasion. His -voluminous private letters, full of wit and malice and risky anecdote, -are as brilliant and amusing as they are unedifying. It is sometimes -alleged that he deliberately capped Cervantes' work; and, as instances -in this sort, we are bid to note that the _Galatea_ was followed by -_Dorotea_, the _Viaje del Parnaso_ by the _Laurel de Apolo_. In the -first place, exclusive "spheres of influence" are not recognised in -literature; in the second, the observation is pointless. The _Galatea_ -is a pastoral novel, the _Dorotea_ is not; the first was published in -1585, the second in 1632. Again, the _Viaje del Parnaso_ appeared in -1614, the _Laurel de Apolo_ in 1630. The first model was the _Canto -del Turia_ of Gil Polo. It would be as reasonable—that is to say, it -would be the height of unreason—to argue that _Persiles y Sigismunda_ -was an attempt to cap the _Peregrino en su patria_. The truth is, that -Lope followed every one who made a hit: Heliodorus, Petrarch, Ariosto, -Tasso. A frank success spurred him to rivalry, and the difficulty of -repeating it was for him a fresh stimulus. Obstacles existed to be -vanquished. He was ever ready to accept a challenge; hence such a -dexterous _tour de force_ as his famous _Sonnet on a Sonnet_, imitated -in a well-known _rondeau_ by Voiture, translated again and again, and -by none more successfully than by Mr. Gibson:— - - "_To write a sonnet doth Juana press me, - I've never found me in such stress and pain; - A sonnet numbers fourteen lines 'tis plain, - And three are gone ere I can say, God bless me! - I thought that spinning rhymes might sore oppress me, - Yet here I'm midway in the last quatrain; - And, if the foremost tercet I can gain, - The quatrains need not any more distress me. - To the first tercet I have got at last, - And travel through it with such right good-will, - That with this line I've finished it, I ween. - I'm in the second now, and see how fast - The thirteenth line comes tripping from my quill— - Hurrah, 'tis done! Count if there be fourteen!_" - -The foregoing list of Lope's exploits in literature, curtailed as -it is, suffices for fame; but it would not suffice to explain that -matchless popularity which led to the publication—suppressed by the -Inquisition in 1647—of a creed beginning thus:—"I believe in Lope de -Vega the Almighty, the Poet of heaven and earth." So far we have but -reached the threshold of his temple. His unique renown is based upon -the fact that he created a national theatre, that he did for Spain what -Shakespeare did for England. Gómez Manrique and Encina led the way -gropingly; Torres Naharro, though he bettered all that had been done, -lived out of Spain; Lope de Rueda and Timoneda brought the drama to the -people; Artieda, Virués, Argensola, and Cervantes tore their passions -to tatters in conformity with their own strange precepts, which the -last-named would have enforced by a literary dictatorship. Moreover, -Argensola and the three veterans of Lepanto wrote to please themselves: -Lope invented a new art to enchant mankind. And he succeeded beyond all -ambition. Nor does he once take on the airs of philosopher or pedant: -rather, in a spirit of self-mockery, he makes his confession in the -_Arte Nuevo de hacer Comedias_ (New Mode of Playwriting), which his -English biographer, Lord Holland, translates in this wise:— - - "_Who writes by rule must please himself alone, - Be damn'd without remorse, and die unknown. - Such force has habit—for the untaught fools, - Trusting their own, despise the ancient rules. - Yet true it is, I too have written plays. - The wiser few, who judge with skill, might praise; - But when I see how show (and nonsense) draws - The crowds and—more than all—the fair's applause, - Who still are forward with indulgent rage - To sanction every master of the stage, - I, doom'd to write, the public taste to hit, - Resume the barbarous taste 'twas vain to quit: - I lock up every rule before I write, - Plautus and Terence drive from out my sight, ... - To vulgar standards then I square my play, - Writing at ease; for, since the public pay, - 'Tis just, methinks, we by their compass steer, - And write the nonsense that they love to hear._" - -Thus Lope in his bantering avowal of 1609. Yet what takes the form of -an apology is in truth a vaunt; for it was Lope's task to tear off -the academic swaddling-bands of his predecessors, and to enrich his -country with a drama of her own. Nay, he did far more: by his single -effort he dowered her with an entire dramatic literature. The very -bulk of his production savours of the fabulous. In 1603 he had already -written over two hundred plays; in 1609 the number was four hundred -and eighty-three; in 1620 he confesses to nine hundred; in 1624 he -reaches one thousand and seventy; and in 1632 the total amounted to -one thousand five hundred. According to Montalbán, editor of the -_Fama póstuma_, the grand total, omitting _entremeses_, should be one -thousand eight hundred plays, and over four hundred _autos_. Of these -about four hundred plays and forty _autos_ survive. If we take the -figures as they stand, Lope de Vega wrote more than all the Elizabethan -dramatists put together. Small wonder that Charles Fox was staggered -when his nephew, Lord Holland, spoke of Lope's twenty million lines. -Facility and excellence are rarely found together, yet Lope combined -both qualities in such high degree that any one with enough Spanish to -read him need never pass a dull moment so long as he lives. - -Hazlitt protests against the story which tells that Lope wrote a play -before breakfast, and in truth it rests on no good authority. But it is -history that, not once, but an hundred times, he wrote a whole piece -within twenty-four hours. Working in these conditions, he must needs -have the faults inseparable from haste. He repeats his thought with -small variation; he utilises old solutions for a dramatic _impasse_; -and his phrase is too often more vigorous than finished. But it is -not as a master of artistic detail that Lope's countrymen place him -beside Cervantes. First, and last, and always, he is a great creative -genius. He incarnates the national spirit, adapts popular poetry to -dramatic effects, substitutes characters for abstractions, and, in -a word, expresses the genius of a people. It is true that he rarely -finds a perfect form for his utterance, that he constantly approaches -perfection without quite attaining unto it, that his dramatic instinct -exceeds his literary execution. Yet he survives as the creator of -an original form. His successors improved upon him in the matter of -polish, yet not one of them made an essential departure of his own, not -one invented a radical variant upon Lope's method. Tirso de Molina may -exceed him in force of conception, as Ruiz de Alarcón outshines him in -ethical significance, in exposition of character; yet Tirso and Alarcón -are but developing the doctrine laid down by the master in _El Castigo -sin Venganza_—the lesson of truth, realism, fidelity to the actual -usages of the time. Tirso, Alarcón, and Calderón are a most brilliant -progeny; but the father of them all is the unrivalled Lope. He seized -upon what germs of good existed in Torres Naharro, Rueda, and Cueva; -but his debt to them was small, and he would have found his way without -them. Without Lope we should have had no Tirso, no Calderón.[23] - -Producing as he produced, much of his work may be considered as -improvisation; even so, he takes place as the first improvisatore in -the world, and compels recognition as, so to say, "a natural force -let loose." He imagined on a Napoleonic scale; he contrived incident -with such ease and force and persuasiveness as make the most of -his followers seem poor indeed; and his ingenuity of diversion is -miraculously fresh after nearly three hundred years. His gift never -fails him, whether he deal with historical tragedy, with the heroic -legend, with the presentation of picaresque life, or with the play -of intrigue and manners—the _comedia de capa y espada_. This last, -"the cloak and sword play" is as much his personal invention as is -the _gracioso_—the comic character—as is the _enredo_—the maze of -plot—as is the "point of honour," as is the feminine interest in -his best work. Hitherto the woman had been allotted a secondary, an -incidental part, ludicrous in the _entremés_, sentimental in the set -piece. Lope, the expert in gallantry, in manners, in observation, -placed her in her true setting, as an ideal, as the mainspring of -dramatic motive and of chivalrous conduct. He professed an abstract -approval of the classic models; but his natural impulse was too strong -for him. An imitator he could not be, save in so far as he, in his own -phrase, "imitated men's actions, and reproduced the manners of the -age." He laid down rules which in practice he flouted; for he realised -that the business of the scene is to hold an audience, is to interest, -to surprise, to move. He could not thump a pulpit in an empty hall: he -perceived that a play which fails to attract is—for the playwright's -purpose—a bad play. He can be read with infinite pleasure; yet he -rarely attempted drama for the closet. Emotion in action was his aim, -and he achieved it with a certainty which places him among the greatest -gods of the stage. - -It is difficult to fix upon the period when Lope's dramatic genius was -accepted by his public: 1592 seems a likely date. He took no interest -in publishing his plays, though _El Perseguido_ was issued by a Lisbon -pirate so early as 1603. Eight volumes of his theatre were in print -before he was induced in 1617 to authorise an edition which was called -the _Ninth Part_, and after 1625 he printed no more dramatic pieces, -despite the fact that he produced them more abundantly than ever. We -may, perhaps, assume that the best of his work has reached us. Among -the finest of his earlier efforts is justly placed _El Acero de Madrid_ -(The Madrid Steel), from which Molière has borrowed the _Médecin -malgré lui_, and the opening scene, as Ticknor renders it, admirably -illustrates Lope's power of interesting his audience from the very -outset by a situation which explains itself. Lisardo, with his friend -Riselo, enamoured of Belisa, awaits the latter at the church-door, and, -just as Riselo declares that he will wait no more, Belisa enters with -her pious aunt, Teodora, as _dueña_:— - -Teodora. - - "_Show more of gentleness and modesty; - Of gentleness in walking quietly, - Of modesty in looking only down - Upon the earth you tread._ - -Belisa. - _'Tis what I do._ - -Teodora. - - _What? When you're looking straight towards that man?_ - -Belisa. - - _Did you not bid me look upon the earth? - And what is he but just a bit of it?_ - -Teodora. - - _I said the earth whereon you tread, my niece._ - -Belisa. - - _But that whereon I tread is hidden quite - With my own petticoat and walking-dress._ - -Teodora. - - _Words such as these become no well-bred maid. - But, by your mother's blessed memory, - I'll put an end to all your pretty tricks;— - What? You look back at him again._ - -Belisa. - - _Who? I?_ - -Teodora. - - _Yes, you;—and make him secret signs besides._ - -Belisa. - - _Not I! 'Tis only that you troubled me - With teasing questions and perverse replies, - So that I stumbled and looked round to see - Who would prevent my fall._ - -Riselo (to Lisardo). - - _She falls again. - Be quick and help her._ - -Lisardo (to Belisa). - - _Pardon me, lady, - And forgive my glove._ - -Teodora. - - _Who ever saw the like?_ - -Belisa. - - _I thank you, sir; you saved me from a fall._ - -Lisardo. - - _An angel, lady, might have fallen so, - Or stars that shine with heaven's own blessed light._ - -Teodora. - - _I, too, can fall; but 'tis upon your trick. - Good gentleman, farewell to you!_ - -Lisardo. - - _Madam, - Your servant._ (_Heaven save us from such spleen!_) - -Teodora. - - _A pretty fall you made of it; and now I hope - You'll be content, since they assisted you._ - -Belisa. - - _And you no less content, since now you have - The means to tease me for a week to come._ - -Teodora. - - _But why again do you turn back your head?_ - -Belisa. - - _Why, sure you think it wise and wary - To notice well the place I stumbled at, - Lest I should stumble there when next I pass._ - -Teodora. - - _Mischief befall you! But I know your ways! - You'll not deny this time you looked upon the youth?_ - -Belisa. - - _Deny it? No!_ - -Teodora. - - _You dare confess it, then?_ - -Belisa. - - _Be sure I dare. You saw him help me; - And would you have me fail to thank him for it?_ - -Teodora. - - _Go to! Come home! come home!_" - -This is a fair specimen, even in its sober English dress, of Lope's -gallant dialogue and of his consummate skill in gripping his subject. -No playwright has ever shown a more infallible tact, a more assured -confidence in his own resources. He never attempts to puzzle his -audience with a dull acrostic: complicated as his plot may be (and -he loves to introduce a double intrigue when the chance proffers), -he exposes it at the outset with an obvious solution; but not one in -twenty can guess precisely how the solution is to be attained. And, -till the last moment, his contagious, reckless gaiety, his touches of -perplexing irony, his vigilant invention, help to thrill and vivify the -interest. - -Yet has he all the defects of his facility. In an indifferent mood, -besieged by managers for more and more plays, he would set forth upon a -piece, not knowing what was to be its action, would indulge in a triple -plot of baffling complexity eked out by incredible episodes. Even his -ingenuity failed to find escape from such unprepared situations. Still -it is fair to say that such instances are rare with him: time upon time -his dramatic instinct saved him where a less notable inventor must have -succumbed. He could create character; he was an artist in construction; -he knew what could, and could not, be done upon the stage. Like Dumas, -he needed but "four trestles, four boards, two actors, and a passion"; -and, at his best, he rises to the greatest occasion. In a single -scene, in an act entire, you shall read him with wonder and delight for -his force and truth and certainty. Yet the trail of carelessness is -upon his last acts, and his conscience sometimes sleeps ere his curtain -falls. The fact that he thought more of a listener than of ten readers -comes home to a constant student. Lope had few theories as to style, -and he rarely aims at sheer beauty of expression, at simple felicity of -phrase. Hence his very cleverness grows wearisome at last. But, after -all, he must be judged by the true historic standard: his achievement -must be compared with what preceded, not with what came after him. -Tirso de Molina and Calderón and Moreto grew the flower from Lope's -seed. He took the farce as Lope de Rueda left it, and transformed -its hard fun by his humane and sparkling wit. He inherited the cold -mediæval morality, and touched it into life by the breath of devout -imagination. He re-shaped the crude collection of massacres which -Virués mistook for tragedy, and produced effects of dread and horror -with an artistry of his own devising, a selection, a conscience, a -delicate vigour all unknown until he came. And for the _comedia de capa -y espada_, it springs direct from his own cunning brain, unsuggested -and even unimagined by any forerunner. - -It were hopeless to analyse any part of the immense theatre which he -bequeathed to the world. But among his best tragedies may be cited -_El Castigo sin Venganza_, with its dramatic rendering of the Duke of -Ferrara sentencing his adulterous wife and incestuous son to death. -Among his historic dramas none surpasses _El Mejor Alcalde el Rey_, -with its presentation of the model Spanish heroine, Elvira; of the -feudal baron, Tello; and of the King as the buckler of his people, -the strong man doing justice in high places: a most typical piece -of character, congenial to the aristocratic democracy of Spain. A -more morbid version of the same monarchical sentiment is given in -_La Estrella de Sevilla_, the argument of which is brief enough for -quotation. King Sancho _el Bravo_ falls enamoured of Busto Tavera's -sister, Estrella, betrothed to Sancho Ortiz de las Roelas. Having -vainly striven to win over Busto, the King follows the advice of Arias, -corrupts her slave, enters Estrella's room, is there discovered, -is challenged by Busto, and escapes with a sound skin. The slave, -confessing her share in the scheme, is killed by the innocent -heroine's brother. Meanwhile, the King determines upon Busto's death, -summons Sancho Ortiz, and bids him slay a certain criminal guilty of -_lèse-majesté_. Herewith the King offers Sancho a guarantee against -consequences. Sancho Ortiz destroys it, saying that he asks for nothing -better than the King's word, and ends by begging the sovereign to -grant him the hand of an unnamed lady. To this the King accedes, and -he hands Sancho Ortiz a paper containing the name of the doomed man. -After much hesitation and self-torment, Sancho Ortiz resolves to do his -duty to his King, slays Busto, is seized, refuses to explain, undergoes -sentence of death, and is finally pardoned by King Sancho, who avows -his own guilt, and endeavours to promote the marriage between Sancho -Ortiz and Estrella. For an obvious reason they refuse, and the curtain -falls upon Estrella's determination to get herself to a nunnery. - -Thus baldly told, the story resembles a thousand others; under Lope's -hand it throbs with life and movement and emotion. His dialogue is -swift and strong and appropriate, whether he personifies the blind -passion of the King, the incorruptibility of Busto, the feudal ideal of -Sancho Ortiz, or the strength and sweetness of Estrella. Of dialogue he -is the first and best master on the Spanish stage: more choice, if less -powerful, than Tirso; more natural, if less altisonant, than Calderón. -The dramatic use of certain metrical forms persisted as he sanctioned -it: the _décimas_ for laments, the _romance_ for exposition, the _lira_ -for heroic declamation, the sonnet to mark time, the _redondilla_ for -love-passages. His lightness of touch, his gaiety and resourcefulness -are exampled in _La Dama Melindrosa_ (The Languishing Lady), as good -a cloak-and-sword play as even Lope ever wrote. His gift of sombre -conception is to be seen in _Dineros son Calidad_ (Money is Rank), -where his contrivance of the King of Naples' statue addressing Octavio -is the nearest possible approach to Tirso's figures of the Commander -and of Don Juan. - -Whether or not Tirso took the idea from Lope cannot well be decided; -but if he did so, he was no worse than the rest of the world. For -ages dramatists of all nations have found Lope de Vega "good to steal -from," and in many forms he has diverted other countries than the -Spains. Alexandre Hardy is said by tradition to have exploited him -vigorously, and probably we should find the imitations among Hardy's -lost plays. Jean Mairet is reputed to have borrowed generously, and -an undoubted follower is Jean Rotrou, many of whose pieces—from the -early _Occasions perdues_ and _La belle Alfrède_ to his last effort, -_Don Lope de Cardonne_—are boldly annexed from Lope. D'Ouville, in -_Les Morts vivants_ and in _Aimer sans savoir qui_, exploited Lope -to the profit of French playgoers. It is a rash conjecture which -identifies the _Wild Gallant_ with the _Galán escarmentado_, inasmuch -as the latter play is even still "inedited," and could scarcely have -reached Dryden; but it cannot be doubted that when the sources of our -Restoration drama are traced out, Lope will be found to rank with -Calderón, and Moreto, and Rojas Zorrilla. - -Yet his chief glory must, like Burns's, be ever local. Cervantes, for -all his national savour, might conceivably belong to any country; but -Lope de Vega is the incarnate Spains. His gaiety, his suppleness, his -adroit construction, his affluence, his realism, are eminently Spanish -in their strength; his heedless form, his journalistic emphasis, his -inequality, his occasional incoherence, his anxiety to please at any -cost, are eminently Spanish in their weakness. He lacks the universal -note of Shakespeare, being chiefly for his own time and not for all the -ages. Shakespeare, however, stands alone in literature. It is no small -praise to say that Lope follows him on a lower plane. There are two -great creators in the European drama: Shakespeare founds the English -theatre, Lope de Vega the Spanish, each interpreting the genius of his -people with unmatched supremacy. And unto both there came a period of -eclipse. That very generation which Lope had bewildered, dominated, and -charmed by his fantasy turned to the worship of Calderón. Nor did he -profit by the romantic movement headed by the Schlegels and by Tieck. -For them, as for Goethe, Spanish literature was incarnated by Cervantes -and by Calderón. The immense bulk of Lope's production, the rarity of -his editions, the absence of any representative translation, caused -him to be overlooked. To two men—to Agustín Durán in Spain and to -Grillparzer in Germany—he owes his revival;[24] and, in more modest -degree, Lord Holland and George Henry Lewes have furthered his due -recognition. The present tendency is, perhaps, to overrate him, and to -substitute uncritical adoration for uncritical neglect. Yet he deserves -the fame which grows from day to day; for if he have bequeathed us -little that is exquisite in art—as _Los Pastores de Belén_—the world -is his debtor for a new and singular form of dramatic utterance. In -so much he is not only a great executant in the romantic drama, a -virtuoso of unexcelled resource and brilliancy. He is something still -greater: the typical representative of his race, the founder of a -great and comprehensive _genre_. The genius of Cervantes was universal -and unique; Lope's was unique but national. Cervantes had the rarer -and more perfect endowment. But they are immortals both; and, paradox -though it may seem, a second Cervantes is a likelier miracle than a -second Lope de Vega. - - * * * * * - -In 1599, the year following upon the issue of Lope's _Dragontea_, -the picaresque tradition of _Lazarillo de Tormes_ was revived by the -Sevillan MATEO ALEMÁN (fl. ? 1550-1609) in the First Part of his -_Atalaya de la Vida humana_: _Vida del Pícaro Guzmán de Alfarache_. The -alternative title—the _Watch-Tower of Human Life_—was rejected by the -reading public, which, to the author's annoyance, insisted on speaking -of the _Pícaro_ or _Rogue_. Little is known of Alemán's life, save that -he took his Bachelor's degree at Seville in 1565. He is conjectured -to have visited Italy, perhaps as a soldier, is found serving in -the Treasury so early as 1568, and, after twenty years, left the -King's service as poor as he entered it. A passage in his _Ortografía -Castellana_, published at Mexico in 1609, is thought to show that he -was a printer; but this is surmise. That he emigrated to America seems -certain; but the date of his death is unknown. - -His _Guzmán de Alfarache_ is an amplified version of Lázaro's -adventures; and, though he adds little to the first conception, his -abundant episode and interminable moralisings hit the general taste. -Twenty-six editions, amounting to some fifty thousand copies, appeared -within six years of the first publication: not even _Don Quixote_ -had such a vogue. Nor was it less fortunate abroad. In 1623 it was -admirably translated by James Mabbe in a version for which Ben Jonson -wrote a copy of verses in praise of - - "_this Spanish Proteus; who, though writ - But in one tongue, was form'd with the world's wit; - And hath the noblest mark of a good book, - That an ill man dares not securely look - Upon it, but will loathe, or let it pass, - As a deformed face doth a true glass._" - -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. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[16] In Felipe II.'s time the normal value of an _escudo de oro_ was -8s. 4-1/4d. The actual exchange value varied between seven and eight -shillings. - -[17] One _real de vellón_ = 34 _maravedís_ = 2 pence, 2 farthings, and -2/3 of a farthing. One _real de plata_ = 2 _reales de vellón_. Unless -otherwise stated, a _real_ may be taken to mean a _real de plata_. - -[18] See _The Athenæum_, April 12, April 19, and May 3, 1873. - -[19] See Cristóbal Pérez de Pastor's _Documentos cervantinos hasta -ahora inéditos_ (Madrid, 1897), pp. 135-137. - -[20] British Museum Add. MSS., 20, 812. - -[21] This is taken by all English writers, and appears in the British -Museum Catalogue, as a real name. I only reveal an open secret if I -point out that it is a perfect anagram for Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, -the excellent scholar to whom we owe the _Cancionero musical de los -siglos xv. y xvi._ and the new edition of Encina's theatre. - -[22] The seducer is conjectured to be Olivares' son-in-law, the Duque -de Medina de las Torres. - -[23] Lope's popularity spread as far as America. Three of his plays -were translated into the _nahuatl_ dialect by Bartolomé Alba. See José -Mariano Beristain de Souza's _Biblioteca Hispano-Americana_ (Mexico, -1816), vol i. p. 64. - -[24] See M. Farinelli's learned study, _Grillparzer und Lope de Vega_ -(Berlin, 1894). - -[25] It seems probable that Cervantes and Pérez were both anticipated -by Alonso Álvarez de Soria, who was finally hanged. See Bartolomé José -Gallardo, _Ensayo de una Biblioteca Española_ (Madrid, 1863, vol. i., -col. 285). - - - - - CHAPTER X - - THE AGE OF FELIPE IV. AND CARLOS THE BEWITCHED - - 1621-1700 - - -The reign of Felipe IV. opens with as fair a promise of achievement -as any in history. At Madrid, in the third and fourth decades of the -seventeenth century, the court of the Grand Monarque was anticipated -and perhaps outdone. We are inclined to think of Felipe as Velázquez -has presented him, on his "Cordobese barb, the proud king of -horses, and the fittest horse for a king"; and to recall the praise -which William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, lavished on his -horsemanship:—"The great King of Spain, deceased, did not only love it -and understand it, but was absolutely the best horseman in all Spain." -Yet is it a mistake to suppose him a mere hunter. Art and letters -were his constant care; nor was he without a touch of individual -accomplishment. He was not content with instructing his Ministers to -buy every good picture offered in foreign markets: his own sketches -show that he had profited by seeing Velázquez at work. It is no small -point in his favour to have divined at a glance the genius of the -unknown Sevillan master, and to have appointed him—scarcely out of his -teens—court-painter. He likewise collated the artist, Alonso Cano, -to a canonry at Granada, and, when the chapter protested that Cano had -small Latin and less Greek, the King's reply was honourable to his -taste and spirit:—"With a stroke of the pen I can make canons like -you by the score; but Alonso Cano is a miracle of God." He would even -stay the course of justice to protect an artist. Thus, when Velázquez's -master, the half-mad Herrera, was charged with coining, the monarch -intervened with the remark: "Remember his _St. Hermengild_." Music -becalmed the King's fever, and the plays at the Buen Retiro vied with -the masques of Whitehall. His antechambers were thronged with men of -genius. Lope de Vega still survived, his glory waxing daily, though -the best part of his life's work was finished. Vélez de Guevara was -the royal chamberlain; Góngora, the court chaplain, hated, envied, -and admired, was the dreaded chief of a combative poetic school; his -disciple, Villamediana, struck terror with his vitriolic epigrams, -his rancorous tongue; the aged Mariana represented the best tradition -of Spanish history; Bartolomé de Argensola was official chronicler of -Aragón; Tirso de Molina, Ruiz de Alarcón, and Rojas Zorrilla filled the -theatres with their brilliant and ingenious fancies; the incorruptible -satirist, Quevedo, was private secretary to the King; the boyish -Calderón was growing into repute and royal favour. - -Of the Aragonese playwright, Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, we have -already spoken in a previous chapter. His brother, BARTOLOMÉ LEONARDO -DE ARGENSOLA (1562-1631), took orders, and, through the influence of -the Duque de Villahermosa, was named rector of the town whence his -patron took his title. His earliest work, the _Conquista de las Islas -Molucas_ (1609), written by order of the Conde de Lemos, is uncritical -in conception and design; but the matter of its primitive, romantic, -and even sentimental legends derives fresh charm from the author's apt -and polished narrative. In 1611 he and his brother accompanied Lemos -to Naples, thereby stirring the anger of Cervantes, who had hoped to -be among the Viceroy's suite, as appears from a passage in the _Viaje -del Parnaso_, which roundly insinuates that the Argensolas were a -pair of intriguers. The disappointment was natural; yet posterity is -even grateful for it, since a transfer to Naples would certainly have -lost us the second _Don Quixote_. Doubtless the Argensolas, who were -of Italian descent, were better fitted than Cervantes for commerce -with Italian affairs, and Bartolomé made friends on all sides in -Naples as in Rome. On his brother's death in 1613, he became official -chronicler of Aragón, and, in 1631, published a sequel to _Zurita_, -the _Anales de Aragón_, which deals so minutely with the events of the -years 1516-20 as to become wearisome, despite all Argensola's grace of -manner. The _Rimas_ of the two brothers, published posthumously in 1634 -by Lupercio's son, Gabriel Leonardo de Albión, was stamped with the -approval of the dictator, Lope de Vega, who declared that the authors -"had come from Aragón to reform among our poets the Castilian language, -which is suffering from new horrible phrases, more puzzling than -enlightening." - -This is an overstatement of a truth, due to Lope's aversion from -Gongorism in all its shapes. Horace is the model of the Argensolas, -whose renderings of the two odes _Ibam forte via sacra_ and _Beatus -ille_ are among the happiest of versions. Their sobriety of thought -is austere, and their classic correctness of diction is in curious -contrast with the daring innovations of their time. Lupercio has a -polite, humorous fancy, which shows through Mr. Gibson's translation of -a well-known sonnet:— - - "_I must confess, Don John, on due inspection, - That dame Elvira's charming red and white, - Though fair they seem, are only hers by right, - In that her money purchased their perfection; - But thou must grant as well, on calm reflection, - That her sweet lie hath such a lustre bright, - As fairly puts to shame the paler light, - And honest beauty of a true complexion! - And yet no wonder I distracted go - With such deceit, when 'tis within our ken - That nature blinds us with the self-same spell; - For that blue heaven above that charms us so, - Is neither heaven nor blue! Sad pity then - That so much beauty is not truth as well._" - -Lupercio's manifold interests in politics, in history, and in the -theatre left him little time for poetry, and a large proportion of his -verses were destroyed after his death; still, partially represented -as he is, the pretty wit, the pure idiom, and elegant form of his -lyrical pieces vindicate his title to rank among Castilian poets of the -second order. As for Bartolomé, he resembles his brother in natural -faculty, but his fibre is stronger. A hard, dogmatic spirit, a bigot -in his reverence for convention, an idolater of Terence, with a stern, -patriotic hatred of novelties, he was regarded as the standard-bearer -of the anti-Gongorists. Too deeply ingrained a doctrinaire to court -popularity, he was content with the applause of a literary clique, and -had practically no influence on his age. Yet his precept was valuable, -and his practice, always sound, reaches real excellence in such devout -numbers as his _Sonnet to Providence_. - -Much meritorious academic verse is found in the works of other -contemporary writers, though most rivals lapse into errors of -taste and faults of expression from which the younger Argensola is -honourably free. But no great leader is formed in the school of prudent -correctness, and by temperament, as well as by training, the Rector -of Villahermosa was unfit to cope with so virile and so combative a -genius as LUIS DE ARGOTE Y GÓNGORA (1561-1627), the ideal chief of an -aggressive movement. Son of Francisco de Argote, Corregidor of Córdoba, -and of Leonora de Góngora, he adopted his mother's name, partly because -of its nobility and partly because of its euphony. In his sixteenth -year Góngora left his native Córdoba to read law at Salamanca, with a -view to following his father's profession; but his studies were never -serious, and, though he took his bachelor's degree, he gave most of his -time to fencing and to dancing. To the consternation of his family, he -abandoned law and announced himself as a professional poet. So early -as 1585 Cervantes names him in the _Canto de Calíope_ as a rare and -matchless genius—_raro ingenio sin segundo_—and, though flattery from -Cervantes is too indiscriminating to mean much, the mention at least -implies that Góngora's promise was already recognised. Few details of -his career are with us, though rumour tells of platonic love-passages -with a lady of Valencia, Luisa de Cardona, who finally entered a -convent in Toledo. His repute as a poet, aided by his mother's -connection with the ducal house of Almodóvar, won for him a lay canonry -in 1590, and this increase of means enabled him to visit the capital, -where he was instantly hailed as a wit and as a brilliant poet. His -fame had hitherto been local; with the publication of his verses in -Espinosa's _Flores de Poetas_. _ilustres_ (1605), it passed through -the whole of Spain. In the same year, or at latest in 1606, Góngora -was ordained priest. His private life was always exemplary, and this, -together with his natural harshness, perhaps explains his intolerance -for the foibles of Cervantes and of Lope. When the favourite, the Duque -de Lerma, fell from power, Góngora attached himself to Sandoval, who -nominated him to a small prebend at Toledo. As chaplain to the King, -the poet's circle of friends enlarged, and his literary influence grew -correspondingly. In 1626 he had a cerebral attack, during which the -physicians of the Queen attended him. The story that he died insane is -a gross exaggeration: he lingered on a year, having lost his memory, -died of apoplexy at Córdoba on May 23, 1627, and is buried in the St. -Bartholomew Chapel of the cathedral. - -An _entremés_ entitled _La destrucción de Troya_, a play called _Las -Firmezas de Isabela_ (written in collaboration with his brother, -Juan de Argote), and a fragment, the _Comedia Venatoria_, remain to -show that Góngora wrote for the stage. Whether he was ever played -is doubtful, and, in any case, his gift is not dramatic. He was so -curiously careless of his writings that he never troubled to print or -even to keep copies of them, and a remark which he let fall during his -last illness goes to show his artistic dissatisfaction:—"Just as I was -beginning to know something of the first letters in my alphabet does -God call me to Himself: His will be done!" His poems circulated mostly -in manuscript copies, which underwent so many changes that the author -often knew not his own work when it returned to his hands; and, but for -the piety of Juan López de Vicuña, Góngora might be for us the shadow -of a great name. López de Vicuña spent twenty years in collecting his -scattered verse, which he published in the very year of the poet's -death, under the resounding title of _Works in Verse of the Spanish -Homer_. A later and better edition was produced by Gonzalo de Hoces y -Córdoba (1633). - -Góngora began with the lofty ode, as a strict observer of literary -tradition, a reverent imitator of Herrera's heroics. His earliest -essays are not very easy to distinguish from those of his -contemporaries, save that his tone is nobler and that his execution -is more conscientious. He was a craftsman from the outset, and his -technical equipment is singularly complete. So far was he from showing -any freakish originality, that he is open to the reproach of undue -devotion to his masters. His thought is theirs as much as are his -method, his form, his ornament, his ingenuity. An example of his early -style is his _Ode to the Armada_, of which we may quote a stanza from -Churton's translation:— - - "_O Island, once so Catholic, so strong, - Fortress of Faith, now Heresy's foul shrine, - Camp of train'd war, and Wisdom's sacred school; - The time hath been, such majesty was thine, - The lustre of thy crown was first in song. - Now the dull weeds that spring by Stygian pool - Were fitting wreath for thee. Land of the rule - Of Arthurs, Edwards, Henries! Where are they? - Their Mother where, rejoicing in their sway, - Firm in the strength of Faith? To lasting shame - Condemn'd, through guilty blame - Of her who rules thee now. - O hateful Queen, so hard of heart and brow, - Wanton by turns, and cruel, fierce, and lewd, - Thou distaff on the throne, true virtue's bane, - Wolf-like in every mood, - May Heaven's just flame on thy false tresses rain!_" - -This is excellent of its kind, and among all Herrera's imitators none -comes so near to him as Góngora in lyrical melody, in fine workmanship, -in a certain clear distinction of utterance. Yet already there are -hints of qualities destined to bear down their owner. Not content with -simple patriotism, with denunciation of schism and infidelity, Góngora -foreshadows his future self as a very master of gibes and sneers. The -note of altisonance, already emphatic in Herrera, is still more forced -in the young Córdoban poet, who adds a taste for far-fetched conceits -and extravagant metaphor, assuredly not learned in the Sevillan -school. Rejecting experiments in the stately ode, he for many years -continued his practice in another province of verse, and by rigorous -discipline he learned to excel in virtue of his fine simplicity, his -graceful imagery, and his urbane wit. It should seem that intellectual -self-denial cost him little, for his transformations are among the most -complete in literary history. Consider, for instance, the interval -between the emphatic dignity of his Armada ode and the charming fancy, -the distinguished cynicism of _Love in Reason_, as Archdeacon Churton -gives it:— - - "_I love thee, but let love be free: - I do not ask, I would not learn, - What scores of rival hearts for thee - Are breaking or in anguish burn._ - - _You die to tell, but leave untold, - The story of your Red-Cross Knight, - Who proffer'd mountain-heaps of gold - If he for you might ride and fight;_ - - _Or how the jolly soldier gay - Would wear your colours, all and some; - But you disdain'd their trumpet's bray, - And would not hear their tuck of drum._ - - _We love; but 'tis the simplest case: - The faith on which our hands have met - Is fix'd, as wax on deeds of grace, - To hold as grace, but not as debt._ - - _For well I wot that nowadays - Love's conquering bow is soonest bent - By him whose valiant hand displays - The largest roll of yearly rent...._ - - _So let us follow in the fashion, - Let love be gentle, mild, and cool: - For these are not the days of passion, - But calculation's sober rule._ - - _Your grace will cheer me like the sun; - But I can live content in shades. - Take me: you'll find when all is done, - Plain truth, and fewer serenades._" - -Even in translation the humorous amenity is not altogether lost, -though no version can reproduce the technical perfection of the -original. For refined wit and brilliant effect Góngora has seldom -been exceeded; yet his fighter pieces failed to bring him the renown -and the high promotion which he expected. He feigned to despise -popularity, declaring that he "desired to do something that would not -be for the general"; but none was keener than he in courting applause -on any terms. He would dazzle and surprise, if he could not enchant, -his public, and forthwith he set to founding the school which bears -the name of _culteranismo_. We do not know precisely when he first -practised in this vein; but it seems certain that he was anticipated -by a young soldier, Luis de Carrillo y Sotomayor (1583-1610), whose -posthumous verses were published by his brother at Madrid in 1611. -Carrillo had served in Italy, where he came under the spell of Giovanni -Battista Marino, then at the height of his influence; and the _Obras_ -of Carrillo contain the first intimations of the new manner. Many of -Carrillo's poems are admirable for their verbal melody, his eclogues -being distinguished for simple sincerity of sentiment and expression. -But these passed almost unnoticed, for Carrillo was only doing well -what Lope de Vega was doing better; and in fact it seems likely that -the merits of the dead soldier-poet were unjustly overlooked by a -generation which was content with two editions of his works. - -He found, however, a passionate admirer in Góngora, who perceived in -such work as Carrillo's _Sonnet to the Patience of his Jealous Hope_ -the possibilities of a revolution. When Carrillo writes of "the proud -sea bathing the blind forehead of the deaf sky," he is merely setting -down a tasteless conceit, which gains nothing by a forced inversion -of phrase; but, as it happened, conceit of this sort was a novelty in -Spain, and Góngora, who had already shown a tendency to preciosity -in Espinosa's collection, resolved to develop Carrillo's innovation. -Few questions are more debated and less understood than this of -Gongorism. So good a critic as Karl Hillebrand gives forth this strange -utterance:—"Not only Italian and German Marinists were imitators of -Spanish Gongorists: even your English Euphuism of Shakespeare's time -had its origin in the _culteranismo_ of Spain." One hardly likes to -accuse Hillebrand of writing nonsense, but he certainly comes near, -perilously near it in this case. Lyly's _Euphues_ was published in -1579, while Góngora was still a student at Salamanca, and Shakespeare -died nearly twelve years before a line of Góngora's later poems was in -print. Spanish scholars, indeed, disclaim responsibility for Euphuism -in any shape. They refuse to admit that Lord Berners' or North's -translations of Guevara could have produced the effects ascribed to -them; and they argue with much reason that Gongorism is but the local -form of a disease which attacked all Europe. However that may be, there -can exist no possible connection between English Euphuism and Spanish -Gongorism, save such as comes from a common Italian origin. Gongorism -derives directly from the Marinism propagated in Spain by Carrillo, -though it must be confessed that Marino's extravagances pale beside -those of Góngora. - -This, in fact, is no more than we should expect, for Marino's conceits -were, so to say, almost natural to him, while Góngora's are a pure -effect of affectation. He wilfully got rid of his natural directness, -and gave himself to cultivating artificial antithesis, violent -inversions of words and phrases, exaggerated metaphors piled upon sense -tropes devoid of meaning. Other poets appealed to the vulgar: he would -charm the cultivated—_los cultos_. Hence the name _culteranismo_.[26] -At the same time it is fair to say that he has been blamed for more -crimes than he ever committed. Ticknor, more than most critics, loses -his head whenever he mentions Góngora's name, and holds the Spaniard -up to ridicule by printing a literal translation of his more daring -flights. Thus he chooses a passage from the first of the _Soledades_, -and asserts that Góngora sings the praise of "a maiden so beautiful, -that she might parch up Norway with her two suns, and bleach Ethiopia -with her two hands." Perhaps no poet that ever lived would survive the -test of such bald, literal rendering as this, and a much more exact -notion of the Spanish is afforded by Churton:— - - "_Her twin-born sun-bright eyes - Might turn to summer Norway's wintry skies; - And the white wonder of her snowy hand - Blanch with surprise the sons of Ethiopian land._" - -Another sonnet on Luis de Bavia's _Historia Pontifical_ is presented -in this fashion:—"This poem which Bavia has now offered to the world, -if not tied up in numbers, yet is filed down into a good arrangement, -and licked into shape by learning; is a cultivated history, whose -grey-headed style, though not metrical, is combed out, and robs three -pilots of the sacred bark from time, and rescues them from oblivion. -But the pen that thus immortalises the heavenly turnkeys on the bronzes -of its history is not a pen, but the key of ages. It opens to their -names, not the gates of failing memory, which stamps shadows on masses -of foam, but those of immortality." This, again, is translation of a -kind—of a kind very current among fourth-form boys, and, perpetrated -by such an excellent scholar as Ticknor, is to be accepted as -intentional caricature of the original. Once more the loyal Churton -shall elucidate his author:— - - "_This offering to the world by Bavia brought - Is poesy, by numbers unconfined; - Such order guides the master's march of mind, - Such skill refines the rich-drawn ore of thought. - The style, the matter, gray experience taught, - Art's rules adorn'd what metre might not bind: - The tale hath baffled time, that thief unkind, - And from Oblivion's bonds with toil hath brought_ - - _Three helmsmen of the sacred barque; the pen, - That so these heavenly wardens doth enhance,— - No pen, but rather key of Fame's proud dome, - Opening her everlasting doors to men,— - Is no poor drudge recording things of chance, - Which paints her shadowy forms on trembling foam._" - -Still, when all allowance is made, it must be confessed that Góngora -excels in hiding his meanings. By many his worst faults were extolled -as beauties, and there was formed a school of disciples who agreed with -Le Sage's Fabrice in holding the master for "le plus beau génie que -l'Espagne ait jamais produit." But Góngora was not to conquer without -a struggle. One illustrious writer was an early convert: Cervantes -proclaimed himself an admirer of the _Polifemo_, which is among the -most difficult of Góngora's works. Pedro de Valencia, one of Spain's -best humanists, was the first to denounce Góngora's transpositions, -licentious metaphors, and verbal inventions as manifested in the -_Soledades_ (Solitary Musings), round which the controversy raged -hottest. Within twenty-five years of Góngora's death the first -_Soledad_ found an English translator in the person of Thomas Stanley -(1651), who renders in this fashion:— - - "_'Twas now the blooming season of the year, - And in disguise Europa's ravisher - (His brow arm'd with a crescent, with such beams - Encompast as the sun unclouded streams - The sparkling glory of the zodiac!) led - His numerous herd along the azure mead. - When he, whose right to beauty might remove - The youth of Ida from the cup of Jove, - Shipwreck't, repuls'd, and absent, did complain - Of his hard fate and mistress's disdain; - With such sad sweetness that the winds, and sea, - In sighs and murmurs kept him company.... - By this time night begun t'ungild the skies, - Hills from the sea, seas from the hills arise, - Confusedly unequal; when once more - The unhappy youth invested in the poor - Remains of his late shipwreck, through sharp briars - And dusky shades up the high rock aspires. - The steep ascent scarce to be reach'd by aid - Of wings he climbs, less weary than afraid. - At last he gains the top; so strong and high - As scaling dreaded not, nor battery, - An equal judge the difference to decide - 'Twixt the mute load and ever-sounding tide. - His steps now move secur'd; a glimmering light - (The Pharos of some cottage) takes his sight._" - -And so on in passages where the darkness grows denser at every line. -"C'est l'obscurité qui en fait tout le mérite," as Fabrice observes -when Gil Blas fails to understand his friend's sonnet. - -Valencia's protest was followed by another from the Sevillan, Juan de -Jáuregui, whose preface to his _Rimas_ (1618) is a literary manifesto -against those poems "which only contain an embellishment of words, -being phantoms without soul or body." Jáuregui returned to the -attack in his _Discurso poético_ (1623), a more formal and elaborate -indictment of the whole Gongoristic movement. This treatise, of -which only one copy is known to exist, has been reprinted with some -curtailments by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo in his _Historia de las Ideas -Estéticas en España_. It deserves study no less for its sound doctrine -than for the admirable style of the writer, whose courtesy of tone -makes him an exception among the polemists of his time. As Jáuregui -represents the opposition of the Seville group, so Manuel Faria y -Sousa, the editor of the _Lusiadas_, speaks in the name of Portugal. -Faria y Sousa's theory of poetics is the simplest possible: there is -but one great poet in the world, and his name is Camões. Faria y Sousa -transforms the _Lusiadas_ into a dull allegory, where Mars typifies St. -Peter; he writes down Tasso as "common, trivial, not worth mentioning, -poor in knowledge and invention"; and, in accordance with these -principles, he accuses Góngora of being no allegorist, and protests -that to rank him with Camões is to compare "Marsyas to Apollo, a fly to -an eagle." - -A more formidable opponent for the Gongorists was Lope de Vega, who -was himself accused of obscurity and affectation. Bouhours, in his -_Manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit_ (1687), tells -that the Bishop of Belley, Jean-Pierre Camus, meeting Lope in Madrid, -cross-examined him as to the meaning of one of his sonnets. With his -usual good-nature, the poet listened, and "ayant leû et releû plusieurs -fois son sonnet, avoua sincèrement qu'il ne l'entendoit pas luy -mesme." It must have irked his inclination to take the field against -Góngora, for whom he had a strong personal liking:—"He is a man whom -I must esteem and love, accepting from him with humility what I can -understand, and admiring with veneration what I cannot understand." Yet -he loved truth (as he understood it) more than he loved Socrates. "You -can make a _culto_ poet in twenty-four hours: a few inversions, four -formulas, six Latin words, or emphatic phrases—and the trick is done," -he writes in his _Respuesta_; and he follows up this plain speaking -with a burlesque sonnet. - -Of Faria y Sousa and his like, Góngora made small account: he fastened -upon Lope as his victim, pursuing him with unsleeping vindictiveness. -There is something pathetic in the Dictator's endeavours to soften -his persecutor's heart. He courts Góngora with polite flatteries in -print; he dedicates to Góngora the play, _Amor secreto_; he writes -Góngora a private letter to remove a wrong impression given by one -Mendoza; he repeats Góngora's witty sayings to his intimates; he makes -personal overtures to Góngora at literary gatherings; and, if Góngora -be not positively rude, Lope reports the fact to the Duque de Sessa as -a personal triumph:—"_Está más humano conmigo, que le debo de haber -pareçido más ombre de bien de lo que él me ymaginava_" ("He is gentler -with me, and I must seem to him a better fellow than he thought"). -Despite all his ingratiating arts, Lope failed to conciliate his foe, -who rightly regarded him as the chief obstacle in _culteranismo's_ -road. The relentless riddlemonger lost no opportunity of ridiculing -Lope and his court in such a sonnet as the following, which Churton -Englishes with undisguised gusto:— - - "_Dear Geese, whose haunt is where weak waters flow, - From rude Castilian well-head, cheap supply, - That keeps your flowery Vega never dry, - True Vega, smooth, but somewhat flat and low; - Go; dabble, play, and cackle as ye go - Down that old stream of gray antiquity; - And blame the waves of nobler harmony, - Where birds, whose gentle grace you cannot know, - Are sailing. Attic wit and Roman skill - Are theirs; no swans that die in feeble song, - But nursed to life by Heliconian rill, - Where Wisdom breathes in Music. Cease your wrong, - Flock of the troubled pool: your vain endeavour - Will doom you else to duck and dive for ever._" - -The warfare was carried on with singular ferocity, the careless Lope -offering openings at every turn. "Remove those nineteen castles from -your shield," sang Góngora, deriding Lope's foible in blazoning his -descent. The amour with Marta Nevares Santoyo was the subject of -obscene lampoons innumerable. A passage in the _Filomena_ volume -arabesques the story of Perseus and Andromeda with a complimentary -allusion to an anonymous poet whose name Lope withheld: "so as not to -cause annoyance." Góngora's copy of the _Filomena_ exists with this -holograph annotation on the margin:—"If you mean yourself, Lopillo, -then you are an idiot without art or judgment." Yet, despite a hundred -brutal personalities, Lope went his way unheeding, and on Góngora's -death he penned a most brilliant sonnet in praise of that "swan of -Betis," for whom his affection had never changed. - -Góngora lived long enough to know that he had triumphed. Tirso de -Molina and Calderón, with most of the younger dramatists, show the -_culto_ influence in many plays; Jáuregui forgot his own principles, -and accepted the new mode; even Lope himself, in passages of his later -writings, yielded to preciosity. Quevedo began by quoting Epictetus's -aphorism:—_Scholasticum esse animal quod ab omnibus irridetur_. And -he renders the Latin in his own free style:—"The _culto_ brute is a -general laughing-stock." But the "_culto_ brute" smiled to see Quevedo -given over to _conceptismo_, an affectation not less disastrous in -effect than Góngora's own. Meanwhile enthusiastic champions declared -for the Córdoban master. Martín de Ángulo y Pulgar published his -_Epístolas satisfactorias_ (1635) in answer to the censures of the -learned Francisco de Cascales; Pellicer preached the Gongoristic -gospel in his _Lecciones solemnes_ (1630); the _Defence of the Fable -of Pyramus and Thisbe_ fills a quarto by Cristóbal de Salazar Mardones -(1636); García de Salcedo Coronel's huge commentaries (1636-46) are -perhaps, more obscure than anything in his author's text; and, so far -away as Peru, Juan de Espinosa Medrano, Rector of Cuzco, published -an _Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora, Príncipe de los -Poetas Lyricos de España_ (1694). There came a day when, as Salazar y -Torres informs us, the _Polifemo_ and the _Soledades_ were recited on -Speech-Day by the boys in Jesuit schools. - -It took Spain a hundred years to rid her veins of the Gongoristic -poison, and Gongorism has now become, in Spain itself, a synonym for -all that is bad in literature. Undoubtedly Góngora did an infinite -deal of mischief: his tricks of transposition were too easily learned -by those hordes of imitators who see nothing but the obvious, and his -verbal audacities were reproduced by men without a tithe of his taste -and execution. And yet, though it be an unpopular thing to confess, -one has a secret sympathy with him in his campaign. Lope de Vega and -Cervantes are as unlike as two men may be; but they are twins in their -slapdash methods, in their indifference to exquisiteness of form. Their -fatal facility is common to their brethren: threadbare phrase, accepted -without thought and repeated without heed, is, as often as not, the -curse of the best Spanish work. It was, perhaps, not altogether love -of notoriety which seduced Góngora into Carrillo's ways. He had, as -his earliest work proves, a sounder method than his fellows and a -purer artistic conscience. No trace of carelessness is visible in his -juvenile poems, written in an obscurity which knew no encouragement. It -is just to believe that his late ambition was not all self-seeking, and -that he aspired to renew, or rather to enlarge, the poetic diction of -his country. - -The aim was excellent, and, if Góngora finally failed, he failed partly -because his disciples burlesqued his theories, and partly because he -strove to make words serve instead of ideas. That his endeavour was -praiseworthy in itself is as certain as that he came at last to regard -his principles as almost sacred. He doubtless found some pleasure in -astounding and annoying the burgess; but he aimed at something beyond -making readers marvel. And though he failed to impose his doctrines -permanently, it is by no means certain that he laboured in vain. If -any later Spaniard has worked in the conscious spirit of the artist, -seeking to avoid the commonplace, to express high thoughts in terms -of beauty—though he knows it not, he owes a debt to Góngora, whose -hatred of the commonplace made Castilian richer. The _Soledades_ and -the _Polifemo_ have passed away, but many of the words and phrases for -which Góngora was censured are now in constant use; and, _culteranismo_ -apart, Góngora ranks among the best lyrists of his land. Cascales, -who was at once his friend and his opponent, said that there were two -Góngoras—one an angel of light, the other an angel of darkness; and -the saying was true in so far as it implied that in all circumstances -his air of distinction never quits him. Still the earlier Góngora is -the better, and before we leave him we should quote, as an example of -that first happy manner, inimitable in its grace and humour, Churton's -not too unsuccessful version of _The Country Bachelor's Complaint_:— - - "_Time was, ere Love play'd tricks with me, - I lived at ease, a simple squire, - And sang my praise-song, fancy free, - At matins in the village quire...._ - - _I rambled by the mountain side, - Down sylvan glades where streamlets pass - Unnumber'd, glancing as they glide - Like crystal serpents through the grass...._ - - _And there the state I ruled from far, - And bade the winds to blow for me, - In succour to our ships of war, - That plough'd the Briton's rebel sea;_ - - _Oft boasting how the might of Spain - The world's old columns far outran, - And Hercules must come again, - And plant his barriers in Japan...._ - - _'Twas on St. Luke's soft, quiet day, - A vision to my sight was borne, - Fair as the blooming almond spray, - Blue-eyed, with tresses like the morn...._ - - _Ah! then I saw what love could do, - The power that bids us fall or rise, - That wounds the firm heart through and through, - And strikes, like Cæsar, at men's eyes._ - - _I saw how dupes, that fain would run, - Are caught, their breath and courage spent, - Chased by a foe they cannot shun, - Swift as Inquisitor on scent...._ - - _Yet I've a trick to cheat Love's search, - And refuge find too long delay'd; - I'll take the vows of Holy Church, - And seek some reverend cloister's shade._" - -Among Góngora's followers none is better known than Juan de Tassis y -Peralta, the second CONDE DE VILLAMEDIANA (1582-1622), whose ancestors -came from Bergamo. His great-grandfather, Juan Bautista de Tassis, -entered the service of Carlos Quinto; his grandfather, Raimundo de -Tassis, was the first of his race to live in Spain, where he married -into the illustrious family of Acuña; his father, Juan de Tassis y -Acuña, rose to be Ambassador in Paris and Special Envoy in London. -Villamediana's tutors were two well-known men of letters: Bartolomé -Jiménez Patón, author of _Mercurius Trismegistus_, and Tribaldos -de Toledo, whom we already know as editor of Figueroa and Mendoza. -After a short stay at Salamanca, Villamediana was appointed to the -King's household, and in 1601 married Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, -grand-daughter in the fifth generation of Santillana. His reputation -as a gambler was of the worst, and his winning thirty thousand gold -ducats at a sitting led to his expulsion from court in 1608. He joined -the army in Italy, returned to Spain in 1617, and at once launched -into epigrams and satires against all and sundry. The court favourites -were his special mark—Lerma, Osuna, Uceda, Rodrigo Calderón. In 1618 -he was again banished, but returned in 1621 as Lord-in-Waiting to the -Queen, Isabel de Bourbon, daughter of Henry of Navarre. At her request -Villamediana wrote a masque, _La Gloria de Niquea_, in which the Queen -acted on April 8, 1622, before Lord Bristol. If report speak truly, -the performance led him to his death. When the second act opened, an -overturned lamp set the theatre ablaze, and as Villamediana seized the -Queen in his arms, and carried her out of danger, scandal declared the -fire to be his doing, and gave him out as the Queen's lover. There -is a well-known story that Felipe IV., stealing up behind the Queen -one day, placed his hands on her eyes; whereon "Be quiet, Count," -she said, and so unwittingly doomed Villamediana. The tale is even -too well known. Brantôme had already told it in _Les Dames galantes_ -before Felipe was born, and it really dates from the sixth century. -Even so, Villamediana's admiration for the Queen was openly expressed. -He appeared at a tournament covered with silver _reales_, and used -the motto, "_Mis amores son reales_" (My love is royal). The King's -confessor, Baltasar de Zúñiga, warned him that his life was in danger, -and Villamediana laughed in his face. It was no joke, for he had -contrived to make more dangerous enemies in four months than any other -man has made in a lifetime. On August 21, 1622, as he was alighting -from his coach, a stranger ran him through the body; "_¡Jesús! esto -es hecho!_" ("My God! done for!") said Villamediana, and fell dead. -The word was passed round that the assassin, Ignacio Méndez, should go -free; tongues that had hitherto wagged were still. It is almost certain -that the murder was done by the King's order. If it were so, Felipe IV. -had more spirit at seventeen than he ever showed afterwards. - -Villamediana had many of Góngora's qualities: his courage, his wit, his -sense of form, his preciosity. In his _Fábula de Faetón_, as in his -_Fábula de la Fénix_, he outdoes his master in eccentricity and verbal -foppery: fish become "swimming birds of the cerulean seat," water is -"liquid nutriment," time "gnaws statues and digests the marble"; and by -hyperbaton and word-juggling he proves himself as _culto_ as he can. -But it is fair to say that when it pleases him he is as simple and -direct as the early Góngora. It must suffice here to quote Churton's -rendering of a sonnet on the proposed marriage of the Infanta Doña -María to the Prince of Wales:— - - "_By Heresy upborne, that giantess - Whose pride heaven's battlements in fancy scales, - With Villiers his proud Admiral, Charles of Wales - To Mary's heavenly sphere would boldly press. - A heretic he is, he must confess - Heaven's light ne'er led his knighthood's roving sails; - But the bright cause his error countervails, - And heavenly beauty pleads for love's excess. - So now the lamb with cub of wolf must mate; - The dove must take the raven to her nest; - Our palace, like the old ark, must shelter all: - Confusion, as of Babylon the Great, - Is round us, and the faith of Spain, oppress'd - By fine State-reason, trembles to its fall._" - -This expresses—much more clearly than the _Gloria de Niquea_—the true -feeling of Góngora and his circle towards Steenie and Baby Charles. - -Less nervous and energetic, but not less fantastic than Villamediana's -worst extravagances, are the _Obras póstumas divinas y humanas_ (1641) -of HORTENSIO FÉLIX PARAVICINO Y ARTEAGA (1580-1633), whose praises were -sung by Lope:— - - "_Divine Hortensio, whose exalted strain, - Sweet, pure, and witty, censure cannot wound, - The Cyril and the Chrysostom of Spain._" - -The divine Hortensio was court-preacher to Felipe IV., and enchanted -his congregations by preaching in the _culto_ style. His verses -exaggerate Góngora's worst faults, and are disfigured by fulsome -flattery of his leader, before whom, as he says, he is dumb with -admiration. As thus:—"May my offering in gracious cloud, in equal -wealth of fragrance, bestrew thine altars." Paravicino, whose works -were published under the name of Arteaga, was a powerful centre -of Gongoristic influence, and did more than most men to force -_culteranismo_ into fashion. In sermons, poems, and a masque entitled -_Gridonia_, he never ceases to spread the plague, which lasted for -a century, attacking writers as far apart as Ambrosio Roca y Serna -(whose _Luz del Alma_ appeared in 1623), and Agustín de Salazar, the -author of the _Cítara de Apolo_ (1677). - -Meanwhile a few held out against the mode. The Sevillan, Juan de -Arguijo (? d. 1629), continued the tradition of Herrera, writing in -Italian measures with a smoothness of versification and a dignified -correctness which drew applause from one camp and hissing from the -other. His townsman, JUAN DE JÁUREGUI Y AGUILAR (? 1570-1650), came -into notice with his version of Tasso's _Aminta_ (1607), one of the -best translations ever made, deserving of the high praise which -Cervantes bestows on it and on Cristóbal de Figueroa's rendering of the -_Pastor Fido_:—"They make us doubt which is the translation and which -the original." In his _Aminta_, as in his original poems, Jáuregui's -style is a model of purity and refinement, as might be expected from -the _Discurso poético_ launched later against Góngora; but the tide -was too strong for him. His _Orfeo_ (1624) shows signs of wavering, -and in his translation, the _Farsalia_, which was not published till -1684, he is almost as extreme a Gongorist as the worst. Still it -should be remembered that Lucan also was a Córdoban, practising early -Gongorism at Nero's court, and a translator is prone to reproduce the -defects of his original. Jáuregui has some points of resemblance with -Rossetti, was a famous artist in his day, and is said, on the strength -of a dubious passage in the prologue to the _Novelas_, to have painted -Cervantes. - -ESTEBAN MANUEL DE VILLEGAS (1596-1669) shows rare poetic qualities in -his _Eróticas ó Amatorias_ (1617), in which he announces himself as -the rising sun. _Sicut sol matutinus_ is printed on his title-page, -where those waning stars, Lope, Calderón, and Quevedo, are also -supplied with a prophetic motto: _Me surgente, quid istæ?_ His -imitations of Anacreon and Catullus are done with amazing gusto, -all the more wonderful when we remember that his "sweet songs and -suave delights" were written at fourteen, retouched and published at -twenty. But Villegas is one of the great disappointments of Castilian -literature: he married in 1626, deserted verse for law, and ended life -a poor, embittered attorney. The Sevillan canon and royal librarian, -FRANCISCO DE RIOJA (? 1586-1659), follows the example of Herrera, -his sonnets and _silvas_ being distinguished for their correct form -and their philosophic melancholy. But Rioja has been unlucky. One -poem, entitled _Las Ruinas de Itálica_, has won for him a very great -reputation; and yet, in fact, as Fernández-Guerra y Orbe has proved, -the _Ruinas_ is due to Rodrigo Caro (1573-1647), the archæologist who -wrote the _Memorial de Utrera_ and the _Antigüedades de Sevilla_. -Adolfo de Castro goes further, ascribing the _Epístola moral á Fabio_ -to Pedro Fernández de Andrado, author of the _Libro de la Gineta_. Thus -despoiled of two admirable pieces, Rioja is less important than he -seemed thirty years since; yet, even so, he ranks, with the Príncipe de -Esquilache (1581-1658) and the Conde de Rebolledo (1597-1676), among -the sounder influences of his time. - -The Segovian poet, Alonso de Ledesma Buitrago (1552-1623), founded the -school of _conceptismo_ with its metaphysical conceits, philosophic -paradoxes, and sententious moralisings, as of a Seneca gone mad. His -_Conceptos espirituales_ and _Juegos de la Noche Buena_ (1611) lead up -to the allegorical gibberish of his _Monstruo Imaginado_ (1615), and to -the perverted ingenuity of Alonso de Bonilla's _Nuevo Jardín de Flores -divinas_ (1617). _Conceptismo_ was no less an evil than _culteranismo_, -but it was less likely to spread: the latter played with words, the -former with ideas. A bizarre vocabulary was enough for a man to pass as -_culto_; the _conceptista_ must be equipped with various learning, and -must have a smattering of philosophy. Under such chiefs as Ledesma and -Bonilla the new mania must have died; but _conceptismo_ was in the air, -and, as Carrillo seduced Góngora, so Ledesma captured FRANCIS GÓMEZ -DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS (1580-1645): (it should be said, however, that -Quevedo nowhere mentions Ledesma by name). Like Lope, like Calderón, -Quevedo was a highlander. His family boasted the punning motto:—"I am -he who stopped—_el que vedó_—the Moors' advance." His father (who -died early) and mother both held posts at court. At Alcalá de Henares, -from 1596 onwards, Quevedo took honours in theology, law, French, -Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. He is also said to have studied -medicine; and certainly he hated Sangrado as Dickens hated Bumble. When -scarcely out of his teens he corresponded with Justus Lipsius, who -hailed him as _μέγα κῦδος Ἱβήρων_, and at Madrid he speedily became -the talk of the town. Strange stories were told of him: that he had -pinked his man at Alcalá, that he ran Captain Rodríguez through the -body rather than yield him the wall, that he put an escaped panther to -the sword, that he disarmed the famous fencing-master, Pacheco Narváez. -This last tale is true, and is curious in view of Quevedo's physical -defects. His reply to Vicencio Valerio in _Su Espada por Santiago_ is -well known:—"He says I hobble, and can't see. I should lie from head -to foot if I denied it: my eyes and my gait would contradict me." - -For all his short sight and clubbed feet, he was ever too ready with -his rapier. On Maundy Thursday, 1611, he witnessed a scuffle between -a man and woman during Tenebræ in St. Martin's Church. He intervened, -the argument was continued outside, swords were crossed, and Quevedo's -opponent fell mortally wounded. As the man was a noble, Quevedo -prudently escaped from possible consequences to Sicily. He returned to -his estate, La Torre de Juan Abad, in 1612, but soon wearied of country -life, and was sent on diplomatic missions to Genoa, Milan, Venice, and -Rome. On Osuna's promotion to Naples, Quevedo became Finance Minister, -proving himself a capable administrator. In 1618 he meddled in the -Spanish plot which forms the motive of Otway's _Venice Preserved_, and, -disguised as a beggar, escaped from the bravos told off to murder him. -His public career ended at this time, for his subsequent appointment -as Felipe IV.'s secretary was merely nominal. In 1627 he shared in a -furious polemic. Santa Teresa was canonised in 1622, and, at the joint -instance of Carmelites and Jesuits, was made co-patron of Spain with -Santiago. The Papal Bull (July 31, 1627) divided Spain into two camps. -Quevedo, who was of the Order of Santiago—"red with the blood of the -brave"—took up the cudgels for St. James, was branded a "hypocritical -blackguard" by one party, and was extolled by the other as the "Captain -of Combat," "the Ensign of the Apostle." He shamed Pope, King, -Olivares, the religious, and half the laity, and the Bull was withdrawn -(June 28, 1630). The victory cost him a year's exile, and when Olivares -offered him the embassy at Genoa, he refused it, on the ground that he -did not wish to have his mouth thus closed. After his unlucky marriage -to Esperanza de Mendoza, widow of Juan Fernández de Heredia, he began a -campaign against the royal favourite. Olivares' turn came in December -1639, when the King found by his plate a copy of verses urging him to -cease his extravagance and to dismiss his incapable ministers. Quevedo -was—perhaps rightly—suspected of writing these lines, was arrested -at midnight, and was whisked away, half dressed, to the monastery of -St. Mark in León. For four years he was imprisoned in a cell below -the level of the river, and, when released after Olivares' fall in -1643, his health was broken. A flash of his old humour appears in -his reply to the priest who begged him to arrange for music at his -funeral:—"Nay, let them pay that hear it." - -As a prose writer he began with a _Life of St. Thomas of Villanueva_ -(1620), and ended with a _Life of St. Paul the Apostle_ (1644). -These, and his other moralisings—_Virtue Militant_, the _Cradle and -the Tomb_—call for no notice here. The _Política de Dios_ (1618) is -apparently an abstract plea for absolutism; in fact, it exposes the -weakness of Spanish administration just as the _Marcus Brutus_ (1644) -is a vehicle for opinions on contemporary politics. Learned and acute, -these treatises show Quevedo's concern for his country's future, and a -passage in his sixty-eighth sonnet forecasts the future of the Spanish -colonies:—"'Tis likelier far, O Spain! that what thou alone didst take -from all, all will take from thee alone"— - - "_Y es más facil! oh España ¡en muchas modas - Que lo que á todos les quitaste sola, - Te puedan á tí sola quitar todos._" - -The prophecy is just being fulfilled, and the chief interest -of Quevedo's prose treatises lies in their _conceptismo_—the -flashy epigram, the pompous paradox, the strained antithesis, the -hairsplitting and refining in and out of season. It was vain for -Quevedo to edit Luis de León and Torre as a protest against Gongorism, -for in his own practice he substituted one affectation for another. - -The true and simpler Quevedo is to be sought elsewhere. His picaresque -_Historia de la Vida del Buscón_, best known by its unauthorised -title, _El Gran Tacaño_ (The Prime Scoundrel), though not published -till 1626, was probably written soon after 1608. Pablo, son of a -barber and a loose woman, follows a rich schoolfellow to Alcalá, where -he shines in every kind of devilry. Thence he passes into a gang of -thieves, is imprisoned, lives as a sham cripple, an actor, a bravo, and -finally—his author being weary of him—emigrates to America. There -is no attempt at creating character, no vulgar obtrusion of Alemán's -moralising tone: such amusement as the novel contains is afforded by -the invention of heartless incident and the acrid rendering of villany. -The harsh jeering, the intense brutality, the unsympathetic wit and art -of the _Buscón_, make it one of the cleverest books in the world, as it -is one of the cruellest and coarsest in its misanthropic enjoyment of -baseness and pain. No less characteristic of Quevedo are his _Sueños_ -(Visions), printed in 1627. These fantastic pieces are really five in -number, though most collections print seven or eight; for the _Infierno -Enmendado_ (Hell Reformed) is not a vision, but is rather a sequel to -the _Política de Dios_; the _Casa de Locos de Amor_ is probably the -work of Quevedo's friend, Lorenzo van der Hammen; and the _Fortuna con -Seso_ was not written till 1635. Quevedo himself calls the _Sueño de -la Muerte_ (Vision of Death) the fifth and last of the series. Satire -in Lucian's manner had already been introduced into Spanish literature -by Valdés in the _Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón_, in the _Crotalón_ -(which most authorities ascribe to Cristóbal de Villalón), and in the -_Coloquio de los Perros_. In witty observation and ridicule of whole -sections of society, Quevedo almost vies with Cervantes, though his -unfeeling cynicism gives his work an individual flavour. His lost poets -are doomed to hear each other's verses for eternity, his statesmen -jostle bandits, doctors and murderers end their careers as brethren, -comic men dwell in an inferno apart lest their jokes should damp hell's -fires,—grim jests which may be read in Roger L'Estrange's spirited -amplification. - -Quevedo's serious poems suffer from the _conceptismo_ which disfigures -his ambitious prose; his wit, his complete knowledge of low life, his -mastery of language show to greater advantage in his picaroon ballads -and exercises in lighter verse. His freedom of tone has brought upon -him an undeserved reputation for obscenity; the fact being that lewd, -timorous fellows have fathered their indecencies upon him. A passage -from his _Last Will of Don Quixote_ may be cited, as Mr. Gibson gives -it, to illustrate his natural method:— - - "_Up and answered Sancho Panza; - List to what he said or sung, - With an accent rough and ready - And a forty-parson tongue: - ''Tis not reason, good my master, - When thou goest forth, I wis, - To account to thy Creator, - Thou shouldst utter stuff like this; - As trustees, name thou the Curate - Who confesseth thee betimes, - And Per Anton, our good Provost, - And the goat-herd Gaffer Grimes; - Make clean sweep of the Esplandians, - Who have dinned us with their clatter; - Call thou in a ghostly hermit, - Who may aid thee in the matter.' - 'Well thou speakest,' up and answered - Don Quixote, nowise dumb; - 'Hie thee to the Rock of Dolour, - Bid Beltenebros to come!_'" - -Overpraised and overblamed, Quevedo attempted too much. He had it -in him to be a poet, or a theologian, or a stoic philosopher, or -a critic, or a satirist, or a statesman: he insisted on being all -of these together, and he has paid the penalty. Though he never -fails ignominiously, he rarely achieves a genuine success, and -the bulk of his writing is now neglected because of its local and -ephemeral interest. Yet he deserves honour as the most widely-gifted -Spaniard of his time, as a strong and honest man in a corrupt age, -and as a brilliant writer whose hatred of the commonplace beguiled -him into adopting a dull innovation. It is not likely that his -numerous inedited lyrics will do more than increase our knowledge of -Góngora's and Montalbán's failings; but the two plays promised by Sr. -Menéndez y Pelayo—_Cómo ha de ser el Privado_ and _Pero Vázquez de -Escamilla_—cannot but reveal a new aspect of a many-sided genius. - -Quevedo was not, however, known as a dramatist to the same extent as -the Valencian, GUILLÉN DE CASTRO Y BELLVIS (1569-1631), an erratic -soldier who has achieved renown in and out of Spain. Castro is -sometimes credited with the _Prodigio de los Montes_, whence Calderón -derived his _Mágico Prodigioso_, but the _Prodigio_ is almost certainly -by Lope. Castro's fame rests on his _Mocedades del Cid_ (The Cid's -First Exploits), a dramatic adaptation of national tradition in Lope's -manner. Ximena, daughter of Lozano, loves Rodrigo before the action -begins, and, on Lozano's death by Rodrigo's hand, her passion and -her duty are in conflict. Rodrigo's victories against the Moors help -to expiate his crime: on a false rumour of his death, Ximena avows -her love for him, and patriotism combines with inclination to yield a -dramatic ending. Corneille, treating Castro's play with the freedom of -a man of genius, founded the French school of tragedy; but not all his -changes are improvements. By limiting the time of action he needlessly -emphasises the difficulty of the situation. Castro's device is sounder -when he prolongs the space which shall diminish Ximena's filial grief -and increase her admiration of the Cid. The strife between love and -honour exists already in the Spanish, and Corneille's merit lies in -his suppression of Castro's superfluous third act, in his magnificent -rhetoric, beside which the Spaniard's simplicity seems weak. But though -Castro wrote no masterpiece, he begot one based upon his original -conception, and some of Corneille's most admired tirades are but -amplified translations. - -Less remarkable as a playwright than as a novelist, the lawyer, LUIS -VÉLEZ DE GUEVARA (1570-1643); is reputed to have written no fewer than -four hundred pieces for the stage. Of these, eighty survive, mostly on -historic themes, which—as in _El Valor no tiene Edad_—are treated -with tiresome extravagance; but the most difficult critics have found -praise for _Más pesa el Rey que la Sangre_ (King First, Blood Second). -The story is that, in the thirteenth century, Guzmán the Good held -Tarifa for King Sancho; the rebel Infante, Don Juan, called upon him -to surrender under pain of his son's death; for answer, Guzmán threw -his dagger over the battlement, and saw the boy murdered before his -eyes. Rarely has the old Castilian tradition of loyalty to the King -been presented with more picturesque force, and few scenes in any -dramatic literature surpass that last one on the raising of the siege, -when Guzmán points to his child's corpse. Vélez de Guevara collaborated -with Rojas Zorrilla and Mira de Amescua in _The Devil's Suit against -the Priest of Madrilejos_, a play in which a lunatic girl saves her -life by pleading demoniacal possession. The idea is characteristic of -Guevara's uncanny invention; but the Inquisition frowned upon stage -representatives of exorcism, and, though the author's orthodoxy was -not questioned, the play was withdrawn. He is best remembered for his -satire _El Diablo Cojuelo_ (1641), which describes observations taken -during a flight through the air by a student who releases the Lame -Devil from a flask, and is repaid by glimpses of life in courts and -slums and stews. Le Sage, in his _Diable Boiteux_, has greatly improved -upon the first conception; but the original is of excellent humour, -and the style is as idiomatic as the best Castilian can be. Felipe IV. -is said to have smiled only three times in his life—twice at quips by -Guevara, who was his chamberlain. - -Of all Lope's imitators the most undisguised is the son of the King's -bookseller, Doctor JUAN PÉREZ DE MONTALBÁN (1602-38), who became a -priest of the Congregation of St. Peter in 1625. His father was plain -Juan Pérez (as who should say John Smith), and the son was cruelly -bantered for his airs and graces:—"Put Doctor in front and Montalbán -behind, and plebeian Pérez shines an aristocrat." It was rumoured that -his _Orfeo_ (1624), written to compete with Jáuregui, was really Lope's -work, given by the patriarch to start his favourite in life. The story -is probably false, for the verse lacks Lope's ease and grace; but the -_Orfeo_ won Montalbán a name, and—there is no such luck for modern -minor poets—in 1625 a Peruvian merchant expressed his admiration by -settling a pension on the young priest. Montalbán lived in closest -intimacy with Lope, who taught his young admirer stagecraft, and helped -him with introductions to managers. Unluckily he sought to rival his -master in fecundity as well as in method, and the effort broke him. -He is often credited with writing the _Tribunal of Just Vengeance_, a -work which describes Quevedo as "Master of Error, Doctor of Impudence, -Licentiate of Buffoonery, Bachelor of Filth, Professor of Vice, and -Archdevil of Mankind." Quevedo, on his side, had a grievance, inasmuch -as Pérez, the bookseller, had pirated the _Buscón_. He prophesied that -Montalbán would die a lunatic, and, in fact, his words came true. - -Pellicer credits Montalbán with literary theories of his own, but they -are mere repetitions of Lope's precepts in the _Arte Nuevo_. Like his -master, Montalbán has a keen eye for a situation, for the dramatic -value of a popular story, as he shows in his _Amantes de Teruel_, those -eternal types of constancy; but he writes too hurriedly, with more -ambition than power, is infected with _culteranismo_, and, though he -apes Lope with superficial success in his secular plays, fails utterly -when he attempts the sacred drama. His own age thought most highly of -_No hay Vida como la Honra_, one of the first pieces to have a "run" on -the Spanish stage; but the _Amantes_ is his best work, and its vigorous -dialogue may still be read with emotion. - -These lovers of Teruel were also staged by a man of genius whose -pseudonym has completely overshadowed his family name of Gabriel -Téllez. The career of TIRSO DE MOLINA (1571-1648) is often dismissed -in six lines packed with errors; but the publication of Sr. Cotarelo -y Mori's study has made such summary treatment impossible in the -future. Writers whose imagination does service for research have -invented the fables that Tirso led a scandalous, stormy life, and that -the repentant sinner took orders in middle age. These legends are -baseless, and are conceived on the theory that Tirso's outspoken plays -imply a deep knowledge of human nature's weak side and of the shadiest -picaresque corners. It appears to be forgotten that Tirso spent years -in the confessional: no bad position for the study of frailty. It -seems certain that he was born at Madrid, and that he studied at -Alcalá is clear from Matías de los Reyes' dedication of _El Agravio -agraviado_. The date of his profession is not known; but he is named as -a Mercedarian monk and as "a comic poet" by the actor-manager, Andrés -de Claramonte y Corroy, in his _Letanía moral_, written before 1610, -though not printed till 1613. His holograph of _Santa Juana_ is dated -in 1613 from Toledo, where he also wrote his _Cigarrales_. Passages in -_La Gallega Mari Hernández_ imply a residence in Galicia. That he lived -in Seville, and visited the island of Santo Domingo, is certain, though -the dates are not known. In 1619 he was Superior of the Mercedarian -convent at Trujillo, an appointment which implies that he was a monk of -long standing. In 1620 Lope dedicated to him _Lo Fingido verdadero_, -and in the same year Tirso returned the compliment by dedicating his -_Villana de Vallecas_ to Lope. Though he competed in 1622 at the Madrid -feasts in honour of St. Isidore, he failed to receive even honourable -mention. Ten years later he became official chronicler of his order, -and showed his opinion of his predecessor, Alonso Remón—with whom he -has been confounded, even by Cervantes—by rewriting Remón's history. -In 1634 he was made _Definidor General_ for Castile, and his name -reappears as licenser of books, or in legal documents. He died on March -21, 1648, being then Prior at Soria, renowned as a preacher of most -tranquil, virtuous life, the very opposite of what ignorant fancy has -feigned of him. He is known to have written plays so recently as 1638, -for the holograph of his _Quinas de Portugal_ bears that date; but the -preface to the _Deleitar Aprovechado_ shows that his popularity was on -the wane in 1635. His last years were given to writing a _Genealogía -del Conde de Sástago_ and the chronicle of the Mercedarian Order. - -Tirso's earliest printed volume is his _Cigarrales de Toledo_ (1621 or -1624), so called from a local Toledan word for a summer country-house -set down in an orchard. The book is a collection of tales and verse, -supposed to be recited during five days of festivity which have -followed a wedding. Tirso, indeed, announces stories and verse which -shall last twenty days; yet he breaks off at the fifth, announcing a -Second Part, which never appeared. Critics profess to find in Tirso's -tales some traces of Cervantes, who is praised in the text as the -"Spanish Boccaccio": the influence of the Italian Boccaccio is far -more obvious throughout, and—save for a tinge of Gongorism—_Los -Tres Maridos burlados_ might well pass as a splendid adaptation from -the _Decamerone_. Still, even in the _Cigarrales_ the born playwright -asserts himself in _Cómo han de ser los Amigos_, in _El Celoso -prudente_, and in one of Tirso's most brilliant pieces, _El Vergonzoso -en Palacio_. A second collection entitled _Deleitar Aprovechado_ -(Business with Profit), issued in 1635, contains three pious tales -of no great merit, and several _autos_, one of which—_El Colmenero -divino_—is Tirso's best attempt at religious drama. - -Essentially a dramatist, he is to be but partially studied in his -theatre, of which the first part appeared in 1627, the third in 1634, -the second and fourth in 1635, and the fifth in 1637. A famous play is -the _Condenado por Desconfiado_ (The Doubter Damned), of which some -would deprive Tirso; yet the treatment is specially characteristic of -him. Paulo, who has left the world for a hermitage, prays for light -as to his future salvation, dreams that his sins exceed his merits, -and is urged by the devil to go to Naples to seek out Enrico, whose -ending will be like his own. Paulo obeys, discovers Enrico to be a -rook and bully, and in despair takes to a bandit's life. Meanwhile -Enrico shows a hint of virtue by refusing to slay an old man whose -appearance reminds the bully of his own father, and kills the master -who taunted him with flinching from a bargain. He escapes to where -Paulo and his gang are hidden. Garbed as a hermit, Paulo vainly exhorts -Enrico to confess, though the criminal finally repents, and is seen by -Pedrisco—Paulo's servant—passing to heaven. Duped by the devil, Paulo -refuses to believe Pedrisco's story, and dies damned through his own -distrust and pride. The substance of this play, which is contrived with -abounding skill and theological knowledge, is the old conflict between -free-will and predestination. Some would ascribe the play to Lope, -because the pastoral scenes are in his manner, but the notion that Lope -would publish under Tirso's name is untenable. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo -will not be suspected of a prejudice against Lope; and he avers, in so -many words, that the only playwright in Spain with enough theology -to write the _Condenado_ was Tirso, who, had he written nothing else, -would rank among the greatest Spanish dramatists. - -The piece which has won Tirso immortality is his _Burlador de Sevilla -y Convidado de Piedra_ (The Seville Mocker and the Stone Guest), first -printed at Barcelona in 1630 as the seventh of _Twelve New Plays by -Lope de Vega Carpio, and other Authors_; and the omission of the -_Burlador_ from all authorised editions has led critics of authority -to question Tirso's authorship.[27] The discovery in 1878 of a new -version caused Manuel de la Revilla to declare that the play was by -Calderón, on the ground that Calderón's name is on the title-page, -and that Calderón never trespassed on other men's property. This -is an overstatement: to mention but a few instances, Calderón's _Á -Secreto Agravio Secreta Venganza_ is re-arranged from Tirso's _Celoso -prudente_; his _Secreto á Voces_ from Tirso's _Amar por Arte mayor_, -while the second act of Calderón's _Cabellos de Absalón_ is lifted, -almost word for word, from the third act of Tirso's _Venganza de -Tamar_. On the whole, then, Tirso may be taken as the creator of Don -Juan. No analysis is needed of a play with which Mozart, the most -Athenian of musicians, has familiarised mankind; nor is translation -possible in the present corrupt state of the text. Whether or not there -existed an historic Don Juan at Plasencia or at Seville is doubtful, -for folklorists have found the story as far away from Spain as Iceland -is; but it is Tirso's glory to have so treated it that the world has -accepted it as a purely Spanish conception. The _Festin de Pierre_ -(1659) by Dorimond, the _Fils Criminel_ (1660) of De Villiers, the -_Dom Juan_ (1665) of Molière, the _Nouveau Festin de Pierre_ (1670) -of Rosimond, and the arrangement of Thomas Corneille, are but pale -reflections of the Spanish type which passes onward from Shadwell's -_Libertine_ (1676) till it reaches the hands of Byron and Zorrilla and -Barbey d'Aurévilly and Flaubert (whose posthumous sketch comes closer -back to the original). Of these later artists not one has succeeded in -matching the patrician dignity, the infernal, iniquitous valour of the -original. To have created a universal type, to have imposed a character -upon the world, to have outlived all rivalry, to have achieved in words -what Mozart alone has expressed in music, is to rank among the great -creators of all time. - -If Tirso excelled in sombre force, he was likewise a master in the -lighter comedy of _El Vergonzoso en Palacio_, where Mireno, the Shy -Man at Court, is rendered with rare sympathetic delicacy, and in the -farcical intrigue of _Don Gil de las Calzas verdes_ (Don Gil of the -Green Breeches), where the changes of Juana to Elvira or to Don Gil -are such examples of subtle, gay ingenuity as delight and bewilder -the reader no less than the comic trio of the _Villana de Vallecas_, -or the picture of unctuous hypocrisy in _Marta la piadosa_. Tirso's -fate was to be forgotten, not merely by the public, but by the very -dramatists who used his themes; and, as in Lope's case, the neglect is -partly due to the rarity of his editions. Yet, even so, his eclipse -is unaccountable, for his various gifts are hard to match in any -literature. He has not the disconcerting cleverness of Lope, nor has he -Lope's infinite variety of resource; moreover, his natural frankness -has won him a name for indecency. Yet has he imagination, passion, -individual vision, knowledge of dramatic effect. He could create -character, and his women, if less noble, are more real than Lope's own -in their frank emotion and seductive abandonment. At whiles his diction -tends to Gongorism, as when—in _El Amor y la Amistad_—a personage, -at sight of a mountain, babbles of "the lofty daring of the snow, -the pyramid of diamond"; but this is exceptional, and his hostility -to _culteranismo_ inspired Góngora to write more than one stinging -epigram. Tirso had not Lope's matchless facility, and, considering -the maturity of the Spanish genius, it is strange that he should have -written no play before 1606 or 1608. Moreover, he composed by fits and -starts in moments snatched from duty, and, beginning late, he ended -early. Even in these circumstances he could boast in 1621 that he -had produced three hundred plays—a number afterwards raised to four -hundred. Only some eighty survive: in other words, four-fifths of his -theatre has vanished, and the loss is surely great for those who would -fain know every aspect of his genius. But enough remains to justify his -high position, and his fame, like Lope's, grows from day to day. - -Of such dramatists as the courtly Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza (? -1590-1644), and the festive Luis Belmonte y Bermúdez (1587-? 1650) -mere mention must suffice: the former's _Querer por sólo querer_ may -be read in an excellent version made by Sir Richard Fanshawe during -his imprisonment "by Oliver, after the Battail of Worcester." Antonio -Mira de Amescua (? 1578-1640), chaplain of Felipe IV., mingled the -human with the divine, was praised by all contemporaries from Cervantes -onwards, had the right lyrical note, and, if his plays were collected, -might prove himself worthy of his dramatic fame; as it is, he is best -known as a playwright from whom Calderón, Moreto, and Corneille have -borrowed themes. A more original talent is shown by JUAN RUIZ DE -ALARCÓN (? 1581-1639), whose father was administrator of the Tlacho -mines in Mexico. Ruiz de Alarcón left Mexico for Spain in 1600, and -studied at Salamanca for five years; he returned to America in 1608 in -the hope of being elected to a University chair, but the deformity—a -hunched back—with which he was taunted his life long was against -him, and he made for Spain in 1611. He entered the household of the -Marqués de Salinas, wrote some laudatory _décimas_ for the _Desengaño -de la Fortuna_ in 1612, and next year produced his first play, the -_Semejante de sí mismo_, founded, like Tirso's _Celosa de sí misma_, -on the _Curious Impertinent_. It was no great success, but it made him -known and hated. He was far too ready to attack others, being himself -most vulnerable. Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, who had jeered at -Cervantes for "writing prologues and dedications when at death's door," -spoke for others besides himself when he lampooned Alarcón as "an ape -in man's guise, an impudent hunchback, a ludicrous deformity." Tirso -befriended the Mexican, while Mendoza, Lope, Quevedo, and the rest -scourged him mercilessly; and when his _Antecristo_ (which Voltaire -used in _Mahomet_) was played, a band of rioters ruined the performance -by squirting oil on the spectators and firing squibs in the pit. Yet -the women always crowded the house when his name was in the bill, and -they made his fortune by contriving that his play, _Siempre ayuda la -Verdad_—probably written in collaboration with Tirso—should be given -at court in 1623. Three years later he was named Member of Council for -the Indies. His collected pieces were published in 1628 and 1634. - -Ruiz de Alarcón was never popular in the sense that Lope and Calderón -were popular; still, he had his successes, and no Spanish dramatist -is better reading. Compared with his rivals he was sterile, for the -total of his plays is less than thirty, even if we accept all the -doubtful pieces ascribed to him. Lope excels him in invention, Tirso -in force and fun, Calderón in charm; Ruiz de Alarcón is less intensely -national than these, and the very individuality—the _extrañeza_—which -Montalbán noted with perplexity, makes him almost better appreciated -abroad than at home. Corneille has based French tragedy upon Guillén de -Castro's _Mocedades del Cid_; French comedy is scarcely less influenced -by his adaptation of the _Menteur_ from Ruiz de Alarcón's _Verdad -Sospechosa_ (Truth Suspected). García has lied all his life, lies to -his father, his friends, his betrothed, lies to himself, and defeats -his own purpose by his ingenuity. He would speak the truth if he could, -but he has no talent that way. Why trouble with truth when lying comes -easier? His father, Beltrán, perceives that the miser enjoys money, -that murder slakes vengeance, that the drunkard grows glorious with -wine; but his son's failing is beyond him. The noble Philistine has -not the artist's soul, and cannot understand why García should lie for -lying's sake, against his own interest. Throughout the play Ruiz de -Alarcón is never once at fault, and the gay ingenuity with which he -enforces the old moral, that honesty is the best policy, is equalled -by his masterly creation of character. Ethics are his preoccupation; -yet, though almost all his plays seek to enforce a lesson, he nowhere -descends to pulpiteering or merges the dramatist in the teacher. While -in _Las Paredes Oyen_ (Walls have Ears) and in _El Examen de Maridos_ -(Husbands Proved) the triumph of the _Verdad Sospechosa_ is repeated, -the more national play is admirably exampled in _El Tejedor de Segovia_ -(The Weaver of Segovia) and _Ganar Amigos_ (How to Win Friends). - -There are greater Spanish playwrights than Ruiz de Alarcón: there is -none whose work is of such even excellence. In so early a piece as the -_Cueva de Salamanca_, though there is manifest technical inexperience, -the mere writing is almost as good as in _La Verdad Sospechosa_. -The very infertility at which contemporaries mocked is balanced by -equality of execution. Lope and Calderón have written better pieces, -and many worse: no line that Ruiz de Alarcón published is unworthy -of him. While his contemporaries were content to improvise at ease, -he sat aloof, never joining in the race for money and applause, but -filing with a scrupulous conscience to such effect that all his work -endures. His chief titles to fame are his power of creating character -and his high ethical aim. But he has other merits scarcely less rare: -his versification is of extreme finish, and his spirited dialogue, -free from any tinge of Gongorism, is a triumph of fine idiom over -perverse influences which led men of greater natural endowment astray. -His taste, indeed, is almost unerring, and it goes to form that sober -dignity, that individual tone, that uncommon counterpoise of faculties -which place him below—and a little apart from—the two or three best -Spanish dramatists. - -If there be an exotic element in the quality of Ruiz de Alarcón's -distinction as in his frugal dramatic method, the _españolismo_ of the -land is incarnate in the genius of PEDRO CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA HENAO -DE LA BARREDA Y RIAÑO (1600-1681), the most representative Spaniard of -the seventeenth century. His father was Secretary to the Treasury, and, -on this side, Calderón was a highlander, like Santillana, Lope, and -Quevedo; he inherited a strain of Flemish blood through his mother, who -claimed descent from the De Mons of Hainault. He was educated at the -Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid, and fond biographers declare that -he studied civil and canon law at Salamanca; this is mere assertion, -unsupported by any proof. Though he is said to have written a play, -_El Carro del Cielo_, at thirteen, he was not very precocious for a -Spaniard, his first authentic appearances being made at the Feast of -St. Isidore in 1620 and 1622. On the latter occasion he won the third -prize, and was praised by the good-natured Lope as one "who in his -tender years earns the laurels which time commonly awards to grey -hairs." His Boswell, Vera Tasis, reports that he served in Milan and -Flanders from 1625 to 1635; but there must be an error of date, for in -1629 he is found at Madrid drawing his sword upon the actor, Pedro de -Villegas, who had treacherously stabbed Calderón's brother, and who -fled for sanctuary to the Trinitarian Church. The Gongorist preacher, -Paravicino, referred to the matter in public; Calderón replied by -scoffing at "sermons of Barbary," and was sent to gaol for insulting -the cloth. Pellicer signals another outburst in 1640, when the -dramatist whipped out his sword at rehearsal and came off second best. -These are pleasing incidents in a career of sombre respectability, -though one half fears that the second is fiction. In 1637 Calderón -was promoted to the Order of Santiago, and in 1640 he served with his -brother knights against the Catalan rebels, hastily finishing his -_Certamen de Amor y Celos_ (Strife of Love and Jealousy) so as to -share in the campaign. He was sent to Madrid on some military mission -in 1641; received from the artillery fund a monthly pension of thirty -gold crowns; was ordained priest in 1651; was made chaplain of the New -Kings at Toledo in 1653; became honorary chaplain to Felipe IV. in -1663, when he joined the Congregation of St. Peter, which elected him -its Superior in 1666. On taking orders, Calderón's intention was to -forsake the secular stage, but he yielded to the King's command, and, -so late as 1680, celebrated Carlos II.'s wedding with Marie Louise de -Bourbon. "He died singing, as they say of the swan," wrote Solís to -Alonso Carnero. When death took him he was busied with an _auto_, which -was finished by Melchor de León—a fit ending to a happy, blameless -life. - -Calderón's prose writings are small in volume and in importance. The -description (written under the name of his colleague, Lorenzo Ramírez -de Prado) of the entry into Madrid of Felipe IV.'s second queen is -an official performance. More interest attaches to a treatise on the -dignity of painting, first printed in the fourth volume of Francisco -Mariano Nifo's _Cajón de Sastre literato_ (1781):—"Painting," says -Calderón, "is the art of arts, dominating all others and using them as -handmaids." He had an admirable gift of appreciation, and he proves it -by rescuing from the oblivion of the _Cancionero General_ such a ballad -as Escribá's, which he quotes in _Manos Blancas no ofenden_, and again -in _El Mayor Monstruo de los Celos_. Churton's version of the song is -not unhappy:— - - "_Come, death, ere step or sound I hear, - Unknown the hour, unfelt the pain; - Lest the wild joy to feel thee near, - Should thrill me back to life again._ - - _Come, sudden as the lightning-ray, - When skies are calm and air is still; - E'en from the silence of its way, - More sure to strike where'er it will._ - - _Such let thy secret coming be, - Lest warning make thy summons vain, - And joy to find myself with thee - Call back life's ebbing tide again._" - -A great lyric poet, his lyrics are mostly included in his plays. -One ballad, supposed to be a description of himself, written at a -lady's request, is often quoted, and has been well Englished by Mr. -Norman MacColl; it is, however, unauthentic, being due to a Sevillan -contemporary, Carlos Cepeda y Guzmán.[28] The earliest play printed -with Calderón's name is _El Astrólogo fingido_ (1632), and from 1633 -onwards collected editions of his works were published; but he had no -personal concern in these issues, which so presented him that, as he -protested, he could not recognise himself. Though he printed a volume -of _autos_ in 1676, he was so indifferent as to the fate of his secular -plays that he never troubled to collect them. Luckily, in 1680 he drew -up a list of his pieces for the Duque de Veragua, the descendant of -Columbus, and upon this foundation Vera Tasis constructed a posthumous -edition in nine volumes. Roughly speaking, we possess one hundred and -twenty formal plays, and some seventy _autos_, with a few _entremeses_ -of no great account. - -Calderón has been fortunate in death as in life; for though his -vogue never quite equalled that of his great predecessor, Lope, it -proved far more enduring. From Lope's death to the close of the -seventeenth century, Calderón was chief of the Spanish stage; and, -though he underwent a temporary eclipse in the eighteenth century, his -sovereignty was restored in the nineteenth by the enthusiasm of the -German Romantics. He has suffered more than most from the indiscretion -of admirers. When Sismondi pronounced him simply a clever playwright, -"the poet of the Inquisition," he was no further from the truth than -the extravagant Friedrich Schlegel, who proclaimed that "in this great -and divine master the enigma of life is not merely expressed, but -solved": thus placing him above Shakespeare, who (so raved the German) -only stated life's riddle without attempting a solution. James the -First once said to the ambassador whom Ben Jonson called "Old Æsop -Gondomar":—"I know not how, but it seems to be the trade of a Spaniard -to talk rodomontade." It was no less the trade of the German Romantic, -who mistook lyrism for scenic presentation. Nor were the Germans alone -in their enthusiasm. Shelley met with Calderón's ideal dramas, read -them "with inexpressible wonder and delight," and was tempted "to throw -over their perfect and glowing forms the grey veil of my own words." -The famous speech of the Spirit replying, in the _Mágico Prodigioso_, -to Cyprian's question, "Who art thou, and whence comest thou?" has -become familiar to every reader of English literature:— - - "_Since thou desirest, I will then unveil - Myself to thee;—for in myself I am - A world of happiness and misery; - This I have lost, and that I must lament - For ever. In my attributes I stood - So high and so heroically great, - In lineage so supreme, and with a genius - Which penetrated with a glance the world - Beneath my feet, that was by my high merit. - A King—whom I may call the King of kings, - Because all others tremble in their pride - Before the terrors of his countenance— - In his high palace roofed with brightest gems - Of living light—call them the stars of heaven— - Named me his counsellor. But the high praise - Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose - In mighty competition, to ascend - His seat, and place my foot triumphantly - Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know - The depth to which ambition falls: too mad - Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now - Repentance of the irrevocable deed; - Therefore I close this ruin with the glory - Of not to be subdued, before the shame - Of reconciling me with him who reigns - By coward cession. Nor was I alone, - Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone; - And there was hope, and there may still be hope, - For many suffrages among his vassals - Hailed me their lord and king, and many still - Are mine, and many more shall be. - Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious, - I left his seat of empire._" - -This "grey veil" serves but to heighten the noble poetic quality which -turned a cooler head than Shelley's. Goethe was moved to tears, and, -though towards the end he perceived the mischief wrought in Germany -by the uncritical idolatry of Calderón, he never ceased to admire -the only Spanish poet that he really knew. And in our time men like -Schack and Schmidt have dedicated their lives to the propagation of -the Calderonian gospel. Some part of the poet's fame is due to his -translators, some also to the fact that for a long time there was -no rival in the field. To the rest of Europe he has stood for Spain. -Readers could not divine (and in default of editions they could not -contrive to learn) that Calderón, great as he is, comes far short -of Lope's freshness, force, and invention, far short of Tirso's -creative power and impressive conception. But Spaniards know better -than to give him the highest place among their dramatic gods. He is -too brilliant to be set aside as a mere follower of Lope's, for he -rises to heights of poetry which Lope never reached; yet it is simple -history that he did but develop the seed which Lope planted. He made -no attempt—and there he showed good judgment—to reform the Spanish -drama; he was content to work upon the old ways, borrowing hints from -his predecessors, and, in a lazy mood, incorporating entire scenes. -If we are to believe Viguier and Philarète Chasles, he went so far as -to annex Corneille's _Heraclius_ (1647), and publish it in 1664 as -_En esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira_ (In this Life All's -True and All's False); but, as he knew no French, the chances are that -both plays derive from a common source—Mira de Amescua's _Rueda de -la fortuna_ (1614). In attempts to create character he almost always -fails, and when he succeeds—as in _El Alcalde de Zalamea_—he succeeds -by brilliantly retouching Lope's first sketch. Goethe hit Calderón's -weak spot with the remark that his characters are as alike as bullets -or leaden soldiers cast in the same mould; and the constant lyrical -interruptions go to show that he knew his own strength. Others might -match and overcome him as a playwright: there was none to approach -him in such magnificent lyrism as he allots to Justina in _El Mágico -Prodigioso_—to be quoted here in FitzGerald's rendering:— - - "_Who that in his hour of glory - Walks the kingdom of the rose, - And misapprehends the story - Which through all the garden blows; - Which the southern air who brings - It touches, and the leafy strings - Lightly to the touch respond; - And nightingale to nightingale - Answering a bough beyond...._ - - _Lo! the golden Girasolé, - That to him by whom she burns, - Over heaven slowly, slowly, - As he travels, ever turns, - And beneath the wat'ry main - When he sinks, would follow fain, - Follow fain from west to east, - And then from east to west again...._ - - _So for her who having lighted - In another heart the fire, - Then shall leave it unrequited - In its ashes to expire: - After her that sacrifice - Through the garden burns and cries, - In the sultry, breathing air, - In the flowers that turn and stare...._" - -Such songs as these are, perhaps, better to read than to hear, and -Calderón is careful to supply a more popular interest. This he finds -in three sentiments which are still most characteristic of the Spanish -temperament: personal loyalty to the King, absolute devotion to the -Church, and the "point of honour." Through good report and evil, -Spain has held by the three principles which have made and undone -her. These three sources of inspiration find their highest expression -in the theatre of Calderón. A favourite with Felipe IV., a courtly -poet, if ever one there were, he becomes the mouthpiece of a nation -when he deifies the King in the _Príncipe Constante_, in _La Banda y -la Flor_ (The Scarf and the Flower), in _Guárdate de la Agua mansa_ -(Beware of Still Water), and in a score of plays. Ticknor speaks of -"Calderón's flattery of the great": he overlooks the social condition -implied in the title of Rojas Zorrilla's famous play, _Del Rey abajo -Ninguno_ (Nobody, under the King). A titular aristocracy, shorn of all -power, counted for less than a foreigner can conceive in a land where -half the population was noble, and the reverence which was centred on -the person of the Lord's anointed evolved into a profound devotion, -a fantastic passion as exaggerated as anything in _Amadís_. A Church -which had inspired the seven-hundred-years' battle against the Moors, -which had produced miracles of holiness and of genius like Santa Teresa -and San Juan de la Cruz, which had stemmed the flood of the Reformation -and rolled it back from the Pyrenees, was regarded as the one moral -authority, the sole possible form of religion, and as the symbol of -Latin unity under Spain's headship. - -The "point of honour"—the vengeance wrought by husbands, fathers, -and brothers in the cases of women found in dubious circumstances—is -harder to explain, or, at least, to justify; yet even this was a -perverted outcome of chivalresque ideals, very acceptable to men who -esteemed life more cheaply than their neighbours. Calderón's treatment -of such a situation may be followed in FitzGerald's version of _El -Pintor de su Deshonra_. The husband, who has slain his wife and her -lover, confronts her father and friends:— - -Prince. - - "_Whoever dares - Molest him, answers it to me. Open the door. - But what is this?_ [Belardo unlocks the door. - -Juan (coming out). - - _A picture - Done by the Painter of his own Dishonour, - In blood. - I am Don Juan Roca. Such revenge - As each would have of me now let him take - As far as our life holds—Don Pedro, who - Gave me that lovely creature for a bride, - And I return him a bloody corpse; - Don Luis, who beholds his bosom's son - Slain by his bosom friend; and you, my lord, - Who, for your favours, might expect a piece - In some far other style than this. - Deal with me as you list; 'twill be a mercy - To swell this complement of death with mine; - For all I had to do is done, and life - Is worse than nothing now._ - -Prince. - - _Get you to horse - And leave the wind behind you._ - -Luis. - - _Nay, my lord; - Whom should he fly from? Not from me at least, - Who lov'd his honour as my own, and would - Myself have help'd him in a just revenge - Ev'n on an only son._ - -Pedro. - - _I cannot speak, - But I bow down these miserable grey hairs - To other arbitrament than the sword, - Ev'n to your Highness' justice._ - -Prince. - - _Be it so. - Meanwhile—_ - -Juan. - - _Meanwhile, my lord, let me depart; - Free, if you will, or not. But let me go, - Nor wound these fathers with the sight of me, - Who has cut off the blossom of their age— - Yea, and his own, more miserable than them all. - They know me: that I am a gentleman, - Not cruel, nor without what seem'd due cause - Put on this bloody business of my honour; - Which having done, I will be answerable - Here and elsewhere, to all for all._ - -Prince. - - _Depart - In peace._ - -Juan. - - _In peace! Come, Leonelo._" - -Similar motives are used by Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina, both -priests and grey-beards; but the effect is more emphatic in Calderón, -and so early as 1683 his "immorality" was severely censured on the -occasion of Manuel de Guerra y Ribera's eulogistic _aprobación_. -In this matter, as in most others, he is satisfied to follow and -to exaggerate an existing convention. His heroes are untouched by -Othello's sublime jealousy: they kill their victims in cold blood as -something due to the self-respect of gentlemen placed in an absurd -position. He rehandles the theme in _Á Secreto Agravio Secreta -Venganza_ and in _El Médico de su Honra_; but the right emotion is -rarely felt by the reader, since Calderón himself is seldom fired by -real passion, and writes his scene as a splendid exercise in literature. - -His genius is most visible in his _autos sacramentales_, a dramatic -form peculiar to Spain. The word _auto_ is first applied to any and -every play; then, the meaning becoming narrower, an _auto_ is a -religious play, resembling the mediæval Mysteries (Gil Vicente's _Auto -de San Martinho_ is probably the earliest piece of this type). Finally, -a far more special sense is developed, and an _auto sacramental_ -comes to mean a dramatised exposition of the Mystery of the Blessed -Eucharist, to be played in the open on Corpus Christi Day. The Dutch -traveller, Frans van Aarssens van Sommelsdijk, has left an account -of the spectacle as he saw it when Calderón was in his prime. Borne -in procession through the city, the Host was followed by sovereigns, -courtiers, and the multitude, with artificial giants and pasteboard -monsters—_tarascas_—at their head. Fifers, bandsmen, dancers of -decorous measures accompanied the train to the cathedral. In the -afternoon the assembly met in the public square, and the _auto_ was -played before the King, who sat beneath a canopy, the richer public, -which lined the balconies, and the general, which filled the road. -Even for an educated Protestant nothing is easier than to confound an -_auto sacramental_ with a _comedia devota_ or a _comedia de santos_: -thus Bouterwek, in his _History_, and Longfellow, in his _Outre-Mer_, -have mistaken the _Devoción de la Cruz_ for an _auto_. The distinction -is radical. The true _auto_ has no secondary interest, has no mundane -personages: its one subject is the Eucharistic Mystery exposed by -allegorical characters. Denis Florence M'Carthy's version of _Los -Encantos de la Culpa_ (The Sorceries of Sin) enables English readers to -judge the _genre_ for themselves:— - -Sin. - - "_... Smell, come here, and with thy sense - Test this bread, this substance,—tell me - Is it bread or flesh?_ - -The Smell. - - _Its smell - Is the smell of bread._ - -Sin. - - _Taste, enter; - Try it thou._ - -The Taste. - - _Its taste - Is plainly that of bread._ - -Sin. - - _Touch, come; why tremble? - Say what's this thou touchest._ - -The Touch. - - _Bread._ - -Sin. - - _Sight, declare what thou discernest - In this object._ - -The Sight. - - _Bread alone._ - -Sin. - - _Hearing, thou, too, break in pieces - This material, which, as flesh, - Faith proclaims, and penance preacheth; - Let the fraction by its noise - Of their error undeceive them: - Say, is it so?_ - -The Hearing. - - _Ungrateful Sin, - Though the noise in truth resembles - That of bread when broken, yet - Faith and Penance teach us better. - It is flesh, and what they call it - I believe: that Faith asserteth - Aught, is proof enough thereof._ - -The Understanding. - - _This one reason brings contentment - Unto me._ - -Penance. - - _O man, why linger, - Now that Hearing hath firm fetter'd - To the Faith thy Understanding? - Quick, regain the saving vessel - Of the sovereign Church, and leave - Sin's so highly sweet excesses. - Thou, Ulysses, Circe's slave, - Fly this false and fleeting revel, - Since, how great her power may be, - Greater is the power of Heaven, - And the true Jove's mightier magic - Will thy virtuous purpose strengthen._ - -The Man. - - _Yes, thou'rt right, O Understanding; - Lead in safety hence my senses._ - -All. - - _Let us to our ship; for here - All is shadowy and unsettled."_ - -As a writer of _autos_ Calderón is supreme. Lope, who outshines him -at so many points, is far less dexterous than his successor when -he attempts the sacramental play. This kind of drama would almost -seem created for the greater glory of Calderón. The personages -of his worldly plays, and even of his _comedias devotas_, tend -to become personifications of revenge, love, pride, charity, and -the rest. His set pieces are disfigured by want of humour and by -over-refinement—faults which turn to virtues in the _autos_, where -abstractions are wedded to the noblest poetry, where the Beyond is -brought down to earth, and where doctrinal subtleties are embellished -with miraculous ingenuity. To assert that Calderón is incomparably -great in the _autos_ is to imply some censure of his art in his -secular dramas. The monotony and artifice of his sacramental plays -might be thought inherent to the species, were not these two notes -characteristic of his whole theatre. Nor is it an explanation to say -that much writing of _autos_ had affected his general methods; for -not merely are the secular plays more numerous—they are also mostly -earlier than the _autos_, whose real defects are a lack of dramatic -interest, an appeal to a taste so local and so temporary that they are -now as extinct in Spain as are masques in England. Still the passing -fashions which produced _Comus_ in the north, and the _Encantos de la -Culpa_ or the _Cena de Baltasar_ in the south, are justified to all -lovers of great poetry. The _autos_ lingered on the stage till 1765, -but their genuine inspiration ended with Calderón, who, in all but a -literal sense, may be held for their creator. - -Lope de Vega is the greatest of Spanish dramatists; Calderón is amongst -those who most nearly approach him. Lope incarnates the genius of a -nation; Calderón expresses the genius of an age. He is a Spaniard to -the marrow, but a Spaniard of the seventeenth century—a courtier -with a turn for _culteranismo_, averse from the picaresque contrasts -which lend variety to Lope's scene and to Tirso's. His interpretation -of existence is so idealised that his stage becomes in some sort the -apotheosis of his century. His characters are not so much men and -women, as allegorical types of men and women as Calderón conceived -them. It is not real life that he reveals, for he regarded realism as -ignoble and unclean: he offers in its place a brilliant pageant of -abstract emotions. He is not a universal dramatist: he ranks with the -greatest writers for the Spanish stage, inasmuch as he is the greatest -poet using the dramatic form. And, leaving aside his anachronisms and -jumblings of mythology, he is a scrupulous artist, careful of his -literary form and of his construction. The finished execution of his -best passages is so irresistible that FitzGerald declared Isabel's -characteristic speech in the _Alcalde de Zalamea_ to be "worthy of the -Greek Antigone":—"Oh, never, never might the light of day arise and -show me to myself in my shame! O fleeting morning star, mightest thou -never yield to the dawn that even now presses on thine azure skirts! -And thou, great Orb of all, do thou stay down in the cold ocean foam; -let Night for once advance her trembling empire into thine! For once -assert thy voluntary power to hear and pity human misery and prayer, -nor hasten up to proclaim the vilest deed that Heaven, in revenge on -man, has written on his guilty annals. Alas! even as I speak, thou -liftest thy bright, inexorable face above the hills." Contrast with -this impassioned lament (a little toned down in FitzGerald's version) -the aphoristic wisdom of Pedro Crespo's counsel to his son in the same -play:—"Thou com'st of honourable if of humble stock; bear both in -mind, so as neither to be daunted from trying to rise, nor puffed up so -as to be sure to fall. How many have done away the memory of a defect -by carrying themselves modestly, while others, again, have gotten a -blemish only by being too proud of being born without one. There is a -just humility that will maintain thine own dignity, and yet make thee -insensible to many a rub that galls the proud spirit. Be courteous in -thy manner, and liberal of thy purse; for 'tis the hand to the bonnet, -and in the pocket, that makes friends in this world, of which to gain -one good, all the gold the sun breeds in India, or the universal sea -sucks down, were a cheap purchase. Speak no evil of women; I tell thee -the meanest of them deserves our respect; for of women do we not all -come? Quarrel with no one but with good cause.... I trust in God to -live to see thee home again with honour and advancement on thy back." - -Had Calderón always maintained this level, he would be classed with -the first masters of all ages and all countries. His blood, his -faith, his environment were limitations which prevented his becoming -a world-poet; his majesty, his devout lyrism, his decorative fantasy -suffice to place him in the foremost file of national poets. But he -was not so national that foreign adaptors left him untouched: thus -D'Ouville annexed the _Dama Duende_ under the title of _L'Esprit -follet_, which reappears as Killigrew's _Parson's Wedding_; thus -Dryden's _Evening's Love_ is Calderón done from Corneille's French; -thus Wycherley's _Gentleman Dancing Master_ derives from _El Maestro de -danzar_. Yet, though Calderón's plots may be conveyed, his substance -cannot be denationalised, being, as he is, the sublimest Catholic -poet, as Catholicism and poetry were understood by the Spaniards of -the seventeenth century: a local genius of intensely local savour, -exercising his dramatic in local forms. - -Archbishop Trench has suggested that in the three great theatres of the -world the best period covers little more than a century, and he proves -his thesis by a reference to dates. Æschylus was born B.C. 525, and -Euripides died B.C. 406: Marlowe was born in 1564, and Shirley died in -1666: Lope was born in 1562, and Calderón died in 1681. With Calderón -the heroic age of the Spanish theatre reached a splendid close. -He chanced to outlive his Toledan contemporary, FRANCISCO DE ROJAS -ZORRILLA (1607-? 1661), from whose _Traición busca el Castigo_ Le Sage -has arranged his _Traître puni_, and Vanbrugh his _False Friend_. A -courtly poet, and a Commander of the Order of Santiago, Rojas Zorrilla -collaborated with fashionable writers like Vélez de Guevara, Mira de -Amescua, and Calderón, of whom he is accounted a disciple, though his -one great tragedy has real individual power. His two volumes of plays -(1640, 1645) reveal him as a most ingenious dramatist, who carries -the "point of honour" further than Calderón in his best known play, -_Del Rey abajo ninguno_, a characteristically Spanish piece. García -de Castañar, apparently a peasant living near Toledo, subscribes so -generously to the funds for the expedition to Algeciras that King -Alfonso XI. resolves to visit him in disguise. García gets wind of -this, and receives his guests honourably, mistaking Mendo for Alfonso. -Mendo conceives a passion for Blanca, García's wife, and is discovered -by the husband at Blanca's door. As the King is inviolate for a -subject, García resolves to slay Blanca, who escapes to court. García -is summoned by the King, finds his mistake, settles matters by slaying -Mendo in the palace, and explains to his sovereign (and his audience) -that _none under the King_ can affront him with impunity. Rojas -Zorrilla's style occasionally inclines to _culteranismo_; but this is -an obvious concession to popular taste, his true manner being direct -and energetic. His clever construction and witty dialogue are best -studied in _Lo que son Mujeres_ (What Women are) and in _Entre Bobos -anda el Juego_ (The Boobies' Sport). - -A very notable talent is that of AGUSTÍN MORETO Y CAVAÑA (1618-69), -whose popularity as a writer of cloak-and-sword plays is only less than -Lope's. In 1639 Moreto graduated as a licentiate in arts at Alcalá de -Henares. Thence he made his way to Madrid, where he found a protector -in Calderón. He published a volume of plays in 1654, and is believed to -have taken orders three years later. Moreto is not a great inventor, -but so far as concerns stagecraft he is above all contemporaries. In -_El Desdén con el Desdén_ (Scorn for Scorn) he borrows Lope's _Milagros -del Desprecio_ (Scorn works Wonders), and it is fair to say that the -_rifacimento_ excels the original at every point. Diana, daughter of -the Conde de Barcelona, mocks at marriage: her father surrounds her -with the neighbouring gallants, among whom is the Conde de Urgel. -Urgel's affected coolness piques the lady into a resolve to captivate -him, and she so far succeeds as to lead him to avow his love for her: -he escapes rejection by feigning that his declaration was a jest, -and the dramatic solution is brought about by Diana's surrender. The -plot is ordered with consummate skill, the dialogue is of the gayest -humour, the characters more life-like than any but Alarcón's; and -as evidence of the playwright's tact, it is enough to say that when -Molière, in his _Princesse d'Élide_, strove to repeat Moreto's exploit -he met with ignominious disaster. In the delicacy of touch with which -Moreto handles a humorous situation he is almost unrivalled; and in the -broader spirit of farce, his _graciosos_—comic characters, generally -body-servants to the heroes—are admirable for natural force and for -gusts of spontaneous wit. In _El lindo Don Diego_ he has fixed the type -of the fop convinced that he is irresistible, and the presentation -of fatuity which leads Don Diego into marriage with a serving-wench -(whom he mistakes for a countess) is among the few masterpieces of high -comedy. Moreto's historical plays are of less universal interest; in -this kind, _El Rico Hombre de Alcalá_ is a powerful and sympathetic -picture of Pedro the Cruel—the strong man doing justice on the noble, -Tello García—from the standpoint of the Spanish populace, which -has ever respected _el Rey justiciero_. In his later years Moreto -betook him to the _comedia devota_; his _San Francisco de Sena_ is -extravagantly and almost ludicrously devout, as in the scenes where -Francisco wagers his eyes, loses, is struck blind, and repents on -recovering his sight. The devout play was not Moreto's calling: in his -first and best manner, as a master of the lighter, gayer comedy, he -holds his own against all Spain. - -Among the followers of Calderón are Antonio Cuello (d. 1652), who is -reported to have collaborated with Felipe IV. in _El Conde de Essex_; -Álvaro Cubillo de Aragón (fl. 1664), whose _Perfecta Casada_ is a -good piece of work; Juan Matos Fragoso (? 1614-92), who borrowed and -plagiarised with successful audacity; but these, with many others, -are mere imitators, and the Spanish theatre declines lower and lower, -till in the hands of Carlos II.'s favourite, Francisco Antonio Bances -Candamo (1662-1704), it reaches its nadir. The last good playwright of -the classic age is ANTONIO DE SOLÍS Y RIVADENEIRA (1610-86), who, by -the accident of his long life, lends a ray of renown to the deplorable -reign of Carlos II. His dramas are excellent in construction and -phrasing, and his _Amor al uso_ was popular in France through Thomas -Corneille's adaptation. - -But his title to fame rests, not on verse, but on prose. His _Historia -de la Conquista de Méjico_ (1684) is a most distinguished performance, -even if we compare it with Mariana's. Seeing that Solís lived through -the worst periods of Gongorism, his style is a marvel of purity, -though a difficult critic might well condemn its cloying suavity. -Still, his work has never been displaced since its first appearance, -for it deals with a very picturesque period, is eloquent and clear, -and is almost excessively patriotic in tone and spirit. Gibbon, in his -sixty-second chapter, mentions "an Aragonese history which I have read -with pleasure"—the _Expedición de los catalanes y aragoneses contra -turcos y griegos_ by Francisco de Moncada, Conde de Osuna (1586-1635). -"He never quotes his authorities," adds Gibbon; and, in fact, Moncada -mostly translates from Ramón Muntaner's Catalan _Crónica_, though he -translates in excellent fashion. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo (1584-1648) -writes with force and ease in his uncritical _Corona Gótica_, and in -his more interesting literary review, the _República literaria_; his -freedom from Gongorism is explained by the fact that he passed most -of his life out of Spain. The Portuguese, FRANCISCO MANUEL DE MELO -(1611-66), is ill represented by his _Historia de los Movimientos, -Separación y Guerra de Cataluña_ (1645), where he is given over to both -Gongorism and _conceptismo_: in his native tongue—as in his _Apologos -Dialogaes_—he writes with simplicity, strength, and wit. Melo's life -was unlucky: when he was not being shipwrecked, he was in jail on -suspicion of being a murderer; and being out of jail, he was exiled -to Brazil. His reward is posthumous: both Portuguese and Spaniards -hold him for a classic, and Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo even compares him to -Quevedo. - -Another man of Portuguese birth has won immortality outside of -literature; yet there is ground for thinking that DIEGO RODRÍGUEZ -DE SILVA Y VELÁZQUEZ (1599-1660) had the sense for language as for -paint. His _Memoria de las Pinturas_ (1658) exists in an unique -copy published at Rome under the name of his pupil, Juan de Alfaro, -though its substance is unscrupulously embodied in Francisco de -los Santos' _Descripción Breve_ of the Escorial. Formally, it is -a catalogue; substantially, it expresses the artist's judgment on -his great predecessors. Thus, of Paolo Veronese's _Wedding Feast_ -he writes:—"There are admirable heads, and almost all of them seem -portraits. Not that of the Virgin: she has more reserve, more divinity: -though very beautiful, she corresponds fittingly to the age of Christ, -who is beside her—a point which most artists overlook, for they -paint Christ as a man, and His Mother as a girl." The great realist -speaks once more in describing Veronese's _Purification_:—"The Virgin -kneels ... holding on a white cloth the Child—naked, beautiful, and -tender—with a restlessness so suited to his age that He seems more -a piece of living flesh than something painted." And, in the same -spirit, he writes of Tintoretto's _Washing of the Feet_:—"It is hard -to believe that one is looking at a painting. Such is the truth of -colour, such the exactness of perspective, that one might think to go -in and walk on the pavement, tessellated with stones of divers colours, -which, diminishing in size, make the room seem larger, and lead you to -believe that there is atmosphere between each figure. The table, seats -(and a dog which is worked in) are truth, not paint.... Once for all, -any picture placed beside it looks like something expressed in terms of -colour, and this seems all the truer." Strangely enough, this writing -of Velázquez is ignored by most, perhaps by all, of his biographers; -yet it deserves a passing reference as a model of energetic expression -in a time when most professional men of letters were Gongorists or -_conceptistas_. - -A certain directness of style is found in Gerónimo de Alcalá Yañez y -Ribera's _Alonso, Mozo de muchos Amos_ (1625), in Alonso de Castillo -Solórzano's _Garduña de Seville_ (the Seville Weasel, 1634), in the -_Siglo Pitagórico_ (1644) of the Segovian Jew, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, -and in the half-true, half-invented _Vida y Hechos de Estebanillo -González_ (1646)—all picaresque tales, clever, amusing, and -improper, on the approved pattern. But the pest of preciosity spread -to fiction, is conspicuous in the _Español Gerardo_ of Gonzalo de -Céspedes y Meneses, and steadily degenerates till it becomes arrant -nonsense in the _Varios Efectos de Amor_ (1641) of Alonso de Alcalá y -Herrera—five stories, in each of which one of the vowels is omitted. -Alcalá, however, had neither talent nor influence. The Aragonese -Jesuit, BALTASAR GRACIÁN (1601-58), had both, and his vogue is proved -by numerous editions, by translations, by such references as that -in the _Entretiens_ of Bouhours, who proclaims him "_le sublime_." -Addison thrice mentions him with respect in the _Spectator_, and it -is suggested that Rycaut's rendering of the _Criticón_ may have given -Defoe the idea of Man Friday. In the present century Schopenhauer vowed -that the _Criticón_ was "one of the best books in the world," and Sir -Mountstuart Grant Duff, taking his cue from Schopenhauer, has extolled -Gracián with some vehemence. - -Gracián seems to have been indifferent to popularity, and his works, -published somewhat against his will by his friend, Vincencio Juan de -Lastanosa, were mostly issued under the name of Lorenzo Gracián. His -first work was _El Héroe_ (1630), an ideal rendering of the Happy -Warrior, as _El Discreto_ (1647) is the ideal of the Politic Courtier; -more important than either is the _Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio_ (1642), -a _conceptista_ Art of Rhetoric, of singular learning, subtlety, and -catholic taste. The three parts of the _Criticón_, which appeared -between 1650 and 1653, correspond to "the spring of childhood," "the -summer of youth," and "the autumn of manhood." In this allegory of life -the shipwrecked Critilo meets the wild man Andrenio, who finally learns -Spanish and reveals his soul to Critilo, whom he accompanies to Spain, -where he communes with both allegorical figures and real personages -on all manner of philosophic questions. The general tone of the -_Criticón_ goes far towards explaining Schopenhauer's admiration; for -the Spaniard is no less a woman-hater, is no less bitter, sarcastic, -denunciatory, and pessimistic than the German. Gracián, to use his own -phrase, "flaunts his unhappiness as a trophy" in phrases whose laboured -ingenuity begins by impressing, and ends by fatiguing, the reader. - -It is difficult to believe that Gracián's attitude towards life is more -than a pose; but the pose is dignified, and he puts the pessimistic -case with vigour and skill. His _Oráculo Manual ó Arte de Prudencia_ -(1653), a reduction of his gospel to the form of maxims, has found -admirers (and even an excellent translator in the person of Mr. -Joseph Jacobs). The reflection is always acute, and seems at whiles -to anticipate the thought of La Rochefoucauld—doubtless because -both drew from common sources; but though the doctrine and spirit -be almost identical, Gracián nowhere approaches La Rochefoucauld's -metallic brilliancy and concise perfection. He is not content to -deliver his maxim, and have done with it: he adds—so to say—elaborate -postscripts and epigrammatic amplifications, which debase the maxim -to a platitude. Mr. John Morley's remark, that "some of his aphorisms -give a neat turn to a commonplace," is scarcely too severe. Yet one -cannot choose but think that Gracián was superior to his work. He had -it in him to be as good a writer as he was a keen observer, and in -many passages, when he casts his affectations from him, his expression -is as lucid and as strong as may be; but he would posture, would be -paradoxical to avoid being trite, would bewilder with his conceit and -learning, would try to pack more meaning into words than words will -carry. No man ever wrote with more care and scruple, with more ambition -to excel according to the formulæ of a fashionable school, with more -scorn for Gongorism and all its work. Still, though he avoided the -offence of obscure language, he sinned most grievously by obscurity of -thought, and he is now forgotten by all but students, who look upon him -as a chief among the wrong-headed, misguided _conceptistas_. - -A last faint breath of mysticism is found in the _Tratado de la -Hermosura de Dios_ (1641) by the Jesuit, Juan Eusebio Nieremberg -(1590-1658), whose prose, though elegant and relatively pure, lacks the -majesty of Luis de León's and the persuasiveness of Granada's. More -familiar in style, the letters of Felipe IV.'s friend, María Coronel -y Arana (1602-65), known in religion as Sor MARÍA DE JESÚS DE ÁGREDA, -may still be read with pleasure. Professed at sixteen, she was elected -abbess of her convent at twenty-five, and her _Mística Ciudad de Dios_ -has gone through innumerable editions in almost all languages; her -_Correspondencia con Felipe IV._ extends over twenty-two years, from -1643 onwards, and is as remarkable for its profound piety as for its -sound appreciation of public affairs. The common interest of King and -nun began with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which both -desired to have defined as an article of faith; domestic and foreign -politics come under discussion later, and it soon becomes plain that -the nun is the man. While Felipe IV. weakly laments that "the Cortes -are seeking places, taking no more notice of the insurrection than -if the enemy were at the Philippines," Sor María de Jesús strives to -steady him, to lend him something of her own strong will, by urging -him to "be a King," "to do his duty." There is a curious reference to -the passing of Cromwell—"the enemy of our faith and kingdom, the only -person whose death I ever desired, or ever prayed to God for." Her -practical advice fell on deaf ears, and when she died, no man seemed -left in Spain to realise that the country was slowly bleeding to death, -becoming a cypher in politics, in art, in letters. - -One single ecclesiastic rises above his fellows during the ruinous -reign of Carlos the Bewitched, and his renown is greater out of Spain -than in it. MIGUEL DE MOLINOS (1627-97), the founder of Quietism, was a -native of Muniesa, near Zaragoza; was educated by the Jesuits; and held -a living at Valencia. He journeyed to Rome in 1665, won vast esteem as -a confessor, and there, in 1675, published his famous _Spiritual Guide_ -in Italian. Mr. Shorthouse, an English apostle of Quietism, mentions a -Spanish rendering which "won such popularity in his native country that -some are still found who declare that the Spanish version is earlier -than the Italian." It is almost certain that Molinos wrote in Spanish, -and to judge by the translations, he must have written with admirable -force. But, as a matter of fact, no Spanish version was ever popular -in Spain, for the reason that none has ever existed. This is not the -place to discuss the personal character of Molinos, who stands accused -of grave crimes; nor to weigh the value of his teaching, nor to follow -its importation into France by Mme. de la Mothe Guyon; nor to look into -the controversy which wrecked Fénelon's career. Still it should be -noted as characteristic of Carlos II.'s reign, that a book by one of -his subjects was influencing all Europe without any man in Spain being -aware of it. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[26] According to Lope de Vega, the word _culteranismo_ was invented by -Jiménez Patón, Villamediana's tutor. - -[27] See M. Farinelli's learned study, _Don Giovanni: Note critiche_ -(Torino, 1896), pp. 37-39. - -[28] Cp. Mr. Norman MacColl's _Select Plays of Calderón_ (London, -1888), pp. xxvi.-xxx., and Gallardo's _Ensayo de una Biblioteca -Española_ (Madrid, 1866), vol. ii. col. 367, 368. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - THE AGE OF THE BOURBONS - - 1700-1808 - - -Letters, arts, and even rational politics, practically died in Spain -during the reign of Carlos II. Good work was done in serious branches -of study: in history by Gaspar Ibáñez de Segovia Peralta y Mendoza, -Marqués de Mondéjar; in bibliography by Nicolás Antonio; in law by -Francisco Ramos del Manzano; in mathematics by Hugo de Omerique, -whose analytic gifts won the applause of Newton. But all the rest was -neglected while the King was exorcised, and was forced to swallow a -quart of holy oil as a counter-charm against the dead men's brains -given him (as it was alleged) by his mother in a cup of chocolate. Nor -did the nightmare lift with his death on November 1, 1700: the War -of the Succession lasted till the signing of the Utrecht Treaty in -1713. The new sovereign, Felipe V., grandson of Louis XIV., interested -himself in the progress of his people; and being a Frenchman of his -time, he believed in the centralisation of learning. His chief ally was -that Marqués de Villena familiar to all readers of St. Simon as the -major-domo who used his wand upon Cardinal Alberoni's skull:—"Il lève -son petit bâton et le laisse tomber de toute sa force dru et menu sur -les oreilles du cardinal, en l'appelant petit coquin, petit faquin, -petit impudent qui ne méritoit que les étrivières." But even St. Simon -admits Villena's rare qualities:—"Il savoit beaucoup, et il étoit -de toute sa vie en commerce avec la plupart de tous les savants des -divers pays de l'Europe.... C'était un homme bon, doux, honnête, sensé -... enfin l'honneur, la probité, la valeur, la vertu même." In 1711 -the Biblioteca Nacional was founded; in 1714 the Spanish Academy of -the Language was established, with Villena as "director," and soon set -to earnest work. The only good lexicon published since Nebrija's was -Sebastián de Covarrubias y Horozco's _Tesoro de la Lengua castellana_ -(1611): under Villena's guidance the Academy issued the six folios -of its Dictionary, commonly called the _Diccionario de Autoridades_ -(1726-39). Accustomed to his Littré, his Grimm, to the scientific -methods of MM. Arsène Darmesteter, Hatzfeld, and Thomas, and to that -monumental work now publishing at the Clarendon Press, the modern -student is too prone to dwell on the defects—manifest enough—of the -Spanish Academy's Dictionary. Yet it was vastly better than any other -then existing in Europe, is still of unique value to scholars, and was -so much too good for its age that, in 1780, it was cut down to one poor -volume. The foundation of the Academy of History, under Agustín de -Montiano, in 1738, is another symptom of French authority. - -Mr. Gosse and Dr. Garnett, in previous volumes of the present series, -have justly emphasised the predominance of French methods both in -English and Italian literature during the eighteenth century. In -Germany the French sympathies of Frederick the Great and of Wieland -were to be no less obvious. Sooner or later, it was inevitable that -Spain should undergo the French influence; yet, though the French -nationality of the King is a factor to be taken into account, his -share in the literary revolution is too often exaggerated. Long before -Felipe V. was born Spaniards had begun to interest themselves in -French literature. Thus Quevedo, who translated the _Introduction à -la Vie Dévote_ of St. François de Sales, showed himself familiar with -the writings of a certain Miguel de Montaña, more recognisable as -Michel de Montaigne. Juan Bautista Diamante, apparently ignorant of -Guillén de Castro's play, translated Corneille's _Cid_ under the title -of _El Honrador de su padre_ (1658); and in March 1680 an anonymous -arrangement of the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ was given at the Buen Retiro -under the title of _El Labrador Gentilhombre_. Still more significant -is an incident recalled by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo: the staging of -Corneille's _Rodogune_ and Molière's _Les Femmes Savantes_ at Lima, -about the year 1710, in Castilian versions, made by Pedro de Peralta -Barnuevo. Compared with this, the Madrid translations of Corneille's -_Cinna_ and of Racine's _Iphigénie_, by Francisco de Pizarro y -Piccolomini, Marqués de San Juan (1713), and by José de Cañizares -(1716), are of small moment. The latter performances may very well have -been due in great part to the personal influence of the celebrated -Madame des Ursins, an active French agent at the Spanish court. - -Readers curious as to the Spanish poets of the eighteenth century -may turn with confidence to the masterly and exhaustive _Historia -Crítica_ of the Marqués de Valmar. Their number may be inferred from -this detail: that more than one hundred and fifty competed at a poetic -joust held in honour of St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Stanislaus -Kostka in 1727. But none of all the tribe is of real importance. It -is enough to mention the names of Juan José de Salazar y Hontiveros, -a priestly copromaniac, like his contemporary, Swift; of José León y -Mansilla, who wrote a third _Soledad_ in continuation of Góngora; and -of Sor María del Cielo, a mild practitioner in lyrical mysticism. A -little later there follow Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo, a representative -_conceptista_; Eugenio Gerardo Lobo, a romantic soldier with a craze -for versifying; Diego de Torres y Villarroel, an encyclopædic professor -at Salamanca, who, half-knowing everything from the cedar by Lebanon -to the hyssop that groweth on the wall, showed critical insight by the -contempt in which he held his own rhymes. The Carmelite, Fray Juan de -la Concepción, a Gongorist of the straitest sect, was the idol of his -generation, and proved his quality, when he was elected to the Academy -in 1744, by returning thanks in a rhymed speech: an innovation which -scandalised his brethren, and has never been repeated. - -A head and shoulders over these rises the figure of IGNACIO DE LUZÁN -CLARAMUNT DE SUELVES Y GURREA (1702-54), who, spending his youth in -Italy, was—so it is believed—a pupil of Giovanni Battista Vico at -Naples, where he remained during eighteen years. For his century, -Luzán's equipment was considerable. His Greek and Latin were of the -best; Italian was almost his native tongue; he read Descartes and -epitomised the Port-Royal treatise on logic; he was versed in German, -and, meeting with _Paradise Lost_—probably during his residence as -Secretary to the Embassy in Paris (1747-50)—he first revealed Milton -to Spain by translating select passages into prose. His verses, -original and translated, are insignificant, though, as an instance of -his French taste, his version of Lachaussée's _Préjugé à la Mode_ is -worthy of notice: not so the four books of his _Poética_ (1737). So -early as 1728, Luzán prepared six _Ragionamenti sopra la poesia_ for -the Palermo Academy, and on his return to Spain in 1733 he re-arranged -his treatise in Castilian. The _Poética_ avowedly aims at "subjecting -Spanish verse to the rules which obtain among cultured nations"; and -though its basis is Lodovico Muratori's _Della perfetta poesia_, with -suggestions borrowed from Vincenzo Gravina and Giovanni Crescimbeni, -the general drift of Luzán's teaching coincides with that of French -doctrinaires like Rapin, Boileau, and Le Bossu. It seems probable that -his views became more and more French with time, for the posthumous -reprint of the _Poética_ (1789) shows an increase of anti-national -spirit; but on this point it is hard to judge, inasmuch as his pupil -and editor, Eugenio de Llaguno y Amírola (a strong French partisan, who -translated Racine's _Athalie_ in 1754), is suspected of tampering with -this text, as he adulterated that of Díaz Gámez' _Crónica del Conde de -Buelna_. - -Luzán's destructive criticisms are always acute, and are generally -just. Lope is for him a genius of amazing force and variety, while -Calderón is a singer of exquisite music. With this ingratiating -prelude, he has no difficulty in exposing their most obvious defects, -and his attack on Gongorism is delivered with great spirit. It is in -construction that he fails: as when he avers that the ends of poetry -and moral philosophy are identical, that Homer was a didactic poet -expounding political and transcendental truths to the vulgar, that -epics exist for the instruction of monarchs and military chiefs, that -the period of a play's action should correspond precisely with the time -that the play takes in acting. Luzán's rigorous logic ends by reducing -to absurdity the didactic theories of the eighteenth century; yet, for -all his logic, he had a genuine love of poetry, which induced him -to neglect his abstract rules. It is true that he scarcely utters a -proposition which is not contradicted by implication in other parts -of his treatise. Nevertheless, his book has both a literary and an -historic value. Written in excellent style and temper, with innumerable -parallels from many literatures, the _Poética_ served as a manifesto -which summoned Spain to fall into line with academic Europe; and Spain, -among the least academic because among the most original of countries, -ended by obeying. Her old inspiration had passed away with her wide -dominion, and Luzán deserves credit for lending her a new opportune -impulse. - -He was not to win without a battle. The official licensers, -Manuel Gallinero and Miguel Navarro, took public objection to the -retrospective application of his doctrines, and a louder note of -opposition was sounded in a famous quarterly, the _Diario de los -Literatos de España_, founded in 1737 by Juan Martínez Salafranca and -Leopoldo Gerónimo Puig. Though the _Diario_ was patronised by Felipe -V., though its judgments are now universally accepted, it came before -its time: the bad authors whom it victimised combined against it, and, -as the public remained indifferent, the review was soon suspended. -Even among the contributors to the _Diario_, Luzán found an ally in -the person of the clerical lawyer, JOSÉ GERARDO DE HERVÁS Y COBO DE -LA TORRE (d. 1742), author of the popular _Sátira contra los malos -Escritores de su Tiempo_. Hervás, who took the pseudonym of Jorge -Pitillas, wrote with boldness, with critical sense, with an ease and -point and grace which engraved his verse upon the general memory; so -that to this day many of his lines are as familiar to Spaniards as -are Pope's to Englishmen. They err who hold with Ticknor that Hervás -imitated Persius and Juvenal: in style and doctrine his immediate -model was Boileau, whom he adapts with rare skill, and without any -acknowledgment. He carries a step further the French doctrines, -insinuated rather than proclaimed in the _Poética_, and, though he was -not an avowed propagandist, his sarcastic epigrams perhaps did more -than any formal treatise to popularise the new doctrines. - -A reformer on the same lines was the Benedictine, BENITO GERÓNIMO -FEIJÓO Y MONTENEGRO (1675-1764), whose _Teatro crítico_ and _Cartas -eruditas y curiosas_ were as successful in Spain as were the _Tatler_ -and _Spectator_ in England. Feijóo's style is laced with Gallicisms, -and his vain, insolent airs of infallibility are antipathetic; yet -though his admirers have made him ridiculous by calling him "the -Spanish Voltaire," his intellectual curiosity, his cautious scepticism, -his lucid intelligence, his fine scent for a superstitious fallacy, -place him among the best writers of his age. A happy instance of his -skill in exposing a paradox is his indictment of Rousseau's _Discours -sur les Sciences et les Arts_. His rancorous tongue raised up crowds -of enemies, who scrupled not to circulate vague rumours as to his -heretical tendencies: in fact, his orthodoxy was as unimpeachable as -were the services which he rendered to his country's enlightenment. -His cause, and the cause of learning generally, were championed -by the Galician, Pedro José García y Balboa, best known as MARTÍN -SARMIENTO (1695-1772), the name which he bore in the Benedictine order. -Sarmiento's erudition is at least equal to Feijóo's, and his industry -is matched by the variety of his interests. As a botanist he won the -admiration and friendship of Linné; Feijóo's _Teatro crítico_ owes -much to his unselfish supervision; yet, while his name was esteemed -throughout Europe, he shrank from domestic criticism, and withheld his -miscellaneous works from the press. He owes his place in literature -to his posthumous _Memorias para la historia de la Poesía y Poetas -españoles_, which, despite its excessive local patriotism, is not only -remarkable for its shrewd insight, but forms the point of departure -for all later studies. Not less useful was the life's work of GREGORIO -MAYÁNS Y SISCAR (1699-1781), who was the first to print Juan de Valdés' -_Diálogo de la Lengua_, who was the first biographer of Cervantes, and -who edited Luis Vives, Luis de León, Mondéjar, and others. Though much -of Mayáns' writing has grown obsolete in its methods, he is honourably -remembered as a pioneer, and his _Orígenes de la Lengua castellana_ is -full of wise suggestion and acute divination. - -Prominent among Luzán's followers in the self-constituted Academia -del Buen Gusto is BLAS ANTONIO NASARRE Y FÉRRIZ (1689-1751), an -industrious, learned polygraph who carried party spirit so far as to -reproduce Avellaneda's spurious _Don Quixote_ (1732), on the specific -ground that it was in every way superior to the genuine sequel. -Cervantes, indeed, was an object of pitying contempt to Nasarre, who, -when he reprinted Cervantes' plays in 1749, contended that they not -only were the worst ever written, but that they were a heap of follies -deliberately invented to burlesque Lope de Vega's theatre. Of the same -school is Lope's merciless foe, AGUSTÍN MONTIANO Y LUYANDO (1697-1765), -author of two poor tragedies, the _Virginia_ and the _Ataulfo_, -models of dull academic correctness. Yet he found an illustrious -admirer in the person of Lessing, who, by his panegyric on Montiano -in the _Theatralische Bibliotek_, remains as a standing example of -the fallibility of the greatest critics when they pronounce judgment -on foreign literatures. Even more exaggerated than Montiano was the -Marqués de Valdeflores, LUIS JOSÉ VELÁZQUEZ DE VELASCO (1722-72), -whom we have already seen ascribing Torre's poems to Quevedo, an -error almost sufficient to ruin any reputation. Velázquez expressed -his general literary views in his _Orígenes de la Poesía castellana_ -(1749), which found an enthusiastic translator in Johann Andreas Dieze, -of Göttingen. Velázquez develops and emphasises the teaching of his -predecessors, denounces the dramatic follies of Lope and Calderón, and -even goes so far as to regret that Nasarre should waste his powder -on two common, discredited fellows like Lope and Cervantes. It is -impossible for us here to record the polemics in which Luzán's teaching -was supported or combated; defective as it was, it had at least the -merit of rousing Spain from her intellectual torpor. - -Some effect of the new criticism is seen in the works of the Jesuit, -JOSÉ FRANCISCO DE ISLA (1703-81), whose finer humour is displayed in -his _Triunfo del Amor y de la Lealtad_ (1746), which professes to -describe the proclamation at Pamplona of Ferdinand VI.'s accession. -The author was officially thanked by Council and Chapter, and some -expressed by gifts their gratitude for his handsome treatment. As -Basques joke with difficulty, it was not until two months later that -the _Triunfo_ (which bears the alternative title of _A Great Day for -Navarre_) was suspected to be a burlesque of the proceedings and all -concerned in them. Isla kept his countenance while he assured his -victims of his entire good faith; the latter, however, expressed -their slow-witted indignation in print, and brought such pressure to -bear that the lively Jesuit—who kept up the farce of denial till the -last day of his life—was removed from Pamplona by his superiors. -The incorrigible wag departed to become a fashionable preacher; but -his sense of humour accompanied him to church, and was displayed at -the cost of his brethren. Paravicino, as we have already observed, -introduced Gongorism into the pulpit, and his lead was followed by -men of lesser faculty, who reproduced "the contortions of the Sibyl -without her inspiration." By degrees preaching almost grew to be a -synonym for buffoonery, and by the middle of the eighteenth century -it was as often as not an occasion for the vulgar profanity which -pleases devout illiterates. It is impossible to cite here the worst -excesses; it is enough to note that a "cultured" congregation applauded -a preacher who dared to speak of "the divine Adonis, Christ, enamoured -of that singular Psyche, Mary!" Bishops in their pastorals, monks -like Feijóo in his _Cartas eruditas_, and laymen like Mayáns in his -_Orador Cristiano_ (1733), strove ineffectually to reform the abuse: -where exhortation failed, satire succeeded. Isla had witnessed these -pulpit extravagances at first hand, and his six quarto volumes of -sermons—none of them inspiring to read, however impressive when -delivered—show that he himself had begun by yielding to a mode from -which his good sense soon freed him. - -His _Historia del famoso Predicador Fray Gerundio de Campazas, alias -Zotes_ (1758), published by Isla under the name of his friend, -Francisco Lobón de Salazar, parish priest of Aguilar and Villagarcía -del Campo, is an attempt to do for pulpit profanity what _Don Quixote_ -had done for chivalresque extravagances. It purports to be the story -of a peasant-boy, Gerundio, with a natural faculty for clap-trap, which -leads him to take orders, and gains for him no small consideration. A -passage from the sermon which decided Gerundio's childish vocation may -be quoted as typical:—"Fire, fire, fire! the house is a-flame! _Domus -mea, domus orationis vocabitur_. Now, sacristan, peal those resounding -bells: _in cymbalis bene sonantibus_. That's the style: as the -judicious Picinelus observed, a death-knell and a fire-tocsin are just -the same. _Lazarus amicus noster dormit_. Water, sirs, water! the earth -is consumed—_quis dabit capiti meo aquam_.... Stay! what do I behold? -Christians, alas! the souls of the faithful are a-fire!—_fidelium -animæ_. Molten pitch feeds the hungry flames like tinder: _requiescat -in pace, id est, in pice_, as Vetablus puts it. How God's fire devours! -_ignis a Deo illatus_. Tidings of great joy! the Virgin of Mount Carmel -descends to save those who wore her holy scapular: _scapulis suis_. -Christ says: 'Help in the King's name!' The Virgin pronounceth: 'Grace -be with me!' _Ave Maria._" And so forth at much length. - -Isla fails in his attempt to solder fast impossibilities, to amalgamate -rhetorical doctrine with farcical burlesque; nor has his book the -saving quality of style. Still, though it be too long drawn out, it -abounds with an emphatic, violent humour which is almost irresistible -at a first reading. The Second Part, published in 1770, is a work of -supererogation. The First caused a furious controversy in which the -regulars combined to throw mud at the Jesuits with such effect that, in -1760, the Holy Office intervened, confiscated the volume, and forbade -all argument for or against it. Ridicule, however, did its work in -surreptitious copies; so that when the author was expelled from Spain -with the rest of his order in 1765, Fray Gerundio and his like were -reformed characters. In 1787 Isla translated _Gil Blas_, under the -impression that he was "restoring the book to its native land." The -suggestion that Le Sage merely plagiarised a Spanish original is due in -the first place to Voltaire, who made it, for spiteful reasons of his -own, in the famous _Siècle de Louis XIV._ (1751). As some fifteen or -twenty episodes are unquestionably borrowed from Espinel and others, it -was not unnatural that Spaniards should (rather late in the day) take -Voltaire at his word; none the less, the character of Gil Blas himself -is as purely French as may be, and Le Sage vindicates his originality -by his distinguished treatment of borrowed matter. Isla's version is -a sound, if unnecessary, piece of work, spoiled by the inclusion of a -worthless sequel due to the Italian, Giulio Monti. - -The action of French tradition is visible in NICOLÁS FERNÁNDEZ DE -MORATÍN (1737-80), whose _Hormesinda_ (1770), a dramatic exercise in -Racine's manner, too highly rated by literary friends, was condemned -by the public. His prose dissertations consist of invectives against -Lope and Calderón, and of eulogies on Luzán's cold verse. These are -all forgotten, and Moratín, who remained a good patriot, despite his -efforts to Gallicise himself, survives at his best in his brilliant -panegyric on bull-fighting—the _Fiesta de Toros en Madrid_—whose -spirited _quintillas_, modelled after Lope's example, are in every -Spaniard's memory. - -Moratín's friend, JOSÉ DE CADALSO Y VÁZQUEZ (1741-1782), a colonel -in the Bourbon Regiment, after passing most of his youth in Paris, -travelled through England, Germany, and Italy, returning as free from -national prejudices as a young man can hope to be. A certain elevation -of character and personal charm made him a force among his intimates, -and even impressed strangers; as we may judge by the fact that, when he -was killed at the siege of Gibraltar, the English army wore mourning -for him. His more catholic taste avoided the exaggerations of Nasarre -and Moratín; he found praise for the national theatre, and many of -his verses imply close study of Villegas and Quevedo. Even so, his -attachment to the old school was purely theoretical. His knowledge of -English led him to translate in verse—as Luzán had already translated -in prose—passages from _Paradise Lost_; his sepulchral _Noches -Lúgubres_, written upon the death of his mistress, the actress María -Ignacia Ibáñez, are plainly inspired by Young's _Night Thoughts_; his -_Cartas Marruecas_ derive from the _Lettres Persanes_; his tragedy, -_Don Sancho García_, an attempt to put in practice the canons of the -French drama, transplants to Spain the rhymed couplets of the Parisian -stage. The best example of Cadalso's cultivated talent is his poem -entitled _Eruditos á la Violeta_, wherein he satirises pretentious -scholarship with a light, firm touch. In curious contrast with -Cadalso's _Don Sancho García_ is the _Raquel_ (1778) of his friend -VICENTE ANTONIO GARCÍA DE LA HUERTA Y MUÑOZ (1734-87), whose troubles -would seem to have affected his brain. Though Huerta brands Corneille -and Racine as a pair of lunatics, he is a strait observer of the sacred -"unities": in all other respects—in theme, monarchical sentiment, -sonority of versification—_Raquel_ is a return upon the ancient -classic models. Its disfavour among foreign critics is inexplicable, -for no contemporary drama equals it in national savour. Huerta's -good intention exceeds his performance in the _Theatro Hespañol_, a -collection (in seventeen volumes) of national plays, arranged without -much taste or knowledge. - -This involved him in a bitter controversy, which probably shortened -his life. Prominent among his enemies was the Basque, FÉLIX MARÍA DE -SAMANIEGO (1745-1801), whose early education was entirely French, -and who regarded Lope much as Voltaire regarded Shakespeare. Though -Huerta's intemperance lost him his cause, Samaniego's real triumph was -in another field than that of controversy. His _Fábulas_ (1781-94), -mostly imitations or renderings of Phædrus, La Fontaine, and Gay, -are almost the best in their kind—simple, clear, and forcible. A -year earlier than Samaniego, the Jesuit Lasala, of Bologna, had -translated the fables of Lukmān al-Hakīm into Latin, and, in 1784, -Miguel García Asensio published a Castilian version. It does not -appear that Samaniego knew anything of Lasala, nor was he disturbed -by García Asensio's translation. Before the latter was in print, -he was annoyed at finding himself rivalled by TOMÁS DE IRIARTE Y -OROPESA (1750-91), who had begun his career as a prose translator of -Molière and Voltaire, and had charmed—or at least had drawn effusive -compliments from—Metastasio with a frigid poem, _La Música_ (1780). -In the following year Iriarte published his _Fábulas literarias_, -putting the versified apologue to doctrinal uses, censuring literary -faults, and expounding what he held to be true doctrine. He took -most pride in his plays, _El Señorito mimado_ and _La Señorita -mal criada_; yet the Spoiled Young Gentleman and the Ill-bred -Young Lady are forgotten—somewhat unjustly—by all but students, -while the wit and polish of the fables have earned their author an -excessive fame. Iriarte was, in the best sense, an "elegant" writer. -Unluckily for himself and us, much of his short life was, after the -eighteenth-century fashion, wasted in polemics with able, learned -ruffians, of whom Juan Pablo Forner (1756-97) is the most extreme type. -Forner's versified attack on Iriarte, _El Asno erudito_, is one of the -most ferocious libels ever printed. Literary men the world over are -famous for their manners: Spain is in this respect no better than her -neighbours, and the abusive personalities which form a great part of -her literary history during the last century are now the driest, most -vacant chaff imaginable. - -In pleasing contrast with these irritable mediocrities is the figure of -GASPAR MELCHOR DE JOVE-LLANOS (1744-1811), the most eminent Spaniard -of his age. Educated for the Church, Jove-Llanos turned to law, -was appointed magistrate at Seville in his twenty-fourth year, was -transferred to Madrid in 1778, became a member of the Council of Orders -in 1780, was exiled to Asturias on the fall of Cabarrús in 1790, and -seven years later was appointed Minister of Justice. The incarnation -of all that was best in the liberalism of his time, he was equally -odious to reactionaries and revolutionists. A stern moralist, he -strove to end the intrigue between the Queen and the notorious Godoy, -Prince of the Peace, and at the latter's instance was dismissed from -office in 1798. He passed the years 1801-8 a prisoner in the Balearic -Islands, returning to find Spain under the heel of France. His prose -writings, political, economic, and didactic, do not concern us here, -though their worth is admitted by good judges. Jove-Llanos is most -interesting because of his own poetic achievement, and because of his -influence on the group of Salamancan poets. His play, _El Delincuente -Honrado_ (1774), is a doctrinaire exercise in the manner of Diderot's -_Fils Naturel_; it shows considerable knowledge of dramatic effect, -and its sentimental, sincere philanthropy persuaded audiences in and -out of Spain to accept Jove-Llanos for a dramatist. At most he is a -clever playwright. Yet, though not an artist in either prose or verse, -though far from irreproachable in diction, he occasionally utters a -pure poetic note, keen and vibrating in satire, noble and austere in -that _Epistle to the Duque de Veragua_, which, by common consent, best -reflects the tranquil dignity of his temperament. - -Jove-Llanos' official position, his high ideals, his knowledge, -discernment, and wise counsel were placed at the service of JUAN -MELÉNDEZ VALDÉS (1754-1817), the chief poet of the Salamancan school, -who came under his influence in or about 1777. Jove-Llanos succeeded by -sheer force of character: Meléndez was a weather-cock at the mercy of -every breeze. A writer of erotic verses, he thought of taking orders; -a pastoral poet, he turned to philosophy by Jove-Llanos' advice; -unfortunate in his marriage, discontented with his professorship at -Salamanca, he dabbled in politics, becoming, through his friend's -patronage, a government official: and when Jove-Llanos fell, Meléndez -fell with him. It is hard to decide whether Meléndez was a rogue or -a weakling. Upon the French invasion, he began by writing verses -calling his people to arms, and ended by taking office under the -foreign government. He fawned upon Joseph Bonaparte, whom he vowed -"to love each day," and he hailed the restoration of the Spanish with -patriotic enthusiasm. Finally, the dishonoured man fled for very shame -and safety. Loving iniquity and hating justice, he died in exile at -Montpellier. - -He typifies the fluctuations of his time. His natural bent was towards -pastoralism, as his early poems, modelled on Garcilaso and on Torre, -remain to prove; he took to liberalism at Jove-Llanos' suggestion, -as he would have taken to absolutism had that been the craze of the -moment; he read Locke, Young, Turgot, and Condorcet at the instance of -his friends. "_Obra soy tuya_" ("I am thy handiwork"), he writes to -Jove-Llanos. He was ever the handiwork of the last comer: a shadow of -insincerity, of pose, is over all his verse. Yet, like his countryman -Lucan, Meléndez demonstrates the truth that a worthless creature may -be, within limits, a genuine poet. He has neither morals nor ideas; he -has fancy, ductility, clearness, music, charm, and a picturesque vision -of natural detail that have no counterpart in his period. Compared -with his brethren of the Salamancan school—with Diego Tadeo González -(1733-94), with José Iglesias de la Casa (1753-91), even with Nicasio -Álvarez de Cienfuegos (1764-1809)—Meléndez appears a veritable giant. -He was not quite that any more than they were pigmies; but he had a -spark of genius, while their faculty was no more than talent.[29] - -His one distinct failure was when he ventured on the boards with his -_Wedding Feast of Camacho_, founded on Cervantes' famous story, though -even here the pastoral passages are pleasing, if inappropriate. It is -to his credit that his theme is national, while his general dramatic -sympathies were, like those of his associates, French. Luzán and his -followers found it easier to condemn the ancient masterpieces than -to write masterpieces of their own. Their function was negative, -destructive; yet when the prohibition of _autos_ was procured in 1765 -by José Clavijo y Fajardo (1730-1806)—whose adventure with Louise -Caron, Beaumarchais' sister, gave Goethe a subject—they hoped to force -a hearing for themselves. They overlooked the fact that there already -existed a national dramatist named RAMÓN DE LA CRUZ Y CANO (1731-? -95), who had the merit of inventing a new _genre_, which, being racy -of the soil, was to the popular taste. Convention had settled it that -tragedies should present the misfortunes of emperors and dukes; that -comedies should deal with the middle class, their sentimentalities -and foibles. Cruz, a government clerk, with sufficient leisure to -compose three hundred odd plays, became in some sort the dramatist of -the needy, the disinherited, the have-nots of the street. He might -very well sympathise with them, for he was always pinched for money, -and died so destitute that his widow had not wherewith to bury him. -Beginning, like the rest of the world, with French imitations and -renderings, he turned to representing the life about him in short -farcical pieces called _sainetes_—a perfect development of the old -_pasos_. In the prologue to the ten-volume edition of his _sainetes_ -(1786-91), Cruz proclaims his own merit in a just and striking -phrase—"I write, and truth dictates to me." His gaiety, his picaresque -enjoyment, his exuberant humour, his jokes and puns and quips, lend -an extraordinary vivacity to his presentation of the most trifling -incidents. He might have been—as he began by being—a pompous prig and -bore, preaching high doctrine, and uttering the platitudes, which alone -were thought worthy of the sock and buskin. He chose the better part in -rendering what he knew and understood and saw, in amusing his public -for thirty years, and in bequeathing a thousand occasions of laughter -to the world. He wrote with a reckless, contagious humour, with a comic -_brio_ which anticipates Labiche; and, unambitious and light-hearted as -Cruz was, we may learn more of contemporary life from _El Prado por la -Noche_ and _Las Tertulias de Madrid_ than from a mountain of serious -records and chronicles. - -In the following generation LEANDRO FERNÁNDEZ DE MORATÍN (1760-1828) -won deserved repute as a playwright. His father, the author of -_Hormesinda_, made a jeweller's apprentice of the boy who, in 1779 -and 1782, won two _accesits_ from the Academy. He thus attracted the -notice of Jove-Llanos, who secured his appointment as Secretary to the -Paris Embassy in 1787. His stay in France, followed by later travels -through England, the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy, completed -his education, and obtained for him the post of official translator. -His exercises in verse are more admirable than his prose version of -_Hamlet_, which offended his academic theories in every scene. Molière, -who was his ideal, has no more faithful follower than the younger -Moratín. His translations of _L'École des Maris_ and _Le Médecin -malgré lui_ belong to his later years; but his theatre, including -those most striking pieces _El Sí de las Niñas_ (The Maids' Consent) -and _La Mojigata_ (The Hypocritical Woman), reflects the master's -humour and observation. The latter comedy (1804) brought him into -trouble with the Inquisition; the former (1806) established his fame -by its character-drawing, its graceful ingenuity, and witty dialogue. -His fortunes, which seemed assured, were wrecked by the French war. -Moratín was always timid, even in literary combats: he now proved -himself that very rare thing among Spaniards—a physical coward. He -neither dared declare for his country nor against it, and went into -hiding at Vitoria. He finally accepted the post of Royal Librarian to -Joseph Bonaparte, and when the crash came he decamped to Peñiscola. -These events turned his brain. All efforts to help him (and they were -many) proved useless. He wandered as far as Italy to escape imaginary -assassins, and finally settled in Bordeaux, where he believed himself -safe from the conspirators. _El Sí de las Niñas_ is an excellent piece -among the best, and is sufficient to persuade the most difficult reader -that Leandro Moratín was one of nature's wasted forces. He must have -won distinction in any company: in this dreary period he achieves real -eminence. - -No prose-writer of the time rises to Isla's level. His brother Jesuit, -Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735-1809), is credited by Professor Max -Müller with "one of the most brilliant discoveries in the history of -the science of language," and may be held for the father of comparative -philology; but his specimens and notices of three hundred tongues, his -grammars of forty languages, his classic _Catálogo de las lenguas de -las naciones conocidas_ (1800-5) appeal more to the specialist than to -the lover of literature. Yet in his own department there is scarcely a -more splendid name. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[29] For two singularly acute critical studies by M. E. Mérimée on -Jove-Llanos and Meléndez Valdés, see the _Revue hispanique_ (Paris, -1894). vol. i. pp. 34-68, and pp. 217-235. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - THE NINETEENTH CENTURY - - -Intellectual interaction between Spain and France is an inevitable -outcome of geographical position. To the one or to the other must -belong the headship of the Latin races; for Portugal is, so to say, -but a prolongation of Galicia, while the unity of Italy dates from -yesterday. This hegemony was long contested. During a century and a -half, fortune declared for Spain: the balance is now redressed in -France's favour. The War of the Succession, the invasion of 1808, the -expedition of 1823, the contrivance of the Spanish marriages show that -Louis XIV., Napoleon I., Charles X., and Louis-Philippe dared risk -their kingdoms rather than loosen their grip on Spain. More recent -examples are not lacking. The primary occasion of the Franco-German -War in 1870-71 was the proposal to place a Hohenzollern on the Spanish -throne, and the Parisian outburst against "Alfonso the Uhlan" was -an expression of resentment against a Spanish King who chafed under -French tutelage. Since there is no ground for believing that France -will renounce a traditional diplomacy maintained, under all forms of -government, for over two centuries, it is not rash to assume that in -the future, as in the past, intellectual development will tend to -coincide with political influence. French literary fashions affect all -Europe more or less: they affect Spain more. - -It is a striking fact that the great national poet of the War of -Independence should be indisputably French in all but patriotic -sentiment. MANUEL JOSÉ QUINTANA (1772-1857) was an offshoot of the -Salamancan school, a friend of Jove-Llanos and of Meléndez Valdés, a -follower of Raynal and Turgot and Condorcet, a "philosopher" of the -eighteenth-century model. Too much stress has, perhaps, been laid on -his French constructions, his acceptance of neologisms: a more radical -fault is his incapacity for ideas. Had he died at forty his fame would -be even greater than it is; for in his last years he did nothing but -repeat the echoes of his youth. At eighty he was still perorating on -the rights of man, as though the world were a huge Jacobin Convention, -as though he had learned and forgotten nothing during half a century -He died, as he had lived, convinced that a few changes of political -machinery would ensure a perpetual Golden Age. It is not for his _Duque -de Viseo_, a tragedy based on M. G. Lewis's _Castle Spectre_, nor by -his _Ode to Juan de Padilla_, that Quintana is remembered. The partisan -of French ideas lives by his _Call to Arms against the French_, by his -patriotic campaign against the invaders, by his prose biographies of -the Cid, the Great Captain, Pizarro, and other Spaniards of the ancient -time. We might suspect, if we did not know, Quintana's habit of writing -his first rough drafts in prose, and of translating these into verse. -Though he proclaimed himself a pupil of Meléndez, nature and love -are not his true themes, and his versification is curiously unequal. -Patriotism, politics, philanthropy are his inspirations, and these -find utterance in the lofty rhetoric of such pieces as his _Ode to -Guzmán the Good_ and the _Ode on the Invention of Printing_. Unequal, -unrestrained, never exquisite, never completely admirable for more -than a few lines at a time, Quintana's passionate pride of patriotism, -his virile temperament, his individual gift of martial music have -enabled him to express with unsurpassed fidelity one very conspicuous -aspect of his people's genius. - -Another patriotic singer is the priest, JUAN NICASIO GALLEGO -(1777-1853), who, like many political liberals, was so staunchly -conservative in literature that he condemned _Notre Dame de Paris_ in -the very spirit of an alarmed Academician. Slight as is the bulk of his -writings, Gallego's high place is ensured by his combination of extreme -finish with extreme sincerity. His elegy _On the Death of the Duquesa -de Frias_ is tremulous with the accent of profound emotion; but he is -even better known by _El Dos de Mayo_, which celebrates the historic -rising of the second of May, when the artillerymen, Jacinto Ruiz, Luis -Daoiz, and Pedro Velarte, by their refusal to surrender their three -guns and ten cartridges to the French army, gave the signal for the -general rising of the Spanish nation. His ode _Á la defensa de Buenos -Aires_, against the English, is no less distinguished for its heroic -spirit. There is a touch of irony in the fact that Gallego should be -best represented by his denunciation of the French, whom he adored, and -by his denunciation of the British, who were to assist in freeing his -country. - -Time has misused the work of FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ DE LA ROSA (1788-1862) -who at one time was held by Europe as the literary representative of -Spain. No small part of his fame was due to his prominent position in -Spanish politics; but the disdainful neglect which has overtaken him -is altogether unmerited. Not being an original genius, his lyrics are -but variations of earlier melodies: thus the _Ausencia de la patria_ -is a metrical exercise in Jorge Manrique's manner; the song which -commemorates the defence of Zaragoza is inspired by Quintana; the -elegy _On the Death of the Duquesa de Frias_, far short of Gallego's -in pathos and dignity, is redolent of Meléndez. His novel, _Doña -Isabel de Solís_, is an artless imitation of Sir Walter Scott; nor -are his declamatory tragedies, _La Viuda de Padilla_ and _Moraima_, -of perdurable value any more than his Moratinian plays, such as _Los -Celos Infundados_. Martínez de la Rosa's exile passed in Paris led him -to write the two pieces by which he is remembered: his _Conjuración de -Venecia_ (1834), and his _Aben-Humeya_ (the latter first written in -French, and first played at the Porte Saint-Martin in 1830) denote the -earliest entry into Spain of French romanticism, and are therefore of -real historic importance. Fate was rarely more freakish than in placing -this modest, timorous man at the head of a new literary movement. Still -stranger it is that his two late romantic experiments should be the -best of his manifold work. - -But he was not fitted to maintain the leadership which circumstances -had allotted to him, and romanticism found a more popular exponent in -Ángel de Saavedra, DUQUE DE RIVAS (1791-1865), the very type of the -radical noble. His exile in France and in England converted him from -a follower of Meléndez and Quintana to a sectary of Chateaubriand and -Byron. His first essays in the new vein were an admirable lyric, _Al -faro de Malta_, and _El Moro expósito_, a narrative poem undertaken -by the advice of John Hookham Frere. Brilliant passages of poetic -diction, the semi-epical presentation of picturesque national legends, -are Rivas' contribution to the new school. He went still further in -his famous play, _Don Álvaro_ (1835), an event in the history of the -modern Spanish drama corresponding to the production of _Hernani_ at -the Théâtre Français. The characters of Álvaro, of Leonor, and of her -brother Alfonso Vargas are, if not inhuman, all but titanic, and the -speeches are of such magniloquence as man never spoke. But for the -Spaniards of the third decade, Rivas was the standard-bearer of revolt, -and _Don Álvaro_, by its contempt for the unities, by its alternation -of prose with lyrism, by its amalgam of the grandiose, the comic, the -sublime, and the horrible, enchanted a generation of Spanish playgoers -surfeited with the academic drama. - -To English readers of Mr. Gladstone's essay, the Canon of Seville, JOSÉ -MARÍA BLANCO (1775-1841), is familiar by the alias of Blanco White. It -were irrelevant to record here the lamentable story of Blanco's private -life, or to follow his religious transformations from Catholicism to -Unitarianism. A sufficient idea of his poetic gifts is afforded by an -English quatorzain which has found favour with many critics:— - - "_Mysterious night! When our first parent knew - Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, - Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, - This glorious canopy of light and blue? - Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew - Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, - Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, - And lo! Creation widened in man's view. - Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed - Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find, - Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, - That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind? - Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? - If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?_" - -This is as characteristic as his _Oda á Carlos III._ or the remorseful -Castilian lines on _Resigned Desire_, penned within a year of his -death. A very similar talent was that of Blanco's friend, ALBERTO LISTA -(1775-1848), also a Canon of Seville Cathedral, a most accomplished -singer, whose golden purity of tone compensates for a deficient volume -of voice and an affected method. But, save for such a fragment of -impassioned, plangent melody as the poem _Á la Muerte de Jesús_, Lista -is less known as a poet than as a teacher of remarkable influence. His -_Lecciones de Literatura Española_ did for Spain what Lamb's _Specimens -of English Dramatic Poets_ did for England, and his personal authority -over some of the best minds of his age was almost as complete in scope -as it was gentle in exercise and excellent in effect. - -The most famous of his pupils was JOSÉ DE ESPRONCEDA (1810-42), who -came under Lista at the Colegio de San Mateo, in Madrid, where the boy, -who was in perpetual scrapes through idleness and general bad conduct, -attracted the rector's notice by his extraordinary poetic precocity. -Through good and evil report Lista held by Espronceda to the last, -and was perhaps the one person who ever persuaded him from a rash -purpose. At fourteen Espronceda joined a secret society called _Los -Numantinos_, which was supposed to work for liberty, equality, and the -rest. The young Numantine was deported to a monastery in Guadalajara, -where, on the advice of Lista (who himself contributed some forty -octaves), he began his epical essay, _El Pelayo_. Like most other boys -who have begun epics, Espronceda left his unfinished, and, though the -stanzas that remain are of a fine but unequal quality, they in no way -foreshadow the chief of the romantic school. - -Returning to Madrid, Espronceda was soon concerned in more -conspiracies, and escaped to Gibraltar, whence he passed to Lisbon. -A suggestion of the Byronic pose is found in the story (of his own -telling) that, before landing, he threw away his last two _pesetas_, -"not wishing to enter so great a town with so little money." In Lisbon -he met with that Teresa who figures so prominently in his life; but -the Government was once more on his track, and he fled to London, -where Byron's poems came upon him with the force of a revelation. In -England he found Teresa, now married, and eloped with her to Paris, -where, on the three "glorious days" of July 1830, he fought behind -the barricades. The overthrow of Charles X. put such heart into the -Spanish _emigrados_ that, under the leadership of the once famous -Chapalangarra—Joaquín de Pablo—they determined to raise all Spain -against the monarchy. The attempt failed, Chapalangarra was killed in -Navarre, and Espronceda did not return to Spain till the amnesty of -1833. He obtained a commission in the royal bodyguard, and seemed on -the road to fortune, when he was cashiered because of certain verses -read by him at a political banquet. He turned to journalism, incited -the people to insurrection by articles and speeches, held the streets -against the regular army in 1835-36, shared in the liberal triumph -of 1840, and, on the morrow of the successful revolution which he -had organised, pronounced in favour of a republic. He was appointed -Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague in 1841, returning to Spain -shortly afterwards on his election as deputy for Almería. He died -after four days of illness on May 23, 1842, in his thirty-third year, -exhausted by his stormy life. A most formidable journalist, a demagogue -of consummate address, a man-at-arms who had rather fight than not, -Espronceda might have cut out for himself a new career in politics—or -might have died upon the scaffold or at the barricades. But, so far -as concerns poetry, his work was done: an aged Espronceda is as -inconceivable as an elderly Byron, a venerable Shelley. - -Byron was the paramount influence of Espronceda's life and works. The -Conde de Toreno, a caustic politician and man of letters, who was once -asked if he had read Espronceda, replied: "Not much; but then I have -read all Byron." The taunt earned Toreno—"insolent fool with heart of -slime"—a terrific invective in the first canto of _El Diablo Mundo_:— - - "_Al necio audaz de corazón de cieno, - Á quien llaman el Conde de Toreno._" - -The gibe was ill-natured, but Espronceda's resentment goes to show -that he felt its plausibility. If Toreno meant that Espronceda, -like Heine, Musset, Leopardi, and Pushkin, took Byron for a model, -he spoke the humble truth. Like Byron, Espronceda became the centre -of a legend, and—so to say—he made up for the part. He advertised -his criminal repute with manifest gusto, and gave the world his own -portrait in the shape of pale, gloomy, splendid heroes. Don Félix de -Montemar, in _El Estudiante de Salamanca_, is Don Juan Tenorio in a -new environment—"fierce, insolent, irreligious, gallant, haughty, -quarrelsome, insult in his glance, irony on his lips, fearing naught, -trusting solely to his sword and courage." Again, in the famous -declamatory address _To Jarifa_, there is the same disillusioned view -of life, the same lust for impossible pleasures, the same picturesque -mingling of misanthropy and aspiration. Once more, the Fabio of the -fragmentary _Diablo Mundo_ is replenished with the Byronic spirit -of defiant pessimism, the Byronic intention of epical mockery. And -so throughout all his pieces the protagonist is always, and in all -essentials, José de Espronceda. - -Whether any writer—or, at all events, any but the very greatest—has -ever succeeded completely in shedding his own personality is doubtful. -Espronceda, at least, never attempted it, and consequently his dramatic -pieces—_Doña Blanca de Borbón_, for example—were foredoomed to fail. -But this very force of temperament, this very element of artistic -egotism, lends life and colour to his songs. The _Diablo Mundo_, -the _Estudiante de Salamanca_, ostensibly formed upon the models of -Goethe, and Byron, and Tirso de Molina, are utterances of individual -impressions, detached lyrics held together by the merest thread. -Scarcely a typical Spaniard in life or in art, Espronceda is, beyond -all question, the most distinguished Spanish lyrical poet of the -century. His abandonment, his attitude of revolt, his love of love and -licence—one might even say his turn for debauchery and anarchy—are -the notes of an epoch rather than the characteristics of a country; -and, in so much, he is cosmopolitan rather than national. But the -merciless observation of _El Verdugo_ (The Executioner), the idealised -conception of Elvira in _El Estudiante de Salamanca_, are strictly -representative of Quevedo's and of Calderón's tradition; while his -artificial but sympathetic rhetoric, his resonant music, his brilliant -imagery, his uncalculating vehemence, bear upon them the stamp of all -his race's faults and virtues. In this sense he speaks for Spain, and -Spain repays him by ranking him as the most inspired, if the most -unequal, of her modern singers. - -His contemporary, the Catalan, MANUEL DE CABANYES (1808-1833), died -too young to reveal the full measure of his powers, and his _Preludios -de mi lira_ (1833), though warmly praised by Torres Amat, Joaquín Roca -y Cornet, and other critics of insight, can scarcely be said to have -won appreciation. Cabanyes is essentially a poet's poet, inspired -mainly by Luis de León. His felicities are those of the accomplished -student, the expert in technicalities, the almost impeccable artist -whose hendecasyllabics, _Á Cintio_, rival those of Leopardi in their -perfect form and intense pessimism; but as his life was too brief, so -his production is too frugal and too exquisite for the general, and he -is rated by his promise rather than by his actual achievement. Milá y -Fontanals and Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo have striven to spread Cabanyes' -good report, and they have so far succeeded that his genius is now -admitted on all hands; but his chill perfection makes no appeal to the -mass of his countrymen. - -Espronceda's direct successor was JOSÉ ZORRILLA (1817-1893), whose -life's story may be read in his own _Recuerdos del tiempo viejo_ -(Old-time Memories). It was his misfortune to be concerned in politics, -for which he was unfitted, and to be pinched by continuous poverty, -which drove him in 1855 to seek his fortune in Mexico, whence he -returned empty-handed in 1866. His closing years were somewhat happier, -inasmuch as a pension of 30,000 _reales_, obtained at last by strenuous -parliamentary effort, freed him from the pressure of actual want. It -may be that it came too late, and that Zorrilla's work suffers from -his straitened circumstances; but this is difficult to believe. He -might have produced less, might have escaped the hopeless hack-work -to which he was compelled; but a finished artist he could never have -become, for, by instinct as by preference, he was an improvisatore. The -tale that (like Arthur Pendennis) he wrote verses to fit engravings -is possibly an invention; but the inventor at least knew his man, for -nothing is more intrinsically probable. - -His carelessness, his haste, his defective execution are superficial -faults which must always injure Zorrilla in the esteem of foreign -critics; yet it is certain that the charm which he has exercised over -three generations of Spaniards, and which seems likely to endure, -implies the possession of considerable powers. And Zorrilla had three -essential qualities in no common degree: national spirit, dramatic -insight, and lyrical spontaneity. He is an inferior Sir Walter, with -an added knowledge of the theatre, to which Scott made no pretence. -His _Leyenda de Alhamar_, his _Granada_, his _Leyenda del Cid_ were -popular for the same reason that _Marmion_ and the _Lady of the Lake_ -were popular: for their revival of national legends in a form both -simple and picturesque. The fate that overcame Sir Walter's poems seems -to threaten Zorrilla's. Both are read for the sake of the subject, -for the brilliant colouring of episodes, more than for the beauty of -treatment, construction, and form; yet, as Sir Walter survives in -his novels, Zorrilla will endure in such of his plays as _Don Juan -Tenorio_, in _El Zapatero y el Rey_, and in _Traidor, inconfeso, -y mártir_. His selection of native themes, his vigorous appeal to -those primitive sentiments which are at least as strong in Spain as -elsewhere—courage, patriotism, religion—have ensured him a vogue so -wide and lasting that it almost approaches immortality. In the study -Zorrilla's slapdash methods are often wearisome; on the stage his -impetuousness, his geniality, his broad effects, and his natural lyrism -make him a veritable force. Two of Zorrilla's rivals among contemporary -dramatists may be mentioned: ANTONIO GARCÍA GUTIÉRREZ (1813-1884), the -author of _El Trovador_, and JUAN EUGENIO HARTZENBUSCH (1806-1880), -whose _Amantes de Teruel_ broke the hearts of sentimental ladies in the -forties. Both the _Trovador_ and the _Amantes_ are still reproduced, -still read, and still praised by critics who enjoy the pleasures of -memory and association; but a detached foreigner, though he take his -life in his hand when he ventures on the confession, is inclined to -associate García Gutiérrez and Hartzenbusch with Sheridan Knowles and -Lytton. - -A much superior talent is that of the ex-soldier, MANUEL BRETÓN DE LOS -HERREROS (1796-1873), whose humour and fancy are his own, while his -system is that of the younger Moratín. His _Escuela del Matrimonio_ -is the most ambitious, as it is the best, of those innumerable pieces -in which he aims at presenting a picture of average society, relieved -by alternate touches of ironic and didactic purpose. Bretón de los -Herreros wrote far too much, and weakens his effects by the obtrusion -of a flagrant moral; but even if we convict him as a caricaturist -of obvious Philistinism, there is abundant recompense in the jovial -wit and graceful versification of his quips. To him succeeds Tomás -Rodríguez Rubí (1817-1890), who aimed at amusing a facile public -in such a trifle as _El Tejado de Vidrio_ (The Glass Roof), or at -satirising political and social intriguers in _La Rueda de Fortuna_ -(Fortune's Wheel). - -A Cuban like GERTRUDIS GÓMEZ DE AVELLANEDA (1816-1873), who spent most -of her life in Spain, may for our purposes be accounted a Spanish -writer. The proverbial gallantry of the nation and the sex of the -writer account for her vogue and her repute. If such a novel as _Sab_, -with its protest against slavery and its idealised presentation of -subject races, be held for literature, then we must so enlarge the -scope of the word as to include _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Another novel, -_Espatolino_, reproduces George Sand's philippics against the injustice -of social arrangements, and re-echoes her lyrical advocacy of freedom -in the matter of marriage. The Sra. Avellaneda is too passionate to -be dexterous, and too preoccupied to be impressive; hence her novels -have fallen out of sight. That she had real gifts of fancy and melody -is shown by her early volume of poems (1841), and by her two plays, -_Alfonso Munio_ and _Baltasar_; yet, on the boards as in her stories, -she is inopportune, or, in plainer words, is a gifted imitator, -following the changes of popular taste with some hesitation, though -with a gracefulness not devoid of charm. With her may be mentioned -Carolina Coronado (b. 1823), a refined poetess with mystic tendencies, -whose vogue has so diminished that to the most of Spaniards she is -scarcely more than an agreeable reminiscence. - -It is possible that the adroit politician, ADELARDO LÓPEZ DE AYALA -(1828-1879), who passed from one party to another, and served a monarch -or a republic with equal suppleness, might have won enduring fame as -a dramatist and poet had he been less concerned with doctrines and -theses. He was so intent on persuasion, so mindful of the arts of -his old trade, so anxious to catch a vote, that he rarely troubled -to draw character, contenting himself with skilful construction of -plot and arrangement of incident. His _Tanto por Ciento_ and his -_Consuelo_ are astute harangues in favour of high public and private -morals, composed with extraordinary care and laudable purpose. If mere -cleverness, a scrupulous eye to detail, a fine ear for sonorous verse -could make a man master of the scene, López de Ayala might stand beside -the greatest. His personages, however, are rather general types than -individual characters, and the persistent sarcasm with which he ekes -out a moral degenerates into ponderous banter. None the less he was a -force during many years, and, though his reputation be now somewhat -tarnished, he still counts admirers among the middle-aged. - -A very conspicuous figure on the Spanish scene during the middle third -of the century was MANUEL TAMAYO Y BAUS (1829-1898), who, beginning -with an imitation of Schiller in _Juana de Arco_ (1847), passed under -the influence of Alfieri in _Virginia_ (1853), venturing upon the -national classic drama in _La Locura de Amor_ (1855), the most notable -achievement of his early period. The most ambitious, and unquestionably -the best, of his plays is _Un drama nuevo_ (1867), with which his -career practically closed. He effaced himself, was content to live -on his reputation and to yield his place as a popular favourite to -so poor a playwright as José Echegaray. Compared with his successor, -Tamayo shines as a veritable genius. Sprung from a family of actors, -he gauged the possibilities of the theatre with greater exactness than -any rival, and by his tact he became an expert in staging a situation. -But it was not merely to inspired mechanical dexterity that he owed -the high position which was allowed him by so shrewd a judge as Manuel -de la Revilla: to his unequalled knowledge of the scene he joined the -forces of passion and sympathy, the power of dramatic creation, and a -metrical ingenuity which enchanted and bewildered those who heard and -those who read him. - -There is a feminine, if not a falsetto timbre in the voice of JOSÉ -SELGAS Y CARRASCO (1824-1882), a writer on the staff of the fighting -journal, _El Padre Cobos_, and a government clerk till Martínez -Campos transfigured him into a Cabinet Minister. Selgas' verse in the -_Primavera_ is so charged with the conventional sentiment and with -the amiable pessimism dear to ordinary readers, that his popularity -was inevitable. Yet even Spanish indulgence has stopped short of -proclaiming him a great poet, and now that his day has gone by, he is -almost as unjustly decried as he was formerly overpraised. Though not a -great original genius, he was an accomplished versifier whose innocent -prettiness was never banal, whose simplicity was unaffected, whose -faint music and caressing melancholy are not lacking in individuality -and fascination. - -A more powerful poetic impulse moved the Sevillan, GUSTAVO ADOLFO -BÉCQUER (1836-1870). An orphan in his tenth year, Bécquer was educated -by his godmother, a well-meaning woman of some position, who would have -made him her heir had he consented to follow any regular profession -or to enter a merchant's office. At eighteen he arrived, a penniless -vagabond, in Madrid, where he underwent such extremes of hardship as -helped to shorten his days. A small official post, which saved him from -actual starvation, was at last obtained for him, but his indiscipline -soon caused him to be set adrift. He maintained himself by translating -foreign novels, by journalistic hack-work in the columns of _El -Contemporaneo_ and _El Museo Universal_, till death delivered him. - -The three volumes by which he is represented are made up of prose -legends, and of poems modestly entitled _Rimas_. Though Hoffmann is -Bécquer's intellectual ancestor in prose, the Spaniard speaks with -a personal accent in such examples of morbid fantasy as _Los Ojos -Verdes_, wherein Fernando loses life for the sake of the green-eyed -mermaiden: as the tale of Manrique's madness in _El Rayo de Luna_ -(The Moonbeam), as the rendering of Daniel's sacrilege in _La Rosa de -Pasión_. And as Hoffmann influences Bécquer's dreamy prose, so Heine -influences his _Rimas_. It is argued that, since Bécquer knew no -German, he cannot have read Heine—an unconvincing plea, if we remember -that Byron's example was followed in every country by poets ignorant of -English. Howbeit, it is certain that Heine has had no more brilliant -follower than Bécquer, who, however, substitutes a note of fairy -mystery for Heine's incomparable irony. His circumstances, and the -fact that he did not live to revise his work, account for occasional -inequalities of execution which mar his magical music. To do him -justice, we must read him in a few choice pieces where his apparently -simple rhythms and suave assonantic cadences express his half-delirious -visions in terms of unsurpassable artistry. At first sight one is -deceived into thinking that the simplicity is a spontaneous result, -and there has arisen a host of imitators who have only contrived to -caricature Bécquer's defects. His merits are as purely personal as -Blake's, and the imitation of either poet results almost inevitably in -mere flatness. - - * * * * * - -During the nineteenth century Spain has produced no more brilliant -master of prose than MARIANO JOSÉ DE LARRA (1809-1837), son of a -medical officer in the French army. It is a curious fact that, owing -to his early education in France, Larra—one of the most idiomatic -writers—should have been almost ignorant of Spanish till his tenth -year. Destined for the law, he was sent to Valladolid, where he got -entangled in some love affair which led him to renounce his career. He -took to literature, attempting the drama in his _Macías_, the novel in -_El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente_: in neither was he successful. -But if he could not draw character nor narrate incident, he could -observe and satirise with amazing force and malice. Under the name -of Fígaro[30] and of Juan Pérez de Munguia he won for himself such -prominence in journalism as no Spaniard has ever equalled. Spanish -politics, the weaknesses of the national character, are exposed in a -spirit of ferocious bitterness peculiar to the writer. His is, indeed, -a depressing performance, overcharged with misanthropy; yet for -unflinching courage, insight, and sombre humour, Larra has no equal -in modern Spanish literature, and scarcely any superior in the past. -In his twenty-eighth year he blew out his brains in consequence of an -amour in which he was concerned, leaving a vacancy which has never been -filled by any successor. It is gloomy work to learn that all men are -scoundrels, and that all evils are irremediable: these are the hopeless -doctrines which have brought Spain to her present pass. Yet it is -impossible to read Larra's pessimistic page without admiration for his -lucidity and power. - -An essayist of more patriotic tone is SERAFÍN ESTÉBANEZ CALDERÓN -(1799-1867), whose biography has been elaborately written by his -nephew, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the late Prime Minister of -Spain. Estébanez' verses are well-nigh as forgotten as his _Conquista -y Pérdida de Portugal_, and his _Escenas Andaluzas_ (1847) have never -been popular, partly through fault of the author, who enamels his work -with local or obsolete words in the style of Wardour Street, and who -assumes a posture of superiority which irritates more than it amuses. A -record of Andalucían manners and of fading customs, the _Escenas_ has -special value as embodying the impression of an observer who valued -picturesqueness—valued it so highly, in fact, that one is haunted -(perhaps unjustly) by the suspicion that he heightened his tones for -the sake of effect. Another series of "documents" is afforded by RAMÓN -DE MESONERO ROMANOS (1803-82), who is often classed as a follower -of Larra, whereas the first of his _Escenas Matritenses_ appeared -before Larra's first essays. He has no trace of Larra's energetic -condensation, tending, as he does, to a not ungraceful diffuseness; -but he has bequeathed us a living picture of the native Madrid before -it sank to being a poor, pale copy of Paris, and has enabled us to -reconstruct the social life of sixty years since. Mesonero, who has -none of Estébanez' airs and graces, though he is no less observant, and -is probably more accurate, writes as a well-bred man speaks—simply, -naturally, directly; and those qualities are seen to most advantage in -his _Memorias de un Setentón_, which are as interesting as the best of -reminiscences can be. - -These records of customs and manners influenced a writer of German -origin on her father's side, Cecilia Böhl de Faber, who was thrice -married, and whom it is convenient to call by her pseudonym, FERNÁN -CABALLERO (1796-1877), a village in Don Quixote's country. Her first -novel, _La Gaviota_ (1848), has probably been more read by foreigners -than any Spanish book of the century, and, with all its sensibility -and moralisings, we can scarcely grudge its vogue; for it is true to -common life as common life existed in an Andalucían village, and its -style is natural, if not distinguished. Even in _La Gaviota_ there is -an air of unreality when the scene is shifted from the country to the -drawing-room, and the suspicion that Fernán Caballero could invent -without observing deepens in presence of such a wooden lay-figure as -Sir George Percy in _Clemencia_. Her didactic bent increased with -time, so that much of her later work is bedevilled with sermons and -gospellings; yet so long as she deals with the rustic episodes which -were her earliest memories, so long as she is content to report and to -describe, she produces a delightful series of pictures, touched in with -an almost irreproachable refinement. She is not far enough from us to -be a classic; but she is sufficiently removed to be old-fashioned, and -she suffers accordingly. Still it is safe to prophesy that _La Gaviota_ -will survive most younger rivals. - -In all likelihood PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN (1833-1891), who, like most -literary Spaniards, injured his work by meddling in politics, will -live by his shorter, more unambitious stories. His _Escándalo_ (1875), -after creating a prodigious sensation as a defence of the Jesuits from -an old revolutionist, is already laid aside, and _La Pródiga_ is in -no better case. The true Alarcón is revealed in _El Sombrero de tres -Picos_, a picture of rustic manners, rendered with infinite enjoyment -and merry humour; in the rapid, various sketches entitled _Historietas -Nacionales_; and in that gallant, picturesque account of the Morocco -campaign called the _Diario de un Testigo de la Guerra en África_—as -vivid a piece of patriotic chronicling as these latest years have shown. - -Of graver prose modern Spain has little to boast. Yet the Marqués de -Valdegamas, JUAN DONOSO CORTÉS (1809-1853) has written an _Ensayo -sobre el Catolicismo, el Liberalismo y el Socialismo_, which has been -read and applauded throughout Europe. Donoso, the most intolerant of -Spaniards, overwhelms his readers with dogmatic statement in place -of reasoned exposition; but he writes with astonishing eloquence, -and with a superb conviction of his personal infallibility that has -scarcely any match in literature. At the opposite pole is the Vich -priest, JAIME BALMES Y USPIA (1810-48), whose _Cartas á un Escéptico_ -and _Criterio_ are overshadowed by his _Protestantismo comparado en el -Catolicismo_, a performance of striking ingenuity, among the finest -in the list of modern controversy. Donoso denounced man's reason as -a gin of the devil, as a faculty whose natural tendency is towards -error. Balmes appeals to reason at every step of the road. With him, -indeed, it is unsafe to allow that two and two are four until it is -ascertained what he means to do with that proposition; for his subtlety -is almost uncanny, and his dexterity in using an opponent's admission -is surprising. If anything, Balmes is even too clever, for the most -simple-minded reader is driven to ask how it is possible that any -rational being can hold the opposite view. Still, from the Catholic -standpoint, Balmes is unanswerable, and—in Spain at least—he has -never been answered, while his vogue abroad has been very great. -Setting aside its doctrinal bearing, his treatise is a most striking -example of destructive criticism and of marshalled argument. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[30] M. Morel-Fatio points out that Fígaro, which seems so Castilian by -association, is not a Castilian name. See his _Études sur l'Espagne_ -(Paris, 1895), vol. i. p. 76. If it be not Catalan, if Beaumarchais -invented it, it is among the most successful of his coinage. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE - - -To write an account of contemporary literature is an undertaking not -less tempting than to write the history of contemporary politics. -Its productions are likely to be familiar to us; its authors have -probably expressed ideas with which we are more or less in sympathy; -and in dealing with these we are free from the burdens of authority -and tradition. On the other hand, criticism of contemporaries is so -prone to be coloured by the prejudice of sects and cliques, that the -liberal historian of the past is in danger of exhibiting himself as a -blind observer of the present, or as a ludicrous prophet of the future. -A book on current literature is often, like Hansard, a melancholy -register of mistaken forecasts. Probably no critic of 1820 would have -ventured to place Keats among the greatest poets of the world. But -the risk of failing to recognise a Keats is, in the nature of things, -very slight; and for our present purpose we are only concerned with -those who, by general admission, are among the living influences of the -moment, the chiefs of a generation which is now almost middle-aged. - -No Spaniard would contest the title of the Asturian, RAMÓN DE CAMPOAMOR -Y CAMPOOSORIO (b. 1817), to be considered as the actual _doyen_ of -Spanish literature. He purposed entering the Society of Jesus in his -youth, then turned to medicine as his true vocation, and finally gave -himself up to poetry and politics. A fierce conservative, Campoamor -has served as Governor of Alicante and Valencia, and has combated -democracy by speech and pen; but he has never been taken seriously as -a politician, and his few philosophic essays have caused his orthodoxy -to be questioned by writers with an imperfect sense of humour. His -controversy with Valera on metaphysics and poetry is a manifest joke -to which both writers have lent themselves with an affectation of -profound solemnity; and it may well be doubted if Campoamor's professed -convictions are more than occasions for humoristic ingenuity. - -He has attempted the drama without success in such pieces as _El -Palacio de la Verdad_ and in _El Honor_. So also in the eight cantos -of a grandiose poem entitled _El Drama Universal_ (1873) he has failed -to impress with his version of the posthumous loves of Honorio and -Soledad, though in the matter of technical execution nothing finer -has been accomplished in our day. His chief distinction, according to -Peninsular critics, is that he has invented a new poetic _genre_ under -the names of _doloras_, _humoradas_ or _pequeños poemas_ (short poems). -It is not, however, an easy matter to distinguish any one of these from -its brethren, and Campoamor's own explanation lacks clearness when -he lays it down that a _dolora_ is a dramatised _humorada_, and that -a _pequeño poema_ is an amplified _dolora_. This is to define light -in terms of darkness. An acute critic, M. Peseux-Richard, has noted -that this definition is not only obscure, but that it is an evident -afterthought.[31] The _dolora_ is the first in order of invention, and -it is also the performance upon which, to judge by his _Poética_, -Campoamor sets most value. What, then, is a _dolora_? It is, in -fact, a "transcendental" fable in which men and women, their words -and acts, are made to typify eternal "verities": a poem which aims -at brevity, delicacy, pathos, and philosophy in an ironical setting. -The "transcendental" truth to be conveyed is the supreme point: -exquisiteness of form is unimportant. - -M. Peseux-Richard dryly remarks that _humoradas_ are as old as anything -in literature, and that Campoamor's exploit consists in inventing -the name, not the thing. This is true; and it is none the less true -that the writing of _doloras_ (and the rest), after the recipe of the -master, has become a plague of recent Spanish literature. Fortunately -Campoamor is better than his theories, which, if he were consistent, -would lead him straight to _conceptismo_. Doubtless, at whiles, he -condescends upon the banal, mistakes sentimentalism for sentiment, -substitutes a commonplace for an aphorism, a paradox for an epigram; -doubtless, also, he is wanting in the right national note of exaltation -and rhetorical splendour. But for all his profession of indifference to -form, he is—at his best—a most accomplished craftsman, an admirable -artist in miniature, an expert in the art of concise expression, -and, in so much, a healthy influence—though not without a concealed -germ of evil. For if in his own hands the ingenious antithesis often -reaches the utmost point of condensation, in the hands of imitators it -is degraded to an obscure conceit, a rhymed conundrum. His vogue has -always been considerable, and he is one of the few Spanish poets whose -reputation extends beyond the Pyrenees; still, he is not in any sense -a national poet, a characteristic product of the soil, and with all -his distinguished scepticism, his picturesque pessimistic pose, and his -sound workmanship, he is more likely to be remembered for a score of -brilliant apophthegms than for any essentially poetic quality. - -It was as a poet that JUAN VALERA Y ALCALÁ GALIANO (b. 1827) made his -first appearance in literature in 1856. Few in Europe have seen more -aspects of life, or have snatched more profit from their opportunities. -Born at Córdoba, educated at Málaga and Granada, Valera has so enjoyed -life from the outset that his youth is now the subject of a legend. -Passing from law to diplomacy, he learned the world in the legations -at Naples, Lisbon, Rio Janeiro, Dresden, St. Petersburg; he helped -to found _El Contemporaneo_, once a journal of great influence; he -entered the Cortes, and became minister at Frankfort, Washington, -Brussels, and Vienna. His native subtlety, his cosmopolitan tact, have -served him no less in literature than in affairs. To literature he has -given the best that is in him. He has protested, with the ironical -humility in which he excels, against the public neglect of his poems; -and when one reflects upon what has found favour in this kind, the -protest is half justified. Valera's verses, falling short as they do of -inspired perfection, are wrought with curious delicacy of technique. -But his very cultivation is against him: such poems as _Sueños_ or -_Último Adiós_ or _El Fuego divino_, admirable as they are, recall the -work of predecessors. Memories of Luis de León, traces of Dante and -Leopardi, are encountered on his best page; and yet he brings with -him into modern verse qualities which, in the actual stage of Spanish -literature, are of singular worth—repose and refinement and dignity -and metrical mastery. - -As a critic his diplomatic training has been a hindrance to him. -He rarely writes without establishing some ingenious and suggestive -parallel or pronouncing some luminous judgment; but he is, so to say, -in fear of his own intelligence, and his instinctive courtesy, his -desire to please, often stay him from arriving at a clear conclusion. -His manifold interests, the incomparable beauty of his style, his wide -reading, his cold lucidity, are an almost ideal equipment for critical -work. Expert in ingratiation as he is, his suave complaisance becomes -a formidable weapon in such a performance as the _Cartas Americanas_, -where excessive urbanity has all the effect of commination: you set the -book down with the impression that the writers of the South American -continent have been complimented out of existence by a stately courtier. - -But whatever reserves may be made in praising the poet and the critic, -Valera's triumph as a novelist is incontestable. Mr. Gosse has so -introduced him to English readers as to make further criticism almost -superfluous. Valera, for all his polite scepticism, is a Spaniard of -the best: a mystic by intuition and inheritance, a doubter by force of -circumstances and education. He himself has told us in the _Comendador -Mendoza_ how _Pepita Jiménez_ came into life as the result of much -mystic reading, which held him fascinated but not captive; and were we -to accept his humorous confession literally, we should take it that he -became a novelist by accident. It is, however, true that when he wrote -_Pepita Jiménez_ he still had much to learn in method. Writers with not -a tithe of his natural gift would have avoided his obvious faults—his -digressions, his episodes which check the current of his story. But -_Pepita Jiménez_, whatever its defects, is of capital importance in -literary history, for from its publication dates the renaissance of -the Spanish novel. Here at last was a book owing nothing to France, -taking its root in native inspiration, arabesquing the motives of Luis -de Granada, León, Santa Teresa, displaying once more what Coventry -Patmore has well described as "that complete synthesis of gravity of -matter and gaiety of manner which is the glittering crown of art, and -which, out of Spanish literature, is to be found only in Shakespeare, -and even in him in a far less obvious degree." - -And Valera has continued to progress in art. In construction, in depth, -in psychological insight, _Doña Luz_ exceeds its predecessor, as the -_Comendador Mendoza_ outshines both in vigour of expression, in tragic -conception, in pathetic sincerity. _Las Ilusiones del Doctor Faustino_ -has found less favour with critics and with general readers, perhaps -because its humour is too refined, its observation too merciless, its -style too subtle. Nor is Valera less successful in the short story, -and in the dialogue, in which sort _Asclepigenia_ may be held for an -absolute masterpiece in little. His work lies before us, complete for -all purposes; for though he still publishes for our delight, advancing -age compels him to dictate instead of writing—a harassing condition -for an artist whose talent is free from any touch of declamation. It -is hard for us who have undergone the spell of Prospero, who have -been fascinated by his truth and grace and sympathy, to judge him -with the impartiality of posterity. But we may safely anticipate its -general verdict. It may be that some of his improvisations will lack -durability; but these are few. Valera, like the rest of the world, is -entitled to be judged at his best, and his best will be read as long as -Spanish literature endures; for he is not simply a dexterous craftsman -using one of the noblest of languages with an exquisite delicacy -and illimitable variety of means, nor a clever novelist exercising -a superficial talent, nor even (though he is that in a very special -sense) the leader of a national revival. He is something far rarer -and more potent than an accomplished man of letters: a great creative -artist, and the embodiment of a people's genius. - -A less cosmopolitan, but scarcely less original talent is that of -JOSÉ MARÍA DE PEREDA (b. 1834), who comes, like so many distinguished -Spaniards, from "the mountain." Born at Polanco, trained as a civil -engineer in his province of Santander, Pereda was—and, perhaps, still -is, theoretically—a stout Carlist, an intransigent ultramontane whose -social position has enabled him to despise the politics of expediency. -His earliest essays in a local newspaper, _La Abeja Montañesa_, -attracted no attention; nor was he much more fortunate with his -amazingly brilliant _Escenas Montañesas_ (1864). Fernán Caballero, -and a gentle sentimentalist now wholly forgotten, Antonio Trueba -(1821-89), satisfied readers with graceful insipidities, beside which -the new-comer's manly realism seemed almost crude. The conventional -villager, simple, Arcadian, and impossible, held the field; and -Pereda's revelation of unveiled rusticity was esteemed displeasing, -unnecessary, inartistic. He had to educate his public. From the outset -he found a few enthusiasts to appreciate him in his native province; -and, by slow degrees, he succeeded in imposing himself first upon the -general audience, and then, with much more difficulty, upon official -critics. It is commonly alleged against him that even in his more -ambitious novels—in _Don Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera_, in _Pedro -Sánchez_, where he deals with town life, and in _Sotileza_, which -is salt with the sea—his personages are local. The observation is -intended as a reproach; but, in truth, Pereda's men and women are only -local as Sancho Panza and Maritornes are local—local in particulars, -universal as types of nature. His true defects are his tendency to -abuse his knowledge of dialect, to insist on a moral aim, to caricature -his villains. These are spots on the sun. On the whole, he pictures -life as he sees it, with unblenching fidelity; his people live and -move; and—not least—he is a master of nervous, energetic phrase. No -writer outdoes him as a landscape-painter in rendering the fertile -valleys, the cold hills, the vexed Cantabrian sea, to which he returns -with the intimate passion of a lover. - -The representative of a younger school is BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS (b. -1845), who left the Canary Islands in his nineteenth year with the -purpose of reading law in Madrid. A brief trial of journalism, previous -to the revolution of 1868, led to the publication of his first novel, -_La Fontana de Oro_ (1870), and since 1873 he has shown a wondrous -persistence and suppleness of talent. His _Episodios Nacionales_ -alone fill twenty volumes, and as many more exist detached from that -series. He has composed the modern national epic in the form of novels: -novels which have for their setting the War of Independence, and the -succeeding twenty years of civil combat; novels in which not less than -five hundred characters are presented. Galdós is in singular contrast -with his friend Pereda. The prejudiced Tory has educated his public; -the Liberal reformer has been educated by his contemporaries. Galdós -has always had his fingers on the general pulse; and when the readers -in the late seventies wearied of the historico-political novel, Galdós -was ready with _La Familia de León Roch_, with _Gloria_, and with -_Doña Perfecta_, in which the religious difficulty is posed ten years -before _Robert Elsmere_ was written. His third stage of development is -exampled in _Fortuna y Jacinta_, a most forcible study of contemporary -life. A prolific inventor, a minute observer of detail, Galdós combines -realism with fantasy, flat prose with poetic imagination, so that -he succeeds best in drawing psychological eccentricities like Ángel -Guerra. He is perhaps too Spanish to endure translation, too prone to -assume that his readers are familiar with the minutiæ of Peninsular -life and history, and his construction, broad as it is, lacks solidity; -but that he deserves the greater part of his fame is unquestionable, -and if there be doubters, _Fortuna y Jacinta_ and _Ángel Guerra_ are at -hand to vindicate the judgment. - -In all the length and breadth of Spain no writer (with the possible -exception of that slashing, incorrigible, brilliant reviewer, Antonio -de Valbuena) is better known and more feared than LEOPOLDO ALAS (b. -1852), who uses the pseudonym of Clarín. Alas is often accused of -fierce intolerance as a critic; and the charge has this much truth in -it—that he is righteously, splendidly intolerant of a pretender, a -mountebank, or a dullard. He may be right or wrong in judgment; but -there is something noble in the intrepidity with which he handles an -established reputation, in the infinite malice with which he riddles an -enemy. An ample knowledge of other literatures than his own, a catholic -taste, as pretty a wit as our days have seen, and a most combative, -gallant spirit make him a critical force which, on the whole, is -used for good. He is not mentioned here, however, as the formidable -gladiator of journalism, but as the author of one of the best -contemporary novels. _La Regenta_ (1884-1885) is, in the first place, -a searching analysis of criminal passion, marked by fine insight; and -the examination of false mysticism which betrays Ana Ozores is among -the subtlest, most masterly achievements in recent literature. Galdós -is realistic and persuasive: Alas is real and convincing. He has not -the cunning of the contriver of situations, and as he never condescends -to the novelist's artifice, he imperils his chance of popularity. In -truth, far from enjoying a vulgar vogue, _La Regenta_ has had the -distinction of being condemned by criticasters who have never read it. -_Su único Hijo_, and the collection of short stories entitled _Pipá_, -interesting and finished in detail, are of slighter substance and -value. The duties of a law professorship at the University of Oviedo, -the tasks of journalism, have occupied Alas during the last four years. -Literature in Spain is but a poor crutch, and even the popular Valera -has told us that he must perish did he depend upon his pen. Spanish men -of letters have to be content with fame. Meanwhile, it is known that -Alas is at work upon the long-promised _Esperaindeo_, in which we may -fairly hope to find a companion to _La Regenta_. - -Of ARMANDO PALACIO VALDÉS (b. 1853) it can hardly be said that he -has fulfilled the promise of _Marta y María_ and _La Hermana de San -Sulpicio_. Alas, with whom Palacio Valdés collaborated in a critical -review of the literature of 1881, has succeeded in absorbing the -good elements of the modern French naturalistic school without -losing his Spanish savour. Palacio Valdés has surrendered great part -of his nationality in _Espuma_ and in _La Fe_, which might, with a -change of names, be taken for translations of French novels. He has -abundant cleverness, a sure hand in construction, a distinct power of -character-drawing, which have won him more consideration out of Spain -than in it, and he has a fair claim to rank as the chief of the modern -naturalistic school. His most distinguished rival is the Galician, -the Sra. Quiroga, better known by her maiden name of EMILIA PARDO -BAZÁN (b. 1851), the best authoress that Spain has produced during -the present century. Her earliest effort was a prize essay on Feijóo -(1876), followed by a volume of verses which I have never seen, and -upon which the writer is satisfied that oblivion should scatter its -poppy. She pleases most in picturesque description of country life and -manners in her province, of scenes in La Coruña, which she glorifies -in her writings as Marineda. Her foundation of a critical review, the -_Nuevo Teatro Crítico_, written entirely by herself, showed confidence -and enterprise, and enabled her to propagate her eclectic views on life -and art. Women have hitherto been more impressionable than original, -and Doña Emilia has been drawn into the French naturalistic current in -_Los Pazos de Ulloa_ (1886) and in _La Madre Naturaleza_ (1887). Both -novels contain episodes of remarkable power, and _La Madre Naturaleza_ -is an almost epical glorification of primitive instincts. But Spain -has a native realism of her own, and it is scarcely probable that -the French variety will ever supersede it. It is as a naturalistic -novelist that the Sra. Pardo Bazán is generally known; but the fashion -of naturalism is already passing, and it is by the rich colouring, the -local knowledge, the patriotic enthusiasm, and the exact vision of such -transcripts of local scene and custom as abound in _De mi tierra_ that -she best conveys the impressions of an exuberant and even irresistible -temperament. What Pereda has accomplished for the land of the mountain -the Sra. Pardo Bazán has, in lesser measure, done for Galicia. - -One must hold it against her that she should have aided in establishing -the trivial vogue of the Jesuit, LUIS COLOMA (b. 1851), whose -_Pequeñeces_ (1890) caused more sensation than any novel of the last -twenty years. Palacio Valdés has been severely censured for writing, -in _Espuma_, of "society" in which he has never moved. "What," asked -Isaac Disraeli, "what does my son know about dukes?" The Padre Coloma's -acquaintance with dukes is extensive and peculiar. Born at Jerez de -la Frontera, he came under the influence of Fernán Caballero, whom he -has pictured in _El Viernes de Dolores_, and with whom he collaborated -in _Juan Miseria_. His lively youth was spent in drawing-rooms where -Alfonsist plots were hatched; and when, at the age of twenty-three, he -joined the Society of Jesus after receiving a mysterious bullet-wound -which brought him to death's door, he knew as much of Madrid "society" -as any man in Spain. His literary mission appears to be to satirise -the Spanish aristocracy, and _Pequeñeces_ is his capital effort in -that kind. An angry controversy followed, in which Valera made one of -his few mistakes by taking the field against Coloma, who, with all his -superficial smartness, is a special pleader and not an artist. A _roman -à clef_ is always sure of ephemeral success, and readers were too -intent on identifying the originals of Currita Albornoz and Villamelón -to observe that _Pequeñeces_ was a hasty improvisation, void of plot -and character and truth and style. Certain scenes are good enough to -pass as episodical caricatures, and had the Padre Coloma the endowment -of wit and gaiety and distinction, he might hope to develop into a -clerical Gyp. As it is, he has shot his bolt, achieved a notoriety -which is even now fading, and is in a fair way to be dethroned from his -position by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the author of _Flor de Mayo_, and by -Juan Ochoa, the writer of _Un Alma de Dios_. These two novelists, the -rising hopes of the immediate future, are rapidly growing in repute as -in accomplishment. Narcís Oller y Moragas (b. 1846) has shown singular -gifts in such tales as _L'Escanyapobres_, _Vilaníu_, and _Viva -Espanya_. But, as he writes in Catalan, we have no immediate concern -with him here. - -Of the modern Spanish theatre there is little originality to report. -Tamayo's successor in popular esteem is JOSÉ ECHEGARAY (1832), who -first came into notice as a mathematician, a political economist, a -revolutionary orator, and a minister of the short-lived republic. -Writing under the obvious anagram of Jorge Hayeseca, Echegaray first -attempted the drama so late as 1874, and has since then succeeded and -failed with innumerable pieces. He is essentially a romantic, as he -proves in _La Esposa del Vengador_ and in _Ó Locura ó Santidad_; but -there is nothing distinctively national in his work, which continually -reflects the passing fashions of the moment. His plays are commonly -well constructed, as one might expect from a mathematician applying his -science to the scene, and he has a certain power of gloomy realisation, -as in _El Gran Galeoto_, which moves and impresses; yet he has created -no character, he delights in cheap effects, and when he betakes himself -to verse, is prone to a banality which is almost vulgar. A delightfully -middle-class writer, his appreciation by middle-class audiences calls -for no special comment. It even speaks for itself. - -The drama has also been attempted by GASPAR NÚÑEZ DE ARCE (b. -1834), whose _Haz de Leña_, in which Felipe II. figures, is the most -distinguished historical drama of the century, written with a reserve -and elegance rare on the modern Spanish stage. Núñez de Arce, however, -though he began with a successful play in his fifteenth year, was well -advised when he forsook the scene and gave himself to pure lyrism. -His disillusioning political experiences as Secretary of State for -the Colonies have reduced him to silence during the last few years. -He was born to sing songs of victory, to be the poet of ordered -liberty, and circumstances have cast his lot in times of disaster -and revolutionary excess. He has had no opportunity of celebrating a -national triumph, and his hopes of a golden age, to be brought about by -a few constitutional changes, have been grievously disappointed. Yet -it is as a political singer that he has won a present fame and that he -will pass onward to renown. His _Idilio_ is a rustic love story of fine -simplicity, of an impressive, pure realism which lifts it above the -common level of pastoral poems, and its sincerity, its austere finish, -are characteristic of the poet, who is always a scrupulous artist, a -passionate devotee and observer of nature, as he has proved once more -in _La Pesca_. In _Raimundo Lulio_, Núñez de Arce's superb execution -is displayed with a superb result which almost tempts the coldest -reader into pardoning the confusion of two separate themes—allegory -and amorism. But a political poet he remains, and the famous _Gritos -de Combate_ (1875), in which he denounces anarchy, pleads for freedom -and for concord, with a civic courage beyond all praise, is a lasting -monument in its kind. Modern Castilian shows no poetic figure to -compare with him, and the only promises of our time are Jacinto -Verdaguer and Joan Maragall, two Catalan singers who fall without our -limit. - -The present century has produced no great Spanish historian, though -there has been an active movement of historical research, headed -by scholars like Fidel Fita, specialists like Cárdenas, Azcárate, -Costa, Pérez Pujol, Ribera, Jiménez de la Espada, Fernández Duro, -and Hinojosa, all of whom have produced brilliant monographs, or -have accumulated valuable materials for the Mariana of the future. -In criticism also there has been a marked advance of scholarship and -tolerance, thanks to the example of MARCELINO MENÉNDEZ Y PELAYO (b. -1856), whose extraordinary learning and argumentative acuteness were -first shown in his _Ciencia Española_ (1878), and his _Historia de -los Heterodoxos Españoles_ (1880-81). Since then the slight touch of -acerbity, of provincial narrowness, has disappeared, the writer's -talent has matured, and, starting as the standard-bearer of an -aggressive party, anxious to recover lost ground, his sympathies have -widened as his erudition has taken deeper root, till at the present -moment he is accepted by his ancient foes as the most sagacious and -accomplished of Spanish critics. His _Odas, Epístolas y Tragedias_, is -a signal instance of technical excellence in versification, containing -as good a version of the _Isles of Greece_ as any foreigner has -achieved. But, after all, it is not as poet, but as critic, as literary -historian, that he is hailed by his countrymen as a prodigy. He has, -perhaps, undertaken too much, and the editing of Lope de Vega may cause -the _Historia de las Ideas Estéticas en España_ to remain an unfinished -torso; but his example and influence have been wholly exercised -for good, and are evident in the excellent work of the younger -generation—the work of Emilio Cotarelo y Mori, of Rafael Altamira -y Crevea, of Ramón Menéndez Pidal. It would be a singular thing if -the bright, improvident Spain, which to most of us stands for the -embodiment of reckless romanticism, were to produce a race of writers -of the German type, a breed absorbed in detail and minute observation; -and as a nation's genius is no more subject to change than is the -temperament of individuals, the development may not come to pass. But, -as the century closes, the tendency inclines that way. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[31] See the _Revue hispanique_ (Paris, 1894), vol. i. pp. 236-257. - - - - - BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE - - -George Ticknor's great _History of Spanish Literature_ (Boston, 1872) -is the widest survey of the subject; it should be read in the Castilian -version of Pascual de Gayangos and Enrique de Vedia (1851-56),[32] or -in the German of Nikolaus Heinrich Julius (Leipzig, 1852), both of -which contain valuable supplementary matter. Ludwig Gustav Lemcke shows -taste and learning and independence in his _Handbuch der spanischen -Literatur_ (Leipzig, 1855-56). On a smaller scale are Eugène Baret's -_Histoire de la littérature espagnole_ (1863), the volume contributed -by Jacques Claude Demogeot to Victor Duruy's series entitled -_Histoire des littératures étrangères_ (1880), Licurgo Cappelletti's -_Letteratura spagnuola_ (Milan, 1882), and Mr. H. Butler Clarke's -_Spanish Literature_ (1893). Ferdinand Wolf's _Studien zur Geschichte -der spanischen und portugiesischen Nationalliteratur_ (Berlin, 1859) -is a most masterly study of the early period; the Castilian version -by D. Miguel de Unamuno, with notes by D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo -(1895-96), corrects some of Wolf's conclusions in the light of recent -research. The _Darstellung der spanischen Literatur im Mittelalter_ -(Mainz, 1846), by Ludwig Clarus, whose real name was Wilhelm Volk, is -learned and suggestive, though too enthusiastic in criticism. José -Amador de los Ríos' seven volumes, entitled _Historia crítica de la -literatura española_ (1861-65), end with the reign of the Catholic -Kings: an alphabetical index would greatly increase the value of this -monumental work. The Comte Théodore Joseph Boudet de Puymaigre's two -volumes, _Les vieux auteurs castillans_ (1888-90), give the facts in a -very agreeable, unpretentious way. - -Among current handbooks by Spanish authors, those by Antonio Gil y -Zárate (1844), Manuel de la Revilla and Pedro de Alcántara García -(1884), F. Sánchez de Castro (1890), and Prudencio Mudarra y Párraga -(Sevilla, 1895), are well-meant, and are, one hopes, useful for -examination purposes. José Fernández-Espino's _Curso histórico-crítico_ -(Sevilla, 1871) is excellent; but it ends with Cervantes' prose works, -and makes no reference to the Spanish theatre. - -On the drama there is nothing to match Adolf Friedrich von Schack's -_Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur und Kunst in Spanien_ (Berlin, -1845-46) and his _Nachträge_ (Frankfurt am Main, 1854). Romualdo -Álvarez Espino's _Ensayo histórico-crítico del teatro español_ -(Cádiz, 1876), containing long extracts from the chief dramatists, -is serviceable to beginners. The late Cayetano Barrera's _Catálogo -bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo español_ (1860) is -invaluable: lack of funds causes the supplement to remain "inedited." - -In bibliography Castilian is richer than English. Nicolás Antonio's -_Bibliotheca Hispana Nova_ (1783-88) and _Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus_ -(1788) are wonderful for their time. Bartolomé José Gallardo's _Ensayo -de una Biblioteca española de libros raros y curiosos_ (1863-89) owes -much to its editors, the Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle and D. José -Sancho Rayón. For old editions Pedro Salvá y Mallén's _Catálogo de la -biblioteca de Salvá_ (Valencia, 1872) may be consulted. An admirable -monthly bibliography of new books is issued by D. Rafael Altamira y -Crevea in his _Revista crítica de historia y literatura españolas, -portuguesas é hispano-americanas_. Murillo's monthly _Boletín_ is a -mere sale list. - -M. Foulché-Delbosc's _Revue hispanique_ and Sr. Altamira's _Revista -crítica_ are specially dedicated to our subject; the zeal and -self-sacrifice of both editors have earned the gratitude of all -students of Spanish literature. MM. Gaston Paris' and Paul Meyer's -_Romania_ frequently contains admirable essays and reviews by MM. -Morel-Fatio, Cornu, Cuervo, and others; as much may be said for Gustav -Gröber's _Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie_ (Halle), and for the -_Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ (Torino), edited by MM. -Francesco Novati and Rodolfo Renier. - -Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo's _Historia de las Ideas estéticas en España_ -(1883-91) touches literature at many points, and abounds in acute -and suggestive reflections. Two treatises by M. Arturo Farinelli, -_Die Beziehungen zwischen Spanien und Deutschland in der Litteratur -der beiden Länder_ (Berlin, 1892), and _Spanien und die spanische -Litteratur im Lichte der deutschen Kritik und Poesie_ (Berlin, 1892), -are remarkable for curious learning and appreciative criticism. - -The best general collection of classics is Manuel Rivadeneyra's -_Biblioteca de Autores españoles_ (1846-80), which consists of -seventy-nine volumes. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo's _Antología de poetas -líricos castellanos_ (1890-96) is supplied with very learned and -elaborate introductions. - - - CHAPTER I - -The _Leloaren Cantua_ and _Altobiskar Cantua_ are given, with -English renderings, in Mr. Wentworth Webster's admirable _Basque -Legends_ (1879); an exposure of the _Altobiskar_ hoax by the same -great authority is printed in the Academy of History's _Boletín_ -(1883). Rafael and Pedro Rodríguez Mohedano display much discursive, -uncritical erudition in their ten-volumed _Historia literaria en -España_ (1768-85), which deals only with the early period. A recent -study (1888) on Prudentius by the Conde de Viñaza deserves mention. -Migne's _Patrologia Latina_ includes the chief Spanish Fathers. In -the fourth volume of Charles Cahier's and Arthur Martin's _Nouveaux -Mélanges d'archéologie, d'histoire, et de littérature sur le moyen âge_ -(1877) there is a brilliant essay on the Gothic period by the Rev. Père -Jules Tailhan, to whom we also owe a splendid edition of the Rhymed -Chronicle, the _Epitoma Imperatorum_ (Paris, 1885), by the Anonymous -Writer of Córdoba. - -For the Spanish Jews, Hirsch Grätz' _Geschichte der Juden von -den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart_ (Leipzig, 1865-90) is -the best guide. Salomon Munk's _Mélanges de philosophie juive et -arabe_ (1857) is not yet superseded, and Abraham Geiger's _Divan -des Castilier Abu'l Hassan Juda ha Levi_ (Breslau, 1851) contains -information not to be found elsewhere. M. Kayserling's _Biblioteca -Española—Portugeza—Judaica_ (Strassburg, 1890) is extremely valuable. - -Two works by Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy are authoritative as regards -the Arab period: the _Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne_ (Leyde, -1861), and the _Recherches sur l'histoire politique et littéraire -de l'Espagne pendant le moyen âge_ (1881). The first edition of the -_Recherches_ (Leyde, 1849) embodies many suggestive passages cancelled -in the reprints. Schack's _Poesie und Kunst der Araber in Spanien -und Sicilien_ (Stuttgart, 1877) is a good general survey, a little -too enthusiastic in tone; it greatly gains in the Castilian version, -made from the first edition, by D. Juan Valera (1867-71). Nicolas -Lucien Leclerc's _Histoire de la médecine arabe_ (1876) is of much -wider scope than its title implies, and may be profitably consulted -on Arab achievements in other fields. Francisco Javier Simonet states -the case against the predominance of Arab culture in the preface to -his _Glosario de voces ibéricas y latinas usadas entre los Muzárabes_ -(1888). D. Julián Ribera's learned _Orígenes de la justicia en Aragón_ -(Zaragoza, 1897) deals with the facts in a more judicial spirit. Of -special monographs Ernest Renan's _Averroès et l'Averroïsme_ (1866) is -a recognised classic. The greater part of the codex from the Convent of -Santo Domingo de Silos, now in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 30,853), -has been published by Dr. Joseph Priebsch in the _Zeitschrift_, vol. -xix. - -As regards the Provençal influence in the Peninsula, Manuel Milá y -Fontanals' _Trovadores en España_ (Barcelona, 1887) is a definitive -work. Eugène Baret's _Espagne et Provence_ (1857) is pleasing but -superficial. Theophilo Braga's learned introduction to the _Cancioneiro -Portuguez da Vaticana_ (Lisbon, 1878) is brilliantly suggestive, -though inaccurate in detail. The counter-current from Northern France, -as it affects the epic, is treated in Milá y Fontanals' _Poesía -heróico-popular castellana_ (Barcelona, 1874). - - - CHAPTER II - -The _Misterio de los Reyes Magos_ is most accessible in Amador de -los Ríos' _Historia_, vol. iii. pp. 658-60, and in K. A. Martin -Hartmann's dissertation, _Ueber das altspanische Dreikönnigsspiel_ -(Bautzen, 1879). The Swedish scholar, Eduard Lidforss, printed the -_Misterio_ in the _Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur_ -(Leipzig, 1871), vol. xii., and Professor Georg Baist's diplomatic -edition appeared at Erlangen in 1879. Arturo Grafs _Studii drammatici_ -(Torino, 1878) contains an interesting essay on the Magi play; M. -Morel-Fatio's article in _Romania_, vol. ix., and Baist's review in the -_Zeitschrift_, vol. iv., are both important. D'Ancona's _Origini del -teatro italiano_ (Torino, 1891) discusses the question of the play's -date with much shrewdness and caution. - -The most convenient reference for the _Poema del Cid_ is to -Rivadeneyra, vol. lvii. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal's edition (1898) -supersedes all others: next, in order of merit, come Karl Vollmöller's -(Halle, 1879), Eduard Lidforss', called _Cantares de Myo Cid_ (Lund, -1895), and Mr. Archer Huntington's (New York, 1897). The _Cantar -de Rodrigo_ is in Rivadeneyra, vol. xvi.; vol. lvii. contains the -_Apolonio_, the _Vida de Santa María Egipciacqua_, and the _Tres Reyes -dorient_. The sources of _Santa María Egipciacqua_ are indicated by -Adolf Mussafia in the _Sitzungsberichte_ of the Vienna Academy of -Sciences, vol. clxiii. For the _Disputa del Alma y Cuerpo_ see the -_Zeitschrift_, vol. lx. M. Morel-Fatio edited the _Debate entre el Agua -y el Vino_ and the _Razón feita de Amor in Romania_, vol. xvi. Most -of the foregoing may be read in extract in Egidio Gorra's excellent -anthology, _Lingua e Letteratura Spagnuola delle origini_ (Milan, 1898). - - - CHAPTER III - -Most of the writers referred to in this chapter are included in -Rivadeneyra, vols. li. and lvii. A valuable article on Berceo by D. -Francisco Fernández y González, now Dean of the Central University, -was published in _La Razón_ (1857): a translated fragment of Berceo is -given by Longfellow in _Outre-Mer_. Gautier de Coinci's _Les Miracles -de la Sainte Vierge_ were edited by the Abbé Alexandre Eusèbe Poquet -(1857) in a somewhat prudish spirit. M. Morel-Fatio's study on the -_Libro de Alexandre_, printed in the fourth volume of _Romania_, is an -extremely thorough performance. - -Alfonso's _Siete Partidas_ (1807) and the _Fuero Juzgo_ (1815) have -been issued by the Spanish Academy; his scientific work is partially -represented by Manuel Rico y Sinobas' five folios entitled _Libros -del Saber de Astronomía_ (1863-67). There is no modern edition of -his histories, and a reprint is greatly needed: the inaugural speech -of D. Juan Facundo Riaño, read before the Academy of History (1869), -traces the sources with great ability and learning. The translations -in which Alfonso shared are best read in Hermann Knust's _Mitteilungen -aus dem Eskorial_ (vol. cxli. of the publications issued by the -Stuttgart Literarischer Verein), and in Knust's _Dos Obras didácticas -y dos Leyendas_ (1878). Alfonso's _Cantigas de Santa María_ have been -published by the Spanish Academy (1889) in two of the handsomest -volumes ever printed; the Marqués de Valmar has edited the text, and -supplied an admirable introduction and apparatus. - -Fadrique's _Engannos e Assayamientos de las Mogieres_ is to be sought -in Domenico Comparetti's _Ricerche intorno al libro di Sindibad_ -(Milan, 1869). The questions arising out of the _Gran Conquista de -Ultramar_ are discussed by M. Gaston Paris, with his usual lucidity and -learning, in _Romania_, vols. xvii., xix., and xxii. - - - CHAPTER IV - -Most of the poems mentioned are printed in Rivadeneyra, vol. lvii. -_Solomon's Rhymed Proverbs_ are included by Antonio Paz y Melia in -_Opúsculos literarios de los siglos XIV.-XVI._ (1892). The _Poema -de José_ has been reproduced in Arabic characters by Heinrich Morf -(Leipzig, 1883) as part of a _Gratulationsschrift_ from the University -of Bern to that of Zurich. - -Juan Manuel's writings were edited by Gayangos in Rivadeneyra, vol. -li.: we owe his _Libro de Caza_ to Professor Georg Baist (Halle, 1880), -and a valuable edition of the _Libro del Caballero et del Escudero_ to -S. Gräfenberg (Erlangen, 1883). Alfonso XI.'s handbook on hunting is -given by Gutiérrez de la Vega in the third volume of the _Biblioteca -Venatoria_ (Madrid, 1879). Ayala's history forms vols. i. and ii. of -Eugenio de Llaguno Amírola's _Crónicas Españolas_ (Madrid, 1779). - - - CHAPTER V - -The Comte de Puymaigre's _La Cour littéraire de Don Juan II._ (1873) is -an excellent general view of the subject. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's -_Don Enrique de Villena_ (1896) is a very learned and interesting -study. Villena's _Arte Cisoria_ was reprinted so recently as 1879. -The _Libro de los Gatos_ and Clemente Sánchez' _Exemplos_ are in -Rivadeneyra, vol. li.; the latter were completed by M. Morel-Fatio in -_Romania_, vol. vii. Mr. Thomas Frederick Crane's _Exempla_ of Jacques -Vitry (published in 1890 for the Folk-Lore Society) will be found -useful by English readers. - -Baena's _Cancionero_ (1851) was edited by the late Marqués de Pidal: -the large-paper copies contain a few loose pieces, omitted from the -ordinary edition which was reprinted by Brockhaus in a cheap form at -Leipzig in 1860. D. Antonio Paz y Melia's _Obras de Juan Rodríguez de -la Cámara_ (1884) is a good example of this scholar's conscientious -work. Amador de los Ríos' edition of the _Obras del Marqués de -Santillana_ (1852) is complete and minute in detail. - -There is no good edition of Juan de Mena's works; I have found it -most convenient to use that published by Francisco Sánchez (1804). -The _Coplas de la Panadera_ will be found in Gallardo, vol. i. cols. -613-617. - -Juan II.'s _Crónica_ is printed by Rivadeneyra, vol. lviii.; the -others—those of Clavijo, Gámez, Lena—are in Llaguno y Amírola's -_Crónicas Españolas_, already named. Llaguno also reprinted Pérez de -Guzmán's _Generaciones_ at Valencia in 1790. - -No modern editor has had the spirit to reissue Martínez de Toledo's -_Corbacho_, nor did even Ticknor possess a copy. The edition of Logroño -(1529) is convenient. The _Visión deleitable_ is in Rivadeneyra, vol. -xxxvi. I know no later edition of Lucena's _Vita Beata_ than that of -Zamora, 1483. - - - CHAPTER VI - -Hernando del Castillo's _Cancionero General_ should be read in the fine -edition (1882) published by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles; the -_Cancionero de burlas_ in Luis de Usoz y Río's reprint (London, 1841). -The Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle and D. José Sancho Rayón edited -Lope de Stúñiga's _Cancionero_ in 1872. While the present volume has -been passing through the press, M. Foulché-Delbosc has, for the first -time, published the entire text of the _Coplas del Provincial_ in the -_Revue hispanique_, vol. v. The _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_, Cota's -_Diálogo_, and Jorge Manrique's _Coplas_ are best read in D. Marcelino -Menéndez y Pelayo's _Antología_, vols. iii. and iv. An additional -piece of Cota's, discovered by M. Foulché-Delbosc, has been printed -in the _Revue hispanique_, vol. i.; and to D. Antonio Paz y Melia is -due the publication of Gómez Manrique's _Cancionero_ (1885). Iñigo -de Mendoza and Ambrosio Montesino are represented in Rivadeneyra, -vol. xxxv. Miguel del Riego y Núñez' edition of Padilla appeared -at London in 1841 in the _Colección de obras poéticas españolas_. -Pedro de Urrea's _Cancionero_ (1876) forms the second volume of the -_Biblioteca de Escritores Aragoneses_. Encina's _Teatro completo_ has -been admirably edited (1893) by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri: a suggestive -and penetrating criticism by Sr. Cotarelo y Mori appeared in _España -Moderna_ (May 1894). - -Palencia is to be studied sufficiently in his _Dos Tratados_ (1876), -arranged by D. Antonio María Fabié. The _Crónica_ of Lucas Iranzo was -given by the Academy of History (1853) in the _Memorial histórico -español_. _Amadís de Gaula_ is most easily read in Rivadeneyra, vol. -xl., which is preceded by a very instructive preface, the work of -Gayangos. The derivation of the _Amadís_ romance is ably discussed -from different points of view by Eugène Baret in his _Études sur la -redaction espagnole de l'Amadis de Gaule_ (1853); by Theophilo Braga in -his _Historia das novelas portuguezas de cavalleria_ (Porto, 1873); -and by Ludwig Braunfels in his _Kritischer Versuch über den Roman -Amadís von Gallien_ (Leipzig, 1876). The fourth volume of Ormsby's _Don -Quixote_ (1885) contains an exhaustive bibliography of the chivalresque -novels, most of which are both costly and worthless. Of the _Celestina_ -there are innumerable editions; the handiest is that in Rivadeneyra, -vol. iii. A reprint of Mabbe's splendid English version (1631) was -included by Mr. Henley in his _Tudor Translations_ (1894). D. Marcelino -Menéndez y Pelayo's brilliant essay on Rojas is reprinted in the second -series of his _Estudios de crítica literaria_ (1895). Bernáldez' -_Historia de los Reyes católicos_ (Granada, 1856) has been carefully -produced by Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara. Pulgar's _Claros Varones_ -was inserted at the end of Llaguno y Amírola's edition of the _Centón -epistolario_ (1775). It is quite impossible to give any notion of the -immense mass of literature concerning Columbus; but anything bearing -the names of Martín Fernández de Navarrete or of Mr. Henry Harrisse is -entitled to the greatest respect. - - - CHAPTER VII - -M. Morel-Fatio's _L'Espagne au 16^e et 17^e siécle_ (Heilbronn, 1878) -is invaluable for this period and the succeeding century. Dr. Adam -Schneider's _Spaniens Anteil an der deutschen Litteratur des 16. und -17. Jahrhunderts_ (Strassburg, 1898) is a work of immense industry, -containing much curious information in a convenient form. English -readers will find an excellent summary of the literary history of this -time in Mr. David Hannay's _Later Renaissance_ (1898). - -Manuel Cañete, whose _Teatro español del siglo XVI._ (1885) is useful -but ill arranged, included a single volume of Torres Naharro's -_Propaladia_ among the _Libros de Antaño_ so long ago as 1880; the -second is still to come, and those who would read this dramatist -must turn to the rare sixteenth-century editions. Perhaps the best -reprint of Gil Vicente is that issued at Hamburg in 1834 by José -Victorino Barreto Feio and José Gomes Monteiro; a most complete -account of Vicente, his environment and influence, is given by -Theophilo Braga in the seventh volume of his learned _Historia de la -litteratura portuguesa_ (Porto, 1898). Boscán's Castilian version of -the _Cortegiano_ was reissued in 1873; the completest edition of his -verse is that published by Professor Knapp (of Yale University), issued -at Madrid in 1873. Professor Flamini's _Studi di storia letteraria -italiana e straniera_ (Livorno, 1895) contains a very scholarly essay -on the debt of Boscán to Bernardo Tasso. The poems of Garcilaso are -in Rivadeneyra, vols. xxxii. and xlii.; but a far pleasanter book to -handle is Azara's edition (1765). Benedetto Croce's study entitled -_Intorno al soggiorno di Garcilaso de la Vega in Italia_ (1894) -appeared originally in the _Rassegna storica napoletana di lettere ed -arte_ (a magazine which deserves to be better known in England than -it is). Croce's researches have been printed apart, and we may look -forward to his publishing others no less important. Jeremiah Holmes -Wiffen's biography and translation of Garcilaso (1823) are defective, -but nothing better exists in English. Few poets in the world have -been so fortunate in their editors as Sâ de Miranda. Mme. Carolina -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos' reprint (Halle, 1881), with its very learned -apparatus of introduction, notes, and variants, is a real achievement -unsurpassed in the history of editing. A fine edition of Gutierre de -Cetina has been published (Seville, 1895) with a scholarly introduction -by D. Joaquín Hazañas y la Rua. Acuña's works appeared at Madrid in -1804; his _Contienda de Ayax_ is in the second volume of López de -Sedano's _Parnaso Español_ (1778). Concerning Mendoza, the reader may -profitably turn to Charles Graux' _Essai sur les origines du fona grec -de l'Escorial_ (1880), published in the _Bibliothèque de l'École des -Hautes Études_. Professor Knapp edited Mendoza's verses in 1877: a -creditable piece of work, though inferior to his edition of Boscán. -Castillejo and Silvestre are exampled in Rivadeneyra, vol. xxxii. Of -Villegas' _Inventario_ there is no modern reprint. - -Guevara is sufficiently represented in Rivadeneyra, vol. lxv.; the -English versions by Lord Berners, North, Fenton, Hellowes, and others, -are of exceptional merit and interest. - -The most important historians of the Indies are reprinted by -Rivadeneyra, vols. xxii. and xxvi. Amador de los Ríos edited Oviedo for -the Academy of History in 1851-55. Very full details concerning Cortés -are given by Prescott in his classic book on Peru, and Sir Arthur -Helps' _Life of Las Casas_ (1868) is a pleasing piece of partisanship. - -_Lazarillo de Tormes_ should be read in Mr. Butler Clarke's beautiful -reproduction of the _princeps_ (1897). M. Morel-Fatio's essay in the -first series of his _Études sur l'Espagne_ (1895) is exceedingly -ingenious, but, like all negative criticism, it is somewhat -unconvincing. His guess that _Lazarillo_ was written by some one -connected with the Valdés clique does not seem very happy, but even a -conjecture by M. Morel-Fatio carries great weight. - -Eduard Böhmer gives a very full bibliography of Juan de Valdés in his -_Biblioteca Wiffeniana_ (Strassburg, 1874). Benjamin Barron Wiffen -had for Valdés a kind of cult which found partial expression in his -quarto _Life and Writings of Juan Valdés, otherwise Valdesio_ (1865). -But it is impossible to give more minute references to the voluminous -literature which deals with Valdés and his brother Alfonso. An -historical essay by Manuel Carrasco, published at Geneva in 1880, is -interesting as the work of a modern Spanish Protestant. - - - CHAPTER VIII - -The Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle's edition of Lope de Rueda -(1894) lacks an introduction, but it is in other respects as good -as possible. D. Ángel Lasso de la Vega y Arguëlles has published a -_Historia y Juicio crítico de la Escuela Poética Sevillana_ (1871), -which is useful, and even exhaustive, though far too eulogistic in -tone. The Argensolas may be conveniently studied in Rivadeneyra, vol. -xlii., which is supplemented by the Conde de Viñaza's collection of the -_Poesías sueltas_ (1889). Minor dramatists still await republication. -Herrera is easiest read in Rivadeneyra, vol. xxxii.; M. Morel-Fatio's -critical edition of the Lepanto Ode (Paris, 1893) is of great merit, -and an essay on Herrera by M. Édouard Bourciez in the _Annales de -la Faculté des lettres de Bordeaux_ (1891) is acute and suggestive. -Vicente de la Fuente is the editor of Santa Teresa's writings in -Rivadeneyra, vols. liii. and lv. The biography by Mrs. Cunninghame -Graham (1894), a work both learned and picturesque, presents rather the -woman of genius than the canonised saint. The text of the remaining -mystics will, with few exceptions, be found in Rivadeneyra, vols. vi., -viii., ix., xxvii., and xxxii. The lesser lights exist only in editions -of great rarity. - -Torre's verses are most accessible in Velázquez' edition (1753). Of -Figueroa there is no recent reprint, though a poor selection is offered -by Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii., which also includes Rufo Gutiérrez' minor -verse: his _Austriada_ is given in vol. xxix., and Ercilla's _Araucana_ -in vol. xvii. The _Catálogo razonado biográfico y bibliográfico_ of -the Portuguese authors who wrote in Spanish is due (1890) to Domingo -García Peres. The Barcelona reprint (1886) of Montemôr is easily found: -Professor Hugo Albert Rennert's monograph, _The Spanish Pastoral -Romances_ (Baltimore, 1892), is extremely thorough. Zurita is best read -in the _princeps_. A new edition of Mendoza's _Guerra de Granada_ is -urgently called for, and is now being passed through the press by M. -Foulché-Delbosc. Mendoza's burlesque of Silva will be found in Paz y -Melia's _Sales Españolas_ (1890). - - - CHAPTER IX - -Henceforward the task of the bibliographer is lighter; for, though -Cervantes, Lope, and later writers are the subjects of an enormous -mass of literature, and are reprinted in editions out of number, it -will only be necessary to name the most important. The twelve quartos -which form the _Obras Completas_ (1863-64) of Cervantes are open to -much damaging criticism; but they contain all his writings, except the -conjectural pieces gathered together by D. Adolfo de Castro in his -_Varias obras inéditas de Cervantes_ (1874). For a most exhaustive -bibliography of Cervantes' writings (Barcelona, 1895) we are indebted -to the late D. Leopoldo Rius y Llosellas: a posthumous volume is -to follow, but even in its present incomplete state Rius' book is -worth more than all previous attempts put together. Editions of _Don -Quixote_ abound, and of these Diego Clemencín's (1833-39) deserves -special mention for its very learned commentary. A new edition, in -course of issue by Mr. David Nutt (1898), presents a text freed from -arbitrary emendations which have crept in without authority. Fernández -de Navarrete's biography (1819) is still unequalled. Shelton's early -English version (1612-20) has been reprinted by Mr. Henley in his -series of _Tudor Translations_ (1896). Of later renderings John -Ormsby's (1885) is much the best, and is prefaced by a very judicious -account of Cervantes and his work. Duffield (1881) and Mr. H. E. Watts -(1894) have translated _Don Quixote_ in a spirit of enthusiasm. The -_Numancia_ (1885) and _Viaje del Parnaso_ (1883) were both admirably -rendered by the late James Young Gibson. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo's paper -on Avellaneda appeared in _Los Lunes de El Imparcial_ (February 15, -1897). - -The _Obras_ of Lope, now printing under the editorship of D. Marcelino -Menéndez y Pelayo, will be definitive; but as yet only eight quartos -(including Barrera's _Nueva Biografía_) are available. Lope's _Obras -sueltas_ (1776-79) fill twenty-one volumes; but the best reference -for readers is to Rivadeneyra, vols. xxiv., xxxv., xxxvii., xli., -and xlii., where Lope is incompletely but sufficiently exhibited. -M. Arturo Farinelli's _Grillparzer und Lope de Vega_ (Berlin, 1894) -is most excellent. Edmund Dorer's _Die Lope-de-Vega Litteratur in -Deutschland_ (1877) is a praiseworthy compilation. Ormsby's article in -the _Quarterly Review_ (October 1894) is, as might be expected from -him, most exact and learned. I am especially indebted to it. - -As to the picaresque novels, _Guzmán_ is in Rivadeneyra, vol. iii.; -the _Pícara Justina_ in vol. xxxiii., and _Marcos de Obregón_ in vol. -xviii. A thoughtful and appreciative study on Mateo Alemán has been -privately printed at Seville (1892) by D. Joaquín Hazañas y la Rua. -Antonio Pérez and Ginés Pérez de Hita are to be read in Rivadeneyra, -vols. xiii. and iii.: Mariana fills vols. xxx. and xxxi., but the two -noble folios of 1780 are in every way preferable. - - - CHAPTER X - -The early editions of Góngora are named in the text; Rivadeneyra, -vol. xxxii., reprints him in unsatisfactory fashion, but there is -nothing better. Forty-nine inedited pieces by Góngora have been -recently published by Professor Rennert in the _Revue hispanique_, -vol. iv. Churton's essay on Góngora (1862) is learned, spirited, and -interesting. Villamediana figures in Rivadeneyra's forty-second volume: -D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's minute and judicious study (1886) is -extremely important. Lasso de la Vega's monograph, already cited, on -the Sevillan school, should be consulted for the poets of that group. -Villegas and the minor poets may be read in Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii. -Rioja has been admirably edited by Barrera (1867), who has supplied -a most scholarly biography and bibliography: the additional poems -issued in 1872 are more curious than valuable. Quevedo's prose works -were edited by Aureliano Fernández-Guerra y Orbe with great skill -and accuracy in Rivadeneyra, vols. xxiii. and xlviii.; his verse has -been printed in vol. lxix. by Florencio Janer, who was not the man -for the task. The new and complete edition, issued by the Sociedad de -Bibliófilos Andaluces, and edited by D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, -promises to be admirable, and will include much new matter—for -instance, a pure text of the _Buscón_. As yet but one volume (1898) -has been issued to subscribers. M. Ernest Mérimée, the author of an -excellent monograph on Quevedo (1886), has given us a critical edition -of Castro's _Mocedades del Cid_ (Toulouse, 1890). Vélez de Guevara and -Montalbán are exampled in Rivadeneyra, vol. xlv.: the prose of the -former is in vol. xviii. - -Hartzenbusch's twelve-volume edition of Tirso de Molina (1839-42) is -incomplete, but it is greatly superior to the selection in Rivadeneyra, -vol. v. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's monograph on Tirso (1893) -contains many new facts, stated with great precision and lucidity. -Hartzenbusch's edition of Ruiz de Alarcón in Rivadeneyra, vo. xx., is -the best and fullest. - -Calderón's editions are numerous, but none are really good. Keil's -(Leipzig, 1827) is the most complete; Hartzenbusch's, which fills -vols. vii., ix., xii., and xiv. of Rivadeneyra, is the easiest to -obtain, and is sufficient for most purposes. Mr. Norman MacColl's -_Select Plays of Calderon_ (1888) deserves special mention for its -excellent introduction and judicious notes. M. Morel-Fatio's edition -of _El Mágico Prodigioso_ is a model of skill and accuracy. Two small -collections of Calderón's verse were published at Cádiz, 1845, and -at Madrid, 1881. Archbishop Trench's monograph (1880) and Miss E. -J. Hasell's study (1879) are deservedly well known. D. Marcelino -Menéndez y Pelayo's lectures, _Calderón y su Teatro_ (1881) are full of -sound, impartial criticism. Friedrich Wilhelm Valentin Schmidt's _Die -Schauspiele Calderon's_ (Elberfeld, 1857) maintains its place by virtue -of its sound and sympathetic criticism. The history of the _autos_ is -fully given by Eduardo González Pedroso in Rivadeneyra, vol. lviii. -Edmund Dorer's _Die Calderon-Litteratur in Deutschland_ (Leipzig, 1881) -is useful and unpretending. D. Antonio Sánchez Moguel's study (1881) of -the relation between the _Mágico Prodigioso_ and Goethe's _Faust_ is -learned and ingenious, and D. Antonio Rubió y Lluch's _Sentimiento del -Honor en el Teatro de Calderón_ (Barcelona, 1882) is a very suggestive -essay. - -The select plays of Rojas Zorrilla and Moreto are contained in -Rivadeneyra, vols. xxxix. and liv. There exists no good edition of -Gracián: Carl Borinski's study entitled _Baltasar Gracián und die -Hoflitteratur in Deutschland_ (Halle, 1894) is a very commendable book, -and M. Arturo Farinelli's criticism in the _Revista crítica_, vol. -ii., is not only learned, but is warm in its appreciation of Gracián's -perverse talent. - - - CHAPTER XI - -An almost complete record of eighteenth-century literature is supplied -by Sr. D. Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar, in his -_Histórica Crítica de la poesía castellana en el siglo XVIII._ (1893), -a revised and augmented edition of the classic preface to Rivadeneyra, -vols. lxi., lxiii., and lxvii. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's invaluable -_Iriarte y su época_ (1897) sheds much light on the literary history of -the period, and D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's _Historia de las Ideas -estéticas en España_ (vol. iii. part ii., 1886) should be read as a -complement to all other works. Antonio María Alcalá Galiano's _Historia -de la literatura española, francesa, inglesa, é italiano en el siglo -XVIII._ (1845) is acute, but somewhat obsolete. I should recommend as -an honest, useful monograph the life of Sarmiento published under the -title of _El Gran Gallego_ (La Coruña, 1895) by D. Antolín López Peláez. - - - CHAPTERS XII AND XIII - -The only summary of the period is Padre Francisco Blanco García's -_Literatura Española en el siglo XIX._ (1891): it is extremely -uncritical, and is marred by violent personal prejudices intemperately -expressed. But it has the merit of existing, and embodies useful -information in the way of facts. Gustave Hubbard's _Histoire de la -littérature contemporaine en Espagne_ (1876) and Boris de Tannenberg's -_La Poésie castellane contemporaine_ (1892) are pleasant but slight. -Pedro de Novo y Colsón's _Autores dramáticos contemporaneos y joyas del -teatro español del siglo XIX._ (1881-85), with a preface by Antonio -Cánovas del Castillo, is conscientiously put together, and will be -found very serviceable. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[32] Unless otherwise stated, it is to be understood that, of the books -named in this list, the Spanish are issued at Madrid, the English at -London, and the French at Paris. - - - - - INDEX - - - Abarbanel, Judas, 131, 219 - - Abraham ben David, 19 - - Acuña, Fernando de, 149-150 - - Adenet le Roi, 41 - - _Alabanza de Mahoma_, 20 - - Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de, 381-382 - - Alas, Leopoldo, 391-392 - - Alba, Bartolomé, 257 - - Alcalá, Alfonso de, 130 - - Alcalá y Herrera, Alonso de, 338 - - Alcázar, Baltasar de, 176 - - Alemán, Mateo, 264-267 - - _Alexander, Letters of_, 63, 65 - - _Alexandre, Libro de_, 62, 63, 65 - - Alfonso II. of Aragón, 28, 29 - - Alfonso the Learned, 28, 30, 38, 60, 63-72 - - Alfonso XI., 85 - - _Aljamía_, 19-20 - - Altamira y Crevea, Rafael, 398 - - _Altobiskarko Cantua_, 2 - - Al-Tufail, 12 - - Álvarez de Ayllón, Pero, 165 - - Álvarez de Cienfuegos, Nicasio, 359 - - Álvarez de Toledo, Gabriel, 346 - - Álvarez de Villasandino, Alfonso, 26, 31 - - Álvarez Gato, Juan, 112 - - _Amadís de Gaula_, 91, 97, 106, 123-124 - - _Amadís de Grecia_, 106, 157 - - Amador de los Ríos, José, 34, 43, 107 - - Amalteo, Giovanni Battista, 186 - - _Anales Toledanos_, 62 - - Andújar, Juan de, 109 - - Ángeles, Juan de los, 202 - - Ángulo y Pulgar, Martín de, 291 - - _Anséïs de Carthage_, 41 - - Antonio, Nicolás, 343 - - _Apolonio, Libro de_, 20, 30, 38, 53-54 - - Arab influence, 14-19 - - Arévalo, Faustino, 11 - - Argensola. _See_ Leonardo de Argensola - - Argote, Juan de, 280 - - Argote y Góngora, Luis, 143, 233, 250, 270, 276, 279-294 - - Arguijo, Juan de, 298 - - Arias Montano, Benito, 181, 202-203, 272 - - Artieda. _See_ Rey de Artieda - - Asenjo Barbieri, Francisco, 19, 131, 250 - - Avellaneda. _See_ Fernández de Avellaneda - - Avellaneda. _See_ Gómez de Avellaneda - - Avempace, 12 - - Avendaño, Francisco de, 170 - - Averroes, 12 - - Avicebron, 11, 17, 18 - - Ávila, Juan de, 161 - - Ávila y Zúñiga, Luis, 156 - - _Avilés, Fuero de_, 24 - - Axular, Pedro de, 3 - - Ayala. _See_ López de Ayala - - Azémar, Guilhem, 36 - - - Baena, Juan Alfonso de, 95, 96 - - Baist, Professor, 82 - - Balbus, 5 - - Balmes y Uspia, Jaime, 382 - - Bances Candamo, Francisco Antonio, 335 - - Barahona de Soto, Luis, 189, 270 - - Barcelo, Francisco, 118 - - _Barlaam and Josaphat, Legend of_, 83, 96 - - Barrera y Leirado, Cayetano Alberto de la, 242, 244 - - Barrientos, Lope de, 95 - - Basque influence, 3-4 - - Baudouin, Jean, 233 - - Bavia, Luis de, 286 - - Bechada, Grégoire de, 72 - - Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo, 377-378 - - Bédier, M. Joseph, 16 - - _Belianís de Grecia_, 158 - - Belmonte y Bermúdez, Luis, 314 - - Bembo, Pietro, 144 - - Berague, Pedro de, 87 - - Berceo, Gonzalo de, 27, 28, 29, 57-61 - - Beristain de Souza Fernández de Lara, José Mariano, 257 - - Bermúdez, Gerónimo, 173 - - Bernáldez, Andrés, 127 - - Blanco, José María, 367-368 - - Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente, 395 - - _Bocados de Oro._ See _Bonium_ - - Böhl de Faber, Cecilia. _See_ Caballero - - Böhl de Faber, Johan Nikolas, 203 - - Böhmer, Eduard, 162 - - Bonilla, Alonso de, 299 - - _Bonium_, 63, 73 - - Boscán Almogaver, Juan, 136-141, 143 - - Bouterwek, Friedrich, 289 - - Braulius, St., 10 - - Bretón de los Herreros, Manuel, 374 - - Burke, Edmund, 124 - - Byron, Lord, 230, 313, 370 - - - Caballero, Fernán, 380-381, 389 - - Cabanyes, Manuel de, 372 - - _Cabo roto, Versos de_, 228, 268 - - Cáceres y Espinosa, Pedro de, 153 - - Cadalso y Vázquez, José de, 355 - - Calanson, Guirauld de, 36 - - Calderón de la Barca Henao de la Barreda y Riaño, Pedro, 85, 136, 225, - 250, 256, 261, 276, 317-332 - - Camões, Luis de, 115, 177, 203, 270 - - Campoamor y Campoosorio, Ramón de, 383-386 - - Camus, Jean-Pierre, 289 - - _Cancioneiro Portuguez da Vaticana_, 30, 71 - - _Cancionero de Baena_, 30, 33, 96-98 - - _Cancionero de burlas_, 109, 112, 124 - - _Cancionero de Linares_, 15 - - _Cancionero de Lope de Stúñiga_, 34 - - _Cancionero General_, 109 - - _Cancionero Musical_, 119, 122, 131 - - Cañizares, José de, 345 - - Cano, Alonso, 276 - - Cano, Melchor, 200 - - _Cantilenas_, 24-25 - - _Canzoniere Colocci-Brancuti_, 123 - - Carlos Quinto, 142, 149 - - Caro, Rodrigo, 249 - - Carrillo, Alonso, 65, 114 - - Carrillo y Sotomayor, Luis de, 282-284 - - Carvajal, 34, 110 - - Carvajal, Miguel de, 165, 172 - - Casas, Bartolomé de las, 156 - - Cascales, Francisco de, 291, 293 - - Castellanos, Juan de, 192 - - Castellví, Francisco de, 118 - - _Castilla, Crónica de_, 103 - - Castilla, Francisco de, 153 - - Castillejo, Cristóbal de, 151-152, 165 - - Castillo Solórzano, Alonso de, 338 - - Castro, Adolfo de, 299 - - Castro y Bellvis, Guillén de, 305-306 - - Cecchi, Giovanni Maria, 168 - - _Celestina_, 107, 120, 125-126 - - _Centón Epistolario_, 272 - - Cepeda y Guzmán, Carlos, 320 - - Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco, 154 - - Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 180, 215-241, 249, 253, 267, 268, 276, - 278, 289, 350 - - Céspedes y Meneses, Gonzalo de, 338 - - Cetina, Gutierre de, 148-149 - - Chaves, Cristóbal de, 235 - - Chivalresque novels, 157-158 - - Churton, Edward, 178, 281, 282-283, 286, 290, 319-320 - - _Cid, Crónica del_, 103 - - _Cid, Poema del_, 24, 25, 40, 46-51 - - Cienfuegos. _See_ Álvarez de Cienfuegos - - Civillar, Pedro de, 118 - - Claramonte y Corroy, Andrés, 309 - - Claude, Bishop, 10 - - Clavijo. _See_ González de Clavijo - - Clavijo y Fajardo, José, 360 - - _Cobos, El Padre_, 377 - - Cobos, Francisco de los, 179 - - Coloma, Luis, 394 - - Columbarius, Julius, 251 - - Columbus, Christopher, 12, 127-128 - - Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus, 8 - - Concepción, Juan de la, 346 - - _Conceptismo_, 299-300 - - Contreras, Juana de, 129 - - Córdoba, Martín de, 68 - - Córdoba, Sebastián de, 207 - - Corneille, Pierre, 306, 345 - - Corneille, Thomas, 313, 335 - - Cornu, Professor, 86 - - Coronado, Carolina, 375 - - Coronel, Pablo, 130 - - Corral, Pedro de, 93 - - Corte Real, Jerónimo, 203 - - Cortés, Hernán, 157 - - Cota de Maguaque, Rodrigo de, 110, 120-121 - - Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio, 122, 309, 398 - - Covarrubias y Horozco, Sebastián, 344 - - Croce, Benedetto, 126 - - _Crotalón, El_, 303 - - Cruz, San Juan de la, 182, 198-200 - - Cruz y Cano, Ramón de la, 360-361 - - Cubillo de Aragón, Álvaro, 335 - - Cuello, Antonio, 335 - - _Cuestión de Amor_, 126-127 - - Cueva de la Garoza, Juan de la, 171-173 - - _Culteranismo_, 283-285 - - Cunninghame Graham, Mrs., 193 - - - Damasus, St., 8-9 - - _Danza de la Muerte_, 87-88 - - Dascanio, Jusquin, 131 - - Davidson, Mr. John, 70 - - _Debate entre el Agua y el Vino_, 55 - - Dechepare, Bernard, 3 - - Defoe, Daniel, 228 - - Diamante, Juan Bautista, 345 - - _Diario de los Literatos de España_, 348 - - Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 157 - - Díaz Gámez, Gutierre, 105, 106, 347 - - Díaz Tanco de Fregenal, Vasco, 164 - - _Diez Mandamientos_, 62 - - Diniz, King of Portugal, 28, 38 - - _Disputa del Alma y el Cuerpo_, 55 - - Dobson, Mr. Austin, 15, 251 - - _Doce Sabios, Libro de los_, 63 - - Dominicus Gundisalvi, 19 - - Donoso Cortés, Juan, 382 - - D'Ouville, Antoine Le Métel, 263, 332 - - Dryden, John, 192, 264, 332 - - Ducas, Demetrio, 130 - - Duhalde, Louis, 2 - - Durán, Agustín, 93, 264 - - - Echegaray, José, 376, 395 - - Encina, Juan del, 111, 121-123, 130, 135 - - _Enrique IV., Crónica de_, 117 - - Enríquez del Castillo, Diego, 117 - - Enríquez Gómez, Antonio, 338 - - Ercilla y Zúñiga, Alonso de, 3, 184, 190-192 - - _Ermitaño, Revelación de un_, 88 - - Escobar, Juan de, 34 - - Escobar, Luis de, 154 - - Escribá, Comendador de, 319 - - Espinosa, Pedro de, 189, 270, 279 - - Espinosa Medrano, Juan de, 291 - - Espronceda, José de, 368-372 - - Esquilache, Príncipe de (Francisco de Borja), 299 - - Estébanez Calderón, Serafín, 379-380 - - _Estebanillo González, Vida y Hechos de_, 338 - - Eugenius, St., 10 - - Eulogius, St., 18 - - Eximenis, Francisco, 107 - - - Fadrique, the Infante, 72, 78 - - Fanshawe, Richard, 314 - - Faria y Sousa, Manuel, 185, 288-289 - - Farinelli, M. Arturo, 265, 312 - - Feijóo y Montenegro, Benito Gerónimo, 349 - - Ferdinand, St., 35, 62, 63 - - _Fernán González, Poema de_, 35 - - Fernández, Lucas, 122 - - Fernández de Andrado, Pedro, 299 - - Fernández de Avellaneda, Alonso, 238-240, 350 - - Fernández de Moratín, Leandro, 361-362 - - Fernández de Moratín, Nicolás Martín, 354 - - Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, González, 156 - - Fernández de Palencia, Alfonso, 117, 130 - - Fernández de Toledo, Garci, 68 - - Fernández de Villegas, Pedro, 118, 130 - - Fernández-Guerra y Orbe, Aureliano, 24, 172, 299 - - Fernández Vallejo, Felipe, 44 - - Ferreira, Antonio, 173 - - Ferrús, Pero, 97 - - Figueroa, Francisco de, 187 - - FitzGerald, Edward, 323, 324, 325, 326, 331, 332 - - Flamini, Professor, 139 - - Flaubert, Gustave, 313 - - _Florisando_, 157 - - _Florisel de Niquea_, 106, 157 - - Forner, Juan Pablo, 357 - - Foulché-Delbosc, M. R., 120, 193, 210 - - French influence, 35-42 - - Frere, John Hookham, 59 - - Froude, James Anthony, 196-197 - - Fuentes, Alonso de, 33, 65 - - _Fuero Juzgo_, 62 - - Furtado de Mendoza, Diego, 28 - - - Gallego, Juan Nicasio, 365 - - Gallinero, Manuel, 348 - - Gálvez de Montalvo, Luis, 207, 216 - - Garay, Blasco de, 171 - - Garay de Monglave, François Eugène, 2 - - García Arrieta, Agustín, 237 - - García Asensio, Miguel, 356 - - García de la Huerta y Muñoz, Vicente Antonio, 355-356 - - García de Santa María, Álvar, 102, 108 - - García Gutiérrez, Antonio, 374 - - Gareth, Benedetto, 131 - - Garnett, Dr. Richard, 344 - - _Gatos, Libro de los_, 96 - - Gautier de Coinci, 60, 61 - - Gayangos, Pascual de, 24, 83 - - Gentil, Bertomeu, 131 - - Geraldino, Alessandro, 129 - - Geraldino, Antonio, 129 - - Giancarli, Gigio Arthenio, 168 - - Gibson, James Young, 222, 223, 224, 253, 278, 304 - - Girard d'Amiens, 41 - - Girón, Diego, 176, 179 - - Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, 221, 230, 323 - - Goizcueta, José María, 2 - - Gómara. _See_ López de Gómara - - Gómez, 26, 74 - - Gómez, Álvar, 118, 131 - - Gómez, Ambrosio, 58 - - Gómez, Pero, 65, 74 - - Gómez de Avellaneda, Gertrudis, 374-375 - - Gómez de Cibdareal, Fernán, 272 - - Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco, 96, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, - 228, 270, 277, 291, 300-305, 308, 345 - - Góngora. _See_ Argote y Góngora - - González, Diego Tadeo, 359 - - González de Ávila, Gil, 272 - - González de Clavijo, Ruy, 105 - - González de Mendoza, Pedro, 28 - - González Llanos, Rafael, 24 - - Gosse, Mr. Edmund, 15, 231, 344, 387 - - Gower, John (the first English author translated into Castilian), 98 - - Gracián, Baltasar, 338-340 - - _Gran Conquista de Ultramar_, 72 - - Granada, Luis de, 200-202 - - Grant Duff, Sir M. E., 338 - - Grillparzer, Franz, 265 - - Grosseteste, Robert, 54 - - Guarda, Estevam del, 30 - - Guerra y Ribera, Manuel de, 327 - - Guevara, 119 - - Guevara, Antonio de, 154-156 - - Guevara, Luis. _See_ Vélez Guevara - - Guillén de Segovia, Pedro, 116 - - - Hadrian, 5, 6 - - Hammen, Lorenzo van der, 303 - - Hardy, Alexandre, 263 - - Haro, Conde de, 179 - - Haro, Luis de, 152 - - Hartzenbusch, Juan Eugenio, 96, 174, 374 - - Hebreo, León. _See_ Abarbanel - - Hellowes, Edward, 155 - - Henley, Mr. William Ernest, 15 - - Henricus Seynensis, 19 - - Herbert, George, 162 - - Heredia, José Maria, 157 - - Hernández, Alonso, 132 - - Herrera, Fernando, 138, 146, 149, 176-180, 281, 282 - - Hervás y Cobo de la Torre, José Gerardo de, 348-349 - - Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo, 362 - - Hoces y Córdoba, Gonzalo de, 281 - - Holland, Lord, 254, 256, 265 - - Hosius, 9 - - Hübner, Baron Emil, 8 - - Huete, Jaime de, 165 - - Hurtado, Luis, 124, 165 - - Hurtado de Mendoza, Antonio, 314 - - Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, 139, 148, 150-151, 189, 208-210, 235 - - Hussain ibn Ishāk, 63, 73 - - Huysmans, M. Joris-Karl, 197 - - Hyginus, Gaius Julius, 4 - - - Ibn Hazm, 12, 18 - - Icazbalceta, Joaquín García, 190 - - Iglesias de la Casa, José, 359 - - Imperial, Francisco, 97-98, 137 - - Iñíguez de Medrano, Julio, 233 - - _Iranzo y Crónica del Condestable Miguel Lucas_, 117, 167 - - Iriarte y Oropesa, Tomás de, 3, 268, 356-357 - - Isaac the Martyr, 18 - - Isidore, St., 10 - - Isidore Pacensis, 11 - - Isla, Francisco José de, 351-354 - - - Jáuregui y Aguilar, Juan de, 288, 298, 307 - - Jiménez de Cisneros, Francisco, 130 - - Jiménez de Rada, Rodrigo, 62, 67, 68 - - Jiménez Patón, Bartolomé, 285, 295 - - Johnson, Samuel, 124, 138 - - _José, Poema de._ _See_ Yusuf - - Josephus, 150 - - Jove-Llanos, Gaspar Melchor de, 357-358 - - _Juan II., Crónica de_, 100-101 - - Juan Manuel, 16, 80-85 - - Judah ben Samuel the Levite, 12, 14, 17, 43 - - _Juglares_, 26-31 - - Juvencus, Vettius Aquilinus, 8 - - - _Kabbala_, the, 13 - - _Kalilah and Dimnah_, 65, 71, 78 - - Killigrew, Thomas, 332 - - - Lafayette, Madame de, 269 - - Lamberto, Alfonso, 239 - - Landor, Walter Savage, 228 - - Larra, Mariano José de, 96, 97, 378-379 - - Latini, Brunetto, 65 - - Latrocinius, 9 - - _Lazarillo de Tormes_, 80, 158-160 - - Ledesma, Francisco, 166 - - Ledesma Buitrago, Alonso de, 299 - - _Leloaren Cantua_, 1-2 - - Lena. _See_ Rodríguez de Lena - - León, Luis Ponce de, 180-184, 194, 195 - - León y Mansilla, José, 346 - - Leonardo de Albión, Gabriel, 277 - - Leonardo de Argensola, Bartolomé, 276-279 - - Leonardo de Argensola, Lupercio, 175-176, 276-278 - - Lesage, 42, 85, 269, 307, 354 - - Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 350, 351 - - L'Estrange, Roger, 304 - - Lewes, George Henry, 265 - - Licinianus, 10 - - Lidforss, Professor, 43 - - Lista, Alberto, 169, 368 - - _Lisuarte_, 157, 158 - - Llaguno y Amírola, Eugenio, 347 - - Lo Frasso, Antonio, 207 - - Loaysa, Jofre de, 68 - - Lobeira, Joham, 123, 153 - - Lobo, Eugenio Gerardo, 346 - - Lockhart, James Gibson, 93 - - Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 115, 328 - - Lope de Moros, 55, 57 - - Lope de Vega. _See_ Vega Carpio - - López de Aguilar Coutiño. _See_ Columbarius - - López de Ayala, Adelardo, 375-376 - - López de Ayala, Pero, 3, 74, 88-92 - - López de Cartagena, Diego, 130 - - López de Corelas, Alonso, 154 - - López de Gómara, Francisco, 157 - - López de Sedano, José, 175, 187, 268 - - López de Toledo, Diego, 130 - - López de Úbeda, Francisco. _See_ Pérez, Andrés - - López de Úbeda, Juan, 271 - - López de Vicuña, Juan, 280-281 - - López de Villalobos, Francisco, 130, 154 - - Lorenzana y Buitrón, Francisco Antonio, 11 - - Lorenzo Segura de Astorga, Juan, 63 - - Loyola, St. Ignacio, 3, 193 - - Lucan, 4, 8 - - Lucena, Juan de, 107, 108 - - Luján de Sayavedra, Mateo. _See_ Martí - - Lull, Ramón, 73, 82 - - Luna, Álvaro de, 28 - - _Luna, Crónica de Álvaro de_, 102-103 - - Luzán Claramunt de Suelves y Gurrea, Ignacio, 346-348 - - - M'Carthy, Denis Florence, 328-329 - - MacColl, Mr. Norman, 320 - - Macías, 96-97, 119 - - _Magos, Misterio de los Reyes_, 24, 35, 43-46 - - Mahomat-el-Xartosse, 20 - - Maimonides, 12-14 - - Máinez, Ramón León, 239 - - Mairet, Jean, 263 - - Malara, Juan de, 170-171, 176 - - Maldonado, López, 219, 243 - - Malón de Chaide, Pedro, 202 - - Manrique, Gómez, 112-114, 254 - - Manrique, Jorge, 114-116, 119, 227 - - Maragall, Joan, 397 - - Marcabru, 30 - - March, Auzías, 12, 136, 145 - - Marche, Olivier de la, 149 - - Marcus Aurelius, 5 - - María de Jesús de Ágreda, Sor, 340 - - María del Cielo, Sor, 346 - - _María Egipciacqua, Vida de Santa_, 38, 54 - - Mariana, Juan de, 63, 272-274, 276 - - Marineo, Lucio, 129 - - Martí, Juan, 267 - - Martial, 5, 6 - - Martin of Dumi, St., 10 - - Martínez, Fernán, 67 - - Martínez de la Rosa, Francisco, 365-366 - - Martínez de Medina, Gonzalo, 98 - - Martínez de Toledo, Alfonso, 107 - - Martínez Salafranca, Juan, 348 - - Martyr, Peter, 128 - - Matos Fragoso, Juan de, 220, 335 - - Mayáns y Siscar, Gregorio, 350, 352 - - Medina, Francisco, 179 - - Medrano, Lucía, 129 - - Mela, Pomponius, 8 - - Meléndez Valdés, Juan, 358-359 - - Melo, Francisco Manuel de, 336 - - Mena, Juan de, 100-102 - - Mendoza, Íñigo de, 118 - - Menéndez Pidal, Ramón, 32, 51, 398 - - Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino, 37, 38, 117, 179, 239, 288, 311, 336, - 345, 372, 397-398 - - Meres, Francis, 201 - - Mérimée, Ernest, 359 - - Mesonero Romanos, Ramón de, 380 - - Mexía, Hernán, 112 - - Mexía, Pedro, 156 - - Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Mme., 86, 148 - - Milá y Fontanals, Manuel, 35, 38, 372 - - Milton, John, 346, 355 - - _Mingo Revulgo, Coplas de_, 111 - - Mira de Amescua, Antonio, 307, 314 - - Miranda, Luis de, 169 - - Molière, 42, 258, 313, 334, 345, 361 - - Molina, Argote de, 81, 101 - - Molinos, Miguel de, 341-342 - - Moncada, Francisco de, 336 - - Mondéjar, Marqués de, 343 - - Montalbán. _See_ Pérez de Montalbán - - Montalvo. _See_ Ordóñez de Montalvo - - Montemôr, Jorge, 115, 203-206 - - Montesino, Ambrosio, 118 - - Monti, Giulio, 354 - - Montiano y Luyando, Agustín, 344 - - Montoro, Antón de, 111, 112 - - Moraes, Francisco de, 124 - - Morales, Ambrosio de, 208 - - Moratín. _See_ Fernández de Moratín - - Morel-Fatio, M. Alfred, 55, 96, 158, 378 - - Moreto y Cavaña, Agustín, 261, 333-335 - - Morley, Mr. John, 340 - - Mosquera de Figueroa, Cristóbal, 179, 226 - - Muhammad Rabadán, 20 - - Munday, Anthony, 158 - - Muñón, Sancho, 126 - - Muntaner, Ramón, 336 - - - Naharro, Pedro, 169, 212 - - Nahman, Moses ben, 13-14 - - Nájera, Esteban de, 34, 152, 270 - - Nasarre y Férruz, Blas Antonio, 350 - - Navagiero, Andrea, 136, 137 - - Navarro, Miguel, 348 - - Nebrija, Antonio de, 93, 130 - - Nebrija, Francisca de, 129 - - Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio, 340 - - Nifo, Francisco Mariano, 319 - - North, Thomas, 155 - - Nucio, Martín, 34, 270 - - Núñez, Hernán, 130, 154, 171 - - Núñez de Arce, Gaspar, 395-396 - - Núñez de Villaizán, Juan, 91 - - - Obregón, Antonio, 131 - - Ocampo, Florián de, 156 - - Ocaña, Francisco de, 271 - - Ochoa, Juan, 395 - - Odo of Cheriton, 96 - - Olid, Juan de, 117 - - Oliva. _See_ Pérez de Oliva - - Oller y Moragas, Narcís, 395 - - Omerique, Hugo de, 343 - - Oña, Pedro de, 192 - - Ordóñez de Montalvo, García, 123-124 - - Ormsby, John, 50 - - Orosius, Paulus, 9-10 - - Ortiz, Agustín, 165 - - Oudin, César, 233 - - Oviedo. _See_ Fernández de Oviedo - - - Pacheco, Francisco, 170, 179 - - Padilla, Juan de, 119 - - Padilla, Pedro de, 216, 219, 243 - - Paez de Ribera, 157 - - Paez de Ribera, Ruy, 98 - - Palacio Valdés, Armando, 392-393 - - Palacios Rubios, Juan López de Vivero, 154 - - Palau, Bartolomé, 172 - - Palencia. _See_ Fernández de Palencia - - _Palmerín de Inglaterra_, 158 - - _Palmerín de Oliva_, 158 - - _Panadera, Coplas de la_, 101 - - Paravicino y Arteaga, Hortensio Félix, 297, 319 - - Pardo Bazán, Emilia, 22, 393-394 - - Paredes, Alfonso de, 65 - - Paris, M. Gaston, 72 - - Patmore, Coventry, 200 - - Paulus Alvarus Cordubiensis, 17, 18 - - Pellicer, Casiano, 318 - - Pellicer de Salas y Tobar, José, 65, 95, 291, 308 - - Per Abbat, 47 - - Peralta Barnuevo, Pedro de, 345 - - Pereda, José María de, 389-390 - - Pérez, Alonso, 206 - - Pérez, Andrés, 228, 239, 268 - - Pérez, Antonio, 271-272 - - Pérez, Suero, 68 - - Pérez de Guzmán, Fernán, 103-104, 142 - - Pérez de Hita, Ginés, 269-270 - - Pérez de Montalbán, Juan, 307-308 - - Pérez de Oliva, Fernando, 4, 154 - - Pérez Galdós, Benito, 390-391 - - Peseux-Richard, M. H., 384, 385 - - Peter the Venerable, 21 - - Petrus Alphonsus, 16, 78 - - Phillips, Mr. Henry, 183 - - Picaud, Aimeric, 36 - - Pitillas, Jorge. _See_ Hervás y Cobo de la Torre - - _Platir, Crónica del muy valiente_, 158 - - _Pleito del Manto_, 112, 121 - - _Polindo_, 158 - - Polo, Gaspar Gil, 206 - - Ponce, Bartolomé, 207 - - Ponte, Pero da, 38 - - _Poridat de las Poridades_, 63 - - Prete Jacopín. _See_ Haro, Conde de - - _Primaleón_, 158 - - Priscillian, 9 - - Proverbs, Spanish, 171 - - _Provincial, Coplas del_, 110, 112, 117 - - Prudentius, Clemens Aurelius, 6, 9 - - Prudentius Galindus, 10 - - Puig, Leopoldo Gerónimo, 348 - - Pulgar, Hernando del, 111, 127 - - Puymaigre, Comte de, 34, 58 - - - _Querellas, Libro de_, 65 - - Quevedo. _See_ Gómez de Quevedo - - Quintana, Manuel José, 364-365 - - Quintilian, 5, 6 - - - Racine, Jean, 345 - - Raimundo, 19 - - Ramírez de Prado, Lorenzo, 319 - - Ramos del Manzano, Francisco, 343 - - Ranieri, Antonio Francesco, 168 - - Rasis, 91 - - Rebolledo, Conde de, 299 - - Remón, Alonso, 310 - - Rennert, Professor, 206 - - Resende, García de, 204 - - Revilla, Manuel de la, 312, 376 - - Rey de Artieda, Andrés, 173-174 - - Reyes, Matías de los, 309 - - Reyes, Pedro de los, 193 - - Rhua, Pedro de, 155 - - Ribas y Canfranc, José Ibero, 250 - - Rioja, Francisco de, 299 - - Rivas, Duque de, 366-367 - - Rivers, Lord, 73 - - Roca y Serna, Ambrosio, 297 - - _Rodrigo, Cantar de_, 51-53 - - Rodríguez de la Cámara, Juan, 96, 97, 119 - - Rodríguez de Lena, Pero, 105 - - Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Diego, 337-338 - - Rodríguez Rubí, Tomás, 374 - - _Rogel de Grecia_, 158 - - Rojas, Agustín de, 211 - - Rojas, Fernando de, 125-126 - - Rojas Zorrilla, Francisco de, 95, 276, 307, 325, 333 - - _Romancero General_, 33, 93, 270 - - _Romances_, Spanish, 32-34 - - Romero de Cepeda, Joaquín, 175 - - Roswitha, 11 - - Rotrou, Jean, 263 - - Rowland, David, 159-160 - - Rueda, Lope de, 166-169, 254, 261 - - Rufo Gutiérrez, Juan, 189-190, 216 - - Ruiz, Jacobo, 67 - - Ruiz, Juan, 30, 76-80, 84, 107 - - Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza, Juan, 95, 239, 256, 276, 315-317 - - - Sâ de Miranda, Francisco de, 148 - - Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de, 336 - - Salas Barbadillo, Alonso de, 270 - - Salazar Mardones, Cristóbal de, 291 - - Salazar y Hontiveros, José de, 345 - - Salazar y Torres, Agustín de, 291-298 - - Salcedo Coronel, García de, 291 - - _Salomón, Proverbios en Rimo de_, 74, 91 - - Samaniego, Félix María de, 356 - - San Juan, Marqués de, 345 - - Sánchez, Clemente, 96 - - Sánchez, Francisco, 179 - - Sánchez, Miguel, 184 - - Sánchez, Tomás Antonio, 48, 58 - - Sánchez de Badajoz, Garci, 119 - - Sánchez de Tovar, Fernán, 91 - - Sánchez Talavera, Ferrant, 91, 98 - - Sancho IV., 72-73 - - Sannazaro, Jacopo, 145 - - Santillana, Marqués de, 15, 28, 33, 58, 79, 98-100, 119, 137 - - Santisteban y Osorio, Diego, 192 - - Sarmiento, Martín, 111, 349 - - Sbarbi, José María, 171 - - Scarron, Paul, 42, 269 - - Schack, Adolf Friedrich von, 14, 323 - - Schopenhauer, Arthur, 338 - - Scott, Sir Walter, 270, 366 - - Scudéry, Mlle. de, 269 - - Secchi, Niccolò, 168 - - Sedeño, Juan, 126 - - Selgas y Carrasco, José, 377 - - Sem Tob, 16, 87, 113 - - Sempere, Hieronym, 124 - - Seneca, the Elder, 4 - - Seneca, the Younger, 4, 8, 10, 73, 176 - - Sepúlveda, Lorenzo, 33 - - Shakespeare, William, 205 - - Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 46, 221, 321-322 - - Sidney, Philip, 143, 205 - - _Siete Partidas, Las_, 66-67 - - Silva, Feliciano de, 126, 157, 158 - - Silvestre, Gregorio, 115, 153 - - Sisebut, 7 - - Solís y Rivadeneira, Antonio de, 335-336 - - Sordello, 35 - - Sorel, Charles, 42, 269 - - Spera-in-Deo, 21 - - Stanley, Thomas, 140, 287 - - Stúñiga, Lope de, 34, 109 - - Suárez de Figueroa, Cristóbal, 315 - - - Tamayo y Baus, Manuel, 376-377 - - Tansillo, Luigi, 132, 144 - - Tapia, Juan de, 109 - - Taylor, Jeremy, 198 - - Téllez, Gabriel. _See_ Tirso de Molina - - Teresa, Santa, 182, 193-198, 301 - - _Tesoro_, the, 65, 72 - - Texeda, Jerónimo de, 206 - - Theodolphus, Bishop, 10 - - Thylesius, Antonius, 144 - - Ticknor, George, 24, 65, 89, 118, 122, 137, 140, 154, 206, 242, 244, - 247, 249, 258, 259, 274, 285, 325, 348 - - Timoneda, Juan de, 170 - - Tirso de Molina, 174, 256, 261, 263, 267, 308-314, 315 - - Todi, Jacopone da, 30, 118 - - Torre, Alfonso de la, 108 - - Torre, Francisco de la, 184-187 - - Torrellas, Pero, 110, 112, 121 - - Torres Naharro, Bartolomé, 132-135, 166, 168, 170, 254 - - Torres Rámila, Pedro de, 251 - - Torres y Villarroel, Diego de, 346 - - Trajan, 5 - - Tribaldos de Toledo, Luis, 187, 208, 296 - - _Trovadores_, 26-31 - - Trueba, Antonio, 389 - - Turpin, Archbishop, 2 - - Tuy, Lucas de, 67 - - - Urrea, Jerónimo de, 143 - - Urrea, Pedro Manuel de, 120 - - - Valbuena, Antonio de, 391 - - Valdés, Juan de, 126-127, 144, 161-164, 303 - - Valdivielso, José de, 271 - - Valencia, Pedro de, 287, 288 - - Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan, 14, 384, 386-389 - - Valerius, St., 110 - - Valladolid, Juan de, 109, 111 - - Valmar, Marqués de, 22 - - Vanbrugh, John, 333 - - Vaqueiras, Raimbaud de, 30, 43 - - Varchi, Benedetto, 186 - - Vázquez de Ciudad Rodrigo, Francisco, 158 - - Vega, Alonso de, 169 - - Vega, Bernardo de la, 227 - - Vega, Garcilaso de la, 136, 138, 141-148, 178-179, 207 - - Vega Carpio, Lope Félix de, 20, 97, 136, 175, 185, 189, 219, 225, 226, - 238, 239, 241-265, 270, 280, 350 - - Velázquez. _See_ Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez - - Velázquez de Velasco, Luis José, 69, 185, 351 - - Vélez de Guevara, Luis, 269, 276, 306-307 - - Venegas de Henestrosa, Luis, 115 - - Verdaguer, Jacinto, 397 - - Vergara, Francisco de, 130 - - Vergara, Juan de, 130 - - Vicente, Gil, 135 - - Vidal, Père, 36 - - Vidal de Besalu, Ramón, 22, 29 - - Vidal de Noya, Francisco, 129, 130 - - _Verge María, Trobes en lahors de la_, 118 - - Villalobos. _See_ López de Villalobos - - Villalón, Cristóbal de, 303 - - Villamediana, Conde de, 276 - - Villapando, Juan de, 100 - - Villasandino. _See_ Álvarez de Villasandino - - Villegas, Antonio de, 152-153, 206 - - Villegas, Esteban Manuel de, 298-299 - - Villegas, Jerónimo, 130 - - Villena, Enrique de, 94-96 - - Villena, Marqués de, 343-344 - - Virués, Cristóbal de, 170, 174-175, 254, 261 - - Vives, Luis, 129, 182 - - Voltaire, 191, 269, 315, 354 - - - Wey, William, 36 - - Wiffen, Benjamin Barron, 163 - - Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes, 146 - - Wycherley, William, 332 - - - Xavier, St. Francisco, 3, 193 - - - Yañez, Rodrigo, 86 - - Yañez y Ribera, Gerónimo de Alcalá, 338 - - Young, Bartholomew, 299 - - _Yusuf, Poema de_, 20, 75 - - - Zamora, Alfonso de, 130 - - Zamora, Egidio de, 68 - - Zapata, Luis de, 190 - - Zorrilla, José, 313, 372-374 - - Zumárraga, Juan de, 190 - - Zúñiga, Francesillo de, 155 - - Zurita, Jerónimo, 207-208 - - - THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Spanish Literature, by -James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE *** - -***** This file should be named 55771-0.txt or 55771-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/7/55771/ - -Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Nahum Maso i Carcases and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/American -Libraries.) - 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padding: 0; width: 90%;} - table, .indexalpha {margin-left: 1%; margin-right: 1%; width: 98%;} - hr.chap {width: 20%; margin-left: 40%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} - hr.chap2 {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - .poem {display: block; margin-left: 1.5em;} - .character {display: block; float: none; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.5em;} - .drama {display: block; float: none; margin-left: 3em;} - .transnote {margin-left: 2.5%; width: 95%;} - } - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Spanish Literature, by -James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A History of Spanish Literature - -Author: James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - -Release Date: October 18, 2017 [EBook #55771] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE *** - - - - -Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Nahum Maso i Carcases and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/American -Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="no-indent center bold">Transcriber's Notes:</p> -<p>Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected.</p> -<p>Blank pages present in the printed original have been deleted in the e-text version.</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<p class="no-indent center p2"><i>Short Histories of the Literatures -of the World</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent center p1"><i>Edited by Edmund Gosse</i></p> - -<hr class="chap2" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<h1> -<small>A HISTORY OF</small> -<br /> -SPANISH LITERATURE -</h1> - -<p class="no-indent center">BY</p> - -<p class="no-indent center xlarge bold">JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY</p> - -<p class="no-indent center">C. DE LA REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA</p> - -<div class="imgcenter" style="width: 64px;"> -<img src="images/img001.jpg" width="64" height="75" alt="Image Printing Office" /> -</div> - -<p class="no-indent center">NEW YORK AND LONDON -<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY -<br /> -1921</p> - -<hr class="chap2" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="no-indent center small p2"> -<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1898,<br /> -By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -Printed in the United States of America<br /> -</p> - -<hr class="chap2" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - - -<p>Spanish literature, in its broadest sense, might include -writings in every tongue existing within the Spanish -dominions; it might, at all events, include the four chief -languages of Spain. Asturian and Galician both possess -literatures which in their recent developments are -artificial. Basque, the spoiled child of philologers, has -not added greatly to the sum of the world's delight; and -even if it had, I should be incapable of undertaking a -task which would belong of right to experts like Mr. -Wentworth Webster, M. Jules Vinson, and Professor -Schuchardt. Catalan is so singularly rich and varied -that it might well deserve separate treatment: its inclusion -here would be as unjustifiable as the inclusion -of Provençal in a work dealing with French literature. -For the purposes of this book, minor varieties are -neglected, and Spanish literature is taken as referring -solely to Castilian—the speech of Juan Ruiz, Cervantes, -Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Quevedo, and Calderón.</p> - -<p>At the close of the last century, Nicolas Masson de -Morvilliers raised a hubbub by asking two questions in -the <i>Encyclopédie Méthodique</i>:—"Mais que doit-on à -l'Espagne? Et depuis deux siècles, depuis quatre, depuis -six, qu'a-t elle fait pour l'Europe?" I have attempted an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> -answer in this volume. The introductory chapter has been -written to remind readers that the great figures of the -Silver Age—Seneca, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian—were -Spaniards as well as Romans. It further aims at tracing -the stream of literature from its Roman fount to the -channels of the Gothic period; at defining the limits of -Arabic and Hebrew influence on Spanish letters; at -refuting the theory which assumes the existence of -immemorial <i>romances</i>, and at explaining the interaction -between Spanish on the one side and Provençal and -French on the other. It has been thought that this -treatment saves much digression.</p> - -<p>Spanish literature, like our own, takes its root in -French and in Italian soil; in the anonymous epics, -in the <i>fableaux</i>, as in Dante, Petrarch, and the Cinque -Cento poets. Excessive patriotism leads men of all lands -to magnify their literary history; yet it may be claimed -for Spain, as for England, that she has used her models -without compromising her originality, absorbing here, -annexing there, and finally dominating her first masters. -But Spain's victorious course, splendid as it was in letters, -arts, and arms, was comparatively brief. The heroic age -of her literature extends over some hundred and fifty -years, from the accession of Carlos Quinto to the death of -Felipe IV. This period has been treated, as it deserves, -at greater length than any other. The need of compression, -confronting me at every page, has compelled -the omission of many writers. I can only plead that I -have used my discretion impartially, and I trust that no -really representative figure will be found missing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<p>My debts to predecessors will be gathered from the -bibliographical appendix. I owe a very special acknowledgment -to my friend Sr. D. Marcelino Menéndez y -Pelayo, the most eminent of Spanish scholars and critics. -If I have sometimes dissented from him, I have done so -with much hesitation, believing that any independent view -is better than the mechanical repetition of authoritative -verdicts. I have to thank Mr. Gosse for the great care -with which he has read the proofs; and to Mr. Henley, -whose interest in all that touches Spain is of long standing, -I am indebted for much suggestive criticism. For -advice on some points of detail, I am obliged to Sr. D. -Ramón Menéndez Pidal, to Sr. D. Adolfo Bonilla y San -Martín, and to Sr. D. Rafael Altamira y Crevea.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr"><small>CHAPTER</small></td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr"> </td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><small>PAGE</small></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">I.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">INTRODUCTORY</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">II.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE ANONYMOUS AGE (1150-1220)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">III.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF ALFONSO THE LEARNED, AND OF SANCHO (1220-1300)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE DIDACTIC AGE (1301-1400)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">V.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF JUAN II. (1419-1454)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">VI.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF ENRIQUE IV. AND THE CATHOLIC KINGS (1454-1516)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">VII.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF CARLOS QUINTO (1516-1556)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">VIII.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF FELIPE II. (1556-1598)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">IX.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF LOPE DE VEGA (1598-1621)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">X.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF FELIPE IV. AND CARLOS THE BEWITCHED (1621-1700)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">XI.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE AGE OF THE BOURBONS (1700-1808)</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">XII.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_363">363</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr">XIII.</td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_383">383</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr tdpt"> </td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr tdpt">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</td> - <td class="tdr tdb tdpt"><a href="#Page_399">399</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr tdt tdpr"> </td> - <td class="tdl tdt tdpr">INDEX</td> - <td class="tdr tdb"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap2" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="no-indent center xlarge bold p4"><small>A HISTORY OF</small> -<br /> -SPANISH LITERATURE</p> - -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2>CHAPTER I -<br /> -<small>INTRODUCTORY</small></h2> - - -<p>The most ancient monuments of Castilian literature -can be referred to no time later than the twelfth century, -and they have been dated earlier with some -plausibility. As with men of Spanish stock, so with -their letters: the national idiosyncrasy is emphatic—almost -violent. French literature is certainly more -exquisite, more brilliant; English is loftier and more -varied; but in the capital qualities of originality, force, -truth, and humour, the Castilian finds no superior. -The Basques, who have survived innumerable onsets -(among them, the ridicule of Rabelais and the irony -of Cervantes), are held by some to be representatives -of the Stone-age folk who peopled the east, north-east, -and south of Spain. This notion is based mainly upon -the fact that all true Basque names for cutting instruments -are derived from the word <i>aitz</i> (flint). Howbeit, -the Basques vaunt no literary history in the true sense. -The <i>Leloaren Cantua</i> (<i>Song of Lelo</i>) has been accepted as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -a contemporary hymn written in celebration of a Basque -triumph over Augustus. Its date is uncertain, and its -refrain of "<i>Lelo</i>" seems a distorted reminiscence of the -Arabic catchword <i>Lā ilāh illā 'llāh</i>; but the <i>Leloaren -Cantua</i> is assuredly no older than the sixteenth century.</p> - -<p>A second performance in this sort is the <i>Altobiskarko -Cantua</i> (<i>Song of Altobiskar</i>). Altobiskar is a hill near -Roncesvalles, where the Basques are said to have defeated -Charlemagne; and the song commemorates the -victory. Written in a rhythm without fellow in the -Basque metres, it contains names like Roland and -Ganelon, which are in themselves proofs of French -origin; but, as it has been widely received as genuine, -the facts concerning it must be told. First written in -French (<i>circa</i> 1833) by François Eugène Garay de -Monglave, it was translated into very indifferent Basque -by a native of Espelette named Louis Duhalde, then -a student in Paris. The too-renowned <i>Altobiskarko -Cantua</i> is therefore a simple hoax: one might as well -attribute <i>Rule Britannia</i> to Boadicea. The conquerors -of Roncesvalles wrote no triumphing song: three -centuries later the losers immortalised their own overthrow -in the <i>Chanson de Roland</i>, where the disaster -is credited to the Arabs, and the Basques are merely -mentioned by the way. Early in the twelfth century -there was written a Latin <i>Chronicle</i> ascribed to Archbishop -Turpin, an historical personage who ruled the -see of Rheims some two hundred years before his false -<i>Chronicle</i> was written. The opening chapters of this -fictitious history are probably due to an anonymous -Spanish monk cloistered at Santiago de Compostela; -and it is barely possible that this late source was utilised -by such modern Basques as José María Goizcueta, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -retouched and "restored" the <i>Altobiskarko Cantua</i> in -ignorant good faith.</p> - -<p>However that may prove, no existing Basque song is -much more than three hundred years old. One single -Basque of genius, the Chancellor Pero López de Ayala, -shines a portent in the literature of the fourteenth century; -and even so, he writes in Castilian. He stands -alone, isolated from his race. The oldest Basque book, -well named as <i>Linguæ Vasconum Primitiæ</i>, is a collection -of exceedingly minor verse by Bernard Dechepare, -curé of Saint-Michel, near Saint-Jean Pied de Port; -and its date is modern (1545). Pedro de Axular is the -first Basque who shows any originality in his native -tongue; and, characteristically enough, he deals with -religious matters. Though he lived at Sare, in the Basses -Pyrénées, he was a Spaniard from Navarre; and he -flourished in the seventeenth century (1643). It is true -that a small knot of second-class Basque—the epic poet -Ercilla y Zúñiga, and the fabulist Iriarte—figure in -Castilian literature; but the Basque glories are to be -sought in other field—in such heroic personages as -Ignacio Loyola, and his mightier disciple Francisco -Xavier. Setting aside devotional and didactic works, -mostly translated from other tongues, Basque literature -is chiefly oral, and has but a formal connection -with the history of Spanish letters. Within narrow -geographical limits the Basque language still thrives, -and on each slope of the Pyrenees holds its own against -forces apparently irresistible. But its vitality exceeds -its reproductive force: it survives but does not multiply. -Whatever the former influence of Basque on Castilian—an -influence never great—it has now ceased; while -Castilian daily tends to supplant (or, at least, to supplement)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -Basque. Spain's later invaders—Iberians, Kelts, -Phœnicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Alani, Suevi, Goths, -and Arabs—have left but paltry traces on the prevailing -form of Spanish speech, which derives from Latin by a -descent more obvious, though not a whit more direct, -than the descent of French. So frail is the partition -which divides the Latin mother from her noblest -daughter, that late in the sixteenth century Fernando -Pérez de Oliva wrote a treatise that was at once Latin -and Spanish: a thing intelligible in either tongue and -futile in both, though held for praiseworthy in an age -when the best poets chose to string lines into a polyglot -rosary, without any distinction save that of antic -dexterity.</p> - -<p>For our purpose, the dawn of literature in Spain -begins with the Roman conquest. In colonies like -Pax Augusta (Badajoz), Cæsar Augusta (Zaragoza), and -Emerita Augusta (Mérida), the Roman influence was -strengthened by the intermarriage of Roman soldiers -with Spanish women. All over Spain there arose the -<i>odiosa cantio</i>, as St. Augustine calls it, of Spanish -children learning Latin; and every school formed a -fresh centre of Latin authority. With their laws, the -conquerors imposed their speech upon the broken -tribes; and these, in turn, invaded the capital of Latin -politics and letters. The breath of Spanish genius -informs the Latinity of the Silver Age. Augustus -himself had named his Spanish freedman, Gaius Julius -Hyginus, the Chief Keeper of the Palatine Library. -Spanish literary aptitude, showing stronger in the prodigious -learning of the Elder Seneca, matures in the -altisonant rhetoric and violent colouring of the Younger, -in Lucan's declamatory eloquence and metallic music,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -in Martial's unblushing humour and brutal cynicism, -in Quintilian's luminous judgment and wise sententiousness.</p> - -<p>All these display in germ the characteristic points -of strength and weakness which were to be developed -in the evolution of Spanish literature; and their influence -on letters was matched by their countrymen's authority -on affairs. The Spaniard Balbus was the first barbarian -to reach the Consulship, and to receive the honour of -a public triumph; the Spaniard Trajan was the first -barbarian named Emperor, the first Emperor to make -the Tigris the eastern boundary of his dominion, and -the only Emperor whose ashes were allowed to rest -within the Roman city-walls. And the victory of the -vanquished was complete when the Spaniard Hadrian, -the author of the famous verses—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Animula vagula blandula,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hospes comesque corporis,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Quæ nunc abibis in loca,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Pallidula rigida nudula,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos?</i>"—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">himself an exquisite in art and in letters—became the -master of the world. Gibbon declares with justice that -the happiest epoch in mankind's history is "that which -elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of -Commodus"; and the Spaniard, accounting Marcus -Aurelius as a son of Córdoba, vaunts with reasonable -pride, that of those eighty perfect, golden years, three-score -at least were passed beneath the sceptre of the -Spanish Cæsars.</p> - -<p>Withal, individual success apart, the Spanish utterance -of Latin teased the finer ear. Cicero ridiculed the accent—<i>aliquid pingue</i>—of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -even the more lettered Spaniards -who reached Rome; Martial, retired to his native Bilbilis, -shuddered lest he might let fall a local idiom; and -Quintilian, a sterner purist than a very Roman, frowned -at the intrusion of his native provincialisms upon the -everyday talk of the capital. In Rome incorrections of -speech were found where least expected. That Catullus -should jeer at Arrius—the forerunner of a London type—in -the matter of aspirates is natural enough; but even -Augustus distressed the nice grammarian. <i>A fortiori</i>, -Hadrian was taunted with his Spanish solecisms. Innovation -won the day. The century between Livy and -Tacitus shows differences of style inexplicable by the -easy theory of varieties of temperament; and the two -centuries dividing Tacitus from St. Augustine are -marked by changes still more striking. This is but -another illustration of the old maxim, that as the speed -of falling bodies increases with distance, so literary decadences -increase with time.</p> - -<p>As in Italy and Africa, so in Spain. The statelier <i>sermo -urbanus</i> yielded to the <i>sermo plebeius</i>. Spanish soldiers -had discovered "the fatal secret of empire, that emperors -could be made elsewhere than at Rome"; no less fatal -was the discovery that Latin might be spoken without -regard for Roman models. As the power of classic forms -waned, that of ecclesiastical examples grew. Church -Latin of the fourth century shines at its best in the verse -of the Christian poet, the Spaniard Prudentius: with -him the classical rhythms persist—as survivals. He -clutches at, rather than grasps, the Roman verse tradition, -and, though he has no rhyming stanzas, he verges -on rhyme in such performances as his <i>Hymnus ad Galli -Cantum</i>. Throughout the noblest period of Roman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -poetry, soldiers, sailors, and illiterates had, in the <i>versus -saturnius</i>, preserved a native rhythmical system not quantitative -but accentual; and this vulgar metrical method -was to outlive its fashionable rival. It is doubtful whether -the quantitative prosody, brought from Greece by literary -dandies, ever flourished without the circle of professional -men of letters. It is indisputable that the imported -metrical rules, depending on the power of vowels -and the position of consonants, were gradually superseded -by looser laws of syllabic quantity wherein accent -and tonic stress were the main factors.</p> - -<p>When the empire fell, Spain became the easy prey of -northern barbarians, who held the country by the sword, -and intermarried but little with its people. To the Goths -Spain owes nothing but eclipse and ruin. No books, no -inscriptions of Gothic origin survive; the Gongoristic -letters ascribed to King Sisebut are not his work, and -it is doubtful if the Goths bequeathed more than a few -words to the Spanish vocabulary. The defeat of Roderic -by Tarik and Mūsa laid Spain open to the Arab rush. -National sentiment was unborn. Witiza and Roderic -were regarded by Spaniards as men in Italy and Africa -regarded Totila and Galimar. The clergy were alienated -from their Gothic rulers. Gothic favourites were appointed -to non-existent dioceses carrying huge revenues; -a single Goth held two sees simultaneously; and, by way -of balance, Toledo was misgoverned by two rival Gothic -bishops. Harassed by a severe penal code, the Jew -hailed the invading Arabs as a kindred, oriental, circumcised -race; and, with the heathen slaves, they went -over to the conquerors. So obscure is the history of -the ensuing years that it has been said that the one thing -certain is Roderic's name. Not less certain is it that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -within a brief space, almost the entire peninsula was -subdued. The more warlike Spaniards,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Patient of toil, serene among alarms,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms,</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">foregathered with Pelayo by the Cave of Covadonga, -near Oviedo, among the Pyrenean chines, which they -held against the forces of the Berber Alkamah and the -renegade Archbishop, Don Opas. "Confident in the -strength of their mountains," says Gibbon, these highlanders -"were the last who submitted to the arms of -Rome, and the first who threw off the yoke of the Arabs." -While on the Asturian hillsides the spirit of Spanish -nationality was thus nurtured amid convulsions, the less -hardy inhabitants of the south accepted their defeat. -The few who embraced Islamism were despised as -Muladíes; the many, adopting all save the religion of -their masters, were called Muzárabes, just as, during -the march of the reconquest, Moors similarly placed in -Christian provinces were dubbed Mudéjares.</p> - -<p>The literary traditions of Seneca, Lucan, and their -brethren, passed through the hands of mediocrities like -Pomponius Mela and Columella, to be delivered to Gaius -Vettius Aquilinus Juvencus, who gave a rendering of the -gospels, wherein the Virgilian hexameter is aped with -a certain provincial vigour. Minor poets, not lacking -in marmoreal grace, survive in Baron Hübner's <i>Corpus -Inscriptionum Latinorum</i>. Among the breed of learned -churchmen shines the name of St. Damasus, first of -Spanish popes, who shows all his race's zeal in heresy-hunting -and in fostering monkery. The saponaceous -eloquence that earned him the name of <i>Auriscalpius -matronarum</i> ("the Ladies' Ear-tickler") is forgotten; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -he deserves remembrance because of his achievement -as an epigraphist, and because he moved his friend, St. -Jerome, to translate the Bible. To him succeeds Hosius -of Córdoba, the mentor of Constantine, the champion -of Athanasian orthodoxy, and the presiding bishop at -the Council of Nicæa, to whom is attributed the incorporation -in the Nicene Creed of that momentous clause, -"<i>Genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri</i>."</p> - -<p>Prudentius follows next, with that savour of the terrible -and agonising which marks the Spagnoletto school of art; -but to all his strength and sternness he adds a sweeter, -tenderer tone. At once a Christian, a Spaniard, and a -Roman, to Prudentius his birthplace is ever <i>felix Tarraco</i> -(he came from Tarragona); and he thrills with pride -when he boasts that Cæsar Augusta gave his Mother-Church -most martyrs. Yet, Christian though he be, the -imperial spirit in him fires at the thought of the multitudinous -tribes welded into a single people, and he plainly -tells you that a Roman citizen is as far above the brute -barbarian as man is above beast. Priscillian and his -fellow-sufferer Latrocinius, the first martyrs slain by -Christianity set in office, were both clerks of singular -accomplishment. As disciple of St. Augustine, and -comrade of St. Jerome, Orosius would be remembered, -even were he not the earliest historian of the world. -Like Prudentius, Orosius blends the passion of universal -empire with the fervour of local sentiment. Good, -haughty Spaniard as he is, he enregisters the battles -that his fathers gave for freedom; he ranks Numancia's -name only below that of the world-mother, Rome; -and his heart softens towards the blind barbarians, -their faces turned towards the light. Cold, austere, -and even a trifle cynical as he is, Orosius' pulses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -throb at memory of Cæsar; and he glows on thinking -that, a citizen of no mean city, he ranges the world -under Roman jurisdiction. And this vast union of -diverse races, all speaking one single tongue, all recognising -one universal law, Orosius calls by the new -name of Romania.</p> - -<p>Licinianus follows, the Bishop of Cartagena and the -correspondent of St. Gregory the Great. A prouder -and more illustrious figure is that of St. Isidore of -Seville—"<i>beatus et lumen noster Isidorus</i>." Originality -is not Isidore's distinction, and the Latin verses which -pass under his name are of doubtful authenticity. But -his encyclopædic learning is amazing, and gives him -place beside Cassiodorus, Boëtius, and Martianus -Capella, among the greatest teachers of the West. -St. Braulius, Bishop of Zaragoza, lives as the editor -of his master Isidore's posthumous writings, and as -the author of a hymn to that national saint, Millán. -Nor should we omit the names of St. Eugenius, a -realist versifier of the day, and of St. Valerius, who -had all the poetic gifts save the accomplishment of -verse. Naturalised foreigners, like the Hungarian St. -Martin of Dumi, Archbishop of Braga, lent lustre to -Spain at home. Spaniards, like Claude, Bishop of Turin -and like Prudentius Galindus, Bishop of Troyes, carried -the national fame abroad: the first in writings which -prove the permanence of Seneca's tradition, the second -in polemics against the pantheists. More rarely dowered -was Theodolphus, the Spanish Bishop of Orleans, distinguished -at Charlemagne's court as a man of letters -and a poet; nor is it likely that Theodolphus' name can -ever be forgotten, for his exultant hymn, <i>Gloria, laus, et -honor</i>, is sung the world over on Palm Sunday. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -scarcely less notable are the composers of the noble -Latin-Gothic hymnal, the makers of the <i>Breviarum -Gothicum</i> of Lorenzana and of Arévalo's <i>Hymnodia -Hispanica</i>.</p> - -<p>Enough has been said to show that, amid the tumult -of Gothic supremacy in Spain, literature was pursued—though -not by Goths—with results which, if not splendid, -are at least unmatched in other Western lands. Doubtless -in Spain, as elsewhere, much curious learning and insolent -ignorance throve jowl by jowl. Like enough, some -Spanish St. Ouen wrote down Homer, Menander, and -Virgil as three plain blackguards; like enough, the -Spanish biographer of some local St. Bavo confounded -Tityrus with Virgil, and declared that Pisistratus' Athenian -contemporaries spoke habitually in Latin. The conceit -of ignorance is a thing eternal. Withal, from the age of -Prudentius onward, literature was sustained in one or -other shape. For a century after Tarik's landing there -is a pause, unbroken save for the <i>Chronicle</i> of the anonymous -Córdoban, too rashly identified as Isidore Pacensis. -The intellectual revival appears, not among the Arabs, -but among the Jews of Córdoba and Toledo; this last -the immemorial home of magic where the devil was -reputed to catch his own shadow. It was a devout belief -that clerks went to Paris to study "the liberal arts," -whereas in Toledo they mastered demonology and forgot -their morals. Córdoba's fame, as the world's fine flower, -crossed the German Rhine, and even reached the cloister -of Roswitha, a nun who dabbled in Latin comedies. The -achievements of Spanish Jews and Spanish Arabs call for -separate treatises. Here it must suffice to say that the -roll contains names mighty as that of the Jewish poet -and philosopher Ibn Gebirol or Avicebron (d. ? 1070),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -whom Duns Scotus acknowledges as his master; and -that of Judah ben Samuel the Levite (b. 1086), whom -Heine celebrates in the <i>Romanzero</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Rein und wahrhaft, sonder Makel</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>War sein Lied, wie seine Seele.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">In one sense, if we choose to fasten on his favourite -trick of closing a Hebrew stanza with a romance line, -Judah ben Samuel the Levite may be accounted the -earliest of known experimentalists in Spanish verse; and -an Arab poet of Spanish descent, Ibn Hazm, anticipated -the Catalan, Auzías March, by founding a school of -poetry, at once mystic and amorous.</p> - -<p>But the Spanish Jews and Spanish Arabs gained their -chief distinction in philosophy. Of these are Ibn Bājjah -or Avempace (d. 1138), the opponent of al-Gazāli and his -mystico-sceptical method; and Abū Bakr ibn al-Tufail -(1116-85), the author of a neo-platonic, pantheistic -romance entitled <i>Risālat Haiy ibn Yakzān</i>, of which the -main thesis is that religious and philosophic truth are but -two forms of the same thing. Muhammad ibn Ahmad -ibn Rushd (1126-98), best known as Averroes, taught -the doctrine of the universal nature and unity of the -human intellect, accounting for individual inequalities -by a fantastic theory of stages of illumination. Arab -though he was, Averroes was more reverenced by Jews -than by men of his own race; and his permanent vogue -is proved by the fact that Columbus cites him three -centuries afterwards, while his teachings prevailed in -the University of Padua as late as Luther's time. A -more august name is that of "the Spanish Aristotle," -Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides (1135-1204), the -greatest of European Jews, the intellectual father, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -to say, of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas of Aquin. -Born at Córdoba, Maimonides drifted to Cairo, where -he became chief rabbi of the synagogue, and served -as Saladin's physician, having refused a like post in -the household of Richard the Lion-hearted. It is -doubtful if Maimonides was a Jew at heart; it is unquestioned -that at one time he conformed outwardly -to Muhammadanism. A stinging epigram summarises -his achievement by saying that he philosophised the -Talmud and talmudised philosophy. It is, of course, -absurd to suppose that his critical faculty could accept -the childish legends of the <i>Haggadah</i>, wherein rabbis -manifold report that the lion fears the cock's crow, -that the salamander quenches fire, and other incredible -puerilities. In his <i>Yad ha-Hazakah</i> (The Strong Hand) -Maimonides seeks to purge the Talmud of its <i>pilpulim</i> or -casuistic commentaries, and to make the book a sufficient -guide for practical life rather than to leave it a dust-heap -for intellectual scavengers. Hence he tends to a rationalistic -interpretation of Scriptural records. Direct communion -with the Deity, miracles, prophetic gifts, are -not so much denied as explained away by means of -a symbolic exegesis, infinitely subtle and imaginative. -Spanish and African rabbis received the new teaching -with docility, and in his own lifetime Maimonides' -success was absolute. A certain section of his followers -carried the cautious rationalism of the master to extremities, -and thus produced the inevitable reaction of the -<i>Kabbala</i> with its apparatus of elaborate extravagances. -This reaction was headed by another Spaniard, the -Catalan mystic, Bonastruc de Portas or Moses ben -Nahman (1195-1270); and the relation of the two -leaders is exemplified by the rabbinical legend which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -tells that the soul of each sprang from Adam's head: -Maimonides, from the left curl, which typifies severity -of judgment; Moses ben Nahman from the right, which -symbolises tenderness and mercy.</p> - -<p>On literature the pretended "Arab influence," if it -exist at all, is nowise comparable to that of the Spanish -Jews, who can boast that Judah ben Samuel the Levite -lives as one of Dante's masters. Judah ranks among -the great immortals of the world, and no Arab is fit to -loosen the thong of his sandal. But it might very well -befall a second-rate man, favoured by fortune and occasion, -to head a literary revolution. It was not the case -in Spain. The innumerable Spanish-Arab poets, vulgarised -by the industry of Schack and interpreted by the -genius of Valera, are not merely incomprehensible to us -here and now; they were enigmas to most contemporary -Arabs, who were necessarily ignorant of what was, to all -purposes, a dead language—the elaborate technical -vocabulary of Arabic verse. If their own countrymen -failed to understand these poets, it would be surprising -had their stilted artifice filtered into Castilian. It is unscientific, -and almost unreasonable, to assume that what -baffles the greatest Arabists of to-day was plain to a wandering -mummer a thousand, or even six hundred, years -ago. There is, however, a widespread belief that the -metrical form of the Castilian <i>romance</i> (a simple lyrico-narrative -poem in octosyllabic assonants) derives from -Arabic models. This theory is as untenable as that which -attributed Provençal rhythms to Arab singers. No less -erroneous is the idea that the entire assonantic system is -an Arab invention. Not only are assonants common -to all Romance languages; they exist in Latin hymns -composed centuries before Muhammad's birth, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -therefore long before any Arab reached Europe. It -is significant that no Arabist believes the legend of the -"Arab influence"; for Arabists are not more given -than other specialists to belittling the importance of -their subject.</p> - -<p>In sober truth, this Arab myth is but a bad dream -of yesterday, a nightmare following upon an undigested -perusal of the <i>Thousand and One Nights</i>. -Thanks to Galland, Cardonne, and Herbelot, the -notion became general that the Arabs were the great -creative force of fiction. To father Spanish <i>romances</i> -and Provençal <i>trobas</i> upon them is a mere freak of -fancy. The tacit basis of this theory is that the Spaniards -took a rare interest in the intellectual side of Arab -life; but the assumption is not justified by evidence. -Save in a casual passage, as that in the <i>Crónica General</i> -on the capture of Valencia, the Castilian historians -steadily ignore their Arab rivals. On the other hand, -there is a class of <i>romances fronterizos</i> (border ballads), -such as that on the loss of Alhama, which is based on -Arabic legends; and at least one such ballad, that of -Abenamar, may be the work of a Spanish-speaking Moor. -But these are isolated cases, are exceptional solely as -regards the source of the subject, and nowise differ in -form from the two thousand other ballads of the <i>Romanceros</i>. -To find a case of real imitation we must pass to the -fifteenth century, when that learned lyrist, the Marqués -de Santillana, deliberately experiments in the measures -of an Arab <i>zajal</i>, a performance matched by a surviving -fragment due to an anonymous poet in the <i>Cancionero de -Linares</i>. These are metrical audacities, resembling the -revival of French <i>ballades</i> and <i>rondeaux</i> by artificers like -Mr. Dobson, Mr. Gosse, and Mr. Henley in our own day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -On the strength of two unique modern examples in the -history of Castilian verse, it would be unjustifiable to -believe, in the teeth of all other evidence, that simple -strollers intuitively assimilated rhythms whose intricacy -bewilders the best experts. This is not to say that -Arabic popular poetry had no influence on such popular -Spanish verse as the <i>coplas</i>, of which some are apparently -but translations of Arabic songs. That is an -entirely different thesis; for we are concerned here with -literature to which the halting <i>coplas</i> can scarcely be said -to belong.</p> - -<p>The "Arab influence" is to be sought elsewhere—in -the diffusion of the Eastern apologue, morality, or maxim, -deriving from the Sanskrit. M. Bédier argues with -extraordinary force, ingenuity, and learning, against the -universal Eastern descent of the French <i>fabliaux</i>. However -that be, the immediate Arabic origin of such a collection -as the <i>Disciplina Clericalis</i> of Petrus Alfonsus -(printed, in part, as the <i>Fables of Alfonce</i>, by Caxton, -1483, in <i>The Book of the subtyl Historyes and Fables of -Esope</i>), is as undoubted as the source of the apologue -grafted on Castilian by Don Juan Manuel, or as the -derivation of the maxims of Rabbi Sem Tom of Carrión. -To this extent, in common with the rest of Europe, -Spain owes the Arabs a debt which her picaresque -novels and comedies have more than paid; but here -again the Arab acts as a mere middleman, taking the -story of <i>Kalilah and Dimna</i> from the Sanskrit through -the Pehlevī version, and then passing it by way of Spain -to the rest of the Continent. Nor should it be overlooked -that Spaniards, disguised as Arabs, shared in -the work of interpretation.</p> - -<p>It is less easy to determine the extent to which colloquial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -Arabic was used in Spain. Patriots would persuade -you that the Arabs brought nothing to the stock -of general culture, and the more thoroughgoing insist -that the Spaniards lent more than they borrowed. But -the point may be pressed too far. It must be admitted -that Arabic had a vogue, though perhaps not a vogue -as wide as might be gathered from the testimony of -Paulus Alvarus Cordubiensis, whose <i>Indiculus Luminosus</i>, -a work of the ninth century, taunts the writer's -countrymen with neglecting their ancient tongue for -Hebrew and Arabic technicalities. The ethnic influence -of the Arabs is still obvious in Granada and -other southern towns; and intermarriages, tending to -strengthen the sway of the victor's speech, were common -from the outset, when Roderic's widow, Egilona, wedded -Abd al-Aziz, son of Musa, her dead husband's conqueror. -An Alfonso of León espoused the daughter of -Abd Allah, Emir of Toledo; and an Alfonso of Castile -took to wife the daughter of an Emir of Seville. "The -wedding, which displeased God," of Alfonso the Fifth's -sister with an Arab (some say with al-Mansūr), is sung in -a famous <i>romance</i> inspired by the <i>Crónica General</i>.</p> - -<p>In official charters, as early as 804, Arabic words find -place. A local disuse of Latin is proved by the fact -that in this ninth century the Bishop of Seville found it -needful to render the Bible into Arabic for the use of -Muzárabes; and still stronger evidence of the low estate -of Latin is afforded by an Arabic version of canonical -decrees. It follows that some among the very clergy -read Arabic more easily than they read Latin. Jewish -poets, like Avicebron and Judah ben Samuel the Levite, -sometimes composed in Arabic rather than in their native -Hebrew; and it is almost certain that the lays of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -Arab <i>rāwis</i> radically modified the structure of Hebrew -verse. Apart from the evidence of Paulus Alvarus Cordubiensis, -St. Eulogius deposes that certain Christians—he -mentions Isaac the Martyr by name—spoke Arabic -to perfection. Nor can it be pleaded that this zeal was -invariably due to official pressure: on the contrary, a -caliph went the length of forbidding Spanish Jews and -Christians to learn Arabic. Neither did the fashion die -soon: long after the Arab predominance was shaken, -Arabic was the modish tongue. Álvar Fáñez, the Cid's -right hand, is detected signing his name in Arabic -characters. The Christian <i>dīnār</i>, Arabic in form and -superscription, was invented to combat the Almoravide -<i>dīnār</i>, which rivalled the popularity of the Constantinople -besant; and as late as the thirteenth century -Spanish coins were struck with Arabic symbols on the -reverse side.</p> - -<p>Yet, even so, the rude Latin of the unconquered north -remained well-nigh intact. Save in isolated centres, it -was spoken by countless Christians and by the Spaniards -who had escaped to the African province of Tingitana. -Vast deduction must be made from the jeremiads of -Paulus Alvarus Cordubiensis. As he bewails the time -wasted on Hebrew and Arabic by Spaniards, so does -Avicebron lament the use of Arabic and Romance by -Jews. "One party speaks Idumean (Romance), the other -the tongue of Kedar (Arabic)." If the Arab flood ran -high, the ebb was no less strong. Arabs tended more -and more to ape the dress, the arms, the customs of the -Spaniards; and the Castilian-speaking Arab—the <i>moro -latinado</i>—multiplied prodigiously. No small proportion -of Arab writers—Ibn Hazm, for example—was made up -of sons or grandsons of Spaniards, not unacquainted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -with their fathers' speech. When Archbishop Raimundo -founded his College of Translators at Toledo, where -Dominicus Gundisalvi collaborated with the convert -Abraham ben David (Johannes Hispalensis), it might -have seemed that the preservation of Arabic and Hebrew -was secure. There and then, there could not have -occurred such a blunder as that immortal one of the -Capuchin, Henricus Seynensis, who lives eternal by mistaking -the <i>Talmud</i>—"Rabbi Talmud"—for a man. But -no Arab work endures. And as with Arab philosophy -in Spain, so with the Arabic language: its soul was -required of it. Hebrew, indeed, was not forgotten; -and for Arabic, a revival might be expected during the -Crusades. Yet in all Europe, outside Spain, but three -isolated Arabists of that time are known—William of -Tyre, Philip of Tripoli, and Adelard of Bath; and in -Spain itself, when Boabdil surrendered in 1492, the tide -had run so low that not a thousand Arabs in Granada -could speak their native tongue. Nearly two centuries -before (in 1311-12) a council under Pope Clement V. -advised the establishment of Arabic chairs in the universities -of Salamanca, Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. Save -at Bologna, the counsel was ignored; and in Spain, -where it had once swaggered with airs official, Arabic -almost perished out of use.</p> - -<p>Save a group of technical words, the sole literary legacy -bequeathed to Spain by the Arabs was their alphabet. -This they used in writing Castilian, calling their transcription -<i>aljamía</i> (<i>ajami</i> = foreign), which was the original -name of the broken Latin spoken by the Muzárabes. -First introduced in legal documents, the practice was -prudently continued during the reconquest, and, besides -its secrecy, was further recommended by the fact that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -special sanctity attaches to Arabic characters. But the -peculiarity of <i>aljamía</i> is that it begot a literature of its -own, though, naturally enough, a literature modelled on -the Spanish. Its best production is the <i>Poema de Yusuf</i>; -and it may be noted that this, like its much later fellow, -<i>La Alabanza de Mahoma</i> (The Praise of Muhammad), is -in the metre of the old Spanish "clerkly poems" (<i>poesías -de clerecía</i>). So also the Aragonese Morisco, Muhammad -Rabadán, writes his cyclic poem in Spanish octosyllabics; -and in his successors there are hendecasyllabics manifestly -imitated from a characteristic Galician measure -(<i>de gaita gallega</i>). The subjects of the <i>textos aljamiados</i> -are frankly conveyed from Western sources: the <i>Compilation -of Alexander</i>, an orientalised version of the -French; the <i>History of the Loves of Paris and Viana</i>, a -translation from the Provençal; and the <i>Maid of Arcayona</i>, -based on the Spanish poem <i>Apolonio</i>. In the -<i>Cancionero de Baena</i> appears Mahomat-el-Xartosse, without -his turban, as a full-fledged Spanish poet; and the -old tradition of servility is continued by an anonymous -refugee in Tunis, who shows himself an authority on the -plays and the lyric verse of Lope de Vega.</p> - -<p>It is therefore erroneous to suppose that the northern -Spaniards on their southward march fell in with numerous -kinsmen, of wider culture and of a higher civilisation, -whose everyday speech was unintelligible to them, -and who prayed to Christ in the tongue of Muhammad. -Such cases may have occurred, but as the rarest exceptions. -Not less unfounded is the theory that Castilian -is a fusion of southern academic Arabic with barbarous -northern Latin. In southern Spain Latin persisted, as -Greek, Syriac, and Coptic persisted in other provinces -of the Caliphate; and in the school founded at Córdoba<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -by the Abbot Spera-in-Deo, Livy, Cicero, Virgil, Quintilian, -and Demosthenes were read as assiduously as -Sallust, Horace, and Terence were studied in the northern -provinces. Granting that Latin was for a while so much -neglected that it was necessary to translate the Bible -into Arabic, it is also true that Arabic grew so forgotten -that Peter the Venerable was forced to translate the -Ku'rān for the benefit of clerks. Lastly, it must be -borne in mind that the variety of Romance which finally -prevailed in Spain was not the speech of the northern -highlanders, but that of the Muzárabes of the south and -the centre. Long before "the sword of Pelagius had -been transformed into the sceptre of the Catholic kings," -the linguistic triumph of the south was achieved. The -hazard of war might have yielded another issue; and -to adopt another celebrated phrase of Gibbon's, but for -the Cid and his successors, the Ku'rān might now be -taught in the schools of Salamanca, and her pulpits -might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity -and truth of the revelation of Muhammad. As it chanced, -Arabic was rebuffed, and the Latin speech (or <i>Romance</i>) -survived in its principal varieties of Castilian, Galician, -Catalan, and <i>bable</i> (Asturian).</p> - -<p>Gallic Latin had already bifurcated into the <i>langue -d'oui</i> and the <i>langue d'oc</i>, though these names were not -applied to the varieties till near the close of the twelfth -century. Two hundred years before Roderic's overthrow -a Spanish horde raided the south-west of France, -and, in the corner south of the Adour, reimposed -a tongue which Latin had almost entirely supplanted, -and which lingered solely in the Basque Provinces and -in Navarre. In the eighth century this Basque invasion -was avenged. The Spaniards, concentrating in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -north, vacated the eastern provinces, which were thereupon -occupied by the Roussillonais, who, spreading as far -south as Valencia, and as far east as the Balearic Islands, -gave eastern Spain a new language. Deriving from the -<i>langue d'oc</i>, Catalan divides into <i>plá Catalá</i> and <i>Lemosí</i>—the -common speech and the literary tongue. Vidal de -Besalu calls his own Provençal language <i>limosina</i> or -<i>lemozi</i>, and the name, taken from his popular treatise -<i>Dreita Maneira de Trobar</i>, was at first limited to literary -Provençal; but endless confusion arises from the fact -that when Catalans took to composing, their poems -were likewise said to be written in <i>lengua lemosina</i>.</p> - -<p>The Galician, akin to Portuguese, though free from -the nasal element grafted on the latter by Burgundians, -is held by some for the oldest—though clearly not the -most virile—form of Peninsular Romance. It was at -least the first to ripen, and, under Provençal guidance, -Galician verse acquired the flexibility needed for metrical -effects long before Castilian; so that Castilian court-poets, -ambitious of finer rhythmical results, were driven -to use Galician, which is strongly represented in the -<i>Cancionero de Baena</i>, and boasts an earlier masterpiece -in Alfonso the Learned's <i>Cantigas de Santa María</i>, recently -edited, as it deserved, after six centuries of waiting, -by that admirable scholar the Marqués de Valmar. -Galician, now little more than a simple dialect, is artificially -kept alive by the efforts of patriotic minor poets; -but its literary influence is extinct, and the distinguished -figures of the province, as Doña Emilia Pardo Bazán, -naturally seek a larger audience by writing in Castilian. -So, too, <i>bable</i> is but another dialect of little account, -though a poet of considerable charm, Teodoro Cuesta -(1829-95), has written in it verses which his own loyal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -people will not willingly let die. The classification of -other characteristic sub-genera—Andalucían, Aragonese, -Leonese—belongs to philology, and would be, in any -event, out of place in the history of a literature to which, -unlike Catalan and unlike Galician, they have added -nothing of importance. What befell in Italy and France -befell in Spain. Partly through political causes, partly -by force of superior culture, the language of a single -centre ousted its rivals. As France takes its speech -from Paris and the Île de France, as Florence dominates -Italy, so Castile dictates her language to all the -Spains. The dominant type, then, of Spanish is the -Castilian, which, as the most potent form, has outlived -its brethren, and, with trifling variations, now extends, -not only over Spain, but as far west as Lima and Valparaiso, -and as far east as the Philippine Islands: in -effect, "from China to Peru." And the Castilian of -to-day differs little from the Castilian of the earliest -monuments.</p> - -<p>The first allusion to any distinct variety of Romance -is found in the life of a certain St. Mummolin who -was Bishop of Noyen, succeeding St. Eloi in 659. -A reference to the Spanish type of Romance is found -as far back as 734; but the authenticity of the document -is very doubtful. The breaking-up of Latin in -Spain is certainly observable in Bishop Odoor's will -under the date of 747. The celebrated Strasburg Oaths, -the oldest of Romance instruments, belong to the year -842; and, in an edict of 844, Charles the Bald mentions, -as a thing apart, "the customary language"—<i>usitato -vocabulo</i>—of the Spaniards. There is, however, no existing -Spanish manuscript so ancient, nor is there any -monument as old, as the Italian <i>Carta di Capua</i> (960).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -The British Museum contains a curious codex from the -Convent of Santo Domingo de Silos, on the margin of -which a contemporary has written the vernacular equivalent -of some four hundred Latin words; but this is no -earlier than the eleventh century. The Charter called -the <i>Fuero de Avilés</i> of 1155 (which is in <i>bable</i> or Asturian, -not Castilian), has long passed for the oldest example of -Spanish, on the joint and several authority of González -Llanos, Ticknor, and Gayangos; but Fernández-Guerra -y Orbe has proved it to be a forgery of much later -date.</p> - -<p>These intricate questions of authority and ascription -may well be left unsettled, for legal documents are but -the dry bones of letters. Castilian literature dates roughly -from the twelfth century. Though no Castilian document -of extent can be referred to that period, the <i>Misterio -de los Reyes Magos</i> (The Mystery of the Magian Kings) -and the group of <i>cantares</i> called the <i>Poema del Cid</i> can -scarcely belong to any later time. These, probably, are -the jetsam of a cargo of literature which has foundered. -It is unlikely that the two most ancient compositions in -Castilian verse should be precisely the two preserved -to us, and it is manifest that the epic as set forth in -the <i>Poema del Cid</i> could not have been a first effort. -Doubtless there were other older, shorter songs or -<i>cantares</i> on the Cid's prowess; there unquestionably -were songs upon Bernaldo de Carpio and upon the -Infantes de Lara which are rudely preserved in assonantic -prose passages of the <i>Crónica General</i>. An ingenious, -deceptive theory lays it down that the epic is but -an amalgam of <i>cantilenas</i>, or short lyrics in the vulgar -tongue. At most this is a pious opinion.</p> - -<p>To judge by the analogy of other literatures, it is safe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -to say that as verse always precedes prose (just as man -feels before he reasons), so the epic everywhere precedes -the lyric form, with the possible exception of hymns. -The <i>Poema del Cid</i>, for instance, shows no trace of -lyrical descent; and it is far likelier that the many -surviving <i>romances</i> or ballads on the Cid are detached -fragments of an epic, than that the epic should be a -<i>pastiche</i> of ballads put together nobody knows why, -when, where, how, or by whom. But in any case the -<i>cantilena</i> theory is idle; for, since no <i>cantilenas</i> exist, -no evidence is—or can be—forthcoming to eke out an -attractive but unconvincing thesis. In default of testimony -and of intrinsic probability, the theory depends -solely on bold assertion, and it suffices to say that the -<i>cantilena</i> hypothesis is now abandoned by all save a -knot of fanatical partisans.</p> - -<p>The exploits of the battle-field would, in all likelihood, -be the first subjects of song; and the earliest -singers of these deeds—<i>gesta</i>—would appear in the -chieftain's household. They sang to cheer the freebooters -on the line of march, and a successful foray -was commemorated in some war-song like Dinas Vawr's:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His head was borne before us;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And his overthrow our chorus.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">Soon the separation between combatants and singers -became absolute: the division has been effected in the -interval which divides the <i>Iliad</i> from the <i>Odyssey</i>. -Achilles himself sings the heroes' glories; in the -<i>Odyssey</i> the <i>ἀοιδός</i> or professional singer appears, to be -succeeded by the rhapsode. Slowly there evolve in -Spain, as elsewhere, two classes of artists known as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -<i>trovadores</i> and <i>juglares</i>. The <i>trovadores</i> are generally -authors; the <i>juglares</i> are mere executants—singers, -declaimers, mimes, or simple mountebanks. Of these -lowlier performers one type has been immortalised in -M. Anatole France's <i>Le Jongleur de Notre Dame</i>, a -beautiful re-setting of the old story of <i>El Tumbeor</i>. But -between <i>trovadores</i> and <i>juglares</i> it is not possible to -draw a hard-and-fast line: their functions intermingled. -Some few <i>trovadores</i> anticipated Wagner by eight or -nine centuries, composing their own music-drama on -a lesser scale. In cases of special endowment, the -composer of words and music delivered them to the -audience.</p> - -<p>Subdivisions abounded. There were the <i>juglares</i> or -singing-actors, the <i>remendadores</i> or mimes, the <i>cazurros</i> or -mutes with duties undefined, resembling those of the -intelligent "super." Gifted <i>juglares</i> at whiles produced -original work; a <i>trovador</i> out of luck sank to delivering -the lines of his happier rivals; and a stray <i>remendador</i> -struggled into success as a <i>juglar</i>. There were <i>juglares -de boca</i> (reciters) and <i>juglares de péñola</i> (musicians). -Even an official label may deceive; thus a "Gómez -<i>trovador</i>" is denoted in the year 1197, but the likelihood -is that he was a mere <i>juglar</i>. The normal rule -was that the <i>juglar</i> recited the <i>trovador's</i> verses; but, -as already said, an occasional <i>trovador</i> (Alfonso Álvarez -de Villasandino, at Seville, in the fifteenth century, is -a case in point) would declaim his own ballad. In -the <i>juglar's</i> hands the original was cut or padded to -suit the hearers' taste. He subordinated the verses to -the music, and gave them maimed, or arabesqued with -<i>estribillos</i> (refrains), to fit a popular air. The monotonous -repetition of epithet and clause, common to all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -early verse, is used to lessen the strain on the <i>juglar's</i> -memory. The commonest arrangement was that the -<i>juglar de boca</i> sang the <i>trovador's</i> words, the <i>juglar de -péñola</i> accompanying on some simple instrument, while -the <i>remendador</i> gave the story in pantomime.</p> - -<p>All the world over the history of early literatures is -identical. With the Greeks the minstrel attains at last -an important post in the chieftain's train. Seated on a -high chair inlaid with silver, he entertains the guests, -or guards the wife of Agamemnon, his patron and his -friend. Just so does Phemios sing amid the suitors of -Penelope. It was not always thus. Bentley has told us -in his pointed way that "poor Homer in those circumstances -and early times had never such aspiring thoughts" -as mankind and everlasting fame; and that "he wrote a -sequel of songs and rhapsodies to be sung by himself -for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals, and other -days of merriment." This rise and fall occurred in Spain -as elsewhere. For her early <i>trovadores</i> or <i>juglares</i>, as for -Demodokos in the <i>Odyssey</i>, and as for Fergus MacIvor's -sennachie, a cup of wine sufficed. "<i>Dat nos del vino si -non tenedes dinneros</i>," says the <i>juglar</i> who sang the Cid's -exploits: "Give us wine, if you have no money." Gonzalo -de Berceo, the first Castilian writer whose name -reaches us, is likewise the first Castilian to use the word -<i>trovador</i> in his <i>Loores de Nuestra Señora</i> (The Praises of -Our Lady):</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Aun merced te pido por el tu trobador.</i>"</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">(Thy favour I implore for this thy troubadour.)</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">But, though a priest and a <i>trovador</i> proud of his double -office, Berceo claims his wages without a touch of false<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -shame. In his <i>Vida del glorioso Confesor Sancto Domingo -de Silos</i> he proves the overlapping of his functions by -styling himself the saint's <i>juglar</i>; and in the opening of -the same poem he vouches for it that his song "will be -well worth, as I think, a glass of good wine":</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Bien valdrá, commo creo, un vaso de bon vino.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>As popularity grew, modesty disappeared. The <i>trovador</i>, -like the rest of the world, failed under the trials -of prosperity. He became the curled darling of kings -and nobles, and haggled over prices and salaries in the -true spirit of "our eminent tenor." In a rich land like -France he was given horses, castles, estates; in the -poorer Spain he was fain to accept, with intermittent -grumblings, embroidered robes, couches, ornaments—"<i>muchos -paños é sillas é guarnimientos nobres</i>." He was -spoon-fed, dandled, pampered, and sedulously ruined -by the disastrous good-will of his ignorant betters. -These could not leave Ephraim alone: they too must -wed his idols. Alfonso the Learned enlisted in the corps -of <i>trovadores</i>, as Alfonso II. of Aragón had done before -him; and King Diniz of Portugal followed the example. -To pose as a <i>trovador</i> became in certain great houses -a family tradition. The famous Constable, Álvaro de -Luna, composes because his uncle, Don Pedro, the -Archbishop of Toledo, has preceded him in the school. -Grouped round the commanding figure of the Marqués -de Santillana stand the rivals of his own house-top: -his grandfather, Pedro González de Mendoza; his father, -the Admiral Diego Furtado de Mendoza, a picaroon -poet, spiteful, brutal, and witty; his uncle, Pedro Vélez -de Guevara, who turns you a song of roguery or -devotion with equal indifference and mastery. Santillana's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -is "a numerous house, with many kinsmen gay"; -still, in all save success, his case typifies a dominant -fashion.</p> - -<p>In the society of clerkly magnates the <i>trovador's</i> accomplishments -developed; and the equipped artist was -expected to be master of several instruments, to be pat -with litanies of versified tales, and to have Virgil at -his finger-tips. Schools were founded where aspirants -were taught to <i>trobar</i> and <i>fazer</i> on classic principles, -and the breed multiplied till <i>trovador</i> and <i>juglar</i> possessed -the land. The world entire—tall, short, old, -young, nobles, serfs—did nought but make or hear -verses, as that <i>trovador</i> errant, Vidal de Besalu, records. -It may be that Poggio's anecdote of a later time is -literally true: that a poor man, absorbed in Hector's -story, paid the spouter to adjourn the catastrophe from -day to day till, his money being spent, he was forced -to hear the end with tears.</p> - -<p>Troubadouring became at last a pestilence no less -mischievous than its successor knight-errantry, and its -net was thrown more widely. Alfonso of Aragón led -the way with a celebrated Provençal ballad, wherein -he avers that "not snow, nor ice, nor summer, but God -and love are the motives of my song":</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Mas al meu chan neus ni glatz</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>No m'ajuda, n'estaz,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Ni res, mas Dieus et amors.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Not every man could hope to be a knight; but all ranks -and both sexes could—and did—sing of God and love. -To emperors and princes must be added the lowlier -figures of Berceo, in Spain, or—to go afield for the -extremest case—the <i>Joculator Domini</i>, the inspired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -madman, Jacopone da Todi, in Italy. With the <i>juglar</i> -strolled the primitive actress, the <i>juglaresa</i>, mentioned -in the <i>Libre del Apolonio</i>, and branded as "infamous" in -Alfonso's code of <i>Las Siete Partidas</i>. At the court of -Juan II., in the fifteenth century, the eccentric Garci -Ferrandes of Jerena, a court poet, married a <i>juglaresa</i>, -and lived to lament the consequences in a <i>cántica</i> of -the <i>Cancionero de Baena</i> (No. 555). In northern Europe -there flourished a tribe of jovial clerics called Goliards -(after a mythical Pope Golias), who counted Catullus, -Horace, and Ovid for their masters, and blent their -anacreontics with blasphemy—as in the <i>Confessio Goliæ</i>, -wrongly ascribed to our Walter Map. The repute of -this gentry is chronicled in the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>He was a jangler and a goliardeis,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And that was of most sin and harlotries.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And the type, if not the name, existed in the Peninsula. -So much might be inferred from the introduction and -passage of a law forbidding the ordination of <i>juglares</i>; -and, in the <i>Cancioneiro Portuguez da Vaticana</i> (No. -931), Estevam da Guarda banters a <i>juglar</i> who, taking -orders in expectance of a prebend which he never -received, was prevented by his holy estate from returning -to his craft. But close at hand, in the person -of Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita—the greatest name -in early Castilian literature—is your Spanish Goliard -incarnate.</p> - -<p>The prosperity of <i>trovador</i> and <i>juglar</i> could not endure. -First of foreign <i>trovadores</i> to reach Spain, the Gascon -Marcabru treats Alfonso VII. (1126-57) almost as an -equal. Raimbaud de Vaquerias, in what must be among -the earliest copies of Spanish verse (not without a Galician<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -savour), holds his head no less high; and the apotheosis -of the <i>juglar</i> is witnessed by Vidal de Besalu at the court -of Alfonso VIII. (1158-1214).</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Unas novas vos vuelh comtar</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Que auzi dir a un joglar</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>En la cort del pus savi rei</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Que anc fos de neguna lei.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"Fain would I give ye the verses which I heard recited -by a <i>juglar</i> at the court of the most learned king that ever -any rule beheld." This was the "happier Age of Gold." -A century and a half later, Alfonso the Learned, himself, -as we have seen, a <i>trovador</i>, classes the <i>juglar</i> and his -assistants—<i>los que son juglares, e los remendadores</i>—with -the town pimp; and fathers not themselves <i>juglares</i> -are empowered to disinherit any son who takes to the -calling against his father's will. The Villasandino, -already mentioned, a pert Galician <i>trovador</i> at Juan II.'s -court, was glad to speak his own pieces at Seville, -and candidly avowed that, like his early predecessors, -he "worked for bread and wine"—"<i>labro por pan e -vino</i>."</p> - -<p>The foreign singer had received the half-pence; the -native received the kicks. And in the last decline the -executants were blind men who sang before church-doors -and in public squares, lacing old ballads with what -they were pleased to call "emendations," or, in other -words, intruding original banalities of their own. This -decline of material prosperity had a most disastrous -effect upon literature. A popular <i>cantar</i> or song was -written by a poor man of genius. Accordingly he sold -his copyright: that is to say, he taught his <i>cantar</i> to -reciters, who paid in cash, or in drink, when they had it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -by heart, and thus the song travelled the country overlong -with no author's name attached to it. More: repeated -by many lips during a long period of years, the -form of a very popular <i>cantar</i> manifestly ran the risk -of change so radical that within a few generations the -original might be transformed in such wise as to be -practically lost. This fate has, in effect, overtaken the -great body of early Spanish song.</p> - -<p>It is beyond question that there once existed <i>cantares</i> -(though we cannot fix their date) in honour of Bernaldo -de Carpio, of Fernán González, and of the Infantes de -Lara; the point as regards the Infantes de Lara is proved -to demonstration in the masterly study of D. Ramón -Menéndez Pidal. The assonants of the original songs -are found preserved in the chronicles, and no one with -the most rudimentary idea of the conditions of Spanish -prose-composition (whence assonants are banned with -extreme severity) can suppose that any Spaniard could -write a page of assonants in a fit of absent-mindedness. -Two considerable <i>cantares de gesta</i> of the Cid survive as -fragments, and they owe their lives to a happy accident—the -accident of being written down. They must have -had fellows, but probably not an immense number of -them, as in France. If the formal <i>cantar de gesta</i> died -young, its spirit lived triumphantly in the set chronicle -and in the brief <i>romance</i>. In the chronicle the author -aims at closer exactitude and finer detail, in the <i>romance</i> -at swifter movement and at greater picturesqueness of -artistic incident. The term <i>romanz</i> or <i>romance</i>, first of all -limited to any work written in the vernacular, is used in -that sense by the earliest of all known troubadours, Count -William of Poitiers.</p> - -<p>In the thirteenth century, <i>romanz</i> or <i>romance</i> acquires<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -a fresh meaning in Spain, begins to be used as an equivalent -for <i>cantar</i>, and ends by supplanting the word -completely. Hence, by slow degrees, <i>romance</i> comes to -have its present value, and is applied to a lyrico-narrative -poem in eight-syllabled assonants. The Spanish -<i>Romancero</i> is, beyond all cavil, the richest mine of ballad -poetry in the world, and it was once common to declare -that it embodied the oldest known examples of Castilian -verse. As the assertion is still made from time to time, it -becomes necessary to say that it is unfounded. It is true -that the rude <i>cantar</i> was never forgotten in Spain, and -that its persistence partly explains the survival of assonance -in Castilian long after its abandonment by the rest -of Europe. In his historic letter to Dom Pedro, Constable -of Portugal, the Marqués de Santillana speaks with a -student's contempt of singers who, "against all order, -rule, and rhythm, invent these <i>romances</i> and <i>cantares</i> -wherein common lewd fellows do take delight." But -no specimens of the primitive age remain, and no existing -<i>romance</i> is older than Santillana's own fifteenth -century.</p> - -<p>The numerous <i>Cancioneros</i> from Baena's time to the -appearance of the <i>Romancero General</i> (the First Part -printed in 1602, with additions in 1604-14; the Second -Part issued in 1605) present a vast collection of admirable -lyrics, mostly the work of accomplished courtly versifiers. -They contain very few examples of anything that can -be justly called old popular songs. Alonso de Fuentes -published in 1550 his <i>Libro de los Cuarenta Cantos de -Diversas y Peregrinas Historias</i>, and in the following year -was issued Lorenzo de Sepúlveda's selection. Both profess -to reproduce the "rusticity" as well as the "tone -and metre" of the ancient <i>romances</i>; but, in fact, these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -songs, like those given by Escobar in the <i>Romancero del -Cid</i> (1612), are either written by such students as Cesareo, -who read up his subject in the chronicles, and imitated -the old manner as best he could, or they are due to -others who treated the oral traditions and <i>pliegos sueltos</i> -(broadsides) of Spain with the same inspired freedom -that Burns showed to the local ditties and chapbooks -of Scotland. The two oldest <i>romances</i> bearing any -author's name are given in Lope de Stúñiga's <i>Cancionero</i>, -and are the work of Carvajal, a fifteenth-century poet. -Others may be of earlier date; but it is impossible to -identify them, inasmuch as they have been retouched -and polished by singers of the fifteenth and sixteenth -centuries. If they exist at all—a matter of grave uncertainty—they -must be sought in the two Antwerp -editions of Martin Nucio's <i>Cancionero de Romances</i> (one -undated, the other of 1550), and in Esteban de Nájera's -<i>Silva de Romances</i>, printed at Zaragoza in 1550.</p> - -<p>There remains to say a last word on the disputed -relation between the early Castilian and French literatures. -Like the auctioneer in <i>Middlemarch</i>, patriots -"talk wild": as Amador de los Ríos in his monumental -fragment, and the Comte de Puymaigre in his -essays. No fact is better established than the universal -vogue of French literature between the twelfth and -fourteenth centuries, a vogue which lasted till the real -supremacy of Dante and Boccaccio and Petrarch was -reluctantly acknowledged. It is probable that Frederic -Barbarossa wrote in Provençal; his nephew, Frederic II., -sedulously aped the Provençal manner in his Italian -verses called the <i>Lodi della donna amata</i>. Marco Polo, -Brunetto Latini, and Mandeville wrote in French for -the same reason that almost persuaded Gibbon to write<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -his <i>History</i> in French. The substitution of the Gallic -for the Gothic character in the eleventh century advanced -one stage further a process begun by the French -adventurers who shared in the reconquest.</p> - -<p>With these last came the French <i>jongleurs</i> to teach -the Spaniards the gentle art of making the <i>chanson de -geste</i>. The very phrase, <i>cantar de gesta</i>, bespeaks its -French source. As the root of the Cid epic lies in -<i>Roland</i>, so the <i>Mystery of the Magian Kings</i> is but an -offshoot of the Cluny Liturgy. The earliest mention of -the Cid, in the Latin <i>Chronicle of Almería</i>, joins the -national hero, significantly enough, with those two -unexampled paragons of France, Oliver and Roland. -Another French touch appears in the <i>Poem of Fernán -González</i>, where the writer speaks of Charlemagne's -defeat at Roncesvalles, and laments that the battle was -not an encounter with the Moors, in which Bernaldo -del Carpio might have scattered them. But we are not -left to conjecture and inference; the presence of French -<i>jongleurs</i> is attested by irrefragable evidence.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Sancho I. -of Portugal had at court a French <i>jongleur</i> who in name, -if in nothing else, somewhat resembled Guy de Maupassant's -creation, "Bon Amis." It is not proved that -Sordello ever reached Spain; but, in the true manner -of your bullying parasite, he denounces St. Ferdinand -as one who "should eat for two, since he rules two -kingdoms, and is unfit to govern one":—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>E lo Reis castelás tanh qu'en manje per dos,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Quar dos regismes ten, ni per l'un non es pros.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> - -<p>Sordello, indeed, in an earlier couplet denounces St. -Louis of France as "a fool"; but Sordello is a mere -bilk and blackmailer with the gift of song.</p> - -<p>Among French minstrels traversing Spain are Père -Vidal, who vaunts the largesse of Alfonso VIII., and -Guirauld de Calanson, who lickspittles the name of Pedro -II. of Aragón. Upon them followed Guilhem Azémar, -a <i>déclassé</i> noble, who sank to earning his bread as a -common <i>jongleur</i>, and later on there comes a crowd of -singing-quacks and booth-spouters. It is usual to lay -stress upon the influx of French among the pilgrims of -the Milky Way on the road to the shrine of the national -St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Galicia; and -it is a fact that the first to give us a record of this pious -journey is Aimeric Picaud in the twelfth century, who -unkindly remarks of the Basques, that "when they eat, -you would take them for hogs, and when they speak, -for dogs." This vogue was still undiminished three -hundred years later when our own William Wey (once -Fellow of Eton, and afterwards, as it seems, an Augustinian -monk at Edyngdon Monastery in Wiltshire) wrote -his <i>Itinerary</i> (1456). But though the pilgrimage to -Santiago is noted as a peculiarly "French devotion" -by Lope de Vega in his <i>Francesilla</i> (1620), it is by no -means clear that the French pilgrims outnumbered -those of other nations. Even if they did, this would -not explain the literary predominance of France. This -is not to be accounted for by the scampering flight of a -horde of illiterate fakirs anxious only to save their souls -and reach their homes: it is rather the natural result -of a steady immigration of clerks in the suites of French -bishops and princes, of French monks attracted by the -spoil of Spanish monasteries, of French lords and knights<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -and gentlemen who shared in the Crusades, and whose -<i>jongleurs</i>, mimes, and tumblers came with them.</p> - -<p>Explain it as we choose, the influence of France -on Spain is puissant and enduring. One sees it best -when the Spaniard, natural or naturalised, turns crusty. -Roderic of Toledo (himself an archbishop of the Cluny -clique) protests against those Spanish <i>juglares</i> who celebrate -the fictitious victories of Charlemagne in Spain; -and Alfonso the Learned bears him out by deriding the -songs and fables on these mythic triumphs, since the -Emperor "at most conquered somewhat in Cantabria." -A passage in the <i>Crónica General</i> goes to show that some, -at least, of the early French <i>jongleurs</i> sang to their audiences -in French—clearly, as it seems, to a select, patrician -circle. And this raises, obviously, a curious question. -It seems natural to admit that in Spain (let us say in -Navarre and Upper Aragón) poems were written by -French <i>trouvères</i> and <i>troubadours</i> in a mixed hybrid -jargon; and the very greatest of Spanish scholars, -D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, inclines to believe in -their possible existence. There is, in <i>L'Entrée en Espagne</i>, -a passage wherein the author declares that, besides the -sham <i>Chronicle</i> of Turpin, his chief authorities are</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i4">"<i>dous bons clerges Çan-gras et Gauteron,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Çan de Navaire et Gautier d'Arragon.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>John of Navarre and Walter of Aragón may be, as -Señor Menéndez y Pelayo suggests, two "worthy clerks" -who once existed in the flesh, or they may be imaginings -of the author's brain. More to the point is the fact that, -unlike the typical <i>chanson de geste</i>, this <i>Entrée en Espagne</i> -has two distinct types of rhythm (the Alexandrine and -the twelve-syllable line), as in the <i>Poema del Cid</i>; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -not less significant is the foreign savour of the language. -All that can be safely said is that Señor Menéndez y -Pelayo's theory is probable enough in itself, that it is -presented with great ingenuity, that it is backed by the -best authority that opinion can have, and that it is incapable -of proof or disproof in the absence of texts.</p> - -<p>But if Spain, unlike Italy, has no authentic poems in -an intermediate tongue, proofs of French influence are -not lacking in her earliest movements. Two of the most -ancient Castilian lyrics—<i>Razón feita d'Amor</i> and the -<i>Disputa del Alma</i>—are mere liftings from the French; -the <i>Book of Apolonius</i> teems with Provençalisms, and -the poem called the <i>History of St. Mary of Egypt</i> is so -gallicised in idiom that Milá y Fontanals, a ripe scholar -and a true-blue Spaniard, was half inclined to think it -one of those intermediary productions which are sought -in vain. At every point proofs of French guidance -confront us. Anxious to buffet and outrage his father's -old <i>trovador</i>, Pero da Ponte, Alfonso the Learned taunts -him with illiteracy, seeing that he does not compose in -the Provençal vein:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Vos non trovades como proençal.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And, for our purpose, we are justified in appealing to -Portugal for testimony, remembering always that Portugal -exaggerates the condition of things in Spain. King -Diniz, Alfonso the Learned's nephew, plainly indicates -his model when in the Vatican <i>Cancioneiro</i> (No. 123) he -declares that he "would fain make a love-song in the -Provençal manner":—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i4">"<i>Quer' eu, en maneyra de proençal,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Fazer agora um cantar d'amor.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> - -<p>And Alfonso's own <i>Cantigas</i>, honeycombed with Gallicisms, -are frankly Provençal in their wonderful variety -of metre. Nor should we suppose that the Provençaux -fought the battle alone: the northern <i>trouvères</i> bore -their part.</p> - -<p>The French school, then, is strong in Spain, omnipotent -in Portugal, and, were the Spanish <i>Cancioneros</i> -as old as the Portuguese Song-book in the Vatican, we -should probably find that the foreign influence was but -a few degrees less marked in the one country than in -the other. As it is, Alfonso the Learned ranks with -any Portuguese of them all; and it is reasonable to -think that he had fellows whose achievement and names -have not reached us. For Spanish literature and ourselves -the loss is grave; and yet we cannot conceive -that there existed in early Castilian any examples comparable -in elaborate lyrical beauty to the <i>cantars d'amigo</i> -which the Galician-Portuguese singers borrowed from -the French <i>ballettes</i>. In the first place, if they had -existed, it is next to incredible that no example and -no tradition of them should survive. Next, the idea is -intrinsically improbable, since the Castilian language was -not yet sufficiently ductile for the purpose. Moreover, -from the outset there is a counter-current in Castile. -The early Spanish legends are mostly concerned with -Spanish subjects. Apart from obvious foreign touches -in the early recensions of the story of Bernaldo de -Carpio (who figures as Charlemagne's nephew), the -tone of the ballads is hostile to the French, and, as is -natural, the enmity grows more pronounced with time. -That national hero, the Cid, is especially anti-French. -He casts the King of France in gaol; he throws away -the French King's chair with insult in St. Peter's. Still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -more significant is the fact that the character of French -women becomes a jest. Thus, the balladist emphasises -the fact that the faithless wife of Garci-Fernández is -French; and, again, when Sancho García's mother, likewise -French, appears in a <i>romance</i>, the singer gives her -a blackamoor—an Arab—as a lover. This is primitive -man's little way, the world over: he pays off old scores -by deriding the virtue of his enemy's wife, mother, -daughter, sister; and in primitive Spain the Frenchwoman -is the lightning-conductor of international -scandals, tolerable by the camp-fire, but tedious in -print.</p> - -<p>In considering early Spanish verse it behoves us to -denote facts and to be chary in drawing inferences. -Thus, while we admit that the <i>Poema del Cid</i> and the -<i>Chanson de Roland</i> belong to the same <i>genre</i>, we can -go no further. It is not to be assumed that similarity -of incident necessarily implies direct imitation. The -introduction of the fighting bishop in the Cid poem is -a case in point. His presence in the field may be—almost -certainly is—an historic event, common enough -in days when a militant bishop loved to head a charge; -and the chronicler may well have seen the exploits which -he records. It by no means follows, and it is extravagant -to suppose, that the Spanish <i>juglar</i> merely filches from -the <i>Chanson de Roland</i>. That he had heard the <i>Chanson</i> -is not only probable, but likely; it is not, to say the -least, a necessary consequence that he annexed an episode -as familiar in Spain as elsewhere. Nothing, if you -probe deep enough, is new, and originality is a vain -dream. But some margin must be left for personal -experience and the hazard of circumstance; and if we -take account of the chances of coincidence, the debt of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -Castilian to French literature will appear in its due -perspective. Nor must it be forgotten that from a very -early date there are traces of the reflex action of -Castilian upon French literature. They are not, indeed, -many; but they are authentic beyond carping. In the -ancient <i>Fragment de la Vie de Saint Fidès d'Agen</i>, which -dates from the eleventh century, the Spanish origin is -frankly admitted:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Canson audi que bellantresca</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Que fo de razon espanesca</i>"—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"I heard a beauteous song that told of Spanish things." -Or, once more, in Adenet le Roi's <i>Cléomadès</i>, and in its -offshoot the <i>Méliacin</i> of Girard d'Amiens, we meet with -the wooden horse (familiar to readers of <i>Don Quixote</i>) -which bestrides the spheres and curvets among the -planets. Borrowed from the East, the story is transmitted -to the Greeks, is annexed by the Arabs, and is -passed on through them to Spain, whence Adenet le -Roi conveys it for presentation to the western world.</p> - -<p>More directly and more characteristically Spanish in -its origin is the royal epic entitled <i>Anséis de Carthage</i>. -Here, after the manner of your epic poet, chronology -is scattered to the winds, and we learn that Charlemagne -left in Spain a king who dishonoured the daughter of -one of his barons; hence the invasion by the Arabs, -whom the baron lets loose upon his country as avengers. -The basis of the story is purely Spanish, being a somewhat -clumsy arrangement of the legend of Roderic, -Cora, and Count Julian; the city of Carthage standing, -it may be, for the Spanish Cartagena. Hence it is -clear that the mutual literary debt of Spain and France -is, at this early stage, unequally divided. Spain, like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -the rest of the world, borrows freely; but, with the -course of time, the position is reversed. Molière, the -two Corneilles, Rotrou, Sorel, Scarron, and Le Sage, to -mention but a few eminent names at hazard, readjust -the balance in favour of Spain; and the inexhaustible -resources of the Spanish theatre, which supply the -arrangements of scores of minor French dramatists, -are but a small part of the literature whose details are -our present concern.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> See Milá y Fontanals, <i>Los Trovadores en España</i> (Barcelona, 1889), and the -same writer's <i>Resenya histórica y crítica dels antichs poetas catalans</i> in the -third volume of his <i>Obras completas</i> (Barcelona, 1890).</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER II -<br /> -<small>THE ANONYMOUS AGE -<br /> -1150-1220</small></h2> - - -<p>In Spain, as in all countries where it is possible to -observe the origin and the development of letters, the -earliest literature bears the stamp of influences which -are either epic or religious. These primitive pieces are -characterised by a vein of popular, unconscious poetry, -with scarce a touch of personal artistry; and the ascription -which refers one or other of them to an individual -writer is, for the most part, arbitrary. Insufficiency of -data makes it impossible to identify the oldest literary -performance in Spanish Romance. Jews like Judah -ben Samuel the Levite, and <i>trovadores</i> like Rambaud de -Vaqueiras, arabesque their verses with Spanish tags and -refrains; but these are whimsies. Our choice lies rather -between the <i>Misterio de los Reyes Magos</i> (Mystery of the -Magian Kings) and the so-called <i>Poema del Cid</i> (Poem -of the Cid). Experts differ concerning their respective -dates; but the liturgical derivation of the <i>Misterio</i> inclines -one to hold it for the elder of the two. If Lidforss were -right in attributing it to the eleventh century, the play -would rank among the first in any modern language. -Amador de los Ríos dates it still further back. As -these pretensions are excessive, the known facts may -be briefly given. The <i>Misterio</i> follows upon a commentary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, written by -a canon of Auxerre, Gilibert l'Universel, who died in -1134; and its existence was first denoted at the end -of the last century by Felipe Fernández Vallejo, Archbishop -of Santiago de Compostela between 1798 and -1800, who correctly classified it as a dramatic scene -to be given on the Feast of the Epiphany, and considered -it a version from some Latin original. Both -conjectures have proved just. Throughout Europe the -Christian theatre derives from the Church, and the early -plays are but a lay vernacular rendering of models -studied in the sanctuary. Simplified as the liturgy now -is, the Mass itself, the services of Palm Sunday and -Good Friday, are the unmistakable <i>débris</i> of an elaborate -sacred drama.</p> - -<p>The Spanish <i>Misterio</i> proceeds from one of the Latin -offices used at Limoges, Rouen, Nevers, Compiègne, and -Orleans, with the legend of the Magi for a motive; and -these, in turn, are dramatic renderings of pious traditions, -partly oral, and partly amplifications of the apocryphal -<i>Protevangelium Jacobi Minoris</i> and the <i>Historia -de Nativitate Mariæ et de Infantiâ Salvatoris</i>.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> These -Franco-Latin liturgical plays, here mentioned in the -probable order of their composition during the eleventh -and twelfth centuries, reached Spain through the Benedictines -of Cluny; and as in each original redaction there -is a distinct advance upon its immediate predecessor, so -in the Spanish rendering these primitive exemplars are -developed. In the Limoges version there is no action, -the rudimentary dialogue consisting in the allotment of -liturgical phrases among the personages; in the Rouen -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>office, the number of actors is increased, and Herod, -though he does not appear, is mentioned; a still later -redaction brings the shepherds on the scene. The -Spanish <i>Misterio</i> reaches us as a fragment of some -hundred and fifty lines, ending at the moment when the -rabbis consult their sacred books upon Herod's appeal to</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i6">"<i>the prophecies</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which Jeremiah spake</i>."</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Its <i>provenance</i> is proved by the inclusion of three Virgilian -lines (<i>Æneid</i>, viii. 112-114), lifted by the arranger of the -Orleans rite. The Magi are mentioned by name, and -one speech is given by Gaspar: important points which -help to fix the date of writing. A passage in Bede speaks -of Melchior, <i>senex et canus</i>; of Baltasar, <i>fuscus, integre -barbatus</i>; of Gaspar, <i>juvenis imberbis</i>; but this appears -to be interpolated. The names likewise appear in the -famous sixth-century mosaic of the Church of Sant' -Apollinare della Città at Ravenna; and here, again, -the insertion is probably a pious afterthought. If -Hartmann be justified in his contention, that the traditional -names of the Magi were not in vogue till after -the alleged discovery of their remains at Milan in 1158, -the Spanish <i>Misterio</i> can be, at best, no older than the -end of the twelfth century.</p> - -<p>Enough of it remains to show that the Spanish workman -improved upon his models. He elaborates the -dramatic action, quickens the dialogue with newer life, -and gives his scene an ampler, a more vivid atmosphere. -Led by the heavenly star, the three Magi first -appear separately, then together; they celebrate the -birth of Christ, whom they seek to adore, at the end -of their thirteen days' pilgrimage. Encountering Herod,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -they confide to him their mission; the King conjures -his "abbots" (rabbis), counsellors, and soothsayers to -search the mystic books, and to say whether the Magis' -tale be true. The passages between Herod and his -rabbis are marked by intensity and passion, far exceeding -the Franco-Latin models in dramatic force; -and there is a corresponding progress of mechanism, -distribution, and rapidity.</p> - -<p>There is even a breath of the critical spirit wholly -absent from all other early mysteries, which accept the -miraculous sign of the star with a simple, unquestioning -faith. In our play, the first and third Magi wish -to observe it another night, while the second King -would fain watch it for three entire nights. Lastly, -the scale of the <i>Misterio</i> is larger than that of any -predecessor; the personages are not huddled upon the -scene at once, but appear in appropriate, dramatic -order, delivering more elaborate speeches, and expressing -at greater length more individual emotions. This -fragmentary piece, written in octosyllabics, forms the -foundation-stone of the Spanish theatre; and from it -are evolved, in due progression, "the light and odour of -the flowery and starry <i>Autos</i>" which were to enrapture -Shelley. Important and venerable as is the <i>Misterio</i>, -its freer treatment of the liturgy, its effectual blending -of realism with devotion, and its swiftness of action -are so many arguments against its reputed antiquity. -It is still old if we adopt the conclusion that it was -written some twenty years before the <i>Poema del Cid</i>.</p> - -<p>This misnamed epic, no unworthy fellow to the <i>Chanson -de Roland</i>, is the first great monument of Spanish -literature. Like the <i>Misterio de los Reyes Magos</i>, like so -many early pieces, the <i>Poema del Cid</i> reaches us maimed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -and mutilated. The beginning is lost; a page in the -middle, containing some fifty lines following upon verse -2338, has gone astray from our copy; and the end has -been retouched by unskilful fingers. The unique manuscript -in which the <i>cantar</i> exists belongs to the fourteenth -century: so much is now settled after infinite -disputes. The original composition is thought to date -from about the middle third of the twelfth century -(1135-75), some fifty years after the Cid's death at -Valencia in 1099. Hence the <i>Poem of the Cid</i> stands -almost midway between the <i>Chanson de Roland</i> and the -<i>Niebelungenlied</i>. Nevertheless, in its surviving shape it -is the result of innumerable retouches which amount to -botching. Its authorship is more than doubtful, for the -Per Abbat who obtrudes in the closing lines is, like the -Turoldus of <i>Roland</i>, the mere transcriber of an unfaithful -copy. Our gratitude to Per Abbat is dashed with regret -for his slapdash methods. The assonants are roughly -handled, whole phrases are unintelligently repeated, are -transferred from one line to another, or are thrust out -from the text, and in some cases two lines are crushed -into one. The prevailing metre is the Alexandrine or -fourteen-syllabled verse, probably adopted in conscious -imitation of that Latin chronicle on the conquest of -Almería which first reveals the national champion under -his popular title—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Ipse Rodericus, Mio Cid semper vocatus,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>De quo cantatur, quod ab hostibus haud superatus.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>However that may be, the normal measure is reproduced -with curious infelicity. Some lines run to twenty -syllables, some halt at ten, and it cannot be doubted -that many of these irregularities are results of careless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -copying. Still, to Per Abbat we owe the preservation of -the Cid <i>cantar</i> as we owe to Sánchez its issue in 1779, -more than half a century before any French <i>chanson de -geste</i> was printed.</p> - -<p>The Spanish epic has a twofold theme—the exploits -of the exiled Cid, and the marriage of his two (mythical) -daughters to the Infantes de Carrión. Diffused through -Europe by the genius of Corneille, who conveyed his -conception from Guillén de Castro, the legendary Cid -differs hugely from the Cid of history. Uncritical scepticism -has denied his existence; but Cervantes, with his -good sense, hit the white in the first part of <i>Don Quixote</i> -(chapter xlix.). Unquestionably the Cid lived in the flesh: -whether or not his alleged achievements occurred is -another matter. Irony has incidentally marked him for -its own. The mercenary in the pay of Zaragozan emirs -is fabled as the model Spanish patriot; the plunderer of -churches becomes the flower of orthodoxy; the cunning -intriguer who rifled Jews and mocked at treaties is transfigured -as the chivalrous paladin; the unsentimental -trooper who never loved is delivered unto us as the -typical <i>jeune premier</i>. Lastly, the mirror of Spanish -nationality is best known by his Arabic title (<i>Sidi</i> = -lord). Yet two points must be kept in mind: the facts -which discredit him are reported by hostile Arab historians; -and, again, the Cid is entitled to be judged by -the standard of his country and his time. So judged, -we may accept the verdict of his enemies, who cursed -him as "a miracle of the miracles of God and the conqueror -of banners." Ruy Diaz de Bivar—to give him -his true name—was something more than a freebooter -whose deeds struck the popular fancy: he stood for -unity, for the supremacy of Castile over León, and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -example proved that, against almost any odds, the -Spaniards could hold their own against the Moors. In -the long night between the disaster of Alarcos and the -crowning triumph of Navas de Tolosa, the Cid's figure -grew glorious as that of the man who had never despaired -of his country, and in the hour of victory the -legend of his inspiration was not forgotten. From his -death at Valencia in 1099, his memory became a national -possession, embellished by popular poetic fancy.</p> - -<p>In the <i>Poema</i> the treatment is obviously modelled -upon the <i>Chanson de Roland</i>. But there is a fixed intent -to place the Spaniard first. The Cid is pictured as more -human than Roland: he releases his prisoners without -ransom; he gives them money so that they may reach -their homes. Charlemagne, in the <i>Chanson</i>, destroys the -idols in the mosques, baptizes a hundred thousand Saracens -by force, hangs or flays alive the recalcitrant; the -Cid shows such humanity to a conquered province that -on his departure the Moors burst forth weeping, and -pray for his prosperous voyage. The machinery in both -cases is very similar. As the archangel Gabriel appears -to Charlemagne, he appears likewise to the Cid Campeador. -Bishop Turpin opens the battle in <i>Roland</i>, and -Bishop Jerome heads the charge for Spain. Roland and -Ruy Diaz are absolved and exhorted to the same effect, -and the resemblance of the epithet <i>curunez</i> applied to -the French bishop is too close to the <i>coronado</i> of the -Spaniard to be accidental. But allowing for the fact -that the Spanish <i>juglar</i> borrows his framework, his performance -is great by virtue of its simplicity, its strength, -its spirit and fire. Whether he deals with the hungry -loyalty of the Cid in exile, or his reception into favour -by an ingrate king; whether he celebrates the overthrow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -of the Count of Barcelona or the surrender of Valencia; -whether he sings the nuptials of Elvira and Sol with -the Infantes de Carrión, or the avenging Cid who seeks -reparation from his craven son-in-law, the touch is -always happy and is commonly final.</p> - -<p>There is an unity of conception and of language which -forbids our accepting the <i>Poema</i> as the work of several -hands; and the division of the poem into separate -<i>cantares</i> is managed with a discretion which argues a -single artistic intelligence. The first part closes with the -marriage of the hero's daughters; the second with the -shame of the Infantes de Carrión, and the proud announcement -that the kings of Spain are sprung from -the Cid's loins. In both the singer rises to the level -of his subject, but his chiefest gust is in the recital of -some brilliant deed of arms. Judge him when, in a -famous passage well rendered by Ormsby, he sings the -charge of the Cid at Alcocer:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And he that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The Champion of Bivar is here—Ruy Diaz—I am he!'</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And, when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>While Moors call on Muhammad, and 'St. James!' the Christians cry.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<p>Indubitably this (and it were easy to match it elsewhere -in the <i>Poema</i>) is the work of an original genius who redeems -his superficial borrowings of incident from <i>Roland</i> -by a treatment all his own. That he knew the French -models is evident from his skilful conveyance of the bear -episode in <i>Ider</i> to his own pages, where the Cid encounters -the beast as a lion. But the language shows no hint -of French influence, and both thought and expression -are profoundly national. The poet's name is irrecoverable, -but the internal evidence points strongly to the -conclusion that he came from the neighbourhood of -Medina Celi. The surmise that he was an Asturian rests -solely upon the absence of the diphthong <i>ue</i> from his lines, -an inference on the face of it unwarrantable. Against -this is the topographical minuteness with which the poet -reports the sallies of the Cid in the districts of Castejón -and Alcocer; his marked ignorance of the country round -Zaragoza and Valencia, his detailed description of the -central episode—the outrage upon the Cid's daughters in -the wood of Corpes, near Berlanga; and the important -fact that the four chief itineraries in the <i>Poema</i> are charged -with minutiæ from Molina to San Esteban de Gormaz, -while they grow vague and more confused as they extend -towards Burgos and Valencia. The most probable conjecture, -then, is that the unknown maker of this primitive -masterpiece came from the Valle de Arbujuelo; and it -is worth adding that this opinion is supported by the -authority of Sr. Menéndez Pidal. Perhaps the greatest -testimony to the early poet's worth is to be found in -this: that his conception of his hero has outlived the true -historic Cid, and has forced the child of his imagination -upon the acceptance of mankind.</p> - -<p>Even more fantastic is the personality of Ruy Diaz as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -rendered by the anonymous compiler of the <i>Crónica -Rimada</i> (Rhymed Chronicle of Events in Spain from the -Death of King Pelayo to Ferdinand the Great, and more -especially of the Adventures of the Cid). The composition -which bears this clumsy and inappropriate title is -better named the <i>Cantar de Rodrigo</i>, and consists of -1125 lines, preceded by a scrap of rugged prose. Not -till after digressions into other episodes, and irrelevant -stories of Miro and Bernardo, Bishops of Palencia, probably -fellow-townsmen of the compiler, does the Cid -appear. He is no longer, as in the <i>Poema</i>, a popular -hero, idealised from historic report; he is a purely imaginary -figure, incrusted with a mass of fables accumulated -in course of time. At the age of twelve he slays Gómez -Górmaz (an almost impossible style, compounded of a -patronymic and the name of a castle belonging to the -Cid), is claimed by the dead man's daughter, weds her, -vanquishes the Moors, and leads his King's—Fernando's—troops -to the gates of Paris, defeating the Count of -Savoy upon the road. One legend is heaped upon -another, and the poem, the end of which is lost, breaks -off with the Pope's request for a year's truce, which -Fernando, acting as ever upon the Cid's advice, magnanimously -extends for twelve years. It is hard to say -whether the <i>Cantar de Rodrigo</i> as we have it is the -production of a single composer, or whether it is a -patchwork by different hands, arranged from earlier -poems, and eked out by prose stories and by oral traditions. -The versification is that of the simple sixteen-syllabled -line, each hemistich of which forms a typical -<i>romance</i> line. This in itself is a sign of its later date, -and to this must be added the traces of deliberate imitation -of the <i>Poema</i>, and the writer's familiarity with such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -modern devices as heraldic emblems. Further, the use -of a Provençal form like <i>gensor</i>, the unmistakable tokens -of French influence, the anticipation of the metre of -the clerkly poems, the writer's frank admission of earlier -songs on the same subject, the metamorphosis of the Cid -into a feudal baron, and, above all, the decadent spirit of -the entire work: these are tokens which imply a relative -modernity. Much of the obscurity of language, which -has been mistaken for archaism, is simply due to the -defects of the manuscript; and the evidence goes to -show that the <i>Rodrigo</i>, put together in the last decade -of the twelfth century or the first of the thirteenth, was -retouched in the fourteenth by Spanish <i>juglares</i> humiliated -by the recent French invasions. Even so, much -of the primitive <i>pastiche</i> remains, and the <i>Rodrigo</i>, which -is mentioned in the <i>General Chronicle</i>, interests us as being -the fountain-head of those <i>romances</i> on the Cid whose -collection we owe to that enthusiastic and most learned -investigator, Madame Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos. -Far inferior in merit and interest to the <i>Poema</i>, the -<i>Rodrigo</i> ranks with it as representative of the submerged -mass of <i>cantares de gesta</i>, and is rightly valued as the -venerable relic of a lost school.</p> - -<p>To these succeed three anonymous poems, the <i>Libro -de Apolonio</i> (Book of Apollonius), the <i>Vida de Santa María -Egipciaqua</i> (Life of St. Mary the Egyptian), and the -<i>Libre dels Tres Reyes dorient</i> (Book of the Three Eastern -Kings), all discovered in one manuscript in the Escurial -Library by Pedro José Pidal, and first published by him -in 1844. The story of Apollonius, supposed to be a translation -of a Greek <i>romance</i>, filters into European literature -by way of the <i>Gesta Romanorum</i>, is found even in Icelandic -and Danish versions, and is familiar to English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -readers of <i>Pericles</i>. The nameless Spanish arranger of -the thirteenth century (probably a native of Aragón) -gives the story of Apollonius' adventures with force and -clearness, anticipating in the character of Tarsiana the -type of Preciosa, the heroine of Cervantes' <i>Gitanilla</i> and -of Weber's opera. Unfortunately the closing tags of -moralisings on the vanity of life destroy the effect which -the writer has produced by his free translation. His -text is suffused with Provençalisms, and his mono-rhymed -quatrains of fourteen syllables are evidence of -French or Provençal origin. This metrical novelty, -extending over more than six hundred stanzas, is properly -regarded by the author as his chief distinction, -and he implores God and the Virgin to guide him in the -exercise of the new mastery (<i>nueva maestría</i>). It is fair -to add that his experiment has the interest of novelty, -that it succeeded beyond measure in its time, and that -its monotonous vogue endured for some two hundred -years.</p> - -<p>To the same period belongs the <i>Vida de Santa María -Egipciaqua</i>, the earliest Castilian example of verses of -nine syllables. In substance it is a version of the <i>Vie -de Saint Marie l'Egyptienne</i>, ascribed without much -reason to the veritable Bishop of Lincoln, Robert -Grosseteste (? 1175-1253), among whose <i>Carmina Anglo-Normannica</i> -the French original is interpolated. The -Spanish version follows the French lead with almost -pedantic exactitude; but the metre, new and well suited -to the common ear, is handled with an easy grace remarkable -in a first effort. As happens with other works -of this time, the title of the short <i>Libre dels Tres Reyes -dorient</i> is misleading. The visit of the Magi is briefly -dismissed in the first fifty lines, the poem turning chiefly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -upon the Flight into Egypt, the miracle wrought upon -the leprous child of the robber, and the identification -of the latter with the repentant thief of the New -Testament. Like its predecessor, this legend is given -in nine-syllabled verse, and is undoubtedly borrowed -from a French or Provençal source not yet discovered.</p> - -<p>In the <i>Disputa del Alma y el Cuerpo</i> (Argument betwixt -Body and Soul), a subject which passes into -all mediæval literatures from a copy of Latin verses -styled <i>Rixa Animi et Corporis</i>, there is a recurrence, -though with innumerable variants of measure, to the -Alexandrine type. Thus it is sought to reproduce the -music of the model, an Anglo-Norman poem, written in -rhymed couplets of six syllables, and wrongly attributed -to Walter Map. With it should go the <i>Debate entre el -Agua y el Vino</i> (Debate between Water and Wine), and -the first Castilian lyric, <i>Razón feita d'Amor</i> (the Lay of -Love). Composed in verses of nine syllables, the poem -deals with the meeting of two lovers, their colloquy, -interchanges, and separation. Both pieces, discovered -within the last seventeen years by M. Morel-Fatio, are -the productions of a single mind. It is tempting to -identify the writer with the Lope de Moros mentioned -in the final line, "<i>Lupus me feçit de Moros</i>"; still the -likelihood is that, here as elsewhere, the copyist has but -signed his transcription. Whoever the author may -have been—and the internal evidence tends to show -that he was a clerk familiar with French, Provençal, -Italian, or Portuguese exemplars—he shines by virtue -of qualities which are akin to genius. His delicacy and -variety of sentiment, his finish of workmanship, his -deliberate lyrical effects, announce the arrival of the -equipped artist, the craftsman no longer content with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -rhymed narration, the singer with a personal, distinctive -note. Here was a poet who recognised that in literature—the -least moral of the arts—the end justifies the -means; hence he transformed the material which he -borrowed, made it his own possession, and conveyed -into Castile a new method adapted to her needs. But -time and language were not yet ripe, and the Spanish -lyric flourished solely in Galicia: it was not to be transplanted -at a first attempt. Yet the attempt was worth -the trial; for it closes the anonymous period with a -triumph to which, if we except the <i>Poema del Cid</i>, it -can show no fellow.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> Joannes Karl Thilo, <i>Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti</i>. Lipsiæ, 1833. -Pp. 254-261, 388-393.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER III -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF ALFONSO THE LEARNED, AND -OF SANCHO -<br /> -1220-1300</small></h2> - - -<p>If we reject the claim of Lope de Moros to be the -author of the <i>Razón feita d'Amor</i>, the first Castilian poet -whose name reaches us is <span class="smcap">Gonzalo de Berceo</span> (?1198-?1264), -a secular priest attached to the Benedictine -monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, in the diocese of -Calahorra. A few details are known of him. He was -certainly a deacon in 1220, and his name occurs in -documents between 1237 and 1264. He speaks of his -advanced age in the <i>Vida de Santa Oria, Virgen</i>, his latest -and perhaps most finished work; and his birthplace, -Berceo, is named in his <i>Historia del Señor San Millán -de Cogolla</i>, as in his rhymed biography of <i>St. Dominic of -Silas</i>. His copiousness runs to some thirteen thousand -lines, including, besides the works already named, the -<i>Sacrificio de la Misa</i> (Sacrifice of the Mass), the <i>Martirio -de San Lorenzo</i> (Martyrdom of St. Lawrence), the <i>Loores -de Nuestra Señora</i> (Praises of Our Lady), the <i>Signos que -aparecerán ante del Juicio</i> (Signs visible before the Judgment), -the <i>Milagros de Nuestra Señora</i> (Miracles of Our -Lady), the <i>Duelo que hizo la Virgen María el día de la -Pasión de su hijo Jesucristo</i> (The Virgin's Lament on the -day of her Son's Passion), and three hymns to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -Holy Ghost, the Virgin, and God the Father. In most -editions of Berceo there is appended to his verses a poem -in his praise, attributed to an unknown writer of the -fourteenth century. This poem is, in fact, conjectured -to be an invention of Tomás Antonio Sánchez, the -earliest editor of Berceo's complete works (1779). The -chances are that Berceo and his writings had passed out -of remembrance within two hundred years of his death, -and he was evidently unknown to Santillana in the -fifteenth century. But a brief extract from him is given -in the <i>Moisén Segundo</i> (Second Moses) of Ambrosio -Gómez, published in 1653. With the exception of the -<i>Martirio de San Lorenzo</i>, of which the end is lost, all -Berceo's writings have been preserved, and he suffers -by reason of his exuberance.</p> - -<p>He sings in the vernacular, he declares, being too -unlearned in the Latin; but he has his little pretensions. -Though he calls himself a <i>juglar</i>, he marks the differences -between his <i>dictados</i> (poems) and the <i>cantares</i> (songs) -of a plain <i>juglar</i>, and he vindicates his title by that -monotonous metre—the <i>cuaderna vía</i>—which was taken -up in the <i>Libro de Apolonio</i> and became the model -of all learned clerks in the next generations. Berceo -uses the rhythm with success, and if his results are not -splendid, it was not because he lacked perseverance. -On the contrary, his industry was only too formidable. -And, as a little of the mono-rhymed quatrain goes far, -he must have perished had he depended upon execution. -Beside Dante's achievement, as Puymaigre notes, the -paraphrases of Berceo in the <i>Sacrificio de la Misa</i> (stanzas -250-266) seem thin and pale; but the comparison is -unfair to the earlier Castilian singer, who died in his -obscure hamlet without the advantage of Dante's splendid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -literary tradition. Berceo is hampered by his lack of -imagination, by the poverty of his conditions, by the -absence of models, by the narrow circle of his subjects, -and by the pious scruples which hindered him -from arabesquing the original design. Yet he possesses -the gifts of simplicity and of unction, and amid -his long digressions into prosy theological commonplace -there are flashes of mystic inspiration unmatched by -any other poet of his country and his time. Even -when his versification, clear but hard, is at its worst, -he accomplishes the end which he desires by popularising -the pious legends which were dear to him. He -was not—never could have been—a great poet. But in -his own way he was, if not an inventor, the chief of a -school, and the necessary predecessor of such devout -authors as Luis de León and St. Teresa. He was a -pioneer in the field of devout pastoral, with all the -defects of the inexperienced explorer; and, for the most -part, he had nothing to guide him but his own uncultured -instinct. Some specimen of his work may be -given in Hookham Frere's little-known fragmentary -version of the <i>Vida de San Millán</i>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>He walked those mountains wild, and lived within that nook</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For forty years and more, nor ever comfort took</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of offer'd food or alms, or human speech a look;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>No other saint in Spain did such a penance brook.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For many a painful year he pass'd the seasons there,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And many a night consumed in penitence and prayer—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In solitude and cold, with want and evil fare,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His thoughts to God resigned, and free from human care.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Oh! sacred is the place, the fountain and the hill,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The rocks where he reposed, in meditation still,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The solitary shades through which he roved at will:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His presence all that place with sanctity did fill.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> - -<p>This is Berceo in a very characteristic vein, dealing -with his own special saint in his chosen way—the way -of the "new mastery"; and he keeps to the same rhythm -in the nine hundred odd stanzas which he styles the -<i>Milagros de Nuestra Señora</i>. Here his devotion inspires -him to more conscientious effort; and it has been sought -to show that Berceo takes his tales as he finds them in -the <i>Miracles de la Sainte Vierge</i>, by the French <i>trouvère</i>, -Gautier de Coinci, Prior of Vic-sur-Aisne (1177-1236). -Certain it is that Gautier's source, the Soissons manuscript, -was known to Alfonso the Learned, who mentions -it in the sixty-first of his Galician songs as "a -book full of miracles":—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>En Seixons ... un liuro a todo cheo de miragres.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>There were doubtless earlier Latin collections—amongst -others, Vincent de Beauvais' <i>Speculum historiale</i> -and Pothon's <i>Liber de miraculis Sanctæ Dei Genitricis -Mariæ</i>—which both Berceo and Alfonso used. But since -Alfonso, a middle-aged man when Berceo died, knew -the Soissons collection, it seems possible that Berceo -also handled it. A close examination of his text converts -the bare possibility into something approaching -certainty. Of Berceo's twenty-five Marian legends, -eighteen are given by Gautier de Coinci, whose total -reaches fifty-five. This is not by itself final, for both -writers might have selected them from a common -source. Yet there are convincing proofs of imitation in -the coincidences of thought and expression which are -apparent in Gautier and Berceo. These are too numerous -to be accidental; and still more weight must be -given to the fact that in several cases where Gautier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -invents a detail of his own wit, Berceo reproduces it. -Taken in conjunction with his known habit of strict -adherence to his text, it follows that Berceo took Gautier -for his guide. He did what all the world was doing in -borrowing from the French, and in the <i>Virgin's Lament</i> -he has the candour to confess the northern supremacy.</p> - -<p>Still, it would be wrong to think that Berceo contents -himself with mere servile reproduction, or that he -trespasses in the manner of a vulgar plagiary. Seven -of his legends he seeks elsewhere than in Gautier, -and he takes it upon himself to condense his predecessor's -diffuse narration. Thus, where Gautier needs -1350 lines to tell the legend of St. Ildefonsus, or 2090 -to give the miracle of Theophilus, Berceo confines himself -to 108 and to 657 lines. Gautier will spare you -no detail; he will have you know the why, the when, -the how, the paltriest circumstance of his pious story. -Beside him Berceo shines by his power of selection, -by his finer instinct for the essential, by his relative -sobriety of tone, by his realistic eye, by his variety of -resource in pure Castilian expression, by his richer -melody, and by the fleeter movement of his action. In -a word, with all his imperfections, Berceo approves himself -the sounder craftsman of the two, and therefore he -finds thirty readers where the Prior of Vic-sur-Aisne -finds one. Small and few as his opportunities were, he -rarely failed to use them to an advantage; as in the -invention of the singular rhymed octosyllabic song—with -its haunting refrain, <i>Eya velar!</i>—in the <i>Virgin's Lament</i> -(stanzas 170-198). This argues a considerable lyrical -gift, and the pity is that the most of Berceo's editors -should have been at such pains to hide it from the -reader.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the ten thousand lines of the <i>Libro de Alexandre</i> -are recounted the imaginary adventures of the Macedonian -king, as told in Gautier de Lille's <i>Alexandreis</i> and -in the versions of Lambert de Tort and Alexandre de -Bernai. Traces of the Leonese dialect negative the -ascription to Berceo, and the Juan Lorenzo Segura de -Astorga mentioned in the last verses is a mere copyist. -The <i>Poema de Fernán González</i>, due to a monk of San -Pedro de Arlanza, embodies many picturesque and -primitive legends in Berceo's manner. But the value -of both these compositions is slight.</p> - -<p>So much for verse. Castilian prose develops on parallel -lines with it. A very early specimen is the didactic -treatise called the <i>Diez Mandamientos</i>, written by a Navarrese -monk, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, -for the use of confessors. Somewhat later follow the -<i>Anales Toledanos</i>, in two separate parts (the third is much -more recent), composed between the years 1220 and 1250. -Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo (1170-1247), -wrote a Latin <i>Historia Gothica</i>, which begins with -the Gothic invasion, and ends at the year 1243. Undertaken -at the bidding of St. Ferdinand of Castile, this -work was summarised, and done into Castilian, probably -by Jiménez de Rada himself, under the title of the <i>Historia -de los Godos</i>. Its date would be the fourth decade -of the thirteenth century, and to this same time (1241) -belongs the <i>Fuero Juzgo</i> (<i>Forum Judicum</i>). This is a -Castilian version of a code of so-called Gothic laws, substantially -Roman in origin, given by St. Ferdinand (1200-1252) -to the Spaniards settled in Córdoba and other -southern cities after the reconquest; but though of extreme -value to the philologer, its literary interest is too -slight to detain us here. Two most brilliant specimens of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -early Spanish prose are the letters supposed to have -been written by the dying Alexander to his mother; and -the accident of their being found in the manuscript copied -by Lorenzo Segura de Astorga has led to their being -printed at the end of the <i>Libro de Alexandre</i>. There is -good reason for thinking that they are not by the author -of that poem; and, in truth, they are mere translations. -Both letters are taken from <i>Hunain ibn Ishāk -al-'Ibādī's</i> Arabic collection of moral sentences; the -first is found in the <i>Bonium</i> (so called from its author, a -mythical King of Persia), and the second on the Castilian -version of the <i>Secretum Secretorum</i>, of which the very -title is reproduced as <i>Poridat de las Poridades</i>. Further -examples of progressive prose are found in the <i>Libro de -los doce Sabios</i>, which deals with the political education -of princes, and may have been drawn up by the direction -of St. Ferdinand. But the authorship and date of these -compilations are little better than conjectural.</p> - -<p>These are the preliminary essays in the stuff of Spanish -prose. Its permanent form was received at the hands -of <span class="smcap">Alfonso the Learned</span> (1226-84), who followed his -father, St. Ferdinand, to the Castilian throne in 1252. Unlucky -in his life, balked of his ambition to wear the title -of Emperor, at war with Popes, his own brothers, his children, -and his people, Alfonso has been hardly entreated -after death. Mariana, the greatest of Spanish historians, -condenses the vulgar verdict in a Tacitean phrase: <i>Dum -cœlum considerat terra amissit</i>. A mountain of libellous -myth has overlaid Alfonso's fame. Of all the anecdotes -concerning him, the best known is that which reports -him as saying, "Had God consulted me at the creation -of the world, He would have made it differently." -This deliberate invention is due to Pedro IV. (the Ceremonious);<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -and if Pedro foresaw the result, he must have -been a scoundrel of genius. Fortunately, nothing can -rob Alfonso of his right to be considered, not only as -the father of Castilian verse, but as the centre of all -Spanish intellectual life. Political disaster never caused -his intellectual activity to slacken. Like Bacon, he took -all knowledge for his province, and in every department -he shone pre-eminent. Astronomy, music, philosophy, -canon and civil law, history, poetry, the study of languages: -he forced his people upon these untrodden -roads. To catalogue the series of his scientific enterprises, -and to set down the names of his Jewish and -Arab collaborators, would give ample work to a bibliographer. -Both the <i>Tablas Alfonsis</i> and the colossal -<i>Libros del Saber de Astronomía</i> (Books on the Science -of Astronomy) are packed with minute corrections of -Ptolemy, in whose system the learned King seems to -have suspected an error; but their present interest lies -in the historic fact, that with their compilation Castilian -makes its first great stride in the direction of exactitude -and clearness.</p> - -<p>Similar qualities of precision and ease were developed -in encyclopædic treatises like the <i>Septenario</i><a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> which, -together with the <i>Fuero Juzgo</i>, Alfonso drew up in his -father's lifetime; and in practical guides such as the -<i>Juegos de Açedrex, Dados, et Tablas</i> (Book of Chess, Dice, -and Chequers). This miraculous activity astounded -contemporaries, and posterity has multiplied the wonder -by attributing well-nigh every possible anonymous work -to the man whose real activity is a marvel. It has been -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>sought to prove him the author of the <i>Libro de Alexandre</i>, -the writer of Alexander's <i>Letters</i>, the compiler -of treatises on the chase, the translator of <i>Kalilah and -Dimnah</i>, and innumerable more pieces. Not one of -these can be brought home to him, and some belong -to a later time. Ticknor, again, foists on Alfonso two -separate works each entitled the <i>Tesoro</i>, and the authorship -has been accepted upon that authority. It is -therefore necessary to state the real case. The one -<i>Tesoro</i> is a prose translation of Brunetto Latini's <i>Li -Livres dou Trésor</i> made by Alfonso de Paredes and -Pero Gómez, respectively surgeon and secretary at the -court of Sancho, Alfonso's son and successor; the -other <i>Tesoro</i>, with its prose preamble and forty-eight -stanzas, is a forgery vamped by some parasite in the -train of Alonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, during -the fifteenth century.</p> - -<p>Alonso de Fuentes, writing three hundred years after -Alfonso's death, names him as author of a celebrated -<i>romance</i>—"<i>I left behind my native land</i>"; the rhythm -and accentuation prove the lines to belong to a fifteenth-century -maker whose attribution of them to the King is -palpably dramatic. Great authorities accept as authentic -the <i>Libro de Querellas</i> (Book of Plaints), which is -represented by two fine stanzas addressed to Diego -Sarmiento, "brother and friend and vassal leal" of -"him whose foot was kissed by kings, him from whom -queens sought alms and grace." One is sorry to lose -them, but they must be rejected. No such book is -known to any contemporary; the twelve-syllabled -octave in which the stanzas are written was not invented -till a hundred years later; and these two stanzas -are simply fabrications by Pellicer, who first published<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -them in the seventeenth century in his <i>Memoir on the -House of Sarmiento</i>, with a view to flattering his patron.</p> - -<p>This to some extent clears the ground: but not -altogether. Setting aside minor legal and philosophic -treatises which Alfonso may have supervised, it remains -to speak of more important matters. A great achievement -is the code called, from the number of its divisions, -the <i>Siete Partidas</i> (Seven Parts). This name does not -appear to have been attached to the code till a hundred -years after its compilation; but it may be worth observing -that the notion is implied in the name of the -<i>Septenario</i>, and that Alfonso, regarding the number -seven as something of mysterious potency, exhausts -himself in citing precedents—the seven days of the -week, seven metals, seven arts, seven years that Jacob -served, seven lean years in Egypt, the seven-branched -candlestick, seven sacraments, and so on. The trait is -characteristic of the time. It would be a grave mistake -to suppose that the <i>Siete Partidas</i> in any way -resembles a modern book of statutes, couched in the -technical jargon of the law. Its primary object was -the unification of the various clashing systems of law -which Alfonso encountered within his unsettled kingdom; -and this he accomplished with such success -that all subsequent Spanish legislation derives from -the <i>Siete Partidas</i>, which are still to some extent in -force in the republican states of Florida and Louisiana. -But the design soon outgrows mere practical purpose, -and expands into dissertations upon general principles -and the pettier details of conduct.</p> - -<p>Sancho Panza, as Governor of Barataria, could not -have bettered the counsels of the <i>Siete Partidas</i>, whose -very titles force a smile: "What things men should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -blush to confess, and what <i>not</i>," "Why no monk -should study law or physics," "Why the King should -abstain from low talk," "Why the King should eat and -drink moderately," "Why the King's children should be -taught to be cleanly," "How to draw a will so that the -witnesses shall not know its tenor," with other less -prudish discussions. The reading of this code is not -merely instructive and curious; apart from its dry -humouristic savour, the <i>Siete Partidas</i> rises to a noble -eloquence when the subject is the common weal, the -office of the ruler, his relations to his people, and the -interdependence of Church and State. No man, by his -single effort, could draw a code of such intricacy and -breadth, and it is established that Jacobo Ruiz and -Fernán Martínez laboured on it; but Alfonso's is the -supreme intelligence which appoints and governs, and -his is the revising hand which leaves the text in its -perfect verbal form.</p> - -<p>In history, too, Alfonso sought distinction; and he -found it. The <i>Crónica</i> or <i>Estoria de Espanna</i>, composed -between the years 1260 and 1268, the <i>General e -grand Estoria</i>, begun in 1270, owe to him their inspiration. -The latter, ranging from the Creation to Apostolic -times, glances at such secular events as the -Babylonian Empire and the fall of Troy; the former -extends from the peopling of Europe by the sons of -Japhet to the death of St. Ferdinand. Rodrigo Jiménez -de Rada and Lucas de Tuy are the direct authorities, -and their testimonies are completed by elaborate references -that stretch from Pliny to the <i>cantares de gesta</i>. -Moreover, the Arab chronicles are avowedly utilised in -the account of the Cid's exploits: "thus says Abenfarax -in his Arabic whence this history is derived." A singular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -circumstance is the inferiority of style in these renderings -from the Arabic. Elsewhere a strange ignorance -of Arabs and their history is shown by the compiler's -inclusion of such fables as Muhammad's crusade in -Córdoba. The inevitable conclusion is that the <i>Estorias</i>, -like the <i>Siete Partidas</i>, are compilations by several -hands; and the idea is supported by the fact that the -prologue to the <i>Estoria de Espanna</i> is scarcely more -than a translation of Jiménez de Rada's preface.</p> - -<p>Late traditions give the names of Alfonso's collaborators -in one or the other <i>History</i> as Egidio de -Zamora, Jofre de Loaysa, Martín de Córdoba, Suero -Pérez, Bishop of Zamora, and Garci Fernández de -Toledo; and even though these attributions be (as -seems likely) a trifle fantastical, they at least indicate a -long-standing disbelief in the unity of authorship. It -is proved that Alfonso gathered from Córdoba, Seville, -Toledo, and Paris some fifty experts to translate Ptolemy's -<i>Quadri partitum</i> and other astronomic treatises; it is -natural that he should organise a similar committee to -put together the first history in the Castilian language. -Better than most of his contemporaries, he knew the -value of combination. As with astronomy so with history: -in both cases he conceived the scheme, in both -cases he presided at the redaction and stamped the -crude stuff with his distinctive seal. Judged by a -modern standard, both <i>Estorias</i> lend themselves to a -cheap ridicule; compared with their predecessors, they -imply a finer appreciation of the value of testimony, -and this notable evolution of the critical sense is -matched by a manner that rises to the theme. Side -by side with a greater care for chronology, there is a -keener edge of patriotism which leads the compilers to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -embody in their text whole passages of lost <i>cantares de -gesta</i>. And these are no purple patches: the expression -is throughout dignified without pomp, and easy without -familiarity. Spanish prose sheds much of its uncouthness, -and takes its definitive form in such a passage as -that upon the Joys of Spain: "More than all, Spain -is subtle,—ay! and terrible, right skilled in conflict, -mirthful in labour, stanch to her lord, in letters studious, -in speech courtly, fulfilled of gifts; never a land the -earth overlong to match her excellence, to rival her -bravery; few in the world as mighty as she." It may -be lawful to believe that here we catch the personal -accent of the King.</p> - -<p>Compilations abound in which Alfonso is said to have -shared, but they are of less importance than his <i>Cantigas -de Santa María</i> (Canticles of the Virgin)—four hundred -and twenty pieces, written and set to music in the -Virgin's praise. Strictly speaking, these do not belong -to Castilian literature, being written in the elaborate -Galician language, which now survives as little better -than a dialect. But they must be considered if we -are to form any just idea of Alfonso's accomplishments -and versatility. At the outset a natural question suggests -itself: "Why should the King of Castile, after drawing -up his code in Castilian, write his verses in Galician?" -The answer is simple: "For the reason that he was an -artist." Velázquez, indeed, asserts that Alfonso was -reared in Galicia; but this is assertion, not evidence. -The real motive of the choice was the superior development -of the Galician, which so far outpassed the Castilian -in flexibility and grace as to invite comparison with the -Provençal. Troubadours in full flight from the Albigensian -wars found grace at Alfonso's court; Aimeric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -de Belenoi, Nat de Mons, Calvo, Riquier, Lunel, and -more.</p> - -<p>That Alfonso wrote in Provençal seems probable -enough, especially as he derides the incapacity in this -respect of his father's <i>trovador</i>, Pero da Ponte; still, the -two Provençal pieces which bear his name are spurious, -and are the work of Nat de Mons and Riquier. Howbeit, -the Provençal spell mastered him, and drove him to -reproduce its elaborate rhythms. The first impression -given by the <i>Cantigas</i> is one of unusual metrical resource. -Verses of four syllables, of five, octosyllabics, -hendecasyllabics, are among the singer's experiments. -From the popular <i>coplas</i>, not unlike the modern <i>seguidillas</i>, -he strays to the lumbering line of seventeen -syllables; in five strophes he commits an acrostic as -the name <i>María</i>; and half a thousand years before -Matilda's lover went to Göttingen, he anticipates Canning's -freak in the <i>Anti-Jacobin</i> by splitting up a word -to achieve a difficult rhyme; he abuses the refrain by -insistent repetition, so as to give the echo of a litany, -or fit the ready-made melody of a <i>juglar</i> (clxxii.);—puerilities -perhaps, but characteristic of a school and -an epoch. Subjects are taken as they come, preference -being given to the more universal version, and local -legends taking a secondary place. A living English -poet has merited great praise for his <i>Ballad of a Nun</i>. -Six hundred years before Mr. Davidson, Alfonso gave -six splendid variants of the famous story. Two men of -genius have treated the legend of the statue and the -ring—Prosper Mérimée in his <i>Vénus d'Ille</i>, and Heine in -<i>Les Dieux en Exile</i>—with splendid effect. Alfonso (xlii.) -anticipated them by rendering the story in verses of incomparable -beauty, pregnant with mystery and terror.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<p>For his part, Alfonso rifles Vincent de Beauvais, Gautier -de Coinci, Berceo, and, in his encyclopædic way, borrows -a hint from the old Catalan <i>Planctus Mariæ Virginis</i>; -but his touch transmutes bold hagiology to measures -of harmony and distinction. He was not—it cannot -be claimed for him—a poet of supreme excellence; yet, -if he fail to reach the topmost peaks, he vindicates his -choice of a medium by outstripping his predecessors, -and by pointing the path to those who succeed him. -With the brain of a giant he combined the heart of -a little child, and, technique apart, this amalgam which -wrought his political ruin was his poetic salvation. -Still an artist, even when he stumbles into the ditch, -his metrical dexterity persists in such brutally erotic -and satiric verse as he contributes to the Vatican -<i>Cancioneiro</i> (Nos. 61-79). Withal, he survives by something -better than mere virtuosity; for his simplicity and -sincere enthusiasm, sundered from the prevalent affectation -of his contemporaries, ensure him a place apart.</p> - -<p>His example in so many fields of intellectual exercise -was followed. What part he took (if any) in preparing -<i>Kalilah and Dimnah</i> is not settled. The Spanish version, -probably made before Alfonso's accession to the -throne, derives straight from the Arabic, which, in its turn, -is rendered by Abd Allah ibn al-Mukaffa (754-775) from -Barzoyeh's lost Pehlevī (Old Persian) translations of the -original Sanskrit. This last has disappeared, though its -substance survives in the remodelled <i>Panchatantra</i>, and -from it descend the variants that are found in almost all -European literatures. The period of the Spanish rendering -is hard to determine exactly, but 1251 is the generally -accepted date, and its vogue is proved by the use made -of it by Raimond de Béziers in his Latin version (1313).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -It does not appear to have been used by Raimond Lull -(1229-1315), the celebrated <i>Doctor illuminatus</i>, in his -Catalan Beast-Romance, inserted in the <i>Libre de Maravelles</i> -about the year 1286. The value of the Spanish -lies in the excellence of the narrative manner, and in its -reduction of the oriental apologue to terms of the vernacular. -Alfonso's brother, Fadrique, followed the lead -in his <i>Engannos é Assayamientos de las Mogieres</i> (Crafts -and Wiles of Women), which is referred to 1253, and is -translated from the Arabic version of a lost Sanskrit -original, after the fashion of <i>Kalilah and Dimnah</i>.</p> - -<p>Translation is continued at the court of Alfonso's son -and successor, <span class="smcap">Sancho IV.</span> (d. 1295), who, as already -noted, commands a version of Brunetto Latini's <i>Tesoro</i>; -and the encyclopædic mania takes shape in a work entitled -the <i>Luçidario</i>, a series of one hundred and six chapters, -which begins by discussing "What was the first thing -in heaven and earth?" and ends with reflections on -the habits of animals and the whiteness of negroes' -teeth. The <i>Gran Conquista de Ultramar</i> (Great Conquest -Oversea) is a perversion of the history originally given -by Guillaume de Tyr (d. 1184), mixed with other fabulous -elements, derived perhaps from the French, and -certainly from the Provençal, which thus comes for -the first time in direct contact with Castilian prose. -The fragmentary Provençal <i>Chanson d'Antioche</i> which -remains can scarcely be the original form in which -it was composed by its alleged author, Grégoire de -Bechada: at best it is a <i>rifacimento</i> of a previous -draught. But that it was used by the Spanish translator -has been amply demonstrated by M. Gaston Paris. -The translator has been identified with King Sancho -himself; the safer opinion is that the work was undertaken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -by his order during his last days, and was finished -after his death.</p> - -<p>With these should be classed compilations like the -<i>Book of Good Proverbs</i>, translated from Hunain ibn -Ishāk al-'Ibādī; the <i>Bonium</i> or <i>Bocados de Oro</i>, from -the collections of Abu 'l Wafā Mubashshir ibn Fātik, part -of which was Englished by Lord Rivers, and thence -conveyed into Caxton's <i>Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers</i>; -and the <i>Flowers of Philosophy</i>, a treatise composed -of thirty-eight chapters of fictitious moral sentences -uttered by a tribe of thinkers, culminating—fitly enough -for a Spanish book—in Seneca of Córdoba. In dealing -with these works it is impossible to speak precisely -as to source and date: the probability is that they -were put together during the reign of Sancho, who was -his father's son in more than the literal sense. Like -Alfonso's, his ambition was to force his people into -the intellectual current of the age, and in default of -native masterpieces he supplied them with foreign models -whence the desired masterpieces might proceed; and, -like his father, Sancho himself entered the lists with his -<i>Castigos y Documentos</i> (Admonitions and Exhortations), -ninety chapters designed for the guidance of his son. -This production, disfigured by the ostentatious erudition -of the Middle Ages, is saved from death by its shrewd -common-sense, by its practical counsel, and by the admirable -purity and lucidity of style that formed the -most valuable asset in Sancho's heritage. With him the -literature of the thirteenth century comes to a dramatic -close: the turbulent fighter, whose rebellion cut short -his father's days, becomes the conscientious promoter -of his father's literary tradition.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a> So called because it embraced the seven subjects of learning: the <i>trivio</i> -(grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and the <i>quadrivio</i> (music, astrology, physics, -and metaphysics).</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IV -<br /> -<small>THE DIDACTIC AGE -<br /> -1301-1400</small></h2> - - -<p>Only the barest mention need be made of a "clerkly -poem" called the <i>Vida de San Ildefonso</i> (Life of St. Ildephonsus), -a dry narrative of over a thousand lines, probably -written soon after 1313, when the saint's feast -was instituted by the Council of Peñafiel. Its author -declares that he once held the prebend of Úbeda, and -that he had previously rhymed the history of the Magdalen. -No other information concerning him exists; -nor is it eagerly sought, for the Prebendary's poem is a -colourless imitation of Berceo, without Berceo's visitings -of inspiration. More merit is shown in the <i>Proverbios -en Rimo de Salomón</i> (Solomon's Rhymed Proverbs), -moralisings on the vanity of life, written, with many -variations, in the manner of Berceo. The author of -these didactic, satiric verses is announced in the oldest -manuscript copy as one Pero Gómez, son of Juan Fernández. -He has been absurdly confounded with an -ancient "Gómez, <i>trovador</i>," and, more plausibly, with -the Pero Gómez who collaborated with Paredes in -translating Brunetto Latini's <i>Tesoro</i>; but the name is -too common to allow of precise opinion as to the real -author, whom some have taken for Pero López de Ayala.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -Whoever the writer, he possessed a pleasant gift of -satirical observation, and a knowledge of men and -affairs which he puts to good use, with few lapses upon -the merely trite and banal.</p> - -<p>Of more singular interest is the incomplete <i>Poema -de José</i> or <i>Historia de Yusuf</i>, named by the writer, -<i>Al-hadits de Jusuf</i>. This curious monument, due doubtless -to some unconverted Mudéjar of Toledo, is the -typical example of the literature called <i>aljamiada</i>. The -language is correct Castilian of the time, and the -metre, sustained for 312 stanzas, is the right Bercean: -the peculiarity lies in the use of Arabic characters -in the phonetic transcription. A considerable mass -of such compositions has been discovered (and in the -discovery England has taken part); but of them all -the <i>Historia de Yusuf</i> is at once the best and earliest. -It deals with the story of Joseph in Egypt, not according -to the Old Testament narrative, but in general conformity -with the version found in the eleventh <i>sura</i> of -the Ku'rān, though the writer does not hesitate to introduce -variants and amplifications of his own invention, -as (stanza 31) when the wolf speaks to the patriarch -whose son it is supposed to have slain. The persecution -of Joseph by Potiphar's wife, who figures as Zulija (Zuleikah), -is told with considerable spirit, and the mastery -of the <i>cuaderna vía</i> (the Bercean metre of four fourteen-syllabled -lines rhymed together) is little short of amazing -in a foreigner. At whiles an Arabic word creeps into -the text, and the invocation of Allah, with which the -poem opens, is repeated in later stanzas; but, taken as -a whole, apart from the oriental colouring inseparable -from the theme, there is a marked similarity of tone -between the <i>Historia de Yusuf</i> and its predecessors the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -"clerkly poems." An oriental subject handled by an -Arab gave the best possible opportunity for introducing -orientalism in the treatment; the occasion is eschewed, -and the lettered Arab studiously follows in the wake of -Berceo and the other Castilian models known to him. -There could scarcely be more striking evidence of the -irresistible progress of Castilian modes of thought and -expression. The Arabic influence, if it ever existed, was -already dead.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Juan Ruiz</span>, Archpriest of Hita, near Guadalajara, is -the greatest name in early Castilian literature. The -dates of his birth and death are not known. A line -in his <i>Libro de Cantares</i> (stanza 1484) inclines us to -believe that, like Cervantes, he was a native of Alcalá -de Henares; but Guadalajara also claims him for her -own, and a certain Francisco de Torres reports him as -living there so late as 1415. This date is incompatible -with other ascertained facts in Ruiz' career. We learn -from a note at the end of his poems that "this is the book -of the Archpriest of Hita, which he wrote, being imprisoned -by order of the Cardinal Don Gil, Archbishop -of Toledo." Now, Gil Albornoz held the see between -the years 1337 and 1367; and another clerk, named -Pedro Fernández, was Archpriest of Hita in 1351. Most -likely Juan Ruiz was born at the close of the thirteenth -century, and died, very possibly in gaol, before his successor -was appointed. On the showing of his own writings, -Juan Ruiz was a cleric of irregular life at a time -when disorder was at its worst, and his thirteen years in -prison proclaim him a Goliard of the loosest kind. He -testifies against himself with a splendid candour; and -yet there have been critics who insisted on idealising -this libidinous clerk into a smug Boanerges. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -never a more grotesque travesty, a more purblind misunderstanding -of facts and the man.</p> - -<p>The Archpriest was a fellow of parts and of infinite -fancy. He does, indeed, allege that he supplies, "incentives -to good conduct, injunctions towards salvation, -to be understanded of the people and to enable folk -to guard against the trickeries which some practise in -pursuit of foolish loves." He comes pat with a text from -Scripture quoted for his own purpose:—"<i>Intellectum tibi -dabo, et instruam te in via hac, qua gradieris.</i>" He passes -from David to Solomon, and, with his tongue in his -cheek, transcribes his versicle:—"<i>Initium sapientiæ timor -Domini.</i>" St. John, Job, Cato, St. Gregory, the Decretals—he -calls them all into court to witness his respectable -intention, and at a few lines' distance he unmasks in -a passage which prudish editors have suppressed:—"Yet, -since it is human to sin, if any choose the ways -of love (which I do not recommend), the modes thereof -are recounted here;" and so forth, in detail the reverse -of edifying. Ovid's erotic verses are freely rendered, -the Archpriest's unsuccessful battle against love is told, -and the liturgy is burlesqued in the procession of -"clerks and laymen and monks and nuns and duennas -and gleemen to welcome love into Toledo." The -attempt to exhibit Ruiz as an edifying citizen is, on -the face of it, absurd.</p> - -<p>Much that he wrote is lost, but the seventeen hundred -stanzas that remain suffice for any reputation. Juan Ruiz -strikes the personal note in Castilian literature. To distinguish -the works of the clerkly masters, to declare with -certainty that this Castilian piece was written by Alfonso -and that by Sancho, is a difficult and hazardous matter. -Not so with Ruiz. The stamp of his personality is unmistakable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -in every line. He was bred in the old tradition, -and he long abides by the rules of the <i>mester de -clerecía</i>; but he handles it with a freedom unknown -before, imparts to it a new flexibility, a variety, a speed, -a music beyond all precedent, and transfuses it with a -humour which anticipates Cervantes. Nay, he does -more. In his prose preface he asserts that he chiefly -sought to give examples of prosody, of rhyme and composition:—"<i>Dar -algunas lecciones, é muestra de versificar, et -rimar et trobar.</i>" And he followed the bent of his natural -genius. He had an infinitely wider culture than any of -his predecessors in verse. All that they knew he knew—and -more; and he treated them in the true cavalier spirit of -the man who feels himself a master. His famous description -of the tent of love is manifestly suggested by the -description of Alexander's tent in the <i>Libro de Alexandre</i>. -The entire episode of Doña Endrina is paraphrased -from the <i>Liber de Amore</i>, attributed to the Pseudo-Ovid, -the Auvergnat monk who hides beneath the name of -Pamphilus Maurilianus.</p> - -<p>French <i>fableaux</i> were rifled by Ruiz without a scruple, -though he had access to their great originals in the <i>Disciplina -clericalis</i> of Petrus Alphonsus; for to his mind the -improved treatment was of greater worth than the mere -bald story. He was familiar with the <i>Kalilah and Dimnah</i>, -with Fadrique's <i>Crafts and Wiles of Women</i>, perhaps -with the apologues of Lull and Juan Manuel. Vast as -his reading was, it had availed him nothing without his -superb temperament, his gift of using it to effect. Vaster -still was his knowledge of men, his acquaintance with -the seamy side of life, his interest in things common and -rare, his observation of manners, and his lyrical endowment. -The name of "the Spanish Petronius" has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -given to him; yet, despite a superficial resemblance between -the two, it is a misnomer. Far nearer the truth, -though the Spaniard lacks the dignity of the Englishman, -is Ticknor's parallel with Chaucer. Like Chaucer, Ruiz -had an almost incomparable gust for life, an immitigable -gaiety of spirit, which penetrates his transcription of the -Human Comedy. Like Chaucer, his adventurous curiosity -led him to burst the bonds of the prison-house and -to confer upon his country new rhythms and metres. His -four <i>cánticas de serrana</i>, suggested by the Galician makers, -anticipate by a hundred years the <i>serranillas</i> and the -<i>vaqueiras</i> of Santillana, and entitle him to rank as the -first great lyric poet of Castile. Ruiz, likewise, had a -Legend of Women; but his reading was his own, and -Chaucer's adjective cannot be applied to it. His ambition -is, not to idealise, but to realise existence, and he -interprets its sensuous animalism in the spirit of picaresque -enjoyment. Jewesses, Moorish dancers, the -procuress <i>Trota-conventos</i>, her finicking customers, the -loose nuns, great ladies, and brawny daughters of the -plough,—Ruiz renders them with the merciless exactitude -of Velázquez.</p> - -<p>The arrangement of Ruiz' verse, disorderly as his life, -foreshadows the loose construction of the picaresque -novel, of which his own work may be considered the first -example. One of his greatest discoveries is the rare value -of the autobiographic form. Mingled with parodies of -hymns, with burlesques of old <i>cantares de gesta</i>, with glorified -paraphrases of both Ovids (the true and the false), -with versions of oriental fables read in books or gathered -from the lips of vagrant Arabs, with peculiar wealth of -popular refrains and proverbs—with these goes the tale -of the writer's individual life, rich in self-mockery, gross<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -in thought, abundant in incident, splendid in expression, -slyly edifying in the moral conclusion which announces -an immediate relapse. Poet, novelist, expert in observation, -irony, and travesty, Ruiz had, moreover, the sense -of style in such measure as none before him and few -after him, and to this innate faculty of selection he joined -a great capacity for dramatic creation. Hence the impossibility -of exhibiting him in elegant extracts, and -hence the permanence of his types. The most familiar -figure of <i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>—the starving gentleman—is -a lineal descendant of Ruiz' Don Furón, who is scrupulous -in observing facts so long as there is nothing to -eat; and Ruiz' two lovers, Melón de la Uerta and Endrina -de Calatayud, are transferred as Calisto and Melibea to -Rojas' tragi-comedy, whence they pass into immortality -as Romeo and Juliet. Lastly, Ruiz' repute might be -staked upon his fables, which, by their ironic appreciation, -their playful wit and humour, seem to proceed from -an earlier, ruder, more virile La Fontaine.</p> - -<p>Contemporary with Juan Ruiz was the Infante <span class="smcap">Juan -Manuel</span> (1282-1347), grandson of St. Ferdinand and -nephew of Alfonso the Learned. In his twelfth year -he served against the Moors on the Murcian frontier, -became Mayordomo to Fernando IV., and succeeded -to the regency shortly after that King's death in 1312. -Mariana's denunciation of "him who seemed born solely -to wreck the state" fits Juan Manuel so exactly that it -is commonly applied to him; but, in truth, its author intended -it for another Don Juan (without the "Manuel"), -uncle of the boy-king, Alfonso XI. Upon the regency -followed a spell of wars, broils, rebellions, assassinations, -wherein King and ex-Regent were pitted against each -other. Neither King nor soldier bore malice, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -latter shared in the decisive victory of Salado and—perhaps -with Chaucer's Gentle Knight—in the siege of -Algezir (<i>Algeciras</i>). Fifty years of battle would fill most -men's lives; but the love of literature ran in the blood -of Juan Manuel's veins, and, like others of his kindred, -he proved the truth of the old Castilian adage:—"Lance -never blunted pen, nor pen lance."</p> - -<p>He set a proper value on himself and his achievement. -In the General Introduction to his works he foresees, so -he announces, that his books must be often copied, and he -knows that this means error:—"as I have seen happen in -other copies, either because of the transcriber's dulness, -or because the letters are much alike." Wherefore Juan -Manuel prepared, so to say, a copyright edition, with -a prefatory bibliography, whose deficiencies may be -supplemented by a second list given at the beginning -of his <i>Conde Lucanor</i>. And he closes his General -Introduction with this prayer:—"And I beg all those -who may read any of the books I made not to blame -me for whatever ill-written thing they find, until they -see it in this volume which I myself have arranged." -His care seemed excessive: it proved really insufficient, -since the complete edition which he left to the monastery -at Peñafiel has disappeared. Some of his works are lost -to us, as the <i>Book of Chivalry</i>,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> a treatise dealing with -the <i>Engines of War</i>, a <i>Book of Verses</i>, the <i>Art of Poetic -Composition</i> (<i>Reglas como se debe Trovar</i>), and the <i>Book -of Sages</i>. The loss of the <i>Book of Verses</i> is a real -calamity; all the more that it existed at Peñafiel as -recently as the time of Argote de Molina (1549-90), -who meant to publish it. Juan Manuel's couplets and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>quatrains of four, eight, eleven, twelve, and fourteen -syllables, his arrangement (<i>Enxemplo XVI.</i>) of the octosyllabic -<i>redondilla</i> in the <i>Conde Lucanor</i>, prove him an -adept in the Galician form, an irreproachable virtuoso in -his art. It seems almost certain that his <i>Book of Verses</i> -included many remarkable exercises in political satire; -and, in any case, his example and position must have -greatly influenced the development of the courtly school -of poets at Juan II.'s court.</p> - -<p>A treatise like his <i>Libro de Caza</i> (Book of Hawking), -recently recovered by Professor Baist, needs but to -be mentioned to indicate its aim. His histories are -mere epitomes of Alfonso's chronicle. The <i>Libro del -Caballero et del Escudero</i> (Book of the Knight and -Squire), in fifty-one chapters, of which some thirteen -are missing, is a didacticism, a <i>fabliella</i>, modelled upon -Ramón Lull's <i>Libre del Orde de Cavallería</i>. A hermit -who has abandoned war instructs an ambitious squire -in the virtues of chivalry, and sends him to court, whence -he returns "with much wealth and honour." The -inquiry begins anew, and the hermit expounds to his -companion the nature of angels, paradise, hell, the -heavens, the elements, the art of posing questions, the -stuff of the planets, sea, earth, and all that is therein—birds, -fish, plants, trees, stones, and metals. In some -sort the <i>Tratado sobre las Armas</i> (Treatise on Arms) is -a memoir of the writer's house, containing a powerful -presentation of the death of Juan Manuel's guardian, -King Sancho, passing to eternity beneath his father's -curse.</p> - -<p>Juan Manuel follows Sancho's example by preparing -twenty-six chapters of <i>Castigos</i> (Exhortations), -sometimes called the <i>Libro infinido</i>, or Unfinished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -Book, addressed to his son, a boy of nine. He reproduces -Sancho's excellent manner and sound practical -advice without the flaunting erudition of his cousin. -The <i>Castigos</i> are suspended to supply the monk, Juan -Alfonso, with a treatise on the <i>Modes of Love</i>, fifteen in -number; being, in fact, an ingenious discussion on friendship. -Juan Manuel is seen almost at his best in his <i>Libro -de los Estados</i> (Book of States), otherwise the <i>Book of the -Infante</i>, and thought by some to be the missing <i>Book -of Sages</i>. The allegorical didactic vein is worked to -exhaustion in one hundred and fifty chapters, which -relate the education of the pagan Morován's son, -Johas, by a certain Turín, who, unable to satisfy his -pupil, calls to his aid the celebrated preacher Julio. -After interminable discussions and resolutions of theological -difficulties, the story ends in the baptism of -father, son, and tutor. Gayangos gives us the key; -Johas is Juan Manuel; Morován is his father, Manuel; -Turín is Pero López de Ayala, grandfather of the future -Chancellor; and Julio represents St. Dominic (who, as -a matter of fact, died before Juan Manuel's father was -born). This confused philosophic story, suggestive of -the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, is in truth the -vehicle for conveying the author's ideas on every sort -of question, and it might be described without injustice -as the carefully revised commonplace book of an omnivorous -reader with a care for form. A postscript to the -<i>Book of States</i> is the <i>Book of Preaching Friars</i>, a summary -of the Dominican constitution expounded by Julio to -his pupil. A very similar dissertation is the <i>Treatise -showing that the Blessed Mary is, body and soul, in Paradise</i>, -directed to Remón Masquefa, Prior of Peñafiel.</p> - -<p>Juan Manuel's masterpiece is the <i>Conde Lucanor</i> (also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -named the <i>Book of Patronio</i> and the <i>Book of Examples</i>), -in four parts, the first of which is divided into fifty-one -chapters. Like the <i>Decamerone</i>, like the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>—but -with greater directness—the <i>Conde Lucanor</i> is the -oriental apologue embellished in terms of the vernacular. -The convention of the "moral lesson" is maintained, and -each chapter of the First Part (the others are rather unfinished -notes) ends with a declaration to the effect -that "when Don Johan heard this example he found it -good, ordered it to be set down in this book, and added -these verses"—the verses being a concise summary of -the prose. The <i>Conde Lucanor</i> is the Spanish equivalent -of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, with Patronio in the part of -Scheherazade, and Count Lucanor (as who should say -Juan Manuel) as the Caliph. Boccaccio used the framework -first in Italy, but Juan Manuel was before him by -six years, for the <i>Conde Lucanor</i> was written not later than -1342. The examples are taken from experience, and -are told with extraordinary narrative skill. Simplicity of -theme is matched by simplicity of expression. The story -of father and son (<i>Enxemplo II.</i>), of the Dean of Santiago -and the Toledan Magician (<i>Enxemplo XI.</i>), of Ferrant -González and Nuño Laynez, a model of dramatic presentation -(<i>Enxemplo XVI.</i>), are perfect masterpieces in -little.</p> - -<p>Juan Manuel is an innovator in Castilian prose, as -is Juan Ruiz in Castilian verse. He lacks the merriment, -the genial wit of the Archpriest; but he has the -same gift of irony, with an added note of cutting sarcasm, -and a more anxious research for the right word. He -never forgets that he has been the Regent of Castile, -that he has mingled with kings and queens, that he has -cowed emirs and barons, and led his troopers at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -charge; and it is well that he never unbends, since his -unsmiling patrician humour gives each story a keener -point. In mind as in blood he is the great Alfonso's -kinsman, and the relation becomes evident in his treatment -of the prose sentence. He inherited it with many -another splendid tradition, and, while he preserves entire -its stately clearness, he polishes to concision; he sets -with conscience to the work, sharpening the edges of -his instrument, exhibits its possibilities in the way of -trenchancy, and puts it to subtler uses than heretofore. -In his hands Castilian prose acquires a new ductility and -finish, and his subjects are such that dramatists of genius -have stooped to borrow from him. In him (<i>Enxemplo -XLV.</i>) is the germ of the <i>Taming of the Shrew</i> (though -it is scarcely credible that Shakespeare lifted it direct), -and from him Calderón takes not merely the title—<i>Count -Lucanor</i>—of a play, but the famous apologue in the first -act of <i>Life is a Dream</i>, an adaptation to the stage of -one of Juan Manuel's best instances (<i>Enxemplo XXXI.</i>). -Pilferings by Le Sage are things of course, and <i>Gil Blas</i> -benefits by its author's reading. Translations apart—and -they are forthcoming—the <i>Conde Lucanor</i> is one of -the books of the world, and each reading of it makes -more sensible the loss of the verses which, one would -fain believe, might place the writer as high among poets -as among prose writers.</p> - -<p>The <i>Poema de Alfonso Onceno</i>, also known as his -<i>Rhymed Chronicle</i>, was unearthed at Granada in 1573 -by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, and an extract from -it, printed fifteen years later by Argote de Molina, -encouraged the idea that Alfonso XI. wrote it. That -King's sole exploit in literature is a handbook on venery, -often attributed to Alfonso the Learned. The fuller,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -but still incomplete text of the <i>Poema</i>, first published -in 1864, discloses (stanza 1841) the author's name as -<span class="smcap">Rodrigo Yañez</span> or Yannes. It is to be noted that he -speaks of rendering Merlin's prophecy in the Castilian -tongue:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Yo Rodrigo Yannes la noté</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>En lenguaje castellano.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Everything points to his having translated from a Galician -original, being himself a Galician who hispaniolised his -name of Rodrigo Eannes. Strong arguments in favour -of this theory are advanced by great authorities—Professor -Cornu, and that most learned lady, Mme. Carolina -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos. In the first place, the many -technical defects of the <i>Poema</i> vanish upon translation -into Galician; and next, the verses are laced with allusions -to Merlin, which indicate a familiarity with Breton -legends, common enough in Galicia and Portugal, but -absolutely unknown in Spain. Be that as it prove, the -<i>Poema</i> interests as the last expression of the old Castilian -epic. Here we have, literally, the swan-song of the -man-at-arms, chanting the battles in which he shared, -commemorating the names of comrades foremost in the -van, reproducing the martial music of the camp <i>juglar</i>, -observing the set conventions of the <i>cantares de gesta</i>. -His last appearance on any stage is marked by a portent—the -suppression of the tedious Alexandrine, and the -resolution into two lines of the sixteen-syllabled verse. -Yañez is an excellent instance of the third-rate man, -the amateur, who embodies, if he does not initiate, a -revolution. His own system of octosyllabics in alternate -rhymes has a sing-song monotony which wearies -by its facile copiousness, and inspiration visits him at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -rare and distant intervals. But the step that costs is -taken, and a place is prepared for the young <i>romance</i> in -literature.</p> - -<p>No precise information offers concerning Rabbi <span class="smcap">Sem -Tob</span> of Carrión, the first Jew who writes at length in -Castilian. His dedication to Pedro the Cruel, who -reigned from 1350 to 1369, enables us to fix his date -approximately, and to guess that he was, like others of -his race, a favourite with that maligned ruler. Written -in the early days of the new reign, Sem Tob's <i>Proverbios -Morales</i>, consisting of 686 seven-syllabled quatrains, are -more than a metrical novelty. His collection of sententious -maxims, borrowed mainly from Arabic sources and -from the Bible, is the first instance in Castilian of the -versified epigram which was to produce the brilliant -<i>Proverbs</i> of Santillana, who praises the Rabbi as a writer -of "very good things," and reports his esteem as a -"<i>grand trovador</i>." In Santillana's hands the maxims -are Spanish, are European; in Sem Tob's they are -Jewish, oriental. The moral is pressed with insistence, -the presentation is haphazard; while the extreme concision -of thought, the exaggerated frugality of words, -tends to obscurity. Against this is to be set the exalted -standard of the teaching, the daring figures of the writer, -his happiness of epithet, his note of austere melancholy, -and his complete triumph in naturalising a new poetic -<i>genre</i>.</p> - -<p>It has been sought to father on Sem Tob three other -pieces: the <i>Treatise of Doctrine</i>, the <i>Revelation of a Hermit</i>, -and the <i>Danza de la Muerte</i>. The <i>Treatise</i>, a catechism in -octosyllabic triplets with a four-syllabled line, is by Pedro -de Berague, and is only curious for its rhythm, imitated -from the <i>rime couée</i>, and for being the first work of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -kind. Sem Tob was in his grave when the ancient subject -of the <i>Argument between Body and Soul</i> was reintroduced -by the maker of the <i>Revelation of a Hermit</i>, -wherein the souls are figured as birds, gracious or -hideous as the case may be. The third line of this -didactic poem gives its date as 1382, and this is confirmed -by the evidence of the metre and the presence of -an Italian savour. In the case of the anonymous <i>Danza -de la Muerte</i> the metre once more fixes the period of -composition at about the end of the fourteenth century. -Most European literatures possess a <i>Danse Macabré</i> of -their own; yet, though the Castilian is probably an imitation -of some unrecognised French original, it is the -oldest known version of the legend. It is not rash to -assume that its immediate occasion was the last terrific -outbreak of the Black Death, which lasted from 1394 -to 1399. Death bids mankind to his revels, and forces -them to join his dance. The form is superficially -dramatic, and the thirty-three victims—pope, emperor, -cardinal, king, and so forth, a cleric and a layman always -alternating—reply to the summons in a series of octaves. -Whoever composed the Spanish version, he must be -accepted as an expert in the art of morbid allegory. -Odd to say, the Catalan Carbonell, constructing his -<i>Dance of Death</i> in the sixteenth century, rejects this fine -Castilian version for the French of Jean de Limoges, -Chancellor of Paris.</p> - -<p>A writer who represents the stages of the literary evolution -of his age is the long-lived Chancellor, <span class="smcap">Pero López -de Ayala</span> (1332-1407). His career is a veritable romance -of feudalism. Living under Alfonso XI., he became the -favourite of Pedro the Cruel, whom he deserted at the -psychological moment. He chronicles his own and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -father's defection in such terms as Pepys or the Vicar -of Bray might use:—"They saw that Don Pedro's affairs -were all awry, so they resolved to leave him, not intending -to return." Pedro the Cruel, Enrique II., Juan I., -Enrique III.—Ayala served all four with profit to his -pouch, without flagrant treason. Loyalty he held for -a vain thing compared with interest; yet he earned his -money and his lands in fight. He ever strove to be on -the winning side, but luck was hostile when the Black -Prince captured him at Nájera (1367), and when he was -taken prisoner at Aljubarrota (1385). The fifteen months -spent in an iron cage at the castle of Oviedes after the -second defeat gave Ayala one of his opportunities. He -had wasted no chance in life, nor did he now. It were -pleasant to think with Ticknor that some part of Ayala's -<i>Rimado de Palacio</i> "was written during his imprisonment -in England,"—pleasant, but difficult. To begin with, it -is by no means sure that Ayala ever quitted the Peninsula. -More than this: though the <i>Rimado de Palacio</i> was -composed at intervals, the stages can be dated approximately. -The earlier part of the poem contains an allusion -to the schism during the pontificate of Urban VI., -so that this passage must date from 1378 or afterwards; -the reference to the death of the poet's father, Hernán -Pérez de Ayala, brings us to the year 1385 or later; and -the statement that the schism had lasted twenty-five -years fixes the time of composition as 1403.</p> - -<p><i>Rimado de Palacio</i> (Court Rhymes) is a chance title -that has attached itself to Ayala's poem without the -author's sanction. It gives a false impression of his -theme, which is the decadence of his age. Only within -narrow limits does Ayala deal with courts and courtiers; -he had a wider outlook, and he scourges society at large.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -What was a jest to Ruiz was a woe to the Chancellor. -Ruiz had a natural sympathy for a loose-living cleric; -Ayala lashes this sort with a thong steeped in vitriol. -The one looks at life as a farce; the other sees it as a -tragedy. Where the first finds matter for merriment, the -second burns with the white indignation of the just. The -deliberate mordancy of Ayala is impartial insomuch as -it is universal. Courtiers, statesmen, bishops, lawyers, -merchants—he brands them all with corruption, simony, -embezzlement, and exposes them as venal sons of Belial. -And, like Ruiz, he places himself in the pillory to -heighten his effects. He spares not his superstitious -belief in omens, dreams, and such-like fooleries; he discovers -himself as a grinder of the poor man's face, a -libidinous perjurer, a child of perdition.</p> - -<p>But not all Ayala's poem is given up to cursing. In -his 705th stanza he closes what he calls his <i>sermón</i> with -the confession that he had written it, "being sore -afflicted by many grievous sorrows," and in the remaining -904 stanzas Ayala breathes a serener air. In -both existing codices—that of Campo-Alange and that -of the Escorial—this huge postscript follows the <i>Rimado -de Palacio</i> with no apparent break of continuity; yet -it differs in form and substance from what precedes. -The <i>cuaderna vía</i> alone is used in the satiric and autobiographical -verses; the later hymns and songs are -metrical experiments—echoes of Galician and Provençal -measures, <i>redondillas</i> of seven syllables, attempts to -raise the Alexandrine from the dead, results derived -from Alfonso's <i>Cantigas</i> and Juan Ruiz' <i>loores</i>. In his -seventy-third year Ayala was still working upon his -<i>Rimado de Palacio</i>. It was too late for him to master -the new methods creeping into vogue, and though in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -<i>Cancionero de Baena</i> (No. 518) Ayala answers Sánchez -Talavera's challenge in the regulation octaves, he harks -back to the <i>cuaderna vía</i> of his youth in his paraphrase -of St. Gregory's <i>Job</i>. If he be the writer of the <i>Proverbios -en Rimo de Salomón</i>—a doubtful point—his preference -for the old system is there undisguised. Could -that system have been saved, Ayala had saved it: not -even he could stay the world from moving.</p> - -<p>His prose is at least as distinguished as his verse. A -treatise on falconry, rich in rarities of speech, shows -the variety of his interests, and his version of Boccaccio's -<i>De Casibus Virorum illustrium</i> brings him into -touch with the conquering Italian influence. His reference -to <i>Amadís</i> in the <i>Rimado de Palacio</i> (stanza 162), -the first mention of that knight-errantry of Spain, proves -acquaintance with new models. Translations of Boëtius -and of St. Isidore were pastimes; a partial rendering of -Livy, done at the King's command, was of greater value. -In person or by proxy, Alfonso the Learned had opened -up the land of history; Juan Manuel had summarised -his uncle's work; the chronicle of the Moor Rasis, otherwise -Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Mūsā, had -been translated from the Arabic; the annals of Alfonso -XI. and his three immediate predecessors were written by -some industrious mediocrity perhaps Fernán Sánchez -de Tovar, or Juan Núñez de Villaizán. These are not -so much absolute history as the raw material of history. -In his <i>Chronicles of the Kings of Castile</i>, Ayala considers -the reigns of Pedro the Cruel, Enrique II., Juan I., and -Enrique III., in a modern scientific spirit. Songs, -legends, idle reports, no longer serve as evidence. -Ayala sifts his testimonies, compares, counts, weighs -them, checks them by personal knowledge. He borrows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -Livy's framework, inserting speeches which, if not -stenographic reports of what was actually said, are -complete illustrations of dramatic motive. He deals -with events which he had witnessed: plots which his -crafty brain inspired, victories wherein he shared, battles -in which he bit the dust. The portraits in his gallery are -scarce, but every likeness, is a masterpiece rendered with -a few broad strokes. He records with cold-blooded impartiality -as a judge; his native austerity, his knowledge -of affairs and men, guard him from the temptations of -the pleader. With his unnatural neutrality go rare instinct -for the essential circumstance, unerring sagacity in -the divination and presentment of character, unerring -art in preparing climax and catastrophe, and the gift -of concise, picturesque phrase. A statesman of genius -writing personal history with the candour of Pepys: -as such the thrifty Mérimée recognised Ayala, and, in -his own confection, so revealed him to the nineteenth -century.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a> The contents of this work are summarised in the author's <i>Book of States</i> -(chap. xci.).</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER V -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF JUAN II. -<br /> -1419-1454</small></h2> - - -<p>Ayala's verse, the conscious effort of deliberate artistry, -contrasts with those popular <i>romances</i> which can be -divined through the varnish of the sixteenth century. -Few, if any, of the existing ballads date from Ayala's -time; and of the nineteen hundred printed in Durán's -<i>Romancero General</i> the merest handful is older than -1492, when Antonio de Nebrija examined their structure -in his <i>Arte de la Lengua Castellana</i>. Yet the older -<i>romances</i> were numerous and long-lived enough to supplant -the <i>cantares de gesta</i>, against which chronicles and -annals made war by giving the same epical themes with -more detail and accuracy. In turn these chronicles -afforded subjects for <i>romances</i> of a later day. An illustration -suffices to prove the point. Every one knows the -spirited close of the first in order of Lockhart's <i>Ancient -Spanish Ballads</i>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Last night I was the King of Spain—to-day no King am I.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Last night fair castles held my train—to-night where shall I lie?</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Last night a hundred pages did serve me on the knee—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To-night not one I call my own: not one pertains to me.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The original is founded on Pedro de Corral's <i>Crónica de -Don Rodrigo</i> (chapters 207, 208), which was not written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -till 1404, and from the same source (chapters 238-244) -comes the substance of Lockhart's second ballad:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>It was when the King Rodrigo had lost his realm of Spain.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The modernity of almost every piece in Lockhart's collection -were as easily proved; but it is more important -at this point to turn from the popular song-makers to -the new school of writers which was forming itself upon -foreign models.</p> - -<p>Representative of these innovations is the grandson of -Enrique II., <span class="smcap">Enrique de Villena</span> (1384-1434), upon -whom posterity has conferred a marquisate which he never -possessed in life.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> His first production is said to have -been a set of <i>coplas</i> written, as Master of the Order of -Calatrava, for the royal feasts at Zaragoza in 1414; his -earliest known work is his <i>Arte de trovar</i> (Art of Poetry), -given in the same year at the Consistory of the Gay -Science at Barcelona. Villena, of whose treatise mere -scraps survive, shows minute acquaintance with the -works of early <i>trovadores</i>; of general principles he says -naught, losing himself in discursive details. Early in -1417 followed the <i>Trabajos de Hércules</i> (Labours of Hercules), -first written in Catalan by request of Pero Pardo, -and done into Castilian in the autumn of the year. This -tedious allegory, crushed beneath a weight of pedantry, -is unredeemed by ingenuity or fancy, and the style is -disfigured by violent and absurd inversions which bespeak -long, tactless study of Latin texts. Juan Manuel's dignified -restraint is lost on his successor, itching to flaunt -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>inopportune learning with references to Aristotle, Aulus -Gellius, and St. Jerome. In 1423, at the instance of -Sancho de Jaraba, Villena wrote his twenty chapters on -carving—the <i>Arte cisoria</i>, an epicure's handbook to the -royal table, compact of curious counsels and recipes -expounded with horrid eloquence by a pedant who -tended to gluttony. Still odder is the <i>Libro de Aojamiento</i> -(Dissertation on the Evil Eye) with its three -"preventive modes," as recommended by Avicenna and -his brethren. Translations of Dante and Cicero are lost, -and three treatises on leprosy, on consolation, and on -the Eighth Psalm are valueless. Villena piqued himself -on being the first in Spain—he might perhaps have said -the first anywhere—to translate the whole <i>Æneid</i>; but -he marches to ruin with his mimicry of Latin idioms, -his abuse of inversion, and his graces of a cart-horse in -the lists. No contemporary was more famed for universal -accomplishment; so that, while he lived, men -held him for a wizard, and, when he died, applauded -the partial burning of his books by Lope de Barrientos, -afterwards Bishop of Segovia, who put the rest to his -private uses. Santillana and Juan de Mena assert that -Villena wrote Castilian verse, and Baena implies as much; -if so, he was probably a common poetaster, the loss of -whose rhymes is a stroke of luck. A Castilian poem on -the labours of Hercules, ascribed to him by Pellicer, is a -rank forgery. Measured by his repute, Villena's works -are disappointing. But if we reflect that he translated -Dante, that he strove to naturalise successful foreign -methods, and that in his absurdest moments he proves -his susceptibility to new ideas, we may explain his -renown and his influence. Nor did these end with his -life; for Lope de Vega, Alarcón, Rojas Zorrilla, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -Hartzenbusch have brought him on the boards, and he -has appealed with singular force to the imaginations of -both Quevedo and Larra.</p> - -<p>To Villena's time belong two specimens of the old -encyclopædic school: the <i>Libro de los Gatos</i>, translated -from the <i>Narrationes</i> of the English monk, Odo of -Cheriton; and the <i>Libro de los Enxemplos</i> of Clemente -Sánchez of Valderas, whose seventy-one missing stories -were brought to light in 1878 by M. Morel-Fatio. Sánchez' -collection, thus completed, shows the entrance -into Spain of the legend of Buddha's life, adapted by -some Christian monk from the Sanskrit <i>Lalita-Vistara</i>, -and popular the world over as the <i>Romance of Barlaam -and Josaphat</i>. The style is carefully modelled on Juan -Manuel's manner.</p> - -<p>The <i>Cancionero de Baena</i>, named after the anthologist -Juan Alfonso de Baena above mentioned, contains the -verses of some sixty poets who flourished during the reign -of Juan II., or a little earlier. This collection, first published -in 1851, mirrors two conflicting tendencies. The old -Galician school is represented by Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino -(sometimes called de Illescas), a copious, foul-mouthed -ruffian, with gusts of inspiration and an abiding -mastery of technique. To the same section belong the -Archdeacon of Toro, a facile versifier, and Juan Rodríguez -de la Cámara, whose name is inseparable from that of -Macías, <i>El Enamorado</i>. Macías has left five songs of slight -distinction, and, as a poet, ranks below Rodríguez de la -Cámara. Yet he lives on the capital of his legend, the type -of the lover faithful unto death, and the circumstances -of his passing are a part of Castilian literature. The tale -is (but there are variants), that Macías, once a member -of Villena's household, was imprisoned at Arjonilla,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -where a jealous husband slew the poet in the act of -singing his platonic love. Quoted times innumerable, -this more or less authentic story of Macías' end ensured -him an immortality far beyond the worth of his verses: -it fired the popular imagination, and enters into literature -in Lope de Vega's <i>Porfiar hasta morir</i> and in Larra's -<i>El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente</i>.</p> - -<p>A like romantic memory attaches to Macías' friend, -Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara (also called Rodríguez -del Padrón), the last poet of the Galician school, represented -in Baena's <i>Cancionero</i> by a single <i>cántica</i>. -The conjectures that make Rodríguez the lover of -Juan II.'s wife, Isabel, or of Enrique IV.'s wife, Juana, -are destroyed by chronology. None the less it is -certain that the writer was concerned in some mysterious, -dangerous love-affair which led to his exile, -and, as some believe, to his profession as a Franciscan -monk. His seventeen surviving songs are all erotic, -with the exception of the <i>Flama del divino Rayo</i>, his best -performance in thanksgiving for his spiritual conversion. -His loves are also recounted in three prose books, of -which the semi-chivalresque novel, <i>El Siervo libre de -Amor</i>, is still readable. But Rodríguez interests most as -the last representative of the Galician verse tradition.</p> - -<p>Save Ayala, who is exampled by one solitary poem, -the oldest singer in Baena's choir is Pero Ferrús, the -connecting link between the Galician and Italian schools. -A learned rather than an inspired poet, Ferrús is remembered -chiefly because of his chance allusion to <i>Amadís</i> in -the stanzas dedicated to Ayala. Four poets in Baena's -song-book herald the invasion of Spain by the Italians, -and it is fitting that the first and best of these should -be a man of Italian blood, Francisco Imperial, the son<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -of a Genoese jeweller, settled in Seville. Imperial, as -his earliest poem shows, read Arabic and English. He -may have met with Gower's <i>Confessio Amantis</i> before -it was done into Castilian by Juan de la Cuenca at -the beginning of the fifteenth century—being the first -translation of an English book in Spain. Howbeit, he -quotes English phrases, and offers a copy of French -verses. These are trifles: Imperial's best gift to his -adopted country was his transplanting of Dante, whom -he imitates assiduously, reproducing the Florentine note -with such happy intonation as to gain for him the style -of poet—as distinguished from <i>trovador</i>—from Santillana, -who awards him "the laurel of this western land." -Thirteen poems by Ruy Paez de Ribera, vibrating with -the melancholy of illness, shuddering with the squalor -of want, affiliate their writer with Imperial's new expression, -and vaguely suggest the realising touch of Villon. -At least one piece by Ferrant Sánchez Talavera is -memorable—the elegy on the death of the Admiral Ruy -Díaz de Mendoza, which anticipates the mournful march, -the solemn music, some of the very phrases of Jorge -Manrique's noble <i>coplas</i>. In the Dantesque manner is -Gonzalo Martínez de Medina's flagellation of the corruptions -of his age. Baena, secretary to Juan II., in -eighty numbers approves himself a weak imitator of -Villasandino's insolence, and is remembered simply as -the arranger of a handbook which testifies to the definitive -triumph of the compiler's enemies.</p> - -<p>A poet of greater performance than any in the <i>Cancionero -de Baena</i> is the shifty politician, Íñigo López de -Mendoza, Marqués de <span class="smcap">Santillana</span> (1398-1458), townsman -of Rabbi Sem Tob, the Jew of Carrión. Oddly enough, -Baena excludes Santillana from his collection, and Santillana,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -in reviewing the poets of his time, ignores Baena, -whom he probably despised as a parasite. A remarkable -letter to the Constable of Portugal shows Santillana as a -pleasant prose-writer; in his rhetorical <i>Lamentaçion en -Propheçia de la segunda Destruyçion de España</i> he fails in -the grand style, though he succeeds in the familiar with -his collection of old wives' fireside proverbs, <i>Refranes que -diçen las Viejas tras el Huego</i>. His <i>Centiloquio</i>, a hundred -rhymed proverbs divided into fourteen chapters, is gracefully -written and skilfully put together; his <i>Comedieta de -Ponza</i> is reminiscent of both Dante and Boccaccio, and -its title, together with the fact that the dialogue is allotted -to different personages, has led many into the error of -taking it for a dramatic piece. Far more essentially -dramatic in spirit is the <i>Diálogo de Bias contra Fortuna</i>, -which embodies a doctrinal argument upon the advantages -of the philosophic mind in circumstances of adversity; -and grouped with this goes the <i>Doctrinal de Privados</i>, -a fierce philippic against Álvaro de Luna, Santillana's -political foe, who is convicted of iniquities out of his own -mouth.</p> - -<p>It is impossible to say of Santillana that he was an -original genius: it is within bounds to class him as a -highly gifted versifier with extraordinary imitative powers. -He has no "message" to deliver, no wide range of ideas: -his attraction lies not so much in what is said as in his -trick of saying it. He is one of the few poets whom -erudition has not hampered. He was familiar with -writers as diverse as Dante and Petrarch and Alain -Chartier, and he reproduces their characteristics with a -fine exactness and felicity. But he was something more -than an intelligent echo, for he filed and laboured till he -acquired a final manner of his own. Doubtless to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -own taste his forty-two sonnets—<i>fechos al itálico modo</i>, as -he proudly tells you were his best titles to glory; and -it is true that he acclimatised the sonnet in Spain, sharing -with the Aragonese, Juan de Villapando, the honour -of being Spain's only sonneteer before Boscán's time. -Commonplace in thought, stiff in expression, the sonnets -are only historically curious. It is in his lighter vein that -Santillana reaches his full stature. The grace and gaiety -of his <i>decires</i>, <i>serranillas</i> and <i>vaqueiras</i> are all his own. -If he borrowed suggestions from Provençal poets, he is -free of the Provençal artifice, and sings with the simplicity -of Venus' doves. Here he revealed a peculiar aspect -of his many-sided temperament, and by his tact made a -living thing of primitive emotions, which were to be done -to death in the pastorals of heavy-handed bunglers. The -first-fruits of the pastoral harvest live in the house where -Santillana garnered them, and those roses, amid which -he found the milkmaid of La Finojosa, are still as sweet -in his best known—and perhaps his best—ballad as on -that spring morning, between Calateveño and Santa -María, some four hundred years since. Ceasing to be -an imitator, Santillana proves inimitable.</p> - -<p>The official court-poet of the age was <span class="smcap">Juan de Mena</span> -(1411-56), known to his own generation as the "prince -of Castilian poets," and Cervantes, writing more than a -hundred and fifty years afterwards, dubs him "that great -Córdoban poet." A true son of Córdoba, Mena has all -the qualities of the Córdoban school—the ostentatious -embellishment of his ancestor, Lucan, and the unintelligible -preciosity of his descendant, Góngora. The Italian -travels of his youth undid him, and set him on the hopeless -line of Italianising Spanish prose. A false attribution -enters the Annals of Juan II. under Mena's name: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -mere fact that Juan II.'s <i>Crónica</i> is a model of correct -prose disposes of the pretension. Mena's summary of the -<i>Iliad</i>, and the commentary to his poem the <i>Coronación</i>, -convict him of being the worst prose-writer in all Castilian -literature. Simplicity and vulgarity were for him -synonyms, and he carries his doctrine to its logical extreme -by adopting impossible constructions, by wrenching -his sentences asunder by exaggerated inversions, and -by adding absurd Latinisms to his vocabulary. These -defects are less grave in his verse, but even there they -follow him. Argote de Molina would have him the -author of the political satire called the <i>Coplas de la Panadera</i>; -but Mena lacked the lightness of touch, the wit -and sparkle of the imaginary baker's wife. If he be read -at all, he is to be studied in his <i>Laberinto</i>, also known as -the <i>Trescientas</i>, a heavy allegory whose deliberate obscurity -is indicated by its name. The alternative title, <i>Trescientas</i>; -is explained by the fact that the poem consisted -of three hundred stanzas, to which sixty-five were added -by request of the King, who kept the book by him of -nights and hankered for a stanza daily, using it, maybe, -as a soporific. The poet is whisked by the dragons in -Bellona's chariot to Fortune's palace, and there begins -the inevitable imitation of Dante, with its machinery of -seven planetary circles, and its grandiose vision of past, -present, and future. The work of a learned poet taking -himself too seriously and straining after effects beyond -his reach, the <i>Laberinto</i> is tedious as a whole; yet, though -Mena's imagination fails to realise his abstractions, though -he be riddled with purposeless conceits, he touches a high -level in isolated episodes. Much of his vogue may be -accounted for by the abundance with which he throws off -striking lines of somewhat hard, even marmoreal beauty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -and by the ardent patriotism which inspires him in his -best passages. A poet by flashes, at intervals rare and -far apart, Mena does himself injustice by too close a -devotion to æsthetic principles, that made failure a certainty. -Careful, conscientious, aspiring, he had done far -more if he had attempted much less.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Meanwhile Castilian prose goes forward on Alfonso's -lines. The anonymous <i>Crónica</i> of Juan II., wrongly ascribed -to Mena and Pérez de Guzmán, but more probably -due to Álvar García de Santa María and others unknown, -is a classic example of style and accuracy, rare in official -historiography. Mingled with many chivalresque details -concerning the hidalgos of the court is the central episode -of the book, the execution of the Constable, Álvaro de -Luna. The last great scene is skilfully prepared and is -recounted with artful simplicity in a celebrated passage:—"He -set to undoing his doublet-collar, making -ready his long garments of blue camlet, lined with fox-skins; -and, the master being stretched upon the scaffold, -the executioner came to him, begged his pardon, embraced -him, ran the poniard through his neck, cut off -his head, and hung it on a hook; and the head stayed -there nine days, the body three." Passionate declamation -of a still higher order is found in the <i>Crónica de Don -Álvaro de Luna</i>, written by a most dexterous advocate, -who puts his mastery of phrase, his graphic presentation -and dramatic vigour, to the service of partisanship. -Perhaps no man was ever quite so great and good as -Álvaro de Luna appears in his <i>Crónica</i>, but the strength -of conviction in the narrator is expressed in terms of -moving eloquence that would persuade to accept the -portrait, not merely as a masterpiece—for that it is—but,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -as an authentic presentment of a misunderstood -hero.</p> - -<p>After much violent controversy, it may now be taken -as settled that the <i>Crónica del Cid</i> is based upon Alfonso's -<i>Estoria de Espanna</i>. But it comes not direct, being -borrowed from Alfonso XI.'s <i>Crónica de Castilla</i>, a transcript -of the <i>Estoria</i>. The differences from the early -text may be classed under three heads: corruptions of -the early text, freer and exacter quotations from the -<i>romances</i>, and deliberate alterations made with an eye -to greater conformity with popular legends. Valuable -as containing the earliest versions of many traditions -which were to be diffused through the <i>Romanceros</i>, the -<i>Crónica del Cid</i> is of small historic authority, and Alfonso's -stately prose loses greatly in the carrying.</p> - -<p>Ayala's nephew, <span class="smcap">Fernán Pérez de Guzmán</span> (1378-1460), -continues his uncle's poetic tradition in the forms -borrowed from Italy, as well as in earlier lyrics of the -Galician school; but his mediocre performances as a -poet are overshadowed by his brilliant exploit as a -historian. He is responsible for the <i>Mar de Historias</i> -(The Sea of Histories), which consists of three divisions. -The first deals with emperors and kings ranging from -Alexander to King Arthur, from Charlemagne to Godfrey -de Bouillon; the second treats of saints and sages, their -lives and the books they wrote; and both are arrangements -of some French version of Guido delle Colonne's -<i>Mare Historiarum</i>. The third part, now known as the -<i>Generaciones y Semblanzas</i> (Generations and Likenesses), -is Pérez de Guzmán's own workmanship. Foreign critics -have compared him to Plutarch and to St. Simon; and, -though the parallel seems dangerous, it can be maintained. -This amounts to saying that Pérez de Guzmán is one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -the greatest portrait-painters in the world; and that precisely -he is. He argues from the seen to the unseen with -a curious anticipation of modern psychological methods; -and it forms an integral part of his plan to draw his -personages with the audacity of truth. He does his share, -and there they stand, living as our present-day acquaintances, -and better known. Take a few figures at random -from his gallery: Enrique de Villena, fat, short, and fair, -a libidinous glutton, ever in the clouds, a dolt in practice, -subtle of genius so that he came by all pure knowledge -easily; Núñez de Guzmán, dissolute, of giant strength, -curt of speech, a jovial roysterer; the King Enrique, -grave-visaged, bitter-tongued, lonely, melancholy; -Catherine of Lancaster, tall, fair, ruddy, wine-bibbing, -ending in paralysis; the Constable López Dávalos, a -self-made man, handsome, taking, gay, amiable, strong, -a fighter, clever, prudent, but—as man must have some -fault—cunning and given to astrology. With such portraits -Pérez de Guzmán abounds. The picture costs him no -effort: the man is seized in the act and delivered to you, -with no waste of words, with no essential lacking, classified -as a museum specimen, impartially but with a tendency to -severity; and when Pérez de Guzmán has spoken, there -is no more to say. He is a good hater, and lets you see -it when he deals with courtiers, whom he regards with the -true St. Simonian loathing for an upstart. But history has -confirmed the substantial justice of his verdicts, and has -thus shown that the artist in him was even stronger than -the malignant partisan. It is saying much. And to his -endowment of observation, intelligence, knowledge, and -character, Pérez de Guzmán joins the perfect practice of -that clear, energetic Castilian speech which his forebears -bequeathed him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> - -<p>An interesting personal narrative hides beneath the -mask of the <i>Vida y Hazañas del gran Tamarlán</i> (Life -and Deeds of the Mighty Timour). First published in -1582, this work is nothing less than a report of the -journey (1403-6) of Ruy González de Clavijo (d. 1412), -who traversed all the space "from silken Samarcand -to cedar'd Lebanon," and more. Clavijo tells of his -wanderings with a quaint mingling of credulity and -scepticism; still, his witness is at least as trustworthy -as Marco Polo's, and his recital is vastly more graphic -than the Venetian's. A very similar motive informs the -<i>Crónica del Conde de Buelna, Don Pero Niño</i> (1375-1446), -by Pero Niño's friend and pennon-bearer, Gutierre Díaz -Gámez. An alternative title—the <i>Victorial</i>—discloses the -author's intention of representing his leader as the hero -of countless triumphs by sea and land. A well-read -esquire, Díaz Gámez quotes from the <i>Libro de Alexandre</i>, -flecks his pages with allusions, and—with a true -traveller's lust for local colouring—comes pat with technical -French terms: his <i>sanglieres</i>, <i>mestrieres</i>, <i>cursieres</i>, -<i>destrieres</i>. These affectations apart, Díaz Gámez writes -with sense and force; exalting his chief overmuch, but -giving bright glimpses of a mad, adventurous life, and -rising to altisonant eloquence in chivalresque outbursts, -one of which Cervantes has borrowed, and not bettered, -in Don Quixote's great discourse on letters and arms.</p> - -<p>Knight-errantry was, indeed, beginning to possess the -land, and, as it chances, an account of the maddest, -hugest tourney in the world's history is written for us -by an eye-witness, Pero Rodríguez de Lena, in the <i>Libro -del Paso Honroso</i> (Book of the Passage of Honour). -Lena tells how the demon of chivalry entered into Suero -de Quiñones, who, seeking release from his pledge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -wearing in his lady's honour an iron chain each Thursday, -could hit on no better means than by offering, with -nine knightly brethren, to hold the bridge of San Marcos -at Órbigo against the paladins of Europe. The tilt -lasted from July 10 to August 9, 1434, and is described -with simple directness by Lena, who looks upon the -six hundred single combats as the most natural thing -in the world: but his story is important as a "human -document," and as testimony that the extravagant incidents -of the chivalrous romances had their counterparts -in real life.</p> - -<p>The fifteenth century finds the chivalrous romance -established in Spain: how it arrived there must be left -for discussion till we come to deal with the best example -of the kind—<i>Amadís de Gaula</i>. Here and now it suffices -to say that there probably existed an early Spanish version -of this story which has disappeared; and to note that -the dividing line between the annals, filled with impossible -traditions, and the chivalrous tales, is of the finest: -so fine, in fact, that several of the latter—for example, -<i>Florisel de Niquea</i> and <i>Amadís de Grecia</i>—take on historical -airs and call themselves <i>crónicas</i>. The mention -of the lost Castilian <i>Amadís</i> is imperative at this point -if we are to recognise one of the chief contemporary -influences. For the moment, we must be content to -note its practical manifestations in the extravagances -of Suero de Quiñones, and of other knights whose -names are given in the chronicles of Álvaro de Luna -and Juan II. The spasmodic outbursts of the craze -observable in the serious chapters of Díaz Gámez are -but the distant rumblings before the hurricane.</p> - -<p>While <i>Amadís de Gaula</i> was read in courts and palaces, -three contemporary writers worked in different veins.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -<span class="smcap">Alfonso Martínez de Toledo</span> (1398-?1466), Archpriest -of Talavera, and chaplain to Juan II., is the author -of the <i>Reprobación del Amor mundano</i>, otherwise <i>El -Corbacho</i> (The Scourge). The latter title, not of the -author's choosing, has led some to say that he borrowed -from Boccaccio. The resemblance between the <i>Reprobación</i> -and the Italian <i>Corbaccio</i> is purely superficial. -Martínez goes forth to rebuke the vices of both sexes -in his age; but the moral purpose is dropped, and he -settles down to a deliberate invective against women and -their ways. Amador de los Ríos suggests that Martínez -stole hints from Francisco Eximenis' <i>Carro de la donas</i>, -a Catalan version of Boccaccio's <i>De claris mulieribus</i>: as -the latter is a panegyric on the sex, the suggestion is -unacceptable. The plain fact stares us in the face that -Martínez' immediate model is the Archpriest of Hita, -and in his fourth chapter that jovial clerk is cited. Indiscriminate, -unjust, and even brutal, as Martínez often -is, his slashing satire may be read with extraordinary -pleasure: that is, when we can read him at all, for his -editions are rare and his vocabulary puzzling. He falls -short of Ruiz' wicked urbanity; but he matches him in -keenness of malicious wit, in malignant parody, in picaresque -intention, while he surpasses him as a collector -of verbal quips and popular proverbs. The wealth of -his splenetic genius (it is nothing less) affords at least -one passage to the writer of the <i>Celestina</i>. Last of all—and -this is an exceeding virtue—Martínez' speech maintains -a fine standard of purity at a time when foreign -corruptions ran riot. Hence he deserves high rank -among the models of Castilian prose.</p> - -<p>Another chaplain of Juan II., <span class="smcap">Juan de Lucena</span> (fl. 1453), -is the author of the <i>Vita Beata</i>, lacking in originality, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -notable for excellence of absolute style. He follows -Cicero's plan in the <i>De finibus bonorum et malorum</i>, introducing -Santillana, Mena, and García de Santa María -(the probable author, as we have seen, of the King's -<i>Crónica</i>). In an imaginary conversation these great personages -discuss the question of mortal happiness, arriving -at the pessimist conclusion that it does not exist, or—sorry -alternative—that it is unattainable. Lucena adds -nothing to the fund of ideas upon this hackneyed theme, -but the perfect finish of his manner lends attraction to -his lucid commonplaces.</p> - -<p>The last considerable writer of the time is the Bachelor -<span class="smcap">Alfonso de la Torre</span> (fl. 1461), who returns upon the -didactic manner in his <i>Visión deleitable de la Filosofía y -Artes liberales</i>. Nominally, the Bachelor offers a philosophic, -allegorical novel; in substance, his work is a -mediæval encyclopædia. It was assuredly never designed -for entertainment, but it must still be read by -all who are curious to catch those elaborate harmonies -and more delicate refinements of fifteenth-century Castilian -prose which half tempt to indulgence for the -writer's insufferable priggishness. Alfonso de la Torre -figures by right in the anthologies, and his elegant -extracts win an admiration of which his unhappy choice -of subject would otherwise deprive him.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_5_5">[5]</a> Strictly speaking, this writer should be called Enrique de Aragón; but, -since this leads to confusion with his contemporary, the Infante Enrique de -Aragón, it is convenient to distinguish him as Enrique de Villena. He was -not a marquis, and never uses the title.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> - - -<h2>CHAPTER VI -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF ENRIQUE IV. AND THE -CATHOLIC KINGS -<br /> -1454-1516</small></h2> - - -<p>The literary movement of Juan II.'s reign is overlapped -and continued outside Spain by poets in the train of -Alfonso V. of Aragón, who, conquering Naples in 1443, -became the patron of scholars like George of Trebizond -and Æneas Sylvius. It is notable that, despite their -new Italian environment, Alfonso's singers write by preference -in Castilian rather than in their native Catalan. -Their work is to be sought in the <i>Cancionero General</i>, in -the <i>Cancionero de burlas provocantes á risa</i>, and especially -in the <i>Cancionero de Stúñiga</i>, which derives its name from -the accident that the first two poems in the collection -are by Lope de Stúñiga, cousin of that Suero de Quiñones -who held the <i>Paso Honroso</i>, mentioned under Lena's name -in the previous chapter. Stúñiga prolongs the courtly -tradition in verses whose extreme finish is remarkable. -Juan de Tapia, Juan de Andújar, and Fernando de la -Torre practise in the same school of knightly hedonism; -and at the opposite pole is Juan de Valladolid, son of the -public executioner, a vagabond minstrel, who passed his -life in coarse polemics with Antón de Montero, with -Gómez Manrique, and with Manrique's brother, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -Conde de Paredes. A notorious name is that of Pero -Torrellas, whose <i>Coplas de las calidades de las donas</i> won -their author repute as a satirist of women, and begot -innumerable replies and counterpleas: the satire, to -tell the truth, is poor enough, and is little more than -violent but pointless invective. The best as well as the -most copious poet of the Neapolitan group is <span class="smcap">Carvajal</span> -(or <span class="smcap">Carvajales</span>), who bequeaths us the earliest known -<i>romance</i>, and so far succumbs to circumstances as to produce -occasional verses in Italian. In Castilian, Carvajal -has the true lyrical cry, and is further distinguished by a -virile, martial note, in admirable contrast with the insipid -courtesies of his brethren.</p> - -<p>To return to Spain, where, in accordance with the -maxim that one considerable poet begets many poetasters, -countless rhymesters spring from Mena's loins. -The briefest mention must suffice for the too-celebrated -<i>Coplas del Provincial</i>, which, to judge by the extracts -printed from its hundred and forty-nine stanzas, is a -prurient lampoon against private persons. It lacks -neither vigour nor wit, and denotes a mastery of mordant -phrase: but the general effect of its obscene malignity -is to make one sympathise with the repeated attempts -at its suppression. The attribution to Rodrigo Cota -of this perverse performance is capricious: internal -evidence goes to show that the libel is the work of -several hands.</p> - -<p>A companion piece of far greater merit is found in -thirty-two octosyllabic stanzas entitled <i>Coplas de Mingo -Revulgo</i>. Like the <i>Coplas del Provincial</i>, this satirical -eclogue has been referred to Rodrigo Cota, and, like -many other anonymous works, it has been ascribed to -Mena. Neither conjecture is supported by evidence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -and Sarmiento's ascription of <i>Mingo Revulgo</i> to Hernando -del Pulgar, who wrote an elaborate commentary -on it, rests on the puerile assumption that "none but the -poet could have commented himself with such clearness." -Two shepherds—Mingo Revulgo and Gil Aribato—represent -the lower and upper class respectively, discussing -the abuses of society. Gil Aribato blames the people, -whose vices are responsible for corruption in high -places; Mingo Revulgo contends that the dissolute King -should bear the blame for the ruin of the state, and -the argument ends by lauding the golden mean of the -burgess. The tone of <i>Mingo Revulgo</i> is more moderate -than that of the <i>Provincial</i>; the attacks on current evils -are more general, more discreet, and therefore more -deadly; and the aim of the later satire is infinitely -more serious and elevated. Cast in dramatic form, -but devoid of dramatic action, <i>Mingo Revulgo</i> leads -directly to the eclogues of Juan del Encina, so often -called the father of the Spanish theatre; but its immediate -interest lies in the fact that it is the first of -effective popular satires.</p> - -<p>Among the poets of this age, the Jewish convert, -<span class="smcap">Antón de Montoro</span>, <i>el Ropero</i> (1404-?1480), holds a -place apart. A fellow of parts, Montoro combined -verse-making with tailoring, and his trade is frequently -thrown in his teeth by rivals smarting under his bitter -insolence. Save when he pleads manfully for his kinsfolk, -who are persecuted and slaughtered by a bloodthirsty -mob, Montoro's serious efforts are mostly failures. -His picaresque verses, especially those addressed to Juan -de Valladolid, are replenished with a truculent gaiety -which amuses us almost as much as it amused Santillana; -but he should be read in extracts rather than at length.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -He is suspected of complicity in the <i>Coplas del Provincial</i>, -and there is good ground for thinking that to him belong -the two most scandalous pieces in the <i>Cancionero de burlas -provocantes á risa</i>—namely, the <i>Pleito del Manto</i> (Suit of -the Coverlet), and a certain unmentionable comedy which -purports to be by Fray Montesino, and travesties Mena's -<i>Trescientas</i> in terms of extreme filthiness. Montoro's short -pieces are reminiscent of Juan Ruiz, and, for all his indecency, -it is fair to credit him with much cleverness and -with uncommon technical skill. His native vulgarity -betrays him into excesses of ribaldry which mar the -proper exercise of his undeniable gifts.</p> - -<p>A better man and a better writer is <span class="smcap">Juan Álvarez -Gato</span> (?1433-96), the Madrid knight of whom Gómez -Manrique says that he "spoke pearls and silver." It is -difficult for us to judge him on his merits, for, though -his <i>cancionero</i> exists, it has not yet been printed; and -we are forced to study him as he is represented in -the <i>Cancionero General</i>, where his love-songs show a -dignity of sentiment and an exquisiteness of expression -not frequent in any epoch, and exceptional in his own -time. His sacred lyrics, the work of his old age, lack -unction: but even here his mastery of form saves his -pious <i>villancicos</i> from oblivion, and ranks him as the best -of Encina's predecessors. His friend, Hernán Mexía, -follows Pero Torrellas with a satire on the foibles of -women, in which he easily outdoes his model in mischievous -wit and in ingenious fancy.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Gómez Manrique</span>, Señor de Villazopeque (1412-91), -is a poet of real distinction, whose entire works have been -reprinted from two complementary <i>cancioneros</i> discovered -in 1885. Sprung from a family illustrious in Spanish -history, Gómez Manrique was a foremost leader in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -rebellion of the Castilian nobles against Enrique IV. In -allegorical pieces like the <i>Batalla de amores</i>, he frankly -imitates the Galician model, and in one instance he -replies to a certain Don Álvaro in Portuguese. Then -he joins himself to the rising Italian school, wherein his -uncle, Santillana, had preceded him; and his experiments -extend to adaptations of Sem Tob's sententious moralisings, -to didactic poems in the manner of Mena, and to -<i>coplas</i> on Juan de Valladolid, in which he measures -himself unsuccessfully with the rude tailor, Montoro. -Humour was not Gómez Manrique's calling, and his -attention to form is an obvious preoccupation which -diminishes his vigour: but his chivalrous refinement -and noble tenderness are manifest in his answer to -Torrellas' invective. His pathos is nowhere more touching -than in the elegiacs on Garcilaso de la Vega; while -in the lines to his wife, Juana de Mendoza, Gómez Manrique -portrays the fleetingness of life, the sting of death, -with almost incomparable beauty.</p> - -<p>His <i>Representación del Nacimiento de Nuestro Señor</i>, the -earliest successor to the <i>Misterio de los Reyes Magos</i>, is a -liturgical drama written for and played at the convent -of Calabazanos, of which his sister was Superior. It -consists of twenty octosyllabic stanzas delivered by the -Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St. Raphael, -an angel, and three shepherds, the whole closing with a -cradle-song. Simple as the construction is, it is more -elaborate than that of a later play on the Passion, wherein -the Virgin, St. John, and the Magdalen appear (though -the last takes no part in the dialogue). The refrain or -<i>estribillo</i> at the end of each stanza goes to show that this -piece was intended to be sung. These primitive essays -in the hieratic drama have all the interest of what was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -virtually a new invention, and their historical importance -is only exceeded by that of a secular play, written by -Gómez Manrique for the birthday of Alfonso, brother of -Enrique IV., in which the Infanta Isabel played one of -the Muses. In all three experiments the action is of the -slightest, though the dialogue is as dramatic as can be -expected from a first attempt. The point to be noted -is that Gómez Manrique foreshadows both the lay and -sacred elements of the Spanish theatre.</p> - -<p>His fame has been unjustly eclipsed by that of his -nephew, <span class="smcap">Jorge Manrique</span>, Señor de Belmontejo (1440-1478), -a brilliant soldier and partisan of Queen Isabel's, -who perished in an encounter before the gates of Garci-Múñoz, -and is renowned by reason of a single masterpiece. -His verses are mostly to be found in the <i>Cancionero -General</i>, and a few are given in the <i>cancioneros</i> of Seville -and Toledo. Like that of his uncle, Gómez, his vein -of humour is thin and poor, and the satiric stanzas to -his stepmother border on vulgarity. In acrostic love-songs -and in other compositions of a like character, Jorge -Manrique is merely clever in the artificial style of many -contemporaries—is merely a careful craftsman absorbed -in the technical details of art, with small merit beyond -that of formal dexterity. The forty-three stanzas entitled -the <i>Coplas de Jorge Manrique por la muerte de su padre</i>, -have brought their writer an immortality which, outliving -all freaks of taste, seems as secure as Cervantes' own. -An attempt has been made to prove that Jorge Manrique's -elegiacs on his father are not original, and that the elegist -had some knowledge of Abu 'l-Bakā Salih ar-Rundi's -poem on the decadence of the Moslem power in Spain. -Undoubtedly Valera has so ingeniously rendered the -Arab poet as to make the resemblance seem pronounced:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -but the theory is untenable, for it is not pretended that -Jorge Manrique could read Arabic, and lofty commonplaces -on death abound in all literature, from the Bible -downwards.</p> - -<p>In this unique composition Jorge Manrique approves -himself, for once, a poet of absolute genius, an exquisite -in lyrical orchestration. The poem opens with a slow -movement, a solemn lament on the vanity of grandeur, -the frailty of life; it modulates into resigned acceptance -of an inscrutable decree; it closes with a superb symphony, -through which are heard the voices of the -seraphim and the angelic harps of Paradise. The workmanship -is of almost incomparable excellence, and in -scarcely one stanza can the severest criticism find a -technical flaw. Jorge Manrique's sincerity touched a -chord which vibrates in the universal heart, and his -poem attained a popularity as immediate as it was -imperishable. Camões sought to imitate it; writers -like Montemôr and Silvestre glossed it; Lope de Vega -declared that it should be written in letters of gold; it -was done into Latin and set to music in the sixteenth -century by Venegas de Henestrosa; and in our century -it has been admirably translated by Longfellow in a -version from which these stanzas are taken:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Behold of what delusive worth</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The bubbles we pursue on earth,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>The shapes we chase</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Amid a world of treachery;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>They vanish ere death shuts the eye,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>And leave no trace.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Time steals them from us,—chances strange,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Disastrous accidents, and change,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>That come to all</i>;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Even in the most exalted state,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate;</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>The strongest fall.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Tell me,—the charms that lovers seek</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In the clear eye and blushing cheek,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>The hues that play</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O'er rosy lip and brow of snow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>When hoary age approaches slow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Ah, where are they?...</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And scarf, and gorgeous panoply,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>And nodding plume,—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What were they but a pageant scene?</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What but the garlands gay and green,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>That deck the tomb?...</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O Death, no more, no more delay;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>My spirit longs to flee away,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>And be at rest;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The will of Heaven my will shall be,—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I bow to the divine decree,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>To God's behest....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His soul to Him who gave it rose:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>God lead it to its long repose,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Its glorious rest!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And though the warrior's sun has set,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Its light shall linger round us yet,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Bright, radiant, blest.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>By the side of this achievement the remaining poems -of Enrique IV.'s reign seem wan and withered. But -mention is due to the Sevillan, Pedro Guillén de Segovia -(1413-74), who, beginning life under the patronage of -Álvaro de Luna, Santillana, and Mena, passes into the -household of the alchemist-archbishop Carrillo, and proclaims -himself a disciple of Gómez Manrique. His chief -performance is his metrical version of the Seven Penitential<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -Psalms, which is remarkable as being the first -attempt at introducing the biblical element into Spanish -literature.</p> - -<p>Prose is represented by the Segovian, Diego Enríquez -del Castillo (fl. 1470), chaplain and privy councillor to -Enrique IV., whose official <i>Crónica</i> he drew up in a spirit -of candid impartiality; but there is ground for suspecting -that he revised his manuscript after the King's death. -Charged with speeches and addresses, his history is written -with pompous correctness, and it seems probable that -the wily trimmer so chose his sonorous ambiguities of -phrase as to avoid offending either his sovereign or -the rebel magnates whose triumph he foresaw. Another -chronicle of this reign is ascribed to Alfonso Fernández -de Palencia (1423-92), who is also rashly credited with -the authorship of the <i>Coplas del Provincial</i>; but it is not -proved that Palencia wrote any other historical work -than his Latin <i>Gesta Hispaniensia</i>, a mordant presentation -of the time's corruptions. The Castilian chronicle -which passes under his name is a rough translation -of the <i>Gesta</i>, made without the writer's authority. -Its involved periods, some of them a chapter long, -are very remote from the admirably vigorous style of -Palencia's allegorical <i>Batalla campal entre los lobos y los -perros</i> (Pitched Battle between Wolves and Dogs), and -his patriotic <i>Perfección del triunfo militar</i>, wherein he -vaunts, not without reason, his countrymen as among -the best fighting men in Europe. Palencia's gravest -defect is his tendency to Latinise his construction, as in -his poor renderings of Plutarch and Josephus. But at his -best he writes with ease and force and distinction. The -<i>Crónica de hechos del Condestable Miguel Lucas Iranzo</i>, -possibly the work of Juan de Olid, is in no sense the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -history it professes to be, and is valuable mainly because -of its picturesque, yet simple and natural digressions on -the social life of Spain.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The very year of the Catholic King's accession (1474) -coincides with the introduction of the art of printing into -Spain. Ticknor dates this event as happening in 1468, -remarking that "there can be no doubt about the matter." -Unluckily, the book upon which he relies is erroneously -dated. <i>Les Trobes en lahors de la Verge María</i>—the first -volume printed in Spain—is a collection of devout verses -in Valencian, by forty-four poets, mostly Catalans. Of -these, Francisco de Castellví, Francisco Barcelo, Pedro -de Civillar, and an anonymous singer—<i>Hum Castellá sens -nom</i>—write in Castilian. From 1474 onward, printing-presses -multiply, and versions of masters like Dante, -Boccaccio, and Petrarch, made by Pedro Fernández -de Villegas, by Álvar Gómez, and by Antonio de -Obregón, are printed in quick succession. Henceforward -the best models are available beyond a small -wealthy circle; but the results of this popularisation -are not immediate.</p> - -<p>Íñigo de Mendoza, a gallant and a Franciscan, appears -as a disciple of Mena and Gómez Manrique in his <i>Vita -Christi</i>, which halts at the Massacre of the Innocents. -Fray Íñigo is too prone to digressions, and to misplaced -satire mimicked from <i>Mingo Revulgo</i>, yet his verses have -a pleasing, unconventional charm in their adaptation to -devout purpose of such lyric forms as the <i>romance</i> and -the <i>villancico</i>. His fellow-monk, Ambrosio Montesino, -Isabel's favourite poet, conveys to Spain the Italian -realism of Jacopone da Todi in his <i>Visitación de Nuestra -Señora</i>, and in hymns fitted to the popular airs preserved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -in Asenjo Barbieri's <i>Cancionero Musical de los siglos xv. y -xvi</i>. This embarrassing condition, joined to the writer's -passion for conciseness, results in hard effects; yet, at -his best, he pipes "a simple song for thinking hearts," -and, as Menéndez y Pelayo, the chief of Spanish critics, -observes, Montesino's historic interest lies in his suffusing -popular verse with the spirit of mysticism, and in -his transmuting the popular forms of song into artistic -forms.</p> - -<p>Space fails for contemporary authors of <i>esparsas</i>, <i>decires</i>, -<i>resquestas</i>, more or less ingenious; but we cannot omit -the name of the Carthusian, <span class="smcap">Juan de Padilla</span> (1468-?1522), -who suffers from an admirer's indiscretion in -calling him "the Spanish Homer." His <i>Retablo de la -Vida de Cristo</i> versifies the Saviour's life in the manner -of Juvencus, and his more elaborate poem, <i>Los doce -triunfos de los doce Apóstoles</i>, strives to fuse Dante's -severity with Petrarch's grace. Rhetorical out of season, -and tending to abuse his sonorous vocabulary, Padilla -indulges in verbal eccentricities and in sudden drops from -altisonance to familiarity; but in his best passages—his -journey through hell and purgatory, guided by St. Paul—he -excels by force of vision, by his realisation of the -horror of the grave, and by his vigorous transcription of -the agonies of the lost. The allegorical form is again -found in the <i>Infierno del Amor</i> of Garci Sánchez de Badajoz, -who ended life in a madhouse. His presentation -of Macías, Rodríguez del Padrón, Santillana, and Jorge -Manrique in thrall to love's enchantments, was to the -taste of his time, and a poem with the same title, <i>Infierno -del Amor</i>, made the reputation of a certain Guevara, -whose scattered songs are full of picaresque and biting -wit. For the rest, Sánchez de Badajoz depends upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -his daring, almost blasphemous humour, his facility in -improvising, and his mastery of popular forms.</p> - -<p>Of the younger poetic generation, <span class="smcap">Pedro Manuel de -Urrea</span> (1486-? 1530) is the most striking artist. His -<i>Peregrinación á Jersualén</i> and his <i>Penitencia de Amor</i> are -practically inaccessible, but his <i>Cancionero</i> displays an -ingenious and versatile talent. Urrea's aristocratic spirit -revolts at the thought that in this age of printing his -songs will be read "in cellars and kitchens," and the -publication of his verses seems due to his mother. His -<i>Fiestas de Amor</i>, translated from Petrarch, are tedious, -but he has a perfect mastery of the popular <i>décima</i>, and -his <i>villancicos</i> abound in quips of fancy matched by -subtleties of expression. Urrea fails when he closes a -stanza with a Latin tag—a dubious adonic, such as -<i>Dominus tecum</i>. He fares better with his modification -of Jorge Manrique's stanza, approving his skill in modulatory -effects. His most curious essay is his verse -rendering of the <i>Celestina's</i> first act; for here he anticipates -the very modes of Lope de Vega and of Tirso de -Molina. But in his own day he was not the sole practitioner -in dramatic verse.</p> - -<p>A distinct progress in this direction is made by -<span class="smcap">Rodrigo Cota de Maguaque</span> (fl. 1490), a convert Jew, -who incited the mob to massacre his brethren. Wrongly -reputed the author of the <i>Coplas del Provincial</i>, of <i>Mingo -Revulgo</i>, and of the <i>Celestina</i>, Cota is the parent of fifty-eight -quatrains, in the form of a burlesque wedding-song, -recently discovered by M. Foulché-Delbosc. But Cota's -place in literature is ensured by his celebrated <i>Diálogo -entre el Amor y un Viejo</i>. In seventy stanzas Love and -the Ancient argue the merits of love, till the latter yields -to the persuasion of the god, who then derides the hoary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -amorist. The dialogue is eminently dramatic both in -form and spirit, the action convincing, clear, and rapid, -while the versification is marked by an exquisite melody. -It is not known that the <i>Diálogo</i> was ever played, yet it -is singularly fitted for scenic presentation.</p> - -<p>The earliest known writer for the stage among the -moderns was, as we have already said, Gómez Manrique; -but earlier spectacles are frequently mentioned in -fifteenth-century chronicles. These may be divided into -<i>entremeses</i>, a term loosely applied to balls and tourneys, -accompanied by chorus-singing; and into <i>momos</i>, entertainments -which took on a more literary character, and -which found excuses for dramatic celebrations at Christmas -and Eastertide. Gómez Manrique had made a step -forward, but his pieces are primitive and fragmentary -compared to those of <span class="smcap">Juan del Encina</span> (1468-1534). -A story given in the scandalous <i>Pleito del Manto</i> reports -that Encina was the son of Pero Torrellas, and another -idle tale declares him to be Juan de Tamayo. The latter -is proved a blunder; the former is discredited by Encina's -solemn cursing of Torrellas. Encina passed from the -University of Salamanca to the household of the Duke -of Alba (1493), was present next year at the siege of -Granada, and celebrated the victory in his <i>Triunfo de -fama</i>. Leaving for Italy in 1498, he is found at Rome in -1502, a favourite with that Spanish Pope, Alexander VI. -He returned to Spain, took orders, and sang his first -mass at Jerusalem in 1519, at which date he was appointed -Prior of the Monastery of León. He is thought -to have died at Salamanca.</p> - -<p>Encina began writing in his teens, and has left us over -a hundred and seventy lyrics, composed before he was -twenty-five years old. Nearly eighty pieces, with musical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -settings by the author, are given in Asenjo Barbieri's -<i>Cancionero Musical</i>. His songs, when undisfigured by -deliberate conceits, are full of devotional charm. Still, -Encina abides with us in virtue of his eclogues, the -first two being given in the presence of his patrons at -Alba de Tormes, probably in 1492. His plays are fourteen -in number, and were undoubtedly staged. Ticknor -would persuade us that the seventh and eighth, though -really one piece, "with a pause between," were separated -by the poet "in his simplicity." Even Encina's simplicity -may be overstated, and Ticknor's "pause" must -have been long: for the seventh eclogue was played in -1494, and the eighth in 1495. His eclogues are eclogues -only in name, being dramatic presentations of primitive -themes, with a distinct but simple action. The occasion -is generally a feast-day, and the subject is sometimes -sacred. Yet not always so: the <i>Égloga de Fileno</i> dramatises -the shepherd's passion for Lefira, and ends -with a suicide suggested by the <i>Celestina</i>. In like wise, -Encina's <i>Plácida y Vitoriano</i>, involving two attempted -suicides and one scabrous scene, introduces Venus and -Mercury as characters. Again, the <i>Aucto del Repelón</i> -dramatises the adventures in the market-place of two -shepherds, Johan Paramas and Piernicurto; while <i>Cristino -y Febea</i> exhibits the ignominious downfall of a would-be -hermit in phrases redolent of Cota's <i>Diálogo</i>. Simple -as the motives are, they are skilfully treated, and the versification, -especially in <i>Plácida y Vitoriano</i>, is pure and -elegant. Encina elaborates the strictly liturgical drama -to its utmost point, and his younger contemporary, Lucas -Fernández, makes no further progress, for the obvious -reason that no novelty was possible without incurring -a charge of heresy. As Sr. Cotarelo y Mori has pointed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -out, the sacred drama remains undeveloped till the lives -of saints and the theological mysteries are exploited by -men of genius. Meanwhile, Encina has begun the movement -which culminates in the <i>autos</i> of Calderón.</p> - -<p>In another direction, the Spanish version of <i>Amadís de -Gaula</i> (1508) marks an epoch. This story was known to -Ayala and three other singers in Baena's chorus; and the -probability is that the lost original was written in Portuguese -by Joham de Lobeira (1261-1325), who uses in the -Colocci-Brancuti <i>Canzoniere</i> (No. 230) the same <i>ritournelle</i> -that Oriana sings in <i>Amadís</i>. <span class="smcap">García Ordóñez de -Montalvo</span> (fl. 1500) admits that three-fourths of his -book is mere translation; and it may be that he was not -the earliest Spaniard to annex the story, which, in the -first instance, derives from France. Amadís of Gaul is -a British knight, and, though the geography is bewildering, -"Gaul" stands for Wales, as "Bristoya" and -"Vindilisora" stand for Bristol and Windsor. The -chronology is no less puzzling, for the action occurs -"not many years after the Passion of our Redeemer." -Briefly, the book deals with the chequered love of -Amadís for Oriana, daughter of Lisuarte, King of Britain. -Spells incredible, combats with giants, miraculous interpositions, -form the tissue of episode, till fidelity is rewarded, -and Amadís made happy.</p> - -<p>Cervantes' Barber, classing the book as "the best in -that kind," saved it from the holocaust, and posterity -has accepted the Barber's sentence. <i>Amadís</i> is at least -the only chivalresque novel that man need read. The -style is excellent, and, though the tale is too long-drawn, -the adventures are interesting, the supernatural -machinery is plausibly arranged, and the plot is skilfully -directed. Later stories are mostly burlesques of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -<i>Amadís</i>: the giants grow taller, the monsters fiercer, the -lakes deeper, the torments sharper. In his <i>Sergas de -Esplandián</i>, Montalvo fails when he attempts to take -up the story at the end of <i>Amadís</i>. One tedious sequel -followed another till, within half a century, we have -a thirteenth <i>Amadís</i>. The best of its successors is Luis -Hurtado's (or, perhaps, Francisco de Moraes') <i>Palmerín -de Inglaterra</i>, which Cervantes' Priest would have kept -in such a casket as "that which Alexander found among -Darius' spoils, intended to guard the works of Homer." -Nor is this mere irony. Burke avowed in the House of -Commons that he had spent much time over <i>Palmerín</i>, -and Johnson wasted a summer upon <i>Felixmarte de Hircania</i>. -Wearisome as the kind was, its popularity was so -unbounded that Hieronym Sempere, in the <i>Caballería -cristiana</i>, applied the chivalresque formula to religious -allegory, introducing Christ as the Knight of the Lion, -Satan as the Knight of the Serpent, and the Apostles as -the Twelve Knights of the Round Table. Of its class, -<i>Amadís de Gaula</i> is the first and best.</p> - -<p>From an earlier version of <i>Amadís</i> derives the <i>Cárcel -de Amor</i> of Diego San Pedro, the writer of some erotic -verses in the <i>Cancionero de burlas</i>. San Pedro tells the -story of the loves of Leriano and Laureola, mingled -with much allegory and chivalresque sentiment. The -construction is weak, but the style is varied, delicate, -and distinguished. Ending with a panegyric on women, -"who, no less than cardinals, bequeath us the theological -virtues," the book was banned by the Inquisition. -But nothing stayed its course, and, despite all prohibitions, -it was reprinted times out of number. The <i>Cárcel -de Amor</i> ends with a striking scene of suicide, which was -borrowed by many later novelists.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<p>The first instance of its annexation occurs in the -<i>Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea</i>, better known as the -<i>Celestina</i>. This remarkable book, first published (as it -seems) at Burgos, in 1499, has been classed as a play, -or as a novel in dialogue. Its length would make it -impossible on the boards, and its influence is most -marked on the novel. As first published, it had sixteen -acts, extended later to twenty-one, and in some editions -to twenty-two. On the authority of Rojas, anxious as -to the Inquisition, the first and longest act has been -attributed to Mena and to Cota; but the prose is vastly -superior to Mena's, while the verse is no less inferior -to the lyrism of Cota's <i>Diálogo</i>. There is small doubt -but that the whole is the work of the lawyer <span class="smcap">Fernando -de Rojas</span>, a native of Montalbán, who became Alcaide -of Salamanca, and died, at a date unknown, at Talavera -de la Reina.</p> - -<p>The tale is briefly told. Calisto, rebuffed by Melibea, -employs the procuress Celestina, who arranges a meeting -between the lovers. But destiny works a speedy expiation: -Celestina is murdered by Calisto's servants, Calisto -is accidentally killed, and Melibea destroys herself before -her father, whom she addresses in a set speech suggested -by the <i>Cárcel de Amor</i>. Celestina is developed from -Ruiz' Trota-conventos; Rojas' lovers, Calisto and Melibea, -from Ruiz' Melón and Endrina; and some hints are -drawn from Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. But, despite -these borrowings, we have to deal with a completely -original masterpiece, unique in its kind. We are no -longer in an atmosphere thick with impossible monsters -in incredible circumstances: we are in the very grip of -life, in commerce with elemental, strait passions.</p> - -<p>Rojas is the first Spanish novelist who brings a conscience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -to his work, who aims at more than whiling -away an idle hour. He is not great in incident, his plot -is clumsily fashioned, the pedantry of his age fetters him; -but in effects of artistry, in energy of phrasing, he is unmatched -by his coevals. Though he invented the comic -type which was to become the <i>gracioso</i> of Calderón, his -humour is thin; on the other hand, his realism and -his pessimistic fulness are above praise. Choosing for -his subject the tragedy of illicit passion, he hit on the -means of exhibiting all his powers. His purpose is to -give a transcript of life, objective and impersonal, and -he fulfils it, adding thereunto a mysterious touch of -sombre imagination. His characters are not Byzantine -emperors and queens of Cornwall: he traffics in the -passions of plain men and women, the agues of the love-sick, -the crafts of senile vice, the venality and vauntings -of picaroons, the effrontery of croshabells. Hence, from -the first hour, his book took the world by storm, was -imprinted in countless editions, was continued by Juan -Sedeño and Feliciano da Silva—the same whose "reason -of the unreasonableness" so charmed Don Quixote—was -imitated by Sancho Muñón in <i>Lisandro y Roselia</i>, -was used by Lope de Vega in the <i>Dorotea</i>, and was -passed from the Spanish stage to be glorified as <i>Romeo -and Juliet</i>.</p> - -<p>Between the years 1508-12 was composed the anonymous -<i>Cuestión de Amor</i>, a semi-historical, semi-social -novel wherein contemporaries figure under feigned -names, some of which are deciphered by the industry -of Signor Croce, who reveals Belisena, for example, as -Bona Sforza, afterwards Queen of Poland. Though -much of its first success was due to the curiosity which -commonly attaches to any <i>roman à clef</i>, it still interests<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -because of its picturesque presentation of Spanish -society in Italian surroundings, and the excellence of -its Castilian style was approved by that sternest among -critics, Juan de Valdés.</p> - -<p>History is represented by the <i>Historia de los Reyes -católicos</i> of Andrés Bernáldez (d. 1513), parish priest of -Los Palacios, near Seville, who relates with spirit and -simplicity the triumphs of the reign, waxing enthusiastic -over the exploits of his friend Columbus. A more ambitious -historian is <span class="smcap">Hernando del Pulgar</span> (1436-?1492), -whose <i>Claros Varones de Castilla</i> is a brilliant gallery of -portraits, drawn by an observer who took Pérez de -Guzmán for his master. Pulgar's <i>Crónica de los Reyes -católicos</i> is mere official historiography, the work of a -flattering partisan, the slave of flagrant prejudice; yet -even here the charm of manner is seductive, though the -perdurable value of the annals is naught. As a portrait-painter, -as an intelligent analyst of character, as a wielder -of Castilian prose, Pulgar ranks only second to his immediate -model. He is to be distinguished from another -Hernando del Pulgar (1451-1531), who celebrated the -exploits of the great captain, Gonzalo de Córdoba, at the -request of Carlos V. In this case, as in so many others, -the old is better.</p> - -<p>One great name, that of Christopher Columbus or -<span class="smcap">Cristóbal Colón</span> (1440-1506) is inseparable from those -of the Catholic kings, who astounded their enemies by -their ingratitude to the man who gave them a New -World. Mystic and adventurer, Columbus wrote letters -which are marked by sound practical sense, albeit -couched in the apocalyptic phrases of one who holds -himself for a seer and prophet. Incorrect, uncouth, and -rugged as is his syntax, he rises on occasion to heights<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -of eloquence astonishing in a foreigner. But it is perhaps -imprudent to classify such a man as Columbus -by his place of birth. An exception in most things, he -was probably the truest Spaniard in all the Spains; and -by virtue of his transcendent genius, visible in word as -in action, he is filed upon the bede-roll of the Spanish -glories.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VII -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF CARLOS QUINTO -<br /> -1516-1556</small></h2> - - -<p>With the arrival of printing-presses in 1474 the diffusion -of foreign models became general throughout Spain. -The closing years of the reign of the Catholic Kings -were essentially an era of translation, and this movement -was favoured by high patronage. The King, Fernando, -was the pupil of Vidal de Noya; the Queen, Isabel, -studied under Beatriz Galindo, <i>la latina</i>; and Luis Vives -reports that their daughter, Mad Juana, could and did -deliver impromptu Latin speeches to the deputies of the -Low Countries. Throughout the land Italian scholars -preached the gospel of the Renaissance. The brothers -Geraldino (Alessandro and Antonio) taught the children -of the royal house. Peter Martyr, the Lombard, boasts -that the intellectual chieftains of Castile sat at his feet; -and he had his present reward, for he ended as Bishop -of Granada. From the Latin chair in the University -of Salamanca, Lucio Marineo lent his aid to the good -cause; and, in Salamanca likewise, the Portuguese, -Arias Barbosa, won repute as the earliest good Peninsular -Hellenist. Spanish women took the fever of foreign -culture. Lucía de Medrano and Juana de Contreras -lectured to university men upon the Latin poets of the -Augustan age. So, too, Francisca de Nebrija would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -serve as substitute for her father, <span class="smcap">Antonio de Nebrija</span> -(1444-1522), the greatest of Spanish humanists, the -author of the <i>Arte de la Lengua Castellana</i> and of a -Spanish-Latin dictionary, both printed in 1492. Nebrija -touched letters at almost every point, touching naught -that he did not adorn; he expounded his principles in -the new University of Alcalá de Henares, founded in -1508 by the celebrated Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de -Cisneros (1436-1517). Palencia had preceded Nebrija -by two years with the earliest Spanish-Latin dictionary; -but Nebrija's drove it from the field, and won -for its author a name scarce inferior to Casaubon's or -Scaliger's.</p> - -<p>The first Greek text of the New Testament ever printed -came from Alcalá de Henares in 1514. In 1520 the renowned -Complutensian Polyglot followed; the Hebrew -and Chaldean texts being supervised by converted Jews -like Alfonso de Alcalá, Alfonso de Zamora, and Pablo -Coronel; the Greek by Nebrija, Juan de Vergara, -Demetrio Ducas, and Hernán Núñez, "the Greek Commander." -Versions of the Latin classics were in all -men's hands. Palencia rendered Plutarch and Josephus, -Francisco Vidal de Noya translated Horace, Virgil's -<i>Eclogues</i> were done by Encina, Cæsar's <i>Commentaries</i> -by Diego López de Toledo, Plautus by Francisco López -Villalobos, Juvenal by Jerónimo de Villegas, and Apuleius' -<i>Golden Ass</i> by Diego López de Cartagena, Archdeacon -of Seville. Juan de Vergara was busied on the text of -Aristotle, while his brother, Francisco de Vergara, gave -Spaniards their first Greek grammar and translated -Heliodorus. Nor was activity restrained to dead languages: -the Italian teachers saw to that. Dante was -translated by Pedro Fernández de Villegas, Archdeacon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -of Burgos; Petrarch's <i>Trionfi</i> by Antonio Obregón and -Álvar Gómez; and the <i>Decamerone</i> by an anonymous -writer of high merit.</p> - -<p>If Italians invaded Spain, Spaniards were no less ready -to settle in Italy. Long before, Dante had met with -Catalans and had branded their proverbial stinginess:—"<i>l'avara -povertà di Catalogna</i>." A little later, and -Boccaccio spurned Castilians as so many wild men: -"<i>semibarbari et efferati homines</i>." Lorenzo Valla, chief -of the Italian scholars at Alfonso V.'s Neapolitan court, -denounced the King's countrymen as illiterates:—"<i>a -studiis humanitatis abhorrentes</i>." Benedetto Gareth of -Barcelona (1450-?1514) plunged into the new current, -forswore his native tongue, wrote his respectable <i>Rime</i> -in Italian, and re-incarnated himself under the Italian -form of Chariteo. A certain Jusquin Dascanio is represented -by a song, half-Latin, half-Italian, in Asenjo -Barbieri's <i>Cancionero Musical de los Siglos xv. y xvi.</i> -(No. 68), and a few anonymous pieces in the same -collection are written wholly in Italian. The Valencian, -Bertomeu Gentil, and the Castilian, Tapia, use Italian in -the <i>Cancionero General</i> of 1527, the former succeeding -so far that one of his eighteen Italian sonnets has been -accepted as Tansillo's by all Tansillo's editors. The -case of the Spanish Jew, Judas Abarbanel, whom Christians -call León Hebreo, is exceptional. Undoubtedly -his famous <i>Dialoghi di amore</i>, that curious product of -neo-platonic and Semitic mysticism which charmed -Abarbanel's contemporaries no less than it charmed -Cervantes, reaches us in Italian (1535). Yet, since it -was written in 1502, its foreign dress is the chance result -of the writer's expulsion from Spain with his brethren -in 1492. It is unlikely that Judas Abarbanel should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -have mastered all the secrets of Italian within ten years: -that he composed in Castilian, the language most familiar -to him, is overwhelmingly probable.</p> - -<p>But the Italian was met on his own ground. The -Neapolitan poet, Luigi Tansillo, declares himself a -Spaniard to the core:—"<i>Spagnuolo d'affezione</i>." And, -later, Panigarola asserts that Milanese fops, on the -strength of a short tour in Spain, would pretend to -forget their own speech, and would deliver themselves -of Spanish words and tags in and out of season. Meanwhile, -Spanish Popes, like Calixtus III. and Alexander VI., -helped to bring Spanish into fashion. It is unlikely that -the epical <i>Historia Parthenopea</i> (1516) of the Sevillan, -Alonso Hernández, found many readers even among the -admirers of the Great Captain, Gonzalo de Córdoba, -whose exploits are its theme; but it merits notice as -a Spanish book issued in Rome, and as a poor imitation -of Mena's <i>Trescientas</i>, with faint suggestions of an Italian -environment. A Spaniard, whom Encina may have met -upon his travels, introduced Italians to the Spanish -theatre. This was <span class="smcap">Bartolomé Torres Naharro</span>, a -native of Torres, near Badajoz. Our sole information -concerning him comes from a Letter Prefatory to his -works, written by one Barbier of Orleans. The dates of -his birth and death are unknown, and no proof supports -the story that he was driven from Rome because of his -satires on the Papal court. Neither do we know that he -died in extreme poverty. These are baseless tales. What -is certain is this: that Torres Naharro, having taken -orders, was captured by Algerine pirates, was ransomed, -and made his way to Rome about the year 1513. Further, -we know that he lived at Naples in the service of Fabrizio -Colonna, and that his collected plays were published at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -Naples in 1517 with the title of <i>Propaladia</i>, dedicated -to Francisco Dávalos, the Spanish husband of Vittoria -Colonna. That Torres Naharro was a favourite with -Leo X. rests on no better basis than the fact that in the -Pope's privilege to print he is styled <i>dilectus filius</i>.</p> - -<p>His friendly witness, Barbier, informs us that, though -Torres Naharro was quite competent to write his plays -in Latin, he chose Castilian of set purpose that "he -might be the first to write in the vulgar tongue." This -phrase, taken by itself, implies ignorance of Encina's -work; in any case, Torres Naharro develops his drama -on a larger scale than that of his predecessor. His -<i>Prohemio</i> or Preface is full of interesting doctrine. He -divides his plays into five acts, because Horace wills it -so, and these acts he calls <i>jornadas</i>, "because they resemble -so many resting-points." The personages should -not be too many: not less than six, and not more than -twelve. If the writer introduces some twenty characters -in his <i>Tinellaria</i>, he excuses himself on the ground -that "the subject needed it." He further apologises for -the introduction of Italian words in his plays: a concession -to "the place where, and the persons to whom, -the plays were recited." Lastly, Torres Naharro divides -dramas into two broad classes: first, the <i>comedia de -noticia</i>, which treats of events really seen and noted; -second, the <i>comedia de fantasía</i>, which deals with feigned -things, imaginary incidents that seem true, and might be -true, though in fact they are not so.</p> - -<p>Of the <i>comedia de fantasía</i> Torres Naharro is the -earliest master. He adventures on the allegorical drama -in his <i>Trofea</i>, which commemorates the exploits of -Manoel of Portugal in Africa and India, and brings -Fame and Apollo upon the stage. The chivalresque<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -drama is represented by him in such pieces as the -<i>Serafina</i>, the <i>Aquilana</i>, the <i>Himenea</i>; while he examples -the play of manners by the <i>Jacinta</i> and the <i>Soldadesca</i>. -Each piece begins with an <i>introyto</i> or prologue, wherein -indulgence and attention are requested; then follows -a concise summary of the plot; last, the action opens. -The faults of Torres Naharro's theatre are patent enough: -his tendency to turn comedy to farce, his inclination to -extravagance, his want of tact in crowding his stage—as -in the <i>Tinellaria</i>—with half-a-dozen characters chattering -in half-a-dozen different languages at once.</p> - -<p>Setting aside these primitive humours, it is impossible -to deny that Torres Naharro has a positive, as -well as an historic value. His versification, always in -the Castilian octosyllabic metre, with no trespassing on -the Italian hendecasyllabic, is neat and polished, and, -though far from splendid, lacks neither sweetness nor -speed; his dialogue is pointed, opportune, dramatic; -his characters are observed and are set in the proper -light. His verses entitled the <i>Lamentaciones de Amor</i> are -in the old, artificial manner; his satirical couplets on the -clergy are vigorous and witty attacks on the general life -of Rome; his devout songs are neither better nor worse -than those of his contemporaries; and his sonnets—two -in Italian, one in a mixture of Italian and Latin—are -mere curiosities of no real worth, yet they testify to the -writer's uncommon versatility. Versatile Torres Naharro -unquestionably was, and his gift serves him in the plays -for which he is remembered. He is the first Spaniard -to realise his personages, to create character on the -boards; the first to build a plot, to maintain an interest -of action by variety of incident, to polish an intrigue, -to concentrate his powers within manageable limits, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -view stage-effects from before the curtain. In a word, -Torres Naharro knew the stage, its possibilities, and its -resources. For his own age and for his opportunities -he knew it even too well; and his <i>Himenea</i>—the theme -of which is the love of Himeneo for Febea, with the -interposition of Febea's brother, petulant as to the -"point of honour"—is an isolated masterpiece, unrivalled -till the time of Lope de Vega. The accident that Torres -Naharro's <i>Propaladia</i> was printed in Italy; the misfortune -that its Spanish reprints were tardy, and that his -plays were too complicated for the primitive resources -of the Spanish stage: these delayed the development of -the Spanish theatre by close on a century. Yet the fact -remains: to find a match for the <i>Himenea</i> we must pass -to the best of Lope's pieces.</p> - -<p>Thus the Spaniard in Italy. In Portugal, likewise, he -made his way. <span class="smcap">Gil Vicente</span> (1470-1540), the Portuguese -dramatist, wrote forty-two pieces, of which ten are wholly -in Castilian, while fifteen are in a mixed jargon of Castilian -and Portuguese which the author himself ridicules -as <i>aravia</i> in his <i>Auto das Fadas</i>. An important historical -fact is that Vicente's earliest dramatic attempt, the -<i>Monologo da Visitação</i>, is in Castilian, and that it was -actually played—the first lay piece ever given in Portugal—on -June 8, 1502. Its simplicity of tone and elegance -of manner are reminiscent of Encina, and it can scarce -be doubted that Vicente's imitation is deliberate. Still -more obvious is the following of Encina's eclogues in -Vicente's <i>Auto pastoril Castelhano</i> and the <i>Auto dos Reis -Magos</i>, where the legend is treated with Encina's curious -touch of devotion and modernity, the whole closing with -a song in which all join. Once again Encina's influence -is manifest in the <i>Auto da Sibilla Cassandra</i>, wherein<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -Cassandra, niece of Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah, is wooed -by Solomon. In <i>Amadís de Gaula</i> and in <i>Dom Duardos</i> -there is a marked advance in elaboration and finish; and -in the <i>Auto da Fé</i> Vicente proves his independence by -an ingenuity and a fancy all his own. Here he displays -qualities above those of his model, and treats his subject -with such brilliancy that, a century and a half later, -Calderón condescended to borrow from the Portuguese -the idea of his <i>auto</i> entitled <i>El Lirio y la Azucena</i>. Gil -Vicente is technically a dramatist, but he is not dramatic -as Torres Naharro is dramatic. His action is slight, -his treatment timid and conventional, and he is more -poetic than inventive; still, his dramatic songs are of -singular beauty, conceived in a tone of mystic lyricism -unapproached by those who went before him, and surpassed -by few who followed. That Vicente was ever -played in Spain is not known; but that he influenced -both Lope de Vega and Calderón is as sure as that he -himself was a disciple of Encina.</p> - -<p>A more immediate factor in the evolution of Spanish -letters was the Catalan Boscá, whom it is convenient to -call by his Castilian name, <span class="smcap">Juan Boscán Almogaver</span> -(?1490-1542). A native of Barcelona, Boscán served -as a soldier in Italy, returned to Spain in 1519, and, as -we know from Garcilaso's Second Eclogue, was tutor -to Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, whom the world -knows as the Duque de Alba. Boscán's earliest verses -are all in the old manner; nor does he venture on -the Italian hendecasyllabic till the year 1526, just -before resigning his guardianship of Alba. His conversion -was the work of the Venetian ambassador, -Andrea Navagiero, an accomplished courtier, ill represented -by his <i>Viaggio fatto in Spagna</i>. Being at Granada<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -in the year 1526, Navagiero met Boscán, who has left us -an account of the conversation:—"Talking of wit and -letters, especially of their varieties in different tongues, -he inquired why I did not try in Castilian the sonnets -and verse-forms favoured by distinguished Italians. He -not only suggested this, but pressed me urgently to the -attempt. Some days later, I made for home, and, because -of the length and loneliness of the journey, thinking -matters over, I returned to what Navagiero had said, -and thus I first attempted this sort of verse; finding -it hard at the outset, since it is very intricate, with many -peculiarities, varying greatly from ours. Yet, later, I -fancied that I was progressing well, perhaps because we -all love our own essays; hence I continued, little by -little, with increasing zeal." This passage is a <i>locus -classicus</i>. Ticknor justly observes that no single foreigner -ever affected a national literature more deeply and more -instantly than Navagiero, and that we have here a first-hand -account, probably unique in literary history, of the -first inception of a revolution by the earliest, if not the -most conspicuous, actor in it. We have at last reached -the parting of the ways, and Boscán presents himself as -a guide to the Promised Land. The astonishing thing -is that Boscán, a Barcelonese by birth and residence, -ignores Auzías March.</p> - -<p>There were many Italianates before Boscán—as -Francisco Imperial and Santillana; but their hour was -not propitious, and Boscán is with justice regarded as -the leader of the movement. He was not a poet of -singular gifts, and he had the disadvantage of writing -in Castilian, which was not his native language; but -Boscán had the wit to see that Castilian was destined -to supremacy, and he mastered it for his purpose with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -that same dogged perseverance which led him to undertake -his more ambitious attempt unaided. He does not, -indeed, appear to have sought for disciples, nor were -his own efforts as successful as he believed: "perhaps -because we all love our own essays." His Castilian -prose is evidence of his gift of style, and his translation -of Castiglione's <i>Cortegiano</i> is a triumph of rendering fit -to take its place beside our Thomas Hoby's version of -the same original. But, it must be said frankly, that -Boscán's most absolute success is in prose. Herrera -bitterly taunts him with decking himself in the precious -robes of Petrarch, and with remaining, spite of all that -he can do, "a foreigner in his language." And the -charge is true. In verse Boscán's defects grow very -visible: his hardness, his awkward construction, his unrefined -ear, his uncertain touch upon his instrument, his -boisterous execution. Still, it is not as an original -genius that Boscán finds place in history, but rather as -an initiator, a master-opportunist who, without persuasion, -by the sheer force of conviction and example, led -a nation to abandon the ancient ways, and to admit -the potency and charm of exotic forms. That in itself -constitutes a title, if not to immortality, at least to -remembrance.</p> - -<p>Boscán's influence manifested itself in diverse ways. -His friend, Garcilaso de la Vega, sent him the first -edition of Castiglione's <i>Cortegiano</i>, printed at Venice in -1528. This—"the best book that ever was written -upon good breeding," according to Samuel Johnson—was -triumphantly translated into Castilian by Boscán at -Garcilaso's prayer; and, though Boscán himself held -translation to be a thing meet for "men of small -parts," his rendering is an almost perfect performance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -Moreover, it was the single work published by him -(1534), for his poems appeared under his widow's care. -Once more, in an epistle directed to Hurtado de Mendoza, -Boscán re-echoes Horace's note of elegant simplicity -with a faithfulness not frequent in his work; -and, lastly, it is known that he did into Castilian an -Euripidean play, which, though licensed for the press, -was never printed. Truly it seems that Boscán was -conscious of his very definite limitations, and that he -felt the necessity of a copy, rather than a direct model. -If it were so, this would indicate a power of conscious -selection, a faculty for self-criticism which cannot be -traced in his published verses. His earlier poems, written -in Castilian measures, show him for a man destitute -of guidance, thrown on his own resources, a perfectly -undistinguished versifier with naught to sing and with -no dexterity of vocalisation. Yet, let Boscán betake -himself to the poets of the Cinque Cento, and he flashes -forth another being: the dauntless adventurer sailing -for unknown continents, inspired by the enthusiasm of -immediate suggestion.</p> - -<p>His <i>Hero y Leandra</i> is frankly based upon Musæus, -and it is characteristic of Boscán's mode that he expands -Musæus' three hundred odd hexameters into nigh three -thousand hendecasyllabics. Professor Flamini has demonstrated -most convincingly that Boscán followed -Tasso's <i>Favola</i>, but he comes far short of Tasso's variety, -distinction, and grace. He annexes the Italian blank verse—the -<i>versi sciolti</i>—as it were by sheer force, but he never -subdues the metre to his will, and his monotony of -accent and mechanical cadence grow insufferable. Not -only so: too often the very pretence of inspiration dissolves, -and the writer descends upon slothful prose,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -sliced into lines of regulation length, honeycombed with -flat colloquialisms. Conspicuously better is the <i>Octava -Rima</i>—an allegory embodying the Court of Love and -the Court of Jealousy, with the account of an embassage -from the former to two fair Barcelonese rebels. -Of this performance Thomas Stanley has given an -English version (1652) from which these stanzas are -taken:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>In the bright region of the fertile east</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Where constant calms smooth heav'n's unclouded brow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>There lives an easy people, vow'd to rest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Who on love only all their hours bestow:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>By no unwelcome discontent opprest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>No cares save those that from this passion flow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Here reigns, here ever uncontroll'd did reign;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The beauteous Queen sprung from the foaming main.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Her hand the sceptre bears, the crown her head,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Her willing vassals here their tribute pay:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Here is her sacred power and statutes spread,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Which all with cheerful forwardness obey:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The lover by affection hither led,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Receives relief, sent satisfied away:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Here all enjoy, to give their last flames ease,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The pliant figure of their mistresses ...</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Love every structure offers to the sight,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And every stone his soft impression wears.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The fountains, moving pity and delight,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>With amorous murmurs drop persuasive tears.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The rivers in their courses love invite,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Love is the only sound their motion bears.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The winds in whispers soothe these kind desires,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And fan with their mild breath Love's glowing fires.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Ticknor ranks this as "the most agreeable and original -of Boscán's works," and as to the correctness of the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -adjective there can be no two opinions. But concerning -Boscán's originality there is much to say. Passage upon -passage in the <i>Octava Rima</i> is merely a literal rendering -of Bembo's <i>Stanze</i>, and the translation begins undisguised -at the opening line. Where the Italian writes, "<i>Ne -l'odorato e lucido Oriente</i>," the Spaniard follows him with -the candid transcription, "<i>En el lumbroso y fértil Oriente</i>"; -and the imitation is further tesselated with mosaics -conveyed from Claudian, from Petrarch, and Ariosto. -None the less is it just to say that the conveyance is -executed with considerable—almost with masterly—skill. -The borrowing nowise belittles Boscán; for he was not—did -not pose as—a great spirit with an original voice. -He makes no claim whatever, he seeks for no applause—the -shy, taciturn experimentalist who published never a -line of verse, and piped for his own delight. Equipped -with the ambition, though not with the accomplishment, -of the artist, Boscán has a prouder place than he ever -dreamed of, since he is confessedly the earliest representative -of a new poetic dynasty, the victorious leader -of a desperately forlorn hope. That title is his laurel -and his garland. He led his race into the untrodden -ways, triumphing without effort where men of more -strenuous faculty had failed; and his results have successfully -challenged time, inasmuch as there has been -no returning from his example during nigh four -hundred years. Not a great genius, not a lordly -versifier, endowed with not one supreme gift, Boscán -ranks as an unique instance in the annals of literary -adventure by virtue of his enduring and irrevocable -victory.</p> - -<p>His is the foremost post in point of time. In point -of absolute merit he is easily outshone by his younger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -comrade, <span class="smcap">Garcilaso de la Vega</span> (1503-36), the -bearer of a name renowned in Spanish chronicle and -song. Grandson of Pérez de Guzmán, Garcilaso entered -the Royal Body-guard in his eighteenth year. He -quitted him like the man he was in crushing domestic -rebellion, and, despite the fact that his brother, Pedro, -served in the insurgent ranks, Garcilaso grew into favour -with the Emperor.</p> - -<p>At Pavia, where Francis lost all save honour, Garcilaso -distinguished himself by his intrepidity. For a -moment he fell into disgrace because of his connivance -at a secret marriage between his cousin and one of the -Empress' Maids of Honour: interned in an islet on -the Danube,—<i>Danubio, rio divino</i>, he calls it,—he there -composed one of his most admired pieces, richly charged -with exotic colouring. His imprisonment soon ended, -and, with intervals of service before Tunis, and with spells -of embassies between Spain and Italy, his last years were -mostly spent at Naples in the service of the Spanish -Viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, Marqués de Villafranca, father -of Garcilaso's friend, the Duque de Alba. In the Provençal -campaign the Spanish force was held in check by -a handful of yeomen gathered in the fort of Muy, between -Draguignan and Fréjus. Muy recalls to Spanish hearts -such memories as Zutphen brings to Englishmen. In -itself the engagement was a mere skirmish: for Garcilaso -it was a great and picturesque occasion. The accounts -given by Navarrete and García Cerezeda vary in -detail, but their general drift is identical. The last of the -Spanish Cæsars named his personal favourite, the most -dashing of Spanish soldiers and the most distinguished of -Spanish poets, to command the storming-party. Doffing -his breastplate and his helmet that he might be seen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -by all beholders—by the Emperor not less than by the -army—Garcilaso led the assault in person, was among -the first to climb the breach, and fell mortally wounded in -the arms of Jerónimo de Urrea, the future translator of -Ariosto, and of his more intimate friend, the Marqués de -Lombay, whom the world knows best as St. Francis -Borgia. He was buried with his ancestors in his own -Toledo, where, as even the grudging Góngora allows, -every stone within the city is his monument.</p> - -<p>His illustrious descent, his ostentatious valour, his -splendid presence, his seductive charm, his untimely -death: all these, joined to his gift of song, combine to -make him the hero of a legend and the idol of a nation. -Like Sir Philip Sidney, Garcilaso personified all accomplishments -and all graces. He died at thirty-three: the -fact must be borne in mind when we take account of his -life's work in literature. Yet Europe mourned for him, -and the loyal Boscán proclaimed his debt to the brilliant -soldier-poet. Pleased as the Catalan was with his novel -experiments, he avows he would not have persevered -"but for the encouragement of Garcilaso, whose decision—not -merely to my mind, but to the whole world's—is to -be taken as final. By praising my attempts, by showing -the surest sign of approval through his acceptance of my -example, he led me to dedicate myself wholly to the -undertaking." Boscán and Garcilaso were not divided -by death. The former's widow, Ana Girón de Rebolledo, -gave her husband's verses to the press in 1543; and, -more jealous for the fame of her husband's friend than -were any of his own household, she printed Garcilaso's -poems in the Fourth Book.</p> - -<p>Garcilaso is eminently a poet of refinement, distinction, -and cultivation. What Boscán half knew, Garcilaso knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -to perfection, and his accomplishment was wider as well -as deeper.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Living his last years in Naples, Garcilaso -had caught the right Renaissance spirit, and is beyond -all question the most Italianate of Spanish poets in form -and substance. He was not merely the associate of -such expatriated countrymen as Juan de Valdés: he was -the friend of Bembo and Tansillo, the first of whom -calls him the best loved and the most welcome of all -the Spaniards that ever came to Italy. To Tansillo, Garcilaso -was attached by bonds of closest intimacy, and -the reciprocal influence of the one upon the other is -manifest in the works of both. This association would -seem to have been the chief part of Garcilaso's literary -training. His few flights in the old Castilian metres, his -songs and <i>villancicos</i>, are of small importance; his finest -efforts are cast in the exotic moulds. It is scarcely -an exaggeration to say that fundamentally he is a Neapolitan -poet.</p> - -<p>The sum of his production is slight: the inconsiderable -<i>villancicos</i>, three eclogues, two elegies, an epistle, -five highly elaborated songs, and thirty-eight Petrarchan -sonnets. Small as is his work in bulk, it cannot be -denied that it was like nothing before it in Castilian. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>Auzías March, no doubt, had earlier struck a similar -note in Catalan, and Garcilaso, who seems to have -read everything, imitates his predecessor's harmonies and -cadences. His trick of reminiscence is remarkable. -Thus, his first eclogue is plainly suggested by Tansillo; -his second eclogue is little more than a rendering in -verse of picked passages from the <i>Arcadia</i> of Jacopo -Sannazaro; while the fifth of his songs—<i>La Flor de -Gnido</i>—is a most masterly transplantation of Bernardo -Tasso's structure to Castilian soil. And almost every -page is touched with the deliberate, conscious elegance of -a student in the school of Horace. In simple execution -Garcilaso is impeccable. The objection most commonly -made is that he surrenders his personality, and converts -himself into the exquisite echo of an exhausted pseudo-classic -convention. And the charge is plausible.</p> - -<p>It is undeniably true that Garcilaso's distinction lacks -the force of real simplicity, that his eternal sweetness -cloys, and that the thing said absorbs him less than the -manner of saying it. He would have met the criticism -that he was an artificial poet by pointing out that, poetry -being an art, it is of essence artificial. That he was an -imitative artist was his highest glory: by imitating foreign -models he attained his measure of originality, enriching -Spain, with not merely a number of technical forms but -a new poetic language. Without him Boscán must have -failed in his emprise, as Santillana failed before him. -Besides his technical perfection, Garcilaso owned the -poetic temperament—a temperament too effeminately -delicate for the vulgarities of life. As he tells us in his -third eclogue, he lived, "now using the sword, now the -pen:"—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Tomando ora la espada, ora la pluma.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> - -<p>But the clank of the sabre is never heard in the fiery -soldier's verse. His atmosphere is not that of battle, but -is rather the enchanted haze of an Arcadia which never -was nor ever could be in a banal world. As thus, in -Wiffen's version:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Here ceased the youth his Doric madrigal,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And sighing, with his last laments let fall</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A shower of tears; the solemn mountains round,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Indulgent of his sorrow, tossed the sound</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Melodious from romantic steep to steep,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In mild responses deep;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Sweet Echo, starting from her couch of moss,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Lengthened the dirge; and tenderest Philomel,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>As pierced with grief and pity at his loss,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Warbled divine reply, nor seemed to trill</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Less than Jove's nectar from her mournful bill.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What Nemoroso sang in sequel, tell,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Ye sweet-voiced Sirens of the sacred hill.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This is, in a sense, "unnatural"; but if we are to -condemn it as such, we must even reject the whole -school of pastoral, a convention of which the sixteenth -century was enamoured. When Garcilaso introduced -himself as Salicio, and, under the name of -Nemoroso, presented Boscán (or, as Herrera will have -it, Antonio de Fonseca), he but took the formula as he -found it, and translated it in terms of genius. He was -consciously returning upon nature; not upon the material -facts of existence as it is, but upon a figmentary -nature idealised into a languid and ethereal beauty. He -sought for effects of suavest harmony, embodying in -his song a mystic neo-platonism, the <i>morbidezza</i> of "love -in the abstract," set off by grace and sensibility and -elfin music. It may be permissible for the detached -critic to appreciate Garcilaso at something less than his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -secular renown, but this superior attitude were unlawful -and inexpedient for an historical reviewer.</p> - -<p>Time and unanimity settle many questions: and, after -all, on a matter concerning Castilian poetry, the unbroken -verdict of the Castilian-speaking race must be accepted -as weighty, if not final. Garcilaso may not be a supreme -singer; he is at least one of the greatest of the Spanish -poets. Choosing to reproduce the almost inimitable -cadences of the Virgilian eclogue, he achieves his end -with a dexterity that approaches genius. Others before -him had hit upon what seemed "pretty i' the Mantuan": -he alone suggests the secret of Virgil's brooding, incommunicable, -and melancholy charm. What Boscán saw -to be possible, what he attempted with more good-will -than fortune, that Garcilaso did with an instant and -peremptory triumph. He naturalised the sonnet, he -enlarged the framework of the song, he invented the -ode, he so bravely arranged his lines of seven and eleven -syllables that the fascination of his harmonies has led -historians to forget Bernardo Tasso's priority in discovering -the resources of the <i>lira</i>. In rare, unwary moments -he lets fall an Italian or French idiom, nor is he always -free from the pedantry of his time; but absolute perfection -is not of this world, and is least to be asked of one -who, writing in moments stolen from the rough life of -camps, died at thirty-three, full of immense promise and -immense possibilities. To speculate upon what Garcilaso -might have become is vanity. As it is, he survives as -the Prince of Italianates, the acknowledged master of -the Cinque Cento form. Cervantes and Lope de Vega, -agreed upon nothing else, are at one in holding him for -the first of Castilian poets. With slight reservations, -their judgment has been sustained, and even to-day the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -sweet-voiced, amatorious paladin leaves an abiding impress -upon the character of his national literature.</p> - -<p>An early sectary of the school is discovered in the -person of the Portuguese poet, <span class="smcap">Francisco de Sâ de -Miranda</span> (1495-1558), who so frequently forsakes his -native tongue that of 189 pieces included in Mme. Carolina -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos' edition, seventy-four are -in Castilian. Sâ de Miranda's early poems written before -1532—the <i>Fábula de Mondego</i>, the <i>Canção á Virgem</i>, and -the eclogue entitled <i>Aleixo</i>—are in the old manner. His -later works, such as <i>Nemoroso</i>, with innumerable sonnets -and the three elegies composed between 1552 and 1555, -are all undisguised imitations of Boscán and Garcilaso, for -whom the writer professes a rapturous enthusiasm. Sâ -de Miranda ranks among the six most celebrated Portuguese -poets; and, stranger though he be, even in Castilian -literature he distinguishes himself by his correctness of -form, by his sincerity of sentiment, and by a genuine -love of natural beauty very far removed from the falsetto -admiration too current among his contemporaries.</p> - -<p>The soldier, <span class="smcap">Gutierre de Cetina</span> (1520-60) is another -partisan of the Italian school. Serving in Italy, -he pursued his studies to the best advantage, and won -friendship and aid from literary magnates like the Prince -of Ascoli, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza; but soldiering -was little to his taste, and, after a campaign in -Germany, Cetina retired to his native Seville, whence he -passed to Mexico about the year 1550. He is known to -have written in the dramatic form, but no specimen of -his drama survives, unless it be sepultured in some obscure -Central American library. Cetina is a copious -sonneteer who manages his rhyme-sequences with more -variety than his predecessors, and his songs and madrigals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -are excellent specimens of finished workmanship. -His general theme is Arcadian love—the beauty of -Amaríllida, the piteous passion of the shepherd Silvio, -the grief of the nymph Flora for Menalca. His treatment -is always ingenious, his frugality in the matter of -adjectives is edifying, though it scandalised the exuberant -Herrera, who, as a true Andalucían, esteems emphasis -and epithet and metaphor as the three things needful. -Cetina's sobriety is paid for by a certain preciosity of -utterance near akin to weakness; but he excels in the -sonnet form, which he handles with a mastery superior -to Garcilaso's own, and he adds a touch of humour uncommon -in the mannered school that he adorns.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Fernando de Acuña</span> (? 1500-80) comes into notice -as the translator of Olivier de la Marche's popular -allegorical poem, the <i>Chevalier Délibéré</i>, a favourite with -Carlos Quinto. The Emperor is said to have amused -himself by translating the French poem into Spanish -prose, and to have commissioned Acuña to a poetic -version. A courtier like Van Male gives us to understand -that some part of Acuña's <i>Caballero determinado</i> is -based upon the Emperor's prose rendering, and the -insinuation is that Acuña and his master should share -the praise of the former's exploit. This pleasant tale -is scarce plausible, for we know that the Cæsar never -mastered colloquial Castilian, and that he should shine -in its literary exercise is almost incredible. Be that as -it may, Acuña's <i>Caballero determinado</i>, a fine example -of the old <i>quintillas</i>, met with wide and instant appreciation; -yet he never sought to follow up his triumph -in the same kind. The new influence was irresistible, -and Acuña succumbed to it, imitating the <i>lira</i> of -Garcilaso to the point of parody, singing as "Damon in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -absence," practising the pastoral, aspiring to Homer's -dignity in his blank verses entitled the <i>Contienda de -Ayax Telamonio y de Ulises</i>. Three Castilian cantos of -Boiardo's <i>Orlando Innamorato</i> won applause in Italy; -but Acuña's best achievements are his sonnets, which -are almost always admirable. One of them contains a -line as often quoted as any other in all Castilian verse:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Un Monarca, un Imperio, y una Espada,</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"One Monarch, one Empire, and one Sword." And -this pious aspiration after unity had perhaps been fulfilled -if Spain had abounded with such prudent and -accomplished figures as Fernando de Acuña.</p> - -<p>A more powerful and splendid personality is that of -the illustrious <span class="smcap">Diego Hurtado de Mendoza</span> (1503-1575), -one of the greatest figures in the history of -Spanish politics and letters. Educated for the Church -at the University of Salamanca, Mendoza preferred the -career of arms, and found his opportunity at Pavia and -in the Italian wars. Before he was twenty-nine he was -named Ambassador to the Venetian Republic, became -the patron of the Aldine Press, and studied the classics -with all the ardour of his temperament. One of the -few Spaniards learned in Arabic, Mendoza was a distinguished -collector: he ransacked the monastery of -Mount Athos for Greek manuscripts, secured others from -Sultan Suliman the Magnificent, and had almost all -Bessarion's Greek collection transcribed for his own -library, now housed in the Escorial. The first complete -edition of Josephus was printed from Mendoza's copies. -He represented the Emperor at the Council of Trent, -and saw to it that Cardinals and Archbishops did what -Spain expected of them. In 1547 he was appointed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -Plenipotentiary to Rome, where he treated Pope Julius -III. as cavalierly as his Holiness was accustomed to treat -his own curates. In 1554 Mendoza returned to Spain, -and the accession of Felipe II. in 1556 brought his public -career to a close. He is alleged to have been Ambassador -to England; and one would fain the report were true.</p> - -<p>His wit and picaresque malice are well shown in his -old-fashioned <i>redondillas</i>; which delighted so good a -judge as Lope de Vega, and his real strength lay in his -management of these forms. But his long Italian residence -and his sleepless intellectual curiosity ensured his -experimenting in the high Roman manner. Tibullus, -Horace, Ovid, Virgil, Homer, Pindar, Anacreon: all -these are forced into Mendoza's service, as in his epistles -and his <i>Fábula de Adonis, Hipómenes y Atalanta</i>. It -cannot be said that he is at his best in these pseudo-classical -performances, and he dares to eke out his -hendecasyllabics by using a final <i>palabra aguda</i>; but -the extreme brilliancy of the humour carries off all -technical defects in the burlesque section of his poems, -which are of the loosest gaiety, most curious in a retired -proconsul. Yet, if Mendoza, who excelled in the old, -felt compelled to pen his forty odd sonnets in the new -style, how strong must have been its charm! Whatever -his formal defects, Mendoza's authority was decisive in -the contest between the native and the foreign types of -verse: he helped to secure the latter's definitive triumph.</p> - -<p>The greatest rebel against the invasion was <span class="smcap">Cristóbal -de Castillejo</span> (? 1494-1556), who passed thirty years -abroad in the service of Ferdinand, King of Bohemia. -Much of his life was actually spent in Italy, but he -kept his national spirit almost absolutely free from the -foreign influence. If he compromises at all, the furthest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -he can go is in adopting the mythological machinery -favoured by all contemporaries, and even for this he -could plead respectable Castilian precedent; but in -the matter of form, Castillejo is cruelly intransigent. -Boscán is his especial butt.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Él mismo confesará</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Que no sabe donde va</i>"—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"He himself will confess that he knows not whither he -goes." That, indeed, appears to have been Castillejo's -fixed idea on the subject, and he expends an infinite deal -of sarcasm and ridicule upon the apostates who, as he -thinks, hide their poverty of thought in tawdry motley. -His own subjects are perfectly fitted to treatment in the -<i>villancico</i> form, and when he is not simply improper—as -in <i>El Sermón de los Sermones</i>—his verses are remarkable -for their sprightly grace and bitter-sweet wit, which can, -at need, turn to rancorous invective or to devotional -demureness. Had he lived in Spain, it is probable that -Castillejo's mordant ridicule might have delayed the -Italian supremacy. As it was, his flouts and jibes arrived -too late, and the old patriot died, as he had lived, a brilliant, -impenitent, futile Tory.</p> - -<p>In one of his sonnets, conceived in the most mischievous -spirit of travesty, Castillejo singles out for -reprobation a poet named Luis de Haro, as one of the -Italian agitators. Unluckily Haro's verses have practically -disappeared from the earth, and the few specimens -preserved in Nájera's <i>Cancionero</i> are banal exercises -in the old Castilian manner. A practitioner more after -Castillejo's heart was the ingenious Antonio de Villegas -(fl. 1551), whose <i>Inventario</i>, apart from tedious paraphrases -of the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in the style<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -of Bottom the Weaver, contains many excellent society-verses, -touched with conceits of extreme sublety, and -a few more serious efforts in the form of <i>décimas</i>, not -without a grave urbanity and a penetration of their own. -Francisco de Castilla, a contemporary of Villegas, vies -with him in essaying the hopeless task of bringing the -old rhythms into new repute; but his <i>Teórica de virtudes</i>, -dignified and elevated in style and thought, had merely -a momentary vogue, and is now unjustly considered a -mere bibliographical curiosity.</p> - -<p>A student in both schools was the Portuguese <span class="smcap">Gregorio -Silvestre</span> (1520-70), choirmaster and organist -in the Cathedral of Granada, who, beginning with a boy's -admiration for Garci Sánchez and Torres Naharro, practised -the <i>redondilla</i> with such success as to be esteemed -an expert in the art. A certain Pedro de Cáceres y Espinosa, -in a <i>Discurso</i> prefixed to Silvestre's poems (1582), -tells us that his author "imitated Cristóbal de Castillejo, -in speaking ill of the Italian arrangements," and that he -cultivated the novelties for the practical reason that they -were popular. It is certain that Silvestre is as attractive -in the new as in the old kind, that his elegance never -obscures his simplicity, that he shows a rare sense of -ordered outline, an exceptional finish in the technical -details of both manners. His conversion is the last that -need be recorded here. The <i>villancico</i> still found its -supporters among men of letters, and, as late as the -seventeenth century, both Cervantes and Lope de Vega -profess a platonic attachment to it and kindred metres; -but the public mind was set against a revival, and Cervantes -and Lope were forced to abandon any idea (if, -indeed, they ever entertained it) of breathing life into -these dead bones.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> - -<p>Didactic prose was practised, according to the old tradition, -by Juan López de Vivero Palacios Rubios, who -published in 1524 his <i>Tratado del esfuerzo bélico heróico</i>, a -pseudo-philosophic inquiry into the origin and nature -of martial valour, written in a clear and forcible style. -Francisco López de Villalobos (1473-1549), a Jewish -convert attached to the royal household as physician, -began by translating Pliny's <i>Amphitruo</i> in such fashion -as to bring down on him the thunders of Hernán -Núñez. Villalobos works the didactic vein in his -rhymed <i>Sumario de Medicina</i> which Ticknor ignores, -though he mentions its late derivatives, the <i>Trescientas -preguntas</i> of Alonso López de Corelas (1546) and the -<i>Cuatrocientas respuestas</i> of Luis de Escobar (1552). But -the witty physician's most praiseworthy performance is -his <i>Tratado de las tres Grandes</i>—namely, talkativeness, -obstinacy, and laughter—where his familiar humour, his -frolic, fantasy, and perverse acuteness far outshine the -sham philosophy and the magisterial intention of his -other work. A graver talent is that of Fernando Pérez -de Oliva (1492-1530), once lecturer in the University of -Paris, and, later, Rector of Salamanca, who boasts of -having travelled three thousand leagues in pursuit of -culture. His <i>Diálogo de la Dignidad del Hombre</i>, written -to show that Castilian is as good a vehicle as the more -fashionable Latin for the discussion of transcendental -matters, is an excellent example of cold, stately, Ciceronian -prose, and the continuation by his friend, Francisco -Cervantes de Salazar, is worthy of the beginning; -but the hold of ecclesiastical Latin was too fast to be -loosed at a first attempt.</p> - -<p>Oliva's reputation is strictly Spanish: not so that -of Carlos Quinto's official chronicler, <span class="smcap">Antonio de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -Guevara</span> (d. 1545), a Franciscan monk who held the -bishopric of Mondoñedo. His <i>Reloj de Príncipes</i> (Dial -of Princes), a didactic novel with Marcus Aurelius for -its hero, was originally composed to encourage his own -patron to imitate the virtues of the wisest ancient. Unluckily, -however, Guevara passed his book off as authentic -history, alleging it to be a translation of a non-existent -manuscript in the Florentine collection. This brought -him into trouble with antagonists as varied as the court-fool, -Francesillo de Zúñiga, and a Sorian professor, the -Bachelor Pedro de Rhua, whose <i>Cartas censorias</i> unmasked -the imposture with malignant astuteness. But -this critical faculty was confined to the Peninsula, -and North's English translation, dedicated to Mary -Tudor, popularised Guevara's name in England, where -he is believed by some authorities to have exercised -considerable influence on the style of English prose. -This, however, is not the place to discuss that most -difficult question. An instance of Guevara's better -manner is offered by his <i>Década de los Césares</i>, though -even here he interpolates his own unscrupulous inventions -and embellishments, as he also does in his <i>Familiar -Epistles</i>, Englished by Edward Hellowes, Groom of the -Leash, from whose version an illustration may be borrowed:—"The -property of love is to turn the rough into -plain, the cruel to gentle, the bitter to sweet, the unsavoury -to pleasant, the angry to quiet, the malicious -to simple, the gross to advised, and also the heavy to -light. He that loveth, neither can he murmur of him that -doth anger him: neither deny that they ask him: neither -resist when they take from him: neither answer when -they reprove him: neither revenge if they shame him: -neither yet will he be gone when they send him away."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -These pompous commonplaces abound in the <i>Familiar -Epistles</i>, which, though still the most readable of Guevara's -performances, are tedious in their elaborate accumulation -of saws and instances, unimpressively collected from -the four quarters of the earth. But the rhetorical letters -went the round of the world, were translated times out -of number, and were commonly called "The Golden -Letters," to denote their unique worth.</p> - -<p>More serious and less attractive historians are Pedro -Mexía (1496-1552), whose <i>Historia Imperial y Cesárea</i> is -a careful compilation of biographies of Roman rules -from Cæsar to Maximilian, and Florián de Ocampo -(1499-1555), canon of Zamora, and an official chronicler, -who, taking the Deluge as his starting-point, naturally -enough fails to bring his dry-as-dust annals later than -Roman times, and endeavours to follow the critical -canons of his time with better intention than performance. -The <i>Comentarios de la Guerra en Alemania</i> of -Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga are valuable as containing the -evidence of an acute, direct observer of events; but -Ávila's exaggerated esteem for his master causes him to -convert his history into an elaborate apology. Carlos -Quinto's own dry criticism of the book is final:—"Alexander's -achievements surpassed mine—but he was less -lucky in his chronicler." The conquest of America -begot a crowd of histories, of which but few need be -named here. González Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés -(1478-1557), once secretary to the Great Captain, gives an -official picture of the New World in his <i>Historia general -y natural de Indias</i>, and a similar study from an opposed -and higher point of view is to be found in the work of -Bartolomé de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa (1474-1566), -whose passionate eloquence on behalf of the American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -Indians is displayed in his <i>Brevísima relación de la destrucción -de Indias</i> (1552); but here again history declines -into polemics, the offices of judge and advocate overlapping. -The famous <span class="smcap">Hernán Cortés</span> (1485-1554), <i>El -Conquistador</i>, was a man of action; but his official -reports on Mexico and its affairs are drawn up with -exceeding skill, and in energy of phrase and luminous -concision may stand as models in their kind. Cortés -found his panegyrist in his chaplain, Francisco López -de Gómara (1519-60), whose interesting <i>Conquista de -Méjico</i> is an uncritical eulogy on his chief, whom he -extols at the expense of his brother adventurers. The -antidote was supplied by <span class="smcap">Bernal Díaz del Castillo</span> -(fl. 1568), whose <i>Historia verdadera de la conquista de la -Nueva España</i> is a first-class example of military indignation. -"Here the chronicler Gómara in his history -says just the opposite of what really happened. Whoso -reads him will see that he writes well, and that, with -proper information, he could have stated his facts -correctly: as it is, they are all lies." The manifest -honesty and simplicity of the old soldier, who shared in -one hundred and nineteen engagements and could not -sleep unless in armour, are extremely winning; his -prolix ingenuousness has been admirably rendered in -our day by a descendant of the Conquistadores, M. José -María Heredia, whose French version is a triumph of -translation.</p> - -<p>Incredible tales from the Western Indies stimulated -the popular appetite for miracles in terms of fiction. -Paez de Ribera added a sixth book to <i>Amadís</i>, under the -title of <i>Florisando</i> (1510); Feliciano de Silva wrote a -seventh, ninth, tenth, and eleventh—<i>Lisuarte</i> (1510), -<i>Amadís de Grecia</i> (1530), <i>Florisel de Niquea</i> (1532), and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -<i>Rogel de Grecia</i>; and he would certainly have supplied -the eighth book had he not been anticipated by Juan -Díaz with a second <i>Lisuarte</i>. Parallel with <i>Amadís</i> ran -the series of <i>Palmerín de Oliva</i> (1511), which tradition -ascribes to an anonymous lady of Augustobriga, but -which may just as well be the work of Francisco Vázquez -de Ciudad Rodrigo, as it is said to be in its first descendant -<i>Primaleón</i> (1512). <i>Polindo</i> (1526) continues the tale, -and an unknown author pursues it in the <i>Crónica del -muy valiente Platir</i> (1533), while <i>Palmerín de Inglaterra</i> -(1547-48) closes the cycle. Curious readers may study -this last in the English version of Anthony Munday -(1616), who commends it as an excellent and stately -history, "wherein gentlemen may find choice of sweet -inventions, and gentlewomen be satisfied in courtly expectations." -These are but a few of the extravagances of -the press, and the madness spread so wide that Carlos -Quinto, admirer as he was of <i>Don Belianís de Grecia</i>, was -forced to protect the New World against invasion by -books of this class. Scarcely less numerous are the -continuations of the <i>Celestina</i>, due to the indefatigable -Feliciano de Silva, to Gaspar Gómez de Toledo, to -Sancho Muñoz, and others.</p> - -<p>A new species begins with the first picaroon novel, -<i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>, long ascribed to Diego Hurtado de -Mendoza, an attribution now commonly rejected on the -authority of that distinguished Spanish scholar, M. Alfred -Morel-Fatio. There is something to be said in favour -of Mendoza's claim which may not be said for lack of -space. As to <i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>, authorship, date and -place of publication are all uncertain: the three earliest -editions known appeared at Antwerp, Burgos, and Alcalá -de Henares in 1554. It is the autobiography of Lázaro,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -son of the miller, Tomé González, and the trull, Antonia -Pérez. He describes his adventures as leader of a blind -man, as servant to a miserly priest, to a starving gentleman, -to a beggar-monk, to a vendor of indulgences, to a -signboard painter, to an alguazil, ending his career in a -Government post—<i>un oficio real</i>—as town-crier of Toledo. -There we leave him "at the height of all good fortune." -Lázaro's experience with the hungry hidalgo may be -quoted from the admirable archaic rendering by David -Rowland, of Anglesea:—</p> - -<p>"It pleased God to accomplish my desire and his -together, for when as I had begun my meat, as he -walked, he came near to me, saying: 'Lázaro, I promise -thee thou hast the best grace in eating that ever -I did see any man have; for there is no man that seest -thee eat, but seeing thee feed, shall have appetite, although -they be not a-hungered.' Then would I say to myself, -'The hunger which thou sustainest causeth thee to think -mine so beautiful.' Then I trusted I might help him, -seeing that he had so helped himself, and had opened -me the way thereto. Wherefore I said unto him, 'Sir, -the good tools make the workmen good: this bread hath -good taste, and this neat's-foot is so well sod, and so -cleanly dressed, that it is able, with the flavour of it only, -to entice any man to eat of it.' 'What? is it a neat's-foot?' -'Yes, sir.' 'Now, I promise thee it is the best -morsel in the world: there is no pheasant that I would -like so well.' 'I pray thee, sir, prove of it better and see -how you like it.'... Whereupon he sitteth down by -me, and then began to eat like one that hath great need, -gnawing every one of those little bones better than any -greyhound could have done for life, saying, 'This is a -singular good meal: by God, I have eaten it with a good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -stomach, as if I had eaten nothing all this day before.' -Then I, with a low voice, said, 'God send me to live long -as sure as that is true.' And, having ended his victuals, -he commanded me to reach him the pot of water, which -I gave him even as full as I had brought it from the -river.... We drank both, and went to bed, as the -night before, at that time well satisfied. And now, to -avoid long talk, we continued after this sort eight or nine -days. The poor gentleman went every day to brave it -out in the street, to content himself with his accustomed -stately pace, and always I, poor Lázaro, was fain to be -his purveyor."</p> - -<p>Written in the most debonair, idiomatic Castilian, -<i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i> condenses into nine chapters the -cynicism, the wit, and the resource of an observer of -genius. After three hundred years, it survives all its -rivals, and may be read with as much edification and -amusement as on the day of its first appearance. It -set a fashion, a fashion that spread to all countries, and -finds a nineteenth-century manifestation in the pages of -<i>Pickwick</i>; but few of its successors match it in satirical -humour, and none approach it in pregnant concision, -where no word is superfluous, and where every word -tells with consummate effect. Whoever wrote the book, -he fixed for ever the type of the comic prose epic as -rendered by the needy, and he did it in such wise as to -defy all competition. Yet ill-advised competitors were -found: one, who has the grace to hide his name, at -Antwerp, continuing Lázaro's adventures by exhibiting -the gay scamp as a tunny, and a certain Juan de Luna, -who, so late as 1620, converted Lázaro to a sea-monster -on show.</p> - -<p>Mysticism finds two distinguished exponents, of whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -the earlier is the Apostle of Andalucía, the Venerable -<span class="smcap">Juan de Ávila</span> (1502-69), a priest, who, educated at -the University of Alcalá, is famous for his sanctity, his -evangelic missions in Granada, Córdoba, and Seville. -The merest accident prevented his sailing for the New -World in the suite of the Bishop of Tlaxcala, and his -inopportune fervour led to his imprisonment by the -Inquisition. Most of his religious treatises, beautiful as -they are, are too technical for our purpose here; but his -<i>Cartas Espirituales</i> are redolent of religious unction combined -with the wisest practical spirit, the most sagacious -counsel, and the rarest loving-kindness. Long practice -in exhorting crowds of unlettered sinners had purged -Juan de Ávila's style of the Asiatic exuberance in favour -with Guevara and other contemporaries; and, though -he considered letters a vanity, his own practice shows -him to be a master in the accommodation of the lowliest, -most familiar language to the loftiest subject.</p> - -<p>In the opposite camp is <span class="smcap">Juan de Valdés</span> (d. 1541), -attached in some capacity to the court of Carlos Quinto, -and suspect of heterodox tendencies in the eyes of all -good Spaniards. Francisco de Encinas reports that -Valdés found it convenient to leave Spain on account -of his opinions; but, as his twin-brother, Alfonso, continued -in the service of Carlos Quinto, and as Juan -himself lived unmolested at Rome and Naples from 1531 -to his death, this story cannot be accepted. None the -less is it certain that Valdés, possibly through his friendship -with Erasmus, was drawn into the current of the -Reformation. His earliest work, written, perhaps, in collaboration -with his brother, is the anonymous <i>Diálogo de -Mercurio y Carón</i> (1528), an ingenious fable in Lucian's -manner, abounding in political and religious malice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -charged with ridicule of abuses in Church and State. -Apart from its polemical value, it is indisputably the -finest prose performance of the reign. Boscán's version -of the <i>Cortegiano</i> most nearly vies with it; but -Valdés excels Boscán in the artful construction of his -periods, in the picturesqueness and moderation of his -epithets, in the variety of his cadence, and in the refined -selection of his means. It is possible that Cervantes, -at his best, may match Valdés; but Cervantes is -one of the most unequal writers in the world, while -Valdés is one of the most scrupulous and vigilant. -Hence, sectarian prejudice apart, Valdés must be accounted, -if not absolutely the first, at least among the -very first masters of Castilian prose.</p> - -<p>A curious fact in connection with one of Valdés' most -popular works, the <i>Ciento y diez Consideraciones divinas</i>, -is that it has never been printed in its original Castilian.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> -Even so the book was translated into English by Nicholas -Farrer (1638), and found favour in the eyes of George -Herbert, who commends Signior Iohn Valdesso as "a -true servant of God," "obscured in his own country," -and brought by God "to flourish in this land of light -and region of the Gospel, among His chosen." It may -be expedient to give an illustration of Valdés from the -version to which Herbert stood sponsor:—"Here I will -add this. That, as liberality is so annexed to magnanimity -that he cannot be magnanimous that is not liberal, -so hope and charity are so annexed unto faith that it is -impossible that he should have faith who hath not hope -and charity; it being also impossible that one should be -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>just without being holy and pious. But of these Christian -virtues they are not capable who have not experience -in Christian matters, which they only have who, by the -gift of God and by the benefit of Christ, have faith, hope, -and charity, and so are pious, holy, and just in Christ." -The Arian flavour of this work explains its non-appearance -in Castilian, and we must suppose that Herbert -esteemed it for its austere doctrinal asceticism rather than -its crude anti-trinitarianism. A Quaker before his time, -Valdés owes no small part of his recent vogue to Wiffen, -who first heard of the <i>Consideraciones</i> through a friend -as an "old work by a Spaniard, which represented essentially -the principles of George Fox." Whatever its -defects, it is the one logical presentation of the dogmas -of German mysticism, at the same time that it is a -powerful, searching psychological study of the springs -of motives and the innermost recesses of the human -heart.</p> - -<p>In another and a less contested field, we owe to Valdés -the admirable <i>Diálogo de la Lengua</i>, written at Naples in -1535-36. The personages are four: two Italians, named -Marcio and Coriolano; and two Spaniards, Valdés himself, -and a Spanish soldier, called indifferently Pacheco -and Torres. For all purposes this dialogue is as important -a monument of literary criticism as was the -conversation in Don Quixote's library between the Priest -and the Barber. In almost every case posterity has ratified -the personal verdict of Valdés, who approves himself -the earliest, as well as one of the most impartial and -most penetrating among Spanish critics. Moreover, he -conducts his dialogue with extraordinary dramatic skill -in the true vein of highest comedy. The courtly grace -of the two Italians, the military swagger of Pacheco, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -unwearied sagacity, the patrician wit and disdainful -coolness of Valdés himself, are given with incomparable -lightness of touch and felicity of accent. For the first -time in Castilian literature we have to do with a man -of letters, urbane from study, and accomplished from -commerce with a various world. Valdés overtops all the -literary figures of Carlos Quinto's reign in natural gift -and acquired accomplishment; nor in later times do we -easily find his match.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnotes:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_6_6">[6]</a> Garcilaso's forty-eight Latin stanzas, written after the Danubian imprisonment, -are sufficiently unknown to justify a brief quotation here. They occur -in Antonius Thylesius' <i>Opera</i> (Naples, 1762), pp. 128-129: <i>Garcilassi di -Vega Toletani ad Antonium Thylesium</i>:— -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i2">"<i>Uxore, natis, fratribus et solo</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Exul relictis, frigida per loca</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Musarum alumnus, barbarorum</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Ferre superbiam, et insolentes</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Mores coactus jam didici, et invia</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Per saxa voce in geminantia</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Fletusque, sub rauco querelas</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Murmure Danubii levare.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_7_7">[7]</a> Boehmer gives thirty-nine <i>Consideraciones</i> in the <i>Tratatidos</i> (Bonn, 1880); -for the sixty-fifth see Menéndez y Pelayo, <i>Historia de los Heterodoxos Españoles</i> -(Madrid, 1880), vol. ii. p. 375.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VIII -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF FELIPE II. -<br /> -1556-1598</small></h2> - - -<p>In Spain, as elsewhere, the secular battle waged between -classicism and romanticism. As poets sided with Boscán -and Garcilaso, or with Castillejo, so dramatists declared -for the <i>uso antiguo</i> or for the <i>uso nuevo</i>. The partisans -of the "old usage" put their trust in prose translations. -We have already seen that the roguish Villalobos translated -the <i>Amphitruo</i> of Plautus, and Pérez de Oliva not -only repeated the performance, but gave a version of -Euripides' <i>Hecuba</i>. Encina's successor was found in the -person of Miguel de Carvajal, whose <i>Josefina</i> deals, in -classic fashion, with the tale of Joseph and his brethren. -Carvajal draws character with skill, and his dialogue -lives; but he is best remembered for his division of the -play into four acts. Editions of Vasco Díaz Tanco de -Fregenal are of such extreme rarity as to be practically -inaccessible. So are the <i>Vidriana</i> of Jaime de Huete -and the <i>Jacinta</i> of Agustín Ortiz—two writers who are -counted as followers of Torres Naharro. A farce by -the brilliant reactionary, Cristóbal de Castillejo, entitled -<i>Costanza</i>, is only known in extract, and is as remarkable -for ribaldry as for good workmanship. The <i>Preteo y -Tibaldo</i> of Pero Álvarez de Ayllón and the <i>Silviana</i> of -Luis Hurtado are insipid pastorals. Many contemporary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -plays, known only by rumour, have disappeared—suppressed, -no doubt, because of their coarseness. Torres -Naharro's <i>Propaladia</i> was interdicted in 1540, and, eight -years later, the Cortes of Valladolid petitioned that a -stop be put to the printing of immoral comedies. The -prayer was heard. Scarce a play of any sort survives, -and the few that reach us exist in copies that are almost -unique. The time for the stage was not yet. It is -possible that, had Carlos Quinto resided habitually in -some Spanish capital, a national theatre might have -grown up; but the lack of Court patronage and the -classical superstition delayed the evolution of the Spanish -drama. This comes into being during the reign of -Felipe <i>el Prudente</i>.</p> - -<p>Encina's precedence in the sacred pastoral is granted; -but his eclogues were given before small, aristocratic -audiences. We must look elsewhere for the first popular -dramatist, and Lope de Vega, an expert on theatrical -matters, identifies our man. "Comedies," says Lope, -"are no older than Rueda, whom many now living have -heard." The gold-beater, <span class="smcap">Lope de Rueda</span> (fl. 1558), was -a native of Seville. A prefatory sonnet to his <i>Medora</i>, -written by Francisco Ledesma, informs us that Rueda -died at Córdoba, and Cervantes adds the detail that he -was buried in the cathedral there. This would go to -show that a Spanish comedian was not then a pariah; -unluckily, the cathedral archives do not corroborate the -story. Taking to the boards, Lope de Rueda rose to be -an <i>autor de comedias</i>—an actor-manager and playwright. -Cervantes, who speaks enthusiastically of Rueda's acting, -describes the material conditions of the scene. "In the -days of this famous Spaniard, the whole equipment of -an <i>autor de comedias</i> could be put in a bag: it consisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -of four white sheepskins edged with gilt leather, four -beards and wigs, and four shepherd's-staves, more or -less.... No figure rose, or seemed to rise, from the -bowels of the earth or from the space under the stage, -which was built up by four benches placed square-wise, -with four or six planks on top, about four hand's-breadths -above ground. Still less were clouds lowered from the -sky with angels or spirits. The theatrical scenery was -an old blanket, hauled hither and thither by two cords. -This formed what they called the <i>vestuario</i>, behind which -were the musicians, who sang some old <i>romance</i> without -a guitar." This account is substantially correct, though -official documents in the Seville archives go to prove -that Cervantes unconsciously exaggerated some details—a -thing natural enough in a man recalling memories fifty -years old. A passage in the <i>Crónica del Condestable Miguel -Lucas Iranzo</i> implies that women appeared in the early -<i>momos</i> or <i>entremeses</i>. But Spaniards inherited the Arab -notion that women are best indoors. The fact that -Rueda was the first man to choose his pitch in the -public place, and to appeal to the general, would explain -his substitution of boys for girls in the female characters. -Rueda was the first in Spain to bring the drama into -the day. One of his personages in <i>Eufemia</i>—the servant -Vallejo—makes a direct appeal to the public:—"Ye who -listen, go and dine, and then come back to the square, -if you wish to see a traitor's head cut off and a true -man set free." Thenceforward the theatre becomes a -popular institution.</p> - -<p>Lope de Rueda is often called <i>el excelente poeta</i>, and his -verse is exampled in the <i>Prendas de Amor</i>, as also in the -<i>Diálogo sobre la Invención de las Calzas</i>. The <i>Farsa del -Sordo</i>, included by the Marqués de la Fuensanta del<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -Valle in his admirable new edition of Rueda's works, is -almost certainly due to another hand. Cervantes commends -Rueda's <i>versos pastoriles</i>, but these only reach us -in the fragment which Cervantes himself quotes in <i>Los -Baños de Argel</i>. Still, it is not as a poet that Rueda lives: -he is rightly remembered as the patriarch of the Spanish -stage. For his time and station he was well read: López -Madera will have it that he knew Theocritus, and it may -be so. More manifest are the Plautine touches in the -<i>paso</i> which Moratín names <i>El Rufián Cobarde</i>, with its -bully, Sigüenza, a lineal descendant of the <i>Miles Gloriosus</i>. -It has been inferred that, in choosing Italian -themes, Rueda followed Torres Naharro. This gives a -wrong impression, for his debt to the Italians is far more -direct. The <i>Eufemia</i> takes its root in the <i>Decamerone</i>, -being identical in subject with <i>Cymbeline</i>; the <i>Armelina</i> -is compounded of Antonio Francesco Ranieri's <i>Attilia</i>, -with Giovanni Maria Cecchi's <i>Servigiale</i>; the <i>Engaños</i> -is a frank imitation of Niccolò Secchi's <i>Commedia degli -Inganni</i>; and the <i>Medora</i> is conveyed straight from Gigio -Arthenio Giancarli's <i>Zingara</i>.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> - -<p>Neither in his fragments of verse nor in his Italian -echoes is the true Rueda revealed. His historic importance -lies in his invention of the <i>paso</i>—a dramatic -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>interlude turning on some simple episode: a quarrel -between Torubio and his wife Águeda concerning the -price of olives not yet planted, an invitation to dinner -from the penniless licentiate Xaquima. Rueda's most -spirited work is given in the <i>Deleitoso Compendio</i> (1567) -and in the <i>Registro de Representantes</i> (1570), both published -by his friend, Juan de Timoneda. In a longer -flight the effect is less pleasing; the prose <i>Coloquio de -Camila</i> and its fellow, the <i>Coloquio de Timbria</i>, are long -<i>pasos</i>, complicated in development and not drawn to -scale. Still, even here there is a keen dramatic sense of -situation; while the comic extravagance of the themes—farcical -incidents in picaresque surroundings—is set off -by spirited dialogue and vigorous style. Rueda had -clearly read the <i>Celestina</i> to his profit; and his prose, -with its archaic savour, is of great purity and power. -The patriotic Lista comes as near flat blasphemy as a -good Spaniard may by mentioning Rueda in the same -breath as Cervantes, and that the latter learned much -from his predecessor is manifest; but the point need -be pressed no further. Considerable as were Rueda's -positive qualities of gay wit and inventive resource, his -highest merit lies in this, that he laid the foundation-stone -of the actual Spanish theatre, and that his dramatic -system became a capital factor in his people's intellectual -history.</p> - -<p>He found instant imitators: one in a brother actor-manager, -Alonso de la Vega (d. 1566), whose <i>Tolomea</i> is -adapted from <i>Medora</i>; the other in Luis de Miranda -(fl. 1554), who dramatised the story of the Prodigal, to -which, in a monstrous fit of realism, he gave a contemporary -setting. Of Pedro Navarro or Naharro, whom -Cervantes ranks after Rueda, naught survives. Francisco<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -de Avendaño's verse comedy concerning Floriseo and -Blancaflor had long since been forgotten were it not for -the fact that here, for the first time, a Spanish play is -divided into three acts—a convention which has endured, -and for which later writers, like Artieda, Virués, -and Cervantes, ingenuously claimed the credit. <span class="smcap">Juan de -Timoneda</span> (d. ? 1598), the Valencian bookseller who -printed Rueda's <i>pasos</i>, is a sedulous mimic in every sort. -He began by arranging Plautus' <i>Comedy of Errors</i> in -<i>Los Menecmos</i>; his <i>Cornelia</i> is based upon Ariosto's -<i>Nigromante</i>; and his <i>Oveja Perdida</i> adapts an early -morality on the Lost Sheep with scarcely a suggestion -of original treatment. Torres Naharro is the inspiration -of Timoneda's <i>Aurelia</i>; but his chief tempter was -Lope de Rueda. In the volume entitled <i>Turiana</i> (1565), -issued under the anagrammatic name of Joan Diamonte, -he attempts the <i>paso</i> (which he also calls the <i>entremés</i>) -to good purpose. An imitator he remains; but an -imitator whose pleasant humour takes the place of -invention, and whose lively prose dialogue is in excellent -contrast with his futile verse. His <i>Patrañuelo</i>, -a collection of some twenty traditional stories, is a -well-meant attempt to satisfy the craving created by -<i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>. If Timoneda experimented in -every field, it is not unjust to infer that, taking the -tradesman's view of literature, he was moved less -by intelligent curiosity than by the desire to supply -his customers with novelties. Withal, if he be not -individual, his unpolished drolleries are vastly more -engaging than the ambitious triflings of many contemporaries.</p> - -<p>Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velázquez, notes that -Juan de Malara (1527-71) composed "many tragedies"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -both in Latin and Castilian; and Cueva, in his <i>Ejemplar -poético</i>, gives the number hyperbolically:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>En el teatro mil tragedias puso.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>That Malara, or any one save Lope de Vega, "placed a -thousand tragedies on the boards," is incredible; but by -general consent his fecundity was prodigious. None of -his plays survives, and we are left to gather, from a -chance remark of the author's, that he wrote a tragedy -entitled <i>Absalón</i> and another drama called <i>Locusta</i>. His -repute as a poet must be accepted, if at all, on authority; -for his extant imitations of Virgil and renderings -of Martial are mere technical exercises. For us he is -best represented by his <i>Filosofía vulgar</i> (1568), an admirable -selection made from the six thousand proverbs -brought together by Hernán Núñez, who thus continued -what Santillana had begun. A contemporary, Blasco de -Garay (fl. 1553), had striven to prove the resources of -the language by printing, in his <i>Cartas de Refranes</i>, three -ingenious letters wholly made up of proverbial phrases; -and in our own day the incomparable wealth of Castilian -proverbs has been shown in Sbarbi's <i>Refranero -General</i> and in Haller's <i>Altspanische Sprichtwörter</i>. But -no later and fuller collection has supplanted Malara's -learned and vivacious commentary.</p> - -<p>His friend, <span class="smcap">Juan de la Cueva de Garoza</span> of Seville -(?1550-?1606), matched Malara in productiveness, and -perhaps surpassed him in talent. Little is known of -Cueva's life, save that he had certain love passages with -Brígida Lucía de Belmonte, and that he became almost -insane for a short while after her death. He distinguishes -himself by his independence of the Senecan -example, which he roundly declares to be at once inartistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -and tedious (<i>cansada cosa</i>), and by urging the -Spanish dramatists to abjure abstractions and to treat -national themes without regard for Greek and Latin -superstitions. Incident, character, plot, situation, variety: -these are to be developed with small regard for "the -unities" of the classic model. And Cueva carried out -his doctrines. Ignoring Carvajal, he took a special pride -in reducing plays from five acts to four, and he enriched -the drama by introducing a multitude of metrical forms -hitherto unknown upon the stage. The cunning fable -of the people—<i>la ingeniosa fábula de España</i>—is illustrated -in his <i>Siete Infantes de Lara</i>, in his <i>Cerco de -Zamora</i> (Siege of Zamora), where he utilises subjects -enshrined in <i>romances</i> which half his audience knew by -heart. It is literally true that he had been preceded by -Bartolomé Palau, who, as far back as 1524, had written -a play on a national subject—the <i>Historia de la gloriosa -Santa Orosia</i>, published in 1883 by Fernández-Guerra y -Orbe; but this was an isolated, fruitless essay, whereas -Cueva's was a deliberate, well-organised attempt to shape -the drama anew and to quicken it into active life. Nor -did Cueva's mission end with indicating the possibilities -of dramatic motive afforded by heroico-popular songs -and legends. His <i>Saco de Roma y Muerte de Borbón</i> -exploits an historical actuality by dramatising Carlos -Quinto's Italian triumphs (1527-30); and his <i>El Infamador</i> -(The Calumniator) not merely foreshadows the -<i>comedia de capa y espada</i>, but gives us in his libertine, -Leucino, the first sketch of the type which Tirso de -Molina was to eternalise as Don Juan.</p> - -<p>It is certain that Cueva was often less successful in performance -than in doctrine, and that his gods and devils, -his saints and ruffians, too often talk in the same lofty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -vein—the vein of Juan de la Cueva. It is no less certain -that he improvises recklessly, placing his characters in -difficulties whence escape is impossible, and that he takes -the first solution that offers—a murder, a supernatural -interposition—with no heed for plausibility. But his -bombast is the trick of his school, and, to judge by his -epical <i>Conquista de la Bética</i> (1603), he showed remarkable -self-suppression in his plays. In his later years, -after visiting the Western Indies, he seems to have -abandoned the theatre which he had so courageously -developed, and to have wasted himself upon his epic -and the poor confection of old ballads which he published -in the ten books entitled <i>Coro Febeo de Romances -historiales</i>. Yet, despite these backslidings, he merits -gratitude for his dramatic initiative.</p> - -<p>The Galician Dominican, Gerónimo Bermúdez (1530-89), -apologises for his presentation in Castilian of the -<i>Nise Lastimosa</i>, which he published under the name of -Antonio de Silva in 1577. Bermúdez has seemingly done -little more than rearrange the <i>Inez de Castro</i> of the distinguished -Portuguese poet, Antonio Ferreira, who had -died eight years earlier. Though this "correct" play has -tirades of remarkable beauty in the Senecan manner, its -loose construction unfits it for the stage. All that it -contains of good is due to Ferreira, and its continuation—the -<i>Nise Laureada</i>—is a mere collection of incoherent -extravagances and brutalities, conceived in Thomas Kyd's -most frenzied mood.</p> - -<p>The Captain <span class="smcap">Andrés Rey de Artieda</span> (1549-1613) is -said to have been born at Valencia, and he certainly died -there; yet Lope de Vega, once his friend, speaks of him -as a native of Zaragoza. Artieda was a brilliant soldier, -who received three wounds at Lepanto, and his conspicuous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -bravery was shown in the Low Countries, -where he swam the Ems in mid-winter under the enemy's -fire, with his sword between his teeth. He is known to -have written plays entitled <i>Amadís de Gaula</i> and <i>Los -Encantos de Merlín</i>, but his one extant drama is <i>Los -Amantes</i>: the first appearance on the stage of those -lovers of Teruel who were destined to attract Tirso -de Molina, Montalbán, and Hartzenbusch. Artieda is -essentially a follower of Cueva's, and he has something -of his model's clumsy manipulation; but his dramatic -instinct, his pathos and tenderness, are his personal endowment. -In his own day he was an innovator in his -kind: his opposition to the methods of Lope made him -unpopular, and condemned him to an unmerited neglect, -which he bitterly resented in the miscellaneous <i>Discursos, -epístolas y epigramas</i>, published by him (1605) under the -name of Artemidoro.</p> - -<p>Another dramatist and friend of Lope de Vega's was -the Valencian Captain <span class="smcap">Cristóbal de Virués</span> (1550-1610), -Artieda's comrade at Lepanto and in the Low Countries. -Unfortunately for himself, Virués had his share of -learning, and misused it in his <i>Semíramis</i>, an absurd -medley of pedantry and horror. His <i>Átila Furioso</i>, -involving more slaughter than many an outpost engagement, -is the maddest caricature of romanticism. -He appears to think that indecency is comedy, and -that the way to terror lies through massacre. It is the -eternal fault of Spain, this forcing of the note; and it -would seem that Virués repented him in <i>Elisa Dido</i>, -where he returns to the apparatus of the Senecan school. -Yet, with all their defects, his earlier attempts were -better, inasmuch as they presaged a new method, and -a determination to have done with a sterile formula. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -essayed the epic in his <i>Historia del Monserrate</i>, and once -more courted disaster by his choice of subject: the -outrage and murder of the Conde de Barcelona's daughter -by the hermit Juan Garín, the Roman pilgrimage of the -assassin, and the miraculous resurrection of his victim. -As in his plays, so in his epic, Virués is an inventor -without taste, brilliant in a single page and intolerable -in twenty. His tactless fluency bade for applause at any -cost, and his incessant care to startle and to terrify -results in a monstrous monotony. Yet, if he failed -himself, his exaggerated protest encouraged others to -seek a more perfect way, and, though he had no direct -influence on the stage, he is interesting as an embodied -remonstrance.</p> - -<p>His mantle was caught by Joaquín Romero de Cepeda -of Badajoz (fl. 1582), whose <i>Selvajía</i> is a dramatic -arrangement of the <i>Celestina</i>, with extravagant episodes -suggested by the chivalresque novels; and in the opposite -camp is the Aragonese <span class="smcap">Lupercio Leonardo de -Argensola</span> (1559-1613), whom Cervantes esteemed -almost as good a dramatist as himself—which, from -Cervantes' standpoint, is saying much. Cervantes praises -Argensola, not merely because his plays "delighted and -amazed all who heard them," but for the practical reason -that "these three alone brought in more money than -thirty of the best given since their time." If it be uncharitable -to conceive that this aims at Lope de Vega, -we are bound to suppose that Argensola's popularity -was immense. It was also fleeting. His <i>Filis</i> has disappeared, -and his <i>Isabela</i> and <i>Alejandra</i> were not printed -till 1772, when López de Sedano included them in his -<i>Parnaso Español</i>. The <i>Alejandra</i> is a tissue of butcheries, -and the <i>Isabela</i> is scarcely better, the nine chief characters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -being killed out of hand. Argensola's excuse is that -he was only a lad of twenty when he perpetrated these -iniquities; where, for the rest, he already proves himself -endowed with that lyrical gift which was to win for -him the not excessive title of "the Spanish Horace." -But he was never reconciled to his defeat as a dramatist, -and he avenged himself in 1597 by inditing a -spiteful letter to the King, praying that the prohibition -of plays on the occasion of the Queen of Piedmont's -death should be made permanent. The urbanity of -men of letters is, it will be seen, constant everywhere.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The school founded by Boscán and Garcilaso spread -into Portugal, and bifurcated into Spanish factions settled -in Salamanca and in Seville. <span class="smcap">Baltasar de Alcázar</span> -(1530-1606), who served under that stout sea-dog the -Marqués de Santa Cruz, is technically an adherent of -the Sevillan sect; but his laughing muse lends herself -with an ill grace to artificial sentiment, and is happiest -in stinging epigrams, in risky jests, and in gay <i>romances</i>. -<span class="smcap">Diego Girón</span> (d. 1590), a pupil of Malara's, is an ardent -Italianate: prompt to challenge comparison with Garcilaso -by reproducing Corydon and Tirsis from the -seventh Virgilian eclogue, to mimic Seneca—"him of -Córdoba dead"—or to echo the note of Giorolamo -Bosso. His verses, mostly hidden away among the -annotations made by Herrera in his edition of Garcilaso, -deserve to be better known for specimens of sound -craftsmanship.</p> - -<p>The greatest poet of the Sevillan group is indisputably -<span class="smcap">Fernando de Herrera</span> (1534-97), who comes into -touch with England as the writer of an eulogy on Sir -Thomas More. Cleric though he were, Herrera dedicated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -much of his verse (1582) to Leonor de Milán, -Condesa de Gelves, wife of Álvaro de Portugal, himself -a fashionable versifier. Herrera being a clerk in minor -orders, the situation is piquant, and opinions differ as -to whether his erotic songs are, or are not, platonic. -It is another variant of the classic cases of Laura and -Petrarch, of Catalina de Atayde and Camões. All good -Sevillans contend that Herrera, as the chief of Spanish -<i>petrarquistas</i>, indited sonnets to his mistress in imitation -of the master:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>So the great Tuscan to the beauteous Laura</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Breathed his sublime, his wonder-working song.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Disguised as Eliodora, Leonor is Herrera's firmament: -his <i>luz</i>, <i>sol</i>, <i>estrella</i>—light, sun, and star. And no small -part of the love-sequence is passionless and even frigid. -Yet not all the elegies are compact of conceit; a genuine -emotion bursts forth elsewhere than in the famous line:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Now sorrow passes: now at length I live.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In view of the poet's metaphysical refinements no decisive -judgment is possible, and the dispute will continue -for all time; perhaps the real posture of affairs is indicated -by Latour's happy phrase concerning Herrera's -"innocent immorality."</p> - -<p>Fine as are isolated passages in these "vain, amatorious" -rhapsodies, the true Herrera is best revealed in -his ode to Don Juan de Austria on the occasion of the -Moorish revolt in the Alpujarra, in his elegy on the -death of Sebastian of Portugal at Alcázar al-Kebir, in -his song upon the victory of Lepanto. In patriotism -Herrera found his noblest inspiration, and in these three -great pieces he attains an exceptional energy and conciseness -of form. He sings the triumph of the true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -faith with an Hebraic fervour, a stateliness derived from -biblical cadences, as he mourns the overthrow of Christianity, -"the weapons of war perished," in accents of -profound affliction. His sincerity and his lyrical splendour -place him in the foremost rank of his country's -singers; and hence his title of <i>El divino</i>.</p> - -<p>Differing in temperament from Garcilaso, Herrera may -be considered as the true inheritor of his predecessor's -unfulfilled renown. Two of his finest sonnets—one to -Carlos Quinto, the other to Don Juan de Austria—are -superior to any in Garcilaso's page. The latter may be -exampled here in Archdeacon Churton's rendering:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Deep sea, whose thundering waves in tumult roar,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Call forth thy troubled spirit—bid him rise,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And gaze, with terror pale, and hollow eyes,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>On floods all flashing fire, and red with gore.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Lo! as in list enclosed, on battle-floor</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Christian and Sarzan, life and death the prize,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Join conflict: lo! the batter'd Paynim flies;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The din, the smouldering flames, he braves no more.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Go, bid thy deep-toned bass with voice of power</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Tell of this mightiest victory under sky,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>This deed of peerless valour's highest strain;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And say a youth achieved the glorious hour,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Hallowing thy gulf with praise that ne'er shall die,—</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The youth of Austria, and the might of Spain.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Herrera takes up the tradition of his forerunner, perfects -his form, imparts a greater sonority of expression, -a deeper note of pathos and dignity. The soldier, with -his languid sentiment, might be the priest; the priest, -with his martial music, might be the soldier. Yet -Herrera's fealty never wavers; for him there is but one -model, one pattern, one perfect singer. "In our Spain," -he avers, "Garcilaso stands first, beyond compare." And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -in this spirit, aided by suggestions from the poet's son-in-law, -Puerto Carrero, aided also by illustrations from -the whole Sevillan group,—Francisco de Medina, Diego -Girón, Francisco Pacheco, and Cristóbal Mosquera de -Figueroa,—Herrera undertook his commentary, <i>Anotaciones -á las obras de Garcilaso de la Vega</i> (1580). Its -publication caused one of the bitterest quarrels in -Spanish literary history.</p> - -<p>Four years earlier Garcilaso had been edited by the -learned Francisco Sánchez (1523-1601), commonly called -<i>El Brocense</i>, from Las Brozas, his birthplace, in Extremadura; -and an excitable admirer of the poet, Francisco -de los Cobos, denounced Sánchez for exhibiting -his author's debts by means of parallel passages. The -partisans of Sánchez took Herrera's commentary as a -challenge, and were not mollified by the fact that Herrera -nowhere mentioned Sánchez by name. It had been -bad enough that an Extremaduran pundit should edit -a Castilian poet; that a mere Andalucían should repeat -the outrage was insufferable. It was as though an Englishman -edited Burns. The Clan of Clonglocketty (or -of Castile) rose as one man, and Herrera was flagellated -by a tribe of scurrilous, illiterate patriots. Among his -more urbane opponents was Juan Fernández de Velasco, -Conde de Haro, son of the Constable of Spain, who -published his <i>Observaciones</i> under the pseudonym of -Prete Jacopín, and was rapturously applauded for calling -Herrera an ass in a lion's skin. It is discouraging to -record that Haro's impertinence went through several -editions, while Herrera's commentary has never been -reprinted.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Yet this monument of enlightened learning -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>reveals its author, not only as the best lyrist, but as the -acutest critic of his age. Cervantes knew it almost by -heart, and he honoured it by writing his dedication of -<i>Don Quixote</i> to the Duque de Béjar in the very words -of Medina's preface and of Herrera's epistle to the -Marqués de Ayamonte. So that, since countless readers -have admired a passage from the <i>Anotaciones</i> without -knowing it, Herrera the prose-writer has enjoyed a -vicarious immortality.</p> - -<p>The most eminent poet of the Salamancan school is -<span class="smcap">Luis Ponce de León</span> (1529-91), a native of Belmonte -de Cuenca, who joined the Augustinian order in his -eighteenth year, and became professor of theology at -the University of Salamanca in 1561. He soon found -himself in the midst of a theological squabble as to the -comparative merits of the Septuagint and the Hebrew -MSS. Rivals spread the legend—fatal in Spain—that -he was of Jewish descent, and that he conspired with the -Hebrew professors, Martínez de Cantalapiedra and Grajal, -in interpreting Scripture according to Jewish traditions. -His chief opponent was León de Castro, who held the -Greek chair. Public discussions were the fashion, and -debates waxed acrimonious, after the custom of professors -at large. On one occasion Luis de León went -so far as to threaten Castro with the public burning of -the latter's treatise on Isaiah. Castro was not the man -to flinch, and anticipated his enemy by denouncing Fray -Luis to the Inquisition. The matter would doubtless -have ended here, had it not been discovered that Fray -Luis had translated the <i>Song of Solomon</i> into Castilian: -a grave offence in the eyes of the Holy Office, which, -rejecting the Lutheran formula of "every man his own -pope," forbade the circulation of Bibles in the vernacular.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -In March 1572 Luis de León was arrested, and -was kept a prisoner by the local authorities for four and -a half years, during which he was baited with questions -calculated to convict him of heresy and to involve his -friend Benito Arias Montano. Notwithstanding the -efforts of Bartolomé Medina and his brother-Dominicans, -Fray Luis was acquitted on December 7, 1576. -Judged by modern standards, he was harshly treated; -but toleration is a modern birth, begotten by indifference -and fear. In the sixteenth century men believed -what they professed, and acted on their beliefs—the -Spaniards by imprisoning their own countryman, Luis -de León; Calvin by burning Harvey's forerunner, the -Spaniard Miguel Servet. Fray Luis was the last of men -to whine and whimper: he was judged by the tribunal -of his own choosing, the tribunal with which he had -menaced Castro: and the result vindicated his choice.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> -<i>Ex forti dulcedo</i>. The indomitable nobility of his character -is visible in the first words he uttered on his -return to the chair which Salamanca had kept for him:—"Gentlemen, -as we were saying the other day." In -1591 he was elected Vicar-General of Castile, was chosen -Provincial of his order, and was then commanded, -against his will, to publish all his writings. He died -ten days later.</p> - -<p>In prison Fray Luis wrote his celebrated treatise, the -greatest of Spanish mystic books, <i>Los Nombres de Cristo</i>, -a series of dissertations, in Plato's manner, on the symbolic -value of such names of Christ as the Mount, the -Shepherd, the Arm of God, the Prince of Peace, the -Bridegroom. Published in 1583, the exposition is cast -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>in the form of a dialogue, in which Marcelo, Sabino, -and Julián examine the theological mysteries implied -by the subject. With Fray Luis's theology we have -no concern; nor with his learning, save in so far as -it is curious to see the Hellenic-Alexandrine leaven -working through in his imitation of St. Clement's <i>Epistle -to the Corinthians</i>. But his concise eloquence and his -classic purity of expression rank him among the best -masters of Castilian prose. The like great qualities are -shown in his <i>Exposición del libro de Job</i>, drawn up by -request of Santa Teresa's friend, Sor Ana de Jesús, and -in his rendering of and commentary on the <i>Song of -Solomon</i>, which he holds for an emblematic eclogue to -be interpreted as a poetic foreshadowing of the Divine -Espousal of the Church with Christ. A book still held -in great esteem is his <i>Perfecta Casada</i> (The Perfect -Wife), suggested, it may be, by Luis Vives' <i>Christian -Woman</i>, and composed (1583) for the benefit of María -Varela Osorio. It is not, indeed,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>That hymn for which the whole world longs,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>A worthy hymn in woman's praise.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>It is rather a singularly brilliant paraphrase of the thirty-first -chapter of the <i>Book of Proverbs</i>, a code of practical -conduct for the ideal spouse, which may be read with -delight even by those who think the friar's doctrine -reactionary.</p> - -<p>Great in prose, Luis de León is no less great in verse. -With San Juan de la Cruz he heads the list of Spain's -lyrico-mystical poets. Yet he set no value on his -poems, which he regarded as mere toys of childhood: -so that their preservation is due to the accident of -his collecting them late in life to amuse the leisure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -of the Bishop of Córdoba. We owe their publication -to Quevedo, who issued them in 1631 as a counterblast -to <i>culteranismo</i>. Of the three books into which they are -divided, two consist of translations—from Virgil, Horace, -Tibullus, Euripides, and Pindar; and from the Psalms, -the Book of Job, and St. Thomas of Aquin's <i>Pange -lingua</i>. "I have tried," says Fray Luis of his sacred -renderings, "to imitate so far as I might their simple -origin and antique flavour, full of sweetness and majesty, -as it seems to me;" and he succeeds as greatly in the -primitive unction of the one kind as in the faultless -form of the other. Still these are but inspired imitations, -and the original poet is to be sought for in the -first book. Some idea of his ode entitled <i>Noche Serena</i> -may be gathered from Mr. Henry Phillips' version of the -opening stanzas:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>When to the heavenly dome my thoughts take flight,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With shimmering stars bedecked, ablaze with light,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Then sink my eyes down to the ground,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>In slumber wrapped, oblivion bound,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Enveloped in the gloom of darkest night.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With love and pain assailed, with anxious care,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A thousand troubles in my breast appear,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>My eyes turn to a flowing rill,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Sore sorrow's tearful floods distil,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>While saddened, mournful words my woes declare.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Oh, dwelling fit for angels! sacred fane!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The hallowed shrine where youth and beauty reign!</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Why in this dungeon, plunged in night,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>The soul that's born for Heaven's delight</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Should cruel Fate withhold from its domain?</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In his <i>Profecía del Tajo</i> (Prophecy of the Tagus) Luis de -León displays a virility absent from his other pieces, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -the impetuosity of the verse matches the speed which -he attributes to the Saracenic invaders advancing to -the overthrow of Roderic; and, if he still abide by his -Horatian model, he introduces an individual treatment, -a characteristic melody of his own invention. A famous -devout song, <i>Á Cristo Crucifijado</i> (To Christ Crucified), -appears in all editions of Fray Luis; but as its authenticity -is disputed—some ascribing it to Miguel Sánchez—its -quotation must be foregone here. The ode <i>Al -Apartamiento</i> (To Retirement) exhibits the contemplative -vein which distinguishes the singer, and, as in the <i>Ode -to Salinas</i>, seems an early anticipation of Wordsworth's -note of serene simplicity. Luis de León is not splendid -in metrical resource, and his adherence to tradition, -his indifference to his fame, his ecclesiastical estate, all -tend to narrow his range of subject; yet, within the -limits marked out for him, he is as great an artist and -as rich a voice as Spain can show.</p> - -<p>In the same year (1631) that Quevedo issued Luis de -León's verses, he also published an exceedingly small -volume of poems which he ascribed to a Bachelor named -<span class="smcap">Francisco de la Torre</span> (1534-?1594). From this arose -a strange case of mistaken identity. Quevedo's own -account of the matter is simple: he alleges that he found -the poems—"by good luck and for the greater glory of -Spain"—in the shop of a bookseller, who sold them -cheap. It appears that the Portuguese, Juan de Almeida, -Senhor de Couto de Avintes, saw them soon after Torre's -death, that he applied for leave to print them, and that -the official licence was signed by the author of <i>La -Araucana</i>, Ercilla y Zúñiga, who died in 1595. For -some reason Almeida's purpose miscarried, and, when -Quevedo found the manuscript in 1629, Torre was generally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -forgotten. Quevedo solved the difficulty out of -hand in the high editorial manner, evolved the facts -from his inner consciousness, and assured his readers -that the author of the poems was the Francisco de la -Torre who wrote the <i>Visión deleitable</i>.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> - -<p>Ticknor lays it down that "no suspicion seems to -have been whispered, either at the moment of their -first publication, or for a long time afterwards," of the -correctness of this attribution; and he implies that the -first doubter was Luis José Velázquez, Marqués de -Valdeflores, who, when he reprinted the book in 1753, -started the theory that the poems were Quevedo's own. -This is not so. Quevedo's mistake was pointed out by -Manuel de Faria y Sousa in his commentary to the -<i>Lusiadas</i>, printed at Madrid in 1639. That Quevedo -should make a Bachelor of a man who had no university -degree, that he should call the writer of the -<i>Visión deleitable</i> Francisco when in truth his name was -Alfonso, were trifles: that he should antedate his author -by nearly two centuries—this was a serious matter, -and Faria y Sousa took pains to make him realise it. -It must have added to the editor's chagrin to learn that -Torre had been friendly with Lope de Vega, who could -have given accurate information about him; but Lope -and Quevedo were not on speaking terms, owing to -the mischief-making of the former's parasite, Pérez de -Montalbán. Quevedo had made no approach to Lope; -Lope saw the blunder, smiled, and said nothing in -public. Through Pérez de Montalbán the facts reached -Faria y Sousa, who exulted over a mistake which was, -indeed, unpardonable. The discomfiture was complete: -for the first and last time in his life Quevedo was dumb -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>before an enemy. Meanwhile, Velázquez' theory has -found some favour with López Sedano and with many -foreign critics: as, for example, Ticknor.</p> - -<p>What we know of Francisco de la Torre is based -upon the researches of Quevedo's learned editor, Aureliano -Fernández-Guerra y Orbe.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> A native of Torrelaguna, -he matriculated at Alcalá de Henares in 1556, -fell in love with the "<i>Filis rigurosa</i>" whom he sings, -served with Carlos Quinto in the Italian campaigns, -returned to find Filis married to an elderly Toledan -millionaire, remained constant to his (more or less) -platonic flame, and ended by taking orders in his -despair. The unadorned simplicity of his manner is at -the remotest pole from Quevedo's frosty brilliancy. No -small proportion of his sonnets is translated from the -Italian. Thus, where Benedetto Varchi writes "<i>Questa -e, Tirsi, quel fonte in cui solea</i>," Torre follows close with -"<i>Ésta es, Tirsi, la fuente do solia</i>;" and when Giovanni -Battista Amalteo celebrates "<i>La viva neve e le vermiglie -rose</i>," the Spaniard echoes back "<i>La blanca nieve y la -purpúrea rosa</i>." Schelling finds the light fantastic rapture -of the Elizabethan lover expressed to perfection in -the eighty-first of Spenser's <i>Amoretti</i>: line for line, and -almost word for word, Torre's twenty-third sonnet is -identical, and, when we at length possess a critical -edition of Spenser, it will surely prove that both poems -derive from a common Italian source. Such examples -are numerous, and are worth noting as germane to -the general question. No man in Europe was more -original than Quevedo, none less disposed to lean on -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>Italy. To conceive that he should seek to reform -<i>culteranismo</i> by translating from Italians of yesterday, -or to suppose that he knowingly passed as original -work imitations made by a man who—<i>ex hypothesi</i>—died -before his models were born, is to believe -Quevedo a clumsy trickster. That conclusion is untenable; -and Torre deserves all credit for his graceful -renderings, as for his more original poems—gallant, -tender, and sentimental. He is one of the earliest -Spanish poets to choose simple, natural themes—the -ivy fallen to the ground, the widowed song-bird, the -wounded hind, the charms of landscape and the -enchantment of the spring. A smaller replica of -Garcilaso, with a vision and personality of his own: so -Francisco de la Torre appears in the perspective of -Castilian song.</p> - -<p>An allied poet of the Salamancan school is Torre's -friend, <span class="smcap">Francisco de Figueroa</span> (1536-?1620), a native -of Alcalá de Henares, whom his townsman Cervantes -introduces in the pastoral <i>Galatea</i> under the name of -Tirsi. Little is recorded of his life save that he served -as a soldier in Italy, that he studied at Rome, Bologna, -Siena, and perhaps Naples, that the Italians called him the -<i>Divino</i> (the title was sometimes cheaply given), and that -some even ranked him next to Petrarch. He returned -to Alcalá, where he married "nobly," as we are told; -and he is found travelling with the Duque de Terranova -in the Low Countries about 1597. On his deathbed -he bethought him of Virgil's example, and ordered -that all his poems should be burned; those that -escaped were published at Lisbon in 1626 by the -historian Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, who reports what -little we know concerning the writer. That he versified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -much in Italian appears from Juan Verzosa's -evidence:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>El lingua perges alterna pangere versus.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And a vestige of the youthful practice is preserved in -the elegy to Juan de Mendoza y Luna, where one -Spanish line and two Italian lines compose each tercet. -One admirable sonnet is that written on the death of -the poet's son, Garcilaso de la Vega <i>el Mozo</i>, who, like -his famous father, fell in battle. Figueroa's bent is -towards the pastoral; he sings of sweet repose, of love's -costly glory, of Tirsi's pangs, of Fileno's passion realised, -and of <i>ingrata</i> Fili. His points of resemblance with -Torre are many; but his talent is more original, his -mood more melancholy, his taste finer, his diction more -exquisite. He ranks so high among his country's -singers, it is not incredible that he might take his stand -with the greatest if we possessed all his poems, instead -of a few numbers saved from fire. And, as it is, he -deserves peculiar praise as the earliest poet who, following -Boscán and Garcilaso, mastered the blank verse, -whose secrets had eluded them. He avoids the subtle -peril of the assonant; he varies the mechanical uniformity -of beat or stress; and, by skilful alternations -of his cæsura, diversifies his rhythm to such harmonic -purpose as no earlier experimentalist approaches. At -his hands the most formidable of Castilian metres is -finally vanquished, and the <i>verso suelto</i> is established -on an equality with the sonnet. That alone ensures -Figueroa's fame: he sets the standard by which successors -are measured.</p> - -<p>Ariosto's vigorous epical manner is faintly suggested -in twelve cantos of the <i>Angélica</i>, by a Seville doctor, <span class="smcap">Luis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></span> -<span class="smcap">Barahona de Soto</span> (fl. 1586). Lope de Vega, in the -<i>Laurel de Apolo</i>, praises</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>The doctor admirable</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Whose page of gold</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The story of Medora told</i>,"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">and all contemporaries, from Diego Hurtado de Mendoza -downwards, swell the chorus of applause. The priest -who sacked Don Quixote's library softened at sight of -Barahona's book, which he calls by its popular title, -the <i>Lágrimas de Angélica</i> (Tears of Angelica):—"I should -shed tears myself were such a book burned, for its -author is one of the best poets, not merely in Spain, -but in all the world." Cervantes was far from strong -in criticism, and he proves it in this case. The <i>Angélica</i>, -which purports to continue the story of <i>Orlando Furioso</i>—itself -a continuation of the <i>Orlando Innamorato</i>—looks -mean beside its great original. Yet, though Barahona -fails in epic narrative, his lyrical poems, given in Espinosa's -<i>Flores de poetas ilustres</i>, are full of grace and melody.</p> - -<p>The epic's fascination also seduced the Córdoban, -<span class="smcap">Juan Rufo Gutiérrez</span>. We know the date of neither -his birth nor his death, but he must have lived long if -his collection of anecdotes, entitled <i>Las seiscientas Apotegmas</i>, -were really published in 1548. His <i>Austriada</i>, -printed in 1584, takes Don Juan de Austria for its hero, -and contains some good descriptive stanzas; but Rufo's -invention finds no scope in dealing with contemporary -matters, and what might have been a useful chronicle is -distorted to a tedious poem. Great part of the <i>Austriada</i> -is but a rhymed version of Mendoza's <i>Guerra de Granada</i>, -which Rufo must have seen in manuscript. When, -leaving Ariosto in peace, he becomes himself, as in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -verses at the end of the <i>Apotegmas</i>, he gives forth a -natural old-world note, reminiscent of earlier models -than Boscán and Garcilaso. Since Luis de Zapata -(1523-? 1600) wrote an epic history of the Emperor, -the <i>Carlos famoso</i>, he must have read it; and it is -possible that Cervantes (who delighted in it) was familiar -with its fifty cantos, its forty thousand lines. It is -more than can be said of any later reader. Zapata -wasted thirteen years upon his epic, and witnessed its -failure; but he was undismayed, and lived to maltreat -Horace—it sounds incredible—beyond all expectation. -It is another instance of a mistaken calling. The writer -knew his facts, and had a touch of the historic spirit. -Yet he could not be content with prose and history.</p> - -<p>A nearer approach to the right epical poem is the -<i>Araucana</i> of <span class="smcap">Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga</span> (1533-95), -who appeared as Felipe II.'s page at his wedding with -Mary Tudor in Winchester Cathedral. From England -he sailed for Chile in 1554, to serve against the Araucanos, -who had risen in revolt; and in seven pitched -battles, not to speak of innumerable small engagements, -he greatly distinguished himself. His career was ruined -by a quarrel with a brother-officer named Juan de -Pineda; he was judged to be in fault, was condemned -to death, and actually mounted the scaffold. At the -last moment the sentence was commuted to exile at -Callao, whence Ercilla returned to Europe in 1562. -With him he brought the first fifteen cantos of his -poem, written by the camp-fire on stray scraps of -paper, leather, and skin. The first book ever printed -in America was, as we learn from Señor Icazbalceta, -Juan de Zumárraga's <i>Breve y compendiosa Doctrina -Cristiana</i>. The first literary work of real merit composed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -in either American continent was Ercilla's -<i>Araucana</i>. It was published at Madrid in 1569; and -continuations, amounting to thirty-seven cantos in all, -followed in 1578 and 1590. Ercilla never forgave what -he thought the injustice of his general, García Hurtado -de Mendoza, Marqués de Cañete, and carefully omits -his name throughout the <i>Araucana</i>. The omission cost -him dear, for he was never employed again.</p> - -<p>His is an exceeding stately poem on the Chilian -revolt; but epic it is not, whether in spirit or design, -whether in form or effect. In the Essay Prefatory -to the <i>Henriade</i>, Voltaire condescends to praise the -<i>Araucana</i>, the name of which has thus become familiar -to many; and, though he was probably writing at -second hand, he is justified in extolling the really -noble speech which Ercilla gives to the aged chief, -Colocolo. It is precisely in declamatory eloquence that -Ercilla shines. His technical craftsmanship is sound, -his spirit admirable, his diction beyond reproach, or -nearly so; and yet his work, as a whole, fails to impress. -Men remember isolated lines, a stanza here and -there; but the general effect is blurred. To speak -truly, Ercilla had the orator's temperament, not the -poet's. At his worst he is debating in rhyme, at his -best he is writing poetic history; and, though he has -an eye for situation, an instinct for the picturesque, the -historian in him vanquishes the poet. He himself was -vaguely conscious of something lacking, and he strove -to make it good by means of mythological episodes, -visions by Bellona, magic foreshadowings of victory, -digressions defending Dido from Virgil's scandalous -tattle. But, since the secret of the epic lies not in -machinery, this attempt at reform failed. Ercilla's first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -part remains his best, and is still interesting for its -martial eloquence, and valuable as a picture of heroic -barbarism rendered by an artist in <i>ottava rima</i> who was -also a vigilant observer and a magnanimous foe. His -omission of his commander's name was made good by -a copious Chilian poet, Pedro de Oña, in his <i>Arauco -domado</i> (1596), which closed with the capture of "Richerte -Aquines" (as who should say Richard Hawkins); and, -in the following year, Diego de Santisteban y Osorio -added a fourth and fifth part to the original <i>Araucana</i>. -Neither imitation is of real poetic worth, and, as versified -history, they are inferior to the <i>Elegías de Varones -ilustres de Indias</i> of Juan de Castellanos (?1510-?1590), -a priest who in youth had served in America, and -who rhymed his reminiscences with a conscientious -regard for fact more laudable in a chronicler than a -poet.</p> - -<p>But we turn from these elaborate historical failures -to religious work of real beauty, and the first that -offers itself is the famous sonnet "To Christ Crucified," -familiar to English readers in a free version -ascribed to Dryden:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>O God, Thou art the object of my love,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Not for the hopes of endless joys above,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Nor for the fear of endless pains below</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which those who love Thee not must undergo:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For me, and such as me, Thou once didst bear</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The ignominious cross, the nails, the spear,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A thorny crown transpierced Thy sacred brow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What bloody sweats from every member flow!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For me, in torture Thou resign'st Thy breath,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Nailed to the cross, and sav'dst me by Thy death:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Say, can these sufferings fail my heart to move?</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What but Thyself can now deserve my love?</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Such as then was and is Thy love to me,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Such is, and shall be still, my love to Thee.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Thy love, O Jesus, may I ever sing,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O God of love, kind Parent, dearest King.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The authorship is referred to Ignacio Loyola, to Francisco -Xavier, to Pedro de los Reyes, and to the Seraphic -Mother, <span class="smcap">Santa Teresa de Jesús</span>, whose name in the -world was Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada (1515-82). -None of these attributions can be sustained, and <i>No me -mueve, mi Dios, para quererte</i> must be classed as anonymous.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> -Yet its fervour and unction are such as to suggest -its ascription to the Saint of the Flaming Heart. Santa -Teresa is not only a glorious saint and a splendid figure -in the annals of religious thought: she ranks as a miracle -of genius, as, perhaps, the greatest woman who ever -handled pen, the single one of all her sex who stands -beside the world's most perfect masters. Macaulay has -noted, in a famous essay, that Protestantism has gained -not an inch of ground since the middle of the sixteenth -century. Ignacio Loyola and Santa Teresa are the life -and brain of the Catholic reaction: the former is a great -party chief, the latter belongs to mankind.</p> - -<p>Her life in all its details may be read in Mrs. Cunninghame -Graham's minute and able study. Here it must -suffice to note that she sallied forth to seek martyrdom at -the age of seven, that she entered literature as the writer -of a chivalresque romance, and that in her sixteenth year -she made her profession as a nun in the Carmelite convent -of her native town, Ávila. Years of spiritual aridity, -of ill-health, weighed her down, aged her prematurely. -But nothing could abate her natural force; and from -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>1558 to the day of her death she marches from one -victory to another, careless of pain, misunderstanding, -misery, and persecution, a wonder of valour and devotion.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Scarce has she blood enough to make</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A guilty sword blush for her sake;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Yet has a heart dares hope to prove</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>How much less strong is Death than Love....</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Love touch't her heart, and lo! it beats</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>High, and burns with such brave heats,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Such thirst to die, as dares drink up</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A thousand cold deaths in one cup.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>What Crashaw has here said of her in verse he repeats -in prose, and the heading of his poem may be quoted as -a concise summary of her achievement:—"Foundress of -the Reformation of the Discalced Carmelites, both men -and women; a woman for angelical height of speculation, -for masculine courage of performance more than -a woman; who, yet a child, outran maturity, and durst -plot a martyrdom." And all the world has read with -ever-growing admiration the burning words of Crashaw's -"sweet incendiary," the "undaunted daughter of desires," -the "fair sister of the seraphim," "the moon of maiden -stars."</p> - -<p>Simplicity and conciseness are Santa Teresa's distinctive -qualities, and the marvel is where she acquired -her perfect style. Not, we may be sure, in the numerous -prose of <i>Amadís</i>. Her confessor, the worthy Gracián, -took it upon him to "improve" and polish her periods; -but, in a fortunate hour, her papers came into the hands -of Luis de León, who gave them to the press in 1588. -Himself a master in mysticism and literature, he perceived -the truth embodied later in Crashaw's famous -line:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>O 'tis not Spanish but 'tis Heaven she speaks.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> - -<p>Her masterpiece is the <i>Castillo interior</i>, of which Fray -Luis writes:—"Let naught be blotted out, save when -she herself emended: which was seldom." And once -more he commends her to her readers, saying:—"She, -who had seen God face to face, now reveals Him unto -you." With all her sublimity, her enraptured vision of -things heavenly, her "large draughts of intellectual day," -Santa Teresa illustrates the combination of the loftiest -mysticism with the finest practical sense, and her style -varies, takes ever its colour from its subject. Familiar -and maternal in her letters, enraptured in her <i>Conceptos -del Amor de Dios</i>, she handles with equal skill the trifles -of our petty lives and—to use Luis de León's phrase—"the -highest and most generous philosophy that was -ever dreamed." And from her briefest sentence shines -the vigorous soul of one born to govern, one who -governed in such wise that a helpless Nuncio denounced -her as "restless, disobedient, contumacious, an inventress -of new doctrines tricked out with piety, a breaker -of the cloister-rule, a despiser of the apostolic precept -which forbiddeth a woman to teach."</p> - -<p>Santa Teresa taught because she must, and all that she -wrote was written by compulsion, under orders from her -superior. She could never have understood the female -novelist's desire for publicity; and, had she realised it, -merry as her humour was, she would scarcely have -smiled. For she was, both by descent and temperament, -a gentlewoman—<i>de sangre muy limpia</i>, as she writes -more than once, with a tinge of satisfaction which -shows that the convent discipline had not stifled her -pride of race any more than it had quenched her -gaiety. She always remembers that she comes from -Castile, and the fact is evidenced in her writings, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -their delicious old-world savour. Boscán and Garcilaso -might influence courtiers and learned poets; but they -were impotent against the brave Castilian of Sor Teresa -de Jesús, who wields her instrument with incomparable -mastery. It were a sin to attempt a rendering of her -artless songs, with their resplendent gleams of ecstasy -and passion. But some idea of her general manner, -when untouched by the inspiration of her mystic -nuptials, may be gathered from a passage which Froude -has Englished:—</p> - -<p>"A man is directed to make a garden in a bad soil -overrun with sour grasses. The Lord of the land roots -out the weeds, sows seeds, and plants herbs and fruit-trees. -The gardener must then care for them and water -them, that they may thrive and blossom, and that the -Lord may find pleasure in his garden and come to visit -it. There are four ways in which the watering may be -done. There is water which is drawn wearily by hand -from the well. There is water drawn by the ox-wheel, -more abundantly and with greater labour. There is -water brought in from the river, which will saturate the -whole ground; and, last and best, there is rain from -heaven. Four sorts of prayer correspond to these. The -first is a weary effort with small returns; the well may -run dry: the gardener then must weep. The second -is internal prayer and meditation upon God; the trees -will then show leaves and flower-buds. The third is -love of God. The virtues then become vigorous. We -converse with God face to face. The flowers open and -give out fragrance. The fourth kind cannot be described -in words. Then there is no more toil, and the seasons -no longer change; flowers are always blowing, and fruit -ripens perennially. The soul enjoys undoubting certitude;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -the faculties work without effort and without -consciousness; the heart loves and does not know that -it loves; the mind perceives, yet does not know that it -perceives. If the butterfly pauses to say to itself how -prettily it is flying, the shining wings fall off, and it -drops and dies. The life of the spirit is not our life, but -the life of God within us."</p> - -<p>And, as Santa Teresa excelled in spiritual insight, so -she has the sense of affairs. Durtal, in M. Joris-Karl -Huysmans' <i>En Route</i>, first says of her:—"Sainte Térèse -a exploré plus à fond que tout autre les régions inconnues -de l'âme; elle en est, en quelque sorte, la -géographe; elle a surtout dressé la carte de ses pôles, -marqué les latitudes contemplatives, les terres intérieures -du ciel humain." And he shows the reverse of -the medal:—"Mais quel singulier mélange elle montre -aussi, d'une mystique ardente et d'une femme d'affaires -froide; car, enfin, elle est à double fond; elle est -contemplative hors le monde et elle est également un -homme d'état: elle est le Colbert féminin des cloîtres." -The key to Durtal's difficulties is given in the Abbé -Gévresin's remark, that the perfect balance of good sense -is one of the distinctive signs of the mystics. In Santa -Teresa's case the sign is present. An uninquiring world -may choose to think of her as a fanatic in vapours and -in ecstasies. Yet it is she who writes, in the <i>Camino de -Perfección</i>:—"I would not have my daughters be, or -seem to be, women in anything, but brave men." It -is she who holds that "of revelations no account should -be made"; who calls the usual convent life "a shortcut -to hell"; who adds that "if parents took my advice, -they would rather marry their daughters to the poorest -of men, or keep them at home under their own eyes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -Her position as a spiritual force is as unique as her -place in literature. It is certain that her "own dear -books" were nothing to her; that she regarded literature -as frivolity; and no one questions her right so to -regard it. But the world also is entitled to its judgment, -which is expressed in different ways. Jeremy -Taylor cites her in a sermon preached at the opening -of the Parliament of Ireland (May 8, 1661). Protestant -England, by the mouth of Froude, compares Santa -Teresa to Cervantes. Catholic Spain places her manuscript -of her own <i>Life</i> beside a page of St. Augustine's -writing in the Palace of the Escorial.</p> - -<p>In some sense we may almost consider the Ecstatic -Doctor, <span class="smcap">San Juan de la Cruz</span> (1542-91), as one of -Santa Teresa's disciples. He changed his worldly name -of Juan de Yepes y Álvarez for that of Juan de la Cruz -on joining the Carmelite order in 1563. Shortly afterwards -he made the acquaintance of Santa Teresa, and, -fired by her enthusiasm, he undertook to carry out in -monasteries the reforms which she introduced in convents. -In his <i>Obras espirituales</i> (1618) mysticism finds -its highest expression. There are moments when his -prose style is of extreme clearness and force, but in -many cases he soars to heights where the sense reels -in the attempt to follow him. St. John of the Cross -holds, with the mystics of all time, with Plotinus and -Böhme and Swedenborg, that "by contemplation man -may become incorporated with the Deity." This is a -hard saying for some of us, not least to the present -writer, and it were idle, in the circumstances, to attempt -criticism of what for most men must remain a mystery. -Yet in his verse one seizes the sense more easily; and -his high, amorous music has an individual melody of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -spiritual ravishment, of daring abandonment, which is -not all lost in Mr. David Lewis' unrhymed version of -the <i>Noche oscura del Alma</i> (Dark Night of the Soul):—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>In an obscure night,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With anxious love inflamed,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O happy lot!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Forth unobserved I went,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>My house being now at rest....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In that happy night,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In secret, seen of none,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Seeing nought but myself,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Without other light or guide</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Save that which in my heart was burning.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>That light guided me</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>More surely than the noonday sun</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To the place where he was waiting for me</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Whom I knew well,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And none but he appeared.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O guiding night!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O night more lovely than the dawn!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O night that hast united</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The lover with his beloved</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And charged her with her love.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>On my flowery bosom,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Kept whole for him alone,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>He reposed and slept:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I kept him, and the waving</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of the cedars fanned him.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Then his hair floated in the breeze</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>That blew from the turret;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>He struck me on the neck</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With his gentle hand,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And all sensation left me.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I continued in oblivion lost,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>My head was resting on my love;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I fainted at last abandoned,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And, amid the lilies forgotten,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Threw all my cares away.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>St. John of the Cross has absorbed the mystic essence -of the <i>Song of Solomon</i>, and he introduces infinite new -harmonies in his re-setting of the ancient melody. The -worst that criticism can allege against him is that he -dwells on the very frontier line of sense, in a twilight -where music takes the place of meaning, and words are -but vague symbols of inexpressible thoughts, intolerable -raptures, too subtly sensuous for transcription. The -<i>Unknown Eros</i>, a volume of odes, mainly mystical and -Catholic, by Coventry Patmore, which has had so considerable -an influence on recent English writers, was a -deliberate attempt to transfer to our poetry the methods -of St. John of the Cross, whose influence grows ever -deeper with time.</p> - -<p>The Dominican monk whose family name was Sarriá, -but who is only known from his birthplace as <span class="smcap">Luis -de Granada</span> (1504-88), is usually accounted a mystic -writer, though he is vastly less contemplative, more -didactic and practical, than San Juan de la Cruz. He is -best known by his <i>Guía de Pecadores</i>, which Regnier -made the favourite reading of Macette, and which -Gorgibus recommends to Célie in <i>Sganarelle</i>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>La Guide des pécheurs est encore un bon livre:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>C'est là qu'en peu de temps on apprend à bien vivre.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Unluckily for Granada, his <i>Guía de Pecadores</i> and his -<i>Tratado de la Oración y Meditación</i> were placed on the -Index, chiefly at the instigation of that hammer of -heretics, Melchor Cano, the famous theologian of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -Council of Trent. Certain changes were made in the -text, and the books were reprinted in their amended -form; but the suspicion of <i>iluminismo</i> long hung over -Granada, whose last years were troubled by his rash -simplicity in certifying as true the sham stigmata of -a Portuguese nun, Sor María de la Visitación. The -story that Granada was persecuted by the Inquisition -is imaginary.</p> - -<p>His books have still an immense vogue. His sincerity, -learning, and fervour are admirable, and his forty years -spent between confessional and pulpit gave him a rare -knowledge of human weakness and a mastery of eloquent -appeal. He is not declamatory in the worst sense, -though he bears the marks of his training. He sins -by abuse of oratorical antithesis, by repetition, by a -certain mechanical see-saw of the sentence common to -those who harangue multitudes. Still, the sweetness of -his nature so flows over in his words that didacticism -becomes persuasive even when he argues against our -strongest prepossessions. It may interest to quote a -passage from the translation made by that Francis Meres -whose <i>Palladis Tamia</i> contains the earliest reference to -Shakespeare's "sugared sonnets":—</p> - -<p>"This desire which doth hold many so resolutely to -their studies, and this love of science and knowledge -under pretence to help others, is too much and superfluous. -I call it a love too much and desire superfluous; -for when it is moderate and according to reason, it is not -a temptation, but a laudable virtue and a very profitable -exercise which is commended in all kind of men, but -especially in young men who do exercise their youth in -that study, for by it they eschew many vices and learn -that whereby they will counsel themselves and others.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -But unless it be moderately used it hurteth devotion.... -There be some that would know for this end only, that -they might know—and it is foolish curiosity. There be -some that would know, that they might be known—and it -is foolish vanity; and there be some that would know, -that they might sell their knowledge for money or for -honours—and it is filthy lucre. There be also some that -desire to know, that they may edify—and it is charity. -And there are some that would know, that they may be -edified—and it is wisdom. All these ends may move the -desire, and, in choice of these, a man is often deceived, -when he considereth not which ought especially to move; -and this error is very dangerous."</p> - -<p>This distrust of profane letters is yet more marked -in the Augustinian, <span class="smcap">Pedro Malón de Chaide</span> of Cascante -(1530-?1590), who compares the "frivolous love-books" -of Boscán, Garcilaso, and Montemôr and the -"fabulous tales and lies" of chivalresque romance to a -knife in a madman's hand. His practice clashes with -his theory, for his <i>Conversión de la Magdalena</i>, written for -Beatriz Cerdán, is learned to the verge of pedantry, and -his elaborate periods betray the imitation of models -which he professed to abhor. More ascetic than mystic, -Malón de Chaide lacks the patrician ease, the tolerant -spirit of Juan de Ávila, Granada, and León; but his -austere doctrine and sumptuous colouring have ensured -him permanent popularity. His admirable verse paraphrases -of the <i>Song of Solomon</i> have much of the -unction, without the sensuous exaltation, of Juan de -la Cruz. A better representative of pure mysticism is -the Extremaduran Carmelite, <span class="smcap">Juan de Los Ángeles</span> -(fl. 1595), whose <i>Triumphos del Amor de Dios</i> is a profound -psychological study, written under the influence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -of Northern thinkers, and not less remarkable for beauty -of expression than for impassioned insight. With him -our notice of the Spanish mystics must close. It is -difficult to estimate their number exactly; but since at -least three thousand survive in print, it is not surprising -that the most remain unread. A breath of mysticism is -met in the few Castilian verses of the brilliant humanist, -<span class="smcap">Benito Arias Montano</span> (1527-98), who gave up to -scholarship and theology what was meant for poetry. -His achievement in the two former fields is not our -concern here, but it pleases to denote the ample inspiration -and the lofty simplicity of his song, which is -hidden from many readers, and overlooked even by -literary historians, in Böhl de Faber's <i>Floresta de rimas -antiguas</i>.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The pastoral novel, like the chivalresque romance, -reaches Spain through Portugal. The Italianised Spaniard, -Jacopo Sannazaro, had invented the first example of this -kind in his epoch-making <i>Arcadia</i> (1504); and his earliest -follower was the Portuguese, Bernardim Ribeiro (?1475-?1524), -whose <i>Menina e moça</i> transplants the prose -pastoral to the Peninsula. This remarkable book, which -derives its title from the first three words of the text, is -the undoubted model of the first Castilian prose pastoral, -the unfinished <i>Diana Enamorada</i>. This we owe to the -Portuguese, <span class="smcap">Jorge de Montemôr</span> (d. 1561), whose name -is hispaniolised as Montemayor. There is nothing strange -in this usage of Castilian by a Portuguese writer. We -have already recorded the names of Gil Vicente, Sâ de -Miranda, and Silvestre among those of Castilian poets; -the lyrics and comedies of Camões, the <i>Austriada</i> of -Jerónimo Corte Real, continue a tradition which begins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -as early as the <i>General Cancioneiro</i> of García de Resende -(1516), wherein twenty-nine Portuguese poets prefer -Castilian before their own language. A Portuguese -writer, Innocencio da Silva, has gone the length of -asserting that Montemôr wrote nothing but Castilian. -This only proves that Silva had not read the <i>Diana</i>, -which contains two Portuguese songs, and Portuguese -prose passages spoken by the shepherd, Danteo, and -the shepherdess, Duarda. Nor is Silva alone in his -bad eminence; the date of the earliest edition of -the <i>Diana</i> is commonly given as 1542. Yet, as it -contains, in the <i>Canto de Orpheo</i>, an allusion to the -widowhood of the Infanta Juana (1554), it must be later. -The time of publication was probably 1558-59,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> some -four or five years after the printing of his <i>Cancionero</i> -at Antwerp.</p> - -<p>Little is known of Montemôr's life, save that he was a -musician at the Spanish court in 1548. He accompanied -the Infanta Juana to Lisbon on her marriage to Dom -João, returning to Spain in 1554, when he is thought to -have visited England and the Low Countries in Felipe -II.'s train. He was murdered in 1651, apparently as the -result of some amour. Faint intimations of pastoralism -are found in such early chivalresque novels as <i>Florisel -de Niquea</i>, where Florisel, dressed as a shepherd, loves -the shepherdess, Sylvia. Ribeiro had introduced his -own flame in <i>Menina e moça</i> in the person of Aonia, -and Montemôr follows with Diana. The identification -of Aonia with the Infanta Beatriz, and with King -Manoel's cousin, Joana de Vilhena, has been argued -with great heat: in Montemôr's case the lady is said to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>have been a certain Ana. Her surname is withheld by -the discreet Sepúlveda, who records that she was seen -at Valderas by Felipe III. and his queen in 1603.</p> - -<p>In all pastoral novels there is a family likeness, and -Montemôr is not successful in avoiding the insipidity -of the <i>genre</i>. He endeavours to lighten the monotony -of his shepherds by borrowing Sannazaro's invention of -the witch whose magic draughts work miracles. This -wonder-worker is as convenient for the novelist as she -is tedious for the reader, who is forced to cry out with -Don Quixote's Priest:—"Let all that refers to the wise -Felicia and the enchanted water be omitted." The bold -Priest would further drop the verses, honouring the -book for its prose, and for being the first of its class. -Montemôr accepts the convention by making his shepherds—Sireno, -Silvano, and the rest—mouth it like -grandiloquent dukes; but the style is correct, and pleasing -in its grandiose kind. The <i>Diana's</i> vogue was immense: -Shakespeare himself based the <i>Two Gentlemen of -Verona</i> upon the episode of the shepherdess Felismena, -which he had probably read in the manuscript of Bartholomew -Young, whose excellent version, although not -printed until 1598, was finished in 1583; and Sidney, -whose own pastoral is redolent of Montemôr, has given -Sireno's song in this fashion:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Of this high grace with bliss conjoin'd</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>No further debt on me is laid,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Since that is self-same metal coin'd,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Sweet lady, you remain well paid.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For, if my place give me great pleasure,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Having before me Nature's treasure,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>In face and eyes unmatchèd being,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>You have the same in my hands, seeing</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What in your face mine eyes do measure.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Nor think the match unev'nly made,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That of those beams in you do tarry;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The glass to you but gives a shade,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>To me mine eyes the true shape carry:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For such a thought most highly prizèd,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which ever hath Love's yoke despisèd,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Better than one captiv'd perceiveth,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Though he the lively form receiveth,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The other sees it but disguisèd.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Montemôr closes with the promise of a sequel, which -never appeared. But, as his popularity continued, publishers -printed new editions, containing the story of -Abindarraez and Jarifa, boldly annexed from Villegas' -<i>Inventario</i>, which was licensed so early as 1551. The -tempting opportunity was seized by Alonso Pérez, a -Salamancan doctor, whose second <i>Diana</i> (1564) is extremely -dull, despite the singular boast of its author that -it contains scarcely anything "not stolen or imitated -from the best Latins and Italians." Pérez alleges that -he was a friend of Montemôr's; but, as that was his -sole qualification, his third <i>Diana</i>—written, though "not -added here, to avoid making too large a volume"—has -fortunately vanished. In this same year, 1564, appeared -Gaspar Gil Polo's <i>Diana</i>, a continuation which, says Cervantes, -should be guarded "as though it were Apollo's"—the -praise has perplexed readers who missed the pun -on the author's name. The merits of Polo's sequel, -excellent in matter and form, were recognised, as Professor -Rennert notes, by Jerónimo de Texeda, whose -<i>Diana</i> (1627) is a plagiary from Polo. Though the -contents of the one and the other are almost identical, -Ticknor, considering them as independent works, finds -praise for the earlier book, and blame for the later. An -odd, mad freak is the versified <i>Diez libros de Fortuna de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -Amor</i> (1573), wherein Frexano and Floricio woo Fortuna -and Augustina in Arcadian fashion. Its author, the -Sardinian soldier, Antonio Lo Frasso, shares with Avellaneda -the distinction of having drawn Cervantes' fire—his -one title to fame. Artificiality reaches its full height -in the <i>Pastor de Fílida</i> (1582) of Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, -who presents himself, Silvestre, and Cervantes -as the (Dresden) shepherds Siralvo, Silvano, and Tirsi. -Almost every Spanish man of letters attempted a pastoral, -but it were idle to compile a catalogue of works by -authors whose echoes of Montemôr are merely mechanical. -The occasion of much ornate prose, the pastoral -lived partly because there was naught to set against it, -partly because born men of action found pleasure in -literary idealism and in "old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy." -Its unreality doomed it to death when Alemán -and others took to working the realistic vein first -struck in <i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>. Meanwhile the spectacle -of love-lorn shepherds contending in song scandalised -the orthodox, and the monk Bartolomé Ponce -produced his devout parody, the <i>Clara Diana á lo -divino</i> (1599) in the same edifying spirit that moved -Sebastián de Córdoba (1577) to travesty Boscán's and -Garcilaso's works—<i>á lo divino, trasladadas en materias -cristianas</i>.</p> - -<p>Didactic prose is practised by the official chronicler, -<span class="smcap">Jerónimo de Zurita</span> (1512-80), author of the <i>Anales -de la Corona de Aragón</i>, six folios published between -1562 and 1580, and ending with the death of Fernando. -Zurita is not a great literary artist, nor an historical -portrait-painter. Men's actions interest him less than -the progress of constitutional growth. His conception -of history, to give an illustration from English literature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -is nearer Freeman's than Froude's, and he was admirably -placed by fortune. Simancas being thrown open to him, -he was first among Spanish historians to use original -documents, first to complete his authorities by study -in foreign archives, first to perceive that travel is the -complement of research. Science and Zurita's work -gain by his determination to abandon the old plan of -beginning with Noah. He lacks movement, sympathy, -and picturesqueness; but he excels all predecessors in -scheme, accuracy, architectonics—qualities which have -made his supersession impossible. Whatever else be -read, Zurita's <i>Anales</i> must be read also. His contemporary, -<span class="smcap">Ambrosio de Morales</span> (1513-91), nephew -of Pérez de Oliva, was charged to continue Ocampo's -chronicle. His nomination is dated 1580. His authoritative -fragment, the result of ten years' labour, combines -eloquent narrative with critical instinct in such wise as to -suggest that, with better fortune, he might have matched -Zurita.</p> - -<p>Hurtado de Mendoza as a poet belongs to Carlos -Quinto's period. Even if he be not the author of -<i>Lazarillo</i>, he approves himself a master of prose in his -<i>Guerra de Granada</i>, first published at Lisbon by the -editor of Figueroa's poems, Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, -in 1627. Mendoza wrote his story of the Morisco rising -(1568-71) in the Alpujarra and Ronda ranges, while in -exile at Granada. On July 22, 1568 (if Fourquevaulx' -testimony be exact), a quarrel arose between Mendoza -and a young courtier, Diego de Leiva. The old soldier—he -was sixty-four—disarmed Leiva, threw his dagger -out of window, and, by some accounts, sent Leiva after -it. This, passing in the royal palace at Madrid, was flat -<i>lèse majesté</i>, to be expiated by Mendoza's exile. To this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -lucky accident we owe the <i>Guerra de Granada</i>, written in -the neighbourhood of the war.</p> - -<p>Mendoza writes for the pleasure of writing, with no -polemical or didactic purpose. His plain-speaking concerning -the war, and the part played in it by great -personages whom he had no cause to love, accounts -for the tardy publication of his book, which should be -considered as a confidential state-paper by a diplomatist -of genius. Yet, though he wrote chiefly to pass the time, -he has the qualities of the great historian—knowledge, -impartiality, narrative power, condensation, psychological -insight, dramatic apprehension, perspective and eloquence. -His view of a general situation is always just, -and, though he has something of the credulity of his -time, his accuracy of detail is astonishing. His style is -a thing apart. He had already shown, in a burlesque -letter addressed to Feliciano de Silva, an almost unique -capacity for reproducing that celebrity's literary manner. -In his <i>Guerra de Granada</i> he repeats the performance -with more serious aim. One god of his idolatry is -Sallust, whose terse rhetoric is repeatedly echoed with -unsurpassable fidelity. Another model is Tacitus, whose -famous description of Germanicus finding the unburied -corpses of Varus' legions is annexed by Mendoza in -his account of Arcos and his troops at Calalín. This is -neither plagiarism nor unconscious reminiscence; it is -the deliberate effort of a prose connoisseur, saturated in -antiquity, to impart the gloomy splendour of the Roman -to his native tongue. To say that Mendoza succeeded -were too much, but he did not altogether fail; and, -despite his occasional Latinised construction, his <i>Guerra -de Granada</i> lives not solely as a brilliant and picturesque -transcription. It is also a masterly example of idiomatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -Castilian prose, published without the writer's last -touches, and, as is plain, from mutilated copies.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Mendoza -may not be a great historian: as a literary artist -he is extremely great.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnotes:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_8_8">[8]</a> The sources are carefully traced by L. A. Stiefel in the <i>Zeitschrift für -Romanische Philologie</i> (vol. xx. pp. 183 and 318). One specimen suffices -here:— -</p> -<p class="p1"> -<span class="smcap">Giancarli</span>, iii. 16. -</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Falisco.</i> Padrone, o che la imaginatione -m'inganna, o pur quella è la -vuestra Madonna Angelica. -</p> -<p> -<i>Cassandro.</i> Sarebbe gran cosa che -la imaginatione inganassa me anchora, -perch' io voleva dirloti, etc.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p> -<span class="smcap">Rueda</span>, <i>Escena</i> iii. -</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Falisco.</i> Señor, la vista ó la imaginacion -me engaña ó es aquella vuestra -muy querida Angélica. -</p> -<p> -<i>Casandro.</i> Gran cosa seria si la -imaginacion no te engañase, antes -yo te lo quería decir, etc.</p> -</blockquote> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_9_9">[9]</a> I learn that D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo is preparing a new edition -of the <i>Anotaciones</i>.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_10_10">[10]</a> For a full and very able account of the proceedings, see Alejandro Arango -y Escandon's <i>Ensayo histórico</i> (Méjico, 1866).</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_11_11">[11]</a> The Christian name of the author of the <i>Visión deleitable</i> was Alfonso.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_12_12">[12]</a> See the second volume (pp. 79-104) of the <i>Discursos leidos en las recepciones -públicas que ha celebrado desde 1847 la Real Academia Española</i> -(Madrid, 1861).</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_13_13">[13]</a> A very able discussion of these ascriptions is presented by M. Foulché-Delbosc -in the <i>Revue hispanique</i> (1895), vol. ii. pp. 120-45.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_14_14">[14]</a> The question is discussed in the <i>Revue hispanique</i> (1895), vol. ii. pp. -304-11.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_15_15">[15]</a> See two very able studies in the <i>Revue hispanique</i> (vol. i. pp. 101-65, -and vol. ii. pp. 208-303), by M. Foulché-Delbosc, whose edition of the <i>Guerra -de Granada</i> is now printing.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IX -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF LOPE DE VEGA -<br /> -1598-1621</small></h2> - - -<p>The death of Felipe II. in 1598 closes an epoch in the -history of Castilian letters. Not merely has the Italian -influence triumphed definitively: the chivalresque -romance has well-nigh run its course; while mysticism -and the pastoral have achieved expression and -acceptance. Moreover, the most important of all developments -is the establishment of the stage at Madrid -in the Teatro de la Cruz and in the Teatro del Príncipe. -There is evidence to prove that theatres were also built -at Valencia, at Seville, and possibly at Granada. Nor -was a foreign impulse lacking. Kyd's <i>Spanish Tragedy</i> -records the invasion of England by Italian actors:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>The Italian tragedians were so sharp of wit,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>That in one hour's meditation</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>They could perform anything in action.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In like wise the famous Alberto Ganasa and his Italian -histrions revealed the art of acting to the Spains. Thenceforth -every province is overrun by mummers, as may be -read in the <i>Viaje entretenido</i> (1603) of Agustín de Rojas -Villandrando, who denotes, with mock-solemn precision, -the nine professional grades.</p> - -<p>There was the solitary stroller, the <i>bululú</i>, tramping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -from village to village, declaiming short plays to small -audiences, called together by the sacristan, the barber, -and the parish priest, who—<i>pidiendo limosna en un sombrero</i>—passed -round the hat, and sped the vagabond -with a slice of bread and a cup of broth. A pair -of strollers (such as Rojas himself and his colleague -Ríos) was styled a <i>ñaque</i>, and did no more than spout -simple <i>entremeses</i> in the open. The <i>cangarilla</i> was on a -larger scale, numbering three or four actors, who gave -Timoneda's <i>Oveja Perdida</i>, or some comic piece wherein -a boy played the woman's part. Five men and a woman -made up the <i>carambaleo</i>, which performed in farmhouses -for such small wages as a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, -a stew of cabbage; but higher fees were asked in larger -villages—six <i>maravedís</i>, a piece of sausage, a roll of flax, -and what not. Though "a spider could carry" its properties, -says Rojas, yet the <i>carambaleo</i> contrived to fill -the bill with a set piece, or two <i>autos</i>, or four <i>entremeses</i>. -More pretentious was the <i>garnacha</i>, with its six men, -its "leading lady," and a boy who played the <i>ingénue</i>. -With four set plays, three <i>autos</i>, and three <i>entremeses</i> -it would draw a whole village for a week. A large -choice of pieces was within the means of the seven men, -two women, and a boy that made up the <i>bojiganga</i>, -which journeyed from town to town on horseback. -Next in rank came the <i>farándula</i>, the stepping-stone -to the lofty <i>compañía</i> of sixteen players, with fourteen -"supers," capable of producing fifty pieces at short -notice. To such a troupe, no doubt, belonged the -Toledan Naharro, famous as an interpreter of the bully, -and as the foremost of Spanish stage-managers. "He -still further enriched theatrical adornment, substituting -chests and trunks for the costume-bag. Into the body<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -of the house he brought the musicians, who had hitherto -sung behind the blanket. He did away with the false -beards which till then actors had always worn, and he -made all play without a make-up, save those who performed -old men's parts, or such characters as implied a -change of appearance. He introduced machinery, -clouds, thunder, lightning, duels, and battles; but this -reached not the perfection of our day."</p> - -<p>This is the testimony of the most renowned personality -in Castilian literature. <span class="smcap">Miguel de Cervantes -Saavedra</span> (1547-1616) describes himself as a native of -Alcalá de Henares, in a legal document signed at Madrid -on December 18, 1580: the long dispute as to his -birthplace is thus at last settled. His stock was pure -Castilian, its <i>solar</i> being at Cervatos, near Reinosa: -the connection with Galicia is no older than the fourteenth -century. His family surname of Cervantes probably -comes from the castle of San Cervantes, beyond -Toledo, which was named after the Christian martyr -Servandus. The additional name of Saavedra is not on -the title-page of the writer's first book, the <i>Galatea</i>. -However, Miguel de Cervantes uses the Saavedra in a -petition addressed to Pope Gregory XIII. and Felipe II. -in October 1578; and, as Cervantes was not then, though -it is now, an uncommon name, the addition served to -distinguish the author from contemporary clansmen. -He was the second (though not, as heretofore believed, -the youngest) son of Rodrigo de Cervantes Saavedra -and of Leonor Cortinas. Of the mother we know -nothing: garrulous as was her famous son, he nowhere -alludes to her, nor did he follow the usual Spanish practice -by adding her surname to his own. The father was -a licentiate—of laws, so it is conjectured. Research only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -yields two facts concerning him: that he was incurably -deaf, and that he was poor.</p> - -<p>Cervantes' birthday is unknown. He was baptized at -the Church of Santa María Mayor, in Alcalá de Henares, -on Sunday, October 9, 1547. One Tomás González -asserted that he had found Cervantes' name in the -matriculation lists of Salamanca University; but the -entry has never been verified since, and its report lacks -probability. If Cervantes ever studied at any university, -we should expect to find him at that of his native town, -Alcalá de Henares. His name does not appear in the -University calendar. Though he made his knowledge -go far, he was anything but learned, and college witlings -bantered him for having no degree. No information -exists concerning his youth. He is first mentioned in -1569, when a Madrid dominie, Juan López de Hoyos, -speaks of him as "our dear and beloved pupil"; and -some conjecture that he was an usher in Hoyos' school. -His earliest literary performance is discovered (1569) in -a collection of verses on the death of Felipe II.'s third -wife. The volume, edited by Hoyos, is entitled the <i>Historia -y relación verdadera de la enfermedad, felicísimo tránsito -y suntuosas exequias fúnebres de la Serenísima Reina de -España, Doña Isabel de Valois</i>. Cervantes' contributions -are an epitaph in sonnet form, five <i>redondillas</i>, and an -elegy of one hundred and ninety-nine lines: this last -being addressed to Cardinal Diego de Espinosa in the -name of the whole school—<i>en nombre de todo el estudio</i>. -These poor pieces are reproduced solely because Cervantes -wrote them: it is very doubtful if he ever saw -them in print. He is alleged to have been guilty of -<i>lèse-majesté</i> in Hurtado de Mendoza's fashion; but this -is surmise, as is also a pendant story of his love passages<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> -with a Maid of Honour. It is certain that, on -September 15, 1569, a warrant was signed for the arrest -of one Miguel de Cervantes, who was condemned to -lose his right hand for wounding Antonio de Sigura in -the neighbourhood of the Court. There is nothing to -prove that our man was the culprit; but if he were, -he had already got out of jurisdiction. Joining the -household of the Special Nuncio, Giulio Acquaviva, he -left Madrid for Rome as the Legate's chamberlain in -the December of 1568.</p> - -<p>He was not the stuff of which chamberlains are made; -and in 1570 he enlisted in the company commanded -by Diego de Urbina, captain in Miguel de Moncada's -famous infantry regiment, at that time serving under -Marc Antonio Colonna. It is worth noting that the -<i>Galatea</i> is dedicated to Marc Antonio's son, Ascanio -Colonna, Abbot of St. Sophia. In 1571 Cervantes fought -at Lepanto, where he was twice shot in the chest and had -his left hand maimed for life: "for the greater honour -of the right," as he loved to think and say with justifiable -vainglory. That he never tired of vaunting his share -in the great victory is shown by his frequent allusions -to it in his writings; and it should almost seem that he -was prouder of his nickname—the Cripple of Lepanto—than -of writing <i>Don Quixote</i>. He served in the engagements -before Navarino, Corfu, Tunis, the Goletta; and -in all he bore himself with credit. Returning to Italy, -he seems to have learned the language, for traces of -Italian idioms are not rare even in his best pages. From -Naples he sailed for Spain in September 1575, with -recommendatory letters from Don Juan de Austria and -from the Neapolitan Viceroy. On September 26, his -caravel, the <i>Sol</i>, was attacked by Moorish pirates, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -after a brave resistance, all on board were carried as -prisoners into Algiers. There for five years Cervantes -abode as a slave, writing plays between the intervals of -his plots to escape, striving to organise a general rising -of the thousands of Christians. Being the most dangerous, -because the most heroic of them all, he became, in -some sort, the chief of his fellows, and, after the failure -of several plans for flight, was held hostage by the Dey -for the town's safety. His release was due to accident. -On September 19, 1580, the Redemptorist, Fray Juan -Gil, offered five hundred gold ducats as the ransom of -a private gentleman named Jerónimo Palafox. The sum -was held insufficient to redeem a man of Palafox's position; -but it sufficed to set free Cervantes, who was -already shipped on the Dey's galley bound for Constantinople.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> -He is found at Madrid on December 19, -1580, and it is surmised that he served in Portugal and -at the Azores. There are rumours of his holding some -small post at Oran: however that may be, he returned -to Spain, at latest, in the autumn of 1582. And henceforth -he belongs to literature.</p> - -<p>The plays written at Algiers are lost; but there survive -two sonnets of the same period dedicated to Rufino de -Chamberí (1577). A rhymed epistle to the Secretary of -State, Mateo Vázquez, also belongs to this time. We -must suppose Cervantes to have written copiously on regaining -his liberty, since Gálvez de Montalvo speaks of -him as a poet of repute in the <i>Pastor de Fílida</i> (1582); -but the earliest signs of him in Spain are his eulogistic -sonnets in Padilla's <i>Romancero</i> and Rufo Gutiérrez' <i>Austriada</i>, -both published in 1583. Padilla repaid the debt by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>classing the sonneteer among "the most famous poets of -Castile." In December 1584, Cervantes married Catalina -de Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, a native of Esquivias, -eighteen years younger than himself. It is often said -that he wrote the <i>Galatea</i> as a means of furthering his -suit. It may be so. But the book was not printed by -Juan Gracián of Alcalá de Henares till March 1585, -though the <i>aprobación</i> and the privilege are dated February -1 and February 22, 1584. In the year after his -marriage, Cervantes' illegitimate daughter, Isabel de -Saavedra, was born. We shall have occasion to refer -to her later. Our immediate concern is with the <i>Primera -Parte de Galatea</i>, an unfinished pastoral novel in six books, -for which Cervantes received 1336 <i>reales</i> from Blas de -Robles; a sum which, with his wife's small dowry, enabled -him to start housekeeping.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> As a financial speculation -the <i>Galatea</i> failed: only two later editions appeared -during the writer's lifetime, one at Lisbon in 1590, the -other at Paris in 1611. Neither could have brought him -money; but the book, if it did nothing else, served to -make him known.</p> - -<p>He trimmed his sails to the popular breeze. Montemôr -had started the pastoral fashion, Pérez and Gaspar Gil -Polo had followed, and Gálvez de Montalvo maintained -the tradition. Later in life, in the <i>Coloquio de los Perros</i> -(Dialogue of the Dogs), Cervantes made his Berganza -say that all pastorals are "vain imaginings, void of truth, -written to amuse the idle"; yet it may be doubted if -Cervantes ever lost the pastoral taste, though his sense of -humour forced him to see the absurdity of the convention. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>It is very certain that he had a special fondness for the -<i>Galatea</i>: he spared it at the burning of Don Quixote's -library, praised its invention, and made the Priest exhort -the Barber to await the sequel which is foreshadowed in -the <i>Galatea's</i> text. This is again promised in the Dedication -of the volume of plays (1615), in the Prologue to -the Second Part of <i>Don Quixote</i> (1615), and in the -Letter Dedicatory of <i>Persiles y Sigismunda</i>, signed on the -writer's deathbed, April 19, 1616. For thirty-one years -Cervantes held out the promise of the <i>Galatea's</i> Second -Part: five times did he repeat it. It is plain that he -thought well of the First, and that his liking for the <i>genre</i> -was incorrigible.</p> - -<p>His own attempt survives chiefly because of the name -on its title-page. Pastorals differ little in essentials, -and the kind offers few openings to Cervantes' peculiar -humoristic genius. Like his fellow-practitioners, he -crowds his stage with figures: he presents his shepherds -Elicio and Erastro warbling their love for -Galatea on Tagus bank; he reveals Mirenio enamoured -of Silveria, Leonarda love-sick for Salercio, Lenio in the -toils of Gelasia. Hazlitt, in his harsh criticism of -Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>, hits the defects of the pastoral, and his -censures may be justly applied to the <i>Galatea</i>. There, as -in the English book, we find the "original sin of alliteration, -antithesis, and metaphysical conceit"; there, too, -is the "systematic interpolation of the wit, learning, -ingenuity, wisdom, and everlasting impertinence of the -writer." Worst of all are "the continual, uncalled-for -interruptions, analysing, dissecting, disjointing, murdering -everything, and reading a pragmatical, self-sufficient -lecture over the dead body of nature." But if Cervantes -sins in this wise, he sins of set purpose and in good company.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -In his Fourth Book, he interpolates a long disquisition -on the Beautiful which he calmly annexes from -Judas Abarbanel's <i>Dialoghi</i>. As Sannazaro opens his -<i>Arcadia</i> with Ergasto and Selvaggio, so Cervantes thrusts -his Elicio and Erastro into the foreground of the <i>Galatea</i>; -the funeral of Meliso is a deliberate imitation of the -Feast of Pales; and, as the Italian introduced Carmosina -Bonifacia under the name of Amaranta, the Spaniard -perforce gives Catalina de Palacios Salazar as Galatea. -Nor does he depart from the convention by placing himself -upon the scene as Elicio, for Ribeiro and Montemôr -had preceded him in the characters of Bimnardel and -Sereno. Lastly, the idea and the form of the <i>Canto de -Calíope</i>, wherein the uncritical poet celebrates whole tribes -of contemporary singers, are borrowed from the <i>Canto del -Turia</i>, which Gil Polo had interpolated in his <i>Diana</i>.</p> - -<p>Prolixity, artifice, ostentation, monotony, extravagance, -are inherent in the pastoral school; and the <i>Galatea</i> -savours of these defects. Yet, for all its weakness, it -lacks neither imagination nor contrivance, and its embroidered -rhetoric is a fine example of stately prose. -Save, perhaps, in the <i>Persiles y Sigismunda</i>, Cervantes -never wrote with a more conscious effort after excellence, -and, in results of absolute style, the <i>Galatea</i> may compare -with all but exceptional passages in <i>Don Quixote</i>. -Yet it failed to please, and the author turned to other -fields of effort. His verses in Pedro de Padilla's <i>Jardín -Espiritual</i> (1585) and in López Maldonado's <i>Cancionero</i> -(1586) denote good-nature and a love of literature; and -in both volumes Cervantes may have read companion-pieces -written by a marvellous youth, Lope de Vega, -whom he had already praised—as he praised everybody—in -the <i>Canto de Calíope</i>. He could not foresee that in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -person of this boy he was to meet his match and more. -Meanwhile in 1587 he penned sonnets for Padilla's -<i>Grandezas y Excelencias de la Virgen</i>, and for Alonso de -Barros' <i>Filosofía cortesana</i>. Verse-making was his craze; -and, in 1588, when the physician, Francisco Díaz, published -a treatise on kidney disease—<i>Tratado nuevamente -impreso acerca de las enfermedades de los riñones</i>—the -unwearied poetaster was forthcoming with a sonnet pat -to the strange occasion.</p> - -<p>Still, though he cultivated verse with as sedulous a -passion as Don Quixote spent on Knight-Errantries, -he recognised that man does not live by sonneteering -alone, and he tried his fate upon the boards. He died -with the happy conviction that he was a dramatist of -genius; his contemporaries ruled the point against him, -and posterity has upheld the decision. He tells us that -at this time he wrote between twenty and thirty plays. -We only know the titles of a few among them—the <i>Gran -Turquesca</i>, the <i>Jerusalén</i>, the <i>Batalla Naval</i> (attributed by -Moratín to the year 1584), the <i>Amaranta</i> and the <i>Bosque -Amoroso</i> (referred to 1586), the <i>Arsinda</i> and the <i>Confusa</i> (to -1587). It is like enough that the <i>Batalla Naval</i> was concerned -with Lepanto, a subject of which Cervantes never -tired; the <i>Arsinda</i> existed so late as 1673, when Juan de -Matos Fragoso mentioned it as "famous" in his <i>Corsaria -Catalana</i>; and our author himself ranked the <i>Confusa</i> as -"good among the best." The touch of self-complacency -is amusing, though one might desire a better security than -Bardolph's.</p> - -<p>Two surviving plays of the period are <i>El Trato de -Argel</i> and <i>La Numancia</i>, first printed by Antonio de -Sancha in 1784. The former deals with the life of the -Christian slaves in Algiers, and recounts the passion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -of Zara the Moor for the captive Aurelio, who is enamoured -of Silvia. We must assume that Cervantes -thought well of this invention, since he utilised it some -thirty years later in <i>El Amante Liberal</i>; but the play is -merely futile. The introduction of a lion, of the Devil, -and of such abstractions as Necessity and Opportunity, -is as poor a piece of machinery as theatre ever saw; the -versification is rough and creaking, improvised without -care or conscience; the situations are arranged with a -glaring disregard for truth and probability. Like Paolo -Veronese, Cervantes could rarely resist the temptation -of painting himself into his canvas, and in <i>El Trato de -Argel</i> he takes care that the prisoner Saavedra should -declaim his tirade. The piece has no dramatic interest, -and is valuable merely as an over-coloured picture of -vicissitudes by one who knew them at first-hand, and -who presented them to his countrymen with a more -or less didactic intention. Yet, even as a transcript of -manners, this luckless play is a failure.</p> - -<p>A finer example of Cervantes' dramatic power is the -<i>Numancia</i>, on which Shelley has passed this generous judgment:—"I -have read the <i>Numancia</i>, and, after wading -through the singular stupidity of the First Act, began to -be greatly delighted, and at length interested in a very -high degree, by the power of the writer in awakening -pity and admiration, in which I hardly know by whom -he is excelled. There is little, I allow, to be called <i>poetry</i> -in this play; but the command of language and the harmony -of versification is so great as to deceive one into -an idea that it is poetry." Nor is Shelley alone in his admiration. -Goethe's avowal to Humboldt is on record:—"Sogar -habe ich ... neulich das Trauerspiel <i>Numancia</i> -von Cervantes mit vielem Vergnügen gelesen;" but eight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -years later he confided a revised judgment to Riemer. -The gushing school of German Romantics waxed delirious -in praise. Thus Friedrich Schlegel surpassed himself -by calling the play "godlike"; and August Schlegel, -not content to hold it for a dramatic masterpiece, would -persuade us to accept it for great poetry. Even Sismondi -declares that "le frisson de l'horreur et de l'effroi devient -presque un supplice pour le spectateur."</p> - -<p>Raptures apart, the <i>Numancia</i> is Cervantes' best play. -He has a grandiose subject: the siege of Numantia, and -its capture by Scipio Africanus after fourteen years of -resistance. On the Roman side were eighty thousand -soldiers; the Spaniards numbered four thousand or less; -and the victors entered the fallen city to find no soul -alive. With scenes of valour is mingled the pathetic -love-story of Morandro and Lyra. But, once again, -Cervantes fails as a dramatic artist; one doubts if he -knew what a plot was, what unity of conception meant. -He has scenes and episodes of high excellence, but they -are detached from the main composition, and produce -all the bad effect of a portrait painted in different lights. -Abstractions fill the stage—War, Sickness, Hunger, -Spain, the river Duero. But the tirades of rhetoric -are unsurpassed by anything from Cervantes' pen, and -Marquino's scene with the corpse in the Second Act -is pregnant with a suggestion of weirdness which Mr. -Gibson has well conveyed:—</p> - -<div class="drama-container"> -<div class="character">Marquino.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0">"<i>What! Dost not answer? Dost not live again,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Or haply hast thou tasted death once more?</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Then will I quicken thee anew with pain,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And for thy good the gift of speech restore.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Since thou art one of us, do not disdain</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>To speak and answer, as I now implore;...</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -<div class="i0"><i>Ye spirits vile, it worketh not ye trust!</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>But wait, for soon the enchanted water here</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Will show my will to be as strong and just</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>As yours is treacherous and insincere.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And though this flesh were turned to very dust,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Yet being quickened by this lash austere,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Which cuts with cruel rigour like a knife,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>It will regain a new though fleeting life.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Thou rebel soul, seek now the home again</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Thou leftest empty these few hours ago.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Body.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Restrain the fury of thy reckless pain;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Suffice it, O Marquino, man of woe,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>What I do suffer in the realms obscure,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Nor give me pangs more fearful to endure.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Thou errest, if thou thinkest that I crave</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>This painful, pinched, and narrow life I have,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Which even now is ebbing fast away,...</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Since Death a second time, with bitter sway,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Will triumph over me in life and soul,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And gain a double palm, beyond control.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>For he and others of the dismal band,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Who do thy bidding subject to thy spell,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Are raging round and round, and waiting stand,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Till I shall finish what I have to tell....</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>The Romans ne'er shall victory obtain</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>O'er proud Numantia; still less shall she</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>A glorious triumph o'er her foemen gain;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>'Twixt friends and foes, both have to a degree,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Think not that settled peace shall ever reign</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Where rage meets rage in strife eternally.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>The friendly hand, with homicidal knife,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Will slay Numantia and will give her life.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i6">[He hurls himself into the sepulchre, and says:—</div> -</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>I say no more, Marquino, time is fleet;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>The Fates will grant to me no more delay,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And, though my words may seem to thee deceit,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Thou'lt find at last the truth of what I say.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Even in translation—still more in the original—the -rhetoric of this passage is imposing; yet we perceive -rhetoric to be contagious when Ticknor asserts that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -"there is nothing of so much dignity in the incantations -of Marlowe's <i>Faustus</i>." Still more amazing is Ticknor's -second appreciation:—"Nor does even Shakspeare demand -from us a sympathy so strange with the mortal -head reluctantly rising to answer Macbeth's guilty -question, as Cervantes makes us feel for this suffering -spirit, recalled to life only to endure a second time the -pangs of dissolution." The school is decently interred -which mistook critics for Civil Service Commissioners, -and Parnassus for Burlington House. It is impossible -to compare Cervantes' sonorous periods and Marlowe's -majestic eloquence, nor is it less unwise to match his -moving melodrama against one of the greatest tragedies -in the world. His great scene has its own merit as an -artificial embellishment, as a rhetorical adornment, as -an exercise in bravura; but the episode is not only out -of place where it is found—it leads from nowhere to -nothing. More dramatic in spirit and effect is the speech -declaimed by Scipio when the last Numantian, Viriato, -hurls himself from the tower:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>O matchless action, worthy of the meed</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which old and valiant soldiers love to gain!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Thou hast achieved a glory by thy deed,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Not only for Numantia, but for Spain!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Thy valour strange, heroical in deed,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hath robbed me of my rights, and made them vain;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For with thy fall thou hast upraised thy fame,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And levelled down my victories to shame!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Oh, could Numantia gain what she hath lost,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I would rejoice, if but to see thee there!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For thou hast reaped the gain and honour most</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of this long siege, illustrious and rare!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Bear thou, O stripling, bear away the boast,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Enjoy the glory which the Heavens prepare,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For thou hast conquered, by thy very fall,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Him who in rising falleth worst of all.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> - -<p>Here, once more, we are dealing with a passage which -gains by detachment from its context. To speak plainly, -the interest of the <i>Numancia</i> is not dramatic, and its versification, -good of its kind, may easily be overpraised, as -it was by Shelley. First and last, the play is a devout -and passionate expression of patriotism; and, as such, -the writer's countrymen have held it in esteem, never -claiming for it the qualities invented by well-meaning -foreigners. Lope de Vega and Calderón still hold the -stage, from which Cervantes, the disciple of Virués, was -driven three centuries ago; and they survive, the one as -an hundredfold more potent dramatist, the other as an -infinitely greater poet. Yet, like the ghost raised by -Marquino, Cervantes was to undergo a momentary -resurrection. When Palafox (and Byron's Maid) held -Zaragoza, during the War of Independence, against the -batteries of Mortier, Junot, and Lannes, the <i>Numancia</i> -was played within the besieged walls, so that Spaniards -of the nineteenth century might see that their fathers had -known how to die for freedom. The tragedy was received -with enthusiasm; the marshals of the world's -Greatest Captain were repulsed and beaten; and Cervantes' -inspiriting lines helped on the victory. In life, -he had never met with such a triumph, and in death -no other could have pleased him better.</p> - -<p>He asserts, indeed, that his plays were popular, and -he may have persuaded himself into that belief. His -idolaters preach the legend that he was driven from the -boards by that "portent of genius," Lope de Vega. This -tale is a vain imagining. Cervantes failed so wretchedly -in art that in 1588 he left the Madrid stage to seek work -in Seville; and no play of Lope's dates so early as that, -save one written while he was at school. In June 1588,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -Cervantes became Deputy-Purveyor to the Invincible -Armada, and in May 1590 he petitioned for one of four -appointments vacant in Granada, Guatemala, Cartagena, -and La Paz. But he never quite abandoned literature. -In 1591 he wrote a <i>romance</i> for Andrés de Villalba's <i>Flor -de varios y nuevos romances</i>, and, in the following year, -he contracted with the Seville manager, Rodrigo Osorio, -to write six comedies at fifty ducats each—no money -to be paid unless Osorio should rank the plays "among -the best in Spain." No more is heard of this agreement, -and Cervantes disappears till 1594, when he was appointed -tax-gatherer in Granada. Next year he competed -at a literary tournament held by the Dominicans -of Zaragoza in honour of St. Hyacinth, and won the -first prize—three silver spoons. His sonnet to the -famous sea-dog, Santa Cruz, is printed in Cristóbal -Mosquera de Figueroa's <i>Comentario en breve Compendio -de Disciplina militar</i> (1596), and his bitter sonnet on -Medina Sidonia's entry into Cádiz, already sacked and -evacuated by Essex, is of the same date.</p> - -<p>In 1597, being in Seville about the time of Herrera's -death, Cervantes wrote his sonnet in memory of the great -Andalucían. In September of this year the sonneteer -was imprisoned for irregularities in his accounts, due to -his having entrusted Government funds to one Simón -Freire de Lima, who absconded with the booty. Released -some three months later, Cervantes was sent -packing by the Treasury, and was never more employed -in the public service. Lost, as it seemed, to hope and -fame, the ruined man lingered at Seville, where, in 1598, -he wrote two sonnets and a copy of <i>quintillas</i> on Felipe -II.'s death. Four years of silence were followed by the -inevitable sonnet in the second edition of Lope de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -Vega's <i>Dragontea</i> (1602). It is certain that all this while -Cervantes was scribbling in some naked garret; but his -name seemed almost forgotten from the earth. In 1603 -he was run to ground, and served with an Exchequer -writ concerning those outstanding balances, still unpaid -after nearly eight years. He must appear in person at -Valladolid to offer what excuse he might. Light as his -baggage was, it contained one precious, immediate jewel—the -manuscript of <i>Don Quixote</i>. The Treasury soon -found that to squeeze money from him was harder -than to draw blood from a stone: the debt remained -unsettled. But his journey was not in vain. On his -way to Valladolid, he found a publisher for <i>Don Quixote</i>. -The Royal Privilege is dated September 26, 1604, and -in January 1605 the book was sold at Madrid across the -counter of Francisco de Robles, bookseller to the King. -Cervantes dedicated his volume, in terms boldly filched -from Herrera and Medina, to the Duque de Béjar. In a -previous age the author's kinsman had anticipated the -compliment by addressing a gloss of Jorge Manrique's -<i>Coplas</i> to Álvaro de Stúñiga, second Duque de Béjar.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to say when <i>Don Quixote</i> was written; -later, certainly, than 1591, for it alludes to Bernardo de -la Vega's <i>Pastor de Iberia</i>, published in that year. Legend -says that the First Part was begun in gaol, and so Langford -includes it in his <i>Prison Books and their Authors</i>. -The only ground for the belief is a phrase in the Prologue -which describes the work as "a dry, shrivelled, -whimsical offspring ... just what might be begotten in -a prison." This may be a mere figure of speech; yet -the tradition persists that Cervantes wrote his masterpiece -in the cellar of the Casa de Medrano at Argamasilla -de Alba. Certain it is that Argamasilla is Don<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -Quixote's native town. The burlesque verses at the end -indicate precisely that "certain village in La Mancha, -the name of which," says Cervantes dryly, "I have no -desire to recall." Quevedo witnesses that the fact was -accepted by contemporaries, and topography puts it -beyond doubt. The manuscript passed through many -hands before reaching the printer, Cuesta: whence a -double mention of it before publication. The author -of the <i>Pícara Justina</i>, who anticipated Cervantes' poor -device of the <i>versos de cabo roto</i>—truncated rhymes—in -<i>Don Quixote</i>, ranks the book beside the <i>Celestina</i>, <i>Lazarillo -de Tormes</i>, and <i>Guzmán de Alfarache</i>; yet the <i>Pícara -Justina</i> was licensed on August 22, 1604. The title falls -from a far more illustrious pen: in a private letter -written on August 14, 1604, Lope de Vega observes that -no budding poet "is so bad as Cervantes, none so silly -as to praise <i>Don Quixote</i>." There will be occasion to -return presently to this much-quoted remark.</p> - -<p>Clearly the book was discussed, and not always approved, -by literary critics some months before it was in -print: but critics of all generations have been taught -that their opinions go for nothing with the public, which -persists in being amused against rules and dogmas. <i>Don -Quixote</i> carried everything before it: its vogue almost -equalled that of <i>Guzmán de Alfarache</i>, and by July a -fifth edition was preparing at Valencia. Cervantes has -told us his purpose in plain words:—"to diminish the -authority and acceptance that books of chivalry have in -the world and among the vulgar." Yet his own avowal -is rejected. Defoe averred that <i>Don Quixote</i> was a satire -on Medina Sidonia; Landor applauded the book as "the -most dexterous attack ever made against the worship -of the Virgin"; and such later crocheteers as Rawdon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> -Brown have industriously proved Sancho Panza to be -Pedro Franqueza, and the whole novel to be a burlesque -on contemporary politics.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> - -<p>Cervantes was unlucky in life, nor did his misfortunes -end with his days. Posthumous idolatry seeks to atone -for contemporary neglect, and there has come into -being a tribe of ignorant fakirs, assuming the title of -"Cervantophils," and seeking to convert a man of genius -into a common Mumbo-Jumbo. A master of invention, -a humourist beyond compare, an expert in ironic observation, -a fellow meet for Shakespeare's self: all that -suffices not for these fanatical dullards. Their deity -must be accepted also as a poet, a philosophic thinker, -a Puritan tub-thumper, a political reformer, a finished -scholar, a purist in language, and—not least amazing—an -ascetic in private morals. A whole shelf might be -filled with works upon Cervantes the doctor, Cervantes -the lawyer, the sailor, the geographer, and who knows -what else? Like his contemporary Shakespeare, Cervantes -took a peculiar interest in cases of dementia; -and, in England and Spain, the afflicted have shown -both authors much reciprocal attention. We must even -take Cervantes as he was: a literary artist stronger in -practice than in theory, great by natural faculty rather -than by acquired accomplishment. His learning is -naught, his reasonings are futile, his speculation is banal. -In short passages he is one of the greatest masters -of Castilian prose, clear, direct, and puissant: but he -soon tires, and is prone to lapse into Italian idioms, or -into irritating sentences packed with needless relatives. -Cervantes lives not as a great practitioner in style, a -sultan of epithet—though none could better him when -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>he chose; nor is he potent as a purely intellectual influence. -He is immortal by reason of his creative power, -his imaginative resource, his wealth of invention, his -penetrating vision, his inimitable humour, his boundless -sympathy. Hence the universality of his appeal: hence -the splendour of his secular renown.</p> - -<p>It is certain that he builded better than he knew, and -that not even he realised the full scope of his work: we -know from Goethe that the maker has to be taught his -own meaning. The contemporary allusions, the sly hits -at foes, are mostly mysteries for us, though they amuse -the laborious leisure of the commentator. Chivalresque -romances are with last year's snows: but the interest of -<i>Don Quixote</i> abides for ever. Cervantes set out intending -to write a comic short story, and the design grew -under his hand till at length it included a whole -Human Comedy. He himself was as near akin to Don -Quixote as a man may be: he knew his chivalresque -romances by heart, and accounted <i>Amadís de Gaula</i> as -"the very best contrived book of all those of that kind." -Yet he has been accused by his own people of plotting -his country's ruin, and has been held up to contempt as -"the headsman and the ax of Spain's honour." Byron -repeats the ridiculous taunt:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>A single laugh demolished the right arm</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of his own country; seldom since that day</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The world gave ground before her bright array;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And therefore have his volumes done such harm,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>That all their glory, as a composition,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The chivalresque madness was well-nigh over when our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -author made his onset: he but hastened the end. After -the publication of <i>Don Quixote</i>, no new chivalresque -romance was written, and only one—the <i>Caballero del -Febo</i> (1617)—was reprinted. And the reason is obvious. -It was not that Cervantes' work was merely destructive, -that he was simply a clever artist in travesty: it was that -he gave better than he took away, and that he revealed -himself, not only to Spain, but to the world, as a great -creative master, and an irresistible, because an universal, -humourist.</p> - -<p>There is endless discussion as to the significance of -his masterpiece, and the acutest critics have uttered -"great argument about it and about." That an allegory -of human life was intended is incredible. Cervantes -presents the Ingenious Gentleman as the Prince of -Courtesy, affable, gallant, wise on all points save that -trifling one which annihilates Time and Space and -changes the aspect of the Universe: and he attaches to -him, Sancho, self-seeking, cautious, practical in presence -of vulgar opportunities. The types are eternal. But it -were too much to assume that there exists any conscious -symbolic or esoteric purpose in the dual presentation. -Cervantes is inspired solely by the artistic intention -which would create personages, and would divert by -abundance of ingenious fantasy, by sublimation of character, -by wealth of episode and incident, and by the -genius of satiric portraiture. He tessellates with whatsoever -mosaic chances to strike his fancy. It may be -that he inlays his work with such a typical sonnet -as that which Mr. Gosse has transferred from the -twenty-third chapter of <i>Don Quixote</i> to <i>In Russet and -Silver</i>—an excellent example, which shall be quoted -here:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>When I was marked for suffering, Love forswore</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>All knowledge of my doom: or else at ease</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Love grows a cruel tyrant, hard to please;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Or else a chastisement exceeding sore</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A little sin hath brought me. Hush! no more!</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Love is a god! all things he knows and sees,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And gods are bland and mild! Who then decrees</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The dreadful woe I bear and yet adore?</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>If I should say, O Phyllis, that 'twas thou,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>I should speak falsely, since, being wholly good</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Like Heaven itself, from thee no ill may come.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>There is no hope; I must die shortly now,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Not knowing why, since sure no witch hath brewed</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>The drug that might avert my martyrdom.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Hereunto the writer adds reminiscences of slavery, -picaresque scenes observed during his vagabond life as -tax-gatherer, tales of Italian intrigue re-echoed from -Bandello, flouts at Lope de Vega, a treasure of adventures -and experience, a strain of mockery both individual -and general. Small wonder if the world received <i>Don -Quixote</i> with delight! There was nothing like unto it -before: there has been nothing to eclipse it since. It -ends one epoch and begins another: it intones the -dirge of the mediæval novel: it announces the arrival -of the new generations, and it belongs to both the past -and the coming ages. At the point where the paths -diverge, <i>Don Quixote</i> stands, dominating the entire landscape -of fiction. Time has failed to wither its variety -or to lessen its force, and posterity accepts it as a -masterpiece of humoristic fancy, of complete observation -and unsurpassed invention. It ceases, in effect, -to belong to Spain as a mere local possession, though -nothing can deprive her of the glory of producing it. -Cervantes ranks with Shakespeare and with Homer as a -citizen of the world, a man of all times and countries,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> -and <i>Don Quixote</i>, with <i>Hamlet</i> and the <i>Iliad</i>, belongs to -universal literature, and is become an eternal pleasaunce -of the mind for all the nations.</p> - -<p>Cervantes had his immediate reward in general -acceptance. Reprints of his book followed in Spain, -and in 1607 the original was reproduced at Brussels. -The French teacher of Spanish, César Oudin, interpolated -the tale of the <i>Curious Impertinent</i> between the -covers of Julio Iñíguez de Medrano's <i>Silva Curiosa</i>, -published for the second time at Paris in 1608; in the -same year Jean Baudouin did this story into French, -and in 1609 an anonymous arrangement of Marcela's -story was Gallicised as <i>Le Meurtre de la Fidélité et la -Défense de l'Honneur</i>. This sufficed for fame: yet Cervantes -made no instant attempt to repeat his triumph. -For eight years he was silent, save for occasional copies -of verse. The baptism of the future Felipe IV., and the -embassy of Lord Nottingham—best known as Howard of -Effingham, the admiral in command against the Invincible -Armada—are recorded in courtly fashion by the -anonymous writer of a pamphlet entitled <i>Relación de lo -sucedido en la Ciudad de Valladolid</i>. Góngora, who dealt -with both subjects, flouts Cervantes as the pamphleteer; -but the authorship is doubtful. Cervantes is next heard -of in custody on suspicion of knowing more than he -chose to tell concerning the death of Gaspar de Ezpeleta, -in June 1605. Legend makes Ezpeleta the lover of Cervantes' -natural daughter, Isabel de Saavedra: "the point -of honour" at once suggests itself, and the incident has -inspired both dramatists and novelists. A conspiracy of -silence on the part of biographers has done Cervantes -much wrong, and is responsible for exaggerated stories -of his guilt. He was discharged after inquiry, and seems<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -to have been entirely innocent of contriving Ezpeleta's -end. Many romantic stories have gathered about the -personality of Isabel: she has been passed upon us as the -daughter of a Portuguese "lady of high quality," and the -prop of her father's declining days. These are idolatrous -inventions: we now know for certain that her mother's -name was Ana Franca de Rojas, a poor woman married -to Alonso Rodríguez, and that the girl herself (who in -1605 was unable to read and write) was indentured as -general servant to Cervantes' sister, Magdalena de Sotomayor, -in August 1599.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Thence she passed to Cervantes' -household, and it is even alleged that she was twice -married in her father's lifetime. She has been so picturesquely -presented by imaginative "Cervantophils," -that it is necessary to state the humble truth here and -now, for the first time in English. Thus the grotesque -travesty of Cervantes as a plaster saint returns to the -Father of Lies, who begat it. Confirmation of his exploits -as a loose liver in gaming-houses is afforded by -the <i>Memorias de Valladolid</i>, now among the manuscripts -in the British Museum.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> - -<p>Such diversions as these left him scant time for literature. -The space between 1605 and 1608 yields the -pitiful show of three sonnets in four years: <i>To a -Hermit</i>, <i>To the Conde de Saldaña</i>, <i>To a Braggart turned -Beggar</i>. Even this last is sometimes referred to Quevedo. -It should hardly seem that prosperity suited Cervantes. -Meanwhile, his womenfolk gained their bread by taking -in the Marqués de Villafranca's sewing. Still, he -made no sign: the author of <i>Don Quixote</i> sank lower -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>and lower, writing letters for illiterates at a small fee. -The <i>Letter to Don Diego de Astudillo Carrillo</i>, the <i>Story -of what happens in Seville Gaol</i> (a sequel to Cristóbal de -Chaves' sketch made twenty years before), the <i>Dialogue -between Sillenia and Selanio</i>, the three <i>entremeses</i> entitled -<i>Doña Justina y Calahorra</i>, <i>Los Mirones</i>, and <i>Los Refranes</i>—all -these are of doubtful authenticity. In April -1609, Cervantes took a thought and mended: he joined -Fray Alonso de la Purificación's new Confraternity of -the Blessed Sacrament, and in 1610 wrote his sonnet in -memory of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. In 1611 he -entered the Academia Selvaje, founded by that Francisco -de Silva whose praises were sung later in the -<i>Viaje del Parnaso</i>, and he prepared that unique compound -of fact and fancy, the rarest humour and the most -curious experience—his twelve <i>Novelas Exemplares</i>, which -were licensed on August 8, 1612, and appeared in 1613.</p> - -<p>These short tales were written at long intervals of time, -as the internal evidence shows. In the forty-seventh -chapter of <i>Don Quixote</i> there is mention by name of -<i>Rinconete y Cortadillo</i>, a picaresque story of extraordinary -brilliancy and point included among the <i>Exemplary -Novels</i>; and a companion piece is the <i>Coloquio de los -Perros</i>, no less a masterpiece in little. Monipodio, master -of a school for thieves; his pious jackal, Ganchuelo, who -never steals on Friday; the tipsy Pipota, who reels as -she lights her votive candle—these are triumphs in the -art of portraiture. Not even Sancho Panza is wittier in -reflection than the dog Berganza, who reviews his many -masters in the light of humorous criticism. No less -distinguished is the presentation, in <i>El Casamiento Engañoso</i>, -of the picaroons Campuzano and Estefanía de -Caicedo; and as an exercise in fantastic transcription<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -of mania the <i>Licenciado Vidriera</i> lags not behind <i>Don -Quixote</i>. So striking is the resemblance that some have -held the Licentiate for the first sketch of the Knight; but -an attentive reading shows that he was not conceived -till after <i>Don Quixote</i> was in print. In 1814, Agustín -García Arrieta included <i>La Tía fingida</i> (The Mock Aunt) -among Cervantes' novels, and, in a more complete form, -it now finds place in all editions. Admirable as the story -is, the circumstance of its late appearance throws doubt -on its authenticity; yet who but Cervantes could have -written it? Perhaps the surest sign of his success is -afforded by the quality and number of his northern -imitators.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>The land that cast out Philip and his God</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Despite assertions to the contrary, his <i>Gitanilla</i> is no -original conception, for the character of his gipsy, Preciosa, -is developed from that of Tarsiana in the <i>Apolonio</i>; yet -from Cervantes' rendering of her, which</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife,</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">and from his tale entitled <i>La Fuerza de la Sangre</i>, Middleton's -<i>Spanish Gipsy</i> derives. From Cervantes, too, Weber -takes his opera <i>Preciosa</i>, and from Cervantes comes -Hugo's <i>Esmeralda</i>. In <i>Las dos Doncellas</i> Fletcher, who -had already used <i>Don Quixote</i> in the <i>Knight of the Burning -Pestle</i>, finds the root of <i>Love's Pilgrimage</i>; from <i>El Casamiento -Engañoso</i> he takes his <i>Rule a Wife and Have a Wife</i>; -and from <i>La Señora Cornelia</i> he borrows his <i>Chances</i>. -And, as Fielding had rejoiced to own his debt to Cervantes, -so Sir Walter has confessed that "the <i>Novelas</i> of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -that author had first inspired him with the ambition of -excelling in fiction."</p> - -<p>The next performance shows Cervantes tempting fate -as a poet. His <i>Viaje del Parnaso</i> (1614) was suggested -by the <i>Viaggio di Parnaso</i> (1582) of the Perugian, Cesare -Caporali, and is, in effect, a rhymed review of contemporary -poets. Verse is scarcely a lucky medium for -Cervantic irony, and Cervantes was the least critical -of men. His poem is interesting for its autobiographic -touches, but it degenerates into a mere stream of -eulogy, and when he ventures on an attack he rarely -delivers it with force or point. He thought, perhaps, -to put down bad poets as he had put down bad prose-writers. -But there was this difference, that, though -admirable in prose, he was not admirable in verse. In -the use of the first weapon he is an expert; in the practice -of the second he is a clever amateur. Cervantes -satirising in prose and Cervantes satirising in verse are -as distinct as Samson unshorn and Samson with his hair -cut. Fortunately he appends a prose postscript, which -reveals him in his finest manner. Nor is this surprising. -Apollo's letter is dated July 22, 1614; and we know that, -two days earlier, Sancho Panza had dictated his famous -letter to his wife Teresa. The master had found himself -once more. The sequel to <i>Don Quixote</i>, promised -in the Preface to the <i>Novelas</i>, was on the road at last. -Meanwhile he had busied himself with a sonnet to be -published at Naples in Juan Domingo Roncallolo's -<i>Varias Aplicaciones</i>, with quatrains for Barrio Ángulo, -and stanzas in honour of Santa Teresa.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the success of the <i>Novelas</i> induced him to -try the theatre again. In 1615 he published his <i>Ocho -Comedias, y ocho Entremeses nuevos</i>. The eight set pieces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -are failures; and when the writer tries to imitate Lope -de Vega, as in the <i>Laberinto de Amor</i>, the failure is conspicuous. -Nor does the introduction of a Saavedra -among the personages of <i>El Gallardo Español</i> save a -bad play. But Cervantes believed in his eight <i>comedias</i>, -as he believed in the eight <i>entremeses</i> which are imitated -from Lope de Rueda. These are sprightly, unpretentious -farces, witty in intention and effect, interesting in -themselves and as realistic pictures of low life seen and -rendered at first hand. Of these farcical pieces one, -<i>Pedro de Urdemalas</i>, is even brilliant.</p> - -<p>While Cervantes was writing the fifty-ninth chapter of -<i>Don Quixote's Second Part</i>, he learned that a spurious -continuation had appeared (1614) at Tarragona under -the name of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda. This -has given rise to much angry writing. Avellaneda is -doubtless a pseudonym. The King's confessor, Aliaga, -has been suspected, on the ground that he was once -nicknamed Sancho Panza, and that he thus avenged -himself: the idea is absurd, and the fact that Avellaneda -makes Sancho more offensive and more vulgar than -ever puts the theory out of court. Lope de Vega is also -accused of being Avellaneda, and the charge is based on -this: that (in a private letter) he once spoke slightingly -of <i>Don Quixote</i>. The personal relations between the two -greatest Spanish men of letters were not cordial. Cervantes -had ridiculed Lope in the Prologue to <i>Don -Quixote</i>, had belittled him as a playwright, and had -shown hostility in other ways. Lope, secure in his high -seat, made no reply, and in 1612 (in another private -letter) he speaks kindly of Cervantes. "Cervantophils" -insist upon being too clever by half. They first assert -that the outward form of Avellaneda's book was an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -imitation of <i>Don Quixote</i>, and that the intention was "to -pass off this spurious Second Part as the true one"; -they then contend that Avellaneda's was "a deliberate -attempt to spoil the work of Cervantes." These two -statements are mutually destructive: one must necessarily -be false. It is also argued, first, that Avellaneda's is a -worthless book; next, that it was written by Lope, the -greatest figure, save Cervantes, in Spanish literature. -Lope had many jealous enemies, but no contemporary -hints at such a charge, and no proof is offered in support -of it now. Indeed the notion, first started by -Máinez, is generally abandoned. Other ascriptions, involving -Blanco de Paz, Ruiz de Alarcón, Andrés Pérez, -are equally futile. The most plausible conjecture, due -to D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, is that Avellaneda -was a certain Aragonese, Alfonso Lamberto. Lamberto's -very obscurity favours this surmise. Had Avellaneda -been a figure of great importance, he had been unmasked -by Cervantes himself, who assuredly was no coward.</p> - -<p>We owe to Avellaneda a clever, brutal, cynical, amusing -book, which is still reprinted. Nor is this our only -debt to him: he put an end to Cervantes' dawdling and -procured the publication of the second <i>Don Quixote</i>. -Cervantes left it doubtful if he meant to write the sequel; -he even seems to invite another to undertake it. Nine -years had passed, during which Cervantes made no sign. -Avellaneda, with an eye to profit, wrote his continuation -in good faith, and his insolent Preface is explained by his -rage at seeing the bread taken out of his mouth when the -true sequel was announced in the Preface to the <i>Novelas</i>. -Had not his intrusion stung Cervantes to the quick, the -second <i>Don Quixote</i> might have met the fate of the second -<i>Galatea</i>—promised for thirty years and never finished.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -As it is, the hurried close of the Second Part is below the -writer's common level, as when he rages at Avellaneda, -and wishes that the latter's book be "cast into the lowest -pit of hell." But this is its single fault, which, for the -rest, is only found in the last fourteen chapters. The -previous fifty-eight form an almost impeccable masterpiece. -As an achievement in style, the Second excels -the First Part. The parody of chivalresque books is less -insistent, the interest is larger, the variety of episode is -ampler, the spirit more subtly comic, the new characters -are more convincing, the manner is more urbane, more -assured. Cervantes' First Part was an experiment in -which he himself but half believed; in the Second he -shows the certainty of an accepted master, confident of -his intention and his popularity. So his career closed -in a blaze of triumph. He had other works in hand: -a play to be called <i>El Engaño á los Ojos</i>, the <i>Semanas -del Jardín</i>, the <i>Famoso Bernardo</i>, and the eternal second -<i>Galatea</i>. These last three he promises in the Preface to -<i>Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda</i> (1617), a posthumous -volume "that dares to vie with Heliodorus," -and was to be "the best or worst book ever written in -our tongue." Ambitious in aim and in manner, the -<i>Persiles</i> has failed to interest, for all its adventures and -scapes. Yet it contains perhaps the finest, and certainly -the most pathetic passage that Cervantes ever -penned—the noble dedication to his patron, the Conde -de Lemos, signed upon April 19, 1616. In the last grip -of dropsy, he gaily quotes from a <i>romance</i> remembered -from long ago:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Puesto ya el pié en el estribo</i>"—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"One foot already in the stirrup." With these words he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -smilingly confronts fate, and makes him ready for the -last post down the Valley of the Shadow. He died on -April 23, nominally on the same day as Shakespeare, -whose death is dated by an unreformed calendar. They -were brethren in their lives and afterwards. Montesquieu, -in the <i>Lettres Persanes</i>, makes Rica say of the -Spaniards that "le seul de leurs livres qui soit bon est -celui qui a fait voir la ridicule de tous les autres." If -he meant that <i>Don Quixote</i> was the one Spanish book -which has found acceptance all the world over, he -spoke with equal truth and point. A single author at -once national and universal is as much as any literature -can hope to boast.</p> - -<p>In his own day Cervantes was shone down by the -ample, varied, magnificent gifts of <span class="smcap">Lope Félix de Vega -Carpio</span> (1562-1635): a very "prodigy of nature," as his -rival confesses. A prodigy he was from his cradle. At -the age of five he lisped in numbers, and, unable to write, -would bribe his schoolmates with a share of his breakfast -to take down verses at his dictation. He came of -noble highland blood, his father, Félix de Vega, and his -mother, Francisca Fernández, being natives of Carriedo. -Born in Madrid, he was there educated at the Jesuit -Colegio Imperial, of which he was the wonder. All the -accomplishments were his: still a child, he filled his -copy-books with verses, sang, danced, handled the foil -like a trained sworder. His father, a poet of some accomplishment, -died early, and Lope forthwith determined -to see the world. With his comrade, Hernando Muñoz, -he ran away from school. The pair reached Astorga, -and turned back to Segovia, where, being short of money, -they tried to sell a chain to a jeweller, who, suspecting -something to be wrong, informed the local Dogberry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -The adventurous couple were sent home in charge of -the police. Lope's earliest surviving play, <i>El verdadero -Amante</i>, written in his thirteenth year, is included in -the fourteenth volume of his theatre, printed in 1620. -Nicolás de los Ríos, one of the best actor-managers of -his time, was proud to play in it later; and, crude as it is -in phrasing, it manifests an astonishing dramatic gift.</p> - -<p>The chronology of Lope's youth is perplexing, and the -events of this time are, as a rule, wrongly given by -his biographers, even including that admirable scholar, -Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera y Leirado, whose <i>Nueva -Biografía</i> is almost above praise. In a poetic epistle to -Luis de Haro, Lope asserts that he fought at Terceira -against the Portuguese: "in my third lustre"—<i>en tres -lustros de mi edad primera</i>: and Ticknor is puzzled to -reconcile this with facts. It cannot be done. Lope was -fifteen in 1577, and the expedition to the Azores occurred -in 1582. The obvious explanation is that Lope was in -his fourth lustre, but that, as <i>cuatro</i> would break the -rhythm of the line, he wrote <i>tres</i> instead. Some little -licence is admitted in verse, and literal interpreters are -peculiarly liable to error. At the same time, it should -be said that Lope is coquettish as regards his age. -Thus, he says that he was a child at the time of the -Armada, being really twenty-six; and that he wrote the -<i>Dragontea</i> in early youth, when, in fact, he was thirty-five. -This little vanity has led to endless confusion. It -is commonly stated that, on Lope's return from the -Azores, he entered the household of Gerónimo Manrique, -Bishop of Ávila, who sent him to Alcalá de Henares. -That Lope studied at Alcalá is certain; but undergraduates -then matriculated earlier than they do now. -When Lope's first campaign ended he was twenty-one,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -and therefore too old for college. He was a Bachelor -before ever he went to the wars. The love-affair, recounted -in his <i>Dorotea</i>, is commonly said to have prevented -his taking orders at Alcalá: in truth, he never -saw the lady till he came back from the Azores! He -became private secretary to Antonio Álvarez de Toledo y -Beaumont, fifth Duque de Alba, and grandson of the -great soldier; but the date cannot be given precisely. -As far back as 1572 he had translated Claudian's <i>Rape of -Proserpine</i> into Castilian verse, and we have already -seen him joined with Cervantes in penning complimentary -sonnets for Padilla and López Maldonado (1584). It -may be that, while in Alba's service, he wrote the poems -printed in Pedro de Moncayo's <i>Flor de varios romances</i> (1589).</p> - -<p>The history of these years is obscure. It is usually -asserted that, while in Alba's service, about the year -1584-5, Lope married, and that he was soon afterwards -exiled to Valencia, whence he set out for Lisbon to join -the Invincible Armada. This does not square with Lope's -statement in the Dedication of <i>Querer la propia Desdicha</i> -to Claudio Conde. There he alleges that Conde helped -him out of prison in Madrid, a service repaid by his -helping Conde out of the Serranos prison at Valencia, -and he goes on to say that "before the first down was -on their cheeks" they went to Lisbon to embark on the -Armada. He nowhere alleges that they started from -Valencia, or that the journey followed the banishment. -In an eclogue to the same Conde, Lope avers that he -joined the Armada to escape from Filis (otherwise -Dorotea), and he adds:—"Who could have thought that, -returning from the war, I should find a sweet wife?" -The question would be pointless if Lope were already<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -married. Moreover, Barrera's theory that the intrigue -with Dorotea ended in 1584 is disproved by the fact that -the <i>Dorotea</i> contains allusions to the Conde de Melgar's -marriage, which, as we know from Cabrera, took place -in 1587. What is certain is that Lope went aboard the -<i>San Juan</i>, and that during the Armada expedition he -used his manuscript verses in Filis's praise for gun-wads.</p> - -<p>He was a first-class fighting-man, and played his part -in the combats up the Channel, where his brother was -killed beside him during an encounter between the <i>San -Juan</i> and eight Dutch vessels. Disaster never quenched -his spirit nor stayed his pen; for, when what was left of -the defeated Armada returned to Cádiz, he landed with -the greater part of his <i>Hermosura de Angélica</i>—eleven -thousand verses, written between storm and battle, in -continuation of the <i>Orlando Furioso</i>. First published in -1602, the <i>Angélica</i> comes short of Ariosto's epic nobility, -and is unrelieved by the Italian's touch of ironic fantasy. -Nor can it be called successful even as a sequel: its -very wealth of invention, its redundant episodes and -innumerable digressions, contribute to its failure. But -the verse is singularly brilliant and effective, while the -skill with which the writer handles proper names is -almost Miltonic.</p> - -<p>Returned to Spain, Lope composed his pastoral novel, -the <i>Arcadia</i>, which, however, remained unpublished till -1598. Ticknor believed it "to have been written almost -immediately" after Cervantes' <i>Galatea</i>: this cannot be, -for the <i>Arcadia</i> refers to the death of Santa Cruz, which -occurred in 1588, and it discusses in the conventional -manner Alba's love-affairs of 1589-90. The <i>Arcadia</i>, -where Lope figures as Belardo, and Alba as Amfriso,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> -makes no pretence to be a transcript of manners or life, -and it is intolerably prolix withal. Yet it goes beyond -its fellows by virtue of its vivid landscapes, its graceful, -flowing verse, and a certain rich, poetic, Latinized prose, -here used by Lope with as much artistry as he showed -in his management of the more familiar kind in the -<i>Dorotea</i>. Its popularity is proved by the publication of -fifteen editions in its author's lifetime. About the year -1590 he married Isabel de Urbina, a distant connection -of Cervantes' mother, and daughter of Felipe II.'s King-at-Arms. -Hereupon followed a duel, wherein Lope -wounded his adversary, and, earlier escapades being -raked up, he was banished the capital. He spent some -time in Valencia, a considerable literary centre; but in -1594 he signed the manuscript of his play, <i>El Maestro de -danzar</i>, at Tormes, Alba's estate, whence it is inferred that -he was once more in the Duke's service. A new love-affair -with Antonia Trillo de Armenta brought legal -troubles upon him in 1596. His wife apparently died -in 1597.</p> - -<p>The first considerable work printed with Lope's name -upon the title-page was his <i>Dragontea</i> (1598), an epic -poem in ten cantos on the last cruise and death of -Francis Drake. We naturally love to think of the mighty -seaman as the patriot, the chiefest of Britannia's bulwarks, -as he figures in Mr. Newbolt's spirited ballad:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Drake lies in his hammock till the great Armadas come ...</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum ...</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Where the old trade's plyin' and the old flag flyin',</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>They shall find him 'ware an' waking, as they found him long ago.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Odd to say, though, Lope has been censured for not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -viewing Drake through English Protestant spectacles. -Seeing that he was a good Catholic Spaniard whom Drake -had drummed up the Channel, it had been curious if the -<i>Dragontea</i> were other than it is: a savage denunciation -of that Babylonian Dragon, that son of the devil whose -piracies had tormented Spain during thirty years. The -<i>Dragontea</i> fails not because of its national spirit, which -is wholly admirable, but because of its excessive emphasis -and its abuse of allegory. Its author scarcely intended -it for great poetry; but, as a patriotic screed, it fulfilled -its purpose, and, when reprinted, it drew an approving -sonnet from Cervantes.</p> - -<p>The <i>Dragontea</i> was written while Lope was in the -household of the Marqués de Malpica, whence he passed -as secretary to the lettered Marqués de Sarriá, best -known as Conde de Lemos, and as Cervantes' patron. -In 1599 he published his devout and graceful poem, -<i>San Isidro</i>, in honour of Madrid's patron saint. Popular -in subject and execution, the <i>San Isidro</i> enabled him to -repeat in verse the triumph which he had achieved with -the prose of the <i>Arcadia</i>. From this day forward he -was the admitted pontiff of Spanish literature. His -marriage with Juana de Guardo probably dates from -the year 1600. An example of Lope's art in manipulating -the sonnet-form is afforded by Longfellow's Englishing -of <i>The Brook</i>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Laugh of the mountain! lyre of bird and tree!</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Pomp of the meadow! mirror of the morn!</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The soul of April, unto whom are born</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The rose and jessamine, leaps wild in thee!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Although where'er thy devious current strays,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The lap of earth with gold and silver teems,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Than golden sands that charm each shepherd's gaze.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>How without guile thy bosom, all transparent</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current!</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>O sweet simplicity of days gone by!</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount!</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Two hundred sonnets in Lope's <i>Rimas</i> are thought to -have been issued separately in 1602: in any case, they -were published that year at the end of a reprint of the -<i>Angélica</i>. They include much of the writer's sincerest -work, earnest in feeling, skilful and even distinguished -as art. One sonnet of great beauty—<i>To the Tomb of -Teodora Urbina</i>—has led Ticknor into an amusing error -often reproduced. He cites from it a line upon the -"heavenly likeness of my Belisa," notes that this name is -an anagram of Isabel (Lope's first wife), and pronounces -the performance a lament for the poet's mother-in-law. -The Latin epitaph which follows it contains a line,—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Exactis nondum complevit mensibus annum</i>,"—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">showing that the supposed mother-in-law died in her -first year. Manifestly the sonnet refers to the writer's -daughter, and, as always happens when Lope speaks -from his paternal heart, is instinct with a passionate -tenderness.</p> - -<p>To 1604 belong the five prose books of the <i>Peregrino en -su patria</i>, a prose romance of Pánfilo's adventures by sea -and land, partly experienced and partly contrived; but it -is most interesting for the four <i>autos</i> which it includes, -and for its bibliographical list of two hundred and thirty -plays already written by the author. His quenchless -ambition had led him to rival Ariosto in the <i>Angélica</i>: -in the twenty cantos of his <i>Jerusalén Conquistada</i> he -dares no less greatly by challenging Tasso. Written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -in 1605, the <i>Jerusalén</i> was withheld till 1609. Styled -a "tragic epic" by its creator, it is no more than a -fluent historico-narrative poem, overlaid with embellishments -of somewhat cheap and obvious design. In 1612 -appeared the <i>Four Soliloquies of Lope de Vega Carpio</i>: -<i>his lament and tears while kneeling before a crucifix begging -pardon for his sins.</i> These four sets of <i>redondillas</i> with -their prose commentaries were amplified to seven when -republished (1626) under the pseudonym of Gabriel -Padecopeo, an obvious anagram. The deaths of Lope's -wife and of his son Carlos inspired the <i>Pastores de Belén</i>, -a sacred pastoral of supreme simplicity, truth, and -beauty—as Spanish as Spain herself—which contains -one of the sweetest numbers in Castilian. The Virgin -lulls the Divine Child with a song in Verstegan's manner, -which Ticknor has rendered to this effect:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Holy angels and blest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Through those palms as ye sweep</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hold their branches at rest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>For my babe is asleep.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And ye Bethlehem palm-trees,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>As stormy winds rush</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In tempest and fury,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Your angry noise hush;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>More gently, more gently,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Restrain your wild sweep;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hold your branches at rest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>My babe is asleep.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>My babe all divine,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>With earth's sorrows oppressed,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Seeks in slumber an instant</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>His grievings to rest;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>He slumbers, he slumbers,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Oh, hush, then, and keep</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Your branches all still,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>My babe is asleep!</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Cold blasts wheel about him,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>A rigorous storm,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And ye see how, in vain,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>I would shelter his form.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Holy angels and blest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>As above me ye sweep,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hold these branches at rest,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>My babe is asleep!</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Lope lived a life of gallantry, and troubled his wife's -last years by his intrigue with María de Luján. This -lady bore him the gifted son, Lope Félix, who was -drowned at sea, and the daughter Marcela, whose -admirable verses, written after her profession in the -Convent of Barefoot Trinitarians, proclaim her kinship -with the great enchanter. A relapsing, carnal sinner, -Lope was more weak than bad: his rare intellectual -gifts, his renown, his overwhelming temperament, his -seductive address, his imperial presence, led him into -temptation. Amid his follies and sins he preserved -a touching faith in the invisible, and his devotion -was always ardent. Upon the death of his wife in 1612 -or later, he turned to religion with characteristic impetuosity, -was ordained priest, and said his first mass -in 1614 at the Carmelite Church in Madrid. It was an -ill-advised move. Ticknor, indeed, speaks of a "Lope, -no longer at an age to be deluded by his passions"; -but no such Lope is known to history. While a -Familiar of the Inquisition the true Lope wrote love-letters -for the loose-living Duque de Sessa, till at -last his confessor threatened to deny him absolution. -Nor is this all: his intrigue with Marta de Nevares -Santoyo, wife of Roque Hernández de Ayala, was -notorious. The pious Cervantes publicly jeered at the -fallen priest's "continuous and virtuous occupation,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -forgetting his own coarse pranks with Ana de Rojas; -and Góngora hounded his master down with a copy -of venomous verses passed from hand to hand. Those -who wish to study the abasement of an august spirit -may do so in the <i>Últimos Amores de Lope de Vega -Carpio</i>, forty-eight letters published by José Ibero Ribas -y Canfranc.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> If they judge by the standard of Lope's -time, they will deal gently with a miracle of genius, -unchaste but not licentious; like that old Dumas, who, -in the matters of gaiety, energy, and strength is his -nearest modern compeer. His sin was yet to find him -out. He vanquished every enemy: the child of his old -age vanquished him.</p> - -<p>Devotion and love-affairs served not to stay his pen. -His <i>Triunfo de la fe en el Japón</i> (1618) is interesting -as an example of Lope's practice in the school of -historical prose, stately, devout, and elegant. In honour -of Isidore, beatified and then canonised, he presided -at the poetic jousts of 1620 and 1622, witnessing the -triumph of his son, Félix Lope; standing literary god-father -to the boyish Calderón; declaiming, in the character -of Tomé Burguillos, the inimitable verse which -hit between wind and water. Perhaps Lope was never -happier than in this opportunity of speaking his own -witty lines before the multitude. His noble person, -his facility, his urbane condescension, his incomparable -voice, which thrilled even clowns when he intoned his -mass—all these gave him the stage as his own possession. -Heretofore the common man had only read him: -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>once seen and heard, Lope ruled Castilian literature as -Napoleon ruled France.</p> - -<p>His <i>Filomena</i> (1621) contains a poetic defence of himself -(the Nightingale) against Pedro de Torres Rámila -(the Thrush), who, in 1617, had violently attacked Lope -in his <i>Spongia</i>, which seems to have vanished, and is -only known by extracts embodied in the <i>Expostulatio -Spongiæ</i>, written by Francisco López de Aguilar Coutiño -under the name of Julius Columbarius. Polemics apart, -the chief interest of the <i>Filomena</i> volume lies in its short -prose story, <i>Las Fortunas de Diana</i>, an experiment which -the author repeated in the three tales—<i>La Desdicha por -la honra</i>, <i>La prudente Venganza</i>, and <i>Guzmán el Bravo</i>—appended -to his <i>Circe</i> (1624), a poem, in three cantos, -on Ulysses' adventures. The five cantos of the -<i>Triunfos divinos</i> are pious exercises in the Petrarchan -manner, with forty-four sonnets given as a postscript. -Five cantos go to make up the <i>Corona Trágica</i> (1627), -a religious epic with Mary Stuart for heroine. Lope has -been absurdly censured for styling Queen Elizabeth a -Jezebel and an Athaliah, and for regarding Mary as a -Catholic martyr. This criticism implies a strange intellectual -confusion; as though a veteran of the Armada -could be expected to write in the spirit of a Clapham -Evangelical! Religious squabbles apart, he had an old -score to settle; for—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">"<i>Where are the galleons of Spain?</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">was a question which troubled good Spaniards as -much as it delighted Mr. Dobson. Dedicated to Pope -Urban VIII., the poem won for its author the Cross -of St. John and the title of Doctor of Divinity. Three -years later he issued his <i>Laurel de Apolo</i>, a cloying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -eulogy on some three hundred poets, as remarkable for -its omissions as for its flattering of nonentities. The -<i>Dorotea</i> (1632), a prose play fashioned after the model -of the <i>Celestina</i>, was one of Lope's favourites, and is -interesting, not merely for its graceful, familiar style, -retouched and polished for over thirty years, but as a -piece of self-revelation. The <i>Rimas del licenciado Tomé -de Burguillos</i> (1634) closes with the mock-heroic <i>Gatomaquia</i>, -a vigorous and brilliant travesty of the Italian -epics, replenished with such gay wit as suffices to keep it -sweet for all time.</p> - -<p>Lope de Vega's career was drawing to its end. The -elopement, with a court gallant, of his daughter, Antonia -Clara, broke him utterly.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> He sank into melancholy, -sought to expiate by lashing himself with the discipline -till the walls of his room were flecked with his blood. -Withal he wrote to the very end. On August 23, 1635, -he composed his last poem, <i>El Siglo de Oro</i>. Four days -later he was dead. Madrid followed him to his grave, -and the long procession turned from the direct path -to pass before the window of the convent where his -daughter, Sor Marcela, was a nun. A hundred and -fifty-three Spanish authors bewailed the Phœnix in the -<i>Fama póstuma</i>, and fifty Italians published their laments -at Venice under the title of <i>Essequie poetiche</i>.</p> - -<p>Lope left no achievement unattempted: the epic, -Homeric or Italian, the pastoral, the romantic novel, -poems narrative and historical, countless eclogues, -epistles, not to speak of short tales, of sonnets innumerable, -of verses dashed off on the least occasion. His -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>voluminous private letters, full of wit and malice and -risky anecdote, are as brilliant and amusing as they are -unedifying. It is sometimes alleged that he deliberately -capped Cervantes' work; and, as instances in this sort, -we are bid to note that the <i>Galatea</i> was followed by -<i>Dorotea</i>, the <i>Viaje del Parnaso</i> by the <i>Laurel de Apolo</i>. -In the first place, exclusive "spheres of influence" are -not recognised in literature; in the second, the observation -is pointless. The <i>Galatea</i> is a pastoral novel, the -<i>Dorotea</i> is not; the first was published in 1585, the -second in 1632. Again, the <i>Viaje del Parnaso</i> appeared -in 1614, the <i>Laurel de Apolo</i> in 1630. The first model -was the <i>Canto del Turia</i> of Gil Polo. It would be as -reasonable—that is to say, it would be the height of -unreason—to argue that <i>Persiles y Sigismunda</i> was an -attempt to cap the <i>Peregrino en su patria</i>. The truth -is, that Lope followed every one who made a hit: -Heliodorus, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso. A frank success -spurred him to rivalry, and the difficulty of repeating -it was for him a fresh stimulus. Obstacles existed to be -vanquished. He was ever ready to accept a challenge; -hence such a dexterous <i>tour de force</i> as his famous <i>Sonnet -on a Sonnet</i>, imitated in a well-known <i>rondeau</i> by Voiture, -translated again and again, and by none more successfully -than by Mr. Gibson:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>To write a sonnet doth Juana press me,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>I've never found me in such stress and pain;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>A sonnet numbers fourteen lines 'tis plain,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And three are gone ere I can say, God bless me!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I thought that spinning rhymes might sore oppress me,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Yet here I'm midway in the last quatrain;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And, if the foremost tercet I can gain,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The quatrains need not any more distress me.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To the first tercet I have got at last,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And travel through it with such right good-will,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That with this line I've finished it, I ween.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I'm in the second now, and see how fast</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The thirteenth line comes tripping from my quill—</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Hurrah, 'tis done! Count if there be fourteen!</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The foregoing list of Lope's exploits in literature, curtailed -as it is, suffices for fame; but it would not suffice -to explain that matchless popularity which led to the -publication—suppressed by the Inquisition in 1647—of a -creed beginning thus:—"I believe in Lope de Vega the -Almighty, the Poet of heaven and earth." So far we have -but reached the threshold of his temple. His unique -renown is based upon the fact that he created a national -theatre, that he did for Spain what Shakespeare did for -England. Gómez Manrique and Encina led the way -gropingly; Torres Naharro, though he bettered all that -had been done, lived out of Spain; Lope de Rueda and -Timoneda brought the drama to the people; Artieda, -Virués, Argensola, and Cervantes tore their passions to -tatters in conformity with their own strange precepts, -which the last-named would have enforced by a literary -dictatorship. Moreover, Argensola and the three veterans -of Lepanto wrote to please themselves: Lope invented a -new art to enchant mankind. And he succeeded beyond -all ambition. Nor does he once take on the airs of -philosopher or pedant: rather, in a spirit of self-mockery, -he makes his confession in the <i>Arte Nuevo de -hacer Comedias</i> (New Mode of Playwriting), which his -English biographer, Lord Holland, translates in this -wise:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Who writes by rule must please himself alone,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Be damn'd without remorse, and die unknown.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Such force has habit—for the untaught fools,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Trusting their own, despise the ancient rules.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Yet true it is, I too have written plays.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The wiser few, who judge with skill, might praise;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>But when I see how show (and nonsense) draws</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The crowds and—more than all—the fair's applause,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Who still are forward with indulgent rage</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To sanction every master of the stage,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I, doom'd to write, the public taste to hit,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Resume the barbarous taste 'twas vain to quit:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I lock up every rule before I write,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Plautus and Terence drive from out my sight, ...</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To vulgar standards then I square my play,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Writing at ease; for, since the public pay,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>'Tis just, methinks, we by their compass steer,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And write the nonsense that they love to hear.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Thus Lope in his bantering avowal of 1609. Yet what -takes the form of an apology is in truth a vaunt; for it -was Lope's task to tear off the academic swaddling-bands -of his predecessors, and to enrich his country with a -drama of her own. Nay, he did far more: by his single -effort he dowered her with an entire dramatic literature. -The very bulk of his production savours of the fabulous. -In 1603 he had already written over two hundred plays; -in 1609 the number was four hundred and eighty-three; -in 1620 he confesses to nine hundred; in 1624 he reaches -one thousand and seventy; and in 1632 the total amounted -to one thousand five hundred. According to Montalbán, -editor of the <i>Fama póstuma</i>, the grand total, omitting -<i>entremeses</i>, should be one thousand eight hundred plays, -and over four hundred <i>autos</i>. Of these about four hundred -plays and forty <i>autos</i> survive. If we take the figures -as they stand, Lope de Vega wrote more than all the -Elizabethan dramatists put together. Small wonder that -Charles Fox was staggered when his nephew, Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -Holland, spoke of Lope's twenty million lines. Facility -and excellence are rarely found together, yet Lope combined -both qualities in such high degree that any one -with enough Spanish to read him need never pass a -dull moment so long as he lives.</p> - -<p>Hazlitt protests against the story which tells that Lope -wrote a play before breakfast, and in truth it rests on no -good authority. But it is history that, not once, but an -hundred times, he wrote a whole piece within twenty-four -hours. Working in these conditions, he must needs -have the faults inseparable from haste. He repeats his -thought with small variation; he utilises old solutions -for a dramatic <i>impasse</i>; and his phrase is too often more -vigorous than finished. But it is not as a master of -artistic detail that Lope's countrymen place him beside -Cervantes. First, and last, and always, he is a great -creative genius. He incarnates the national spirit, adapts -popular poetry to dramatic effects, substitutes characters -for abstractions, and, in a word, expresses the genius of -a people. It is true that he rarely finds a perfect form -for his utterance, that he constantly approaches perfection -without quite attaining unto it, that his dramatic instinct -exceeds his literary execution. Yet he survives as the -creator of an original form. His successors improved -upon him in the matter of polish, yet not one of them -made an essential departure of his own, not one invented -a radical variant upon Lope's method. Tirso de Molina -may exceed him in force of conception, as Ruiz de -Alarcón outshines him in ethical significance, in exposition -of character; yet Tirso and Alarcón are but developing -the doctrine laid down by the master in <i>El Castigo -sin Venganza</i>—the lesson of truth, realism, fidelity to the -actual usages of the time. Tirso, Alarcón, and Calderón<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> -are a most brilliant progeny; but the father of them all -is the unrivalled Lope. He seized upon what germs of -good existed in Torres Naharro, Rueda, and Cueva; but -his debt to them was small, and he would have found his -way without them. Without Lope we should have had -no Tirso, no Calderón.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> - -<p>Producing as he produced, much of his work may be -considered as improvisation; even so, he takes place -as the first improvisatore in the world, and compels -recognition as, so to say, "a natural force let loose." -He imagined on a Napoleonic scale; he contrived incident -with such ease and force and persuasiveness as -make the most of his followers seem poor indeed; and -his ingenuity of diversion is miraculously fresh after -nearly three hundred years. His gift never fails him, -whether he deal with historical tragedy, with the heroic -legend, with the presentation of picaresque life, or with -the play of intrigue and manners—the <i>comedia de capa -y espada</i>. This last, "the cloak and sword play" is -as much his personal invention as is the <i>gracioso</i>—the -comic character—as is the <i>enredo</i>—the maze of plot—as is -the "point of honour," as is the feminine interest in his -best work. Hitherto the woman had been allotted a -secondary, an incidental part, ludicrous in the <i>entremés</i>, -sentimental in the set piece. Lope, the expert in gallantry, -in manners, in observation, placed her in her true -setting, as an ideal, as the mainspring of dramatic -motive and of chivalrous conduct. He professed an -abstract approval of the classic models; but his natural -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>impulse was too strong for him. An imitator he -could not be, save in so far as he, in his own phrase, -"imitated men's actions, and reproduced the manners -of the age." He laid down rules which in practice he -flouted; for he realised that the business of the scene -is to hold an audience, is to interest, to surprise, to move. -He could not thump a pulpit in an empty hall: he -perceived that a play which fails to attract is—for the -playwright's purpose—a bad play. He can be read -with infinite pleasure; yet he rarely attempted drama -for the closet. Emotion in action was his aim, and he -achieved it with a certainty which places him among the -greatest gods of the stage.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to fix upon the period when Lope's -dramatic genius was accepted by his public: 1592 seems -a likely date. He took no interest in publishing his -plays, though <i>El Perseguido</i> was issued by a Lisbon -pirate so early as 1603. Eight volumes of his theatre -were in print before he was induced in 1617 to authorise -an edition which was called the <i>Ninth Part</i>, and after -1625 he printed no more dramatic pieces, despite the -fact that he produced them more abundantly than ever. -We may, perhaps, assume that the best of his work has -reached us. Among the finest of his earlier efforts is -justly placed <i>El Acero de Madrid</i> (The Madrid Steel), from -which Molière has borrowed the <i>Médecin malgré lui</i>, and -the opening scene, as Ticknor renders it, admirably -illustrates Lope's power of interesting his audience from -the very outset by a situation which explains itself. -Lisardo, with his friend Riselo, enamoured of Belisa, -awaits the latter at the church-door, and, just as Riselo -declares that he will wait no more, Belisa enters with -her pious aunt, Teodora, as <i>dueña</i>:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> - -<div class="drama-container"> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0">"<i>Show more of gentleness and modesty;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Of gentleness in walking quietly,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Of modesty in looking only down</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Upon the earth you tread.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i20"><i>'Tis what I do.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>What? When you're looking straight towards that man?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Did you not bid me look upon the earth?</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And what is he but just a bit of it?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>I said the earth whereon you tread, my niece.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>But that whereon I tread is hidden quite</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>With my own petticoat and walking-dress.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Words such as these become no well-bred maid.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>But, by your mother's blessed memory,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>I'll put an end to all your pretty tricks;—</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>What? You look back at him again.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i28"><i>Who? I?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Yes, you;—and make him secret signs besides.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Not I! 'Tis only that you troubled me</i><br /></div> -<div class="i0"><i>With teasing questions and perverse replies,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>So that I stumbled and looked round to see</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Who would prevent my fall.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Riselo (to Lisardo).</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i22"><i>She falls again.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Be quick and help her.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Lisardo (to Belisa).</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i18"><i>Pardon me, lady,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And forgive my glove.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i18"><i>Who ever saw the like?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>I thank you, sir; you saved me from a fall.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Lisardo.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>An angel, lady, might have fallen so,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Or stars that shine with heaven's own blessed light.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>I, too, can fall; but 'tis upon your trick.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Good gentleman, farewell to you!</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Lisardo.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i26"><i>Madam,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Your servant.</i> (<i>Heaven save us from such spleen!</i>)</div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>A pretty fall you made of it; and now I hope</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>You'll be content, since they assisted you.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>And you no less content, since now you have</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>The means to tease me for a week to come.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>But why again do you turn back your head?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Why, sure you think it wise and wary</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>To notice well the place I stumbled at,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Lest I should stumble there when next I pass.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Mischief befall you! But I know your ways!</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>You'll not deny this time you looked upon the youth?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Deny it? No!</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i10"><i>You dare confess it, then?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Belisa.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Be sure I dare. You saw him help me;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And would you have me fail to thank him for it?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Teodora.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Go to! Come home! come home!</i>"</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>This is a fair specimen, even in its sober English -dress, of Lope's gallant dialogue and of his consummate -skill in gripping his subject. No playwright has ever -shown a more infallible tact, a more assured confidence -in his own resources. He never attempts to puzzle -his audience with a dull acrostic: complicated as his -plot may be (and he loves to introduce a double intrigue -when the chance proffers), he exposes it at the outset -with an obvious solution; but not one in twenty can -guess precisely how the solution is to be attained. And, -till the last moment, his contagious, reckless gaiety, his -touches of perplexing irony, his vigilant invention, help -to thrill and vivify the interest.</p> - -<p>Yet has he all the defects of his facility. In an indifferent -mood, besieged by managers for more and more -plays, he would set forth upon a piece, not knowing -what was to be its action, would indulge in a triple plot -of baffling complexity eked out by incredible episodes. -Even his ingenuity failed to find escape from such -unprepared situations. Still it is fair to say that such -instances are rare with him: time upon time his dramatic -instinct saved him where a less notable inventor -must have succumbed. He could create character; he -was an artist in construction; he knew what could, and -could not, be done upon the stage. Like Dumas, he -needed but "four trestles, four boards, two actors, and a -passion"; and, at his best, he rises to the greatest occasion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -In a single scene, in an act entire, you shall read -him with wonder and delight for his force and truth and -certainty. Yet the trail of carelessness is upon his last -acts, and his conscience sometimes sleeps ere his curtain -falls. The fact that he thought more of a listener -than of ten readers comes home to a constant student. -Lope had few theories as to style, and he rarely aims at -sheer beauty of expression, at simple felicity of phrase. -Hence his very cleverness grows wearisome at last. -But, after all, he must be judged by the true historic -standard: his achievement must be compared with what -preceded, not with what came after him. Tirso de -Molina and Calderón and Moreto grew the flower from -Lope's seed. He took the farce as Lope de Rueda left -it, and transformed its hard fun by his humane and -sparkling wit. He inherited the cold mediæval morality, -and touched it into life by the breath of devout imagination. -He re-shaped the crude collection of massacres -which Virués mistook for tragedy, and produced effects -of dread and horror with an artistry of his own devising, -a selection, a conscience, a delicate vigour all unknown -until he came. And for the <i>comedia de capa y espada</i>, it -springs direct from his own cunning brain, unsuggested -and even unimagined by any forerunner.</p> - -<p>It were hopeless to analyse any part of the immense -theatre which he bequeathed to the world. But among -his best tragedies may be cited <i>El Castigo sin Venganza</i>, -with its dramatic rendering of the Duke of Ferrara sentencing -his adulterous wife and incestuous son to death. -Among his historic dramas none surpasses <i>El Mejor -Alcalde el Rey</i>, with its presentation of the model Spanish -heroine, Elvira; of the feudal baron, Tello; and of the -King as the buckler of his people, the strong man doing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -justice in high places: a most typical piece of character, -congenial to the aristocratic democracy of Spain. A -more morbid version of the same monarchical sentiment -is given in <i>La Estrella de Sevilla</i>, the argument of -which is brief enough for quotation. King Sancho <i>el -Bravo</i> falls enamoured of Busto Tavera's sister, Estrella, -betrothed to Sancho Ortiz de las Roelas. Having vainly -striven to win over Busto, the King follows the advice -of Arias, corrupts her slave, enters Estrella's room, is -there discovered, is challenged by Busto, and escapes -with a sound skin. The slave, confessing her share in -the scheme, is killed by the innocent heroine's brother. -Meanwhile, the King determines upon Busto's death, -summons Sancho Ortiz, and bids him slay a certain -criminal guilty of <i>lèse-majesté</i>. Herewith the King offers -Sancho a guarantee against consequences. Sancho -Ortiz destroys it, saying that he asks for nothing better -than the King's word, and ends by begging the sovereign -to grant him the hand of an unnamed lady. To this -the King accedes, and he hands Sancho Ortiz a paper -containing the name of the doomed man. After much -hesitation and self-torment, Sancho Ortiz resolves to do -his duty to his King, slays Busto, is seized, refuses -to explain, undergoes sentence of death, and is finally -pardoned by King Sancho, who avows his own guilt, -and endeavours to promote the marriage between Sancho -Ortiz and Estrella. For an obvious reason they refuse, -and the curtain falls upon Estrella's determination to get -herself to a nunnery.</p> - -<p>Thus baldly told, the story resembles a thousand -others; under Lope's hand it throbs with life and -movement and emotion. His dialogue is swift and -strong and appropriate, whether he personifies the blind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -passion of the King, the incorruptibility of Busto, the -feudal ideal of Sancho Ortiz, or the strength and -sweetness of Estrella. Of dialogue he is the first and -best master on the Spanish stage: more choice, if less -powerful, than Tirso; more natural, if less altisonant, -than Calderón. The dramatic use of certain metrical -forms persisted as he sanctioned it: the <i>décimas</i> for -laments, the <i>romance</i> for exposition, the <i>lira</i> for heroic -declamation, the sonnet to mark time, the <i>redondilla</i> for -love-passages. His lightness of touch, his gaiety and -resourcefulness are exampled in <i>La Dama Melindrosa</i> -(The Languishing Lady), as good a cloak-and-sword -play as even Lope ever wrote. His gift of sombre -conception is to be seen in <i>Dineros son Calidad</i> (Money -is Rank), where his contrivance of the King of Naples' -statue addressing Octavio is the nearest possible -approach to Tirso's figures of the Commander and of -Don Juan.</p> - -<p>Whether or not Tirso took the idea from Lope -cannot well be decided; but if he did so, he was no -worse than the rest of the world. For ages dramatists -of all nations have found Lope de Vega "good to steal -from," and in many forms he has diverted other countries -than the Spains. Alexandre Hardy is said by tradition -to have exploited him vigorously, and probably we -should find the imitations among Hardy's lost plays. -Jean Mairet is reputed to have borrowed generously, -and an undoubted follower is Jean Rotrou, many of -whose pieces—from the early <i>Occasions perdues</i> and <i>La -belle Alfrède</i> to his last effort, <i>Don Lope de Cardonne</i>—are -boldly annexed from Lope. D'Ouville, in <i>Les Morts -vivants</i> and in <i>Aimer sans savoir qui</i>, exploited Lope -to the profit of French playgoers. It is a rash conjecture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -which identifies the <i>Wild Gallant</i> with the <i>Galán -escarmentado</i>, inasmuch as the latter play is even still -"inedited," and could scarcely have reached Dryden; -but it cannot be doubted that when the sources of our -Restoration drama are traced out, Lope will be found -to rank with Calderón, and Moreto, and Rojas Zorrilla.</p> - -<p>Yet his chief glory must, like Burns's, be ever local. -Cervantes, for all his national savour, might conceivably -belong to any country; but Lope de Vega is the incarnate -Spains. His gaiety, his suppleness, his adroit -construction, his affluence, his realism, are eminently -Spanish in their strength; his heedless form, his journalistic -emphasis, his inequality, his occasional incoherence, -his anxiety to please at any cost, are eminently -Spanish in their weakness. He lacks the universal note -of Shakespeare, being chiefly for his own time and not -for all the ages. Shakespeare, however, stands alone -in literature. It is no small praise to say that Lope -follows him on a lower plane. There are two great -creators in the European drama: Shakespeare founds -the English theatre, Lope de Vega the Spanish, each -interpreting the genius of his people with unmatched -supremacy. And unto both there came a period of -eclipse. That very generation which Lope had bewildered, -dominated, and charmed by his fantasy turned -to the worship of Calderón. Nor did he profit by the -romantic movement headed by the Schlegels and by -Tieck. For them, as for Goethe, Spanish literature -was incarnated by Cervantes and by Calderón. The -immense bulk of Lope's production, the rarity of his -editions, the absence of any representative translation, -caused him to be overlooked. To two men—to -Agustín Durán in Spain and to Grillparzer in Germany—he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -owes his revival;<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and, in more modest degree, -Lord Holland and George Henry Lewes have furthered -his due recognition. The present tendency is, perhaps, -to overrate him, and to substitute uncritical adoration -for uncritical neglect. Yet he deserves the fame which -grows from day to day; for if he have bequeathed us -little that is exquisite in art—as <i>Los Pastores de Belén</i>—the -world is his debtor for a new and singular form -of dramatic utterance. In so much he is not only a -great executant in the romantic drama, a virtuoso of -unexcelled resource and brilliancy. He is something -still greater: the typical representative of his race, the -founder of a great and comprehensive <i>genre</i>. The genius -of Cervantes was universal and unique; Lope's was -unique but national. Cervantes had the rarer and more -perfect endowment. But they are immortals both; and, -paradox though it may seem, a second Cervantes is a -likelier miracle than a second Lope de Vega.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In 1599, the year following upon the issue of Lope's -<i>Dragontea</i>, the picaresque tradition of <i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i> -was revived by the Sevillan <span class="smcap">Mateo Alemán</span> (fl. ? 1550-1609) -in the First Part of his <i>Atalaya de la Vida humana</i>: -<i>Vida del Pícaro Guzmán de Alfarache</i>. The alternative -title—the <i>Watch-Tower of Human Life</i>—was rejected by -the reading public, which, to the author's annoyance, -insisted on speaking of the <i>Pícaro</i> or <i>Rogue</i>. Little is -known of Alemán's life, save that he took his Bachelor's -degree at Seville in 1565. He is conjectured to have -visited Italy, perhaps as a soldier, is found serving in the -Treasury so early as 1568, and, after twenty years, left -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>the King's service as poor as he entered it. A passage -in his <i>Ortografía Castellana</i>, published at Mexico in 1609, -is thought to show that he was a printer; but this is -surmise. That he emigrated to America seems certain; -but the date of his death is unknown.</p> - -<p>His <i>Guzmán de Alfarache</i> is an amplified version of -Lázaro's adventures; and, though he adds little to the -first conception, his abundant episode and interminable -moralisings hit the general taste. Twenty-six editions, -amounting to some fifty thousand copies, appeared within -six years of the first publication: not even <i>Don Quixote</i> -had such a vogue. Nor was it less fortunate abroad. In -1623 it was admirably translated by James Mabbe in a -version for which Ben Jonson wrote a copy of verses in -praise of</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i6">"<i>this Spanish Proteus; who, though writ</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>But in one tongue, was form'd with the world's wit;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And hath the noblest mark of a good book,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>That an ill man dares not securely look</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Upon it, but will loathe, or let it pass,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>As a deformed face doth a true glass.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>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 <i>Rogue</i> -reached its fourth edition in 1656, the third edition of -the First Folio was not printed till 1664.</p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -with an insistence that defeats its own object, and the -subsidiary tales of Dorido and Clorinia, of Osmín and -Daraja—a device imitated in <i>Don Quixote</i>—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 <i>Vida de San Antonio -de Padua</i> (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 -<i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i> in caustic observation and in humour, -<i>Guzmán de Alfarache</i> is a rapid and easy study of blackguardism, -forcible and diverting despite its unctuousness, -and written in admirable prose.</p> - -<p>So much cannot be claimed for the <i>Pícara Justina</i> -(1605) of Francisco López de Úbeda, who is commonly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -identified as the Dominican, <span class="smcap">Andrés Pérez</span>, author of a -<i>Vida de San Raymundo de Peñafort</i> and of other pious -works. His <i>Pícara Justina</i> was long in maturing, for he -confesses to having "augmented after the publication -of the admired work of the <i>pícaro</i>," 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 <i>Pícara</i>, Pérez anticipates Cervantes' trifling find of -the <i>versos de cabo roto</i>; and, from the angry attack upon -the monk in the <i>Viaje del Parnaso</i>, it seems safe to infer -that Cervantes resented being forestalled by one who -had probably read the <i>Quixote</i> in manuscript.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> - -<p>A more successful attempt in the same kind is the -<i>Relaciones de la Vida del Escudero Marcos de Obregón</i> 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 <i>Diversas Rimas</i> (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 -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>fifth string to the guitar. But it is by his <i>Marcos de -Obregón</i> (1618) that he is best known. Voltaire alleged -that <i>Gil Blas</i> was a mere translation of <i>Marcos de -Obregón</i>, 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 -<i>Guzmán de Alfarache</i>. Espinel knew how to build a -story and how to tell it graphically, and his artistic -selection of incident makes the reading of his <i>Marcos</i> -a pleasure even after three centuries.</p> - -<p>As the picaresque novel was to supply the substance -of Charles Sorel's <i>Francion</i> and of Paul Scarron's <i>Roman -Comique</i>, so the <i>Almahide</i> of Mlle. de Scudéry and the -<i>Zayde</i> of Mme. de Lafayette find their root in the -Hispano-Mauresque historical novel. This invention we -owe to <span class="smcap">Ginés Pérez de Hita</span> of Murcia (fl. 1604), a -soldier who served in the expedition against the Moriscos -during the Alpujarra rising. His <i>Guerras civiles de -Granada</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -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 <i>Guerras civiles de Granada</i> 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.</p> - -<p>The <i>Romancero General</i>, 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 <i>romances</i>, has a relative meaning; but even -in the lowest sense the word can scarcely be used of the -songs in the <i>Romancero General</i>, which is very largely -made up of the work of contemporary poets. Another -famous volume of lyrics is Pedro Espinosa's <i>Flores de -Poetas ilustres de España</i> (1605), which includes specimens -of Camões, Barahona de Soto, Lope de Vega, Góngora, -Quevedo, Salas Barbadillo, and others of less account.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -Of minor singers, such as López Maldonado, the friend -of Cervantes and of Lope, there were too many; but -Maldonado's <i>Cancionero</i> (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 <i>cancioneros</i> (1588, 1604), or—much -more briefly, and perhaps to better purpose—in Rivadeneyra's -<i>Romancero y Cancionero sagrados</i>. The chief -of these pious minstrels was <span class="smcap">José de Valdivielso</span> -(?1560-1636), the author of a long poem entitled <i>Vida, -Excelencias y Muerte del gloriosísimo Patriarca San José</i>; -but it is neither by this tedious sacred epic nor by his -twelve <i>autos</i> that Valdivielso should be judged. His -lyrical gift, scarcely less sweet and sincere than Lope's -own, is best manifested in his <i>Romancero Espiritual</i>, with -its <i>romances</i> to Our Lady, its pious <i>villancicos</i> on Christ's -birth, which anticipate the mingled devotion and familiarity -of Herrick's <i>Noble Numbers</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Antonio Pérez</span> (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 <i>Relaciones</i> and his <i>Memorial del hecho de su causa</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> -weighty sententiousness of his aphorisms, and by his -unblushing revelation of baseness and cupidity.</p> - -<p>To this period belongs also the <i>Centón Epistolario</i>, 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 <i>Crónica</i> 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 <i>Centón Epistolario</i> 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 <i>Centón</i> -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.</p> - -<p>Contemporary with Cervantes and Lope de Vega was -the greatest of all Spanish historians, <span class="smcap">Juan de Mariana</span> -(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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -In 1599 there appeared his treatise entitled <i>De Rege</i>, 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.</p> - -<p>The main work of Mariana's lifetime was his <i>Historia -de España</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -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.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnotes:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_16_16">[16]</a> In Felipe II.'s time the normal value of an <i>escudo de oro</i> was 8s. 4-1/4d. -The actual exchange value varied between seven and eight shillings.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_17_17">[17]</a> One <i>real de vellón</i> = 34 <i>maravedís</i> = 2 pence, 2 farthings, and 2/3 of a -farthing. One <i>real de plata</i> = 2 <i>reales de vellón</i>. Unless otherwise stated, a -<i>real</i> may be taken to mean a <i>real de plata</i>.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_18_18">[18]</a> See <i>The Athenæum</i>, April 12, April 19, and May 3, 1873.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_19_19">[19]</a> See Cristóbal Pérez de Pastor's <i>Documentos cervantinos hasta ahora -inéditos</i> (Madrid, 1897), pp. 135-137.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_20_20">[20]</a> British Museum Add. MSS., 20, 812.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_21_21">[21]</a> This is taken by all English writers, and appears in the British Museum -Catalogue, as a real name. I only reveal an open secret if I point out that -it is a perfect anagram for Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, the excellent scholar to -whom we owe the <i>Cancionero musical de los siglos xv. y xvi.</i> and the new -edition of Encina's theatre.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_22_22">[22]</a> The seducer is conjectured to be Olivares' son-in-law, the Duque de -Medina de las Torres.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_23_23">[23]</a> Lope's popularity spread as far as America. Three of his plays were -translated into the <i>nahuatl</i> dialect by Bartolomé Alba. See José Mariano -Beristain de Souza's <i>Biblioteca Hispano-Americana</i> (Mexico, 1816), vol i. -p. 64.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_24_24">[24]</a> See M. Farinelli's learned study, <i>Grillparzer und Lope de Vega</i> (Berlin, -1894).</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_25_25">[25]</a> It seems probable that Cervantes and Pérez were both anticipated by -Alonso Álvarez de Soria, who was finally hanged. See Bartolomé José -Gallardo, <i>Ensayo de una Biblioteca Española</i> (Madrid, 1863, vol. i., col. 285).</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER X -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF FELIPE IV. AND CARLOS THE -BEWITCHED -<br /> -1621-1700</small></h2> - - -<p>The reign of Felipe IV. opens with as fair a promise -of achievement as any in history. At Madrid, in the -third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century, -the court of the Grand Monarque was anticipated -and perhaps outdone. We are inclined to think of -Felipe as Velázquez has presented him, on his "Cordobese -barb, the proud king of horses, and the fittest -horse for a king"; and to recall the praise which -William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, lavished -on his horsemanship:—"The great King of Spain, -deceased, did not only love it and understand it, but -was absolutely the best horseman in all Spain." Yet -is it a mistake to suppose him a mere hunter. Art -and letters were his constant care; nor was he -without a touch of individual accomplishment. He -was not content with instructing his Ministers to -buy every good picture offered in foreign markets: -his own sketches show that he had profited by seeing -Velázquez at work. It is no small point in his favour -to have divined at a glance the genius of the unknown -Sevillan master, and to have appointed him—scarcely -out of his teens—court-painter. He likewise collated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -the artist, Alonso Cano, to a canonry at Granada, and, -when the chapter protested that Cano had small Latin -and less Greek, the King's reply was honourable to his -taste and spirit:—"With a stroke of the pen I can -make canons like you by the score; but Alonso Cano -is a miracle of God." He would even stay the course -of justice to protect an artist. Thus, when Velázquez's -master, the half-mad Herrera, was charged with coining, -the monarch intervened with the remark: "Remember -his <i>St. Hermengild</i>." Music becalmed the King's -fever, and the plays at the Buen Retiro vied with the -masques of Whitehall. His antechambers were thronged -with men of genius. Lope de Vega still survived, his -glory waxing daily, though the best part of his life's -work was finished. Vélez de Guevara was the royal -chamberlain; Góngora, the court chaplain, hated, envied, -and admired, was the dreaded chief of a combative poetic -school; his disciple, Villamediana, struck terror with his -vitriolic epigrams, his rancorous tongue; the aged Mariana -represented the best tradition of Spanish history; -Bartolomé de Argensola was official chronicler of Aragón; -Tirso de Molina, Ruiz de Alarcón, and Rojas Zorrilla filled -the theatres with their brilliant and ingenious fancies; -the incorruptible satirist, Quevedo, was private secretary -to the King; the boyish Calderón was growing into -repute and royal favour.</p> - -<p>Of the Aragonese playwright, Lupercio Leonardo de -Argensola, we have already spoken in a previous chapter. -His brother, <span class="smcap">Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola</span> -(1562-1631), took orders, and, through the influence of -the Duque de Villahermosa, was named rector of the -town whence his patron took his title. His earliest work, -the <i>Conquista de las Islas Molucas</i> (1609), written by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -order of the Conde de Lemos, is uncritical in conception -and design; but the matter of its primitive, romantic, -and even sentimental legends derives fresh charm from -the author's apt and polished narrative. In 1611 he -and his brother accompanied Lemos to Naples, thereby -stirring the anger of Cervantes, who had hoped to be -among the Viceroy's suite, as appears from a passage -in the <i>Viaje del Parnaso</i>, which roundly insinuates that -the Argensolas were a pair of intriguers. The disappointment -was natural; yet posterity is even grateful -for it, since a transfer to Naples would certainly have -lost us the second <i>Don Quixote</i>. Doubtless the Argensolas, -who were of Italian descent, were better fitted than -Cervantes for commerce with Italian affairs, and Bartolomé -made friends on all sides in Naples as in Rome. On -his brother's death in 1613, he became official chronicler -of Aragón, and, in 1631, published a sequel to <i>Zurita</i>, -the <i>Anales de Aragón</i>, which deals so minutely with the -events of the years 1516-20 as to become wearisome, -despite all Argensola's grace of manner. The <i>Rimas</i> -of the two brothers, published posthumously in 1634 by -Lupercio's son, Gabriel Leonardo de Albión, was stamped -with the approval of the dictator, Lope de Vega, who -declared that the authors "had come from Aragón to -reform among our poets the Castilian language, which -is suffering from new horrible phrases, more puzzling -than enlightening."</p> - -<p>This is an overstatement of a truth, due to Lope's -aversion from Gongorism in all its shapes. Horace is -the model of the Argensolas, whose renderings of the -two odes <i>Ibam forte via sacra</i> and <i>Beatus ille</i> are among -the happiest of versions. Their sobriety of thought is -austere, and their classic correctness of diction is in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> -curious contrast with the daring innovations of their -time. Lupercio has a polite, humorous fancy, which -shows through Mr. Gibson's translation of a well-known -sonnet:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>I must confess, Don John, on due inspection,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That dame Elvira's charming red and white,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Though fair they seem, are only hers by right,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In that her money purchased their perfection;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>But thou must grant as well, on calm reflection,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That her sweet lie hath such a lustre bright,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>As fairly puts to shame the paler light,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And honest beauty of a true complexion!</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And yet no wonder I distracted go</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>With such deceit, when 'tis within our ken</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That nature blinds us with the self-same spell;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For that blue heaven above that charms us so,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Is neither heaven nor blue! Sad pity then</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That so much beauty is not truth as well.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Lupercio's manifold interests in politics, in history, -and in the theatre left him little time for poetry, and a -large proportion of his verses were destroyed after his -death; still, partially represented as he is, the pretty wit, -the pure idiom, and elegant form of his lyrical pieces -vindicate his title to rank among Castilian poets of the -second order. As for Bartolomé, he resembles his brother -in natural faculty, but his fibre is stronger. A hard, dogmatic -spirit, a bigot in his reverence for convention, an -idolater of Terence, with a stern, patriotic hatred of -novelties, he was regarded as the standard-bearer of the -anti-Gongorists. Too deeply ingrained a doctrinaire to -court popularity, he was content with the applause of a -literary clique, and had practically no influence on his -age. Yet his precept was valuable, and his practice, -always sound, reaches real excellence in such devout -numbers as his <i>Sonnet to Providence</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> - -<p>Much meritorious academic verse is found in the -works of other contemporary writers, though most rivals -lapse into errors of taste and faults of expression from -which the younger Argensola is honourably free. But -no great leader is formed in the school of prudent correctness, -and by temperament, as well as by training, the -Rector of Villahermosa was unfit to cope with so virile and -so combative a genius as <span class="smcap">Luis de Argote y Góngora</span> -(1561-1627), the ideal chief of an aggressive movement. -Son of Francisco de Argote, Corregidor of Córdoba, and -of Leonora de Góngora, he adopted his mother's name, -partly because of its nobility and partly because of its -euphony. In his sixteenth year Góngora left his native -Córdoba to read law at Salamanca, with a view to following -his father's profession; but his studies were never -serious, and, though he took his bachelor's degree, he -gave most of his time to fencing and to dancing. To -the consternation of his family, he abandoned law and -announced himself as a professional poet. So early as -1585 Cervantes names him in the <i>Canto de Calíope</i> as -a rare and matchless genius—<i>raro ingenio sin segundo</i>—and, -though flattery from Cervantes is too indiscriminating -to mean much, the mention at least implies -that Góngora's promise was already recognised. Few -details of his career are with us, though rumour tells of -platonic love-passages with a lady of Valencia, Luisa de -Cardona, who finally entered a convent in Toledo. His -repute as a poet, aided by his mother's connection with -the ducal house of Almodóvar, won for him a lay canonry -in 1590, and this increase of means enabled him to visit -the capital, where he was instantly hailed as a wit and as -a brilliant poet. His fame had hitherto been local; with -the publication of his verses in Espinosa's <i>Flores de Poetas</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -<i>ilustres</i> (1605), it passed through the whole of Spain. In -the same year, or at latest in 1606, Góngora was ordained -priest. His private life was always exemplary, and this, -together with his natural harshness, perhaps explains -his intolerance for the foibles of Cervantes and of -Lope. When the favourite, the Duque de Lerma, fell -from power, Góngora attached himself to Sandoval, who -nominated him to a small prebend at Toledo. As chaplain -to the King, the poet's circle of friends enlarged, -and his literary influence grew correspondingly. In -1626 he had a cerebral attack, during which the physicians -of the Queen attended him. The story that he -died insane is a gross exaggeration: he lingered on -a year, having lost his memory, died of apoplexy at -Córdoba on May 23, 1627, and is buried in the St. -Bartholomew Chapel of the cathedral.</p> - -<p>An <i>entremés</i> entitled <i>La destrucción de Troya</i>, a play -called <i>Las Firmezas de Isabela</i> (written in collaboration -with his brother, Juan de Argote), and a fragment, the -<i>Comedia Venatoria</i>, remain to show that Góngora wrote -for the stage. Whether he was ever played is doubtful, -and, in any case, his gift is not dramatic. He was so -curiously careless of his writings that he never troubled -to print or even to keep copies of them, and a remark -which he let fall during his last illness goes to show his -artistic dissatisfaction:—"Just as I was beginning to -know something of the first letters in my alphabet does -God call me to Himself: His will be done!" His -poems circulated mostly in manuscript copies, which -underwent so many changes that the author often knew -not his own work when it returned to his hands; and, -but for the piety of Juan López de Vicuña, Góngora -might be for us the shadow of a great name. López de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -Vicuña spent twenty years in collecting his scattered -verse, which he published in the very year of the poet's -death, under the resounding title of <i>Works in Verse of -the Spanish Homer</i>. A later and better edition was produced -by Gonzalo de Hoces y Córdoba (1633).</p> - -<p>Góngora began with the lofty ode, as a strict observer -of literary tradition, a reverent imitator of Herrera's -heroics. His earliest essays are not very easy to distinguish -from those of his contemporaries, save that his -tone is nobler and that his execution is more conscientious. -He was a craftsman from the outset, and his -technical equipment is singularly complete. So far was -he from showing any freakish originality, that he is open -to the reproach of undue devotion to his masters. His -thought is theirs as much as are his method, his form, -his ornament, his ingenuity. An example of his early -style is his <i>Ode to the Armada</i>, of which we may quote a -stanza from Churton's translation:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>O Island, once so Catholic, so strong,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Fortress of Faith, now Heresy's foul shrine,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Camp of train'd war, and Wisdom's sacred school;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The time hath been, such majesty was thine,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The lustre of thy crown was first in song.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Now the dull weeds that spring by Stygian pool</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Were fitting wreath for thee. Land of the rule</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Of Arthurs, Edwards, Henries! Where are they?</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Their Mother where, rejoicing in their sway,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Firm in the strength of Faith? To lasting shame</i></div> -<div class="verse i6"><i>Condemn'd, through guilty blame</i></div> -<div class="verse i6"><i>Of her who rules thee now.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>O hateful Queen, so hard of heart and brow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Wanton by turns, and cruel, fierce, and lewd,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Thou distaff on the throne, true virtue's bane,</i></div> -<div class="verse i6"><i>Wolf-like in every mood,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>May Heaven's just flame on thy false tresses rain!</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> - -<p>This is excellent of its kind, and among all Herrera's -imitators none comes so near to him as Góngora in -lyrical melody, in fine workmanship, in a certain clear -distinction of utterance. Yet already there are hints of -qualities destined to bear down their owner. Not content -with simple patriotism, with denunciation of schism -and infidelity, Góngora foreshadows his future self as -a very master of gibes and sneers. The note of altisonance, -already emphatic in Herrera, is still more forced -in the young Córdoban poet, who adds a taste for far-fetched -conceits and extravagant metaphor, assuredly not -learned in the Sevillan school. Rejecting experiments in -the stately ode, he for many years continued his practice -in another province of verse, and by rigorous discipline -he learned to excel in virtue of his fine simplicity, his -graceful imagery, and his urbane wit. It should seem -that intellectual self-denial cost him little, for his transformations -are among the most complete in literary -history. Consider, for instance, the interval between -the emphatic dignity of his Armada ode and the charming -fancy, the distinguished cynicism of <i>Love in Reason</i>, -as Archdeacon Churton gives it:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>I love thee, but let love be free:</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>I do not ask, I would not learn,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>What scores of rival hearts for thee</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Are breaking or in anguish burn.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>You die to tell, but leave untold,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The story of your Red-Cross Knight,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Who proffer'd mountain-heaps of gold</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>If he for you might ride and fight;</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Or how the jolly soldier gay</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Would wear your colours, all and some;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>But you disdain'd their trumpet's bray,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And would not hear their tuck of drum.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>We love; but 'tis the simplest case:</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The faith on which our hands have met</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Is fix'd, as wax on deeds of grace,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>To hold as grace, but not as debt.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For well I wot that nowadays</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Love's conquering bow is soonest bent</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>By him whose valiant hand displays</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The largest roll of yearly rent....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>So let us follow in the fashion,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Let love be gentle, mild, and cool:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For these are not the days of passion,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>But calculation's sober rule.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Your grace will cheer me like the sun;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>But I can live content in shades.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Take me: you'll find when all is done,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Plain truth, and fewer serenades.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Even in translation the humorous amenity is not altogether -lost, though no version can reproduce the -technical perfection of the original. For refined wit -and brilliant effect Góngora has seldom been exceeded; -yet his fighter pieces failed to bring him the renown -and the high promotion which he expected. He feigned -to despise popularity, declaring that he "desired to -do something that would not be for the general"; but -none was keener than he in courting applause on any -terms. He would dazzle and surprise, if he could not -enchant, his public, and forthwith he set to founding -the school which bears the name of <i>culteranismo</i>. We -do not know precisely when he first practised in this -vein; but it seems certain that he was anticipated by -a young soldier, Luis de Carrillo y Sotomayor (1583-1610), -whose posthumous verses were published by his -brother at Madrid in 1611. Carrillo had served in Italy, -where he came under the spell of Giovanni Battista<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -Marino, then at the height of his influence; and the -<i>Obras</i> of Carrillo contain the first intimations of the -new manner. Many of Carrillo's poems are admirable -for their verbal melody, his eclogues being distinguished -for simple sincerity of sentiment and expression. But -these passed almost unnoticed, for Carrillo was only -doing well what Lope de Vega was doing better; and in -fact it seems likely that the merits of the dead soldier-poet -were unjustly overlooked by a generation which -was content with two editions of his works.</p> - -<p>He found, however, a passionate admirer in Góngora, -who perceived in such work as Carrillo's <i>Sonnet to the -Patience of his Jealous Hope</i> the possibilities of a revolution. -When Carrillo writes of "the proud sea bathing -the blind forehead of the deaf sky," he is merely setting -down a tasteless conceit, which gains nothing by a forced -inversion of phrase; but, as it happened, conceit of -this sort was a novelty in Spain, and Góngora, who had -already shown a tendency to preciosity in Espinosa's -collection, resolved to develop Carrillo's innovation. -Few questions are more debated and less understood -than this of Gongorism. So good a critic as Karl -Hillebrand gives forth this strange utterance:—"Not -only Italian and German Marinists were imitators of -Spanish Gongorists: even your English Euphuism of -Shakespeare's time had its origin in the <i>culteranismo</i> -of Spain." One hardly likes to accuse Hillebrand of -writing nonsense, but he certainly comes near, perilously -near it in this case. Lyly's <i>Euphues</i> was published in -1579, while Góngora was still a student at Salamanca, -and Shakespeare died nearly twelve years before a line -of Góngora's later poems was in print. Spanish scholars, -indeed, disclaim responsibility for Euphuism in any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -shape. They refuse to admit that Lord Berners' or -North's translations of Guevara could have produced -the effects ascribed to them; and they argue with much -reason that Gongorism is but the local form of a disease -which attacked all Europe. However that may be, -there can exist no possible connection between English -Euphuism and Spanish Gongorism, save such as comes -from a common Italian origin. Gongorism derives -directly from the Marinism propagated in Spain by -Carrillo, though it must be confessed that Marino's -extravagances pale beside those of Góngora.</p> - -<p>This, in fact, is no more than we should expect, for -Marino's conceits were, so to say, almost natural to -him, while Góngora's are a pure effect of affectation. -He wilfully got rid of his natural directness, and gave -himself to cultivating artificial antithesis, violent inversions -of words and phrases, exaggerated metaphors -piled upon sense tropes devoid of meaning. Other -poets appealed to the vulgar: he would charm the -cultivated—<i>los cultos</i>. Hence the name <i>culteranismo</i>.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> -At the same time it is fair to say that he has been -blamed for more crimes than he ever committed. -Ticknor, more than most critics, loses his head whenever -he mentions Góngora's name, and holds the -Spaniard up to ridicule by printing a literal translation -of his more daring flights. Thus he chooses a passage -from the first of the <i>Soledades</i>, and asserts that Góngora -sings the praise of "a maiden so beautiful, that she -might parch up Norway with her two suns, and bleach -Ethiopia with her two hands." Perhaps no poet that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>ever lived would survive the test of such bald, literal -rendering as this, and a much more exact notion of the -Spanish is afforded by Churton:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Her twin-born sun-bright eyes</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Might turn to summer Norway's wintry skies;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And the white wonder of her snowy hand</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Blanch with surprise the sons of Ethiopian land.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another sonnet on Luis de Bavia's <i>Historia Pontifical</i> -is presented in this fashion:—"This poem which Bavia -has now offered to the world, if not tied up in numbers, -yet is filed down into a good arrangement, and licked -into shape by learning; is a cultivated history, whose -grey-headed style, though not metrical, is combed out, -and robs three pilots of the sacred bark from time, -and rescues them from oblivion. But the pen that thus -immortalises the heavenly turnkeys on the bronzes of its -history is not a pen, but the key of ages. It opens to -their names, not the gates of failing memory, which -stamps shadows on masses of foam, but those of immortality." -This, again, is translation of a kind—of a kind -very current among fourth-form boys, and, perpetrated -by such an excellent scholar as Ticknor, is to be accepted -as intentional caricature of the original. Once more the -loyal Churton shall elucidate his author:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>This offering to the world by Bavia brought</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Is poesy, by numbers unconfined;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Such order guides the master's march of mind,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Such skill refines the rich-drawn ore of thought.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The style, the matter, gray experience taught,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Art's rules adorn'd what metre might not bind:</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The tale hath baffled time, that thief unkind,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And from Oblivion's bonds with toil hath brought</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Three helmsmen of the sacred barque; the pen,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That so these heavenly wardens doth enhance,—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>No pen, but rather key of Fame's proud dome,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Opening her everlasting doors to men,—</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Is no poor drudge recording things of chance,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which paints her shadowy forms on trembling foam.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Still, when all allowance is made, it must be confessed -that Góngora excels in hiding his meanings. By many -his worst faults were extolled as beauties, and there was -formed a school of disciples who agreed with Le Sage's -Fabrice in holding the master for "le plus beau génie -que l'Espagne ait jamais produit." But Góngora was -not to conquer without a struggle. One illustrious writer -was an early convert: Cervantes proclaimed himself an -admirer of the <i>Polifemo</i>, which is among the most difficult -of Góngora's works. Pedro de Valencia, one of -Spain's best humanists, was the first to denounce Góngora's -transpositions, licentious metaphors, and verbal -inventions as manifested in the <i>Soledades</i> (Solitary -Musings), round which the controversy raged hottest. -Within twenty-five years of Góngora's death the first -<i>Soledad</i> found an English translator in the person of -Thomas Stanley (1651), who renders in this fashion:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>'Twas now the blooming season of the year,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And in disguise Europa's ravisher</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>(His brow arm'd with a crescent, with such beams</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Encompast as the sun unclouded streams</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The sparkling glory of the zodiac!) led</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His numerous herd along the azure mead.</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>When he, whose right to beauty might remove</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The youth of Ida from the cup of Jove,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Shipwreck't, repuls'd, and absent, did complain</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of his hard fate and mistress's disdain;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With such sad sweetness that the winds, and sea,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In sighs and murmurs kept him company....</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>By this time night begun t'ungild the skies,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hills from the sea, seas from the hills arise,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Confusedly unequal; when once more</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The unhappy youth invested in the poor</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Remains of his late shipwreck, through sharp briars</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And dusky shades up the high rock aspires.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The steep ascent scarce to be reach'd by aid</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of wings he climbs, less weary than afraid.</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>At last he gains the top; so strong and high</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>As scaling dreaded not, nor battery,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>An equal judge the difference to decide</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>'Twixt the mute load and ever-sounding tide.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His steps now move secur'd; a glimmering light</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>(The Pharos of some cottage) takes his sight.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And so on in passages where the darkness grows denser -at every line. "C'est l'obscurité qui en fait tout le -mérite," as Fabrice observes when Gil Blas fails to -understand his friend's sonnet.</p> - -<p>Valencia's protest was followed by another from the -Sevillan, Juan de Jáuregui, whose preface to his <i>Rimas</i> -(1618) is a literary manifesto against those poems "which -only contain an embellishment of words, being phantoms -without soul or body." Jáuregui returned to the -attack in his <i>Discurso poético</i> (1623), a more formal and -elaborate indictment of the whole Gongoristic movement. -This treatise, of which only one copy is known -to exist, has been reprinted with some curtailments by -Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo in his <i>Historia de las Ideas Estéticas -en España</i>. It deserves study no less for its sound doctrine -than for the admirable style of the writer, whose -courtesy of tone makes him an exception among the -polemists of his time. As Jáuregui represents the opposition -of the Seville group, so Manuel Faria y Sousa, the -editor of the <i>Lusiadas</i>, speaks in the name of Portugal. -Faria y Sousa's theory of poetics is the simplest possible:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -there is but one great poet in the world, and his name is -Camões. Faria y Sousa transforms the <i>Lusiadas</i> into a -dull allegory, where Mars typifies St. Peter; he writes -down Tasso as "common, trivial, not worth mentioning, -poor in knowledge and invention"; and, in accordance -with these principles, he accuses Góngora of being no -allegorist, and protests that to rank him with Camões is -to compare "Marsyas to Apollo, a fly to an eagle."</p> - -<p>A more formidable opponent for the Gongorists was -Lope de Vega, who was himself accused of obscurity -and affectation. Bouhours, in his <i>Manière de bien penser -dans les ouvrages d'esprit</i> (1687), tells that the Bishop of -Belley, Jean-Pierre Camus, meeting Lope in Madrid, -cross-examined him as to the meaning of one of his -sonnets. With his usual good-nature, the poet listened, -and "ayant leû et releû plusieurs fois son sonnet, avoua -sincèrement qu'il ne l'entendoit pas luy mesme." It -must have irked his inclination to take the field against -Góngora, for whom he had a strong personal liking:—"He -is a man whom I must esteem and love, accepting -from him with humility what I can understand, and -admiring with veneration what I cannot understand." -Yet he loved truth (as he understood it) more than he -loved Socrates. "You can make a <i>culto</i> poet in twenty-four -hours: a few inversions, four formulas, six Latin -words, or emphatic phrases—and the trick is done," -he writes in his <i>Respuesta</i>; and he follows up this plain -speaking with a burlesque sonnet.</p> - -<p>Of Faria y Sousa and his like, Góngora made small -account: he fastened upon Lope as his victim, pursuing -him with unsleeping vindictiveness. There is something -pathetic in the Dictator's endeavours to soften his persecutor's -heart. He courts Góngora with polite flatteries in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -print; he dedicates to Góngora the play, <i>Amor secreto</i>; -he writes Góngora a private letter to remove a wrong -impression given by one Mendoza; he repeats Góngora's -witty sayings to his intimates; he makes personal overtures -to Góngora at literary gatherings; and, if Góngora -be not positively rude, Lope reports the fact to the -Duque de Sessa as a personal triumph:—"<i>Está más -humano conmigo, que le debo de haber pareçido más ombre -de bien de lo que él me ymaginava</i>" ("He is gentler with -me, and I must seem to him a better fellow than he -thought"). Despite all his ingratiating arts, Lope failed -to conciliate his foe, who rightly regarded him as the -chief obstacle in <i>culteranismo's</i> road. The relentless -riddlemonger lost no opportunity of ridiculing Lope -and his court in such a sonnet as the following, which -Churton Englishes with undisguised gusto:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Dear Geese, whose haunt is where weak waters flow,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>From rude Castilian well-head, cheap supply,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That keeps your flowery Vega never dry,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>True Vega, smooth, but somewhat flat and low;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Go; dabble, play, and cackle as ye go</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Down that old stream of gray antiquity;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And blame the waves of nobler harmony,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Where birds, whose gentle grace you cannot know,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Are sailing. Attic wit and Roman skill</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Are theirs; no swans that die in feeble song,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>But nursed to life by Heliconian rill,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Where Wisdom breathes in Music. Cease your wrong,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Flock of the troubled pool: your vain endeavour</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Will doom you else to duck and dive for ever.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The warfare was carried on with singular ferocity, the -careless Lope offering openings at every turn. "Remove -those nineteen castles from your shield," sang Góngora, -deriding Lope's foible in blazoning his descent. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -amour with Marta Nevares Santoyo was the subject of -obscene lampoons innumerable. A passage in the <i>Filomena</i> -volume arabesques the story of Perseus and Andromeda -with a complimentary allusion to an anonymous -poet whose name Lope withheld: "so as not to cause -annoyance." Góngora's copy of the <i>Filomena</i> exists with -this holograph annotation on the margin:—"If you -mean yourself, Lopillo, then you are an idiot without -art or judgment." Yet, despite a hundred brutal personalities, -Lope went his way unheeding, and on Góngora's -death he penned a most brilliant sonnet in praise -of that "swan of Betis," for whom his affection had -never changed.</p> - -<p>Góngora lived long enough to know that he had -triumphed. Tirso de Molina and Calderón, with most -of the younger dramatists, show the <i>culto</i> influence in -many plays; Jáuregui forgot his own principles, and -accepted the new mode; even Lope himself, in passages -of his later writings, yielded to preciosity. Quevedo -began by quoting Epictetus's aphorism:—<i>Scholasticum -esse animal quod ab omnibus irridetur</i>. And he renders -the Latin in his own free style:—"The <i>culto</i> brute is a -general laughing-stock." But the "<i>culto</i> brute" smiled -to see Quevedo given over to <i>conceptismo</i>, an affectation -not less disastrous in effect than Góngora's own. Meanwhile -enthusiastic champions declared for the Córdoban -master. Martín de Ángulo y Pulgar published his <i>Epístolas -satisfactorias</i> (1635) in answer to the censures of -the learned Francisco de Cascales; Pellicer preached -the Gongoristic gospel in his <i>Lecciones solemnes</i> (1630); -the <i>Defence of the Fable of Pyramus and Thisbe</i> fills a -quarto by Cristóbal de Salazar Mardones (1636); García -de Salcedo Coronel's huge commentaries (1636-46) are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -perhaps, more obscure than anything in his author's -text; and, so far away as Peru, Juan de Espinosa -Medrano, Rector of Cuzco, published an <i>Apologético en -favor de Don Luis de Góngora, Príncipe de los Poetas -Lyricos de España</i> (1694). There came a day when, as -Salazar y Torres informs us, the <i>Polifemo</i> and the <i>Soledades</i> -were recited on Speech-Day by the boys in Jesuit -schools.</p> - -<p>It took Spain a hundred years to rid her veins of the -Gongoristic poison, and Gongorism has now become, in -Spain itself, a synonym for all that is bad in literature. -Undoubtedly Góngora did an infinite deal of mischief: -his tricks of transposition were too easily learned by -those hordes of imitators who see nothing but the -obvious, and his verbal audacities were reproduced by -men without a tithe of his taste and execution. And -yet, though it be an unpopular thing to confess, one has -a secret sympathy with him in his campaign. Lope de -Vega and Cervantes are as unlike as two men may be; -but they are twins in their slapdash methods, in their -indifference to exquisiteness of form. Their fatal facility -is common to their brethren: threadbare phrase, -accepted without thought and repeated without heed, is, -as often as not, the curse of the best Spanish work. -It was, perhaps, not altogether love of notoriety which -seduced Góngora into Carrillo's ways. He had, as his -earliest work proves, a sounder method than his fellows -and a purer artistic conscience. No trace of carelessness -is visible in his juvenile poems, written in an -obscurity which knew no encouragement. It is just to -believe that his late ambition was not all self-seeking, -and that he aspired to renew, or rather to enlarge, the -poetic diction of his country.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> - -<p>The aim was excellent, and, if Góngora finally failed, -he failed partly because his disciples burlesqued his -theories, and partly because he strove to make words -serve instead of ideas. That his endeavour was praiseworthy -in itself is as certain as that he came at last -to regard his principles as almost sacred. He doubtless -found some pleasure in astounding and annoying -the burgess; but he aimed at something beyond -making readers marvel. And though he failed to impose -his doctrines permanently, it is by no means -certain that he laboured in vain. If any later Spaniard -has worked in the conscious spirit of the artist, seeking -to avoid the commonplace, to express high thoughts -in terms of beauty—though he knows it not, he owes -a debt to Góngora, whose hatred of the commonplace -made Castilian richer. The <i>Soledades</i> and the <i>Polifemo</i> -have passed away, but many of the words and -phrases for which Góngora was censured are now in -constant use; and, <i>culteranismo</i> apart, Góngora ranks -among the best lyrists of his land. Cascales, who was -at once his friend and his opponent, said that there -were two Góngoras—one an angel of light, the other -an angel of darkness; and the saying was true in so far -as it implied that in all circumstances his air of distinction -never quits him. Still the earlier Góngora is the better, -and before we leave him we should quote, as an example -of that first happy manner, inimitable in its grace and -humour, Churton's not too unsuccessful version of <i>The -Country Bachelor's Complaint</i>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Time was, ere Love play'd tricks with me,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>I lived at ease, a simple squire,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And sang my praise-song, fancy free,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>At matins in the village quire....</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I rambled by the mountain side,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Down sylvan glades where streamlets pass</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Unnumber'd, glancing as they glide</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Like crystal serpents through the grass....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And there the state I ruled from far,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And bade the winds to blow for me,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In succour to our ships of war,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That plough'd the Briton's rebel sea;</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Oft boasting how the might of Spain</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The world's old columns far outran,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And Hercules must come again,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And plant his barriers in Japan....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>'Twas on St. Luke's soft, quiet day,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>A vision to my sight was borne,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Fair as the blooming almond spray,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Blue-eyed, with tresses like the morn....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Ah! then I saw what love could do,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The power that bids us fall or rise,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>That wounds the firm heart through and through,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And strikes, like Cæsar, at men's eyes.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I saw how dupes, that fain would run,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Are caught, their breath and courage spent,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Chased by a foe they cannot shun,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Swift as Inquisitor on scent....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Yet I've a trick to cheat Love's search,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And refuge find too long delay'd;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I'll take the vows of Holy Church,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And seek some reverend cloister's shade.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Among Góngora's followers none is better known -than Juan de Tassis y Peralta, the second <span class="smcap">Conde de -Villamediana</span> (1582-1622), whose ancestors came from -Bergamo. His great-grandfather, Juan Bautista de -Tassis, entered the service of Carlos Quinto; his grandfather, -Raimundo de Tassis, was the first of his race to -live in Spain, where he married into the illustrious family -of Acuña; his father, Juan de Tassis y Acuña, rose to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -be Ambassador in Paris and Special Envoy in London. -Villamediana's tutors were two well-known men of letters: -Bartolomé Jiménez Patón, author of <i>Mercurius Trismegistus</i>, -and Tribaldos de Toledo, whom we already know -as editor of Figueroa and Mendoza. After a short stay -at Salamanca, Villamediana was appointed to the King's -household, and in 1601 married Ana de Mendoza y de -la Cerda, grand-daughter in the fifth generation of -Santillana. His reputation as a gambler was of the -worst, and his winning thirty thousand gold ducats at -a sitting led to his expulsion from court in 1608. He -joined the army in Italy, returned to Spain in 1617, and -at once launched into epigrams and satires against all -and sundry. The court favourites were his special mark—Lerma, -Osuna, Uceda, Rodrigo Calderón. In 1618 -he was again banished, but returned in 1621 as Lord-in-Waiting -to the Queen, Isabel de Bourbon, daughter -of Henry of Navarre. At her request Villamediana -wrote a masque, <i>La Gloria de Niquea</i>, in which the -Queen acted on April 8, 1622, before Lord Bristol. -If report speak truly, the performance led him to his -death. When the second act opened, an overturned -lamp set the theatre ablaze, and as Villamediana seized -the Queen in his arms, and carried her out of danger, -scandal declared the fire to be his doing, and gave -him out as the Queen's lover. There is a well-known -story that Felipe IV., stealing up behind the Queen -one day, placed his hands on her eyes; whereon "Be -quiet, Count," she said, and so unwittingly doomed -Villamediana. The tale is even too well known. Brantôme -had already told it in <i>Les Dames galantes</i> -before Felipe was born, and it really dates from the -sixth century. Even so, Villamediana's admiration for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -the Queen was openly expressed. He appeared at a -tournament covered with silver <i>reales</i>, and used the -motto, "<i>Mis amores son reales</i>" (My love is royal). The -King's confessor, Baltasar de Zúñiga, warned him that -his life was in danger, and Villamediana laughed in -his face. It was no joke, for he had contrived to make -more dangerous enemies in four months than any other -man has made in a lifetime. On August 21, 1622, as -he was alighting from his coach, a stranger ran him -through the body; "<i>¡Jesús! esto es hecho!</i>" ("My God! -done for!") said Villamediana, and fell dead. The word -was passed round that the assassin, Ignacio Méndez, -should go free; tongues that had hitherto wagged were -still. It is almost certain that the murder was done by -the King's order. If it were so, Felipe IV. had more -spirit at seventeen than he ever showed afterwards.</p> - -<p>Villamediana had many of Góngora's qualities: his -courage, his wit, his sense of form, his preciosity. In -his <i>Fábula de Faetón</i>, as in his <i>Fábula de la Fénix</i>, he -outdoes his master in eccentricity and verbal foppery: -fish become "swimming birds of the cerulean seat," -water is "liquid nutriment," time "gnaws statues and -digests the marble"; and by hyperbaton and word-juggling -he proves himself as <i>culto</i> as he can. But it -is fair to say that when it pleases him he is as simple -and direct as the early Góngora. It must suffice here -to quote Churton's rendering of a sonnet on the proposed -marriage of the Infanta Doña María to the Prince -of Wales:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>By Heresy upborne, that giantess</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Whose pride heaven's battlements in fancy scales,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>With Villiers his proud Admiral, Charles of Wales</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To Mary's heavenly sphere would boldly press.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A heretic he is, he must confess</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Heaven's light ne'er led his knighthood's roving sails;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>But the bright cause his error countervails,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And heavenly beauty pleads for love's excess.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>So now the lamb with cub of wolf must mate;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>The dove must take the raven to her nest;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Our palace, like the old ark, must shelter all:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Confusion, as of Babylon the Great,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Is round us, and the faith of Spain, oppress'd</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>By fine State-reason, trembles to its fall.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This expresses—much more clearly than the <i>Gloria -de Niquea</i>—the true feeling of Góngora and his circle -towards Steenie and Baby Charles.</p> - -<p>Less nervous and energetic, but not less fantastic -than Villamediana's worst extravagances, are the <i>Obras -póstumas divinas y humanas</i> (1641) of <span class="smcap">Hortensio Félix -Paravicino y Arteaga</span> (1580-1633), whose praises were -sung by Lope:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Divine Hortensio, whose exalted strain,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Sweet, pure, and witty, censure cannot wound,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The Cyril and the Chrysostom of Spain.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The divine Hortensio was court-preacher to Felipe IV., -and enchanted his congregations by preaching in the -<i>culto</i> style. His verses exaggerate Góngora's worst faults, -and are disfigured by fulsome flattery of his leader, before -whom, as he says, he is dumb with admiration. -As thus:—"May my offering in gracious cloud, in equal -wealth of fragrance, bestrew thine altars." Paravicino, -whose works were published under the name of Arteaga, -was a powerful centre of Gongoristic influence, and did -more than most men to force <i>culteranismo</i> into fashion. -In sermons, poems, and a masque entitled <i>Gridonia</i>, -he never ceases to spread the plague, which lasted for -a century, attacking writers as far apart as Ambrosio<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -Roca y Serna (whose <i>Luz del Alma</i> appeared in 1623), -and Agustín de Salazar, the author of the <i>Cítara de -Apolo</i> (1677).</p> - -<p>Meanwhile a few held out against the mode. The -Sevillan, Juan de Arguijo (? d. 1629), continued the tradition -of Herrera, writing in Italian measures with a smoothness -of versification and a dignified correctness which drew -applause from one camp and hissing from the other. His -townsman, <span class="smcap">Juan de Jáuregui y Aguilar</span> (? 1570-1650), -came into notice with his version of Tasso's <i>Aminta</i> (1607), -one of the best translations ever made, deserving of the -high praise which Cervantes bestows on it and on Cristóbal -de Figueroa's rendering of the <i>Pastor Fido</i>:—"They -make us doubt which is the translation and which the -original." In his <i>Aminta</i>, as in his original poems, -Jáuregui's style is a model of purity and refinement, as -might be expected from the <i>Discurso poético</i> launched -later against Góngora; but the tide was too strong for -him. His <i>Orfeo</i> (1624) shows signs of wavering, and in -his translation, the <i>Farsalia</i>, which was not published till -1684, he is almost as extreme a Gongorist as the worst. -Still it should be remembered that Lucan also was a -Córdoban, practising early Gongorism at Nero's court, -and a translator is prone to reproduce the defects of his -original. Jáuregui has some points of resemblance with -Rossetti, was a famous artist in his day, and is said, on -the strength of a dubious passage in the prologue to the -<i>Novelas</i>, to have painted Cervantes.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Esteban Manuel de Villegas</span> (1596-1669) shows rare -poetic qualities in his <i>Eróticas ó Amatorias</i> (1617), in which -he announces himself as the rising sun. <i>Sicut sol matutinus</i> -is printed on his title-page, where those waning -stars, Lope, Calderón, and Quevedo, are also supplied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> -with a prophetic motto: <i>Me surgente, quid istæ?</i> His -imitations of Anacreon and Catullus are done with amazing -gusto, all the more wonderful when we remember -that his "sweet songs and suave delights" were written -at fourteen, retouched and published at twenty. But -Villegas is one of the great disappointments of Castilian -literature: he married in 1626, deserted verse for law, -and ended life a poor, embittered attorney. The Sevillan -canon and royal librarian, <span class="smcap">Francisco de Rioja</span> (? 1586-1659), -follows the example of Herrera, his sonnets and -<i>silvas</i> being distinguished for their correct form and -their philosophic melancholy. But Rioja has been unlucky. -One poem, entitled <i>Las Ruinas de Itálica</i>, has -won for him a very great reputation; and yet, in fact, as -Fernández-Guerra y Orbe has proved, the <i>Ruinas</i> is due -to Rodrigo Caro (1573-1647), the archæologist who wrote -the <i>Memorial de Utrera</i> and the <i>Antigüedades de Sevilla</i>. -Adolfo de Castro goes further, ascribing the <i>Epístola -moral á Fabio</i> to Pedro Fernández de Andrado, author -of the <i>Libro de la Gineta</i>. Thus despoiled of two admirable -pieces, Rioja is less important than he seemed thirty -years since; yet, even so, he ranks, with the Príncipe -de Esquilache (1581-1658) and the Conde de Rebolledo -(1597-1676), among the sounder influences of his time.</p> - -<p>The Segovian poet, Alonso de Ledesma Buitrago -(1552-1623), founded the school of <i>conceptismo</i> with its -metaphysical conceits, philosophic paradoxes, and sententious -moralisings, as of a Seneca gone mad. His -<i>Conceptos espirituales</i> and <i>Juegos de la Noche Buena</i> (1611) -lead up to the allegorical gibberish of his <i>Monstruo -Imaginado</i> (1615), and to the perverted ingenuity of -Alonso de Bonilla's <i>Nuevo Jardín de Flores divinas</i> (1617). -<i>Conceptismo</i> was no less an evil than <i>culteranismo</i>, but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -was less likely to spread: the latter played with words, -the former with ideas. A bizarre vocabulary was enough -for a man to pass as <i>culto</i>; the <i>conceptista</i> must be equipped -with various learning, and must have a smattering of -philosophy. Under such chiefs as Ledesma and Bonilla -the new mania must have died; but <i>conceptismo</i> was in -the air, and, as Carrillo seduced Góngora, so Ledesma -captured <span class="smcap">Francis Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas</span> -(1580-1645): (it should be said, however, that Quevedo -nowhere mentions Ledesma by name). Like Lope, like -Calderón, Quevedo was a highlander. His family boasted -the punning motto:—"I am he who stopped—<i>el que vedó</i>—the -Moors' advance." His father (who died early) and -mother both held posts at court. At Alcalá de Henares, -from 1596 onwards, Quevedo took honours in theology, -law, French, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. He -is also said to have studied medicine; and certainly -he hated Sangrado as Dickens hated Bumble. When -scarcely out of his teens he corresponded with Justus -Lipsius, who hailed him as <i>μέγα κῦδος Ἱβήρων</i>, and at -Madrid he speedily became the talk of the town. Strange -stories were told of him: that he had pinked his man at -Alcalá, that he ran Captain Rodríguez through the body -rather than yield him the wall, that he put an escaped -panther to the sword, that he disarmed the famous -fencing-master, Pacheco Narváez. This last tale is true, -and is curious in view of Quevedo's physical defects. -His reply to Vicencio Valerio in <i>Su Espada por Santiago</i> -is well known:—"He says I hobble, and can't see. I -should lie from head to foot if I denied it: my eyes -and my gait would contradict me."</p> - -<p>For all his short sight and clubbed feet, he was ever -too ready with his rapier. On Maundy Thursday, 1611,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> -he witnessed a scuffle between a man and woman during -Tenebræ in St. Martin's Church. He intervened, the -argument was continued outside, swords were crossed, -and Quevedo's opponent fell mortally wounded. As the -man was a noble, Quevedo prudently escaped from -possible consequences to Sicily. He returned to his -estate, La Torre de Juan Abad, in 1612, but soon wearied -of country life, and was sent on diplomatic missions to -Genoa, Milan, Venice, and Rome. On Osuna's promotion -to Naples, Quevedo became Finance Minister, proving -himself a capable administrator. In 1618 he meddled -in the Spanish plot which forms the motive of Otway's -<i>Venice Preserved</i>, and, disguised as a beggar, escaped -from the bravos told off to murder him. His public -career ended at this time, for his subsequent appointment -as Felipe IV.'s secretary was merely nominal. In -1627 he shared in a furious polemic. Santa Teresa was -canonised in 1622, and, at the joint instance of Carmelites -and Jesuits, was made co-patron of Spain with Santiago. -The Papal Bull (July 31, 1627) divided Spain into two -camps. Quevedo, who was of the Order of Santiago—"red -with the blood of the brave"—took up the cudgels -for St. James, was branded a "hypocritical blackguard" -by one party, and was extolled by the other as the -"Captain of Combat," "the Ensign of the Apostle." He -shamed Pope, King, Olivares, the religious, and half the -laity, and the Bull was withdrawn (June 28, 1630). The -victory cost him a year's exile, and when Olivares offered -him the embassy at Genoa, he refused it, on the ground -that he did not wish to have his mouth thus closed. -After his unlucky marriage to Esperanza de Mendoza, -widow of Juan Fernández de Heredia, he began a campaign -against the royal favourite. Olivares' turn came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> -in December 1639, when the King found by his plate -a copy of verses urging him to cease his extravagance and -to dismiss his incapable ministers. Quevedo was—perhaps -rightly—suspected of writing these lines, was arrested -at midnight, and was whisked away, half dressed, to the -monastery of St. Mark in León. For four years he was -imprisoned in a cell below the level of the river, and, -when released after Olivares' fall in 1643, his health -was broken. A flash of his old humour appears in his -reply to the priest who begged him to arrange for music -at his funeral:—"Nay, let them pay that hear it."</p> - -<p>As a prose writer he began with a <i>Life of St. Thomas -of Villanueva</i> (1620), and ended with a <i>Life of St. Paul -the Apostle</i> (1644). These, and his other moralisings—<i>Virtue -Militant</i>, the <i>Cradle and the Tomb</i>—call for no -notice here. The <i>Política de Dios</i> (1618) is apparently an -abstract plea for absolutism; in fact, it exposes the weakness -of Spanish administration just as the <i>Marcus Brutus</i> -(1644) is a vehicle for opinions on contemporary politics. -Learned and acute, these treatises show Quevedo's concern -for his country's future, and a passage in his sixty-eighth -sonnet forecasts the future of the Spanish colonies:—"'Tis -likelier far, O Spain! that what thou alone didst -take from all, all will take from thee alone"—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Y es más facil! oh España ¡en muchas modas</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Que lo que á todos les quitaste sola,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Te puedan á tí sola quitar todos.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The prophecy is just being fulfilled, and the chief interest -of Quevedo's prose treatises lies in their <i>conceptismo</i>—the -flashy epigram, the pompous paradox, the strained -antithesis, the hairsplitting and refining in and out of -season. It was vain for Quevedo to edit Luis de León<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> -and Torre as a protest against Gongorism, for in his own -practice he substituted one affectation for another.</p> - -<p>The true and simpler Quevedo is to be sought elsewhere. -His picaresque <i>Historia de la Vida del Buscón</i>, -best known by its unauthorised title, <i>El Gran Tacaño</i> -(The Prime Scoundrel), though not published till 1626, -was probably written soon after 1608. Pablo, son of -a barber and a loose woman, follows a rich schoolfellow -to Alcalá, where he shines in every kind of devilry. -Thence he passes into a gang of thieves, is imprisoned, -lives as a sham cripple, an actor, a bravo, and finally—his -author being weary of him—emigrates to America. -There is no attempt at creating character, no vulgar obtrusion -of Alemán's moralising tone: such amusement as -the novel contains is afforded by the invention of heartless -incident and the acrid rendering of villany. The harsh -jeering, the intense brutality, the unsympathetic wit and -art of the <i>Buscón</i>, make it one of the cleverest books in -the world, as it is one of the cruellest and coarsest in its -misanthropic enjoyment of baseness and pain. No less -characteristic of Quevedo are his <i>Sueños</i> (Visions), printed -in 1627. These fantastic pieces are really five in number, -though most collections print seven or eight; for the -<i>Infierno Enmendado</i> (Hell Reformed) is not a vision, but -is rather a sequel to the <i>Política de Dios</i>; the <i>Casa de -Locos de Amor</i> is probably the work of Quevedo's friend, -Lorenzo van der Hammen; and the <i>Fortuna con Seso</i> was -not written till 1635. Quevedo himself calls the <i>Sueño -de la Muerte</i> (Vision of Death) the fifth and last of the -series. Satire in Lucian's manner had already been introduced -into Spanish literature by Valdés in the <i>Diálogo -de Mercurio y Carón</i>, in the <i>Crotalón</i> (which most authorities -ascribe to Cristóbal de Villalón), and in the <i>Coloquio<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> -de los Perros</i>. In witty observation and ridicule of whole -sections of society, Quevedo almost vies with Cervantes, -though his unfeeling cynicism gives his work an individual -flavour. His lost poets are doomed to hear each -other's verses for eternity, his statesmen jostle bandits, -doctors and murderers end their careers as brethren, -comic men dwell in an inferno apart lest their jokes -should damp hell's fires,—grim jests which may be read -in Roger L'Estrange's spirited amplification.</p> - -<p>Quevedo's serious poems suffer from the <i>conceptismo</i> -which disfigures his ambitious prose; his wit, his complete -knowledge of low life, his mastery of language -show to greater advantage in his picaroon ballads and -exercises in lighter verse. His freedom of tone has -brought upon him an undeserved reputation for obscenity; -the fact being that lewd, timorous fellows have -fathered their indecencies upon him. A passage from -his <i>Last Will of Don Quixote</i> may be cited, as Mr. Gibson -gives it, to illustrate his natural method:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Up and answered Sancho Panza;</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>List to what he said or sung,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>With an accent rough and ready</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And a forty-parson tongue:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>''Tis not reason, good my master,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>When thou goest forth, I wis,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>To account to thy Creator,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Thou shouldst utter stuff like this;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>As trustees, name thou the Curate</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Who confesseth thee betimes,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And Per Anton, our good Provost,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>And the goat-herd Gaffer Grimes;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Make clean sweep of the Esplandians,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Who have dinned us with their clatter;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Call thou in a ghostly hermit,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Who may aid thee in the matter.'</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>'Well thou speakest,' up and answered</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Don Quixote, nowise dumb;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>'Hie thee to the Rock of Dolour,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Bid Beltenebros to come!</i>'"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Overpraised and overblamed, Quevedo attempted too -much. He had it in him to be a poet, or a theologian, -or a stoic philosopher, or a critic, or a satirist, or a -statesman: he insisted on being all of these together, -and he has paid the penalty. Though he never fails -ignominiously, he rarely achieves a genuine success, and -the bulk of his writing is now neglected because of its -local and ephemeral interest. Yet he deserves honour -as the most widely-gifted Spaniard of his time, as a -strong and honest man in a corrupt age, and as -a brilliant writer whose hatred of the commonplace -beguiled him into adopting a dull innovation. It is not -likely that his numerous inedited lyrics will do more -than increase our knowledge of Góngora's and Montalbán's -failings; but the two plays promised by Sr. -Menéndez y Pelayo—<i>Cómo ha de ser el Privado</i> and -<i>Pero Vázquez de Escamilla</i>—cannot but reveal a new -aspect of a many-sided genius.</p> - -<p>Quevedo was not, however, known as a dramatist to -the same extent as the Valencian, <span class="smcap">Guillén de Castro y -Bellvis</span> (1569-1631), an erratic soldier who has achieved -renown in and out of Spain. Castro is sometimes credited -with the <i>Prodigio de los Montes</i>, whence Calderón -derived his <i>Mágico Prodigioso</i>, but the <i>Prodigio</i> is almost -certainly by Lope. Castro's fame rests on his <i>Mocedades -del Cid</i> (The Cid's First Exploits), a dramatic adaptation of -national tradition in Lope's manner. Ximena, daughter -of Lozano, loves Rodrigo before the action begins, and, -on Lozano's death by Rodrigo's hand, her passion and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -her duty are in conflict. Rodrigo's victories against the -Moors help to expiate his crime: on a false rumour of his -death, Ximena avows her love for him, and patriotism -combines with inclination to yield a dramatic ending. -Corneille, treating Castro's play with the freedom of a -man of genius, founded the French school of tragedy; -but not all his changes are improvements. By limiting -the time of action he needlessly emphasises the difficulty -of the situation. Castro's device is sounder when he -prolongs the space which shall diminish Ximena's filial -grief and increase her admiration of the Cid. The strife -between love and honour exists already in the Spanish, -and Corneille's merit lies in his suppression of Castro's -superfluous third act, in his magnificent rhetoric, beside -which the Spaniard's simplicity seems weak. But -though Castro wrote no masterpiece, he begot one -based upon his original conception, and some of Corneille's -most admired tirades are but amplified translations.</p> - -<p>Less remarkable as a playwright than as a novelist, -the lawyer, <span class="smcap">Luis Vélez de Guevara</span> (1570-1643); is -reputed to have written no fewer than four hundred -pieces for the stage. Of these, eighty survive, mostly on -historic themes, which—as in <i>El Valor no tiene Edad</i>—are -treated with tiresome extravagance; but the most difficult -critics have found praise for <i>Más pesa el Rey que -la Sangre</i> (King First, Blood Second). The story is that, -in the thirteenth century, Guzmán the Good held Tarifa -for King Sancho; the rebel Infante, Don Juan, called -upon him to surrender under pain of his son's death; -for answer, Guzmán threw his dagger over the battlement, -and saw the boy murdered before his eyes. Rarely -has the old Castilian tradition of loyalty to the King been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> -presented with more picturesque force, and few scenes -in any dramatic literature surpass that last one on the -raising of the siege, when Guzmán points to his child's -corpse. Vélez de Guevara collaborated with Rojas Zorrilla -and Mira de Amescua in <i>The Devil's Suit against the -Priest of Madrilejos</i>, a play in which a lunatic girl saves -her life by pleading demoniacal possession. The idea -is characteristic of Guevara's uncanny invention; but the -Inquisition frowned upon stage representatives of exorcism, -and, though the author's orthodoxy was not questioned, -the play was withdrawn. He is best remembered -for his satire <i>El Diablo Cojuelo</i> (1641), which describes -observations taken during a flight through the air by a -student who releases the Lame Devil from a flask, and -is repaid by glimpses of life in courts and slums and -stews. Le Sage, in his <i>Diable Boiteux</i>, has greatly improved -upon the first conception; but the original is -of excellent humour, and the style is as idiomatic as -the best Castilian can be. Felipe IV. is said to have -smiled only three times in his life—twice at quips by -Guevara, who was his chamberlain.</p> - -<p>Of all Lope's imitators the most undisguised is the -son of the King's bookseller, Doctor <span class="smcap">Juan Pérez de -Montalbán</span> (1602-38), who became a priest of the Congregation -of St. Peter in 1625. His father was plain -Juan Pérez (as who should say John Smith), and the -son was cruelly bantered for his airs and graces:—"Put -Doctor in front and Montalbán behind, and plebeian -Pérez shines an aristocrat." It was rumoured that his -<i>Orfeo</i> (1624), written to compete with Jáuregui, was really -Lope's work, given by the patriarch to start his favourite -in life. The story is probably false, for the verse lacks -Lope's ease and grace; but the <i>Orfeo</i> won Montalbán<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -a name, and—there is no such luck for modern minor -poets—in 1625 a Peruvian merchant expressed his admiration -by settling a pension on the young priest. -Montalbán lived in closest intimacy with Lope, who -taught his young admirer stagecraft, and helped him -with introductions to managers. Unluckily he sought -to rival his master in fecundity as well as in method, -and the effort broke him. He is often credited with -writing the <i>Tribunal of Just Vengeance</i>, a work which -describes Quevedo as "Master of Error, Doctor of -Impudence, Licentiate of Buffoonery, Bachelor of Filth, -Professor of Vice, and Archdevil of Mankind." Quevedo, -on his side, had a grievance, inasmuch as Pérez, the -bookseller, had pirated the <i>Buscón</i>. He prophesied that -Montalbán would die a lunatic, and, in fact, his words -came true.</p> - -<p>Pellicer credits Montalbán with literary theories of his -own, but they are mere repetitions of Lope's precepts in -the <i>Arte Nuevo</i>. Like his master, Montalbán has a keen -eye for a situation, for the dramatic value of a popular -story, as he shows in his <i>Amantes de Teruel</i>, those eternal -types of constancy; but he writes too hurriedly, with -more ambition than power, is infected with <i>culteranismo</i>, -and, though he apes Lope with superficial success in his -secular plays, fails utterly when he attempts the sacred -drama. His own age thought most highly of <i>No hay -Vida como la Honra</i>, one of the first pieces to have a -"run" on the Spanish stage; but the <i>Amantes</i> is his -best work, and its vigorous dialogue may still be read -with emotion.</p> - -<p>These lovers of Teruel were also staged by a man of -genius whose pseudonym has completely overshadowed -his family name of Gabriel Téllez. The career of <span class="smcap">Tirso<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -de Molina</span> (1571-1648) is often dismissed in six lines -packed with errors; but the publication of Sr. Cotarelo -y Mori's study has made such summary treatment impossible -in the future. Writers whose imagination -does service for research have invented the fables that -Tirso led a scandalous, stormy life, and that the repentant -sinner took orders in middle age. These legends -are baseless, and are conceived on the theory that Tirso's -outspoken plays imply a deep knowledge of human -nature's weak side and of the shadiest picaresque corners. -It appears to be forgotten that Tirso spent years -in the confessional: no bad position for the study of -frailty. It seems certain that he was born at Madrid, -and that he studied at Alcalá is clear from Matías de los -Reyes' dedication of <i>El Agravio agraviado</i>. The date -of his profession is not known; but he is named as a -Mercedarian monk and as "a comic poet" by the actor-manager, -Andrés de Claramonte y Corroy, in his <i>Letanía -moral</i>, written before 1610, though not printed till 1613. -His holograph of <i>Santa Juana</i> is dated in 1613 from -Toledo, where he also wrote his <i>Cigarrales</i>. Passages -in <i>La Gallega Mari Hernández</i> imply a residence in -Galicia. That he lived in Seville, and visited the island -of Santo Domingo, is certain, though the dates are not -known. In 1619 he was Superior of the Mercedarian -convent at Trujillo, an appointment which implies that -he was a monk of long standing. In 1620 Lope dedicated -to him <i>Lo Fingido verdadero</i>, and in the same year -Tirso returned the compliment by dedicating his <i>Villana -de Vallecas</i> to Lope. Though he competed in 1622 at -the Madrid feasts in honour of St. Isidore, he failed to -receive even honourable mention. Ten years later he -became official chronicler of his order, and showed his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> -opinion of his predecessor, Alonso Remón—with whom -he has been confounded, even by Cervantes—by rewriting -Remón's history. In 1634 he was made <i>Definidor -General</i> for Castile, and his name reappears as licenser -of books, or in legal documents. He died on March 21, -1648, being then Prior at Soria, renowned as a preacher -of most tranquil, virtuous life, the very opposite of what -ignorant fancy has feigned of him. He is known to -have written plays so recently as 1638, for the holograph -of his <i>Quinas de Portugal</i> bears that date; but the preface -to the <i>Deleitar Aprovechado</i> shows that his popularity -was on the wane in 1635. His last years were given to -writing a <i>Genealogía del Conde de Sástago</i> and the chronicle -of the Mercedarian Order.</p> - -<p>Tirso's earliest printed volume is his <i>Cigarrales de Toledo</i> -(1621 or 1624), so called from a local Toledan word -for a summer country-house set down in an orchard. -The book is a collection of tales and verse, supposed to -be recited during five days of festivity which have followed -a wedding. Tirso, indeed, announces stories and -verse which shall last twenty days; yet he breaks off at -the fifth, announcing a Second Part, which never appeared. -Critics profess to find in Tirso's tales some -traces of Cervantes, who is praised in the text as the -"Spanish Boccaccio": the influence of the Italian -Boccaccio is far more obvious throughout, and—save -for a tinge of Gongorism—<i>Los Tres Maridos burlados</i> -might well pass as a splendid adaptation from the -<i>Decamerone</i>. Still, even in the <i>Cigarrales</i> the born playwright -asserts himself in <i>Cómo han de ser los Amigos</i>, in -<i>El Celoso prudente</i>, and in one of Tirso's most brilliant -pieces, <i>El Vergonzoso en Palacio</i>. A second collection -entitled <i>Deleitar Aprovechado</i> (Business with Profit),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> -issued in 1635, contains three pious tales of no great -merit, and several <i>autos</i>, one of which—<i>El Colmenero -divino</i>—is Tirso's best attempt at religious drama.</p> - -<p>Essentially a dramatist, he is to be but partially studied -in his theatre, of which the first part appeared in 1627, -the third in 1634, the second and fourth in 1635, and -the fifth in 1637. A famous play is the <i>Condenado por -Desconfiado</i> (The Doubter Damned), of which some would -deprive Tirso; yet the treatment is specially characteristic -of him. Paulo, who has left the world for a -hermitage, prays for light as to his future salvation, -dreams that his sins exceed his merits, and is urged by -the devil to go to Naples to seek out Enrico, whose -ending will be like his own. Paulo obeys, discovers -Enrico to be a rook and bully, and in despair takes to -a bandit's life. Meanwhile Enrico shows a hint of virtue -by refusing to slay an old man whose appearance reminds -the bully of his own father, and kills the master -who taunted him with flinching from a bargain. He -escapes to where Paulo and his gang are hidden. Garbed -as a hermit, Paulo vainly exhorts Enrico to confess, -though the criminal finally repents, and is seen by -Pedrisco—Paulo's servant—passing to heaven. Duped -by the devil, Paulo refuses to believe Pedrisco's story, -and dies damned through his own distrust and pride. -The substance of this play, which is contrived with -abounding skill and theological knowledge, is the old -conflict between free-will and predestination. Some -would ascribe the play to Lope, because the pastoral -scenes are in his manner, but the notion that Lope would -publish under Tirso's name is untenable. Sr. Menéndez -y Pelayo will not be suspected of a prejudice against -Lope; and he avers, in so many words, that the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -playwright in Spain with enough theology to write the -<i>Condenado</i> was Tirso, who, had he written nothing else, -would rank among the greatest Spanish dramatists.</p> - -<p>The piece which has won Tirso immortality is his -<i>Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra</i> (The Seville -Mocker and the Stone Guest), first printed at Barcelona -in 1630 as the seventh of <i>Twelve New Plays by Lope de -Vega Carpio, and other Authors</i>; and the omission of -the <i>Burlador</i> from all authorised editions has led critics -of authority to question Tirso's authorship.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The discovery -in 1878 of a new version caused Manuel de la -Revilla to declare that the play was by Calderón, on -the ground that Calderón's name is on the title-page, -and that Calderón never trespassed on other men's -property. This is an overstatement: to mention but -a few instances, Calderón's <i>Á Secreto Agravio Secreta -Venganza</i> is re-arranged from Tirso's <i>Celoso prudente</i>; -his <i>Secreto á Voces</i> from Tirso's <i>Amar por Arte mayor</i>, -while the second act of Calderón's <i>Cabellos de Absalón</i> -is lifted, almost word for word, from the third act of -Tirso's <i>Venganza de Tamar</i>. On the whole, then, Tirso -may be taken as the creator of Don Juan. No analysis -is needed of a play with which Mozart, the most Athenian -of musicians, has familiarised mankind; nor is translation -possible in the present corrupt state of the text. -Whether or not there existed an historic Don Juan at -Plasencia or at Seville is doubtful, for folklorists have -found the story as far away from Spain as Iceland is; -but it is Tirso's glory to have so treated it that the -world has accepted it as a purely Spanish conception. -The <i>Festin de Pierre</i> (1659) by Dorimond, the <i>Fils -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>Criminel</i> (1660) of De Villiers, the <i>Dom Juan</i> (1665) of -Molière, the <i>Nouveau Festin de Pierre</i> (1670) of Rosimond, -and the arrangement of Thomas Corneille, are -but pale reflections of the Spanish type which passes -onward from Shadwell's <i>Libertine</i> (1676) till it reaches -the hands of Byron and Zorrilla and Barbey d'Aurévilly -and Flaubert (whose posthumous sketch comes -closer back to the original). Of these later artists not -one has succeeded in matching the patrician dignity, the -infernal, iniquitous valour of the original. To have -created a universal type, to have imposed a character -upon the world, to have outlived all rivalry, to have -achieved in words what Mozart alone has expressed -in music, is to rank among the great creators of all -time.</p> - -<p>If Tirso excelled in sombre force, he was likewise a -master in the lighter comedy of <i>El Vergonzoso en Palacio</i>, -where Mireno, the Shy Man at Court, is rendered with -rare sympathetic delicacy, and in the farcical intrigue -of <i>Don Gil de las Calzas verdes</i> (Don Gil of the Green -Breeches), where the changes of Juana to Elvira or -to Don Gil are such examples of subtle, gay ingenuity -as delight and bewilder the reader no less than the -comic trio of the <i>Villana de Vallecas</i>, or the picture of -unctuous hypocrisy in <i>Marta la piadosa</i>. Tirso's fate was -to be forgotten, not merely by the public, but by the -very dramatists who used his themes; and, as in Lope's -case, the neglect is partly due to the rarity of his -editions. Yet, even so, his eclipse is unaccountable, -for his various gifts are hard to match in any literature. -He has not the disconcerting cleverness of Lope, -nor has he Lope's infinite variety of resource; moreover, -his natural frankness has won him a name for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> -indecency. Yet has he imagination, passion, individual -vision, knowledge of dramatic effect. He could create -character, and his women, if less noble, are more real -than Lope's own in their frank emotion and seductive -abandonment. At whiles his diction tends to Gongorism, -as when—in <i>El Amor y la Amistad</i>—a personage, -at sight of a mountain, babbles of "the lofty daring of -the snow, the pyramid of diamond"; but this is exceptional, -and his hostility to <i>culteranismo</i> inspired Góngora -to write more than one stinging epigram. Tirso -had not Lope's matchless facility, and, considering the -maturity of the Spanish genius, it is strange that he -should have written no play before 1606 or 1608. -Moreover, he composed by fits and starts in moments -snatched from duty, and, beginning late, he ended -early. Even in these circumstances he could boast in -1621 that he had produced three hundred plays—a -number afterwards raised to four hundred. Only some -eighty survive: in other words, four-fifths of his theatre -has vanished, and the loss is surely great for those -who would fain know every aspect of his genius. But -enough remains to justify his high position, and his -fame, like Lope's, grows from day to day.</p> - -<p>Of such dramatists as the courtly Antonio Hurtado -de Mendoza (? 1590-1644), and the festive Luis Belmonte y -Bermúdez (1587-? 1650) mere mention must suffice: the -former's <i>Querer por sólo querer</i> may be read in an excellent -version made by Sir Richard Fanshawe during his -imprisonment "by Oliver, after the Battail of Worcester." -Antonio Mira de Amescua (? 1578-1640), chaplain of -Felipe IV., mingled the human with the divine, was -praised by all contemporaries from Cervantes onwards, -had the right lyrical note, and, if his plays were collected,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> -might prove himself worthy of his dramatic fame; as it -is, he is best known as a playwright from whom Calderón, -Moreto, and Corneille have borrowed themes. A more -original talent is shown by <span class="smcap">Juan Ruiz de Alarcón</span> -(? 1581-1639), whose father was administrator of the -Tlacho mines in Mexico. Ruiz de Alarcón left Mexico -for Spain in 1600, and studied at Salamanca for five -years; he returned to America in 1608 in the hope of -being elected to a University chair, but the deformity—a -hunched back—with which he was taunted his life long -was against him, and he made for Spain in 1611. He -entered the household of the Marqués de Salinas, wrote -some laudatory <i>décimas</i> for the <i>Desengaño de la Fortuna</i> -in 1612, and next year produced his first play, the -<i>Semejante de sí mismo</i>, founded, like Tirso's <i>Celosa de sí -misma</i>, on the <i>Curious Impertinent</i>. It was no great -success, but it made him known and hated. He was -far too ready to attack others, being himself most vulnerable. -Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, who had jeered at -Cervantes for "writing prologues and dedications when -at death's door," spoke for others besides himself when -he lampooned Alarcón as "an ape in man's guise, an -impudent hunchback, a ludicrous deformity." Tirso -befriended the Mexican, while Mendoza, Lope, Quevedo, -and the rest scourged him mercilessly; and when his -<i>Antecristo</i> (which Voltaire used in <i>Mahomet</i>) was played, -a band of rioters ruined the performance by squirting -oil on the spectators and firing squibs in the pit. Yet -the women always crowded the house when his name -was in the bill, and they made his fortune by contriving -that his play, <i>Siempre ayuda la Verdad</i>—probably written -in collaboration with Tirso—should be given at court in -1623. Three years later he was named Member of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> -Council for the Indies. His collected pieces were published -in 1628 and 1634.</p> - -<p>Ruiz de Alarcón was never popular in the sense that -Lope and Calderón were popular; still, he had his -successes, and no Spanish dramatist is better reading. -Compared with his rivals he was sterile, for the total of -his plays is less than thirty, even if we accept all the -doubtful pieces ascribed to him. Lope excels him in -invention, Tirso in force and fun, Calderón in charm; -Ruiz de Alarcón is less intensely national than these, -and the very individuality—the <i>extrañeza</i>—which Montalbán -noted with perplexity, makes him almost better -appreciated abroad than at home. Corneille has based -French tragedy upon Guillén de Castro's <i>Mocedades del -Cid</i>; French comedy is scarcely less influenced by his -adaptation of the <i>Menteur</i> from Ruiz de Alarcón's <i>Verdad -Sospechosa</i> (Truth Suspected). García has lied all his life, -lies to his father, his friends, his betrothed, lies to himself, -and defeats his own purpose by his ingenuity. He -would speak the truth if he could, but he has no talent -that way. Why trouble with truth when lying comes -easier? His father, Beltrán, perceives that the miser -enjoys money, that murder slakes vengeance, that the -drunkard grows glorious with wine; but his son's failing -is beyond him. The noble Philistine has not the artist's -soul, and cannot understand why García should lie for -lying's sake, against his own interest. Throughout the -play Ruiz de Alarcón is never once at fault, and the gay -ingenuity with which he enforces the old moral, that -honesty is the best policy, is equalled by his masterly -creation of character. Ethics are his preoccupation; -yet, though almost all his plays seek to enforce a lesson, -he nowhere descends to pulpiteering or merges the dramatist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> -in the teacher. While in <i>Las Paredes Oyen</i> (Walls -have Ears) and in <i>El Examen de Maridos</i> (Husbands -Proved) the triumph of the <i>Verdad Sospechosa</i> is repeated, -the more national play is admirably exampled -in <i>El Tejedor de Segovia</i> (The Weaver of Segovia) and -<i>Ganar Amigos</i> (How to Win Friends).</p> - -<p>There are greater Spanish playwrights than Ruiz de -Alarcón: there is none whose work is of such even -excellence. In so early a piece as the <i>Cueva de Salamanca</i>, -though there is manifest technical inexperience, the mere -writing is almost as good as in <i>La Verdad Sospechosa</i>. -The very infertility at which contemporaries mocked is -balanced by equality of execution. Lope and Calderón -have written better pieces, and many worse: no line that -Ruiz de Alarcón published is unworthy of him. While his -contemporaries were content to improvise at ease, he sat -aloof, never joining in the race for money and applause, -but filing with a scrupulous conscience to such effect -that all his work endures. His chief titles to fame are -his power of creating character and his high ethical aim. -But he has other merits scarcely less rare: his versification -is of extreme finish, and his spirited dialogue, free -from any tinge of Gongorism, is a triumph of fine idiom -over perverse influences which led men of greater natural -endowment astray. His taste, indeed, is almost unerring, -and it goes to form that sober dignity, that individual -tone, that uncommon counterpoise of faculties which -place him below—and a little apart from—the two or -three best Spanish dramatists.</p> - -<p>If there be an exotic element in the quality of Ruiz de -Alarcón's distinction as in his frugal dramatic method, -the <i>españolismo</i> of the land is incarnate in the genius of -<span class="smcap">Pedro Calderón de la Barca Henao de la Barreda<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> -y Riaño</span> (1600-1681), the most representative Spaniard -of the seventeenth century. His father was Secretary to -the Treasury, and, on this side, Calderón was a highlander, -like Santillana, Lope, and Quevedo; he inherited a strain -of Flemish blood through his mother, who claimed descent -from the De Mons of Hainault. He was educated -at the Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid, and fond biographers -declare that he studied civil and canon law at -Salamanca; this is mere assertion, unsupported by any -proof. Though he is said to have written a play, <i>El -Carro del Cielo</i>, at thirteen, he was not very precocious -for a Spaniard, his first authentic appearances being -made at the Feast of St. Isidore in 1620 and 1622. On -the latter occasion he won the third prize, and was -praised by the good-natured Lope as one "who in his -tender years earns the laurels which time commonly -awards to grey hairs." His Boswell, Vera Tasis, reports -that he served in Milan and Flanders from 1625 to -1635; but there must be an error of date, for in 1629 -he is found at Madrid drawing his sword upon the -actor, Pedro de Villegas, who had treacherously stabbed -Calderón's brother, and who fled for sanctuary to the -Trinitarian Church. The Gongorist preacher, Paravicino, -referred to the matter in public; Calderón replied -by scoffing at "sermons of Barbary," and was sent to -gaol for insulting the cloth. Pellicer signals another -outburst in 1640, when the dramatist whipped out his -sword at rehearsal and came off second best. These are -pleasing incidents in a career of sombre respectability, -though one half fears that the second is fiction. In 1637 -Calderón was promoted to the Order of Santiago, and -in 1640 he served with his brother knights against the -Catalan rebels, hastily finishing his <i>Certamen de Amor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> -y Celos</i> (Strife of Love and Jealousy) so as to share in -the campaign. He was sent to Madrid on some military -mission in 1641; received from the artillery fund -a monthly pension of thirty gold crowns; was ordained -priest in 1651; was made chaplain of the New Kings at -Toledo in 1653; became honorary chaplain to Felipe IV. -in 1663, when he joined the Congregation of St. Peter, -which elected him its Superior in 1666. On taking orders, -Calderón's intention was to forsake the secular stage, but -he yielded to the King's command, and, so late as 1680, -celebrated Carlos II.'s wedding with Marie Louise de Bourbon. -"He died singing, as they say of the swan," wrote -Solís to Alonso Carnero. When death took him he was -busied with an <i>auto</i>, which was finished by Melchor de -León—a fit ending to a happy, blameless life.</p> - -<p>Calderón's prose writings are small in volume and in -importance. The description (written under the name -of his colleague, Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado) of the entry -into Madrid of Felipe IV.'s second queen is an official -performance. More interest attaches to a treatise on -the dignity of painting, first printed in the fourth volume -of Francisco Mariano Nifo's <i>Cajón de Sastre literato</i> -(1781):—"Painting," says Calderón, "is the art of arts, -dominating all others and using them as handmaids." -He had an admirable gift of appreciation, and he -proves it by rescuing from the oblivion of the <i>Cancionero -General</i> such a ballad as Escribá's, which he quotes in -<i>Manos Blancas no ofenden</i>, and again in <i>El Mayor Monstruo -de los Celos</i>. Churton's version of the song is not -unhappy:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Come, death, ere step or sound I hear,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Unknown the hour, unfelt the pain;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Lest the wild joy to feel thee near,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Should thrill me back to life again.</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Come, sudden as the lightning-ray,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>When skies are calm and air is still;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>E'en from the silence of its way,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>More sure to strike where'er it will.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Such let thy secret coming be,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Lest warning make thy summons vain,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And joy to find myself with thee</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Call back life's ebbing tide again.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>A great lyric poet, his lyrics are mostly included in his -plays. One ballad, supposed to be a description of -himself, written at a lady's request, is often quoted, and -has been well Englished by Mr. Norman MacColl; it is, -however, unauthentic, being due to a Sevillan contemporary, -Carlos Cepeda y Guzmán.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> The earliest play -printed with Calderón's name is <i>El Astrólogo fingido</i> -(1632), and from 1633 onwards collected editions of his -works were published; but he had no personal concern -in these issues, which so presented him that, as he protested, -he could not recognise himself. Though he printed -a volume of <i>autos</i> in 1676, he was so indifferent as to the -fate of his secular plays that he never troubled to collect -them. Luckily, in 1680 he drew up a list of his pieces -for the Duque de Veragua, the descendant of Columbus, -and upon this foundation Vera Tasis constructed a -posthumous edition in nine volumes. Roughly speaking, -we possess one hundred and twenty formal plays, -and some seventy <i>autos</i>, with a few <i>entremeses</i> of no great -account.</p> - -<p>Calderón has been fortunate in death as in life; for -though his vogue never quite equalled that of his great -predecessor, Lope, it proved far more enduring. From -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>Lope's death to the close of the seventeenth century, -Calderón was chief of the Spanish stage; and, though -he underwent a temporary eclipse in the eighteenth -century, his sovereignty was restored in the nineteenth -by the enthusiasm of the German Romantics. He has -suffered more than most from the indiscretion of admirers. -When Sismondi pronounced him simply a -clever playwright, "the poet of the Inquisition," he -was no further from the truth than the extravagant -Friedrich Schlegel, who proclaimed that "in this great -and divine master the enigma of life is not merely -expressed, but solved": thus placing him above -Shakespeare, who (so raved the German) only stated -life's riddle without attempting a solution. James the -First once said to the ambassador whom Ben Jonson -called "Old Æsop Gondomar":—"I know not how, but -it seems to be the trade of a Spaniard to talk rodomontade." -It was no less the trade of the German -Romantic, who mistook lyrism for scenic presentation. -Nor were the Germans alone in their enthusiasm. -Shelley met with Calderón's ideal dramas, read them -"with inexpressible wonder and delight," and was -tempted "to throw over their perfect and glowing -forms the grey veil of my own words." The famous -speech of the Spirit replying, in the <i>Mágico Prodigioso</i>, -to Cyprian's question, "Who art thou, and whence -comest thou?" has become familiar to every reader of -English literature:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Since thou desirest, I will then unveil</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Myself to thee;—for in myself I am</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A world of happiness and misery;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>This I have lost, and that I must lament</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For ever. In my attributes I stood</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> -<div class="verse i0"><i>So high and so heroically great,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In lineage so supreme, and with a genius</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which penetrated with a glance the world</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Beneath my feet, that was by my high merit.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>A King—whom I may call the King of kings,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Because all others tremble in their pride</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Before the terrors of his countenance—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In his high palace roofed with brightest gems</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of living light—call them the stars of heaven—</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Named me his counsellor. But the high praise</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In mighty competition, to ascend</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>His seat, and place my foot triumphantly</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>The depth to which ambition falls: too mad</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Repentance of the irrevocable deed;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Therefore I close this ruin with the glory</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of not to be subdued, before the shame</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Of reconciling me with him who reigns</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>By coward cession. Nor was I alone,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And there was hope, and there may still be hope,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>For many suffrages among his vassals</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Hailed me their lord and king, and many still</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Are mine, and many more shall be.</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>I left his seat of empire.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This "grey veil" serves but to heighten the noble -poetic quality which turned a cooler head than Shelley's. -Goethe was moved to tears, and, though towards the end -he perceived the mischief wrought in Germany by the -uncritical idolatry of Calderón, he never ceased to admire -the only Spanish poet that he really knew. And in -our time men like Schack and Schmidt have dedicated -their lives to the propagation of the Calderonian gospel. -Some part of the poet's fame is due to his translators,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> -some also to the fact that for a long time there was -no rival in the field. To the rest of Europe he has stood -for Spain. Readers could not divine (and in default of -editions they could not contrive to learn) that Calderón, -great as he is, comes far short of Lope's freshness, force, -and invention, far short of Tirso's creative power and -impressive conception. But Spaniards know better than -to give him the highest place among their dramatic gods. -He is too brilliant to be set aside as a mere follower of -Lope's, for he rises to heights of poetry which Lope never -reached; yet it is simple history that he did but develop -the seed which Lope planted. He made no attempt—and -there he showed good judgment—to reform the -Spanish drama; he was content to work upon the old -ways, borrowing hints from his predecessors, and, in -a lazy mood, incorporating entire scenes. If we are to -believe Viguier and Philarète Chasles, he went so far -as to annex Corneille's <i>Heraclius</i> (1647), and publish it in -1664 as <i>En esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira</i> (In -this Life All's True and All's False); but, as he knew no -French, the chances are that both plays derive from a -common source—Mira de Amescua's <i>Rueda de la fortuna</i> -(1614). In attempts to create character he almost always -fails, and when he succeeds—as in <i>El Alcalde de Zalamea</i>—he -succeeds by brilliantly retouching Lope's first -sketch. Goethe hit Calderón's weak spot with the remark -that his characters are as alike as bullets or leaden -soldiers cast in the same mould; and the constant lyrical -interruptions go to show that he knew his own strength. -Others might match and overcome him as a playwright: -there was none to approach him in such magnificent -lyrism as he allots to Justina in <i>El Mágico Prodigioso</i>—to -be quoted here in FitzGerald's rendering:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Who that in his hour of glory</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Walks the kingdom of the rose,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And misapprehends the story</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Which through all the garden blows;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Which the southern air who brings</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>It touches, and the leafy strings</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Lightly to the touch respond;</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And nightingale to nightingale</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Answering a bough beyond....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Lo! the golden Girasolé,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>That to him by whom she burns,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Over heaven slowly, slowly,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>As he travels, ever turns,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And beneath the wat'ry main</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>When he sinks, would follow fain,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Follow fain from west to east,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And then from east to west again....</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0"><i>So for her who having lighted</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>In another heart the fire,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Then shall leave it unrequited</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>In its ashes to expire:</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>After her that sacrifice</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Through the garden burns and cries,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In the sultry, breathing air,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>In the flowers that turn and stare....</i>"</div> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Such songs as these are, perhaps, better to read than to -hear, and Calderón is careful to supply a more popular -interest. This he finds in three sentiments which are -still most characteristic of the Spanish temperament: -personal loyalty to the King, absolute devotion to the -Church, and the "point of honour." Through good -report and evil, Spain has held by the three principles -which have made and undone her. These three sources -of inspiration find their highest expression in the theatre -of Calderón. A favourite with Felipe IV., a courtly -poet, if ever one there were, he becomes the mouthpiece -of a nation when he deifies the King in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> -<i>Príncipe Constante</i>, in <i>La Banda y la Flor</i> (The Scarf -and the Flower), in <i>Guárdate de la Agua mansa</i> (Beware -of Still Water), and in a score of plays. Ticknor -speaks of "Calderón's flattery of the great": he overlooks -the social condition implied in the title of Rojas -Zorrilla's famous play, <i>Del Rey abajo Ninguno</i> (Nobody, -under the King). A titular aristocracy, shorn of all -power, counted for less than a foreigner can conceive -in a land where half the population was noble, and -the reverence which was centred on the person of the -Lord's anointed evolved into a profound devotion, a -fantastic passion as exaggerated as anything in <i>Amadís</i>. -A Church which had inspired the seven-hundred-years' -battle against the Moors, which had produced miracles -of holiness and of genius like Santa Teresa and San -Juan de la Cruz, which had stemmed the flood of the -Reformation and rolled it back from the Pyrenees, was -regarded as the one moral authority, the sole possible -form of religion, and as the symbol of Latin unity under -Spain's headship.</p> - -<p>The "point of honour"—the vengeance wrought by -husbands, fathers, and brothers in the cases of women -found in dubious circumstances—is harder to explain, -or, at least, to justify; yet even this was a perverted -outcome of chivalresque ideals, very acceptable to men -who esteemed life more cheaply than their neighbours. -Calderón's treatment of such a situation may be followed -in FitzGerald's version of <i>El Pintor de su Deshonra</i>. The -husband, who has slain his wife and her lover, confronts -her father and friends:—</p> - -<div class="drama-container"> -<div class="character">Prince.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i16">"<i>Whoever dares</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Molest him, answers it to me. Open the door.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>But what is this?</i> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">[Belardo unlocks the door.</span></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="character">Juan (coming out).</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i16"><i>A picture</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Done by the Painter of his own Dishonour,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>In blood.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>I am Don Juan Roca. Such revenge</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>As each would have of me now let him take</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>As far as our life holds—Don Pedro, who</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Gave me that lovely creature for a bride,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And I return him a bloody corpse;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Don Luis, who beholds his bosom's son</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Slain by his bosom friend; and you, my lord,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Who, for your favours, might expect a piece</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>In some far other style than this.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Deal with me as you list; 'twill be a mercy</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>To swell this complement of death with mine;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>For all I had to do is done, and life</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Is worse than nothing now.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Prince.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i22"><i>Get you to horse</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And leave the wind behind you.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Luis.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i26"><i>Nay, my lord;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Whom should he fly from? Not from me at least,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Who lov'd his honour as my own, and would</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Myself have help'd him in a just revenge</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Ev'n on an only son.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Pedro.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i18"><i>I cannot speak,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>But I bow down these miserable grey hairs</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>To other arbitrament than the sword,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Ev'n to your Highness' justice.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Prince.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i26"><i>Be it so.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Meanwhile—</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Juan.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i14"><i>Meanwhile, my lord, let me depart;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Free, if you will, or not. But let me go,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Nor wound these fathers with the sight of me,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Who has cut off the blossom of their age—</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Yea, and his own, more miserable than them all.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>They know me: that I am a gentleman,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Not cruel, nor without what seem'd due cause</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Put on this bloody business of my honour;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Which having done, I will be answerable</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Here and elsewhere, to all for all.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Prince.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i28"><i>Depart</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>In peace.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Juan.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i8"><i>In peace! Come, Leonelo.</i>"</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p> - -<p>Similar motives are used by Lope de Vega and Tirso -de Molina, both priests and grey-beards; but the effect -is more emphatic in Calderón, and so early as 1683 his -"immorality" was severely censured on the occasion -of Manuel de Guerra y Ribera's eulogistic <i>aprobación</i>. -In this matter, as in most others, he is satisfied to -follow and to exaggerate an existing convention. His -heroes are untouched by Othello's sublime jealousy: -they kill their victims in cold blood as something due -to the self-respect of gentlemen placed in an absurd -position. He rehandles the theme in <i>Á Secreto Agravio -Secreta Venganza</i> and in <i>El Médico de su Honra</i>; but the -right emotion is rarely felt by the reader, since Calderón -himself is seldom fired by real passion, and writes his -scene as a splendid exercise in literature.</p> - -<p>His genius is most visible in his <i>autos sacramentales</i>, a -dramatic form peculiar to Spain. The word <i>auto</i> is first -applied to any and every play; then, the meaning becoming -narrower, an <i>auto</i> is a religious play, resembling -the mediæval Mysteries (Gil Vicente's <i>Auto de San -Martinho</i> is probably the earliest piece of this type). -Finally, a far more special sense is developed, and an -<i>auto sacramental</i> comes to mean a dramatised exposition -of the Mystery of the Blessed Eucharist, to be played in -the open on Corpus Christi Day. The Dutch traveller, -Frans van Aarssens van Sommelsdijk, has left an account -of the spectacle as he saw it when Calderón was in his -prime. Borne in procession through the city, the Host -was followed by sovereigns, courtiers, and the multitude, -with artificial giants and pasteboard monsters—<i>tarascas</i>—at -their head. Fifers, bandsmen, dancers of decorous -measures accompanied the train to the cathedral. In -the afternoon the assembly met in the public square,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> -and the <i>auto</i> was played before the King, who sat beneath -a canopy, the richer public, which lined the balconies, and -the general, which filled the road. Even for an educated -Protestant nothing is easier than to confound an <i>auto -sacramental</i> with a <i>comedia devota</i> or a <i>comedia de santos</i>: -thus Bouterwek, in his <i>History</i>, and Longfellow, in his -<i>Outre-Mer</i>, have mistaken the <i>Devoción de la Cruz</i> for an -<i>auto</i>. The distinction is radical. The true <i>auto</i> has no -secondary interest, has no mundane personages: its one -subject is the Eucharistic Mystery exposed by allegorical -characters. Denis Florence M'Carthy's version of <i>Los -Encantos de la Culpa</i> (The Sorceries of Sin) enables English -readers to judge the <i>genre</i> for themselves:—</p> - -<div class="drama-container"> -<div class="character">Sin.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0">"<i>... Smell, come here, and with thy sense</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Test this bread, this substance,—tell me</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Is it bread or flesh?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Smell.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i18"><i>Its smell</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Is the smell of bread.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Sin.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i18"><i>Taste, enter;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Try it thou.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Taste.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i10"><i>Its taste</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Is plainly that of bread.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Sin.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i16"><i>Touch, come; why tremble?</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Say what's this thou touchest.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Touch.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i24"><i>Bread.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Sin.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Sight, declare what thou discernest</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>In this object.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Sight.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i12"><i>Bread alone.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Sin.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Hearing, thou, too, break in pieces</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>This material, which, as flesh,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Faith proclaims, and penance preacheth;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Let the fraction by its noise</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Of their error undeceive them:</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Say, is it so?</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Hearing.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i12"><i>Ungrateful Sin,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Though the noise in truth resembles</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>That of bread when broken, yet</i></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> -<div class="i0"><i>Faith and Penance teach us better.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>It is flesh, and what they call it</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>I believe: that Faith asserteth</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Aught, is proof enough thereof.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Understanding.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>This one reason brings contentment</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Unto me.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">Penance.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i8"><i>O man, why linger,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Now that Hearing hath firm fetter'd</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>To the Faith thy Understanding?</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Quick, regain the saving vessel</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Of the sovereign Church, and leave</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Sin's so highly sweet excesses.</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Thou, Ulysses, Circe's slave,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Fly this false and fleeting revel,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Since, how great her power may be,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Greater is the power of Heaven,</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>And the true Jove's mightier magic</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Will thy virtuous purpose strengthen.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">The Man.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Yes, thou'rt right, O Understanding;</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>Lead in safety hence my senses.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="character">All.</div> -<div class="drama"> -<div class="i0"><i>Let us to our ship; for here</i></div> -<div class="i0"><i>All is shadowy and unsettled."</i></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>As a writer of <i>autos</i> Calderón is supreme. Lope, who -outshines him at so many points, is far less dexterous -than his successor when he attempts the sacramental -play. This kind of drama would almost seem created -for the greater glory of Calderón. The personages -of his worldly plays, and even of his <i>comedias devotas</i>, -tend to become personifications of revenge, love, pride, -charity, and the rest. His set pieces are disfigured by -want of humour and by over-refinement—faults which -turn to virtues in the <i>autos</i>, where abstractions are -wedded to the noblest poetry, where the Beyond is -brought down to earth, and where doctrinal subtleties -are embellished with miraculous ingenuity. To assert -that Calderón is incomparably great in the <i>autos</i> is to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> -imply some censure of his art in his secular dramas. -The monotony and artifice of his sacramental plays -might be thought inherent to the species, were not -these two notes characteristic of his whole theatre. Nor -is it an explanation to say that much writing of <i>autos</i> -had affected his general methods; for not merely are -the secular plays more numerous—they are also mostly -earlier than the <i>autos</i>, whose real defects are a lack of -dramatic interest, an appeal to a taste so local and so -temporary that they are now as extinct in Spain as are -masques in England. Still the passing fashions which -produced <i>Comus</i> in the north, and the <i>Encantos de la -Culpa</i> or the <i>Cena de Baltasar</i> in the south, are justified -to all lovers of great poetry. The <i>autos</i> lingered on the -stage till 1765, but their genuine inspiration ended with -Calderón, who, in all but a literal sense, may be held for -their creator.</p> - -<p>Lope de Vega is the greatest of Spanish dramatists; -Calderón is amongst those who most nearly approach -him. Lope incarnates the genius of a nation; Calderón -expresses the genius of an age. He is a Spaniard to -the marrow, but a Spaniard of the seventeenth century—a -courtier with a turn for <i>culteranismo</i>, averse from -the picaresque contrasts which lend variety to Lope's -scene and to Tirso's. His interpretation of existence is -so idealised that his stage becomes in some sort the -apotheosis of his century. His characters are not so -much men and women, as allegorical types of men -and women as Calderón conceived them. It is not -real life that he reveals, for he regarded realism as -ignoble and unclean: he offers in its place a brilliant -pageant of abstract emotions. He is not a universal -dramatist: he ranks with the greatest writers for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> -Spanish stage, inasmuch as he is the greatest poet using -the dramatic form. And, leaving aside his anachronisms -and jumblings of mythology, he is a scrupulous artist, -careful of his literary form and of his construction. -The finished execution of his best passages is so irresistible -that FitzGerald declared Isabel's characteristic -speech in the <i>Alcalde de Zalamea</i> to be "worthy of the -Greek Antigone":—"Oh, never, never might the light -of day arise and show me to myself in my shame! O -fleeting morning star, mightest thou never yield to the -dawn that even now presses on thine azure skirts! And -thou, great Orb of all, do thou stay down in the cold -ocean foam; let Night for once advance her trembling -empire into thine! For once assert thy voluntary power -to hear and pity human misery and prayer, nor hasten -up to proclaim the vilest deed that Heaven, in revenge -on man, has written on his guilty annals. Alas! even -as I speak, thou liftest thy bright, inexorable face above -the hills." Contrast with this impassioned lament (a -little toned down in FitzGerald's version) the aphoristic -wisdom of Pedro Crespo's counsel to his son in the -same play:—"Thou com'st of honourable if of humble -stock; bear both in mind, so as neither to be daunted -from trying to rise, nor puffed up so as to be sure -to fall. How many have done away the memory of a -defect by carrying themselves modestly, while others, -again, have gotten a blemish only by being too proud -of being born without one. There is a just humility -that will maintain thine own dignity, and yet make thee -insensible to many a rub that galls the proud spirit. -Be courteous in thy manner, and liberal of thy purse; -for 'tis the hand to the bonnet, and in the pocket, that -makes friends in this world, of which to gain one good,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> -all the gold the sun breeds in India, or the universal -sea sucks down, were a cheap purchase. Speak no evil -of women; I tell thee the meanest of them deserves our -respect; for of women do we not all come? Quarrel -with no one but with good cause.... I trust in God -to live to see thee home again with honour and -advancement on thy back."</p> - -<p>Had Calderón always maintained this level, he would -be classed with the first masters of all ages and all -countries. His blood, his faith, his environment were -limitations which prevented his becoming a world-poet; -his majesty, his devout lyrism, his decorative fantasy -suffice to place him in the foremost file of national -poets. But he was not so national that foreign -adaptors left him untouched: thus D'Ouville annexed -the <i>Dama Duende</i> under the title of <i>L'Esprit follet</i>, -which reappears as Killigrew's <i>Parson's Wedding</i>; thus -Dryden's <i>Evening's Love</i> is Calderón done from Corneille's -French; thus Wycherley's <i>Gentleman Dancing -Master</i> derives from <i>El Maestro de danzar</i>. Yet, though -Calderón's plots may be conveyed, his substance cannot -be denationalised, being, as he is, the sublimest Catholic -poet, as Catholicism and poetry were understood by the -Spaniards of the seventeenth century: a local genius of -intensely local savour, exercising his dramatic in local -forms.</p> - -<p>Archbishop Trench has suggested that in the three -great theatres of the world the best period covers little -more than a century, and he proves his thesis by a -reference to dates. Æschylus was born <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 525, and -Euripides died <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 406: Marlowe was born in 1564, -and Shirley died in 1666: Lope was born in 1562, and -Calderón died in 1681. With Calderón the heroic age<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> -of the Spanish theatre reached a splendid close. He -chanced to outlive his Toledan contemporary, <span class="smcap">Francisco -de Rojas Zorrilla</span> (1607-? 1661), from whose <i>Traición -busca el Castigo</i> Le Sage has arranged his <i>Traître puni</i>, -and Vanbrugh his <i>False Friend</i>. A courtly poet, and -a Commander of the Order of Santiago, Rojas Zorrilla -collaborated with fashionable writers like Vélez de -Guevara, Mira de Amescua, and Calderón, of whom he -is accounted a disciple, though his one great tragedy has -real individual power. His two volumes of plays (1640, -1645) reveal him as a most ingenious dramatist, who -carries the "point of honour" further than Calderón in -his best known play, <i>Del Rey abajo ninguno</i>, a characteristically -Spanish piece. García de Castañar, apparently -a peasant living near Toledo, subscribes so -generously to the funds for the expedition to Algeciras -that King Alfonso XI. resolves to visit him in disguise. -García gets wind of this, and receives his guests honourably, -mistaking Mendo for Alfonso. Mendo conceives -a passion for Blanca, García's wife, and is discovered by -the husband at Blanca's door. As the King is inviolate -for a subject, García resolves to slay Blanca, who escapes -to court. García is summoned by the King, finds his -mistake, settles matters by slaying Mendo in the palace, -and explains to his sovereign (and his audience) that -<i>none under the King</i> can affront him with impunity. -Rojas Zorrilla's style occasionally inclines to <i>culteranismo</i>; -but this is an obvious concession to popular -taste, his true manner being direct and energetic. His -clever construction and witty dialogue are best studied -in <i>Lo que son Mujeres</i> (What Women are) and in <i>Entre -Bobos anda el Juego</i> (The Boobies' Sport).</p> - -<p>A very notable talent is that of <span class="smcap">Agustín Moreto y<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> -Cavaña</span> (1618-69), whose popularity as a writer of cloak-and-sword -plays is only less than Lope's. In 1639 Moreto -graduated as a licentiate in arts at Alcalá de Henares. -Thence he made his way to Madrid, where he found a -protector in Calderón. He published a volume of plays -in 1654, and is believed to have taken orders three years -later. Moreto is not a great inventor, but so far as concerns -stagecraft he is above all contemporaries. In -<i>El Desdén con el Desdén</i> (Scorn for Scorn) he borrows -Lope's <i>Milagros del Desprecio</i> (Scorn works Wonders), -and it is fair to say that the <i>rifacimento</i> excels the original -at every point. Diana, daughter of the Conde -de Barcelona, mocks at marriage: her father surrounds -her with the neighbouring gallants, among whom is the -Conde de Urgel. Urgel's affected coolness piques the -lady into a resolve to captivate him, and she so far -succeeds as to lead him to avow his love for her: he -escapes rejection by feigning that his declaration was -a jest, and the dramatic solution is brought about by -Diana's surrender. The plot is ordered with consummate -skill, the dialogue is of the gayest humour, the -characters more life-like than any but Alarcón's; and -as evidence of the playwright's tact, it is enough to say -that when Molière, in his <i>Princesse d'Élide</i>, strove to -repeat Moreto's exploit he met with ignominious disaster. -In the delicacy of touch with which Moreto handles a -humorous situation he is almost unrivalled; and in the -broader spirit of farce, his <i>graciosos</i>—comic characters, -generally body-servants to the heroes—are admirable for -natural force and for gusts of spontaneous wit. In <i>El -lindo Don Diego</i> he has fixed the type of the fop convinced -that he is irresistible, and the presentation of -fatuity which leads Don Diego into marriage with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> -serving-wench (whom he mistakes for a countess) is -among the few masterpieces of high comedy. Moreto's -historical plays are of less universal interest; in this kind, -<i>El Rico Hombre de Alcalá</i> is a powerful and sympathetic -picture of Pedro the Cruel—the strong man doing justice -on the noble, Tello García—from the standpoint of the -Spanish populace, which has ever respected <i>el Rey justiciero</i>. -In his later years Moreto betook him to the <i>comedia -devota</i>; his <i>San Francisco de Sena</i> is extravagantly and -almost ludicrously devout, as in the scenes where Francisco -wagers his eyes, loses, is struck blind, and repents -on recovering his sight. The devout play was not -Moreto's calling: in his first and best manner, as a -master of the lighter, gayer comedy, he holds his own -against all Spain.</p> - -<p>Among the followers of Calderón are Antonio Cuello -(d. 1652), who is reported to have collaborated with -Felipe IV. in <i>El Conde de Essex</i>; Álvaro Cubillo de -Aragón (fl. 1664), whose <i>Perfecta Casada</i> is a good piece -of work; Juan Matos Fragoso (? 1614-92), who borrowed -and plagiarised with successful audacity; but -these, with many others, are mere imitators, and the -Spanish theatre declines lower and lower, till in the -hands of Carlos II.'s favourite, Francisco Antonio Bances -Candamo (1662-1704), it reaches its nadir. The last -good playwright of the classic age is <span class="smcap">Antonio de Solís -y Rivadeneira</span> (1610-86), who, by the accident of his -long life, lends a ray of renown to the deplorable reign -of Carlos II. His dramas are excellent in construction -and phrasing, and his <i>Amor al uso</i> was popular in France -through Thomas Corneille's adaptation.</p> - -<p>But his title to fame rests, not on verse, but on -prose. His <i>Historia de la Conquista de Méjico</i> (1684) is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> -a most distinguished performance, even if we compare -it with Mariana's. Seeing that Solís lived through the -worst periods of Gongorism, his style is a marvel of -purity, though a difficult critic might well condemn its -cloying suavity. Still, his work has never been displaced -since its first appearance, for it deals with a very picturesque -period, is eloquent and clear, and is almost -excessively patriotic in tone and spirit. Gibbon, in his -sixty-second chapter, mentions "an Aragonese history -which I have read with pleasure"—the <i>Expedición de los -catalanes y aragoneses contra turcos y griegos</i> by Francisco -de Moncada, Conde de Osuna (1586-1635). "He never -quotes his authorities," adds Gibbon; and, in fact, Moncada -mostly translates from Ramón Muntaner's Catalan -<i>Crónica</i>, though he translates in excellent fashion. Diego -de Saavedra Fajardo (1584-1648) writes with force and -ease in his uncritical <i>Corona Gótica</i>, and in his more -interesting literary review, the <i>República literaria</i>; his -freedom from Gongorism is explained by the fact that -he passed most of his life out of Spain. The Portuguese, -<span class="smcap">Francisco Manuel de Melo</span> (1611-66), is ill represented -by his <i>Historia de los Movimientos, Separación y -Guerra de Cataluña</i> (1645), where he is given over to both -Gongorism and <i>conceptismo</i>: in his native tongue—as in -his <i>Apologos Dialogaes</i>—he writes with simplicity, strength, -and wit. Melo's life was unlucky: when he was not being -shipwrecked, he was in jail on suspicion of being a murderer; -and being out of jail, he was exiled to Brazil. His -reward is posthumous: both Portuguese and Spaniards -hold him for a classic, and Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo even -compares him to Quevedo.</p> - -<p>Another man of Portuguese birth has won immortality -outside of literature; yet there is ground for thinking that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> -<span class="smcap">Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez</span> (1599-1660) -had the sense for language as for paint. His <i>Memoria de -las Pinturas</i> (1658) exists in an unique copy published -at Rome under the name of his pupil, Juan de Alfaro, -though its substance is unscrupulously embodied in -Francisco de los Santos' <i>Descripción Breve</i> of the Escorial. -Formally, it is a catalogue; substantially, it expresses the -artist's judgment on his great predecessors. Thus, of -Paolo Veronese's <i>Wedding Feast</i> he writes:—"There -are admirable heads, and almost all of them seem portraits. -Not that of the Virgin: she has more reserve, -more divinity: though very beautiful, she corresponds -fittingly to the age of Christ, who is beside her—a point -which most artists overlook, for they paint Christ as a -man, and His Mother as a girl." The great realist speaks -once more in describing Veronese's <i>Purification</i>:—"The -Virgin kneels ... holding on a white cloth the Child—naked, -beautiful, and tender—with a restlessness so suited -to his age that He seems more a piece of living flesh than -something painted." And, in the same spirit, he writes -of Tintoretto's <i>Washing of the Feet</i>:—"It is hard to -believe that one is looking at a painting. Such is the -truth of colour, such the exactness of perspective, that -one might think to go in and walk on the pavement, -tessellated with stones of divers colours, which, diminishing -in size, make the room seem larger, and lead you to -believe that there is atmosphere between each figure. -The table, seats (and a dog which is worked in) are truth, -not paint.... Once for all, any picture placed beside it -looks like something expressed in terms of colour, and -this seems all the truer." Strangely enough, this writing -of Velázquez is ignored by most, perhaps by all, of his -biographers; yet it deserves a passing reference as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> -model of energetic expression in a time when most professional -men of letters were Gongorists or <i>conceptistas</i>.</p> - -<p>A certain directness of style is found in Gerónimo de -Alcalá Yañez y Ribera's <i>Alonso, Mozo de muchos Amos</i> -(1625), in Alonso de Castillo Solórzano's <i>Garduña de -Seville</i> (the Seville Weasel, 1634), in the <i>Siglo Pitagórico</i> -(1644) of the Segovian Jew, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, -and in the half-true, half-invented <i>Vida y Hechos de -Estebanillo González</i> (1646)—all picaresque tales, clever, -amusing, and improper, on the approved pattern. But -the pest of preciosity spread to fiction, is conspicuous in -the <i>Español Gerardo</i> of Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, -and steadily degenerates till it becomes arrant nonsense -in the <i>Varios Efectos de Amor</i> (1641) of Alonso de Alcalá y -Herrera—five stories, in each of which one of the vowels -is omitted. Alcalá, however, had neither talent nor -influence. The Aragonese Jesuit, <span class="smcap">Baltasar Gracián</span> -(1601-58), had both, and his vogue is proved by numerous -editions, by translations, by such references as that -in the <i>Entretiens</i> of Bouhours, who proclaims him "<i>le -sublime</i>." Addison thrice mentions him with respect in -the <i>Spectator</i>, and it is suggested that Rycaut's rendering -of the <i>Criticón</i> may have given Defoe the idea of Man -Friday. In the present century Schopenhauer vowed -that the <i>Criticón</i> was "one of the best books in the -world," and Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, taking his cue -from Schopenhauer, has extolled Gracián with some -vehemence.</p> - -<p>Gracián seems to have been indifferent to popularity, -and his works, published somewhat against his will by -his friend, Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, were mostly -issued under the name of Lorenzo Gracián. His first -work was <i>El Héroe</i> (1630), an ideal rendering of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> -Happy Warrior, as <i>El Discreto</i> (1647) is the ideal of the -Politic Courtier; more important than either is the -<i>Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio</i> (1642), a <i>conceptista</i> Art of -Rhetoric, of singular learning, subtlety, and catholic -taste. The three parts of the <i>Criticón</i>, which appeared -between 1650 and 1653, correspond to "the spring of -childhood," "the summer of youth," and "the autumn -of manhood." In this allegory of life the shipwrecked -Critilo meets the wild man Andrenio, who finally learns -Spanish and reveals his soul to Critilo, whom he accompanies -to Spain, where he communes with both allegorical -figures and real personages on all manner of philosophic -questions. The general tone of the <i>Criticón</i> goes far -towards explaining Schopenhauer's admiration; for the -Spaniard is no less a woman-hater, is no less bitter, sarcastic, -denunciatory, and pessimistic than the German. -Gracián, to use his own phrase, "flaunts his unhappiness -as a trophy" in phrases whose laboured ingenuity -begins by impressing, and ends by fatiguing, the reader.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to believe that Gracián's attitude towards -life is more than a pose; but the pose is dignified, and -he puts the pessimistic case with vigour and skill. His -<i>Oráculo Manual ó Arte de Prudencia</i> (1653), a reduction -of his gospel to the form of maxims, has found admirers -(and even an excellent translator in the person of Mr. -Joseph Jacobs). The reflection is always acute, and -seems at whiles to anticipate the thought of La Rochefoucauld—doubtless -because both drew from common -sources; but though the doctrine and spirit be almost -identical, Gracián nowhere approaches La Rochefoucauld's -metallic brilliancy and concise perfection. He is -not content to deliver his maxim, and have done with it: -he adds—so to say—elaborate postscripts and epigrammatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> -amplifications, which debase the maxim to a platitude. -Mr. John Morley's remark, that "some of his -aphorisms give a neat turn to a commonplace," is -scarcely too severe. Yet one cannot choose but think -that Gracián was superior to his work. He had it in -him to be as good a writer as he was a keen observer, -and in many passages, when he casts his affectations from -him, his expression is as lucid and as strong as may be; -but he would posture, would be paradoxical to avoid -being trite, would bewilder with his conceit and learning, -would try to pack more meaning into words than -words will carry. No man ever wrote with more care -and scruple, with more ambition to excel according to -the formulæ of a fashionable school, with more scorn -for Gongorism and all its work. Still, though he avoided -the offence of obscure language, he sinned most grievously -by obscurity of thought, and he is now forgotten -by all but students, who look upon him as a chief among -the wrong-headed, misguided <i>conceptistas</i>.</p> - -<p>A last faint breath of mysticism is found in the <i>Tratado -de la Hermosura de Dios</i> (1641) by the Jesuit, Juan -Eusebio Nieremberg (1590-1658), whose prose, though -elegant and relatively pure, lacks the majesty of Luis -de León's and the persuasiveness of Granada's. More -familiar in style, the letters of Felipe IV.'s friend, María -Coronel y Arana (1602-65), known in religion as Sor -<span class="smcap">María de Jesús de Ágreda</span>, may still be read with -pleasure. Professed at sixteen, she was elected abbess -of her convent at twenty-five, and her <i>Mística Ciudad de -Dios</i> has gone through innumerable editions in almost -all languages; her <i>Correspondencia con Felipe IV.</i> extends -over twenty-two years, from 1643 onwards, and is as remarkable -for its profound piety as for its sound appreciation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> -of public affairs. The common interest of King -and nun began with the doctrine of the Immaculate -Conception, which both desired to have defined as an -article of faith; domestic and foreign politics come -under discussion later, and it soon becomes plain that -the nun is the man. While Felipe IV. weakly laments -that "the Cortes are seeking places, taking no more -notice of the insurrection than if the enemy were at -the Philippines," Sor María de Jesús strives to steady -him, to lend him something of her own strong will, by -urging him to "be a King," "to do his duty." There is -a curious reference to the passing of Cromwell—"the -enemy of our faith and kingdom, the only person whose -death I ever desired, or ever prayed to God for." Her -practical advice fell on deaf ears, and when she died, -no man seemed left in Spain to realise that the country -was slowly bleeding to death, becoming a cypher in -politics, in art, in letters.</p> - -<p>One single ecclesiastic rises above his fellows during -the ruinous reign of Carlos the Bewitched, and his -renown is greater out of Spain than in it. <span class="smcap">Miguel de -Molinos</span> (1627-97), the founder of Quietism, was a -native of Muniesa, near Zaragoza; was educated by the -Jesuits; and held a living at Valencia. He journeyed -to Rome in 1665, won vast esteem as a confessor, and -there, in 1675, published his famous <i>Spiritual Guide</i> in -Italian. Mr. Shorthouse, an English apostle of Quietism, -mentions a Spanish rendering which "won such popularity -in his native country that some are still found who -declare that the Spanish version is earlier than the -Italian." It is almost certain that Molinos wrote in -Spanish, and to judge by the translations, he must have -written with admirable force. But, as a matter of fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> -no Spanish version was ever popular in Spain, for the -reason that none has ever existed. This is not the place -to discuss the personal character of Molinos, who stands -accused of grave crimes; nor to weigh the value of his -teaching, nor to follow its importation into France by -Mme. de la Mothe Guyon; nor to look into the controversy -which wrecked Fénelon's career. Still it should -be noted as characteristic of Carlos II.'s reign, that a -book by one of his subjects was influencing all Europe -without any man in Spain being aware of it.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnotes:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_26_26">[26]</a> According to Lope de Vega, the word <i>culteranismo</i> was invented by -Jiménez Patón, Villamediana's tutor.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_27_27">[27]</a> See M. Farinelli's learned study, <i>Don Giovanni: Note critiche</i> (Torino, -1896), pp. 37-39.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_28_28">[28]</a> Cp. Mr. Norman MacColl's <i>Select Plays of Calderón</i> (London, 1888), -pp. xxvi.-xxx., and Gallardo's <i>Ensayo de una Biblioteca Española</i> (Madrid, -1866), vol. ii. col. 367, 368.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XI -<br /> -<small>THE AGE OF THE BOURBONS -<br /> -1700-1808</small></h2> - - -<p>Letters, arts, and even rational politics, practically died -in Spain during the reign of Carlos II. Good work was -done in serious branches of study: in history by Gaspar -Ibáñez de Segovia Peralta y Mendoza, Marqués de Mondéjar; -in bibliography by Nicolás Antonio; in law by -Francisco Ramos del Manzano; in mathematics by Hugo -de Omerique, whose analytic gifts won the applause of -Newton. But all the rest was neglected while the King -was exorcised, and was forced to swallow a quart of holy -oil as a counter-charm against the dead men's brains -given him (as it was alleged) by his mother in a cup of -chocolate. Nor did the nightmare lift with his death on -November 1, 1700: the War of the Succession lasted till -the signing of the Utrecht Treaty in 1713. The new -sovereign, Felipe V., grandson of Louis XIV., interested -himself in the progress of his people; and being a -Frenchman of his time, he believed in the centralisation -of learning. His chief ally was that Marqués de Villena -familiar to all readers of St. Simon as the major-domo -who used his wand upon Cardinal Alberoni's skull:—"Il -lève son petit bâton et le laisse tomber de toute sa force -dru et menu sur les oreilles du cardinal, en l'appelant petit -coquin, petit faquin, petit impudent qui ne méritoit que<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> -les étrivières." But even St. Simon admits Villena's rare -qualities:—"Il savoit beaucoup, et il étoit de toute sa -vie en commerce avec la plupart de tous les savants des -divers pays de l'Europe.... C'était un homme bon, doux, -honnête, sensé ... enfin l'honneur, la probité, la valeur, -la vertu même." In 1711 the Biblioteca Nacional was -founded; in 1714 the Spanish Academy of the Language -was established, with Villena as "director," and -soon set to earnest work. The only good lexicon published -since Nebrija's was Sebastián de Covarrubias y -Horozco's <i>Tesoro de la Lengua castellana</i> (1611): under -Villena's guidance the Academy issued the six folios -of its Dictionary, commonly called the <i>Diccionario de -Autoridades</i> (1726-39). Accustomed to his Littré, his -Grimm, to the scientific methods of MM. Arsène Darmesteter, -Hatzfeld, and Thomas, and to that monumental -work now publishing at the Clarendon Press, the -modern student is too prone to dwell on the defects—manifest -enough—of the Spanish Academy's Dictionary. -Yet it was vastly better than any other then existing in -Europe, is still of unique value to scholars, and was so -much too good for its age that, in 1780, it was cut down -to one poor volume. The foundation of the Academy of -History, under Agustín de Montiano, in 1738, is another -symptom of French authority.</p> - -<p>Mr. Gosse and Dr. Garnett, in previous volumes of the -present series, have justly emphasised the predominance -of French methods both in English and Italian literature -during the eighteenth century. In Germany the French -sympathies of Frederick the Great and of Wieland were to -be no less obvious. Sooner or later, it was inevitable that -Spain should undergo the French influence; yet, though -the French nationality of the King is a factor to be taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> -into account, his share in the literary revolution is too -often exaggerated. Long before Felipe V. was born -Spaniards had begun to interest themselves in French -literature. Thus Quevedo, who translated the <i>Introduction -à la Vie Dévote</i> of St. François de Sales, showed -himself familiar with the writings of a certain Miguel de -Montaña, more recognisable as Michel de Montaigne. -Juan Bautista Diamante, apparently ignorant of Guillén -de Castro's play, translated Corneille's <i>Cid</i> under the -title of <i>El Honrador de su padre</i> (1658); and in March -1680 an anonymous arrangement of the <i>Bourgeois Gentilhomme</i> -was given at the Buen Retiro under the title of -<i>El Labrador Gentilhombre</i>. Still more significant is an -incident recalled by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo: the staging -of Corneille's <i>Rodogune</i> and Molière's <i>Les Femmes Savantes</i> -at Lima, about the year 1710, in Castilian versions, -made by Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo. Compared -with this, the Madrid translations of Corneille's <i>Cinna</i> -and of Racine's <i>Iphigénie</i>, by Francisco de Pizarro y -Piccolomini, Marqués de San Juan (1713), and by José -de Cañizares (1716), are of small moment. The latter -performances may very well have been due in great part -to the personal influence of the celebrated Madame des -Ursins, an active French agent at the Spanish court.</p> - -<p>Readers curious as to the Spanish poets of the eighteenth -century may turn with confidence to the masterly -and exhaustive <i>Historia Crítica</i> of the Marqués de Valmar. -Their number may be inferred from this detail: that more -than one hundred and fifty competed at a poetic joust -held in honour of St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Stanislaus -Kostka in 1727. But none of all the tribe is of real importance. -It is enough to mention the names of Juan -José de Salazar y Hontiveros, a priestly copromaniac,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> -like his contemporary, Swift; of José León y Mansilla, -who wrote a third <i>Soledad</i> in continuation of Góngora; -and of Sor María del Cielo, a mild practitioner in lyrical -mysticism. A little later there follow Gabriel Álvarez de -Toledo, a representative <i>conceptista</i>; Eugenio Gerardo -Lobo, a romantic soldier with a craze for versifying; -Diego de Torres y Villarroel, an encyclopædic professor -at Salamanca, who, half-knowing everything from the -cedar by Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth on the -wall, showed critical insight by the contempt in which -he held his own rhymes. The Carmelite, Fray Juan de -la Concepción, a Gongorist of the straitest sect, was the -idol of his generation, and proved his quality, when he -was elected to the Academy in 1744, by returning thanks -in a rhymed speech: an innovation which scandalised -his brethren, and has never been repeated.</p> - -<p>A head and shoulders over these rises the figure of -<span class="smcap">Ignacio de Luzán Claramunt de Suelves y Gurrea</span> -(1702-54), who, spending his youth in Italy, was—so it -is believed—a pupil of Giovanni Battista Vico at Naples, -where he remained during eighteen years. For his century, -Luzán's equipment was considerable. His Greek -and Latin were of the best; Italian was almost his native -tongue; he read Descartes and epitomised the Port-Royal -treatise on logic; he was versed in German, and, -meeting with <i>Paradise Lost</i>—probably during his residence -as Secretary to the Embassy in Paris (1747-50)—he -first revealed Milton to Spain by translating select -passages into prose. His verses, original and translated, -are insignificant, though, as an instance of his French -taste, his version of Lachaussée's <i>Préjugé à la Mode</i> is -worthy of notice: not so the four books of his <i>Poética</i> -(1737). So early as 1728, Luzán prepared six <i>Ragionamenti<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> -sopra la poesia</i> for the Palermo Academy, and on -his return to Spain in 1733 he re-arranged his treatise -in Castilian. The <i>Poética</i> avowedly aims at "subjecting -Spanish verse to the rules which obtain among cultured -nations"; and though its basis is Lodovico Muratori's -<i>Della perfetta poesia</i>, with suggestions borrowed from -Vincenzo Gravina and Giovanni Crescimbeni, the general -drift of Luzán's teaching coincides with that of French -doctrinaires like Rapin, Boileau, and Le Bossu. It seems -probable that his views became more and more French -with time, for the posthumous reprint of the <i>Poética</i> -(1789) shows an increase of anti-national spirit; but on -this point it is hard to judge, inasmuch as his pupil and -editor, Eugenio de Llaguno y Amírola (a strong French -partisan, who translated Racine's <i>Athalie</i> in 1754), is suspected -of tampering with this text, as he adulterated that -of Díaz Gámez' <i>Crónica del Conde de Buelna</i>.</p> - -<p>Luzán's destructive criticisms are always acute, and -are generally just. Lope is for him a genius of amazing -force and variety, while Calderón is a singer of exquisite -music. With this ingratiating prelude, he has no difficulty -in exposing their most obvious defects, and his -attack on Gongorism is delivered with great spirit. It is -in construction that he fails: as when he avers that the -ends of poetry and moral philosophy are identical, that -Homer was a didactic poet expounding political and -transcendental truths to the vulgar, that epics exist for -the instruction of monarchs and military chiefs, that the -period of a play's action should correspond precisely -with the time that the play takes in acting. Luzán's -rigorous logic ends by reducing to absurdity the didactic -theories of the eighteenth century; yet, for all his -logic, he had a genuine love of poetry, which induced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> -him to neglect his abstract rules. It is true that he -scarcely utters a proposition which is not contradicted -by implication in other parts of his treatise. Nevertheless, -his book has both a literary and an historic value. -Written in excellent style and temper, with innumerable -parallels from many literatures, the <i>Poética</i> served as a -manifesto which summoned Spain to fall into line with -academic Europe; and Spain, among the least academic -because among the most original of countries, ended by -obeying. Her old inspiration had passed away with her -wide dominion, and Luzán deserves credit for lending -her a new opportune impulse.</p> - -<p>He was not to win without a battle. The official -licensers, Manuel Gallinero and Miguel Navarro, took -public objection to the retrospective application of his -doctrines, and a louder note of opposition was sounded -in a famous quarterly, the <i>Diario de los Literatos de -España</i>, founded in 1737 by Juan Martínez Salafranca -and Leopoldo Gerónimo Puig. Though the <i>Diario</i> was -patronised by Felipe V., though its judgments are now -universally accepted, it came before its time: the bad -authors whom it victimised combined against it, and, -as the public remained indifferent, the review was soon -suspended. Even among the contributors to the <i>Diario</i>, -Luzán found an ally in the person of the clerical lawyer, -<span class="smcap">José Gerardo de Hervás y Cobo de la Torre</span> (d. -1742), author of the popular <i>Sátira contra los malos -Escritores de su Tiempo</i>. Hervás, who took the pseudonym -of Jorge Pitillas, wrote with boldness, with critical -sense, with an ease and point and grace which engraved -his verse upon the general memory; so that to this day -many of his lines are as familiar to Spaniards as are -Pope's to Englishmen. They err who hold with Ticknor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> -that Hervás imitated Persius and Juvenal: in style and -doctrine his immediate model was Boileau, whom he -adapts with rare skill, and without any acknowledgment. -He carries a step further the French doctrines, -insinuated rather than proclaimed in the <i>Poética</i>, and, -though he was not an avowed propagandist, his sarcastic -epigrams perhaps did more than any formal treatise to -popularise the new doctrines.</p> - -<p>A reformer on the same lines was the Benedictine, -<span class="smcap">Benito Gerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro</span> (1675-1764), -whose <i>Teatro crítico</i> and <i>Cartas eruditas y curiosas</i> were -as successful in Spain as were the <i>Tatler</i> and <i>Spectator</i> in -England. Feijóo's style is laced with Gallicisms, and -his vain, insolent airs of infallibility are antipathetic; -yet though his admirers have made him ridiculous by -calling him "the Spanish Voltaire," his intellectual -curiosity, his cautious scepticism, his lucid intelligence, -his fine scent for a superstitious fallacy, place him -among the best writers of his age. A happy instance -of his skill in exposing a paradox is his indictment of -Rousseau's <i>Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts</i>. His -rancorous tongue raised up crowds of enemies, who -scrupled not to circulate vague rumours as to his -heretical tendencies: in fact, his orthodoxy was as -unimpeachable as were the services which he rendered -to his country's enlightenment. His cause, and the -cause of learning generally, were championed by the -Galician, Pedro José García y Balboa, best known as -<span class="smcap">Martín Sarmiento</span> (1695-1772), the name which he -bore in the Benedictine order. Sarmiento's erudition -is at least equal to Feijóo's, and his industry is matched -by the variety of his interests. As a botanist he won -the admiration and friendship of Linné; Feijóo's <i>Teatro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> -crítico</i> owes much to his unselfish supervision; yet, -while his name was esteemed throughout Europe, he -shrank from domestic criticism, and withheld his miscellaneous -works from the press. He owes his place -in literature to his posthumous <i>Memorias para la historia -de la Poesía y Poetas españoles</i>, which, despite its excessive -local patriotism, is not only remarkable for its shrewd -insight, but forms the point of departure for all later -studies. Not less useful was the life's work of <span class="smcap">Gregorio -Mayáns y Siscar</span> (1699-1781), who was the first to print -Juan de Valdés' <i>Diálogo de la Lengua</i>, who was the first -biographer of Cervantes, and who edited Luis Vives, -Luis de León, Mondéjar, and others. Though much of -Mayáns' writing has grown obsolete in its methods, he -is honourably remembered as a pioneer, and his <i>Orígenes -de la Lengua castellana</i> is full of wise suggestion and acute -divination.</p> - -<p>Prominent among Luzán's followers in the self-constituted -Academia del Buen Gusto is <span class="smcap">Blas Antonio -Nasarre y Férriz</span> (1689-1751), an industrious, learned -polygraph who carried party spirit so far as to reproduce -Avellaneda's spurious <i>Don Quixote</i> (1732), on the specific -ground that it was in every way superior to the genuine -sequel. Cervantes, indeed, was an object of pitying -contempt to Nasarre, who, when he reprinted Cervantes' -plays in 1749, contended that they not only were the -worst ever written, but that they were a heap of follies -deliberately invented to burlesque Lope de Vega's -theatre. Of the same school is Lope's merciless foe, -<span class="smcap">Agustín Montiano y Luyando</span> (1697-1765), author of -two poor tragedies, the <i>Virginia</i> and the <i>Ataulfo</i>, models -of dull academic correctness. Yet he found an illustrious -admirer in the person of Lessing, who, by his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> -panegyric on Montiano in the <i>Theatralische Bibliotek</i>, -remains as a standing example of the fallibility of the -greatest critics when they pronounce judgment on -foreign literatures. Even more exaggerated than Montiano -was the Marqués de Valdeflores, <span class="smcap">Luis José Velázquez -De Velasco</span> (1722-72), whom we have already -seen ascribing Torre's poems to Quevedo, an error -almost sufficient to ruin any reputation. Velázquez -expressed his general literary views in his <i>Orígenes de -la Poesía castellana</i> (1749), which found an enthusiastic -translator in Johann Andreas Dieze, of Göttingen. -Velázquez develops and emphasises the teaching of his -predecessors, denounces the dramatic follies of Lope -and Calderón, and even goes so far as to regret that -Nasarre should waste his powder on two common, -discredited fellows like Lope and Cervantes. It is impossible -for us here to record the polemics in which -Luzán's teaching was supported or combated; defective -as it was, it had at least the merit of rousing Spain from -her intellectual torpor.</p> - -<p>Some effect of the new criticism is seen in the works -of the Jesuit, <span class="smcap">José Francisco de Isla</span> (1703-81), whose -finer humour is displayed in his <i>Triunfo del Amor y de -la Lealtad</i> (1746), which professes to describe the proclamation -at Pamplona of Ferdinand VI.'s accession. -The author was officially thanked by Council and -Chapter, and some expressed by gifts their gratitude -for his handsome treatment. As Basques joke with -difficulty, it was not until two months later that the -<i>Triunfo</i> (which bears the alternative title of <i>A Great -Day for Navarre</i>) was suspected to be a burlesque of -the proceedings and all concerned in them. Isla kept -his countenance while he assured his victims of his entire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> -good faith; the latter, however, expressed their slow-witted -indignation in print, and brought such pressure -to bear that the lively Jesuit—who kept up the farce of -denial till the last day of his life—was removed from -Pamplona by his superiors. The incorrigible wag departed -to become a fashionable preacher; but his sense of -humour accompanied him to church, and was displayed -at the cost of his brethren. Paravicino, as we have -already observed, introduced Gongorism into the pulpit, -and his lead was followed by men of lesser faculty, who -reproduced "the contortions of the Sibyl without her -inspiration." By degrees preaching almost grew to be -a synonym for buffoonery, and by the middle of the -eighteenth century it was as often as not an occasion -for the vulgar profanity which pleases devout illiterates. -It is impossible to cite here the worst excesses; it is -enough to note that a "cultured" congregation applauded -a preacher who dared to speak of "the divine Adonis, -Christ, enamoured of that singular Psyche, Mary!" -Bishops in their pastorals, monks like Feijóo in his -<i>Cartas eruditas</i>, and laymen like Mayáns in his <i>Orador -Cristiano</i> (1733), strove ineffectually to reform the abuse: -where exhortation failed, satire succeeded. Isla had -witnessed these pulpit extravagances at first hand, and -his six quarto volumes of sermons—none of them inspiring -to read, however impressive when delivered—show -that he himself had begun by yielding to a mode -from which his good sense soon freed him.</p> - -<p>His <i>Historia del famoso Predicador Fray Gerundio de -Campazas, alias Zotes</i> (1758), published by Isla under the -name of his friend, Francisco Lobón de Salazar, parish -priest of Aguilar and Villagarcía del Campo, is an attempt -to do for pulpit profanity what <i>Don Quixote</i> had done for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> -chivalresque extravagances. It purports to be the story -of a peasant-boy, Gerundio, with a natural faculty for -clap-trap, which leads him to take orders, and gains for -him no small consideration. A passage from the sermon -which decided Gerundio's childish vocation may be -quoted as typical:—"Fire, fire, fire! the house is a-flame! -<i>Domus mea, domus orationis vocabitur</i>. Now, sacristan, -peal those resounding bells: <i>in cymbalis bene sonantibus</i>. -That's the style: as the judicious Picinelus observed, a -death-knell and a fire-tocsin are just the same. <i>Lazarus -amicus noster dormit</i>. Water, sirs, water! the earth is -consumed—<i>quis dabit capiti meo aquam</i>.... Stay! what -do I behold? Christians, alas! the souls of the faithful -are a-fire!—<i>fidelium animæ</i>. Molten pitch feeds the -hungry flames like tinder: <i>requiescat in pace, id est, in -pice</i>, as Vetablus puts it. How God's fire devours! <i>ignis -a Deo illatus</i>. Tidings of great joy! the Virgin of Mount -Carmel descends to save those who wore her holy -scapular: <i>scapulis suis</i>. Christ says: 'Help in the -King's name!' The Virgin pronounceth: 'Grace be -with me!' <i>Ave Maria.</i>" And so forth at much length.</p> - -<p>Isla fails in his attempt to solder fast impossibilities, to -amalgamate rhetorical doctrine with farcical burlesque; -nor has his book the saving quality of style. Still, though -it be too long drawn out, it abounds with an emphatic, -violent humour which is almost irresistible at a first -reading. The Second Part, published in 1770, is a work -of supererogation. The First caused a furious controversy -in which the regulars combined to throw mud at -the Jesuits with such effect that, in 1760, the Holy Office -intervened, confiscated the volume, and forbade all argument -for or against it. Ridicule, however, did its work -in surreptitious copies; so that when the author was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> -expelled from Spain with the rest of his order in 1765, -Fray Gerundio and his like were reformed characters. -In 1787 Isla translated <i>Gil Blas</i>, under the impression -that he was "restoring the book to its native land." The -suggestion that Le Sage merely plagiarised a Spanish -original is due in the first place to Voltaire, who -made it, for spiteful reasons of his own, in the famous -<i>Siècle de Louis XIV.</i> (1751). As some fifteen or twenty -episodes are unquestionably borrowed from Espinel and -others, it was not unnatural that Spaniards should (rather -late in the day) take Voltaire at his word; none the less, -the character of Gil Blas himself is as purely French as -may be, and Le Sage vindicates his originality by his -distinguished treatment of borrowed matter. Isla's version -is a sound, if unnecessary, piece of work, spoiled by -the inclusion of a worthless sequel due to the Italian, -Giulio Monti.</p> - -<p>The action of French tradition is visible in <span class="smcap">Nicolás -Fernández de Moratín</span> (1737-80), whose <i>Hormesinda</i> -(1770), a dramatic exercise in Racine's manner, too highly -rated by literary friends, was condemned by the public. -His prose dissertations consist of invectives against Lope -and Calderón, and of eulogies on Luzán's cold verse. -These are all forgotten, and Moratín, who remained a -good patriot, despite his efforts to Gallicise himself, survives -at his best in his brilliant panegyric on bull-fighting—the -<i>Fiesta de Toros en Madrid</i>—whose spirited <i>quintillas</i>, -modelled after Lope's example, are in every -Spaniard's memory.</p> - -<p>Moratín's friend, <span class="smcap">José de Cadalso y Vázquez</span> (1741-1782), -a colonel in the Bourbon Regiment, after passing -most of his youth in Paris, travelled through England, -Germany, and Italy, returning as free from national<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> -prejudices as a young man can hope to be. A certain -elevation of character and personal charm made him a -force among his intimates, and even impressed strangers; -as we may judge by the fact that, when he was killed -at the siege of Gibraltar, the English army wore -mourning for him. His more catholic taste avoided -the exaggerations of Nasarre and Moratín; he found -praise for the national theatre, and many of his verses -imply close study of Villegas and Quevedo. Even so, -his attachment to the old school was purely theoretical. -His knowledge of English led him to translate in verse—as -Luzán had already translated in prose—passages from -<i>Paradise Lost</i>; his sepulchral <i>Noches Lúgubres</i>, written -upon the death of his mistress, the actress María Ignacia -Ibáñez, are plainly inspired by Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i>; -his <i>Cartas Marruecas</i> derive from the <i>Lettres Persanes</i>; -his tragedy, <i>Don Sancho García</i>, an attempt to put in -practice the canons of the French drama, transplants -to Spain the rhymed couplets of the Parisian stage. -The best example of Cadalso's cultivated talent is his -poem entitled <i>Eruditos á la Violeta</i>, wherein he satirises -pretentious scholarship with a light, firm touch. In -curious contrast with Cadalso's <i>Don Sancho García</i> is the -<i>Raquel</i> (1778) of his friend <span class="smcap">Vicente Antonio García -De la Huerta y Muñoz</span> (1734-87), whose troubles -would seem to have affected his brain. Though Huerta -brands Corneille and Racine as a pair of lunatics, -he is a strait observer of the sacred "unities": in all -other respects—in theme, monarchical sentiment, sonority -of versification—<i>Raquel</i> is a return upon the ancient -classic models. Its disfavour among foreign critics is -inexplicable, for no contemporary drama equals it in -national savour. Huerta's good intention exceeds his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> -performance in the <i>Theatro Hespañol</i>, a collection (in -seventeen volumes) of national plays, arranged without -much taste or knowledge.</p> - -<p>This involved him in a bitter controversy, which probably -shortened his life. Prominent among his enemies -was the Basque, <span class="smcap">Félix María de Samaniego</span> (1745-1801), -whose early education was entirely French, and who -regarded Lope much as Voltaire regarded Shakespeare. -Though Huerta's intemperance lost him his cause, Samaniego's -real triumph was in another field than that of -controversy. His <i>Fábulas</i> (1781-94), mostly imitations -or renderings of Phædrus, La Fontaine, and Gay, are -almost the best in their kind—simple, clear, and forcible. -A year earlier than Samaniego, the Jesuit Lasala, -of Bologna, had translated the fables of Lukmān al-Hakīm -into Latin, and, in 1784, Miguel García Asensio -published a Castilian version. It does not appear that -Samaniego knew anything of Lasala, nor was he disturbed -by García Asensio's translation. Before the latter -was in print, he was annoyed at finding himself rivalled by -<span class="smcap">Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa</span> (1750-91), who had begun -his career as a prose translator of Molière and Voltaire, -and had charmed—or at least had drawn effusive compliments -from—Metastasio with a frigid poem, <i>La Música</i> -(1780). In the following year Iriarte published his -<i>Fábulas literarias</i>, putting the versified apologue to doctrinal -uses, censuring literary faults, and expounding -what he held to be true doctrine. He took most pride -in his plays, <i>El Señorito mimado</i> and <i>La Señorita mal -criada</i>; yet the Spoiled Young Gentleman and the Ill-bred -Young Lady are forgotten—somewhat unjustly—by -all but students, while the wit and polish of the fables have -earned their author an excessive fame. Iriarte was, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> -best sense, an "elegant" writer. Unluckily for himself -and us, much of his short life was, after the eighteenth-century -fashion, wasted in polemics with able, learned -ruffians, of whom Juan Pablo Forner (1756-97) is the -most extreme type. Forner's versified attack on Iriarte, -<i>El Asno erudito</i>, is one of the most ferocious libels ever -printed. Literary men the world over are famous for -their manners: Spain is in this respect no better than -her neighbours, and the abusive personalities which form -a great part of her literary history during the last century -are now the driest, most vacant chaff imaginable.</p> - -<p>In pleasing contrast with these irritable mediocrities is -the figure of <span class="smcap">Gaspar Melchor de Jove-Llanos</span> (1744-1811), -the most eminent Spaniard of his age. Educated -for the Church, Jove-Llanos turned to law, was appointed -magistrate at Seville in his twenty-fourth year, was transferred -to Madrid in 1778, became a member of the Council -of Orders in 1780, was exiled to Asturias on the fall of -Cabarrús in 1790, and seven years later was appointed -Minister of Justice. The incarnation of all that was best -in the liberalism of his time, he was equally odious to reactionaries -and revolutionists. A stern moralist, he strove -to end the intrigue between the Queen and the notorious -Godoy, Prince of the Peace, and at the latter's instance -was dismissed from office in 1798. He passed the years -1801-8 a prisoner in the Balearic Islands, returning to -find Spain under the heel of France. His prose writings, -political, economic, and didactic, do not concern us here, -though their worth is admitted by good judges. Jove-Llanos -is most interesting because of his own poetic -achievement, and because of his influence on the group -of Salamancan poets. His play, <i>El Delincuente Honrado</i> -(1774), is a doctrinaire exercise in the manner of Diderot's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> -<i>Fils Naturel</i>; it shows considerable knowledge of dramatic -effect, and its sentimental, sincere philanthropy persuaded -audiences in and out of Spain to accept Jove-Llanos for -a dramatist. At most he is a clever playwright. Yet, -though not an artist in either prose or verse, though far -from irreproachable in diction, he occasionally utters a -pure poetic note, keen and vibrating in satire, noble and -austere in that <i>Epistle to the Duque de Veragua</i>, which, by -common consent, best reflects the tranquil dignity of his -temperament.</p> - -<p>Jove-Llanos' official position, his high ideals, his knowledge, -discernment, and wise counsel were placed at the -service of <span class="smcap">Juan Meléndez Valdés</span> (1754-1817), the chief -poet of the Salamancan school, who came under his influence -in or about 1777. Jove-Llanos succeeded by sheer -force of character: Meléndez was a weather-cock at the -mercy of every breeze. A writer of erotic verses, he -thought of taking orders; a pastoral poet, he turned to -philosophy by Jove-Llanos' advice; unfortunate in his -marriage, discontented with his professorship at Salamanca, -he dabbled in politics, becoming, through his -friend's patronage, a government official: and when Jove-Llanos -fell, Meléndez fell with him. It is hard to decide -whether Meléndez was a rogue or a weakling. Upon -the French invasion, he began by writing verses calling -his people to arms, and ended by taking office under -the foreign government. He fawned upon Joseph Bonaparte, -whom he vowed "to love each day," and he hailed -the restoration of the Spanish with patriotic enthusiasm. -Finally, the dishonoured man fled for very shame and -safety. Loving iniquity and hating justice, he died in -exile at Montpellier.</p> - -<p>He typifies the fluctuations of his time. His natural<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> -bent was towards pastoralism, as his early poems, -modelled on Garcilaso and on Torre, remain to prove; -he took to liberalism at Jove-Llanos' suggestion, as he -would have taken to absolutism had that been the craze -of the moment; he read Locke, Young, Turgot, and -Condorcet at the instance of his friends. "<i>Obra soy tuya</i>" -("I am thy handiwork"), he writes to Jove-Llanos. He -was ever the handiwork of the last comer: a shadow of -insincerity, of pose, is over all his verse. Yet, like his -countryman Lucan, Meléndez demonstrates the truth -that a worthless creature may be, within limits, a genuine -poet. He has neither morals nor ideas; he has fancy, -ductility, clearness, music, charm, and a picturesque -vision of natural detail that have no counterpart in his -period. Compared with his brethren of the Salamancan -school—with Diego Tadeo González (1733-94), with -José Iglesias de la Casa (1753-91), even with Nicasio -Álvarez de Cienfuegos (1764-1809)—Meléndez appears -a veritable giant. He was not quite that any more than -they were pigmies; but he had a spark of genius, while -their faculty was no more than talent.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> - -<p>His one distinct failure was when he ventured on the -boards with his <i>Wedding Feast of Camacho</i>, founded on -Cervantes' famous story, though even here the pastoral -passages are pleasing, if inappropriate. It is to his credit -that his theme is national, while his general dramatic sympathies -were, like those of his associates, French. Luzán -and his followers found it easier to condemn the ancient -masterpieces than to write masterpieces of their own. -Their function was negative, destructive; yet when the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>prohibition of <i>autos</i> was procured in 1765 by José -Clavijo y Fajardo (1730-1806)—whose adventure with -Louise Caron, Beaumarchais' sister, gave Goethe a subject—they -hoped to force a hearing for themselves. -They overlooked the fact that there already existed a -national dramatist named <span class="smcap">Ramón de la Cruz y Cano</span> -(1731-? 95), who had the merit of inventing a new -<i>genre</i>, which, being racy of the soil, was to the popular -taste. Convention had settled it that tragedies should -present the misfortunes of emperors and dukes; that -comedies should deal with the middle class, their sentimentalities -and foibles. Cruz, a government clerk, with -sufficient leisure to compose three hundred odd plays, -became in some sort the dramatist of the needy, the -disinherited, the have-nots of the street. He might -very well sympathise with them, for he was always -pinched for money, and died so destitute that his -widow had not wherewith to bury him. Beginning, -like the rest of the world, with French imitations and -renderings, he turned to representing the life about him -in short farcical pieces called <i>sainetes</i>—a perfect development -of the old <i>pasos</i>. In the prologue to the ten-volume -edition of his <i>sainetes</i> (1786-91), Cruz proclaims his own -merit in a just and striking phrase—"I write, and truth -dictates to me." His gaiety, his picaresque enjoyment, -his exuberant humour, his jokes and puns and quips, -lend an extraordinary vivacity to his presentation of the -most trifling incidents. He might have been—as he -began by being—a pompous prig and bore, preaching -high doctrine, and uttering the platitudes, which alone -were thought worthy of the sock and buskin. He chose -the better part in rendering what he knew and understood -and saw, in amusing his public for thirty years,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> -and in bequeathing a thousand occasions of laughter -to the world. He wrote with a reckless, contagious -humour, with a comic <i>brio</i> which anticipates Labiche; -and, unambitious and light-hearted as Cruz was, we may -learn more of contemporary life from <i>El Prado por la -Noche</i> and <i>Las Tertulias de Madrid</i> than from a mountain -of serious records and chronicles.</p> - -<p>In the following generation <span class="smcap">Leandro Fernández de -Moratín</span> (1760-1828) won deserved repute as a playwright. -His father, the author of <i>Hormesinda</i>, made a -jeweller's apprentice of the boy who, in 1779 and 1782, -won two <i>accesits</i> from the Academy. He thus attracted -the notice of Jove-Llanos, who secured his appointment -as Secretary to the Paris Embassy in 1787. His stay in -France, followed by later travels through England, the -Low Countries, Germany, and Italy, completed his education, -and obtained for him the post of official translator. -His exercises in verse are more admirable than his prose -version of <i>Hamlet</i>, which offended his academic theories -in every scene. Molière, who was his ideal, has no more -faithful follower than the younger Moratín. His translations -of <i>L'École des Maris</i> and <i>Le Médecin malgré lui</i> -belong to his later years; but his theatre, including -those most striking pieces <i>El Sí de las Niñas</i> (The -Maids' Consent) and <i>La Mojigata</i> (The Hypocritical -Woman), reflects the master's humour and observation. -The latter comedy (1804) brought him into -trouble with the Inquisition; the former (1806) established -his fame by its character-drawing, its graceful -ingenuity, and witty dialogue. His fortunes, which -seemed assured, were wrecked by the French war. -Moratín was always timid, even in literary combats: he -now proved himself that very rare thing among Spaniards—a physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> -coward. He neither dared declare for his -country nor against it, and went into hiding at Vitoria. -He finally accepted the post of Royal Librarian to -Joseph Bonaparte, and when the crash came he decamped -to Peñiscola. These events turned his brain. -All efforts to help him (and they were many) proved -useless. He wandered as far as Italy to escape imaginary -assassins, and finally settled in Bordeaux, where -he believed himself safe from the conspirators. <i>El Sí -de las Niñas</i> is an excellent piece among the best, and -is sufficient to persuade the most difficult reader that -Leandro Moratín was one of nature's wasted forces. -He must have won distinction in any company: in this -dreary period he achieves real eminence.</p> - -<p>No prose-writer of the time rises to Isla's level. His -brother Jesuit, Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735-1809), -is credited by Professor Max Müller with "one of the -most brilliant discoveries in the history of the science -of language," and may be held for the father of comparative -philology; but his specimens and notices of -three hundred tongues, his grammars of forty languages, -his classic <i>Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas</i> -(1800-5) appeal more to the specialist than to the lover -of literature. Yet in his own department there is -scarcely a more splendid name.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_29_29">[29]</a> For two singularly acute critical studies by M. E. Mérimée on Jove-Llanos -and Meléndez Valdés, see the <i>Revue hispanique</i> (Paris, 1894). vol. i. pp. 34-68, -and pp. 217-235.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XII -<br /> -<small>THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</small></h2> - - -<p>Intellectual interaction between Spain and France is -an inevitable outcome of geographical position. To the -one or to the other must belong the headship of the Latin -races; for Portugal is, so to say, but a prolongation of -Galicia, while the unity of Italy dates from yesterday. -This hegemony was long contested. During a century -and a half, fortune declared for Spain: the balance is now -redressed in France's favour. The War of the Succession, -the invasion of 1808, the expedition of 1823, the contrivance -of the Spanish marriages show that Louis XIV., -Napoleon I., Charles X., and Louis-Philippe dared risk -their kingdoms rather than loosen their grip on Spain. -More recent examples are not lacking. The primary -occasion of the Franco-German War in 1870-71 was the -proposal to place a Hohenzollern on the Spanish throne, -and the Parisian outburst against "Alfonso the Uhlan" -was an expression of resentment against a Spanish King -who chafed under French tutelage. Since there is no -ground for believing that France will renounce a traditional -diplomacy maintained, under all forms of government, -for over two centuries, it is not rash to assume -that in the future, as in the past, intellectual development -will tend to coincide with political influence. French -literary fashions affect all Europe more or less: they -affect Spain more.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is a striking fact that the great national poet of the -War of Independence should be indisputably French in -all but patriotic sentiment. <span class="smcap">Manuel José Quintana</span> -(1772-1857) was an offshoot of the Salamancan school, -a friend of Jove-Llanos and of Meléndez Valdés, a follower -of Raynal and Turgot and Condorcet, a "philosopher" -of the eighteenth-century model. Too much -stress has, perhaps, been laid on his French constructions, -his acceptance of neologisms: a more radical fault -is his incapacity for ideas. Had he died at forty his -fame would be even greater than it is; for in his last -years he did nothing but repeat the echoes of his youth. -At eighty he was still perorating on the rights of man, as -though the world were a huge Jacobin Convention, as -though he had learned and forgotten nothing during -half a century He died, as he had lived, convinced -that a few changes of political machinery would ensure -a perpetual Golden Age. It is not for his <i>Duque de -Viseo</i>, a tragedy based on M. G. Lewis's <i>Castle Spectre</i>, -nor by his <i>Ode to Juan de Padilla</i>, that Quintana is remembered. -The partisan of French ideas lives by his -<i>Call to Arms against the French</i>, by his patriotic campaign -against the invaders, by his prose biographies of -the Cid, the Great Captain, Pizarro, and other Spaniards -of the ancient time. We might suspect, if we did not -know, Quintana's habit of writing his first rough drafts -in prose, and of translating these into verse. Though -he proclaimed himself a pupil of Meléndez, nature and -love are not his true themes, and his versification is -curiously unequal. Patriotism, politics, philanthropy -are his inspirations, and these find utterance in the lofty -rhetoric of such pieces as his <i>Ode to Guzmán the Good</i> -and the <i>Ode on the Invention of Printing</i>. Unequal, unrestrained,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> -never exquisite, never completely admirable -for more than a few lines at a time, Quintana's passionate -pride of patriotism, his virile temperament, his -individual gift of martial music have enabled him to -express with unsurpassed fidelity one very conspicuous -aspect of his people's genius.</p> - -<p>Another patriotic singer is the priest, <span class="smcap">Juan Nicasio -Gallego</span> (1777-1853), who, like many political liberals, -was so staunchly conservative in literature that he condemned -<i>Notre Dame de Paris</i> in the very spirit of an -alarmed Academician. Slight as is the bulk of his writings, -Gallego's high place is ensured by his combination -of extreme finish with extreme sincerity. His elegy <i>On -the Death of the Duquesa de Frias</i> is tremulous with the -accent of profound emotion; but he is even better known -by <i>El Dos de Mayo</i>, which celebrates the historic rising -of the second of May, when the artillerymen, Jacinto -Ruiz, Luis Daoiz, and Pedro Velarte, by their refusal -to surrender their three guns and ten cartridges to the -French army, gave the signal for the general rising of -the Spanish nation. His ode <i>Á la defensa de Buenos Aires</i>, -against the English, is no less distinguished for its heroic -spirit. There is a touch of irony in the fact that Gallego -should be best represented by his denunciation of the -French, whom he adored, and by his denunciation of the -British, who were to assist in freeing his country.</p> - -<p>Time has misused the work of <span class="smcap">Francisco Martínez -de la Rosa</span> (1788-1862) who at one time was held by -Europe as the literary representative of Spain. No small -part of his fame was due to his prominent position in -Spanish politics; but the disdainful neglect which has -overtaken him is altogether unmerited. Not being an -original genius, his lyrics are but variations of earlier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> -melodies: thus the <i>Ausencia de la patria</i> is a metrical -exercise in Jorge Manrique's manner; the song which -commemorates the defence of Zaragoza is inspired by -Quintana; the elegy <i>On the Death of the Duquesa de Frias</i>, -far short of Gallego's in pathos and dignity, is redolent -of Meléndez. His novel, <i>Doña Isabel de Solís</i>, is an -artless imitation of Sir Walter Scott; nor are his declamatory -tragedies, <i>La Viuda de Padilla</i> and <i>Moraima</i>, -of perdurable value any more than his Moratinian plays, -such as <i>Los Celos Infundados</i>. Martínez de la Rosa's -exile passed in Paris led him to write the two pieces -by which he is remembered: his <i>Conjuración de Venecia</i> -(1834), and his <i>Aben-Humeya</i> (the latter first written -in French, and first played at the Porte Saint-Martin -in 1830) denote the earliest entry into Spain of French -romanticism, and are therefore of real historic importance. -Fate was rarely more freakish than in placing -this modest, timorous man at the head of a new literary -movement. Still stranger it is that his two late -romantic experiments should be the best of his manifold -work.</p> - -<p>But he was not fitted to maintain the leadership which -circumstances had allotted to him, and romanticism found -a more popular exponent in Ángel de Saavedra, <span class="smcap">Duque -de Rivas</span> (1791-1865), the very type of the radical noble. -His exile in France and in England converted him from -a follower of Meléndez and Quintana to a sectary of -Chateaubriand and Byron. His first essays in the new -vein were an admirable lyric, <i>Al faro de Malta</i>, and <i>El -Moro expósito</i>, a narrative poem undertaken by the advice -of John Hookham Frere. Brilliant passages of poetic diction, -the semi-epical presentation of picturesque national -legends, are Rivas' contribution to the new school. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> -went still further in his famous play, <i>Don Álvaro</i> (1835), -an event in the history of the modern Spanish drama -corresponding to the production of <i>Hernani</i> at the -Théâtre Français. The characters of Álvaro, of Leonor, -and of her brother Alfonso Vargas are, if not inhuman, all -but titanic, and the speeches are of such magniloquence -as man never spoke. But for the Spaniards of the third -decade, Rivas was the standard-bearer of revolt, and -<i>Don Álvaro</i>, by its contempt for the unities, by its -alternation of prose with lyrism, by its amalgam of the -grandiose, the comic, the sublime, and the horrible, enchanted -a generation of Spanish playgoers surfeited -with the academic drama.</p> - -<p>To English readers of Mr. Gladstone's essay, the Canon -of Seville, <span class="smcap">José María Blanco</span> (1775-1841), is familiar by -the alias of Blanco White. It were irrelevant to record -here the lamentable story of Blanco's private life, or to -follow his religious transformations from Catholicism to -Unitarianism. A sufficient idea of his poetic gifts is -afforded by an English quatorzain which has found -favour with many critics:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Mysterious night! When our first parent knew</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>This glorious canopy of light and blue?</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>And lo! Creation widened in man's view.</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,</i></div> -<div class="verse i4"><i>That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind?</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?</i></div> -<div class="verse i2"><i>If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span></p> - -<p>This is as characteristic as his <i>Oda á Carlos III.</i> or the -remorseful Castilian lines on <i>Resigned Desire</i>, penned -within a year of his death. A very similar talent was -that of Blanco's friend, <span class="smcap">Alberto Lista</span> (1775-1848), -also a Canon of Seville Cathedral, a most accomplished -singer, whose golden purity of tone compensates for a -deficient volume of voice and an affected method. But, -save for such a fragment of impassioned, plangent -melody as the poem <i>Á la Muerte de Jesús</i>, Lista is less -known as a poet than as a teacher of remarkable influence. -His <i>Lecciones de Literatura Española</i> did for -Spain what Lamb's <i>Specimens of English Dramatic Poets</i> -did for England, and his personal authority over some -of the best minds of his age was almost as complete in -scope as it was gentle in exercise and excellent in effect.</p> - -<p>The most famous of his pupils was <span class="smcap">José de Espronceda</span> -(1810-42), who came under Lista at the Colegio -de San Mateo, in Madrid, where the boy, who was in -perpetual scrapes through idleness and general bad conduct, -attracted the rector's notice by his extraordinary -poetic precocity. Through good and evil report Lista -held by Espronceda to the last, and was perhaps the -one person who ever persuaded him from a rash purpose. -At fourteen Espronceda joined a secret society -called <i>Los Numantinos</i>, which was supposed to work for -liberty, equality, and the rest. The young Numantine -was deported to a monastery in Guadalajara, where, on -the advice of Lista (who himself contributed some forty -octaves), he began his epical essay, <i>El Pelayo</i>. Like -most other boys who have begun epics, Espronceda left -his unfinished, and, though the stanzas that remain are -of a fine but unequal quality, they in no way foreshadow -the chief of the romantic school.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span></p> - -<p>Returning to Madrid, Espronceda was soon concerned -in more conspiracies, and escaped to Gibraltar, -whence he passed to Lisbon. A suggestion of the -Byronic pose is found in the story (of his own telling) -that, before landing, he threw away his last two <i>pesetas</i>, -"not wishing to enter so great a town with so little -money." In Lisbon he met with that Teresa who figures -so prominently in his life; but the Government was -once more on his track, and he fled to London, where -Byron's poems came upon him with the force of a -revelation. In England he found Teresa, now married, -and eloped with her to Paris, where, on the three -"glorious days" of July 1830, he fought behind the -barricades. The overthrow of Charles X. put such heart -into the Spanish <i>emigrados</i> that, under the leadership -of the once famous Chapalangarra—Joaquín de Pablo—they -determined to raise all Spain against the monarchy. -The attempt failed, Chapalangarra was killed in Navarre, -and Espronceda did not return to Spain till the amnesty -of 1833. He obtained a commission in the royal bodyguard, -and seemed on the road to fortune, when he was -cashiered because of certain verses read by him at a -political banquet. He turned to journalism, incited the -people to insurrection by articles and speeches, held the -streets against the regular army in 1835-36, shared in the -liberal triumph of 1840, and, on the morrow of the successful -revolution which he had organised, pronounced -in favour of a republic. He was appointed Secretary -to the Embassy at the Hague in 1841, returning to -Spain shortly afterwards on his election as deputy for -Almería. He died after four days of illness on May 23, -1842, in his thirty-third year, exhausted by his stormy -life. A most formidable journalist, a demagogue of consummate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> -address, a man-at-arms who had rather fight -than not, Espronceda might have cut out for himself a -new career in politics—or might have died upon the -scaffold or at the barricades. But, so far as concerns -poetry, his work was done: an aged Espronceda is -as inconceivable as an elderly Byron, a venerable -Shelley.</p> - -<p>Byron was the paramount influence of Espronceda's -life and works. The Conde de Toreno, a caustic politician -and man of letters, who was once asked if he had -read Espronceda, replied: "Not much; but then I have -read all Byron." The taunt earned Toreno—"insolent -fool with heart of slime"—a terrific invective in the first -canto of <i>El Diablo Mundo</i>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse i0">"<i>Al necio audaz de corazón de cieno,</i></div> -<div class="verse i0"><i>Á quien llaman el Conde de Toreno.</i>"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The gibe was ill-natured, but Espronceda's resentment -goes to show that he felt its plausibility. If Toreno meant -that Espronceda, like Heine, Musset, Leopardi, and Pushkin, -took Byron for a model, he spoke the humble truth. -Like Byron, Espronceda became the centre of a legend, -and—so to say—he made up for the part. He advertised -his criminal repute with manifest gusto, and gave the -world his own portrait in the shape of pale, gloomy, -splendid heroes. Don Félix de Montemar, in <i>El Estudiante -de Salamanca</i>, is Don Juan Tenorio in a new -environment—"fierce, insolent, irreligious, gallant, -haughty, quarrelsome, insult in his glance, irony on his -lips, fearing naught, trusting solely to his sword and -courage." Again, in the famous declamatory address -<i>To Jarifa</i>, there is the same disillusioned view of life, the -same lust for impossible pleasures, the same picturesque<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> -mingling of misanthropy and aspiration. Once more, -the Fabio of the fragmentary <i>Diablo Mundo</i> is replenished -with the Byronic spirit of defiant pessimism, the -Byronic intention of epical mockery. And so throughout -all his pieces the protagonist is always, and in all -essentials, José de Espronceda.</p> - -<p>Whether any writer—or, at all events, any but the -very greatest—has ever succeeded completely in shedding -his own personality is doubtful. Espronceda, at -least, never attempted it, and consequently his dramatic -pieces—<i>Doña Blanca de Borbón</i>, for example—were foredoomed -to fail. But this very force of temperament, -this very element of artistic egotism, lends life and -colour to his songs. The <i>Diablo Mundo</i>, the <i>Estudiante -de Salamanca</i>, ostensibly formed upon the models of -Goethe, and Byron, and Tirso de Molina, are utterances -of individual impressions, detached lyrics held together -by the merest thread. Scarcely a typical Spaniard in -life or in art, Espronceda is, beyond all question, the -most distinguished Spanish lyrical poet of the century. -His abandonment, his attitude of revolt, his love of -love and licence—one might even say his turn for -debauchery and anarchy—are the notes of an epoch -rather than the characteristics of a country; and, in -so much, he is cosmopolitan rather than national. -But the merciless observation of <i>El Verdugo</i> (The -Executioner), the idealised conception of Elvira in <i>El -Estudiante de Salamanca</i>, are strictly representative of -Quevedo's and of Calderón's tradition; while his artificial -but sympathetic rhetoric, his resonant music, his -brilliant imagery, his uncalculating vehemence, bear -upon them the stamp of all his race's faults and virtues. -In this sense he speaks for Spain, and Spain repays him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> -by ranking him as the most inspired, if the most unequal, -of her modern singers.</p> - -<p>His contemporary, the Catalan, <span class="smcap">Manuel de Cabanyes</span> -(1808-1833), died too young to reveal the full measure of -his powers, and his <i>Preludios de mi lira</i> (1833), though -warmly praised by Torres Amat, Joaquín Roca y Cornet, -and other critics of insight, can scarcely be said to have -won appreciation. Cabanyes is essentially a poet's poet, -inspired mainly by Luis de León. His felicities are those -of the accomplished student, the expert in technicalities, -the almost impeccable artist whose hendecasyllabics, <i>Á -Cintio</i>, rival those of Leopardi in their perfect form and -intense pessimism; but as his life was too brief, so his -production is too frugal and too exquisite for the general, -and he is rated by his promise rather than by his actual -achievement. Milá y Fontanals and Sr. Menéndez y -Pelayo have striven to spread Cabanyes' good report, -and they have so far succeeded that his genius is now -admitted on all hands; but his chill perfection makes no -appeal to the mass of his countrymen.</p> - -<p>Espronceda's direct successor was <span class="smcap">José Zorrilla</span> -(1817-1893), whose life's story may be read in his own -<i>Recuerdos del tiempo viejo</i> (Old-time Memories). It was -his misfortune to be concerned in politics, for which he -was unfitted, and to be pinched by continuous poverty, -which drove him in 1855 to seek his fortune in Mexico, -whence he returned empty-handed in 1866. His closing -years were somewhat happier, inasmuch as a pension of -30,000 <i>reales</i>, obtained at last by strenuous parliamentary -effort, freed him from the pressure of actual want. -It may be that it came too late, and that Zorrilla's work -suffers from his straitened circumstances; but this is difficult -to believe. He might have produced less, might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> -escaped the hopeless hack-work to which he was compelled; -but a finished artist he could never have become, -for, by instinct as by preference, he was an improvisatore. -The tale that (like Arthur Pendennis) he wrote verses to -fit engravings is possibly an invention; but the inventor -at least knew his man, for nothing is more intrinsically -probable.</p> - -<p>His carelessness, his haste, his defective execution are -superficial faults which must always injure Zorrilla in -the esteem of foreign critics; yet it is certain that the -charm which he has exercised over three generations of -Spaniards, and which seems likely to endure, implies the -possession of considerable powers. And Zorrilla had -three essential qualities in no common degree: national -spirit, dramatic insight, and lyrical spontaneity. He is -an inferior Sir Walter, with an added knowledge of the -theatre, to which Scott made no pretence. His <i>Leyenda -de Alhamar</i>, his <i>Granada</i>, his <i>Leyenda del Cid</i> were popular -for the same reason that <i>Marmion</i> and the <i>Lady of the -Lake</i> were popular: for their revival of national legends -in a form both simple and picturesque. The fate that -overcame Sir Walter's poems seems to threaten Zorrilla's. -Both are read for the sake of the subject, for the brilliant -colouring of episodes, more than for the beauty of treatment, -construction, and form; yet, as Sir Walter survives -in his novels, Zorrilla will endure in such of his -plays as <i>Don Juan Tenorio</i>, in <i>El Zapatero y el Rey</i>, and -in <i>Traidor, inconfeso, y mártir</i>. His selection of native -themes, his vigorous appeal to those primitive sentiments -which are at least as strong in Spain as elsewhere—courage, -patriotism, religion—have ensured him a vogue -so wide and lasting that it almost approaches immortality. -In the study Zorrilla's slapdash methods are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> -often wearisome; on the stage his impetuousness, his -geniality, his broad effects, and his natural lyrism make -him a veritable force. Two of Zorrilla's rivals among -contemporary dramatists may be mentioned: <span class="smcap">Antonio -García Gutiérrez</span> (1813-1884), the author of <i>El Trovador</i>, -and <span class="smcap">Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch</span> (1806-1880), -whose <i>Amantes de Teruel</i> broke the hearts of sentimental -ladies in the forties. Both the <i>Trovador</i> and -the <i>Amantes</i> are still reproduced, still read, and still -praised by critics who enjoy the pleasures of memory -and association; but a detached foreigner, though he -take his life in his hand when he ventures on the confession, -is inclined to associate García Gutiérrez and -Hartzenbusch with Sheridan Knowles and Lytton.</p> - -<p>A much superior talent is that of the ex-soldier, -<span class="smcap">Manuel Bretón de los Herreros</span> (1796-1873), whose -humour and fancy are his own, while his system is that -of the younger Moratín. His <i>Escuela del Matrimonio</i> is -the most ambitious, as it is the best, of those innumerable -pieces in which he aims at presenting a picture of -average society, relieved by alternate touches of ironic -and didactic purpose. Bretón de los Herreros wrote far -too much, and weakens his effects by the obtrusion of -a flagrant moral; but even if we convict him as a caricaturist -of obvious Philistinism, there is abundant recompense -in the jovial wit and graceful versification of -his quips. To him succeeds Tomás Rodríguez Rubí -(1817-1890), who aimed at amusing a facile public in -such a trifle as <i>El Tejado de Vidrio</i> (The Glass Roof), or -at satirising political and social intriguers in <i>La Rueda -de Fortuna</i> (Fortune's Wheel).</p> - -<p>A Cuban like <span class="smcap">Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda</span> (1816-1873), -who spent most of her life in Spain, may for our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> -purposes be accounted a Spanish writer. The proverbial -gallantry of the nation and the sex of the writer account -for her vogue and her repute. If such a novel as <i>Sab</i>, -with its protest against slavery and its idealised presentation -of subject races, be held for literature, then we must -so enlarge the scope of the word as to include <i>Uncle -Tom's Cabin</i>. Another novel, <i>Espatolino</i>, reproduces -George Sand's philippics against the injustice of social -arrangements, and re-echoes her lyrical advocacy of -freedom in the matter of marriage. The Sra. Avellaneda -is too passionate to be dexterous, and too -preoccupied to be impressive; hence her novels have -fallen out of sight. That she had real gifts of fancy and -melody is shown by her early volume of poems (1841), -and by her two plays, <i>Alfonso Munio</i> and <i>Baltasar</i>; yet, -on the boards as in her stories, she is inopportune, -or, in plainer words, is a gifted imitator, following the -changes of popular taste with some hesitation, though -with a gracefulness not devoid of charm. With her may -be mentioned Carolina Coronado (b. 1823), a refined -poetess with mystic tendencies, whose vogue has so -diminished that to the most of Spaniards she is scarcely -more than an agreeable reminiscence.</p> - -<p>It is possible that the adroit politician, <span class="smcap">Adelardo López -de Ayala</span> (1828-1879), who passed from one party to -another, and served a monarch or a republic with equal -suppleness, might have won enduring fame as a dramatist -and poet had he been less concerned with doctrines -and theses. He was so intent on persuasion, so mindful of -the arts of his old trade, so anxious to catch a vote, that -he rarely troubled to draw character, contenting himself -with skilful construction of plot and arrangement of -incident. His <i>Tanto por Ciento</i> and his <i>Consuelo</i> are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> -astute harangues in favour of high public and private -morals, composed with extraordinary care and laudable -purpose. If mere cleverness, a scrupulous eye to detail, -a fine ear for sonorous verse could make a man master -of the scene, López de Ayala might stand beside the -greatest. His personages, however, are rather general -types than individual characters, and the persistent sarcasm -with which he ekes out a moral degenerates into -ponderous banter. None the less he was a force during -many years, and, though his reputation be now somewhat -tarnished, he still counts admirers among the -middle-aged.</p> - -<p>A very conspicuous figure on the Spanish scene during -the middle third of the century was <span class="smcap">Manuel Tamayo y -Baus</span> (1829-1898), who, beginning with an imitation of -Schiller in <i>Juana de Arco</i> (1847), passed under the influence -of Alfieri in <i>Virginia</i> (1853), venturing upon the -national classic drama in <i>La Locura de Amor</i> (1855), the -most notable achievement of his early period. The most -ambitious, and unquestionably the best, of his plays is -<i>Un drama nuevo</i> (1867), with which his career practically -closed. He effaced himself, was content to live on his -reputation and to yield his place as a popular favourite -to so poor a playwright as José Echegaray. Compared -with his successor, Tamayo shines as a veritable genius. -Sprung from a family of actors, he gauged the possibilities -of the theatre with greater exactness than any -rival, and by his tact he became an expert in staging a -situation. But it was not merely to inspired mechanical -dexterity that he owed the high position which was -allowed him by so shrewd a judge as Manuel de la -Revilla: to his unequalled knowledge of the scene he -joined the forces of passion and sympathy, the power of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> -dramatic creation, and a metrical ingenuity which enchanted -and bewildered those who heard and those who -read him.</p> - -<p>There is a feminine, if not a falsetto timbre in the -voice of <span class="smcap">José Selgas y Carrasco</span> (1824-1882), a writer -on the staff of the fighting journal, <i>El Padre Cobos</i>, and -a government clerk till Martínez Campos transfigured -him into a Cabinet Minister. Selgas' verse in the <i>Primavera</i> -is so charged with the conventional sentiment and -with the amiable pessimism dear to ordinary readers, -that his popularity was inevitable. Yet even Spanish -indulgence has stopped short of proclaiming him a great -poet, and now that his day has gone by, he is almost as -unjustly decried as he was formerly overpraised. Though -not a great original genius, he was an accomplished versifier -whose innocent prettiness was never banal, whose -simplicity was unaffected, whose faint music and caressing -melancholy are not lacking in individuality and -fascination.</p> - -<p>A more powerful poetic impulse moved the Sevillan, -<span class="smcap">Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer</span> (1836-1870). An orphan in -his tenth year, Bécquer was educated by his godmother, -a well-meaning woman of some position, who would -have made him her heir had he consented to follow any -regular profession or to enter a merchant's office. At -eighteen he arrived, a penniless vagabond, in Madrid, -where he underwent such extremes of hardship as helped -to shorten his days. A small official post, which saved -him from actual starvation, was at last obtained for him, -but his indiscipline soon caused him to be set adrift. -He maintained himself by translating foreign novels, -by journalistic hack-work in the columns of <i>El Contemporaneo</i> -and <i>El Museo Universal</i>, till death delivered him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span></p> - -<p>The three volumes by which he is represented are -made up of prose legends, and of poems modestly -entitled <i>Rimas</i>. Though Hoffmann is Bécquer's intellectual -ancestor in prose, the Spaniard speaks with a -personal accent in such examples of morbid fantasy as -<i>Los Ojos Verdes</i>, wherein Fernando loses life for the -sake of the green-eyed mermaiden: as the tale of Manrique's -madness in <i>El Rayo de Luna</i> (The Moonbeam), -as the rendering of Daniel's sacrilege in <i>La Rosa de -Pasión</i>. And as Hoffmann influences Bécquer's dreamy -prose, so Heine influences his <i>Rimas</i>. It is argued that, -since Bécquer knew no German, he cannot have read -Heine—an unconvincing plea, if we remember that -Byron's example was followed in every country by -poets ignorant of English. Howbeit, it is certain that -Heine has had no more brilliant follower than Bécquer, -who, however, substitutes a note of fairy mystery for -Heine's incomparable irony. His circumstances, and the -fact that he did not live to revise his work, account for -occasional inequalities of execution which mar his magical -music. To do him justice, we must read him in a few -choice pieces where his apparently simple rhythms and -suave assonantic cadences express his half-delirious visions -in terms of unsurpassable artistry. At first sight one is -deceived into thinking that the simplicity is a spontaneous -result, and there has arisen a host of imitators who have -only contrived to caricature Bécquer's defects. His merits -are as purely personal as Blake's, and the imitation of -either poet results almost inevitably in mere flatness.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>During the nineteenth century Spain has produced -no more brilliant master of prose than <span class="smcap">Mariano José -de Larra</span> (1809-1837), son of a medical officer in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> -French army. It is a curious fact that, owing to his -early education in France, Larra—one of the most -idiomatic writers—should have been almost ignorant of -Spanish till his tenth year. Destined for the law, he was -sent to Valladolid, where he got entangled in some love -affair which led him to renounce his career. He took -to literature, attempting the drama in his <i>Macías</i>, the -novel in <i>El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente</i>: in neither -was he successful. But if he could not draw character -nor narrate incident, he could observe and satirise with -amazing force and malice. Under the name of Fígaro<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> -and of Juan Pérez de Munguia he won for himself -such prominence in journalism as no Spaniard has -ever equalled. Spanish politics, the weaknesses of the -national character, are exposed in a spirit of ferocious -bitterness peculiar to the writer. His is, indeed, a depressing -performance, overcharged with misanthropy; -yet for unflinching courage, insight, and sombre humour, -Larra has no equal in modern Spanish literature, and -scarcely any superior in the past. In his twenty-eighth -year he blew out his brains in consequence of an amour -in which he was concerned, leaving a vacancy which -has never been filled by any successor. It is gloomy -work to learn that all men are scoundrels, and that all -evils are irremediable: these are the hopeless doctrines -which have brought Spain to her present pass. Yet it -is impossible to read Larra's pessimistic page without -admiration for his lucidity and power.</p> - -<p>An essayist of more patriotic tone is <span class="smcap">Serafín Estébanez -Calderón</span> (1799-1867), whose biography has -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>been elaborately written by his nephew, Antonio -Cánovas del Castillo, the late Prime Minister of Spain. -Estébanez' verses are well-nigh as forgotten as his -<i>Conquista y Pérdida de Portugal</i>, and his <i>Escenas Andaluzas</i> -(1847) have never been popular, partly through -fault of the author, who enamels his work with local -or obsolete words in the style of Wardour Street, and -who assumes a posture of superiority which irritates -more than it amuses. A record of Andalucían manners -and of fading customs, the <i>Escenas</i> has special value as -embodying the impression of an observer who valued -picturesqueness—valued it so highly, in fact, that one -is haunted (perhaps unjustly) by the suspicion that he -heightened his tones for the sake of effect. Another -series of "documents" is afforded by <span class="smcap">Ramón de Mesonero -Romanos</span> (1803-82), who is often classed as a -follower of Larra, whereas the first of his <i>Escenas Matritenses</i> -appeared before Larra's first essays. He has no -trace of Larra's energetic condensation, tending, as he -does, to a not ungraceful diffuseness; but he has bequeathed -us a living picture of the native Madrid before -it sank to being a poor, pale copy of Paris, and has -enabled us to reconstruct the social life of sixty years -since. Mesonero, who has none of Estébanez' airs and -graces, though he is no less observant, and is probably -more accurate, writes as a well-bred man speaks—simply, -naturally, directly; and those qualities are seen to most -advantage in his <i>Memorias de un Setentón</i>, which are as -interesting as the best of reminiscences can be.</p> - -<p>These records of customs and manners influenced a -writer of German origin on her father's side, Cecilia -Böhl de Faber, who was thrice married, and whom it -is convenient to call by her pseudonym, <span class="smcap">Fernán Caballero<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span></span> -(1796-1877), a village in Don Quixote's country. -Her first novel, <i>La Gaviota</i> (1848), has probably been -more read by foreigners than any Spanish book of the -century, and, with all its sensibility and moralisings, we -can scarcely grudge its vogue; for it is true to common -life as common life existed in an Andalucían village, and -its style is natural, if not distinguished. Even in <i>La -Gaviota</i> there is an air of unreality when the scene is -shifted from the country to the drawing-room, and the -suspicion that Fernán Caballero could invent without -observing deepens in presence of such a wooden lay-figure -as Sir George Percy in <i>Clemencia</i>. Her didactic bent -increased with time, so that much of her later work is -bedevilled with sermons and gospellings; yet so long -as she deals with the rustic episodes which were her -earliest memories, so long as she is content to report -and to describe, she produces a delightful series of pictures, -touched in with an almost irreproachable refinement. -She is not far enough from us to be a classic; -but she is sufficiently removed to be old-fashioned, and -she suffers accordingly. Still it is safe to prophesy that -<i>La Gaviota</i> will survive most younger rivals.</p> - -<p>In all likelihood <span class="smcap">Pedro Antonio de Alarcón</span> (1833-1891), -who, like most literary Spaniards, injured his work -by meddling in politics, will live by his shorter, more -unambitious stories. His <i>Escándalo</i> (1875), after creating -a prodigious sensation as a defence of the Jesuits from -an old revolutionist, is already laid aside, and <i>La Pródiga</i> -is in no better case. The true Alarcón is revealed in -<i>El Sombrero de tres Picos</i>, a picture of rustic manners, -rendered with infinite enjoyment and merry humour; in -the rapid, various sketches entitled <i>Historietas Nacionales</i>; -and in that gallant, picturesque account of the Morocco<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> -campaign called the <i>Diario de un Testigo de la Guerra en -África</i>—as vivid a piece of patriotic chronicling as these -latest years have shown.</p> - -<p>Of graver prose modern Spain has little to boast. -Yet the Marqués de Valdegamas, <span class="smcap">Juan Donoso Cortés</span> -(1809-1853) has written an <i>Ensayo sobre el Catolicismo, el -Liberalismo y el Socialismo</i>, which has been read and applauded -throughout Europe. Donoso, the most intolerant -of Spaniards, overwhelms his readers with dogmatic -statement in place of reasoned exposition; but he writes -with astonishing eloquence, and with a superb conviction -of his personal infallibility that has scarcely any -match in literature. At the opposite pole is the Vich -priest, <span class="smcap">Jaime Balmes y Uspia</span> (1810-48), whose <i>Cartas -á un Escéptico</i> and <i>Criterio</i> are overshadowed by his <i>Protestantismo -comparado en el Catolicismo</i>, a performance of -striking ingenuity, among the finest in the list of modern -controversy. Donoso denounced man's reason as a gin -of the devil, as a faculty whose natural tendency is -towards error. Balmes appeals to reason at every step -of the road. With him, indeed, it is unsafe to allow -that two and two are four until it is ascertained what he -means to do with that proposition; for his subtlety is -almost uncanny, and his dexterity in using an opponent's -admission is surprising. If anything, Balmes is even too -clever, for the most simple-minded reader is driven to -ask how it is possible that any rational being can hold -the opposite view. Still, from the Catholic standpoint, -Balmes is unanswerable, and—in Spain at least—he has -never been answered, while his vogue abroad has been -very great. Setting aside its doctrinal bearing, his treatise -is a most striking example of destructive criticism and of -marshalled argument.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_30_30">[30]</a> M. Morel-Fatio points out that Fígaro, which seems so Castilian by -association, is not a Castilian name. See his <i>Études sur l'Espagne</i> (Paris, -1895), vol. i. p. 76. If it be not Catalan, if Beaumarchais invented it, it is -among the most successful of his coinage.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER XIII -<br /> -<small>CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE</small></h2> - - -<p>To write an account of contemporary literature is an -undertaking not less tempting than to write the history -of contemporary politics. Its productions are likely to -be familiar to us; its authors have probably expressed -ideas with which we are more or less in sympathy; and -in dealing with these we are free from the burdens of -authority and tradition. On the other hand, criticism of -contemporaries is so prone to be coloured by the prejudice -of sects and cliques, that the liberal historian of -the past is in danger of exhibiting himself as a blind -observer of the present, or as a ludicrous prophet of -the future. A book on current literature is often, like -Hansard, a melancholy register of mistaken forecasts. -Probably no critic of 1820 would have ventured to -place Keats among the greatest poets of the world. -But the risk of failing to recognise a Keats is, in the -nature of things, very slight; and for our present -purpose we are only concerned with those who, by -general admission, are among the living influences of -the moment, the chiefs of a generation which is now -almost middle-aged.</p> - -<p>No Spaniard would contest the title of the Asturian, -<span class="smcap">Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio</span> (b. 1817), to be -considered as the actual <i>doyen</i> of Spanish literature. He -purposed entering the Society of Jesus in his youth, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span> -turned to medicine as his true vocation, and finally gave -himself up to poetry and politics. A fierce conservative, -Campoamor has served as Governor of Alicante and -Valencia, and has combated democracy by speech and -pen; but he has never been taken seriously as a politician, -and his few philosophic essays have caused his orthodoxy -to be questioned by writers with an imperfect sense -of humour. His controversy with Valera on metaphysics -and poetry is a manifest joke to which both writers -have lent themselves with an affectation of profound -solemnity; and it may well be doubted if Campoamor's -professed convictions are more than occasions for -humoristic ingenuity.</p> - -<p>He has attempted the drama without success in such -pieces as <i>El Palacio de la Verdad</i> and in <i>El Honor</i>. So -also in the eight cantos of a grandiose poem entitled <i>El -Drama Universal</i> (1873) he has failed to impress with -his version of the posthumous loves of Honorio and -Soledad, though in the matter of technical execution -nothing finer has been accomplished in our day. His -chief distinction, according to Peninsular critics, is that -he has invented a new poetic <i>genre</i> under the names of -<i>doloras</i>, <i>humoradas</i> or <i>pequeños poemas</i> (short poems). It -is not, however, an easy matter to distinguish any one -of these from its brethren, and Campoamor's own -explanation lacks clearness when he lays it down that -a <i>dolora</i> is a dramatised <i>humorada</i>, and that a <i>pequeño -poema</i> is an amplified <i>dolora</i>. This is to define light in -terms of darkness. An acute critic, M. Peseux-Richard, -has noted that this definition is not only obscure, but -that it is an evident afterthought.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The <i>dolora</i> is the -first in order of invention, and it is also the performance -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>upon which, to judge by his <i>Poética</i>, Campoamor sets -most value. What, then, is a <i>dolora</i>? It is, in fact, a -"transcendental" fable in which men and women, their -words and acts, are made to typify eternal "verities": -a poem which aims at brevity, delicacy, pathos, and -philosophy in an ironical setting. The "transcendental" -truth to be conveyed is the supreme point: exquisiteness -of form is unimportant.</p> - -<p>M. Peseux-Richard dryly remarks that <i>humoradas</i> are -as old as anything in literature, and that Campoamor's -exploit consists in inventing the name, not the thing. -This is true; and it is none the less true that the -writing of <i>doloras</i> (and the rest), after the recipe of -the master, has become a plague of recent Spanish -literature. Fortunately Campoamor is better than his -theories, which, if he were consistent, would lead him -straight to <i>conceptismo</i>. Doubtless, at whiles, he condescends -upon the banal, mistakes sentimentalism for -sentiment, substitutes a commonplace for an aphorism, -a paradox for an epigram; doubtless, also, he is wanting -in the right national note of exaltation and rhetorical -splendour. But for all his profession of indifference to -form, he is—at his best—a most accomplished craftsman, -an admirable artist in miniature, an expert in the art of -concise expression, and, in so much, a healthy influence—though -not without a concealed germ of evil. For if in -his own hands the ingenious antithesis often reaches the -utmost point of condensation, in the hands of imitators -it is degraded to an obscure conceit, a rhymed conundrum. -His vogue has always been considerable, and he -is one of the few Spanish poets whose reputation extends -beyond the Pyrenees; still, he is not in any sense a -national poet, a characteristic product of the soil, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> -with all his distinguished scepticism, his picturesque -pessimistic pose, and his sound workmanship, he is -more likely to be remembered for a score of brilliant -apophthegms than for any essentially poetic quality.</p> - -<p>It was as a poet that <span class="smcap">Juan Valera y Alcalá Galiano</span> -(b. 1827) made his first appearance in literature in 1856. -Few in Europe have seen more aspects of life, or have -snatched more profit from their opportunities. Born at -Córdoba, educated at Málaga and Granada, Valera has -so enjoyed life from the outset that his youth is now the -subject of a legend. Passing from law to diplomacy, he -learned the world in the legations at Naples, Lisbon, Rio -Janeiro, Dresden, St. Petersburg; he helped to found -<i>El Contemporaneo</i>, once a journal of great influence; he -entered the Cortes, and became minister at Frankfort, -Washington, Brussels, and Vienna. His native subtlety, -his cosmopolitan tact, have served him no less in literature -than in affairs. To literature he has given the best that -is in him. He has protested, with the ironical humility -in which he excels, against the public neglect of his -poems; and when one reflects upon what has found -favour in this kind, the protest is half justified. Valera's -verses, falling short as they do of inspired perfection, are -wrought with curious delicacy of technique. But his -very cultivation is against him: such poems as <i>Sueños</i> or -<i>Último Adiós</i> or <i>El Fuego divino</i>, admirable as they are, -recall the work of predecessors. Memories of Luis de -León, traces of Dante and Leopardi, are encountered on -his best page; and yet he brings with him into modern -verse qualities which, in the actual stage of Spanish -literature, are of singular worth—repose and refinement -and dignity and metrical mastery.</p> - -<p>As a critic his diplomatic training has been a hindrance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> -to him. He rarely writes without establishing -some ingenious and suggestive parallel or pronouncing -some luminous judgment; but he is, so to say, in fear -of his own intelligence, and his instinctive courtesy, his -desire to please, often stay him from arriving at a clear -conclusion. His manifold interests, the incomparable -beauty of his style, his wide reading, his cold lucidity, -are an almost ideal equipment for critical work. Expert -in ingratiation as he is, his suave complaisance becomes -a formidable weapon in such a performance as the <i>Cartas -Americanas</i>, where excessive urbanity has all the effect -of commination: you set the book down with the impression -that the writers of the South American continent -have been complimented out of existence by a stately -courtier.</p> - -<p>But whatever reserves may be made in praising the -poet and the critic, Valera's triumph as a novelist is incontestable. -Mr. Gosse has so introduced him to English -readers as to make further criticism almost superfluous. -Valera, for all his polite scepticism, is a Spaniard of the -best: a mystic by intuition and inheritance, a doubter -by force of circumstances and education. He himself has -told us in the <i>Comendador Mendoza</i> how <i>Pepita Jiménez</i> -came into life as the result of much mystic reading, -which held him fascinated but not captive; and were -we to accept his humorous confession literally, we should -take it that he became a novelist by accident. It is, however, -true that when he wrote <i>Pepita Jiménez</i> he still had -much to learn in method. Writers with not a tithe of -his natural gift would have avoided his obvious faults—his -digressions, his episodes which check the current of -his story. But <i>Pepita Jiménez</i>, whatever its defects, is of -capital importance in literary history, for from its publication<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> -dates the renaissance of the Spanish novel. Here -at last was a book owing nothing to France, taking its -root in native inspiration, arabesquing the motives of -Luis de Granada, León, Santa Teresa, displaying once -more what Coventry Patmore has well described as -"that complete synthesis of gravity of matter and gaiety -of manner which is the glittering crown of art, and -which, out of Spanish literature, is to be found only -in Shakespeare, and even in him in a far less obvious -degree."</p> - -<p>And Valera has continued to progress in art. In -construction, in depth, in psychological insight, <i>Doña -Luz</i> exceeds its predecessor, as the <i>Comendador Mendoza</i> -outshines both in vigour of expression, in tragic conception, -in pathetic sincerity. <i>Las Ilusiones del Doctor -Faustino</i> has found less favour with critics and with -general readers, perhaps because its humour is too refined, -its observation too merciless, its style too subtle. -Nor is Valera less successful in the short story, and in -the dialogue, in which sort <i>Asclepigenia</i> may be held for -an absolute masterpiece in little. His work lies before -us, complete for all purposes; for though he still publishes -for our delight, advancing age compels him to -dictate instead of writing—a harassing condition for an -artist whose talent is free from any touch of declamation. -It is hard for us who have undergone the spell of Prospero, -who have been fascinated by his truth and grace and -sympathy, to judge him with the impartiality of posterity. -But we may safely anticipate its general verdict. It may -be that some of his improvisations will lack durability; -but these are few. Valera, like the rest of the world, is -entitled to be judged at his best, and his best will be -read as long as Spanish literature endures; for he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> -not simply a dexterous craftsman using one of the -noblest of languages with an exquisite delicacy and -illimitable variety of means, nor a clever novelist exercising -a superficial talent, nor even (though he is that -in a very special sense) the leader of a national revival. -He is something far rarer and more potent than an -accomplished man of letters: a great creative artist, -and the embodiment of a people's genius.</p> - -<p>A less cosmopolitan, but scarcely less original talent -is that of <span class="smcap">José María de Pereda</span> (b. 1834), who comes, -like so many distinguished Spaniards, from "the mountain." -Born at Polanco, trained as a civil engineer in -his province of Santander, Pereda was—and, perhaps, -still is, theoretically—a stout Carlist, an intransigent -ultramontane whose social position has enabled him to -despise the politics of expediency. His earliest essays -in a local newspaper, <i>La Abeja Montañesa</i>, attracted no -attention; nor was he much more fortunate with his -amazingly brilliant <i>Escenas Montañesas</i> (1864). Fernán -Caballero, and a gentle sentimentalist now wholly forgotten, -Antonio Trueba (1821-89), satisfied readers -with graceful insipidities, beside which the new-comer's -manly realism seemed almost crude. The conventional -villager, simple, Arcadian, and impossible, held the field; -and Pereda's revelation of unveiled rusticity was esteemed -displeasing, unnecessary, inartistic. He had to educate -his public. From the outset he found a few enthusiasts -to appreciate him in his native province; and, by slow -degrees, he succeeded in imposing himself first upon the -general audience, and then, with much more difficulty, -upon official critics. It is commonly alleged against him -that even in his more ambitious novels—in <i>Don Gonzalo -González de la Gonzalera</i>, in <i>Pedro Sánchez</i>, where he deals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> -with town life, and in <i>Sotileza</i>, which is salt with the sea—his -personages are local. The observation is intended -as a reproach; but, in truth, Pereda's men and women -are only local as Sancho Panza and Maritornes are local—local -in particulars, universal as types of nature. His -true defects are his tendency to abuse his knowledge of -dialect, to insist on a moral aim, to caricature his villains. -These are spots on the sun. On the whole, he pictures -life as he sees it, with unblenching fidelity; his people live -and move; and—not least—he is a master of nervous, -energetic phrase. No writer outdoes him as a landscape-painter -in rendering the fertile valleys, the cold hills, the -vexed Cantabrian sea, to which he returns with the intimate -passion of a lover.</p> - -<p>The representative of a younger school is <span class="smcap">Benito -Pérez Galdós</span> (b. 1845), who left the Canary Islands in -his nineteenth year with the purpose of reading law in -Madrid. A brief trial of journalism, previous to the -revolution of 1868, led to the publication of his first -novel, <i>La Fontana de Oro</i> (1870), and since 1873 he has -shown a wondrous persistence and suppleness of talent. -His <i>Episodios Nacionales</i> alone fill twenty volumes, and as -many more exist detached from that series. He has composed -the modern national epic in the form of novels: -novels which have for their setting the War of Independence, -and the succeeding twenty years of civil combat; -novels in which not less than five hundred characters are -presented. Galdós is in singular contrast with his friend -Pereda. The prejudiced Tory has educated his public; -the Liberal reformer has been educated by his contemporaries. -Galdós has always had his fingers on the general -pulse; and when the readers in the late seventies wearied -of the historico-political novel, Galdós was ready with <i>La<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> -Familia de León Roch</i>, with <i>Gloria</i>, and with <i>Doña Perfecta</i>, -in which the religious difficulty is posed ten years -before <i>Robert Elsmere</i> was written. His third stage of -development is exampled in <i>Fortuna y Jacinta</i>, a most -forcible study of contemporary life. A prolific inventor, -a minute observer of detail, Galdós combines realism -with fantasy, flat prose with poetic imagination, so that -he succeeds best in drawing psychological eccentricities -like Ángel Guerra. He is perhaps too Spanish to endure -translation, too prone to assume that his readers are -familiar with the minutiæ of Peninsular life and history, -and his construction, broad as it is, lacks solidity; but -that he deserves the greater part of his fame is unquestionable, -and if there be doubters, <i>Fortuna y Jacinta</i> and -<i>Ángel Guerra</i> are at hand to vindicate the judgment.</p> - -<p>In all the length and breadth of Spain no writer (with -the possible exception of that slashing, incorrigible, -brilliant reviewer, Antonio de Valbuena) is better known -and more feared than <span class="smcap">Leopoldo Alas</span> (b. 1852), who -uses the pseudonym of Clarín. Alas is often accused -of fierce intolerance as a critic; and the charge has this -much truth in it—that he is righteously, splendidly intolerant -of a pretender, a mountebank, or a dullard. He -may be right or wrong in judgment; but there is something -noble in the intrepidity with which he handles an -established reputation, in the infinite malice with which -he riddles an enemy. An ample knowledge of other -literatures than his own, a catholic taste, as pretty a wit -as our days have seen, and a most combative, gallant -spirit make him a critical force which, on the whole, is -used for good. He is not mentioned here, however, as -the formidable gladiator of journalism, but as the author -of one of the best contemporary novels. <i>La Regenta</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> -(1884-1885) is, in the first place, a searching analysis of -criminal passion, marked by fine insight; and the examination -of false mysticism which betrays Ana Ozores is -among the subtlest, most masterly achievements in recent -literature. Galdós is realistic and persuasive: Alas is -real and convincing. He has not the cunning of the contriver -of situations, and as he never condescends to the -novelist's artifice, he imperils his chance of popularity. -In truth, far from enjoying a vulgar vogue, <i>La Regenta</i> -has had the distinction of being condemned by criticasters -who have never read it. <i>Su único Hijo</i>, and the -collection of short stories entitled <i>Pipá</i>, interesting and -finished in detail, are of slighter substance and value. -The duties of a law professorship at the University of -Oviedo, the tasks of journalism, have occupied Alas during -the last four years. Literature in Spain is but a poor -crutch, and even the popular Valera has told us that he -must perish did he depend upon his pen. Spanish men -of letters have to be content with fame. Meanwhile, -it is known that Alas is at work upon the long-promised -<i>Esperaindeo</i>, in which we may fairly hope to find a companion -to <i>La Regenta</i>.</p> - -<p>Of <span class="smcap">Armando Palacio Valdés</span> (b. 1853) it can hardly -be said that he has fulfilled the promise of <i>Marta y -María</i> and <i>La Hermana de San Sulpicio</i>. Alas, with -whom Palacio Valdés collaborated in a critical review -of the literature of 1881, has succeeded in absorbing the -good elements of the modern French naturalistic school -without losing his Spanish savour. Palacio Valdés has -surrendered great part of his nationality in <i>Espuma</i> and -in <i>La Fe</i>, which might, with a change of names, be -taken for translations of French novels. He has abundant -cleverness, a sure hand in construction, a distinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> -power of character-drawing, which have won him more -consideration out of Spain than in it, and he has a -fair claim to rank as the chief of the modern naturalistic -school. His most distinguished rival is the Galician, the -Sra. Quiroga, better known by her maiden name of -<span class="smcap">Emilia Pardo Bazán</span> (b. 1851), the best authoress that -Spain has produced during the present century. Her -earliest effort was a prize essay on Feijóo (1876), followed -by a volume of verses which I have never seen, and -upon which the writer is satisfied that oblivion should -scatter its poppy. She pleases most in picturesque description -of country life and manners in her province, of -scenes in La Coruña, which she glorifies in her writings -as Marineda. Her foundation of a critical review, the -<i>Nuevo Teatro Crítico</i>, written entirely by herself, showed -confidence and enterprise, and enabled her to propagate -her eclectic views on life and art. Women have hitherto -been more impressionable than original, and Doña Emilia -has been drawn into the French naturalistic current in -<i>Los Pazos de Ulloa</i> (1886) and in <i>La Madre Naturaleza</i> -(1887). Both novels contain episodes of remarkable -power, and <i>La Madre Naturaleza</i> is an almost epical -glorification of primitive instincts. But Spain has a -native realism of her own, and it is scarcely probable -that the French variety will ever supersede it. It is as a -naturalistic novelist that the Sra. Pardo Bazán is generally -known; but the fashion of naturalism is already -passing, and it is by the rich colouring, the local knowledge, -the patriotic enthusiasm, and the exact vision of -such transcripts of local scene and custom as abound -in <i>De mi tierra</i> that she best conveys the impressions of -an exuberant and even irresistible temperament. What -Pereda has accomplished for the land of the mountain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> -the Sra. Pardo Bazán has, in lesser measure, done for -Galicia.</p> - -<p>One must hold it against her that she should have -aided in establishing the trivial vogue of the Jesuit, -<span class="smcap">Luis Coloma</span> (b. 1851), whose <i>Pequeñeces</i> (1890) caused -more sensation than any novel of the last twenty years. -Palacio Valdés has been severely censured for writing, in -<i>Espuma</i>, of "society" in which he has never moved. -"What," asked Isaac Disraeli, "what does my son know -about dukes?" The Padre Coloma's acquaintance with -dukes is extensive and peculiar. Born at Jerez de la -Frontera, he came under the influence of Fernán Caballero, -whom he has pictured in <i>El Viernes de Dolores</i>, and -with whom he collaborated in <i>Juan Miseria</i>. His lively -youth was spent in drawing-rooms where Alfonsist plots -were hatched; and when, at the age of twenty-three, -he joined the Society of Jesus after receiving a mysterious -bullet-wound which brought him to death's door, -he knew as much of Madrid "society" as any man in -Spain. His literary mission appears to be to satirise -the Spanish aristocracy, and <i>Pequeñeces</i> is his capital -effort in that kind. An angry controversy followed, in -which Valera made one of his few mistakes by taking the -field against Coloma, who, with all his superficial smartness, -is a special pleader and not an artist. A <i>roman à -clef</i> is always sure of ephemeral success, and readers -were too intent on identifying the originals of Currita -Albornoz and Villamelón to observe that <i>Pequeñeces</i> was a -hasty improvisation, void of plot and character and truth -and style. Certain scenes are good enough to pass as -episodical caricatures, and had the Padre Coloma the -endowment of wit and gaiety and distinction, he might -hope to develop into a clerical Gyp. As it is, he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> -shot his bolt, achieved a notoriety which is even now -fading, and is in a fair way to be dethroned from his -position by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the author of <i>Flor de -Mayo</i>, and by Juan Ochoa, the writer of <i>Un Alma de Dios</i>. -These two novelists, the rising hopes of the immediate -future, are rapidly growing in repute as in accomplishment. -Narcís Oller y Moragas (b. 1846) has shown -singular gifts in such tales as <i>L'Escanyapobres</i>, <i>Vilaníu</i>, -and <i>Viva Espanya</i>. But, as he writes in Catalan, we have -no immediate concern with him here.</p> - -<p>Of the modern Spanish theatre there is little originality -to report. Tamayo's successor in popular esteem is -<span class="smcap">José Echegaray</span> (1832), who first came into notice as a -mathematician, a political economist, a revolutionary -orator, and a minister of the short-lived republic. -Writing under the obvious anagram of Jorge Hayeseca, -Echegaray first attempted the drama so late as 1874, and -has since then succeeded and failed with innumerable -pieces. He is essentially a romantic, as he proves in <i>La -Esposa del Vengador</i> and in <i>Ó Locura ó Santidad</i>; but -there is nothing distinctively national in his work, which -continually reflects the passing fashions of the moment. -His plays are commonly well constructed, as one might -expect from a mathematician applying his science to the -scene, and he has a certain power of gloomy realisation, -as in <i>El Gran Galeoto</i>, which moves and impresses; yet -he has created no character, he delights in cheap effects, -and when he betakes himself to verse, is prone to a -banality which is almost vulgar. A delightfully middle-class -writer, his appreciation by middle-class audiences -calls for no special comment. It even speaks for -itself.</p> - -<p>The drama has also been attempted by <span class="smcap">Gaspar Núñez<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> -de Arce</span> (b. 1834), whose <i>Haz de Leña</i>, in which Felipe -II. figures, is the most distinguished historical drama of -the century, written with a reserve and elegance rare on -the modern Spanish stage. Núñez de Arce, however, -though he began with a successful play in his fifteenth -year, was well advised when he forsook the scene and -gave himself to pure lyrism. His disillusioning political -experiences as Secretary of State for the Colonies have -reduced him to silence during the last few years. He -was born to sing songs of victory, to be the poet of -ordered liberty, and circumstances have cast his lot in -times of disaster and revolutionary excess. He has had -no opportunity of celebrating a national triumph, and -his hopes of a golden age, to be brought about by a -few constitutional changes, have been grievously disappointed. -Yet it is as a political singer that he has -won a present fame and that he will pass onward to -renown. His <i>Idilio</i> is a rustic love story of fine simplicity, -of an impressive, pure realism which lifts it -above the common level of pastoral poems, and its -sincerity, its austere finish, are characteristic of the -poet, who is always a scrupulous artist, a passionate -devotee and observer of nature, as he has proved -once more in <i>La Pesca</i>. In <i>Raimundo Lulio</i>, Núñez -de Arce's superb execution is displayed with a superb -result which almost tempts the coldest reader into -pardoning the confusion of two separate themes—allegory -and amorism. But a political poet he remains, -and the famous <i>Gritos de Combate</i> (1875), in which he -denounces anarchy, pleads for freedom and for concord, -with a civic courage beyond all praise, is a lasting monument -in its kind. Modern Castilian shows no poetic -figure to compare with him, and the only promises of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> -our time are Jacinto Verdaguer and Joan Maragall, two -Catalan singers who fall without our limit.</p> - -<p>The present century has produced no great Spanish -historian, though there has been an active movement of -historical research, headed by scholars like Fidel Fita, -specialists like Cárdenas, Azcárate, Costa, Pérez Pujol, -Ribera, Jiménez de la Espada, Fernández Duro, and -Hinojosa, all of whom have produced brilliant monographs, -or have accumulated valuable materials for the -Mariana of the future. In criticism also there has been -a marked advance of scholarship and tolerance, thanks -to the example of <span class="smcap">Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo</span> (b. -1856), whose extraordinary learning and argumentative -acuteness were first shown in his <i>Ciencia Española</i> (1878), -and his <i>Historia de los Heterodoxos Españoles</i> (1880-81). -Since then the slight touch of acerbity, of provincial -narrowness, has disappeared, the writer's talent has -matured, and, starting as the standard-bearer of an -aggressive party, anxious to recover lost ground, his -sympathies have widened as his erudition has taken -deeper root, till at the present moment he is accepted by -his ancient foes as the most sagacious and accomplished -of Spanish critics. His <i>Odas, Epístolas y Tragedias</i>, is a -signal instance of technical excellence in versification, -containing as good a version of the <i>Isles of Greece</i> as any -foreigner has achieved. But, after all, it is not as poet, -but as critic, as literary historian, that he is hailed by -his countrymen as a prodigy. He has, perhaps, undertaken -too much, and the editing of Lope de Vega may cause -the <i>Historia de las Ideas Estéticas en España</i> to remain an -unfinished torso; but his example and influence have -been wholly exercised for good, and are evident in the -excellent work of the younger generation—the work of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> -Emilio Cotarelo y Mori, of Rafael Altamira y Crevea, of -Ramón Menéndez Pidal. It would be a singular thing if -the bright, improvident Spain, which to most of us stands -for the embodiment of reckless romanticism, were to -produce a race of writers of the German type, a breed -absorbed in detail and minute observation; and as a -nation's genius is no more subject to change than is the -temperament of individuals, the development may not -come to pass. But, as the century closes, the tendency -inclines that way.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_31_31">[31]</a> See the <i>Revue hispanique</i> (Paris, 1894), vol. i. pp. 236-257.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></p> - -<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</h2> - - -<p>George Ticknor's great <i>History of Spanish Literature</i> (Boston, -1872) is the widest survey of the subject; it should be read in the -Castilian version of Pascual de Gayangos and Enrique de Vedia -(1851-56),<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> or in the German of Nikolaus Heinrich Julius (Leipzig, -1852), both of which contain valuable supplementary matter. Ludwig -Gustav Lemcke shows taste and learning and independence in his -<i>Handbuch der spanischen Literatur</i> (Leipzig, 1855-56). On a smaller -scale are Eugène Baret's <i>Histoire de la littérature espagnole</i> (1863), -the volume contributed by Jacques Claude Demogeot to Victor -Duruy's series entitled <i>Histoire des littératures étrangères</i> (1880), -Licurgo Cappelletti's <i>Letteratura spagnuola</i> (Milan, 1882), and Mr. -H. Butler Clarke's <i>Spanish Literature</i> (1893). Ferdinand Wolf's -<i>Studien zur Geschichte der spanischen und portugiesischen Nationalliteratur</i> -(Berlin, 1859) is a most masterly study of the early period; -the Castilian version by D. Miguel de Unamuno, with notes by D. -Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (1895-96), corrects some of Wolf's -conclusions in the light of recent research. The <i>Darstellung der -spanischen Literatur im Mittelalter</i> (Mainz, 1846), by Ludwig Clarus, -whose real name was Wilhelm Volk, is learned and suggestive, -though too enthusiastic in criticism. José Amador de los Ríos' seven -volumes, entitled <i>Historia crítica de la literatura española</i> (1861-65), -end with the reign of the Catholic Kings: an alphabetical index -would greatly increase the value of this monumental work. The -Comte Théodore Joseph Boudet de Puymaigre's two volumes, <i>Les -vieux auteurs castillans</i> (1888-90), give the facts in a very agreeable, -unpretentious way.</p> - -<p>Among current handbooks by Spanish authors, those by Antonio -Gil y Zárate (1844), Manuel de la Revilla and Pedro de Alcántara -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span>García (1884), F. Sánchez de Castro (1890), and Prudencio Mudarra -y Párraga (Sevilla, 1895), are well-meant, and are, one hopes, useful -for examination purposes. José Fernández-Espino's <i>Curso histórico-crítico</i> -(Sevilla, 1871) is excellent; but it ends with Cervantes' prose -works, and makes no reference to the Spanish theatre.</p> - -<p>On the drama there is nothing to match Adolf Friedrich von -Schack's <i>Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur und Kunst in -Spanien</i> (Berlin, 1845-46) and his <i>Nachträge</i> (Frankfurt am Main, -1854). Romualdo Álvarez Espino's <i>Ensayo histórico-crítico del teatro -español</i> (Cádiz, 1876), containing long extracts from the chief dramatists, -is serviceable to beginners. The late Cayetano Barrera's <i>Catálogo -bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo español</i> (1860) is invaluable: -lack of funds causes the supplement to remain "inedited."</p> - -<p>In bibliography Castilian is richer than English. Nicolás Antonio's -<i>Bibliotheca Hispana Nova</i> (1783-88) and <i>Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus</i> -(1788) are wonderful for their time. Bartolomé José Gallardo's -<i>Ensayo de una Biblioteca española de libros raros y curiosos</i> (1863-89) -owes much to its editors, the Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle and -D. José Sancho Rayón. For old editions Pedro Salvá y Mallén's -<i>Catálogo de la biblioteca de Salvá</i> (Valencia, 1872) may be consulted. -An admirable monthly bibliography of new books is issued by D. -Rafael Altamira y Crevea in his <i>Revista crítica de historia y literatura -españolas, portuguesas é hispano-americanas</i>. Murillo's monthly -<i>Boletín</i> is a mere sale list.</p> - -<p>M. Foulché-Delbosc's <i>Revue hispanique</i> and Sr. Altamira's <i>Revista -crítica</i> are specially dedicated to our subject; the zeal and self-sacrifice -of both editors have earned the gratitude of all students of -Spanish literature. MM. Gaston Paris' and Paul Meyer's <i>Romania</i> -frequently contains admirable essays and reviews by MM. Morel-Fatio, -Cornu, Cuervo, and others; as much may be said for Gustav -Gröber's <i>Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie</i> (Halle), and for the -<i>Giornale storico della letteratura italiana</i> (Torino), edited by MM. -Francesco Novati and Rodolfo Renier.</p> - -<p>Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo's <i>Historia de las Ideas estéticas en España</i> -(1883-91) touches literature at many points, and abounds in acute -and suggestive reflections. Two treatises by M. Arturo Farinelli, <i>Die -Beziehungen zwischen Spanien und Deutschland in der Litteratur der -beiden Länder</i> (Berlin, 1892), and <i>Spanien und die spanische Litteratur -im Lichte der deutschen Kritik und Poesie</i> (Berlin, 1892), are remarkable -for curious learning and appreciative criticism.</p> - -<p>The best general collection of classics is Manuel Rivadeneyra's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span> -<i>Biblioteca de Autores españoles</i> (1846-80), which consists of seventy-nine -volumes. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo's <i>Antología de poetas líricos -castellanos</i> (1890-96) is supplied with very learned and elaborate -introductions.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> - -<p>The <i>Leloaren Cantua</i> and <i>Altobiskar Cantua</i> are given, with -English renderings, in Mr. Wentworth Webster's admirable <i>Basque -Legends</i> (1879); an exposure of the <i>Altobiskar</i> hoax by the same -great authority is printed in the Academy of History's <i>Boletín</i> (1883). -Rafael and Pedro Rodríguez Mohedano display much discursive, uncritical -erudition in their ten-volumed <i>Historia literaria en España</i> -(1768-85), which deals only with the early period. A recent study -(1888) on Prudentius by the Conde de Viñaza deserves mention. -Migne's <i>Patrologia Latina</i> includes the chief Spanish Fathers. In -the fourth volume of Charles Cahier's and Arthur Martin's <i>Nouveaux -Mélanges d'archéologie, d'histoire, et de littérature sur le moyen âge</i> -(1877) there is a brilliant essay on the Gothic period by the Rev. -Père Jules Tailhan, to whom we also owe a splendid edition of the -Rhymed Chronicle, the <i>Epitoma Imperatorum</i> (Paris, 1885), by the -Anonymous Writer of Córdoba.</p> - -<p>For the Spanish Jews, Hirsch Grätz' <i>Geschichte der Juden von den -ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart</i> (Leipzig, 1865-90) is the best -guide. Salomon Munk's <i>Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe</i> -(1857) is not yet superseded, and Abraham Geiger's <i>Divan des Castilier -Abu'l Hassan Juda ha Levi</i> (Breslau, 1851) contains information -not to be found elsewhere. M. Kayserling's <i>Biblioteca Española—Portugeza—Judaica</i> -(Strassburg, 1890) is extremely valuable.</p> - -<p>Two works by Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy are authoritative as -regards the Arab period: the <i>Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne</i> -(Leyde, 1861), and the <i>Recherches sur l'histoire politique et littéraire -de l'Espagne pendant le moyen âge</i> (1881). The first edition of the <i>Recherches</i> -(Leyde, 1849) embodies many suggestive passages cancelled in -the reprints. Schack's <i>Poesie und Kunst der Araber in Spanien und -Sicilien</i> (Stuttgart, 1877) is a good general survey, a little too enthusiastic -in tone; it greatly gains in the Castilian version, made from -the first edition, by D. Juan Valera (1867-71). Nicolas Lucien -Leclerc's <i>Histoire de la médecine arabe</i> (1876) is of much wider scope -than its title implies, and may be profitably consulted on Arab -achievements in other fields. Francisco Javier Simonet states the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span> -case against the predominance of Arab culture in the preface to his -<i>Glosario de voces ibéricas y latinas usadas entre los Muzárabes</i> (1888). -D. Julián Ribera's learned <i>Orígenes de la justicia en Aragón</i> (Zaragoza, -1897) deals with the facts in a more judicial spirit. Of special -monographs Ernest Renan's <i>Averroès et l'Averroïsme</i> (1866) is a -recognised classic. The greater part of the codex from the Convent -of Santo Domingo de Silos, now in the British Museum (Add. MSS. -30,853), has been published by Dr. Joseph Priebsch in the <i>Zeitschrift</i>, -vol. xix.</p> - -<p>As regards the Provençal influence in the Peninsula, Manuel Milá -y Fontanals' <i>Trovadores en España</i> (Barcelona, 1887) is a definitive -work. Eugène Baret's <i>Espagne et Provence</i> (1857) is pleasing but -superficial. Theophilo Braga's learned introduction to the <i>Cancioneiro -Portuguez da Vaticana</i> (Lisbon, 1878) is brilliantly suggestive, though -inaccurate in detail. The counter-current from Northern France, as -it affects the epic, is treated in Milá y Fontanals' <i>Poesía heróico-popular -castellana</i> (Barcelona, 1874).</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> - -<p>The <i>Misterio de los Reyes Magos</i> is most accessible in Amador de -los Ríos' <i>Historia</i>, vol. iii. pp. 658-60, and in K. A. Martin Hartmann's -dissertation, <i>Ueber das altspanische Dreikönnigsspiel</i> (Bautzen, -1879). The Swedish scholar, Eduard Lidforss, printed the <i>Misterio</i> -in the <i>Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur</i> (Leipzig, -1871), vol. xii., and Professor Georg Baist's diplomatic edition appeared -at Erlangen in 1879. Arturo Grafs <i>Studii drammatici</i> (Torino, -1878) contains an interesting essay on the Magi play; M. Morel-Fatio's -article in <i>Romania</i>, vol. ix., and Baist's review in the <i>Zeitschrift</i>, -vol. iv., are both important. D'Ancona's <i>Origini del teatro -italiano</i> (Torino, 1891) discusses the question of the play's date with -much shrewdness and caution.</p> - -<p>The most convenient reference for the <i>Poema del Cid</i> is to Rivadeneyra, -vol. lvii. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal's edition (1898) supersedes -all others: next, in order of merit, come Karl Vollmöller's -(Halle, 1879), Eduard Lidforss', called <i>Cantares de Myo Cid</i> (Lund, -1895), and Mr. Archer Huntington's (New York, 1897). The <i>Cantar -de Rodrigo</i> is in Rivadeneyra, vol. xvi.; vol. lvii. contains the <i>Apolonio</i>, -the <i>Vida de Santa María Egipciacqua</i>, and the <i>Tres Reyes dorient</i>. -The sources of <i>Santa María Egipciacqua</i> are indicated by Adolf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> -Mussafia in the <i>Sitzungsberichte</i> of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, -vol. clxiii. For the <i>Disputa del Alma y Cuerpo</i> see the <i>Zeitschrift</i>, -vol. lx. M. Morel-Fatio edited the <i>Debate entre el Agua y el Vino</i> -and the <i>Razón feita de Amor in Romania</i>, vol. xvi. Most of the -foregoing may be read in extract in Egidio Gorra's excellent anthology, -<i>Lingua e Letteratura Spagnuola delle origini</i> (Milan, 1898).</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> - -<p>Most of the writers referred to in this chapter are included in -Rivadeneyra, vols. li. and lvii. A valuable article on Berceo by D. -Francisco Fernández y González, now Dean of the Central University, -was published in <i>La Razón</i> (1857): a translated fragment of -Berceo is given by Longfellow in <i>Outre-Mer</i>. Gautier de Coinci's -<i>Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge</i> were edited by the Abbé Alexandre -Eusèbe Poquet (1857) in a somewhat prudish spirit. M. Morel-Fatio's -study on the <i>Libro de Alexandre</i>, printed in the fourth volume -of <i>Romania</i>, is an extremely thorough performance.</p> - -<p>Alfonso's <i>Siete Partidas</i> (1807) and the <i>Fuero Juzgo</i> (1815) have -been issued by the Spanish Academy; his scientific work is partially -represented by Manuel Rico y Sinobas' five folios entitled <i>Libros del -Saber de Astronomía</i> (1863-67). There is no modern edition of his -histories, and a reprint is greatly needed: the inaugural speech of -D. Juan Facundo Riaño, read before the Academy of History (1869), -traces the sources with great ability and learning. The translations -in which Alfonso shared are best read in Hermann Knust's <i>Mitteilungen -aus dem Eskorial</i> (vol. cxli. of the publications issued by the -Stuttgart Literarischer Verein), and in Knust's <i>Dos Obras didácticas y -dos Leyendas</i> (1878). Alfonso's <i>Cantigas de Santa María</i> have been -published by the Spanish Academy (1889) in two of the handsomest -volumes ever printed; the Marqués de Valmar has edited the text, -and supplied an admirable introduction and apparatus.</p> - -<p>Fadrique's <i>Engannos e Assayamientos de las Mogieres</i> is to be -sought in Domenico Comparetti's <i>Ricerche intorno al libro di Sindibad</i> -(Milan, 1869). The questions arising out of the <i>Gran Conquista -de Ultramar</i> are discussed by M. Gaston Paris, with his usual lucidity -and learning, in <i>Romania</i>, vols. xvii., xix., and xxii.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span></p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> - -<p>Most of the poems mentioned are printed in Rivadeneyra, vol. lvii. -<i>Solomon's Rhymed Proverbs</i> are included by Antonio Paz y Melia in -<i>Opúsculos literarios de los siglos XIV.-XVI.</i> (1892). The <i>Poema de -José</i> has been reproduced in Arabic characters by Heinrich Morf -(Leipzig, 1883) as part of a <i>Gratulationsschrift</i> from the University -of Bern to that of Zurich.</p> - -<p>Juan Manuel's writings were edited by Gayangos in Rivadeneyra, -vol. li.: we owe his <i>Libro de Caza</i> to Professor Georg Baist (Halle, -1880), and a valuable edition of the <i>Libro del Caballero et del Escudero</i> -to S. Gräfenberg (Erlangen, 1883). Alfonso XI.'s handbook on -hunting is given by Gutiérrez de la Vega in the third volume of the -<i>Biblioteca Venatoria</i> (Madrid, 1879). Ayala's history forms vols. i. -and ii. of Eugenio de Llaguno Amírola's <i>Crónicas Españolas</i> (Madrid, -1779).</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> - -<p>The Comte de Puymaigre's <i>La Cour littéraire de Don Juan II.</i> -(1873) is an excellent general view of the subject. D. Emilio Cotarelo -y Mori's <i>Don Enrique de Villena</i> (1896) is a very learned and interesting -study. Villena's <i>Arte Cisoria</i> was reprinted so recently as 1879. -The <i>Libro de los Gatos</i> and Clemente Sánchez' <i>Exemplos</i> are in -Rivadeneyra, vol. li.; the latter were completed by M. Morel-Fatio -in <i>Romania</i>, vol. vii. Mr. Thomas Frederick Crane's <i>Exempla</i> of -Jacques Vitry (published in 1890 for the Folk-Lore Society) will be -found useful by English readers.</p> - -<p>Baena's <i>Cancionero</i> (1851) was edited by the late Marqués de Pidal: -the large-paper copies contain a few loose pieces, omitted from the -ordinary edition which was reprinted by Brockhaus in a cheap form -at Leipzig in 1860. D. Antonio Paz y Melia's <i>Obras de Juan Rodríguez -de la Cámara</i> (1884) is a good example of this scholar's conscientious -work. Amador de los Ríos' edition of the <i>Obras del -Marqués de Santillana</i> (1852) is complete and minute in detail.</p> - -<p>There is no good edition of Juan de Mena's works; I have found it -most convenient to use that published by Francisco Sánchez (1804). -The <i>Coplas de la Panadera</i> will be found in Gallardo, vol. i. cols. -613-617.</p> - -<p>Juan II.'s <i>Crónica</i> is printed by Rivadeneyra, vol. lviii.; the others—those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> -of Clavijo, Gámez, Lena—are in Llaguno y Amírola's <i>Crónicas -Españolas</i>, already named. Llaguno also reprinted Pérez de Guzmán's -<i>Generaciones</i> at Valencia in 1790.</p> - -<p>No modern editor has had the spirit to reissue Martínez de Toledo's -<i>Corbacho</i>, nor did even Ticknor possess a copy. The edition of -Logroño (1529) is convenient. The <i>Visión deleitable</i> is in Rivadeneyra, -vol. xxxvi. I know no later edition of Lucena's <i>Vita Beata</i> -than that of Zamora, 1483.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> - -<p>Hernando del Castillo's <i>Cancionero General</i> should be read in the -fine edition (1882) published by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles; -the <i>Cancionero de burlas</i> in Luis de Usoz y Río's reprint (London, -1841). The Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle and D. José Sancho -Rayón edited Lope de Stúñiga's <i>Cancionero</i> in 1872. While the -present volume has been passing through the press, M. Foulché-Delbosc -has, for the first time, published the entire text of the <i>Coplas -del Provincial</i> in the <i>Revue hispanique</i>, vol. v. The <i>Coplas de Mingo -Revulgo</i>, Cota's <i>Diálogo</i>, and Jorge Manrique's <i>Coplas</i> are best read -in D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's <i>Antología</i>, vols. iii. and iv. -An additional piece of Cota's, discovered by M. Foulché-Delbosc, has -been printed in the <i>Revue hispanique</i>, vol. i.; and to D. Antonio Paz -y Melia is due the publication of Gómez Manrique's <i>Cancionero</i> (1885). -Iñigo de Mendoza and Ambrosio Montesino are represented in Rivadeneyra, -vol. xxxv. Miguel del Riego y Núñez' edition of Padilla -appeared at London in 1841 in the <i>Colección de obras poéticas españolas</i>. -Pedro de Urrea's <i>Cancionero</i> (1876) forms the second volume of the -<i>Biblioteca de Escritores Aragoneses</i>. Encina's <i>Teatro completo</i> has -been admirably edited (1893) by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri: a suggestive -and penetrating criticism by Sr. Cotarelo y Mori appeared in -<i>España Moderna</i> (May 1894).</p> - -<p>Palencia is to be studied sufficiently in his <i>Dos Tratados</i> (1876), -arranged by D. Antonio María Fabié. The <i>Crónica</i> of Lucas Iranzo -was given by the Academy of History (1853) in the <i>Memorial histórico -español</i>. <i>Amadís de Gaula</i> is most easily read in Rivadeneyra, vol. -xl., which is preceded by a very instructive preface, the work of -Gayangos. The derivation of the <i>Amadís</i> romance is ably discussed -from different points of view by Eugène Baret in his <i>Études sur la -redaction espagnole de l'Amadis de Gaule</i> (1853); by Theophilo -Braga in his <i>Historia das novelas portuguezas de cavalleria</i> (Porto,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> -1873); and by Ludwig Braunfels in his <i>Kritischer Versuch über den -Roman Amadís von Gallien</i> (Leipzig, 1876). The fourth volume of -Ormsby's <i>Don Quixote</i> (1885) contains an exhaustive bibliography of -the chivalresque novels, most of which are both costly and worthless. -Of the <i>Celestina</i> there are innumerable editions; the handiest -is that in Rivadeneyra, vol. iii. A reprint of Mabbe's splendid English -version (1631) was included by Mr. Henley in his <i>Tudor Translations</i> -(1894). D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's brilliant essay on Rojas -is reprinted in the second series of his <i>Estudios de crítica literaria</i> -(1895). Bernáldez' <i>Historia de los Reyes católicos</i> (Granada, 1856) has -been carefully produced by Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara. Pulgar's -<i>Claros Varones</i> was inserted at the end of Llaguno y Amírola's edition -of the <i>Centón epistolario</i> (1775). It is quite impossible to give any -notion of the immense mass of literature concerning Columbus; but -anything bearing the names of Martín Fernández de Navarrete or of -Mr. Henry Harrisse is entitled to the greatest respect.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> - -<p>M. Morel-Fatio's <i>L'Espagne au 16<sup>e</sup> et 17<sup>e</sup> siécle</i> (Heilbronn, 1878) -is invaluable for this period and the succeeding century. Dr. Adam -Schneider's <i>Spaniens Anteil an der deutschen Litteratur des 16. und -17. Jahrhunderts</i> (Strassburg, 1898) is a work of immense industry, -containing much curious information in a convenient form. English -readers will find an excellent summary of the literary history of this -time in Mr. David Hannay's <i>Later Renaissance</i> (1898).</p> - -<p>Manuel Cañete, whose <i>Teatro español del siglo XVI.</i> (1885) is -useful but ill arranged, included a single volume of Torres Naharro's -<i>Propaladia</i> among the <i>Libros de Antaño</i> so long ago as 1880; the -second is still to come, and those who would read this dramatist must -turn to the rare sixteenth-century editions. Perhaps the best reprint -of Gil Vicente is that issued at Hamburg in 1834 by José Victorino -Barreto Feio and José Gomes Monteiro; a most complete account -of Vicente, his environment and influence, is given by Theophilo -Braga in the seventh volume of his learned <i>Historia de la litteratura -portuguesa</i> (Porto, 1898). Boscán's Castilian version of the -<i>Cortegiano</i> was reissued in 1873; the completest edition of his verse -is that published by Professor Knapp (of Yale University), issued at -Madrid in 1873. Professor Flamini's <i>Studi di storia letteraria italiana -e straniera</i> (Livorno, 1895) contains a very scholarly essay on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span> -debt of Boscán to Bernardo Tasso. The poems of Garcilaso are in -Rivadeneyra, vols. xxxii. and xlii.; but a far pleasanter book to handle -is Azara's edition (1765). Benedetto Croce's study entitled <i>Intorno -al soggiorno di Garcilaso de la Vega in Italia</i> (1894) appeared originally -in the <i>Rassegna storica napoletana di lettere ed arte</i> (a magazine -which deserves to be better known in England than it is). Croce's -researches have been printed apart, and we may look forward to -his publishing others no less important. Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen's -biography and translation of Garcilaso (1823) are defective, but -nothing better exists in English. Few poets in the world have been -so fortunate in their editors as Sâ de Miranda. Mme. Carolina -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos' reprint (Halle, 1881), with its very learned -apparatus of introduction, notes, and variants, is a real achievement -unsurpassed in the history of editing. A fine edition of Gutierre de -Cetina has been published (Seville, 1895) with a scholarly introduction -by D. Joaquín Hazañas y la Rua. Acuña's works appeared at Madrid -in 1804; his <i>Contienda de Ayax</i> is in the second volume of López de -Sedano's <i>Parnaso Español</i> (1778). Concerning Mendoza, the reader -may profitably turn to Charles Graux' <i>Essai sur les origines du fona -grec de l'Escorial</i> (1880), published in the <i>Bibliothèque de l'École des -Hautes Études</i>. Professor Knapp edited Mendoza's verses in 1877: -a creditable piece of work, though inferior to his edition of Boscán. -Castillejo and Silvestre are exampled in Rivadeneyra, vol. xxxii. Of -Villegas' <i>Inventario</i> there is no modern reprint.</p> - -<p>Guevara is sufficiently represented in Rivadeneyra, vol. lxv.; the -English versions by Lord Berners, North, Fenton, Hellowes, and -others, are of exceptional merit and interest.</p> - -<p>The most important historians of the Indies are reprinted by -Rivadeneyra, vols. xxii. and xxvi. Amador de los Ríos edited Oviedo -for the Academy of History in 1851-55. Very full details concerning -Cortés are given by Prescott in his classic book on Peru, -and Sir Arthur Helps' <i>Life of Las Casas</i> (1868) is a pleasing piece of -partisanship.</p> - -<p><i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i> should be read in Mr. Butler Clarke's beautiful -reproduction of the <i>princeps</i> (1897). M. Morel-Fatio's essay in the -first series of his <i>Études sur l'Espagne</i> (1895) is exceedingly ingenious, -but, like all negative criticism, it is somewhat unconvincing. His -guess that <i>Lazarillo</i> was written by some one connected with the -Valdés clique does not seem very happy, but even a conjecture by -M. Morel-Fatio carries great weight.</p> - -<p>Eduard Böhmer gives a very full bibliography of Juan de Valdés<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> -in his <i>Biblioteca Wiffeniana</i> (Strassburg, 1874). Benjamin Barron -Wiffen had for Valdés a kind of cult which found partial expression -in his quarto <i>Life and Writings of Juan Valdés, otherwise Valdesio</i> -(1865). But it is impossible to give more minute references to the -voluminous literature which deals with Valdés and his brother Alfonso. -An historical essay by Manuel Carrasco, published at Geneva in 1880, -is interesting as the work of a modern Spanish Protestant.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> - -<p>The Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle's edition of Lope de Rueda -(1894) lacks an introduction, but it is in other respects as good as -possible. D. Ángel Lasso de la Vega y Arguëlles has published a -<i>Historia y Juicio crítico de la Escuela Poética Sevillana</i> (1871), which -is useful, and even exhaustive, though far too eulogistic in tone. The -Argensolas may be conveniently studied in Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii., which -is supplemented by the Conde de Viñaza's collection of the <i>Poesías -sueltas</i> (1889). Minor dramatists still await republication. Herrera -is easiest read in Rivadeneyra, vol. xxxii.; M. Morel-Fatio's critical -edition of the Lepanto Ode (Paris, 1893) is of great merit, and an -essay on Herrera by M. Édouard Bourciez in the <i>Annales de la -Faculté des lettres de Bordeaux</i> (1891) is acute and suggestive. -Vicente de la Fuente is the editor of Santa Teresa's writings in Rivadeneyra, -vols. liii. and lv. The biography by Mrs. Cunninghame -Graham (1894), a work both learned and picturesque, presents rather -the woman of genius than the canonised saint. The text of the -remaining mystics will, with few exceptions, be found in Rivadeneyra, -vols. vi., viii., ix., xxvii., and xxxii. The lesser lights exist only in -editions of great rarity.</p> - -<p>Torre's verses are most accessible in Velázquez' edition (1753). -Of Figueroa there is no recent reprint, though a poor selection is -offered by Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii., which also includes Rufo Gutiérrez' -minor verse: his <i>Austriada</i> is given in vol. xxix., and Ercilla's -<i>Araucana</i> in vol. xvii. The <i>Catálogo razonado biográfico y bibliográfico</i> -of the Portuguese authors who wrote in Spanish is due (1890) -to Domingo García Peres. The Barcelona reprint (1886) of Montemôr -is easily found: Professor Hugo Albert Rennert's monograph, <i>The -Spanish Pastoral Romances</i> (Baltimore, 1892), is extremely thorough. -Zurita is best read in the <i>princeps</i>. A new edition of Mendoza's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span> -<i>Guerra de Granada</i> is urgently called for, and is now being passed -through the press by M. Foulché-Delbosc. Mendoza's burlesque of -Silva will be found in Paz y Melia's <i>Sales Españolas</i> (1890).</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> - -<p>Henceforward the task of the bibliographer is lighter; for, though -Cervantes, Lope, and later writers are the subjects of an enormous -mass of literature, and are reprinted in editions out of number, it will -only be necessary to name the most important. The twelve quartos -which form the <i>Obras Completas</i> (1863-64) of Cervantes are open to -much damaging criticism; but they contain all his writings, except -the conjectural pieces gathered together by D. Adolfo de Castro in -his <i>Varias obras inéditas de Cervantes</i> (1874). For a most exhaustive -bibliography of Cervantes' writings (Barcelona, 1895) we are indebted -to the late D. Leopoldo Rius y Llosellas: a posthumous volume is to -follow, but even in its present incomplete state Rius' book is worth -more than all previous attempts put together. Editions of <i>Don -Quixote</i> abound, and of these Diego Clemencín's (1833-39) deserves -special mention for its very learned commentary. A new edition, in -course of issue by Mr. David Nutt (1898), presents a text freed from -arbitrary emendations which have crept in without authority. Fernández -de Navarrete's biography (1819) is still unequalled. Shelton's -early English version (1612-20) has been reprinted by Mr. Henley -in his series of <i>Tudor Translations</i> (1896). Of later renderings John -Ormsby's (1885) is much the best, and is prefaced by a very judicious -account of Cervantes and his work. Duffield (1881) and Mr. H. E. -Watts (1894) have translated <i>Don Quixote</i> in a spirit of enthusiasm. -The <i>Numancia</i> (1885) and <i>Viaje del Parnaso</i> (1883) were both admirably -rendered by the late James Young Gibson. Sr. Menéndez y -Pelayo's paper on Avellaneda appeared in <i>Los Lunes de El Imparcial</i> -(February 15, 1897).</p> - -<p>The <i>Obras</i> of Lope, now printing under the editorship of D. -Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, will be definitive; but as yet only eight -quartos (including Barrera's <i>Nueva Biografía</i>) are available. Lope's -<i>Obras sueltas</i> (1776-79) fill twenty-one volumes; but the best reference -for readers is to Rivadeneyra, vols. xxiv., xxxv., xxxvii., xli., and -xlii., where Lope is incompletely but sufficiently exhibited. M. Arturo -Farinelli's <i>Grillparzer und Lope de Vega</i> (Berlin, 1894) is most excellent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span> -Edmund Dorer's <i>Die Lope-de-Vega Litteratur in Deutschland</i> -(1877) is a praiseworthy compilation. Ormsby's article in the <i>Quarterly -Review</i> (October 1894) is, as might be expected from him, most exact -and learned. I am especially indebted to it.</p> - -<p>As to the picaresque novels, <i>Guzmán</i> is in Rivadeneyra, vol. iii.; -the <i>Pícara Justina</i> in vol. xxxiii., and <i>Marcos de Obregón</i> in vol. xviii. -A thoughtful and appreciative study on Mateo Alemán has been -privately printed at Seville (1892) by D. Joaquín Hazañas y la Rua. -Antonio Pérez and Ginés Pérez de Hita are to be read in Rivadeneyra, -vols. xiii. and iii.: Mariana fills vols. xxx. and xxxi., but the two -noble folios of 1780 are in every way preferable.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> - -<p>The early editions of Góngora are named in the text; Rivadeneyra, -vol. xxxii., reprints him in unsatisfactory fashion, but there is nothing -better. Forty-nine inedited pieces by Góngora have been recently -published by Professor Rennert in the <i>Revue hispanique</i>, vol. iv. -Churton's essay on Góngora (1862) is learned, spirited, and interesting. -Villamediana figures in Rivadeneyra's forty-second volume: -D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's minute and judicious study (1886) is extremely -important. Lasso de la Vega's monograph, already cited, -on the Sevillan school, should be consulted for the poets of that -group. Villegas and the minor poets may be read in Rivadeneyra, -vol. xlii. Rioja has been admirably edited by Barrera (1867), who -has supplied a most scholarly biography and bibliography: the -additional poems issued in 1872 are more curious than valuable. -Quevedo's prose works were edited by Aureliano Fernández-Guerra -y Orbe with great skill and accuracy in Rivadeneyra, vols. xxiii. and -xlviii.; his verse has been printed in vol. lxix. by Florencio Janer, -who was not the man for the task. The new and complete edition, -issued by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Andaluces, and edited by D. -Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, promises to be admirable, and will -include much new matter—for instance, a pure text of the <i>Buscón</i>. As -yet but one volume (1898) has been issued to subscribers. M. Ernest -Mérimée, the author of an excellent monograph on Quevedo (1886), -has given us a critical edition of Castro's <i>Mocedades del Cid</i> (Toulouse, -1890). Vélez de Guevara and Montalbán are exampled in Rivadeneyra, -vol. xlv.: the prose of the former is in vol. xviii.</p> - -<p>Hartzenbusch's twelve-volume edition of Tirso de Molina (1839-42)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span> -is incomplete, but it is greatly superior to the selection in Rivadeneyra, -vol. v. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's monograph on Tirso -(1893) contains many new facts, stated with great precision and -lucidity. Hartzenbusch's edition of Ruiz de Alarcón in Rivadeneyra, -vo. xx., is the best and fullest.</p> - -<p>Calderón's editions are numerous, but none are really good. Keil's -(Leipzig, 1827) is the most complete; Hartzenbusch's, which fills -vols. vii., ix., xii., and xiv. of Rivadeneyra, is the easiest to obtain, -and is sufficient for most purposes. Mr. Norman MacColl's <i>Select -Plays of Calderon</i> (1888) deserves special mention for its excellent -introduction and judicious notes. M. Morel-Fatio's edition of <i>El -Mágico Prodigioso</i> is a model of skill and accuracy. Two small collections -of Calderón's verse were published at Cádiz, 1845, and at -Madrid, 1881. Archbishop Trench's monograph (1880) and Miss -E. J. Hasell's study (1879) are deservedly well known. D. Marcelino -Menéndez y Pelayo's lectures, <i>Calderón y su Teatro</i> (1881) are full of -sound, impartial criticism. Friedrich Wilhelm Valentin Schmidt's -<i>Die Schauspiele Calderon's</i> (Elberfeld, 1857) maintains its place by -virtue of its sound and sympathetic criticism. The history of the <i>autos</i> -is fully given by Eduardo González Pedroso in Rivadeneyra, vol. lviii. -Edmund Dorer's <i>Die Calderon-Litteratur in Deutschland</i> (Leipzig, -1881) is useful and unpretending. D. Antonio Sánchez Moguel's -study (1881) of the relation between the <i>Mágico Prodigioso</i> and -Goethe's <i>Faust</i> is learned and ingenious, and D. Antonio Rubió y -Lluch's <i>Sentimiento del Honor en el Teatro de Calderón</i> (Barcelona, -1882) is a very suggestive essay.</p> - -<p>The select plays of Rojas Zorrilla and Moreto are contained in -Rivadeneyra, vols. xxxix. and liv. There exists no good edition of -Gracián: Carl Borinski's study entitled <i>Baltasar Gracián und die -Hoflitteratur in Deutschland</i> (Halle, 1894) is a very commendable -book, and M. Arturo Farinelli's criticism in the <i>Revista crítica</i>, vol. -ii., is not only learned, but is warm in its appreciation of Gracián's -perverse talent.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> - -<p>An almost complete record of eighteenth-century literature is supplied -by Sr. D. Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar, in -his <i>Histórica Crítica de la poesía castellana en el siglo XVIII.</i> (1893), -a revised and augmented edition of the classic preface to Rivadeneyra,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span> -vols. lxi., lxiii., and lxvii. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's invaluable -<i>Iriarte y su época</i> (1897) sheds much light on the literary history of -the period, and D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's <i>Historia de las -Ideas estéticas en España</i> (vol. iii. part ii., 1886) should be read as a -complement to all other works. Antonio María Alcalá Galiano's -<i>Historia de la literatura española, francesa, inglesa, é italiano en el -siglo XVIII.</i> (1845) is acute, but somewhat obsolete. I should -recommend as an honest, useful monograph the life of Sarmiento -published under the title of <i>El Gran Gallego</i> (La Coruña, 1895) by -D. Antolín López Peláez.</p> - - -<h3>CHAPTERS XII AND XIII</h3> - -<p>The only summary of the period is Padre Francisco Blanco García's -<i>Literatura Española en el siglo XIX.</i> (1891): it is extremely uncritical, -and is marred by violent personal prejudices intemperately -expressed. But it has the merit of existing, and embodies useful -information in the way of facts. Gustave Hubbard's <i>Histoire de la -littérature contemporaine en Espagne</i> (1876) and Boris de Tannenberg's -<i>La Poésie castellane contemporaine</i> (1892) are pleasant but -slight. Pedro de Novo y Colsón's <i>Autores dramáticos contemporaneos -y joyas del teatro español del siglo XIX.</i> (1881-85), with a preface by -Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, is conscientiously put together, and will -be found very serviceable.</p> - - -<div> -<hr class="fn" /> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></p> - -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a class="label" href="#FNanchor_32_32">[32]</a> Unless otherwise stated, it is to be understood that, of the books named in -this list, the Spanish are issued at Madrid, the English at London, and the French -at Paris.</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span></p> - - -<h2>INDEX</h2> - - -<table class="indexalpha" summary="Alphabetical Index" border="1"> - <tr> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_A">A</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_B">B</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_C">C</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_D">D</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_E">E</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_F">F</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_G">G</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_H">H</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_I">I</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_J">J</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> K</td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_L">L</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_M">M</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_N">N</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_O">O</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_P">P</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_Q">Q</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_R">R</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_S">S</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_T">T</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_U">U</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_V">V</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_W">W</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_X">X</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_Y">Y</a></td> - <td class="tdc"> <a href="#IX_Z">Z</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - - -<ul class="IX"> -<li id="Abarbanel"><a id="IX_A" name="IX_A"></a>Abarbanel, Judas, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> -<li>Abraham ben David, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> -<li>Acuña, Fernando de, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> -<li>Adenet le Roi, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> -<li><i>Alabanza de Mahoma</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> -<li>Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>-<a href="#Page_382">382</a></li> -<li>Alas, Leopoldo, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>-<a href="#Page_392">392</a></li> -<li>Alba, Bartolomé, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> -<li>Alcalá, Alfonso de, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Alcalá y Herrera, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Alcázar, Baltasar de, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> -<li>Alemán, Mateo, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> -<li><i>Alexander, Letters of</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> -<li><i>Alexandre, Libro de</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> -<li>Alfonso II. of Aragón, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> -<li>Alfonso the Learned, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>-<a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> -<li>Alfonso XI., <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> -<li><i>Aljamía</i>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>-<a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> -<li>Altamira y Crevea, Rafael, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></li> -<li><i>Altobiskarko Cantua</i>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> -<li>Al-Tufail, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> -<li>Álvarez de Ayllón, Pero, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> -<li id="AlvarezCienfuegos">Álvarez de Cienfuegos, Nicasio, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> -<li>Álvarez de Toledo, Gabriel, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> -<li id="AlvarezVillasandino">Álvarez de Villasandino, Alfonso, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> -<li>Álvarez Gato, Juan, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> -<li><i>Amadís de Gaula</i>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> -<li><i>Amadís de Grecia</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>Amador de los Ríos, José, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> -<li>Amalteo, Giovanni Battista, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> -<li><i>Anales Toledanos</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> -<li>Andújar, Juan de, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> -<li>Ángeles, Juan de los, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> -<li>Ángulo y Pulgar, Martín de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> -<li><i>Anséïs de Carthage</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> -<li>Antonio, Nicolás, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li> -<li><i>Apolonio, Libro de</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> -<li>Arab influence, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>-<a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> -<li>Arévalo, Faustino, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> -<li>Argensola. <i>See</i> <a href="#LeonardoArgensola">Leonardo de Argensola</a></li> -<li>Argote, Juan de, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> -<li id="ArgoteGongora">Argote y Góngora, Luis, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>-<a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> -<li>Arguijo, Juan de, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> -<li>Arias Montano, Benito, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> -<li>Artieda. <i>See</i> <a href="#ReyArtieda">Rey de Artieda</a></li> -<li>Asenjo Barbieri, Francisco, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> -<li>Avellaneda. <i>See</i> <a href="#FernandezAvellaneda">Fernández de Avellaneda</a></li> -<li>Avellaneda. <i>See</i> <a href="#GomezAvellaneda">Gómez de Avellaneda</a></li> -<li>Avempace, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> -<li>Avendaño, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> -<li>Averroes, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> -<li>Avicebron, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> -<li>Ávila, Juan de, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> -<li>Ávila y Zúñiga, Luis, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> -<li><i>Avilés, Fuero de</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> -<li>Axular, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> -<li>Ayala. <i>See</i> <a href="#LopezAyala">López de Ayala</a></li> -<li>Azémar, Guilhem, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_B" name="IX_B"></a>Baena, Juan Alfonso de, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> -<li>Baist, Professor, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> -<li>Balbus, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> -<li>Balmes y Uspia, Jaime, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></li> -<li>Bances Candamo, Francisco Antonio, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> -<li>Barahona de Soto, Luis, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li>Barcelo, Francisco, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li><i>Barlaam and Josaphat, Legend of</i>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> -<li>Barrera y Leirado, Cayetano Alberto de la, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> -<li>Barrientos, Lope de, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> -<li>Basque influence, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>-<a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> -<li>Baudouin, Jean, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> -<li>Bavia, Luis de, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> -<li>Bechada, Grégoire de, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> -<li>Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>-<a href="#Page_378">378</a></li> -<li>Bédier, M. Joseph, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> -<li><i>Belianís de Grecia</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Belmonte y Bermúdez, Luis, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> -<li>Bembo, Pietro, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> -<li>Berague, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> -<li>Berceo, Gonzalo de, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> -<li>Beristain de Souza Fernández de Lara, José Mariano, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> -<li>Bermúdez, Gerónimo, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> -<li>Bernáldez, Andrés, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> -<li>Blanco, José María, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>-<a href="#Page_368">368</a></li> -<li>Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></li> -<li><i>Bocados de Oro.</i> See <a href="#Bonium"><i>Bonium</i></a></li> -<li>Böhl de Faber, Cecilia. <i>See</i> <a href="#Caballero">Caballero</a></li> -<li>Böhl de Faber, Johan Nikolas, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> -<li>Böhmer, Eduard, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> -<li>Bonilla, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li id="Bonium"><i>Bonium</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> -<li>Boscán Almogaver, Juan, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> -<li>Bouterwek, Friedrich, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> -<li>Braulius, St., <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Bretón de los Herreros, Manuel, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> -<li>Burke, Edmund, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> -<li>Byron, Lord, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li id="Caballero"><a id="IX_C" name="IX_C"></a>Caballero, Fernán, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>-<a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></li> -<li>Cabanyes, Manuel de, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> -<li><i>Cabo roto, Versos de</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> -<li>Cáceres y Espinosa, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li>Cadalso y Vázquez, José de, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> -<li>Calanson, Guirauld de, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> -<li>Calderón de la Barca Henao de la Barreda y Riaño, Pedro, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>-<a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> -<li>Camões, Luis de, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li>Campoamor y Campoosorio, Ramón de, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>-<a href="#Page_386">386</a></li> -<li>Camus, Jean-Pierre, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> -<li><i>Cancioneiro Portuguez da Vaticana</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> -<li><i>Cancionero de Baena</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>-<a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> -<li><i>Cancionero de burlas</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> -<li><i>Cancionero de Linares</i>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> -<li><i>Cancionero de Lope de Stúñiga</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> -<li><i>Cancionero General</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> -<li><i>Cancionero Musical</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li>Cañizares, José de, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Cano, Alonso, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> -<li>Cano, Melchor, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> -<li><i>Cantilenas</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>-<a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> -<li><i>Canzoniere Colocci-Brancuti</i>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> -<li>Carlos Quinto, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> -<li>Caro, Rodrigo, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> -<li>Carrillo, Alonso, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> -<li>Carrillo y Sotomayor, Luis de, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> -<li>Carvajal, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> -<li>Carvajal, Miguel de, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> -<li>Casas, Bartolomé de las, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> -<li>Cascales, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> -<li>Castellanos, Juan de, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> -<li>Castellví, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li><i>Castilla, Crónica de</i>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> -<li>Castilla, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li>Castillejo, Cristóbal de, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>-<a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> -<li>Castillo Solórzano, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Castro, Adolfo de, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li>Castro y Bellvis, Guillén de, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>-<a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> -<li>Cecchi, Giovanni Maria, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> -<li><i>Celestina</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li><i>Centón Epistolario</i>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> -<li>Cepeda y Guzmán, Carlos, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> -<li>Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> -<li>Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>-<a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></li> -<li>Céspedes y Meneses, Gonzalo de, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Cetina, Gutierre de, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> -<li>Chaves, Cristóbal de, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> -<li>Chivalresque novels, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>-<a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Churton, Edward, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>-<a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> -<li><i>Cid, Crónica del</i>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> -<li><i>Cid, Poema del</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> -<li>Cienfuegos. <i>See</i> <a href="#AlvarezCienfuegos">Álvarez de Cienfuegos</a></li> -<li>Civillar, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li>Claramonte y Corroy, Andrés, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> -<li>Claude, Bishop, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Clavijo. <i>See</i> <a href="#GonzalezClavijo">González de Clavijo</a></li> -<li>Clavijo y Fajardo, José, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></li> -<li><i>Cobos, El Padre</i>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a></li> -<li>Cobos, Francisco de los, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> -<li>Coloma, Luis, <a href="#Page_394">394</a></li> -<li id="Columbarius">Columbarius, Julius, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> -<li>Columbus, Christopher, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>-<a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> -<li>Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> -<li>Concepción, Juan de la, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> -<li><i>Conceptismo</i>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>-<a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> -<li>Contreras, Juana de, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li>Córdoba, Martín de, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li>Córdoba, Sebastián de, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> -<li>Corneille, Pierre, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Corneille, Thomas, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> -<li>Cornu, Professor, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> -<li>Coronado, Carolina, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></li> -<li>Coronel, Pablo, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Corral, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> -<li>Corte Real, Jerónimo, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> -<li>Cortés, Hernán, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>Cota de Maguaque, Rodrigo de, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> -<li>Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></li> -<li>Covarrubias y Horozco, Sebastián, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> -<li>Croce, Benedetto, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li><i>Crotalón, El</i>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> -<li>Cruz, San Juan de la, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>-<a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> -<li>Cruz y Cano, Ramón de la, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>-<a href="#Page_361">361</a></li> -<li>Cubillo de Aragón, Álvaro, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> -<li>Cuello, Antonio, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> -<li><i>Cuestión de Amor</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> -<li>Cueva de la Garoza, Juan de la, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> -<li><i>Culteranismo</i>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>-<a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> -<li>Cunninghame Graham, Mrs., <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_D" name="IX_D"></a>Damasus, St., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>-<a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> -<li><i>Danza de la Muerte</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>-<a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> -<li>Dascanio, Jusquin, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li>Davidson, Mr. John, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> -<li><i>Debate entre el Agua y el Vino</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> -<li>Dechepare, Bernard, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> -<li>Defoe, Daniel, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> -<li>Diamante, Juan Bautista, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li><i>Diario de los Literatos de España</i>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -<li>Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>Díaz Gámez, Gutierre, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> -<li>Díaz Tanco de Fregenal, Vasco, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> -<li><i>Diez Mandamientos</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> -<li>Diniz, King of Portugal, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> -<li><i>Disputa del Alma y el Cuerpo</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> -<li>Dobson, Mr. Austin, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> -<li><i>Doce Sabios, Libro de los</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> -<li>Dominicus Gundisalvi, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> -<li>Donoso Cortés, Juan, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></li> -<li>D'Ouville, Antoine Le Métel, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> -<li>Dryden, John, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> -<li>Ducas, Demetrio, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Duhalde, Louis, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> -<li>Durán, Agustín, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_E" name="IX_E"></a>Echegaray, José, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></li> -<li>Encina, Juan del, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> -<li><i>Enrique IV., Crónica de</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> -<li>Enríquez del Castillo, Diego, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> -<li>Enríquez Gómez, Antonio, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Ercilla y Zúñiga, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>-<a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> -<li><i>Ermitaño, Revelación de un</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> -<li>Escobar, Juan de, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> -<li>Escobar, Luis de, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> -<li>Escribá, Comendador de, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> -<li>Espinosa, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> -<li>Espinosa Medrano, Juan de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> -<li>Espronceda, José de, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>-<a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> -<li>Esquilache, Príncipe de (Francisco de Borja), <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li>Estébanez Calderón, Serafín, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>-<a href="#Page_380">380</a></li> -<li><i>Estebanillo González, Vida y Hechos de</i>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Eugenius, St., <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Eulogius, St., <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> -<li>Eximenis, Francisco, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_F" name="IX_F"></a>Fadrique, the Infante, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> -<li>Fanshawe, Richard, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> -<li>Faria y Sousa, Manuel, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>-<a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> -<li>Farinelli, M. Arturo, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> -<li>Feijóo y Montenegro, Benito Gerónimo, <a href="#Page_349">349</a></li> -<li>Ferdinand, St., <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> -<li><i>Fernán González, Poema de</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> -<li>Fernández, Lucas, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> -<li>Fernández de Andrado, Pedro, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li id="FernandezAvellaneda">Fernández de Avellaneda, Alonso, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>-<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></li> -<li id="FernandezMoratin">Fernández de Moratín, Leandro, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>-<a href="#Page_362">362</a></li> -<li>Fernández de Moratín, Nicolás Martín, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> -<li id="FernandezOviedo">Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, González, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> -<li id="FernandezPalencia">Fernández de Palencia, Alfonso, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Fernández de Toledo, Garci, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li>Fernández de Villegas, Pedro, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Fernández-Guerra y Orbe, Aureliano, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li>Fernández Vallejo, Felipe, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> -<li>Ferreira, Antonio, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> -<li>Ferrús, Pero, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> -<li>Figueroa, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> -<li>FitzGerald, Edward, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> -<li>Flamini, Professor, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> -<li>Flaubert, Gustave, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> -<li><i>Florisando</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li><i>Florisel de Niquea</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>Forner, Juan Pablo, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li> -<li>Foulché-Delbosc, M. R., <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> -<li>French influence, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> -<li>Frere, John Hookham, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> -<li>Froude, James Anthony, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> -<li>Fuentes, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> -<li><i>Fuero Juzgo</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> -<li>Furtado de Mendoza, Diego, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_G" name="IX_G"></a>Gallego, Juan Nicasio, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></li> -<li>Gallinero, Manuel, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -<li>Gálvez de Montalvo, Luis, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> -<li>Garay, Blasco de, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> -<li>Garay de Monglave, François Eugène, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> -<li>García Arrieta, Agustín, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> -<li>García Asensio, Miguel, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> -<li>García de la Huerta y Muñoz, Vicente Antonio, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>-<a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> -<li>García de Santa María, Álvar, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> -<li>García Gutiérrez, Antonio, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> -<li>Gareth, Benedetto, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li>Garnett, Dr. Richard, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> -<li><i>Gatos, Libro de los</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> -<li>Gautier de Coinci, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> -<li>Gayangos, Pascual de, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> -<li>Gentil, Bertomeu, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li>Geraldino, Alessandro, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li>Geraldino, Antonio, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li>Giancarli, Gigio Arthenio, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> -<li>Gibson, James Young, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> -<li>Girard d'Amiens, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> -<li>Girón, Diego, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> -<li>Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> -<li>Goizcueta, José María, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> -<li>Gómara. <i>See</i> <a href="#LopezGomara">López de Gómara</a></li> -<li>Gómez, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> -<li>Gómez, Álvar, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li>Gómez, Ambrosio, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> -<li>Gómez, Pero, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> -<li id="GomezAvellaneda">Gómez de Avellaneda, Gertrudis, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>-<a href="#Page_375">375</a></li> -<li>Gómez de Cibdareal, Fernán, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> -<li id="GomezQuevedo">Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>-<a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Góngora. <i>See</i> <a href="#ArgoteGongora">Argote y Góngora</a></li> -<li>González, Diego Tadeo, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> -<li>González de Ávila, Gil, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> -<li id="GonzalezClavijo">González de Clavijo, Ruy, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> -<li>González de Mendoza, Pedro, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> -<li>González Llanos, Rafael, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> -<li>Gosse, Mr. Edmund, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a></li> -<li>Gower, John (the first English author translated into Castilian), <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> -<li>Gracián, Baltasar, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>-<a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> -<li><i>Gran Conquista de Ultramar</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> -<li>Granada, Luis de, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> -<li>Grant Duff, Sir M. E., <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Grillparzer, Franz, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> -<li>Grosseteste, Robert, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> -<li>Guarda, Estevam del, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> -<li>Guerra y Ribera, Manuel de, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> -<li>Guevara, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> -<li>Guevara, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>-<a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> -<li>Guevara, Luis. <i>See</i> <a href="#VelezGuevara">Vélez Guevara</a></li> -<li>Guillén de Segovia, Pedro, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_H" name="IX_H"></a>Hadrian, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> -<li>Hammen, Lorenzo van der, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> -<li>Hardy, Alexandre, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> -<li id="HaroConde">Haro, Conde de, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> -<li>Haro, Luis de, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> -<li>Hartzenbusch, Juan Eugenio, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> -<li>Hebreo, León. <i>See</i> <a href="#Abarbanel">Abarbanel</a></li> -<li>Hellowes, Edward, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> -<li>Henley, Mr. William Ernest, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> -<li>Henricus Seynensis, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> -<li>Herbert, George, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> -<li>Heredia, José Maria, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>Hernández, Alonso, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> -<li>Herrera, Fernando, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>-<a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> -<li id="HervasCoboTorre">Hervás y Cobo de la Torre, José Gerardo de, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>-<a href="#Page_349">349</a></li> -<li>Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_362">362</a></li> -<li>Hoces y Córdoba, Gonzalo de, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> -<li>Holland, Lord, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> -<li>Hosius, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> -<li>Hübner, Baron Emil, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> -<li>Huete, Jaime de, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> -<li>Hurtado, Luis, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> -<li>Hurtado de Mendoza, Antonio, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> -<li>Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>-<a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>-<a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> -<li>Hussain ibn Ishāk, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> -<li>Huysmans, M. Joris-Karl, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> -<li>Hyginus, Gaius Julius, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_I" name="IX_I"></a>Ibn Hazm, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> -<li>Icazbalceta, Joaquín García, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> -<li>Iglesias de la Casa, José, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> -<li>Imperial, Francisco, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>-<a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> -<li>Iñíguez de Medrano, Julio, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> -<li><i>Iranzo y Crónica del Condestable Miguel Lucas</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> -<li>Iriarte y Oropesa, Tomás de, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>-<a href="#Page_357">357</a></li> -<li>Isaac the Martyr, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> -<li>Isidore, St., <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Isidore Pacensis, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> -<li>Isla, Francisco José de, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>-<a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_J" name="IX_J"></a>Jáuregui y Aguilar, Juan de, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> -<li>Jiménez de Cisneros, Francisco, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Jiménez de Rada, Rodrigo, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li>Jiménez Patón, Bartolomé, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> -<li>Johnson, Samuel, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> -<li><i>José, Poema de.</i> <i>See</i> <a href="#Yusuf">Yusuf</a></li> -<li>Josephus, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> -<li>Jove-Llanos, Gaspar Melchor de, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>-<a href="#Page_358">358</a></li> -<li><i>Juan II., Crónica de</i>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> -<li>Juan Manuel, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>-<a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> -<li>Judah ben Samuel the Levite, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> -<li><i>Juglares</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> -<li>Juvencus, Vettius Aquilinus, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><i>Kabbala</i>, the, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> -<li><i>Kalilah and Dimnah</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> -<li>Killigrew, Thomas, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_L" name="IX_L"></a>Lafayette, Madame de, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> -<li>Lamberto, Alfonso, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> -<li>Landor, Walter Savage, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> -<li>Larra, Mariano José de, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>-<a href="#Page_379">379</a></li> -<li>Latini, Brunetto, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> -<li>Latrocinius, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> -<li><i>Lazarillo de Tormes</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> -<li>Ledesma, Francisco, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> -<li>Ledesma Buitrago, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li><i>Leloaren Cantua</i>, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>-<a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> -<li>Lena. <i>See</i> <a href="#RodriguezLena">Rodríguez de Lena</a></li> -<li>León, Luis Ponce de, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> -<li>León y Mansilla, José, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> -<li>Leonardo de Albión, Gabriel, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> -<li id="LeonardoArgensola">Leonardo de Argensola, Bartolomé, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> -<li>Leonardo de Argensola, Lupercio, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>-<a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>-<a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> -<li>Lesage, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> -<li>Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> -<li>L'Estrange, Roger, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> -<li>Lewes, George Henry, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> -<li>Licinianus, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Lidforss, Professor, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> -<li>Lista, Alberto, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a></li> -<li><i>Lisuarte</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Llaguno y Amírola, Eugenio, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> -<li>Lo Frasso, Antonio, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> -<li>Loaysa, Jofre de, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li>Lobeira, Joham, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li>Lobo, Eugenio Gerardo, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> -<li>Lockhart, James Gibson, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> -<li>Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> -<li>Lope de Moros, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> -<li>Lope de Vega. <i>See</i> <a href="#VegaCarpio">Vega Carpio</a></li> -<li>López de Aguilar Coutiño. <i>See</i> <a href="#Columbarius">Columbarius</a></li> -<li id="LopezAyala">López de Ayala, Adelardo, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>-<a href="#Page_376">376</a></li> -<li>López de Ayala, Pero, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>-<a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> -<li>López de Cartagena, Diego, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>López de Corelas, Alonso, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> -<li id="LopezGomara">López de Gómara, Francisco, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>López de Sedano, José, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> -<li>López de Toledo, Diego, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>López de Úbeda, Francisco. <i>See</i> <a href="#PerezAndres">Pérez, Andrés</a></li> -<li>López de Úbeda, Juan, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> -<li>López de Vicuña, Juan, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>-<a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> -<li id="LopezVillalobos">López de Villalobos, Francisco, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> -<li>Lorenzana y Buitrón, Francisco Antonio, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> -<li>Lorenzo Segura de Astorga, Juan, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> -<li>Loyola, St. Ignacio, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> -<li>Lucan, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> -<li>Lucena, Juan de, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> -<li>Luján de Sayavedra, Mateo. <i>See</i> <a href="#Marti">Martí</a></li> -<li>Lull, Ramón, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> -<li>Luna, Álvaro de, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> -<li><i>Luna, Crónica de Álvaro de</i>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> -<li>Luzán Claramunt de Suelves y Gurrea, Ignacio, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>-<a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_M" name="IX_M"></a>M'Carthy, Denis Florence, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>-<a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> -<li>MacColl, Mr. Norman, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> -<li>Macías, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>-<a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> -<li><i>Magos, Misterio de los Reyes</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> -<li>Mahomat-el-Xartosse, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> -<li>Maimonides, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> -<li>Máinez, Ramón León, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> -<li>Mairet, Jean, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> -<li>Malara, Juan de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>-<a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> -<li>Maldonado, López, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> -<li>Malón de Chaide, Pedro, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> -<li>Manrique, Gómez, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> -<li>Manrique, Jorge, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> -<li>Maragall, Joan, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></li> -<li>Marcabru, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> -<li>March, Auzías, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> -<li>Marche, Olivier de la, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> -<li>Marcus Aurelius, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> -<li>María de Jesús de Ágreda, Sor, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> -<li>María del Cielo, Sor, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> -<li><i>María Egipciacqua, Vida de Santa</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> -<li>Mariana, Juan de, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>-<a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> -<li>Marineo, Lucio, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li id="Marti">Martí, Juan, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> -<li>Martial, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> -<li>Martin of Dumi, St., <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Martínez, Fernán, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> -<li>Martínez de la Rosa, Francisco, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>-<a href="#Page_366">366</a></li> -<li>Martínez de Medina, Gonzalo, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> -<li>Martínez de Toledo, Alfonso, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> -<li>Martínez Salafranca, Juan, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -<li>Martyr, Peter, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> -<li>Matos Fragoso, Juan de, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> -<li>Mayáns y Siscar, Gregorio, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> -<li>Medina, Francisco, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> -<li>Medrano, Lucía, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li>Mela, Pomponius, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> -<li>Meléndez Valdés, Juan, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>-<a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> -<li>Melo, Francisco Manuel de, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> -<li>Mena, Juan de, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> -<li>Mendoza, Íñigo de, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li>Menéndez Pidal, Ramón, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></li> -<li>Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>-<a href="#Page_398">398</a></li> -<li>Meres, Francis, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> -<li>Mérimée, Ernest, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></li> -<li>Mesonero Romanos, Ramón de, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></li> -<li>Mexía, Hernán, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> -<li>Mexía, Pedro, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> -<li>Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Mme., <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> -<li>Milá y Fontanals, Manuel, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> -<li>Milton, John, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> -<li><i>Mingo Revulgo, Coplas de</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> -<li>Mira de Amescua, Antonio, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> -<li>Miranda, Luis de, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> -<li>Molière, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></li> -<li>Molina, Argote de, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> -<li>Molinos, Miguel de, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>-<a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> -<li>Moncada, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> -<li>Mondéjar, Marqués de, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li> -<li>Montalbán. <i>See</i> <a href="#PerezMontalban">Pérez de Montalbán</a></li> -<li>Montalvo. <i>See</i> <a href="#OrdonezMontalbo">Ordóñez de Montalvo</a></li> -<li>Montemôr, Jorge, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>-<a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li>Montesino, Ambrosio, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li>Monti, Giulio, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> -<li>Montiano y Luyando, Agustín, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> -<li>Montoro, Antón de, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> -<li>Moraes, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> -<li>Morales, Ambrosio de, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> -<li>Moratín. <i>See</i> <a href="#FernandezMoratin">Fernández de Moratín</a></li> -<li>Morel-Fatio, M. Alfred, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a></li> -<li>Moreto y Cavaña, Agustín, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>-<a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> -<li>Morley, Mr. John, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> -<li>Mosquera de Figueroa, Cristóbal, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> -<li>Muhammad Rabadán, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> -<li>Munday, Anthony, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Muñón, Sancho, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li>Muntaner, Ramón, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_N" name="IX_N"></a>Naharro, Pedro, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> -<li>Nahman, Moses ben, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> -<li>Nájera, Esteban de, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li>Nasarre y Férruz, Blas Antonio, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></li> -<li>Navagiero, Andrea, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> -<li>Navarro, Miguel, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -<li>Nebrija, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Nebrija, Francisca de, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li>Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> -<li>Nifo, Francisco Mariano, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> -<li>North, Thomas, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> -<li>Nucio, Martín, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li>Núñez, Hernán, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> -<li>Núñez de Arce, Gaspar, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>-<a href="#Page_396">396</a></li> -<li>Núñez de Villaizán, Juan, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_O" name="IX_O"></a>Obregón, Antonio, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li>Ocampo, Florián de, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> -<li>Ocaña, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> -<li>Ochoa, Juan, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></li> -<li>Odo of Cheriton, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> -<li>Olid, Juan de, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> -<li>Oliva. <i>See</i> <a href="#PerezOliva">Pérez de Oliva</a></li> -<li>Oller y Moragas, Narcís, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></li> -<li>Omerique, Hugo de, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li> -<li>Oña, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> -<li id="OrdonezMontalbo">Ordóñez de Montalvo, García, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> -<li>Ormsby, John, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> -<li>Orosius, Paulus, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>-<a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Ortiz, Agustín, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> -<li>Oudin, César, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> -<li>Oviedo. <i>See</i> <a href="#FernandezOviedo">Fernández de Oviedo</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_P" name="IX_P"></a>Pacheco, Francisco, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> -<li>Padilla, Juan de, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> -<li>Padilla, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> -<li>Paez de Ribera, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> -<li>Paez de Ribera, Ruy, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> -<li>Palacio Valdés, Armando, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>-<a href="#Page_393">393</a></li> -<li>Palacios Rubios, Juan López de Vivero, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> -<li>Palau, Bartolomé, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> -<li>Palencia. <i>See</i> <a href="#FernandezPalencia">Fernández de Palencia</a></li> -<li><i>Palmerín de Inglaterra</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li><i>Palmerín de Oliva</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li><i>Panadera, Coplas de la</i>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> -<li>Paravicino y Arteaga, Hortensio Félix, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> -<li>Pardo Bazán, Emilia, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>-<a href="#Page_394">394</a></li> -<li>Paredes, Alfonso de, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> -<li>Paris, M. Gaston, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> -<li>Patmore, Coventry, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> -<li>Paulus Alvarus Cordubiensis, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> -<li>Pellicer, Casiano, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> -<li>Pellicer de Salas y Tobar, José, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> -<li>Per Abbat, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> -<li>Peralta Barnuevo, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Pereda, José María de, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-<a href="#Page_390">390</a></li> -<li>Pérez, Alonso, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li id="PerezAndres">Pérez, Andrés, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> -<li>Pérez, Antonio, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>-<a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> -<li>Pérez, Suero, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li>Pérez de Guzmán, Fernán, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>-<a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> -<li>Pérez de Hita, Ginés, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li id="PerezMontalban">Pérez de Montalbán, Juan, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>-<a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> -<li id="PerezOliva">Pérez de Oliva, Fernando, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> -<li>Pérez Galdós, Benito, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>-<a href="#Page_391">391</a></li> -<li>Peseux-Richard, M. H., <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></li> -<li>Peter the Venerable, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> -<li>Petrus Alphonsus, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> -<li>Phillips, Mr. Henry, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> -<li>Picaud, Aimeric, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> -<li>Pitillas, Jorge. <i>See</i> <a href="#HervasCoboTorre">Hervás y Cobo de la Torre</a></li> -<li><i>Platir, Crónica del muy valiente</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li><i>Pleito del Manto</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> -<li><i>Polindo</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Polo, Gaspar Gil, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li>Ponce, Bartolomé, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> -<li>Ponte, Pero da, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> -<li><i>Poridat de las Poridades</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> -<li>Prete Jacopín. <i>See</i> <a href="#HaroConde">Haro, Conde de</a></li> -<li><i>Primaleón</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Priscillian, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> -<li>Proverbs, Spanish, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> -<li><i>Provincial, Coplas del</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> -<li>Prudentius, Clemens Aurelius, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> -<li>Prudentius Galindus, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Puig, Leopoldo Gerónimo, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -<li>Pulgar, Hernando del, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> -<li>Puymaigre, Comte de, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_Q" name="IX_Q"></a><i>Querellas, Libro de</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> -<li>Quevedo. <i>See</i> <a href="#GomezQuevedo">Gómez de Quevedo</a></li> -<li>Quintana, Manuel José, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>-<a href="#Page_365">365</a></li> -<li>Quintilian, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_R" name="IX_R"></a>Racine, Jean, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Raimundo, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> -<li>Ramírez de Prado, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> -<li>Ramos del Manzano, Francisco, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li> -<li>Ranieri, Antonio Francesco, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> -<li>Rasis, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> -<li>Rebolledo, Conde de, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li>Remón, Alonso, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> -<li>Rennert, Professor, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li>Resende, García de, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> -<li>Revilla, Manuel de la, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></li> -<li id="ReyArtieda">Rey de Artieda, Andrés, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> -<li>Reyes, Matías de los, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> -<li>Reyes, Pedro de los, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> -<li>Rhua, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> -<li>Ribas y Canfranc, José Ibero, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> -<li>Rioja, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li>Rivas, Duque de, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>-<a href="#Page_367">367</a></li> -<li>Rivers, Lord, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> -<li>Roca y Serna, Ambrosio, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> -<li><i>Rodrigo, Cantar de</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>-<a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> -<li>Rodríguez de la Cámara, Juan, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> -<li id="RodriguezLena">Rodríguez de Lena, Pero, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> -<li id="RodriguezSilvaVelazquez">Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Diego, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>-<a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Rodríguez Rubí, Tomás, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> -<li><i>Rogel de Grecia</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Rojas, Agustín de, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> -<li>Rojas, Fernando de, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li>Rojas Zorrilla, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> -<li><i>Romancero General</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li><i>Romances</i>, Spanish, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>-<a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> -<li>Romero de Cepeda, Joaquín, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> -<li>Roswitha, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> -<li>Rotrou, Jean, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> -<li>Rowland, David, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> -<li>Rueda, Lope de, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> -<li>Rufo Gutiérrez, Juan, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>-<a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> -<li>Ruiz, Jacobo, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> -<li>Ruiz, Juan, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>-<a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> -<li>Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza, Juan, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>-<a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_S" name="IX_S"></a>Sâ de Miranda, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> -<li>Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> -<li>Salas Barbadillo, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> -<li>Salazar Mardones, Cristóbal de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> -<li>Salazar y Hontiveros, José de, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Salazar y Torres, Agustín de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>-<a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> -<li>Salcedo Coronel, García de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> -<li><i>Salomón, Proverbios en Rimo de</i>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> -<li>Samaniego, Félix María de, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> -<li>San Juan, Marqués de, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> -<li>Sánchez, Clemente, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> -<li>Sánchez, Francisco, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> -<li>Sánchez, Miguel, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> -<li>Sánchez, Tomás Antonio, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> -<li>Sánchez de Badajoz, Garci, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> -<li>Sánchez de Tovar, Fernán, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> -<li>Sánchez Talavera, Ferrant, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> -<li>Sancho IV., <a href="#Page_72">72</a>-<a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> -<li>Sannazaro, Jacopo, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> -<li>Santillana, Marqués de, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>-<a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> -<li>Santisteban y Osorio, Diego, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> -<li>Sarmiento, Martín, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a></li> -<li>Sbarbi, José María, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> -<li>Scarron, Paul, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> -<li>Schack, Adolf Friedrich von, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> -<li>Schopenhauer, Arthur, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a></li> -<li>Scudéry, Mlle. de, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> -<li>Secchi, Niccolò, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> -<li>Sedeño, Juan, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li>Selgas y Carrasco, José, <a href="#Page_377">377</a></li> -<li>Sem Tob, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> -<li>Sempere, Hieronym, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> -<li>Seneca, the Elder, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> -<li>Seneca, the Younger, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> -<li>Sepúlveda, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> -<li>Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> -<li>Shelley, Percy Bysshe, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> -<li>Sidney, Philip, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> -<li><i>Siete Partidas, Las</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> -<li>Silva, Feliciano de, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Silvestre, Gregorio, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li>Sisebut, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> -<li>Solís y Rivadeneira, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>-<a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> -<li>Sordello, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> -<li>Sorel, Charles, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> -<li>Spera-in-Deo, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> -<li>Stanley, Thomas, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> -<li>Stúñiga, Lope de, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> -<li>Suárez de Figueroa, Cristóbal, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_T" name="IX_T"></a>Tamayo y Baus, Manuel, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>-<a href="#Page_377">377</a></li> -<li>Tansillo, Luigi, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> -<li>Tapia, Juan de, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> -<li>Taylor, Jeremy, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> -<li>Téllez, Gabriel. <i>See</i> <a href="#TirsoMolina">Tirso de Molina</a></li> -<li>Teresa, Santa, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> -<li><i>Tesoro</i>, the, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> -<li>Texeda, Jerónimo de, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li>Theodolphus, Bishop, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> -<li>Thylesius, Antonius, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> -<li>Ticknor, George, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> -<li>Timoneda, Juan de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> -<li id="TirsoMolina">Tirso de Molina, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>-<a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> -<li>Todi, Jacopone da, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li>Torre, Alfonso de la, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> -<li>Torre, Francisco de la, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> -<li>Torrellas, Pero, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> -<li>Torres Naharro, Bartolomé, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> -<li>Torres Rámila, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> -<li>Torres y Villarroel, Diego de, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> -<li>Trajan, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> -<li>Tribaldos de Toledo, Luis, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> -<li><i>Trovadores</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> -<li>Trueba, Antonio, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></li> -<li>Turpin, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> -<li>Tuy, Lucas de, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_U" name="IX_U"></a>Urrea, Jerónimo de, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> -<li>Urrea, Pedro Manuel de, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_V" name="IX_V"></a>Valbuena, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></li> -<li>Valdés, Juan de, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>-<a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> -<li>Valdivielso, José de, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> -<li>Valencia, Pedro de, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> -<li>Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>-<a href="#Page_389">389</a></li> -<li>Valerius, St., <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> -<li>Valladolid, Juan de, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> -<li>Valmar, Marqués de, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> -<li>Vanbrugh, John, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> -<li>Vaqueiras, Raimbaud de, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> -<li>Varchi, Benedetto, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> -<li>Vázquez de Ciudad Rodrigo, Francisco, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li>Vega, Alonso de, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> -<li>Vega, Bernardo de la, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> -<li>Vega, Garcilaso de la, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>-<a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> -<li id="VegaCarpio">Vega Carpio, Lope Félix de, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>-<a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></li> -<li>Velázquez. <i>See</i> <a href="#RodriguezSilvaVelazquez">Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez</a></li> -<li>Velázquez de Velasco, Luis José, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> -<li id="VelezGuevara">Vélez de Guevara, Luis, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> -<li>Venegas de Henestrosa, Luis, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> -<li>Verdaguer, Jacinto, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></li> -<li>Vergara, Francisco de, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Vergara, Juan de, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Vicente, Gil, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> -<li>Vidal, Père, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> -<li>Vidal de Besalu, Ramón, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> -<li>Vidal de Noya, Francisco, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li><i>Verge María, Trobes en lahors de la</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li>Villalobos. <i>See</i> <a href="#LopezVillalobos">López de Villalobos</a></li> -<li>Villalón, Cristóbal de, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> -<li>Villamediana, Conde de, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> -<li>Villapando, Juan de, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> -<li>Villasandino. <i>See</i> <a href="#AlvarezVillasandino">Álvarez de Villasandino</a></li> -<li>Villegas, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li>Villegas, Esteban Manuel de, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>-<a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li>Villegas, Jerónimo, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Villena, Enrique de, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> -<li>Villena, Marqués de, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>-<a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> -<li>Virués, Cristóbal de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>-<a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> -<li>Vives, Luis, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> -<li>Voltaire, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_W" name="IX_W"></a>Wey, William, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> -<li>Wiffen, Benjamin Barron, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> -<li>Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> -<li>Wycherley, William, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_X" name="IX_X"></a>Xavier, St. Francisco, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_Y" name="IX_Y"></a>Yañez, Rodrigo, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> -<li>Yañez y Ribera, Gerónimo de Alcalá, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> -<li>Young, Bartholomew, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> -<li id="Yusuf"><i>Yusuf, Poema de</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> -</ul> - -<ul class="IX"> -<li><a id="IX_Z" name="IX_Z"></a>Zamora, Alfonso de, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li>Zamora, Egidio de, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li>Zapata, Luis de, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> -<li>Zorrilla, José, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>-<a href="#Page_374">374</a></li> -<li>Zumárraga, Juan de, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> -<li>Zúñiga, Francesillo de, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> -<li>Zurita, Jerónimo, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> -</ul> - - -<p class="no-indent center p2">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Spanish Literature, by -James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE *** - -***** This file should be named 55771-h.htm or 55771-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/7/55771/ - -Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Nahum Maso i Carcases and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/American -Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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