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-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
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-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
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-                         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 (^).
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-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
-
-
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