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Title: History of Spanish Literature, vol. 3 (of 3)

Author: George Ticknor

Release date: February 3, 2018 [eBook #56490]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE, VOL. 3 (OF 3) ***

Transcriber's note

Table of Contents

Index

History of Spanish Literature (vol. 3 of 3)

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.

VOL. III.

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.

BY

GEORGE TICKNOR.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME III.

NEW YORK:

HARPER AND BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF STREET.

M DCCC XLIX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by
George Ticknor,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME THIRD.

SECOND PERIOD.
(Continued.)

CHAPTER XXXI.
Satirical Poetry, Epistolary, Elegiac, Pastoral, Epigrammatic, Didactic, and Descriptive.
Satirical Poetry | 3
Mendoza, Boscan | 3
Castillejo, Montemayor | 4
Padilla, Cantorál | 4
Murillo, Artieda | 4
Barahona de Soto | 4
Juan de Jauregui | 4
The Argensolas | 5
Quevedo, Góngora | 5
Cervantes, Espinel | 6
Arguijo, Rioja | 6
Salcedo, Ulloa, Melo | 6
Rebolledo, Solís | 6
Satire discouraged | 7
Elegiac Poetry | 8
Garcilasso | 8
Figueroa, Silvestre | 9
Cantorál, the Argensolas | 9
Borja, Herrera | 9
Rioja, Quevedo | 9
Villegas | 9
Elegy does not succeed | 9
Pastoral Poetry | 10
Garcilasso, Boscan, Mendoza | 10
Figueroa, Cantorál | 10
Montemayor | 10
Saa de Miranda | 10
Polo, Balbuena | 12
Barahona de Soto | 12
Padilla, Silvestre | 12
Pedro de Enzinas | 12
Morales, Tapia | 13
Balvas, Villegas | 13
Carrillo, Esquilache | 13
Quevedo, Espinosa | 13
Soto de Roxas, Zarate | 13
Ulloa, Los Reyes | 13
Barrios, Inez de la Cruz | 13
Pastorals successful | 14
Epigrams, amatory | 14
Maldonado, Silvestre | 15
Villegas, Góngora | 15
Camoens, Argensolas | 15
Villegas, Quevedo | 15
Esquilache | 15
Francisco de la Torre | 15
Rebolledo | 16
Didactic Poetry | 17
Earliest | 17
In the Cancioneros | 17
Boscan, Silvestre, Mendoza | 17
Guzman, Aldana, Rufo | 19
Virues, Cantorál | 19
Morillo, Salas | 19
Argensola, Artieda | 19
Mesa, Espinel | 19
Juan de la Cueva | 20
Pablo de Céspedes | 20
Lope de Vega | 22
Rebolledo, Trapeza | 22
Emblems | 22
Daza, Covarrubias | 22
Descriptive Poetry | 23
Dicastillo | 23
Didactic Poetry fails | 23
CHAPTER XXXII.
Ballad Poetry.
Effect of the Romanceros | 25
Lorenzo de Sepúlveda | 26
Alonso de Fuentes | 27
Juan de Timoneda | 29
Pedro de Padilla | 30
Juan de la Cueva | 31
Ginés Perez de Hita | 31
Hidalgo, Valdivielso | 31
Lope de Vega | 32
Arellano | 32
Roca y Serna, Esquilache | 33
Mendoza, Quevedo | 33
Silva de Romances | 33
Los Doce Pares | 34
Romancero del Cid | 34
Primavera de Perez | 34
Esquilache | 35
Silvestre, Montemayor | 35
Espinel, Castillejo | 35
Lopez de Maldonado | 35
Góngora, Arteaga | 35
Villamediana, Coronel | 35
Cervantes, Lope de Vega | 36
Fereira, Alarcon | 36
Diego de la Chica | 36
Universal Love of Ballads | 37
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Romantic Fiction. — Prose Pastorals.
Romances of Chivalry | 38
Changed Taste | 39
Seen in Pastoral Fictions | 39
Shepherd’s Life in Spain | 39
Sannazaro in Italy | 40
Montemayor | 41
His Diana Enamorada | 41
Continued by Perez | 43
And by Gil Polo | 44
Antonio de Lo Frasso | 45
Luis Galvez de Montalvo | 46
His Fílida | 46
Cervantes | 47
Bartolomé de Enciso | 47
Bovadilla | 48
Bernardo de la Vega | 48
Lope de Vega | 49
Bernardo de Balbuena | 49
His Siglo de Oro | 49
Suarez de Figueroa | 50
His Amaryllis and Pastor Fido | 50
Adorno, Botelho | 51
Quintana, Cuevas | 51
Corral, Saavedra | 51
Popularity of Pastorals | 52
Their Incongruities | 53
Their Foundation | 54
Their Failure | 54
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Romantic Fiction, continued. — Stories in the Gusto Picaresco.
Their Origin | 55
Military Life | 56
Contempt for honest Labor | 56
Feeling of the lower Classes | 57
The Pícaros | 58
Lazarillo de Tórmes | 58
Mateo Aleman | 59
His Guzman de Alfarache | 59
Spurious Second Part | 61
Genuine Second Part | 61
Andreas Perez | 66
His Pícara Justina | 67
Drama and Short Tales | 67
Vicente Espinel | 67
His Marcos de Obregon | 68
Yañez y Rivera | 71
His Alonso | 71
Quevedo, Solorzano | 72
Enriquez Gomez | 73
Estevanillo Gonzalez | 74
Success of Pícaro Stories | 75
CHAPTER XXXV.
Romantic Fiction, continued. — Serious and Historical Romances.
Early Specimens | 76
Juan de Flores | 77
Nuñez de Reinoso | 77
Luzindaro y Medusina | 77
Hierónimo de Contreras | 78
Relations with Italy and Algiers | 79
Ginés Perez de Hita | 79
His Guerras de Granada | 79
Not imitated | 84
La Cryselia de Lidaceli | 86
Benito Remigio Noydens | 86
Gonzalo de Céspedes | 87
Cervantes, Lamarca | 87
Dos Verdaderos Amigos | 88
Valladares de Valdelomar | 88
Grave Fictions discouraged | 89
Cosmé de Texada | 90
Christóval Lozano | 91
Serious Fictions not successful | 92
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Romantic Fiction, concluded. — Tales.
Arise from the State of Society | 93
Antonio de Villegas | 93
His Story of Narvaez | 94
Juan de Timoneda | 96
His Patrañuelo | 97
Cervantes, Hidalgo | 99
Suarez, Figueroa | 99
Salas Barbadillo | 99
Eslava, Agreda | 102
Liñan y Verdugo | 103
Lope de Vega | 103
Salazar, Lugo, Camerino | 103
Changed Form of Tales | 104
Tirso de Molina | 104
Montalvan | 105
Matias de los Reyes | 106
Fernandez y Peralta | 106
Montalvan | 106
Céspedes y Meneses, Moya | 107
Castro y Anaya | 107
Mariana de Carbajal | 107
María de Zayas | 108
Mata, Castillo, Lozano | 108
Solorzano | 108
Alcalá, Villalpando, Prado | 109
Isidro de Robles | 109
Luis Velez de Guevara | 110
Jacinto Polo | 111
Marcos Garcia | 112
Francisco Santos | 113
Tales everywhere | 117
Early Appearance of Romantic Fiction | 118
Its early Decay | 119
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Eloquence. — Epistolary Correspondence.
Forensic Eloquence little cultivated | 121
Courts of Justice | 121
Cortes | 121
Eloquence of the Pulpit | 122
Luis de Leon | 123
Luis de Granada | 123
Cultismo in the Pulpit | 127
Paravicino | 127
Pulpit Eloquence fails | 128
Letter-writers formal | 128
Queen Isabella, Columbus | 128
Guevara, Avila | 129
Zurita and his Friends | 129
Antonio Perez | 130
Santa Teresa | 135
Argensola, Lope de Vega | 136
Quevedo, Cascales | 136
Antonio, Solís | 136
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Historical Composition.
Fathers of Spanish History | 138
Gerónimo de Zurita | 138
Ambrosio de Morales | 141
Diego de Mendoza | 142
Ribadeneyra, Siguenza | 142
Juan de Mariana | 143
His Persecutions | 146
His History of Spain | 147
Prudencio Sandoval | 151
Spanish Discoveries and Conquests | 153
Antonio de Herrera | 153
Bartolomé de Argensola | 155
Garcilasso de la Vega, Inca | 155
Francisco de Moncada | 159
Coloma, Marquis of Espinar | 160
Manuel Melo | 161
Saavedra Faxardo | 164
Antonio Solís | 164
Character of Spanish History | 167
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Didactic Prose.
Proverbs | 169
Oldest | 170
Marquis of Santillana | 170
Garay, Valles, Nuñez | 171
Mal Lara, Palmireno | 172
Oudin, Sorapan, Cejudo | 172
Juan de Yriarte | 173
Great Number of Proverbs | 173
Didactic Prose | 174
Antonio de Torquemada | 174
Christóval de Acosta | 175
Luis de Granada | 176
Juan de la Cruz | 178
Santa Teresa | 179
School of Spiritualists | 180
Malon de Chaide | 180
Agustin de Roxas | 181
Suarez de Figueroa | 183
Marquez, Vera y Zuñiga | 184
Fernandez de Navarrete | 184
Saavedra Faxardo | 185
Quevedo, Antonio de Vega | 186
Nieremberg, Benavente | 186
Guzman, Dantisco | 187
Andrada, Villalobos | 188
Aleman, Faria y Sousa | 188
Francisco de Andrade | 189
Cultismo in Spanish Prose | 190
Paravicino | 191
Baltazar Gracian | 191
Cultismo prevails | 194
Juan de Zabaleta | 194
Lozano, Heredia, Ramirez | 195
Small Success of Didactic Prose | 196
CHAPTER XL.
Concluding Remarks on the Period.
Decay of the Spanish Character | 198
Charles the Fifth, Philip the Second | 199
Philip the Third | 200
Philip the Fourth | 201
Charles the Second | 203
Degradation of the Country | 203
Religion sinks into Bigotry | 204
Loyalty sinks into Servility | 207
Literature fails with Character | 209

THIRD PERIOD.

The Literature that existed in Spain between the Accession of the Bourbon Family and the Invasion of Bonaparte; or from the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century to the Early Part of the Nineteenth.

CHAPTER I.

Reign of Philip the Fifth.

Death of Charles the Second
213

His Will
214

War of the Succession
214

Peace of Utrecht
214

Philip the Fifth
215

Academy of the Language
216

State of the Language
217

Dictionaries of the Language
219

Dictionary of the Academy
219

Its Orthography
220

Its Grammar
221

Its other Labors
223

Other Academies
223

State of Poetry
224

Moraes
225

Reynosa, Cevallos
226

Lobo, Benegasi
227

Alvarez de Toledo
228

Antonio Muñoz
228

Sagradas’s Flores
228

Jorge de Pitillas
229

CHAPTER II.

Reign of Philip the Fifth, concluded.

Marquis of San Phelipe
230

French Influences
232

Translations from the French
233

Ignacio de Luzan
233

Elder Works on Criticism
235

Enzina, Rengifo, Lopez
236

Cascales, Salas
236

Luzan’s Poética
237

State of the Moral and Physical Sciences
239

State of the Universities
240

Low State of Spanish Culture
240

Benito Feyjoó
242

His Teatro Crítico
244

His Cartas Eruditas
244

Effect of his Works
245

CHAPTER III.

Reigns of Philip the Fifth and Ferdinand the Sixth.

The Inquisition
246

Intolerance
247

Autos da Fé and Judaism
248

Culture under Ferdinand
249

The Inquisition
249

Policy of the State
250

Condition of Letters
250

Saldueña, Moraleja, Ortiz
250

Academy of Good Taste
251

Velazquez
251

Mayans y Siscar
252

Blas Nasarre
253

CHAPTER IV.

Reign of Charles the Third.

State of the Country
254

Character of the King
255

The Jesuits
256

The Universities
256

The Inquisition
257

Dawn of Better Things
258

Father Isla
258

His Juventud Triunfante
258

His Dia Grande
259

His Sermones
260

His Fray Gerundio
260

His Exile
264

His Cicero
265

His Translation of Gil Blas
266

Question of its Authorship
266

Efforts to restore the Old School
270

Sedano, Sanchez, Sarmiento
271

Efforts to encourage the French School
272

Moratin the Elder
272

Club of Men of Letters
274

Cadahalso
275

Yriarte
277

His Fables
279

Samaniego
280

His Fables
281

Arroyal, Montengon
282

Salas, Meras, Noroña
282

CHAPTER V.

School of Salamanca and other Poets. — Reign of Charles the Fourth.

State of Literary Parties
285

Melendez Valdes
285

His Works
287

His Exile and Death
291

Gonzalez
293

Forner
294

Iglesias
294

Cienfuegos
295

Jovellanos
297

Connected with Melendez
298

His Political Services
299

His Exiles
300

His Share in the Revolution
301

His Death
303

His Character
304

Muñoz
305

Escoiquiz
306

Moratin the Younger
307

His Relations to Godoy
308

Quintana
309

CHAPTER VI.

The Theatre in the Eighteenth Century.

Important Movement
312

Translations from the French
312

Cañizares, Torres, Lobo
313

Lower Classes rule
313

The old Court-yards
314

The new Theatres
314

The Opera
315

Castro, Añerbe, Montiano
316

The Virginia and Athaulpho
317

Translations from the French
318

The Petimetra of Moratin the Elder
318

His Hormesinda
319

His Guzman el Bueno
319

Cadahalso
319

Sebastian y Latre
320

Yriarte, Melendez
321

Ayala
321

Huerta
322

Jovellanos
323

Autos suppressed
324

Low State of the Theatre
325

Ramon de la Cruz
326

Sedano, Lassala, Cortés
329

Cienfuegos, Huerta
329

Discussions
330

Valladares, Zavala
331

Comella
332

Moratin the Younger
333

Patronized by Godoy
334

His first Play
335

His Nueva Comedia
336

His Baron and Mogigata
337

His Sí de las Niñas
338

His Translations
339

State of the Drama
340

Actors of Note
340

State of the Theatre
341

Prospects
341

CHAPTER VII.

Reigns of Charles the Fourth and Ferdinand the Seventh. — Conclusion.

Charles the Fourth and Godoy
343

French Revolution
343

Index Expurgatorius
344

Affair of the Escurial
345

Abdication
345

French Invasion
345

French expelled
346

Ferdinand the Seventh
346

Effect of the Times on Letters
347

Interregnum in Culture
349

Revival of Letters
349

Prospects for the Future
350

APPENDIX, A.

Origin of the Spanish Language.

Spain and its Name
355

The Iberians in Spain
356

The Celts
357

The Celtiberians
358

The Phœnicians
358

The Carthaginians
359

The Romans
360

Their Colonies
362

Their Language
363

Their Writers
364

Christianity introduced
365

Its Effects on the Language
366

Irruption of the Northern Tribes
368

The Franks, Vandali, etc.
369

The Goths
369

Their Culture
370

Their Effect on the Language
371

The Arabs
372

Their Invasion
373

Their Effect on the Provençal
374

Their Refinement
375

The Christians and Pelayo
376

The Mozárabes
377

Their Influence
378

Their Reunion
379

The Language of the North
380

How modified
381

First written Spanish
382

Carta Puebla de Avilés
383

The Romance
384

The Spanish or Castilian
384

Materials that compose it
385

Its rapid Prevalence
386

APPENDIX, B.

The Romanceros.

Ballads on separate Sheets
388

Oldest Ballad-book
389

That of Antwerp
390

Other early Ballad-books
392

Ballad-book in Nine Parts
392

Romancero General
393

Early Selections from the Romanceros
394

Recent Selections
395

What is still wanted
396

APPENDIX, C.

Fernan Gomez de Cibdareal and the Centon Epistolario.

Suggestions on its Genuineness
397

Probably a Forgery
398

No such Person mentioned early
398

No Manuscript of the Letters
398

Date of the earliest Edition false
398

Second Edition admits it
398

No Date to the Letters at first
399

Their Style
399

That of the First Edition
399

Misstatements about Juan de Mena
399

About Barrientos
400

About Alvaro de Luna
401

Appeared in an Age of Forgeries
402

State of the Question
403

APPENDIX, D.

The Buscapié.

Statement by Los Rios
404

By Ruydiaz
405

Effect of their Statements
406

Don Adolfo de Castro
406

Publishes a Buscapié
406

What it is
407

Contradicts Los Rios and Ruydiaz
408

Its long Concealment suspicious
408

Its External Evidence
409

Argote de Molina
409

The Duke of Lafões
410

Don Pascual de Gándara
411

Its Internal Evidence
411

Resemblances to the Style of Cervantes
411

Mistake about Enzinas
412

About an old Proverb
413

Its Title-page
414

Its Notice of Alcalá
414

State of the Question
415

APPENDIX, E.

Editions, Translations, and Imitations of the Don Quixote.

First Part
416

Second Part
417

Both Parts
417

Lord Carteret’s Edition
417

That of the Academy
418

Of Bowle
418

Of Pellicer
418

Of Clemencin
419

Translations
419

Imitations out of Spain
420

In Spain
421

Its Fame everywhere
422

APPENDIX, F.

Early Collections of Old Spanish Plays.

Comedias de Diferentes Autores
423

Comedias Nuevas Escogidas
424

Various smaller Collections
426

APPENDIX, G.

On the Origin of Cultismo.

Controversy about it in Italy
427

Bettinelli and Tiraboschi
427

Spanish Jesuits in Italy
428

Serrano and Andres
428

Vannetti and Zorzi
428

Arteaga and Isla
429

Lampillas
429

End of the Controversy
430

Result of it
431

APPENDIX, H.

Inedita.

No. I. Poema de José el Patriarca
432

No. II. La Danza General de la Muerte
459

No. III. El Libro del Rabi Santob
475

Index
505

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.

SECOND PERIOD.

The Literature that existed in Spain from the Accession of the Austrian Family to its Extinction, or from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century To the End of the Seventeenth.

(CONTINUED.)

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.

SECOND PERIOD.

(CONTINUED.)

CHAPTER XXXI.

Satirical Poetry: The Argensolas, Quevedo, and others. — Elegiac Poetry and Epistles: Garcilasso, Herrera, and others. — Pastoral Poetry: Saa de Miranda, Balbuena, Esquilache, and others. — Epigrams: Villegas, Rebolledo, and others. — Didactic Poetry: Rufo, Cueva, Céspedes, and others. — Emblems: Daza, Covarrubias. — Descriptive Poetry: Dicastillo.

Satirical poetry, whether in the form of regular satires, or in the more familiar guise of epistles, has never enjoyed a wide success in Spain. Its spirit, indeed, was known there from the times of the Archpriest of Hita and Rodrigo Cota, both of whom seem to have been thoroughly imbued with it. Torres Naharro, too, in the early part of the sixteenth century, and Silvestre and Castillejo a little later, still sustained it, and wrote satires in the short national verse, with much of the earlier freedom, and all the bitterness, that originally accompanied it.

But after Mendoza and Boscan, in the middle of that century, had sent poetical epistles to one another written in the manner of Horace, though in the Italian terza rima, the fashion was changed. A rich, strong invective, such as Castillejo dared to use when he wrote the “Satire on Women,” which was often reprinted and greatly relished, was almost entirely laid aside; and a more cultivated and philosophical tone, suited to the stately times of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, took its place. Montemayor, it is true, and Padilla, with a few wits of less note, wrote in both manners; but Cantorál with little talent, Gregorio Murillo with a good deal, and Rey de Artieda in a familiar style that was more winning than either, took the new direction so decidedly, that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the change may be considered as substantially settled.[1]

Barahona de Soto was among the earliest that wrote in this new form, which was a union of the Roman with the Italian. We have four of his satires, composed after he had served in the Morisco wars; the first and the last of which, assailing all bad poets, show plainly the school to which he belonged and the direction he wished to follow. But his efforts, though seriously made, did not raise him above an untolerated mediocrity.[2]

A single satire of Jauregui, addressed to Lydia, as if she might have been the Lydia of Horace, is better.[3] But in the particular style and manner of the philosophical Horatian satire, none succeeded so well as the two Argensolas. Their discussions are, it is true, sometimes too grave and too long; but they give us spirited pictures of the manners of their times. The sketch of a profligate lady of fashion, for instance, in the one to Flora, by Lupercio, is excellent, and so are long passages in two others against a court life, by Bartolomé. All three, however, are too much protracted, and the last contains a poor repetition of the fable of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse, in which, as almost everywhere else, its author’s relations to Horace are apparent.[4]

Quevedo, on the other hand, followed Juvenal, whose hard, unsparing temper was better suited to his own tastes, and to a disposition embittered by cruel persecutions. But Quevedo is often free and indecorous, as well as harsh, and offends that sensibility to virtue which a satirist ought carefully to cultivate. It should, however, be remembered in his favor, that, though living under the despotism of the Philips, and crushed by it, no Spanish poet stands before him in the spirit of an independent and vigorous satire. Góngora approaches him on some occasions, but Góngora rarely dealt with grave subjects, and confined his satire almost entirely to burlesque ballads and sonnets, which he wrote in the fervor of his youth. At no period of his life, and certainly not after he went to court, would he have hazarded a satirical epistle like the one on the decay of Castilian spirit and the corruption of Castilian manners, which Quevedo had the courage to send to the Count Duke Olivares, when he was at the height of his influence.[5]

The greatest contemporaries of both of them hardly turned their thoughts in this direction; for as to Cervantes, his “Journey to Parnassus” is quite too good-natured an imitation of Caporali to be classed among satires, even if its form permitted it to be placed there; and as to Lope de Vega, though some of his sonnets and other shorter poems are full of spirit and severity, especially those that pass under the name of Burguillos, still his whole course, and the popular favor that followed it, naturally prevented him from seeking occasions to do or say any thing ungracious.

Nor did the state of society at this period favor the advancement, or even the continuance, of any such spirit. The epistles of Espinel and Arguijo are, therefore, absolutely grave and solemn; and those of Rioja, Salcedo, Ulloa, and Melo are not only grave, but are almost entirely destitute of poetical merit, except one by the first of them, addressed to Fabio, which, if neither gay nor witty, is an admirably wise moral rebuke of the folly and irksomeness of depending on royal favor. Borja is more free, as became his high station, and speaks out more plainly; but the best of his epistles—the one against a court life—is not so good as the youthful tercetos on the same subject by Góngora, nor equal to his own jesting address to his collected poems. Rebolledo, his only successor of any note at the time, is moral, but tiresome; and Solís, like the few that followed him, is too dull to be remembered. Indeed, if Villegas in his old age, when, perhaps, he had been soured by disappointment, had not written three satires which he did not venture to publish, we should have nothing worth notice as we approach the disheartening close of this long period.[6]

Nearly all the didactic satires and nearly all the satirical epistles of the best age of Spanish literature are Horatian in their tone, and written in the Italian terza rima. In general, their spirit is light, though philosophical,—sometimes it is courtly,—and, taken together, they have less poetical force and a less decided coloring than we might claim from the class to which they belong. But they are frequently graceful and agreeable, and some of them will be oftener read, for the mere pleasure they bestow, than many in other languages which are distinguished for greater wit and severity.

The truth, however, is, that wit and severity of this kind and in this form were never heartily encouraged in Spain. The nation itself has always been too grave and dignified to ask or endure the censure they imply; and if such a character as the Spanish has its ridiculous side, it must be approached by any thing rather than personal satire. Books like the romances of chivalry may, indeed, be assailed with effect, as they were by Cervantes; men in classes may be caricatured, as they are in the Spanish picaresque novels and in the old drama; and bad poetry may be ridiculed, as it was by half the poets who did not write it, and by some who did. But the characters of individuals, and especially of those in high station and of much notoriety, are protected, under such circumstances, by all the social influences that can be brought to their defence, and cannot safely be assailed.

Such, at least, was the case in Spain. Poetical satire came there to be looked upon with distrust, so that it was thought to be hardly in good taste, or according to the conventions of good society, to indulge in its composition.[7] And if, with all this, we remember the anxious nature of the political tyranny which long ruled the country, and the noiseless, sleepless vigilance of the Inquisition,—both of which are apparent in the certificates and licenses that usher in whatever succeeded in finding its way through the press,—we shall have no difficulty in accounting for the fact, that poetical satire never had a vigorous and healthy existence in Spain, and that, after the latter part of the seventeenth century, it almost entirely disappeared till better times revived it.

Elegies, though from their subjects little connected with satire, are yet, by their measure and manner, connected with it in Spanish poetry; for both are generally written in the Italian terza rima, and both are often thrown into the form of epistles.[8] Garcilasso could write elegies in their true spirit; but the second that passes under that name in his works is merely a familiar epistle to a friend. So is the first by Figueroa, which is followed by others in a tone more appropriate to their titles. But all are in the Italian verse and manner, and two of them in the Italian language. The eleven “Lamentations,” as he calls them, of Silvestre, are elegiac epistles to his lady-love, written in the old Castilian measures, and not without the old Castilian poetical spirit. Cantorál fails; nor can the Argensolas and Borja be said to have succeeded, though they wrote in different manners, some of which were scarcely elegiac. Herrera is too lyric—too lofty, perhaps, from the very nature of his genius—to write good elegies; but some of those on his love, and one in which he mourns over the passions that survive the decay of his youth, have certainly both beauty and tenderness.

Rioja, on the contrary, seems to have been of the true temperament, and to have written elegies from instinct, though he called them Silvas; while Quevedo, if he were the author of the poems that pass under the name of the Bachiller de la Torre, must have done violence to his genius in the composition of ten short pieces, which he calls Endechas, in Adonian verse, but which read much like imitations of some of the gentler among the old ballads. If to these we add the thirteen elegies of Villegas, nearly all of which are epistles, and one or two of them light and amusing epistles, we shall have what is most worthy of notice in this small division of Spanish poetry during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that has not been already considered. From the whole, we should naturally infer that the Spanish temperament was little fitted to the subdued, simple, and gentle tone of the proper elegy; a conclusion that is undoubtedly true, notwithstanding the examples of Garcilasso and Rioja, the best and most elegiac portions of whose poetry do not even bear its name.[9]

Pastoral poetry in Spain is directly connected with elegiac, through the eclogues of Garcilasso, which unite the attributes of both. To his school, indeed, including Boscan and Mendoza, we trace the earliest successful specimens of the more formal Spanish pastoral, with the characteristics still recognized. But its origin is much earlier. The climate and condition of the Peninsula, which from a very remote period had favored the shepherd’s life and his pursuits, facilitated, no doubt, if they did not occasion, the first introduction into Spanish poetry of a pastoral tone, whose echoes are heard far back among the old ballads. But the Italian forms of pastoral verse were naturalized as soon as they were introduced. Figueroa, Cantorál, Montemayor, and Saa de Miranda—the last two of whom were Portuguese, and all of whom visited Italy and lived there—contributed their efforts to those of Garcilasso and Boscan, by writing Spanish eclogues in the Italian manner. All had a good degree of success, but none so much as Saa de Miranda, who was born in 1495, and died in 1558, and who, from the promptings of his own genius, renounced the profession of the law, to which he was bred, and the favor of the court, where his prospects were high, in order to devote himself to poetry.

He was the first of the Portuguese who wrote in the forms introduced by Boscan and Garcilasso, and none, perhaps, since his time has appeared in them with more grace and power,—certainly none in the particular form of eclogues. His pastorals, however, are not all in the new manner. On the contrary, some of them are in the ancient short verse, and seem to have been written before he was acquainted with the change that had just been effected in Spanish poetry. But all of them are in one spirit, and are marked by a simplicity that well becomes the class of compositions to which they belong, though it may rarely be found in them. This is true, both when he writes his beautiful pastoral story of “The Mondego,” which is in the manner of Garcilasso, and contains an account of himself addressed to the king; and when he writes his seventh eclogue, which is in the forms of Enzina and Vicente, and seems to have been acted amidst the rejoicings of the noble family of Pereira, after one of their number had returned from military service against the Turks.

But a love of the country, of country scenery and country occupations, pervades nearly every thing Saa de Miranda wrote. The very animals seem to be treated by him with more naturalness and familiarity than they are elsewhere; and throughout the whole of his poetry, there is an ease and amenity that show it comes from the heart. Why he wrote so much in Spanish, it is not now easy to tell. Perhaps he thought the language more poetical than his native Portuguese, or perhaps he had merely personal reasons for his preference. But whatever may have been the cause, six out of his eight eclogues are composed in natural, flowing Castilian; and the result of the whole is, that, while, on all accounts, he is placed among the four or five principal poets of his own country, he occupies a position of enviable distinction among those of the prouder nation that soon became, for a time, its masters.[10]

Montemayor, Polo, and their followers in prose pastorals, scattered bucolic verse of all kinds freely through their fictions; and sometimes, though seldom, they added to the interest and merit of their stories by this sort of ornament. One of those who had least success in it was Cervantes; and of those who had most, Balbuena stands in the first rank. His “Golden Age” contains some of the best and most original eclogues in the language; written, indeed, rather in the free, rustic tone of Theocritus, than with the careful finish of Virgil, but not on that account the less attractive.[11]

Of Luis Barahona de Soto, we possess an eclogue better than any thing else he has left us;[12] and of Pedro de Padilla, the friend of Cervantes and of Silvestre, a remarkable improvisator and a much loved man, we have a number of pastoral poems which carry with them a picturesque, antique air, from being made up in part of ballads and villancicos.[13] Pedro de Enzinas attempted to write religious eclogues, and failed;[14] but, in the established forms, Juan de Morales and Gomez Tapia, who are hardly known except for single attempts of this kind,[15] and Vicente Espinel,—among whose eclogues, that in which a Soldier and a Shepherd discuss the Spanish wars in Italy is both original and poetical,[16]—were all successful.

The eclogues of Lope de Vega, of which we have already spoken, drew after them a train of imitations, like his other popular poetry. But neither Balvas, nor Villegas, nor Carrillo, nor the Prince of Esquilache equalled him. Quevedo alone among his compeers, and he only if he is the author of the poems of the Bachiller de la Torre, proved himself a rival of the great master, unless we must give an equal place to Pedro de Espinosa, whose story of “The Genil,” half elegiac and half pastoral, is the happiest and most original specimen of that peculiar form of which Boscan in his “Hero and Leander” gave the first imperfect example.[17] Pedro Soto de Roxas,—who wrote short lyric poems with spirit, as well as eclogues,—Zarate, and Ulloa, belong to the same school, which was continued, by Texada Gomes de los Reyes, Barrios the Jew, and Inez de la Cruz the Mexican nun, down to the end of the century. But in all its forms, whether tending to become too lyrical, as it does in Figueroa, or too narrative, as in Espinosa, Spanish pastoral poetry shows fewer of the defects that accompany such poetry everywhere, and more of the merits that render it a gentle and idealized representation of nature and country life, than can perhaps be found in any other literature of modern times. The reason is, that there was more of a true pastoral character in Spain on which to build it.[18]

Quite as characteristic of the Spanish national genius as its pastorals were short poems in different forms, but in an epigrammatic spirit, which appeared through the whole of the best age of its literature. They are of two kinds. The first are generally amorous, and always sentimental. Of these, not a few are very short and pointed. They are found in the old Cancioneros and Romanceros, among the works of Maldonado, Silvestre, Villegas, Góngora, and others of less merit, to the end of the century. They are generally in the truest tone of popular verse. One, which was set to music, was in these few simple words:—

To what ear shall I tell my griefs,

Gentle love mine?

To what ear shall I tell my griefs,

If not to thine?[19]

And another, of the same period, which was on a Sigh, and became the subject of more than one gloss, was hardly less simple:—

O gentle sigh! O gentle sigh!

For no more happiness I pray,

Than, every time thou goest to God,

To follow where thou lead’st the way.[20]

But of those a little longer and more elaborate a favorable specimen may be found in Camoens, who wrote such with tenderness and beauty, not only in his own language, but sometimes in Spanish, as in the following lines on a concealed and unhappy passion, the first two of which are probably a snatch of some old song, and the rest his own gloss upon them:—

Within, within, my sorrow lives,

But outwardly no token gives.

All young and gentle in the soul,

All hidden from men’s eyes,

Deep, deep within it lies,

And scorns the body’s low control.

As in the flint the hidden spark

Gives outwardly no sign or mark,

Within, within, my sorrow lives.[21]

The number of such compositions, in their different serious forms, is great; but the number of the second kind—those in a lighter and livelier tone—is still greater. The Argensolas, Villegas, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, the Prince Esquilache, Rebolledo, and not a few others, wrote them with spirit and effect. Of all, however, who indulged in them, nobody devoted to their composition so much zeal, and on the whole obtained so much success, as Francisco de la Torre, who, though of the culto school, seemed able to shake off much of its influence, when he remembered that he was a fellow-countryman of Martial.

He took for the foundation of his humor the remarkable Latin epigrams of John Owen, the English Protestant, who died in 1622, and whose witty volume has been often translated and printed at home and abroad down to our own times;—a volume, it should be noted, so offensive to the Romish Church as to have been early placed on its Index Expurgatorius. But La Torre avoided whatever could give umbrage to the ecclesiastical authorities of his time, and, adding a great number of original epigrams quite as good as those he translated, made a collection that fills two volumes, the last of which was printed in 1682, after its author’s death.[22]

But though he wrote more good epigrams, and in a greater variety of forms, than any other individual Spaniard, he did not, perhaps, write the best or the most national; for a few of those that still remain anonymous, and a still smaller number by Rebolledo, seem to claim this distinction. Of the sort of wit frequently affected in these slight compositions the following is an example:—

Fair lady, when your beads you take,

I never doubt you pray;

Perhaps for my poor murdered sake,

Perhaps for yours, that slay.[23]

Rebolledo was sometimes happier than he is in this epigram, though rarely more national.

Didactic poetry in unsettled and uncertain forms appeared early in Spain, and took, from time to time, the air both of moral philosophy and of religious instruction. Specimens of it in the old long-line stanza are found from the age of Berceo to that of the chancellor Ayala; few, indeed, in number, but sufficiently marked in character to show their purpose. Later, examples become more numerous, and present themselves in forms somewhat improved. Several such occur in the Cancioneros, among the best of which are Ludueña’s “Rules for Good-Breeding”; “The Complaint of Fortune,” in imitation of Bias, by Diego de San Pedro; and the “Coplas” of Don Juan Manuel of Portugal, on the Seven Deadly Sins;—all of them authors known at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. Boscan’s poem on his own Conversion, that of Silvestre on “Self-knowledge,” that of Castilla on “The Virtues,” and that of Juan de Mendoza on “A Happy Life,” continue the series through the reign of Charles the Fifth, but without materially advancing its claims or its character.[24]

In the age of Philip the Second, the didactic, like most of the other branches of Spanish poetry, spreads out more broadly. Francisco de Guzman’s “Opinions of Wise Men,” and especially his dull allegory of “Moral Triumphs,” in imitation of Petrarch, are, for their length, the most important of the different didactic poems which that period produced.[25] But more characteristic than either is the deeply religious letter of Francisco de Aldana to Montano, in 1573; and much more beautiful and touching than either is one written at about the same time by Juan Rufo to his infant son, filled with gentle affection and wise counsels.

Neither should a call made by Aldana, in the name of military glory, to Philip himself, urging him to defend the suffering Church, be overlooked. It breathes the very spirit of its subject, and may well be put in direct contrast with the earnest and sad persuasions to peace by Virues, who was yet a soldier by profession, and with Cantorál’s winning invitation to the quietness of a country life. Some of the religious poetry of Diego de Morillo and Pedro de Salas, in the next reigns, with several of the wise epistles of the Argensolas, Artieda, and Mesa, should be added; but they are all comparatively short poems, except those by Morillo on the Words of Christ upon the Cross, which extend to several hundred lines on each word, and which, though disfigured by antithesis and exaggeration, are strongly marked specimens of the Catholic didactic spirit.

In the mean time, and in the midst of this group,—partly because the way had been already prepared for it by the publication, in 1591, of a good translation of Horace’s “Art of Poetry” by Espinel, and partly from other causes,[26]—we have, at last, a proper didactic poem, or rather an attempt at one. It is by Juan de la Cueva, who in 1605 wrote in terza rima three epistles, which he entitled “Egemplar Poético,” and which constitute the oldest formal and original effort of the kind in the Spanish language. Regarded as a whole, they are, indeed, far from being a complete Art of Poetry, and in some parts they are injudicious and inconsequent; but they not unfrequently contain passages of acute criticism in flowing verse, and they have, besides, the merit of nationality in their tone. In all respects, they are better than an absurd didactic poem, by the same author, on “The Inventors of Things,” which he wrote three years later, and which shows, as he showed elsewhere, that he adventured in too many departments.[27]

Pablo de Céspedes, a sculptor and painter of the same period,—now better known as a man of learning and a poet,—came nearer to success than Cueva. He was born in 1538, at Córdova, and died there, a minor canon of its magnificent cathedral, at the age of seventy; but he spent a part of his life in Italy and at Seville, and devoted much of his leisure to letters. Among other works, he began a poem, in ottava rima, on “The Art of Painting.” Whether it was ever finished is uncertain; but all we possess of it is a series of fragments, amounting, when taken together, to six or seven hundred lines, which were inserted in a prose treatise on the same subject by his friend Francisco Pacheco, and printed above forty years after their author’s death. They are, however, such as to make us regret that we have received no more. Their versification is excellent, and their poetical energy and compactness are uniform. Perhaps the best passage that has been preserved is the description of a horse,—the animal of whose race the poet’s native city has always been proud,—and of which, it is evident, a single noble individual was pictured before his mind as he wrote. But other portions show much talent,—perhaps more than this does; especially one in which he explains the modes of acquiring practical skill in his art, and that more poetical one in which he discusses color.[28]

But the poems of Cueva and Céspedes were not printed till long after the death of their authors; and none of their contemporaries was inspired by like influences. The best that was done in didactic poetry, at about the same time, was the slight, but pleasant, sort of defence of his own irregularities produced by Lope de Vega, under the name of “The New Art of Writing Plays”; and the best, written later in the century, were the “Selvas,” as he called them, or poems in irregular verse, by Count Rebolledo, on the Arts of War and Civil Government, which date from 1652, but which are little more than rhymed prose. A long poem in ten cantos, and in the old quintilla verse, by Trapeza, published in 1612, and entitled “The Cross,” because it is a sort of exposition of all the theological virtues attributed to that holy emblem, is too dull to be noticed, even if it were more strictly didactic in its form.[29]

Some other kindred attempts should, however, be remembered, of which the oldest, made in the spirit of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throughout Europe, were in the form called “Emblems,” or explanations in verse for hieroglyphical devices. The most successful of these were probably the Emblems of Daza, in 1549, imitated from the more famous Latin ones of Alciatus; and those of Covarrubias, published originally in Spanish by their author in 1591, and afterwards translated by him into Latin;—both of them curious specimens of this peculiar style of composition, and as agreeable, perhaps, as any which the age of Emblems produced.[30]

The other form was that in which the didactic runs into the descriptive. Of this the most poetical example in Spanish is by Dicastillo, a Carthusian monk, at Saragossa, who published, in 1637, under the auspices of his friend Mencos, a long poetical correspondence, intended to teach the vanity of human things, and the happiness and merit to be found in a life of penitential seclusion. The parts that relate to the author himself are sometimes touching; but the rest is of very unequal worth,—the better portions being devoted to a description of the grand and sombre monastery of which he was an inmate, and of the observances to which his life there was devoted.[31] Castilian verse, however, did not often take a descriptive character, except when it appeared in the form of eclogues and idyls; and even then it is almost always marked by an ingenuity and brilliancy far from the healthy tone inspired by a sincere love of what is grand or beautiful in nature;—a remark which finds ample illustration in the poems devoted to the Spanish conquests in America, where the marvellous tropical vegetation of the valleys through which the wild adventurers wound their way, and the snow-capped volcanoes that crowned the sierras above their heads, seem to have failed alike to stir their imaginations or overawe their courage.[32]

But except these irregular varieties of didactic poetry, we have, for the whole of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, nothing to add to what we have already noticed, beyond a repetition of the old forms of epistles and silvas, which so frequently occur in the works of Castillejo, Ledesma, Lope de Vega, Jauregui, Zarate, and their contemporaries. Nor could we reasonably expect more. Neither the popular character of Spanish poetry, nor the severe nature of the Spanish ecclesiastical and political constitutions of government, was favorable to the development of this particular form of verse, or likely to tolerate it on any important subject. Didactic poetry remained, therefore, at the end of the period, as it was at the beginning, one of the feeblest and least successful departments of the national literature.[33]

CHAPTER XXXII.

Ballad Poetry cultivated: Sepúlveda, Fuentes, Timoneda, Padilla, Cueva, Hita, Hidalgo, Valdivielso, Lope de Vega, Arellano, Roca y Serna, Esquilache, Mendoza, Quevedo. — Romanceros of more Popular Ballads: The Twelve Peers, the Cid, and others. — Great Number of Writers of Ballads.

The collection and publication of the popular ballads of the country in the Cancioneros and Romanceros, in the sixteenth century, attracted to them a kind and degree of attention they had failed to receive during the long period in which they had been floating about among the unrecorded traditions of the common people. There was so much that was beautiful in them, so much that appealed successfully to the best recollections of all classes, so much directly connected with the great periods of the national glory, that the minds of all were stirred by them, as soon as they appeared in a permanent form, and they became, at once, favorites of the more cultivated portion of the people, as they had always been of the humble hearts that gave them birth. The natural consequence followed;—they were imitated;—and not merely by poets who occasionally wrote in this among other forms of verse, but by persons who composed them in large numbers and published them by volumes.[34]

The first of these persons was Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, whose Ballad-book can be traced back to 1551, the very year after the appearance, at Saragossa, of the earliest collection of popular and anonymous ballads, gathered from the memories of the people. The attempt of Sepúlveda was made in the right direction; for he founded it almost entirely on the old Castilian Chronicles, and appealed, as they did, to popular tradition and the national feelings for his support. In his Preface, he says, that his ballads “ought to be more savory than many others, because not only are they true and drawn from the truest histories he could find, but written in the Castilian measure and in the tone of the old ballads, which,” he adds, “is now in fashion. They were taken,” he declares, “literally from the Chronicle which was compiled by the most serene king Don Alfonso; the same who, for his good letters and royal desires, and great learning in all branches of knowledge, was called ‘The Wise.’” In fact, more than three fourths of this curious volume consist of ballads taken from the “General Chronicle of Spain,” often employing its very words, and always imbued with its spirit. The rest is made up chiefly of ballads founded on sacred and ancient history, or on mythological and other stories of an imaginary nature.

But, unfortunately, Sepúlveda was not truly a poet, and therefore, though he sought his subjects in good sources and seldom failed to select them well, he yet failed to give any more of a poetical coloring to his ballads than he found in the old chronicles he followed. He was, however, successful as far as the general favor was concerned; for not only was his entire work reprinted at least four times, but the separate ballads in it constantly reappear in the old collections[35] that were, from time to time, published to meet the popular demand.

Quite as characteristic of the period is a small selection of ballads printed for the first time in 1564. It was made by some person of distinction, who sent it to Alonso de Fuentes, with a request that he would furnish it with all needful explanations in prose. This he did; but the original collector died before it was published. Of the forty ballads of which it consists, ten are on subjects from the Bible; ten from Roman history; ten from other portions of ancient history; and the remainder from the history of Spain, coming down to the fall of Granada. We are not told where they were obtained, and none of them has much value;—the great merit of the whole, in the eyes of those who were concerned in their publication, consisting, no doubt, in the wearisome historical and moral commentary by which each is followed.

Fuentes, however, who intimates that the task was hardly worthy of his position, may have had a better taste in such things than the person who employed him; for, in a prefatory epistle, he gives us, of his own accord, the following ballad, evidently very old, if not very spirited, which he attributes to Alfonso the Wise. But it is no otherwise the work of that monarch than that all but the last stanzas are taken from the remarkable letter he wrote on the disastrous position of his affairs in 1280, when, by the rebellion of his son and the desertion of the higher ecclesiastics of his kingdom, he was reduced, in his old age, to misery and despair,—a letter already cited, and more poetical than the ballad founded on it.

I left my land, I left my home,

To serve my God against his foes;

Nor deemed, that, in so short a space,

My fortunes could in ruin close.

For two short months were hardly sped,

And April was but gone, and May,

When Castile’s towers and Castile’s towns

From my fair realm were rent away.

And they that should have counselled peace

Between the father and his son,

My bishops and my lordly priests,

Forgetting what they should have done,—

Not by contrivance deep and dark,

Not silent, like the secret thief,

But trumpet-tongued, rebellion raised,

And filled my house with guilt and grief.

Then, since my blood denies my cause,

And since my friends desert and flee,—

Since they are gone, who should have stood

Between the guilty blow and me,—

To thee I bend, my Saviour Lord,

To thee, the Virgin Mother, bow,

For your support and gracious help

Pouring my daily, nightly vow:

For your compassion now is all

My child’s rebellious power hath left

To soothe the piercing, piercing woes

That leave me here of hope bereft.

And since before his cruel might

My friends have all in terror fled,

Do thou, Almighty Father, thou,

Protect my unprotected head.

But I have heard in former days

The story of another king,

Who—fled from and betrayed like me—

Resolved all fears away to fling,

And launch upon the wide, wide sea,

And find adventurous fortune there,

Or perish in its rolling waves,

The victim of his brave despair.

This ancient monarch far and near—

Old Apollonius—was known:

I’ll follow where he sought his fate,

And where he found it find my own.[36]

Juan de Timoneda, partly bookseller and partly poet,—the friend of Lope de Rueda, and, like him, the author of farces acted in the public squares of Valencia,—was, both from his occupations and tastes, a person who would naturally understand the general poetical feeling and wants of his time. In consequence of this, probably, he published, in 1573, a collection of ballads, entitled “The Rose,” consisting, in no small degree, of his own compositions, but containing, also, some by other and older poets. Taken together, they constitute a volume of nearly seven hundred pages, divided into “The Rose of Love”; “The Spanish Rose”; “The Gentile Rose,” so called, because its subjects are heathen; and “The Royal Rose,” which is on the fates and fortunes of princes;—the whole being followed by about a hundred pages of popular, miscellaneous verse, rustic songs, and fanciful glosses.

The best parts of this large collection are the ballads gathered by its author from popular tradition, most of which were soon published in other Romanceros, with the variations their origin necessarily involved. The poorest parts are those written by himself,—such as the last division, which is entirely his own, and is not superior to the similar ballads in Sepúlveda and Fuentes. As a collection, however, it is important; because it shows how true the Spanish people remained to their old traditions, and how constantly they claimed to have the best portions of their history repeated to them in the old forms to which they had so long been accustomed. In another point of view, also, it is of consequence. It furnishes ballads on the early heroes of Spain, some of which are needed to fill up two or three of the best among their traditional stories, while others come down, with similar accounts of later heroes, to the end of the Moorish wars.[37]

In 1583, the series of such popular works was still further continued by Pedro de Padilla, who published a Romancero containing sixty-three long ballads of his own,—about half of them taken from uncertain traditions, or from fables like those of Ariosto, and the others from the known history of Spain, which they follow down through the times of Charles the Fifth and the Flemish wars of Philip the Second. The Italian measures several times intrude, where they can produce only an awkward and incongruous effect; and the rest of the volume, not devoted to ballads,—except fifty villancicos, which are full of the old popular spirit,—is composed of poems in the Italian manner, that add nothing to its value.[38]

Juan de la Cueva, finding the old national subjects thus seized upon by his predecessors, resorted, it would seem, from necessity, to the histories of Greece and Rome for his materials, and in 1587 published a volume containing above a hundred ballads, which he divided into ten books, placing nine of them under the protection of the nine Muses, and the other under that of Apollo. Their poetical merit is inconsiderable. The best are a few whose subjects are drawn from the old Castilian Chronicle, like that on the sad story of Doña Teresa, who, after being wedded against her will to the Moorish king of Toledo, was miraculously permitted to take refuge in a convent, rather than consummate her hated marriage with an infidel. Two ballads, however, in which the author gives an account of himself and of his literary undertakings, are more curious;—the latter containing an amusing account of some of the bad poets of his time.[39]

The publication of the first part of “The Civil Wars of Granada,” by Hita, in 1595, containing about sixty ballads, some of them very old, and several of great poetical merit, increased, no doubt, the impulse which the frequent appearance of volumes of popular anonymous ballads continued to give to Spanish poetry in this attractive form.[40] This is yet more apparent in the new direction taken by ballad-writing, which from this time began to select particular subjects and address itself to separate classes of readers. Thus, in 1609, we have a volume of ballads in the dialect of the rogues, written in the very spirit of the vagabonds it represents, and collected by some one who concealed himself under the name of Juan Hidalgo;[41]—while in 1612, at the other extreme of the cycle, Valdivielso, the fashionable ecclesiastic, printed a large “Spiritual Ballad-book,” whose ballads are all on religious subjects, and all intended to promote habits of devotion.[42] In 1614 and 1622, Lope de Vega, always a lover of such poetry, gave to the religious world a collection of similar devout ballads, often reprinted afterwards;[43] and in 1629 and 1634, he contributed materials to two other collections of the same character,—the first anonymous, and entitled “A Bouquet of Divine Flowers”; and the other by Luis de Arellano, which, under the name of “Counsels for the Dying,” contains thirty ballads, several of which are by the principal poets of the time.[44]

Others, like Roca y Serna, wrote large numbers of ballads, but did not print them separately.[45] Those of the Prince Esquilache, some of which are excellent, amount to nearly three hundred. Antonio de Mendoza wrote about two hundred; and perhaps as many, in every possible variety of character, are scattered through the works of Quevedo; so that, by the middle of the seventeenth century, there can be no doubt that large and successful efforts had been made by the known authors of the period to continue the old ballad spirit by free contributions, both in separate volumes and in masses of ballads inserted among their other published works.

Meantime the old spirit itself had not been lost. The ballad-book known originally under the name of “Flor de Romances,” which we have already traced in its individual parts to five small volumes,—published between 1593 and 1597, in such widely different portions of Spain, that its materials were gathered from the soil of nearly the whole country,—continued to be valued, and was reprinted and enlarged, under the name of “El Romancero General,” four times; till, with the Ballad-book of 1550-1555, it comprehended nearly all the old ballads that had been preserved by tradition, together with not a few by Lope de Vega, Góngora, and other living authors. Out of these two vast storehouses, and from such other sources as could still yield suitable materials, smaller and more popular ballad-books were now selected and published. One appeared at Barcelona in 1582, and was reprinted there in 1602 and 1696, taken in a considerable degree from the collection of 1550, but containing, besides, ballads not found elsewhere, and among the rest, several on the history of the triple league and on the death of Philip the Second.[46] A ballad-book for “The Twelve Peers,” and their marvellous achievements, published for the first time in 1608, has continued to be a favorite ever since;[47] and four years afterwards appeared “The Ballad-Book of the Cid,” which has been printed and reprinted again and again, at home and abroad, down to our own times.[48] These were followed, in 1623, by the “Primavera,” or Spring of Ballads, by Perez, of which a second part was collected and published by Segura in 1629, comprehending together nearly three hundred;—most, but not all, of them known before, and many of them of great beauty.[49] And other ballad-books of the same sort, as well as these, continued to be printed in cheap forms for popular use till the old Castilian culture disappeared with the decay of the old national character.

But during the long period of a century and a half when this kind of poetry prevailed so widely in Spain, the ballads were not left to the formal Romanceros, whether anonymous, like the largest, or by known authors, like those of Sepúlveda and Cueva, nor even to persons who wrote them in great numbers and printed them in a separate department of their collected works, as did Prince Esquilache. On the contrary, between 1550 and 1700, hardly a Spanish poet can be found through whose works they are not scattered with such profusion, that the number of popular ballads that could be collected from them would, if brought together, greatly exceed in amount all that are found in the ballad-books proper. Many of the ballads which thus occur either separately or in small groups are picturesque and beautiful in the same way the elder ones are, though rarely to the same degree. Silvestre, Montemayor, Espinel, Castillejo, and, above all of his time, Lopez de Maldonado, wrote them with success, towards the end of the sixteenth century.[50] A little later, those of Góngora are admirable. Indeed, his more simple, childlike ballads, and those in which a gay, mischievous spirit is made to conceal a genuine tenderness, are unlike almost any of their class found elsewhere, and can hardly be surpassed.[51] But Góngora afterwards introduced the same affected and false style into this form of his poetry that he did into the rest, and was followed, with constantly increasing absurdities, by Arteaga, Pantaleon, Villamediana, Coronel, and the rest of his imitators, whose ballads are generally worse than any thing else they wrote, because, from the very simplicity and truth required by the proper nature of such compositions, they less tolerate an appearance of affectation.

Cervantes, who was Góngora’s contemporary, tells us that he composed vast numbers which are now lost; and, from his own opinion of them, we have no reason to regret their fate. Lope’s, on the contrary, which he preserved with a care for his own reputation that was not at all characteristic of Cervantes, are still numerous and often excellent; especially those that relate to himself and his loves, some of the best of which seem to have been produced at Valencia and Lisbon.[52] At the same time and later, good ballads were written by Quevedo, who descended even to the style of the rogues in their composition; by Bernarda de Fereira, a nun in the romantic convent of Buzaco, in Portugal; by Rebolledo, the diplomatist; and perhaps, though with some hesitation, we should add, by Solís, the historian.[53] Indeed, wherever we turn, in the Spanish poetry of this period, we find ballads in all their varieties of tone and character,—often by authors otherwise little known, like Alarcon, who, in the end of the sixteenth century, wrote excellent devout ballads,[54] or Diego de la Chica, who is remembered only for a single satirical one, preserved by Espinosa in the beginning of the seventeenth;[55]—but we always find them in the works of those poets of note who desired to stand well with the mass of their countrymen.

Nor could it be otherwise;—for ballads, in the seventeenth century, had become the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier solaced himself with them in his tent, and the muleteer amidst the sierras; the maiden danced to them on the green, and the lover sang them for his serenade; they entered into the low orgies of thieves and vagabonds, into the sumptuous entertainments of the luxurious nobility, and into the holiday services of the Church; the blind beggar chanted them to gather alms, and the puppet-showman gave them in recitative to explain his exhibition; they were a part of the very foundation of the theatre, both secular and religious, and the theatre carried them everywhere, and added everywhere to their effect and authority. No poetry of modern times has been so widely spread through all classes of society, and none has so entered into the national character. The ballads, in fact, seem to have been found on every spot of Spanish soil. They seem to have filled the very air that men breathed.[56]

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Romantic Fiction. — Change of Manners produces a Change of the Fictions founded upon them. — Pastoral Romance and its Origin: Montemayor and his Diana, with its Continuations by Perez and Polo: Lo Frasso, Montalvo, Cervantes, Enciso, Bovadilla, Bernardo de la Vega, Lope de Vega, Balbuena, Figueroa, Adorno, Botelho, Quintana, Corral, Saavedra. — Characteristics of Pastoral Fiction.

The romances of chivalry, like the institutions on which they were founded, lingered long in Spain. Their grave fictions were suited to the air of the stern old castles with which the Moorish contest had studded large portions of the country, while their general tone harmonized no less happily with the stately manners which the spirit of knighthood had helped to impress on the higher classes of society, from the mountains of Biscay to the shores of the Mediterranean. Their influence, therefore, was great; and, as one natural result of its long continuance, other and better forms of prose fiction were discountenanced in Spain, or appeared later than they might have done under different circumstances;—a fact to which Cervantes alludes, when, even at the opening of the seventeenth century, he complains that Spanish books of the latter character were still rarely to be found.[57]

Fifty years, however, before that period, signs of a coming change are perceptible. The magnificent successes of Charles the Fifth had already filled the minds of men with a spirit of adventure very different from that of Amadis and his descendants, though sometimes hardly less wild and extravagant. The cruel wars unceasingly kept up with the Barbary powers, and the miseries of the thousands of captives who returned from Africa, to amaze their countrymen with tragical stories of their own trials and those of their fellow-sufferers, were full of that bitter romance of real life which outruns all fiction. Manners, too,—the old, formal, knightly manners of the nobility,—were beginning to be modified by intercourse with the rest of the world, and especially with Italy, then the most refined and least military country of Christendom; so that romantic fiction—the department of elegant literature, which, above every other, depends on the state of society—was naturally modified in Spain by the great changes going on in the external relations and general culture of the kingdom. Of this state of things, and of its workings in the new forms of fiction produced by it, we shall find frequent proofs as we advance.

The first form, however, in which a change in the national taste manifested itself with well-defined success—that of prose pastorals—is perhaps not one which would have been anticipated even by the more sagacious; though, when we now look back upon its history, we can easily discover some of the foundations on which it was originally built.

From the Middle Ages the occupations of a shepherd’s life had prevailed in Spain and Portugal to a greater extent than elsewhere in Europe;[58] and, probably in consequence of this circumstance, eclogues and bucolics were early known in the poetry of both countries, and became connected in both with the origin of the popular drama. On the other hand, the military spirit of such a civilization as existed in Spain down to the sixteenth century may have gladly turned away from such a monotonous exaggeration of its own character as is found in the romances of chivalry, and sought refreshment and repose in the peace and simplicity of a fabulous Arcadia. At least, these are the two obvious circumstances in the condition and culture of Spain, that favored the appearance of so singular a form of fiction as that of prose pastorals, though how much influence either exercised it may now be impossible to determine.

On one point, however, we are not left in doubt. We know whence the impulse came that called forth such a work for the first time in Castilian literature, and when it appeared there. It was Sannazaro,—a Neapolitan gentleman, whose family had been carried from Spain to Naples by the political revolutions of the preceding century,—who is the true father of the modern prose pastoral, which, from him, passed directly to Spain, and, during a long period of success in that country, never entirely lost the character its author had originally impressed upon it. His “Arcadia”—written, probably, without any reference to the Greek pastoral of Longus, but hardly without a knowledge of the “Ameto” of Boccaccio and the Eclogues of Bembo—was first published entire, at Naples, in 1504.[59] It is a genuine pastoral romance in prose and verse, in which, with a slight connecting narrative, and under the disguise of the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses, Sannazaro relates adventures that really occurred to him and to some of his friends;—he himself appearing under the name of Sincero, who is its principal personage. Such a work, of course, is somewhat fantastic from its very nature; but the fiction of Sannazaro was written in the purest and most graceful Italian, and had a great success;—a success which, perhaps, from the Spanish connections of his family, was early extended to Spain. At any rate, Spain was the first foreign country where the Arcadia was imitated, and was afterwards the only one where such works appeared in large numbers, and established a lasting influence.

It is singular, however, that, like the romances of chivalry, pastoral romance was first introduced into Spain by a Portuguese,—by George of Montemayor, a native of the town of that name, near Coimbra. When he was born we are not told; probably it was before 1520. In his youth he was a soldier; but later, from his skill in music, he became attached to the travelling chapel of the prince of Spain, afterwards Philip the Second, and thus enjoyed an opportunity of visiting foreign countries, especially Italy and Flanders. But his mind was little cultivated by study. He knew no Latin, which even those of the humblest literary attainments were wont to acquire, in the age when he lived; so that his success is due to his own genius and to the promptings of that passion which gave its color to his life. Probably he left Spain from disappointment in love; probably, too, he perished in a duel at Turin, in 1561. But we know nothing more of him with any tolerable certainty.[60]

His “Diana Enamorada,” the chief of his works, was first printed at Valencia, in 1542.[61] It is written in good Castilian, like his poetry, which is published separately, though, like that, with some intermixture of his native Portuguese;[62] and it contains, as he tells us, stories of adventures which really occurred.[63] We know, too, that, under the name of Sereno, he was himself its hero; and Lope de Vega adds, that Diana, its heroine, was a lady of Valencia de Don Juan, a town near the city of Leon.[64] Montemayor’s purpose, therefore, like that of Sannazaro, is to give, in the forms of a pastoral romance, an account of some events in his own life and in the lives of a few of his friends. To effect this, he brings together on the banks of the Ezla, at the foot of the mountains of Leon, a number of shepherds and shepherdesses, who relate their respective stories through seven books of prose, intermingled with verse. But the two principal personages, Sereno and Diana, who are introduced at first as lovers, are separated by magic; and the romance is brought to an abrupt conclusion, little conformable to all the previous intimations, by the marriage of Diana to Delio, the unworthy rival of Sereno.

On first reading the Diana of Montemayor, it is not easy to understand it. The separate stories of which it is composed are so involved with each other, and so inartificially united, that we are constantly losing the thread of the principal narration;—a difficulty which is much increased by the mixture of true and false geography, heathenism, magic, Christianity, and all the various contradictory impossibilities that naturally follow an attempt to place in the heart of Spain, and near one of its best-known cities, a poetical Arcadia, that never existed anywhere. The Diana, however, better merits the name of a romance than the Arcadia, which served for its model. Its principal fiction is ampler and more ingeniously constructed. Its episodes are more interesting. Much of it is warm with the tenderness of a disappointed attachment, which, no doubt, caused the whole to be written. Some of the poetry is beautiful, especially the lyric poetry; and if its prose style is not so pure as that of Sannazaro, it is still to be remarked for its grace and richness. Notwithstanding its many defects, therefore, the Diana is not without an interest for us even at this remote period, when the whole class of fictions to which it belongs is discountenanced and almost forgotten; and we feel that only poetical justice was done to it when it was saved, by the good taste of the curate, in the destruction of Don Quixote’s library.

The Diana, as has been intimated, was left unfinished by its author; but in 1564, three years after his death, Alonso Perez, a physician of Salamanca, to whom Montemayor, before he finally left Spain, had communicated his plan for completing it, published a second part, which opens in the enchanted palace of Felicia, where the first ends, and gives us the adventures and stories of several shepherds and shepherdesses, not introduced before, as well as a continuation of the original fiction. But this second part, like the first, fails to complete the romance. It advances no farther than to the death of Delio, the husband of Diana,—which, according to the purpose of Montemayor, was to have been followed by her union with Sereno, her first and true lover,—and then stops abruptly, with the promise of yet a third part, which never appeared. Nor was it, probably, demanded with any earnestness; for the second, protracted through seven books, and considerably longer than its predecessor, is much inferior to it in merit. It lacks, in all its many stories, the tenderness which the disappointment of Montemayor had given to the first portion of the work; and, what perhaps is of no less consequence in this kind of composition, the prose is heavy and monotonous, and the verse worse.[65]

But this unfortunate attempt was not the only consequence of Montemayor’s success. The same year with that in which the work of Perez was published, another continuation appeared at Valencia, by Gaspar Gil Polo, a gentleman of that city, who was a Professor of Greek in its University.[66] The Diana of Polo has the merit of being shorter than either of its predecessors. It is divided into five books, and contains an account of the falsehood and death of Delio, and the marriage of Diana to Sereno, whom she finds when she is seeking the husband who had basely abandoned her for another shepherdess. Several episodes and much pastoral poetry of different kinds are skilfully inserted; but though the original plan of Montemayor seems to be completed, the book ends with the promise of a still further continuation, which, though the author lived nearly thirty years after he made it, seems never to have been written.[67] His work, however, was successful. Its prose has always found favor, and so have some portions of its verse; especially the cancion of Nerea in the third book, and several of the shorter poems in the last.[68]

The “Ten Books of Fortune and Love,” by Antonio de Lo Frasso, a Sardinian and a soldier, published in 1573, is the next Spanish romance of the same class with the Diana; but it is without merit, and was forgotten soon after it appeared.[69] Nine years later, in 1582, a better one was published,—the “Fílida,”—which passed early through five editions, and is still valued and read.[70] Its author, Luis Galvez de Montalvo, was born in Guadalaxara, a town near Alcalá, the birthplace of Cervantes; and, perhaps from this circumstance, they soon became acquainted, for they were long friends, and often praised each other in their respective works.[71] They seem, however, to have had very different characters; for, instead of the life of adventure led by Cervantes, Montalvo attached himself to the great family of Infantado, descended from the Marquis of Santillana, and passed most of his life as a sort of idle courtier and retainer in their ducal halls, near the place of his nativity. Subsequently he went to Italy, where he translated and published, in 1587, “The Tears of Saint Peter,” by Tansillo, and had begun a translation of the “Jerusalem Delivered” of Tasso, when he was cut off in the midst of his labors by an accidental death, in Sicily, about the year 1591.[72]

His “Fílida,” in seven parts, was written while he was attached to the Duke of Infantado; for he announces himself on the title-page as “a gentleman and a courtier,” and, in his Dedication to one of the family, says that “his greatest labor is to live idle, contented, and honored as one of the servants of their house.” The romance contains, as was usual in such works, the adventures of living and known personages, among whom were Montalvo himself, Cervantes, and the nobleman to whom it is dedicated. But the tone of pastoral life is not better preserved than it is in the other fictions of the same class. Indeed, in the sixth part, there is a most inappropriate critical discussion on the merits of the two schools of Spanish poetry then contending for fashionable mastery; and in the seventh is a courtly festival, with running at the ring, in which the shepherds appear on horseback with lances and armorial bearings, like knights. The prose style of the whole is pure and good; and among the poems with which it abounds, a few in the old Spanish measure may be selected that are nearly, if not quite, equal to the similar poems of Montemayor.

Cervantes, too, as we have already noticed, was led by the spirit of the times, rather, perhaps, than by his own taste, to begin—as an offering to the lady of his love—the “Galatea,” of which the first six books, published in 1584, were all that ever appeared.[73] This was followed, in 1586, by “Truth for the Jealous”; again a romance in six books, and, like the last, unfinished. It was written by Bartolomé Lopez de Enciso, of whom we know from himself that he was a young man when he wrote it, and that it was his purpose to publish a second part, of which, however, nothing more was heard. Nor can we regret that he failed to fulfil his promise. His fictions, which are occupied chiefly with the nymphs and shepherds of the Tagus, are among the most confused and unmeaning that have ever been attempted. His scene is laid, from its opening, in the days of the most ancient Greek mythology; but the Genius of Spain, in the fifth book, carries the same shepherds who thus figure in the first to a magnificent temple, and shows them the statues of Charles the Fifth, of Philip the Second, and even of Philip the Third, who was not yet on the throne;—thus confounding the earliest times of classical antiquity with an age which, at the end of the sixteenth century, was yet to come. Other inconsequences follow, in great numbers, as matters of course, while nothing in either the prose or the poetry is of value enough to compensate for the absurdities in the story. Indeed, few portions of Spanish literature show any thing more stiff and wearisome than the long declamations and discussions in this dull fiction.[74]

Another pastoral romance in six books, entitled “The Nymphs of the Henares,” by Bernardo Gonzalez de Bovadilla, was printed in 1587. The author, who was a native of the Canary Islands, confesses that he has placed the scene of his story on the banks of the Henares without having ever seen them; but both he and his romance have long since been forgotten. So has “The Shepherds of Iberia,” in four books, by Bernardo de la Vega, supposed to have been a native of Madrid, and certainly a canon of Tucuman, in Peru, whose ill-written story appeared in 1591. But that these, and all that preceded them, enjoyed for a time the public favor is made plain by the fact, that they are all found in the library of Don Quixote, and that three of them receive high praise from Cervantes;—much higher than has been confirmed by the decision of subsequent generations.[75]

Some time, however, elapsed before another came to continue the series, except the “Arcadia” of Lope de Vega, which, though written long before, was not printed till 1598.[76] At last, “The Age of Gold,” by Bernardo de Balbuena, appeared. Its author, born on the vine-clad declivities of the Val de Peñas, in 1568, early accompanied his family to Mexico, where he was educated, and where, when only seventeen years old, he was already known as a poet. Once, at least, he visited his native country, and perhaps oftener; but he seems to have spent most of his life, either in Jamaica, where he enjoyed an ecclesiastical benefice, or in Puerto Rico, of which he was afterwards bishop, and where he died in 1627.

Of the manners of the New World, however, or of its magnificent scenery, his “Age of Gold in the Woods of Eriphile” shows no trace. It was printed at Madrid, in 1608, and might have been written, if its author had never been in any other city. But it is not without merit. The poetry with which it abounds is generally of the Italian school, but is much better than can be found in most of these doubtful romances; and its prose, though sometimes affected, is oftener sweet and flowing. Probably nothing in the nine eclogues—as its divisions are unsuitably called—is connected with either the history or the scandal of the times; and if this be the case, we have, perhaps, an explanation of the fact that it was less regarded by those contemporary with its publication than were similar works of inferior merit. But whatever may have been the cause, it was long overlooked; no second edition of it being demanded till 1821, when it received the rare honor of being published anew by the Spanish Academy.[77]

The very next year after the first appearance of “The Age of Gold,” Christóval Suarez de Figueroa, a native of Valladolid, a jurist and a soldier, published his “Constant Amaryllis, in Four Discourses,” crowded, like all its predecessors, with short poems, and, like most of them, claiming to tell a tale not a little of which was true.[78] Its author, who lived a great deal in Italy, was already known by an excellent translation of Guarini’s “Pastor Fido,”[79] and published, at different times afterwards, several original works which enjoyed much reputation.[80]

But he seems to have been a man of an unkind and unfaithful character. In a curious account of his own life which appeared in his “Traveller,” he speaks harshly and insidiously of many of his contemporaries; and towards Cervantes—who had just died, after praising every body most generously during his whole life—he is absolutely malignant.[81] His last work is dated in 1621, and this is the last fact we know in relation to him. His “Amaryllis,” which, as he intimates, was composed to please a person of great consideration, did not satisfy its author.[82] It is, however, written in an easy and tolerably pure style; and though it contains formal and wearisome discussions, like that in the first part on Poetry, and awkward machinery, such as a vision of Venus and her court in the second, it is the only one of his works that has been reprinted or much read within the last century.

A few pastoral romances appeared in Spain after the Amaryllis, but none of so much merit, and none that enjoyed any considerable degree of favor. Espinel Adorno;[83] Botelho, a Portuguese;[84] Quintana, who assumed the name of Cuevas;[85] Corral;[86] and Saavedra,[87] close up the series;—the last bringing us down to just about a century from the first appearance of such fictions in the time of Montemayor, and all of them infected with the false taste of the period. Taken together, they leave no doubt that pastoral romance was the first substitute in Spain for the romances of chivalry, and that it inherited no small degree of their popularity. Most of the works we have noticed were several times reprinted, and the “Diana” of Montemayor, the first and best of them all, was probably more read in Spain during the sixteenth century than any Spanish work of amusement except the “Celestina.”

All this seems remarkable and strange, when we consider only the absurdities and inconsequences with which such fictions necessarily abound. But there is another side to the question, which should not be overlooked. Pastoral romance, after all, has its foundation in one of the truest and deepest principles of our common nature,—that love of rural beauty, of rural peace, in short, of whatever goes to constitute a country life, as distinguished from the constrained life of a city, which few are too dull to feel, and fewer still so artificial as wholly to reject. It has, therefore, prevailed more or less in all modern countries, as we may see in Italy, from the success that followed Sannazaro; in France, from the “Astrea” of Durfé; and in England, from the “Arcadia” of Sir Philip Sidney;—the two latter being pastoral romances of enormous length, compared with any in Spanish; and the very last enjoying for above a century a popularity which may well be compared with that of the “Diana” of Montemayor, if, indeed, it did not equal it.[88]

No doubt, in Spain, as elsewhere, the incongruities of such fictions were soon perceived. Even some of those who most indulged in them showed that it was not entirely from a misapprehension of their nature. Cervantes, who died regretting that he should leave his “Galatea” unfinished, still makes himself merry more than once in his “Don Quixote” with all such fancies; and, in his “Colloquy of the Dogs,” permits one of them, who had been in shepherd service, to satirize the false exhibition of life in the best pastorals of his time, not forgetting his own among the rest.[89] Lope de Vega, too, though he published his “Arcadia” under circumstances which show that he set a permanent value upon its gentle tales, could still, in a play where shepherds are introduced, make one of them—who found a real life among flocks and herds in rough weather much less agreeable than the life he had read of in the pastorals—say, when suffering in a storm,—

And I should like just now to see those men

Who write such books about a shepherd’s life,

Where all is spring and flowers and trees and brooks.[90]

Still, neither Cervantes, nor Lope, nor any body else in their time, thought seriously of discountenancing pastoral fictions. On the contrary, there was in their very style—which was generally an imitation of the Italian, that gave birth to them all—something attractive to a cultivated Castilian ear, at a time when the school of Garcilasso was at the height of its popularity and favor. Besides this, the real events they recorded, and the love-stories of persons in high life that they were known to conceal, made them sometimes riddles and sometimes masquerades, which engaged the curiosity of those who moved in the circles either of their authors or of their heroes and heroines.[91] But more than all, the glimpses they afforded of nature and truth—such genuine and deep tenderness as is shown by Montemayor, and such graceful descriptions of natural scenery as abound in Balbuena—were, no doubt, refreshing in a state of society stiff and formal as was that at the Spanish court in the times of Philip the Second and Philip the Third, and in the midst of a culture more founded on military virtues and the spirit of knighthood than any other of modern times. As long, therefore, as this state of things continued, pastoral fictions and fancies, filled with the dreams of a poetical Arcadia, enjoyed a degree of favor in Spain which they never enjoyed anywhere else. But when this disappeared, they disappeared with it.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Romances in the Style of Rogues. — State of Manners that produced them. — Mendoza’s Lazarillo de Tormes. — Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache, with the Spurious Continuation of it by Sayavedra and the True One by Aleman. — Perez. — Espinel and his Marcos de Obregon. — Yañez. — Quevedo. — Solorzano. — Enriquez Gomez. — Estevanillo Gonzalez.

The next form of prose fiction produced in Spain, and the one which, from its greater truth, has enjoyed a more permanent regard than the last, is found in those stories that have commonly gone under the name of “tales in the gusto picaresco,” or tales in the style of rogues. Taken as a class, they constitute a singular exhibition of character, and are, in fact, as separate and national in their air as any thing in the whole body of modern literature.

Their origin is obvious, and the more so from what is most singular in their character. They sprang directly from the condition of some portions of society in Spain when they appeared;—a condition, it should be added, which has existed there ever since, and contributed to preserve for the stories that bear its impress no little of the favor they have always enjoyed. Before speaking of them in detail, we must, therefore, notice the peculiar circumstances of the country, and the peculiar state of manners that gave them birth.

The wars of the opposing races and religions, that had constituted so much of the business of life, and so long engrossed the thoughts of men, in Spain, had, indeed, nearly ceased from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. But the state of character they had produced in the Spanish people had by no means ceased with them. On the contrary, it had been kept in the freshest activity by those vast enterprises which Charles the Fifth had pushed forward in Italy, France, and Germany, with such success, that the Spanish nation, always marked by a sanguine enthusiasm, had become fully persuaded that it was destined to achieve an empire which, covering the whole of the New World and whatever was most desirable in the Old, should surpass in glory and power the empire of the Cæsars in the days of its palmiest supremacy.

This magnificent result was a matter of such general faith, that men often felt a desire to contribute their personal exertions to accomplish it. Not only the high nobility of Spain, therefore, but all cavaliers and men of honor who sought distinction, saw, with the exception of places in the civil administration of affairs or in the Church, no road open before them on which they were so much tempted to enter as that of military enterprise. Laborious occupation in the business of common life and practical and productive industry were, in consequence, discountenanced, or held in contempt, while the armies were thronged, and multitudes of gentlemen and men of culture, like Cervantes and Lope de Vega, gladly served in them as simple soldiers.

But large as were the armies of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, all who desired it could not be soldiers. Many persons of decent condition, therefore, remained idle, because they found no occupation which was not deemed below their rank in society; while others, having made an experiment of military life sufficient to disgust them with its hardships, returned home unfitted for every thing else. These two sorts of persons formed a class of idlers that hung loose upon society in the principal cities of Spain, thriving at best by flattery and low intrigue, and sometimes driven for subsistence to crime. Their number was by no means small. They were known and marked wherever they went; and their characters, represented with much spirit, and often with great faithfulness, are still to be recognized in the proud, starving cavaliers of Mendoza and Quevedo, who stalk about the streets upon adventure, or crowd the antechamber of the minister, and weary his patience with their abject supplications for the meanest places it is in his power to bestow.

But there was yet another body of persons in Spain, nearly akin to the last in spirit, though differing from them in their original position, who figure no less in this peculiar form of fiction. They were the active, the shrewd, and the unscrupulous of the lower portions of society;—men who were able to perceive that the resources and power of the country, with all the advantages they desired to reach, were already in possession of an aristocratic caste, who looked to them for nothing but a sincere and faithful loyalty. During a long period,—the period of danger and trouble at home,—the fidelity of this class had been complete and unhesitating; bringing with it little feeling of wrong, and perhaps no sense of degradation; for such men, in such times, claimed from their superiors only protection, and, receiving this, asked for nothing else.

At last, however, other prospects opened upon them. Peace came gradually, as the Moors were driven out; and with it came a sense of independence and personal rights, which sometimes expressed itself in social restlessness, as in the frequent troubles at the universities; and sometimes, as in the wars of the Comuneros, in open rebellion. Contemporary, too, with these upward struggles of the masses of the people, which were always successfully rebuked and repressed, came the conquests in America, pouring such floods of wealth as the world had never before seen upon a country that had for ages been one of the poorest and most suffering in Europe. The easily got treasure—which was at first only in the hands of military adventurers or of those who had obtained grants of office and territory in the New World—was scattered as lightly as it was won. The shrewd and unprincipled of the less favored classes, therefore, soon learned to gather round its possessors, as they came home with their tempting burdens, and found ready means to profit by the golden shower that fell on all sides, with a profusion which carried an unhealthy action through every division of society. Little, however, could be obtained by men so humble and in a position so false, except by the arts of cunning and flattery. Cunning and flattery, therefore, were soon called forth among them in great abundance. The wealth of the Indies was a rich compost, that brought up parasites and rogues with other noxious weeds; and Paul, the son of a barber, and nephew of a hangman; Cortadillo, a young thief, whose father was a village tailor; and Little Lazarus, who could never settle his genealogy to his own satisfaction, became, in the literature of their country, the permanent representatives of their class;—a class well known under the degrading name of the Catariberas,[92] or the gayer one of Pícaros.

The first instance of a fiction founded on this state of things was, as we have already seen, the “Lazarillo de Tórmes” of Mendoza, which was published as early as 1554; a bold, unfinished sketch of the life of a rogue, from the very lowest condition in society. This was followed, forty-five years afterwards, by the “Guzman de Alfarache” of Mateo Aleman, the most ample portraiture of the class to which it belongs that is to be found in Spanish literature. What induced Aleman to write it we do not know. Indeed, we know little about him, except that he was a native of Seville, and wrote three or four other works of less consequence than this tale; that he was long employed in the treasury department of the government, and subjected to a vexatious suit at law in consequence of it; and that at last, retiring of his own choice to private life, he visited Mexico in 1609, and devoted the remainder of his days, either there or in Spain, to letters.[93] He may, at some period, have been a soldier; for one of his friends, in a eulogium prefixed to the second part of “Guzman de Alfarache,” sums up his character by saying that “never soldier had a poorer purse or a richer heart, or a life more unquiet and full of trouble, than his was; and all because he accounted it a greater honor to be a poor philosopher than a rich flatterer.”

But whatever he may have been, or whatever he may have suffered, his claims to be remembered are now centred in his “Guzman de Alfarache.” As it has reached us, it is divided into two parts, the first of which was published at Madrid, in 1599. Its hero, who supposed himself to be the son of a decayed and not very reputable Genoese merchant established at Seville, escapes, as a boy, from his mother, after his father’s ruin and death, and plunges into the world upon adventure. He soon finds himself at Madrid, though not till he has passed through the hands of the officers of justice; and there undergoes all sorts of suffering, serving as a scullion to a cook, and as a ragged errand-boy to whomsoever would employ him; until, seizing a good opportunity, he steals a large sum of money that had been intrusted to him, and escapes to Toledo, where he sets up for a gentleman. But there he becomes, in his turn, the victim of a cunning like his own; and, finding his money nearly gone, enlists for the Italian wars. His star is now on the wane. At Barcelona, he again turns sharper and thief. At Genoa and Rome, he sinks to the lowest conditions of a street beggar. But a cardinal picks him up in the last city and makes him his page; a place in which, but for his bold frauds and tricks, he might long have thriven, and which at last he leaves in great distress, from losses at play, and enters the service of the French ambassador.

Here the first part ends. It was very successful; falling in with the vices and humors of the times, just as the loose court of Philip the Third, and the corrupting influences of his favorite, the Duke of Lerma, came to offer a sort of carnival to folly and vice, after the hypocrisy and constraints of the last dark years of Philip the Second. The Guzman, therefore, within a twelve-month after it appeared, passed through three editions; and, in less than six years, through twenty-six, besides being translated into French and Italian.[94] It was imitated, too, in a second part by some unknown person, probably by Juan Marti, a Valencian advocate, who disguised himself under the name of Mateo Luxan de Sayavedra, and published in 1603 what he boldly called a continuation of the Guzman.[95] But it was a base attempt, which, though not without literary merit, brought upon its author the just reproaches of Aleman, who intimates that his own manuscripts had been improperly used in its composition, and the just sarcasm of Aleman’s friend, Luis de Valdes, who exposed the meanness of the whole fraud.

In 1605, the genuine second part appeared.[96] It begins with the life of Guzman in the house of the French ambassador at Rome, where he serves in some of the most dishonorable employments to which the great of that period degraded their mercenary dependants. But his own follies and crimes drive him away from a place for which he seems to have been in most respects well fitted, and he goes to Siena. At this point in his story, it seems to have occurred to Aleman to attack the Sayavedra who had endeavoured to impose upon the world with a false second part of the Guzman. He therefore introduces a person who is made thus to describe himself:—

“He told me,” says Guzman, who always writes in the style of autobiography, “he told me, that he was an Andalusian, born in Seville, my own native city, Sayavedra by name, with papers to show that he belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families among us. Who would suspect fraud under such a fair outside? And yet it was all a lie. He was a Valencian. I do not give his true name, for good reasons; but what with his flowing Castilian, his good looks, and his agreeable manners, it was impossible for me to suspect that he was a thief, a sponge, and a cheat, who had dressed himself up in peacock’s feathers only to obtain by falsehood such an entrance into my apartments that he could rob me of whatever he liked.”[97]

This personage, his history and adventures, fill too large a space in the second part of the Guzman; for when once Aleman had seized him, he seemed not to tire of inflicting punishment so soon as the reader does of witnessing it. Sayavedra robs and cheats Guzman early in this portion of the story; but afterwards accompanies him, in an equivocal capacity, through Milan, Bologna, and Genoa, to Spain, where, partly perhaps to get rid of him, and partly perhaps, as Cervantes did afterwards in the case of Don Quixote and Avellaneda, in order to end his story and prevent his enemy from continuing it any further, Aleman brings his victim’s life to an end.

The remainder of the book is filled with the adventures of Guzman himself, which are as wild and various as possible. He becomes a merchant at Madrid, and cheats his creditors by a fraudulent bankruptcy. He marries, but his wife dies soon; and then he begins, as a student at Alcalá, to prepare himself for the Church;—a consummation of wickedness which is prevented only by his marriage a second time. His second wife, however, leaves him at Seville, where he had established himself, and elopes with a lover to Italy. After this, he is reduced again to abject poverty; and, unable to live with his old, wretched, and shameless mother, he becomes major-domo to a lady of fortune, robs her, and is sent to the galleys, where he has the good luck to reveal a conspiracy and is rewarded with his freedom and a full pardon.

With this announcement the second part abruptly ends, not without promising a third, which was never published, though the author, in his Preface, says it was already written. The work, therefore, as it has come to us, is imperfect. But it was not, on that account, the less favored and admired. On the contrary, it was translated and printed all over Europe, in French, in Italian, in German, in Portuguese, in English, in Dutch, and even in Latin; a rare success, whose secret lies partly in the age when the Guzman appeared, and still more in the power and talent of the author.[98] The long moralizing discourses with which it abounds, written in a pure Castilian style, with much quaintness and point, were then admired, and saved it from censures which it could otherwise hardly have failed to encounter. These are, no doubt, the passages that led Ben Jonson to speak of it as

“The Spanish Proteus, which, though writ

But in one tongue, was formed with the world’s wit,

And hath the noblest mark of a good booke,

That an ill man doth not securely looke

Upon it; but will loathe or let it passe,

As a deformed face doth a true glasse.”[99]

This, however, is not its real, or at least not its main character. The Guzman is chiefly curious and interesting because it shows us, in the costume of the times, the life of an ingenious, Machiavellian rogue, who is never at a loss for an expedient; who always treats himself and speaks of himself as an honest and respectable man; and who sometimes goes to mass and says his prayers just before he enters on an extraordinary scheme of roguery, as if on purpose to bring it out in more striking and brilliant relief. So far from being a moral book, therefore, it is a very immoral one, and Le Sage spoke in the spirit of its author, when, in the next century, undertaking to give a new French version of it, he boasted that he “had purged it of its superfluous moral reflections.”[100]

It has, naturally, a considerable number of episodes. That of Sayavedra has already been noticed, as occupying a space in the work disproportionate to every thing but the anger of its author. Another—the story of Osmyn and Daraxa, which occurs early—is a pleasing specimen of those half-Moorish, half-Christian fictions that are so characteristic a portion of Spanish literature.[101] And yet another, which is placed in Spain and in the time of the Great Constable, Alvaro de Luna, is, after all, an Italian tale of Masuccio, used subsequently by Beaumont and Fletcher in “The Little French Lawyer.”[102] But, on the whole, the attention of the reader is fairly kept either upon the hero or upon the long discussions in which the hero indulges himself, and in which he draws striking, though not unfrequently exaggerated and burlesque, sketches of all classes of society in Spain, as they successively pass in review before him. At first, Aleman thought of calling his work “A Beacon-light of Life.” The name would not have been inappropriate, and it is the qualities implied under it—the sagacity, the knowledge of life and character, and the acuteness of its reflections on men and manners—that have preserved for it somewhat of its original popularity down to our own times.

In 1605 another story of the same class appeared, the “Pícara Justina,” or the Crafty Justina,—again a seeming autobiography, and again a fiction of very doubtful morality. It was written by a Dominican monk, Andreas Perez of Leon, who was known, both before and after its appearance, as the author of works of Christian devotion, and who had so far a sense of the incongruity of the Pícara Justina with his religious position, that he printed it under the assumed name of Francisco Lopez de Ubeda. He claims to have written it when he was a student at the University of Alcalá, but admits, that, after the appearance of the “Guzman de Alfarache,” he made large additions to it. It is, however, in truth, a mere imitation, and a very poor one, of Aleman. The first book is filled with a tedious, rambling account of Justina’s ancestors, who are barbers and puppet-showmen; and the rest consists of her own life, brought down to the time of her first marriage, marked by few adventures, and ending with an intimation, that, at the time of writing it, she had already been married yet twice more; that she was then the wife of Guzman de Alfarache; and that she should continue her memoirs still further, in case the public should care to hear more about her.

The Justina discovers little power of invention in the incidents, which are few and not interesting. Indeed, the author himself declares that nearly all of them were actual occurrences within his own experience; and this circumstance, together with the meagre “improvements,” as they are called,—or warnings against the follies and guilt of the heroine, with which each chapter ends,—is regarded by him as a sufficient justification for publishing a work whose tendency is obviously mischievous. Nor is the style better than the incidents. There is a constant effort to say witty and brilliant things; but it is rarely successful; and besides this, there is an affectation of new words and singular phrases which do not belong to the genius and analogies of the language, and which have caused at least one Spanish critic to regard Perez as the first author who left the sober and dignified style of the elder times, and, from mere caprice, undertook to invent a new one.[103]

But though the “Pícara Justina” proved a failure, the overwhelming popularity of “Guzman de Alfarache,” when added to that of “Lazarillo,” rendered this form of fiction so generally welcome in Spain, that it made its way into the ductile drama, and into the style of the shorter tales, as we have already seen when treating of Lope de Vega and Cervantes, and as we shall see hereafter when we come to speak of Salas Barbadillo and Francisco de Santos. Meantime, however, the “Escudero Marcos de Obregon” appeared; a work which has, on many accounts, attracted attention, and which deserves to be remembered, as the best of its kind in Spanish literature, except “Lazarillo” and “Guzman.”

It was written by Vicente Espinel, who was born about 1540, at Ronda, a romantic town, boldly built in the mountain range that stretches through the southwestern portion of the kingdom of Granada, and picturesquely described by himself in one of the most striking of his poems.[104] He was educated at Salamanca, and, when Lope de Vega appeared as a poet before the public, Espinel was already so far advanced in his own career, that the young aspirant for public favor submitted his verses to the critical skill of his elder friend;[105]—a favor which Lope afterwards returned by praises in “The Laurel of Apollo,” more heart-felt and effective than he has usually given in that indiscriminate eulogium of the poets of his time.[106]

What was the course of Espinel’s life we do not know. It has generally been supposed that many of its events are related in his “Marcos de Obregon”; but though this is probable, and though some parts of that story are evidently true, yet many others are as evidently fictions, so that, on the whole, we are bound to regard it as a romance, and not as an autobiography. We know, however, that Espinel’s life in Italy was much like that of his hero; that he was a soldier in Flanders; that he wrote Latin verses; that he published a volume of Castilian poetry in 1591; and that he was a chaplain in Ronda, though he lived much in Madrid, and at last died there. He was regarded as the author of the form of verse called sometimes décimas, and sometimes, after himself, Espinelas; and he is said to have added a fifth string to the guitar, which soon led to the invention of the sixth, and thus completed that truly national instrument.[107] He died, according to Antonio, in 1634; but according to Lope de Vega, he was not alive in 1630. All accounts, however, represent him as having survived his ninetieth year,[108] and as having passed the latter part of his life in poverty and in unfriendly relations with Cervantes;—a fact the more observable, because both of them enjoyed pensions from the same distinguished ecclesiastic, the kindly old Archbishop of Toledo.[109]

The “Escudero Marcos de Obregon” was first published in 1618, and therefore appeared in the old age of its author.[110] He presents his hero, at once, as a person already past the middle years of life; one of the esquires of dames, who, at that period, were personages of humbler pretensions and graver character than those who, with the same title, had followed the men-at-arms of old.[111] The story of Marcos, however, though it opens upon us, at first, with scenes later in his life, soon returns to his youth, and nearly the whole volume is made up of his own account of his adventures, as he related them to a hermit whom he had known when he was a soldier in Flanders and Italy, and at whose cell he was now accidentally detained by a storm and flood, while on an excursion from Madrid.

In many particulars, his history resembles that of his predecessor, Guzman de Alfarache. It is the story of a youth who left his father’s house to seek his fortune; became first a student and afterwards a soldier; visited Italy; was a captive in Algiers; travelled over a large part of Spain; and after going through a great variety of dangers and trials, intrigues, follies, and crimes, sits down quietly in his old age to give an account of them all, with an air as grave and self-satisfied as if the greater part of them had not been of the most discreditable character. It contains a moderate number of wearisome, well-written moral reflections, intended to render its record of tricks, frauds, and crimes more savory to the reader by contrast; but though it falls below both the “Guzman de Alfarache” and the “Lazarillo” in the beauty and spirit of its style, it has more life in its action than either of them, and the series of its events is carried on with greater rapidity, and brought to a more regular conclusion.[112]

Ten years later, another romance of the same sort appeared. It was by Yañez y Rivera, a physician of Segovia; who, as if on purpose to show the variety of his talent, published two works on ascetic devotion, as well as this picaresque romance; all of them remote from the cares and studies of his regular profession. He calls his story “Alonso, the Servant of Many Masters”; and the name is a sort of index to its contents. For it is a history of the adventures of its hero, Alonso, in the service, first of a military officer, then of a sacristan, and afterwards of a gentleman, of a lawyer, and of not a few others, who happened to be willing to employ him; and it is, in fact, neither more nor less than a satire on the different orders and conditions of society, as he studies them all in the houses of his different masters. It is evidently written with experience of the world, and its Castilian style is good; but something of its spirit is diminished by the circumstance, that it is thrown into the form of a dialogue. When Yañez published the first part, in 1624, he said that he had already been a practising physician twenty-six years, and that he should print nothing more, unless it related to the profession he followed. His success, however, with his Alonso was too tempting. He printed, in 1626, a second part of it, containing his hero’s adventures among the Gypsies and in Algerine captivity, and died in 1632.[113]

Quevedo’s “Paul the Sharper,” which we have already noticed, was published the year after Yañez had completed his story, and did much to extend the favor with which works of this sort were received. Castillo Solorzano, therefore, well known at the time as a writer of popular tales and dramas, ventured to follow him, but with less good-fortune. His “Teresa, the Child of Tricks,” was published in 1632, and was succeeded immediately by “The Graduate in Frauds,” of which a continuation appeared in 1634, under the whimsical title of “The Seville Weasel, or a Hook to catch Purses.” This last, which is an account of the adventures of the Graduate’s daughter, proved, though it was never finished, the most popular of Solorzano’s works, and has not only been often reprinted, but was early translated into French, and gained a reputation in Europe generally. All three, however, are less strictly picaresque tales than the similar fictions that had preceded them;—not that they are wanting in coarse sketches of life and caricatures as broad as any in Guzman, but that romantic tales, ballads, and even farces, or parts of dramas, are introduced, showing that this form of romance was becoming mingled with others more poetical, if not more true to the condition of manners and society at the time.[114]

Another proof of this change is to be found in “The Pythagoric Age” of Enriquez Gomez, first published in 1644; a book of little value, which takes the old doctrine of transmigration as the means of introducing a succession of pictures to serve as subjects for its satire. It begins with a poem in irregular verse, describing the existence of the soul, first in the body of an ambitious man; then in that of a slanderer and informer, a coquette, a minister of state, and a favorite; and it ends with similar sketches, half in poetry and half in prose, of a knight, a schemer, and others. But in the middle of the book is “The Life of Don Gregorio Guadaña,” in prose, which is a tale in direct imitation of Quevedo and Aleman, sometimes as free and coarse as theirs are, but generally not offending against the proprieties of life; and occasionally, as in the scenes during a journey and in the town of Carmona, pleasant and interesting, because it evidently gives us sketches from the author’s own experience. Like the rest of its class, it is most successful when it deals with such realities, and least so when it wanders off into the regions of poetry and fiction.[115]

But the work which most plainly shows the condition of social life that produced all these tales, if not the work that best exhibits their character, is “The Life of Estevanillo Gonzalez,” first printed in 1646. It is the autobiography of a buffoon, who was long in the service of Ottavio Piccolomini, the great general of the Thirty Years’ war; but it is an autobiography so full of fiction, that Le Sage, sixty years after its appearance, easily changed it into a mere romance, which has continued to be republished as such with his works ever since.[116]

Both in the original and in the French translation, it is called “The Life and Achievements of Estevanillo Gonzalez, the Good-natured Fellow,” and gives an account of his travels all over Europe, and of his adventures as courier, cook, and valet of the different distinguished masters whom he at different times served, from the king of Poland down to the Duke of Ossuna. Nothing can exceed the coolness with which he exhibits himself as a liar by profession, a constitutional coward, and an accomplished cheat, whenever he can thus render his story more amusing;—but then, on the other hand, he is not without learning, writes gay verses, and gives us sketches of his times and of the great men to whom he was successively attached, that are any thing but dull. His life, indeed, would be worth reading, if it were only to compare his account of the battle of Nordlingen with that in De Foe’s “Cavalier,” and his drawing of Ottavio Piccolomini with the stately portrait of the same personage in Schiller’s “Wallenstein.” Its faults, on the other hand, are a vain display of his knowledge; occasional attempts at grandeur and eloquence of style, which never succeed; and numberless intolerable puns. But it shows distinctly, what we have already noticed, that the whole class of fictions to which it belongs had its foundation in the manners and society of Spain at the period when they appeared, and that to this they owed, not only their success at home, in the age of Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth, but that success abroad which subsequently produced the Gil Blas of Le Sage,—an imitation more brilliant than any of the originals it followed.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Serious and Historical Romances. — Juan de Flores, Reinoso, Luzindaro, Contreras, Hita and the Wars of Granada, Flegetonte, Noydens, Céspedes, Cervantes, Lamarca, Valladares, Texada, Lozano. — Failure of this Form of Fiction in Spain.

It was inevitable that grave fiction suited to the changed times should appear in Spain, as well as fiction founded on the satire of prevalent manners. But there were obstacles in its way, and it came late. The old chronicles, so full of the same romantic spirit, and the more interesting because they were sometimes built up out of the older and longer-loved ballads; the old ballads themselves, still oftener made out of the chronicles; the romances of chivalry, which had not yet lost a popularity that, at the present day, seems nearly incredible;—all contributed, in their respective proportions, to satisfy the demand for books of amusement, and to repress the appearance and limit the success of serious and historical fiction. But it was inevitable that it should come, even if it should win little favor.

We have already noticed the attempts to introduce it, made in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, by Diego de San Pedro and his imitator, the anonymous author of “The Question of Love.” Others followed, in the reign of Charles the Fifth. The story, that very imperfectly connects the discussions between Aurelio and Isabella, on the inquiry, whether man gives more occasion for sin to woman, or woman to man, is one of them. It is a slight and meagre fiction, by Juan de Mores, which dates as far back as 1521, and which, in an early English translation, was at one time thought to have furnished hints for Shakspeare’s “Tempest.”[117] “The Loves of Clareo and Florisea,” published in 1552, by Nuñez de Reinoso, at Venice, where he then lived, is another;—a fiction partly allegorical, partly sentimental, and partly in the manner of the romances of chivalry, but of no value for the invention of its incidents, and of very little for its style.[118] The story of “Luzindaro and Medusina,” printed as early as 1553, which, in the midst of enchantments and allegories, preserves the tone and air of a series of complaints against love, and ends tragically with the death of Luzindaro, is yet a third of these crude attempts;[119]—all of which are of consequence only because they led the way to better things. But excepting these and two or three more trifles of the same kind, and of even less value, the reign of Charles the Fifth, so far as grave fiction was concerned, was entirely given up to the romances of chivalry.[120]

In the reign of Philip the Second, when the literature of the country began to develop itself on all sides, serious romances appeared in better forms, or at least with higher pretensions and attributes. Two instances of attempts in new directions, and with more considerable success, present themselves at once.

The first was by Hierónimo de Contreras, and bears the affected title of “A Thicket of Adventures.” It was published in 1573, and is the story of Luzuman, a gentleman of Seville, who had been bred from childhood in great intimacy with Arboleda, a lady of equal condition with himself; but when, as he grows up, this intimacy ripens into love, the lady rejects his suit, on the ground that she prefers a religious life. The refusal is gentle and tender; but he is so disheartened by it, that he secretly leaves his home in sorrow and mortification, and goes to Italy, where he meets with abundance of adventures, and travels through the whole peninsula, down to Naples. Wearied with this mode of life, he then embarks for Spain, but on his passage is taken by a corsair and carried to Algiers. There he remains in cruel slavery for five years. His master then gives him his freedom, and he returns to his home as secretly as he left it; but finding that Arboleda had taken the veil, and that the society to which he belonged had forgotten him, and had closed over the place he had once filled, he avoids making himself known to any body, and retires to a hermitage, with the purpose of ending his days in devotion.[121]

The whole story, somewhat solemnly divided into seven books, is dull, from want both of sufficient variety in the details, and of sufficient spirit in the style. But it is of some importance, because it is the first in a class of fictions, afterwards numerous, which—relying on the curiosity then felt in Spain about Italy, as a country full of Spaniards enjoying luxuries and refinements not yet known at home, and about Algiers, crowded with thousands of other Spaniards suffering the most severe forms of captivity—trusted, for no small part of their interest, to the accounts they gave of their heroes as adventurers in Italy, and as slaves on the coast of Barbary. Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and several more among the most popular authors of the seventeenth century, are among the writers of fictions like these.

The other form of grave fiction, which appeared in the time of Philip the Second, was the proper historical romance; and the earliest specimen of it, except such unsuccessful and slight attempts as we have already noticed, is to be found in “The Civil Wars of Granada,” by Ginés Perez de Hita. The author of this striking book was an inhabitant of Murcia, and, from the little he tells us of himself, must not only have been familiar with the wild mountains and rich valleys of the neighbouring kingdom of Granada, but must have had an intimate personal acquaintance with many of the old Moorish families that still lingered in the homes of their fathers, repeating the traditions of their ancient glory and its disastrous overthrow. Perhaps these circumstances led him to the choice of a subject for his romance. Certainly they furnished him with its best materials; for the story he relates is founded on the fall of Granada, regarded rather from within, amidst the feuds of the Moors themselves, than, as we are accustomed to consider it, from the Christian portion of Spain, gradually gathered in military array outside of its walls.

He begins his story by seeking a safe basis for it in the origin and history of the kingdom of Granada, according to the best authorities within his reach. This part of his work is formal and dry, and shows how imperfect were the notions, at the time he lived, of what an historical romance should be. But as he advances and enters upon the main subject he had proposed to himself, his tone changes. We are, indeed, still surrounded with personages that are familiar to us, like the heroic Muza on one side and the Master of Calatrava on the other; we are present with Boabdil, the last of the long line of Moorish sovereigns, as he carries on a fierce war against his own father in the midst of the city, and with Ferdinand and his knights, as they lay waste all the kingdom without. But to these historical figures are added the more imaginative and fabulous sketches of the Zegris and Abencerrages, Reduan, Abenamar, and Gazul, as full of knightly virtues as any of the Christian cavaliers opposed to them; and of Haja, Zayda, and Fatima, as fair and winning as the dames whom Isabella had brought with her to Santa Fé to cheer on the conquest.

But while he is thus mingling the creations of his own fancy with the facts of history, Hita has been particularly skilful in giving to the whole the manners and coloring of the time. He shows us a luxurious empire tottering to its fall, and yet, while the streets of its capital are filled with war-cries and blood, its princes and nobles abate not one jot of their accustomed revelry and riot. Marriage festivals and midnight dances in the Alhambra, and gorgeous tournaments and games in presence of the court, alternate with duels and feuds between the two great preponderating families that are destroying the state, and with skirmishes and single combats against the advancing Christians. Then come the cruel accusation of the Sultana by the false Zegris, and her defence in arms by both Moors and Christians; the atrocious murder of his sister Morayma by Boabdil, who suddenly breaks out with all the jealous violence of an Oriental despot; and the mournful and scandalous spectacle of three kings contending daily for empire in the squares and palaces of a city destined in a few short weeks to fall into the hands of the enemy that already surrounded its walls.

Much of this, of course, is fiction, so far as the details are concerned; but it is not a fiction false to the spirit of the real events on which it is founded. When, therefore, we approach the end of the story, we come again without violence upon historical ground as true as that on which it opened, though almost as wild and romantic as any of the tales of feuds or festivals through which we have been led to it. In this way, the temporary captivity of Boabdil and his cowardly submission, the siege and surrender of Alhama and Malaga, and the fall of Granada, are brought before us neither unexpectedly nor in a manner out of keeping with what had preceded them; and the story ends, if not with a regular catastrophe, which such materials might easily have furnished, at least with a tale in the tone of all the rest,—that which records the sad fate of Don Alonso de Aguilar. It should be added, that not a few of the finest of the old Spanish ballads are scattered through the work, furnishing materials for the story, rich and appropriate in themselves, and giving an air of reality to the events described, that could hardly have been given to them by any thing else.

This first part, as it is commonly called, of the Wars of Granada was written between 1589 and 1595.[122] It claims to be a translation from the Arabic of a Moor of Granada, and, in the last chapter, Hita gives a circumstantial account of the way in which he obtained it from Africa, where, as he would have us believe, it had been carried in the dispersion of the Moorish race. But though it is not unlikely, that, in his wanderings through the kingdom of Granada, he may have obtained Arabic materials for parts of his story, and though, in the last century, it was more than once attempted to make out an Arabic origin for the whole of it,[123] still his account, upon the face of it, is not at all probable; besides which, he repeatedly appeals to the chronicles of Garibay and Moncayo as authorities for his statements, and gives to the main current of his work—especially in such passages as the conversion of the Sultana—a Christian air, which does not permit us to suppose that any but a Christian could have written it. Notwithstanding his denial, therefore, we must give to Hita the honor of being the true author of one of the most attractive books in the prose literature of Spain; a book written in a pure, rich, and picturesque style, which seems in some respects to be in advance of the age, and in all to be worthy of the best models of the best period.

In 1604, he published the second part, on a subject nearly connected with the first. Seventy-seven years after the conquest of Granada, the Moors of that kingdom, unable any longer to bear the oppressions to which they were subjected by the rigorous government of Philip the Second, took refuge in the bold range of the Alpuxarras, on the coast of the Mediterranean, and there, electing a king, broke out into open rebellion. They maintained themselves bravely in their mountain fastnesses nearly four years, and were not finally defeated till three armies had been sent against them; the last of which was commanded by no less a general than Don John of Austria. Hita served through the whole of this war; and the second part of his romance contains its history. Much of what he relates is true; and, indeed, of much he had been an eye-witness, as we can see in his accounts of the atrocities committed in the villages of Felix and Huescar, as well as in all the details of the siege of Galera and the death and funeral honors of Luis de Quijada. But other portions, like the imprisonment of Albexari, with his love for Almanzora, and the jealousies and conspiracy of Benalguacil, must be chiefly or wholly drawn from his own imagination. The most interesting part is the story of Tuzani, which he relates with great minuteness, and which he declares he received from Tuzani himself and other persons concerned in it;—a wild tale of Oriental passion, which, as we have seen, Calderon made the subject of one of his most powerful and characteristic dramas.

If the rest of the second division of Hita’s romance had been like this story, it might have been worthy of the first. But it is not. The ballads with which it is diversified, and which are probably all his own, are much inferior in merit to the older ballads he had inserted before; and his narrative is given in a much less rich and glowing style. Perhaps Hita felt the want of the old Moorish traditions that had before inspired him, or perhaps he found himself awkwardly constrained when dealing with facts too recent and notorious to be manageable for the purposes of fiction. But whatever may have been the cause of its inferiority, the fact is plain. His second part, regarded as genuine history, is not to be compared with the account of the same events by Diego de Mendoza; while, regarded as a romance, he had already far surpassed it himself.[124]

The path, however, which Hita by these two works had opened for historical fiction amidst the old traditions and picturesque manners of the Moors, tempting as it may now seem, did not, in his time, seem so to others. His own romance, it is true, was often reprinted and much read. But, from the nature of his subject, he showed the Moorish character on its favorable side, and even went so far as to express his horror at the cruelties inflicted by his countrymen on their hated enemies, and his sense of the injustice done to the vanquished by the bad faith that kept neither the promises of Ferdinand and Isabella nor those of Don John.[125] Such sympathy with the infidel enemy that had so long held Spain in fee was not according to the spirit of the times. Only five years after Hita had published his account of the rebellion of the Alpuxarras, the remainder of the Moors against whom he had there fought were violently expelled from Spain by Philip the Third, amidst the rejoicings of the whole Spanish people; few even of the most humane spirits looking upon the sufferings they thus inflicted as any thing but the just retributions of an offended Heaven.

Of course, while this was the state of feeling throughout the nation, it was not to be expected that works of fiction representing the Moors in romantic and attractive colors, and filled with adventures drawn from their traditions, should find favor in Spain. A century later, indeed, a third part of the Wars of Granada—whether written by Hita or somebody else we are not told—was licensed for the press, though never published;[126] and, in France, Madame de Scudéri soon began, in “The Almahide,” a series of fictions on this foundation, that has been continued down, through the “Gonsalve de Cordoue” of Florian, to “The Abencerrage” of Chateaubriand, without giving any token that it is likely soon to cease.[127] But in Spain it struck no root, and had no success.

Perhaps other circumstances, besides a national feeling of unwillingness that romantic fiction should occupy the debatable ground between the Moors and the Christians, contributed to check its progress in Spain. Perhaps the publication of the first part of Don Quixote, destroying, by its ridicule, the only form of romance much known or regarded at the time, was not without an effect on the other forms, by exciting a prejudice against all grave prose works of invention, and still more by furnishing a substitute much more amusing than they could aspire to be. But whether this were so or not, attacks on all of them followed in the same spirit. “The Cryselia of Lidaceli,” which appeared in 1609,—and which, as well as a dull prose satire on the fantastic Academies then in fashion, bears the name of Captain Flegetonte,—assails freely whatever of prose fiction had till then enjoyed regard in Spain, whether the pastoral, the historical, or the chivalrous.[128] Its attack, however, was so ineffectual, as to show only the tendency of opinion to discourage romance-writing in Spain;—a tendency yet more apparent a little later, not only in some of the best ascetic writers of the seventeenth century, but in such works as “The Moral History of the God Momus,” by Noydens, published in 1666, which, as its author tells us distinctly in the Prologue, was intended to drive out of society all novels and books of adventure whose subject was love.[129]

Still, serious romance was written in Spain during the whole of the seventeenth century, and written in several varieties of form and tone, though with no real success. Thus, Gonzalo de Céspedes, a native of Madrid, and author of several other works, published the first part of his “Gerardo” in 1615, and the second in 1617. He calls it a Tragic Poem, and divides it into discourses instead of chapters. But it is, in fact, a prose romance, consisting of a series of slightly connected adventures in the life of its hero, Gerardo, and episodes of the adventures of different persons more or less associated with him; in all which, amidst much that is sentimental and romantic, there is more that is tragic than is common in such Spanish stories. It was several times reprinted, and was succeeded, in 1626, by his “Various Fortunes of the Soldier Píndaro,” a similar work, but less interesting, and perhaps, on that account, never finished according to the original purpose of its author. Both, however, show a power of invention which is hardly to be found in works of the same class produced so early, either in France or England, and both make pretensions to style, though rather in their lighter than in their more serious portions.[130]

Again in 1617,—the same year, it will be recollected, in which the “Persiles and Sigismunda” of Cervantes appeared,—Francisco Loubayssin de Lamarca, a Biscayan by birth, published his “Tragicomic History of Don Enrique de Castro”; in which known facts and fanciful adventures are mingled in the wildest confusion. The scene is carried back, by means of the story of the hero’s uncle, who has become a hermit in his old age, to the Italian wars of Charles the Eighth of France, and forward, in the person of the hero himself, to the conquest of Chili by the Spaniards; covering meanwhile any intermediate space that seems convenient to its author’s purposes. As an historical novel, it is an entire failure.[131]

A similar remark may be made on another work published in 1625, which takes in part the guise of imaginary travels, and is called “The History of Two Faithful Friends”; a story founded on the supposed adventures of a Frenchman and a Spaniard in Persia, and consisting chiefly of incredible accounts of their intrigues with Persian ladies of rank. Much of it is given in the shape of a correspondence, and it ends with the promise of a continuation, which never appeared.[132]

Many, indeed, of the works of fiction begun in Spain, during the seventeenth century, remained, like the Two Faithful Friends, unfinished, from want of encouragement and popularity; while others that were written were never published at all.[133] One of these last, called “The Fortunate Knight,” by Juan Valladares de Valdelomar, of Córdova, was quite prepared for the press in 1617, and is still extant in the original manuscript, with the proper licenses for printing and the autograph approbation of Lope de Vega. It is an historical novel, divided into forty-five “Adventures”; and the hero, like many others of his class, is a soldier in Italy, and a captive in Africa; serving first under Don John of Austria, and afterwards under Sebastian of Portugal. How much of it is true is uncertain. Regular dates are given for many of its events, some of which can be verified; but it is full of poetry and poetical fancies, and several of the stories, like that of the loves of the knight himself and the fair Mayorinda, must have been taken from the author’s imagination. Still, in the Prologue, all books of fiction are treated with contempt, as if the whole class were so little favored, that it was discreditable to avow the intention of publishing another, even at the moment of doing it. In the style of its prose, the Fortunate Knight is as good as other similar works of the same period; but the poems with which it is crowded, to the number of about a hundred and fifty, are of less merit.[134]

The discouragement just alluded to, whether proceeding from the ridicule thrown on long works of fiction by Cervantes, or from the watchfulness of the ecclesiastical authorities, or from both causes combined, was probably one of the reasons that led persons writing serious romances to seek new directions and unwonted forms in their composition; sometimes going as far as possible from the truth of fact, and sometimes coming down almost to plain history. Two instances of such deviations from the beaten paths—probably the only examples in their time of the class to which each belonged—should be noticed, for their singularity, if not for their literary merit.

The first is by Cosmé de Texada, and is called “The Marvellous Lion.” It was originally published in 1636, and consists of the history of “the great Lion Auricrino,” his wonderful adventures, and, at last, his marriage with Crisaura, his lady-love. It is divided into fifty-four Apologues, which might rather have been called chapters; and if, instead of the names of animals given to its personages, it had such poetical names as usually occur in romantic fiction, it would—except where it involves satirical sketches of the follies of the times—be a mere love-romance, neither more unnatural nor more extravagant than many of its fellows.

Such as it is, however, it did not entirely satisfy its author. The early portions had been written in his youth, while he was a student in theology at Salamanca; and when, somewhat later, he resumed his task, and brought it to a regular conclusion, he was already far advanced in the composition of another romance still more grave and spiritualized and still farther removed from the realities of life. This more carefully matured fiction is called “Understanding and Truth, the Philosophical Lovers”; and all its personages are allegorical, filling up, with their dreams and trials, a shadowy picture of human life, from the creation to the general judgment. How long Texada was employed about this cold and unsatisfactory allegory, we are not told; but it was not published till 1673, nearly forty years after it was begun, and then it was given to the public by his brother as a posthumous work, with the inappropriate title of “The Second Part of the Marvellous Lion.” Neither romance had a living interest capable of insuring it a permanent success, but both are written in a purer style than was common in such works at the same period, and the first of them occasionally attacks the faults of the contemporary literature with spirit and good-humor.[135]

Quite different from both of them, “The New Kings of Toledo,” by Christóval Lozano, introduces only real personages, and contains little but the facts of known history and old tradition, slightly embellished by the spirit of romance. Its author was attached to the metropolitan cathedral of Toledo, and, with Calderon, served in the chapel set apart for the burial of the New Kings, as the monarchs of Castile were called from the time of Henry of Trastamara, who there established for himself a cemetery, separate from that in which the race ending with the dishonored Don Pedro had been entombed.

The pious chaplain, who was thus called to pray daily for the souls of the line of sovereigns that had constituted the house of Trastamara, determined to illustrate their memories by a romantic history; and, beginning with the old national traditions of the origin of Toledo, the cave of Hercules, the marriage of Charlemagne with a Moorish princess whom he converted, and the refusal of a Christian princess to marry a Moor whom she could not convert, he gives us an account of the building of the chapel, and the adventures of the kings who sleep under its altars, down as late as the death of Henry the Third, in 1406. From internal evidence, it was written at the end of the reign of Philip the Fourth, when Spanish prose had lost much both of its purity and of its dignity; but Lozano, though not free from the affectations of his age, wrote so much more simply than his contemporaries generally did, and his story, though little indebted to his own invention, was yet found so attractive, that, in about half a century, eleven editions of it were published, and it obtained for itself a place in Spanish literature which it has never entirely lost.[136]

After all, however, the serious and historical fictions produced in Spain, that merit the name of full-length romances, were, from the first, few in number, and, with the exception of Hita’s “Civil Wars of Granada,” deserved little favor. Subsequent to the reign of Philip the Fourth, they almost disappeared for above a century; and even at the end of that period, they occurred rarely, and obtained little regard.[137]

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Tales. — Villegas, Timoneda, Cervantes, Hidalgo, Figueroa, Barbadillo, Eslava, Agreda, Liñan y Verdugo, Lope de Vega, Salazar, Lugo, Camerino, Tellez, Montalvan, Reyes, Peralta, Céspedes, Moya, Anaya, Mariana de Carbajal, María de Zayas, Mata, Castillo, Lozano, Solorzano, Alonso de Alcalá, Villalpando, Prado, Robles, Guevara, Polo, Garcia, Santos. — Great Number of Tales. — General Remarks on all the Forms of Spanish Fiction.

Short stories or tales were more successful in Spain, during the latter part of the sixteenth century and the whole of the seventeenth, than any other form of prose fiction, and were produced in greater numbers. They seem, indeed, to have sprung afresh, and with great vigor, from the prevailing national tastes and manners, not at all connected with the tales of Oriental origin, that had been introduced above two hundred years earlier by Don Juan Manuel, and little affected by the brilliant Italian school, of which Boccaccio was the head; but showing rather, in the hues they borrowed from the longer contemporary pastoral, satirical, and historical romances, how truly they belonged to the spirit of their own times, and to the state of society in which they appeared. We turn to them, therefore, with more than common interest.

The oldest Spanish tales of the sixteenth century, that deserve to be noticed, are two that are found in a small volume of the works of Antonio de Villegas, somewhat conceitedly called “El Inventario,” and prepared for the press about 1550, though not published till 1565.[138] The first of them is entitled “Absence and Solitude,” a pastoral consisting of about equal portions of prose and poetry, and is as affected and in as bad taste as the ampler fictions of the class to which it belongs. The other—“The Story of Narvaez”—is much better. It is the Spanish version of a romantic adventure that really occurred on the frontiers of Granada, in the days when knighthood was in its glory among Moors as well as among Christians. Its principal incidents are as follows.

Rodrigo de Narvaez, Alcayde of Alora, a fortress on the Spanish border, grows weary of a life of inaction, from which he had been for some time suffering, and goes out one night with a few followers, in mere wantonness, to seek adventures. Of course they soon find what, in such a spirit, they seek. Abindarraez, a noble Moor, belonging to the persecuted and exiled family of the Abencerrages, comes well mounted and well armed along the path they are watching, and sings cheerily through the stillness of the night,—

In Granada was I born,

In Cartama was I bred;

But in Coyn by Alora

Lives the maiden I would wed.

A fight follows at once, and the gallant young Moor is taken prisoner; but his dejected manner, after a resistance so brave as he had made, surprises his conqueror, who, on inquiry, finds that his captive was on his way that very night to a secret marriage with the lady of his love, daughter of the lord of Coyn, a Moorish fortress near at hand. Immediately on learning this, the Spanish knight, like a true cavalier, releases the young Moor from his present thraldom, on condition that he will voluntarily return in three days and submit himself again to his fate. The noble Moor keeps his word, bringing with him his stolen bride, to whom, by the intervention of the generous Spaniard with the king of Granada, her father is reconciled, and so the tale ends to the honor and content of all the parties who appear in it.

Some passages in it are beautiful, like the first declaration of his love by Abindarraez, as described by himself; and the darkness that, he says, fell upon his very soul, when his lady, the next day, was carried away by her father, “as if,” he adds, “the sun had been suddenly eclipsed over a man wandering amidst wild and precipitous mountains.” His Moorish honor and faith, too, are characteristically and finely expressed, when, on the approach of the time for his return to captivity, he reveals to his bride the pledge he had given, and in reply to her urgent offer to send a rich ransom and break his word, he says, “Surely I may not now fall into so great a fault; for if, when formerly I came to you all alone, I kept truly my pledged faith, my duty to keep it is doubled now that I am yours. Therefore, questionless, I shall return to Alora, and place myself in the Alcayde’s hands; and when I have done what I ought to do, he must also do what to him seems right.”

The original story, as told by the Arabian writers, is found at the end of “The History of the Arabs in Spain,” by Conde, who says it was often repeated by the poets of Granada. But it was too attractive in itself, and too flattering to the character of Spanish knighthood, not to obtain a similar place in Spanish literature. Montemayor, therefore, borrowing it with little ceremony from Villegas, and altering it materially for the worse in point of style, inserted it in the editions of his “Diana” published towards the latter part of his life, though it harmonizes not at all with the pastoral scenery which there surrounds it. Padilla, too, soon afterwards took possession of it, and wrought it into a series of ballads; Lope de Vega founded on it his play of “The Remedy for Misfortune”; and Cervantes introduced it into his “Don Quixote.” On all sides, therefore, traces of it are to be found, but it nowhere presents itself with such grace or to such advantage as it does in the simple tale of Villegas.[139]

Juan de Timoneda, already noticed as one of the founders of the popular theatre in Spain, was also an early writer of Spanish tales. Indeed, as a bookseller who sought to make profit of whatever was agreeable to the general taste, and who wrote and published in this spirit several volumes of ballads, miscellaneous poetry, and farces, it was quite natural he should adventure in the ways of prose fiction, now become so attractive. His first attempt seems to have been in his “Patrañuelo,” or Story-teller, the first part of which appeared in 1576, but was not continued.[140]

It is a small work, which draws its materials from widely different sources, some of them being found, like the well-known story of Apollonius, Prince of Tyre, in the “Gesta Romanorum,” and some in the Italian masters, like the story of Griselda in Boccaccio, and the one familiar to English readers in the ballad of “King John and the Abbot of Canterbury,” which Timoneda probably took from Sacchetti.[141] Three or four—of which the first in the volume is one—had already been used in the construction of dramas by Alonso de la Vega and Lope de Rueda. All of them tend to show, what is proved in other ways, that such popular stories had long been a part of the intellectual amusements of a state of society little dependent on books; and, after floating for centuries up and down through the different countries of Europe,—borne by a general tradition or by the minstrels and Trouveurs,—were about this period first reduced to writing, and then again passed onward from hand to hand, till they were embodied in some form that became permanent. What, therefore, the Novellieri had been doing in Italy for above two hundred years, Timoneda now undertook to do for Spain. The twenty-two tales of his “Patrañuelo” are not, indeed, connected, like those of the “Decamerone,” but he has given them a uniform character by investing them all with his own easy, if not very pure, style; and thus, without anticipating it, sent them out anew to constitute a part of the settled literature of his country, and to draw after them a long train of similar fictions, some of which bear the most eminent names known among those of Spanish prose-writers.

Indeed, the very next is of this high order. It is that of Cervantes, who began by inserting such stories in the first part of his “Don Quixote” in 1605, and, eight years later, produced a collection of them, which he published separately. Of these tales, however, we have already spoken, and will, therefore, now only repeat, that, for originality of invention and happiness of style, they stand at the head of the class to which they belong.[142]

Others followed, of very various character. Hidalgo published, in 1605, an account of the frolics permitted during the last three days of Carnival, in which are many short tales and anecdotes, like the slightest and gayest of the Italian novelle;[143] and Suarez de Figueroa, who was no friend of Cervantes, if he was his follower, inserted other tales of a more romantic tone in his “Traveller,” which he published in 1617.[144] Perhaps, however, no writer of such fictions in the early part of the seventeenth century had more success than Salas Barbadillo, who was born at Madrid, about 1580, and died in 1630.[145] During the last eighteen years of his life, he published not less than twenty different works, all of which, except three or four that are filled with such dramas and poetry as Lope de Vega had made fashionable, consist of popular stories, neither so short as the tales of Timoneda, nor long enough to be accounted regular romances, but all written in a truly national spirit, and in a strongly marked Castilian style.

“The Ingenious Helen, Daughter of Celestina,” which is one of the earliest and most spirited of these fictions, appeared in 1612, and was frequently printed afterwards. It is the story of a courtesan, whose adventures, from the high game she undertakes to play in life, are of the boldest and most desperate kind. She is called the daughter of Celestina, because she is made to deserve that name by her talent and her crimes; but, with instinctive truth, she is at last left to perish by the most disgraceful of all the forms of a Spanish execution, for poisoning an obscure and vulgar lover. One or two minor stories are rather inartificially introduced in the course of the main narrative, and so are a few ballads, which have no value except as they serve to illustrate the ruffian life, as it was called, then to be found in the great cities of Spain. The best parts of the book are those relating to Helen herself and her machinations; and the most striking scenes, and perhaps the most true to the time, are those that occur when she rises to the height of her fortunes by setting up for a saint and imposing on all Seville.[146]

Of course, with such materials and incidents, the Helena takes much of its tone from the stories in the gusto picaresco, or the style of Spanish rogues. Quite opposite to it, therefore, in character and purpose, is “The Perfect Knight,”—a philosophical tale, not without some touch of the romances of chivalry. It is addressed to all the noble youth of the realm, at a time when the Cortes were assembled, and is intended to set the ideal of true knighthood before them, as before an audience the younger part of which might be excited to strive after its attributes and honors. To accomplish this, Barbadillo gives the history of a Spanish cavalier, who, travelling to Italy during the reign of Alfonso of Aragon, the conqueror of Naples, obtains the favor of that monarch, and, after serving him in the highest military and diplomatic posts,—commanding armies in Germany, and mediating between imaginary kings of England and Ireland,—retires to the neighbourhood of Baia and enjoys a serene and religious old age.[147]

Again, “The House of Respectable Amusements” differs from both of the preceding fictions, and exhibits another variety of their author’s very flexible talent. It relates the frolics of four gay students of Salamanca, who, wearied by their course of life at the University, come to Madrid, open a luxurious house, arrange a large hall for exhibitions, and invite the rank and fashion of the city, telling stories for the amusement of their guests, reciting ballads, and acting plays;—all of which constitute the materials that fill the volume. Six tales, however, are really the effective part of it; and the whole is abruptly terminated by the dangerous illness of the most active among the four gay cavaliers who had arranged these Lenten entertainments.[148]

But it is not necessary to examine further the light fictions of Barbadillo. It is enough to say of the rest, that “The Point-Device Knight,” in two parts, is a grotesque story in ridicule of those who pretend to be first in every thing;[149]—that “The Lucky Fool” is what its name implies;[150]—that “Don Diego” consists of the love-adventures, during nine successive nights, of a gentleman who always fails in what he undertakes;[151]—and that all of them, and all Barbadillo’s other productions, are within the range of talent of not a very high order, but uncommonly flexible, and dealing rather with the surface of manners than with the secrets of character which manners serve to hide. His latest work, entitled “Parnassian Crowns and Dishes for the Muses,” consists of a medley of verse and prose, stories and dramas, which were arranged for the press, and licensed in October, 1630; but he died immediately afterwards, and they were not printed till 1635.[152]

During the life of Barbadillo, and probably in some degree from his example and success, such fictions became frequent. “The Winter Evenings” of Antonio de Eslava, published in 1609, belong to this class, but are, indeed, so early in their date, that they may have rather given an impulse to Barbadillo than received one from him.[153] But “The Twelve Moral Tales” of Diego de Agreda, in 1620, belong clearly to his manner,[154] as does also “The Guide and Counsel for Strangers at Court,” published the same year, by Liñan y Verdugo,—a singular series of stories, related by two elderly gentlemen to a young man, in order to warn him against the dangers of a gay life at Madrid.[155] Lope de Vega, as usual, followed where success had already been obtained by others. In 1621, he added a short tale to his “Philomena,” and, a little later, three more to his “Circe”; but he himself thought them a doubtful experiment, and they, in fact, proved an unhappy one.[156] Other persons, however, encouraged by the general favor that evidently waited on light and amusing collections of stories, crowded more earnestly along in the same path;—Salazar, with his “Flowers of Recreation,” in 1622;[157]—Lugo, with his “Novelas,” the same year;[158]—and Camerino, with his “Love Tales,”[159] only a year later;—all the last six works having been produced in three years, and all belonging to the school of Timoneda, as it had been modified by the genius of Cervantes and the practical skill of Salas Barbadillo.

This was popular success; but it was so much in one direction, that its results became a little monotonous. Variety, therefore, was soon demanded; and, being demanded by the voice of fashion, it was soon obtained. The new form, thus introduced, was not, however, a violent change. It was made by a well-known dramatic author, who—taking a hint from the “Decamerone,” already in part adopted by Barbadillo, in his “House of Respectable Amusements”—substituted a theatrical framework to connect his separate stories, instead of the merely narrative one used by Boccaccio and his followers. This fell in, happily, with the passion for the stage which then pervaded all Spain, and it was successful.

The change referred to is first found in the “Cigarrales de Toledo,” published in 1624, by Gabriel Tellez, who, as we have already observed, when he left his convent and came before the public as a secular author, always disguised himself under the name of Tirso de Molina. It is a singular book, and takes its name from a word of Arabic origin peculiar to Toledo; Cigarral signifying there a small country-house in the neighbourhood of the city, resorted to only for recreation and only in the summer season. At one of these houses Tirso supposes a wedding to have happened, under circumstances interesting to a large number of persons, who, wishing in consequence of it to be much together, agreed to hold a series of entertainments at their different houses, in an order to be determined by lot and under the superintendence of one of their company, each of whom, during the single day of his authority, should have supreme control and be responsible for the amusements of the whole party.

The “Cigarrales de Toledo” is an account of these entertainments, consisting of stories that were read or related at them, poetry that was recited, and plays that were acted,—in short, of all that made up the various exhibitions and amusements of the party. Some portions of it are fluent and harmonious beyond the common success of the age; but in general, as in the descriptions and in the poor contrivance of the “Labyrinth,” it is disfigured by conceits and extravagances, belonging to the follies of Gongorism. The work, however, pleased, and Tirso himself prepared another of the same kind, called “Pleasure and Profit,”—graver and more religious in its tone, but of less poetical merit,—which was written in 1632, and printed in 1635. But, though both were well received, neither was finished. The last ends with the promise of a second part, and the first, which undertakes to give an account of the entertainments of twenty days, embraces, in fact, only five.[160]

The style they adopted was soon imitated. Montalvan, who, like his master, never failed to follow the indications of the popular taste, printed, in 1632, his “Para Todos,” or For Everybody, containing the imaginary amusements of a party of literary friends, who agreed to cater for each other during a week, and whose festivities are ended, as those of the “Cigarrales” began, with a wedding. Some of its inventions are very learnedly dull, and it is throughout less well arranged than the account of the entertainments near Toledo, and falls less naturally into a dramatic framework. But it shows its author’s talent. The individual stories are pleasantly told, especially the one called “At the End of the Year One Thousand”; and, as a whole, the “Para Todos” was popular, going through nine editions in less than thirty years, notwithstanding a very severe attack on it by Quevedo.[161] Its popularity, too, had the natural effect of producing imitations, among which, in 1640, appeared, “Para Algunos,”—For a Few,—by Matias de los Reyes;[162] and, somewhat later, “Para Sí,”—For one’s own Self,—by Juan Fernandez y Peralta.[163]

Meantime the succession of separate tales had been actively kept up. Montalvan published eight in 1624, written with more than the usual measure of grace in such Spanish compositions; one of them, “The Disastrous Friendship,” founded on the sufferings of an Algerine captivity, being one of the best in the language, and all of them so successful, that they were printed eleven times in about thirty years.[164] Céspedes y Meneses followed, in 1628, with a series entitled “Rare Histories”;[165]—Moya, at about the same time, published a single whimsical story on “The Fancies of a Fright”; in which he relates a succession of marvellous incidents, that, as he declares, flashed through his own imagination while falling down a precipice in the Sierra Morena;[166]—and Castro y Anaya published, in 1632, five tales called “The Auroras of Diana,” because they are told in the early dawn of each morning, during five successive days, to amuse Diana, a lady who, after a long illness, had fallen into a state of melancholy.[167]

The fair sex, too, entered into the general fashionable competition. Mariana de Carbajal, a native of Granada, and descended from the ancient ducal families of San Carlos and Rivas, published, in 1638, eight tales, pleasing both by their invention and by the simplicity of their style, which she called “Christmas at Madrid,” or “Evening Amusements.”[168] And in 1637 and 1647, María de Zayas, a lady of the court, printed two collections; the first called simply “Tales,” and the last “Saraos,” or Balls; each a series of ten stories within itself, and both connected together by the entertainments of a party of friends at Christmas, and the dances and fêtes at the wedding of two of their number, during the holidays that followed.[169]

Again, slight changes in such fictions were attempted. Mata, in two dull tales, called “The Solitudes of Aurelia,” published in 1637, endeavoured to give them a more religious character;[170] and in 1641, André del Castillo, in six stories misnamed “The Masquerade of Taste,” sought to give them even a lighter tone than the old one.[171] Both found successors. Lozano’s “Solitudes of Life,” which are four stories supposed to be told by a hermit on the wild peaks of the Monserrate, belong to the first class, and, notwithstanding a somewhat affected style, were much praised by Calderon, and went through at least six editions;[172]—while, in the opposite direction, between 1625 and 1640, we have a number of the freest secular tales, by Castillo Solorzano, among which the best are probably “The Alleviations of Cassandra,” and “The Country-House of Laura,” both imitations of Castro’s “Diana.”[173]

In the same way, the succession of short fictions was continued unbroken, until it ceased with the general decay of Spanish literature at the end of the century. Thus we have, in 1641, “The Various Effects of Love and Fortune,” by Alonso de Alcalá; five stories, such as may be imagined from the fact, that, in each of them, one of the five vowels is entirely omitted;[174]—in 1645, “The Warnings, or Experiences, of Jacinto,” by Villalpando, which may have been taken from his own life, since Jacinto was the first of his own names;[175]—in 1663, “The Festivals of Wit and Entertainments of Taste,” by Andres de Prado;[176]—and, in 1666, a series collected from different authors, by Isidro de Robles,[177] and published under the title of “Wonders of Love.” All these, as their names indicate, belong to one school; and although there is an occasional variety in their individual tones, some of them being humorous and others sentimental, and although some of them have their scenes in Spain and others in Italy or Algiers, still, as the purpose of all was only the lightest amusement, they may all be grouped together and characterized in the mass, as of little value, and as falling off in merit the nearer they approach the period when such fictions ceased in the elder Spanish literature.

One more variety in the characteristics of this style of writing in Spain is, however, so distinct from the rest, that it should be separately mentioned,—that which has sometimes been called the Allegorical and Satirical Tale, and which generally took the form of a Vision. It was, probably, suggested by the bold and original “Visions” of Quevedo; and the instance of it most worthy of notice is “The Limping Devil” of Luis Velez de Guevara, which appeared in 1641. It is a short story, founded on the idea that a student releases from his confinement, in a magician’s vial, the Limping Devil, who, in return for this service, carries his liberator through the air, and, unroofing, as it were, the houses of Madrid, during the stillness of the night, shows him the secrets that are passing within. It is divided into ten “Leaps,” as they afterwards spring from place to place in different parts of Spain, in order to pounce on their prey, and it is satirical throughout. Parts of it are very happy; among which may be selected those relating to fashionable life, to the life of rogues, and to that of men of letters, in the large cities of Castile and Andalusia, though these, like the rest, are often disfigured with the bad taste then so common. On the whole, however, it is an amusing fiction,—partly allegorical and partly sketched from living manners,—and is to be placed among the more spirited prose satires in modern literature, both in its original form and in the form given to it by Le Sage, whose rifacimento has carried it, under the name of “Le Diable Boiteux,” wherever letters are known.[178]

Earlier than the appearance of the Limping Devil, however, Polo had written his “Hospital of Incurables,” a direct, but poor, imitation of Quevedo; and in 1647, under an assumed name, he published his “University of Love, or School for Selfishness,” a satire against mercenary matches, thrown into the shape of a vision of the University of Love, where the fair sex are brought up in the arts of profitable intrigue, and receive degrees according to their progress.[179] It is, in general, an ill-managed allegory, filled with bad puns and worse verse; but there is one passage so characteristic of Spanish wit in this form of fiction, that it may be cited as an illustration of the entire class to which it belongs.

“‘That young creature whom you see there,’ said the God of Love, as he led me on, ‘is the chief captain of my war, the one that has brought most soldiers to my feet and enlisted most men under my banners. The elderly person that is leading her along by the hand is her aunt.’ ‘Her aunt, did you say?’ I replied; ‘her aunt? Then there is an end of all my love for her. That word aunt is a counter poison that has disinfected me entirely, and quite healed the wound your well-planted arrow was beginning to make in my heart. For, however much a man may be in love, there can be no doubt an aunt will always be enough to purge him clean of it. Inquisitive, suspicious, envious,—one or the other she cannot fail to be,—and if the niece have the luck to escape, the lover never has; for if she is envious, she wants him for herself; and if she is only suspicious, she still spoils all comfort, so disconcerting every little project, and so disturbing every little nice plan, as to render pleasure itself unsavory,’ ‘Why, what a desperately bad opinion you have of aunts!’ said Love. ‘To be sure I have,’ said I. ‘If the state of innocence in which Adam and Eve were created had nothing else to recommend it, the simple fact that there could have been no aunts in Paradise would have been enough for me. Why, every morning, as soon as I get up, I cross myself and say, “By the sign of the Holy Rood, from all aunts deliver us this day, Good Lord!” And every time I repeat the Paternoster, after “Lead us not into temptation,” I always add,—“nor into the way of aunts either.”’”

The example of Quevedo was, again, followed by Marcos Garcia, who in 1657 published his “Phlegm of Pedro Hernandez,” an imaginary, but popular, personage, whose arms, according to an old Spanish proverb, fell out of their sockets from the mere listlessness of their owner. It is a vision, in which women-servants who spend their lives in active cheating, students pressing vigorously forward to become quacks and pettifoggers, spendthrift soldiers, and similar uneasy, unprincipled persons of other conditions, are contrasted with those who, trusting to a quiet disposition, float noiselessly down the current of life, and succeed without an effort and without knowing how they do it. The general allegory is meagre; but some of the individual sketches are well imagined.[180]

The person, however, who, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, succeeded best in this style of composition, as well as in tales of other kinds, was Francisco Santos, a native of Madrid, who died not far from the year 1700. Between 1663 and 1697, he gave to the world sixteen volumes of different kinds of works for popular amusement;—generally short stories, but some of them encumbered with allegorical personages and tedious moral discussions.[181] The oldest of the series, “Dia y Noche en Madrid,” or, as it may be translated, Life in Madrid, though a mere fiction founded on manners, is divided into what the author terms Eighteen Discourses. It opens, as such Spanish tales are too apt to open, somewhat pompously; the first scene describing with too much elaborateness a procession of three hundred emancipated captives, who enter Madrid praising God and rejoicing at their release from the horrors of Algerine servitude. One of these captives, the hero of the story, falls immediately into the hands of a shrewd and not over-honest servant, named Juanillo, who, having begun the world as a beggar, and risen by cunning so far as to be employed in the capacity of an inferior servant by a fraternity of monks, now undertakes to make the stranger acquainted with the condition of Madrid, serving him as a guide wherever he goes, and interpreting to him whatever is most characteristic of the manners and follies of the capital. Some of the tales and sketches thus introduced are full of life and truth, as, for instance, those relating to the prisons, gaming-houses, and hospitals, and especially one in which a coquette, meeting a poor man at a bull-fight, so dupes him by her blandishments, that she sends him back penniless, at midnight, to his despairing wife and children, who, anxious and without food, have been waiting from the early morning to have him return with their dinner. This little volume, several parts of which have been freely used by Le Sage, ends with an account of the captive’s adventures in Italy, in Spain, and in Algiers, given by himself in a truly national tone, and with fluency and spirit.[182]

“Periquillo”—another of these collections of sketches and tales, less well written than the last, except in the merely narrative portions—contains an account of a foundling, who, after the ruin and death of a pious couple that first picked him up at their door on a Christmas morning, begins the world for himself as the leader of a blind beggar. From this condition, which, in such Spanish stories, always seems to be regarded as the lowest possible in society, he rises to be the servant of a cavalier, who proves to be a mysterious robber, and after escaping from whom he falls into the hands of yet worse persons, and is apprehended under circumstances that remind us of the story of Doña Mencia in “Gil Blas.” He, however, vindicates his innocence, and, being released from the fangs of justice, returns, weary of the world, to his first home, where he leads an ascetic life; makes long, pedantic discourses on virtue to his admiring townsmen; and proves, in fact, a sort of humble philosopher, growing constantly more and more devout till the account of him ends at last with a prayer. The whole is interesting among Spanish works of fiction, because it is evidently written both in imitation of the picaresque novels and in opposition to them; since Periquillo, from the lowest origin, gets on by neither roguery nor cleverness, but by honesty and good faith; and, instead of rising in the world and becoming rich and courtly, settles patiently down into a village hermit, or a sort of poor Christian Diogenes. No doubt, he has neither the wit nor the cunning of Lazarillo; but that he should venture to encounter that shrewd little beggar in any way makes Periquillo, at once, a personage of some consequence.[183]

Yet one more of the works of Santos should be noticed; an allegorical tale, called “Truth on the Rack, or the Cid come to Life again.” Its general story is, that Truth, in the form of a fair woman, is placed on the rack, surrounded by the Cid and other forms, that rise from the earth about the scaffold on which she is tormented. There she is forced to give an account of things as they really exist, or have existed, and to discourse concerning shadowy multitudes, who pass, in sight of the company that surrounds her, over what seems to be a long bridge. The whole is, therefore, a satire in the form of a vision, but its character is consistently sustained only at the beginning and the end. The Cid, however, is much the same personage throughout,—bold, rough, and free-spoken. He is heartily dissatisfied with every thing he finds on earth, especially with the popular traditions and ballads about himself, and goes back to his grave well pleased to escape from such a world, “which,” he says, “if they would give it to me to live in, I would not accept.”[184]

Other works of Santos, like “The Devil let loose, or Truths of the other World dreamed about in this,” and “The Live Man and the Dead One,” are of the same sort with the last;[185] while yet others run even more to allegory, like his “Tarascas de Madrid,”[186] and his “Gigantones,”[187] suggested by the huge and unsightly forms led about to amuse or to frighten the multitude in the annual processions of the Corpus Christi;—the satirical interpretation he gives to them being, that worse monsters than the Tarascas might be seen every day in Madrid by those who could distinguish the sin and folly that always thronged the streets of that luxurious capital. But though such satires were successful when they first appeared, they have long since ceased to be so; partly because they abound in allusions to local circumstances now known only to the curiosity of antiquarians, and partly because, in all respects, they depict a state of society and manners of which hardly a vestige remains.

Santos is the last of the writers of Spanish tales previous to the eighteenth century that needs to be noticed.[188] But though the number we have gone over is large for the length of the period in which they appeared, not a few others might be added. The pastoral romances from the time of Montemayor are full of them;—the “Galatea” of Cervantes, and the “Arcadia” of Lope de Vega, being little more than a series of such stories, slightly bound together by yet another that connects them all. So are, to a certain degree, the picaresque fictions, like “Guzman de Alfarache” and “Marcos de Obregon”;—and so are such serious fictions as “The Wars of Granada” and “The Spanish Gerardo.” The popular drama, too, was near akin to the whole; as we have seen in the case of Timoneda, whose stories, before he produced them as tales, had already been exhibited in the form of farces on the rude stage of the public squares; and in the case of Cervantes, who not only put part of his tale of “The Captive” in “Don Quixote” into his second play of “Life in Algiers,” but constructed his story of “The Liberal Lover” almost wholly out of his earlier play on the same subject. Indeed, Spain, during the period we have gone over, was full of the spirit of this class of fictions,—not only producing them in great numbers, and strongly marked with the popular character, but carrying their tone into the longer romances and upon the stage to a degree quite unknown elsewhere.[189]

The most striking circumstance, however, connected with the history of all romantic fiction in Spain,—whatever form it assumed,—is its early appearance, and its early decay. The story of “Amadis” filled the world with its fame, when no other Spanish prose romance of chivalry was heard of; and, what is singular, though the oldest of its class, it still remains the best-written in any language;—while, on the other hand, the book that overthrew this same Amadis, with all his chivalry, is the “Don Quixote”; again, the oldest and best of all similar works, and one that is still read and admired by thousands who know nothing of the shadowy multitudes it destroyed, except what its great author tells them. The “Conde Lucanor” appeared full half a century earlier than the “Decamerone.” The “Diana” of Montemayor soon eclipsed its Italian prototype in popularity, and, for a time, shone without a successful rival of its class throughout Europe. The picaresque stories, exclusively Spanish from the very first, and the multitudes of tales that followed them with attributes hardly less separate and national, never lose their Spanish air and costume, even in the most successful of their foreign imitations. Taken together, the number of these fictions is very great;—so great, that their mass may well be called enormous. But what is more remarkable than their multitude is the fact, that they were produced when the rest of Europe, with a partial exception in favor of Italy, was not yet awakened to corresponding efforts of the imagination; before Madame de Lafayette had published her “Zayde”; before Sidney’s “Arcadia” had appeared, or D’Urfé’s “Astrea,” or Corneille’s “Cid,” or Le Sage’s “Gil Blas.” In short, they were at the height of their fame, just at the period when the Hôtel de Rambouillet reigned supreme over the taste of France, and when Hardy, following the indications of the public will and the example of his rivals, could do no better than bring out upon the stage of Paris nearly every one of the tales of Cervantes, and many of those of Cervantes’s rivals and contemporaries.[190]

But civilization and manners advanced in the rest of Europe rapidly from this moment, and paused in Spain. Madrid, instead of sending its influences to France, began itself to acknowledge the control of French literature and refinement. The creative spirit, therefore, ceased in Spanish romantic fiction, and, as we shall presently see, a spirit of French imitation took its place.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Eloquence, Forensic and Pulpit. — Luis de Leon. — Luis de Granada. — Paravicino and the School of Bad Taste. — Epistolary Correspondence. — Zurita. — Perez. — Santa Teresa. — Argensola. — Lope de Vega. — Quevedo. — Cascales. — Antonio. — Solís.

We shall hardly look for forensic or deliberative eloquence in Spain. The whole constitution of things there, the political and ecclesiastical institutions of the country, and, perhaps we should add, the very genius of the people, were unfriendly to the growth of a plant like this, which flourishes only in the soil of freedom.

The Spanish tribunals, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whether in the ordinary course of their administration of justice, or in the dark proceedings of the Inquisition, took less cognizance of the influences of eloquence than those of any other Christian country of modern times. They dealt with the wheel and the fagot,—not with the spirit of persuasion. Nor was this spirit truly known or favored in the political assemblies of the kingdom, though it was not supplanted there by the formidable instruments familiar in the courts of justice. In the ancient Cortes of Castile, and still more in those of Aragon, there may have been discussions which were raised by their fervor to something like what we now call deliberative eloquence. We have, in fact, intimations of such discussions in the old chronicles; especially in those that record the troubles and violence of the great nobles in the reigns of John the Second and Henry the Fourth. But a free, living debate on a great political principle, or on the conduct of those who managed the affairs of the country,—such a debate as sometimes shook the popular assemblies of antiquity, and in modern times has often controlled the destinies of Christendom,—was, in Spain, a thing absolutely unknown.

Even the grave and dry discussions, to which the pressure of affairs gave rise, were rare and accidental. There was no training for them; and they could be followed by none of the great practical results that are at once the only sufficient motive and reward that can make them enter freely into the institutions of a state. Indeed, whatever there was of discussion in any open assembly could occur only in the earlier period of the monarchy, when the language and culture of the nation were still too little advanced to produce specimens of careful debate; for from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella and the days of the Comunidades, the Cortes were gradually restrained in their privileges, until at last they ceased to be any thing but a part of the pageantry of the empire, and served only to record the laws they should themselves have discussed and modelled. From this period, all opportunity for the growth of political eloquence in Spain was lost. It would have been no more tolerated by one of the Philips than Lutheranism.

The eloquence of the pulpit was checked by similar causes, but in a different way. The Catholic religion has maintained in Spain, down to a late period, more than it has in any other country, the character it had during the Middle Ages. It has been to an extraordinary degree a religion of mysteries, of forms, and of penance;—a religion, therefore, in which such modes of moving the understanding and the heart as have prevailed in France and England since the middle of the seventeenth century have been rarely attempted, and never with great success.

If any exception is to be made to this remark, it must be made in the case of Luis de Leon and in that of Luis de Granada. Of the first we have already spoken. He printed, indeed, no sermons as such; but he inserted in his other works, and especially in his “Names of Christ” and in his “Perfect Wife,” long declamations, sometimes preceded by a text and sometimes not, but regularly divided into heads, and wearing the general appearance and attributes of religious discourses. These, since they were printed as early as 1584, may be accounted the earliest specimens of Spanish eloquence fitted for the pulpit, and, if not actually delivered, are still worthy of notice.[191]

The case of Luis de Granada is one more directly in point. That remarkable man was head of the Dominican order, or the order of the Preaching Monks, so that both his place and his profession led him to the cultivation of the eloquence of the pulpit. But, besides this, he seems to have devoted himself to it with the strong preference of genius, preaching extemporaneously, it is said, with great power and unction. In 1576, he published a Latin treatise on the subject of Pulpit Eloquence; and in 1595, after his death, his friends printed, in addition to those published during his lifetime, fourteen of his more formal discourses, in which he has been thought, not only to have given a full illustration of the precepts he inculcated, but to have placed himself at the head of the department of eloquence to which he devoted so much of his life.

They are in a bold and affluent style,—somewhat mystical, as were his own religious tendencies,—and often more declamatory than seems in keeping with the severe and solemn nature of their subjects; but they are written with remarkable purity of idiom, and breathe everywhere the spirit of the religion that was so deeply impressed on his age and country. Perhaps a more characteristic specimen of Spanish eloquence can hardly be found, than that in which Luis de Granada describes the resurrection of the Saviour; adding to it his descent into hell to rescue the souls of the righteous who were pining there because they had died before his great sacrifice was completed,—a doctrine of the Catholic Church capable of high poetical ornament, and one which, from the time of Dante, has been often set forth with the most solemn effect.

“On that glorious day,” exclaims Luis de Granada, in his sermon on the Resurrection, “the sun shone more brightly than on all others, serving its Lord in dutiful splendor amidst his rejoicings, as it had served him in darkness through his sufferings. The heavens, which had been veiled in mourning to hide his agonies, were now bright with redoubled glory as they saw him rise conquering from the grave. And who would not rejoice in such a day? The whole humanity of Christ rejoiced in it; all the disciples of Christ rejoiced in it; heaven rejoiced, earth rejoiced; hell itself shared in the general jubilee. For the triumphant Prince descended into its depths, clothed with splendor and might. The everlasting darkness grew bright before his steps; the eternal lamentations ceased; the realms of torment paused at his approach. The princes of Edom were disturbed, and the mighty men of Moab trembled, and they that dwelt in the land of Canaan were filled with fear. And the multitude of the suffering murmured and said, ‘Who is this mighty one, so resplendent, so powerful? Never before was his likeness seen in these realms of hell; never hath the tributary world sent such a one to these depths,—one who demands judgment, not a debtor; one who fills us with dread, not one guilty like ourselves; a judge, and not a culprit; a conqueror, not a sinner. Say, where were our watchmen and our guards, when he burst in victory on our barred gates? By what might has he entered? And who is he, that can do these things? If he were guilty, he were not thus bold; if the shade of sin lay on his soul, how could our darkness be made bright with his glory? If he be God, why should hell receive him? and if he be man, whence hath he this might? If he be God, why dwelt he in the grave? and if man, by what authority would he thus lay waste our abodes?’

“Thus murmured the vassals of hell, as the Conqueror entered in glory to free his chosen captives. For there stood they, all assembled together,—all the souls of the just, who from the foundation of the world till that day had passed through the gates of the grave; all the prophets and men of might who had glorified the Lord in the manifold agonies of martyrdom;—a glorious company!—a mighty treasure!—the richest inheritance of Christ’s triumph! For there stood the two original parents of the generations of mankind,—the first in sin and the first in faith and hope. There stood that aged saint who rescued in the ark of safety those that repeopled the world when the waters of the deluge were spent. There stood the father of the faithful, who first received by merit the revelation of God’s will, and wore, in his person, the marks of his election. There stood his obedient son, who, bearing on his shoulders the wood of his own sacrifice, showed forth the redemption of the world. There stood the holy progenitor of the Twelve Tribes, who, winning his father’s blessing in the stranger guise of another’s garb, set forth the mystery of the humanity and incarnation of the Divine Word. There stood, also, as it were, guests newly arrived in that strange land, the Holy Baptist and the blessed Simeon, who prayed that he might not be taken from the earth till with his own eyes he had seen its salvation; who received it in his arms, and sang gently its canticle of peace. And there, too, found a place the poor Lazarus of the Gospel, who, for the patience with which he bore his wounds, deserved to join so noble a company, and share its longing hopes. And all this multitude of sanctified spirits stood there mourning and grieving for this day; and in the midst of them all, and as the leader of them all, the holy king and prophet repeated without ceasing his ancient lamentation: ‘As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God! My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?’ O blessed and holy king, if this be the cause of thy lamentation, let it cease for ever; for behold thy God! behold thy Saviour! Change, then, thy chant, and sing as thou wast wont to sing of old: ‘Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land; thou hast pardoned the offences of thy people; thou hast hidden thy face from the multitude of their sins.’”[192]

It would not be easy to select a more striking example than this of the peculiar rhetoric that was most sought in the Spanish pulpit. But the portions of equal merit are few, and the amount of the whole is small. After the beginning of the seventeenth century, the affected style of Góngora and the conceits of the school of Ledesma found their way into the churches generally, and especially into the churches of Madrid. This was natural. No persons depended more on the voice of fashion than the preachers of the court and the capital, and the fashion of both was thoroughly infected with the new doctrines. Paravicino, at this period, was at the head of the popular preachers; himself a poet devoted to the affectations of Góngora; a man of wit, a gentleman, and a courtier. From 1616 he was, during twenty years, pulpit orator to Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth, and enjoyed, as such, a kind and degree of popularity before unknown. As might have been expected, he had many followers, each of whom sought to have a fashionable audience. Such audiences were soon systematically provided. They were, in fact, collected, arranged, and seated by the friends and admirers of the preacher himself,—generally by those who, from their ecclesiastical relations, had an interest in his success; and then the crowds thus gathered were induced in different ways to express their approbation of the more elaborate passages in his discourse. From this time, and in this way, religious dignity disappeared from the Spanish pulpit, and whatever there was of value in its eloquence was confined to two forms,—the learned discussions, often in Latin, addressed to bodies of ecclesiastics, and the extemporaneous exhortations addressed to the lower classes;—the latter popular and vehement in their tone, and, by their coarseness, generally unworthy of the solemn subjects they touched.[193]

There is little in Spanish epistolary correspondence that requires notice as a portion of the elegant literature of the country. The heartiness of a simpler age gives, indeed, a charm to such letters as those which claim to have been written by Cibdareal, and in a less degree to those of Pulgar and Diego de Valera. Later, the despatches of Columbus, in which he made known to the world his vast discoveries, are occasionally marked by the fervor of an enthusiasm inspired by his great subject; and those of his queen and patron, though few in number and less interesting, are quite as characteristic and quite as true-hearted.

But, with the stately court brought from the North by Charles the Fifth, all this was changed. Added forms, and more than the old national gravity, passed into the intercourse of social life, and infected the style of the commonest correspondence. Genial familiarity disappeared from the letters of friends, and even private affections and feelings were either seldom expressed, or were so covered up as to be with difficulty recognized. Thus, what was most valued in this department at the time, and for a century afterwards, were Guevara’s “Golden Epistles,” which are only formal dissertations, and the “Epistles” of Avila, which are sermons in disguise, that moved the hearts of his countrymen because they were such earnest exhortations to a religious life.[194]

From these remarks, however, we should except portions of the correspondence of Zurita, the historian, extending over the last thirty years of his life, and ending in 1582, just before his death. They give us the business-like intercourse of a man of letters, carried on with all classes of society, from ministers of state and the highest ecclesiastics of the realm down to persons distinguished only because they were occupied in studies like his own. The number of letters in this collection is large, amounting to above two hundred. More of them are from Antonio Agustin, Archbishop of Tarragona, an eminent scholar in Spanish history and civil law, than from any other person; but the most interesting are from Zurita himself, from his friend Ambrosio Morales, from Diego de Mendoza, the historian, Argote de Molina, the antiquarian, and Fernan Nuñez, the Greek Commander. Each of these series is marked by something characteristic of its author, and all of them, taken together, show more familiarly the interior condition of a scholar’s life in Spain, in the sixteenth century, than it can be found anywhere else.[195]

But the principal exception to be made in favor of Spanish epistolary correspondence is found in the case of Antonio Perez, secretary of Philip the Second, and for some time his favorite minister. His father, who was a scholar, and made a translation of the “Odyssey,”[196] had been in the employment of Charles the Fifth, so that the younger Perez inherited somewhat of the court influence which was then so important; but his rapid advancement was owing to his own genius, and to a love of intrigue and adventure, which seemed to be a part of his nature. At last, in 1578, at the command of his master, he not unwillingly brought about the murder of Escovedo, a person high in the confidence of Don John of Austria, whose growing influence it was thought worth while thus to curtail;—a crime which, perpetrated as it was in consequence of the official connection of the secretary with the monarch, brought Perez to the very height of his favor.

But it was not long before the guilty agent became as unwelcome to his guilty master as their victim had been. A change in their relations followed, cautiously brought on by the unscrupulous king, but deep and entire. At first, Philip permitted Perez to be pursued by the kinsmen of the murdered man, and afterwards, contriving plausible pretexts for hiding his motives, began himself to join in the persecution. Eleven long years the wretched courtier was watched, vexed, and imprisoned, at Madrid; and once, at least, he was subjected to cruel bodily tortures. When he could endure this no longer, he fled to Aragon, his native kingdom, whose freer political constitution did not permit him to be crushed in secret. This was a great surprise to Philip, and, for an instant, seems to have disconcerted his dark schemes. But his resources were equal to the emergency. He pursued Perez to Saragossa, and finding the regular means of justice unequal to the demands of his vengeance, caused his victim to be seized by the Inquisition, under the absurd charge of heresy. But this, again, in the form in which Philip found it necessary to proceed, was a violation of the ancient privileges of the kingdom, and the people broke out into open rebellion, and released Perez from prison;—a consequence of his measures, which, perhaps, was neither unforeseen by Philip nor unwelcome to him. At any rate, he immediately sent an army into Aragon, sufficient, not only to overwhelm all open resistance, but to strike a terror that should prevent future opposition to his will; and the result, besides a vast number of rich confiscations to the royal treasury, was the condemnation of sixty-eight persons of distinction to death by the Inquisition, and the final overthrow of nearly every thing that remained of the long-cherished liberties of the country.

Meantime, Perez escaped secretly from Saragossa, as he had before escaped from Madrid, and, wandering over the Pyrenees in the disguise of a shepherd, sought refuge in Bearn, at the little court of Catherine of Bourbon, sister of Henry the Fourth. Public policy caused him to be well received both there and in France, where he afterwards passed the greater part of his long exile. During the troubles between Elizabeth and Philip, he instinctively went to England, and, while there, was much with Essex, and became more familiar with Bacon than the wise and pious mother of the future chancellor thought it well one so profligate as Perez should be. Philip, who could ill endure the idea of having such a witness of his crimes intriguing at the courts of his great enemies, endeavoured to have Perez assassinated both in Paris and London, and failed more from accident than from want of well-concerted plans to accomplish his object.

At last peace came between France and England on one side, and Spain on the other; and Perez ceased to be a person of consequence to those who had so long used him. Henry the Fourth, indeed, with his customary good nature, still indulged him even in very extravagant modes of life, which rather resembled those of a prince than of an exile. But his claims were so unreasonable, and were urged with such boldness and pertinacity, that every body wearied of him. He therefore fell into unhonored poverty, and dragged out the miserable life of a neglected courtier till 1611, when he died at Paris. Four years later, the Inquisition, which had caused him to be burnt in effigy as a heretic, reluctantly did him the imperfect justice of removing their anathemas from his memory, and thus permitted his children to enter into civil rights, of which nothing but the most shameless violence had ever deprived them.

From the time of his first imprisonment, Perez began to write the letters that are still extant; and their series never stops, till we approach the period of his death. Some of them are to his wife and children; others, to Gil de Mesa, his confidential friend and agent; and others, to persons high in place, from whose influence he hoped to gain favor. His Narratives, or “Relations,” as he calls them, and his “Memorial” on his own case, occasionally involve other letters, and are themselves in the nature of long epistles, written with great talent and still greater ingenuity, to gain the favor of his judges or of the world. All these, some of which his position forbade him ever to send to the persons to whom they were addressed, he carefully preserved, and during his exile published them from time to time to suit his own political purposes;—at first anonymously, or under the assumed name of Raphael Peregrino; afterwards under the seeming editorship of his friend Mesa; and finally, without disguise of any sort, dedicating some of them to Henry the Fourth, and some to the Pope.

Their number is large, amounting in the most ample collection to above a thousand pages. The best are those that are most familiar; for even in the slightest of them, as when he is sending a present of gloves to Lady Rich, or a few new-fashioned toothpicks to the Duke of Mayenne, there is a nice preservation of the Castilian proprieties of expression. Many of them sparkle with genius; sometimes most unexpectedly, though not always in good taste; Thus, to his innocent wife, shamefully kept in prison during his exile, he says: “Though you are not allowed to write to me, or to enjoy what to the absent is the breath of life; yet here [in France] there is no punishment for the promptings of natural affection. I answer, therefore, what I hear in the spirit, your complaints of the punishment laid on your own virtues and on the innocence of your children,—complaints, which reach me from that asylum of darkness and of the shadow of death, in which you now lie. But when I listen, it seems as if I ought to hear you no less with my outward ears, just as the words and cries that come from the caves under the earth only resound the louder, as they are rolled up to us from their dark hiding-places.”[197] And again, when speaking of the cruel conduct of his judges to his family, he breaks out: “But let them not be deceived. Their victims may be imprisoned and loaded with irons; but they have the two mightiest advocates of the earth to defend them,—their innocence and their wrongs. For neither could Cicero nor Demosthenes so pierce the ears of men, nor so stir up their minds, nor so shake the frame of things, as can these two, to whom God has given the especial privilege to stand for ever in his presence, to cry for justice, and to be witnesses and advocates for one another in whatsoever he has reserved for his own awful judgment.”[198]

The letters of Perez are in a great variety of styles, from the cautious and yet fervent appeals that he made to Philip the Second, down to the gallant notes he wrote to court ladies, and the overflowings of his heart to his young children. But they are all written in remarkably idiomatic Castilian, and are rendered interesting from the circumstance, that in each class there is a strict observance of such conventional forms as were required by the relative social positions of the author and his correspondents.[199]

The letters of Santa Teresa, who was a contemporary of the secretary of Philip the Second, and died in 1582, are entirely different; for while nothing can be more practical and worldly than those of Perez, the letters of the devout nun are entirely spiritual. She believed herself to be inspired, and therefore wrote with an air of authority, which is almost always solemn and imposing, but which sometimes, through its very boldness and freedom from all restraint, becomes easy and graceful. Her talents were versatile and her perceptions acute. To each of her many correspondents she says something that seems suited to the occasion on which she is consulted;—a task not easy for a nun, who lived forty-seven years in retirement from the world, and during that time was called upon to give advice to archbishops and bishops, to wise and able statesmen like Diego de Mendoza, to men of genius like Luis de Granada, to persons in private life who were in deep affliction or in great danger, and to women in the ordinary course of their daily lives. Her letters fill four volumes, and though, in general, they are only to be regarded as fervent exhortations or religious teachings, still, by the purity, beauty, and womanly grace of their style, they may fairly claim a distinguished place in the epistolary literature of her country.[200]

Some portions of the correspondence of Bartolomé de Argensola about 1625, of Lope de Vega before 1630, and of Quevedo a little later, have been preserved to us; but they are too inconsiderable in amount to have much value. Of Cascales, the rhetorician, we have more. In 1634, he printed three Decades of Letters; but they are almost entirely devoted to discussions of points that involve learned lore; and, even where they are not such, they are stiff and formal. A few by Nicolas Antonio, the literary historian, who died in 1684, are plain and business-like, but are written in a hard style, that prevents them from being interesting. Those of Solís, who closes up the century and the period, are better. They are such as belong to the intercourse of an old man, left to struggle through the last years of a long life with poverty and misfortune, and express the feelings becoming his situation, both with philosophical calmness and Christian resignation.[201]

But no writer in the history of Spanish epistolary correspondence can be compared for acuteness and brilliancy with Antonio Perez, or for eloquence with Santa Teresa.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Historical Composition. — Zurita, Morales, Ribadeneyra, Siguenza, Mariana, Sandoval, Herrera, Argensola, the Inca Garcilasso, Mendoza, Moncada, Coloma, Melo, Saavedra, Solís. — General Remarks on the Spanish Historians.

The fathers of Spanish history, as distinguished from Spanish chronicling, are Zurita and Morales, both of whom, educated in the reign of Charles the Fifth, show that they were not insensible to the influences of that great period in the annals of their country, and both of whom, after its close, prepared and published their works under the happiest auspices.

Zurita was born in Saragossa in 1512, and died there in 1580; so that he had the happiness to live while the political privileges of his native kingdom were yet little impaired, and to die just before they were effectually broken down. His father was a favored physician of Ferdinand the Catholic, and accompanied that monarch to Naples in 1506. The son, who showed from early youth a great facility in the acquisition of knowledge, was educated at the University of Alcalá, where it was his good fortune to have, for his chief instructor, Fernan Nuñez, who was commonly called the Greek Commander, from the circumstance, that, while his position in the state as a member of the great family of the Guzmans made him Knight Commander of the Order of Santiago, his personal acquisitions and talents rendered him the first Greek scholar of his age and country.

As the elder Zurita continued to be much trusted by Charles the Fifth, and as his son’s connections were chiefly with persons of great consideration, the progress of the future historian was, at first, rather in the direction of public affairs. But in 1548, under circumstances peculiarly honorable to him, he was appointed historiographer of Aragon; being elected unanimously by the free Cortes of the kingdom to the office, which they had just established, and as a candidate for which he had to encounter the most powerful and learned competitors. The election seems to have satisfied his ambition, and to have given a new direction to his life. At any rate, he immediately procured a royal warrant to examine and use all documents needful for his purpose that could be found in any part of the empire. Under this broad authority he went over much of Spain, consulting and arranging the great national records at Simancas, and then visited Sicily and Naples, from whose monasteries and public archives he obtained further ample and learned spoils.

The result was, that between 1562 and 1580 he published, in six folio volumes, “The Annals of Aragon,” from the invasion of the country by the Arabs to 1516, the last third of his labor being entirely given to the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic, for which the recollections of his father’s life at the court of that monarch probably afforded some of the more interesting materials. The whole work is more important for Spanish history than any that had preceded it. It has hardly any thing of the monkish credulity of the old chronicles, for Zurita was a man of the world, and always concerned in the stirring interests of his time; first, from having been intrusted with the municipal affairs of one of the principal cities of the kingdom; next, from being charged with the general correspondence of the Inquisition; and finally, from his duties as one of the secretaries of Philip the Second, which kept him much at court and about the king’s person. It shows, too, not unfrequently, a love for the ancient privileges of Aragon, and a generosity of opinion on political subjects, remarkable in one who was aware that whatever he wrote would not only be submitted before its publication to the censorship of jealous rivals, but read by the wary and severe monarch on whom all his fortunes depended. Its faults are its great length and a carelessness of style, scarcely regarded as faults at the time when it was written.[202]

Morales, who was an admirer of Zurita, and defended him from one of his assailants in a tract published at the end of the last volume of the “Annals of Aragon,” was born in 1513, a year after his friend, and died in 1591, having survived him by eleven years. He was educated at Salamanca, and, besides early obtaining Church preferments and distinctions, rose subsequently to eminence as a Professor in the University of Alcalá. But from 1570, when he was appointed historiographer to the crown of Castile, he devoted himself to the completion of the History begun on so vast a scale by Ocampo, whose work he seems to have taken up in some degree out of regard for the memory of its author.

He began his task, however, too late. He was already sixty-seven years old, and when he died, eleven years afterwards, he had been able to bring it down no further than to the union of the crowns of Castile and Leon, in 1037,—a point from which it was afterwards carried, by Sandoval, to the death of Alfonso the Seventh, in 1097, where it finally stops. Imperfect, however, as is the portion compiled in his old age by Morales, we can hardly fail to regard it, not, indeed, as so wise and well-weighed an historical composition as that of Zurita, but as one marked with much more general ability, and showing a much more enlightened spirit, than the work of Ocampo, to which it serves as a continuation. Its style, unhappily, is wanting in correctness;—a circumstance the more to be noticed, since Morales valued himself on his pure Castilian, both as the son of a gentleman of high caste, and as the nephew of Fernan de Oliva, by whom he was educated, and whose works he had published because they had done so much to advance prose composition in Spain.[203]

Contemporary with both Zurita and Morales, but far in advance of both of them as a writer of history, was the old statesman, Diego de Mendoza, whose fresh and vigorous account of the rebellion of the Moors in 1568 we have already considered, noticing it rather at the period when it was written than at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when it was first given to the world, and when Siguenza, Ribadeneyra, Mariana, Sandoval, and Herrera had already appeared, and determined the character which should be finally impressed on this department of Spanish literature.

Of this group, the first two, who devoted themselves to ecclesiastical history, and entered into the religious discussions of their time, were, perhaps, originally the most prominent. Ribadeneyra, one of the early and efficient members of the Society of Jesuits, distinguished himself by his “History of the Schism in the English Church,” in the time of Henry the Eighth, and by his “Lives of the Saints.” Siguenza, who was a disciple of Saint Jerome, was no less faithful to the brotherhood by whom he was adopted and honored, as his life of their founder and his history of their Order abundantly prove. Both were men of uncommon gifts, and wrote with a manly and noble eloquence; the first with more richness and fervor, the last with a more simple dignity, but each with the earnest and trusting spirit of his peculiar faith.[204]

From the nature of their subjects, however, neither of them rose to be the great historian of his country;—an honor which belongs to Juan de Mariana, a foundling, who was born at Talavera in 1536, and whose extraordinary talents attracted the attention of the Jesuits, then fast advancing into notice as a religious power. Having gone through a severe course of studies at Alcalá, he was selected, at the age of twenty-four, to fill the most important place in the great college which the members of his society were then establishing at Rome, and which they regarded as one of their principal institutions for consolidating and extending their influence. After five years, he was removed to Sicily, to introduce similar studies into that island; and, a little later, he was transferred to Paris, where he was received with honor, and taught for several years, lecturing chiefly on the works and opinions of Thomas Aquinas, to crowded audiences. But the climate of France was unfriendly to his health, and in 1574, having spent thirteen years in foreign countries, as a public instructor, he returned to Spain, and established himself in the house of his order at Toledo, which he hardly left during the forty-nine remaining years of his life.

This long period, which he devoted to literary labor, was not, however, permitted to be as peaceful as his merits should have made it. The Polyglot Bible published by Arias Montano at Antwerp, in 1569-72,—which was at first received with great favor, but afterwards, by the intrigues of the Jesuits, was denounced to the Inquisition,—excited so bitter a quarrel, that it was deemed necessary to inquire into the truth of the charges brought against it. By the management of the Jesuits, Mariana was the principal person employed to make the investigation; and, through his learning and influence, they felt sure of a triumph. But though he was a faithful Jesuit, he was not a subservient one. His decision was in favor of Montano; and this, together with the circumstance that he did not follow the intimations given to him when he was employed in arranging the Index Expurgatorius of 1584, brought upon him the displeasure of his superiors in a way that caused him much trouble.[205]

In 1599, he published a Latin treatise on the Institution of Royalty, and dedicated it to Philip the Third;—a work liberal in its general political tone, and even intimating that there are cases in which it may be lawful to put a monarch to death. At home, it caused little remark. It was regularly approved by the censors of the press, and is even said to have been favored by the policy of the government, which, in the time of Philip the Second, had sent assassins to cut off Elizabeth of England and the Prince of Orange. But in France, where Henry the Third had been thus put to death a few years before, and where Henry the Fourth suffered a similar fate a few years afterwards, it excited a great sensation. Indeed, the sixth chapter of the first book directly mentions, and by implication countenances, the murder of the former of these monarchs, and was claimed, though contrary to the truth of fact, to have been among the causes that stimulated Ravaillac to the assassination of the latter. It was, therefore, both attacked and defended with extraordinary acrimony; and at last the Parliament of Paris ordered it to be burned by the hands of the common hangman. What was more unfortunate for its author, the whole discussion having brought much popular odium on the Jesuits, who were held responsible for a book which was written by one of their order, and could not have been published without permission of its heads, Mariana himself became more than ever unwelcome to the great body of his religious associates.[206]

At last, an occasion was found where he could be assailed without assigning the reasons for the attack. In 1609, he published, not in Spain, but at Cologne, seven Latin treatises on various subjects of theology and criticism, such as the state of the Spanish theatre, the Arab computation of time, and the year and day of the Saviour’s birth. Most of them were of a nature that could provoke no animadversion; but one, “On Mortality and Immortality,” was seized upon for theological censure, and another, “On the Coinage of the Realm,” was assailed on political grounds, because it showed how unwise and scandalous had been the practices of the reigning favorite, the Duke of Lerma, in tampering with the currency and debasing it. The Inquisition took cognizance of both; and their author, though then seventy-three years old, was subjected first to confinement, and afterwards to penance, for his offences. Both works were placed at once on the Index Expurgatorius; and Philip the Third gave orders to collect and destroy as many copies as possible of the volume in which they were contained. As Lope de Vega said, “His country did not pardon the most learned Mariana when he erred.”

His treatment on this occasion was undoubtedly the more severe, because among his papers was found a treatise “On the Errors in the Government of the Society of Jesuits,” which was not printed till after its author’s death, and then with no friendly views to the order.[207] But the firm spirit of Mariana was not broken by his persecutions. He went forward with his literary labors to the last; and when he died, in 1623, it was of the infirmities which his extreme age had naturally brought with it. He was eighty-seven years old.

The main occupation of the last thirty or forty years of his life was his great History. In the foreign countries where he had long lived, the earlier annals of Spain were so little known to the learned men with whom he had been associated, that, as a Spaniard, he had felt mortified by an ignorance which seemed disrespectful to his country. He determined, therefore, to do something that should show the world by what manly steps Spain had come into the larger interests of Europe, and to prove by her history that she deserved the consideration she had, from the time of Charles the Fifth, everywhere enjoyed. He began his work, therefore, in Latin, that all Christendom might be able to read it, and in 1592 published, in that language, twenty out of thirty of the books, of which it consists.

But, even before he had printed the other ten books, which appeared in 1609, he was fortunately induced, like Cardinal Bembo, to become his own translator, and to give his work to his countrymen in the pure Castilian of Toledo. In doing this, he enjoyed a great advantage. He might use a freedom in his version that could be claimed by no one else; for he had not only a right to change the phraseology and arrangement, but, whenever he saw fit, he might modify the opinions of a book which was as much his own in the one language as in the other. His “Historia de España,” therefore, the first part of which appeared in 1601, has all the air and merit of an original work; and in the successive editions published under his own direction, and especially in the fourth, which appeared the very year of his death, it was gradually enlarged, enriched, and in every way improved, until it became, what it has remained ever since, the proudest monument erected to the history of his country.[208]

It begins with the supposed peopling of Spain by Tubal, the son of Japhet, and comes down to the death of Ferdinand the Catholic and the accession of Charles the Fifth; to all which Mariana himself afterwards added a compressed abstract of the course of events to 1621, when Philip the Fourth ascended the throne. It was a bold undertaking, and in some respects is marked with the peculiar spirit of its age. In weighing the value of authorities, for instance, he has been less careful than became the high office he had assumed. He follows Ocampo, and especially Garibay,—credulous compilers of old fables, who were his own contemporaries,—confessing freely that he thought it safest and best to take the received traditions of the country, unless obvious reasons called upon him to reject them. His manner, too, is, in a few particulars, open to remark. In the beautiful dedication of the Spanish version of his History to Philip the Third, he admits that antiquated words occasionally adhere to his style, from his familiar study of the old writers; and Saavedra, who was pleased to find fault with him, says, that, as other people dye their beards to make themselves look young, Mariana dyed his to make himself look old.[209]

But there is another side to all this. His willing belief in the old chronicles, tempered, as it necessarily is, by his great learning, gives an air of true-heartedness and good faith to his accounts, and a picturesqueness to his details, which are singularly attractive; while, at the same time, his occasional antiquated words and phrases, so well suited to such views of his subject, add to the idiomatic richness, in which, among Spanish prose compositions, the style of Mariana is all but unrivalled. His narratives—the most important part of an historical work of this class—are peculiarly flowing, free, and impressive. The accounts of the wars of Hannibal, in the second book; those of the irruption of the Northern nations, with which the fifth opens; the conspiracy of John de Procida, in the fourteenth; the last scenes in the troubled life of Peter the Cruel, in the seventeenth; and most of the descriptions of the leading events in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, towards the conclusion of the work, give abundant proof of this peculiar historical talent. They seem instinct with life and movement.

His formal speeches, in which he made Livy his model, are, generally, less fortunate. Most of them want individuality and appropriateness. But the one which in the fifth book he has given to Ruy Lope Davalos, when that nobleman offers the crown of Castile to the Infante Don Ferdinand, is remarkable for the courageous spirit in which it discusses the foundations of all political government, and leaves the rights of kings to rest on the assent of their subjects;—a boldness, it should be added, which is apparent in many other parts of his history, as it was in much of his life.

The characters he has drawn of the prominent personages that, from time to time, come to the front of the stage, are almost always short, sketched with a few touches, and struck off with the hand of a master. Such are those of Alvaro de Luna, Alfonso the Wise, and the unhappy Prince of Viana, in which so few words could hardly be made to express more.

As a general remark, a certain nobleness of air and carriage, not, perhaps, without something of the old Castilian sturdiness, but never without its dignity, is the characteristic that most prevails throughout the whole work; and this, with its admirably idiomatic style,—so full, yet so unencumbered, so pure and yet so rich,—renders it, if not the most trustworthy of annals, at least the most remarkable union of picturesque chronicling with sober history, that the world has ever seen.[210]

Sandoval, who was one of the salaried chroniclers of the monarchy, and who, in that capacity, prepared the continuation of Morales, already noticed, seems to have been willing to constitute himself the successor of Mariana, and prosecute the general history of Spain where that eloquent Jesuit was likely to leave it, rather than from the point where he had himself officially taken it up. At least he began there, and wrote an elaborate life of Charles the Fifth. But it is too long. It fills as many pages as the entire work of Mariana, and, though written with simplicity, is not attractive in its style. His prejudices are strong and obvious. Not only the monk,—for he was a Benedictine, and enjoyed successively two very rich bishoprics,—but the courtier of Philip the Third, is constantly apparent. He lays the whole crime of the assault and capture of Rome upon the Constable de Bourbon; and, besides tracing the Austrian family distinctly to Adam, he connects its honors genealogically with those of Hercules and Dardanus. Still, the History of Sandoval is a documentary work of authority much relied on by Robertson, and one that, on the whole, by its ample and minute details, gives a more satisfactory account of the reign of Charles the Fifth than any other single history extant. It was first published in 1604-6, and its author died at the end of 1620 or the beginning of 1621.[211]

After this, no important and connected work on the history of Spain, that falls within the domain of elegant literature, appeared for a long period.[212] Portions of Spanish history, and portions of the history of Spanish discovery and conquest in the East and the West, were indeed published from time to time, but the official chroniclers of the crowns of Castile and Aragon no longer felt themselves bound to go on with the great works of their predecessors, and the decaying spirit of the monarchy made no earnest demands on others to tread in their steps. Some, however, of these historians of the outposts of an empire which now extended round the globe, and some of the accounts of isolated events in its annals at home, should be noticed.

Of this class, the first in importance and the most comprehensive in character is “The General History of the Indies,” by Antonio de Herrera. It embraces the period from the first discovery of America to the year 1554; and as Herrera was a practised writer, and, from his official position as historiographer to the Indies, had access to every source of information known in his time, his work, which was printed in 1601, is of great value. But he was the author of other historical works, for which his qualifications and resources were less satisfactory and his prejudices more abundant;—such as a “History of the World during the Reign of Philip the Second,” a History of the affairs of England and Scotland, during the unhappy times of Mary Stuart; a History of the League in France; and a History of the affair of Antonio Perez and the troubles that followed it;—all written under the influence of contemporary passions, and all published between 1589 and 1612, before any of these passions had been much tranquillized.

It is sufficient to say of them, that, in the case of Antonio Perez, Herrera suppresses nearly every one of the important facts that tend to the justification of that remarkable man; and that, by way of a glorious termination to his Universal History, he gives Philip the Second, in his death-struggles, miraculous assistance from heaven, to enable him to end his long and holy life by an act of devotion. Herrera’s chief reputation, therefore, as an historian, must rest upon his great work on the Discovery and Conquest of America, in which, indeed, his style, nowhere rich or powerful, seems better and more effective than it is in his other attempts at historical composition. He died in 1625, above seventy-six years old, much valued by Philip the Fourth, as he had been by that monarch’s father and grandfather.[213]

But the East, as well as the West, was now opened to Spanish adventure. The conquest of Portugal had brought the Oriental dependencies of that kingdom under the authority of the Spanish crown; and as the Count de Lemos, the great patron of letters in his time, and President of the Council of the Indies, chanced to have his attention particularly drawn in that direction, he commanded the younger of the Argensolas to write an account of the Moluccas. The poet obeyed, and published his work in 1609, dedicating it to Philip the Third. It is one of the most pleasing of the minor Spanish histories; full of the traditions found among the natives by the Portuguese, when they first landed, and of the wild adventures that followed when they had taken possession of the islands. Parts of it are, indeed, inconsistent with the nature of the civilization they found there, such as formal and eloquent harangues attributed to the natives; while other parts, like some of its love-stories, are romantic enough to be suspected of invention, even if they are true. But, in general, the work is written in an agreeable poetical style, such as is not unbefitting an account of the mysterious isles

“Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants brought

Their spicy drugs,”—

striving, for a long time, to hide from the competition of other nations the history and resources of the oppressed race whom they compelled to minister to their love of gain.[214]

Quite as uncertain in authority and less elegant in style are the histories of Garcilasso de la Vega,—a gentle and trusting spirit rather than a wise one; proud of being a captain in the service of the king of Spain, and allied, as a son of one of the unscrupulous conquerors of Peru, to the great house of Infantado; but always betraying the weaker nature of his mother, who was of the blood royal of the Incas, and never entirely forgetting the glories of his Indian race, or the cruel injuries they had suffered at the hands of Spain. He was born at “Cuzco, in Peru, the seat of Atabalipa,” in 1540, and was educated there, amidst the tumults of the conquest; but, when he was twenty years old, he was sent to Spain, where, under difficult and trying circumstances, he maintained an honorable reputation during a life protracted to the age of seventy-six.

The military part of his personal history, which consisted of service under Don John of Austria against the Moriscos of Granada, was not of much consequence, though he seems to have valued himself upon it not a little. The part he gave to letters was more interesting and important. This portion he began, in 1590, with a translation of the “Dialogues on Love,” by Abarbanel, a Platonizing Jew, whose family had been expelled from Spain in the persecution under Ferdinand and Isabella, and who in Italy had published this singular work under the name of “The Hebrew Lion.” The attempt, so far as Garcilasso was concerned, was not a fortunate one. The Dialogues, which enjoyed considerable popularity at the time, had been already printed in Spanish,—a fact evidently unknown to him; and though, as it appears from a subsequent statement by himself, he had obtained for his translation the favorable regard of Philip the Second, still there was an odor both of Judaism and heathen free-thinking about it, that rendered it obnoxious to the ecclesiastical authorities of the state. Garcilasso’s first work, therefore, was speedily placed on the Index Expurgatorius, and was rarely heard of afterwards.

His next attempt was on a subject in which he had a nearer interest. It was a “History of Florida,” or rather of the first discovery of that country, and was published in 1605,—a work which, when, twenty years before, he spoke of writing it, he appropriately called “The Expedition of Fernando de Soto”; since the adventures of that extraordinary man, and his strange fate, not only form its most brilliant and attractive portion, but constitute nearly the whole of its substance. In this Garcilasso was more successful than he was in his version from the Italian; and his “History of Florida,” as it is still called, has been often reprinted since.

But, in his old age, his heart turned more and more to the thoughts and feelings of his youth, and, gathering together the few materials he could collect from among his kinsmen on the Pacific, as well as from the stores of his own memory and the records already accumulated in Spain, he published, in 1609, the first part of his “Commentaries on Peru”; the second of which, though licensed for the press in 1613, did not appear till 1617, the year after its author’s death. It is a garrulous, gossiping book, written in a diffuse style, and abounding in matters personal to himself. In its very division, he acknowledges frankly the conflicting claims that he felt were upon him. The earlier half, he says, relates to the eighteen Incas known to Peruvian history, and contains an account of the traditions of the country, its institutions, manners, and general character; all which he offers as a tribute due to his descent from the Children of the Sun. The remainder—which, with many episodes and much irrelevant, but not always unpleasant, discussion, contains the history of the Spanish conquest, and of the quarrels of the Spaniards with each other growing out of it—he offers, in like manner, to the glories of the great Spanish family with which he was connected, and which numbered on its rolls some of the brightest names in the Castilian annals. In both parts, his Commentaries are a striking and interesting book, showing much of the spirit of the old chronicles, and infected with even more than the common measure of chronicling credulity; since, with a natural willingness to believe whatever fables were honorable to the land of his birth, he mingles a constant anxiety to show that he is, above every thing else, a Catholic Christian, whose faith was much too ample to reject the most extravagant legends of his Church, and too pure to tolerate the idolatry of that royal ancestry which he yet cannot help regarding with reverence and admiration.[215]

The publication, in 1610, of “The War of Granada,” by Mendoza, had—as might have been anticipated from its attractive subject and style—an effect on Spanish historical composition; producing, in the course of the century, several imitations more worthy of notice than any thing in their class that appeared after the great work of Mariana.

The first of them is by Moncada, a nobleman of the highest rank in the South of Spain, and connected with several of the principal families, both in Catalonia and Valencia. His father was, successively, viceroy of Sardinia and Aragon; he himself was governor of the Low Countries and commander-in-chief of the armies there; and both of them filled, in their respective times, the most important of the Spanish embassies. But the younger Moncada had tastes widely different from the cares that beset his life. In 1623 he published his “Expedition of the Catalans against the Turks and Greeks”; and when he died, in 1635, just after putting to rout two hostile armies, he left several other works, of less value, one or two of which have since been printed. The History of the Catalan Expedition, by which alone he has been known in later times, is on the romantic adventures and achievements of an extraordinary band of mercenaries, who, under Roger de Flor,—successively a freebooter, a great admiral, and a Cæsar of the Eastern Empire,—drove back the Turks, as they approached the Bosphorus in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and then, after being for some time no less formidable to their allies than they had been to the infidel, settled down into a sort of uneasy tranquillity at Athens, where their historian leaves them.

It is an account, therefore, of a most wild passage in the affairs rather of the Middle Ages than of the Spanish peninsula,—one that may be trusted, notwithstanding its air of romance, since its foundations are laid in the great work of Zurita, and one by no means wanting in picturesque effect, since its details are often taken from Ramon Muntaner, the old Catalan, who had himself shared the perils of this very expedition, and described them in his own Chronicle with his accustomed spirit and vigor. Parts of it are very striking in themselves, and strikingly told; especially the rise of Roger de Flor till he had reached the highest place a subject could hold in the Greek empire, and then his assassination in the presence and by the command of the same Emperor who had raised him so high,—his blood soiling the imperial table, to which, with treacherous hospitality, he had been invited. The whole is written in a bold and free, rather than in a careful style; but the coloring is well suited to the dark ground-work of the picture, and, though less energetic in its tone than Mendoza’s “War of Granada,” of which, from the first sentence, we see it is an imitation, it is often more easy, flowing, and natural.[216]

Another military history written by a nobleman connected with the service of his country, both in its armies and its diplomacy, is to be found in an account of eleven campaigns in Flanders by Coloma, Marquis of Espinar, published in 1625. A translation which he made of the “Annals” of Tacitus has been regarded as the best in the language; but, in his own work, he shows no tendency to imitate the ancients. On the contrary, it is, as it were, fresh from the fields of the author’s glory, and full of the honorable feelings of a soldier, sketching the adventures of the army when in camp, when in immediate action, and when in winter-quarters; and adding to his main narrative occasional glimpses of the negotiations then going on in the Low Countries respecting Spanish affairs, and of the intrigues of the courtiers at Madrid round the death-bed of Philip the Second. The style of Coloma is unequal; but much of what he describes he had seen, and the rest had passed within the compass of what he deemed sure information; so that he speaks, not only with authority, but with the natural vivacity which comes from being so near the events he records, that their color is imparted to his language.[217]

To the same class with the last belongs the spirited history of a portion of the Catalan rebellion in the time of Philip the Fourth. It was written by Melo, a Portuguese gentleman, who remained attached to the service of Spain till 1640-41, when he joined the standard of the Braganzas, and fought for the independence of his own country. His life, which extended from 1611 to 1667, was full of adventure. He was in the dreadful tempest of 1627, when the whole navy, as it were, of Portugal suffered shipwreck; and it fell to his lot to bury above two thousand bodies of those who had perished in the waves, from which he himself had hardly escaped. He was in the wars of Flanders and of Catalonia. Twelve years he was in prison in his own country, under an accusation of murder that was at last proved to be without foundation; and six years he was an exile in Brazil. But under all circumstances, and through all his trials, he sought consolation in letters. His published works, in prose and verse, in Spanish and in Portuguese, some of which have been already noticed, exceed a hundred volumes, and the unpublished would materially increase even this vast amount. What is more remarkable, he is, in both languages, admitted to the honors of a classic writer.

His “History of the War of Catalonia,” which embraces only the short period during which he served in it, was written while he was in prison, and was first published in 1645. Owing to political causes, he did not give his name to it; and when one of his friends in a letter expressed surprise at this circumstance, he answered, with a characteristic turn of phrase, “The book loses nothing for want of my name, and I shall lose nothing for want of the book.” It was, however, successful. The accounts of the first outbreak in Barcelona, on the feast of Corpus Christi, when the city was thronged with the bold peasantry of the interior; the subsequent strife of the exasperated factions; the debates in the Junta of Catalonia, and those in the king’s council, under the leading of the Count Duke Olivares; and the closing scene of the whole,—the ineffectual storming of the grand fortress of Mon Juich by the royal forces, and the disastrous retreat that followed,—are all given with a freshness and power that could come only from one who had shared in the feelings he describes, and had witnessed the very movements he sets with such a lifelike spirit before us. His style, too, is suited to his varying subjects; sometimes animated and forcible, sometimes quaint and idiomatic, and sometimes in its dark hints and abrupt turns reminding us of Tacitus. But the work is short,—not longer than that of Mendoza, which was its model,—and it covers only the space of about six months at the end of 1640 and the beginning of 1641.

Whether Melo intended to carry his narrative farther is uncertain. From his striking conclusion, where he says, “The events that followed—greater in themselves than those I have related—are perhaps reserved for a greater historian,” we might infer that he was desirous to describe only what he had witnessed. But, on the other side, in his Preface we have the following characteristic address to his readers, alluding to the concealment of his name as the author of the work he offers them. “If in any thing I have served you, I ask only that you would not endeavour to know more of me than it pleases my humor to tell you. I present to you my faithful opinion of things, just as it has been my lot to form it;—I do not present myself to you; for a knowledge of my person is not necessary to enable you to judge either kindly or harshly of what I have written. If I do not please you, read me no further;—if I do, I make no claims on your gratitude. I speak without fear and without vanity. The theatre before us is vast; the tragedy long. We shall meet again. You will know me by my voice; I shall know you by your judgment.” But, whatever may have been Melo’s original intentions, he survived the publication of this interesting work above twenty years, and yet added nothing to its pages.[218]

From this period, prose composition, which had been long infected with the bad taste of the age, suffered a still further and more marked decline. Saavedra Faxardo, indeed, who lived forty years out of Spain, employed in diplomatic missions, was educated in a better school, and formed himself on more worthy models, than he could have found among his contemporaries at home; but his “History of the Goths in Spain” is an imperfect work, published in 1646, at Munster, when he was there as a member of the congress that made the peace of Westphalia, and was left unfinished at his death, which occurred at Madrid two years later.[219] The only historian of eminence that remains to be noticed in this period is, therefore, Solís.

Of him we have already spoken as a lyrical poet and a dramatist, who in 1667 had retired from the world, and dedicated himself to the separate service of religion. He was, however, the official historiographer of the Indies, and thought himself bound to do something in fulfilment of the duties of an office to which, perhaps, a nominal income was attached. He chose for his subject “The Conquest of Mexico,” and, beginning with the condition of Spain when it was undertaken, and the appointment of Cortés to command the invading force, he brings his history down to the fall of the city and the capture of Guatimozin. The period it embraces is, indeed, short,—less than three years; but they are years so crowded with brilliant adventures and atrocious crimes, that hardly any portion of the history of the world is of equal interest. The subject, too, from this circumstance, is more easily managed; and Solís, who looked upon it with the eye of an artist, as well as of an historian, has succeeded in giving his work, to an extraordinary degree, the air of an historical epic;—so exactly are all its parts and episodes modelled into an harmonious whole, whose catastrophe is the fall of the great Mexican empire.

The style of Solís is somewhat peculiar. That he had the Roman historians, and especially Livy, before him, as he wrote, is apparent both in the general air of his work and in the structure of its individual sentences. Yet there are few writers of Spanish prose who are more absolutely Castilian in their idiom than he is. His language, if not simple, is rich and beautiful; suited to the romantic subject he had chosen for his history, and deeply imbued with its poetical spirit. In boldness of manner he falls below Mendoza, and in dignity is not equal to Mariana; but for copious and sustained eloquence, he may be placed by the side of either of them. That his work is as interesting as either of theirs is proved by the unimpaired popularity it has enjoyed from its first appearance down to our own times.

The Conquest of Mexico was written in the old age of its author, and is darkened by the feelings that shut him out from the interests and cares of the world. He refused to see the fierce and marvellous contest which he recorded, except from the steps of the altar where he had been consecrated. The Spaniards, therefore, are in his eyes only Christians; the Mexicans, only heathen. The battle he witnesses and describes is wholly between the powers of light and the legions of darkness; and the unhappy Indians,—whom the Spaniards had no more right to invade, in order to root out religious abominations, of which they had never heard till after their landing, than Henry the Eighth or Elizabeth had to invade Spain, in order to root out the abominations of the Spanish Inquisition,—the unhappy Indians receive none of the historian’s sympathy in the extremity of suffering they underwent during their vain, but heroic, struggle for all that could make existence valuable in their eyes.

The work of Solís, beautifully written and flattering to the national vanity, was at once successful. But success was then a word whose meaning was different from that which it bears now, or had borne in Spain in the time of Lope de Vega. The publication, which took place in 1684, by the assistance of a friend who defrayed the charges, found its author poor and left him so. On this point there are passages in his correspondence which it is painful to read;—one, for instance, where he says, “I have many creditors who would stop me in the street, if they saw I had new shoes on”; and another, where he asks a friend for a warm garment to protect him from the winter’s cold. Still he was gratified at the applause with which his work was received, though, at the end of a year, only two hundred copies had been sold. Two years afterwards he died, at the age of seventy-six, “leaving,” in the technical phrase and the technical habit of the time, “his soul to be the only heir of his body,” or, in other words, giving the remnants of his poverty to purchase expiatory masses.[220] Diego de Tovar, the same ecclesiastic who had been confessor to Quevedo and Nicolas Antonio, stood by the bedside of the dying man, and consoled the last moments of Solís, as he had consoled theirs.[221]

Solís was the last of the good writers in the elder school of Spanish history;—a school which, even during its best days, numbered but few names, and which, now that the whole literature of the country was decaying, shared the general fate. Nor could it be otherwise. The spirit of political tyranny in the government, and of religious tyranny in the Inquisition,—now closer than ever united,—were more hostile to bold and faithful inquiry in the department of history than in almost any other; so that the generous national independence and honesty announced in the old chronicles were stopped midway in their career, before half of their power had been put forth.

Still, as we have seen, several of the historians that were produced even under the overshadowing influence of the Austrian family were not unworthy of the national character. Mariana shows much manly firmness, Solís much fervor, Zurita much conscientious diligence, while Mendoza, Moncada, Coloma, and Melo, who confined themselves to subjects embracing shorter periods and less wide interests, have given us some of the most striking sketches to be found in the historical literature of any country. All of them are rich and dignified, abounding rather in feeling than philosophy, and written in a tone and style that mark, not so much, perhaps, the peculiar genius of their respective authors, as that of the country that gave them birth; so that, though they may not be entirely classical, they are entirely Spanish; and what they want in finish and grace, they make up in picturesqueness and originality.[222]

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Proverbs: Santillana, Garay, Nuñez, Mal Lara, Palmireno, Oudin, Sorapan, Cejudo, Yriarte. — Didactic Prose: Torquemada, Acosta, Luis de Granada, Juan de la Cruz, Santa Teresa, Malon de Chaide, Roxas, Figueroa, Marquez, Vera y Zuñiga, Navarrete, Saavedra, Quevedo, Antonio de Vega, Nieremberg, Guzman, Dantisco, Andrada, Villalobos, Paton, Aleman, Faria y Sousa, Francisco de Portugal. — Gongorism in Prose: Gracian, Zabaleta, Lozano, Heredia, Ramirez. — Failure of good Didactic Prose.

The last department in the literature of any country, that comes within the jurisdiction of criticism on account of its style, is that of Didactic Prose; since in this branch, so remote from every thing poetical, the ornaments of manner are more accidental than they are elsewhere, and, beyond it, are not at all to be exacted. In modern times, the French seem to have been more anxious than any other nation, not excepting even the Italians, to add the grace of an elegant style to their didactic prose, while, on the other hand, none have been more unsuccessful than the Spaniards in their attempts to cultivate it.

In one particular form of didactic composition, however, Spain stands in advance of all other countries; I mean that of Proverbs, which Cervantes has happily called “short sentences drawn from long experience.”[223] Spanish proverbs can be traced back to the earliest times. One of the best known—“Laws go where kings please they should”—is connected with an event of importance in the reign of Alfonso the Sixth, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century, when the language of Castile had hardly a distinct existence.[224] Another has been traced to a custom belonging to the days of the Infantes de Lara, and is itself probably of not much later date.[225] Others are found in the General Chronicle, which is one of the oldest of Spanish prose compositions, and among them is the happy one on disappointed expectations, cited in Don Quixote more than once: “He went for wool and came back shorn.”[226] Several occur in the “Conde Lucanor” of Don John Manuel,[227] and many in the poetry of the Archpriest of Hita,[228] both of whom lived in the time of Alfonso the Eleventh.

Thus far, however, we have only separate and isolated sayings, evidently belonging to the old Spanish race, and always used as if quite familiar and notorious. But in the reign of John the Second, and at his request, the Marquis of Santillana collected a hundred in rhyme, which we have already noticed, besides above six hundred, he says, such as the old women were wont to repeat in their chimney-corners. From this period, therefore, or rather from 1508, when this collection was published, the old and wise proverbs of the language may be regarded as having obtained a settled place in its didactic literature.[229]

The number of proverbs, indeed, was soon so great,—not only those floating about in the common talk of men, but those collected and printed,—that they began to be turned to account. Garay, who was attached to the cathedral of Toledo, and therefore lived in the centre of whatever was peculiarly Castilian, wrote a long letter, every sentence of which was a popular saying; to which he added two similar letters, found, as he says, by accident, and made up, in the same way, of proverbs.[230] But, in the middle of the century, a still higher honor awaited the old Spanish adages. Pedro Valles, who wrote the history of the great Marquis of Pescara, published an alphabetical series of four thousand three hundred of them in 1549; and the famous Greek scholar and distinguished nobleman, Hernan Nuñez de Guzman, Professor successively at Alcalá and at Salamanca, found amusement for his old age in making another series of them, which amounted in all to above six thousand. To some he added explanations; to others, various parallel sayings from different languages; but, finding his strength fail him, he gave the task to a friend, who, like himself, was a Professor in Salamanca, and who published the whole in 1555, two years after the death of Nuñez; rather, as he intimates, from respect to the person from whom he received it, than from regard to the dignity of the employment.[231]

Out of these proverbs, another of the friends of Hernan Nuñez—Mal Lara, a Sevilian—selected a thousand, and, adding a commentary to each, published them in 1568, under the not inappropriate title of “Philosophy of the Common People”; a volume which, notwithstanding its cumbersome learning, can be read with pleasure, both for the style in which many parts of it are written, and for the unusual historical anecdotes with which it abounds. Another collection, made by Palmireno, a Valencian, in 1569, consisting of above two hundred proverbs appropriate to the table, shows how abundant popular aphorisms must be in a language that can furnish so many on one subject. Yet another, by Oudin, was published at Paris in 1608, for the use of foreigners, and shows no less plainly how much the Spanish had become spread throughout Europe. Sorapan, in 1616 and 1617, published two collections, in which it was intended that the condensation of popular experience and wisdom should teach medicine, as, in the hands of Mal Lara, they had been made to teach the philosophy of life. And, finally, in 1675, Cejudo, a schoolmaster of Val de Peñas, gave the world about six thousand, with the corresponding Latin adages, whenever he could find them, and with explanations more satisfactory than had been furnished by his predecessors.[232]

Still, though so many thousands have been collected, many thousands still remain unpublished, known only among the traditions of the humbler classes of society, that have given birth to them all. Juan de Yriarte, a learned man, who was nearly forty years at the head of the King’s Library at Madrid, collected, about the middle of the eighteenth century, no less than twenty-four thousand; and yet it is not to be supposed that a single individual, however industrious, living in Madrid, could exhaust their number, as they belong rather to the provinces than to the capital, and are spread everywhere among the common people, and through all their dialects.[233]

Why proverbs should abound so much more in Spain than in any other country of Christendom, it is not possible to tell. Perhaps the Arabs, whose language is rich in such wisdom, may have furnished some of them; or perhaps the whole mass may have sprung from the original soil of the less cultivated classes of Spanish society. But however this may be, we know they are often among the pleasantest and most characteristic ornaments of the national literature; and those who are most familiar with them will be most ready to agree with the wise author of the “Dialogue on Languages,” when he says, and repeats the remark, that we must go to the old national proverbs for what is purest in his native Castilian.[234]

Turning now to the proper Didactic prose of Spanish literature, the first instance we find—after those formerly noticed as imitating the Italian philosophical discussions of the sixteenth century—is one that comes near to the borders of fiction. It is “The Garden of Curious Flowers,” by Torquemada, originally published in 1570, of which the curate, in the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library, says, that “he does not know whether it is more true, or, to speak strictly, less full of lies,” than the “Olivante de Laura,” a book of chivalry by the same author, which, for its peculiar absurdities, he sends at once to the bonfire in the court-yard. “The Garden of Curious Flowers,” however, is still a curious book. It consists of six colloquies between friends, who talk for their amusement on such subjects as the monstrous productions of nature, the terrestrial paradise, phantasms and enchantments, the influence of the stars, and the history and condition of those countries that lie nearest to the North Pole. It is, in fact, a collection of whatever strange and extravagant stories a learned man could make, beginning with such as he found in Aristotle, Pliny, Solinus, Olaus Magnus, and Albertus Magnus, and including those told by the most credulous of his own time. Being put into a form then popular, and related in a pleasing style, they had no little success. They were several times printed in the original, and, beside being translated into Italian and French, are well known to those who are curious in the literature of Queen Elizabeth’s time, under the much-abused name of “The Spanish Mandeville.” It may be added, that some of Torquemada’s accounts of spectres and visions are still pleasant reading; and that, though Cervantes spoke slightingly of the whole book in his “Don Quixote,” he afterwards resorted to it, both for facts and for fancies respecting the wonders of Friesland and Iceland, when he wrote the first part of his “Persiles and Sigismunda.”[235]

Christóval de Acosta, a Portuguese botanist,—who was accustomed to call himself “the African,” because he happened to be born in one of the African possessions of Portugal,—travelled much in the East, and after his return published, in 1578, a work on Oriental plants and drugs, to which he added at the end a treatise on the natural history of the Elephant. But, though he succeeded in attracting the attention of Europe to this publication, and though the early part of his life had been that of a soldier, an adventurer, and a captive among pirates and robbers, he spent many of his later years, if not all of them, in religious retirement at home, where, besides other things, he wrote a discourse on “The Benefits of Solitude,” and a treatise on “The Praise of Women.” The last was printed in 1592, and, except that it is too full of learning, may still be read with some interest, if not with pleasure.[236]

It was not, however, moral and philosophical writers, like Oliva and Guevara, nor writers on subjects connected with natural history, like Torquemada and Acosta, that were most favored in the reigns of Philip the Second and his immediate successors. It was the ascetics and mystics,—the natural produce of the soil of Spain, and, almost without exception, faithful to the old Castilian genius.

Among the most prominent of this class was Luis de Granada, distinguished as a Spanish preacher, but still more remarkable for his eloquence as a mystic. His “Meditations for the Seven Days and Nights of a Week,” his treatises “On Prayer” and “On Faith,” and his “Memorial of a Christian Life,” were early translated into Latin, Italian, French, and English,—one of them into Turkish, and one into Japanese,—and, like his other Spanish works, have continued to be printed and admired in the original down to our own times.

The most effective of them all was his “Guide for Sinners,” first published in 1556. It makes two moderate volumes, and portions of it are marked with a diffuse declamation, which is perhaps imitated from that of Juan de Avila, the Apostle of Andalusia, whose friend and follower he more than once boasts himself to have been. But its general tone is that of a moving and harmonious eloquence, which has made it a favorite book of devotion in Spain ever since it first appeared, and has spread its reputation so widely, that it has been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, including the Greek and Polish, and, at one time, seemed likely to obtain a place, in the religious literature of Christendom, very near that of the great ascetic work which passes under the name of Thomas à Kempis. In its native country, however, the Guide for Sinners encountered at first not a little opposition. As early as the year after it was published, it had been placed on the Index Expurgatorius, and no edition except the first seems to have been permitted till we find that of Salamanca, in 1570. But the very Index that condemned it became itself the subject of condemnation; and, in the case of the Guide for Sinners, the ecclesiastical powers went so far in the opposite direction as to grant special indulgences by proclamation to all who should have read or heard a chapter of the very work they had earlier so harshly censured.

Luis de Granada passed all the latter part of his life in Lisbon,—perhaps because he had been repeatedly annoyed by the Inquisition at home, perhaps because his duties seemed to lead him there. But, whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that he enjoyed much more favor in Portugal than he did in Spain; and when he died, in 1588, eighty-four years old, he could boast that he had refused the highest honors of the Portuguese Church, and humbly devoted the whole of his long life to the reformation and advancement of the Order of Preachers, of which, during his best years, he had been the active and venerated head.[237]

San Juan de la Cruz, who was in some respects an imitator of Luis de Granada, was born in 1542, and, having spent the greater part of his life in reforming the discipline of the Carmelite monasteries, died in 1591, and was beatified in 1674. His works, which are chiefly contemplative, and obtained for him the title of the Ecstatic Doctor, are written with great fervor. The chief of them are the allegory of “The Ascent to Mount Carmel,” and “The Dark Night of the Soul,”—treatises which have given him much reputation for a mystical eloquence, that sometimes rises to the sublime, and sometimes is lost in the unintelligible. His poetry, of which a little is printed in some of the many editions of his works, is of the same general character, but marked by great felicity and richness of phraseology.[238]

Santa Teresa, who was associated with Juan de la Cruz in the work of reforming the Carmelites,—or rather with whom he was associated, since hers was the leading spirit,—died in 1582, sixty-seven years old. Her didactic works, the most remarkable of which are “The Path to Perfection” and “The Interior Castle,” are less obscure than those of her coadjutor, though more declamatory. But all she wrote, including an account of her own life, and several discussions connected with the religious duties to which she dedicated herself, were composed with apparent reluctance on her part, and in obedience to the commands of her superiors. She believed herself to be often in direct communion with God; and as those about her shared her faith on this point, she was continually urged by them to make known to the world what were thus regarded as revelations of the Divine will. On one occasion she says: “Far within, God appeared to me in a vision, as he has been wont to do, and gave me his right hand, and said,—Behold this print of the nail; it is a sign that, from this day forth, thou art my spouse. Hitherto, thou hast not deserved it; but hereafter not only shalt thou regard my honor as that of thy Creator, and King, and God, but as that of a true spouse;—for my honor is now thine, and thine is mine.”

Living, as she undoubtedly did, under the persuasion that she was favored with numberless revelations of this kind, she wrote boldly and rapidly, and corrected nothing. Her style, in consequence, is diffuse and open to objections, which, in Spain, the spirit of a merely literary criticism is too reverent to desire to remove. But whatever she wrote is full of earnestness, sincerity, and love; and therefore her works have never ceased to be read by those of her own nation and faith. During her life, she was persecuted by the Inquisition; but after her death, her manuscripts were collected with pious care, and published, in 1588, by Luis de Leon, who exhorts all men to follow in the bright path she has pointed out to them; adding, “She has seen God face to face, and she now shows him to you.”[239]

This school of spiritualists, to which belonged Juan de Avila and Luis de Leon, of whom we have before spoken, had, no doubt, a very considerable effect on Spanish didactic prose. They raised its tone, and did more towards placing it on the old foundations, where the chronicles and the earlier writers of the country, like Lucena, had left it, than had been done for nearly two centuries. Such efforts gave dignity, if not purity or an exact finish, to the proper Castilian style; so that, at the end of the reign of Philip the Second, it was not only of more consequence to an author’s reputation to write well upon any grave subject in prose than it had ever been before, but, with such examples before him, it was easier to do so. In all this, the movement made was in the right direction, and produced happy results. But, on the other hand, we should remember that it confirmed in the didactic literature of the country that tendency to a diffuse and florid declamation, which was early one of its blemishes, and from which, with such authority in its favor, Castilian prose has never since been able completely to emancipate itself.

A remarkable proof of this is to be found in “The Magdalen” of Malon de Chaide, first published in 1592, after the death of its author. It is a religious work, and is divided into four parts; the first being merely introductory, and the three others on the three characters of Mary Magdalen as a sinner, a penitent, and a saint. It has a very rhetorical air throughout, and sometimes reads almost like a romance;—so free is its conception of the character and conversations of the saint. But some of its discussions, like one on fashionable dress, and one on religious pictures, are curious; and some of its religious exhortations, like that to repent before old age comes on, are moving and powerful. The moral tone of the whole is severe. With a great deal of the spirit of a monk, the author is earnest against books of chivalry; and he not only rebukes the habit of reading the ancient classics, but even such Spanish poets as Garcilasso de la Vega, because he thinks admiration of them inconsistent with a preservation of the Christian character. Occasionally, he grows mystical; and then, though his style is more than ever prodigal, his meaning is not always plain. But, on the whole, and regarded as an exhortation to a religious life, the Conversion of Mary Magdalen is written with so much richness of language, and is often so eloquent, that it was much read when it first appeared, and has not, even in recent times, ceased to be reprinted and admired.[240]

Quite different from this is “The Amusing Journey” of Roxas,—a book that hardly falls within the strict limits of any class, but one which has always been popular in Spain. Its author was an actor; and his travels consist of an account of some of his personal adventures and experiences, thrown into the form of dialogues between three of his fellow-comedians and himself, as they visit some of the principal cities of Spain in the exercise of their profession as strolling players. They travel on foot; and their conversations, which are little molested by scruples of any sort, make up a very amusing book.

In some parts of it, we have sketches of the places they visit, with notices of the local history belonging to each. In others, Roxas himself, in a spirit that not unfrequently reminds us of Gil Blas, relates his own previous adventures, as a soldier, as a captive in France, and as a play-actor at home. In yet others, we have fictions, or what seem to be such, and among them, the story on which Shakspeare founded his Christopher Sly and the Induction to “The Taming of the Shrew.” But, in general, it is rather an account of what relates to the theatre and the affairs of the four gay companions at Seville, Toledo, Segovia, Valladolid, Granada, and on the roads between all of them, interspersed with forty or fifty loas, which Roxas wrote with recognized success, and of which he is evidently very proud. It is a pleasant book, loosely and carelessly put together, but important for the history of the Spanish drama, and with talent enough to attract the attention of Scarron, who took from it the hint for his “Roman Comique.” From internal evidence, “The Amusing Journey” was written in 1602, and, at the end, a continuation is announced; but, like so many other promises of the same sort in Spanish literature, it was never kept.[241]

Perhaps the work of Roxas served, also, as a hint for the “Pasagero,” or Traveller, of Suarez de Figueroa. At any rate, the well-known author of the “Amarillis,” published in 1617, a half-narrative, half-didactic work with this title, containing ten long discussions, on a great variety of subjects, held by four persons, as they journey from Madrid to Barcelona, in order to embark for Italy;—the discussions themselves being called alivios, or rests by the way. The chief conversation is in the hands of Figueroa, the principal person in his own drama; and so far as he is concerned, and so far as the discussions relate to the men of letters of his own time, the Pasagero is somewhat cynical. His autobiography, which is contained in the eighth dialogue, is interesting, and so are the ninth and tenth dialogues, in which he gives his view of the state of Spain at the time he wrote, and the means of leading an honest and honorable life there. But the most important conversations are the third, which relates to the theatre, and the fourth, which is on the popular and courtly mode of preaching. The whole work is too diffuse in its style, though less declamatory than much in the didactic prose of the period.[242]

Some of the best portions of the didactic literature of Spain during the seventeenth century were partly or wholly political. Marquez, a writer in the old style of the reign of Philip the Second, published in 1612 his “Christian Governor,” a work composed at the request of the Duke of Feria, then viceroy of Sicily, and intended to serve as an answer to Machiavelli’s “Prince.”[243] Vera y Zuñiga, author of a strange epic on the conquest of Seville, who was a better minister of Philip the Third than he was poet, published in 1620 a treatise, in four discourses, on the character and duties of an ambassador; full of learning, and occasionally illustrated with appropriate anecdotes drawn from Spanish history, but citing indiscriminately books of authority and no authority on the grave subjects he discusses, and relying apparently with as much confidence upon an opinion of Ovid as upon one of Comines.[244] Fernandez de Navarrete, a secretary of the same monarch, chose his subject a little higher up, and in 1625, under the disguise of an assumed name, and in a letter to a Polish prime-minister who never existed, gave the world his notions of what “a royal favorite” should be; but it is evident that Spain only was in his thoughts when he wrote, and his little treatise is so encumbered with ill-assorted learning and ungraceful conceits that it was soon forgotten.[245]

Not so the “Idea of a Christian Prince,” by Saavedra Faxardo, who died at Madrid in 1648, after having been long in the diplomatic service of the Spanish crown. It was a higher subject than either of those taken by Navarrete and Figueroa, and managed with more talent. Under the awkward arrangement of a hundred ingenious Emblems, with mottoes, that are generally well chosen and pointed, he has given a hundred essays on the education of a prince;—his relations with his ministers and subjects; his duties as the head of a state in its internal and external relations; and his duties to himself in old age and in preparation for death;—all intended for the instruction of Balthasar, son of Philip the Fourth, to whom it is dedicated, but who died too young to profit by its wisdom. It is written in a compact, sententious style, with much quaint and curious knowledge of history, and with a large and not always judicious display of learning. But in many points it reminds us of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Cabinet Council” and Owen Feltham’s “Resolves”;—a measure of praise that can be given to few such prose works in the Spanish language. Its success was great; nor is it yet fallen into neglect. The first edition was published in 1640, at Munster. Many others followed in the course of the century. It was translated into all the languages of Europe, and, in Spain at least, has continued to be printed and valued down to our own days.[246]

“The Divine Politics” of Quevedo, a part of which was published before the Christian Prince and a part after it, may have suggested his subject to Saavedra, but not the mode of treating it; and, in the same way, the great satirist may have had some influence in determining Antonio de Vega, the Portuguese, to write his “Political Dream of a Perfect Nobleman,” in 1620;[247] Nieremberg, the Jesuit, to write his “Manual for Gentlemen and Princes,” which appeared in 1629;[248] and Benavente, his “Advice for Kings, Princes, and Ambassadors,” which appeared in 1643.[249] But none of these works, nor any thing else in the nature of didactic prose that appeared in the seventeenth century, is equal to the Christian Prince of Saavedra; unless, indeed, we are to except his own vision of a state, which he calls “The Literary Republic,” and in which he discusses somewhat satirically, but in a vein of agreeable criticism, the merits of the principal writers of ancient and modern times, foreign and Spanish. The Literary Republic, however, was not published till after its author’s death, and never enjoyed a popularity like that enjoyed by his longer and elder work; a work which leaves far behind every thing in the class of books of emblems, that so long served to tax the ingenuity of the higher classes of society in Europe.[250]

To these writers of the end of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century a few more might be added, of less consequence. Juan de Guzman, in 1589, published a formal treatise on Rhetoric, in the seventh dialogue of which he makes an ingenious application of the rules of the Greek and Roman masters to the demands of modern sermonizing in Spain.[251] Gracian Dantisco, one of the secretaries of Philip the Second, published in 1599 a small discourse on the minor morals of life, which he called the “Galateo,” in imitation of Giovanni della Casa, whose classical Italian treatise bearing the same name was already translated into Spanish.[252] In the same year appeared a curious work by Pedro de Andrada, on “The Art of Horsemanship,” well written and learned, with amusing anecdotes of horses; and this was followed, in 1605, by a similar treatise of Simon de Villalobos, but one which, from its more military character, and from the exaggerated importance it gives to its subject, might well have been made a part of Don Quixote’s library.[253] Both of them bear marks of the state of society at the time they were written.

Paton, the author of several works of little value, published, in 1604, a crude treatise on “The Art of Spanish Eloquence,” founded on the rules of the ancients;[254] and, in Mexico, Aleman, while living there, printed, in 1609, a treatise on “Castilian Orthography,” which, besides what is appropriate to the title, contains pleasant discussions on other topics connected with the language, over which he has himself shown a great mastery in his “Guzman de Alfarache.”[255] A series of conversations on miscellaneous subjects, divided into seven nights, which their author, Faria y Sousa, intended to have called simply “Moral Dialogues,” but which his bookseller, without his knowledge, published in 1624 with the title of “Brilliant Nights,” are dull and pedantic, like nearly every thing this learned Portuguese wrote; and the second part, which he offered to the public, was never called for.[256] And, finally, another Portuguese, Francisco de Portugal, who died in 1632,[257] wrote a pleasant treatise on “The Art of Gallantry,” with anecdotes showing the state of fashionable, or rather courtly, society at the time; but it was not printed till long after its author’s death.[258]

During the period embraced by the works last mentioned, a false taste had invaded Spanish prose. It was the same unhappy taste which we have noticed in Spanish poetry by the name of “Gongorism,” but which its admirers called sometimes “the polite,” and sometimes “the cultivated,” style of writing. Traces of it have been sought in the sixteenth century among some of the best writers of the country; but for this there seems no foundation, except in the fact, that a rigorous taste never at any time prevailed in Spain, and that the luxuriant success of letters towards the end of the reign of Philip the Second, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining fashionable distinction by authorship, had led to occasional affectations even in the style of those who, like Cervantes and Mariana, stood foremost among the better writers of their time.

But now, the admiration that followed Góngora almost necessarily introduced conceits into prose writing, such as were thought so worthy of imitation in poetry. Those, therefore, who most coveted public favor, began to play with words, and seek to surprise by an unexpected opposition of ideas and quaintness of metaphor, little consistent with the old Castilian dignity, until at last they quite left the stately constructions in which resides so much of what is peculiar to the sonorous declamations of Luis de Leon and Luis de Granada, and by excessive efforts at brilliancy became so involved and obscure, that they were not always intelligible. Instances of such affectation may be found in Saavedra and Francisco de Portugal. But the innovation itself is older than either of their published works. It broke out with Paravicino, who, besides imitating Góngora’s poetry, as we have already seen, carried similar extravagances of metaphor and construction into his oratorical and didactic prose; intimating, in a characteristic phrase, that he claimed the honor of being the Columbus who had made this great discovery. As early as 1620, it was matter of censure and ridicule to Liñan, in his “Guide to Strangers in Madrid,” and soon afterwards to Mateo Velazquez, in his “Village Philosopher”; so that from this period we may consider cultismo nearly or quite as prevalent in Spanish prose as it was in Spanish poetry.[259]

The person, however, who settled its character, and in some respects gave it an air of philosophical pretension, was Balthazar Gracian, a Jesuit of Aragon, who lived between 1601 and 1658; exactly the period when the cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose, and rose to its greatest consideration. He began in 1630, by a tract called “The Hero,” which is not so much the description of a hero’s character as it is a recipe to form one, given in short, compact sentences, constructed in the new style. It was successful, and was followed by five or six other works, written in the same manner; after which, to confirm and justify them all, there appeared, in 1648, his “Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio”; a regular Art of Poetry, or rather system of rhetoric, accommodated to the school of Góngora, and showing great acuteness, especially in the ingenuity with which the author presses into his service the elder poets, such as Diego de Mendoza, the Argensolas, and even Luis de Leon and the Bachiller de la Torre.

The most remarkable work of Gracian, however, is his “Críticon,” published in three parts, between 1650 and 1653. It is an allegory on human life, and gives us the adventures of Critilus, a noble Spaniard, wrecked on the desert island of Saint Helena, where he finds a solitary savage, who knows nothing about himself, except that he has been nursed by a wild beast. After much communication in dumb show, they are able to understand each other in Spanish, and, being taken from the island, travel together through the world, talking often of the leading men of their time in Spain, but holding intercourse more with allegorical personages than with one another. The story of their adventures is long, and its three portions represent the three periods of human life; the first being called the Spring of Childhood, the second the Autumn of Manhood, and the third the Winter of Old Age. In some parts it shows much talent; and eloquent discussions on moral subjects, and glowing descriptions of events and natural scenery, can be taken from it, which are little infected with the extravagances of the Cultivated Style. Sometimes, we are reminded of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,”—as, for instance, in the scenes of the World’s Fair,—and might almost say, that the “Críticon” is to the Catholic religion and the notions of life in Spain during the reign of Philip the Fourth, what Bunyan’s fiction is to Puritanism and the English character in the age of Cromwell. But there is no vitality in the shadowy personages of Gracian. He bodies nothing forth to which our sympathies can attach themselves as they do to such sharply-defined creations as Christian and Mr. Greatheart, and, when we are moved at all by him, it is only by his acuteness and eloquence.

His other works are of little value, and are yet more deformed by bad taste; especially his “Politico-Fernando,” which is an extravagant eulogium on Ferdinand the Catholic, and his “Discreto,” which is a collection of prose miscellanies, including a few of his letters. It is singular, that, in consequence of being an ecclesiastic, he thought it proper that all his works should be printed under the name of his brother Lorenzo, who lived at Seville; and it is yet more singular, perhaps, that they were published, not by himself, but by his friend, Lastañosa, a gentleman of literary taste, and a collector of ancient works of art, who lived at Huesca in Aragon. But however indirectly and cautiously the works of Gracian won their way into the world, they enjoyed great favor there, and made much noise. His “Hero” went early through six editions, and his collected prose works, most of which were translated into French and Italian, and some of them into English and Latin, were often reprinted in the original Spanish, both at home and abroad.[260]

From this period, the rich old prose style of Luis de Leon and his contemporaries may be said to have been driven out of Spanish literature. Lope de Vega and Quevedo, after resisting the innovations of cultismo for a time, had long before yielded, and Calderon was now alternately assailing the depraved taste of his audiences and gratifying it by running into extravagances almost as great as those he ridiculed. The language of the most affected poetry passed into the prose of the age, and took from it the power and dignity which, even in its more declamatory portions, had constituted its prominent merit. Style became fantastic, and the very thoughts that were to be conveyed were not unfrequently covered up with ingenuities of illustration till they disappeared. In the phrase of Sancho, men wanted better bread than could be made of wheat, and rendered themselves ridiculous by attempting to obtain it. Tropes and figures of all kinds were settled into formulas of speech, and then were repeated appropriately and inappropriately, till the reader could often anticipate, from the beginning of a sentence, how it would inevitably end. Every thing, indeed, in prose composition, as in poetry, announced that corrupted taste which both precedes and hastens the decay of a literature; and which, in the case of Spain during the latter half of the seventeenth century, was but the concomitant of a general decline in the arts and the gradual degradation of the monarchy.

Among those who wrote best, though still infected with the prevailing influences, was Zabaleta. His “Moral Problems” and “Famous Errors,” but especially his “Feast Days at Madrid,” in which he gives lively satirical sketches of the manners of the metropolis at those periods when idleness brings the people into the streets and places of amusement, are worth reading. But he lived in the reign of Philip the Fourth; and so did Lozano, whose different ascetic works on the character of King David, if not so good as his historical romance on the New Kings of Toledo, are better than any thing else of the kind in the same period. They are, however, the last that can be read. The reign of Charles the Second does not offer examples even so favorable as these of the remains and ruins of a better taste. “The Labors of Hercules,” by Heredia, in 1682, and the “Moral Essays on Boëthius,” by Ramirez, in 1698, if they serve for nothing else, serve at least to mark the ultimate limits of dulness and affectation. Indeed, if it were not for the History of Solís, which has been already noticed, we should look in vain for an instance of respectable prose composition after this last and most degenerate descendant of the House of Austria had mounted the Spanish throne.[261]

Nor is this remarkable. On the contrary, it is rather to be considered worthy of notice, that didactic prose should have had any merit or obtained any success in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For the end it proposes is not, like that of poetry, to amuse, but, like that of philosophy, to enlighten and amend; and how dangerous in Spain was the social position of any teacher or moral monitor, who claimed for himself that degree of independence of opinion without which instruction becomes a dead form, needs not now to be set forth. Few persons, in that unhappy country, were surrounded with more difficulties; none were more strictly watched, or, if they wandered from the permitted paths, were more severely punished.

Nor was it possible for such persons, by the most notorious earnestness in their convictions of the just control of the religion of the state, or any degree of faithfulness in their loyalty, to avoid sometimes falling under the rebuke of the jealousy that watched each step of their course; a fact sufficiently apparent, when we recollect that nearly all the didactic writers of merit during this period, such as Juan de Avila, Luis de Leon, Luis de Granada, Quevedo, San Juan de la Cruz, and Santa Teresa, were persecuted by the Inquisition or by the government, and the works of every one of them expurgated or forbidden.

Under such oppression, free and eloquent writers,—men destined to teach and advance their generation,—could not be expected to appear, and the few who ventured into ways so dangerous dwelt as much as possible in generals, and became mystical, like Juan de la Cruz, or extravagant and declamatory, like Luis de Granada. Nearly all,—strictly prevented from using the logic of a wise and liberal philosophy,—fell into pedantry, from an anxious desire, wherever it was possible, to lean upon authority; so that, from Luis de Leon down to the most ordinary writer, who, in a prefatory letter of approbation, wished to give currency to the opinions of a friend, no man seemed to feel at ease unless he could justify and sustain what he had to say by citations from the Scriptures, the fathers of the Church, and the ancient and scholastic philosophers. Thus, Spanish didactic prose, which, from its original elements and tendencies, seemed destined to wear the attractions of an elevated and eloquent style, gradually became so formal, awkward, and pedantic, that, with a few striking exceptions, it can only be said to have maintained a doubtful and difficult existence during the long period when the less suspected and less oppressed portions of the literature of the country—its drama and its lyric poetry—were in the meridian of their success.

CHAPTER XL.

Concluding Remarks on the Second Period. — Decay of the National Character. — Diminished Number of Writers and Diminished Interest of the Public in Letters. — Ruin of the State begun in the Time of Philip the Second, and Continued in the Reigns of Philip the Third, Philip the Fourth, and Charles the Second. — Effects of this Condition of Things on Literary Culture. — False Influences of Religion. — False Influences of Loyalty.

It is impossible to study with care the Spanish literature of the seventeenth century, and not feel that we are in the presence of a general decay of the national character. At every step, as we advance, the number of writers that surround us is diminished. In what crowds they were gathered together during the reigns of Philip the Second and Philip the Third, we may see in the long lists of poets given by Cervantes in his “Galatea” and his “Journey to Parnassus,” and by Lope de Vega in his “Laurel of Apollo.” But in the reign of Philip the Fourth, though the theatre, from accidental circumstances, flourished more than ever, the other departments showed symptoms of decline; and in the reign of Charles the Second, wherever we turn, the number of authors sinks away, till it is obvious that some great change must take place, or elegant literature in Spain will speedily become extinct.

The public interest, too, in the few writers that remained, was gone. At least, that general, national interest, which alone can sustain the life it alone can give to the literature of any country, was no longer there; and all the favor, that Spanish poets and men of letters enjoyed at the end of the century, came from the court and the superficial fashion of the time, which patronized the affected style of those followers of Góngora, whose bad taste seemed to go on increasing in extravagance, as talent among them grew more rare.

Every thing, meanwhile, announced, that the great foundations of the national character were giving way on all sides; and that the failing literature of the country was only one of the phases and signs of the coming overthrow of its institutions. The decay which was so visible on the surface of things had, however, long mined unseen beneath what had been thought a period of extraordinary security and glory. Charles the Fifth, while, on the one side, by the war of the Comuneros, he had crushed nearly all of political liberty that Cardinal Ximenes had left in the old constitutions of Castile, had given, on the other, by his magnificent foreign conquests, a false direction to the character of his people at home;—both tending alike to waste away that vigor and independence which the Moorish wars had nourished in the hearts of the nation, and which had so long constituted its real strength. Philip the Second had been less successful than his father in his great labors to advance the permanent prosperity of the monarchy. He had, indeed, added Portugal and the Philippine Islands to his empire, which now comprehended above a hundred millions of human beings, and seemed to threaten the interests of all the rest of Europe. But such doubtful benefits were heavily overbalanced by the religious rebellion of the Netherlands, the fatal source of unnumbered mischiefs; by the exhausting wars with Elizabeth of England and Henry the Fourth of France; by the contempt for labor, that followed the extraordinary prevalence of a spirit of military adventure, and broke down the industry of the country; by the vast increase of the ecclesiastical institutions, which created a ruinous amount of pensioned idleness; and by the wasteful luxury brought in with the gold of America, which seemed to corrupt whatever it touched; so that, when that wary prince died, he left an impoverished people, whose energies he had overstrained and impaired by his despotism, and whose character he had warped and misdirected by his unrelenting and unscrupulous bigotry.[262]

His successor, feeble-minded and superstitious, was neither able to repair the results of such mischiefs, nor to contend with the difficulties they entailed upon his country. The power of the clergy, grown enormous by the favor of Philip the Second and the consolidated influence of the Jesuits, continued to gain strength, as it were of itself; and, under the direct persuasions of this mighty hierarchy, nearly six hundred thousand descendants of Moors—who, though preserving, as their fathers had done for a century, the external appearances of Christianity, were yet suspected of being Mohammedans at heart—were now, by a great crime of state, expelled from the land of their birth; a crime followed by injuries to the agriculture and wealth of the South of Spain, and indeed of the whole country, from which they have never recovered.[263]

The easy, gay selfishness of Philip the Fourth, and the open profligacy of his ministers, gave increased activity to the causes that were hastening on the threatened ruin. Catalonia broke out into rebellion; Jamaica was seized by the English; Roussillon was ceded to France; Portugal, which had never been heartily incorporated into the monarchy, resumed her ancient place among the independent nations of the earth;—every thing, in short, showed how the external relations of the state were disturbed and endangered. Its internal condition, meanwhile, was no less shaken. The coin, notwithstanding the wise warnings of Mariana, had been adulterated anew; the taxes had been shamelessly increased, while the interest on the ever-growing public debt was dishonestly diminished. Men, everywhere, began to be alarmed at the signs of the times. The timid took shelter in celibacy and the institutions of the Church. The bolder emigrated. At last, the universal pressure began to be visible in the state of the population. Whole towns and villages were deserted. Seville, the ancient capital of the monarchy, lost three quarters of its inhabitants; Toledo one third; Segovia, Medina del Campo, and others of the large cities, fell off still more, not only in their numbers and opulence, but in whatever goes to make up the great aggregate of civilization. The whole land, in fact, was impoverished, and was falling into a premature decay.

The necessary results of such a deplorable state of things are yet more apparent in the next reign,—the unhappy reign of Charles the Second,—which began with the troubles incident to a long minority, and ended with a failure in the regular line of succession, and a contest for the throne. It was a dreary period, with marks of dilapidation and ruin on all sides. Beginning at the southern borders of France, and following the coast by Barcelona and Gibraltar round to Cadiz, not one of the great fortresses, which were the keys of the kingdom, was in a state to defend itself against the most moderate force by which it might be assailed. On the Atlantic, the old arsenals, from which the Armada had gone forth, were empty; and the art of ship-building had been so long neglected, that it was almost, or quite lost.[264] And, in the capital and at court, the revenues of the country, which had long been exhausted and anticipated, were at last unable to provide for the common wants of the government, and sometimes even failed to furnish forth the royal table with its accustomed propriety; so that the envoy of Austria expressed his regret at having accepted the place of ambassador at a court where he was compelled to witness a misery so discreditable.[265]

It was a new lesson to the world in the vicissitudes of empire. No country in Christendom had, from such a height of power as that which Spain occupied in the time of Charles the Fifth, fallen into such an abyss of degradation as that in which every proud Spaniard felt Spain to be sunk, when the last of the great House of Austria approached the grave, believing himself to be under the influence of sorcery, and seeking relief by exorcisms which would have disgraced the credulity of the Middle Ages;—all, too, at the time when France was jubilant with the victories of Condé, and England preparing for the age of Marlborough.[266]

In any country, such a decay in the national character and power would be accompanied by a corresponding, if not an equal, decay in its literature; but in Spain, where both had always been so intimately connected, and where both had rested, in such a remarkable degree, on the same foundations, the wise who looked on from a distance could not fail to anticipate a rapid and disastrous decline of all that was intellectual and elegant. And so, in fact, it proved. The old religion of the country,—the most prominent of all the national characteristics,—the mighty impulse which, in the days of the Moors, had done every thing but work miracles,—was now so perverted from its true character by the enormous growth of the intolerance which sprang up originally almost as a virtue, that it had become a means of oppression such as Europe had never before witnessed. Through the whole period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which we have just gone over,—from the fall of Granada to the extinction of the Austrian dynasty,—the Inquisition, as the grand exponent of the power of religion in Spain, had maintained, not only an uninterrupted authority, but, by constantly increasing its relations to the state, and lending itself more and more freely to the punishment of whatever was obnoxious to the government, had effectually broken down all that remained, from earlier days, of intellectual independence and manly freedom. But this was not done, and could not be done, without the assent of the great body of the people, or without such an active coöperation on the part of the government and the higher classes as brought degradation and ruin to all who shared in its spirit.

Unhappily, this spirit, mistaken for the religion that had sustained them through their long-protracted contest with their infidel invaders, was all but universal in Spain during this whole period. The first and the last of the House of Austria,—Charles the Fifth and the feeblest of his descendants,—if alike in nothing else, were alike in the zeal with which they sustained the Holy Office while they lived, and with which, by their testaments, they commended it to the support and veneration of their respective successors.[267] Nor did the intervening kings show less deference to its authority. The first royal act of Philip the Second, when he came from the Low Countries to assume the crown of Spain, was to celebrate an auto da fé at Valladolid.[268] When the young and gay daughter of Henry the Second of France arrived at Toledo, in 1560, that city offered an auto da fé as part of the rejoicings deemed appropriate to her wedding; and the same thing was done by Madrid, in 1632, for another French princess, when she gave birth to an heir to the crown;[269]—odious proofs of the degree to which bigotry had stifled both the dictates of an enlightened reason and the common feelings of humanity.

But in all this the people and their leaders rejoiced. When a nobleman, about to die for adherence to the Protestant faith, passed the balcony where Philip the Second sat in state, and appealed to him not to see his innocent subjects thus cruelly put to death, the monarch replied, that, if it were his own son, he would gladly carry the fagots for his execution; and the answer was received at the time, and recorded afterwards, as one worthy of the head of the mightiest empire in the world.[270] And again, in 1680, when Charles the Second was induced to signify his desire to enjoy, with his young bride, the spectacle of an auto da fé, the artisans of Madrid volunteered in a body to erect the needful amphitheatre, and labored with such enthusiasm, that they completed the vast structure in an incredibly short space of time; cheering one another at their work with devout exhortations, and declaring that, if the materials furnished them should fail, they would pull down their own houses in order to obtain what might be wanting to complete the holy task.[271]

Nor had the principle of loyalty, always so prominent in the Spanish character, become less perverted and mischievous than the religious principle. It offered its sincere homage alike to the cold severity of Philip the Second, to the weak bigotry of Philip the Third, to the luxurious selfishness of Philip the Fourth, and to the miserable imbecility of Charles the Second. The waste and profligacy of such royal favorites as the Duke of Lerma and the Count Duke Olivares, which ended in national bankruptcy and disgrace, failed seriously to affect the sentiments of the people towards the person of the monarch, or to change their persuasions that their earthly sovereign was to be addressed in words and with feelings similar to those with which they approached the Majesty of Heaven.[272] The king—merely because he was the king—was looked upon substantially as he had been in the days of Saint Ferdinand and the “Partidas,” when he was accounted the direct vicegerent of Heaven, and the personal proprietor of all those portions of the globe which he had inherited with his crown.[273] The Duc de Vendôme, therefore, showed his thorough knowledge of the Spanish character, when, in the War of the Succession,—Madrid being in possession of the enemy, and every thing seeming to be lost,—he still declared, that, if the persons of the king, the queen, and the prince were but safe, he would himself answer for final success.[274] In fact, the old principle of loyalty, sunk into a submission—voluntary, it is true, and not without grace, but still an unhesitating submission—to the mere authority of the king, seemed to have become the only efficient bond of connection between the crown and its subjects, and the main resource of the state for the preservation of social order. The nation ceased to claim its most important rights, if they came in conflict with the rights claimed by the royal prerogative; so that the resistance of Aragon in the case of Perez, and that of Catalonia against the oppressive administration of the Count Duke Olivares, were easily put down by the zeal of the very descendants of the Comuneros of Castile.

It is this degradation of the loyalty and religion of the country, infecting as it did every part of the national character, which we have felt to be undermining the general culture of Spain during the seventeenth century; its workings being sometimes visible on the surface, and sometimes hidden by the vast and showy apparatus of despotism and superstition under which it was often concealed even from its victims. But it is a most melancholy fact in the case, that whatever of Spanish literature survived at the end of this period found its nourishment in such feelings of religion and loyalty as still sustained the forms of the monarchy,—an imperfect and unhealthy life, wasting away in an atmosphere of death. At last, as we approach the conclusion of the century, the Inquisition and the despotism seem to be everywhere present, and to have cast their blight over every thing. All the writers of the time yield to their influences, but none in a manner more painful to witness, than Calderon and Solís; the two whose names close up the period, and leave so little to hope for the future. For the “Autos” of Calderon and the “History” of Solís were undoubtedly regarded, both by their authors and by the public, as works eminently religious in their nature; and the respect, and even reverence, with which each of these great men treated the wretched and imbecile Charles the Second, were as undoubtedly accounted to them by their contemporaries for religious loyalty and patriotism. At the present day, we cannot doubt that a literature which rests in any considerable degree on such foundations must be near to its fall.[275]

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.

THIRD PERIOD.

The Literature that existed in Spain between the Accession of the Bourbon Family and the Invasion of Bonaparte; or from the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century to the Early Part of the Nineteenth.

HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.

THIRD PERIOD.

CHAPTER I.

War of the Succession. — Bourbon Family. — Philip the Fifth. — Academy of the Spanish Language: its Dictionary, Orthography, Grammar, and other Works. — Academy of Barcelona. — Academy of History. — State of Letters. — Poetry: Moraes, Barnuevo, Reynosa, Zevallos, Lobo, Benegasi, Pitillas.

Charles the Second was gathered to his fathers on the first day of November, in the year 1700. How low he left the intellectual culture of his country, and how completely the old national literature had died out in his reign, we have already seen. But, before there could be any serious thought of a revival from this disastrous state of things, a civil war was destined to sweep over the land, and still further exhaust its resources. Austria and France, it had been long understood, would make pretensions to the throne of Spain, so soon as it should be left vacant by the extinction of the reigning dynasty; and the partisans of each of these great powers were numerous and confident of success, not only in Spain, but throughout Europe. At this moment, while standing on the verge of the grave,—and knowing that he stood there,—the last, unhappy descendant of the House of Austria, with many misgivings and a heart-felt reluctance, finally announced his preference; and, by a secret political testament, declared the Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin and grandson of Louis the Fourteenth of France, to be sole heir to his throne and dominions.

The decision was not unexpected, and was, perhaps, as wise as a wiser king would have made under similar circumstances. But it was not the more likely, on either account, to be acquiesced in. Austria declared war against the new dynasty, as soon as the will of the deceased monarch was divulged; and England and Holland, outraged by the bad faith of Louis the Fourteenth, who, hardly two years before, had made an arrangement with them for a wholly different settlement of the Spanish question, soon joined her. The war, known as “the War of the Succession,” became general in its character; Spain was invaded by the allied powers; and the contest for its throne was kept up on the soil of that unfortunate country, partly by foreign troops, and partly by divisions among its own people, until 1713, when the treaty of Utrecht confirmed the claims of the Bourbon family, and gave peace to Europe, wearied with blood.

As far as Spain was concerned, the results of this war were most important. On the one hand, she lost by it nearly half of her European dominions, and fell, if not in proportion to such a loss, yet very greatly, in the scale of nations. But, on the other hand, the vast resources of her American colonies still remained untouched; her people had been roused to new energy by their exertions in defence of their homes; and their ancient loyalty had been, to an extraordinary degree, concentrated on a young and adventurous prince, who, though himself a foreigner, stood before them as their defender against foreign invasion. It seemed, therefore, as if still there were life in Spain, and as if something remained of the old national character, on which to build a new culture.[276]

That Philip the Fifth should desire to restore the intellectual dignity of the country, that had so generously adopted him, was natural. But while the war lasted, it demanded all the care of his government; and when it was over, and he turned himself to the task, it was plain that, in his personal relations and dispositions, he was but imperfectly fitted for it. Notwithstanding the sincerest efforts to assimilate himself to the people he governed, he was still a foreigner, little acquainted with their condition, and unable to sympathize with their peculiar nationality. He had been educated at the court of Louis the Fourteenth; the most brilliant court in Europe, and that in which, more than in any other, letters were regarded as a part of the pageant of empire. His character was not strongly marked; and he expressed no decided love for any definite form of intellectual cultivation, though he had good taste enough to enjoy the elegance to which he had always been accustomed, and which had been an important part of his breeding. He was, in fact, a Frenchman; and never could forget,—what his grandfather had unwisely told him always to remember,—that he was such. When, therefore, he desired to encourage elegant literature, it was natural that he should first recur to the means by which he had seen it encouraged where, more than in any other country, it had been successfully fostered by royal patronage; and if, in some respects, his position was little favorable to such a use of his power, in one, at least, it was eminently fortunate; for the earlier literature of Spain had so nearly disappeared, that it could offer little resistance to any attempt that might be made to introduce new forms or to infuse a new character into the old.

At this moment, the idea of patronizing and controlling the literature of a country by academies, established under the authority of its government, and composed of the principal men of letters of the time, was generally favored;—the French Academy, founded by Cardinal Richelieu, and always the model of its class, being now at the height of its success and fame. To establish a Spanish Academy, which should have similar objects and reach similar results, was, therefore, naturally the great literary project of the reign of Philip the Fifth.[277] Probably the king himself had early entertained it. Certainly it was formally brought to his notice, in 1713, by the Marquis of Villena, a nobleman, who, amidst the cares of five successive viceroyalties, had found leisure to devote himself, not only to letters, but to some of the more severe branches of the physical and exact sciences. His first purpose seems to have been, to form an academy whose empire should extend, on all sides, to the limits of human knowledge, and whose subdivisions should be substantially made according to the system of Lord Bacon. This, however, was soon abandoned as too vast an undertaking; and it was determined to begin by confining the duties of the new association principally to “the cultivation and establishment of the purity of the Castilian language.” An Academy for this object went into operation, by virtue of a royal decree dated the 3d of November, 1714.[278]

As it was modelled almost exactly after the form of the French Academy, the first project of its members was that of making a Dictionary. The work was much needed. From the time of Fernando de Herrera the language had not received large additions, but it had received some that were of value. Mendoza and Coloma had introduced a few military terms, that have since passed into common use; and both of them, with Ercilla, Urrea, and many others, had been so familiar with the Italian, as to seize some of its wealth for their own. Cervantes, however, had, perhaps, done more than any body else. That he was insensible neither to the danger of a too free intermixture of foreign words, nor to the true principles that should govern their introduction when needed, he has shown in the conversations of Don Quixote with the printers at Barcelona, and with Sancho at the Duke’s castle; but still he felt the rights of genius within him, and exercised them in this respect as boldly as he did in most others. His new compounds, his Latinisms, his restoration of old and neglected phrases, and his occasional recourse to the Italian, have all been noted; and, in nearly every instance, the words he adopted now enter into the recognized vocabulary of the language. Other writers ventured in the same direction, with less success; but still, from the glossaries added to the poems of Blasco in 1584, and of Lopez Pinciano in 1605, there can be no doubt that many words, which were then thought to need explanation, have long since become familiar, and that the old Castilian stock, during the reigns of Philip the Second and Philip the Third, was receiving additions, which ought, in some way, to be recognized as an important part of its permanent resources.[279]

But, on the other hand, during the seventeenth century, the old language had been much abused. From the appearance of Góngora no proper regard had been paid to the preservation of its purity or of its original characteristics, by many of the most popular authors that employed it. The Latiniparla, as Quevedo called the affectation of his time, had brought in many Latin words and many strange phrases, wholly repugnant to the genius of the Spanish. Such words and constructions, too, had enjoyed much favor; and Lope de Vega, Calderon, and the other leading spirits, who pronounced them to be affectations and refused directly to countenance them, yet occasionally yielded to the fashion of their time, in order to obtain the applause which was sure to follow.[280]

Both to receive the words that had been rightfully naturalized in the language, and to place a mark of disapprobation on those that were unworthy to be adopted, a Dictionary resting on authority was wanted. None such had been attempted in Spain. Indeed, during the whole of the preceding century, only one Spanish Dictionary of any kind had been produced that received, or deserved, the notice of the Academy. This was the work of Covarrubias, whose “Tesoro,” first printed in 1611, is a curious book, full of learning, and, in the etymological part, valuable, but often conceited, and rarely showing philosophical acuteness in its definitions.[281] The new Academy, therefore, could obtain little help from the labors of their predecessors, and, for such as was worth having, were obliged to go back to Lebrixa and his editors. But they were in earnest. They labored diligently, and between 1726 and 1739 produced their grand work, in six folio volumes. On the whole, it did them honor. No doubt, it shows, in several parts, a want of mature consideration and good judgment. Many words were omitted, that should have been inserted; many were inserted, which were afterwards stricken out; and many were given on unsatisfactory authorities. But its definitions are generally good; its etymologies—though this part of the work was little regarded by its authors—are respectable; and its citations are ample and pertinent. In fact, all that had been done for the language, in the way of dictionaries, since its origin, was not equal to what was now done in this single work.

But the Academicians were not slow to perceive, that a Dictionary so large could exercise little popular influence. They began, therefore, soon afterwards, to prepare an abridgment, in a single folio volume, for more general use, and published the first edition of it in 1780. The project was judicious, and its execution skilful. It omitted the discussions, citations, and formal etymologies of the larger work; but it established a better vocabulary, and improved many of the old definitions. It had, therefore, from its first appearance, a decided authority; and, by the persevering labors of the Academy, has continued, in its successive editions, to be the proper standard of the language,—labors which, since the latter part of the eighteenth century, have been always heavy, and sometimes disagreeable, from the constant tendency of even the better writers, like Melendez and his school, to fall into Gallicisms, which the increasing intercourse with France had rendered fashionable in the society of their time.

Another difficulty, however, soon presented itself to the Academy, quite as serious as the size of their Dictionary. It was that of the orthography they had adopted. The spelling of the Castilian—partly, perhaps, from the very various elements of which it was composed, and partly from the popular character of its literature—had always been more unsettled than that of the other modern languages. Lebrixa, the great scholar of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, first attempted to reduce it to order, and the simplicity of his system, which appeared in 1517, seemed at first likely to secure general favor and acceptance. But thirty treatises, that at different times followed, had—with the exception of the acute and pleasant one printed by Aleman when he was in Mexico, in 1609—served rather to unsettle and confuse the whole matter, than to determine any thing in relation to it.[282]

It is not surprising, therefore, that the first attempt of the Academy, made in the form of a short discourse, prefixed to its larger Dictionary, produced little effect. A separate work, which appeared in 1742, did something more, but not much; and the successive editions of it which were called for by the public rather showed the uneasy state of opinion in relation to the points under discussion, than any thing else. At last, in 1815, the Academy, in the eighth recension of its treatise on Orthography, and in 1817, in the fifth of its smaller Dictionary, began a series of important changes, which have been generally adopted by subsequent writers of authority, and appear to have nearly settled the spelling of the Castilian, though still it seems open to a few further modifications, and even to invite them.[283]

A Grammar, like a Dictionary, was provided for in the statutes of the Academy. But the original members of that body, few of whom were men of note and authority, showed a marked unwillingness to approach the difficult discussions involved in such a work, and did not undertake them at all till 1740. Even then, they went on slowly and with anxiety; so that the result of their labors did not appear till 1771. For this delay they were not wholly in fault. They had little to guide them, except the rival Grammars of Gayoso and San Pedro, which were published while the Academy was preparing its own, and the original attempt of Lebrixa, which had long been forgotten. But, after so protracted a labor, the Academicians should have produced something more worthy of their claims; for what they gave to the world, at last, was an unphilosophical and unpractical work, which, though subjected to frequent revision since, is hardly an outline of what it ought to be, and quite inferior to the Grammar of Salvá.[284]

A History of the Castilian Language, and an Art of Poetry, which were also expressly prescribed by the statutes of the Academy, have never been prepared under their authority; but, instead of these tasks, they have sometimes performed duties not originally imposed upon them. Thus they have published careful editions of different works of recognized authority, particularly a magnificent one of “Don Quixote,” in 1780-84. Since 1777, they have, from time to time, offered prizes for poetical compositions, though, as is usual in such cases, with less important results than had been hoped. And occasionally they have printed, with funds granted to them by the government, works deemed of sufficient merit to deserve such patronage, and, among others, the excellent treatise of Garcés on “The Vigor and Beauty of the Spanish Language,” which appeared under their auspices in 1791.[285] During the whole century, therefore, the Spanish Academy, occupied in these various ways, continued to be a useful institution, carefully abstaining from such claims to control the public taste as were at first made by its model in France, and, though not always very active and efficient, still never deserving the reproach of neglecting the duties and tasks for which it was originally instituted.

One good effect that followed from the foundation of the Spanish Academy was the establishment of other academies for kindred purposes. These academies were entirely different from the social meetings, under the same name, that were imitated from the Italian academies in the time of Charles the Fifth,—one of the earliest of which was held in the house of Cortés,[286] the conqueror of Mexico;—though still the elder associations seem sometimes to have furnished materials, out of which the institutions that succeeded them were constructed. At least, this was the case with the Academy of Barcelona, which has rendered good service to the cause of letters since 1751, after having long existed as an idle affectation, under the title of the “Academy of the Diffident.” The only one, however, of any consequence to the general literature of the country, was established during the reign of Philip the Fifth,—the Academy for Spanish History, founded in 1738; the character and amount of whose labors, both published and unpublished, do its members much honor.[287]

But such associations everywhere, though they may be useful and even important in their proper relations, can neither create a new literature for a country, nor, where the old literature is seriously decayed, do much to revive it. The Spanish academies were no exceptions to this remark. All elegant culture had so nearly disappeared before the accession of the Bourbons, and there was such an insensibility to its value in those classes of society where it should have been most cherished, that it was plain the resuscitation must be the work of time, and that the land must long lie fallow before another harvest could be gathered in. During the entire reign of Philip the Fifth, therefore,—a reign which, including the few months of his nominal abdication in favor of his son, extends to forty-six years,—we shall find undeniable traces of this unhappy state of things; few authors appearing who deserve to be named at all, and still fewer who demand a careful notice.

Poetry, indeed, or what passed under that name, continued to be written; and some of it, though little encouraged by the general regard of the nation, was printed. Moraes, a Portuguese gentleman of rank, who had lived in Spain from his youth, wrote two heroic poems in Spanish; the first on the discovery of “The New World,” which he published in 1701, and the other on the foundation of the kingdom of Portugal, which was printed in 1712; both appearing originally in an unfinished state, in consequence of the author’s impatience for fame, and the earlier of them still remaining so. But they have been long forgotten. Indeed, the first, which is full of extravagant allegories, soon found the fate which its author felt it deserved; and the other, though written with great deference for the rules of art, and more than once reprinted, has not at last enjoyed a better fortune.

The most amusing work of Moraes is a prose satire, printed in 1734, called “The Caves of Salamanca,” where, in certain grottos, which a popular tradition supposed to exist, sealed up by magic, within the banks of the Tórmes, he finds Amadis of Gaul, Oriana, and Celestina, and discourses with them and other fanciful personages on such subjects as his humor happens to suggest. Parts of it are very wild; parts of it are both amusing and wise, especially what is said about the Spanish language and academies, and about the “Telemachus” of Fénelon, then at the height of its fame. The whole shows few of the affectations of style that still deformed and degraded whatever there was of literature in the country, and which, though ridiculed in “The Caves of Salamanca,” are abundant in the other works of the same author.[288]

A long heroic poem, in two parts, in honor of the conquest of Peru by the Pizarros, was printed at Lima in 1732. It is founded principally on the prose History of the Inca Garcilasso, but is rarely so interesting as the gossip out of which it was constructed. The author, Pedro de Barnuevo, was an officer of the Spanish government in South America; and he gives in the Preface a long list of his works, published and unpublished. He was, undoubtedly, a man of learning, but not a poet. Like Moraes, he has arranged a mystical interpretation to his story; some parts of which, such as that where America comes before God, and prays to be conquered that she may be converted, are really allegorical; while, in general, the interpretation he gives is merely an after-thought, forced and unnatural. But his work is dull and in bad taste, and the octave stanzas in which it is written are managed with less skill than usual.[289]

Several religious poems belong to the same period. One by Pedro de Reynosa, printed in 1727, is on “Santa Casilda,” the converted daughter of a Moorish king of Toledo, who figures in the history of Spain during the eleventh century. Another, called “The Eloquence of Silence,” by Miguel de Zevallos, in 1738, is devoted to the honor of Saint John of Nepomuck, who, in the fourteenth century, was thrown into the Moldau, by order of a king of Bohemia, because the holy man would not reveal to the jealous monarch what the queen had intrusted to him under the seal of the confessional. Both are in the octave stanzas common to such poems, and are full of the faults of their times. Two mock-heroic poems, that naturally followed such attempts, are not better than the serious poems which provoked them.[290]

No account more favorable can be given of the lyric and miscellaneous poetry of the period, than of the narrative. The best that appeared, or at least what was thought to be the best at the time, is to be found in the poetical works of Eugenio Lobo, first printed in 1738. He was a soldier, who wrote verses only for his amusement; but his friends, who admired them much beyond their merit, printed portions of them, from time to time, until, at last, he himself thought it better to permit a religious congregation to publish the whole in a volume. They are very various in form, from fragments of two epics down to sonnets, and equally various in tone, from that appropriate to religious villancicos to that of the freest satire. But they are in very bad taste; and, if any thing like poetry appears in them, it is at rare intervals. Benegasi y Luxan, who, in 1743, published a volume of such light verses as were called for by the gay society in which he lived, wrote in a simpler style than Lobo, though, on the whole, he succeeded no better. But, except these two, and a few who imitated them, such as Alvarez de Toledo and Antonio Muñoz, we have nothing from the reign of the first of the Bourbons, that can claim notice in either of the forms of poetry we have thus far examined.[291]

More characteristic than either, however, were two collections of verse, written, as their titles profess, by the poets of most note at the time, in honor of the king and queen, who, in 1722, meeting the Host, as it was passing to a dying man, gave their own carriage to the priest who bore it, and then, according to the fashion of the country, followed reverently on foot. The names of Zamora the dramatist, of Diego de Torres, well known for his various accomplishments in science and letters, and of a few other poets, who are still remembered, occur in the first collection; but, in general, the obscurity of the authors who contributed to it is such as we might anticipate from reading their poetry; while, at the same time, the occasion of the whole shows how low was the culture which could attribute any value to such publications.[292]

A single bright spot in the poetical history of this period is only the more remarkable from the gloom that surrounds it. It is a satire attributed to Herbas, a person otherwise unknown, who disguised himself under the name of Jorge de Pitillas, and printed it in a literary journal. It was singularly successful for the time when it appeared; a circumstance the more to be noticed, as this success seems not to have inspired any similar attempt, or even to have encouraged the author to venture again before the public. The subject he chose was fortunate,—the bad writers of his age,—and in discussing it he has spoken out boldly and manfully; sometimes calling by name those whom he ridicules, and at other times indicating them so that they cannot be mistaken. His chief merits are the ease and simplicity of his style, the pungency and justness of his satire, and his agreeable imitations of the old masters, especially Persius and Juvenal, whom he further resembled in the commendable qualities of brevity and sententiousness.[293]

CHAPTER II.

Marquis of San Phelipe. — Influence of France on Spanish Literature. — Luzan. — His Predecessors and his Doctrines. — Low State of all Intellectual Culture in Spain. — Feyjoó.

One historical work of some consequence belongs entirely to the reign of Philip the Fifth,—the commentaries on the War of the Succession, and the history of the country from 1701 to 1725, by the Marquis of San Phelipe. Its author, a gentleman of Spanish descent, was born in Sardinia, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and early filled several offices of consequence under the government of Spain; but, when his native island was conquered by the Austrian party, he remained faithful to the French family, under whom he had thus far served, and made his escape to Madrid. There Philip the Fifth received him with great favor. He was created Marquis of San Phelipe,—a title chosen by himself in compliment to the king,—and, besides being much employed during the war in military affairs, he was sent afterwards as ambassador, first to Genoa, and then to the Hague, where he died, on the 1st of July, 1726.

In his youth the Marquis of San Phelipe had been educated with care, and therefore, during the active portions of his life, found an agreeable resource in intellectual occupations. He wrote a poem in octave stanzas on the story in the “Book of Tobit,” which was printed in 1709, and a history of “The Hebrew Monarchy,” taken from the Bible and Josephus, which did not appear till 1727, the year after his death. But his chief work was on the War of the Succession. The great interest he took in the Bourbon cause induced him to write it, and the position he had occupied in the affairs of his time gave him ample materials, quite beyond the reach of others less favored. He called it “Commentaries on the War of Spain, and History of its King, Philip the Fifth, the Courageous, from the Beginning of his Reign to the Year 1725”; but, although the compliment to his sovereign implied on the title-page is faithfully carried through the whole narrative, the book was not published without difficulty. The first volume, in folio, after being printed at Madrid, was suppressed by order of the king, out of regard to the honor of certain Spanish families that show to little advantage in the troublesome times it records; so that the earliest complete edition appeared at Genoa without date, but probably in 1729.

It is a spirited book, earnest in the cause of Castile against Catalonia; but still, notwithstanding its partisan character, it is, the most valuable of the contemporary accounts of the events to which it relates; and, notwithstanding it has a good deal of the lively air of the French memoirs, then so much in fashion, it is strongly marked with the old Spanish feelings of religion and loyalty,—feelings which this very book proves to have partly survived the general decay of the national character during the seventeenth century, and the convulsions that had shaken it at the opening of the eighteenth. In style it is not perfectly pure. Perhaps tokens of its author’s Sardinian education are seen in his choice of words; and certainly his pointed epigrammatic phrases and sentences often show, that he leaned to the rhetorical doctrines of Gracian, of whom, in his narrative poem, we see that he had once been a thorough disciple. But the Commentaries are, after all, a pleasant book, and abound in details, given with much modesty where their author is personally concerned, and with a picturesqueness which belongs only to the narrative of one who has been an actor in the scenes he describes.[294]

But, when we speak of Spanish literature in the reign of Philip the Fifth, we must never forget that the influence of France was gradually becoming felt in all the culture of the country. The mass of the people, it is true, either took no cognizance of the coming change, or resisted it; and the new government willingly avoided whatever might seem to offend or undervalue the old Castilian spirit. But Paris was then, as it had long been, the most refined capital in Europe; and the courts of Louis the Fourteenth and Louis the Fifteenth, necessarily in intimate relations with that of Philip the Fifth, could not fail to carry to Madrid a tone which was already spreading of itself into Germany and the extreme North.

French, in fact, soon began to be spoken in the elegant society of the capital and the court;—a thing before unknown in Spain, though French princesses had more than once sat on the Spanish throne. But now it was a compliment to the reigning monarch himself, and courtiers strove to indulge in it. Pitillas, under pretence of laughing at himself for following the fashion, ridicules the awkwardness of those who did so, when he says,

And French I talk; at least enough to know

That neither I nor other men more shrewd

Can comprehend my words, though still endued

With power to raise my heavy Spanish dough.

And Father Isla makes himself merry with the idea of a man who fancies he has married an Andalusian or Castilian wife, and finds out that she proves little better than a Frenchwoman after all.[295]

Translations from the French followed this state of things; and, at last, an attempt was made to introduce formally into Spain a poetical system founded on the critical doctrines prevalent in France. Its author, Ignacio de Luzan, a gentleman of Aragon, was born in 1702; and, while still a child, went to Italy and received a learned education in the schools of Milan, Palermo, and Naples; remaining abroad eighteen years, and enjoying the society of several of the most distinguished Italian poets of the time, among whom were Maffei and Metastasio. At last, in 1733, he returned to Spain, a well-bred scholar, according to the ideas of scholarship then prevalent in Italy, and with a singular facility in writing and speaking French and Italian.

His personal affairs and his native modesty kept him for some time in retirement on the estates of his family in Aragon. But, in the condition to which Spanish literature was then reduced, a man of so many accomplishments could hardly fail, in any position, to make his influence felt. That of Luzan soon became perceptible, because he loved to write, and wrote a great deal. In Italy and Sicily he had published, not only Italian poetry of his own, but French. In his native language and at home, he naturally went further. He translated from Anacreon, Sappho, and Musæus; he fitted dramas of Maffei, La Chaussée, and Metastasio to the Spanish stage; and he wrote a considerable number of short poems, and one original drama, “Virtue Honored,” which was privately represented in Saragossa.

Whatever he did was well received, but little of it was published at the time, and not much has appeared since. His “Odes on the Conquest of Oran” were particularly admired by his friends, and, though somewhat cold, may still be read with pleasure. These and other compositions made him known to the government at Madrid, and procured for him, in 1747, the appointment of Secretary to the Spanish embassy at Paris. There he remained three years, and, from the absence of the ambassador, acted, for a large part of the time, as the only representative of his country at the French court. On his return home, he continued to enjoy the confidence of the king; and when he died suddenly, in 1754, he was in great favor, and about to receive a place of more consequence than any he had yet held.[296]

The circumstances of the country, and those of his own education, position, and tastes, opened to Luzan, as a critic, a career of almost assured success. Every thing was so enfeebled and degraded, that it could offer no effectual resistance to what he might teach. The political importance of his country among the nations of Europe had been crushed. Its moral dignity was impaired. Its school of poetry had disappeared. The old system of things in Spain, as far as poetical culture was concerned, had passed away, no less than the Austrian dynasty, with which it had come in; and no attempt deserving the name had yet been made to determine what should be the intellectual character of the system that should follow it. A small effort, under such circumstances, would go far towards imparting a decisive movement; and, in literary taste and criticism, Luzan was certainly well fitted to give the guiding impulse. He had been educated with great thoroughness in the principles of the classical French school, and he possessed all the learning necessary to make known and support its peculiar doctrines. In 1728, he had offered to the Academy at Palermo, of which he was a member, six critical discussions on poetry, written in Italian; so that, when he returned to Spain, he had only to take these papers and work them into a formal treatise, suited to what he deemed the pressing wants of the country. He did so;—and the result was his “Art of Poetry,” the first edition of which appeared in 1737.

The attempt was by no means a new one. The rules and doctrines of the ancients, in matters of taste and rhetoric, had frequently before been announced and defended in Spain. Even Enzina, the oldest of those who regarded Castilian poetry as an art, was not ignorant of Quintilian and Cicero, though, in his short treatise, which shows more good sense and good taste than can be claimed from the age, he takes substantially the same view of his subject that the Marquis of Villena and the Provençals had taken before him,—considering all poetry chiefly with reference to its mechanical forms.[297] Rengifo, a teacher of grammar and rhetoric, whose “Spanish Art of Poetry” dates from 1592, confines himself almost entirely to the structure of the verse and the technical forms known both to the elder Castilian style of composition and to the Italian introduced by Boscan;—a curious discussion, in which the authority of the ancients is by no means forgotten, but one whose chief value consists in what it contains relating to the national school and its peculiar measures.[298]

Alonso Lopez, commonly called El Pinciano,—the same person who wrote the dull epic on Pelayo,—went further, and in 1596 published his “Ancient Poetical Philosophy,” in which, under the disguise of a friendly correspondence, he gives, with much learning and some acuteness, his own views of the opinions of the ancient masters on all the modes of poetical composition.[299] Cascales followed him, in 1616, with a series of dialogues, somewhat more familiar than the grave letters of Lopez, and resting more on the doctrines of Horace, whose epistle to the Pisos he afterwards published, with a well-written Latin commentary.[300] Salas, on the contrary, in his “New Idea of Ancient Tragedy,” which appeared in 1633, followed Aristotle rather than any other authority, and illustrated his discussion—which is the ablest in Spanish literature on the side it sustains—by a translation of the “Trojanæ” of Seneca, and an address of the theatre of all ages to its various audiences.[301]

All these works, however, and three or four others of less consequence, assumed, so far as they attempted to lay their foundations in philosophy, to be built on the rules laid down by Aristotle or the Roman rhetoricians.[302] In this they committed a serious error. Ancient rhetoric can be applied, in all its strictness, to no modern poetry, and least of all to the poetry of Spain. The school of Lope de Vega, therefore, passed over them like an irresistible flood, leaving behind it hardly a trace of the structures that had been raised to oppose its progress. But Luzan took a different ground. His more immediate predecessors had been Gracian, who defended the Gongorism of the preceding period, and Artiga, who, in a long treatise “On Spanish Eloquence,” written in the ballad measures, had seemed willing to encourage all the bad taste that prevailed in the beginning of the eighteenth century.[303]

Luzan took no notice of either of them. He followed the poetical system of Boileau and Lebossu, not, indeed, forgetting the masters of antiquity, but everywhere accommodating his doctrines to the demands of modern poetry, as Muratori had done just before him, and enforcing them by the example of the French school, then more admired than any other in Europe.[304] His object, as he afterwards explained it, was “to bring Spanish poetry under the control of those precepts which are observed among polished nations”; and his work is arranged with judgment to effect his purpose. The first book treats of the origin and nature of poetry, and the second, of the pleasure and advantage poetry brings with it. These two books constitute one half of the work, and having gone through in them what he thinks it necessary to say of the less important divisions of the art,—such as lyric poetry, satire, and pastorals,—he devotes the two remaining books entirely to a discussion of the drama and of epic poetry,—the forms in which Spanish genius had long been more ambitious of excellence than in any other. A strict method reigns through the whole; and the style, if less rich than is found in the older prose-writers, and less so than the genius of the language demands, is clear, simple, and effective. In explaining and defending his system of opinions, he shows judgment, and a temperate philosophy; and his abundant illustrations, drawn not only from the Castilian, the French, the Greek, and the Latin, but from the Italian and the Portuguese, are selected with excellent taste, and applied skilfully to strengthen his general argument and design. For its purpose, a better treatise could hardly have been produced.

The effect was immediate and great. It seemed to offer a remedy for the bad taste which had accompanied, and in no small degree hastened, the decline of the national literature from the time of Góngora. It was seized on, therefore, with eagerness, as the book that was wanted; and when to this we add that the literature of the age of Louis the Fourteenth, which it held up as the model literature of Christendom, was then regarded throughout Europe with almost unmingled admiration, we shall not be surprised that the “Poética” of Luzan exercised, from its first appearance, a controlling authority over opinion at the court of Spain, and over the few writers of reputation then to be found in the country.[305]

Something more, however, than a reformation in taste was wanted in Spain before a sufficient foundation could be laid for advancement in elegant literature. The commonest forms of truth had been so long excluded from the country, that the human mind there seemed to have pined away, and to have become dwarfed, for want of its appropriate nourishment. All the great sciences, both moral and physical, that had been for a hundred years advancing with an accelerated speed everywhere else throughout Europe, had been unable to force their way through the jealous guard which ecclesiastical and political despotism had joined to keep for ever watching the passes of the Pyrenees. From the days of the Comuneros and the Reformation of Luther, when religious sects began to discuss the authority of princes and the rights of the people, and when the punishment of opinion became the settled policy of the Spanish state, every thing in the shape of instruction that was not approved by the Church was treated as dangerous. At the universities, which from their foundation had been entirely ecclesiastical corporations, and were used constantly to build up ecclesiastical influences, no elegant learning was fostered, and very little tolerated, except such as furnished means to form scholastic Churchmen and faithful Catholics; the physical and exact sciences were carefully excluded and forbidden, except so far as they could be taught on the authority of Aristotle; and, as Jovellanos said boldly in a memorial on the subject to Charles the Fourth, “even medicine and jurisprudence would have been neglected, if the instincts of men had permitted them to forget the means by which life and property are protected.”[306]

The Spanish universities, in fact, still taught from the same books they had used in the time of Cardinal Ximenes, and by the same methods. The scholastic philosophy was still regarded as the highest form of merely intellectual culture. Diego de Torres, afterwards distinguished for his knowledge in the physical sciences,—a man born and educated at Salamanca in the first half of the century,—says, that, after he had been five years in one of the schools of the University there, it was by accident he learned the existence of the mathematical sciences.[307] And, fifty years later, Blanco White declares, that, like most of his countrymen, he should have completed his studies in theology at the University of Seville without so much as hearing of elegant literature, if he had not chanced to make the acquaintance of a person who introduced him to a partial knowledge of Spanish poetry.[308]

Thus far, therefore, the old system of things was triumphant, and the common forms of advancing knowledge were, to an extraordinary and almost incredible degree, kept out of the country. On the other hand, errors, follies, and absurdities sprang up and abounded, just as surely as darkness follows the exclusion of light. Few persons in Spain in the beginning of the eighteenth century were so well informed as not to believe in astrology, and fewer still doubted the disastrous influence of comets and eclipses. The system of Copernicus was not only discouraged, but forbidden to be taught, on the ground that it was contrary to Scripture. The philosophy of Bacon, with all the consequences that had followed it, was unknown. It was not, perhaps, true, that the healing waters of knowledge had been rolled backward to their fountain, but no spirit of power had descended to trouble them, and they had now been kept stagnant till life was no longer in them and life could no longer be supported by them. It seemed as if the faculties of thinking and reasoning, in the better sense of these words, were either about to be entirely lost in Spain, or to be partly preserved only in a few scattered individuals, who, by the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny that oppressed them, would be prevented from diffusing even the imperfect light which they themselves enjoyed.

But it could not be so. The human mind cannot be permanently imprisoned; and it is an obvious proof of this consoling fact, that the intellectual emancipation of Spain was begun by a man of no extraordinary gifts, and one whose position gave him no extraordinary advantages for the undertaking to which he devoted his life,—the quiet monk, Benito Feyjoó. He was born in 1676, the eldest son of respectable parents in the northwestern part of Spain, who, contrary to the opinions of their time, did not think the law of primogeniture required them to devote their first-born wholly to the duty of sustaining the honors of his family and enjoying the income of the estates he was to inherit. At the age of fourteen, his destination to the Church was determined upon; but he loved study of all kinds, and applied himself, not only to theology, but to the physical sciences and to medicine, so far as means were allowed him in the low state to which all intellectual culture was then sunk. As early as 1717, he established himself in a Benedictine convent at Oviedo, and lived there forty-seven years in as strict a retirement as his duties permitted, occupied only with his studies, and relying almost entirely on the press as the means of enlightening his countrymen.

His personal character and resources, in some respects, fitted him well for the great task he had undertaken. He was a sincere Catholic, and therefore felt no disposition to interfere even with abuses that were protected by the authority of his Church; a circumstance without which he would have been stopped at the very threshold of his enterprise. His mind was strong and patient of labor; and if, on the one hand, his researches were restrained by the embarrassments of his ecclesiastical position, he had, on the other, obtained, what few Spaniards then enjoyed, the means of knowing much of what had been done in Italy, in France, and even in England, for the advancement of science during the century preceding that in which he was educated. Above all, he was honest, and seriously devoted to his work. But, as he advanced, he was shocked to find how wide a gulf separated his own country from the rest of Europe. Truth, he saw, had, on many important subjects, been so completely excluded from Spain, that its very existence was hardly suspected; and that, while Cervantes and Lope de Vega, Calderon and Quevedo, had been rioting unrestrained in the world of imagination, the solemn world of reality,—the world of moral and physical truth,—had been as much closed against inquiry as if his country had been no part of civilized Europe.

At times he seems to have been anxious concerning the result of his labors; but, on the whole, his courage did not fail him. He was not, indeed, a man of genius. He was not a man to invent new systems of metaphysics or philosophy. But he was a learned man, with a cautious judgment, somewhat obscured, but not really impaired, by religious prejudices, from which he could not be expected to emancipate himself; he was a man who understood the real importance of the labors of Galileo, Bacon, and Newton, of Leibnitz, Pascal, and Gassendi; and, what was of vastly more consequence, he was determined that his own countrymen should no longer remain ignorant of the advancement already made by the rest of Christendom under the influence of master-spirits like these.

So far as the War of the Succession had served to rouse the national character from its lethargy, and to direct the thoughts of Spaniards to what had been done beyond the Pyrenees, it was favorable to his purpose. But in other respects, as we have seen, it had effected nothing for the national culture. Still, when, in 1726, Feyjoó printed a volume of essays connected with his main purpose, he was able to command public attention, and was encouraged to go on. He called it “The Critical Theatre”; and in its different dissertations,—as separate as the papers in “The Spectator,” but longer and on graver subjects,—he boldly attacked the dialectics and metaphysics then taught everywhere in Spain; maintained Bacon’s system of induction in the physical sciences; ridiculed the general opinion in relation to comets, eclipses, and the arts of magic and divination; laid down rules for historical faith, which would exclude most of the early traditions of the country; showed a greater deference for woman, and claimed for her a higher place in society, than the influence of the Spanish Church willingly permitted her to occupy; and, in all respects, came forth to his countrymen as one urging earnestly the pursuit of truth and the improvement of social life. Eight volumes of this stirring work were published before 1739, and then it stopped, without any apparent reason. But in 1742 Feyjoó began a similar series of discussions, under the name of “Learned and Inquiring Letters,” which he finished in 1760, with the fifth volume, thus closing up the long series of his truly philanthropical, as well as philosophical, labors.

Of course he was assailed. A work, called the “Antiteatro Crítico,” appeared early, and was soon followed by another, with nearly the same title, and by not a few scattered tracts and volumes, directed against different portions of what he had published. But he was quite able to defend himself. He wrote with clearness and good taste in an age when the prevailing style was obscure and affected; and, if he fell occasionally into Gallicisms, from relying much on French writers for his materials, his mistakes of this sort were rare; and, in general, he presented himself in a Castilian costume, that was respectable and attractive. Nor was he without wit, which his prudence taught him to use sparingly, and he had always the energy which belongs to good sense and practical wisdom; a union of qualities not often found anywhere, and certainly of most rare occurrence in cloisters like those in which Feyjoó passed his long life.

The attacks made on him, therefore, served chiefly to draw to his works the attention he solicited, and in the end advanced his cause, instead of retarding it. Even the Inquisition, to which he was more than once denounced, summoned him in vain before its tribunals.[309] His faith could not be questioned, and his cause was stronger than they were. Fifteen editions of his principal work, large as it was, were printed in half a century. The excitement it produced went on increasing as long as he lived; and when he died, in 1764, he could look back and see that he had imparted a movement to the human mind in Spain, which, though it was far from raising Spanish philosophy to a level with that of France and England, had yet given it a right direction, and done more for the intellectual life of his country than had been done for a century.[310]

CHAPTER III.

Intolerance, Credulity, and Bigotry. — Reign of Ferdinand the Sixth. — Signs of Improvement. — Literature. — Saladueña. — Moraleja. — Academy of Good Taste. — Velazquez. — Mayans. — Nasarre.

It can hardly be said, that, during the forty-six years of the reign of Philip the Fifth, the intolerance which had so long blighted the land relaxed its grasp. The progress of knowledge might, indeed, be gradually and silently accumulating means to resist it, but its power was still unbroken, and its activity as formidable as ever. Louis the Fourteenth, in whom an old age of bigotry naturally ended a life of selfish indulgence, had counselled his grandson to sustain the Inquisition, as one of the means for insuring tranquillity to the political government of the country; and this advice, not given without a knowledge of the Spanish character, was, on the whole, acted upon with success, if not with entire consistency.

At first, indeed, the personal dispositions of the king in relation to this mighty engine of state seemed somewhat unsettled. When it was proposed to him to celebrate an auto da fé, as a part of the pageant suitable to the coming in of a new dynasty, the young monarch, fresh from the elegance of the court of Versailles, refused to sanction its barbarities by his presence. Even later he encouraged Macanaz, a person high in office, to publish a work in defence of the crown against the overgrown pretensions of the Church, and at one time he went so far as to entertain a project for suspending the Holy Office, or suppressing it altogether.[311]

But these dispositions were transient. The Spanish priesthood early obtained control of the king’s mind. In one of the sieges of Barcelona, during the War of the Succession, he was induced to consult an image of the Virgin, and to avow afterwards, very solemnly, that she had given him a miraculous promise of the fidelity of the Catalonians,—a promise, it should be added, such as would be likely to insure its own fulfilment. The death of the queen, in 1714, which plunged him into a deep melancholy, further contributed to give power to the clergy who surrounded him; and, a year afterwards, when the Inquisition took firm ground against Macanaz and the royal prerogative, the king yielded, and Macanaz fled to France. And finally, when, in 1724, after a few months of abdication, Philip resumed the reins of government, which he should never have laid down, no small part of the increased energy, with which he fulfilled the duties of his high place, was inspired by the influence of the Church. As he grew older, he grew more bigoted; and in his last years, when the accumulated power placed in his hands by the destruction of the few remaining privileges of Aragon and Catalonia had made him a more absolute monarch than ever before sat on the Spanish throne, he seemed to rejoice, as much as any of his predecessors, in devoting the whole of his prerogatives to advance the interests of the priesthood.[312]

But, from first to last, there was no real relaxation in the intolerance of the Church. The fires of the Inquisition had burnt as if Philip the Second were on the throne. At least one auto da fé was celebrated annually in each of the seventeen tribunals into which the country was divided; so that the entire number of these atrocious popular exhibitions of bigotry during the reign of Philip the Fifth exceeded seven hundred and eighty. How many persons were burnt alive in them is not exactly known; but it is believed, that there were more than a thousand, and that at least twelve times that number were, in different ways, subjected to public punishments and disgrace. Judaism, which had penetrated anew into Spain, from the period of the conquest of Portugal, was the great crime, to be hunted down with all the ingenuity of persecution; and undoubtedly all that could be found of the Hebrew nation or faith was now for the second time extirpated, as nearly as it is possible to extirpate what conscience refuses to give up, and fear and hatred have so many ways to hide. But some men of letters—like Belando, who wrote a civil history of part of the reign of Philip the Fifth, which he dedicated to that monarch, and which bore on its pages all the regular permissions to be printed—were punished without the pretence of being guilty of heresy or unbelief; and many more disappeared from society, who, like Macanaz, were known to entertain political opinions offensive to the Church or the government, but of whom nothing else was known that could render them obnoxious to censure. On the whole, therefore, down to the death of Philip the Fifth, the old alliance between the government of the state and the power of the Church—an alliance supported by the general assent of the people—must still be assumed to have continued unbroken, and its authority must still be felt to have been sufficient to control all freedom of discussion, and effectually to check and silence such intellectual activity as it deemed dangerous.[313]

In the reign of Ferdinand the Sixth, which lasted thirteen years, and ended in 1759, there is evidently an improvement in this state of things. The seeds sown in the time of his father, if less cared for and cultivated than they should have been, were beginning to germinate and disencumber themselves from the cold and hard soil into which they had been cast. Foreign intercourse, especially that with France, brought in new ideas. Ferreras, the careful, but dull, annalist of his country’s history; Juan de Yriarte, the active head of the Royal Library; Bayer, his learned successor; Mayans, who had a passion for collecting and editing books; and, above all, the wise and modest Father Feyjoó, had not labored in vain, and still survived to see the results of their toils.

The Church itself began slowly to acknowledge the irresistible power of advancing intelligence, and the Inquisition, without acknowledging it, felt its influence. Not more than ten persons were burnt alive in the time of Ferdinand the Sixth, and these were obscure relapsed Jews;—men whose fate is as heavy a reproach to the Inquisition as if they had been more intelligent and distinguished, but the example of whose punishment did not strike a terror such as that of the dying Protestants and patriots of Aragon had once done. The persecutions of the Holy Office, in fact, not only grew less frequent and cruel, but became more than ever subservient to the political authority of the country, and were now chiefly exercised in relation to Freemasonry, which was known at this period in Spain for the first time, and caused much uneasiness to the government. But the policy of the state, during the reign of Ferdinand the Sixth, was in the main peaceful and healing. Efforts, not without success, were made to collect materials for a history of the country from the earliest times. Spaniards were sent abroad to be educated at the public expense, and foreigners were encouraged to establish themselves in Spain, and to diffuse the knowledge they had acquired in their own more favored homes. Every thing, in short, indicated a spirit of change, if it did not give proof of much absolute progress.[314]

The direction of the literature of the country, however, was the same it had taken from the beginning of the century. Slight, but unsatisfactory, attempts continued to be made to adhere to the forms of the elder time;—such attempts as are to be seen in a long narrative poem by the Count Saldueña on the subject of Pelayo, and two very poor imitations of the “Para Todos” of Montalvan, one of which was by Moraleja, and the other by Ortiz. But the amount of what was undertaken in this way was very small, and the impulse was constantly diminishing; for the French school enjoyed now all the favor that was given to any form of elegant literature.[315]

In this respect, a fashionable society, called The Academy of Good Taste, and connected with the court of Madrid, exercised some influence. It dates from 1749, and was intended, perhaps, to resemble those French coteries, which began in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth, at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and were long so important both in the literary and political history of France. The Countess of Lemos, at whose house it met, was its founder, and it gradually ranked among its members several of the more cultivated nobility and most of the leading men of letters, such as Luzan, Montiano, Blas Nasarre, and Velazquez, each of whom was known, either at that time or soon afterwards, by his published works.[316]

Except Luzan, of whom we have already spoken, Velazquez was the most distinguished of their number. He was descended from an old and noble family, in the South of Spain, and was born in 1722; but, from his position in society, he passed most of his life at court. There he became involved in the political troubles of the reign of Charles the Third, in consequence of which he suffered a long imprisonment from 1766 to 1772, and died of apoplexy the same year he was released.

Velazquez was a man of talent and industry, rather than a man of genius. He was a member, not only of the principal Spanish academies, but of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and wrote several works of learning relating to the literature and antiquities of his country. The only one of them now much valued was published in 1754, under the title of “Sources of Castilian Poetry,” of which it is, in fact, a history, coming down to his own times, or near to them. It is a slight work, confused in its arrangement, and too short to develope its subject satisfactorily; but it is written in a good style, and occasionally shows acuteness in its criticism of individual authors. Its chief fault is, that it is devoted to the French school, and is an attempt to carry out, by means of an historical discussion, the doctrines laid down nearly twenty years before by Luzan, in his theory of poetical composition.[317]

Mayans, a Valencian gentleman of learning, and another of those who had a considerable influence on Spanish literature at this period, followed a similar course in his “Retórica,” which appeared in 1757, and is founded rather on the philosophical opinions of the Roman rhetoricians than on the modification of those opinions by Boileau and his followers. It is a long and very cumbrous work, less fitted to the wants of the times than that of Luzan, and even more opposed to the old Castilian spirit, which submitted so unwillingly to rules of any sort. But it is a storehouse of curious extracts from authors belonging to the best period of Spanish literature, almost always selected with good judgment, if not always skilfully applied to the matter under discussion.[318]

To these works of Mayans, Velazquez, and Luzan should be added the Preface by Nasarre to the plays of Cervantes, in 1749, where an attempt is made to take the authority of his great name from the school that prevailed in his time, by showing that these unsuccessful efforts of the author of “Don Quixote” were only caricatures ridiculing Lope de Vega; not dramatic compositions intended for serious success in the extravagant career which Lope’s versatile genius had opened to his contemporaries. But this attempt was a failure, and was only one of a long series of efforts made to discountenance the old theatre, that must be noticed hereafter.[319]

CHAPTER IV.

Slow Progress of Culture. — Charles the Third and his Policy. — Isla. — His Friar Gerund. — His Cicero. — His Gil Blas. — Efforts to restore the Old School of Poetry. — Huerta. — Sedano. — Sanchez. — Sarmiento. — Efforts to introduce the French School. — Moratin the Elder and his Club. — Cadahalso, Yriarte, Samaniego, Arroyal, Montengon, Salas, Meras, Noroña.

The reign of Ferdinand the Sixth, which had been marked with little political energy during its continuance, was saddened, at its close, by the death of the monarch from grief at the loss of his queen. But it had not been without beneficial influences on the country. A wise economy had been introduced, for the first time since the discovery of America, into the administration of the state; the abused powers of the Church had been diminished by a concordat with the Pope; the progress of knowledge had been furthered; and Father Feyjoó, vigorous, though old, was still permitted, if not encouraged, to go on with his great task, and create a school that should rest on the broad principles of philosophy recognized in England and in France.

We must not, however, be misled by such general statements. Spain, notwithstanding half a century of advancement, was still deplorably behind the other countries of Western Europe in that intellectual cultivation, without which no nation in modern times can be prosperous, strong, or honored. “There is not,” says the Marquis of Enseñada, in a report made to the king, as minister of state,—“there is not a professorship of public law, of experimental science, of anatomy, or of botany, in the kingdom. We have no exact geographical maps of the country or its provinces, nor any body who can make them; so that we depend on the very imperfect maps we receive from France and Holland, and are shamefully ignorant of the true relations and distances of our own towns.”[320]

Under these circumstances, the accession of a prince like Charles the Third was eminently fortunate for the country. He was a man of energy and discernment, a Spaniard by birth and character, but one whom political connections had placed early on the throne of Naples, where, during a reign of twenty-four years, he had done much to restore the dignity of a decayed monarchy, and had learned much of the condition of Europe outside of the Pyrenees. When, therefore, the death of his half-brother called him to the throne of Spain, he came with a kind and degree of experience in affairs which fitted him well for his duties in the more important and more unfortunate kingdom, whose destinies he was to control for above a quarter of a century. Happily, he seems to have comprehended his position from the first, and to have understood that he was called to a great work of reform and regeneration, where his chief contest was to be with ecclesiastical abuses.

In some respects he was successful. His ministers, Roda, Florida-Blanca, Aranda, and Campomanes, were men of ability. By their suggestions and assistance, he abridged the Papal power so far, that no rescript or edict from Rome could have force in Spain without the expressed assent of the throne; he restrained the Inquisition from exercising any authority whatever, except in cases of obstinate heresy or apostasy; he forbade the condemnation of any book, till its author, or those interested in it, had had an opportunity to be heard in its defence; and, finally, deeming the Jesuits the most active opponents of the reforms he endeavoured to introduce, he, in one day, expelled their whole body from his dominions all over the world, breaking up their schools and confiscating their great revenues.[321] At the same time, he caused improved plans of study to be suggested; he made arrangements for popular education, such as were before unknown in Spain; and he raised the tone of instruction and the modes of teaching in the few higher institutions over which he could lawfully extend his control.

But many abuses were beyond his reach. When he appealed to the Universities, urging them to change their ancient habits, and teach the truths of the physical and exact sciences, Salamanca answered, in 1771, “Newton teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician, and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does.” And the other Universities showed little more of the spirit of advancement.

With the Inquisition his success was far from being complete. His authority was resisted, as far as resistance was possible; but the progress of intelligence made all bigotry every year less active and formidable; and, whether it be an honor to his reign, or whether it be a disgrace, it is to be recorded, that the last person who perished at the stake in Spain, by ecclesiastical authority, was an unfortunate woman, who was burnt at Seville for witchcraft in 1781.[322]

Under the influence of a spirit like that of Charles the Third, during a reign protracted to twenty-nine years, there was a new and considerable advancement in whatever tends to make life desirable, of which the country on all sides gave token. The population, which had fled or died away, seemed to spring up afresh in places that oppression had made desert, and having regained something under the first of the Bourbons, it now, under the third, recovered rapidly the numbers it had lost in the days of the House of Austria, by wars all over the world, by emigration, by the persecution of the Jews and the expulsion of the Moriscos, by bad legislation, and by the cruel spirit of religious intolerance. The revenues in the same period were increased threefold, without adding to the burdens of the people; and the country seemed to be brought from a state of absolute bankruptcy to one of comparative ease and prosperity. It was certain, therefore, that Spain was not falling to ruin, as it had been in the time of Charles the Second.[323]

But all intellectual cultivation is slow of growth, and all intellectual reform still slower. The life and health infused into the country were, no doubt, felt in every part of its physical system, reviving and renewing the powers that had been so long wasted away, and that at one period had seemed near to speedy dissolution. But it was obvious, that much time must still elapse before such healthful circulations could reach the national culture generally, and a still longer time before they could revive that elegant literature, which is the bright, consummate flower of all true civilization. Yet life was beginning to be seen. It was a dawn, if it was nothing more.

The first striking effect produced by this movement in the reigns of Ferdinand the Sixth and Charles the Third was one quite in sympathy with the spirit of the nation, then resisting the ecclesiastical abuses that had so long oppressed it. It was an attack on the style of popular preaching, which, originally corrupted by Paravicino, the distinguished follower of Góngora, had been constantly falling lower and lower, until, at last, it seemed to have reached the lowest point of degradation and vulgarity. The assailant was Father Isla, who was born in 1703 and died in 1781, at Bologna, where, being a Jesuit, he had retired, on the general expulsion of his Order from Spain.[324] His earliest published work is his “Triumph of Youth,” printed in 1727, to give the nation an account of a festival, celebrated that year during eleven days at Salamanca, in honor of two very youthful saints who had been Jesuits, and who had just been canonized by Benedict the Thirteenth; a gay tract, full of poems, farces, and accounts of the maskings and bull-fights to which the occasion had given rise, and coming as near as possible to open satire of the whole matter, but yet with great adroitness avoiding it.

In a work somewhat similar, he afterwards went further. It was a description of the proclamation made in 1746, at Pamplona, on the accession of Ferdinand the Sixth, which was attended with such extravagant and idle ceremonies, that, being required to give some account of them to the public, he could not refrain from indulging in his love of ridicule. But he did it with a satire so delicate and so crafty, that those who were its subjects failed at first to apprehend his real purpose. On the contrary, the Council of the proud capital of Navarre thanked him for the honor he had done them; the Bishop and Archbishop complimented him for it; several persons whom he had particularly noticed sent him presents; and, when the irony began to be suspected, it became a subject of public controversy, as in the case of De Foe’s “Shortest Way with the Dissenters,” whether the praise bestowed were in jest or in earnest;—Isla all the time defending himself with admirable ingenuity and wit, as if he were personally aggrieved at the unfavorable construction put upon his compliments. The discussion ended with his retreat or exile from Pamplona.[325]

He was, however, at this period of his life occupied with more serious duties, and soon found among them a higher mark for his wit. From the age of twenty-four he had been a successful preacher, and continued such until he was cruelly expelled from his own country. But he perceived how little worthy of its great subjects was the prevalent style of Spanish pulpit oratory,—how much it was degraded by bad taste, by tricks of composition, by conceits and puns, and even by a low buffoonery, in which the vulgar monks, sent to preach in the churches or in the public streets and squares, indulged themselves merely to win applause from equally vulgar audiences, and increase the contributions they solicited by arts so discreditable. It is said that at first Father Isla was swept away by the current of his times, which ran with extraordinary force, and that he wrote, in some degree, as others did. But he soon recognized his mistake, and his numerous published sermons, written between 1729 and 1754, are marked with a purity and directness of style which had long been unknown, and which, though wanting the richness and fervor of the exhortations of Luis de Leon and Luis de Granada, would not have dishonored the Spanish pulpit even in their days.[326]

Isla, however, was not satisfied with merely setting a good example. He determined to make a direct attack on the abuse itself. For this purpose, he wrote what he called “The History of the Famous Preacher, Friar Gerund”; a satirical romance, in which he describes the life of one of these popular orators, from his birth in an obscure village, through his education in a fashionable convent, and his adventures as a missionary about the country; the fiction ending abruptly with his preparation to deliver a course of sermons in a city that seems intended to represent Madrid. It is written throughout with great spirit; and not only are the national manners and character everywhere present, but, in the episodes and in the occasional sketches Isla has given of conventual and religious life in his time, there is an air of reality which leaves no doubt that the author drew freely on the resources of his personal experience. Its plan resembles slightly that of “Don Quixote,” but its execution reminds us oftener of Rabelais and his discursive and redundant reflections, though of Rabelais without his coarseness. It is serious, as becomes the Spanish character, and conceals under its gravity a spirit of sarcasm, which, in other countries, seems inconsistent with the idea of dignity, but which, in Spain, has been more than once happily united with it, and made more effective by the union.

The sketches of character and specimens of fashionable pulpit oratory given in the “Friar Gerund” are the best parts of it, and are agreeable illustrations for the literary history of the eighteenth century. Of the preacher whom the Friar took for his model we have the following carefully drawn portrait:—

“He was in the full perfection of his strength, just about three-and-thirty years old; tall, robust, and stout; his limbs well set and well proportioned; manly in gait, inclining to corpulence, with an erect carriage of his head, and the circle of hair round his tonsure studiously and exactly combed and shaven. His clerical dress was always neat, and fell round his person in ample and regular folds. His shoes fitted him with the greatest nicety, and, above all, his silken cap was adorned with much curious embroidery and a fanciful tassel,—the work of certain female devotees who were dying with admiration of their favorite preacher. In short, he had a very youthful, gallant look; and, adding to this a clear, rich voice, a slight fashionable lisp, a peculiar grace in telling a story, a talent at mimicry, an easy action, a taking manner, a high-sounding style, and not a little effrontery,—never forgetting to sprinkle jests, proverbs, and homely phrases along his discourses with a most agreeable aptness,—he won golden opinions in his public discourses, and carried every thing before him in the drawing-rooms he frequented.”[327]

The style of eloquence of this vulgar ecclesiastical fop, a specimen of which follows, is no less faithfully and characteristically given; and was taken, as Father Isla intimates was his custom, from a discourse that had really been preached.[328]

“It was well known, that he always began his sermons with some proverb, some jest, some pot-house witticism, or some strange fragment, which, taken from its proper connections and relations, would seem, at first blush, to be an inconsequence, a blasphemy, or an impiety; until, at last, having kept his audience waiting a moment in wonder, he finished the clause, or came out with an explanation which reduced the whole to a sort of miserable trifling. Thus, preaching one day on the mystery of the Trinity, he began his sermon by saying, ‘I deny that God exists a Unity in essence and a Trinity in person,’ and then stopped short for an instant. The hearers, of course, looked round on one another, scandalized, or, at least, wondering what would be the end of this heretical blasphemy. At length, when the preacher thought he had fairly caught them, he went on,—‘Thus says the Ebionite, the Marcionite, the Arian, the Manichean, the Socinian; but I prove it against them all from the Scriptures, the Councils, and the Fathers.’

“In another sermon, which was on the Incarnation, he began by crying out, ‘Your health, cavaliers!’ and, as the audience burst into a broad laugh at the free manner in which he had said it, he went on:—‘This is no joking matter, however; for it was for your health and for mine, and for that of all men, that Christ descended from heaven and became incarnate in the Virgin Mary. It is an article of faith, and I prove it thus: “Propter nos, homines, et nostram salutem descendit de cœlo et incarnatus est,”’—whereat they all remained in delighted astonishment, and such a murmur of applause ran round the church, that it wanted little of breaking out into open acclamation.”[329]

The first volume of the “Friar Gerund” was printed in 1758, without the knowledge of the author, and in twenty-four hours eight hundred copies of it were sold.[330] Such an extraordinary popularity, however, proved any thing but a benefit. The priests, and especially the preaching friars, assailed it from all quarters, as the most formidable attack yet made in Spain on their peculiar craft. The consequence was, that, though the king and the court expressed their delight in its satire, the license to publish it further was withdrawn, its author was summoned before the Inquisition, and his book was condemned in 1760. But Isla was too strong in public favor and in the respect of the Jesuits to be personally punished, and the Friar Gerund was too true and too widely scattered to be more than nominally suppressed.[331]

The second volume did not fare so well. After the censure passed on the first, it could not, of course, be licensed, and so remained for a long time in manuscript, a forbidden book. In fact, it first appeared in England, and in the English language, in 1772, through the agency of Baretti, to whom the original had been sent after its author had gone to Italy. But an edition of the whole work in Spanish soon appeared at Bayonne, followed by other editions in other places; and, though it was never licensed at home till 1813,—and then only to be forbidden anew the next year, on the return of Ferdinand the Seventh,—still few books have been better known, all over Spain, to the more intelligent classes of the Spanish people, than Friar Gerund, from the day of its first publication to the present time. What is of more consequence, it was, from the first, successful in its main purpose. The sobriquet of Friar Gerund was given at once to those who indulged in the vulgar style of preaching it was intended to discountenance, and any one who was admitted to deserve the appellation could no longer collect an audience, except such as was gathered from the populace of the public squares.[332]

In consequence of the alarm and anxieties that accompanied his sudden and violent expulsion from Spain, in 1767, Father Isla suffered on the road an attack of paralysis, which made his health uncertain for the remaining fourteen years of his life. Still, after his death, it was found that in these sad years he had not been idle. Among his papers was a poem in sixteen cantos, containing above twelve thousand lines in octave stanzas. It is called “Cicero,” and claims to be a life of the great Roman orator. But it is no such thing. It is a satire on the vices and follies of the author’s own time, begun in Spain, but chiefly written during his exile in Italy; and, though it contains occasional sketches of an imaginary life of Cicero’s mother, they are very inconsiderable, and, as for Cicero himself, the poem leaves him in his cradle, only eighteen months old.

One of the subjects of its satire is the whole class of Spanish narrative poems, of which, and especially of those devoted to the lives of the saints, it may be regarded as a sort of parody; but its main purpose is to ridicule the lives of modern fine ladies, and the modes of early education then prevalent. The whole, however, is mingled with inappropriate discussions about Italy, poetry, and a country life, and hardly less inappropriate satire of professed musicians, theatres, and poets who praise one another; in short, with whatever occurred to Father Isla’s wayward humor as he was writing. From internal evidence, it seems to have been read, from time to time as it was written, to a society of friends,—probably some of the numerous exiles who, like himself, had resorted to Bologna, and subsisted there on the miserable pittance the Spanish government promised them, but often failed to pay. For such a purpose it was not ill adapted by its clear, flowing style, and occasionally by its pungent satire; but its cumbrous length and endless digressions, often trifling both in matter and manner, render it quite unfit for publication. It was, however, offered to the public censor, and permission to print it was refused, though for reasons so frivolous, that it seems certain the real objection was not to the poem, but to the author.[333]

Others of Father Isla’s works were more fortunate. Six volumes of his sermons were collected and published, and six volumes of his letters, chiefly addressed to his sister and her husband, and written in a very affectionate and gay spirit. To these, at different times, were added a few minor works of a trifling character, and one or two that are religious.[334]

But what most surprised the world was his translation of “Gil Blas,” printed in 1787, claiming the work, on which the fame of Le Sage must always principally rest, as “stolen from the Spanish, and now,” in the words of Father Isla’s title-page, “restored to its country and native language by a Spaniard, who does not choose to have his nation trifled with.”[335] The external grounds for this extraordinary charge are slight. The first suggestion occurs in 1752, and is made by Voltaire, who, in his “Age of Louis the Fourteenth,” declares the Gil Blas “to be entirely taken from Espinel’s ‘Marcos de Obregon.’” This charge, as we have seen, is not true, and we have reason to believe that it was the result of personal ill-will on the part of Voltaire, who had himself been attacked in the Gil Blas, and who had, in some way or other, heard that Le Sage was indebted to Espinel. Afterwards, similar declarations are made in two or three books of no authority, and especially in a Biographical Dictionary printed at Amsterdam in 1771. But this is all.

Roused by such suggestions, however, Father Isla amused himself with making a translation of Gil Blas, adding to it a long and not successful continuation,[336] and declaring, without ceremony or proof, that it was the work of an Andalusian advocate, who gave his manuscript to Le Sage, when Le Sage was in Spain, either as a secretary of the French embassy, or as a friend of the French ambassador. But all this seems to be without any foundation, for the manuscript has never been produced; the advocate has never been named; and Le Sage was never in Spain. Still, the Spanish claim has not been abandoned. On the contrary, Llorente, in two ingenious and learned works on the subject, one in French and the other in Spanish, but both printed in 1822, reasserts it, with great earnestness, resting his proofs on internal evidence, and insisting that Gil Blas is certainly of Spanish origin, and that it is probably the work, not indeed of Father Isla’s Andalusian advocate, but of Solís, the historian;—a suggestion, for which Llorente produces no better reason, than that nobody else of the period to which he assigns the Gil Blas was able, in his judgment, to write such a romance.[337]

But there is a ready answer to all such merely conjectural criticism. Le Sage proceeded, as an author in romantic fiction, just as he had done when he wrote for the public theatre; and the results at which he arrived in both cases are remarkably similar. In the drama, he began with translations and imitations from the Spanish, such as his “Point of Honor,” which is taken from Roxas, and his “Don Cesar Ursino,” which is from Calderon; but afterwards, when he better understood his own talent and had acquired confidence from success, he came out with his “Turcaret,” a wholly original comedy, which, far surpassed all he had before attempted, and showed how much he had been wasting his strength as an imitator. Just so he did in romance-writing. He began with translating the “Don Quixote” of Avellaneda, and remodelling and enlarging the “Diablo Cojuelo” of Guevara. But the “Gil Blas,” the greatest of all his works of prose fiction, is the result of his confirmed strength; and, in its characteristic merits, is as much his own as the “Turcaret.”

On this point, the internal evidence is as decisive as the external. The frequent errors of this remarkable romance in Spanish geography and history show, that it could hardly have been the work of a Spaniard, and certainly not of a Spaniard so well informed as Solís; its private anecdotes of society in the time of Louis the Fourteenth and Louis the Fifteenth prove it to have been almost necessarily written by a Frenchman; while, at the same time, the freedom with which, as we go on, we find that every thing Spanish is plundered,—now a tale taken from “Marcos de Obregon,” now an intrigue or a story from a play of Mendoza, of Roxas, or of Figueroa,—points directly to Le Sage’s old habits, and to his practised skill in turning to account every thing that he deemed fitted to his purpose. The result is, that he has, by the force of his genius, produced a work of great brilliancy; in which, from his entire familiarity with Spanish literature and his unscrupulous use of it, he has preserved the national character with such fidelity, that a Spaniard is almost always unwilling to believe that the Gil Blas, especially now that he has it in the excellent version of Father Isla, could have been written by any body but one of his own countrymen.[338]

The chief talent of Father Isla was in satire, and the great service he performed for his country was that of driving from its respectable churches the low and vulgar style of preaching with which they had long been infested;—a work which the “Friar Gerund” achieved almost as completely as the “Don Quixote” did that of destroying the insane passion for books of chivalry which prevailed in the seventeenth century.

But, meanwhile, other attempts were making in other directions to revive the literature of the country; some by restoring a taste for the old national poetry, some by attempting to accommodate every thing to the French doctrines of the age of Louis the Fourteenth, and some by an ill-defined and often, perhaps, unconscious struggle to unite the two opinions, and to form a school whose character should be unlike that of either and yet in advance of both.

In the direction of the earlier national poetry little was done by original efforts, but something was attempted in other ways. Huerta, a fierce, but inconsistent, adversary of the French innovations, printed, in 1778, a volume of poems almost entirely in the old manner; but it was too much marked with the bad taste of the preceding century to enjoy even a temporary success, and its author, therefore, could boast of no follower of any note in a path which was constantly less and less trodden.[339]

On the other hand, more was done with effect to recall the memory of the old masters themselves. Lopez de Sedano, between 1768 and 1778, published his “Spanish Parnassus,” in nine volumes; a work which, though ill digested and not always showing good taste in its selections and criticisms, is still a rich mine of the poetry of the country in its best days, and contains important materials for the history of Spanish literature from the period of Boscan and Garcilasso.[340] Sanchez went further back, and in 1779 offered, to his countrymen, for the first time, the greater legendary treasures of their heroic ages, beginning with the noble old poem of the Cid, but unhappily leaving incomplete a task for which he had proved himself so well fitted by his learning and zeal, if not by his acuteness.[341] And finally, Sarmiento, a friend of Feyjoó, and one of his ablest public defenders, undertook an elaborate history of Spanish poetry, which contains important discussions relating to the period embraced by the inquiries of Sanchez, but which was broken off by the death of its venerable author in 1770, and remained unpublished till five years later.[342] These three works, though they excited too little attention at first, were still works of importance, and have served as the foundation for a better state of things since.

The doctrines of the French school, somewhat modified, perhaps, by the reproduction of the elder Spanish literature, but still substantially unchanged, found followers more numerous and active. During the reign of Charles the Third, Moratin the elder, a gentleman of an old Biscayan family, who was born in 1737, and died in 1780, succeeded, in a great degree, to the inheritance of Luzan’s opinions, and devoted himself to the reform of the taste of his countrymen. He was the friend of Montiano, who had himself endeavoured to introduce classical tragedy upon the Spanish stage, and who had, probably, some share in forming the literary character of the young poet. But the court, as usual, was an element in the movement. Moratin was received with flattering regard by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, the head of the great house of the Guzmans; by the Duke of Ossuna, long ambassador in France; by Aranda, the wise minister of state, who rarely forgot the cause of intellectual culture; and by the Infante Don Gabriel de Bourbon, the accomplished translator of Sallust; and each of these persons was thus able, through Moratin, to exercise an influence on the state of letters in Spain.

His first public effort of any consequence, except a drama that will be noticed hereafter, was his “Poeta,” which appeared in 1764. It consists entirely of his own shorter poems, and is among the many proofs how small was the interest then felt in literature, since, though the whole collection fills only a hundred and sixty pages, it was found expedient to publish it in ten successive numbers, in order to give it a fair opportunity to be circulated and read. This was followed, the next year, by the “Diana,” a short didactic poem, in six books, on the Chase, and in 1765 by a narrative poem on the Destruction of his Ships by Cortés, to which if we add a volume published by the piety of his son in 1821, and containing, with a modest and beautiful life of their author, a collection of poems, most of which had not before been published, we shall have all of the elder Moratin that can now interest us.

Its value is not great; and yet portions of it are not likely to be soon forgotten. The “Epic Canto,” as he calls it, on the bold adventure of Cortés in burning his ships, is the noblest poem of its class produced in Spain during the eighteenth century, and gives more pleasure than almost any of the historical epics that preceded it in such large numbers. Some of his shorter pieces, like his ballads on Moorish subjects, and an ode to a champion in the bull-fights,—which Moratin constantly frequented, and of which he printed a pleasant historical sketch,—are full of spirit. All he wrote, indeed, is marked by purity and exactness of language and harmony of versification; showing that, though he possessed to an extraordinary degree the power of an improvisator, he composed carefully and finished with patience. But his chief success was as a public teacher; laboring faithfully in the chair of the Imperial College, where he took the place of his friend Ayala, and rebuking the bad taste of his times by the strength of his own modest example.[343]

Moratin was an amiable man, and gathered the men of letters of the Spanish capital in a friendly circle about him. They met in one of the better class of taverns,—the Fonda de San Sebastian,—where they maintained a club-room that was always open and ready to receive them. Ayala, the tragic writer; Cerdá, the literary antiquarian; Rios, who wrote the analysis of “Don Quixote” prefixed to the magnificent edition of the Academy; Ortega, the botanist and scholar; Pizzi, the Professor of Arabic Literature; Cadahalso, the poet and essayist; Muñoz, the historian of the New World; Yriarte, the fabulist; Conti, the Italian translator of a collection of Spanish poetry; Signorelli, the author of the general history of theatres; and others,—were members of this pleasant association, and resorted continually to its cheerful saloon.

How truly Spanish was the tone of their intercourse may be gathered from the fact, that they had but one law to govern all their proceedings, and that was, never to speak on any subject except the Theatre, Bull-fights, Love, and Poetry. But in every thing they undertook they were much in earnest. They read their works to each other for mutual, friendly criticism, and discussed freely whatever was written at the time, and whatever they thought would tend to revive the decayed spirit of their country. They read, too, and examined the literature of other nations; and, if their tendencies were more towards the school of Boileau and the great masters of Italy, than might have been anticipated from the spirit of their association, it should be borne in mind, that two of their most active members were Italian men of letters, that the court had recently come from Naples, and that the spirit of the times much favored all that was French, and especially the French theatre.[344]

Among the most interesting members of this agreeable society was José de Cadahalso, a gentleman descended from one of the old mountain families of the North of Spain, but born at Cadiz in 1741. His education was conducted from early youth in Paris, but before he was twenty years old he had visited Italy, Germany, England, and Portugal, and obtained a knowledge of the language and literature of each, and especially of England, sufficient to emancipate him from many national prejudices, and make him more useful to the cause of letters at home than he would otherwise have been.

On his return to Spain he took the military dress of Santiago, and entered the army. There he rose rapidly, till he reached the rank of colonel; but, in all the different places to which his own choice or the service of his regiment carried him,—Saragossa, Madrid, Alcalá de Henares, and Salamanca,—he sought occasion to continue his earlier pursuits, and succeeded in connecting himself with the leading spirits of the time, such as Moratin, Iglesias, Yriarte, the wise Jovellanos, and the young and promising Melendez Valdes. But his career, though successful, was short. He perished at the siege of Gibraltar, struck by a bomb, on the 27th of February, 1782, and the governor of the besieged fortress joined in the general sorrow over the grave of an honorable enemy who had been distinguished alike in letters and in arms.[345]

In 1772 Cadahalso published his “Eruditos á la Violeta,” or Fashionable Learning, to which, from its considerable success, he added a supplement the same year. The original work is a pleasant satire on the superficial scholarship of his times, and is thrown into the form of directions how to teach the whole circle of human knowledge in a course of lectures, that shall just fill the seven days of the week; the supplement giving a few further illustrations of the same subject, and some of the results of such teachings on the unhappy scholars who had been its victims. This, with a volume of poems printed the next year, and containing several careful translations from the ancients, a few satirical trifles after the manner of Quevedo, and a good many Anacreontic songs and tales in the manner of Villegas, are all of his works that were published during his lifetime.

But after his death there was found among his papers a collection of letters, supposed to have been written by a person connected with an embassy to Spain from Morocco, and addressed to his friends at home. They belong to the large family of works of fiction, begun by Marana’s “Turkish Spy,” and are commonly set down as imitations of Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters,” but, in fact, show a nearer relationship with Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World.” The whole work, however, is more occupied with literary discussions and temporary satire, than either of those just referred to; and therefore, though it is written in a pure and pleasant style, with wit and good sense, it has been far from obtaining a place, like theirs, in the general regard of the world. Still, like the rest of his posthumous works, which comprise a few more compositions in prose satire and a few more poems, the best of which are in the old short verses always so popular in Spain, “The Moorish Letters” of Cadahalso have been often reprinted, and probably are not destined to be forgotten.[346]

Another member of the society founded by Moratin, and one of the most prominent of them, was Thomas de Yriarte, a gentleman who was born on the island of Teneriffe in 1750, but received that part of his education which decided the course of his life at Madrid, under the auspices of his uncle, Don Juan de Yriarte, the learned head of the King’s Library. The young man was known as a dramatic writer, and as a translator of French plays for the royal theatres, from the age of eighteen; and from the age of twenty-one, when he printed some good Latin verses on the birth of the Infante, afterwards Charles the Fourth, he was distinguished at court for his accomplishments both in ancient and modern literature. Soon after this period he received a place under the government; and, though his employments, both in the Office of Foreign Affairs and in that of the Department of War, were of an intellectual nature, still his time was much occupied by them, and his opportunities for the indulgence of a poetical taste were much diminished. Besides this, he had rivalries and troubles with Sedano, Melendez, Forner, and some others of his contemporaries, and was summoned before the Inquisition in 1786, as one tainted with the new French philosophy. The result of all these trials and interruptions was, that when, after his death, which occurred in 1791, his works were collected and published, more than half of the eight small volumes through which they were spread was found to consist of translations and personal controversies; the translations made with skill, and the quarrels managed with spirit and wit, but neither of them important enough to be now remembered.

His original poetry is better. It is marked by purity of style, regularity, and elegance, but not by power or elevation. The best of what is merely miscellaneous is to be found in eleven Epistles, with one of which, addressed to his friend Cadahalso, he dedicates to him a translation of Horace’s “Art of Poetry.” But in two departments, where his natural taste led him to labor with a decided preference, he apparently made more effort than in any other, and had greater success.

The first of these was didactic poetry. His poem “On Music,”—a subject which he chose from his considerable proficiency in that art,—appeared in 1780, and was soon favorably known, not only at home, but in Italy and France. It consists of five books, in which he discusses with philosophical precision the elements of music; musical expression of different kinds, but especially martial and sacred; the music of the theatre; that of society; and that of man in solitude. The poem is written in the free, national silva, irregular, but flowing, and no want of skill is shown in its management. But, as a whole, it has too little richness and vigor to give life to the cold forms of instruction, in which it is throughout rigorously cast.[347]

The other department, in which Yriarte was more successful, was that of fables. Here he, in some degree, struck out a new path; for he not only invented all his fictions, which no other fabulist in modern times had done, but restricted them all, in their moral purpose, to the correction of the faults and follies of men of learning,—an application which had not before been thought of. Their whole number, including a few that are posthumous, is nearly eighty, above sixty of which appeared in 1782. They are written with great care, in no less than forty different measures, and show an extraordinary degree of ingenuity in adapting the attributes and instincts of animals to the instruction, not of mankind at large, as had always been done before, but to that of a separate and small class, between whom and the inferior creation the resemblance is rarely obvious. The task was certainly a difficult one. Perhaps, on this account, they are too narrative in their structure, and fail somewhat in the genial spirit which distinguishes Æsop and La Fontaine, the greatest masters of Apologue and Fable. But their influence was so much needed in the age of bad writing when they appeared, and they are besides so graceful in their versification, that they were not only received with great favor at first, but have never lost it since. Their author’s reputation, in fact, now rests on them almost exclusively.[348]

Yriarte, however, had a rival, who shared these honors with him, and in some respects obtained them even earlier. This was Samaniego, a Biscayan gentleman of rank and fortune, who was born in 1745, and died in 1801; having devoted his life, in the most disinterested manner, to the welfare of his native province. He was one of the earliest and most active members of the first of those societies sometimes called “Friends of the Country,” and sometimes “Societies for Public Improvement,” which began in the reign of Charles the Third, and soon spread through Spain, exercising an important influence on the education and public economy of the kingdom, and laboring to raise the arts of life from the degraded condition into which they had fallen during the latter period of the dominion of the House of Austria.

The Biscayan Society, founded in 1765, devoted itself much to the education of the people; and, to favor this great cause, Samaniego undertook to write fables suited to the capacity of the children taught in the Society’s seminary. How early he began to prepare them is not known; but in the first portion, published in 1781, and therefore one year before those of Yriarte appeared, he speaks of Yriarte as his model, and leaves no doubt that the fables of that poet had been seen by him. The second part of Samaniego’s collection was published in 1784, when that of his rival had been admired by the public long enough to change the relations of the two authors, and bring up a quarrel of pamphlets between them, little creditable to either. Both parts, taken together, contain a hundred and fifty-seven fables, the last nineteen of which and a few others are original, while the rest are taken, partly from Æsop, Phædrus, and the Oriental fabulists, but chiefly from La Fontaine and Gay. They succeeded at once. The children learned them by heart, and the teachers of the children found in them subjects for pleasant reading and reflection. They were, no doubt, less carefully written than the fables of Yriarte, less original and less exactly adapted to their purpose; but they were more free-hearted, more natural, and adapted to a larger class of readers; in short, there is a more easy poetical genius about them, and therefore, even if they cannot claim a higher merit than those of Yriarte, they have taken a stronger hold on the national regard.[349]

The best of them are the shortest and simplest, like the following, entitled “The Scrupulous Cats,” which was well suited to the time when it appeared, and can hardly be amiss at any other.

Two cats, old Tortoise-back and Kate,

Once from its spit a capon ate.

It was a giddy thing, be sure,

And one they could not hide or cure.

They licked themselves, however, clean,

And then sat down behind a screen,

And talked it over. Quite precise,

They took each other’s best advice,

Whether to eat the spit or no?

“And did they eat it?” “Sir, I trow,

They did not! They were honest things,

Who had a conscience, and knew how it stings.”[350]

Samaniego was not the only person who, without belonging to the society of Moratin and his friends, coöperated with them in their efforts to encourage a better tone in the literature of their country. Among those who, from a similar impulse, but with less success, took the same direction, were Arroyal, who, in 1784, published a collection of poems, which he calls Odes, but which are oftener epigrams; and Montengon, a Jesuit, who, after the expulsion of his Order from Spain, began, in 1786, with his “Eusebio,” a work on education, partly in imitation of the “Télémaque,” and then went on rapidly with a prose epic called “Rodrigo,” a volume of Odes, and several other works, written with little talent, and showing by their inaccuracies of style that their author had been an exile in Italy till his mother tongue had become strange to him. To these should be added Gregorio de Salas, a quiet ecclesiastic, who wrote odes, fables, and other trifles, that were several times printed after 1790; Ignacio de Meras, a courtier of the worst days of Charles the Fourth, whose worthless dramas and miscellaneous poetry appeared in 1792; and the Count de Noroña, a soldier and diplomatist, who, besides a dull epic on the separation of the Arabian empire in Spain from that of the East, printed, in 1799-1800, two volumes of verse so light, that they procured for him sometimes the title of the Spanish Dorat. But all these writers only showed a constantly increasing disposition to fall more and more into the feebler French school of the eighteenth century; and while none of them had the talent of the few active spirits collected at the Fonda de San Sebastian in Madrid, none certainly exercised the sort of influence they did on the poetry of their time.[351]

CHAPTER V.

School of Salamanca. — Melendez Valdes. — Gonzalez. — Forner. — Iglesias. — Cienfuegos. — Jovellanos. — Muñoz. — Escoiquiz. — Moratin the Younger. — Quintana.

Both the parties, into which Spanish literature was divided about the middle of the eighteenth century, erred by running into those extremes of opinion which are rarely right in any thing and never in matters of taste. Moratin was wrong in speaking with contempt of such poetry as the fine old ballad of “Calaynos,” and Huerta was equally wrong when he said, that the “Athalie” of Racine might be fit to be represented by boarding-school misses, but was fit for nothing else. It was natural, therefore, that another party, or school, should be formed, which should endeavour to avoid the excesses of both its predecessors, and unite their merits; one that should not be insensible to the power and richness of the old writers of the time of the Philips, and yet, escaping from their extravagances and bad taste, should mould itself in some degree according to the severe state of literary opinion then prevailing on the Continent. Such a school in fact appeared at Salamanca in the latter part of the reign of Charles the Third and the beginning of that of Charles the Fourth.

Its proper founder was Melendez Valdes, who was born in Estremadura, in 1754, and at the age of eighteen was sent to study at Salamanca, where, if he did not pass the larger remaining portion of his life, he passed at least its happiest and best years.[352] As a versifier, he began early, and in a bad school; writing at first in the manner of Lobo, who was still read and admired. But he soon fell indirectly under the influence of Moratin and his friends at Madrid, who were in every way opposed to the bad taste of their time. By a fortunate accident Cadahalso was carried fresh from the meetings of the club of the Fonda de San Sebastian to Salamanca. His discerning kindness detected at once the talent its possessor had not yet discovered. He took Melendez into his house; showed him the merit of the elder literature of his country, as well as that of the other cultivated nations of Europe; and devoted himself so earnestly and so affectionately to the development of his young friend’s genius, that it was afterwards said, with some truth, that, among all the works of Cadahalso, the best was Melendez. At the same period, too, Melendez became acquainted with Iglesias and Gonzalez; and through the latter was placed in relations of friendship with the commanding mind of Jovellanos, who exercised from the first moment of their intercourse an obvious and salutary influence over him.

His earliest public success was in 1780, when he obtained a prize offered by the Spanish Academy for the best eclogue. Yriarte, who was some years older, and had already become favorably known at court and in the capital, was his most formidable rival. But the poem Yriarte offered, which is on the pleasures of a country life, as set forth by one disgusted with that of the city, is somewhat in the formal, declamatory style of the less fortunate portions of the older Spanish pastorals; while that of Melendez is fresh from the fields, and as one of the judges said, in the discussion that followed its reading, seems absolutely to smell of their wild flowers. It was, indeed, in sweetness and gentleness, if not in originality and strength, such a return to the tones of Garcilasso, as had not been heard in Spain for above a century. Yriarte received the second honors of the contest, but was not satisfied with such a decision, and made known his feelings by an ill-judged attack upon the successful eclogue of his rival. The popular favor, however, fully sustained the Academy, and its vote on that occasion has never been reversed.

The next year Melendez came to Madrid. He was received with great kindness by Jovellanos and his friends; and obtained new honors at the Academy of San Fernando, by an ode “On the Glory of the Arts,” which that Academy had been founded to foster. But his preference was still for his old poetical haunts on the banks of the Tórmes, and, having obtained the chair of Professor of the Humanities or Philology, at Salamanca, he gladly returned thither, and devoted himself to its unostentatious duties.

In 1784, at the suggestion of Jovellanos, he became a competitor for the prize offered by the city of Madrid for a comedy, and wrote “The Marriage of Camacho.” But his talent was not dramatic; and therefore, though he obtained the votes of the judges, he did not, to the great disappointment of his patron, obtain those of the public when his drama was brought to the test of a free representation.

This failure, however, he retrieved a year afterwards, by publishing a small volume of poetry, chiefly lyric and pastoral. Most of it is in the short, national verse, and nearly all is marked with a great gentleness of spirit and a truly poetical sensibility. The Anacreontics which it contains remind us of Villegas, but have more philosophy and more tenderness than his. The ballads, for which his talent was no less happily fitted, if they lack the abrupt vigor of the elder times, have a grace, a lightness, and a finish which belong to that more advanced period of a nation’s poetry, when the popular lyre has ceased to give forth new and original tones. But everywhere this little volume shows traces of an active fancy and powers of nice observation, which break forth in rich and faithful descriptions of natural scenery, and in glimpses of what is tenderest and truest in the human heart. It was, in fact, a volume of poetry more worthy of the country than any that had been produced in Spain since the disappearance of the great lights of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and it was received, in consequence, with general enthusiasm, not only for its own sake, but as the long-looked-for dawn of a brighter day.

But his success was not altogether wisely used by Melendez. He had been in the habit for some years of spending his vacations at court, where he was a favorite with many persons of distinction; and, now that he had risen so much in general consideration, he employed his influence in soliciting for himself a place under the government,—an old weakness in the Castilian character, which, however it might be disguised by the loyalty of public service, has broken down the independence and happiness of multitudes of high-minded men who have yielded to it. Melendez, unfortunately, succeeded in his aspirations. In 1789 he was made a judge in one of the courts of Saragossa, and in 1791 was raised to a dignified position in the Chancery of Valladolid; thus involving himself more or less with the political government of the country, to which, during the administration of the Prince of the Peace, every officer it employed was in some way made subservient.

He did not, however, neglect his favorite pursuits. He fulfilled with faithfulness and ability the duties of his place; but poetry was still his first love, for whose service he rescued many hours of secret and fond devotion. In 1797, he published a new edition of his works, more than doubling their original amount, and dedicating them to the reigning favorite,—the master of all fortunes in the country he governed so ill. It was successful. The new portions wore a somewhat graver and more philosophical air than his earliest lyrics and pastorals had done, and showed more the influence of studies in English and German literature. But this was not, on the whole, an improvement. He felt, undoubtedly, that the tremendous revolutions he witnessed on all sides, in the fall of kingdoms and the convulsions of society, prescribed to poetry subjects more lofty and solemn than he had been wont to seek; and he made an effort to rise to a requisition so severe. Once or twice he intimates a consciousness that he was not equal to the undertaking; and yet his “Ode to Winter,” as a season for reflection, which shows how much he had read Thomson, his “Ode to Truth,” and his “Ode on the Presence of God in his Works,” are not unworthy of their lofty subjects. Several of his philosophical epistles, too, are good; especially those to Jovellanos and the Prince of the Peace. But, in his longer canzones, where he sometimes imitates Petrarch, and in his epic canto on “The Fall of Lucifer,” which was evidently suggested by Milton, he failed.[353] On the whole, therefore, the attempt to introduce a new tone into Spanish poetry,—a tone of moral and, in some degree, of metaphysical discussion, to which he was urged by Jovellanos,—if it did not diminish the permanent fame of Melendez, did not add to it. The concise energy and philosophical precision such a tone requires are, in fact, foreign from the fervent genius of the old Castilian verse, and hardly consistent with that submissive religious faith which is one of the most important elements of the national character. In this direction, therefore, Melendez has been little followed.

As, however, we have intimated, this new publication of his works was successful. The Prince of the Peace was flattered by his share in it; and Melendez received, in consequence, an important employment about the court, which brought him to Madrid, where, his friend Jovellanos having been made a minister of state, his position became, for a moment, most agreeable and happy; while, for the future, a long vista of preferment and fame seemed opening before him. But the very next year, the virtuous and wise man on whom rested so many hopes, besides those of Melendez, fell from power; and, according to the old custom of the Spanish monarchy, his political friends were involved in his ruin. At first, Melendez was exiled to Medina del Campo, and afterwards to Zamora; but in 1802 the rigor of his persecution was mitigated, and he was permitted to return to Salamanca, the scene of his earliest and happiest fame.

But he returned there a saddened and disappointed man; little inclined to poetical studies, and with little of the tranquillity of spirit necessary to pursue them successfully. At the end of six weary years came the revolution of Aranjuez, and he was again free. He hastened at once to Madrid. But he was too late. The king was already at Bayonne, and the French power was in the ascendant in the capital. Unfortunately, he attached himself to the new government of Joseph, and shared first its disasters and then its fate. Once he was absolutely led out to be shot by the excited population of Oviedo, where he had been sent as a commissioner. On another occasion, his house at Salamanca was sacked, and his precious library destroyed, by the very French party whose interests he served. At last, when all was lost, he fled. But, before he crossed the frontier, he knelt down and kissed the last spot of earth that he could call Spain; and then, as the Bidassoa received his tears, cried out in anguish that “he should never again tread the soil of his country.” His prophecy was fulfilled as sadly as it was made. Four miserable years he lived as an exile in the South of France, and then died at Montpellier, on the 24th of May, 1817, in poverty and suffering.[354]

To solace the heavy hours of his exile, he occupied himself with preparing the materials for a final publication of all he had written, embracing many new poems and many changes in those already published;—all which appeared in 1820, and have constituted the basis of the different editions of his works that have been given to the world since. Like the previous collections, it shows, not, indeed, a poetical genius of the first order, nor one with very flexible or very various attributes, but certainly a genius of great sweetness; always winning and graceful whenever the subject implies tenderness, and sometimes vigorous and imposing when it demands power. What Melendez wrote with success was a great advance upon the poetry of Montiano, and even upon that of the elder Moratin. It was more Castilian, and more full of feeling, than theirs. In style, too, it was more free, and it has done much to settle the poetical manner that has since prevailed. Gallicisms occasionally occur that might have been avoided, though many of them have now become a part of the recognized resources of Spanish poetry; but more often Melendez has revived old and neglected words and phrases, which have thus been restored to their place in the language, and have increased its wealth. As a general remark, his verse is not only flowing, but well suited to his subjects; and whether we consider what he has done himself, or what influence he has exercised over others,—especially when we read the little volume he published in the freshness of his youth, while he was still unknown at court and still careless of the convulsions that were at last to overwhelm him,—there can be no doubt that he was better fitted to form a new school and give a guiding impulse to the national poetry than any writer that had appeared in Spain for above a century.[355]

Older than Melendez, but somewhat influenced by him and by Cadahalso, who had an effect on the taste of both, was the excellent Father Diego Gonzalez, a modest Augustinian monk, a part of whose life was spent in active religious duties at Salamanca, where he became intimate with the poets of the new school; a part of it at Seville, where he was the friend of Jovellanos; and a part of it at Madrid, where he died in 1794, about sixty years old, sincerely lamented by some of the noblest spirits of his time. As a poet, Gonzalez adhered more to the old Castilian school than Melendez did. But his model was the best. He imitated Luis de Leon; and did it with such happy success, that, in some of his odes and in some of his versions of the Psalms, we might almost think we were listening to the solemn tones of his great master. His most popular poems, however, were light and gay; such as his verses “To a Perfidious Bat,” which have been very often printed; his verses “To a Lady who had burned her Finger”; and similar trifles, in which he showed that all the secret idiomatic graces of the old Castilian were at his command. A didactic poem on “The Four Ages of Man,” which he began, and in the first book of which there is a fine dedication of the whole to Jovellanos, was never finished. Indeed, his poetry, though much known and circulated during his lifetime, was an object of little interest or care to himself, and was collected with difficulty after his death, and published by his faithful friend, Juan Fernandez.[356]

Other poets, among whom were Forner, Iglesias, and Cienfuegos, were more under the influence of the Salamanca school than Gonzalez was. Forner, like Melendez, was born in Estremadura, and the two young friends were educated together at Salamanca. In his critical opinions,—partly shown in a satire “On the Faults introduced into Castilian Poetry,” which gained an academic prize in 1782, and partly in his controversies with Huerta on the subject of the Spanish theatre,—he inclines much to the stricter French school. But his poetry is more free than such opinions would imply; and in his latter years, when he lived as a magistrate at Seville, and studied Herrera, Rioja, and the other old masters who were natives of its soil, he attached himself yet more decidedly to the national manner, and approached nearer to the serene severity of Gonzalez. Unhappily, his life, besides being much crowded with business, was short. He died in 1797, only forty-one years old; and, except his prose works, the best of which is a well-written defence of the literary reputation of his country against the injurious imputations of foreigners, he left little to give the world proof of the merits he possessed, or the influence he really exercised.[357]

Iglesias, though his life was even shorter, was, in some respects, more fortunate. He was born in Salamanca, and educated there under the most favorable auspices. Offended at the low state of morals in his native city, he indulged himself at first in the free forms of Castilian satire;—ballads, apologues, epigrams, and especially the half-simple, half-malicious letrillas, in which he was eminently successful. But, when he became a parish priest, he thought such lightness unbecoming the example he wished to set before his flock. He devoted himself, therefore, to serious composition; wrote serious ballads, eclogues, and silvas in the manner of Melendez; and published a didactic poem on theology;—all a result of a most worthy purpose, and all written in the pure style which is one of his prominent merits; but none of it giving token of the instinctive promptings of his genius, and none of it fitted to increase his final reputation. After his death, which occurred in 1791, when he was thirty-eight years old, this became at once apparent. His works were collected and published in two volumes; the first being filled with the graver class of his poems, and the second with the satirical. The decision of the public was instant. His lighter poems were too free, but they were better imitations of Quevedo than had yet been seen, and became favorites at once; the serious poems were dull, and soon ceased to be read.[358]

Cienfuegos, who was ten years younger than Melendez, was more strictly his follower than either of the two poets last mentioned. But he had fallen on evil times, and his career, which promised to be brilliant, was cut short by the troubles they brought upon him. In 1798 he published his poetical works; the miscellaneous portion consisting of Anacreontics, odes, ballads, epistles, and elegies, which, while they give proof of much real talent and passion, show sometimes an excess of sentimental feeling, and sometimes a desire to imitate the metaphysical and philosophical manner supposed to be demanded by the spirit of the age. Both were defects, to which he had been partly led by the example of his friend and master, Melendez, at whose feet he long sat in the cloisters of Salamanca; and both were affectations, from which a character so manly and decided as that of Cienfuegos might in time have emancipated itself.

But the favor with which this publication was received procured for him the place of editor of the government gazette, at Madrid; and, when the French occupied that capital, in 1808, he was found firm at his post, determined to do his duty to his country. Murat, who had the command of the invading forces, endeavoured, at first, to seduce or drive him into submission, but, failing in this, condemned him to death; a sentence which would infallibly have been carried into execution,—since Cienfuegos refused to make the smallest concession to the French authority,—if his friends had not interfered and procured a commutation of it into transportation to France. The change, however, was hardly a mercy. The sufferings of the journey, in which he travelled as a prisoner; the grief he felt at leaving his friends in hands which had hardly spared his own life; and the anticipation of a long exile in the midst of his own and his country’s enemies, were too much for his patriotic and generous spirit; and he died in July, 1809, at the age of forty-five, only a few days after he had reached the spot assigned for his punishment.[359]

One other person, already referred to with honor, must now be particularly noticed, who, if his life belonged to the state, still wrote poetry with success, and exercised over the school formed at Salamanca an influence which belongs to the history of letters. This person was Jovellanos, the wise magistrate and minister of Charles the Fourth, and the victim of his master’s unworthy weakness and of the still more unworthy vengeance of the reigning favorite. He was born in Gijon, in Asturias, in 1744, and from his earliest youth seems to have shown that love of intellectual cultivation, and that moral elevation of character, which distinguished the whole of the more mature portions of his life.

The position of his family was such, that all the means for a careful education to be found in Spain were open to him; and, as he was originally destined to the higher dignities of the Church, he was sent to study philosophy and the canon and civil law at Oviedo, Avila, Alcalá de Henares, and Madrid. But, just as he was about to take the irrevocable step that would have bound him to an ecclesiastical life, some of his friends, and especially the distinguished statesman, Juan Arias de Saavedra, who was like a second father to him, interfered, and changed his destination. The consequence of this intervention was, that, in 1767, he was sent as a judicial magistrate to Seville, where, by his humane spirit, and his disinterested and earnest devotion to the duties of a difficult and disagreeable place, he made himself generally loved and respected; while, at the same time, by his study of political economy and the foundations of all just legislation, he prepared the way for his own future eminence in the affairs of his country.

But the spirit of Jovellanos was of kindred with whatever was noble and elevated. At Seville, he early discovered the merit of Diego Gonzalez, and through him was led into a correspondence with Melendez. One result of this is still to be found in the poetical Epistle of Jovellanos to his friends in Salamanca, exhorting them to rise to the highest strains of poetry. Another was the establishment of a connection between himself and Melendez, which, while it was important to the young school at Salamanca, led Jovellanos to give more of his leisure to the elegant literature he had always loved, but from which the serious business of life had, for some time, much separated him.

In consequence of an accidental conversation, he wrote at Seville his prose comedy of “The Honored Criminal,” which had a remarkable success; and in 1769 he prepared a poetical tragedy on the subject of Pelayo, which was not printed till several years afterward. Shorter poetical compositions, sometimes grave and sometimes gay, served to divert his mind in the intervals of severe labor; and when, after a period of ten years, he left the brilliant capital of Andalusia, his poetical Epistle to his friends there shows how deeply he felt that he was leaving behind him the happiest period of his life.

This was in 1778, when he was called to Madrid, as one of the principal magistrates of the capital and court; a place that brought him again into the administration of criminal justice, from which, during his stay at Seville, he had been relieved. His duties were distasteful to his nature, but he fulfilled them faithfully, and consoled himself by intercourse with such men as Campomanes and Cabarrus, who devoted themselves, as he did, to the great task of raising the condition of their country. Of course, he had now little leisure for poetry. But, being accidentally employed on affairs of consequence at the Paular convent, he was so struck by the solemn scenery in which it stood, and the tranquil lives of its recluse inhabitants, that his poetical spirit broke out afresh in an address to Mariano Colon, one of the family of the great discoverer of America, and afterwards its head;—a beautiful epistle, full of the severe genius of the place that inspired it, and of its author’s longing for a repose his spirit was so well fitted to enjoy.

In 1780, he was raised to a place in the Council of Orders, where he had more leisure, and was able to give his time to higher objects;—some of the results of which are to be seen in his report to the government on the military and religious Orders of Knighthood; in his system of instruction for the Imperial College of Calatrava; in his Discourse on the Study of History, as a necessary part of the wise study of jurisprudence; and in other similar labors, which proved him to be incontestably an excellent prose-writer, and the first philosophical statesman in the kingdom.

At the same time, however, he amused himself with elegant literature, and took great solace in collecting around him the poets and men of letters whom he loved. In 1785, he wrote several burlesque ballads on the quarrels of Huerta, Yriarte, and Forner about the theatre; and the next year published two satires in blank verse and in the style of Juvenal, rebuking the corrupted manners of his times. All of them were received with favor; and the ballads, though not printed till long afterwards, were perhaps only the more effective because they were circulated in manuscript, and so became matters of great interest.

Persons who held the tone implied in such a course of public labors might be sustained at the court of Charles the Third, but were little likely to enjoy regard at that of his son. In 1790, two years after Charles the Fourth ascended the throne, Count Cabarrus not only fell from power, but was thrown into prison; and Jovellanos, who did not hesitate to defend him, was sent to Asturias in a sort of honorable exile, that lasted eight years. But he served his fellow-men as gladly in disgrace as he did in power. Hardly, therefore, had he reached his native city, when he set about urging forward all public improvements that he deemed useful; laboring in whatever related to the mines and roads, and especially in whatever related to the general education of the people, with the most disinterested zeal. During this period of enforced retirement, he made many reports to the government on different subjects connected with the general welfare, and wrote his excellent tract “On Public Amusements,” afterwards published by the Academy of History, and his elaborate treatise on Legislation in Relation to Agriculture, which extended his reputation throughout Europe, and has been the basis of all that has been wisely undertaken in Spain on that difficult subject ever since.

In 1797, Count Cabarrus was restored to the favor of Godoy, Prince of the Peace, and Jovellanos was recalled to court and made Minister of Justice. But his season of favor was short. Godoy still hated the elevated views of the man to whom he had reluctantly delegated a small portion of his own power; and in 1798, under the pretext of devoting him to his old employments, he was again exiled to the mountains of Asturias, which, like so many other distinguished men that have sprung from them, he loved with a fond prejudice that he did not care to disguise.

This exile, however, did not satisfy the jealous favorite. In 1801, partly through a movement of the Inquisition, and still more through a political intrigue, Jovellanos was suddenly seized in his bed, and, in violation both of law and decency, carried, like a common felon, across the whole kingdom, and embarked at Barcelona for Majorca. There he was confined, first in a convent and afterwards in a fortress, with such rigor, that all communication with his friends and with the affairs of the world was nearly cut off; and there he remained, for seven long years, exposed to privations and trials that undermined his health and broke down his constitution. At last came the abdication and fall of his weak and ungrateful sovereign. “And then,” says Southey, in his “History of the Peninsular War,” “next to the punishment of Godoy, what all men most desired was the release of Jovellanos.” He was, therefore, at once brought back, and everywhere welcomed with the affection and respect, that he had earned by so many services and through such unjust sufferings.

His infirmities, however, were very oppressive to him. He declined, therefore, all public employments, even among his friends who adhered to the cause of their country; he indignantly rejected the proposal of the French invaders to become one of the principal ministers of state in the new order of things they hoped to establish; and then slowly and sadly retired, to seek among his native mountains the repose he needed. But he was not permitted long to remain there. As soon as the first central Junta was organized at Seville, he was sent to it to represent his native province, and stood forth in its councils the leading spirit in the darkest and most disheartening moments of the great contest of his country for existence. On the dissolution of that body,—which was dissolved at his earnest desire,—he again returned home, broken down with years, labors, and sufferings; trusting that he should now be permitted to end his days in peace.

But no man with influence such as his could then have peace in Spain. Like others, in those days of revolution, he was assailed by the fierce spirit of faction, and in 1811 replied triumphantly to his accusers in a defence of what may be considered his administration of Spain in the two preceding years, written with the purity, elegance, and gravity of manner which marked his best days, and with a moral fervor even more eloquent than he had shown before. As he approaches the conclusion of this personal vindication, admirable alike for its modesty and its power, he says, with a sorrow he does not strive to conceal:—

“And now that I am about to lay down my pen, I feel a secret trouble at my heart, which will disturb the rest of my life. It has been impossible for me to defend myself without offending others; and I fear, that, for the first time, I shall begin to feel I have enemies whom I have myself made such. But, wounded in that honor which is my life, and asking in vain for an authority that would protect and rescue me, I have been compelled to attempt my own defence by my own pen; the only weapon left in my hands. To use it with absolute moderation, when I was driven on by an anguish so sharp, was a hard task. One more dexterous in such contests might, by the cunning of his art, have oftener inflicted wounds, and received them more rarely; but, feeling myself to be fiercely attacked, and coming to the contest unskilled and alone, I threw my unprotected person into it, and, in order to free myself from the more imminent danger before me, took no thought of any that might follow. Indeed, such was the impulse by which I was driven on, that I lost sight, at once, of considerations which, at another time, might well have prevailed with me. Veneration for public authority, respect for official station, the private affections of friendship and personal attachment,—every thing within me yielded to the love of justice, and to the earnest desire that truth and innocence should triumph over calumny and falsehood. And can I, after this, be pardoned, either by those who have assailed me, or by those who have refused me their protection? Surely it matters little. The time has come in which all disapprobation, except that of honorable men and the friends of justice, must be indifferent to me. For now that I find myself fast approaching the final limits of human life, now that I am alone and in poverty, without a home or a shelter, what remains for me to ask, beyond the glory and liberty of my country, but leave to die with the good name I have labored to earn in its service?”

At the moment when this eloquent defence of himself was published, the French, by a sudden incursion, took military possession of his native city; and he hurried for safety on board a slight vessel, hardly knowing whither his course should be directed. After suffering severely from a storm of eight days’ continuance in the Bay of Biscay, he disembarked to obtain relief at the obscure port of Vega. But his strength was gone; and on the 27th of November, within forty-eight hours from the time of his landing, he died. He was nearly sixty-eight years old.

Jovellanos left behind him few men, in any country, of a greater elevation of mind, and fewer still of a purer or more irreproachable character. Whatever he did was for Spain and his fellow-men, to whose service he devoted himself alike in the days of his happiness and of his suffering;—in his influence over the school of Salamanca, when he exhorted them to raise the tone of their poetry, no less than in the war-cry of his odes to cheer on his countrymen in their conflict for national independence;—in his patient counsels for the cause of education, when he was an exile in Asturias or a prisoner in Majorca, no less than in the exercise of his authority as a magistrate and a minister of state to Charles the Fourth, and as the head of the government at Seville. He lived, indeed, in times of great trouble, but his virtues were equal to the trials that were laid upon them, and when he died, in a wretched and comfortless inn, he had the consolation of believing that Spain would be successful in the struggle he had assisted to lead on, and of knowing, in his own heart, what the Cortes afterwards declared to the world, that he was “a man well deserving of his country.”[360]

One historical work of the reign of Charles the Fourth should not be forgotten. It was by Juan Bautista Muñoz, and was undertaken by the especial order of Charles the Third, who demanded of its author a complete history of the Spanish discoveries and conquests in America. This was in 1779. But Muñoz encountered many obstacles. The members of the Academy of History were not well disposed towards an undertaking, which seemed to fall within their own jurisdiction; and when he had finished the first portion, they subjected it, by the royal permission, to an examination, which, from its length even more than its rigor, threatened to prevent the work from being printed at all. This, however, was stopped by a summary order from the king; and the first volume, bringing down the history to the year 1500, was published in 1793. But no other followed it; and since the death of Muñoz, which occurred in 1799, when he was fifty-four years old, no attempt has been made to resume the work. It therefore remains just as he then left it,—a fragment, written, indeed, in a philosophical spirit and with a severe simplicity of style, but of small value, because it embraces so inconsiderable a portion of the subject to which it is devoted.[361]

An epic attempt of the same period is of still less importance. It is “Mexico Conquered,” an heroic poem in twenty-six books, and about twenty-five thousand lines, beginning with the demand of Cortés, at Tlascala, to be received in person by Montezuma, and ending with the fall of Mexico and the capture of Guatimozin. Its author was Escoiquiz, who, as the tutor of Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, and his adviser in the troubles of the Escurial, of Aranjuez, and of Bayonne, showed an honorable character, which at different times brought upon him the vengeance of the Prince of the Peace, of Charles the Fourth, of Bonaparte, and, at last, of Ferdinand himself.

The literary ambition of Escoiquiz, however, is of both an earlier and later date than this unhappy interval, when his upright spirit was so tried by political persecutions. In 1797 he published a translation of Young’s “Night Thoughts”; and, while he was a prisoner in France, from 1808 to 1814, he prepared a Spanish version of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which showed, at least, with what pleasure he gave himself up to letters, and what a solace they were to him under his privations and misfortunes. His “Mexico” was first printed in 1798. It is cast more carefully into an epic form than were the heroic poems that abounded in the days of the Philips, and is sustained more than they generally were by such supernatural Christian machinery as was first used with effect by Tasso. But, like them, it is not without cold, allegorical personages, who play parts too important in the action; while, on the other hand, its faithful history of events, its unity of design, and its regular proportions, are no sufficient compensation for its ill-constructed stanzas and its chronicling dulness. The history of Solís is much more interesting and poetical than this wearisome romantic epic, which owes to that historian nearly all its facts.[362]

Leandro Moratin, son of the poet who flourished in the reign of Charles the Third, was, in some respects, a greater sufferer from the convulsions of the times in which he lived than Escoiquiz, and in all respects more distinguished in the world of letters. His principal success, however, was in the drama, where he must hereafter be more fully noticed. Here, therefore, it is only necessary to say, that, in his lyric and miscellaneous poetry, he was a follower of his father, modifying his manner so far under the influence of Conti, an Italian man of letters who lived long at Madrid, that, in his shorter pieces, the Italian terseness is quite apparent and gives a finish to the surface, though the material beneath may be quite Castilian. This is particularly true of his odes and sonnets, and of a striking Chorus of the Spirits of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament awaiting the Appearance of the Saviour; a solemn composition, breathing the fervent spirit of Luis of Granada. His ballads, on the other hand, though finished with great care, are more national in their tone than any thing else he has left us. But the poems that please us best and interest us most are those that show his own temper and affections; such as his “Epistle to Jovellanos,” and his “Ode on the Death of Conde,” the historian.

In none of his personal relations, however, does Moratin appear to such obvious advantage as in the difficult ones in which he stood at different times with the Prince of the Peace. To that profligate minister he owed, not only all his means for training himself as a dramatic writer, but the position in society which insured his success; and when the day of retribution came, and his patron fell, as he deserved to fall, Moratin, though he suffered in every way from his changed condition and the persecution of the enemies of the Prince, refused to join their cry against the crushed favorite. He said truly and nobly, “I was neither his friend, nor his counsellor, nor his servant; but all that I was I owed to him; and, although we have now-a-days a convenient philosophy, which teaches men to receive benefits without gratitude, and, when circumstances alter, to pay with reproach favors asked and received, I value my own good opinion too much to seek such infamy.” A person who acted under the impulse of principles so generous was not made for success in the reign of Ferdinand the Seventh. It is not remarkable, therefore, that nearly all the latter part of Moratin’s life was spent, either voluntarily or involuntarily, in foreign countries, and that he died at last in want and exile.[363]

The last of these miscellaneous writers of the reign of Charles the Fourth that should be mentioned is Quintana, who, like Jovellanos, Moratin, and Escoiquiz, suffered much from the violence of the revolutions through which they all passed, but, unlike them, has survived to enjoy a serene and honored old age. He was born at Madrid in 1772, but received the most effective part of his literary education at Salamanca, where he acknowledged the influence of Melendez and Cienfuegos. His profession was the law; and he began the serious business of life in the capital, kindly encouraged by Jovellanos. But he preferred letters; and a small society of intellectual friends, that assembled every evening at his house, soon stimulated his preference into a passion. In 1801 he ventured to print his tragedy of “The Duke of Viseo,” imitated from “The Castle Spectre” of Lewis; and in 1805 he produced on the stage his “Pelayo,” intended to rouse his countrymen to a resistance of foreign oppression, by a striking example from their own history. The former had little success; but the latter, though written according to the doctrines of the severer school, struck a chord to which the hearts of the audience gladly answered.

Meantime, between these two attempts, he published, in 1802, a small volume of poetry, almost entirely lyric, taking the same noble and patriotic tone he had taken in his successful tragedy, and showing a spirit more deep and earnest than was to be found in any of the school of Salamanca, to which, in his address to Melendez, he leaves no doubt that he now gladly associated himself. In a similar spirit he published, in 1807, a single volume containing five lives of distinguished Spaniards, who, like the Cid and the Great Captain, had successfully fought the enemies of their country at home and abroad; and almost simultaneously he prepared three volumes of selections from the best Spanish poets, accompanying them with critical notices, which, if more slight than might have been claimed from one like Quintana, and less generous in the praise they bestow than they ought to have been, are yet national in their temper, and better than any thing else of their kind in the language. Both show a too willing imitation of the French manner, and contain occasional Gallicisms; but both are written in a clear and graceful prose, both were well received, as they deserved to be, and both were, long afterwards, further continued by their accomplished author; the first by the addition of four important lives, and the last by extracts from the miscellaneous poets of a later period, and from several of the best of the elder epics.

But though the taste of Quintana was somewhat inclined to the literature of France, he was a Spaniard at heart, and a faithful one. Even before the French invasion he had so carefully kept himself aloof from the influence and patronage of the Prince of the Peace, that, though belonging almost strictly to the same school of poetry with Moratin, these two distinguished men lived at Madrid, imperfectly known to each other, and in fact as heads of different literary societies, whose intercourse was not so kindly as it should have been. But the moment the revolution of 1808 broke out, Quintana sprang to the place for which he felt himself called. He published at once his effective “Odes to Emancipated Spain”; he threw out, in the journals of the time, whatever he thought would excite his countrymen to resist their invaders; he became the secretary to the Cortes and to the regency; and he wrote many of the powerful proclamations, manifestos, and addresses that distinguished so honorably the career of the different administrations to which he belonged during their struggle for national independence. In short, he devoted all that he possessed of talent or fortune to the service of his country in the day of its sorest trial.

But he was ill rewarded for it. Much of what had been done by the representatives of the Spanish people in the name of Ferdinand the Seventh, during his forced detention in France, was unwelcome to that shortsighted monarch; and, as soon as he returned to Madrid, in 1814, a persecution was begun of those who had most contributed to the adoption of these unwelcome measures. Among the more obnoxious persons was Quintana, who was thrown into prison in the fortress of Pamplona, and remained there six miserable years, interdicted from the use of writing-materials, and cut off from all intercourse with his friends. The changes of 1820 unexpectedly released him, and raised him for a time to greater distinction than he had enjoyed before. But, three years later, another political revolution took from him all his employments and influence; and he retired to Estremadura, where he occupied himself with letters till new changes and the death of the king restored him to the old public offices he had filled so well, adding to his former honors that of a peer of the realm. But from the days when he first attracted public regard by his noble Odes on the Ocean, and on the beneficent expedition sent to America with the great charity of Vaccination, letters have been his chosen employment;—his pride, when he cheered on his countrymen to resist oppression; his consolation in prison and in exile; his crown of honor in an honored old age.[364]

CHAPTER VI.

Theatre in the Eighteenth Century. — Translations from the French. — Original Plays. — Operas. — National Theatre. — Castro. — Añorbe. — Imitations of the French Theatre. — Montiano. — Moratin the Elder. — Cadahalso. — Sebastian y Latre. — Trigueros. — Yriarte. — Ayala. — Huerta. — Jovellanos. — Autos forbidden. — Public Theatres and their Parties. — Ramon de la Cruz, Sedano, Cortés, Cienfuegos, and others. — Huerta’s Collection of Old Plays. — Discussions. — Valladares. — Zavala. — Comella. — Moratin the Younger. — State of the Drama at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century.

The most considerable literary movement of the eighteenth century in Spain, and the one that best marks the poetical character of the entire period, is that relating to the theatre, which it was earnestly attempted to subject to the rules then prevailing on the French stage. Intimations of such a design are found in the reign of Philip the Fifth, as soon as the War of the Succession was closed. The Marquis of San Juan began, in 1713, with a translation of the “Cinna” of Corneille;—the first tragedy under the French rules that appeared in the Spanish language, and one that was probably selected for this distinction, because it was well suited to the condition of a country, that had so much reason to seek the clemency of its prince in favor of many distinguished persons, whom the civil war had led to resist his power.[365] But it was never represented, and was soon forgotten. Cañizares, the last of the elder race of dramatists that showed any of the old spirit, yielded more than once to the new school of taste, and regarded his “Sacrifice of Iphigenia”—an absurd play, for which the “Iphigénie” of Racine is very little responsible—as an imitation of the French school.[366] Neither these, however, nor plays of an irregular and often vulgar cast, like those written by Diego de Torres, professor of natural philosophy, by Lobo, the military officer, and by Salvo, the tailor, obtained any permanent favor, or were able to constitute foundations on which to reconstruct a national drama. As far as any thing was heard on the public stage worthy of its pretensions, it was the works of the old masters and of their poor imitators, Cañizares and Zamora.[367]

The Spanish theatre, in fact, was now at its lowest ebb, and wholly in the hands of the populace, from whom it had always received much of its character, and who had been its faithful friends in the days of its trial and adversity. Nor could its present condition fairly claim a higher patronage. All Spanish plays acted for public amusement in Madrid were still represented, as they had been in the seventeenth century, in open court-yards, with galleries or corridors that surrounded them. To these court-yards there was no covering except in case of a shower, and then the awning stretched over them was so imperfect, that, if the rain continued, and those of the spectators who were always compelled to stand during the performance were too numerous to find shelter under the projecting seats of the corridors, the exhibition was broken up for the day, and the crowd driven home. There was hardly any pretence of scenery; the performance always took place in the day-time; and the price of admission, which was collected in money at the door, did not exceed a few farthings for each spectator.

The second queen of Philip the Fifth, Isabel Farnese, who had been used to the enjoyment of all kinds of scenic exhibitions in Italy, was not satisfied with this state of things. Finding an ill-arranged theatre, in which an Italian company had sometimes acted, she caused material additions to be made to it, and required regular operas to be brought out for her amusement from 1737. The change was an important one. The two old court-yards took the alarm. First one and then the other began to erect a new and more commodious structure for theatrical entertainments; and as they had been each other’s rivals for a century and a half in the awkwardness of their arrangements, no less than in their claims for public patronage, so now they became rivals in a struggle for improvement. Under such impulses, the new “Theatre of the Cross” was finished in 1743, and that of “The Prince,” in 1745.

But, in most respects, there was little change. True to the traditions of their origin, the new structures were still called court-yards, and their boxes, rooms;—the cazuela, or “stewpan,” was still kept for the women, who sat there veiled like nuns, but acting very little as if they were such;—the Alcalde de Corte, or Judge of the Municipality, still appeared in the proscenium, with his two clerks behind him, to keep the peace or bear record to its breach;—Semiramis wore a hooped petticoat and high-heeled shoes, and Julius Cæsar was assassinated in a curled periwig and velvet court coat, with a feathered Spanish hat under his arm. The old spirit, therefore, it is plain, prevailed, however great might be the improvements made in the external arrangements and architecture of the theatres.

One cause of this was the exclusive favor shown to the opera by two Italian queens, and encouraged by the new political relations of Spain with Italy. The theatre of the Buen Retiro, where Calderon had so often triumphed, was fitted up with unwonted magnificence, by Farinelli, the first singer of his time, who had been brought to the Spanish court in order to soothe the melancholy of Philip the Fifth, and who still continued there, enjoying the especial protection of Ferdinand the Sixth. Luzan translated Metastasio’s “Clemency of Titus” for the opening of the new and gorgeous saloon in 1747; and both then, and for a considerable period afterwards, all that the resources of the court could command in poetry and music, or in the show and pomp of theatrical machinery, was lavished on an exotic, which at last failed to take healthy root in the soil of the country.[368]

Meantime the national theatre, neglected by the court and the higher classes, was given up to such writers as Francisco de Castro, an actor who sought the applause of the lowest part of his audience by vulgar farces,[369] and Thomas de Añorbe, the chaplain of a nunnery at Madrid, whose “Paolino,” announced as “in the French fashion,” provoked the just ridicule of Luzan, and whose “Virtue conquers Fate,” if no less extravagant, has the merit of being an attack on astrology and a belief in planetary influences.[370] With the success of such absurdities, however, scholars and men of taste seem to have grown desperate. Montiano, a Biscayan gentleman, high in office at court, and a member of the Academy of Good Taste, that met at the house of the Countess of Lemos, led the way in an attack upon them. He began, in 1750, with a tragedy on the Roman story of Virginia, which he intended should be a model for Spanish serious theatrical compositions, and which he accompanied with a long and well-written discourse, showing how far Bermudez, Cueva, Virues, and a few more of the old masters, had been willing to be governed by doctrines similar to his own.

The tragedy itself, which comes like a sort of appendix to this discussion, and seems intended to illustrate and enforce its opinions, is entirely after the model of the French school, and especially after Racine;—all the rules, as they are technically called, including that which requires the stage never to be left vacant during the continuance of an act, being rigorously observed. But the “Virginia” is no less cold than it is regular, and, like the waters of the Alps, its very purity betrays the frozen region from which it has descended. Its versification, which consists of unrhymed iambics, is as far as possible removed from the warmth and freedom of the ballad style in the elder drama; its whole movement is languid; and the catastrophe, from the fear of shocking the spectator by a show of blood on the stage, turns out, in fact, to be no catastrophe at all. No effort, it is believed, was made to bring it upon the stage, and as a printed poem it produced no real effect on public opinion.

Montiano, however, was not discouraged. In 1753 he published another critical discourse and another tragedy, with similar merits and similar defects, taking for its subject the reign and death of Athaulpho, the Goth, as they are found in the old chronicles. But this, too, like its predecessor, was never acted, and both are now rarely read.[371]

The earliest comedy within the French rules that appeared in the Spanish language was the translation of Lachaussée’s “Préjugé à la Mode” by Luzan, which was printed in 1751.[372] It judiciously preserved the national asonantes, or imperfect rhymes, throughout, and was followed, in 1754, by the “Athalie” of Racine, rendered with much taste, principally into blank verse, by Llaguno y Amirola, Secretary of the Academy of History. But the first original Spanish comedy formed on French models was the “Petimetra,” or the Female Fribble, by Moratin the elder. It was printed in 1762, and was preceded by a dissertation, in which, while the merits of the schools of Lope and Calderon are imperfectly acknowledged, their defects are exhibited in the strongest relief, and the impression left, in relation to the old masters, is of the most unfavorable character.

In the play itself, a similar kind of deference is shown to the popular prejudices and feelings, which adhered faithfully to the old drama and to the miserable imitations of it that continued to be produced. It is divided into the three jornadas to which the public had so long been wonted, and is written in the national manner, sometimes with full rhymes, and sometimes only with asonantes. But the compromise was not accepted by those to whom it was offered. The principal character, Doña Gerónima, is feebly drawn; and, though the versification and style are always easy, and sometimes beautiful, the attempt to reconcile the irregular genius of the elder comedy with what Moratin, on his title-page, calls “the rigor of art” was a failure. A corresponding effort which he made the next year in tragedy, taking the story of Lucretia for his subject, and adopting even more fully the French conventions, was not more successful. Neither of them obtained the distinction of being publicly represented.

That honor, however, was gained in 1770, with much difficulty, by Moratin’s “Hormesinda,” the first original drama, under the canons that governed Corneille and Racine, which ever appeared in a public theatre in Spain. It is founded on events connected with the Arab invasion and the achievements of Pelayo, and is written, like the “Lucretia,” in that irregular verse, partly rhymed and partly not, which in Spanish poetry is called silva, and is intended to have, more than any other, the air of improvisation.

The partial success of this drama, which, notwithstanding an improbable plot, deserved all the favor it received, induced its author, in 1777, to write his third tragedy, “Guzman the True,” dedicating it to his patron, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who was a descendant of that famous nobleman, and who, a few years before, had himself translated the “Iphigénie” of Racine into Spanish. The well-known character of the hero, who chose rather to have his son sacrificed by the Moors than to surrender the fortress of Tarifa, if it is not drawn with the vigor of the old Castilian chronicles or of the drama of Guevara, is exhibited, at least, with a well-sustained consistency, that gives token of more poetical power than any thing else produced by its author for the theatre. But this is its only real merit; and the last tragedy of Moratin was, on the whole, no more successful, and no more deserving of success, than the first.

Cadahalso, the friend whom we have already noticed as much under the influence of Moratin, went one step further in his imitation of the French masters. His “Don Sancho Garcia,” a regular, but feeble, tragedy, printed in 1771 and afterwards acted, is written in long lines and rhymed couplets; an innovation which could hardly fail to be accounted monotonous on a stage, one of whose chief luxuries had so long been a wild variety of measures. Nor did more favor follow an attempt of Sebastian y Latre to adjust to the theories of the time two old dramas, still often represented,—the one by Roxas and the other by Moreto,—which he forced within the pale of the three unities, and for the public representations of one of which, Aranda, the minister of state, paid the charges. Like the subsequent attempts of Trigueros to accommodate some of Lope de Vega’s plays to the same system of opinions, it was entirely unsuccessful. The difference between the two different schools was so great, and the effort to force them together so violent, that enough of the spirit and grace of the originals could not be found in these modernized imitations to satisfy the demands of any audience that could be collected to listen to them.[373]

Yriarte, better known as a didactic poet and fabulist, enjoys the distinction of having produced the first regular original comedy that was publicly represented in Spain. He began very young, with a play which he did not afterwards think fit to place among his collected works; and, beside translations from Voltaire and Destouches, and three or four attempts of less consequence, he wrote two full-length original comedies, which were better than any thing previously produced by the school to which he belonged. One of them, called “The Flattered Youth,” appeared in 1778, and the other, “The Ill-bred Miss,” ten years later;—the first being on the subject of a son spoiled by a foolishly indulgent mother, and the second on the daughter of a rich man equally spoiled by the carelessness and neglect of her father. Both are divided into three acts, and written in the imperfect rhyme and short verses always grateful to Castilian ears; and both are marked by good character-drawing and a pleasant, easy manner, not abounding in wit nor sensibly deficient in it. But, except these plays of Yriarte and Moratin, and an unfortunate one by Melendez Valdes in 1784,—founded on Camacho’s wedding, in “Don Quixote,” and containing occasionally gentle and pleasing pastoral poetry which ill agrees with the rude jesting of Sancho,—nothing that deserves notice was done for comedy in the latter part of the reign of Charles the Third.[374]

Tragedy fared still worse. The “Numantia Destroyed,” written by Ayala, a man of learning and the regular censor of the public theatres of Madrid, was acted in 1775. Its subject is the same with that of the “Numantia” by Cervantes; but the horrors of the siege it describes are not brought home to the sympathies of the reader by instances of individual suffering, as they are in the elder dramatist, and therefore produce much less effect. As an acting drama, however, it is not without merit. Its versification, which is, again, an attempt at a compromise with the public by giving alternate asonantes, but attaching them to the long-drawn lines of the French theatre, is not, indeed, fortunate; but the style is otherwise rich and vigorous, and the tone elevated. Perhaps its ardent expressions of patriotic feeling, and its fierce denunciations of foreign oppression, have done as much to keep it on the stage as its intrinsic poetical merits.

The “Raquel” of Huerta, printed in 1778, three years after the “Numantia,” is not so creditable to the author, and produced a less lasting impression on the public. The story—that of the Jewess of Toledo, which has been so often treated by Spanish poets—is taken too freely from a play of Diamante; and though Huerta has, in some respects, given the materials he found there a better arrangement, and a more grave and sonorous versification, he has diminished the spirit and naturalness of the action by constraining it within the hard conventions he prescribed to himself, and has rendered the whole drama so uninteresting, that, notwithstanding its considerable reputation at first, it was soon forgotten.[375]

The first real success of any thing in the French style on the Spanish stage, though not in the classical forms prescribed by Boileau and Racine, was obtained by Jovellanos. Early in life he had ventured a tragedy, entitled “Pelayo,” in the same measure with Ayala’s “Numantia,” and on nearly the same subject with the “Hormesinda” of the elder Moratin. But the philosophical statesman, though he wrote good lyric verse, was not a tragic poet. He was, however, something better;—he was a really good man, and his philanthropy led him, in 1773, to write his “Honored Culprit,” a play, intended to rebuke the cruel and unavailing severity of the laws of his country against duelling, as they then existed. It is a sentimental comedy in the manner of Diderot’s “Natural Son”; and, beside that it has the honor of being the first attempt of the kind on the Spanish stage, it has that of being more fortunate than any of its successors. The story on which it is founded is that of a gentleman, who, after repeatedly refusing a challenge, kills, in a secret duel, the infamous husband of the lady he afterwards marries; and, being subsequently led to confess his crime in order to save a friend, who is arrested as the guilty party, he is condemned to death by a rigorous judge, who unexpectedly turns out to be his own father, and is saved from execution, but not from severe punishment, only by the royal clemency.

How many opportunities for scenes of the most painful interest such a story affords is obvious at the first glance. Jovellanos has used them skilfully, because he has done it in the simplest and most direct manner, with great warmth of kindly feeling, and in a style whose idiomatic purity is not the least of its attractions. “The Honored Culprit,” therefore, was at once successful, and when well acted, though its poetical power is small, it can hardly be listened to without tears. It was first produced in one of the royal theatres, without the knowledge of its author; then, spreading throughout Spain, it was acted at Cadiz at the same time both in French and Spanish, and, at last, became familiar on the stages of France and Germany. Such wide success had long been unknown to any thing in Spanish literature.[376]

But from the time when the first attempt was made to introduce regular plays in the French manner upon the Spanish stage, an active contest had been going on, which, though the advantage had of late been on the side of the innovators, did not seem likely to be soon determined. In 1762, Moratin the elder published what he called “The Truth told about the Spanish Stage”;—three spirited pamphlets, in which he attacked the old drama generally, but above all the autos sacramentales, not denying the poetical merit of those by Calderon, but declaring that such wild, coarse, and blasphemous exhibitions, as they generally were, ought not to be tolerated in a civilized and religious community. So far as the autos were concerned, Moratin was successful. They were prohibited by a royal edict, June 17, 1765; and though, even in the nineteenth century, it can hardly be said that they have been entirely driven out of the villages, where they have been the delight of the mass of the people from a period before that of Alfonso the Wise, yet in Madrid and the larger cities of Spain they have never been heard since they were first forbidden.[377]

But this was as far as Moratin could prevail. In the public secular theatre, generally, his poetry and wit produced no effect. There, two riotous parties in the two audiences of Madrid—distinguishing themselves by favors worn in their hats and led on by vulgar friars and rude mechanics, making up in spirit what they wanted in decency, and readily uniting to urge an open war against all further innovations—effectually prevented any of the regular dramas that were written from being represented in their presence, until 1770. The old masters they partly tolerated; especially Calderon, Moreto, and the dramatists of the latter part of the seventeenth century; but the popular favorites were Ibañez, Lobera, Vicente Guerrero, a play-actor, Julian de Castro, who wrote ballads for the street beggars and died in a hospital, and others of the same class; all as vulgar as the populace they delighted.

After Aranda ceased to be minister, in 1773, this state of things was somewhat modified, without being materially improved. Under his administration, the theatres in the royal residences had been opened for tragedy and comedy; and translations from the French had been acted before the court in a manner suited to their subjects. The two popular theatres of the capital, too, had not escaped his regard, and under his influence had been provided with better scenery; and, from 1768, gave representations in the evening.[378]

Still, every thing was in a very low state. A blacksmith was the reigning critic to be consulted by those who sought a hearing on either stage, and the more regular plays, whether translations that had been acted with success at court, or tragedies and comedies of the poets already noticed, made a strange confusion with those of the old masters, which were still sometimes heard, and those of the favorites of the mob, whose works prevailed over all others in the theatrical repertories and in the general regard. But, whatever might be produced and performed, the intervals between the acts, and much time before and after the principal piece, were filled up with tonadillas, seguidillas, ballads, and all the forms of entremeses, saynetes, and dances, that had been common in the last century or invented in the present one,—an act in a serious and poetical play being sometimes divided, in order to give place to one or another of them, and gratify an audience that seemed to grow more and more impatient of every thing except popular farce.[379]

In this confusion of the old and the new,—of what was stiff, formal, and foreign with what was rudest and most lawless in the national drama at home,—a single writer appeared, who, from the mere force of natural talent, fell instinctively into a tone not unworthy of the theatre, and yet one that obtained for him a degree of favor long denied to persons of more poetical accomplishments. This was Ramon de la Cruz, a gentleman of family and an officer of the government at Madrid, who was born in 1731, and from 1765 to the time of his death, at the end of the century, constantly amused the audiences of the capital with dramas, written in any form likely to please at the palace, on the public stages of the city, or in the houses of the nobility, who, like the Duchess of Ossuna, or Aranda, the minister of state, were able to indulge in such a luxury at home.

In the whole, he wrote about three hundred dramatic compositions, but printed less than a third of that number; most of those he published being farces designed to produce a merely popular effect. They fill ten volumes, and are all in the short, national measure of the old drama, mingled occasionally, though rarely, with other forms of verse. They bear, however, very different names; some of them characteristic and some of them not. A few he calls “Dramatic Caprices”; apparently because no more definite title would be suited to their undefined character. Some he calls “Saynetes to be sung,” and some “Burlesque Tragedies.” Others have no names at all, not even for their personages, except those of the actors who represented the different parts. While yet others pass under the old designations of loas, entremeses, and zarzuelas, though often with a character which it would have been impossible for the early representations bearing the same names to assume. Occasionally, as in the case of the “Clementina,” he takes pains to observe all the rules of the French drama; but they sit very uneasily upon him, and he seldom submits to them. His great merit is almost entirely confined to his short farces; and therefore, when Duran, to whom the Spanish theatre owes so much, undertook to publish what was best of the works of La Cruz, he rejected all the rest, and, taking his materials both from manuscript sources and from what had been already published, gives us merely a hundred and ten proper “Saynetes.”

Their subjects are various, and they are very unequal in length; but, amidst all their varieties, one principle gave them a prevailing character and insured their success. They are founded on the manners of the middling and lower classes of the city, which they reflect freshly and faithfully, whether their materials are sought in the tertulias or evening parties of persons in a decent condition of life, where the demure Abate and the authorized lover of the mistress of the house contend for influence; or in the trim walks of the Prado, and among the loungers of the Puerta del Sol, where the fashion of the court is jostled by the humors of the people; or in the Lavapies and the Maravillas, where the lowest classes, with their picturesque dresses and unchanging manners, reign supreme and unquestioned. But, under all circumstances and in all situations, Ramon de la Cruz, in this class of his dramas, is attractive and amusing; and, though there is seldom any thought of dramatic skill in his combinations, and often no attempt at a catastrophe,—though his style is any thing but correct, and he is wholly careless of finish in his versification,—yet his farces so abound in wit and faithful delineations of character, they are so true to the manners they intend to represent, and so entirely national in their tone, that they seem expressly made for a pleasant and appropriate accompaniment to the longer dramas of Lope and Calderon, in whose popular spirit they are most successfully written.[380]

Meanwhile the press was not so inactive as it had been. Sedano published his “Jael,” taken from the story in the book of Judges; Lassala his “Iphigenia”; Trigueros his “Tradesmen of Madrid”; and Cortés his “Atahualpa”; the last two having been written, and successful, at the same festivities of 1784 for which Melendez composed his “Marriage of Camacho,” and failed. Cienfuegos, too, a poet of more original power than either of them, wrote his “Pitaco,” which opened for him the doors of the Spanish Academy; his “Idomeneo,” from which, in imitation of Alfieri, he excluded the passion of love; and his “Countess of Castile,” and his “Zoraida,” taken from the old traditions of his country’s wars and feuds; each giving proof of talent, but of talent rather lyric than dramatic, and each showing too anxious an adherence to Greek models, which were particularly unsuitable for the Zoraida, whose scene is laid in the gardens of the Alhambra.[381] But all of them—so far at least as the public stage is concerned—have been long since forgotten.

On the other hand, La Huerta, in 1785, published fourteen volumes of the old full-length plays, and one volume of the old “Entremeses”; a work intended to vindicate the national theatre of Spain in the preceding century, and to place it as high as that of the rest of Europe, or higher. But he was ill fitted for his task. A selection, designed to illustrate the great masters of the Spanish stage, which, to say nothing of other mistakes, wholly omitted Lope de Vega, began with a capital defect; and this circumstance, together with the arrogant tone of the editor in his Prefaces, and the contradiction to his present opinions afforded by the example of his own “Raquel,” which is entirely in the French manner, and to his translations of the “Electra” of Sophocles and the “Zaïre” of Voltaire, which were obviously made to defend the French school, prevented his “Teatro Hespañol” from producing the effect that might otherwise have followed its not ill-timed appearance. Still it was a work of consequence, and was afterwards acknowledged to be such by the public.[382]

The discussions it provoked were of more direct importance, and tended to infuse new life into the theatre itself. Such discussions had been begun immediately after the publication of the first tragedy by Montiano, in 1750,—a date which may be regarded as the dividing point in the history of the Spanish stage during the eighteenth century,—and they were now resumed with great activity, partly in consequence of the increasing interest in the national drama generally, and partly in consequence of the personal temper of La Huerta himself. One immediate result of this state of things was a great increase in the number of plays, of which at least ten times more were written in the last half of the century than in the first; and if there were less improvement in the condition of the theatre than might have been anticipated from such competition, still, as we have seen, poets and men of genius, like Ramon de la Cruz, were stirred by the movement, and far-sighted spirits, like Jovellanos, augured well for the future.[383]

The great obstacle to the success of better dramas lay in a number of writers, who pandered to the bad taste of the low and vulgar audiences of their time. Among the more prominent and successful of these were Valladares and Zavala. The first wrote above a hundred dramas on all kinds of subjects, tragic and comic, prefixing to his “Emperor Albert” a discourse in the spirit of Huerta, to defend the Spanish drama from the attacks of its French neighbours. The other, Zavala, wrote about half as many, some of which, like his “Victims of Love,” are in the sentimental style, while others, like three on the history of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, are as extravagant as any thing in the worst of the dramatists he sought to imitate. Both used the old versification, and intended to humor the public taste in its demands for a vulgar and extravagant drama; though occasionally, as in “The Triumphs of Love and Friendship,” by Zavala, they wrote in prose; and occasionally, as in “The Defence of Virtue,” they showed themselves willing to submit to the rules of the French stage. In fact, they had neither poetical principles nor poetical talent, and wrote only to amuse a populace more ignorant and rude than themselves.

Somewhat better than either of these last, and certainly more successful than either with the better classes of his contemporaries, was Comella. Like Valladares, his fertility was great; and the ease with which he wrote, and the ingenuity with which he invented new and striking situations, seemed to have the same charm for his audiences which they had had for the audiences of Lope and Calderon. But, unhappily, Comella had not the genius of the old masters. His plots are as involved, and sometimes as interesting, as theirs; but, generally, they are, to a most extravagant degree, wild and absurd. Even when he deals with subjects as well known as Christina of Sweden, Louis the Fourteenth, and Frederic the Great, he seems to have no regard for truth, probability, or consistency. His versification, too, is unfortunate. In form it is, indeed, such as had always been insisted on where the popular voice of Castile has borne sway; but it lacks variety, as well as richness and strength. Still, his romances in dialogue were found so interesting, and there was so much of tender and honorable feeling in the tone of his sentiments and the incidents of his plots, that above a hundred of his wild dramas—some of them in prose, but more in verse, some on historical subjects, but many made out of love-stories of his own invention—were received with applause, and proved more profitable to the theatres of Madrid than any thing else they could offer to the multitude on whom they depended for their existence.[384]

But while Comella was at the height of his reputation, a formidable antagonist, both to himself and to the whole class of writers he represented, appeared in the person of Moratin the younger, son of that poet who first produced on the Spanish stage an original drama written according to the French doctrines. He was born in 1760. To insure for the child a subsistence he had with difficulty earned for himself, his father placed him as an apprentice to a jeweller, at whose trade the young man continued to work till he was twenty-three years old,—the latter part of the time in order to support his mother, who had been left a widow.

But his natural disposition for poetry was too strong to be controlled by the hard circumstances of his situation. When seven years old he had written verses, and at eighteen he obtained the second prize offered by the Royal Spanish Academy for a poem to commemorate the taking of Granada,—a circumstance which astonished nobody more than it did his own family, for he had written it secretly, and presented it under a feigned name. Another success of the same sort, two years later, attracted more attention to the poor young jeweller; and at last, in 1787, by the kind intervention of Jovellanos, he was made secretary to the Spanish embassy at Paris, and accompanied the ambassador, Count Cabarrus, to that capital. There he remained two years, and, during that time, became acquainted with Goldoni, and entered into relations with other men of letters, that determined the direction of his life and the character of his drama.

On his return to Madrid, he obtained the patronage of Don Manuel Godoy, afterwards the all-powerful Prince of the Peace; and from this moment his fortune seemed certain. He was sent, at the public charge, to study the theatres of Germany and England, as well as those of Italy and France; he had pensions and places given him at home; and, while an honorable occupation in the department of Foreign Affairs, which awaited his return, insured him a distinguished position in society, he had still leisure left for that cultivation of letters which he prized above all his prosperity and all his official honors.

This happy state of things continued till the French invasion of 1808. His public relations then became a misfortune. The flood of events swept him from his place, as it did his patron; and, without becoming in any degree false to the interests of his country, he was so far implicated in those of the new government, that, when Ferdinand the Seventh was restored to the throne, Moratin was treated for a time with great rigor. But this, too, passed away, and he was again protected and favored. Still he suffered. His friends were in exile, and he felt solitary without them. He went back to France, and, though once afterwards he returned with a fond longing to the land of his birth, he found every thing so changed by the triumphant despotism, that it was no longer Spain to him, and he established himself finally at Paris, where he died in 1828. He was buried near Molière, whom in life he had honored and imitated.

When Moratin began his career as a dramatic poet, he found obstacles to his success on every side. His father’s tragedy of “Hormesinda” had been produced on the stage only in consequence of the ministerial protection of the Count of Aranda, and in opposition to the judgment and fears of the actors.[385] Cienfuegos, who had followed his example, was able with difficulty to obtain a hearing for two out of his five dramas;—one of them being listened to with partial favor because it was on a subject familiar to all Spaniards from the days of the old ballads, and always welcome to their hearts. Quintana, whose name was early respected and his influence uniformly great, had failed with “The Duke of Viseo.” Others were discouraged by such examples, and made no effort to obtain the public notice where there was so little prospect of success.

This was the condition of the stage, when the younger Moratin appeared as a candidate before the audiences of Madrid. The new school had gained some ground, and the living representatives of the old one were none of them more distinguished than Comella; but the taste of the public was not changed, and the managers of the theatre were obliged, as well as inclined, to yield to its authority and humor its fancies.

Moratin determined, however, to tread in the footsteps of his father, for whose example and memory he always felt the sincerest reverence. He therefore wrote his first comedy, “The Old Husband and the Young Wife,” quite within the rules, finishing every part of it with the greatest exactness, but dividing it, as the old Spanish plays were divided, into three acts, and using throughout the old short verse which was always popular. But when, in 1786, he offered his comedy for representation, the simplicity of the action, so unlike the involved plots on which the common people still loved to exercise their extraordinary ingenuity, and the very quietness and decorum that reigned throughout it, made the actors alarmed for its success. Objections were made, and these, with other untoward circumstances, prevented it from being brought out for four years. When it finally appeared, it was received with a moderate applause, which satisfied neither of the extreme parties into which the audiences at Madrid were then divided, and yet was not perhaps unjust to the comedy, whose action is somewhat cold and languid, though its poetical merits, in other respects, are far from being inconsiderable.

But, whatever may have been the effect on the public, the effect on its author was decisive. He had been heard. His merit had been, in part at least, acknowledged; and he now determined to bring the pretensions of the popular dramatists, who were disgracing the stage, to the test of a public trial on the stage itself. For this purpose, he wrote his “New Play,” as he called it, which is an exposition of the motives of a penniless author for composing one of the noisy, extravagant dramas then constantly acted with applause, and an account of its first representation;—the whole related by the author himself and his friends, in a coffee-house contiguous to the theatre, at the very moment the fatal representation is supposed to be going on.

It is in two acts; and the catastrophe—which consists of the confusion of the author and his family at the failure of his performance—is brought on with skill, and with an effect much greater than the simplicity of the action had promised. The piece, therefore, was received with a favor which even Moratin and his friends had not anticipated. The poet, who is its victim, was recognized at once to be Comella. Some of the inferior characters, whether justly or not, were appropriated to other persons who figured at the time, and the “New Play” was acknowledged to be a brilliant satire;—severe indeed, but well merited and happily applied. From this time, therefore, which was 1792, Moratin, notwithstanding the exasperated opposition of the adherents of the old school, had secured for himself a permanent place on the national stage, and, what is more remarkable, this little drama, almost without a regular action and founded on interests purely local, was, for the sake of its wit and originality, translated and successfully represented both in France and Italy.[386]

“The Baron,” which is in two acts and in verse, was at first prepared to be sung; and, without the permission of the author, was altered to an acting drama and performed in public during his absence from Spain. On his return, he improved it by material additions, and produced it again in 1803. It is the least effective of his theatrical performances; but it triumphed over a cabal, which supported a drama written on the same subject and represented at the same time, in order to interfere with its success.

At the moment Moratin was making arrangements for bringing out “The Baron,” he was occupied with the careful preparation of another comedy in verse, that was destined still further to increase his reputation. This was “The Female Hypocrite,” which was written as early as 1791, and was soon afterwards represented in private, but which was not finished and acted publicly till 1804. It is an excellent specimen of character-drawing; the two principal personages being a girl, made, by the severity of her family, to assume the appearance of being very religious, while her cousin, who is well contrasted with her, is rendered frank and winning by an opposite treatment. The very subject, however, was one that brought Moratin upon dangerous ground, and his play was forbidden by the Inquisition. But that once formidable body was now little more than an engine of state; so that the authority of the Prince of the Peace was not only sufficient to prevent any disagreeable consequences to Moratin himself, but was able soon afterwards to indulge the public in a pleasure for which they were only the more eager, because it had for a time been interdicted.

Moratin’s last original effort on the stage was a full-length prose comedy in three acts, which he called the “Little Girl’s Consent,” and which was acted in 1806. Its general movement is extremely natural, and yet it is enlivened with a little of the intrigue and bustle that were always so much liked on the Spanish theatre. A young girl, while in the course of her education at a convent, becomes attached to a handsome officer of dragoons. Her mother, ignorant of this, undertakes to bring her home and marry her to an excellent, benevolent old gentleman, whom the daughter has never seen, but whom, out of mere weakness, she has been unable to refuse. At an inn on the road, where the younger lover falls in with them on purpose to break up this match, they all meet; and he discovers, to his dismay, that his rival is an uncle to whom he is sincerely attached, and to whom he owes many obligations. The mistakes and intrigues of the night they pass together at this inn give great life to the action, and are full of humor; while the disinterested attachment of the young lovers to each other, and the benevolence of the uncle, add to the conflicting claims and relations of the different parties a charm quite original in itself, and very effective in its exhibition. The play ends by the discovery of the real state of the daughter’s heart, and the renunciation of all the pretensions of the uncle, who makes his nephew his heir.

Nothing on the Spanish stage had been so well received for a long period. It was acted twenty-six nights successively to audiences who were in the habit of demanding novelties constantly; and then it was stopped only because Lent came to shut up the theatres. No criticism appeared except to praise it. The triumph of Moratin was complete.

But he was not destined long to enjoy it. The troubles of his country were already begun, and in three years the French were its temporary masters. He prepared, indeed, afterwards two spirited translations from Molière, with alterations that made them more attractive to his countrymen; one from the “École des Maris,” which was acted in 1812, and the other from the “Médecin Malgré Lui,” which was acted in 1814; but, except these and an unfortunate prose version of Shakspeare’s “Hamlet,” which was printed in 1798, but never performed, he wrote nothing for the theatre except the five comedies already noticed. These, if they form no very broad foundation for his fame, seem yet to constitute one on which it may rest safely; and, if they have failed to educate a school strong enough to drive out the bad imitations of the old masters that have constantly pressed upon them, have yet been able to keep their own place, little disturbed by the changes of the times.[387]

That the Spanish drama, during the century which elapsed between the establishment of the House of Bourbon on the throne and the temporary expulsion of that house from Spain by the arms of Bonaparte, had, in some respects, made progress, cannot be doubted. More convenient and suitable structures for its exhibitions had been erected, not only in the capital, but in all the principal cities of the kingdom. New and various forms of dramatic composition had been introduced, which, if not always consistent with the demands of the national genius, nor often encouraged by the general favor, had still been welcome to the greater part of the more cultivated classes, and served both to excite attention to the fallen state of the theatre generally, and to stir the thoughts of men for its restoration. Actors, too, of extraordinary merit had from time to time appeared, like Damian de Castro, for whom Zamora and Cañizares wrote parts; Maria L’ Advenant, who delighted Signorelli in the higher characters of Calderon and Moreto; the Tirana, whose tragic powers astonished the practised taste of Cumberland, the English dramatist; and Maiquez, who enjoyed the friendship and admiration of nearly all the Spanish men of letters in his time.[388]

But still the old spirit and life of the drama of the seventeenth century were not there. The audiences, who were as unlike those of the cavalier times of Philip the Fourth as were the rude exhibitions they preferred to witness, did as much to degrade the theatre as was done by the poets they patronized and the actors they applauded. The two schools were in presence of each other continually struggling for the victory, and the multitude seemed rather to rejoice in the uproar, than desire so to use it as to promote changes beneficial to the theatre. On the one side, extravagant and absurd dramas in great numbers, full of noise, show, and low buffoonery, were offered with success. On the other, meagre sentimental comedies, and stiff, cold translations from the French, were forced, in almost equal numbers, upon the actors by the voices of those from whose authority or support they could not entirely emancipate themselves. And between the two, and with the consent of all, the Inquisition and the censors forbade the representation of hundreds of the dramas of the old masters, and among them not a few which still give reputation to Calderon and Lope. The eighteenth century, therefore, so far as the Spanish theatre is concerned, is entirely a period of revolution and change; and while, at its conclusion, we perceive that the old national drama can hardly hope to be restored to its ancient rights, it is equally plain that a drama founded on the doctrines taught by Luzan, and practised by the Moratins, is not destined to take its place.[389]

CHAPTER VII.

Reign of Charles the Fourth. — French Revolution. — Inquisition. — Plot of the Escurial. — Ferdinand the Seventh. — Bonaparte. — The French Invasion and Occupation of the Country. — Restoration of Ferdinand the Seventh. — His Despotism. — An Interregnum in Letters. — Reaction. — Conclusion.

The reign of Charles the Fourth was not one in which a literary contest could be carried on with the freedom that alone can render such contests the means of intellectual progress. His profligate favorite, the Prince of the Peace, during a long administration of the affairs of the country, overshadowed every thing with an influence hardly less fatal to what he patronized than to what he oppressed. The revolution in France, first resisted, as it was elsewhere, and then corruptly conciliated, struck the same terror at Madrid that it did at Rome and Naples; and, while its open defiance of every thing Christian filled the hearts of a large majority of the Spanish people with a horror greater than it inspired even in Italy, not a few were led away by it from their time-honored feelings of religion and loyalty, and prepared for changes like those that were already overturning the thrones of half Europe. Amidst this confusion, and taking advantage of it, the Inquisition, grown flexible in the hands of the government as a political machine, but still renouncing none of its religious pretensions, came forth with its last “Index Expurgatorius” to meet the invasion of French philosophy and insubordination.[390] Acting under express instructions from the powers of the state it received against men of letters, and especially those connected with the universities, an immense number of denunciations, which, though rarely prosecuted to conviction and punishment, were still formidable enough to prevent the public expression of opinions on any subject that could endanger the social condition of the individual who ventured to entertain them. In all its worst forms, therefore, oppression, civil, political, and religious, appeared to be settling down with a new and portentous weight on the whole country. All men felt it. It seemed as if the very principle of life in the atmosphere they breathed had become tainted and unwholesome. But they felt, too, that the same atmosphere was charged with the spirit of a great revolution; and the boldest walked warily and were hushed, while they waited for changes the shock of whose fierce elements none could willingly encounter.

At last the convulsion came. In 1807, the heir apparent was brought into direct collision with the Prince of the Peace, and took measures to defend his personal rights. The affair of the Escurial followed; darker than the dark cells in which it was conceived. Ferdinand was accused, under the influence of the favorite, with a design to dethrone and murder his own father and mother; and, for a moment, Europe seemed threatened with a crime which even the unscrupulous despotism of Philip the Second had not ventured to commit. This was prevented by the manly boldness and constancy of Escoiquiz. But things could not long remain in the uneasy and treacherous position in which such a rash attempt at convulsion had left them. The great revolution broke out at Aranjuez in March, 1808; Charles the Fourth abdicated in shame and terror; and Ferdinand the Seventh ascended the tottering throne of his ancestors amidst the exultation of his people. But Napoleon, then at the summit of his vast power, interfered in the troubles he had not been unwilling to foster. Under the pretext, that such fatal differences as had arisen between the father and son would disturb the affairs of Europe, he drew the royal family of Spain into his toils at Bayonne; and there, on the soil of France, the crown of the Bourbon race in Spain was ignominiously surrendered into his hands, and by him placed on the head of his brother, already king of Naples.

It was all the work of a few short weeks; and the fate of Spain seemed to be sealed with a seal that no human power would be permitted to break. But the people of that land of faith and chivalry were not forgetful of their ancient honor in this the day of their great trial. They boldly refused to ratify the treaty to which father and son had alike put their dishonored names, and sprang to arms to prevent its provisions from being fulfilled by foreign intervention. It was a fierce struggle. For nearly six years, the forces of France were spread over the country, sometimes seeming to cover the whole of it, and sometimes only small portions, but seldom exerting any real control beyond the camps they occupied and the cities they from time to time garrisoned. At last, in 1813, under the leading of England, the invaders were driven through the gorges of the Pyrenees; and, as a part of the great European retribution, Ferdinand the Seventh was replaced on the throne he had so weakly abdicated.

He was received by his people with a loyalty that seemed to belong to the earliest ages of the monarchy. But it was lost on him. He returned untaught by the misfortunes he had suffered, and unmoved by a fidelity which had showed itself ready to sacrifice a whole generation and its hopes to his honor and rights. As far as was possible, he restored all the forms and appliances of the old despotism, and thrust from his confidence the very men who had brought him home on their shields, and who only claimed for their country the exercise of a salutary freedom, without which he himself could not be maintained on the throne where their courage and constancy had seated him.[391] Even the Inquisition, which it had been one of the most popular acts of the French invaders to abolish, and one of the wisest acts of the national Cortes to declare incompatible with the constitution of the monarchy, was solemnly reinstated; and if, during a reign protracted through twenty sad and troubled years, any proper freedom was for a moment granted to thought, to speech, or to the press, it was only in consequence of changes over which the prince had no control, and of which he felt himself to be rather the victim than the author.[392]

Amidst such violence and confusion,—when men slept in armour, as they had during the Moorish contest, and knew not whether they should be waked amidst their households or amidst their enemies,—elegant letters, of course, could hardly hope to find shelter or resting-place. The grave political questions, that agitated the country and shook the foundations of society, were precisely those in which it might be foreseen, that intellectual men would take the deepest interest and expose themselves to sufferings and ruin, like the less favored masses around them. And so, in fact, it proved. Nearly every poet and prose-writer, known as such at the end of the reign of Charles the Fourth, became involved in the fierce political changes of the time;—changes so various and so opposite, that those who escaped from the consequences of one were often, on that very account, sure to suffer in the next that followed.

The young men who, during this disastrous period, were just beginning to unfold their promise, were checked at the outset of their career. Martinez de la Rosa, five years a prisoner of state on a rock in Africa before he had reached the age of thirty; Angel de Rivas, still younger, left for dead on the bloody field of Ocaña; Galiano, sentenced to the scaffold while he was earning his daily bread by daily labor as a teacher in London; Torreno, brought home on his bier, as he returned from his third exile; Arriaza serving in the armies of Ferdinand; Arjona and Barbero silenced; Xavier de Burgos plundered; Gallego, Xerica, Hermosilla, Mauri, Mora, Tapia;—these, and many others, all young men and full of the hopes that letters inspire in generous spirits, were seized upon by the passions of party or the demands of patriotism, and hurried into paths far from the pursuits to which their talents, their taste, and their social relations would alike have dedicated them;—pursuits on which, in fact, they had already entered, and to which they have since owed their most brilliant and enduring distinctions, as well as their truest happiness.

Those who were older, and had been before marked by success and public favor, fared still worse. The eyes of men had already been fastened upon them, and in the conflict and crush of the contending factions they were sure to suffer, as one or another prevailed in the long-protracted struggle. Jovellanos and Cienfuegos, as we have seen, were almost instantly martyrs to their patriotism. Melendez Valdes sunk a later and more miserable victim. Conde and Escoiquiz were exiled for opposite reasons. Moratin, after having faced death in the frightful form of want in his own country, survived to a fate in France hardly less to be dreaded. Quintana was cast by his ungrateful sovereign into the Bastile of Pamplona, with an apparent intention that he should perish there. To all of them the happiness of success in letters, to which they had been accustomed amidst the encouragement of their friends and countrymen, was denied;—from all, the hopes of fame seemed to be cut off. Most of them, and most of the small class to which they belonged, passed, as voluntary or involuntary exiles, beyond the limits of a country which they might still be compelled to love, but which they could no longer respect. The rest were silent. It was an interregnum in all elegant culture, such as no modern nation had yet seen,—not even Spain herself during the War of the Succession.

But it was not possible that such a state of things should become permanent and normal. Even while Ferdinand the Seventh was living, a movement was begun, the first traces of which are to be found among the emigrated Spaniards, who cheered with letters their exile in England and France, and whose subsequent progress, from the time when the death of that unfaithful monarch permitted them to return home, is distinctly perceptible in their own country.[393] What precise direction this movement may hereafter take, or where it may end, it is not given us to foresee. Perhaps too much of foreign influence, and too great a tendency to infuse the spirit of the North into a poetry whose nature is peculiarly Southern, may, for a time, divert it from its true course. Or perhaps the national genius, springing forward through all that opposes its instincts, and shaking off whatever encumbers it with ill-considered help, may press directly onward, and complete the canon of a literature whose forms, often only sketched by the great masters of its age of glory, remain yet to be filled out and finished in the grandeur and grace of their proper proportions.

But, whether a great advancement may soon be hoped for or not, one thing is certain. The law of progress is on Spain for good or for evil, as it is on the other nations of the earth, and her destiny, like theirs, is in the hand of God, and will be fulfilled. The material resources of her soil and position are as great as those of any people that now occupies its meted portion of the globe. The mass of her inhabitants, and especially of her peasantry, has been less changed, and in many respects less corrupted, by the revolutions of the last century, than any of the nations who have pressed her borders, or contended with her power. They are the same race of men, who twice drove back the crescent from the shores of Europe, and twice saved from shipwreck the great cause of Christian civilization. They have shown the same spirit at Saragossa, that they showed two thousand years before at Saguntum. They are not a ruined people. And, while they preserve the sense of honor, the sincerity, and the contempt for what is sordid and base, that have so long distinguished their national character, they cannot be ruined.

Nor, I trust, will such a people—still proud and faithful in its less favored masses, if not in those portions whose names dimly shadow forth the glory they have inherited—fail to create a literature appropriate to a character in its nature so poetical. The old ballads will not indeed return; for the feelings that produced them are with by-gone things. The old drama will not be revived;—society, even in Spain, would not now endure its excesses. The old chroniclers themselves, if they should come back, would find no miracles of valor or superstition to record, and no credulity fond enough to believe them. Their poets will not again be monks and soldiers, as they were in the days when the influences of the old religious wars and hatreds gave both their brightest and darkest colors to the elements of social life; for the civilization that struck its roots into that soil has died out for want of nourishment. But the Spanish people—that old Castilian race, that came from the mountains and filled the whole land with their spirit—have, I trust, a future before them not unworthy of their ancient fortunes and fame; a future full of materials for a generous history, and a poetry still more generous;—happy if they have been taught, by the experience of the past, that, while reverence for whatever is noble and worthy is of the essence of poetical inspiration, and, while religious faith and feeling constitute its true and sure foundations, there is yet a loyalty to mere rank and place, which degrades alike its possessor and him it would honor, and a blind submission to priestly authority, which narrows and debases the nobler faculties of the soul more than any other, because it sends its poison deeper. But, if they have failed to learn this solemn lesson, inscribed everywhere, as by the hand of Heaven, on the crumbling walls of their ancient institutions, then is their honorable history, both in civilization and letters, closed for ever.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX, A.

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE.

(See Vol. I. pp. 11 and 47.)

The country which now passes under the name of Spain has been subjected to a greater number of revolutions, that have left permanent traces in its population, language, and literature, than any other of the principal countries of modern Europe.[394] At different periods, within the reach of authentic record, it has been invaded and occupied by the Phœnicians, the Romans, the Goths, and the Arabs; all distinct races of men with peculiar characteristics, and forming, in their various combinations with each other or with the earlier masters of the soil, still new races hardly less separate and remarkable than themselves. From the intimate union of them all, gradually wrought by the changes and convulsions of nearly three thousand years, has arisen the present Spanish people, whose literature, extending back about seven centuries, has been examined in the preceding volumes.

But it is difficult fully to examine or understand the literature of any country, without understanding something, at least, of the original elements and history of the language in which it is contained, and on which no small portion of its essential character must depend; while, at the same time, a knowledge of the origin of the language necessarily implies some knowledge of the nations that, by successive contributions, have constituted it such as it is found in the final forms of its poetry and elegant prose. As a needful appendix, therefore, to the history of Spanish literature, a very brief account will be here given of the different occupants of the soil of the country, who, in a greater or less degree, have contributed to form the present character both of the Spanish people and of their language and culture.

The oldest of these, and the people who, since we can go back no farther, must be by us regarded as the original inhabitants of the Spanish Peninsula, were the Iberians. They appear, at the remotest period of which tradition affords us any notice, to have been spread over the whole territory, and to have given to its mountains, rivers, and cities most of the names they still bear,—a fierce race, whose power has never been entirely broken by any of the long line of invaders who, at different times, have occupied the rest of the country. Even at this moment, a body of their descendants, less affected than we should have supposed possible by intercourse with the various nations that have successively pressed their borders, is believed, with a good degree of probability, to be recognized under the name of Biscayans, inhabiting the mountains in the northwestern portion of modern Spain. But, whether this be true or not, the Biscayans, down to the present day, have been a singular and a separate race. They have a peculiar language, peculiar local institutions, and a literature which is carried back to a remoter antiquity than that of any other people now possessing, not the soil of the Spanish Peninsula merely, but of any part of Southern Europe. They are, in fact, a people who seem to have been left as a solitary race, hardly connected, even by those ties of language which outlive all others, with any race of men now in existence or on record; some of their present customs and popular fables claiming to have come down from an age, of which history and tradition give only doubtful intimations. The most probable conjecture yet proposed to explain what there is peculiar and remarkable about the Biscayans and their language is that which supposes them to be descended from those ancient and mysterious Iberians, whose language seems to have been, at one period, spread through the whole Peninsula, and to have left traces which are recognized even in the present Spanish.[395]

The first intruders upon the Iberians were the Celts, who, according to Doctor Percy’s theory, constituted the foremost wave of the successive emigrations that broke upon Europe from the overflowing multitudes of Asia. At what precise period the Celts reached Spain, or any other of the Western countries they overran, can no longer be determined. But the contest between the invaders of the soil and its possessors was, from the few intimations of it that have come down to us, long and bloody; and, as was generally the case in the early successful invasions of countries by wandering masses of the human race, portions of the ancient inhabitants were driven to the fastnesses of their mountains, and the remainder became gradually incorporated with the conquerors. The new people, thus formed of two races that, in antiquity, had the reputation of being warlike and powerful, was appropriately called the Celtiberian,[396] and constituted the body of the population which, broken into various tribes, but with similar manners and institutions, occupied the Peninsula when it first became known to the civilized nations of Europe. The language of the Celts, as might be expected, is represented in the present Spanish, as it is in the French and even in the Italian, though but slightly, of course, in any of them.[397]

Thus far, all access to Spain had been by land; for, in the earliest periods of the world’s history, no other mode of emigration or invasion was known. But the Phœnicians, the oldest commercial people of classical antiquity, soon afterwards found their way thither over the waters of the Mediterranean. At what time they arrived in Spain, or where they made their first establishment, is not known. A mystery hangs over this remarkable people, darker than belongs to the age in which they lived, and connected, no doubt, with the wary spirit in which they pursued their commercial adventures. Their position at home made colonization the obvious and almost the only means of commercial wealth among them, and Spain proved the most tempting of the countries to which their power could reach. Their chief Spanish colonies were near the Pillars of Hercules, in the neighbourhood of our present Cadiz, which they probably founded, and about the mouth and on the banks of the Guadalquivir. Their great object was the mines of precious metals with which ancient Spain abounded. For Spain, from the earliest notices of its history till the fall of the Roman Empire, was the El Dorado of the rest of the world, and furnished a large proportion of the materials for its circulating wealth.[398] During a long period, too, these mines seem to have been known only to the Phœnicians, who thus reserved to themselves the secret of a great power and influence over the nations near them, while, at the same time,—establishing colonies, as was their custom, to secure the sources of their wealth,—they carried their language and manners through a considerable part of the South of Spain, and even far round on the shores of the Atlantic.[399]

But the Phœnicians had still earlier founded a colony on the northern coast of Africa, which, under the name of Carthage, was destined to grow more powerful than the country that sent it forth. Its means were the same; for the Carthaginians became eminently a commercial people, and depended, in no small degree, upon the resources of their colonies. They trod closely and almost constantly in the footsteps of their mother country, and often supplanted her power. It was, in fact, through the Phœnician colonies that the Carthaginians entered Spain, whose tempting territory was divided from them only by the Mediterranean. But for a long period, though they maintained a large military force in Cadiz, and stretched their possessions boldly and successfully along the Spanish shores, they did not seem inclined to penetrate far into the interior, or to do more than occupy enough of the country to overawe its population and control its trade. When, however, the First Punic War had rendered Spain of more consequence to the Carthaginians than it had ever been before, they undertook its entire conquest and occupation. Under Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, about two hundred and twenty-seven years before the Christian era, they spread themselves at once over nearly the whole country, as far as the Iberus, and, building Carthagena and some other strong places, seemed to have taken final possession of the Peninsula, on which the Romans had not yet set foot.

The Romans, however, were not slow to perceive the advantage their dangerous rivals had gained. By the first treaty of peace made between these great powers, it was stipulated, that the Carthaginians should advance no farther,—should neither molest Saguntum nor cross the Iberus. Hannibal violated these conditions, and the Second Punic War broke out, two hundred and eighteen years before the Christian era. The Scipios entered Spain in consequence of it; and at its conclusion, in the year B. C. 201, the Carthaginians had no longer any possessions in Europe, though, as descendants of the Phœnicians, they left in the population and language of Spain traces which have never been wholly obliterated.[400]

But,[401] though, by the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians were thus driven from the Spanish Peninsula, the Romans were far from having obtained unmolested or secure possession of it. The Carthaginians themselves, even when engaged in a commerce whose spirit was, on the whole, peaceful, had never ceased to be in contest with the warlike Celtiberian tribes of the interior; and the Romans were obliged to accept the inheritance of a warfare to which, in their character of intruders, they naturally succeeded. The Roman Senate, indeed, according to their usual policy, chose to regard Spain, from the end of the Second Punic War, both as conquered and as a province; and, in truth, they had really obtained permanent and quiet possession of a considerable part of it. But, from the time when the Roman armies first entered the Peninsula until they became masters of the whole of it,—except the mountains of the Northwest, which never yielded to their power,—two complete centuries elapsed, filled with bloodshed and crime. No province cost the Roman people a price so great. The struggle for Numantia, which lasted fourteen years, the wars against Viriates, and the war of Sertorius,—to say nothing of that between Pompey and Cæsar,—all show the formidable character of the protracted contest by which alone the Roman power could be confirmed in the Peninsula; so that, though Spain was the first portion of the continent out of Italy which the Romans began to occupy as a province, it was the very last of which their possession was peaceful and unquestioned.[402]

From the outset, however, there was a tendency to a union between the two races, wherever the conquerors were able to establish quietness and order; for the vast advantages of Roman civilization could be obtained only by the adoption of Roman manners and the Latin language. This union, from the great importance of the province, the Romans desired no less than the natives. Forty-seven years only after they entered Spain, a colony, consisting of a large body of the descendants from the mingled blood of Romans and natives, was established by a formal decree of the Senate, with privileges beyond the usual policy of their government.[403] A little later, colonies of all kinds were greatly multiplied; and it is impossible to read Cæsar and Livy without feeling that the Roman policy was more generous to Spain, than it was to any other of the countries that successively came within its control. Tarragona, where the Scipios first landed, Carthagena, founded by Asdrubal, and Córdova, always so important, early took the forms and character of the larger municipalities in Italy; and, in the time of Strabo, Cadiz, for numbers, wealth, and activity, was second only to Rome itself.[404] Long, therefore, before Agrippa had broken the power of the mountaineers at the North, the whole South, with its rich and luxuriant valleys, had become like another Italy; a fact, of which the descriptions in the third book of Pliny’s Natural History can leave no reasonable doubt. To this, however, we should add the remarkable circumstance, that the Emperor Vespasian, soon after the pacification of the North, found it for his interest to extend to the whole of Spain the privileges of the municipalities in Latium.[405]

Spaniards, too, earlier than any other strangers, obtained those distinctions of which the Romans themselves were so ambitious, and which they so reluctantly granted to any but native citizens. The first foreigner that ever rose to the consulship was Balbus, from Cadiz, and he, too, was the first foreigner that ever gained the honors of a public triumph. The first foreigner that ever sat on the throne of the world was Trajan, a native of Italica, near Seville;[406] and indeed, if we examine the history of Rome from the time of Hannibal to the fall of the Western Empire, we shall probably find that no part of the world, beyond the limits of Italy, contributed so much to the resources, wealth, and power of the capital, as Spain, and that no province received, in return, so large a share of the honors and dignities of the Roman government.

On all accounts, therefore, the connection between Rome and Spain was intimate, and the civilization and refinement of the province took their character early from those of the capital. Sertorius found it a wise policy to cause the children of the principal native families to be taught Latin and Greek, and to become accomplished in the literature and elegant knowledge to be found in those admirable languages;[407] and when, ten years later, Metellus, in his turn, had crushed the power of Sertorius, and came home triumphant to Rome, he brought with him a number of native Cordovan poets, against whose Latinity the fastidious ear of Cicero was able to object only that their accent had pingue quiddam ... atque peregrinum,—something thick, or rude, and foreign.[408]

From this period Latin writers began to be constantly produced in Spain.[409] Portius Latro, a native of Córdova, but a public advocate of the highest reputation at Rome, opened in the metropolis the earliest of those schools for Roman rhetoric, that afterwards became so numerous and so famous, and, among other distinguished men, numbered as his disciples Octavius Cæsar, Mæcenas, Marcus Agrippa, and Ovid. The two Senecas were Spaniards, and so was Lucan; names celebrated enough, certainly, to have conferred lasting glory on any city within the limits of the Empire. Martial came from Bilbilis, and, in his old age, retired there again to die in peace, amidst the scenes which, during his whole life, seem to have been dear to him. Columella, too, the best of the Roman writers on agriculture, was a Spaniard; and so, it is probable, were Quinctilian and Silius Italicus. Many others might be added, whose rights and reputation were fully acknowledged in the capital of the world, during the last days of the Republic, or the best days of the Empire, as orators, poets, and historians; but their works, though famous in their own time, have perished in the general wreck of the larger part of ancient literature. The great lights, however, of Roman letters in Spain are familiar to all, and are at once recognized as constituting an important portion of the body of the Latin classics, and an essential part of the glory of Roman civilization.[410]

After this period, no considerable change, that needs to be noticed, took place in the Spanish Peninsula, until the final overthrow of the Roman power.[411] Undoubtedly, at the Northwest, and especially among the mountains and valleys of what is now called Biscay, the language and institutions of Rome were never established;[412] but, in all the remainder of the country, whatever there was of public policy or intellectual refinement rested on the basis of the Roman character and of Roman civilization. But the Roman character and civilization decayed there, as they did everywhere, and though, during the last four centuries in which the Imperial authority was acknowledged in Spain, the country enjoyed more of tranquillity than was enjoyed in any other province within the limits of the Empire, still, like the others, it was much disturbed during the whole of this fatal period, and was gradually yielding to the common destiny.

It was during this troubled interval, that another great cause of change was introduced into Spain, and began to produce its wide effects on whatever of intellectual culture existed in the country. This great cause was Christianity. The precise point of time, or the precise mode, of its first appearance in Spain cannot now be determined. But it was certainly taught there in the second century, and seems to have come in, through the southern coast, from Africa.[413] At first, as elsewhere, it was persecuted, and therefore professed in secret; but, as early as the year 300, churches had been publicly established, and from the time of Constantine and Osius of Córdova, it was the acknowledged and prevalent religion of large parts of the country. What is of consequence to us is, that the language of Christianity in Spain was the Latin. Its instructions were obviously given in Latin, and its early literature, so far as it appeared in Spain, is found wholly in that language.[414] This is very important, not only because it proves the great diffusion of the Latin language there from the third century to the eighth, but because it shows that no other language was left strong enough to contend with it, at least through the middle and southern portions of the country.

The Christian clergy, however, it must be recollected, did little or nothing to preserve the purity of the Latin language in Spain, or to maintain whatever of an intellectual tone they found in the institutions established by the Romans.[415] How early these institutions, and especially the ancient schools, decayed there, we do not know; but it was earlier than in some other parts of the Empire. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries even the ecclesiastics were sunk into the grossest ignorance, so that, when Gregory the Great, who was Pope from 590 to 604, warned Licinian, Bishop of Carthagena, not to give consecration to persons without education, Licinian replied, that, unless it were permitted to consecrate those who knew only that Christ had been crucified, none could be found to fill the priestly office.[416] In fact, Isidore of Seville, the famous Archbishop and saint, who died in 636, is the last of the Spanish ecclesiastics that attempted to write Latin with purity; and even he thought so ill of classical antiquity, that he prohibited the monks under his control from reading books written by heathen of the olden time;[417] thus taking away the only means of preserving from its threatened corruption the language they wrote and spoke.[418] Of course this corruption advanced, in times of confusion and national trouble, at a rapid pace, until the spoken language of the country became, to those out of it, an almost unintelligible jargon; and the offices of the Church, as they were read at mass and on feast days, could no longer be understood by the body of the worshippers. This was the result, partly of the decay of all the Roman institutions, and, indeed, of all the principles on which those institutions had rested, and partly of the invasion and conquest of the country by the Northern barbarians, whose irruption, with the violences that followed it, left for a long time neither the quietness nor the sense of security necessary even to the humblest intellectual culture.[419]

This great irruption of the Northern barbarians effected another and most important revolution in the language of the Peninsula. It in fact gave to it a new character. For the race of men by whom it was made was entirely different, both in its origin, its language, and, indeed, in all that goes to make up national character, from the four races that had previously occupied the country. The new invaders belonged to those vast multitudes beyond the Rhine, who had been much known to the Romans from the time of Julius Cæsar, and who, at the period of which we speak, had been, for above a century, leaning with a portentous weight upon the failing barriers, which, on the banks of that glorious stream, had long marked the limits of Roman power. Urged forward, not only by the natural disposition of Northern nations to come into a milder climate, and of barbarous nations to obtain the spoils of civilization, but by uneasy movements among the Tartars of Upper Asia, which were communicated through the Sclavonic tribes to those of Germany, their accumulated masses burst, in the beginning of the fifth century, with an irresistible impulse, on the wide and ill-defended borders of the Empire. Without noticing the tumultuous attempts that preceded this final and fatal invasion and were either defeated or turned aside, it is enough to say, that the first hordes of the irruption which succeeded in overthrowing the empire of the world began to pass the Rhine at the end of the year 406, and in the beginning of 407. These hordes, however, were pressed forward, it may be said almost without a figure, by the merely physical weight of the large bodies that followed them. Tribe succeeded tribe, with all the facility and haste of a nomadic life, which knows neither local attachments nor local interests, and with all the eagerness and violence of barbarians seeking the grosser luxuries of civilization; so that when, at the end of that century, the last of the greater warlike emigrations had forced for itself a place within the limits of the Roman empire, it may be truly said, that, from the Rhine and the British Channel on the one side, to Calabria and Gibraltar on the other, there was hardly a spot of that empire over which they had not passed, and few where they were not then to be found possessors of the soil, and masters of the political and military power.[420]

In the particular character of the multitudes that finally established themselves within its territory, Spain was certainly less unfortunate than were most of the countries of Europe, that were in a similar manner invaded. The first tribes that rushed over the Pyrenees—the Franks, who came before the general invasion, and the Vandali, the Alani, and the Suevi, who, as far as Spain was concerned, formed its vanguard—committed, no doubt, atrocious excesses, and produced a state of cruel suffering, which is eloquently and indignantly described in a well-known passage of Mariana;[421] but, after a comparatively short period, these tribes or nations passed over into Africa and never returned. The Goths, who succeeded them as invaders, were, it is true, barbarians, like their predecessors, but they were barbarians of a milder and more generous type. They had already been in Italy, where they had become somewhat acquainted with the Roman laws, manners, and language; and when, in 411, they traversed the South of France and entered the Peninsula, they were received rather as friends than as conquerors.[422] Indeed, at first, their authority was exercised in the name and on behalf of the Empire; but, before the century was ended, the last Emperor of the West had ceased to reign; and, by a sort of inevitable necessity, the Visigoth dynasty was established throughout nearly the whole of Spain, and acknowledged by Odoacer, the earliest of the barbarian kings of Italy.

Previously, however, to the entrance of the Visigoths into Spain, they had been converted to Christianity by the venerable Ulfilas; and, as early as 466-484, in a period of great confusion, they had formed for themselves a criminal code of laws, to which, in 506, they added a civil code,—the two being subsequently made to constitute the basis of that important body of laws which, above a century later, was compiled by the fourth Council of Toledo.[423] But, though the Visigoths had thus adopted some of the most important means of civilization, their language, like that of the rest of the Northern invaders, remained essentially barbarous. It was never, at any time, in Spain, a written language. It was of the Teutonic stock, and had nothing, or almost nothing, in common with the Latin. Still, the people who spoke it were so intimately mingled with the conquered people, and each, from its position, had become so dependent on the other, that it was no longer a question whether they should find some medium of communication suited to the daily and hourly intercourse of common life. They were, in fact, compelled to do so. The same consequences, therefore, followed, that followed in the other Roman or Romanized countries which were invaded in the same way. A union of the two languages took place; but not a union on equal terms. This was impossible. For on the side of the Latin were not only the existing, though decayed, institutions of the country, but whatever of civilization and refinement was still to be found in the world, as well as the vast and growing power of the Christian religion, with its organized priesthood, which refused to be heard in any other language. So that, if the Goths, on their part, had the political and military authority, and even a more fresh and vigorous intellectual character, they were obliged, on the whole, to submit to such prevalent influences, and to adopt, in a great degree, the language through which alone they could obtain the benefits of a more advanced state of society. The Latin, therefore, corrupted and degraded as it was, remained in Spain, as it did in the other countries where similar races of men came together, by far the most prominent element in the language that grew out of their union, and was thus made to constitute the grand basis of the modern Spanish.

The most considerable change effected by the invaders in the language they found established in Spain was a change in its grammatical structure. The Goths, like any uncivilized people, could learn the individual words of the more cultivated language they every day heard, easier than they could comprehend the philosophical spirit of its grammar. While, therefore, they freely adopted the large and convenient vocabulary of the Latin, they compelled its complicated forms and constructions to yield to the simpler constructions and habits of their own native dialects. This may be illustrated by the striking changes they wrought in the established inflections of the Latin nouns and verbs. The Romans, it is well known, had strict declensions to mark the relations of their nouns, and strict conjugations by which they distinguished the times of their verbs. The Goths had neither, but used articles united with prepositions to mark the cases of their nouns, and auxiliaries of different kinds to mark the changes in the meanings of their verbs.[424]

When, therefore, in Spain, they received the Latin, where no article existed, they compelled ille, as the nearest word they could find, to serve for their definite article, and unus for their indefinite,—so that, in their oldest deeds and other documents, we find such phrases as ille homo, the man; unus homo, a man; illa mulier, the woman; and so on,—from which the modern Spanish derives its articles el and la, uno, una, etc., just as the French, by a similar process, obtained the articles le and la, un and une, and the Italians il and la, uno and una.[425] The same sort of compromise took place in relation to the verbs. Instead of vici, I have conquered, they said habeo victus; instead of saying amor, I am loved, they said sum amatus; and from such a use of habere and esse, they introduced into the modern Spanish the auxiliaries haber and ser, as the Italians introduced avere and essere, and the French avoir and être.[426] This example of the effect produced by the Goths on the nouns and verbs of the Latin is but a specimen of the changes they brought about in the general structure of that language, by which they contributed their full share towards still further corrupting it, as well as towards modelling it into the present Spanish;—a great revolution, which it required above seven centuries fairly to accomplish, and two or three centuries more entirely to carry out into all its final results.[427]

But, in the mean time, another tremendous invasion had burst upon Spain; violent, unforeseen, and for a time threatening to sweep away all the civilization and refinement, that had been preserved from the old institutions of the country, or were springing up under the new. This was the remarkable invasion of the Arabs, which compels us now to seek some of the materials of the Spanish character, language, and literature in the heart of Asia, as we have already been obliged to seek for some of them in the extreme North of Europe.

The Arabs, who, at every period of their history, have been a picturesque and extraordinary people, received, from the passionate religion given to them by the genius and fanaticism of Mohammed, an impulse that, in most respects, is unparalleled. As late as the year of Christ 623, the fortunes and the fate of the Prophet were still uncertain, even within the narrow limits of his own wild and wandering tribe; yet, in less than a century from that time, not only Persia, Syria, and nearly the whole of Western Asia, but Egypt and all the North of Africa had yielded to the power of his military faith. A success so wide and so rapid, founded on religious enthusiasm, and so speedily followed by the refinements of civilization, is unlike any thing else in the history of the world.[428]

When the Arabs had obtained a tolerably quiet possession of the cities and coasts of Africa, it was natural they should turn next to Spain, from which they were separated only by the straits of the Mediterranean. Their descent was made, in great force, near Gibraltar, in 711; the battle of the Guadalete, as it is called by the Moorish writers, and of Xerez, as it is called by the Christians, followed immediately; and, in the course of three years, they had, with their accustomed celerity, conquered the whole of Spain, except the fated region of the Northwest, behind whose mountains a large body of Christians, under Pelayo, retreated, leaving the rest of their country in the hands of the conquerors.

But while the Christians, who had escaped from the wreck of the Gothic power, were thus either shut up in the mountains of Biscay and Asturias, or engaged in that desperate struggle of nearly eight centuries, which ended in the final expulsion of their invaders, the Moors[429] throughout the centre and especially throughout the South of Spain were enjoying an empire as splendid and intellectual as the elements of their religion and civilization would permit.

Much has been said concerning the glory of this empire, and the effect it has produced on the literature and manners of modern times. Long ago, a disposition was shown by Huet and Massieu to trace to them the origin both of rhyme and of romantic fiction; but both are now generally admitted to have been, as it were, spontaneous productions of the human mind, which different nations at different periods have invented separately for themselves.[430] Somewhat later, Father Andres, a learned Spaniard, who wrote in Italy and in Italian, anxious to give to his own country the honor of imparting to the rest of Europe the first impulse to refinement after the fall of the Roman empire, conceived the theory, at once broader and more definite than that of Huet, that the poetry and cultivation of the Troubadours of Provence, which are generally admitted to be the oldest of Southern Europe in modern times, were derived entirely and immediately from the Arabs of Spain; a theory which has been adopted by Ginguené, by Sismondi, and by the authors of the “Literary History of France.”[431] But they all go upon the presumption that rhyme and metrical composition, as well as a poetic spirit, were awakened later in Provence than subsequent inquiries show them to have been. For Father Andres and his followers date the communication of the Arabian influences of Spain upon the South of France from the capture of Toledo in 1085, when, no doubt, there was a great increase of intercourse between the two countries.[432] But Raynouard[433] has since published the fragment of a poem, the manuscript of which can hardly be dated so late as the year 1000, and has thus shown that the Provençal literature is to be carried back above a century earlier, and traced to the period of the gradual corruption of the Latin, and the gradual formation of the modern language. The elder Schlegel, too, has entered into the discussion of the theory itself, and left little reason to doubt that Raynouard’s positions on the subject are well founded.[434]

But, though we cannot, with Father Andres and his followers, trace the poetry and refinement of all the South of Europe in modern times primarily or mainly to the Arabs of Spain, we must still, so far as the Spanish language and literature are concerned, trace something to them. For their progress in refinement was hardly less brilliant and rapid than their progress in empire. The reigns of the two Abderrahmans, and the period of the glory of Córdova, which began about 750 and continued almost to the time of its conquest by the Christians in 1236, were more intellectual than could then be found elsewhere; and if the kingdom of Granada, which ended in 1492, was less refined, it was, perhaps, even more splendid and luxurious.[435] The public schools and libraries of the Spanish Arabs were resorted to, not only by those of their own faith at home and in the East, but by Christians from different parts of Europe; and Pope Sylvester the Second, one of the most remarkable men of his age, is believed to have owed his elevation to the pontificate to the culture he received in Seville and Córdova.[436]

In the midst of this flourishing empire lived large masses of native Christians, who had not retreated with their hardy brethren under Pelayo to the mountains of the Northwest, but dwelt among their conquerors, protected by the wide toleration which the Mohammedan religion originally prescribed and practised. Indeed, except that, as a vanquished people, they paid double the tribute paid by Moors, and that they were taxed for their Church property, these Christians were little burdened or restrained, and were even permitted to have their bishops, churches, and monasteries, and to be judged by their own laws and their own tribunals, whenever the question at issue was one that related only to themselves, unless it involved a capital punishment.[437] But, though they were thus to a certain degree preserved as a separate people, and though, considering their peculiar position, they maintained, more than would be readily believed, their religious loyalty, still the influence of a powerful and splendid empire, and of a population every way more prosperous and refined than themselves, was constantly pressing upon them. The inevitable result was, that, in the course of ages, they gradually yielded something of their national character. They came, at last, to wear the Moorish dress; they adopted Moorish manners; and they served in the Moorish armies and in the places of honor at the courts of Córdova and Granada. In all respects, indeed, they deserved the name given to them, that of Mozárabes or Muçárabes, persons who seemed to become Arabs in manners and language; for they were so mingled with their conquerors and masters, that, in process of time, they could be distinguished from the Arabs amidst whom they lived by little except their faith.[438]

The effect of all this on whatever of the language and literature of Rome still survived among them was, of course, early apparent. The natives of the soil who dwelt among the Moors soon neglected their degraded Latin, and spoke Arabic. In 794, the conquerors thought they might already venture to provide schools for teaching their own language to their Christian subjects, and require them to use no other.[439] Alvarus Cordubensis, who wrote his “Indiculus Luminosus” in 854,[440] and who is a competent witness on such a subject, shows that they had succeeded; for he complains that, in his time, the Christians neglected their Latin, and acquired Arabic to such an extent that hardly one Christian in a thousand was to be found who could write a Latin letter to a brother in the faith, while many were able to write Arabic poetry so as to rival the Moors themselves.[441] Such, indeed, was the early prevalence of the Arabic, that John, Bishop of Seville, one of those venerable men who commanded the respect alike of Christians and Mohammedans, found it necessary to translate the Scriptures into it, because his flock could read them in no other language.[442] Even the records of Christian churches were often kept in Arabic from this period down through several succeeding centuries, and in the archives of the cathedral at Toledo, above two thousand documents were recently and are probably still to be seen, written chiefly by Christians and ecclesiastics, in Arabic.[443]

Nor was this state of things at once changed when the Christians from the North prevailed again; for, after the reconquest of some of the central portions of the country, the coins struck by Christian kings to circulate among their Christian subjects were covered with Arabic inscriptions, as may be seen in coins of Alfonso the Sixth and Alfonso the Eighth, in the years 1185, 1186, 1191, 1192, 1199, and 1212.[444] And in 1256 Alfonso the Wise, when, by a solemn decree dated at Burgos, 18th December, he was making provision for education at Seville, established Arabic schools there, as well as Latin.[445] Indeed, still later, and even down to the fourteenth century, the public acts and monuments of that part of Spain were often written in Arabic, and the signatures to important ecclesiastical documents, though the body of the instrument might be in Latin or Spanish, were sometimes made in the Arabic character, as they are in a grant of privileges by Ferdinand the Fourth to the monks of Saint Clement.[446] So that almost as late as the period of the conquest of Granada, and in some respects later, it is plain that the language, manners, and civilization of the Arabs were still much diffused among the Christian population of the centre and South of Spain.

When, therefore, the Christians from the North, after a contest the most bitter and protracted, had rescued the greater part of their country from thraldom, and driven the Moors before them into its southwestern provinces, they found themselves, as they advanced, surrounded by large masses of their ancient countrymen, Christians, indeed, in faith and feeling, though most imperfect in Christian knowledge and morals, but Moors in dress, manners, and language. A union, of course, took place between these different bodies, who, by the fortunes of war, had been separated from each other so long, that, though originally of the same stock and still connected by some of the strongest sympathies of our nature, they had for centuries ceased to possess a common language in which alone it would be possible to carry on the daily intercourse of life. But such a reunion of the two parts of the nation, wherever and whenever it occurred, necessarily implied an immediate modification or accommodation of the language that was to be used by both. No doubt, such a modification of the Gothicized and corrupted Latin had been going on, in some degree, from the time of the Moorish conquest. But now it was indispensable that it should be completed. A considerable infusion of the Arabic, therefore, quickly took place;[447] and the last important element was thus added to the present Spanish, which has been polished and refined, indeed, by subsequent centuries of progress in knowledge and civilization, but is still, in its prominent features, the same that it appeared soon after what, with characteristic nationality, is called the Restoration of Spain.[448]

The language, however, which was thus brought from the North by the Christian conquerors, and became modified as it advanced among the Moorish population of the South, was, as we have seen, by no means the classical Latin. It was Latin corrupted, at first, by the causes which had corrupted that language throughout the Roman empire, even before the overthrow of the Roman power,—then by the inevitable effect of the establishment in Spain of the Goths and other barbarians immediately afterwards,—and subsequently by additions from the original Iberian or Basque, made during the residence of the Christians, after the Moorish conquest, among the mountaineers, with whom that language had never ceased to prevail. But the principal cause of the final degradation of the Latin at the North, after the middle of the eighth century, was, no doubt, the miserable condition of the people who spoke it. They had fled from the ruins of the Latinized kingdom of the Goths, pursued by the fiery sword of the Moslem, and found themselves crowded together in the wild fastnesses of the Biscayan and Asturian mountains. There, deprived of the social institutions in which they had been nurtured, and which, however impaired or ruined, yet represented and retained to the last whatever of civilization had been left in their unhappy country; mingled with a people who, down to that time, appear to have shaken off little of the barbarism that had resisted alike the invasion of the Romans and of the Goths; and pent up, in great numbers, within a territory too small, too rude, and too poor to afford them the means of a tolerable subsistence, the Christians at the North seem to have sunk at once into a state nearly approaching that of savage life,—a state, of course, in which no care or thought would be given to preserve the purity of the language they spoke.[449] Nor was their condition much more favorable for such purposes when, with the vigor of despair, they began to recover the country they had lost. For they were then constantly in arms and constantly amidst the perils and sufferings of an exhausting warfare, embittered and exasperated by intense national and religious hatreds. When, therefore, as they advanced with their conquests towards the south and the east, they found themselves coming successively in contact with those portions of their race that had remained among the Moors, they felt that they were at once in the presence of a civilization and refinement altogether superior to their own.

The result was inevitable. The change, which, as has been said, now took place in their language, was governed by this peculiar circumstance in their position. For, as the Goths, between the fifth and eighth centuries, received a vast number of words from the Latin because it was the language of a people with whom they were intimately mingled and who were much more intellectual and advanced than themselves, so now, for the same reason, the whole nation received, between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, another increase of their vocabulary from the Arabic, and accommodated themselves, in a remarkable degree, to the advanced cultivation of their Southern countrymen and of their new Moorish subjects.

At what precise period the language, since called the Spanish and Castilian, can be said to have been formed by this union of the Gothicized and corrupted Latin that came from the North with the Arabic of the South, cannot now be determined.[450] Such a union was, from its nature, brought about by one of those gradual and silent changes in what belongs essentially to the character of a whole people, which can leave behind them no formal monuments or exact records. But the learned Marina, who may perhaps be safely trusted on this point, asserts that no document in the Castilian language, with a date anterior to the year 1140, exists, or, in his opinion, ever did exist.[451] Indeed the oldest yet cited is a confirmation of privileges by Alfonso the Seventh, in the year 1155, to the city of Avilés in Asturias.[452] However gradual, therefore, and indistinct may have been the formation and first appearance of the Castilian as the spoken language of modern Spain, we may no doubt feel sure, that, about the middle of the twelfth century, it had risen to the dignity of being a written language, and had begun to appear in the important public documents of the time.

From this period, then, we are to recognize the existence in Spain of a language spreading gradually through the greater part of the country, different from the pure or the corrupted Latin, and still more different from the Arabic, yet obviously formed by a union of both, modified by the analogies and spirit of the Gothic constructions and dialects, and containing some remains of the vocabularies of the Germanic tribes, of the Iberians, the Celts, and the Phœnicians, who, at different periods, had occupied nearly or quite the whole of the Peninsula. This language was called originally the Romance, because it was so much formed out of the language of the Romans; just as the Christians, in the northwestern mountains, were called by the Arabs Alromi, because they were imagined to be descended from the Romans.[453] Later, it was called Spanish, from the name taken by the whole people, and perhaps, at last, it was even more frequently called Castilian, from that portion of the country, whose political power grew to be so predominant, as to give its dialect a preponderance over all the other dialects, which, like the Galician, the Catalonian, and the Valencian, were, for a longer or shorter period, written languages, each with claims to a literature of its own.

The proportion of materials contributed by each of the languages that enter into the composition of the Spanish has never been accurately settled, though enough is known to permit an adjustment of their general relations to each other. Sarmiento, who investigated the subject with some care, thinks that six tenths of the present Castilian are of Latin origin; one tenth Greek and ecclesiastical; one tenth Northern; one tenth Arabic; and the remaining tenth East Indian and American, Gypsy, modern German, French, and Italian. Probably this estimate is not very far from the truth. But Larramendi and Humboldt leave no doubt that the Basque should be added; and, while Marina’s inquiries give a smaller proportion to the Arabic, those of Gayangos raise it to an eighth. The main point, however, is one concerning which there can be no doubt;—the broad foundations of the Castilian are to be sought in the Latin, to which, in fact, we are to trace nearly or quite all the contributions sometimes attributed to the Greek.[454]

The Spanish, or Castilian, language thus formed was introduced into general use sooner and more easily than, perhaps, any other of the newly created languages, which, as the confusion of the Middle Ages passed off, were springing up, throughout the South of Europe, to take the place of the universal language of the Roman world. The reasons of this were, that the necessity for its creation and employment was more urgent, from the extraordinary relations between the Moors, the Muçárabes, and the Christians; that the reign of Saint Ferdinand, at least as late as the capture of Seville in 1247, was a period, if not of quiet, yet of prosperity and almost of splendor; and that the Latin, both as a written and a spoken language, had become so much degraded, that it could offer less resistance to change in Spain than in the other countries where a similar revolution was in progress.[455] We must not be surprised, therefore, to find, not only specimens, but even considerable monuments, of Spanish literature soon after the first recognized appearance of the language itself. The narrative poem of the Cid, for instance, cannot be dated later than the year 1200; and Berceo, who flourished from 1220 to 1240, though he almost apologizes for not writing in Latin,[456] and thus shows how certainly he lived in the debatable period between the two languages, has left us a large mass of genuine Spanish, or Castilian, verse. But it is a little later, and in the reign of Alfonso the Tenth, from 1252 to 1282, that we are to consider the introduction of the Spanish, as a written, a settled, and a polite language, to have been recognized and completed. By his order, the Bible was translated into it from the Vulgate; he required all contracts and legal instruments to be written in it, and all law proceedings to be held in it; and, finally, by his own remarkable code, “Las Siete Partidas,” he at once laid the foundations for the extension and establishment of its authority as far as the Spanish race and power should prevail.[457] From this period, therefore, we are to look for the history and development of the Spanish language, in the body of Spanish literature.

APPENDIX, B.

ON THE ROMANCEROS.

(See Vol. I. p. 128.)

As the earliest ballads were not by known authors, but were gathered at different times, from the traditions of the people, it is impossible to understand their history without understanding something of the history of the Ballad-books in which they are found. A sketch of such a history has been written, with much knowledge of the subject, by Ferdinand Wolf, and is found in the “Jahrbücher der Literatur” (Band CXIV., Wien, 1846, pp. 1-72). I do not willingly enter into a discussion so peculiarly within the province of this distinguished scholar; but, as I possess, or have seen, several very early Ballad-books which he does not mention, and am besides unable to agree with him as to which is the oldest of them all, and therefore the most important, I will, as briefly as I can, give my views of this obscure branch of bibliography; confining myself, where it is possible to do so, to what has not before been published, and touching the whole matter only so far as it concerns the history of Spanish poetry.

A considerable number of ballads, printed on one or more sheets, in black letter, for popular use, may still be found. Such are “El Conde Alarcos”; “El Moro Calaynos”; a collection of twelve separate pieces, and a collection of fifty-nine, sold at Heber’s sale; with others noticed by Brunet, under the head of Romances Séparées, in his article “Romanceros.” But they are all without dates; it is extremely uncertain when any one of them was printed; and it seems to me, judging from those I have seen, to be more probable, that they were taken from collections now known to exist or to have existed, than that they helped to make up those collections,—the oldest of which claims to have been taken from the memories of the people, and from imperfect manuscript copies circulating only for popular use.

1. The first separate collection of ballads ever published was, I think, the one printed at Saragossa, under the title of “Silva de Varios Romances,” by Stevan G. de Nagera, in two parts, 1550. (See Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, ed. 1843, art. Silva.) I have seen a copy of this Silva belonging, in 1838, to M. Henri Ternaux-Compans, of Paris. In a prefatory address to the First Part, the collector says, “I have taken the trouble in this Silva to bring together all the ballads that have come to my knowledge”; adding afterwards, “It may be that some, though very few, of the old ballads are wanting, which I have not inserted, either because they did not come to my knowledge, or because I did not find them so complete and perfect as I wished. Nor do I deny, that, in some of those here printed, there may be an occasional error; but this is to be imputed to the copies from which I took them, which were very corrupt, and to the weakness of memory of some persons, who dictated them to me, and who could not recollect them perfectly. I did all I could to obtain the least faulty that were to be had, and had no little trouble to collect and amend them, and add to some that were imperfect. However, I wished they should stand in some order, and so I placed, first, those of devotion and from the Holy Scriptures; next, those that relate Castilian stories; next, those of Troy; and, lastly, those that relate to affairs of love.” After these ballads, which fill one hundred and ninety-six leaves, he gives us twenty-five leaves of canciones, villancicos, and chistes, or jests, among which, at folio 199, is the well-known witty Dialogue of Castillejo and his Pen. At the end of the First Part, folio 221, we have the following Address to the Reader, in which the collector has evidently changed his mind about having obtained all but a “very few of the old ballads” known to exist; for he now says: “Some of my friends, as they knew I was printing this ‘Cancionero,’ brought me many ballads, in order that I might insert them; but as we were coming to the end of the printing, I chose not to put them in, since they would interrupt the order that had been begun; but rather to make another volume, which will be the Second Part of this ‘Silva de Varios Romances,’ which is now in the press. Vale.”

This “Segunda Parte” was published in the same year, 1550, and consists of two hundred and three leaves of ballads, nineteen leaves of chistes, and two leaves of contents, at the end of which the “Impresor” says: “I did not wish to put into this part any more of those short chistes, because, if God pleases, they will be put into the Third Part, with other things agreeable to the curious reader. Vale.” I know of no copy of this Third Part; but it is possible it was printed, because, in the “Silva de Varios Romances,” of which Wolf and Brunet mention several editions between 1578 and 1673, and of which I possess that of 1602, the title-page declares that it contains “los mejores romances de los tres libros de la Silva.”

2. The first two parts, however, combined into one, but omitting the chistes, etc., soon appeared at Antwerp, printed by Martin Nucio, a well-known publisher, with considerable additions, but without the date of its publication. The Preface is in nearly the same words with that of the Silva of Nagera, Parte I.; but, when it announces the arrangement of the ballads, it changes their order, and puts “first, those that speak of France and the Twelve Peers; then, those that relate Castilian stories; then, those of Troy; and, lastly, those that treat of affairs of love.” Some of the ballads of the Saragossa collection are omitted, and the whole is called “Cancionero de Romances.” There is a copy of it in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsénal at Paris; and that it is subsequent to the Saragossa Silva, and taken from it, seems certain, because one must be taken from the other, and the note at the end of the Silva, Parte I., shows that the Saragossa Silva was collected and printed at different times; while the arrangement of the ballads in the Cancionero of Antwerp shows that they were necessarily all present to the editor when he put his work together. Besides, how should Nucio collect ballads from the memories of the people around him at Antwerp, where there were few Spaniards, except soldiers? And how much less valuable would be any collection made there than one made in Spain?

3. Again, a “Cancionero de Romances” occurs, printed “En Envers en casa de Martin Nucio, MDL.,” a copy of which is in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal of Paris. It has the same Preface with the one last mentioned, from which it differs only in omitting seven of its ballads, and inserting thirty-seven others. The errors noted in the one without date, at folios 272. b, etc., are corrected in this one, dated 1550, and prove it to be the subsequent edition of the two,—a fact necessarily inferred, also, from the additions it contains.

4. This edition of 1550 seems to have been issued with different title-pages, for Wolf says there is a copy of it in the Imperial Library at Vienna, dated 1554. But nearly all the copies now known to exist bear the date of 1555, under which this collection is best known, and is commonly cited. It is absolutely the same work with the copy at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, dated 1550, ballad for ballad, and page for page; and as there is no appearance that the title-page of the copy at the Arsenal has been tampered with, we are to suppose that three editions of the collection of ballads made at Saragossa in 1550 appeared in the course of that year; two of which were published by Martin Nucio, at Antwerp. That all three are only one work is apparent from the circumstance, that their ballads are generally the same, and that they have the same Preface, a little changed in the second and third editions to meet the changes in the ballads contained in them. They are all in 18mo. The first, taking both its parts together, fills four hundred and thirty-six leaves; the second, two hundred and seventy-six; and the third, three hundred. Several reprints of the last are given by Wolf; namely, Antwerp, 1568 and 1573; Lisbon, 1581; and Barcelona, 1587 and 1626.

Subsequent to the Silva of Saragossa, we have several collections of ballads, that are noticed in the text,—such as those of Sepulveda, 1551, Timoneda, 1573, Linares, 1573, Padilla, 1583, Maldonado, 1586, and Cueva, 1587,—consisting chiefly or entirely of ballads written by their respective authors. At last, an attempt was made to gather another Romancero from all the sources, whether of books, memory, or tradition, that were open to its collectors,—the true principle on which the popular Spanish Romanceros have always been compiled. It seems to have been begun at Valencia, when the first volume of the “Flor de Varios y Nuevos Romances, Primera y Segunda Parte,” collected by Andrés de Villalta, with a Third Part by Felipe Mey,—himself a poet and scholar as well as a printer,[458]—were printed in one volume, in 1593, though each of them had, probably, been printed earlier by itself. It is cited by Duran (Romances Caballarescos, Madrid, 1832, 12mo, Tom. I., Advertencia); and from the ballads he took out of it there can be no doubt, that its three parts differed little from the first three parts of the “Romancero General” printed somewhat later. The second volume of this collection, which is entitled “Quarta y Quinta Parte de Flor de Romances,” was collected by Sebastian Velez de Guevara, Racionero de la Colegial de Santander, and was printed at Burgos, in 1594, 18mo, one hundred and ninety-one leaves. It is apparently not the first edition, for the Aprobacion by Pedro de Padilla, and a permission to print it, are dated 1592, while the permission to print the present edition is dated August 11, 1594, and says it has been “otras veces impreso.” Probably the two parts were originally printed separately.

The third volume, and the most important, is entitled “Sexta Parte de Flor de Romances Nuevos, recopilados de muchos Autores, por Pedro de Flores, Librero,” and was printed at Toledo, in 1594, 18mo, one hundred and ninety leaves. It is the first edition, but the license seems to speak of a fourth and fifth part as if also made by Flores. In a ballad prefixed to this third volume, Flores is accused before Apollo of having taken great pains to collect its contents.

“De diversas flores

Un ramillete ha juntado,

Las quales con grande afan,

De estrañas partes buscaron”;—

to which, in a defence immediately following, Flores replies, that “they were stray ballads [romances que andavan descarriados], which he had brought together with great labor,” and for which the god proceeds to reward rather than to punish him. Flores adds, that he gives each ballad complete, and not like the street-singers, who drawl out one half, and then say they are tired of it. The whole account shows that many of the ballads in this Sixth Part—which is excellent and contains a hundred and fifty-eight—were collected from the memories of the people by Pedro Flores himself.

The fourth volume contains “Septima y Octava Parte de Flor de Varios Romances Nuevos, recopilados de muchos Autores”; printed by Juan Iñiguez de Lequerica, Alcalá de Henares, 1597, 18mo. There is a license for each part; that of the first dated May 4, 1596, and recognizing it as a reprint, and that of the second dated September 30, 1597, as if it were the original edition, and entitling it “Flores del Parnaso, Octava Parte.” The Seventh Part fills one hundred and sixty-eight leaves, and the Eighth one hundred and thirty-two leaves, numbered separately.

The fifth and last volume is called “Flor de Varios Romances diferentes de todos impresos, Novena Parte,” printed by Juan Flamenco, Madrid, 1597, 18mo, one hundred and forty-four leaves. The Aprobacion, 4th September, 1597, and the Tassa, 22d March, 1596, speak of it as the eighth and ninth parts; but the license, without date, is only for Part Ninth.

5. From these nine parts was made, with slight changes and additions, chiefly toward the end, the first edition of the “Romancero General,” which was printed at Madrid, 1600, 4to; the Tassa being dated 16th December, 1599. A copy of it is in the National Library at Madrid. A new edition—again with slight changes—appeared in 1602; and another in 1604. This last was reprinted, without alteration, by Juan de la Cuesta, at Madrid, in 1614. But Miguel de Madrigal had previously published the “Segunda Parte del Romancero General y Flor de diversa Poesía,” (Valladolid, 1605, 4to,) which may appropriately be added to either of the last two editions of the principal work; and thus, from nine parts, of which all four of the editions otherwise consist, extend them to thirteen parts. All these editions are in small quarto, and constitute the well-known “Romanceros Generales.”

The publication of so many different collections of ballads, in the last half of the sixteenth century and the first years of the seventeenth, leaves no doubt that ballads had then become known in all classes of society, and were gradually finding favor with the highest. But the Romanceros Generales were too large for popular use. Smaller ballad-books, therefore, were printed; such as the “Jardin de Amadores,” by Juan de la Puente, 1611; the “Primavera” of Pedro Arias Perez, made with much judgment, and printed in 1626, 1659, etc.; the “Maravillas del Parnaso” of Jorge Pinto de Morales, 1640; the “Romances Varios” of Pablo de Val, 1655; and several others, to say nothing of the many still less considerable collections, making only a sheet or two, which are noticed by Depping and Wolf, and which were published to meet the broad demands of the less cultivated portions of the Spanish people, just as they have been published and republished down to our own times. For similar reasons, though, perhaps, more to gratify the military taste of the age, and afford amusement to the armies in Flanders, Italy, and the Indies, selections were made from the Romanceros Generales, and contributions obtained from other sources, to make smaller and more convenient ballad-books of a stirring nature. Such is the “Floresta de Romances de los Doce Pares de Francia,” by Damian Lopez de Tortajada, the first edition of which was printed at Alcalá in 1608, (Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, 1797, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 105,) and such is the “Romancero del Cid,” by Juan de Escobar, first printed at Alcalá in 1612 (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 684); both of which have often been reprinted since.

But towards the end of the seventeenth century, a love for the old Spanish ballads, as well as for the rest of the elder national literature, began to decay in the more favored classes of society; and, with the coming in of the eighteenth century and the Bourbon family, it disappeared almost entirely. So strong a feeling, however, and one that had struck its roots so deeply in the popular character, could not be extirpated. The ballads were forgotten and neglected by the courtly and the noble, but that the mass of the nation was as faithful to them as ever we have the plain testimony of Sarmiento, and the fact, that they were constantly reprinted for popular use in the humblest forms,—most frequently in what are called broadsides. At last, an attempt was made to replace them on their old ground. Fernandez, in 1796, printed two volumes of them in his collection of Castilian poetry, and Quintana made a small, but dainty, bouquet of them for his lyrical extracts in 1807, adding to each publication a Preface, which gave them praise high and graceful, if not such as seemed to be imbued with their own earnest spirit. Little effect, however, was yet produced at home, but some was soon apparent abroad. Jacob Grimm published at Vienna, in 1815, a small collection of the best old ballads, chiefly taken from the Romancero of 1555; and C. B. Depping published at Leipzig, in 1817, a larger one, containing above three hundred ballads, with a Preface and notes in German, the whole of which was republished in Spanish, first, with slight additions and corrections, at London, in 1825, by V. Salvá, and secondly, with very large and important additions, at Leipzig, by Depping himself and by A. A. Galiano, in 1844;—publications of great merit, which have done more than all that had been done previously to make the old Spanish ballads known in Europe generally, and which have apparently called forth the admirably spirited translations of ballads by J. G. Lockhart, 1823, and the interesting historically-arranged French versions in prose of nearly three hundred, by Damas Hinard, 1844.

A very important publication of Spanish ballads in later times comes, however, as it should come, from Spain itself, and was made by Don Agustin Duran, to whom early Spanish literature, in other respects, owes much. He began, in 1828, with the Moorish ballads in the Romancero General of 1614, and went on, in 1829, with two volumes of miscellaneous ballads, ending his labors, in 1832, with two volumes more, containing historical ballads and ballads of chivalry;—in all, five volumes,—the last four of which are collected from all the sources he could command earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century, and the whole of which, with additions, have been republished at Paris by Ochoa, in 1838, and at Barcelona by Pons, in 1840.

Still, a general, thorough, and critical collection of Spanish ballads is wanting;—one embracing those of the known authors, like Cueva, Padilla, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and Góngora, as well as the untold wealth that remains, and must always remain, anonymous in the elder Romanceros. When we possess such a work, and not before, we can understand and honor, as they deserve to be understood and honored, the poetry and the nationality of the old Spanish ballads, upon which, as upon its true foundations, rests the old Spanish drama. But to whom shall we look for it? Is it to Duran at Madrid, or to Wolf at Vienna, or to Huber at Berlin? I have intimations that one may be expected from Duran, and hope they may soon be fulfilled.

APPENDIX, C.

ON FERNAN GOMEZ DE CIBDAREAL AND THE “CENTON EPISTOLARIO.”

(See Vol. I. p. 398.)

I have treated the “Centon Epistolario” in the text just as it has heretofore been treated; that is, as a collection of the unstudied letters of a simple-hearted, vain man, who, for above forty years, was attached to the person of John the Second, and familiar with what was done at his court. Still, the exactness and genuineness of the work have not been entirely unquestioned. Mayans y Siscar (in his Orígenes, Tom. I., 1737, p. 203) speaks of Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga, (see, ante, Vol. II. p. 500, Vol. III. p. 184,) the well-known author and diplomatist of the time of Philip the Fourth, sometimes called Vera y Figueroa, and says, “Feamente adulteró las epístolas históricas del Bachiller Fernan Gomez de Ciudad Real,”—He shamefully adulterated the historical letters of the Bachelor Ferdinand Gomez de Cibdareal; but Mayans gives no reasons or facts to support this severe charge, and he is roundly rebuked for it by Diosdado, (in his treatise “De Primâ Typographiæ Hispanicæ Ætate,” Romæ, 1794, p. 74,) who calls it “an atrocious calumny.” And again, Quintana, in his Life of Alvaro de Luna, (Vidas de Españoles Célebres, Tom. III., 1833, p. 248, note,) is so much troubled about some of the discrepancies between the Bachelor’s accounts of the death of the Constable and the known facts of history, that he, too, suggests all sorts of doubts, but ends by saying that he follows the Bachelor’s accounts as a sufficient authority where they are not directly contradicted by others higher and safer.

My own opinion is, that the book is a forgery from beginning to end; but a forgery so ingenious, so happy, so agreeable, that it may seem an ungracious thing to tell the truth about it, or attempt to disturb the position it has so long held in the Castilian literature of the fifteenth century. The facts on which I ground my opinion are chiefly these:—

1. No such person as the Bachelor Cibdareal is mentioned in the chronicles or correspondence of the period during which he is supposed to have lived, though our accounts from such sources are copious and minute; noticing, I believe, everybody of consequence at the court of John the Second, and certainly many persons of much less importance than the king’s confidential physician.

2. No manuscript of the Letters is known to be in existence.

3. The first notice of them is, that they appear in an edition in small quarto, black letter, one hundred and sixty-six pages, which claims to have been printed at Burgos in 1499. Of this edition, few copies have ever been seen. Antonio, who died in 1684, intimates (Bib. Vetus, Tom. II. p. 250) a doubt about the truth of its date; Bayer, in his note on the passage, 1788, says that learned men commonly supposed that Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga, (who died in 1658,) published this edition; and Mendez (in his Typographia, 1796, pp. 291 and 293) declares the edition to be unquestionably half a century later than its pretended date;—all three of these learned men being experts and good witnesses concerning a fact, which, I think, must be obvious to any person familiar with the earliest printed Spanish books, who should look on a copy of it now before me. The name of the printer on its title-page, Juan de Rei, it is important to add, is otherwise suspected.

4. The next edition of the Letters of Cibdareal is that of Madrid, 1775, edited by Don Eugenio Llaguno y Amirola, Secretary of the Academy of History, who thinks the first edition could not have been printed till after 1600;—a circumstance otherwise probable, as I am not aware that it is cited by any author of an earlier date. Indeed, if Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga had any thing to do with it, we must suppose it to have been printed yet later; for in 1600 that statesman was only about ten years old.

5. The Bachelor Cibdareal gives a date to no one of his letters; but so completely are the facts or hints for them to be detected in the Chronicle of John the Second, that the editor of the Letters in 1775 has been able, by means of that Chronicle, to affix its proper date to every one, I believe, of the hundred and five letters of which the collection consists. This would hardly be possible, if the two works had been written quite independently of each other.

6. The style of the Letters, though certainly adapted with great skill and felicity to its supposed period, is not uniformly true to it, erring on the side of curious archaisms. Sometimes it goes further, and uses words for which no example can be adduced. Thus the use of ca in the sense of than is wholly unjustifiable; and wherever it so occurs in the first edition, it is altered in the edition of 1775 to que, in order to make sense. Other errors more trifling might be noticed; and in the spelling there is a systematical use of c for z in words that never were spelt with a c.

7. The few words in the “Aviso al Letor,” and the still fewer that introduce the verses at the end of the volume, profess to come from the Editor, who, according to Bayer, Mendez, etc., lived after 1600, and should, therefore, have written in the style of the period when Mariana and Cervantes flourished. But he writes exactly in the style of the Letters he edits, which claim to be a century and a half older; and, what is worse, he uses in his own person the ca for que, which, as we have noticed, nobody else ever used, except his Bachelor.

8. All accounts represent Juan de Mena as having died at Torrelaguna in 1456, at the age of forty-five. (Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. p. 266; and Romero, Epicedio, 1578, f. 486, at the end of Hernan Nuñez, Proverbios.) Now the supposed Cibdareal (Epist. 20) places Juan de Mena, in 1428,—when he was, of course, only seventeen years old,—on the most familiar footing at court, and makes him already historiographer to the king, and far advanced in his principal poem;—a statement the more incredible when we recollect that Romero says expressly, that Mena was twenty-three years old when he first gave himself to “the sweet labor of good learning,”—“al dulce trabajo de aquel buen saber.” See the notice of Juan de Mena, ante, Vol. I. pp. 379-388.

9. The contemptuous account Cibdareal gives of Barrientos is not one which a courtier in his position would be likely to give of a person already of great consequence, and rising fast to the highest places in the government. But, what is more, it is not the true account. He represents that distinguished ecclesiastic, as we have seen, (ante, Vol. I. p. 359,) to have burnt, in a very rash and reckless manner, a large quantity of books, from the library of the Marquis of Villena, sent to him for examination after the death of their owner, because he had been accused, in his lifetime, of studying magic,—Barrientos, as Cibdareal would have us believe, knowing nothing about the contents of the books, which he burnt, at once, only because he would not take the trouble to examine them. Now I happen to possess, in an unpublished manuscript of Barrientos, his own account of this very matter. It is in a learned treatise on Divination, which he wrote by order of John the Second, and addressed to that monarch; and in the Preface to the Second Part of which he declares that he burnt the books in question by the royal order, and intimates, that, in his own opinion, they should have been spared. “And this book,” he says, speaking of the one called “Raziel,” to which I have alluded, (ante, Vol. I, p. 359, note,) “this book is the one, which, after the death of Don Enrique [de Villena], you, as king, commanded me, your servant and creature, to burn, with many others, which I did, in presence of sundry of your servants;—a matter in which, as in many other things, you showed and still show the great devotion your Highness has always had for the Christian religion. And, although this was and is to be praised, still, for other respects, it is good in some way to preserve such books, provided they are in the hands and power of good, trustworthy persons, who will take heed that they be read by none but wise men,” etc.;—a very different account certainly from the one given in the letter of Cibdareal, and one which, being addressed to the king, who was necessarily acquainted with the whole transaction, can hardly have been untrue.

10. The most considerable event recorded in the Letters of Cibdareal, and one of the most considerable occurrences in Spain during the fifteenth century, is the execution of the Constable Alvaro de Luna, at Valladolid, June 2, 1452. The Bachelor says, he was with the king in that city the day it happened and the night preceding; that the king showed great irresolution as to the fulfilment of the sentence up to the last moment; that he had a sorrowful and sleepless night before it occurred; and that nobody dared to tell him the execution was absolutely over till he had eaten his dinner;—adding to these striking statements sundry picturesque local details, as if they had come within his own knowledge by his witnessing the execution. Now the truth is, that the king was not in Valladolid on that day, nor for some days before and after; and it would have been a very hard-hearted thing if he had been there at the moment when his old friend and favorite minister of state, to whom he never ceased to be attached, was brought to the scaffold, in order to satisfy the turbulent nobility whom he had oppressed. The king was, in fact, then at the siege of Maqueda, a little town northwest of Toledo, above eighty miles off, as appears by his letters still extant, dated May 29, June 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.; so that many of the circumstances recorded in Cibdareal’s letter (the 103d) are necessarily untrue. Moreover, the supposed Cibdareal places the execution of the Constable on the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen,—“Víspera de la Magdalena,”—confounding it with the date of the death of the king, which happened on that day the next year, and thus placing it on the 21st of July, which was the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen, instead of the 2d of June, which, after some discussion, long since the time when these Letters were first printed, has been determined to be the true day of the execution. This gross mistake in the Letters about the date of the Constable’s death was made, I suppose, in part from carelessness, and in part because that date was not then settled, as it is now. (See Mendez, Typographia, 1796, pp. 256-260; and Quintana, Vidas, Tom. III. pp. 437-439.)

11. The age in which I suppose the Letters of Cibdareal to have been forged was one in which such attempts were likely to be made. It was in Spain an age of forgeries. Guevara had just before maintained his “Marcus Aurelius” to be true history. (See, ante, Vol. I. p. 541.) The “Leaden Books” of Granada, and the “Chronicones” of Father Higuera,—the first decided by the whole civil authority of the realm to be genuine, and the second received as such by a very general consent,—were, from 1595 to 1652, at the height of their success, though both have long since been admitted to be gross frauds, which acute scholars like Montano, and historians like Mariana, must, indeed, have seen through, and were too high-minded to countenance; but which, it should be remembered, they did not feel strong enough openly to resist and denounce. In this state of opinion in Spain, some ingenious scholar—perhaps Vera y Zuñiga—as clear-sighted as they were and only a little less scrupulous, may well have been encouraged to imitate Father Higuera in a matter which, instead of being an attempt, like his, to bring false records concerning important affairs into the history of the kingdom, may have been regarded merely as a literary jeu d’esprit, intended to mislead nobody on any point except merely that of the genuineness of the correspondence. (See, ante, Vol. III. p. 152, note.)

Against all this may be urged the general simplicity and interesting details of the Letters themselves, so appropriate in their tone to the age they illustrate, and the fact, that for above two centuries they have been cited as the highest authority for the events of which they speak; a fact, however, whose importance is diminished when we recollect how rarely a spirit of criticism has shown itself in Spanish historical literature, and that even in Spanish poetry the case of the Bachiller de la Torre is, in some respects, as strong as that of the Bachiller de Cibdareal, and in others yet stronger. At any rate, all we know with tolerable certainty about the Bachelor Cibdareal is, that the first edition of his Letters is a forgery, intended to conceal something, and more likely, I think, intended to conceal the spuriousness of the whole than any thing else.

APPENDIX, D.

ON THE BUSCAPIÉ.

(See Vol. II. pp. 105, etc.)

A good deal has been said within the last seventy years, and especially of late, (1847-49,) about a pamphlet entitled “El Buscapié,”—“The Squib,” or “Search-foot,”—supposed by some persons to have been written by Cervantes, soon after the publication of the First Part of his Don Quixote. The subject, though not one of great consequence, is certainly not without interest, and the facts in relation to it are, I believe, as follows.

In the Life of Cervantes, by Vicente de los Rios, prefixed to the magnificent edition of the Don Quixote published by the Spanish Academy in 1780, (see, ante, Vol. II. p. 52,) it is stated, that, on the appearance of the First Part of that romance, in 1605, the public having, according to a tradition not, I think, earlier recorded, received it with coldness or censure, the author himself published an anonymous pamphlet, called “The Squib,” in which he gave a pleasant critique on his Don Quixote, insinuating that it was a covert satire on sundry well-known and important personages, without, however, in the slightest degree intimating who those personages were; in consequence of which, the public curiosity became much excited, and the Don Quixote obtained such attention as it needed in order to insure its success. (Tom. I. p. xvii.)

In a note appended (p. cxci.) to this statement of the tradition, we have a letter of Don Antonio Ruydiaz,—a person of whom little or nothing is now known, except that Don Vicente declares him to have been a man of learning worthy of credit,—in which letter, under date of December 16, 1775, Don Antonio asserts, that, about sixteen years earlier, he had seen a copy of the Buscapié at the house of the Count of Salceda, and had read it;—that it was a small anonymous volume, printed at Madrid with a good type and on poor paper;—that it pretended to be written by a person who had neglected to buy or read the Don Quixote for some time after its first appearance, but who, having at last bought and read it, had been filled with admiration at its merits and resolved in consequence to make them known;—that this Buscapié declared the characters in the Don Quixote to be, in the main, imaginary, but yet insinuated that they had certain relations to the designs and gallantries of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and of some of the principal personages in his government;—and that the Count de Salceda being dead, and the copy of the Buscapié in question having been only lent to that nobleman by some person unknown to the writer of the letter, he could give no further account of the matter.

This statement, differing, it will be noted, from the tradition recorded in the text to which it is appended, in what relates to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, was not, on the whole, deemed satisfactory. Pellicer, besides other strong doubts, doubted whether Cervantes wrote the pamphlet, even if all the rest related of it were true, (Don Quixote, ed. 1797, Tom. I. p. xcvii.,) and Navarrete inclined to the opinion, that there was some mistake about the whole affair, and that Cervantes could never have intended to allude to the Emperor in the way intimated (Vida de Cervantes, 1819, § 105, etc.); to which Clemencin has since added the suggestion, that the copy of the Buscapié, alleged to have been seen by Ruydiaz, might have been a forgery cunningly imposed on the Count of Salceda, who was “rich and greedy”—rico y goloso—in such matters (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 50). Indeed, the intimations concerning Charles the Fifth were so absurd in themselves, and the fact,—unknown when the Academy published their edition of 1780,—that four editions of the First Part of Don Quixote were, within a year from the date of its appearance, demanded in order to satisfy the impatient curiosity of the public, is so decisive of its popular success from the outset, that men were, before long, disposed to believe that there never was a Buscapié written by any body. After a time, therefore, the discussion about it ceased, except among those who were interested in the smallest details of the life of Cervantes.

But in 1847 the whole subject came up afresh. Don Adolfo de Castro, a young Andalusian gentleman, much devoted to researches in early Spanish literature, and the author of several curious historical works, which give proof of his success, declared that he had accidentally found a copy of the Buscapié. In 1848 he published it at Cadiz, in a duodecimo volume, with a body of very learned notes,—the text, in large type, making forty-six pages, and the notes one hundred and eighty-eight pages, which, if printed with the same type, would make above two hundred and fifty.

In the Preface, Don Adolfo declares, that the Buscapié he thus publishes was printed from a manuscript which he had obtained from the library of Don Pascual de Gándara, a lawyer of the city of San Fernando, which library, apparently after the death of its owner, had been brought, less than three months before, to the city of Cadiz, the residence of Don Adolfo, to be publicly sold;—that the title of the manuscript, which purports throughout to be the work of Cervantes, is “The very pleasant little Book, called the Squib, in which, besides its much and excellent Learning, are explained all the hidden and unexplained Matters in the Ingenious Knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by a certain Cervantes de Saavedra”;—that the manuscript in question is not in the handwriting of Cervantes, but, as appears by a memorandum following the title, is a copy made at Madrid, February 27, 1606, for Agostin de Molina, son of Argote de Molina, and that it had subsequently come into the possession of the Duke of Lafões, of the royal family of Braganza;—that it contains no allusion whatever disrespectful to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, for whom, as Don Adolfo believes, Cervantes had a sincere admiration;—that it was, according to the Aprobacion of Gutierre de Cetina, June 27, 1605, and that of Thomas Gracian Dantisco, on the 6th of August following, prepared for the press, but that it was not in fact printed, or it would not have been needful to make a copy of it in manuscript the next year;—and that the true and real object of the Squib was, not to attract attention to the Don Quixote, but to defend that work against many persons accounted learned, who, as Don Adolfo suggests, had attacked it with some severity.

In the Buscapié, which immediately follows these statements, Cervantes represents himself as riding on his mule one day upon the road to Toledo, a little beyond the Puente Toledana, when he sees coming towards him a Bachelor mounted on a sorry hack, that at last falls with him to the ground, in the midst of a contest between the beast and his rider, as to whether they shall go on or no. Cervantes courteously helps the stranger to rise; and then, after a few introductory words, they agree to spend together, under some neighbouring trees, the heat of the day, then fast coming upon them. The Bachelor, a foolish, conceited little fellow, with a very deformed person, produces two books for their common entertainment. The first of them is “The Spiritual Verses of Pedro de Ezinas,” which they both praise, and of whose author Cervantes speaks as of a personal acquaintance. The other is the Don Quixote, which the Bachelor treats very slightingly, and which Cervantes, a little disturbed by such contempt, maintains, in general terms, to be a book of merit, not hinting, however, to the Bachelor that he is its author, and putting his defence on the ground, that it is a well-intended attempt to drive the institution of chivalry from the world.

But the vain, garrulous little Bachelor prefers to talk about himself or to tell stories about his father, and is with difficulty brought back to the Don Quixote, which he then assails as a book absurdly recognizing the existence of knight-errantry at the time it was published, and therefore at the very time when they are talking about it,—a position which Cervantes fully admits and then defends, alleging, in proof of its truth, the examples of Suero de Quiñones and Charles the Fifth; while, on the other side, the Bachelor sets forth, how glad he should be if it were really so, because he would then turn knight himself, and come by a princess and a kingdom as other knights had done before him;—all in a strain as crazy as that of the hero of Cervantes, and sometimes much resembling it. Cervantes replies, maintaining the real, actual existence of knight-errantry in his own time by the examples of Olivier de Lamarche and others, which are as little to the purpose as those of Quiñones and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, already cited by him; and so the discussion goes on, until a scene occurs between the hack of the Bachelor and the mule of Cervantes, not unlike that between Rozinante and the horse-flesh of the Galician carriers, in the fifteenth chapter of the First Part of Don Quixote, and one that ends with the total overthrow and demolition of the Bachelor’s beast. This breaks up the conversation between their two riders, and brings the pamphlet to a conclusion,—Cervantes leaving the unlucky Bachelor to get out of his troubles as best he may.

On closing this gay little trifle, we are at once struck with the circumstance, that the Buscapié we have just read, avowing itself on every page to be the work of Cervantes, and declared never to have been printed till the year 1848, can have nothing at all to do with the anonymous Buscapié of which a printed copy is supposed to have been seen about the year 1759;—in fact, that it involves a formal and complete contradiction of every thing of consequence that was ever said or supposed on the subject, before it appeared. This simplifies the matter very much. It is as if a Buscapié had never before been mentioned, and we are therefore to examine the one now published by Don Adolfo de Castro as if the statement of Los Rios and the letter of Ruydiaz had never appeared.

The next thing that occurs to us is the strangeness of the circumstance, that the copy of such a work, not anonymous, but professing to have been written by the greatest and most popular genius of his nation, should, during two centuries and a half, have attracted nobody’s notice; though, during that time, it must have travelled from Madrid to Lisbon and from Lisbon back again to Spain, and though, during the last seventy years, a Buscapié has been much talked about and eagerly asked for.

Nor is the history of the individual manuscript now printed and offered to us, so far as it professes to have a history, more satisfactory. It claims to have been owned by three persons, and a word must be said about each of them.

First, it is said to have been “copied from another copy in the year 1606, at Madrid, on the 27th of February of the said year, for Señor Agustin de Argote, son of the very noble Señor (may he be in holy glory!) Gonzalo Zatieco de Molina, a knight of Seville.”[459] Now, that Argote Zatieco de Molina, a person I have often had occasion to mention, (see, ante, Vol. I. pp. 74, 75, 77, 117, etc.,) was, as this certificate sets forth, dead in 1606, I have no doubt. A manuscript copy of his well-known hints for the history of Seville, now in the possession of one of my friends, contains notices and documents relating to his life, collected, apparently, by the early copyist, from which we learn that Argote de Molina, by a deed dated July 5, 1597, left to his daughter, two sisters, and a brother the patronage of a chaplaincy he had founded in a chapel prepared by him for his burial-place in the church of Santiago, at Seville;[460] and that in 1600 this chapel was completed, and an inscription placed in it, signifying that it was the burial-place of Argote de Molina, late a chief of the Hermandad, and a Veintequatro, or Regidor, of Seville;[461] from all which, as well as from other grounds, it appears that Argote de Molina died between 1597 and 1600. But why is no son of his mentioned in the deed of 1597, providing for the care of his chapel and the protection of his family burial-place after his own death? This is explained by Ortiz de Zuñiga, the very best authority on such a point, who, when giving an account of Argote de Molina and his manuscripts, some of which Zuñiga had then in his possession, says that Argote de Molina had sons, but that they died before him, and that their loss so embittered the latter part of his life, that his reason was impaired by it.[462] What, then, are we to say about this “Agustin,” for whom Don Adolfo’s copy of the Buscapié is certified to have been made in 1606, after the death of his father, Argote, who died without leaving any son?

The second trace of this manuscript is, that it professes to have been a part of the library of the Duke of Lafões; the inscription to this effect being in Portuguese, and without a date.[463] But is it likely that such a manuscript could have remained in such a position unnoticed? Is it likely that João de Braganza, one of the most cultivated and distinguished men of his time, who was born in 1719, and died in 1806; who was the friend of the Prince de Ligne, of Maria Theresa, and of Frederic the Great; who founded the Academy of Lisbon, and was its head till his death; in whose family lived Correa de Serra, and who every evening collected the chief men of letters of his country in his saloon,—is it likely that a work avowedly by Cervantes, and one concerning which, after 1780, the Spanish Academy had caused much inquiry to be made, should have remained in the library of such a man without attracting, during his long life, either his own notice or that of the scholars by whom he was surrounded? Or, finally, as to the third and last presumed possessor of this manuscript of the Buscapié, is it likely that it would have wandered on without being recognized by any body until it found its obscure way into the collection of an Andalusian advocate,—Don Pascual de Gándara,—and that even he, in the nineteenth century, when Navarrete and Clemencin were keeping alive the discussion of the eighteenth about it, should yet know nothing of its import or pretensions, or, knowing them, should withhold his knowledge from all the world?

Thus much for the external evidence, the whole of which, I believe, I have examined. It is, as it seems to me, very suspicious and unsatisfactory.

Nor can the internal evidence be accounted more satisfactory than the external.

In the first place, the Buscapié in question is a closer imitation of Cervantes than he would be likely to make of himself. It opens like the Prólogo to the “Persiles and Sigismunda,” in which the conversation that Cervantes says he held with a travelling medical student seems to have been the model for the one he is represented as holding with the travelling Bachelor in the Buscapié;—it then goes on with an examination of one or two contemporary authors, and allusions to others, in the manner of the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library;—and it ends with an acknowledged parallel to the story of the Yanguese carriers and their beasts; different parts of the whole reminding us of different works of Cervantes, but of the “Adjunta al Parnaso” oftener than of any other. In many cases, phrases seem to be borrowed directly from Cervantes. Thus, of an author praised in the Buscapié, it is said, “Se atreve á competir con los mas famosos de Italia,” (p. 20,) which is nearly the phrase applied to Rufo, Ercilla, and Virues in the Don Quixote. In another place, (p. 22,) Cervantes is made to say of himself, when speaking in the third person of the author of Don Quixote, “Su autor esta mas cargado de desdichas que de años,” which strongly resembles the more beautiful phrase he, in the same way, applies to himself, as the author of the “Galatea”; and in another place, (p. 10,) the little Bachelor’s shouts to his mule are said to be as much wasted “as if they were tossed into the well of Airon, or the pit of Cabra,”—an allusion much more appropriately made by Cervantes in the “Adjunta al Parnaso,” where mothers are advised to threaten their naughty children, that “the poet shall come and toss them, together with his bad verses, into the pit of Cabra, or the well of Airon,”—natural caves in the kingdoms of Granada and Córdova, about which strange stories were long credited. (Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 25; Diccionario de la Academia, 1726, in verb. Airon; Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV. p. 237; and Miñano, Diccionario Geográfico.) But there is no need of citing parallel passages. The Buscapié is full of them; some being happily chosen and aptly adjusted to their new places, like three allusions to the words of Cervantes in Don Quixote about “driving books of chivalry out of the world,” (see, ante, Vol. II. p. 105, note,) and others, like those I have just cited, being awkwardly introduced, and fitting their subjects less well than they did those to which they were originally applied. But whether well or ill selected, whether well or ill applied, these phrases in the Buscapié have seldom or never the appearance of accidental coincidences arising out of the carelessness of an author repeating from himself. They seem rather to be words and forms of expression carefully selected, and are so used as to give an air of constraint to the passages where they occur, showing that the writer turns, as it were, in a narrow circle;—an air as unlike as possible to the bold and unfettered movement which is so eminently characteristic of Cervantes.

In the next place, the Buscapié contains many allusions to obscure authors and long-forgotten trifles; but, with an inconsiderable exception, which seems to be a little ostentatiously announced as such, (p. 12, and note B,) not one, I believe, occurs, that is beyond the reach of the singular learning of Don Adolfo, whose ample notes, fitting with suspicious exactness to the text, drive the reader to the conjecture, that the text may have been adjusted to the notes quite as much as the notes to the text. Now and then, this conjecture seems to be confirmed by a slight inaccuracy. Thus, in both text and notes, the name of Pedro de Enzinas—whose poetry is cited and examined just as I find it in my copy of the “Versos Espirituales,” printed at Cuenca, in 1596 (see, ante, Vol. III. p. 13, note)—is uniformly spelt many times over Ezinas, that is, without the first n, (Buscapié, pp. 19-21, and note I,)—a trifling mistake, which a copyist might easily have made in 1606, or which Don Adolfo might have easily made in 1847, when transcribing, as he did, from the printed book before him, but a mistake which there is not one chance in a thousand that both should have made, if there were no other connection between the two than the one avowed. And, again, a little farther on, a mistake occurs which seems to have arisen from the very excess of Don Adolfo’s recondite learning. The old Castilian proverb, “Al buen callar llaman sage,”—or, “He is a wise man that knows when to hold his tongue,”—is found in the text of the Buscapié, (p. 26,) and Don Adolfo in the note on it (L) informs us, that, “in the same way in which this proverb is here used by Cervantes, it is to be seen in the Conde Lucanor,[464] and in other older works. Somebody corrupted it into ‘Al buen callar llaman Sancho.’” But the idea, that Cervantes adhered to an old form of the proverb, because he rejected or did not know the supposed corrupt one, is not well founded. The proverb occurs, in what Don Adolfo considers a corrupted form, as early as the “Cartas de Garay,” in 1553, and the collection of Proverbs by the learned Hernan Nuñez, in 1555, and in this very form it is, in fact, used by Cervantes himself (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 43); for when Sancho Panza is rebuked by his master for stringing together proverbs without end, he first promises he will not utter another, and then instantly opens his mouth with this one. Indeed, I rather think that the word sage, which was in use as late as the time of Juan de Mena, had dropped out of the current language of good society before that of Cervantes. Nebrixa, before 1500, says it was then antiquated. (See Diccionario de la Academia, 1739.)

The last suggestion I have to make in relation to the genuineness of the Buscapié published by Don Adolfo de Castro is, that, though on its title-page it professes to explain “all the hidden and unexplained things” in the Don Quixote, it does not, in fact, even allude to one such; and though it professes to have been written by Cervantes in order to defend himself against certain learned adversaries, it does not cite any one of them, and only defends him in a light, jesting tone against the charge of the little Bachelor by admitting its truth, and then justifying it, on the ground that knight-errantry is still flourishing and vigorous in Spain,—a charge which no sensible or learned man can be supposed to have made, and a defence which is humorous, so far as it is so at all, only for its absurdity.

Other things might be mentioned, such as that Cervantes, in the Buscapié, is made to speak in a disparaging way of Alcalá de Henares, his native place, (pp. 13 and 41,) which, as we have seen, (ante, Vol. II. p. 53,) he delighted to honor; and that he is made to represent his imaginary Bachelor as talking about his own painful personal deformities, (pp. 24, 25, 28, 29,) and his father’s contemptible poltroonery, (pp. 27, 28, 34,) in a way inconsistent with the tact and knowledge of human nature which are among the strongest characteristics of the author of Don Quixote.

But I will go no farther. The little tract published by Don Adolfo de Castro is, with the exception of two or three coarse passages,[465] a pleasant, witty trifle. It shows in many parts much lively talent, a remarkable familiarity with the works of Cervantes, and a hardly less remarkable familiarity with the literature of the period when Cervantes lived. If Don Adolfo wrote it, he has probably always intended, in due time, to claim it as his own, and he may be assured that, by so doing, he will add something to his own literary laurels without taking any thing from those of Cervantes. If he did not write it, then he has, I think, been deceived in regard to the character of the manuscript, which he purchased under circumstances that made him believe it to be what it is not. In any event, I find no sufficient proof that it was written by Cervantes, and therefore no sufficient ground to think that it can be placed permanently under the protection of his great name.

APPENDIX, E.

ON THE DIFFERENT EDITIONS, TRANSLATIONS, AND IMITATIONS OF THE “DON QUIXOTE.”

(See Vol. II. p. 108, note, and p. 112, note.)

Whatever relates to the “Don Quixote” of Cervantes is so interesting, that I will add here such an account of its different editions, translations, and imitations as may serve, in some degree, to give the just measure of its extraordinary popularity, not only in Spain, but all over Christendom.

The first edition of the First Part of Don Quixote, of which I have a copy, was printed with this title: “El Ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha, compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, dirigido al Duque de Bejar, Marques de Gibraleon, etc. Año 1605. Con Privilegio, etc. En Madrid, por Juan de la Cuesta,” 4to, in one volume. Three editions more appeared in the same year, namely, one at Madrid, one at Lisbon, and the other at Valencia. These, with another at Brussels, in 1607,—five in all,—are the only editions that appeared, till he took it in hand to correct some of its errors. But he did this, as I have intimated, very imperfectly and carelessly. Among other changes, he did away with the division of the volume into four parts or books, but did not take the trouble to remove from the text the proofs of such a division, as may be seen at the end of Chapters VIII., XIV., and XXVII., where the work was divided, and where, in all our editions, the proofs of it still remain. Such corrections, however, as he saw fit to make, with sometimes a different spelling of words, appeared in the Madrid edition of 1608, 4to; of which I have a copy. This edition, though somewhat better than the first, is yet ordinary; but, as the one containing Cervantes’s only amendments of the text, it is more valued and sought after than any other, and is the basis on which all the good impressions since have been founded. After this, an edition at Milan, 1610, and one at Brussels, 1611, are known to have been printed before the appearance of the Second Part, in 1615. So that, in nine or ten years, there were eight editions of the First Part of Don Quixote, implying a circulation greater than that of the works of Shakspeare or Milton, Racine or Molière, who, as of the same century, may be fitly compared with him.

The first edition of the Second Part of Don Quixote, which, like the first edition of the First Part, is poorly printed, is entitled, “Segunda Parte del Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, autor de su Primera Parte, dirigida á Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Conde de Lemos, etc. Año 1615. Con Privilegio, en Madrid, por Juan de la Cuesta,” 4to. It was printed separately, Valencia, 1616; Brussels, 1616; Barcelona, 1617; and Lisbon, 1617; after which no separate edition is known to have appeared.[466]

Thus, as we have seen, eight editions of the First Part were printed in ten years, and five of the Second Part in two years. Both parts appeared together at Barcelona in 1617, in two volumes, duodecimo; and from this period the number of editions has been very great, both in Spain and in foreign countries; nearly fifty of them being of some consequence. Only five, however, need to be here particularly noted. These are,—1. Tonson’s edition, (London, 1738, 4 vols., 4to,) published at the instance of Lord Carteret, in compliment to the queen, and containing the Life by Mayans y Siscar, already noticed; the first attempt either to edit Don Quixote or to write its author’s life with care. 2. The magnificent edition printed by the Spanish Academy, (Madrid, 1780, 4 tom., folio,) in which the text is settled with some skill, a few notes are added, and the Life of Cervantes and an Analysis, or rather an extravagant eulogy and defence, of the Don Quixote, by Don Vicente de los Rios, prefixed. It has been several times reprinted, though not without expressions of disapprobation, especially at the indiscriminate admiration of Los Rios, who found, among other opponents, a very resolute one in a Spaniard by the name of Valentine Foronda, who, in 1807, printed in London a thin octavo volume of very captious notes on Don Quixote, written in the form of letters, between 1793 and 1799, and entitled “Observaciones sobre Algunos Puntos de la Obra de Don Quixote, por T. E.” Clemencin gives the name of the author, who is otherwise unknown to me. (Ed. Don Quixote, Tom. I. p. 305.) 3. The extraordinary edition published in two volumes, quarto, at Salisbury, in England, in 1781, and accompanied by a third volume, consisting of notes and verbal indexes, all in Spanish, by the Rev. John Bowle, a clergyman in a small village near Salisbury, who gave fourteen years of unwearied labor to prepare it for the press; studying, as the basis of his system of annotation, the old Spanish and Italian authors, and especially the old Spanish ballad-books and books of chivalry, and concluding his task, or at least dating his Prefaces and Dedication, on the 23d of April, the anniversary of Cervantes’s death. There are few books of so much real learning, and at the same time of so little pretension, as the third volume of this edition. It is, in fact, the true and safe foundation on which has been built much of what has since been done with success for the explanation and illustration of the Don Quixote, which thus owes more to Bowle than to any other of its editors, except Clemencin. 4. The edition of Juan Antonio Pellicer, (Madrid, 1797-98, 5 tom., 8vo,) an Aragonese gentleman, who employed above twenty years in preparing it. (Latassa, Bib. Nov., Tom. VI. p. 319.) The notes to this edition contain a good deal of curious matter, but this matter is often irrelevant; the number of the notes is small, and they explain only a small part of the difficulties that occur in the text. It should be observed, too, that Pellicer is indebted to Bowle further than he acknowledges, and that he now and then makes mistakes on points of fact. 5. The edition of Diego Clemencin, (Madrid, 1833-39, 6 tom., 4to,) one of the most complete commentaries that has been published on any author, ancient or modern. It is written, too, with taste and judgment in nearly all that relates to the merits of the author, and is free from the blind admiration for Cervantes which marks Vicente de los Rios and the edition of the Academy. Its chief fault is, that there is too much of it; but then, on the other hand, it is rare to find an obscure point which it does not elucidate. The system of Clemencin is the one laid down by Bowle; and the conscientious learning with which it is carried out seems really to leave little to be desired in the way of notes.

In other countries the Don Quixote is hardly less known than it is in Spain. Down to the year 1700, it is curious to observe, that as many editions of the entire work were printed abroad as at home, and the succession of translations from the first has been uninterrupted. The oldest French translation is of 1620, since which there have been six or seven others, including the poor one of Florian, 1799, which has been the most read, and the very good one of Louis Viardot, (Paris, 1836-38, 2 tom., 8vo,) with the admirable illustrations of Granville,—a translation, however, which has been somewhat roughly handled by F. B. F. Biedermann, in a tract entitled “Don Quixote et la Tâche de ses Traducteurs” (Paris, 1837, 8vo). The oldest English one is by Shelton, 1612-20, the first half of which was made, as he says in the Dedication, in forty days, some years before, and which was followed by a very vulgar, unfaithful, and coarse one by John Philips, the nephew of Milton, 1687; one by Motteux, 1712; one by Jarvis, 1742, which Smollet used too freely in his own, 1755; one by Wilmot, 1774; and, finally, the anonymous one of 1818, which has adopted parts of all its predecessors. Most of them have been reprinted often; and, on the whole, the most agreeable and the best, though certainly somewhat too free, is that of Motteux, in the edition of Edinburgh, 1822, (5 vols., 12mo,) with notes and illustrative translations, full of spirit and grace, by Mr. J. G. Lockhart. No foreign country has done so much for Cervantes and Don Quixote as England, both by original editions, published there, and by translations. It may be noticed further, that, in 1654, Edmund Gayton, a gay fellow about town, of whom Wood gives no very dignified account, published in London a small folio volume, entitled “Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote,” the best of its author’s various works, and one that was thought worth publishing again in the next century, for the sake, I suppose, of the amusing vein in which it is written, but not on account of any thing it contains that will serve to explain difficult or obscure passages in the original. Some of it is in verse, and the whole is based on Shelton’s translation.

All countries, however, have sought the means of enjoying the Don Quixote, for there are translations in Latin, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Polish, and Portuguese. But better than any of these is, probably, the admirable one made into German by Ludwig Tieck, with extraordinary freedom and spirit, and a most genial comprehension of his author; four editions of which appeared between 1815 and 1831, and superseded all the other German versions, of which there are five, beginning with an imperfect attempt in 1669. It ought, perhaps, to be added, that, in the course of the last half-century, more editions of the original have appeared in Germany than in any other foreign country.

Of imitations out of Spain, it is only necessary to allude to three. The first is a “Life of Don Quixote, merrily translated into Hudibrastic Verse, by Edward Ward,” (London, 1711, 2 vols., 8vo,)—a poor attempt, full of coarse jests not found in the original. The second is “Don Silvio de Rosalva,” by Wieland, (1764, 2 vols.,) in ridicule of a belief in fairies and unseen agencies;—his first work in romantic fiction, and one that never had much success. The third is a curious poem, in twelve cantos, by Meli, the best of the Sicilian poets, who, in his native dialect, has endeavoured to tell the story of Don Quixote in octave stanzas, with the heroi-comic lightness of Ariosto; but, among other unhappinesses, has cumbered Sancho with Greek mythology and ancient learning. It fills the third and fourth volumes of Meli’s “Poesie Siciliane” (Palermo, 1787, 5 vols., 12mo). All these, as well as Smollet’s “Sir Launcelot Graves” and Mrs. Lenox’s “Female Quixote,” both published in 1762, are direct imitations of the Don Quixote, and on that account, in part, they are all failures. Butler’s “Hudibras,” (first edition, 1663-78,) so free and so full of wit, comes, perhaps, as near its model as genius may venture with success.

Don Quixote has often been produced on the stage in Spain; as, for instance, in a play by Francisco de Avila, published at Barcelona, in 1617; in two by Guillen de Castro, 1621; in one by Calderon, that is lost; and in others by Gomez Labrador, Francisco Marti, Valladares, Melendez Valdes, and, more lately, Ventura de la Vega; some of which were noticed when we spoke of the drama. But all of them were failures. (Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 399, note.)

As to prose imitations in Spain, except the attempt of Avellaneda, in 1614, I know of none for above a century;—none, indeed, till the popularity of the original work was revived. But since that period, there have been several. One is by Christóval Anzarena,—“Empressas Literarias del ingeniosíssimo Cavallero, Don Quixote de la Manchuela,” (Sevilla, 12mo, without the year, but printed about 1767,)—intended to ridicule the literary taste of the times, which, after going through the education of the hero, breaks off with the promise of a second part, that never appeared. Another is called “Adiciones á Don Quixote, por Jacinto María Delgado,” (Madrid, 12mo, s. a.,) printed apparently soon after the last, and containing the remainder of Sancho’s life, passed chiefly with the Duke and Duchess in Aragon, where, at a very small expense of wit, he is fooled into the idea that he is a baron. Another, by Alonso Bernardo Ribero y Sarrea, called “El Quixote de la Cantabria,” (Madrid, 1792, 2 tom., 12mo,) describes the travels of a certain Don Pelayo to Madrid, and his residence at court there, whence he returns to his native mountains, astonished and shocked that the Biscayans are not everywhere regarded as the only true nobility and gentlemen on earth. A fourth, “Historia de Sancho Panza,” (Madrid, 1793-98, 2 tom., 12mo,) is an unsuccessful attempt to give effect to Sancho as a separate and independent person after Don Quixote’s death, making him Alcalde of his native village, and sending him to figure in the capital and get into prison there;—the whole bringing the poor esquire’s adventures down to a very grave ending of his very merry life. And a fifth, by Juan Siñeriz, “El Quixote del Siglo XVIII.,” (Madrid, 1836, 4 tom., 12mo,) is an account of a French philosopher, who, with his esquire, travels over the earth to regenerate mankind; and, coming back just at the close of the French Revolution, which happened while he was in Asia, is cured, by the results of that great convulsion, of his philosophical notions; a dull, coarse book, whose style is as little attractive as its story. Perhaps there are other Spanish imitations of Don Quixote; but there can be none, I apprehend, of any merit or value.

All this account, however, incomplete as it is, of the different editions, translations, and imitations which, for above two centuries, have been poured out upon the different countries of Europe, gives, still, but an imperfect measure of the kind and degree of success which this extraordinary work has enjoyed; for there are thousands and thousands who never have read it, and who never have heard of Cervantes, to whom, nevertheless, the names of Don Quixote and of Sancho are as familiar as household words. So much of this kind of fame is enjoyed, probably, by no other author of modern times.

APPENDIX, F.

ON THE EARLY COLLECTIONS OF OLD SPANISH PLAYS.

(See Vol. II. p. 429.)

Two large collections of plays, and several small ones, much resembling each other, both in the character of their contents and the form of their publication, appeared in different parts of Spain during the seventeenth century, just as the ballads had appeared a century before; and they should be noticed with some care, because they exhibit the peculiar physiognomy of the Spanish national drama with much distinctness, and furnish materials of consequence for its history.

Of the first collection, whose prevailing title seems to have been “Comedias de Diferentes Autores,” it would, I suppose, be impossible now to form a complete set, or one even approaching to completeness. I possess only three volumes of it, and have seen satisfactory notices of only two more. The first of the five is the twenty-fifth volume of the collection itself, and was printed at Saragossa, in 1633, by Pedro Escuer. As is usual with such volumes of the old Spanish dramatists, it is in small quarto and contains twelve plays, seven of which are attributed to Montalvan, then at the height of his success as a living author, and one to Calderon, who was just rising to his great fame; but one of the seven plays of Montalvan belongs to his master, Lope de Vega, and the only one taken from Calderon is printed from a text grossly corrupted. The twenty-ninth volume was printed at Valencia, in 1636, and the thirty-second at Saragossa, in 1640; but I have seen neither of them. In the thirty-first, printed at Barcelona, in 1638, all the twelve plays are given without the names of their authors, though the persons who wrote most of them are still known; and the forty-third volume was printed at Saragossa, in 1650, containing plays by Calderon, Moreto, and Solís, with enough by more obscure authors to make up the regular number of twelve. It is no doubt singular, that, of a collection like this, extending to at least forty-three volumes, so little should now be known. But such is the fact. The Inquisition and the confessional were very busy in the latter part of the seventeenth century, when, under the imbecile Charles the Second, the theatre had fallen from its high estate; and in this way the oldest large collection of plays published in Spain, and the one we should now be most desirous to possess, was hunted down and nearly exterminated.

The next, which is the collection commonly known under the title of “Comedias Nuevas Escogidas de los Mejores Autores,”—a title by no means strictly adhered to in its successive volumes,—was more fortunate. Still it is very rare. I have never seen a set of it absolutely complete; but I possess in all forty-one volumes out of the forty-eight, of which such a set should consist, and have sufficiently accurate notices of the remaining seven.

The first of these volumes was published in 1652, the last in 1704; but, in the latter part of the period embraced between these dates, the theatre so declined, that, though at first two or three volumes came out every year, none was issued during the twenty-three years that followed the death of Calderon in 1681, except the very last in the collection, the forty-eighth. Taken together, they contain five hundred and seventy-four comedias, in all the forms and with all the characteristics of the old Spanish drama; their appropriate loas and entremeses being connected with a very small number of them. Thirty-seven of these comedias are given as anonymous, and the remaining five hundred and thirty-seven are distributed among one hundred and thirty-eight different authors.

The distribution, however, as might be anticipated, is very unequal. Calderon, who was far the most successful writer of the period he illustrated, has fifty-three plays assigned to him, in whole or in part, of which it is certain not one was printed with his permission, and not one, so far as I have compared them with the authentic editions of his works, from a text properly corrected. Moreto, the dramatic writer next in popularity after Calderon, has forty-six pieces given to him in the same way; all probably without his assent, since he renounced the stage as sinful, and retired to a monastery in 1657. Matos Fragoso, who was a little later, has thirty-three; Fernando de Zarate, twenty-two; Antonio Martinez, eighteen; Mira de Mescua, eighteen; Zavaleta, sixteen; Roxas, sixteen; Luis Velez de Guevara, fifteen; Cancer, fourteen; Solís, twelve; Lope de Vega, twelve; Diamante, twelve; Pedro de Rosete, eleven; Belmonte, eleven; and Francisco de Villegas, eleven. Many others have smaller numbers assigned to them; and sixty-nine authors, nearly all of whose names are otherwise unknown, and some of them, probably, not genuine, have but one each.

That the dramas in this collection all belong to the authors to whom it ascribes them, or that it is even so far accurate in its designations as to be taken for a sufficient general authority, is not for a moment to be supposed. Thirteen at least of the plays it contains, that bear the name of Calderon, are not his; one known to be his, “La Banda y la Flor,” is printed as anonymous in the thirtieth volume, with the title of “Hazer del Amor Agravio”; and another, “Amigo Amante y Leal,” is twice inserted,—once in the fourth volume, 1653, and once in the eighteenth volume, 1662,—each differing considerably from the other, and neither taken from a genuine text.

Of its carelessness in relation to other authors similar remarks might be made. Several of the plays of Solís are printed twice, and one three times; and in two successive volumes, the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, we have the “Lorenzo me llamo” of Matos Fragoso, a well-known and, in its time, a popular play. On all accounts, therefore, this collection, like its predecessor, is to be regarded as a mere bookseller’s speculation, carried on without the consent of the authors whose works were plundered for the purpose, and sometimes, as we know, in disregard of their complaints and remonstrances. How recklessly and scandalously this was done may be gathered from the facts already stated, and from the further one, that the “Vencimiento de Turno,” in the twelfth volume, which is boldly ascribed to Calderon on its title, is yet given to its true author, Manuel del Campo, in the very lines with which it is ended.

Still, these large collections, with the single volumes that, from time to time, were sent forth in the same way by the booksellers,—such as those published by Mateo de la Bastida, in 1652; by Manuel Lopez, in 1653; by Juan de Valdes, in 1655; by Robles, in 1664; and by Zabra and Fernandez, in 1675, all of which have been used in the account of the theatre in the text,—give us a living and faithful impression of the acted Spanish drama in the seventeenth century; for the plays they contain are those that were everywhere performed on the national stage, and they are here presented to us, not so often in the form given them by their authors, as in the form in which they were fitted for the stage by the managers, and plundered from the prompter’s manuscripts, or noted down in the theatres, by piratical booksellers.

APPENDIX, G.

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE BAD TASTE IN SPAIN, CALLED CULTISMO.

(See Vol. II. p. 533, note.)

A remarkable discussion took place in Italy in the latter part of the eighteenth century, concerning the origin of the bad taste in literature that existed in Spain after 1600, under the name of “Cultismo”;—some of the distinguished men of letters in each country casting the reproach of the whole of it upon the other. The circumstances, which may be properly regarded as a part of Spanish literary history, were the following.

In 1773, Saverio Bettinelli, a superficial, but somewhat popular, writer, in his “Risorgimento d’Italia negli Studj, etc., dopo il Mille,” charged Spain, and particularly the Spanish theatre, with the bad taste that prevailed in Italy after that country fell so much under Spanish control; adding to a slight notice of Lope de Vega and Calderon the following words:—“This, then, is the taste which passed into Italy, and there ruined every thing pure.” (Parte II. cap. 3, Tragedia e Commedia.) Girolamo Tiraboschi, in his “Storia della Letteratura Italiana,” first published between 1772 and 1783, maintained a similar position or theory, tracing this bad taste, as it were, to the very soil and climate of Spain, and following its footsteps, both in ancient times, when, he believed, the Latin literature had been corrupted by it after the Senecas and Martial came from Spain to Rome, and in modern times, when he charged upon it the follies of Marini and all his school. (Tom. II., Dissertazione Preliminare, § 27.)

Both these writers were, no doubt, sufficiently decided in the tone of their opinions. Neither of them, however, was harsh or violent in his manner, and neither, probably, felt that he was making such an attack on the literature and fair fame of another country as would provoke a reply;—much less, one that would draw after it a long controversy.

But at that period there were in Italy a considerable number of learned Spaniards, who had been driven there, as Jesuits, by the expulsion of their Society from Spain in 1767; men whose chief resource and amusement were letters, and who, like true Spaniards, felt not a whit the less proud of their country because they had been violently expelled from it. With hardly a single exception, they seem to have been offended by these and other similar remarks of Bettinelli and Tiraboschi, to which they were, perhaps, only the more sensitive, because the distinguished Italians who made them were, like themselves, members of the persecuted Order of the Jesuits.

Answers to these imputations, therefore, soon began to appear. Two were published in 1776;—the first by Thomas Serrano, a Valencian, who, in some Latin Letters, printed at Ferrara, defended the Latin poets of Spain from the accusations of Tiraboschi, (Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 335; Fuster, Tom. II. p. 111,) and the second by Father Giovanni Andres, who, in a Dissertation printed at Cremona, took similar ground, which he further enlarged and fortified afterwards, in his great work on universal literary history, (Dell’ Origine, Progresso, e Stato Attuale di Ogni Letteratura, 1782-99, 9 tom., 4to,) where he maintains the dignity and honor of his country’s literature on all points, and endeavours to trace the origin of much of what is best in the early culture of modern Europe to Arabian influences coming in from Spain, through Provence, to Italy and France.

To the Letters of Serrano rejoinders appeared at once from Clement Vannetti, the person to whom Serrano had addressed them, and from Alessandro Zorzi, a friend of Tiraboschi;—and to the Dissertation of Father Andres, Tiraboschi himself replied, with much gentleness, in the notes to subsequent editions of his “Storia della Letteratura.” (See Angelo Ant. Scotti, Elogio Storico del Padre Giovanni Andres, Napoli, 1817, 8vo, pp. 13, 143, Tiraboschi, Storia, ed. Roma, 1782, Tom. II. p. 23.)

Meantime, others among the exiled Spanish Jesuits in Italy, such as Arteaga, who afterwards wrote the valuable “Rivoluzioni del Teatro Musicale,” 1783, and Father Isla, who had been famous for his “Friar Gerund” from 1758, took an interest in the controversy. (Salas, Vida del Padre Isla, Madrid, 1803, 12mo, p. 136.) But the person who brought to it the learning which now makes it of consequence in Spanish literary history was Francisco Xavier Lampillas, or Llampillas, who was born in Catalonia, in 1731, and was, for some time, Professor of Belles Lettres in Barcelona, but who, from the period of his exile as a Jesuit in 1767 to that of his death in 1810, lived chiefly in Genoa or its neighbourhood, devoting himself to literary pursuits, and publishing occasionally works, both in prose and verse, in the Italian language, which he wrote with a good degree of purity.

Among these works was his “Saggio Storico-apologetico della Letteratura Spagnuola,” printed between 1778 and 1781, in six volumes, octavo, devoted to a formal defence of Spanish literature against Bettinelli and Tiraboschi;—occasionally, however, noticing the mistakes of others, who, like Signorelli, had touched on the same subject. In the separate dissertations of which this somewhat remarkable book is composed, the author discusses the connection between the Latin poets of Spain and those of Rome in the period following the death of Augustus;—he examines the question of the Spanish climate raised by Tiraboschi, and claims for Spain a culture earlier than that of Italy, and one as ample and as honorable;—he asserts that Spain was not indebted to Italy for the revival of letters within her borders at the end of the Dark Ages, or for the knowledge of the art of navigation that opened to her the New World; while, on the other hand, he avers that Italy owed to Spain much of the reform of its theological and juridical studies, especially in the sixteenth century;—and brings his work to a conclusion, in the seventh and eighth dissertations, with an historical exhibition of the high claims of Spanish poetry generally, and with a defence of the Spanish theatre from the days of the Romans down to his own times.

No doubt, some of these pretensions are quite unfounded, and others are stated much more strongly than they should be; and no doubt, too, the general temper of the work is any thing rather than forbearing and philosophical; but still, many of its defensive points are well maintained, and many of its incidental notices of Spanish literary history are interesting, if not important. At any rate, it produced a good effect on opinion in Italy; and, when added to the works published there soon afterwards by Arteaga, Clavigero, Eximeno, Andres, and other exiled Spaniards, it tended to remove many of the prejudices that existed among the Italians against Spanish literature;—prejudices which had come down from the days when the Spaniards had occupied so much of Italy as conquerors, and had thus earned for their nation the lasting ill-will of its people.

Answers, of course, were not wanting to the work of Lampillas, even before it was completed; one of which, by Bettinelli, appeared in the nineteenth volume of the “Diario” of Modena, and another, in 1778, by Tiraboschi, in a separate pamphlet, which he republished afterwards in the different editions of his great work. To both, Lampillas put forth a rejoinder in 1781, not less angry than his original Apology, but, on the whole, less successful, since he was unable to maintain some of the positions skilfully selected and attacked by his adversaries, or to establish many of the facts which they had drawn into question. Tiraboschi reprinted this rejoinder at the end of his own work, with a few short notes; the only reply which he thought it necessary to make.

But in Spain the triumph of Lampillas was open and unquestioned. His Storia Apologetica was received with distinguished honors by the Academy of History, and, together with his pamphlet defending it, was published first in 1782, in six volumes, and then, in 1789, in seven volumes, translated by Doña Maria Josefa Amar y Borbon, an Aragonese lady of some literary reputation. What, however, was yet more welcome to its author, Charles the Third, the very king by whose command he had been exiled, gave him an honorable pension for his defence of the national literature, and acknowledged the merits of the work by his minister, Count Florida Blanca, who counted among them not only its learning, but an “urbanity” which now-a-days we are unable to discover in it. (Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. III. p. 165.)

After this, the controversy seems to have died away entirely, except as it appeared in notes to the great work of Tiraboschi, which he continued to add to the successive editions till his death, in 1794. The result of the whole—so far as the original question is concerned—is, that a great deal of bad taste is proved to have existed in Spain and in Italy, especially from the times of Góngora and Marina, not without connection and sympathy between the two countries, but that neither can be held exclusively responsible for its origin or for its diffusion.

APPENDIX, H.

INEDITA.

Having a little enlarged the first and second volumes for the purpose, I am enabled here to present some of the very old and interesting Spanish poetry, furnished to me by Don Pascual de Gayangos, but never before published. I wish it were in my power to print more of the manuscripts in my possession, but I have not room.

No. I.

POEMA DE JOSÉ EL PATRIARCA.

The first of the manuscripts referred to is the one mentioned in Vol. I. pp. 94-99, as a poem on the subject of Joseph, the son of Jacob,—remarkable on many accounts, and, among the rest, because, in the only copy of it known to exist,—that in the National Library, Madrid, MSS. G. g., 4to, 101,—it is written entirely in the Arabic character, so that, for a long time, it was regarded as an Arabic manuscript. It has not, I believe, been deemed of a later date than the end of the fourteenth century. Indeed, its language and general air would seem to indicate an earlier one; but we should bear in mind that the Moriscos, to some one of whom this poem is due, did not make a progress in the language and culture of Spain so rapid as the Spaniards did, by whom, long before the fall of Granada, large masses of them were surrounded and kept in subjection. On this account we may conjecture the poem to have been written as late as the year 1400; but its date is uncertain.

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Jusuf seiendo chico i de pocos annos,

Castigandolo su padre no se encubrió de sus ermanos,

Dijoles el suenno que bido en los altos;

Pensaronle traision é fizieronle engannos.

Dijeronle sus ermanos, “Agamosle certero;

Roguemos a nueso padre rogaria berdadera,

Que nos deje a Jusuf en la comanda berdadera,

I amostrarle emos mannas de cazar la alimanna berdadera.”

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Porque Jacab amaba á Jusuf por marabella,

Porque el era disquito i agudo de orella,

Porque la su madre era fermosa e bella,

Sobre todas las otras era amada ella.

Aquesta fue la razon porque le obieron enbidia,

Porque Jusuf sonno un suenno una noche ante el dia,

Suenno que entendieron sus ermanos siempre todabia,

Que Jusuf seiendo menor abria la mejoria.

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Dijieron sus filhos, “Padre, eso no pensedes,

Somos dies ermanos, eso bien sabedes;

Seriamos taraidores, eso no dubdedes;

Mas enpero, si no vos place, aced lo que queredes.

“Mas aquesto pensamos, sabelo el Criador;

Porque supiese mas, i ganase el nuestro amor,

Enseñarle aiemos las obelhas e el ganado maior;

Mas enpero, si no vos place, mandad como señor.”

Tanto le dijeron de palabras fermosas,

Tanto le prometieron de palabras piadosas,

Que él les dió el ninno, dijoles las oras,

Que lo guardasen a el de manos enganosas.

Dioseles el padre, como no debia far,

Fiandose en sus filhos, e no quis mas dubdar;

Dijo, “Filhos, los mis filhos, lo que os quiero rogar,

Que me lo catedes e me lo querais guardar.

“E me lo bolbades luego en amor del Criador,

A él fareis placer, i a mi mui grand fabor,

Y en esto no fallescades, filhos, por mi amor,

Encomiendolo a el de Allah, poderoso Señor.”

Lebaronlo en cuello mientras su padre los bido.

De que fueron apartados bien beredes que fueron á far;

Bajaronlo del cuello, en tierra lo van a posar.

Quando esto bido Jusuf por su padre fué á sospirar.

Dejabanlo zaguero mal andante e cuitado,

E él como era tierno quedo mui querebantado;

Dijoles, “Atendedme, ermanos, que boi mui cansado,

No querais que quede aqui desmamparado.

“Dadme agua del rio o de fuente o de mar,

No querades que muera de sete ni de fambar;

No querades que finque de sin padre ni madre;

Acuerdeseos lo que os dijo el cano de mi padre.”

Esto que oyera el uno de ellos, bien beredes lo que fizo;

Dio de mano al gua, en tierra la bacio,

De punnos e de cozes mui mal lo firio,

El ninno con las sobras en tierra cayo.

Alli se fue a rencorar uno de sus ermanos,

Jahuda tiene por nombre, mui arreciado de manos;

Fuesele a rogar ad aquellos onrados

No murió entonces qui sieronlo sus fados.

Tomaron su consejo, i obieronlo por bien,

Que lo llebasen al monte al pozo de Azraiel;

Frio es el fosal, e las fieras ia se acian,

Porque se lo comiesen i nunca mas lo bian.

Pensaban, que dirian al su padre onrrado,

Que, estando en las obelhas, bino el lobo airado,

Estando durmiendo Jusuf a su caiado,

Bino el lobo maldito i a Jusuf hubo matado.

Jacub estaba aflejido por la tardanza de su fijo,

Saliose por las carreras por oir i saber de sus fijos nuebas berdaderas;

Bidolos benir, meciendo las cabezas,

Diciendo, “O ermano Jusuf!” de tan buena manera.

Quando los bido benir con tal apellido,

Luego en aquella ora caio amortesido;

Quando llegaron a él no le hallaron sentido,

Dijeron todos, “Senor, dale el perdon cumplido.”

Dijo Jahuda a todos sus ermanos,

“Bolbamos por Jusuf, donde estaba encelado,

I abremos gualardon de nueso padre onrrado;

Io prometo de encelar quanto abemos errado.”

Dijeron sus ermanos, “Eso no aremos;

Somos diez ermanos, eso bien sabemos;

Bamos a nueso padre e todo se lo contaremos,

Que, contandole aquesto, seremos creederos.”

Hasta poco de rato Jacob ubo recordado;

Dijo, “Que es de mi fijo, que es de mi amado?

Que le abedes fecho, en do lo abeis dejado?”

E todos dijeron, “El lobo lo ha matado.”

“No bos creio, filhos, de quanto me dezides;

Idme a cazar el lobo de aquel donde benides,

Que io le fare ablar corbas sus corbizes;

Con la aiuda de Allah, el me dira si falsia me dezedes.”

E fueronse a cazar el lobo con falsia mui grande,

Diciendo que abia fecho una muerte tan mala;

Traieron la camisa de Jusuf ensangrentada,

Porque creiese Jacob aquello sin dudanza.

Rogo Jacob al Criador, e al lobo fué á fablar.

Dijo el lobo, “No lo manda Allah que a nabi fuese á matar;

En tan estranna tierra me fueron á cazar,

Anme fecho pecado, i lebanme a lazrar.”

Dijo Jacob, “Filhos que tuerto me tenedes,

De quanto me decides de todo me fallesedes,

En el Allah creio, e fio que aun lo beredes

Todas estas cosas que aun lo pagaredes.”

E bolbiose Jacob e bolbiose llorando,

E quedaron sus filhos como desmamparados;

Fueronse a Jusuf donde estaba encelado,

E lebaronle al pozo por el suelo rastrando.

Echaronle en el pozo con cuerda mui luenga;

Quando fue a medio ubieronla cortada,

E caio entre una penna i una piedra airada,

E quiso Allah del cielo, e no le nocio nada.

Alli caio Jusuf en aquella agua fria,

Por do pasaba gente con mercaduria,

Que tenian sed con la calor del dia,

I embiaron por agua alli donde el iacia.

Echaron la ferrada con cuerda mui larga;

No la pudieron sacar, cá mucho les pesaba

Por razon que Jusuf en ella se trababa;

Pusieron i esfuerzo, i salto la bella barba.

Ellos de que bieron a tan noble criatura

Marabillaronse de su grand fermosura;

Llebaronle al mercader, e plaziole su figura;

Prometioles mucho bien e mui mucha mesura.

Asta poco de rato sus ermanos binieron

A demandarlo, su catibo lo ferieron;

El lo otorgo pues ellos lo quisieron;

Jahuda los aconsejo por alla por do binieron.

Dijo el mercader, “Amigos, si queredes

Aquestos vente dineros por él si lo bendedes.

Dijeron, “Contentos somos con que lo enpresionedes,

Asta la tierra santa que no lo soltaredes.”

E fizieron su carta, de como lo bendieron;

E todo por sus manos por escripto lo pusieron,

E ad aquel mercader su carta le rindieron,

E lebaronlo encadenado ansi como punsieron.

Quando bino el mober, Jusuf iba llorando,

Por espedirse de sus ermanos mal iba quexando,

Malos eran ellos, mas él acia su guisado,

Demandó al mercader i otorgoselo de grado.

Dijo el mercader, “Esta es marabella,

Que ellos te an vendido como si fueses obelha,

Diciendo que eras ladron e de mala pelelha;

E io por tales senores no daria una arbelha.”

Partiose Jusuf con la cadena rastrando,

E Jahuda aquella noche estabalos belando,

Espertolos a todos tan apriesa llorando,

Diziendo, “Lebantadbos, recibid al torteado.”

Dijo Jusuf, “Ermanos, perdoneos el Criador

Del tuerto que me tenedes, perdoneos el Senor;

Que para siempre e nunca se parta el nuestro amor.”

Abraso á cada guno, e partiose con dolor.

Iba con gran gente aquel mercadero;

Alli iba Jusuf solo e sin companero;

Pasaron por un camino por un fosal sennero,

Do iacia la su madre acerca de un otero.

Dio salto del camello donde iba cabalgando;

No lo sintio el negro que lo iba guardando;

Fuese a la fuesa de su madre a pedirla perdon doblando

Jusuf a la fuesa tan apriesa llorando.

Disiendo, “Madre, Sennora, perdoneos el Sennor,

Madre, si me bidieses de mi abriais dolor;

Boi con cadenas al cuello, catibo con sennor,

Bendido de mis ermanos, como si fuera traidor.

“Ellos me han bendido, no teniendoles tuerto;

Partieronme de mi padre, ante que fuese muerto,

Con arte, con falsia, ellos me obieron buelto;

Por mal precio me han bendido por do boi ajado e cucito.”

E bolbiose el negro ante la camella

Requiriendo a Jusuf e no lo bido en ella,

E bolbiose por el camino aguda su orella,

Bidolo en el fosal, llorando que es marabella.

E fuese alla el negro e obolo mal ferido,

E luego en aquella ora caio amortesido;

Dijo, “Tu eres malo e ladron conpilido,

Ansi nos lo dijeron tus senores que te hubieron bendido.”

Dijo Jusuf, “No soi malo ni ladron,

Mas aqui iaz mi madre e bengola a dar perdon;

Ruego ad Allah, i a el fago loaiçon

Que, si colpa no te tengo, te enbie su maldicion.”

Andaron aquella noche fasta otro dia;

Entorbioseles el mundo, gran bento corria,

Afallezioseles el sol al ora de medio dia,

No vedian por do ir con la mercaderia.

Aqueste mercader base marabillado

De aquella fortuna que traia el pecado.

Dijo el mercader, “Yo mando pribado,

Que quien pecado a fecho que bienga acordado.

“Que es aquesta fortuna que agora veiemos

Por algun pecado que entre nosotros tenemos;

Quien pecado a fecho perdone e perdonemos,

Mejoremos ventura e todos escaparemos.”

Dijo el negro, “Señor, io di una bofetada

A de aquel tu catibo que se fue a la alborada.”

Llamó el mercader a Jusuf la begada,

Que se viniere a bengar del negro e su errada.

Dijo Jusuf, “Eso no es de mi a far;

Io no vengo de aquellos que ansi se quieren vengar;

Ante bengo de aquellos que quieren perdonar;

Por gran que seia el ierro, io ansi lo quiero far.”

Aquesto fecho i el negro perdonado,

Aclarecioles el dia i el mercader fue apagado.

Dijo el mercader, “O amigo granado!

Sino por lo compuesto soltariate de grado.”

Mas a pocos de dias a su tierra llegaron;

Jusuf fue luego suelto, que un rio lo bañaron;

De purpura e de seda mui bien lo guisaron,

E de piedras preciosas mui bien lo afeitaron.

Quando entraron por la cibdad, las gentes se marabillaban;

El dia era nublo e el sol no relumbraba,

Magüer era oscuro e el la hazia calara,

Por do quier que pasaba todo lo relonbraba.

Decian las gentes a de aquel mercadero,

Si era aquel angel o ombre santurero.

Dijo, “Este es mi catibo leal e berdadero,

Io quiero lo bender, si le hallo mercadero.”

Dijo el mercader, que él lo benderia en mercado.

Fizo a saber las nuebas por todo el reinado,

Que biniese toda la gente para el dia sennalado,

Estando Jusuf apuesto en un banco posado.

No fincó en toda la comarca hombre ni muger,

Ni chico ni grande, que non le fuese a ber.

Alli bino Zaleja e dejó el comer,

Cabalgada en una mula a quanto podia correr.

Su peso de palata por el daba bien pesado,

E otro que tal haria de oro esmaltado,

E de piedras preciosas como dice el ditado,

Mercolo el Rei por su peso de oro granado.

Diolo el Rei a Zaleja con amor,

Tomaronlo por filho legitimo e maior,

Tomaronlo dambos de mui buen amor;

Lebantose el pregonero, e pregono a sabor.

Lebantose el pregonero, e pregono a sabor;

Dijo, “Quien compra Profeta cuerdo e sabidor,

Leal i berdadero i firme en el Criador,

Ansi como parece por fecho e balor?”

Dijo Jusuf, “Tu pregonaras, amado,

Quien comprara catibo, torpe e abiltado?”

Dijo el pregonero, “Eso no faré io, amado,

Que, si aqueso pregonase, no te mercaran de grado.”

Dijo, “Pues eso no quieres, pregona la berdad,

E ruegote, ermano, que no la quieras negar.

Di, Quien comprara profeta del alto lugar,

Filhos de Jacob si lo aveis oido nombrar?”

De que supo el mercader que era de tal altura,

Rogo al comprador le bolbiese por mesura

E doblarle i a el precio de su compradura,

E él no lo quiso hacer porque ia tenia bentura.

Besandole pies i manos que lo quisiese far,

El por ninguna bia no lo quiso derogar,

Tubose por mal andante; la cuenta ia le fue a tornar,

Salbante lo que costo no lo quiso mas tomar.

Rogo el mercader a Jusuf la sazon,

Que rogase ad Allah del cielo de buen corazon,

Que en doce mugeres que tenia, todas doce en amor,

Que en todas doce le diese filhos e criazon.

Lebantose Jusuf e fizo loacion,

Rogo ad Allah del cielo de buen corazon,

Que alargase la bida al buen baron,

I emprennaronse todas, cada una a su sazon.

Cuando bino la ora ubieron de librar,

Quiso Allah del cielo, e todas fueron a hechar

Mui nobles criaturas e figuras de alegrar,

Porque nuestro Señor las quiso ayudar.

Criolo Zaleja, mui bien lo hubo criado,

E de corazon lo hubo guardado,

I él como era apuesto apegose del pribado,

Demandole el su cuerpo, e no le semejo guisado.

Dijo a su pribada, “Ia sabes, amada,

Como io he criado a Jusuf cada semana,

De noche e de dia io bien lo guardaba,

I él no me lo prezia mas que si fuese bana.

“Dame sabiduria, a mi sapiencia clara.

Io no puedo facer que el acate en mi cara;

Solo que él me bediese i el luego me amara,

E de él faria a mi guisa en lo que io le mandara.”

Dijo su pribada, “Io bos daré un consejo;

Bos dadme haber, i os faré un bosquejo,

Io habre un pintor i mistorara a arrecho,

Io faré el meter, e a que se benga a buestro lecho.”

De quanto le demando todo lo fué bien guisado;

Fizo fazer un palacio mui apuesto e cuadrado,

Todo lo fizo balanco paredes e terrado,

E fizo figurar a un pintor piribado.

De Jusuf e de Zaleja allí hizo sus figuras,

Que se abrazaban dambos pribados sin mesura,

Porque semejaban bibos con seso e cordura,

Porque eran misturados de mistura con natura.

De que el palacio fue fecho e todo bien acabado,

Alli bino Zaleja e asentose ia de grado,

E embio por Jusuf luego con el mandado,

“Jusuf, tu Señora te manda que baias mui pribado.”

E fuese Jusuf do Zaleja salia,

E como quiso de entrar luego sintió la falsia,

E quisose bolber, e ella no lo consentia,

Tarabolo de la falda, e llebolo do iacia.

Alli quedó Jusuf con mui gran espanto;

Afalagabolo Zaleja i el bolbiase de canto,

Prometiendole aber e riquezas a basto.

La ora dijo Jusuf, “Allah mandara a farto.”

Por do quier que cataba beia figora artera;

Deciale Zaleja, “Esta es fiera manera;

Tu eres un catibo é io tu Sennora certera;

Io no puedo fazer que tu guies a mi carrera.”

Jusuf en aquella ora quisose encantar;

El pecado lo fazia que lo queria engannar;

E bido que no era a su padre onrrar;

Repentido fue luego i empezo de firmar.

Jusuf bolbió las cuestas e empezo de fuir;

De zaga ibale Zaleja, no lo podia sofrir;

Trabolo de la falda como oirias decir,

Echando grandes boces, “Aqui abras de benir.”

Oiolo su marido por do allí bino pribado;

Falló a Jusuf llorando su mal fado;

Rota tenia la falda en su costado,

I el su corazon negro por miedo de pecado.

Zaleja tenia tendidos sus cabellos,

En manera de forzada con sus olhos bermellos;

Diziendo al buen Rei, “Sennor, de los consellos

Aqui son menester; cata todos tus consejos.

“Cata aqui tu catibo, que tenias en fieldad;

Ame caecido por sin ninguna piedad,

Abiendolo criado con tan gran piedad

Como faze madre á filho ansi lo quise aquesto far.”

Dijo el Rei a Jusuf aquesta razon;

“Como me as pensado en tan grande traision,

Tobiendote puesto en mi corazon?”

La ora dijo Jusuf, “No bengo de tal morgon.”

Reutaban á Zaleja las duennas del lugar

Porque con su catibo queria boltariar.

Ella de que lo supo arte las fue á buscar,

Combidolas a todas e llebolas a cantar.

Diolas ricos comeres é binos esmerados,

Que hijan todas agodas de dictados,

Diolas sendas toronjas e caminetes en las manos,

Tajantes e apuestos e mui bien temperados.

E fuese Zaleja a do Jusuf estaba,

De purpura e de seda mui bien lo aguisaba,

E de piedras preciosas mui bien lo afeitaba,

Berdugadero en sus manos a las duennas lo embiaba.

Ellas de que lo bieron perdieron su cordura,

Tanto era de apuesto e de buena figura;

Pensaban que era tan angel e tornaban en locura,

Cortabanse las manos e non se abian cura,

Que por las toronjas la sangre iba andando.

Zaleja quando lo bido toda se fue alegrando;

Dijoles Zaleja que fais lo cas de sin cuidado,

Que por buesas manos la sangre iba andando.”

I ellas de que lo bieron sintieron su locura.

“Que a par una bista sola tomades en locura?

Io que debia fazer e dende el tiempo que medura?”

Dijeronle las duennas, “A ti no te colpamos,

Nosotras somos las ierradas que te razonamos;

Mas antes guisaremos que él te benga a tus manos

De manera que seais abenidos enterambos.”

E fueronse las duennas a Jusuf a rogar;

Bederedes cada una como lo debia far;

Pensabase Zaleja que por ella iban á rogar,

Mas cada guna iba para sí a recabar.

Jusuf quando aquesto bido reclamose al Criador;

Diziendo, “Padre mio, de mi aiades dolor;

Son tornadas de una muchas en mi amor,

Pues mas quiero ser preso que no ser traidor.”

Cuando bido Zaleja la cosa mal parada,

Que por ninguna bia no pudo haber de entrada,

Dijo al buen Rei, “Este me a difamada

No teniendo la culpa, mas a falsia granada.”

Echolo en la prision aqui a que se bolbiese,

E que por aquello a ella obedeciese;

E entiendolo el Rei ante que muriese

E juró que non salria mientras que él bibiese.

E quando aquesto fue fecho, Zaleja fue repentida;

No lo abria querido fazer en dias de su vida,

Diziendo, “O mezquina, nunca seré guarida

De este mal tan grande en que soi caida.

“Que si io supiera que esto abia de benir,

Que por ninguna bia no se ha podido complir,

Que io no he podido de este mal guarir,

Por deseo de Jusuf habré io de morir.”

Alli iaze diez annos como si fuese cordero,

Daquí á que mandó el Rei á un su portero

Echar en la prision dos ombres i el tercero,

El uno su escancieno e el otro un panicero;

Porque abian pensado al Rei de far traicion,

Que en el bino e en el pan que le echasen ponzon.

Probado fué al panicero, e al escancieno non,

Porque mejor supo catar e encobrir la traicion.

Allí do estaban presos mui bien los castigaba,

E qualquiera que enfermaba mui bien lo curaba;

Todos lo guardaban por do quiera que el estaba,

Porque el lo merecia, su figura se lo daba.

Sonno el escancieno un suenno tan pesado;

Contolo a Jusuf, i sacosele de grado.

Dijo, “Tu fues escancieno de tu Sennor onrrado,

Mas oi en seras a tu oficio tornado,

“E abras perdon de tu Sennor;

Aiudete el seso i guiete el Criador,

I a quien Allah da seso dale grande onor;

Bolberas á tu oficio con mui grande balor.”

Dijo el panicero al su compannero,

“Io dire a Jusuf que e sonnado un suenno

De noche en tal dia, quando salia el lucero,

I beré que me dize en su seso certero.”

Contole el panicero el suenno que queria,

I sacosele Jusuf é nada no le mentia;

Dijo, “Tu fues panicero del Rei todabia,

Mas aqui iaceras porque fiziste falsia;

“Que al tercero dia seras tu luego suelto,

E seras enforcado a tu cabeza el tuerto,

E comeran tus meollos las abes del puerto;

Alli seras colgado hasta que sias muerto.”

Dijo el panicero, “No sonné cosa certera,

Que io me lo dezia por ber la manera.”

Dijo Jusuf, “Esta es cosa berdadera,

Que lo que tu dijestes, Allah lo embió por carrera.”

Dijo Jusuf al escancieno aquesta razon;

“Ruegote que recuerdes al Rei de mi prision,

Que arto me a durado esta gran maldicion.”

Dijo el escancieno, “Plaze me de corazon.”

Que al tercero dia salieron de grado,

E fueron delante del Rei, su Sennor onrrado;

E mandó el panicero ser luego enforcado,

Dijo, “El escancieno á su oficio a tornado.”

Olbidosele al escancieno de decir el su mandado,

E no le membro por dos años ni le fué acordado,

Fasta que sonnó un suenno el Rei apoderado;

Doce annos estubo preso, e esto mal de su grado.

Aqueste fue el suenno que el Rei ubo sonnado,

De que salia del agua un rio granado,

Anir era su nombre preciado e granado,

I bido que en salian siete bacas de grado.

Eran bellas e gordas e de lai mui cargadas,

I bido otras siete magras, flacas, e delgadas.

Comianse las flacas a las gordas granadas,

E no se les parecia ni enchian las hilladas.

E bido siete espigas mui llenas de grano,

Berdes e fermosas como en tiempo de berano;

E bido otras siete secas con grano bano,

Todas secas e blancas como caballo cano.

Comianse las secas a las berdes del dia,

E no se les parecia ninguna mejoria;

Tornabanse todas secas cada guna bacia,

Todas secas e blancas como de niebla fria.

El Rei se marabello de como se comian

Las flacas a las gordas granadas,

I las siete espigas secas a las berdes mojadas,

I entendio que en su suenno abia largas palabras,

E no podia pensar a que fuesen sacadas.

E llamo a los sabidores e el suenno les fue a contar,

Que se lo sacasen e no ge diesen bagar,

E ellos le dijeron, “Nos querais aquejar,

Miraremos en los libros o no te daremos bagar.”

Dijeronle, “Sennor, no seais aquejado;

No son los suennos ciertos en tiempo arrebatado.

Los amores crecen segun noso cuidado,

Mas a las de beras suelen tornar en falso.”

I amansose el Rei, e dioles de mano,

Porque el entendio que andaban en bano.

E ubo de saber aquello el escancieno,

E binose al Rei, e diole la mano.

E dijole, “Sennor, io sé un sabidor onrrado

El qual está en prision firmemente atorteado;

Dos annos abemos que del non me e acordado,

E fecho como torpe, e sientome ierrado.

“Ia me saco un suenno, cierto le bi benir.”

E el Rei le respondio, “Amigo, empieza de ir,

E contaselo todo, como as oido dezir,

E librarlo emos mui presto e sacarlo io de alli.”

E fuese el escancieno a Jusuf de grado,

E dijo, “Perdoname, amigo, que olbidé tu mandado,

E fizolo el miedo de mi Sennor onrrado,

Mas agora es tiempo de mandarlo doblado.

“Mas ruegote, ermano, en amor del Criador,

Que me saques un suenno que bido mi Sennor.”

La ora dijo Jusuf, “Plazeme de corazon,

Pues que no puedo salir fasta que quiera el maior.”

E contole el suenno todo bien cumplido,

Porque no ierrase Jusuf en lo que era sabido.

Quando el suenno fue contado, Jusuf ubo entendido;

Dijo Jusuf, “El suenno es cierto e benido.

“Sabras que las siete bacas gordas e granadas,

E las siete espigas berdes e mojadas,

Son siete annos mui llubiesos de aguas,

Do quiera que sembraredes todas naceran dobladas.

“I las magras bacas e las secas espigas

Son siete annos de mui fuertes prisas;

Comense a los buenos bien a las sus guisas,

Do quiera que sembraredes no ia saldran espigas.

“Porque face menester, que sembraredes á basto

En estos annos buenos que aberedes á farto,

I dejaredes probiendo para bosotros e al ganado

I alzaredes lo a otro ansi fechos llegado.

“Ansi con su espiga sin ninguna trilladura

E la palla sera guardada mui bien de afolladura,

Porque no ii caiga polilla, ni ninguna podredura,

Porque en estos tiempos secos tengades folgadura.

“Porque en aquestos annos tengades que comer

E buestros bestiales e las bacas de beber,

E todos los esforzades, e poredes guarecer,

E saldreis al buen tiempo e abreis mucho bien.”

Cuando bió el escancieno del suenno la glosa,

Bolbiose al Rei con berdadera cosa,

E fizole a saber al de la barba donosa,

Que era el suenno con razon fermosa.

E placiole mucho al Rei, e ovo gran plazer,

E supole malo de tal preso tener,

Cuerdo e berdadero, complido en el saber,

E mandó que lo traiesen, que el lo queria ber.

E fuese el escancieno a Jusuf con el mandado,

E dijo como el Rei por él abia embiado,

E que fuese presto del Rei, no fuese airado.

E dijo Jusuf, “No sere tan entorbiado;

“Mas buelbete al Rei i dile desta manera,

Io que feuza tendré en su merced certera,

Que me a tubido preso doce annos en la carcel negra

A tuerto e sin razon e a traision berdadera.

“Mas io de su prision no quiero salir

Fasta que me benga de quien alli me fizo ir,

De las duennas fermosas que me fizieron fuir,

Quant se cortaban las manos e no lo podian sentir.

“Aplazelas el Rei pues que me dannaron,

Que digan la berdad porque me colparon,

O por qual razon en carcel me echaron,

Porque entienda el Rei, porque me acolparon.

“E quando seran ajuntadas e Zaleja con ellas,

Demandelas el Rei berdad a todas ellas,

E quando el bera que la culpa tienen ellas

La ora io saldré de mui buena manera.

Aplazolas el Rei, e demandalas la berdad;

Ellas le dijeron, “Todas fizimos maldad,

E Jusuf fue certero manteniendo lealtad;

Nunca quiso boltariar ni le dió la boluntad.”

Lebantose Zaleja, i empezo de decir,

“A todas las duennas no es otra de mentir,

Sino de seier firmes e la berdad dezir,

Que io me entremeti por mi loado dezir.

“Que todas hizimos ierro si nos balga el Criador,

E le tenemos culpa, Allah es perdonador;

Jusuf es fuero de ierro e de pecado maior.”

El Rei, quando las oiera, maldiciolas con dolor.

E fizo saber el Rei a Jusuf la manera,

Como era quito cosa berdadera

De todas las duennas con prueba certera;

E la ora salio Jusuf de la carcel negra.

E en el portal de la prision fizo fazer un escripto;

“La prision es fuesa de los hombres bibos

E sitio de maldicion e banco de los abismos,

E Allah nos cure de ella a todos los amigos.”

Embiole el Rei mui rica cabalgadura

E gran caballeria, e abianlo a cura;

Llebanlo en medio como Sennor de natura,

E fueronse al palacio del buen Rei de mesura.

E el Rei como lo bido luego se fue á lebantar,

E el Rei se fue a él, que no solia usar,

E asentolo cabo a él, lo que no solia far,

E en la ora le dijo el Rei, “Mi fillol te quiero far.”

E con setenta fablaches el Rei le obo fablado,

E respondiole Jusuf a cadauno pribado;

E fabló Jusuf al Rei otro fablado e el Rei no supo dar recaudo,

E marabillose el Rei de su saber granado.

Dijo el Rei a Jusuf, “Ruegote, ermano,

Que me cuentes el suenno que te dijo mi escancieno,

Que lo oiga de tu lengua, i sea io alegrado,

I aderezaremos nuestras cosas seiendo librado.”

E dijo Jusuf al Rei, “Encomiendote al Criador,

Que de aqueste suenno habras mui grande onor;

Mas tu as menester hombre de corazon,

Que ordene tu ficienda e la guie con balor.

“Mas adreza tu ficienda como io te he fablado,

Que el pan de la tierra todo seia alzado,

El de los annos buenos para el tiempo afortunado,

Que de sede e de fambre todo el mundo sea aquejado.

“Berná toda la gente en los tiempos faltos,

E mercaran el pan de los tus alzados

Por oro e plata e cuerpos e algos,

De manera que sereis Sennor de altos i de bajos.”

E el Rei, quando esto oiera, comenzo de pensar;

Jusuf, como le bido, bolbiole a fablar,

I dijole, “En eso no pensedes, que Allah lo ha de librar,

Que io habré de ser quien lo abré de guiar.”

Dijo el Rei, “O amigo, e como me has alegrado;

Io te lo agradezco, de Allah habras grado,

Que tu seras aquel por quien se ensalzara el condado,

I que de hoi adelante te dejo el reinado.

“Porque tu perteneces mandar el reinado

I a toda la gente ibierno e berano;

Todos te ubedeceremos el joben e el cano,

Como las otras gentes quiero ser de garado.

“Porque tu lo mereces, de Allah te benga guianza;

Pero ruegote, amigo, que seias en amiganza,

Que me buelbas mi reino e no pongas dudanza,

Al cabo de dicho tiempo no finques con mala andanza.

“Con aquesta condicion que te quedes en tu estado,

Como Rei en su tierra mandando i sentenciando,

Que asi lo mandare hoi por todo el reinado,

Que io no quiero ser ia mas Rei llamado.”

I placiole a Jusuf, hubolo de otorgar,

I en el sitio del Rei luego se ha de sentar,

I mando el Rei a la gente delante del humillar;

Firmemente lo guardaban como lo debian far.

I quando bido Jusuf la luna prima i delgada

En el seno que se iba con planta apresurada,

Que dentraban los annos de bentura abastada,

Mando juntar la tierra i toda su companna.

I de que fueron llegados todos sus basallos,

Fizoles a saber porque eran llegados,

Que se fuesen a sembrar los bajos i altos,

Que sembrasen toda la tierra balles e galachos.

I fueronse a sembrar todos con cordura,

Asi como mandaba su Sennor de natura;

Benian redoblados con bien e con bentura,

I marabillaronse de su sabencia pura.

I luego mando Jusuf a todos sus maestros,

Que fiziesen graneros de grandes peltrechos,

Mui anchos i largos, de mui fuertes maderos,

Para ad alzar el pan de los tiempos certeros.

Nunca bieron hombres estancias tamannas,

Unas encima de otras que semejaban montannas,

I mando segar el pan ansi entre dos tallas,

I ligar los fachos con cuerdas delgadas.

I facialos poner en los graneros atados,

Ansi con sus espigas que fuese bien guardado,

Que no i caiese polilla ni nada ubiese cuidado;

Cada anno lo hizo facer ansi, i fizieronlo de grado.

E tanto llego del pan que no le fallaban quantia,

E quando bido la luna en el seno que se iba,

Que dentraba la seca de mui mala guisa,

Mando que no sembrasen de pues de aquel dia,

Fasta que pasasen otros siete annos cumplidos

Que de sete e de fambre serian fallecidos;

E no i abia aguas de cielo nin de rios;

Ansi como lo dijo Jusuf, asi fueron benidos.

I puso el Rei fieles para su pan bender,

Buenos e berdaderos segun el su saber,

E mando que diesen el derecho, ansi lo mando fazer,

E precio subido por el que fiz prender.

E mando a sus fieles que bendiesen de grado,

El uno a los de la tierra, e el otro a los de fuera del reinado,

A cada guno demandasen nuebas de do eran pribados,

O, si eran de la tierra, que no les diesen recaudo.

Que a pocos de dias las tierras fueron bacias

De todo el pan e mercaderias,

E no ia i abia que comer en cibdades ni en billas,

E mercaban de Jusuf el que sabian las guaridas.

Los primeros annos con dinero e moblo mercaron,

Llebaron plata e oro e todo lo acabaron,

E luego en pues de aquello la criazon ia lebaron,

E no les basto aquello, que mucha res ia llebaron.

Que al seteno anno bendieron los cuerpos,

E fueron todos catibos todos bibos e muertos,

E todo bolbio al Rei las tierras e los pueblos,

I estendiose la fambre en reinos estrangeros.

Pues, quando lo bido Jusuf todo a su mandar,

E todos los catibos que podia bender o dar,

Bolbiose al Rei e fuele a fablar;

Dijo, “Que te parece, Rei, de lo que me has bisto far.”

E dijole el Rei, “Tu aras por el reinado,

Porque tu mereces mandar el condado,

Porque tu perteneces mandar el reinado,

Que io no quiero ser ia mas Rei llamado.”

Dijo Jusuf al Rei aquesta razon;

“Io fago franco a todos e quito con onor

Ia tu tu reismo con todo Sennor;”

La ora dijo el Rei, “Eso no seria razon,

“Que no me lo consintiria el mi corazon,

Que tan noble sabencia fuese a baldon;

Antes de oi adelante quiero que tu seias Sennor.”

E bido Jusuf la fambre apoderada,

Que por toda la tierra era tan encargada;

Entendio que en la tierra de su padre seria llegada;

Puso ia regimiento como la nueba fuese arribada.

Mas a pocos de dias la fambre fue llegada

A tierra de Jacob e su barba onrrada;

Tenia mucha gente e una moier guardada.

Dijo Jacob, “Filhos, io he sentido

Que en tierras de Egito hai un Rei cunplido,

Bueno e berdadero, franco i entendido,

E tiene mucho pan partido e bendido.

“Querria que tomasedes deste nuestro aber,

E que fueseis luego ad aquel Rei a ber,

Contadle nuestra cuita e querra bos creier,

Con la aiuda de Allah querra a bos bender.”

Dijeron sus filhos, “Placemos de grado;

Iremos a beier ad aquel Rei onrrado,

E beremos la su tierra e tambien el su reinado,

E, con la aiuda de Allah, él nos dara recaudo.”

De que llegaron a la tierra abistada,

Preguntaron por el Rei do era su posada;

Dijo un escudero, “Aqui i es su morada;

Io bos dare del pan e tambien de la cebada.

“Que io soi fiel del Rei, que bendo el pan alzado

A los de fuera del reino, a los otros no me es mandado;

Decidme de donde sois, e libraros e de grado,

O, si sois de aquesta tierra, no bos dare recaudo.

“Decid me de donde sois o de que lugar,

Porque podais deste pan llebar,

E dare a cada guno quanto querais mercar,

Segun el dinero le hare io mesurar.”

I ellos le dijeron todos sus nombres,

E la tierra de do eran, e como eran ermanos,

Filhos de Jacob e de Ishac mui amados,

En Cherusalem alli eran fincados.

Ed entro el escudero al Rei e contestole la razon,

E de que logar e de qual morgon,

E filhos de Profeta de buena generacion;

“Sennor, si tu lo mandas librarlos e con amor.”

E mando el Rei que entrasen delante del pribado,

E que les diesen de comer del maior pescado,

E que los guardasen por todo el reinado,

E no los dejasen ir tobiesen su mandado.

E el Rei como los bido obo placer con ellos,

E mandose aderezar el Rei de unos bestidos bellos,

E mil caballeros al costado esquerro e mil al derecho,

E de una parte placer e de otra gran despecho.

Los bestidos que traia eran de gran balor,

Eran de oro e de seda e de fermosa labor,

E traia piedras preciosas de que salia claror,

Mas traia algalia e mui rico golor.

E mando qued entrasen a beier su figura,

E dieronle salbacion segun su catadura,

E mandolos asentar con bien i apostura,

E marabillaronse de su buena bentura.

Ellos estando en piedes i el Rei parado

E belos el Rei fieramente catando,

I ellos no se dudaban nin de abian cuidado,

Retrobalos el Rei de amor e de grado.

E de que bieron al Rei bella su catadura,

Judas dijo, “Ermanos, oid mi locura,

Temome de este Rei e de su encontradura,

Roguemosle que nos embie por mesura.”

Por mucho que le dijeron él no lo quiso far,

Fasta el tercero dia alli los fizo estar,

Fizoles mucha onrra, quanta les pudo far,

Ansi como a filhos los mandaba guardar.

La mesura del pan de oro era labrada,

E de piedras preciosas era estrellada,

I era de ber toda con guisa enclabada,

Que fazia saber al Rei la berdad apurada.

Dijoles el Rei, nuebas les demandaba,

La mesura en su mano que se la meneaba,

Disiendoles el Rei que mirasen lo que ablaban,

Que si dezian mentira ella lo declaraba;

Quien con el Rei abla guardese de mentir,

Ni en su razon no quisiere mentir,

Porque, quando lo fazia, haciala retinir,

I ella le dezia berdad sin cuentradecir.

Dijoles el Rei, “De quien sedes filhos,

O de que linage sois benidos?

Beos io de gran fuerza fermosos e cumplidos,

Quiero que me lo digades e seremos amigos.”

Ellos le dijeron, “Nosotros, Sennor,

Somos de Profeta, creientes al Criador,

De Jacob somos filhos, creientes al Criador,

E benimos por pan si hallamos bendedor.”

E firio el Rei en la mesura e fizola sonar,

Ponela a su orelha por oir e guardar;

Dijoles, e no quiso mas dudar,

“Segun dize la mesura berdad puede estar.”

Dijoles el Rei, “Quantos sos, amados?”

Ellos le dijeron, “Eramos doze ermanos,

I al uno se comio el lobo segun nos cuidamos,

E el otro queda con él, su amor acabado.”

Dijoles el Rei, “Prometo al Criador,

Sino por acatar a buestro padre e sennor,

Io os tendria presos en cadena con dolor,

Mas por amor del biejo enbiaros e con onor.”

Ellos dijeron, “Sennor, rogamoste en amor,

Por el Sennor del mundo que te dio onrra e balor,

Nos quieras embiar a nueso padre e sennor,

I abras galardon e merced del Criador.

“E no cates a nos, mas al biejo de nueso padre,

Por que es ombre mui biejo e flaco, en berdad,

Que si tu le conocieses querriaslo onrrar,

Porque es ombre mui sano e de buena boluntad.”

“Io no cato a bosotros, mas a quien debo mirar;

E por aquel ombre bueno me benides a rogar,

Allah me traiga en tiempo que io lo pueda onrrar,

Que, como faze filho a padre, io asi lo quiero far.

“Saludadme al biejo, a bueso padre el cano,

I que me embie una carta con el chico bueso ermano,

E que fue de su tristeza que a tornado en bano,

E si aquesto olbidas no os daremos grano.

“Mas en bosotros no me fio, ni me caie en grado;

Mas, porque a mi sea cierto, quede el uno restado,

Hasta que benga la carta con el chico bueso ermano;

I en esto echad suertes qual quedara arrestado.”

E caio la suerte a uno que dezian Simeon,

El que corto la soga a Jusuf la sazon,

Quando lo echaron en el pozo i caio alli el baron,

E ubo de fincar alli con la dicha condicion.

E luego el Rei mando la moneda a ellos ser tornada,

E luego a cada uno en su saco ligada,

E ellos no se dudaban nin de abian cuidado,

I fizolo el Rei porque tornasen de grado.

I espidieronse del Rei, e binieron mui pagados,

E contaron al su padre del Rei e sus condados,

Que nunca bieron tal Rei e de tantos basallos,

E de buena manera e de consejos sanos;

E que se berificaba en todo su afar

E su padre Jacob en onrra e saber,

Quien no lo conociese e lo fuese a ber,

Entenderia que es Profeta, abrialo a creier.

Desataron los sacos del trigo e ubieron catado,

Fallaron la quantia que ubieron llebado;

Dijeron a su Padre, “Este es ombre abonado,

Que sobre toda la onrra la quantia nos a tornado.

“Mas sepades, Padre, que el os embia a rogar,

Que le embies a bueso filho e non le querais tardar,

Con una carta escripta de todo bueso afar;

Padre, si no nos lo dades, no nos cabe mas tornar,

“Ni nos dará del pan, ni seremos creidos.

Padre, si nos lo dades seremos guaridos,

Ternemos nuestra fe i seremos creidos,

E traeremos del pan e ganaremos amigos.”

Dijoles el Padre, “No lo podria mandar;

Este es mi bida e con él me e de conortar,

Ni en bosotros io no quiero fiar,

Porque antes de agora me obiestes a falsia.

“Quando llebastes a Jusuf, no me lo tornastes,

Quebrantastes buestra fe e buestro omenage,

Perdistes a mi filho como desleales;

Io quiero me guardar de todas buestras maldades.”

Por mucho que le dijeron el no lo quiso far,

Ni por ninguna bia lo quiso otorgar;

Obieronme de sofrir e no ia quisieron tornar

Fasta que el pan fue comido e no ia abia que amasar.

E la ora tornaron a su padre a rogar

Que les diese a su ermano e los quiera guiar,

Que al buen Rei prometieron de sin él no tornar,

E quellos lo guardarian sin ninguna crueldad.

Tanto le dijeron e le fueron a rogar,

E biendo la gran fortuna hubolo de otorgar,

I ellos le prometieron de mui bien le guardar,

E de no bolber sin él, jura le fueron a far.

I a uno de sus filhos fizo facer un escripto,

En el qual decia, “A tu Rei de Egipto

Salud e buen amor de Jacob el tristo;

Io te agradezco tu fecho e tu dicto.

“A lo que me demandas que fue de mi estado,

Sepas que mi bejez e mi bien e logrado,

O la mi ceguedad que ia soi quebrantado,

Primero por favor del Criador onrrado.

“E por Jusuf mi filho, parte de mi corazon,

Aquel que era fuerza de mi en toda sazon,

I era mi amparo, e perdilo sin razon,

No sé triste si es muerto o bibo en prision.

“Entiendo que soi majado del Rei celestial,

I ansi que deste mi filho tomes mancilla e pesar,

E lo que io te ruego como a Rei natural,

Que me buelbas a mi filho que por él soi io mortal.

“Que si no por este filho io ia seria finado,

Que el me daba conuerto de Jusuf el mi amado;

Io te lo embio en fe que me lo tornes pribado,

En guardete el Allah Sennor apoderado.”

De que la carta fue fecha, dijolos él de grado,

“Filhos, los mis filhos, cumplid el mi mandado;

No entreis por una puerta mas por muchas pribado,

Porque seria major porque ansi lo e probado.”

Despidieronse de su padre e fueron con alegria,

Caminaron todos juntos la noche i el dia,

E llegaron a la cibdad con la claror del dia,

I el Rei como lo supo ubo gran mejoria.

E mandose aderezar el Rei de ricos bestidos,

I a toda su gente mas ricas cabalgaduras,

En balsamiento de oro, e safomerios de gran mesura,

De diversas maneras i oloros de gran altura.

Quando fue acabado lo que el Rei obo mandado,

Mando qued entrasen delante de él pribado;

E quando ellos por la corte iban dentrando,

Echoles palmas el chico en las golores de grado.

E besoles por su cara e por su bestidura;

Rautabanlo los otros que hacia gran locura,

Diziendo, “Que haces, loco de sin cordura?

Entiendes que por tí han puesto aquesta fermosura?”

Dijoles, “Ermanos, ruegoos no bos quejades,

Oid mi razon que luego lo sabredes,

Mas combieneos, ermanos, que os aparejedes,

Porque entienda el Rei que parientes buenos tenedes.”

E conocieron todos que tenia razon;

Tomaron su consejo como de buen baron,

E fueron delante del Rei con buena condicion;

De parte del padre era su generacion.

Tanto era el Rei de apuesto que, no lo conocian,

Unos certificaban i otros no podian,

I el Rei se sonrrio e dijo, que querian,

O de que tierra eran, que buena gente parecian.

I ellos le dijeron del afar pasado,

De como traian la carta con el chico su ermano,

Ansi como prometieron con omenage dado;

Pusieronle delante e placiole de grado.

Traia con él una carta escripta

Del estado de su padre e de su bida feita;

El Rei quando la leio lloro con gran mancilla,

I encubriose de los otros que ellos no lo beian.

E luego mando el Rei a todos sus menesteres,

E de enbarillamiento de oro henchesen las mesas,

E otras tantas de plata de dibersas maneras,

E mandoles asentar a que comiesen en ellas.

E de que fueron sentados mando que los sirbiesen,

E mando el Rei que de dos en dos comiesen,

Ansi como nacieron que ansi lo fiziciesen,

Por que a él le parecia a que no se ende estobiesen.

De que bieron de comer entre dos una escodilla

Hubo de fincar el chico con su mano en la mexilla,

Porque fincaba solo triste con mancilla,

Por tristeza de su ermano que eran de una nacida.

E bedosele él comer por dolor de su ermano,

Porque comia cada guno con su par ermano,

Llorando con tristeza e el su meollo cano,

E dejo el comer el filho del cano.

Quando aquesto ubieron fecho caio amortecido,

E el Rei quando lo bido a el fue arremetido,

Tomolo de la mano i onrrole el balido.

Dijo el Rei, “Amigo, quien te a ferido?”

Dijo él, “Bos soi, Sennor, cumplido,

Que me mandaste a mi ermano el balido,

El qual mi corazon no lo echo en olbido.”

Dijo el Rei, “Amigo, quieres me perdonar

Que io no sabia quien eras ni de que lugar,

Pues que tu fincas solo abrete de acompannar,

En lugar de tu ermano con tu quiero iantar.”

Sirbiole el Rei de buena boluntad,

E mando que le parasen mesa de gran beldad,

Que quiere comer con él que le abia piedad,

Tanta fue la bondad del Rei i onrra que le fue a dar.

Que le quito la ira e comio con él de grado;

Sus ermanos que lo bieron tomaron mal cuidado,

E por inbidia quisieron aberlo matado,

Disiendo unos a otros, “Aqueste nuestro ermano

“Allá con nuestro padre luego fará grandia

De que seremos en nuestra tierra el todabia,

‘Io comi con el Rei porque lo merecia,

I aquestos a mis piedes de noche e de dia.’”

Dijole el Rei, si abia moier e filho;

I él le dijo, “E moier con tres ninnos;

Por deseo de Jusuf puseles nombres piadosos,

El qual mi corazon no lo echa en olbido.

“Al uno dizen Lobo, i al otro dizen Sangre,

I al otro dizen Jusuf, filho de buena madre;

Esto porque dijeron mis ermanos a mi padre,

Que el lobo maldito en Jusuf se fue afartado.

“Traieron su sangre en su camisa clara,

E io con aquestos nombres no olbido su cara;

Pero no le olbido de noche ni de dia encara,

Porque el era mi bida i era mi amparo.

“Nacimos dambos juntos en el bientre de mi madre,

I ubose de perder en el tiempo de mi padre;

No sé triste si es muerto o bibo en tierra o mar;

Habeismelo mandado e fizisteme pesar.”

I aquejosele al Rei a la ora el corazon,

I quiso echar boces i encubrir la razon,

I tomolo de la mano i apartolo a un rincon,

I dijole el Rei i ablo como baron.

Dijole el Rei, “Conoces me, escudero?”

I él le dijo, “No a fe, caballero.”

Dijo, “Io soi Jusuf, io soi tu ermano certero.”

I abrazaronse dambos i andarian un millero.

Tanto tomo del gozo con Jusuf su ermano,

Que caio amortecido el su miollo bano,

I el Rei como le bido tomole de la mano,

Dijoles, “No haias miedo mientras io seia sano.”

Apartolo el Rei i dijole esta razon;

“Io quiero que finques con mi en toda sazon,

No lo sabra ninguno, muger ni baron,

Io acerlo e con buen arte e mui buena razon.

“E por far lo mas secreto te fago sabidor,

Porque non aias miedo ni ningun temor,

Io mandare meter la mesura de balor

Dentro en el tu saco, i esto por tu amor.”

Ninguno sabia del Rei la puridad,

I embioles a todos de buena boluntad:

Caminaron todos juntos toda la ermandad,

E de alli oieron boces de gran crueldad.

E pararonse todos a ber que querian,

E bieron que era el Rei con gente que corrian,

Diciendo, “Guardaos, traidores, que abeis echo falta;

Mala obra obrastes al Rei todabia.”

Quedaronse todos cada guno espantado

Del dicho que oieron a tan mal airado,

E dijeron todos, “Aun ganades gran pecado

De llamarnos ladrones, no siendo probado.

“Decidnos que queredes o que demandades,

O que os han furtado que ansi bos quejades.”

E ellos les dijeron, “La mesura bos tomastes,

La que decia al Rei todas las berdades.

“Dela quien la tiene, i albricias le daremos,

Un cafiz de trigo del mejor que tenemos.”

I ellos los dijeron, “Por la fe que tenemos,

No somos malfautores que nos no lo faremos.

“No benimos de natura de fazer desguisado,

No lo abemos fecho en el tiempo pasado,

Esto bien sabedes, pues nos lo abeis probado;

No nos aquejeis aquejamiento airado.”

E dijo un caballero aquesta razon;

“Amigos, si mentedes, que sera en gualardon?”

I ellos le dijeron, “Catebo quede el ladron

Al uso de la tierra con mui buena razon.”

Buscaron los sacos del trigo e cada uno pribado,

Dejaronse en tal mente el del chico atado;

Sus ermanos de que lo bieron tomaron mal cuidado,

Porque como su saco no le abian buscado.

Dijeron al Rei i tambien a su caudillo,

Porque no abian buscado el saco de su ermanillo;

Dijeron ellos, “Antes bamos al castillo”;

E ellos mismos le buscaron e fallaron el furtillo.

E de que bieron ellos todos los ermanos

Que era la mesura, quedaron espantados;

Dijeron, “O ermano, como nos as abellado,

Que te abe acontecido quedamos desonrrados.”

Dijo, “Ermanos, ruegoos no bos quejedes;

Oidme razon que luego lo beredes,

Que io culpa no bos tengo e luego lo otorguedes;

No lo querrio far por quanto bosotros tenedes.

“Mas acuerdeseos, ermanos, quando fallastes la quantia

Cada uno en su saco no supiendola aquel dia,

Si aquello bosotros furtastes de noche o de dia

Ansi e furtado io la mesura todabia

“Si dezis que no sabeis, tampoco sabo io,

Que aquesto nunca furte ni nunca tal fize io.”

Sus ermanos que le bieron en su razonar

E con aquello ubieron a sosegar.

Dijeron, “Sennor, si a furtado no lo aias a marabella,

Que un ermano tenia de mui mala pelelha;

Quando era chico furtose una cinta bella,

Ellos eran de una madre, e nosotros non de aquella.”

E sonriose el Rei dentro en su corazon

De la palabra mala dicha a sin razon;

Dijoles el Rei, “Io bos dicho la razon,

Que todos a mi tenedes figuras de ladron.”

E mando que lo tomasen e lo llebasen rastrado,

Mas no de manera que ia lo abia mandado,

Mas porque sus ermanos fuesen certificados,

Que lo llebaban preso i esto mal de su grado.

E mandolo llebar el Rei a su camara real

Fasta que sus ermanos fuesen a iantar;

E quando fueron idos e mandados del lugar,

El Rei se fue aprisa a su ermano a fablar.

E tomaronse los dos luego de mano a mano,

Disendole el Rei, “Io soi Jusuf tu ermano,

El que fue perdido de mi padre el cano,

El qual por mi es triste i io por él no soi sano.”

Mandolo adereza el Rei de nobles pannos pribados,

Los mejores que abia en todos sus reinados;

Dijole el Rei, “Ermano acabado,

Ruegote que te alegres e fagas lo que te mando.

“Ir tu a nuesos ermanos i bere en que andan,

O que querran fazer, e bere que demandan.”

Quando el Rei fue a ellos fallolos que pensaban,

Tristes e mal andantes con berguenza andaban.

Firio el Rei en la mesa como de primero;

El son escuitaba el buen Rei berdadero,

Disendoles, “Que dize este son certero?”

I dijeronle ellos, “No lo entendemos a fe, caballero.”

“Dize aqueste son, que todos abeis pecado

De setenta annos aca, que no os abeis tornado.”

E comenzaron de plorar e dijeron, “Sennor onrrado,

Quierenos perdonar e del maior ende abras grado.

“E no cates a nos, que andamos en bano,

Mas cata a nueso padre que ia es anciano,

Que si tu le conocieses a nueso padre el cano,

Luego le embiaras al preso nueso ermano.”

E quando oiera el nombre de Jacob nombrar

Afligiosele el corazon i el Rei cuido llorar;

Dijoles, “Amigos, sino fuera por acatar

A bueso padre Jacob, io bos faria matar.”

Dijoles el Rei, “Id buesa carrera;

No bos e menester por ninguna manera;

Bueso padre me rogo por su carta berdadera

Que luego os embiase en toda manera.”

Bolbieronse al Rei de cabo a rogar,

Que les diese a su ermano e los quiera guiar,

Que a su padre prometieron de sin él no tornar,

E que tomase al uno de ellos e lo pusiese en su lugar.

Dijoles el Rei, “Eso no seria razon

Que io tomase al catibo e dejase al ladron;

Id de aqui; no me enojeis que me haiceis gran sermon,

I empezad de caminar que no abreis mas razon.”

I apartaronse a consejo en que manera farian,

O a su padre que razon le darian,

O si por fuerza de alli lo sacarian,

E la fe que dieron como se la tendrian.

Comenzó de dezir Judas el maior,

“Id a bueso padre e contadle la razon,

Que su filho ha furtado, fizo nos desonor,

Que el Rei lo tiene preso por furto de grand balor.

“Porque sepades, ermanos, que io de aqui no partiria,

Que todos le prometimos de no fazerle falsia,

Ni a nueso padre mentir no le poria;

Fasta que el Rei lo mande, io de aqui no iria.

“Mas fagamos tanto, si nos caie en grado,

Bolbamos al Rei, i roguemosle pribado,

I, si no lo quiere fazer, pongamos i a recaudo,

Conbatiremos el castillo i en la cibdad entramos.

“Io fallo en la cibdad nuebe barrios granados,

I el palacio del Rei al un costado,

Io combatiré al Rei e matarle e a recaudo,

I bosotros a la cibdad cada uno a su barrio.”

I dentro Judas al Rei, sannudo como un leon,

Dijo, “Ruegote, Rei, que me des un don,

Que me des a mi ermano, i abernos gualardon,

I, sino lo quieres fazer, tomar no quieres onor.

“Que si echo una boz como faze el cabron,

No fincara en la comarca muger ni baron,

Ni aun prennada que no crie la sazon,

Todos amortecidos caeran a baldon.”

Dijoles el Rei, “Faced lo que querrades,

Que en mal grado os lo pongo, si bos no lo fazedes,

Que si bos sois de fuerza, otros ne fallaredes,

Que en lugar sois agora e menester lo abredes.”

Judas se ensanno de una sanna mui airada;

El tomo una muela mucho grande i pesada,

I echola por cima del muro como a una manzana,

I mandola bolber al Rei a su lugar sitiada.

Allegose el Rei a la muela pribado,

I puso el pie en el olhola mui irado,

Mui alta por cima del muro denque por él no era posada,

E la falda no era arremangada.

Judas en aquella hora empezose de ensannar,

I el Rei como lo conocia dejole bien hinchar,

E, quando entendio que abia de baciar,

Senno a su filho que lo fuese a tocar.

E lebantose su filho e fuele a tomar,

Delante del Rei su padre lo fue a llebar,

E luego la sanna se le fue a quitar,

E tambien la fuerza le fue a faltar.

E fue a buscar a sus ermanos e non de bido cosa;

“En mi alma me a tocado esta criazon donosa;

Entiendo que es criazon de Jacob esta barba canosa;”

E fuelos a buscar por la cibdad donosa.

E quando los fallo dijo, “Ermanos, quien me a tocado?”

Ellos le dijeron, “No nos a la fe, ermano.”

Dijo, “Cierto sois segun mi cuidado

De la crianza de Jacob anda por el mercado.”

Alli fablo Jahuda a todos sus ermanos,

“Este es el consejo de los ombres malos;

Quando io bos decia no seiamos ierrados,

E no me quisisteis creier, caimos en los lazos.

“Quando io dezia algun bien, no me queriais escuchar;

De mi padre me pesa quanto me puede pesar;

Roguemos al Criador que nos aia piedad,

E tambien al noble Rei que nos quiera perdonar.”

Alli fué a ablar Judas el maior;

“Bamos delante del Rei con mui fermosa razon,

E de qualquiera manera demandemosle perdon,

Querria que fuesemos fuera del Reino del Leon.”

E fueronse al Rei e dijeronle esta razon;

“Quieres acatar primero al Criador,

I a nueso padre Jacob, de Allah es conocedor.”

Dijoles el Rei, “Guerra me izistes e error.

“Io quiseos mostrar mi fuerza i mi bentura,

E porque todos entendiesedes con seso i cordura

Que la nuestra fuerza sobra por natura;”

E perdonolos el Rei i asentose la mesura.

I ellos estaban alegres porque el Rei los abia perdonado;

E dijoles el Rei, “Amigos, la mesura me a fablado,

E dize que ad aquel bueso ermano en un pozo lo abeis echado,

Io creo que lo fizistes e eso mas de grado.

“E quando lo sacastes por mal precio fue bendido,

Distes lo por beinte dineros como abatido.”

“Rogamoste, Sennor, que seamos creidos,

No creia tales malezas, de tal parte no benimos.”

E saco el Rei una carta que tenia en alzado,

Escripta en Ebraico del tiempo pasado,

De como lo bendieron e lo ubieron mercado,

E tubola guardada el balido fasta de aquel estado.

Judas tomo la carta e leio dictados,

Llorando de sus olhos todos marabillados,

Disiendo, “Quien dio esta carta al Rei en sus manos?”

Dijoles el Rei, “No seiades dudados.”

Dijeron, “Sennor, aquesta es carta

Del catibo que teniamos i dimosla por falta.”

Judas leio toda aquella carta;

Dijoles el Rei, “Sois de mui mala barta.”

E firio el Rei en la mesa como de primero

I el son escuitaba el buen Rei berdadero,

Disendoles el Rei, “Dice este son certero,

Que aquel bueso ermano es bibo e caballero.

“E que sinifica, que el cierto no es muerto,

E que aun bendra con mui gran conpuerto,

E dira a todas las gentes los que le abian buelto,

I a todos los de la tierra los que le an fecho tuerto.

“E dira aqueste son que todos sois pecadores,

E que a bueso padre izisteis malas labores,

I que es la su tristeza por los buesos ierrores,

Cada dia le entristecedes como fazen traidores.”

I el Rei quando bido aquesto llamo a sus pribados,

Que llamasen a los ferreros e les cortasen las manos;

I ellos, de que los bieron con cuchillos i mazos,

Dijeron, “Somos perdidos por nuesos pecados.”

E dijeron al Rei, “Si nosotros lo biesemos,

La tierra que él pisara todos la besariamos;

Mas conbiene nos que nos remediemos,

E mejoremos bentura e todos escaparemos.”

E perdonolos el Rei puesque conocieron

Que andaban ierrados, e se arrepintieron,

E fizieron buenas obras e ansi lo prometieron,

E fueron a su padre, e grande alegria fizieron.

Alli se fue a quedar Judas i Simeon,

I no fueron a su padre mas de ocho, non;

I el padre, quando los bido, dijo aquesta razon,

“No abedes berguenza de muger ni de baron.

“Que son de buesos ermanos el chico e maior e menor,

Candela de mis olhos que por él soi con dolor?”

Dijeronle, “Padre, la mesura furto al Emperador;

El Rei lo abria muerto sino por tu amor.

“I quedan por tu berguenza Judas i Simon,

No quisieron benir por ninguna razon.”

E dijoles el Padre, “Benides con traicion,

De guisa faredes que non de quedara morgon.

“Cada dia menguades e crece mi tristura,

I aun testiguades firmemente en locura,

Que mi filho furto al Rei la mesura.”

I dijeronle, “Padre, lo que bimos es cierto todabia.”

E fizoles una carta para daquel Rei onrrado,

Mas le enbiaba a dezir que buscasen a su ermano,

A Jusuf el chico, el mal abenturado,

Por do quiera que pasasen siempre abenturando.

I dijeronle, “Padre, bolbes en buesa cordura;

Agora nos i mentades de muertos sin figura.”

Dijoles, “Fared lo que io mando, que io sé de la altura

Lo que bosotros no sabeis, de buen Sennor de natura.”

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

There is little, as it seems to me, in the early narrative poetry of any modern nation better worth reading, than this old Morisco version of the story of Joseph. Parts of it overflow with the tenderest natural affection; other parts are deeply pathetic; and everywhere it bears the impress of the extraordinary state of manners and society that gave it birth. From several passages, it may be inferred that it was publicly recited; and even now, as we read it, we fall unconsciously into a long-drawn chant, and seem to hear the voices of Arabian camel-drivers, or of Spanish muleteers, as the Oriental or the romantic tone happens to prevail. I am acquainted with nothing in the form of the old metrical romance that is more attractive,—nothing that is so peculiar, original, and separate from every thing else of the same class.

No. II.

LA DANÇA GENERAL DE LOS MUERTOS.

The next of the Inedita is the “Danza General,” which I have noticed, (Vol. I. pp. 89-91,) and which is found in the Library of San Lorenzo del Escorial, MSS., Cas. IV., Let. b, No. 21. In note 27 on the passage referred to I have suggested a reason for conjecturing that the Spanish poem may be taken from an earlier French one; but I ought to add, that, so far as I am aware, this ghastly fiction is not known to exist in any earlier form, than that in which it appears in this Manuscript.

Aqui comienza la danza general, en la qual tracta como la muerte dice abisa á todas las criaturas, que pare mientes en la brevedad de su vida, é que della mayor cabdal non sea fecho que ella meresce. E asy mesmo les dice é requiere que bean é oyan bien lo que los sabios pedricadores les disen é amonestan de cada dia, dandoles bueno é sano consejo, que puguen en fazer buenas obras por que ayan conplido perdon de sus pecados. E luego syguiente, mostrando por espiriençia lo que dise, llama e requiere á todos los estados del mundo, que vengan de su buen grado ó contra su boluntad. Comenzando, dise ansy.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Yo so la muerte cierta á todas criaturas

Que son é seran en el mundo durante;

Demando y digo, o orbe, porque curas

De vida tan breve en punto pasante;

Pues non ay tan fuerte nin rescio gigante,

Que deste mi arco se puede amparar;

Conviene que mueras quando lo tirar

Con esta mi frecha cruel traspasante.

Que locura es esta tan magniesta,

Que piensas tu, ome, que el otro morirá

Et tu quedaras por ser bien compuesta

La tu complysion, é que durará?

Non eres cierto, sy en punto verná

Sobre ty á desora alguna corrupcion

De jandre ó carbonco ó tal ynphyçyon,

Porque el tu vil cuerpo se desatará.

O piensas, por ser mancebo valiente

O niño de dias, que á lueñe estaré,

O fasta que llegues á viejo impotente

La mi venida me detardaré.

Abisate bien que yo llegaré

A ty á desora, que non he cuydado

Que tu seas mancebo ó viejo cansado,

Que qual te fallare tal te levaré.

La plática muestra ser pura berdad;

Aquesto que digo, syn otra fallencia,

La santa escriptura con çertinidad

Da sobre todo su firme sentencia,

A todos disciendo, fasced penitencia,

Que a morir avedes non savedes quando;

Sy non ved el frayre que esta predicando,

Mirad lo que disce de su grand sabiençia.

DICE EL PEDRICADOR.

Señores honrados, la santa escriptura

Demuestra e disce, que todo ome nascido

Gostara la muerte, maguer sea dura,

Ca truxo al mundo un solo bocado,

Ca Papa ó rey ó obispo sagrado,

Cardenal ó duque ó conde excelente,

O emperador con toda su gente,

Que son en el mundo de morir han forçado.

BUENO E SANO CONSEJO.

Señores, punad en fascer buenas obras;

Non vos confiedes en altos estados,

Que non vos valdran thesoros nin doblas

A la muerte que tiene sus lasos parados;

Gemid vuestras culpas, descid los pecados,

En cuanto podades con satisfaçion,

Sy queredes aver complido perdon

De aquel que perdona los yerros pasados.

Fasced lo que digo, non vos detardedes,

Que ya la muerte encomienza á hordenar

Una dança esquiva de que non podedes

Por cosa ninguna que sea escapar;

A la cual disce, que quiere levar

A todos nosotros lançando sus redes;

Abrid las orejas que agora oyredes

De su charambela un triste cantar.

DICE LA MUERTE.

A la dança mortal venit los nascidos,

Que en el mundo sois, de qualquiera estado;

El que no quisiere, a fuerça é amidos

Fascer le he venir muy toste privado,

Pues que ya el frayre vos ha predicado,

Que todos vayais á fascer penitencia;

El que non quisiere poner diligencia

Por mi non puede ser mas esperado.

PRIMERAMENTE LLAMA A SU DANÇA A DOS DONCELLAS.

Esta mi dança traye de presente

Estas dos donçellas que vedes fermosas;

Ellas vinieron de muy mala mente

A oyr mis canciones que son dolorosas;

Mas non les valdran flores ny rosas,

Nin las composturas que poner solian;

De mi si pudiesen partir se querrian,

Mas non puede ser, que son mis esposas.

A estas y á todos, por las aposturas,

Daré fealdad la vida partida,

E desnudedad por las vestiduras,

Por siempre jamas muy triste aborrida.

O, por los palacios, daré por medida

Sepulcros escuros de dentro fedientes;

E, por los manjares, gusanos royentes

Que coman de dentro su carne podrida.

E porque el santo padre es muy alto señor

E que en todo el mundo non ay su par,

E desta mi dança será guiador;

Desnude su capa, comiençe á sotar,

Non es ya tiempo de perdones dar,

Nin de celebrar en grande aparato,

Que yo le daré en breve mal rato;

Dançad, padre santo, sin mas detardar.

DICE EL PADRE SANTO.

¡Ay de mi triste! que cosa tan fuerte

A yo, que tractaba tan grand preslacia,

Aber de pasar agora la muerte,

E non me valer lo que dar solia;

Beneficios é honrras é gran señoria

Tobe en el mundo, pensando vevir;

Pues de ty, muerte, non puedo fuyr,

Valme Jesuchristo e la virgen Maria.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Non vos enojedes, señor padre santo,

De andar en mi dança que tengo ordenada

Non vos valdrá el vermejo manto;

De lo que fuistes abredes soldada;

Non vos aprovecha echar la cruzada,

Proveer de obispados, nin dar beneficios;

Aqui moriredes syn ser mas bollicios.

Dançad, imperante, con cara pagada.

DICE EL EMPERADOR.

Que cosa es esta que á tan syn pauor

Me lleva á su dança, á fuerça, sin grado?

Creo, que es la muerte, que non ha dolor

De ome que sea, grande ó cuytado.

No hay ningund rey nin duque esforçado,

Que della me pueda agora defender;

Acorredme todos; mas non puede ser,

Que ya tengo della todo el seso turbado.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Emperador muy grande, en el mundo potente,

Non vos cuitedes, ca non es tiempo tal

Que librar vos pueda imperio nin gente,

Oro, nin plata, nin otro metal;

Aqui perderedes el vuestro cabdal,

Que athesorastes con grand tyrania,

Faciendo batallas de noche e de dia.

Morid, non curedes. Venga el cardenal.

DICE EL CARDENAL.

Ay, madre de Dios, nunca pensé ver

Tal dança como esta á que me fasen yr;

Querría, si pudiese, la muerte estorcer,

Non sé donde vaya, comienço á thremer.

Siempre trabajé noctar y escrevir

Por dar beneficios á los mis criados;

Agora mis miembros son todos torvados,

Que pierdo la vista e non puedo oyr.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Reverendo padre, bien vos abisé,

Que aqui avriades por fuerça allegar

En esta mi dança en que vos faré

Agora ayna un poco sudar;

Pensastes el mundo por vos trastornar

Por llegar á papa e ser soberano;

Mas non lo seredes aqueste verano.

Vos, rey poderoso, venit á dançar.

DICE EL REY.

Valia, valia, los mis caballeros,

Yo non querria yr á tan baxa dança;

Llegad, vos con los ballesteros,

Hamparadme todos, por fuerça de lança;

Mas, que es aquesto que veo en balança

Acortarse mi vida é perder los sentidos?

El coraçon se me quiebra con grandes gemidos;

Adios, mis vasallos, que muerte me trança.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Ay, fuerte tirano, que siempre robastes

Todo vuestro reyno ó fenchistes el arca;

De fazer justicia muy poco curastes,

Segunt es notorio por vuestra comarca;

Venit para mi, que yo so monarca,

Que prenderé á vos é á otro mas alto;

Llegat á la dança cortés en un salto;

En pos de vos venga luego el patriarca.

DICE EL PATRIARCA.

Yo nunca pensé venir á tal punto,

Nin estar en dança tan sin piedad;

Ya me van privando, segunt que barrunto,

De beneficios e de dignidad.

O home mesquino! que en grand ceguedad

Andove en el mundo non parando mientes,

Como la Muerte, con sus duros dientes,

Roba á todo home de qualquier edad.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Señor Patriarca, yo nunca robé

En alguna parte cosa que non deva;

De matar á todos costumbre lo he;

De escapar alguno de mi non se atreva.

Esto vos ganó vuestra madre Eva

Por querer gostar fruta derredada.

Poned en recabdo vuestra cruz dorada;

Sygase con vos el Duque antes que mas veva.

DICE EL DUQUE.

O, que malas nuevas son estas syn falla,

Que agora me trahen, que vaya á tal juego!

Yo tenia pensado de faser batalla;

Esperame un poco, Muerte, yo te ruego.

Sy non te detienes, miedo he, que luego

Me prendas ó me mates; abré de dexar

Todos mis deleytes, ca non puede estar,

Que mi alma escape de aquel duro fuego.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Duque poderoso, ardit e valiente,

Non es ya tiempo de dar dilaciones;

Andad en la dança con buen continente!

Dexad á los otros vuestras guarniciones!

Jamas non podredes cebar los alcones,

Hordenar las justas, nin faser torneos;

Aqui avran fin los vuestros deseos.

Venit, Arçobispo, dexat los sermones!

DICE EL ARÇOBISPO.

Ay, Muerte cruel, que te merescí!

O porque me llebas tan arrebatado?

Viviendo en deleytes nunca te temí;

Fiando en la vida, quedé engañado.

Mas sy yo bien rrijera mi arçobispado,

De ti non oviera tan fuerte temor,

Mas siempre del mundo fuy amador;

Bien se que el infierno tengo aparejado.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Senor Arçobispo, pues tan mal registres

Vuestros súbditos é cleresçia,

Gostad amargura por lo que comistes

Manjares diversos con grand golosya.

Estar non podredes en Santa María

Con palo Romano en pontifical;

Venit á mi dança pues soes mortal!

Pare el Condestable por otra tal vía!

DICE EL CONDESTABLE.

Yo vi muchas danças de lindas doncellas,

De dueñas fermosas de alto linaje,

Mas, segunt me paresce, no es esta dellas,

Ca el thañedor trahe feo visaje.

Venit, camarero! desid á mi paje,

Que trayga el caballo, que quiero fuir,

Que esta es la dança que disen morir;

Sy della escapo, thener me han por saje.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Fuyr non conviene al que ha de estar quedo;

Estad, Condestable, dexat el caballo!

Andad en la dança alegre muy ledo,

Syn faser rruydo, ca yo bien me callo.

Mas verdad vos digo que, al cantar del gallo,

Seredes tornado de otra figura;

Alli perderedes vuestra fermosura.

Venit vos, Obispo, á ser mi vasallo!

DICE EL OBISPO.

Mis manos aprieto, de mis ojos lloro,

Porque soi venido á tanta tristura;

Yo era abastado de plata y de oro,

De nobles palacios é mucha folgura:

Agora la Muerte, con su mano dura,

Traheme en su dança medrosa sobejo;

Parientes, amigos, ponedme consejo,

Que pueda salir de tal angostura!

DICE LA MUERTE.

Obispo sagrado, que fuestes pastor

De animas muchas, por vuestro pecado

A juicio yredes ante el Redentor,

E daredes cuenta de vuestro obispado.

Syempre anduvistes de gentes cargado,

En corte de rey é fuera de ygreja,

Mas yo gorsiré la vuestra pelleja.

Venit, Caballero, que estades armado!

DICE EL CABALLERO.

A mi non paresce ser cosa guisada,

Que dexe mis armas e vaya dançar

A tal dança negra, de llanto poblada,

Que contra los vivos quesiste hordenar.

Segunt estas conviene dexar

Mercedes e tierras que gané del rrey;

Pero, á la fyn, sin dubda non sey

Qual es la carrera que abré de levar.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Caballero noble, ardit, é lijero,

Fased buen semblante en vuestra persona!

Non es aqui tiempo de contar dinero;

Oyd mi cancion, por que modo entona!

Aqui vos faré mover la athaona,

E despues veredes como pone freno

A los de la banda que roban lo ageno.

Dançad, Abad gordo, con vuestra corona!

DICE EL ABAD.

Maguer provechoso só á los religiosos,

De tal dança, amigos, yo non me contento;

En mi celda avia manjares sabrosos,

De ir non curava comer a convento.

Darme hedes sygnado como non consyento

De andar en ella, ca he grand rescelo,

E, sy tengo tiempo, provoco y apelo;

Mas non puede ser que ya desatiento.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Don Abad bendicto, folgado, vicioso.

Que poco curastes de vestir çelicio,

Abraçadme agora, seredes mi esposo,

Pues que deseades placeres é vicio;

Ca yo so bien presta á vuestro servicio,

Avedme por vuestra, quitad de vos saña,

Que mucho me plaze en vuestra compaña.

E vos, Escudero, venit al oficio!

DICE EL ESCUDERO.

Dueñas é doncellas, aved de mi duelo!

Que fasenme por fuerça dexar los amores,

Echome la muerte su sotil ansuelo,

Fasenme dançar dança de dolores;

Non trahen por cierto firmalles nin flores

Los que en ella dançan, mas grand fealdad;

Ay de mi cuytado! que en grand vanidad

Andove en el mundo sirviendo señores.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Escudero polido, de amor sirviente,

Dejad los amores de toda persona!

Venit! ved mi dança é como se adona!

E á los que dançan acompañaredes.

Mirad su figura! tal vos tornaredes,

Que vuestras amadas non vos querran ver.

Abed buen conorte que ay ha de ser.

Venit vos, Dean, non vos corrçedes!

DICE EL DEAN.

Que es aquesto que yo de mi seso salgo?

Pensé de fuyr é non fallo carrera;

Grand venta tenia é buen deanasgo

E mucho trigo en la mi panera.

Allende de aquesto estava en espera

De ser proveido de algund obispado;

Agora la Muerte enbiome mandado,

Mala señal veo, pues fasen la sera.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Don rico avariento, Dean muy ufano,

Que vuestros dineros trocastes en oro,

A pobres é á viudas cerrastes la mano

E mal despendistes el vuestro tesoro;

Non quiero que estedes ya mas en el coro;

Salid luego fuera sin otra peresa!

Yo vos mostraré venir á pobresa.

Venit, Mercadero, á la dança del lloro!

DICE EL MERCADERO.

A quien dexaré todas mis riquesas

E mercadurias que traygo en la mar?

Con muchos traspasos é mas sotilesas

Gané lo que tengo en cada lugar;

Agora la Muerte vinome llamar:

Que será de mi? Non se que me faga.

O Muerte, tu sierra á mi es grand plaga!

Adios, mercaderos, que voyme á finar!

DICE LA MUERTE.

De oy mas non curedes de pasar en Flandes;

Estad aqui quedo e iredes ver

La tienda que traygo de buvas y landres;

De gracia las do, non las quiero vender;

Una sola dellas vos fará caer

De palmas en tierra dentro en mi botica,

E en ella entraredes, maguer sea chica.

E vos, Arcediano, venid al tañer!

DICE EL ARCEDIANO.

O, mundo vil, malo, é fallescedero!

Como me engañaste con tu promision;

Prometisteme vida, de ty non la espero,

Siempre mentiste en toda sason.

Faga quien quisiere la vesytacion

De mi arcedianasgo por que trabajé!

Ay de mi cuytado! grand cargo tomé;

Agora lo siento, que fasta aqui non.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Arcediano, amigo, quitad el bonete!

Venit á la dança suave e onesto!

Ca quien en el mundo sus amores mete,

El mesmo le faré venir a todo esto.

Vuestra dignidad, segund dice el testo,

Es cura de animas, é daredes cuenta;

Sy mal las registes, abredes afruenta.

Dançad, Abogado; dexad el digesto.

DICE EL ABOGADO.

Que fue ora, mesquino, de quanto aprendy,

De mi saber todo é mi libelar!

Quando estar pensé, entonçe cay;

Çegome la muerte; non puedo estudiar;

Resçelo he grande de yr al lugar,

Do non me valdrá libelo nin fuero,

Peores amigos que syn lengua muero;

Abarcome la Muerte, non puedo fablar.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Don falso Abogado, prevalicador,

Que de amas las partes levastes salario,

Venga se vos miente como syn temor

Volvistes la foja por otro contrario;

El chino é el Bartolo é el coletario

Non vos libraran de mi poder mero;

Aqui pagaredes, como buen romero.

E vos, Canónigo, dexad el breviario.

DICE EL CANÓNIGO.

Vete agora, Muerte, non quiero yr contigo;

Dexame yr al coro ganar la rracion;

Non quiero tu dança, nin ser tu amigo;

En folgura vivo, non he turbacion.

Aun este otro dia obe provysion

Desta calongya, que me dio el perlado;

Desto que tengo soy bien pagado;

Vaya quien quisiere á tu vocacion.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Canonigo, amigo, non es el camino

Ese que pensades. Dad aca la mano;

El sobrepeliz delgado de lino

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Darvos he un consejo que vos sera sano;

Tornad vos á Dios, e fased penitencia,

Ca sobre vos cierto es dada sentencia.

Llegad acá, Fisico, que estades ufano.

DICE EL FISICO.

Myntiome, sin duda, el fin de Abicenna,

Que me prometio muy luengo vevir,

Rygiendome me bien á yantar é cena,

Dexando el bever despues de dorrmir.

Con esta esperança pensé conquerir

Dineros é plata, enfermos curando;

Mas agora veo que me va llevando

La Muerte consygo; conviene sofrir.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Pensaste vos, Fisico, que, por Galeno

O Don Ypocras con sus inforismos,

Seriades librado de comer del teno

Que otros gastaron de mas sologismos?

Non vos valdrá faser gargarismos,

Componer xaropes, nin tener dieta;

Non só sy lo oystes, yo só la que aprieta.

Venid vos, Don Cura, dexad los bautismos.

DICE EL CURA.

Non quiero exebçiones, ni conjugaciones;

Con mis perrochianos quiero yr folgar;

Ellos me dan pollos é lechones

E muchas obladas con el pié de altar.

Locura seria mis diesmos dexar,

E ir a tu dança de que non se parte;

Pero, á la fin, non se por qual arte

Desta tu dança pudiese escapar.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Ya non es tiempo de yaser al sol

Con los perrochianos beviendo del vino;

Yo vos mostraré un semifasol

Que agora compuse de canto muy fino;

Tal como á vos quiero aver por vecino,

Que muchas animas tovistes en gremio;

Segunt los registes, abredes el premio.

Dance el Labrador, que viene del molino.

DICE EL LABRADOR.

Como conviene dançar al villano

Que nunca la mano sacó de la reja?

Busca, si te place, quien danse liviano.

Deja, Muerte, con otro treveja,

Ca yo como toçino é á veces oveja,

E es mi oficio trabajo é afan,

Arando la tierra para sembrar pan;

Por ende non curo de oyr tu conseja.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Si vuestro trabajo fue syempre sin arte,

Non fasiendo furto en la tierra agena,

En la gloria eternal abredes grand parte,

E por el contrario sufriredes pena.

Pero con todo eso poned la melena;

Allegad vos á me, yo vos buire,

Lo que á otros fise, á vos lo faré.

E vos, Monje negro, tomad buen estrena.

DICE EL MONJE.

Loor é alabança sea para siempre

Al alto Señor, que con piedad me lieva

A su santo reyno, á donde contemplo

Por siempre jamás la su magestad;

De carcel escura vengo á claridad,

Donde abré alegria syn otra tristura;

Por poco trabajo abré grand folgura;

Muerte, non me espanto de tu fealdad.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Sy la regla santa del Monje Bendicto

Guardastes del todo syn otro deseo,

Sin duda temed que soes escripto

En libro de vida, segunt que yo creo;

Pero, si fesistes lo que faser veo

A otros, que andan fuera de la regla,

Vida vos daran que sea mas negra.

Dançad, Usurero, dexad el correo!

DICE EL USURERO.

Non quiero tu dança nin tu canto negro,

Mas quiero prestando doblar mi moneda;

Con pocos dineros, que me dió mi suegro,

Otras obras fago que non fiso Beda.

Cada año los doblo, demas está queda

La prenda en mi casa que está por el todo;

Allego rriquezas y hyariendo de cobdo;

Por ende tu danza á mi non es leda.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Traydor Usurario, de mala concencia,

Agora veredes lo que faser suelo;

En fuego ynfernal sin mas detenencia

Porné la vuestra alma cubierta de duelo;

Allá estaredes, do está vuestro abuelo,

Que quiso usar segund vos usastes;

Por poca ganancia mal syglo ganastes.

E vos, Frayre Menor, venit á señuelo!

DICE EL FRAYRE.

Dançar non conviene á maestro famoso,

Segunt que yo so en religion;

Maguer mendigante vivo vicioso,

E muchos desean oyr mi sermon,

Desidesme agora que vaya á tal son;

Dançar non querria sy me das lugar;

Ay de mi cuydado! que abré á dexar

Las honrras e grado, que quiera ó que non.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Maestro famoso, sotil, é capaz,

Que en todas las artes fuistes sabidor,

Non vos acuytedes, limpiad vuestra faz,

Que á pasar abredes por este dolor;

Yo vos levaré ante un sabidor

Que sabe las artes syn ningunt defecto,

Sabredes leer por otro decrepto.

Portero de Maça, venid al tenor!

DICE EL PORTERO.

Ay, del rey barones, acorredme agora!

Llevame syn grado esta muerte brava;

Non me guarde della, tornome á dessora,

A puerta del Rey guardando estava;

Oy en este dia al Conde esperava,

Que me diese algo por que le dy la puerta;

Guarde quien quisyere ó fynquese abierta,

Que ya la mi guarda non vale una fava.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Dexad esas vozes, llegad vos corriendo,

Que non es ya tiempo de estar en la vela;

Las vuestras baratas yo bien las entiendo

A vuestra cobdicia por que modo suena;

Cerrades la puerta de mas quando yela

Al ome mesquino que vien á librar;

Lo que del levastes abres á pagar.

E vos, Hermitaño, salid de la celda!

DICE EL HERMITAÑO.

La Muerte reçelo, maguer que so viejo,

Señor Jesu Christo, a ty me encomiendo;

De los que te sirven, tu eres espejo;

Pues yo te servi, la tu gloria atiendo;

Sabes, que sufri lazeria viviendo

En este desierto en contemplacion,

De noche é de dia faziendo oracion,

E por mas abstinencia las yerbas comiendo.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Fazes grand cordura; llamarte ha el Señor,

Que con diligencia pugnastes servir;

Sy bien le servistes abredes honor

En su santo reyno, do abes á venir;

Pero con todo esto abredes á yr

En esta mi dança con vuestra barvaça;

De matar á todos aquesta es mi caça.

Dançad, Contador, despues de dormir!

DICE EL CONTADOR.

Quien podria pensar que tan syn disanto

Abia á dexar mi contaduría?

Llegué á la Muerte, e vi desbarato

Que faria en los omes con grand osadia;

Alli perderé toda mi valía,

Averes, é joyas, y mi grand poder;

Faza libramientos de oy mas quien quisiere,

Ca cercan dolores el anima mia.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Contador, amigo, ssy bien vos catades,

Como por favor é averes por don;

Librastes las cuentas, razon es que ayades

Dolor é quebranto por tal ocasyon.

Cuento de alguarismo nin su division

Non vos ternan pró, e yredes comigo;

Andad aca luego asy vos lo digo.

E vos, Diacono, venid á leccion!

DICE EL DIACONO.

Non veo que tienes gesto de lector

Tu que me convidas que vaya á leer;

Non vy en Salamanca maestro nin doctor

Que tal gesto tenga nin tal paresçer.

Bien sé que con arte me quieres fazer,

Que vaya á tu dança para me matar;

Sy esto asy es, venga administrar

Otro por mi, que yo vome á caer.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Maravillome mucho de vos, Diacon,

Pues que bien sabedes, que es mi doctrina

Matar á todos por justa rraçon,

E vos esquivades oyr mi bocina;

Yo vos vestiré almatica fina,

Labrada de pino en que miniestredes,

Fasta que vos llamen en ella yredes.

Venga el que rrecabda, é dance ayna!

DICE EL RECABDADOR.

Asaz he que faga en recabdar

Lo que por el rey me fue encomendado;

Por ende non puedo nin devo dançar

En esta tu dança que non he acostumbrado.

Quiero yr agora apriessa priado

Por unos dineros que me han prometido;

Ca he esperado é el plazo es venido,

Mas veo el camino del todo cerrado.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Andad acá luego syn mas tardar,

Pagad los cohechos que avedes levado,

Pues que vuestra vida fue en trabajar

Como robariedes al ome cuytado;

Dar vos he un pago en que esteys asentado,

E fagades las rentas que tenga dos pasos;

Alli dares cuenta de vuestros traspasos.

Venid, Subdiacono, alegre é pagado!

DICE EL SUBDIACONO.

Non he menester de yr á trocar

Como fazen esos que traes á tu mando;

Antes de evangelio me quiero tornar

Estas quatro témporas, que aun seran llegando.

En lugar de tanto, veo que llorando

Andan todos essos, no fallan abrigo;

Non quiero tu dança, asy te lo digo,

Mas quiero pasar el salterio reszando.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Mucho es superfluo el vuestro alegar;

Por ende dexad aquesos sermones;

Non tenes maña de andar á dançar,

Nin comer obladas cérca los tizones;

Non yredes mas en las proçysiones

Do davades vozes muy altas en grito,

Como por enero fazia el cabrito.

Venid, Sacristan, dexad las rraçones.

DICE EL SACRISTAN.

Muerte, yo te rruego, que ayas piadad

De mi que so moço de pocos dias;

Non conosci á Dios con mi mocedad,

Nin quise tomar nin seguir sus vias.

Fia de mi, amiga, como de otro fias,

Porque satisfaga del mal que he fecho.

A ty non se pierde jamas tu derecho,

Ca yo yre, sy tu por mi envias.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Don Sacristanejo, de mala picaña,

Ya non tienes tiempo de saltar paredes,

Nin andar de noche con los de la caña,

Faziendo las obras que vos bien sabedes.

Andar á rondar vos ya non podredes,

Nin presentar joyas á vuestra señora;

Sy bien vos quiere, quinte vos agora.

Venit vos, Rrabi, acá meldaredes.

DICE EL RRABI.

Heloim e Dios de Habrahan,

Que prometiste la redepçion!

Non sé que me faga con tan grant afan;

Mandadme que dançe, non entiendo el son.

Non ha ome en el mundo de quantos y sson

Que pueda fuyr de su mandamiento.

Veladme, dayanes, que mi entendimiento

Se pierde del todo con grand afliccion.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Don Rrabi, Rrabi barbudo, que siempre estudiastes

En el talmud é en sus doctores,

E de la verdad jamas non curastes,

Por lo cual abredes penas é dolores,

Llegad vos acá con los dançadores,

E diredes por canto vuestra beraha,

Dar vos han possada con Rrabi aça.

Venit, Alfaqui, dexad los sabores.

DICE EL ALFAQUI.

Sy Allaha me vala, es fuerte cosa

Esto que me mandas agora facer;

Yo tengo muger discreta, graciosa,

De que he garajado é ausar plazer;

Todo quanto tengo quiero perder,

Dexame con ella solamente estar;

De que fuere viejo mandame levar,

E á ella conmigo, sy a ty pluguiere.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Venit vos, amigo, dexar el zalá,

Ca el gameño pedricaredes

A los veinte é siete: vuestro capellá

Nin vuestra camisa non la vestiredes

En Meca ni en layda, y non estaredes

Comiendo buñuelos en alegría;

Busque otro alfaquí vuestra moreria.

Passad vos, Santero, veré que diredes.

DICE EL SANTERO.

Por cierto mas quiero mi hermita vivir

Que non yr allá do tu me dizes;

Tengo buena vida aunque ando á pedir,

E como á las veces pollos é perdices;

Sé tomar al tiempo bien las codornices,

E tengo en mi huerto asaz de repollos.

Vete, que non quiero tu gato com pollos;

Adios, me encomiendo y á señor San Helices.

DICE LA MUERTE.

Non vos vale-nada vuestro recelar;

Andad acá luego vos, Don Taleguero,

Que non quisistes la hermita adobar;

Fezistes alcuza de vuestro garguero;

Non visitaredes la bota de cuero

Con que á menudo soliades beber;

Çurron nin talega non podres traer,

Nin pedir gallofas como de primero.

LO QUE DICE LA MUERTE Á LOS QUE NON NOMBRO.

A todos los que aqui no he nombrado,

De qualquier ley e estado ó condicion,

Les mando que vengan muy toste priado

A entrar en mi dança sin escusaçion;

Non rescebiré jamas exebcion,

Nin otro libelo, nin declinatoria;

Los que bien fizieron abran syempre gloria;

Los que al contrario abran dapnacion.

DICEN LOS QUE HAN DE PASAR POR LA MUERTE.

Pues que asy es que á morir avemos

De necesidad syn otro remedio,

Con pura conciencia todos trabajemos

En servir á Dios sin otro comedio;

Ca el es Principe, fin, é el medio,

Por do, sy le place, abremos folgura;

Aunque la Muerte, con dança muy dura,

Nos meta en su corro en qualquier comedio.

No. III.

EL LIBRO DEL RABI SANTOB.

The poetry of the Rabbi de Santob, whose name and title are spelt in different ways, is here printed from the manuscript in the National Library at Madrid, marked B. b. 82, folio, beginning at f. lxi. I have spoken of it, (Vol. I. pp. 86, 87,) and would repeat the wish there expressed, that the present copy should be collated with the one in the Library of the Escurial.

Como quiera que dize Salomon, e dize verdat, en el libro de los proverbios, “quien acrecienta ciencia, acrescienta dolor,” pero que yo entiendo que a esto que el llama dolor que es trabajo del coraçon e del entendimiento. E asi no lo devemos tener al tal dolor por malo, ca el non lo dixo mal dolor, nin por que ome deue causa escusarse de la ciencia e de la buena arte en la ciencia es causa al entendido, poned le en folgura corporal e espiritual, e aun digo que Salomon antes cual e despues que escrivio e dixo en los dicho proverbios e el que acreçienta çiençia acresçienta dolor al acresçento ciencia amos del ade oy vista en la biblia que le e ... el dicho libro de proverbios e el libro de los cantares o canticores e el libro de vanidades o clesiasticas, e fiso el libro de sapiençia, amad justiçia los que judgades la tierra, e sea asy que se entiende que no lo dixo por mal dolor, casy lo el syntiera por dolor no se trabajara de acresçentar çiençia, pero este dolor es asemejado al trabajo de bien faser, que trabaja ome en yr luengo camino por alcançar conplimiento de su deseo, e es aquel trabajo folgura, gloria, e no dolor, aunque pasa por el por lo mucho del bien fase ninguno aquelo dolor, e asi que dixo, acreçienta dolor, por que quien mucho lee mucho trabaja, e mientra mas acresçienta el estudio mas acrescienta trabajo para el fruto que el entendides ssaca del tal trabajo para el fruto o dolor es de tamaña gloria que el trabajo e dolor con que se alcanço es ninguno e cosa olvidada e non sentyda, non enpecible mas antes fue, e es causa de bien e es afigurado, como sy disen a omen contar doblas para el ciento es que trabaja en el contar, pero mas pro saca myentra mas contare asi que non lo dixo por dolor es pecible ni malo, ca dolor ay que ome desea á las veses que con el avrie grant folgura e non syn el asi que es muchas veses deseado dolor et commo la tanger mañera que todavia cobdiçia aquel dolor mas que todas las folguras e viçios del mundo porque es causa de todo su deseo asi que es dolor nesçesario o provechoso, e por esto non deve çesar de fablar çiençia el que sabe por cuyta de sofrir trabajos o dolor, mayor mente que es notorio, que vyene por devyna influyda de Dios en el omen que la asi que non la da Dios para que la calle nin para quel influydo solo salvo para faser bien commo la sacra ley que dio a Muyssen non sollamente para el mas para ssu pueblo de generaçion e aun para todos los nasçidos que a su ley sse allegaron, como dise Ysayas en el cº.

El linaje que lo serviere sera contado a el por publico suyo asi que el sseñor da sabiduria a uno para enseñarla a muchos, e puede aqui desir que qvien quisyere pues el señor Dios commo da la sabiduria a uno para enseñarla a muchos, tan bien la podria dar á los muchos e en verdat para que o porque es esto diria yo a el respondote que tan bien podria dar Dios la ley syn que se enseñase por escritura a cada nasçido pero no se le entendia ni seria sabido que bynya de Dios, nin por acarreamiento del Espiritu Sancto asy que non seria Dios tan conoscido, e por esto es en el secreto de Dios vien lo que a nos non se entyende, ca el Señor todas las cosas que el fiso e son con sabiduria acabada que es en el asi que devemos creer que es bien aprender que quien pretende e entender del que entyende e punar en el tal trabajo que naçe dello gloria e folgura asi que non es dolor doloroso, mas es dolor provechoso. Pues asi es, plaziendo a Dios, declarare algo en las trobas de Rabisantob el Judio de Carrion en algunas partes que parescen escritas aunque no son escritas salvo por quanto son trobas e todas escritura rymada paresçe entrepatada e non lo es que por guardar los consonantes disce algunas veses lo que ha de desir despues disce lo antes. E esto quiero yo trabajar en declarar con el ayuda de Dios para algunos que pueden ser que leeran e non entenderan syn que otro gelas declare commo algunas veses la he ya visto esto por cuanto syn dubda las dichas trobas son muy notable escritura, que todo omen la deviera de curar, ca esta fue la entençion del sabio Raby que las fiso, por que escritura rimada es mejor decorada que non la que va por testo llano, e dise asy el prologo de sus rymas es veynte e tres coplas fasta de quiero desir del mundo.

Señor Rey, noble, alto,

Oy este sermon,

Que vyene desyr Santob,

Judio de Carrion,

Comunalmente trobado

De glosas moralmente,

De la filosofia sacado

Segunt que va syguiente.

Quando el Rey Don Alfonso

Fyno, fynco la gente,

Como quando el pulso

Fallesçe al doliente.

Que luego non ayudaua,

Que tan grant mejoria

A ellos fyncaua,

Nin omen lo entendia.

Quando la rosa seca

En su tiempo sale,

El agua della fynca

Rosada que mas vale.

Asi vos fyncastes del

Para mucho turar,

E faser lo que el

Cobdiciava librar.

Como la debda mia

Que a vos muy poco monta

Con la qual yo podria

Bevyr syn toda onta,

Estando con cuyta

De miedos de pecados,

Que muchos fis syn cuyta,

Menudos e granados.

Teniame por muerto,

Mas vyno me el talante

Un cornote muy cierto,

Que me fiso vien andante.

Omen torpe, syn seso,

Seria a Dios baldon

La tu maldat en peso

Poner con su perdon.

El te fiso nascer,

Byves en merced suya;

Como podria vencer

A su obra la tuya?

Pecar es la tu maña,

E la suya perdonar,

El alongar la saña,

Los yerros oluidar.

Bien commo es mas alto

El cielo que la tierra,

El su perdon es tanto

Mayor que la tu yerra.

Segunt el poder suyo

Tanto es la su obra suya,

Segunt el poder tuyo

Tal es la obra tuya.

Obrar de omen que nada

Es todo el su fecho,

Es su vyda penada,

Es a muy poco trecho.

Como seria tan grande

Como la del Criador,

Que todo el mundo anda

E fas en derredor

Andar aquella rueda

El sol e las estrellas,

E jamas nunca queda,

E sabe cuenta dellas.

Quanto el tu estado

Es ante la tu gloria,

Monta el tu pecado

A su mysiricordia.

Seria cosa estraña

Muy fuera de natura,

La tu yerra tamaña

Ser como su mesura.

Et desto non temas

Que ser non podria,

En que non tornes jamas

En la tu rebeldia,

Mas en te arrepentyr

E fazer oraçion,

Et merced le pedyr

Con magnifestaçion

De todo lo pasado,

E partyr de lo mano,

Con tanto perdonado

Seras bien de lyviano.

Et non sabe la persona

Torpe que non se baldona

Por las priesas del mundo

Que nos da a menudo.

I non sabe que la manera

Del mundo esta era,

Tener syempre viciosos

A los onbres astrosos,

Et ser [de] guerreados

Los omes onrrados,

Alça los ojos a cata

E veras la mar alta,

Et sobre las sus cuestas

Anda cosas muertas,

E yazen çafondadas

En el piedras presciadas.

Et el peso asi

Avaga otro si,

La mas llena balança

E la mas vasya alça.

Et en el çielo estrellas

E sabe cuenta dellas,

Non escuresçen dellas una,

Sy non el sol e la luna.

Las mys canas teñilas,

Non por las auorrescer,

Ni por desdesyrlas,

Nin mançebo parescer,

Mas con miedo sobejo

De omes que bastarian

En mi seso de viejo,

E non lo fallarian.

Pues trabajo me mengua,

Donde puede auer,

Prodire de mi lengua

Algo de mi saber.

Quando no es lo que quiero,

Quiero yo lo que es;

Si pesar he primero,

Plaser avré despues.

Mas pues aquella rueda

Del cielo una ora

Jamas non esta queda,

Peora et mejora,

Aun aqueste laso

Renovara el escripto,

Este pandero manso

Aun el su rretynto;

Sonara vernaadia,

Avra su libertad,

Paresçio como solia

Valer el su quintal.

Yo proue lo pesado,

Prouare lo lyviano,

Quiça mudare fado

Quando mudare la mano.

Resçele si fablase

Que enojo faria,

Por si me callase

Por torpe fyncaria.

Quel que no se muda,

Non falla lo que plas;

Disen que ave muda

Aguero nunca fas.

Porque pisan poquella,

Saron tierra perlando;

Omes que pisan ella

Para siempre callando.

Entendi que en callar

Avri grant mejoria,

Avorresçi fablar

E fueme peoria.

Que non so para menos

Que otros de mi ley,

Que ovieron buenos

Donadios del Rey.

Syn mi rrason ser buena

Non sea despreçiada

Por que la dis presona

Rafez que mucha espada.

De fyno azero sano

Sale de rrota vayna;

Salir e del gusano

Se fare la seda fyna.

E astroso garrote

Fare muy ciertos trechos,

E algunt astroso pellote

Cubre blancos pechos.

Et muy sotil trotero

Aduze buenas nuevas,

E muy vil vezerro

Presenta ciertas prueuas.

Por nascer en el espino

No val la rosa cierto

Menos, nin el buen vyno

Por nascer en el sarmyento.

Non val el açor menos

Por nascer de mal nido,

Ni los enxemplos buenos

Por los dezir Judio.

Non me desdeñen por corto,

Que mucho Judio largo

Non entraria a coto

A fazer lo que yo fago.

Bien se que nunca tanto

Quatro tyros de lança

Alcançaria quanto

La saeta alcança;

Et rrazon muy granada

Se diz en pocos versos,

E cinta muy delgada

Suffre costados gruesos.

Et mucho ome entendido,

Por ser vergonçoso,

Es por torpe tenido

E llamado astroso.

Et sy viese sazon

Mejor e mas apuesta,

Diria su razon

Aquel que lo denuesta.

Quiero dezir del mundo

E de las sus maneras,

E commo del dubdo

Palabras muy certeras.

Que non se tomar tiento,

Nin fazer pleytesia,

De acuerdos mas de çiento

Me torno cada dia.

Lo que uno demuestra

Veo a otro loallo,

Lo que este apuesta

Veo a otro afeallo.

La vara que menguada

La diz el comprador,

Esta mesma sobrada

La diz el vendedor.

El que lança la lança

Semejale vaguarosa,

Pero al que alcança

Semejale presurosa.

Dize, sy quier no diese

Pan nin vyno al suelo

En tal que ome viese

Ya la color del çielo.

Olvidado amenos

Su color con nublados,

Con lodos non podemos

Andar por los mercados.

Lo mucho non es nunca

Vueno nin de espeçia fyna,

Mas vale contrilla poca

Que mucha melezyna.

Non puede cosa ninguna

Syn fyn mucho cresçer,

Desque fynche la luna

Torrne a fallesçer

A todo ome castigo

De sy mesmo se guarde

Mas que de enemigo

Con tanto seguro ande.

Guardese de su envidia,

Guardese de su saña,

Guardese de su cobdiçia,

Que es la peor maña.

Non puede ome tomar

En la cobdiçia tyento;

Es profundo mar,

Syn orilla e syn puerto.

De alcançar una cosa

Nasce cobdiçia de otra;

Mayor e mas sabrosa

Que mengua bien de sobra.

Quien buena piel tenia

Que el amplia para el frio,

Tabardo non pidiria

Jamas, sy non por vrio.

Por quel su veryno

Buen tabardo tenia,

Con zelo el mesquino

En cuydado venia.

Fue buscar tabardo,

E fallolo a otir acuesta

Por otro mas onrrado

Para de fyesta en fiesta.

Et sy este primero

Tabardo non fallara,

Del otro di santero

Jamas non se membrara.

Quando lo poco vyene

Cobdiçia de mas cresçe;

Quanto mas ome tyene

Tanto mas le fallesçe.

Et quanto mas alcança

Mas cobdiçia dos tanto,

Alfyn desque calça

Calças tyene por quebranto.

De andar de pye camino

E va buscar rroçyn;

De calçar calças vyno

A cobdiçia syn fyn.

Para el rrocyn quier ome

Quel piense e çeuada,

Establo e buen pesebre

E desto todo nada.

No te menguava nada,

Las calças non tenia;

Los çapatos solados

Su jornada conplia.

Yo fallo en el mundo

Dos omes e non mas,

E fallar nunca puedo

El terçero jamas;

Un buscador que cata

E non alcança nunca,

E otro que nunca se farta

Fallando quanto busca;

Quien falle e se farte

Yo non puedo fallarlo;

Que pobre bien andante

E rrico omen llamarlo.

Que non ya omen pobre

Synon el cobdiçioso,

Nin rrico synon ome

Con lo que tiene gozoso.

Que en lo quel cumple quiere

Poco le abondara,

E quen sobras quesyere

El mundo non le cabra.

Quanto cumple a omen de su,

De su algo sy syrve;

De lo demas es syenpre

Syervo a quanto vyve,

Todo el dia lazrado,

Corrido por traello;

A la noche cuytado

Por miedo de perdello.

El tanto non le plaze

Del algo que averlo,

Quanto pesar le faze

El miedo de perderlo.

Non se farta non le carbiendo

En afan nin en talega;

Et lazra non sabiendo

Para quien lo allega.

Syenpre las almas grandes,

Queriendose honrrar,

Fazen en sus demandas

A los cuerpos lazrar.

Por conplir sus talantes

Non les dexan folgar;

Fazen los viandantes

De logar en logar.

La alma granada vyene

A perderse con el çelo,

Quanto que demas tyene

Su vesyno un pelo.

Tyende grant miedo fuerte

Que le aventajaria,

E non le membraria de la muerte

Que los ygualaria.

Por buscar lo demas

Es quanto mal auemos;

Por lo necessario jamas

Mucho non le lazraremos.

Sy non que te mengue quieres

Dexa la tu cobdiçia;

Lo que auer podieres

Solo eso cobdiçia

Tanto es un debdo fuera

De la rraya asignada,

Commo si lueñe tierra fuera

Dende una jornada.

Quanto mas que auia

Pesar el omen loco,

En lo queste perdia

Por mucho que por poco.

Quando por poco estoruo

Perdio lo que buscaua,

Del grant pesar que ovo

Nunca se conortava.

Non sabe que por cobrirse

Del ojo cunple tanto

Un lienço, como si fuese

Muro de cal i canto.

Tanto se lo que yaze

Detras del destajo,

Quanto se lo que faze

El de allende tajo.

Lo que suyo non era,

Tanto, con dos pasadas,

Lueñe, como sy fuera

Dende veynte jornadas.

Tan lueñe es de ayer

Commo el año pasado,

Es quien ha de ser

De feridas guardado.

Tanto val un escudo

Entre el e la saeta,

Como sy todo el mundo

Entre el e ella meta.

Ca pues non lo firio,

Tal es un dedo cerca

Del, commo la que dio

Allende la çerca.

El dia de ayer tanto

Alcançar podemos,

Nin mas nin menos quanto

Oy null años faremos.

Tu por mucho andar

Alyñar lo pasado,

Nin pierde por quedar

Lo que non es llegado.

Tan fea nin fermosa,

En el mundo ya ves,

Se puede alcançar cosa

Sinon por su reves.

Quien ante non esparze

Trigo, non allega,

Sy con tierra non ayaze

A espiga nunca llega.

Non se puede coger rosa

Syn pisar las espynas,

La miel es dulce cosa

Mas tyen agras vezyna.

La pas non se alcança

Synon con guerrear;

Non se gana folgança

Synon con el lazrar.

Por la grant mansedat

A ome fallaran;

E por grant crueldat

Todos lo aborresçeran.

Por la grant escaseza

Tener lo ha por poco;

Por mucha franqueza

Rrazonar lo ha por loco.

Sy tacha non oviese

En el mundo pobreza,

Non aunque valiese

Tanto como la flaqueza.

Mas ha en ella una

Tacha que le enpesce

Mucho, que commo la luna

Mengua e despues cresce.

La franqueza sosobra

Es de toda costunbre,

Que por usar la cobra

Saber las cosas onbre.

Lo que omen mas usa,

Eso mejor aprenda,

Sy non es esta cosa

Que por usar la mas pierde.

Usando la franqueza,

No se puede escusar

De venir a pobreza,

Que en mucho la usar.

Que todavia dando

Non fyncaria que dar,

Asi que franqueando

Menguara al franquear.

Commo la candela mesma,

Tal cosa es al ome

Franco, que ella se quema

Por dar a otro lunbre.

Al rey solo conviene

De usar la franqueza,

E sigurança tyene

De non venyr a pobreza.

A otro non es bien

Sy non lo comunal;

Dar e tener convien;

E lo demas es mal.

Sy omen dulce fuere

Commo agua lo veneran,

E sy agro sopiere

Todos lo escopiran.

Sy quier por se guardar

De los astreros omes

A menudo mudar

Deve las costunbres.

Que tal es ciertamente

El come commo el viso,

Rrecelando la gente

Ante que lo han pasado.

Uno dando vozes

Donde entrades,

Fondo es cient braças

Que vos aventurades;

Desque a la orilla pasa

Diz que dubdades;

No dan a la rodilla,

Pasad e non temades.

Et bien tal es el ome,

Desque es barruntado

En alguna costunbre,

Por ella es entrado.

Por esto los omes,

Por se guardar de dampno,

Deven mudar costunbres

Como quien muda damno.

Oy bravo, cras manso;

Oy sinple, cras lozano;

Oy largo, cras escaso;

Oy en cerro, cras en llano.

Una vez umildança,

E otra vez baldon;

E un tienpo vengança,

E en otro tienpo perdon.

Bien esta el perdon

Al que se puede vengar,

E soffrir el baldon

Quando se puede negar.

Con todos non convienen

Usar por un ygual,

Mas a los unos con bien,

A los otros con mal.

Pagado e sanudo

Vez dexa e vez tien,

Que non ha mal en el mundo

En que non ay bien.

Tomar del mal lo menos

E lo demas del bien;

A malos e a buenos,

A todos estos convien.

Honrrar por su bondat,

Al bueno es prouado;

Al malo de maldat

Suya por ser nunca dado.

Lo peor del buen ome

Que non vos faga bien,

Que dano de costunbre

Del bueno nunca vyen.

Et lo mejor del malo

Que mas del non ayades,

Ca nunca bien fallarlo

En el non entendades.

Pues ser ome manso

Con todos non convien;

Mas oy priesa, eras paso;

Vezes mal, vezes bien.

El que quisiere folgar

Ha de lazrir primero,

Sy quiere a paz llegar

Sea antes guerrero.

Al que torrna al robo

Fuelga maguer le agrado,

Plazer al ojo del lobo

Con el polvo del ganado.

Sienbra cordura tanto

Que non nasca paresa,

E verguença, en quanto

Non la llamen torpeza.

Fizo para lacerio

Dios al ome nascer,

Por yr de feria en feria

A buscar do guarescer.

Por rruas e por feria

A buscar su ventura,

Ca es muy grant soberuia

Quere pro con folgura.

Non ha tal folgura

Commo lazeria conpró,

E quien por su cordura

Su entencion cunplio.

Quien por su seso cierto

Quiere acabar su fecho,

Una vez entre ciento

No sacaria provecho.

Ca en las aventuras

Yaze la pro colgada,

E es con las locuras

La ganancia conprada.

Quien las cosas dubdadere,

Todas non se meseran;

De lo que cobdiciare

Poco acavara.

Por la mucha cordura

Es la pro estoruada,

Pues en la aventura

Esta la pro colgada.

Pues por rregla derecha,

Derecha el mundo non se guia;

El mucho dubdar echan

A ome en astrosia.

Mal seso manifiesto

Non digo yo usar,

Quel peligro presto

Deuelo escusar.

Mas ygual uno de otro

El menguar e el sobrar,

A lazrar o encuentro

Deuese aventurar.

Quien vestyr non quiere

Sy non piel syn yjada,

De frio que fizyere

Avra rraçon doblada.

Quien de la pro quiere mucha

A de perder e vrio;

Quien quiere tomar trucha

Aventurese al rrio.

Quien los vientos guardare

Todos non se abraran,

E quien las trunes guardare

Jamas non segara.

Non syn noche dia,

Nin segar syn senbrar,

Nī ha fumo syn fuego,

Nī reyr syn llorar.

Nō ay syn corro luēgo,

Nī syn tarde ayna,

Nī ha fumo syn fuego,

Nī syn comas faryna.

Nī ganar syn perder,

Nī syn luxar altera,

Saluo en Dios poder

Quel y a syn flaqueza.

Nī ha syn tacha cosa,

Nī cosa syn soçobra,

Nī syn fea fermosa,

Nī sol nō ha syn sonbra.

La vondat de la cosa

Saben por su rreues;

Por agra la sabrosa,

La faz por el reues.

Syn noche nō ouiesemos,

Ninguna mejoria

Conoscer lo sabriamos

A la lunbre del dia.

Nō ha piel syn yjadas,

Nī luēgo syn despues,

Nī viētre syn espaldas,

Nī cabeça syn pies.

Demas q son muy pocos

Los q saben el seso,

Tā poco como de los locos

Los cuerdos por un peso.

Uno nō sabe el quanto

Buscar de lo q deue,

E el otro dos tanto

Del derecho se atreue.

El uno por allēde

Buscar de su derecho,

E otro por aquende

Nō ovieron provecho.

Et los q trabajaron

De los en paz meter,

Por muy torpes fyncaron

Solo en lo cometer.

De sy dan cuēta cyerta,

Qēn orgullo mantyē,

Que poco en su tyesta

De meollo nō tyē.

Que sy nō fuere loco

Nō usaria asy,

Si conosciese un poco

Al mūdo e a sy.

Sy esta paz fysiera

Ligero fuera luego

De creer que boluiera

Al agua con el fuego.

Usa el omē noble

A los altos alçarse,

Synple e cōuenible

A los baxos mostrarse.

Muestra la su grandeza

A los desconoscidos,

E muestra grant synpleza

A los baxos caydos.

Es en la su pobreza

Alegre e pagado,

E en la su riqueza

Muy synple mesurado.

Su pobreza encubre,

Dase por viē andante;

E la su pries a sufre

Mostrādo buē talāte.

Reues usa el vyllano

Abaxādose a los mayores;

Alto e loçano

Se muestra á los menores.

Mas de quantas es dos tanta

Muestra su mal ādança,

E el mundo espāta

En la su buena andāça.

En la su mala andança

Et mas baxos q tierra,

E en su buena andança

Al cielo quere dar guerra.

Al que oyr q syere

Las trueuas del villano,

Por que quādo lo vyere

Lo conosca de plano.

Nō far nada por rruego,

E la pena cōsyente;

Que brantadlo e luego

Vos sera obendiēte.

Corno el arco lo cuento

Yo en todo su fecho,

Que fasta q el fare tuerto

Nunca fare derecho.

Peor es leuantarse

Un malo en la gēte,

Mucho mas q perderse

Diez buenos ciertamente.

Ca perderse los buenos,

Cierto el bien fallesçe;

Pero el daño menos

Es el ql mal cresçe.

Quando el alto cae

El baxo se leuāta,

Uida al fumo trae

El fuego q amata.

El caer del rroçio

Faz leuantar yeruas,

Onrraste con el ofeçio

Del señor las syeruas.

Omē que la paz qēres,

E nō semer merino,

Qual para ty quisyeres

Quieras para tu vezyno.

Fijo de omē q te querellas,

Quando lo q te aplaze

Nō se cunple e rrebellas

En Dios porque nō faze.

Todo lo q tu queres

E andas muy yrado,

Nō te miēbras q eres

De vil cosa criado?

De una gota suzya

Podrida e dañada,

E tyenes te por luzya

Estrella, muy presçiada.

Pues dos vezes paresciste,

Camino muy abiltado,

Locura es preciarte,

Daste por mēguado.

E mas q un moxquito

El tu cuerpo nō ual;

Desque aquel espryto

Q el mesçe del cal.

Nō se te mīetra tu cima

E andas de galope,

Pisando sobre la syma

Do las muestra dō lope.

Que tu señor seria

Mill vezes, et gusanos

Comē de noche e de dia

Su rrostro e sus manos.

Mucho te maravillas,

Tyenes te por mēguado,

Por q todas las villas

Nō mandas del rregnado.

Eres rrico, nō te fartas,

E tyenes te por pobre,

Cō codicia q as, nō catas

Si ganas para otre.

E de tu algo pocas,

Para envolver tus huesos

Abras varas pocas

De algunos lienços gruessos

Lo al heredara

Alguno q nō te ama,

Para ty nō fyncara

Sola la mala fama,

Del mal q en tus dias

E la mala verdat

En las plaças fazyas

E en tu poridat,

Quando las tus cobdicias

Ganar para ser mītroso,

Por muy sabio te presçias

E antes por astroso.

Et los enxemplos buenos

Nō murieron jamas,

E quanto es lo de menos

Tanto es lo demas.

El seso, certero

Al q da Dios ventura

Acierta de ligero

E non por su cordura.

Fazere lo que plaze

A Dios en toda plīto,

Omē nada nō faze

Por su entendymiento.

Sy fas por ventura

Lo q a el plazya,

Tyeñ que por su cordura

E su sabiduria.

E faze del escarnio

Dios, por q quiere creer

Q puede alongar daño

E provecho traer.

Por nō errar

Este seso çierto,

Trabaja por lazrar,

Sy quier ladra de riebto.

Que las gentes nō digan

Del que es perezoso,

Nī del escarnio fagan,

Nī lo tengan por astroso.

Trabaje, asy como

Sy en poder

Del omē fuere mismo

El ganar e el perder.

Et por conortarse,

Sy lazrarē vano,

Deue bien acordarse

Q nō es en su mano.

Lazre por guaresçer

Omē e la pro cuelgue.

En Dios que lo fyzo nascer

Fyzo por q nō fuelgue.

Darle ha su gualardon

Bueno e syn destajo,

Nō qrra que syn don

Sea el su trabajo.

Nō puede cosa nascida

Syn afan guarescer,

E nō avra guarida

Menos por hollesçer.

Nō quedan las estrellas

Punto en un lugar,

Seria mal lazrar ellas

E los omes folgar.

Nō se mesçen las estrellas

Por fazer a si vicio,

Es el merçed dellas

Fazer a Dios seruiçio.

Et el merced del ome

Es para mejoria

A si e non á otre

Lo mandaros lazrar.

Diole Dios entēdymiento

Por q busque guarida,

Por q fallescimiento

Nō aya en su vyda.

Sy cobro nō fallo

For el bolleçer,

Nō deziā que valio

Menos por sollesçer.

Por su trabajo quito

De culpa fyncaria,

E qçaria evito

Alguno faltaria.

Es por andar la rrueda

Del molyno presdada,

E por estar queda

La tierra es follada.

Establo es de huerta

En q fruto nō nasce,

Nō vale mas q muerta

El omē que nō se mesçe.

Nō cumple q non gana,

Mas lo ganado pierde,

Fazyendo vyda penada

El su cabdal espiende.

Nō ha mayor afan

Q la mucha folgura,

Que pone a omē en grant

Valdon e desmesura.

Faze el cuerpo folgado

El coraçon lazrar

Con mucho mal cuydado,

Q lo trae a errar.

Demas el q qsiere

Estar syempre folgado,

De lo que mas ovyere

Menester sera mēguado.

El qle desearia,

Quando le nō toviese a ojo,

Veyēdo lo cada dia

Toma con el enojo.

Sacan por pedyr lluuia

Las rrequilias e cruzes,

Quando el tpo nō uvia,

Dan por ella vozes.

Et sy viene a menudo,

Enojase con ella,

E maldizen al mūdo

E la pro q vyen della.

Farian dos amigos

Cinta de un anillo,

En q dos enemigos

Nō meteriā un dedillo.

Aun lo q Lope gana,

Domīgo enpobresce,

Con lo q Sancho sana,

Pedro adoleçe.

Qudo vyento se leuanta,

Ya apelo, ya auriego,

La candela amata,

Ençiende el grāt fuego.

Do luego por my sentēçia

Que es biē del cresçer,

E tomar grāt acuçia

Por yr bollesçer.

Que por la su flaquesça

La candela muriô,

E por su fortaleza

El grāt fuego byuio.

Mas apelo a poco

Rato deste juysyo,

Q veo escapar el flaco

E puresçer el rrezyo.

Q ese mesmo viēto

Q a esos dos fazia,

Fizo çoçobra desto

En este mesmo dia.

El mesmo menuzo

El arbol muy granado,

E non se el peruze

Del la yerua del plado.

Q en sus casas se qma,

Grant pesar ha del viento,

Qñdo sus eras auienta

Con el ha grāt pagamiento.

Por ende nō se jamas

Tener me a una estaca,

Nī se qual me val mas

Sy preta nī sy blanca.

Qñdo caydo, ql derecho

En toda cosa presta,

Fallo a poco trecho

Q no es cosa çierta.

Sy uno pro ha

A otro caro cuesta,

Si el pero lo loa

Al arco lo denuesta;

Ca el derecho del arco

Es ser tuerto fecho,

E su plazer del maestro

Auer pesar derecho.

Por ende nō puedo cosa

Loar nī denostalla,

Nī desyr la fermosa

Sol, nī feo llamalla.

Segūt es el lugar

E la cosa qual es,

Sy faz priesa o vagor

E faz llama en vez.

Yo nunca he querella

Del mūdo, de q muchos

La han, q por muchos

Se tienē por mal trechos.

Que faz bien a menudo

Al torpe e al sabio,

Mas el entendido

Esto ha por agrauio.

Et visto como omē

Saluese grande o chico,

Faz al acuçioso pobre

E al q se duerme chico.

E aquesto Dios usa,

Por q uno de ciēto

Nō cuyda, q faz cosa

Por su entendimiento.

Unos vi por locura

Al cançar grāt prouecho,

E otros que por cordura

Pierdē todo su fecho.

Nō es buena locura,

La q a su dueño baldona,

Nin es mala locura

La q lo apresona.

Yo vi muchos tornar

Sanos de la fazyenda,

E otros ocasionar

Dentro en la su tyenda.

Et muere el doctor

Que la fisique reza,

E por guaresce[r] el pastor

Con la su grāt torpeza.

Nō cumple grāt saber

A los q a Dios nō temen,

Nin acunple el auer

De que pobres nō comen.

Quādo yo meto miētes,

Mucho alegre seria

Con lo q otros tristes

Veo de cada dia.

Pues si certero bien

Es aql q cobdiçio,

Por ql q lo tien

Nō toma coñl viçio

Mas esta es señal

Q nō ha biē terçero

En el mūdo e nō ha mal

Q sea verdadero.

Bien cierto el seruiçio

De Dios es ciertamente,

Mas por quitar el viçio

Oluidanlo la gente.

Et otro bien a par deste

El seruiçio del rey,

Q mantyene la gente

A derecho e ley.

Suma de la razō

Es grande torpedat,

Leuar toda sazon

Por una egualdat.

Mas tornasse a menudo,

Como el mūdo se torna,

A las vezes estudo,

A las vezes esbona.

Toda buena costunbre

Ha cierta medida,

E, si la pasa onbre,

Su bondat es perdida.

De las cobdiçias syēpre

Los sabores dexando,

E de toda costumbre

Lo de medio tomando.

De las muchas querellas

Q en coraçon tengo,

Una la mayor dellas

Es la contar uengo.

Dar la ventura pro

Al q faria malicia,

E se echariā pro

E otros cobdiçia.

De poco algo ganar

Faria grāt astrosia,

E de qrer perdonar

Esto nō lo podria.

Q la ventura tyene

Por guisado de le dar,

Mucho mas ql vyene

Por boca de mandar.

Et faze le bien andante

De la honrra e valia,

Lo qual por talāte

Buscar nō le pesaria.

Ventura qere usar

Subir de tal subyda,

Ql nō lo treueria buscar

Cobdiçiar en su vyda.

El syenpre trabajado

E meter se a quāto

Baldon tyene el hōrrado,

Por honrrar e por qbrāto.

Tenerse ya por vano

Syn sol cuydase en ella

E vienele a la mano

Syn trabajar por ella.

Al sabio pregūtaua

Su deçiplo un dia,

Porque trauajava

De alguna merchandia;

Et yr bollesçer

De lugar en lugar

Para enrriqier

E algo ganar.

Et rrespondiole el sabio

Que, por algo cobrar,

Non tomaria agrauio

De un punto lazrar.

Diz por que buscare

Cosa de que jamas

Nunca me fartare,

Fallandolo e mas.

Acuçia nin cordura

Non ganan aver;

Ganase por ventura

Non por sy, nin por saber.

Pierde por flaqueza

Fazer e mucho bien,

Guardanlo escazesa,

Vileza non mantyen.

Et, por esta rrazon,

Faria locura granada

El sabio que sazon

Pediese en tal demanda.

Con todo eso convyen

Al que algo ouiere,

Fazer del mucho vien

Quanto el mas pudiere.

Non lo pierde franqueza

Quando es devenida,

Nin lo guarda escaseza

Quando es de yda.

Non ha tan buen thesoro

Como el bien fazer,

Nin aver tan seguro,

Nin con tanto plazer.

Como el que tomara

Aquel que lo fizyere,

En la vida lo honrrara

E despues que muriere.

El que bien fecho non teme,

Que lo furtaran ladrones,

Nin que fuego lo queme,

Nin otras ocasiones;

Nin ha por guardarlo

Conde fijo menester,

Nin en arca cerrarlo,

Nin so llaue meter.

Fynarle ha buena fama,

Quando fueren perdidos,

Los algos e la cama

E los buenos vestidos.

Por el seria onrrado

El linaje que fyncare,

Quando fuere acabado

Lo que del heredare.

Jamas el su buen onbre

Non se oluidara,

Que el tenga de todo onbre

Syempre lo nombrara.

Por ende bel bien fazer

Tu poder mostraras,

En al do tu plazer

Lo demas dexaras.

De toda cobdiçia

Dexa la mayor parte,

E de fazer maliçia

Los omes han talante.

Quien de mala ganancia

Quiere sus talegas llenas,

De buena segurança

Vazyara sus venas.

Non ha tan dulce cosa

Como la segurança,

Nin ha miel mas sabrosa

Que por omildança.

Nin ha cosa tan quista

Como la humildança,

Nin tan sabrosa vista

Como la buena andança.

Nin ha tal locura

Como la obedencia,

Nin tal baragania

Como la buena sufrençia.

Non puede aver tal maña

Omen como en sofrir,

Nin faga con la saña

Que le faga rrepentyr.

El que por que sufrio

Se touo por abiltado,

A la syma salio

Por mas aventurado.

Non ha tan atreguada

Cosa como la pobreza,

Nin cosa guerreada

Tanto como la riqueza.

Digo que omen pobre

Es pryncipe desonrrado,

Asy el rico omen

Es lazrido, onrrado.

Quien se enloçanescio

Con honrra que le crescia,

A entender bien dio,

Que no lo meresçia.

Tyene la loçania

El seso tan desfecho,

Que entrar non podrya

Con ella so un lecho.

Nunca omen nasció

Que quanto le pluguiese,

Segunt lo cobdició,

Tal se le cumpliese.

Quien quiere fazer pesar,

Convienle apercebyr;

Que non se puede escusar

De a tal rrescebyr.

Si quieres fazer mal,

Pues farlo a tal pleito,

De rrescebyr a tal

Qual tu fysyeres çierto.

Non puede estar paz

Sy una mala obra,

Fyzyere a topar

En rresçebyr tu otra.

Quien sabe que non nasciste

Por venir apartado,

Al mundo non veniste

Por ser auentajado.

En el rrey mete mientes,

Toma enxemplo del,

Mas lazro por las gentes

Que las gentes por el.

Por sus mañas el onbre

Se pyerde o se gana,

E por su costunbre

Adoleçe o sana.

Cosa que tanto le cunple

Para amigos ganar,

Non ha como ser synple;

Viensse razon.

Syn que este pressente,

Conosceras de ligero

Al omen, en su absente,

En el su mensajero.

Por su carta sera

Conoscido en cierto,

Por ella parescera

El su entēdymiento.

En el mundo tal cabdal

Non ha como el saber,

Nin heredat, nin al,

Nin alguno otro aver.

El saber es la glorya

De Dios e la su gracia,

Non ha tan noble joya,

Nin tan buena ganancia;

Nin mejor compasion

Quel libro, nin tal,

E tomar entençion

Con el mas que paz val.

Los sabios que querrian

Uer lo fallara

Con el, e toda vya

Con ellos fablara.

Los sabios muy granados

Que omen deseaua,

Filosofos honrrados

E ver cobdiciava.

Lo que de aquellos sabyos

El cobdiçiaua, auia;

Eran sus petafios,

E su sabyduria.

Ally lo fallara

En el libro sygnado,

Respuesta avra

Dellos por su dyctado.

Aprendera nueva cosa

De muy buen çierto,

De mucha buena glossa

Que fyzieron al testo.

Non querria synon leer

Sus letras e sus versos

Mas, que non ver

Sus carnes e sus huessos.

La su sabencia pura

Escryta la dexaron;

Sin ninguna voltura

Coporal la asumaron.

Si buelta terrenal

De ningun elemento

Saber celestial

Claro entendimiento;

Por esto solo quier

Todo ome de cordura

A los sabios ver,

E non por la fygura.

Por ende tal amigo

Non ha como el libro

Para los sabios digo,

Que con cortes non lidio,

Ser syeruo del sabio

E syeruo del omen nesçio,

Destos dos me agrauio,

Que andan por un presçio.

El omen torpe es

La peor animalia

Que en el mundo es,

Cierto e syn falia.

Non entyende fazer

Synon deslealtad;

No es su plazer

Synon fazer maldad.

Lo que es mas entyende

Que bestia en acuçia,

En engaños lo espiende

E en fazer malyçia;

Non puede otro aver

En el mundo tal amigo,

Como el buen saber

Nin peor enemigo

Que la su torpedat,

Que del torpe su saña

Mas pesa en verdat

Que arena e maña.

Non ha tan peligrosa

Nin ocasion tamaña,

Como en tierra dobdosa

Camino sin conpaña.

Nin tan esforçada cosa

Como la verdat,

Nin cosa mas dobdosa

Que la deslealtad.

El sabio coronada

Leona semeja;

La verdat es formada

La materia gulpeja.

Dizyr sienpre verdat

Maguer que daño tenga,

E non la falsedat

Maguer pro della venga.

Non ha cosa mas larga

Que la lengua del mintroso,

Nin aura mas amarga

De comienço sabroso.

Faze rrycos los omes

Con sus prometymientos

Despues fallanse pobres

Omes llenos de vyentos.

Las orejas tiene faltas

El coraçon fanbriento

El que las oye tantas

Cosas dize cimiento.

Non ha fuerte cosa castillo

Mas que la lealtad,

Nin tan ancho portyllo

Como la mala verdat.

Non ha ome tan cobardo

Como el que mal ha fecho,

Ni baragan tan fuerte grande,

Como el que trae derecho.

Non ha tan syn verguença

Como es el derecho,

Que faze esa fuerça

Del daño que del prouecho.

Tan syn piedat meta

Al pobre e al rrico,

E con un ojo cata

Al grande e al chico.

Al señor non lisonja

Mas que al serviçial;

El rrey non aventaja

Sobre su officyal.

Para el juez malo

Fazese del muy franco;

Al que no lo tyendalo

Faze vara del arco.

El mundo, en verdat,

De tres cosas se mantyen,

De juyzio, e de verdat,

E paz, que dellos vyen.

El juyzio es

La piedra ametal;

De todas estas tres

Es la que mas val.

Ca el juysio fas

Descobryr la verdat,

E con la verdat

Viene e amistad.

Et pues por el juyzio

El mundo se mantyene,

Tan honrrado ofyçio

Baldonar non conuiene.

Deuiase catar antes

De dar tal petycion

Al omen que byen cate,

Que le es su entyncion.

Tal omen que nō mude

La entynçion del oficio

Ualdonar non convyene

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Ni entyenda nin cuyde,

Que fue dado por vicio.

Ca por perro del ganado

Es puesto el pastor,

Non pone el ganado

Por la pro del pastor.

Non cuyde que fue fecho

Por que por presente

Del ageno derecho

Faga al su paryente.

Nin por que de por suelto

Al que fue su amigo,

E syn derecho tuerto

Faga al su enemygo.

Ca non se puede ayunar

Jamas este pecado,

Al sano perdonar

Feridas del llagado.

Al pagado soltar

Demanda del forçado;

Al entrego tostar

La voz del tortyçiado.

Por amor nin presçio

Maldizelo la ley,

Ca de Dios el juyzio

Es solo e del rrey.

De las vezes tenyente

Es de Dios et del rrey,

Por que judguen lo gento

A derecho e a la ley.

Mensajero lo fysieron

De una cosa sygnada,

En poder no le dieron

Cresçer nin menguar nada.

Para sy non entyenda

Leuar sy non las vozes;

Su salario a tyenda

De aquel quel da las vozes.

Et quel obra fysyere

Tal gualardon avra,

E que en esto entendyere

Jamas non errara.

Al juez syn maliçia

Es afan e enbargo,

E juez syn codiçia

Valele un obrado.

Cobdiçia e derecho,

Esto es cosa cierta,

Non entraran en un techo

Nin so una cubyerta.

Nunca de una camisa

Amas se vistieron;

Jamas de una deuisa

Señores nunca fueron.

Quando cobdicia vyene

Derecho luego sale;

Do este poder tyene,

Este otro poco vale.

El oficio al omen

Es enpresentada cosa,

E la buena costunbre

Es joya muy presçiada.

Quien de Dios tyene

Fuerça, non faga del anillo;

Guarde Dios la cabeça

Que non le manguara el capillo.

Lo que es suyo pierde

Omen por su maldat,

E lo ageno puede

Ganarlo por bondat.

Perdezsea un consejo

Por tres cosas priuado,

Saber el buen consejo

Que non es escuchado,

E las armas tener

El que no las defyende,

E algo aver

El que non lo despyende.

Fallo tres dolencias,

Que non puede guaresçer,

Nin ha tales especias

Que las puedan vencer.

El pobre peresoso

Non puede aver consejo,

Mal querençia de envidioso

E dolencia de onbre viejo.

Ssi de los pies guaresçe,

Duele luego la mano;

Del baço adoleçe,

Quando del ffigado es sano.

Et mal querençia que vyen

De çelo non se puede

Partyr syn aquel byen;

El que lo ha non pyerde.

A los omes el celo

Mata e la cobdicia;

Pocos haze el çielo

Sanos desta dolençia.

Hacelo uno de otro,

El alto e el symple;

E el que tyene quatro

Tanto de lo que l’ cumple.

Quanto quier que mas algo

Ha el su vezino,

Tyene todo su algo

Por nado el mesquino.

Tan bien grant mal le faz,

Non le teniendo tuerto,

Por venyr tu en paz

Sse tyene el por muerto.

Que mas que sie venga quisiste

Aver del enbidioso,

Que estar el triste

Quando tu estas gozoso.

Tres son los que vienen

Cuytados syn cuydado,

E de los que mas deuen

Dolerse todo el mundo.

Fijo dalgo que menester

Ha al ome villano,

E con mengua a meter

Se vyene en su mano.

E fidalgo de natura,

Usado de franqueza,

Traxolo la ventura

A mano de vyleza.

E justo, ser mandado

De senor tortyçiero

Ha de fazer fuerçado,

E el otro tercero.

Sabio que ha por premia

De seruir señor nesçio,

Toda la otra lazerya

Ante esta es grant viçio.

De dos panes se gouierna,

E de fuera se farta,

E en cada tauerna

Beue hasta que se farta.

Este solo en el mundo

Byue sabrosa uyda,

E otro ha segundo

De otra mayor medida.

El torpe bien andante,

Que con su grant torpeza

Non le pasa en talante,

Que puede aver pobreza?

Fazyendo lo quel’ plaze

Non entyende el mundo,

Nin los cambios que faze

Su rrueda a menudo.

Cuyda que estara

Syenpre de una color,

E que non abaxara

El de aquel valor.

Como el pesce en el rrio

Vicioso e rryendo,

Non sabe el sandio

La red que l va texendo.

Mas omen entendido

Sabio por byen que l vaya,

Non le puede fazer el mundo

Bien con que plazer aya.

Rescelando del mundo

E de sus cambiamientos,

E de como a menudo

Se cambia los sus vientos.

Sabe que la ryqueza

Pobreza es su cima,

E sola alteza

Yaze fonda cima.

Ca el mundo conosce,

E que su buena obra

Muy ayna fallesçe

E se pasa como sonbra.

Quanto es el estado

Mayor de su medyda

Ha omen mas cuydado

Teniendo la cuyda.

Quanto mas cae de alto

Tanto peor se fiere,

Quanto mas bien ha, tanto

Mas teme, sy se pyerde.

Al que por llano anda

Non tyene que se desçender;

El que non tyene nada

Non recela perder.

Erfuerço en dos cosas

Non puede omen tomar,

Tanto son dubdosas

El mundo e la mar.

El bien non es seguro,

Tan ciertos son sus cambios;

Non es su plazer puro

Con sus malos rresabios.

Torrna su detenencia

La mar mansa muy braua;

E el mundo oy despreçia

Al que ayer honrraua.

Por ende el grant estado

Ha omen de saber;

Fazelo beuyr cuytado

E tristeza auer.

El omen que es onbre

Syempre byue cuytado;

De rryco es pobre,

Nunca le mengua cuydado.

El afan del fidalgo

Sufre en sus cuydados,

E el uyllano largo

Afan en su costados.

El omen presçiado

Non es mas quel muerto,

E el rryco es guerreado

Non teniendo tuerto.

Del omen uyuo dizen

Las gentes sus maldades,

E desque muerte fazen

Cuenta de sus bondades.

Quando pro non le terrna

Loanlo vien la gente,

De lo que le non verna

Bien danle largamente.

Et quando es byuo callan

Con çelo todos quantos

Byenes ha en el, e fallan

Desque mueren dos tantos.

Que myentra byuo fuere

Syenpre le cresçeran celosos,

E mengua desque mueren

E cresçen mintrosos.

Quien de sus mānas quiere

Ser enderesçado

E guardado quesyere

Ser bien de pecado,

Nunca jamas faga

Escondydamente

Cosa que l’pesara,

Que lo sepan la gente.

Poridat, que querria

Encobrir de enemigo,

Non la descubra

Tan poco al amigo;

Que puede ocasionar,

Fyando de amigo,

Que se podra tornar

Con saña enemigo.

Que por poca contyenda

Se canbian los talantes,

E sabran su fasyenda

Omens que querria antes.

Moryr quebrantado

Oviese el su fecho,

E rrepentyr sea quando

Non le tterna prouecho.

Si esto que a el

Otro amigo suyo,

E el, fyando del,

Descobrir sea lo tuyo.

Et el amor del tuyo

No le aprouecha[ra],

Pues quel amygo suyo

Tu fasyenda sabra;

Ca, puesto que non venga

Daño por el prymero,

Non se que pro te tenga,

Pues lo sabe el terçero.

Enxemplo es tercero

Que lo que saben tres

Es ya pleyto plazero

Sabelo toda rey. [sic]

Demas es grant denuesto

E fealdat e mengua;

Su corazon angosto,

E larga la su lengua.

Son las buenas costunbres

Ligeras de nonbrar,

Mas son pocos los omens

Que las saben obrar.

Seria muy buen omen

El que sopiese obrar

Tanto buena costunbre,

Que sabria yo non obrar.

Todo omen non es

Para dezyr e fazer;

E asi como alguna vez

En las contar plazer

Pesar tomo despues,

Por que las se nonbrar

Tan byen que cunple pues

Non las se obrar.

Entregome en nonbrallas,

Como sy las sopiese

Obrar, e encontrallas

Como sy las sopiese;

Syn las obrar dezyrlas,

Sy a my pro non tyen,

Algunos en oyrlas

Aprenderan algunt byen.

Non dezyr nin fazer,

Non es cosa loada;

Quanto quier de plazer

Mas vale algo que nada.

Non tengas por vil omen

Por que pequenno quel veas,

Nin escryuas tu nonbre

En carta que non leas.

De lo que tu querras

Ffazer al tu enemygo,

Deso te guardaras

Mas que del te castyllo.

Ca por le enpesçer

Te torrnas en mal, quanto

Non te podra nasçer

Del enemigo tanto.

Todo el tu cuydar

Prymero e mediano

Sea en byen guardar

Luego a ty de mano.

Et desque ya pusyeres

Byen en saluo lo tuyo,

Entonçes sy quisyeres

Piensa en daño suyo.

Fasta que puesto aya

En saluo su rreyno,

El rrey cuerdo non vaya

Guerrear el ageno.

Lo que ayna quisyeres

Fazer, faz de vagar;

Ca sy priesa tu dyeres

Convyene enbargar.

Por enderesçar errança

Nascera del quexarte,

E sera tu tardança

Mas por apresurarte.

Quien rrebato senbro

Cojo rrepetymiento,

Quien con sosyego obro

Acabo su talento.

Nunca omen perdio

Cosa por la sufrençia,

E quien priesa se dio

Rrescebio rrepentençia.

De peligro e mengua

Sy quisyeres ser quito,

Guardate de tu lengua

E mas de tu espirito.

De una fabla conquista

Puede nasçer e muerte;

E de una sola vista

Cresçer grant amor fuerte.

Pero lo que fablares

Sy en escrito no des,

Sy tu pro fallares,

Negar lo has despues.

Negar lo que se dize,

Han vezes, han lugar;

Mas sy escryto yaze

Non se puede negar.

La palabra a poca

Sazon es oluidada,

E la escritura fynca

Para syenpre guardada.

E la rraçon que, puesta

Non yaçe en escryto,

Tal es como saeta,

Que non llega al tyro.

Los unos de una guisa

Dizen, los otros de otra,

Nunca de su pesquisa

Vyene cierta obra.

De los que y estouyeron

Pocos se acordaran;

De como lo oyeron

Non concertaran.

Sy quier braua sy pransa,

La palabra es tal

Como sombra que pasa,

E non dexa señal.

Non ha lança que pase

Todas las armaduras,

Nin que tanto traspase

Como las escrituras.

Que la saeta lança

Fasta un çierto fyto,

E la letra alcança

De Burgos a Egibto.

Que la saeta fyere

Al byuo, que se syente,

E la letra conquiere

En vida e en muerte.

La saeta non llega

Sy non al que es presente,

E la escrytura llega

Al de allende Oryente.

De saeta defyende

A omen el escudo,

E de letra non puede

Defender todo el mundo.

A cada plazer ponen

Los sabios un sygnado

Tienpo, e desde ende vyenen

Todauia menguado.

Plazer de nueuo paño

Quanto un mes despues;

Toda via han daño,

Fasta que rroto es.

Un año cosa nueva

En quanto la llauilla,

Es flor blanca fasta que llueua

E torrna amarylla.

Demas que es natura

Del omen enojarse,

De lo que mucho tura

E con ello quexarse

Por tal demudar cosa

Nueua de cada dia,

Por poco la fermosura

Por fea canbiaria.

Plazer que toma omen

Con quien byen lo entyende,

Mejor plazer omen

Tomar nunca puede.

Pues la cosa non sabe

Con que a mi plaze,

Que ture o que acabe,

Dello fuera non faze;

Mas la que entendyere

Que dello aplazer

Fara quanto podyere

Por la fazer cresçer.

Por aquesto fallesce

El plazer corporal,

E el que syempre cresce

Es el espirytual.

Tristeza ya non syento

Que mas me faz quemar,

Que plazer que so cierto

Que se ha de acabar.

Turable plazer puedo

Dezyr del buen amygo;

Lo que me dyz entyendo

E el lo que yo digo.

Muy grant plazer en que

Me entyende me faz,

E mas por que ese que

Del my bien le plaz.

Aprendo toda via

Del buen entendimiento,

E el de mi cada dia

Nuevo departimiento.

El sabio, que de glosas

Ciertas fazer non queda,

Dize, que, de las cosas

Que son de una manera

Et en el mundo, non auia;

Nin sobre fyerro, oro;

E en grande mejorya

Commo ha un omen sobre otro?

Ca el mejor cauallo

En el mundo non val cierto,

E un omen diz fallo

Que vale de otros un ciento.

Onça de mejoria

Del oro espiritual

Comptar non se podria

Con quanto el mundo val.

Todos los corporales

Syn entendimiento,

Mayormente metales,

Que non ha sentymiento;

Todas sus mejorias

Podrian poco montar,

E en muy pocos dias

Non se puede descontar.

Las cosas de syn lengua

E syn entendymiento,

Su plazer va á mengua

E a fallescimiento.

Desque a desdezyr

Su conpustura venga,

Non sabe dezyr

Cosa que la mantenga.

Por esto el plazer

Del omen crescer deue

En dezyr e en fazer

Cosa que lo rremueue.

El omen de metales

Dos es confaçionado,

Metales desyguales

Uno vyl e otro honrrado.

El uno terenal,

E el bestia semeja,

E el otro celestial,

Angeles le apareja.

Et en que come e beue

Semeja alymalia;

Asi byue et muere

Commo bestia syn falla.

Et en el mundo entendimiento

Commo el angel es;

Non ha deprymento

Sy por cuerpo non fues.

Que, en preso de un dinero,

Ha mas de un entendimiento;

Por aquello señero

Vale un omen por cierto.

Ca, de aquel cabo tyene

Todo su byen el omen;

De aquella parte le vyene

Todo buena costunbre,

Mesura e franqueza,

Bueno seso e saber,

Cordura e sympleza,

E las cosas saber.

Del otro cabo nasçe

Toda la mala maña,

E por ally cresçe

La cobdiçia e saña.

De ally le vyene malicia

E la mala verdat,

Forrniçio e dolencia

E toda enfermedat.

Et engaños en arte

E mala entynçio,

Que trunca Dios a parte

En la mala cobdiçia.

Por ende non fallesçe

Plazer de compañia,

E de omens sabios creçe

E va a mejoria.

Plaze a omen con ellos

E a ellos con el;

Entyende el a ellos

E ellos tan byen a el.

Porque aquesta conpaña

De omen entendido,

Alegria tamaña

Non ha en el mundo.

Pero amigo claro,

Leal, e verdadero,

Es de fallar muy caro;

Non se falla a dynero.

Omen es grande de topar

En conplision egual,

De fallar en su par

Buen amigo leal.

Amigo de la buena

Andança quando cresçe

Luego asy se torna,

Quando ella fallesçe.

Amigo quanto loar

De bien que no fezyste,

Non deues del fiar

El mal que tu obraste.

Afeartelo han

En pos ty çierto seas,

Pues tu costunbre han

De lysonjar byen creas.

Por lysonjar te quien

Te dixere de otry mal,

A otros atan byen

Dira de ty al.

El omen lysonjero

Miente a cada uno,

Ca amor verdadera

Non ha con ninguno.

Anda joyas faziendo

De mal deste a este,

Mal de uno dezyendo

Fara al otro presente.

Tal omen nunca acojas

Jamas en tu conpañia,

Que con las sus lysonjas

A los omens engañan.

Quien una hermandat

Aprenderla quisyera,

E una amistad,

Usar sabor oviera,

Syempre mientes deuia

Meter en las tyseras;

Dellas aprenderian

Muchas buenas maneras.

Et quando meto mientes

Cosas tan derechas,

Non fallo entre las gentes

Como son las tyseras.

Paren al que las parten

Et non por se vengar,

Synon con grant talante

Que ha de se juntar.

Como en rio quedo

El que metyo entrellas

Dentro el su dedo,

Metio entre dos muelas.

Quien mal trahe dellas

El mesmo ge lo busca,

Que de grado dellas

Non lo buscaran nunca.

Desque de entre ellas sal

Tanto son pagadas;

Que nunca fazen mal

En quanto son juntadas.

Yaze boca con boca

E manos sobre manos;

Tan semejados nunca

Yo vy dos hermanos.

Tan grande amor ovieron

Leal e verdadero,

Que amas se ouyeron

En un solo çintero.

Por amor de estar en uno

Syempre aman á dos;

Por fazer de dos uno

Fazen de uno dos.

Non ha mejor rriqueza

Que buena hermandat,

Nin tan mala pobreza

Commo la soledat.

La soledat aduce

Mal pensamiento fuerte;

Por ende el sabio dize,

Conpañia o muerte;

Porque tal podria

Ser la soledat,

Que mas que ella valdria

Esta es la verdat.

Mal es la soledat;

Mas peor es conpaña

De omen syn verdat,

Que a omen engaña.

Peor conpañia destas

Es omen torpe pesado;

Querria traer a cuestas

Albarda mal de su grado.

Mueuo pleytesia

Por tal que me dexase;

Digol que non querria,

Que por mi se estoruasse.

Yd uos en ora buena

A ubrar vuestra fazyenda,

Quiça que pro alguna

Vos verna a la tienda.

El diz, por bien non tenga

Dios que solo fynquedes,

Fasta que alguno venga

Otro con quien fabledes.

El cuyda que plazer

Me faze su conpaña,

E yo querria mas yazer

Solo en la montaña;

Yazer en la montaña

A peligro de syerpes,

Que non entre conpañas

De omens pesados torpes.

El cuydaua que yrse

Seria demesurado,

E yon temo caerse

Con nusco el sobrado.

Ca de los sus enojos

Esto ya tan cargado,

Que, fasta en mis ojos,

Son mas que el pesado.

El medio mal seria

Sy el callar quisyera;

Yon del cuenta faria

Como sy un poste fuese.

Non dexaria nunca

Lo que me plaze aydar,

Mas el razones busca

Para nunca quedar.

No le cumple dezyr juntas

Quantas vanidades cuyda,

Mas el fare preguntas

Nesçias aquel rrecuyda;

E querria ser muerto

Ante que le rresponder,

E querria ser sordo

Antes que lo entender.

Cierto es par de muerte

La soledat; mas tal

Conpañia como esta,

Estar solo mas val.

Sy mal es estar solo,

Peor es tal conpañia;

E bien cumplido dolo

Fallar quien lo podria.

Non ha del todo cosa

Mala nin toda una,

Mas que sayan fermosura

Que en fea agena.

Omen non cobdiciaua

Synon lo que tyene,

E luego lo despreçia

Desque a mano le vyene.

Ssuma de la rrazon

Non ha en el mundo cosa,

Que non l’ aya ssazon,

Quier fea o fermosa.

Peor lo que es omens

Todos en general,

Lo que de las costunbres

Es lo comunal.

Mal es mucho fablar

Mas peor es ser mudo;

Ca non fue por callar

La lengua, segunt cuydo.

Pero la mejoria

Del callar non podemos

Negar de todavia;

Convien que la tomemos.

Por que la myatad de

Quando oyamos fablemos,

Una lenga (sic) por ende

E dos orejas auemos.

Que en mucho que en fablar

Syn grant sabiduria,

Cierto en se callar

Mejor baratarya.

El sabio que loar

El callar byen querria

E el fablar afear,

Esta razon dezya:

Ssi fuese el fablar

De plata figurado,

Seria el callar

De oro debuxado.

De byenes del callar

La pas una de ciento,

De males de fablar

El mejor es el riebto.

E dize mas, a buelta

De mucha mejoria,

E el callar syn esta

Sobre el fablar auia;

Sus orejas faryan

Pro solamente a el,

De su lengua auyan

Pro los otros, e non el.

Contesce al que escuchan,

Aun quando yo fablo,

Del byen se aprouechan

E rreutamelo malo.

El sabio, por aquesta

Razon, callar querria,

Por que su fabla presta

Solo al que lo oya;

Et querria castigarse

En otro el callando,

Mas que castigarse

Otro, en el fablando.

Las bestias han afan

E mal por nō fablar;

E los omēs lo han

Los mas por nō callar.

El callar tiempo nō pierde,

E pierdelo ē fablar;

Por ende omē nō puede

Perder por el callar.

El calla razon,

Que le cūpliera fablar;

Nō mēgua sazon

Que perdio por callar.

Mas quien fabla rrazon

Que deueria callar,

Perdio ya la sazon

Que nō podra cobrar.

Lo que oy se callare

Puedese cras fablar,

E lo que oy se fablare,

Nō se puede callar.

Lo dicho dicho es,

Lo que dicho nō es

Dezyr lo has despues,

Si oy nō, sera cras.

De fabla, que podemos

Nīgunt mal afear,

Es la que despendemos

En loar el callar.

Por que sepamos

Que nō ha mal syn byen,

E byen que mal digamos;

A par dello convyen.

Pues que tanto denostado

El fablar ya abemos,

Semejante guisado

De oy mas que lo leemos.

E pues tanto avemos

Loado el callar,

Sus males cōtaremos,

Loando el fablar.

Con el fablar dezymos

Mucho bien del callar,

Callando nō podemos

Dezyr byen del fablar.

Por ende es derecho

Que sus byenes contemos,

Ca byenes ha de fecho,

Por que nō lo denostemos.

Porque todo omē vea,

Que en el mundo cosa

Non ha del todo fea,

Nī del todo fermosa.

Et el callar jamas

Del todo nō leemos,

Sy nō fablemos, mas

Que vestias nō valemos.

Sy los sabios callaran,

El saber se perderya;

Sy ellos nō fablaran,

Disçiplo no ovyeran.

Del fablar escryvamos,

Por ser el muy noble,

Aun que pocos fallamos

Que lo sepan comō cūple.

Mas el que sabe byen

Fablar, nō ha tal cosa,

Que diz lo que cōvyen,

E lo demas es cosa.

Por bien fablar, hōrrado

Era en toda plaça;

Por el sera nōbrado,

E ganara andança.

Por razonarse bien

Sera omē amado;

E sy salario tyen,

Los omēs a mandado.

Cosa que menos cuesta

E que tanto pro tenga,

Nō como rrespuesta

Cōtra o lengua

Nō han tan fuerte gigante

Como la luengua (sic) tyerra,

Aunque asy qbrante

A la saña la pierna.

Ablanda la palabra

Buena la dura cosa,

A la voluntad agra

Far dulçe e sabrosa

Sy termyno obyese

El fablar mesurado,

Que dezyr nō podiese,

Sy nō lo guysado?

En el mundo nō avria

Cosa tan presçiada,

La su grant mejoria

Nō podrya ser conplida.

Mas porque ha poder

De mal se rrazonar,

Por eso el su perder

Es mas que el ganar.

Que los torpes, mill tantos

Son los que los entendidos,

E nō saben en qntos

Peligros son caydos.

Por el fablar por ēde

Es el callar loado,

Mas por el q entyēde

Mucho es denostado.

Ca el q aperçebyr

Se sabe en fablar,

Sus byenes escreuir

En tablas nō podran.

El fablar es clareza,

E el callar escureza;

E el fablar es frāqueza,

Et el callar escuseza.

Et el fablar ligereza,

E el callar pereza;

Et el fablar es franqueza,

El callar pobreza.

Et el callar torpedat,

El fablar saber;

El callar ceguedat,

E el fablar vista aver.

Cuerpo es de callar,

E el saber su alma;

Omē es fablar

Et el callar su cama.

El callar es tardada,

E el fablar ayna;

El saber es espada,

Et el callar su vayna.

Talega es el callar,

Et algo que yaze

En ella es el fablar,

E prouecho nō faze.

En quanto encerrado

En ella estudiere,

Non sera mas hōrrado

Por ello cuyo fuere.

El callar es nīguno

Que nō meresçe nōbre,

E el fablar es algo

Et por el es omē hōbre.

Figura es el fablar

Al callar, e asy

Nō sabe el callar

De otro, nī de ssy.

El fablar sabe byen

El callar razonar,

Que mal guisado tyen

De lo gualardonar.

Tal es en toda costūbre,

Sy byen parares miētes,

Fallaras en todo onbre

Que loes et que denuestes.

Segunt que el rayz tyen,

El arbon asy cresçe;

Qual es el omē e quien,

En sus obras paresçe.

Qual talante ovyere

Tal rrostro mostrara,

E como sesudo fuere

Tal palabra oyra.

Syn tacha son falladas

Dos costūbres cruētas,

A mas son ygualadas

Que nō han cōprimentas.

La una es el saber,

E la otra es el bien fazer;

Qualquier destas aver

Es cōplido plazer.

De todo quanto fase

El ome se arrepiente,

Con lo que oy le plase

Cras toma mal talāte.

El plaçer de la sciencia

Es complido plaçer,

Obra sin rependencia

Es la del bien facer.

Quanto mas aprendio

Tanto mas plaçer tiene,

Nunca se arrepintio

Ome de plaçer bien.

Ome que cuerdo fuere,

Siempre se resçelara;

Del gran bien que oviere

Mucho nol fincara.

Ca el grant bien se puede

Perder por culpa de hombre,

E el saber nol defiende

De al fī non [de] ser pobre.

Ca el bien que dello

Fisiere, le fincara,

E para siempre aquello

Guardado estara.

E fucia non ponga

Jamas en su algo,

Por mucho que lo tenga

Bien parado e largo.

Por rason que en el mundo

Han las cosas zozobras,

Fase mucho amenudo

Contrarias cosas de otras.

Cambiase como el mar

De abrego á cierzo,

Non puede ome tomar

En cosa del esfuerzo.

Non deve fiar sol

Un punto de su obra,

Veses lo pon al sol

E veses a la sombra.

Todavia, por cuanto

La rueda se trastorna

El su bien, el zapato

Fas igual de corona.

De la sierra al val,

De la nube al abismo,

Segunt lo pone val

Como letra de guarismo.

Sol claro e plasentero

Las nubes façen escuro;

De un dia entero

Non es ome seguro.

El ome mas non bal,

Nin monta su persona

De bien e asi de al,

Como la espera trastorna.

El ome que abiltado

Es en su descendida,

Asi mesmo honrrado

Es en la subida.

Por eso amenudo

El ome entendido

A los cambios del mundo

Es a bien apercebido.

Non temer apellido

Los omes apercebidos,

Mas val un apercebido

Que muchos anchalidos.

Ome cuerdo non puede

Cuando entronpezare

Otre que tome alegria

De su pesar pues ome.

Seguro non ha que tal

A el non acaesca,

Nin se alegre del mal

Que a otre se acontesce.

De haber alegria

Sin pesar nunca cuide,

Como sin noche dia

Jamas haber non puede.

La merced de Dios sola

Es la fusia cierta,

Otra ninguna dola

En el mundo que non mienta.

De lo que a Dios plase

Nos pesar non tomemos,

E bien es cuanto face

E nos nol lo entendemos.

Al ome mas le dio

E de mejor mercado,

De lo que entendio

Que le era mas forzado.

De lo que mas aprovecha,

De aquello mas habemos,

Pan e del agua mucha

E del ayre tenemos.

Todo ome de verdat

E bueno estuptor

De contar la bondat

De su buen servidor.

Cuando serviese por prescio

O por buen gualardon,

Mayormente servicio

Que lo serviendo merescio.

Por ende un servicial

De que mucho me prescio,

Quiero tanto es leal

Contar el su bollicio.

Ca debdor so forzado

Del gran bien conoscer,

Que me han adelantado

Sin gelo merescer.

Non podria nombrar,

Nin sabria en un año

Su servicio contar,

Cual es cuan estraño.

Sirve boca callando,

Sin faser grandes nuevas,

Servicio muy granado

Es sin ningunas bielmas.

Cosa maravillosa

E milagro muy fiero,

Sin le decir yo cosa

Fase cuanto quiero.

Con el ser yo mudo,

Non me podria noscir,

Ca fas quanto quiero,

Sin gelo yo desir.

Non desir e faser,

Es servicio loado,

Con que tome plaser

Todo ome granado.

Ca en quanto ome ē desir,

Tanto ha mengua

Del faser, e fallescer

La mano por la lengua.

Leyendo e pensando

Siempre en mi servicio,

Non gelo yo nombrādo

Fase quanto cobdicio.

Esta cosa mas ayna

Que del ninguna nasce,

Nin quier capa nin saña,

Nin zapato que calze.

Tal qual salio

Del vientre de su madre,

Tal anda en mi servicio,

En todo lo que el mande.

E ningunt gualardon

Non quiere por su trabajo,

Mas quiere servicio en don,

Es sin ningunt trabajo.

Non quier manjar comer,

Sy non la boca

Un poquillo mojar

En gota de agua poca.

E luego que la gosta,

Semejal que tien carga,

E esparse la gota

Jamas della non traga.

Non ha ojos, nin ve

Cuanto en corazon tengo,

E sin orejas lo oye,

E tal lo fase luego.

Callo yo e el calla,

E amos non fablamos;

En callando non fabla,

Lo que amos buscamos.

Non quier ningun embargo

De comer rescebir,

De su afan es largo

Para buenos servir.

Si me plase o pesa,

Si fea o fermosa,

Tal mesma la fase,

Qual yo pienso la cosa.

Vesino de Castilla

Por la su entencion,

Sabrá el de Sevilla

En la su cobdicion.

Las igentes han acordado

Despagarse del non,

Mas de cosa tan pagado

Non so yo como del non.

Del dia que preguntado

Ove a mi señora, si non

Habia otro amado,

Sy non yo, dije que non.

E syn fuego ome vida

Un punto non habria,

E sin fierro guarida

Jamas non fallaria.

Mil tanto mas de fierro

Que de oro fallamos,

Por que salvos de yerro

Unos de otros seamos.

Del mundo mal desimos,

E en el otro mal

Non han, si non nos mismos

Nin vestijelos siñal.

El mundo non tien ojo,

Nin entiende faser.

A un ome enojo

E a otro plaser.

Rason a cada uno

Segunt la su fasienda,

El non ha con ninguno

Amistad contienda.

Nin se paga, nin se ensaña,

Nin ama, nin desama,

Nin ha ninguna maña,

Nin responde, nin llama.

El es uno todavia

Cuanto es denostado,

A tal como el dia

Que es mucho loado.

El vicio razonable

Vien e tenlo por amigo,

La cuita lo baldona

E tienlo por enemigo.

Non se fallan ningunt

Canbio los sabidores,

Los canbios son segunt

Los sus rrecebidores.

La espera del cielo

Nos fase que nos mesce,

Mas amor nin celo

De cosa non le cresce.

So un cielo todavia

Encerrados yacemos,

E fasemos noche é dia

E nos a el non sabemos.

A esta lueñe tierra

Nunca posimos nombre,

Si verdat es o mentira,

Della mas non sabe ome.

E ningunt sabidor

Non le sopo u ombre cierto,

Sy non que obrador

Es de su cimiento.

De Dios vida al Rey,

Nuestro mantenedor,

Que mantiene la ley

E es defendedor.

Gentes de su tierra

Todas a su servicio

Traiga, e aparte guerra

Della, mal e bollicio.

E la mercet que el noble

Su padre prometio,

La terrna como cumple

Al Santob el Judio.

Aqui acaba el Rab Don Santob.

Dios sea loado.

In all three of the inedited poems contained in this Appendix, and especially in that of the Rabbi Santob, are mistakes and false readings, that have arisen directly from the imperfections of the original manuscripts. Many of them are obvious, and could have been corrected easily; but it has not seemed to me that a foreigner should venture into a field so peculiarly national. I have confined myself, therefore, to such a punctuation of each poem as would make it more readily intelligible,—leaving all further emendations, and all conjectural criticism and illustration, to the native scholars of Spain. To them, and to the loyal patriotism for which they have always been distinguished, I earnestly commend the agreeable duty of editing, not only what is here published for the first time, but the “Rhymed Chronicle of Fernan Gonzalez,” the “Rimado de Palacio” of the great Chancellor Ayala, the “Aviso para Cuerdos” of Diego Lopez de Haro, the works of Juan Alvarez Gato, and other similar monuments of their early literature, of which I have already spoken, but which, existing sometimes, like the “Poema de José,” only in a single manuscript, and rarely in more than two or three, may easily be lost for ever by any one of the many accidents that constantly endanger the existence of all such literary treasures.

INDEX.

INDEX.

The Roman numerals refer to the volume, and the Arabic figures to the page; d. means died; f., flourished; n., notes; and c., for circa, signifies that the year indicated is uncertain.

A.

Aarsens de Somerdyck, Travels, II. 345.

Abarbanel, by the Inca Garcilasso, III. 156.

Abderrahman of Córdova, III. 375.

Abril, Simon, translations, II. 30.

Academia de Barcelona, III. 224.

Academia de Buen Gusto, III. 251.

Academia de la Lengua Española, founded, III. 216.

Its Dictionary, 217.

Abridgment of it, 220.

Its orthography, 220.

Its Grammar, 221.

Its other labors, 223, III. 418.

Academia de los Nocturnes, II. 283 and n.

Academia Real de la Historia, I. 47, 49, n., III. 224.

Academias, after the Italian fashion, III. 223.

Academias of Polo, III. 106, n.

Acosta, Christóval de, f. 1578. His works, III. 175.

Actors, kinds of, II. 332, n.

Improvisated sometimes, 253, n.

Condition and numbers, 433.

The more distinguished, 434, III. 340.

Paid daily, II. 436, n.

Actresses, perform men’s parts, II. 435, n.

Acuña, Fernando de, d. 1580.

Life and works, I. 497-500.

On Universal Empire, 459, n.

Blank verse of, 481, n.

Poems, with Silvestre’s, 506.

Addison, J., dedication of his Works, II. 99.

Adenés, Ogier le Danois, I. 219.

Cleomades, 245, n.

Adorno, Espinel, f. 1620. Premio de la Constancia, III. 51.

Adrien, Cardinal, Grand Inquisitor and Pope, I. 464.

Advenant, Maria L’, actress, III. 340.

Agreda y Vargas, Diego de, f. 1620. Tales, III. 102.

Aguas Santas, Nuestra Señora de, by Diaz, II. 474.

Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio of Gracian, III. 192.

Aguiar, Diego de, f. 1621. Tercetos en Latin Congruo, III. 385, n.

Aguilar, Alonzo de, in Hita’s Guerras Civiles, III. 81.

In Mendoza, I. 524.

Aguilar, Gaspar de, dramatist, f. 1623, II. 280-283.

Friend of Lope, II. 128.

Aguilar, Juan Bautista, poet, f. 1680, II. 550, n.

Agustin, Antonio, f. 1560. Letters, III. 129.

Aimeric de Bellinoi, Troubadour, I. 44, n.

Aimeric de Peguilan, Troubadour, I. 311.

Alarcon, Ruiz de, d. 1639. Dramas, II. 319-323.

Alarcos, Count, ballad on, I. 127.

Dramas on, 127, n.

Albigenses, war of, I. 312 and n.

Poem on, 313 and n.

Albornoz, Carillo de, f. 1364, I. 348.

Alcahuetas, what, I. 80, n.

Alcalá, University of, I. 473.

Alcalá, Gerónymo de. See Yañez.

Alcalá y Herrera, Alonso de, f. 1641. Tales, III. 109 and n.

Alcalde de Zalamea, by Calderon, II. 212, n., 367, n., 389, n.

Alcazar, Baltazar de, d. 1606. Poet, II. 533 and n.

Alciatus, Emblemata, III. 22.

Aldana, Cosmé de, f. 1586, II. 487, 488, n.

Aldana, Francisco de, d. 1590. Didactic poetry, III. 19.

Aldeanos Críticos of Isla, III. 266, n.

Alderete, Pablo, edits part of Quevedo’s works, II. 260.

Aldi, patronized by Diego de Mendoza, I. 514.

Alegoría, La, of Boscan, I. 484.

Alegría Cómica of Castro, III. 316, n.

Aleman, Mateo, f. 1609, III. 59.

Letter to Cervantes, 59, n.

Guzman de Alfarache, 60.

Ortografía, 188, 220, 221, n.

San Antonio de Padua, 221, n.

Alexander the Great, Lorenzo Segura’s poem on, 156.

A favorite subject of verse, 58.

Alexandra of Lupercio Leon de Argensola, II. 33.

Alfarache. See Guzman de.

Alfonso, ó Fundacion de Portugal, III. 225.

Alfonso ii. of Aragon, d. 1196, I. 311.

Alfonso iii. of Aragon, d. 1291, I. 322.

Alfonso iv. of Aragon, d. 1336, I. 323.

Alfonso v. of Aragon, d. 1458, I. 329, 334, 350.

Alfonso vii. of Castile, Fueros de Avilés, III. 382.

Alfonso viii. of Castile, in Lope de Vega’s Jerusalem, II. 143 and 144, n.

Alfonso ix. of Castile, d. 1214. Connected with Provençal poets, I. 324.

Alfonso x. of Castile, el Sabio, or the Wise, d. 1284, I. 35.

Connected with the Troubadours, 35, n., 324.

Life of, 35-38.

Letter to Alonso Perez de Guzman, 36-38.

List of his works, 39, n.

His Cántigas, 39, 42.

His Querellas, 44.

His Tesoro, 44.

His translation of the Bible, 45.

His Ultramar, 45.

The Fuero Juzgo, 47.

Espejo, 49.

Fuero Real, 49.

Siete Partidas, 49.

Opúsculos Legales, 49, n.

The Chrónica General, 158.

Ballad on, III. 28.

Arabic schools of, 379.

Influence on the Spanish language, 387.

Establishes the Castilian, I. 551 and n.

Alfonso xi. of Castile, d. 1350. His Monteria, I. 76.

Poetical chronicle of his reign, 77, 78, n.

Enforces the Partidas, 50.

Alfonso el Sabio, or the Wise. See Alfonso x.

Algiers, Cervantes’s captivity in, II. 57.

Account of, by Haedo, 58, 59, n.

Slavery in, influences Spanish fiction, III. 39, 79;

and drama, II. 419, n.

Aliaga, Luis de, supposed to be Avellaneda, II. 110.

Alivios de Cassandra of Castillo Solorzano, III. 108.

Almela, Diego de, f. 1472. Valerio de las Historias, I. 418.

Alonso, Agustin, f. 1585, II. 477.

Alonso, Mozo de Muchos Amos, of Yañez y Rivera, III. 71.

Alphonsus, Petrus, f. 1106, I. 70, n.

Alromi, who, III. 384.

Altamira, Pedro de, dramatist, II. 5.

Altamira, Viscount, I. 435, 436.

Alva, Antonio, Duke of, patron of Lope de Vega, II. 124, 125 and n.

Alva, Fernando, Duke of, and the Inquisition, I. 467.

Taught by Boscan, 480.

Not in Lope’s Arcadia, II. 124.

Causes Luis de Granada’s works to be printed, III. 178, n.

Alvares, Joam, Chronicle, II. 377.

Alvarez y Baena. See Baena.

Alvaro de Luna. See Luna.

Alvarus Cordubensis, III. 378.

Amadis de Gaula, I. 221.

Portuguese original lost, 223.

Spanish by Montalvo, 223.

Its great success, 224.

Its character, 225-230.

The romances of the family of Amadis, 231-234.

Admired by Tasso, 230, n.;

by Diego de Mendoza, 514.

Amadis de Gaula, a play of Vicente, II. 4.

Amadis of Greece, romance of chivalry, I. 233.

Amador de los Rios, translation of Sismondi on Spanish Literature, I. 34, n.

His Judios de España, 88, n.

Amante Generoso of Cervantes, II. 86.

Amantes de Teruel of Montalvan, II. 301-304;

of Tirso de Molina, 302, n.;

of Artieda, ib.

See Salas.

Amar despues de la Muerte of Calderon, II. 360, 364.

Amar y Borbon, Maria, III. 430.

Amarilis of Figueroa, III. 51.

Amat, Felix Torres de, Autores Catalanes, I. 310, n.

Amaya, Juan Francisco de, on Góngora, II. 526.

America, early accounts of, I. 556.

Poems on, II. 467.

American Indian words in Spanish, I. 548.

Amescua. See Mira de Mescua.

Amigo Amante y Leal of Calderon, II. 360.

Amirola, Eugenio de Llaguno, editor of different books, I. 197, n., 395, 401, n., III. 398.

Amor Enamorado of Villalpando, II. 483.

Amphryso, poetical name of Antonio, Duke of Alva, II. 128, n.

Amphytrion of Plautus, by Villalobos, I. 533.

Anacreon by Quevedo, II. 275, n.

Imitated by Villegas, II. 543.

Anaxarete of Gallegos, II. 541, n.

Anaxartes, romance of chivalry, I. 233.

Ancient manners and modern confounded, I. 56.

Ancient measures imitated in Spanish, II. 543.

Andrada, Pedro Fern. de, f. 1599. Libro de la Gineta, III. 188.

Andres, Giovanni, on the origin of modern poetry, III. 374.

On Cultismo, 428.

Andromeda, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 155.

Anélier, Guillaume, Troubadour, I. 314.

Angélica, Hermosura de, of Lope de Vega, II. 130, 137-139.

Angélica. See Lagrimas de Angélica.

Anonymous poetry of the earliest age, I. 27.

Añorbe, Thomas de, f. 1740. Dramas, III. 316 and n.

Antenor, El, of Montengon, III. 283, n.

Antes que todo es mi Dama of Calderon, II. 360, 382.

Antillon, Isidro, on the Amantes of Teruel, II. 485, n.

Antonio, Nicolas, d. 1684. Notice of, and of his works, I. 239.

Historias Fabulosas, III. 153, n.

Letters, 136.

Antonio de Padua, San, by Aleman, III. 221, n.

Antruejo of Enzina, I. 279 and n.

Anzarena, Christóval, his Don Quixote, III. 421.

Anzuelo de Fenisa, El, of Lope de Vega, II. 190.

Apollonius, Book of, 13th cent., I. 24.

Tale of, by Timoneda, III. 97, n.

Apolo y Clymene of Calderon, II. 389.

Apontes, edition of Calderon’s Comedias, II. 343.

Aposentos, what, II. 438, 439, n., III. 315.

Arabic characters used in Spanish manuscripts, I. 95 and n., III. 201, n.

Arabic language, prevalence of, in Spain, III. 377-379.

Infusion into the modern Spanish, 380.

Arabs, invasion of Spain, III. 373:

Glory of their empire, 374.

Influence on modern cultivation, 374.

On Christian Spanish culture, 375.

Christians live among them, 376 and n.

Muçarabes, 377 and n.

Aragon, History of, by Zurita, III. 139;

by Argensola, 140, n.

Aragones, Juan, anecdotes by, III. 97, n.

Aranda, Luis de, Commentary on Manrique, I. 409.

Aranda, patronage of the drama, III. 320, n.

Aranjuez, revolution begins at, III. 345.

Araucana of Ercilla, II. 461.

Continued by Osorio, 464.

Translations from, by Hayley, 464, n.

Arauco Domado of Oña, II. 466.

Arauco Domado of Lope de Vega, I. 510, n., II. 207, n., 466, n.

Arcadia, Bachiller del, pseudonyme of Diego de Mendoza, I. 519, n.

Arcadia, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 125, III. 49.

Eclogue in, II. 168.

Tales in, III. 117.

Arcadia, La, of Sannazaro, II. 126.

Archivos de las Indias at Seville, II. 79.

Arellano, Luis de, f. 1634. Avisos para la Muerte, II. 341, n., III. 32.

Argamasilla in La Mancha, II. 80.

Argensolas, brothers, II. 536-539.

Their satires, III. 5.

Elegies, 9.

Epigrams, 15.

Didactic poetry, 19.

Argensola, Bartolomé Leonardo, d. 1631, II. 537-539.

Resists the old drama, 328.

His letters, III. 136.

His Anales de Aragon, 140, n.

Conquista de las Malucas, 155.

Argensola, Lupercio Leonardo, d. 1613, II. 536-539.

His three dramas, 32-34.

Resists the old drama, 330.

Argentina, La, of Centenera, II. 469.

Argote de Molina. See Molina.

Arguijo, Juan de, f. 1605, II. 534.

Poetical Epistles, III. 6.

Ariosto, his Negromante, II. 21.

See Urrea; Bolea; Villena, Garrido de; Alonso, Agustin.

Aristophanes, II. 12, n., 92, n.

Aristotle’s Poetica, translated by the Prince of Viana, III. 168, n.

Armada, Lope de Vega serves in the, II. 129, 130.

Góngora’s Ode to, 523.

Armas de la Hermosura, play of Calderon, II. 361, n., 390.

Arnalto y Lucenda, I. 426, n.

Arnaud Plagnés, Troubadour, I. 314.

Arredondo, Gonzalo de, f. 1522, II. 457, n.

Arrieta, Espíritu de Cervantes, II. 88, n.

Arroyal, Leon de, f. 1784. Odas, III. 283, n.

Arteaga, Stefano, Teatro Musicale, II. 426, n., III. 429.

Arteaga. See Paravicino.

Arte Cisoria of Villena, I. 360.

Arte de la Pintura of Céspedes, III. 21.

Arte Nueva de hacer Comedias of Lope de Vega, II. 166.

Arte Poética of Rengifo, III. 236.

Arte de Trobar of Villena, I. 361.

Artemidoro, pseudonyme. See Artieda.

Artes, poet, I. 442, n.

Artes y Muñoz, Rodrigo, poet, f. 1680, II. 550, n.

Arthur and his Round Table, I. 219.

Artieda, Andres Rey de, opposes the old drama, II. 328.

His Amantes, 302, n.

His didactic poetry, III. 19.

See Rey.

Artiga, Fran. Joseph, f. 1725. Eloquencia Española, III. 237.

Ascetic writers, III. 176.

Aschbach, Jos., I. 170, n.

Asneida of Aldana, II. 487.

Asonante, what, I. 112.

Character of, 113.

Great popularity, 115.

English, 114, n.

Astarloa, Apologia, III. 357, n.

Astorga, Marquis of, I. 435.

Astrólogo Fingido of Calderon, II. 342, 382.

Astronomical Tables of Alfonso the Wise, I. 39, n.

Astry, Sir J., translation of Faxardo, III. 185, n.

Atalanta y Hipomenes of Moncayo, II. 483 and n.

Athaulpho of Montiano, III. 317.

Athenæum, Boston, III. 266, n.

Atila Furioso of Virues, II. 29.

Audiences of the theatre in the seventeenth century, II. 437-440.

In the eighteenth, III. 325, 341.

Aula de Dios of Dicastillo, III. 23.

Aulnoy, Mad. la Comtesse de, Travels in Spain, II. 352, n., 437, n.

Aurelia of Timoneda, II. 20.

Aurelio y Isabela of Flores, III. 77.

Aurora en Copacabana of Calderon, II. 358, 359.

Auroras de Diana of Castro y Anaya, III. 107.

Austriada of Rufo, II. 493, 494, n.

Authors, relations of, to the Inquisition, I. 451, 461, 462, n., 466, 469.

Auto, what, I. 275, n., II. 227, n.

Autor, what, II. 431.

Ridiculed in plays, 431, n.

Autora, what, II. 431, n.

Autos da Fé, first, I. 448.

Of Protestants, 465.

Popular, III. 205, 206.

Refused as a compliment by Philip v., 246.

Autos of his time, 248.

Last, 257.

Autos Sacramentales, what, II. 226.

Antiquity and popularity, 227.

Lope de Vega’s, 229-234.

Manuscript collection of, 230 and n.

Of Montalvan, 305.

Of Tirso de Molina, 314.

Of Valdivielso, 317.

Of Calderon, 344-351.

His last work, 339.

Of Roxas, 408, n.

Prohibited, but not entirely suppressed, II. 351, III. 324.

See Farsas del Sacramento.

Avellaneda, Alonso Fernando de, pseudonyme, attack on Cervantes, II. 80, n.

His Second Part of Don Quixote, 109-113.

Cervantes’s reply to, 111.

Translated by Le Sage, III. 269.

See Aliaga; Blanco de Paz; Sage, Le.

Avellaneda, Thomas de, f. 1665, defends the drama, II. 394, n.

Avila, a poet, I. 442, n.

Avila, Francisco de, play on Don Quixote, III. 421.

Avila, Gaspar de, his Governador Prudente, I. 510, n., II. 466, n.

Avila, Juan de, d. 1569. Persecuted, I. 466.

His Cartas Espirituales, 540 and n., III. 129.

Avila y Heredia, Andres de, defends the theatre, II. 352, n.

Avila y Zuñiga, Luis de, f. 1555. Guerra de Alemaña, III. 142, n.

Avilés, Fueros de, I. 11, 47, n., III. 382, 383 and n.

Avisos para la Muerte, por Luis de Arellano, II. 341, n., III. 32.

Ayala, Iñigo Lopez de, f. 1775.

Life of Mendoza, I. 509, n.

His Numancia, III. 321.

Ayala, Pedro Lopez de, d. 1407.

His Rimado de Palacio, I. 100.

His Chronicles, 177-183.

Other works, 179.

Character, 180.

Reads Amadis, 221.

Knows Italian literature, 351.

Ayllon, a poet, I. 442, n.

Ayllon, Diego Ximenez, f. 1579.

Poem on the Cid, II. 457.

Azara, Joseph Nicolas, Edition of Garcilasso, I. 494, n.

Azémar le Noir, Troubadour, I. 313.

Azero de Madrid, El, of Lope de Vega, II. 181-184.

Azevedo, Alonso de, f. 1615, II. 474.

Azote de su Patria, by Moreto, II. 419, n.

B.

Bacallar y Sanna, Marques de San Phelipe. See Phelipe.

Bachiller de Salamanca, III. 268, n.

Badajoz, Garci Sanchez de, I. 436, 442, n.

Baena, Jos. Ant. Alvarez y, his Hijos de Madrid, I. 205, n.

Baena, Juan Alfonso de, f. 1454.

Poet, I. 394.

His Cancionero, 428.

Balboa, the discoverer, I. 211.

Balbuena, Bernardo de, d. 1627.

His Siglo de Oro, III. 49.

Gains a prize in Mexico, II. 151, n.

His Bernardo, 479.

Lyric poetry, 544.

Eclogues. III. 12.

Baldovinos of Cancer, II. 487.

Ballads, English and Scotch, I. 153.

Ballads, national, origin of, I. 108.

Form of, 111.

Measure of, 111, n.

Many taken from old chronicles, 113, n.

Their name Romances, 115.

Early notices of, 115-118.

Lope de Vega’s opinion of their measure, 115, n.

Long unwritten, 119.

Some in the oldest Cancioneros Generales, 120-125, 438.

Multitudes in the Romanceros, 125-129.

Connection with the old Chronicles, 127.

Not to be arranged by the dates of their composition, 129.

Four classes of:--

i. Ballads of Chivalry, 131.

Charlemagne, 132.

The Paladins, 132.

Their great popularity, 134.

ii. Historical Ballads, important, 134.

Bernardo del Carpio, 135.

Fernan Gonzalez, 138.

Infantes de Lara, 139.

The Cid, 140.

iii. Ballads on Moorish subjects, 146.

Excess of, 147 and n.

iv. Ballads on Manners, 148-152.

General character of Spanish ballads, 153.

Their nationality, 154.

Much cultivated, III. 25.

By Sepulveda, 26.

Fuentes, 27.

Timoneda, 29.

Padilla, 30.

Cueva, 31.

Hita, 31.

Hidalgo, 32.

Valdivielso, 32.

Lope de Vega, II. 127, n., 129, n., 150, n., 225, 247, III. 32-36.

Arellano, 32.

Roca y Serna, Esquilache, Mendoza, Quevedo, 33.

Silvestre, Montemayor, Espinel, Castillejo, Maldonado, Góngora, Arteaga, Pantaleon, Villamediana, Coronel, 35.

Cervantes, II. 89, n., III. 36.

Ferreira, Rebolledo, Solís, Alarcon, La Chica, 36.

Great number of ballads and their great popularity, 35-37.

Ballads by Jovellanos, 299.

By Moratin, 307.

Collections of, 388-396.

A good collection still wanted, 396.

Ballads used by Lope de Vega, II. 193, n., 206, n., 233 and n., 235, n., 247, 248 and n.

By Guillen de Castro, 292, 293.

By Valdivielso, 318.

Parodied on the stage, 442, 443, 487, n.

Ballad measure used in the old drama, I. 115.

Ballads used by Lope de Vega in his plays, II. 247, 248.

By Montalvan, 306, n.

Ballads connected with the old chronicles, I. 137, III. 26.

Their loyal spirit, I. 145.

Baltasar, Prince, II. 383, n., 395, n.

Baltasara, Francisca, actress and hermit, II. 435.

Balvas, Antonio, poet, d. 1629, II. 534.

Eclogues, III. 13.

Bamba, play on, by Lope de Vega, II. 206.

Banda. See Vanda.

Bandoleros, what, I. 336.

Bandos, what, I. 200.

Bank of Exchange, first, I. 349.

Baños de Argel of Cervantes, II. 91, n.

Barahona de Soto, Luis. See Soto.

Barba, what, II. 240.

Barbadillo. See Salas Barbadillo.

Barbara, Santa, of Guillen de Castro, II. 286.

Barbosa, Arias, I. 473.

Barbosa, Diogo, his Bibliotheca Lusitana, III. 163, n.

Barcelo, Juan, poet, f. 1680, II. 550, n.

Barcelona, Provençal literature in, I. 308.

Taken from the Moors, 309, n.

Consistory of Poets at, 329.

Influence of, 349.

See Capmany.

Barcia, d. 1743. His Historiadores, I. 557, n.

Barnuevo, Pedro de Peralta, f. 1732.

His Lima Fundada, III. 226.

Barnuevo. See Mosquera.

Baron, El, of Moratin, III. 337.

Baretti, J., publishes Friar Gerund, III. 264.

Barreto, J. V., and Monteiro, J. G., edition of Gil Vicente, I. 284, n.

Barrientos, Lope de, d. 1469, I. 359, n., III. 400.

Barrios, Miguel de, f. 1690.

Duels in his plays, II. 393.

Dramas, 415.

Lyrical poetry, 549.

Eclogues, III. 13.

Basque language, III. 357.

Unchanged, I. 550.

See Biscayans.

Bastida, Mateo de la.

Collection of Plays, III. 426.

Batalla Naval of Cervantes, II. 90, n.

Bautismo del Príncipe de Marruecos of Lope de Vega, II. 223.

Bayer, Perez, editor of Antonio’s Bibliotheca Vetus, I. 239, III. 249.

Bayle, what, II. 447, n.

Entremesado, ib.

Beaumont and Fletcher, III. 65.

Belando, persecuted, III. 248.

Belardo, poetical name of Lope de Vega, II. 128, n.

Belerma, ballad on, I. 133, n.

Belianis of Greece, romance of chivalry, I. 241.

Belisa, anagram of Isabela, wife of Lope de Vega, II. 129, n.

Bello, Don Andres, on the Asonante, I. 112, n.

Belmonte, Luis, II. 323, 327.

Play on the Marquis of Cañete, 466, n.

In the Comedias Escogidas, III. 425.

Bembo, his Eclogues, III. 40.

Benamarin, African princes, I. 37, n.

Benavente, Luis Quiñones de, Loas, II. 442.

Benedictina, La, of Bravo, II. 472.

Benegasi y Luxan, J. J., f. 1743.

Poems, III. 227.

Berceo, Gonzalo de, f. 1220-1246.

Life and works, I. 28-32.

His metrical form, 29, n.;

and sweet versification, 30, n.

Bermudez, Gerónimo, f. 1589.

Dramas, II. 31, 34.

Bermudez de Castro, on Antonio Perez, III. 134, n.

Bernaldez, Andres, El Cura de los Palacios, f. 1513, I. 188.

Bernard de Rovenac, Troubadour, I. 315.

Bernardo del Carpio, ballads on, I. 135.

Often taken from the chronicles, 137.

Story in Crónica General, 163, n., 164-166.

Plays on, II. 206.

Poem of Balbuena, 479.

See Roncesvalles; Hazañas.

Berriozabal, Juan Manuel de, rifacimento of the Christiada, II. 474, n.

Bertuch, translation of Lope’s Gatomachia, II. 155.

Notice of, 269, n.

Bética, La, of Cueva, II. 497.

Bettinelli, Saverio, on Cultismo, III. 427, 430.

Beuve, Sainte, Critiques, II. 102, n.

Bible, translated into Castilian, by order of Alfonso the Wise, I. 39, n., 45.

In Provençal, 322.

In Catalan, 345, n.

In Arabic, III. 378, n.

Biblioteca. See Antonio; Barbosa; Castro; Fuster; Rodriguez; Ximeno.

Bidpai, I. 70, n.

Biedermann, F. B. F., on Don Quixote, III. 419.

Bisbe y Vidal, pseudonyme, Tratado de Comedias, II. 217, n.

Biscay, not conquered by the Romans, III. 365.

Biscayan mountains, refuge of Spanish Christians from the Moors, I. 7.

Biscayans, their character and language, III. 356.

Blakeston, James, translation of Lazarillo, I. 512.

Blanche of Bourbon, Ayala’s account of, I. 181.

Ballads on, I. 182, n.

Blanco de Paz, supposed to be Avellaneda, II. 110.

Blank verse of Boscan, I. 480.

Notice of Spanish, 481, n.

Of Garcilasso, 490.

Blasco, Fran. Hernan., f. 1590, II. 470.

Glossary by, III. 217.

Blind Beggars, a Paso of Timoneda, II. 22.

Boba para los Otros of Lope de Vega, II. 189.

Bobo, in Autos, II. 230, n., 244.

Bobo, Un, hace Ciento of Solís, II. 420.

Boccaccio, known in Spain, I. 180.

Imitated, III. 97.

His Ameto, III. 40.

Bodas de Camacho of Melendez, III. 287, 321.

Boëthius, translated by Villegas, II. 542.

Boiardo. See Villena, Alonso Garrido de.

Bolea, Josef de, a dramatist, f. 1667, II. 396, n.

Bolea, Martin Abarca de, f. 1578, II. 477.

Bologna, University of, I. 348.

Books, forbidden, I. 460.

Seized, 461.

Effects of intolerance on, 469.

Booksellers, defraud dramatic authors, II. 180, n., 300, 343.

Borja y Esquilache, Prince of. See Esquilache.

Boscan, Juan, f. 1540.

Life, I. 477.

Intercourse with Navagiero, 478.

Scholarship, 480.

Works, 482-486.

Deserts the Catalan, 341.

Translation of Euripides, II. 30, n.

His Leandro, 481.

His Satire, III. 3.

Pastoral verse, 10.

Eclogues, 13.

Botelho de Cavalho, Miguel, f. 1622.

Pastor de Clenarda, III. 51.

Botelho Moraes. See Moraes.

Bouscal, Guérin de, imitates Spanish plays, II. 285, n.

Bouterwek, F., notice of, and of his History of Spanish Literature, I. 33, n.

On Don Quixote, II. 104, n.

Bowle, Letter to Dr. Percy, II. 107.

On the date of Cervantes’s death, 77, n.

Edition of Don Quixote, III. 418.

Bravo, Nicolas, f. 1604, II. 472.

Breeches, dialogue on, by Lope de Rueda, II. 17.

Style in time of Philip ii., 18, n.

Bremont, translates Guzman de Alfarache, III. 65, n.

Breton de los Herreros, Sátiras, II. 439, n.

Briant, Sir Francis, translation from Guevara, I. 545, n.

Bristol, Lord, imitates Calderon, II. 381.

Brocense, El. See Sanchez.

Bruce-Whyte, I. 325.

Buelna, Conde de. See Niño, Pero.

Bueltas, what, II. 547, n.

Buen Placer of Mendoza, III. 18, n.

Buen Retiro, auto of Calderon, II. 396, n.

Bululu, what, II. 332, n.

Bull-fights of Moratin, III. 273.

Bülow, Edward, Celestina in German, I. 272.

Bunsen, Chevalier, III. 358.

Burgos, Diego de, I. 410, n.

Burguillos, Tomé, II. 152, 154, 155, n. III. 6.

Burgundians in Provence, I. 307, 308.

Burlador de Sevilla, play of Tirso de Molina, II. 309.

Buscapié, II. 105, III. 404-415.

Bustamente, edition of Gomara, I. 558.

Bustos, Francisco Gonzalez de, Españoles en Chili, II. 466, n.

Butler’s Hudibras and Don Quixote, III. 421.

Butrago, Lord of, ballad on, I. 145.

Butron, Father, f. 1722.

Poem on Sta. Teresa, III. 227, n.

Byron, Lord, Don Juan, II. 310.

C.

Caballero del Febo, romance of chivalry, II. 107, n.

Caballero, Fermin, Pericia Geográfica de Cervantes, II. 87, n.

Caballero Perfeto of Salas Barbadillo, III. 100.

Caballero Puntual of Salas Barbadillo, III. 101.

Caballero Venturoso of Valladares, III. 88.

Caballero y Escudero, Libro del, by D. Juan Manuel, I. 65, n., 69.

Caceres, Francisco de, I. 418.

Caceres, Juan Bautista Felices de, f. 1629, II. 150, n.

Caceres, Pedro de, I. 506.

Cadahalso, José de, d. 1782.

Works, III. 275.

Dramas, 320.

Translation of Young, 320, n.

Influence on Melendez, 286.

Cadiz founded, III. 360.

Wealth and power, 362.

Caida de Luzbel of Melendez, III. 289;

of Valderrabano, 290, n.

Calatayud, Father, denounces the theatre, III. 342.

Calavera, I. 394.

Calaynos, ballad, I. 133.

Calderon de la Barca, Pedro de, d. 1681.

Birth, II. 333.

Name, 333, n.

Education, 334.

Festivals of San Isidro, 151, 153, 335.

A soldier, 336.

Patronized by Philip iv., 336.

Serves in Catalonia, 337.

King’s marriage, 337.

Religious brotherhood, 337.

Royal chaplain, 338.

His death, 339.

Monument, 339.

Personal appearance and character, 340.

His works, II. 340-343 and n.

Dramas falsely attributed to him, 342, III. 425.

List of his plays, II. 343.

His losses by piracy, 343.

His Religious Dramas, 351.

His Secular Dramas, 360.

Characteristics, 361, 388.

Carelessness of historical truth, 362.

Comedias de Capa y Espada, 381.

Sources of his stories, 390.

Immorality, 391.

Ideas of honor, 392.

Duels, 393.

Notices of passing events, and flattery, 395.

His style and versification, 396.

Long success, 398.

What he did for the theatre, 399.

Character of his dramas, 400-402.

Dramas sung, II. 424.

His Alcalde de Zalamea, 57, n.

Amar despues de la Muerte, II. 364, III. 83.

Autos flatter Charles ii., III. 209.

Médico de su Honra, I. 183, n.

Share in Pastor Fido, III. 50, n.

His school, II. 403-429.

Lost play on Don Quixote, III. 421.

Plays in Comedias Escogidas, 424, 425.

Calderon. See Apontes; Bristol, Lord; Corneille, T.; Dryden; Goethe; Gozzi; Hauteroche; Keil; Lara; Malsburg; Panzano; Rosenkranz; Schlegel, A. W.; Schmidt, F. W. v.; Tuke; Vera Tassis.

Calderon, María, actress, II. 434.

Calderon, Rodrigo, II. 486.

Calisto y Melibœa. See Celestina, La.

Calvo, Sebastian de Nieva, f. 1625, II. 474.

Calzada, Bern. María de, f. 1792. Gil Blas, III. 267, n.

Calzas. See Breeches.

Camargo, Hernando Dominguez, f. 1666.

His Loyola, II. 474.

Camargo, Ignacio, assails the drama, II. 352, n.

Camerino, Joseph, f. 1623.

Tales, III. 103.

Camino de Perfeccion of Sta. Teresa, III. 178.

Camoens, epigrammatic poetry, III. 15.

Ballad, 36, n.

Campeador, the Cid, I. 14.

Campillo de Bayle, Gines, f. 1689. Tales, III. 106, n.

Campomanes, Life of Feyjoó, III. 245, n.

Campo Raso, Joseph del. Continuation of San Phelipe, III. 232, n.

Campo-redondo, Calisto Fernandez, poem, III. 160, n.

Cancer y Velasco, d. 1654, dramas, II. 413.

Poems, 414, n., 548.

His Baldovinos, 487.

In Comedias Escogidas, III. 425.

Cancion, I. 120, n.

Cancionero, what, I. 120, n., 428.

Cancionero of Baena, I. 428.

Cancionero of Estuñiga, I. 430.

Cancionero of Catalan poets, I. 329, 430.

Cancionero of Martinez de Burgos, I. 430, n.

Cancionero, seven others in manuscript, I. 430.

Cancionero, Saragossa, I. 431.

Cancionero General of Castillo, I. 432-442, II. 506.

Cancionero de Obras de Burlas, I. 442, n.

Cancionero de Romances, III. 390.

Canciones in Cancionero General, I. 437.

Candamo, Francisco Bances, d. 1704.

Dramas, II. 422.

Poems, 423, n., 549.

Cañete, Marquis of. See Mendoza, Garcia.

Cañizares, Josef de, dramatist, d. 1750, II. 427.

Imitates the French, III. 313.

Cantares, what, I. 161, n.

Cántigas, Las, of Alfonso the Wise, I. 39 and n., 42, 43.

Cantoral, Lomas de, f. 1578, II. 506.

Satires, III. 4.

Elegies, 9.

Eclogues, 10.

Didactic poetry, 19.

Cantos de Fuentes, III. 27.

Çapata, Luis de, f. 1565, II. 456.

Garcilasso, I. 489, n.

Capmany, History of Barcelona, I. 323.

Eloquencia Española, III. 128.

Caporali, Cesare, imitated by Cervantes, II. 88, n.

Çarate, Agustin de, f. 1540, I. 568.

Carbajal y Saavedra, Mariana de, f. 1633, III. 107 and n.

Carcel de Amor of San Pedro, I. 424.

Continued by Nuñez, 425.

Cardenal de Belen, El, of Lope de Vega, II. 223.

Cardenal, Pierre, Troubadour, I. 315.

Cardona, I. 442, n.

Carducho, Vincencio, d. 1638. De la Pintura, III. 190, n.

Carew, Richard, translation of Huarte, III. 189, n.

Caricature, tendency to, in Spanish literature, II. 487.

Carillo, Joseph, f. 1750.

Defence of the old drama and Cervantes, II. 96.

Carillo Laso de la Vega, Alonso, f. 1657.

Blank verse of, I. 481, n.

Carlo Famoso of Çapata, II. 456.

Carlomagno, a Romance of Chivalry, I. 244.

Carlos, son of Lope de Vega, II. 131, 132, n. 148, 158.

Carlos, Don, play on, by Montalvan, II. 304.

Carnestolendas de Castilla of Hidalgo, III. 99, n.

Caro, Rodrigo, f. 1595, II. 546.

Carolea, La, of Sempere, II. 455.

Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, persecuted, I. 466.

Carriedo, valley of, II. 120, 121, n., 334.

Carrillo y Sotomayor, Luis, d. 1610.

Works, II. 516, 517, n.

Eclogues III. 13.

His Erudicion Poética, III. 237, n.

Carrion, Judio de. See Santob, Rabbi.

Carroz, Frances, I. 442, n.

Carta Puebla, what, III. 382, n.

Of Avilés, I. 11, 47, III. 383, n.

Cartagena, Alfonso de, I. 120, 294, n., 399, 435, 437.

Cartas del Cavallero de la Tenaza, by Quevedo, II. 269.

Cartas de Enzina of Isla, III. 266, n.

Cartas Eruditas of Feyjoó, III. 244.

Cartas Marruecas of Cadahalso, III. 277.

Cartas Philologicas of Cascales, III. 136.

Carteret, Lord. Edition of Don Quixote, III. 417.

Cartuxano, El. See Padilla, Juan de, and Montesino, Ambrosio.

Casa con Dos Puertas of Calderon, II. 382.

Casa del Plazer Honesto of Salas Barbadillo, III. 101.

Casa, Giovanni della, his Galateo, III. 187.

Casaus. See Casas.

Casarse por Vengarse of Roxas, III. 270, n., II. 409, n.

Casas, Bartolomé de las, d. 1566.

Works, I. 563.

His relations to slavery, I. 564, n.

His Brevísima Relacion, I. 565.

His History of the Indies, I. 566.

Cascales, Fr., f. 1616.

Tablas Poéticas, III. 236.

His letters, 136.

Opposes the old drama, II. 328.

Partly defends it, 332, n.

Attacks Góngora, 532.

Casilda, Santa, of Reynosa, III. 226.

Cassandra, Auto, by Vicente, I. 285.

Castega, Domingo, f. 1534. Segunda Celestina, I. 269.

Castel, Louis de Vieil, on the Spanish drama, II. 327, n.

Castellanos, Juan de, f. 1588, II. 468.

Castellanos, Pedro de la Vezilla. See Vezilla.

Castelví, Francisco, Valencian poet, I. 340.

Castiglione, Balthazar, his Courtier, translated by Boscan, I. 481.

Castigo de la Miseria, by Hoz, II. 417.

Castigo, Dos Venganzas de un, of Montalvan, II. 306, n.

Castigo sin Venganza of Lope de Vega, n. 202-204.

Castile, name of, I. 8.

Castilla, Diego de, I. 183, n.

Castilla, Francisco de, f. 1536, didactic poetry, III. 17 and n., I. 183, n.

Submits a book to the Inquisition, I. 462, n.

His Proverbios, III. 171, n.

Castillejo, Cristóval de, f. 1580, poetry of, I. 500-503.

Narrative poetry, II. 482, n.

Religious, 517.

Satirical, III. 3, 4.

Castilian, prevails in the South of Spain, I. 341-345.

Is the pure Spanish, 551.

Name of, III. 384.

Its purity in Garcilasso, I. 495, n. See Spanish.

Castillo, André del, Tales, III. 108.

Castillo, Diego Enriquez de, f. 1474, chronicler, I. 187, 394.

Castillo, Fernando del, his Cancionero General, I. 120, 432.

Castillo Interior of Sta. Teresa, III. 178.

Castillo, Juan Ignacio Gonzalez de, f. 1800, dramas, III. 328, n.

Castillo, Leonardo del, f. 1667.

Journey of Philip iv., II. 396, n.

Castillo, Solorzano. See Solorzano.

Castro, Adolfo de, III. 59, n., 270, n., 328, n.

On the Buscapié, III. 406.

Castro, Count, poet, I. 442, n.

Castro, Damian de, actor, III. 340.

Castro, Duke Fadrique de, poetical court of, I. 431.

Castro, Francisco de, f. 1720.

Dramas, III. 316.

Castro, Guillen de, d. 1639.

Dramas, II. 283-293.

Mocedades del Cid, 287.

Uses ballads on the Cid, I. 142, 144, n.

Friend of Lope de Vega, II. 128.

At the Festivals of San Isidro, 152, 153.

His Conde Alarcos, I. 127, n.

Plays on Don Quixote, III. 421.

See Corneille, P.

Castro, Julian de, dramatist, c. 1770, III. 325.

Castro, Rodriguez de, d. 1799.

Biblioteca Española, I. 24, n.

Castro y Anaya, Pedro de, f. 1632. Tales, III. 107 and n.

Castro y Orozco, José, Luis de Leon, II. 51, n.

Catalan, or Catalonian dialect, I. 323 and n., 325.

Flourishes, 329.

Decays, 338.

Still loved, 344, n.

Cataluña, Guerra de, of Melo, III. 163.

Catariberas, satire on, by Diego de Mendoza, I. 519 and n.

What, III. 58.

Cautivos de Argel of Lope de Vega, II. 214.

Cavallero Assisio of Mata, II. 470.

Cavallero de Olmedo of Monteser, II. 487, n.

Cavallero Determinado of Acuña, I. 499.

Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, I. 199.

Cazella, Chaplain of Charles v., persecuted, I. 466.

Cazuela, what, II. 438, III. 315.

Cean Bermudez, Life of Jovellanos, III. 304, n.

Diccionario, 21, n.

Cecial, Tomé, pseudonyme of Forner, III. 294, n., 331, n.

Céfalo y Procris of Calderon, II. 361.

Cejudo, Gerónimo Martin Caro y, f. 1675, Proverbs, III. 172, 173, n.

Celestial Chivalry, a romance, I. 245-249.

Celestina, La, c. 1480, I. 262-272.

Its actors, 263, n.

Its authors, 263, n.

Its date, 263, n.

Style of its two portions, 265 and n.

Its character, 267.

Its merits and defects, 267, 268.

Its editions, 268, n.

Its translations, 268.

Its imitations, 269-271.

Its influence and popularity, 272.

Opinion of, by Joam de Barros, 292, n.;

by Diego de Mendoza, 514, n.

Used by Zepeda, II. 28.

Celestina, Segunda Comedia de, by Silva, I. 269;

by Castega, ib.;

by Gomez de Toledo, ib.

Celtiberians, III. 358.

Celtic language in Spain, III. 358.

Celts in Spain, III. 357.

Centenera, Martin del Barco, f. 1602, II. 469.

Cepeda, Joaquin Romero de, f. 1582.

Comedia Selvage, I. 270.

Works, II. 27, 482, 509, n.

Cepeda. See Zepeda.

Cerco de Sta. Fé of Lope de Vega, I. 487, n., II. 248.

Cerda y Rico, edition of the Diana of Polo, III. 45, n.

Certamen de Amor y Zelos of Calderon, II. 337.

Certamenes. See Justas.

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, d. 1616.

Lives of, II. 52, n.

Birth and education, 53, 54.

First printed verses, 54.

At Rome, 55.

A soldier, 55.

At Lepanto, and wounded, 56.

At Tunis, 56.

Captive in Algiers, 57-60.

Returns home, 60, 61.

Generous nature, 60, n.

In Portugal and the Azores, 61.

His Galatea, 61-64.

Marries, 64.

Literary friends, 65.

Writes plays, 65-76.

At Seville, 77.

Imprisoned, 78.

Asks an employment in America, 78.

Poems, 79.

In La Mancha, 80.

In Valladolid, 81.

In poverty and in prison, 81.

Don Quixote, First Part, 81.

In Madrid, 82.

Joins a religious brotherhood, 82.

His relations with Lope de Vega, 82-84.

His Novelas Exemplares, 84-88, II. 306, 420, III. 67, 98.

His Viage al Parnaso, II. 89.

His view of the drama, 89, 90.

Writes more plays, 91-97.

Don Quixote, Second Part, 97.

His Persiles y Sigismunda, 98.

His illness and death, 98, 99.

Monuments to him, 99, n.

His lost works, 100, n.

His Persiles y Sigismunda, 100-103.

His Don Quixote, 104-119.

Minuteness and accuracy of his reading, 107, n., 117, n.

His popularity and fame, 118, III. 422.

His character, II. 119.

His knowledge of human nature, I. 194, n.

His ballads, III. 36.

His verses without the final syllable, 67. n.

Sees Lope de Rueda act, II. 10.

Figures in a play of Lope de Vega, 215.

Adds words to the language, III. 217, 218, n.

On Cultismo, II. 531.

Attacked by Figueroa, III. 51, n.;

by Villegas, II. 542 and n.

His opinion of Celestina, I. 268;

of Amadis de Gaula, 230;

of Esplandian, 231;

of Palmerin, 238;

of Garcilasso, 495;

of Lope de Rueda, II. 20, n.

See Arrieta; Avellaneda; Bouterwek; Bowle; Buscapié; Caballero; Caporali; Carillo; Conde; Foe, De; Eximeno; Fermin; Fletcher; Florian; Garcés; Haedo; Hoyos; Inglis; Lampillas; Mabbe; Mayans y Siscar; Nasarre; Navarrete; Pellicer, J. A.; Perez; Rios; Roscoe; Salvá; Sismondi; Temple; Vega, Lope de; Wolf, F. A.; Zavaleta, T.

Cervantes de Salazar, f. 1546. Works, I. 536, 537.

Céspedes, Pablo de, d. 1608. Didactic poetry, III. 20.

Céspedes y Meneses, Gonzalo de, f. 1617.

His Gerardo and Píndaro, III. 87.

Tales, 107.

Cetina, Gutierre de, c. 1560. Poems, I. 500, 501 and n.

Cevallos, Pedro Ordoñez de, f. 1614. Viage, III. 183, n.

Chaide. See Malon de Chaide.

Character, national, formation of, I. 7 and n., 102-105, 156, 218.

Provençal influence on it begins, 306;

decays, 337, 341.

Influence of Italy on it, 346-352.

Its intolerance, 446.

Its persecuting spirit, 460.

Its servile spirit, 468.

Its bigotry, 468.

Its decay, 471, 472.

Its effect on the drama, II. 430, 448-451;

on epic poetry, 455, 502-504;

on lyrical poetry, 519, 550-552;

on satirical poetry, III. 4, 8;

on pastoral poetry, 10;

epigrammatic, 14;

didactic, 24;

ballad, 25, 37, I. 106, 154;

on prose fiction, III. 38-40, 54, 55-58, 75, 76, 84, 118-120;

on eloquence, 121-123;

on epistolary correspondence, 128;

on historical composition, I. 156, 215, 216, 553, III. 138, 145, 152, 153, 165, 167;

on proverbs, 169-174;

on didactic prose, 196, 197.

False direction given to the national character under Charles v. and Philip ii., 199.

Decay under Philip iii., 200;

under Philip iv., 201;

under Charles ii., 203.

Its continued degradation by bigotry and persecution, 204, 205;

by servility, 207-209.

Its low state under Philip v., 239, 240, 246-248.

Its improvement under Ferdinand vi., 249;

under Charles iii., 254-258.

Its trials under Charles iv. and Ferdinand vii., 343-348.

Hopes for the future, 349, 350.

Charlemagne, a French poem of the 12th century, I. 112, n.

Charlemagne, ballads on, I. 132.

Charlemagne and his Peers, romances of the 12th century, I. 219.

Charles i. of Spain, v. of Germany, abdicates, 1555, dies.

Life by Sandoval, III. 151.

Translates the Chevalier Délibéré, I. 497.

Great glory of his reign, 458.

Conquests in Italy, 475, 476.

Coronation there brought on the stage, 476.

Sustains the Inquisition, III. 205.

Effect of his reign on the national character, 199;

on epic poetry, II. 455;

on romantic fiction, III. 38;

on letter-writing, 128.

Lives at Madrid, II. 276.

Charles ii., d. 1700, effects of his reign, III. 203, 213;

on the Inquisition, 205.

Believes he is bewitched, 204 and n.

Flattered by Solís and Calderon, II. 396 and n., III. 209.

Charles iii., d. 1788, effects of his reign on letters, III. 255, 257.

Charles iv., effects of his reign on letters, III. 343, 344.

Abdicated, 1808, 345.

Persecutes Jovellanos, 300.

Chateaubriand, L’Abencerrage, III. 85.

Chatillon, Walter de, I. 57.

Chaucer, I. 22, n., 85.

Chevalier Délibéré, I. 498.

Chivalry, institutions of, in Spain, I. 250.

Chrespina, a mock-heroic poem, II. 488.

Christiada, La, of Hojeda, II. 473.

Christiada, La, of Encisso y Monçon, II. 474, 475.

Christian Chivalry, a romance, I. 245, 246, n.

Christian History, a romance of chivalry, I. 246.

Christianity introduced into Spain, III. 365.

Its effect on the Latin spoken there, 366 and n.

Christian Spaniards, early, ignorance of, III. 378.

Sufferings, 381, I. 7 and n.

Christina of Sweden, play on, by Calderon, II. 390.

Christovalina, Doña, f. 1605, II. 515.

Chronicles, I. 156-217.

General and royal, 157-191.

Of particular events, 192-197.

Of particular persons, 197-202.

Of travels, 202-212.

Romantic chronicles, 212-214.

Character of the early Spanish chronicles, 215-217.

Period for, ended, 553, 556.

Chronicles of America, 556.

Chronicles used for ballads, I. 135, 137 and n., 138, 139 and n., III. 26.

See Crónica.

Chroniclers of the kingdom, I. 174, 555. n.

Of the king’s person, 555, n.

Chronicones, forged by Higuera, III. 152, n.

Church, opposition to the drama, time of Charles v. and Philip ii., II. 329, 330, 216;

in the time of Calderon, 394;

in the 18th century, III. 341, n.

Cibdareal, Fern. Gomez de, Letters, I. 395-398, 353, 356, 359, 380, 382, 387.

Their genuineness, III. 397-403.

Cicero of Father Isla, III. 264.

Cid, notice of, I. 13.

Arabic accounts of, 13, n., 15, n.

Lives of, by Risco, Müller, etc., 13, n.

Obscurity of his history, 15, 16, n.

Life in Crónica Rimada, 23, n.;

in Crónica General, 160;

in Crónica del Cid, 167-172;

in Southey’s Chronicle, 12, n., 13, n.

Tomb of, 168, n.

Cid, Poem of, c. 1200, I. 12-23.

Date of MS. of, 12, n.

Date of the poem itself, ib.

Not strictly historical, 15.

Its subject, 16.

Its language, measure, and rhyme, 17.

Was probably recited publicly, 17, n.

Its story, 18-20.

Translations from it by Frere, 19, n.

Not a congeries of ballads, 20, n.

Its character, 22.

Opinions on, 23, n.

Used in the Crónica General, 171, n.;

in the Crónica Rimada, 24, n.

Cid, Poem of, by Ayllon, II. 457;

by Arredondo, 457, n.

Cid Resuscitado, by Santos, III. 115.

Cid Romancero, I. 141, n., III. 34, n.

Ballads on, I. 140.

Not historically exact, 144.

Sung in the streets, II. 287, n.

Additional ballads on, III. 116, n.

See Mocedades del Cid.

Cielo, Violante del, d. 1693. Poetess, II. 529.

Cienfuegos, Nicasio Alvarez de, d. 1809.

Works. III. 295.

Dramas, 329.

Cifar, romance of chivalry, I. 242.

Cigarrales de Toledo of Tirso, III. 104.

Cinco Martires de Arabia, by Vargas, II. 474.

Cinna of Corneille, III. 312.

Cintia de Aranjuez of Corral, III. 51, n.

Cintio Merctisso, his Chrespina, II. 488.

Circe of Lope de Vega, II. 156.

Circourt, Albert de, I. 449, n., III. 82, n., 85, n.

Cisma de Inglaterra of Calderon, II. 390.

Cisneros, Alonso, his Autos Sacramentales, II. 227, n.

Cisneros, Antonio, f. 1579, dramatist, and actor, II. 25, 39, n.

Clareo y Florisea of Reinoso, III. 77.

Claribalte, romance of chivalry, I. 242.

Claros, Count, ballad, I. 121, 126.

Claros Varones of Pulgar, I. 421.

Clavellinas de Recreation of Salazar, III. 103.

Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de, d. 1412.

Vida del Gran Tamorlan, I. 203.

Idea of a River of Paradise, I. 209, n.

Clemencin, Diego de, on the Buscapié, III. 405.

Edition of Don Quixote, 419.

On Queen Isabella, 129, n.

Clement, St., Spanish college of, at Bologna, I. 349.

Cleomadez, a romance of chivalry, I. 244.

Clergy write plays, II. 352.

Clymente, Fabio, II. 483, n.

Coblas, what, I. 311, n.

Cobo de la Torre, José, III. 229, n.

Coello, Antonio de, dramatist, II. 327.

Cofradias, religious; interest in the theatre, II. 36, n.

Coins, Arabic, of Christian potentates in Spain, III. 379.

Coleccion de Cédulas, etc., I. 47, n.

Coloma, Juan de, f. 1579.

Decada de la Pasion, II. 458.

Coloma, Marquis of Espinar, d. 1637.

Guerras de los Estados Baxos, III. 160.

Adds words to the Castilian, 217, 218, n.

Colonna, Guido de, I. 57.

Colonna, Giovanni, Mare Historiarum, I. 401.

Colonna, Vittoria, I. 474.

Coloquios de Espina, by Sedano, III. 20.

Coloquios of Lope de Rueda, II. 13.

Colmenares, Diego de, Hist. de Segovia, II. 10, n.

Columbus, d. 1506, I. 206-211.

His works, 211, n.

Account of, by Bernaldez, 189.

By Humboldt, 211, n.

His intolerance, 447.

In plays of Lope de Vega, II. 199-202.

His signature, 343, n.

His letters, III. 128.

Columbus, Ferdinand, I. 325.

Columella, a Spaniard, III. 364.

Comedia Famosa, title, II. 441.

Comedias, what, II. 178.

Comedias de Capa y Espada, II. 179, 381.

Comedias Heróicas, II. 192, 215, n.

Comedias on common life, II. 210.

Comedias de Apariencias, II. 210, n.

Comedias de Ruido, II. 210, n., 437.

Comedias Religiosas, II. 217.

Comedias de Santos, II. 223.

Alleged religious influence, 226, n., 327, 330.

Not always true, 330, n.

Light, worldly tone, 358, n.

Figueroa’s account of, 358, n.

Comedias de Diferentes Autores, collection of, III. 423.

Comedias Escogidas, collection of, III. 424, 426.

Comedieta de Ponza, not a drama, I. 259, n.

Account of, 375.

Comella, Luciano Francisco de, f. 1790.

Dramas, III. 332.

Attacked by Moratin, 336.

Comentarios de la Guerra de España, by San Phelipe, III. 230.

Cómico Festejo of Castro, III. 316, n.

Commercial Code, first, I. 349.

Commines, I. 181.

Commodus of Herodian, translated by Zabaleta, II. 414, n.

Comparaciones of Villegas, I. 504.

Complaints of Alfonso the Wise. See Querellas.

Comuneros, War of, III. 199.

Conceptistas, school of, II. 518.

Conceptos Espirituales of Ledesma, II. 518.

Conde, Claudio, friend of Lope de Vega, II. 127 and n., 130.

Conde, J. A., d. 1821.

Preface vii., I. 9, n.

On the Ballads, 109 and n.

On Miguel de Luna, 215, n.

On Don Quixote, II. 117.

Story of Narvaez, III. 95.

Conde Lucanor. See Lucanor.

Condenado por Desconfiado of Tirso de Molina, II. 355.

Condesa de Castilla of Cienfuegos, III. 329.

Confusa, La, lost play of Cervantes, II. 66, 89, n.

Conquista de la Nueva Castilla, poem, II. 456, n.

Conquista del Nuevo Mexico of Villagra, II. 469.

Conquista en Granada of Diaz, II. 495.

Consejos, Libro de, of Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n., 69.

Consonante, what, I. 112.

Constante Amarilis of Figueroa, III. 50.

Contra Valor no hay Desdicha, by Lope de Vega, II. 208, n.

Contreras, Hierónimo de, f. 1573.

Selva de Aventuras, III. 78.

Dechado, ib., n.

Coplas Trecientas of Juan de Mena, I. 384.

Coplas of Manrique, I. 406.

Cordero, Jacinto, dramas, II. 323.

Córdova, culture there under the Arabs, III. 375.

Córdova, Gonzalvo de, Chronicle of, by Pulgar, I. 200.

Córdova, Maria de, actress, II. 434 and n.

Corelas, Alonso Lopez de, f. 1546.

His Trecientas Preguntas, I. 531.

Corneille, P., imitates Spanish dramas, II. 431.

Of Guillen de Castro, 289.

Of Mira de Mescua, 316.

Of Alarcon, 322.

Corneille, Thomas, imitates Tirso de Molina, II. 310.

Calderon, 402, n.

Roxas, 411.

Solís, 420.

Cornejo, Francisco Damian de, dramatist, II. 327.

Cornelia of Timoneda, II. 20, 21 and n.

Coro de las Musas of Barrios, II. 415, n.

Coro Febeo of Cueva, III. 31.

Corona Gótica of Saavedra Faxardo, III. 164.

Corona Trágica of Lope de Vega, II. 159.

Coronacion of Juan de Mena, I. 383.

Coronas del Parnaso of Salas Barbadillo, III. 102 and n.

Coronel, poet, I. 442, n.

Coronel, Bárbara, actress, II. 434.

Coronel, Garcia de Salcedo, f. 1650.

On Góngora, II. 526, n., III. 6.

Corpus Christi, procession of, II. 227, 228, 229 and n., 345, 346.

Corral, Gabriel de, f. 1632. His Cintia, III. 51 and n.

Correa, Isabel de, translation of Pastor Fido, III. 50, n.

Correa de Serra, Joseph, II. 376, n., III. 410.

Cors, Lambert li, I. 57.

Cortereal, Hierónimo de, f. 1578, II. 492, 493, n.

Cortés, drama of Atahualpa, III. 329.

Cortés, Fernando, dedication to, I. 537.

Academia at his house, 537, n., III. 223.

Relaciones, I. 557.

Las Casas’s opinion of, 566.

Poems on, II. 467, III. 305, 306, n.

Cortés de Tolosa, Juan, Lazarillo of the Manzanares, I. 513.

Cortina, José Gomez de la, translation of Bouterwek, I. 33, n.

Costana, poet, I. 436.

Costanza of Castillejo, I. 503, n., II. 5.

Costumes on the Stage, seventeenth century, II. 452.

Eighteenth, III. 315.

Cota, Rodrigo, f. 1470.

Supposed author of Mingo Revulgo, I. 260.

Of Dialogue between Love and an Old Man, 261.

Of first act of La Celestina, 263.

Satire of, III. 3.

Court, influence on early Spanish literature, I. 106.

School of poetry in the time of John ii., 352, 444.

Court-yards, plays acted in, II. 36, 436-440, III. 314.

Covadonga, battle of, I. 214, n.

Covarrubias, J. Horozco, Emblemas, III. 22.

Covarrubias, Seb. de, his Pesoro, III. 219.

Covarrubias Herrera. Gerónimo de, Enamorada Elisea, III. 49, n.

Creacion del Mundo, by Azevedo, II. 474.

Creacion del Mundo, by Lope de Vega, II. 221.

Crescencio, Juan Bautista, Italian architect, II. 185.

Crespé de Borja, Luis, assails the drama, II. 352, n.

Crespé, Luis, f. 1506.

Valencian poet, I. 341.

Críticon of Gracian, III. 192.

Croisade contre les Hérétiques Albigeois, a Provençal poem, I. 29, n.

Crónica General, I. 158.

Character of, 161, 166.

Crónica del Cid, I. 166-172.

Crónica de Alfonso x., I. 174, 39. n., III. 170.

Crónica de Sancho el Bravo, I. 174.

Crónica de Fernando iv., I. 174.

Crónica de Alfonso xi., I. 175.

Crónica de Pedro el Cruel, I. 177.

Crónica de Juan i., I. 177.

Crónica de Enrique iii., I. 177.

Crónica de Juan ii., I. 183-186.

Crónica de España, por Valera, I. 184, n.

Crónica de Enrique iv., by Castillo, I. 187.

Crónica de Enrique iv., by Palencia, I. 187.

Crónica de Fernando y Isabela, por Bernaldez, I. 188.

Crónica de Fernando y Isabela, por Pulgar, I. 189.

Crónica del Passo Honroso, I. 193.

Crónica del Seguro de Tordesillas, I. 195.

Crónica de Pero Niño, I. 197.

Crónica de Alvaro de Luna, I. 198.

Crónica de Gonzalvo de Córdova, I. 200, 201, n.

Crónica de la Vida del Gran Tamorlan, I. 204.

Crónica de Don Rodrigo, I. 212, 215, n.

Crónica de San Luis, I. 217, n.

Crónica de España de Don Juan Manuel, I. 65.

Crónica de Navarra del Príncipe de Viana, III. 168, n.

Crónica Universal de Maldonado, III. 153, n.

Crónica de Jaume el Conquistador, I. 315, 316.

Crónica de Muntaner, I. 318.

Crónica Rimada de España, I. 23, n.

Crónicas, Suma de todas las, I. 216, n.

Cruz, La, poem by Trapeza, III. 22.

Cruz, Inez de la, d. 1695.

Lyrical poetry, II. 549.

Dramas, 429.

Eclogues, III. 13.

Cruz, Ramon de la, f. 1790. Dramas, III. 326.

Cruz, San Juan de la, d. 1591.

Didactic works, III. 178.

Persecuted, I. 466.

Cruz, Santa, f. 1574. His Apotegmas, III. 173, n.

Cruz, Theatre of the, II. 37, III. 314.

Cryselia de Lidaceli, III. 86 and n.

Cubillo, Alvaro, f. 1654.

Plays, II. 218, n., 412.

Poems, 413, n., 548.

Cudolada, what, I. 334.

Cuellar, Juan Martinez de, f. 1663.

Tales, III. 113, n.

Dramas, II. 417.

Cuerdo en su Casa of Lope de Vega, II. 211, 367, n.

Cueva, Juan de la, f. 1608, dramatist, II. 26.

Epic poetry, 497.

Didactic poetry, III. 20.

Ballads, 31.

Cuevas de Salamanca of Moraes, III. 225.

Cuevas, Francisco de las, pseudonyme of Quintana, Fr., q. v.

Cultismo, II. 519-533.

Lope de Vega attacks it, 156, 531;

falls into it, 246, n.

Quevedo on, 263;

Texada, III. 91, n.;

Calderon, II. 396;

Jauregui, 541;

Zarate, 415;

Herrera, 514;

Villegas, 544, n.;

Rebolledo, 549, n.

In pulpit eloquence, III. 127.

In tales, 117, n.

In didactic prose, 190.

Prevails everywhere, 194.

In the language, 218.

Discussed in Italy, 427-431.

Culture, Spanish. See Character.

Cumplida, La, by Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Curial del Parnaso of Matias de los Reyes, III. 106, n.

Custodia, a play, II. 4.

D.

Dafne of Villamediana, II. 483.

Dama, what, II. 240.

Dama Beata of Camerino, III. 103, n.

Dama Duende of Calderon, II. 383.

Damian, Cosmé, pseudonyme of Forner, III. 331, n.

Dancing, national, I. 114, II. 445.

On the stage, 446.

Danza General, I. 89.

Not a drama, 259.

The poem, III. 459.

Dante, Commedia in Catalan, I. 331;

in Castilian by Villena, 352;

by Villegas, 409, n.

Dantisco, Gracian, f. 1599.

Galateo, III. 187.

Dares Phrygius, I. 57.

Dávalos, family of, I. 436, n., 476.

David of Uziel, II. 475, n.

David Perseguido, etc., of Lozano, III. 195, n.

Dávila, Juan, f. 1661, II. 475.

Dávila, Pedrarias, the discoverer, I. 211.

Dávila y Heredia, f. 1676.

Comedia sin Música, II. 424, n.

Daza, Emblemas de Alciato, III. 22.

Decada de la Pasion of Coloma, II. 458.

Decada de los Césares of Guevara, I. 543 and n.

Décimas, II. 507, III. 68.

Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua Castellana, III. 218, n.

Delena, f. 1434.

Passo Honroso, I. 193, n.

Deleytoso of Lope de Rueda, II. 10.

Deleytar Aprovechando of Tirso de Molina, III. 105.

Delgado, Jacinto María, his Don Quixote, III. 421.

Delgado, Juan Pinto, c. 1590.

Poems, II. 49, n.

Delinquente Honrado of Jovellanos, III. 298, 323.

Delphino Domínico, I. 418.

Denia, Fiestas de. See Fiestas.

Dennis, Geo., The Cid, I. 14, n.

Depping, C. B., Romancero, I. 129, III. 395.

Desden con el Desden of Moreto, II. 406.

Desgraciada Raquel, La, of Mira de Mescua, II. 316 and n.

Descriptive poetry in Spanish, II. 469, n., III. 23.

Desengaño, what, III. 113, n.

Desengaño al Teatro of Moratin, III. 324.

Desengaño del Hombre of Cuellar, III. 113, n.

Desengaño de Zelos of Enciso, III. 47.

Deucalion of Torrepalma, III. 229, n.

Devocion de la Cruz of Calderon, II. 355.

Devotional poetry in the Cancionero General, I. 433, 434.

Dexter, Flavius Lucius, forged Chronicon of, III. 152, n.

Deza y Avila, f. 1663.

Entremeses, II. 445, n.

Diablo Cojuelo of Guevara, III. 110.

Diablo anda Suelto, El, of Santos, III. 116.

Diablo Predicador, drama, II. 325.

Dia Grande of Isla, III. 259.

Dialogue between Love and an Old Man, poem, c. 1470, I. 261.

Diálogo de las Lenguas, I. 546, 547.

Diamante, Juan Bautista, f. 1674.

Drama, II. 416.

Imitates Corneille, 292, n., 416.

In Comedias Escogidas, III. 425.

Diana, Fortunas de, of Lope de Vega, II. 156.

Diana Enamorada of Montemayor, III. 40;

of Perez, 43;

of Polo, 44;

of Texada, 45, n.

See Yong, Bart.

Diana of Moratin, III. 273.

Diario de los Literatos, III. 229, n.

Dias de Fiesta of Zabaleta, III. 195.

Dia y Noche en Madrid of Santos, III. 113.

Diaz, Alonzo, f. 1611, II. 474.

Diaz, Bernal, f. 1558, his History, I. 559.

Diaz, Canon, Amadis, I. 234.

Diaz, Edoardo, f. 1590, II. 495.

Diaz, Pero, Proverbs of Seneca, I. 378.

Dicastillo. f. 1637, Aula de Dios, III. 23.

Dichosos Hermanos of Moreto, II. 404.

Dictionaries, earliest in Spanish, I. 549.

Of the Academy, III. 219.

Dictys Cretensis, I. 57.

Didactic prose, time of Charles v., I. 531-547;

from the time of Philip ii. to that of Philip v., III. 169, 174-197.

Its corruption, 191, 194.

Its little success, 196.

Causes of its failure, 196.

Didactic poetry, early, I. 529, III. 17;

time of Philip ii., III. 18.

Small amount of, III. 24.

Dido, I. 159, 160, n.

Defended by Ercilla, II. 463.

Diego de Alcalá of Lope de Vega, II. 223.

Diego de Noche, Don, of Salas Barbadillo, III. 102, n.;

of Roxas, ib.

Diez, Fried., Grammatik, III. 372, n.

Dieze, J. A., translates Velazquez, III. 252, n.

Dineros son Calidad of Lope de Vega, II. 180, 309.

Diosdado, on Cibdareal, III. 397.

D’Irlos, Count. See Irlos.

Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, I. 70, n.

Discursus de Erroribus, etc., of Mariana, III. 146, 147, n.

Diversiones Públicas of Jovellanos, III. 300.

Divino Orfeo of Calderon, II. 348.

Doblado’s Letters. See White, Joseph Blanco.

Doce Pares, Romancero de, III. 34, 394.

Doce Triunfos of Padilla, I. 413.

Docientas Preguntas of La Torre, I. 531.

Doctrina Christiana, a poem, I. 88.

Dohrn, Spanische Dramen, translated from Lope de Vega, II. 234, n.

Domestic honor on the Spanish stage, II. 392.

Domine Lucas of Cañizares, II. 428.

Domingo Abad de los Romances, I. 116.

Domingo de Don Blas of Alarcon, II. 320.

Domingo de Silos, San, by Berceo, I. 28, 30, 32.

Doms, Jaime, III. 331, n.

Don, as a title, I. 30, n.

Donado Hablador, El, of Yañez, III. 71 and n.

Donzella Teodor, by Lope de Vega, II. 212, 242, n.

Old tale of, 212, n.

Dormer, Diego Josef, Life of Zurita, III. 140, n.

Dorotea of Lope de Vega, II. 124, 160, 161 and n.

Dos Verdaderos Amigos, a tale, III. 88.

Douce, Fr., I. 72, n.

On the Dance of Death, 90, n.

Drake, Sir Francis, Lope de Vega’s poem on, II. 140.

Popular opinion of, in Spain, 140 and n.

Fitzgeffrey’s poem on, 141, n.

Dragontea, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 140.

Drama, ancient classical, fall of, I. 254.

Expelled from Spain by the Arabs, 257 and n.

Drama, Spanish, first appearance, I. 256.

Attempts in the fifteenth century, 259.

Mingo Revulgo, 260.

La Celestina, 262.

Enzina, 273.

Vicente, 282.

Torres Naharro, 295.

State in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, 305.

State, time of Charles v., II. 4.

Lope de Rueda and his followers, 9-25.

Attempts at Seville, 26;

at Valencia, 28;

in the manner of the ancients, 30-34.

State in the time of Philip ii., 35-39.

When Cervantes first wrote for it, 65;

when he wrote again, 90.

State when Lope de Vega appeared, 166-174;

his dramas, 174-254;

his school, 276-332.

Calderon, 333-402;

his school, 403-429.

Decline of the drama, 427-429.

Its characteristics, actors, and audiences, 430-452.

Its state in the eighteenth century, III. 312-342.

Opposed by the Church, II. 3, 216 and n., 217, n., 329, 351, 352, n., 394;

by the learned, 328.

Triumphs over both, 331, 332.

Immorality of, II. 216 and n.

Ideas of domestic honor, 392.

Duels in, 393.

Acted in religious houses, 224.

Religious plays light and worldly, 354, n., 358, 359 and n.

Titles of plays, 179.

Often acted and not printed, 175.

Stolen by booksellers, 180, n.

Written by more than one author, 411.

On Algerine captivity, 419.

Reserved for the king alone, 451, n.

Much in the nature of tales, III. 117, 118.

Collections of, 423-426.

Dramatic poets, their consideration, II. 431.

Their troubles, 432.

Their number, 449.

Drogas, Tractado de, of Acosta, III. 175.

Dryden, imitates Calderon, II. 382.

Duels, dramatic, II. 391.

Duelos de Amor y Lealtad, play of Calderon, II. 389.

Dueñas, Juan de, I. 394.

Dunham, S. A., History of Spain, I. 32, n.

Duque de Viseo of Quintana, III. 309.

Duran, Agustin, collects ballads, I. 129, III. 396.

Estrella de Sevilla, II. 205, n.

Spanish drama, 372, n.

Ramon de la Cruz, III. 328, n.

Durandarte, ballad on, I. 133, n.

D’Urfé’s Astrea, III. 119.

Duverdier, Amadis de Gaule, I. 234.

E.

Eclogues, III. 10-14.

Often acted, II. 237 and n.

In Question de Amor, I. 427.

Garcilasso, 491.

Lope de Vega, II. 236-238.

Melendez, III. 286.

Edom o’Gordon, Ballad, I. 153.

Egemplar Poético of Cueva, III. 20.

Eichendorff, J. von, translation of Conde Lucanor, I. 75, n.

Eichhorn, John Gottfried, I. 33, n.

Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias, by Castellanos, II. 468.

Elegies, III. 8-10.

Elisa Dido of Virues, II. 29.

Eloquence, Forensic, early, III. 121.

Discouraged, 122.

Pulpit, 122.

False taste in, 127.

Decays, 128.

Eloquencia del Silencio of Zevallos, III. 226.

Eloquencia Española of Artiga, III. 237, n.

Of Capmany, 128, n.

Eloquencia Española of Paton, III. 188.

Embaxador, El, of Vera y Zuñiga, III. 184.

Emblems, what, III. 22.

Emigrados, Ocios de, III. 349, n.

Empeños del Mentir of Mendoza, III. 270, n.

Empresas Políticas of Faxardo, III. 185.

Enamorada Elisea of Covarrubias Herrera, III. 49, n.

Enciso, Bart. Lopez de, f. 1586. Desengaño de Zelos, III. 47.

Enciso, Diego Ximenez de, dramatist, II. 323.

Enciso, Lopez de, play on Juan Latino, II. 491, n.

Encisso y Monçon, Juan Francisco de, f. 1694, II. 474.

Endechas, what, III. 10, n.

Endrina, Doña, and Don Melon, of the Archpriest of Hita, I. 259, n.

Enemiga Favorable, play of Tarrega, II. 279 and n.

Engaños, Los, of Lope de Rueda, II. 11.

Engeños, Libro de los, by Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

England, mysteries long acted in, I. 256.

Enriquez, Andres Gil, dramatist, II. 323.

Enriquez Gomez, Antonio, f. 1660.

Siglo Pitagórico, III. 73.

Dramas, II. 414.

Sanson, 474.

Ens, Gaspar, trans. of Guzman de Alfarache, III. 64.

Entremeses, what, II. 231.

Origin and character, 17, n., 444.

Writers of, 445, n.

Timoneda, 20.

Cervantes, 94.

Lope de Vega, 231, 232, 234-236.

Entretenido of Tortoles and Moraleja, III. 106, n., 250.

Enxiemplos, what, I. 82.

Enzina, Juan de la, d. 1534, I. 273.

Lives at Rome, and visits Jerusalem, 274.

His works, 274.

Representaciones, 275.

Structure of his dramatic compositions, 275.

Religious, 276.

Secular, 277.

First dramas acted by secular persons, 277.

Their character, 277-282.

Ballads, 120.

Did not write a play for the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, 259, n.

Poética, III. 235.

Enzina, Juan de la, Cartas, by Isla, III. 266, n.

Enzinas, Pedro de, Eclogues, III. 12.

Noticed in the Buscapié, 407.

Epic poetry, II. 454-504.

Its national character, 503.

Thirteenth century, III. 226, 227 and n., 273, 283, n., 289, 290, n., 305, 306.

Epigrammatic poetry, III. 14-17.

Epistles, poetical, III. 4-6.

Epistolary correspondence, early, III. 128.

Small amount of, 137.

Era, Spanish, what, I. 12, n.

Ercilla, Alonso de, f. 1590. Life, II. 458.

His Araucana, 461.

Effect on the language, III. 217.

In a play of Lope, II. 207, n.

Erro, Lengua Primitiva, etc., III. 357, n.

Eruditos á la Violeta of Cadahalso, III. 276.

Erving, G. W., Primitive Language of Spain, III. 357, n.

Escanderbech, auto of Montalvan, II. 305.

Escarmientos de Jacinto of Villalpando, III. 109.

Esclava de su Galan of Lope de Vega, II. 180, 210.

Esclavos de Argel of Lope de Vega, II. 68, n.

Escobar, Juan de, Romancero del Cid, III. 34, 394.

Escobar, Luis de, f. 1552. His CCCC. Respuestas, etc., I. 529.

Escobar Cabeza de la Vaca, Pedro de, f. 1587. His Lucero de Tierra Santa, I. 274, n.

Escobar y Mendoza, Antonio de, f. 1613, II. 474.

Escoiquiz, Juan de, f. 1814.

Works, III. 305.

His political position, 345.

Escondido, El, y la Tapada, of Calderon, II. 395.

Escriva, El Comendador, f. 1497. Quexa de su Amiga, I. 293, n., 340, II. 375 and n.

Escudero, what, III. 69, n.

Escuer, Pedro, publisher of plays, III. 423.

Escurial, Diego de Mendoza gives his books to, I. 527, n.

Described by Siguenza, III. 143, n.

Plot of, 344.

Eslava, Antonio de, f. 1609.

Tales, III. 102.

Eslava de Ronda, pseudonyme of Sedano, III. 271, n.

España Defendida of Figueroa, II. 500, n.

Espéculo, or Espejo, of Alfonso the Wise, I. 39, n., 49.

Espina, Coloquios, by Sedano, III. 271, n.

Espinel, Vicente, f. 1625.

Poetry, III. 68.

Marcos de Obregon, 69.

Festivals of San Isidro, II. 152.

Poetry, 507 and n.

Poetical Epistles, III. 6.

Eclogues, 13.

Espinelas, what, III. 68.

Espinosa, Nicolas de, f. 1550, II. 458, 476.

Espinosa, Pedro, f. 1605.

His Flores, II. 515.

Eclogue, III. 13.

Espinossa, Felix de Lucio y, lyrical poetry, f. 1674, II. 549.

Esplandian, by Montalvo, I. 231.

Its character, 232.

Esquilache, Príncipe de Borja y, d. 1658.

His Nápoles Recuperada, II. 501, 502, n.

Lyrical poetry, 546.

Epistles, III. 6.

Elegies, 9.

Eclogues, 13.

Epigrams, 15.

Ballads, 33.

Esquivias, notices of, by Cervantes, II. 64, n.

Estados de la Espiritual Jerusalen of Marquez, III. 184, n.

Estados, Libro de los, by Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Estella, Diego de, d. 1578. Didactic prose, III. 189, n.

Estevanillo Gonzalez, f. 1646.

Autobiography, III. 74.

See Sage, Le.

Estrella de Sevilla of Lope de Vega, II. 205 and n., 243.

Estremeño, El Zeloso, of Cervantes, II. 87.

Estuñiga, Cancionero, I. 430.

Eufemia of Lope de Rueda, II. 12.

Eufrosina, imitation of Celestina, I. 270, n.

Euphuists, II. 520.

Europa of Villamediana, II. 483.

Eusebio of Montengon, III. 283, n.

Eustorgio y Clorilene of Suarez de Mendoza, II. 102, n.

Everett, A. H., Preface, viii.

On Gil Blas, III. 268, n.

Evia, Jacinto de, f. 1676. Poetry, II. 549.

Examen de Ingenios of Huarte, III. 189, n.

Examen de Maridos of Alarcon, II. 322, III. 189, n.

Exemplar. See Egemplar.

Exemplares Novelas, what, II. 84, n.

See Novelas.

Exemplo Mayor de la Desdicha of Lope de Vega, II. 208, n.

Exemplos, Libro de los, by Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Exemplos, what, I. 71, n.

Eximeno, Antonio, on Don Quixote, II. 116, n.

Expedicion de Catalanes of Moncada, III. 159.

Experiencias de Amor of Quintana, III. 51 and n.

F.

Fables of Don John Manuel, I. 71.

Of Hita, 80-85.

Of Leyba, II. 413.

Of Lupercio de Argensola, III. 5.

Of Yriarte, 279.

Of Samaniego, 281.

Fama Póstuma of Lope de Vega, by Montalvan, II. 163, n., 298.

Fantasías de un Susto, by Moya, III. 107.

Faria y Sousa, f. 1624.

Noches Claras, III. 188.

Oldest Portuguese poetry, I. 41.

Farmer, Dr., on Montemayor’s Diana, III. 42.

Farsas of Timoneda, II. 20.

Farsas del Sacramento, what, II. 230.

Fauriel, Charles, I. 29, n., 313, n., II. 124, n., III. 357, n.

Faust of Goethe, II. 355.

Faxardo, Diego Saavedra, his Príncipe Christiano, III. 185.

República Literaria, 187.

Corona Gótica, 164.

Febrer, Andres, f. 1428.

Catalan poet, I. 331.

Felices, Marques de San. See Moncayo.

Feliciana, daughter of Lope de Vega, II. 132.

Felicíssima Victoria de Lepanto of Cortereal, II. 492.

Felixmarte of Hircania, I. 241.

Fenix de España, a play, II. 359, n.

Fenollar, Bernardo, I. 338, 339.

Fenouillet, L’Honnête Criminel, III. 324, n.

Fenton, Sir Geoffrey, translations from Guevara, I. 544.

Ferdinand the Third, Saint, d. 1252, I. 35 and n., 43, 47, 106, n.

Ferdinand, son of Charles v., I. 169.

Ferdinand the Just of Aragon, d. 1416, I. 329.

Ferdinand the Catholic, d. 1516. Favors the Inquisition, I. 447, 448.

Ferdinand and Isabella, prosperity in their reign, I. 446.

State of letters, 473.

Ferdinand vi., d. 1759. Effects of his reign on letters, III. 249, 254.

Ferdinand vii., d. 1833, III. 345.

Effect of his reign on letters, Pref. v., III. 306, 310, 346-349.

Fernan Perez de Guzman. See Guzman.

Fernan Gonzalez, a poem, c. 1380, I. 91-94.

Ballads, 138.

Don Juan Manuel, 73.

Fernandez, Alfonso, f. 1516, II. 458.

Fernandez, Diogo, I. 238.

Fernandez, Lucas, f. 1514, dramatic writer, II. 236, n.

Fernandez, Romancero, III. 395.

Fernandez y Peralta, Tales, III. 106.

Fernando, El, of Vera y Figueroa, I. 115, n., II. 500, 502, n.

Ferreira, Portuguese poet, his Castro, II. 31 and n.

Ferreira, Bernarda, f. 1618, II. 500, 502, n.

Ferrer, Bonifacio, d. 1477.

Bible in Catalan, I. 345, n.

Ferrer, Juan. See Bisbe y Vidal.

Ferreras, the historian, III. 249.

Ferrus, Pero, I. 394.

Ferruz, Maestro, auto by, II. 230.

Feyjoó, Benito, d. 1764, III. 242.

Teatro Crítico, and Cartas Eruditas, 244.

Defended by Isla, 266, n.

Fianza Satisfecha of Lope de Vega, II. 221.

Fiction, romantic, end of 15th century, I. 424;

time of Cervantes, II. 101.

See Romances of Chivalry.

Fictions, pastoral prose, their origin, III. 39.

Popularity, 52.

Incongruities, 53.

Foundation in nature, 54.

Fictions in the “gusto picaresco,” their origin and history, III. 55-75.

Fictions, serious and historical, time of Ferdinand and Isabella, III. 76;

time of Charles v., 76, 77;

time of Philip ii., etc., 77, etc.

Small number of, 76, 92.

Fictions, short tales, III. 93.

Varieties in, 104, 108, 110.

Great number of, 117.

Fictions, many suppressed, III. 88.

Fiesta de los Carros, what, II. 229 and n.

Fiestas de Denia of Lope de Vega, II. 137, n.

Figueroa, Bart. Cayrasco de, f. 1602.

His Templo Militante, I. 26, n.

Figueroa, Christ. Suarez de, f. 1621.

His Constante Amarilis, III. 50.

Opposes the old drama, II. 328.

Life of Mendoza de Cañete, 465, n.

Epic, 500, n.

Pasagero, 151, n., III. 183 and n.

Tales, 99.

Figueroa, Francisco de, d. 1620, II. 62, 507 and n.

Blank verse, I. 481.

Eclogues, III. 10.

Figueroa, José Lorenzo, translation of Sismondi on Spanish Literature, I. 34, n.

Figueroa, Lope de, character, in Calderon, II. 57, n., 367, n.

Figueroa, Roque de, actor, II. 434.

Figuron, plays, what, II. 405.

Of Cañizares, 428.

Filicaja, Odes, II. 51.

Fílida of Montalvo, III. 46.

Filomena of Lope de Vega, II. 155.

Filosofía Antigua Poética of Pinciano, III. 236.

Filósofo del Aldea of Velazquez, III. 191.

Flamenco, Juan, Romancero, III. 393.

Flegetonte, Capitan, La Cryselia, III. 86, n.

Rompe Columnas, 86, n.

Flema de Pedro Hernandez of Garcia, III. 112, 113, n.

Fletcher, Custom of the Country, II. 100, n.

Flor de Romances, III. 33.

Flora Malsabadilla, I. 270, n.

Florando de Castilla, by Huerta, II. 479.

Flores of Espinosa, II. 515.

Flores del Parnaso, Sagradas, III. 228, n.

Flores, Juan de, f. 1521.

His Aurelio y Isabela, III. 77.

Flores, Miguel de, I. 188, 199, n.

Flores, Pedro, collects ballads, I. 138, n., III. 392.

Florian, Rodriguez, f. 1554.

His Florinea, I. 269, 270, n.

Florian, his Galatée, II. 63, n.

His Gonsalve de Cordoue, III. 85.

His translation of Don Quixote, III. 419.

Florida, History of, by the Inca Garcilasso, III. 157.

Florinea, imitation of Celestina, I. 269, 270, n.

Florisando, romance of chivalry, I. 233.

Florisel de Niquea, romance of chivalry, I. 233.

Foe, Daniel De, on Don Quixote, II. 105, n.

His Cavalier, III. 74.

Fogaçot, Troubadour, I. 330.

Folquet de Lunel, Troubadour, I. 44, n.

Fonda de San Sebastian, club of, III. 274.

Fonseca, Luis Enriquez de, f. 1669.

Drama, II. 443, n., 446, n.

Fontana, architect, II. 184, n.

Fonte Frida, ballad, I. 123.

Forceps, Knight of, by Quevedo, II. 269.

Ford, Richard, Handbook of Spain, II. 485, n.

Forensic eloquence. See Eloquence.

Foresto, Felipe, d. 1520.

His Supplementum Chronicarum, I. 216, n.

Forner, Juan Pablo, d. 1797. Works, III. 294.

Foronda, Valentin, notes on Don Quixote, III. 418.

Fortescue, T., translates Mexia, I. 538, n.

Fortuna y Amor of Lo Frasso, III. 45.

Fortunas de Andromeda y Perseo of Calderon, II. 361, n., 389.

Fragoso, Matos de. See Matos.

Francesilla of Lope de Vega, II. 244.

Franchi, Fabio, friend of Lope de Vega, II. 332.

Franco, P., translates Quevedo, II. 268, n.

Francofurt, Arnaldo, on Quevedo, II. 275.

Frasso, Antonio de lo, f. 1573.

Prose pastoral, III. 45.

Freemasonry, III. 250.

French drama, translated, III. 318.

Imitated, 313, 316.

First original comedy in the French manner, 318.

First acted dramas in the French manner, 319.

Imitations, 320-324.

Contest between the French school and the national school in the eighteenth century, 324-340.

Result, 341.

French language, contributions to the Spanish, I. 390, n., 548.

French literature, influence on Spanish, III. 120, 232, 250-252.

Frere, J. Hookham, I. 19, n.

Frexenal, Vasco Luis de, poet, f. 1547, II. 521, n.

Frias, Duke of, monument to Melendez, III. 291, n.

Froissart, I. 181, 245.

Fryer Bacon, tale of, II. 213, n.

Fuenmayor, Antonio de, f. 1604. Didactic prose, III. 189, n.

Fuente Ovejuna of Lope de Vega, II. 204, n., 389, n.

Fuentes, Alonso de, Ballad-book, III. 27.

Fuero Juzgo, 13th cent., I. 47, 48 and n.

Laws on domestic honor, II. 393, n.

Fuero Real of Alfonso el Sabio, I. 49.

Fuster, Pastor, f. 1830.

Biblioteca Valenciana, I. 343, n.

G.

Galan, Primer, what, II. 240.

Galanteria, Arte de, of Portugal, III. 189.

Galatea, La, of Cervantes, II. 61-64, III. 47.

Tales in, 117.

Galateo of Dantisco, III. 187.

Galiano, A. A., persecuted, III. 347.

Romancero, 395.

Galician dialect, I. 40-42, 550.

Gallardo Español, El, of Cervantes, II. 92.

Gallego, Juan Nicasio, III. 291, n.

Gallegos, Manuel de, d. 1665, II. 482, n.

His Anaxarete, 541, n.

Gamba, Bibliografia delle Novelle, III. 118.

Gamez, Gutierre Diez de, f. 1453.

Pero Niño, I. 197.

Gammer Gurton’s Needle, II. 19.

Ganar Amigos of Alarcon, II. 320.

Garay, Blasco de, f. 1550.

Proverbs, III. 171 and n.

Garcés, Gregorio, f. 1798.

His Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua, III. 223 and n.

On Cervantes, II. 113, n.

On Diego de Mendoza, I. 527, n.

Garcia, Marcos, f. 1657. Tales, III. 112.

Garcia, Vicent, d. 1623. Valencian poet, I. 342.

Garcia de Santa Maria, Alvar, f. 1420, I. 184.

Garcilasso de la Vega, d. 1536.

Life, I. 486-489.

Works, 490-496.

Death, II. 457, n.

Herrera on, 510, n., 514.

Elegies, III. 8.

Eclogues, 10.

Garibay, chronicler, I. 555, n., III. 148.

Gato, Alvarez, I. 429, 435, 436 and n.

Gatomachia, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 154.

Gaya Sciencia, what, I. 103.

Gayangos, Pascual de, Pref. viii., I. 9, n., 70, n., 89, n.,

92, n., 95, n., 168, n., 215, n., 359, n., II. 489, n.,

III. 82, n., 201, n., 377, n., 432.

Gayferos and Melisendra, Ballads on, I. 126, 133, n., 154.

Gayoso, f. 1745.

His Grammar, III. 222.

Gayton, E., notes on Don Quixote, III. 420.

Gazul, ballads on, I. 147.

Gazull, Jaume, I. 339.

Genealogía de Gil Blas, by Calzada, III. 267, n.

Generaciones y Semblanzas of Fernan Perez de Guzman, I. 401 and n.

Genest, translates Quevedo, II. 268, n., 271, n.

Genil of Espinosa, III. 13.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, I. 219.

Gerardo of Céspedes, III. 87.

Tales in, III. 117.

Gerena, I. 394.

German words in Spanish, I. 548.

Germanía, what, III. 32, n.

Gerundio, Fray, of Isla, III. 260.

Gesta Romanorum, I. 24, 25, n., III. 97.

Gigantomachia of Gallegos, II. 482, n.

Gigantones, what, II. 228.

Gigantones de Madrid of Santos, III. 117.

Gil Blas, a picaresco tale, I. 512, III. 75.

Marcos de Obregon, 70, n.

Father Isla, 266.

Gil, Father Juan, and Cervantes, II. 59, n.

Gil de las Calzas Verdes, Don, by Tirso de Molina, II. 311.

Gil y Zarate, play on Charles ii., III. 204, n.

Giner, Miguel, f. 1587, II. 495.

Gineta, Libro de la, of Andrada, III. 188.

Ginguené, on the influence of the Arabs, III. 374.

Gitanilla of Cervantes, II. 85, 420, III. 37, n.

Glosas, origin of, I. 440, n.

Gobeyos, Ant., pseudonyme for Gayoso, III. 222, n.

Godinez, Felipe, dramatist, II. 323.

Godoy, Manuel, Prince of the Peace, his relations to Moratin, III. 307, 334.

Influence, 343.

Quarrel with Ferdinand vii., 344.

Godwin, W., I. 19, n.

Goethe, on Calderon, II. 377, n., 399, n.

Goldsmith, Oliver, on Feyjoó, III. 245, n.

Gomara, Francisco Lopez de, f. 1550.

Life of Cortés, I. 557, 559.

Gomes de los Reyes, Texada, Eclogues, III. 13.

Gomez, Ant. Enriquez. See Enriquez.

Gomez de Toledo, f. 1537.

Segunda Celestina, I. 269.

Góngora, Luis de, d. 1626, II. 521-526.

Satire, III. 5.

Epistles, 6.

Epigrams, 14.

Ballads, 35.

Drama, II. 324.

Polifemo, 483.

Relations with Lope de Vega, 531.

Ridicules Boscan, I. 480.

School, II. 527-533.

See Coronel; Cultismo; Mardones; Pellicer; Salazar.

Gonzalez de Bovadilla, f. 1587.

Ninfas de Henares, III. 48.

Gonzalez, Diego, d. 1794.

Works, III. 293, 294, n.

Gonzalez, Estevanillo. See Estevanillo.

Gothic language in Spain, III. 370-372.

Goths in Spain, III. 369.

Governador, El, of Marquez, III. 184.

Goyeneche, Juan, editor of Solís, II. 422, n.

Gozzi imitates Calderon, II. 402, n.

Graal, Saint, what, I. 222, n.

Graal or Grial, romance of chivalry, I. 244.

Gracia Dei, Pedro, f. 1520, I. 183, n.

Gracian, Baltazar, d. 1658.

His Cultismo, III. 191.

His Works, 192.

Gracioso, hints of, in Naharro, I. 301.

Completed by Lope de Vega, II. 244, 245 and n.

In Cervantes, 93.

In Calderon, 344, n., 401, n.

Part of, played by Lope, 173.

Gracioso dramas, what, II. 406.

Gradas, what, II. 438.

Grammar, earliest in Spanish, I. 549.

Others, III. 222.

Gran Duque de Muscovia of Lope de Vega, II. 207.

Gran Tacaño, El, or Paul the Sharper of Segovia, by Quevedo, II. 268.

See Delavigne.

Granada, capture of, central point in Spanish history, I. 458.

Culture in, III. 375.

Granada, Guerra de, of Mendoza, I. 520, III. 158.

Granada, Guerras Civiles de, of Hita, III. 79.

Granada, Luis de, pulpit eloquence, d. 1588, III. 123.

Didactic prose, 176.

Persecuted, I. 466.

Grande de Terra, Pedro, Muerte de Montalvan, II. 299.

Grandezas Divinas, by Vivas, II. 474, 475, n.

Gray, F. C., Preface, x.

Greeks in Spain, III. 360, 361, n.

Gregorio Guadaña of Enriquez, III. 73, n.

Grimm, Jacob, on the Ballads, I. 111, n.

His Romancero, III. 395.

Griselda, tale in Timoneda, III. 97, n.

Guadalete, battle of, III. 373.

Guanches de Tenerife of Lope, II. 207, n.

Guardate de Agua Mansa of Calderon, II. 382, 395.

Guarinos, ballads on, I. 154.

Guarinos. See Sempere.

Gueran, Troubadour, I. 330.

Guerra, f. 1682. Defends the drama, II. 394 and n.

Guerra de Alemaña, by Avila y Zuñiga, III. 142, n.

Guerra de Granada, by Mendoza, I. 520-526.

Guerras Civiles de Granada, by Hita, First Part, III. 79.

Second Part, 83.

Third Part, 85, n.

Tales in, 117.

Guerras de los Estados Baxos of Coloma, III. 160.

Guerrero, Vicente, dramatist and actor, c. 1770, III. 325.

Guevara, Antonio de, d. 1545.

Works, I. 540-545, 553.

Golden Epistles, III. 129.

Guevara, Domingo Luis de, III. 331, n.

Guevara, Luis Velez de, d. 1644.

Dramas, II. 293, 297, III. 425.

Tales, 110.

On the language, I. 548, n.

Guevara, Pedro Velez de, I. 394.

Guevara, Sebastian Velez de, Romancero, III. 392.

Guia de Pecadores of Luis de Granada, III. 176.

Guia y Avisos de Forasteros of Liñan y Verdugo, III. 103, n.

Guillaume de Bergédan, Troubadour, I. 314.

Guinart, Roque de, a freebooter, I. 335.

Guivara, I. 435.

Gusto Picaresco, origin of, I. 512, III. 55.

Gutierrez, Juan Rufo. See Rufo.

Guzman, Alonso Perez de, letter to, by Alfonso the Wise, I. 36.

Notice of, 38, n.

Guzman, Fernan Perez de, f. 1460, I. 185, 398-402, 429, 435.

Guzman, Francisco de, f. 1580.

Didactic poetry, III. 18.

Guzman, Juan de, f. 1589.

Rhetórica, III. 187.

Guzman de Alfarache, First Part, III. 59.

Spurious Second Part, 61 and n.

Genuine Second Part, 61.

Their character, 63.

Tales in, 117.

See Bremont; Ens; Mabbe; Sage, Le.

Guzman el Bueno, by Guevara, II. 293-296.

By Moratin, III. 319.

Gypsies, their expulsion proposed, III. 202, n.

H.

Hado y Devisa of Calderon, II. 399.

Haedo, Diego de, f. 1612.

Historia de Argel, II. 58, 59, n.

Hain, L., translation of Sismondi, I. 33, n.

Hallam, H., earliest Castilian, III. 383, n.

Hamlet, by Moratin, III. 339.

Hammen, Lorenzo Vander, friend of Quevedo, II. 273 and n.

Hardy, French dramatist, II. 431 and n., III. 119.

Haro, Count, El Bueno, I. 196.

Haro, Diego Lopez de, I. 435 and n., 436.

Hauteroche and Calderon, II. 383, n.

Hayley, W., and the Araucana, II. 464, n.

Hazañas de Bernardo, by Alonzo, II. 477.

Hazañas, El de las. See Pulgar.

Heliodorus, Theagenes and Chariclea, I. 245, n., II. 102, n.

Hellowes, Edward, translations from Guevara, I. 544, n., 545, n.

Henry, Prince of Portugal, I. 206, II. 378, n.

Henry iv. of Castile, d. 1474, I. 415.

A poet, 443.

Decay of letters, 473.

Henry iv. of France, protects Antonio Perez, III. 132.

Heraclito y Demócrito of Ant. de Vega, III. 186, n.

Herbas, José Gerardo de, f. 1737. Satire, III. 228.

Hercules Furens of Zarate, II. 548.

Hercules. See Trabajos.

Heredia, Fernandez, d. 1549, I. 341, 441, 442, n.

Heredia, Juan Francisco Fern. de, f. 1683.

Didactic prose, III. 195.

Hermandad, what, III. 32.

Hermosa Ester of Lope de Vega, II. 222 and n.

Hermosa Fea of Lope de Vega, II. 180.

Hermosilla, Juicio Crítico, III. 293, n., 308, n.

Hermosura de Angélica. See Angélica.

Hernandia, La, of Ruiz de Leon, III. 306, n.

Hero and Leander of Boscan, III. 13.

Herod, in Calderon, II. 371.

Heroic and Narrative Poems, II. 483, 491.

Failure of, 502-504.

Herrera, Christ. Perez de, f. 1618, III. 173, n.

Herrera, Antonio de, d. 1625. Historia, III. 153.

Herrera, Fernando de, d. 1597. Life, II. 509 and n.

Poetry, 510.

Lost works, 510, n.

Canzones and odes, 511.

His poetical language, 513.

Elegies, III. 9.

Admired by Lope de Vega, II. 531, n.

Edition of Garcilasso, I. 486, 494.

Herrera, Rodrigo de, dramatist, II. 323.

Hespaña Libertada, by Ferreira, II. 500, 502, n.

Hidalgo, Gaspar Lucas de, f. 1605. Tales, III. 98.

Hidalgo, Juan, ballads, III. 32.

Higuera, Father, d. 1624. Forges certain Chronicones, III. 152.

Hijo de Marco Aurelio, by Zabaleta, II. 414, n.

Hinard, Damas, Romancero, III. 395.

Hipólito y Aminta of Quintana, II. 102, n.

Historia de Tobias of Lope de Vega, II. 222.

Historias Fabulosas of Antonio, III. 153, n.

Historia General of Herrera, III. 153.

Historia General de España of Mariana, III. 147.

Credulity, 149.

Many emendations, 148, n.

Archaisms, 149.

Rich style, 149.

Speeches and character-drawing, 150.

Merits, 150.

Attacks on, 150, 151, n.

Historia Parthenopea, poem of Fernandez, II. 458.

Historians, Spanish, III. 138.

How made cautious, 152, n.

Their general character, 167.

Great numbers for provinces and cities, 168, n.

See Chronicles.

Historians, Spanish, ecclesiastical, III. 142, 143, n.

Historias Peregrinas of Céspedes, III. 107.

Historical Romance. See Fictions, Serious.

Hita, Archpriest of, f. 1343.

Life, I. 78.

Works, 79-86.

Apologues, 84.

Character, 85.

Verses by, 116, n.

Ballads like, 150.

Satirical, III. 3.

Hita, Ginés Perez de, f. 1600.

Guerras Civiles de Granada, III. 79.

Ballads, 31.

Hojeda, the discoverer, I. 211.

Hojeda, Diego de, f. 1611. His Christiada, II. 473.

Holcroft, T., translates from Lope de Vega, II. 235.

Holland, Lord, Preface, ix.

Life of Lope de Vega, etc., I. 487, n., II. 120, n., 205, n., III. 304, n.

Holy League, II. 55.

Hormesinda of N. F. Moratin, III. 319.

Horace, translations of, by Luis de Leon, II. 48;

the Argensolas, 535;

Cascales, III. 236;

Espinel, 19, 20, n.;

Yriarte, 278.

Horosco, Alonso, f. 1568. Reyna Saba, III. 181, n.

Hospitals, their interest in the theatre, II. 36.

Support the cause of the drama, 330.

Suffer by it sometimes, 331, n.

Honrador de su Padre by Diamante, II. 416.

Howell, Letters, II. 393.

Hoyos, Lope de, teacher of Cervantes, II. 54.

Hoz, Juan de la, f. 1689, II. 417.

Hozes, Hernando de, his Triunfos de Petrarca, I. 496, n.

Huarte, Juan de, f. 1566.

Examen de Ingenios, III. 189, n.

See Lessing.

Huber, V. A., History of the Cid, I. 13, n.

On the ballads, I. 129, III. 396.

Edits Crónica del Cid, I. 169.

Huerta, Antonio Sigler, dramas, II. 144.

Huerta, Gerónimo de, f. 1588, II. 479.

Huerta, Vicente Garcia, d. 1787.

Poems, III. 271.

Dramas, 322.

Teatro Hespañol, 329.

Huet, on the origin of rhyme, III. 374.

Huete, Jaume de, c. 1535. Dramatist, II. 8.

Hugalde y Mollinedo, Nicolás, translation of Bouterwek’s History of Spanish Literature, I. 33, n.

Hugo, Victor, Notre Dame de Paris, II. 422, n.

Hugues de Mataplana, Troubadour, I. 314.

Hugues de St. Cyr, Troubadour, I. 313.

Humboldt, W. von, on the Basque, III. 357, n., I. 109, n.

Humboldt, Alex. von, on Columbus, I. 211, n.

On Orsua and Aguirre, II. 468.

Hurtado, Luis, f. 1550. Palmerin of England, I. 237.

Hymenea of Naharro, I. 299.

Hypochondria, when first noticed, II. 162.

I.

Ibañez, a dramatist, c. 1770, III. 325.

Iberiada of Savariego, II. 499.

Iberians in Spain, III. 356.

Idea de un Príncipe of Faxardo, III. 185.

Iglesias, Josef, d. 1797. Works, III. 294, 295.

Imperial, Francisco, I. 393, 429.

Improvisation in Spain, II. 252-254, 325.

Index Expurgatorius, first, I. 462.

Last, III. 343, 344, n.

Inedita, III. 432.

Infamador, El, of Malara, II. 26.

Infante, Libro del, by D. Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Ingenio de esta Corte, Un, plays by, II. 325.

Ingeniosa Helena of Barbadillo, I. 270, n., III. 99.

Inglis, Rambles in the Footsteps of Don Quixote, II. 103, n.

Inquisition, origin among the Albigenses, I. 312, 447.

Established in Spain, 448.

Its power, 450, and popularity, 451, 465, 466, III. 206.

Forbids heretical books, I. 461.

Punishes persons keeping heretical books, 462.

Interferes with the press, 462.

Publishes an Index Expurgatorius, 462.

Punishment of confiscation and death to those who use prohibited books, 463.

Vast power, 465.

Persecutes men of letters, 466.

Triumphant in the time of Philip ii., 467.

Persecutes Luis de Leon, II. 42 and n., 43.

Assails the theatre, 3, 8;

Quevedo, 260;

the Diablo Predicador, 327;

Tirso de Molina, 309;

Guevara, 297, n.

Does not forbid the Celestina, I. 268, n.

Lope de Vega a familiar, II. 134, 146;

an officer at an Auto da Fé, 157.

Power in the 17th century, III. 205;

under Philip v., 246-248;

Ferdinand vi., 249;

Charles iii., 257;

Charles iv., 343;

Ferdinand vii., 346.

Abolished, 347, n.

Intolerance, Spanish, origin of, I. 446, 447, n.

Becomes sombre and fierce, 451, 465.

Grows general, 468.

Effects on intellectual cultivation, 468-470;

on the national character and power, 471.

One cause of bad taste in Spain, II. 519.

Strong under Philip v., III. 246-249.

Relaxes under Ferdinand vi., 249.

See Inquisition.

Introyto, what, I. 297.

Invencion de la Cruz of Zarate, II. 486, 487, n.

Invenciones, what, I. 438.

Inventario of Villegas, III. 93.

Inventores de las Cosas, by Cueva, III. 20.

Iriarte. See Yriarte.

Irlos, Count, ballad, I. 126, 133.

Irving, Washington, Preface, viii., I. 211.

Isabela of L. L. de Argensola, II. 33.

Isabella the Catholic, d. 1504.

Favors the Inquisition, I. 448.

Patronizes learning, 549.

Her letters, III. 128, 129, n.

Isidore, St., of Seville, d. 636.

His Latinity, III. 367;

Spanish words in, 367, n.

Isidro el Labrador, San, his life and miracles, II. 134.

Lope’s poem on, 135.

Festival on his beatification, 149-152.

Festival on his canonization, 152-155.

Lope’s plays on, 224 and n., 242.

Isla, J. F. de, d. 1781, III. 258.

His Juventud Triunfante, 258.

Dia Grande, 259.

Sermons, 259.

Friar Gerund, 260.

Cicero, 264.

Gil Blas, 266.

Satire of Pitillas attributed to, 229, n.

Isocrates, translated by Mexia, I. 538, n.

Italian language, influence on Spanish, I. 351, 548.

Italian school in Spanish literature, I. 474-496.

Contest about, 501.

Success settled, 508.

Influence on lyrical poetry, II. 505;

on prose composition, I. 531, 532, n., 535;

on romantic fiction, III. 39, 79;

on prose pastorals, 40.

Lope de Vega’s relations to, II. 164.

Italy, early influence on Spain, I. 346-351;

time of Ferdinand and Isabella, 474;

time of Charles v., 475.

Glory of, 476, 477.

Continued influence, 497.

J.

Jacinta, drama, II. 9, n.;

of Torres Naharro, I. 297.

Jacinto, San, Justa Poética, II. 79.

Jacobina of Damian de Vegas, II. 277.

Jael of Sedano, III. 329.

Jardin de Flores of Torquemada, III. 174.

Jarvis, his translation of Don Quixote, III. 419.

Jaume i. of Aragon, d. 1276, I. 314.

His Chronicle, 315.

Conquest of Valencia, 316.

Notice of, by Muntaner, 317.

Jaume ii. of Aragon, d. 1327, I. 323.

Jauregui, Juan de, f. 1640.

His Orfeo, II. 299.

His Works, 539.

Attacks Góngora, 532.

Festival of San Isidro, 152.

Satire, III. 4.

Jerusalen Conquistada of Lope, II. 143.

Jesuits, expulsion of, III. 256.

In Italy, 428.

Jews, hatred of, I. 446.

Early persecuted, 448.

Persecuted in the times of Philip v. and Ferdinand vi., III. 248, 249.

Job, by Luis de Leon, II. 45.

Joglaressa, I. 116.

John i. of Aragon, d. 1395, I. 327, 329.

John ii. of Aragon, d. 1479, I. 329.

John ii. of Castile, d. 1454.

His reign, I. 352.

A poet, 355-357, 443.

Death, 396.

Decay of letters in his time, 473.

John, Bishop of Seville, Bible in Arabic, III. 378.

John, Don, of Austria, d. 1578.

Commands in the Holy League, II. 55-57.

Play of Montalvan, 301;

of Zamora, 426.

Inquisition, I. 467.

Fame, II. 491, n.

Johnson, Samuel, reads Felixmarte of Hircania, I. 241.

On Castiglione, 481.

Joinville, chronicler, I. 216, n.

Jonson, Ben, on Aleman, III. 64.

Jordi, Troubadour, f. 1460, I. 330 and n.

Jornadas, what, I. 296, II. 93 and n., 178.

As acted, Primera, 443;

Segunda and Tercera, 445.

Jornadas Alegres of Solorzano, III. 109, n.

José, Poema de, c. 1400, I. 94.

Story of Joseph, from the Koran, 95.

Its Oriental character, 97.

The Poem itself, III. 432.

Joseph de las Mugeres of Calderon, II. 355.

Joustings, Poetical. See Justas.

Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchior de, d. 1811, III. 297-304.

Dramas, 323.

Favors Llorente, I. 453, n.

On the immorality of the old theatre, II. 216, n.

Juan, Don, the poetical character of, II. 309, 310 and n.

Juan, Marques de San, f. 1713.

Cinna, III. 312.

Juan Manuel, Don. See Manuel.

Judgment, Last, by Berceo, I. 28, 29, n., 32.

Juglares, what, I. 116, n.

Julius iii., Pope, and Mendoza, I. 515.

Justas Poéticas, I. 338, II. 150, 151, n.

At Saragossa, 79.

Cervantes on, 335, n.

Justa Venganza, attack on Quevedo, II. 275.

Juventud Triunfante of Isla, III. 258.

K.

Keil, J. J., edition of Calderon, II. 343, n.

Keller, A., edition of Conde Lucanor, I. 75, n.

Romancero del Cid, 141.

Klopstock, Odes, II. 51.

Knight-errantry in Spain, I. 250, 251.

Knight of the Bright Star, a romance, I. 246.

L.

Labyrinth of Juan de Mena, I. 384.

Lacordaire on the Inquisition, I. 448.

Ladino, what, III. 377, n., 386, n.

Lafayette, Madame de la, Zayde, III. 119.

Lafontaine, Peasant of the Danube, I. 542, n.

Lainez, Pedro, in the Galatea, II. 62.

Lamarca, Francisco Loubayssin de, f. 1617.

Enrique de Castro, III. 87, 88, n.

Lampillas, Fran. Xavier, d. 1810.

Comedias of Cervantes, II. 96 and n.

Defence of Spanish Literature, III. 429.

Lances de Calderon, what, II. 362, n.

Lando, Ferrant Manuel de, I. 394, 429.

Langton, Algernon, Marcos de Obregon, III. 69, n.

Language, Spanish. See Spanish Language.

Lanini, Pedro Fr., dramatist, II. 427.

Lanuza, pseudonyme for Luzan, III. 239, n.

Lanz, Karl, Muntaner, I. 318, n.

Laquerica, Juan Iñiguez, Romancero, III. 393.

Lara, Infantes de, ballads on, I. 139.

Vaenius, engravings of, 139, n.

From Crónica General, 139, n., 161, 163, n.

Play of Lope, II. 206.

Lara, Agustin de, f. 1682.

Obelisco Fúnebre de Calderon, II. 333, n., 339, n.

Lara, P. M., f. 1726.

Poem on St. Jerome, III. 227, n.

Lardizabal y Uribe, Manuel, I. 48, n.

Larra, his Doncel de Don Enrique, I. 358, n., 365, n.

His Macias, ib.

Larramendi, Del Bascuense, III. 357, n.

Lassala, drama by, III. 329.

Lasso de la Vega, Gabriel, f. 1594, II. 467.

Latin language in Spain, III. 362.

Writers in it there, 364 and n.

Its great diffusion, 366.

Effect of Christianity on, 366, n.

Corrupted, 367, 380.

Basis of the Spanish, 371, 385 and n., II. 521, n.

Latinas, of Villegas, II. 543.

Latiniparla, what, III. 218.

Latino, Juan, a negro, f. 1573, II. 491, n.

Latro, Portius, III. 364.

Laurel de Apolo of Lope de Vega, II. 160.

Lavigne, earliest Spanish dramas, I. 259, n.

Translation of Celestina, 271, n.

Of Quevedo, II. 268.

Lazarillo de Tórmes, by Mendoza, I. 511-514, III. 58.

Leaden Books of Granada, III. 152, n.

Leandro of Boscan, I. 480.

Leandro the Fair, a romance of chivalry, I. 234.

Lebrixa, Antonio de, chronicle attributed to, I. 190, n.

Scholarship, 349, 473.

Dictionary and Grammar, 549, III. 222, n.

Orthography, 220.

Lebrixa, Marcelo de, f. 1522.

His Triaca, II. 5, n.

Ledel, Jacques, his Joinville, I. 217, n.

Ledesma, Alonzo de, d. 1623, II. 517.

Leganitos, Tarrega, II. 278, 279 and n.

Lemos, Count of, Marquis of Sarria, etc., d. 1622, II. 131 and n., 97 and n., 253.

Lemos, Countess of, III. 251.

Lenox, Mrs., imitation of Don Quixote, III. 421.

Lentiscar de Cartagena of Campillo de Bayle, III. 106, n.

Leo x., age of, I. 477.

Leon, Luis de, d. 1591.

Birth and education, II. 40.

Professor at Salamanca, 41.

Troubles with the Inquisition about a version of Solomon’s Song, 42, I. 466.

His Names of Christ, II. 43.

His Perfect Wife, and Job, 45.

His illness and death, 46.

His poems, 47-51, 509.

His eloquence, III. 123.

Edits Sta. Teresa, 179.

Is imitated by Gonzalez, 293.

Leon, Melchior de, finishes Calderon’s last auto, II. 339.

Dramas, 429.

Leon de España of Vezilla Castellanos, II. 494.

Leon Marcante, Manuel de, f. 1690.

Poet, II. 549 and n.

Leon Prodigioso of Texada, III. 90.

Lepanto, battle of, Cervantes fights in, II. 56.

Cortereal’s poem on, 492.

Herrera’s ode on, 511.

Lepolemo, a romance, I. 242.

Lerma, Pedro de, I. 294, n.

Le Sage. See Sage, Le.

Lessing, G. E., translation of Huarte, III. 189, n.

On Montiano, 317, n.

L’Estrange, Sir R., translates Quevedo, II. 271, n.

Letrados, what, I. 101 and n.

Letrillas, I. 149.

Lewis, M. G., his Castle Spectre, III. 309.

Ley Agraria of Jovellanos, III. 300.

Leyba, Antonio, dramatist, f. 1670, II. 413.

Libre de les Dones, by Roig, I. 336, n.

Licinian, III. 367.

Lima Fundada of Barnuevo, III. 226.

Liñan, Pedro de, f. 1605, II. 515.

Liñan y Verdugo, Antonio, f. 1620.

Tales, III. 103.

Lindo Don Diego of Moreto, II. 405.

Lisseno y Fenisa of Parraga, III. 92, n.

Lisuarte of Greece, romance of chivalry, I. 233.

Literature, origin of, in different countries of modern Europe, I. 3.

Periods in which it has flourished, 457.

Literature, Spanish. See Spanish Literature.

Llaguno y Amirola, translates Athalie, III. 318.

Llanos, Rafael Gonzalez, on the Fueros de Avilés, III. 382, n.

Llorente, Antonio, d. 1823.

History of the Inquisition, I. 453, n.

Edits Las Casas, 566.

On Gil Blas, III. 267, 268, n.

Loaisa, the discoverer, I. 211.

Loas, what, II. 230, 441.

Of Lope, 231.

Of Calderon, 343.

Of others, 442.

Loaysa, f. 1533. Letters to Charles v., III. 145, n.

Lobeira, Vasco de, d. 1403. Amadis de Gaula, I. 221.

Lobera, dramatist, III. 325.

Lobo, Eugenio, f. 1738.

Poems, III. 227.

Dramas, 313.

Lobo, Franc. Rodriguez de, his Primavera, III. 53, n.

Lockhart, J. G., his translations of Spanish ballads, I. 127, 145, n., III. 395.

Edition of Motteux’s translation of Don Quixote, 420.

Lo Frasso. See Frasso.

Logroño, Auto da Fé de, III. 204, n.

Longfellow, H. W., I. 19, n., 32, n., 408, n.

Lope. See Vega, Lope de.

Lope, a name for every thing good, II. 250 and n.

Lope, son of Lope de Vega, II. 123, n., 132, 133, 152, 169, n.

Lopez, Alonzo, (El Pinciano,) f. 1596.

Filosofía Antigua Poética, III. 236.

Glossary, 218 and n.

Opposes the old drama, II. 328.

Lopez, Manuel, Collection of Plays, III. 426.

Lorenzo, San, by Berceo, I. 28.

Lorenzo Segura, Juan, poet, f. 13th cent., I. 56-61.

Loubayssin de Lamarca. See Lamarca.

Love the Most Powerful of Enchantments, a play of Calderon, II. 390.

Loyal Serviteur, I. 197, n.

Loyalty, a prominent trait in Spanish literature, I. 103, 127, n., 145.

Decay of, III. 207, 208, I. 468, II. 503.

Loyola, poem of Escobar, II. 474, 475, n.

Of Camargo, 474, 475, n.

Lozano, Christóval, f. 1660.

Reyes Nuevos de Toledo, III. 91.

Tales, 108.

Didactic prose, 195.

Lucan, Pharsalia, by Jauregui. II. 532, n., 540.

Lucanor, Conde, I. 70-75, 84, n.

Editions of, 75, n.

See Manuel, Don Juan.

Lucas, Bishop of Tuy, I. 167, n.

Lucena, Juan de, f. 1453. Vita Beata, I. 415.

Lucero de la Tierra Santa, poem by Escobar Cabeza de la Vaca, I. 274.

Lucrecia of N. F. Moratin, III. 319.

Ludolphus of Saxony, I. 414, n.

Ludueña, Comendador, I. 442, n.

Didactic poetry, III. 17.

Lugo, Francisco, f. 1622. Tales, III. 103.

Luis Perez el Gallego of Calderon, II. 361.

Luna, Alvaro de, lament for, I. 186.

Ballad on, ib., n.

His Chronicle, 198-200.

Entremeses, 259.

His influence, 352.

Santillana’s poem on, 374.

Poetry by, 443 and n.

Date of his death, III. 401.

Luna, Juan de, Second Part of Lazarillo, I. 513.

Luna, Miguel de, f. 1589. His Rey Rodrigo, I. 215, n.

Luna de la Sierra, by Guevara, II. 296.

Luther. See Reformation.

Luxan, Pedro de, f. 1563, I. 234.

Luzan, Ignacio de, d. 1754, III. 233.

His Arte Poética, 235.

Other works, 238, 239, n.

Academia del Buen Gusto, 251.

Translates from Metastasio, 315, and Lachaussée, 318.

Luz del Alma of Roca y Serna, II. 528 and n.

Luzindaro y Medusina, III. 77.

Lyric poetry, earliest, I. 29, n., II. 505.

Time of Charles v., 505.

Italian influence on, 506.

State from Charles v. to Philip v., 505-549.

Character of its religious portions, 550;

of its secular portions, 550-552.

State under Philip v., III. 227.

M.

Mabbe, James, translates Celestina, I. 272, n.;

tales of Cervantes, II. 88, n.;

Guzman de Alfarache, III. 64, n.

Macabeo of Silveira, II. 485.

Macanaz, persecuted, III. 246, 248.

Machuca, Pedro de Vargas, f. 1629, II. 150, n.

Licenses plays, 204, n.

Macias el Enamorado, f. 1420, I. 364, 365 and n., 429.

Play by Lope, II. 190.

McCrie, Thomas, I. 460, n.

Madonna, poems on, by Berceo, I. 28, 29, n.

Miracles of, by Berceo, 28, 30.

Madrid, the capital of Spain, II. 276.

Theatres in, 36-39, 433, III. 314.

Madrigal, Miguel de, Romancero, III. 394.

Magdalena, La, of Malon de Chaide, III. 180.

Magellanes, the discoverer, I. 241.

Magestad, how used, III. 207, n.

Mágico Prodigioso of Calderon, II. 355, 360.

Mahon, Lord, III. 215, n.

Maiquez, an actor, III. 340.

Malara, Juan de, f. 1580.

Dramatist, II. 26.

Proverbs, III. 172, 173, n.

Mal Casados de Valencia, play of Guillen de Castro, II. 284.

Malcolm, Sir J., Sketches of Persia, I. 72, n.

Maldonado, Alonso, Chrónica Universal, III. 153, n.

Maldonado, Lopez de, f. 1586.

Poetry, II. 508.

Epigrams, III. 14.

Ballads, 35.

Male, Guillaume van, or Malinæus, d. 1560. Correspondence, I. 497, 499, n., III. 142, n.

Mal Lara. See Malara.

Malon de Chaide, poetry, II. 517, n.

Magdalena, III. 181.

Malsburg, translation of Calderon, II. 390, n.

Maltea, La, of Sanz, II. 457.

Malucas, Conquista de, of Argensola, III. 155.

Mañana de San Juan, II. 156.

Mandeville, Sir J., I. 189, n.

Mandeville, the Spanish, III. 175.

Manoel de Portugal, poet. See Portugal.

Manrique, Gomez, f. 1482, I. 404.

Manrique, Jorge, d. 1479.

His Coplas, I. 196, n., 406-409.

Poems, 435, 442, n.

Manrique, Pedro, d. 1440, I. 403.

Manrique, Rodrigo, d. 1476, I. 404.

Manso of Naples, II. 537.

Mantua, Marquis of, ballad on, I. 126, 133.

Mantuano, Pedro, on Mariana, III. 150, n.

Manuel, Don Juan, of Castile, d. 1347.

Life, I. 61.

Works, 65, n.

Story by, 66.

Letter to his brother, 68.

Counsels to his son, 69.

Book of the Knight and Esquire, 69.

Conde Lucanor, 70.

Style, 74, n.

Character, 75.

Ballads, 117.

Proverbs, III. 170.

Manuel, Don Juan, of Portugal, f. 1497, I. 66, n., 120, 441, III. 17.

Marcante, Manuel de Leon. See Leon.

Marcela, daughter of Lope de Vega, II. 132 and n., 163, 284.

March, Ausias, f. 1450, I. 331-333.

March, Jacme, f. 1371, I. 325.

Marche, Olivier de la, I. 498.

Marco Aurelio of Guevara, I. 541.

Marcos de Obregon of Espinel, III. 67-70, 117.

See Langton; Sage, Le; Tieck; Voltaire.

Marcus Maximus, forged chronicle of, III. 152, n.

Mardones. See Salazar.

Maria, Santa, a Jewish family. I. 399.

Pablo, d. 1432, Alonso, d. 1435, ib.

Mariana, Juan de, d. 1623. A Jesuit, III. 143.

Persecuted, I. 466, III. 144.

Praises the Inquisition, I. 448, n.

His works, III. 145.

History of Spain, 147-150.

De Spectaculis, II. 330, 430, n.

Marie de France, I. 84, n.

Marina, Fr. Martinez, I. 13. n.

Marina, on the earliest Castilian, III. 382.

Marineo, Lucio, I. 473.

Mariner, translates Ausias March, I. 333, n.

Marinisti, II. 520.

Marlowe’s Faustus, II. 73.

Marmol, Luis del, f. 1600, I. 447, n.

Marquez, Juan, f. 1612. El Governador, III. 184.

Marriage of the Soul and Divine Love, by Lope de Vega, II. 173.

Marti, Juan, f. 1603, III. 61.

Martial, a Spaniard, III. 364.

Martin of Aragon, d. 1409, I. 328.

Martinez, Ant., dramatist, II. 427, III. 425.

Martinez, Eugenio, his Genealogía de la Toledana Discreta, II. 107, n.

Martorell, Joannot, I. 331.

Martyr, Peter, I. 473.

Mary, Queen of Scots, Lope de Vega’s poem on, II. 159.

Mary, St., the Egyptian, poem on, 13th cent., I. 25.

Notices of, 26, n.

Masdovelles, Berenguer de, Troubadour, f. 1453, I. 330.

Mas pesa el Rey que la Sangre of Guevara, II. 293-296.

Maspons, Mossen Domingo, Troubadour, dramatist, f. 1394, II. 167, n.

Massieu, origin of rhyme, etc., III. 374.

Mata, Gabriel de, f. 1589, II. 470.

Mata, Geron. Fern. de, f. 1638. Tales, III. 108.

Mathieu de Querci, Troubadour, I. 314.

Matos Fragoso, Juan de, d. 1690. Dramas, II. 418, 419, n., III. 425.

Mauri, or Maury, Juan Maria, I. 193. III. 348.

Mayans y Siscar, Gregorio, d. 1782.

His Orígenes, I. 547, n.

Edits Luis de Leon’s poetry, II. 47.

Life of Cervantes, 52, n.

Fílida, III. 46, n.

Justina, 67, n.

Cartas de Varios Autores, 136.

Life of Antonio, 153, n.

Book collector, 249.

Rhetórica, 252.

On Cibdareal, 397.

Mayor Encanto Amor of Calderon, II. 361, n.

Mayor Monstruo los Zelos of Calderon, II. 371.

Measures, poetical, in the Poem of the Cid, I. 17.

Apollonio, 24.

Sta. Maria Egypciaca, 25.

Berceo, 29.

Alfonso x., 43.

Archpriest of Hita, 79.

Ayala, 99.

Italian measures introduced, 483.

Yriarte’s variety, III. 279.

Medici, Lorenzo de’, age of, I. 477.

Médico de su Honra of Calderon, II. 360, 368.

Medina Sidonia, Duke of, I. 441.

Medina Sidonia, Duque de, translates Iphigénie, III. 319.

Medinilla, Pedro de, friend of Lope de Vega, II. 128.

Medora of Lope de Rueda, II. 11.

Medrano, Francisco de, f. 1617, II. 533.

Mejor Alcalde el Rey of Lope de Vega, II. 207, n., 215, n., 389, n.

Mejor Muger Madre, poem by Calvo, II. 474, 475, n.

Mejor Representante San Gines, El, by Cancer, II. 414, n.

Melendez Valdes, Juan, d. 1817, III. 285-292.

Archaisms, 297, n.

Drama, 321.

Meli, imitation of Don Quixote, III. 421.

Melindrosa, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 180.

Melisendra of Lope de Vega, II. 235.

Melo, Manuel de, d. 1666, II. 529 and n.

Poetical epistles, III. 6.

History, 161.

Mena, Ferdinando de, Theagenes and Chariclea, I. 245, n.

Mena, Juan de, d. 1456, I. 379-388.

Effect on the Spanish language, 390.

Chronicle of John ii., I. 184.

Poem on Alvaro de Luna, 199, n.

Not the author of Mingo Revulgo, 261;

parody on, 442, n.

Date of his death, III. 399.

Menæchmi of Plautus, II. 21.

Mendoza, or Mendoça, Antonio de, f. 1622.

His Celestina, I. 271.

Drama with Villamediana, II. 184, n.;

with Quevedo, 185;

other dramas, 318;

on Prince Balthazar, 395, n.;

play of Cubillo, 412.

His loas, 442.

Lyrical poems, 547.

Ballads, III. 33.

Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, d. 1575.

Birth and education, I. 509-511.

Lazarillo de Tórmes, 511;

its imitations, 513.

A soldier and diplomatist, 514.

Classical studies, 515.

Ambassador at the Council of Trent, and at Rome, 515.

Retires from public life, exiled from court, 516.

His poetry, 517.

His miscellaneous works, 519.

His Guerra de Granada, 520-526, III. 142.

Death and character, I. 527, 528.

His library, 527, n.

Figures in a play of Orozco, II. 51, n.;

in the Galatea of Cervantes, 63, n.

Finds a rhymed Chronicle of Alfonso xi., I. 77.

His narrative poetry, II. 481.

Poems with Silvestre’s, I. 506.

On the Spanish language, 548, n., III. 217, 218, n.

His Satires, III. 3.

Letters, 129.

Mendoza, Garcia de, Marquis of Cañete, troubles with Ercilla, and life of, by Figueroa, II. 465, n.

Plays on, 466, n.

Mendoza, Iñigo Lopez de. See Santillana.

Mendoza, Juan Hurtado de, f. 1544. Didactic poetry, III. 17, 18 and n.

Mendoza, Puente de, attacks the drama, II. 394.

Mendoza, Salazar de, on the expulsion of the Gypsies, III. 202, n.

Menennos of Timoneda, II. 21.

Menina e Moça of Ribeyro, II. 61, n., III. 53, n.

Meras, Ignacio de, f. 1797.

Works, III. 283, n.

Mercader Amante of Aguilar, II. 280.

Mercader y Cervellon, his Alfonso viii., III. 185, n.

Mercurio General of Isla, III. 266, n.

Meriendas del Ingenio of Prado, III. 109.

Merlin, a romance of chivalry, I. 244.

Mesa, Christóval de, f. 1612.

Epics, II. 496, 497, n.

Lyrical poetry, 517 and n.

Didactic poetry, III. 19.

Opposes the old drama, II. 328.

Mescua, Antonio Mira de. See Mira de Mescua.

Metropolis, long wanted, II. 276.

Madrid made such, 276.

Mexia, Diego, Parnaso Antártico, III. 8.

Mexia, Ferant de, f. 1492.

His Nobiliario, III. 96, n.

Mexia, Hernan, I. 435, 436.

Mexia, Luis, I. 537.

Mexia, Pero, d. 1552.

Submits a book to the Inquisition, I. 462, n.

His Silva, 537, 538, n.

His Chronicle, 555.

Mexicana, La, of Gabriel Lasso de la Vega, II. 467.

México Conquistada of Escoiquiz, III. 305.

Michel, Francisque, I. 23, n.

Mignet, on Antonio Perez, III. 134, n.

Milanés, José J., works, I. 127, n.

Millan, San, by Berceo, I. 28.

Milman, H. H., Martyr of Antioch, II. 355.

Milton, Paradise Lost, by Escoiquiz, III. 306.

Mimoso, Juan Sardina, II. 433, n.

Mingo Revulgo, c. 1472, I. 260.

Pulgar on, 423.

Minnesingers, I. 355 and n.

Mira de Mescua, Antonio, f. 1635.

Dramas, II. 315, III. 425.

His Conde Alarcos, I. 127.

Miranda, Saa de. See Saa.

Mocedades del Cid of Guillen de Castro, II. 287.

Mock-heroic poems, II. 487, III. 227.

Mogiganga del Gusto of Castillo, III. 108.

Mogigata, La, of Moratin, III. 337.

Mohammed, conquests of, III. 373.

Mohammed Çalam, a Morisco poem, III. 201, n.

Molière imitates Lope de Vega, II. 181.

Tirso de Molina, 310.

Moreto, 406.

Is imitated by Moratin, III. 339.

Molina, Argote de, edits Conde Lucanor, I. 75, n.

Monteria of Alfonso xi., 76.

Chronicle of Alfonso xi., 77.

Clavijo, 203, n.

On the old ballads, 111, n.

Defends the old poetry, 507.

His letters, III. 129.

His death, 409.

Molina. See Tirso de Molina.

Momo, Historia Moral de, by Noydens, III. 86, n.

Monarchia Hebrea of San Phelipe, III. 230.

Moncada, Francisco de, d. 1635.

Expedicion de Catalanes, III. 159.

Moncada, Sancho de, f. 1609.

On the expulsion of the Gypsies, III. 202.

Moncayo, Pedro de, chronicler, III. 82.

Moncayo y Gurrea, Marques de San Felices, f. 1656.

His Atalanta, II. 483.

Poems, 530.

Mondego of Saa de Miranda, III. 11.

Mondejar, Marquis of, Life of Alfonso the Wise, I. 38, n.

Advertencias, III. 151, n.

Monroy, dramatist, II. 417.

Monserrate of Virues, II. 471.

Monstruo Imaginado of Ledesma, II. 518.

Montagnagout, a Troubadour, I. 44, n.

Montalvan, Juan Perez de, d. 1638.

Birth and education, II. 297.

His St. Patrick, 298, 353, n.

Dies mad, 299.

Connection with Lope, 299.

Orfeo, 299.

Dramas, 300.

Theory of the drama, 306.

Versification, 306, n.

His Fama Póstuma, 298.

His fame, 307.

His Gitana de Menfis, I. 26, n.

Festivals of San Isidro, II. 152, 153.

Play of Lope ascribed to, 208, n.

His list of dramatic authors, 332.

His Para Todos, III. 105.

Montalvo, Garcia Ordoñez de, c. 1500.

Translates the Amadis de Gaula, I. 223.

Writes the Esplandian, I. 231.

Montalvo, Luis Galvez de, d. 1591.

Fílida, III. 46.

On the Italian school, I. 507.

Montano, Arias, d. 1598.

His Song of Solomon, II. 42, n.

His Polyglot Bible, III. 144.

Montejo, Fr. Benito, early history of Castile, I. 91, n.

Montemayor, Jorge de, d. 1561.

His Diana Enamorada, II. 62, III. 41-43.

Translates Ausias March, I. 333.

Narrative poetry, II. 481.

Lyrical, 507, 508, n.

Satirical, III. 4.

Eclogues, 10.

Story of Narvaez, 96 and n.

Montengon, Pedro de, f. 1815, III. 283, n.

Montería of Alfonso xi., I. 76.

Montería of Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Monteser, dramatist, II. 417, 487, n.

Montesino, Ambrosio, (El Cartuxano,) f. 1502.

His Vita Christi, I. 414, n.

Montesinos, ballads, I. 132.

Montiano y Luyando, Agustin, f. 1753.

His Virginia, III. 316.

His Athaulpho, 317.

Montoro, Joseph Perez de, d. 1694.

Poet, II. 549.

Moors, always hated by Christian Spaniards, I. 7, 447 and n.

Persecution and expulsion, 449, 467.

Origin of the name, III. 373, n.

Moraes, Francisco, translates Palmerin of England, I. 237.

Moraes y Vasconcellos, Francisco Botelho, f. 1734.

His Works, III. 225.

Moraleja, Joseph, f. 1741.

Fictions, III. 106, n.

El Entretenido, 250.

Morales, Ambrosio de, d. 1591.

History of Spain, III. 141.

Discourses, I. 536, n.

Letters, III. 129.

Epistle in Latin and Spanish, 385, n.

Praise of Boscan, I. 482.

Morales, Jorge Pinto de, Romancero, III. 394.

Morales, Juan de, Eclogue, III. 13.

Morales, Juan Bartolomé, translates Lobo’s Primavera, III. 53, n.

Morales, two actors, II. 434.

Moralities of Lope de Vega, II. 170.

Moratin, Leandro Fernandez de, d. 1828.

Dramas, III. 333-339.

Poems, 307.

Auto da Fé de Logroño, 204, n.

On the earliest Spanish drama, I. 259, n.

Moratin, Nicolas F. de, d. 1780.

Works, III. 272.

His Club, 274.

Improvisates, 274, n.

Dramas, 318, 319.

Desengaño al Teatro, 324.

Morayma, ballad, I. 122.

Moreno, Juan, I. 339.

Moreto, Agustin, d. 1669, II. 403-408.

Valiente Justiciero, I. 183, n.

Licenciado Vidriera, II. 88, n.

Desden con el Desden, 318.

Azote, 419, n.

Play altered, III. 320.

Morillo, Diego de, didactic poetry, III. 19.

Morisco, what, III. 202, n.

Morisco literature, I. 95, III. 201, 202, n.

Moriscos, expulsion of, III. 200, 201, n., 85.

Moros Latinados, III. 377, n.

Morte Darthur, I. 320, n.

Mosquea, La, of Villaviciosa, II. 489.

Mosquera de Barnuevo, Francisco, f. 1612, II. 499.

Mosqueteros, what, II. 437, 438, 439, n.

Motes con Glosas of the Cancionero General, I. 439.

Mothe le Vayer, La, attacks Sandoval, III. 151, n.

Motteux, translation of Don Quixote, III. 419, 420.

Moya, Juan Martinez de, f. 1630.

Tale, III. 107.

Moza de Cantaro of Lope de Vega, II. 210.

Mozárabes. See Muçárabes.

Mozart, Don Giovanni, II. 310.

Muça, ballads on, I. 148.

Muçárabes, what, III. 377 and n.

Muerte de Baldovinos, by Cancer, II. 414, n.

Mugeres, Loor de, of Acosta, III. 176.

Müller, Johan von, Life of the Cid, I. 13, n.

Mumin, Morisco romance, III. 201, n.

Muñecas de Marcela, by Cubillo, II. 412.

Muñoz, Ant., f. 1739.

Works, III. 228.

Muñoz, Juan Bautista, d. 1799.

History, III. 305.

Muntaner, Ramon, f. 1328.

Crónica, I. 318-321.

Used by Moncada, III. 159.

Muratori, Della Perfetta Poesia, III. 237, 238, n.

Murcia, theatres shut, III. 342.

Murillo, Gregorio, Satire, III. 4.

Musica of Yriarte, III. 278.

Mysteries, early Spanish, I. 256, 276, 289.

Time of Charles v., II. 4, 5.

Pass into Autos, 227.

Mystic writers, III. 176.

Their influence, 180.

N.

Nacimiento de Christo of Lope de Vega, II. 218 and n.

Nagera, Stevan G. de, Silva de Romances, I. 126, III. 389.

Naharro, Bart. Torres de, f. 1517.

Dramas, I. 295-305.

Dramatic ideas, 296.

Versification, 303.

His plays were acted, 304, n.

Little influence, 305.

His satires, III. 3.

Names of men in Spanish, III. 71, n.

Naples, connection with Spain, I. 351, 475.

Napoleon invades Spain, III. 345.

Driven out, 346.

Narcis Viñoles. See Viñoles.

Narrative poetry, earliest, I. 12-34, 91-99.

Time of Charles v., Philip ii., iii., and iv., II. 454-504.

Time of Philip v., III. 225, 226, 230.

Of Charles iii., 273.

Of Charles iv., 306.

Of Ferdinand vii., 282, 283, n.

Narvaez, story of, III. 42, n., 94, 96, n.

Narvaez, a poetess, f. 1605, II. 515.

Nasarre, Blas, on the earliest Spanish drama, I. 259, n.

On Cervantes, II. 95, n., III. 253.

Nat de Mons, a Troubadour, I. 44, n., 314.

Navagiero, Andrea, great influence on Spanish poetry, I. 478, 479.

Navarra, Pedro de, f. 1567.

Dialogues, I. 537 and n.

Navarrete, Fernandez de, f. 1625.

Perfecto Privado, III. 184.

Navarrete, Martin Fernandez de, his Coleccion de Viages, I. 207, n.

Life of Cervantes, II. 52, n.

On Lope de Vega, 83, 144, n.

On Cadahalso, III. 277, n.

On Samaniego, 281, n.

Navarro, Cristóbal, early dramatic writer, II. 227, n.

Navarro, Gonzalo, f. 1683. Attacks the drama, II. 394, n.

Navas de Tolosa, battle of, I. 9 and n.

Poem of, by Mesa, II. 496, 497, n.

Navas de Cortés of Moratin, III. 273.

Naxera, battle of, I. 178.

Nebrissensis. See Lebrixa.

Necio bien Afortunado of Salas Barbadillo, III. 101, n.

Negrete, Joseph Tafalla, f. 1700. Poet, II. 549 and n.

Negro Valiente en Flandes, II. 492.

Neufchâteau, François de, on Gil Blas, III. 268, n.

Neves Pereira, Ant., on Saa de Miranda, III. 12.

Nibelungenlied, I. 20, n., 23, n.

Nicolas de los Romances, I. 116.

Nicolas, San, de Tolentino, of Lope de Vega, II. 224, n., 242.

Niebla, Count, in Juan de Mena, I. 386.

Niña de Gomez Arias of Calderon, II. 363.

Ninfas de Henares of Gonzalez de Bovadilla, III. 48.

Niño, Pero, Conde de Buelna, Chronicle of, I. 197.

Verses for, 393, n., 430, n.

Nise Laureada and Nise Lastimosa of Bermudez, II. 31.

Nobiliario of Mexia, III. 96, n.

Noche de San Juan of Lope de Vega, II. 184-189.

Noche Oscura of Sta. Cruz, III. 178.

Noches Alegres of Ortiz, III. 251, n.

Noches Claras of Sousa, III. 188.

Noches de Invierno of Eslava, III. 102.

Noches de Placer of Solorzano, III. 109, n.

No hay Amigo para Amigo of Roxas, III. 269, n.

Nombres de Christo of Luis de Leon, II. 43.

Noroña, Gaspar de, d. 1815. His Works, III. 283, n.

Northern nations, irruption of, III. 368.

Nothing like Silence, of Calderon, II. 360, 395.

Novelas of Cervantes, II. 84-88.

Of Lope de Vega, 156.

Of many authors, III. 93-118.

Novellieri, III. 98.

Noydens, Benito Remigio de, f. 1660.

Historia de Momo, III. 86 and n.

Edits Covarrubias, 219, n.

Nucio, Martin, Romancero, III. 391.

Nueva Comedia of Moratin, III. 336.

Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua of Salas, III. 237.

Nueva Jerusalen María of Escobar, II. 474, 475.

Nuevo Mundo de Colon of Lope de Vega, II. 199.

Nuevo Mundo of Moraes, III. 225.

Nuevo Mundo, Hist. de, by Muñoz, III. 305.

Numancia, La, of Cervantes, II. 70-76;

of Ayala, III. 321.

Numantina, La, of Mosquera, II. 499.

Nunes de Lião, III. 361, n.

Nuñez de Castro, Alonso, Corona Gótica, III. 164, n.

Nuñez, Fernan, Greek Commander, III. 138.

Letters, 129.

Proverbs, 171.

Commentary on Juan de Mena, I. 385.

Nuñez, Nicolas, I. 442, n., 425.

O.

Obregon, Marcos de, of Espinel, III. 69, 70 and notes, 267, n.

Ocampo, Florian de, d. 1555.

Chronicler, I. 554.

Edits the Crónica General, 158, 159, n.

Credulity, III. 148.

Ocaña, Francisco de, f. 1603. Lyrical poetry, II. 517.

Ocios de Españoles Emigrados, III. 349, n.

Oliva, Count of, I. 442, n.

Oliva, Fernan Perez de, d. 1530.

Works, I. 534-536, 539.

Translations, II. 5.

Dialogue in both Latin and Spanish, III. 385, n.

Olivante de Laura of Torquemada, I. 241, III. 174.

Olivares, Géronimo de, I. 383.

Olivares, Count Duke, patronizes men of letters, II. 284, 340, 522, 545.

Luxurious arrangements for the drama, 184, 398, 450.

Persecutes Quevedo, 258.

Olmedo, Alonso de, actor, II. 434.

Olmo, Joseph del, Auto General, III. 206, n.

Ommiada of Noroña, III. 284.

Oña, Pedro de, f. 1596. His Arauco, II. 466.

Operas in Spain, II. 361, n., 425, III. 314.

Oracion of Forner, III. 294, n.

Orfea, a play, II. 4.

Orfeo of Jauregui, II. 540.

Orfeo of Montalvan, II. 540.

Orfeo Militar of Ovando, II. 502, n.

Oria, Santa, of Berceo, I. 28.

Oriente, Alvarez do, I. 238.

Orígen de la Comedia, by C. Pellicer, II. 352, n.

Orígenes de la Poesia Castellana, by Velazquez, III. 252.

Orlando Furioso of Espinosa, II. 458.

Orlando, poems on, by Bolea, II. 477 and n.

Orsua and Aguirre, II. 468.

Ortega, Francisco de, f. 18th century. His Monserrate, II. 472.

Ortiz, Agostin, c. 1535. Drama by, II. 9.

Ortiz, Alonso, f. 1493. Tratados, I. 420.

Ortiz Gallardo de Villaroel, Isidro, f. 1758. His Noches Alegres, III. 250, 251, n.

Ortografía Castellana of the Academy, III. 220;

of Aleman, 188, 220, 221 and n.

Osorio, Diego de Sanisteban, f. 1597. Continuation of the Araucana, II. 464.

Ottava rima, oldest, I. 44. Of Boscan, 486.

Oudin, Cæsar, II. 84, n.

Ousely, Sir W., I. 58, n.

Ovando, Joan de la Victoria, f. 1688, II. 502, n.

Ovid, translated by Mexia, III. 8.

Oviedo, Gonz. Fernandez de, d. 1557.

His History, I. 559, 560.

His Quinquagenas, 562.

Oviedo, Cosmé de, an autor, II. 440.

Owen, John, Epigrammata, III. 16.

Oziosi, Academy of, II. 537.

P.

Pacheco, Francisco, d. 1654.

MS. of, II. 47, n.

Painter and author, 509, n.

Treatise on Painting, III. 21.

Padecopeo, Gabriel, name taken by Lope de Vega, II. 148.

Padilla, Juan de, (El Cartuxano,) f. 1513. His Retablo and Doce Triunfos, I. 413.

Padilla, Lorenço de, chronicler, I. 555, n.

Padilla, Pedro de, f. 1600.

Friend of Cervantes, II. 65.

Translates Cortereal, 493, n.

Lyrical poetry, 508.

Satire, III. 4.

Eclogues, 12.

Ballads, 30.

On Narvaez, 96.

Padre Engañado of Lope de Vega, II. 235.

Padron, Juan Rodriguez del, I. 184 and n., 394, 435.

Paez, Agustin Texada. See Texada.

Palacios, El Cura de los. See Bernaldez.

Palacios, José Maria, his Cajista, III. 221.

Palacios Rubios, Juan Lopez de Vivero, f. 1524. His Esfuerzo Bélico Heróyco, I. 539 and n.

Paladino, what, III. 386, n.

Palencia, Alonso de, f. 1474.

Chronicle, I. 187.

Dictionary, 549.

Palmerin de Inglaterra, by Hurtado, I. 236.

Translations of, 237, n.

Palmerin de Oliva, and its successors, I. 235, 236.

Palmireno, Lorenzo, Proverbs, III. 172, 173, n.

Pamphylus Maurianus, I. 81, 259, n.

Pantaleon, Anastasio, d. 1629.

Poet, II. 529 and n.

At the festival of San Isidro, 152.

His Eco, 483.

Pantoja, against the theatre, III. 342.

Pan y Toros, a satire, III. 304, n.

Panzano, Martin, f. 1759. On Calderon, II. 351, n.

Para Algunos of Los Reyes, III. 106.

Paradise Lost, translation from, by Jovellanos, III. 304, n.

Para Sí of Fernandez y Peralta, III. 106, n.

Para Todos of Montalvan, III. 105.

Paravicino y Arteaga, Hortensio Felix, d. 1633.

Poet and preacher to the court, II. 527.

His Cultismo, III. 127, 190.

Paris, Alexandre de, I. 57.

Paris, Juan de, f. 1536. Dramatist, II. 6-8.

Parraga Martel de la Fuente, Francisco, his Lisseno y Fenisa, III. 92, n.

Partidas, Las Siete, I. 49-55.

Their character, 51.

Authority in the United States, 51, n.

Great value in Spain, 51, n.

Recognize chivalry, 250;

and the drama, 257.

Parvos, what, II. 19, n.

Pasagero of Figueroa, III. 99, n., 183.

Pasion del Hombre Dios, by Dávila, II. 474, 475, n.

Pasos of Lope de Rueda, II. 16, 17, n.

Pasos of Timoneda, II. 20-24.

Passau, convention of, I. 459.

Pastor Fido, translated by Figueroa, III. 50;

by Isabel de Correa, 50, n.

Drama of, by Calderon, etc., 50, n.

Pastor Lobo, El, an auto of Lope, II. 234.

Pastoral de Jacinto of Lope, II. 123, n., 170.

Pastoral life in Spain, III. 39.

Pastoral poetry, I. 490, III. 10-14.

Pastorals, prose, III. 38-54.

Pastores de Belen of Lope de Vega, II. 146.

Pastores de Iberia of Bernardo de la Vega, III. 48.

Pastoreta, what, I. 371.

Patios, I. 36, II. 433, 437, III. 314.

Paton, Bart. Ximenez de, f. 1604. Eloquencia Española, III. 188.

Patrick, St., life, by Montalvan, II. 298.

Drama, by Calderon, 353 and n.

Patron de España of Mesa, II. 496, 497, n.

Patrona de Madrid of Salas Barbadillo, II. 499, n.

Paul iv., Pope, and the Inquisition, I. 465.

Paul the Sharper. See Gran Tacaño.

Peace, Prince of the. See Godoy.

Pedro, Diego de San, f. 1500, I. 424.

His Carcel de Amor, 424-426.

Poems, 120, 424, 436, 442, n., III. 17.

Pedro el Cruel, Ayala’s Chronicle of, I. 183.

Other accounts of, 183, n.

Ballads on, 183, n.

Dramas on, 183, n., II. 368, n., 404.

Pedro, Hierónimo de San, his Celestial Chivalry, I. 246-249.

Pedro, Infante of Portugal, f. 1440. A poet, I. 381 and n.

Pedro, San, f. 1769. His Grammar, III. 222.

Pegujares, what, III. 170, n.

Pelayo, III. 373.

Poem on, by El Pinciano, II. 499 and n.;

by Solís, III. 250.

Drama by Quintana, 309;

by Jovellanos, 323.

Pellicer, Casiano, on the Spanish theatre, II. 352, n.

Pellicer, J. A., Examen del Antiquixote, I. 28, II. 116, n.

Life of Cervantes, II. 52, n.

On Nasarre, 96, n.

On the Buscapié, III. 405.

Edition of Don Quixote, 417.

Pellicer, Josef, Lecciones in Góngora, II. 526, n.

Pellicer de Toledo, Ignacio Alvarez, f. 1635. Dramatist, II. 424.

Peor esta que estaba of Calderon, II. 381.

Used by Le Sage, III. 269, n.

Percy’s Reliques, I. 154.

Perdida de España, what, I. 162, n., III. 380, n.

Perdigon, Troubadour, I. 313.

Peregrino en su Patria of Lope, II. 142.

Peregrino Indiano of Saavedra, II. 467.

Peregrino, Raphael, pseudonyme of Ant. Perez, III. 133.

Peregrino y Jinebra, a tale, III. 77, n.

Perez, Alonso, narrative poetry, II. 482.

His Diana, III. 43.

Perez, Andreas, f. 1603. Pícara Justina, III. 66.

Perez, Antonio, d. 1611.

His Letters and Relaciones, III. 130-134.

Herrera’s History of, 154.

Argensola opposed to him, II. 536.

Perez, Gonzalo, f. 1566.

Translation of the Odyssey, III. 130.

Blank verse of, I. 481, n.

Perez, Juan Bautista, f. 1595. Attacks the Chronicones, III. 153.

Perez, Luis, Gloss on Manrique, I. 409.

Perez, Marcos, his Siete Sabios, III. 99, n.

Perez, Nicolas, on Don Quixote, II. 116, n.

Perez, Pedro Arias, Primavera de Romances, III. 34, 394.

Perfecta Casada of Luis de Leon, II. 45.

Perfeto Señor of Antonio de Vega, II. 529, III. 186.

Peribañez of Lope, II. 204, n.

Periquillo of Santos, III. 114.

Perro del Hortelano of Lope de Vega, II. 180.

Persiles y Sigismunda of Cervantes, II. 99, 100.

English translation, 100, n.

Used by Fletcher, the dramatist, 100, n.

character of, 101.

Imitation of, 102. n.

Notice of, 387.

Perú, Comentarios, by Garcilasso the Inca, III. 157.

Peter ii. of Aragon, d. 1213, I. 312.

Peter iii. of Aragon, d. 1285, I. 322, 350.

Peter iv. of Aragon, d. 1387, I. 324.

Petimetra of N. F. Moratin, III. 318.

Petrarquistas, I. 502.

Phaeton of Villamediana, II. 483.

Phelipe, Marques de San, d. 1726. His works, III. 230.

Philip ii., d. 1598.

Mysteries performed at his baptism, II. 4.

Suppresses theatres, 330.

Epic poetry in his reign, 455.

Intolerance, III. 205, 206.

Treatment of Perez, 130;

of Ercilla, 464.

Effects of his reign, 199.

Philip iii., d. 1624.

Miraculously cured by Isidro el Labrador, II. 135.

Commemorated by Lope de Vega, II. 137.

Marriage at Valencia, 173.

Jesuits act a play before him, 433, n.

Effects of his reign, III. 200.

Philip iv., d. 1665.

Breaks his word to Lope de Vega, II. 251, n.

Improvisates, 253.

Writes plays, 325.

Translates Guicciardini, 325, n.

Patronizes Calderon, 336, 403.

Festivities on his second marriage, 395 and n.;

on the marriage of his daughter, 396 and n.

Effects of his reign, III. 201.

Philip v., d. 1746.

Reign, III. 214.

Character, 215.

Literary projects, 216.

State of letters, 224.

Influence of France, 232.

Intolerance, 246-248.

Effect on the drama, 312.

Philips, John, translation of Don Quixote, III. 419.

Phillips, Sir Thomas, Collection of Manuscripts, I. 400, n.

Philosophía Antigua Poética of Pinciano, III. 236.

Phœnicians in Spain, III. 358.

Piamonte, Nicolas, his Carlomagno, I. 244.

Pícara Justina of Perez, III. 66.

Picaresco fictions, I. 511-514, III. 55-75.

See Gusto Picaresco.

Picaresco life, described by Cervantes, II. 87, n.

Picarillo en España of Cañizares, II. 428.

Pícaros, what, I. 512, III. 58.

Piedad en Justicia of Guillen de Castro, II. 285.

Pierres y Magalona, a romance of chivalry, I. 244, n.

Pinciano, El. See Lopez.

Píndaro of Céspedes, III. 87.

Pineda, Juan de, f. 1588. Passo Honroso, I. 193.

Pineda, Pedro de, III. 45, n.

Pinedo, an actor, II. 434.

Pintor de su Deshonra of Calderon, II. 371.

Pintura, Diálogos de la, by Carducho, III. 190, n.

Pintura, La, of Rejon de Silva, III. 279, n.

Pitaco of Cienfuegos, III. 329.

Pitillas, Jorge, pseudonyme of Herbas, III. 229.

Plautus, translated, II. 30.

Play-bills, II. 440.

Plaza Universal of Figueroa, III. 183.

Pleiades, II. 520.

Poesías, Libro de, of D. Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Poeta of Moratin, III. 273.

Policiana, imitation of Celestina, I. 269.

Policisne de Boecia, romance of chivalry, II. 107, n.

Polifemo of Montalvan, II. 305; of Góngora, 483, 526.

Polo, Francisco, dramatist, II. 416, n.

Polo, Gil, f. 1564.

Diana Enamorada, III. 44, II. 62.

Eclogues, III. 12.

Polo, Salvador Jacinto, lyrical poetry, II. 544.

Tales, III. 106, n., 111.

Pompeio of Mesa, II. 497, n.

Ponderibus et Mensuris, De, of Mariana, III. 147, n.

Pons Barba, Troubadour, I. 313.

Ponza. See Comedieta de.

Porfiar hasta Morir of Lope, II. 190.

Por la Puente Juana of Lope, II. 190.

Portugal, Francisco de, d. 1632.

Arte de Galantería, II. 106, III. 189.

Portugal, Manoel de, d. 1606.

Poetry, II. 516.

Portuguese authors, write sometimes in Spanish, I. 283 and n., III. 11.

See Melo; Saa de Miranda; Violante.

Portuguese language, origin of, I. 41.

First poetry in, ib.

French words in, ib., n.

Postrer Duelo de España of Calderon, II. 390.

Pozo, Ledo del, I. 183.

Prado, Andres de, f. 1663.

Tales, III. 109.

Prado, Sebastian, actor, II. 434 and n.

Prática de Virtudes of Castilla, III. 18, n.

Preciosa of Cervantes, often imitated, II. 86.

Preguntas of Cancionero General. I. 440.

Premio de la Constancia of Adorno, III. 51.

Premio del bien hablar of Lope de Vega, II. 121, n., 190.

Prescott, W. H., Preface, x., I. 188, n., 189, n., 557, n., 563, n.

Press, first book printed in Spain, I. 338.

Watched, 451.

Under the civil government and the Oidores, 460, 461.

Controlled by the Inquisition, 462 and n.

Enslaved, 469, III. 196, 197.

Prichard, J. C., III. 358, n.

Primaleon, romance of chivalry, I. 235.

Primavera de Romances, III. 34, 394.

Primavera of Lobo, III. 53, n.

Príncipe Theatre, II. 37, III. 314.

Príncipe Constante of Calderon, II. 376.

Life of, 377, n.

Príncipe Perfeto of Lope, I. 66, n., II. 195-199.

Printing introduced into Spain, I. 338.

Privado, what, I. 199, n.

Problemas of Villalobos, I. 533.

Proceso de Cartas de Amores, I. 426, n.

Procida, Giovanni da, I. 350.

Prodigal Son by Lope, II. 172.

Propaladia of Naharro, I. 295, 296, n.

Forbidden, II. 3.

Prosa, what, III. 386, n.

Prose, Castilian, early notices of, I. 46, 54, 64.

Under John ii., 394.

Under Henry iv., 415.

Under Charles v., and influence of Italy on, 531-547.

Cultismo in, III. 190-195.

Prosérpina, La, of Silvestre, III. 227, n.

Provence, its position and history, I. 306.

Connection with Barcelona, 308;

with Aragon, 309;

with the Arabs of Spain, III. 374.

Provençal literature, first appearance in Provence, I. 306;

in Barcelona, 308;

in Aragon, 309.

Character of, 310.

Connected with the heresy of the Albigenses, 312.

Decay in Provence, 321.

Known in Castile, 35, n., 43, n., 44, n., 324.

Flourishes in Toulouse, 338.

Decays in the South of Spain, 344, 345.

Provençal poetry, rhymes in, abundant, I. 29, n.

Cultivated by Alfonso the Wise, 44, n.;

by the Marquis of Santillana, 371.

Influence in the Cancioneros, 429, 444.

Proverbs, Spanish, III. 169-173.

By Ros, I. 336, n.

By Santillana, 376, 377 and n.

By Pero Diaz, 378.

Puente del Mundo of Lope, II. 233.

Puente, Juan de, Jardin de Amadores, III. 394.

Puerto Carrero, Dialogue by, I. 294, n.

Poems, 441.

Puibusque, Histoire Comparée des Littératures Espagnole et Française, I. 320, n.

Pujasol, Estevan, f. 1637. El Sol Solo, III. 189, n.

Pulgar, Fernando del, f. 1492.

Chronicle of Ferdinand and Isabella, I. 189.

Commentary on Mingo Revulgo, ib.

Historical Report on Granada, 190.

Claros Varones, 421-423.

Pulgar, Hernan Perez del, (El de las Hazañas,) d. 1531.

Life of Gonzalvo de Córdova, I. 200.

Plays on him, 201, n.

Pulpit eloquence. See Eloquence.

Purgatorio de San Patricio of Calderon, II. 353.

Purpura de la Rosa of Calderon, II. 361, n., 396.

Pýramo y Tisbe of Góngora, II. 526.

Q.

Quatrocientas Respuestas of Escobar, I. 529, 530.

Querellas of Alfonso the Wise, I. 39, n., 44 and n.

Question de Amor, c. 1512, I. 426, 439, n., III. 76.

Dialogue in, 294.

Questions, in the Cancionero General, I. 440.

Others, 529.

Quevedo, Faustino de, III. 331, n.

Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco Gomez de, d. 1645.

Birth and education, II. 255.

In Sicily, 256.

Minister of Finance at Naples, 257.

Exiled, 257.

Married, 257.

Persecuted, 258.

Death, 259.

Ambitious of universal success, 259.

Greater part of his works not printed, 259, 260, n.

Translates Epictetus and Phocylides, 260.

Poetry published, 260;

its character, 261;

its faults, 262.

He publishes Poesías del Bachiller de la Torre, 263.

His principal works are in prose, 267.

El Gran Tacaño, 267.

His prose satires, 269.

Cartas del Cavallero de la Tenaza, 269.

His Visions, 270.

His character, 274, 275.

Attacks Montalvan, 299, n., 307, III. 106, n.;

Góngora, II. 532.

His dramas, 185, 324.

Satires, III. 5.

Elegies, 9.

Epigrams, 15.

Ballads, 33.

Translations into English, 102, n.

Effect of his Satires, 110-112.

His Letters, 136.

Iglesias imitates him, 295.

Quexa y Avisos contra Amor, I. 426, n.

Quinctilian, III. 364.

Quinquagenas of Oviedo, I. 562.

Quiñones, Suero de, his Passo Honroso, I. 193.

Quinta de Laura of Solorzano, III. 109.

Quintana, Francisco de, f. 1627.

Hipólito y Aminta, II. 102, n.

Experiencias de Amor, III. 51.

Quintana. M. J., Preface, vi.

Works, III. 308-311.

Life of the Cid, I. 13, n.;

of the Prince of Viana, 330, n.

He selects ballads, 129.

Life of Las Casas, 564, n.

On Cueva, II. 498, n.

On Cibdareal, III. 397.

Quiros, I. 442.

Quiros, Pedro de, f. 1670. Poet, II. 549.

Quixote, Don, first intimations of, II. 80.

First Part, 81, 103, 108;

when written, 103.

Second Part, 97, 109, 113.

Why written, 104.

Its success, 107.

Outline and characters, 108-114.

Everywhere known, 115.

Carelessness and inconsistencies, 116-118.

Merits, 118, 119.

Editions of, III. 416-419.

Translations, 419, 420.

Imitations, 420-422.

Fame, 422.

R.

Rabadan, Mohammed, f. 1603. Morisco poet, III. 201, n.

Racine’s Athalie, by Llaguno y Amirola, III. 318.

Raimond de Miraval, Troubadour, I. 313.

Raimond de Toulouse, Pierre, Troubadour, I. 311.

Raimond de Tours, Troubadour, I. 44, n.

Ralph Royster Doyster, II. 19.

Rambouillet, Hotel de, III. 119.

Ramirez, Antonio Perez, f. 1698, III. 195.

Ramon Vidal de Besalú, Troubadour, I. 326.

Rana, Juan, actor, II. 434.

Ranjel, Pero Lopez, c. 1535. Farza, II. 9.

Raquel of Huerta, III. 322, 330.

Raymond Berenger, I. 308.

Raynouard, connection of the Arabs with modern poetry, III. 375.

Razon, La, contra la Moda, by Luzan, from Lachaussée, III. 318.

Rebolledo, Bernardino de, d. 1676.

Lyrical poetry, II. 548.

Epistles, III. 6.

Epigrams, 15, 16.

Didactic poetry, 22.

Redentor Cautivo of Matos Fragoso, II. 419.

Redondillas, what, I. 111.

Reformation, I. 451.

Counterpoise to Spanish power, 459.

Opposed everywhere by Spain, 460.

Suppressed in Spain, 463-467.

Refranes. See Proverbs.

Rege, De, by Mariana, III. 145.

Reglas de Trovar of Don Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Reinoso, Nuñez, f. 1552. Clareo y Florisea, III. 77.

Rejon de Silva, Diego Ant., f. 1786. La Pintura, III. 279, n.

Relaciones of Cortés, I. 557.

Of Perez, III. 133.

Religious faith a prominent trait of Spanish literature and national character, I. 103, 347, 467, II. 40.

Lope de Vega’s views of, 143, 146, 159, 160, 204, n.

Connected with names, 204, n., 352, n.

Made ridiculous on the stage, II. 92, n., 93, n., 347.

By ecclesiastics, 352.

Perversion of religious faith, I. 468-471, II. 359. n., III. 204-206.

Relox de Príncipes of Guevara, I. 541.

Remedios de la Desdicha of Lope de Vega, III. 96, n.

Rengifo, Juan Diaz de, f. 1592. Arte Poética, III. 236.

Repartimiento, what, I. 116, n.

Resende or Rresende, Garcia, f. 1516.

Cancioneiro, I. 66, n.

On Enzina, 285, n.

Restauracion de España, what, III. 380, n.

Epic by Mesa, II. 496, 497, n.

Retablo de la Vida de Christo, by Padilla, I. 413.

Reto, what, II. 292, n.

Revelacion de un Ermitaño, poem, I. 88.

Revolution, French, effect in Spain, III. 343.

Revolution, Spanish, under Charles iv., III. 344.

Revulgo. See Mingo Revulgo.

Rey, Del, abaxo Ninguno, of Roxas, II. 409.

Rey de Artieda, Andres, f. 1605, II. 516, n.

Satire, III. 4.

Rey Decretado, by Urrutia, III. 313, n.

Reyes, Matias de los, f. 1640. Tales, III. 106.

Reyes Nuevos de Toledo of Lozano, III. 91.

Reynaldos de Montalban, a romance of chivalry, I. 244.

Reyna Saba of Horosco, III. 181, n.

Reyna Sevilla, a tale, III. 77, n.

Reynosa, Pedro de, f. 1727. His Santa Casilda, III. 226.

Rhetórica of Guzman, III. 187.

Of Mayans, 252.

Rhymes, quaternion, I. 29, n.

Without the final syllable, III. 67, n.

Rhymes, singular, of Garcilasso, I. 493.

Riada, La, of Trigueros, III. 320, n.

Ribadeneyra, Pedro de, d. 1611. Historian, III. 142.

Ribera, Suero de, I. 394, n.

Ribero de Barros, Ant. Luis de, d. 1683. Lyrical poetry, II. 549.

Ribero y Sarrea, Alonzo Bernardo, his Don Quixote, III. 421.

Ribeyro, Bernardino, II. 61, n., III. 53, n.

Rich, O., Preface, viii.

Richard Cœur de Lion in Lope de Vega’s Jerusalen, II. 143.

Riego, Miguel de, I. 414, n.

Rimado de Palacio of Ayala, c. 1400, I. 99.

Rinconete y Cortadillo of Cervantes, II. 86.

Rioja, Francisco de, d. 1658.

Lyrical poetry, II. 545.

Epistles, III. 6.

Elegies, 9.

Rios, an actor, II. 244, 434.

Rios, Amador de los, Judios de España, I. 88, n.

Rios, Vicente de los, Life of Cervantes, II. 52, n.

On Don Quixote, 116 and n., III. 418.

On the Buscapié, 404.

Riquier, Giraud, a Troubadour, I. 35, n., 44, n., 371.

Risco, Manuel, on the Cid, I. 13. n.

On the Fueros of Avilés, III. 382, n.

Rivas, Angel de Saavedra, Duque de, Preface, vi., I. 115, 193, n., II. 471, n., 527, n., III. 347.

Roa, Martin de, f. 1604. Didactic prose, III. 189, n.

Robert the Devil, I. 246, n.

Robin Hood, ballads on, I. 153.

Robles, Isidro de, his Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados, II. 218, n., 229, n.

Tales, III. 109.

Collection of plays, 426.

Robo de Dina of Lope de Vega, II. 222, n., III. 317, n.

Robo de Elena, by Cepeda, II. 482 and n.

Roca y Serna, d. 1649.

Lyrical poetry, II. 529, n.

Ballads, III. 33.

Roca, Conde de. See Vera y Figueroa.

Rocaberti, Juan, Troubadour, I. 330.

Roderic the Goth, I. 7.

Ballads, 127, 134.

Drama by Lope, II. 206.

See Rodrigo.

Rodomuntadas Castellanas, III. 101, n.

Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, I. 167, n.

Rodrigo, Crónica del Rey, I. 212.

Rodriguez, Josef, d. 1703. Biblioteca Valentina, I. 342, n.

Rodriguez de Vargas, Damian. See Vargas.

Rogiers, Pierre, Troubadour, I. 311.

Roig, Jaume, Valencian poet, d. 1478, I. 333-336.

Rojas, Fernando de, c. 1485. La Celestina, I. 265.

Rojas, Pedro Soto de, f. 1623. Poet, II. 544.

Roma Abrasada of Lope de Vega, II. 193.

Romance, for story, I. 25.

Romance language, III. 384.

Romanceros, History of, III. 388-396, I. 128, III. 33.

See Arellano; Cueva; Depping; Duran; Escobar; Fernandez; Flamenco; Flores; Fuentes; Galiano; Guevara; Hidalgo; Hinard; Laquerica; Lockhart; Madrigal; Morales; Nagera; Nucio; Padilla; Perez; Puente; Ramillete; Salvá; Timoneda; Tortajada; Val; Valdivielso; Villalta; Wolf.

Romances. See Ballads.

Romances of Chivalry, I. 218-254.

Origin in Normandy and Brittany, etc., 219.

Came later to Spain, 220.

Amadis de Gaula, 221-230.

Esplandian, 231, 232;

and romances of the family of Amadis, 233, 234.

Palmerin de Oliva, 235;

and its successors, 236-238.

Other romances, 241, 242.

Translations of romances into Spanish, 243, 244.

Christian romances, 245-249.

Rapid success of romances of chivalry, 249.

Favored by circumstances, 250;

by the chivalrous tendencies of the Spanish people, 251.

Believed to be true history in Spain, 252.

Passion for them, 253, 254, II. 106, 107, n., III. 38.

Destroyed by the Don Quixote, II. 107 and n.

Romans enter Spain, III. 360.

Their conquests in it, 361.

Their colonies, 362.

Their literature in Spain, 364.

Their decaying power, 365-370.

Romantic fiction. See Fiction.

Romero, Francisco, his Epicedio, I. 379, n.

Romero y Larrañaga, Gregorio, play on Garcilasso, I. 486, n.

Rompecolumnas, III. 86, n.

Roncesvalles. See Verdadero Suceso.

Ronsard, Odes, I. 111, n.

Ros, Carlos, Proverbs, I. 336, n.

Rosa, Martinez de la, Preface, vi., I. 10, n., 201, n., 202, n., 259, n., III. 293, n., 347.

Rosa of Timoneda, III. 29.

Rosa Blanca of Lope de Vega, II. 156.

Rosa Fresca, ballad, I. 124.

Roscoe, T., translation of Sismondi, I. 33, n. Life of Cervantes, II. 53, n.

Rosenkranz, Karl, on Calderon, II. 358.

Rosete, Pedro de, dramatist, II. 427, III. 425.

Ross, Thomasina, translation of Bouterwek, I. 33, n.

Rowland, David, translation of Lazarillo, I. 512, n.

Rowley and Middleton, Spanish Gypsy, II. 422, n.

Roxas, Agustin de, f. 1602.

His Viage Entretenido, III. 181, II. 332 and n.

Account of the early drama, I. 277, n.

His Loas, II. 442.

An actor, 434.

Roxas, Francisco de, f. 1645. Dramas, II. 408, III. 320 and n., 425.

Rozas, Gabriel Fernandez de, lyrical poetry, f. 1662, II. 530.

Rua, Pedro de, f. 1540. Reply to Guevara, I. 541.

Rue, De la, on the Bards, I. 84, n.

Rueda, Lope de, f. 1565. Dramas, II. 9-20.

Opinion of, by Cervantes and Lope de Vega, 20, n., 54.

Autos Sacramentales, 227, n.

Entremeses and Pasos, 236 and n.

Rufian, what, II. 12, n.

Rufian Dichoso of Cervantes, II. 92.

Rufo Gutierrez, Juan, f. 1584.

Epic poetry, II. 493;

lyrical, 508.

Friend of Cervantes, 65.

Apotegmas, III. 173, n.

Ruiz de Leon, Francisco de, f. 1755. His Hernandia, III. 306, n.

Ruydiaz, Antonio, on the Buscapié, III. 404.

Ruyseñor de Sevilla, El, of Lope de Vega, II. 190.

S.

Saa de Miranda, d. 1558. Eclogues, III. 10, 12, n.

Saavedra, Angel de. See Rivas, Duque de.

Saavedra, Antonio de, El Peregrino Indiano, f. 1599, II. 467.

Saavedra, Gonzalvo de, f. 1633. Pastores del Betis, III. 52.

Saavedra, the discoverer, I. 211.

Saavedra Faxardo. See Faxardo.

Sabios, Libro de los, by D. Juan Manuel, I. 65, n.

Sacchetti, story of Dante, I. 67, 68, n.

Imitated by Timoneda, III. 97.

Saco de Roma of Malara, II. 26.

Sacy, Silvestre de, on Morisco literature, III. 202.

Sage, Le, Estebanillo Gonzalez, III. 74.

Avellaneda, II. 110, n.

Imitates Roxas, 409, n.

His Guzman de Alfarache, III. 64.

Use of the Conde Lucanor, I. 72, n.;

of Marcos de Obregon, III. 70;

of the Diablo Cojuelo, 111.

Author of Gil Blas, 266-269.

Uses many Spanish authors, 269, n., 270, n.

See Isla; Voltaire.

Saggio Storico-apologetico of Lampillas, III. 429.

Sagunto of Zamora, II. 495, 496, n.

Salamanca, poetical school of, III. 285.

Salamanca, University of, founded, I. 53, 54, n., 348, n.

Salas, Francisco Gregorio de, f. 1800. Works, III. 283, n.

Salas, Gonzalez de, edits part of the works of Quevedo, II. 260.

Salas, Giuseppe Ant. Gonçalez de, f. 1633.

Tragedia Antigua, III. 236.

Attacks Góngora, II. 532.

Salas, J. T. de, Life of Father Isla, III. 258, n.

Salas, Juan Yague de, f. 1616. His Amantes de Teruel, II. 484.

Salas, Pedro de, didactic poetry, III. 19.

Salas Barbadillo, Alonso de, d. 1630.

Dramas, II. 324.

Tales, 150, n., III. 67, 99-102.

Patrona de Madrid, II. 499, n.

Lyrical poetry, 544.

Escuela de Celestina, I. 271.

Salazar, Ambrosio de, f. 1622. Tales, III. 103.

Salazar, Aug. de, d. 1675.

Poet, II. 530.

Jauregui’s Orfeo ascribed to, 540.

His Celestina, I. 271.

Salazar, Francisco Lobon de, III. 262, n.

Salazar, Mardones Christóval de, on Góngora, II. 526, n.

Salazar, Pedro de, ridiculed by Diego de Mendoza, I. 519.

Salazar y Luna, Bartolomé, drama on Charles v., I. 476.

Salcedo Coronel. See Coronel.

Saldueña, Count. See Solís.

Sales, Francis, II. 205, n.

Sallust, imitated by Diego de Mendoza. I. 521.

Salvá, Vicente, on Alfonso el Sabio, I. 38, n.

On Don Quixote, II. 105, n.

On romances of chivalry, 107. n.

His Grammar, III. 222, n.

Romancero, 395.

Salvage, comedia of Zepeda, II. 28.

Salvation of Man, by Lope de Vega, II. 170.

Salvo, a tailor, writes plays, III. 313.

Samaniego, Felix Maria de, d. 1801. Fábulas, III. 280, 281, n.

Sanchez, Miguel, dramatist, II. 323.

Sanchez, Pero, f. 1590. Historia Moral, III. 189, n.

Sanchez, T. A., d. 1798. Poesías Anteriores al Siglo XV., III. 271 and n.

Sanchez, Vicente, f. 1688. Loa, II. 442.

Sanchez de las Brozas, Francisco, commentary on Juan de Mena, I. 385, n.

Persecuted, 466.

Edits Garcilasso, 494 and n.

Sancho iv., d. 1295. His Castigos y Documentos, I. 61.

Sancho Garcia, Don, of Cadahalso, III. 320.

Sancho Ortiz de las Roelas, a rifacimento of La Estrella de Sevilla, q. v.

Sancho Panza, Historia de, III. 422.

Sandoval, Prudencio de, d. c. 1620.

History of Charles v., III. 151;

of Spain, 141, 142, n.

Sannazaro, his Arcadia, III. 40.

Sanson Nazareno, by Enriquez Gomez, II. 475.

Santa Cruz. See Cruz.

Santa Ella, Dictionary by, I. 549.

Santa Liga, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 207.

Santa Teresa. See Teresa.

Santillana, Marquis of, d. 1458, I. 366-379, 352, 435.

Juan de Mena’s poem on, 383.

Proverbs, III. 170.

Santob, Rabbi, f. 1350.

Poetry, I. 86.

Libro del, III. 475.

Santos, Francisco de, f. 1697. Tales, III. 67, 113.

Sanz, Hippólito, f. 1582, II. 457.

Saragossa, rescued from the Moors, I. 8.

Saraos of Zayas, III. 108.

Sardinia, first printing in, II. 458.

Sarmiento, Martin, d. 1770. Memorias, III. 271, 272, n.

On the Spanish language, 385.

On the Amadis de Gaula, I. 222, n.

On the Galician, 42, n.

Sarria, Marquis of. See Lemos, Count of.

Satirical poetry, early, III. 3.

Time of Charles v. and later, 4.

Horatian, 7.

Why little successful, 7, 8.

Savariego de Sta. Anna, f. 1603, II. 499, n.

Sayavedra, Mateo Luxan de, pseudonyme of Marti, III. 61.

Saynetes, what, II. 445.

Calderon’s lost, 343.

Of Ramon de la Cruz, III. 327.

Of Castillo, 328, n.

Scarron, imitates Roxas, III. 182, II. 411, n.

Borrows from Aleman, III. 65, n.

Schack’s Geschichte der dramat. Literatur, II. 451, n.

Schiller’s Wallenstein, III. 74.

Schlegel, A. W., on the Numancia of Cervantes, II. 76.

Translations of Calderon, 355, 376.

On the Arabs, III. 375.

Schmidt, Fr. W. V., edition of Disciplina Clericalis, I. 71, n.

On Calderon, II. 344, n., 391, n., 399, n.

Schulze, J., on Calderon, II. 377, n.

Scott, Sir Walter, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, I. 154.

On Hita, III. 85, n.

Scudéri, Mad. de, Almahide, III. 85.

Sebastian y Latre, d. 1792. Alters old plays, III. 320.

Secretaries of Spanish monarchs, III. 140, n.

Secreto Agravio, Á, Secreta Venganza, of Calderon, II. 371, n.

Sedano, J. J. Lopez de, f. 1778.

Parnaso, III. 271 and n.

On Yriarte, 20, n.

His Jael, 329.

Sedeño, Juan de, f. 1540.

Versifies Celestina, I. 269.

Works, 536, 537, n.

Segundo Scipion of Calderon, II. 389.

Segura, Francisco de, Primavera de Romances, III. 34.

Segura, Juan Lorenzo. See Lorenzo.

Seguro de Tordesillas, I. 195.

Selva de Aventuras of Contreras, III. 78.

Selva sin Amor, eclogue of Lope de Vega, II. 237.

Selvagia, imitation of Celestina, I. 269, 270, n.

Semíramis of Virues, II. 29.

Sempere, Hierónimo, f. 1560, II. 455.

Sempere y Guarinos, Juan de, f. 1821.

Biblioteca, III. 255, n.

Luxo, I. 364, n.

Seneca, Troades, translated by Salas, III. 236.

Proverbs, see Diaz Pero.

Senecas, Spaniards, III. 364.

Señorita Malcriada, La, of Yriarte, III. 321.

Señorito Mimado, El, of Yriarte, III. 321.

Sepúlveda, Juan Ginez, chronicler, I. 555.

Opposes Las Casas, 564.

Sepúlveda, Lorenzo de, f. 1551. Ballads, III. 26.

Sermons of Isla, III. 260, 266.

See Eloquence, Pulpit.

Serranas, what, I. 82, n.

Serranilla, what, I. 371.

Serrano, Thomas, on Cultismo, III. 428.

Setenario, I. 49, 50, n.

Seville, capture by St. Ferdinand, I. 116.

Theatre in, II. 26.

Obsequies of Philip ii., 79.

Shadwell, play on Don Juan, II. 310.

Shakspeare, Mid. N. Dream, I. 57.

Taming of the Shrew, 72, n.

Ghost of Banquo, II. 73.

Henry viii., 391, n.

Henry iv., 395, n.

Tempest. III. 77.

Shelton, translation of Don Quixote, III. 419.

Sicily, connection with Spain, I. 350.

Sí de las Niñas, El, of Moratin, III. 338.

Siega, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 233.

Siete Partidas. See Partidas.

Siete Sabios de Roma of Perez, III. 99, n.

Siglo de Oro of Balbuena, III. 49.

Siglo Pitagórico of Enriquez, III. 73.

Signorelli, in Spain, III. 313, n.

On Ramon de la Cruz, 328, n.

Siguenza, José de, d. 1606. Ecclesiastical historian, III. 142, 143, n.

Siliceo, Juan Martinez, III. 385, n.

Silius Italicus, III. 364.

Silva de Varios Romances, III. 389.

Silva, Feliciano de, f. 1530. Segunda Celestina, I. 269.

Silva, Rodrigo Mendez, account of first acted dramas, I. 277.

Silvas in plays, II. 246.

Silves de la Selva, romance of chivalry, I. 283.

Silvestre, Gregorio, d. 1570.

Works, I. 505-507.

On Manrique, 409.

Narrative poetry, II. 481;

religious, 517;

satirical, III. 3.

Elegies, 9.

Epigrams, 14.

Didactic, 17.

Silvestre, Pedro, f. 1721. La Prosérpina, III. 227, n.

Silveira, Miguel de, f. 1636, II. 486.

Simples, what, II. 19 and n., 244.

Siñeriz, Juan, his Don Quixote, III. 422.

Sismondi, J. C. L. Simonde de, d. 1842.

Notice of, I. 33, n.

On Don Quixote, II. 104, n.

On the Arabs, III. 374.

Sitio de Breda, a loa, II. 442.

Sitio y Toma de Amberes, by Giner, II. 495, 496, n.

Skelton, I. 408, n.

Slavery opposed by Las Casas, I. 564, n.

Smollet, T., translation of Don Quixote, III. 419.

Imitation of it, 421.

Smyth, Wm., Lectures, III. 373, n.

Sociedades Patrióticas, III. 280, 281, n.

Society in the time of Charles v. and the Philips, III. 55-58.

Soledades de Aurelia of Mata, III. 108.

Soledades de la Vida of Lozano, III. 108.

Soledades of Góngora, II. 526.

Solis, Alonso de, Conde de Saldueña, f. 1754. His Pelayo, III. 250.

Solís, Antonio de, d. 1636.

Dramas, II. 420, III. 425.

Poems, II. 422, n., 549.

Poetical Epistles, III. 6.

Correspondence, 136.

Conquest of Mexico, 164.

Flattery of Charles ii., 209.

Llorente on, 268.

Solomon’s Song, by Luis de Leon, II. 41.

By Montano, 42, n.

Solorzano, Alonso del Castillo, d. 1640.

Tales, III. 108.

Dramas, II. 324.

Sol Parado of Lope de Vega, II. 247.

Sol Solo, El, by Pujasol, III. 189, n.

Somerdyk. See Aarsens.

Sonnets, first known in Spanish poetry, I. 373 and n.

Of Boscan, 483.

Of Garcilasso, 490.

In plays, II. 246 and n.

Herrera on, 510, n.

Great number, 551.

Sorapan de Rieros, Juan, f. 1616. Proverbs, III. 172, 173, n.

Sordel, Troubadour, I. 314.

Soria, I. 442, n.

Sosa, Lope de, f. 1500, I. 121.

Sosa, Lope de, f. 1603. Lyrical poetry, II. 517 and n.

Soto, Luis Barahona de, f. 1586.

Lágrimas de Angélica, II. 138, 477.

In Silvestre’s works, I. 506.

In the Galatea, II. 62.

His lyrical poetry, 508.

Satires, III 4.

Eclogues. 12.

Soto de Roxas, Pedro, Eclogues, III. 13, 14, n.

Soul’s Voyage, by Lope de Vega, II. 171.

Southey, R., Chronicle of the Cid, I. 12, n., 13, n., 167, n.

His travels in Spain, 13, n.

On Lorenzo, 60, n.

On Roderic, 213, n., 214, n.

On Miguel de Luna, 215, n.

On the Amadis, 223, n., 224, n.

On Tirant lo Blanch, 230, n.

On Esplandian, 231, n.

On Lope de Vega, II. 124, n., 163, n.

On Barrios, 415, n.

His Orsua and Aguirre, 468.

On Mesa, 497, n.

On Jovellanos, III. 301.

Spain, name, III. 355, n.

Spanish character and culture. See Character.

Spanish language, first written, I. 11, III. 382, 383, n.

Origin of, 355-387.

Gravity and dignity, I. 13, n.

Richness, III. 109, n.

Made the language of the land and of the law, I. 45, III. 387.

State of, in time of John ii. of Castile, I. 389-391.

From that time to Charles v., 547, 548.

Supersedes Latin, 535, 536, 539, n.

Fully formed, 548.

First dictionaries and grammars, 549.

Diffusion, 550.

Standard of Toledo, 551 and n.

Fashionable in France, II. 84, n., 434, n.

State in the time of Herrera, 513.

Use of Latin words, 521, n.

Góngora’s effect on, 525.

Academy of the Spanish Language, III. 217.

State of the language to the 18th cent., 217, 218.

Dictionaries, 219.

Orthographies, 220.

Grammars, 222.

Other works on, 223.

Effect of Melendez on, 292.

Name of, 384.

Proportions of other languages in it, 385.

Rapid prevalence, 386, 387.

Spanish literature, origin of, I. 4-10.

First Period of, 11-453.

Second Period, 457, III. 209.

Third Period, 213-345.

Interregnum under Ferdinand vii., 347, 348.

Revival, 349.

Prospect, 350, 351.

Its characteristics, I. 102-108.

Its period of glory, 456.

Effects of religious and political intolerance on, 468-470.

Decay of, and its causes, III. 198-209.

See Character, Spanish.

Spiritualist writers, III. 176-181.

Sprecher de Bernegg, J. A., II. 456, n.

Stage of the Corrales, II. 437.

See Theatre.

Streck, Mad., Bouterwek’s History, I. 33, n.

Suarez, in the Cancioneros, I. 435.

Suarez de Mendoza y Figueroa, Enrique, f. 1629. His Eustorgio y Clorilene, II. 102, n.

Subida al Monte Carmel of Sta. Cruz, III. 178.

Succession, War of, III. 214.

Sueños of Quevedo, II. 270-274.

Sueños, Hay, etc., anon. drama, III. 313, n.

Suerte sin Esperanza of Aguilar, II. 281.

Sultana, La, of Cervantes, II. 92.

Suma de todas las Crónicas, I. 216, n.

Sylvester ii., Pope, d. 1003. Was taught in Spain, III. 375, 376, n.

T.

Tablas Poéticas of Cascales, III. 236.

Tacitus, imitated by Diego de Mendoza, I. 522

Tales. See Fictions.

Tallante, Mossen Juan, I. 434.

Tallante de Ricamonte, a romance of chivalry, I. 244, n.

Tamayo de Vargas. See Vargas.

Tamerlane, embassy to, I. 203.

Tansillo, translated by Montalvo, III. 46.

Tapada, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 155.

Tapia, in the Cancionero, I. 442, n.

Tapia, Eugenio de, I. 20, n., II. 230, n.

Tapia, Gomez de, f. 1588. Eclogues, I. 77, n., III. 13 and n.

Tarasca, what, II. 228 and n., 345.

Tarasca de Parto, and Tarascas de Madrid, of Santos, III. 116 and n.

Tardes Entretenidas of Solorzano, III. 109, n.

Tarrega, Francisco de, dramatist, f. 1608, II. 278, 279.

Tarsia, Pablo Antonio de, II. 255, n.

Tasso, Torquato, opinion of Amadis de Gaula, I. 230, n.

Imitated by Vera y Figueroa, II. 500.

Translated by Jauregui, 539, 541, n.

By Montalvo, III. 46.

Tastu, M., I. 331, n.

Teatro Crítico of Feyjoó, III. 244.

Teatro del Príncipe, and Teatro de la Cruz, II. 37, III. 314.

Teatro Hespañol of Huerta, III. 329.

Tellez, Gabriel. See Tirso de Molina.

Tellez de Azevedo, Antonio, dramatist, II. 429.

Temple, Sir W., on Don Quixote, II. 119, n.

Templo Militante of B. C. de Figueroa, I. 26, n.

Tercio de Flandes, Cervantes’s regiment, II. 57, n.

Teresa de Jesus, Santa, d. 1582.

Persecuted, I. 466.

Her letters, III. 135.

Other works, 178.

Life by Yepes, 189, n.

Ternaux-Compans, Henri, Preface, ix., II. 6, n., 9, n., III. 346, n., 389.

Tenaza, Caballero de la, of Quevedo, II. 269, n.

Tertulias, what, III. 224.

Teruel. See Amantes de.

Terza rima, I. 483, 486, n., II. 497, n.

Tesorina of Huete, II. 8.

Tesoro, Libro del, by Alfonso the Wise, in prose, I. 39, n.

In poetry, 39, 44 and n.

Tetis y Peleo of Bolea, II. 396, n.

Texada, Cosmé Gomez de, f. 1636. Leon Prodigioso, III. 90.

Texada Paez, Agustin de, d. 1635, II. 515.

Texedor de Segovia of Alarcon, II. 320.

Theatre, in the time of Lope de Rueda, II. 19, 35.

Of Cervantes, 65, 77.

Of Lope de Vega, 174, 277.

In the 17th cent., 431-449.

In the 18th cent., III. 314, 325, 326.

See Drama, Spanish.

Theórica de Virtudes of Castilla, III. 18, n.

Thierry, Augustin, I. 7, n.

Three Holy Kings, poem of 13th cent., I. 26.

Tia Fingida of Cervantes, II. 87, 88. n.

Tia y Sobrina, La, of Moreto, II. 405.

Tickets at the Theatre, II. 439.

Tieck, Ludwig, Preface, ix. Translation of Marcos de Obregon, III. 69, n., 270, n.

Of Don Quixote, 420.

Timbria of Lope de Rueda, II. 13.

Timoneda, Juan de, f. 1597.

Dramas, II. 20-24.

Publishes the works of Lope de Rueda, 10.

Ballads, III. 29.

Tale of Narvaez, 96, n.

Patrañuelo and Sobremesa, 97 and n.

Tiraboschi, Girolamo, on Cultismo, III. 427.

Tirana, an actress, III. 340 and n.

Tirante the White, romance, I. 331, n.

Tirso de Molina, d. 1648.

Dramas, II. 308-313.

Theory of the drama, 314, 315.

Amantes de Teruel, 302, n.

Condenado por Desconfiado, 355.

Loa, 442.

Tales, III. 104.

See Corneille, T.; Molière.

Tobias, Los Dos, of San Phelipe, III. 230.

Todo es enredos Amor, by Córdoba y Figueroa, III. 270, n.

Toledo, rescued from the Moors, I. 8.

Purest Spanish in, 551 and n.

Toledo, Archbishop of, patronizes Cervantes, II. 97, n.

Toledo, Gab. Alv., f. 1720. La Burromaquia, III. 227, n., 228.

Tolosa, battle of, I. 9. Poem on, by Mesa, II. 496.

Tomillas, Conde, a romance of chivalry, I. 244, n.

Torellas, Pedro, I. 435.

Torquemada, the Inquisitor, burns books, I. 461, n.

Torquemada, Ant. de, f. 1570. His Olivante de Laura and Jardin de Flores Curiosas, III. 174.

Torre, Alfonso de la, f. 1460. Vision Deleytable, I. 417.

Torre, El Bachiller Alfonso de la, I. 418, n.

Torre, El Bachiller Francisco de la, poetry published by Quevedo, II. 263.

Its character, 263, 264, 265.

Question of its authorship, 264-266.

Eclogues, III. 13.

Torre, Francisco or Fenix de la, poet. f. 1654, II. 530 and n.

Epigrammatist, III. 15.

Torre, Gonzalez de la, f. 1590. His Docientas Preguntas, I. 531.

Torreno exiled, III. 347.

Torrepalma, Count of, f. 1740. His Deucalion, III. 229, n.

Torre y Yebil, Francisco de la, poet, f. 1680, II. 550, n.

Torres, Diego de, poems, III. 228.

On mathematics, 240.

Dramas, 313.

Torres Amat, Felix. See Amat.

Torres de Naharro, Bartolomé. See Naharro.

Tortajada, Damian de, Romancero, III. 394.

Tortoles, Antonio Sanchez, f. 1671. Tales, III. 106, n.

Toulouse, Floral Games at, I. 327.

Troubadours at, 328.

Tournaments, earliest, I. 213, n.

Time of John ii., 193-195, 250, 251.

Tovar, Fern. Sanchez de, I. 174.

Tovar, Luis de, I. 442, n.

Trabajos de Hercules of Villena, I. 362;

of Heredia, III. 195.

Trabajos de Jacob of Lope de Vega, II. 222, n.

Tractatus Septem of Mariana, III. 146.

Trapeza, Albanio Ramirez de la, f. 1612, III. 22.

Trato de Argel of Cervantes, II. 67.

Trent, Council of, I. 515.

Tres Justicias en Uno of Calderon, II. 390.

Tressan, Comte de, Amadis de Gaule, I. 222, n.

Trezientas Preguntas of Corelas, I. 531.

Triaca of Yebrixa, II. 5, n.

Trigueros, Candido M., f. 1784.

Alters old plays, III. 320.

His Riada, 320, n.

His drama, 329.

Trissino, Sofonisba, I. 296.

Tristan de Leonnais, a romance of chivalry, I. 244.

Triunfos Divinos of Lope de Vega, II. 158.

Triunfos Morales of Guzman, III. 19.

Troubadours. See Provençal Literature.

Tuke, imitates Calderon, II. 381.

Tunis, Goleta taken, II. 56.

Turdetani, III. 358, n.

Turpin and his Chronicle, I. 219.

Tuzani, character in Calderon, II. 364, n.;

in Hita, III. 83.

Tyre, William of, I. 45.

U.

Ubeda, Beneficiado de, f. 1340. Poet, I. 78.

Ubeda, Francisco Lopez de, pseudonyme of Andreas Perez, q. v.

Ulfilas, Gospels, III. 370, 371, n.

Ulloa, Alonso de, f. 1553, I. 480, n.

Ulloa, Yuis de, f. 1674.

Poet, II. 530 and n.

Defends the theatre, 352.

Epistles, III. 6.

Eclogues, 13.

Ultramar of Alfonso the Wise, I. 39, n., 45, 46.

Underplot on the Spanish stage, II. 243.

Universal empire, hopes of, in Spain, I. 459.

Universal History, by Alfonso the Wise, I. 39, n.

Universal Redencion of Blasco, II. 470.

Universidad de Amor of Polo, III. 111.

Universities of Italy, I. 474.

Universities, Spanish, early, I. 348.

Time of Charles iii., III. 256.

Urban viii., Pope, honors to Lope de Vega, II. 159.

Urrea, Gerónimo de, f. 1566.

Diálogo, I. 411, 538 and n.

His Orlando Furioso, II. 476, 477, n.

His Caballero Determinado, I. 500, n.

Urrea, Pedro de, f. 1513.

Versifies part of Celestina, I. 269.

Poems, 411, 412.

Urrutia, Pero Rodrigo de, f. 1707, III. 313, n.

Usategui, son-in-law of Lope de Vega, II. 132, 161.

Utrecht, peace of, III. 214.

Uziel, Jacobo, f. 1624.

David, Poema, II. 474, 475, n.

V.

Vaca, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de, f. 1540.

His Naufragios, etc., I. 567, n.

Vaca, Josefa, actress, II. 434.

Val, Pablo de, Romancero, III. 394.

Valdepeñas, Rodrigo de, on Manrique, I. 409.

Valderrabano, Manuel Perez, f. 1785, III. 290, n.

Valderramen, pseudonyme. See Varflora.

Valdés, Juan de, 1540.

Diálogo de las Lenguas, I. 546, 547, n.

Valdes, Juan de, collection of plays, III. 426.

Valdivielso, Joseph de, f. 1633.

Dramas, II. 316-318.

Poems, 150, n.

Nacimiento, 218, n.

On the Bachiller de la Torre, 266.

His San Josef, and Sagrario, 472.

His ballads, III. 32.

Valencia, Diego de, I. 429.

Valencia, drama in, early, II. 167, n.

Beginning of 16th century, 8, n.;

end of it, 28.

Time of Lope, 128, 167, 173.

Theatre closed, III. 341, n.

Valencian dialect, I. 331.

Decay of, 337, 550.

Valencian writers, books on, I. 342.

Valera, Diego de, f. 1481, I. 184, n.

Valerio de las Historias of Almela, I. 418.

Valiente Céspedes of Lope de Vega, II. 208.

Valladares de Sotomayor, Antonio, f. 18th century.

Dramatist, III. 331.

Valladares de Valdelomar, f. 1617.

Caballero Venturoso, III. 88.

Valle, Juan del, pseudonyme of Cadahalso, III. 320, n.

Valles, Pedro, of Aragon, f. 1549.

Proverbs, III. 171.

Valles, Pedro, of Córdova, f. 1580.

Discourse on Death, I. 536, n.

Vanda, La, y la Flor, of Calderon, II. 385, 395.

Vandali, etc., invade Spain, III. 369.

Vanegas, Alexis de, f. 1540.

His Agonia, and Diferencias de Libros, I. 539, 540.

Vaqueira, what, I. 371.

Varflora, Firmin Arana de, II. 534, n.

Vargas, Garci Perez de, ballad on, I. 127.

Vargas, Rodriguez de, f. 1621, II. 474.

Vargas, Tamayo de, edition of Garcilasso de la Vega, I. 494 and n.

Defence of Mariana, III. 150, n.

Vargas y Ponce, his Abusos de la Lengua Castellana, III. 218, n.

Varias Hermosas Flores del Parnaso, II. 549, n.

Varias Noticias of Figueroa, III. 183.

Varios Efetos de Amor of Alcalá y Herrera, III. 109.

Varios Prodigios de Amor of Robles, III. 109.

Vasconcellos, Ferreira de, f. 1613.

His Eufrósina, I. 270, n.

Vasconcellos, Juan Mendez de, his Liga Desecha, f. 1612, II. 499, 500, n.

Vasquez, Joseph, pseudonyme of Cadahalso, III. 277, n.

Vaz de Velasco, Alfonso, f. 1602.

His Zeloso, I. 271.

Vazquez, in the Cancionero, I. 442, n.

Vega, Alonso de la, d. 1566.

Dramatist, II. 25.

Vega, Ant. Lopez de, f. 1641.

Poems, II. 529.

Didactic prose, III. 186.

Vega, Bernardo de la, f. 1591.

Pastores de Iberia, III. 48.

Vega, Gabriel Lasso de la. See Lasso.

Vega, Garcilasso de la. See Garcilasso.

Vega Garcilasso de la, (El Inca,) d. 1616.

His Comentarios, etc., III. 155-158.

Vega, Joseph de la, f. 1693.

Didactic prose, III. 195, n.

Vega, Lope Felix de, d. 1635.

Birth, II. 120, 121, n.

Education, 121-123.

A soldier in Terceira, 123.

Secretary to the Bishop of Avila, 123.

Earliest works, 123.

His Dorotea, 124.

Secretary to Antonio, Duke of Alva, 124.

Writes the Arcadia, 125.

Marries Isabela de Urbina, 127.

Is exiled for a duel, 127.

Goes to Valencia, 28, 128.

His wife dies, 128.

He serves in the Armada, 129.

Returns to Madrid, 130.

Secretary of the Marquis of Malpica, and of the Marquis of Sarria, 131.

Marries Doña Juana de Guardio, 131.

She dies, 132.

His son Carlos dies, 131.

Marcela, his daughter, 132.

Death of his son Lope, 133.

He becomes a priest, 133;

and a Familiar of the Inquisition, 134.

His San Isidro, 135, 149.

His Hermosura de Angélica, 137.

His Dragontea, 140.

His Peregrino en su Patria, 142.

His Jerusalen Conquistada, 143, 485.

His versification, 144.

His Pastores de Belen, 146.

Religious poems, 148.

His appearance at the festival for the beatification of Isidro, 149-152;

and at the festival for his canonization, 152-155.

His Tomé Burguillos, 154, 491.

He is a good reader, 150, 152.

His Filomena, Tapada, Andromeda, and Diana, 155.

Attacks Cultismo, 156 and n., 531, 532.

His Circe, Mañana de San Juan, and Rosa Blanca, 156.

A presiding officer at an Auto da Fé, 157.

His Triunfos Divinos, 158.

Corona Trágica, 159.

His Laurel de Apolo, 159.

Prints his Dorotea, 160.

His last works, illness, and death, 161, 162.

His funeral, 162, 163.

His miscellaneous works, II. 164-166.

His dramas, 166-250.

First attempts for the stage, 166, 168.

His New Art of making Plays, 166.

His exile at Valencia, 167.

His Verdadero Amante and Pastoral de Jacinto, 169.

His Moralities, 170-173.

Acts the character of a buffoon at Valencia, 173.

Appears as a dramatist at Madrid, and succeeds, 174.

Prints only a part of his plays, 175 and n., 176.

Their great number, 175, 176.

His theory, and purpose in writing for the stage, 177.

Variety of his dramas, 178, 239.

His plays acted very often, 180, n.

His Comedias de Capa y Espada, 179-191.

His Comedias Heróycas, 192-209.

Their want of historical truth, 208, 222, n.

Comedias on common life, 210-217.

Comedias on religious subjects, 217-222.

Comedias de Santos, 222-226.

Autos Sacramentales, 226-234.

Entremeses, 234-236.

Eclogues, 236-238, III. 13.

Characteristic principle of his dramas, the interest of the story, II. 239, 243 and n.

Characters, 240.

Long speeches, 240.

Incongruity and irregularity of his dramas, 241.

History and geography sacrificed, 242.

Immorality, 242, 243.

Underplot, 243.

Gracioso, 244.

Versification, 245, 246.

Ballads introduced, 247, 248.

Constructed his drama on the old traditions of the theatre, 249.

His great success, 249-251.

Plays falsely attributed to him, 251 and n.

His earnings as an author, 251.

Price of his plays, 251, n.

He was poor, 251.

Vast amount of his works, 252.

Nature of his genius, 253, 254.

On Pulgar, I. 201, n.

On the Italian school, 507.

On the Mendozas, 510, n.

On Lope de Rueda, II. 20, n.

Relations with Cervantes, 82-84.

Friend of Guillen de Castro, 284.

First hint of a Don Juan, 309.

His dramatic school opposed by scholars and churchmen, 327-330.

Triumphs over them, 331.

He praises Calderon, 335.

His Fuerza Lastimosa, I. 127, n.

His Esclavos en Argel, II. 91, n.

His Selva sin Amor, 424.

Parody of his Cavallero de Olmedo, 487.

His epics, 500.

Connection with Marini, 520, n.

Lyrical poetry, 545.

Epigrams, III. 15.

Didactic poetry, 22.

Ballads, 32, 36.

Tales, 67, 103.

Letters, 136.

Dramas in Comedias Escogidas, 425.

See Bertuch; Dohrn; Fauriel; Holcroft; Holland, Lord; Montalvan; Navarrete; Southey; Zedlitz.

Vegas, Damian de, f. 1590.

Libro de Poesía, II. 277, 278 and n., 508.

Veinte Triunfos of Frexenal, II. 521, n.

Velasco, Antonio de, I. 435.

Velazquez, Baltasar Mateo, f. 1621.

Filósofo del Aldea, III. 191.

Velazquez, Luis Joseph, d. 1772.

His edition of the Bachiller de la Torre, II. 264.

His Orígenes de la Poesía, III. 251.

Venegas, Alexis. See Vanegas.

Venegas, Pedro de Saavedra, poet, II. 533.

Venganza Venturosa, La, of Lope de Vega, II. 121, n.

Ventura de Vergara. See Vergara.

Veraguas, Duke of, II. 340, 343 and n.

Vera Tassis, Life of Calderon, II. 334.

Edition of his Comedias, 343;

of Aug. de Salazar, 530, n.

Vera y Figueroa, or Zuñiga, Conde de la Roca, Antonio de, d. 1658.

On Pedro el Cruel, I. 183.

His Fernando, an epic, II. 500, 502, n.

His Embaxador, III. 184.

His part in Cibdareal, 397.

Vera y Villaroel, Juan de, dramatist, II. 429.

Vera y Zuñiga. See Vera y Figueroa.

Verdad en el Potro of Santos, III. 115.

Verdad Sospechosa of Alarcon, II. 321.

Verdadero Amante, El, of Lope de Vega, II. 169.

Verdadero Suceso de la Batalla de Roncesvalles, by Garrido de Villena, II. 477.

Vergara Salcedo, Sebastian Ventura de, poet, f. 1660, II. 530.

Vergonzoso en Palacio of Tirso de Molina, II. 313.

Verses without the final syllable, III. 67, n.

Vexamen de Ingenios, by Cancer, III. 189, n.

Vezilla Castellanos, Pedro de la, f. 1586. His Leon de España, II. 494.

Viage al Parnaso of Cervantes, II. 88, III. 6, 8, n.

Viage del Mundo of Cevallos, III. 183, n.

Viage Entretenido of Roxas, III. 181.

Viana, Carlos de, I. 332, n., 350.

His Crónica, III. 168, n.

Viana, Pedro Sanchez de, his Ovid’s Metamorphoses, II. 497, n.

Viardot, Louis, Life of Cervantes, and translation of his Don Quixote, II. 53, n., III. 419.

Of his Novelas, II. 88, n.

Vicente, Gil, f. 1536.

Dramas in Spanish, I. 283-292.

Editions of his Works, 284, n.

His Cassandra, 285.

His Viudo, 289.

Other plays by him, 290-292.

Three Autos, 291, n.

His merits, 292.

His Amadis, II. 4 and n.

His Parvos, 19, n.

Victor, shout in the theatre, II. 440.

Vidas de Españoles Célebres of Quintana, III. 309.

Vidriana of Huete, II. 8.

Viejo, El, y la Nina, of Moratin, III. 335.

Vieyra, Antonio de, his Lágrimas de Heráclito, III. 185, n.

Vilarasa, Luis de, Troubadour, I. 330.

Villagra, Gaspar de, f. 1610, II. 469.

Villahermosa, Duke of, patron of Argensola, II. 537.

Villaizan, Gerónimo. See Villayzan.

Villaizan, Juan Nuñez de, chronicler, I. 175.

Villalobos, Francisco de, f. 1543.

Works, I. 532-534.

Translation, I. 294, II. 30.

Villalobos, Simon de, f. 1605.

Pelear á la Gineta, III. 188.

Villalon, Bachiller, c. 1535.

Drama by, II. 9, n.

Villalon, Cristóval de, f. 1541.

Submits a book to the Inquisition, I. 462, n.

Villalpando, Jacinto de, f. 1655.

Poem, II. 483.

Tales, III. 109.

Villalta, Andrés de, Romancero, III. 392.

Villamediana, Count, d. 1621.

Poet, II. 483, 527.

Dramatic entertainment, 184, n.

Effect on the language, III. 218.

Villancicos, dramatic, I. 278, n.

Lyrical, 440.

Villanueva, Viage Literario, III. 153, n.

On Forner, 294, n.

Villaroya, Josef, on Jaume i., I. 317, n.

Villasandino, Alfonso Alvarez de, f. 1440, I. 391-393, 429.

Villaviciosa, Joseph de, d. 1658.

His Mosquea, II. 489.

Villaviciosa, Seb. de, dramas, II. 419, 420, n.

Villayzan, Gerónimo de, II. 451, n., 323.

Villegas, Alonso de, f. 1554.

His Selvagia, I. 269, 270, n.

Villegas, Antonio de, f. 1550.

His Inventario, I. 503, II. 481, III. 93.

Villegas, Estevan Manuel de, Lyrical poetry, d. 1669, II. 541-544.

Satires, III. 7.

Elegies, 9.

Eclogues, 13.

Epigrams, 14.

Opposes the old drama, II. 328.

Villegas, Francisco de, dramatist, II. 427, III. 425.

Villegas, Gerónimo de, translations from Juvenal, I. 410, n.

Villegas, Pero Fernandez de, f. 1515.

Translation of Divina Commedia, I. 409, n.

Aversion del Mundo, and Complaint of Faith, 410, n.

Terza rima, 486, n.

Villena, Alonso Garrido de, f. 1577, II. 477.

Villena, Enrique, Marques de, d. 1434.

Life and works of, I. 357-364.

Drama, 259.

Arte de Trobar, 328, n.

Translations, 352.

Thought to have written the Querellas, 44, n.

Villena, Marquis of, f. 1710.

Plan for the Spanish Academy, III. 216.

Viñoles, Narcis, f. 1510.

His Suma de todas las Crónicas, I. 216, n.

Poetry, 340.

Vírgen Madre de Dios of Escobar, II. 474.

Virgil, ballad on, I. 127.

Æneid and Georgics translated by Mesa, II. 496, 497, n.

Georgics, by Luis de Leon, 48.

Virgin of the Reliquary of Calderon, II. 359.

Virgin, Holy. See Madonna.

Virginia of Montiano, III. 316.

Virues, Cristóval de, f. 1609.

Dramas, II. 28.

Lope de Vega on, 166, 167.

His Monserrate, 470.

Satires, III. 4, n.

Didactic poetry, 19.

Descriptive, 23, n.

Visigoth dynasty in Spain, III. 370.

Vision Deleytable of La Torre, I. 417.

Visions of Quevedo, II. 270.

Vita Beata of Lucena, I. 415.

Vita Mathildis, I. 112, n.

Viudo, O, of Vicente, I. 289.

Vivas, Fr. Duran, f. 1643, II. 474, 475, n.

Vivero, Luis de, I. 435.

Vivo, El, y el Difunto, of Santos, III. 116.

Voltaire, his Mariamne, II. 372, n.

On Diamante, 416.

On the Araucana, 464.

On Gil Blas, III. 70, 266.

Votos del Pavon, poem, 13th cent., I. 60.

Vuelta de Egypto of Lope de Vega, II. 234.

W.

Wace, Robert, I. 219.

Walker, Ferdinand, translation of Torquemada, III. 175, n.

Ward, Edward, Don Quixote, in verse, III. 420.

White, Joseph Blanco, I. 72, n., II. 185, 327, n., III. 238, n., 240.

Wieland, C. M., on Villegas, II. 544, n.

His Silvio de Rosalva, III. 420.

Wiffen, J. H., Life and Works of Garcilasso, I. 494.

Wilmot, translation of Don Quixote, III. 419.

Wolf, Ferdinand, I. 13, n., 79, n., 268, n., 274, n., III. 388, 396.

Wolf, F. A., publishes a tale of Cervantes, II. 88, n.

Wolf, P. A., his Preciosa, II. 422.

Wright, Thos., Purgatory of St. Patrick, II. 353, n.

X.

Xácaras, what, II. 446.

Xarifé, ballads on, I. 148.

Xerez, battle of, III. 373.

Xerez, Francisco de, f. 1540.

Conquista de Perú, I. 567.

Ximenes, violates the treaty of Granada, I. 449.

Talent and bigotry, 463, 464 and n.

Ximeno, Vicente, d. 1764.

Escritores de Valencia, I. 343, n.

Y.

Yague de Salas. See Salas.

Yañez y Rivera, Gerónymo de Alcalá, d. 1632.

His Alonso Moço de Muchos Amos, III. 71.

Yepes, Diego de, f. 1599.

Life of Sta. Teresa, III. 189, n.

Yong, Bartholomew, translator, II. 508, n., III. 42, n., 44, n.

Young, Night Thoughts translated, III. 306, 320, n.

Yriarte, Juan de, Proverbs, III. 173.

On Luzan, 239, n.

Royal Librarian, 249.

Yriarte, Tomas de, d. 1791.

Works, III. 277.

On Sedano, 20 n., 271, n.

Dramas, 321.

Ysopet, I. 84, n.

Z.

Zabaleta, Juan de, f. 1667.

Didactic prose, III. 194.

Dramas, II. 414 and n., III. 425.

Zabra y Fernandez, Collection of Plays, III. 426.

Zamora, Antonio, f. 1730.

Dramas, II. 426.

Play on Don Juan, 310.

Poems, III. 228.

Zamora, Lorencio de, d. 1614, II. 495, 496, n.

Zapata, Luis de. See Çapata.

Zarabandas, II. 447, 448 and n.

Zarate, Agustin de. See Çarate.

Zarate, Fernando de, uses a play of Lope de Vega, II. 199, n.

His Reyna de Ungria, 359, n.

Other dramas, 414.

Confounded with Enriquez Gomez, 415, n.

Dramas in Comedias Escogidas, III. 425.

Zarate, Lopez de, d. 1658.

Invencion de la Cruz, II. 486, 487, n.

At the Festivals of San Isidro, 152, 153.

Poems by Lope de Vega ascribed to, 157, n.

Lyrical poetry, 548.

Eclogues, III. 13.

Zarzuela, what, II. 424.

Of Candamo, 423.

Of Calderon, 399, n.

Of Diamante, 416.

Zavala y Zamora, Gaspar, f. 18th cent. Dramatist, III. 331.

Zavaleta, Juan de. See Zabaleta.

Zavaleta, Thomas, f. 1750. Defence of the old drama and of Cervantes, II. 96, n.

Zayas, María de, f. 1647.

Tale on Avarice, II. 417.

Other tales, III. 107, 108.

Zedlitz, Baron, his Stern von Sevilla, from Lope de Vega, II. 205, n.

Zegris and Abencerrages, ballads on, I. 148.

Story of, III. 80.

Zelos aun del Ayre matan of Calderon, II. 361, n.

Zeloso, a play imitating Celestina, I. 271.

Zenobia, by Calderon, II. 389.

Zepeda. See Cepeda.

Zevallos, Miguel de, f. 1738.

His Eloquencia del Silencio, III. 226.

Zoraida of Cienfuegos, III. 329.

Zorrilla, plays and poems on Don Juan, II. 310, n.

Zorzi, Alessandro, on Cultismo, III. 429.

Zuñiga, Avila y, Comentarios, I. 499, n.

Zuñiga, Ortiz de, on Argote de Molina, III. 410.

Zurara, Gomez Eannes de, Portuguese chronicler, I. 221, 222, n.

Zurita, Gerónimo, d. 1580.

His Anales de Aragon, III. 138.

His correspondence, 129.

THE END.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] All these satires are found in the works of their respective authors, heretofore cited, except that of Morillo “On the Corrupted Manners of his Times,” which is in Espinosa, Flores, 1605, f. 119. The “Epístolas” of Artieda were printed the same year, under the name of “Artemidoro,” and are six in number. The best are one against the life of a sportsman, and one in ironical defence of the follies of society. A letter of Virues to his brother, also dated 1605, might have been added. It is a pleasant satirical account of a military march from Milan to the Low Countries, passing the St. Gothard.

[2] They were first printed in Sedano, Parnaso, Tom. IX., 1778.

[3] Rimas, 1618, p. 198. It is a remarkably happy union of the Italian form of verse and the Roman spirit.

[4] Rimas, 1634, pp. 56, 234, 254. It is singular, however, that, while Bartolomé imitates Horace, he expresses his preference for Juvenal.

Pero quando á escribir sátiras llegues,

A ningun irritado cartapacio,

Sino al del cauto Juvenal, te entregues.

He seems, too, to have been accounted an imitator of Juvenal by his contemporaries; for Guevara, in his “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco IX., calls him “Divino Juvenal Aragones.” But it is impossible not to see that he is full of Horatian turns of thought.

[5] It is the last poem in the “Melpomene.”

[6] The satires of all these authors are in their collected works, except those of Villegas, which were printed from manuscripts, supposed to be the originals, by Sedano (Tom. IX. pp. 3-18); or rather, two of them on bad poets were so printed, for the third seems to have been suppressed, on account of its indelicacy.

[7] Cervantes is a strong case in point. In the fourth chapter of his “Journey to Parnassus,” immediately after speaking of his Don Quixote, he disavows having ever written any thing satirical, and denounces all such compositions as low and base. Indeed, the very words sátira and satírico came at last to be used in a bad sense oftener than in a good one. Huerta, Sinónimos Castellanos, Valencia, 1807, 2 tom. 12mo, ad verb.

[8] A striking instance of this is to be found in the “Primera Parle del Parnaso Antártico,” by Diego Mexia, printed at Seville, 1608, 4to, and the only portion of it ever printed. It consists of an original poetical letter by a lady to Mexia, and a translation of twenty-one of the Epistles of Ovid and his “Ibis”; all in terza rima, and nearly all in pure and beautiful Castilian verse. In the edition in the collection of Fernandez, Tom. XIX., 1799, the epistle by the lady is omitted, which is a pity, since it contains notices of several South American poets.

[9] The best elegiac poetry in the Spanish language is, perhaps, that in the two divisions of the first eclogue of Garcilasso. Elegies, or mournful poems of any kind, are often called Endechas in Spanish, as Quevedo called his sad amatory poems; but the origin of the word is not settled, nor its meaning quite well defined. Venegas, in a vocabulary of obscure words at the end of his “Agonía del Tránsito de la Muerte,” 1574, p. 370, says he thinks it comes from inde jaces, as if the mourner addressed the dead body. But this is absurd. It may come from the Greek ἕνδεκα, for when the last verse of each stanza contained just eleven syllables, the poem was said to be written in endechas reales. See Covarrubias, and the Academy, ad verbum, who give no opinion.

[10] There are many editions of the Works of Saa de Miranda; but the second and best (s. l. 1614, 4to) is preceded by a life of him, which claims to have been composed by his personal friends, and which states the odd fact, that the lady of whom he was enamoured was so ugly, that her family declined the match until he had well considered the matter; but that he persevered, and became so fondly attached to her, that he died, at last, from grief at her loss. His merits as a poet are well discussed by Ant. das Neves Pereira, in the fifth volume of the “Memorias de Litt. Portugueza” of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisboa, 1793, pp. 99, etc. Some of his works are in the Spanish Index Expurgatorius, 1667, p. 72.

[11] Of the poets whose eclogues are found in their prose pastorals I shall speak at large when I examine this division of Spanish romantic fiction. Montemayor, however, it should be noted here, wrote other eclogues, which are in his Cancionero, 1588, ff. 111, etc.

[12] It is found in the important collection, the “Flores,” of Espinosa, f. 66, where it first appeared.

[13] “Eglogas Pastoriles de Pedro de Padilla,” Sevilla, 1582, 4to; thirteen in number, in all measures, and the last one partly in prose. Of Padilla, who was much connected with the men of letters of his time, all needful notices may be found in Navarrete, “Vida de Cervantes,” pp. 396-402, and in Clemencin’s Notes to Don Quixote, Tom. I. p. 147. The curate well says of his “Tesoro de Poesías,” (Madrid, 1587, 12mo,) “They would be better, if they were fewer.” They fill above nine hundred pages, and are in all forms and styles. Padilla died as late as 1599.

[14] There are six of them, in terza and ottava rima, with a few lyrical poems interspersed, in other measures and in a better tone, in a volume entitled “Versos Espirituales,” Cuenca, 1596, 12mo. Their author was a monk.

[15] The eclogue of Morales is in Espinosa, f. 48, and that of Tapia occurs—where we should hardly look for it—in the “Libro de Montería, que mandó escribir el Rey Don Alfonso XI.,” edited by Argote de Molina, 1582. It is on the woods of Aranjuez, and was written after the birth of a daughter of Philip II.; but its descriptions are long and wearisome.

[16] Rimas, 1591, ff. 50-57.

[17] Espinosa includes it in his “Flores,” f. 107.

[18] The authors mentioned in this paragraph are, I believe, all more amply noticed elsewhere, except Pedro Soto de Roxas. He was a friend of Lope de Vega, and published in Madrid, 1623, 4to, his “Desengaño de Amor,”—a volume of poems in the Italian manner, the best of which are the madrigals and eclogues.

[19]

Á quien contaré yo mis quejas,

Mi lindo amor;

Á quien contaré mis quejas,

Si á vos no?

Faber found this and a few more in Salina’s treatise on Music, 1577, and placed it, with a considerable number of similar short compositions, in the first volume of his collection, pp. 303, etc.

[20]

O dulce suspiro mio!

No quisiera dicha mas,

Que las veces que á Dios vas

Hallarme donde te envio.

Ubeda, 1588, was the first, I think, who paraphrased this epigram; but where he discovered it I do not know.

[21]

De dentro tengo mi mal,

Que de fora no ay señal.

Mi nueva y dulce querella

Es invisible á la gente:

El alma sola la siente,

Qu’ el cuerpo no es dino della:

Como la viva sentella

S’ encubre en el pedernal,

De dentro tengo mi mal.

Camões, Rimas, Lisboa, 1598, 4to, f. 179.

Several that precede and follow, both in Spanish and Portuguese, are worth notice.

[22] “Agudezas de Juan Oven, etc., con Adiciones por Francisco de la Torre,” Madrid, 1674, 1682, 2 tom. 4to. Oven is the Owen or Audoenus of Wood’s “Athenæ Oxon.,” Tom. II. p. 320. His “Epigrammata,” printed about a dozen times between 1606 and 1795, were placed on the list of prohibited books in 1654. Index, Romæ, 1786, 8vo, p. 216.

[23]

Pues el rosario tomais,

No dudo que le receis

Por mí, que muerto me habeis,

O por vos, que me matais.

Obras, 1778, Tom. I. p. 337.

Camoens had the same idea in some Portuguese redondillas, (Rimas, 1598, f. 159,) so that I suspect both of them took it from some old popular epigram.

[24] The poems of Boscan and Silvestre are found in their respective works, already examined; but of Francisco de Castilla and of Juan de Mendoza and their poetry it may be proper to give some notice, as their names have not occurred before.

Castilla was a gentleman apparently of the old national type, descended from an illegitimate branch of the family of Pedro el Cruel. He lived in the time of Charles V., and passed his youth near the person of that great sovereign; but, as he says in a letter to his brother, the Bishop of Calahorra, he at last “withdrew himself, disgusted alike with the abhorred rabble and senseless life of the court,” and “chose the estate of matrimony, as one more safe for his soul and better suited to his worldly condition.” How he fared in this experiment he does not tell us; but, missing, in the retirement it brought with it, those pleasures of social intercourse to which he had been accustomed, he bought, as he says, “with a small sum of money, other surer and wiser friends,” whose counsels and teachings he put into verse, that his weak memory might the better preserve them. The result of this life merely contemplative was a book, in which he gives us, first, his “Theórica de Virtudes,” or an explanation, in the old short Spanish verse, accompanied with a prose gloss, of the different Virtues, ending with the vengeful Nemesis; next, a Treatise on Friendship, in long nine-line stanzas; and then, successively, a Satire on Human Life and its vain comforts; an Allegory on Worldly Happiness; a series of Exhortations to Virtue and Holiness, which he has unsuitably called Proverbs; and a short discussion, in décimas, on the Immaculate Conception. At the end, separately paged, as if it were quite a distinct treatise, we have a counterpart to the “Theórica de Virtudes,” called the “Prática de las Virtudes de los Buenos Reyes de España”; a poem in above two hundred octave stanzas, on the Virtues of the Kings of Spain, beginning with Alaric the Goth and ending with the Emperor Charles V., to whom he dedicates it with abundance of courtly flattery. The whole volume, both in the prose and verse, is written in the strong old Castilian style, sometimes encumbered with learning, but oftener rich, pithy, and flowing. The following stanza, written, apparently, when its author was already disgusted with his court life, but had not given it up, may serve as a specimen of his best manner:—

Nunca tanto el marinero

Desseo llegar al puerto

Con fortuna;

Ni en batalla el buen guerrero

Ser de su victoria cierto

Quando puña;

Ni madre al ausente hijo

Por mar con tanta aficion

Le desseo,

Como haver un escondrijo

Sin contienda en un rincon

Desseo yo.

f. 45. b.

Never did mariner desire

To reach his destined port

With happy fate;

Ne’er did good warrior, in the fire

Of battle, victory court,

With hopes elate;

Nor mother for her child’s dear life,

Tossed on the stormy wave

So earnest pray,

As I for some safe cave

To hide me from this restless strife

In peace away.

An edition of Castilla’s very rare volume may have been printed about 1536, when it was licensed; but I have never seen it, nor any notice of it. The one of which I have a copy was printed at Zaragoza, 4to, lit. got., 1552; and I believe there is one of Alcalá, either in 1554 or 1564, 8vo.

The poetry of Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, who was Regidor of Madrid, and a member of the Cortes of 1544, is, perhaps, more rare than that of Castilla, and is contained in a small volume printed at Alcalá in 1550, and entitled “Buen Placer trovado en treze discantes de quarta rima Castellana segun imitacion de trobas Francesas,” etc. It consists of thirteen discourses on a happy life, its means and motives, all written in stanzas of four lines each, which their author calls French, I suppose, because they are longer lines than those in the old national measures, and rhymed alternately,—the rhymes of one stanza running into the next. At the end is a Canto Real, as it is called, on a verse in the Psalms, composed in the same manner; and several smaller poems, one of which is a kind of religious villancico, and four of them sonnets. The tone of the whole is didactic, and its poetical value small. I cite eight lines, as a specimen of its peculiar manner and rhymes:—

Errado va quien busca ser contento

En mal plazer mortal, que como heno

Se seca y passa como humo en viento,

De vanos tragos de ayre muy relleno.

Quando las negras velas van en lleno

Del mal plazer, villano peligroso,

De buen principio y de buen fin ageno,

No halla en esta vida su reposo.

Mendoza was a person of much consideration in his time, and is noticed as such by Quintana, (Historia de Madrid, Madrid, 1629, folio,) who gives one of his sonnets at f. 27, and a sketch of his character at f. 245.

[25] The “Triunfos Morales de Francisco de Guzman” (Sevilla, 1581, 12mo) are imitations of Petrarca’s “Trionfi,” but are much more didactic, giving, for instance, under the head of “The Triumph of Wisdom,” the opinions of the wise men of antiquity; and under the head of “The Triumph of Prudence,” the general rules for prudent conduct.

[26] The “Arte Poética” of Espinel is the first thing published in the “Parnaso Español” of Sedano, 1768, and was vehemently attacked by Yriarte, when, in 1777, he printed his own translation of the same work. (Obras de Yriarte, Madrid, 1805, 12mo, Tom. IV.) To this Sedano replied in the ninth volume of his “Parnaso,” 1778. Yriarte rejoined in a satirical dialogue, “Donde las dan las toman” (Obras, Tom. VI.); and Sedano closed the controversy with the “Coloquios de Espina,” Malaga, 1785, 2 tom. 12mo, under the name of Juan María Chavero y Eslava. It is a very pretty literary quarrel, quite in the Spanish manner.

[27] The “Egemplar Poético” of Cueva was first printed in the eighth volume of the “Parnaso Español,” 1774; and the “Inventores de las Cosas,” taken generally from Polydore Virgil, and dated 1608, was first published in the ninth volume of the same collection, 1778. How absurd the last is may be inferred from the fact, that it makes Moses the inventor of hexameter verse, and Alexander the Great the oldest of paper-makers.

[28] What remains of Céspedes’s poetry is to be found in the eighteenth volume of Fernandez’s collection. His life is well set forth in the excellent “Diccionario de los Profesores de las Bellas Artes, por A. Cean Bermudez,” Madrid, 1800, 6 tom. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 316; besides which, its learned author, at the end of Tom. V., has republished the fragments of the poem on Painting in a better order than that in which they had before appeared; adding a pleasant prose discourse, in a pure style, on Ancient and Modern Painting and Sculpture, which Céspedes wrote in 1604, when recovering from a fever, and two other of his trifles; to the whole of which is prefixed a judicious Preface by Cean himself. Céspedes had been a Greek scholar in his youth, and says, that, in his old age, when he chanced to open Pindar, he “never failed to find a well-drawn and rich picture, grand and fit for Michel Angelo to paint.” He was a friend of Carranza, the great archbishop, who, after being a leading member of the Council of Trent, and confessor of Mary of England after she married Philip II., was worried to death by the Inquisition in 1576. (See, ante, Vol. I. p. 466.) Céspedes himself came near suffering from a similar persecution, in consequence of a letter he wrote to Carranza in 1559, in which he spoke disrespectfully of the Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Office. Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. p. 440.

[29] Lope’s “Arte Nuevo” has been already noticed. The “Selva Militar y Política” of Rebolledo was first printed at Cologne, in 1652, 18mo, its author being then Spanish minister in Denmark, of whose kings he has given a sort of genealogical history in another poem, his “Selvas Dánicas.”—“La Cruz, por Albanio Ramirez de la Trapeza,” Madrid, 1612, 12mo, pp. 368, to which are added a few pages of short poems on the Cross.

[30] “Los Emblemas de Alciato, etc., añadidos de nuevos Emblemas,” Lyon, 1549, 4to,—on the Index Expurgatorius of 1790. Those of Covarrubias were printed in Spanish in 1591; and in Spanish and Latin, Agrigenti, 1601, 12mo;—the last, a thick volume, with a long and learned Latin dissertation on Emblems prefixed. Covarrubias was brother of the lexicographer of the same name. Tesoro, Art. Emblema.

[31] “Aula de Dios, Cartuxa Real de Zaragoza. Descrive la Vida de sus Monjes, acusa la Vanidad del Siglo, etc., consagrala á la Utilidad Pública Don Miguel de Mencos,” Zaragoza, 1637, 4to. They are written in silvas, and their true author’s name is indicated by puns in some of the laudatory verses that precede the work.

[32] The pleasantest, if not the most important exception to this remark, which I recollect, is to be found in an epistle by the friend of Lope de Vega, Cristóval de Virues, to his brother, dated June 17, 1600, and giving an account of his passage over the Saint Gothard with a body of troops. It is in blank verse that is not very exact, but the descriptions are very good, and marked with the feeling of that stern scenery. Obras, 1609, f. 269.

[33] The shorter poems, noticed as didactic, are found in the Cancioneros and other collections already referred to, or in the works of their respective authors.

[34] When looking through any of the large collections of ballads, especially those produced in the seventeenth century by the popularity of the whole class and the facility of their metrical structure, we find pertinent an excellent remark of Rengifo, in his “Arte Poética,” 1592, p. 38:—“There is nothing easier than to make a ballad, and nothing more difficult than to make it what it ought to be.”

[35] “Romances nuevamente sacados de Historias Antiguas de la Crónica de España, compuestos por Lorenço de Sepúlveda,” etc., en Anvers, 1551, 18mo. There were editions, enlarged and altered, in 1563, 1566, 1580, and 1584, mentioned by Ebert. That of 1584 contains one hundred and fifty-six ballads;—that of 1551 contains one hundred and forty-nine. Many of them are in the Romanceros Generales, and not a few in the recent collections of Depping and Duran.

[36] The “Cantos de Fuentes,” in the Epístola to which this ballad is found, were printed three times, and in the edition of Alcalá, 1587, 12mo, fill, with their tedious commentary, above eight hundred pages. Fuentes is noted by Zuñiga, in his “Annals of Seville,” 1677, p. 585, as a knight of Seville “of an illustrious lineage.” See also, ante, Vol. I. pp. 36-38.

[37] The only copy of this volume known to exist is among the rare and precious Spanish books given by Reinhart to the Imperial Library at Vienna; but an excellent account of it, followed by above sixty of the more important ballads it contains, was published at Leipzig, 1846, 12mo, under the title of “Rosa de Romances,” by Mr. Wolf, the admirable scholar, to whom the lovers of Spanish literature owe so much.

[38] “Romancero de Pedro de Padilla,” Madrid, 1583, 12mo. The ballads fill about three hundred and sixty pages. The first twenty-two are on the wars in Flanders; afterwards there are nine taken from Ariosto’s stories; then several on the story of Rodrigo de Narvaez, on Spanish traditions, etc.

[39] Cueva, whom we have found in several other departments of Spanish literature, printed his ballads with the title of “Coro Febeo de Romances Historiales,” in his native city, Seville, 1587, 12mo,—a volume of nearly seven hundred pages. Only four or five are on Spanish subjects;—that on Doña Teresa (f. 215) being obviously taken from the “Crónica General,” Parte III. c. 22. The ballad addressed to his book, “Al Libro,” is at the end of the “Melpomene,” and is of value for his personal history.

[40] Hita’s “Guerras Civiles de Granada” will be noticed when I come to speak of romantic fiction.

[41] “Romances de Germanía,” 1609; reprinted, Madrid, 1789, 8vo. The words Germanía, Germano, etc., were applied to the jargon in which the rogues talked with one another. Hidalgo, who wrote only six of the ballads he published, gives at the end of his collection a vocabulary of this dialect, which is recognized as genuine by Mayans y Siscar, and reprinted in his “Orígenes”; so that the suggestion of Clemencin, which I have followed in the text, where I speak of Juan Hidalgo as a pseudonyme, may not be well founded;—a suggestion further discountenanced by the fact, that, in Tom. XXXVIII. of the Comedias Escogidas, 1672, the play of “Los Mozárabes de Toledo” is attributed to a Juan Hidalgo. That this had nothing to do with the Gypsies, though supposed, in the last edition, to have been connected with them, is shown in Borrow’s “Zincali,” London, 1841, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 143. Sandoval (Carlos V., Lib. III. § 38) more than once calls the rebellious Comuneros of Valencia a Germanía, or combination, which can leave little doubt about the origin of the word from Hermandad, Hermano,—brotherhood and brother,—though Covarrubias does not seem sure about it, in verb. Alemania.

[42] Valdivielso’s name occurs very often in the Aprobacion of books in the sixteenth century. His “Romancero Espiritual,” Valencia, 1689, 12mo, first printed 1612, was several times reprinted, and fills above three hundred and fifty pages. It is not quite all in the ballad measure or in a grave tone.

[43] In Lope’s Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIII. and XVII.

[44] “Ramillete de Divinas Flores para el Desengaño de la Vida Humana,” Amberes, 1629, 18mo, pp. 262. “Avisos para la Muerte, por L. de Arellano,” Zaragoza, 1634, 1648, etc., 18mo, 90 leaves. See, ante, p. 341, note.

[45] The ballads of Roca y Serna, often disfigured by his Gongorism, are found in his “Luz del Alma,” Madrid, 1726, 12mo, first printed in 1634, and frequently since.

[46] It is entitled “Silva de Varios Romances,” and contains the well-known ballads of the Conde d’ Irlos, the Marquis of Mantua, Gayferos, and the Conde Claros, with others, to the number of twenty-three, that are in the Ballad-book of 1550. Those on the death of Philip II. and Doña Isabel de la Paz are, of course, not in the first edition of this Silva. They occur in that of Barcelona, 1602, 18mo.

[47] “Floresta de Varios Romances, sacados de las Historias Antiguas de los Hechos Famosos de los Doce Pares de Francia,” Madrid, 1728, 18mo, first printed 1608. See Sarmiento, § 528, for its popularity; but the later ballads in the volume do not relate to the Twelve Peers.

[48] “Romancero y Historia del muy Valeroso Cavallero, el Cid Ruy Diaz de Bivar, recopilado por Juan de Escobar,” Alcalá, 1612, 18mo, and many other editions, the most complete being that of Stuttgard, 1840, 12mo.

[49] Besides the editions of 1623 and 1629, I know that of Madrid, 1659, 18mo, in two parts, containing additions of satirical ballads, letrillas, etc., by Francisco de Segura.

[50] Lopez Maldonado was a friend of Cervantes, and his Cancionero (Madrid, 1586, 4to) was among the books in Don Quixote’s library. There is a beautiful ballad by him, (f. 35,) beginning,—

Ojos llenos de beldad,

Apartad de vos la ira,

Y no pagueis con mentira

A los que os tratan verdad.

The other authors referred to in the text have been before noticed.

[51] Some of Góngora’s romantic ballads, like his “Angelica and Medoro,” and some of his burlesque ballads, are good; but the best are the simplest. There is a beautiful one, giving a discussion between a little boy and girl, how they will dress up and spend a holiday.

[52] Cervantes speaks of his “numberless ballads” in his “Viage al Parnaso.” Those of Lope de Vega soon came into the popular ballad-books, if, indeed, some of the best of them were not, as I suspect, originally written for the “Flor de Romances” of Villalta, printed at Valencia in 1593, 18mo.

[53] Solís, “Poesías Sagradas y Humanas,” 1692, 1732, etc.

[54] “Vergel de Plantas Divinas, por Arcangel de Alarcon,” 1594.

[55] It is a ballad about money (Espinosa, Flores, 1605, f. 30), and is the only thing I know by Diego de la Chica. I might add ballads by other authors, which are found where they would least be looked for; like one of by Rufo, in his “Apotegmas,”—one by Jauregui, in his “Rimas,”—and a beautiful one by Camoens, (Rimas, 1598, f. 187,) worthy of Góngora, and beginning,—

Irme quiero, madre,

A aquella galera,

Con el marinero

A ser marinera.

I long to go, dear mother mine,

Aboard yon galley fair,

With that young sailor that I love,

His sailor life to share.

[56] There is no need of authorities to prove the universal prevalence of ballads in the seventeenth century; for the literature of that century often reads like a mere monument of it. But if I wished to name any thing, it would be the Don Quixote, where Sancho is made to cite them so often; and the Novelas of Cervantes, especially “The Little Gypsy,” who sings her ballads in the houses of the nobles and the church of Santa María; and “Rinconete and Cortadillo,” where they make the coarse merriment of the thieves of Seville. Indeed, as the puppet-showman says, in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 26,) “They were in the mouths of every body,—of the very boys in the streets.”

[57] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 28.

[58] The laws of the “Partidas,” about 1260, afford abundant illustrations of the extent and importance of the pastoral life in Spain at that period, and for a long time before.

[59] Ginguené, Hist. Litt. d’Italie, Tom. X., par Salvi, pp. 87, 92.

[60] Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Tom. II. p. 809, and the Prólogo to the Diana of Perez, ed. 1614, p. 362.

[61] I have never seen any edition of the Diana cited earlier than that of Madrid, 1545; but I possess one in 4to, 112 leaves, well printed at Valencia, in 1542, without the name of the printer. The story of Narvaez, of which I shall have occasion to speak when we come to Antonio Villegas, does not stand in the fourth book of this copy, as it does in the copies of subsequent editions. The Diana of Montemayor was so popular, that at least sixteen editions of the original appeared in eighty years; six French translations, according to Gordon de Percel (Bib. de l’Usage des Romans, Paris, 1734, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 23, 24); two German, according to Ebert; and one English. The last, by Bartholomew Yong, (London, 1598, folio,) is excellent, and some of its happy versions of the poetry of Montemayor are found in “England’s Helicon,” 1600 and 1614, reprinted in the third volume of the “British Bibliographer,” London, 1810, 8vo. The story of Proteus and Julia, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” was supposed by Mrs. Lenox and Dr. Farmer to be taken from that of Felismena, in the second book of Montemayor’s Diana, and therefore Collier has republished Yong’s translation of the last in the second volume of his “Shakspeare’s Library,” (London, s. a. 8vo,) though he doubts whether Shakspeare were really indebted to it. Malone’s Shakspeare, Boswell’s ed., London, 1821, 8vo, Vol. IV. p. 3, and Brydges, Restituta, London, 1814, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 498. Poor abridgments of the Diana of Montemayor, and of Polo’s Continuation, were published at London, 1738, 12mo.

[62] Sometimes he wrote in both languages at once; at least, he did so in his Cancionero, 1588, f. 81, where is a sonnet which may be read either as Spanish or as Portuguese.

[63] In his Argumento to the whole romance.

[64] Dorotea, Act II. Sc. 2. Obras Sueltas, Tom. VII. p. 84.

[65] The first edition cited (Ant., Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 539) is of 1564, and I know of but one other, that which I have, Barcelona, 1614, 12mo; though I have seen one without a title-page, which may be different from both. At any rate, its editions were few, and its popularity was small. It was, however, translated into French, and by Bart. Yong into English; and was printed in the original more than once with the Diana of Montemayor.

[66] Polo’s “Diana Enamorada” was first printed in 1564, and seven editions of the original appeared in half a century, with two French translations and a Latin one; the last by Caspar Barth. It is well translated by Bart. Yong, as the third part of the Diana, in the same volume with the others; but is really the second part.

[67] There is, however, a third part to the Diana of Montemayor, written by Hier. Texada, and printed at Paris, 1627, 8vo, of which a copy in the Royal Library at Paris is cited by Ebert, but I have never seen it.

[68] The best edition of Gil Polo’s Diana is that with a life of him by Cerdá, Madrid, 1802, 12mo; particularly valuable for the notes to the “Canto de Turia,” in which, imitating the “Canto de Orfeo,” where Montemayor gives an account of the famous ladies of his time, Polo gives an account of the famous poets of Valencia. For lives of Polo see, also, Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Tom. I. p. 270, and Fuster, Bib. Valentina, Tom. I. p. 150. It is singular that Polo, who had such success with his Diana, should have printed nothing else, except one or two short and trifling poems.

[69] It is the same book that Cervantes ridicules in the sixth chapter of the first part of Don Quixote, and in the third chapter of his “Journey to Parnassus”; and is curious for some specimens of Sardinian poetry which it contains. But Pedro de Pineda, a teacher of Spanish in London, taking the irony of the good curate in Don Quixote on Lo Frasso’s romance to be sincere praise, printed a new edition of it, in two very handsome volumes, (London, 1740, 8vo,) with a foolish Dedication and Prólogo, alleging the authority of Cervantes for its great merit. Hardly any other of the Spanish prose pastorals is so absurd as this, or contains so much bad verse; a great deal of which is addressed to living and known persons by their titles. The tenth book, indeed, is almost entirely made up of such poetry. I do not recollect that Cervantes is so severe on any poet, in his “Journey to Parnassus,” as he is on Lo Frasso.

[70] The best edition of the “Fílida” is the sixth, (Madrid, 1792, 8vo,) with a biographical prologue by Mayans y Siscar; ill-digested, as are all his similar prefaces, but not without valuable matter.

[71] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 66, 278, 407.

[72] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 77, and Tom. XI. p. xxviii. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. I. p. 146, and Tom. III. p. 14, in the notes. The “Tears” of Tansillo enjoyed the honor of being four times translated into Spanish.

[73] Ante, Vol. II, pp. 61-64.

[74] “Desengaño de Celos, compuesto por Bartholomé Lopez de Enciso, Natural de Tendilla,” Madrid, 1586, 12mo, 321 leaves. There is, I believe, absolutely nothing known of the author, except what he tells us of himself in this romance;—an extremely rare book, of which I possess the copy that belonged to Cerdá y Rico, and which Pellicer borrowed of him to make the needful note on Enciso for his edition of Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6.

[75] Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Parte I. Tom. I. p. 67, and ed. Clemencin, Tom. I. p. 144.

[76] Ante, Vol. II. p. 125. Perhaps the “Enamorada Elisea” of Gerónimo de Covarrubias Herrera, printed in 1594, 8vo, should also be excepted; but I know this work only from the title of it in Antonio.

[77] The prefatory notice to this edition contains all that is known of Balbuena.

[78] There was an edition with a French translation in 1614, but the best is that of Madrid, 1781, 8vo.

[79] It was first printed, I believe, at Naples, in 1602, but was improved in the edition at Valencia, 1609, 12mo, pp. 278, from which I transcribe the opening of Act III.:—

O primavera, juventud del año,

Nueva madre de flores,

De nuevas yervezillas y d’ amores,

Tu buelves, mas contigo

No buelven los serenos

Y aventurosos dias de mis gustos;

Tu buelves, sí, tu buelves,

Mas contigo no torna

Sino la remembrança

Miserable y doliente

De mi caro tesoro ya perdido.

p. 94.

This passage is so nearly word for word, that it is not worth while to copy the Italian, and yet its fluency and ease are admirable.

There is a translation of the “Pastor Fido,” by a Jewess, Doña Isabel de Correa, of which I know only the third edition, that of Antwerp, 1694, 12mo. It is one of the few trophies in poetry claimed by the fair sex of its author’s faith; but it is not worthy of much praise. Ginguené complains of the original, which extends to seven thousand lines, for being too long. It is so; but this translation of Doña Isabel is much longer, containing, I think, above eleven thousand lines. Its worst fault, however, is its bad taste. There is a drama with the same title, “El Pastor Fido,” in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. VIII., 1657, f. 106;—but, though it is said to be written by three poets no less famous than Solís, Coello, and Calderon, it has very little value.

[80] Antonio (Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 251) gives a list of nine of the works of Figueroa, some of which must be noticed under their respective heads; but it is probably not complete, for Figueroa himself, in 1617, (Pasagero, f. 377,) says he had already published seven books, and Antonio gives only six before that date; besides which, a friend, in the Preface to Figueroa’s Life of the Marquis of Cañete, 1613, says he had written eight works in the ten years then preceding.

[81] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 179-181, and elsewhere. The very curious notices given by Figueroa of his own life, which have never been used for his biography, are in his “Pasagero,” from f. 286 to f. 392, and are, like many other passages of that singular book, full of bitterness towards his contemporaries, Lope de Vega, Villegas, Espinosa, etc.

[82] Pasagero, f. 96. b.

[83] “El Premio de la Constancia y Pastores de Sierra Bermeja, por Jacinto de Espinel Adorno,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo, 162 leaves. I find no notice of it, except the slight one in Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 613; but it is not worse than some that were more valued.

[84] “El Pastor de Clenarda de Miguel Botelho de Cavalho,” Madrid, 1622, 8vo. He wrote, also, several other works; all in Castilian, except his “Filis,” a poem in octave stanzas. Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. III. p. 466.

[85] “Experiencias de Amor y Fortuna, por el Licenciado Francisco de las Cuevas de Madrid,” Barcelona, 1649, 12mo. See, also, Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. pp. 172 and 189. Francisco de Quintana dedicated this pastoral to Lope de Vega, who wrote him a complimentary reply, in which he treats Quintana as a young man, and this as his first work. There were editions of it in 1626, 1646, 1654, as well as the one at Barcelona, above noted, and one at Madrid, 1666, 12mo; and in the nineteenth volume of Lope’s Obras Sueltas, pp. 353-400, is a sermon which Quintana delivered at the obsequies of Lope, in the title of which he is called Lope’s “intimate friend.”

[86] “La Cintia de Aranjuez, Prosas y Versos, por Don Gabriel de Corral, Natural de Valladolid,” Madrid, 1629, 12mo, 208 leaves. I know of no other edition. He lived in Rome from 1630 to 1632, and probably longer. (Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 505.) He is Gongoresque in his style, as is Quintana.

[87] “Los Pastores del Betis, por Gonzalvo de Saavedra,” Trani, 1633, 4to, pp. 289. It seems to have been written in Italy; but we know nothing of its author, except that he was a Veintiquatro of Córdova. His style is affected. In my copy, which in the colophon is dated 1634, there are, as a separate tract, four leaves of religious and moral advice to the author’s son, when he was going as governor to one of the provinces of Naples; better written than the romance that precedes it.

[88] Portugal might have been added. The “Menina é Moça” of Bernardino Ribeyro, printed 1557, is a beautiful fragment; and the “Primaveira” of Francisco Rodriguez de Lobo, in three long parts, printed between 1601 and 1614,—the first of which was translated into Spanish by Juan Bart. Morales, 1629,—is among the best full-length pastoral romances extant. Both for a long time were favorites in Portugal, and are still read there. Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. I. p. 518, Tom. II. p. 242.

[89] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6, in the examination of the library, where his niece begs that the pastorals may be burnt as well as the books of chivalry, lest, if her uncle were cured of knight-errantry, he should go mad as a shepherd;—and Parte II. c. 67 and 73, where her fears are very nigh being realized.

[90] Comedias, Parte VI., Madrid, 1615, 4to, f. 102. El Cuerdo en su Casa, Act. I.

[91] “The Diana of Montemayor,” says Lope de Vega, in the passage from his “Dorotea” already cited, (n. [64],) “was a lady of Valencia de Don Juan, near Leon, and he has made both her and the river Ezla immortal. So the Fílida of Montalvo, the Galatea of Cervantes, and the Filis of Figueroa, were real personages.” Others might be added, on the authority of their authors, such as “Los Diez Libros de Fortuna y Amor,” “La Cintia de Aranjuez,” etc. See a note of Clemencin, Don Quixote, Tom. VI. p. 440.

[92] For these low, vagabond attorneys, or jackals of attorneys,—the Catariberas,—see, ante, Vol. I. p. 519, and note.

[93] Antonio, Bib. Nova, Article Matthæus Aleman; and Salvá, Repertorio Americano, 1827, Tom. III. p. 65. For his troubles with the government, see Navarrete, “Vida de Cervantes,” 1819, p. 441. He seems to have been old when he went to Mexico; and Don Adolfo de Castro, at the end of the “Buscapié,” 1848, gives us a letter, dated at Seville, April 20th, 1607, from Aleman to Cervantes, of whose origin or discovery we receive no account whatever, and into which its author seems to have thrust all the proverbs and allusions he could collect;—none, however, so obscure that the curious learning of Don Adolfo cannot elucidate them. The whole letter is a complaint of Aleman’s own hard fortune, and a prediction of that of Cervantes, ending with a declaration of the purpose of its writer to go to Mexico. It does not seem to me to be genuine; but if it is, it gives the coup de grace to Clemencin’s conjectures, in his notes to both the first and second part of Don Quixote, (Parte I. c. 22, and Parte II. c. 4,) that Cervantes intended to speak slightingly of the “Guzman de Alfarache”;—a conjecture not to be sustained, if the relations of Cervantes with Aleman were as friendly as this letter, published by Don Adolfo de Castro, implies.

[94] The first three editions, those of Madrid, Barcelona, and Saragossa, are well known, and are all of 1599; but most of the remaining three-and-twenty rest on the authority of Valdes, in a letter prefixed to the first edition of the second part, (Valencia, 1605, 12mo,) an authority, however, which there seems no sufficient reason to question, remarkable as the story is. Valdes says expressly, “The number of printed volumes exceeds fifty thousand, and the number of impressions that have come to my notice is twenty-six.”

[95] This continuation, not quite so long as the first part of the original work, was printed at Madrid, 1846, 8vo, in the third volume of the “Biblioteca” of Aribau. Previously, it had been hardly known in literary history, and much overlooked by the bibliographers; Ebert, who had found some traces of it, attributing it to Aleman himself, and considering it as a true second part of the Guzman. But this is a mistake. Both Aleman himself and his friend Valdes are explicit on the subject, in their epistles prefixed to the first edition of the second part;—Valdes declaring that the author of the continuation in question was “a Valencian, who, falsifying his own name, called himself Mateo Luxan, to assimilate himself to Mateo Aleman.” Aleman himself says he was obliged to rewrite his second part, because he had, through a prodigal communication of his papers, been robbed and defrauded of the materials out of which he had originally composed it. The work of the Valencian was printed at Barcelona in 1603, at Brussels, 1604, etc. On the title-page to the first edition of the genuine second part Aleman says, “Let the reader take notice, that the second part published before this is none of mine, and that this is the only one I recognize.” Fuster, in his “Biblioteca,” Tom. I. p. 198, gives strong reasons for supposing the spurious second part was written by Juan Marti, a Valencian advocate.

[96] There has been some confusion about the time of the first appearance of these two second parts; one having sometimes been mistaken for the other. But Fuster evidently believed in no edition of the spurious second part older than 1603, the license to which is dated in 1602; and I possess the edition of the genuine second part, printed at Valencia in 1605, with a license of the same year, recognizing no earlier publication, and bearing all the usual proofs of being the first. Both of the second parts promise a third, which never appeared.

[97] Parte II. Lib. I. c. 8.

[98] The common bibliographers give lists of all the translations. The first English is by Mabbe, and is excellent. (See Wood’s Athenæ, ed. Bliss, Tom. III. p. 54, and Ret. Review, Tom. V. p. 189.) It went through at least four editions, the fourth being printed at London, 1656, folio; besides which there has been a subsequent translation by several hands, taken, however, I think, from the French of Le Sage. The Latin translation was by Gaspar Ens, and I have seen editions of it referred to as of 1623, 1624, and 1652. Every thing, indeed, shows that the popular success of the Guzman was immense throughout Europe.

[99] See the verses prefixed to the translation of Mabbe, and signed by Ben Jonson.

[100] There are four French translations of it, beginning with one by Chappuis, in 1600, and coming down to that of Le Sage, 1732, which last has been many times reprinted. The third in the order of dates was made by Bremont, while in prison in Holland; and, out of spite against the administration of justice, from which he was suffering, he made bitter additions to the original whenever a judge or a bailiff came into his hands. See the Preface of Le Sage.

[101] Parte I. Lib. I. c. 8. It is related by Guzman, however, who is much too young to tell such a story. It may be noted, also, that Guzman grows very suddenly to man’s estate, after leaving Madrid and before reaching Toledo, whither he went as fast as he could to escape pursuit.

[102] Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Weber, Edinburgh, 1812, 8vo, Vol. V. p. 120. Le Sage omits it in his version, because, he says, Scarron had made it one in his collection of tales. It has, in fact, been often used, as have many other stories of the same class.

[103] The first edition of the “Pícara Justina” is that of Medina del Campo, 1605, 4to, since which time it has been often printed; the best edition being probably that of Madrid, 1735, 4to, edited by Mayans y Siscar, who, in a prefatory notice, makes the reproach against its author, as the oldest corrupter of the Spanish prose style, alluded to in the text. There is a good deal of poetry scattered through the volume; all very conceited and poor. Some of it is in that sort of verses from which the final syllable is cut off,—such verses, I mean, as Cervantes has prefixed to the first part of Don Quixote; and as both that part and the “Pícara Justina” were originally published in the same year, 1605, some question has arisen with Pellicer and Clemencin, who is the inventor of these poor, truncated verses. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. But, as the first part of Don Quixote, according to the Tassa prefixed to it, was struck off as early as the 20th of December, 1604, though the full copyright was not granted till the 9th of February following, there can be little doubt that Cervantes was the earliest.

[104] See the “Cancion á su Patria,” which is creditable alike to his personal feelings and—with the exception of a few foolish conceits—to his poetical character. Diversas Rimas de V. Espinel, Madrid, 1591, 12mo, f. 23.

[105] Espinel’s own Prólogo to “Marcos de Obregon.”

[106] End of the first silva to the “Laurel de Apolo,” which was published in 1630.

[107] Lope de Vega, Dorotea, Acto I. Sc. 8.

[108]

Noventa años viviste,

Nadie te dió favor, poco escribiste,—

says Lope, in the “Laurel.”

[109] Salas Barbadillo, Estafeta del Dios Momo, 1627, Dedicacion. Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, 1819, 8vo, pp. 178, 406.

[110] The first edition is dedicated to his patron, the Archbishop of Toledo, whose daily pension to him, however, may have well been called “alms”—limosna—by Salas Barbadillo. Other editions followed, and “Marcos” has continued to be reprinted and read in Spain down to our own times. In London, a good English translation of it, by Major Algernon Langton, was published in 1816, in two volumes, 8vo; and in Breslau, in 1827, there appeared a very spirited, but somewhat free, translation into German, by Tieck, in two volumes, 18mo, with a valuable Preface and good notes. The original is on the Index of 1667 for expurgation.

[111] The Escudero of the plays and novels of the seventeenth century is wholly different from the Escudero of the romances of chivalry of the sixteenth. Covarrubias, in verb., well describes both sorts, adding, “Now-a-days” (1611) “esquires are chiefly used by ladies, but men who have any thing to live upon prefer to keep at home; for as esquires they earn little, and have a hard service of it.”

[112] “Marcos de Obregon” has been occasionally a good deal discussed, both by those who have read it and those who have not, from the use Le Sage has been supposed to have made of it in the composition of Gil Blas. The charge was first announced by Voltaire, who had personal reasons to dislike Le Sage, and who, in his “Siècle de Louis XIV.,” (1752,) said, boldly enough, that “The Gil Blas is taken entirely from the Spanish romance entitled ‘La Vidad de lo Escudiero Dom Marcos d’Obrego.’” (Œuvres, ed. Beaumarchais, Paris, 1785, 8vo, Tom. XX. p. 155.) This is one of the remarks Voltaire sometimes hazarded, with little knowledge of the matter he was discussing, and it is not true. That Le Sage had seen the “Marcos de Obregon” there can be no doubt; and none that he made some use of it in the composition of the Gil Blas. This is apparent at once by the story which constitutes its Preface, and which is taken from a similar story in the Prólogo to the Spanish romance; and it is no less plain frequently afterwards, in the body of the work, where the trick played on the vanity of Gil Blas, as he is going to Salamanca, (Lib. I. c. 2,) is substantially the same with that played on Marcos, (Relacion I. Desc. 9,)—where the stories of Camilla (Gil Blas, Liv. I. c. 16, Marcos, Rel. III. Desc. 8) and of Mergellina (Gil Blas, Liv. II. c. 7, Marcos, Rel. I. Desc. 3), with many other matters of less consequence, correspond in a manner not to be mistaken. But this was the way with Le Sage, who has used Estevanillo Gonzalez, Guevara, Roxas, Antonio de Mendoza, and others, with no more ceremony. He seemed, too, to care very little about concealment, for one of the personages in his Gil Blas is called Marcos de Obregon. But the idea that the Gil Blas was taken entirely from the Marcos de Obregon of Espinel, or was very seriously indebted to that work, is absurd. See the next Period, Chap. IV., note on Father Isla.

[113] The name of this author is one of the many that occur in Spanish literature and history, where it is difficult to determine which part of it should be used to designate its owner. The whole of it is Gerónymo de Alcalá Yañez y Rivera; and, no doubt, his personal acquaintances knew him as “the Doctor Gerónymo.” In the Index to Antonio’s Bib. Nova, he is placed under Alcalá; but as that name only implied, I presume, that he had studied in Alcalá, I have preferred to call him Yañez y Rivera, the first being his father’s name and the second his mother’s; and I mention the circumstance only because it is a difficulty which occurs in many cases of the same sort, and should be noticed once for all. The title of his romance is “Alonso Moço de Muchos Amos,” and the first part was first printed at Madrid, in 1624; but my copy is of the edition of Barcelona, 1625, 12mo, showing that it was well regarded in its time, and soon came to a second edition. Many editions have been published since; sometimes, like that of Madrid, 1804, 2 tom. 12mo, with the title of “El Donado Hablador,” or The Talkative Lay-Brother, that being the character in which the hero tells his story. Yañez y Rivera was born in 1563.

[114] Alonso de Castillo Solorzano seems to have had his greatest success between 1624 and 1649, and was at one time in the service of Pedro Faxardo, the Marquis of Velez, who was Captain-general of Valencia. There is an edition of the “Niña de los Embustes” as early as 1632, and one of the “Garduña de Sevilla” in 1634. But, except the few hints concerning their author to be gathered from the titles and prefaces to his stories, and the meagre notices in Lope de Vega’s “Laurel de Apolo,” Silva VIII., and Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 15, we know little of him. He sneers at cultismo on one page of his “Niña de los Embustes,” and falls into it on the next.

[115] “El Siglo Pitagórico y la Vida de Don Gregorio Guadaña,” was written by Antonio Enriquez Gomez, a Portuguese by descent, who was educated in Castile, and lived much in France, where several of his works were first printed. The earliest edition of the “Siglo Pitagórico” is dated Rouen, 1644, but the one I use is of Brussels, 1727, in 4to. There is a notice of the life of Gomez in Barbosa, Tom. I. p. 297, and an examination of his works in Amador de los Rios, “Judios de España,” 1848, pp. 569, etc. He was of a Jewish Portuguese family, and Barbosa says he was born in Portugal, but Amador de los Rios says he was born in Segovia. That he renounced the Christian religion, which his father had adopted, that he fled to France in 1638, and that he was burnt in effigy by the Inquisition in 1660, are facts not doubted. His Spanish name was Enriquez de Paz; and in the Preface to his “Sanson Nazareno” he gives a list of his published works.

[116] “Vida y Hechos de Estevanillo Gonzalez, Hombre de Buen Humor, compuesta por el mismo,” was printed at Antwerp in 1646, and at Madrid in 1652. Whether there is any edition between these and the one of 1795, Madrid, 2 tom. 12mo, I do not know. The rifacimento of Le Sage appeared, I believe, for the first time in 1707.

[117] I know only the edition of Antwerp, 1556, 12mo, but there are several others. Lowndes, Bib. Manual, Article Aurelio, and Malone’s Shakspeare, by Boswell, Vol. XV.

[118] “Historia de los Amores de Clareo y Florisea, por Alonso Nuñez de Reinoso,” Venecia, 1552, reprinted in the third volume of Aribau’s Biblioteca, 1846. The author is said by Antonio to have been a native of Guadalaxara, and, from his poems, published at the same time with his story, and of no value, he seems to have led an unhappy life, divided between the law, for which he felt he had no vocation, and arms, in which he had no success.

[119] It claims to be “sacado del estilo Griego,” and in this imitates one of the common fictions in the title-pages of the romances of chivalry. There are several editions of it,—one at Venice, 1553, 12mo, which is in my library, entitled “Quexa y Aviso de un Cavallero llamado Luzindaro.”

[120] Historia de la Reyna Sevilla, 1532, and 1551;—and Libro de los Honestos Amores de Peregrino y de Jinebra, 1548.

[121] The “Selva de Aventuras” was printed at Salamanca, in 1573, 12mo, and probably earlier, besides which there are subsequent editions of Barcelona, Saragossa, etc. (Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 572); but it is in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 529. Philip II., in the Licencia, calls Contreras “nuestro cronista.” The Selva was translated into French by G. Chapuys, and printed in 1580. (Bibliothèque de Duverdier, Tom. IV. p. 221.) Contreras wrote, also, a volume of allegories in prose and verse, (Dechado de Varios Subjetos, Zaragoza, 1572, and Alcalá, 1581, 12mo,) which is very formal and dull.

[122] The Chronicle of Pedro de Moncayo, published in 1589, is cited in Chap. XII., and the first edition of the first part of the Guerras Civiles, as is well known, appeared at Saragossa in 1595, 12mo. This part was reprinted much oftener than the second. There are editions of it in 1598, 1603, 1604 (three), 1606, 1610, 1613, 1616, etc., besides several without date.

[123] Bertuch, Magazin der Spanischen und Portugiesischen Literatur, Tom. I., 1781, pp. 275-280, with the extract there from “Carter’s Travels.” A suggestion recently reported—not, however, without expressing doubts of its accuracy—by Count Albert de Circourt, in his curious and important “Histoire des Arabes d’Espagne,” (Paris, 1846, 8vo, Tom. III. p. 346,) that Don Pascual de Gayangos, of Madrid, has in his possession the Arabic original of the Guerras de Granada, is equally unfounded. From Don Pascual himself, I learn that the MS. referred to is one obtained by him in London, where it had been carried from Madrid as a part of Conde’s collection, and that it is merely an ill-made translation, or rather abridgment, of the romance of Hita;—probably the work of some Morisco Spaniard, not thoroughly acquainted with his own language.

[124] The second part appeared for the first time at Alcalá, in 1604, but has been reprinted so rarely since, that old copies of it are very scarce. There is a neat edition of both parts, Madrid, 1833, 2 tom. 12mo, and both are in the third volume of Aribau’s Biblioteca, 1846.

[125] Parte I. c. 18, Parte II. c. 25.

[126] In my copy of the second part, printed at Madrid, 1731, 12mo, the Aprobacion, dated 10th of September of that year, speaks distinctly of three parts, mentioning the second as the one that was printed at Alcalá in 1604, and the third as being in manuscript. I know no other notice of this third part. Circourt (Histoire des Maures Mudejares et des Moresques) has frequently relied on the second part as an authority, and, in the passage just cited, gives his reasons for the confidence he reposes in it.

[127] Scott is reported to have said, on being shown the Wars of Granada in the latter part of his life, that, if he had earlier known of the book, he might have placed in Spain the scene of some of his own fictions. Denis, Chroniques Chevalresques, Paris, 1839, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 323.

[128] “La Cryselia de Lidaceli, Famosa y Verdadera Historia de Varios Acontecimientos de Amor y Fortuna,” was first printed at Paris, 1609, 12mo, and dedicated to the Princess of Conti; besides which I have seen a third edition, of Madrid, 1720. At the end a second part is announced, which never appeared. The other work of El Capitan Flegetonte is entitled “La Famosa y Temeraria Compañía de Rompe Columnas,” and was also printed in 1609, with two Dialogues on Love; all as poor as can well be imagined. The “Cryselia” is a strange confusion of the pastoral style with that of serious romance;—the whole mingled with accounts of giants and enchantments, and occasionally with short poems.

[129] Benito Remigio Noydens was author of a number of moral and ascetic works. The “Historia Moral del Dios Momo” (4to, Madrid, 1666, 12mo) is an account of the exile of the god Momus from heaven, and his transmigration through the bodies of persons in all conditions on earth, doing mischief wherever he goes. Each chapter of the eighteen into which it is divided is followed by a moralizing illustration; as, for instance, (c. 5,) the disturbance Momus excites on earth against heaven is illustrated by the heresies of Germany and England, in which the Duke of Saxony and Henry VIII. appear to very little advantage.

[130] “Poema Trágico del Español Gerardo y Desengaño del Amor Lascivo” is the title of the story; and, besides the first edition, it was printed in 1617, 1618, 1623, 1625, 1654, etc. The “Varia Fortuna del Soldado Píndaro,” who, notwithstanding his classical name, is represented as a native of Castile, was less favored. I know only the editions of 1626 and 1661, till we come to that of Madrid, 1845, 8vo, illustrated with much spirit. Of Céspedes y Meneses a slight notice is to be found in Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 362.

[131] The “Historia Tragicómica de Don Enrique de Castro” was printed at Paris, in 1617, when its author was twenty-nine years old. Two years earlier he had published “Engaños deste Siglo.” (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 358.) I believe he sometimes wrote in French.

[132] I do not know who was the author of this foolish fancy, which is, perhaps, a chronique scandaleuse of the court. It was printed at Roussillon, and is a small 18mo volume.

[133] The names of a good many unpublished manuscripts of such works can be found in the Bibliotheca of Antonio, and in Baena, “Hijos de Madrid.”

[134] The MS. of “El Caballero Venturoso,” which is evidently autograph throughout, belongs to Don Pascual de Gayangos, Professor of Arabic in the University of Madrid, and fills 289 closely written leaves, in 4to. A second part is announced, but was probably never written.

[135] “Leon Prodigioso, Apología Moral, por el Licenciado Cosmé Gomez Texada de los Reyes,” Madrid, 1670, 4to;—“Segunda Parte del Leon Prodigioso, Entendimiento y Verdad, Amantes Filosóficos,” Alcalá, 1673, 4to. The first part was licensed in 1634. The author published “El Filósofo,” a miscellany on the physical sciences and moral philosophy, in 1650. In the “Leon Prodigioso” is a good deal of poetry; particularly, in the first part, a poem called “La Nada,” which is very dull, and one in the second, called “El Todo,” which is still worse. His ridicule of the culto style, in Parte I. pp. 317, 391-395, is acute and successful.

[136] My copy is of the eleventh edition, Madrid, 1734, 4to; and Lib. III. c. 1, p. 237, was written just at the moment of the accession of Charles II. The story is connected with the favorite doctrine of the Spanish Church: that of the immaculate conception, whose annunciation by the Madonna is described with dramatic effect in Lib. I. c. 10. The earliest edition I have seen noticed is of 1667.

[137] The only grave romance of this class, after 1650, that needs, I believe, to be referred to, is “La Historia de Lisseno y Fenisa, por Francisco Parraga Martel de la Fuente,” (Madrid, 1701, 4to,)—a very bad imitation of the “Gerardo Español” of Céspedes y Meneses.

[138] The “Inventario” of Villegas was twice printed, the first edition in 4to, 1565, and the second in small 12mo, 1577, 144 leaves;—both times at Medina del Campo, of which its author is supposed to have been a native, and both times with a note especially prefixed, signifying that the first license to print it was granted in 1551.

[139] The story of Narvaez, who is honorably noticed in Pulgar’s “Claros Varones,” Título XVII., and who is said to have been the ancestor of Narvaez, the minister of state to Isabella II., is found in Argote de Molina (Nobleza, 1588, f. 296); in Conde (Historia, Tom. III. p. 262); in Villegas (Inventario, 1565, f. 94); in Padilla (Romancero, 1583, ff. 117-127); in Lope de Vega (Remedio de la Desdicha; Comedias, Tom. XIII., 1620); in Don Quixote (Parte I. c. 5), etc. I think, too, that it may have been given by Timoneda, under the title of “Historia del Enamorado Moro Abindarraez,” sine anno, (Fuster, Bib., Tom. I. p. 162,) and it is certainly among the ballads in his “Rosa Española,” 1573. (See Wolf’s reprint, 1846, p. 107.) It is the subject, also, of a long poem by Francisco Balbi de Corregio, 1593. (Depping’s Romancero, Leipsique, 1844, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 231.) That Montemayor took his version of the story of Narvaez from Villegas nobody will doubt who compares both together and remembers that it does not appear in the first edition of the “Diana”; that it is wholly unsuited to its place in such a romance; and that the difference between the two is only that the story, as told by Montemayor, in the “Diana,” Book IV., though it is often, for several sentences together, in the same words with the story in Villegas, is made a good deal longer by mere verbiage. See, ante, Chap. XXXIII., note.

In the “Nobiliario” of Ferant de Mexia, (Sevilla, 1492, folio,)—a curious book, written with Castilian dignity of style, and full of the feudal spirit of an age that believed in the inherent qualities of noble blood,—its author (Lib. II. c. 15) boasts that Narvaez was the brother of his grandfather, calling him “cavallero de los bienaventurados que ovo en nuestros tiempos desde el Cid acá batalloso é victorioso.”

[140] Rodriguez, Biblioteca, p. 283. Ximeno, Bib., Tom. I. p. 72. Fuster, Bib., Tom. I. p. 161, Tom. II. p. 530. The “Sobremesa y Alivio de Caminantes,” by Timoneda, printed in 1569, and probably earlier, is merely a collection of a hundred and sixty-one anecdotes and jests, in the manner of Joe Miller, though sometimes cited as a collection of tales. They are preceded by twelve similar anecdotes, by a person who is called Juan Aragones. In all the editions of the “Patrañuelo,” I believe, except the first and that in Aribau’s Biblioteca, there are only twenty-one tales;—the eighth, which is a coarse one borrowed from Ariosto, being omitted.

[141] The story of Apollonius,—the same with that in Shakspeare’s “Pericles,”—was, as we have seen, (Vol. I. p. 24,) known in Spanish poetry very early, though the old poetical version of it was not printed till 1844; but it is more likely to have been taken by Timoneda from the “Gesta Romanorum,” Tale 153, in the edition of 1488. The story of Griselda he, no doubt, took from the version of it with which the “Decamerone” ends, though he may have obtained it elsewhere. (Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, Firenze, 1742, 4to, p. 603.) As to the story so familiar to us in Percy’s “Reliques,” he probably obtained it from the fourth Novella of Sacchetti, written about 1370; beyond which I think it cannot be traced, though it has been common enough ever since, down to Bürger’s version of it. Similar inquiries would no doubt lead to similar results about other tales in the “Patrañuelo”; but these instances are enough to show that Timoneda took any thing he found suited to his purpose, just as the Italian Novellieri and the French Trouveurs had done before him, without inquiring or caring whence it came.

[142] See, ante, Vol. II. p. 84.

[143] It is in the form of dialogues, and called “Carnestolendas de Castilla, dividido en las tres Noches del Domingo, Lunes y Martes de Antruexo, por Gaspar Lucas Hidalgo, Vezino de la Villa de Madrid,” Barcelona, 1605, 12mo, ff. 108. Editions are also noted of 1606 and 1618.

[144] “El Pasagero” (Madrid, 1617, 12mo, ff. 492) is in ten dialogues, carried on in the pauses or rests of two travellers, and thence affectedly called Alivios. I have a small volume entitled “Historia de los Siete Sabios de Roma, compuesta por Marcos Perez, Barcelona por Rafael Figuero,” 12mo,—no date; but, I think, printed in the eighteenth century. It contains the story of “The Seven Wise Masters,” which is one of the oldest of modern fictions,—the Emperor, in this version of it, being named Ponciano, and being called the son of Diocletian. The style is somewhat better than that of the “Donzella Teodor,” (ante, II. 212,) but seems to be of about the same period.

[145] Notices for the life of Barbadillo may be found in Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. I. p. 42); in Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 28); and in the Prefaces to his own “Estafeta del Dios Momo,” (Madrid, 1627, 12mo,) and his “Coronas del Parnaso” (Madrid, 1635, 12mo). He was associated with Cervantes in the same religious fraternity, and gave his strong testimony in favor of the tales of his friend in their first edition. (Navarrete, Vida, §§ 121, 132.) He seems to have had an office at court, for he calls himself “Criado de su Magestad.”

[146] “La Ingeniosa Helena, Hija de Celestina,” Lerida, 1612, and often since. The edition I have is of Madrid, 1737, 12mo.

[147] “El Caballero Perfeto,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo.

[148] “Casa del Plazer Honesto,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo.

[149] “El Caballero Puntual,” Primera Parte, Madrid, 1614; Segunda Parte, Madrid, 1619, 12mo. At the end of the second part is a play, “Los Prodigios de Amor.” A work not entirely unlike the “Caballero Puntual” was printed at Rouen in 1610, 12mo, called “Rodomuntadas Castellanas.” It is in Spanish, as were many other books printed at that time in France, from the connection of the French court with Spain, and it consists of the incredible boastings of a braggadocio, something like Baron Munchausen. But it has little value of any sort, and I mention it only because it preceded the fiction of Barbadillo by four years.

[150] “El Necio bien Afortunado,” Madrid, 1621, 12mo.

[151] “Don Diego de Noche,” Madrid, 1623, 12mo. All nine of his unhappy adventures occur in the night. For some reason, I know not what, this story appears among the translated works of Quevedo, (Edinburgh, 1798, 3 vols. 8vo,) and, I believe, may be found, also, in the previous translation made by Stevens. There is a play with the same title, “Don Diego de Noche,” by Roxas (in Tom. VII. of the Comedias Escogidas, 1654); but it has, I think, nothing to do with the tale of Barbadillo.

[152] “Coronas del Parnaso y Platos de las Musas,” Madrid, 1635, 12mo. There is some resemblance in the idea to that of the “Convito” of Dante; but it is not likely that Salas Barbadillo imitated the philosophical allegory of the great Italian master.

[153] The “Primera Parte de las Noches de Invierno, por Antonio de Eslava,” was printed at Pamplona in 1609, and at Brussels in 1610, 12mo; but, as was so common in these works of amusement, I believe no second part followed. It is ordered to be expurgated in the Index of 1667, p. 67.

[154] “Doce Novelas Morales y Exemplares, por Diego de Agreda y Vargas,” Madrid, 1620; reprinted by one of his descendants, at Madrid, in 1724, 12mo. Diego de Agreda, of whom there is a notice in Baena, (Tom. I. p. 331,) was a soldier as well as an author, and, in the tale he called “El Premio de la Virtud,” relates, apparently, an event in the history of his own family. Others of his tales are taken from the Italian. That of “Aurelio y Alexandra,” for instance, is a rifacimento of Bandello’s story of “Romeo and Juliet,” used at just about the same time by Shakspeare.

[155] “Guia y Avisos de Forasteros, etc., por el Licenciado Don Antonio Liñan y Verdugo,” Madrid, 1620, 4to. In a discourse preceding the tales, which are fourteen in number, their author is spoken of as having written other works, and as being an old man; but I find no notice of him except that in Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 141,) which gives only the titles of the tales, and mistakes the year in which they were printed. Some of the stories, it may be added, seem true, and some of the sketches of manners are lively.

[156] See, ante, Vol. II. pp. 156, 157, an account of these tales of Lope, and the way in which four others that are not his were added to them, and yet appear in his collected works, Tom. VIII.

[157] Literally, Pinks of Recreation,—“Clavellinas de Recreacion, por Ambrosio de Salazar,” Ruan, 1622, 12mo. He wrote several other Spanish works, printed, as this was, in France, where he was physician to the queen. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 68.

[158] “Novelas de Francisco de Lugo y Avila,” Madrid, 1622, 12mo.

[159] “Novelas Amorosas por Joseph Camerino,” Madrid, 1623 and 1736, 4to. (Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. II. p. 361.) He was an Italian, as appears from the hint in Lope de Vega’s sonnet prefixed to his tales, as well as from his own Proemio. His Spanish, however, is pure enough, except in those affectations of style which he shared with many Castilian writers of his time. His “Dama Beata,” a longer tale, was printed at Madrid, in 1655, in 4to.

[160] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 267. I find no edition of the “Cigarrales de Toledo” cited earlier than 1631; but my copy is dated Madrid, 1624, 4to, and is evidently of the first publication. Covarrubias (ad verb. Cigarral) gives the proper meaning of the word, which is perhaps plain enough from the work itself. The “Deleytar Aprovechando” was reprinted at Madrid in 1765, in 2 tom. 4to. In the “Cigarrales,” Tirso promises to publish twelve novelas, with an argument to connect them, adding, satirically, ”Not stolen from the Tuscans”;—but they never appeared.

[161] Baena, Tom. III. p. 157. I own the ninth edition of “Para Todos,” Alcalá, 1661, 4to. Quevedo seems to have borne some personal ill-will against Montalvan, whom he calls “a little remnant of Lope de Vega,” and says his “Para Todos” is “like the coach from Alcalá to Madrid, full of all sorts of passengers, including the worst.” (Obras, Tom. XI. p. 129.) Quevedo does not appear among those who in 1639 offered verses or other tributes to the memory of Montalvan, though their number is above a hundred and fifty, and includes, I think, nearly or quite every other Spanish author of any note then living. See “Lágrimas Panegyricas en la Muerte de Montalvan,” 1639.

[162] Matias de los Reyes was the author of other tales besides those in his “Para Algunos.” His “Curial del Parnaso,” (Madrid, 1624, 8vo,) of which only the first part was published, contains several. He also wrote for the stage. His “Para Algunos” was printed at Madrid, 1640, in quarto, and is not ill written. Baena, Hijos, Tom. IV. p. 97.

[163] I have never seen the “Para Sí” of Peralta, and know it only from its title in catalogues. Two other similar works, of a later date, may be added to these. The first is “El Entretenido,” by Antonio Sanchez Tortoles, which was licensed to be printed in 1671, but of which I have seen no edition except that of Madrid, 1729, 4to. It contains the amusements of an academy during the Christmas holidays; namely, a play, entremes, and poems, with discussions on subjects of natural history, learning, and theology. But it contains no tales, and goes through only ten of the fourteen evenings whose entertainments it announces. The remaining four were filled up by Joseph Moraleja, (Madrid, 1741, 4to,) with materials generally more light and gay, and, in one instance, with a tale. The other work referred to is “Gustos y Disgustos del Lentiscar de Cartagena, por el Licenciado Gines Campillo de Bayle” (Valencia, 1689, 4to). It takes its name from the “Lentiscar,” a spot near Carthagena where the Lentisco or mastich-tree abounds; and it consists of twelve days’ entertainment, given at a country-house to a young lady who hesitated about taking the veil, but, finding her mistake from the unhappy ending of each of these days of pleasure, returns gladly to her convent and completes her profession. Neither of these works is worth the trouble of reading. The four “Academias” of Jacinto Polo, the amusements of four days of a wedding, (Obras, 1670, pp. 1-106,) are better, but consist chiefly of poems.

[164] They were translated into French by Rampale, and printed at Paris in 1644 (see Baena and Brunet); and are in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 735.

[165] Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, “Historias Peregrinas,” Zaragoza, 1628, 1630, and 1647, the last in 12mo. Only the first part was ever published. It is a curious book. It opens with “An Abridgment of the Excellences of Spain,” and each of the six tales of which it consists, having its scene laid in some famous Spanish city, is preceded by a similar abridgment of the excellences of the particular city to which it relates. Céspedes is the author of the “Gerardo Español,” noticed, ante, p. 87, and, like many of the story-writers of his time, was a native of Madrid.

[166] Juan Martinez de Moya, “Fantasías de un Susto.” It reminds us of the theory of Coleridge about the rapidity with which a series of events can be hurried through the mind of a drowning man, or any person under a similar excitement of mind. It is, however, a very poor story, intended for a satire on manners, and is full of bad verses. There is a reprint of it, Madrid, 1738, 12mo.

[167] “Auroras de Diana, por Don Pedro de Castro y Anaya.” He was a native of Murcia, and there are editions of his “Auroras” of 1632, 1637, 1640, and 1654, the last printed at Coimbra, in 12mo.

[168] Mariana de Carbajal y Saavedra, “Novelas Entretenidas,” Madrid, 1633, 4to. At the end of these eight stories, she promises a second part; and in the edition of 1728 there are, in fact, two more stories, marked as the ninth and tenth, but I think they are not hers.

[169] Baena, Hijos, Tom. IV. p. 48. Both collections are printed together in the edition of Madrid, 1795, 4to;—the first being called Novelas and the second Saraos.

[170] Gerónimo Fernandez de Mata, “Soledades de Aurelia,” 1638, to which, in the edition of Madrid, 1737, 12mo, is added a poor dialogue between Crates and his wife, Hipparcha, against ambition and worldliness; originally printed in 1637.

[171] André del Castillo, “La Mogiganga del Gusto,” Zaragoza, 1641. Segunda Impresion, Madrid, 1734. They are written in the affected style of the cultos.

[172] Christóval Lozano, “Soledades de la Vida,” 6a impresion, Barcelona, 1722, 4to. After the four connected stories told by the hermit, there follow, in this edition, six others, which, though separate, are in the same tone and style. Lozano wrote the “Reyes Nuevos de Toledo,” noticed, ante, p. 91; the “David Perseguido,” and other similar works;—at least, I believe they are all by one person, though the Index Expurgatorius of 1790 makes the “Soledades” the work of Gaspar Lozano, as if he were not the same.

[173] Of Alonso del Castillo Solorzano I have spoken, ante, p. 72, as the author of picaresque tales. A list of most of his works may be found in Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 15,) among which is a sort of suite with the following titles: “Jornadas Alegres,” 1626;—“Tardes Entretenidas,” 1625;—and “Noches de Placer,” 1631. None of these had much success; nor, indeed, did he succeed much in any of his tales, except “La Garduña de Sevilla,” already noticed. But his “Quinta de Laura” was printed three times, and his “Alivios de Cassandra,” which first appeared in 1640,—and is something like the “Para Todos” of Montalvan, being a collection of dramas, poetry, etc., besides six stories,—was translated into French, and printed at Paris, both in 1683 and 1685.

[174] Alonso de Alcalá y Herrera, “Varios Efetos de Amor,” Lisboa, 1641, 18mo. He was a Portuguese, but was of Spanish origin, and wrote Spanish with purity, as well as Portuguese. (Barbosa, Bib. Lus., fol., Tom. I. p. 26.) Clemencin cites these stories of Alcalá as proof of the richness of the Spanish language. (Ed. Don Quixote, Tom. IV. p. 286.) There is a tale, printed by Guevara, called “Los Tres Hermanos,” in the volume with his “Diablo Cojuelo,” (Madrid, 1733, 12mo,) in which the letter A is omitted; and in 1654 Fernando Jacinto de Zarate published a dull love-story, called “Méritos disponen Premios, Discurso Lírico,” omitting the same vowel;—but the five tales of Alcalá are better done than either.

[175] Jacinto de Villalpando, “Escarmientos de Jacinto,” Zaragoza, 1645. He was Marquis of Osera, and published other works in the course of the next ten years after the appearance of the “Jacinto,” one of which, at least, appeared under the name of “Fabio Clymente.” See, ante, Vol. II. p. 483.

[176] Literally, Luncheons of Wit, etc. “Meriendas del Ingenio y Entretenimientos del Gusto,” Zaragoza, 1663, 8vo. Six tales.

[177] Isidro de Robles collected the “Varios Efetos de Amor” (Madrid, 1666, 4to). They were published again, with the five tales of Alcalá, already noted, in 1709, 1719, and 1760;—the number of tales being thus eleven, with three “Sucesos” at the end, published under the title of “Varios Prodigios de Amor.”

[178] Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 68) and Montalvan (in the catalogue at the end of his “Para Todos,” 1661, p. 545) make him one of the principal and most fashionable dramatic authors of his time. (See, ante, Vol. II. p. 293.) The “Diablo Cojuelo” has been very often reprinted in Spanish since 1641. Le Sage published his “Diable Boiteux” in 1707, chiefly from Guevara; and nineteen years afterwards enlarged it by the addition of more Spanish stories from Santos and others, and more Parisian scandal. In the mean time, it had been carried upon the stage, where, as well as in its original form, it had a prodigious success.

[179] “Universidad de Amor y Escuela del Interes, Verdades Soñadas ó Sueño Verdadero.” The first part appeared under the name of Antolinez de Piedra Buena, and the second under that of El Bachiller Gaston Daliso de Orozco; but both were printed subsequently in the works of Jacinto Polo, and both appear together in a separate edition, 1664, filling sixty-three leaves, 18mo, and including some of Polo’s poetry.

[180] Marcos Garcia, “La Flema de Pedro Hernandez, Discurso Moral y Político,” Madrid, 1657, 12mo. The author was a surgeon of Madrid, and wrote “Honor de la Medecina”; and another “Papelillo,” without his name, which he mentions in his Prólogo. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 83.) He shows, at the beginning of his “Flema,” that he means to imitate Quevedo; but he has a good deal of cultismo in his style. For the meaning of “Flema,” see Covarrubias, ad verb.—One more trifle may here be mentioned; the “Desengaño del Hombre en el Tribunal de la Fortuna y Casa de Descontentos, ideado por Don Juan Martinez de Cuellar,” 1663. It is a vision, in which the author goes to the house of “Desengaño,”—that peculiarly Castilian word, which may here be translated Truth. He is led afterwards to the palace and tribunal of Fortune, where he is disabused of his errors concerning all earthly good. The fiction is of little worth, and the style is that of the school of Góngora.

[181] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 216. There is a coarse edition of the works of Santos, in 4 tom. 4to, Madrid, 1723.

[182] “Dia y Noche en Madrid, Discursos de lo mas Notable que en él passa,” Madrid, 1663, 12mo; besides which there are editions of 1708, 1734, etc.

[183] “Periquillo, él de las Gallineras,” Madrid, 1668, 12mo. He gets his name from the circumstance, that, as a child, he was employed to take care of chickens.

[184] “El Verdad en el Potro y el Cid Resuscitado,” Madrid, 1679, 12mo, and again, 1686. The ballads cited or repeated in this volume, as the popular ballads sung in the streets in honor of the Cid, are, it is curious to observe, not always to be found in any of the Romanceros. Thus, the one on the insult to the Cid’s father begins,—

Diego Lainez, el padre

De Rodrigo el Castellano,

Cuidando en la mengua grande

Hecha á un hombre de su grado, etc.

p. 9, ed. 1686.

It is quite different from the ballad on the same subject in any of the ballad-books. So is the one at p. 33, upon the death of Count Lozano, as well as the one at p. 105, upon the Cid’s insult to the Pope at Rome. On hearing the last sung in the streets, the Cid is made, in the story, to cry out, “Is it pretended I was ever guilty of such effrontery? I, whom God made a Castilian,—I treat the great Shepherd of the Church so?—I be guilty of such folly? By St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lazarus, with whom I held converse on earth, you lie, base ballad-singer!” Several ballads might be taken from this volume and added even to the “Romancero del Cid,” Keller, Stuttgard, 1840, which is the most ample of all the collections on the Cid.

[185] “El Diablo anda Suelto,” (Madrid, 1677,) and “El Vivo y el Difunto,” (1692,) are both very curious fictions.

[186] “Las Tarascas de Madrid y Tribunal Espantoso,” Madrid, 1664, Valencia, 1694, etc. “La Tarasca de Parto en el Meson del Infierno y Dias de Fiestas por la Noche,” Madrid, 1671, Valencia, 1694, are again interesting, partly because they contain anecdotes and sketches that serve to explain the popular religious theatre.

[187] “Los Gigantones de Madrid por defuera,” Madrid, 1666, 12mo.

[188] The Spanish tales of the middle and latter part of the seventeenth century are much infected with the false taste of cultismo; no portion of Spanish literature more so. As we approach the end of the century, not one, I think, is free from it.

[189] Italy is the only country that can enter into competition with Spain in the department of tales, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, I am not certain, considering the short period (a little more than a century) during which Spanish tales were fashionable, that as many in proportion were not produced as were produced of Italian tales in Italy during the long period—four centuries and a half—in which they have now been prevalent there. And if, to the Spanish tales found in books professing and not professing to be collections of them, we add the thousands used up in Spanish dramas, to which the elder Italian theatre offers no counterpart, I suppose there can hardly be a doubt that there are really more Spanish fictions of this class in existence than there are Italian. If, however, we were to settle the point only by a comparison of the meagre and imperfect catalogues of Spanish stories in Antonio’s Bibliotheca with the admirably complete one of Italian stories in the “Bibliografia delle Novelle Italiane,” by Gamba, we should settle it differently. But, in any event, when speaking of the Italian novelle, we should remember, that, until very lately, the whole spirit and power of fiction in Italy, so to speak, have been taken from the theatre and romances, and cast into these short tales.

[190] Puibusque, Histoire Comparée, Tom. II. c. 3.

[191] The most remarkable, and perhaps the most beautiful, specimen is in the first book of “The Names of Christ”; the text being from Isaiah, ix. 6: “The everlasting Father.”

[192] See the accounts of Luis de Granada in Antonio, and in the Preface to the “Guia de Pecadores,” Madrid, 1781, 2 tom. 8vo. His treatise on pulpit eloquence, entitled “Rhetoricæ Ecclesiasticæ, sive de Ratione Concionandi, Libri Sex,” was valued in other countries. An edition of it, Cologne, 1611, 12mo, fills above 500 closely printed pages. It is somewhat remarkable, that, besides the sermon on the Resurrection, from which the extract I have translated was made, one of the best of his meditations, that entitled “De la Alegría de los Santos Padres,” is on the same subject. He was born in 1504, and died in 1588.

[193] For Paravicino and his school, see Sedano, (Parnaso Español, Tom. V. p. xlviii.,) Baena, (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 389,) and Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 612,) who speaks as if he had often heard Paravicino’s eloquence, and witnessed its effects. E contra is Figueroa, who, in his “Pasagero,” (1617, Alivio IV.,) is severe upon the preachers and audiences of Madrid. The fact, however, that Capmany, in his five important volumes devoted to Spanish eloquence, has been able to find nothing in the seventeenth century, either in the way of forensic orations or popular pulpit eloquence, with which to fill his pages, but is obliged to resort to the eloquent prose of history and philosophy, of ethics and religious asceticism, tells at once, in a way not to be mistaken, the tale of the deficiencies in Castilian eloquence, as the word eloquence is understood in English.

[194] These writers have all been mentioned earlier, (see, ante, Vol. I. pp. 395, 540, 543,) except Queen Isabella, whose letters are best found in Clemencin’s excellent work on her character and times, filling the sixth volume of the “Memorias de la Academia de la Historia.” They are addressed to her confessor, Hernando de Talavera, and strongly illustrate both her prudence and her submission to ecclesiastical influences. (See pp. 351-383.) Several letters addressed to Columbus, and marked with her spirit rather than that of her husband, though signed by both of them, may be seen in the second volume of Navarrete, (Viages, etc.,) which is rich in such curious documents.

[195] The correspondence of Zurita and his friends is to be sought in the “Progresos de la Historia en el Reyno de Aragon,” by Diego Josef Dormer, (Zaragoza, 1680, folio,) and especially pp. 362-563, which are entirely given up to it.

[196] “La Ulyxea de Homero,” etc., por Gonzalo Perez, (Venecia, 1553, 18mo,) is in blank verse; but in this edition we have only the first thirteen books, with a dedication to Philip the Prince, whose chief secretary Gonzalo Perez then was, as his son Antonio was afterwards secretary of the same Philip on the throne. Subsequently, when he had translated the remaining eleven books, he dedicated the whole anew to Philip as king, (Anvers, 1556, 12mo,) correcting and amending the first part carefully. Lope de Vega (in his Dorotea, Acto IV. sc. 3) praises the version of Perez; but, like most of the Spanish translations from the ancients in the sixteenth century, it shows little of the spirit of the original.

[197] Obras, Genevra, 1654, 12mo, p. 1073.

[198] Ibid., p. 96.

[199] The first publication of Perez, I think, is the one made at Lyons, without date, but supposed to be of 1598, and entitled “Pedaços de Historia,” etc.; but, the same year, the contents of this volume were reprinted at Paris, with the more appropriate title of “Relaciones.” Perez seems to have amused himself with publishing different portions of his works at different times and in different places; but the most complete collection is that of Geneva, 1654, 12mo, pp. 1126. His life is admirably discussed by M. Mignet, in his “Antonio Perez et Philippe II.” (2de édit., Paris, 1846). The work of Salvador Bermudez de Castro, entitled “Antonio Perez, Estudios Históricos,” (Madrid, 1841, 8vo,) would be better worth reading if the author had not permitted himself to indulge in fictions, such as ballad poetry, which he calls the poetry of Perez, and which he gives as part of the means Perez used to stir up the people of Saragossa, but which is, no doubt, the work of Castro himself. The lives of Perez in Baena (Tom. I., 1789, p. 121) and Latassa (Bib. Nov., Tom. II., 1799, p. 108) show how afraid men of letters were, as late as the end of the eighteenth century, to approach any subject thus connected with royalty. The works of Perez are strictly forbidden by the Index Expurgatorius of the Inquisition to the last,—in 1790 and 1805. The letters of Perez to Essex are in pretty good Latin, and out of his Spanish works there were early made two or three collections of very acute and striking aphorisms, which have been several times printed. There are many MS. letters of Perez at the Hague and elsewhere, referred to by Mignet, and there is in the Royal Library at Paris an important political treatise which bears his name, but which, though strongly marked with his acuteness and brilliancy, Ochoa hesitates to attribute to him. It is, however, I doubt not, his. (See Ochoa, Manuscritos Españoles, pp. 158-166; and Seminario Erudito, Tom. VIII. pp. 245 and 250.) Further accounts of Perez are to be found in Llorente, Tom. III. pp. 316-375.

[200] “Cartas de Santa Teresa de Jesus,” Madrid, 1793, 4 tom. 4to,—chiefly written in the latter part of her life.

[201] The letters of Argensola are in the “Cartas de Varios Autores Españoles,” by Mayans y Siscar, (Valencia, 1773, 5 tom. 12mo,)—itself a monument of the poverty of Spanish literature in that department from which it attempts to make a collection, since by far the greater part of it consists of old printed dedications, formal epistles of approbation that had been prefixed to books when they were first published, lives of authors that had served as prefaces to their works, etc. The letters of Quevedo and Lope are chiefly on literary subjects, and are scattered through their respective writings. Those of Antonio and Solís are in a small volume published by Mayans at Lyons, in 1733; to which may be added those at the end of Antonio’s “Censura de Historias Fabulosas,” Madrid, 1742, fol. The “Cartas Philologicas” of Cascales, (of which there is a neat edition by Sanchez, Madrid, 1779, 8vo,) are to Spain and the age in which they were written what the terse and pleasant letters published by Melmoth, under the pseudonyme of Fitzosborne, are to England in the reign of George II.,—an attempt to unite as much learning as the public would bear with an infusion of lighter matter in discussions connected with morals and manners.

[202] The best notice of Gerónimo de Zurita is the one at the end of Part II. Chap. I. of Prescott’s “Ferdinand and Isabella”;—the most ample is the folio volume of Diego Josef Dormer, entitled “Progresos de la Historia en Aragon” (Zaragoza, 1680, folio); really a life of Zurita, published in his honor by the Cortes of his native kingdom. There are several editions of his Annals; and Latassa (Bib. Nueva, Tom. I. pp. 358-373) gives a list of above forty of his works, nearly all unpublished, and none of them, probably, of much value, except his History, to which, in fact, they are generally subsidiary. He held several offices under Philip II., and there is a letter to him from the king in Dormer, (p. 109,) which shows that he enjoyed much of the royal consideration; though, as I have intimated, and as may be fully seen in Dormer, (Lib. II. c. 2, 3, 4,) he was much teased, at one time, by the censors of his History. The first edition of the “Anales de la Corona de Aragon” was published in different years, at Saragossa, between 1562 and 1580, to which a volume of Indices was added in 1604, making seven volumes, folio, in all. The third edition (Zaragoza, 1610-21, 7 tom. folio) is the one that is preferred.

Another volume was added to the Annals of Zurita (Zaragoza, 1630, fol.) by Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola, the poet, who brought them down to 1520, and whose style is better than that in Zurita’s portion; but not much of it is the work of Argensola, so heavy is it with documents.

I have said that Zurita was employed as secretary of Philip II., from time to time; and such was the fact. But this title often implied little except the right of the person who bore it to receive a moderate salary from the public treasury;—a circumstance which I mention because I have occasion frequently to notice authors who were royal secretaries, from the time of Baena, the Jew, in the days of John II., down to the disappearance of the Austrian family. Thus Gonzalo Perez and his son Antonio were royal secretaries; so were the two Quevedos, and many more. In 1605, Philip III. had twenty-nine such secretaries. Clemencin, note to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 47.

[203] The History of Ambrosio de Morales was first published in three folios, Alcalá, 1574-77; but the best edition is that of Madrid, 1791, in six small quartos, to which are commonly added two volumes, dated 1792, on Spanish Antiquities, and three more, dated 1793, of his miscellaneous works;—the whole being preceded by the work of Ocampo, in two volumes, already noticed, and followed by the continuation of Sandoval, in one volume, a work of about equal merit with that of Morales, and first printed at Pamplona, in 1615, folio. The three authors, Ocampo, Morales, and Sandoval, taken together, are thus made to fill twelve volumes, as if they belonged to one work, to which is given the unsuitable title of “Corónica General de España.”

Morales, in his youth, cruelly mutilated his person, in order to insure his priestly purity of life, and wellnigh died of the consequences.

I might have mentioned here the “Comentario de la Guerra de Alemaña de Luis de Avila y Zuñiga,” a small volume, (Anvers, 1550, 12mo,) first printed in 1548, and frequently afterwards, both in Latin and French, as well as in Spanish. It is an account of the campaigns of Charles V. in Germany, in 1546 and 1547, prepared, probably, from information furnished by the Emperor himself, (Navarra, Diálogos, 1567, f. 13,) and written in a natural, but by no means polished, Castilian style. Parts of it bear internal evidence of having been composed at the very time of the events they record, and the whole is evidently the work of one of the few personal friends Charles V. ever had; one, however, who does not appear to much advantage in the private letters of Guillaume van Male, printed by the Belgian Bibliophiles, in 1843. See, ante, Vol. I. p. 499, n.

[204] Pedro de Ribadeneyra, who died, aged 84, in 1611, and for whom a beautiful epitaph was composed by Mariana, wrote several works in honor of his company, and several ascetic works, besides his “Cisma de Inglaterra,” (Valencia, 1588,) and his “Flos Sanctorum,” Madrid, 1599-1601, 2 tom. folio.

José de Siguenza, who was born in 1545, and died in 1606, as Prior of the Escurial,—whose construction he witnessed and described,—published his “Vida de San Gerónimo,” in Madrid, 1595, 4to, and his “Historia de la Orden de San Gerónimo,” in Madrid, 1600, 4to. He was persecuted by the Inquisition. Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. II., 1817, p. 474.

It would be easy to add to these two writers on ecclesiastical history the names of many more. Hardly a convent or a saint of any note in Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, failed of especial commemoration; and each of the religious orders and great cathedrals had at least one historian, and most of them several. The number of books on Spanish ecclesiastical history to be found in the list at the end of the second volume of Antonio’s Bibliotheca Nova is, therefore, one that may well be called enormous. Some of them, too, like the history of the order of St. Benedict, by Yepes, and several of the histories of those orders that were both knightly and religious, are of no little importance for the facts and documents with which they are crowded. But nearly all of them are heavy, monkish annals, and not one, I believe, has literary merit enough to attract our attention.

[205] Llorente, Tom. I. p. 479, Tom. II. p. 457, Tom. III. pp. 75-82. Carvajal, the author of the “Elógio Historico” of Montano, in the seventh volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of History, (1832, 4to, p. 84,) does not think the course of Mariana, in this investigation, was so frank as it should have been. Perhaps it was not; but he came to the right conclusion at last, and it was a bold and honest thing to do so.

[206] The account of this book, and of the discussions it occasioned, is given amply by Bayle, in the notes to his article Mariana; but, as is usual with him, in a manner that shows his dislike of the Jesuits. I know the treatise “De Rege et Regis Institutione” only in the edition “Typis Wechelianis,” 1611, 12mo; but I believe that edition is not at all expurgated. Certainly, the passage Lib. I. c. 6 is quite strong enough, in extenuation of the atrocious crime of Jaques Clemens, to be open to severe animadversion. (Sismondi, Hist. des Français, Paris, 8vo, Tom. XXII., 1839, p. 191.) From the very remarkable letters of Loaysa, the confessor of Charles V., it appears that the great Emperor himself was as little scrupulous as his son in such matters. This renders the passage in Mariana more easy of explanation. See Briefe an Kaiser Karl V., etc., von D. G. Heine, Berlin, 1848, 8vo, p. 130, and note.

[207] “Joh. Mariana, e Soc. Jesu, Tractatus VII., nunc primum in Lucem editi,” Colon. Agrip., 1609, fol.; my copy of which is mutilated according to the minute directions given in the Index Expurgatorius, 1667, p. 719. It should be noted that the treatise “De Ponderibus et Mensuris,” which contains the obnoxious discussions about the coin, had been previously published at Toledo, in a neat quarto volume, in 1599, a copy of which I have, with all needful authority and privileges. (Santander, Catalogue, 1792, 8vo, Tom. IV. pp. 152, 153, article Proceso del Padre Mariana, MS. Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 295.) The “Discursus de Erroribus qui in Formâ Gubernationis Societatis Jesu occurrunt,” written in Mariana’s beautiful flowing style, was first printed at Bordeaux, 1625, 8vo, and then again on the suppression of the order by Charles III.; but in the Index Expurgatorius, (1667, p. 735,) where it is strictly prohibited, it is craftily treated as if it were still in manuscript, and as if its author were not certainly known. In the Index of 1790, he is still censured with great severity. A considerable number of his unpublished manuscripts is said to have been long preserved in the Jesuits’ Library at Toledo.

[208] The most carefully printed and beautiful edition of Mariana’s History is the fourteenth, published at Madrid, by Ibarra, (two vols. fol. 1780,) under the direction of the Superintendents of the Royal Library;—a book whose mechanical execution would do honor to any press in Europe. It is remarkable how much Mariana amended his History in the successive editions during his lifetime; the additions between 1608 and 1623 being equal, as stated by the editors of that of 1780, to a moderate volume.

[209] Mariana, Hist., Lib. I. c. 13. Saavedra, República Literaria, Madrid, 1759, 4to, p. 44. Mariana admits the want of critical exactness in some parts of his history, when, replying to a letter of Lupercio de Argensola, who had noticed his mistake in calling Prudentius a Spaniard, he says: “I never undertook to make a history of Spain, in which I should verify every particular fact; for if I had, I should never have finished it; but I undertook to arrange in a becoming style, and in the Latin language, what others had collected as materials for the fabric I desired to raise. To look up authorities for every thing would have left Spain, for another series of centuries, without a Latin History that could show itself in the world.” J. A. Pellicer, Ensayo de una Biblioteca de Traductores, p. 59.

[210] The first attack on Mariana was made by a Spaniard in Italy, who called himself Pedro Mantuano, and who printed his “Advertencias” at Milan in 1611. Thomas Tamayo de Vargas wrote a vituperative reply to it (Toledo, 1616, 4to). But Mariana wisely refused to read either. The Marquis of Mondejar, a most respectable authority, renewed the discussion, and his “Advertencias” were published, (Valencia, 1746, folio,) with a preface by Mayans y Siscar, somewhat mitigating their force. Still, neither these, which are the principal criticisms that have appeared on Mariana, nor any others, have, in the estimation of Spaniards, seriously interfered with his claims to be regarded as the great historian of his country.

[211] Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 255. La Mothe le Vayer, in a discourse addressed to Cardinal Mazarin, (Œuvres, Paris, 1662, folio, Tom. I. pp. 225, etc.,) assails Sandoval furiously, and sometimes successfully, for his credulity, superstition, flattery, etc., not forgetting his style. It was a part of the warfare of France against Spain.

[212] During this period, embracing a large part of the seventeenth century, two remarkable controversies took place in Spain, which, by introducing a more critical caution into historical composition, were not without their effect on Mariana, and may have tended to diminish the number of his successors, by subjecting history, in all its forms, to more rigorous rules. The discussions referred to arose in consequence of two extraordinary forgeries, which, for a time, created a great sensation throughout the country, and deluded not a few intelligent men and honest scholars.

The first related to certain metallic plates, sometimes called “The Leaden Books,” which, having been prepared and buried for the purpose several years before, were disinterred near Granada between 1588 and 1595, and, when deciphered, seemed to offer materials for defending the favorite doctrine of the Spanish Church on the Immaculate Conception, and for establishing the great corner-stone of Spanish ecclesiastical history, the coming to Spain of the Apostle James, the patron saint of the country. This gross forgery was received for authentic history by Philip II., Philip III., and Philip IV., each of whom, in a council of state, consisting of the principal personages of the kingdom, solemnly adjudged it to be true; so that, at one period of the discussion, some persons believed the “Leaden Books” would be admitted into the Canon of the Scriptures. The question, however, was in time settled at Rome, and they were decided, by the highest tribunal of the Church, to be false and forged; a decision in which Spain soon acquiesced.

The other fraud was connected with this one of the “Leaden Books,” whose authority it was alleged to confirm; but it was much broader and bolder in its claims and character. It consisted of a series of fragments of chronicles, circulated earlier in manuscript, but first printed in 1610, and then represented to have come, in 1594, from the monastery of Fulda, near Worms, to Father Higuera, of Toledo, a Jesuit, and a personal acquaintance of Mariana. They purported, on their face, to have been written by Flavius Lucius Dexter, Marcus Maximus, Heleca, and other primitive Christians, and contained important and wholly new statements touching the early civil and ecclesiastical history of Spain. They were, no doubt, an imitation of the forgeries of John of Viterbo, given to the world about a century before as the works of Berosus and Manetho; but the Spanish forgeries were prepared with more learning and a nicer ingenuity. Flattering fictions were fitted to recognized facts, as if both rested on the same authority; new saints were given to churches that were not well provided in this department of their hagiology; a dignified origin was traced for noble families, that had before been unable to boast of their founders; and a multitude of Christian conquests and achievements were hinted at or recorded, that gratified the pride of the whole nation, the more because they had never till then been heard of. Few doubted what it was so agreeable to all to believe. Sandoval, Tamayo de Vargas, Lorenzo Ramirez de Prado, and, for a time, Nicolas Antonio,—all learned men,—were persuaded that these summaries of chronicles, or chronicones, as they were called, were authentic; and if Arias Montano, the editor of the Polyglot, Mariana, the historian, and Antonio Agustin, the cautious and critical friend of Zurita, held an opposite faith, they did not think it worth while openly to avow it. The current of opinion, in fact, ran strongly in favor of the forgeries; and they were generally regarded as true history till about 1650 or a little later, and therefore till long after the death of their real author, Father Higuera, which happened in 1624. The discussion about them, however, which, it is evident, was going quietly on during much of this time, was useful. Doubts were multiplied; the disbelief in their genuineness, which had been expressed to Higuera himself, as early as 1595, by the modest and learned Juan Bautista Perez, Bishop of Segorbe, gradually gained ground; writers of history grew cautious; and at last, in 1652, Nicolas Antonio began his “Historias Fabulosas”; a huge folio, which he left unfinished at his death, and which was not printed till long afterwards, but which, with its cumbrous, though clear-sighted learning, left no doubt as to the nature and extent of the fraud of Father Higuera, and made his case a teaching to all future Spanish historians, that does not seem to have been lost on them. See the Chronicle of Dexter at the end of Antonio’s Bibliotheca Vetus; the Historias Fabulosas of Antonio, with the Life of its author prefixed by Mayans y Siscar, (Madrid, 1742, folio,) to show the grossness of the whole imposture; and the “Chrónica Universal” of Alonso Maldonado, (Madrid, 1624, folio,) to show how implicitly it was then believed and followed by learned men. The man of learning who was the most clear-sighted about “The Leaden Books” and the chronicones, and who behaved with the most courage in relation to them from the first, was, I suppose, the Bishop of Segorbe, who is noticed in Villanueva, “Viage Literario á las Iglesias de España,” (Madrid, 1804, 8vo, Tom. III. p. 166,) together with the document (pp. 259-278) in which he exposes the whole fraud, but which was never before published.

[213] “Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano,” Madrid, 1601-15, 4 vols. fol.—“Historia General del Mundo del Tiempo del Señor Rey Don Felipe II., desde 1559, hasta su Muerte,” Madrid, 1601-12, 3 vols. fol.—Five books on the History of Portugal and the Conquest of the Azores were printed, Madrid, 1591, 4to; the History of the League, Madrid, 1598, 4to; and the History of the Troubles in Aragon, in 1612, 4to; the last being only a tract of 140 pages. A work on the History of Italy, from 1281 to 1559, printed at Madrid in 1624, folio, I have never seen. The of Historia General del Mundo is on the Index of 1667, for expurgation.

[214] “Conquista de las Islas Molucas,” Madrid, 1609, folio. Pellicer, Bib. de Trad., Tom. I. p. 87. The love-story of Durante, an ensign, in the third book of the “Conquista,” is good and probable; and the account of the Patagonian giants, in the same book, turns out to be almost true, like some of the long-discredited stories of Marco Polo and Mendez Pinto.

[215] “La Traduccion del Indio de los Tres Diálogos de Amor, de Leon Hebreo, echado de Italiano en Espagnol, por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega,” Madrid, 1590, 4to. A Spanish translation of it, which I have seen, had appeared at Venice in 1568, and I believe there was another at Zaragoza in 1584, of which it seems strange that Garcilasso knew nothing. (Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. II. p. 920; Castro, Bib., Tom. I. p. 371; and Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 232.) The letter of Garcilasso to Philip II., with additional remarks by its author, containing interesting materials for his own life, is prefixed to the first edition of the second part of the Commentaries on Peru. “La Florida” was printed at Lisbon in 1606, 4to; the first part of the Peru at Lisbon, 1609, folio; and the second part at Córdova, 1617, folio. Both of the historical works are to be found in several other editions, and both have been translated into most of the languages of modern Europe.

Two striking examples may be given of the opposite kinds of that credulity in Garcilasso which so much impairs the value of his Commentaries. He believed that the subjection of Peru by the Spaniards was predicted by the last of the Incas that reigned before their arrival, (Parte I. Lib. IX. c. 15, and Parte II. Lib. VIII. c. 18,) and he believed that all the Spaniards in the army of Peru, who were notorious blasphemers, perished by wounds in the mouth (Parte II., Lib. IV. c. 21).

[216] “Expedicion de los Catalanes contra Griegos y Turcos, por Francisco de Moncada, Conde de Osona,” Barcelona, 1623, and Madrid, 1772 and 1805, 12mo. There is an edition, also, of Barcelona, 1842, 8vo, edited by Don Jaime Tió, with a poem at the end by Calisto Fernandez Campo-redondo, which is on the same subject with the History, and in 1841 gained a prize at Barcelona for its success at a festival, that reminds us of the days of the Floral Games and of the Marquis of Villena.

[217] “Las Guerras de los Estados Baxos, desde Maio, 1588, hasta el Año 1599,” Amberes, 1625 and 1635, 4to, and Barcelona, 1627. Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 338. He was ambassador to James I. of England, viceroy of Majorca, etc., and died in 1637, sixty-four years old.

[218] “Historia de los Movimientos, Separacion, y Guerra de Cataluña, por Francisco Manuel de Melo,” Lisboa, 1645, and several other editions; one by Sanchez, 1808, 12mo, and one at Paris, 1830. His poetry in Spanish has been mentioned, ante, II. 529. For his life and multitudinous works, see the “Bibliotheca Lusitana” of Diogo Barbosa Machado, (Lisboa, 1741-59, 4 tom. folio,) which I have often referred to, as to the great authority on all matters of fact in Portuguese literary history, though of little or no value for the literary opinions it expresses. It is one of the amplest and most important works of literary biography and bibliography ever published; but, unhappily, it is also one of the rarest, a large part of the impression of the first three volumes having been destroyed in the fire that followed the great earthquake at Lisbon in 1755. Its author, who gives some account of himself in his own work, was born in 1682, and died, I believe, in 1770.

[219] The work of Saavedra was continued, very poorly, by Alonso Nuñez de Castro, through the reign of Henry II., the labors of both making seven volumes in the edition of Madrid, 1789-90, 12mo, of which the first two only, coming down to 716, are by Saavedra.

[220] Mad. d’Aulnoy (Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. II. pp. 17, 18) explains this custom, and shows to what an absurd and ridiculous length it was carried in the time of Solís.

[221] There are many editions of the “Conquista de México,” the first being that of Madrid, 1654, folio, and the best in two vols. 4to, Madrid, 1783. The author of the life prefixed to his poems says: “Solís left materials for a continuation of the History of Mexico, but they are not now known to exist.” A few of his letters, with a sketch of his life, by Mayans y Siscar, were published, as I have already noticed, in 1733. They appear again, carefully revised, in the “Cartas Morales,” etc., 1773. See, ante, II. 420, 549, III. 136.

[222] From the times of Charles V. and Philip II., when, in Aragon and Castile, chroniclers were multiplied as a part of the pageantry of the court, the rest of the kingdoms that entered into the united Spanish monarchy began to desire to have their own separate histories, as we can see in Valencia, where those of Beuter, Escolano, and Diago were written. Besides this, a great number of the individual cities obtained their own separate annals from the hand of at least one author,—sometimes works of authority, like that on Segovia by Colmenares, and that on Seville by Avila y Zuñiga. But though more of such local histories were written in Spain between the middle of the sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth centuries, than were written during the same period, I believe, in any other country in Europe, none of them, so far as I know, has such peculiar merit as to be noticeable in the literary history of the country. Still, the spirit that produced them in such great numbers, and especially the spirit which, during the reign of Philip II., made, with so much care and cost, the vast collections of documents yet to be found in the Castle of Simancas and the convent of the Escurial, should not be overlooked.

When the chapter on the Chronicles of the fifteenth century (First Period, Chap. IX.) was printed, I had not seen the Chronicle by the Prince of Viana, “Crónica de los Reyes de Navarra,”—of which there is only one edition, that of Pamplona, 1843, 4to, by Don José Yanguas y Miranda. It was written in 1454 by the Prince Don Carlos, to whom I have already alluded, (Vol. I. p. 332, note,) who died, forty years old, in 1461, and whose translation of Aristotle’s Ethics was printed at Saragossa in 1509. (Mendez, Typographia, 1796, p. 193.) The Chronicle was carefully prepared for publication from four manuscripts, and it embraces the history of Navarre from the earliest times to the accession of Charles III. in 1390, noticing a few events in the beginning of the next century. Besides the life of the author, it makes about 200 pages, written in a modest, simple style, but not so good as that of some of the contemporary Castilian chronicles. A few of the old traditions concerning the little mountain kingdom, whose early annals it records, are, however, well preserved; some of them being told as they are found in the General Chronicle of Spain, and some with additions or changes. The portions where I have observed most traces of connection between the two are in the Chronicle of the Prince of Viana, Book I. chapters 9-14, as compared with the latter portion of the General Chronicle, Part III. Sometimes the Prince deviates from all received accounts, as when he calls Cava the wife of Count Julian, instead of calling her his daughter; but, on the whole, his Chronicle agrees with the common traditions and histories of the period to which it relates.

[223] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 39.

[224] In the great contest between the two liturgies, the Roman and the Gothic, which disturbed the Church of Spain for so long a period, Alfonso VI. determined to throw a copy of each into a fire duly kindled and blessed for the purpose, and give the supremacy to the one that should come out unconsumed. The Gothic MS. was successful; but the king broke his word, and tossed it back into the flames, thus giving rise, it is said, to the proverb, “Alla van leyes adonde quieren reyes”; or, freely translated, “Laws obey kings.” (Sarmiento, § 411.) A similar historical origin is given to the proverb, “Ni quito rey, ni pongo rey”; which is traced to the personal quarrel of Peter the Cruel and his brother and successor, Don Enrique. Clemencin, ed. Don Quixote, Tom. VI., 1839, p. 225.

[225] Dissertation of Cortés in Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 211.

[226] Chrónica General, 1604, Parte III. f. 61, and Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 7.

[227] For example: “Ayudad vos, y Dios ayudarvos ha,”—“Help yourself and God will help you,”—near the end; and “El Bien nunca muere,”—“Good never dies,”—which is in the first tale.

[228] “Quien en l’arenal sembra, non trilla pegujares,”—“He that sows on the sea-beach reaps little for himself.” Stanza 160. Pegujares, a singular word, which occurs once in Don Quixote, is said by Clemencin (Tom. IV. p. 34) to come from peculio. See, also, Partida IV. Título xvii. Ley 7.

[229] Reprinted in Mayans, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 179-210. See also, the Proverbs from Seneca by Pero Diaz, mentioned in note 33 to Period I. chap. 19, and pp. 376, 377, of Vol. I.

[230] I have never seen the Proverbs collected by Pedro Valles, the Aragonese, but Mayans y Siscar had in his library a copy of them, which is described in the “Specimen Bibliothecæ Hispano-Majansianæ, etc., ex Musæo Davidis Clementis,” Hannoveræ, 1753, 4to, p. 67. The “Cartas de Blasco de Garay” have been often printed; but the oldest and most complete edition I have seen is that of Venice, 1553, 12mo; probably not the first. The second of the letters of Garay is not in proverbs, and, in this edition, is followed by a devout prayer; the whole being intended, as the author says, “to win the attention not so much of the wise as of those who are wont to read nothing but Celestina and such like books.” The “Proverbios” of Francisco de Castilla, in the volume with his “Theórica de Virtudes,” (1552, ff. 64-69,) are not proverbs, but an exhortation in verse to a wise and holy life.

[231] “Refranes, etc., que coligio y gloso, el Comendador, Hernan Nuñez, Profesor de Retórica en la Universidad de Salamanca,” Madrid, 1619, 4to. The preface, by Leo de Castro, implies that the volume was printed during the life of Nuñez, who died in 1553; but I find no edition older than that of 1555. See the note of Pellicer to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 34.

[232] “La Filosofía Vulgar de Juan de Mal Lara, Vezino de Sevilla,” (Sevilla, 1558, Madrid, 1618, 4to, etc.,)—a person of note in his time, whom we have mentioned (ante, II. 26) among the dramatic poets, and who died in 1571, forty-four years old. (Seman. Pintoresco, 1845, p. 34.) The collection of Lorenzo Palmireno is reprinted in the fourth volume of Nuñez, ed. Madrid, 1804, 12mo. Oudin’s collection was reprinted at Brussels in 1611, 12mo. Juan Sorapan de Rieros, “Medecina Española, en Proverbios Vulgares de Nuestra Lengua,” was printed at Granada, 1616-17, 4to, in two parts. “Refranes Castellanos con Latinos, etc., por el Licenciado Gerónimo Martin Caro y Cejudo,” Madrid, 1675, 4to; reprinted 1792. I do not notice the “Apotegmas” of Juan Rufo, (1596,) nor the “Floresta de Apotegmas of Santa Cruz,” (first printed in 1574, and often afterwards; e. g. Bruselas, 1629,)—the last of which is a pleasant hook, praised by Lope de Vega in his first tale,—because both of them are rather jest-books than collections of proverbs. The “Proverbios Morales” of Christ. Perez de Herrera (Madrid, 1618, 4to) are in rhyme, and too poor to deserve notice, even if they had been in prose.

[233] Vargas y Ponce, Declamacion, Madrid, 1793, 4to, App., p. 93.

[234] Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. I. pp. 188-191, and the Diálogo de las Lenguas, p. 12, where the author says, “In our proverbs, you see the purity of the Castilian language”; and p. 170, where he says, “The purest Castilian we have is in our proverbs.” The “Don Quixote” will occur to every body as a book that proves how much proverbs enter into Spanish literature; but I should rather cite the “Celestina,” where their number is, I think, equally great in proportion, and their serious application more effective.

[235] “Jardin de Flores Curiosas, etc., por Ant. de Torquemada,” 1570, 1573, 1587, 1589. The edition of Anveres, 1575, 18mo, fills 536 pages. “The Spanish Mandeville of Miracles, or the Garden of Curious Flowers,” (London, 1600, 4to,) is a translation into good old English, by Ferdinand Walker. The original is strictly prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 68. The “Coloquios Satíricos,” by the same author, (1553,) I have never seen.

[236] “Tractado de las Drogas y Medicinas de las Indias Orientales, por Christóval Acosta,” Burgos, (1578, 4to,) where its author was a surgeon; but there are other editions, (1582 and 1592,) and early Italian and French translations. The “Tractado en Loor de las Mugeres, por Christóval Acosta, Affricano,” was printed at Venice, 1592, 4to, and I know no other edition. Barbosa, in his life of Acosta, spells his name Da Costa.

[237] Preface to Obras de Luis de Granada, Madrid, 1657, folio, and Preface to Guia de Pecadores, Madrid, 1781, 8vo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 38. Llorente, Hist., Tom. III. p. 123. His works are numerous, and he enjoys the singular honor of having had an edition of them published by Planta, at the expense of the Duke of Alva, the minister and general of Philip II.

[238] Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, Sevilla, 1703, folio, twelfth edition.

[239] Obras de Santa Teresa, (Madrid, 1793, 2 tom. 4to,) Tom. I. p. 393. Of her letters I have spoken, ante, p. 135, and an excellent discussion of her character, and that of the mystical school to which she belonged, may be found in the Christian Examiner, No. 152, Boston, March, 1849. Her works are accompanied with many offers of indulgence to those who read a chapter or a letter of any of them, or hear it read. For her troubles with the Inquisition, see Llorente, Tom. III. p. 114. Santa Teresa was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622; besides which, in 1617 and 1626, the Cortes chose her to be the co-patroness and advocate of Spain with Santiago; an honor that was long resisted, but was urged anew by the testament of Charles II., and confirmed by the Cortes of 1812, June 28, at the urgent petition of the Carmelites, in a spirit worthy of the age in which she lived. See Southey’s Peninsular War, London, 1832, 4to, Tom. III. p. 539.

[240] Malon de Chaide was an Augustinian monk, and Professor at Salamanca; and there are editions of his Magdalen of 1592, Alcalá, 12mo, of 1596, 1603, 1794, etc. A somewhat similar book had preceded it, “The History of the Queen of Sheba, when she discoursed with King Solomon in Jerusalem.” It was written by another Augustinian monk, Alonso de Horosco, a somewhat voluminous writer, and was printed at Salamanca, in 1568, 12mo. But it is little more than a collection of ordinary sermons, some of which do not mention the Queen of Sheba at all, and is to be regarded only as a courtly offering to Isabella, wife of Philip II., whose chaplain Horosco was.

[241] An edition of 1583 is cited by Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 178,) but this cannot be. See Viage, Madrid, 1640, 12mo, f. 66. a. The first edition must be that of Madrid, 1603, cited in the Index Expurgatorius, 1667, where it is roughly handled, but since which it has been often reprinted. Clemencin, (Don Quixote, Tom. III. p. 395,) when speaking of Spanish actors, rightly calls the Viage of Roxas “libro magistral en la materia.” Another work, imputed to Roxas, which I have never seen, called “El Buen Repúblico,” was wholly prohibited.

[242] “El Pasagero, Advertencias utilíssimas á la Vida Humana, por el Doctor Christ. Suarez de Figueroa,” Madrid, 1617, 12mo, ff. 492. Figueroa also published (Madrid, 1621, 4to) a volume of five hundred pages, entitled, “Varias Noticias importantes á la Humana Comunicacion,” which he divides into twenty essays, entitled “Variedades.” It is less well written than the Pasagero, falling more into the faults of the time. The seventeenth Essay, however, which is on Domestic Life, with illustrations from Spanish history, is pleasant. His “Plaza Universal de las Ciencias,” first printed at Madrid, in 1615, 4to, and reprinted in folio, with large changes and additions, in 1737, is an attempt at a compendium of human knowledge, curious in the first edition, as showing the state of knowledge and opinion at that time in Spain, but of little value in either.

A more serious book of travels might here have been added; that of Pedro Ordoñez de Cevallos, entitled “Viage del Mundo,” and first printed at Madrid, 1614, 4to. It is an agreeable and often interesting autobiography of its author, beginning with his birth at Jaen and his education at Seville, and giving his travels, for thirty-nine years, all over the world, including China, America, many parts of Africa, and the northern kingdoms of Europe. Its spirit is eminently national, and its style simple and Castilian.

[243] “El Governador Christiano, deducido de las Vidas de Moyses y Josua, por Juan Marquez.” There are editions of 1612, 1619, 1634, etc., with translations into Italian and French. The same author wrote, also, “Dos Estados de la Espiritual Jerusalem,” 1603. He was born in 1564, and died in 1621. Capmany (Eloquencia, Tom. IV. pp. 103, etc.) praises him highly.

[244] “El Embaxador, por Don Juan Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga,” Sevilla, 1620, 4to, 280 leaves. I have noticed him as an epic poet, Vol. II. p. 500.

[245] “El Perfecto Privado, Carta de Lelio Peregrino á Estanislao Bordio, Privado del Rey de Polonia.” It was first printed in 1625, (Antonio, Bib. Nov.,) but I know it only in a collection called “Varios Eloquentes Libros recogidos en uno,” (Madrid, 1726, 4to,) a volume which, besides the above work of Navarrete, contains the “Retrato Político del Rey Alfonso VIII.,” by Gaspar Mercader y Cervellon, (see Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 99,) the “Govierno Moral” of Polo, noticed, II. 544, III. 111, with some discussions which it excited, and the “Lagrimas de Heraclito defendidas,” a tract by Antonio de Vieyra, read before Christina of Sweden, at Rome, to prove that the world is more worthy of being wept over than laughed at; all of them attempts at wisdom and wit in the worst taste of their times.

[246] “Empresas Políticas, Idea de un Príncipe Christiano, por Diego Saavedra Faxardo.” The number of editions is very great, and so is that of the translations. There are, I think, two in English, one of which is by Sir J. Astry, London, 1700, 2 vols. 8vo. A Latin version which appeared at Brussels in 1640, the year in which the original Spanish appeared at Munster, has also been reprinted.

[247] “El Perfeto Señor, etc., de Antonio Lopez de Vega,” 1626 and 1652, the latter, Madrid, 4to. He published, also, (Madrid, 1641, 4to,) a series of moral Dialogues, on various subjects connected with Rank, Wealth, and Letters, under the title of “Heraclito y Demócrito de nuestro Siglo,” and giving the opposite views of each, which the names of the interlocutors imply; a book that affords sketches of manners and opinions at the time it was written, that are often amusing, and generally delivered in an unaffected style. The poetry of Antonio de Vega has been noticed, II. 529.

[248] “Obras y Dias, Manual de Señores y Príncipes, por Juan Eusebio Nieremberg,” Madrid, 1629, 4to, ff. 220. His father and mother were Germans, who came to Spain with the Empress of Austria, Doña Maria, but he himself was born at Madrid in 1595, and died there in 1658. Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 686) and Baena (Tom. III. p. 190) give long lists of his works, chiefly in Latin. The “Contemplations on the State of Man,” published in 1684, seventeen years after the death of Jeremy Taylor, as his work, turns out to have been substantially taken from a treatise of Nieremberg, first published as early as 1654, and entitled “Diferencia de lo Temporal y Eterno”; the “Contemplations,” however, being a rifacimento of an English translation of the work of Nieremberg, by Sir Vivian Mullineaux, published in 1672. (See an interesting pamphlet on this subject, “Letter to Joshua Watson, Esq., etc., by Edw. Churton, M. A., Archdeacon of Cleveland,” London, 1848, 8vo.) Why the fraud was not earlier detected, since Heber and others had noted the difference between the style of this work and that of Bishop Taylor’s works generally, it is difficult to tell. The treatise of Nieremberg has always been valued in Spanish, and, besides being early translated into Latin, Italian, French, and English, was published in Arabic in 1733-34, at the Convent of St. John, on the Mountain of the Druses. See Brunet.

[249] “Advertencias para Reyes, Príncipes, y Embaxadores, por Don Christóval de Benavente y Benavides,” Madrid, 1643, 4to, pp. 700. It a good deal resembles the “Embaxador” of Vera y Zuñiga; and, like the author of that work, Benavente had been an ambassador of Spain in other countries, and wrote on the subject of what may be considered to have been his profession with experience and curious learning.

[250] His “República Literaria” is a light work, in the manner of Lucian, written with great purity of language, and was not printed till 1670. A spirited dialogue between Mercury and Lucian, on “The Follies of Europe,” in which Saavedra defends the House of Austria against the attacks of the rest of the world, remained in manuscript till it was produced, in 1787, in the sixth volume of the Seminario Erudito.

[251] “Primera Parte de la Rhetórica, etc., por Juan de Guzman,” Alcalá, 1590, 12mo, 291 leaves. It is divided affectedly into fourteen “Combites,” or Invitations to Feasts. Its author was a pupil of the famous Sanctius, “El Brocense.”

[252] The “Galateo” was several times reprinted. It is a small book, containing, in the edition of Madrid, 1664, only 126 leaves in 18mo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 17.

[253] “Libro de la Gineta de España, por Pedro Fernandez de Andrada,” Sevilla, 1599, 4to, 182 leaves.—“Modo de pelear á la Gineta, por Simon de Villalobos,” Valladolid, 1605, 18mo, 70 leaves.

[254] “Eloquencia Española en Arte, por el Maestro Bartolomé Ximenez Paton,” Toledo, 1604, 12mo. The extracts from old Spanish books and hints about their authors, in this treatise, are often valuable; but how wise its practical suggestions are may be inferred from the fact, that it recommends an orator to strengthen his memory by anointing his head with a compound made chiefly of bear’s grease and white wax.

[255] “Ortografía Castellana, por Mateo Aleman,” Mexico, 1609, 4to, 83 leaves.

[256] “Noches Claras, Primera Parte, por Manoel de Faria y Sousa,” Madrid, 1624, 12mo, a thick volume. Barbosa, Tom. III. p. 257.

[257] Francisco de Portugal, Count Vimioso, left a son, who published his father’s poetry with a life prefixed, but I know no edition of the “Arte de Galantería,” etc., earlier than that of Lisbon, 1670, 4to.

[258] Before we come into the period when bad taste overwhelmed every thing, we should slightly refer to a few authors who were not infected by it, and who yet are not of importance enough to be introduced into the text.

The first of them is Diego de Estella, who was born in 1524, and died in 1578. He was much connected with the great diplomatist, Cardinal Granvelle, and published many works in Latin and Spanish, the best of which, as to style and manner, are “The Vanity of the World,” 1574, and “Meditations on the Love of God,” 1578.

Several treatises in the form of biography, but really ascetic and didactic in their character, were published soon afterwards, which are written with some purity and vigor; such as the Life of Pius V., (1595,) by Antonio Fuenmayor, who died at the early age of thirty; the Life of Santa Teresa, (1599,) by Diego de Yepes, one of her correspondents, and the confessor of the last dark years of Philip II.; and the Lives of two devout women, Doña Sancha Carillo, and Doña Ana Ponce de Leon, (1604,) by Martin de Roa, a Jesuit, who long represented the interests of his Society at the court of Rome.

To these may be added three other works of very different characters.

The “Examen de Ingenios,” or How to determine, from the Physical and External Condition, who are fit for Training in the Sciences, by Juan de Huarte, (Alcalá, 1640, 12mo, first published in 1566,) is one of them. It enjoyed a prodigious reputation in its time, was often published in Spanish, and was translated into all the principal languages of Europe; into English by Richard Carew, 1594; and, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, into German by a person no less distinguished than Lessing, whose version, entitled “Prüfung der Köpfe,” was printed for the second time at Wittenberg, 1785, 12mo. It is a work full of striking, but often wild, conjectures in physiology, written in a forcible, clear style, and Lessing aptly compares its author to a spirited horse, that, in galloping over the stones, never strikes fire so brilliantly as he does when he stumbles. It is praised by Forner, (Obras, Madrid, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 61,) and is on the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 734. The “Examen de Maridos,” a spirited play of Alarcon, (see, ante, II. 322,) and the “Vexamen de Ingenios,” a lively prose satire of Cancer, (Obras, 1761, p. 105,) were, I suppose, understood by their contemporaries to have reference to the title of the “Examen de Ingenios,” then very popular. A work not unlike the “Examen de Ingenios” appeared at Barcelona, (1637, 4to,) entitled “El Sol Solo, etc., y Anatomía de Ingenios,” taking a view of the same subject more in the nature of Physiognomy, and not without an approach to what has since been called Phrenology. It was written by Estevan Pujasol, an Aragonese; and is curious for its manner of treating the subjects it discusses,—half anatomical, half spiritual; but is not otherwise interesting.

The second is the “Historia Moral y Philosóphica” of Pero Sanchez of Toledo, published at Toledo, 1590, folio, when its author, who was connected with the cathedral there, was already an old man. It consists of the Lives of distinguished men of antiquity, like Plato, Alexander, and Cicero, and ends with a treatise on Death;—each of the Lives being accompanied by moral and Christian reflections, which are sometimes written in a flowing and fervent style, but are rarely appropriate, and never original or powerful.

The last is by Vincencio Carducho, a Florentine painter, who, when quite a boy, was brought to Spain in 1585, by his brother Bartolomé, and died there in 1638, having risen to considerable eminence in his art. In 1634, he published, at Madrid, “Diálogos de la Pintura, su Defensa, Orígen,” etc. (4to, 229 leaves); but the licencias are dated 1632 and 1633. It is written in good plain prose, without particular merit as to style, and is declared by Cean Bermudez, (Diccionario, Tom. I. p. 251,) in his notice of the author, to be “el mejor libro que tenemos de pintura en Castellano.” At the end is an Appendix, in which are attacks of Lope de Vega, Juan de Jauregui, and others, on a duty laid upon pictures, which, Cean Bermudez says, “the efforts of Carducho and his friends succeeded in removing in 1637.”

[259] See Declamacion, etc., of Vargas y Ponce, 1793, App., § 17; Marina, Ensayo, in Memorias de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1804; Liñan y Verdugo, Avisos de Forasteros, 1620, noticed (ante, p. 103) under the head of Romantic Fiction; and “El Filosofo del Aldea, y sus Conversaciones Familiares, su Autor el Alferez Don Baltazar Mateo Velazquez,” Zaragoza, por Diego de Ormer, 12mo, 106 leaves, s. a.; a singular book, didactic in its main purpose, but illustrating with stories its homely philosophy. I find no notice of it, though the author, in his Dedication, intimates that it is not his first published work. It seems to have been written soon after the death of Philip III. in 1621, and its last dialogue is against cultismo, of the introduction of which into Spanish prose I have spoken when noticing the “Pícara Justina” of Andreas Perez, 1605, ante, p. 67.

[260] There are editions of Gracian’s Works, 1664, 1667, 1725, 1748, 1757, 1773, etc. I use that of Barcelona, 1748, 2 tom. 4to. His Life is in Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. pp. 267, etc., and a pleasant account both of him and of his friend Lastañosa is to be found in Aarsens, Voyage d’Espagne, 1667, p. 294, and in the dedication to Lastañosa of the first edition of Quevedo’s “Fortuna con Seso,” 1650. His poem on “The Four Seasons,” generally printed at the end of his Works, is, I believe, the worst of them; certainly it would be difficult to find much in any language more absurd and extravagant in its false taste.

[261] Juan de Zabaleta flourished as an author from 1653 to 1667; and his works, which were soon collected, have been frequently printed, 1667, Madrid, 1728, 4to, 1754, etc. (Baena, Tom. III. p. 227.)—Christóval Lozano (noticed, pp. 91, 108) was known as an author from 1656, by his “David Arrepentido,” to which he afterwards added his “David Perseguido,” in three volumes, and yet another work on the subject of David’s Example illustrated by the Light of Christianity; all of little value.—Juan Francisco Fernandez de Heredia wrote “Trabajos y Afanes de Hercules,” Madrid, 1682, 4to. He makes it a kind of book of emblems, but it is one of the worst of its conceited class. Latassa (Bib. Nov., Tom. IV. p. 3) notices him.

Of Antonio Perez Ramirez, I know only the “Armas contra la Fortuna,” (Madrid, 1698, 4to,) which is a translation of Boëthius, with dissertations in the worst possible taste interspersed between its several divisions.

One other author might, perhaps, have been placed at the side of Lozano,—Joseph de la Vega,—who published (at Amsterdam in 1688, 12mo) three dialogues, entitled, “Confusion de Confusiones,” to ridicule the passion for stockjobbing which came in with the Dutch East India Company, in 1602, and was then at the height of its frenzy. They are somewhat encumbered with learning, but contain anecdotes, ancient and modern, very well told. The author was a rich Jew of Antwerp, who had fled thither from Spain, and published several works between 1683 and 1693, but none, I think, of much value. Amador de los Rios, Judíos Españoles, p. 633.

[262] There is a remarkable paper, in the sixth volume of the “Seminario Erudito,” on the causes of the decline of Spain;—remarkable because, though written in the reign of Philip IV., by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, an ecclesiastic of rank, whom Charles III. afterwards asked to have canonized, it yet attributes the origin of the prostration under which Spain suffered in his time mainly to the war with the Netherlands.

[263] There is a great discrepancy in the accounts of the number of Moriscos expelled from Spain, 1609-11,—several making it a million, and one reducing it so low as a hundred and sixty thousand. But, whatever may have been the number expelled, all accounts agree as to the disastrous effects produced on a population already decaying by the loss of so many persons, who had long been the most skilful manufacturers and agriculturists in the kingdom; effects to which the many despoblados noted on our recent maps of Spain still bear melancholy testimony. (Clemencin, Notes to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 54.) In stating six hundred thousand to have been the number driven out, I have taken the reckoning of Circourt, (Tom. III. p. 103,) which seems made with care.

These unhappy persons had among them a good deal of Castilian culture, whose traces still remain in manuscripts, which, like that of the old poem of Joseph, already described, (Period I. chap. 5,) are composed in Spanish, but are written throughout in the Arabic character. Of parts of two such manuscripts I possess copies, through the kindness of Don Pascual de Gayangos. The first is a poem written in 1603, and entitled, “Discourse on the Light, and Descent, and Lineage of our Chief and Blessed Prophet, Mohammed Çalam, composed and compiled by his Servant, who most needs his Pardon, Mohammed Rabadan, a Native of Rueda, on the River Xalon.” It is divided into eight Histories, of which I possess the fourth, entitled, “History of Hexim,” who was one of the ancestors of the Prophet. It contains above two thousand lines in the short, Castilian ballad measure, and is remarkably Arabic and Mohammedan in its general tone, though with occasional allusions to the Greek mythology. It is, too, not without poetical merit, as in the following lines, which open the second canto, and describe the auspicious morning of Hexim’s marriage.

Al tiempo que el alba bella

Enseña su rostro alegre,

Y, rompiendo las tinieblas,

Su clara luz resplandece,

Dando las nuevas que el dia

En su seguimiento viene,

Y el roxo Apolo tras ella,

Dexando los campos verdes;

Quando las aves nocturnas

Se recogen en su albergue,

Y las que la luz gobiernan

El delgado viento hienden;

Quando los hombres despiertan

Y el pesado sueño vencen,

Para dar á su Hacedor

El debito que le deben;—

En este tiempo la compañia

Del hijo de Abdulmunef

Se levantan y aperciben

Al casamiento solemne.

In the preface to the whole poem, the author says Allah alone knows how much labor it has cost him to collect the manuscripts necessary for his task, “scattered,” he adds, “as they were, all over Spain, and lost and hidden through fear of the Inquisition.”

The other work to which I refer is chiefly in prose, and is anonymous. Its author says he was driven from Spain in 1610, and was landed at Tunis with above three thousand of his unhappy countrymen, who, through the long abode of their race in a Christian land and under the fierce persecutions of the Inquisition, had not only so lost a knowledge of the rites and ceremonies of their religion, that it was necessary to indoctrinate them like children, but had so lost all proper knowledge of the Arabic, that it was necessary to do it through the Castilian. The Bashaw of Tunis, therefore, sent for the author, and commanded him to write a book in Castilian, for the instruction of these singular neophytes. He did so, and produced the present work, which he called “Mumin,” or the Believer in Allah; a word which he uses to signify a city populous and fortified, which is attacked by the Vices and defended by the Virtues of the Mohammedan religion, and in which one of the personages relates a history of his own life, adventures, and sufferings; all so given as to instruct, sometimes by direct precept and sometimes by example, the newly arrived Moriscos in their duties and faith. It is, of course, partly allegorical and romantic. Its air is often Arabic, and so is its style occasionally; but some of its scenes are between lovers at grated windows, as if in a Castilian city, and it is interspersed with Castilian poems by Montemayor, Góngora, and the Argensolas, with, perhaps, some by the author himself, who seems to have been a man of cultivation and of a gentle spirit. Of this manuscript I have eighty pages,—about a fifth of the whole.

Further notices on the Morisco-Spanish literature may be found in an account by the Orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy, of two manuscripts in France, like those just described (Ochoa, Manuscritos Españoles, 1844, pp. 6-21); but a more ample and satisfactory discussion of it occurs in a learned article in the British and Foreign Review, January, 1839.

It should be remembered that Morisco was substituted for Moro, after the overthrow of the Moorish power in Spain, as an expression of the contempt with which the Christian Spaniards have never ceased to pursue their old conquerors and hated enemies, from the time of the fall of Granada to the present day.

Encouraged by the expulsion of the Jews, in 1492, and by that of the Moors, in 1609-11, Don Sancho de Moncada, a professor in the University of Toledo, addressed Philip III., in a discourse published in 1619, urging that monarch to drive out the Gypsies. But he failed. His discourse is in Hidalgo, “Romances de Germania,” (Madrid, 1779, 8vo,) and is translated by Borrow, in his remarkable work on the Gypsies (London, 1841, 8vo, Vol. I. chap. xi.). Salazar de Mendoza, at the end of his “Dignidades de Castilla,” published in 1618, says he had himself prepared a memorial to the same effect, for driving out the Gypsies; and he adds, in a true Castilian spirit, that “it is being over-nice to tolerate such a pernicious and perverse race.”

[264] Comentario de la Guerra de España, por el Marques de San Phelipe, Genova, s. a., 4to, Tom. I. Lib. II., año 1701.

[265] Tapia, Hist. de la Civilizacion Española, Madrid, 1840, 12mo, Tom. III. p. 167.

[266] The details—disgusting enough—are given by L. F. Moratin, in the notes to his edition of the “Auto da Fé de Logroño, del Año 1610,” a work originally published for general edification, by one of the persons concerned in the auto itself, and certified to be true by others; but reprinted (Cadiz, 1812, 12mo) by Moratin, the comic poet, to show the ignorance and brutality of all who had a hand in it. There is a play on the subject by Gil y Zarate, 1837; but it does not respect the truth of history.

[267] Tapia, Hist. de la Civilizacion, Tom. III. p. 77 and p. 168. Sandoval, Hist., Tom. II. p. 657.

[268] Llorente, Hist., Tom. II., 1817, p. 239.

[269] Ibid., Tom. II. p. 385, Tom. IV. p. 3.

[270] Tapia, Hist., Tom. III. p. 88.

[271] One of the most remarkable books that can be consulted, to illustrate the character and feelings of all classes of society in Spain at the end of the seventeenth century, is the “Relacion,” etc., of this “Auto General” of 1680, published immediately afterwards at Madrid, by Joseph del Olmo, one of the persons who had been most busy in its arrangements. It is a small quarto of 308 pages, and gives, as if describing a magnificent theatrical pageant, the details of the scene, which began at seven o’clock in the morning of June 30th, and was not over till nine o’clock of the following morning, the king and queen sitting in their box or balcony, to witness it, fourteen hours of that time. Eighty-five grandees entered themselves as especial familiares, or servants, of the Holy Office, to do honor to the occasion; and the king sent from his own hand the first faggot to the accursed pile. The whole number of victims exhibited was one hundred and twenty, of whom twenty-one were burnt alive; but it does not appear that the royal party actually witnessed this portion of the atrocities. From the whole account, however, there can be no doubt that devout Spaniards generally regarded the exhibition with favor, and most of them with a much stronger feeling. Madame d’Aulnoy (Voyage, Tom. III. p. 154) had a description of the ceremonies intended for this auto da fé given to her, as if it were to be an honor to the monarchy, by one of the Counsellors of the Inquisition; but I think she left Madrid before it occurred.

[272] See the first of Doblado’s remarkable Letters, where he says, “You hear from the pulpit the duties that men owe to ‘both their Majesties’; and a foreigner is often surprised at the hopes expressed by Spaniards, that ‘his Majesty’ will be pleased to grant them life and health for some years more.” The Dict. of the Academy, 1736, verb. Magestad, illustrates this still further.

[273] Partida Segunda, Tit. XIII.

[274] Tapia, Hist., Tom. IV. p. 19.

[275] See the end of “El Segundo Scipion,” and that of “El Segundo Blason de Austria,” by Calderon; and the Dedication of his History to Charles II., by Solís, in which, with a slight touch of the affectations of cultismo, which Solís did not always avoid, he tells this “king of shreds and patches”: “I find, in the shadow of your Majesty, the splendor that is wanting in my own works.” In the same spirit, Lupercio de Argensola made the canonization of San Diego a sort of prophetical canonization of Philip II., in a cancion of no mean merit as a poem, but one that shocks all religious feeling, by recalling the apotheosis of the Roman emperors.

[276] Lord Mahon’s excellent “History of the War of the Succession in Spain” (London, 1832, 8vo) leaves the same general impression on the mind of the reader, as to the effect of that war on the Spanish character, that is left by the contemporary accounts of it. It is, no doubt, the true one.

[277] The Royal Library, now the National Library, at Madrid, which was strictly the earliest literary project of the reign of Philip V., was founded in 1711; but for several years it was an institution of little importance. El Bibliotecario y el Trovador, Madrid, 1841, folio, p. 3.

[278] “Historia de la Academia,” in the Preface to the “Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana, por la Real Academia Española,” Madrid, Tom. I. 1726, folio. Sempere y Guarinos, Biblioteca, 1785, Discurso Preliminar, and Tom. I. p. 55.

[279] Garcés, Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1791, 2 tom. 8vo, Prólogo to each volume. Mendoza used reluctantly such words as centinela, and Coloma introduced dique, etc., from his Dutch experience. Navarrete (Vida de Cervantes, pp. 163-169) and Garcés (loc. cit.) show the value of what Cervantes did, and Clemencin (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. V. pp. 99, 292, and 357) gives a list of the Latin, Italian, and other words used by Cervantes, but not always naturalized, on which, in various notes elsewhere, he seems to look with less favor than Garcés does. Quite as curious as either are the words, which Blasco (Universal Redencion, 1584) and Lopez Pinciano (El Pelayo, 1605) thought it necessary to put into vocabularies at the end of their respective poems, and to define for their readers, among which are fatal, natal, fugaz, gruta, abandonar, adular, anhelo, aplauso, arrojarse, assedio, etc.,—all now familiar Castilian.

[280] It is impossible to open the works of Count Villamediana, and the other followers of Góngora, without finding proofs of their willingness to change the language of Spanish literature; but there is a small and very imperfect list of the words and phrases these innovators favored, to be found in the “Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua Castellana,” by Vargas y Ponce, p. 150, which will at once illustrate their general purpose.

[281] There is an edition of the Tesoro of Covarrubias, by Benito Remigio Noydens, (Madrid, 1674, folio,) which is better and ampler than the original work.

[282] The “Ortografía de la Lengua Castellana,” (Mexico, 1609, 4to, ff. 83) is a pleasant and important treatise, which, as the novelist intimates, he began to write in Castile and finished in Mexico. It proposes to reverse the letter ↄ in order to express the soft ch as in mucho, to be printed muↄo; uses two forms of the letter r; writes the conjunction y always i, as Salvá now insists it should be; and claims j, ll, and ñ to be separate letters, as they have long been admitted to be.

In speaking of Aleman, I am reminded of his “San Antonio de Padua,” printed in 12mo, at Valencia, in 1607, ff. 309. It belongs to the same class of books with the “San Patricio” of Montalvan, (see, ante, Vol. II. p. 298,) but is more elaborate and more devout. The number of the Saint’s miracles that it records is very great. Whether he invented any of them for the occasion, I do not know; but they sometimes read as much like novelas as some of his stories in the “Guzman” do, and are always written in the same idiomatic and unadulterated Castilian. It is introduced by a cancion in honor of it by Lope de Vega; but I cannot find that it was ever reprinted;—why, it is difficult to say, for it is an uncommonly attractive book of its class.

[283] The difficulties in Castilian orthography are set forth in the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 47-65); but the ingenious author of that discussion is more severe than was necessary on Lebrixa. An anonymous writer of an excellent essay on the same subject, in the first volume of the Repertorio Americano, (Tom. I. p. 27,) is a great deal more judicious. But how unsettled much still remains in practice may be seen in the “Manual del Cajista, por José María Palacios,” Madrid, 1845, 18mo, where (pp. 134-154) is a “Prontuario de las Voces de dudosa Ortografía,” containing above 1800 words.

[284] Of Lebrixa’s Grammar I have already spoken, (Vol. I. p. 549,) and the memory of it was now so much revived that a counterfeit edition of it was published, about 1775, in small folio, hardly, I should judge from its appearance, with the intention of deceiving. But such things were not uncommon about that time, as Mendez says, who thinks the edition in question had been printed about twenty years when he published his work in 1796. (See Typog., p. 242.) It is, however, already so rare, that I obtained a copy of it with difficulty.

That of Gayoso was first printed at Madrid, in 1745, 12mo, and that of San Pedro in Valencia, 1769, 12mo, which last Gayoso, disguising himself under a sort of anagram, attacked, in his “Conversaciones Críticas, por Don Antonio Gobeyos,” (Madrid, 1780, 12mo,) where he shows that San Pedro was not so original as he ought to have been, but treats his Grammar with more harshness than it deserved. Salvá’s “Gramática de la Lengua Castellana como ahora se halla” was first printed in 1831, and the sixth edition appeared at Madrid in 1844, 12mo; a striking proof of the want of such a book.

[285] Gregorio Garcés, whose “Fundamento del Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua Castellana” was printed at Madrid, 1791, 2 tom. 8vo, was a Jesuit, and prepared this excellent work in exile at Ferrara, in which city he lived above thirty years, and from which he returned home in 1798, under the decree of Charles IV. abrogating that of his father for the expulsion of the Order from Spain, in 1767.

[286] See, ante, Part II. c. 5, and note, Vol. I. p. 537.

[287] For an account of these Academies, see Guarinos, “Biblioteca”; and for a notice of the origin of the Royal Academy of History, see the first volume of its Memoirs. The old Academias, in imitation of the Italian,—such as are ridiculed in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco IX.,—had much gone out of fashion and been displaced by the modern Tertulias, where both sexes meet, and which in their turn have been ridiculed in the Saynetes of Ramon de la Cruz and Castillo.

[288] There is an edition of the “Nuevo Mundo,” printed at Barcelona, 1701, 4to, containing many blanks, which the author announces his intention to fill up. Of the “Alfonso, ó la Fundacion del Reyno de Portugal,” there are editions of 1712, 1716, 1731, and 1737. There is a notice of the author—Francisco Botelho Moraes e Vasconcellos—in Barbosa, (Tom. II. p. 119,) and at the end of the edition of the Alfonso, Salamanca, 1731, 4to, is a defence of a few peculiarities in its orthography. “Las Cuevas de Salamanca” (s. l. 1734) is a small volume, divided into seven books, written, perhaps, at Salamanca itself, which Moraes loved, and where he retired in his old age. He published one or two works in Spanish, besides those already mentioned, and one or two in Latin, but no others of consequence.

[289] “Lima Fundada, Poema Heróico de Don Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo,” Lima, 1732, 4to, about 700 pages; but so ill paged that it is not easy to determine.

[290] “Santa Casilda, Poema en Octavas Reales, por el R. P. Fr. Pedro de Reynosa,” Madrid, 1727, 4to. It is in seven cantos, and each canto has a sort of codicil to it, affectedly called a Contrapunto.—“La Eloquencia del Silencio, Poema Heróico, por Miguel de la Reyna Zevallos,” Madrid, 1738, 4to. Of the mock-heroic poems mentioned in the text, one is “La Prosérpina, Poema Heróico, por D. Pedro Silvestre,” Madrid, 1721, 4to,—twelve mortal cantos. The other is “La Burromaquia,” which is better, but still not amusing. It is unfinished, and is found in the “Obras Póstumas de Gabriel Alvarez de Toledo.” The divisions are not called “Cantos,” but “Brayings.” I have seen very ridiculous extracts from a poem by Father Butron on Santa Teresa, printed in 1722, and from one on St. Jerome, by P. M. Lara, 1726, but I have never happened to fall in with the poems themselves, which seem to be as bad as any of their class.

[291] “Obras Poéticas Lýricas, por el Coronel D. Eugenio Gerardo Lobo,” Madrid, 1738, 4to.—“Poesías Lýricas, y Joco-Serias, su Autor D. Joseph Joachim Benegasi y Luxan,” Madrid, 1743, 4to.—Gab. Alvarez de Toledo, ut ante.—Antonio Muñoz, “Aventuras en Verso y en Prossa,” (sic,) no date, but licensed 1739.

[292] “Sagradas Flores del Parnaso, Consonancias Métricas de la bien Templada Lyra de Apolo, que á la reverente Católica Accion de haver ido accompañando sus Magestades el Ssmo Sacramento que iba á Darse por viatico á una Enferma el Dia 28 de Novembre, 1722, cantaron los mejores Cisnes de España,” 4to. I give the title of the first collection in full, as an indication of the bad taste of its contents. Both collections, taken together, make about 200 pages, and contain poems by about fifty authors, generally in the worst and most affected style,—the very dregs of Gongorism.

[293] The “Sátira contra los Malos Escritores de su Tiempo” is commonly attributed to José Gerardo de Herbas; but Tapia (Civilisacion, Tom. IV. p. 266) says it was written by José Cobo de la Torre, besides which it is inserted in the “Rebusco de las Obras Literarias de J. F. de Isla,” (Madrid, 1790, 12mo,) as if it were unquestionably Isla’s. It first appeared in the second edition of the sixth volume of the “Diario de los Literatos”;—the earliest periodical work in the spirit of modern criticism that was published in Spain, and one so much in advance of the age that it did not survive its second year, having been begun in 1737, and gone on one year and nine months, till it made seven small volumes. It was in vain that it was countenanced by the king, and favored by the leading persons at court. It was too large a work; it was a new thing, which Spaniards rarely like; and it was severe in its criticisms, so that the authors of the time generally took the field against it, and broke it down.

To the same period with the Satire of Pitillas belongs the poem on “Deucalion,” by Alonso Verdugo de Castilla, Count of Torrepalma. It is an imitation of Ovid, in about sixty octave stanzas, somewhat remarkable for its versification. But in a better period it would not be noticed.

[294] “Los Tobias, su Vida escrita en Octavas, por D. Vicente Bacallar y Sanna, Marques de San Phelipe,” etc., 4to, pp. 178, without date, but licensed 1709.—“Monarchia Hebrea,” Madrid, 1727, 2 tom. 4to.—“Comentarios de la Guerra de España hasta el Año 1725,” Genoa, no date, 2 tom. 4to. Of the last there is a poor continuation, bringing the history down to 1742, entitled, “Continuacion á los Comentarios, etc., por D. Joséph del Campo Raso,” Madrid, 1756-63, 2 tom. 4to.

[295] Pitillas, Sátira. Isla, Á los que degenerando del Carácter Español, afectan ser Estrangeros. Rebusco, p. 178.

[296] Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. V. p. 12, and Preface to the edition of Luzan’s Poética, by his son, 1789. His poetry has never been collected and published, but portions of it are found in Sedano, Quintana, etc. The octaves he recited at the opening of the Academy of Fine Arts, in 1752, and published at p. 21 of the “Abertura Solemne,” etc., printed in honor of the occasion (Madrid, folio); and the similar poems recited by him at a distribution of prizes by the same Academy, in 1754, and published in their “Relacion,” etc., (Madrid, folio, pp. 51-61,) prove rather the dignity of his social position than any thing else. Latassa gives a long account of his unpublished works.

[297] It is prefixed to the edition of Enzina’s Cancionero, 1496, folio, and, I suppose, to the other editions; and fills nine short chapters.

[298] “Arte Poética Española, su Autor Juan Diaz Rengifo,” Salamanca, 1592, 4to, enlarged, but not improved, in the editions of 1700, 1737, etc., by Joseph Vicens.

[299] “Philosophía Antigua Poética del Doctor Alonso Lopez Pinciano, Médico Cesareo,” Madrid, 1596, 4to.

[300] “Tablas Poéticas del Licenciado Francisco Cascales,” 1616. An edition of Madrid, 1779, 8vo, contains a Life of the author by Mayans y Siscar. Cascales is presumptuous enough to rearrange Horace’s “Ars Poetica” in what he regards as a better order.

[301] “Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua, ó Illustracion Ultima al libro Singular de Poética de Aristóteles, por Don Jusepe Ant. Gonçalez de Salas,” Madrid, 1633, 4to.

[302] Of the treatise of Argote de Molina, prefixed to his edition of the “Conde Lucanor,” 1575, and of the poem of Cueva, I have spoken (I. 507, II. 569). A small tract, called “Libro de Erudicion Poética,” published in the works of Luis Carrillo, 1611, and several of the epistles of Christóval de Mesa, 1618, might be added; but the last are of little consequence, and the tract of Carrillo is in very bad taste.

[303] Gracian has been noticed in this volume (p. 192). The “Epítome de la Eloquencia Española, por D. Francisco Joseph Artiga, olim Artieda,” was licensed in 1725, and contains above thirteen thousand lines;—a truly ridiculous book, but of some consequence as showing the taste of the age, especially in pulpit oratory.

[304] Blanco White (Life by Thom, 1845, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 21) says Luzan borrowed so freely from Muratori, “Della Perfetta Poesia,” that the Spanish treatise helped him (Mr. White) materially in learning to read the Italian one. But Luzan has not in fact copied from Muratori with the unjustifiable freedom this remark implies, though he has adopted Muratori’s general system, with abundant acknowledgment and references.

[305] The first edition of the “Poética” of Luzan was printed in folio at Saragossa, in 1737, with long and extraordinary certificates of approbation by Navarro and Gallinero, two of the author’s friends. The second edition, materially improved by additions from the manuscripts of Luzan, after his death, was printed at Madrid, in 2 tom. 8vo, in 1789. When the first edition appeared, it was much praised in the “Diario de los Literatos” (Tom. VII., 1738); but, as one of the reviewers, Juan de Iriarte, who wrote the latter part of the article, made a few exceptions to his general commendations, Luzan, who was more sensitive than he needed to be, replied in a small bitter tract, under the name of Iñigo de Lanuza, Pamplona, [1740,] 12mo, pp. 144, with cumbrous and learned notes by Colmenares, to whom the tract is dedicated.

[306] Cean Bermudez, Memorias de Jovellanos, Madrid, 1814, 12mo, cap. x. p. 221.

[307] Vida, Ascendencia, etc., del Doctor Diego de Torres Villaroel, Madrid, 1789, 4to;—an autobiography, written in the worst taste of the time, i. e. about 1743. He says of a treatise on the Sphere, by Padre Clavio: “Creo que fue la primera noticia que habia llegado á mis oidos de que habia ciencias matemáticas en el mundo.” (p. 34.)

[308] Doblado’s Letters, 1822, p. 113.

[309] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inq., Tom. II. p. 446. It may be deemed worthy of notice, that Oliver Goldsmith pays an appropriate tribute to the merits of Father Feyjoó, and relates an anecdote of his showing the people of a village through which he happened to pass that what they esteemed a miracle was, in truth, only a natural effect of reflected light; thus exposing himself to a summons from the Inquisition. (“The Bee,” No. III., Oct. 20, 1759, Miscellaneous Works, London, 1812, 8vo, Vol. IV. p. 193.) But after Feyjoó’s death, the Inquisition ordered only a trifling expurgation of his “Teatro Crítico,” in one passage. Index, 1790.

[310] The “Teatro Crítico” and “Cartas Eruditas y Curiosas,” with the discussions they provoked, fill fifteen and sometimes sixteen volumes. The edition of 1778 has a Life of Feyjoó prefixed to it, written by Campomanes, the distinguished minister of state under Charles III.; the same person who, on the nomination of Franklin, was made a member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. Clemencin says truly of Feyjoó, that “to his enlightened and religious mind is due the overthrow of many vulgar errors, and a great part of the progress in civilization made by Spain in the eighteenth century.” Note to Don Quixote, Tom. V., 1836, p. 35.

[311] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. IV., 1818, pp. 29, 43. The “Papel” of Macanaz is on the Index of the Inquisition, 1790.

[312] Mahon, War of the Succession, 1832, p. 180. Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV. p. 32. San Phelipe, Comentarios, Lib. XIV.

[313] Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. pp. 420, 424, Tom. IV. p. 31. The data of Llorente are not so precise as they ought to be, but any thing approaching his results is of most fearful import. In a pamphlet, however, printed in 1817, (as he declares in his Autobiography, p. 170,) he asserts that, between 1680 and 1808, there perished in the fires of the Inquisition fifteen hundred and seventy-eight persons, and that eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight more were subjected to degrading punishments, making a grand total of fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-four victims, of which the fifteen hundred and seventy-eight burnt alive must all have perished between 1680 and 1781, when, as we shall see in the next chapter, the last victim was immolated.

[314] Noticia del Viage de España hecha de Orden del Rey, por L. J. Velazquez, Madrid, 1765, 4to, passim. Llorente, Tom. IV. p. 51. Tapia, Tom. IV. p. 73.

[315] “El Pelayo, Poema de D. Alonso de Solís Folch de Cardona Rodriguez de las Varillas, Conde de Saldueña,” etc., (Madrid, 1754, 4to,) twelve cantos in octave stanzas, written in the most affected style.—Joseph Moraleja, “El Entretenido, Segunda Parte” (Madrid, 1741, 4to); a continuation of the Entretenido of Sanchez Tortoles, containing the amusements of a society of friends for four days; entremeses, stories, odds and ends of poetry, astronomical calculations, etc., a strange and absurd mixture. Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 81) has a life of the author. The “Noches Alegres” of Isidro Fr. Ortiz Gallardo de Villaroel, (Salamanca, 1758, 4to,) is a shorter book, and nearly all in verse. Both are worthless.

[316] Luzan, Arte Poética, ed. 1789, Tom. I. pp. xix., etc.

[317] Luis Joseph Velazquez, “Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana,” Málaga, 1754, 4to, pp. 175. J. A. Dieze, who was a Professor at Göttingen, and died in 1785, published a German translation of it in 1769, with copious and excellent notes, which more than double, not only the size of the original work, but its value. The Life of Velazquez, who was Marquis of Valdeflores, though he does not generally allude to his title in his printed works, is to be found in Sempere y Guarinos, Bib., Tom. VI. p. 139.

[318] Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, who wrote and edited a great many books in Latin and Spanish, was born in 1699, and died in 1782. His life and a list of his works may be made out from the united accounts of Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 324, and Fuster, Tom. II. p. 98.

[319] There was a severe answer made at once to Blas Nasarre, by Don Joseph Carrillo, entitled “Sin Razon impugnada,” 4to, 1750, pp. 25; besides which, his Preface was attacked by Don T. Zabaleta, in his “Discurso Crítico,” etc., (4to, 1750, pp. 258,) which is a general, loose defence of Lope and his school. But neither was needed. The theory of Nasarre was too absurd to win adherents.

[320] Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV. c. 15.

Many of the best materials for the state of culture in Spain, during the reign of Charles III., are to be found in the “Biblioteca de los Mejores Escritores del Reynado de Carlos III., por Juan Sempere y Guarinos,” Madrid, 1785-89, 6 tom. 8vo. When the author published it, he was about thirty-five years old, having been born in 1754; but he was afterwards much more distinguished as a political writer, by his “Observaciones sobre las Cortes,” (1810,) his “Historia de las Cortes,” (1815,) and other labors of the same kind. His first acknowledged work was a free translation, from Muratori, of an essay, with additions, which he printed at Madrid, in 1782, in 12mo, with the title, “Sobre el Buen Gusto,” and which he accompanied by an original tract, “Sobre el Buen Gusto actual de los Españoles en la Literatura,”—the last being afterwards prefixed, with alterations, to his “Biblioteca.” He was a diligent and useful writer, and died, I believe, in 1824. A small volume, containing notices of his life to the time when it appeared, probably derived from materials furnished by himself, was printed at Madrid, by Amarita, in 1821, 12mo.

[321] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. IV. Doblado’s Letters, 1822, Appendix to Letters III. and VII.

[322] Sempere y Guarinos, Bibliot., Tom. IV., Art. Planes de Estudios. Tapia, Tom. IV. c. 16. Llorente, Tom. IV. p. 270. The Marquis de Langle, in his “Voyage d’Espagne,” (s. l. 1785, 12mo, p. 45,) says the poor woman burnt at Seville was “jeune et belle.”

[323] Tapia, Tom. IV. pp. 124, etc. When the Emperor Charles V. came to the throne, Spain counted ten and a half millions of souls; at the time of the treaty of Utrecht, it counted but seven millions and a half; a monstrous falling off, if we consider the advancement of the rest of Europe during the same period.

[324] Vida de J. F. de Isla, por J. I. de Salas, Madrid, 1803, 12mo.

[325] Juventud Triunfante, Salamanca, 1727, 4to. Dia Grande de Navarra, 2a ed., Madrid, 1746, 4to. Semanario Pintoresco, 1840, p. 130.

[326] Vida de Isla, § 3. Sermones, Madrid, 1792-93, 6 tom. 8vo. Vulgar preaching in the streets was common as early as 1680, when Madame d’Aulnoy was in Spain. Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. II. p. 168.

[327] “Historia del Famoso Predicador, Fray Gerundio de Campazas,” Madrid, 1813, 4 tom. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 307. In the first edition, as well as in several other editions, it is said to be written by Francisco Lobon de Salazar, a name which has generally been supposed to be a fictitious one; but which is, in fact, that of a friend, who was a parish priest at Villagarcia, where Father Isla, who mentions him often in his letters, wrote his Friar Gerund.

[328] Cartas Familiares, 1790, Tom. VI. p. 313.

[329] Fray Gerundio, Tom. I. p. 309.

[330] Cartas Familiares, Tom. II. p. 170.

[331] Vida de Isla, p. 63. Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. p. 450. Cartas Familiares de Isla, Tom. II. pp. 168, etc., and Tom. III. p. 213. There are several amusing letters about Fray Gerundio in the second volume of the Cartas Familiares. The Inquisition (Index, 1790) not only forbade the work itself, but forbade any body to publish any thing for or against it.

[332] Watt, Bibliotheca, art. Isla. Wieland, Teutsche Merkur, 1773, Tom. III. p. 196. Baretti’s Proposals for Printing the Translation of Friar Gerund, prefixed to that work, London, 1772, 2 tom. 8vo.

[333] The autograph manuscript of “El Ciceron,” neatly written out in 219 folio pages, double columns, with the corrections of the author and the erasures of the censor, is in the Boston Athenæum. It is accompanied by three autograph letters of Father Isla; by the opinion of the censor, that the poem ought not to be published; and by an answer to that opinion;—the last two being anonymous. These curious and valuable manuscripts were procured in Madrid by E. Weston, Esq., and presented by him to the Library of the Athenæum, in 1844.

[334] The works alluded to are,—“El Mercurio General,” (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) being extracts from accounts claimed to have been written by Father Isla for that journal, in 1758, of the European events of the year, but not certainly his;—“Cartas de Juan de la Enzina,” (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) a satirical work on the follies of Spanish medicine;—“Cartas Familiares,” written between 1744 and 1781; published, 1785-86, also in a second edition, Madrid, 1790, 6 tom. 12mo;—“Coleccion de Papeles Crítico-Apologéticos,” (1788, 2 tom. 18mo,) in defence of Feyjoó;—“Sermones,” Madrid, 1792, 6 tom. 8vo;—“Rebusco,” etc., (Madrid, 1790, 18mo,) a collection of miscellanies, some of which are probably not by Father Isla;—“Los Aldeanos Críticos”; again in defence of Feyjoó;—and various papers in the Seminario Erudito, Tom. XVI., XX., and XXXIV., and in the supplementary volume of the “Fray Gerundio.” A poem, entitled “Sueño Político,” (Madrid, 1785, 18mo,) on the accession of Charles III., is also attributed to him; and so are “Cartas atrasadas del Parnaso,” a satire which is not supposed to have been written by him, though it reminds one sometimes of the “Ciceron.”

[335] “Aventuras de Gil Blas de Santillana, robadas á España, adoptadas en Francia por Mons. Le Sage, restituidas á su Patria y á su Lengua nativa, por un Español zeloso, que no sufre que se burlen de su Nacion,” Madrid, 1787, 6 tom. 8vo, and often since. Though in great poverty himself, Isla gave any profit that might come from his version of the Gil Blas to assist a poor Spanish knight.

[336] Another continuation of Gil Blas, less happy even than that of Father Isla, appeared, in 2 tom. 8vo, at Madrid, in 1792, entitled “Genealogia de Gil Blas, Continuacion de la Vida de este famoso Sujeto, por su Hijo Don Alfonso Blas de Liria.” Its author was Don Bernardo Maria de Calzada, a person who, a little earlier, had translated much from the French. (Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. VI. p. 231.) This work, too, the author declared to be a translation, and, like Isla, set forth on his title-page that it was “restored to the language in which it was originally written.” But the whole is a worthless fiction, title-page and all, though the attempt to make out for Gil Blas a clear and noble genealogy on the side of his mother must be admitted to be a truly Spanish fancy. (See Libros III. y IV.) The story is unfinished.

[337] Voltaire, Œuvres, ed. Beaumarchais, Tom. XX. p. 155. Le Sage, Œuvres, Paris, 1810, 8vo, Tom. I. p. xxxix., where Voltaire is said to have been attacked by Le Sage, in one of his dramas; besides which it is supposed Le Sage ridiculed him under the name of Triaquero, in Gil Blas, Lib. X. c. 5. But the most important and curious discussion concerning the authorship of Gil Blas is the one that was carried on, between 1818 and 1822, by François de Neufchâteau and Antonio de Llorente, the author of the History of the Inquisition. It began with a memoir, by the first, read to the French Academy, (1818,) and an edition of Gil Blas, (Paris, 1820, 3 tom. 8vo,) in both of which he maintains Le Sage to be the true author of that romance. To both Llorente replied by a counter memoir, addressed to the French Academy, and by his “Observations sur Gil Blas,” (Paris, 1822, 12mo,) and his “Observaciones sobre Gil Blas” (Madrid, 1822, 12mo); two works not exactly alike, but substantially so, and equally maintaining that Gil Blas is Spanish in its origin, and probably the work of Solís, the historian, who, as Llorente conjectures, wrote a romance in Spanish, entitled, “El Bachiller de Salamanca,” the manuscript of which coming into the possession of Le Sage, he first plundered from it the materials for his Gil Blas, which he published in 1715-35, and then gave the world the remainder as the “Bachelier de Salamanque,” in 1738. This theory of Llorente is explained, with more skill than is shown in its original framing, by the late accomplished scholar, Mr. A. H. Everett, in an article which first appeared in the North American Review, for October, 1827, when its author was Minister of the United States in Spain, and afterwards in his pleasant “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays,” published in Boston, 1845, 12mo.

[338] “Le Point d’Honneur” is from “No hay Amigo para Amigo,” which is the first play in the Comedias de Roxas, 1680;—and “Don Cesar Ursino” is from “Peor esta que estaba,” in Calderon, Comedias, 1763, Tom. III. The errors of Gil Blas in Spanish geography and history are constantly pointed out by Llorente as blunders of Le Sage in the careless use of his original; while, on the other hand, Fr. de Neufchâteau points out its allusions to Parisian society in the time of Le Sage. But of his free use of Spanish fictions, which he took no pains to conceal, the proof is abundant. I have already noticed, when speaking of Espinel, (ante, pp. 67-70,) how much Le Sage took from “Marcos de Obregon”; but, besides this, the adventures of Don Rafael with the Seigneur de Moyadas in Gil Blas (Lib. V. c. 1) are taken from “Los Empeños del Mentir” of Mendoza (Fenix Castellano, 1690, p. 254);—the story of the Marriage de Vengeance in Gil Blas (Lib. IV. c. 4) is from the play of Roxas, “Casarse por Vengarse”;—the story of Aurora de Guzman in Gil Blas (Lib. IV. c. 5 and 6) is from “Todo es enredos Amor,” by Diego de Córdoba y Figueroa;—and so on. See Tieck’s Vorrede to his translation of Marcos de Obregon (1827); Adolfo de Castro’s Poesías de Calderon y Plagios de Le Sage, (Cadiz, 1845, 18mo, a curious little pamphlet); and the fourth book of the same author’s “Conde Duque de Olivares” (Cadiz, 1846, 8vo). In his “Bachelier de Salamanque,” Le Sage goes one step further. On the title-page of this romance, first printed three years after the last volume of Gil Blas appeared, he says expressly, that “it is translated from a Spanish manuscript,” and yet the story of Doña Cintia de la Carrera, in the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth chapters, is taken from Moreto’s “Desden con el Desden”; a play as well known as any in Spanish literature.

[339] “Poesías de Don Vicente Garcia de la Huerta,” Madrid, 1778, 12mo, and a second edition, 1786. “La Perromachia,” a mock-heroic on the loves and quarrels of sundry dogs, by Francisco Nieto Molina, (Madrid, 1765, 12mo,) is too poor to deserve notice, though it is an attempt to give greater currency to the earlier national verse,—the redondillas.

[340] J. J. Lopez de Sedano, “Parnaso Español,” (Madrid, Sancha, 1768-78, 9 tom. 12mo,) was the subject, of a good deal of criticism soon after it appeared. The club of the elder Moratin—to be noticed immediately—was much dissatisfied with it (Obras Póstumas de N. F. Moratin, Londres, 1825, 12mo, p. xxv.);—Yriarte in 1778 printed a dialogue on it, “Donde las dan las toman,” full of severity (Obras, 1805, Tom. VI.);—and in 1785 Sedano replied, under the name of Juan Maria Chavero y Eslava de Ronda, in four volumes, 12mo, published at Málaga and called the “Colóquios de Espina.”

[341] T. A. Sanchez (born 1732, died 1798) published his “Poesías Anteriores al Siglo XV.” at Madrid, in 4 tom. 8vo, 1779-90, but printed very little else.

[342] Martin Sarmiento, “Memorias para la Historia de la Poesía y Poetas Españoles,” Madrid, 1775, 4to. He was born in 1692, and wrote a great deal, but published little. His defence of his master, Feyjoó, (1732,) generally goes with the “Teatro Crítico”; and some of his tracts are to be found in the Seminario Erudito, Tom. V., VI., XIX., and XX. His “Historia de la Poesía,” printed as the first volume of his Works, which were not further continued, is the more valuable, because, making his inquiries quite independently of Sanchez, he often comes to the same results.

[343] Besides the poems noted in the text, I have, by Moratin the elder, an Ode on account of an act of mercy and pardon by Charles III., in 1762, and the “Egloga á Velasco y Gonzalez,” printed on occasion of their portraits being placed in the Academy, in 1770; both of little consequence, but not, I believe, noticed elsewhere. His “Obras Póstumas” were printed at Barcelona, in 1821, 4to, and reprinted at London, in 1825, 12mo. Moratin’s “Carta Sobre las Fiestas de Toros,” (Madrid, 1777, 12mo,) which is a slight prose tract, is intended to prove historically that the amusement of bull-fighting is Spanish in its origin and character;—a point concerning which those who have read the Chronicles of Muntaner and the Cid can have little doubt. Moratin had the power of improvisating with great effect. Obras, 1825, pp. xxxiv.-xxxix.

[344] N. F. Moratin, Obras Póstumas, 1821, pp. xxiv.-xxxi.

[345] Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 21. Puybusque, Tom. II. p. 493. His name, I believe, was originally spelt Cadalso; but as that is a recognized word, meaning “scaffold,” it is softened in the recent Madrid editions of his Works into Cadahalso, which means “cottage” or “shanty.” Both these words, however, are regarded as one and the same, in the first edition of the Dictionary of the Academy, so that perhaps not much is gained by the change.

[346] His “Eruditos á la Violeta,” and his poetry, “Ocios de mi Juventud,” were printed at Madrid, 1772 and 1773, 4to, under the assumed name of Joseph Vasquez. An edition of his Works, with an excellent Life by Navarrete, appeared at Madrid, in 1818, in 3 tom. 12mo, and has been reprinted more than once since. For the contemporary opinion of Cadahalso, see Sempere, loc. cit.

[347] As a sort of counterpart to the poem on Music, by Yriarte, may be mentioned one of less merit, published soon afterwards by Don Diego Antonio Rejon de Silva, “La Pintura, Poema Didáctico en Tres Cantos,” (Segovia, 1786, 8vo,) the first canto being on Design, the second on Composition, and the third on Coloring, with notes and a defence of Spanish artists. He was a gentleman of Murcia, who indulged himself in poetry and painting as an amateur, but whose serious occupations were in the Office of Foreign Affairs at Madrid. He died about 1796. Sempere y Guarinos (Biblioteca, Tom. V. pp. 1-6) gives an account of his few and unimportant works, and Cean Bermudez (Diccionario, Tom. IV. p. 164) has a short notice of his life.

[348] Obras de Thomas de Yriarte, Madrid, 1805, 8 tom. 12mo. Villanueva, Memorias, Londres, 1825, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 27. Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. VI. p. 190. Llorente, Histoire, Tom. II. p. 449.

[349] Felix María de Samaniego, “Fábulas en Verso Castellano para el Uso del Real Seminario Vascongado,” Nueva York, 1826, 18mo. There is a Life of the author, by Navarrete, in the fourth volume of Quintana’s “Coleccion,” and a reply to his attack on Yriarte in the sixth volume of Yriarte’s Works. For an account of the “patriotic societies,” see Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. V. p. 135, and Tom. VI. p. 1.

[350] Parte II. Lib. II. Fab. 9. He gives, also, an expanded version of the same fable, but the shortest is much the best, Πλέον ἥμισυ παντός.

[351] A few words should be added, on each of these last five authors.

1. “Las Odas de Leon de Arroyal,” Madrid, 1784, 12mo. At the end are a few worthless Anacreontics by a lady, whose name is not given; and at the beginning is a truly Spanish definition of lyrical poetry, namely, that “whose verses can be properly played, sung, or danced.”

2. Pedro de Montengon, “Eusebio,” Madrid, 1786-87, 4 tom. 8vo. The first two volumes gave great offence by the absence of all injunctions to make religious instruction a part of education; and, though the remaining two made up for this deficiency, there is reason to believe that Montengon intended originally to follow the theory of the “Emile.” “El Antenor” (Madrid, 1788, 2 tom. 8vo) is a prose poem on the tradition of the founding of Padua by the Trojans. “El Rodrigo” (Madrid, 1793, 8vo) is another prose epic, in one volume and twelve books, on the “Last of the Goths.” “Eudoxia,” Madrid, 1793, 8vo; again, a work on education; but on the education of women. “Odas,” Madrid, 1794, 8vo; very poor. Montengon, of whom these are not all the works, was born at Alicante, in 1745, and was alive in 1815. He was very young when he entered the Church, and lived chiefly at Naples, where he threw off his ecclesiastical robes and devoted himself to secular occupations.

3. Francisco Gregorio de Salas, “Coleccion de Epigramas,” etc., 1792, 4th edition, Madrid, 1797, 2 tom. 12mo. His “Observatorio Rústico” (1770, tenth edition 1830) is a long dull eclogue, divided into six parts, which has enjoyed an unreasonable popularity. L. F. Moratin (Obras, 1830, Tom. IV. pp. 287 and 351) gives an epitaph for Salas, with a pleasing prose account of his personal character, which he well says was much more interesting than his poetry; and Sempere (Biblioteca, Tom. V. pp. 69, etc.) gives a list of his works, all of which, I believe, are in the collection printed at Madrid in 1797, ut sup. A small volume entitled “Parabolas Morales,” etc., (Madrid, 1803, 12mo,) consisting of prose apologues, somewhat better than any thing of Salas that preceded it, is, I suppose, later, and probably the last of his works.

4. Ignacio de Meras, “Obras Poéticas,” (Madrid, 1797, 2 tom. 12mo,) contain a stiff tragedy, called “Teonea,” in blank verse, and within the rules; a comedy called “The Ward of Madrid,” in the old figuron style, but burlesque and dull; an epic canto on “The Conquest of Minorca,” in 1782, to imitate Moratin’s “Ships of Cortés”; a poem “On the Death of Barbarossa, in 1518”; and a number of sonnets and odes, some of the last of which should rather be called ballads, and some of them satires;—the whole very meagre.

5. Gaspar de Noroña, whose family was of Portuguese origin, was bred a soldier and served at the siege of Gibraltar, where he wrote an elegy on the death of Cadahalso (Poesías de Noroña, Madrid, 1799-1800, 2 tom. 12mo, Tom. II. p. 190). He rose in the army to be a lieutenant-general, and, while holding that rank, published his Ode on the Peace of 1795, (Tom. I. p. 172,) by which he was first publicly known as a poet, and which, except, perhaps, a few of his shorter and lighter poems, is the best of his works. Afterwards he was sent as ambassador to Russia, but returned to defend his country when it was invaded by the French, and was made governor of Cadiz. He died in 1815, (Fuster, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 381,) and in 1816 his epic, entitled “Ommiada,” was published at Madrid, in two volumes, 12mo, containing above fifteen thousand verses; as dull, perhaps, as any of the similar poems that abound in Spanish literature, but less offensive to good taste than most of them. In 1833, there appeared at Paris his “Poesías Asiáticas puestas en Verso Castellano,” translations from the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, made, as he says in the Preface, to give him poetical materials for his epic. His “Quicaida,” a heroi-comic poem, in eight cantos, filled with parodies, is very tedious. It is in his Poesías, printed in 1800.

[352] Considerable improvement took place at Salamanca in some departments of study while Melendez was there. But still things remained in a very torpid state.

[353] Whether the “Caida de Luzbel” was written because a prize was offered by the Spanish Academy, in 1785, for a poem on that subject, which was to consist of not more than one hundred octave stanzas, I do not know; but I have a poor attempt with the same title, professing to be the work of Manuel Perez Valderrabano, (Palencia, 1786, 12mo,) and to have been written for such a prize, to all the conditions of which the poem of Melendez seems conformed. No adjudication of the prize, however, took place.

[354] The death of Melendez was supposed by his physician to have been occasioned by the vegetable diet to which he was driven, for want of means to purchase food more substantial; and, from the same poverty, his burial was so obscure that the Duke of Frias and the poet Juan Nicasio Gallego with difficulty discovered his remains, in 1828, and caused them to be respectfully interred, in one of the principal cemeteries of Montpellier, with an appropriate monument to mark the spot. Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, pp. 331-333; a striking and sad history.

[355] Juan Melendez Valdes, “Poesías,” Madrid, 1785, 12mo; 1797, 3 tom. 18mo; 1820, 4 tom. 8vo; the last with a Life, by Quintana. (Puybusque, Tom. II. p. 496.) I have seen it stated, that three counterfeit editions of the first small volume, printed in 1785, appeared almost at the same time with the true one; so great was the first outbreak of his popularity. The first volume of Hermosilla (Juicio Crítico de los Principales Poetas Españoles de la Ultima Era, Paris, 1840, 2 tom. 12mo) contains a criticism of the poems of Melendez, so severe that I find it difficult to explain its motive. The judgment of Martinez de la Rosa, in the notes to his didactic poem on Poetry, is much more faithful and true. Melendez corrected his verse with great care; sometimes with too much, as may be seen by comparing some of the poems as he first published them, in 1785, with their last revision, in the edition of his Works, 1820.

[356] “Poesías de M. T. Diego de Gonzalez,” Madrid, 1812, 12mo. He was a native of Ciudad Rodrigo, and was born in 1733. If he had been a little less modest, and a little less connected with Jovellanos and Melendez, we might have had a modern school of Seville as well as of Salamanca.

[357] Juan Pablo Forner, “Oracion Apologética por la España y su Mérito Literario,” Madrid, 1786, 12mo. His critical controversies and discussions were chiefly under assumed names,—Tomé Cecial, Varas, Bartolo, etc. His poetry is best found in the “Biblioteca” of Mendibil y Silvela, (Burdeos, 1819, 4 tom. 8vo,) and in the fourth volume of Quintana’s “Poesías Selectas”;—an attempt to publish a collection of all his works, edited by Luis Villanueva, having stopped after issuing the first volume, Madrid, 1843, 8vo.

[358] “Poesías de Don Josef Iglesias de la Casa,” Salamanca, 1798, 2 tom. 18mo, Segunda Edicion; forbidden by the Inquisition, Index Expurg., 1805, p. 27. The best editions are those of Barcelona, 1820, and Paris, 1821; but there are several others, and among them one in four small volumes, 1840, the last of which contains a considerable number of poems not before published, some of which, and perhaps all, are not by Iglesias.

[359] “Obras Poéticas de Nicasio Alvarez de Cienfuegos,” Madrid, 1816, 2 tom. 12mo. His style is complained of, both for neologisms and archaisms, the last of which have been made, though without sufficient reason, a ground of complaint against Melendez.

[360] “Coleccion de las Obras de Don Gaspar Melchior de Jovellanos,” Madrid, 1830-32, 7 tom. 8vo. A declamatory prose satire on the state of Spain in the time of Charles IV., supposed to have been delivered in the Amphitheatre of Madrid, in 1796, has been attributed to Jovellanos. It is entitled “Pan y Toros,” or Bread and Bull-fights, from the old Roman cry of “Panem et Circenses,” and was suppressed as soon as it was published, but has often been printed since. Among other distinctions, it enjoyed the singular one of being translated and privately printed, in 1813, on board a British man-of-war, stationed in the Mediterranean. But it is not the work of Jovellanos, though it has almost always borne his name on the successive editions. Jovellanos was familiar with English literature, and translated the first book of the “Paradise Lost,” but not very successfully. For notices of him, see Memorias de Jovellanos, por Don Agustin Cean Bermudez, Madrid, 1814, 12mo; the Life at the end of his collected Works; Lord Holland’s Life of Lope de Vega, 1817, Tom. II., where is a beautiful tribute to him, worthy of Mr. Fox’s nephew; and Llorente, Tom. II. p. 540, and Tom. IV. p. 122, where are recorded some of his shameful persecutions. The name of Jovellanos is sometimes written Jove Llanos; and, I believe, was always so written by his ancestors.

[361] “Historia del Nuevo Mundo, por Don Juan Bautista Muñoz,” Madrid, 1793, small folio. Fuster, Bib., Tom. II. p. 191. Memorias de la Acad. de la Historia, Tom. I. p. lxv. The eulogy of Lebrixa, by Muñoz, in the third volume of the Memoirs of the Academy, a defence of his History, and two or three Latin treatises, are all that I know of his works, except the History.

[362] “Mexico Conquistada, Poema Heróico, por Don Juan de Escoiquiz,” Madrid, 1798, 3 tom. 8vo. A still more unhappy epic attempt on the subject of the Conquest of Mexico preceded that of Escoiquiz by about forty years. It was by Francisco Ruiz de Leon, and is entitled “La Hernandia, Triunfos de la Fé” (Madrid, 1755, 4to); a poem making nearly four hundred pages, and sixteen hundred octave stanzas.

[363] “Obras de L. F. Moratin,” Madrid, 1830-31, four vols. 8vo, divided into six, prepared by himself, and published by the Academy of History after his death. His Life is in Vol. I., and his miscellaneous poems are in the last volume, where the remarks on the Prince of the Peace occur, at p. 335, and a notice of his relations with Conti at p. 342. An unreasonably laudatory criticism of his works is to be found in the first volume of Hermosilla’s “Juicio.”

[364] “Poesías de M. J. Quintana,” Madrid, 1821, 2 tom. 8vo. The lyrical portion has been often reprinted since 1802, when the first collection of his Poems appeared at Madrid, in a thin beautiful volume of only 170 pages, 12mo. His life is in Wolf’s excellent Floresta, in Ochoa, Ferrer del Rio, etc.

[365] Montiano y Luyando, Discurso de la Tragedia, Madrid, 1750, 12mo, p. 66.

[366] He says, near the end, that his purpose was “to show how plays are written in the French style.” Plays arising from the circumstances of the times, and more in the forms and character of the preceding century, were sometimes represented, but soon forgotten. Of these, two may be mentioned as curious. The first is called, like one of Lope’s, “Sueños hay que son Verdades,” an anonymous drama, beginning with a dream of the king of Portugal and ending with its partial fulfilment in the capture of Monsanto, by the forces of Philip V., in 1704. The other is by Rodrigo Pero de Urrutia, entitled “Rey decretado en Cielo,” and covers a space of above six years, from the annunciation by Louis XIV. to the Duke of Anjou, in the first scene, that the will of Charles II. had made him king of Spain, down to the victory of Almansa, in 1707, which is its catastrophe. Both are of no value, and represent fairly, I believe, the merit of the few historical plays produced in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in Spain.

[367] Accounts of the theatre during this sort of interregnum, from about 1700 to about 1790, are found in Signorelli (Storia Critica dei Teatri, Napoli, 1813, 8vo, Tom IX. pp. 56-236); L. F. Moratin (Obras, 1830, Tom. II. Parte I., Prólogo); and four papers by Blanco White (in Vols. X. and XI. of the New Monthly Magazine, London, 1824). The facts and opinions in Signorelli are important, because from 1765 to 1783 he lived in Madrid, (Storia, Tom. IX. p. 189,) and belonged to the club of the Fonda de San Sebastian, noticed, ante, p. 274, several of whose members were dramatic writers, and one of the standing subjects for whose discussions was the theatre. Obras Póstumas de N. F. Moratin, Londres, 1825, p. xxiv.

[368] L. F. Moratin, Prólogo, ut sup.; and Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, 1802, Tom. I. p. 264.

[369] “Alegría Cómica,” (Zaragoza, Tom. I., 1700, Tom. II., 1702,) and “Cómico Festejo,” (Madrid, 1742,) are three small volumes of entremeses, by Francisco de Castro; the last being published after the author’s death. They are not entirely without wit, regarded as caricatures; but they are coarse, and, in general, worthless.

[370] Thomas de Añorbe y Corregel published his “Virtud vence al Destino” in Madrid, 1735, and his “Paolino” in 1740. He calls himself “Capellan del Real Monasterio de la Incarnacion” on the title of the first of these plays, and inserts two absurd entremeses of his own composition between its acts.

[371] “Discurso sobre las Comedias Españolas de Don Agustin de Montiano y Luyando,” Madrid, 1750, 12mo; Discurso Segundo, Madrid, 1753, 12mo. They were translated into French by Hermilly, and an account of them and their author is given in Lessing’s Werke, (Berlin, 1794, 18mo, Band XXIII. p. 95,) where we learn, that Montiano was born in 1697, and that he published, in 1729, “El Robo de Dina,” which seems to have been so much in the tone of a play with the same title, in the seventeenth volume of Lope de Vega’s “Comedias,” that I cannot help thinking Montiano, following the fashion of Cañizares and the other plunderers of the time, was indebted largely to his great predecessor, the enemy of whose reputation he afterwards became. The story of Athaulpho is from the Corónica General, Parte II. c. 22. The “Virginia,” both in its attempt to exhibit Roman manners and in its poetical power, suffers severely when compared with Alfieri’s tragedy on the same subject. But the truth is, Montiano was a slavish imitator of the French school, which he admired so much as to be unable to comprehend and feel what was best in his own Castilian. In the “Aprobacion,” which he prefixed to the edition of Avellaneda, published in 1732, he says, comparing the second part of Don Quixote, by this pretender, with the true one by Cervantes,—“I think no man of judgment will give an opinion in favor of Cervantes, if he compares the two parts together.”

[372] “La Razon contra la Moda” (Madrid, 12mo, 1751) appeared without the name of the translator, and contains a modest defence of the French rules, in the form of a Dedication to the Marchioness of Sarria. Utility is much insisted upon; and the immorality of the elder drama is vigorously, but covertly, attacked.

[373] I know the plays of Moratin, the elder, only in the pamphlets in which they were originally published, and I believe they have never been collected. The “Don Sancho Garcia” was first printed in 1771, with the name of Juan del Valle, and in 1804 with the name of its author, accompanied the last time by some unfortunate prose imitations of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” and other miscellanies, which follow it into the third volume of their author’s works, 1818. Latre’s rifacimenti are printed in a somewhat showy style, probably at the expense of the minister of state, Aranda, under the title of “Ensayo sobre el Teatro Español,” Madrid, 1773, small folio. Latassa (Bib. Nueva, Tom. V. p. 513) gives some account of their author, who died in 1792. The “Anzuelo de Fenisa” and the “Estrella de Sevilla,” as set to the three unities by Trigueros, were printed both in Madrid and London. Of the last person, Candido M. Trigueros, it may be added, that he enjoyed a transient reputation in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and that his principal work, “La Riada,” in four cantos of irregular verse, (Sevilla, 1784, 8vo,) on a disastrous inundation of Seville that had just occurred, was demolished by a letter of Vargas, and a satirical tract which Forner published under the name of Antonio Varas. I do not know when he died, but an account of most of his life and many of his works may be found in the Biblioteca of Sempere y Guarinos, Tom. VI.

[374] The “Obras de Yriarte” (Madrid, 1805, 8 tom. 12mo) contain all his plays, except the first one, written when he was only eighteen years old, and called “Hacer que Hacemos,” or Much Cry and Little Wool. The play of Melendez Valdes is in the second volume of his Works, 1797.

[375] Ayala’s tragedy has been often printed. The “Raquel” is in Huerta’s Works, (Tom. I., 1786,) with his translations of the “Electra” of Sophocles, and the “Zaïre” of Voltaire. The original edition of the Raquel is anonymous, and without date or place of publication.

[376] I have the eighth edition of the “Delinquente Honrado,” 1803; still printed without its author’s name. It was so popular that it was several times published surreptitiously, from notes taken in the theatre, and was once turned into bad verse, before Jovellanos permitted it to appear from his own manuscript. (See Vol. VII. of his Works, edited by Cañedo.) It is somewhat singular, that, just about the time the “Delinquente Honrado” appeared in Spain, Fenouillet published in France a play, yet found in the “Théatre du Second Ordre,” with the exactly corresponding title of “L’Honnête Criminel.” But there is no resemblance in the plots of the two pieces.

[377] “Desengaño al Teatro Español,” three tracts, s. l. 12mo., pp. 80. Huerta, Escena Española Defendida, Madrid, 1786, 12mo, p. xliii. How long autos maintained their place in Spain may be seen from the fact, that very few are forbidden in the amplest Index Expurgatorius,—that of 1667, (p. 84,)—and that those few are, I believe, all Portuguese.

[378] Ramon de la Cruz y Cano, Teatro, Madrid, 1786-91, 10 tom. 12mo, Tom. IX. p. 3.

[379] L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. II. Parte I., Prólogo.

[380] Teatro de Don Ramon de la Cruz. In the Preface, he replies to Signorelli, who, in the seventh chapter of the ninth book of his “Storia dei Teatri,” makes a rude attack upon him, chiefly for sundry translations, which La Cruz does not seem to have printed. The “Coleccion de Sainetes tanto impresos como inéditos de Don Ramon de la Cruz, con un Discurso Preliminar de Don Agustin Duran,” etc., was printed at Madrid in 1843, 2 tom. 8vo. A notice of the life of the author is in Baena, Hijos, etc., Tom. IV., p. 280.

At about the same time that Ramon de la Cruz was amusing the society of Madrid with his popular dramas and farces, Juan Ignacio Gonzalez del Castillo was equally successful in the same way at Cadiz. He was, however, little known beyond the limits of Andalusia till 1845, when Don Adolfo de Castro published, in his native city, a collection of his “Saynetes,” filling two volumes, 12mo. In the variety of their tone, in their faithfulness to the national manners, and in the gayety of their satire, they resemble those of La Cruz; but they are a little more carefully finished than his, and somewhat less rich and genial.

[381] Obras de Cienfuegos, Madrid, 1798, 2 tom. 12mo;—the only edition published by himself.

[382] Vicente Garcia de la Huerta was born in 1734, and died in 1787. A notice of his life, which was not without literary and social success,—though much disturbed by a period of exile and disgrace,—is to be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, (1842, p. 305,) and some intimation of the various literary quarrels in which he was engaged with his contemporaries may be seen in the next note. His general character is not ill summed up in the following epitaph on him, said to have been written by Yriarte, one of his opponents, which should be read, recollecting that Saragossa was famous for a hospital for the insane,—the mad-house that figures so largely in Avellaneda’s “Don Quixote.”

De juicio sí; mas no de ingenio escaso,

Aqui Huerta el audaz descanso goza;

Deja un puesto vacante en el Parnaso,

Y una jaula vacia en Zaragoza.

In judgment,—yes,—but not in genius weak,

Here fierce Huerta tranquil sleeps and well;

A vacant post upon Parnassus leaves,

In Saragossa, too, an empty cell.

[383] Don Jaime Doms attacked Montiano in a Letter, without date or name of place or printer, and was answered by Domingo Luis de Guevara in three Letters, (Madrid, 1753, 18mo,) to which a rejoinder by Faustino de Quevedo appeared at Salamanca in 1754, 18mo;—all the names being pseudonymes, and all the discussions more angry than wise. The publication of the “Teatro” of La Huerta excited still more discussion. He himself speaks (Escena Hespañola Defendida, Madrid, 1786, 12mo, p. cliii.) of the “enorme número de folletos” that appeared in reply to his “Prólogo,” many of which were probably only circulated in manuscript, according to the fashion of the times, while others, like those of Cosme Damian, Tomé Cecial (i. e. J. P. Forner), etc., were printed in 1786, and La Huerta replied to them in his angry “Leccion Crítica” of the same year. (Sempere, Bib., Tom. III. p. 88.) The whole of this period of Spanish literature is filled with the quarrels of Sedano, Forner, Huerta, Yriarte, and their friends and rivals.

[384] The popularity of Antonio Valladares de Sotomayor, of Gaspar Zavala y Zamora, and of Luciano Francisco Comella, did not last long enough to cause their works to be collected. But I have many separate plays of each of them, and of other forgotten authors of this period, such as Luis Moncin, Vicente Rodriguez de Arellano, José Concha, etc. Of Comella alone I have thirty, and I am ashamed to say how many of them I have read for the pleasure their mere stories gave me.

[385] Obras Póstumas de N. F. Moratin, 1825, p. xvi.

[386] From a letter of Moratin, published in the Semanario Pintoresco, (1844, p. 43,) it seems that Comella and his friends prevented for some time the representation of the “Comedia Nueva,” and that the permission to act it was not granted till it had undergone five different examinations, and not till the very day for which it had been announced was come. The applause of the public, however, made amends to Moratin for the trouble which the intrigues of his rivals and enemies had given him.

[387] Every thing relating to Moratin the younger is to be found in the excellent edition of his Works, published by the Academy of History. Larra (Obras, Madrid, 1843, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 183-187) intimates that the “Mogigata” had been proscribed anew, and that the “Sí de las Niñas” had been mutilated, but that both were brought out again, in their original form, about 1838.

[388] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. II. p. 41. Signorelli, Storia, Lib. IX. cap. 8. R. Cumberland (Memoirs of Himself, London, 1807, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 107) speaks of the Tirana as “at the very summit of her art,” and adds that on one occasion, when he was present, her tragic powers proved too much for the audience, at whose cries the curtain was lowered before the piece was ended. Maiquez was the friend of Blanco White, of Moratin the younger, etc. (New Monthly Mag., Tom. XI. p. 187, and L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. IV. p. 345). His best character was that of Garcia de Castañar, in Roxas, which I have seen him play with admirable power and effect.

[389] The war between the Church and the theatre was kept up during the whole of the eighteenth century, and till the end of the reign of Ferdinand VII., in the nineteenth. Not that plays were at any time forbidden effectually throughout the kingdom, or silenced in the capital, except during some short period of national anxiety or mourning; but that, at different intervals,—and especially about the year 1748, when, in consequence of earthquakes at Valencia, and under the influence of the Archbishop of that city, its theatre was closed, and remained so for twelve years, (Luis Lamarca, Teatro de Valencia, Valencia, 1840, 12mo, pp. 32-36,) and about the year 1754, when Father Calatayud preached as a missionary and published a book against plays,—there was great excitement on the subject in the provinces. Ferdinand VI. issued severe decrees for their regulation, which were little respected, and in different cities and dioceses, like Lérida, Palencia, Calahorra, Saragossa, Alicant, Córdova, etc., they were from time to time, and as late as 1807, under ecclesiastical influence, and, with the assent of the people, suppressed, and the theatres shut up. In Murcia, where they seem to have been prohibited from 1734 to 1789, and then permitted again, the religious authorities openly resisted their restoration, and not only denied the sacraments to actors, but endeavoured to deprive them of the enjoyment of some of the common rights of subjects, such as that of receiving testamentary legacies. This, however, was an anomalous and absurd state of things, making what was tolerated as harmless in the capital of the kingdom a sin or a crime in the provinces. It was a sort of war of the outposts, carried on after the citadel had been surrendered. Still it had its effect, and its influence continued to be felt till a new order of things was introduced into the state generally. Many singular facts in relation to it may be found scattered through a very ill-arranged book, written apparently by an ecclesiastic of Murcia, in two volumes quarto, at different times between 1789 and 1814, in which last year it was published there, with the title of “Pantoja, ó Resolucion Histórica, Teológica de un Caso Prático de Moral sobre Comédias”;—Pantoja being the name of a lady, real or pretended, who had asked questions of conscience concerning the lawfulness of plays, and who received her answers in this clumsy way.

The state of the theatre, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, can be well seen in the “Teatro Nuevo Español,” (Madrid, 1800-1, 5 tom. 12mo,) filled with the plays, original and translated, that were then in fashion. It contains a list of such as were forbidden; imperfect, but still embracing between five and six hundred, among which are Calderon’s “Life is a Dream,” Alarcon’s “Weaver of Segovia,” and many more of the best dramas of the old school. Duran, in a note to his Preface to Ramon de la Cruz, (Tom. I. p. v.,) intimates that this ostracism was in some degree the result of the influence of those who sustained the French doctrines.

The number of plays acted or published between 1700 and 1825, if not to be compared with that of the corresponding period preceding 1700, is still large. I think that, in the list given by Moratin, there are about fourteen hundred; nearly all after 1750.

[390] The last Index Expurgatorius is that of Madrid, 1790, (4to, pp. 305,) to which should be added a Supplement of 55 pages, dated 1805; both very meagre, compared with the vast folios of the two preceding centuries, of which that of 1667 fills, with its Supplement, above 1200 pages. But the last of the race is as bitter as its predecessors, and, by the great number of French books it includes, shows the quarter from which danger was chiefly apprehended. To prevent any of this class from escaping, it is ordered that “all papers, tracts, and books, on the disturbances in France, which can inspire a spirit of seduction, shall be delivered to some servant of the Holy Office.” Supplement of 1805, p. 3. Burke’s “Reflections” are forbidden in the same Index.

[391] One of the most odious of the acts that marked the restoration of Ferdinand VII. related to the war of the Comuneros, nearly three centuries before. After the execution of Juan de Padilla and the exile of his noble wife, in 1521, their house was razed to the ground, and an inscription reproachful to their memory placed on the spot where it had stood. This the Cortes removed, and erected in its stead a simple monument in honor of the martyrs. In 1823, Ferdinand ordered the simple monument of the Cortes to be destroyed, and replaced the old inscription! But, since that time, Martinez de la Rosa has erected a nobler monument to their memory in his “Viuda de Padilla.” See Henri Ternaux, Les Comuneros, Paris, 1834, 8vo, p. 208; an interesting work and a work of authority, relying, in part, on unpublished materials.

[392] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. IV. pp. 145-154. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War, London, 1823, 4to, Tom. I. The Inquisition was again abolished by the revolution or change of 1820, and when the counterchange came, in 1823, failed to find its place in the restored order of things. It may be hoped, therefore, that this most odious of the institutions, that have sheltered themselves under the abused name of Christianity, will never again darken the history of Spain.

[393] This movement, so honorable to the Spanish character, can be seen in the “Ocios de Españoles Emigrados,” a Spanish periodical work, full of talent and national feeling, published at London, in 7 vols. 8vo, between April, 1824, and October, 1827, by the exiles, who were then chiefly gathered in the capitals of France and England.

[394] Spain, Espagne, España, Hispania, are evidently all one word. Its etymology cannot, in the opinion of W. von Humboldt, (Prüfung der Untersuchungen über die Urbewohner Hispaniens, 4to, 1821, p. 60,) be determined. The Spanish writers are full of the most absurd conjectures on the subject. See Aldrete, Orígen de la Lengua Castellana, ed. 1674, Lib. III. c. 2, f. 68; Mariana, Hist., Lib. I. c. 12; and Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, ed. 1776, Lib. IV., p. 295.

[395] On the subject of the Biscayans and the descent of their language from the ancient Iberian, two references are sufficient for the present purpose. First, “Über die Cantabrische oder Baskische Sprache,” by Wilhelm von Humboldt, published as an Appendix to Adelung and Vater’s “Mithridates,” Theil IV., 1817, 8vo, pp. 275-360. And, second, “Prüfung der Untersuchungen über die Urbewohner Hispaniens vermittelst der Vaskischen Sprache,” etc., von W. von Humboldt, 4to, Berlin, 1821. The admirable learning, philosophy, and acuteness which this remarkable man brought to all his philological discussions are apparent in these treatises, both of which are rendered singularly satisfactory by the circumstance, that, being for some time Prussian Minister at Madrid, he visited Biscay and studied its language on the spot. The oldest fragment of Basque poetry which he found, and which is given in the “Mithridates,” (Theil IV. pp. 354-356,) is held by the learned of Biscay to be nearly or quite as old as the time of Augustus, to whose Cantabrian war it refers; but this can hardly be admitted, though it is no doubt earlier than any thing else we have of the Peninsular literature. It is an important document, and is examined with his accustomed learning and acuteness by Fauriel, “Hist. de la Gaule Méridionale,” 1836, 8vo, Tom. II. App. iii. I do not speak of a pleasant treatise, “De la Antiguedad y Universalidad del Bascuense en España,” which Larramendi published in 1728, nor of the Preface and Appendix to his “Arte de la Lengua Bascongada,” 1729; nor of Astarloa’s “Apologia,” 1803; nor of Erro’s “Lengua Primitiva,” 1806, and his “Mundo Primitivo,” an unfinished work, 1815; for they all lack judgment and precision. If, however, any person is anxious to ascertain their contents, a good abstract of the last two books, with sufficient reference to the first, was published in Boston, by Mr. G. Waldo Erving, formerly American Minister at Madrid, with a preface and notes, under the title of “The Alphabet of the Primitive Language of Spain,” 1829. But Humboldt is to be considered the safe and sufficient authority on the whole subject, for though Astarloa’s work is not without learning and acuteness, yet, as both he and his follower, Erro, labor chiefly to prove, as Larramendi had done long before, that the Basque is the original language of the whole human race, they are led into a great many whimsical absurdities, and must be considered, on the whole, any thing but safe guides.

[396] The remarkable passage in Diodorus Siculus, Bib. Hist., Lib. V. c. 33, is well known; but the phraseology should be noted for our purpose when he speaks of the union of the people as δυοῖν ἐθνῶν ἀλκίμων μιχθέντων. The fortieth section of Humboldt’s “Prüfung” should also be read; and the beginning of the Third Book of Strabo, in which he gives, as usual, a good deal that is curious about history and manners, as well as geography, and a good deal that is incredible, such as that the Turdetani had poetry and poetical laws six thousand years old. Ed. Casaub., 1720, p. 139. C.

[397] In speaking of the two earliest languages of the Spanish Peninsula, I have confined myself to the known facts of the case, without entering into the curious speculations to which these facts have led inquisitive and philosophical minds. But those who are interested in such inquiries will find abundant materials for their study in the remarkable “Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, by Dr. J. C. Prichard,” 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1836-47; and in the acute “Report” of the Chevalier Bunsen to the Seventeenth Meeting of the British Association, London, 1848, pp. 254-299. If we follow their theories, the Basque may be regarded as the language of a race that came originally from the northern parts of Asia and Europe, and to which Prichard gives the name of Ugro-Tartarian, while the Celtic language is that of the oldest of the great emigrations from the more southern portions of Asia, which Bunsen calls the Japhetic.

[398] The general statement may, perhaps, be taken from Mariana, (Lib. I. c. 15,) who gives the story as it has come down through tradition, fable, and history, with no more critical acumen than is common with the Spanish historians. But such separate facts as are mentioned by Livy (Lib. XXXIV. c. 10, 46, Lib. XL. c. 43, with the notes in Drakenborch) bring with them a more distinct impression of the immense wealth obtained anciently from Spain than any general statements whatever; even more than those of Strabo, Diodorus, etc. It has been supposed by Heeren, and by others before and since, (Ideen, 1824, Band I. Theil ii. p. 68,) that the Tarshish of the Prophets Ezekiel (xxvii. 12) and Isaiah (lx. 8, 9) was in Spain, and was, in fact, the ancient Tartessus; but this is denied, (Memorias de la Academia de la Historia, Tom. III. p. 320,) and, no doubt, if the Tarshish of the Prophets were in Spain, there must have been another Tarshish in Cilicia, that is mentioned in other parts of Scripture.

[399] See Heeren’s Ideen, Band I. Theil ii. pp. 24-71, 4th edit., 1824, where the whole subject is discussed.

[400] A sufficient account of the Carthaginians in Spain may be found in Heeren’s Ideen, Band II. Theil i. pp. 85-99, and 172-199. But Mariana contains the more national ideas and traditions, (Lib. I. c. 19, etc.,) and Depping is more ample (Hist. Générale de l’Espagne, 1811, Tom. I. pp. 64-96).

[401] Of the Greeks in Spain, it has not been thought necessary here to speak. Their few establishments were on the southern coast, and rather on the eastern part of it; but they were of little consequence, and do not seem to have produced any lasting effect on the character or language of the country. They were, in fact, rather a result of the influence of the rich and cultivated Greek colony in the South of France, whose capital seat was Marseilles, or of the spirit which in Rhodes and elsewhere sent out adventurers to the far west. (See Benedictins, Hist. Litt. de la France, 1733, 4to, Tom. I. pp. 71, etc.) For those who are curious about the Greeks in Spain, more than they will probably desire will be found in the elaborate and clumsy work of Masdeu, Hist. Crit. de España, Tom. I. p. 211, Tom. III. pp. 76, etc. Aldrete (Orígen de la Lengua Española, 1674, f. 65) has collected about ninety Spanish words to which he attributes a Greek origin; but nearly all of them may be easily traced through the Latin, or else they belong to the Northern invaders or to Italy. Marina, a good authority on this particular point, says: “I do not deny, nor can it be doubted, that, in the Spanish language, are found many words purely Greek, and occasional phrases and turns of expression that are in Attic taste; but this is because they had first been adopted by the Latin language, which is the mother of ours.” Mem. de la Real Acad., Tom. IV., Ensayo, etc., p. 47. There is a curious inscription in Nunes de Lião, (Origem da Lingoa Portugesa, Lisboa, 1784, p. 32,) from a temple erected by Greeks at Ampurias to Diana of Ephesus, which states, that “nec relicta Græcorum lingua, nec idiomate patriæ Iberæ recepto, in mores, in linguam, in jura, in ditionem cessere Romanam, M. Cathego et L. Apronio Coss.” No doubt, these Greeks came from Marseilles, or were connected with it; and no doubt they spoke Latin. But the ancient Iberian language seems to be recognized as existing, also, among them. Ampurias, however, was generally in Spain held to be of Greek origin, as we may see in different ways, and among the rest in the following lines of Espinosa, who, when Alambron comes there with the Infanta Fenisa, says:—

Juntan á la ciudad, que fué fundada

De cautos Griegos, rica y bastecida.

Segunda Parte de Orlando, ed. 1556, Canto xxxi.

[402] Livius, Hist. Rom., Lib. XXVIII. c. 12. The words are remarkable. “Itaque ergo prima Romanis inita provinciarum, quæ quidem continentis sint, postrema omnium, nostrâ demum ætate, ductu auspicioque Augusti Cæsaris, perdomita est.”

[403] Livius, Hist. Rom., Lib. XLIII. c. 3.

[404] Strabo, Lib. III., especially pp. 168, 169, ed. Casaubon, fol., 1620; and Plin., Hist. Nat., Lib. III. §§ 2-4, but particularly Vol. I., ed. Franzii, 1778, p. 547. A striking proof of the importance of Spain, in antiquity generally, may be found in the fact incidentally stated by W. von Humboldt, (Prüfung, etc., § 2, p. 3,) that “ancient writers have left us a great number of Spanish names of places;—in proportion, a greater number than of any other country except Greece and Italy.”

[405] Plin., Hist. Nat., Lib. VII. c. 44, where the distinction is spoken of as something surprising, since Pliny adds, that it was “an honor which our ancestors refused even to those of Latium.”

[406] Plin., Hist. Nat., Lib. V. c. 5, with the note of Hardouin, and with Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, fol., 1787, Lib. I. c. ii.

[407] Plutarchus in Sertorium, c. 14.

[408] Pro Archiâ, § 10. It should be noted especially, that Cicero makes them natives of Córdova,—“Cordubæ natis poetis.”

[409] Some excellent and closely condensed remarks on this subject may be found in the Introduction to Amédée Thierry’s “Histoire de la Gaule sous l’Administration Romaine,” 8vo, 1840, Tom. I. pp. 211-218; a work which leaves little to be desired, as far as it goes.

[410] Of Roman writers in Spain, the accounts are abundant. The first book, however, of Antonio’s “Bibliotheca Vetus” is sufficient. But, after all that has been written, it has always seemed singular to me that Horace should have used exactly the word peritus, when intending specifically to characterize the Spaniards of his time, (II. Od. xx. 19,) unless peritus is used with reference to its relations with experior, rather than in its usual sense of learned. Sir James Mackintosh, speaking of the Latin writers produced by Spain, says they were “the most famous of their age.” Hist. Eng., Vol. I. p. 21, London, 1830.

[411] The story told by Aulus Gellius, (NN. AA., Lib. XIX. c. 9,) about Antoninus Julianus, a Spaniard, who exercised the profession of a rhetorician at Rome, shows pleasantly that there was no Spanish language at that time (circa A. D. 200) except the Latin; for when the “Greci plusculi” at table reproached Antoninus with the poverty of Latin literature, they reproached him as one who was a party concerned, and he defended himself just as a Roman would have done, by quotations from the Latin poets. His patriotism was evidently Roman, and the patria lingua which he vindicated was the Latin.

[412] In the beautiful fragment of a History of England by Sir J. Mackintosh, he says, ut supra, with that spirit of acute and philosophical generalization for which he was so remarkable: “The ordinary policy of Rome was to confine the barbarians within their mountains.” The striking poem in Basque, given by W. von Humboldt, (Mithridates, Band IV. p. 354,) shows the same fact in relation to Biscay.

[413] Depping, Tom. II. pp. 118, etc. But those who wish to see how absurdly even grave historians can write on the gravest subjects may find all sorts of inconsistencies, on the early history of Christianity in Spain, in the fourth book of Mariana, as well as in most of the other national writers who have occasion to touch upon it.

[414] On the subject of early Christianity in Spain, the third chapter of the fourth book of Depping contains enough for all but those who wish to make the subject a separate and especial study. Such persons will naturally look to Florez and Risco, “España Sagrada,” and their authorities, which, however, must be consulted with great caution, as they are full of the inconsistencies alluded to in the last note.

[415] One reason why the clergy did little to preserve the purity of the Latin, and much to corrupt it, in the South of Europe, was, that they were obliged to hold their intercourse with the common people in the degraded Latin. And this intercourse, which consisted chiefly of instructions given to the common people, was a large part of all the clergy did in the early ages of the Church. For the Christian clergy in Spain, as elsewhere, addressed themselves, for a long period, to the lower and more ignorant classes of society, because the refined and the powerful refused to listen to them. But the Latin spoken by those classes in Spain, whether it were what was called the “lingua rustica” or not, was undoubtedly different from the purer Latin spoken by the more cultivated and favored classes, just as it was in Italy, and even much more than it was there. In addressing the common people, their Christian teachers in Spain, therefore, very early found it expedient, and probably necessary, to use the degraded Latin, which the common people spoke. At last, as we learn, no other was intelligible to them; for the grammatical Latin, even of the office of the Mass, ceased to be so. In this way, Christianity must have contributed directly and materially to the degradation of the Latin, and to the formation of the new dialects, just as it contributed to form the modern character, as distinguished from the ancient. Indeed, without entering into the much vexed questions concerning the lingua rustica or quotidiana, its origin, character and prevalence, I cannot help saying, that I am persuaded the modern languages and their dialects in the South of Europe were, so far as the Latin was concerned, formed out of the popular and vulgar Latin found in the mouths of the common people; and that Christianity, more than any other single cause, was the medium and means by which this change from one to the other was brought about. For the lingua rustica, see Morhof, De Patavinitate Livianâ, capp. vi., vii., and ix.; and Du Cange, De Causis Corruptæ Latinitatis, §§ 13-25, prefixed to his Glossarium.

[416] The passage from Licinian is given in a note to Eichhorn’s “Allgemeine Geschichte der Cultur,” 1799, 8vo, Band II. p. 467. See, also, Castro, Biblioteca Española, 1786, folio, Tom. II. p. 275.

[417] Isidore, as cited at length in Eichhorn’s “Cultur,” Band II. p. 470, note (I).

[418] For Isidorus Hispalensis, see Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. V. capp. iii., iv.; and Castro, Bib. Esp., Tom. II. pp. 293-344. I judge Isidore’s Latinity chiefly from his “Etymologiarum Libri XX.,” and his “De Summo Bono, Libri III.,” fol., 1483, lit. Goth. No doubt, there are many words in Isidore of Seville, that are not of classical authority, some of which he marks as such, and others not; but, on the whole, his Latinity is respectable. Among the corrupt words he uses are a few that are curious, because they have descended into the modern Castilian; such as, “astrosus, ab astro dictus, quasi malo sidere natus,” (Etymol., 1483, fol. 50. a,) which appears in the present astroso, the familiar term for unhappy, disastrous, and permitted by the Spanish Academy;—cortina, of which Isidore says, “Cortinæ sunt aulæa, id est, vela de pellibus, qualia in Exodo leguntur,” (Etym., f. 97. b,) which appears in the modern Spanish cortina, for curtain;—”camisias vocamus, quod in his dormimus in camis,” (Etym., f. 96. b,) which last word, cama, is explained afterwards to be “lectus brevis et circa terram,” (Etym., f. 101. a,) and both of which are now Spanish, camisa being the proper word for shirt, and cama for bed;—”mantum Hispani vocant quod manus tegat tantum, est enim brevis amictus,” (Etym., f. 97. a,) which is the Spanish manto;—and so on with a few others. They are, however, only curious as corrupted Latin words, which happened to continue in use, till the modern Spanish arose several centuries later.

[419] See Eichhorn’s Cultur, Band II. pp. 472, etc.;—or, for more ample accounts, Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. V. and VI.; and Castro, Bib. Esp., Tom. II.

[420] Gibbon, Chap. XXX.

[421] Lib. V. c. 1.

[422] Mariana, Lib. V. c. 2.

[423] Gibbon, Chap. XXXVII.; an article in the Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXXI., on the Gothic Laws of Spain; and Depping, Tom. II. pp. 217, etc.

[424] In the earliest Gothic that remains to us, (the Gospels of Ulfilas, circa A. D. 370,) there is no indefinite article; and the definite does not always occur where it is used in the original Greek, from which, it is worthy of notice, the venerable Bishop made his version, and not from the Latin. But there is no reason, I think, to suppose that the articles of both sorts were not used by the Goths, as well as by the other Northern tribes, in the fifth century, as they have been ever since. See Ulfilas, Gothische Bibelübersetzung, ed. Zahn, 1805, 4to, and, especially, Einleitung, pp. 28-37.

[425] Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. I. pp. 39, 43, 48, etc., and Diez, Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, 1838, 8vo, Band II. pp. 13, 14, 98-100, 144, 145.

[426] Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. I. pp. 76-85.

[427] See, on the whole of this subject,—the formation of the modern dialects of the South of Europe,—the excellent “Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen von Fried. Diez,” Bonn, 1836-38, 2 vols. 8vo. For examples of corruptions of the Spanish language, such as are above referred to, take the following:—Frates, orate pro nos, instead of Fratres, orate pro nobis;—Sedeat segregatus a corpus et sanguis Domini, instead of corpore et sanguine. (Marina, Ensayo, p. 22, note, in Memorias de la Academia de la Hist., Tom. IV.) The changes in spelling are innumerable, but are less to be trusted as proofs of change in the language, because they may have arisen from the carelessness or ignorance of individual copyists. Specimens of every sort of them may be found in the “Coleccion de Cédulas,” etc., referred to in Vol. I. p. 47, note, and in the “Coleccion de Fueros Municipales,” by Don Tomas Muñoz y Romero, Madrid, 1847, fol., Tom. I.

[428] See some striking remarks on the adventures of Mohammed, in Prof. Smyth’s genial Lectures on Modern History, Vol. I. pp. 66, 67, 8vo, London, 1840.

[429] They were so called from their African abode, Mauritania, where they naturally inherited the name of the ancient Mauri.

[430] See Huet, “Origine des Romans,” (ed. 1693, p. 24,) but especially Warton, in his first Dissertation, for the Oriental and Arabic origin of romantic fiction. The notes to the octavo edition, by Price, add much to the value of the discussions on these questions. Warton’s Eng. Poetry, 1824, 8vo, Vol. I.; Massieu (Hist. de la Poésie Françoise, 1739, p. 82) and Quadrio (Storia d’ Ogni Poesia, 1749, Tom. IV. pp. 299, 300) follow Huet, but do it with little skill.

[431] The opinion of Father Andres is boldly stated by him in the following words: “Quest’ uso degli Spagnuoli di verseggiare nella lingua, nella misura, e nella rima degli Arabi, può dirsi con fondamento la prima origine della moderna poesia.” (Storia d’ Ogni Lett., Lib. I. c. 11, § 161; also pp. 163-272, ed. 1808, 4to.) The same theory will be found yet more strongly expressed by Ginguené (Hist. Litt. d’Italie, 1811, Tom. I. pp. 187-285); by Sismondi (Litt. du Midi, 1813, Tom. I. pp. 38-116; and Hist. des Français, 8vo, Tom. IV., 1824, pp. 482-494); and in the Hist. Litt. de la France (4to, 1814, Tom. XIII. pp. 42, 43). But these last authors have added little to the authority of Andres’s opinion, the very last being, I think, Ginguené.

[432] Andres, Storia, Tom. I. p. 273. Ginguené, Tom. I. pp. 248-250, who says: “C’est à cette époque (1085) que remontent peut-être les premiers essais poétiques de l’Espagne, et que remontent sûrement les premiers chants de nos Troubadours.”

[433] Fragment d’un Poème en Vers Romans sur Boèce, publié par M. Raynouard, etc., Paris, 8vo, 1817. Also in his Poésies des Troubadours, Tom. II. Consult, further, Grammaire de la Langue Romane, in the same work, Tom. I.

[434] I refer to “Observations sur la Langue et la Littérature Provençales, par A. W. Schlegel,” Paris, 1818, 8vo, not published. See, especially, pp. 73, etc., in which he shows how completely anti-Arabic are the whole tone and spirit of the early Provençal, and still more those of the early Spanish poetry. And see, also, Diez, Poesie der Troubadours, 8vo, 1826, pp. 19, etc.; an excellent book.

[435] Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en España, Madrid, 1820-21, 4to, Tom. I. and II., but especially Tom. I. pp. 158-226, 425-489, 524-547.

[436] Sylvester II. (Gerbert) was Pope from 999 to 1003, and was the first head France gave to the Church. I am aware that the Benedictines (Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. VI. p. 560) intimate that he did not pass, in Spain, beyond Córdova, and I am aware, too, that Andres (Tom. I. pp. 175-178) is unwilling to allow him to have studied at any schools in Seville and Córdova except Christian schools. But there is no pretence that the Christians had important schools in Andalusia at that time, though the Arabs certainly had; and the authorities on which Andres relies assume that Gerbert studied with the Moors, and prove more, therefore, than he wishes to be proved. Like many other men skilled in the sciences during the Middle Ages, Gerbert was considered a necromancer. A good account of his works is in the Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. VI. pp. 559-614.

[437] The condition of the Christians under the Moorish governments of Spain may be learned, sufficiently for our purpose, from many passages in Conde, e. g. Tom. I. pp. 39, 82, etc. But after all, perhaps, the reluctant admissions of Florez, Risco, etc., in the course of the forty-five volumes of the “España Sagrada,” are quite as good a proof of the tolerance exercised by the Moors, as the more direct statements taken from the Arabian writers. See, for Toledo, Florez, Tom. V. pp. 323-329; for Complutum or Alcalá de Henares, Tom. VII. p. 187; for Seville, Tom. IX. p. 234; for Córdova and its martyrs, Tom. X. pp. 245-471; for Saragossa, Risco, Tom. XXX. p. 203, and Tom. XXXI. pp. 112-117; for Leon, Tom. XXXIV. p. 132; and so on. Indeed, there is something in the accounts of a great majority of the churches, whose history these learned men have given in so cumbrous a manner, that shows the Moors to have practised a toleration which, mutatis mutandis, they would have been grateful to have found among the Christians in the time of Philip III.

[438] The meaning of the word Mozárabe was long doubtful; the best opinion being that it was derived from Mixti-arabes, and meant what this Latin phrase would imply. (Covarrubias, Tesoro, 1674, ad verb.) That this was the common meaning given to it in early times is plain from the “Chrónica de España,” (Parte II., at the end,) and that it continued to be so received is plain, among other proofs, from the following passage in “Los Muçárabes de Toledo,” (a play in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXVIII., 1672, p. 157,) where one of the Muzárabes, explaining to Alfonso VII. who and what they are, says, just before the capture of the city,—

Muçárabes, Rey, nos llamamos,

Porque, entre Arabes mezclados,

Los mandamientos sagrados

De nuestra ley verdadera,

Con valor y fé sincera

Han sido siempre guardados.

Jornada III.

But, amidst the other rare learning of his notes on “The Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain,” (4to, London, 1840, Vol. I. pp. 419, 420,) Don Pascual de Gayangos has perhaps settled this vexed, though not very important, question. Mozárabe, or Muzárabe, as he explains it, “is the Arabic Musta’rab, meaning a man who tries to imitate or to become an Arab in his manners and language, and who, though he may know Arabic, speaks it like a foreigner.” The word is still used in relation to the ritual of some of the churches in Toledo. (Castro, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 458, and Paleographía Esp., p. 16.) On the other hand, the Moors who, as the Christian conquests were advanced towards the South, remained, in their turn, inclosed in the Christian population and spoke or assumed its language, were originally called Moros Latinados. See “Poema del Cid,” v. 266, and “Crónica General,” (ed. 1604, fol. 304. a,) where, respecting Alfaraxi, a Moor, afterwards converted, and a counsellor of the Cid, it is said he was “de tan buen entendimento, e era tan ladino que semejava Christiano.”

[439] Conde, Tom. I. p. 229.

[440] Florez, España Sagrada, Tom. XI. p. 42.

[441] The “Indiculus Luminosus” is a defence of the fanatical martyrs of Córdova, who suffered under Abderrahman II. and his son. The passage referred to, with all its sins against pure Latinity and good taste, is as follows:—“Heu, proh dolor! linguam suam nesciunt Christiani, et linguam propriam non advertunt Latini, ita ut omni Christi collegio vix inveniatur unus in milleno hominum numero, qui salutatorias fatri possit rationabiliter dirigere literas. Et reperitur absque numero multiplex turba, qui eruditè Caldaicas verborum explicet pompas. Ita ut metricè eruditiori ab ipsis gentibus carmine et sublimiori pulchritudine,” etc. It is found at the end of the treatise, which is printed entire in Florez (Tom. XI. pp. 221-275). The phrase omni Christi collegio is, I suppose, understood by Mabillon, “De Re Diplomaticâ,” (fol., 1681, Lib. II. c. 1, p. 55,) to refer to the clergy, in which case the statement would be much stronger, and signify that “not one priest in a thousand could address a common letter of salutation to another” (Hallam, Middle Ages, London, 8vo, 1819, Vol. III. p. 332);—but I incline to think that it refers to the whole body of Christians in and about Córdova.

[442] The time when John of Seville lived is not settled (Florez, Tom. IX. pp. 242, etc.); but that is not important to our purpose. The fact of the translation is in the Crónica General (Parte III. c. 2, f. 9, ed. 1604): “Trasladó las sanctas Escripturas en Arávigo e fizó las exposiciones dellas segun conviene a la sancta Escriptura.” And Mariana gives the true reason for it: “A causa que la lengua Arábiga se usaba mucho entre todos; la Latina ordinariamente ni se usaba, ni se sabia.” (Lib. VII. c. iii., prope finem.) See, also, Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. VI. c. 9; Castro, Bib. Esp., Tom. II. pp. 454, etc.

[443] Paleographía Española, p. 22.

[444] Memorias de la Real Acad. de la Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo de Marina, pp. 40-43.

[445] Mondejar, Memorias de Alonso el Sabio, fol., 1777, p. 43. Ortiz y Zuñiga, Anales de Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 79.

[446] Mem. de la Real Acad. de la Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo de Marina, p. 40.

[447] For the great Arabic infusion into the language of Spain, see Aldrete, Orígen, Lib. III. c. 15; Covarrubias, Tesoro, passim; and the catalogue, of 85 pages, in the fourth volume of the Memorias de la Academia de Historia. To these may be well added the very curious “Vestigios da Lingua Arábica em Portugal per João de Sousa,” Lisboa, 1789, 4to. A general notice of the whole subject, but one that gives too much influence to the Arabic, may be found in the “Ocios de Españoles Emigrados,” Tom. II. p. 16, and Tom. III. p. 291.

[448] The common and characteristic phrase, from a very early period, for the Moorish conquest of Spain, was “la pérdida de España,” and that for its reconquest, “la restauracion de España.”

[449] The Arabic accounts, which are much to be relied on, because they are contemporary, give a shocking picture of the Christians at the North in the eighth century. “Viven como fieras, que nunca lavan sus cuerpos ni vestidos, que no se las mudan, y los llevan puestas hasta que se les caen despedezados en andrajos,” etc. (Conde, Dominacion, etc., Parte II. c. 18.) The romantic and uncertain accounts, in the beginning of the third part of the Crónica General, and the more formal narrative of Mariana, (book seventh,) leave little doubt that such descriptions must be near the truth.

[450] Consult Marina, Ensayo, p. 19.

[451] Ibid., pp. 23, 24.

[452] The Avilés document is regarded by all who have noticed it as of great importance for the earliest history of the Castilian. It is first mentioned, I believe, by Father Risco, in his “Historia de la Ciudad y Corte de Leon” (Madrid, 1793, 4to, Tom. I. pp. 252, 253); and next by Marina, in his “Ensayo” (Memorias de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. IV., 1805, p. 33);—both competent witnesses, and both entirely satisfied that it is genuine. Risco, however, printed no part of it, and Marina published only a few extracts. But in the “Revista de Madrid,” (Segunda Epoca, Tom. VII. pp. 267-322,) it is published entire, as part of an interesting discussion concerning the old codes of the country, by Don Rafael Gonzalez Llanos, a man of learning and a native of Avilés, who seems to have a strong love for the place of his birth and to be familiar with its antiquities.

The document in question belongs to the class of instruments sometimes called “Privilegios,” and sometimes “Foros,” or “Fueros” (see, ante, Vol. I. p. 47, note 28); but where, as in this case, the authority of the instrument is restricted to a single town or city, it is more properly called “Carta Puebla,” or municipal charter. This Carta Puebla of Avilés contains a royal grant of rights and immunities to the several citizens, as well as to the whole municipality, and involves whatever regarded the property, business, and franchises of all whom it was intended to protect. Charters, which were so important to the welfare of many persons, but which still rested on the arbitrary authority of the crown, were, as we have previously said, (Vol. I. p. 47, note 27,) confirmed by succeeding sovereigns, as often as their confirmation could conveniently be procured by the communities so deeply interested in their preservation.

The Carta Puebla of Avilés was originally granted by Alfonso VI., who reigned from 1073 to 1109. It was, no doubt, written in such Latin as was then used; and in 1274 it was formally made known to Alfonso the Wise, that it had been burnt during the attack on that city by his son Sancho. The original, therefore, is lost, and we know how it was lost.

What we possess is the translation of this Carta Puebla, made when it was confirmed by Alfonso VII., A. D. 1155. It is still preserved in the archives of the city of Avilés, on the original parchment, consisting of two skins sewed together,—the two united being about four feet and eleven inches long, and about nineteen inches wide. It bears the known seal of Alfonso VII., and the original signatures of several persons who were bound to sign it with him, and several subsequent confirmations, scattered over five centuries. (See Revista, ut sup., pp. 329, 330.) So that in all respects, including the coarseness of the parchment, the handwriting, and the language, it announces its own genuineness with as much certainty as any document of its age. As printed, it fills about twelve pages in octavo, and enables us to judge somewhat of the state of the Castilian at the time it was written.

After a caption or enrolment in bad Latin, it opens with these words:—

“Estos sunt los foros que deu el rey D. Alfonso ad Abilies cuando la poblou par foro Sancti Facundi et otorgo lo emperador. Em primo, per solar pinder, I solido a lo reu et II denarios a lo saion, é cada ano un sólido en censo per lo solar: é qui lo vender, de I solido á lo rai, é quil comparar dará II denarios a lo saion,” etc. p. 267.

A part of one of its important regulations is as follows:—“Toth homine qui populador for ela villa del rey, de quant aver qui ser aver, si aver como heredat, dè fer en toth suo placer de vender o de dar, et á quen lo donar que sedeat stabile si filio non aver, et si filio aver del, delo á mano illo quis quiser é fur placer, que non deserede de toto, et si toto lo deseredar, toto lo perdan aquellos á quen lo der.” Revista, p. 315.

Its concluding provisions are in these words:—“Duos homines cum armas derumpent casa, et de rotura de orta serrada, LX. sólidos al don de la orta, el medio al rei, é medio al don dela.—Homines populatores de Abilies, non dent portage ni rivage, desde la mar ata Leon.” Ibid., p. 322.

It ends with bad Latin, denouncing excommunication on any person who shall attempt to infringe its provisions, and declaring him “cum Datam et Abiron in infernum damnatus.” Ibid., p. 329.

By the general consent of those who have examined it, this Carta Puebla of Avilés is determined to be the oldest document now known to exist in the Castilian or vulgar dialect of the period, which dialect, in the opinion of Don Rafael Gonzalez Llanos, received its essential character as early as 1206, or six years before the decisive battle of the Navas de Tolosa, (see, ante, Vol. I. p. 9, note,) though not a few documents, after that date, abound in Latin words and phrases. Revista, ut supra, Tom. VIII. p. 197.

I am aware that two documents in the Spanish language, claiming to be yet older, have been cited by Mr. Hallam, in a note to Part II. c. 9 of his Middle Ages, London, 1819, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 554, where he says: “The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen is an instrument in Martene, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, Tom. I. p. 263; the date of which is 1095. Persons more conversant with the antiquities of that country may possibly go farther back. Another of 1101 is published in Marina’s Teoria de las Cortes, Tom. III. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the Cruel, and cannot, I presume, have been a translation from the Latin.” There can be no higher general authority than Mr. Hallam for any historical fact, and this statement seems to carry back the oldest authentic date for the Spanish language sixty years earlier than I have ventured to carry it. But I have examined carefully both of the documents to which Mr. Hallam refers, and am satisfied they are of later date than the charter of Avilés. That in Martene is merely an anecdote connected with the taking of “the city of Exea,” when it was conquered, as this story states, by Sancho of Aragon. Its language strongly resembles that of the “Partidas,” which would bring it down to the middle of the thirteenth century; but it bears, in truth, no date, and only declares at the end that the city of Exea was taken on the nones of April, 1095, from the Moors. Of course, there is some mistake about the whole matter, for Sancho of Aragon, here named as its conqueror, died June 4th, 1094, and was succeeded by Peter I., and the person who wrote this account, which seems to be, after all, only an extract from some monkish chronicle, did not live near enough to that date to know so notorious a fact. Moreover, Exea is in Aragon, where it is not probable the earliest Castilian was spoken or written. Thus much for the document from Martene. That from Marina’s Teoria is of a still later and quite certain date. It is a charter of privileges granted by Alfonso VI. to the Mozárabes of Toledo, but translated in 1340, when it was confirmed by Alfonso XI. Indeed, it is so announced by Marina himself, who in the table of contents says especially, that it is “translated into Castilian.”

[453] Marina, Ensayo, p. 19.

[454] The most striking proof, perhaps, that can be given of the number of Latin words and constructions retained in the modern Spanish, is to be found in the many pages of verse and prose that have, from time to time, been so written that they can be read throughout either as Latin or as Spanish. The first instance of this sort that I know of is by Juan Martinez Siliceo, Archbishop of Toledo and preceptor to Philip II., who, when he was in Italy, wrote a short prose dissertation that could be read in both languages, in order to prove to some of his learned friends in that country that the Castilian of Spain was nearer to the Latin than their Italian;—a jeu-d’esprit, which he printed in his treatise on Arithmetic, in 1514. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 737.) Other examples occur afterwards. One may be found in a Spanish Grammar, published at Louvain in 1555, and entitled “Util y Breve Institution para aprender Lengua Hespañola”; a curious book, which treats the Castilian as only one of several languages then spoken in the Spanish Peninsula, and says of it, “no es otra cosa que Latin corrupto,”—adding that many letters had been written in Spanish words that were yet Latin letters, one of which he proceeds to give in proof. Other examples occur in a Dialogue by Fern. Perez de Oliva, and an Epistle of Ambrosio Morales, the historian, printed in 1585, with the works of the first; in a Sonnet published by Rengifo, in his “Arte Poética,” in 1592; and, finally, in an excessively rare volume of terza rima, by Diego de Aguiar, printed in 1621, and entitled “Tercetos en Latin congruo y puro Castellano,” of which the following is a favorable specimen:—

Scribo historias, graves, generosos

Spiritus, divinos Heroes puros,

Magnanimos, insignes, bellicosos;

Canto de Marte, defensores duros

Animosos Leones, excellentes,

De rarâ industriâ, invictos, grandes muros,

Vos animas illustres, præeminentes

Invoco, etc.

Much cannot be said for the purity of either the Castilian or the Latin in verses like these; but they leave no doubt of the near relationship of the two. For the proportions of all the languages that enter into the Spanish, see Sarmiento, Memorias, 1775, p. 107;—Larramendi, Antiguedad y Universalidad del Bascuence, 1728, c. xvi., apud Vargas y Ponce, Disertacion, 1793, pp. 10-26;—Rosseeuw de St. Hilaire, Etudes sur l’Origine de la Langue et Romances Espagnoles, Thèse, 1838, p. 11;—W. von Humboldt, Prüfung, already cited;—Marina, Ensayo, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1805;—and an article in the British and Foreign Review, No. XV., 1839.

[455] All the documents containing the privileges granted by St. Ferdinand to Seville, on the capture of the city, are in the vernacular of the time, the Romance. Ortiz y Zuñiga, Anales de Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 89.

[456]

Quiero fer una prosa en Roman paladino,

En qual suele el pueblo fablar a su vecino,

Car non so tan letrado por fer otro latino, etc.

Vida de S. Domingo de Silos, St. 2.

Roman paladino means the “plain Romance language,” paladino being derived, as I think, with Sanchez, from palam, though Sarmiento (in his manuscript on “Amadis de Gaula,” referred to, Vol. I. p. 322, note) says, when noticing this line: “Paladino es de palatino y este es de palacio.” The otro latino is, of course, the elder Latin, however corrupted. Cervantes uses the word ladino to mean Spanish, (Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 41, and the note of Clemencin,) and Dante (Par., III. 63) uses it once to mean plain, easy; both curious instances of an indirect meaning, forced, as it were, upon a word. Prosa means, I suppose, story. Biagioli (Ad Purgatorio, XXVI. 118) says: “Prosa nell’ Italiano e nel Provenzale del secolo xiii. significa precisamente istoria o narrazione in versi.” It may be doubted whether he is right in applying this remark to the passage in Dante, but it is no doubt applicable to the passage before us in Berceo, the meaning of which both Bouterwek and his Spanish translators have mistaken. (Bouterwek, Trad. Cortina, etc., 8vo, Madrid, 1829, Tom. I. pp. 60 and 119.) Ferdinand Wolf (in his very learned work, “Über die Lais, Sequenzen und Leiche,” Heidelberg, 1841, 8vo, pp. 92 and 304) thinks the use of the word prosa, here and elsewhere in early Spanish poetry, had some reference to the well-known use of the same word in the offices of the Church. (Du Cange, Glossarium, ad verb.) But I think the early Spanish rhymers took it from the Provençal, and not from the ecclesiastical Latin.

[457] Mondejar, Memorias del Rey D. Alonso el Sabio, fol., Madrid, 1777, pp. 450-452. Mariana, Hist., Lib. XIV. c. 7, and Castro, Bib., Tom. I. pp. 411, etc.

[458] Felipe Mey printed a volume of his own poems at Tarragona, in 1586, from which Faber, in his Floresta, Tom. II., has taken three sonnets of some merit. A Life of him may be found in Ximeno, (Tom. I. p. 249,) completed by Fuster (Tom. I. p. 213). As a translator of Ovid he is favorably noticed by Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores, Tom. II. p. 76.

[459] “Copióse de otra copia el año de 1606, en Madrid, 27 de Ebrero año dicho. Para el Señor Agustin de Argote, hijo del muy noble Señor (que sancta gloria haya) Gonzalo Zatieco de Molina, un caballero de Sevilla.” Zatieco occurs elsewhere, as part of the name of Argote de Molina, or of his family.

[460] “En otra escritura de 5 de Julio de 1597 deja por patronas de una capellanía fundada por él en la dicha iglésia de Santiago á Doña Francisca Argote de Molina y Mexia, su hija, y despues de ella á Doña Isabel de Argote y á Doña Gerónima de Argote sus hermanas, y á sus hijos y descendientes, y á Juan Argote de Mexia su hermano y á sus hijos,” etc.

[461] “En dicha Capilla hay una inscripcion del tenor siguiente: Esta capilla mayor y entierro es de Don Gonzalo Argote de Molina, Provincial de la Hermandad del Andalucia y Veintequatro que fué de Sevilla, y de sus herederos. Acabóse año de 1600.” He purchased this privilege, January 28, 1586, for 800 ducats.

[462] “Tuvo hijos que le precedieron en muerte, cuyo sentimiento hizo infausto el último término de su vida, turbando su juizio que, lleno de altivez, levantaba sus pensamientos á mayor fortuna.” Anales de Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 706.

Vanflora, Hijos de Sevilla, No. II. p. 76, says: “Murió sin dexar hijos ni caudales y con algunas señas de demente.”

[463] “Da Livreria do Senhor Duque de Lafões.”

[464] I suspect Don Adolfo may have made another little mistake here; for I have had occasion, since I read his note, to read the “Conde Lucanor,” and, though I kept his criticism in mind, I did not notice the proverb in any form in any one of the tales. Sometimes it occurs in later authors in another form, thus: “Al buen callar llaman santo”; or, “He who knows when to hold his tongue is a saint.” But this is rare.

[465] They are, I believe, all omitted in the translation of Miss Thomasina Ross, which appeared in Bentley’s Magazine, (London, August and September, 1848,) and in the translation by “A Member of the University of Cambridge,” published at Cambridge, 1849, with judicious notes, partly original and partly abridged from those of Don Adolfo de Castro.

[466] It is curious, that the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 794, and that of 1790, p. 51, direct two lines to be struck out from c. 36, but touch no other part of the work. The two lines signify that “works of charity performed in a lukewarm spirit have no merit and avail nothing.” These lines are carefully cancelled in my copy of the first edition. Cervantes, therefore, did not, after all, stand on so safe ground as he thought he did, when, in c. 20 of the same Part, he says his Don Quixote “does not contain even a thought that is not strictly Catholic.”

Transcriber’s note

Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected.

Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant usage was found.

Notwithstanding, original Spanish text in the Appendices has been kept without any alteration, as found in the printed book.

Footnotes have been renumbered into a single series and moved to the end of the book.

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