Full text of "History of Spanish literature"

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WELLESLEY COLLEGE

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HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE.

VOL. III.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries

http://www.archive.org/details/historyofspanish03tick

HISTORY

SPANISH LITERATURE

GEORGE TICKNOR.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.

SIXTH AMERICAN EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED.

BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.

SDbc Eiijerfittie Press, Cambrilfff .

\^z%^'^

Br ANNA TICKNOR.

By anna E. TICKNORo

Go:):.

CONTENTS OF YOL. III.

SECOND PERIOD

(continued.)

CHAPTEE XXIX.

Lyric Poetry.

Early Lyric Tendency
Italian School of Boscan .
National School .
Lonias De Cantoral .
Francisco de Figueroa
Vicente Espinel
Montemayor
Barahona de Soto, Rixfo
Vegas, Padilla
Lopez Maldonado .
Fernando de Herrera
His Odes .
His Castilian Style
Pedro Espinosa
His Flores de Poetas Ilustres
Key de Artieda
Manoel de Portugal
Carrillo ....
Cristdval de Mesa
Francisco de Ocaiia
Lope de Sosa
Alonso de Ledesma .
The Conceptistas .
Cultismo and its Causes .
Luis de Gongora .

His earlier Poetry
His later Poetry
His Extravagance
His Obscurity .
His Commentators
His Followers .
Count Villamediana
Felix de Arteaga
Roca y Serna
Antonio de Vega
Anastasio Pantaleon
Violante del Cielo
Manoel de Melo .
Moncayo, La Torre
Vergara
Rozas, Ulloa .
Salazar

Spread of Cultismo
Contest about it .
Francisco de Medrano
Pedro Venegas .
Baltasar de Alcazar
Arguijo
Antonio Balvas

20
22
24
24
25
26
26
28
28
29
29
29
29
30
30
30
30
31
31
33
33
33
34
34

The Argensolas
Lupercio .
Bartolom^, .
Their Poetry .

CHAPTER XXX.
Lyric Poetry, concluded.

Juan de Jauregui . *

. 39

His Orfeo . . . .

His Aminta ....

. 40

His Lyrical Poetry .

Est^van Manuel de Villegas
Imitates Anacreon .
Bernardo de Balbuena
Barbadillo

Polo, Rojas . . , .
Francisco de Kiqja .
Borja y Esquilache
Antonio de Mendoza
Bernardino de Rebolledo
Ribero, Quiros, Estrella

CONTENTS.

. 42

Barrios, Lucio y Espinossa .

. 50

Evia, Inez de la Cruz

. 44

Soil's, Candamo, Marchante

. 50

Montoro, Negrete .

. 45

Success of Lyric Poetry

. 51

Religious .....

. 47

Secular and Popular .

. 52

SecxiLir and more formal .

. 49

Its General Character ,

. 53

CHAPTER XXXI.

Satirical Poetry, Epistolary, Elegiac, Pastoral, Epigrasimatic, Didactic,

AND Descriptive.

Satirical and Epistolary Poetry .

. 56

Mendoza, Boscan

Castillejo

. 55

Montemayor, Padilla, Cantoral

Murillo, Artieda ....

. 56

Barahoha de Soto .

Juan de Jauregui . . .

. 56

The Argensolas

Quevedo, Gongora

. 57

Cervantes ....

Espinel, Arguijo, Riqja

. 58

Salcedo, Ulloa, Melo

Borja, Rebolledo, Villegas .

. 58

Satire discouraged .

Elegiac Poetry ....

. 60

Garcilasso ....

Figueroa, Silvestre

. 61

Cantoral, the Argensolas .

Borja, Hei^era ....

. 61

Rioja, Quevedo

Villegas

. 61

Elegy does not succeed . .

Pastoral Poetry ....

. 62

Garcilasso, Boscan, Mendoza .

Figueroa, Cantoral

. 62

Montemayor ....

Saa de Miranda ....

. 62

Polo, Balbuena

Barahona de Soto

. 64

Padilla, Silvestre .

Pedro de Enzinas

. 65

Morales, Tapia, Espinel .

Balvas, Villegas ....

. 65

Carrillo, Esquilache .

. 65

Quevedo, Espinosa .

Soto de Roxas, Zarate .

. 66

Ulloa, Los Reyes

Barrios, Inez de la Cruz

. 66

Pastorals successful

Epigrams, amatory

. 66

Maldonado, Silvestre

Villegas, Gongora

. 66

Camoens

Argensolas, Villegas, Lope de V(

3ga . 68

Quevedo, Esquilache

Francisco de la Torre .

. 68

ReboUedo ....

Didactic Poetry .

. 69

Earliest

In the Cancioneros

. 69

Boscan, Silvestre, Mendoza .

Guzman, Aldana, Rufo

. 71

Virues, Cantoral

Murillo

. 71

Salas

The Argensolas, Artieda

. 72

Mesa, Espinel ....

Juan de la Cueva

. 72

Pablo de Cdspedes .

Lope de Vega

. 74

Rebolledo, Trapeza.

Emblems

. 75

Daza, Covarrubias .

Descriptive Poetry

. 75

Dicastillo

Didactic Poetry fails .

. 77

CONTENTS.

Vll

CHAPTER XXXII,

Ballad Poetky.

Effect of the Romanceros .

. 78

Lorenzo de Sepulveda

Alonso de Fuentes

. 80

Juan de Timoneda .

Pedro de Padilla .

. . 83

Juan de la Cueva .

Gin^s Perez de Hita .

. 84

Hidalgo, Valdivielso

Lope de Vega

. 85

Arellano

Roca y Serna, Esquilache .

. 86

Mendoza, Quevedo .

Silva de Romances

. 86

Los Doce Pares .
Romancero del Cid .
Primavera de Perez
Silvestre, Montemayor .
Espinel, Castillejo
Lopez de Maldonado
Gongora, Arteaga, Pantaleon
Villamediana, Coronel .
Cervantes, Lope de Vega .
Quevedo, Fereira, Alarcon
Diego de la Chica
Universal Love of Ballads

87
87
87
88

88
88

89
89
89
90

CHAPTEE XXXIII.

Romantic Fiction. — Prose Pastorals.

Romances of Chivalry

. 91

Changed Taste

Seen in Pastoral Fictions .

. 92

Shepherd's Life in Spain

Sannazaro in Italy

. 93

Montemayor ....

His Diana Enamorada.

. 94

Continued by Perez

And by Gil Polo . . . .

. 98

Antonio de Lo Frasso

Luis Galvez de Montalvo .

. 99

His Filida ....

100

Cervantes

. 100

Bartolom^ Lopez de Enciso

. 101

Bovadilla ....

Bernardo de la Vega

Lope de Vega

Bernardo de Balbuena

His Siglo de Oro .

Suarez de Figueroa .

His Aixiarjdlis and Pastor Fido

Adorno, Botelho

Quintana Cuevas .

Corral, Saavedra

Popularity of Pastorals

Their Incongruities .

Their Foundation

Their Failure .

102

102
102
103

103
104
104
105
105
105
106
107
108
108

CHAPTER XXXIY.
Romantic Fiction, continued. — Stories in the Gusto Picaresco.

Their Origin . . . .

. 109

Military Life ....

. 109

Contempt for honest Labor .

. 110

Feeling of the lower Classes .

111

The Pfcaros . . . .

. 113

Lazarillo de Tdrmes

113

IMateo Aleman . . . .

. 113

His Guzman de Alfarache

. 114

Spurious Second Part .

. 115

Genuine Second Part

116

Andreas Perez . . . .

. 121

His Pfcara Justina

. 121

Drama and Short Tales .

122

Vicente Espinel .

. 122

His Marcos de Obregon .

. 123

Yanez y Rivera .

. 126

His Alonso ....

126

Quevedo, Solorzano .

. 327

Enriquez Gomez

. 128

Estevanillo Gonzalez .

. 129

Success of Picaro Stories

- 130

Vlll

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXV.

EoMAjjTic Fiction, coxttkued. — Serious and Historical Romances.

Early Specimens .... 132

Jnan de Flores .... 132

Nunez de Reinoso .... 133

Luzindaro y Medusina . . . 133

Hieronimo de Contreras . . . 134

Relations with Italy and Algiers . 134
Giu^s Perez de Hita . . . .135

His Guerras de Granada . . 135

Little imitated 140

La Cryselia de Lidaceli . . . 142

Benito Eemigio Noj^dens . . . 143

Gonzalo de Cespedes . . . 143

Cervantes, Lamarca .... 144

Dos Verdaderos Amigos . . 145

Valladares de Valdelomar . . . 145

Grave Fictions discouraged . . 146

Cosm^ de Texada .... 146

Cliristoval Lozano .... 148

Serious Fictions not successful . . 149

CHAPTEE XXXVI.
Romantic Fiction, concluded. — Tales.

Arise from the State of Society

. 150

Antonio de Villegas

150

His Story of Narvaez

. 151

Juan de Timoneda

153

His Patraiiuelo ....

. 154

Cervantes, Hidalgo

155

Suarez de Figueroa .

. 156

Salas Barbadillo ....

156

Eslava, Agreda ....

. 160

Linan y Verdugo . . .

160

Lope de Vega ....

. 160

Salazar, Lugo, Camerino

161

Changed Form of Tales

. 161

Tirso de Molina . . .■ .

162

Montalvan

. 163

Matias de los Reyes

164

Fernandez y Peralta .

. 165

Montalvan

165

Cespedes y Meneses, Moya .

165

Castro y Anaya ....

166

Mariana de Carbajal

166

Marfa de Zayas .....

166

Mata, Castillo, Lozano .

167

Solorzano ......

167

Alcala, Villalpando

168

Prado, Isidro de Robles .

168

Luis Velez de Guevara .

169

Jacinto Polo .....

170

Marcos Garcia ....

172

Francisco Santos ....

172

Tales ever\^where ....

177

Early Appearance of Romantic Fic-

tion ......

178

Its early Decay .....

179

CHAPTER XXXVII,

Eloquence. —Epistolary Correspondence.

Forensic Eloquence little cultivated . 180

Courts of Justice .... 180

Cortes 180

Kloquence of the Pulpit . . 181

Luis de Leon ..... 182

Luis de Granada . . . . 182

Cultismo in the Pulpit . . . 186

Para vie ino 187

Pulpit Eloquence fails . . . 187

Letter-Avr-iters formal .
Queen Isabella, Columbus
Guevara, Avila .
Zurita and his Friends .
Antonio Perez .
Santa Tei'esa .
Argensola, Lope de Vega .
Qnevedo, Cascales .
Antonio, Soils .

188
188
189
169
190
19^
197
197
197

CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE XXXVIII.

Historical Composition.

Fathers of Spanish History

Geronimo de Zurita

Ambrosio de Morales

Diego de Mendoza .

Ribadeneyra, Siguenza

Juan de Mariana .

His Persecutions

His History of Spain

Prudencio de Sandoval

Spanish Discoveries and Conquests

. 199

Antonio de Hen-era .

. 217

199

Bartolome de Argensola

219

. 202

Garcilasso de ia Vega, Inca

. 219

204

Francisco de Moucada .

223

. 205

Coloma

. 224

206

Manuel Melo ....

225

. 207

Saavedra Faxardo

. 228

210

Antonio Solis.

228

. 214

Character of Spanish History .

. 232

3 216

CHAPTER XXXIX.
Didactic Prose.

Proverbs

. 234

Oldest

234

Marquis of Santillana

. 236

Garay, Valles, Nuiiez .

236

Mai Lara, Palmireno .

. 9.37

Oudin, Soi-apan

237

Cejudo, Juan de Yriarte .

. 238

Great Number of Proverbs .

238

Didactic Prose ....

. 239

Antonio de Torquemada

239

Christoval de Acosta .

. 241

Luis de Granada .

242

Juan de la Cruz

. 243

Santa Teresa ....

244

School of Spiritualists

. 246

Malon de Chaide .

246

Agustin de Roxas

. 248

Suarez de Figueroa

249

]Marquez, Vera y Zuiiiga .
Fernandez de Navarrete
Saavedra Faxardo
Quevedo, Antonio de Vega .
Nieremberg, lienavente

Guzman

Dantisco, Andrada .
Villalobos, Paton .
Aleman, Faria y Sousa
Francisco de Portugal .
Cultismo in Spanish Prose
Paravicino ....
Baltazar Gracian
Cultismo prevails .
Juan de Zabaleta
Lozano, Heredia, Ramirez
Small Success of Didactic Prose

25>
251

252
253
253
255
255
255
256
256
257
259
260
262
263
263
264

CHAPTER XL.
CoNCLUDiKG Remarks on the Period.

Decay of the Spanish Character . 267
Charles the Fifth, Philip the Second 268
Philip the Third . . . .270
Philip the Fourth .... 271
Charles the Second .... 273

Degi'adation of the Country . . 274

Religion sinks into Bigotry . . 275

Loyalty sinks into Servility . . 278

Literature fails with Character . 280

CONTENTS.

THIED PEEIOD.

The Literature that existed in Spain between the Accession of the
Bourbon Family and the Invasion of Bonaparte ; or from the Be-
ginning OF the Eighteenth Century to the early Part of the Nine-
teenth.

CHAPTER I.
Reign of Philip the Fifth.

D^ath of Charles the Second

His Will

War of the Succession
Peace of Utrecht .
Philip the Fifth .
Academy of the Language .
State of the Language
Dictionaries of the Language
Dictionary of the Academy'-
Its Orthography . . . .
Its Grammar

285
286
286
286
287
288
289
291
292
293
295

Its other Labors .
Other Academies .
State of Poetry .
Moraes . . .
Barnuevo .
Reynosa, Zevallos .
Lobo, Benegasi y Luxan
Alvarez de Toledo .
Antonio Munoz .
Sagradas Flores
Jorge de Pitillas

296
297
298
298
299
300
301
301
301
302
302

CHAPTER II,

Reign of Philip the Fifth, concluded.

Marques de San Plielipe . . . 304

French Influences .... 306

Translations from the French . . 307

Ignacio de Luzan .... 307

Elder Works on Criticism . . . 310

Enzina, Rengifo, Lopez . . . 310

Cascales, Salas 311

Luzan's Po^tica .... 312

Suate of the Moral and Physical Sci-
ences 314

State of the Universities . . . 315

Low State of Spanish Culture . 316

Benito Feyjoo ..... 317

His Teatro Cn'tico .... 319

His Cartas Eruditas ... 319

Effect of his Works . . 319

CHAPTER III,

Reigns of Philip the Fifth and Fekdinand the Sixth.

The Inquisition .
Intolerance . . .
Autos de F^ and -Judaism .
Culture under Ferdinand
The Inquisition .
Policy of the State

322
828
824
326
327
327

Condition of Letters .
Salduena, Moraleja, Ortiz
Academy of Good Taste .
Velazquez
Mayans y Siscar
Bias Nasarre .

327

328
328
329
830

830

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

Reign of Charles the Third.

State of the Country .

. 332

Character of the King .

333

The Jesuits ....

. 334

The Universities .

834

The Inquisition ....

. 835

Dawn of Better Things .

337

Father Isla

. 337

His Juventud Triunfante

337

His Dia Grande ....

. 337

His Sermones ....

339

His Fray Gerundio .

. 339

His Exile ....

343

His Cicero

. 344

His Letters ....

344

His Translation of Gil Bias

. 346

Question of its Authorship . . 346

Efforts to restore the Old School . 350

Huerta 350

Sedano, Sanchez .... 351

Sarmiento 3'1

Efforts to encourage the French School 352
Moratin the Elder . . . .352

Club of Men of Letters . . . 355

Cadahalso 356

Yriarte 358

His Fables 360

Samaniego 361

His Fables . . . . . .362

Arroyal, Montengon . . . 363

Salas, Meras, Norona . . . 364

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

State of Literary Parties

Melendez Vald^s .

His Works .

His Exile and Death

Gonzalez .

Forner ....

Iglesias

Cienfuegos

Jovellanos .

Connected with Melendez

366
366
367
372
374
375
376
377
379
380

His Political Services

. 380

His Exiles ....

382

His Share in the Revolution

. 382

His Death ....

386

His Character ....

. 386

Muiioz

387

Escoiquiz

. 388

Moratin the Younger

389

His Relations to Godoy

. 390

Quintana ....

391

CHAPTER VI.

The Theatre in the Eighteenth Century.

Important Movement . . . 395

Translations from the French . 395

Cafiiizares ...... 395

Torres, Lobo . . . . . 396

Lower Classes rule .... 396

The old Court-Yards ... 397
The new Theatres . . . .397

The Opera ..... 398

Castro, Anorbe, Montiano . . . 399

The Virginia and Athaulpho . . 400

Translations from the F'rench . . 401

The Petimetra of Moratin the Elder 401

His Hormesinda . . . .

. 402

His Guzman el Bueno .

403

Cadahalso

. 403

Sebastian y Latre .

403

Yriarte

. 404

Melendez, Ayala .

405

Huerta

. 406

Jovellanos ....

406

Autos suppressed

. 408

Low State of the Theatre

409

Ramon de la Cruz

. 411

Sedano Lassala, Cortes

414

Xll

CONTENTS.

Cienfuegos .
Pliierta .
Discussions
Valladares, Zavala
Cornelia

Moratin the Younger
Patronized by Godoy
His first PLiy

414
415
416
417
417
418
419
421

His Nueva Comedia .
His Baron and Mogigata
His Si de las Niiias .
His Translations
State of the Drama .
Actors of Note
State of the Theatre .
Prospects

422
423
4^4

425
426
426
427
428

CHAPTER VII.
Eeigns of Charles the Fourth axd Ferdinand the Seventh. — Conclusion.

Charles the Fourth and Godoy . . 430

French Revolution .... 430

Index Expurgatorius .... 431

Affair of the Escorial . . . 431

Abdication 432

French Invasion .... 432

French expelled 433

Ferdinand the Seventh . . . 433

Effect of the Times on Letters . 434

Interregnum in Culture . . . 436

Eevival of Letters .... 436

Character of the People . . . 437

Hopes for the Future . . . 438

APPENDIX, A.
Origin of the Spanish Language.

Spain and its Name .

. 441

The Arabs ....

. 457

The Iberians in Spain .

442

Their Invasion . . . .

458

The Celts

. 443

Their Effect on the Proven9als .

. 459

The Celtiberians ....

443

Their Refinement . . . .

459

The Phoenicians

. 444

The Christians and Pelayo

. 460

The Carthaginians

445

The Mozarabes . . . .

461

The Romans ....

. 446

Their Influence ....

. 462

Their Colonies ....

448

Their Reunion . . . 1

464

Their Language.

. 449

The Language of the North

. 464

Their Writers ....

449

How modified . . . .

466

Christianity introduced

. 451

First written Spanish

. 466

Its Effects on the Language .

451

Cartas Pueblas . . . .

467

Irruption of the Northern Tribes

. 453

The Romance ....

. 469

The Franks, Vandali, etc.

454

The Spanish or Castilian

469

The Goths

. 454

Materials that compose it .

. 469

Their Culture ....

455

Its rapid Prevalence

471

Their Effect on the Language .

. 456

Ballads on separate Sheets
Oldest Ballad-Book
That of Antwerp
Other early Ballad-Books
Ballad-Book in Nine Parts

APPENDIX, B.
The Romanceros.

472

473
473
476
476

Romancei'o General .... 481
Early Selections from the Romance-
ros 482

Recent Selections .... 482

Latest and Best 484

CONTEx^TS.

Xlll

APPENDIX, C.
Fernan Gomez de Cibdareal, amd the Centon Epistoi.aeio.

Suggestions on its Genuineness . . 486

Probably a Forgery . . . 486

No such Person mentioned early . 487

No IManuscript of the Letters . 487

Date of the earliest Edition false . 487

Second Edition admits it . . 487

No Date to the Letters at first . . 488

Their Style 488

That of the First Edition . . . 488

Misstatements about Juan de Mena 4£8

About Barrientos .... 4£9

About Alvaro de Luna . . . 490

Appeared in an Age of Forgeries . 490

State of the Question . . . 4B1

Postscript, 1861, Reply to Objections 491

APPENDIX, D.
The Buscapee.

Statement by Los Rios

By Ruydiaz . . . .

Effect of their Statements

Don Adolfo de Castro .

Publishes a Buscapie

What it is .

Contradicts Los Rios and Ruydiaz

Its long Concealment suspicious

Its External Evidence

Argote de Molina .

The Duke of Lafoes .

. 495

Don Pascual de Gandara

501

495

Its Internal Evidence

502

. 497

Resemblances to the Style

of Cervan-

497

tes ... .

502

. 497

Mistake about Enzinas

• . .

503

498

About an old Proverb .

, .

503

. 499

Its Title-page

. .

504

499

Its Notice of Alcala

. .

505

. 499

State of the Question

505

500

Postscript, 1S61, Reply to

Objections

605

. 501

APPENDIX, E.
Editions, Translations, and Imitations of the Don Quixote.

First Part ....

. 508

Of Pellicer

. 511

Second Part ....

609

Of Clemencin

511

Both Parts

. 509

Translations

. 512

Lord Carteret's Edition .

509

Imitations out of Spain .

514

That of the Academy

. 610

In Spain . . . . ,

. 515

Of Bowie ....

510

Its Fame everywhere

516

APPENDIX, F.
Early Collections of Old Spanish Plays.

Comedias de Diferentes Autores . 518
Comedias Nuevas Escogidas . . 519

Various smaller Collections

521

XIV

CONTENTS.

APPENDIX, G.
On the Origin of Cultismo.

Controversy about it in Italy
Bettinelli and Tirabosclii
Spanish Jesuits in Italy
Serrano and Andres
Vannetti and Zorzi .

I. Poema de Jos^ el Patriarca
II. Danza General de la Muerte

. 523

Arteaga and Isla

523

Lampillas

. 524

End of the Controversy

524

Result of it .

. 524

APPENDIX, H.

Inedita.

. 628

III. El Rabi Santob .

531

624
526

526
526

531

INDEX 533

HISTORY

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.)

VOL. III.

HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE.

SECOND PERIOD

(CONTIKUED. )

CHAPTEE XXIX.

LYRIC POETRY. — ITS CONDITION FROM THE TIME OF BOSCAN AND GARCILASSO

DE LA VEGA. CANTORAL, FIGUEROA, ESPIXEL, MOXTEMAYOR, BARAHOXA

DE SOTO, RUFO, DAMIAN DE VEGAS, PADILLA, MALDONADO, LUIS DE LEOK,
FERNANDO DE HERRERA AND HIS POETICAL LANGUAGE, ESPINOSA's COL-
LECTION, MANOEL DE PORTUGAL, MESA, LEDESMA AND THE CONCEPTISTAS.
— CULTISMO, AND SIMILAR BAD TASTE IN OTHER COUNTRIES. — GONGORA
AND HIS FOLLOWERS, VILLAMEDIANA, PARAVICI^^O, EOCA Y SERNA, ANTONIO
DE VEGA, PANTALEON, TIOLANTE DEL CIELO, MELO, 3IONCAYO, LA TORRE,

VERGARA, ROZAS, ULLOA, SALAZAR. FASHION AND PREVALENCE OF THE

SCHOOL OF GONGORA. EFFORTS TO OVERTURN IT BY LOPE DE VEGA,

QUEVEDO, AND OTHERS. MEDRANO, ALCAZAR, ARGUIJO, BALVAS.

A DECIDEDLY lyric tendency is perceptible in Spanish
literature from the first. The ballads are full of it, and
occasionally we find snatches of songs that seem almost
as old as the earliest ballads. All this, of course, be-
longs to a period so remote and rude, that what it pro-
duced was national, because Spain had as yet no inter-
course with other European countries that drew after
it any of their culture and refinement. Later, we
have seen how the neighboring Provenc^al sometimes
gave its measures and tones to the Castihan ; and
how both, so far as Spain vas concerned, were
* fashioned by the tastes of the different courts ^ 4

4 LYEIC POETKY. [Period II.

of the country down to the time of Ferdinand and
Isabella.

But, from the next age, which was that of Boscan
and Garcilasso, a new element was introduced into
Spanish lyric poetry ; for, from that period, not only
the forms, bat the genius, of the more cultivated Italian
are perceptible, in a manner that does not permit us
for a moment to question their great influence and
final success. Still, the difference between the charac-
ters of the two nations was so great, that the poetry of
Spain could not be drawn into such relations with the
Italian models set before it as was at first attempted.
Two currents, therefore, were at once formed ; and
after the first encounter between them, in wdiich Cas-
tillejo was the most prominent, if not the earliest, of
those who strove to prevent their union, the respective
streams have continued to flow on, side by side, but
still separate from each other, down to our own days.

At the end of the sixteenth century, the influence
of such poetry as had filled the Cancioneros from the
time of John the Second was still acknowledged, and
Bibero, Costana, Heredia, Sanchez de Badajoz, and
their contemporaries, continued to be read, though
they no longer enjoyed the fashionable admiration
which had once waited on them. But the change that
was destined to overthrow the school to which these
poets belonged was rapidly advancing ; and if it were
not the most favorable that could have been made in
Spanish lyric poetry, it was one which, as we have
seen, the brilliant success of Garcilasso, and the cir-
cumstances producing and attending it, rendered in-
evitable.^

Am.ong those who contributed avowedly to this

1 See what is said in Chap. III. on Acuna, Cetina, Silvestre, etc.

Chap. XXTX.] TWO SCHOOLS. 5

change was Cantortil, who, m 1578, published a vol-
ume of verse, m the Preface to which he does not hesi-
tate to say that Spain had hardly produced a poet
deserving the name, except Garcilasso ; — a poet, as
he truly adds, formed on Italian models, and one
whose footsteps he himself follows, though at a
Yery ^ humble distance.^ Another of the lyric * 5
poets of the same period, and one who, with bet-
ter success, took the same direction, was Francisco
de Figueroa, a gentleman and a soldier, whose few
Castilian poems are still acknowledged in the more
choice collections of his native literature, but who
hved so long m Italy, and devoted himself so earnestly
to the study of its language, that he wrote Italian verse
Avith purit}^, as well as Spanish.^ To these should be
added Vicente Espinel, wdio invented the decimas, or
revived the use of them, and wdio, in a volume of po-
etry printed in 1591, distinguishes the Italian forms, to
which he gives precedence, from the Castilian, in which
his efforts, though fewer in number, are occasionally
more beautiful than anything he wrote in the forms
he preferred.*

But the disposition to follow the great masters of
Italy was by no means so general as the examples of
Cantoral, Figueroa, and Espinel might seem to imply.

2 " Obras Poeticas de Lomas de Can- not printed, I tliink, till it appeared in

toral," Madrid, 1578, 12mo. It opens 1626, at Lisbon, in a niinnte rolame

M^tli a translation from Tansillo, and under the auspices of Luis Tribaldo de

the lyrical portions of the three books Toledo, chronicler of Portugal. It is

into which it is divided are in the Ital- also in the twentieth volume of the col-

ian manner ; but the rest is often more lection of Fernandez, Madrid. But,

national in its forms. though it is highh^ polished, it is not

^ Figueroa, (born 1540, died 1620,) inspired by a masculine genius,
often called El Divino, was perhaps * "Diversas Eimas de V. Espinel,"
more known and admired in Italy, dur- Madrid, 1591, 18mo. His lines o:i
ing the greater part of his life, than he Seeking Occasions for Jealousy (f. 78)
was in Spain ; but he died at last, are very ha]ipy, and his Complaints
much honored, in Alcala, his native against Past Hapjjiness (f. 128) are bet-
city. His poetry is dated in 1572, and ter than those on the same subject by
was cir-culated in manuscript quite as Silvestre, Obras, 1599, f. 71.
early as that date implies; but it was

d TWO SCHOOLS. [Period II.

Their cases are, in fact, extreme cases, as we can see
from the circumstance, that, though Montemayor, in
his " Diana," was a professed imitator of Sannazaro,
still, among the poems scattered through that prose
pastoral, and in a volume which he afterwards printed,
are found many pieces — and some of them among the
best he has left — that belong decidedly to the older

and more national school.^ Similar remarks may
* 6 be applied to other ^ authors of the same period.

Luis Barahona de Soto, of whose lyric poems only
a few have reached us, was by no means exclusively
of the Italian school, though his principal work, the
famous '' Tears of Angelica," is in the manner of Ari-
osto.^ And Eufo, while he strove to tread in the foot-
steps of Petrarch, had yet within him a Castilian genius,
which seems to have compelled him, as if against his
will, to return to the paths of the elder poets of his own
country^ A still larger number of the contemporary
lyrics of Damian de Vegas ^ and Pedro de Padilla ^ are

5 Montemayor, as wft shall see here- prohibited in the Index of 1667, and in

after, introduced the prose pastorals, in tl at of 1790.

imitation of Sannazaro, into Spanish, ® The lyric poetry of Barahona de
in 1542 ; and a collection of his poetry, Soto is to be sought among the works,
called a " Cancioxero," was printed in of Silvestre, 1599, and in the " Flores
1554. In the editions of Madridj 1588, de Poetas Ilustres," by Espinosa, Val-
and Alcala, 1563, 12mo, which I use, ladolid, 1605, 4to.
about one third of the volume is in the ''' "Las Seyscientas Apotegmas de
Castilian measures and manner ; after Juan Eufo, y otras Obras en Verso,"
which it is formally announced, "Here Toledo, 1596, 8vo. The Apotegmas are,
begin the sonnets, canciones, and other in fact, anecdotes in prose. His son-
pieces in the measures of Italian verse." nets and canciones are not so good as
A cancion occurs in tlie first book of the his Letter to his Son and his other
"Diana," on the regrets of a shepherd- more Castilian poems, such as the one
ess who had driven her lover to despair, relating to the war in Flanders, where
which is very sweet and natural, and he served.

is well translated by old Bartholomew ^ '^ Librode Poesia, por Fray Damian
Yong in his version of the Diana (Lon- de Vegas," Toledo, 1590, 12mo, above
don, 1598, folio, p. 8). Polo, who con- a thousand pages ; most of it religious ;
tinned the Diana, pursued the same most of it in the old manner ; and near-
course in the poems he inserted in his ly all of it very duIL See ante, Chap,
continuation, and good translations of XX.
several of them may be found in Yong. ^ "Pedro de Padilla, Eglogas, Sone-

" The works of Montemayor touching tos," ec, Sevilla, 1582, 4to, ff. 246.

on Devotion and Religion" — those, I There are many lyrics in this collec-

presume, in his "Cancionero" — are tion, glosas, villancicos, and letrillas^

Chap. XXIX.] FEKNANDO DE HERRERA. 7

national in their tone ; but best of all is this tone
heard, at this period, from Lopez Maldonado, who.
sometimes in a gay spirit, and sometimes in one full
of tenderness and melancholy, is almost uniformly
inspired by the popular feeling and true to the pop-
ular instincts.^^

* But it should not be forgotten that during the ^ 7
same period lived the two greatest lyrical poets
that Spain has ever produced, — exercising little influ-
ence over each other, and still less over their own
times. Of one of them, Luis de Leon, who died in
1591, after having given hardly anything of his poetry
to the world, we have already spoken. The other was
Fernando de Herrera, an ecclesiastic of Seville,^^ of
whom we know only that he lived in the latter part of
the sixteenth century; that he died in 1597, at the age
of sixty-three years ; that Cervantes wrote a sonnet in
his honor ; -^^ and that, in 1619, his friend Francisco

that are quite Castilian ; some of them in 1580. But the whole volume is

spirited and pleasant. Others may be marked with conceits and quibbles,
found in his "Thesoi^o de Varias Po- ^^ Herrera' s praises of Seville and the

esi'as," (Madrid, 1587, 12mo,) where, Guadalquivir sufficiently betray his ori-

however, there are yet more in the gin, so constant are they. They are,

Italian fornis. He published, also, too, sometimes among the happy speci-

" Jardin Espiritual," 1584, a collection mens of his verse ; for instance, in the

of religious lyrical poetry, the least de- ode in honor of St. Ferdinand, who

sirable of his works, and in 1587 a re- rescued Seville from the Moors, and in

ligious narrative poem in nine cantos the elegy, " Bien debes asconder sereno

of octave verse, entitled, " Grandeza cielo."

y Excelencias de la Virgen, Nuestra ^^ Kavarrete, Vida de Cervantes,

Senora." 1819, p. 447. The date of Herrera's

1'^ The "Cancionero" of Maldonado death is given on the sure authority

was printed at Madrid, 1586, ff. 189, of some MS. notes of Pacheco, his friend,

in 4to, and the best parts of it are the published in the Semanario Pintoresco,

amatory poetry, some of which is found 1845, p. 299 ; before which it was un-

in the third volume of Faber's "Flo- known. These notes are taken from an

resta." One more poet might have interesting MS. Avhich seems to have

been added here, as writing in the old been the rough and imperfect draft of

measures, ^ Joachim Ptomero de Cepe- the "Imagines" and " Elogia Virorum

da, — whose works were printed at Se- Illustrium," which Antonio"( Bib. Nov.,

ville, 1582, in 4to, and contain a good Tom. I. p. 456) says Pacheco gave to

many cancioires, motes, and glosas ; the w^ell-known Count Duke Olivares,

among the rest, three remar^iable son- and out of which a notice of Lope de

nets, presented by him to Philip II. as Vega, constituting its leading article,

he passed through Badajoz, where Cepe- was printed with the first edition of the

da lived, to take possession of Portugal, " Jerusalen Conquistada, " 1609. They

FERNANDO DE HERRERA.

[Pepjod II.

Paclieco, the painter, piiblislied his works, with a Pref-
ace by the kindred spirit of Rioja.^'^

That Herrera was acquainted with some of the un-
published poetry of Luis de Leon is certain, because he
cites it in his learned commentary on Garcilasso,
printed in 1580 ; but that he placed Garcilasso de la
yega above Luis de Leon is no less certain from the

same commentary, where he often expresses an
* 8 opinion that Garcilasso * was the greatest of all

Spanish poets ;^^ — an opinion sufficiently obvious in
the volume of his own poetry published by himself in
1582, which is altogether in the Italian manner adopted
by Garcilasso, and which, increased by poems of a dif-
ferent character in the editions of Pacheco, in 1619, and
of Fernandez, in 1808,^^ constitutes all we possess of
Herrera's verse, though certainly not all he wrote .^®

are in the Semanario Erudito, 1844, pp.
374, etc. See also Navarrete, Vida de
Cervantes, pp. 536, 537. Pacheco was
a good painter, and Cean Bermudez
(Diccionario, Tom. IV. p. 3) gives a
life of him. He was, too, a man of
some learning, and entered into a con-
troversy with Quevedo on the question
of making Santa Teresa a co-patroness
of Spain with Santiago, which Quevedo
resisted ; besides which, in 1649, he
published in 4to, at Seville, his "Arte
de la Pintura, su Antiguedad y Gran-
dezas," a rare work, praised by Cean
Bermudez, which I have seldom seen.
Pacheco died in 1654. Sedano (Par-
naso Espanol, Tom. III. p. 117, and
Tom. VII. p. 92) gives two epigrams
of Pacheco, which are connected with
his art, and which Sedano praises, I
think, more than they deserve to be
])raised. By far the best account of
Pacheco and his Treatise on Painting
is to be found in Stirling's "Artists of
Spain," 1848, Vol. I. pp. 462-479.
HiS few poems, imitated from Herrera,
are in Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca, Tom.
XXXII., 1854.

^^ Pacheco's edition is accompanied
with a fine portrait of the author from
a picture by the editor, which has often
been engraved since. But though Her-

rera thus had Pacheco for a friend, he
was, we are told, very deficient in taste
for the arts. Cean Bermudez, Diccion.,
Tom. III. p. 240.

1* "In our Spain, beyond all com-
parison, Garcilasso stands first," he
says, (p. 409,) and repeats the same
opinion often elsewhere.

1^ The edition of Fernandez, the most
complete of all, and twice printed, is in
the fourth and fifth volumes of his "Po-
esias Castellanas." The longer poems
of Herrera, which we know only hj
their unpromising titles, are "The Bat-
tle of the Giants," "The Rape of Pro-
serpine," "The Amadis," and ''The
Loves of Lausino and Corona." Per-
haps we have reason to regret the loss
of his unpublished Eclogues and " Ca,s-
tilian Verses," which last may have
been in the old Castilian measures.
In 1572, he published a descriptive
account of the war of Cyprus ancl the
battle of Lepanto, and, in 1592, a Life
of Sir Thomas More, taken from the
Latin "lives of the Three Thomases,"
by Stapleton, the obnoxious English
Papist. (Wood's Athense, ed. Bliss,
Tom. I. p. 671.) A History of Spain,
said by Rioja to have been finished by
Herrera about 1590, is probably lost.

1^ In some remarks by the Licentiate

Chap. XXIX.] FERXAXDO DE IIERRERA. 9

Some parts of the volume published by himself have
little value, such as most of the sonnets, — a form of
composition on which he placed an extravagant esti-
mate.^'' Other parts are excellent. Such are his ele-
gies^ which are in terza rima, and of which the one
addres.sed to Love beseeching Repose is full of passion,
w^hile that in which he expresses his gratitude for the
resource of tears is full of tenderness and the gentlest
harmony .^^ But his principal success is in his canzones.
Of these he wrote sixteen. The least fortunate of them
is, perhaps, the one where he most strove to imitate
Pindar ; — that on the rebellion of the Moors in the
Alpuxarras, which he has rendered cold by founding it
on the Greek mythology. The best are one on the
battle of Lepanto, gained by Herrera's favorite
hero, the young and generous ^ Don John of Aus- * 9
tria, and one on the overthrow of Sebastian of
Portugal, in his disastrous invasion of Africa. Both
were probably written when the minds of men were
everywhere stirred by the great events that called
them forth ; and both were fortunately connected with
those feelings of loyalty and religion that always
seemed to spring up together in the minds of the
Spanish people, and to be of kindred with all their
highest poetical inspirations.

The first — that on the battle of Lepanto, which
emancipated many thousand Christian captives, and

Enrique de Duarte, prefixed to the edi- he says, "The sonnet is the most beau-

tiou of Herrera's x^oetry printed in 1619, tiful form of composition in Spanish

he says, that, a few days after Herrera's and Italian poetry, and the one that

death, a hound volume, containing all demands the most art in its construction

his poetical works, prepared by himself and the greatest grace." (p. QQ.)

for the press, was destroyed, and that i^ The lady to whom Herrera dedi-

his scattered manuscripts would proba- cated his love, in a spirit of pure and

bly have shared the same fate, if they Platonic affection little known to Span-

had not been carefully collected by ish poetry, is said to have been the

Pacheco. Countess of Gelves.
^'^ la his commentary on Garcilasso

10 FERNANDO DE HERRERA. [Period II.

stopped the second westward advance of the Crescent
— is a lofty and cheerful hymn of victory, mingling, to
a remarkable degree, the jubilant exultation which
breaks forth in the Psalms and Prophecies on the con-
quests of the Jews over their unbelieving enemies,
with the feelings of a devout Spaniard at the thought
©f so decisive an overthrow of the ancient and hated
enemy of his faith and country. The other, — an ode
on the death of Sebastian of Portugal, — composed, on
the contrary, in a vein of despondency, is still romantic
and striking, even more, perhaps, than its rival. That
unfortunate monarch, who was one of the most chival-
rous princes that ever sat on a throne in Christendom,
undertook, in 1578, to follow up the great victory of
Lepanto by rescuing the whole of the North of Africa
from the Moslem yoke, under which it had so long
groaned, and to restore to their homes the multitudes
of Christians who were there suffering the most cruel
servitude. He perished in the generous attempt;
hardly fifty of his large army returning to recount the
details of the fatal battle, in which he himself had dis-
appeared among the heaps of unrecognized slain. But
so fond and fervent was the popular admiration, that,
for above a century afterwards, it was believed in Por-
tugal that Don Sebastian would still return and resume
the power which, for a time, had both dazzled and de-
luded the hearts of his subjects.^^

'^ There is a book on this subject ' the fraud. The story is interesting
which should not be entirely over- and well told, and was first printed in
looked in a history of Spanish litera- 1595, at Cadiz, under the title of " A
ture. It is an account of a pastry-cook History of Gabriel de Espinosa, the
of Madrigal, who, seventeen years after Pastry-cook of Madrigal, who pretended
the rout in Africa, passed himself off in to be King Don Sebastian of Poi'tugal."
Spain as Don Sebastian, and induced Of course, Philip II. did not deal gen-
Anna of Austria, a natural daughter of tly with one who made such pretensions
Don John of Austria, living in a con- to the crown he himself had clutched,
vent at Madrigal, to give? him rich or with any of liis abetters. The pas-
jewels, which led to the detection of try-cook and a monk on whom he had

Chap. XXIX.] FERNAT^DO DE TIERRERA. 11

*To the main facts in this melancholy disaster * 10
Herrera has happily given a religious turn. He
opens his ode vnth a lament for the affliction of Por-
tugal, and then goes on to show that the generous
glory which should have accompanied such an effort
against the common enemy of Christendom had been
lost in a cruel defeat, because those who undertook the
great expedition had been moved only by human am-
bition, foroi-ettins: the hi2:her Christian feelino:s that
should have carried them into a war against the infidel.
In this spirit, he cries out, —

But woe to them who, trusting in the strength

Of horses and their chariots' multitude,

Have hastened, Lybia, to thy desert sands ! —

0, woe to them ! for theirs is not a hope

That humbly seeks for everlasting light,

But a presumptuous pride, that claims beforehand

The uncertain victory, and ere their eyes

Have looked to Heaven for help, with confident

And hardened hearts divides the unwon spoils.

But He who holds the headstrong back from ruin —

The God of Israel — hath relaxed his hand.

And they have rushed — the chariot and the charioteer.

The horse and horseman — down the dread abyss

His anger has prepared for their presumption.^^

Complaints, not entirely without foundation,
have been ^ made against Herrera's poetry, on * 11
the ground that he w^ants a sufficiently discrimi-

imposed his fictions were both hanged, to have been written by Geronymo de

after undergoing the usual appliances Cuellar. See Miinch von Bellinghau-

of racks and tortures ; and the poor sen, p. 69.

princess was degraded from her rank,

and shut up in a conventual cell for 20 Aide los quepassaron.confiados

^•c rri, • i % En sus cayallos, y en la mucnedumbre

lite, ihere is an anonymous play of De sus carros, en ti, Libia desierta!

moderate merit belonging to the reign Y en su vigor y fuercjas enganados,

of Philip IV. entitled " El Pastelero de Noalcaron su esperan^a & aquella cumbre

Tvr 1 • ^ ,, J ,1 -r> ^ T-> iJ eterna luz : mas eon sobema cierta

JVladrigal ; and the Romance of Pa- S' ofrecieron )a incierta

tricio de la Escosura, — "Ni Rey ni Victoria, y sin bolver 4 Dios sus ojos,

Roque," in four small volumes, 1835, Con ierto cuello y coraqon ufano,

^r, ^„+^„«i r A J 4--U 4. i^olo atendieron piempre a los despojos I

— is entirely founded on the account Y el Santo de Israel abri^ su mano,

printed m 1595, using sometimes its Y los dex6 ; — y cayo en despenadero

very words, but assuming always that El carro, y el caTallo y cavallero.

the pastry-cook was really the unhappy Versos de Fern. Herrera, Sevilla, 1619,

king of Portugal. The play is believed *'''> P- ^^-

12 FERNAl^DO DE HERRERA. [Period IL

nating taste in the choice of his words. Qiieveclo, who.
when he printed the poems of the Bachiller de la
Torre as models of purity in style, first made this sug-
gestion, intimates that his objections do not apply to
the volume of jyoetry published by Herrera himself, but
to the additions that were made to it after the author's
death by his friend Pacheco.^^ But, without stopping
to inquire whether this intimation be strictly true or
not, it is enough to say, that, wdien Herrera's taste was
formed and forming, the Castilian was in the state in
which it was described to have been about 1540 by the
wise author of the " Dialogue on Languages," — that
is, it was not, in all respects, fitted for the highest
efibrts of the more cultivated lyric poetry. Herrera
felt this difiicalty, and somewhat boldly undertook to
find a remedy for it.

The course he pursued is sufficiently pointed out in
the acute, but pedantic, notes w^hich he has published
to his edition of Garcilasso.^^ He began by clainting
the right to throw out of the higher poetry all words
that gave a common or familiar air to the thought.
He introduced and defended inversions and inflections
approaching those in the ancient classical languages.
And he adopted, and sometimes succeeded in natural-
izing in the Castilian, words from the Latin, the Italian,
and the Greek. A moderate and cautious use of means
like these was, perhaps, desirable in his time, as the
author of the "Dialogue on Languages" had already
endeavored to show. But the misfortune with Herrera
was, that he carried his practice, if not his doctrines,
too far, and has thus occasionally given to his poetry a

21 See the address of Quevedo to his oguized since as good Castilian, Avhich

readers in the " Poesias del Bachiller from their nature they were when Her-

de la Torre." Some of the v/ords, how- rera used them.

ever, to which he objects, like ^jc7isoso, ^^ Obras de Garcilasso, 1580, , pp. 75,

infamia, dudanza, etc., have been rec- 120, 126, 573, and other places.

Chap. XXIX.] PEDEO ESPINOSA. 13

stiff and formal air, and made it, not only too mucli an
imitation of the Latin or the Italian, but a slight antici-
pation of the false taste of Gongora, that so soon became
fashionable. This is particularly true of his son-
nets ^'and sestinas, which are often involved and ^12
aAvkward in their structure ; but in his more sol-
emn odes, and especially in those where the stanzas
are regular, each consisting of thirteen or more lines,
there is a " long-resounding march " and a grand lyric
movement, that sweep on their triumphant way in old
Castilian dignity, quite unconscious of a spirit of imita-
tion, and quite beyond its reach.

Perhaps a better idea of the lyric poetry in highest
favor among the more cultivated classes of Spanish
society, at the end of the sixteenth century and the
beginning of the seventeenth, can be obtained from
the collection of Pedro Espinosa, entitled " Flowers
from the Most Famous Poets of Spain," than from any
other single volume, or from any single author. ^^ It
was printed in 1605, and contains more or less of the
works of about sixty poets of that period, including
Espinosa himself, of whom we have sixteen pieces that
are worthy of their place. Most of the collection con-
sists of lyric verse in the usual forms, — chiefly Ital-
ian, but not unfrequently national, — and many of the

23 "Primera Parte de las Flores de lusian, — a circumstance tliat renders
Poetas Ilustres de Espana, ordenada por the omission of Herrera the more strik-
Pedro Espinosa, Natural de la Ciudad ing. A collection, similar to that of
de Antequera," Valladolid, 1605, 4to, Espinosa, was made hj Josef Alfay, a
ff. 204, reprinted in Rivadeneyra's Bib- bookseller, and published at Zaragoza
lioteca, Tom. XLIL, 1857. No poetry in 1654, 4to, ff. 150, entitled "Poesias
of Herrera, however, is to be found in varias de Grandes Ingenios Espanoles,"
this collection. Antonio (Bib. Nov., ec. It contains the works of thirty-five
Tom. II. p. 190) says Espinosa was at- poets, but those who stand in the first
tached to the great Andalusian family rank and occupy the largest space are
of the Dukes of Medina-Sidonia, the Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Fran-
Guzmans ; and of the three or four cisco de la Torre, and Antonio de Men-
works he produced, two are in honor doza. The burlesque tone prevails.
of his patrons, and one was published See Spanish translation of this History,
by himself as late as 1644. Much of Tom. III., 1854, p. 505.
the poetry in the "Flores" is Anda-

14 VARIOUS LYRIC POETS. [Period II.

writers are familiar to us. Among them are Lope de
Vega, Quevedoj and others already noticed, to^^ethcr
with Gongora, the Argensolas. and some of their con-
temporaries.

Several of the poets from whom it gives selections
or contributions are to be found nowhere else, — such
as two ladies named Narvaez, and another called Dona
Christovalina ; while, from time to time, we find poems
by obscure authors, like those of Pedro de Linan
* 13 and * Agustin de Texada Paez, which, from their
considerable merit, it would have been a misfor-
tune to lose.^* But Fernando de Herrera does not
appear there at all; and of more than two thirds of its
authors, only one or two short pieces are given. It is
to be regarded, therefore, as an exhibition of the taste
of the age when it appeared, rather than as a selection
of what was really best and highest in the older and
more recent Spanish lyric poetry at the opening of the
seventeenth century. But, whatever we may think of
it in this point of view, it is certainly among the more
curious materials for a history of that poetry ; and be-
fore we condemn Espinosa for selecting less wisely
than he might have done, we should remember, that,
after all, his taste was probably more refined than that
of his age, since a second part of his collection which
he proposed to publish was not called for, though he
continued to be known as an author many years after
the appearance of the first.

But Herrera is not the only lyrical poet of the period

^* Of tlie ladies whose poems occur nothing, nor of Pedro de Lilian, except

in Espinosa, I think one. Dona Chris- that he was a friend of Lope de Vega,

tovalina, is noticed hy Antonio (Bib. and occurs in the crowds of the " Lanrel

Nov., Tom. II. p. 349), and by Lope de Apolo." Texada, as we are told by

in his "Laurel de Apolo," as well as Antonio, died in 1635, at the age of

in Rivadeneyra (Bib., Tom. XXXV. p. sixty-seven ; — the five poems printed

276) and in Gallardo's Ciiticon, No. 1, thirty years before by Espinosa being

pp. 44 - 46. Of the others I know all we have of his works.

Chap. XXIX.] VARIOUS LYRIC POETS. 15

who does not appear in Espinosa's collection. Eey de
Artieda, whose sonnets are among the best in the
language, — Manoel de Portugal, whose numerous re-
ligious poems are often in the national forms, — and
Carrillo, a soldier of promise, who died young, and
who wrote sometimes with a simplicity and freshness
that never fail to be attractive, but sometimes with
offensive affectations, — are all omitted; though their
works, published at just about the same time with the
collection of Espinosa, had been known in manuscript
long before, as much as those of Luis de Leon and
Gongora.^^

^ Christoval de Mesa comes a little later. His * 14
lyric poems were printed in 1611, and again,
more amply, in 1618. He professes to have taken
Herrera for his master, or for one of his masters ; but
he was long in Italy, where, as he tells us, he changed
his style, and from this time, at least, he belongs with
absolute strictness to the school of Boscan and Garci-
lasso.^^

Francisco de Ocana and Lope de Sosa, on the con-
trary, are as strictly of the old Spanish school. The
reason may be that their poetry is almost all religious,

2^ Andres Key de Artieda, better death by bis brother, at Madrid, 1611,

known under his academical name of 4to, and were reprinted in 1613 ; but

Artemidoro, is praised by Cervantes as they had been circulated in MS. from

a well-known poet in 1584, though his the time he was at the University of

works were not printed till they ap- Salamanca, where he resided six years,

peared at Qaragoga, 1605, 4to. He died He died in 1610. Pellicer, Bib., Tom.

in 1613. (Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 262.) II. p. 122.

Manoel de Portugal, one of those Por- ^^ "Rimas de Christoval de Mesa,"

tuguese who, in the time of Philip II. Madrid, 1611, 12mo ; to which add

and III., sought favor with the op- about fifty sonnets in the volume of

pressors of their country by writing in his translation of Virgil's Eclogues,

Spanish, was known from 1577 ; but Madrid, 1618, 12mo. His notice of

the collection of his poems in nearly a himself is in a poetical epistle to the

thousand pages, some in Portuguese and Count de Lemos, when he was going

all of little value, did not appear till it as viceroy to Naples, (Rimas, f. 155,)

was printed at Lisbon, 1605, 12mo, the and is such as to show that he was

year before his death. (Barbosa, Tom. anxious to be a member of that poetical

III. p. 345.) Luys de Carrillo y Soto- court, and much disappointed at his

mayor's poems were published after his failure.

16 LEDESMA AND THE CONCEPTISTAS. [Pepiod II.

— such as is found among the sacred verses of Silves^^re
and Castillejo in the preceding century, — and that
the J wrote for popular effect, seeking to connect them-
selves with feeUngs that had grown old in the hearts
of the multitude. The little hymns of the former, on
the Approach of the Madonna to Bethlehem, vainly
asking for shelter, and one by the latter, on the Love
and Grief of a Penitent Soul, are .specimens of what is
best in this peculiar style of Spanish poetry, which,
marked as it is with some rudeness, carries back our
thoughts to the spirited old villancicos in which it origi-
nated.^^

Alonso de Ledesma, of Segovia, who was born in
1552, and died in 1G23, wrote, or rather attempted
to write, in the same style, but failed \ though he suc-
ceeded in what may be regarded as a corruption
* 15 of it. His "Spiritual ^Conceits," as he called a
volume which was first printed in 1600, and
which afterwards appeared six times during its author's
life, are so full of quaintnesses and exaggerations as to
take from them nearly all poetical merit. They are
religious, and owed their success partly to the preser-
vation of the old familiar forms and tones, but more
to the perverse ingenuity with which they abound, and
which they contributed much to make fashionable. In-
deed, at that time, and very much under the leading
influence of Ledesma, there was a well-known party in
Spanish literature called the " Conceptistas " ; — a sect
composed, in a considerable degree, of mystics, who

27 The poetry of both Avas printed in "La Conversion de la Magdalena," con-

1603 ; but I do not lind any mention of sisting of sonnets, versions of the Psahns,

the exact time when either of them etc., which are very pleasing. The best,

lived, and am not quite certain that however, — an ode on the love of ilary

Lope de Sosa is not the poet who occurs Magdalen to the Saviour after his resur-

often in tlie old Cancioneros. I might rection, — is so grossly amatory in its

have added to the notice of their i:)oetry tone, that its poetical merit is much

a notice of some of the verse in an dimmed by it. Ed. Alcala, 1592, 12mo,

ascetic work by Malon de Chaide, called f. o3(3.

Chap. XXIX.] THE CULTOS. 17

expressed themselves in metaphors and puns, alike in
the pulpit and in poetry, and whose influence was so
extensive, that traces of it may be found in many of
ijhe principal writers of the time, including Quevedo
and Lope de Vega. Of this school of the Conceptistas,
though Quevedo w^as the more brilliant master, Le-
desma was the orio;inal head. His " Monstruo Imagri-
nado," or Fanciful Monster, first printed in 1615, is
little else than a series of alle2:ories hidden under the
quibbles that are heaped upon them ; beginning Avith
ballads, and ending with the short prose fiction that
gives its name to the volume. Several of the poems
it contains are on the death of Philip the Second, and
sound very strangely, from the irreverence with wliich
that important event is treated, both in its political
and its religious aspects. Others, wdiich are on secular
subjects, are in a tone even more free But the little
he has left that is worth reading; is to be souoiit in his
"Spiritual Conceits," where there are a few somiets
and a few lyrical ballads that are not likely to be
forgotten.^^

* But there was a more formidable party in ^16
Spanish literature than that of the Conceptistas ;
one that arose about the same time, and prevailed
longer and more injuriously. It was that of the " Cul-
tos" ', or the writers who claimed for themselves a pecu-

• 28 Sedano, Parnaso Espanol, Tom. V. lieve, one of the best, of the imitators

p. xxxi. Lope de Vega praises Le- of Ledesma was Alonso Bon ilia, who is

desma more than once, unreasonably. said by Gayangos to have written, not-

His "Conceptos," in the first edition, withstanding his affectations, "elegan-

Madrid, 1600, is a small volume of 258 tes y harmoniosos versos." Antonio

lea,ves, but I believe the subsequent (Bib. Nov., 11. 13) gives the titles of

editions contain more poems. His four of his poetical publications, among

"Juegos de la Noche Buena," Barce- which are his " Nuevo Jardili de Flores

lona, ieil, (Ptivadeneyra, Tom. XXV.,) divinas," (Baeza, 1617,) chiefly sacred

is strictly forbidden by the Index Ex- lyrical verse, and "JSTombres y Atri-

purgatorius of 1667, p. 64. He also butos de la Virgen," ec, (Baeza, 1624,)

wrote " Epigram as y Geroglificos a la a religious poem of considerable lengthy

Vida de Christo," ec, Madrid, 1625, much praised by Lope de Vega.
12mo. One of the earliest, and, I be-
VOL. III. 2

18 THE CULTOS. [Period II.

liarlj elegant and cultivated style of composition, and
who, wlille endeavoring to justify their claims, ran into
the most ridiculous extravagances, pedantry, and affec-
tations.

That such follies should thrive more in Spain than
elsewhere was natural. The broadest and truest paths
to intellectual distinction were there closed ; and it
was not remarkable, therefore, that men should wander
into by-ways and obscure recesses. They were for-
bidden to struggle honestly and openly for truth, and
pleased themselves with brilliant follies that were at
least free from moral mischiefs. Despotic govern-
ments have sometimes sought to amuse an oppressed
multitude with holiday shows of rope-dancers and fire-
works. Neither the ministers of Philip the Third and
Philip the Fourth nor the Inquisition particularly
patronized the false style of writing that prevailed in
their time, and served to amuse the better educated
portions of society. But they tolerated it; and that
was enough. It became fashionable at court imme-
diately, and in time struck such root in the soil of the
whole country, and so flourished there, that it has not
yet been completely eradicated.^^

It was not, however, in Spain alone that such follies
were known. From the middle of the fifteenth cen-
tury, when a knowledge of the great masters of antiq-
uity had become, for the first time, common among
scholars throughout the West, efforts had been made
to build up and cultivate a style of writing not

17 unworthy of their ^example in the languages

'29 Moro Exposito, Paris, 1834, 8vo, decay of letters in Eome : "Puesquien

Tom. I. p. xvii. In a sort of Dialogue no ve liaber sucedido esto mismo en

of the Dead, written with more judg- nnestra Espana y haber sido igualmente

ment and taste than was common at el deseo de brillar el que con-ompio

tlie time when it appeared, (1786,) Luis nuestros estudios ?" Desengano a ma-

Vives, the great Spanish scholar, is los Tradnctores por Arnoldo Eilonco.

)aade to say, when speaking of the Madrid, 1786, 18mo, p. 29.

Chap. XXIX.]

PERIOD OF BAD TASTE.

of the principal countries of Europe. Some of tliese
efforts were wisely made, and resulted in the produc-
tion of a series of authors that now constitute the
recognized poets and prose-writers of Christendom, and
emulate the models on which they were more or less
formed. Others, misled by pedantry and an unsound
judgment, have long since fallen into oblivion. But
the period when such efforts were made with the least
taste and discretion was the latter part of the sixteenth
century and the beginning of the seventeenth ; the
j)eriod when the Pleiades, as they were called, prevailed
in France, the Euphuists m England, and the Marinisti
in Italy.

How far the bad taste that was fashionable for a time
m these several countries had an effect on the contem-
porary tendencies of a similar kind in Spain, cannot be
exactly determined. Probably what was the favored
literature of London or Paris was little known at Ma-
drid, and less cared for. But that whatever was done
in Italy was immediately carried to Spain, in the times
of Philip the Second and Philip the Third, we have
abundant proofs

^ It is a striking and important fact,
to be taken in this connection, that
Lope de Vega, though opposed to the
new school npon principle, was a cor-
respondent and admirer of Marini, —
who 1 think was of Spanish origin and
partly educated in Spain, — to whom
he sent his portrait and dedicated a
play ; and of whom, in the extrava-
gance of his flattery, he said that Tasso
Avas biit as a dawn to the full glory of
Marini. Through this channel, there-
fore, and through many others, traces
of which may be found in the collection
of Italian eulogies on Lope de Vega, we
can at once see how Marini maj^ easily
have exercised an influence over the
poets of Spain contemporary with him.
See Lope's ''Jardin," (Obras, Tom. I,
p. 486,) first ])rinted in 1622, and his
Dedication to " Virtud, Pobreza y j!>Iu-

jer" (Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid,
1629, f. 203). But Lope's taste Avas
far from sure. He has elsewhere (Ded-
ication of the " Verdadero Amante")
placed Ronsard on the same footing
with Petrarca and Garcilasso de la Vega,
Of the influence of classical antiquity
in corrupting the proper Castilian s-tyle,
I know of no instance earlier than that
of Vasco Diaz de Frexenal, who pub-
lished as early as 1547, and who lived
much in Galicia and in Portugal. His
object seems to have been to introduce
Latin words and constructions, just as
the Pleiades did in France, at the same
time and a little later. This can be
seen in his "Veinte Triunfos," chiefly
devoted to a poetical account of events
in the life of Charles V. ; such as his
marriage, the birth of his son Philip
II., his coronation at Bologna, etc.. —

20 LUIS DE GONGOEA. [Period 11.

* 18 * The poet who introduced " the cultivated
style " into Spanish literatnrCj and whose name
that style has ever since worn, was Luis de Gongora, a
gentleman of Cordova, who was born in 1561, and was
educated at Salamanca, where it was intended he
should qualify himself for the profession of the law, of
which his father was a distinguished ornament. But it
was too late. The young man's disposition for poetry
was already developed, and the only permanent result
of his studies at the University is to be sought in a
large number of ballads and other slight compositions,
often filled with bitter satire, but written with sim-
plicity and spirit.

In 1584 he is noticed by Cervantes as a known
author. ^^ He was then only twenty-three years old ;
but he continued to live in his native city, poor and
unpatronized, yet twenty years longer, when, to insure
a decent subsistence for his old age, he took the ton-

all written in the old measures, and " Triumpho Nuptial Vandalieo " (f. ix)

published without notice of the place prove plainly : —

or year, but necessarily after 1530, since Al tiempo que el fuiminado

that was the date of the Emr)eror's cor- Apolo nmy radial

onation Thus in the " Prohemio " Entrava en el primer grado,

onaiion ±nus, m tne rionemio,^ Do nasci el vello dorado

where he speaks of dedicating his En el equinocial ;

"Twenty Triumphs" to the twenty Pasado el puerto final

Spanish Dukes, Frexenal says : ' ' Baste ^^ ^^ hesperica nacion

^ T I, ... ^ ."^ 1 1 Su machma mundanal,

que laferventisima afeccion, y la obser- por el cnr?o occidental

vantisima veneracion, que a vuestras Equitando en Phelegon.

dignisimas y felicisiinas Senoras devo, This is very different from what was

a la dedicacion de mis veinte triunphos attempted by Juan de Mena a century

me han convidado. Como quiera que "before ; he having desired only to take

mas coronas ducales segun mi noticia individual Latin words, and knowing

en la indomita Espaiia no hay, verda- jittle of classical antiquity ; whereas

deramente el ])resente es de poco precio, Frexenal wishes, in Montaigne's phrase,

y las obras del de menos valor, y el "to latinize," and give to his Castilian

autor dellas de menos estima. Pero su sentences a Eoman air and construction,

apetitosa observancia, su afeccionada and so may have been, to a certain ex-

fidelidad, y su optativa servidumbre, tent, the predecessor of Gongora. An-

por las nobilisimas bondades, y prestan- tonio mentions two or three other works

tisimas virtudes de vuestras excelentes of Frexenal in prose, chiefly i-eligious, •

J dignisimas Senorias en algun precio which I have never seen ; but I have

estimadas ser merecen." some ridiculous verses, printed at the

He latinizes less in the poems that end of his treatise entitled " Jardin del

follow, because it is more difficult to do Alma Christiana," 1552, 4to. He wrote

it in verse, but not because he desires a ^reat deal,

it less, as the following lines from the *3i Galatea, ed. 1784, Tom. 11. p. 2S4.

Chap. XXIX.] LUIS DE GONGORA. 21

sure and became a priest. About the same time, he
resorted to the court, then at Valladohd, and was there
in 1605, the year m which Espinosa published his col-
lection of poetry, to which Gongora was the largest
contributor.^^ But he was not more favored at court
than he had been at Cordova ; and, after waiting and
w\atching eleven years, we do not find that he had ob-
tained anything more than a titular chaplaincy
to the king, a pleasant note from the ^patron- ^19
izing Count de Lemos,^^ the good-natured favor
of the Duke de Lerma and the Marquis de Siete Igle-
sias, and the general reputation of being a wit and a
poet. At last he was noticed by the all-powerful fa-
vorite, the Count Duke Olivares, and seemed on the
point of obtaining the fortune for which he had waited
and watched so long. But at this moment his health
failed. He returned, languishing, to his native city,
and died there in peace soon afterwards, at the age of
sixty-six.^^

Much of the early poetry of Gongora is in short
lines, and remarkable for its simplicity. One of his
lyrical ballads, — beginning.

The loveliest maiden
Our village has known,
Only j^esterday wed,
To-day, widow'ed, alone, ^^ —

contains an admirably natural expression of grief, by a

^2 Pellicer, Vida de Cervantes, in Don Castile, — and tells us how he did it.

Quixote, Tom. I. p. cxiv. Pasagero, 1617, f. 289.

^ Mayans y Siscar, Cartas, Tom. I. s* See his life, by his friend Hozes,

p. 125. This solicitation of public ser- prefixed to his Works, Madrid, 1654,

vice, which^ was an unhappy w' eakness 4to. His portrait was painted by Ve-

of the Castilian character closely con- lazqnez, and is now in the Eoyal Gal-

nected with its loyalty, injured many lery at Madrid. Stirling's Artists of

Spanish men of letters. But the full Spain, 1848, Vol. II. pp. 587, 588.
character of a cultivated j^rctendiente,

as such a person called himself, is frank- ^^ ^^ Jnas bella nina

ly drawn in his own case by Figueroa, Oy vkSar/iX '

who teased an office from the Governor y ayer poVcasar.

of Milan, — then Grand Constable of Obras de G ngora, 1654, f, 84.

22 LUIS DE g6]^G0EA. [Period II.

young bride to her mother, on the occasion of her hus-
band's being suddenly called to the wars. Another yet
more lyrical^ — which begins,

Ye fresh and soft breezes,
That now for the spring
Unfold your bright garlands,
Sweet violets fling, ^^ —

is, again, full of gentle tenderness. And so are some
of his religious popular poems, which occasionally ap-
proach the character of the old villancicos.

His odes of the same period are grave and stately.
That on the Armada, which must have been written as
early as 1588, since it contains the most confident pre-
dictions of a victory over England, is one of the best ;
and that on Saint Hermenegild — a prince, who,
* 20 in the sixth century, * partly for his resistance to
Arianism and partly for political rebellion, was
put to death by his own father, and afterwards canon-
ized by the Church of Rome — is full of fervor and of
the spirit of Catholic devotion. Both are among the
good specimens of the more formal Spanish ode.

But this poetry, which is of a high order, and all of
which seems to have been written before he went to
court, and while he lived neglected at Cordova, failed
to give him the honors to which he aspired. It failed
even to give him the means of living. Moved, per-
haps, by these circumstances, and perhaps by the suc-
cess of Ledesma and his conceited school, Gongora,
with extraordinary boldness and decision, adopted an-
other style, and one that he thought more likely to
command attention. The most obvious feature in this
style is, that it consists almost entirely of metaphors, so
heaped one upon another, that it is sometimes as diffi-

36 Frescos ayrecillos, Destexeis guirnaldas,

Que d la primauera Y esparceis vfoletas.

ObraG de Gongora, 1654, f. 89.

Chap. XXIX.] LUIS DE GONGORA. 23

cult to find out the meaning hidden under their gro-
tesque mass as if it were absolutely a series of confused
riddles. Thus, when his friend Luis de Bavia, in 1G13,
published a volume containing the history of three
Popes, Gongora sent him the following words, thrown
into the shape of a commendatory sonnet, to be pre-
fixed to the book : —

" This poem, which Bavia has now offered to the
world, if not tied up in numbers, yet is filed down into
a good arrangement, and licked into shape by learning,
is a cultivated history, whose gray-headed style, though
not metrical, is combed out, and robs three pilots of the
sacred bark from time and rescues them from oblivion.
But the pen that thus immortalizes the heavenly turn-
keys on the bronzes of its history is not a pen, but the
key of ages. It opens to their names, not the gates
of failing memory, which stamps shadows on masses of
foam, but those of immortalitv."

The meaning of this, as it is set forth in ten pages
of commentary by one of his admirers, is as follows : —

" The history which Bavia now offers to the world is
not, indeed, in verse, but it is written and finished in
the spirit of wise learning and of poetry. Im-
mortalizing ^ three Po|)es, it becomes the key of ^ 21
ages, opening to their names, not the gates of
memory, which often give passage to a transient and
false fame, but the gates of sure and perpetual re-
nown. ^^

^ A la Tercera Parte de la Historia Pluma, pues, que daueros celestiales

Pontifical, que escriuio el Doctor Bavia, f^*^™^^ ^"t i°',^«°tT/^ f' ±*T'

1 1 /-( -n -D 1 1 /~i 1 Llaue es ya de los siglos, y no pluma ;

tapellan de la Capilla Keal de Granada. Ella 4 sus nombres puertas immortales

_, T. • n -. 1^-1 Abre, no de caduca no niemoria

Este que Bavia al mundo oy ha ofrecido Q^e sombras sella en tumulos de espuma.

Poema, SI no a numeros atado, ^. rw „ -yar.A f r.

De la dispo^icion antes limado, ' (^°^SOv^> O^ras, 1654, f. 5.

Y de la erudicion despues lamido, The commentary is in Coronel, Obras

Historia es culta, cuyo encanecido ([q Gonffora Comentadas, Tom. II. Parte

Estilo, sino metrico, peinado, t i^t t • i -i r- a" -i ao i en i ,,4- ;<-

Tres ya Pilotos del ^agel sagrado ^ • ' Madrid, 1 6 4o, pp. 148-159; l)ut 1 1

Hurta al tiempo, y rcdime del oluido. should be noted, that the coiicludiug

24 LUIS DE GoNGOEA. [Period IL

The extravagance of the metaphors used by Gongora
was often as remarkable as their confusion and obscu-
rity. Thus, Avhen, in 1619, just after the appearance
of two comets, one of his friends proposed to accom-
pany PhiHp the Third to Lisbon, — a city founded, ac-
cording to tradition, by Ulysses, — G6ngora wrote to
him, " Wilt thou, in a year when a plural comet cuts
out mourning of evil augury to crowns, tread in the
footsteps of the wilj Greek ?"^ And again, in his
first " Solitude," speaking of a lady whom he admired,
he calls her " a maiden so beautiful, that she might
parch up Norway with her two suns, and bleach Ethi-
opia with her two hands." But though these are ex-
treme cases, it is not to be denied that the later poems
of Gongora are often made unintelligible or absurd by
similar extravagances.^

He did not, however, stop here. He introduced new
words into his verse, chiefly taken from the ancient
classical languages ; he used old Castilian words in new
and forced meanings ; and he adopted involved and
unnatural constructions, quite foreign from the genius
of the Spanish. The consequence was, that his
* 22 poetry, though not * without brilliancy, soon be-
came unintelligible. This is the case with one or
two of his sonnets and other poems, printed as early
as 1605 ; ^*^ and still more with his longer poems, such

lines are so obscure, that Luzan (Poeti- their times, — who reproached Luzan,
ca. Lib, II. c. 15) gives them a differ- when they reviewed his "Poetica" in
ent interpretation, and understands the 1738, with being too severe on this ex-
phrase, "stamping shadows on masses traordinary nonsense. Lanuza, Discur-
of foam," to refer to the art of printing, so Apologetico de Luzan, Pamplona,
which so often praises those who do not 1740, 12mo, pp. 46-78.
deserve it. The whole sonnet is cited ^^ Obras, f. 32.
with admiration by Gracian, " Agudeza ^^ In the second coro.
y Arte de Ingenio," Discurso XXXII. ; *'^ I suppose he changed his style
a work which we must mention here- about the time he went to court ; and
after as the art of poetry for the culto the very first of his sonnets in Espinosa's
school ; and by the editors of the "Di- "Flores" is proof that he had changed
ario de los Literatos de Espaiia," — men it as early as 1605.
of better taste than was common in

Chap. XXIX.]

LUIS DE G^NQOKA.

as his " Solitudes," or Deserts, liis " Polypliemus/' his
^^ Panegyric on the Duke of Lerma," and his " Pjra-
mus and Thisbe " \ none of which appeared till after
his death.*^

Commentaries, therefore, were necessary to explain
them, even while they still circulated only in manu-
script. The earliest were prepared, at his own re-
quest, by Pellicer, a scholar of much reputation, w^ho
published them in 1630, under the title of " Solemn
Discourses on the Works of Don Luis de Gongora," ex-
pressing, at the same time, his fears that he might
sometimes have failed to detect the meaning of
^ what was often really so obscure.*^ They were *^ 23

*i Gongora made no collection of his
works. Like many other Spaniards,
either the difficulty of procuring per-
mission to print, — or the dangerous
consequences of jDrinting what might
be subse<]^uently found obnoxious to
ecclesiastical censure, — or an unwill-
ingness to appear as a professed author,
which was thought to interfere some-
what with the dignity of a cahallero,
— some one of these considerations, or
all together, prevented him from offer-
ing himself to the public as a poet.
But his poetry was, according to the
fashion of his time, much circulated in
MS., and greatly admired by the ex-
clusives and the courtly during all the
latter part of his life. Among those
most earnest in their homage was Don
Juan Lopez de Vicuna, who, for twenty
years before the poet died, was em-
jjloyed in gathering all he could find of
Gongora's poems, and in 1627, hardly a
year after his death, published them
with the imposing title of "Dbras en
verso del Homero Espanol," not deem-
ing it needful to announce their author
more distinctly. They make a volume
of 320 pages, in 4to, and it is so rare,
that I have never seen any copy of it,
except my own. It is, however, an im-
portant book, as it is the foundation of
all the subsequent editions and collec-
tions of Gongora's works. Li his Pref-
ace, Vicuna says that Gongora never
kept the originals of his poems, and
that when the copies in circulation

were shown to him he often failed to
recognize them, — so much were they
altered by successive transcriptions.
The volume of Vicuna is the more im-
portant, because we receive all the
poems it contains in the best form such
a case permits, from a friend of their
author, and because several of them
are not found in the later collections,
though these later ones are more ample.
Two of the poems, omitted afterwards,
are particularly interesting from their
obvious reference to himself ; — one be-
ginning, "Si a gastar y pretender,"
(f. 159,) on the life of a person at court
suing, as Gongora did so long, for place
and patronage ; and the other, begin-
ning, " Dulce musa picaril," (f. 157,)
which describes his own more mischiev-
ous vein of poetry with pleasant wit.

Fantastic titles, like the one of the
volume just described, seem to have
been thought appropriate to Gcnigora's
works, and in fact were so. Most of
his poems were published at Barcelona
in 1640, with the following title, —
" Delicias del Parnaso en que se cifran
todos los Eomauces liricos, amorosos,
burlescos, glosas y decimas del regosijo
(sic) de las Musas, el prodigioso Don
Luis de Gongora." It is in long 12mo,
pp. 761, and there is a copy in the
Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal at Paiis, —
the only one I have ever seen.

^2 Jos. Pellicer y To oar, in his "Lec-
ciones Solemnes," (Madrid, 1630, 4to,
col. 610-612 and 684,) explains his

SCHOOL OF GONGORA.

[Pekiod II.

followed, in 1636, by a defence and explanation of the
"Pjramus and Tliisbe," from Salazar Mardones."^^ And,
between that year and 1646, the series was closed
with an elaborate commentary of above fifteen hundred
pages, by Garcia de Salcedo Coronel, himself a poet.^*
To th^se were added contemporary discussions, by Juan
Francisco de Amaya, a jurist ; by Martin Angulo, in
reply to an attack of Cascales, the rhetorician ; and by
others, until the amount of the notes on Gongora's
poetry was tenfold greater than that of the text they
were intended to elucidate.*^

Followers, of course, would not be wanting to one
who was so famous. Of these, the most distinguished
in rank, and perhaps in merit, was the Count of Vil-

position in relation to Goiigora, and liis
trouble about finding the meaning of
some passages in his works ; thus justi-
fying Avhat the Prince of Esquilache
said, probably in reference to these very
commentaries : —

Un docto comentador
(El mas presumido digo)
Es el mayor enemigo,
Que tener pudo el autor.

El Principe & su Libro.

There is an immense list of Pellicer's
works in Antonio, (Bib. 'Nov., II. 811-
816,) but all I have ever seen of them
are in the worst taste. He was born in
1602 and died in 1679 ; and as he be-
gan to write when he was only nineteen,
he had time enough in his long life to
write a great deal.

*^ " llustracion y Defensa de la Fabu-
la de Piramo y Tisbe de Christoval de
Sahizar Mardones," Madrid, 1636, 4to.

** There is a notice of Coronel in An-
tonio, Bib. Nova. The three volumes
of his commentary (Madrid, 4to, 1636-
1646) contain six or seven hundred
pages each ; — the second being divided
into two parts. As a poet himself, he
printed in Madrid, 1650, 4to, a volume
which he called "Crystals from Pleli-
con," one of the worst productions of
the school of Gongora.

*^ Antouio, article Ludovicus de Gon-
goi-a, mentions the inferior commen-
tators. I'he attack of (Jascales, who
seems afraid to be thorough with it, is

in his "Cartas Philologicas." Martin
de Angulo's reply to Cascales is enti-
tled ' ' Epistolas satisfactorias a las ob-
jecciones que opuso a los poemas de D.
Luis de Gongora el licenciado Francisco
Cascales," Granada, 1635. At the end
he inserts a list of the poets belonging
to Gongora's school, which is copied by
Gayangos. It comprises nearly thirty
names, few of which are now remem-
bered.

A work entitled ' ' Gongora, an His-
torical and Critical Essay on the Times
of Philip III. and IV. of Spain, with
Translations by Edward Churton," was
published in 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1862,
It is full of knowdedge of the state of
manners and society during the period
to which it refers, and is written with a
very attractive and agreeable vivacity
of manner. It is not in my power to
accept as just Archdeacon Churton's
admiration for Gongora, nor do I think
that his translations, though very free,
and often better than the originals,
will justify it. But I have read few
books on Spanish literature and man-
ners with so much pleasure.

Perhaps I ought to add that Nicholas
Antonio was even more an admirer of
Gongora than Archdeacon Churton, for
he goes out of his way (Bib. Nov.,
Pref., § 26) to give his opinion that, if
Gongora had only taken to epic po-
etry, Spain would have had no occasion
to envy Homer, Virgil, or Tasso.

Chap. XXIX.] SCHOOL OF G^NGOKA. 27

lamediana, — the same unfortunate nobleman wliose
very bold and public assassination was attributed to
the jealousy of Philip the Fourth, and created a sensa-
tion, at the time it happened, in all the courts of
Europe. Yillamediana was a man of wit and fashion,
whose poetry was a part of his pretensions ptS a cour-
tier, and was not printed till 1629, seven years
after his death. * Some of it is written without * 24
affectation, — probably the earlier portions ; but,
in general, both by the choice of his subjects, — such
as those of Phaeton, of Daphne, and of Europa, — and
by his mode of treating them, he bears witness to his
imitation of the worst parts of Gongora's works. His
sonnets, of which there are two or three hundred, are
in every style, satirical, religious, and sentimental, and
a few of his miscellaneous poems have something of the
older national air and tone. But he is rarely more in-
telligible than his master, and never shows his master's
talent.^*^

Another of those that favored and facilitated the
success of the new school was Paravicino, who died in

*^ The queen, who was a daughter of 1629, 4to ; but not the better for it.
Henry IV. of France, was — it has been The story of the Count's unhappy ])re-
pretended — one day passing through sumption and fite, told a little diifer-
a gallery of the palace, when some one ently, may be found in Mad. d'Aulnoy's
came behind her and covered her eyes "Voyage d'Espagne," ed. 1693, Tom.
with his hands. "What is that for, II. pip.'l7-21, and in the striking bal-
Count ? " she exclaimed. But, unhap- lads of the Duke of Pdvas, Eoniances
pily for her, it was not the Count, — it Historicos, Paris, 1841, 8vo. See, also,
Avas the king. Soon afterwards Villa- Quevedo's " Grandes Anales de Quince
mediana received a hint to be on his Dias," and the notes on it in the Bib-
guard, as his life was in danger. He lioteca de Rivadeneyra, Tom. XXIII.
neglected the friendly notice, and was p. 214. Gayangos says that there is a
assassinated the same evening, August volume of the unpui3lished poetry of
21, 1622. He had been very open in Villamediana, chiefly filled with ridi-
his admiration of the queen, having, on cule of events and persons of the times
occasion of a tournament, covered his of Philip III. and IV., which is well
person with silver reals and taken the known to persons curious in such mat-
punning motto, — "Mis amores son ters. But the tales referred to are all
reales.'' (Velazquez, Dieze, Gottingen, idle. Other stories, of the same gossip-
1796, 8vo, p. 2.5.5.) An edition of his ing sort, may be found in the " Me-
AVorks, Madrid, 1634, 4to, with a dedi- moires de Tallemant des Eeaux" (ed.
cation in my copy dated 1642, is a lit- Bruxelles, 1834, Vol. II. pp. 42-46).
tie more ample than that of Carago^a,

28 SCHOOL OF GJNGORA. [Period II.

1633j and whose position as the popular court preacher,
during the last sixteen years of his life, enabled him to
introduce ^^ the cultivated style " into the pulpit, and
help its currency among the higher classes of society.
His poetical works were not collected and published
till 1641, when they appeared under the imperfect dis-
guise of a part of his family name, — Felix de Arteaga.
They fill a small volume, which abounds in sonnets, and
contains a single drama of no value. The best parts
of it are the lyrical ballads, which, though mystical and
obscure, are not without poetry ; a remark that should
be extended to the narrative ballad on the Loves of

Alfonso the Eighth and the Jewess of Toledo,
^ 25 which Arteaga ^ seems to have been willing to

write in the older and simpler style.^'
These were the principal persons whose example
gave currency to the new style. Its success, however,
depended, in a great degree, on the tone of the higher
class of society and the favor of the court, to which
they mostly belonged, and in which their works were
generally circulated in manuscript long before they
were printed, — a practice always common in Spain,
from the rigorous supervision exercised over the press,
and the formidable obstacles thrown in the way of all
who were concerned in its management, whether as
authors or as publishers. Fashion was, no doubt, the
great means of success for the followers of Gongora,
and it was able to push their influence very widely.
The inferior poets, almost vv^ithout exception, bowed to
it throughout the country. Roca y Serna published, in
1623, a collection of poems, called '^ The Light of the

*'^ Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. eras, which were not printed till after

p. 389. His entire name was Hortensio his death, ifc is not easy to tell. There

Felix Paravicino y Arteaga. Why the are editions of them in 1641, 1645, and

whole of it was not given with his po- 1650 ; the last, Alcala, 12mo.

Chap. XXIX.]

SCHOOL OF GONGORA.

Soul/' which was often reprinted between that time
and the end of the century.^^ Antonio Lopez de
Yega, neither a kinsman nor a countryman of his
great namesake^ who, however, praises him much be-
yond his merits, printed his "Perfect Gentleman" in
1620 ; a political dream, to Avhich he added a small col-
lection of poems of a natnre not more substantial.^^

Anastasio Pantaleon, a young cavalier, who enjoyed
great consideration at court, and was assassinated in
the streets of Madrid, from being mistaken for another
person, had his poems collected by the affection of his
friends, and published' in 1634, five years after
his ^ death.^^ A nun at Lisbon, Yiolante del * 26
Cielo, in 1646,^^ and Manoel de Melo, in 1649,^^
gave proofs of a pride in the Castilian wtich we should
hardly have expected just at the time when their

^^ Ambrosio de la Roca y Serna was
a Valencian, and died in 1649. (Xime-
no, Tom. I. p. 359, and Fuster, Tom.
I. p. 249.) He seems to have been
valued little, except as a religious poet,
but he was valued long, I have a copy
of his "Luz del Alma," without year
or place, but printed as late as 172.5,
12mo.

49 "El Perfeto Senor, Poesias Varias, "
etc., Madrid, 1652, 4to. He wrote sil-
vas darker than Gongora's " Soledades."
His madrigals and shorter poems are
more intelligible, though none are good.
He was a Portuguese by birth, but
lived in Madrid, where he died after
1656. (Barbosa, Tom. I. p. 310.)
There are two editions of his works.

50 Baena, Tom. I. p. 93. The works
of Pantaleon are obvious imitations of
Gongora, as may be seen in his " Fabu-
la de Proserpina," "Fabula de Alfeo y
Aretusa," etc., though perhaps still
more in his sonnets and decimas. They
were first printed in 1634, but appeared
several times afterwards, with slight ad-
ditions. My copy is of Madrid, 1648,
18mo.

^1 Violante del Cielo (do Ceo, in Por-
tuguese) died in 1693, ninety-two years
old, having written and published many
volumes of Portuguese poetry and pi-ose,

some of the contents of which are too
gallant to be very nunlike. Her "Ei-
mas," chiefly Spanish, were printed in
Euan, 1646, 12mo. One of the few
poems among them that can be read is
an ode on the death of Lope de Vega
(p. 44) ; though it should be added,
that some of her short religious poems,
scattered elsewhere in her works, are
better. A number of other Portuguese
continued to write wholly or occasion-
ally in Spanish after the separation of
the two kingdoms in 1640. But they
are not of sufficient consequence to be
noted. That the literatures of the two
countries were intimately connected,
and that Portuguese often wrote in
Spanish, though few Spaniards returned
the compliment, we have had occasion
frequently to observe, from the time of
Gil Vicente and Saa de Miranda.

5^ Melo, who died in 1666, was one
of the most successful Portuguese au-
thors of his time. (Barbosa, Tom. II.
p. 182.) His "Tres Musas del Melo-
dino," a volume containing his Spaiiish
poetry, and consisting, in a great meas-
ure, of sonnets, ballads, odes, and other
short lyrics, much in the manner of
Quevedo, as well as of Gongora, was
printed twice, in 1649 and 1665, — the
former, Lisboa, 4to. But he was a true

30- SCHOOL OF GONGORA. [Period II.

native country was emancipating itself from the Span-
ish yoke ; but which enabled them to claim the favor
of fashion alike at home and in Madrid. In 1652^
Moncayo published a, volume of his own extravagant
verses ; ^^ and, two years later, j)6i'suaded his friend
Francisco de la Torre to publish a similar collection in
equally bad taste.^^ Vergara followed, in 1660, under
the affected title of "Ideas de Apolo,"^^ and Eozas, in
1662, under one still more affected, — " Conversation
without Cards." ^^

Ulloa, who prepared his poetry for the press
* 27 as early as * 1653, but did not print it till six
years afterwards, wrote sometimes pleasantly
and in a pure style, but often followed that prevailing
in his time.^^ ' And finally, in 1677, appeared " The
Harp of Apollo," by Salazar, much like its predecessors,
and quite worthy in all respects to close up the series.^^

Portuguese at heart. His " Ecco Po- ^^ "N'oches de Invierno ; Conversa-

lytico," (1645,) which is an attack on cion sin Naypes," Madrid, 1662, 4to.

the government of Philip IV., proves The second part of this vokime consists

this beyond all doubt. See j^ost, Chap, of burlesque poems, full of miserable

XXXVIII. puns and rudenesses.

^^ Moncayo is also knoAvn by his title ^'^ " Obras de Don Luis de Ulloa,

of Marques de San Felices. His poems Prosas y Versos," of which the second

are entitled " Eimas de Don Juan de edition was published by his son, at

Moncayo i Guerrea," (Qarago^a, 1652, Madrid, 1674, 4to. Some of the re-

4to,) and coiisist of sonnets, a " Fabu- ligious poems, in the old measures, are

la cle Venus i Adonis," ballads, etc. among the best of the volume ; but the

Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. p. 320. very best is the "Kaqiiel," in about

5* " Entretenimiento de las Musas en eighty octave stanzas, on the story of

esta Baraxa Nueva de Versos, dividida the love of Alfonso VIII, for the fair

en Quatro Manjares, ec, por Fenix de Jewess of Toledo.

la Torre," Qarago(ja, 1654, 4to. The ^^ " Cy thara de Apolo," — published
title speaks for itself. His proper name after its author's death by Vera Tassis
was Francisco, and he was a Murcian, y Villaroel, "his greatest friend"; —
the translator of Owen's Epigrauis and the same person who collected and pub-
author of the " Delicias de Apolo," iished the plays of Calderon, giving
1670, as well as of other works of small himself again the same boastful title,
value. Among his works is a Soledad, in pro-

55 '' Ydeas de Apolo y Dignas Tareas fessed imitation of Gongora, and Fabu-

del OcioCortesano," Madrid, 1661, 4to ; las or Stories of Venus and Adonis,

abounding in sonnets, religious ballads, and Orpheus and Eurydice, in the man-

and courtly lyrics. A few of its poems ner of Villamediana. Aug. de Salazar

are narrative, like one in the ballad was born in 1642, and died in 1675.

form on the story of Danae, and another Some of his shorter and lighter poems

at the end in ottava rima, on the find- are written in a graceful and pure

lug of the Virgin of Balvanera. style.

Chai'. XXIX.] CONTEST CONCERNING CULTISMO. 31

More names might be added, but they would be of per-
sons of less note ] and even of those just enumerated
little is now remembered, and less read. The whole
mass, indeed, is of consequence chiefly to show the
wide extent of the evil, and the rapidity with which
it spread on all sides.

The depth to which it struck its roots may, however,
be better estimated, if Ave consider two things : the
unavailing efforts made by the leading spirits of the
age to resist it, and the fact, that, after all, they them-
selves—Lope de Yega, Quevedo, and Calderon —
yielded from time to time to the popular taste, and
wrote in the very style they condemned.^^

Of these distinguished men, the most prominent,
whether we consider the influence he exercised over
his contemporaries or the interest he took in this par-
ticular discussion, was, undoubtedly. Lope de Vega.
Gongora had, at some period, been personally known
to him, probably when he was in Andalusia in 1603,
or earlier, when he was hastening to join the Armada ;
and from this time Lo23e always retained an unaffected
respect for the Cordovan poet's genius, and always
rendered full justice to his earlier merits. But
he did not * spare the extravagances of Gon- * 28
gora's later style ; attacking it in his seventh
Epistle ; in an amusing sonnet where he represents
Boscan and Garcilasso as unable to understand it; in
the poetical contest at the canonization of San Isidro ;
in the verses prefixed to the " Orfeo " of Montalvan ;
and in many other places ; but, above all, in a long

59 Of Quevedo and Calderon I have the o\)scnre style of poetry in his

already spoken ; and Montalvan, Zarate, " Uustre Fregona," 1613, giving a

Tirso de Molina, and most of the dram- specimen of it, and alludes to it again

atists of note, might have been added, in the second part of his Don Quixote,

Cervantes, in his old age, heeded the c. 16.
new school little, but he complains of

32 CO^^TEST C0:N^CEROTNG CULTISMO. [Period II.

letter to a friend, who had formally asked his judgment
on the whole subject.^*^

There can be no doubt, then, as to his deliberate
opinion in relation to it. Indeed, Gongora assailed
him with great severity for it ; and though Lope con-
tinued to praise the uneasy poet for such of his works
as deserved commendation, the attack on his " culti-
vated style" was never forgiven by Gongora, and a
small volume of his unpublished verse still shows that
his bitterness continued to the last.^^ And yet Lope
himself not unfrequently fell into the very fault he so
sharply and wittily reprehended ; as may be seen in
many of his plays, particularly in his " Wise Man in his
own House," w^here it is sino^ularlv unsuited to the sub-
ject; and in many of his poems, especially his " Circe"
and his "Festival at Denia," in which, if they had not
been addressed to courtly readers, it can hardly be
doubted that he would have used the simple and flow-
ing style most natural to him.

The affected style of Gongora was attacked by
others ; — by Cascales, the rhetorician, in his " Poet-
ical Tables," printed in 1616, and in his "Philological
Letters," printed in 1634;^^ by Jauregui, the poet, in
his "Discourse on the Cultivated and Obscure Style,"
in 1628;^^ and by Salas, in 1633, in his "In-
* 29 quiries concerning Tragedy."^^ But ^ the most

'^^ Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. de Piramo e Tisbe," 1636 (ante, note

I. pp. 271, 342; Tom. XII. pp. 231- 43). — Totum nil.

234 ; Tom. XIX. p. 49; and Tom. IV. ^^ I have never seen this book, but

pp. 4.59-4S2. In the last cited passage, Antonio, in his article on Jauregui,

Lope says he alwaj^s placed Fernando gives its title, and Fiogel (Gesch. der

de Herrera as a model before himself. Komischen Literatur, Tom. II. p. 303)

®i National Library, Madrid, Estante gives the date of its publication, Jau-

M, Codex 132, 4to. At least, it was regui, however, in his translation of the

there in 1818, at which date I saw it. " Pharsalia" of Lucan, falls into the

^2 Tablas Poeticas, ed. 1779, p. 103. false style of Gongora. Declamacion

Cart. Phil. Dec. I. Cart. 8-10. Christ. contra los Abuses de la Lengua Castel-

de Salazar Mardones defended Gongora lana, 1793, p. 138.

in a volume of nearly 400 pages, en- ^* Tragedia Antigua, Madrid, 1633,

titled " Ilustracion de la Fabula, ec, 4to, pp. 84, 85.

Chap. XXIX.] LTEIC POETHY IX SIMPLER TASTE. oo

formidable attack sustained by this style was made by
Quevedo, who, in 1631, published both the Bachiller
de la Torre, and the poetry of Luis de Leon, intending
to show by them what Spanish lyrical verse might
become, when, with a preservation of the national
spirit, it was founded on pure models, whether ancient
or modern, whether Castilian or foreign. From this
attack — made; it should be observed, about the time
Gongora's Avorks and those of his most successful fol-
lowers were published, rather than at the time when
they were written and circulated in manuscript —
Gongora and his 'school never entirely recovered the
measure of their former triumphant success.^^

Quite unconscious of this discussion, if we may judge
by his style and manner, lived Francisco de Medrano,
one of the purest and most warm-hearted of Spanish
lyric poets, and one who seemed to be such without an
effort to avoid the follies of his time. His poems, few
in number, are better than anything in the " Sestinas "
of Yenegas, to which they form a sort of supplement,
and with which they were printed in 1617. Some of
his religious sonnets are especially to be noticed ; but
his Horatian odes, and, above all, one on the Worth-
lessness of Human Pursuits, beginning, " We all, we all
mistake," must be regarded as the best of his graceful
remains.^^

Another writer of the same class, who can be traced
back to 1584, but who did not die till 1606, is Baltasar
de Alcazar, a witty Andalusian, who has left a moderate
number of short lyrical poems, written with great spirit,

65 See Appendix (G). EivadenejTa's Biblioteca, Tom. XXXTT.,

^^ We know nothing of Medrano, 1854. But Pedro Venegas de Saaredra

except liis poems, printed at Palermo, was a Sevilian gentleman, and Antonio

in 1617, at the end of an imitation, (Bib. Nov., Tom. 11. p. 246) hints that

rather than a translation, of Ovid's the imprint of the volume ina}^ not

Eemedium Amoris by Venegas, and in show the true place of its publication.

VOL. III. 3

34 LYRIC POETRY IN SIMPLER TASTE. [Peiuod XL

most of tliem gay, and all of them in a much better

taste than was common when they appe- red.^^
* 30 ^ Shuilar praise, if not the same, may be given
to Arguijo, a Sevihan gentleman of fortune, and
a veintequatro of his native city, distinguished by his
patronage of letters, to whom Lope de Vega dedicated
three poems, and whose verses Espinosa — apparently
to attract favor for his book — placed at the opening
of his selections from the poets of his time. He flour-
ished from 1590 to 1622, and wrote, if we are to judge
from the little that has come down to us, in the Italian
forms; for his sixty-one sonnets, — which, with a sin-
gularly antique air, are sometimes quite poetical, — a
good ccmcion on the death of a friend, and another on a
religious festival at Cadiz, constitute the greater part
of his known works. But his little lyric to his guitar,
which he calls simply a " Silva," is worth all the rest.
It is entirely Spanish in its tone, and breathes a gentle
sensibility, not unmingled with sadness, that finds its
way at once to the heart.^^

Antonio Balvas, who died in 1628, is of more humble
pretensions as a poet than either of the last, but per-
haps was more distinctly opposed than either of them
to the fashionable taste. When, in his old age, he had

^■^ He is mentioned in Cervantes, 88-124, with the Biblioteca of Eivade-

" Canto de Caliope," and there is a ne3a'a, Tom, XXXII., 1854. It may,

life of him in the notes to Sismondi, pei'haps, he noted here, that the "Hijos

Spanish translation (Tom. I. p. 274). de Sevilla Ilustres en Santidad, Letras,

His poems are fonnd in the "Flores" Armas, Artes 6 Dignidad," published

of Espinosa, and in the eighteenth vol- in that city in 1791, in 8vo, is a poor

nme of Fernandez, in Rivadeneyra, book, but one that sometimes contains

Tom. XXXII. and XLIL, and in the facts not elsewhere to be found, and one

" Biblioteca de Libros Raros," 1863, that is now become very rare, from the

ad verb. Alcazar. They ought all to circumstance that it was published in

be collected and printed together. separate numbers. On its title-page it

^® Arguijo's sonnets were printed anew is said to have been written by Pon

withadditionsby Colony Colon in 1841. Firmin Arana de Varflora ; but Blanco

See, likewise, Varflora, No. III. p. 14; AVhite, in " Doblado's Letters," 1822,

Sismondi's Lit. Espaiiola por Figueroa, p. 469, says its author was Padre Val-

Tom. I. p. 282 ; Espinosa, Flores ; and derrama.
Fernandez, Coleccion, Tom. XVIII. pp.

Chap. XXIX.] LYEIC POETEY IN SIMPLEE TASTE. 35

prepared for publication a volume of his verse, he
called it, after some hesitation, " The Castilian Poet,"
and Lope de Vega pronounced it to be purely written,
and well fitted to a period " when," as he added, " the
ancient language of the country was beginning to
sound to him like a strange tongue." Still, in this
very volume, humble in size and modest in all its pre-
tensions, Balvas compliments Gongora and praises
Ledesma : so necessary was it to conciliate the favored
school. ^^

69 "El Poeta Castellano, Antonio Balvas Barona, Natural de la Ciudad de
Segovia," Valladolid, 1627, 12mo.

*31 *CHAPTEE XXX.

LYRIC POETRY, CONTINUED. — THE ARGENSOLAS, JAUREGUI, ESTEVAN YILLE-
GAS, BALBUENA, BARBADILLO, POLO, ROJAS, RIOJA, ESQUILACHE, MENDOZA,
REBOLLEDO, QUIROS, EVIA, INEZ DE LA CRUZ, SOLIS, CANDAMO, AND OTH-
ERS. DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS OP SPANISH LYRICAL POETRY, RE-
LIGIOUS AND SECULAR, POPULAR AND ELEGANT.

Among the lyric poets who flourished in Spain at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, and who were
opposed to what began to be called the " Gongorism "
of the time, the first, as far as their general influence
was concerned, were the two brothers Argensola, —
Aragonese gentlemen of a good Italian family, which
had come from Ravenna in the time of Ferdinand
and Isabella. The eldest of them, Lupercio Leo-
nardo, was born in 1563 ; and Bartolome Leonardo,
the other, was his junior by only a year. Lupercio
was educated for the civil service of his country, and
married young. Not far from the year 1587 he wrote
the three tragedies which have already been noticer^
and two years later was distinguished at Alcala a^
Henares in one of the public poetical contests then so
common in Spain. In 1591, he was sent as an agent
of the government of Philip the Second to Saragossa,
when Antonio Perez fled into Aragon ; and he subse-
quently became chronicler of that kingdom, and pri-
vate secretary of the Empress Maria of Austria.

The happiest part of the life of Lupercio was prob-
ably passed at Naples, where he went, in 1610, with
the Count de Lemos, when that accomplished noble-
man was made its viceroy, raid seemed to be hardly

Chap. XXX.] THE AEGENSOLAS. 37

less anxious to have poets about him than statesmen,
— taking both the brothers, as part of his official
suite, and not only giving ^ Lupercio the post of "^ 32
Secretary of State and of War, but authorizing
him to appoint his subordinates from among Spanish
men of letters. But his life at Naples was short. In
March, 1613, he died suddenly, and was buried with
much solemnity by the Academy of the Odosi, which
he had himself helped to establish, and of which
Manso, the friend of Tasso and of Milton, was then
the head.

Bartolome, who, like his brother, bore the name of
Leonardo, was educated for the Church, and, under the
patronage of the Duke of Villahermosa, early received
a living in Aragon, which finally determined his posi-
tion in society. But until 1610, when he went to
Naples, he lived a great deal at the University of Sala-
manca, where he was devoted to literary pursuits, and
prepared his history of the recent conquest of the
Moluccas, which was printed in 1609. At Naples, he
was a principal personage in the poetical court of the
Count de Lemos, and showed, as did others with whom
he was associated, a pleasant facility in acting dramas,
that were improvisated as they were performed. At
Rome, too, he was favorably known and patronized ;
and before his return home in 1616, he was made
chronicler of Aragon ; a place in which he succeeded
his brother, and which he continued to enjoy till his
own death, in 1631.

There is little in what was most fortunate in the
career of these two remarkable brothers that can serve
to distinguish them, except the different lengths of
their lives and the different amounts of their works ;
for not only were both of them poets, and possessed of

S8 THE AKGENSOLAS. [Period II.

intellectual endowments able to command general re-
spect, but both had the good fortune to rise to positions
in the world which gave them a wide influence, and
enabled them to become patrons of men of letters,
some of whom were their superiors. But both are now
seldom mentioned, except for a volume of poetry,
chiefly lyrical, published in 1634, after their deaths, by
a son of Lupercio. It consists, he says, of such of his
father's and his uncle's poems as he had been able to
collect, but by no means of all they had written ; for

his father had destroyed most of his manuscripts
^33 just before he died ; and his ^ uncle, though he

had given about twenty of his poems to Espi-
nosa in 1605, had not, it is apparent, been careful to
preserve what had been only an amusement of his
leisure hours, rather than a serious occupation.

Such as it is, however, this collection of their poems
shows the same resemblance in their talents and tastes
that was apparent in their lives. Italy, a country in
which their family had its origin, where they had them-
selves lived, and some of whose poets they had famil-
iarly known, seems almost always present to their
thoughts as they write. Nor is Horace often absent.
His philosophical spirit, his careful but rich versifica-
tion, and his tempered enthusiasm, are the character-
istic merits to which the Argensolas aspired, alike in
their formal odes and in the few of their poems that
take the freer and more national forms. The elder
shows, on the whole, more of original power ; but he
left only half as many poems, by which to judge his
merits, as his brother did. The younger is more
graceful, and finishes his compositions with more care
and judgment. Both, notwithstanding they were Ara-
gonese, wrote with entire purity of style, so that Lope

Chap. XXX.] JAUEEGUI. 39

de Yega said '^ it seemed as if they had come from
Aragon to reform Castilian verse." Both, therefore,
are to be placed high in the list of Spanish lyric poets ;
— next, perhaps, after the great masters; — a rank
which we most readily assign them, when we are con-
sidering the shorter poems addressed by the elder to
the lady he afterwards married, and the purity of man-
ner and sustained dignity of feeling which mark the
longer compositions of each.^

Among those who followed the Argensolas, the ear-
Kest of their successful imitators was probably Jau-
regui, a Sevilian gentleman, descended from an old Bis-
cayan family, and born about 1570. Having a
* talent for painting as well as poetry, — a fact "^34
we learn in many ways, and among the rest from
an epigrammatic sonnet of Lope de Yega, — he went
to Eome and devoted himself to the study of the art to
which, at first, he seems to have given his life. But
still poetry drew him away from the path he had
chosen. In 1607, while at Rome, he published a trans-
lation of the " Aminta " of Tasso, and from that time
was numbered among the Spanish poets who were val-
ued at home and abroad. On his return to Spain, he
seems to have gone to Madrid, where, heralded by a
good reputation, he was kindly received at court.
This was probably as early as 1613, for Cervantes in
that year mentioned in his ^^ Tales " a portrait of him-
self, painted, as he says, " by the famous Jauregui."

1 All needful notices of the two Ar- (Zaragoza, 1634, 4to,) two editions are
gensolas and theii' works — and more found in Fernandez, "Coleccion," the
too — can be found in the elaborate last being of 1804. The sonnet of Bar-
lives of them by Pellicer, in his "Bib- tolome on Sleep is commonly much ad-
lioteca de Traductores," 1778, pp. mired; but of liis poems I prefer the
1-141; and by Latassa, in the "Bib- sonnet on Providence, (p. 330,) and
lioteca Nueva de Escritores Arago- the ode in honor of the Church aft'^r
neses," Tom. II. pp. 143, 461. Besides the battle of Lepanto, ed. 1634, p.
the original edition of their "Eimas," 372.

40 JAUKEGUI. [Period II.

In 1618, however, he was again in Seville, and pub-
lished a collection of his works ; but in 1624 his " Or-
feo " appeared at Madrid, — a poem in five short cantos,
on the story of Orpheus. It is written with much less
purity of style than might have been ex23ected from
one who afterwards denounced the extravagances of
Gongora. Still, it attracted so lively an interest, that
Montalvan thought it worth while to publish another
on the same subject, in competition with it, as soon as
possible ; — a rivalship in which he was openly abetted
by his great master. Lope de Yega.^ Both poems seem
to have been well received, and both authors continued
to enjoy the favor of the capital till their deaths, which
happened, that of Montalvan in 1638, and, in 1649,
that of Jauregui, who, in 1640, had finished a too free
translation, or rather a presumptuous and distasteful
rearrangement, of Lucan's " Pharsalia."

The reputation of Jauregui rests on the volume of
poems he himself published in 1618. The trans-
* 35 lation of * Tasso's " Aminta," with which it opens,
is elaborately corrected from the edition he had
previously printed at Rome, without being always im-
proved by the changes he introduced. But, in each of
its forms, it is probably the most carefully finished and
beautiful translation in the Spanish language ; marked
by great ease and facility in its versification, and es-
pecially by the charming lyrical tone that runs with
such harmony and sweetness through the Italian.

2 It is a curious fact, and one some- find nothing altered but tlie first stanza,

what characteristic of the carelessness and the title of the poem, which, instead

with which works in Spain were at- of being simply called "Orfeo," as it

tributed to persons who did not write was by its author, is entitled, in imita-

them, that the "Orfeo" of Jauregui is tion of Gongora' s school, 'Tabula de

printed in the "Cythara de Apolo," a Euridice y Orfeo." This was, 1 hope,

collection of the posthumous poems of a blunder of Salazar's Gongoresque

Agustin de Salazar, (which appeared at friend. Vera Tassis y Villarvel, who

Madrid, 1694, 4to,) as if it were his. edited the volume.
So far as I have compared the two, I

Chap. XXX.] JAUREGUI. 41

Jauregui's original poems are few, and now and then
betray the Ksame traces of submission to the influence
of Gongora that are to be seen in his " Orfeo " and
" Farsalia." But the more lyrical portions — which,
except those on religious subjects, have a very Italian
air — are almost entirely free from such faults. The
Ode on Luxury is noble and elevated ; and the silva on
seeing his mistress bathing, more cautiously managed
than the similar scene in Thomson's " Summer," is
admirable in its diction, and betrays in its beautiful
picturesqueness something of its author's skill and
refinement in the kindred art to which he had devoted
himself. His sonnets and shorter pieces are less suc-
cessful.^

* Another of the followers of the Argensolas — * 36
and one who boasted that he had trodden in
their footsteps from the days of his boyhood, when
Bartolome had been pointed out to his young admira-

^ Seclano, Tom, IX. p. xxii. Lope Another translation that is naturally

de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 38. compared with it — the contemporary

Signorelli, Storia de' Teatri, 1813, Tom. translation, I mean, of the Thebaid of

VI. p. 13. Cervantes, ISTovelas, Pro- Statins — was not published until 1855,

logo. Orfeo de Juan de Jauregai, Ma- when it appeared in the thirty-sixth

drid, 1624, 4to. Fernandez, Coleccion, volume of the Biblioteca de Autores

Tom. VII. and VIII. , containing th3 Espanoles. The first nine books are by

"Farsalia"; and Rimas de Juan de Juan de Arjona, a friend of Lope de

Jauregui, Sevilla, 1618, 4to, reprinted Vega, but Arjona's death prevented

by Fernandez, Tom. VI. Bat the best him from going further, after six years'

text of the " Aminta" is that in Seda- labor on it. It was finished modestly

no, (Parnaso, Tom. I.,) which is made by Gregorio de Morillo or Murillo.

by a collation of both the editions that Both are better translations than that

were prepared by Jauregui himself, — of Jauregui, but neither deserves the

the first of which is a small neat vol- high praise given by the editor who

ume of only eighty-seven pages, printed publishes them.

at Rome in 1607, with a modest and Jauregui's slYva on seeing his mistress
somewhat anxious dedication. Of this bathing can be compared, much to its
beautiful version it may be noted that advantage and honor, with a longer
Cervantes (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. silva on the same subject, entitled
62) says, as he does of the "Pastor "Anaxarete," and published at the end
Fido " by Figueroa, " We happily doubt of his " Gigantomachia," by Manuel de
which is the translation and which the Gallegos, Lisboa, 1628, 4to, ten years
original." The " Farsalia " of Jauregui after the appearance of Jauregui's poem,
was not published till 1684, and was The " Anaxarete " is not without grace-
then printed at Madrid very ill, but as ful passages, but it is much too long,
well as it deserves. Jauregui hardly and shows frequent traces of the school
recognizes the part Lucan had in it. of Gongora.

42 STEYAN MANUEL DE YILLEGAS. [Period II.

tion in the streets of Madrid — was Estevan Manuel de
Villegas.* He was born at Naxera, in 1596, and was
educated partly at court and j^^'^^'tly at Salamanca,
where he studied the law. After 1617, and certainly
as early as 1626, when he was married, he almost
entirely abandoned letters, and gave himself up to
such profitable occupations connected with his pro-
fession as would afford subsistence to those dependent
on his labors. He, however, found leisure to prepare
for publication a number of learned dissertations on
ancient authors; to make considerable progress in a
professional commentary on the " Codex Theodo-
sianus"; and to j^ublish, in 1665, as a consolation for
his own sorrows, a translation of Boethius, which, be-
sides its excellent version of the poetical parts, is
among the good specimens of Castilian prose. But
he remained, during his whole life, unpatronized and
poor, and died in 1669, an unfortunate and unhappy
man.^

The gay and poetical part of the life of Villegas —
the period when he presumptuously announced him-
self as the rising sun, and attacked Cervantes, think-
ing to please the Argensolas^ — began very early, and

* This allusion occurs in a satire on plain its meaning : the first, "Sicutsol

the cuUo style of poetry, not found in matutinus," and the other, "Me sur-

his collected works, but in Sedano, gente, quid isttie ? " — the wte whom he

(Tom. IX., 1778, p. 8,) where it ap- thus slights being Lope de Vega, Que-

peared for the first time. vedo, and indeed the whole galaxy of

^ An excellent life of Villegas is pre- the best period of Spanish literature,
fixed to the edition of his Works, Ma- Lope seems to have been a little an-
drid, 1774, 2 tom. 8vo, said by Guari- noyed at this impertinence and vanity
nos (Biblioteca de Escritores del Eeina- of Villegas ; for, in allusion to it, he
do de Carlos III., Madiid, 1785, 8vo, says, in the midst of a passage other-
Tom. V. p. 19) to have been written by wise laudatory, —
Vicente de los Eios.

6 In the edition of his rioetrv iwb- Aunque dixo que todos se escondiesen,

in xne eaition Ol nis poetiy puD- Quando los rayos de su ingenio viesen.

Jished by himself and at his own ex- _. , ^ » , -.t i -i -icon a^^

• ir--tn ix. 4- AT V Laurel de Apolo, Madrid, IbdU, Ito,

pense, m 1617, 4to, at JNaxera, his Silvaiii.

birthpla,ce, he gives on the title-page a

print of the rising sun, Avith the stars For the harsh words of Villegas about

growing dim, and two mottoes to ex- Cervantes, see Navarrete, Vida, § 128.

Chap. XXX.] ESTEYAI^ MANUEL DE YILLEGAS. 43

was soon darkened by the cares and troubles of
the world. ^He tells us hnnself that he wrote * 37
much of his poetry when he was only fourteen
years old ; and he certamly ^oublished nearly the whole
of it when he was hardly twenty-one.^ And yet there
are few volumes in the Spanish language that aiford
surer proofs of a poetical temperament. It is divided
into two parts. The first contains versions of a num-
ber of Odes from the First Book of Horace, and a trans-
lation of the whole of Anacreon, followed by imitations
of Anacreon's manner, on subjects relating to their
author. The secf)nd contains satires and elegies, which
are really epistles ; idyls in the Italian ottava rima ;
sonnets, in the manner of Petrarch j and "Latinas,"
as he calls them, from the circumstance that they are
written in the measures of Roman verse.

A poetical spirit runs through the whole. The trans-
lations are generally free, but more than commonly
true to the genius of their originals. The " Latinas "
are curious. They fill only a few pages ; but, except
slight specimens of the ancient measures in the cho-
ruses of the two tragedies of Bermudez, forty years
before, they are the first and the only attempt worthy
of notice, to introduce into the Castilian those forms
of verse which, a httle before the time of Bermudez,
had obtained some success in France, and which, a
little later, our own Spenser sought to establish in
English poetry.

But though Yillegas did not succeed in this, he suc-
ceeded in his imitations of Anacreon. We seem, in-
deed, as we read them, to have the simple and joyous
spirit of ancient festivity and love revived before us,

y Mis dulces cantilenas, A los veinte limadas

Mis suaves delicias, I a los catorce escritas.

Ed. 1617, f. 88.

44 YAEIOUS LYKICAL POETS. [Peiiiod IT.

with nothing, or ahnost nothing, of what renders that
spirit offensive. The ode to a httle bird whose nest
had been robbed; one to himself; "Love and the
Bee " ; the imitation of " Ut flos in Septis," by Catul-
lus ; and, indeed, nearly every one of the smaller
pieces that compose the third book of the first divis-
ion, with several in the first book, are beautiful
* 38 in their kind, and give * such a faithful impres-
sion of the native sweetness of Anacreon as is
not easily found elsewhere in modern literature. We
close the volume of Yillegas, therefore, with sincere
regret that he, who in his boyhood c«ould write poetry
so beautiful, — so deeply imbued with the spirit of
antiquity, and yet so full of the tenderness of modern
feeling, — so classically exact, and yet so fresh and
natural, — should have survived its publication above
forty years without finding an interval when the cares
and disappointments of the world permitted him to
return to the occu23ations that made his youth happy,
and that have preserved his name for a posterity of
which, when he first lisjDcd in numbers^ he could hardly
have had a serious thought.^

We pass over Balbuena, whose best h^ric poetry is
found in his prose romance ; ^ and Salas Barbadillo,
who has scattered similar poetry through his various
publications, and collected more of it in his " Castilian
Khymes." ^^ Both of them flourished before 1630, and

^ There is an interesting notice of where, censures the obscure and affected

Yillegas and his works by the kindred writers of his time, yet sometimes him-

spirit of Wieland, in the Deutsche self writes in the bad style he condemns,

Merkur, 1774, Tom. V. pp. 237, etc. ; and devotes his sixth Elegy to praise of

the first time, I suspect, that his name the absurd "Phaeton" of the Count

had been mentioned with the praise it Villamediana.

deserves, out of Spain, for a century. ^ In the Academy's edition of the

It should be remembered, however, that "Siglo de Oro," Madrid, 1821, 8vo,

Yillegas, though he generally wrote there is other poetry besides that con-

with very great simplicity, and, in his tained in the pastoral itself.

Elegy to Bartolome de Argensola (Ero- i° Poems are found in all the stories

ticas, 1617, Tom. II. f. 28) and else- of Salas Barbadillo, which would, per-

Chap. XXX.] RIOJA. 45

— like Polo,^^ whose talent lay chiefly in lighter com-
positions ; Mira de Mescua, famous for at least one
ode ;^^ and Rojas, who succeeded best in pastorals of a
very lyric tone^^ — they lived at a time wdien
Lope de * Yega was pouring forth floods of verse, * 39
which were not only sufiicient to determine the
main current of the literature of the country, but to
sweep along, undistinguished in its turbulent flood, the
contributions of many a stream, smaller, indeed, than
its own, but purer and more graceful.^^

Among these was the poetry of Francisco de Rioja,
a native of Seville, who was born in 1600, and died in
1658 or 1659. From the circumstance that he occu-
pied a high place in the Inquisition, he might have
counted on a shelter from the storms of state, if he had
not connected himself too much with the Count Duke
Olivarez, whose fall drew after it that of nearly all who

haps, double tlie amount publislied "by gensola. I have sometimes thought
himself in his " Eiraas Castellanas, " that such mistakes occurred oftener in
Madrid, 1618, 12mo, and by his friends Spain than anywhere else, because the
after his death, in the "Coronas del difficulties of publication, from the
Parnaso," Madrid, 1635, 12m*. The Inquisition and other causes, were so
volume of Eimas is more than half great there, that they not infrequent-
made up of sonnets and epigrams. ly involved an obscurity as to author-

11 "Obras de Salvador Jacinto Polo," ship.

Zaragoca, 1670, 4to. His "Apolo and i^ "Desengano del Amor en Pdmas

Daphne" is partly in ridicule of the por Pedro Soto de Eojas," Madrid, 1623,

culto style. His "Academias del Jar- 4to. He was of Granada, and, as his

din" were printed in 1630; and his sonnets show, a great admirer of Gon-

"Buen Humor de las Musas," which gora.

contains the greater part of his poetry, i* One of them — but not one of the

was printed, I believe, the same year, better sort — was Gabriel Bocangel y

although my copy is of an edition UD5ueta, who was attached to the ser-

printed in 1637. vice of the warlike Cardinal-Infante

1'^ See the Cancion "Ufano, alegre, Ferdinand in the time of Philip IV.,

altivo, enamorado"; — an ode in the and who published in 1635 a volume

manner of Petrarca, which Quintana in chiefly of lyrical verse in the Italian

his Tesoro (Paris, 1838, p. 403) pro- forms, but with a few good ballads, en-

nounces to be, among Spanish odes, titled "Lira de las Musas." Some of

"elexemplar mas excelente 6, por mejor it had appeared as "Rimas Heroj^cas "

decir, unico en su genero." in 1627, and he wrote many occasional

It is among the strange circumstances pieces afterwards, that were printed in

of the sort in Spanish Literature, that editions of his Lira of 1637 and 1652,

Sedano (Parnaso, Tom. HI. p. 222) but none of much value. He figures

prints this remarkable ode as if it were in Lope's " Laurel de Apolo, " 1630, and

an inedited work of Bartolome de Ar- died in 1658.

46 EIOJA. [Period II.

had shared in his intrigues, or sought the protection
of his overshadowing patronage. But the disgrace of
Kioja was temporary ; and the latter part of his hfe,
which he gave to letters at Seville, seems to have
been as happy and fortunate as the first.

The amount of his poetry that has come down to us
is small, but it is all valued and read. Some of his
sonnets are uncommonly felicitous. So are his ode
" To Riches," imitated from Horace, and the corre-
sponding one " To Poverty," which is quite original.
In that "To the Opening Year," exhorting his young
friend Fonseca, almost in the words of Pericles, not to
lose the springtime out of his life, there is much ten-
derness and melancholy; a reflection, perhaps, of the
regrets that he felt for mistakes in his own early and
more ambitious career. But his chief distinction has
generally come from an ode, full of sadness and genius,
'^ On the Ruins of Italica," — that Roman city, near
Seville, which claims the honor of having given birth

to Trajan, and which Rioja celebrates with the
^ 40 enthusiasm of one whose childish fancy had ^ been

nourished by wandering among the remains of its
decaying amphitheatre and fallen palaces. This dis-
tinction has, however, been contested ; and the ode in
question, or rather a part of it, has been claimed for
Rodrigo Caro, known in his time rather as an anti-
quarian than as a poet, among whose unpublished
works a sketch of it is found with the date of 1595,
which, if genuine, carries the general conception, and
at least one of the best stanzas, back to a period before
the birth of Rioja.-^^

15 The poetry of Eiojca was not pub- and Caro are printed together in the

lished till near the end of the eigh- Spanish translation of Sismondi's His-

teenth century, when it appeared in the tory of Spanish Literature," Sevilla,

collections of Sedano and Fernandez in 1842, in the notes to which is the best

1774 and 1797. The two odes of Eioja account to be found of Rioja, (Tom.

Chap. XXX.] rKA:NrCISCO DE BOEJA. 47

Among those who opposed the school of Gongora,
and perhaps the person who, from his influence in
society, could best have checked its power, if he had
not himself been sometimes betrayed into its bad taste,
was Francisco de Borja, Prince of Esquilache. His
titles — which are, in fact, corruptions of the great
names borne by the Italian principalities of Borgia and
Squillace — betray his origin, and explain some of his
tendencies. But though, by a strange coincidence, he
was great-grandson of Pope Alexander the Sixth, and
grandson of one of the heads of the Order of the
Jesuits, he was also descended from the old royal
family of Aragon, and had a faithful Spanish heart.
From his high rank, he easily found a high place in
public affairs. He was distinguished both as a soldier
and as a diplomatist; and at one time he rose to be
viceroy of Peru, and administered its affairs during six
years with Visdom and success.

But, like many others of his , countrymen, he never
forgot letters amidst the anxieties of public life ; and,
in fact, found leisure enough to write several volumes
of poetry. Of these, the best portions are his lyrical
ballads. His sonnets, too, are good, especially those
in a gayer vein, and so are his madrigals, which, like
that " To a Nightingale," are often graceful, and
sometimes * tender. In general*, those of his "^ 41
shorter compositions which are a little epigram-
matic in their tone and very simple in their language
are the best. They belong to a class constantly reap-
pearing in Spanish literature, of which the following
may be taken as a favorable specimen: —

II. p. 173.) Rioja, it may be added, Works of Caro, who was born in 1573

was a friend of Lope de Vega, who ad- and died in 1647, may be found in the

dressed to him a pleasant poetical epistle Memorial Historico of the Spanish

on his own garden, which was first print- Academy of History, Tom. I., 1851,

ed in 1622. A notice of the Life and pp. 347, etc.

BORJA.

MENDOZA.

[PEiaoD II.

Ye little founts, that laughing flow

And frolic with the sands,
Say, whither, whither do ye go,

And what such speed demands ?
From all the tender flowers ye fly.
And haste to rocks, — rocks rude and high ;
Yet, if ye here can gently sleep,
3V^hy such a wearying hurry keep ? i^

Borja was much respected during his long life ; and
died at Madrid, his native city, in 1658, seventy-seven
years old. His religious poetry, some of which was
first published after his death, has little value. -^^

Antonio de Mendoza, the courtly dramatist, who
flourished about 1630- 1660, is also to be numbered
among the lyric poets of his time ; and so are Cancer
y Velasco, Cubillo, and Zarate, all of whom died some-
what later in the same period. Mendoza and
* 42 Cancer ^ inclined to the old national measures,

16 Fuentecillas, que reis,

Y con la arena jugais,
Donde vais ?

Pues de las flores huis,

Y los penascos buscais. *
Si reposais

Donde risueiia dormis ,
Porque correis, y os cansais?

Obras en Verso de Borja, Amberes, 1663, 4to,
p. 395.

1'^ The life of Borja is in Alvarez y
Baena, Tom. 11, p. 175 ; and his opin-
ions on poetry, defending the older and
simpler school, are set forth in some
decimas prefixed to his " Obras en Ver-
so," of which there are editions of 1639,
1654, and 1663. Gayangos notices a
volume of Prince Esquilache, which I
have never seen separate, entitled "La
Pasion de IST. S. Jesu Christo en terce-
tos," (Madrid, 1638, 4to,) but it is in
his "Obras en Verso," 1663, pp. 598,
sqq. Of his lyrical ballads, I would
notice particularly, in the edition of
Amberes, 1663, 4to, Nos. 40, 66, and
129. The trifle translated in the text
is No. 20 among the poems which he
calls Bueltas, a sort of refrain, with a
gloss, where much poetical ingenuity is
shown, in the turn both of the thought
and of the phraseology.

Except the "Napoles Eecuperada,"

the "Pasion de N. S." and "Obras en
Verso," only one work of the Prince of
Esquilache has been printed, I believe ;
— a quarto volume of ' ' Meditaciones y
Oraciones," translated in his old age
from some of the smaller Latin treatises
attributed to Thomas a Kempis. It is
in flowing, pure Castilian prose, and is
one of those tributes so frequently of-
fered by Spaniards of noble rank to the
demands of their Church from an anx-
ious desire to escape its suspicions, and
leave behind them a reputation for un-
spotted orthodoxy. It was j^rinted,
with more pretensions to typographical
beauty than the Prince's other works,
at Brussels in 1661, three years after
his death. A play for the solemnity
of swearing fealty to Prince Balthasar
in 1632, which was written bj^ him and
acted at the palace, was never, I be-
lieve, printed. An account of it, how-
ever, as well as an account of the other
two plays acted on the occasion, - — one
by Ant. de Mendoza and the other by
Enciso, — may be found in the oflicial
publication of Mendoza describing all
the ceremonies. (1665, f. 46.) Lotti,
the Florentine, was employed for the
machinery, and the whole affair seems
to have been magnificently got up.

Chap. XXX.] REBOLLEDO. 49

and the two others to the Itahan. None of them,
however, is now 'often remembered.^^

Not so the Count Bernardino de Rebolledo, a gen-
tleman of the ancient CastiUan stamp, who, though not
a great poet, is one of those that are still kept in the
memory and regard of their countrymen. He was
born at Leon, in 1597, and from the age of fourteen
was a soldier; serving first against the Turks and the
powers of Barbary, and afterwards, during the Thirty
Years' war, in diiferent parts of Germany, where, from
the Emperor Ferdinand, he received the title of Count.
In 1647, when peace returned, he was made ambassador
to Denmark, and lived long in the North, connected,
as his poetry often proves him to have been, with the
Danish court and with that of Christina of Sweden, in
whose conversion one of his letters shows that he bore
a part.^^ From 1662 he was a minister of state at Ma-
drid; and when he died, in 1676, he was burdened
with offices of all kinds, and enjoyed pensions and
salaries to the amount of fifty thousand ducats a year.

It is singular that the poetry of a Spaniard should
have first appeared in the North of Europe. But so it
was in the case of Count Rebolledo. One volume of
his works was published at Cologne in 1650, and an-
other at Copenhagen in 1655. Each contains lyrical
poems, both in the national and the Italian forms ; and

IS "El Fenix Castellano de Ant. de "Hercules Furens y (Eta, con toclo el

Mendoza," Lisboa,_1690, 4to ; " Obras rigor del Arte'' Zarate, however, was

Poeticas de Geronimo Cancer y Velas- much admired in his time, and a son-

00," 1650, and Madrid, 1761, 4to ; with net of his to a Eose was praised by

Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. p. 224 ; everybody. Gayangos cites an edition

" EI Enano de las Musas de Alvaro Cu- of his "Poesias" of 1619, which is

billo de Aragon," Madrid, 1654, 4to, dedicated to the Duke of Medina-Sido-

who was, however, of Granada ; and nia, and says that, when Zarate sent this

"Obras Varias de Fr. Lopez de Zarate, nobleman a copy of his poetical works,

Alcala, 1651, 4to, which, after a great the Duke returned him as many golden

deal of worthless poetry, both in Span- crowns as the volume co:itained verses.
ish and Italian measures, contains, at i^ Obras, Madrid, 177M, 8vo, Tom. I.

the end, his equally worthless tragedy, p. 571.
VOL. III. 4

50 DECAY OF LYRIC POETRY. [Period II.

if none of them are remarkable, many are written
with simphcity, and a few are beyond the spirit of

their time.^^
* 43 ^ The names of several other authors might

be added to this list, though they would add
nothing to its dignity or value. Among them are
Ribero, a Portuguese ; Pedro Quiros, a Sevilian of
note ; Paulino de la Estrella, another Portuguese, who
went to England with the Queen of Charles IL, and
published in London a small volume of Spanish poems
chiefly in the ballad measure ; Barrios, the persecuted
Jew ; Lucio y Espinossa, an Aragonese ; Evia, a native
of Guayaquil in Peru ; Inez de la Cruz, a Mexican nun ;
Soils, the historian ; Candamo, the dramatist ; Mar-
chante, both dramatist and lyrical poet, and Montoro
and Negrete ; — all of whom lived in the latter part of
the seventeenth century, and the last of whom reached
the threshold of the eighteenth, when the poetical
spirit of their country seems to have become all but
absolutely extinct.^^

2° There is a notice of Rebolledo, Majestad de la Serenissima Reyna de la

which must have been prepared by his Gran Bretaiia," etc., 1667, 18mo, pp.

own authority, in the Preface to his 164, a very curious volume, of which I

" Ocios," printed at Antwerp, 1650, found a copy in the British Museum.

18mo ; but there is a better life of him Barbosa has a notice of the author, who

in the fifth volume of Sedano's "Par- died in 1683. (Bib., Tom. III. p.

naso" ; and his poetry, and everything 616.) — Pedro Quiros, 1670, best found

relating to him, is found in his Works, in Sismondi, Lit. Esp., Sevilla, 1842,

printed at Madrid, 1778, 3 tom. 8vo, Tom. II. p. 187, note ; Varflora, No.

the first volume being in two parts. IV. p. 68, and in Rivadeneyra's Bibli-

Some of his poetry falls into Gongo- oteca, Tom. XXXIL, 1854. —Miguel

resqiie, affectations; more of it is pro- de Barrios, " Flor de Apolo, " Bruselas,

saic. Rewrote a single play, "Amar 1665, 4to, and "Coro de las Musas,"

despreciando Riesgos," which he called, Bruselas, 1672, 18mo. — "Ociosidad

a tragicomedy, and which is not with- Ocupada y Ocupacion Ociosa de Felix

out merit. de Lucio y Espinossa," Roma, 1674,

21 Ant. Luiz Ribero de Barros, " Jor- 4to ; a hundred bad sonnets. (Latassa,

nada de Madrid," Madrid, 1672, 4to ; Bib. Nov., Tom. IV. p. 22.)— Jacinto

a poor miscellany of prose and verse, de Evia, "Ramillete de Flores Poeti-

whose author died in 1683. (Barbosa, cas," Madrid, 1676, 4to, which contains

Bib., Tom. I. p. 313.) — Paulino de la other poems besides his own. — Inez de

Estrella, "Flores del Desierto cogidas la Cruz, la Decima, Musa, "Poemas,"

em [sic] el Jardin de la Clausura Mino- Zaragoza, 1682-1725, 3 tom. 4to, etc.

ritica de Londres, offrecidas [sic] a la — Ant, de Solis, "Poesias," Madrid,

Chap. XXX.] CHARACTER OF SPANISH LYRIC POETRY. 51

^ But though its latter period is dark and dis- "^ 4:4:
heartening, lyric poetry in Spain, from the time
of Charles the Fifth to the accession of the Bourbons,
had, on the whole, a more fortunate career than it en-
joyed in any other of the countries of Europe, except
Italy and England, and shows, in each of its different
classes, traits that are original, striking, and full of the
national character.

Perhaps, from the difficulty of satisfying the popular
taste in what was matter of such solemn regard, with-
out adhering to the ancient and settled forms, its re-
Ugioiis portions, more frequently than any other, bear a
marked resemblance to the snnplest and oldest move-
ments of the national genius. Generally, they are pic-
turesque, like the little songs we have by Ocana on the
Madonna at Bethlehem, and on the Flight to Egypt.
Sometimes they are rude and coarse, recalling the
villandcos sung by the shepherds of the early religious
dramas. But almost always, even when they grow
mystical and fall into bad taste, they are completely
imbued with the spirit of the Catholic faith, — a spirit
more distinctly impressed on the lyric poetry of Spain^

1692, 4to. — Canfbmo, " Ol3ras Liri- contains poems by Ant. Hiirtado de

cas," s. a. 18mo. — Joseph Perez de Mendoza, by Solis, and by the follow -

Montoro, "Obras Postumas Lyricas, ing poets, otherwise unknown to me :

Humanas y Sagradas," Madrid, 1736, namely, Francisco de la Torre y Sebil,

2 torn. 4to ; not printed, I think, till Rodrigo Artes y Muiioz, Martin Juan

that year, though their author died in Barcelo, and Juan Bautista Aguilar ;

1694. — Manuel de Leon Marchante, — all worthless. Of the persons men-

"Obras Postumas," Madrid, 1733, 2 tioned in this note, the one that pro-

tom. 4to ; where some of the villancicos, duced the greatest sensation, after Solis,

by their rudeness, not their poetry, was Inez de la Cruz, — a remarkable

recall Juan de la Enzina. — And, Joseph woman, but not a remarkable poet, who

Tafalla jSTegi'ete, " Kamille^e Poetico," was born near Mexico in 1651, and died

Zaragoca, 1706, 4to ; to which last add in the city itself in 1695. Semanario

Latassa, Bib. TSTueva, Tom. IV. p. 104. Pintoresco, 1845, p. 12. She was very

— P(n-haps a A'olume printed in Valen- popular at one time and often called

cia, 1680, 4to, and entitled "Varias "the Mexican Phoenix" or "the Tenth

Hermosas- Flores del Pamaso," will, Muse." I possess, besides several of

es])ecially if compared with the similar her separate works, copies of two edi-

work of Espinosa printed in 1605, give tions of the Avhole in three volumes

the fairest idea of the low state of quarto, — the best at Madrid, 1725, —

pDatry at the time it appeared. It and' I think there were others.

CHARACTER OF SPANISH LYRIC POETRY. [Period II.

in this department, than it is on any other of modern

times.^^
^45 ^ Nor is the secular portion less strongly marked,

though with attributes widely different. In its
popular divisions, it is fresh, natural, and often rustic.
Some of the short canciones^ with which it abounds, and
some of its clianzonetas^ overflow with tenderness, and
yet end waywardly with an epigrammatic point or a
jest. Its villancicos^ letras^ and letrillas are even more
true to the nature of the people, and more fully ex-
press the popular feeling. Generally they seize a com-
mon incident or an obvious thought for their subject.
Sometimes it is a little girl, who, in her childish sim-
plicity, confesses to her mother the very passion she is
instinctively anxious to conceal. Sometimes it is one
older and more severely tried, deprecating a power she

22 Don Pascual de Gayangos, in a
note on this passage of bis translation,
(Tom. III. pp. 516, etc.',) cites several
Cancioneros and other works containing
sacred lyrical poetry of this period,
which, although in the nature of bib-
liogi-aphical rather than of literary no-
tices, should not perhaps be wholly
passed over here. They are : (1.) Can-
cionero de Juan de Luzon, Zaragoza,
1508, 4to. (2.) Cancionero de diver-
sas obras, ec, por el Padre Fray Am-
brosio Montesino, Toledo, 1508, 4to,
the same person that I have mentioned
at the end of Chap. XXI. of the First
Period. (3.) Flor de Virtudes, ec, por
Alonso de Zamora, Alcala, 1525. (4.)
Vergel de ISTuestra Senora, translated
by Juan de IMolina from the Valencian,
and published, Sevilla, 1542. (5.) Can-
cionero Spiritual por el Reverend Padre
Las Casas, Mexico, 1546. (6.) Canci-
onero espiritual de un Religioso, Valla-
dolid, 1549. (7.) Vergel de Flores di-
vinas, por el Liceuciado Juan Lopez de
Ubeda, Alcala, 1588, and earlier, 1586,
1587. And (8.) Vergel de Plantas di-
vinas, ec, por Fr. Arcangel de Alarcon,
Barcelona, 1594. The best of these

and, I suppose,
consequence, io

the only one of any
Ubeda's Vergel, and

from this Don Pascual has given good
extracts. His note, however, was pub-
lished in 1854. The next year, 1855,
there appeared (in Vol. XXXV. of Riva-
deneyi-a's Biblioteca, entitled "Poman-
cero y Cancionero Sagrados," edited by
Don Justo de Sancha) a most ample
and satisfactory collection of whatever
is worth reading in Spanish sacred
lyrical poetry, arranged under appro-
jiriate heads, such as Sonnets, Ballads,
Villancicos, Canciones, etc., but be-
ginning, not perhaps quite appropri-
ately, with the "Cortes de la Muerte,"
a curious but rude sort of drama on the
''Dance of Death," by Miguel de Cai*-
vajal and Luis Hurtado, for the last of
whom see ante, Period I. Chap. XL,
and Period II. Chap. VII., note. Of
most of the poems thus collected by
Sanchez from the literature of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, I
have spoken sufficiently when speaking
of their authors ; such as Luis de Leon,
Lope de Vega, Gregorio Silvestre, Pe-
dro de Padilla, the Argensolas, and
perhaps forty or fifty others. For the
remainder, the curious will look in this
volume, where they can hardly fail to
find what they may need. But a no-
tice of them does not belong here.

Chap. XXX.] CHARACTER OF SPANISH LYRIC POETRY. 53

is no longer able to control. And sometimes it is a
fortunate and liappy maiden, openly exulting in her
love as the light and glory of her life. Many of these
little lyrical snatches are anonymous, and express the
feelings of the lower classes of society, from whose
hearts they came as freshly as did the old ballads, with
which they are often found mingled, and to which they
are almost always akin. Their forms, too, are old and
characteristic, and there is occasionally a frolicsome and
mischievous spirit in them, — not unimbued with the
truest tenderness and passion, — which, again, is faith-
ful to their origin, and unlike anything found in the
poetry of other nations.

In the division of secular lyric poetry that is less
popular and less faithful to the traditions of the coun-
try, a large diversity of spirit is exhibited, and exhib-
ited almost always in the Italian measures. Sonnets,
above all, were looked upon with extravagant favor
during the whole of this period, and their number
became enormously large ; larger, perhaps, than that
of all the ballads in the language. But from this
restricted form up to that of long grave odes, in regu-
larly constructed stanzas of nineteen or twenty lines
each, we have every variety of manner ; much that is
solemn, stately, and imposing, but much, also, that is
light, gay, and graceful.

^ Taking all the different classes of Spanish ^46
lyric poetry together, the number of authors
whose works, or some of them, have been preserved,
between the beginning of the reign of Charles the
Fifth and the end of that of the last of his race, is not
less than a hundred and twenty.^ But the number of

■^■^ I possess, I believe, works of more pp. .523, sqq., of tlie Spanish translation
than one hundred and twenty lyric of this History, Don Pascual de Gay-
poets of this period. In Tom. Ill, angos adds a few lyrical poets to those

54 CHARACTER OF SPANISH LYRIC POETRY. [Period II.

those who were successful is small, as it is everywhere,
and the amount of real poetry produced, even by the
best, is rarely considerable. A little of what was writ-
ten by the Argen solas, more of Herrera, and nearly
the whole of the Bachiller de la Torre and Luis de
Leon, — with occasional efforts of Lope de Yega and
Quevedo, and single odes of Figueroa, Jauregui, Ar-
guijo, and Eioja, — ^make up what gives its character
to the graver and less popular portion of Spanish lyric
poetry* And if to these we add Yillegas, who stands
quite separate, uniting the spirit of Greek antiquity to
that of a truly Castilian genius, and the fresh, graceful,
popular songs and roundelays, which, by their very
nature, break loose from all forms, and submit to no
classification, we shall have a body of poetry, not
indeed large, but one that, for its living national feel-
ing on the one side, and its dignity on the other, may
be placed without question among the more successful
efforts of modern literature.

I have already discussed more or less iti peared in 1622 ; but is spoiled by the

this chapter ; — but so few that I am cuUismo of the time. The third is

gratified at the smallness of their num- Antonio de Paredes, whose "Rimas,"

ber, since it implies that my researches printed at Cordova, 1623, belong rather

have not been wholly without success, to the good school of the preceding

The first noticed by him is Bartolome century. Fourth, Geronimo de Porras,

Cayrasco de Figueroa, who was born in who died, where he was bom, at Ante-

the Canaries in 1540, and died there in quera, in 1643. His "Rimas Varias,"

1610. I have already (Period 1. Chap, published there in 1639, are generally

II.) had occasion to allude to his "Tem- free from affectations, but not more

plo Militante,'* a sort of Versified Lives free than those of his friend Montalvan.

of the Saints, which he published at And, fifth, Pedro Alvarez de Lugo,

Valencia in 1602, and of which the who, like Cayrasco, was a native of the

fourth edition appeared at Lisbon in Canaries, and who published at Madrid,

folio in 1615. His style is affected and in 1664, his " Vigilias del Sueno." But

his sketches very dull and heavy. The the poetical value of these five authors

next is Diego de Vera y Ordonez, whose is small.
"Heroydas Belicas y Amorosas" ap-

*CHAPTEK XXXI. *47

SATIRICAL poetry: THE ARGENSOLAS, QTJEVEDO, AND OTHERS. — ELEGIAC

POETRY AND EPISTLES : GARCILASSO, HERRERA, AND OTBERS. PASTORAL

POETRY : SAA DE MIRANDA, BALBUENA, ESQUILACHE, AND OTHERS. — EPI-
GRAMS : TILLEGAS, REBOLLEDO, AND OTHERS. DIDACTIC POETRY: RUFO,

CUEVA, CESPEDES, AND OTHERS. EMBLEMS : DAZA, COVARRUBIAS. — DE-
SCRIPTIVE POETRY : DICASTILLO.

Satirical poetry, whether in the form of regular
satires, or in the more famihar guise of epistles, has
never enjoyed a wide success in Spain. Its spirit, in-
deed, was known there from the times of the Arch-
priest of Hita and Rodrigo Cota, both of whom seem to
have been thoroughly imbued with it.^ Torres Na-
harro, 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 in-
vective, 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

1 Poetical satires or libels, publicly severely punished by Ms code. Parti-
circulated, and sometimes thrown se- da Vll. Tit. IX. Leyes 3, 20. These
cretly into the houses of the persons "cantigas" or "rimas" or " dictados
they ridiculed, or into the churches, malos," as they are here called, are like-
seem to have been common in the time ly enough, 1 conceive, to have been vrit-
of Alfonso X., 1252-1284, and were ten in the ballad measure and manner.

66 SATIEICAL POETET. [Period IL

to tlie stately times of Charles the Fifth and
* 48 Phihp the Second, took its place. ^ Montemayor,
it is true, and Padilla, with a few wits of less note,
wrote in both manners ; but Cantoral with little talent,
Gregorio Morillo, or 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.^

Barahona de Soto was among the earlier that wrote
in this new form, which was a union of the Eoman w^ith
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 medioc-
rity.^

A single satire of Jauregui, addressed to Lydia, as if
she might have been the Lydia of Horace, is better.*
But in the particular style and manner of the philo-
sophical Horatian satire, none succeeded so well as the
two Argensolas. Their discussions are, it is true, some-
times 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 pas-
sages in two others against a court life, by Bartolome.
All three, however, are too much protracted, and the

2 All these satires are found in the ber. The best are one against the life
works of their respective authors, here- of a sportsman, and one in ironical de-
tofore cited, except that of Morillo " On fence of the follies of society,
the Corrupted Manners of his Times," ^ They were ilrst printed in Sedano,
which is in Espinosa, Flores, 1605, f. Parnaso, Tom. IX., 1778.
119. The "Epistolas" of Artieda were * Kimas, 1618, p. 198. It is a re-
printed the same year, under tlie name markably happy union of the Italian
of " Artemidoro," and are six in num- form of verse and the Eoman spiiit.

Chap. XXXI.] SATIRICAL POETRY. 57

last contains a poor repetition of the fable of the Coun-
try Mouse and the City Mouse, in which, as almost
everywhere else, its author's relations to Horace are
apparent.^

* Quevedo, on the other hand, followed Juvenal, * 40
whose hard, unsparing temper was better suited
to his own tastes, and to a disposition imbittered by
cruel persecutions. But Quevedo is often free and in-
decorous, 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. Gongora
approaches him on some occasions, but Gongora 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
man'ners, which Quevedo had the courage to send to
the Count Duke Olivares, when he was at the height
of his influence.^

The greatest contemporaries of both of them hardly
turned their thoughts in this direction ; for as to Cer-
vantes, 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 ;

s Rimas, 1634, pp. 56, 234, 254. It an imitator of Juvenal by Ms conteni-
is singular, however, that, while Bar- poraries ; for Guevara, in his "Diablo
tolonie imitates Horace, he expresses Cojuelo," Tranco IX., calls him "Divi-
Ms preference for Juvenal. no Juvenal Aragones." But it is im-
Pero quando a escribir satiras llegues, possible not to see that he is full of
A ningun irritado cartapacio, Horatiau turns of thought.
Sino al del cauto Juvenal, te entregues. « It is the last poem in the "Mel-
He seems, too, to have been accounted pomene."

58 SATIRICAL POETRY. [Period IL

and as to Lope de Yega, 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 fol-
lowed it, naturally prevented him from seeking occa-
sions to do or say anything 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, there-
fore, absolutely grave and solemn ; and those of Rioja,
Salcedo, Ulloa, and Melo are not only grave, but are
almost entirely destitute of poetical merit,
* 50 ^ 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 irksome-
ness 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 j^outhful tercetos on the
same subject by Gongora, nor equal to his own jesting
address to his collected poems. Rebolledo, his only
successor of an 3^ note at the time, is moral, but tire-
some ; and Solis, like the few that followed him, is too
dull to be remembered. Indeed, if Yillegas, in his old
age, when, perhaps, he had been soured by disappoint-
ment, 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.^

Nearly all the didactic satires and nearly all the
satirical epistles of the best age of Spanish literature

"^ The satires of all these authors are or rather, two of them on bad ])oets

in their collected works, except those were so printed, for the third seems to

of Villegas, which were printed from have been suppressed, on account of its

manuscripts, supposed to be the oricri- indelicacy,
nals, by Sedano (Tom. IX. pp. 3-lo) ;

Chap. XXXI. ] SATIEICAL POETRY. 59

are Horatian in their tone, and written in the Italian
icrza rlma. In general, their spirit is light, though
philosophical, — - sometimes it is courtty, — and, taken
together, they have less poetical force and a less de-
cided 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 anything 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 * carica- * 51
tured, as they are in the Spanish picaresque novels
and in the old drama ; and bad poetry may be ridi-
culed, as it was by half the poets who did not write it,
and by some who did. But the characters of indi-
viduals, and especially of those in high station and of
much notoriety, are protected, under such circum-
stances, 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.^* And if, with all this^ we remember the

^ Cervantes is a strong case in point, to Parnassus," immediately after sp'^ak-
In the fourth chapter of his "Journey ing of his Don Quixote, he disavows

ELEGIAC POETEY.

[Period II.

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 suc-
ceeded 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 exist-
ence 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,

* 52 connected with it in Spanish poetry ; for ^ both
are generally written in the Italian tei^za rima^ and

both are often thrown into the form of epistles.^ Gar-

having ever written anything satirical,
and denounces all such compositions as
low and base. Indeed, the very words
sdtira and satirico came at last to be used
in a bad sense oftener than in a good
one. Huerta, Sinonimos Castellanos,
Valencia, 1807, 2 torn. l'2mo, adverb.
PoGsias burlescas, or poetry in the
nature of broad farce or parody, took
much the place of satirical poetry prop-
erly so called ; and unless when the
Inquisition interfered with it for its
immorality or for other less justifiable
causes, it had good success in Spain.
Of many writers I have already spoken,
such as Castillejo, Mendoza, Quevedo,
etc., and Gayangos in his translation
(Tom. III. pp. 530, etc.) adds two or
three others, who, though of very little
comparative importance, should be men-
tioned because they devoted themselves
to this style of verse. They are, — (1.)
Jacinto Alonso Malvenda, for whose
"Bureo de las Musas," 1631, and his
"Tropezon dela Risa," (sine anno,) see
Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 321, and Fuster,
Tom. I. p. 252. Gayangos adds, "La
Cozquilla del Gusto,'' 1629. And (2.)
Luis Antonio, who published at Zara-
goza, in 1658, his "Nuevo Plato de
Manjares," in which the Ballads and
Letrillas are claimed to be good.

^ A striking instance of this is to be
found in the " Prin)era Parte del Par-
naso Antartico," by Diego Mexia, print-
ed at Seville, 1608, 4to, and the ouly
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 terzct riina, and nearly
all in pure and beautiful Castilian verse.
In the edition in the collection of Fer-
nandez, Tom. XIX., 1799, the epistle
by the lady is omitted, which is a pity,
since it contains notices of several South
American poets.

Diego Mexia was a native of Seville,
but became an Oydor in Ciudad de los
Reyes,. [Lima,] in Peru. While there,
in 1596, he went to Mexico. He was
nearly shipwrecked on his passage, and
had a painful journey by land after-
wards to the place of his destination ;
but in the course of three months that
his travels lasted he wrote the greater
part of these translations, which he
calls " las primicias de mi pobre musa,"
and which, having completed them in
Mexico, he sent to his native city in
Spain for publication. He says in his
Preface, that he uses the terza rima
as being peculiarly appropriate to ren-
der Latin elegiac verse ; — an opinion

Chap. XXXI.] ELEGIAC POETRY. 61

cilasso could write elegies in their true spirit ; but tlie
second that passes under that name in his works is mere-
ly a familiar epistle to a friend. So is the first by Figue-
roa, which is followed by others in a tone more appro-
priate to their titles. But all are in the Italian verse
and manner, and two of them in the Italian lano-uao-e.
The eleven " Lamentations," as he calls them, of Sil-
vestre, are elegiac epistles to his lady-love, written in
the old Castilian measures, and not without the old
Castilian poetical spirit. Cantoral 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, per-
haps, 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.

Eioja, 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 Yillegas, ^ nearly all of which ^ 53
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 dur-
ing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that has

contrasting strongly witli that expressed "by Villegas. See ante, Chap. II. note
22, and notes of Gayangos.

62 PASTOKAL POETEY. [Period IL

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
Kioja, the best and most elegiac portions of whose po-
etry do not even bear its name.^^

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 Sj^anish pastoral, with
the characteristics still recognized. But its origin is
much earlier. The climate and condition of the Penin-
sula, 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 Span-
ish 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, Cantoral, Montemayor, and Saa
de Miranda — the last two of whom were Portuguese,
and all of w^hom visited Italy and lived there —

i*^ The best elegiac poetry in the the poem was said to be written in en-
Spanish language is, perhaps, that in dechas rcalcs. See Covarrubias, and
the two divisions of the first eclogue of the Academy, ad verhum, who give no
Garcilasso. Elegies, or mournful po- opinion. Wolf thinks it comes from
ems of any kind, are often called En- the Pro ven9al i)cc, i)ecAa, etc., "want,"
dechas in Spanish, as La Torre called "loss," etc., (see Julius, German trans-
his sad amatory poems ; but the origin lation of this History, Vol. II. pp. 734,
of the word is not settled, nor its mean- 735,) and Diez, in his excellent " Ety-
ing well defined. Vanegas, in a vocab- mologisches Worterbuch der Roma-
ulary of obscure words at the end of his nischen Sprachen," (1853, in verb.
"Agonia del Transito de la Muerte," Dec, p. 607,) comes to the same conclu-
1574, p. 370, says he thinks it comes sion. I think they are right. In fact,
from inde jaces, as if the n^.ourner ad- EndecJios itself, in the sense of some-
dressed the dead body. But this is thing wanted or rrdssing, is in Ray-
absurd. It may come from the Greek nouard, Lexique Roman, 1840, Tom.
evbeKa, for when the last vei'se of each IL p. 20.
stanza contained just eleven syllables,

Chap. XXXL] PASTOKAL POETEY. 63

contributed their efforts to those of Garcilasso
^ and Boscan, by writing Spanish eclogues in ^ 54
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 23rospects 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 par-
ticular 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 sim-
plicity 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 man-
ner 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 everything 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

64 PASTORAL POETRY. [Peeiod II.

his poetry, there is an ease and amenity that show it
comes from the heart. Why he wrote so much in Span-
ish, 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 prefer-
ence. But whatever may have been the cause, six
out of his eight eclogues are composed in natu-
* 65 ral, flowing Castilian ; and the result of ^ the
whole is, that, while on all accounts he is placed
among the four or five jorincipal 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.^^ . •

Montemayor, Polo, and their followers in prose pasto-
rals, 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 care-
ful finish of Virgil, but not on that account the less
attractive .^^

Of Luis Barahona de Soto, we possess an eclogue

11 There are many editions of the reira, in the fifth volume of the ' ' INIe-

Works of Saa de Miranda ; but the morias de Litt. Portugueza " of the

second and best (s. 1. 1614, ito) is pre- Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisboa,

ceded by a life of him, which claims to 1793, pp. 99, etc. Some of his works

have been composed by his personal are in the Spanish Index Expurgato-

friends, and which states the odd fact, rius, 1667,- p. 72.

that the lady of whom he was en am- i"^ Of the poets whose eclogues are

orecl was so ugly that the family de- found in their prose pastorals I shall

clined the match until he had well con- speak at large when I examine this

sidered the matter ; but that he perse- division of Spanish romantic fiction,

vered, and became so fondly attached Montemayor, it should be noted here,

to her, that he died, at last, from grief wrote other eclogues, which are in his

at her loss. His merits as a poet are Cancionero, 1588, ft". Ill, etc.
well discussed by Ant. das Neves Pe-

Chap. XXXL] PASTORAL POETET. 65

better than anything else he has left us ; ^^ and of
Pedro de Padilla, the friend of Cervantes and of Sil-
vestre, a remarkable improvisator and a much-loved
man, we have a number of pastoral poems which carry
with them a striking antique air, from being made up
in part of ballads and villancicos}^ Pedro de Enzinas
attempted to write religious eclogues, and failed ;^^
but, in the established * forms, Juan de Morales * 56
and Gomez Tapia, who are hardly known except
for single attempts of this kind,^^ 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,^^ — were all successful.

The eclogues of Lope de Yega, of which Ave 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
Genii/' half elegiac and half pastoral, is the happiest

1^ It is found in the important col- i^ There are six of them, in Urza and

lection, the "Flores," of Espinosa, f. ottavci rinia, with a few lyrical poems

66, where it first appeared. interspersed, in other measures and in

1* "Eglogas Pastoriles de Pedro de a better tone, in a volume entitled

Padilla," Sevilla, 1582, 4to ; thirteen "Versos Espirituales, " Cuenca, 1596,

in number, in all measures, and the 12mo. Their author was a monk,

last one partly in prose. Of Padilla, i^ The eclogue of Morales is in Espi-

who was much connected with the men nosa, f. 48, and that of Tapia occurs —

of letters of his time, all needful no- where we should hardly look for it — in

tices may be found in IS^avarrete, " Vi- the " Libro de Monte ria, que mando

da de Cervantes," pp. 396-402, and in escribir el Eey Don Alfonso XL," ed-

Clernencin's Notes to Don Quixote, ited by Argote de Molina, 1582. It is

Tom. I. p. 147. The curate well says on the woods of Aranjuez, and was

of his "Tesoro de Poesias," (Madrid, written after the birth of a daughter of

1587, 12mo,) " They would be better if Philip II. ; but its descrijitious are long

they were fewer." They fill above nine and wearisome,

hundred pages, and are in all forms ^'^ Rimas, 1591, ff. 50-57.
and styles. Padilla died as late as 1599.
See ante, Period II. Chap. XXIX. note 9.
VOL. III. 5

66 EPIGRAMMATIC POETRYo [Period II.

and most original specimen of that peculiar form of
which Boscan in his "Hero and Leander" gave the
first imperfect example.^^ Pedro Soto de Eoxas, —
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 Mexi-
can 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 represen-
tation 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 char-
acter in Spain on which to build it.^^
* 57 * Quite as characteristic of the Spanish national
genius as its pastorals were short poems in dif-
ferent forms, but in an epigrammatic spirit, which ap-
peared through the whole of the best age of its litera-
ture. 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, and in the works of Mal-
donado, Silvestre, Yillegas, Gongora, and others of less
merit, to the end of the century. They are generally

1^ Espinosa includes it in his " Flo- Italian manner, the best of which are

res," f. 107, and it is reprinted in the the madrigals and eclogues. Gayangos

Biblioteca of Eivadeneyra, Tom. XXIX. cites two other poetical works of Eoxas,

p. 474. "Los Rayos del Faeton," 1639, and

1^ The authors mentioned in this para- " Parayso cerrado," 1652; neither of
graph are, I believe, all more amply no- value, and the last, which is an account
ticed by me elsewhere, except Pedro of a pleasure garden he had in the Al-
Soto de Roxas. He was a friend of baycin, being disfigured with the ex-
Lope de Vega, and published in Ma- travagances of cultismo to a degree re-
drid, 1623, 4to, his " Desengafio de markable even in the middle of the
Amor," — a volume of poems in the sixteenth century.

CiiAP. XXXL] EPIGRAMMATIC POETRY. G7

in tlie truest tone of popular verse. One, which was
set to music, was in these few simple words : —

To what ear sliall I tell my griefs,

Gentle love mine ?
To what ear shall I tell my griefs.

If not to thine ? ^^

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

gentle sigh ! gentle sigh !
For no more happiness 1 pray,
Than, every time thou goest to God,
To follow where thon lead'st the way.^^

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 ^ 58
passion, the first two of which are probably a
snatch of some old song, and the rest his own gloss
upon them : —

Within, Avithin, 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, ^'^

20 A quien contarg yo mis quejas, who paraphrased this epigram ; hut

f^^n^Zlk mis quejas, ^^^re he discovered it I do not know.

Si k vos no ? 22 De dentro tengo mi mal,

Faber found this and a few more in ^^.*^^ ^°^^ ^"L^T '^'^^^^ „

CI T > j_ .- Tvt- • -, ^nr, ^ Ml nueva y dulce querella

baimas treatise on Music, 1577, and Es invisible a la gente :

placed it, Avith a considerable number El alma sola la siente,

of similar short compositions, in the Qu' el ouerpo noes dino della:

n J. 1 xy ^ • M J.- o/^r> Como la viva sentolla

first volume of his collection, pp. 303, g, encubre en el pedernal,

etc. De dentro tengo mi mal.

21 dulce suspiro mio I Camoes, Rimas, Lisboa, 1595, 4to, f. 179.

No qui-iera dicha mas,

Que las veres que a Dios vas Several that precede and folloAv, both

Hallarme donde te envio. i^ Spanish and Portuguese, are wo: til

Ubeda, 1588, was the first, I think, notice.

68 EPIGRAMMATIC POETRY. [Period II.

The number of such compositions, in their different
serious forms, is great ; but the number of the second
kind — those in a hghter and livelier tone — is still
greater. The Argensolas, Yillegas, Lope de Vega,
Quevedo, the Prince Esquilache, Rebolledo, and not a
few others, wrote them with spirit and effect. Of all,
however, w^ho indulged in them, nobody devoted to
their composition so much zeal, and on the whole ob-
tained so much success, as Francisco de la Torre, who,
though of the ciilto 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 remark-
able Latin epigrams of John Owen, the English Prot-
estant, 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
* 59 as those he translated, ^ made a collection that
fills two volumes, the last of which was printed
in 1682, after its author's death.^^

But though he wrote more good epigrams, and in a
greater variety of forms, than any other individual
Sj^aniard, he did not, perhaps, write the best or the

23 "Agudezas de Juan Oven, etc., Miguel Moreno, whicli belong to the
con Adi clones por Francisco de la reign of Philip IV., but were not pub-
Torre," Madrid, 1674, 1682, 2 torn. lished, I believe, till 1735, might have
4to, Oven is the Owen or Audoenus of been mentioned here, but they are, in
Wood's "Athenye Oxon." Tom. II. p. general, very spiritless. There are just
320. His "Epigrammata," printed two hundred of them, and they are re-
about a dozen times between 1606 and printed by Eivadeneyra in his r)iblio-
1795, were placed on the list of pro- teca, Tom. XLIL, but not ten of them
hibited books in 1654. Index, PiomjB, are graceful or spirited.
1786, 8vo, p. 216. The Epigrams of

CHAr. XXXI.] DIDACTIC POETRY. 69

most national ; for a few of those that still remain
anonymous, and a still smaller number by Rebolleclo,
seem to claim this distinction. Of the sort of wit fre-
quently affected in these slight compositions, the fol-
lowing is an example : —

Fair lady, when your beads you take^

No doubt your prayer is still
Either for iny poor murdered sake,

Or else for yours that kilL^*

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

Didactic poetry in imsettled and uncertain forms ap-
peared early in Spain, and took, from time to time, the
air both of moral philosophy and of religious instruc-
tion. 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 Luduena's
^' Eules for Good-Breeding " ; '^ The Complaint of For-
tune," in imitation of Bias, by Diego de San Pedro ;
and the " Coplas " of Don Juan Manuel of Portu-
gal, on the * Seven Deadly Sins ; — all of them * 60
authors known at the court of Ferdinand and
Isabella. Bo scan'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

24 Fues el rosario tomais, Camoens had the same idea in some

?orttr?« m„Sr„,e habei,, P'l^'r'"' ralorulillas, (Eimas 1598,

por vos, que me matais. I- 159j) SO that I suspect both ot them

ReboUedo, Obras, 1778, Tom. I. p. 337. ^^^^ ^^ f^'O™ so^^e old popular epigram.

See ante, Chap, XXll. note 45.

DIDACTIC POETKY.

[Period II.

Charles the Fifth, but without materially advancing its
claims or its character.^^

2^ The poems of Boscan and Silvestre
are foimd in their respective works, al-
ready eXatnined ; hut 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 fam-
ily of Pedro el Cruel. He lived in the
time of Charles V. , and passed his youth
hear the person of that great sovereign ;
but, as he says in a letter to his broth-
er, the Bishof) of CalahoiTa, he at last
"withdrew himself, disgusted alike
■Udth the abhorred rabble and senseless
life of the coilrt," 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 ex-
periment he does Hot tell us ; but, miss-
ing, in the retirement it brought with
it, those pleasures 6f 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 mem-
ory might the better preserve them.
The res^ult of this life merely contem-
plative was a book, in which he gives
lis, first, his "Theofica 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 Hap-
piness ; a series of Exhortations to Vir-
tue and Holiness, which he has un-
suitably called Proverbs ; and a short
discussion, in decivias, on the Immacu-
late Conception. At the end, sepa-
rately paged, as if it were quite a dis-
tinct treatise, we have a counterpart to
the "Theorica de Virtudes," called the
' ' Pratica de las Virtudes de los Buenos
Reyes de Espana " ; a poem iii above
two hundred octave stanzas, on iJie
Virtues of the Kings of Spain, begin-
ning with Alaric the Goth and ending
with the Emperor Charles V., to whom
he dedicates it with abundance of court-
ly flattery. The whole volume, both

in the prose and verse, is written in
the manly old Castilian style, some-
times 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 bnen guerrero

Ser de su victoria cierto

Quando puna ;

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 stonny 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 vol-
ume may have been printed about 1536,
when it was licensed ; but I have never
seen it, nor any notice of it. The copies
1 have are a small 4to, black-letter, print-
ed at Saragossain 1552, and two inl2mo,
printed at Alcala, 1563 and 1564 ; the
last two being really one edition, with
different dates on the title-pages. Gay-
angos notes an edition of Murcia, 1518,
and says that when Castilla wrote his
poetry he was Governor of Baza, Guadix,
and some other places. But this seems
to be contrary to the intimations of his
retirement from affairs contained in the
poems themselves.

The poetry of Juan Hurtado de Men-
doza, who was Regidor of Madrid, and
a member of the Cortes of 1544, is, per-
haps, more rare than that of Castilla,
and is contained in a small volume
printed at Alcala in 1550, and entitled
" Buen Placer trovado en treze dis-
cantes de quarta rima Castellana segun
imitacion de trobas Francesas," ec. It
consists of thirteen discourses on a hap-
py life, its means and motives, all

Chap. XXXL] DIDACTIC POETRY. 71

* In the age of Philip the Second, the didactic, * 61
like most of the other branches of Spanish po-
etry, spreads out more broadly. Francisco de Guz-
man's " Opinions of Wise Men," and especially his dull
allegory of "Moral Triumphs," are, for their length,
the most important of the different didactic poems
which that period produced.^^ But more characteristic
than either is the deeply religious letter of Francisco
de Aldana to Montano, in 1577 ; and much more beau-
tiful 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 de-
fend the suffering Church, be overlooked. It breathes
the very spirit of its subject, and may well be put in
direct contract with the earnest and sad persuasions to
peace by Yirues, who was yet a soldier by profession,
and with Cantoral's winning invitation to the quietness
of a country life. Some of the religious poetry
of Diego de Murillo and * Pedro de Salas, in the ^ 62
next reigns, with several of the wise epistles of

written in stanzas of four lines each, De buen principio y de buen fin ageno,
which their author calls French, I sup- ^'° ^^^^ ^"^ ''^^ '^'^^ "'^ ^^P«'°-
pose because they are longer lines than Mendoza was a person of much consid-
those m the old national measures, and eration in his time, and is noticed as
rhymed alternately, — the rhymes of g^ch by Quintana, (Historia de Madrid,
one stanza runnmg mto the next. At Madrid, 1629, folio,) who gives one of
the end is a Canto Real, as it is called, ^is sonnets at f. 27, and a sketch of his
on a verse m the Psalms, composed m character at f. 245. There are several
the same manner ; and several smaller p^ems by him in the Cancionero of
poems, one of which is a kind of re- 1554. gee ante. Vol. I. p. 393, note 8.
ligious villancico, and four of them son- 26 ^\^q a Xriunfos Morales de Fran-
nets. The tone of the whole is didac- cisco de Guzman " (Sevilla, 1581, 12mo)
tic and Its poetical value small. I cite are imitations of Petrarca's " Trionfi,"
eight hues as a specimen of its pecuhar i^^^t are much more didactic, giving,
manner and rhymes : — for instance, under the head of "The
Erradova quien busca ser contento Triumph of Wisdom," the opinions of
Jiiii mal plazer mortal, que como leno j-i ■ v ^- -i. ^ i ^
Se seca V passa como humo en viento, ^he Wise men of antiquity ; and under
De vano"^s tragos de ayre muy relleno. the head of " The Triumj:)h of Pru-
Quando las negras veias van en Ueno dence," the general rules for prudent
Del mal plazer, Tillano peligroso, conduct.

DIDACTIC POETKY.

[Period II.

the Argensolas, Artieda, and Mesa, should be added ;
but they are all comparatively short poems, except
those by Murillo on three of 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 joartly from
other causes,^^ — we have, at last, a proper didactic
poem, or rather an attempt at one. It is by Juan de
la Cue va, who in 1605 wrote in terzarima three epistles,
which he entitled " Egemplar Poetico," and which con-
stitute the oldest formal and original effort of the kind
in the Spanish language. Kegarded as a whole, they

27 The works of Francisco de Aldana
were collected by his brother Cosme
and published in successive editions
in 1589, 1591, and 1593.

The volume containing the poem of
Murillo — " Sobre las tres primeras
Palabras de las siete que dixo Christo
en la Cruz " — contains, also, several
poems of equal length, and a considera-
ble number of shorter ones, which last
are the best. It is entitled "Divina,
dulce y provechosa Poesia compuesta
por el Padre Fray Diego Murillo," ec,
garagoga, 1616, 12mo, ff. 264. Its
Castilian purity of style is, for the time
when it was published, remarkable ;
but it is equally remarkable for the
grossness of its religious ideas. The
following lines from the opening of a
poem on Sta. Teresa are a specimen of
what I mean, and of feelings then very
common and deemed devout.

Quando Dios se enamoro
De vos, Teresa gloriosa,
Y OS escogi > por esposa,

Lo que en esto pretendio
Fue una sucesioa copiosa.

f. 205, b.

Equally strange phrases ai'e found in
the x^oem on the " Maddalena."

Murillo was born in 1555 and died
in 1616;^ — the volume of his poetry
being posthumous, and held, no doubt,
of small account compared with his ser-
mons and religious works in prose. Of
these I possess the " Escala Espiritual,"
(1598,) and the " Discursos Predica-
bles," (1603,) but they give me no de-
sire to see more works by their author
of the same sort.

2« The "Arte Poetica" of Espinel is
the first thing published in the ' ' Par-
naso Espaiiol" 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 con-
troversy with the ' ' Coloquios de Espi-
na," Malaga, 1785, 2 tom. 12mo, under
the pseudonyme of Juan Maria Chavero
y Eslava. It is a very pretty liter-
ary quarrel, quite in the Spanish man-
ner.

Chap. XXXI. ] DIDACTIC POETRY. 73

are, indeed, far from being a complete Art of Poetry,
and in some parts they are injudicious and inconse-
quent ; but thej^ not unfrequently contain passages of
acute criticism in flowing verse, and they have,
besides, the merit * of nationahty in their tone. * 63
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 }ie showed elsewhere, that he adventured in
too many departments.^^

Pablo de Cespedes, 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 Cordova, and died there, in 1608, 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 fin-
ished 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 ver-
sification 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

29 The " Egemplar Poetico " of Cueva nintli volume of the same collection,

was first printed in the eighth volume 1778. How absurd the last is, may be

of the "Parnaso Espanol," 1774; and inferred from the fact that it makes

the '^Inventores de las Cosas," taken Moses the inventor of hexameter verse,

generally from Polydore Virgil, and and Alexander the Great the oldest of

dated 1608, was first published in the paper-makers.

74 DIDACTIC POETET. [Period II.

always been proud, — and of which, it is evident, a
single noble individual stood 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 dis-
cusses color. ^^
* 64 ^ But the poems of Cueva and Cespedes were
not printed till long after the death of their au-
thors ; 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 pro-
duced 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, long
poems in irregular verse^ by Count Eebolledo, on the
Arts of War and Civil Government, which date from
1652, but which are little more than rhymed prose. A
tedious poem in ten cantos, and in the old quintilla
verse, by Trapeza, published in 1612, and entitled

^ What remains of Cespedes's poetry failed to find a well-drawn and rich
is to be found in the eighteenth volume picture, grand and fit for Michel An-
of Fernandez's collection. His life is gelo to paint." He was a friend of
well set forth in the excellent ' ' Diccio- Carranza, the great archbishop, who,
nario de los Profesores de las Bellas after administering to Charles V. the
Artes, por A. Cean Bermudez," Madrid, last offices of religion, and after being
1800, 6 tom. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 316 ; a leading member of the Council of
Desides which, its learned author, at Trent, and confessor of Mary of Eng-
the end of Tom. V., has republished land as the wife of Philip II., was
the fragments of the poem on Painting worried to death by the Inquisition in
in a better order than that in which 1576. (See a^tfe. Vol. I. p. 427.) Ces-
they had before appeared ; adding a pedes himself came near suffering fi'om
pleasant prose discourse, in a pure a similar persecution, in consequence of
.style, on Ancient and Modern Painting a letter he wrote to Carran/a in 1559,
and Sculpture, which Cespedes wrote in which he spoke disrespectfully of the
in 1604, when recovering from a fever, Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Office,
and two other of his trifles ; to the an off'ence which was beyond all par-
whole of which is prefixed a judicious don. Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. p.
Preface by Cean himself. Cespedes had 440. — An excellent account of Ces-
been a Greek scholar in his youth, and pedes is to be found in Stirling's Art-
says, that, in his old age, when he ists of Spain, 1848, 8vo, Vol. I. pp
chanced to open Pindar, he "never 321-344.

Chap. XXXL] DESCRIPTIVE POETRY. 75

'^ 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.^^

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 expla-
nations in verse for hieroglyphical devices. The
* most successful of these were probably the Em- ^ ^b
blems of Daza, in 1549, imitated from the more
famous Latin ones of Alciatus • and those of Covarru-
bias, 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.^^

The other form was that in which the didactic runs
into the descriptive. Of this the most poetical ex-
ample in Spanish is by Miguel Dicastillo or Del Cas-
tillo, 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

^1 Lope's "Arte Nuevo" has been seem hardly to deserve tlie name. One

abeady noticed. The "Selva Militar is "Tropheo del Oro," in glorification

y Politica " of Rebolledo was first print- of the power of gold, by Blasco Pelegrin

ed at Cologne, in 1652, 18mo, its author Cathalan, Zaragoza, 1579 ; and the oth-

being then Spanish Minister in Den- er is " Elogio a el Retrato de Philip]io

mark, of whose kings he has given a IV.," de Don Pedro Geronimo Galtero,

sort of genealogical history in another Sevilla, 1631.

poem, his "Selvas Danicas," of which ^2 .^L^g Emblemas de Alciato, ec,

there is an edition with the well-en- anadidos de nuevos Emblemas," Lyon,

graved portrait of the little Prospero, 1549, 4to, — on the Index Expurgato-

son of Philip IV., to whom the volume rius of 1790. Those of Covarrubias

is dedicated from Copenhagen, Jan. 3, were printed in Spanish in 1591 ; and

1661, where it was printed. — "La in Spanish and Latin, Agrigenti, 1601,

Cruz, por Albanio Ramirez de la Tra- 12mo ; — the last, a thick volume, with

peza," Madrid, 1612, 12mo, pp. 368, a long and learned Latin dissertation on

to which are added a few pages of short Emblems prefixed. Covarrubias was

poems on the Cross. — Gaj^angos adds brother of the lexicographer of the same

two other didactic poems ; but they name. Tesoro, Art, Emblema.

76 DESCKIPTIVE POETRY. [Period II.

found ill 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.^^
Castilian verse, however, did not often take a descrip-
tive 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 ad-
venturers wound their w^ay, and the snow-capped vol-
canoes that crowned the sierras above their heads,
* 66 seem * to have failed alike to stir their imagina-
tions or overawe their courage.^*

^^ "Aula de Dios, Cartuxa Eeal de people who never ceased to hate him

Zaragoza. Descrive la Vida de sus and his race. The poem is divided into

Monjes, acusa la Vanidad del Siglo, ec, six cantos and makes about nine hun-

consagrala a la Utilidad Piiblica Don dred octave stanzas. Its author was a

Miguel de Mencos," Zaragoza, 1637, kinsman of Lope de Vega, but had lit-

4to. They are written in silvas, and tie of Lope's poetical power. The most

their true author's name is indicated curious part of his work is an account,

"hj puiis in some of the laudatory verses in Canto V., of a magnilicent dramatic

that precede the work. In the third entertainment given to the royal party

edition, 1679, additions are made by by the monks of the Convent of St.

Agustin Nagore, " otro monje de la Anthony; — a strong case to prove how

misma Cartuxa," — the most curious much the ecclesiastics of the seventeenth

parts of which are two sonnets, some century encouraged the theatre. See

octaves, and a ballad immediately pre- ante. Chap. XXVI. note 11.
ceding the preface of the "Adiciona- On the same subject a poem by Vas-

dor," — all of them being acrostics, in co Mausinho de Quevedo is mentioned

which the monk shows the cloven foot by Gayangos. It is called ' ' Triunfo

of a worldly love. del Monarca Filippe III.," and was

Another example of descriptive po- printed in six cantos of ottava rivia.

etry should here be noticed : "El Tri- An account of the author, who is among

umpho mas famoso, ec, por Gregorio the prominent poets of Portugal, may

de San Martin" (Lisboa, 1624, 4to, ff. be found in Barbosa, Bib., fol. III.,

158). It is an account of the visit of 1752, p. 777.

Philip III. to Lisbon in 1619; — his ^* The pleasantest, if not the most

triumphal entry there ; — and the gor- important exception to this remark,

geous hospitalities shown to him by a which I recollect, is to be found in an

Chap. XXXL] DIDACTIC POETEY. 77

But except these irregular varieties of didactic
poetry^ we have, for the whole of the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth 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 rea-
sonably expect more. Neither the popular character
of Spanish poetry, nor the severe nature of the Span-
ish ecclesiastical and political constitutions of govern-
ment, was favorable to the development of this partic-
ular form of verse, or likely to tolerate it on any impor-
tant 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 .^^

epistle by the friend of Lope de Vega, marked with the feeling of that stern

Cristoval de Virues, to his brother, scenery. Obras, 1609, f. 269.

dated June 17, 1605, and giving an ac- ^^ The shorter poems, noticed as di-

count of his passage over the Saint dactic, are found in the Cancioneros

Gothard with a body of troops. It is and other collections already referred

in blank verse that is not very exact, to, or in the works of their respective

but the descriptions are very good, and authors.

*67 *CHAPTEE XXXII.

BALLAD POETRY CULTIVATED : SEPULVEDA, EUENTES, TIMONEDA, PADILLA,
CUEVA, HITA, HIDALGO, VALDIVIELSO, LOPE DE VEGA, ARELLANO, ROCA T
SERNA, ESQUILACHE, MENDOZA, QUEVEDO. — ROMANCEROS OF MORE POPU-
LAR BALLADS : THE TWELVE PEERS, THE CID, AND OTHERS. — GREAT
NUMBER OF WRITERS OF BALLADS.

The collection and publication of the ballads of the
country in the Cancioneros and Komanceros, in the
course of the sixteenth century, attracted to them a
kind and degree of attention they had failed to re-
ceive 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 beauti-
ful in them, so much that appealed successfully to the
best recollections of all classes, so much directly con-
nected 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 fol-
lowed ; — 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.^

The first of these persons was Lorenzo de Sepulveda,

1 When looking througli any of the lent remark of Rengifo, in his "Arte

large collections of ballads, especially Poetica," 1592, p. 38 : " There is noth-

those produced in the seventeenth cen- ing easier than to make a ballad, and

tury by the popularity of the whole nothing more difficult than to make it

class and the facility of their metiical what it ought to be."
structure, we find pertinent an excel-

Chap. XXXIL] BALLADS. SEPULYEDA. 79

whose Ballad-book can be traced back to 1551, the very
year after the a^Dpearance, at Saragossa, of the col-
lection * of popular and anonymous ballads by * 68
Nagera. The attempt of Sepulveda 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 his-
tories he could find, but written in the Castilian meas-
ure and in the tone of the old ballads, which," he adds,
"is noiu 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, Sepulveda 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 re-
printed at least four times, but the separate ballads in
it constantly reappear in the old collections^ that

2 " Romances nuevamente sacados de Espafia, comptiestos por Lorenco de Se-
Historias Antiguas de la Cronica de piilveda," ec, en Anvers, 1551, ISrno.

80 BALLADS. — FUENTES. [Period IL

were^ from time to time, published to meet the popular
demand.

Quite as characteristic of the period is a collection
of forty ballads by Alonso de Fuentes, printed, for the
first time, in 1564. They were sent by some person,
apparently of much distinction, to a man of let-
* 69 ters, with a request that he would ^ write a be-
coming commentary on them. This he did, but
as the patron who had imposed the task on him died
before it was completed, the volume was finally dedi-
cated to Afan de Ribera, Duke of Alcala; the commen-
tator intimating that the verses were hardly worth the
time he had bestowed on them. Ten of the forty bal-
lads — Quarenta Cantos, as they are called — are on
subjects from the Bible ; ten from Roman history ; ten
from other portions of ancient history; and the re-
mainder from the history of Spain down to the fall of
Granada. The principal merit of the whole, in the
eyes of those who were concerned in their publication,
consisted, no doubt, in the wearisome historical and
moral commentary by which each is followed.

The Editor, however, may have had a better taste in
su.ch 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.

There were editions, enlarged and al- not then published for the first time — -

tered, in 1563, 1566, 1580, and 1584, contains one hundred and forty-nine,

mentioned by Ebert. That of 1584 Many of them are in the Eomanceros

contains one hundred and fifty-six bal- Generales, and not a feAV in the recent

lads; that of 1551 — but, I think, collections of Depping and Duran.

Chap. XXXIL] BALLADS. FUENTES. 81

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 ray land, I left my home.

To serve my God against liis foes ;
"Roy deemed, that, in so short a space,

My fortunes could in ruin close,

Tor tTTO 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,
M}^ bishops and my lordly priests,

Forgetting what they should have done, —

IsTot 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, * 70

And since my friends desert and ilee, —
Since they are gone, who should have stood
Between the guilty blow and me, —

To thee I bend, my Saxiour 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 —

Eesolved all fears away to fling,
VOL. Ill, 6

82 BALLADS. — TIMONEDA. [Peeiod IL

And launch irpon 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 ApoUonius — was known :
I '11 follow where he sought his fate,

And where he found it find my own.^

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 conse-
^ 71 quence of *" this, probably, he published, in 1573,

a collection of ballads, entitled '^ The Rose," con-
sisting, 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 fanci-
ful glosses.

The best parts of this large collection are the bal-
lads gathered by its author from popular tradition,
most of which were soon published in other Roman-
ceros, with the variations their origin necessarily
involved. The poorest parts are those written by him-

2 The "Cantos de Fuentes," in the Zuniga, in his "Annals of Seville,"

Epistola to which this ballad is found, 1377, p. 585, as a knight of Seville

were printed three times, and in the "of an illustrious lineage." See al.-o

edition of Alcala, 1587, 12mo, fill, with ante, Vol. I. pp. 33, 34. I have seen

their tedious commentary, above eight an edition of Fuentes cited as of 1550.

hundred pages. Fuentes is noted by But this mu.st undoubtedly be a mistake.

Chap. XXXII.] BALLxVDS. ^ TIMO:NrEDA, PADILLA. 83

self, — such as the last division^ which is entirely his
own, and is not superior to the similar ballads in Se-
pulveda and Fuentes. As a collection, however, it is
important ; because it shows how true the Spanish
people remained to their old traditions, and how con-
stantly 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 tradi-
tional stories, while others come down, with similar ac-
counts of later heroes, to the end of the Moorish wars.*
In 1583, the series of such popular works was still
further continued by Pedro de Padilla, who pub-
lished a Eomancero containing sixty-three long
* ballads of his own, — about half of them taken * 72
from uncertain traditions, or from fables like
those of Ariosto, and the others from the known his-
tory 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, Avhere 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. ^

* The only copy of this volume known The " Eomancero Historiado " of Lu-

to exist is ajiiong the rare and precious cas Eodriguez (Alcala, 1579) belongs

Spanish books given by Reinhart to the here ; but I have never seen it. Du-

Imperial Library at Vienna ; but an ran, in his Eomancero, 1849 - 1851,

excellent account of it, followed by prints above sixty ballads from it, and

above sixt}' of the more important bal- says that more than half of the volume

lads it contains, was published at Leip- of Eodriguez consists of poetry of this

zig, 1846, 12mo, under the title of class, which, though not strictly in the

" Eosa de Eomances," by Mr. Wolf, the earlier popular tone, is yet nearer to it

admirable scholar, to whom the lovers than most of what followed,

of Spanish literature owe so much- ^ "Eomancero de Pedro de Padilla,"

84 BALLADS. CUEYAj HITA. [Period IL

Juan cle 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
Eome for his materials, and in 1587 published a vol-
ume 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
Dona Teresa, who, after being wedded against her will
to the Moorish king of Toledo, was miraculously per-
mitted to take refuge in a convent, rather than con-
summate 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 criticism
of some of the bad poets of his time.^

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
* 73 "^ 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.^ This
is yet more apparent in the new direction taken by
ballad-writing, which from this time began to select

Madrid, 1583, 12mo. The ballads fill 1587, 12mo, — a volume of nearly seven

about three hundred and sixty pages, hundred pages. Only four or five are

The first twenty-two are on the wars on Spanish subjects; — that on Doiia

in Flanders ; afterwards there are nine Teresa (f. 215) being obvioitsly taken

taken from Ariosto's stories ; then sev- from the " Cronica General, " Parte III.

eral on the story of Rodrigo de Narvaez, c. 22. The ballad addressed to his

and on other Spanish traditions, etc. book, " Al Libro," is at the end of the

^ Cueva, whom we have found in "Melpomene," and is of value for his

several other departments of Spanish personal history.

literature, printed his ballads with the ''' Hita's " Guerras Civiles de Grana-

title of ' ' Coro Febeo de Romances His- da ' Avill be noticed when I come to

toriales," in his native city, Seville, speak of romantic fiction.

Chap, XXXII.] MANY BALLAD-WRITERS. 85

particular subjects, and address itself to separate classes
of readers. Thus, in 1609, we have a volume of bal-
lads 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 : ^ — while in 1612, at the other extreme
of the circle, Valdivielso, the fashionable ecclesiastic^
printed a large ^^ Spiritual Ballad-Book," whose ballads
are all on religious subjects, and all intended to pro-
mote habits of devotion.^ In 1614 and 1622, Lope de
Yegu, always a lover of such poetry, gave to the relig-
ious world a collection of similar devout ballads, often
reprinted afterwards ; ^*^ and in 1629 and 1634 he con-
tributed 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.^^

^ *' Eomances de Germama," 1609; ?"o,9 of Valencia a G*^er?>ia?ti(X, or CGmbina-
reprinted, Madrid, 1779, 8vo. The tioii, which can leave little deubt about
words Germanla, G-ermano, etc., were the origin ' of the word from Her^
applied to the jargon in which the mandad, Hermano, — brotherhood and
rogues talked with one another. Hi- brother, — though Covarrubias does not
dalgo, who wrote only six of the bah seem sure about it, in verb. Ale7)ianut.
lads he published, gives at the end of The whole subject is discussed by
Ms collection a vocabulary of this dia- Adolf Ebert in his Quellenforschungen
lect, which is recognized as genuine by zu der Geschichte Spanien's, Kassel,
Mayans y Siscar, and reprinted in his 8vo, 1849, where see especially p. 123
"Origenes" ; so that the suggestion of and note; but the whole of the first
Clemencin, which I have followed in chapter of the Geschichte der Germa-
tlie text, where I speak of Juan Hidal- nia, beginning p. 111, is interesting.
go as a pseudonyme, may not be well ® Valdivielso's name occurs very often
founded ; — - a suggestion further dis- in the Aprobacion of books in the six-
countenanced by the fact, that, in Tom, teenth century. His "Eomancero Es-
XXXVllI. of the Comedias Escogidas, piritual," Valencia, 1689, 12mo, first
1672, the play of "Los Mozarabes de printed in 1612, was several times re-
Toledo " is attributed to a Juan Hidal- printed, and fills above three hundred
go. That the ballads of Hidalgo had and fifty pages. It is not quite all in
nothing to do with the Gypsies, though the ballad measure or in a grave tone,
otherwise supposed in the last edition, ^^ In Lope's Obras Sueltas, Tom.
is shown in Borrow's *'Zincali," Lon- XIII. and XVIL

don, 1841, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 143. San- ^i " Ramillete de Divinas Flores para

doval (Carlos V., Lib. III. § 38) more el Desengaiio de la Vida Humana,"

than once calls the rebellious Comune- Amberes,'1629, 18mo, p. 262. '' A^d-

86 EOMANCEROS. [Period II.

* 74 ^ Others^ like Roca y Serna^ wrote large num-
bers of ballads, but did not print them sep-
arately.^^ 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 sep-
arate 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 por-
tions of Sp.ain, that its materials were gathered from
the soil of nearly the whole country, — continued to
be valued, and was reprinted and enlarged four times,
under the name of " El Romancero General " ; till, with
the Ballad-Book of 1550-1555, it comprehended nearly
all the old ballads that have been preserved by tradi-
tion, together with not a few by Loj)e de Vega, G6n-
gora, 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 bal-
lad-books were now selected and published. One ap-
peared at Barcelona in 1582, and was reprinted there in
1602 and 1696, taken in a considerable degree from the

SOS paria la Miierte pof L. de Arellano," disfigured by his Gongorism, are found

Zaragoza, 1634, 1648, etc., 18mo, 90 in his " Luz del Alma," Madrid, 1726,

leaves. See ante, Vol. II. pp. 353, 12mo, first printed in 1634, and fre*

354, note. quently since.
1^ The ballads of Roca y Sernd,, often

Chap. XXXIL] BALLAD-BOOKS. 87

collection of 1550, but containing, besides, ballads not
found elsewhere until lately, and, among the rest, sev-
eral on the history of the triple league and on the
death of Philip the Second.^ A ballad-book ^ for * 75
"The Twelve Peers," and their marvellous
achievements, published for the first time in 1608, has
continued to be a favorite ever since ; ^* 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.^^ These
were followed, in 1623, by the "Primavera," or Spring
of Ballads, by Perez, of which a second part was col-
lected and published by Segura in 1629, comprehend-
ing together nearly three hundred ; — most, but not
all, of them known before, and many of them of great
beauty .^^ And other ballad-books of the same sort, as
Avell 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,

1^ It is entitled "Silva de Varios Eo- Bivar, recopilado por Juan de Escobar,"

niances," and contains the well-known Alcala, 1612, 18mo, and many other

ballads of the Conde d' Irlos, the Mar- editions, the most complete being that

qnis of Mantua, Gayferos, and the of Stuttgard, 1840, 12mo.

Conde Claros, with others, to the nam- ^^ Besides the editions of 1623 and

ber of twenty-three, that are in the 1629, I know that of Madrid, 1659,

Ballad-Book of 1550. Those on the ISmo, in two parts, containing addi-

death of Philip II. and Dona Isabel de tions of satirical ballads, letrillas, etc.,

la Paz are, of course, not in the first by Francisco de Segura. Segura also

edition of this Silva. They occur in published " Primera Parte del Rom an-

that of Barcelona, 1602, ISmo. cero Historiado," ec, Ano 1610, Lis-

1* " Fk)resta de Varios Romances, boa, 12mo, ff. 182. He was a Spaniard

sacados de las Historias Antiguas de los by birth, but had long been in the ser-

Hechos Famosos de los Doce Pares de vice of Portugal, to the honor of whose

Francia," Madrid, 1728, 18mo, first kings these ballads, thirty-eight in

printed in 1608, and collected by Da- number, are devoted. They are gen-

mian Lopez de Tortajada. See Sar- erally very poor ; the best, I think, re-

miento, § 528, for its popularity; but lating to the capture of Lisbon, 13-18.

the later ballads in the volume do not His "Rosario Sacratissimo," Zar?.goca,

relate to the Twelve Peers. 1613, 12mo, flf. 156, in five cantos, is

1^ " Romancero y Historia del muy no better.
Valeroso Cavallero, el Cid Ruy Diaz de

88 GKEAT NUMBER OF BALLAD- WPvlTEES. [Period II.

whether anonymouS;, like the largest^ or by known
authors^ hke those of Sepulveda and Cueva, nor even
to persons who wrote them in great numbers, and
printed them in a separate department of their col-
lected works, as did Prince Esquilache. On the con-
trary, between 1550 and 1700, hardly a Spanish poet
can be found through whose works they are not scat-
tered 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
"^ 76 small * groups are poetical and beautiful in the

same way the elder ones are, though rarely to
the same degree. Silvestre, Montemayor, Espinel, Cas-
tillejo, and, above all of his time, Lopez de Maldonado,
wrote them with success, towards the end of the six-
teenth century .^^ A little later, those of Gongora 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 sur-
passed.^^ But Gongora afterwards introduced the same
affected and false style into this form of his poetry
that he did into the rest, and was followed, with con-
stantly increasing absurdities, by Arteaga, Pantaleon,

17 Lopez Maldonado was a friend of lished in 1587, and of which, as well

Cervantes, and his Cancionero (Madrid, as of other subsequent publications of

1586, 4to) was among the books in Don Lasso de la Vega, Duran has made

Quixote's library. There is a beautiful free use in his " Koniancero de Pvoman-

ballad by him, (f. 35,) beginning, — ceros."

Ojosiienosdebeldad, , f ^ome of G6ngora's i-oinantic bal-

Apartad de vos la ira, lads, like his "Angelica and Medoro,

Y no pagueis con mentira and sonie of his burlesque ballads, are

A los que os tratan verdad. ^^^^ . ^^^ ^^xe best are the simplest.

The other authors referred to in the There is a beautiful one, giving a dis-

text have been before noticed. But to cussion between a little boy and girl,

all shouhl be added Gabriel Lasso de la how they will dress up and spend a

Vega's " Manojuelo de Romances," pub- holiday.

Chap. XXXIL] GREAT NUMBER OF BALLAD-WRITERS. 89

YLllamediana, Coronel, and tlie rest of his imitators,
whose ballads are generally worse than anything else
they wrote, because, from the very simplicity and truth
required by the proper nature of such compositions,
they less tolerate any appearance of affectation.

Cervantes, who was Gongora'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
23re served with a care for his own reputation that was
not at all characteristic of Cervantes, are still numer-
ous 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.^^
At the same * period, and later, good ballads were * 77
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 ReboUedo, the diplomatist ; and per-
haps, though with some hesitation, we should add, by
Solis, the historian.^^ 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, w^rote excellent devout bal-
lads,^^ or Diego de la Chica, who is remembered only
for a single satirical one, preserved by Espinosa in the
beginning of the seventeenth;^^ — but we always find

19 Cervantes speaks of his "number- 21 "Vergel de Plantas Divinas, por

less ballads" in his " Viage al Parnaso." Aroangel de Alarcon," 1594.

Those of Lope de Vega soon came into ^^ It is a ballad about money, (Espi-

the popular ballad-books, if, indeed, nosa, Flores, ]605, f. 30,) and is the

some of the best of them were not, as I only thing I know by Diego de la Chi-

suspBct, originally AA'ritten for the " Flor ca. I might add ballads by other au-

de Romances " of Villalta, printed at thors, which are found where they would

Valencia in 1593, 18mo. least be looked for ; like one by Eufo,

2"^ Solis, " Poesras Sagradas y Huma- in his "Apotegmas," — one by Jau-

nas," 1692, 1732, etc. regui, in his "Rimas," — andabeauti-

90 GEEAT POPULARITY OF BALLADS. [Pehioij II.

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 gathered alms by chanting them, and the pup-
pet-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
* 78 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.^^

fill one by Camoens, (Eimas, 1598, f. Novelas of Cervantes, especially "Tlie

187,) worthy of Gongora, and begin- Little Gipsy," who sings her ballads in

ning. — the houses of the nobles and the eh arch

Irme quiero, madre, of Santa Maria; and " Einconete and

A aqiieila galera, Cortadillo," where they make the coarse

STer m'SrinerT merriment of the thieves of Seville.

Indeed, as the puppet-showman says, in

I long to go, dear mother mine, Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 26,) "They

Aboard yon galley fair, ^^^.^ ^^ ^-^^ mouths of everybody, — of

With the young sailor that I love, ,, , . ^i . j_ .j mi

His sailor life to stiare. "the very boys m the streets. Ihe

theatre, it should be added, which

2^ There is no need of authorities to owed so much to the ballads, has in

prove the universal prevalence of bal- part paid back the debt ; for many

lads in the seventeenth century ; for popular ballads now current are taken

the literature of that century often from the long narratives in the plays

reads like a mere monument of it. But of the seventeenth century. I have

if I wished to name anything, it would many such, and Wolf gives a list of

be the Don Quixote, where Sancho is more, Ueber die Eomanzen-poesie der

made to cite them so often ; and the Spanier, Wien, 1847, 8vo, pp. 68 - 70.

*CHAPTEE XXXIII. * 79

EOMANTIC FICTION. — CHAXGE OF MANTSTERS PRODUCES A CHANGE OF THE
FICTIONS FOUNDED UPON THEM. — PASTORAL ROMANCE AND ITS ORIGIN:
MONTEMATOR AND HIS DIANA, WITH ITS CONTINUATIONS BY PEREZ AND
PODO : LO FRASSO, MONTALVO, CERVANTES, ENCISO, BOVADILLA, BERNARDO
DE LA VEGA, LOPE DE VEGA, RALBUENA, 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 in-
fluence, 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 circum-
stances ', — 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.^

Fifty years, however, before that period, signs of a
coming change are perceptible. The magnificent suc-
cesses 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 ^80

1 Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 28.

92 PKOSE PASTORAL EOMANCES. [Period II.

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 re-
turned from Africa, to amaze their countrymen with
tragical stories of their own trials and those of their
fellow-sufferers, were fall of that bitter romance of real
life which outruns all fiction. Manners, too, — the old,
formal, knightly manners of the nobility, — were be-
ginning 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 suc-
cess — 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 shep-
herd's life had prevailed in Spain and Portugal to a
greater extent than elsewhere in Europe ; ^ and, prob-
ably in consequence of this circumstance, eclogues and
bucolics were early known in the poetry of both coun-

^ The laws of the "Partidas," about toral life in Spain at that period, and
1260, afford abundant illustrations of for a long time before,
the extent and importance of the pas-

Chap. XXXIIL] PEOSE PASTOKAL EOMANCES. 93

tries, and became connected in both with the origin of
the popular drama. On the other hand, the mihtary
spirit of such a civiHzation 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 chiv- "^81
airy, and sought refreshment and repose in the
peace and simplicity of a fabulous Arcadia. At least,
these are the two obvious circumstances in the con-
dition and culture of Spain, that favored the appear-
ance 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
^uch 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 imjDressed upon it. His "Arcadia" —
written, probably, without any reference to the Greek
pastoral of Long as, but hardly without a knowledge
of the "Ameto" of Boccaccio and the Eclogues of
Bembo — was first published entire, at Naples, in
1504.^ 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 shep-
herdesses, Sannazaro relates adventures that really oc-
curred to him and to some of his friends ; — he himself

^ Ginguene, Hist. Litt. d'ltalie, Tom. X-., par Salvi, pp. 87, 92.

94 THE DIANA ENAMORADA. [Period II.

appearing under the name of Sincere, wlio is its prin-
cipal personage. Such a work, of course, is somewhat
fantastic from its very nature ; but the fiction of Sanna-
zaro 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
^ 82 of "^'chivalry, pastoral romance w^as first intro-
duced 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 ; prob-
ably it was before 1520. In his youth he was a sol-
dier; 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.*

His '^ Diana Enamorada," the chief of his works,
was first printed at Valencia, in 1542.^ It is written

* Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Tom. II. the Diana cited earlier tlian that of

p. 809, and the Prologo to the Diana Madrid, 1545 ; but I possess one in

of Perez, ed. 1614, p. 362. 4to, 112 leaves, well printed at Valen-

^ 1 have never seen any edition of cia, in 1542, without the name of the

Chap. XXXIIL] THE DIANA ENAMOEADA.

in good * Castilian, like his poetry, which is pub- * 83
lishecl separately, though, like that, >^ith some in-
termixture of his native Portuguese ; ^ and it contains, as
he tells us, stories of adventures which really occurred^
We know, too, that under the name of Sereno, he was
himself its hero ; and Lope de Yega adds, that Diana,
its heroine, was a lady of Valencia de Don Juan, a
town near the city of Leon.^ 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.

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 most subse-
quent editions. The first in which it
is known to me to be inserted is one
published by Alonso de Ulloa (see ante,
Chap. II. note 10) at Venice in 1568,
18mo, on the title-page of which Ulloa
says, — ' ' Hanse anadido en esta ultima
impresion los verdaderos amores de
Abencerrage y la hermosa Xarifa," —
from which I infer that Ulloa, who was
somewhat free in handling the Spanish
books he reprinted, was the first to
insert the tale of ISTarvaez in the Ro-
mance of Montemayor, from which, I
think, it has never since been dropped.
The Diana of Montemayor was so pop-
ular, that at least sixteen editions of
the original appeared in eighty years ;
six French translations, according to
Gordon de Percel (Bib. de 1' 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, fo-
lio,) 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 Pro-
teus and Julia, in " The Two Gentle-
men 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 there-
fore Collier has republished Yong's

translation of the last in the second
volume of his " Shakespeare's Library,"
(London, s. a. 8vo, ) though he doubts
whether Shakespeare were really in-
debted to it. Malone's Shakespeare,
Bosw ell's ed., London, 1821, 8vo, Vol.
IV. p. 3, and Brydges, Restituta, Lon-
don, 1814, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 498. Poor
abridgments of the Diana of Monte-
mayor, and of Polo's Continuation,
were published at London, 1738, 12mo.
Sir Philip Sidney translated two or
three of the short poems in Monte-
maj^or's Diana; — the one in Book I.
beginning, ' ' Cabellos quanta mudanza, ' '
being done very well. It was natural
that the author of the Countess of Pem-
broke's Arcadia should be familiar with
Montemayor, especially as he was edu-
cated at a time when a good deal of at-
tention was paid to Spanish literature
in England.

^ Sometimes he wrote in both lan-
guages 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.

'^ In his Argumento to the whole ro-
mance.

^ Dorotea, Act II. Sc. 2. Obras Su-
eltas, Tom. VII. p. 84. Lope adds
that the Filida of Montalvo, the Gala-
tea of Cervantes, the Camila of Garci-
lasso, the Violante of Camoens, the Sil-
va of Bernaldes, the Fills of Figueroa,
and the Leonor of Cortereal, were all
real persons disguised under fictitious
names. See ante, Chap. X. note 23,
Chap. XVI. note 12.

96 THE DIAN"A ENAMORADA. [Pekiud II.

To effect this, he brino-s tos^ether on the banks of the
Ezla, at the foot of the mountains of Leon, a number
of shepherds and shepherdesses, who relate their re-
spective stories through seven books of prose, inter-
mingled with verse. But the two principal personages,
Sereno and Diana, who were 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 nn worthy rival of Sereno.

On first reading the Diana of Montemayor, it is not
easy to rmderstand it. The separate stories of which
it is composed are so involved with each other, and so
inartiiicially 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 geog-
raphy, heathenism, magic, Christianity, and all the
various contradictory impossibilities that naturally fol-
low 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
^ 84 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 San-
nazaro, it is still to be remarked for its grace and rich-
ness. 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 for-

Chap. XXXIII.] THE DIANA ENAMORADA, 97

gotten; and we feel tliat 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 unhnished
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 commu-
nicated 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 in-
troduced before, as well as a continuation of the origi-
nal fiction. But this second part, like the first, fails
to complete the romance. It advances no further 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 ^85
the promise of yet a third part, which never ap-
peared. Nor was it, probably, demanded with any
earnestness ; for the second, protracted through eight
books, and considerably longer than its predecessor, is

^ The extreme popularity of Monte- he goes on, "era tan acepta quanto yo

mayor's Diana not only oansed many jamas otro libro en Eomance aya visto,"

imitations to be made of it, which must • — and that, in consequence of this, he

be noticed hereafter, but was the occa- had sought the acquaintance of ilonte-

sion of a curious travesty of it for re- mayor and met him at a friend's. The

ligious piirposes, like the travesties of result of their intercourse was, that the

Garcilasso de la Vega. The fiction to Friar wrote this spiritual parod}?^ of the

which I refer is called ' ' Primera Parte Diana in the same number of books and

de la Diana a lo Divino repartida en with parallel characters ; announcing at

siete Libros compuesto por el muy Reve- the end a continuation, which was nev-

rendo Padre Fray Bartholome Ponce," er published. He alludes to Monte-

ec, (Caragoga, 1599, 12mo, 367 ff., but .mayor's death in a dull poem, and

the authority to print is dated in 1571, seems to regard it as a judgment from

and there Avas an edition at Zaragoza Heaven. The Friar died about 1595,

in 1581.) Its purpose is to do honor and a slight notice of him will be found

to the Madonna. In the Dedicatoria in Latassa, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 569,

del Autor al Prudente Lector, Fray The only copy I ever saw of this very

Bartholome says that, in 1559, being curious book belongs to Mons. Victor

at court on business connected with his Cousin, Paris, and was inherited by

monastery, he found everybody reading him from Fauriel.
the Diana of Montemayor, — "la qual,"

VOL. III. 7

98 THE DIA]S"A E^AMORADA. [Peeiod II.

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 monoto-
nous, and the verse worse.^^

But this unfortunate attempt was not the only con-
sequence 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 Pro-
fessor of Greek in itsTFniversity.^^ The Diana of Polo
has the merit of being shorter than either of its prede-
cessors. 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
appears to be completed, the book ends with the prom-
ise of a still further continuation, which, though the
author lived nearly thirty years after he made
^ 86 it, seems never to have been fulfilled.^^ * His

1° The first edition cited (Ant., Bib. a Latin one ; for whicli see post, note

Nova, Tom. I. p. 539) is of 1564, and 13. It is well translated by Bart. Yong,

there are others printed with Monte- as the third part of the Diana, in the

mayor's Diana, Venice, 1568, 1585, same volume with the others ; but is

Barcelona, 1614, etc., but its populari- really the seco^ic? part,
ty was small, and I think it was never ^'^ There is a third part of the Diana,

printed by itself after 1564. The edi- entitled "La Diana de Montemayor,

tions of 1568 and 1614, which I possess, nuevamente compuesta por Hieronymo

are curious. It was, however, trans- de Texeda, Castellano Interprete de

lated into French, and by Ba,rt. Yong Lenguas, Eesidente en la Villa de Paris,"

into English ; and was printed in the etc. A Paris, xl Costa del Auctor, 1627.

original more than once with the Diana It is dedicated to the Prince de Join-

of Montemayor. ville, and fills tAvo volumes, — the first

11 Polo's "Diana Enamorada" was of 346 pages and the second of 394, —

first printed in 1564, and seven editions but my copy is bound as one volume,

of the original appeared in half a cen- and seems never to have had but one

tury, with two French translations and title-page. The Castilian style of the

Chap. XXXIII. J

THE FiLIDA.

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.^^

The "• Ten Books of Fortune and Love," by Antonio
de Lo Frasso, a Sardinian and a soldier, published in
1573, is another Spanish romance of the same class
with the Diana; but it is without merit, and was for-
gotten soon after it appeared.^^ Nine years later, in
1582, a better one was published, — the "Filida," —
which passed early through five editions, and is still
valued and read.^^ Its author, Luis Galvez de Mon-

whole is simple but meagre, and the
inveiitiou (luite worthless ; — made up
occasionally of old and well-known
stories, like that of the Cid, in the
sixth book, — the Abencerrages, in the
seventh, — the tribute of a hundred
damsels extorted by Mauregato, in the
ninth, — and so on. At the end of
the tenth and last book a fourth part
is promised, which was happily never
published.

13 The best edition of Gil Polo's Di-
ana is that with a life of him by Cerda,
Madrid, 1802, 12mo ; particularly val-
uable 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 fa-
mous j^octs 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 suc-
cess with his Diana, should have print-
ed nothing else, except one or two short
and trifling poems. His Diana was
translated into Latin by Caspar Barth,
(see ante. Period I. Chap. XIII. note
29,) under the name of " Erotodidasca-
lus sive jSTemoralium," Libri V., Hano-
viffi, 162.5, 12mo, pp. 315. Some of
the metrical versions are very good.

Gayangos notes among the earliest
imitations of the Diana, one by Hyero-
nimo de Arbolanches, printed at Zara-
goza in 1566, and entitled "Las Havi-
das," from Abido, one of the personages
that figure in it. The story is strange,

and in part disgusting, but Gayangos
describes some of the poetry as worth
reading.

He gives similar praise to "El Prado
de Valencia," in honor of Philip III.
and the Duke of Lerma, who appear in
the guise of shepherds, and in the course
of which there are two Gertmn&ne^, or
poetical joustings, in which Lopez Mal-
donado, El Capitan Artieda, Guillen de
Castro, and other known poets of the
time, figure. It was published in Va-
lencia in 1601.

i'^ 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 Par-
nassus " ; and is curious for some speci-
mens of Sardinian poetry which it con-
tains. But Pedro de Pineda, a teacher
of Spanish in London, taking the ii^ony
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, Svo^)
with a foolish Dedication and Prologo,
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 al-
most entirely made up of such poetry.
I do not recollect that Cervantes is fco
.severe on any poet, in his "Journey to
Parnassus," as he is on Lo Frasso.

15 The best edition of the "Ffida"
is the sixth, (Madrid, 1792, 8vo, ) witli

100 THE FILIDA. [Period II.

talvo, was born in Guadalaxara, a town near Alcala,
the birthplace of Cervantes ; and, perhaps from this

circumstance, they soon became acquainted, for
* 87 they *were long friends, and often praised each

other in their respective works.^^ 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 Sicil}^, about the year 1591.^'

His "Filida," in seven parts, was written while he
was attached to the Duke of Infantado • for he an-
nounces 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

a biographical prologue by Mayans i'^ Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom.

y Siscar ; ill-digested, as are all the I. p. 77, and Tom. XL p. xxviii. Don

similar prefaces by himself and his Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. I. p.

brother ; but not without valuable 146, ancl Tom. III. p. 14, in the notes,

matter. The "Tears" of Tansillo enjoyed the

^^ Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. honor of being six times translated into

66, 278, 407. Spanish.

Chap. XXXIII. ] YAKIOUS PROSE PASTORALS. 101

on tlie merits of the two vschools 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 ^ 88
the lady of his love — tlie "Galatea," of which
the first six books, published in 1584, were all that
ever a23peared.^^ 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 Bartolome 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 con-
fused 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,

'^^ Ante, Vol. II. pp. 98-101.

102 VARIOUS PROSE PASTORALS. [Period II.

at tlie end of the sixteenth century, was yet to come.
Other inconsequences follow, in great numbers, as mat-
ters of course, while nothing in either the prose or the
poetry is of value enough to compensate for the ab-
surdities in the story. Indeed, few portions of Spanish
literature show anything more stiff and wearisome than
the long declamations and discussions in this dull
fiction.-^^

Another pastoral romance in six books, entitled
" The Nymphs of the Henares," by Bernardo Gon-
zalez de Bovadilla, was printed in 1587. The author,
who was a native of the Canary Islands, confesses that
he has placed the scene of Ms story on the banks of
the Henares without having ever seen them ; but both

he arid his romance have long since been for-
^89 gotten. 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 159L 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.^*^
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 1598.2^ At last, '' The Age of Gold," by

19 "Desengano de Celos, compuesto longed to Cerda y Rico, and which Pel-

pof Bartholome Lopez de Enciso, Natu- licer borrowed of him to make the need-

i-al de Tendilla," Madrid, 1586, l2mo, ful note on Enciso for his edition of

821 leaves. There is, I believe, abso- Don Quixote, Parte I, c. 6.

lutely nothing known of the author, ^^ Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Parte I-

except what he tells us of himself in Tom. I. p. 67, and ed. Clemencin, Tom.

this romance ; — an extremely rare book, I. p. 144.

of which I possess the copy that be- ^i jinte, Vol. II. p. 156. The

Chap. XXXIIL] EL SIGLO DE ORO. 10

Bernardo de Balbuena, appeared. Its author^ born on
the vine-clad declivities of the Val de Penas, in 1568,
early accompanied his family to Mexico, where he was
educated, and where, when only seventeen j^ears 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 Ja-
maica, 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 Ma-
drid, in 1608, and might have been written if its au-
thor 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 * 90
romances ; and its prose, though sometimes af-
fected, is oftener sweet, simple, and flowing. Probably
nothing^ in the nine ecloo;ues — as its divisions are un-
suitably 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 pub-
lication than were similar works of inferior merit. But
whatever may have been the cause, it was long over-
looked; no second edition of it being demanded till

" Enamorada Elisea" of Geronimo de enumerating. It was written in the

Covarrubias Herrera, printed in 1594, author's early youth, in fifteen " Ec-

8vo, shouLl also be excepted ; but I logues," as he calls the books into

know this work only from the account which it is divided, and it vms first

of it by Gayangos. And certainly piiblished when he Avas twenty-eight

an exception might be made for the years old ; but he ventured to give

"Tragedias de Amor" of Juan Arze the world only five of the fifteen, add-

Solorzauo, published in 1604, and again ing to each, after the fashion of the

in 1607, — a prose pastoral, — if it were age, a miserable allegorical interpreta-

not so poor that it is hardly worth tiou.

104 THE CONSTANTS AMAKILIS. [Period IL

1821, when it received the rare honor of being pub-
Hshed anew by the Spanish Academy.^

The verjr next year after the first appearance of
•' The Age of Gold/' Christoval Suarez de Figiieroa, a
native of Valladohd^ 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.^^ Its author, who lived a great deal
in Italy, was already known by an excellent transla-
tion of Guarini's " Pastor Fido,"^* and published, at
different times afterwards, several original works which

enjoyed much reputation.^^
* 91 * 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 ;

^■^ The prefatory notice to tliis edition claimed by the fair sex of its author's

contains all that is known of Balbuena. faith ; but it is not worthy of much

2^ There was an edition with a French praise. Ginguene complains of the

translation in 1614, but the best is that original, which extends to seven thou-

of Madrid,. 1781, 8vo. sand lines, for being too long. It is

'^* It was first printed, I believe, at so ; but this translation of Dona Isabel

Naples, in 1602, but was improved in is much longer, containing, I think,

the edition at Valencia, 1609, 12mo, above eleven thousand lines. Its worst

pp. 278, from which I transcribe the fault, however, is its bad taste. — There

opening of Act. III. : — is a drama with the same title, "El

Oprimaverajuventuddelano, Pastor Fido," in the Comedias Escogi-

Nueya madre de flores, das, Tom. VIII. , 1657, f. 106; — but.

Be nuevas^yervezillas y d' amores, though it is said to be written by

Nobuelvenlorserenof" three poets no less famous than Soiis,

Y aventurosos dias de mis gustos ; Coello, and Calderon, it has very little

Tu buelves, si, tu buelves, value

£r,5;f^eS*r,a „ Z V*™"" («'> ^ova Tom. I. p

Miserable y doiiente 251) gives a list of nine ol the works ot
De mi caro tesoro ya perdido. Figueroa, some of which must be no-
P- 9*- ticed under their respective heads ; but
This passage is so nearly word for it is probably not complete, for Figue-
word, that it is not worth while to copy roa himself, in 1617, (Pasagero, f. 377,)
the Italian, and yet its fluency and ease says he had already published seven
are admirable. books, and Antonio gives only six be-
There is a translation of the " Pastor fore that date ; besides which, a friend,
Fido," by a Jewess, Dona Isabel de in the Preface to Figueroa's Life of the
Correa, of which I know only the third Marquis of Caiiete, 1613, says he had
edition, that of Antwerp, 1694, 12mo. written eight works in the ten years
It is one of the few trophies in poetry then preceding.

Chap. XXXIIL] THE COXSTANTE AMARILIS. 105

and towards Cervantes — who had just died, after prais-
ing everybody most generously during his whole life —
he is absolutely malignant.^^ 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, w^as
composed to please a person of great consideration,
did not satisfy its author.^^ It is, however, written in
an easy and tolerably pure style ; and though it con-
tains formal and wearisome discussions, like that in the
first part on Poetry, and awkward machinery, such as
a vision of Yenus 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 ; ^^ Botelho, a Portuguese ; ^^ Quintana, who as-
sumed the name of Cue vas -, ^^ Corral ; ^^ and Saave-

26 JSTavaiTete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. ^^ " Experiencias de Amor y Fortuna,

179-181, and elsewhere. The very cu- por el Licenciado Francisco de las Cue-

rious notices given by Figueroa of his vas de Madrid, " Barcelona, 1649, 12mo.

own life, which have never been used See also Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom.

for his biograjihy, are in his " Pasa- II. pp. 172 and 189. Francisco d«

gero," from f. 286 to f. 392, and are, Quintana dedicated this pastoral to

like many other passages of that singu- Lope de Vega, who wrote him a com-

lar book, full of bitterness towards his plimentar}^ reply, in which he treats

contemporaries, Lope de Vega, Villegas, Quintana as a young man, and this as

Espinosa, etc. his first work. There were editions of

■-^" Pasagero, f. 96, b. it in 1626, 1646, 1654, as well as the

28 a YA Premio de la Constancia y one at Barcelona, above noted, and one
Pastores de Sierra Bermeja, por Jacinto at Madrid, 1666, 12mo ; and in the
de Espinel Adorno," Madrid, 1620, nineteenth volume of Lope's Obras
12mo, 162 leaves. I find no notice of Sueltas, pp. 353-400, is a sermon
it, except the slight one in Antonio, which Quintana delivered at the ob- "
Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 613 ; but it is sequies of Lope, in the title of which
better than some that were more gen- he is called Lope's "intimate friend."
erally valued. 3i " La Cintia de Aranj aez, Prosas y

29 "El Pastor de Clenarda de Miguel Versos, por Don Gabriel de Corral,
Botelho de Carvalho," Madrid, 1622, Natural de Valladolid," Madrid, 1629,
8vo. He wrote, also, several other 12mo, 208 leaves. I know of no other
works ; all in Castilian, except his edition. He lived in Eome from 1630
"Fills," a poem in octave stanzas, to 1632, and probably longer. (Anto-
which is rather a story of his own life nio. Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 505.) He
and adventures than anything else. is Gongoresque in his style, as is Quiu-
Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. III. p. 466. tana.

106 INCONGRUITIES OF PASTORAL FICTION. [Period II.

* 92 dra/^ * 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 over-
looked. Pastoral romance, after all, has its foundation
in one of the truest and deepest principles of our com-
mon nature, — that love of rural beauty, of rural
peace, in short, of whatever goes to constitute a coun-
try 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, pre-
vailed 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 Durfe ; and in Eng-
land, 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 en-

3^ " Los Pastores del Betis, por Gon- phon is dated 1634, there are, as a

zalvo de Saavedra," Trani, 1633, 4to, separate tract, four leaves of religious

pp. 280. It seems to have been written and moral advice to the author's son,

in Italy ; but we know nothing of its when he was going as governor to one

author, except that he was a Veinti- of the provinces of Naples ; betU-v

((uatro of Cordova. His style is affect- written than the romance that precedes

ed. In my copy, which in the coio- it.

Chap. XXXIIL] INCOIS'GRUITIES OF PASTOPtAL FICTI0:N". 107

joying for above a century a popularity wliicli may
Avell be compared with that of the " Diana " of Monte-
mayor, if, indeed, it did not equal it.^^

^ No doubt, in Spain, as elsewhere, the incon- * 93
gruities 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 " imfinished, still makes him-
self 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 ser-
vice, to satirize the false exhibition of life in the best
pastorals of his time, not forgetting his own among the
rest.^* 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 jflocks and herds
in rough weather much less agreeable than the life he
had read of in the pastorals — say, wdien 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.^

Still, neither Cervantes, nor Lope, nor anybody else
in their time, thought seriously of discountenancing

^^ Portugal might have been added. ^ Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6, in the
The " Menina e JMo9a," of Bernardino examination of the library, where his
Pibeyro, printed in 1557, is a beautiful niece begs that the pastorals m.a.j be
fragment; and the " Prima veira" of burnt as well as the books of chivalry,
Francisco Rodriguez de Lobo, in three lest, if her uncle were cured of knight-
long parts, printed between 1601 and errantry, he should go mad as a shep-
1614, — the first of which was translat- herd; — and Parte IL c. 67 and 73,
ed into Spanish by Juan Bart. Morales, where her fears are very nigh being
1629, — is among the best full-length realized.

pastoral romances extant. Both for a ^ Comedias, Parte VI., Madrid, 1615,

long time M^ere favorites in Portugal, 4to, f. 102. El Cuerdo en su Casa, Act

and are still read there. Barbosa, Bib. L He rejieats the same jest in the

Lus., Tom. I. p. 518, Tom. 11. p. 242. Dorotea, Act II. Sc. 5.

108 POPULARITY OF PASTOEAL FICTIONS. [Period 11.

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 attrac-
tive 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
* 94 riddles and ^^ sometimes masquerades, which en-
gaged the curiosity of those who moved in the
circles either of their authors or of their heroes and
heroines.^^ But more than all, the glimpses they af-
forded of nature and truth — such genuine and deep
tenderness as is shown by Montemayor, and such fre-
quent descriptions of natural scenery as occur in Bal-
buena — 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 de-
gree of favor in S23ain which they never enjoyed any-
where else. But when this disappeared, they disap-
peared with it.

38 a '•pj^g Diana of Montemayor," says and the Filis of Figneroa, were real pet-
Lope deVega, in the passage from his sonages." Others might be added, on
"Dorotea" already cited, (n. 8,) "was the authority of their authors, such as
a lady of Valencia de Don Juan, near "Los Diez Libros de Fortunay Amor,"
Leon, and he has made both her and "La Cintia de Aranjuez," etc. See a
the river Ezla immortal. So the Filida note of Clemencin, Don Quixote, Tom.
of Montalvo, the Galatea of Cervantes, VI. p. 440.

*CHAPTEE XXXIV. * 95

ROMANCES IN THE STYLE OP ROGUES. STATE OF MANNERS THAT PRODUCED

THEM. — MENDOZa's LAZARILLO DE TORMES. — ALEMAN'S GUZMAN DE AL-
FARACHE, WITH THE SPURIOUS CONTINUATION OF IT BY SAYAVEDRA AND

THE TRUE ONE BY ALEMAN. PEREZ. ESPINEL AND HIS MARCOS DE

OBREGON. — YANEZ. QUEVEDO. SOLORZANO. — ENRIQUEZ GOMEZ. ES-

TEYANILLO GONZALEZ.

The next form of prose fiction produced in Spain,
and the one whicli, 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 anything 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 di-
rectly 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 con-
tributed to preserve for the stories that bear its impress
no little of the favor they have always enjoyed. Be-
fore 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, in-
deed, nearly ceased from the time of Ferdinand and

110 THE GUSTO PICARESCO AND ITS ORIGIN. [Period II,

Isabella. But the state of character they had pro-
duced m the Spanish people had by no means
* 96 ceased with them. On ^ the contrary, it had
been kept in the freshest activity by those vast
enterprises which Charles the Fifth had pushed for-
ward in Italy, France, and Germany, with such success,
that the Spanish nation, always marked by a sanguine
enthusiasm, had become fully persuaded that it w^as
destined to achieve an empire which, covering the
whole of the New World and whatever was most de-
sirable in the Old, should surpass in glory and power
the empire of the Csesars in the days of its jDalmiest
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 excep-
tion 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 Avere thronged, and multi-
tudes 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 Phihp 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

Chap. XXXI V.] THE GUSTO PICARESCO AND ITS ORIGIN". Ill

sufficient to disgust them with its hardships, returned
home unfitted for everything else. These two sorts
of persons formed a chiss 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 ab- * 97
ject 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 jcountry, with all the ad-
vantages they desired to reach, were already in pos-
session 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 imhesitating ; 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.

1 Of these poor, proud Hidalgos, quella, suppliscono con superbia, 6,

Favagiero, with a single touch, gives a come dicono loro, con fantasia, della

living picture as he saw them at Toledo quale sono si ricchi, che, se fossero

in 1525. " De' cavalieri pochi sono che eguali le faculta, non bastaria il mondo

habbino raolta intrata j ma, in loco di contra loro." Ed. 1563, f, 10.

112 THE GUSTO PICAKESCO AND ITS OEIGIN. [Period II.

At last, howeverj 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 rest-
lessness, as in the frequent troubles at the universities ;
and sometimes, as in the wars of the Comuneros, in
open rebellion. Contemporary, too, with these up-
ward 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 terri-
tory in the New World — was scattered as lightly as it
was won. The shrewd and unprincipled of the less
favored classes soon learned to gather round
* 98 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

Chap. XXXIV.] GUZMAX DE ALFARACHE. 113

class ; — a class well known under the degrading name
of the Catariheras^ or the gayer one of Picaros.

The first instance of a fiction founded on this state
of things was, as we have already seen, the " Lazarillo
de Tormes " of Mendoza, which was published as early
as 1553 ; a bold, unfinished sketch of the life of a
rogue, from the very lowest condition in society. This
was followed, forty-six years afterwards, by the ^^ Guz-
man 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 Ale-
man to write it we do not know. Indeed, we know
httle about him, except that he was a native of Seville,
and wrote three or four other works of less conse-
quence than this tale ; that he was long employed in
the treasury department of the government, and sub-
jected to a vexatious suit at law in consequence
of it; and that at * last, retiring of his own choice * 99
to private life, he visited Mexico in 1609, and de-
voted the remainder of his days, either there or in
Spain, to letters.^ He may, at some period, have been

2 For these low, vagabond attorneys, of the base distinction the name im-

or jackals of attorneys, ^ the Cataribe- plies. Lib. II. c. 2.
ras, — see ante. Vol. I. pp. 478, 479, ^ Antonio, Bib. Nova, Article Mat-

note. The effect of the wealth of the thce-us Aleman; and Salva, Eepertorio

Indies in corrupting the manners of the Americano, 1827, Tom. III. p. 65. For

Spanish people, and especially those of his troubles with the government, see

the middling and lower classes, is no- Navarrete, " Vida de Cervantes," 1819,

ticed by Canipanella in his remarkable p. 441. He seems to have been old

discourse written in prison to persuade when he went to Mexico ; and Don

Philip IV. to strive for universal mon- Adolfo de Castro, at the end of the

archy, and showing him how to obtain "Buscapie," 1848, gives us a letter,

it. "Vere affirmare possumus," he dated at Seville, April 20, 1607, from

says, "mundum novum quodammodo Aleman to Cervantes, of whose origin

perdidisse niundum veterem" ; — add- or discovery we receive no account what-

ing, that men gave np everything for ever, and into which its author seems

American gold, — "mancipantes seipsos to have thrust all the p)ro verbs and allu-

fertilitati pecunire et divitum doraibus." sions he could collect; — none, how-

Th. Campanellae de Monarehia Hispani- ever, so obscure that the curious learn-

caDiscursus, Ed. Elzevir, 1640, cap. 16, ing of Don Adolfo cannot elucidate

pp. 170, 171. them. The Avhole letter is a complaint

H Guzman de Alfarache is, indeed, of Aleman's own hard fortune, and a

ths true lAcaro ; — he is proud, even, prediction of that of Cervantes, ending

VOL. Ill, 8

114 GUZMAN DE ALFAKACHE. [Period II.

a soldier ; for one of his friends^ in a eiilogium 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
justice ; and in that capital undergoes all sorts of suf-
fering, 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,
* 100 ^ 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 cardi-

with a declaration of the purpose of its that Cervantes intended to speak slight-
writer to go to Mexico. It does not ingly of the " Guzman de Alfarache " ;
seem to me to be genuine ; but if it is, — a conjecture not to be sustained, if
it gives the coup de grace to Clemencin's the relations of Cervantes with Aleraan
conjectures, in his notes to both the were as friendly as this letter, published
first and second part of Don Quixote, by Don Adolfo de Castro, implies.
(Parte I. c. 22, and Parte 11. c. 4,)

Chap. XXXI V.] GUZMAN DE ALFARACHE. 115

nal picks liim 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 f3lly and vice, after the
hypocrisy and constraints of the last dark years of
Philip the Second. The Guzman, therefore, within a
twelvemonth after it appeared, passed through three
editions; and, in less than six years, as we are told,
through twenty-six, besides being translated into
French and Italian.* It was imitated, too, in a Second
Part by some unknown person, probably by Juan
Marti, a Yalencian advocate, who disguised himself
under the name of Mateo Luxan de Sayavedra, and
published in 1603 what he boldly called a continua-
tion of the Guzman.^ But it was a base attempt,

* The first three editions, those of to be, if Heaven should not stop it."

iladrid, Barcelona, and Saragossa, are Parte 11. c. xvi.

well known, and are all of 3 599; but ^ This continuation, not quite so long

most of the remaining three-and-twenty as the fu'st part of the original work,

rest on the authority of Valdes, in a was printed at Madrid, 1846, Svo, in

letter prefixed to the first edition of the the third volume of the " Biblioteca"

second part, (Valencia, 1605, 12mo,) an of Aribau. Previously, it had been

authority, however, which there seems hardly known in literary history, and

no sufficient reason to question, remark- much overlooked by the bibliographers ;

able as the story is. Valdes says ex- Ebert, who had found some traces of it,

pi'essly, "the number of printed volumes attributing it to Aleman himself, and

exceeds fifty thousand, and the num- considering it as a true second part of

ber of impressions that have come to the Guzman. But this is a mistake.

my notice is twenty-six." If the con- Both Aleman himself and his friend

jecture of Clemencin mentioned in the Valdes are exjdicit on the subject, in

last note is sustained, I should think their epistles prefixed to the first edition

Cervantes meant to ridicule this state- of the second part ; — Valdes declarinsj

ment of Aleman's friend, when he makes that the author of the continuation in

Don Quixote say of the first part of his question was "a Valencian, who, falsi-

own history, "Thirty thousand vol- fying his own name, called hiu;h';elf

umes of my life have been printed, and Mateo Luxan, to assimilate himse'f to

thirty times thirty thousand are likely Mateo Aleman." Aleman hiinself says

116

GUZMAN DE ALFARACHE.

[Period II.

* 101 * which, though not without Hterary merits
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 Yaldes, who
exposed the meanness of the whole fraud.^

In 1605, the genuine Second Part appeared/ It
begins with the life of Guzman in the house of the
French ambassador at Eome, where he serves in some
of the most dishonorable employments to which the
great of that period degraded their mercenary depen-

he Avas obliged to rewrite "his Second
Part, because he had, through a prod-
igal communication of his papers, been
robbed and defrauded of the materials
out of which he had originally composed
it. Fuster, in his " Biblioteca," Tom.
I. p. 198, gives strong reasons for sup-
posing the spurious Second Part was
written by Juan Marti, a Valencian ad-
vocate. But he need not have given
himself the trouble he did. Aleman
in the Second Part of the Guzman
makes the matter plain enough. See
Book II. Chaps. II. and IV., as well as
Book I. c. 8.

^ In the edition of the First Part,
printed at Brussels, in 1600, (and prob-
ably, therefore, in the first edition,
which was printed in 1599,) Aleman
says his Second Part was already writ-
ten, and was made to end as the true
S.'cond Part really does end, with Guz-
man's punishment in the gall< ys ; — a
fact which confirms what he afterwards
said about the plunder of his MS. for
the- spurious Second Part, which did
not appear till 1603, and ends in the
same way.

"^ There has been some confusion in
the various statements about the time
of the appearance of these two Second
Parts ; both being amoug the rarest
books in Castilian literature. But I
j)ossess both, and cau have no doubt
about the matter.

The spurious Second Part was first
printed at Madrid, in 1603, with the
following title : " Segunda Parte de la
Vida del Picaro Guzman de Alfarache,
compuesta por Mateo Luxan de Saya-

vedra, ISTatural Vezino de Sevilla. Con
Licencia, en Madrid en la Imprenta
Real," 1603, 12mo, pp. 437. It has
one A2Jrovacion dated Valencia, August
8, 1602, and another at Valladolid, the
last of May, 1603;- — the license to
print, Valladolid, 1 Julj^ 1603 ; the
Tassa, 3 September, 1603; — and a
somewhat disingenuous Preface by Fran-
cisco Lopez, its bookseller and publish-
er, dated September 23, 1603.

The gentiine Second Part was first
printed at Valencia in 1605 with the
following title : "Segunda Parte de la
Vida de Guzman de Alfarache, Atalaya
de la Vida humana, por Mateo Aleman,
su vercladero autor. Y advierta el Letor,
que la Segunda Parte cpie salio antes
desta no era mia ; solo esta roconozco
por tal. Dirigida," ec. Ano 1605, Va-
lencia. The license to print is dated
Valencia, 22 September, 1605, aud the
Jjjrovacion, which, like the first one
of the false Second Part, is given by
Petrus Joannes de Assensius, is dated
17 October, 1605. Aleman, therefore,
seems to have chosen to publish it in
the city where Marti lived, and in the
manner most off'ensive to him. It is
dedicated to Don Juan de Mendoza,
and has a Preface full of bitterness
about the false Second Part and the
laudatory notice by El Alferez Luis de
Valdes already cited. It makes 585 pp.,
12mo, after which come the Tahla and
a Latin epigram and a Spanish sonnet
by a Portuguese friar named Lope, in
honor of the work.

Each of these Second Parts promises
a third, which never appeared.

Chap. XXXIY.] GUZMAN DE ALFARACHE. 117

dants. But liis own follies and crimes drive him away
from the 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 wdio had endeavored
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 Gruzman, who always * 102
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 susj^ect
fraud under such a fair outside ? And yet it was all
a lie. He was a Yalencian. 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." ^

This personage, his history and adventures, fill too
large a space in the second par? 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 after-
wards 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

8 Parte 11. Lib. I c. 8.

118 GUZMAN DE ALFARACHE. [Period II.

and Avellaneda^ in order to end his story and prevent
his enemy from continuing it any further, Aleman
brings his victim's Kfe to a close.

The remainder of the book is filled with the adven-
tures of Guzman himself, which are as wild and vari-
ous 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 be-
gins, as a student at Alcala, to prepare himself for the
Church 5 — 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 pov-
erty ; 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,
* 1 03 where he has ^ the good luck to reveal a con-
spiracy, 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 ac-
count, 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 Eng-
lish, 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.^ The long moralizing discourses with which it

^ The common bibliographers give English is by Mabbe, and is excellent,
lists of all the translations. The first (See Wood's Athense, ed. Bliss, Tom.

Chap. XXXIV.] GUZMAN DE ALFAKACHE. 119

abounds^ written in a pure Castilian style, with mucli
quaintness xind skill, though in fact to us dull, 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 wi'it
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." ^'^

This, however, is not its real, or at least not its main
character. The Guzman is chiefly curious and interest-
ing 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 re-
spectable man ; and who sometimes goes to
mass and says his prayers just before ^ he en- * 104
ters on an extraordinary scheme of roguery, as
if on purpose to bring it out in more striking and bril-
liant relief So far from being a moral book, there-
fore, 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." ^^

III. p. 54, and Eet. Eeview, Tom. V. 1° See the rerses prefixed to the trans-

p. 189.) It went through at least four lation of Mabbe, and signed by Ben

editions, the fourth being printed at Jonson.

London, 1656, folio ; besides which i^ There ai-e four French translations

there has been a subsequent transla- of it, beginning with one by Chappuis,

tion by several hands, taken, however, in 1600, and coming down to that of

I think, from the French of Le Sage. Le Sage, 1732, which last has been

The Latin Translation was by Gaspar many times reprinted. The third in

Ens, and I have seen editions of it re- the order of dates was made by Bre-

ferred to as of 1623, 1624, and 1652. mont, while in prison in Holland ; and.

Everything, indeed, shows that the out of spite against the administration

popular success of the Guzman was of justice, from v/hich he was sufferinr:,

immense throughout Euroi^e. he made bitter additions to the origin>d

120 THE PiCARA JUSTINA. [Period II.

It has, naturally, a considerable number of episodes.
That of Sayavedra has already been noticed, as occupy-
ing a space in the work disproportionate to everything
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 litera-
ture,^^ 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." ^^ 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 unfre-
quently 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 quali-
ties 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.
^'lOS * In 1605 another story of the same class ap-
peared, the " Picara Justina," or the Crafty
Justina, — again a seeming autobiography, and again

whenever a judge or a bailiff came whither he went as fast as he could to

into his hands. See the Preface of Le escape pursuit.

Sage. ^^ Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Weber,

^2 Parte I. Lib. I. c. 8. It is related Edinburgh, 1812, 8vo, Vol. V. p. 120.

by Guzman, however, who is much too Le Sage omits it in his version, because,

young to tell such a story. It may be he says, Scarron had made it one in his

noted, also, that Guzman grows very collection of tales. It has, in fact,

suddenly to man's estate, aft^r leaving been often used, as have many other

Madrid and liefore reaching Toledo, stories of the same class.

Chap. XXXIV.] THE PiCARA JUSTINA. 121

a fiction of very doubtful morality. It was written by
a Dominican monk, Andres 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 Picara 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 Alcala, 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 Jus-
tina's ancestors, w^ho 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 adven-
tures, 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 Alfa-
rache ; 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 uninteresting. Indeed, the
author himself declares that nearly all of them were
actual occurrences within his own experience ; and
this circumstance, together with the meagre " improve-
ments," as they are called, — or warnings against the
follies and guilt of the heroine, with which each chap-
ter ends, — is regarded by him as a sufficient justifica-
tion for publishing a work whose tendency is obviously
mischievous. Nor is the style better than the inci-
dents. There is a constant efibrt to say witty and
brilliant things, but it is rarely successful ; and besides

122 MARCOS DE OBREGON. [Period II.

this, there is an affectation of new words and singular
phrases which do not belong to the genius and analo-
gies of the language, and which have caused at least
one Spanish critic to regard Perez as the first
"^106 author who left the sober ^ and dignified style
of the elder times, and, from mere caprice,
undertook to invent a new one.^^

But though the "Picara Justina" proved a failure,
the overwhehiiing popularity of ^^ Guzman de Alfa-
rache," 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 Yega and Cervantes, and as we
shall see hereafter when we come to speak of Salas
Barbadillo and Francisco de Santos. Meantime, how-
ever, 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,
probably in 1551, at Honda, a romantic town, boldly
built in the mountain range that stretches through the'
southwestern portion of the kingdom of Granada, and

1* The first edition of the " Picara prefixed to the first part of Don Quix-

Jiistina" is that of Medina del Campo, ote ; and as botli that part and the

1605, 4to, since which time it lias been "Picara Justina" were originally pub-

often printed; the best edition being lished in the same year, 1605, some

probably that of Madrid, 1735, 4to, question has arisen with Pellicer and

edited by Mayans y Siscar, who, in a Clemencin, Avho is the inventor of these

prefatory notice, makes the reproach poor, truncated verses. Le jeu ne vaut

against its author, as the oldest cor- pas la chandelle. But, as the first part

rupter of the Spanish prose style, al- of Don Quixote, according to the Tassa

luded to in the text. There is a good prefixed to it, was struck off" as early as

deal of J oetry scattered through the the 20th of December, 1604, though

volume ; all very conceited and poor. the full copyright was not granted till

Some of it is in that sort of verses from the 9th of February following, there

which the final syllable is cut olf, — can be little doubt that Cervantes was

such vei'ses, 1 mean, as C/crvantes has the earliest.

Chap. XXXIV.] MARCOS DE OBREGO?^. 123

strikingly described by himself in one of the most
happy of his ]3oems.^^ He was educated at Salamanca,
and, when Lope de Yega appeared as a poet before the
publiC; Espinel was already so far advanced in his own
career, that the young aspirant for public favor sub-
mitted his verses to the critical skill of his elder
friend ; ^^ — a favor * which Lope afterwards re- ^107
turned by praises in " The Laurel of Apollo/'
more heartfelt and effective than he has usually given
in that indiscriminate eulogium of the poets of his
time^^

What was the course of Espinel's life we do not
know. It has generally been supposed that man}^ of
its events are related in his "Marcos de Obretron " ;
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 pub-
lished a volume of Castilian poetry in 1591 ; and that
he v/as a chaplain in Ronda, though he lived much in
Madrid, and at last died there. He was re2:arded as
the author of the form of verse called sometimes
cUcimas, 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

1^ See the_ "Cancion a su Patria," Marcos de Obregon, and the people did

•which is creditable alike to his personal not know whether he wanted " a man

feelings and — with the exception of a or a book." W. G. Clarke, Gazpacho,

few foolish conceits — to his poetical London, 1850, p. 199.

character. Diversas Eimas de V. Es- i^ Espinel's own Prologo to "Marcos

pinel, Madrid, 1591, 12mo, f. 23. But de Obregon."

Espinel seems now to be wholly for- i" End of the first siYya- in the "Lau-

gotten in the city and neighborhood he rel de Apolo," w^hich was published in

so much loved. An English gentleman 16-30.
in 1819 asked there diligently for his

124

MARCOS DE OBREGOX.

[Period II.

completed that truly national instrument.-^^ He died,
according to Antonio, in 1634 ; but according to Lope
de Vega, he was not alive in 1G30. All accounts, how-
ever, represent him as having lived to a great age,^^
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 en-
joyed pensions from the same distinguished ecclesi-
astic, the kindly old Archbishop of Toledo.^^

The ^^Escudero Marcos de Obregon " was first pub-
lished in 1618, and therefore appeared in the old age
of its author.^^ He presents his hero, at once,
"^108 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.^^ The story of
Marcos, however, though it opens upon us, at first,
with scenes later in his life, soon returns to his youth.

1^ Lope de Vega, Dorotea. Acto I.
Sc. 8.

19 NoTenta anos viviste,

Nadie te dij favor, poco escribiste, —

says Lope, in the " Laurel." But this
inust be a mistake, if ISTavarrete is right
in giving the baptism of Espinel on
the'28th of December, 1551. See Bib-
lioteca de Autores Espaiioles, Tom.
XXXIIL, 1854, p. Ixxv, note 2.

'^^ Salas Barbadillo, Estafeta del Dios
Momo, 1627, Dedicacion. ISTavarrete,
Vida de Cervantes, 1819, 8vo, pp. 178,
406.

'■^1 The first edition is dedicated to
his patron, the Archbishop of Toledo,
whose daily pension to him, however,
may have well been called "alms" —
litnosna — 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 Lidex of 1667 for expurgation.
The first edition Avas printed by Juan
de la Cuesta, who, the same year, 1618,
published an edition of the Second Part
of Ijope de Vega's Cotnedias, in the
Preface to which he says he paid Espi-
nel a hundred gold crowns for the Mar-
cos de Obregon ; but that he had suf-
fered much in the sale of that, the
Araucana, and other books that he enu-
merates, by the reprints of piratical
booksellers.

^'- The Escudero of the plays and
novels of the seventeenth century is
wholly different from the Escudero of
the romances of chivalry of the six-
teenth. Covarrubias, m wr&., well de-
scribes both sorts, adding, "Nowa-
days " (1611) "esquires are chiefly used
by ladies, but inen who have anything
to live upon prefer to keep at home ;
for as esquires they earn little, and have
a hard service of it."

Chap. XXXIV.] MARCOS DE OBREGON. 125

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 acci-
dentally 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
voutli 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 dis-
creditable 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 "Laza-
rillo " 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 * 109
rapidity and brought to a more regular conclu-
sion.^^

23 "Marcos de Obregon " has been d'Obrego.'" (CEuvres, ed. Beaiiraar-
occasionally a good deal discussed, botb chais, Paris, 1785, 8vo, Tom. XX. p.
by those who have read it and those 155.) This is one of the remarks Vol-
who have not, from the use Le Sage taire sometimes hazarded with little
has been supposed to have made of it knowledge of the matter he was discuss-
in the composition of Gil Bias. The ing, and it is not true. That Le Sage
charge was first announced by Voltaire, had seen the " Marcos de Obregon "
who had personal reasons to dislike Le there can be no doubt ; and none that
Sage, and who, in his "Siecle de Louis he made some use of it in the compo-
XIV.," (1752,) said, boldly enough, sition of the Gil Bias. This is apparent
that "The Gil Bias is taken entirely at once by the story which constitutes
from the Spanish romance entitled its Preface, and which is taken from a
' La Vidad de lo Escudiero Dom Marcos similar story in the Pruiogo to the

126 ALONSO MOZO DE MUCHOS AMOS. [Peuiod II.

Ten years later, another romance of tlie same sort
appeared. It was by Yanez 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 gentle-
man, of a lawyer, and of not a few others, who hap-
pened 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, and that it much resembles the
^ 110 Marcos de Obregon. ^ When Yanez 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,

Spanish romance ; and it is no less lez, Guevara, Roxas, Antonio de Men-
plain frequently afterwards, in the body doza, and others, with no more cere-
of the work, where the trick played on mony. He seemed, too, to care very
the vanity of Gil Bias, as he is going little about concealment, for one of the
to Salamanca, (Lib. I. c. 2,) is substan- personages in his Gil Bias is called
tially the same with that played on Marcos de Obregon. But the idea that
Marcos, (Relacion I. Desc. 9, ) — where the Gil Bias w^as taken entirely from the
the stories of Camilla (Gil Bias, Liv. I. Marcos de Obregon of Espinel, or was
c. 16, Marcos, Rel. III. Desc. S^t and very seriously indebted to that work,
of Mergellina, (Gil Bias, Liv. II. c. 7, is as absurd as Voltaire's mode of spell-
Marcos, Rel. I. Desc. 3,) with many ing the title of the book, which evi-
other matters of less consequence, cor- dently he had never seen, and of which
respond in a manner not to be mis- he could even have heard very little,
taken. But this was tlie way with Le See the next Period, Chap. IV., note
Sage, who has used Estevanillo Gonza- on Father Isla.

Chap. XXXI Y.] CASTILLO SOLOEZANO. 127

with liis Alonso was too tempting. He printed, in
1626, a second part of it, containing his hero's adven-
tures among the Gypsies and in Algerine captivity,
and died in 1632.^'*

Quevedo's ^^Paul the Sharper," which we have al-
ready noticed, was pubUshed the year after Yanez 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 "Harpies of Madrid/'
four tales of four intriguing women, who plunder cred-
ulous men, appeared in 1631 ; 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 adven-
tures 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 four, however, are less
strictly joicaresque tales than the similar fictions that

2* The name of this author is one of culty which occurs in many cases of the

the many that occur in Spanish litera- same sort, and should be noticed once

ture and history, where it is difficult to for all. The title of his romance is

determine which part of it should be "Alonso M090 de Muchos Amos," and

used to designate its owner. The whole the first part was first printed at Madrid,

of it is Geronymo de Alcala Yanez y in 1624 ; but my copy is of the edition

Eivera ; and, no doubt, his personal of Barcelona, 1625, 12mo, showing that

acquaintances knew him as ' ' Doctor it was well regarded in its time, and

Geronymo," or "Doctor Geronymo de soon came to a second edition. Many

Alcala." In the Index to Antonio's Bib. editions have been published since;

Nova, he is placed under ^ZcaZd; but sometimes, like that of Madrid, 1804,

as that name only implied, I presume, 2 tom. 12mo, with the title of "El

that he had studied in Alcala, I have Donado Hablador," or The Talkative

preferred to call him Yanez y Eivera, Lay -Brother, that being the character in

the first being his father's name and the which the hero tells his story. Yanez

second his mother's ; and I mention the y Rivera was born in 1563.
circumstance only because it is a diffi-

128 ENEIQUEZ GOMEZ. [Period II.

had preceded them ; — not that they are
*111 ^wantmg in coarse sketches of Kfe and cari-
catures 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 man-
ners and society at the time.^^

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 doc-
trine 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 co-
quette, 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 stands " The Life of Don Gregorio Gua-
dana," 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 pro-
prieties of life ; and occasionally, as in the scenes dur-
ing a journey and in the town of Carmona, pleasant
and interesting, because it evidently gives us sketches
from the author's owui experience. Like the rest of its
class, it is most successful when it deals with such reali-

2^ Alonso de Castillo Solorzano seems all of which I have. But, except the

to have had his greatest success between few hints concerning their author to be

1624 and 1649, and was at one time in gathered from the titles and prefaces

the service of Pedro Faxardo, the Mar- to his stories, and the meagre but too

quis of Velez, who was Captain-General laudatory notices in Lope de Vega's

of Valencia. There is an edition of the "Laurel de Apolo," Silva VII I., and

" Harpias de Madrid yCoche de Esta- Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 15, we

fiis" of 1631 ; one of the " Niiia de los know little of him. He sneers at cul-

Embustes" as early as 1632 ; and one tism-o on one page of his "Nina de los

of the " Garduna de Sevilla" in 1634 ; Embustes," and falls into it on the next.

Chap. XXXIY.] ESTEVANILLO GONZALEZ.

129

ties, and least so when it wanders off into the regions
of poetry and fiction.^^

^ But the work which most plainly shows the * 112
condition of social life that produced all these
tales, if not the work that best exhibits their char-
acter, is " The Life of Estevanillo Gonzalez," Avhich ap-
j)eared 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.^''

2^ "EI Siglo Pitagorico y la Yida de
Don Gregorio Guadana" was written
by Antonio Enriqnez Gomez, a Portu-
guerse by descent, Avbo was educated in
Castile, and lived much in France,
where several of liis works were first
printed, and where he himself was in
the service of Louis XIII. The earliest
edition of the "Siglo Pitagorico" is
dated Eouen, 1644, but the one I use
is of Brussels, 1727, in 4to. There is a
notice of the life of Gomez in Barbosa,
Tom. 1. p. 297, and an examination of
his works in Amador de los Eios, " Ju-
dios de Espana," 1848, pp. 569, etc.
He was of a Jewish Portuguese family,
and Barbosa says he was born in Portu-
gal, but Amador de los Kios says he
was born in Segovia. That he re-
nounced the Christian religion, which
his father had adopted, that he fled to
France in 1638, and afterwards to Hol-
land, and that he Avas burnt in effigy by
the Inquisition in 1660, are facts not
doubted. His Spanish name was Euri-
quez de Paz ; and in the Preface to his
"Sanson ISTazareno" he gives a list of
his published works.

^"^ " Vida y Hechos de Estevanillo
Gonzalez, Hombre de Buen Humor,
compuesta por el mismo," which has
sometimes been attributed to Guevara,
the author of the "Diablo Cojuelo,"
was printed at Antwerp in 1646, and
at Maddd in 1652. Whether there is
any edition between these and the one
of 1795, Madrid, 2 torn. 12mo, I do not
VOL. III. 9

know. The rifacimeiifo of Le Sage ap-
peared, I believe, for the first time in
1707.

Another work, connected with the
state of society that produced Esteva-
nillo, and illustrating that sti^ange story,
should not be wholly passed over. It
is entitled ' ' La Vida del Falso Nuncio
de Portugal, Alonso Perez de Saavedra."
My copy of it, without date on the
title-page, seems to have been printed
in 1739, but the original story came
from a MS. of the time of Pliilip II. in
the Escurial. It is the autobiography,
g.^nuine or pretended, of a. brilliant
rogue of mean origin, who, during the
reign of Charles V., by a series of lucky
adventures, rose high enough to be able
to present himself at the court of Por-
tugal as Papal Nuncio, — then one of
the great dignities of Christendom, —
and, as he pretends, to establish the
Inquisition in that kingdom in 1539.
Traces of this Portuguese adventurer
can be found in known history as far
back as Gonzalo de Illescas, who, in
his "Historia Pontifical," 1574, relates
it as an occurrence of his own time
which he believed, adding of Saavedra
personally, " I saw him aftenvards row-
ing in his Majesty's galleys, where he
remained many years." Luis de Para-
mo also mentions the same story in
1598, and Pedro de Salazar in 1603 ; —
so that there can be no doubt there
was a successful impostor of the name
of Saavedra who lived in the time of

130 ESTEYANILLO GONZALEZ. [Period II.

Bo til in the original and in the French translation,
it is called " The Life and Achievements of Este-
* 113 vanillo 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 cool-
ness with which he exhibits himself as a liar by pro-
fession, 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 anything but
dull. His life, indeed, would be worth reading, if it
were only to compare his account of the battle of Nord-
lingen with that in De Foe's " Cavalier," and his draw-
ing 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 elo-
quence of style, which never succeed ; and numberless
intolerable puns. But it shows distinctly, what we
have already noticed, that the whole class of fictions

Charles V. and Philip II. ButFeyjoo, tiiry, and — rather than the prose nar-

iu his "Teatro Critico," (Tom. VI. rative — to have provoked the critical

Disc. TIL, lirst printed in 1734,) also anger of Feyjoo.

leaves no doubt that so much of the I have already noticed {ante, Chap,

tale as relates to the establishment of XXIX. note 19) "The Pastry-Cook of

the Inquisition in Portugal is a fiction. Madrigal," — who (also in the time of

Whether this curious piece of autobi- Philip II.) was hanged for passing him-

ography was lirst printed in the precise self oil as King Sebastian of Portugal,

form in which we now have it, I do not and, like the False ISTuncio, had a play

know, but I have two copies of a play made about him.

with the same title, " El Falso Nuncio Both are curious and even important

de Portugal," containing substantially to us, because they show some of the

the same story, — one without date, elements of a state of society which

and the other printed in 1769, — which gave birth to the Gusto Picaresco in

seems to have had a consiilerable vogue romantic fiction, and justify it.
iu the early part of the eighteenth cen-

Chap. XXXI7.] ESTEYANILLO GONZALEZ.

]31

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 Bias of Le Sage, — an imitation more
brilliant than any of the originals it folio wed. ^^

^^ Clemencin (notes to Don Quixote,
II. 412 and V. 68) S];)eaks of an auto-
biography of Diego Garcia de Parades,
Avho died 1533, dj& incaresciiLe, placing it
with Lazarillo de Tornies and Guzman
de Alfarache, where indeed, if we are to
take Don Quixote's account of the ad-
ventures of Paredes, (Parte I. cap. 33,)
it might well belong, so ridiculous are
they. Nicolas Antonio (Bib. Nov., I.
285) says such an account was pub-
lished with the Life of Gonzalvo de
Cordova, printed at Alcala de Hena-
res, in 1584. In my copy of that
work (Zaragoza, 1559) there is, indeed,
a good deal about Paredes, who figured
largely in the military adventures of
the jjeriod when Gonzalvo flourished,
but there is no separate autobiography
of him, such as Antonio describes. It

can, however, hardly have been a mere
work of the imagination like the gran,
volumen which Don Quixote, in his
madness, supposes Gines de Passamonte
to have written, (Parte II. e. 27,) nor
a mere novela picaresca, as Clemencin
supposes. Indeed I am curious to know
what it can have been ; for if it were
really a incaresqi(£, story written by
Paredes himself, who died in 1533, it
may contest priority with the "Laza-
rillo," of which we have no edition
earlier than 1553. The Lazarillo, how-
ever, it should be remembered, is sup-
posed to have been written at the Uni-
versity of Salamanca by Mendoza, who
was born in 1503, and there is no no-
tice of the autolDiogi'aphy of Paredes
before 1584.

*114 *CHAPTEE XXXV.

SERIOUS AXD HISTORICAL ROMANCES. JUAN DE FLORES, EEINOSO, LUZINDA-

RO, CONTRERASj HITA AND THE WARS OF GRANADA, FLEGETONTE, NOYDENS,
CESPEDES, CERVANTES, LAMARCA, VALLADARES, TEXADA, LOZANO. FAIL-
URE 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 w^ere sometimes built
up out of the older and longer-loved ballads; the old
ballads themselves, still oftener made out of the chron-
icles ; the romances of chivalry, which had not yet lost
a popularity that, at the present day, seems nearly in-
credible ; — all contributed, in their respective propor-
tions, 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 sliglit and meagre fiction, by Juan de
Flores, which dates as far back as 1521, and which,

Char XXXV.] VAEIOUS GRAVE ROMANCES. 133

in an earty English translation, was at one time
* tliou2rlit to have furnished hints for Shake- * 115
speare's "Tempest,"^ "The Loves of Clareo
unci Florisea/" published in 1552, by Nunez de Reinoso,
at A^enice, where he then lived, is another ; ; — a fiction
partly allegorical, partly sentimental, and partty 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.^ The story of "Luzindaro and Medusina,"
printed as early as 1553, which, in the midst of en-
chantments and allegories, preserves the tone and air
of a series of complaints against love, and ends tragi-
cally with the death of Luzindaro, is yet a third of
these crude attempts ; ^ — all of which are of conse-
quence 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.^

In the reign of Philip the Second, when the litera-
ture of the country began to develop itself on all sides,

1 I know only the edition of Ant- 1553, 12mo, which is in my library,

werp, 1556, 12mo, but there are several entitled " Quexa y Aviso de un Caval-

others. Lowndes, Bib. Manual, Article lero llamado Luzindaro." But, as G^-

Avrclio, and Malone's Shakespeare, by yangos well says, these attempts, and

Boswell, Vol. XV. »the similar earlier ones of L)iego de San

^ "Historia de los Amores de Clareo Pedro and others, noticed at the end of

y Florisea, |x)r Alonso ]^unez de Eeino- Chap. XXII. of the First Period, came

so," Venecia, 1552, reprinted in the from Italy, and were soon found unable

third volume of Aribau's Bibliot^ca, to contend against the books of chiv-

1846. The author is said by Antonio airy.

to have been a native of Guadalaxara, * "Historia de la Eeyna Sevilla,"

and, from his poems, published at the 1532, and 1551 ; — and "Libro de los

same time with his story, and of no Honestos Amores de Peregrine y de

value, he seems to have led an unhappy Jinebra," 1527, 1548. They are in the

life, divided between the law, for which tone of books of chivalry, and mark

h-e felt he had no vocation, and arms, the transition in a manner not to be

in which he had no success. mistaken. For the first of them, " La

^ It claims to be "" samdo del estilo Eeyna Sevilla," see F. Wolf, " Ueber

Griego," and in this imitates one of the die neuesten Leistungen der Franzosen

common fictions in the title-pages of fiir die Herausgabe ihrer national Hel-

the romances of chivalry. There are dengedichte," Wien, 1833, 8vo, pp.

several editions of it, — one at Venice, 124— 159.

134 SELVA DE AVENTUEAS. [Period II.

serious romances appeared in better forms, or at least
with higher pretensions and attributes. Two instances
of attempts in new directions, and with more consider-
able success, present themselves at once.

The first was by Hieronimo de Contreras, and bears

the affected title of " A Thicket of Adventures."
* 116 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 re-
ligious 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 anybody, and retires
to a hermitage, with the purpose of ending his days in
acts of devotion.^

^ The "Selva de AA^entufas," some- was translated into French by G. Chap-
times called " Luzman y A rbolea," was puis, and printed in 1580. (Biblio-
printed at Salamanca, in 1573, l2mo, theque de DuVerdier, Tom. IV. p. 221.)
and probably earlier, besides which Contreras wrote, also, a volume of Eu-
there are subsequent editions of Bar- logics in prose and Verse, (Dechado de
celona, Saragossa, etc. (Antonio, Bib. Yarios Subjetos, Zaragoza, 1572, and
Nova, Tom. I. p. 572) ; but it is in the Alcala, 1581, 12mo,) very formal and
Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 529. dull,— all under the poor i)retext of a
Philip il., in the Licencia, calls Con- series of visions,
treras "nuestro cronista<" The Selva

Chap. XXXV.] GUEREAS CIYILES DE GEANADA. 135

The whole story, somewhat solemnly divided into
seven books, is dull, from want both of sufficient vari-
ety 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 — rely-
ing on the curiosity then felt in Spain about Italy, as a
country full of Spaniards enjoying luxuries and refine-
ments 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 Yega, Cervantes,
and several more among the most popular
* authors of the seventeenth century, are among * 117
the writers of fictions like these.

The other form of grave fiction, which appeared in
the time of Pliilip 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 Gra-
nada," by Gines 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 neighboring 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. Per-
haps 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

136 GUERRAS CIVILES DE GRAXADA. [Period IL

witlim^, amidst the fends of the Moors themselves,
than, as we are accustomed to consider it, from the
Christian portion of Spain, gradually gathered in mili-
tary array outside of its walls.

He begins his story by seekii^g 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 Boab-
dil, 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 fi o;:ures are added the more imagi-
native and fabulous sketches of the Zegris and Aben-
cerrages, Reduan, Abenamar, and Gazul, as full
*118 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 Fe to cheer
on the conquest.

But while he is thus min ogling- 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 accus-

Chap. XXXV.] GUERRAS CIYILES DE GRANADA. 137

tomed 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 accu-
sation 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 scanda-
lous 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 de-
tails 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 Albania and Malaga, and the fall of Granada, are
brought before us neither unexpectedly nor in a man-
ner out of keeping with what had preceded them;
and the story, if it does not end with a regular catas-
trophe, which such materials might easily have fur-
nished, ends 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 "^119

138

GUEERAS CIYILES DE GRANADA. [Period IT.

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 them-
selves, and giving an air of reality to the events
described, that could hardly have been given to them
by anything else.

This first part, as it is commonly called, of the
"Wars of Granada" was written between 1589 and
1595.^ 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,^ still his account, upon its very face, is

^ 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 first part was re-
printed much oftener than the second.
There are editions of it in 1598, 1603,
1604 (three), 1606, 1610, 1613, 1616,
etc., besides several without date. Ro-
mero, in his " Paseos por Granada,"
(1764, 4to, Tom. I. Paseo XXV.,) says,
that in Granada a father accounted
himself unhappy if he could not give a
copy of the "Guerras Civiles" to his
son when he went to school, so that
the people, by reading it in their child-
hood, had come to believe it all to be
true history ; — a fact for which the
eood Romero sorrows much more than
is needful.

"^ Bertuch, Magazin der Spanischen
und Portugiesischen Literatur, Tom. I.,
1781, pp. 275-280, with the extract
there from " Carter's Travels." A sug-
gestion recently reported — not, how-

ever, without expressing doubts of its
accuracy — by Count Albert de Cir-
court, in his curious and important
" Histoire des Arabes d'Espagne," (Par-
is, 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 him-
self, 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 transla-
tion, or rather abridgment, of the Ro-
mance of Hita ; — probably the work
of some Morisco Spaniard, not thor-
oughly ac(][uainted with his own lan-
guage.

Similar suggestions about an Arabic
original for the romance are made in the
preface to a French translation of it by
A. M. Sane, Paris, 1809, 2 tom., 8vo.
At p. xlvii he notices different French
imitations of it, beginning with the
" Guerres Civiles de Grenada," by Mile.

Chap. XXXV.] GUERRAS CIVILES BE GRA^S'ADA. 139

not at all probable ; besides which, he repeatedly ap-
peals to the chronicles of Garibay and Moncayo as
authorities for his statements, and gives to the
main current of his work — ^ especially in such ^ 120
passages as the conversion of the Sultana — a
Christian air, which does not permit us to suppose
that anv but a Christian could have written it. Not-
Avithstanding 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 and rich 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 king-
dom, unable any longer to bear the oppressions to
which they were subjected by the rigorous govern-
ment of Philip the Second, took refuge in the bold
range of the Alpuxarras, on the coast of the Mediter-
ranean, 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 eyewitness, as we can see in his accounts of
the atrocities committed in the villages of Felix and
Huescar, while elsewhere, as for the horrors of the

de la Roche Guillen, which I have never translation of Hita's Avork published iu
seen, but which I believe was rather a 1683, than an imitation of it.

140 GUERRAS CIVILES DE GRAJN'ADA. [Period II.

siege of Galera^ he relies on testimony no less trust-
worthy. 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.
Tlie most interesting part is the story of Tuzani, which
he relates with great minuteness, and which he de-
clares he received from Tazani himself and other
persons concerned in it ; — a wild ta.le 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 divisio^i of Hita's romance
had been like this story, it might have been worthy

of the first. But it is not. The ballads with
* 121 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. Per-
haps Hita felt the want of the old Moorish traditions
that had before inspired him, or perhaps he found him-
self 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 hist ry, 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.^

The path, however, which Hita by these two works
had opened for historical fiction amidst the old tra-

^ The second part appeared for the 1833, 2 torn. 12mo, and both are in the
first time at Alcala, in 1604, but has third volume of Aribau's Biblioteca,
been reja-inted so rarely since, that old 1846. Hita says that he tini.-,hed copy-
copies of it are very scarce. There is ing the second volume of his Gruerras de
a neat edition of both parts, Madrid, Granada on the 22d of November, 1597.

Chap. XXXV.] GUERRAS CIYILES DE GRANADA. 141

ditions and striking 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 countrjanen 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.^ Such sympathy with the infidel
enemj^ that had so long held Spain in fee was not
according to the spirit of the times. Only five years
after Hita had jDublished his account of the rebellion
of the Alpuxarras, the remainder of the Moors against
ivhom 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 anything but the just retributions of an
offended Heaven.

Of course, while this was the state of feel in or throug-h-
out the nation, it was not to be expected that
works of ^ fiction representing the Moors in ^ 122
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 ;^^ and, in France,

9 Parte I. c. 18, Parte 11, c. 25. uscript. T know no other notice of

1° In my copy of the second part, this third part. Circourt (Histoire des

printed at Madrid, 1731, 12mo, the Maures Mudejares et des Moresques)

Ajjrobacion, dated 10th of September has frequently relied on the second part

of that year, speaks distinctly of as an authority, and, in the passage just

three parts," mentioning the second as cited, gives his reasons for the confi-

the one that was printed at Alcala in dence he re^joses in it.
1604, and the third as if still in man-

142 EIDICULE OF SERIOUS ROMANCES. [Period II.

Madame de Scuderi soon began, in "The Almaliide," a
series of fictions on this foundation, that has been con-
tinued down, through the " Gonsalve de Cordoue "
of Florian, to " The Abencerrage " of Chateaubriand,
without giving any token that it is Ukelj soon to
cease. ^^ But in Spain it struck no root, and had no
success.

Perhaps other circumstances, besides a national
feeUng 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 Cry sella of Lidaceli," which
appeared in 1609, — and Avhich, as well as a dull prose
satire on the fantastic Academies then in fashion, bears
the name of Captain Flegetonte, — assails freely what-
ever of prose fiction had till then enjoyed regard in
Spain, whether the pastoral, the historical, or
* 123 the chivalrous.^^ Its attack, however, * was so

11 Scott is reported to liave said, on Edin., 1839, A^'gI. I. p. 183.) I think
being sliown the Wars of Granada in Quinault knew something about the
the latter part of his life, that, if he romance of Hita when he wrote his
had earlier known of the book, he " Genereuse Ingratitude," 1654, for
might have placed in Spain the scene there are resemblances between the two
of some of his own fictions. Denis, not otherwise easily accounted for.
Chroniixues Chevalresques, Paris, 1839, ^^ "La Cryselia de Lidaceli, Famosa
8vo, Tom. T. p. 323. But this may y Verdadera Historia de Varios Aeon-
have been merely another version of tecimientos de Amor y Fortuna," was
the story about his having, not far from first printed at Paris, 1609, 12mo, and
the year 1786, written a jioem on the dedicated to the Princess of Conti ; be-
conquest of Granada in four books. sides which I have seen a third edition,
(Lockhart's Life of Scott, 2d edition, of Madrid, 1720. At the end a second

Chap. XXXV.] OTHER SERIOUS ROMANCES. 143

ineffectual, as to show only the tendency of opin-
ion to discourage romance-writing in Spain ; a ten-
dency yet more apparent a little later, not only in
some of the best ascetic writers of the seventeenth cen-
tury, but in such works as " The Moral History of the
God Momus," by Noydens, published in lg66, which,
as its author tells us distinctly in the Prologue, was in-
tended to drive out of society all novels and books of
adventure wluose subject was love.-^^

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 Cespedes, a native of Ma-
drid, 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 con-
nected 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 Pindaro," a simi-

part is announced, which never ap- thor of a number of moral and ascetic
eared. The other work of El Capitan works. The ' ' Historia Moral del Dios

legetonte is entitled "La Famosa y Momo" (4to, Madrid, 1666, 12mo) is

Temeraria Compania de Rompe Colum- an account of the exile of the god Mo-

nas," and was also printed in 1609, mus from heaven, and his transmigra-

with two Dialogues on Love ; all as tion through the bodies of persons in

poor as can well be imagined. The all conditions on earth, doing mischief

"Cryselia" is a strange confusion of wherever he goes. Each chapter of the

the pastoral style with that of serious eighteen into which it is divided is fol-

romance ; — the whole mingled with lowed by a moralizing illustration ; as,

accounts of giants and enchantments, for instance, (c. 5,) the disturbance

and occasionally with short poems. El Momus excites on earth against heaven

Capitan Flegetonte is, of course, a pseu- is illustrated by the heresies of Ger-

donyme ; but hardly worth in(i[uiring many and England, in w^hich the Duke

after. of Saxony and Henry VIII. appear to

1'^ Benito Remigio Noydens was au- very little advantage.

144 OTHER SERIOUS ROMANCES. [Period II.

lar work, but less interesting, and perha'ps, on that
account, never finished according to the origi-
* 124 nal 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 preten-
sions to style, though rather in their lighter than in
their more serious portions.^*

Again in 1617, — the same year, it will be recol-
lected, in which the " Persiles and Sigismunda" of Cer-
vantes appeared, — Francisco Loubayssin de Lamarca,
a French Biscayan or Gascon 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, Avho has
become a hermit in his old age, to the Italian wars of
Charles the Eighth of France, and forward, in the per-
son 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.^^

14 "Poema Tragico del Espanol Ge- Barcelona in 1634 in a folio volume of

rardo y Desengaiio del Amor Lascivo " 562 pages, which yet covers less than

is the title of" the story; and, besides four years of that monarch's reign. It

the first edition, it was printed in 1617, is ill written, and being published while

1618, 1623, 1625, 1654, etc. The "Va- Philip was hardly thirty years old, it

ria Fortuna del Soldado Pindaro," who, is full of flattery as well as Gongorism.

notwithstanding his classical name, is The most interesting passage in it that

represented as a native of Castile, was I have read is the account of Rodrigo

less favored. I know only the editions Calderon, Marques de Siete Iglesias,

of 1626 and 1661, till we come to that (Lib. 11. cap. 27,) — the unprincipled

of Madrid, 1845, 8vo, illustrated with favorite of Philip III. and the same

much spirit. Of Cespedes y Meneses a minister who figures in Gil Bias,
slight notice is to be found in Alvarez ^^ The " Historia Tragicomica de Don

y Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. Enrique de Castro" was printed at Par-

362. The Gerardo is much injured by is, in 1617, when its author was twen-

Gongorism, — the Pindaro less, but its ty-nine years old. Two years earlier

stories are more disconnected and ex- he had published " Enganos deste

travagant. Siglo." (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II.

Cespedes y Meneses, also, began a p. 358.) I believe he sometimes wrote

history of Philip IV., of which the in French, and that he was a professed

only part ever published appeared at teacher of the Spanish language.

Chap. XXXV.] EL CABALLERO VENTUROSO. 145

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
intrio;ues with Persian ladies of rank. Much of it is
given in the shape of a correspondence, and it ends
with a promise of a continuation, which never ap-
peared.^^

Many, indeed, of the works of fiction begun
in Spain, "^ during the seventeenth century, re- * 125
mained, like the Two Faithful Friends, un-
finished, from want of encouragement and popularity ;
while others that were written were never published
at all.^' One of these last, called " The Fortunate
Knight," by Juan Valladares de Yaldelomar, of Cor-
dova 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 Yegi:a. 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 Portus^al. How
much of it is true is uncertain. Eegular 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

1^ I do not know who was the author ^'^ The names of a good many uu-

of this foolish fancy, which is, perhaps, published manuscripts of such works

a chronique scandaleuse of the court. can be found in the Bibliotheca of

It was printed at Roussillon, and is a Antonio, and in Baena, " Hijos de

small 18mo volume. Madrid."
VOL. III. 10

146 THE LEON PEODIGIOSO. [Period II.

the Prologue, all books of fiction are treated with con-
tempt, as if the whole class were so little favored, that
it was discreditable to avow the intention of publish-
ing 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 small merit.^^

The discouragement just alluded to, whether pro-
ceeding; from the ridicule thrown on lono; works of
fiction by Cervantes, or from the watchfidness of the
ecclesiastical authorities, or from both causes combined,
was probably one of the reasons that led persons writ-
ing serious romances to seek new directions and un-
wonted forms in their composition ; sometimes going
as far as possible from the truth of fact, and sometimes

coming down almost to plain history. Two in-
* 126 stances of such deviations from the ^ beaten

paths — perhaps 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 Cosme Gomez de Texada, and is
called " The Marvellous Lion." It was originally pub-
lished 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

18 The MS. of "El Caballero Ventii- amined it. It fills 289 closely written

roso," which is evidently autograph leaves, in 4to. A second part is an-

throughout, belongs to Don Pascual de nounced, but was probably never writ-

Gayangos, Professor of Arabic in the ten.
University of Madrid, and I have ex-

Chap. XXXV.] THE LEON PEOpiGIOSO. 147

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 Sala-
manca i and w^hen, 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
further removed from the realities of life. This more
carefully matured fiction is called " Understanding and
Truth, the Philosophical Lovers " ; and all its person-
ages are allegorical, filling up, with their dreams and
trials, a shadowy picture of human life, from the cre-
ation to the general judgment. How long Texada
was employed about this cold and unsatisfactory alle-
gory, 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 post-
humous work, with the inappropriate title of " The
Second Part of the Marvellous Lion." Neither ro-
mance 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.^^

1^ " Leon Prodigioso, Apologia Moral, on tlie physical sciences and moral phi-

por el Lieenciado Cosme Gomez Texada losopli}^ in 1650. In the "Leon Pro-

de los Eeyes," Madrid, 1670, 4to ; — digioso " is a good deal of poetry ; par-

■'SegTinda Parte del Leon Prodigioso, ticularly, in the first part, a poem eallt^d

Entendimientoy Verdad, AmautesFilo- "La Nada," which is veiy dull, and

-oiicos," Alcahi, 1673, 4to. The first one m the second, called " El Todo,"

part was licensed in 1634. The author which is still worse. His ridicule 'K

p iblished "EtFilosopho," a miscellany the cidto style, in Parte L x^P- '^^^y

148 LOS EEYES JiTUEYOS DE TOLEDO. [Period IL

* 127 * Quite different from both cf them, "The
New Kings of Toledo/' by Christoval 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,
beo-inninp; with the old national traditions of the ori-
gin of Toledo, the cave of Hercules, the marriage of
Charlemagne with a Moorish princess whom he con-
verted, 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 adven-
tures of the kings who sleep under its altars, down
as late as to 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, thouD:h not free from the affectations of
his age, wrote so much more simply than his con-
temporaries generally did, and his story, though little
indebted to his own invention, was yet found so at-
tractive, that, in about half a century, eleven editions

391 - 395, is acute and succRssful. He wrote a number of religious dramas
which were published in 1661. *

Chap: XXXY.] SMALL AMOUNT OF SERIOUS FICTIOIS". 149

of it were publisliecl, and it obtained for itself a
place in Spanish, literature which it has never entirely
lost?«

^ After all, however, the serious and historical * 128
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, thej^ almost disappeared for
above a century ; and even at the end of that period
they occurred rarely, and obtained little regard.^^

2^ My copies are of the second edi- raga Martel de la Fuente," (Madrid,

tion, Madrid, 1674, and of the eleventh 1701, 4to, ) — a very had imitation of

edition, Madrid, 1734, 4to ; and Lib. the " Gerardo Espanol" of Cespedes y

III. c. 1, p. 237, was written just at Meneses. Perhaps I should also men-

the moment of the accession of Charles tion an unfinished romance, entitled

II. The story is connected with the " Enganos y Desenganos del profano

favorite doctrine of the Spanish Church, Amor," written in CagUari in Sardinia

— that of the immaculate conception, about 1686, by Don Joseph Zatrilla y

whose annunciation by the Madonna is Vico, Count of Villasalto, etc. ; but it

described with dramatic effect in Lib. is quite without value, though it is in

I. c. 10. The earliest edition I have a better style than was then common,

seen noticed is of 1667. It is intended as a religious warning

^1 The only grave romance of this against licentious passion. I know it

class, after 1650, that needs, I believe, only in the edition of Barcelona, 1737,

to be referred to, .is "La Historia de 4to, pp. 391, but I think it was origi-

Lisseno y Fenisa, por Francisco Par- nally printed in two volumes.

*129 *CHAPTEB XXXVI.

TALES. -*-VILLEGfAS^ TIMONEDA, CERVANTES, HIBALGO, EIGUEROA, BARBADILLO,
ESLAVA, AGREBA, LINAN Y VERl>UGO, LOPE DE VEGA, SALAZAR, LUGO, CAME<
RINO, TELLEZ, MONTALVAN, REYES', PERALTA, CESPEDES, MOYA, ANAYA,
MARIANA DE CARBAJAL, MARf A DE ZAYAS, MATA, CASTILLO, LOZANO, SOLOR-
ZANO, ALONSO DE ALCALA, VILLALPANDO, PRADO, ROBLES, GUEVARA, POLO,
GARCIA, SANTOS. — GREAT NUMBER OP TALES. — GENERAL REMARKS ON
ALL THE PORMS OF SPANISH FICTION.

Short stories oi* tales were more successful in Spain^
dnring 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 b}^ 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 pre-
pared for the press about 1550, though not
*" 130 known to *have been published till 1561.^

i The "Inventario" of Villegas was well x^rinted, in 4to, 1565, and in small

Chap. XXXVI.] SHOET PROSE TALES. 151

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 Storv of Narvaez " — is much bet-
ter. 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 ]3rincipal 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 they seek, in such a spirit. Abindarraez, a
noble Moor, belonging to the persecuted and exiled
familv of the Abencerrag-es, 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 h^ had made, surprises his con-
queror, 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 Moor-
ish fortress near at hand. Immediately on learning

12mo, 1577, 144 leaves; — bo+b times print it was granted in 1551. There

at Medina del Campo, of whirh its an- is, in fact, an edition of 1561, and prob-

thor is supposed to have been a native, ably one earlier ; and it is in the thii-d

and both times with a note especially volume of the Biblioteca de Autores

prefixed, signifying that the license to Espanoles, 1846.

152 ANTONIO DE VILLEGAS. [Pekiod IL

thIS; the Spanish knight^ Kke a true cavalier, releases
the young Moor from his present thraldom, on
* 131 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 dec-
laration 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 ex-
pressed, 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 story, as claimed to be told by 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

2 Gayangos doubts whether Conde third volume, Conde often resorts to
found this story in any Arabic histo- the old Spanish chronicles,
rian, and adds that, especially in his

KO.

Chap. XXXVL] TIM0N"EDA. 15

itself, and too flattering to the character of Spanish
knighthood, not to obtain a similar place in Spanish
literature. It was, therefore, unscrupulously taken
from the Inventario of Villegas, and either by Monte-
mayor himself or by his Venetian editor inserted, after
altering its style materially for the worse, in the
Diana Enamorada, 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 Mis-
fortune " ; * and Cervantes introduced it into ^132
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.^

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

^ The story of ISTarvaez, who is hon- Narvaez from Villegas nobody will

orably noticed in Pulgar's " Claros Va- donbt who compares both together and

rones," Titnlo XVII., and who is said remembers that it does not appear in

to have been the ancestor of Narvaez, the first edition of the "Diana" ; that

the minister of state to Isabella II., is it is wholly unsuited to its place in such

found in Argote de Molina (N'obleza, a romance ; and that the difference be-

1588, f. 296) ; in Conde (Historia, Tom. tween the two is only that the story, as

ill. p. 262); in Villegas (Inventario, told by Montemaj^or, in the "Diana,"

1565, f. 94) ; in Padilla (Romancero, Book IV., though it is often, for sev-

1583, If. 117- 127) ; in Lope de Vega eral sentences together, in the same

(Remedio de la Desdicha ; Comedias, words "\vith the story in Villegas, is

Tom. XIII., 1620, and Dorotea, Acto made a good deal longer by mere ver-

II. Sc. 5) ; in Don Qnixote, (Parte I. biage. See ante, Chap. XXXIIL, note,
c. 5,) etc. I think, too, that it may In the " ISTobiliario " of Ferant de

•have been given by Timoneda, under Mexia, (Sevilla, 1492, folio,) — a curi-

the title of "Historia del Enamorado ous book, written with Castilian dig-

Moro Abindarraez, " suie anno, (Fus- nity of style, and full of the feudal

ter. Bib., Tom. I. p. 162,) and it is spirit of an age that believed in the in-

certainly among the ballads in his herent qualities of noble blood, — its

" Eosa Espanola," 1573. (See Wolf's author (Lib. II. c. 15) boasts that

reprint, 1846, p. 107.) It is the sub- ISTarvaez was the brother of his grand-

ject, also, of a long poem by a Corsi- father, calling him " cavallero de los

can, Francisco Balbi de Corregio, 1593. bienaventurados que ovo en nuestros

(Depping's Romancero, Leipsique, 1844, tiempos desde el Cid aca batalloso e

12mo, Tom. IL p. 231.) That Monte- victorioso."
mayor took his version of the story of

154 TIMONEDA. [Period II..

who souglit 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 ad-
venture in the ways of prose fiction, now become so
attractive. His first attempt seems to have been in
his "Patranuelo," or Story-teller, the first part of which
appeared in 1576, but was not continued.*

It is a small work, which draws its materials from

widely different sources, some of them being
* 133 found, like ^'the well-known story of Ajoollonius,

Prince of Tyre, in the " Gesta Komanorum," but
many more 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 Sac-
chetti.^ Three or four — of which the first in the
volume is one — had already been used in the con-

* Rodriguez, Biblioteca, p. 283. Xi- rum," Tale 153, in the edition of 1488.

meno, Bib., Tom. 1. p. 72. Fuster, The story of Griselda he no doubt took

Bib., Tom. I. p. 161, Tom. II. p. 530. from the version of it with which the

The " Sobremesa y Alivio de Caminan- "Decamerone" ends, though he may

tes," by Timoneda, printed in 1569, have obtained it elsewhere. (Manni,

and probably earlier, is merely a col- Istoria del Decamerone, Firenze, 1742,

lection of a hundred and sixty-one an- 4to, p. 603. ) As to the story so fa-

ecdotes and jests, in the manner of Joe miliar to us in Percy's "Eeliques," he

Miller, though sometimes cited as a probably obtained it from the fourth

collection of tales. They are preceded ISTovella of Sacchetti, written about

by twelve similar anecdotes, by a per- 1370 ; beyond which I think it cannot

son who is called Juan Aragones. In be traced, though it has been common

all the editions of the " Patraiiuelo, " I enough ever since, down to Biirger's

believe, except the first, and that in version of it. Similar inquiries would

Aribau's Biblioteca, Vol. III., there are no doubt lead to similar results about

only twenty-one tales; — the eighth, other tales in the "Patraiiuelo"; but

which is a coarse one borrowed from these instances are enough to sliow that "

Ariosto, (the Joconde of Lafontaine, ) Timoneda took anything he found suited

being omitted. There is an ample ar- to his purpose, just as the Italian A^o-

ticle on Timoneda in Barrera. velUeri and the French Trouveurs had

^ The story of Apollonius — the same done before him, without inquiring or

with that in Shakespeare's "Pericles" caring whence it came. Indeed from

— Avas, as we have seen, {Vol. I. p. the note of Felix Liebrecht to his Ger-

23,) known in Spanish poetry very man translation of Dunlop's History of

early, though the old poetical version Fiction, (Berlin, 1851, pp. 500, 501,)

of it was not printed till 1844 ; but it it should seem that Timoneda rarely

is more likely to have been taken by took the trouble to go beyond the No-

Timoneda from the "Gesta Iloniano- wZZi'eri for his mater als.

Chap. XXXVI.] CERVAN^TES. HIDALGO. 155

strnction of dramas by Alonso de la Vega and Lope
de Eueda. All of them tend to show, what is proved
in other ways, that such popular stories had long been
a part of the intellectual am'usements of a state of
society little dependent on books ; and, after floating
for centuries up and down through the different coun-
tries 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 hun-
dred years, Timoneda now undertook to do for Spain.
The twenty-two tales of his " Patranuelo " are not, in-
deed, 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, with little real merit on their part, he has
sent them out anew to constitute a portion 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 * 134
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 spokefn, and will therefore now only
repeat, that, for originality of invention and happmess
of style, they stand in Spain at the head of the class
to which they belong.^

Others followed, of very various character. Hidalgo

^ See ante. Vol. 11. p. 119.

156 FTGUEROA. SALAS BARBADILLO. [Period 11.

published^ in 1605, an acconnt 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 ; '' 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.^ 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 1635.^ 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,
* 135 ^ neither so short as the tales of Timoneda,

nor long enough to be accounted regular ro-
mances, 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

*^ It is in the form of dialogues, and modern fictions, — the Emperor, in this

called "Carnestolendas deCastilla, divi- version of it, being named Ponciano,

dido en las tres Noches del Domingo, and being called the son of Diocletian.

Lunes y Martes de Antruexo, por Gas- The style is somewhat better than that

par Lncas Hidalgo, Vezino de la Villa of the " Donzella Teodor," (ante, II.

de Madrid," Barcelona, 1605, 12mo, fi'. 236,) but seems to be of about the same

108. Editions are also noted of 1606 period.

and 1618, and it is reprinted in the ^ Notices for the life of Barbadillo

Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, Tom. may be found in Alvarez y Baena (Hi-

XXXVI., 1855. jos\le Madrid, Tom. I. p. 42) ; in An-

^ " El Pasagero" (Madrid, 1617, tonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 28) ; and

12mo, flf. 492) is in ten dialogues, car- in tlie Prefaces to his own " Estafeta

ried on in the pauses or rests of two del Dios Momo," (Madrid, 1627, 12nio,)

travellers, and thence affectedly called and his "Coronas del Parnaso" (Ma-

Alivios. I have a small volume enti- drid, 1635, 12mo). He was associated

tied " Historia de los Siete Sabios de with Cervantes in the same religious

Roma, compuesta por Marcos Perez, fraternity, and gave his strong testi-

Barcelona por Eafael Figuero," 12mo, mony in favor of the tales of his friend

— no date; but, I think, printed in in their lirst edition. (Navarrete, Vi-

the eighteenth century. It contains da, §§ 121, 132.) He seems to have

the story of ' ' The Seven Wise Mas- had an office at court, for he calls liim-

ters," which is one of the oldest of self " Criado de su Magestad. "

Chap. XXXVL] Si^LAS BARBADILLO. 157

fictions, appeared in 1612, and was frequently printed
afterwards. It is the story of a courtesan, whose ad-
ventures, 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 inartifi-
cially 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 rufl&an 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.^o

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

i'^ "La Ingeniosa Helena, Hija de ISTouvelles Tragicomiques, Paris, 1752,

Celestina," Lerida, 1612, and often Tom. I. The " Ingeniosa Helena " was

since. The edition I have is of Ma- first published and edited by Barba-

drid, 1737, 12mo. It was cut to pieces dillo's friend, Francisco de Segura,

and altered, in the way he treated other well known as the continuator of the

Spanish fictions, by Scarron, who used " Prima vera de Romances " of Arias Pe-

it for his story called *' Les Hypocrites." rez.

158 SAL AS BARBADILLO. [Period II.

be excited to strive after its attributes and lion-
* 136 ors. To accomplish ^ this, Barbadillo gives the
history of a Spanish cavaHer, who, travelling
to Italy during the reign of Alfonso of Aragon, the
conqueror of Naples, obtains the favor of that mon-
arch, and, after serving him in the highest military
and diplomatic posts, — commanding armies in Ger-
many, and mediating between imaginary kings of
England and Ireland, — retires to the neighborhood
of Baia and enjoys a serene and religious old age.-^^

Again, '^ The House of Respectable Amusements "
differs from both of the preceding fictions, and ex-
hibits 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 act-
ing 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 termi-
nated by the dangerous illness of the most active
among the four gay cavaliers who had arranged these
lenten entertainments.^^

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 everything ; ^^ — that "The Lucky Fool"

11 "El Caballero Perfeto," Madrid, Madrid, 1619, 12mo. At the end of
1620, 12mo. the second part is a play, "Los Pro-

12 "Casa del Plazer Honesto," Ma- digios de Amor." A work not entirely
drid, 1620, 12mo. nnlike tlie "Caballero Puntual" was

13 "El Caballero Puntual," Priniera printed at Rouen in 1610, 12mo, called
Parte, Madrid, 1614; Segunda Parte, " Rodomontadas Castellanas." It is in

Chap. XXXVI.]

SALAS BARBADILLO.

159

137

is what its name implies ; ^* — that " Don Diego " con-
sists of the love-adventures^ during nine succes-
sive nights, of a gentleman who ^ always fails ^
in what he undertakes ; ^^ — and that all of
them, and all Barbadillo's other productions, are within
the range of talent of not a very high order, but un-
commonly ductile, and dealing rather with the surface
of manners than with the secrets of character which
manners serve to hide. A later work, entitled " Par-
nassian Crowns and Dishes for the Muses," is made up
of a medley of verse and prose, stories and dramas,
which were arranged for the press, and licensed in
October, 1630 ;^^ but the last published during his life-

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 in-
credible 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 j^ears.
It should not be confounded, however,
with a small volume of very poor jests
bearing nearly the same title, — "Ro-.
domontadas Espaiiolas," — printed in
1675, at Venice, in Spanish, Italian,
French, and German.

1* "El K'ecio bien Afortunado," Ma-
drid, 1621, 12mo, translated by Philip
Ayres, the verse-maker, and printed in
1670.

1° "Don Diego de IsToche," Madrid,
1623, 12mo. Don Diego de Noche
means any cavalier who goes about
upon adventure in the night, disguised.
It is a sobriquet. All nine of his un-
happy 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 also
be found 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 Come-
dias Escogidas, 1654) ; but it has, I
think, nothing to do with the tale of
Barbadillo.

Perhaps two more fictions of Barba-

dillo, a little different in tone from the
preceding, but written with no less
spirit, should be mentioned. The first
is, " El Sagaz Estacio, ]\Iarido examina-
do," (Madrid, 1620, 12mo, ff. 155,) a
dramatic story in three acts, founded
on the same idea with Fletcher's "Rule
a AVife and have a AVife" ;• — Estacio,
the hero, passing himself off upon a
lady of fortune as a manageable fool
while he is her suitor, but governing
her with great spirit as soon as she is
his wife. The other is "Las Fiestas
de la Bocla de la Incasable mal Casada,"
(Madrid, 1622, 12mo, ff. 167,) being
the marriage of a lady of great fortune,
talent, and accomplishments, who de-
liberately chooses a fool, from the ab-
surd vanity of showing herself off by
contrast, and is thoroughly ridiculed
and mortified for it in a series of dra-
matic and other entertainments given
to the married pair by a party of mis-
chievous students, — the whole ending
with the open disgrace of the silly bride-
groom. Each of these tales has poetry
intermingled with its prose, and the
last gives, in a lively manner, hints
how private theatricals were managed
in the times of Philip III. and IV.

16 "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 Barba-
dillo imitated the philosophical alle-
gory of the great Italian master. It is

160 LINAN Y YEKDUGO; AND OTHERS. [Period IL

time, though written earher, was a series of satirical
character-drawings, entitled " El Curioso y Sabio Alex-
andro/' which was licensed anew in October, 1634, only
a few months before he died.

During the life of Barbadillo, and probably in some
degree from his example and success, such fictions be-
came frequent. " The Winter Evenings " of Antonio

de Eslava, published in 1609, belong to this class,
^ 138 but are, indeed, so early in their date, * that

they may have rather given an impulse in some
respects to Barbadillo than received one from him.^^
But " The Twelve Moral Tales " of Diego de Agreda y
Vargas, in 1620, belong clearly to his manner,^^ as does
also " The Guide and Counsel for Strangers at Court,"
published the same year, by Linan y Verdugo, — a
singular series of stories, related by two elderly gen-
tlemen to a young man, in order to warn him against
the dangers of a gay life at Madrid.^^ Lope de Vega,

announced as a postliunious work, but ment, I believe no second part followed,

the Tassa is dated July 9, 1635, and he It is ordered to be expurgated in the

died the next day, a miserably poor and Index of 1667, p. 67.
suffering man. Gayangos notes two or ^^ " Doce Novelas Morales y exem-

three more of the tales of Salas Barba- plares, por Diego de Agreda y Vargas,"

dillo, such as " Correccion de Vicios," Madrid, 1620 ; reprinted by one of his

1615 ;_ " El Subtil Cordoves Pedro de descendants, at Madrid, in 1724, 12mo.

Urdemalas," 1620 ; — "El Cortesano Diego de Agreda, of whom there is a

descortes," 1621 ; — "La Sabia Flora notice in Baena, (Tom. I. p. 331,) was

Malsabadilla," 1621 ; — and "La Esta- a soldier as well as an author, and, in

feta del Dios Momo," 1627. A list the tale he called "El Premio de la

nearly or quite complete may be found Virtucl," relates, apparently, an event

in Alvarez y Baena, loc. cit. In 1627, in the history of his own family. 0th-

when he published the "Estafeta del ers of his tales are taken from the Ital-

Dios Momo," Bocangel y Uncueta says, ian. That of "Aurelio y Alexandra,"

in an Elogio ])refixed to it, that Bar- for instance, is a rifacimcnto of Ban-

badillo had then published seventeen dello's story of " Eomeo and Juliet,"

stories. Three ap]')eared subsequently, used at just about the same time by

In the Estafeta, among other odd things Shakespeare.

is (Epistola 8) a sort of parody of the ^^ " Gui a y Avisos de Forasteros, etc.,

first chapter of Don Quixote. From a por el Licenciado Don Antonio Jjinan y

sonnet at the end we learn that Barba- Verdugo," Madrid, 1620, 4to. In a

dillo was deaf. discourse preceding the tales, which are

1'^ The ' ' Primera Parte de las Noohes fourteen in number, their author is

de Invierno, por Antonio de Eslava," spoken of as having written other

was printed at Pamplona in 1609, and works, and as being an old man ; but

at Brussels in 1310, 12mo ; but, as was I find no notice of him except that in

so common in these works of amuse- Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 141,)

Chap. XXXVI.] LI]N"A^ Y VERDUGO^ AND OTHERS. 161

as iisualj followed where success Imcl alreaclj^ been ob-
tained by others. In 1621^ he added a short tale to
hib " Philomena/' and^ a little later, three more to his
'^ Circe " -, but he himself thought them a doubtful
experiment, and thev, in fact, proved an unhappy
one.^^ Other persons, however, encouraged by the
general favor that evidently waited on light and amus-
ing collections of stories, crowded more earnestly along
in the same path ; — Salazar, with his '^ Flowers of Eec-
reation," in 1622;^^ — Lugo, with his " Novelas," the
same year ; ^^ — and Camerino, with his '' Love
Tales," ^^ only a year later; — all the last ^ six *' 139
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 Barbadilio,

This was popular success ; but it was so much in one
direction, that its results became a little monotonous.
Yariety, therefore, was soon demanded ; and being de-
manded 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 dra-
matic author, who — taking a hint from the " Decame-
rone," already, in part adopted by Barbadillo, in his
"House of Eospectable Amusements" — substituted a

wliicli gives only the titles of the tales, he was secretary to the queen. Anto-

and mistakes the year in which they nio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 68.

were printed. Some of the stories, it 22 "Novelas de Francisco de Lugo j

may be added, seem true, and some of Avila," Madrid, 1622, 12mo.

the sketches of manners are lively. 23 " JSTovelas Amorosas por Joseph

'^^ See ante, Vol. II. pp. 184, 185, an Camerino," Madrid, 1623 and 1736,

account of these tales of Lope, and 4to. (Antonio, Bib. JSTova, Tom. II.

the way in which four others that are p. 361.) He was an Italian, as a])pears

not his were added to them, and yet from the hint in Lope de Vega's sonnet

appear in his collected works, Tom. prefixed to his tales, as well as from his

VI II. OAvn Proemio. His Sj)anish, however,

21 Literally, Pinks of Eecreation, — is pure enough, except in those afFecta-

" Clavellinas de Recreacion, por Ambro- tions of style which he shared with

sio de Salazar," Ruan, 1622, 12mo. many Castilian writers of his time.

He wrote several other Spanish works. His " Dama Beata," a longer tale, was

printed, as this was, in France, where printed at Madrid, in 1655, in 4to.

VOL. ITI. 11

162 TIRSO DE MOLINA. [Period II.

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 pas-
sion for the stage which then pervaded all Spain, and
it was successful.

The change referred to is first found in the " Cigar-
rales 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 ; Oigarral
there signifying a small country-house in the neigh-
borhood 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 cir-
cumstances interesting to a large number of persons,
who, wishing in consequence of it to be much together,
agrreed to hold a series of entertainments at their dif-
ferent houses, in an order to be determined by lot and
under tlie 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 w^hole party.
=^240 * 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 har-
monious beyond the common success of the age ; but

2* Gayangos doubts this etymology, larger Dictionary of tlie Spanish Acad-

I certainly shall not contest with him emy. Indeed, I suppose Gayangos ad-

a point of Arabic learning ; but would mits its Arabic origin, but doubts this

only observe that I took my idea from particular form of it.
Covarrubias ad verb., and from the

Chai'. XXXVL] TIESO DE MOLINA. MONTALVAN. 163

in nearly all the prose, such as the descriptions and
in the poor contrivance of the "Labyrinth/' it is dis-
figured 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 re-
ligious 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 en-
tertainments of twenty days, embraces, in fact, only

The style they adopted was soon imitated. Mon-
talvan, 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 im-
aginary 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 " Cigar-
rales " began, with a wedding. Some of its inven-
tions are very learnedly dull, — not a few passages

2^ Baena, "Hijos de Madrid," Tom. at Toledo when he was there in the lat-

II. p. 267. I find no edition of the ter part of the eighteenth century are

" Cigarrales de Toledo" cited earlier described by him as anything but at-

than 1631 ; but my copy is dated Ma- tractive. (Voyage en Espagne, 1789,

drid, 1624, 4to, and is evidently of the 8vo, Tom. III. p. 323.) They were

first publication. Covarrubias (ad verb, hardly better, I suppose, in the time

Cifjarral) gives the proper meaning of of Tirso. But, in truth, as Boui-going

the word, which is perhaps plain enough has elsewhere noticed, the more culti-

from the Avork itself. The "Deleytar vated and wealthy classes of Spaniards

Aprovechando " was reprinted at Ma- have had little taste for countiy life,

drid in 1677 in one 4to, and in 1765, " Les plaisirs innocens et sains de la

in 2 torn. 4to. In the "Cigarrales" campagne leur sont a pen pres incon-

Tirso promises to publish twelve 710 ys^as, nus II seroit facile de compter

with an argument to connect them, leursmaisonsde campagne," etc. (Tom.

adding, satirically, ''Not stolen from II. p. 310.) This, perhaps, is connected

the Tuscans"; — but they never ap- with their deficiencies in descriptive

I>eared. The excellence of his " Tres poetry and landscape paintinii'. See

Maridos burlados " in the Cigarrales ante, Vol. II. 2">- 472, note, and YuL

may make us regret their loss. 111. p. 65.

The CifjanxdeswYiiiAi Bourgoing found

164

MONTALVAN; AIS^D OTHERS.

[Period II.

are in the very bad taste then prevalent, —
141 * 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 show^s its author's talent. The individual stories
are generally 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.^^ Its popu-
larity, too, had the natural effect of producing imita-
tions, among which, in 1640, appeared, ^^Para Algu-
nos," — For a Few, — by Matias de los Reyes ; ^^ and in

2' Baena, Tom. III. p. 157. I own
the ninth edition of "Para Todos,"
Alcala, 1661, 4to. In the Preface to
the first volume of his Comedias, he
says that six editions of it were pub-
lished in two years, and, upon the
strength of such encouragement, prom-
ises a second part. But he was broken
down by insanity the next year. Que-
vedo 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 Alcala 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 ' ' Lagrimas
Panegyricas en la Muerte de Montal-
van," 1639. ■

2^ 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
iirst part was published, contains several.
He also wrote for the stage. His " Para
Algunos" was printed at Madrid, 1640,
ff. 218, in (juarto, and is not ill written
for its time. It supposes two persons
travelling from Madrid on a vow to Our
Lady of Guadalupe. They stop at the
house of a friend of one of them ; read

a play of Los Eeyes (El Agravio Agra-
decido) ; discuss questions of magic ;'
and tell two long stories connected with
it ; — after which they pursue their
journey. The whole is divided into
Treze Discursos, and is quite elaborate.
Baena, Hijos, Tom. IV. p. 97.

A poor work of the same sort by El
Maestro Ambrosio Bondia appeared at
Zaragoza, (1651, 4to, pp. 676,) entitled
"Cythara de Apolo i Paraaso en Ara-
gon," 60. It consists of four days'
amusements in a " casa de recreo"
near the citj^, where a party of gentle-
men and ladies meet for the Easter
holidaj^s, and is a mixture of prose and
verse, — dramas, etc., etc., chiefly in
glorification of the kingdom of Aragon,
— and all very Gongoristic. 1 found a
copy in the Hof Bibliothek, Vienna.
(For the author, see Latassa, Bib. Nue-
va. III. 132.) In the Bibliotheca Ee-
gia at Parma I found a work of the
same sort, better than Bondia' s, but
written by a countryman of his, JMatias
de Aguirre del Pozo y Felices. It was
printed in Carago9a, 1654, 4to, pp. 390,
and is called "Navidad de Zaragoza."
It is an account of four evenings of the
Christmas holidays and their amuse-
ments as provided in a palace fitted up
for the occasion, where plays were acted,
poetry recited, questions of ])liilosophy
discussed, stories told, and luxurious
su])pers eaten. Another part is jjrom-
ised, but never appeared.

Chap. XXaVI.] MORTAL VAI^, A:ND OTHERS.

165

1661, '' Para Si/' — For one's own Self, — by Juan Fer-
nandez y Peralta."^

^ Meantime the succession of separate tales * 142
had been actively kept up. Montalvan pub-
lished eight in 1624^ Avritten 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.^^ Cespedes y Meneses followed, in 1628, with
a series entitled "Rare Histories" ; ^*^ — Moya, at
about the same time, published a single whimsical
story on " The Fancies of a Fright " ; in which he re-
lates a succession of marvellous incidents, that, as he

2*^ I have seen the '* Para Si de Don
Juan Fernandez y Peralta " (Zaragoza,
1661, pp. 279) only in the Imperial
Librai'v at Vienna. It is divided iiito
eleven "Discursos" and has poetry in
it, an allegory, a drama, a love- story,
etc. , all in the culto style, and not
Avithout recollection of the " Para To-
dos," to which reference is made in a
*' Carta de Apolo" pi*efixed. Two oth-
er similar Avorks, of a later date, may
he added to these. The first is "El
Entretenido," by Antonio Sanchez Tor-
toles, which was licensed to be printed
in 1671, but of which I have seen no
edition except that of Madrid, 1729,
4to. It sets forth the amusements of
an Academy during the Christmas holi-
days ; namely, a i')lay, cntremes, 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 even-
ings whose enterminments it announces.
The remaining four were filled up by
Joseph JMoraleja, (j\Iadrid, 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

mastic-tree abounds ; and it consists of
twelve da3^s' entertainment, given at a
country-house to a young lady who
hesitated about taking the veil, but,
finding her mistake from the unha])])}''
ending of each of these days of pleasure,
returns gladl}'- to her convent and com-
pletes her profession. IST either of these
works is Avorth the trouble of reading.
The four "Academias" of Jacinto Polo,
the amusements of four days of a wed-
ding, (Obras, 1670, pp. 1-106, first
edition 1630,) are better, but consist
chiefly of poems.

^^ They. were translated into French
by Eampale, and printed at Paris in
1644 (see Baena and Brunet) ; and are
in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667,
p. 735.

^ Gonzalo de Cespedes 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, haAnng its scene laid
in some famous Spanish city, is preceded
by a similar abridgment of the excel-
lences of the particular city to which it
relates. Cespedes is the author of the
"Gerardo Espanol," noticed ante, p.
124, and, like many of the story-writers
01 his time, was a native of Madrid.

166 MARIANA DE CARBAJAL. [Period 11.

declares, flashed through his own iniagmation while
falling down a precipice in the Sierra Morena ; ^^ — and
Castro J Anaya published, in 1632, five tales called
" The Auroras of Diana," because thev are told in the
early dawn of each morning, during five suc-
* 143 cessive ^ days, to amuse Diana, a lady who, after
a long illness, had fallen into a state of melan-
choly.^^

The fair sex, too, entered into the general fashion-
able competition. Mariana de Carbajal, a native of
Granada, and descended from the ancient ducal fami-
lies of San Carlos and Eivas, published, in 1663, eight
tales, pleasing both by their invention and by the sim-
plicity of their style, which she called " Christmas at
Madrid," or "Evening Amusements." ^'^ And in 1637
and 1647, Maria de Zayas, a lady of the court, and a
sturdy defender of women's rights, printed two col-
lections ; 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 entertain-
ments of a party of friends at Christmas, and the
dances and fetes at the wedding of two of their num-
ber, during the holidays that followed;^*

31 Juan Martinez de Moya, "Fan- "Novelas Entretenidas," Madrid, 1663,

tasias de un Susto," It reminds us of 4to. At the end of these eight stories,

the theory of Coleridge about the ra- she promises a second part ; and in the

pidit}'' with which a series of events can edition of 1728 there are, in fact, two

he hurried through the thoughts of a more stories, marked as the ninth and

drowning man, or any person under a tenth, but I think they are not hers,

similar excitement of mind. It is, ^ Baena Hijos, Tom. IV. p. 48,

however, a very poor story, intended Both collections are plinted together in

for a satire on manners, and is full of the edition of Madrid, 1795, 4to ; —

bad verses. There is a reprint of it, the first being called Novelets, and the

Madrid, 1738, 12mo. second Saraos. One of the stories, —

^^ "Auroras de Diana, por Don Pe- El Prevenido Engana.clo, I mean, —
dro de Castro y Anaya." He was a though written by "a lady of the
native of Murcia, and there are editions court," is one of the most gross I re-
ef his "Auroras " of 1632, 1637, 1640, member to have read, and was used by
and 1654, the last printed at Coimbra, Scarron in his "Precaution Inutile,"
in 12ino. with little mitigation of its shameless

^ Mariana de Carbajal y Saavedra, indecency.

Chap. XXXVI.] LOZAIS^O^ AND OTHERS. 167

Again, slight changes in such fictions were at-
tempted. Mata, in two dull tales, called " The Soli-
tudes of Aurelia," published in 1637, endeavored to
give them a more religious character ;^^ and in 1641,
Andre del Castillo, in six stories misnamed '^ The Mas-
querade of Taste," sought to give them even a lighter
tone than the old one.^^ Both found successors. Lo-
zano's "Solitudes of Life," which are four stories sup-
posed to be told by a hermit on the wild peaks of the
Monserrate, belong to the first class, and, not-
withstanding ^ a somewhat afiected style, were ^ 144
much praised by Calderon, and went through at
least six editions ; ^' — while, in the opposite direction,
between 1625 and 1649, we have a number of the
freest secular tales, by Castillo Solorzano, among which
the best are probably " The Alleviations of Cassandra,"
and "The Coun try-House of Laura," both imitations of
Castro's " Diana." ^^

^ Geronimo Fernandez de Mata, of Gaspar Lozano, as if he were not the

"Soledades deAnrelia," 1638, to which, same. I found also in the Imperial

in the edition of Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Library at Vienna "Las Persecuciones

is ad<Ied a poor dialogue between Crates de Lucinda, Dama Valeneiana y tragi-

and his wife, Hipparcha, against am- cos Sucesos de Don Carlos, por el Doc-

bition and worldliness ; originally print- tor Christoval Lozano," Valencia, 1664,

ed in 1637. 12mo, pp. 285 ; — a poor fiction, divided

^^ Andre del Castillo, " La Mogiganga into eight Persecuciones, like chap-
del Gusto," Zaragoza, 1641. Segunda ters, and containing a play in one of
Lnpresiun, Madrid, 1734. They are writ- them,
ten in the affected style of the ciiltos. ^^ Of Alonso del Castillo Solorzano

^'^ Christoval Lozano, "Soledades de I have spoken, ante, p. 110, as the

la Vida," 6a impresion, Barcelona, 1722, author oi picaresque tales. A list of

4to. After the four connected stories most of his works may be found in

told by the hermit, there folloAv, in this Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. L p. 15,)

edition, six others, which, though sepa- among which is a sort of suite with the

rate, are in the same tone and style. As following titles: ^' Jornaclas Alegres,"

originally published in 1658, the Sole- 1626; — " J'arc^cs Entretenidas, " 1625;

dades were followed by hve dramas, and — and Noches de Placer," 1631. None

appeared under the name of Gaspar Lo- of these had much success ; nor, indeed,

zano ]\rontesinas, who, I think, was a did he succeed much in any of his tales,

kinsman of Christoval. Lozano wrote except "La Garduiia de Sevilla," al-

the " Reyes Nuevos de Toledo," noticed ready noticed. But his " Quinta de

ante, p. 127 ; the "David Perseguido," Laura" was printed three times, and

and other similar works ; — at least, I his "Alivios de Cassandra," wlucli first

beli-eve they are all by one person, appeared in 1640,- — and is something

though the Index Expurgatorius of like the "Para Todos" of Montalvan,

1790 makes the " Soledades " the work being a collection of dramas, poetry.

168 ALONSO DE ALCALA^ AND OTHERS. [Period II.

In the same waj^ the succession of short fictions was
continued unbroken, until it ceased witli the general
decay of Spanish Hterature at the end of the century.
Thus we have, in 1641, " The Various Effects of Love
and Fortune," by Alonso de Alcala ; five stories, such
as may be imagined from the fact, that, in each of
them, one of the five vowels is entirely omit-
* 145 ted ; ^^ — in ^ 1645, " The Warnings, or Experi-
ences, of Jacinto," hj Villalpando, which may
have been taken fi^om his own life, since Jacinto was
the first of his own names ;*^ — in 1663, "The Fes-
tivals of Wit and Entertainments of Taste," by Andres
de Prado;*^ — and, in 1666, a series collected from
different authors, by Isidro de Robles,*^ and published
under the title of " Wonders *of Love." All these, as
their names indicate, belong to one school; and al-
though there is an occasional variety in their individ-
ual tones, some of them being humorous and others
sentimental, and although some of them have their

etc., iDesides six stories, — was trans- sliould be cited, as they are, not only

lated into French, and printed at Paris, by Clemencin, but by the Spanish

both in 1683 and 1685. His "Salade Academy in the Preface to their Dic-

Eecreacion," (Zaragoza, 1649, 12mo, tionary, to prove the richness of their

pp. 352,) consists of five tales and a language.

play entitled '^ La Torre de Florisbella," ^'^ Jacinto de Villalpando, " Escar-

being like " Para Todos." mientos de Jacinto," Zaragoza, 1645.

^^ Alonso de Alcala yHerrera, "Varios He was Marquis of Osera, and pub-

Efetos de Amor," Lisboa, 1641, 18mo. lished other works in the course of the

He was a Portuguese, but was of Span- next ten years after the appearance of

ish origin, and Avrote Spanish with the "Jacinto," one of which, at least,

purity, as well as Portugiiese. (Bar- appeared under the name of "Fabio

bosa. Bib. Lus., fol., Tom. I. p. 26.) Clymente." See ante, Vol. II. p. 487,

Clemencin cites these stories of Alcala note.

as proof of the richness of the Spanish *i Literallj^, Luncheons of Wit, etc.

language. (Ed. Don Quixote, Tom. "Meriendas del Ingenio y Entretenimi-

IV. p. 286.) There is a tale, printed entos del Gusto," Zaragoza, 1663, 8vo,

by Guevara, called "Los Tres Herma- Six tales.

nos," in the volume with his "Diablo ^^ Isidro deRobles collected the "Va-

Cojuelo," (Madrid, 1641,) in which the rios Efetos de Amor" (Madrid, 1666,

letter A is omitted ; and in 1654 Fer- 4to). They were published again, with

nando Jacinto de Zarate published a the iive tales of Alcala, already noted,

dull love-story, called " Meritos dis- in 1709, 1719, and 1760; — the num-

ponen Premios, Discurso Lirico," omit- ber of tales being thus eleven, with

ting the same vowel; — but the live three "Sucesos" at the end, — all of

tales of Alcala are better done than which then appeared as the " Varios

either, though I cannot think that they Prodigios de Amor."

Chap. XXXYL] ALLEGORICAL TALES. 169

scenes in Spain and others in Italy or Algiers, still, as
the purpose of all was only the lightest amusement,
the}^ 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 he separately mentioned, — that
wdiich 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, wdiich 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 liber-
ator through the air, and, unroofing, as it were, the
houses in Madrid and elsewhere during the stillness
of the night, shows him the secrets that are
* passing within. It is divided into ten " Leaps," * 146
as they afterwards spring from place to place
in different parts of Sj^ain, in order to pounce on their
prej^, and it is satirical throughout. Parts of it are
very happy ; among which may be selected those re-
lating 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 sometimes
disfigured with the bad taste then so common. On
the whole, however, it is a most amusing fiction, —
partly allegorical and partly sketched from living man-
ners, — and is to be placed among the more spirited
prose satires in modern literature, both in its original

1^'

GUEVARA.

POLO.

[Period IL

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.^^

Earher than the appearance of the Limping Devil,
however, Polo had written, in 1636, his "Hospital of
Incurables," a direct imitation of Quevedo ; and in
1640 there appeared as his the "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 de-
grees according to their progress.^* It is, in
^ 147 general, an ill-managed allegor}^, "^ filled with
bad puns and worse verse; bat there is one

*3 Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. IL 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.
309.) The " Diablo Cojuelo " has been
very often reprinted in Spanish since
1641. Le Sage published his "Diable
Boiteux" in 1707, chiefly from Gueva-
ra ; and nineteen years afterwards en-
larged it by the addition of more Span-
ish 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.

Gayangos mentions two other incon-
siderable writers of tales, belonging to
this period, viz. : (1.) Juan Cortes de
Tolosa, whose continuation of Laza-
rillo, 1620, has already been noticed in
Chap. IV. of this Period, and wdio pub-
lished his "Discursos Morales y Nove-
las," in 1617 ; and (2.) Francisco de
Navarrete y Pabera, who published, in
1644, his "Casa de Juego," to expose
the gambling-houses of his time and
the tricks and frauds of those who kept
them .

Another writer of tales may be added,
— Pedro Alvarez de Lugo, a native of
Palma in the Canaries, — who in 1664
published a poor little volume of alle-
gorical fictions in prose and verse und^r

the title of " Primera y Segunda Parte
de las Vigilias del Sueno. It is not
always as decent as it should be. See
ante, p. 46, note.

** " Universidad de Amor y Escuela
del Interes, Verdades Sonadas 6 Sueno
Verdadero." The first part appeared
under the name of Antolinez de Piedra
Buena, (author of Carnestolendas de
Zaragoza," 1661,) and the second under
that of El Bachiller Gaston Daliso de
Orozco ; but both were printed subse-
quently 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. Latassa, however, (Bib. Nue-
va, Tom. III. p. 62,) makes the first
part anonymous, and attributes the sec-
ond to Juan Francisco Andres de Us-
tarroz, the historian, as does also N.
Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 693,)
who (Tom. II. p. 340) gives the first
part to Benedictus Ruiz. Gayangos
continues these doubts and settles noth-
ing ; but the " Universidad de Amor,"
he sa3^s, was printed as early as 1640,
with other works of Polo, and is, he
thinks, inferior to Polo's somewhat sim-
ilar work, "Hospital de Incurables y
Viage deste Mundo y el Otro " ; which
may be found in the edition of 1670,
pp. 220 - 241, but was published as
early as 1636.

Chap. XXX YI.] POLO. 171

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 yomig 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, sus-
picious, 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 3^ou 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 nothins^ 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 Kood, 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." ' "

172 MAKCOS GARCIA. SANTOS. [Periui. 11.

The example of Qiievedo was again followed, partly
in jest, by Marcos Garcia, who in 1657 published his
" Phlegm of Pedro Hernandez," an imaginary
* 148 * 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, s]3end-
thrift soldiers, and similar uneasy, unprincipled per-
sons 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 gen-
eral allegory is meagre ; but some of the individual
sketches are well imagined. ^^

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 sto-

*° Marcos Garcia, " La Flema de Pe- house of "Desangano," — tliat pecu-

dro Hernandez, Discurso Moral y Po- liarly Castilian word, which may here

litico," Madrid, 1657, 12mo. The au- be translated Truth. He is led after-

thor was a surgeon of Madrid, and wards to the palace and tribunal of For-

wrote "Honor de la Medicina"; and tune, where he is disabused of his errors

another, "Papelillo," without his name, concerning all earthly good. The lic-

which he mentions in his Prologo. tion is of little worth, and the style is

(Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 83.) that of the school of Gongora. A more

He shows, at the beginning of his complete specimen of Gongorism may,

"Flema," that he means to imitate however, be found in a tale entitled

Quevedo ; but he has a good deal of " Firmeza en los Imposibles i Fineza

cultismo in his style. For the meaning en los Desprecios ; escrivialo Don

of " I'lema," see Covarrubias, adverb. Baltasar Altamirano y Portocarrero, "

— One more trifle may here be men- (Carago^a, 1646, 12mo,) — a story

tioned ; the " Desengaho del Hombre founded on the ruthless coquetry of

en el Tribunal de la Fortuna y Casa de the heroine and the imperturbable

Descontentos, ideado por Don Juan constancy of the hero, who at last

Martinez de Cuellar," 1663. It is a seeks death in a naval battle with the

vision, in which the author goes to the French.

Chap. XXXVL] SANTOS. 173

rieS; but some of tliem encumbered with allegorical
personages and tedious moral discussions.*^ The oldest
perhaps 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 * 149
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 Jua-
nillo, 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 ac-
quainted 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 in-
stance, 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

*^ Alvarez y Baena, Hijos cle Madrid, edition of the works of Santos, in 4
Tom. II, p. 21G. There is a coarse torn, 4to, Madrid, 1723.

174 SANTOS. [Period II.

captive's adventures in Italy, in Spain, and in Algiers,
given by himself in a truly national tone, and with
fluency and spirit.*'

" 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 him
falls into the hands of yet worse persons, and is appre-
hended under circumstances that remind us of
* 150 the story of Dona Mencia in " Gil Bias." ^ 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.

*" " Dia y Noclie en Madrid, Discnr- Madrid, 1663, 12mo ; besides whicli
SOS de lo mas Notable (|ue en el passa," there are editions of 1708, 1734, ete.

Chap. XXXVI.] SANTOS. 175

No doubt he lias neither the wit nor the cunnins^ 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.*^

Yet one more of the works of Santos should be
noticed ; an allegorical tale, called " Truth on the
Eack, 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
wdiich she is tormented. There she is forced to give
an account of things as they really exist, or have ex-
isted, 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 char-
acter 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 everything he finds on
earth, especially with the popular traditions and bal-
lads 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."*^

48 "Periquillo, el de las Gallineras," Cuidando en la mengua grande

Madrid, 1668, 12mo. He gets his name ^^°^^ '^ ''^ ^""^^'^^ ^^ '^ S^'^'^^- ^*<'-

from the circumstance, that, as a child, P" ^' ^'^' ^^^^'

he was employed to take care of chick- It is quite different from the ballad on

ens. the same subject in any of the ballad-

*9 "El Verdad en el Potro y el Cid l^ooks. So is the one at p. 33, upon

Resuscitado," Madrid, 1679, 12mo, and the death of Count Lozano, as well as

again, 1686. The ballads cited or re- the one at p. 105, upon the Cid's insult

peated in this volume, as the popular to the Pope at Rome. On hearing the

Ijallads sung in the streets in honor of last sung in the streets, the Cid is

the Cid, are, it is curious to observe, made, in the story, to cry out, " Is it

twt always to be found in any of the pretended I was ever guilty of such

Romanceros. Thus, the one on the in- effrontery ? I, whom God made a Cas-

sult to the Cid's father begins : — tilian, — / treat the great Shepherd of

Diego Lainez, el padre the Church SO? — 7 be guilty of such

De Rodrigo el Castellano, folly ? By St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.

176 GKEAT JS'UMBEE OF TALES IN SPANISH. [Period IL

* 151 ^ 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 ; ^^ while yet others
run even more to allegory, like his " Tarascas de Ma-
drid," ^^ and his " Gigantones," ^^ 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 distin-
guish 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 be-
cause, 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 pre-
vious to the eighteenth century that needs to be
"^152 noticed.^^ ^ But though the number we have

Lazarus, Avith whom I held converse on ^^ "Los Gigantones de Madrid por

earth, you lie, base ballad-singer!" defuera," Madrid, 1666, 12mo. "El

Several ballads might be taken from no imjiorta de Espana " (Madrid, 1608,

this volume and added even to the 12mo, pp. 269) is another of the same

"Romancero del Cid," Keller, Stutt- sort, showing, in a sort of dream, that

gard, 1840, which is the most ample of your true Spaniard has a "no matter"

all the collections on the Cid. for everything. It is divided into

^"^ "El Diablo anda Suelto," (Ma- twelve hours, and the doctrine it in-

drid, 1677,) and "El Vivo y el Di- culcates is that this carelessness, which

funto," (1692,) are both very curious illustrates every hour of the day, ruins

fictions. everything, — "tiene perdido el mun-

51 "Las Tarascas de Madrid y Tri- do."

bunal Espantoso," Madrid, 1664, Va- ^^ -phe Spanish tales of the middle

lencia, 1694, etc. "La Tarasea de and latter part of the seventeenth cen-

Parto en el Meson del Infierno y Dias tury are much infected Avith the false

de Fiestas por la Noche," Madrid, ta^te oi cicUismo ; no portion of Spanish

1671, Valencia, 1694, are again inter- literature more so. As we approach

esting, partly because they contain an- the end of the century, not one, I

ecdotes and sketches that serve to ex- think, is free from it. Mad. d'Aulnoy,

plain the popular religious theatre. however, who was in Spain in 1679-80,

Chap. XXXVI.] GREAT NUMBER OF TALES IN SPANISH. 177

gone over is large for the length of the period in
which they appeared, not a few others might he
added. The pastoral romances from the time of Monte-
mayor are full of them ; — the " Galatea " of Cervan-
tes, and the " Arcadia " of Lope de Vega, being little
more than a series of such stories, slightly bound to-
gether by yet another that connects them all. So are,
to a certain degree, the picaresque fictions, like " Guz-
man 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. Lideed, 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 .^^

and who certainly was a good judge in she printed four other stories, under the
such matters, admired them very much. title " Histoire nouvelle de la Cour
" L'on doit convenir," she says, when d'Espagne"; — very good imitations of
speaking of the Spaniards and their the novelas of Montalvaii, Santos, and
novelets, " qu'ils ont un genie particulier Salas Barbadillo, but a little too long.
pour ces sortes d'ouvrages." (Voyage, s* Italy is the only country that can
Tom. III. p. 117.) And she promises enter into competition with Spain in
to send home to her friends in France the department of tales during the six-
specimens of these charming tales. The teenth and seventeenth centurieo. In-
truth is, she had already done it. In deed, I am not certain, considering the
her fourth letter, at the end of her first short period (a little more than a cen-
volume, the story of the Marchioness tury) during which Spanish tales were
de los Rios is a mere fiction in the Span- fashionable, that as many in jjropiwtmh
ish manner ; and afterwards, in 1692, were not produced as were produced of
VOL. III. 12

178 THEIR EARLY SUCCESS AND FAILURE. [Period XL

* 153 * Tlie most striking circumstance, however,
connected with the history of all romantic fic-
tion in Spain, — whatever form it assumed, — is its
early appearance, and its early decay. The storj^ of
"Amadis" filled the world with its fame, when no
other Spanish prose romance of chivahy 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 x\.madis, 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 thou-
sands who know nothing of the shadowy multitudes
it destroyed, except what its great author tells them.
The " Conde Lucanor " is older than the " Decamerone."
The "Diana" of Montemayor soon eclipsed its Italian
prototype in popularit}^, and, for a time, shone without
a successful rival of its class throughout Europe. The
picaresque stories, exclusively Spanish in their origin,
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 suc-
cessful 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

Italian tales in Italy during the long only by a comparison of the meagre and
period — four centuries and a half — in imperfect catalo,^aies of Spanish stories
which they have now been prevalent in Antonio's Bibliotheca Avith the admi-
there. And if, to the Spanish tales rably complete one of Italian stories in
found in books professing and not pro- the " Bibliografia delle Novelle Ita-
fessing to be collections of them, we liane," by Gamba, we should settle it
add the thousands used irp in Spanish ditferently. But in any event, when
dramas, to which the elder Italian the- speaking of the Italian novelU, we
atre offers no counterpart, I suppose should remember, that, until very late-
there can hardly be a doubt that there ly, the whole spirit and power of fiction
are really more Spanish fictions of this in Italy, so to speak, have been taken
class in existence than there are Italian. from the theatre and romances, and east
If, however, we were to settle the point into these short tales.

Chap. XXXA^L] THEIR EARLY SUCCESS AXD FAILURE. 179

fact, that tliey were produced when the rest of Europe,
with a partial exception in favor of Italy, was not yet
awakened to corresponding efforts of the imagina-
tion ; before Madame de Lafayette had published her
"Zayde"; before Sidney's ''^^rcadia" had appeared,
or D'Urfe's " Astrea," or Corneille's " Cid," or Le Sage's
'^'Gil Bias." In short, they were at the height of their
fame, just at the period when the Hotel 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 * 154
no better than bring out upon the stage of Paris
nearl}^ every one of the tales of Cervantes, and many
of those of Cervantes's rivals and contemporaries.^

But civilization and manners advanced iii the rest
of Europe rapidly from this moment, and paused in
Spain. Madrid, instead of sending its influences to
France, beo;an itself to acknowledo;e 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. ^'^

^ Puibusque, Histoire Coraparee, tory, may be fonndin Volume XXXIIL

Tom. IL c. 3. of RivadeimTa's Biblioteca, ISoi, with

^ A collection of Spanish stories and a good historical and critical essay on

tales of different kinds, all of wliicli, 1 this style of writing by Eusta(.|uio Fei-

believe, have been noticed in this His- nandez de Navarrete.

*155 *CHAPTEE XXXYII.

ELOQUENCE, FORENSIC AND PULPIT. — LUIS DE LEON. LUIS DE GRANADA.

PARAVICINO AND THE SCHOOL OF BAD TASTE. EPISTOLARY CORRESPOND-
ENCE. — ZURITA. — PEREZ. — SANTA TERESA. — ARGENSOLA. — LOPE DE
VEGA. — QUEVEDO. CASCALES. ANTONIO. SOLf S.

We shall hardly look for forensic or deliberative elo-
quence 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 ad-
ministration 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 sup-
planted 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 wdiich were raised by their

1 A person calling liimself Don Ga- as well cultivated under one form of

briel Garcia Caballero published at government as under another, — under

Madrid, in 1770, a pam])lilet entitled a despotism as under a repuldic. The

" Discurso sobre la Elo(]ueneia del doctrine was fitted to the latitude in

Foro," in which he denied all the old which it was taught, but no elofjuenee

teachings of Cicero and Quintilian, ap])eared in Spain till the Coi'tes were

and maintained that elospienee can be revived after the French came.

Chap. XXXVll.] FORENSIC AND PULPIT ELOQUENCE. 181

fervor to sometliing like what we now call delibera-
tive eloquence. We have, in fact, intimations of such
discussions in the old chronicles ; especially
* in those that record the troubles and violence ^ 156
of the oTcat nobles in the reims of John the
Second and Henry the Fourth. But a free living de-
bate 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 cul-
ture 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
Coniunidades, 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 them-
selves 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 toler-
ated 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

182 LUIS BE GRANADA. [Period II.

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 extraor-
dinary 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
^157 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
u Perfect Wife," long declamations, sometimes preceded
by a text and sometimes not, hut 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 a higher Spanish eloquence fitted
for the pulpit, and, if not actually delivered, are still
worthy of notice.^

The case of Luis de Granada is one more directly in
point. That remarkable man was head of the Domin-
ican 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, be-
sides this, he seems to have devoted himself to it with
the strong preference of genius, preaching extempora-
neously, it is said, with great power and unction. In
1576, he published a Latin treatise on the subject of

^ The most remarkable, and perhaps the text being from Isaiah ix. 6 ; " The
the most beautiful, specimen is in the everlasting Father."
first book of '' The Names of Christ" j

Chap. XXXVIL] LUIS DE GEANADA. 183

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 * 158
the religion that was so deeply impressed on his
age and country. Perhaps a more characteristic speci-
men of Spanish eloquence can hardly be found, than
that in which Luis de Granada desciibes the resurrec-
tion 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,

^ It should be observed, that Luis de these writers was so gi^eat in the reign

Granada was one of those distinguished of Philip II. as to make, if not a revo-

writers who, by their example, discour- lution in their native language, at least

aged the use of words derived from the distinctly to modify it. How many

Arabic, and resorted more and more to words of later origin it was at first

the true foundations of the Castilian in necessary to explain we have already

the Latin, thinking thus both to enrich seen. Vol. IL p. 22, note, and else-

and purify it. Indeed, the influence of where.

184 LUIS DE GEANADA. [Period II.

which had been veiled in mourning to hide his ago-
nies, 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 hu-
manity 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 tri-
umphant Prince descended into its depths, clothed
wuth 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 multi-
tude of the suffering murmured and said, "' Who is this
mighty one, so resplendent, so powerful ? Never be-
fore was his likeness seen in these realms of hell ;
never hath the tributary world sent such an 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 con-
queror, not a sinner. Say, where were our watch-
men 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
* 159 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 Con-
queror entered in glory to free his chosen captives.

Chap. XXXYII.] LUIS DE GRAXADA. 185

For there stood thej, all assembled together^ — all the
souls of the just, who from the foundation of the world
till that daj had passed through the gates of the grave ;
all the prophets and men of might Avho 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 fiither 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 incar-
nation of the Divine Word. There stood also, as it
were guests newly arrived in that strange .land, the
Hoh' 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 Gos-
pel, 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 ceasino; his ancient lamentation: 'As the hart

186

LUIS DE GRANADA.

[Period II.

panteth after tlie water-brooks, so panteth my soul
after thee, God ! My tears have been my
* 160 meat clay ^ and night, while they continually
say unto me, Where is thy God ? ' blessed
and holy king, if this be the cause of thy lamentation,
let it cease forever ; 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 favor-
able unto thy land ; thou hast pardoned the offences of
thy people ; thou hast hidden thy face from the multi-
tude of their sins.' " *

It would not be easy to select a more striking ex-
ample 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

* See tlie accounts of Luis de Grana-
da in Antonio, and in the Preface to
the " Guia de Pecadores," Madrid,
1781, 2 torn. 8vo. His treatise on pul-
pit elo()[uence, entitled ' ' Hhetoricee Ec-
clesiasticfe, sive de Eatione Concionan-
di, Libri Sex," was valued in other
countries, and was used two centuries
later to stem the torrent of low and vul-
gar preaching that flooded Spain in the
time of Father Isla (Ferrer del Rio,
Hist, de Carlos III., Tom. IV. p. 377).
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 medita-
tions, that entitled " De la Alegria de
los Santos Padres," is on the same sub-
ject. He was born in 1504, and died
in 1588.

Two other of his works — the only
translations, I believe, that he ever
'nade — may deserve notice. The first
is the treatise " De Imitatione," attrib-
uted to Thomas a Kempis, which Luis
de Granada published in 1567, altering
it, however, and prefixing to it a short
but beaiTtiful and moving Preface. The
other, which appeared in 1568, is the
" Seal a Paradisi " of John, a Greek
monk of Mount Sinai in the sixth cen-
tuiy, who obtained the name of Jo-

hannes Clymacus from KXt^a^, — the
title of his book in the original. Both
are as characteristic of Luis de Grana-
da's mind and affections as most of his
own "works.

It is not out of place here to state
that the " Scala Paradisi " enjoyed two
other remarkable distinctions in the
Spanish language. In 1504 it was, by
order of Cardinal Ximenes, printed at
Toledo in an anonymous Castilian ver-
sion of much merit as to its style, mak-
ing a luxurious folio of a hundred
leaves, copies of .which, as early as
1569, had already become very rare, and
of which the one I possess is the only
one of which I have any notice.
("Paucissimi nunc inveniuntur et sui
pretium raritate adaugent," says Alva-
rez Gomez, De Rebus Gestis a Fr. Xime-
nio, 1569, f. 19.) The other distinction
of the "Scala Paradisi" is, that, in a
translation made by Fr. Juan de Estra-
da, it was the first book ever printed in
Mexico, and therefore the first book ever
printed in the New World, having ap-
peared in 1532 (N. Ant., Bib. Nov.,
Tom. I. p. 686, and Pellicer, Bib. de
T4'ad., Tom. II. p. 120). The existence
of an earlier Spanish translation has
been denied, because the one printed by
order of Cardinal Ximenes is so nearly
unknown. Luis de Granada, I think,
how^ever, must have known it.

CHAr. XXXYIL] PARAVICIXO. 187

small. After the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, the affected style of Gongora 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 doc- * 161
trines. Paravicino, at this period, was at the
head of the popular preachers ; himself a poet devoted
to the affectations of Gongora ; a man of wit, a gentle-
man, and a courtier. From 1617 he was, during six-
teen 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, col-
lected, arranged, and seated by the friends and ad-
mirers 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 appro-
bation of the more elaborate passages in his discourse.
From this time, and in this way, religious dignity dis-
appeared from the Spanish pulpit, and whatever there
was of value in its eloquence was confined to two

^ While Paravicino's school was at affectation such as is here exposed may

the height of its success, a modest trea- be found in Paravicino's " Jesu Christo

tise on Pulpit Oratory, chiefly with Desagraviado," 1633 ; a discourse of

reference to its religious character, ap- much pretension delivered on occasion

peared, in which the cultismo of the of the jiunishment of some Jews who

time is treated with great severity, as a had insulted a crucifix. He calls him-

mere result of personal vanity, which, self in the Dedication, " Decano de la

in many cases, I doubt not, it was. Universidad de Salamanca i de la Ca-

See " Sunmlas de Doeumentos de la pilla de Palacio," and begins with an

Predicacion Evangclica, por el P. Maes- imitation of Cicero's " Quousque tan-

tro Juan Rodriguez, Presbitero," Se- dem Catilina."
villa, 1640, 4to, Chap. X. Proofs of

188 EPISTOLAEY CORRESPONDEIs'CE. [Pj:ni:;D II.

forms^ — the learned discussions, often in Latin, ad-
dressed to bodies of ecclesiastics, and the extempo-
raneous exhortations addressed to the lower classcG;
— the latter popular and vehement in their tone, and,
bj their coarseness, often unworthy of the solemn sub-
jects they touched.^
# 152 * Turning now to Spanish epistolary corre-
spondence, we find little 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 writ-
ten by Cibdareal, and in a less degree to those of Pul-
gar 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

^ For Paravicino and his school, see critico de la Eloquencia Espaiiola," Ma-

Sedano, (Parnaso Espanol, Tom. V. p. drid, 1786-1794, 5 torn. 8vo,) has

xlviii, ) Baena, (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. been able to find nothing in the seven-

II. p. 389,) and Antonio, (Bib. Nov., teenth century, either in the way of

Tom. I. p. 612,) who speaks as if he forensic orations or popular pulpit elo-

had often heard Paravicino's eloquence, quence, with which to fill his pages,

and witnessed its effects. Salas Bar- but is obliged to resort to the eloquent

badillo, too, in his " Estafeta del Dios prose of history and philosophy, of eth-

Momo," 1627, praises him extravagant- ics and religious asceticism, tells at

ly. E contra is Figueroa, who, in his once, in a way not to be mistaken, the

"Pasagero," (1617, Alivio IV.,) is se- tale of the deticieneies in Castilian elo-

vere upon the preachers and audiences quence, as the word eloquence is nnder-

of Madrid. Paravicino's " Panegyiico stood in English. A similar remark

Funeral," 1625, on Philip III., was at- may be made concerning his treatise on

tacked by an anonymous writer, who Eloquence as an art, — " Filosofia de la

accused him of plagiarism as well as Eloijuencia," 8vo, Madrid, 1776, and

bad taste, and it was defended by Juan London, 1812.

de Jauregui in a tract, the same year, Capmany, to whom Ave are indebted,

dedicated to the Conde Duque de Oli- besides his literary works, for several

vares. See Spanish translation of this works in History and Politics, Avas born

History, Tom. III. p. 552. ■ at Barcelona in 1743, and died in 1813.

The fact, however, that Capmany, in See Fallecimiento de D. Antonio Cap-

his five important volumes devoted to many y Montpalau, Madrid, 1815,

Spanish eloquence, (" Teatro Historico- pp. 28.

Chap. XXXYIL] ZURITA. 189

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. Graceful
familiarity disappeared from the letters of friends, and
even private affections and feelings v^ere either sel-
dom 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 after-
wards, 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.''

*From these remarks, however, we should "^163
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 larg-e, amountino^ to above
two hundred. More of them are from Antonio Agus-

" These Avriters have all been men- both of them, may be seen in the sec-
tioned earlier, (see ante, Vol. I. pp. oncl volume of Navarrete, (Viages, etc.,)
356, II. 17, etc.,) except Queen Isa- which is rich in such curious documents,
bella, whose letters are best found in Juan de Yaciar, a Biscayan, pub-
Clemencin's excellent work on her char- lished, in 1569, a sort of complete let-
acter and times, filling the sixth vol- ter-writer, which he dedicated to the
ume of the " Memorias de la Academia well-known Prince of Eboli, at wdiose
de la Historia." They are addressed to request it was prepared. It seems,
her confessor, Hernando de Talavera, from Stirling's account of it, to have
and strongly illustrate both her pru- been a curious book ; but I never saw
dence and her submission to ecclesias- it, and do not suppose that it had so
tieal influences. (See pp. 351-383.) much influence on letter-writing in
Several letters addressed to Columbus, Spain as Guevara's Golden Epistles,
and marked with her spirit rather than published thirty years before. Artists
that of her husband, though signed by of Spain, 18i8, Vol. III. p. 1341.

190 ANTONIO PEREZ. [Period II.

tin^ Arclibisliop of Tarragona, an eminent scholar in
Spanish history and civil law, than from any other
person ; but the most interesting are from Zurita him-
self, from his friend Ambrosio Morales, from Diego de
Mendoza, the historian, Argote de Molina, the anti-
quarian, and Fernan Nunez, the Greek Commander.
Each of these series is marked by something charac-
teristic 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.^

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 " Odys-
sey,"^ 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
^ 164 genius, and to a *love of intrigue and adven-
ture, 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

8 The correspondence of Zurita and books, he dedicated the whole anew to
his friends is to be sought in the "Pro- Philip as king, (Anvers, 1556, 12mo,)
gresos de la Historia en el Eeyno de correcting and amending the first part
Aragon," by Diego Josef Dormer, (Za- carefully. Lope de Vega (in his Doro-
ragoza, 1680, folio,) and especially pp. tea, Acto IV. sc. 3) praises the version
362-563, which are entirely given up of Perez; but, like most of the Span-
to it. ish translations from the ancients in the

9 "La Ulyxea de Homero," etc., por sixteenth century, it shows little of the
Gonzalo Perez, (Venecia, 1553, 18mo,) spirit of the original. A good life of
is in blank verse ; but in this edition Gonzalo Perez, by Esteban de Arteaga
we have only the first thirteen books, y Lopez, is to be found in Salva y Ba-
with a dedication to Philip the Prince, randa, Docunientos Ineditos, 8vo, Tom.
whose chief secretary Goi:zalo Perez XIII., 1849, pp. 531 - 549. It should,
then was, as his son Antonio was after- perhaps, be added that Antonio Perez
wards secretary of the same Philip on was a natural son of Gonzalo, that he
the throne. Subsequently, when he was an only child, and that the date of
had translated the remaining eleven his birth is unknown. Llorente III. 350.

Chap. XXXVIL] ANTONIO PEREZ. 191

person high in the confidence of Don John of Austria,
whose growing influence it was thought worth while
thus to destroy ; — 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 w^as 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
fatal. At first, Philip, whose murder of Montigny had
made him an adept in crime, 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, the
kingdom from which his family originated, 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 emer-
gency. 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 neces-
sary to proceed, was a violation of the ancient privi-
leges of the kingdom, and the people broke out in
open rebellion, and released Perez from prison ; — a
consequence of his measures, which, perhaps, was
neither unforeseen by Philip nor unwelcome to him.

192 AlS'TO^^IO PEREZ. [Period II.

At any rate, lie immediately sent an army into Ara-
gon, sufficient not only to overwhelm all open resist-
ance, 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 treas-
^ 165 ury, ^was the condemnation of sixty-eight per-
sons of distinction to death by the Inquisition,
and the final overthrow of nearly everything that re-
mained 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 Beam, 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 Eliza-
beth 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 profli-
gate as Perez should be.^*^ Philip, wdio could ill endure
the idea of having such a witness of his, crimes intrigu-
ing at the courts of his great enemies, endeavored to
have Perez assassinated both in Paris and London, and
failed more from accident than from want of well-con-
certed plans to accomplish his object.

1*^ Of his residence in England pleas- so long as he pities not himself, but

ant and curious notices may be found keepeth that bloody Perez, yea, as a

in the first volume of Birch's Memoirs coach-companion and bed-conipanion ;

of the Keign of Queen Elizabeth, 1754, a proud, profane, costly fellow, whose

and, among other things, a letter at p. being about him 1 verily fear the Lord

143, from Lord Bacon's mother to her God doth mislike and doth less bless

son Anthony, in which the stern old your brother in credit and otherwise in

lady seems much disturbed that- her health ; — surely I am utterly discour-

son Francis — of whose future greatness aged and make conscience further to

she had no vision — should associate undo myself to maintain such wretches

with a man so unprincipled as Perez. as he is, that never loved your brother

She says: "1 pity your brother; yet but for his own credit."

Chap. XXXVII. ] ANTOXIO PEREZ. 193

At last came peace between England and Fmnce on
one side, and Spain on the other ; and Perez ceased to
be a person of conseqnence to those who had so long
used him. Henry the Fourth, indeed, with his cus-
tomary good-nature, still indulged him even in very
extravaorant modes of life, which rather resembled
those of a prince than of an exile. But his claims
were so unreasonable, and were urs-ed with such bold-
ness and pertinacity, that everybody wearied of him.
He therefore fell into unhonorecl poverty, and dragged
out the miserable life of a neo^lected and ruined
courtier till 1611, when he died at Paris. "^Four ^166
years later, the Inquisition, which had caused
him to be burnt in ^^gj as a heretic, reluctantty did
him the imperfect justice of removing their anathemas
from his memory, and thus permitted his children to
enter into civil ris^hts, of which nothino; but the most
shameless violence had ever deprived them.

From the time of his first imjorisonment, Perez be-
gan 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 Nar-
ratives, or " Kelations," as he calls them, and his " Me-
morial" 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

VOL. III. 13

194 ANTOiSriO PEREZ. [Period II.

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 them
to Henry the Fourth, and 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 unex|)ectedly,
though not always in good taste. Thus, to his inno-
cent 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 j)unishment
* 167 for ^ the promptings of natural affection. I an-
swer, 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."^^ And again, when speaking of the
cruel conduct of his judges to his family, he breaks

11 This is the Lady Rich so much, the fashionable toothpicks introduced

connected with the disappointments by Perez into France has been seen in

and sorrows of Sir Philip Sidney's life. our time by Feuillet de Conches.
See also a letter to the Due d'Epernon, ^^ Obras, Ginevra, 1654, 12mo, p.

sending him some fancy tooth-powder, 1073.
eipially light and graceful. A bundle of

Chap. XXXVII.] ANTOXIO PEREZ. 195

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 de-
fend 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 forever in his
presence, to cry for justice, and to be witnesses and
advocates for one another in whatsoever he has re-
served for his own awful judgment.-^^

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 corresj)ondents.^*

13 Ibid., p. 96. _ His letters, how- a^^ain.st Spain. But I believe that the

ever, often show his licentious charac- separate Relaciones of what happened

ter. One of them begins, " Xunca me at Saragossa on the 24th of May and

miro dama dos veces, (pie no la siguiese the 24th of September, 1.591, had betni

y buscasse." l>iinted earlier and cu-culated to stir up

1"* The first publication of the Relet- discontent at home. In any event,
clones of Antonio Perez may have been however, the "Relaciones," as they a re-
in the very rare volume entitled "Pe- commonly called, were printed again,
dacos de Jlistoria, ec, Impreso en but mth numerous changes and addi-
Leon," s. a., in small 4to, 389 pages, tions, at Paris, in 1598, 4to, pp. 316,
besides the prefatory and supplementary besides the prefatorj- and supplementary-
matter. It is dedicated to Essex, and matter, among which last are letters of
was, judging from the type and paper, Perez, etc. At this time, however, be-
printed in England, where Perez then ing in France, he dedicates his volume
lived, and perhaps at the expense of to Henry IV. ; but in my copy, with a
Queen Elizabeth, who patronized him separate })agination, is also a dedicatiou
and is flattered extravagantly in the to the Pope and the College of Cardi-
dedication. This Avas as early as 1594, nals, which Avas, no douljt, intended to
for Mignet (p. 343, note) cites a trans- go (instead of the one to Henry IV.) in
lation of it into Dutch, published in the copies sent to Rome. Indeed, Pen^z
that year in tlie Low Countries, winch seems to have always published his
had then been so long in rebellion works with changes to suit the plaoe

196 SAN'TA TERESA. [Period II.

* 168 ^ The letters of Santa Teresa, who was a con-
temporary of the secretary of Philip the Second,
and died in 1582, are entirely different ; for while noth-
ing can be inore 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 authoritv, which is
almost always solemn and imposing, but which some-
times, 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

and the time where they appeared ; but two or three collections of acute and

the most complete collection is that of striking aphorisms, which have been

Geiieva, 1654, 12mo, pp. 1126. His several times printed. There are many

lifj is admirably discussed by M. Mig- MS. letters of Perez at the Hague and

n .^t, in his ' ' Antonio Perez et Philippe elsewhere, referred to by Mignet, and

li." (2deedit., Paris, 1846). The work there is in the Eoj^al Library at Paris

of Salvador Bermudez de Castro, enti- an important political treatise which

tied "Antonio Perez, Estudios Histo- bears his name, but which, though

ricos," (Madrid, 1841, 8vo,) is a slight, strongly marked witli his acuteness and

pleasant book superseded by the ' ' His- brilliancy, Ochoa hesitates to attribute

toria de las Alteraciones de Aragon en el to him. It is, however, I believe, his.

Reynado de Phelipe II. por el Marques Perhaps it is the MS. whilih Perez, in

de Pidal," Madrid, 3 torn. 1862, 1863. a long letter dated 24th June, 1^94,

The lives of Perez in Baena (Tom. I., and addressed "A un gran Privado,''

1789, p. 121) and Latassa (Bib. Nov., opens with these words: " Embio a

Tom. II., 1799, p. 108) show how afraid V el Advertimiento que me ha pe-

men of letters were, as late as the end dido sobre como se debe governar, un

of the eighteenth century, to approach Privado." At least the .subjects of the

any subject thus connected witli roy- two seem to be similar. (See Ochoa,

alty. The works of Perez are strictly Manuscritos Espauoles, pp. 158-166;

forbidden by the Index Expurgatorius and Semanario Erudito, Tom. VIII.

of the hnpiisition to the last, — in 1790 pp. 245 and 250.) Further accounts of

and 1805. The letters of Perez to Es- Perez are to be found in Llo rente, Tom

sex are in pretty good Latin, and out of III. pp. 316-375.
his Spanish works there were early made

Chap. XXXYII.J AKGEN80LA, CASCALES; SOLlS. 197

of tiieir daily lives. Her letters fill four volumes, and
tliougli, in general, tliey are only to be regarded
as fervent exhortations or religious teachings,
* still, by the purity, beauty, and womanly grace ^169
of their style, they may fairly claim a distin-
guished place in the epistolary literature of her coun-
try.^^

Some portions of the correspondence of Bartolome
de Argensola about 1625, of Lope de Yega before
1630, and of Quevedo a little later, have been pre-
served to us ; but they are too inconsiderable in
amount to have much value. Of Cascales, the rheto-
rician, we have more. In 1634, he printed three
Decades of Letters ; but they are almost entirely de-
voted 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 his-
torian, who died in 1684, are plain and business-like,
but are written in a hard style, that prevents them
from being interesting. Those of Solis, 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 be-
coming his situation, both with philosophical calmness
and Christian resignation.^^

15 "Cartas de Santa Teresa de Je- of mortification at the failure of his

sus," Madrid, 1793, 4 toni. 4to, — prophecy, and eight years afterwards

chiefly written in the latter part of her was burnt in effigy by the Inquisition

life. as an impostor. He w^as probably, as

Sevenlettersof Juan de la Sal, Bishop Don Juan thought, only a crazy man,

of Bona, in 1616, to the Duke of Medi- who uttered a vast deal of nonsense,

na Sidonia, may be found in the Bib- and who attracted more attention by

lioteca de Autores Espanoles, (Tom. his claims to miraculous foresight than

XXXVI., 1855,) and are worth notice, they deserved. The letters are plain

They concern the fancies or pretensions and simple, with a little humor and

of a secular clerigo, named Francisco much good sense, but not otherwise re-

Mendez, who said he should die on mai'kable. There is a graceful sonnet

a certain day, but survived several addressed to their author by ]\Iedrano.

months, and then died, it was thought, ^*^ The letters of Argensola are in the

198

EPISTOLARY COERESPOKDENCE.

[Period II .

^170 * 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.

"Cartas de Yarios Autores Espaiioles,"
by Mayans y Siscar, (Valencia, 1773,
6 torn. 12nio,) — itself a monument of
the poverty of Spanish literature in that
department from which it attempts to
make a coUectionj since by far the
greater part of it consists of old printed
dedications, formal epistles of approba-
tion that had been prefixed to books
when they were first published, lives
of authors that had served as prefaces
to their works, etc. Many of these
were written by Mayans himself or ad-
dressed to him, so that the five volumes
are much devoted to his own honor and
glory, while, on the other hand, not a
line is given from Antonio Perez, prob-
ably on political grounds.

The letters of Quevedo and Lope are
chiefly on literary subjects, and are
scattered through their respective writ-
ings. Those of Antonio and Solis 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," Ma-
drid, 1742, fol. The "Cartas Philo-
logicas" of Cascales, (of which there is
a neat edition by Sanchez, Madrid,
1779, 8vo,) are to Spain and the age in
which they M'ere written what the terse
£ind pleasant letters published by Mel-

moth, under the pseudonyme of Fitzos-
borne, are to England in the reign of
George IL, — 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. To these may be added, as
with similar but not e(j[ual ])retensions,
the " Epistolas Varias " of Felix de Lucio
Espinosa, or Espinossa (4to, 1675) ; — an
author already noticed for his poor son-
nets, {ante, Vol. 111. p. 43, note,) but
whose letters, though they are rather
learned essays than letters, are better
than might be expected from their pe-
riod. They are addressed to Nicolas
Antonio, Josef Pellicer, Josef Dormer,
and other scholars of the time, and
some of them are curious, for their
recopdite research; ex. gr., the twelfth,
on the use of beverages artificially
cooled. But the few letters of Gon-
zalo Ayora, of the time of Ferdinand
the Catholic, and of Francisco Ortiz, of
the time of Charles V., though pressed
into the service by the collector of the
Epistolario Espanol that forms Vol.
XIII. of Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca, 1850,
do not belong in a collection of the epis-
tolary correspondence of a nation, and
only prove, like the collection of May-
ans, how little there is to be gathered.

*CHAPTEE XXXYIII. *171

HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. — ZDBITA, MORALES, RIBADENETRA, SIGUENZA, MA-
RIANA, SANDOVAL, HERRERA, ARGENSOLA, THE INCA GARCILASSO, MENDOZA,

MONCADA, COLOMA, MELO, SAAVEDRA, SOLfS. 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 effect-
ually broken down. His father was a favored physi-
cian 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 Alcala,
where it was his good fortune to have, for his chief
instructor, Fernan Nunez, 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 Com-
mander of the Order of Santiago, his personal acquisi-
tions and talents rendered him the first Greek scholar
of his age and country.

As the elder Zurita continued to be much trusted by

200 ZURITA. [Period II.

Charles the Fifth, and as his son's connections
* 172 were chiefly ^ with persons of great considera-
tion, 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 that king-
dom 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 haA^e satisfied his ambition, and to have given a new
direction to his life. At any rate, he immediately pro-
cured a royal warrant to examine and use all docu-
ments 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 examin-
ing 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 pub-
lished, 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 recol-
lections of his father's life at the court of that mon-
arch probably afforded some of the most interesting
materials. The whole work is more important for
Spanish history than any that had preceded it. It has
hardly anything of the monkish credulity of the old

1 An account of this remarkable col- vista Literaria del Espanol," 28 de

lection of records, which from 1561, Julio, 1845. It is very curious. The

when it was begun, has been in charge first suggestion of forming national

of one and the same family, who pre- archives is due, I believe, to Cardinal

serve a traditionary knowledge of its Ximenes.
resources, may be found in the ' ' Re-

Chap. XXXVIII.] ZURITA. 201

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 corre-
spondence 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 * 173
one who was aware that whatevei? he wrote
w^ould 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 de-
pended, and to whom, on some occasions, he has been
accused of a submission or subserviencv imconsistent
with his independence as an historian ; although, per-
haps, not more than was needful to insure his success
or even his safety as such.^ Its faults are its great
length and a carelessness of style, scarcely regarded as
faults at the time when it was written.^

2 See Gayangos, Translation, Tom. from the king in Dormer, (p. 109,)

III. p. 554. which shows that he enjoyed much of

^ The best notice of Geronimo de Zu- the royal consideration ; though, as I

rita is the one at the end of Part II. have intimated, and as may be fully

Chap. I. of Prescott's "Ferdinand and seen in Dormer, (Lib. II. c. 2, 3, 4,)

Isabella " ; — tlie most ample is the he was much teased, at one time, by

folio volume of Diego Josef Dormer, the censors of his History. The first

entitled " Progresos de la Historia en edition of the "Anales de la Corona de

Aragon " (Zaragoza, 1680, folio) ; really Aragon" was published in different

a life of Zurita, published in his honor years, at Saragossa, between 1562 and

by the Cortes of his native kingdom. 1580, to which a volume of Indices was

There are several editions of his An- added in 1604, making seven volumes,

nals ; and Latassa (Bib. Nueva, Tom. folio, in all. The third edition, Zara-

I. pp. 358-373) gives a list of above goza, 1610-1621, 7 torn, folio, is the

forty of his works, nearly all unpub- one that is pi-eferred.
lished, and none of them, probably, of Another volume was added to the

much value, except his History, to Annals of Zurita (Zaragoza, 1630, fol.)

whicli, in fact, they are generally sub- by Bartolome Leonardo de Argensola,

si liiry. He held several offices under the poet, who brought them down to

Piiilip II., and there is a letter to him 1520 ; but it is too diffuse, filling above

202 MORALES. [Period II.

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
* 174 * 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 dis-
tinctions, rose subsequently to eminence as a Pro-
fessor in the University of Alcali. 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

eleven hundred pages with the events 1 have said that Zurita was employed
of only four years, — 1516 to 1520, — as secretary of Philip II., from time to
and is less Avise and impartial than Zu- time ; and such Avas the fact. But this
rita's great work, though better writ- title often implied little except the
ten, in point of style. In its turn, the right of the person who bore it to re-
history of Argensola was continued by ceive a moderate salary from the public
Fran. Diego de Sayas, in his " Anales treasury; — a circumstance which I
de Aragon," (fol. 1667,) in a manner mention because I have occasion fre-
almost equally diffuse, giving above quently to notice authors who were
eight hundred pages to about four years royal secretaries or scribes, from the
more ; i. e. from the end of 1520 to time of Baena, the Jew, in the days of
1525. Saj^as, who died in 1680, wrote John II., down to the disappearance
other works, but none, I think, of con- of the Austrian family. Thus Gonzalo
serpience. (Latassa, Bib. Nov., Tom. Perez and his son Antonio were royal
III. p. 551.) Dormer, who did so secretaries; so were the two Quevedos,
much for Zurita in other ways, piib- and many more. In 1605, Philip HI.
lished, in 1697, as siibsidiary to Zuri- had twenty-nine such secretaries. Cle-
ta's greater work, a folio volume, enti- niencin, note to Don Quixote, Parte
tied "Anales de Aragon, desde 1625 II. c. 47. Eanke (Zur Kritik neuerer
hasta 1640," yjp. 700 ; but, like a great Geschichtschreiben 1824, ]). 122) says
many other historical works that he of Zurita that he " has learnt more from
gave to the world, it is chronicling and his Annals than from any book he has
documentary, and makes little ])reten- read on modern history"; — a tribute
sion to style. Dormer died in 1705. worth having from such high authority.

Chap. XXX VI I L]

MORALES.

203

Alfonso the Seventh, m 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, bnt as one marked with
mucrh 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 com-
position in Spain.*

* The History of Ambrosio de Morales
was first publislud in three folios, Al-
cala, 1574-1577 ; but the best edition
is that of Madrid, 1791, in six small
quartos, to which are commonly added
two volumes, dated 1792, on Spanish
Anti(piities, 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 continua-
tion of Sandoval, in one volume, a work
of about e(pial merit with that of Mo-
rales, and first printed at Pamplona, in
1615, folio. The three authors, Ocam-
po, Morales, and Sandoval, taken to-
gether, are thus made to fill twelve vol-
umes, as if they belonged to one work,
to which is given the unsuitable title of
" Coronica General de Espaiia."

Morales, in his youth, cruelly muti-
lated his person, in order to insure a
priestly purity of life, and wellnigh
died of the consequences.

I might have mentioned here the
"Comentario de la Guerra de Alemana
de Luis de Avila y Zuniga," a small
volume, (Anvers, 1550, 12mo,) first
printed in 1548, and frequently after-
wards, in Latin, Italian, and French,
as well as in Spanish. It is an account
of the campaigns of Charles V. in Ger-
many, in 1546 and 1547, prepared,

probably, from information furnished
by the Emperor himself, (J^avarra Dia-
logos, 1567, f. 13,) and written in a
natural, but by no means polished,
Castilian style. Parts of it bear inter-
nal evidence of having been composed
at the very time of the events they re-
cord, 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, j)i'inted by the Belgian Biblio-
philes, in 1843. See ante, Vol. I, p.
460, note.

Pellicer de Tovar, in his "Gloria de
Espana," (4to, 1650, p. 16,) speaks of
the " Comentario " as if it were really
the work of Charles V., and Cabrera,
in his treatise " De Historia j^ara enten-
derla y escrivirla," (1611, f. 7, b,) inti-
mates the same thing ; but the account
of iSTavarra is more likely to be true.
Still, that Charles arranged commen-
taries on his own reign seems certain,
and it is extremely probable that Philip
II. destroyed them. But they were
compiled by himself and Van Male,
and had nothing to do with the Com-
mentaries of Avila, though thej^ may
have given rise to the mistake and con-
fusion. (Gachard, " Retraite et Mort
de Charles V.," Tom. II., 1855, \}.

204

MENDOZA, AND OTHEKS.

[Period II,

^175 "^ Contemporary with both Zurita and

rales, 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 con-
sidered, noticing it rather at the period when it was
written than at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, 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.

cxlvi.) Both Van Male and Avila were
much about the person of Charles V.
His attachment to both seems to have
continued to the last. Avila had an
estate by his wife at Plasencia, near
Yuste, and lived there while the Em-
peror was in the convent ; visited his
old master often ; and was one of the
few persons of consideration and rank
who Avere round his death-bed and who
mourned at his funeral. One day, we
are told, when the Emperor had dined
sparingly at the convent on capon, he
said, ' ' Put away the rest of it for Don
Luis ; perhaps we shall have nothing
else to give him." And, on another
occasion, speaking of the " Comenta-
rio," he said, "Alexander achieved
greater things than I have, but he had
not so good a chronicler." Vera y Fi-
gueroa, Vida y Hechos de Carlos V.
(Madrid, 1654, 4to, ff. 125, 129, 130,)
— a pleasant, gossiping book, but full
of the intolerance and false loyalty of
its age.

There is a German translation of the
" Comentario," published with the title
" Geschichte des Schmalkaldischen
Krieges nach Don Luis de Avila y Zu-
iiiga," (Berlin, 1853,) which seems to
be carefully done. Eobertson used the
Latin version of poor Van Male, printed
in 1550. He might, however, if he
had been curious in such matters, have
found an English one printed in 1555,
of which Mr. Stirling has a coj^ty in his
very precious collection. It was made,
I think, by John Wilkinson, and is de-
scribed in Dibdin's Ames, 1819, Vol.
IV. p. 427. The original is republished

in the Biblioteca de Autores Esi:)aiioles,
Tom. XXL, 1852. — I have an Italian
translation of it printed at Venice in
1548, the very year of its appearance
in Spanish, and only one or two years
after the events it records. It may be
here added, that Stirling, in a pleasant
and interesting tract printed for the
Philobiblon Society, London, 1856, and
entitled " Notices of the Emperor
Charles V. in 1555 and 1556," has
some curious facts about Avila.

Since the preceding part of this note
was published, new and decisive light
has been thrown on the subject, con-
firming the suggestion that Charles V.
prepared Commentaries of his own, dis-
tinct from those of Avila. .They have,
in fact, been found in the Imperial Li-
brary at Paris, by Baron Kervyn de
Lettenhove, who printed them at Paris
and Brussels in 1862. They extend
from 1516 to 1548, and were written
originally in French, or Avere dictated
in that language by Charles V. to Van
Male, but were found in a Portuguese
translation made at Madrid in 1620
when Portugal was a part of the Span-
ish monarchy. We have them now
only as translated back into French ;
but there is no doubt of their genuine-
ness. A S})anish letter from Charles V. ,
dated 1552, and addressed to his son
Philip, afterwards Philip II., enclosing
the MS., leaves no doubt on this point.
They are, however, of little value, and
seem to have been written for his amuse-
ment -when he was travelling from the
Khine to Augsburg in 1550, and fin-
ished at the latter place.

CiiAr. XXXVIII.] RIBADET^TEYRA. SIGUENZA.

205

Of this group, the first two, Avho devoted
themselves to ^ecclesiastical history, and en- "^ 176
tered into the religious discussions of their
time, were, 23erhaps, originally the most prominent.
Kibadeneyra, 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 St. 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.^

^ Pedro cle Eibadeneyra, who died,
aged 84, in 1611, and for whom a beau-
tiful epitaph was composed by Mariana,
wrote several works in honor of his
Company, and several ascetic works be-
sides his "Cismade Inglaterra," (Bar-
celona, 1588,) and his "Flos Sancto-
rum," Madrid, 1599-1601, 2 tom. folio.
The first is very unfair, but the subject
was tempting to a Spanish Catholic,
just as the Armada was fitting out ;
and, besides, the persecutions of Eliza-
beth were sufficient to justify a stern
rebuke. The book's popularity shows
that it was well timed. Three editions
of it appeared in 1588. His " Tratado
de la Religion," dedicated to Philip II.
in 1595, and intended as an answer to
Machiavelli's " Principe," contains elo-
quent passages, but lacks the acuteness
and power needful for encountering an
adversary so formidable by his severe
strength.

Jose de Siguenza, who was born in
1545, and died in 1606, as Prior of the
Escorial, — whose construction he wit-
nessed and described, — published his
' ' Vida de San Geronimo, " in Madrid,
1595, 4to, and his " Historia de la Or-
den de San Geronimo" (Madrid, 1600-

1605, 2 torn., folio, continued by Fran-
cisco de los Santos, 1680, folio). He
was persecuted by the Inquisition. Llo-
rente, Hist, de I'lnquisition, 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 con-
vent or a saint of any note in Spain,
during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, failed of especial commemo-
ration ; 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 eccle-
siastical history to be found in the list
at the end of the second volume of An-
tonio's Bibliotheca Xova 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 or-
ders that were both knightly and relig-
ious, 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. I
think that above sixteen hundred au-

206 MARIANA. [Period II.

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, who
was born at Talavera in 1536, and whose extraordi-
nary talents attracted the attention of the Jesuits,
then fast advancing into notice as a religious
"^177 ^power.^ Having gone through a severe course
of studies at Alcala, 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 —
always sagacious in such matters — were then estab-
lishing at Rome, and which they regarded as one of
their principal institutions for consolidating and ex-
tending 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 re-
maining 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 1569-1572,
which was at first received with great favor, but after-

thors of local histories, "both ecclesiasti- mero," (Madrid, 1858,) — a curious

cal and secular, may be fo;;nd in the book, published at the expense of the

" Diccionario bibliografico-historico de Si)anish government,
los antiguos Reinos, Provincias, Ciu- ^ He alludes very gracefully to the

dadcs, Villas, Iglesias, y Santuavios ])lace of his birtli in the opening of his

de Espaha, por D. Tonias Munoz y Po- treatise " De Rege," 1599.

Chap. XXXYIIL] MARIANA. 207

wards, 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 em-
ployed to make the investigation; and, through his
learning and influence, they felt sure of a triumph.
But thouo-h he was a faithful Jesuit, he was not a sub-
servient 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 supe-
riors in a way that caused him much trouble.^

* In 1599, he published a Latin treatise on the * 178
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, but sustain-
ing, with great acuteness, the power of the Church, and
tending to the establishment of a theocracy. At home,
it caused little remark. It was regularly approved
by the censors of the press, and is 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

"^ Llorente, Tom. I. p. 479, Tom. II. the course of Mariana, in this investi-

p. 457, Tom. III. pp. 75-82. Carva- gation, was so frank as it should have

jal, the author of the " Elogio Histori- been. Perhaps it was not; but he

CO " of Montano, in the seventh vohime came to the right conclusion at last,

of the Memoirs of the Academy of His- and it was a bold and honest thing to

tory, (1832, 4to, p. 84,) does not think do so.

208 MARIAI^A. [Period II.

of the first book directly mentions, and by implication
countenances, the murder of the former of these mon-
archs, and was claimed, though contrary to the truth
of fact, to have been among the causes that stimulated
Eavaillac to the assassination of the latter. It was,
therefore, both attacked and defended with extraordi-
nary 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 w^ere 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 asso-
ciates.^
^179 "^ At last, an occasion was found where he
could be assailed without assigning the true
reasons for the attack. In 1609, he published;, not in

^ The order to "burn it may he found 1602. I have a copy of it, Toleti, 4to,
in a curious hook entitled " L'Antima- 1599, pp. 446. From the very remark-
riana," (Paris, 1610, 8vo, pp. 284,) and able letters of Loaysa, the confessor of
is dited June 10, ]610 ; less than a Charles V., and subsequently Arch-
month after the assassination of Henry bishop of Seville and Inquisitor-Gen-
IV. The book was written by Eoussel, eral, it appears that the great Emperor
(Barbier, No. 938,) and the order is at himself was as little scrujiulous as his
the end. son in such matters. This renders the

■' The account of this book, and of passage in Mariana more easy of expla-

the discussions it occasioned, is given nation, especially as Mariana praises

amply by Bayle, in the notes to his ar- Loaysa very earnestly, p. 6. But it

tide Mariana ; but, as is usual with can in no way be defended. See Briefe

him, in a manner that shows his dis- an Kaiser Karl V., etc., von D. G.

like of tlie Jesuits. The first edition Heine, Berlin, 1848, 8vo, p. 130 and

of it contains the authority both of the note. The idea that the treatise of

king and of the Examiner of the Order Mariana influenced Eavaillac is set

of the Jesuits to print the work. The forth, in his rambling way, by Vaughan,

passage in extenuation or defence of in his very curious and rare "Golden

the murder of Henry III. by Jaques Fleece," 1626 (Part I. Chaps. 1 and

Clemens is in Lib. I. c. 6, where it is 2) ; — a work connected with our own

called " monimentum nobile," and Cle- Newfoundland. But Bayle — an un-

mens himself "ffiternum GalliiB decus." willing witness in favor of a Jesuit

p. 69. See, further, Sismondi (Hist. — shows that this notion is all a de-

des Fran^ais, Tom. XXII., 1839, p. lusion. (Art. Mariana, H. and K.)

191) ; but Sismondi is wrong in dating Eavaillac was not so learned by a great

the publication of the treatise from deal.

Chap. XXXVIIl.] MARIANA. 209

Spain, but at Cologne, seven Latin treatises on va.rious
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 animad-
version ; but one, " On Mortality and Immortality," was
seized upon for theological censure, and another, ^' De
Mutatione Monetae," 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 debas-
ing it. The Inquisition took cognizance of both ; and
their author, though then seventy-three years old, was
subjected first to confinement, and afterwards to pen-
ance, for his ofiences. 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
dissertation " 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 .^^ But the firm spirit of Mariana

1° *' Joli. Mariana, e Soc. Jesu, Trac- 152, 153, article Proceso del Padni Ma-
tatus VII., nunc primum in Lueem riaiia,, ^l'^. — Lope de Vea^a, Obras Su-
editi,'- Colon. Agrip., 1609, fol. ; my eltas, Tom. I. p. 295.) The " Discurso
copy of which is mutilated according de las Enfermedades de la Compania,"
to the minute directions given in the written in Mariana's beautiful flowing
Index Exi)urgatorius, 1667, p. 719, the style, was first printed at Bordeaux,
treatise "De Mutatione Monetne" being 1625, 8vo, and then again on the sup-
carefully cut out, and every trace of it pression of the order by Charles III. ;
obliterated. But it may be found, as but in the Index Expurgatorius, (1667,
translated by himself, with the title of p. 735, ) where it is strictly prohibited,
" Sobre la Moneda de Vellon," at the it is craftily treated as if "it were still
end of Vol. XXXI. of the Biblioteca de in manuscript, and as if its author were
Autores Espanoles, 1854. (Santander, not certainly known. This id;'a of the
Catalogue, 1792, Svo, Tom. IV. i)p. uncertainty of the authorshi]) ef the
VOL. III. 14

210 MARIANA. [Period IT.

* 180 * was not broken by his persecutions. He went

forward with his hterary Labors to the last ; and
when he died, in 1623, it was of the infirmities which
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 for-
eign 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,
he says in consequence of this, to do something that
should show the world by what manly steps Spain had
come intq 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 labors, therefore, in Latin,
that all Christendom might be able to read them, and
in 1592 published, in that language, twenty out of the
thirty books which constitute the whole work.

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 trans-

* 181 lator, 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 free-

" Discurso " was so diligently inculcated ^^ In one of the many controversial

for a century and a half by high au- pamphlets excited by Father Feyjoo's

thority, that in the edition of 1768 it Works, the following whimsical but

was deemed needful to prove, by a for- truly Castilian idea is used to express

mal Dissertation, that Mariana wrote the feeling of obligation which has al-

it ; a point about which there should ways been entertained by the Spanish

never have been any question. In the nation for the honor Mariana's History

Index of 1790, he is still censured with had done them abroad. " Hasta el

great severity. A considerable number tienipo en que este docto Jesuita esci'i-

of his unpublished manuscripts is said vio su Historia Latina, passabamos entre

to have been long i)reserved in the Jes- estrangeros por gente sin ahueloa.'' Es-

uit's Library at Toledo. trado Critico, s. 1. 1727, 4to, p. 26.

Chap. XXXVIII.] MARIANA. 211

dom in his version that could be cLaimed by no one
else ; for he had not only a right to change the phrase-
ology 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 Espana," therefore, the first part of
which appeared in 1601, has all the air and merit of
an original work ; and in the successive editions pub-
lished under his own direction, and especially in the
fourth, wdiich 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 .^^

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 after-
wards 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 re-
spects 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 hio-h office he
had assumed. He follows Ocampo, and especially
Garibay, — credulous compilers of old fables, who
were his own contemporaries, — confessing freely that

1- The most careful!}^ printed and and 1623 being equal, as stated by the

beantiful edition of Mariana's History editore of that of IfSQ, to a moderate

is the fourteenth, published at Madrid, rolume. The History of Mariana antl

by Ibarra, (2 vols., foL, 1780,) under four of his treatises are publislied in

tlie direction of the Superintendents of the Biblioteca of Rivadeneyra, Tom.

the Royal Library ; — a book whose me- XXX. and XXXI., 1854, — the trt-ati.se

(•hanical execution would do honor to *^De Rege " being translated for the ckt-

any press in Europe. Jt is remarkable casion, and two unimportant " Escritos

how much Mariana amended his History Sueltos," together with a "Catalogo"

in tlie successive editions during his of his works, being added at the

lifetime ; the additions between ItiUS end.

212 MARIANA. [Period II.

(

he thought it safest and best to take the received tra-
ditions 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 beauti-
* 182 ful * dedication of the Spanish version of his

history to Philip the Third, he admits that anti-
quated 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, Marip^na dyed his to make himself look
old.13 "

But there is another side to all this. His willing be-
lief in the old chronicles, temjDcred, as it necessarily is,
by his great learning, gives an air of true-heartedness
and good faith to his accounts, and a vivacity 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 com-
positions, the style of Mariana is all but imrivalled.
His narratives — the most important part of an his-
torical work of this class — are peculiarly flowing, free,
and impressive. The accounts of the wars of Hanni-
bal, in the second book ; those of the irruption of the
Northern nations, with which the fifth opens ; the con-
spiracy of John de Procida, in the fourteenth; the last

^3 Mariana, Hist., Lib. I. c. 13. should never have finished it; but I

Saavedra, Repi'iblica Literaria, Madrid, undertook to arrange in a becoming

1759, 4to, ]). 44. Mariana admits style, and in the Latin language, what

the want of critical exactness in some others had collected as materials for the

parts of his history, when, replying to fabric I desired to raise. To look up

a letter of Lupercio de Argensola, wlio authorities for everything would have

had noticed his mistake in calling Pru- left Spain, for another series of centu-

dentius a native of Calahorra, he says : lies, without a Latin History thnt could

"1 never undertook to make a history show itself in the world." J. A. Pelli-

of Spain, in which I should verify cer, Ensaj'-o de una Biblioteca de Tra-

every particular fact ; for if I had I ductores, p. 59.

Chap. XaXVIIL] MAEIANA. 213

scenes in the troubled life of Peter the Cruel, in the
seventeenth ; and most of the descriptions of the lead-
ing events in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and
especially the description of the fall of Granada, at the
end of the twenty-fifth, give abundant proof of this
peculiar historical talent. Thej^ 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 * 183
crown of Castile to the Infante don Ferdinand,
is remarkable for the courageous spirit in which it dis-
cusses the foundations of all political government, and
leaves the rit>:hts of kino-s to rest on the assent of their
subjects ; — a boldness, it should be added, which is
apparent in many other parts of his works, especially
in his "De Rege," as it was in much of his life.

The characters he has drawn of the prominent per-
sonages 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 Yiana, 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 rarely 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 pictu-

214

SANDOYAL.

[Period II.

resque chronicling with sober history that the world

has ever seen.^^
* 184 ^Prudencio de Sandoval, who was one of the

salaried chioniclers of the monarchy, and who,
in that capacity, prepared the continuation of Morales,
already noticed, seems to have been willing to consti-
tute 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 generally with a dry 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

i^ There was a singular controversy,
for a short time, concerning the trust-
worthiness of Mariana, but it did not
proceed far. Pedro Mantuano, a young
Spaniard, secretary to Velasco, — Grand
Constable of Castile, and a man of
learning, then in the government of
Milan, — printed there, in December,
1607, six sheets of " Advertencias " or
Remarks on the History of Mariana,
and sent them to its author, who replied
in the September following by merely
returning them with his marginal notes.
There the matter rested until 1611,
when Mantuano, perhaps angiy at a
notice so slight, published his ' ' Adver-
tencias " at Milan, considerably en-
larged, and again at Madrid, with
changes, in 1613. Tamayo de Vargas,
afterwards a voluminous writer, but
then a young beginner, answered him
in a book entitled ' ' Historia, ec. de
Mariana defendida," Toledo, 1616. But
Mariana wisely refused to read either of
the discussions, or to enter at all into
the controversy. Neither of them, in-

deed, is of much consequence, as may
be inferred from the facts, that Mantu-
ano boasts he was only twenty-six years
old when he wrote his book, and that
Tamayo de Vargas replies with another
boast, that it took him only a fortnight
to answer it. The whole matter may
be seen in the Pui^on or Account of it
by Vargas at the end of his ■*' Defensa,"
which is, in general, a satisfactory,
though somewhat bitter, reply to the
inconsiderable objections of Mantuano.
Tamayo de Vargas died in 1641, and
Mantuano in 1656. The Marquis of
Mondejar, a more respectable authority,
renewed the discussion, and his "Ad-
vertencias" 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 ap-
peared 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.

Chap. XXXVI II.]

SANDOVAL.

215

the assault and capture of Eonie upon the Constable
de Bourbon; and^ besides tracing the Austrian family
distinctly to Adam, he connects its honors genealogi-
cally with those of Hercules and Dardanus. Still, the
History of Sandoval, from the many important docu-
ments imbedded in it, is a work of authority much
relied on hy Eobertson, and one that, on the whole,
by its ample* and minute details, gives a more satis-
factory account of the reign of Charles the Fifth than
any other single history extant. It was first published
in 1604-1606, and its author died March 12, 1620.^^

After this, no important and connected work on the
history of Spain, that falls within the domain of ele-
gant literature, appeared for a long period.-^^ Por-

15 Antonio, Bib. Xov., Tom. II. p.
2.55. La Motile le Vayer, in a discourse
addressed to Cardinal Mazarin, (GEuvres,
Paris, 16G2, folio, Tom. I. pp. 225, etc.,)
assails Sandoval furiously, and some-
times successfully, for his credulity,
superstition, flattery, etc., not forget-
ting his style, which is very imecpial.
It was a part of the warfare of France
against Spain. The best account of
Sandoval is in Ferrer del Rio, " Deca-
dencia de Espana," 8vo, 1850, pp. xix,
XX, and 365-368. It maybe added,
that Bart. Leonardo de Argensola, in
his "Anales de Aragon," 1630, points
out occasional oversights and mistakes
of fact in Sandoval. His " Cronica de
Alonso VII.," already noticed, (p. 174
and note,) was printed in 1600, and
his other works — all histoiical and all
of less account — appeared between
1601 and 1615.

i** During this period, embracing a
large part of the seveiiteenth century,
two remarkable controversies took place
in Spain, which, by introducing a more
critical caution into historical compo-
sition, were not without their effect on
Mariana, and may have tended to di-
minish the number of his successors, by
subjecting history, in all its forms, to
more rigorous rules. The discussions
referred to arose in conseipience of two
extraordinary foi-gerie.s, wliicli for a
time created a ,i,a-eat ben>satiun through-

out 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 de-
ciphered, 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 ecclesias-
tical 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
IT., Philip III., and Philip IV., each
of whom, in a couiicil of state, consist-
ing of the principal personages of the
kingdom, solemnly adjudged it to be
such ; so that, at one period of the dis-
cussion, 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 higliest tribunal of the Church, to
be false and forged ; a decision in which
Spain soon accpiiesced.

The other fraud was connected with
this one of the " Leaden Books," whoi^e
authority it was alleged to confirm ;
but it was much broader and T)o':(ler in
its claims and character. It consisted

216

OTHER HISTORIANS.

[Period II.

* 185 tions of * Spanish history, and portions of the
history of Spanish discovery and conquest in

of a series of fragments of chronicles,
circulated earlier in manuscript, but
lirsi: ])rinted. in 1610, and then repre-
sented to have come, in 1594, from the
moua.ster}' of Fulda, near Worms, to
leather Higuera, of Toledo, a Jesuit,
and a personal ac(]^uaintance of Mariana.
They pur))orted, on tlieir face, to liave
been wiitten by Flavins Lucius Dexter,
Marcus Maximus, Heleca, and other
primitive Christians, and contained im-
portant and wholly new statements
touching the early civil and ecclesias-
tical 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 learn-
ing 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 depart-
ment of 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 Avas 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, chroni-
cones as they were called, were authen-
tic ; and if Arias Montano, the editor
of the Polyglot, Mariana, the historian,
and Antonio Agustin, the cautious and
critical friend of Zurita, held an oppo-
site 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 gener-
ally 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. Indeed, as late as 1667-1675,
Gregorio de Argaiz, a man of much
worthless learning, published in defence
of them six large folio volumes, one of
which 1 have.

Such of the Leaden Books— " Libros

de Plomo " — as were produced between
March and May, 1595^ were solemnly
announced to the public by episcopal
authority in a folio sheet ])rinted at
Granada at the time, full of the most
extravagant absurdities. I have a cojjy
of it ; and the fac-similes of the inscrip-
tions are eminently ridiculous. But,
as I have said, the Spanish people,
having readily accepted them as gen-
uine, were very slow to believe they
were forgeries. The Clwonicones con-
tinued to enjoy favor even longer than
the Leaden Books. I have found traces
of belief in them in the latter part of
the eighteenth century ; — the spurious
Flavins Dexter being cited as an au-
thority in a work for popular instruc-
tion called " Conversaciones del R. P.
Capuchino Fr. Francisco de los Arcos,"
1764, Granada, 4to. See Carta por D.
Juan Vicente, [Tomas de Yriarte,] al
R. P. Fr. de los Arcos, Madrid, 1786,
pp. 17, etc. The discussion about
them, however, which, it is evident,
was going quietly on during much of
the seventeenth century, 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, ISTicolas Antonio began his "His-
torias Fabulosas" ; a huge folio, which
he left unfinished at his death, and
which was not printed till long after-
wards, 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 Bib-
liotheca Vetus ; the " Historias Fabu-
losas " of Antonio, Avith the Life of its
author prefixed by Mayans y Siscar,
(Madrid, 1742, folio,) to show the gross-
ness of the whole imposture ; and the
" Chronica UniA^ersal " of Alonso Mal-
donado, (Madrid, 1624, folio,) to show
how implicitly it was then believed and
followed by learned men. The man of
learning who was the most uncompro-
mising about ' ' The Leaden Books "

Chap. XXXVJII.J HERREKA. 217

the East and the West, were indeed published from
time to time, but the official chroniclers of the crowns
of Castile and Arao-on no lono;er 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 an-
nals at home, should be noticed.

^ Of this class, the first in importance and * 186
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 prac-
tised w^riter, and, from his official position as histori-
ographer to the Indies, had access to every source of
information open at the time, his work, which was
printed in 1601, is of great value. But he was the
author of other historical w^orks, for which his qualifi-
cations and resources were less satisfactory and his
j)rejudices more abundant ; — such as a ^^ History of
the World during the Eeign of Philip the Second," a
History of the affairs of England and Scotland,
daring the unhappy times of Mary Stuart; *a * 187
History of the League in France ; and a History

and the Chronicones, and who behaved Books, was probably Gregorio Lopez de

with the most courage in relation to Madera, {see ante, Vol. I. Y'. 410, n.,)

tham from the first, was, I suppose, the who, in 1603, published a folio volume

Bishop of Segorbe, who is noticed in entitled "Certidumbre de las Reliquias

Villanueva, " Viage Literario a las Igle- descubiertas en Granada desde el ano

sias de Espaila," (Madrid, 1804, 8vo, 1588 hasta 1598."

Tom. III. p. 166,) where is, also, the Geddes, "Tracts," 1730, Vol. L, gives

document (pp. 259-278) in which the an account of the Leaden Books, to

Bishop exposes the Avhole fraud, but Avhich, as some of them Avere found on

which was never before published. the mountain called Valparayso, near

The man, on the other liand, wlio Granada, he prefixes for an a})propriate

.showed the most absurd learning in de- motto: " Parturiunt montes, nascetur

fence of the trenuineuess of the Leaden ridiculus nuis."

218 ARGEXSOLA. [Peiuod II.

of the affair of Antonio Perez and the troubles that
followed it ; — all written under the influence of con-
temporary 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.^'

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

1" " Historia General de los Heelios History of the League, Madrid, 1598,

de los Castellaiios en las Islas y Tierra 4to ; and the History of the Tro;:l)les

Firme del Mar Oeeano," Madrid, 1601 - in Aragon, in 1612, 4to ; the last heing

1615, 4 vols., fol. — " Hi:jtoria General only a tract of 140 pages. A work on

del Miindo del Tieni])o del Sehor Key the History of Italy, from 1281 to 1559,

Don Felipe II., desde 1559, hasta sii printed at Madrid in 1624, folio, I have

Muerte," Madrid, 1601-1612, 3 vols., never seen. The Historia General del

fol. — Five hoolvs on tlie History of Mundo is on the Index of 1667, for ex-

Fcn-liigal and the Con(|iiest of tln^ Azores purgation,
were printed, Madrid, 1591, 4to ; tiie

Chap. XXXVIII. ] THE INCA GARCILASSO. 219

that direction^ lie commanded the yomiger of the
Aro^ensolas to write an account of the Moluccas. The
poet obeyed, and published his work in 1609, dedi-
cating 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 Por-
tuguese, when they first landed, and * of the * 188
wild adventures that followed when they had
taken possession of the islands. Parts of it are, indeed,
inconsistent with the nature of the civilization thev
found there, such as formal and eloquent harrtugues
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 Avork 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 op-
pressed race whom they compelled to minister to their
love of gain.^^

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

1^ " Conquista de las Islas Malucas," probable ; and the account of the Pata-

Madrid, 1609, folio. Pellicer, Bib. de gonian giants, in the same book, turns

Trad., Tom. I. p. 87. The love-story out to be almost true, like some of the

of Durante, an ensign, in the third long-discredited stories of Marco Polo

book of the " Conc[uista," is good and and Mendez Pinto.

220 THE mCA GARCILASSO. [Period II.

cruel injuries they IiacI suffered at the hands of Spain.
He was born at " Cuzco^ in Peru, the seat of Atabalipa,"
in 1540j 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,
"^189 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 Sj)ain in
the persecution under Ferdinand emd Isabella, and
who in Italy had published this singular work under
the name of Leone, the Hebrew Physician. The at-
tempt, so far as Garcilasso was concerned, was not a
fortunate one. The Dialogues, which enjoyed con-
siderable popularity at the time, had been already
printed in Spanisli, — a fact evidently unknown to
him; and though, as it appears from a subsequent
statement by himself, he had obtained for his transla-
tion 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 Ex-
purgatorius, and was rarely heard of afterwards.

His next attempt was on a subject in which he had

1^ There is a curious MS. Genealogia the Inca who claims to be a descendant
de Garci Perez de Vargas, (noticed cmte, of that famous knight. See Spanish
Period I., Chap. VI., note,) written by translation of this History, III. 555.

CHAr. XXXYIIL] THE IXCA GARCILASSO. 221

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 more ap-
propriately called " The Expedition of Fernando de
Soto " ; since the adventures of that extraordinary
man, and his strange fate, not only form its most bril-
liant 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, gather-
ins; too'ether 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, ^190
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 acknowl-
edges 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 Span-

222 MENDOZA. [Period IL

iards 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 everything
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 .^^
* 191 ^ 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

^° ' * Dialoghi di Araore composti per part of the Commentaries on Peru.
Leone Medico Hebreo," is the title of "La Florida" was printed at Lisbon
the original Italian in the neat Aldine in 1606, 4to ; the first part of the Peru
edition, 1552. The Inca called his at Lisbon, 1609, folio ; and the second
translation, " La Tradnccion del Indio part at Cordova, 1617, folio. Both of
de los Tres Dialogos de Amor, de Leon the historical works are to be found in
Hebreo, echado de Italiano en Espagnol, several other editions, and both have
por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega," Ma- been translated into most of the lan-
drid, 1590, 4to. A Spanish translation guages of modern Europe,
of it, which I have seen, had appeared Two striking examples may be given
at Venice in 1568, and I believe there of the opposite kinds of that credulity-
was another at Zaragoza in 1584, of in Garcilasso which so much impairs
which it seems strange that Garcilasso the value of his Commentaries. He
knew nothing. (Barbosa, Bib. Lus., believed that the subjection of Peru by
Tom. II. p. 920 ; Castro, Bib., Tom. I. the Spaniards Avas predicted by the last
p. 371 ; and Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. of the Incas that reigned before their
I. p. 232.) All the translations from arrival, (Parte I. Lib. IX. c. 15, and
Leone Hebreo are on the Index Expur- Parte II. Lib. VIII. c. 18,) and he be-
gatorius, 1667, p. 759. The letter of lieved that all the Spaniards in the
Garcilasso to Philip II., with additional army of Peru, who were notorious bias-
remarks by its author, containing inter- phemers, perished by wounds in the
(^sting materials for his own life, is pre- mouth (Parte II. Lib. IV. c. 21).
fixed to the first edition of the second

Chap. XXXAaiL] MONCADA. 223

worthy of notice than anything 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 its 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 pub-
lished 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 Expe-
dition, by which alone he has been much known in
later times, is on the romantic adventures and achieve-
ments of an extraordinary band of mercenaries, who,
under Eoger de Flor, — successively a freebooter, a
great admiral, and a Csesar of the Eastern Empire, —
drove back the Turks, as they approached the Bos-
phorus 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 Spanish historian leaves them.

It is an account, therefore, of a most wild
passage in ^ the affairs rather of the Middle * 192
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

224 COLOMA. [Period II.

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 Em-
peror who had raised him so high, — his blood soiling
the imperial table, to which, with treacherous hospi-
tality, he had been invited. The whole is written in a
bold and free, rather than in a careful style ; but the
colorino; is well suited to the dark g-roundwork 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.^^

Another military history written by a nobleman con-
nected 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 Carlos 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

21 "Expedicioii de los Catalanes con- same subject with the History, and in

tra Griegos y Turcog, por Francisco de 1841 gained a prize at Barcelona for its

Moncada, Conde de Osona," Barcelona, success at a festival, that reminds us of

1623, and Madrid, 1772 and 1805, 12mo. the days of the Floral Games and of

There is an edition, also, of Barcelona, Don Enrique de Villena. The best edi-

1842, 8vo, edited by Don Jaime Tio, tion of Moncada, however, is in the

with a ])oem at the end by Calisto Fer- " Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles,"

nandez Camporedondo, which is on the Tom. XXL, 18u2.

Chap. XXXVIIL] MELO. 225

when in camp, when in immediate action, and when in
winter-quarters ; and adding to his main narra-
tive occasional ghmpses of "^ the negotiations * 193
then going on in the Low Countries respecting
Spanish affiiirs, and of the intrigues of the courtiers at
Madrid round the death-bed of PhiHp 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
lano-uasre.^^

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 inde-
pendence 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 superintend the burial of above two thousand

22 "Las Guerras de los Estaclos Bax- I think, until it appeared in the Bib-
os, desde Maio, 1588, hasta el Ano lioteca de Aiitores Espanoles, Tom.
1599," Amberes, 1625 and 1635, 4to, XXVIIL, 1853. It did not deserve
and Barcelona, 1627. Ximeno, Tom. such neglect, for although it is much
I. p. 338. He was ambassador to devoted to strategetic science, as ex-
James I. of England, viceroy of Ma- hibi ted in that long and disastrous war,
jorca, etc., and died in 1637, sixty-four it is written with great purity of style,
years old. He was son of Juan de It had been preceded by a work of his
Coloma already noticed, ante, Vol. II. strictly on the art military, and en-
pp. 463 and 464, note. Don Bernar- titled " Theorica y Practica de la
dino de Mendoza had partly anticipated Guerra," which w^as first printed in
him, and given an account of ten years 1577, and went through two or three
of the war of Flanders, in his "Comen- editions, besides being translated into
tarios de la Guerra de lo sucedido en Italian. Mendoza died, blind and very
los Paises Baxos, 1566-1577," printed old, in a cell of the convent of his
at Madrid in 1592, and not reprinted, namesake St. Bernard at Madrid.
VOL. III. 15

226 MELO. [Period II.

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,
* 194 ^ exceed a hundred volumes, and the unpub-
lished 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 em-
braces 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 Bar-
celona, 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 fol-
lowed, — are all given with a freshness and power that

Chap. XXXVIII. ] MELO. 227

could come only from one who had shared in the feel-
ings he describes, and had witnessed the very move-
ments he sets before us with such a lifelike spirit. His
stj'le, too, is suited to his varying subjects ; sometimes
animated and forcible, sometimes quaint and idiomatic,
and sometimes in its dark hints and abrupt turns re-
minding: us of Tacitus. But the work is short, — not
longer than that of Mendoza, which was its model, —
and it covers only the sjDace of about six months at the
end of 1640 and the beginning of 1641.

Whether Melo intended to carry his narrative far-
ther is uncertain. From his striking conclusion, where
he says, " The events that followed — greater in them-
selves 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 * 195
the work he offers them. "If in anything I
have served you, I ask only that you would not en-
deavor 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 j udge 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 inten-
tions, he survived the publication of this interesting

228 MELO. SAAYEDRA FAXARDO. [Period 11.

work above twenty years^ and yet added nothing to its
pages.^^

From this period, prose composition, which had been
long infected with the bad taste of the age, suffered a
still farther and more marked decline. Saavedra Fax-
ardo, indeed, w^ho lived forty years ont of Spain, em-
ployed in diplomatic missions, was educated in a better
school, and formed himself on more w^orthy models,
than he could have found among his contemporaries at
home ; but his " History of the Goths in Spain "
* 196 *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.^* The only historian of eminence that
remains to be noticed in this period is, therefore, Solis.

Of him we have already spoken as a lyrical poet

23 " Historia de los Movimientos, ograpliy ever published; but, unliap-

Separacion, y Guerra de Cataluna, por pily, it is also one of the rarest, a large

Francisco Manuel de Melo," Lisboa, part of the impression of the first three

1645, and several other editions ; one volumes having been destroyed in the

by Sanchez, 1808, 12mo, and one at fire that followed the great earthquake

Paris, 1830. In reference to the suf- at Lisbon in 1755. Its author, who

ferings of Manoel de Melo, mentioned gives some account of himself in his

in the text, I would observe that there own work, was born in 1682, and died,

is a discrepancy in the accounts. The I believe, in 1770.

common statement of the length of his Another historical work of the same

imprisonments and exile is eighteen sort with that of Melo, and referring to

years, and Barbosa makes it fifteen ; the same period, may be noticed hei*",

but I hope, from a careful comparison though it is of less consequence, — I

of dates, that his imprisonment ex- mean, " Tumultos de la Ciudad y Rey-

tended only from 1644 to 1648, and no de Napoles en el Ano 1647, por

that his exile did not last above four Don Pablo Antonio de Tarsia," (Leon

years more. But this is bad enough. de Francia, 1670, fol.,)^ — a curious and

His poetry in Spanish has been men- interesting book on the wild and strange

tioned, ante, p. 26. For his life and troubles in Masaniello's time, regarded

multitudinous works, see the " Biblio- from the Spanish point of view,

theca Lusitana " of Diogo Barbosa Ma- '-^^ The work of Saavedra was con-

chado, (Lisboa, 1741 - 1759, 4 torn., tinned, very j)oorly, by Alonso ISTuiiez

folio,) which I have often referred to, de Castro, through the reign of Henry

as to the great authority on all matters II., the labors of both making seven

of fact in Portuguese literary history, volumes in the edition of Madrid,

though of little or no value for the lit- 1789-90, 12mo, of which the first

erary opinions it expresses. It is one two only, coming down to 716, are by

of the ampltist and most important Saavedra.
works of literary biography and bibli-

Chai". XXXVIIL] SOLIS. 229

and a dramatist, who in 1667 had retired from the
world, and dedicated himself to the separate service
of religion. He w\as, however, the official Histori-
ographer of the Indies, and thought himself bound to
do something in fulfilment of the duties of an office to
which a poor salary was attached, that, after all, seems
to have been ill paid. He chose for his subject " The
Conquest of Mexico," and, beginning with the condi-
tion of Spain wdien it was undertaken, and the appoint-
ment of Cortes , to command the invading force, he
brings his history dow^n 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 crowTled with brilliant adventures and atro-
cious 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 Solis,
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 wdiole, wdiose catastrophe is the fall of
the great Mexican empire.

The style of Solis is somewhat peculiar. That he
had the Roman historians, and especially Liv}^, before
him, as he wrote, is apparent both in the general air
of his work and in the structure of its individual sen-
tences. 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 * 197
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 Mari-

230 SOLIS. [Period II.

ana ; 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.

But 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, there-
fore, 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 Inquisi-
tion, — the unhappy Indians receive none of the his-
torian'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 Soils, 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 cor-
respondence which it is painful to read : one, for
instance, where he says, " I have many creditors who

Chap. XXXVIIL] SOLlS. 231

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. * 198
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 rem-
nants of his poverty to purchase expiatory masses.^^
Diego de Tebar, 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 Solis, as he had consoled theirs. ^^

Soils was the last of the good writers in the elder
school of Spanish history, 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 iii the Inquisition, — now closer

2S Mad. d'Auln 05^ (Voyage, ed. 1693, the latter being the sumptuous one

Tom. II. i^p. 17, 18) explains this cus- which Stirling calls "the triumph of

tom, and shows to what an absurd and the press of Sancha." Whether the

ridiculoas length it was cai'ried in the finely engraved head of Solis prefixed

time of Solis. An instance not cited to it is the one by Cano I do not know.

by her, however, but one that deserves It looks as if it might be woi'th}^ of

to be called magnificent, may be added. him ; but there was another by Tomas

When Philip IV. died in 1665, it was de Aguiar, which Solis himself praised

found that he had laid hy jrrivc/teli/ a in a sonnet. Stirling's Artists of Spain,

thousand doubloons to pay for five-and- 1848, pp. 1234, 803, 1377. The author

thirty thousand masses for his soul im- of the life prefixed to his poems says :

mediatel}^ after his death, besides a " Solis left materials for a continuation

hundred thousand ordered by his will. of the History of Mexico, but they are

Pedro Rodriguez de Monforte, Descrip- not now known to exist." A few of

cion de las Honras de Phelippe IV., his letters, with a sketch of his life, by

Madrid, 1666, 4to, f. 29. Mayans y Siscar, were published, as I

^° There are many editions of the have already noticed, in 1733. They

" Conquista de Mexico," the first being appear again, carefully revised, in the

that of Tiladrid, 1684, folio, and the " Cartas INIorales," etc., 1773. See

best in two vols., 4to, Madrid, 1783, — ■ ante, II. 42a, III. 43, 169.

2oJ CHARACTER OF SPANISH HISTORIAISTS. [Period II.

than ever united^ — was more hostile to bold and
faithful inc|uiry in the department of history than in
almost any other ; so that the generous national inde-
pendence and honesty annomiced in the old chronicles
were stopped midway in their career, before half of

their power had been put forth.^'^
^199 "^ Still, as we have seen, several of the histo-
rians that were produced even under the over-
shadowing influence of the Austrian family were not
unworthy of the national character. Mariana shows
much manly firmness, Solis much fervor, Zurita much
conscientious diligence, while Mendoza, Moncada, Colo-
ma, and Melo, who confined themselves to subjects em-
bracing 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 Span-
ish ; and what they want in finish and grace, they
make up in picturesqueness and originality.^^

2^ How little the true character of spectful to Berosus, Manetho, and the

history and the just attributes of an his- other miserable forgeries of Annius of

torian were understood in Spain even Viterbo, (Disc. 16,) and is full of super-

in its better days, may be well seen in stition and credulity (Disc. 17).

the treatise of Luis de Cabrera, the his- '^^ From the times of Charles V. and

torian of Philip II., entitled "De His- Philip II., when, in Aragon and Cas-

toria para entenderla y para escrivirla. " tile, chroniclers were multiplied as a

(Madrid, 1611, 4to.) It is a mere piece part of the pageantry of the court, the

of pedantry and pretension, wholly un- rest of the kingdoms that entered into

worthy a jierson who must then have the united Spanish monarchy began to

been considering how lie should himself desire to have their own separate histo-

write one of the most important reigns ries, as we can see in Valencia, where

in the affairs of modern Europe. He those of Beuter, Escolano, and Diago

hardly notices any of the preceding were written. Besides this, a great

Spanish historians, and when he refers number of the individual cities obtained

to Mariana (f. 33) it is only to carp at their own separate annals from the hand

him, while on the other hand he is re- of at least one author, — sometimes

Chap. XXXVIII.] CHARACTER OF SPANISH HISTORIANS. 233

works of authority, like that on Sego- as to be noticeable in the literary his-
via by Colmenares, and that on Seville tory of the country. Still, the spirit
by Ortiz de Zuiiiga. But though more that produced them in sucli great num-
of such local histories were written in bers, and especially the spirit which,
Spain between the middle of the six- during the reign of Philip II., made,
teenth and the end of the seventeenth with so much care and cost, the vast
century than were written during the collections of documents yet to be found
same period, I believe, in any other in the Castle of Simancas and the con-
country in Europe, none of them, so vent of the Escurial, should not be
far as I know, has such peculiar merit overlooked. See ante, p. 176.

*200 *CHAPTEE XXXIX.

PROVERBS : SANTILLANA, GARAY, NUNEZ, MAL LARA, PALMIRENO, OUDIN, SORA-
PAN, CEJUDO, YRIARTE. — DIDACTIC PROSE : TORQUEMADA, ACOSTA, LUIS DE
GRANADA, JUAN DE LA CRUZ, SANTA TERESA, MALON DE CHAIDE, ROXAS,
FIGUEROA, MARQUEZ, VERA Y ZUNIGA, NAVARRETE, SAAVEDRA, QUEVEDO,
ANTONIO DE VEGA, NIEREMBERG, GUZMAN, DANTISCO, ANDRADA, VILLALO-
BOS, PATON, ALEMAN, FARIA Y SOUSA, FRANCISCO DE PORTUGAL. — GONGO-
RISM IN prose: GRACIAN, ZABALETA, LOZANO, HEREDIA, RAMIREZ. — FAIL-
URE OF GOOD DIDACTIC PROSE.

The last department in the literature of any country,
that comes within the jurisdiction of criticism on ac-
count of its style, is that of Didactic Prose ; since in
this branch, so remote from everything 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 except-
ing 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, how-
ever, Spain stands in advance of all other countries ; I
mean that of Proverbs, which Cervantes has happily
called "short sentences drawn from long experience."^
Spanish proverbs can be traced back to the earliest
times. One of the best known — " Laws go where

1 Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 39. Lope she relies on for rendering her conver-
says much the same thing in his " Do- sation savory, adds, " Hijo, estos son
rotea," where Gerarda, a coarse and todos los lihros del mundo en quinta
nnsucoessfnl imitation of Cc/c,s;;m«, after essencia. Compusolos el uso y con-
pouring out to her dupe the proverbs firmolos la experiencia, Acto V. sc. 1.

Chap. XXXIX.] PEOVERBS. 235

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 tAvelfth cen-
tury, when ^ the language of Castile had hardly "^ 201
a distinct existence.^ 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;^
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 expecta-
tions, cited in Don Quixote more than once : " He went
for wool and came back shorn." ^ Several occur in the
'- Conde Lucanor " of Don John Manuel,^ and many in
the poetry of the Archpriest of Hita,^ both of whom
lived in the time of Alfonso the Eleventh.

Thus far, however, we have only separate and iso-
lated 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 re-

2 In the great contest between the Et non cates a quien," — so that the

two liturgies, the Roman and the Goth- proverb was old in the thirteenth cen-

ic, which disturbed tlie Church of Spain tury. Cuatro Palmetazos bien planta-

for so long a period, Alfonso VI. deter- dos, Cadiz, 1830, 4to, p. 12, and note 5.

mined to throw a copy of each into a Another very old one and full of Avis-

fire duly kindled and blessed for the dom is — "Fijo eres y padre seras ;

purpose, aud give the supremacy to qualficieres, talhabras," — "A son thou

the one that should come out uncon- art, but father shalt be ; and what thou

sumed. The Gothic MS. was success- dost shall be done to thee."
ful ; but the king broke his word, and ^ Dissertation of Cortes in Mayans y

tossed it back into the flames, thus Siscar, Origenes, Tom. 11. p. 211.
giving rise, it is said, to the proverb, * Chronica General, 1604, Parte III.

"Alia van leyes adondequierenreyes" ; f. 61, and Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 7.
or, " Laws are things that follow kings " ^ For example : " Ayudad vos, y Dios

(Sarmiento, § 411). A similar histor- ayudarvos ha," — "Help yourself and

ical origin is given to the proverb, "ISTi God will help you," — near the end;

quito rey, ni pongo rey," — "No king and " El Bien nunca muere," — "Good

I take, no king 1 make"; which is never dies," — which is in the first tale,
traced to the personal quarrel of Peter ^ "Quien en 1' arenal sembra, non

th? Cruel and his brother and successor, trilla pegujares," — " He that sows on

Don Enrique. Clemenciii, ed. Don the sea-beach reaps little for himself."

Quixote, Tom. VI., 1839, p. 225. And Stanza 160. Pegujares, a singular word,

in the "Castigos" of King Sancho, which occurs once in Don Quixote, is

chap. 38, (see cuite, Peiiod I. Chap. IV., said by Clemencin (Tom. IV. p. 34) to

note 14,) written about 1293, we have come from pecuUo. See, also, Partida

the following words: " Por eso diz la I., Tit. xxi. Ley 3, and Partida IV.,

palabra del proverbio antiguo, Faz bien, Tit. xvii. Ley 7.

236 PROVERBS. [Period II.

quest, 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.^
^ 202 '^ 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, wTote 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. 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 alpha-
betical series of four thousand three hundred of them
in 1549;^ and the famous Greek scholar and distin-
guished nobleman, Hernan Nuiiez de Guzman, Profes-
sor successively at AlcaU and at Salamanca, found

■^Reprinted in Mayans, Origenes, have seen is that of Venice, 1553, 12mo ;

Tom. II. pp. 179-210. See also the probably not the first. The second of

Proverbs from Seneca by Pero Diaz, the letters of Garay is not in proverbs,

mentioned in note 34 to Period I. and, in this edition, is followed by a

chap. 19, and pp. 340, 341, of Vol. I. devout prayer ; the whole being in-

^ I have never seen the Proverbs col- tended, as the author says, "to wm

lected by Pedro Valles, the Aragonese, the attention not so much of the wise

1549, but Mayans y Siscar had in his as of those who are wont to read noth-

■ library a copy of them, which is de- ing but Celestina and such books."

i-cribe"d in the "Specimen Bibliothec!« The "Prcverbios" of Francisco de Cas-

His]>ano-Majansian8e, etc., ex Musreo tilla, in the volume with his " Theorica

Davidis dementis," Hannoverse, 1753, de Virtudes," (1552, ff. 64-69,) are not

4to, p. 67. The "Cartas de Blasco de proverbs, but an exhortation in verse

Garay " have been often printed ; but to a wise aiid holy life,
the oldest and most complete edition I

Chap. XXXIX.] PROVERBS. 237

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 Nunez ; rather, as he intimates, from respect to the
person from whom he received the charge, than from
regard to the dignity of the employment.^

^ Out of these proverbs, another friend of * 203
Hernan Nunez — Mai Lara, a Sevilian — se-
lected a thousand, and, adding a commentary to each,
published them in 1568, under the not inappropriate
title of '^ Philosophy of the Common People " ; a vol-
ume 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 his-
torical 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, pub-
lished two collections, in which it was intended that
the condensation of popular experience and wisdom

^ "Eefranes, ec, que coligio y gloso, II. c. 34. Geronimo de Serrano, in his

el Coniendador, Hernan Nunez, Pro- biographical notice to the " Laude de

fesor de Retorica en la Universidad de Mugeres," Milano, 1580, says that its au-

Salanianca," Madrid, 1619, 4to. The thor, Joan de Spinosa, had " mas de seis

preface, by Leo de Castro, implies that mil proverbios vulgares, que ha recogido

the volume was printed during the life y parte dellos compuesto." If many of

of ISTunez, who died in 1553 ; but I find them were over and above the six thou-

no edition older than that of 1555. See sand of Hernan ISTunez, we should be

the note of Pellicer to Don Quixote, Parte very curious to»see this early collection.

238

PEOYERBS.

[Period II.

should teack medicine, as, in the hands of Mai Lara,
they had been made to teach the philosophy of life.
And finally, in 1675, Cejudo, a schoolmaster of Val de
Penas, gave the world about six thousand, with the
corresponding Latin adages, whenever he could iind
them, and with explanations more satisfactory often

than had been furnished by his predecessors.^*^
# 204 * Still, though so many thousands have been

collected, many thousands still remain unpub-
lished, known only among the traditions of the hum-
bler 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 industri-
ous, living in Madrid, could exhaust their number, as

1° "La Filosofia Vulgar de Juan de
Mai Lara, Vezino de Se villa," (Sevilla,
1558, Madrid, 1618, 4to, etc.,) — a per-
son of note in his time, whom we have
mentioned {ante, II. 61) among the
dramatic poets, and who died in 1571,
forty-four years old. (Seman. Pinto-
resco, 1845, p. 34.) The collection of
Lorenzo Palmireno is reprinted in tlie
fourth volume of Nunez, ed. Madrid,
1804, 12mo. Oudin's collection was
reprinted at Brussels in 1611, 12mo,
and at Paris in 1659. Juan Sorapan
de Rieros, " Medecina Espaiiola, en
Proverbios Vulgares de Nuestra Len-
gua," was printed at Granada, 1616-17,
4to, in two parts. "Refranes Castella-
nos con Latinos, ec, por el Licenciado
Geronimo Martin Caro y Cejudo," Ma-
drid, 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 aft( rwards ; e. g.
Bruselas, 1629, Madrid, 1665, etc.,) —
the last of which is a pleiXoant book,
praised by Lope de Vega in his iirst
tale, and of which a curious account
may be found in Wolf, on Frances de
Zuniga's Clironik, pp. 2, 3, — because
both of them are rather jest-books than

collections of proverbs. The "Pro-
verbios Morales " of Christ. Perez de
Herrera (Madrid, 1618, 4to) are in
rhyme, — learned imitations of Varros,
— and too poor to deserve notice.

The " Proverbios de Alonso de Varros
concordados por el Maestro Bartolome
Ximenez Paton" (Bae9a, 4to, 1605, ff.
78) are eleven hundred Greek and Latin
Proverbs translated into terse Castilian
rhymes, and sometimes, though rarelj^
rendered by corresponding national
proverbs. They were very popular in
their time, for the first edition was of
1567, and was followed by at least five
others. I have an Italian translation
of them, Venice, 1622. All the prov-
erbs of Varros except the first five begin
with the word " Ni " ; — a poor afiecta-
tion. Other collections are mentioned
by Gaj'-angos . ■ — viz. Alonso de Fu-
entes, 1548 ; Juan Ruiz de Bustamente,
1551 ; and Francisco Thamara, 1552,
(See Spanish translation of this Histo-
ry, Tom. III. p. 556.) About seven-
teen hundred national proverbs, taken
from the Dictionary of the Academy
and elucidated, may be found in "Re-
franes de la Lengua Castellaua " (Bar-
celona, 1815, 2 vols., 12mo).

Chap. XXXIX.] DIDACTIC PROSE. 239

they belong rather to the provinces than to the
capital^ and are spread everywhere among the com-
mon people, and through all their dialects.^^

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 lan-
guage 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 lit-
erature ; 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 na-
tional proverbs for what is purest in his native Cas-
tilian.^2

^ Turning now to the proper Didactic Prose * 205
of Spanish literature, the first instance we
find — after those formerly noticed as imitating the
Italian philosophical discussions of the sixteenth cen-
tury — is one that comes near to the borders of fiction.
It is the " Garden of Curious Flowers," by Torque-
mada, originally published in 1570, of which the cn-

11 Vargas y Ponce, Declamacion, Ma- ^^ Mayans y Siscar, Origenes, Tom.

drid, 1793, 4to, App., p. 93. An anony- T. pp. 188 - 191, and the Dialogo de las

mous author, however, who speaks of Lenguas, p. 12, where the author says,

the collectors of proverbs, and, among "In our proverbs, you see the puritj'"

the rest, of Yriarte, says the most com- of the Castilian language" ; and p. 170,

plete collection had been made by D. where he says, ',' The purest Castilian

Gonzalo Correa. " Defensa de D. Fern. we have is in our proverbs." The

Perez, Autor de la Carta de Paracuellos, " "Don Quixote" will occur to every-

Madrid, 1 790, p. 30. Thei-e is a very body as a book that proves how much

good life of Yriarte in Vol. II. of the proverbs enter into Spanish literature ;

" Espagne Litteraire," 1774; a poor but I should rather cite the " Celes-

periodical by Nicolas Bricaire de Dix- tina," where their number is, T think,

merie, which did not survive the 5^ear equally great in proportion, and their

of its birth, although in 1810 a sort of serious application more eifective.
rifacimento of it was published at Paris.

240 TOKQUEMADA. [Perioi> II.

rate, 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, w^hich,
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 produc-
tions of nature, the terrestrial paradise, phantasms and
enchantments, the influence of the stars, and the his-
tory 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, Glaus 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,
besides being translated into Italian and French, are
well knowm. 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 spec-
tres 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
^206 wonders of Friesland and Iceland, *when he

wrote the first part of his " Persiles and Sigis-
munda." ^^

13 "Jardin de Flores Curiosas, ec, 1575, 18mo, fills 536 pages. "The
por Ant. de Torquemada," 1570, 1573, Spanish Mandeville of Miracles, or the
1587, 1589. The edition of Auveres, Garden of Curious Flowers," (London,

Chap. XXXIX.] ACOSTA. 241

Christy val cle Acost.i, a Portuguese botanist, — who
was accustomed to call himself " the African," because
he happened to be born in one of the African posses-
sions of Portugal, — travelled much in the East, and
after his return published, in 1578, a work on Ori-
ental plants and drugs, to which he added at the end
a treatise on the natural history of the Elephant.
But, thouorh he succeeded in attractino; the attention
of EurojDC to this publication, and though the early
part of his life had been that of a soldier, an adven-
turer, 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 Soli-
tude," 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.^^

It was not, however, moral and philosophical writers,
like Oliva and Guevara, nor writers on subjects con-

1600, 4to, ) is a translation into good "bosa, in his life of Acosta, spells his

old English, by Lewes Lewkenor, as name Da Costa. All the works of Acos-

appears by the second Dedication in ta were printed at Venice by Giacomo

the second edition, 1618, though it Cornetti, 1592, 4to.
is commonly attributed to Ferdinand A work not unlike Acosta's "Loor

Walker, who originally published it. de las Mugeres" was published at Milan

I have also an Italian translation of it in 15S0, after the death of its author,

by Celio Malespina, printed at Ven- Joan de Spinosa, and entitled "Dia-

i 'C, 1612, but with a dedication dated logo en Laude la las Mugeres," but it

1590. The original is strictly prohib- was dedicated by himself to Mary, Era-

itc-d in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, press of Austria and daughter of Charles

p. 68. The " Coloquios Satiricos," by V. Spinosa was distinguished as a

tic same author, (1553,) I have never soldier from the time of the battle of

seen. Ravenna, and aftenvards as a diploraa-

1* "Tractado de las Drogas y Medi- tist ; but he loved letters, and Avrote

cinas de las Indias Orientales, por Chris- with vigor in the pure style of the time

toval Acosta," Burgos, (1578, 4to,) of Philip II., though with a little os-

where its author was a surgeon ; but tentation of learning. He maintains

there are other editions, (1582 and (fF. 45, etc.) that woman by her organi-

1592,) and early Italian and French zation is more perfect than man. An-

translations. The "Tractado en Loor other work by him, of which he speaks

de las Mugeres, por Christoval Acosta, in this one, — the Micracanthos, — ■ I

Affricano," was printed at Venice, 1592, have never seen, and am not sure that

4to, and I know no other edition. Bar- it was ever |)rinted.

VOL, III. 16

242 LUIS DE GRAN'ADA. [Period IL

nected with' natural history, like Torquemada
* 207 and Acosta, that ^ were most favored in the
reigns of PhiHp the Second and his immediate
successors. It was the ascetics and mystics, — the nat-
ural 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, Hke 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 mod-
erate 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 favor-
ite book of devotion in Spain ever since it first ap-
peared, 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
a Kempis. In its native country, however, the Guide
for Sinners encountered at first not a little opposition.

CHAr. XXXIX.] SA^^ JUA>7 DE LA CRUZ. 243

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 1568. But the very Index
that condemned it became itself the subject of con-
demnation ; 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 proclama-
tion to all who should have read or heard a
* chapter of the very work they had earlier so * 208
harshly censure d.^*^

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, wdiatever
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 its best years,
he had been the active and venerated head.^^

San Juan de la Cruz, who was in some respects an
imitator of Luis de Granada, was born in 1542, and,

i^i 111 the preface to " Cervantes liaring liad an edition of them pub-
Vindicado," by Juan Calderon, Ma- lished by Planta, at the expense of
drid, [London/] 1854, p. 9,vit is said' the Duke of Alva, the minister and
that the "Guiade Pecadores" was miich general of Philip II. A Avhimsical in-
altered by ecclesiastical authorit}" m the timation of the Y>opularity in Fj'ance,
editions permitted subseq[iient to the about 1660, of the French translation
first; so much as to make them seem of the " Guia de Pecadores," may be
different works, dos diversos tratados. found in Moliere's " Cocii Imaginaire,"

1^ Preface to Obras de Luis de Gra- (sc. 1,) where the father, endearoring

nada, Madrid, 1657, folio, and Preface to give his daughter what he deems

to Guia de Pecadores, ]\Iadrid, 1781, proper notions about life, recommends

8vo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. to her several books instead of the

33. Llorente, Hist., Tom. III. p. 123. fashionable romance of "Clelie," and,

Biblioteca de Autores Esp., Tom. VI., among the others, says of tins one,

A'^ITL, XI. His woi'ks are numerous, " La Guide des Pecheurs est encore im

and he enjoys the singular honor of bon livre."

244 SANTA TERESA. [Pekiod II.

having spent tlie greater part of his Hfe in reforming
the discipUne of the Carmehte monasteries, died in
1591, and was beatified in 1674. His works, which are
mostly contemplative, and obtained for him the title
of the Ecstatic Doctor, are w^ritten with great fervor.
The chief of them are the allegory of " The Ascent to
Mount Carmel," and "The Dark Night of the Soul," —
treatises whicli have given him much reputation for a
mystical eloquence, that sometimes rises to the sub-
lime, 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 phrase-
ology.-^^
* 209 * Santa Teresa, who was associated with Juan
de la Cruz in the work of reforming the Car-
melites, — 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 sev-
eral 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

1^ Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, Se- character of Juan de la Cruz, whose
villa, 1703, folio, twelfth, edition. A secular name was Yepe,% in the twenty-
very curious Life of him was written in seventh volume of the Biblioteca de
]623, entitled " Suma de la Vida y Autores Espaiioles, -written in the very
Milagros del Venerable Padre, Fray spirit of the saint, and well worth read-
Juan de la Cruz." My copy is in 4to, ing. His works are in the same volume.
and was printed at Antwerp in 1625. His poetry has been printed in a neat
It was a popular work, intended prob- volume, Munster, 1854, edited by W.
ably to prepare the way for his canoni- Storck, who has well translated it into
zation, and is well calculated for its Gei;man, in another neat volume, piint-
purpose. There is a discussion of the ed at the same time and place.

Chap. XXXIX.] SANTA TERESA. 245

to be often in direct communion with Gocl ; 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 wdiatever 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 In- *.210
quisition ; 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."^^

1" Obras de Santa Teresa, (Madrid, ton, March, 1849. Her works are ac-

1793, 2 torn. 4to,) Tom. I. p. 393. Of comx)anied with many offers of indnl-

her letters I have spoken at the end of gence to those who read a chapter or a

Chapter XXX VI I. of this Period, and letter of any of them, or hear it read.

an excellent discussion of her charac- For her troubles with the Inquisition,

ter, and that of the mystical school to see Llorente, Tom. III. p. 114. Santa

whi^h she belonged, may be found in Teresa was beatified in 1614, and can-

the'' Christian Examiner, No, 152, Bos- onized in 1622 ; besides which, in 1617

246 SCHOOL OF SPIRITUALISTS. [Peeiod II.

This school of spirituahstS; 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 repu-
tation 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 pro-
duced 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 com-
pletely to emancipate itself
* 211 "^ 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

and 1626, the Cortes chose her to be ing the exclusive right of St. James in

the co-patroness and advocate of Sjmin his "Patronato de St. lago," — a tract

with Santiago ; an honor that was long which cost him an exile and imprison-

resisted, but was urged anew by the ment of several months, — so fierce

testament of Charles II., and confirmed was the quarrel in 1628.

by the Cortes of 1812, June 28, at the The Works of Santa Teresa, it may

urgent petition of the Carmelites, in a be noted, are attracting regard in the

spirit worthy of the age in which she United States, where her " Aatobiogra-

lived. See Southey's Peninsular War, phy" and "Way of Perfection" are

London, 1832, 4to, Tom. III. p. 539. announced among the standard publi-

Quevedo entered into the discussion cations of the Catholic Church,
about the patronship of Spain, defend-

Chap. XXXIX.] MALOX DE CHAIDE. 247

on the three characters of Mary Magdalen as a sinner^
a penitent; and a saint. It has a very rhetorical air
tlirouo;hout, and sometimes reads almost like a ro-
mance ; — so free is its conception of the character
and conversations of the saint. But some of its dis-
cussions, like one on fashionable dress, and one on re-
ligious 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 Gar-
cilasso de la Yega, 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 mean-
ing is not always plain. But, on the whole, and re-
garded as an exhortation to a religious life^ the Con-
version 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 ad-
mi red. ^^

_ IS ]\ralon de Chaide was an Augus- as a courtly offering to Isabella, wife of
tinian monk, and Professor at Salanian- Philip II., whose chaplain Horosco was.
ca ; and there are editions of his Jlag- The best of Horosco's works is said by
dalen of 1592, Alcala, 12mo, of 1596, Gayangos to be the " Epistolario Chris-
1598, 1603, 1794, etc., and it is in the tiano " (1567, 12mo. ff. 301). It con-
Bib] ioteea de Autores Espanoles, Tom, sists of twelve long epistles, much like
XXVII. 1853. A somewhat similar sermons, addressed to persons in differ-
book had preceded it, " The History of ent conditions of life, such as a bishop,
the Queen of Sheba, when she dis- a priest, Don Carlos, to whom the
coursed with King Solomon in Jerusa- book is dedicated, etc. Horosco wrote
lem." It was written by another An- a great deal, and died in 1591. Of the
gusHnian monk, Alonso de Horosco, same class with the jMagdalena, and
and was printed at Salamanca in 1568, more like it than Horosco's woik, in
12mo. But it is little more than a col- some respects, is the treati-^e on the
lection of ordinary sermons, some of Love of God — "Amor de Dios" — by
which do not mention the Qu^en of Christoval de Fonseca, a<:;:iin an Auf'.is-
Sheba at all, and is to be regarded only tinian monk, wiio died above seventy

248 EOXAS. [Period IL

^^212 ^ Quite different from all these grave works
is '' The Amusing Journey " of Agustin de
Koxas, — a book that hardly falls within the strict
limits of any class^ but one which has always been
popular in Spain, and is didactic if it is anything.
Its author was an actor ; and his travels consist of an
account of some of his personal adventures and expe-
riences, 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 mo-
lested by scruples of any sort, make up a very amus-
ing 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

years old, about the year 1614. It was subjects, commonly fill three volumes,
first prmted, I believe, in 1594, but and are written in the solemn, learned,
there were many editions of it, called pure style of the sixteenth century,
forth, no doubt, by the gentleness of its They were first published in 1605, but
spirit, no less than by the- Castilian the number of editions since has been
purity of its style, worthy the neighbor- very great, and they have, besides,
hood of Toledo, where Fonseca was born been translated two or three times into
and always lived. Latin, twice into French, and once, at
The "Discursos de la Paciencia Chris- least, into Italian, English, and Flemish,
tiana," which was the only work of A very similar work, of about equal
Fray Fernando de Zarate, — first pub- size, and, if of somet^'hat less j)ower and
lished in 1593, again in 1597, and now popularity, yet to be noted for both,
lately in 1853, in the Biblioteca of Ei- was published at Seville in 1614, when
vadeneyra, Tom. XXVIl., — should be he was eighty-eight years old, by Al-
added, but it is not of equal merit with phonso Eodriguez, another Jesuit, born
the works of the ju'incipal mystical and in Valladolid, but who lived chiefly at
ascetic writers whom we have already Seville, and died there, February 21,
noticed. Parts of it are very flat, — 1616, the day he had completed his
some parts are even vulgar, — but it is ninetieth year. This work, the child
always clear in its style, and sometimes of his extreme old age, was, I believe,
forcible. the only one he ever wrote, and is en-
Better, however, than either of the titled "Exercicio de Perfeccion," being
last are the " Meditaciones Espiritu- the result, in some sort, of his long re-
ales," the princijial and best of several ligious experience. Like the "Medita-
similar works of Luis de la Puente, an clones" of La Puente, it is written in a
eminent Jesuit who died at Valladolid, pure style, becoming its nature and
his native city, in 1624, seventy years purpose, and embraces almost all the
old. His Meditations on the Mysteries subjects of Chiistian reflection and
of Christian Faith, on Mental Prayer, meditation. Like that, too, it was
and on a multitude of other similar translated and read all over Europe.

Chap. XXXIX.] SUAREZ DE FIGUEROA. 249

imfrequentlj reminds us of Gil Bias, 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 Shakespeare 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 * 213
all of them, interspersed wuth forty or fifty has,
which Roxas wrote w^ith recognized success, and of
wdiich he is evidently very proud. It is a pleasant
book, loosely and carelessly put together, but impor-
tant 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 "- Eoman Comique."
From internal evidence, " The Amusing Journey " was
wa'itten in 1602, and, at the end, a continuation is
announced; but, like so many other promises of the
same sort in Spanish literature, this one was never
kept.^^

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 " Amarilis,"
published in 1617 a half-narrative, half-didactic work
wuth this title, containing ten long discussions, on a

19 An edition of 1583 is cited by An- of Roxas, called " El Biien Republico,"

tonio, (Bib. Xov., Tom. I. p. 178,) but 1611, was wholly prohibited, meddling

this cannot be. See Viage, Madrid, too much with questions of state.
1640, 12mo, f. 66, a. The Hrst edition Roxas, when he was in Malaga, in

must be that of Madrid, 1603, cited in 1599, says that he was twenty-two

the Index Expurgatorius, 1667, where years old, so tliat he was probably born

it is roughly handled, but since which in 1577. When he died is not known,

it has been often re])rinted. Clemen- but he seems to have led a merry life,

cin, (Don Quixote, Tom. III. p. 395,) and wrote a book to match. A part

when speaking of Spanish actors, right- of the time, during which he was an

ly calls the Viage of Roxas ' ' libro ma- actor, lie was in the troupe of the famous

gisti-al en la materia." Another work Rios, mentioned ante, II. 265, note.

250 STIAREZ DE FIGUEROA. [Peuiod II.

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
ovvm 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, mingled with fiction and extra-
neous matter, is contained in the sixth, seventh, and
eighth dialogues, is interesting, and so are the ninth
and tenth dialogues, in ^vhich 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. ^^

T> ii^ Pasagero, Advertencias iiti- other respects, seems to "be fitted to the
lissmias a la Vida Humana, por el Doc- time when it Avas published, with a
tor Christ. Suarezde Figueroa," Madrid, skill in recasting it,_ acquired, I sus-
1617, 12mo, it'. 492. Figueroa also pect, among the Jesuits,
published (Madrid, 1621, 4to) a volume A more serious book of travels might
of five hundred pages, entitled " Varias here have been added ; that of Pedro
Noticias importantes a la Humana Co- Ordonez de Cevallos, entitled ' ' Viage
municacion," which he divides into del Mundo," and first printed at Ma-
twenty essays, entitled " Variedades." drid, 1614, 4to. It is an agreeable and
It is less well wiitten than the Pasa- often interesting autobiography of its
gero, falling more into the faults of the author, beginning Avith his birth at
time. The seventeenth Essay, how- Jaen and his education at Seville, and
ever, which is on Domestic Life, with giving his travels, for thirty-nine years,
illustrations from Spanish history, is all over the world, including China,
pleasant. His "Plaza Universal de America, many parts of Africa, and the
las Ciencias," first printed at Madrid, northern kingdoms of Europe. Its
in 161.5, 4to, and reprinted in folio, spirit is eminently national, and its
with large changes and additions, in style simple and Castilian.
1737, is an attempt, from the Italian of "This work of Cevallos furnished some
Thomas Garzoni, at a compendium of of the materials for an amusing French
human knowledge, curious in the first fiction of the picaresque sort, entitled
edition, as showing the state of knowl- " Les Aventures de Don Juan de Var-
edge and opinion at that time in Spain, gas racontees par lui-meme. Traduites
but of less importance in the second, del' Espagnol sur le manuscrit inedit."
which omits many passages of Fi'jueroa (Paris, 1853, 18mo.) Some of the_ re-
that are now of value, 'and which, ixi views that noticed it were deluded into

Chap. XXXIX.] VARIOUS DIDACTIC PROSE WRITERS. 251

^ Some of tlie best portions of the didactic ^214
literature of Spain during the seventeenth cen-
tury were partly or wholly political. Marquez, a
writer in the rich old style of the reign of Philip the
Second, published in 1612 his " Christian Governor,"
as set forth in the lives of Moses and Joshua, 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." ^^ Yera y Zuniga, 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 learn-
ing, and occasionally illustrated with appropriate anec-
dotes drawn from Spanish history, but citing indiscrim-
inately books of authority and no authority on the
grave subjects he discusses, and relying appar-
ently with as much confidence, in questions *of * 215
diplomacy, upon an opinion of Ovid as upon one
of Comines.^^ Fernandez de Navarrete, a secretary of
the same monarch, chose his subject a little higher up,
and in 1626, rmder 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 trea-

accepting it as a genuine translation por Juan Marquez." There are edi-

from the Spanish, — so national is its tions of 1612, 1619, 1634, 1651, etc.,

tone and manner, — but it is really the withtranslations into Italian and French,

work of Mons. Henri Ternaux-Compans, The same author wrote also "Dos Esta-

the well-known Spanisli scholar. dos de la Espiritual Jerusalem," 1608.

There is also another smaller work of He was born in 1564, and died in 1621.

Cevallos, entitled "Relaciones verda- CajDmany (Eloquencia, Tom. IV. pp.

deras de los Eeynos de la China, Cochin- 103, etc.) praises him highly, but not

China, Champaa," ec, (Jaen, 1660, too much.

4to,) full of wild stories of the author's ^^ " El Embaxador, por Don Juan An-

ad ventures and of the progress of Chris- tonio de Vera y Zuniga," Se villa, 1620,

tianity in China. 4to, 280 leaves. I have noticed him as

■^1 "El Governador Christiano, dedu- an epic poet, Vol. II. p. 503,
cido de las Vidas de Moyses y Josua,

252 SAAYEDRA FAXARDO. [Period TI.

tise is so enciiinbered with ill-assorted learning and
ungraceful conceits that it was soon forgotten.^^

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 still higher subject than either of
those taken by Navarrete and Figueroa, and managed
with more talent, and with a large and liberal wisdom
rare in his time. Under the awkward arrangement of
a hundred ingenious Emblems, with mottoes, that are
generally well chosen and pointed, he has given a hun-
dred essays on the education of a prince ; — his rela-
tions 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 Bal-

thasar, son of Philip the Fourth, to whom it is
* 216 dedicated, but who died too "^ young to profit

by its wisdom. It is written in a compact,
sententious, somewhat dainty style, with much quaint
and curious knowledge of history, and with a large
and not always judicious display of learning. But in

23 "-^i Perfecto Privado, Carta de them attempts at wisdom and wit in

Lelio Peregrine a Estanislao Borbio, the worst taste of their tunes.

Privado del Rey de Polonia." It is It may be noted, that the " Conser-

found in a letter with the date of May vaeion de Monarquias " of ISTavarrete

30, 1612, at the end of the author's — a bold work, in which many whole-

" Conservacion de Monarquias," folio, some truths, not unmixed with jmla-

Madrid, 1626, and also in " Varios Elo- table errors, are told to Philip IV. —

quentes Libros recogidos eu uno," (Ma- was originally published in 1621, in the

drid, 1726, 4to,) a volume which, besides time of Philip III., with the title of

the above work of Navarrete, contains " Discursos Politieos," and that in this

the ' ' Retrato Politico del Rey Alfonso form it is much shorter, although

VIII.," by Gaspar Mercader y Cervel- equally plain-spoken. Both this work

Ion, (see Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 99,) the and the "Carta de Lelio" are in the

" Govierno Moral" of Polo, (noticed, twenty-fifth volume of the Biblioteca

ante, pp. 38, and 146, 147,) with some de Autores Espaiioles, 1853. Navar-

discussions which it excited, and the rete is strong upon the causes of the

" Lagrimas de Heraclito defendidas," decay of Spain, among Avhich he enu-

a tract by Antonio de Vieyra, i^ead be- merates the expulsion of the Jews and

fore Christina of Sweden, at Rome, to Moriscoes, the monastic establislmients,

])rove that the world, is more worthy of the contenq^t of labor, mayorazgos, for-

being wept over than lauglied at ; all of eign wars, etc.

Chap. XXXIX.] YAEIOUS DIDACTIC PROSE WRITERS. 253

many points it reminds us of Sir Walter Raleigh's
"Cabinet Council" and Owen Feltliam'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.^*

" The Divine PoUtics " 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 Yega, the Portuguese, to
write his "Political Dream of a Perfect Nobleman,"
in 1626 ;^^ Nieremberg, the Jesuit, to w^ite his " Man-
ual for Gentlemen and Princes," which appeared in
1629 ; ^^ and Benavente, his " Advice for Kings,

2* "Empresas Politicas, Idea de un in an unaffected style. The poetry of

Principe Chiistiano, por Diego Saavedra Antonio de Vega has been noticed,

Faxardo." The number of editions is ante, p. 25.

Tery great, — above twenty, — and so ^^ " Obras y Dias, Manual de Senores

is that of the translations. There are, y Principes, por Juan Eusebio Nierem-

I think, two in English, one of which berg," Madrid, 1629, 4to, ff. 220. His

is by Sir J. Astry, London, 1700, 2 father and mother were Germans, who

vols. 8vo. A Latin version which ap- came to Spain -with the Empress of

peared at Brussels in 1640, the year in Austria, Dona Maria, but he himself

which the original Spanish appeared at was born at Madrid in 1595, and died

Munster, has also been reprinted. there in 1658. Antonio (Bib. Nov.,

25 " El Perfeto Senor, ec, de Antonio Tom. L p. 686) and Baena (Tom. III.
Lopez de Vega," 1626 and 1652, the p. 190) give long lists of his works,
latter, Madrid, 4to. He published also chiefly in Latin. The " Contempla-
(Madrid, 1641, 4to) a series of moral tions on the State of Man," published
Dialogues, on various subjects connect- in 1684, seventeen years after the death
ed with Rank, Wealth, and Letters, of Jeremy Taylor, as Ms icork, turns
under the title of ' ' Heraclito y Demo- out to have been substantially taken
crito de nuestro Siglo," and giving the from a treatise of Nieremberg, pub-
opposite views of each, which the names lished as early as 1654, and as late as
of the interlocutors imply ; a book that 1765, and entitled "Diferencia de lo
affords sketches of manners and opin- Temporal y Eterno" ; the "Contem-
ions at the time it was written, that are plations," however, being a rifacirnento
often amusing, and generally delivered of an English translation of the work

254

SAAYEDRA FAXARDO^ AND OTHERS. [Peiiiod II.

-217 Princes, "^and Ambassadors," which appeared in
1643.^"^ But none of these works, nor anything
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
Eepublic," and in which he discusses somewhat satiri-
cally, but in a vein of agreeable criticism, the merits
of the principal writers of ancient and modern times,
foreign and Spanish. The Literary Republic, how-
ever, was not published till after its author's death,
and never enjoyed a popularity like that enjoyed by
his longer and elder work; which leaves far behind
everything in the class of books of emblems, that so
long served to tax the ingenuity of the higher classes
of society in Europe. ^^

of Nieremberg, by Sir Vivian Mulli-
neaux, published in 1672. (See an in-
teresting pamplilet on this subject,
"Letter to Joshua AVatson, Esq., etc.,
by Edw. Churton, M. A., Archdeacon
of Cleveland," London, 1848, 8vo.)
Why the mistake was not earlier detect-
ed, 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 1733-31:, at the Convent of
St. John, on the Mountain of the
Druses. See Brunet.

Nieremberg's works, though popular
in their time, are of little worth. One
of the more characteristic of them is
his "Curiosa Filosoiia y Tesoro de Ma-
ravillas de la jSTaturaleza," 1630 ; — in-
tended to be a philosophical discussion
on subjects of interest relating to the
physical sciences ; but as full of credu-
lity as ignorance and superstiion united
can make it. No book could more
plainly show the want of Father Fey-
joo's "Tcatro Critico," wliich was yet
a century off".

^'^ " Advertencias para Reyes, Pii'n-
cipes, y Embaxadores, por Don Chris-
toval de Benavente y Benavides," Ma-
drid, 1643, 4to, pp. 700. It a good
deal resembles the "Embaxador" of
Vera y Zuniga ; 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.

2^ His " Republica Literaria " is a
light work, in the manner of Lucian,
written with great purity of language,
and was not printed till 1670. Faxar-
do's claim to its authorship has been
questioned ; but the dedication in Riva-
deneyra's Biblioteca (Tom. XXV. p.
389) ought, I think, to remove all
doubt. From this, the "Republica"
seems to have been its author's first
Avork, — a circumstance which will ac-
count for that light and festive tone
which, among other things, caused the
question to be raised. A spirited dia-
logue 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

Chap. XXXIX.] YATJOUS DIDACTIC PROSE WRITERS. 255

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 dialoo;ue of which he makes an
^ ingenious application of the rules of the Greek * 218
and Roman masters to the demands of modern
sermonizing in Spain.^^ 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 w^ell translated into Spanish by Do-
mingo Becerra.^^ In the same year appeared a curious
work by Pedro de Andrada, on "The Art of Horseman-
ship," well written and learned, with amusing anec-
dotes of horses; and this was followed, in 1605, by a
similar treatise of Simon de Yillalobos, but one which,
from its more military character, and from the exag-
gerated importance it gives to its subject, might well
have been made a part of Don Quixote's library.^^
Both of them bear strong 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

volume of the SemanarioErudito. But, taining, in the edition of Madrid, 1664,

with the rest of his works, it is found onl)^ 126 leaves in 18mo. Antonio,

in the twenty-fifth volume of the Bibli- Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 17. Dantisco

oteca de Autores Espanoles, 1853. was also an amateur painter, and seems

29 "Prim era Parte de la Ehetorica, to have been a man of fashion at court,

ec, por Juan de Guzman," Alcala, 1590, and much favored there. Stirling's

12mo, 291 leaves. It is divided affect- Artists of Spain, 1848, Vol. I. p. 416.
edly into fourteen "Corabites," or In- ^^ "Libro de la Gineta de Espaiia,

vitations to Feasts. Its author was a por Fernandez de Andrada," Se^dlla,

pupil of the famous Sanctius, "ElBro- 1599, 4to, 182 leaves. — " Modo de

cense." pelear a la Gineta, por Simon de Villa-

^'^ The " Galateo " was several times lobos," Valladolid, 1605, 18mo, 70

reprinted. It is a small book, con- leaves.

256 VARIOUS DIDxlCXic PROSE WRITERS. [Period II.

aixcients ; " ^^ and^ in Mexico, Aleman, while living
there, printed, in 1609, a treatise on " Castilian Orthog-
raphy," which, besides what is ajDpropriate 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." ^^ A

series of conversations on miscellaneous sub-
"^219 jects, 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 ^^edantic,
like nearly everythmg this learned Portuguese wrote ;
and the second part, which he offered to the public,
was never called fcr.^^ And, finally, another Portu-
guese, Francisco de Portugal, who died in 1632,^^
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.^^

32 " Eloquencia Espanola en Arte, por ^^ " Ortografia Castellana, por Mateo

el Maestro Bartolorae Ximenez Paton," Aleman," Mexico, 1609, 4to, 83 leaves.

Toledo, 1604, 12mo. The extracts from ^* "Noches Claras, Primera Parte,

old Spanish books, and hints about por Manoel de Faria y Sousa," Madrid,

their authors, in this treatise, are often 1624, 12mo, a thick volume. Barbosa,

valuable ; but how wise its practical Tom. III. p. 257.

suggestions are may be inferred from ^^ Francisco de Portugal, Count Vi-
the fact, that it recommends an orator mioso, left a son, who published his
to strengthen his memory by anointing father's poetry Avith a life prefixed, but
his head with a compound made chiefly I know no edition of the "Arte de
of bear's grease and white wax. For Galanteria," etc., earlier than that of
other, but inconsiderable, works of Pa- Lisbon, 1670, 4to.
ton, see Spanish translation of this ^^ Before we come into the period
History, Tom. III. p. 561, and ante, when bad taste overwhelmed every-
note 10 of this chapter. Paton, who thing, we should slightly refer to a few
was born in 1569 and died in 1640, authors who were not infected by it,
promised to collect his works and pub- and who yet are not of importance
lish them in eight volumes, but he enough to be introduced into the text,
never did it. The friend to whom he The first of them is Diego de Estella,
made this promise — Fernando de Bal- who was born in 1524, and died in
lesteros y Saavedra — says that he wrote 1578. He was much connected with
plays, autos, and other poetry when he the great diplomatist. Cardinal Gran-
was only twenty years old. See"Elo- velle, and published many works in
gio" to "the Proverbios, 1615. Latin and Spanish, the best of which,

Chap. XXXIX.]

CULTISMO IN PliOSE.

257

* During the period embraced by the works ^220
last mentioned, a false taste had invaded Span-

as to style and manner, are " Loores de
San Juan" (1554) ; " Vanidad del Mun-
do" (1574) ; and " Meditaciones del
Amor de Dios" (1578) ; — the last full
of onction.

Several treatises in the form of biog-
raphy, 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 earljr age of thirty ;
" Sancto Inocente" (15S3) ; "Sancta
Florentina" (1584) ; and "Sancta Te-
resa," (1599,) by Diego de Yepes, one
of her correspondents, and the confessor
of the last dark years of Philip IJ. ;
and the Lives of two devout women,
Doha Sancha Carillo, and Doiia Ana
Ponce de Leon, (1604,) by Martin de
JRoa, a Jesuit, who long represented
the interests of his Society at the Court
of Rome. Roa, who died in 1637, wi'ote
many works in Latin, and some in
Spanish, the most popular of which last
were his "Estado de los Bienaventura-
dos en el Cielo, delos Nihos en el Lira-
bo," ec. (1630) ; his "Almas en Purga-
torio" (1631); and his " Beneficios
del Santo Angel de nuestra Guardia"
(1634). But there are many editions
of each of them ; — perhaps some that
are earlier than those here cited.

To these may be added three other
works of very dift'erent characters.

The "Examen de Ingenios," or, how
to determine, from their physical and
external condition, who are fit for train-
ing in the sciences, by Juan Huarte de
San Juan, written, T think, as early as
1557, but first published, according to
N. Antonio, in 1575, is the most re-
markable of them. It was the only
work of its author, and enjoyed a pro-
digious reputation for a long tune ; so
that I have reckoned fourteen editions
of it in Spanish, of which I have those
of 1603 and 1640 ; and in Latin, Ital-
ian, French, and English I have found
noted so many versions, that in those
languages it was published at least
twenty-seven times. The last time it
appeared in a translation was, I sup-
pose, in that of a person no less emi-
nent than Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,
whose version, entitled " Priifung der
Kopfe," was printed for the second time

VOL. III. 17

at AVittemberg, 1785, 12mo, with much
added learning in the quotations. In
English we .have it in 1594, by Richard
Carew, who translated it from the Ital-
ian, and in 1698 by E. Bellamy, who
translated it from the Spanish, it is a
work full of striking but often wild dis-
cussions and speculations in ph3^siol-
ogy, written in a forcible, pure style ;
and Lessing aptly compares its author
to a spirited horse, that, in galloping
over the stones, never strikes fire so
brilliantlj^ as he does when he stum-
bles. It is noticed pleasantly by good
old Sir Henry AVotton, (Reliquire, 1672,
p. 87,) — it is used and commended by
Lavater, (English translation, London,
fol., 1792-1798, Vol. II. p. 428, and
Vol. III. pp. 42-48,) — and it is often
praised in more recent times b}^ Forner
and other cultivated Spaniards. But
it was put on the Index Expurgatorius,
(1667, p. 734,) and so thoroughly did
the Inquisition and the Confessional do
their work, that in 1765, although
eleven editions of it in Spanish had
then been published, the learned Fey-
joo begged a friend to procure a copy of
it for him in Latin, Italian, or French,
because, as he said, he could hardly
hope to find one in Spanish, — "que
en el idioma Espanol y en Espaha sera
dificil hallarle." Bayle has a good ar-
ticle on Huarte, Avho Avas an eminent
physician in the time of Philip II., and
I have a learned and sometimes acute
reply to his Examen, published in 1631,
at Paris, by another physician, Jour-
dain Guibelet, entitled ' ' Examen de
I'Examen des Esprits," longer than the
original work, but by no means so well
written. The "Examen de Maridos,"
a spirited play of Alarcon, (see ante, 11.
336, ) and the " Vexamen de Ingenios,"
a lively prose satire of Cancer, (Obras,
1761, p. 105,) were perhaps understood
by their contemporaries to have refer-
ence to the title of the "Examen de
Ingenios," then very popular. A work
not unlike the "Examen de Ingenios,"
and sometimes indebted to it, appeared
at Barcelona, (1637, 4to,) entitled "El
Sol Solo, ec, y Anatomia de Ingenios,"
taking a view of the same subject, some-
what more in the nature of Physi-
ognomy, and not without an apju'oach to
what has since been called Phrenology,

258 CTJLTISMO I:N" prose. [Period II.

ish prose. It was the same unliappy taste which we
have noticed in Spanish poetry by the name of " Gon-
gorism/' but which its admirers called sometimes " the
polite/' and sometimes ^^ the cultivated " style of writ-
ing. Traces of it have been sought in the sixteenth
century among some of the best writers of the coun-
try ; but for this there seems no foundation,
* 221 except in the fact^ that ^ a rigorous taste never
at any time prevailed in Spain, and that the lux-
uriant 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 Gongora
almost necessarily introduced conceits into prose writ-
ing, such as were thought so Avorthy 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 which, also, there are traces in the boy, was brought to Spain in 1585, by

"Examen" itself. The "Sol Solo" his brother Bartolome, and died there

was written by Estevan Pujasol, an Ara- in 1638, having risen to considerable

gonese ; and is curious for its manner eminence in his art. In 1634, he pub-

of treating the subjects it discusses, — lished, at Madrid, " Dialogos de la

half anatomical, half spiritual; butisnot Pintura, su Defeusa, Origen," ec. (4to,

otherwise interesting at the present day. 229 leaves) ; but the Ucencias are dated

The second is the " Historia Moral y 1632 and 1633. It is written in good
Philosophica " of Pero Sanchez de Tole- plain prose, without particular merit as
do, published at Toledo, 1590, folio, to style, and is declared by Cean Ber-
Avhen its author, who was connected mudez, (Diccionario, Tom. I. p. 251,)
with the cathedral there, Avas already an in his notice of the author, to be "el
old man. It consists of the Lives of mejor libro que tenernos de pintura en
distinguished men of antiquity, like Castellano." At the end is an Appen-
Plato, Alexander, and Cicero, and ends dix, in Avhich are attacks of Lope de
with a treatise on Death ; — each of the Vega, Juan de Jauregui, and others, on
Lives being accompanied by moral and a duty laid upon pictures, which, Cean
Christian reflections, which are some- Bermudez says, "the efforts of Cardu-
times written in a flowing and fervent cho and his friends succeeded in re-
style, but are rarely appropriate, and moving in 1637." An interesting and
never original or powerful. valuable notice of Carducho is to be

The last is by Vincencio Carducho, a found in Stirling's Artists of Spain,

Florentine painter, who, when quite a 1848. Vol. 1. pp. 417-428.

Chap. XXXIX. J CULTISMO IN PROSE. 259

of metaphor, little consistent with the old Castilian
dignity, until at last they quite left the stately con-
structions in which resides so much of what is pecu-
liar to the sonorous declamations of Luis de Leon and
Luis de Granada, and by excessive efforts at brilliancy
became so involved and obscure in their style that
they w^ere 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 perhaps
with Andreas Perez, and certainly was notorious in
Paravicino, who, besides imitating Gongora'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 Linan, in his
" Guide and Counsel to Strangers in Madrid," and
soon afterwards to Mateo Velazquez, in his "Village
Philosopher " ; so that from this period we may con-
sider cuUismo nearly or quite as prevalent in Spanish
prose as it was in Spanish poetry .^^

^ The person, however, who settled its char- * 222
acter, and in some respects gave it an air of

^^ See Declamacion, ec, of Vargas y leaves, s. a., is a singular book, didac-

Ponce, 1793, App., § 17, and Marina, tic in its main purpose, but illustrating

Ensayo, in Memorias de la Acad, de with, stories its homely philosophy. I

Hist., Tom. IV., 1804. Linan y Ver- find no notice of it, though the author,

dugo, Avisos de Forasteros, 1620, no- in his Dedication, intimates that it is

ticed {ante, p. 138) under the head of not his first published work. It seems

Romantic Fiction, shows that the cuUo to have been written soon after the

style was known as early as that date, death of Philip III. in 1621, and its

(see edit. 1753, p. 15.5, etc.,) and it is last dialogue is against cuUismo, of the

rebuked by name in Penalosa's " Cinco introduction of which into Spanis'.i

Excellencias del Esx^auol," (1629, f. 87, prose I have spoken when noticing the

a,) and in "El Filosofo del Aldea, y sus " Picara Justina " of Andr'^^as Perez,

Conversaciones Familiares, su Autor el 1605, ante, p. 106, note, and of Para-

Alferez Don Baltazar Mateo Velazquez," vicino, ante, p. 161.
Zaragoza, por Diego Dormer, 12mo, 106

260 GRACIAIS". [Peiiiod II.

philosophical pretension, was Baltazar Gracian, a Jes-
uit of Aragon, who lived between 1601 and 1658 ;
exactly the period when the cultivated style took pos-
session of Spanish prose, and rose to its greatest con-
sideration. 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 Gongora, 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 " Criticon," 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

Chap. XXXIX.] . GEACIAiS". 261

Manhood, and the third * The Wmter of Old ^^ 223
Age'. In some parts it shows much talent ; and
eloquent discussions on moral subjects, and glowing de-
scriptions of events and natural scenery, can occasion-
ally be taken from it, which are little infected with
the extravagances of the Cultivated Style. Some-
times 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 " Criticon " is to the
Catholic religion and the notions of life in Spain dur-
ing the reign of Philip the Fourth what Bunyan's fic-
tion is to Puritanism and the English character in the
age of Cromwell. But there is little 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 Chris-
tian and Mr. Greatheart, and, when we are moved at
all by him, it is only by his acuteness, ingenuity, and
eloquence.

His other works are of small value, and are yet
more deformed by bad taste ; especially his " Polit-
ico-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 Lo-
renzo, who lived at Seville ; and it is yet more singular,
perhaps, that they were published, not by himself, but
by his friend, Lastanosa, a gentleman of literary taste,
and a collector of ancient works of art, who lived at
Huesca in Aragon. But however indirectly and cau-
tiously the works of Gracian won their way into the
world, they enjoyed great favor there, and made much

262

CULTISMO m PROSE.

[Period II.

noise. His " Hero " went early througli 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.^^
^224 * 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 innova-
tions of cidtismo for a time, had long before yielded,
and Calderon was now alternately assailing the de-
praved taste of his audiences and gratifying it by
running into extravagances almost as great as those
he ridiculed. The language of the most affected po-
etry passed into the prose of the age, and took from it
the power and dignity which, even in its more declam-
atory portions, had constituted its prominent merit.
Style became fantastic, and the very thoughts that
were to be conveyed were not unfrequently covered

^^ There are editions of Gracian's
Works, 1664, 1667, 1725, 1748, 1757,
1773, etc. I use that of Barcelona,
1748, 2 torn. 4to. His Life is in La-
tassa. Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. pp. 267,
etc., and a pleasant account both of
him and of his friend Lastaiiosa is to be
found in Aarsens, Voyage d'Espagne,
1667, p. 294, and in the dedication to
Lastaiiosa of the first edition of Queve-
do's " Fortuna con Seso," 1650. Gra-
cian's 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.

Gracian's works were a good deal
translated into French and Italian ;
but little into English. I have his
"Courtier's Manual Oracle," (London,
1684,) an aphoristic work not always
true to the original, (Oraculo Manual y
Arte de Prudencia, ) but occasionally
very happy in divining the author's
meaning and giving it with point and
effect. And I have also Gracian's

"Hero," translated from a French ver-
sion of it by Father Courbeville, with
good notes, and printed both at Lon-
don and Dublin, 1726. But except
these I remember no English transla-
tions.

Perhaps two other books should have
been noticed here. The first is, " In-
vectiva Poetica contra cinco Vicios,
Soberbia, Invidia, Ambicion, Murmura-
cion y Ira, ec, por el Licenciado Luis
Sanchez de Melo" (Malaga, 1641, 4to).
Its author was a native of Lisbon, but
a lawyer of Malaga, and wrote his " In-
vectiva," as he tells us, in twenty days
when he was busy with his profession.
I can readily believe him. It reads,
notwithstanding its intermixture of
verse, like a series of poor sermons in
the most conceited style. The other is
" Aciertos celebrados de la Antiguedad,
su autor Don Josef de la Torre " (Zara-
goza, 1654, 12mo, pp. 188) ; a collec-
tion of striking facts and anecdotes from
classic authors, ill commented by La
Torre, who afterwards became a monk
and died at Madrid in 1674.

Chap. XXXi:X.] ZABALETA. LOZANO. RAMIREZ. 263

up with ingenuities of illustration till they disappeared.
In the phrase of Sanclio, men wanted better bread
than could be made of wheat^ and rendered them-
selves ridiculous by attempting to obtain it. Tropes
and figures of all kinds were settled into formu-
las of speech, and then were repeated, appropri-
ately and inappropriately, till the reader could often
anticipate, from the beginning of a sentence, how it
would inevitably end. Everything, 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 cen- *225
tury, 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 espe-
cially his " Feast Days at Madrid," in which he gives
lively satirical sketches of the manners of the metrop-
olis 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 anything 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 ex-
amples 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 Boe-
thius," by Ramirez, in 16 98^ if they serve for nothing

264 CHAEACTEK OF DIDACTIC PEOSE. [Peiiiod II.

else^ serve at least to mark the ultimate limits of
dulness and affectation. Indeed, if it were not for
the History of Soils, 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.^^
* 226 ^ 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 seven-
teenth 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 mon-
itor, who claimed for himself that degree of indepen-
dence in matters of opinion without which instruction
becomes a dead form, needs not now to be set forth.
Few persons, in that unhappy country, were sur-
rounded with more difficulties; none were more

^^ Juan de Zabaleta flourished as an Of Antonio Perez Eamirez, I know
author from 1653 to 1667; and his only the "Armas contra la Fortuna,"
works, which were soon collected, have (Madrid, 1698, 4to,) which is a transla-
heen frequently printed, 1667, Madrid, tion of Boethius, with dissertations iu
1728, 4to, 1754, etc. (Baena, Tom. the worst possible taste interspersed be-
lli, p. 227.) — Christoval Lozano (no- tween its several divisions,
ticed ante, pp. 127, 143) was known as One other author might, perhaps,
an author from 1656, by his "David have been placed at the side of Lozano,
Arrepentido," to which he afterwards — Joseph de la Vega, — who published
added his "David Perseguido," in (at Amsterdam in 1688, 12mo) three
three volumes, and yet another work on dialogues, entitled ' ' Confusion de Con-
the subject of David's Example illus- fusiones," to ridicule the passion for
trated by the Light of Christianity ; all stockjobbing which came in with the
of little value ; for though written in a Dutch East India Company, in 1602,
style of considerable purity for the pe- and was then at the height of its frenzy,
riod when they appeared, they are too They are somewhat encumbered with
fanciful in their inventions for the grav- learning, but contain anecdotes, ancient
ity of the subject. — Juan Francisco and modern, very well told. The au-
Fernandez de Heredia wrote "Trabajos thor was a rich Jew of Antwerp, wlio
y Afanes de Hercules," Madrid, 1682, had fled thither from Spain, and pub-
4to. He makes it a kind of book of lished several works betAveen 1683 and
emblems, but it is one of the worst of 1693, but none, I think, of much value,
its conceited class. Latassa (Bib. Nov., Amador de los Eios, Judios Espanoles,
Tom. IV. p. 3) notices him. p. 633.

Chap. XXXIX.] CHARACTER OF DIDACTIC PROSE. 265

strictly watched^ or, if they wandered from the per-
mitted paths, were jnore severely punished.

Nor was it j)C)Ssible 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 a 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 Liquisition 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 ven-
tured 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 opin-
ions of a friend, no man seemed to feel at ease
unless he could justify and ^ sustain what he * 227
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 des-
tined to wear the attractions of an elevated and elo-
quent style, gradually became so formal, awkward, and

266 CIIAKACTEE OF DIDACTIC PROSE. [Period II.

pedantic, that, with a few striking exceptions, it can
only be said to have maintained a doubtful and diffi-
cult 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.

*CHAPTEE XL. * 228

CONCLUDIXG REMARKS ON THE SECOND PERIOD. DECAY OF THE NATIONAL

CHARACTER. — DIMINISHED NUMBER OF WRITERS AND DIMINISHED INTER-
EST 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 INFLU-
ENCES OF RELIGION. — FALSE INFLUENCES OF LOYALTY.

It is impossible to study with care the Spanish litera-
ture 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 ex-
tinct.

The public interest, too, in the few writers that re-
mained, 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

268 DECAY OF THE NATIOI^AL CHARACTER. [Period II.

there ; and all the favor that Spanish poets and
* 229 men of "^ letters enjoyed at the end of the cen-
tury came from the court and the superficial
fashion of the time, which patronized the aifected style
of those followers of Gongora whose bad taste seemed
to go on increasing in extravagance, as talent among
them grew more rare.

Everything, 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 con-
stitutions 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, who followed in the foot-
steps of Ximenes, 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

Chap. XL.]

PHILIP THE SECOND.

269

mischiefs ; by the exhausting wars with EUzabeth of
England and Henry tlie Fourth of France -, by the
contempt for habor, 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 ruin-
ous 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 ^ impov- "^230
erished people, whose energies he had over-
strained and impaired by his despotism, and whose
character he had warped and misdirected by his unre-
lenting and unscrupulous bigotry.^

1 There is a remarkable paper, in
the sixth volume of the "Semanario
Erndito," 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 ecclesi-
astic of rank, whom Charles III. after-
wards asked to have canonized, it yet
attributes the origin of the prostration
under which Spain suifered in his time
mainly to the war with the Nether-
lands. This war, from 1567 to 1612, is
said to have cost Spain above two hun-
dred millions of dollars, (Havemann,
p. 269, note,) and the debt of Spain to
have risen in the time of Philip II.
from thirty-hve millions of ducats to
one hundred and forty. Ibid., p. 272.

But the deeper difficulty of contempt
for labor was felt much earlier. In
the curious "Dialogue of Mercury and
Charon," attributed to Juan Valdes,
and printed about 1530, the good Friar
says, that he entered a religious house
'■^■poT loocUr honestmnente trabajar," and
gives the reason why he was obliged to
do it, "porque," he says, " ni mi linaje,
ni mi estado me consentira trabajar, si
no mudaba el habito." (Ed. Wiff'en,
p. 306. ) That is, being well born, he
could do nothing creditably for his
living, unless he entered the Church
or the army. This was in the reign of
Charles V. But it was long before
opinion on this subject was changed

in Spain, if indeed it be effectually
changed now. As late as the 18th of
March, 1783, Charles III. found it
necessary to issue a stringent decree
declaring mechanical employments to
be "honestos y honrados," and that
they shall not prevent persons engaged
in them from obtaining municipal offi-
ces (Ferrer del Rio Hist, de Carlos III.,
1856, Tom. IV. p. 70). Little good,
however, was done by it at the time.

In 1552, the Cortes spoke plainly to
the Emperor about the enormous in-
crease of church property, making their
fifty-fifth "Peticion"in the following
words : " Ytem, por experiencia se vee
que las haciendas estan todas en poder
de Yglesias, Colegios, Hospitales, et
Monasteries de que viene notable dano
a vuestras rentas reales et a vuestros
subditos et naturales ; et sino se reme-
dia todas las haziendas vernan a poder
dellos. Suplicamos a vuestra Magestad
sea servido de mandar que de aqui
adelante, ninguna ygiesia, ni monas-
terio compre bienes rayzes," ec. Leyes,
etc., Valladolid, folio, 1558, f. xiii.

In the time of Philip II. such com-
plaints were little likely to be heard ;
but as soon as he was dead, even in one
of the funeral discourses in honor of
his memory, it is distinctly alluded to.
(Sermones Funerales del Rey D. Felipe
II., Madrid, 1601, f. 179; — the dis-
course in question being by Fray Agus-

270

PHILIP THE THIRD.

[Period II.

His successor, feeble-minded and superstitious, was
neither able to repair the results of such mischiefs, nor
to contend with the difficulties thej 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 preserv-
*231 ing, ^ 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 agri-
culture and wealth of the South of Spain, and indeed
of the whole country, from which they have never re-
covered.^

tin Salucio.) In the time of Pliilip
in. (1620) Geronimo de Cevallos x^ub-
lished his " Discurso de las Kazones,"
to show how wide-spread a ruin must
follow the great increase of ecclesiastical
institutions, and in the same year Doc-
tor Gutierre, Marques de Carreaga, an-
swered him, in a " Respnesta al Discur-
so," ec, in which he denies the injuries
imputed to the ecclesiastical corpora-
tions, and maintains that the kingdom
would soon come to ruin without their
prayers, fastings, and alms. But neither
of these writers was equal to the grave
subject he undertook to treat ; and be-
sides, the mischief — still felt to be
beyond the reach of legislation — had
been done in the time of Philip II. and
earlier. An extraordinary expedient
was adopted, in 1623, by Philip III.,
to remedy it and to encourage popula-
tion. By a solemn premotica, he grant-
ed the privileges of nobility for four
years to all who would marry, and for
life to all who had six male children.

2 There is a great discrepancy in the
accounts of the number of Moriscos ex-
pelled from Spain, 1609-11, — several
making it a million, and one reducing
it so low as a hundred and sixty thou-

sand. 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 hacl long
been the most skilful manufacturers
and agriculturists in the kingdom ; ef-
fects to which many of the despoblados
noted on our recent maps of Spain still
bear melancholy testimony. (Clemen-
cin. Notes to Don Quixote, Parte II.
c. 54.) In stating six hundred thou-
sand 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 manu-
scripts I possess copies, through the
kindness of Don Pascual de Gayangos.
The first is a poem Avritten in 1603, and
entitled "Discourse on the Light, and
Descent, and Lineage of our Chief and
Blessed Prophet, Mohammed Calain,

Chap. XL.]

PHILIP THE FOUKTH.

271

^ The easy, gay selfishness of Philip the
Fourth, and the open profligacy of his min-

232

composed and compiled by his Servant,
Avho most needs his Pardon, Moham-
med 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 thou-
sand 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 de-
scribe the auspicious morning of Hex-
im's marriage : —

Al tiempo que el alba bella
Easena su rostro alegre,
Y, rompiendo las tiaieblas,
Su clara luz resplaudece,
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 sueno vencen,
Para dar a su Hacedor

El debito que le deben ; —
En este tiempo la compaiiia
Del hijo de Abdulmunef
Se levantan y aperciben
Al casamiento solemne.

In the preface to the whole poem, the
author sa5''s Allah alone knows how
much labor it has cost him to collect
the materials necessary for his task,
"scattered," he adds, "as they were,
all over Spain, and lost and hidden
through fear of the Inquisition." An
account of this manuscript, of Avhich
copies exist in the National Library at
Paris and in the British Museum, may
be found in the ' ' Catalogo Razonado
de Manuscritos Espanoles," ec, por E.
de Ochoa, 4to, Paris, 1844 ; a curious
and valuable work, and one of many
services Sefior Ochoa has rendered to
the literature of his country. This
account (pp. 57, sqq.) contains an in-
teresting letter from Don P. de Gayan-
gos, on similar Hispano -Arabic MSS.
that are found elsewhere, and adds, re-
specting this one, that it was brought
to England in 1715, by Joseph Morgan,
British. Consul in Tunis, who after-

wards made a free and imperfect trans-
lation of a part of it, which was pub-
lished in London, in 1723-25, with
the title of " Mahometanism full}^ ex-
plained " ; — a very curious book.

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 un-
happy countrjnnen, 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 ileophytes. 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 re-
ligion, and in which one of the person-
ages relates a history of his own life,
adventures, and suff'erings ; all so given
as to instruct, sometimes by direct pre-
cept and sometimes by example, the
newly arrived Moriscos in their duties
and faith. It is, of course, partly alle-
gorical and romantic. Its air is often
Arabic, and so is its style occasionally ;
but some of its scenes are between lovers
at gi'ated windows, as if in a Castilian
city, and it is interspersed with Cas-
tilian poems by Montemayor, Gongora,
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-Span-
ish literature may be found in an ac-
count by the Orientalist, Silvestre de
Sacy, of two manuscripts in France,
like those just described (Ochoa, Man-
uscritos Espanoles, 1844, pp. 6-21) ;
but a more ample and satisfactory dis-
cussion of it occurs in a learned article

272 PPIILIP THE FOURTH. [Peuiod II.

isters, gave increased activity to the causes that were
hastening on the threatened ruin. Catalonia broke
out into rebeUion ; Jamaica was seized by the English ;
Roussillon was ceded to France ; Portugal, which had

never been heartily incorporated into the mon-
* 233 archy, 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, meanwdiile, was no less shaken. The coin,
notwithstanding the wise warnings of Mariana, had
been adulterated anew ; tlie taxes had been shame-
lessly increased, while the interest on the ever-growing
public debt was dishonestly diminished. Men^ every-
where, 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 towms and villages were de-.
serted. Seville, the ancient capital of the monarchy,

in the British and Foreign Review, says he had himself prepared a me-

Jannary, 1S39. morial to the same effect, for driving

It should he remembered that Morisco out the Gypsies ; and he adds, in a true
was substituted for Moro, after the over- Castilian spirit, that " it is being over-
throw of the Moorish power in Spain, nice to tolerate such a pernicious and
as an expression of the contempt with perverse race."

whi di the Christian Spaniards have Good remarks on the decay of Spain

never ceased to pursue their old con- from the time of Philip III. may be

querors and hated enemies, from the found in the "Discurso sobre la Edu-

time of the fall of Granada to the pres- cacion Popular," by Campomanes, the

ent day. wdse minister of Charles III. (Madrid,

Encouraged by the expulsion of the 1775, Introd. and pp. 412, sqq.). The

Jews, in 1492, and by that of the Moors, universities and schools, however, were

in 1609-11, Don Sancho de Moncada, numerous and crowded at that period,

a Professor in the University of Toledo, but were places of idle and worthless

addressed Philip III., in a discourse learning. Fernandez de Navarrete says

published in 1619, urging that monarch there Avere thirty universities and four

to drive out the Gypsies. But he failed, thousand Estudios de Gramatica, or

His discourse is in Hidalgo, "Romances schools where Lrtin was taught, temp.

deGermania," (Madrid, 1779, 8vo,) and Philip HI. Bat he adds that they

is translated by Borrow, in his remarka- sent out chiefly multitudes of vagabonds

ble work on the Gypsies (London, 1841, to prey upon society. " Conservacion

Svo, Vol. I. chap. xi.). Salazar de de Monarquias," 1626, folio, Discur-

Mendoza, at the end of his "Digni- so xlvi. p. 299, — first published in

dades de Castilla," published in 1618, 1621.

Chap. XL.] CHARLES THE SECO::^D. 273

lost three quarters of its inhabitants ; Toledo, one
third ; Segovia, Medina del Ca.mpo, and others of the
large cities, fell off still more, not only in their num-
bers 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 pre-
mature 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 troTibles 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. Be-
ginning at the southern borders of France, and fol-
lowing 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 okl 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.^ 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 *234
to furnish forth the royal table with its accus-

H There is an amnsingiy a"b.surd book cIo-\^ti. The best thing in the book is,

on Philip IV. by Juan Antonio de I suppose, an engraving after Velazquez

Eobles, who was attached to the court of the head of the Count Duke Oli-

of Catherine of Austria. It is entitled varez.

"Ilustracion del Renombre de Grande," ^ Comentario de la Guerra de Espa-

(Madrid, 1638,) and is intended to show na, por el Marques de San Phelipe, Ge-

that Philip IV. is as well worthy of nova, s. a., 4to, Tom. I. Lib. II., aiio

that distinction as anybody to whom it 1701. Buckle, (Civilization, 1862,) Vol.

has been applied, from Leo the Great II. 40, 41, 72-77.

■ VOL. III. 18

274 DECAY OF THE KATIONAL CHARACTER. [Period H.

tomed propriety ; so that the envoy of Austria ex-
pressed his regret at having accepted the place of
ambassador at a court where he was compelled to
witness a misery so discreditable."^

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 S|)aniard felt
Spain to be sunk, when the last of the great House of
Austria ajoproached 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 Conde, and England
preparing for the age of Marlborough.^

In any country, such a decay in the national char-

* Tapia, Hist, de la Civilizacion Es- sides this, his reign is declared to have

paiiola, Madrid, 1840, 12mo, Tom. TIL been eminently haj)py for his country!

p. 167. The same fact is mentioned by ^ The details — disgusting enough —

Stanhope, the English Ambassador at are given by L. F. Moratin, in the

Madrid, in the curious and interesting notes to his edition of the "Auto de

correspondence published by Lord Ma- Fe de Logrono, del Ano 1610," a work

hon, entitled " Spain under Charles originally published for general edifica-

II." (2d edit., London, 1844, 8vo). In tion, by one of the persons concerned

a letter to the Under-Secretary of State, in the cmto itself, and certified to be

dated May 26, 1698, (p. 131,) General true by others ; but reprinted (Cadiz,

Stanhope says, " The Conde de Andero, 1812, 12mo) by Moratin, the comic

who is Supraintendiente de las Rentas, poet, to show the ignorance and brn-

declares he is not able to find money for tality of all who had a hand in it.

his Majesty's suhf<istcnce." There is a play on the subject by Gil y

The poor compliments to this miser- Zarate, 1837 ; but it does not respect
able King by Soli's and Calderon have the truth of history,
already been noticed, ante, Period II. Stanhope, in the correspondence re-
Chap. XXIV. note 31. But all there ferred to in the last note, says (p. 181)
said is as nothing when compared with that the bewitchment of the king was
the contemptible flattery offered to his generally believed in Madrid. Sismon-
memory after his wretched death, by di (Hist, des Fran^ais, Tom. XXV.,
the Academy of the " Desconfiados " at 1841, p. 85, Tom. XXVI. pp. 207, 208)
Barcelona. See the "Nenias lleales," gives a revolting account of the royal
(Barcelona, 1701, 4to, ) where he is imbecility.

called "El mayor Monarca del Orbe," Excellent, but very sad remarks, by

— " Un Monarca en fpiien la Natu- Count Cabarrus, the wise minister of

raleza, el Cielo, y su Virtud heroica Charles III., on the degradation of the

avian recopilado quanto se celebi'a de Spanish monarchy at this period, may

grande en todos los que el Orbe celebra," be found in the sixth note to his " Elo-

aud much more of the same sort. Be- gio del Conde de Gausa," 1786, 4to.

Chap. XL.] BIGOTRY OF THE PEOPLE. 275

acter and power would be accompanied by a corre-
sponding, 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 re-
markable degree, on the same foundations, the wise
who looked on from a distance could not fail to antici-
pate 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 *235
done everything 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 seven-
teenth 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 not only maintained
an uninterrupted authority, but, by constantly increas-
ing 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 intellec-
tual 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 co-operation 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 con-

276 BIGOTKY OF THE PEOPLE.. [Period 11.

test with their infidel invaders^ was all but universal in
Spain during this w^hole 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.^ Nor did
the intervening; kinoes show less deference to its au-
thority. 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 de ft at Yalladolid.^
When the young and gay daughter of Henry the Sec-
ond of France arrived at Toledo, in 1560, that
* 236 city offered an auto de fe ^ as part of the re-
joicings 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 ; ^ — odious proofs of the degree to
which bigotry had stifled both the dictates of an en-
lightened 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 to witness the horrors of the exe-
cution, and appealed to that monarch not to see his
innocent subjects thus cruelly put to death, the king
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

^ Tapia, Hist, de la Civilizacion, Tom. rente is a misprint for 1623, because

Til. p. 77 and p. 168. Sandoval, Hist., Isabel de Bourbon had no child born

Tom. II. p. 657. in 1632, while the Infanta Dona Marga-

7 Llorente, Hist., Tom. II., 1817, rita Maria Catalina was born 25th No-
p. 239. vember, 1623. (Florez, Eeynas Catoli-

8 Llorente, Hist., Tom. IT. p. 385, cas, 1770, Tom. IT. p. 940.) The date
Tom. IV. p. 3. I think 1632 in Llo- in the text, in that case, should be 1623.

Chap. XL.]

BIGOTRY OF THE PEOPLE.

277

worthy of the head of the mightiest empire in the
worlcl.^ 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 de fe, the arti-
sans of Madrid volunteered m a body to erect the
needful amphitheatre, and labored with such enthu-
siasm, that they completed the vast structure in an
incredibly short space of time ; cheering one
another at * their work with devout exhorta- *237
tions, and declaring that, if the materials fur-
nished them should fail, they w^ould pull down their
own houses in order to obtain what might be wanting
to complete the holy task.^^

9 Tapia, Hist., Tom. HI. p. 88. Por-
reiio (Dichos y Hechos de Phelipe IL,
written 1626, Chap. XIV.) and Cabre-
ra (Phelipe H., Lib. V. cap. iii., writ-
ten eariier, and published in 1619) give
the words of the Icing to Don Carios de
Sese, the unhappy gentleman in ques-
tion, as he was passing to his awful
fate : " Yo traere la lena para quemar
a mi hijo, si fuere tan malo corao vos."
Agustin Davila, w^ho, on the 8th of No-
vember, 1598, pronounced a funeral
sermon on Philip II. in Valladolid, —
the very city where Carlos de Sese had
been burnt alive, — speaks with enthu-
siasm of these infamous words as a
" famosa sentencia." (Sermones Fu-
nerales en las Honras de Felipe II. ,
Madrid, 1601, 4to, f. 78.) Perhaps,
however, it is yet more remarkable that
the ga}^ and Epicurean Philip IV. ex-
pressed similar feelings, and that, in a
similar wa}^, they were reckoned among
his posthumous honors. Bnt such is
the fact. On being asked, as a matter
of form, for permission to thrust one of
his Ministers of State into the Inquisi-
tion, he gave it, and added, as a volun-
teer protestation, that, " if his own son
were guilty, he would give him up with
an equally good will." Balthazar Avas
then alive, and a child he passionately
loved. But this spirit Avas infused by
the Inquisition wdierever its influences
extended. (See P^dro Rodriguez de
Moniorte, Honras, ec. de Felipe IV.,
Madrid, 1666, 4to, p. 10.) It maybe
well here to note, that Mexico claimed

it as one of the honors of Philip H.
that he introduced the Inquisition there
in 1574, and that in 1596 eight persons,
five of whom were women, were burnt
alive as Jews. Exequias de Philippo
IL, Mexico, 1600, 4to, ff. 133, sqq.

1*^ 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 sev-
enteenth centurv, is the "Eelacion,"
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 fainiliarcs, or servants, of
the Holy Office, to do honor to the oc-
casion ; and the king sent from his own
hand the first fagot 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 ac-
count, however, there can be no doubt
that devout Spaniards generally re-
garded the exhibition with favor, and

278

FALSE LOYALTY OF THE PEOPLE.

[Period IL

Nor had the principle of loyalty, always so promi-
nent in the Spanish character, become less perverted
and mischievous than the religious principle. It of-
fered 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 seri-
ously to affect the sentiments of the people towards
the person of the monarch, or to change their persua-
sions that their earthly sovereign was to be addressed
in words and with feelings similar to those with
which they approached the Majesty of Heaven.^^ The

most of them with a much stronger
feeling. Madame d'Aulnoy (Voyage,
Tom. in. p. 154) had a description of
the ceremonies intended for this auto
de fe given to her, as if it were to be an
honor to the monarchy, by o]ie of the
Counsellors of the Inquisition ; but I
think she left Madrid before it oc-
curred.

It is a strange and striking fact, that
Madame de Villars, wife of the French
Ambassador, notwithstanding her posi-
tion, was unable to avoid witnessing
some of the ceremonies and horrors of
this auto. She says, in a letter to Ma-
dame de Coulanges, dated July 25, 1680:
"Je n'ai pas eu le courage cl'assister a
cette horrible execution des Juifs. Ce
fut un aff'reux spectacle, selon ce que
j'ai entendu dire ; mais pour la semaine
du jugement, 11 fallut Men y etre, a
moins de bonnes attestations des mede-
cins d'etre a I'extremite, car autrement
on eut passe pour heretique. On trouva
meme fort mauvais, que je ne parusse
pas me divertir tout a fait de ce qui s'y
passoit. Mais ce qu'on a vu exercer
de cruautes a la mort de ces miserables
c'est ce qu'on ne pent vous ecrire."
Lettres, ed. Francfort, 1760, pp. 127/
128.

11 In a series of articles in the " Re-
vista Literaria del Espanol," 1845, the
profligacy of this minion of an irrespon-

sible despotism is set forth by Don L.
L. Corradi. His income annually from
the royal favor — excluding occasional
gratuities — was four hundred and eigh-
ty-eight thousand ducats at one period
of his authority.

1"^ See the first of Doblado's remarka-
ble Lettei's, 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 Majes-
ty' will be pleased to grant them life
and health for some years more." The
Diet, of the Academy, 1736, verb. Ma-
gestad, illustrates this still further.
But a more striking instance of this
popular use of the word than any there
cited, occurs in a tract entitled "Epi-
tome Historial, ec. de los on/e Mar-
tyres Franciscanos de Gorcomio, que
escrivio Fray Alonso Lopez Magdalena,"
(Madrid, 1676,) in which, speaking of
a tumult in the city of Gorcum in Hol-
land, it is said to have begun, " Empu-
iiando los hereges las armas contra todos
los fieles vasallos de ambas Majestades "
(p. 18) ; — meaning God and Philip II.

Magestad Avas also applied to the Pyx,
as containing the sacramental Avafers.
In a tract on a showy festival in the
parish of Sta. Crux, in Madrid, in May,
1628, on occasion of the transfer of the
Sacrament to a new chapel, we have

Chap. XL.] FAILURE OF THE NATIONAL CHARACTER. 279

king — merely "^because he was the kmg — * 238
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 por-
tions of the globe which he had inherited with his
crown.^^ The Due de Yendome, therefore, showed his
thorough knowledge of the Spanish character, when,
in the War of the Succession, — Madrid being in
possession of the enemy, and everything 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.^* In fact, the
old principle of loyalty, sunk into a submission — vol-
untary, 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 sub-
jects, and the main resource of the state for the pres-
ervation 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 Cas-
tile.

such strange phrases as the following : tratados" of Cipriano Valera, 1588, re-
"Todos nueve dias estuvo su Magestad printed s. 1. 1851, pp. 491-494.
patente" ; — " Un Bufete donde estuvo I cite these passages, not merely to
su Magestad," ec. ; — ^ " Breve Com pen- explain the extraordinary use of the
dio del Aparato y Fiesta," ec. Madrid, word Magestad, but to illustrate a sen-
4to, 1628. timent constantly reappearing in Span-
Accounts kindred with these, and ish literature, and involving a confusion
both revolting and ridiculous, concern- in the ideas of religious faith and per-
ing the treatment of a consecivited wafer sonal loyalty which was mischievous to
vomited by a priest in one case, and, the national character.
in another, stolen and devoured by a i^ Partida Segunda, Tit. XI IT.
magpie, may be found in the "Dos ^* Tapia, Hist., Tom. IV. p. 19.

280 PAILUKE OF THE NATIONAL LITEKATUEE. [Period II.

It is this degradation of the loyalty and religion of
the country, infecting as it did every part of the na-
tional character, which we have felt to be undermining
the general culture of Spain during the seventeenth

century ; its workings being sometimes visible
^ 239 ^" on the surface, and sometimes hidden by the

vast and showy apparatus of despotism and su-
perstition 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 In-
quisition and the despotism seem to be everywhere
present, and to have cast their blight over everything.
All the writers of the time yield to their influences, but
none in a manner more painful to witness, than Calde-
ron and Soils ; the two whose names close up the pe-
riod, and leave so little to hope for the future. For
the " Autos " of Calderon and the " History " of Solis
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 ac-
counted to them by their contemporaries for religious
loyalty and patriotism. At the present day, we can-
not doubt that a literature which rests in any consider-
able degree on such foundations must be near to its
fall

1^ See the end of "El Segundo Sci- de Austria," by Calderon ; and the
pion," andthat of "El Segundo Blason Dedication of his History to Charles

Chap. XL.] FAILURE OF THE NATIONAL LITERATUIiE. 281

U. , by Soli's, in which, with a slight
touch of tlie affectations of cultismo,
which Soli's 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 jirophetical canoni-
zation of Philip II., in a cancion of no
mean merit as a poem, but one that
shocks all religious feeling, by recall-
ing the apotheosis of the Roman em-
perors.

HISTORY

SPANISH LITERATUEE.

THIRD PEEIOD.

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 SPAOTSH LITERATURE.

THIED PERIOD.

^CHAPTEE I. *243

WAR OF THE SUCCESSIOlSr. — BOURBON FAMILY. — PHILIP THE FIFTH. ACAD-
EMY OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE: ITS DICTIONARY, ORTHOGRAPHY, GRAM-
MAR, AND OTHER WORKS ACADEMY OF BARCELONA. ACADEMY OF

HISTORY. — STATE OF LETTERS. — POETRY: MORAES, BARNUEVO, REYNOSA,
ZEVALLOS, LOBO, BENEGASI, PITILLAS.

Charles the Seco:n^d 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 under-
stood, would make pretensions to the throne of Spain,

so soon as it should be left vacant bv 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^

286 WAE OF THE SUCCESSION. [Period III.

with many misgivings and a heart-felt reluctance,
finally announced his preference ; and, by a
* 244 ^ secret political testament, declared the Duke
of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin and grand-
son 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 Four-
teenth, who, hardly two years before, had made an
arrangement with them for a wholly different settle-
ment 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 con-
firmed the claims of the Bourbon dynasty, and gave
peace to Europe, wearied with blood.

So 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 un-
touched ; 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

Chap. L] PHILIP THE FIFTH. 287

jDrince^ who, tliougli 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 char-
acter, on which to bnild a new culture.^

^ That Philip the Fifth slionld desire to re- ^245
store the intellectual dignity of a 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 assim-
ilate 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 Four-
teenth ; 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 de-
cided love for any definite form of intellectual cultiva-
tion, 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 breed-
ing. He was, in fact, a Frenchman ; and never could

1 Lord Mahon's [Lord Stanhope's] ex- blar el Espaiiol aunque lo aprende con
cellent "History of the AVar of the grande aplicacion." (Entrada del Key
Succession in Spain" (London, 1832, nuestro Senor en Bayona, ec, y en
8vo) leaves the same general impression Irun, primer pueblo de Espana, Ma-
on the mind of the reader, as to the drid, 27 de Enero, 1701, 4to, pp. 7.)
effect of that war on the Spanish char- It will he remembered that Charles,
acter, that is left by the contemporary the first of the Austrian family, en-
accounts of it. It is, no doubt, the tered Spain as ignorant of its language
true one. as the first of the Bourbons did, and

^ A contemporary semi-official ac- that each was a boy of about seventeen,

count of his crossing the frontier to very fit to learn a new language, but

enter his kingdom notices the fact that not fit to govern a great empire. At

he could not speak Spanish, but was the date of the peace of Utrecht, how-

diligently learning it. "No sabe ha- ever, Philip V. was thirty years old.

288 SPANISH ACADEMY. [Period III.

forget- — what his grandfather had unwisely told him
always to remember — that he was such. When, there-
fore, he desired to encourage elegant literature, it was
natural that he should first recur to the means hy
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 posi-
tion 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 control-
ling the literature of a country by academies,
* 246 established ^ under the authority of its gov-
ernment, and composed of the principal men
of letters of the time, was generally favored ; — the
French Academy, founded by Cardinal Eichelieu, and
always the model of its class, being now at the height
of its success and fame. To establish a Spanish Acad-
emy, which should have similar objects and reach simi-
lar results, was, therefore, naturally, the great literary
project of the reign of Philip the Fifth.^ 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

^ The Royal Library, now the ISTa- were given January 2, 1716, and it is

tional Library, at Madrid, which was a characteristic circumstance that the

strictly the earliest literary project of first of them requires the king's confcs-

the reign of Philip V., was founded in sor to be, in all future time,, its respon-

1711; but for several years it was an sible Director. (Fundacion y Estatutos

institution of little importance. (El de la Libreria publica, Madrid, 1716,

Bil)liotecario y el Trovador, Madrid, 4to.) It became, of course, an orthodox

1841, folio, p. 3.) The Coast it iiciones library, and little else, for a long time.

Chap I.] DICTIOXART OF THE ACADEMY. 289

more severe branches of the physical and exact scien-
ces. 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 subdi-
visions should be substantial!}^ made according to the
system of Lord Bacon. This, however, was soon
abandoned as too vast an undertaking ; and it was de-
termined to begin by confining the duties of the new
association principally to '■' the cultivation and estab-
lishment 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 October, 1714.^

*As it was modelled almost exactly after * 247
the form of the French Academy, so the first
project of its members w\as that of making a Dic-
tionary. 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 com-
mon 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,

* "Historia de la Academia," in the second Director of the Academy, and
Preface to the " Diccionario de la Len- died in 1751, aged thirty-eight. To
gua Castellana, por la Real Acadernia both, the Academy offered distinguished
Espaaola," Madrid, Tom. I., 1726, folio. funeral honors. See " Relacion de las
Sempere y Guarinos, Biblioteca, 178-5, Exequias que la Real Academia Espa-
Discarso Preliminar, and Tom. I. p. uola celebro por el Excmo. Senor Mer-
55. Fundacion y Estatutos de la Real curio Antonio Lopez Pacheco, Marques
Academia Espanola, Madiid, 1715, 4to. de Villena su Director," ec, Madrid,
The first meeting was held July 6, 1738, 4to ; and " Elogio Historico, ec.
1713, and eight persons were present. del Marques de Villena su Segundo
The Marquis of Villena, its real founder Director, por D. Francisco Antonio de
and first Director, better known in Angulo," Madrid, 1751 ; the first con-
English history as the Duke of Escalo- sisting in part of a Eulogy bj' Bias de
na, rendered military services to his Nasarre, the editor of the Comedias de
country as well as ci\'il, but in the Cervantes ; and the last being by the
War of the Succession he was taken Secretary of the Academy.
X)nsoner, and exchanged for General See also Pelisson, Histoire de lAcade-
iStanhope. He died in 1738, fifty-nine mie Frangaise, Amsterdam, 12niO;, 1717
years old. His son succeeded him as p. 53.
VOL. III. 19

290 DICTIONARY OF THE ACADEMY. [Period III.

however, had perhaps done more than anybody 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 tl\e
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.^
*248 ^But, on the other hand, during the seven-
teenth century, the old language had been
much abused. From the appearance of Gongora no

^ Garces, Vigor y Elegancia de la ized, on whicli< in various notes else-

Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1791, 2 where, he seems to look with less favor

torn. 8vo, Prologo to each volume, than Garces does. Quite as curious as

Mendoza used reluctantly such words either are the words, which Blasco,

as centinela, and Coloma introduced (ITniversai Redencion, 1584) and Lopez

clique, etc. from his Dutch experience. Pinciano (El Pelayo, 1605) thought it

Navarre te (Vida de Cervantes, pp. 163- necessary to put into vocabularies at

169) and Garces (loc. cit.) show the the end of their respective poems, and

value of what Cervantes did, and Cle- to define for their readers, among which

mencin (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. V. pp. a.ve fatal, natal, fugaz, gruta, abando-

99, 292, and 357) gives a list of the na7% adular, anhelo, a'plaitso, arrnjarse,

Latin, Italian, and other words used assedio, etc., — -all noM^ familiar Cas-

by Cervantes, but not always natural- tilian.

Chap. I.] DICTIONARY OF THE ACADEMY. 291

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 Latini-
^arla, 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 Span-
ish. Such words and constructions, too, had enjoyed
much favor; and Lope de Yega, 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.^
Both to receive tlie 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.
Lideed, 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.'^ The
* new Academy, therefore, could obtain but ^ 249

^ It is impossible to open the works of Covarrubias, by Benito Eemigio ISToy-

of Count Villamecliana, and the other dens, (Madrid, 1674, folio,) which is

followers of Gongora, without linding better and ampler than the original

proofs of their willingness to change work. Very little has been done since

the language of Sjianish literature ; but for Spanish etymologies. The last work

there is a small and very imperfect list on the subject of much pretension was

of the words and phrases these inno- the " Diccionario de Etimologias," by

vators favored, to be found in the Don Ramon Cabrera, who died in 1833,

" Declamacion contra los Abuses de la at the age of seventy-nine, leaving liis

Lengua Castellana," by Vargas y Ponce, work in a crude and unsatisfactory

p. 150, which will at once illustrate state, in which condition it was pub-

their general purpose. lished by his fiiend Don Juan I'edio

' There is an edition of the " Tesoro" Ayegui, Madiid, 1837, 2 vols. 8va.

292 DICTIONARY OF THE ACADEMYo [Period III.

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 be-
tween 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 afterward striken out ; and many
were given on unsatisfactory authorities. But its defi-
nitions 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 lan-
guage, 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 execu-
tion skilful. It omitted the discussions, citations, and
formal etymologies of the larger work ; but it estab-
lished a better vocabulary, and improved many of the
old definitions. It had, therefore, from its first appear-
ance, a decided authority ; and, by the persevering la-
bors 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 eigh-
teenth century, have been always heavy, and some-
times disagreeable, from the constant tendency of
even the better writers, like Melendez and his school,

Chap. I.] ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE ACADEMY. 293

to fall into Gallicisms, which the increasing intercourse
with France had rendered fashionable in the society of
their time.^

^Another difficulty, however, soon presented ^250
itself to the Academy, quite as serious as trie
size of their Dictionary. It was that of the orthogra-
phy 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 un-
settled than that of the other modern languages. Le-
brixa, 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 ac-
ceptance.^ But thirty treatises, that at different times
followed, had — w^ith the exception of the acute and
pleasant one printed by Aleman when he was in
Mexico, in 1609 — served rather to unsettle and con-
fuse the whole matter, than to determine anything in
relation to it.^*^

^ I have a pamphlet in 4to, 1713, peared, while the Acadeiny was busy

entitled ' ' Planta y Metodo que deven with its work, a pamphlet, whose title

observar los Academicos en la Compo- announces its absurdity, viz. : "Alfa-

sicion del nuevo Diccionario " ; — and beto o nueba qoloqazion de las letras

two smaller tracts without date, entitled qonozidas en nuestro idioma Qastella-

*'Reglas para la Coreccion y Aumento no, ec, por Don Jose Ipolito Baliente,

del Diccionario " ; — differing consider- Profesor de Artes en los Estudios de

ably from each other, but all three con- la Ziudad de Plasenzia i de Leyes en la

taiuing sensible rules fitted to successive Unibersidad de Salamanqa," 4to, 1731.

vStages in the composition of the Diction- It was answered by a pamphlet, enti-

ary, and all^three published by order of tied "Hypolito contra Ipolito, el Es-

the Academy for the government of its paiiol vindicado, ec, por D. Gabriel de

members while engaged in the task. Atarbe y Anguita," Madrid, 1732, 4to.

^ It was reyjrinted by Mayans y Sis- This last tract maintains the vM jJossi-

car, from a copy without a title-page, detis of the language, not very well, to

which was the only one he could find be sure, but well enough to defeat an

in Madrid or Salamanca, in 1735, with adversary so extravagant. The "Orto-

prefaces and Refiecciones, which were grafia de la Lengua Castellana" (Mexi-

little needed and explain little. It is co, 1609, 4to, ff. 83) is a pleasant and

a very small, simple treatise, making important treatise, which, as the nov-

hardly 50 pages, in 18mo. elist intimates, he began to write in

^' Among the attempts to correct and Castile and finished in Mexico. It

settle Spanish orthography, there ap- proposes to reverse the letter o in order

294

ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE ACADEMY. [Period III.

'^ 251 "^ 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, pro-
duced 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 anything
else. At last, in 1815, the Academy, in the eighth
recension of its treatise on Orthograj)hy, 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 modifica-
tions, and even to invite them.^^

to express the soft ch, as in mucho, to
be printed miioo ; uses two forms of the
letter r; writes the conjunction y al-
ways i, as Salva now insists it should
be ; and claims j, U, and n to be sepa-
l-ate letters, as they have long been ad-
mitted to be. As to the use of i to ex-
press the conjunction y, which may yet
be adopted, it has frequently been in-
sisted upon. It is done in the Obras
Liricas of Virues, 1609, the printer,
however, entering the following caveat :
' ' La Ortografia que lleva este libro se
puso a persuasion del Autor y no como
en la imprenta se usa." And again it
is done by Esteban de Villegas in his
Eroticas, 1617 ; but again the printer
protests that the book is printed "a
costa del Autor i por el corregida la or-
tografia." Aleman was contemporary
with both, and may have had some-
thing to do with their systems.

In speaking of Aleman, I am re-
minded of his " San Antonio de Padua,"
Avritten under a religious vow (Preface to
Guzman de Alfarache^ Segunda Parte,
1605) and printed at Seville in 12mo in
1604 and twice afterwards. It belongs
to the same class of books with the
"San Patricio" of Montalvan, (see
ante, Vol. II. pp. 313, 367, note,) but
is more elaborate and more devout.

The number of the Saint's miracles that
it records is very great. Whether Ale-
man invented any of them for the occa-
sion, I do not know ; but they some-
times read as much like novelas as some
of his stories in the " Guzman " do, and
are always written in the same idio-
matic and unadulterated Cabtilian. It
is introduced by a cancion in honor of
it by Lope de Vega. It is an uncom-
monly attractive book of its class ; —
much better than Montalvan's, or an
anonymous one, entitled ' ' Libro de la
Historia y Milagros hechos a invoca-
cion de nuestra Seiiora de Monserrat"
(Barcelona, 1556, 12mo, ff. 269). This
last, however, is a curious monument
of Spanish faith, bringing down its suc-
cession of 325 miracles to the very year
of its publication, during which the
last four are recorded to have been per-
formed.

11 The difficulties in Castilian orthog-
raphy are set forth in the "Dialogo de
las Lenguas" (Mayans y Siscar, Ori-
genes, Tom. II. pp. 47-65); but the
ino;enious author of that discussion is
more severe than was necessary on Le-
brixa. An anonymous writer of an ex-
cellent essay on the same subject, in
the first volume of the Repertorio Amer^
icano, (Tom. I. p. 27,) is a great deal

Chap. I.] GRAMMAR OF THE ACADEMY. 295

A Grammar, like a Dictionary, was provided for in
the statutes of the Academy. But the original mem-
bers of that body, few of whom were men of note and
authority, showed a marked unwillingness to
* approach the difficult discussions involved in "^ 252
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, ex-
cept the rival Grammars of Gayoso and San Pedro,
which were published while the Academy was prepar-
ing its own, and the original attempt of Lebrixa, which
had long been forgotten. But after so protracted a
labor, the Academicians should have produced some-
thing 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 Salva.^^

more judicious. Bat how unsettled changes, to suppress the letters h, q, v,

rauch still remains in practice may be x, and y, giving a practical example of

seen in the "Manual del Cajista, por his theory, in the spelling of his trea-

Jo.se Maria Palacios," Madrid, 1845, tise. (Eeilexiones sobre la Ortografia

18mo, where (pp. 134-154) is a "Pron- de la Lengua Casteliana, ec, Madrid,

tuario de las Voces de dudosa Orto- 1806, 18mo, pp. 47.) An attempt so

grafia," containing above 1800 words. absurd, of course, produced no effect,

I do not know any country where, by ^^ Of Lebrixa's Grammar I have al-

a general popular consent, all careful ready spoken, (Vol. II. j). 22,) and the

spelling has been so much neglected as memory of it was now so much revived

in Spain ; — - a fact obvious to anybody that a counterfeit edition of it was pub-

who has noticed the signs of the shops lished, about 1775, in small folio, hard-

and tradespeople in its different cities, ly, I should judge from its appearance,

and one well ridiculed in a pamphlet with the intention of deceiving. But

entitled " Bello Gusto Satirico de In- such things were not uncommon about

scripciones," (Madrid, 1785, 18mo,) that time, as Mendez says, who thinks

proposing, as one of IMoliere's Facheux the edition in question had been piinted

does, to have an office of inspector of about twent}' years when he published

shop signs, Avhich one of his annotators his work in 1796. (See Typog., p. 242. )

says at one time really existed in Paris. It is, however, already so rare, that I

Madrid could not do better than to fol- obtained a copy of it with difficulty.
low the example. That of Gayoso was first ])rinted at

The orthography of the Academy was Madrid, in 1745, 12mo, and that of San

attacked, in 1806, by an anonymous Pedro in Valencia, 1769, 12nio, wlii-h

writer, who proposed, among other last Gayoso, disguising himself under

296 OTHEK LABORS OF THE ACADEMY. [Period III.

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 ujoon them. Thus they have published care-
ful 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 pat-
* 253 ronage, and, among "^ others, the excellent trea-
tise of Garces on " The Vigor and Beauty of the
Spanish Language," which appeared under their aus-
pices in 1791.^^ During the whole century, therefore,
the Spanish Academy, occupied in these various ways,
continued to be a useful institution, carefully abstain-
ing 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 deserv-
ing 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

a sort of anagram, attacked, in his ^^ Gregorio Garces, whose "Funda-

" Conversaciones Criticas, por Don An- mento del Vigor y Elegancia de la Len-

tonio Gobeyos," (Madrid, 1780, 12mo,) gua Castellana " was printed at Madrid,

where he shows that San Pedro was not 1791, 2 torn. 8vo, was a Jesuit, and

so original as he ought to have been, prepared this important work in exile

but treats his Grammar with more at Ferrara, in which city he lived above

harshness than it deserved. Salva's thirty years, and from which he re-

" Gramatica de la Lengua Castellana turned home in 1798, under the decree

como ahora se halla " was first printed of Charles IV. abrogating that of his

in 1831, and the sixth edition a])peared father for the expulsion of the Order

at Madrid in 1844, 12mo ; a sufficient from Spain, in 1767.
proof of the want of such a book.

Chap. L] OTHER ACADEMIES. 297

other academies for kindred purposes. These acade-
mies were entirely different from tlie social meetings,
under the same name, that were imitated from the
Italian Academias in the time of Charles the Fifth, — ■
one of the earliest of which was held in the house of
Cortes/^ 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 liter-
ature of the country, was established during the reign
of Philip the Fifth, — the Academy for Spanish His-
tory, founded in 1738; the character and amount of
whose labors, both published and unpublished, do its
members much honor.^^

But such associations everywhere, though
they may be * useful and even important in *254
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 ele-
gant culture had so nearly disappeared before the ac-
cession of the Bourbons, and there was such an insen-
sibility to its value in those classes of society where

^^ See ante, Part II. c. 5, and note, fashion and been displaced by tlie mod-

Vol. II. Y>- 11- ern Tertulias. where both sexes meet,

1° For an account of these Academies, and which in their turn have been ridi-

see Guarinos, " Biblioteca " ; and for a culed in the Saynetes of Ramon de la

notice of the origin of the Royal Acad- Cruz and Castillo. Even much earlier,

emy of History, see the first volume of Figueroa says (Placa Universal, 1615,

its ^lemoirs. The old Academias, in f. 64\ that the Academias had given

invitation of the Italian, — such as are occasion for such quarrelling arid scan-

ri li:'"T'ed in the " Diablo Cojuelo," dal, that they had been discounte-

Tiu.. xj IX., — had much gone out of nanced.

298 POETRY IN PHILIP THE FIFTH'S TIME. [Peuiud HI.

it should have been most cherished, that it was plain
the resuscitation must be a 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 appear-
ing originally in an unfinished state, in consequence
of the author's impatience for fame, and the earlier of
of them still remaining so. But they have been long
forgotten. Indeed, the first, which is full of extrava-
gant 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 w^ork of Moraes is a prose satire,
printed in 1734, called "The Caves of Salamanca,"
where in certain grottos, which a popular tradition sup-
posed to exist, sealed up by magic, within the banks
of the T(Srmes, he finds Amadis of Gaul, Oriana, and
Celestina, and discourses witli them and other
^255 fanciful personages on ^ such subjects as his

Chap. I.] POETRY IN PHILIP THE FIFTIl's TIME. 299

humor happens to suggest. Parts of it are very
wild; parts of it are both amusing and wise; espe-
cially what is said about the Spanish language and
academies, and about the " Telemachus " of Fene-
lon, then at the height of its fame. The whole
shows few of the affectations of style that still de-
formed 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.^^

A long heroic poem, in two parts, in honor of the
conquest of Peru by the Pizarros, was printed in Lima
in 1732. It is founded principally on the prose His-
tory 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 learn-
ing, but not a poet. Like Moraes, he has arranged a
mystical interpretation to his story ; some parts of
which, such as those where America comes before God,
and prays to be conquered that she may be converted,
are really allegorical ; while, in general, the interpre-
tation he gives is merely an after-thought, forced and
unnaturah But his work is dull and in bad taste, and

1^ There is an edition of the " ISTiievo "Las Cnevas de Salamanca" (s. I.

Mundo," printed at Barcelona, 1701, 1734) is a small volume, divided into

4to, containing many blanks, which seven books, written, perhaps, at Sala-

the author announces his intention to manca itself, which Moraes loved, and

fill up. Of the "Alfonso, 6 la Funda- M^here he retired in his old age. He

cion del Reyno de Portugal," there are published one or two works in Spaniish,

editions of 1712, 1716, 1731, and 1737. besides those already mentioned, and

There is a notice of the author — Fran- one or two in Latin, but no others of

Cisco Botelho Moraes e Vasconcellos — consequence. Gaj^angos notes a trifling

in Barbosa, (Tom. II. p. 119,) and at poetical work of Moraes in Spanish as

the end of the edition of the Alfonso, early as 1696. It is a panegyrical ac-

Salamanca, 1731, 4to, is a defence of count of the great Sousa family in

a few peculiarities in its orthograj^hy. eighty-eight stanzas.

300 POETfiY 1^ PHILIP THE FIETE'S TIME. [Peuiod HI.

the octave stanzas in which it is written are managed
with less skill than usual.-^^

Several religious poems belong to the same
^256 period. "^ One by Pedro de Keynosa^ 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 Mi-
guel de Zevallos, in 1738, is devoted to the honor of
Saint John of Nepomuck, who, in the fourteenth cen-
tury, 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.^^

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

1'^ " Lima Fundada, Poem Heroico de tist, by Antonio de Frias, 1717; — a
Don Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo," Lima, poem on St. Jerome, by Father Fran-
1732, 4to, about 700 pages ; but so ill cisco de Lara, 1726 ; — a metrical His-
paged that it is not easy to determine. tory of the World, by Bernabe de Pala-
is " Santa Casilda, Poema en Octavas fox. Marques de Lazan, 1734; — and
Eeales, por el K. P. Fr. Pedro de Rey- San. Raphael, or a history of certain
nosa," Madrid, 1727, 4to. It is in visions of a monk of Cordova in the
seven cantos, and each canto has a sort sixteenth centurj^, by Father Buena-
of codicil to it, affectedly called a Con- ventura Terrin, 1736, — all detestable
trcqnmto. — " La Eloquencia del Silen- trash. Moreover, I have seen very
cio, Poema Heroico, por Miguel de la ridiculous extracts from a poem by
Reyna Zevallos," Madrid, 1738, 4to. — Father Butron on Santa Teresa, but I
Of the mock-heroic poems mentioned in have never happened to fall in with the
the text, one is "La Proserpina, Poema poem itself, which seems to be as bad
Heroico, por de Pedro Silvestre," Ma- as any of its class. Gayangos says it
drid, 1721, 4to, — twelve mortal can- was priuted in 1722.
tos. The other is "La Burromaqnia," ^^ There was a good deal of popular
which is better, but still not amusing, poetry during the War of the Succes-
It is unfinished, and is found in the sion ; villancicos, dialogues, ballads,
" Obras Postumas de Gabriel Alvarez etc., of which I possess a considerable
de Toledo." The divisions are not collection. But they are of the most
called "Cantos," but ^^ Brayings." — I ordinary character; — sometimes mis-
have also a poem on St. John the Bap- erably vulgar.

Chap. I.] POETRY IN PHILIP THE FIFTIl's TIME. 301

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, ^257
and^ equally various in tone, from that appro-
priate to religious villancicos to that of the freest satire.
But they are in very bad taste ; and, if anything like
poetry appears in them, it is at rare intervals. Bene-
gasi 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 Munoz, 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.^*^

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

20 ' ' Obras Poeticas Lyricas, por el list, — Dona Teresa Guerra of Cadiz, —
Coronel D. Eugenio Gerardo Lobo," who, in 1725, printed a small volume
Madrid, 1738, 4to, and 1769, 2 torn. 4t^, of very miserable verse,
with additions that do not increase its But it is all naught, and was some-
value. — " Poesias Lyricas, yJoco-Serias times suspected to be so even at the
su Autor D. Joseph Joachim Benegasi y period when it was produced. Thus,
Luxan," Madrid, 1743, 4to. — Gab. Al- Don Francisco de la Pv,ua, who -\\Tote a
varez de Toledo, id ante. — Antonio Mu- pamphlet entitled " Destierro de Pobres,
noz, "Ad Venturas en Verso yen Prossa," La Poesia muerta," (Madrid, 1734,)
{sic,) no date, but licensed 1739, and and whose taste did not prevent him
' ' ]\Iorir viviendo en la Aldea y vivir from praising such writers as Lobo and
muriendo en la Corte " (Madrid, 1737, Inez de la Cruz, says (p. 15) of the
12mo) ; a poor tale ridiculing country national poetry of his time, that he en-
gen tleraen, who sink into a clownish tirely despairs of it because " it is diffi-
life after being bred to something bet- cult to revive a body tKat has been
ter. — One lady may be added to the dead so many years." He advises.

302 POETEY IN PHILIP THE FIFTH'S TIME. [Periop HI.

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 a few other poets, who are still
remembered, occur in the first collection ; but, in gen-
eral, 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 character of the
whole jhows how low was the culture which could

attribute any value to such publications.^^
^258 ^ 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

therefore, that tlie thoughts of the na- D. Manuel Montafaes y Monte-alegre,"

tion should be turned only to what is is no better, and contains (pp. 85, 99,

useful, and it seems almost as if his etc.) some of the most absurd tricks

advice must have been wise. in versification that can be found any-

21 * ' Sagradas Flores del Parnaso, Con- where,
sonancias Metricas de la bien templada One striking proof of the decay and
Lyra de Apolo, que a la reverente Ca- neglect of letters in the r-eign of Philip
tolica Accion de haver ido accompa- ^. is to be found in the small number
iiando sus Magestades el Ssmo. Sacra- of copies printed of books that might
mento que iba a darse por viatico a una be reckoned of a popular cha racter.
Enferma el Dia 28 de Novembre, 1722, Thus, in the address of the Printer to
cantaron los mejores Cisnes de Espaiia," the Reader prefixed to the third edition
4to. I give the title of the first collec- of the " Cryselia de Lidaceli," (1720,
tion in full, as an indication of the bad see ante, p. 122,) he says : "Two hun-
taste of its contents. Both collections, dred and fifty copies have been printed,
taken together, make about 200 pages, and the same is done with other books,
and contain poems by about fifty an- — some of them two hundred and fifty
thors, generally in the worst and most copies, and others one hundred or two
affected style, — the very dregs of Gon- hundred, so that the curious may not
gorism. A volume entitled "Sacra y fail of a chance to read them." But if
Humana Lyra, Poemas de Don Gabriel there were so few buyers and readers of
de Leon," (Madrid, 4to, 1734,) is fit to "libros de entretenimiento, " what mo-
go with the "Sagradas Flores," and — tive was there for writing them? In
relating largely to the Holy Sacrament fact and in truth, they were not written,
and other similar subjects — is much ^^ The " Satira contra los Malos Es-
like it. Another, the next year, 1735, ciitores de su Tiempo" is commonly
entitled " Poesias liricas que escrivia attributed to Jose Gerardo de Herbas j

Chap. L] POETRY i:^ PHILIP THE FIFTH S TIME.

oUo

successful for the time when it appeared ; a circum-
stance the more to be noticed, as this success seems
not to have inspired any similar attempt, or even to
have encouraged its author to venture again
before the public. The subject he chose ^Avas ^259
fortunate, — the bad writers of his age, — and
in discussing it he has spoken out boldly and man-
fully ; sometimes calling by name those whom he ridi-
cules, 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.

but Tapia (Civilisacion, Tom. IV. p.
266) says it was written by Jose Cobo
de la Torre, besides wliich it is inserted
iu the " Eebusco de las Obras Literarias
de J. F. de Isla," (Madrid, 1790, ]2mo,)
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 Avas 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.
Among the most severe assailants of
the " Diario " was Mayans y Siscar, who
was much off'ended by an article on his
" Origenes de la Lengua Espanola," and
replied by a volume, entitled ' ' Conver-
sacion sobre el Diario de los Literatos
de Espana ; la publico D. Placido Vera-
nio," (Madrid, 1737,) — not, however,
written with the gentle summer-like
mildness intended to be announced in
his pseudonyme. Another of their as-

sailants was D. Vicente de la Ventura
y Valcles, who attacked it in his ' ' Tri-
umvirato de Eoma," (Madrid, 1738,)
the Ain-ohaciones to which are very long
and as bitter as the work itself. And
yet another assailant was Aiiorbe y Cor-
regel, the poor playwright, whose ab-
surd religious drama, in three parts,
"La Tutora de la Iglesia," they had
reviewed, (Tom. IV. p. 358,) and who
answered in the preface to his equally
absurd Zarzuela, "Jupiter y Danae,"
claiming to stand on the same platform
with Lope de Vega and Calderon, — as
if he had the least right to be there,
except so far as he followed their ex-
travagances and follies. But "Tray,
Blanche, and Sweetheart - — all the little
dogs"- — barked at the "Diario" and
its editors as well as the rest ; and so,
as I have said, it failed of success.
Other periodical works appeared about
the same time, such as the " Mercurio "
by Maner, Nifo's "Diario Curioso,"
etc. ; but they too were little encouraged.
To the same period with the Satire
of Pitillas and the "Diario de los Lite-
ratos," belongs the poem on "Deuca-
lion," by Alonso Verdugo de Castilla,
Count of Torrepalma. It is an imita-
tion of Ovid, in about sixty octave
stanzas, somewhat remarkable for its
versification. But in a better period it
would not be noticed.

*260 * CHAPTER II.

MARQUIS OF SAN PHELIPE. — INFLUENCE OP FRANCE ON SPANISH LITERATURE.

LUZAN. HIS PREDECESSORS AND HIS DOCTRINES. LOW STATE OF ALL

INTELLECTUAL CULTURE IN SPAIN. FEYJOO.

One historical work of some consequence belongs
entirely to the reign of Philip the Fifth^ — the Com-
mentaries on the War of the Succession, and the his-
tory of the country from 1701 to 1725, by the Marquis
of San Phelipe. Its author, a gentleman of Spanish de-
scent, 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, un-
der 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 m.uch 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.

Chap. II.] MARQUES DE SA:^ PHELIPE. 305

But his chief work was "^on the War of the "^261
Succession. The great interest he took in the
Bourbon cause induced him to write it^ and the posi-
tion he had occupied in the affairs of his time gave
him ample materials, quite beyond the reach of others
less fivored. He called it " Commentaries on the War
of Spain, and History of its King, Philip the Fifth, the
Courao^eous, from the Bes-innino; of his Reim to the
Year 1725" ; but, although the compliment to his sov-
ereign implied on the title-page is faithfully carried
through the whole narrative, the »book was not pub-
lished 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 com-
plete edition appeared at Genoa without date, but
probably in 1729.

It is a spirited book, earnest in the cause of Castile
against Ca^talonia; but still, notwithstanding its par-
tisan character, it is the most valuable of the contem-
porary 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 relig-
ion and loyalty, — feelings which this very book proves
to have partly survived the general decay of the na-
tional 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

VOL. Ill, 20

306 INFLUENCE OF FRANCE. [Period III.

wliom^ 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 modesty where their author is personally con-
cerned, and with a life and spirit which belong only to
the narrative of one who has been an actor in the

scenes he describes.^
^262 * 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 cogni-
zance 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 re-
fined capital in Europe ; and the courts of Louis the
Fourteenth and Louis the Fifteenth, necessarily in in-
timate 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.

1 " Los Dos Tobias, su Vida escrita Antonio Palomino y Velasco, presurap-

en Octavas, por D. Vicente Bacallar y tuonsly called "the Vasari of Spain,"

Sanna, Marques de San Phelipe," etc., — an artist who was born in 1653, and

4to, pp. 178, without date, but licensed died in 1726. It is in two volumes

1709. — "Monarchia Hebrea," Madrid, folio; the last being divided into two

1727, 2 torn. 4to, En Haya, 1745, 4 parts, and is fantastically entitled "El

torn. 12mo. Few books are more dull. Museo Pictorico y Escala Optica," be-

— "Comentarios de la Guerra de Es- ginning with an account of Painting as

paiia hasta el Ano 1725," Genoa, no an Art, and endiiig with Lives of the

date, 2 torn. 4to. Of the last there is Spanish Painters. An ample account

a poor continuation, bringing the his- of the author and of his work may be

tory down to 1742, entitled " Continu- found in Cean Bermudez, (Diccionario,

acion a los Comentarios, ec, por D. 1800, Tom. IV. pp. 29- 41,) and a still

Joseph del Campo Easo," Madrid, better one in Stii-ling (Artists of Spain,

1756-1763, 2 tom. 4to. 1848, Vol. III. pp. 1120-1134). Cean,

An important work for the history in his Prologo, speaks tenderly of Palo-

of Spanish Painting appeared in 1715- mino's bad' taste, remembering, no

1725, Avhich would be fully noticed here doubt, how much he owed to his dili-

if it were not so ill-written, but which, gence. Mr. Stirling, too, gracefully

even such as it is, should not be en- acknowledges his obligations,
tirely passed over. It is by Acisclo

Chap. II.] LUZA1S-. 307

French, in fact, soon began to be spoken in the ele-
gant 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 w^as a compliment to the reigning monarch him-
self, and courtiers strove to indulge in it. Pitillas,
under pretence of laughing at himself for following
the fishion, 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, thongh 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 Andalu-
sian or Castilian ^ wife, and finds out that she * 263
proves little better than a Frenchwoman after
all.'^

Translations from the French followed this state of
things ; and, at last, an attempt was made to introduce
formally into SjDain a poetical system founded on the
critical doctrines prevalent in France. Its author, Ig-.
nacio de Luzan, a gentleman of Aragon, was born in
1702; and, while still a child, went to Italy and re-
ceived 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

2 Pitillas, Satira. — Isla, A los que, of becoming an author, is recei^ang

degenerando del Caracter Espanol, afec- satirical advice as to his course, he is

tan ser Estrangeros. Eebusco, p. 178. told: "The newest fasliion is always

The fashion continued more or less the best. Write, then, in the fasliion -

through the whole period. In 1789, able style, — th^ti?., the Fran ch.'' Carta

when a young man, who is in danger de Paracuellos, Madrid, 1789, p. 30.

308 LUZAN. [Period III.

the ideas of scliolarsliip then prevalent m Ttalj, 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 posi-
tion, 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 pub-
lished, 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
Musaeus; he fitted dramas of Maffei, La Chaussee, and
Metastasio to the Spanish stage ; and he wrote a con-
siderable number of short poems, and one original
drama, " Virtue Honored," which was privately repre-
sented 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 "
"^264 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, in consequence of the absence of the am-
bassador, 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 confi-
dence of the king; and when he died suddenly, in
1754, he was in great favor, and about to receivo

Chap. II.J LUZAN". 309

a place of more consequence than any he had yet
helcl.^

The circumstances of the country, and those of his
ov/n education, position, and tastes, opened to Luzan,
as a critic, a career of ahnost assured success. Every-
thing was so enfeebled and degraded, that it could
offer no effectual resistance to what he might teack
The political importance of his country among the na-
tions of Europe had been crushed. Its moral dignity
was impaired. Its school of poetry had disappeared.
The old system of things in Spain, so far as general
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 tov»^ards imparting a
decisive movement ; and, in literary taste and criti-
cism, Luzan was certainly well fitted to give the guid-
ing impulse. He had been educated with great thor-
oughness 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 Pa-
lermo, of ^ which he was a member, six critical ^ 2Q5
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,

^ Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. V. p.. Solemne," etc., printed in honor of the

12, and Preface to the edition of L\i- occasion (Madrid, folio) ; and the simi-

zan's Poetica, by his son, 1789. His lar poems recited hj him at a distribu-

poetry — of which he never wrote much tion of prizes by the s-ajn« A(;ademy, in

— has never been collected and piife- 1754, and published in their " Eela-

lished, but portions of it are found in cion," etc., (Madrid, folio, pp. 51-61,',

Sedano, Quintana, etc. The octaves prove rather the dignity of his social

he recited at the opening of the Acad- position than anything else. Latassa

emy of Fine Arts, in 1752, and pub- gives a long account of his unpublished

lished at p. 21 of the "Abertura works.

810 EARLY TREATISES ON POETRY. [Period III.

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 Quintihan and Cicero, though, in his short
treatise, which shows more good sense and good taste
than can be claimed from the age, he takes substan-
tially the same view of his subject that Don Enrique
de Villena and the Provencals had taken before him, —
considering all poetry chiefly with reference to its me-
chanical forms. ^ 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 me^ns
forgotten, but one whose chief value consists in what
it contains relating to the national school and its pecu-
liar measures.^

Alonso Lopez, commonly called El Pinciano, — the
same person who wrote the dull epic on Pelayo, —
went further, and in 1596 pubUshed his " Ancient
Poetical Philosophy," in which, under the disguise of a
friendly correspondence, he gives, with much learning

* It is prefixed to the edition of Enzi- editions of 1700, 1737, etc., "by Joseph

na's Cancionero, 1496, folio, and I sup- Vicens. It contains a Dictionary of

pose to the other editions ; and fills Rhymes, which Moratin the Younger,

nine short chapters. in his " Derrota de los Pedantes,"

^ "Arte Poetica Espaiiola, su Autor (1789, p. 42,) intimates was an im-

Juan Diaz Rengifo," Salamanca, 1592, portant resource for the poets of his

4to, enlarged, but not improved, in the time.

Chap. II.] EARLY TREATISES ON POETRY. 311

and some acuteness, his own views of the opinions
held by the ancient masters on all the modes of
poetical composition.^ Cascales * followed him, ^266
in 1616, with a series of dialogues, somewhat
more famihar than the grave letters of Lopez, and
resting more on the doctrines of Horace, whose epistle
to the Pisos Cascales afterwards published, with a well-
written Latin commentary.^ 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 "Trojanae " of Seneca, and an
address of the theatre of all ages to its various audi-
ences.^

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 rhetori-
cians.^ In this they committed a serious error. An-
cient 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 Yega, therefore, passed over
them like an irresistible flood, leaving behind it hardly

^ " Philosdphia Antigua Poetica del Salas faithfully returned by imitating

Doctor Alonso Lopez Pinciano, jMcdico Quevedo's style, and, after his death,

Cesareo," Madrid, 1596, 4to. collecting his works, of which he pub-

■^ " Tablas Poeticas del Lieenciado lished the first part in 1648. (See ante,

Francisco Cascales," 1616. An edition Vol. II. 279, note.) Salas was born in

of Madrid, 1779, 8vo, contains a Life 1588, and died in 1651.

of the author by Mayans y Siscar. ^ Of the treatise of Argote de Molina,

Cascales is presumptuous enough to re- prefixed to his edition of the " Conde

arrange Horace's "Ars Poetica" in Lucanor," 1575, and of the poem of

what he regards as a better order. Cueva, I have spoken {ante, I. 467,

^ " Nueva Idea de la Tragedia An- III. 62). A small tract, called " Libro

tigua, 6 Illustracion Ultima al libro d^ Erudicion Poetica," published in the

Singular de Poetica de Aris'-o'^eles, por works of Luis Carrillo, 1611, and sev-

Don Jusepe Ant. Goncalez de Sa as," eral of the epistles of Christoval de

Madrid, 1633, 4to. Qaevedo admired Mesa, 1618, might be added ; but the

him extravagantly and knew his " Tro- last are of little consequence, and the

yanas" by heart; — an admiration which tract of Carrillo is in very bad taste.

312 LUZAN's POETICA, [Period III.

a trace of tlie dikes and dams that liad 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 preced-
ing period, and Artiga, who, in a long treatise " On
Spanish Eloquence/' written in the ballad measure,
had seemed willing to encourage all the bad taste
that prevailed in the beginning of the eighteenth

century .-^^
^267 ^ Luzan took no notice of either of them.

He followed the poetical system of Boileau and
Lebossu, not, indeed, forgetting the masters of antiq-
uity, 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 of more authority than any
other in Europe.^^ His object, as he afterwards ex-
plained 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 said in them whatever he thinks it necessary to
say of the less important divisions of the art, — such

^^ Gracian has been noticed in this dondo, and is called " Tratado Philoso-
volume (p. 222). The "Epitome do la phi-Poetico," 18mo, pp. 128.
Eloquencia Espanola, port). Francisco ^^ Blanco White (Lite by Thorn, 1845,
Joseph Artiga, olira Artieda," was li- Svo, Vol. I. p. 21 ) says Lnzan borrowed
censed in 1725, and contains above so freely from Muratori, "Delia Per-
thirteen thonsand lines; — a truly ri- fetta Poesia," that the Simnish treatise
diculous book, but of some consequence helped him (Mr. White) materially in
as showing the taste of the age, espe- learning to read the Italian one. But
cially in pulpit oratory. A still more Luzan has not in fact copied from Mu-
ridiculous treatise, but a shorter one, ratori with the unjustifiable freedom
on Logic and Natural Philosophy, fol- this remark implies, though he has
lowed in 1758. It was written in pop- adopted Muratori's general system, with
ular — I might say vulgar — seguidillas, abundant acknowledgment and refer-
by a lady, Doha Maria de Campore- ences.

Chap. IL] LOW STATE OF SPAXISH CULTUKE. 313

as lyric poetry, satire, and pastorals, — lie devotes the
two remaining books entirely to a discussion of the
drama and of epic poetry, — the forms in which Span-
ish genius had long been more ambitious of excel-
lence 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, Luzan shows judgment, and a temperate phi-
losoph}^; 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 pro-
duced.

The effect was immediate and great. It seemed to
offer a remedy for the bad taste which had ac-
companied, ^ and in no small degree hastened, * 268
the decline of the national literature from the
time of Grongora. It was seized on, therefore, with
eagerness, as the book that was wanted ; and when to
this we add that the literature of the ag-e of Louis the
Fourteenth, which it held up as the model literature
of Christendom, was then regarded throughout Eu-
Tope with almost unmingled admiration, we shall not
be surprised that the "Poetica" of Luzan exercised,
from its first appearance, a controlling authority over
opinions at the court of Spain, and over the few
writers of reputation then to be found in the country.^-

^^ The first edition of the "Poetica" Navarro and Gallinero, two of the au-

of Lnzan was printed in folio at Sara- thor's friends. The second edition, ma-

i^osaa, in 1737, witli long and extraor- terially improved hj additions from tlie

di'.Kiry certitieates of approbation hj manuscripts of Luzan, after his dcatlij

314 LOW STATE OF SPANISH CULTURE. [Period IIL

Sometliing more^ however, than a reformation in
taste was wanted in Spain before a sufficient foimda-
tion could be laid for advancement in elegant litera-
ture. 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 acceler-
ated 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 forever watching the passes of the Pyr-
enees. From the days of the Comuneros and the Refor-
mation of Luther, when religious sects hegan 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, everj^thing in the shape
of instruction that was not approved by the Church

was treated as dangerous. At the universities,
* 269 which from their foundation had been ^ entirely

ecclesiastical corporations, and were used con-
stantly 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

was printed at Madrid, in 2 torn. 8vo, Luzan, who was more sensitive than he

in 1789. When the first edition ap- needed to be, replied in a small bitter

peared, it was much pi'aised in the tract, under the name of Ihigo de La-

"Diario de los Literatos" (Tom. VII., nuza, Pamplona, [1741,] 12mo, pp. 144,

1738) ; but, as one of the reviewers, with cumbrous and Irarned notes by

Juan de Iriarte, who wrote the latter Colmenares, to whom the tract is dedi-

part of the article, made a few exceji- cated,
tions to his general conunnidations,

Chap. II.] LOW STATE OF SPANISH CULTURE. 315

subject to Charles the Fourth, ^^ even medicine and
jurisprudence would have been neglected, if the in-
stincts of men had permitted them to forget the means
by which life and property are protected." ^^

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, after-
wards distinguished for his knowledge in the physi-
cal 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 Uni-
versity there, it was by accident he learned the exist-
ence of the mathematical sciences.-^* 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 .^^

Thus far, therefore, the old system of things was

1^ Cean Berraudez, Memorias de Jo- Such statements seem all but incredible

vellaiios, Madrid, 1814, 12mo, cap. x. when we remember what had been al-

p. 221. ready accomplished' between the times

1* Vida, Ascendencia, etc., del Doc- of Newton and Enler, and what Avas

tor Diego de Torres Villaroel, Madrid, then doing by Lagrange and Lalande.

1789, 4to ; — an autobiography, writ- But they are true. The learned Bayer

ten in the worst taste of the time, i. e. took an interest in the movement for

about 1743. He says of a treatise on reform, and prepared a long memorial

the Sphere, by Padre Clavio : "Creo to the king, entitled " For la Libertad

que fue la primera noticia que habia de la Literatura Espafiola," exposing

llegado a mis oidos de que habia ciencias the low state of things in the great uni-

matematicas en el mundo" (p. 34). In versities of the country. This Avas in

1768, three persons, much connected 1769. In 1771 some reform was begun,

with Salamanca, in a memorial ad- and in 1778, notwithstanding the severe

dressed to Campomanes, the eminent resistance of the colleges, changes were

minister of Charles III., said that effected, which, however, for a long

"there are few graduates who know time, were little effective. See the

what mathematics are," — "hay pocos Spanish Translation of this History,

graduados que entiendan lo que son Tom. IV. p. 399.
matematicas." (Ferrer del Kio, Hist. i^ Doblado's Letters, 1822, p. 113.

de Carlos III., 1856, Tom. IV. p. 481.)

316 FEYJOO. [Peuiud III.

triiimpliant^ and the common forms of advan-
* 270 cing knowledge "^ were, to an extraordinary and

almost incredible degree, kept out of the coun-
try. 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
at 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 Avaters of knowledge had been rolled back-
ward to their fountain, but no spirit of power had de-
scended 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 scat-
tered individuals, who, by the civil and ecclesiastical
tyranny that oppressed them, would be prevented
from diffusing even the imperfect light that 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 extraor-

1^ In 1666, in the official relation of death. ; but this is given at the side of

the ceremonies at the interment of an equally detailed account of that

Philip IV. the preceding year, we have monarch's gradual decay, from 1659,

a detailed account of the comet of 1664, by disease. Monforte, Honras a Felipe

as having announced that monarch's IV., Madrid, 4to, 1666, tf. 19-22.

Chap. IL] FEYJOO. 317

dinarv advantag:es for the unclertakmo; to Vv^Iiicli he
devoted his Ufe, — the quiet monk, Benito Feyjoo.
He was born in 1676, the eldest son of respectable
parents in the northwestern part of Spain, wdio, con-
trary to the opinions of their time, did not think the
law of ^primogeniture required them to devote their
first-born whollj^ to the duty of sustaining the
honors of his family, and enjoying ^the income ^'271
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 sci-
ences 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 him-
self 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
enhghtening his countrymen.

His personal character and resources, in some re-
spects, fitted him well for the great task he had under-
taken. 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 circum-
stance without which he would certainly 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 embar-
rassments of his ecclesiastical position, he had, on the
other, obtained, wdiat few Spaniards then enjoyed,
the means of knowing much of what had been done

1'^ Feyjoo offers, in his " Teatro Criti- to liis father's memory, as a man of in-
co," (Tom. IV. Disc. xiv. § 85, ed. tellectual accomplishments and of great
1759, pp. 4:12, 413,) a graceful tribute Christian virtues.

318 FEYJOO. [Period III.

in Italy^ in France, and even in England, for the ad-
vancement of science during the century precedmg
that in which he was educated. Above all, he was
honest, and scrupulously 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 Eu-
rope. Truth, he saw, had, on many important sub-
jects, 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 riotino; unrestrained in the world of imao^ina-
tion, 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.
=^272 * At times he seems to have been anxious

concerning the result of his labors ; but, on the
w^hole, his courage did not fail him. He was not, in-
deed, a man of genius. He was not a man to in-
vent new systems of metaphysics or philosophy. But
he was a learned man, with a cautious judgment, some-
wdiat obscured, but not really imjDaired, 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 di-
rect the thoughts of Spaniards to what had been done

Chap. II.] FEYJOO. 319

beyond the Pj^renees, it favored his purpose. But in
other respects, as we have seen, it had effected noth-
ing for the national culture. Still, when, in 1726,
Feyjoo printed a volume of essaj^s connected with his
main purpose, he was able to command public atten-
tion, 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 every-
where in Spain ; maintained Bacon's system of induc-
tion in the physical sciences ; ridiculed the general
opinion in relation to comets, echpses, and the arts of
mastic and divination ; laid down rules for historical
faith, which would exclude most of the early traditions
of the country ; denounced torture and a multitude of
ecclesiastical abuses ; showed a greater deference for
woman, and claimed for her a higher place in society,
than the influence of the Spanish Church wilhngly
permitted her to occupy ; and, in all respects, came
forth to his countrymen as one urging earnestly the
advancement of education, 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 "^273
reason. But in 1742 Feyjoo 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 Critico," appeared early, and was soon
followed by another, with nearly the same title, and
by not a few scattered tracts and volumes, directed

320 FEYJOO. [Peeiod IIL

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 pre-
vailing style was obscure and affected ; and^ if he fell
often into Gallicisms, from relying much on French
writers for his materials, his mistakes of this sort were
not, on the whole, important ; and, in general, he pre-
sented himself in a Castilian costume that was respect-
able and attractive, though wanting in purity. 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
Feyjoo 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 tribu-
nals.^^ 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

1^ Llorente, Hist, de I'lnq., Tom. II. Indeed, that work was received with

p. 446. It may be deemed worthy of such interest and favor from its earliest

notice, that Oliver Goldsmith pays an appearance, that its suppression would

appropriate tribute to the merits of have been very difi&cult. Macanaz^ — the

Father Feyjoo, and relates an anecdote bold statesman, who suggested so many

of his showing the people of a village of the reforms of the eighteenth century,

through which he happened to pass that and, even through all his long exile,

what they esteemed a miracle was, in corresponded with Charles III. and in-

truth, only a natural result of reflected fluenced the course of his government

light ; thus exposing himself to a sum- for good — read with mingled surprise

mons from the Inquisition. ( ' ' The and admiration the entire first volume

Bee," No. III., October 20, 1759, Mis- of the " Teatro Critico " in a night,

cellaneous Works, London, 1812, 8vo, Ferrer del Rio, Carlos III., 1856, Tom.

Vol. IV. p. 193 ) But after Feyjoo's I. p. 177. It was, however, excluded

death, the Inquisition ordered only a from the Universities and the religious

trifling expurgation of his ' ' Teatro houses generally.
Critico," iu one passage. Index, 1790.

Chap. II.]

FEYJOO.

321

increasing as long as lie lived ; and when lie died,
in 1764, eighty-eight years old, he could look
"^ back and see that he had imparted a move- *" 274
ment 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 to it a right direction, and done more for the
intellectual life of his country than had been done for
a century.^^

19 The "Teatro Critico" and "Car-
tas Eruditas y Curiosas," with the dis-
cussions they provoked, hll lifteen and
sometimes sixteen volumes. The edi-
tion of 1778 has a Life of Feyjoo pre-
fixed to it, Avritten by Campomanes,
the distinguished minister of state un-
der Charles III. ; the same person who,
on the nomination of Franklin, was
made a member of the American Philo-
sophical Society at Philadelphia, and
who w]'ote the Avise ' ' Discurso sobre la
Educacion popular de los Artesanos y
su Fomento," 1775. Clemencin says
truly of Feyjoo, that "to his enlight-
ened and religious mind is due the over-
throw of many vulgar errors, and a
great part of the progress in civilization
made by Spain during the eighteenth

century." Note to Don Quixote, Tom.
v., 1836, p. 35. In a Eulogy pro-
nounced on him soon after his death,
we are told that he was of a cheerful
and even gay temper ; and that, besides
declining several ecclesiastical promo-
tions and dignities, he refused the per-
sonal request of Ferdinand VI. to live
in Madrid, thinking rightly that, in his
convent at Oviedo, he could better de-
vote himself to the great task of his
life, — the enlightening his country-
men. Oracion en la Universidad de
Oviedo, 27 de Noviembre, 1764, a la
immortal Memoria del Ilustrissimo y
PbCverendissimo S. D. F. Benito Ge-
ronimo Fejgoo, por el S. Doct. Alonso
Francisco Arango, ec, Oviedo, 4to,
1765.

VOL. III.

*275 * CHAPTEE III.

IjSTTOLEEANCE, credulity, and BICxOTRY. EEIGN or FEKDINAND THE SIXTH.

SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT. — LITERATURE. — SALDUENA. MORALEJA. —

ACADEMY OF GOOD TASTE. — VELAZQUEZ. — MAYANS. — NASARRE.

It can hardly be said, that, during the forty-six
years of the reign of Phihp the Fifth, the intolerance
which had so long blighted the land relaxed its iron
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 tran-
quillity 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 de /e, as a part of ih^ pageant suit-
able 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, then
high in office, to publish a work in defence of the
crown against the overgrown pretensions of the
* 276 Church, and at one time he went so far ^ as to

Chap. III.] INTOLERAXCE AXD THE INQUliSlTION. 32c

entertain a project for suspending the Holy Office,
or suppressing it altogether.^

But these dispositions were transient. The Span-
ish priesthood early obtained control of the king's
mind. When, during the War of the Succession, his
position had become very precarious, he issued — in
order to gain strength in the hearts of the people — a
decree favorino; the doctrine of the Immaculate Con-
ception, always so important in their eyes ; and, again,
when Ferreras, in his painstaking History of the coun-
try, ventured to doubt the genuineness of the miracle
on which rests the peculiar sanctity of the Church of
Our Lady of the Pillar, the king compelled him to
cancel the passage, and sent his edict to the offended
Church to be recorded as an expiation. 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 Maca-
naz 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 high duties of his place was in-
spired by the influence of the Church. As he grew
older, he grew more bigoted, and wearied sadly of life
and its active interests, so that in his last years, when

1 Llorente, Hist, de rinqnisition, Ferrer del Eio speaks of him often in

Tom. IV., 1818, pp._ 29, 43. The the Historia de Carlos III., 18.56. He

" Pap el" of Macanaz is on the Index probably sitffered as rawch from the

of the Inquisition, 1790. Its author, weakness of Philip V. and Ferdinand

who died in 1760, ninety years old, VI. as was possible under the circum-

was a very remarkable man, to whom I stances of the case ; but still he vras

have more than once alluded. Some able to do much good to his country,

of his works may be found in the Semi- and would have done much more, it" fi3

nario Ei'udito, Vols. V. and Xiii., and had been permitted.

324

THE IJ^QUISITION".

[Period III.

the accumulated power placed in liis hands by the de-
struction 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 de-
voting the whole of his prerogatives to advance the

interests of the priesthood.^
^277 "^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 de fe
was celebrated annually in each of the seventeen tri-
bunals 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 ex-

2 " Lugubres Obsequies de la Uni-
versidad de Alcala, ec, a Don Phelipe
v.," Madrid, 1747, 4to, p. 23. The
'pious orator, Fr. Francisco Freyle, de-
clares that Philip gained the decisive
victory of Almansa a year afterwards
(1707) in consequence of the decree in
favor of the Immaculate Conception.
The hit was no doubt a happy one.
From 1617, when this dogma — that
the Madonna was, by divine grace, born
without the least taint of original sin
— was countenanced by a Papal bull,
it was all-prevalent with the Spanish
Church, where in fact it originated.
Nobody could obtain a degree at the
Universities who did not solemnly avow
his belief in it, and even in the Paint-
ing Academy founded by Murillo at
Seville admission Avas granted only un-
der a similar condition. (Ford's Hand-
book, 1845, Vol. I. pp. 265 - 267.
Cean Bermudez, Carta sobre la Escuela
Sevillana, ISmo, Cadiz, 1806, p. 141.)
It penetrated indeed into the character
of the whole people. I remember that,
if one peasant met another, or entered
another's cottage, when I was in Spain,
in 1818, he would saj^, by way of salu-
tation, "Ave Maria purissima," to
which the one addressed made answer,
" Sin pecatlo concebida." Charles III.
used exertions at Rome to have the

Immaculate Conception made an article
of universal faith, but failed ; — but
traces of it are found on all sides in the
literature of Spain, and, no doubt,
Philip V. was well advised when he
used it as a means of gaining popu-
larity.

As to the passages in Ferreras, Tom.
I. and Tom. I J., they drew a long war
of pamphlets after them, but at last
Philip ended the matter — Dens ex
machina — by his royal authority, to
the great satisfaction of the Church.
See " Anti-Defensa de Luis de Salazar
y Continuacion de la Crisis Ferrerica,"
Zaragoza, 1720, 4to, pp. 4, sqq., and
Southey's Peninsular War, 4to, Vol. I,
p. 402, note.

In fact, Philip V. seems to have
been careful to accommodate himself to
the Spanish habits and tastes from the
time he was on his journey to receive
his croAvn ; — for from Bayonne it was
especially reported to Madrid, that he
went to Mass and Vespers in bad
Aveather, and that he and his little
court attended a bull-tight. Eelaeion
de la Entrada del Eey IST. S. en Ba-
yona, ec, Madrid, 4to, 27 de Enero,
1701.

See also Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV.
p. 32. San Phelipe, Comentaiios, Lib.
XIV.

Chap III.] THE INQUISITIOIT. 325

ceecled seven hundred and eighty. How many per-
sons were burnt aUve m them is not exactly known ;
but it is beUeved 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 possi-
ble 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 Avrote 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 * 278
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 cen-
sure. On the whole, therefore, down to the death of
Philip the Fifth, the old alliance between the govern-
ment of the state and the power of the Church — an
alliance supported by the general assent of the peo-
ple — must still be assumed to have continued un-
broken, and its authority must still be felt to have
been sufficient to control all freedom of discussion, and

^ The History of IsTicolas Jesus de stroyed, and can now hardly he found.

Belando was printed, in three vols., It was published June 20, 1744, and

folio, between 1740 and 1744, But, I suppressed September 6 of the same

think, it was only the last volume, year. Belando was a Franciscan friar

which involved the events from 1713 originally,
to 1733, that was ordered to be de-

326 FERDINAND THE SIXTH. [Period III.

effectually to check and silence such intellectual ac-
tivity as it deemed dangerous.*

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
* 279 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 Eoyal Library ;
Bayer, his learned successor ; Mayans, who had a pas-
sion for collecting and editing books ; and, above all,
the wise and modest Father Feyjoo, had not labored
in vain, and all except the first still survived to see the
results of their toils. ^

* Lloreiite, Hist., Tom. II. pp. 420, were condemned to perpetual imprison-
424, Tom. IV. p. 31. The data of Llo- ment and various lesser punishments ;
rente are not so precise as they ought — a catalogue of horrors given with an
to be, but anything approaching his air of the most judicial coolness and
results is of most fearful import. In a authority, as if its mercy and wisdom
pamphlet, however, printed in 1817, were alike unquestionable,
(as he declares in his Autobiography, In a book called the ' ' History of the
p. 170,) he asserts that, between 1680 Jews of Spain and Portugal," by E. H,
and 1808, there perished in the fires of Lindo, (London, 1848, 8vo, p. 276,) is
the Inquisition fifteen hundred and the following strong statement, which
seventy-eight persons, and that eleven I cannot gainsay, although it surprises
thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight me very much: "The bloody records
more were subjected to degrading pun- of the Inquisition state not a single
ishments, making a grand total of four- instance of the Hebrew people acting
teen thousand three hundred and sixty- irreverently to the Catholic worship."
four victims, of which the fifteen If this be true, the Jews behaved bet-
hundred and seventy-eight burnt alive ter, or at least more discreetly, than
must all have perished between 1680 the Protestants did. We have, how-
and 1781, When, as we shall see in the ever, already seen something to the
next chapter, the last victim was im- contrary on the authority of Paravi-
niolated. I possess the official " Rela- cino, ante, Period II. Chap. XXXVII.,
clones " of Autos held in Granada, note 5.

December 21, 1720, and November 30, ^ Juan de Ferreras, the only one of

1721, involving ninety-eight cases, this number Avho has not already been

ninet3'--six of which were Jews, or al- sufficiently noticed, was born in 1652,

leged to be such ; some of whom were and died in 1735. His " Historia de

burnt alive, while some had their dead Espaiia" was first published between

bones dug up and burntj and the rest 1700 and 1726, in 16 vols., 4to ; a dull

Chap. III.] FERDINAND THE SIXTH. 327

The diurch itself began slowly to acknowledge tlie
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 re-
proach to the Inquisition as if they had been more in-
telligent 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 Oflfice, 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 rela-
tion 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,
durino; the reiom of Ferdinand the Sixth, was in the
main peaceful and healing. Efforts, not without suc-
cess, 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. Everything,
in short, indicated a spirit * of change, if it did ^ 280
not give proof of much absolute progress.^

The direction of the literature of the country, how-

boolc, and one that was much assailed printed nothing but his History. Elo-
at the time, but which is honest and gio de Juan de Ferreras, Decan_o de la
trustworthy. He Avas an earnest de- Eeal Academia, ec, hecho de la Co-
fender of the pretensions of Philip V. mision de la misma, por D. Bias Anto-
to the crown, and wrote two short nio Nasarre y Ferriz, Madrid, 1735, 4to.
tracts to sustain them ; — one entitled ^ Noticia del Viage de Espaua hecha
"Deseugano Catolico," and the other, de Orden del Key, por L. J. Velazquez,
"Desengaiio politico." But, except Madrid, 1765, 4to, passim. Llorente,
these and a few other religious and Tom. IV. p. 51. Tapia, Tom. IV.
political pamphlets of little value, he p. 73.

LESS INTOLERAXCE.

[Period III.

ever^ was the same it had taken from the beginning of
the century. Slight, but unsatisfactory, attempts con-
tinued to be made to adhere to the forms of the elder
time ; — such attempts as are to be seen in a long nar-
rative poem by the Count Salduena on the subject of
Pelayo, and two very poor imitations of the " Para
Todos " of Montalvan, one of which was by Mo-
raleja, 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.^ It was, how-
ever, but little.

In this respect, a fashionable society, called the
Academy of Good Taste, and connected with the

'' " El Pelayo, Poema de D. Alonso
de Soils Folch de Cardona Kodriguez de
las Varillas, Conde de Salduena," ec,
(Madrid, 1754, 4to,) tweh^e cantos in
octave stanzas, written in the most
affected style. — Joseph Moraleja, "El
Entretenido, Segunda Parte " (Madrid,
I7il, 4to) ; a continuation of the "En-
tretenido " of Sanchez Tortoles, con-
taining the amusements of a society of
friends for four days, — entremeses, sto-
ries, odds and ends of poetry, astro-
nomical calculations, etc., a strange and
absurd mixture. Baena (Hijos de Ma-
drid, Tom. III. p. 81) has a life of the
author. The " Noches Alegres " of Isi-
dro Fr. Ortiz Gallardo de Villaroel,
(Salamanca, 1758, 4to,) is a shorter
hook, and nearly all in verse. Both are
worthless.

I have a great many broadsides and
other exhibitions of the popular taste
and feelings between 1700 and 1760 ;
among the rest, above twenty on the
accession of Ferdinand VI. in 1746.
Nothing of the sort can well be worse.
They richly deserve the censure cast
on them by Melendez Valdes, who, in
a sy)eech delivered when he was attor-
ney-general, proposed to suppress such
publications by law altogether, and to
I'evive, instead of them, by means of
the Academy or other governmental ma-

chineiy, a ballad-spirit and ballads like
those of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The purpose was laudable,
but the means more poetical than wise
or adequate. The people will always
have such a popular literature as suits
their taste and culture, and the same
sort of jacaras and ro'iiiances vulgares
were printed in Spain in the middle of
the nineteenth century that were printed
there when Melendez rebuked them,
and half a century earlier. But no
school of poetry should be held respon-
sible for their flatness or their extrava-
gances. See Discursos Forenses, de
Melendez Valdes, 1821, pp. 167, sqq.
Melendez, I suppose, might have been
acting under a decree of Charles III.
dated 21st of July, 1767, to prevent
the printing of ' ' Romances de Ciegos,
Coplas de Ajusticiados " and such like
trash. (Ferrer del Rio, III. 213.) But
I think the King and the Fiscal failed
alike with the prohibition and the
remedy ; and that worthless and shame-
ful ballads have never ceased to be
printed and sung all over Spain, as
well as good ones, and in preference to
them. Melendez, however, should be
commended for his courage when he
put the "Cueva de San Patricio"
among the worthless fictions that should
be suppressed.

Chap. III.] VELAZQUEZ. 329

court of Madrid, exercised some influence. It dates
from 1749 to 1751, and was intended, perhaps, to re-
semble 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 lit-
erary ^ and political history of France. The *281
Countess of Lemos, at whose house it met, was
its founder, and it gradually ranked among its mem-
bers several of the more cultivated nobility, and most
of the leading men of letters, such as Luzan, Monti-
ano, who was its secretary. Bias de Nasarre, and Velaz-
quez, each of whom was known, either at that time or
soon afterwards, by his published works.^

Except Luzan, of whom we have already spoken,
Yelazquez 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 re-
leased.

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 ar-

^ Luzan, Arte Poetica, ed. 1789, Tom. I. pp. xix, etc.

3C0 MAYANS Y SISCAR. [Period III.

rangement, and too short to develop its subject satis-
factorily ; but it is written in a plain stjle^ and occa-
sionally 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.^
* 282 ^ Mayans, a Yalencian gentleman of learning,

and another of those who had a considerable in-
fluence on Spanish literature at this period, followed a
similar course in his " Retorica," which appeared in
1757, and is founded rather on the philosophical opin-
ions of the Roman rhetoricians than on the modifica-
tion 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.^^

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

9 Luis Joseph Velazquez, "Origenes Sempere y Guarinos, Bib., Tom. VI.

de la Poesia Castellaua," Malaga, 1754, p. 139.

4to, pp. 175. J. A. Dieze, who was a '^^ Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, who

Professor at Gottingen, and died in wrote and edited a great many books

1785, pulilished a German translation in Latin and Spanish, was born in

of it in 1769, with copious and valuable 1699, and died in 1782. His life aud

notes, which more than double, not a list of his works may be made out

only the size of the original work, but from the united accounts of Ximeno,

its worth. The Life of Velazquez, who Tom. II. p. 324, and Fuster, Tom. II.

was Marquis of Valdeflores, though he p. 98. In his " Retorica" he has been

does not generally allude to his title in very happy in taking choice bits from

his printed works, is to be found in the o.d Cancioneros Generaleo.

Chap. III.] MAYANS Y SISCAR. 331

that prevailed in his time^ by showing that these un-
successfal 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 Avas only one of a long series of
efforts made to discountenance the old theatre^ that
must be noticed hereafter.^^

1^ There was a severe answer made at Critico," etc., (4to, 1750, pp. 258,)

ouce to Bias de Nasarre, by Don Joseph which is a general, loose defence of

Carrillo, entitled "Sin Eazon impng- Lojoe and his school. Bat neither was

nada," 4to, 1750, pp. 25 ; besides needed. The theory of Nasarre was

which, his Preface was attacked by too absurd to win adherents.
Don T. Zabaleta, in his " Discarso

*283 ^CHAPTER IV.

SLOW PROGKESS 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, NORONA.

The reign of Ferdinand the Sixth, which had been
marked with Kttle political energy during its continu-
ance, 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 Feyjoo, vigorous, though old, was still per-
mitted, 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 culti-
vation, without which no nation in modern times can
be prosperous, strong, or honored. "There is not,"
says the Marquis of Enseiiada, in a report made as
minister of state to the king, — " there is not a profes-

Chap. IY.] CHARLES THE THIRD. 333

sorsliip of public law, of experimental science^
of anatomy, or of botany, in the *' kingdom. * 284
We have no exact geographical maps of the
country or its provinces, nor anybody who can make
them ; so that we depend on the very imperfect maps
we receive from France and Holland, and are shame-
fully ignorant of the true relations and distances of
our own towns." ^

Under these circumstances, the accession of a prince
like Charles the Third was eminently fortunate for the
countrj^. He was a man of energy and discernment,
a Spaniard by birth and character, but one whom po-
litical 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

1 Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV. c. 15. tes," (1810,) his '' Historia de las

Spain owed to the JNIarquis of Ensehada Cortes," (1815,) and other labors of the

the Voyages of Juan and Ulloa, with same kind. His first acknowledged

their subsequent publication, and the work was a free translation, from Mu-

introduction into the kingdom of many ratori, of an essay, with additions,

skilful mechanics and teachers. Ca- wdiich he printed at Madrid, in 1782,

barrus, Elogio del Conde de Gausa, in 12mo, with the title, " Sobre el

1786, TSTota xi. Buen Gusto," and which he accom-

Many of the best materials for the panied by an original tract, " Sobre el
state of culture in Spain, during the Buen Gusto actual de los Espanoles
reign of Charles III., are to be found en la Literatura, " — the last being after-
in the " Biblioteca de los Mejores Es- wards prefixed, with alterations, to his
critores del Eeynado de Carlos III,, por " Biblioteca." He was a diligent and
Juan Sempere y Guarinos," Madrid, useful AAaiter, and ctied, I believe, in
1785-1789, 6 toni. 8vo. When the 1824. A small volume, containing no-
author published it, he was about tliir- tices of his life to the time when it
ty-five years old, having been born in appeared, probably derived from mate-
1754 ; but he was afterwards much rials furnished by himself, v/as print-
more distinguished as a political writer, ed at Madrid, by Amarita, in 1821,
by his " Observaciones sobre las Cor- 12mo.

334 . CHARLES THE THIRD. [Period HI.

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 regenera-
tion, where his chief contest was to be with ecclesias-
tical abuses.

In some respects he was successful. His ministers,
Roda, Florida-Blanca, Aranda, and, above all, Campo-
manes, 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
* 285 Spain without the expressed * assent of the
throne ; he restrained the Inquisition from ex-
ercising any authority whatever, except in cases of ob-
stinate heresy or apostasy ; he forbade the condemna-
tion 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 oppo-
nents of the reforms he endeavored to introduce, he,
in one day, expelled their whole body from his domin-
ions all over the world, breaking up their schools, and
confiscating their great revenues.^ 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 physi-
cal and exact sciences, Salamanca answered, in 1771,
'^ Newton teaches nothing that would make a good

2 Llorente, Hist, de 1' Inquisition, Tom. IV. Doblado's Letters, 1822, Appen-
dix to Letters III. and VIL

Chap. IV.]

CHARLES THE THIRD.

335

logician or metaphysician, and Gassencli 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. Plis authority was resisted, as far as resist-
ance 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
wdio perished at the stake in Spain, by ecclesiastical au-
thority, w^as an unfortunate woman, burnt at Seville in
1781, — a heata of most irregular and licentious life,
wdio claimed to act under immediate authority from,
heaven \ but who seems to have been demented.^

H How sunk in corruption and abnses
were the principal Universities at tliis
period, and how thoroughly they resisted
all change, is partly set forth by Ferrer
del Eio (Hist, de Carlos III., 1856,
Lib- IV. cap. 5), Perez Bayer was
Tery active in urging reforms, and
we shall perhaps know what was at-
tempted, when his ample MSS. are
published, Avhich are still preserved in
the Royal Library at Madrid. Cam-
pomanes, however, who did so much
for education, interested himself greatly
in the question of the Universities, and
may have done more than Bayer from
his greater power. He declared that
the Universities had not reformed their
methods of study since their founda-
tion. "Uno de los motivos mas cono-
cidos de la decadencia de las Univer-
sidades," he said, "es la antiguedad de
su fundacion, jjorque no habiendose
reformado desde entonces el metodo de
los estudios establecidos desde el prin-
cipio, es precise que padezcan las heces
de aquellos antiguos siglos." But if
Charles III. was able to do little with
the Universities, he eifected a good deal
by establishing in the empty halls of
the Jesuits, at JNIadrid, the ' ' Reales
Estudios de San Isidro," which from
1771 showed considerable improvements
in the subjects taught and in the meth-

ods of teaching. Even these, however,
were not nearly all that was wanted.
But no more could be obtained. The
Church was against all effective change,
and the public generally knew and
cared little about it.

^ Sempere y Guarinos, Bibliot. , Tom.
IV., Art. Planes de Estudios. Tapia,
Tom. IV. c. 16. Llorente, Tom. IV.
J). 270. The Marquis de Langle, in his
" Voyage d'Espagne," (s. I. 1785, 12mo,
p. 45, ) says the poor woman burnt at
Seville was "jeune et belle." But this
was not so. She was blind and ugly.
A full and most disgusting account of
her trial and execution may be found
in the "Juderia de Se villa," (pp. 182-
209, Sevilla, 1849, 12mo, ) — an account
wdiich, from a passage in Antoine de
Latour's " Espagne Religieuse et Lit-
teraire," (Paris, 1863, pp. 272-303,)
was, I suppose, taken, as Latour says
his own was, from a letter written the
very day after the awful, auto had oc-
curred, and addressed by an ecclesiastic
of Seville to the excellent Caspar Mel-
chor de Jovellanos, because it is sub-
stantially the same in both books. It
is evidently trustworthy, and is as gross
and' horrible as anything of the sort on
record in the worst periods of the In-
quisition. I think that only three per-
sons had previously been burned in the

336 REFORMS ATTEMPTED. [Pekiod 111.

Under the influence of a spirit like that of Charles
the Thirdj during a reign protracted to twentj-
"^286 nine ^ years^ there was a new and consider-
able 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 in part 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.*

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 renew-
ing the powers that had been so long wasted away,
and that at one period had seemed near to speedy dis-
solution. 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

time of Charles III., so that only four to the throne, Spain counted ten and a

perished in this way during his long half millions of souls ; at the time of

reign, — an enormous change from the the peace of Utrecht, it counted but

times of his father, Philip V., and of seven millions and a half ; a monstrous

the reigns preceding. falling off, if we consider the advance-

* Tapia, Tom. IV. pp. 124, etc. ment of the i est of Europe during the

When the Emperor Charles V. came same period.

O OHr'

Chap. IV.] PADRE ISLA. 337

is the bright^ consummate flower of all true civilization.
Yet light was beginning to be seen. It was a dawn,
if it was nothing more.

The first striking effect produced b}^ this movement
in the reigns of Ferdinand the Sixth and Charles the
Third w^as 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, ^ 287
originally corrupted by Paravicino, the distin-
guished follower of Gongora, had been constantly fall-
ing lower and lower, until at last it seemed to have
reached the lowest point of degradation and vulgarity.
The assailant w^as Father Isla, who was born in 1703
and died in 1781, at Bologna, where, being a Jesuit, he
had been sent as an exile, on the general expulsion of
his Order from Spain.^ His earliest published work,
or rather one to which he contributed, is the " Triumph
of Youth," printed in 1727, to give the nation an ac-
count 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 fur-
ther. It w^as a description of the proclamation made
in 1746, at Pamplona, on the accession of Ferdinand

5 Vida de J. F. de Isla, por J. I. de ^ Juventud Triunfante, Salamanca,

Salas, Madrid, 1803, 12mo ; and tlie 1727, 4to. The other autlior of this

Life by Monlau prefixed to the very squib was Father Losada. Letter of

good selections from his works con- Isla to his sister, dated 21st October,

tained in the Biblioteca de Autores Es- 1781.
panoles, Tom. XV., 1850.

VOL. III. 22

338 PADRE ISLA. [Period III.

the Sixth; which was attended with such extravagant
and idle ceremonies, that, being required to give some
account of them to the pubHc, 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 its real pur-
pose. On the contrary, the Council of the proud capi-
tal 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 no-
ticed 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
# 2gg * ^Ijq 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 discus-
sion ended with his retreat or exile from Pamplona.^

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 tvfenty-
four he had been a successful preacher, and continued
such until he was cruelly expelled from his own coun-
try. But he perceived how little worthy of its great
subjects was the prevalent style of Spanish pulpit ora-
tory, — 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

■^ Dia Grande de Navarra, 2a ed., that the "Dia Grande" is no satire,

Madrid, 1746, 4to. Seraanario Pinto- although he admits that it was the

resco, 1840, p. 130. In a letter to his cause of his leaving Navarre at the

friend Murr, written from Bologna as order of his Provincial. Biblioteca de

late as October, 1781, he still maintains Kivadeneyra, Tom. XV. p. 615.

Chap. IY.] PADRE ISLA. 339

from equally vulgar audienceSj and increase the contri-
butions 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, a,nd his numerous
published sermons, written between 1729 and 1754,
are generally marked with a purity and directness
of style which had long been unknown, and which,
thou2:h wanting^ the richness and fervor of the exhor-
tations of Luis de Leon and Luis de Granada, would
not have dishonored the Spanish pulpit even in its
better days.^

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 Historj^ of the Famous Preacher,
Friar Gerund " ; a satirical romance, in which he de-
scribes the life of one of these popular orators,
from ^ his birth in an obscure villaore, throuo^h ^289
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 in-
tended to represent Madrid. It is written throughout
with great spirit ] and not only are the national man-
ners 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 experi-
ence. Its plan resembles slightly that of " Don Quix-

^ Yida de Tsla, § 3. Sermones, Ma- earl}' as 1680, when Madame d'Aiilnoy
drid, 1792-93, 6 torn. 8vo. Vulgar was in Spain. Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. '
prjaching in the streets was common as II. p. 168.

340 PADEE ISLA. [Period III.

ote/' but its execution reminds us oftener of Rabelais
and his discursive and redundant reflections, though of
Rabelais without his coarseness. It is serious, as be-
comes 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 fashion-
able 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 w^hom 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, w^ith an erect car-
riage 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 around
his person in ample and regular folds. His shoes
fitted him with the greatest nicety, and, above all,
his silken cap was adorned wdth much curious em-
broidery 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
"^290 grace in telling a * story, a talent at mimicry,
an easy action, a taking manner, a high-sound-
ing style, and not a little effrontery, — never forget-
ting to sprinkle jests, proverbs, and homely phrases
along his discourses with a most agreeable aptness, —

Chap. IV.] PADRE ISLA. 341

lie won golden opinions in his public discourses, and
carried everything before him in the drawing-rooms he
frequented." ^

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

" It was well known, that he always began his ser-
mons 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 wait-
ing 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 mysterj^ of the Trinity, he began his ser-
mon 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, wonder-
ing 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,

^ "Historia del Famoso Predicador, to be a fictitious one ; but which is, in

Fray Gerandio de Campazas," Madrid, fact, that of a friend, Avho was a parisli

1813, 4 torn. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 307. priest at Villagarcia, where Father Isla,

In the first edition, as well as in sev- who mentions him often in his letters,

eral other editions, it is said to be writ- wrote his Friar Gerund,
ten by Francisco Lobon de Salazar, a ^^ Cartas Familiares, 1790, Tom. VI.

name which has generally been supposed p. 313.

342 PADRE ISLA. [Peeiod III,

as the audience burst into a broad laugh at the
^291 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 nos-
tram salutem descendit de coelo 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 accla-
mation." ^^

The first volume of the '' Friar Gerund " was pub-
lished in 1758, somewhat sooner than the author in-
tended ; — those who were in the secret getting pos-
session of the edition and selling eight hundred cojDies
in the course of twenty-four hours.^^ Such an extraor-
dinary popularity, however, proved anything but a
benefit* The priests, and especially the preaching
friars, assailed it from all quarters, as the most for-
midable 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 nomi-
nally suppressed. ^^

11 Fray Genindio, Tom. L p. 309. eral amusing letters about Fray Ge-

12 CartasFamiliares, Tom. II. p. 170. rundio in the second volume of the
1^ Vida de Isla, p. 63. Llo*rente, Cartas Familiares, and much discussion

Hist., Tom. II. p. 450. Cartas Fa- about it in the fourth vohmie of the
miliares de Isla, Tom. II. pp. 168, etc., edition of the book itself, 1813. The
and Tom. IIL p. 213. There are sev- Inquisition (Index, 1790) not only for-

Chap. IV.] PADRE ISLA. 343

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 manu-
script, a forbidden book. In flict, it has been said to
have first appeared in England, and in the
English Language, in * 1772, through the *292
agency of Baretti, to whom the manuscript
had been sent after its author had been exiled 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 con-
sequence, 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.^*

bade the work itself, but forbade any- of Vol. II., with the imprint " En Cam-
body to publish anything for or agiinst pazas, A costa de los herederos de Fray
it. The apprehension that it would be Gerundio, Ano de 1770." It is, of
forbidden was so great, that the price course, wholly ^vithout the accustomed
of copies of the first volume became , licencias, and does not match very well
extravagant the moment it was pub- with Vol. I., 1758. In the letter to
lished. One was bought for twenty-five Murr (cited ante, note 7) Isla declares
Louis d'or, and an equal sum was re- that he does not know where the second
fused for another. Espagne Litteraire, volume of the Fra}^ Gerundio was pub-
[by Nicolas Bricaire,] 1774, Tom. III. lished, although he supposes it was not
p. 315. printed in Spain. At the same time,
1^ Watt, Bibliotheca, art. Isla. Wie- he says that he never gave it, as he had
land, Teutsche Merkur, 1773, Tom. III. been charged with doing, to the Secre-
p. 196. Baretti's Proposals for Print- tary of the Spanish Embassy in Eng-
ing the Translation of Fr.ar Gerund, land ; but he does not say that he did
prefixed to that work, London, 1772, not send it to England, nor does he
2 torn. 8vo. I have, however, a copy deny that it was printed there. I pos-

344 PADRE ISLA. [Period III,

In consequence of the alarm and anxieties that ac-
companied his sudden and violent expulsion from
Spain, in 1767^ Father Isla suffered on the road to
Corunna, where he embarked, an attack of paralysis,
which made his health uncertain for the remaining
fourteen years of his life, one of which spent in Cor-
sica, and several in Bologna and its neighborhood,
were rendered miserable by the troubles incident to a
state of war, or by personal persecutions and poverty.
Still, after his death, it was found that in these sad
years, during some of which he subsisted on the
kindness of charitable friends, he had not been idle.
Among his papers was a poem in sixteen cantos, con-
taining about twelve thousand lines in octave stanzas.
It is called " Cicero," and claims to be a life of the
great Koman orator. But it is no such thing. It is a
satire on the vices and follies of the author's
*293 own time, begun in Spain, but * chiefly written
during his exile in Italy; and though it con-
tains occasional sketches of an imaginary life of Cice-
ro'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 large class of
Spanish narrative poems, of which, and especially of
those devoted to the lives of the saints, it may be re-
garded 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, how-
ever, is mingled with inappropriate discussions about
Italy, poetry, and a country life, and hardly less inap-
propriate satire of professed musicians, theatres, and

sess both volumes of the first edition, imprint — " En Campazas " — is, of
and think fi'om the type and paper of course, a jest,
the second that it is English. The

Chap. IY.] PADRE ISLA. 345

poets who praise one another ; in short, with Avhatever
occurred to Father Isla's wayward humor as he was
w^riting. From internal evidence, it seems to have
been read, as it was written, to a society of friends, —
probably some of the numerous exiles who, like him-
self, had resorted to Bologna, and subsisted there on
the miserable pittance the Spanish government prom-
ised them, but often failed to pay. For such a purpose
it w^as 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 publica-
tion. It was, however, offered to the public censor,
and permission to print it was refused, though for rea-
sons so frivolous, that it seems certain the real objec-
tion was not to the poem, but to the author.-^^

Others of Father Isla's works were more fortunate.
Six volumes of his sermons were collected and pub-
lished, and six volumes of his letters, chiefly addressed
to his sister and her husband, and written in a
very affectionate and ^ gay spirit, and in a very ^294
natural and attractive style. To these, at differ-
ent times, were added a few minor works of a trifling-
character, and one or two that are religious.^*^

1^ The autograph manuscript of " El 18mo,) being extracts from accounts
Ciceron," neatly written out in 219 folio claimed to have been written by Father
pages, double columns, wdth the cor- Isla for that journal, in 1758, of the
rections of the author and the erasures European events of the year, but not
of tlie censor, is in the Boston Athe- certainly his ; — "Cartas de Juan de la
nreum. It is accompanied by three Enzina," (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) a sa-
autograph letters of Father Isla ; by the tirical work on the follies of Spanish
opinion of the censor, that the poem medicine; — "Cartas Familiares," writ-
ought not to be published ; and by an ten between 1744 and 1781, published
answer to that opinion ; — the last two 1785-86, also in a second edition, Ma-
being anonymous. These curious and drid, 1790, 6 tom. 12mo ; — "Colec-
valuable manuscripts were pi'ocured in cion de Papeles Critico-Apologeticos,"
Madrid by E. Weston, Esq., and pre- (1788, 2 tom. 18mo,) in defence of
sented by him to the Library of the Feyjoo ; — "Sermones," Madrid, 1792,
Athenaeum, in 1844. 6 torn. 8vo ; — "Eebusco," etc., (Ma-

1^ The works alluded to are, — " El clrid, 1790, 18mo,) a collection of mis-

Mercurio General," (Madrid, 1784, ceilanies, most of which are probably

346 PADRE ISLA AND LE SAGE. [Peuiod III.

But what most surprised the world was his transla-
tion of " Gil Bias," printed at Madrid 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." ^'
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 Four-
teenth," declares the Gil Bias " 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
^295 Gil Bias, ^ 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 Bio-
graphical Dictionary printed at Amsterdam in 1771.
But this is all.

not by Father Tsla ; — " Los Aldeanos additions, and from a summary in verse

Criticos," in defence of Friar Gerund; which lie prefixed to the account of each

— and various papers in the Semana- period, and which the chiklren learned

rio Erudito, Tom. XVI., XX., and by heart.

XXXIV., and in the supplementary i" " Aventuras de Gil Bias de San-
volume of the "Fray Gerundio." A tillana, robadas a Espana, adoptadas en
poem, entitled " Sueilo Politico," (Ma- Francia por Mons. Le Sage, restituidas
drid, 1785, 18mo,) on the accession of a su Patria y i su Lengua nativa, ])or
Charles III , is also falsely attributed un Espanol zeloso, (jue no sufre <]ue se
to him ; and so are "Cartas atrasadas burlen de su Nacion," Madrid, 17S7, 6
del Parnaso," a satire which yet re- torn. 8vo, and often since. Though in
minds one sometimes of the "Cice- great poverty himself, Isla gave any
ron." profit that might come from his version
Of his translations it is hardly need- of the Gil Bias to assist a poor Spani/ih
ful to speak, except of that of the Gil knight.

Bias. It may be noted, however, that Don Antonio Puigblanch, a whim-
he published in Spanish Flechier's sical but learned Catalan, prepared a
" Theodosius the Great," in 1731, and translation of Gil Bias, with n Preface
soon afterwai'ds Duchesne's abridgment to prove Le Sage its author, and, as he
of the History of Spain ; — both pre- says, announced it for publication , but
pared hj liim earlier, and the last long I suppose it was never printed. See
a favorite in the Spanish schools as a his strange " Opusculos Gramatico-
text-book, not merely from the merit Satiricos," Londres, s. a. Tom, 11.
of the oi'iginal, but from Isla's judicious pp. 372^ 373.

Chap. IY.J PADRE ISLA AND LE SAGE. 347

Roused by such suggestions, however, Father Isla
amused himself with making a translation of Gil Bias,
omitting some parts, and altering others, adding to it a
long and not successful continuation,^^ and declaring,
without ceremonj^ or proof, that it was the Avork 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, so far as the bold claim for
a Spanish origin of the Gil Bias is concerned, 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 con-
trary, 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 ear-
nestness, resting his proofs on internal evidence, and
insisting that Gil Bias is certainly of Spanish origin,
and that it is probably the work, not indeed of Father
Isla's Andalusian advocate, but of Solis, the histo-
rian ; — a suggestion for which Llorente produces no
better reason, than that nobody else out of thirty au-
thors whom he examined in the period to which he
assigns the Gil Bias was able, in his judgment, to write
such a romance. ^^

1^ This continuation, however, was from the French. (Sempere, BilDlio-

translated from the Italian of the Canon teca, Tom. VI. p. 231.) This work,

Giiilio Monti, a Bolognese, who died in too, the author declared to be a trans-

1747, and whose Gil Bias was pnb- lation, and, like Isla, set forth on his

lished, I believe, at Venice the same title-page that it was "restored to the

year. Another continuation of Gil Bias, language in which it was originally

less happy even than this of Monti, ap- written." But the whole is a worthless

peared, in 2 torn. 8vo, at Madrid, in fiction, title-page and all, though the

1792, entitled " Genealogia de Gil Bias, attempt to make out for Gil Bias a clear

Continuacion de la Vida de este famoso and noble genealogy on the side of his

Sujeto, por su Hijo Don Alfonso Bias mother must be admitted to be a truly

de Liria." Its author was Don Ber- Spanish fancy. (See Libros III. y IV.)

nardo Maria de Calzada, a person who. The stoiy is unfinished,

a little eai'lier, had translated much i^ Voltaire, CEuvres, ed. Beaumar-

348 PADEE ISLA AND LE SAGE. [Period III.

* 296 ^ But there is a ready answer to all such
merely conjectural criticism. Le Siige pro-
ceedeclj 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 re-
markably similar. In the drama he began with trans-
lations 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 af-
terwards, when he better understood his own talent
and had acqmred 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 imi-
tator. 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 Bias," the greatest of all
his works of ]3rose fiction, is the result of his confirmed
strength ; and, in its characteristic merits, is as much
his own as the " Turcaret."

cliais, Tom. XX. p. 155. Le Sage, 12mo) ; two works not exactly alike,

CEiivres, Paris, 1810, 8vo, Tom. I. i?. but substantially so, and equally main-

xxxix, where Voltaire is said to have taining that Gil Bias is Spanish in its

been attacked by Le Sage, in one of his origin, and probably the work of Solis,

dramas ; besides which it is supposed the historian, who, as Llorente conjec-

IjC Sage ridiculed him under the name tures, wrote a romance in Spanish, en-

of Triaquero, in Gil Bias, Lib. X. c. 5. titled "El Bachiller de Salamanca,"

But the most important and curious the manuscript of which coming into

discussion concerning the authorship of the possession of Le Sage, he first plun-

Gil Bias is the one that was carried on, dered from it the materials for his Gil

between 1818 and 1822, by Fran9ois de Bias, which he published in 1715-

Neufchateau and Antonio de Llorente, 1735, and then gave the world the

the author of the History of the Inqui- remainder as the " Bachelier de Sala-

sition. It began with a memoir, by manque," in 1738. This theory of Llo-

the first, read to the French Academy, rente is explained, with more skill than

(1818,) and an edition of Gil Bias, is shown in its original framing, by the

(Paris, 1820, 3 tom. 8vo, ) in both late accomplished scholar, Mr. A. H.

which he maintains Le Sage to be the Everett, in an article which first aj)-

true author of that romance. To both peared in the North American Keview,

Llorente replied by a counter memoir, for October, 1827, when its author was

addressed to the French Academy, and Minister of the United States in Spain,

by his "Observations sur Gil Bias," and afterwards in his pleasant " Chitical

(Paris, 1822, 8vo,) and his " Observa- and Miscellaneous Essays," published

dones sobre Gil Bias" (Madrid, 1822, in Boston, 1845, 12mo.

Chap. IY.] PADRE ISLA AND LE SAGE. 349

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 tliat
it could hardly have been the work of a Spaniard, and
certainly not of a Spaniard so well informed as Soils;
its private anecdotes of society in the reigns 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 "^297
freedom with which, as we go on, we find that
everything 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 prac-
tised skill in turning to account everything 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 known 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 Bias, especially now that he has it
in the spirited if not uniformly pure Castilian version
of Father Isla, could have been written by anybody but
one of his own countrymen.^^

^'^ " Le Point d'Honnenr" is from is abundant. I have already noticed,

"No hay Amigo para Amigo," which when speaking of Espinel, (ante, pp.

is the lirst play in the Conieclias de 106-108,) how much Le Sage took

Roxas, 1680; — and "Don Cesar Ur- from "Marcos de Obregon"; but, be-

sin" is from " Peor esta que estaba," sides this, the adventures of Don Rafael

in Calderon, Comedias, 1763, Tom. IIL with the Seigneur de Moyadas in Gil

The errors of Gil Bias in Spanish geog- Bias ( Lib. V. c. 1 ) are taken from ' ' Los

raphy and history are constantly pointed Erapenos del Mentir " of Mendoza (Fe-

out by Llorente as blunders of Le Sage nix Castellano, 1690, p. 254) ; — the

in the careless use of his original ; while, story of the Mariage de Vengeance in

on the other hand, Fr. de Neuf chateau Gil Bias (Lib. IV. c. 4) is from the

points out its allusions to Parisian so- play of Roxas, ''Casarsepor Vengarse" ;

ciety in ths time of Le Sage. But of — the story of Aurora de Guzman in

his free use of Spanish fictions, which Gil Bias (Lib. IV c. 5 and 6) is from

he took no pains to conceal, the proof "Todo es enredos Amor," by Diego de

350 THE FKEXCH SCHOOL CONTKOYERSY. [Period HI.

The chief talent of Father Isla, howeYer, was in
satire^ and the great service he performed for his coun-
try was that of driving from its respectable churches
the low and vulgar style of preaching Y^th which they
had long been infested ; — a work Ydiich 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.
* 298 * But, meanwhile, other attempts were mak-
ing 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
everything 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 opin-
ions, 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
Y^as done by original efforts, but something was at-
tempted in other waj^s. Huerta, a fierce, but incon-
sistent, 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 tem-
porary success, and its author, therefore, could boast

Cordoba y Figueroa ; — and so on . See three years after the last vohime of Gil
Tieck's Vorrede to his translation of Bias appeared, he says expressly, that
Marcos de Obregon (1827) ; Adolfo de "it is translated from a Spanish manu-
Castro's Poesias de Calderon y Plagios script, and yet the story of Dona Cintia
de Le Sage (Cadiz, 1845, 18mo, a curi- de la Carrera, in the lifty-foiirth and
ous little pamphlet) ; and the fourth hfty-fifth chapters, is taken from Mo-
hook of the same author's " Conde reto's " Desden con el Desden " ; a play
Duque de Olivarez" (Cadiz, 1846, 8vo). as well known as any in Spanish litera-
In his " Bachelier de Salamanque," Le ture ; — so bold and careless was he in
Sage goes one step further. On the his literary larcenies,
title-page of this romance, first printed

Chap. IY.] THE FRENCH SCHOOL CONTKOVEKST. 351

of no follower of any note in a path which was con-
stantly less and less troclden.^^

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 Gar-
cilasso.^^ Sanchez went further back, and in
1779 offered ^ to his countrymen, for the first ^ 299
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.^^ And finally, Sarmi-
ento, a friend of Feyjoo, 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

21 " Poesias de Don Vicente Garcia de deal of criticism soon after it appeared.
* la Hnerta," Madrid, 1778, 12mo, and The club of the elder Moratin — to be

a second edition, 1786; opening, as its noticed immediately — was much dis-

principal claim to notice, with the satisfied with it (Obras Postumas de N.

"Endymion," a short heroic poem, F. Moratin, Londres, 1825, 12mo, p.

first published separately in 1755, in xxv) ; — Yriarte in 1778 printed a dia-

4to, but very feeble and common- logue onit, "Donde las danlastoman,"

place. _ ^^ fullof severity (Obras, 1805, Tom. VI.);

" La Perromachia, " a mock-heroic on —and in 1785 Sedano replied, under

the loves and quarrels of sundry dogs, the name of Juan Maria Chavero y

by Francisco Nieto Molina, (Madrid, Eslava de Ronda, in four volumes,

1765, 12rao, ) is too poor to deserve no- 12mo, published at Malaga, and called

tice, though it is an attempt to give the "Coloquios de Esj)ina."

greater currency to the earlier national ^3 t, A. Sanchez (born 1732, died

verse, — the redondillas. 1798) published his "Poesias Anteri-

22 J. J. Lopez de Sedano's "Parnaso ores al Siglo XV." at Mailrid, in 4 torn.
Espanol" (Madrid, Sancha, 1768 - 1778, 8vo, 1779 - 1790, but printed very little
9 torn. 12mo) was the subject of a good else.

352 MORATIISI" THE ELDER. [Period III.

author in 1772, and remained nnpublished till three
years later.^^ These three works, though they excited
too little attention at first, were still works of impor-
tance, and have served as the foundation for a better
state of thino-s since.

The doctrines of the French school, somewhat modi-
fied, perhaps, by the reproduction of the elder Spanish
literature, but still substantially unchanged, found fol-
lowers 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 in-
heritance 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 endeavored to
introduce classical tragedy upon the Spanish stage,
and who had, probably, some share in forming the
literary character of the yoimg 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 ambas-
* 300 sador in France ; by Aranda, the able ^ minister

of state, who rarely forgot the cause of intel-
lectual 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 S|)ain ^^

24 Martin Sarmiento, " Memorias XTX., and XX. His " Historia de la
para la Historia de la Poesia y Poetas Poesi'a," printed as the fii'st volume of
Espanoles," Madrid, 1775, 4to. He his Works, which were not further con-
was born in 1692, and wrote a great tinned, is the more valuable because,
deal, but published little. .His defence making his inquiries quite indepen-
of his jnaster, Feyjoo, (1732, ) generally dently of Sanchez, he often comes to
goes with the "Teatro Critico"; and the same results.

•some of his tracts are to be found in ^^ Whether the Infante Don Gabriel

the Semanario Erudito, Tom. V., VI., can fairly claim the authorship of the

Chap. IY.]

MORATIN" THE ELDEK.

353

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 opportu-
nity 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 subsequently by a nar-
rative poem on the Destruction of his Ships by Cortes,
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

notes to the translation of Sallnst, of
whicli a magnificent edition was printed
by Ibarra, in folio, in 1772, is uncer-
tain ; for he was only twenty years old
wlien it appeared, and he had for his
tutor the learned Perez Bayer. But he
was a prince of various elegant accom-
plishments and decided literary tastes,
so that his death, in 1788, was a mis-
fortune to Spain, heavily felt through
the reign of his elder brother, which
b:"gan the same year.

^^ There were great numbers of poet-
ical pamphlets, in 18mo, published in
]\[adrid during the reign of Charles III.,

— nearly all worthless. I have forty
or fifty such, including most of the
works of IMoratin the elder, several by
Gregorio Salas, etc. ; but one of them

— "El Parto de los Montes, por Dona
Maria Josefa de Cespedes" (1786, pp.
14) — is a satire on the rest, setting
forth that Apollo had sent a plague of
rats — descendants of the ricliculus tnus
of Horace — to eat them all up. Mo-
ratin the younger, also, in his ' ' Derrota
de los Pedantes," (1789, pp. 45-50,)
makes himself merry with these po-
eniitas, as he calls them, which were
chiefly what we denominate "Occa-
sional Poems." A century earlier all
these trifles would have come out in

quarto ; but the whole literature of the
country was shrunk and dwarfed to the
same proportions. Indeed, in the first
half of the eighteenth century even
these poor, starved little tracts were
]'are, while in the reign of Charles IV.
tliey gradually swelled to be small vol-
umes in duodecimo or octavo.

But of what was published at this
period, nearly all was trash. A strik-
ing specimen of it may be found in two
octavo volumes printed at Madrid with
some air of pretension by Joseph Ma-
nuel Martin in 1782, and called " Ter-
tulia de la Aldea." It consists mainly
of garbled extracts from writers in ear-
lier times, sometimes acknowledged to
be extracts and sometimes not, but all
strung together with an absurd want
of discretion and taste. No small part
of the Don Quixote is thus served up
as if it were a book little known, al-
though only two years earlier the Acad-
emy had published their magnificent
edition of it. The Avhole may be re-
garded in its twenty-four ' ' Pasatiem-
pos " or Entertcdivinents, as the final
decay and degi-adation of the class of
books to which belong Montalvau's
"Para Todos" and the "CigaiTales"
of Tellez.

VOL. III.

354 MOKATIJS" THE ELDEK. [Period III.

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 Cortes in
^ 301 burning his ^ ships, is the noblest poem of its

class produced in Spain during the eighteenth
century, and gives more pleasure than most of the his-
torical 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, as we are told, he possessed to
an extraordinary degree the power of an improvisator,
he yet 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. ^^

2'^ The " ISTaves de Cortes," as pub- destruidas, canto Premiado," ec, Ma-

lislied by tlie younger Moratin in 1785, drid, 4to, pp. 21. Neither his poem,

(18mo, pp. 67,) after his fatlier's death, however, nor that of Salas, is to be

is to be preferred to the one he pub- compared to the one by Moratin, which

lished at Barcelona, in 1821, in which was, no doubt, published by his son to

he made changes, which do not add to show how truly it deserved the honor

its merit, and cannot be justified. It it jet failed to obtain,
was written for a prize offered by the ^^ Besides the poems noted in the

S})anish Academy in 1777, — the first text, I have, by Moratin the elder, an

of the kind ever off'ered by that body. Ode on account of an act of mercy and

Fran. Gregorio de Salas wrote, also, on pardon by Charles III., in 1762, and

the same occasion and subject, but did the " Egloga a Velasco y Gonzales,"

not send in his essay for the competi- printed on occasion of their portraits

tion. (Poesias, 1797, Tom. I. pp. 288, being placed in the Academy, in 1770 ;

298, etc.) The prize in question was both of little consequence, but not, I

obtained by Don Josef Maria Vaca de believe, noticed elsewhere. His"0bras

Guzman, whose poem, in sixty octave Postmnas" were printed at Barcelona,

stanzas, was published without a date, in 1821, ito, and reprinted at London,

and entitled "^ Las Naves de Lurtcis inl82,";, 12mo. Moratin's "Carta Soore

Chap. IY.J FOXDA DE SAIN^ SEBASTIAIST. .OOO

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; ^ Cerda, the literary antiquarian; Rios, * 302
who wrote the analysis of " Don Quixote " pre-
fixed to the magnificent edition of the Academy ; Or-
tega, the botanist and scholar ; Pizzi, the Professor of
Arabic Literature ; Cadahalso, the poet and essayist ;
Munoz, 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 j)^easant 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 everything they
imdertook 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

Las Fiestas de Toros," (Madrid, 1777, ^9 ^j^g ^^^^^ ^^ GioTanT>attista Couti,

12mo, ) vvhicli is a slight prose tract, is in four volumes, printed at Madrid,

intended to prove historically that the 1782-1790, is a collection of SixinL^h

amusement of bull-fighting is Spanish poems, almost entirely in the Italian

in its origin and character; — a point manner, beginning with Garcilasso, and

concerning which those who have read ending with the Argensolas. It is pre-

the Chronicles of Muntaner and the ceded by an introduction on the earlier
Cid can have little doubt. JMost of his . poetry of Spain, and each poem is fo^-

works are collected in the second vol- lowed by a commentary ; — everytliini^

ume of the Biblioteca de Autores Esjm- being given in both languages, 'it has

noles, 1846. very Little value.

356. CADAHALSO. [Peeiod III.

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 whatever was French, and es-
pecially the French theatre .^^

Among the most interesting members of this agree-
able society was Jose de Cadahalso, a gentleman de-
scended from one of the old mountain famihes of the
North of Spain, but born at Cadiz in 1741. His edu-
cation was conducted from early youth in Paris, but
before he was twenty years old he had visited Italy,
Germany, England, and Portugal, and obtained
"^ 303 a knowledsre '^' of the lano:uao:e and literature of
each, but 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 rapid-
ly, 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, Al-
cala de Henares, and Salamanca, — he sought occasions
to continue his earlier pursuits, and succeeded in con-
necting himself with the leading spirits of the time,
such as Moratin, Iglesias, Yriarte, the wise Jovellanos,
and the young and promising Melendez Yaldes. But
his career, though successful, was short. He perished
at the siege of Gibraltar, struck by a bomb, on the

30 N. F. Moratin, Obras P^stuinas, 1821, pp. xxiv-xxxi.

Chap. IV. j CADAHALSO. 357

27tli of February, 1782, and the governor of the be-
sieged fortress joined in the general sorrow over the
grave of an honorable enemy who had been distin-
guished alike in letters and in arms.^^

In 1772 Cadahalso published his " Eruditos a la Yio-
leta," or Fashionable Learning, to which, from its con-
siderable 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 man- * 304
ner of Yillegas, 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, pretending 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 rela-
tionship with Goldsmith's " Citizen of the World."

^^ Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. "cottage" or "shanty." Botli these

21. Puibusque, Tom. II. p. 493. His words, however, are regarded as one

name, 1 believe, was originally spelt and the same, in the first edition of the

Cadcdso ; but as that is a recognized Dictionary of the Academy, so that

word, meaning "scaffold," it is soft- perhaps not much is gained by the

ened in tlie recent Madrid editions of change,
his Works into Cadahalso, which means

358 TEIARTE. [Peiitod TTI.

The whole work, however, is more occupied with lit-
• erary discussions and temporary satire, than either of
those just referred to ; and therefore, though it is writ-
ten in a pure and agreeable 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 w^orks, which comprise a
few more compositions in prose satire and a few more
poems, the best of w^hich 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.^^

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 edu-
cation which decided the course of his life at Madrid,
under the auspices of his uncle, Don Juan de Yri-
arte, 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
^305 verses on the birth of ^ the Infante, after-
wards Charles the Fourth, he was distinguished
at court for his accomplishments both in ancient and

^^ His "Ertiditos a la Violeta," and ing : "Los Petimetres de la Literatura

his poetry, " Ocios de mi Juventud," y los Eruditos d la Violeta, dos nombres

were printed at Madrid, 1772 and 1773, quasi sinonimos," ec, says a satirical

4to, under the assumed name of Joseph tract entitled "Mis Vagatelas, o las

Vasquez. An edition of his Works, Ferias de Madrid," 1781, 18mo, p. 32.

with an excellent Life by Navarrete, Cadahalso's "Eruditos a la Violeta"

appeared at Madrid, in 1818, in 3 tom. had a prodigious success ; the first edi-

l2mo, and has been reprinted more tion having been exhausted before it

than once since. For the contemporary could be advertised otherwise than by

opinion of CadahalsOj see Sempere, loc. the gossip of the Tertulias, in which

cit. The title "Eruditos a la Violeta" he had read it. Ferrer del Rio, Carlos

has sometimes troubled foreigners; — III., 1856, Tom. IV. p. 389.
but there is no doubt about its mean-

Chap. 1Y.] YEIARTE. 359

modern literature. Soon after this period he received
a place under the government ; and, though his em-
ployments, both in the Office of Foreign Affairs and
in that of the Department of War, were of an intel-
lectual 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, For-
ner, 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 controver-
sies ] the translations made with skill, and the quarrels
managed with spirit and wit, but neither of them im-
portant 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 con-
siderable 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

360 YRIARTE. [Peiuod III.

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, irreg-
* 306 ular, 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.^^
The other department, in which Yriarte was more
successful, was that of fables. Here he, in some de-
gree, 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 pur-
pose, to the correction of the faults and follies of men
of learning, — an application which had not before
been thought of Their w^hole number, including a
few that are posthumous, is nearly eighty, above sixty
of which appeared in 1782. They are w^ritten 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 re-
semblance is rarely obvious. The task w^as certainly a
difficult one. Perhaps, on this account, they are too
narrative in their structure, and fail somewhat in the

^^ As a sort of counterpart to the himself in poetry and painting as an

poem on Music, by Yriarte, may be amateur, but whose serious occupations

mentioned one of less merit, published were, like those of Yriarte, in the Office

soon afterwards by Don Diego Antonio of Foreign Affairs at Madrid. Pie died

Rttjon de Silva, '^ La Pintura, Poema in 1796. Sempere v Guarinos (Biblio-

Didactico en Tres Cantos," (Segovia, teca, Tom. V, pp. 1-6) gives an ac-

1786, 8vo, ) the first canto being on countof his few and unimportant works,

Design, the second on Composition, and and Cean Bermudez (Diccionario, Tom.

the third on Coloring, with notes and IV. p. 164) has a short notice of his

a defence of S])ai)ish artists. He was life ; but a better one may be found in

a gentleman of Murcia, who indulged Stirling, Vol. III. pp. 1172-1174.

CuAP. IV.] SAMANIEGO. 3Gi

living spirit which distinguishes ^sop and La Fon-
taine, 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 .^"^

^ Yriarte, however, had a rival, who shared * 307
these honors with him, and in some respects ob-
tained them even earlier. This was Samaniego, a Bis-
cayan 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 na-
tive province. He was, in 1765, or a little later, one
of the most active members of the first of those socie-
ties sometimes called " Friends of the Country," and
sometimes "Societies for Public Improvement," which
may have been originally suggested by Macanaz, but
which from about 1775, under the pervading influence
of Campomanes, spread rapidly through Spain, exercis-
ing an important influence on the education and pub-
lic economy of the kingdom, and laboring to raise the
arts of life from the degraded condition into which

'^* Obras de Thomas de Yriarte, Ma- Fables have had little success in Spain,

drid, 1805, 8 torn. 12mo. Villanueva, The Fables of Bidpai were translated

Memorias, Londres, 1825, 8lVo, Tom. and published in 1498 and 1547, (Sar-

I. p. 27. Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. miento, pp. 333-340; Pellicer, Trad.,

VI. p. 190. Llorente, Histoire, Tom. II. Tom. II. pp. 156 - 169, ) and the Fables

p. 449. Florian translated or para- of iEsop were translated by Pedro Simon

phrased a good many of the fables of Abril, and published in 1575 and 1647.

Yriarte in the collection he published, (Clemens, Specimen, 1753, p. 113.)

(1792,) in the Preface to which he But setting these aside, I remember

speaks of him as " un ICspagnol nomme nothing of so much consecjuence as a

Yriarte, poete dont je fais grand cas, et few fables scattered in the Argensolas,

qui m'a fourni mes apologues les plus etc., and the "Fabulario" (Valencia,

heureux." I have, also, an English 1614) of Sebastian Mey, a kinsman of

translation by John Belfour, London, the well-known printer, which is al-

1804 ; — not very well done. most entirely translated from Phyedrus.

It should be noted here, perhaps, that Ximeno, Tom. 1. p. 264.
from the t^me of the Archpriest Hita

362 BAMAIS'IEGO. [Feriod HI.

they had fallen during the latter period of the domin-
ion of the House of Austria.

The Biscayan Society devoted itself much to the
education of the people ; and, to favor this great cause,
Samaniego undertook to write fables suited to the ca-
pacity 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 there-
fore 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 pub-
lished in 1784, when that of his rival hai been ad-
mired by the public long enough to change the rela-
tions of the two authors, and bring up a quarrel of
pamphlets between them, little creditable to either.
Both parts, taken together, contain a hundred
* 308 and fifty-seven fables, the last nineteen of "^ which
and a few others are original, while the rest are
taken, partly from ^sop, Phgedrus, 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 rea:ard.^^

35 Felix Maria de Samaniego, "Fabu- York, 1826, 18mo. There is a Life of
las en Verso C'astellano para el Uso del the author, by Navarrete, in the fourth
Keal Seminario Vascongado," Nueva volume of Quintaua's " Coleccion," and

Chap. IV.] YAEIOUS AUTHORS. 363

The best of them are the shortest and smiplest, like
the foUowmg, 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 tlien sat down behind a screen,
And talked it over. Quite precise, •
They took each other's best adAdce,
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." ^^

Samaniego was not the only person who^ without be-
longing to the society of Moratin and his friends, co-
operated with them in their efforts to encourage a bet-
ter tone in the literature of their country. Among
those Avho, from a similar impulse, but w4th less suc-
cess, took the same direction, were Arroyal,
* who, in 1784, published a collection of poems, ^ 309
which he calls Odes, but which are oftener epi-
grams ; and Montengon, a Jesuit, who, after the expul-
sion of his Order from Spain, began, in 1786, with his
"Eusebio," a work on education, partly in imitation of
the " Telemaque," and then went on rapidly with a
prose epic called " Eodrigo," a volume of Odes, and sev-
eral other works, written with little talent, and show-
ing by their inaccuracies of style that their author had
been an exile in Italy till his mother tongue had be-
come strange to him. To these should be added Gre-

a reply to his attack on Yriarte in the ^^ Parte IT. Lib. II. Fab. 9. He

sixth volume of Yriarte's Works. For gives, also, an expanded version of the

an account of the "patriotic societies," same fable, but the shortest is much

see Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. V. p. the best, nXeo^- t]ixi(sv ■ko.vtos.
135, and Tom. VI. p. 1.

364

YARIOUS AUTHOES.

[Period III.

gorio de Salas, a quiet ecclesiastic, who wrote odes,
fables, and other trifles, that were several times print-
ed after 1790 ; Ignacio de Meras, a courtier of the
worst days of Ciiarles the Fourth, whose worthless
dramas and miscellaneous poetry appeared in 1792 ;
and the Count de Norona, a soldier and diplomatist,
who, besides a dull epic on the separation of the Ara-
bian 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 Span-
ish Dorat5 But all these writers only showed a

^'^ 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 defini-
tion of lyrical poetry, namely, that
"whose verses can be properly played,
sung, or dcmcccl.'"

2. Pedro de Montengon, "Eusebio,"
Madrid, 1786-87, 4 tom. 8vo. The
first two volumes gave great off"ence by
the absence of all injunctions to make
religious instruction a part of educa-
tion ; and, though the remaining two
made up for this deficiency, there is
reason to believe that Montengon in-
tended originally to follow the theory
of the ' ' Emile. " "El Antenor " ( Ma-
drid, 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." " Eu-
doxia," Madrid, 1793, 8vo ; again, a
work on education ; but on the educa-
tion of women. "Odas," Madrid, 1794,
8vo ; very poor. Montengon, of whom
these are not all the works, was born at
Alicant, in 1745, and was alive in 1815.
He was very young when he entered
the Church, and lived cbiefly at Naples,
where he threw off his ecclesiastical
robes and devoted himself to secular
occupations.

3. Francisco Gregorio de Sales, "Co-
leccion de Epigramas," etc., 1792, 4th
edition, Madrid, 1797, 2 tom. 12mo.

His " Observatorio Eiistico " (1770,
tenth edition, 1830) is a long dull ec-
logue, divided into six yjarts, which has
enjoved 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 whicb, I believe, are in
the collection printed at Madrid in
1797, td sup. A small volume, enti-
tled "Parabolas Morales," etc., (Ma-
drid, 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 Poeti-
cas," ("Madrid, 1797, 2 tom. 12mo,)
contain a stitt' 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
Conqiiest of Minorca," in 1782, to imi-
tate Moratin's "Ships of Cortes"; 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 mea-
gre.

5. Gaspar de Norona, whose family
was of Portuguese origin, was bred a
soldier and served at the siege of Gib-
raltar, where he wrote an elegy on the
death of Cadahalso (Poesias de Norona,

Chap. IY.]

VARIOUS AUTHORS.

365

*310

^ 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 s|)irits collected at the Fonda
de San Sebastian in Madrid^ none certainly exercised
the sort of influence which was exercised by Moratin
and his friends over the poetry of their time.

Madrid, 1799-1800, 2 torn. 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
181.5, (Fuster, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p.
381,) and in 1816 his epic, entitled
"Ommiada," was published at Madrid,
in two volumes, 12nio, containing above
fifteen thousand verses ; as dull, per-
haps, as any of the similar poems that
abound in Spanish literature, but less
oh'eusive to good taste than most of

them. In 1833, there appeared at
Paris, his ' ' Poesias Asiaticas 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 Poesias, printed
in 1800.

Perhaps to these five I should add
the name of the nun, Ana de San Ge-
ronimo, who belonged to the Castilian
family of Verdugo, and whose works,
after her death at Granada, in 1771,
were published under the title of * ' Obras
poeticas de la Madre Sor Ana de San
Geronimo" (Cordoba, 1773, 4to). But
they are merely poor imitations of the
different forms of religious verse of the
preceding century.

*311 * CHAPTEE Y.

SCHOOL OP SALAMANCA. MELENDEZ VALDES. — GONZALEZ. — FORNER.

IGLESIAS. — CIENFUEGOS. — JOVELLANOS. MTINOZ. — ESCOIQUTZ. — MORA-
TIN 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 anything 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 endeavor 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 eigh-
teen was sent to study at Salamanca, where, if he did

1 N. F. Moratin, Desengano, p. 34. — Huerta, Teatro Hespanol, Prologo,
p. Ixxix.

Chap. V.] MELENDEZ VALDES. 367

not pass the larger remaining portion of his life, he
passed at least its happiest and best years.^ As
a versifier, "^ he began early, and in a bad * 312
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 acci-
dent 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 lit-
erature of his country, as well as that of the other cul-
tivated nations of Europe ; and devoted himself so ear-
nestly 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, Me-
lendez became acquainted with Iglesias and Gonzalez ;
and through the latter was placed in relations of friend-
ship w^ith 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 ob-
tained 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

2 Considerable improvement took still things remained in a very torpid
place at Salamanca in some departments state,
of study while Melendez was there. But

368 MELENDEZ VALDES. [Period 111.

of the less fortunate portions of the older Spanish pas-
torals ; 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 gentle-
ness, 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 sec-
ond 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
^ 313 his rival. The popular favor, however, ^ fully
sustained the Academy, and its vote on that oc-
casion 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 Tonnes, 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 Ma-
drid for a comedy, and wrote, " The Marriage of Cama-
cho." But his talent was not dramatic ; and therefore,
though he obtained the votes of the judges, he did not,

3 " Olia toda a tomilla " — "It smelt Ibarra; but under the pseudon3mie of

all of wild thyme " — was the exact Francisco Agustin de Cisneros. One

phrase of Don Antonio de Tavira con- objection to the Eclogue of Melendez

cerningthe Eclogue of Melendez Valdes, was, that it was not on country life, —

referred to in the text. The rival Ec- "vida del campo " — which was the

logue of Yriarte, entitled " La Felicidad subject given out by the Academy ; but

de la Vida del Campo," was printed by on pastoral life, as if the last were not

the Academy, in exactly the same style involved in the first. Puigblancli,

with that of Melendez, at the press of Opusculas, Tom. II. p. 465.

CiiAP. v.] MELE]S"DEZ YALDES. 369

to the great disappointment of his patron^ obtain those
of the pubUc when his drama was brought to the test
of a free representation.

This faihire, however, he retrieved a year after-
wards, by pubhshing a small volume of poetry, chiefly
lyrical and pastoral. Most of it is in the short, na-
tional verse, and nearly all is marked with a great gen-
tleness of spirit and a truly poetical sensibility. The
Anacreontics which it contains remind iis of Yillegas,
but have more philosophy and more tenderness than
his. The ballads, for which his talent was no less hap-
pily fitted, if they lack the abrupt vigor of the elder
times, have a grace, a lightness, and a finish which be-
long to that more advanced period of a nation's po-
etry, 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, wdiich break forth in rich and faithful
descriptions of natural scenery, and in glimpses
of what ^ is tenderest and truest in the human "^314
heart. It was, in fact, a volume of poetry more
worthy of the country than any that had been pro-
duced in Spain since the disappearance of the great
lights of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and
it was received, in consequence, with general enthusi-
asm, not only for its own sake, but as the long-looked-
for dawn of a brighter day.

But his success w^as 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 favor-
ite with many persons of distinction ; and, now that
he had risen so much in general consideration, he em_-
ployed his influence in soliciting for himself a place
under the government, — an old weakness in the Cas-

V(jL. III. 24

370 MELENDEZ YALDES. [Peeiod III.

tilian cliaracter, which^ however disguised by the loy-
alty of public service, has broken down the indepen-
dence 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, dur-
ing 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 de-
votion. In 1797, he published a new edition of his
Works, more than doubling their original amount, and
dedicating them to the reigning favorite, — the mas-
ter 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
^'315 the influence of studies in English ^ and Ger-
man literature. But this w^as not, on the whole,
an improvement. He felt, undoubtedly, that the tre-
mendous revolutions he witnessed on all sides, in the
fall of kingdoms and the convulsions of society, pre-
scribed 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 in-

* In the Preface whicli Melendez quietiid de mi Catedra j mi Uiiiver-

wrote for his Works eighteen months sidad, no he hallado por do qiiiera

])efore his death, he says, in a tone of sino cuestas, precipicios y abismos en .

sorrow and suffering not to be mis- que me he visto ciego y despeiiado. "

taken : " Yo, desde el dia que dexe la p. ix.

Chai'. v.] melendez yaldes. 371

timates a consciousness that he was not equal to the
undertaking ; and yet his " Ode to Winter " as a sea-
son 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 epis-
tles, too, are good ; especially those to Jovellanos and
to 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.^ On the whole, there-
fore, the attempt to introduce a new tone into Spanish
poetrj^, — a tone of moral and, in some degree, of met-
aphysical discussion, to which he was urged by Jovel-
lanos, — 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 Cas-
tilian 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 publica-
tion 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 Ma-
drid, where, his friend ^ Jovellanos having been "^ 31G

^ Whether the "Caicla de Luzbel" such a prize, to all the conditions of
was written because a prize was otfered which the poem of Melendez seems con-
by the Spanish Academy, in 1785, for formed. It should be added, that a
a poem on that subject, wliich Avas to French lady. Mademoiselle de Rouviik',
consist of not more than one hundred who published at Madrid, in 1786, a
octave stanzas, I do not know ; but I strange pamphlet on Spanish Litera-
have a poor attempt Mdth the same ture, complains bitterly that no prize
title, professing to be the work of Man- was awarded. Criticas Hetlexiones, ec,
uel Perez Yalderrabano, (Palencia, 1786, ito, pp. 29.
12iuo,) and to have been written for

372 MELENDEZ VALDES. [Period III.

made a minister of state, his position became, for a
moment, most agreeable and bappy ; while, for the
future, a long vista of preferment and fame seemed
opening before him. But the very next year, the vir-
tuous and wise man on w^hom rested so many hopes,
besides those of Melendez, fell from power ; and, ac-
cording 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 hap-
piest 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. Unfortu-
nately, 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 ex-
cited population of Oviedo, where he had been sent
as a commissioner. On another occasion, his house at
Salamanca was sacked, and his precious library and
more precious manuscripts were 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 coun-

Chap. Y.] MELENDEZ YALDES. 373

try." 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 in a small village
near Montpellier, on the 24th of May, 1817, in poverty
and sufferin

To solace the heavy hours of his exile, he * 317
occupied himself with preparing the mate-
rials for a final publication of all he had written, em-
bracing 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 grace-
ful whenever the subject implies tenderness, and some-
times vigorous and imposing when it demands power.
What Melendez wrote with success was a great ad-
vance upon the poetry of Montiano, and even iipon
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 occasion-
ally occur that might have been avoided, though many
of them have now become a part of the recognized re-
sources of Spanish poetry • but more often Melendez

^ The death of Melendez was sup- propriate monument to mark the spot.

posed by his physician to have been Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, pp. 331 -

occasioned by the vegetable diet to 333 ; a striking and sad history. But

which he was driven, for want of means the monument, thus tardily erected, has

to purchase food more substantial ; and, partly effaced the reproach so pointedly

from the same poverty, his burial was cast on his country by Gomez de Orte-

so obscure that the Duke of Frias and ga, the botanist, who ends an epigram

the poet Juan Nicasio Gallego with on Melendez with these words : —

difficulty discovered his remains, in-rx i-it.x- -.x x^

TO TO ^ 1 XT J. 1 X Interea, neu! Patriam pudet monumenta do-

lb28, and caused them to be respect- j^is

fully interred, in one of the principal Communis, tali nulla sacrasse Tiro.

cemeteries of Montpellier, with an ap- Carmina, Matriti, 1S17, p. 112.

374 DIEGO GONZALEZ. [Peeiod III.

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 convul-
sions 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 po-
etry, than any writer that had happened in Spain for

above a century.^
* 318 ^ Older than Melendez, but somewhat influ-
enced by him and by Cadahalso, who had an ef-
fect on the taste of both, was the excellent Father Diego
Gonzalez, a modest Augustinian monk, part of whose
life was spent in active religious duties at Salamanca,
where he became intimate with the poets of the new

■^ Juan Melendez Valdes, "Poesias," Soon after tlie death of Melendez,
Madrid, 1785, 12mo ; 1797, 3 torn. some of Ms occasional discourses ap-
ISmo ; 1820, 4 torn. 18mo ; the last peared in the first three volumes of the
witha Life, by Qaintana. (Puybusque, " Continuacion del Almacen de Frutos
Tom. II. p. 496.) Quintana says, that Literarios" (Madrid, 1818, 4to). But
three counterfeit editions of the first in 1821, a small volume of them, ten
small volume, printed in 1785, appeared in number, edited with care, and enti-
almost at the same time with the true tied "Discursos Forenses," was pub-
one ; so great was the first outbreak of lished at Madrid, in the Imprenta ISTa-
his popularity. The first volume of clonal. Half of them are speeches
Hermosilla ( Juicio Critico de los Prin- made in remarkable public prosecutions
cipales Poetas Espaiioles de la Ultima when he was Fiscal de Corte, or Attor-
Era, Paris, 1840, 2 tom. 12mo) contains ney-General, and the other five are
a criticism of the poems of Melendez, addresses made on various popular or
so severe that I find it difficult to ex- literary occasions. Some of them are
plain its motive. The judgment of very eloquent, and several are not un-
Martinez de la Rosa, in the notes to his worthy the disciple of Jovellanos, and
didactic poem on Poetry, is much more are imbued with his generous and lofty
faithful and true. Melendez corrected spirit. Their fault is a Galilean air, of
his verse Avith great care ; sometimes which there is something in his poetry,
with too much, as may be seen by com- but more in his prose. His prose, how-
paring some of the poems as he first ever, is graceful \ a little elaborate, but
published them, in 1785, with their last often moving,
revision, in the edition of his Works,
1820.

Chap. V.] FOKNEK. 375

scliool ; 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 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
wdiole to Jovellanos, was never finished. In-
deed, his "^ poetry, though much known and *319
circulated in MS. 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.^

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

s "Poesias de M. T. Diego de Gon- less modest, and a little less connected

zalez," Madrid, 1812, 12mo. He was with Jovellanos and Melendez, Ave might

a native of Ciudad Rodrigo, and was have had a modern school of Seville" as

born in 173-3. If he had been a little well as of Salamanca.

376 IGLESIAS. [Period 111.

gained an academic prize in 1782, and partly in his
controversies with Huerta on the subject of the Span-
ish theatre, — he inchnes 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 are a well-written defence of the lit-
erary reputation of his country against the injurious
imputations of foreigners, and a Discourse on the mode
of writing Spanish history, he left little to give the
world proof of the merits he possessed, or the influence

he really exercised.^
* 320 '^ 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

® Juan Pablo Forner, "Oracion Apolo- in this volume (p. xxiii) by Forner him-

getica por la Espaiia y su Merito Lite- self, he does not mention "La Escuela

rario," Madrid, 1786, 12mo, Reprinted de la Amistad, 6 el Filosofo Enamo-

with it a good discourse in French, by rado," (printed at Madrid, in 1796,) in

the Abbe Denina, delivered before the three acts, and in the old short national

Academy of Berlin, partly at the sug- verse and asonantes, which is yet his,

gestion of Frederic II., on the same (L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. IV. p.

subject. His critical controversies and Ixxxii,) and was acted, according to the

discussions were chiefly under assumed "Biographic Universelle, " eighteen

names, — Tome Cecial, Varas, Bartolo, times. It is, however, very flat and

etc. His poetry is best found in the dull.

"Biblioteca" of Mendibil y Silvela, His "Oracion" was attacked by some-
(Burdeos, 1819, 4 tom. 8vo, ) and in the body who signed himself Jose Con-
fourth volume of Quintana's " Poesias chudo, in the "Carta al Autor de la
Selectas"; — an attempt to publish a Oracion Apologetica, " (Madrid, 1787,
collection of all his works, edited by 18mo,) and was defended in the "An-
Luis Villanueva, having stopped after tisofisma," ec, por E. C. V., (Madrid,
issuing the first volume, Madrid, 1843, 1787, 18mo, ) — both of little conse-
8vo. In the list of his Works, given quence to anybody but their authors.

Chap. Y.] CIENFUEGOS. 377

in the free forms of Castilian satire; — ballads, apo-
logues, epigrams, and especially the half-simple, half-
malicious letrillas, in which he was eminently success-
ful. 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 the result of a most
w^orth}^ 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 ge-
nius, and none of it fitted to increase his final reputa-
tion. After his death, which occurred in 1791, wdien
he was thirty-eight years old, this became at once ap-
parent. 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 favor-
ites at once ; the serious poems were dull, and soon
ceased to be read.^^

Cienfuegos, who was ten years younger than Melen-
dez, was more strictly his follower than either of the
two poets last mentioned. But he had fallen on evil
times, and his career, wdiich 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 Anacreon- * 321

1*^ " Poesi'as de Don Josef Iglesias de there are several others, and among

la Casa," Salamanca, 1798, 2 tom. them one in four small volnmes, IS-IO,

18mo, Segunda Edieion ; forbidden by the last containing a considerable nnm-

the Inqnisition, Index Expurg., 1805, her of poems not before pnblished, some

p. 27. The best editions are those of of which, and perhaps all, are not by

Barcelona, 1820, and Paris, 1821 ; but Iglesias.

378 CIENFUEGOS. [Period III.

ticSj odes, ballads, epistles, and elegies, which, while
they give proof of much real talent and passion, show
sometimes an excess of sentimental feeling, and some-
times a desire to imitate the metaphysical and phi-
losophical 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 mas-
ter, 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 re-
ceived procured for him the place of editor of the gov-
ernment 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,
endeavored, at first, to seduce or drive him into sub-
mission, but, failing in this, condemned him to death ;
a sentence which — since Cienfuegos refused to make
the smallest concession to the French authority —
would infallibl}" have been carried into execution, if
his friends had not interfered, and procured a commu-
tation 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.^^

11 " Obras Poeticas de Nicasio Alvarez de Cienfuegos," Madrid, 181 G, 2

Chap. Y.] JOVELLAXOS. 379

One other person, already referred to with honor,
must now be particularly noticed, Avho, if his life be-
longed to the state, still wi^ote poetry with success, and
exercised over the school formed at Salamanca
an influence which * belongs to the history of ^ 322
letters. This person was Jovellanos, the wdse
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 favor-
ite. 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
vie do, Avila, AlcalA 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 states-
man, 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 dis-
agreeable 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 legis-

tom. 12uio. His style is complained though without sufficient reason, a
of, both for neologisms and archaisms, ground of complaint against Meleii-
the last of which have been made, dez.

380 JOYELLANOS. [Period III.

lation, he prepared the way for his own future emi-
nence 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 Me-
lendez. One result of this is still to be found in the
poetical Epistle of Jovellanos to his friends in Sala-
manca, 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 Jovel-
lanos to give more of his leisure to the elegant
^ 323 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 after-
ward. 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 ca|)ital 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 admin-
istration 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 faith-

Chap. V.] JOVELLANOS. 381

fully, and consoled himself by intercourse with such
men as Campomanes and Cabarrus, who devoted them-
selves, as he did, to the great task of raising the con-
dition 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 tendencies broke out afresh in an address
to Mariano Colon, one of the family of the great dis-
coverer of America, and afterwards its head ] — a beau-
tiful 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 govern-
ment on the military and religious Orders of Knight-
hood ; 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 ^ 324
wise study of jurisprudence; and in other simi-
lar labors, which proved him to be incontestably an ex-
cellent prose- writer, and the first philosophical states-
man 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

^■^ He was also fond of painting, as- fore the Academy of San Fernando at
sisted Cean Berniudez and Ponz in their ]\Iadrid, in 1784. Stirling's Artists of
in(|uiries, and delivered a discourse be- Spain, 1848, Vol. III. p. 1387.

382 JOVELLANOS. [Period III.

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 print-
ed 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 re-
gard at that of his son. In 1790, two years after
Charles the Fourth ascended the throne, Count Cabar-
rus 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 dis-
interested zeal. During this period of enforced retire-
ment, he made many reports to the government on
different subjects connected with the general welfare,
and wrote his excellent tract " On Public Amuse-
ments," afterwards published by the Academy of His-
tory, and his elaborate treatise on Legislation in Eela-
tion to Agriculture, which extended his repu-
* 325 tation ^ 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

Chap. V.] JOYELLAN'OS. 383

his season of favor was short. Gocloy 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 favor-
ite. In 1801, partly through a movement of the In-
quisition, and still more through a political intrigue,
Jovellanos was suddenly seized in his bed, and, in vio-
lation both of law and decency, carried, like a common
felon, across the whole kingdom, and embarked at Bar-
celona 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 af-
fairs of the world was nearly cut off; and there he re-
mained, 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, there-
fore, 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 propo-
sal of the French invaders to become one of the prin-
cipal ministers of state in the new order of things

384 JOYELLANOS. [Period IIL

* 326 they hoped to * establish ; and then slowly and
sadly retired, to seek among his native moun-
tains 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 dis-
heartening moments of the great contest of his coun-
try for existence. On the dissolution of that body, —
which was dissolved at his earnest desire, — he again
returned home, broken down with j^ears, 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 fac-
tion, and in 1811 replied triumphantly to his accusers
in a defence of what may be considered his adminis-
tration 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 ene-
mies 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

Chap. Y.] JOYELLANOS. 385

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 dexter-
ous 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 comino; to the contest unskilled and alone, I
threw my unprotected person into it, and, in
* order to free myself from the more imminent * 327
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 consid-
erations which, at another time, might well have pre-
vailed with me. Veneration for public authority, re-
spect for official station, the private affections of friend-
ship and personal attachment, — everything 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 par-
doned, 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 dis-
approbation, 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 pov-
erty, 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 him-
self was published, the French, by a sudden incursion,

1^ D. Gaspar de Jovellanos a sus Compatriotas, (Coruua, 1811, 4to,) Tom. I.
pp. 154, 155.

VOL. III. 25

386 JOVELLANOS. [Period III.

took military possession of his native city; and lie
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' continu-
ance in the Bay of Biscay, he disembarked to obtain
relief at the obscure port of Yega. 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 coun-
try, 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 ser-
vice he devoted himself alike in the days of his happi-
ness and of his suffering ; — in his influence over the

school of Salamanca, when he exhorted them to
* 328 raise the tone of ^ their poetry, no less than in

the war-cry of his odes to cheer on his country-
men 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 magis-
trate 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."^*

^* "Coleccion de las Obras de Don drid, 1830-1832, 7 torn. 8vo. A de-
Gaspar Mclcliior de Joveiiaaos," Ma- clamatoiy prose satire on the state of

Chap. V.] MUNOZ. 387

One historical work of tlie reign of Cliarles tlie
Fourth should not be forgotten. It was by Juan Bau-
tista Muiloz^ and was undertaken by tlie especial order
of Charles the Tliird, who demanded of its author a
complete history of the Spanish discoveries and con-
quests in America. This was in 1779. But Munoz
encountered many obstacles. The members of the
Academy of History were not well disjoosed towards
an undertaking which seemed to fall within their own
jurisdiction ; and when he had finished the first por-
tion, 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 be-
ing printed at all. This, however, was * stopped * 329
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 Munoz, 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 in-

Spain in tlie time of Charles IV., sup- successfully. For notices of him, see
posed to have been delivered in the Memorias de Jovellanos, ])0v Don Agus-
Amphitheatre of Madrid, in 1793, has tin Cean Bermudez, Madrid, 1814,
been attributed to Jovellanos. It is 12mo ; the Life at the end of his col-
entitled "Pan y^Toros," or Bread and lected Works ; Lord Holland's Life of
Bull-tights, from 'the old Roman cry of Lope de Vega, 1817, Tom. II., where
"Panem et Circenses," and was sup- is a beautiful tribute to him, Avorthy of
pressed as soon as it was published, but Mr. Fox's nephew ; and Llorente, Tom.
has often been printed since. Among II. p. .540, and Tom. IV. p. 122, where
other distinctions, it enjoyed the singu- are recorded some of his shameful per-
lar one of being translated and privately secutions. The name of Jovellanos is
printed, in 1813, on board a British sometimes written Jove Llanos ; and, I
man-of-war, stationed in the jMediterra- believe, was so written by his ances-
nean. But it is not the work of Jovel- tors.

lanos, though it has almost always borne The works of Jovellanos, edited by

his name on the successive editions. Don Candido Nocedal, may be founil

Jovcdlanos was familiar with English in the Biblioteca of Rivaden'eyra, Avhero

lit/rature, and translated the first book the iirst two volumes appeared in 18-38,

of the "Paradise Lost," but not very 1859.

388 ESCOIQUIZ. [PEMon III.

considerable a portion of the subject to which it is de-
vote d.^^

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 thou-
sand lines, beginning with the demand of Cortes, 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 Escorial, of Aranjuez, and of
Bayonne, showed an honorable character, Avhich at
different times brought upon him the vengeance of the
Prince of the Peace, of Charles the Fourth, of Bona-
parte, and, at last, of Ferdinand himself

The literary ambition of Escoiquiz, however, is of
both an earlier and a later date than this unha23py in-
terval, 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 pris-

1^ "Historia del Nuevo Mundo, por edited in Spanish "by his accomplished
Don Juan Bautista Muiioz," Madrid, friend, Nicolas de Azara, the anihassa-
1793, small folio. Fuster, Bib., Tom. dor at Rome of Charles III., to whose
II. p. 191. Memorias de la Acad, de conrt Mengs was long attached as chief
la Histo]ia, Tom. I. p. Ixv. The eulo- painter, sliould not be wholly over-
gy of Lebrixa, by Muiioz, in the third looked. They are well written, with
volume of the Slemoirs of the Academy, some German feeling, as might be ex-
a defence of his History, and two or pected, and contain good discussions
three Latin treatises, are all that I know both theoretical and practical of the
of his works, except the History. A . art to which this friend of Winckelmann
fierce attack was made on Muhoz by devoted himself witb such severe ear-
Don Francisco Iturri, in a pamphlet nestness and in which he had such
printed at Madrid, in 1798, but dated honorable success. He was born at
from Rome, August 20, 1797. It com- Aussig, Bohemia, in 1728, and died in
jjlains of him chielly for coinciding oc- 1779 at Rome, where he was buried in
casionally in opinion with Robertson the graceful Pantheon at the side of
in his "History of America," and with Raphael, whom, in life, he had so rev-
De Pauw in his " Recherches Philoso- erenced and followed. His works, jnib-
phi(|ues " ; but though the pam[)hlet is lished by order of the King of Spain in
not ill-written, it rarely takes any posi- 1780 and 1797, in 4to, Avere translated
tion formidable to Muuoz, and still into Italian, German, English, and
more i-arely maintains the positions on French ; into the latter language, I
which it ventures. think, more than once.

The works of Antonio Raphael Mengs,

Chap. V.] MORATIX THE YOUI\"GER. 389

oner in France, from 1^0^ to 1814, he prepared a
Spanish version of Milton's " Paradise Lost/' which
showed, at least, with what pleasnre he gave
himself up to letters, and what a ^ solace they * 330
were to him under his privations and misfor-
tunes. 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 impor-
tant in the action ; while, on the other hand, its faith-
ful history of events, its unity of design, and its regu-
lar proportions, are no sufficient compensation for its
ill-constructed stanzas and its chronicling dulness.
The history of Solis is much more interesting and po-
etical than this wearisome romantic epic, which owes
to that historian nearly all its facts.^^

Leandro Mo rati n, son of the poet who flourished in
the reign of Charles the Third, was, in some respects,
a g^reater sufferer from the convulsions of the times in
which he lived than Escoiquiz, and in all respects more

1^ "Mexico Conqaistada, Poeraa He- severe; but it sliows much sympatliy

roico, por Don Juan de Escoiquiz," Ma- with the suffering Indians, and no great

drid, 1798, 3 torn. 8vo. A still more respect for the "Conquistadores." In

unhappy epic attempt on the subject consequence of this, a reply to it ap-

of the Conquest of Mexico preceded peared at Toledo, three years after-

that of Escoiquiz by about forty years. wards, entitled ' ' Exortacion Amistosa

It was by Francisco Ruiz de Leon, and dirigida a ciertos Analistas Ingleses, por

is entitled " La Hernandia, Triunfos Don Inocencio Ejpdondo," (1804, 12mo,

de la Fe " (Madrid, 1755, 4to) ; a poem pp. 100,) — a slight performance, which,

making nearly four hundred pages, and however, boldly sustains the pretensions

sixteen hundred octave stanzas. of the Spanish character throughout,

Th;3 "Mexico Concj^uistada " of Es' and justifies the conquest of ]\Iexico on

coiquiz was reviewed (as I conjecture, the ground that the Mexicans Avere

from internal evidence, by Southey) in heathens. The oddest part of it is^

the Critical Review, Vol. XXXII. , that a reply at Toledo, where the Re-

ISOl, p. 513, Avith spirited translations, view could never have been much known

in blank verse, of several passages, and at any time, and long after it had be-^-n

a good abstract of the whole poem. forgotten in England, should have been

The notice is not flattering, nor is it thought desirable.

390 MORATHS" THE YOUNGER. [Period III.

distinguished in the world of letters. His principal
success^ however, was in the drama, where he must
hereafter he more fully noticed. Here, therefore, it is
only necessary to say, that, in his lyric and miscella-
neous poetry, he was a follower of his father, modify-
ing 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
* 331 ^ quite apparent and gives a finish to the sur-
face, 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 Appear-
ance 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 anything else he has
left us. But the poems that please us best and interest
us most are those that show his own temper and affec-
tions; 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
diflficirit 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 in-
sured his success ; and when the day of retribution
came, and his patron fell, as he deserved to fall, Mora-
tin, 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

Chap. V.^ QUINT ANA. 391

I was I owed to him ; and, although we have nowa-
days a convenient philosophy^ which teaches men to
receive benefits without gratitude, and, when circum-
stances alter, to pay with reproach favors asked and
received, I value my own good opinion too much to
seeiv 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 the discomforts and sadness of exile.^^

^ The last of these miscellaneous writers of *332
the reimi 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, survived long enough to enjoy a serene and
honored old age. He was born at Madrid on the 11th
of April, in 1772, but received the most effective part
of his literary education at Salamanca, where he ac-
knowledo^ed the influence of Melendez and Cienfueg:os.
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 so-
ciety of intellectual friends, that assembled every even-
ing at his house, soon stimulated his preference into a
passion. In 1801 he ventured to print his tragedy of
" The Duke of Yiseo," imitated from " The Castle Spec-

1'^ " Obras cle L. F. Moratin," Ma- 342. An iinreasonabty laudatory criti-

drid, 1830 - 31, four vols. 8vo, divided cism of liis works is to be found in the

into six, prepared by himself, and pub- first volume of Hermosilla's "Juicio."

lished by the Academy of History after Moratin's Works can, also, be found

his death. His Life is in Vol. I., and collected in the second volume of the

his miscellaneous poems are in the last Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, 1846,

volume, where the remarks on the Prince where there are some things not in the

of the Peace occur, at p. 33.5, and a edition of the Academy ; but none of

notice of his relations with Conti at p. value.

392 . QUINT A]S"A. [Period III.

tre " of Lewis; and in 1805 he produced on the stage
his "Pelajo," intended to rouse his countrymen to
resistance of foreign oppression, by a striking example
from their own history. The former had httle success;
but the hitter, though written according to the doc-
trines of the severer school, struck a chord to which
the hearts of the audience gladly answered.

Meantime, between these two attempts, he pub-
lished, in 1802, a small volume of poetry, almost en-
tirely 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 ad-
dress to Melendez, he leaves no doubt that he now
gladly associated himself. In a similar spirit he pub-
lished, 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 simul-
taneously he prepared three volumes of selec-
^ 333 tions "^from the best Spanish poets, accompany-
ing them with critical notices, which, if more
slio:ht than mig-ht 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 anything else of their
kind then to be found in the language. Both show a
too willing imitation of the French manner, and con-
tain 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 elder epics.

Chap. V.] QUINTANA. 393

But tlioiigli the taste of Quintana was 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 in-
fluence and the 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
made. 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 coun-
trymen to resist their invaders ; he became the secre-
tary 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 belono-ed dur-
ing 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 peo-
ple in the name of Ferdinand the Seventh, dur-
ing his forced ^ detention in France, was un- ^ 334
welcome to that short-sighted 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 Avas thrown
into prison in the fortress of Pamplona, and remained
there six miserable years, interdicted from the use of

394 QUINTA:N"A. [Period hi.

v/ritiiig-materials, and cut off from all intercourse with
his friends. The changes of 1820 unexpectedly re-
leased him, and raised him for a time to greater dis-
tinction than he had enjoyed before. But, three years
later, another political revolution took from him all his
employments and influence; and he retired to Estre-
madura, where he occupied himself with letters till
new chansres and the death of the kino; 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 Odes on the Ocean, and on the beneficent expedi-
tion sent to America with the great charity of Vac-
cination, letters were his chosen employment ; — his
pride, when he cheered on his countrymen to resist
OjDpression ; his consolation in prison and in exile ; his
truest honor in an honored old age.-^^ His last distinc-
tion was that of being crowned by his sovereign, on
the 25th of March, 1855, in presence of whatever was
most eminent and most noble in the kingdom. Two
years later, March 11, 1857, he died, and the same
noble crowd marked the same reverence for him, as
they slowly followed his remains to their final resting-
place. He had almost reached his eighty-fifth birth-
day, and had been before the public as a poet sixty-
nine years.

18 "PoesiasdeM. J. Quintana," Ma- ^ .. . Unas primicias _

drid, 1821, 2 torn. 8vo. T.he lyrical Que mi mgemo ha formado en otro tiempo,

portion has been often reprinted since and of himself as having already left

1802, when a coHection of his Poems the haunts of the Muses to devote him-

appeared at Madrid in a thin beautiful self to the study of the law. He must,

volume of only 170 pages, 12mo. But therefore, have begun young indeed, for

a very small volume, containing only he was only sixteen wlien he thus spoke

eleven poems, and entitled "Poesias as if the poems he then published had

de D. Manuel Josef Quintana," (Ma- been written some years before, — "en

drid, 18mo, pp. 71,) appeared as early otrotiempo." His works are best found

as 1788, and in the dedication of which in the Biblioteca, Tom. XIX., 1852;

to Count Florida Blanca, the Minister but none of his earliest poems are in

of State, he speaks of them as that collecticn.

*CHAPTEE VI. *335

THEATRE I>T THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. — TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH.
— ORIGINAL PLAYS.— OPERAS. — NATIONAL THEATRE. — CASTRO. — ANORBE.

IMITATIONS OF THE FRENCH THEATRE. — MONTIANO. — MORATIN THE

ELDER. — CADAHALSO. — SEBASTIAN Y LATRE. TRIGUEROS. — YRIARTE.

AYALA. — HUERTA. JOVELLANOS. — AUTOS FORBIDDEN. — PUBLIC THEA-
TRES AND THEIR PARTIES. RAMON DE LA CRUZ, SEDANO, CORTES, CIEN-

FUEGOS, AND OTHERS. HUERTa'S COLLECTION OF OLD PLAYS. — DISCUS-
SIONS. YALLADARES. ZAVALA. COMELLA. MORATIN THE YOUNGER.

STATE OF THE DRAMA AT THE BEGINNING OP 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 at-
tempted 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 avowedly under the
French rules that appeared in the Spanish language
at this period, and one that was probably selected for
this distinction, because it was well suited to the con-
dition of a country that had so much reason to seek
the clemency of its prince in favor of many distin-
guished persons, whom the civil war had led to resist
his power.^ But it was never represented, and,
though once reprinted, was soon forgotten. Cani-
zares, the last of the elder race of dramatists
* that showed any of the old spirit, yielded ^336

1 Montiaiio v Luyando, Discnrso sobre las Tragedias Espanolas, Madrid, 1750,
p. 66.

396 DRAMA m THE EIGIITEE:N^TH century. [Peiuo]) III.

more than once to the new school of taste , and
regarded his " Sacrifice of Iphigenia " — an absurd
play, for which the "Iphigenie " of Racine is very lit-
tle responsible — as an imitation of the French stage.^
Neither these, however, nor plays of an irregular and
often vulgar cast, like those written by Diego de Tor-
res, a professor of natural philosophy, those by Lobo,
a military officer, and those by Salvo, a tailor, obtained
any permanent favor, or were able to constitute foun-
dations on which to reconstruct a national drama. As
far as anything was heard on the public stage worthy
of its pretensions, it was the works of the old masters
and of their poor imitators, Canizares and Zamora.^

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 condi-
tion fairly claim a higher patronage. All Spanish
plays acted for public amusement in Madrid were still
represented, as they had been in the seventeenth cen-

'^ He says, near the end, that his pur- are of no vahie, and represent fairly, I

pose was " to show how plays are writ- believe, the merit of the few historical

ten in the French style." Plays aiising plays produced in the beginning of the

from the circumstances of the times, eighteenth century, in Spain,
and more in the forms and character of ^ Accounts of the theatre during this

the preceding century, were sometimes sort of interregnum, from about 1700 to

represented, but soon forgotten. Of about 1790, are found in Signorelli

these, two may be mentioned as curious. (Storia Critica dei Teatri, ISTapoli, 1813,

The fiirst is called, like one of Lope's, 8vo, Tom. IX. pp. 56-- 236) ; L. F.

" Sueiios hay que son Verdades," an Moratin (Obras, 1830, Tom. II. Parte

anonymous drama, beginning with a I., Prologo) ; and four papers by Blanco

dream of the king of Portugal, and White (in Vols. X. and XI. of the New

ending with its partial fuliilment in the Monthly Magazine, London, 1824). The

capture of Monsanto, by the forces of facts and opinions in Signorelli are im-

Philip v., in 1704. The other is by portant, because from 176-5 to 1783 he

Pvodrigo Pero de Urrutia, entitled "Eey lived in Madrid, (Storia, Tom. IX. p.

decretado en Cielo," and covers a space 189,) and belonged to the club of the

of above six years, from the annuncia- Fonda de San Sebastian, noticed, a^ite,

tion by Louis XIV. to the Duke of p. 301, several of whose members were

Anjou, in the first scene, that the will dramatic writers, and one of the stand-

of Charles II. had made him king of ing subjects for whose discussions was

S])ain, down to the victory of Almansa, the theatre. Obras Postumas da N. F,

in 1707, which is its catastrox^he. Both Moratin, Londres, 1825, p. xxiv.

Chap. VI.] THEATRES. 397

tiiiy, in open court-yards, with galleries or corridors
that surrounded them. To these court-yards
there was no covering "^ except in case of a ^337
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 daj^, and the
crowd driven home. There was hardly any pretence
of scenery ; the performance always took place in the
daytime ; and the price of admission, which was col-
lected in money at the door, did not exceed a few
farthings for each spectator.*

The second queen of Philip the Fifth, Isabel Far-
nese, who had been used to the enjoyment of better
scenic exhibitions in Italy, was not satisfied with this
state of things. Finding a neglected 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 commo-
dious 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.

* In the Preface to " La Babilonia de in 1731, — the price of a drama, "si es

Europa y primer Eey de Eomanos," — a buena," is stated at twenty-five doub-

worthless and absurd play in the elder loons. I am surprised to find that it

manner, written by Fernando de Bar- Who so much. See ante, Period II.

cena y Orango, and printed at Madrid Chap. XVIII., note.

398 LOW STATE OF THE THEATRES. [Period III.

Butj in most respects, there was little change. True
to the traditions of their origin, the new structures
were still called "court-yards/' corrales^ and their boxes,
aposentos ; — the casuela^ ov " 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 ap-
"^338 peared 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 hiRh-heeled shoes, and Julius Caesar was assassi-
nated 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 arrange-
ments 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 magnifi-
cence, by Farinelli, the first singer of his time, who had
been brought to the Spanish court in order to soothe
tlie melancholy of Philip ihe Fifth, and who still con-
tinued there, enjoying the especial protection of Fer-
dinand 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.^

^ L. F. Moratin, Prologo, ut sup. ; and Pellicer, Origen del Teatro, 1802^

Chap. VI.] MONTIA^O Y LUYANDO. 399

Meantime the national theatre, neglected by the
privileged and 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 vul-
gar farces/ and Thomas de Anorbe, the chaplain of
a nunnery at Madrid, whose " Paolino," an-
nounced as "in ^ the French fashion," and al- * 339
most put in competition with the Cinna of Cor-
neille, provoked the just ridicule of LuzanJ With the
success of such absurdities, however, scholars and men
of taste seem to have grown desperate. Montiano, a
Castilian gentleman, high in office at court, and a mem-
ber 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 com-
positions, and which he accompanied with a long and
well-written discourse, showing how far Bermudez,

Tom. I. p. 264. Several attempts were ec, su Autor Don Angel Peregiino,"
made afterwards in this period ; one in Tom. I., 1749, but of wliicli, I think, no
the time of Charles III., which was second volmne appeared,
partly helped on b}^ a translation of an '^ Thomas de Ariorbe y Corregel pub-
Essay on the Opera by Count Algarotti, lished his " Virtud vence al Destine"
— "para instrnccion," says the title- in Madrid, 1735, and his " Paolino " in
page, "de los que quieran asistir al 1740. He calls himself " Capellan del
nuevo Teatro que se ha establecido en Eeal Monasterio de la Incarnacion " on
esta Corte," Madrid, 1787, 18mo. The the title of the first of these plays, and
Opera, however, is reproached by Vargas inserts two absurd entremeses of his own
y Ponce with having injured by its bad composition between its acts. I have
translations the other theatrical com- fourteen or fifteen of his I3lays, — some
positions of its time. " Declamacion," religious, but most of them secular, —
p. 51. all miserable. Several are short, and
^ " Alegria Comica," (Zaragoza, Tom. intended for private theatricals, and
I., 1700, Tom. II., 1702,) and " Comico several are reprints in the latter part of
Festejo," (Madrid, 1742,) are three the eighteenth century, showing that
small volumes of entremeses, by Fran- his reputation was not entirely extin-
cisco de Castro ; the last being pub- guished, even by the success of the
lished after the author's death. They Moratins. He died in 1741. Alvarez
are not entirely without wit, regarded y Baena, Tom. IV. p. 357. His " Vir-
as caricatures ; but they are coarse, and, tud vence al Destino," if no better
in general, worthless. , Similar farces, than the rest in other respects, has
mixed up with equally bad lyrical the merit of being an attack on as-
verse, may be found in a volume enti- trology, and on a belief in planetary
tied, " La mejor Guirnalda de Apolo, influences.

400 MONTIANO Y LUTANDO. [Period III.

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 appen^
dix 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 dur-
ing the continuance of an act, being rigorously ob-
served. 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 de-
scended. Its versification, which consists of unrhym-ed
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
* 340 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.^

^ " Discurso sobre las Comedias Espa- their aiitlioris given in Lessing's Werke

nolas de Don Agnstin de Montiano y (Berlin, 1794, 18mo, Band XXIII. p.

Luyando," Madrid, 1750, 12mo ; Dis- 95). Bnt the besi account of Montiano

curso Segundo, Madrid, 1753, 12nio. is to be found in his " Oracion Funebre,

They were translated into French liy por el M. E. P. Mro. Fray Alonso

Hermilly, and an account of them and Cano," (Madrid, 1765, 4:to, pp. 29).

Chap. YL] MORATIN THE ELDER. 401

The earliest comedy witliin the French rules that ap-
peared as such in the Spanish language was the trans-
lation of Lachaussee's ^^Prejuge a la Mode" by Luzan,
which was printed in 1751.^ It judiciously preserved
the national asonanies, or imperfect rhymes, throughout,
and was followed, in 1754, by the "Athalie" of Ea-
cine, rendered with much taste, chiefly into flowing
asonanies^ by Llaguno y Amirola, Secretary of the Acad-
emy of History, and appropriately countenanced by
the earnest approbation of Luzan. But the
first original Spanish ^ comedy formed on French "'^ 341
models was the " Petimetra," or the Female
Fribble, by Mora tin 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 im-
perfectly 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

Hs was born at Valladolicl in 1697, and power, suffers severely wlien compared

spent a part of Ms youth in Majorca Avith Alfieri's tragedy en the same sub-

with an uncle, who was high in office ject. But the truth is, llontiano was

there. He wrote, when he was twenty a slavish imitator of the French school,

years old, his " Robo de Dina," which Avhich he admired so much as to be

is a poem in one hundred and twenty unable to comprehend and feel what

stanzas, in a purer style than was then was best in his own Castilian. In the

common, but with little power, and on " Aprobacion," which he prefixed to

a most unhappy subject (see Genesis, the edition of Avellaneda, published in

chap. 34). It was first published by a 1732, he says, comparing the second

friend without his knowledge ; — after- part of Don Quixote, by this pretender,

wards by himself at Barcelona, s. a. with the true one by Cervantes, — "I

18mo, pp. 40. His employment during think no man of judgment will give an

the active part of his life was in the opinion in favor of Cervantes, if he

Department of State, and at the date compares the two parts together. "

of his death, 176.5, he was Director of ^ " La Razon contra la Moda" (Ma-

the Academy of History, before which drid, 12mo, 1751) appeared Avithout the

the "Oracion" of Cano was pronounced, name of the translator, and contains a

He was much valued and mourned by modest defence of the French rules, in

the men of letters of his time, to whom the form of a Dedication to the j^Iar-

lie was a generous friend. chioness of Sarria. Utility is much in-

The story of Athaulpho is from the sisted upon ; and the immorality of the

Coronica General, Parte II. c. 22. The elder drama is vigorously, but covertly,

" Virginia," both in its attempt to ex- attacked,
hibit Roman manners and in its poetical

VOL. HI. 26

402 MOKATIN THE ELDEE. [Period IIL

adhered faithfully to the old drama and to the misera-
ble 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 na-
tional manner, sometimes with fall rhymes, and some-
times only with asonantes. But the compromise was
not accej)ted by those to whom it was offered. The
principal character, Dona Geronima, 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 Mora-
tin, 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
^ 342 poetry is * called silva, and is intended to have,

more than any other, the air of improvisation.^^

10 ' ' Los Criticos cle Madrid, " a sort of A castle tall to wheel and spring

Saynete, (Madrid, 1768, 18mo, ip. 20,) m coutra-dances gay.

ridicules the state of tlie war on the y^rgas y Ponce was not too severe

theatre at this tmie. It pronounces ^^y^^^ ^iq said, that the Muses of his

Lope and Cakleron contraband, and ^Q^^^^try were given up, at this period,

orders them to be burnt, while of one ^^ ^|^g lo^^^^g^- actors and authors : —

of the fashionable plays it says : — .. ^^g m\\?^&s patricias abandonadas a in-

En ella canta un Navio felices comicos y tratadas por autore?

Se desmaya un TroDco, y bayla • c ^• j.' i • " a r»„,i„,., ,

Contradanzas un Castillo. mas ^infelices todavia. Declama-

A sailing ship it makes to sing, ^^°,^' T^i^'.PrV ■ i " j • n

A tree to faint away, ii The " Hormesiiida, and especially

Chap. Yl.J MOKA.TIN TxIL ELDER. CADAHALSO. 403

The partial success of this drama, which, notwith-
standing an hnprobable plot, deserved all the favor it
received, mduced its author, in 1777, to write his third
tragedy, " Guzman the True," dedicating it to his pa-
tron, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who was a descend-
ant of that famous nobleman, and who, a few years
before, had himself translated the "Iphigenie" 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 to-
ken of more poetical power than anything else pro-
duced 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 deserv-
ing of success, than the first.

Cadahalso, the friend whom we have already no-
ticed as much under the influence of Moratin, went
one step farther in his imitation of the French masters.
His " Don Sancho Garcia," a res^ular but feeble trag-e-
dy, printed in 1771 and afterwards acted, with partial
success, is w^ritten in long lines and rhymed couplets ;
an innovation which could hardly fliil 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

its Preface, wliicli was ^ATitten by Mo- Horaiesinda " (Madrid, 1770, ISrno. >

ratin's friend, Bernascone, were attacked Pelaez was an admirer of the old scho:>l

in a pamphlet hy Juan Pelaez, entitled of Lo])3 and r'ald>ron, bnt did not h w;

" Reparos sobre la Tragedia iutitulada defend it with, mucj skill or judgnLent,

404 OTHER IMITATORS OF THE FRENCH DRAMA. [Period HI.

three unities, and for the public representations of
one of which, Aranda, the minister of state, paid the
charges. Like the subsequent attempts of Trigu-
^' 343 eros to accommodate * some of Lope de Yega's
plays to the same system of opinions, it was en-
tirely unsuccessful. The difference between the two
different schools was so great, and the effort to forc^
them together so violent, that enough of the spirit and
grace of the originals could not be found in these mod-
ernized imitations to satisfy the demands of any audi-
ence that could be collected to listen to them.^^

Yriarte, better known as a didactic poet and fabu-
list, 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 col-
lected works ; and, beside translations from Voltaire
and Destouches, and three or four attempts of less
consequence, he wrote two full-length original come-
ly The plays of Moratin the elder, some account of their author, who died
which I had before known only in the in 1792. — The " Anzuelo de Fenisa"
isamphlets in which they were first pub- and the "Estrel]a de Sevilla," as set to
lished, can now be found collected in the three unities by Trigueros, were
the second volume of the " Biblioteca printed both in Madrid and London,
de Autores Espanoles," published by Of the last person, Candido M. Trigu-
Rivadeneyra, — by far the amjjlest, best- eros, it may be added, that he enjoyed
selected, and best-edited collection of a transient reputation in the latter part
Spanish authors that has yet been of the eighteenth centurj^, and that his
made, and oue from which much may principal work, "La Riada," in four
be hoped, both for the progress and for cantos of irregular verse, (Sevilla, 1784,
the diffusion of Spanish literature. — ■ 8vo,) on a disastrous inundation of Se-
Cadahalso's "Don Sancho " was first ville that had just occurred, was demol-
printed in 1771, with the name of Juan ished by a letter of Vargas, and a satir-
del Valle, and in 1804 with the name ical tract which Forner published under
of its author, accompanied the last time the name of Antonio Varas. I do not
by some unfortunate prose imitations know when he died, but an account of
of Young's " Night Thoughts," and most of his life and many of his Avorks
other miscellanies, which follow it into may be found in the Biblioteca of Sem-
the third volume of their author's pere y Guarinos, Tom. VI., article
works, 1818. — Latre's rifacimcnti are Trigueros, which, in a satirical anony-
printed in a somewhat showy style, mous tract, entitled "Suplemento al
probably at the expense of the minister articulo Trigueros en la Biblioteca de
of state, Aranda, under the title of Sempere y Guarinos," (Madrid, 1790,
" Ensayo sobre el Teatro Espailol," p. 57,) is said by the author, who was
Madrid, 1773, small folio. Latassa Forner, to have been written by Tri-
(Bib. Nueva, Tom. V. p. 51-3) gives gueros himself in his own honor.

Chap. VI.] TKIARTE. AY ALA. 405

dies, which were better than anything previously pro-
duced by the school to which he belonged. One of
thenij 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 fool-
ishly indulgent mother, and the second on the
daughter of a rich man equally ^ spoiled by the * 344
carelessness and neo;lect of her father. Both
are divided into three acts, and written in the imper-
fect rhyme and short verses always grateful to Castil-
ian ears ; and both are marked by a 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 Yaldes in 1784, — founded on Camacho's
wedding, in "Don Quixote," and containing occasion-
ally gentle and pleasing pastoral poetry which ill
agrees with the rude jesting of Sancho, — nothing
that deserves notice Avas done for comedy in the latter
part of the reign of Charles the Third. ^^

Tragedy fared still worse. The " Numantia De-
stroyed," 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 sympa-
thies of the reader by instances of individual suffering,
as they are in the elder dramatist, and therefore pro-
duce much less effect. As an acting drama, however,
it is not without merit. Its versification, which is,

1^ The " Obras de Yriarte " (Madrid, caricature of a man, who is always

1805, 8 torn. 12mo) contain all his hustling and neVer doing anything ; —

plays, except the first one, written mutta agendo nihil agens. It was

wh:-n he was only eighteen years old, printed in 1770, under "the slight dis--

and called " Hacer que Hacemos," or guise of an anagram, Tirso Ymareta.

Much Cry and Little Wool, the prin- The play of Melendez Valdes is in the

cipal personage of which is an absurd second volume of his Works, 1797..

406 HUERTA. JOYELLANOS. [Period III.

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 for-
eign 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
^345 on the public. * The story — that of the Jew-
ess 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 arrange-
ment, and a more grave and sonorous versification, he
has diminished the spirit and naturalness of the action
by constraining it in the strictest manner within the
hard conventions he prescribed to himself, and has ren-
dered the whole drama so uninteresting, that, notwith-
standing its considerable reputation at first, it was
soon forgotten.^^

The first real success of anything in the French
style on the Spanish stage, though not in the classical
forms prescribed by Boileau and Eacine, was obtained
by Jovellanos. Early in life he had ventured a trage-
dy, entitled '^ Pelayo," in the same measure with

1* Ayala's tragedy has been often anonymous, and without date or place
printed, and in 1782 he published a of publication. There is an Italian
" Historia de Gibraltar," which comes translation of it in versi sciolti, (Bo-
down to the preparations for the siege logna, 1782,) made by his brother
of that year. The " Raquel " is in Hu- Pedro, who, I believe, was among the
erta's Works, (Tom. I., 1786,) with his exiled Jesuits, and who prefixed to it a
translations of the "Electra" of Soph- loving dedication to its author, which
ocles, and the "Zaire" of Voltaire. makes up in affection for what it wants
The original edition of the Eaquel is in poetry.

Chap. YL] JOYELLAISTOS. 407

Ayala's " Numantia," and on nearly the same sub-
ject with the " Hormesinda " of the elder Moratin.
But the philosophical statesman, though he wrote
good Ijric 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 an edict against duel-
ling, which had been in force from 1757. It is a senti-
mental 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 gentle-
man, who, after repeatedly refusing a challenge, kills,
in a secret duel, the infimous husband of the lady he
afterwards marries ; and, being subsequently led to
confess his crime in order to save a friend, who is ar-
rested as the guilty party, he is condemned to
death by a rigorous ^ judge, who unexpectedly ^ 346
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, be-
cause 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 at-
tractions. The "Honored Culprit," therefore, was at
once successful, and when well acted, though its poeti-
cal power is small, it can hardly be listened to without
tears. It was first produced in one of the royal thea-
tres, without the knowledge of its author \ then, spread-

408 COJiTTEST FOR THE THEATEE. [Period III.

ing tliroughout 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 Grermany.
Such wide success had long been nnknovv^n to anything
in Spanisii literature.^^

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 at^
tacked 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 commu-
nity. So far as the autos were concerned, Moratin was

successful. They were prohibited by a royal
"^347 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 publicly countenanced since they were
first forbidden.^^

15 I have the eighth edition of the what singular, that, just about the time

" Delinquente Honraclo," 1803; still the " Delinquente Honrado " appeared

printed without its author's name. It in Spain, Fenouillet published in France

was so popular that it was several times a play, yet found in the ' ' Theatre du

published surreptitiously, from notes Second Ordre," with the exactly cor-

taken in the theatre, and was once responding title of " L'Honnete Crimi-

turned into bad verse, before Jovellanos nel." But there is no resemblance in

permitted it to appear from his own the plots of the two pieces,
manuscript. (See Vol. VII. of his ^^ " Desengano al Teatro Espanol,''

Works, edited by Canedo.) It is some- three tracts, s. 1. 12mo, p. 80. Huerta,

Chap. YL] CONTEST FOR THE THEATRE. 409

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 decencj^, and readily uniting to urge
an open war against all further innovations — effectu-
ally prevented any of the regular dramas that were
written from being represented in their presence, until
1770. The old masters they partly tolerated ; espe-
cially Calderon, Moreto, and the dramatists of the
latter part of the seventeenth century ] but the pop-
ular favorites were Ibaiiez, Lobera, Vicente Guerrero,
a play-actor, Julian de Castro, who wrote ballads
^for the street beggars and died in a hospital, * 348
and others of the same class ; all as vulgar as
the populace they delighted.^^

Escena Espanola Defenclida, Madrid, iiring its character. The procession,

1786, 12:no, p. xliii. How absohitely too, was often crowded, in an unseemly

autos maintained their place in Spain manner, with monstrous figures of

may he seen from the fact, that very eagles, lions, etc. See Voyage d'Es-

few are forbidden in the amplest Index pagne faite en 1755 [par le Pere Kaimo],

Expurgatorius, — that of 1667, (p. 81,) traduit de I'ltalien par Livoy, Paris,

— and that those few are, I believe, all 1772, Tom. I. pp. 37-40, of which

Portuguese. curious notices may be found in the

During the latter years of their exist- Espagne Litteraire, 1774, Tom. I. pp.

ence they were much encumbered with 120-136.

the farces of all kinds that prevailed so As late as 1840, something resembling
extravagantly on the secular stage. I rather a Mystery of the earliest time
have a li ttle tract, entitled " Letras de than an "Auto" continued to be rep-
las Tonadillas que se cantaran en los resented at Valencia during the shows
Saynetes del Auto Sacramental Lo que of the Corpus Cliristi. (Lamarca,
va del hoynbre d Dios que I'epresentara Teatro de Valencia, 1840, p. 11.) This,
la Compania de Juan Angel, el dia 29 1 suppose, is the dramatic entertainment
de Mayo, 1761." Of these " Tonadil- which Julius von Minutoli witnessed in
las," or dialogues, etc., in music, there the Feast of the Sacrament at Valencia,
are here four, which were thrust in with in 1853, and Avhich he not only de-
the Entremeses and Saynetes ; besides scribes, but which he prints entire in
which, there were separate BoajIcs, or the dialect of the country, just as he
Ballets, to represent the Triumph of heard it. See his Altes und ISTeues
Bacchus and the Pythian Gaines, — aus Spanien, Berlin, 1854, Tom. I. pp.
some seguidillas, — a dance of Dwarfs, 1-17, and Tom. II. j)- 365, note, of
etc., — all removed, one Avould think, as this History.

far as possible from the original idea of i' I have a poetical tract of Julian de

inTii Auto Saci^anic/iial, a,u.d much. disHg- Castro, entitled "La Comedia Triiin-

410 CONTEST FOR THE THExlTEE. [Period III.

After Arancla ceased to be minister, in 1773, this
state of thing's was somewhat modified, without being;

O ^ CD

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, also, had not escaped his regard, and under
his influence they had been provided with better
scenery. From 1768 they gave representations in the
evening. "*

Still, everything was in a very low state. A black-
smith 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 reper-
tories and in the general regard. But, whatever
might be produced and performed, the intervals be-
tween the acts, and much time before and after the
principal piece, were filled up with tonadillas^^ segui-

fante, Poema Lirico " (Madiid, 18mo, Madrid, 1786-1791, 10 torn. 12mo, Tom.

pp. 22, no year, but printed after 1760). IX. p. 3. The evening representations,

It is not lyrical, as the author, in his however, brought with them their pecu-

gross ignorance, calls it, but didactic, liar discomforts and troubles, especially

and is intended to give a sort of history for ladies. The streets near the theatres

of the Spanish theatre. It is, however, became crowded, and the masses of the

not to be trusted for its facts, and is common people, some of whom w^ent as

worthless as a poem. At the end is a early as two o'clock in the afternoon, to

list of about a dozen other works by secure places in the i^ntio, grew more

Castro, some dramatic, some not. He noisy and rude than they had been in

died, I think, in 1762, only thirty-nine the daytime. Ant. Munoz, "Morir

3^earsold. In 1802, his '' Poema Lirico" viviendo en la Aldea," 1784, 18mo, pp.

was reprinted by another unhapy)y the- 54, etc. " Carta censoria sobre la i»e-

atrical helot, Hugalde y Parra, in his forma de los Teatros Espanoles, dirigida

" Origen, Epocas, y Progresos del a la ?!Mr&a de Criticos dramaticos por el

Teatro Pispanol," — as poor a book as Abate Agamemnon," Madrid, 1793, p.

can well be made on so tine a subject. 19.

1^ Kamon de la Cruz y Cano, Teatro, ^^ There were also tonadas, poems ap-

Chap. YL] EAMON DE LA CEUZ. 411

dillas^ ballads, and all the forms of entrcmeses,
^ sainetes^ and dances, that had been common in * 349
the last centnry 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 everything ex-
cept popular farce. ^^

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 de-
gree of favor long denied to persons of more poetical
accomplishments. This was Ramon de la Cruz, a gen-
tleman 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

parently in tlie ballad style, that were tenance everything tragic. In a tract,

particularly obnoxious to censure. I do of mingled prose and verse, we are told

not know exactly what they were, but that such things are uniit to amuse

they are described b}^ one who had often "the poor artisan or unhappy daj^-

heard them, as " las letrillas indecentes laborer who works hard all the week,

y tal vez execrables con nonibre de and on Sunday hopes at a play to get

Tonadas." El Belianis Literario, Ma- some refreshment for his wearied body . "

drid, 1765, 4to, p. 13. These persons indeed had the control of

2'^ L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. II. the theatre, and, as the same tract says :

Parte I., Prolo^o. Sometimes, though -c< ^ n ^• ^ t.

, ,', ?T,- i- T nf , , Es la Comeclia un plato ctiyo ffuiso

rarely, these additions_ ot different sorts e.^ para el Pueblo : al Poeta le es precise

were printed. This is the case in a Que consulte a que gusto es inciinado

tract entitled '^ Bayles que en la prox- Y qual aprecia mas : si no, va errado.

ima Comedia, La Perla de Inqlaterra, Carta Censoria por el Abate Agamemnon,

baylara en el Coliseo^ del Principe, Gau- ^'^^' ^^'^°' PP" ^' ^^•

dencio Barry, Milanes (18mo, 1760). In This, however, is only applying the old

this tract there are two " Bayles " and doctrine of Lope de Vega to a very low

two " Tonadillas, " which were added state of the theatre, which his precepts

to the customary " Entremeses " and and example alike tended to produce.

" Sainetes," making, in all, seven per- A less favorable account of the Span-

formances at least, besides the " Come- ish stage about 1785 than the one I

dia " its4f, which seems to me to suffer have here given maybe found in the

from all but the last of them. Indeed, " ISTouveau Voyage en Espagne," (by J.

they were all evidently crowded in only F. de Bourgoing,) Paris, 1789, Vol. TI.

• to satisfy the populace. pp. 327 - 369. But he regarded it from

There was also a tendency to discoun- the French point of view.

412 EAMOJ^' DE LA CEUZ. [Period III.

amused the audiences of the capital with dramas^ writ-
ten in any form likely to please at the palace, on the
public stages of the city, or in the houses of the nobil-
ity, 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 dra-
matic compositions, but printed less than a third of
that number ; most of those he published being
"^350 farces designed to ^ produce a merely popu-
lar effect. They fill ten volumes, and are all
in the short, national measure of the old drama, min-
gled 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 be-
cause no more definite title would be suited to their
undefined character. Some he calls " Sainetes 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 zarziielas^ though often with a char-
acter which it would have been impossible for the
early representations bearing the same names to as-
sume. Occasionally, as in the case of the " Clemen-
tina," 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 there-
fore, 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

Chap. VI.] EAMON DE LA CEUZ. 413

what had been ah^eacly pubUshed^ gives us merely a
hundred and ten 23i"oper " Sametes."

. Theh^ subjects are various, and they are very un-
equal 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 un-
questioned. But, under all circumstances '^ and * 351
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 anything but correct, and he is
wdiolly 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 ap-
propriate accompaniment to the longer dramas of Lope
and Calderon, in whose popular spirit they are most
successfully written. ^^

^1 Teatro de Don Eamon de la Cruz. a nide attack upon Mm, chiefly for sun-
In the Preface, lie replies to Signorelli, dry translations, which La Cruz does
who, in the seventh chapter of the ninth not seem to have jninted. The "Co-
book of his " Storia dei Teatri," makes leccion de Sainetes tanto impresos como

414 CONTESTS FOR THE THEATEE. [Peiuod III.

Meanwhile the press was not so mactive as it had
been. Seclano published his " Jael/' taken from the
story in the book of Judges ; Lassala his ^'' Iphigenia " ;
Trigueros his " Tradesmen of Madrid " ; and Cortes
his "Atahualpa"; the last two having been success-
ful, at the same festivities of 1784 for which Melen-
dez composed his " Marriage of Camacho/' and
^352 failed. ^ Cienfuegos, too, a poet of more origi-
nal powder 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 ad-
herence to Greek models, which were particularly un-
suitable for the Zoraida, whose scene is laid in the

ineditos de Don Ramon de la Cruz, con thirty, in four volumes, 12mo; — includ-

un Discurso Preliminar de Don Agustin ing, however, one Tragedy, "Nimia,"

Duran," etc., was printed at Madrid — a Comedia in three acts, " La Madre

in 1843, 2 torn. 8vo. A notice of the Hipocrita" ; — a poem agamst the

life of the author is in Alvarez y Baena, French, called "^La Galiada " ; — and

Hijos, etc., Tom. IV. p. 280. He was an "Escena Lirica," on the subject of

often attacked, as might be anticipated Hannibal. In the variety of their tone,

from the nature of his dramas ; — once in their faithfulness to the national

by D. Antonio Maria Ontiveros, in a manners, and in the gayety of their sat-

tract called " El Clarito, Papel joco- ire, the Sainetes resemble those of La

serio, respondiendo al Indiferente," Ma- Cruz; but they are a little more care-

drid, 1769, ISnio. fhUy finished than his, and somewhat

At about the same time that Eamon less rich and pungent. Many French

de la Cruz was amusing the society of vaudevilles v/ere translated and acted

Madrid with his popular dramas and about this time. In a tract called

farces, Juan Ignacio Gonzalez del Cas- "Carta del Sacristan de Berlinches al

tillo was equally successful in the same Organista de Mostoles," (18mo, without

way at Cadiz. He was a theatiical date, but printed about 1780,) speaking

prompter in that city, where he was of the multitudinous translations of

born in 17G3, and where he died of the French farces that had been made, the

yellow fever in 1800, so poor that he was Satirist says: " Por lo comun estan

buried at the charge 'of the parish mezcladas de Arias, o como se escribe

where he was domiciled. He was little christianisimamente, de Arietes capaces

known beyond the lindts of Andalusia, de batir en brecha las murallas de la

till 1845-46, when Don Adolfo de Lira de Amphion " (p. xii) ; a bad pun,

Castro published in Cadiz a collection whatever else it may be.
of his " Sainetes," amounting to about

Chap. VI.] CONTESTS FOR THE THEATRE. 415

gardens of the Alhambra.^^ 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 preced-
ing 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 Yega, 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 " Kaquel," which is entirely
in the French manner, and to his translations of the
" Electra " of Sophocles and the " Zaire " of Yoltaire,
which were obviously made to defend the French
school, prevented his " Teatro Hespanol " from pro-
ducing 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. ^^

22 Obras de Cienfuegos, Madrid, 1798, should be read, recollecting tliat Sara-

2 torn. 12mo ; — tlie only edition pub- gossa was famous for a liospital for the

lished by himself. _ insane, — the mad-house that figures so

2-3 Vicente Garcia de la Huerta was largely in Avellaneda's "Don Quixote."

•born in 1734, and died in 1787. A no- De juicio si ; mas no de ingenio escaso,

tice of his life, wdlich AVas not without Aqui Huerta el audaz descanso goza ;

literary and social success, — though ^^i^ ^"^ puesto vacante en el Parnaso,

much disturbed by a period of exile and , 7 "°^ ^^^^^ ^^"^ ^^ Z^^^goz^.

(\^i.(rv»pp IS! to >>p fnnnrl in fliA 'im-.-.Q In judgment, — yes, — but not in genius "sveak,

aisgiace,_ is to be touncl m the bema- Here fierce Huerta tranquil sleeps and well
nario Fmtoresco, (1842, p. 305,) and A vacant post upon Parnassus leaves,
some intimation of the various literary ^'^ Saragossa, too, an empty cell,
quarrels in wliich he was engaged with He was smartly attacked for the omis-
his contemporaries may be seen in the sion of Lope, and for sundry other short-
next note. His general character is not comings of his Teatro Hespanol, in a
ill summed up in the following epitaph tract entitled " Carta a D. Vicente Gar-
on him, said to have been written by cia de la Huerta, ec, por D. J. D. C.
Yriarte, one of his opponents, which Madrid " (1787, 18mo, pp. 36 - 46).

416 CONTESTS FOR THE THEATEE. [Period III.

* 353 ^ 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 his 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 immedi-
ate result of this state of things was a large 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 antici-
pated 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 .^^

The great obstacle to the success of better dramas
lay in a number of writers, who pandered to the
ba.d taste of the low and vulgar audiences of their

Another attack may be found in the of La Huerta excited still more discus-

" Dialogo Transpirenaico e Hiperbo- sion. He himself speaks (Escena Hes-

reo," etc., (s. a. 18mo, pp. 30,) where, pafiola Defendida, Madrid, 1786, 12mo,

among other things, he is ridiculed for p. cliii) of the " enorme niimero de

the strange words he sometimes uses, folletos " that appeared in reply to his

like "instrenuos," pusilidad," ec, and "Prologo," many of which were proba-

for spelling Zaire in his translation of bly only circulated in manuscript, ac-

that play with an X, — "Xaira." cording to the fashion of the times.

2^ Don Jaime Doms attacked Mon- while others, like those of Cosme Da-

tiano in a Letter, without date or name mian, Tome Cecial, (i. e. J. P. Forner,)

of place or printei', and Avas answered etc., were printed in 1785, and La

by Domiiis-o Luis de Guevara in three Huerta replied to them in his angry

Letters, (J^dadrid, 1753, 18mo,) to which " Leccion Critica" of the same year.

a rejoinder by Faustino de Quevedo ap- (Sempere, Bib., Tom. III. p. 88.) The

peared at Salamanca in 1754, 18rao ;— wdiole of this period of Spanish litera-

all the names being pseudonymes, and ture is filled Avith the quarrels of Seda-

all the discussions more angry than no, Forner, Huerta, Yriarte, and their

wise. The publication of the "Teatro" friends and rivals.

CiiAr. TL] YALLADARES. ZAVALA. COMELLA. 417

time. Among the * more prominent and sue- ^ 354
cessful of these were Yalladares and Zavala.
The first wrote above a hundred dramas on all kinds
of subjects, tragic and comic, prefixing to his " Empe-
ror Albert " a discourse in the spirit of Huerta, to de-
fend the Spanish drama from the attacks of its French
neighbors. 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 histor}^ of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden,^^ are as
extravagant as anything 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 occasion-
ally, 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 cer-
tainly more successful than either with the better
classes of his contemporaries, was Comella. Like Val-
ladares, his fertility was great ; and the ease with
which he wrote, and the ingenuity with which he in-
vented new and striking situations, seemed to have
the same charm for his audiences which tliey had had
for the audiences of Lope and Calderon. But, unhap-
pily, Comella had not the genius of the old masters.
His plots are as involved, and sometimes as interest-
ing, as theirs ; but, generally^ they are, to a most ex-

^^ Aladj^whosawChaiies. XI T. acted, ionable fop. See p. 14 of Mile. Bou-
says the king was dressed like a fash- ville, cited ante. Chap. V. uote 5.
A^oL. in. 27

418 MOKATI?^ THE YOUNGER. [Period III.

travagant degree^ wild and absurd. Even when lie
deals with subjects as well known as Christina of Swe-
den^ Louis the Fourteenth, and Frederic the Great, he
seems to have no regard for truth, probability, or con-
sistency. His versification, too, is unfortunate. In
form it is, indeed, such as had always been insisted

on where the popular voice of Castile has
^355 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 sub-
jects, but many made out of love-stories of his own
invention — Avere 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.^^

But while Comella was at the height of his reputa-
tion, 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 subsis-
tence he had with difficulty earned for himself, his

26 The popularity of Antonio Valla- many of tliem I have read for the pleas-
dares y Sotomayor, of Gaspar Zavala y ure their mere stories gave me.
Zamora, and of Luciano Francisco Co- One cause of the low state of the
mella, did not last long enough to cause theatre was, that the actors had too
their works to be collected. But I much control over the authors. Bitter
have many separate plays of each of complaints of this occur in the "Juz-
them, and of other forgotten authors gadoCasero," a sort of periodical printed
of this period, such as Luis Moncin, at Madrid in 1786 {No. 3, 18mo). It
Vicente Rodriguez de Arellano, Jose was the old trouble grown worse. See
Concha, etc. Of Comella alone I have avte, Period II. Chap. XXVI. But
thirty, and I am ashamed to say how the low public now controlled the actors.

CiiAP. YL] MORATIX THE YOUNGER. 419

fatlier placed him as an apprentice to a jeweller, at
whose trade the YOinis^ man continued to work till he
was twenty-three j^ears 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 situa-
tion. 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 com-
memorate 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 at- * 356
tention 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 dur-
ing 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.

After his return to Madrid, he obtained the patron-
age of Don Manuel Godoy, subsequently the all-power-
ful 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 Eng-
land, 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 distin-
guished position in society, he had still leisure left for

420 MORATIX THE YOUNGER. [Period III.

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 re-
turned with a fond longing to the land of his birth, he
found everything so changed by the triumphant des-
potism, that it was no longer Spain to him, and he es-
tablished himself finally at Paris, where he died in
1828. He was buried near Moliere, whom in life he
had honored*and imitated.

When Moratin began his career as a dramatic
"^357 poet, he ^ foimd obstacles to his success on
every side. His father's tragedy of "Horme-
sinda " had been produced on the stage only in conse-
quence of the ministerial protection of the Count of
Aranda, and in opposition to the judgment and fears
of the actors.^" Cienfuegos, who had followed his ex-
ample, was able with difficulty to obtain a hearing for
two out of his five dramas; — one of them being lis-
tened to with partial favor because it was on a subject
familiar to all Spaniards from the days of the old bal-
lads, and always welcome to their hearts. Quintana,
whose name was early respected and whose influence

2" Obras Postnmas de N. F. Moratin, 1825, p. xvi.

Chap. YL] MORATIN THE YOUKGER. 421

was uniformly great, liacl 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 foot-
steps of his father, for whose example and memory he
always felt the sincerest reverence. He therefore
wrote his first comedv, "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 ^358
short verse which was always popular. But
when, in 1786, he ofiered his comedy for representa-
tion, the simplicity of the action, so unlike the in-
volved plots on which the common people still loved
to exercise their extraordinary ingenuity, and the very
quietness and decorum that reigned throughout it,

2^ This discouragement continued till Duke of Almodovar, Spanish Ambassa-

the success of the younger Moratin. In dor in Portugal, Eussia, and England,

the "Decada Ejiistolar sobre el Estado who when he died, in 1794, was Di-

delas Letras en Francia," (8vo, Madrid, rector of the Spanish Academy. The

1781, second edition, 1792,) after giving "Decada'' is pleasantly written, but

an ample and favorable account of the slight and superficial ; and, though in-

theatres at Paris, the author at last clined to the French school of poetry,

breaks out about a reform of the Span- is vehement against the French philos-

ish theatres, saying, "First destroy ophy of the time. See a poor " Elo-

them entirely, and then we will talk gio " on the Duke by Nic. Eodriguez

about it." There seemed, indeed, no Laso, read before the Academy, July

other remedy, and the person who jn'o- 11, 1794, and printed 1795, 4to.
nounced this decisive opinion was the

422 MORATIN THE YOUNGER. [Period III.

alarmed the actors 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 mod-
erate 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 pub-
lic, 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 dis-
gracing 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 mo-
tives 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 con-
sists 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 sim-
plicity of the action had promised. The piece, there-
fore, 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,

Chap. VL] MOEATII!^ THE YOUNGER. 423

were appropriated to other persons who figured at the
time, and the "New Play" was acknowledged
to be a brilliant satire; — severe indeed, *" but *" 359
well merited and happily applied. From this
time therefore, which was in February, 1792, Moratin,
notwithstanding the exasperated opposition of the a.d-
herents of the old school, had secured for himself a
permanent place on the national stage, and, wdiat 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 .^^

" The Baron," which is in two acts and in verse, was
at first prepared as a zarzuela or vaudeville \ and, with-
out the permission of the author, was altered and per-
formed in public daring 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. The same thing had hap-
pened to Racine.

At the moment Moratin was making arrangements
for bringing out " The Baron," he was occupied with
the careful preparation of another comedy in verse,

29 From a letter of Moratin, pub- Before the "aSTew Play" was writ-

lislied in the Semanario Pintoresco, ten, Moratin, in his "Derrota de los

(1844, p. 43,) it seems that Comella Pedantes," (anonymous, Madrid, 1789,

and his friends prevented for some time ] 8mo, pp. 108, ) had attacked the drama-

the representation of the ' ' Comedia tists of his time, as persons ' ' who infest

Nueva," and that the permission to the theatre with what they call Come-

act it was not granted till it had under- cUas composed of shreds ill torn out

gone five different examinations, and here and there, and pieced together

not till the very day for which it had with more faults than can be found in

been announced was come. The ap- the originals they copy, and without

amends to Moratin for the trouble which or make us forget their imperfections;"

the intrigues of his livals and enemies p. 8.
had given him.

424 MORATIlSr THE YOUNGER. [Period III.

that was destined still further to increase his reputa-
tion. This was " The Female Hypocrite/' which was
written as early as 1791, and was soon afterwards rep-
resented 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, forced, by the severity of her family, to
assume the appearance of being very religious, while

her cousin, who is well contrasted with her, is
* 360 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 dis-
agreeable 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
"Young Maiden'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 hand-
some 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 weak-
ness, she has been unable to refuse. At an inn on the
road, where the younger lover falls in with them on

Chap. VI.] MORATI]Sr THE YOUNGER. 425

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 disin-
terested attachment of the young lovers to each other,
and the benevolence of the uncle, add to the conflict-
ing claims and relations of the different parties a charm
original in itself, and 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 pre-
tensions of the uncle, who makes his nephew his heir.

Nothing on the Spanish stage had been so well re-
ceived for a long period. It was acted twenty-six
nights successively to audiences who w^ere in
* 361 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 transla-
tions from Moliere, with alterations that made them
more attrgtctive to his countrymen ; one from the
"Ecole des Maris," which was acted in 1812, and the
other from the " Medecin Malgre Lui," which was acted
in 1814 ; but, except these and an unfortunate prose
version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet," which was printed
in 1798, but never performed, he wrote nothing for
the theatre, beside 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

426 DRAMA OF THE EIGHTEEI^TH CENTURY. [Period III.

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 dis-
turbed by the changes of the times.^*^

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 doubt-
ed. 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 en-
^ 362 couraged * by the general favor, had still been

welcome to the greater part of the more culti-
vated 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 ap-
peared, like Damian de Castro, for whom Zamora and
Canizares wrote parts ; Maria I'Advenant, who de-
lighted Signorelli in the higher characters of Cald,eron
and Moreto ; the Tirana, whose tragic powers aston-
ished the practised taste of Cumberland, the English

^"^ Almost everything relating to Mo- out again, in their original form, about

ratin the younger is to be found in the 1838. The "Si de las Niiias" was at

excellent edition of his Works, pub- one time interdicted entirely,
lished by the Academy of History, or Fine or ten dramatic compositions,

in the second volume of the Biblioteca by Maria Eosa Galvez Cabrera, under

de Autores Espanoles, 1846. Larra thedifferentnamesof Tragedy, Comedy,

(Obras, Madrid, 1843, 12mo, Tom. II. Drama, etc., are found in her Works,

pp. 183 - 187) intimates that the " Mo- (Madrid, 1804, 3 tom_. 12mo, ) and might

gigata " had been proscribed anew, and be mentioned here if their merit per-

that the "Si de lasNiuas" had been mitted it.
mutilated, but that both were brought

Chap. YI.] DRAMA OF THE EIGnTEENTH CENTURY. 427

dramatist ; and Maiquez, wlio enjoyed tlie friendship
and admiration of nearly all the Spanish men of let-
ters in his time.^^

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 the-
atre as was done by the poets they patronized and the
actors they apj)lauded. The two schools were in pres-
ence of eaidi other continually struggling for the vic-
tory, 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, extrava-
gant 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 * au- ^363
thority 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

^1 C. Pellicer, Origen, Tom. II. p. of Garcia de Castanar, in Roxas, which

41. Signorelli, Storia, Lib. IX. cap. I have seen him play with admirable

8. R. Cumberland (Memoirs of Him- power and effect.

self, London, 1807, 8vo, Tom. II. p. In the "Juzgado Casero," 1786, we

107) speaks of the Tirana as "at the have (pp. 21, 22) a list of the best

very summit of her art, " and adds, that actors of the time, among whom are

on one occasion, when he was present, Maria I'Advenant and ISTicolas de la

her tragic powers proved too much for Calle, as the principal, — Maria del

the audience, at whose cries the curtain Rosario, Manuel Garcia Pari^a, who

was lowered before the piece was ended, wrote a poor book (see ante, -note 17)

Maiquez was the friend of Blanco on the Theatre, Josefa Figueras, and

White, of Moratin the younger, etc. others, following with humbler jjre^^^en-

(New Monthly Mag., Tom. XI. p. 187, sions. They all led hard lives. New

and L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. IV. plays were produced two or three times

p. 345). His best character was that a week, and rehearsals were few, in-

428 DEAMA OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [Peuiod III.

still give reputation to Calcleron 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 re-
stored 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.^^

deed, but so much the more disagreea-
ble. Mile. Bouville, pp. 14 and 16,
cited ante, Chap. V., note 5.

^^ 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 ef-
fectually throughout the kingdom, or
silenced in the capital, except during
some short period of national anxiety
or mourning ; but that, at different in-
tervals, — and especially about the year
1748, when, in consequence of earth-
quakes at Valencia, and under the in-
fluence of the Archbishop of that city,
its theatre was closed, and remained so
for twelve years, (Luis Lamarca, Tea-
tro 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. Ferdi-
nand VI. issued severe decrees for their
regulation, Avhich were little respected,
and in dilierent cities and dioceses, like
Lerida, Palencia, Calahorra, Saragossa,
Alicant, Cordova, 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 endeavored
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 anom-
alous 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 con-
tinued to be felt till a new order of
things was introduced into the state
generally. Many singular facts in re-
lation to it may be found scattered
through a very ill-arranged book, writ-
ten apparently by an ecclesiastic of
Murcia, in two volumes, quarto, at dif-
ferent times between 1789 and 1814, in
which last year it was published there,
with the title of " Pantoja, 6 Resolu-
cion Historica, Teologica de un Caso
Pratico de Moral sobre Comedias " ; —
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.

Once, at least, the highest authority
of the Church was exercised, and Bene-
dict XIII., in 1729, by a formal Bull,
of which I have a copy, relieved the
people of Pamplona from a vow against
all scenic exhibitions which they had
rashly made during a pestilence in 1721,
The ecclesiastical authorities, therefore,
were in conflict with each other about
the theatre, as well as the civil.

The state of the theatre, at the end
of the eighteenth and beginning of
the nine