destroy at once the illusion, the vivacity, and the interest of the drama, and the attention is confused by these varying appeals to the intellect and to the senses.

In the Numantia Cervantes has scrupulously observed the unity of action, the unity of interest, and the unity of passion. No episode is mingled with the terrible plot. The whole people are animated with one idea, and partake of the same suffering. Individual wretchedness is swallowed up in the general calamity, which it only serves to render more striking. The story of Morandro and Lira presents us with a picture of what every lover in Numantia must have suffered; and instead of detracting from the interest, serves to concentrate it. There are no traces either in this play, or in the Life in Algiers, of that insipid spirit of gallantry which has infested the French theatre from its birth, and which has been erroneously attributed to the Spanish. In Cervantes, and generally in the Spanish dramas, we never see a hero in love, but when he ought to be so; and their language, figurative and hyperbolical as it is, according to the bad taste of the nation, is still passionate and not gallant. The unity which was so rigorously observed in the Numantia, was completely abandoned by Cervantes in his Life in Algiers. It is strange that he did not perceive that it is that quality alone which is the basis of harmony; which preserves the relation of the vari

ous parts; which distinguishes the productions of genius from real life, and the dialogue of the drama from the conversations of society. Life in Algiers is consequently a tiresome play, and loses its interest as we advance in it, notwithstanding it possesses some beautiful scenes.

Hitherto we have only animadverted upon the errors of the art; in other points of view, we may perceive that it was in its infancy. Thus Cervantes has formed a false idea of the patience of his audience. Supposing that a fine speech must produce the same effect upon the stage as before an academical assembly, he has frequently made his characters trespass beyond every boundary, both of natural dialogue and of the reader's patience. He who in his narrative style was so excellent, who in his romances and novels so completely possessed the art of exciting and of sustaining interest, of saying precisely what was proper and stopping exactly where he should, yet knew not how much the public would be willing to hear from the mouth of an actor. Many of the Spanish dramatists appear to have been equally ignorant upon this point.

The two dramas of Cervantes occupy an insulated station in the literature of Spain. We discover not after him any instance of that terrible majesty which reigns throughout the Numantia, of that simplicity of action, that natural dialogue, and that truth of sentiment. Lope de Vega in

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troduced new plays upon the stage, and the public, captivated by the pleasure of pursuing an intrigue through its thousand windings, became disgusted with the representation of powerful and deep emotions, which produced not the effect of surprise. Cervantes himself gave way to the national taste, without satisfying it, in the eight plays which he published in his declining years; and the Castilian Eschylus may be said to have left us only one real specimen of his dramatic genius.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Novels and Romances of Cervantes; the Araucana of Don Alonzo de Ercilla.

CERVANTES was eminently gifted with the narrative talent, a quality which seems to be intimately connected with dramatic powers, since, in order to possess it, an author must be capable of understanding and adhering to the unity of his narrative. That unity is the central point to which all the other portions of the work have reference, and upon which they all depend. The episodes are thus connected with the main action, and never fatigue the mind; the plot excites the attention; and the catastrophe clears away all the mysteries at once. It is moreover requisite, as in the dramatic art, to be capable of giving the colours of truth and nature to every object, and the appearance of completeness and probability to every character; to bring events before the reader by words, as the dramatist does by action; to say exactly what ought to be said, and nothing farther. It is in fact this talent that has conferred upon Cervantes his immortality. His most celebrated works are those romances in which the richness of his invention is relieved by the charms of his style, and by his happy art of ar

ranging the incidents and bringing them before the eye of the reader. We have already spoken of Don Quixote, which merited a separate examination, and we must content ourselves with bestowing less time on the pastoral romance of Galatea, on that of Persiles and Sigismunda, and on the collection of little tales which Cervantes has called his Exemplary Novels. In giving an idea of the literature of a country, it seems proper to detail all the works of celebrated authors, and to pass rapidly over those who have not attained the first rank. By studying the former, we are enabled to observe not only the intellectual progress of the nation, but likewise its peculiar taste and spirit, and frequently even the manners and history of the people. It is much more agreeable to contemplate the Castilians as they are painted in the works of Cervantes, than to attempt a picture of our own, which must necessarily be less faithful than the native delineation.

Cervantes had reached his sixty-fifth year when he published, under the name of Exemplary or Instructive Novels, twelve beautiful tales, which though they have been translated into French, are not generally known.* This species of com

* [There is an English translation of the Exemplary Novels by Shelton, which was republished in 1742. A new translation has lately appeared in two vols. 12mo. London, 1822. extract from The Gipsy-Girl, given in the text, has been transcribed from these volumes. Tr.]