Admiring the vast crowd that round him drew,
The sad spectators of the deathly scene;
Wondering, his people ask'd how fortune's might
Could hurl their monarch from his native height
Of glory; nor were bounds to their amaze,
While gathering fast around with tearful gaze,
They view the coming scene with terror and affright.
Then near unto the pointed stake he came,
Where he ere long should pour his mortal breath
In the dire conflicts of a torturing death:
But here no terrors shook his manly frame :
"Pleas'd I submit, since destiny hath cast
This bloody die; soon is the journey pass'd;
Contempt and proud despite shall arm my soul,"
He said, "to quaff misfortune's bitter bowl,
Nor feel we that dread stroke that comes the last."
The busy hangman now approach'd his side
To seize his prey, a branded negro slave,
The wretched freightage of the Atlantic wave.
This last indignity too deeply tried

The monarch's spirit, though with soul unmov'd
He yet had every frown of fortune prov'd;
He could not brook, though in this bloody strife,
So base an ending to his noble life,

And all indignant thus the hostile chief reprov'd.
"Oh deed unworthy of the Christian race!
Is this your boasted honour, this the dower
Of noble valour in her dying hour,
To bid me perish by a hand so base?
Death is a full atonement, and life fled,
We war no longer with the helpless dead:
This is not death, but mockery and despite,
Thus to afflict my spirit in her flight,
And heap this dark dishonour on my head.
"Amidst your swords that now so silent rest,
That drank my country's blood, and in the strife
Of furious battle thirsted for my life,

Can none be found to pierce my warrior breast?
Whatever sorrows on my head descend,
Whatever griefs my suffering heart may rend,
Let not a slave's polluted touch disgrace

Caupolican, the latest of his race;

Nor such a deed of shame his hour of death attend."

So spoke the indignant chief, and sudden turn'd
Upon the miscreant slave, and though oppress'd
With galling weight of fetters, on the breast

He smote him fierce, and from the scaffold spurn'd.

Caupolican, whom the very men who were inflicting upon him the most atrocious punishment continually exhorted to patience and resignation, repented of this act of impatience,

or rather he summoned to his aid the heroism peculiar to the Americans, that imperturbable courage, which enables them to triumph over human malevolence. No longer offering any resistance, he again assumed an air of indifference, whilst racked by cruel pains, he was set up as a mark for the arrows of the Castilians :

Then from the ranks stepp'd forth a chosen band
Of archers, six in number, but as true

As death the feather'd weapons which they drew.
At thirty paces from the chief they stand;

And though for many a year their bows had sped

Their bloody shafts, and strewn the field with dead,
Yet at so great a name a sudden fear

Their courage check'd; they felt the rising tear,

And from their trembling hearts their fainting spirits fled.

But cruel fortune, whose avenging hate

Had fill'd so deep the martyr's cup of woe,
That soon the bitter draught must overflow,
Herself now urg'd the bloody stroke of fate;
And as her hand the straining bowstring press'd,
A hundred arrows pierced the chieftain's breast:
Nor fewer would suffice to free a way
For his great spirit from her home of clay,
And to his warrior soul give its eternal rest.

CHAPTER XXX.

ON THE ROMANTIC DRAMA. LOPE FELIX DE VEGA CARPIO.

IN treating of the various branches of the literature of the South, we have hitherto ventured to criticise, with the greatest freedom, authors whose reputation entitles them to the utmost respect. Without regard to mere arbitrary rules, we have not hesitated to express our praise or our censure, according to the impressions which we have received from the perusal of those works, which are admired as master-pieces of genius by other nations. If, in pursuing this course of criticism, we have exposed ourselves to the imputation of deciding in too peremptory a style, on subjects with which we have only a partial acquaintance, we may, perhaps, on the other hand, justly claim the merit of candour and impartiality. By fully explaining the feelings with which we have been inspired by the study of individual works, we have discharged our duty with greater fidelity, than if we had only echoed the public sentiment, and added to the number of those who join with indifference the voice of common assent.

But the topic which it is now intended to discuss embraces considerations of peculiar delicacy. It cannot be altogether divested of national prejudices. On the subject of dramatic literature the nations of Europe have divided themselves into two conflicting parties; and, refusing to observe any degree of reciprocal justice, they exasperate each other with mutual insult and contempt. Each country has erected its favourite author into an idol, against whom all hostile criticism is prohibited. If the French pay their adorations to Racine, the English worship Shakspeare with no less devotion; while Calderon, in Spain, and Schiller, in Germany, are objects of equal veneration. To compare one of these authors with the others would be to offend at once all their admirers. Should it be practicable to point out a blemish in some favoured writer, it is not easy to urge the objection with success. Far from conceding the point, his partizans will convert into a beauty the fault which they cannot conceal. They imagine that the national honour depends upon a superiority which they hold to be too clear to admit of any question; for, in the warmth of controversy, the disputants reject the very idea that their own opinion may, by possibility, not be free from error.

It was our intention in a work of this nature, to make an impartial display of the opposite systems adopted by different nations, and to explain the peculiar tenets of each, as well as to detail the arguments upon which they founded their attacks upon the theory of their adversaries. We would gladly have believed that we had shown ourselves equally sensible to the beauties of these opposite sects, and that, whilst we endeavoured to catch and to indicate the point of view in which our subject is seen by foreign nations, we had succeeded in avoiding their prejudices. Without asserting a jurisdiction over the rules of other schools, we have treated, with due severity, those writers, however illustrious, who rejected indiscriminately all rules alike. Leaving to every theatre the observance of its own practical laws, it has been our aim to overlook national systems, and to prefer the contemplation of a general theory of poetry, which may embrace them all. Our anxious wish to observe a strict impartiality has not been properly appreciated. By both parties we have been considered as avowing hostile opinions. While the English critics have rebuked with severity the preference, which, in speaking of Alfieri, we have given to the classical school, the French

have censured with no less asperity the taste for the productions of the romance authors, which we have not attempted to disguise whilst remarking on the works of Calderon. The result of our exertions to interfere with neither party, has been, that each has, in its turn, disavowed us, and endeavoured to drive us into the arms of the other.

We shall, however, persist in our determination not to range ourselves under any party-banner. We shall repeat our appeal to the enlightened minds of those who decide upon all other questions with impartiality and justice. We would ask, how it happens that great nations, as highly civilized as ourselves, to whom it is not possible to refuse the merit of erudition, of correct taste, of imagination, of sensibility, and of every mental faculty essential to perfection in criticism or in poetry, should maintain an opinion diametrically opposite to our own on subjects which they understand quite as well as ourselves? Is it not manifestly true that different nations, in their estimate of the dramatic art, consider it in detached portions, and that each selecting some favourite quality, proportions its praise or censure to the degree in which this requisite has been observed or neglected by the author? From the nature of this art, a certain degree of improbability must be submitted to by all; but different countries disagree as to the particular concessions which must in this respect be made; and, whilst they shut their eyes to the established licences of their own stage, they are mutually disgusted by those which are allowed in foreign theatres. It cannot be disputed that the law of intrinsic beauty and genuine taste is paramount to all these national jurisdictions: this law it is the business of a philosopher to explore. He will not fail to recognize its operation when he perceives the union of several rival nations in one common sentiment; and he will draw a decided distinction between those rules of criticism which are of arbitrary dictation, and those which have their foundation in the very nature of things.

Although every nation possesses, with regard to dramatic literature, its own peculiar taste and rules, yet each may be arranged under one of the two banners which are now raised in opposition throughout all Europe. To distinguish these two conflicting systems, the epithets of classical and romantic have been employed; terms to which it is perhaps difficult to attach any definite meaning. Those ancient authors, whose

authority has been called to their aid by the French and the Italians, are denominated by them classical. Their own writers, when they have adhered with sufficient closeness to these models, have been honoured with the same appellation; and a classical taste is descriptive of the greatest purity and perfection; nor have the critics of Germany, of England, and of Spain, disputed the propriety of this term. They have acquiesced in bestowing the title of classical on every literary production which belongs to the Roman or to the Grecian School. But these nations, deeply imbued with the ideas and the feelings of the middle ages, imagine that they possess a more valuable fund of poetry in their own antiquities than exists in those of foreign countries. Delighting in the study of their old popular traditions, they have hence formed that style of chivalric poetry which nourishes patriotic feelings, and which magnifies our ancestors so greatly in the eyes of their posterity. To this poetry the Germans have given the epithet of romantic, because the Romance language was that of the Troubadours, who first excited these new emotions; because the civilization of modern times commenced with the rise of the Romance nations; and because the chivalric poetry, like the Romance language, was stamped with the two-fold character of the Roman world, and of the Teutonic tribes which subdued it. But whatever may have induced the Germans to adopt this name, a subject upon which they themselves hold various opinions, it is enough for us that they have thus appropriated it, and there is no reason why we should contest it with them.

This distribution into the classical and romantic schools was extended by the German critics to all the branches of literature, and even to the fine arts. But as the two systems are in no point so directly opposed to each other as in all that relates to the theatrical art, the term romantic, when it was adopted by the French, was exclusively applied by them to that system of dramatic composition, which differed most essentially from their own. It may be readily conceived that the principles of the classical school are in direct hostility not only to that which is intrinsically wrong, but also to that which is only wrong as being forbidden by arbitrary rules. Of this circumstance the French critics have availed themselves. They have designedly confounded the universal rules of good taste with their own narrow laws; and they have