which represents original sin, we first see Man, Sin, and the Devil disputing together. The Earth and Time join the conversation. We next behold heavenly Justice and Mercy seated under a canopy before a table, with every thing requisite for writing. Man is interrogated before this tribunal. God the prince, or Jesus, advances; Remorse kneeling presents to him a petition; Man is again interrogated by Jesus, and receives his pardon, but the Devil interferes and protests against this favour being shewn to him. Christ appears apart, crowned with thorns, and re-ascends to heaven amidst sacred music, and the piece concludes when he is seated on his celestial throne. The greater part of these allegorical pieces are formed of long theological dialogues, dissertations, and scholastic subtleties too tedious for perusal. It is true, that before the representation of an auto sacramentale, and as if to indemnify the audience for the more serious attention about to be required for them, a loa or prologue equally allegorical, and at the same time mingled with comedy, was first performed. After the auto, or between the acts, appeared an intermediate piece called the Saynete, entirely burlesque, and taken from common life; so that a religious feast never terminated without gross pleasantries, and a humorous performance; as if a higher degree of devotion in the principal drama required, by way of compensation, a greater degree of licentiousness in the lesser pieces.* * I have met with the Autos, or Fiestas del Santissimo Sacramento, by Lope de Vega, not included in his Theatre, in a 4to edition published by Jos. Ortiz de Villena, after the author's death. The second Fiesta opens with a prologue between Zeal and Fame, who both enter upon the stage dressed as public criers. Zeal first makes his proclamation in the square of the Most Blessed Virgin: "Mary," he says, wine on sale, the wine of the Heir of the heavenly kingdom, for three livres; Faith, Charity and Hope, for three livres. Buy the rich Thereaca, the celestial wine, the Saviour's blood, the best antidote." En la plaça de Santa Maria Virgen bendita, Ay vino nuevo, Del Heredero Del reyno del cielo ; A tres blancas, a tres blancas; Fe, caridad y esperança : Vino del cielo, 66 new Fame proclaims, in her turn, the sale of the Bread of Life, in the same strain. In the interlude some light-fingered gentry take advantage of the Holy Sacrament to introduce themselves into the house of a doctor; while one occupies his attention by relating a comic law-suit, the other All the pieces of Lope which we have reviewed are connected with public or domestic history, and sacred or profane subjects; but are always founded on real incidents, which require a certain study and a certain attention to tradition. Where the incidents happen to be drawn from the history of Spain, they are treated with great truth of manners and fidelity of facts. But as a great part of the Spanish comedies are of an heroic cast, and as combats, dangers, and political revolutions are there mingled with domestic events, the poet could not assign them at his pleasure to a particular time or place, feeling himself constrained by the familiarity of the circumstances. The Spaniards, therefore, gave themselves full licence to create imaginary kingdoms and countries, and to a great portion of Europe they were such entire strangers, that they founded principalities and subverted empires at will. Hungary, Poland, and Macedonia, as well as the regions of the North, are countries always at their disposal, for the purpose of introducing brilliant catastrophes on the stage. Neither the poet nor the spectators having any knowledge of the rulers of such countries, it was an easy matter at a time of so little historical accuracy to give birth to kings and heroes never noticed in history. It was there that Francisco de Roxas placed his Father, who could not be king, from which Rotrou has formed his Venceslas.. It was there that Lope de Vega gave full reins to his imagination, when he represents a female fugitive, charitably entertained in the house of a poor gentleman of the Carpathian mountains, bringing him as her portion the crown of Hungary, in La Ventura sin buscalla: The Unlooked-for Goodfortune. In another, the supposed son of a gardener, changed into a hero by the love of a princess, merits and obtains by his exploits the throne of Macedon. This piece is entitled El Hombre por su palabra: The Man of his Word. If these pieces do not unite instruction with entertainment they are still deserving of preservation as containing a rich fund of invention and incident. Lope, though inex plunders the house. The alarm is given, but when the police reaches them they are both found upon their knees, reciting the Litany; again they are caught, but they take refuge amongst the penitents. The religious ceremonies protect them from all pursuit; and the doctor, whom they had robbed, is invited to console himself by joining in the holy festival. haustible in intrigues and interesting situations, can never be esteemed a perfect dramatist; but no poet whatever has brought together richer materials, for the use of those who may be capable of employing them. In his comedies of pure invention, he possesses an advantage which he frequently loses in his historical pieces. While the characters are better drawn and better supported, there is greater probability in the events, more unity in the action, and also in the time and place; for, drawing all from himself, he has only taken what was useful to him, instead of thinking himself obliged to introduce into his composition all that history presented him with. The early French dramatists borrowed largely from Lope and his school; but the mine is yet far from being exhausted, and a great number of subjects are still to be found there susceptible of being brought within the rules of the French drama. P. Corneille took his heroic play, Don Sancho of Aragon, from a piece of Lope de Vega, intitled El Palacio Confuso: and this single piece might still furnish another theatrical subject entirely different, that of the Twins upon the Throne. The mutual resemblance of these two princes, Don Carlos and Don Henry, one of whom, assuming the name of the other, repairs the faults his brother had committed, gives rise to a very entertaining plot. It is thus that many of the pieces of this fertile writer are sufficient to form two or three French plays. How surprising to us is the richness of the imagination of this man, whose labours seem so far to surpass the powers and extent of human life. Of a life of seventy-two years' duration, fifty were devoted incessantly to literary labours; and he was moreover a soldier, twice married, a priest, and a familiar of the Inquisition. In order to have written 2,200 theatrical pieces, he must every eight days, from the beginning to the end of his life, have given to the public a new play of about 3,000 verses; and in these eight days he must not only have found the time necessary for invention and unity, but also for making the historical researches into customs and manners on which his play is founded; to consult Tacitus for example, in order to compose his Nero; while the fruits of his spare time were twenty-one volumes in quarto of poetry, amongst which are five epic poems. These last mentioned works do not merit any examination beyond a brief notice. They consist of the Jerusalem Con quistada, in octave verse, and in twenty cantos; a continuation of the Orlando Furioso under the name of La Hermosura de Angelica: The Beauty of Angelica, also in twenty cantos; thus, as if to emulate Tasso and Ariosto, writing these two epics on the same subjects which they had respectively chosen. To these may be added an epic entitled Corona Tragica, of which Mary of Scotland is the heroine; another epic poem on Circe, and another on Admiral Drake, entitled Dragontea. Drake, rendered odious to the Spaniards by his victories, is represented by Lope de Vega as the minister and instrument of the devil. But none of these voluminous poems have, even in the eyes of the Spaniards, been placed on an equality with the classical epics of Italy, or even with the Araucana. Lope, moreover, determined to try every species of poetry, composed also an Arcadia, in imitation of Sannazzaro; and likewise eclogues, romances, sacred poems, sonnets, epistles, burlesque poems, among which is a burlesque epic, called La Gatomachia: The Battle of the Cats; two romances in prose, and a collection of novels. The inconceivable fertility of invention of Lope de Vega supported his dramatic fame, notwithstanding the little care and time which he gave to the correction of his pieces; but his other poems, the offspring of hasty efforts, are little more than rude sketches, which few people have the courage to read. The example of this extraordinary man gave birth to a number of pieces of the same character as his own, as his success gave encouragement to the dramatic poets who sprang up in all parts of Spain, and who composed with the same unbridled imagination, the same carelessness, and the same rapidity, as their master. We shall review them when we notice the works of Calderon, the greatest and the most celebrated of his scholars and rivals. There is one, indeed, who cannot well be separated from Lope. This is Juan Perez de Montalvan, his favourite scholar, his friend, biographer and imitator. This young man, full of talent and fire, whose admiration of Lope had no bounds, took him for his exclusive model, and his dramatic pieces are of the same character as those of his master. Some of his sacred plays I have perused, and amongst others, the Life of St. Anthony of Padua ; and these eccentric dramas, which excite little interest, do not merit a longer examination. Juan Perez de Montalvan composed with the same rapidity as his master. In his short life (1603-1639) he wrote more than one hun dred theatrical pieces, and like his master he divided his time between poetry and the business of the Inquisition, of which he was a notary. His works contain almost in every line traces of the religious zeal which led him to become a member of this terrible tribunal. CHAPTER XXXII. LYRIC POETRY OF SPAIN, AT THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH AND COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. GONGORA AND HIS FOLLOWERS, QUEVEDO, VILLEGAS, &C. THE poetry of Spain had, like the nation to which it belonged, a chivalric origin. Their first poets were enamoured warriors, who celebrated by turns their mistresses and their own exploits; and who preserved in their verses that character of sincerity, and almost rude frankness of manners, independence, stormy liberty, and jealous and passionate love, of which their life was composed. Their songs attract us from two causes the poetical world into which chivalry transports us; and a reality and truth, the intimate connexion of words with the heart, which does not allow us to suspect any imitation of borrowed sentiment, or any affectation. But the Spanish nation experienced a fatal change when it became subjected to the house of Austria; and poetry suffered the same fate, or rather it felt in the succeeding generation the effects of this alteration. Charles V. subverted the liberties of the Spaniards, annihilated their rights and privileges, tore them from Spain and engaged them in wars, not for their country, but for his own political interests and for the gratification of their monarch. He destroyed their native dignity of character, and substituted for it a false pride and empty show. Philip, his son, who presumed himself a Spaniard, and who is considered as such, did not possess the character of the nation, but of its monks, such as the severity of their order, and the impetuosity of blood in the South, developed it in the convents. This culpable violence against Nature has given them a character, at the same time imperious and servile, false, self-opiniated, cruel and voluptuous. But these vices of the Spaniards are in no wise to be attributed to Nature; they are the effects of the cruel discipline of the convents, the prostration of the intellect, the subjugation of |