third act we see him imploring his compassion on behalf of his prisoner. He gives a moving picture of the state to which this unhappy prince is reduced: sleeping in damp dungeons, working at the baths and in the stables, deprived of food, sinking under disease, and resting on a mat at one of the gates of his master's house. The details of his misery are such, that the taste of the French stage would not suffer even an allusion to them. One of his servants and a faithful knight attach themselves to him, and never quit him; dividing with him their small ration, which is scarcely sufficient for the support of a single person. The king hears these revolting details, but recognizing only obstinacy in the conduct of the prince, he replies in two words: ""Tis well, Muley." Phenicia comes, in her turn, to intercede with her father for Fernando, but he imposes silence on her. The two ambassadors of Morocco and Portugal are then announced, and prove to be the sovereigns themselves, Tarudant and Alfonso V., who avail themselves of the protection of the law of nations, to treat in person of their several interests. They are admitted to an audience at the same time. Alfonso offers to the King of Fez twice the value in money of the city of Ceuta as the ransom of his brother; and he declares that if it be refused, his fleet is ready to waste Africa with fire and sword. Tarudant, who hears these threats, considers them as a personal provocation, and replies that he is about to take the field with the army of Morocco, and that he will shortly be in a state to repel the aggressions of the Portuguese. The king, meanwhile, refuses to liberate Fernando on any other terms than the restitution of Ceuta. bestows his daughter on Tarudant, and orders Muley to accompany her to Morocco. Whatever pain Muley may feel in assisting at the nuptials of his mistress, and abandoning his friend in his extreme misery, he prepares to obey. The commands of a king are considered by Calderon as the fiat of destiny, and it is by such traits that we recognize the courtier of Philip IV.

He

The scene changes; and Don Juan and the other captives bear in Don Fernando on a mat, and lay him on the ground. This is the last time that he appears on the stage; he is overpowered by the weight of slavery, disease, and misery. His condition chills the heart, and is perhaps too strongly drawn for the stage, where physical evils should be introduced only

with great reserve. In order, indeed, to diminish this painful impression, Calderon bestows on him the language of a saint under martyrdom. He looks upon his sufferings as so many trials, and returns thanks to God for every pang he I endures, as the pledge of his approaching_beatification. Meanwhile the King of Fez, Tarudant, and Phenicia, pass through the street where he lies; and Don Fernando addresses them: "Bestow your alms," he cries, "on a poor sufferer. I am a human being like yourselves; I am sick and in affliction, and dying of hunger. Have pity on me; for even the beasts of the forest compassionate their kind." The king reproaches him with his obstinacy. His liberation, he tells him, depends on himself alone, and the terms are still the same. The reply of Fernando is wholly in the oriental style. It is not by arguments, nor indeed by sentiments of compassion, that he attempts to touch his master; but by that exuberance of poetical images, which was regarded as real eloquence by the Arabians, and which was perhaps more likely to touch a Moorish king, than a discourse more appropriate to nature and to circumstances. Mercy, he says, is the first duty of kings. The whole earth bears in every class of creation emblems of royalty; and to these emblems is always attached the royal virtue of generosity. The lion, the monarch of the forest; the eagle, the ruler of the feathered race; the dolphin, the king of fish; the pomegranate, the empress of fruits; the diamond, the first of minerals, are all, agreeably to the traditions cited by Fernando, alive to the sufferings of mankind. As a man, Fernando is allied to the King of Fez by his royal blood, notwithstanding their difference in religion. In every faith, cruelty is alike condemned. Still, while the prince considers it his duty to pray for the preservation of his life, he desires not life, but martyrdom; and awaits it at the hands of the king. The king retorts that all his sufferings proceed from himself alone. "When you compassionate yourself, Don Fernando," he says, "I too shall compassionate you."

After the Moorish princes have retired, Don Fernando announces to Don Juan Coutinho, who brings him bread, that his attentions and generous devotion will soon no longer be required, as he feels himself approaching his last hour. only asks to be invested in holy garments, as he is the grand master of the religious and military order of Advice; and he

He

begs his friends to mark the place of his sepulture :"Although I die a captive, my redemption is sure, and I hope one day to enter the mansions of the blessed. Since to thee, my God, I have consecrated so many churches, grant me a dwelling in thine own mansions." His companions then depart with him in their arms.

The scene changes, and represents the coast of Africa, on which Don Alfonso, Don Henry, and the Portuguese troops have just landed. It is announced to them that the army of Tarudant is approaching, and that it is conducting Phenicia to Morocco. Don Alfonso addresses his troops, and prepares for battle. The shade of Don Fernando, in the habit of his chapter, appears to them, and promises them victory. Again the scene changes, and represents the walls of Fez. The king appears on the walls, surrounded by his guards. Don Juan Coutinho brings forward the coffin of Don Fernando. The stage is veiled in night, but a strain of military music is heard in the distance. It draws near, and the shade of Don Fernando appears with a torch in his hand, conducting the Portuguese army to the foot of the walls. Don Alfonso calls to the king, announces to him that he has taken prisoners his daughter, Phenicia, and Tarudant, his proposed son-in law, and offers to exchange them against Don Fernando. The king is seized with profound grief when he finds his daughter in the hands of those very enemies to whom he had behaved with so much cruelty after his victory. He has now no longer the means of redeeming her, and he informs the Portuguese king, with regret, of the death of Don Fernando. But if Alfonso was desirous of restoring his brother to liberty, he is now not less solicitous to recover his mortal remains, which are a precious relic to Portugal. He divines that this is the object of the miracle which presented the shade of the prince to the eyes of the whole army; and he accepts the exchange of the body of his brother against Phenicia and all the other prisoners. He only requires that Phenicia be given in marriage to Muley, in order to recompense that brave Moor for the friendship and protection he had extended to his brother. He thanks Don Juan for his generous services to Fernando, and consigns to the care of his victorious army the relics of the newly canonized Saint of Portugal.*

* The historical records of the life of Don Fernando do not disclose to us so exalted an idea of his self-devotion. I have examined the original Chronicles, of the fifteenth

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CONCLUSION OF CALDERON.

AFTER having noticed in Calderon the faults which arose from the political state of his country, from the religious prejudices in which he was born, and from the bad taste which prevailed in Spain, in consequence of the fatal examples of Lope de Vega and Gongora, it would appear inconsistent to confine our notice to his most celebrated pieces; pieces which are sufficiently conformable to our rules to be introduced on the stage, as the play of Il Secreto a Vozes; or to those where the situation is so truly tragic, the emotion so profound, and the interest so well supported, as not to leave us any desire for that regularity which would rob us of all the interest of the romance he presents to us, as in The Inflexible Prince. If we once admit the enthusiasm for religious conquests, which, at that time, formed so essential a part of the national manners, if we once believe it sanctified by heaven and supported by miracles, we must allow the conduct of Don Fernando to be great, noble, and generous. We esteem him while we suffer with him; the beauty of his character increases our pity, and we feel sensible of the peculiar charm of the romantic unity, so different from our own. We perceive with pleasure that the poet leaves nothing neglected which belongs to the interest of the subject. He conducts us from the landing of Fernando in Africa, not only to his death, but to the ransoming of his remains, that none of our wishes may continue in suspense, and that we may not leave the theatre until every feeling is fully satisfied.

To confine ourselves to an analysis of these two pieces, would be to give a very incomplete idea of the plays of Calderon. We must, therefore, take a view of some others of his dramas, though we shall not dwell on them very long. More frequently called upon to criticise, than to offer models for imitation, we shall detain the reader only on such points as merit his attention, sometimes as a proof of talent, sometimes century, published by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon: Colleççaó de livros Ineditos de Historia Portugueza, dos reinados dos senhores reys D. Joaó Í. D. Duarte, D. Affonso V. e D. Joaó II. 3 vol. in fol. We there find that, if Fernando was not liberated from his captivity, it was not owing to his own high feelings, but to the troubles in which Portugal was involved, and to the jealousy of the reigning princes; that, though a prisoner in 1438, he did not die until 1443; and that his death was not accelerated by ill-treatment: Chron. do rey Affonso V. por Ruy de Pina, t. i. c. 54. His remains were not redeemed until 1473.

as a picture of manners or of character, and sometimes as a poetic novelty.

The discovery of the New World has, at all times, been a favourite theme with the Spanish poets. The glory of these prodigious conquests was yet fresh in the minds of men, in the reign of Philip IV. The Castilians at that time distinguished themselves as Christians and warriors, and the massacre of infidel nations appeared to them to extend at the same time the kingdom of God and of their own monarch. Calderon chose as the subject of one of these tragedies, the discovery and conversion of Peru. He called it La Aurora en Copacavana, from the name of one of the sacred temples of the Incas, where the first cross was planted by the companions of Pizarro. The admirers of Calderon extol this piece as one of his most poetical efforts, and as a drama animated by the purest and most elevated enthusiasm. A series of brilliant objects is indeed presented to the eyes and to the mind. On one side, the devotions of the Indians are celebrated at Copacavana with a pomp and magnificence, which are not so much derived from the music and the decorations, as from the splendour and poetic elevation of the language. On the other side, the first arrival of Don Francisco Pizarro on the shore, and the terror of the Indians, who take the vessel itself for an unknown monster, whose bellowings (the discharges of artillery) they compare to the thunder of the skies, are rendered with equal truth and richness of imagination. To avert the calamities which these strange prodigies announce, the gods of America demand a human victim. They make choice of Guacolda, one of their priestesses, who is an object of love to the Inca, Guascar, and to the hero Jupangui. Idolatry, represented by Calderon as a real being, who continually dazzles the Indians by false miracles, herself solicits this sacrifice. She obtains the consent of the terrified Inca, whilst Jupangui withdraws his mistress from the priests of the false gods, and places her in safety. The alarm of Guacolda, the devotion of her lover, and the danger of the situation, which gradually increases, give to the scene an agreeable and romantic interest, which, however, leads us almost to forget Pizarro and his companions in arms.

In the second act both the interest and action are entirely changed. We behold Pizarro, with the Spaniards, assaulting the walls of Cusco, the Indians defending them, and the