Among the rivals of Calderon, one of the most celebrated and the most deserving of notice, was Augustin Moreto, who enjoyed, like him, the favour of Philip IV.; was, like him, a zealot as well as a comic poet; and, like him, a priest towards the end of his life; but, when Moreto entered into the ecclesiastical state, he abandoned the theatre. He possessed more vivacity than Calderon, and his plots give rise to more amusing scenes. He attempted, too, a more precise delineation of character, and endeavoured to bestow on his comedies that interest, the fruits of accurate observation, which is so generally wanting in the Spanish drama. Several of his pieces were introduced on the French stage, at the time when the authors of that country borrowed so much from Spain. That which is most known to the French people, in consequence of being for a long time past acted on Shrove Tuesday, is the Don Japhet of Armenia, of Scarron, almost literally translated from El Marques del Cigarral; but this is not amongst the best pieces of Moreto. There are to be found characters much more happily drawn, with much more interest in the plot, more invention, and a more lively dialogue, in his comedy entitled, No puede ser: It cannot be ; where a woman of talent and spirit, who is beloved by a man of jealous disposition, proposes to herself, before marrying him, to convince him that it is impossible to guard a woman effectually, and that the only safe mode is to trust to her own honour. The lesson is severe, for she assists the sister of her lover in an intrigue, although he kept her shut up, and watched her with extreme distrust. She contrives to arrange her interviews with a young man; she aids the sister in escaping from her brother's house, and in marrying without his consent; and when she has enjoyed the alarm into which he is thrown, and has convinced him that, notwithstanding all his caution and all his threats, he has been grossly duped, she consents to give him her hand. The remainder of the plot is conducted with sufficient probability, and much originality, and gives rise to many entertaining scenes, of which Moliere has availed himself in his Ecole des Maris. There is a piece in much the same style by Don Fernando de Zarate, called, la Presumida y la Hermosa. We find in it some strong traits of character joined to a very entertaining plot. There were still to be found in Spain some men of taste, who treated with ridicule the affected style introduced by Gongora. Zarate gives to Leonora the most conceited language, which does not differ much from that of Gongora, or even Calderon, and he contrives at the same time to show its absurdity. His Gracioso exclaims against the outrage which is thus committed upon the poor Castilian_tongue.* The two sisters, Leonora and Violante, have in this piece nearly the same characters as Armande and Henriette in the Femmes savantes; but the Spaniards did not attempt the nicer shades of character; those which they drew were always digressions, and had little influence on the passing events. The female pedant finds a lover amiable, noble, and rich, as well as her fair and engaging rival; her preposterous character neither adds to, nor diminishes the chances of her happiness; a stratagem, a bold disguise conceived and executed by a knavish valet, decides the fate of all the characters; and whatever interest there may be in the plot, this piece does not rise beyond the common class of Spanish comedies. One of the comic authors who enjoyed the highest reputation in the middle of the seventeenth century, was Don Francisco de Roxas, knight of the order of St. James, a great number of whose pieces we find in the ancient collection of Spanish comedies, and from whom the French stage has borrowed some dramas; amongst others, the Venceslas of Rotrou, and Don Bertran de Cigarral of Thomas Corneille. This last piece is translated from the one entitled, Entre bobos anda el juego: The Plot is laid amongst Fools; which passes for the best that Roxas has written. But, on the other hand, I have seen a play by him, called The Patroness * Leonora is represented with her sister in the presence of a gentleman whom they both love, and she wishes him to decide between them. LEO. Distinguid señor don Juan De esta retorica intacta, Que el sol brille, y fine el Alva. Cede la nautica braza Pues de esta suerte se habla Que si mi hermana habla culto 量 Al inculto barbarismo, O à la Nefritica idea; Y si algun critico trata Morir en pecado oculto, Para que confiesse a voces Que es castellana su alma. of Madrid, our Lady of Atocha, written in antiquated language, apparently to give it more respectability, and which unites all the extravagances, and all the monstrous moral absurdities that we have seen exhibited in the religious pieces of Calderon. This The critics of Germany and Spain have selected The Punishment of Avarice: El Castigo de la Miseria, by Don Juan de Hoz, as one of the best in his class of plays. piece, though highly humorous, is an instance of that radical defect of the Spanish drama, which by the intricacy of the plot entirely destroys the effect of character. Don Juan de Hoz has painted the character of the miser Marcos in strong colours; but the stratagem by which Donna Isidora contrives to marry him so far distracts the attention, that the avarice of the principal personage is no longer the striking feature of the piece. There is, besides, an impropriety and effrontery in giving to a comedy a title which announces a moral aim, when it concludes with the triumph of vice, and is marked by a shameful dereliction of all probity, even in those characters which are represented as respectable. One of the latest of the dramatic writers of Spain of the seventeenth century, was Don Joseph Cañizarez, who flourished in the reign of Charles II. He left behind him a number of plays, in almost every class. Some of these are historical as Picarillo en España, founded on the adventures of a Frederic de Braquemont, a son of him who, with John de Béthencourt, in 1402, discovered and conquered the Canaries; but they are little less romantic than those entirely of his own invention. To conclude, neither the comedies of Cañizarez, which are the most modern, nor those of Guillen de Castro and Don Juan Ruys de Alarcon, which are the most ancient, nor those of Don Alvaro Cubillo of Aragon, of Don Francisco de Leyra, of Don Agustino de Zalazar y Torres, of Don Christoval de Monroy y Silva, Don Juan de Matos Fragoso, and Don Hieronymo Cancer, possess a character sufficiently marked to enable us to discover in them the manner and style of the author. Their works, like their names, are confounded with each other, and after having gone through the Spanish drama, whose richness at first view astonished and dazzled us, we quit it fatgued with its monotony The poetry of Spain continued to flourish during the reigns of the three Philips (1556-1665), in spite of the national decline. The calamities which befel the monarchy, the double yoke of political and religious tyranny, the continual defeats, the revolt of conquered countries, the destruction of the armies, the ruin of provinces, and the stagnation of commerce, could not wholly suppress the efforts of poetic genius. The Castilians, under Charles V., were intoxicated by the false glory of their monarch, and by the high station which they had newly acquired in Europe. A noble pride and consciousness of their power urged them on to new enterprises; they thirsted after distinction and renown; and they rushed forward with an increasing ardour in the career which was still open to them. The number of candidates for this noble palm did not diminish; and as the different avenues which led to fame, the service of their country, the cultivation of liberal knowledge and every branch of literature connected with philosophy, were closed against them; as all civil employ was become the timid instrument of tyranny, and as the army was humiliated by continual defeats, poetry alone remained to those who were ambitious of distinction. The number of poets went on increasing in proportion as the number of men of merit in every other class diminished. But with the reign of Philip IV. the spirit which had till then animated the Castilians, ceased. For some time before, poetry had partaken of the general decline, although the ardour of its votaries had not diminished; and affectation, and bombast, and all the faults of Gongora, had corrupted its style. At length the im#pulse which had so long propelled them subsided; the vanity of the distinction which attached itself to an affected and over-loaded manner was perceived; and no means seemed to remain for the attainment of a better style. The Spanish writers abandoned themselves to apathy and rest; they bowed the neck to the yoke; they attempted to forget the public calamities, to restrain their sentiments, to confine their tastes to physical enjoyments, to luxury, sloth, and effeminacy. The nation slumbered, and literature, with every motive to national glory, ceased. The reign of Charles II., who mounted the throne in 1665, at the age of five years, and who transferred at his death, in 1700, the heritage of the house of Austria to the Bourbons, is the epoch of the last decline of Spain. It is the period of its perfect insignificance in the political world, of its extreme moral debasement, and of its lowest state of literature. The war of the Succession, which broke out shortly afterwards, though it devastated the provinces of Spain, yet restored to their inhabitants some small portion of that energy which was so completely lost under the house of Austria. A national sentiment prompted them to take arms; pride, or affection, not authority, decided on the part which they adopted; and as soon as they learned once more to feel for themselves, they began again to reflect. Still their return to literature was slow and tame; that flame of imagination, which, during a century, had given such numberless poets to Spain, was extinguished, and those who at length succeeded possessed no longer the same enthusiasm, nor the same brilliancy of fancy. Philip V. did not influence the literature of Spain by any particular attachment to that of France. Of slender talents, and possessed of little taste or information, his grave, sombre, and silent character, was rather Castilian than French. He founded the Academy of History, which led the learned to useful researches into Spanish antiquities, and the Academy of Language, which distinguished itself by the compilation of its excellent Dictionary. In other respects, he left his subjects to their natural bias in the cultivation of letters. Meanwhile the splendour of the reign of Louis XIV., which had dazzled all Europe, and which had imposed on other nations and on foreign literature the laws of French taste, had, in its turn, struck the Spaniards. A party was formed amongst the men of letters and the fashionable world, by which the regular and classical compositions of the French were decidedly preferred to the riches and brilliancy of Spanish imagination. On the other hand, the public attached itself with obstinacy to a style of poetry which seemed to be allied to the national glory; and the conflict between these two parties was more particularly felt on the stage. Men of letters regarded Lope de Vega and Calderon with a mixture of pity and contempt, whilst the people, on the other hand, would not allow, in the theatrical performances, any imitation or translation from the French, and granted their applause only to the compositions of their ancient poets in the ancient national taste. The stage, therefore, remained, during the eighteenth century, on the same footing as in the time of Calderon; except that few new pieces appeared but such as were of a religious tendency, as in these, it was imagined, faith might supply the want of talent. In the early part of the eighteenth century were pub |