predominated more and more. Much of his poetry to a moral grandeur, which the Castilian, with all composed at this time expressed thein; and at last the tragic coloring of his pencil, could never they rose to such a height, that he was almost conreach. Both fascinated their audiences by that stantly in a state of excited melancholy, or, as it was then beginning to be called, of hypochondria. sweet and natural flow of language, that seemed Early in the month of August, he felt himself to set itself to music as it was uttered. But, extremely weak, and suffered more than ever from however much alike in other points, there was that sense of discouragement which was breaking one distinguishing feature in each, which removed down his resources and strength. His thoughts, them and their dramas far as the poles asunder. however, were so exclusively occupied with his Shakspeare's great object was the exhibition spiritual condition, that, even when thus reduced, of character. To this everything was directed. he continued to fast, and on one occasion went through with a private discipline so cruel, that the Situation, dialogue, story-all were employed walls of the apartment where it occurred were only to this great end. This was in perfect afterwards found sprinkled with his blood. From accordance with the taste of his nation, as shown this he never recovered. He was taken ill the through the whole of its literature, from Chaucer same night; and, after fulfilling the offices pre- to Scott. Lope de Vega, on the other hand, scribed by his church with the most submissive made so little account of character that he reprodevotion-mourning that he had ever been engaged duces the same leading personages, in his differin any occupations but such as were exclusively religious he died on the 25th of August, 1635, ent plays, over and over again, as if they had nearly seventy-three years old. The galan, the

been all cast in the same mould.

dama, the gracioso, or buffoon, recur as regularly as the clown in the old English comedy, and their rôle is even more precisely defined.

And

The sensation produced by his death was such as is rarely witnessed even in the case of those upon whom depends the welfare of nations. The Duke of Sessa, who was his especial patron, and The paramount object with Lope was the to whom he left his manuscripts, provided for the intrigue the story. His plays were, what Mr. funeral in a manner becoming his own wealth and Ticknor well styles them, dramatic novels. rank. It lasted nine days. The crowds that thronged to it were immense. Three bishops this, as our author remarks, was perfectly conofficiated, and the first nobles of the land attended formable to the prevalent spirit of Spanish literaas mourners. Eulogies and poems followed on all ture-clearly narrative-as shown in its long sides, and in numbers all but incredible. Those epics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its written in Spain make one considerable volume, host of ballads, its gossiping chronicles, its chivand end with a drama in which his apotheosis was alrous romances. The great purpose of Lope brought upon the public stage. Those written in to excite and maintain an interest in the Italy are hardly less numerous, and fill another. But more touching than any of them was the story. "Keep the dénouement in suspense," he prayer of that much-loved daughter, who had been says; "if it be once surmised, your audience shut up from the world fourteen years, that the will turn their backs on you." He frequently long funeral procession might pass by her convent complicates his intrigues in such a manner that and permit her once more to look on the face she only the closest attention can follow them. He so tenderly venerated; and more solemn than any cautions his hearers to give this attention, especwas the mourning of the multitude, from whose dense mass audible sobs burst forth, as his remains ially at the outset. slowly descended from their sight into the house appointed for all living.

Mr. Ticknor follows up his biographical sketch of Lope with an analysis of his plays, concluding the whole with a masterly review of his qualities as a dramatic writer. The discussion has a wider import than at first appears. For Lope de Vega, although he built on the foundations of the ancient drama, yet did this in such a manner as to settle the forms of this department of literature forever for his countrymen.

was

Lope, with great tact, accommodated his theatre to the prevailing taste of his countrymen. "Plautus and Terence," he says, "I throw into the fire when I begin to write ;"-thus showing that it was not by accident, but on a settled principle, that he arranged the forms of his dramas. It is the favorite principle of modern economists, that of consulting the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Lope did so, and was rewarded for it, not merely by the applause of the million, but by that of every Spaniard, high and low, in the country. In all this, Lope de Vega acted on It would be interesting to compare the great strictly philosophical principles. He conformed Spanish dramatist with Shakspeare, who flour to the romantic, although the distinction was not ished at the same period, and who, in like man- then properly understood; and he thought it ner, stamped his own character on the national necessary to defend his departure from the rules theatre. Both drew their fictions from every of the ancients. But, in truth, such rules were source indiscriminately, and neither paid regard not suited to the genius and usages of the Spanto probabilities of chronology, geography, or scarcely history. Time, place, and circumstance were of little moment in their eyes. Both built their dramas on the romantic model, with its It is remarkable that the Spaniards, whose lanmagic scenes of joy and sorrow, in the display of guage rests so broadly on the Latin, in the same which each was master in his own way; though manner as with the French and the Italians, the English poet could raise the tone of sentiment should have refused to rest their literature, like

iards, any more than of the English; and more than one experiment proved that they would be as little tolerated by the one people as the other.

them, on the classic models of antiquity, and have | shall find the amount of what was received with chosen to conform to the romantic spirit of the favor, as it came from the press, quite unparalleled. more northern nations of the Teutonic family. It And when to this we are compelled to add his own was the paramount influence of the Gothic ele-assurance, just before his death, that the greater ment in their character, coöperating with the peculiar, and most stimulating influences of their early history.

We close our remarks on Lope de Vega with some excellent reflections of our author on the rapidity of his composition, and showing to what extent his genius was reverenced by his contemporaries.

part of his works still remained in manuscript, we pause in astonishment, and, before we are able to believe the account, demand some explanation that will make it credible;-an explanation which is the more important, because it is the key to much of his personal character, as well as of his poetical success. And it is this. No poet of any considerable reputation ever had a genius so nearly related to that of an improvisator, or ever indulged his genius so freely in the spirit of improvisation. This talent has always existed in the southern countries of Europe; and in Spain has, from the first, produced, in different ways, the most extraordinary results. We owe to it the invention and perfection of the old ballads, which were originally improvisated and then preserved by tradition; and we owe to it the seguidillas, the toleros, and all the other forms of popular poetry that still exist in Spain, and are daily poured forth by the fervent imaginations of the uncultivated classes of the people, and sung to the national music, that sometimes seems to fill the air by night as the light of the sun does by day.

Lope de Vega's immediate success, as we have seen, was in proportion to his rare powers and favorable opportunities. For a long time, nobody else was willingly heard on the stage; and during the whole of the forty or fifty years that he wrote for it, he stood quite unapproached in general popularity. His unnumbered plays and farces, in all the forms that were demanded by the fashions of the age, or permitted by religious authority, filled the theatres both of the capital and the provinces; and so extraordinary was the impulse he gave to dramatic representations, that, though there were only two companies of strolling players at Madrid when he began, there were, about the period of his In the time of Lope de Vega, the passion for death, no less than forty, comprehending nearly a such improvisation had risen higher than it ever thousand persons. rose before, if it had not spread out more widely. Abroad, too, his fame was hardly less remark-Actors were expected sometimes to improvisate on able. In Rome, Naples, and Milan, his dramas were performed in their original language; in France and Italy, his name was announced in order to fill the theatres when no play of his was to be performed; and once even, and probably oftener, one of his dramas was represented in the seraglio at Constantinople. But perhaps neither all this popularity, nor yet the crowds that followed him in the streets and gathered in the balconies to watch him as he passed along, nor the name of Lope, that was given to whatever was esteemed singularly good in its kind, is so striking a proof of his dramatic success, as the fact, so often com

plained of by himself and his friends, that multitudes of his plays were fraudulently noted down as they were acted, and then printed for profit throughout Spain; and that multitudes of other plays appeared under his name, and were represented all over the provinces, that he had never even heard of till they were published and performed.

of rare occurrence.

themes given to them by the audience. Extempo-
raneous dramas, with all the varieties of verse de-
manded by a taste formed in the theatres, were not
Philip the Fourth, Lope's
patron, had such performed in his presence, and
And the famous
bore a part in them himself.
Count de Lemos, the viceroy of Naples, to whom
Cervantes was indebted for so much kindness, kept,
as an apanage to his viceroyalty, a poetical court,
of which the two Argensolas were the chief orna-
ments, and in which extemporaneous plays were
acted with brilliant success.

Lope de Vega's talent was undoubtedly of near kindred to this genius of improvisation, and produced its extraordinary results by a similar process, and in the same spirit. He dictated verse, we are could take it down; and wrote out an entire play told, with ease, more rapidly than an amanuensis in two days, which could with difficulty be transcribed by a copyist in the same time. He was not absolutely an improvisator, for his education and position naturally led him to devote himself to written composition, but he was continually on the borders of whatever belongs to an improvisator's peculiar province; was continually showing, in his merits and defects, in his ease, grace, and sudden resource, in his wildness and extravagance, in the happiness of his versification and the prodigal abundance of his imagery, that a very little more freedom, a very little more indulgence given to his feelings and his fancy, would have made him at once, and entirely, not only an improvisator, but

A large income naturally followed such popularity, for his plays were liberally paid for by the actors; and he had patrons of a munificence unknown in our days, and always undesirable. But he was thriftless and wasteful; exceedingly charitable; and in hospitality to his friends, prodigal. He was, therefore, almost always embarrassed. At the end of his "Jerusalem," printed as early as 1609, he complains of the pressure of his domestic affairs; and in his old age he addressed some verses, in the nature of a petition, to the still more thriftless Philip the Fourth, asking the means of living for himself and daughter. After his death, his poverty was fully admitted by his executor; We pass over the long array of dramatic writers and yet, considering the relative value of money, who trod closely in the footsteps of their great no poet, perhaps, ever received so large a compen-master, as well as a lively notice of the satirist Quevedo, and come at once to Calderon de la It should, however, be remembered, that no other poet ever wrote so much with popular effect. Barca, the great poet who divided with Lope the For, if we begin with his dramatic compositions, empire of the Spanish stage. which are the best of his efforts, and go down to his epics, which, on the whole, are the worst, we

sation for his works.

the most remarkable one that ever lived.

Our author has given a full biography of this famous dramatist, to which we must refer the

reader; and we know of no other history in Eng-| lish where he can meet with it at all. Calderon principles of honor, jealousy, and revenge, minlived in the reign of Philip the Fourth, which, gled with the highest religious exaltation. Some extending from 1621 to 1665, comprehends the of these sentiments, usually referred to the influmost flourishing period of the Castilian theatre. ence of the Arabs, Mr. Ticknor traces to the The elegant tastes of the monarch, with his gay ancient Gothic laws, which formed the basis of the and gracious manners, formed a contrast to the early Spanish jurisprudence. The passages he austere temper of the other princes of the house cites are pertinent, and his theory is plausible; of Austria. He was not only the patron of the yet, in the relations with woman, we suspect much drama, but a professor of the dramatic art, and must still be allowed for the long contact with the indeed a performer. He wrote plays himself, and jealous Arabian. acted them in his own palace. His nobles, followCalderon's characters and sentiments are formed, ing his example, turned their saloons into theatres; for the most part, on a purely ideal standard. The and the great towns, and many of the smaller ones, incidents of his plots are even more startling than partaking of the enthusiasm of the court, had their those of Lope de Vega, more monstrous than the own theatres and companies of actors, which, alto-fictions of Dumas or Eugene Sue. But his thoughts gether, amounted, at one time, to no less than are breathed forth in the intoxicating language of three hundred. One may understand that it re- passion, with all the glowing imagery of the East, quired no small amount of material to keep such a and in tones of the richest melody of which the vast machinery in motion. Castilian tongue is capable.

necessary in order to sustain it, we owe much of It must not be supposed that the drama, though what distinguishes Calderon from his predecessors, the great natural diversion, was allowed to go on and nearly all that is most individual and charac-in Spain, any more than in other countries, in an teristic in his separate merits and defects. It makes him less easy, graceful, and natural than Lope. uninterrupted flow of prosperity. It met with It imparts to his style a mannerism, which, not- considerable opposition more than once in its withstanding the marvellous richness and fluency of career; and, on the representations of the clergy, his versification, sometimes wearies and sometimes at the close of Philip the Second's reign, peroffends us. It leads him to repeat from himself till formances were wholly interdicted, on the ground many of his personages become standing characters, of their licentiousness. For two years the and his heroes and their servants, his ladies and their theatre was closed. But, on the death of that confidants, his old men and his buffoons, seem to be produced, like the masked figures of the ancient gloomy monarch, the drama, in obedience to the theatre, to represent, with the same attributes and public voice, was renewed in greater splendor in the same costume, the different intrigues of his than before. It was urged by its friends that the various plots. It leads him, in short, to regard theatre was required to pay a portion of its prothe whole of the Spanish drama as a form, within ceeds to certain charitable institutions, and this whose limits his imagination may be indulged made all its performances in some sort an exerwithout restraint; and in which Greeks and Rocise of charity. Lope de Vega also showed his mans, heathen divinities, and the supernatural fictions of Christian tradition, may be all brought address by his Comedias de Santos, under which out in Spanish fashions and with Spanish feelings, pious name the life of some saint or holy man was and led, through a succession of ingenious and portrayed, which, however edifying in its close, interesting adventures, to the catastrophes their afforded, too often, as great a display of profligacy stories happen to require. in its earlier portions as is to be found in any of In carrying out this theory of the Spanish the secular plays of the capa y espada. His drama, Calderon, as we have seen, often succeeds, experiment seems to have satisfied the consciences and often fails. But when he succeeds, his success of the opponents of the drama, or at least to have is sometimes of no common character. He then sets before us only models of ideal beauty, perfec- silenced their opposition. It reminds us of the tion, and splendor;-a world, he would have it, manner in which some among us, who seem to into which nothing should enter but the highest have regarded the theatre with the antipathy elements of the national genius. There, the entertained by our Puritan fathers, have found fervid, yet grave, enthusiasm of the old Castilian their scruples vanish at witnessing these exhibiheroism; the chivalrous adventures of modern, tions under the more reputable names of "Athecourtly honor; the generous self-devotion of individual loyalty; and that reserved, but passionate næum," "Museum," or "Lyceum." love, which, in a state of society where it was so Our author has paid due attention to the other rigorously withdrawn from notice, became a kind varieties of elegant literature which occupy this of unacknowledged religion of the heart;-all prolific period. We can barely enumerate the seem to find their appropriate home. And when titles. Epic poetry has not secured to itself the he has once brought us into this land of enchant- same rank in Castile as in many other countries. ment, whose glowing impossibilities his own

Yet it is little more than a chronicle done into rhyme; and, notwithstanding certain passages of energy and poetic eloquence, it is of more value as the historical record of an eye-witness than as a work of literary art.

genius has created, and has called around him At the head stands the "Araucana" of Ercilla, forms of such grace and loveliness as those of which Voltaire appears to have preferred to Clara and Doña Angela, or heroic forms like those" Paradise Lost"! of Tuzani, Mariamne, and Don Ferdinand, then he has reached the highest point he ever attained, or ever proposed to himself;-he has set before us the grand show of an idealized drama, resting on the purest and noblest elements of the Spanish national character, and one which, with all its unquestionable defects, is to be placed among the extraordinary phenomena of modern poetry.

In Pastoral poetry the Spaniards have better specimens. But they are specimens of an insipid kind of writing, notwithstanding it has found favor with the Italians, to whom it was introduced

by a Spaniard-a Spaniard in descent-the cele

brated author of the "Arcadia."

We shall not attempt to follow down the long file of dramatic writers who occupy the remainder of the period. Their name is legion; and we In the higher walks of Lyrical composition are filled with admiration, as we reflect on the intrepid diligence with which our author has they have been more distinguished. The poetry waded through this amount of matter, and the of Herrera, in particular, seems to equal, in its fidelity with which he has rendered to the respec-uity; while the Muse of Luis de Leon is filled dithyrambic flow, the best models of classic antiqtive writers literary justice. We regret, however, that we have not space to select, as we had with the genuine inspiration of Christianity. Mr. intended, some part of his lively account of the Ticknor has given a pleasing portrait of this Spanish players, and of the condition of the stage. to Heaven, and who preserved a tranquillity of gentle enthusiast, whose life was consecrated It is collected from various obscure sources, and contains many curious particulars. They show temper unruffled by all the trials of an unmerited persecution. that the Spanish theatre was conducted in a manner so dissimilar from what exists in other Eu

ropean nations as perfectly to vindicate its claims to originality.

We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting a translation of one of his odes, as the last extract from our author. The subject is, the

feelings of the disciples on witnessing the ascen- | author's criticism on the historical writings of the sion of their Master.

And dost thou, holy Shepherd, leave

Thine unprotected flock alone,
Here, in this darksome vale, to grieve,

While thou ascend'st thy glorious throne?
O, where can they their hopes now turn,
Who never lived but on thy love?
Where rest the hearts for thee that burn,
When thou art lost in light above?
How shall those eyes now find repose
That turn, in vain, thy smile to see?
What can they hear save mortal woes,
Who lose thy voice's melody?

And who shall lay his tranquil hand
Upon the troubled ocean's might?
Who hush the winds by his command?
Who guide us through this starless night?

For THOU art gone!-that cloud so bright,
That bears thee from our love away,
Springs upward through the dazzling light,
And leaves us here to weep and pray!

age, in which he has penetrated below the surface of their literary forms to the scientific principles on which they were constructed.

Neither can we pause on the last of the three great periods into which our author has distributed the work, and which extends from the accession of the Bourbon dynasty in 1700 to some way into the present century. The omission is of the less consequence, from the lamentable decline of the literature, owing to the influence of French models, as well as to the political decline of the nation under the last princes of the Austrian dynasty. The circumstances which opened the way both to this social and literary degeneracy are well portrayed by Mr. Ticknor, and his account will be read with profit by the student of history.

tongue, a truly valuable philological contribution. The subject has too little general attraction to allow its appearance in the body of the text; but those students who would obtain a thorough knowledge of the Castilian and the elements of which it is compounded, will do well to begin the perusal of the work with this elaborate essay.

We regret still more that we can but barely allude to the Appendix, which, in the eye of the Spanish critic, will form not the least important portion of the work. Besides several long poems, highly curious for their illustration of the ancient literature, now for the first time printed from the A peculiar branch of Castilian literature is its original manuscripts, we have, at the outset, a disProverbs; those extracts of the popular wisdom-cussion of the origin and formation of the Castilian "short sentences from long experience," as Cervantes styles them. They have been gathered, more than once, in Spain, into printed collections. One of these, in the last century, contains no less than twenty-four thousand of these sayings! And a large number was still left floating among the people. It is evidence of extraordinary sagacity in the nation, that its humblest classes Neither have we room to say anything of our should have made such a contribution to its litera- author's inquiry into the genuineness of two works ture. They have an additional value with purists which have much engaged the attention of Castilian for their idiomatic richness of expression-like the scholars, and both of which he pronounces apocryriboboli of the Florentine mob, which the Tuscan phal. The manner in which the inquiry is concritics hold in veneration as the racy runnings ducted affords a fine specimen of literary criticism. from the dregs of the people. These popular In one of these discussions occurs a fact worthy of maxims may be rather compared to the copper note. An ecclesiastic named Barrientos, of John

coin of the country, which has the widest circula- the Second's court, has been accused of delivering tion of any, and bears the true stamp of antiquity to the flames, on the charge of necromancy, the -not adulterated, as is too often the case with the finer metals.

The last department we shall notice is that of the Spanish Tales-rich, various, and highly picturesque. One class—the picaresco tales—are those with which the world has become familiar in the specimen afforded by the " Gil Blas" of Le Sage, an imitation—a rare occurrence-surpassing the original. This amusing class of fictions has found peculiar favor with the Spaniards, from its lively sketches of character, and the contrast it delights to present of the pride and the poverty of the hidalgo. Yet this kind of satirical fiction was invented by a man of rank, and one of the proudest of his order.

library of a scholar then lately deceased, the famous Marquis of Villena. The good bishop, from his own time to the present, has suffered under this grievous imputation, which ranks him with Omar. Mr. Ticknor now cites a manuscript letter of the bishop himself, distinctly explaining that it was by the royal command that this literary auto da fé was celebrated. This incident is one proof among many of the rare character of our author's materials, and of the careful study which he has given to them.

Spanish literature has been until now less thoroughly explored than the literature of almost any other European nation. Everybody has read "Gil Blas," and, through this foreign source, has Our remarks have swelled to a much greater got a good idea of the social condition of Spain, at compass than we had intended, owing to the im- the period to which it belongs; and the social portance of the work before us, and the abundance condition of that country is slower to change than of the topics, little familiar to the English reader. that of any other country. Everybody has read We have no room, therefore, for further discus-" Don Quixote," and thus formed, or been able to sion of this second period, so fruitful in great form, some estimate of the high value of the Casnames, and pass over, though reluctantly, our tilian literature. Yet the world, for the most