was the true founder of the Spanish national theatre. A celebrated contemporary of his was Terso de Molina, a monk of the Brothers of Mercy at Madrid, who was distinguished by overflowing humour, sparkling wit, and masterly diction. He spares neither the powers of heaven nor of earth, but the balm of his poetry cures all the wounds he deals. The boldness of his attacks on the court and mighty ones of the world only finds its parallel in the learned comedy of Italy; on the other hand, it is true that this poet has no moral hesitation: he boldly tears the veil off every thing, even that which might better remain concealed; but in that day such a course was not considered wrong. His inventions are thoroughly original, and his employment of the element of surprise is most wonderful. He was the first to take hypocrisy as the motive for a comedy, in his Marta Piadosa: other celebrated pieces of his are, La Villana de Ballekas, La Celosa de si misma (a woman jealous of herself), and L'Amor per Señas (love through signs). We may be permitted a short analysis of the plot of La Villana de Ballekas.

"Captain Gabriel de Herrera has an amour with Dona Violante, a noble Valentian lady, but leaves her, and starts for Madrid to obtain pardon from the king for killing a man in a duel. On the journey he assumes the name of Don Pedro di Mendoza, and by a wondrous accident he makes the acquaintance at an inn near Madrid of a gentleman of that very name, just arrived from Mexico. By a further accident, through a mistake of a servant, his portmanteau is confounded with Don Gabriel's. In this way the real Don Pedro reaches the capital, with no means of legitimating himself, and under suspicion of a crime, while the real culprit not only comes into pos session of money and jewelry, but also of letters addressed to one Don Gomez, whose daughter Don Pedro is going to marry. The captain loses no time, but presents himself as son-in-law at Don Gomez's house, and is received with open arms by both father and daughter. The unfortunate Don Pedro, who arrives presently, is dismissed as an impostor; and besides, as he is supposed to be Don Gabriel, he is thrown into prison through the interference of a brother of the deserted Dona Violante. In the mean while the latter lady has come to Madrid to seek her faithless lover, and engages as servant to a peasant at Ballekas, whose bread she brings daily for sale to market. She manages to enter her rival's house, to sow dissension between her and Gabriel, to discover his trick, and induce him to give her his hand in marriage. The chief strength of this piece lies in the scenes where the pretended peasant-girl ridicules, with feigned simplicity and in the rustic dialect, town manners, and tells every body the most unpleasant truths; these scenes are among the finest of the comic muse."

After such brilliant predecessors, it is plain that Calderon had a much easier task, as the ground was already prepared for him. In their limited circle, Calderon's comedies are the most perfect in Spanish literature; they are unique pieces, with the most astounding power of combination; but the characters are not elaborated. His chief motives are proverbially called "Calderon's tricks ;" and in the feeling of his poetic invincibility he himself parodies their constant appearance, by saying in one of his plays, "That is a comedy by Don Pedro Calderon, in which there must be a concealed lover and a veiled lady." That murder, vendetta, and other

barbarous acts occur, does not disturb the general merriment, especially as they occasion fresh combinations. His most favourite play is La Dama Duende. In marked contrast to Calderon, Augustin Moreto y Cabaña is very strong in the elaboration of character; and his most celebrated piece, which may still be found in every repertory, is Desden con Desden, the motive being, that the coldness of a woman's heart may be conquered by a still greater coldness, which her lover feigns. Later Spanish writers fell again into what is called the Aristotelian classicism of the French; but at present they are striving to restore the old classical theatre.

French comedy, according to our author, emanated directly from the medieval mysteries; and so far back as the fifteenth century we find three troupes, who each supported a branch of the drama,-the confrérie de la passion, with a clerico-historical tinge; the writers de la Bazoche, who took charge of the moralities; and the enfans suns souci, who undertook the representation of such matters as might be fairly subjected to the criticism of the jester. This description of farce, from which French comedy sprang, gradually emancipated itself from the rule of the Church, and not only satirised the faults and follies of the age, but also distinguished characters, whose names were publicly mentioned. The oldest of these farces is L'Avocat Pathelin, which is still held in pleasant memory, owing to its remarkable vis comica. We may note here that the celebrated phrase, mais revenons à nos moutons, which English authors have worn threadbare, is as old as a scene in this play. French comedy attains its perfection in Molière; and the French are justified in feeling proud of him, although we cannot go quite so far as La Harpe, and declare that Molière and comedy are identical. Molière can no more be blamed for not being always original than can Shakespeare; and we could expect nothing else from his careful study of Plautus and Terence. Thus, his L'Ecole des Maris is an imitation of the Adelphi, and in his L'Avare it is well known that he borrowed largely from the Aulularia of Plautus, In one of his pieces, Georges Dandin, we confess that our moral sense is somewhat offended, for poetical justice demands that the nobly-born wife should not escape so entirely without punishment. On the other hand, the choruses of his advocates, bakers, tailors, and apothecaries, overflow with sparkling wit; and there is nothing in comedy perhaps equal to Le Malade imaginaire, his last play, whose effect is only troubled by the idea that we must ever see the sick Molière in the figure of the malade imaginaire. Voltaire christened Molière le maître des bienséances, and justly so; but his greatness naturally lies deeper. Even when in the Fourberies de Scapin he represents the unhappy father in the sack beaten by the crafty valet,-which scene drew from Boileau the lines:

"Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin t'enveloppe. Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope!" -this is, on the part of Molière the man, no infraction of the proprieties, but rather a lamentable necessity of fate. Although Molière was a flatterer

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of the king, and expressly states that his ambition was "de plaire aux augustes personnes," he does not always spare the highest personages; and his Tartuffe is the most eloquent and praiseworthy testimony to his manly courage and human feelings. Tartuffe is more than a poetic creation; it is a confession of faith penetrated with moral earnestness, and has become a weapon with which people have guarded themselves, since its first representation, against the ravages which priestly hypocrisy produces in families.

"Ces gens, qui par une âme à l'intérêt soumise,

Font de la dévotion métier et marchandise."

The different ways in which Molière expresses jealousy are admirable. Take, for instance, Don Garcia, and compare him with Alceste in Le Misanthrope; or Arnolphe in L'Ecole des Femmes, who cunningly laughs at the misfortune of husbands, and fears nothing so much as to become ridiculous from the same cause; and contrast them with Georges Dandin, whose jealousy is neither the result of love nor the fear of ridicule, but the effect of anger with his well-born wife. Far from thinking of a means to prevent his disgrace, he is most anxious for a proof in the sight of the world, and hence his wish: "Oh ciel! seconde mes dessins, et m'accorde la grace de faire voir aux gens qu'on me déshonore." Comic misunderstandings also heighten the effect of Molière's plays, as in L'Avare, when the latter takes Valère's gradual avowal of his love for the old man's daughter for a confession of the robbery which has been committed on his strong-box. So again in Le Médecin malgré lui, when Sganarelle refers the compliments paid to his supposed medical knowledge to his cleverness in tying up fagots. Who must not laugh too when the miser, in his dislike to utter the word "jeu," even says, "Je vous prête le bonjour;" or when, in a moment of passion, the sentence escapes him: "Je vous donne ma malédiction," and he receives the reply: "Je n'ai que faire de vos dons."

And now a word about Molière's faults,-for he has such, like every mortal man. He is weakest in his catastrophes, and in this resembles the ancients. In that otherwise excellent play, L'Ecole des Femmes, there is a most improbable discovery; in L'Avare the satisfactory finale is produced by a double recognition; in the Fourberies de Scapin two lost children, belonging to different fathers, are found again; in the Misanthrope the end is tragical, even repulsive to our feelings; and in Tartuffe the king's justice is called in to prevent a tragical ending by a lettre de cachet. One of the greatest oversights, in our opinion, will be found in the last-named piece. The crafty, calculating Tartuffe makes his propositions too openly to Orgon's wife; and, worse still, after the humiliating defeat, fails into the same trap again. But, bearing in mind the Horatian maxim, we will not allow our enjoyment of magnificent creations to be disturbed by a few spots.

Since Molière's day, the French have produced more comedies than any other European nation; and though many of them are excellent, they are

not the productions of the most remarkable authors. Regnard is generally supposed to stand next, and only next, to Molière; but a perusal of his L'Héritier Universel, and his Le Joueur, his two most highly-praised pieces, will show that comedy was not his strong point. We might expect in a comedy to see the gambler cured; but no, the most devoted affection is unable to suppress his fearful mania even for a moment, and he consoles himself at the end, over his love-misadventures, with the splendid moral, "Quelque jour le jeu acquittera des pertes de l'amour." Voltaire, so inexhaustible in wit and invention, it is notorious plucked no laurels in comedy. Why was this? Literary history has its enigmas, and this is one of them; attempts have been made to solve it, but they are unsatisfactory. His best comedy, L'Ecossaise, is not his properly, but a translation from the English. Marivaux deserves a word of notice for his peculiarities, for he worked up psychological details with the most painful accuracy; whence indeed originated the well-known word, "Marivaudage." In spite of the simplicity of many of the characters, his comedies are strongly impregnated with the corruption of the age, and immorality too often conceals itself behind the veil of natural simplicity. We cannot say of Marivaux's contemporary, Destouches, that his plays offend the moral feeling; on the contrary, in his desire to preserve it, he has sacrificed the comic element. His characters are types which pass before us in rotation, till the author's entire wallet of invention is exhausted. The forms of l'Ingrat, les Médisants, les Envieux, Curieux, Glorieux, and Ambitieux, of l'Archimenteur and l'Irrésolu, and all the other knights of the sorrowful countenance, pass across the stage in regulation uniform, and have time and opportunity to develop their well-known qualities. His most celebrated pieces are Le Glorieux and Le Philosophe marié ; and justly so. Through his Le Métromane Piron has been ranked among the first comic playwrights of France; and the chief character represented, who is said to contain many traits of the poet himself, is admirably adapted for poetic treatment, owing to the marked contrast which he offers to ordinary society. Tue ideal of this metromaniac is to wander about, like the rhymers and singers of the middle ages, not bound by any duty or business.

"D'état il n'en a point, ni n'en aura jamais;
C'est un homme isolé qui vit en volontaire,
Qui n'est bourgeois, abbé, robin, ni militaire,
Qui va, vient, veille, sue et se tourmentaut bien
Travaille jour et nuit, et jamais ne fait rien.
Au surplus rassemblant dans sa propre personne
Plusieurs originaux qu'en théâtre on nous donne ;
Misanthrope, étourdi, complaisant, glorieux,
Destrait," &c.

The verses flow with much elegance; the plot is very elaborate; the end natural, but unsatisfactory; for pity with the poor uncured rhymer is the prevalent feeling, and the hope is but weak that he will in the end find a haven among his rich uncle's fleshpots. In this respect, Gresset's Méchant offers a more satisfactory finale; but in spite of the excellence

of this piece, we have the same charge to bring against it as against the Tartuffe the chief character goes beyond the border-line of comedy. He is certainly punished by complete defeat and general contempt; but we have to purchase the feeling of satisfaction with fear and trembling, lest he should escape.

Beaumarchais, in his two wonderful comedies, Les Noces de Figaro and Le Barbier de Seville, uses the scalpel upon the corruption of French society in his day; and they both display, in sharp though natural colours, an abyss of immorality, and helped to produce the French Revolution by the contrast they afforded between the antagonistic classes. A piece which can produce such an effect must possess eminent qualities, and we find them in the shape of sharpness, wit, and liveliness in expression, dramatic effects, marked but important contrasts, and a thorough knowledge of the stage. On the other hand, most peaceful and idyllic by the side of these volcanic pieces, stand Collin Harville's comedies; for instance, Le vieux Célibataire and Les Chateaux en Espagne. The later playwrights of France all bow to the sceptre of Scribe, who rules over them like a king; and he is a phenomenon as regards fertility and skill. Some of his comedies, as Bertraud et Ruton, Le Verre d'Eau, Les Contes de la Reine de Navarre, and Une Chaine, are marvels of technical perfection, but they are deficient in the poetic ichor.

We may safely pass over our author's remarks upon English comedy, merely remarking that he is disposed to deny that Shakespeare, in spite of all the praise he bestows on him, was a writer of comedy in the restricted sense of the term. He considers the Merry Wives of Windsor the nearest approach to it, but does not find in that play the same motive for laughter as in others where Falstaff is produced on the stage. To quote Dr. Mähly's own words:

'We find the humour cold and far-fetched; the punishment which thrice befals the poor knight thus loses in the vis comica; and the double action-the abduction and the Falstaffiad-does not harmonise with our ideas of a perfect comedy."

On the other hand, our author cannot speak too highly of the conception of Falstaff's character generally:

"And then, lastly, that incomparable form of Sir John Falstaff, the bloom and acme of the comic element; in it Shakespeare has proved his perfect mastery, and fulfilled Plato's requirement that the true poet must be at once tragic and comic. This hero of matter, in his very appearance a ludicrous figure, would have become in any other hands but Shakespeare's a disgusting caricature; but the poet's art never allows us to go so far as moral repulsion. He gives him all the signs of animal nature, but in no case the stamp of actual crime. This incarnated matter, which moves helplessly before our eyes, presses down with its own weight all other emotions, good or bad. Greedy, sensual, lazy, cowardly, boasting, and mendaciousall that the knight is, is rooted in his own feeling for matter, which demands to be fed and maintained by those qualities. That night-side of human nature, which casts its shadow over each of us, but is suppressed by moral exertion, he publicly and shamelessly displays; and even his dirty wit is in