drawn, as was to be expected in a poet so intensely national, and appealing to so intensely national a feeling, from the annals of his own country. These have the immense advantage of being the embodiment, for the most part, of events already familiar to the popular mind. The heroes of Spanish romance and of Spanish history are here brought forward; and not the remoter names alone, but those of the century preceding-Isabella of Castile, Charles V., the Conquistadores, Philip II., Don John of Austria, Alva, Figueroa, and even some of those who were still living when he wrote. It is not easy to measure the effect which in their representation must have attended some of these. The Steadfast Prince, of which, however, the hero is not Spanish, but Portuguese, is the most celebrated among them. Leaving the region of history, and in a world more purely and entirely ideal, Calderon has some exquisite mythological pieces, in which he does not, in Cowley's words, merely serve up "the cold meats of the ancients, new heated, and new set forth;" but the old classical story comes forth new-born in the romantic poetry of the modern world. So is it, for instance, in the exquisitely graceful and fanciful poem, Echo and Narcissus; but, above all, this is true where a Christian idea looks through the mythological symbolism, and informs it with its own life, as in The Statue of Prometheus, and in another founded on the well known legend of Cupid and Psyche. In general, however, it must be owned that these mythological are the weakest among his productions; being, many of them, evidently intended merely as vehicles for show and scenic splendor. They are the works of the poet of the Buen Retiro, the director of the court entertainments. We pass from these to romantic dramas, in which the poet occupies a fable-land altogether of his own creation, as in Life's a Dream, an analysis of which, with large translations, will be found in this volume; or draws on the later Greek romances, as in Theagenes and Chariclea; or on Boiardo and Ariosto; or, it may be, on the prose-tales of chivalry, as in The Bridge of Mantible, on which play Schlegel has bestowed the pains of translation. These form a not inconsiderable group. Then, further, among his Comedias, which is the general title whereby all in Spain that is not either on the one side farce, on the other religious mystery, is called, he has many tragedies, which, by their effectual working on the springs of passion, assert their right to this serious name. Some of these might almost as fitly have been enumerated among his historic compositions. The Spanish drama moves too freely, too nearly resembles the free, spontaneous growths of Nature, to admit of any very easy or very rigorous classification. Like Nature, it continually defies and breaks through all artificial arrangements of its pro ductions, and one must be content to class those under one head which might as well, or nearly as well, be classed under another. Still, as in some of these com positions the tragic, in others the historic element is predominant, they may be arranged, even while they partake of both, according to this predominance. Among the noblest in this kind is Jealousy the Greatest Monster; it is the story of Herod and Mariamne, and a genuine fate-drama, of colossal grandeur in both the conception and execution. The tragedies of a Spaniard writing for Spaniards, which should turn on jealousy, might beforehand be expected to claim especial notice; and indeed Calderon has three or four others in this kind, of shuddering horror, in which the Spanish pundonor is pushed to its bloodiest excess, but the fearful power and immense effect of which it is impossible not to acknowledge. The Physician of his own Honor is one of these, but less horrible, and perhaps therefore more terrible, is another, noticeable likewise as a very masterpiece of construction, For a Secret Wrong a Secret Revenge, which is one of the very highest efforts of his genius.* Hallam, not denying but admitting freely its singular efficiency and power, has yet called it "an atrocious play;" but he seems to me to have missed the point which certainly mitigates its atrocity, namely, that the murdered wife * It is translated into French by Damas Hinard, Chefs d'œuvre du Théâtre Espagnol, t. ii., pp. 157–213. is so far guilty, that she is only waiting the opportunity to be so. Another tragedy, but not of jealousy, Love after Death, is connected with the hopeless rising of the Moriscoes in the Alpujarras (1568-1570), one of whom is its hero. It is, for many reasons, worthy of note; among other, as showing how far Calderon could rise above national prejudices, and expend all the treasures of his genius in glorifying the heroic devotedness of a noble foe. La Niña de Gomez Arias is founded on one of the most popular of Spanish ballads. The scene in this, where Gomez Arias sells to the Moors the mistress of whom he has grown weary, and who now stands in his way, despite her entreaties and reproaches, I should accept as alone sufficient to decide the question whether the deepest springs of passion were his to open. It is nothing strange to hear that on one occasion a poor Spanish alguazil, who was serving as guard of honor on the stage, drew his sword, and rushed among the actors, determined that the outrage should not go on before his eyes. And seeing that Calderon's world seems sometimes to consist too exclusively of the higher classes, and just such of the lower as minister immediately to their pleasures or necessities—the hearty homeliness of England's greatest poets, as of Chaucer and Shakespeare, being only too rare in him-one must not pass over his painful but noble tragedy of humble life, The Mayor of Zalamea.* He has frequently been denied the faculty of drawing characters. Now, that his characters are sometimes deficient in *We owe an admirable translation of this play to Mr. Fitzgerald. I shall have occasion to speak more of his translations hereafter. The speech of Isabella, the humble Lucretia of this tragedy, as she mourns over her mighty wrong, he characterizes as "almost the most elevated and purely beautiful piece of Calderon's poetry he knows; a speech (the beginning of it) worthy the Greek Antigone." As I believe that my readers, even those who do not read Spanish with facility, will yet be obliged for occasional quotations from the original, I will cite so much of this lament as probably Mr. F. alludes to : "Nunca amenezca á mis ojos La luz hermosa del dia, No des lugar á la aurora, La mas enorme maldad, La mas fiera tiranía, Que en venganza de los hombres |