pass, poetry, and wit, and proverb, and antithesis, all by turns find room. They attract the reader, and rouse his curiosity,* containing oftentimes the true key to the poet's meaning. Let me adduce the following in proof: Life's a Dream- The Two Lovers of Heaven- The Fairy Lady-The Loud SecretWeep, Woman, and conquer-Beware of Still Waters- White Hands can not hurt- The Worst is not always True-Loved and Hated-The Jailer of Himself - Every One for Himself—and it is the same with a vast number of others.†

* On the titles of Calderon's plays, as well as on other matters connected with the subject, there are some good observations in a little essay by Heiberg, De Poëseos dramaticæ genere Hispanico, præsertim de Calderone Dissert. Inauguralis, Hafnia, 1817, p. 16.

† Let me adduce one other isolated point of contact in a note. The shrewd, sensible, worldly, and yet from time to time better than worldly, wisdom which Polonius bestows on his son, now going out into life, is familiar to all. I do not adduce what follows, spoken on exactly a like occasion, as its match; yet none, I think, can read this without being reminded of that, nor without acknowledging that this too was well and worthily said. It is the peasant-magistrate, the Mayor of Zalamea, in Calderon's play of the same name (see p. 41), who speaks; I avail myself of Mr. Fitzgerald's version: "By God's grace, boy, thou com'st of honorable if of humble stock; bear both in mind, so as neither to be daunted from trying to rise, nor puffed up so as to be sure to fall. How many have done away the memory of a defect by carrying themselves modestly; while others, again, have gotten a blemish only by being too proud of being born without one! There is a just humility that will maintain thine own dignity, and yet make thee insensible to many a rub that galls the proud spirit. Be courteous in thy manner, and liberal of thy purse; for 'tis the hand to the bonnet and in the pocket that make friends in this world; of which to gain one good, all the gold the sun breeds in India, or the universal sea sucks down, were a cheap purchase. Speak no evil of

women; I tell thee the meanest of them deserves our respect; for of women do not we all come? Quarrel with no one but with good cause; by the Lord, over and over again, when I see masters and schools of arms among us, I say to myself: 'This is not the thing we want at all, How to fight, but Why to fight that is the lesson we want to learn. And I verily believe if but one master of the Why to fight advertised among us, he would carry off all the scholars.''

CHAPTER III.

THE GENIUS OF CALDERON.

(HIS AUTOS.)

I HAVE spoken more than once of the admiration of Augustus Schlegel for Calderon. While he extends this admiration to all his works, he has reserved his most enthusiastic praise, the loftiest flights of his most passionate eloquence, for the setting out of the glories of his autos. In these he sees, and perhaps justly, the most signal evidences of the poet's genius, his truest title-deeds to immortality.* The passage, which occurs in the Dramatic Lectures, has been often and justly admired; although it must be confessed that, despite of all the pomp and magnificence of words

* Martin Panzano, an Aragonese priest settled in Italy, who about the middle of the last century wrote a brief work in defence of Spanish literature, which he thought unduly depreciated abroad, has expressed himself in the same language. Speaking of Calderon, he says (De Hispanorum Literaturâ, Turin, 1758, p. 75): "Certe inter primi subsellii poëtas clarissimum hunc virum adnumerandum, nemo unus qui ejus libros legerit inficiabitur; præsertim si acta quæ vulgo sacramentalia vocantur diligenter examinet; in quibus neque in inveniendo acumen, nec in disponendo ratio, neque in ornando aut venustas, aut nitor, aut majestas desiderabitur."

which he casts over his theme, the reader not otherwise instructed rises up having learned exceedingly little of what these are, or what in them deserves the praise which sounds to him so extravagant.

Auto, or Act, was a name given at the first to almost any kind of dramatic composition, but in the flourishing period of the Spanish drama was restricted to religious compositions; nor would it be given to all of these, but only to representations in which allegorical persons found place, and which were acted at certain chief festivals of the church. Like each other form of drama which Calderon made his own, it was already, when he arose, a national production, and one deeply rooted in the affections of the nation, as a Christian and still more as a Roman catholic people. He only carried to its highest perfection, and gave its crowning development to, a form of composition which had existed, though certainly in shapes very different from those which it assumed under his hands, almost as long as modern Spain had any literature whatever. For, with all its complex construction, it is yet legitimately descended from the rude medieval mysteries; sacred shows, in which, on certain chief festivals of the church, it was sought to teach the people through their eyes as well as through their ears the leading facts of Scripture history-above all, of the life of Christ and of his saints. "Miracle-plays" these were commonly called with us, and sometimes "mysteries"

a name borrowed from the French, and in modern times generally supposed, but erroneously,* to have been given to them because they set forth the great mysteries of the faith.

We have, indeed, in these rude religious entertainments the germs of the modern drama; for, strange as it may sound to some, it is yet certain that the whole modern drama, not in Spain only, but throughout all Europe, grew up under the wing of the church, and only gradually detached itself from it.† Like the Greek drama, it was religious, and part of a religious service, at its commencement. The process of this its detachment is not very difficult to trace. At the first the church had availed herself gladly of that love of dramatic representation which is so marked a characteristic of all nations at certain epochs of their intellectual and social development; until, that is, it is killed, or rather its place supplied, by the abundance of books, and the widely-diffused power of reading. With rude and ignorant populations, needing to be instructed in the great facts of sacred history, inaccessible through books—craving excitements in the place of those with which their heathen religions once supplied them—needing to be weaned, if possible, from profane feasts, and songs, and dances, by better

* See p. 79.

† On this matter see Alt, Theater und Kirche in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhältniss historisch dargestellt, 8vo, Berlin, 1846.