divided into various classes. First, the romances of Chivalry, which amount in number to upwards of a thousand, and which were at once the delight and instruction of the people. These compositions, which in fact possess more real merit, more sensibility, and more invention than any other poetry of that remote period, have been regarded by the learned with disdain, while the names of their authors have been entirely forgotten. The lyrical poems are animated with great warmth of passion and richness of imagination; but they frequently display traces of too great study and refinement, so that the sentiment suffers by the attempt at fine writing, and concetti usurp the place of true poetical expression. The allegorical pieces were then placed in the first rank, and are those upon which the authors founded their chief claims to glory. From the versification alone we may perceive the high estimation in which this style of writing was held by the poets themselves, since the versos de arte mayor (the highly artificial verse) were always made use of These poems are generally frigid and high-flown imitations. of Dante. as little qualified to rival the Divina Comedia as the Dettamondo of Fazio de' Uberti, or any other of the allegories of his Italian imitators. In the course of four centuries the poetry of Castile made no perceptible progress. If the language had become more polished, and the versification a little more smooth, and if the literary productions of that period had been enriched from the stores of foreign countries, these advantages were more than outweighed by the introduction of pedantry and false taste.

The art of prose composition had likewise made a very slow progress. Some writers of this period have been transmitted to us, particularly the chroniclers; but their style is overloaded and tiresome. Facts are heaped upon facts, and related in involved sentences, the monotony of which equals their want of connexion. Notwithstanding this, they attempt, in imitation of the classical authors, to give the speeches of their heroes. These orations, however, have nothing of the spirit of antiquity about them, no simplicity, and no truth. We seem as if we were listening to the heavy and pedantic speeches of the chancellors, or to the oriental pomp of the Scriptures.

Boutterwek, however, discovers considerable merit in some of the biographical writers, and mentions with praise Gutierre Diez de Gamez, who wrote the Life of Count Pedro Niño de Buelna, one of the most valiant knights of the court of Henry III. The following is the description given by Gamez of the French, after the expedition of Du Guesclin against Peter the Cruel had given him an opportunity of observing that people. "The French are a noble nation; they are wise, prudent, and discreet in all that appertains to a good education, to courtesy, and to good manners. They bestow much pains upon their garments, and dress richly; they attach themselves strongly to

every thing which is proper for them; they are, besides, frank and liberal; they delight in giving pleasure to every one; they honour strangers much; they are skilful in giving praise, and they bestow it freely on noble actions. They are not suspicious; they do not allow their pique or anger to endure long, and they never attack another's honour, in word or deed, unless, perhaps, their own be exposed to danger. They are courteous and graceful in speech; they have much gayety, and take great pleasure in lively conversation, which they much encourage. Both they and the French ladies are of an amorous complexion, upon which they pride themselves."

The Spaniards were thus initiated in epic, lyric, and allegorical poetry, in history, and in philosophy. They advanced in these various pursuits by their own exertions, opening their own way, without the assistance of strangers. Their progress, however, was necessarily slow; and until the period when Charles V. united the rich provinces of Italy to his empire, they derived little assistance from the advanced state of literature in other parts of Europe. They thus became proud of what they owed to their own intellectual exertions. They felt attached to these national objects, and their poetry has, therefore, preserved its own strong and original colours. The drama thus arose among them before they had intermingled with other nations, and being formed on the ancient Castilian taste, and suited to the manners, the habits, and the peculiarities of the people for whom it was intended, it was much more irregular than the drama of the other nations of Europe. It did not display the same learning, nor was it formed upon those ingenious rules to which the Greek philosophers had subjected the art of poetry. Its object was to affect the hearts of the Spaniards, to harmonize with their opinions and customs, and to flatter their national pride. It is on this account, therefore, that neither the satirical remarks of other nations, nor the criticisms of their own men of letters, nor the prizes of their academies, nor the favours of their princes, have ever succeeded in persuading them to adopt a system which, at the present day, is predominant in the rest of Europe.

The Spaniards refer the origin of their drama in the fifteenth century, to three works of a very dissimilar kind: the mysteries represented in the churches, the satirico-pastoral drama entitled Mingo Rebulgo, and the dramatic romance of Calixtus and Melibea, or la Celestina. The Mysteries with which their religious solemnities were accompanied, and in which the most gross buffooneries were introduced into the representations of sacred writ, had incontestably a considerable influence on the Spanish drama. The Autos sacramentales of the most celebrated authors are formed, for the most part, on the model of these pious farces. The text, however, has not been preserved, and we cannot compare them with subsequent attempts. The Mingo Rebulgo,

which was written in the early part of the fifteenth century, during the reign of John II. in order to ridicule that monarch and his court, is rather a political satire in dialogue, than a drama. La Celestina, however, merits the attention of all who wish to trace the true origin of the drama among the moderns. This singular production, the first act of which was written by an anonymous author towards the middle of the fifteenth century, at a period when the Parisians were passionately fond of the Mysteries and Moralities which were represented by the Fraternity of the Passion, and the clerks de la Bazoche, but long before any attempt at dramatic composition in any other of the modern languages, displays much real comic talent. The dialogue is often spirited, lively, and gay; the characters are tolerably drawn; the plot is intelligible and well conducted; and in the language of the lovers there is much warmth, passion, and feeling. The first author left the production incomplete. He excites our interest by his description of the passion with which the beautiful Melibea had inspired the young Calixtus. He apprises us of the obstacles which the relatives of the two lovers had opposed to their union, and he introduces Calixtus to a sorceress, or a sort of confidant called Celestina, who engages to forward his views. The storehouse in which Celestina deposites her philtres and charms is cleverly described, while her artful speeches and the flattery which she bestows on even the meanest domestics are told with great liveliness. In the dialogue, we alike recognise the author's acquaintance with the Latin language, and an imitation of the national manners. The plot was completed by the unknown author, but there was no indication of the catastrophe. Fernand de Rojas, having got possession of this fragment of a comedy about the year 1510, added twenty acts to the first, which was itself very long, and thus extended the drama to a degree which totally excluded its representation. He involves his characters in the most romantic adventures, and gives a tragical conclusion to the drama. Celestina is introduced into the house of Melibæa, where she corrupts the servants by bribes. By her charms and magical arts she deceives the lady, who yields to their influence. Scarcely, however, has she incurred the guilt, than her relations avenge their sullied honour. The domestics, who had been employed by Celestina, perish by the sword or by poison, and she herself is poniarded. Calixtus is likewise killed, and Melibea throws herself from the top of a tower. Thus the romance succeeds to comedy, and the interest which wit excites yields to the spirit of curiosity. Few works, however, have been more successful than this drama, commenced and finished in so different a spirit, at the distance of fifty years, and by two authors unacquainted with one another. Some enthusiastic persons have praised la Celestina, not only as being a masterpiece, in a literary point of view, but as a most moral work. and as the most salutary

lesson ever given to youth to avoid irregularity and vice. Others have, with great reason, asserted that it was more prejudicial to good morals to publish the details of depravity, even for the purpose of stigmatizing them, than to pass them over in silence. The church was consulted, but its decision was not altogether consistent. La Celestina was prohibited in Spain, and approved of in Italy, while numerous translations rendered it known in almost every country. The Spaniards still glory in this national production, which, according to them, opened the career of the drama to the moderns.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Age of Charles V. The Classics of Spain: Boscan; Garcilaso; Mendoza; Miranda; Montemayor.

THE Spanish nation had, for a long period, dissipated its strength in internal contests. It had for four centuries attempted to expel its most industrious inhabitants from its bosom, while it had prodigally expended its blood in aggrandizing alternately the sovereigns of Castile or of Aragon, of Navarre, or of Portugal; or in struggles against their prerogative. This nation, unknown it may almost be said in Europe, and which had taken no part in European politics, became at length united under one crown at the commencement of the sixteenth century. Spain now turned against other nations the prodigious power which had been hitherto confined within her own bosom. While she menaced the liberties of all the rest of Europe, she was deprived of her own, perhaps without remarking the loss, in the agitation of her many victories. Her character sustained an entire change; and at the period when Europe was gazing with astonishment and terror on this phenomenon, her literature, which she formed in the schools of the vanquished nations, shone out in its full brilliancy.

The power of the Spanish nation, at the end of the fifteenth century, had received accessions fully sufficient to shake the equilibrium of Europe. Alfonso V. of Aragon, after having completed the conquest of Naples, had, it is true, left that kingdom to his natural son; and it was not until the year 1504, that Ferdinand the Catholic, by the most revolting treachery, recovered those dominions. Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles had been already united to the crown of Aragon. marriage of Ferdinand with the queen of Castile, without consolidating the two monarchies, gave that ambitious prince the command of all the armies of Spain, of which he speedily

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availed himself in Italy. Grenada was conquered from the Moors in the year 1492, by the united troops of Ferdinand and Isabella. In the same year Christopher Columbus discovered those vast countries, so remarkable for their riches and for their happy situation, in which the Spaniards found a new home, and from whence they drew treasures with which they flattered themselves they should subdue the world. In 1512, Ferdinand, as regent of Castile, conquered Navarre; and the whole of that extensive peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, yielded to the same power. When, in 1516, Charles V. added to this monarchy, the rich and industrious provinces of the Low Countries, his paternal dominions, and in 1519, the Imperial Crown, with the territories inherited from Maximilian, in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, the novelty of this extraordinary power, which so greatly exceeded the authority of any European potentate since the reign of Charlemagne, was certainly sufficient to turn the head of a youthful sovereign, and to inspire him with the fatal project of founding an universal monarchy. The reputation which Charles V. acquired by his victories, the respect and fear with which he impressed all the other nations of Europe, the glory of the Spanish arms, which he triumphantly led into Italy, France, and Germany, into countries whither the standard of Castile had never penetrated, all tended to deceive the Spanish nation, and to inspire them with an enthusiastic attachment to him whom they regarded as their hero, but who was, in fact, studiously endeavouring to subvert their laws and their constitution. The dreams of ambition in which the king and the nation equally indulged, were fatal to both. Charles V. in the midst of his victories, and notwithstanding the immense extent of his territories, was always, in proportion to his situation, weaker and poorer than Ferdinand and Isabella, his immediate predecessors. In every enterprise he was deprived of the fruits which he should have gathered, by the want of soldiers and of money; a want unknown to the former monarchs. The taxes collected from Italy, Spain, Flanders, and Germany. together with all the treasures of the new world, were not sufficient to prevent his troops from disbanding for want of pay. The prodigious levies, which were perpetually making in all the subject states, never enabled him to meet the enemy with superior numbers in the open field; and, although he had succeeded as heir to very large territories, and had acquired others by union with the imperial crown, he did not add a single province to his states by the sword: but was, on the contrary, compelled to contract his hereditary territories on the Turkish frontier. The Spanish nation, the only one among the states subject to him, which he was enabled to preserve from foreign invasion, was, in his minority, despoiled by Cardinal Ximenes of a portion of its privileges. Intoxicated with the victories of their sovereign, they, day by day, surrendered more. The brave knights, who had