patronage of Philip IV; and he lived sixteen years under the more miserable, and if possible, more shameful reign of Charles II. It would be strange indeed if the influence of an epoch so degrading to mankind had not been in some degree communicated to the leading poet of the age. Calderon, in fact, although endowed by nature with a noble genius and the most brilliant imagination, appears to me to be the man of his own age-the wretched epoch of Philip IV. When a nation is so corrupt as to have lost all exaltation of character, it has no longer before its eyes models of true virtue and real grandeur, and, in endeavouring to represent them, it falls into exaggeration. Such to my view is the character of Calderon he oversteps the line in every department of art. Truth is unknown to him, and the ideal which he forms to himself offends us from its want of propriety. There was in the ancient Spanish knights a noble pride, which sprang from a sentiment of affection for that glorious nation in which they were objects of high importance; but the empty haughtiness of the heroes of Calderon increases with the misfortunes of their country, and their own debasement. There was in the manners of the early knights a just estimate of their own character, which prevented affronts, and assured to every one the respect of his equals; but when public and private honour became continually compromised by a corrupt and base court, the

stage represented honour as a point of punctilious delicacy, which, unceasingly wounded, required the most sanguinary satisfaction, and could not long exist without destroying all the bonds of society. The life of a gentleman was, in a manner, made up of duelling and assassination; and if the manners of the nation became brutalized, those of the stage were still more so. In the same way the morals of the female sex were corrupted; intrigue had penetrated beyond the blinds of windows and the grates of the convent, where the younger part of the sex were immured; gallantry had introduced itself into domestic life, and had poisoned the matrimonial state. But Calderon gives to the women he represents a severity proportioned to the relaxation of morals; he paints love wholly in the mind; he gives to passion a character which it cannot support; he loses sight of nature, and aiming at the ideal he produces only exaggeration.

If the manners of the stage were corrupt, its language was still more so. The Spaniards owe to their intercourse with the Arabs a taste for hyperbole and for the most extravagant images. But the manner of Calderon is not borrowed from the East; it is entirely his own, and he goes beyond all flights which his predecessors had allowed themselves. If his imagination furnishes him with a brilliant image, he pursues it through a whole page, and abandons it only through fa

tigue. He links comparison to comparison, and, overcharging his subject with the most brilliant colours, he does not allow its form to be perceived under the multiplied touches which he bestows on it. He gives to sorrow so poetical a language, and makes her seek such unexpected comparisons, and justify their propriety with so much care, that we withhold our compassion from one who is diverted from his griefs by the display of his wit. The affectation and antithesis with which the Italians have been reproached, under the name of concetti, are, in Marini and in the greatest mannerists, simple expressions in comparison with the involved periods of Calderon. We see that he is affected with that malady of genius which forms an epoch in every literature on the extinction of good taste, an epoch which commenced in Rome with Lucan, in Italy with the seicentisti, or poets of the sixteenth century; which distinguished in France the Hôtel de Rambouillet; which prevailed in England under the reign of Charles II; and which all persons have agreed to condemn as a perversion of taste. Examples of this style will crowd on us in the succeeding extracts; but we shall pass them over at the time in order not to suspend the interest; and it will be better to detach a single passage as a speci. men. It is taken from a play in which Alexander, Duke of Parma, relates how he is become the rival of Don Cæsar, his secretary and friend.

* In gallant mood, I sought my sister's bower,
And saw with her and with her ladies there,
My Anna, in a garden of the Loves,
Presiding over every common flower,
A fragrant rose and fair;

Or rather, not to do her beauty wrong,

I saw a star on beds of roses glowing;

Or, midst the stars, the star of morning young
May better tell my love's bright deity;
Or, on the morning stars its light bestowing,

I saw a dazzling sun; or, in the sky,
Midst many brilliant suns of rivalry,

I saw her shine with such a peerless ray,
That heaven was fill'd with that one glorious day.

* Entré galan al quarto de mi hermana,
Y con ella y sus damas ví a dona Ana:
Ví, en un jardin de amores,
Que presidia entre communes flores
La rosa hermosa y bella;

Mal digo, que si bien lo considero,
Yo ví entre muchas rosas una estrella,
O entre muchas estrellas un Lucero ;
Y si mejor en su Deidad reparo,
Prestando a los demas sus arreboles,
Entre muchos Luceros ví un sol claro,
Y al fin ví un cielo para muchos soles.
Y tanto su beldad los excedia,
Que en muchos cielos huvo solo un dia.
Hablando estuvé, en ella divertidos
Los ojos, quanto atentos los oidos;
Porque mostraba, en todo milagrosa
Cuerda belleza en discrecion hermosa.

But when she spoke, then was my soul entranc'd:
Eyes, ears, and every sense in rapture danc'd;
The miracle of nature stood confess'd,

Fair modesty, in modest beauty dress'd.

It could not last: she bade farewell!
But was that evening transient as a dream?
Ask Love; and he will tell how fleet hours seem
Moments, which should be ages; ages well
Might seem but moments, as they speed away!
And when she bade adieu,

With courteous steps I watch'd my love's return.
We parted! Let it now suffice to say,

Loving, I die, and absent, live to mourn!

This language which, if it be allowed to be poetical, is still extremely false, becomes still more misplaced when it is employed to express great passions or great sufferings. In a tragedy, otherwise replete with beautiful passages, and to which we shall return, intitled Amar despues de la Muerte; Love after Death, or rather the revolt of

Despidió se en efecto; si fue breve

La tarde, amor lo diga, que quisiera
Que un siglo intero cada instante fuera ;
Y aun no fuera bastante,

Pues aunque fuera siglo, fuera instante.
La sali acompañando cortesmente,
Y aqui basta decirte

Que muero amante y que padesco ausente.

Nadie fié su secreto. Jorn. 1, t. i. p. 273.