Chapter XXV

DRAMA AFTER CALDERON.--MORETO.--COMEDIAS DE FIGURON.--ROXAS.--PLAYS BY MORE THAN ONE AUTHOR.--CUBILLO.--LEYBA.--CANCER.--ENRIQUEZ GOMEZ.--SIGLER.--ZARATE.--BARRIOS.--DIAMANTE.--HOZ.--MATOS FRAGOSO.--SOLÍS.--CANDAMO.--ZARZUELAS.--ZAMORA.--CAÑIZARES, AND OTHERS.--DECLINE OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.

The most brilliant period of the Spanish drama falls within the reign of Philip the Fourth, which extended from 1621 to 1665, and embraced the last fourteen years of the life of Lope de Vega and the thirty most fortunate years of the life of Calderon. But after this period a change begins to be apparent; for the school of Lope was that of a drama in the freshness and buoyancy of youth, while the school of Calderon belongs to the season of its maturity and gradual decay. Not that this change is strongly marked during Calderon’s life. On the contrary, so long as he lived, and especially during the reign of his great patron, there is little visible decline in the dramatic poetry of Spain; though still, through the crowd of its disciples and amidst the shouts of admiration that followed it on the stage, the symptoms of its coming fate may be discerned.

Of those that divided the favor of the public with their great master, none stood so near to him as Agustin Moreto, of whom we know hardly any thing, except that he lived retired in a religious house at Toledo from 1657, and that he died there in 1669.[685] Three volumes of his plays, however, and a number more never collected into a volume, were printed between 1654 and 1681, though he himself seems to have regarded them, during the greater part of that time, only as specious follies or sins. They are in all the different forms known to the age to which they belong, and, as in the case of Calderon, each form melts imperceptibly into the character of some other. But the theatre was not then so strictly watched as it had been; and the small number of religious plays Moreto has left us are generally connected with known events in history, like “The Most Fortunate Brothers,” which contains the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, both before they were inclosed in the cave and when they awoke from their miraculous repose of two centuries.[686] A few are heroic, such as “The Brave Justiciary of Castile,”--a drama of spirit and power, on the character of Peter the Cruel, though, like most other plays in which he appears, not one in which the truth of history is respected. But, in general, Moreto’s dramas are of the old cavalier class; and when they are not, they take, in order to suit the humor of the time, many of the characteristics of this truly national form.

[685] These few meagre facts, which constitute all we know
about Moreto, are due mainly to Ochoa (Teatro Español, Paris,
1838, 8vo, Tom. IV. p. 248); but the suggestion he makes, that
Moreto was probably concerned in the violent death of Medinilla,
mourned by Lope de Vega in an elegy in the first volume of
his Works, seems to rest on no sufficient proof, and to be
quite inconsistent with the regard felt for Moreto by Lope,
Valdivielso, and other intimate friends of Medinilla. As to
Moreto’s works, I possess his Comedias, Tom. I., Madrid, 1677
(of which Antonio notes an edition in 1654); Tom. II., Valencia,
1676; and Tom. III., Madrid, 1681, all in 4to;--besides which I
have about a dozen of his plays, found in none of them. Calderon,
in his “Astrólogo Fingido,” first printed by his brother in 1637,
alludes to Moreto’s “Lindo Don Diego,” so that Moreto must have
been known as early as that date; and in the “Comedias Escogidas
de los Mejores Ingenios,” Tom. XXXVI., Madrid, 1671, we have
the “Santa Rosa del Perú,” the first two acts of which are said
to have been his last work, the remaining act being by Lanini,
but with no intimation when Moreto wrote his part of it. This
old collection of Comedias Escogidas contains forty-six plays
attributed in whole or in part to Moreto.

[686] “Los mas Dichosos Hermanos.” It is the first play in the
third volume; and though it does not correspond in its story
with the beautiful legend as Gibbon gives it, there is a greater
attempt at the preservation of the truth of history in its
accompaniments than is common in the old Spanish drama.

In one point, however, he made, if not a change in the direction of the drama of his predecessors, yet an advance upon it. He devoted himself more to character-drawing, and often succeeded better in it than they had. His first play of this kind was “The Aunt and the Niece,” printed as early as 1654. The characters are a widow extremely anxious to be married, but foolishly jealous of the charms of her niece, and a vaporing, epicurean officer in the army, who cheats the elder lady with flattery, while he wins the younger. It is curious to observe, however, that the hint for this drama--which is the oldest of the class called _figuron_, from the prominence of one not very dignified _figure_ in it--is yet to be found in Lope de Vega, to whom, as we have seen, is to be traced, directly or indirectly, almost every form of dramatic composition that finally succeeded on the Spanish stage.[687]

[687] Comedias de Lope de Vega, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 16.

Moreto’s next attempt of the same sort is even better known, “The Handsome Don Diego,”--a phrase that has become a national proverb. It sets forth with great spirit the character of a fop, who believes every lady he looks upon must fall in love with him. The very first sketch of him at his morning toilet, and the exhibition of the sincere contempt he feels for the more sensible lover, who refuses to take such frivolous care of his person, are full of life and truth; and the whole ends, with appropriate justice, by his being deluded into a marriage with a cunning waiting-maid, who is passed off upon him as a rich countess.

Some of Moreto’s plays, as, for instance, his “Trampa Adelante,” obtained the name of _gracioso_, because the buffoon is made the character upon whom the action turns; and in one case, at least, he wrote a burlesque farce of no value, taking his subject from the achievements of the Cid. But his general tone is that of the old intriguing comedy; and though he is sometimes indebted for his plots to his predecessors, and especially to Lope, yet, in nearly every instance, and perhaps in every one, he surpassed his model, and the drama he wrote superseded on the public stage the one he imitated.[688]

[688] “The Aunt and the Niece” is from Lope’s “De quando acá
nos vino,” and “It cannot be” from his “Mayor imposible.” There
are good remarks on these and other of Moreto’s imitations in
Martinez de la Rosa, Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. pp.
443-446. But the excuses there given for him hardly cover such a
plagiarism as his “Valiente Justiciero” is, from Lope’s “Infanzon
de Illescas.” As usual, however, in such cases, Moreto improved
upon his model. Cancer y Velasco, a contemporary poet, in a
little _jeu d’esprit_, represents Moreto as sitting down with a
bundle of old plays to see what he can cunningly steal out of
them, spoiling all he steals. (Obras, Madrid, 1761, 4to, p. 113.)
But in this, Cancer was unjust to Moreto’s talent, if not to his
honesty.

This was the case with the best of all his plays, “Disdain met with Disdain,” for the idea of which he was indebted to Lope, whose “Miracles of Contempt” has long been forgotten as an acting play, while Moreto’s still maintains its place on the Spanish stage, of which it is one of the brightest ornaments.[689] The plot is remarkably simple and well contrived. Diana, heiress to the county of Barcelona, laughs at love and refuses marriage, under whatever form it may be urged upon her. Her father, whose projects are unreasonably thwarted by such conduct, induces the best and gayest of the neighbouring princes to come to his court, and engage in tournaments and other knightly sports, in order to win her favor. She, however, treats them all with an equal coldness, and even with a pettish disdain, until, at last, she is piqued into admiration of the Count of Urgel, by his apparent neglect of her charms,--a neglect which he skilfully places on the ground of a contempt like her own for all love, but which, in fact, only conceals a deep and faithful passion for herself.

[689] In 1664 Molière imitated the “Desden con el Desden” in his
“Princesse d’Élide,” which was represented at Versailles by the
command of Louis XIV., with great splendor, before his queen
and his mother, both Spanish princesses. The compliment, as far
as the king was concerned in it, was a magnificent one;--on
Molière’s part, it was a failure, and his play is now no longer
acted. The original drama of Moreto, however, is known wherever
the Spanish language is spoken, and a good translation of it into
German is common on the German stage.

The charm of the piece consists in the poetical spirit with which this design is wrought out. The character of the _gracioso_ is well drawn and well defined, and, as in most Spanish plays, he is his lord’s confidant, and by his shrewdness materially helps on the action. At the opening, after having heard from his master the position of affairs and the humors of the lady, he gives his advice in the following lines, which embody the entire argument of the drama.

My lord, your case I have discreetly heard,
And find it neither wonderful nor new;--
In short, it is an every-day affair.
Why, look ye, now! In my young boyhood, Sir,--
When the full vintage came and grapes were strewed,
Yea, wasted, on the ground,--I had, be sure,
No appetite at all. But afterwards,
When they were gathered in for winter’s use,
And hung aloft upon the kitchen rafters,
Then nothing looked so tempting half as they;
And, climbing cunningly to reach them there,
I caught a pretty fall and broke my ribs.
Now, this, Sir, is your case,--the very same.[690]

[690]
Atento, Señor, he estado,
Y el successo no me admira,
Porque esso, Señor, es cosa,
Que sucede cada dia.
Mira; siendo yo muchacho,
Auia en mi casa vendimia,
Y por el suelo las ubas
Nunca me dauan codicia.
Passó este tiempo, y despues
Colgaron en la cocina
Las ubas para el Inuierno;
Y yo viendolas arriba,
Rabiaua por comer dellas,
Tanto que, trepando un dia
Por alcançarlas, caí,
Y me quebré las costillas.
Este es el caso, el por el.

Jorn. I.

There is an excellent scene, in which the Count, perceiving he has made an impression on the lady’s heart, fairly confesses his love, while she, who is not yet entirely subdued, is able to turn round and treat him with her accustomed disdain; from all which he recovers himself with an address greater than her own, protesting his very confession to have been only a part of the show they were by agreement carrying on. But this confirms the lady’s passion, which at last becomes uncontrollable, and the catastrophe immediately follows. She pleads guilty to a desperate love, and marries him.

Contemporary with Moreto, and nearly as successful as he was among the earlier writers for the stage, was Francisco de Roxas, who flourished during the greater part of Calderon’s life, and may have survived him. He was born in Toledo, and in 1641 was made a knight of the Order of Santiago, but when he died is not known. Two volumes of his plays were published in 1640 and 1645, and in the Prologue to the second he speaks of publishing yet a third, which never appeared; so that we have still only the twenty-four plays contained in these volumes, and a few others that at different times were printed separately.[691] He belongs decidedly to Calderon’s school,--unless, indeed, he began his career too early to be a mere follower; and in poetical merit, if not in dramatic skill, takes one of the next places after Moreto. But he is very careless and unequal. His plays entitled “He who is a King must not be a Father” and “The Aspics of Cleopatra” are as extravagant as almost any thing in the Spanish heroic drama; while, on the other hand, “What Women really are” and “Folly rules here” are among the most effective of the class of intriguing plays.[692]

[691] Both volumes of the Comedias de Roxas were reprinted,
Madrid, 1680, 4to, and both their _Licencias_ are dated on the
same day; but the publisher of the first, who dedicates it to a
distinguished nobleman, is the same person to whom the second is
dedicated by the printer of both. _Autos_ of Roxas may be found
in “Autos, Loas, etc.,” 1655, and in “Navidad y Corpus Christi
Festejados,” collected by Pedro de Robles, 1664. But they are no
better than those of his contemporaries generally.

[692] His “Persiles y Sigismunda” is from Cervantes’s novel of
the same name. On the other hand, his “Casarse por vengarse” is
plundered, without ceremony, for the story of “Le Mariage de
Vengeance,” (Gil Blas, Liv. IV. c. 4), by Le Sage, who never
neglected a good opportunity of the sort.

His best, however, and one that has always kept its place on the stage, is called “None below the King.” The scene is laid in the troublesome times of Alfonso the Eleventh, and is in many respects true to them. Don Garcia, the hero, is a son of Garci Bermudo, who had conspired against the father of the reigning monarch, and, in consequence of this circumstance, Garcia lives concealed as a peasant at Castañar, near Toledo, very rich, but unsuspected by the government. In a period of great anxiety, when the king wishes to take Algeziras from the Moors, and demands, for that purpose, free contributions from his subjects, those of Garcia are so ample as to attract especial attention. The king inquires who is this rich and loyal peasant; and his curiosity being still further excited by the answer, he determines to visit him at Castañar, _incognito_, accompanied by only two or three favored courtiers. Garcia, however, is privately advised of the honor that awaits him, but, from an error in the description, mistakes the person of one of the attendants for that of the king himself.

On this mistake the plot turns. The courtier whom Garcia wrongly supposes to be the king falls in love with Blanca, Garcia’s wife; and, in attempting to enter her apartments by night, when he believes her husband to be away, is detected by the husband in person. Now, of course, comes the struggle between Spanish loyalty and Spanish honor. Garcia can visit no vengeance on a person whom he believes to be his king; and he has not the slightest suspicion of his wife, whom he knows to be faithfully and fondly attached to him. But the remotest appearance of an intrigue demands a bloody satisfaction. He determines, therefore, at once, on the death of his loving wife. Amidst his misgivings and delays, however, she escapes, and is carried to court, whither he himself is, at the same moment, called to receive the greatest honors that can be conferred on a subject. In the royal presence, he necessarily discovers his mistake regarding the king’s person. From this moment, the case becomes perfectly plain to him, and his course perfectly simple. He passes instantly into the antechamber. With a single blow his victim is laid at his feet; and he returns, sheathing his bloody dagger, and offering, as his only and sufficient defence, an account of all that had happened, and the declaration, which gives its name to the play, that “none below the king” can be permitted to stand between him and the claims of his honor.

Few dramas in the Spanish language are more poetical; fewer still, more national in their tone. The character of Garcia is drawn with great vigor, and with a sharply defined outline. That of his wife is equally well designed, but is full of gentleness and patience. Even the clown is a more than commonly happy specimen of the sort of parody suitable to his position. Some of the descriptions, too, are excellent. There is a charming one of rustic life, such as it was fancied to be under the most favorable circumstances in Spain’s best days; and, at the end of the second act, there is a scene between Garcia and the courtier, at the moment the courtier is stealthily entering his wife’s apartment, in which we have the struggle between Spanish honor and Spanish loyalty given with a picturesqueness and spirit that leave little to be desired. In short, if we set aside the best plays of Lope de Vega and Calderon, it is one of the most effective of the old Spanish dramas.[693]

[693] “Del Rey abaxo Ninguno” has been sometimes printed with the
name of Calderon, who might well be content to be regarded as its
author; but there is no doubt who wrote it. It is, however, among
the Comedias Sueltas of Roxas, and not in his collected works.

Roxas was well known in France. Thomas Corneille imitated, and almost translated, one of his plays; and as Scarron, in his “Jodelet,” did the same with “Where there are real Wrongs there is no Jealousy,” the second comedy that has kept its place on the French stage is due to Spain, as the first tragedy and the first comedy had been before it.[694]

[694] T. Corneille’s play is “Don Bertrand de Cigarral,” (Œuvres,
Paris, 1758, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 209), and his obligations are
avowed in the Dedication. Scarron’s “Jodelet” (Œuvres, Paris,
1752, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 73) is a spirited comedy, desperately
indebted to Roxas. But Scarron constantly borrowed from the
Spanish theatre.

Like many writers for the Spanish theatre, Roxas prepared several of his plays in conjunction with others. Franchi, in his eulogy on Lope de Vega, who indulged in this practice as the rest did, complains of it, and says a drama thus compounded is more like a conspiracy than a comedy, and that such performances were, in their different parts, necessarily unequal and dissimilar. But this was not the general opinion of his age; and that the complaint is not always well founded, we know, not only from the example of Beaumont and Fletcher, but from the success that has attended the composition of many dramas in France in the nineteenth century by more than one person. It should not be forgotten, also, that in Spain, where, from the very structure of the national drama, the story was of so much consequence, and where so many of the characters had standing attributes assigned to them, such joint partnerships were more easily carried through with success than they could be on any other stage. At any rate, they were more common there than they have ever been elsewhere.[695]

[695] Three persons were frequently employed on one drama,
dividing its composition among them, according to its three
regular _jornadas_. In the large collection of Comedias printed
in the latter half of the seventeenth century, in forty-eight
volumes, there are, I think, about thirty such plays. Two are by
six persons each. One, in honor of the Marquis Cañete, is the
work of nine different poets, but it is not in any collection; it
is printed separately, and better than was usual, Madrid, 1622,
4to.

Alvaro Cubillo, who alludes to Moreto as his contemporary, and who was perhaps known even earlier as a successful dramatist, says, in 1654, that he had already written a hundred plays. But the whole of this great number, except ten published by himself, and two or three others that appeared, if we may judge by his complaints, without his permission, are now lost. Of those he published himself, “The Thunderbolt of Andalusia,” in two parts, taken from the old ballads about the Children of Lara, was much admired in his lifetime; but “The Bracelets of Marcela,” a simple comedy, resting on the first childlike love of a young girl, has since quite supplanted it. One of his plays, “El Señor de Noches Buenas,” was early printed as Antonio de Mendoza’s, but Cubillo at once made good his title to it; and yet, after the death of both, it was inserted anew in Mendoza’s works;--a striking proof of the great carelessness long common in Spain on the subject of authorship.

None of Cubillo’s plays has high poetical merit, though several of them are pleasant, easy, and natural. The best is “The Perfect Wife,” in which the gentle and faithful character of the heroine is drawn with skill, and with a true conception of what is lovely in woman’s nature. Two of his religious plays, on the other hand, are more than commonly extravagant and absurd; one of them--“Saint Michael”--containing, in the first act, the story of Cain and Abel; in the second, that of Jonah; and in the third, that of the Visigoth king, Bamba, with a sort of separate conclusion in the form of a vision of the times of Charles the Fifth and his three successors.[696]

[696] The plays of Cubillo that I have seen are,--ten in his
“Enano de las Musas” (Madrid, 1654, 4to); five in the Comedias
Escogidas, printed as early as 1660; and perhaps two or
three more scattered elsewhere. The “Enano de las Musas” is
a collection of his works, containing many ballads, sonnets,
etc., and an allegorical poem on “The Court of the Lion,” which,
Antonio says, was published as early as 1625, and which seems to
have been liked and to have gone through several editions. But
none of Cubillo’s poetry is so good as his plays. See Prólogo and
Dedication to the Enano, and Montalvan’s list of writers for the
stage at the end of his “Para Todos.”

But the Spanish stage, as we advance in Calderon’s life, becomes more and more crowded with dramatic authors, all eager in their struggles for popular favor. One of them was Antonio de Leyba, whose “Mutius Scævola” is an absurdly constructed and wild historical play; while, on the contrary, his “Honor the First Thing” and “The Lady President” are pleasant comedies, enlivened with short stories and apologues, which he wrote with great naturalness and point.[697] Another dramatist was Cancer y Velasco, whose poems are better known than his plays, and whose “Muerte de Baldovinos” runs more into caricature and broad farce than was commonly tolerated in the court theatre.[698] And yet others were Antonio Enriquez Gomez, son of a Portuguese Jew, who inserted in his “Moral Evenings with the Muses”[699] four plays, all of little value, except “The Duties of Honor”;--Antonio Sigler de Huerta, who wrote “No Good to Ourselves without Harm to Somebody Else”;--and Zabaleta, who, though he made a satirical and harsh attack upon the theatre, could not refuse himself the indulgence of writing for it.[700]

[697] There are a few of Leyba’s plays in Duran’s collection,
and in the Comedias Escogidas, and I possess a few of them in
pamphlets. But I do not know how many he wrote, and I have no
notices of his life. He is sometimes called Francisco de Leyba;
unless, indeed, there were two of the same surname.

[698] Obras de Don Gerónimo Cancer y Velasco, Madrid, 1761, 4to.
The first edition is of 1651, and Antonio sets his death at 1654.
The “Muerte de Baldovinos” is in the Index of the Inquisition,
1790; as is also his “Vandolero de Flandes.” A play, however,
which he wrote in conjunction with Pedro Rosete and Antonio
Martinez, was evidently intended to conciliate the Church,
and well calculated for its purpose. It is called “El Mejor
Representante San Gines,” and is found in Tom. XXIX., 1668, of
the Comedias Escogidas,--San Gines being a Roman actor, converted
to Christianity, and undergoing martyrdom in the presence of
the spectators in consequence of being called on to act a play
written by Polycarp, which was ingeniously constructed so as to
defend the Christians. The tradition is absurd enough certainly,
but the drama may be read with interest throughout, and parts of
it with pleasure. It has a love-intrigue brought in with skill.
Cancer, I believe, wrote plays without assistance only once or
twice. Certainly, twelve written in conjunction with Moreto,
Matos Fragoso, and others, are all by him that are found in the
Comedias Escogidas.

[699] “Academias Morales de las Musas,” Madrid, 4to, 1660; but my
copy was printed at Barcelona, 1704, 4to.

[700] Flor de las Mejores Comedias, Madrid, 1652, 4to. Baena,
Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 227. A considerable number of the
plays of Zabaleta may be seen in the forty-eight volumes of the
Comedias Escogidas, 1652, etc. One of them, “El Hijo de Marco
Aurelio,” on the subject of the Emperor Commodus, was acted in
1644, and, as the author tells us, being received with little
favor, and complaints being made that it was not founded in
truth, he began at once a life of that Emperor, which he calls
a translation from Herodian, but which has claims neither to
fidelity in its version, nor to purity in its style. It remained
long unfinished, until one morning in 1664, waking up and finding
himself struck entirely blind, he began, “as on an elevation,”
to look round for some occupation suited to his solitude and
affliction. His play had been printed in 1658, in the tenth
volume of the Comedias Escogidas, and he now completed the work
that was to justify it, and published it in 1666, announcing
himself on the title-page as a royal chronicler. But it failed,
as his drama had failed before it. In the “Vexámen de Ingenios”
of Cancer, where the failure of another of Zabaleta’s plays is
noticed, (Obras de Cancer, Madrid, 1761, 4to, p. 111), a punning
epigram is inserted on his personal ugliness, the amount of
which is, that, though his play was dear at the price paid for a
ticket, his face would repay the loss to those who should look on
it.

If we now turn from these to a few whose success was more strongly marked, none presents himself earlier than Fernando de Zarate, a poet who was occasionally misled by the fashion and bad taste of his time, and occasionally resisted and rebuked it. Thus, in his best play, “What Jealousy drives Men to do,” there is no trace of Gongorism, while this eminently Spanish folly is very obvious in his otherwise good drama, “He that talks Most does Least,” and even in his “Presumptuous and Beautiful,” which has continued to be acted down to our own days.[701]

[701] The plays of Zarate are, I believe, easiest found in
the Comedias Escogidas, where twenty-two of them occur;--the
earliest in Tom. XV., 1661; and “La Presumida y la Hermosa,” in
Tom. XXIII., 1666. In the Index Expurgatorius of 1792, p. 288,
it is intimated that Fernando de Zarate is the same person with
Antonio Enriquez Gomez;--a mistake founded, probably, on the
circumstance, that a play of Enriquez Gomez, who was a Jew, was
printed with the name of Zarate attached to it, as others of his
plays were printed with the name of Calderon. Amador de los Rios,
Judios de España, Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 575.

Another of the writers for the theatre at this time was Miguel de Barrios, one of those unhappy children of Israel, who, under the terrors of the Inquisition, concealed their religion and suffered some of the worst penalties of unbelief from the jealous intolerance which everywhere watched them. His family was Portuguese, but he himself was born in Spain, and served long in the Spanish armies. At last, however, when he was in Flanders, the temptations to a peaceful conscience were too strong for him. He escaped to Amsterdam, and died there in the open profession of the faith of his fathers about the year 1699. His plays were printed as early as 1665, but the only one worth notice is “The Spaniard in Oran”; longer than it should be, but not without merit.[702]

[702] His “Coro de las Musas,” at the end of which his plays are
commonly added separately, was printed at Brussels in 1665, 4to,
and in 1672. In my copy, which is of the first edition, and which
once belonged to Mr. Southey, is the following characteristic
note in his handwriting: “Among the Lansdowne MSS. is a volume
of poems by this author, who, being a ‘New Christian,’ was happy
enough to get into a country where he could profess himself
a Jew.” There is a long notice of him in Barbosa, Biblioteca
Lusitana, Tom. III. p. 464, and a still longer one in Amador de
los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, pp. 608, etc.

Diamante was among those who wrote dramas especially accommodated to the popular taste, while Calderon was still at the height of his reputation. Their number is considerable. Two volumes were collected by him and published in 1670 and 1674, and yet others still remain in scattered pamphlets and in manuscript.[703] They are in all the forms, and in all the varieties of tone, then in favor. Some of them, like “Santa Teresa,” are religious. Others are historical, like “Mary Stuart.” Others are taken from the old national traditions, like “The Siege of Zamora,” which is on the same subject with the second part of Guillen de Castro’s “Cid,” but much less poetical. Others are _zarzuelas_, or dramas chiefly sung, of which the best specimen by Diamante is his “Alpheus and Arethusa,” prepared with an amusing _loa_ in honor of the Constable of Castile. There are more in the style of the _capa y espada_ than in any other. But none of them has any marked merit. The one that has attracted most attention, out of Spain, is “The Son honoring his Father”; a play on the quarrel of the Cid with Count Lozano, which, from a mistake of Voltaire, was long thought to have been the model of Corneille’s “Cid,” while in fact the reverse is true; since Diamante’s play was produced above twenty years after the great French tragedy, and is deeply indebted to it.[704] Like most of the dramatists of his time, Diamante was a follower of Calderon, and inclined to the more romantic side of his character and school; and, like so many Spanish poets of all times, he finished his career in religious seclusion. Of the precise period of his death no notice has been found, but it was probably near the end of the century.

[703] The “Comedias de Diamante” are in two volumes, 4to, Madrid,
1670 and 1674; but in the first volume eight plays are paged
together, and for the four others there is a separate paging;
though, as the whole twelve are recognized in the _Tassa_ and in
the table of contents, they are no doubt all his.

[704] The “Cid” of Corneille dates from 1636, and Diamante’s
“Honrador de su Padre” is found earliest in the eleventh volume
of the Comedias Escogidas, licensed 1658. Indeed, it may be well
doubted whether Diamante was a writer for the stage so early as
1636; for I find no play of his printed before 1657. Another
play on the subject of the Cid, partly imitated from this one of
Diamante, and with a similar title,--“Honrador de sus Hijas,”--is
found in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIII., 1662. Its author
is Francisco Polo, of whom I know only that he wrote this drama,
whose merit is very small, and whose subject is the marriage of
the daughters of the Cid with the Counts of Carrion, and their
subsequent ill-treatment by their husbands, etc.

Passing over such writers of plays as Monroy, Monteser, Cuellar, and not a few others, who flourished in the latter half of the seventeenth century, we come to a pleasant comedy entitled “The Punishment of Avarice,” written by Juan de la Hoz, a native of Madrid, who was made a knight of Santiago in 1653, and Regidor of Burgos in 1657, after which he rose to good offices about the court, and was living there as late as 1689. How many plays he wrote, we are not told; but the only one now remembered is “The Punishment of Avarice.” It is founded on the third tale of María de Zayas, which bears the same name, and from which its general outline and all the principal incidents are taken.[705] But the miser’s character is much more fully and poetically drawn in the drama than it is in the story. Indeed, the play is one of the best specimens of character-drawing on the Spanish stage, and may, in many respects, bear a comparison with the “Aulularia” of Plautus, and the “Avare” of Molière.

[705] Huerta, who reprints the “Castigo de la Miseria” in the
first volume of his “Teatro Hespañol,” expresses a doubt as to
who is the inventor of the story, Hoz or María de Zayas. But
there is no question about the matter. The “Novelas” were printed
at Zaragoza, 1637, 4to, and their _Aprobacion_ is dated in 1635.
See, also, Baena’s “Hijos de Madrid,” Tom. III. p. 271. In the
Prólogo to Candamo’s plays, (Madrid, Tom. I., 1722), Hoz is said
to have written the third act of Candamo’s “San Bernardo,” left
unfinished at its author’s death in 1704. If this were the case,
Hoz must have lived to a good old age.

The sketch of the miser by one of his acquaintance in the first act, ending with “He it was who first weakened water,” is excellent; and, even to the last scene, where he goes to a conjurer to recover his lost money, the character is consistently maintained and well developed.[706] He is a miser throughout; and, what is more, he is a Spanish miser. The moral is better in the prose tale, as the _intrigante_, who cheats him into a marriage with herself, is there made a victim of her crimes no less than he is; while in the drama she profits by them, and comes off with success at last,--a strange perversion of the original story, which it is not easy to explain. But in poetical merit there is no comparison between the two.

[706] The first of these scenes is taken, in a good degree, from
the “Novelas,” ed. 1637, p. 86; but the scene with the astrologer
is wholly the poet’s own, and parts of it are worthy of Ben
Jonson. It should be added, however, that the third act of the
play is technically superfluous, as the action really ends with
the second. But we could not afford to part with it, so full is
it of spirit and humor.

Juan de Matos Fragoso, a Portuguese, who lived in Madrid at the same time with Diamante and Hoz, and died in 1692, enjoyed quite as much reputation with the public as they did, though he often writes in the very bad taste of the age. But he never printed more than one volume of his dramas, so that they are now to be sought chiefly in separate pamphlets, and in collections made for other purposes than the claims of the individual authors found in them. Those of his dramas which are most known are his “Mistaken Experiment,” founded on the “Impertinent Curiosity” of the first part of Don Quixote; his “Fortune through Contempt,” a better-managed dramatic fiction; and his “Wise Man in Retirement and Peasant by his own Fireside,” which is commonly accounted the best of his works.

“The Captive Redeemer,” however, in which he was assisted by another well-known author of his time, Sebastian de Villaviciosa, is on many accounts more picturesque and attractive. It is, he says, a true story. It is certainly a heart-rending one, founded on an incident not uncommon during the barbarous wars carried on between the Christians in Spain and the Moors in Africa,--relics of the fierce hatreds of a thousand years.[707] A Spanish lady is carried into captivity by a marauding party, who land on the coast for plunder and instantly escape with their prey. Her lover, in despair, follows her, and the drama consists of their adventures till both are found and released. Mingled with this sad story, there is a sort of underplot, which gives its name to the piece, and is very characteristic of the state of the theatre and the demands of the public, or at least of the Church. A large bronze statue of the Saviour is discovered to be in the hands of the infidels. The captive Christians immediately offer the money, sent as the price of their own freedom, to rescue it from such sacrilege; and, at last, the Moors agree to give it up for its weight in gold; but when the value of the thirty pieces of silver, originally paid for the person of the Saviour himself, has been counted into one scale, it is found to outweigh the massive statue in the other, and enough is still left to purchase the freedom of the captives, who, in offering their ransoms, had, in fact, as they supposed, offered their own lives. With this triumphant miracle the piece ends. Like the other dramas of Fragoso, it is written in a great variety of measures, which are managed with skill and are full of sweetness.[708]

[707] I have already noticed plays of Lope and Cervantes that set
forth the cruel condition of Christian Spaniards in Algiers, and
must hereafter notice the great influence this state of things
had on Spanish romantic fiction. But it should be remembered
here, that many dramas were founded on it, besides those I
have had occasion to mention. One of the most striking is by
Moreto, which has some points of resemblance to the one spoken
of in the text. It is called “El Azote de su Patria,” (Comedias
Escogidas, Tom. XXXIV., 1670),--and is filled with the cruelties
of a Valencian renegade, who seems to have been an historical
personage.

[708] In the Comedias Escogidas, there are, at least, twenty-five
plays written wholly or in part by Matos, the earliest of which
is in Tom. V., 1653. From the conclusion of his “Pocos bastan si
son Buenos,” (Tom. XXXIV., 1670), and, indeed, from the local
descriptions in other parts of it, there can be no doubt that
Matos Fragoso was at one time in Italy, and very little that
this drama was written at Naples, and acted before the Spanish
Viceroy there. One volume of the plays of Matos Fragoso, called
the first, was printed at Madrid, 1658, 4to. Other separate plays
are in Duran’s collection, but not, I think, the best of them.
Villaviciosa wrote a part of “Solo el Piadoso es mi Hijo,” of “El
Letrado del Cielo,” of “El Redentor Cautivo,” etc. The apologue
of the barber, in the second act of the last, is, I think, taken
from one of Leyba’s plays, but I have it not now by me to refer
to, and such things were too common at the time on a much larger
scale to deserve notice, except as incidental illustrations of a
well-known state of literary morals in Spain. Fragoso’s life is
in Barbosa, Tom. II. pp. 695-697. I have eighteen of his plays in
separate pamphlets, besides those in the Comedias Escogidas.

The last of the good writers for the Spanish stage with its old attributes is Antonio de Solís, the historian of Mexico. He was born on the 18th of July, 1610, in Alcalá de Henares, and completed his studies at the University of Salamanca, where, when only seventeen years old, he wrote a drama. Five years later he had given to the theatre his “Gitanilla” or “The Pretty Gypsy Girl,” founded on the story of Cervantes, or rather on a play of Montalvan borrowed from that story;--a graceful fiction, which has been constantly reproduced in one shape or another, ever since it first appeared from the hand of the great master. “One Fool makes a Hundred”--a pleasant _figuron_ play of Solís, which was soon afterwards acted before the court--has less merit, and is somewhat indebted to the “Don Diego” of Moreto. But, on the other hand, his “Love à la Mode,” which is all his own, is among the good plays of the Spanish stage, and furnished materials for one of the best of Thomas Corneille’s.

In 1642, Solís prepared, for a festival at Pamplona, a dramatic entertainment on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the tone of the Spanish national theatre is fantastically confounded with the genius of the old Grecian mythology, even more than was common in similar cases; but the whole ends, quite contrary to all poetical tradition, by the rescue of Eurydice from the infernal regions, with an intimation that a second part would follow, whose conclusion would be tragical;--a promise which, like so many others of the same sort in Spanish literature, was never fulfilled.

As his reputation increased, Solís was made one of the royal secretaries, and, while acting in this capacity, wrote an allegorical drama, partly resembling a morality of the elder period, and partly a modern masque, in honor of the birth of one of the princes, which was acted in the palace of the Buen Retiro. The title of this wild, but not unpoetical, opera is “Triumphs of Love and Fortune”; and Diana and Endymion, Psyche and Venus, Happiness and Adversity, are among its dramatic personages; though a tone of honor and gallantry is as consistently maintained in it, as if its scene were laid at Madrid, and its characters taken from the audience that witnessed the performance. It is the more curious, however, from the circumstance, that the _loa_, the _entremeses_, and the _saynete_, with which it was originally accompanied, are still attached to it, all written by Solís himself.[709]

[709] The “Triunfos de Amor y Fortuna” appeared as early as 1660,
in Tom. XIII. of the Comedias Escogidas.

In this way he continued, during the greater part of his life, one of the favored writers for the private theatre of the king and the public theatres of the capital; the dramas he produced being almost uniformly marked by a skilful complication of their plots, which were not always original, and by a purity of style and harmony of versification which were quite his own. But at last, like many other Spanish poets, he began to think such occupations sinful; and, after much deliberation, he resolved on a life of religious retirement, and submitted to the tonsure. From this time he renounced the theatre. He even refused to write _autos sacramentales_, when he was applied to, in the hope that he might be willing to become a successor to the fame and fortunes of his great master; and, giving up his mind to devout meditation and historical studies, seems to have lived contentedly, though in seclusion and poverty, till his death, which happened in 1686. A volume of his minor poems, published afterwards, which are in all the forms then fashionable, has little value, except in a few short dramatic entertainments, several of which are characteristic and amusing.[710]

[710] The “Varias Poesías” of Solís were edited by Juan de
Goyeneche, who prefixed to them an ill-written life of their
author, and published them at Madrid, 1692 (4to). His Comedias
were first printed in Madrid, 1681, as Tom. XLVII. of the
Comedias Escogidas. The “Gitanilla,” of which I have said that
it has been occasionally reproduced from Cervantes, is to be
found in the “Spanish Gypsy” of Rowley and Middleton; in the
“Preciosa,” a pleasant German play by P. A. Wolff; and in Victor
Hugo’s “Notre Dame de Paris”; besides which certain resemblances
to it in the “Spanish Student” of Professor Longfellow are
noticed by the author.

Later than Solís, but still partly his contemporary, was Francisco Banzes Candamo. He was a gentleman of ancient family, and was born in 1662, in Asturias,--that true soil of the old Spanish cavaliers. His education was careful, if not wise; and he was early sent to court, where he received, first a pension, and afterwards several important offices in the financial administration, whose duties, it is said, he fulfilled with good faith and efficiency. But at last the favor of the court deserted him; and he died in 1704, under circumstances of so much wretchedness, that he was buried at the charge of a religious society in the place to which he had been sent in disgrace.

His plays, or rather two volumes of them, were printed in 1722; but in relation to his other poems, a large mass of which he left to the Duke of Alva, we only know, that, long after their author’s death, a bundle of them was sold for a few pence, and that an inconsiderable collection of such of them as could be picked up from different sources was printed in a small volume in 1729.[711] Of his plays, those which he most valued are on historical subjects,[712] such as “The Recovery of Buda” and “For his King and his Lady.” He wrote for the theatre, however, in other forms, and several of his dramas are curious, from the circumstance that they are tricked out with the _loas_ and _entremeses_ which served originally to render them more attractive to the multitude. Nearly all his plots are ingenious, and, though involved, are more regular in their structure than was common at the time. But his style is swollen and presumptuous, and there is, notwithstanding their ingenuity, a want of life and movement in most of his plays that prevented them from being effective on the stage.

[711] Candamo’s plays, entitled “Poesías Cómicas, Obras
Póstumas,” were printed at Madrid, in 1722, in 2 vols., 4to.
His miscellaneous poems, “Poesías Lyricas,” were published in
Madrid, in 18mo, but without a date on the title-page, while
the Dedication is of 1729, the _Licencias_ of 1720, and the _Fe
de Erratas_, which ought to be the latest of all, is of 1710.
This, however, is a specimen of the confusion of such matters
in Spanish books; a confusion which, in the present instance,
is carried into the contents of the volume itself, the whole of
which is entitled “Poesías Lyricas,” though it contains idyls,
epistles, ballads, and part of _three_ cantos of an epic on the
expedition of Charles V. against Tunis; _nine_ cantos having been
among the papers left by its author to the Duke of Alva. The life
of Candamo, prefixed to the whole, is very poorly written. Huerta
(Teatro, Parte III. Tom. II. p. 196) says he himself bought a
large mass of Candamo’s poetry, including _six_ cantos of this
epic, for two rials; no doubt, a part of the manuscripts left to
the Duke.

[712] He boasts of it in the opening of his “Cesar Africano.”

Candamo, however, should be noted as having given a decisive impulse to a form of the drama which was known before his time, and which served at last to introduce the genuine opera; I mean the _zarzuela_, which took its name from that of one of the royal residences near Madrid, where they were represented with great splendor for the amusement of Philip the Fourth, by command of his brother Ferdinand.[713] They are, in fact, plays of various kinds,--shorter or longer; _entremeses_ or full-length comedies;--but all in the national tone, and yet all accompanied with music.

[713] At first, only airs were introduced into the play, but
gradually the whole was sung. (Ponz, Viage de España, Madrid,
12mo, Tom. VI., 1782, p 152. Signorelli, Storia dei Teatri,
Napoli, 1813, 8vo, Tom. IX. p. 194.) One of these _zarzuelas_,
in which the portions that were sung are distinguished from the
rest, is to be found in the “Ocios de Ignacio Alvarez Pellicer
de Toledo,” s. l. 1635, 4to, p. 26. Its tendency to approach
the Italian opera is apparent in its subject, which is “The
Vengeance of Diana,” as well as in the treatment of the story, in
the theatrical machinery, etc.; but it has no poetical merit. A
small volume, by Andres Dávila y Heredia, (Valencia, 1676, 12mo),
called “Comedia sin Música,” seems intended, by its title, to
ridicule the beginnings of the opera in Spain; but it is a prose
satire, of little consequence in any respect. See _ante_, pp.
160, 237, 361, 399.

The first attempt to introduce dramatic performances with music was made, as we have seen, about 1630, by Lope de Vega, whose eclogue “Selva sin Amor,” wholly sung, was played before the court, with a showy apparatus of scenery prepared by Cosmo Lotti, an Italian architect, and “was a thing,” says the poet, “new in Spain.” Short pieces followed soon afterward, _entremeses_, that were sung in place of the ballads between the acts of the plays, and of which Benavente was the most successful composer before 1645, when his works were first published. But the earliest of the full-length plays that was ever sung was Calderon’s “Púrpura de la Rosa,” which was produced before the court in 1659, on occasion of the marriage of Louis the Fourteenth with the Infanta Maria Theresa,--a compliment to the distinguished personages of France who had come to Spain in honor of that great solemnity, and whom it was thought no more than gallant to amuse with something like the operas of Quinault and Lulli, which were then the most admired entertainments of the court of France.

From this time, as was natural, there was a tendency to introduce singing on the Spanish stage, both in full-length comedies and in farces of all kinds;--a tendency which is apparent in Matos Fragoso, in Solís, and in most of the other writers contemporary with the latter part of Calderon’s career. At last, under the management of Diamante and Candamo, a separate form of the drama grew up, the subjects for which were generally taken from ancient mythology, like those of the “Circe” and “Arethusa”; and when they were not so taken, as in Diamante’s “Birth of Christ,” they were still treated in a manner much like that observed in the treatment of their fabulous predecessors.

From this form of the drama to that of the proper Italian opera was but a step, and one the more easily taken, as, from the period when the Bourbon family succeeded the Austrian on the throne, the national characteristics heretofore demanded in whatever appeared on the Spanish stage had ceased to enjoy the favor of the court and the higher classes. As early as 1705, therefore, something like an Italian opera was established at Madrid, where, with occasional intervals of suspension and neglect, it has ever since maintained a doubtful existence, and where, of course, the old _zarzuelas_ and their kindred musical farces have been more and more discountenanced, until, in their original forms, at least, they have ceased to be heard.[714]

[714] See “Selva sin Amor,” with its Preface, printed by Lope
de Vega at the end of his “Laurel de Apolo,” Madrid, 1630,
4to;--Benavente, Joco-Seria, 1645, and Valladolid, 1653, 12mo,
where such pieces are called _entremeses cantados_;--Calderon’s
Púrpura de la Rosa;--Luzan, Poética, Lib. III. c. 1;--Diamante’s
Labyrinto de Creta, printed as early as 1667, in the Comedias
Escogidas, Tom. XXVII.;--Parra, El Teatro Español, Poema Lírico,
s. l. 1802, 8vo, _notas_, p. 295;--C. Pellicer, Orígen del
Teatro, Tom. I. p. 268;--and Stefano Arteaga, Teatro Musicale
Italiano, Bologna, 8vo, Tom. I., 1785, p. 241. The last is an
excellent book, written by one of the Jesuits driven from Spain
by Charles III., and who died at Paris in 1799. The second
edition, 1783-88, is the amplest and best.

Another of the poets who lived at this time and wrote dramas that mark the decline of the Spanish theatre is Antonio de Zamora, who seems originally to have been an actor; who was afterwards in the office of the Indies and in the royal household; and whose dramatic career begins before the year 1700, though he did not die till after 1730, and probably had his principal success in the reign of Philip the Fifth, before whom his plays were occasionally performed in the Buen Retiro, as late as 1744.

Two volumes of his dramas were collected and published, with a solemn dedication and consecration of them to their author’s memory, on the ground of rendering unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s. They are only sixteen in number, each longer than had been common on the Spanish stage in its best days, and, in general, very heavy. Those that are on religious subjects sink into farce, with the exception of “Judas Iscariot,” which is too full of wild horrors to permit it to be amusing. The best of the whole number is, probably, the one entitled “All Debts must be paid at Last,” which is an alteration of Tirso de Molina’s “Don Juan,” skilfully made;--a remarkable drama, in which the tread of the marble statue is heard with more solemn effect than it is in any other of the many plays on the same subject.

But notwithstanding the merit of this and two or three others, it must be admitted that Zamora’s plays--of which above forty are extant, and of which many were acted at the court with applause--are very wearisome. They are crowded with long directions to the actors, and imply the use of much imperfect machinery;--both of them unwelcome symptoms of a declining dramatic literature. Still, Zamora writes with facility, and shows, that, under favorable circumstances, he might have trodden with more success in the footsteps of Calderon, whom he plainly took for his model. But he came too late, and, while striving to imitate the old masters, fell into their faults and extravagances, without giving token of the fresh spirit and marvellous invention in which their peculiar power resides.[715]

[715] Comedias de Antonio de Zamora, Madrid, 1744, 2 tom., 4to.
The royal authority to print the plays gives also a right to
print the lyrical works, but I think they never appeared. His
life is in Baena, Tom. I. p. 177, and notices of him in L. F.
Moratin, Obras, ed. Acad., Tom. II., Prólogo, pp. v.-viii.

Others followed the same direction with even less success, like Pedro Francisco Lanini, Antonio Martinez, Pedro de Rosete, and Francisco de Villegas;[716] but the person who continued longest in the paths opened by Lope and Calderon was Joseph de Cañizares, a poet of Madrid, born in 1676, who began to write for the stage when he was only fourteen years old,--who was known as one of its more favored authors for above forty years, pushing his success far into the eighteenth century,--and who died in 1750. His plays are in all the old forms.[717] A few of those on historical subjects are not without interest, such as “The Tales of the Great Captain,” “Charles the Fifth at Tunis,” and “The Suit of Fernando Cortés.” The best of his efforts in this class is, however, “El Picarillo en España,” on the adventures of a sort of Falconbridge, Frederic de Bracamonte, who, in the reign of John the Second, discovered the Canaries, and held them for some time, as if he were their king. But Cañizares, on the whole, had most success in plays founded on character-drawing, introduced a little before his time by Moreto and Roxas, and commonly called, as we have noticed, “Comedias de Figuron.” His happiest specimens in this class are “The Famous Kitchen-Wench,” taken from the story of Cervantes, “The Mountaineer at Court,” and “Dómine Lucas,” where he drew from the life about him, and selected his subjects from the poor, presumptuous, decayed nobility, with which the court of Madrid was then infested.[718]

[716] These and many others, now entirely forgotten, are found in
the old collection of Comedias Escogidas, published between 1652
and 1704, where they occur in the later volumes; e. g. of Lanini,
nine plays; of Martinez, eighteen; and of Rosete and Villegas,
eleven each. I am not aware that any one of them deserves to be
rescued from the oblivion in which they are all sunk.

[717] Two volumes of the plays of Cañizares were collected, but
more can still be found separate, and many are lost. In Moratin’s
list, the titles of above seventy are brought together. Notices
of his life are in Baena, Tom. III. p. 69, and in Huerta, Teatro,
Parte I. Tom. II. p. 347.

[718] The “Dómine Lucas” of Cañizares has no resemblance to
the lively play with the same title by Lope de Vega, in the
seventeenth volume of his Comedias, 1621, which, he says in
the Dedication, is founded on fact, and which was reprinted in
Madrid, 1841, 8vo, with a Preface, attacking, not only Cañizares,
but several of the author’s contemporaries, in a most truculent
manner. The “Dómine Lucas” of Cañizares, however, is worth
reading, particularly in an edition where it is accompanied by
its two _entremeses_, improperly called _saynetes_;--the whole
newly arranged for representation in the Buen Retiro, on occasion
of the marriage of the Infanta María Luisa with the Archduke
Peter Leopold, in 1765.

Still, with this partial success as a poet, and with a popularity that made him of consequence to the actors, Cañizares shows more distinctly than any of his predecessors or contemporaries the marks of a declining drama. As we turn over the seventy or eighty plays he has left us, we are constantly reminded of the towers and temples of the South of Europe, which, during the Middle Ages, were built from fragments of the nobler edifices that had preceded them, proving at once the magnificence of the age in which the original structures were reared, and the decay of that of which such relics and fragments were the chief glory. The plots, intrigues, and situations in the dramas of Cañizares are generally taken from Lope, Calderon, Moreto, Matos Fragoso, and his other distinguished predecessors, to whom, not without the warrant of many examples on the Spanish stage, he resorted as to rich and ancient monuments, which could still yield to the demands of his age materials such as the age itself could no longer furnish from its own resources.[719]

[719] The habit of using too freely the works of their
predecessors was common on the Spanish stage from an early
period. Cervantes says, in 1617, (Persiles, Lib. III. c. 2), that
some companies kept poets expressly to new-vamp old plays; and so
many had done it before him, that Cañizares seems to have escaped
censure, though nobody, certainly, had gone so far.

It would be easy to add the names of not a few other writers for the Spanish stage who were contemporary with Cañizares, and, like him, shared in the common decline of the national drama, or contributed to it. Such were Juan de Vera y Villarroel, Inez de la Cruz, Melchior Fernandez de Leon, Antonio Tellez de Azevedo, and others yet less distinguished while they lived, and long ago forgotten. But writers like these had no real influence on the character of the theatre to which they attached themselves. This, in its proper outlines, always remained as it was left by Lope de Vega and Calderon, who, by a remarkable concurrence of circumstances, maintained, as far as it was in secular hands, an almost unquestioned control over it, while they lived, and, at their death, left a character impressed upon it which it never lost, till it ceased to exist altogether.[720]

[720] See Appendix (F).