Chapter XLII: Letter 18

[741] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 220. Aarsens, Voyage, 1667,
p. 29.

[742] Relation du Voyage d’Espagne, par Madame la Contesse
d’Aulnoy, La Haye, 1693, 18mo, Tom. III. p. 21,--the same who
wrote beautiful fairy tales. She was there in 1679-80; but
Aarsens gives a similar account of things fifteen years earlier.
Voyage, 1667, p. 59.

[743] Figueroa, Pasagero, and Guevara, Diablo Cojuelo.

The stage itself, in the two principal theatres of Madrid, was raised only a little from the ground of the court-yard where it was erected, and there was no attempt at a separate orchestra,--the musicians coming to the forepart of the scene whenever they were wanted. Immediately in front of the stage were a few benches, which afforded the best places for those who bought single tickets, and behind them was the unencumbered portion of the court-yard, where the common file were obliged to stand in the open air. The crowd there was generally great, and the persons composing it were called, from their standing posture and their rude bearing, _mosqueteros_, or infantry. They constituted the most formidable and disorderly part of the audience, and were the portion that generally determined the success of new plays.[744] One of their body, a shoemaker, who in 1680 reigned supreme in the court-yard over the opinions of those around him, reminds us at once of the critical trunk-maker in Addison.[745] Another, who was offered a hundred rials to favor a play about to be acted, answered proudly that he would first see whether it was good or not, and, after all, hissed it.[746] Sometimes the author himself addressed them at the end of his play, and stooped to ask the applause of this lowest portion of the audience. But this was rare.[747]

[744] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 53, 55, 63, 68.

[745] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage, Tom. III. p. 21. Spectator, No. 235.

[746] Aarsens, Relation, at the end of his Voyage, 1667, p. 60.

[747] Manuel Morchon, at the end of his “Vitoria del Amor,”
(Comedias Escogidas, Tom. IX., 1657, p. 242), says:--

Most honorable Mosqueteros, here
Don Manuel Morchon, in gentlest form,
Beseeches you to give him, as an alms,
A victor shout;--if not for this his play,
At least for the good-will it shows to please you.

In the same way, Antonio de Huerta, speaking of his “Cinco
Blancas de Juan Espera en Dios,” (Ibid., Tom. XXXII., 1669, p.
179), addresses them:--

And should it now a victor cry deserve,
Señores Mosqueteros, you will here,
In charity, vouchsafe to give me one;--
That is, in case the play has pleased you well.

Perhaps we should not have expected of such a condescension from
Solís, but he stooped to it. At the conclusion of his well-known
“Doctor Carlino,” (Comedias, 1716, p. 262), he turns to them,
saying:--

And here expires my play. If it has pleased,
Let the Señores Mosqueteros cry a victor
At its burial.

Every thing, indeed, that we know about the _mosqueteros_ shows
that their influence was great at the theatre in the theatre’s
best days. In the eighteenth century we shall find it governing
every thing.

Behind the sturdy _mosqueteros_ were the _gradas_, or rising seats, for the men, and the _cazuela_, or “stewpan,” where the women were strictly inclosed, and sat crowded together by themselves. Above all these different classes were the _desvanes_ and _aposentos_, or balconies and rooms, whose open, shop-like windows extended round three sides of the court-yard in different stories, and were filled by those persons of both sexes who could afford such a luxury, and who not unfrequently thought it one of so much consequence, that they held it as an heirloom from generation to generation.[748] The _aposentos_ were, in fact, commodious rooms, and the ladies who resorted to them generally went masked, as neither the actors nor the audience were always so decent that the ladylike modesty of the more courtly portion of society might be willing to countenance them.[749]

[748] Aarsens, Relation, p. 59. Zavaleta, Dia de Fiesta por la
Tarde, Madrid, 1660, 12mo, pp. 4, 8, 9. C. Pellicer, Tom. I. Mad.
d’Aulnoy, Tom. III. p. 22.

[749] Guillen de Castro, “Mal Casadas de Valencia,” Jorn. II.
It may be worth notice, perhaps, that the traditions of the
Spanish theatre are still true to its origin;--_aposentos_, or
apartments, being still the name for the boxes; _patio_, or
court-yard, that of the pit; and _mosqueteros_, or musketeers,
that of the persons who fill the pit, and who still claim many
privileges, as the successors of those who stood in the heat of
the old court-yard. As to the _cazuela_, Breton de los Herreros,
in his spirited “Sátira contra los Abusos en el Arte de la
Declamacion Teatral,” (Madrid, 1834, 12mo), says:--

Tal vez alguna insípida mozuela
De tí se prende; mas si el _Patio_ brama,
Que te vale un rincon de la _Cazuela_?

But this part of the theatre is more respectable than it was in
the seventeenth century.

It was deemed a distinction to have free access to the theatre; and persons who cared little about the price of a ticket struggled hard to obtain it.[750] Those who paid at all paid twice,--at the outer door, where the manager sometimes collected his claims in person, and at the inner one, where an ecclesiastic collected what belonged to the hospitals, under the gentler name of alms.[751] The audiences were often noisy and unjust. Cervantes intimates this, and Lope directly complains of it. Suarez de Figueroa says, that rattles, crackers, bells, whistles, and keys were all put in requisition, when it was desired to make an uproar; and Benavente, in a _loa_ spoken at the opening of a theatrical campaign at Madrid by Roque, the friend of Lope de Vega, deprecates the ill-humor of all the various classes of his audience, from the fashionable world in the _aposentos_ to the _mosqueteros_ in the court-yard; though, he adds, with some mock dignity, that he little fears the hisses which he is aware must follow such a defiance.[752] When the audience meant to applaud, they cried “_Victor!_” and were no less tumultuous and unruly than when they hissed.[753] In Cervantes’s time, after the play was over, if it had been successful, the author stood at the door to receive the congratulations of the crowd as they came out; and, later, his name was placarded and paraded at the corners of the streets with an annunciation of his triumph.[754]

[750] Zabaleta, Dia de Fiesta por la Tarde, p. 2.

[751] Cervantes, Viage al Parnaso, 1784, p. 148.

[752] Cervantes, Prólogo á las Comedias. Lope, Prefaces to
several of his plays. Figueroa, Pasagero, 1617, p. 105.
Benavente, Joco-Seria, Valladolid, 1653, 12mo, f. 81. One of the
ways in which the audiences expressed their disapprobation was,
as Cervantes intimates, by throwing cucumbers (_pepinos_) at the
actors.

[753] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage, Tom. I. p. 55. Tirso de Molina,
Deleytar, Madrid, 1765, 4to, Tom. II. p. 333. At the end of a
play the _whole_ audience is not unfrequently appealed to for
a “Victor” by the second-rate authors, as we have seen the
_mosqueteros_ were sometimes, though rarely. Diego de Figueroa,
at the conclusion of his “Hija del Mesonero,” (Comedias
Escogidas, Tom. XIV., 1662, p. 182), asks for it as for an alms,
“Dadle un Vitor de limosna”; and Rodrigo Enriquez, in his “Sufrir
mas por querer menos,” (Tom. X., 1658, p. 222), asks for it as
for the vails given to servants in a gaming-house, “Venga un
Vitor de barato.” Sometimes a good deal of ingenuity is used to
bring in the word _Vitor_ just at the end of the piece, so that
it shall be echoed by the audience without an open demand for
it, as it is by Calderon in his “Amado y Aborrecido,” and in
the “Difunta Pleyteada” of Francisco de Roxas. But, in general,
when it is asked for at all, it is rather claimed as a right.
Once, in “Lealtad contra su Rey,” by Juan de Villegas, (Comedias
Escogidas, Tom. X., 1658), the two actors who end the piece
impertinently ask the applause for themselves, and not for the
author; a jest which was, no doubt, well received.

[754] Cervantes, Viage, 1784, p. 138. Novelas, 1783, Tom. I. p.
40.

Cosmé de Oviedo, a well-known manager at Granada, was the first who used advertisements for announcing the play that was to be acted. This was about the year 1600. Half a century afterwards, the condition of such persons was still so humble, that one of the best of them went round the city and posted his play-bills himself, which were, probably, written, and not printed.[755] From an early period they seem to have given to acted plays the title which full-length Spanish dramas almost uniformly bore during the seventeenth century and even afterwards,--that of _comedia famosa_;--though we must except from this remark the case of Tirso de Molina, who amused himself with calling more than one of his successful performances “Comedia _sin_ fama,”[756]--a play without repute. But this was, in truth, a matter of mere form, soon understood by the public, who needed no especial excitement to bring them to theatrical entertainments, for which they were constitutionally eager. Some of the audience went early to secure good places, and amused themselves with the fruit and confectionery carried round the court-yard for sale, or with watching the movements of the laughing dames who were inclosed within the balustrade of the _cazuela_, and who were but too ready to flirt with all in their neighbourhood. Others came late; and if they were persons of authority or consequence, the actors waited for their appearance till the disorderly murmurs of the groundlings compelled them to begin.[757]

[755] Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 51. Benavente, Joco-Seria, 1653,
f. 78. Alonso, Mozo de Muchos Amos;--by which (Tom. I. f. 137)
it appears that the placards were written as late as 1624, in
Seville.

[756] This title he gave to “Como han de ser los Amigos,” “Amor
por Razon de Estado,” and some others of his plays. It may
be noted that a full-length play was sometimes called _Gran_
Comedia, as twelve such are in Tom. XXXI. of “Las Mejores
Comedias que hasta oy han salido,” Barcelona, 1638.

[757] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Voyage, Tom. III. p. 22, and Zabaleta,
Fiesta por la Tarde, 1660, pp. 4, 9.

At last, though not always till the rabble had been composed by the recitation of a favorite ballad or by some popular air on the guitars, one of the more respectable actors, and often the manager himself, appeared on the stage, and, in the technical phrase, “threw out the _loa_” or compliment,[758]--a peculiarly Spanish form of the prologue, of which we have abundant specimens from the time of Naharro, who calls them _intróytos_, or overtures, down to the final fall of the old drama. They are prefixed to all the _autos_ of Lope and Calderon; and though, in the case of the multitudinous secular plays of the Spanish theatre, the appropriate _loas_ are no longer found regularly attached to each, yet we have them occasionally with the dramas of Tirso de Molina, Calderon, Antonio de Mendoza, and not a few others.

[758] Cigarrales de Toledo, Madrid, 1624, 4to, p. 99. There is
a good deal of learning about _loas_ in Pinciano, “Filosofía
Antigua,” Madrid, 1596, 4to, p. 413, and Salas, “Tragedia
Antigua,” Madrid, 1633, 4to, p. 184.

The best are those of Agustin de Roxas, whose “Amusing Travels” are full of them, and those of Quiñones de Benavente, found among his “Jests in Earnest.” They were in different forms, dramatic, narrative, and lyrical, and on very various subjects and in very various measures. One of Tirso’s is in praise of the beautiful ladies who were present at its representation;[759]--one of Mendoza’s is in honor of the capture of Breda, and flatters the national vanity upon the recent successes of the Marquis of Spinola;[760]--one by Roxas is on the glories of Seville, where he made it serve as a conciliatory introduction for himself and his company, when they were about to act there;[761]--one by Sanchez is a jesting account of the actors who were to perform in the play that was to follow it;[762]--and one by Benavente was spoken by Roque de Figueroa, when he began a series of representations at court, and is devoted to a pleasant exposition of the strength of his company, and a boastful announcement of the new dramas they were able to produce.[763]

[759] The _loa_ to the “Vergonzoso en Palacio”: it is in _décimas
redondillas_.

[760] It gives an account of the reception of the news at the
palace, (Obras de Mendoza, Lisboa, 1690, 4to, p. 78), and may
have been spoken before Calderon’s well-known play, “El Sitio de
Breda.”

[761] Four persons appear in this _loa_,--a part of which is
sung,--and, at the end, Seville enters and grants them all leave
to act in her city. Viage, 1614, ff. 4-8.

[762] Lyra Poética de Vicente Sanchez, Zaragoza, 1688, 4to, p. 47.

[763] Joco-Seria, 1653, ff. 77, 82. In another he parodies some
of the familiar old ballads (ff. 43, etc.) in a way that must
have been very amusing to the _mosqueteros_: a practice not
uncommon in the lighter dramas of the Spanish stage, most of
which are lost. Instances of it are found in the _entremes_ of
“Melisandra,” by Lope (Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1609, p.
333); and two burlesque dramas in Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XLV.,
1679,--the first entitled “Traycion en Propria Sangre,” being a
parody on the ballads of the “Infantes de Lara,” and the other
entitled “El Amor mas Verdadero,” a parody on the ballads of
“Durandarte” and “Belerma”;--both very extravagant and dull, but
showing the tendencies of the popular taste not a whit the less.

Gradually, however, the _loas_, whose grand object was to conciliate the audience, took more and more the popular dramatic form; and at last, like several by Roxas, Mira de Mescua, Moreto, and Lope de Vega,[764] differed little from the farces that followed them.[765] Indeed, they were almost always fitted to the particular occasions that called them forth, or to the known demands of the audience;--some of them being accompanied with singing and dancing, and others ending with rude practical jests.[766] They are, therefore, as various in their tone as they are in their forms; and, from this circumstance, as well as from their easy national humor, they became at last an important part of all dramatic representations.

[764] These curious _loas_ are found in a rare volume, called
“Autos Sacramentales, con Quatro Comedias Nuevas y sus Loas y
Entremeses,” Madrid, 1655, 4to.

[765] A _loa_ entitled “El Cuerpo de Guardia,” by Luis Enriquez
de Fonseca, and performed by an amateur company at Naples on
Easter eve, 1669, in honor of the queen of Spain, is as long as a
_saynete_, and much like one. It is--together with another _loa_
and several curious _bayles_--part of a play on the subject of
Viriatus, entitled “The Spanish Hannibal,” and to be found in a
collection of his poems, less in the Italian manner than might be
expected from a Spaniard who lived and wrote in Italy. Fonseca
published the volume containing them all at Naples, in 1683,
4to, and called it “Ocios de los Estudios”; a volume not worth
reading, and yet not wholly to be passed over.

[766] Roxas, Viage, ff. 189-193.

The first _jornada_ or act of the principal performance followed the _loa_, almost as a matter of course, though, in some instances, a dance was interposed; and in others, Figueroa complains, that he had been obliged still to listen to a ballad before he was permitted to reach the regular drama which he had come to hear;[767]--so importunate were the audience for what was lightest and most amusing. At the end of the first act, though perhaps preceded by another dance, came the first of the two _entremeses_,--a sort of “crutches,” as the editor of Benavente well calls them, “that were given to the heavy _comedias_ to keep them from falling.”

[767] Cigarrales de Toledo, 1624, pp. 104 and 403. Figueroa,
Pasagero, 1617, f. 109. b.

Nothing can well be gayer or more free than these favorite entertainments, which were generally written in the genuine Castilian idiom and spirit.[768] At first, they were farces, or parts of farces, taken from Lope de Rueda and his school; but afterwards, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and the other writers for the theatre composed _entremeses_ better suited to the changed character of the dramas in their times.[769] Their subjects were generally chosen from the adventures of the lower classes of society, whose manners and follies they ridiculed; many of the earlier of the sort ending, as one of the Dogs in Cervantes’s dialogue complains that they did too often, with vulgar scuffles and blows.[770] But later, they became more poetical, and were mingled with allegory, song, and dance; taking, in fact, whatever forms and tone were deemed most attractive. They seldom exceeded a few minutes in length, and never had any other purpose than to relieve the attention of the audience, which it was supposed might have been taxed too much by the graver action that had preceded them.[771] With this action they had, properly, nothing to do;--though in one instance Calderon has ingeniously made his _entremes_ serve as a graceful conclusion to one of the acts of the principal drama.[772]

[768] Sarmiento, the literary historian and critic, in a letter
cited in the “Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua
Castellana,” (Madrid, 1793, 4to, p. 149), says: “I never knew
what the true Castilian idiom was till I read _entremeses_.”

[769] The origin of _entremeses_ is distinctly set forth
in Lope’s “Arte Nuevo de hacer Comedias”; and both the
first and third volumes of his collection of plays contain
_entremeses_; besides which, several are to be found in his
Obras Sueltas;--almost all of them amusing. The _entremeses_ of
Cervantes are at the end of his Comedias, 1615.

[770] Novelas, 1783, Tom. II. p. 441. “Coloquio de los Perros.”

[771] A good many are to be found in the “Joco-Seria” of Quiñones
de Benavente. Those by Cancer are in the Autos, etc., 1655, cited
in note 44.

[772] “El Castillo de Lindabridis,” end of Act I. There is an
_entremes_ called “The Chestnut Girl,” very amusing as far as the
spirited dialogue is concerned, but immoral enough in the story,
to be found in Chap. 15 of the “Bachiller Trapaza.”

The second act was followed by a similar _entremes_, music, and dancing;[773] and after the third, the poetical part of the entertainment was ended with a _saynete_ or _bonne bouche_, first so called by Benavente, but differing from the _entremeses_ only in name, and written best by Cancer, Deza y Avila, and Benavente himself,--in short, by those who best succeeded in the _entremeses_.[774] Last of all came a national dance, which never failed to delight the audience of all classes, and served to send them home in good-humor when the entertainment was over.[775]

[773] Mad. d’Aulnoy, Tom. I. p. 56.

[774] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 277. The _entremeses_ of
Cancer are to be found in his Obras, Madrid, 1761, 4to; those of
Deza y Avila, in his “Donayres de Tersicore,” 1663; and those
of Benavente, in his “Joco-Seria,” 1653. The volume of Deza
y Avila--marked Vol. I., but I think the only one that ever
appeared--is almost filled with light, short compositions for the
theatre, under the name of _bayles_, _entremeses_, _saynetes_,
and _mogigangas_; the last being a sort of _mumming_. Some of
them are good; all are characteristic of the state of the theatre
in the middle of the seventeenth century.

[775]
Al fin con un baylezito
Iba la gente contenta.

Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 48.

Dancing, indeed, was very early an important part of theatrical exhibitions in Spain, even of the religious, and its importance has continued down to the present day. This was natural. From the first intimations of history and tradition in antiquity, dancing was the favorite amusement of the rude inhabitants of the country;[776] and, so far as modern times are concerned, dancing has been to Spain what music has been to Italy, a passion with the whole population. In consequence of this, it finds a place in the dramas of Enzina, Vicente, and Naharro; and, from the time of Lope de Rueda and Lope de Vega, appears in some part, and often in several parts, of all theatrical exhibitions. An amusing instance of the slight grounds on which it was introduced may be found in “The Grand Sultana” of Lope de Vega, where one of the actors says,--

There ne’er was born a Spanish woman yet
But she was born to dance;

and a specimen is immediately given in proof of the assertion.[777]

[776] The Gaditanæ Puellæ were the most famous; but see, on the
whole subject of the old Spanish dances, the notes to Juvenal, by
Ruperti, Lipsiæ, 1801, 8vo, Sat. XI. vv. 162-164, and the curious
discussion by Salas, “Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua,” 1633,
pp. 127, 128. Gifford, in his remarks on the passage in Juvenal,
(Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Philadelphia, 1803, 8vo,
Vol. II. p. 159), thinks that it refers to “neither more nor less
than the _fandango_, which still forms the delight of all ranks
in Spain,” and that in the phrase “_testarum crepitus_” he hears
“the clicking of the castanets, which accompanies the dance.”

[777] Jornada III. Every body danced. The Duke of Lerma was said
to be the best dancer of his time, being premier to Philip IV.,
and afterwards a cardinal. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. VI.,
1839, p. 272.

Many of these dances, and probably nearly all of them that were introduced on the stage, were accompanied with words, and were what Cervantes calls “recited dances.”[778] Such were the well-known “Xacaras,”--roystering ballads, in the dialect of the rogues,--which took their name from the bullies who sung them, and were at one time rivals for favor with the regular _entremeses_.[779] Such, too, were the more famous “Zarabandas”; graceful, but voluptuous dances, that were known from about 1588, and, as Mariana says, received their name from a devil in woman’s shape at Seville, though elsewhere they are said to have derived it from a similar personage found at Guayaquil in America.[780] Another dance, full of a mad revelry, in which the audience were ready sometimes to join, was called “Alemana,” probably from its German origin, and was one of those whose discontinuance Lope, himself a great lover of dancing, always regretted.[781] Another was “Don Alonso el Bueno,” so named from the ballad that accompanied it; and yet others were called “El Caballero,” “La Carretería,” “Las Gambetas,” “Hermano Bartolo,” and “La Zapateta.”[782]

[778] “Danzas _habladas_” is the singular phrase applied to a
pantomime with singing and dancing in Don Quixote, Parte II. c.
20. The _bayles_ of Fonseca, referred to in a preceding note,
are a fair specimen of the singing and dancing on the Spanish
stage in the middle of the seventeenth century. One of them is
an allegorical contest between Love and Fortune; another, a
discussion on Jealousy; and the third, a wooing by Peter Crane, a
peasant, carried on by shaking a purse before the damsel he would
win;--all three in the ballad measure, and none of them extending
beyond a hundred and twenty lines, or possessing any merit but a
few jests.

[779] Some of them are very brutal, like one at the end of
“Crates y Hipparchia,” Madrid, 1636, 12mo; one in the “Enano
de las Musas”; and several in the “Ingeniosa Helena.” The best
are in Quiñones de Benavente, “Joco-Seria,” 1653, and Solís,
“Poesías,” 1716. There was originally a distinction between
_bayles_ and _danzas_, now no longer recognized;--the _danzas_
being graver and more decent. See a note of Pellicer to Don
Quixote, Parte II. c. 48; partly discredited by one of Clemencin
on the same passage.

[780] Covarrubias, ad verbum _Çarabanda_. Pellicer, Don Quixote,
1797, Tom. I. pp. cliii.-clvi., and Tom. V. p. 102. There is a
list of many ballads that were sung with the _zarabandas_ in a
curious satire entitled “The Life and Death of La Zarabanda,
Wife of Anton Pintado,” 1603;--the ballads being given as a
bequest of the deceased lady. (C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp.
129-131, 136-138.) Lopez Pinciano, in his “Filosofía Antigua
Poética,” 1596, pp. 418-420, partly describes the _zarabanda_,
and expresses his great disgust at its indecency.

[781] Dorotea, Acto I. sc. 5.

[782] Other names of dances are to be found in the “Diablo
Cojuelo,” Tranco I., where all of them are represented as
inventions of the Devil on Two Sticks; but these are the chief.
See, also, Covarrubias, Art. _Zapato_.

Most of them were free or licentious in their tendency. Guevara says that the Devil invented them all; and Cervantes, in one of his farces, admits that the Zarabanda, which was the most obnoxious to censure, could, indeed, have had no better origin.[783] Lope, however, was not so severe in his judgment. He declares that the dances accompanied by singing were better than the _entremeses_, which, he adds disparagingly, dealt only in hungry men, thieves, and brawlers.[784] But whatever may have been individual opinions about them, they occasioned great scandal, and, in 1621, kept their place on the theatre only by a vigorous exertion of the popular will in opposition to the will of the government. As it was, they were for a time restrained and modified; but still no one of them was absolutely exiled, except the licentious Zarabanda,--many of the crowds that thronged the court-yards thinking, with one of their leaders, that the dances were the salt of the plays, and that the theatre would be good for nothing without them.[785]

[783] Cuevas de Salamanca. There is a curious _bayle entremesado_
of Moreto, on the subject of Don Rodrigo and La Cava, in the
Autos, etc., 1655, f. 92; and another, called “El Médico,” in the
“Ocios de Ignacio Alvarez Pellicer,” s. l. 1685, 4to, p. 51.

[784] See the “Gran Sultana,” as already cited, note 57.

[785] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 102.

Indeed, in all its forms, and in all its subsidiary attractions of ballads, _entremeses_ and _saynetes_, music, and dancing, the old Spanish drama was essentially a popular entertainment, governed by the popular will. In any other country, under the same circumstances, it would hardly have risen above the condition in which it was left by Lope de Rueda, when it was the amusement of the lowest classes of the populace. But the Spaniards have always been a poetical people. There is a romance in their early history, and a picturesqueness in their very costume and manners, that cannot be mistaken. A deep enthusiasm runs, like a vein of pure and rich ore, at the bottom of their character, and the workings of strong passions and an original imagination are everywhere visible among the wild elements that break out on its surface. The same energy, the same fancy, the same excited feelings, which, in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, produced the most various and rich popular ballads of modern times, were not yet stilled or quenched in the seventeenth. The same national character, which, under Saint Ferdinand and his successors, drove the Moorish crescent through the plains of Andalusia, and found utterance for its exultation in poetry of such remarkable sweetness and power, was still active under the Philips, and called forth, directed, and controlled a dramatic literature which grew out of the national genius and the condition of the mass of the people, and which, therefore, in all its forms and varieties, is essentially and peculiarly Spanish.

Under an impulse so wide and deep, the number of dramatic authors would naturally be great. As early as 1605, when the theatre, such as it had been constituted by Lope de Vega, had existed hardly more than fifteen years, we can easily see, by the discussions in the first part of Don Quixote, that it already filled a large space in the interests of the time; and from the Prólogo prefixed by Cervantes to his plays in 1615, it is quite plain that its character and success were already settled, and that no inconsiderable number of its best authors had already appeared. Even as early as this, dramas were composed in the lower classes of society. Villegas tells us of a tailor of Toledo who wrote many; Guevara gives a similar account of a sheep-shearer at Ecija; and Figueroa, of a well-known tradesman of Seville;--all in full accordance with the representations made in Don Quixote concerning the shepherd Chrisóstomo, and the whole current of the story and conversations of the actors in the “Journey” of Roxas.[786] In this state of things, the number of writers for the theatre went on increasing out of all proportion to their increase in other countries, as appears from the lists given by Lope de Vega, in 1630; by Montalvan, in 1632, when we find seventy-six dramatic poets living in Castile alone; and by Antonio, about 1660. During the whole of this century, therefore, we may regard the theatre as a part of the popular character in Spain, and as having become, in the proper sense of the word, more truly a national theatre than any other that has been produced in modern times.

[786] Figueroa, Pasagero, 1617, f. 105. Villegas, Eróticas
Najera, 1617, 4to, Tom. II. p. 29. Diablo Cojuelo, Tranco V.
Figueroa, Plaza Universal, Madrid, 1733, folio, Discurso 91.

It might naturally have been foreseen, that, upon a movement like this, imparted and sustained by all the force of the national genius, any accidents of patronage or opposition would produce little effect. And so in fact it proved. The ecclesiastical authorities always frowned upon it, and sometimes placed themselves so as directly to resist its progress; but its sway and impulse were so heavy, that it passed over their opposition, in every instance, as over a slight obstacle. Nor was it more affected by the seductions of patronage. Philip the Fourth, for above forty years, favored and supported it with princely munificence. He built splendid saloons for it in his palaces; he wrote for it; he acted in improvisated dramas. The reigning favorite, the Count Duke Olivares, to flatter the royal taste, invented new dramatic luxuries, such as that of magnificent floating theatres on the stream of the Tormés, and on the sheets of water in the gardens of the Buen Retiro. All royal entertainments seemed, in fact, for a time, to take a dramatic tone, or tend to it. But still the popular character of the theatre itself was unchecked and unaffected;--still the plays acted in the royal theatres, before the principal persons in the kingdom, were the same with those performed before the populace in the court-yards of Madrid;--and when other times and other princes came, the old Spanish drama left the halls and palaces, where it had been so long flattered, with as little of a courtly air as that with which it had originally entered them.[787]

[787] Mad. d’Aulnoy, fresh from the stage of Racine and Molière,
then the most refined and best appointed in Europe, speaks with
great admiration of the theatres in the Spanish palaces, though
she ridicules those granted to the public. (Voyage, etc., ed.
1693, Tom. III. p. 7, and elsewhere.) One way, however, in
which the kings patronized the drama was, probably, not very
agreeable to the authors, if it were often practised; I mean
that of requiring a piece to be acted nowhere but in the royal
presence. This was the case with Gerónimo de Villayzan’s “Sufrir
mas por querer mas.” Comedias por Diferentes Autores, Tom. XXV.,
Zaragoza, 1633, f. 145. b.

The same impulse that made it so powerful in other respects filled the old Spanish theatre with an almost incredible number of cavalier and heroic dramas, dramas for saints, sacramental _autos_, _entremeses_, and farces of all names. Their whole amount, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, has been estimated to exceed thirty thousand, of which four thousand eight hundred by unknown authors had been, at one time, collected by a single person in Madrid.[788] Their character and merit were, as we have seen, very various. Still, the circumstance, that they were all written substantially for one object and under one system of opinions, gave them a stronger air of general resemblance than might otherwise have been anticipated. For it should never be forgotten, that the Spanish drama in its highest and most heroic forms was still a popular entertainment, just as it was in its farces and ballads. Its purpose was, not only to please all classes, but to please all equally;--those who paid three maravedís, and stood crowded together under a hot sun in the court-yard, as well as the rank and fashion, that lounged in their costly apartments above, and amused themselves hardly less with the picturesque scene of the audiences in the _patio_ than with that of the actors on the stage. Whether the story this mass of people saw enacted were probable or not was to them a matter of small consequence. But it was necessary that it should be interesting. Above all, it was necessary that it should be Spanish; and therefore, though its subject might be Greek or Roman, Oriental or mythological, the characters represented were always Castilian, and Castilian after the fashion of the seventeenth century,--governed by Castilian notions of gallantry and the Castilian point of honor.

[788] Schack’s Geschichte der dramat. Lit. in Spanien, Berlin,
1846, Tom. III. 8vo, pp. 22-24; a work of great value.

It was the same with their costumes. Coriolanus was dressed like Don John of Austria; Aristotle came on the stage with a curled periwig and buckles in his shoes, like a Spanish Abbé; and Madame d’Aulnoy says, the Devil she saw was dressed like any other Castilian gentleman, except that his stockings were flame-colored and he wore horns.[789] But however the actors might be dressed, or however the play might confound geography and history, or degrade heroism by caricature, still, in a great majority of cases, dramatic situations are skilfully produced; the story, full of bustle and incident, grows more and more urgent as it advances; and the result of the whole is, that, though we may sometimes have been much offended, we are sorry we have reached the conclusion, and find on looking back that we have almost always been excited, and often pleased.

[789] Relation du Voyage d’Espagne, ed. 1693, Tom. I. p. 55.

The Spanish theatre, in many of its attributes and characteristics, stands, therefore, by itself. It takes no cognizance of ancient example; for the spirit of antiquity could have little in common with materials so modern, Christian, and romantic. It borrowed nothing from the drama of France or of Italy; for it was in advance of both when its final character was not only developed, but settled. And as for England, though Shakspeare and Lope were contemporaries, and there are points of resemblance between them which it is pleasant to trace and difficult to explain, still they and their schools, undoubtedly, had not the least influence on each other. The Spanish drama is, therefore, entirely national. Many of its best subjects are taken from the chronicles and traditions familiar to the audience that listened to them, and its prevalent versification reminded the hearers, by its sweetness and power, of what had so often moved their hearts in the earliest outpourings of the national genius. With all its faults, then, this old Spanish drama, founded on the great traits of the national character, maintained itself in the popular favor as long as that character existed in its original attributes; and even now it remains one of the most striking and one of the most interesting portions of modern literature.