The Quarterly Review

ART. I.-El Teatro Español; 6 Coleccion de Dramas escogidos de Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Moreto, Roxas, Solis, Moratin, y otros célebres Escritores; precedida de una breve Noticia de la Escena Española y de los Autores que la han ilustrado. Num3. I.-XX. Londra. 1819, 1820, 1821. 'HE drama of Spain, although its influence has been felt both in France and in England, is by no means generally known beyond the precincts of the Peninsula: the fame, in fact, of its writers has been, as it were, buried beneath their abundance. Whatever real merit Lope de Vega may possess, his celebrity is entirely ascribed to the marvellous facility with which he poured forth his prolific writings; and the long array of Calderon's works, consisting of sixteen volumes of plays and autos, is sufficient to appal a foreign reader. Occasionally the success of a particular imitation, the Cid of Corneille for instance, has excited the public curiosity to trace the source of so noble a poem; but in general the imitators themselves have awakened so little interest, that, instead of being able to reflect back their own fame on the originals to which they were indebted, they have themselves quietly sunk into neglect and disregard. Of the French writers who have thus taken refuge from the charge of plagiarism in utter oblivion, we might instance Quinault and Thomas Corneille; nor has the name of Dryden tempted any of his critics to trace back his Almanzor and the heroes of his Indian Emperor to their prototypes on the Spanish stage.*

If, however, there were no intrinsic merit in the works of the Spanish dramatists, it would still be a worthy object for the philosophy of literary history, to examine into the remarkable coincidence, in the manner of composition adopted by our own early writers, with that of Lope de Vega and Calderon. Nor has this forcible argument in their favour escaped the notice of those German critics, who have waged war so powerfully and successfully against the rigid and arbitrary rules of the French Aristarchs. Now, without recurring to the principles of romantic poetry' established by our theorizing neighbours, which we confess, after great toil and attention, we are unable clearly to

Fletcher also appears to have had considerable intercourse with Spain. Three of his plays are from the Novelas di Cervantes. We think too that we trace his Elder Brother in the Di una Causa dos Effectos of Calderon. The supernatural part of Massinger's Virgin Martyr reminds us strongly of the same author's religious pieces.

VOL. XXV. NO. XLIX.

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comprehend, and which (as we are unfortunately troubled with homely and antiquated scruples as to understanding' ourselves, that we may be understood by our readers) we forbear to attempt expounding, we may simply state this remarkable fact: two nations, totally unconnected in their literature, as Spain and England undoubtedly were previously to the formation of their dramatic manner, have nevertheless simultaneously adopted the same peculiarities of composition. They have agreed to consider the dramatic illusion, whatever it may be, capable of being employed on a much more extensive scale: instead of representing a single action confined as near as possible to the natural period in which it really takes place, they have boldly placed a succession of different actions, occurring in different places and at different times, before the spectator, and demanded from his imagination the connecting together and condensing them into a whole. Sometimes, indeed, they have carried this principle to such an excess, as, in the Winter's Tale of Shakspeare, the Dutchess of Malfy of Webster, and the Aurora en Capocabana of Calderon, to introduce into the same piece successive generations: these extravagancies indeed, are of rare occurrence, and in general have been reprobated by sound and judicious taste. Their success, however, as long as they restrained themselves from these more violent flights, has been undoubted; the spectators have found no difficulty in following this longer and more complicated train of action; the rapid change of scene does not seem to interfere with their delight, and the poet's magical power of placing his audience at one moment in Thebes, at another in Athens, seems to be admitted. The cause of this success the acute mind of Johnson first detected; and he was at no loss to prove that the more rigid and exclusive system proceeded upon a narrow, if not an erroneous opinion as to the nature of the deception practised upon the audience in a theatre. We are aware that our antagonists will retort upon us, that this argument only proves the writers of both nations to be equally barbarous; and that this common infringement of the laws of composition by no means vindicates us in our rejection of them. But it is not on the ground of our indulging in similar extravagance that we attempt to justify each other, but because we are both found

because our principle is different; because the human mind has been found capable of being strongly moved both in Spain and

We are glad to shelter our want of comprehension under the authority of Mr. Campbell. When I am left (says he) to infer that all this is right on romantic principles, I confess that those principles become too romantic for my conception.'—Essay, P. 155.

England

England by this less harmonious, less simple, but at the same time more copious and varied species of dramatic representation. In fact the earlier mode of composition seems to have been very much the same in both countries: the Chronicle or the Novel selected for the groundwork was broken into scenes, and cast into dialogue; with us, as our five acts required more matter than the shorter pieces of the Spaniards, a second tale was often engrafted as an underplot, being more or less artfully connected with the main story according to the skill of the poet. The Spanish piece, however, was very rarely without the comic accompaniment of the Gracioso, passing with as rapid a transition from grave to gay, from tragic to comic effect, as in Shakspeare himself.

Nevertheless, though this remarkable resemblance exists between the two theatres, yet in other respects they are totally and entirely distinct. Our own national drama, that, we mean, of Shakspeare and his contemporaries, is the drama of human character. The soul of man is the subject of its delineation; the action and the circumstances of the piece are entirely subordinate and subservient to the displaying of the passions and affections of the persons represented. The interest of the piece, though sometimes most skilfully maintained, is nevertheless a secondary object; the attention is fixed almost entirely on the actions and the language of the leading characters, not so much because they conduce to the event of the piece, as because they make us, as it were, familiar with the personages before us. Hence the nature

and the truth of their portraits; we do not shudder and weep merely because situations of danger and distress are placed before us, but because the language of those who address us is that of human beings under acute suffering, or violent emotion. Hence the bursts of poetry, the passages of empassioned eloquence, the delicate touches of feeling-all which betray the heart within, and admit us to a communion and a sympathy with the speaker; hence the profound though unobtrusive morality; hence the solemn train of reflection-the more than philosophic meditation into which they so often force the mind of the reader or hearer.

In the Spanish theatre it is exactly the reverse-the interest is every thing; the characters comparatively are nothing. If the feelings are generally at ease, the curiosity is never at rest; incident crowds on incident in endless variety, sometimes entirely unexpected, sometimes most subtly and artfully prepared. The breathless audience appear to hurry on, little caring in what manner the personages express themselves, only anxious to know how they are to be extricated from their difficulties, and how the conclusion is to be brought about. A Spanish play is a continued adventure;

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adventure; indeed we might, without being too fanciful, almost conceive them to have grown out of the Romance,' or tale in verse, as the tragedies of Greece grew out of the dithyrambic ode; increased indeed in length, but having lost little of their original liveliness. In truth were this not the case, were it not for the vivid and rapid action pervading every piece, we could not possibly endure the everlasting repetition of the same dramatis personæ, acting from the same principles, and influenced by the same passions: the lover, faithful as Amadis, and almost as much given to poetry as Antar; the mistress relaxing by regular gradation from the lofty prude to the love-sick maiden; the brother jealous as the pard' of his sister's honour; the gracioso and the criada, with their amusing parody on the high-flown phrases and unremitting constancy of their superiors. The mind, therefore, is in a perpetual state of pleasing excitement, yet can rarely revert to any particular passage by which it has been strongly affected; there are no pages to which we recur again and again with unwearied and encreasing delight. While, on the one hand, we are sure of never being wearied by prolixity, or composed to sleep by languor, we are, on the other, almost secure against being elevated into rapture, or melted into tears: we are little attached to the characters while they are present before us; but are irresistibly impelled to inquire into their future destiny. The judicious remarks of Lord Holland on the genius of Lope de Vega may be applied generally to the Spanish drama. "On the whole, the fertility of his genius in the contrivance of interesting plots, is as surprizing as in the composition of verse. Among the many I have read I have not fallen on one which does not strongly fix the attention; and though many of his plots have been transferred to the French and English stage, and rendered more correct and more probable, they have seldom or never been improved in the great article of exciting curiosity and interest. This was the spell by which he enchanted the populace, to whose taste for wonders he is accused of having sacrificed so much solid reputation. True it is that his extraordinary and embarrassing situations are often as unprepared by previous events as they are unforeseen by the audience; they come upon us by surprize, and when we know them we are as much at a loss to account for such wonderful occurrences as before; they are produced, not for the purpose of exhibiting the peculiarities of character, or the workings of nature, but with a view of astonishing the audience with strange, unexpected, unnatural, and often inconsistent conduct in some of his principal characters. Nor is this the only defect in his plots. The personages, like the author, are full of intrigue and invention, and while they lay schemes, and devise plots, with as much ingenuity

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The Quarterly Review, Volume 25