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FOURTH PERIOD.

FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TILL THE PRESENT TIME.

At length the Spanish literati began to perceive the emptiness of the distinction which was attached to the affectation they had so fondly cultivated; but there seemed no hope of a revival of the ancient vigour, and they abandoned themselves to apathy and indolence. The intellectual as well as the political resources of the nation seemed exhausted; the temporary impulse of vanity which had stimulated its literature had subsided; the people attempted to drown the sense of their civil degradation in sensual pleasures; and the nation may be said to have fallen asleep during the reign of Charles II. This prince ascended the throne in the year 1665, and at his death, in 1700, transferred it to the House of Bourbon. His reign was the period of Spain's greatest insignificance in the political world, its deepest debasement in morals, and its lowest condition in literature. As Marina expresses it— 'The mortal disease had already reached the vitals of the nation; the reign of Charles II. was a long agony in which all its symptoms were developed, and the crisis was the civil war of the succession.'

This conflict between the pretensions of the Bourbon and Hapsburg dynasties, though it devastated the fairest provinces of Spain, yet became the occasion of restoring to the inhabitants some portion of their wonted energy. It was not authority, but national pride or affection, that induced them to take up arms, and having once again begun to think and act for themselves, a measure of reviving took place. But the return to literature was slow and languid; the ardent enthusiasm never burned, and the brilliant fancy never sparkled again.

It does not appear that Philip V., though a monarch of the dynasty of France, did much to influence the Spanish taste in favour of French literature. His own talents were slender; he possessed but little taste or information; and his grave, silent, sombre character was rather Castilian than French. He founded an academy of history, which led to useful researches into Spanish antiquities, and another of language and belles lettres, which

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made the cultivation of the vernacular its especial care, and distinguished itself by the compilation of an excellent dictionary. These institutions became the seed of numerous royal academies throughout the kingdom. In other respects Philip left his subjects to cultivate letters according to their own inclination. The French feeling found its way naturally into the Peninsula, when the splendid age of Louis XIV. exercised an imposing influence over the whole of Europe. Had the old national energy remained, Spanish authors would have imitated French elegance only in the mode of embodying their native thoughts and feelings, instead of becoming mere servile imitators and pseudo-critics. But a party, composed chiefly of men of rank and fashion, had begun to be ashamed of the ancient national literature, and to prefer the regularity of French composition to the brilliancy of the Spanish, while, out of compliment to the reigning monarch, French began to be spoken in the elegant circles of Madrid.

On the other hand, the popular party were obstinately attached to the boldness, and even the rudeness, of the old authors, but they remained for some time without any representative among men of letters. The conflict between the two parties appeared chiefly on the stage, so that plays imitated from French and even English dramas were acted alternately with those of Lope de Vega, Calderon, and their successors. Nothing, however, could have been more incongruous than this mixture; and the tenacity of the popular party finally triumphed, and succeeded in placing the theatre on much the same footing that it had held in the days of Calderon. Encouraged by the Inquisition, whose power was still unbroken, a number of religious dramas were added to the already large collection; and it was not till the year 1765 that Charles III. prohibited these exhibitions, which exposed the country to the contempt of every foreigner who witnessed them. He also put down the autos da fé, a recreation scarcely less dear to the people than the Autos Sacramentales, and for which victims were furnished by the hapless sons of Abraham, and here and there a native sorcerer. Though the Inquisition continued its cruelties in the secrecy of its dungeons, it was not permitted after this period to appear in the full splendour of its power, burning its victims in public amidst the approving shouts of orthodox spectators.

Finally, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, scientific investigation found its way into Spain, and here, as had already been the case in every other part of Europe, it gained the ascendancy over polite literature. The spirit of experiment

*Auto de fé is the Spanish term, but the Portuguese, auto da fé, is that which has obtained currency in Europe.

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which sought an accumulation of facts as the foundation of sound philosophy, proved everywhere the deadly foe of fanaticism and poetic enthusiasm. Poetry could never in such circumstances revive in its former magnificence, but a wider field of general utility was opened to elegant prose; and ingenious extravagances were not likely again to prevail.

In a sketch so limited as the present, it would be unreasonable to expect particular notices of works of minor interest which appeared during the period of an expiring, and then slowly reviving, literature. But we propose to glance at the few authors of eminence whose writings have partially enlivened the gloom of the last two centuries.

DOÑA JUANA INEZ DE LA CRUZ.

No Spanish poetry towards the end of the seventeenth century obtained any degree of celebrity except that of an American lady, Doña Juana Inez de la Cruz, a nun in a convent of Mexico. Her voluminous writings evince that she was on terms of intimacy with the viceroy and other grandees in Mexico, who frequently made demands on her talents, in order to the celebration of public festivals. Beyond this, little is known of her history. Literature has never been much cultivated by the female sex in Spain; and it is worthy of remark that flowers of genius were permitted to bloom in America which would probably have been nipped in the bud had they appeared in the mother-country. This poetic recluse possessed more wit and invention than sentimental enthusiasm; and the creations of her fancy are bold and masculine. She appears not to have courted literary fame, and her poems were published in the first instance by order of the vice-queen of Mexico. Among them are sonnets, some romantic, and some burlesque; a series of boldly-conceived preludes and interludes; and a long allegorical religious drama (‘Auto Sacramental'), which is superior to any of the similar productions of Lope de Vega. The Spanish public had never before witnessed so daring a travesty of Roman Catholic Christianity, under the garb of Greek mythology. It would be impossible to give an intelligible analysis of this extraordinary drama without entering into it at considerable length; nor do we think it would be pleasing to the English reader to see the most sacred persons and things connected with our holy religion desecrated by allegorical representation for purposes of amusement. Many of the scenes are romantically and beautifully constructed, and oblige us to do homage to the genius of the poetess, while

we cannot but regret that it had not been more wisely directed in its soarings into the regions of mystic invention.

Next in merit to this 'Auto' are the hymns and spiritual songs, which are in the old Spanish measures, and were sung in the churches of Mexico. In facility of versification, as well as fecundity of invention, Inez is said to have been equal to Lope de Vega; but all her pieces betray a want of critical culti

vation.

LUZAN.

That party who endeavoured to conform the literary taste of Spain to that of France had at its head, about the middle of the last century, a man of very superior talent and extensive learning. This was Ignacio de Luzan, a counsellor of state and minister of commerce. He was, besides, a member of three of the royal academies; and his high position, literary as well as political, enabled him to exercise considerable influence over the character and productions of his contemporaries. He was fond of poetry, and himself composed verses with considerable elegance. The theoretical literature of Spain furnished at this time scarcely a single trace of criticism, except among the disciples of Gongora, who had reduced all the bad taste of their school to a regular system. To overthrow this, Luzan studied with great assiduity the rhetorical works of Cicero, ‘Aristotle's Art of Poetry and Rhetoric,' and the writings of the best modern French authors; and, in conformity with the principles thus deduced, he composed his celebrated' Art of Poetry.' It was first published at Saragossa in 1737. This treatise is written with great judgment as well as with a vast display of erudition, and the style is clear, elegant, and unaffected. It was received in the literary world as a masterpiece, and became the code to which Spanish critics referred as containing the basis and the rules of good taste.

It must be admitted, however, that Luzan possessed a delicate appreciation of the dress of elegant poetry, rather than of the loftiness and energy of true poetic genius, and that he has somewhat confounded the objects of the poet with the duties of the moralist and the orator. In the main, his theory is avowedly no other than that of Aristotle; and the only thing novel or original about it, is in the mode of its application to the poetry of Spain. He died in the year 1754.

ISLA.

Pulpit oratory, which had acquired a good deal of floridity from the Avilas and Granadas of the sixteenth century, was now in a state of scandalous degradation. The study of preachers was to compose long and high-sounding periods; to bring together a number of pompous phrases, however unconnected with each other; to transpose their sentences after the complicated construction of the Latin tongue; and to conceal the emptiness of their sermons by filling them with long and learned quotations. Witticisms, jests, and even puns, did not appear to them unworthy of the pulpit; and the more popular orators were not satisfied unless they succeeded in eliciting frequent and violent bursts of laughter from the audience.

Father Isla, a Jesuit, born at Segovia in 1714, a man of immense wit, undertook to reprove these disorders by the publication of a satirical romance, in the hope of producing the same impression on bombastic preachers by the comic life of a monk, that Cervantes had made on spurious romance-writers by the adventures of 'Don Quixote.' This turn for conveying sober and serious truth in a romantic shape and sportive tone is a peculiar characteristic of Spanish literature: we find nothing in the Italian language like the satirical fictions of Cervantes, Quevedo, and Isla.

The book now before us is entitled the 'History of the Famous Preacher, Friar Gerund of Campazas.' The hero is the son of a wealthy farmer of Campazas, who keeps open house for the monks whenever they resort to his village. Their conversation has filled his head with Latin quotations which he does not understand, and theological propositions which he receives in an inverted sense. His brother, a gymnasiarch of San Gregorio, has already distinguished himself by a Latin epistle which the most experienced linguist could neither construe nor translate; and the farmer is ambitious, above all things, that his son Gerund should receive a scholastic education. He sends him, therefore, before he has completed his seventh year, to learn his rudiments from the schoolmaster at Villa Ornata. Hence the author takes occasion to give a burlesque description of the pedantry of a village teacher, and the importance which was at that time attached to the disputes about the ancient and modern orthography. The scene of Gerund appearing before the dominie, who inquires into his attainments, is amusing enough. There is the gravity of the pedant, giving Latin quotations at every opportunity; the trivial nature of the subjects on which he expatiates; and the admiration

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