The stage is supposed to represent a garden, in which Calixtus, a young and handsome cavalier, enters in pursuit of a falcon, and where he finds Meliboa, daughter of a great lord of the country; the piece commences with these words. CALIXTUS.-I recognise clearly in this, oh Meliboa, the greatness of

God!

MELIBEA. In what, Calixtus?

CAL-In what? That he has given nature the power of arraying thee in such perfect beauty, and in according me, so little worthy, so high a favour as to behold thee; in a place, too, so convenient for my acquainting you with my secret grief. Doubtless such a favour is incomparably greater than all services, sacrifices, devotion offered to God, in order that he might permit me to come here. What man was ever so glorified in this life, as I am to-day? I am quite sure the glorious saints, who take such delight in the divine vision, cannot possess more bliss than I do now in contemplating thee.

But, alas! see what a difference? Whilst they are being glorified, they are in no fear of falling from so high a state; whilst my joy is alloyed with the torment which thy absence must soon cause me.

MEL.-Do you, then, estimate this meeting at so high a price? CAL.-Truly, it is so great, that if God were to offer me the most precious earthly blessings, I should esteem them of far less worth..

MEL. However, if you persevere, I will give you a yet greater reward.

CAL.-Oh! my lucky ears, which, vile as they are, have heard a word

So sweet!

MEL-Unlucky, rather, as they will soon hear; for the punishment will be as severe as thy insensate boldness, and the tone of thy speech well merit. How dare a fellow like you think that a woman like I would so trifle with her virtue? Begone, begone, wretch! It is not in patience to bear the idea of seeing a man so far inflated, as to express to me the delirium of an illicit amour.

After this reprimand Meliboa withdraws and appears no more during the first act. Calixtus remains on the stage with Sempronio, his valet, to whom he communicates his despair, gets into a passion with him, chases him off, calls him back again; to whom he describes his beloved, pouring a torrent of theological and fabulous lore, and everything which we may regard as the invariable character of this dramatic

romance.

Sempronio endeavours to enliven the scene by his pleasantries. He accuses his master of being a heretic, and verily the accusations seem well merited. Probably the author's object is to prepare in this way the catastrophe.

SEMPRONIO. For my part I protest that what you have just said is downright heresy !

CAL.-Why?

SEMP.-Because it is against the Christian religion.

CAL.-And what care I?

SEMP. Are you not a Christian, then?

CAL.--I? I am a Melibean; it is Meliboa whom I adore. I believe in Meliboea, and I love Meliboa.

After an intolerably tedious scene, and sallies of wit at least as indecent as profane, Sempronio at last tries to console his master by representing that his adored is still but a woman, that all women are frail, that all have capitulated, and that Meliboa will yield in her turn. He even pledges himself to bring the matter about.

CAL. And how do you think of contriving this notable exploit. SEMP. I am going to tell you. Some time past, I have known an old hag with abeard, called S. Celestina, who lives near here. She is crafty and subtle, is an adept in sorcery and all kinds of wickedness. I am assured that in this town only there are five thousand young women whose reputations she has either destroyed or restored; nay, if she liked she could make the very rocks themselves go mad with love!

Calixtus orders Sempronio to go in search of her. Sempronio visits Celestina, and meets his own mistress, Elise, who had deceived him, in the company of another man. Though his jealousy was momentarily excited, Celestina contrived to soothe him, and, to prevent his declaring himself by his locks, persuaded him to set out with her immediately to join Calixtus. The latter was attended by Parmenio, another of his valets. They see the hag approaching, and Parmenio gives free vent to the horror and contempt her sight inspires. Calixtus asks him the reason.

PARMENIO. That fine lady possesses, at the far end of the town, close to a stream, a solitary house, half in ruins, of ugly aspect, and vilely furnished. She there follows six different trades-those of a laundress, perfumeress, dealer in love-philters and charms, a botcheress of lost reputations, a go-between, and, finally, a bit of a witch. The first trade was a blind for all the others; under that pretence you saw going to her house numbers of young femmes-de-chambres with linen. She had means of communicating with the most scrupulous women to gain her ends; she chose the most favourable hours at early mass, at night processions, at confessionals, and all other devotional appointments. I have frequently seen women in veils go into her house, followed by barefooted fellows, penitents, men in hoods, who doubtless went thither to bewail their sins.

Celestina meanwhile is introduced to Calixtus, who hastens to bring her the golden bribe. She remains with Parmeno,

tries to corrupt him, and the dialogue is conducted with infinite spirit, displaying the skill of Celestina, and her insinuating character. She talks of her attachment to his mother, declares that she had entrusted her with money for him which she kept quite safe. She makes him laugh with her licentious ribaldry; advises him to attach himself to Sempronio rather than his master, because the great have never any affection for the poor. Lastly, she promises her good offices with Arethusa, a cousin of Elise's, whose love he shall possess. After these bye scenes Calixtus returns, gives her the money, and the act closes. The ancient author stopped there, his production being already the length of an ordinary comedy, though hardly begun. The new writer added twenty acts, so long that a whole day would not suffice for their representation. I can perceive no difference in the style, in the spirit of dialogue, and painting of the characters, any more than in the degree of license or wit, or the tableaux presented to the view of the spectators; it is extreme. Events are precipitated; on one side we see the amours of the two valets for Elise and Arethusa; on the other, Celestina's insinuating art with Meliboa first extorting an innocent favour, next an interview. She ends it by receiving Calixtus into her apartment by night: but then the valets wish to constrain Celestina to divide the bribe she has received from their master with them. She refuses; they beat her, they kill her ; justice pursues them, and the next morning they are beheaded, after having confessed their guilt and its motives, in the public place. Elise and Arethusa vow to avenge the deaths of Celestina and the two valets on the head of Calixtus. They apply to some bandits smitten with their charms, and bring them to the house of Meliboa. Calixtus is assassinated as he is leaving it; and the lady, on learning the tidings, after confessing her fault to her parents, throws herself from the top of a tower.

Few works have had a success so brilliant as this drama. The author boasted that it was composed with a perfectly moral view, to warn the young against the snares of love, and especially of its female panders. No assertion is made as to its representation, but it was read by every class of people; relished, perhaps, more for the evil examples it exhibited to view, than for the lessons it supplied with which to resist them. Widely diffused by the armies of Charles V. which

inundated Europe, as the chef d'œuvre of Spanish books; printed in the Spanish in other countries to promote the study of that tongue; transferred to the Italian and the French; commented on by Ecclesiastics, though last of all condemned on the score of Celestina's immoralities; it is a work in which the Spanish literati still take pride for its nationality, and for its opening, they assert, the way to the dramatic career of other nations.

CHAPTER XXVI.

AGE OF CHARLES V. THE CLASSICS OF SPAIN: BOSCAN; GARCILASO; MENDOZA; MIRANDA; MONTEMAYOR.

THE Spanish nation had, for a long period, dissipated its strength in internal contests. It had for four centuries attempted to expel its most industrious inhabitants from its bosom, while it had prodigally expended its blood in aggrandizing alternately the sovereigns of Castile or of Aragon, of Navarre, or of Portugal; or in struggles against their prerogative. This nation, unknown it may almost be said in Europe, and which had taken no part in European politics, became at length united under one crown at the commencement of the sixteenth century. Spain now turned against other nations the prodigious power which had been hitherto confined within her own bosom. While she menaced the liberties of all the rest of Europe, she was deprived of her own, perhaps without remarking the loss, in the agitation of her many victories. Her character sustained an entire change; and at the period when Europe was gazing with astonishment and terror on this phenomenon, her literature, which she formed in the schools of the vanquished nations, shone out in its full brilliancy.

The power of the Spanish nation, at the end of the fifteenth century, had received accessions fully sufficient to shake the equilibrium of Europe. Alfonso V. of Aragon, after having completed the conquest of Naples, had, it is true, left that kingdom to his natural son; and it was not until the year 1504, that Ferdinand the Catholic, by the most revolting treachery, recovered those dominions. Sicily, Sar

dinia, and the Balearic Isles, had been already united to the crown of Aragon. The marriage of Ferdinand with the queen of Castile, without consolidating the two monarchies, gave that ambitious prince the command of all the armies of Spain, of which he speedily availed himself in Italy. Grenada was conquered from the Moors in the year 1492, by the united troops of Ferdinand and Isabella. In the same year Christopher Columbus discovered those vast countries, so remarkable for their riches and for their happy situation, in which the Spaniards found a new home, and from whence they drew treasures with which they flattered themselves they should subdue the world. In 1512, Ferdinand, as regent of Castile, conquered Navarre; and the whole of that extensive peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, yielded to the same power. When, in 1516, Charles V. added to this monarchy, the rich and industrious provinces of the Low Countries, his paternal dominions, and in 1519, the Imperial Crown, with the territories inherited from Maximilian, in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, the novelty of this extraordinary power, which so greatly exceeded the authority of any European potentate since the reign of Charlemagne, was certainly sufficient to turn the head of a youthful sovereign, and to inspire him with the fatal project of founding an universal monarchy. The reputation which Charles V. acquired by his victories, the respect and fear with which he impressed all the other nations of Europe, the glory of the Spanish arms, which he triumphantly led into Italy, France, and Germany, into countries whither the standard of Castile had never penetrated, all tended to deceive the Spanish nation, and to inspire them with an enthusiastic attachment to him whom they regarded as their hero, but who was, in fact, studiously endeavouring to subvert their laws and their constitution. The dreams of ambition in which the king and the nation equally indulged, were fatal to both. Charles V. in the midst of his victories, and notwithstanding the immense extent of his territories, was always, in proportion to his situation, weaker and poorer than Ferdinand and Isabella, his immediate predecessors. In every enterprise he was deprived of the fruits which he should have gathered, by the want of soldiers and of money; a want unknown to the former monarchs. The taxes col