made by Paganism. Mind is desirous afterwards of discussing the same point with Thought; but the latter declines for the present, as she prefers dancing. In fact, she engages in the dance which is held in honour of God, and Mind also joins in it. The dancers form themselves into the figure of a cross, and invoke the unknown triune God. A sudden earthquake and eclipse disperse all the dancers, excepting Paganism, Mind, and Thought, who remain to dispute on the cause of the earthquake and eclipse. Mind maintains that the world is at an end, or that its creator suffers; Paganism denies that a God can suffer; and, on this point they dispute together afresh; whilst Thought, the fool, runs from one to the other, and always coincides with the person who has last spoken.

Paganism departs, and Thought remains alone with Mind. The latter proposes, as there is neither time nor place in the allegory, to traverse the earth in search of an unknown God who can suffer, since this is the one he is anxious to adore. They then take their departure to America, in pursuit of Atheism, whom they question on the formation of the universe. Atheism, in answering them, doubts of all things, and shews himself indifferent to every thing. Thought is irritated, beats him, and puts him to flight. They then go in search of Africa, who is expecting the prophet Mahomet, and who follows her God before she knows his laws; but Mind will not allow her to believe that every religion possesses the power of salvation; and that revealed religion only gives the means of arriving at a higher degree of perfection. This opinion appears to her a blasphemy, and they part with mutual threats. Mind next repairs to the Synagogue in Asia, but she finds her troubled by a murder which she had committed on a young man, who pretended to be the Messiah, and who perished at the moment of an earthquake and eclipse. Another dispute arises, attended with fresh discontent on the part of Mind. But this dispute is interrupted by lightning, and by a voice from heaven, crying, "Paul, why persecutest thou me?" St. Paul is converted by these words. He then disputes with the Synagogue and Mind in support of revelation. St. Paul introduces the Law of Nature, the Written Law, and the Law of Grace, to shew that they are all united under Christianity; and he calls in the seven Sacraments to declare that they are its supporters.

Mind and Thought are convinced; Paganism and Atheism are converted; the Synagogue and Africa still resist; but Mind pronounces the following decree, and all the choir repeat it "Let the human mind love the unknown God, and believe in him for reasons of state, even though faith be wanting."

CHAPTER XXXV.

CONCLUSION OF THE SPANISH DRAMA. STATE OF LETTERS DURING THE REIGN OF THE HOUSE OF BOURBON. CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE.

EUROPE has wholly forgotten the admiration with which, for so long a period, she regarded the Spanish stage, and the transport with which she received so many new dramatic pieces; pieces teeming with romantic incidents, intrigues, disguises, duels, personages unknown to themselves or to others, pomp of language, brilliancy of description, and fascinating poetry, mingled with the scenes of active life. In the seventeenth century the Spaniards were regarded as the dictators of the drama, and men of the first genius in other countries borrowed from them without scruple. They endeavoured, it is true, to adapt Castilian subjects to the taste of France and Italy, and to render them conformable to rules which were despised by the Spaniards; but this they did more in deference to the authority of the ancients than to indulge the taste of the people, which, indeed, throughout all Europe was the same as in Spain. At the present day this state of things is reversed, and the Spanish drama is entirely unknown in France and Italy. In those countries it is designated only by the epithet of barbarous; it is no longer studied in England; and the recent celebrity which has been attached to it in Germany, is not yet become a national feeling.

The Spaniards have only themselves to accuse for so rapid a decline and so entire an oblivion. Instead of perfecting themselves, and advancing in that career of glory on which they had entered, they have only copied themselves, and retraced a thousand times their own footsteps, without adding any thing to an art, of which they might have been the creators, and without introducing into it any variety. They had witnessed two men of genius, who composed their plays in the course of a few days, or rather hours. They thought

themselves obliged to imitate this rapidity, and they abstained from all care and correction, not less scrupulously than a dramatic author in France would have insisted on them. They considered it essential to their fame to compose their pieces without study; if, indeed, we may speak of fame when they aspired to nothing further than the transitory applause of an idle populace, and the pleasure of novelty, to which a pecuniary profit was attached; while the greater number did not even attempt to attract to their pieces the attention of their well-informed contemporaries, or the judgment of posterity, by committing them to the press.

We have elsewhere spoken of the Commedie dell' Arte of the Italians, those extemporaneous masqued pieces, with given characters, often repeated jests, and incidents which we have met with twenty times before, but adapted, well or ill, to a new piece. The Spanish school which was contemporary with Calderon, and which succeeded him, may with propriety be compared to these Commedie dell' Arte. The extemporaneous part was produced with a little more deliberation; since, instead of catching the moment of inspiration on the stage, the author sought it by some hours' labour in his closet. These pieces were composed in verse, but in the running and easy form of the Redondilhas, which naturally flowed from the pen. In other respects, the writer did not give himself more trouble to observe probability, historical Facts, or national manners, than an author of the Italian harlequin pieces; nor did he attempt in any greater degree novelty in the characters, the incidents, or the jests, or pay any greater respect to morality. He produced his plays as a manufacture or article of trade; he found it more easy and more lucrative to write a second than to correct the first; and it was with this negligence and precipitation that, under the reign of Philip IV., the stage was deluged with an unheard-of number of pieces.

The titles, the authors, and the history of this innumerable quantity of plays, have escaped not only the foreigner, who can bestow merely a rapid glance on the literature of other nations, but even those Spanish writers who have exerted themselves most to preserve every production which could contribute to the fame of their country. Each troop of comedians had their own repository, or collection, and endeavoured to retain the sole proprietorship of them; whilst

the booksellers, from time to time, printed on speculation pieces which were obtained from the manager oftener than from the author. In this manner were formed those collections of Comedias varias, which we find in libraries, and which were almost always printed without correction, criticism, or judgment. The works of individuals were scarcely ever collected or published separately; and chance more than the taste of the public has saved some from amongst the crowd which have perished. Chance, too, has led me to peruse many which have not been perused by Boutterwek, Schlegel, Dieze, and other critics. Thus every opinion on the personal merit of each author becomes necessarily vague and uncertain. We should have more reason to regret this confusion, if the character of the poets were to be found in their writings; if it were possible to assign to each his rank, and to distinguish his style or principles; but the resemblance is so great, that we could readily believe all these pieces to have been written by the same hand; and if any one of them has an advantage over the others, it seems more attributable to the happy choice of the subject, or to some historical trait, romance, or intrigue, which the author has had the good fortune to select, than to the talent with which they are treated.

Among the various collections of Spanish plays, the pieces which have most excited my curiosity are anonymous. I refer more particularly to those which were published as the work of a poet of the court; de un Ingenio de esta Corte. It is known that Philip IV. wrote several pieces for the stage under this name, and we may readily imagine that those which were supposed to come from his pen would be more eagerly sought after than others by the public. It is not impossible for a very good king to write very bad plays; and Philip IV., who was any thing rather than a good king, or a distinguished man, had still less chance of succeeding as a poet. It is, nevertheless, curious to observe a monarch's view of private life, and what notion a person entertains of society, who is, by his rank, elevated above all participation in it. Those plays, too, which, though not the work of the king, were yet written by some of his courtiers, his officers of state, or his friends, might, on that account, attract our notice; but nothing can be more vague than the title of these pieces, as an unknown individual may easily arrogate to himself a

rank which we have no means of ascertaining; and the Spaniards often extend the name of the Court to every thing within the sphere of the capital. Be this, however, as it may, it is among these pieces of a Court Poet that I have found the most attractive Spanish comedies. Such, for instance, is The Devil turned Preacher: El Diablo Predicator, y mayor contrario amigo; the work of a devout servant of St. Francis and the Capuchin monks. He supposes that the devil Luzbel has succeeded by his intrigues in exciting in Lucca an extreme animosity against the Capuchins; every one refuses them alms; they are ready to perish with hunger, and are reduced to the last extremity; and the first magistrate in the city at length orders them to quit it. But at the moment that Luzbel is congratulating himself on his victory, the infant Jesus descends to earth with St. Michael. To punish the devil for his insolence, he compels him to clothe himself in the habit of St. Francis, and then to preach in Lucca in order to counteract the mischief he had done; to ask alms, and to revive the charitable disposition of the inhabitants; and not to quit the city or the habit of the order, until he had built in Lucca another convent for the followers of St. Francis, more richly endowed, and capable of containing more monks than the former. The invention is whimsical, and the more so when we find the subject treated with the most sincere devotion, and the most implicit belief in the miracles of the Franciscans; but the execution is not the less pleasing on that account. The solicitude of the devil, who endeavours to terminate as soon as possible so disagreeable a business; the zeal with which he preaches; the hidden expressions by which he diguises his mission, and wishes to pass off his chagrin as a religious mortification; the prodigious success which attends his exertions in opposition to his own interests; the only enjoyment which is left him in his trouble, to torment the slothful monk who accompanies him in asking alms, and to cheat him in his gormandizing: all this is represented with a gaiety and life which render this piece very amusing in the perusal, and which caused it to be received with transport by the audience, when it was a few years ago given on the stage at Madrid, in the form of a regular play. It was not one of the least pleasures of the spectators, to laugh so long at the expense of the devil, as we are taught to believe that the laugh is generally on his side.