seen conspiring with the profane to establish a view of human life and conduct, which, as regards the government of this world, at least, is essentially Manichean. And having seen this, we may better understand and excuse the ethics of the stage, and the anomalies in its code of honour.

In insisting on valour as a first essential, it speaks the universal sense of mankind; but this it does with an accent that in every other place and time has been received as false. Throughout all the civilized world beside, men of brave deeds are ever sparing of big words; and vainglorious boasting has been exposed as the mask of a coward by every painter of character, from Epicharmus down to Walter Scott. In Spain only the type is reversed; self-praise and bravado belong to the hero as well as to the bully, and your Crastinus* hectors in the style of Pyrgopolinices. This Castilian fashion of courage is at first sight inconceivable to the foreigner. Such, however, was in truth the mode of gallant bearing among the countrymen of Garcia de Paredes, Pulgar,

and Cortes. This is as well attested a matter of fact, as that in audacity of enterprise and firmness in adversity, the Spaniard of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has never been surpassed. That a virtue so substantial should involve itself in such clouds of noisy bluster, might à priori be deemed impossible, but so it was; and the instance only proves that the strongest presumptions may deceive. Of this Thrasonical mood the Castilian is so far from being either suspicious or ashamed, that he is rather proud of it, as a sign of the predominance of his race; in his vocabulary arrogante is an epithet, not of reproach, but of praise.‡

But

This, as a feature liable to exaggeration, is certainly carried to the height of extravagance on the stage, especially in plays of the second or more artificial period. in all, the specific type is the same; and a vein of pretentious rodomontade runs throughout the whole drama, as the natural eloquence of valour. Bombast, which anywhere else would be deemed farcical, is here current as the very

been incidentally mentioned. That the general scale of principle was neither high nor finely divided, and that practice was lax and selfish in many particulars, has perhaps been made sufficiently clear. The only other point that need be noticed in a summary so rapid as this, is the extent to which personal obligationsas of loyalty or friendship-are made to override all moral considerations whatever. When service is required by a superior, or assistance by a friend, it is no time to canvass questions of right or wrong. That is the concern of him to whom you owe allegiance or amity; your duty is simply to lend the aid he asks for, though in a design known to be criminal, unjust, or violent.* When the purpose is evil, you ought, indeed, to dissuade him from pursuing it; but if, in spite of reason, he will go on, you must follow, and second him as zealously as though you approved of it. This preference of what moralists call the imperfect to positive obligations, bespeaks a state of civilization essentially unripe-which is further seen in the direction of sympathy, wherever civil law is broken, towards the delinquent. Corrupt and unfair administration no doubt increased this bias; but the primary impulse was a covert hostility to restraint, which betrays a condition of moral growth immature or untowardly stunted.

I must not conclude without saying something of the form in which religion appears on the boards. The devotion professed to

the Faith,' as a privilege and sign of pure race, has already been noticed. The profession is great, the belief infinite, the moral effect little or nothing. It is a point of honour to display a catholic zeal, and to fulfil the outward observances of religion; in virtue of which men, who otherwise live in defiance of all its injunctions, boast themselves and are deemed to

be good Christians.' The profane ostentation, if I may so call it, of piety as a mark of worldly distinction, rather than as a rule of conduct, is one feature of the subject eminently Spanish. In no other country has it ever been the pride of the dissolute and unprincipled, no less than of just and virtuous men, to declare themselves the zealots of a religion that admitted the homage of both.

The creed is, of course, the same in all provinces of the Romish Church. The singularity here is, not the advance of any dogma absolutely new, but the manner in which, by overstraining certain points of old doctrine, these are forced into a monstrous prominence. Of such, the most notable in secular drama are-an extreme view of ascetic merit, of which I have spoken already; and an assertion of the saving virtue of a devocion, or ceremonial fealty to certain holy things-such as a crucifix, the rosary, a particular image of the Virgin or a saint. This, wherein nothing but profession is required, if duly professed, will suffice to obliterate every stain of the vilest life, and bring the sinner, at its close, to an instant of penitence, followed by an eternity of glory. The longer and more flagitious the career, the more potent, it would seem, is the sovereign charm, if you will but take care the while never to lose sight of it. This doctrine, profitable to the priest and convenient to the people, is urged on the stage to an extreme which I shall not attempt to describe. It is a favourite theme with the best poets,† who outdo themselves in painting to the life the worst excesses of profligacy and guilt, in order so to heighten the effect of the talisman which in the end will turn all this filth into treasure. Such is the positive side of the picture; its negative is also presented, with still greater force, if possible. To doubt the saving

ROJAS, No ay amigo para amigo.

a high order.

1859.]

power of Church pardons, after what precedent sins soever, is the only sin that is absolutely unpardonable. The poor hypochondriac, in whom years of devout exercises have not quieted his dread of an awful future, is despatched, because he still desponds, to eternal perdition; while, as the reverse of his punishment, there is the reward of a criminal of the blackest dye, who throughout a long course of wickedness has always counted on some saint to help him off at last. This is imputed to him for righteousness; at the critical moment he repents, is saved, and dismissed to happi

ness.

The same principle is embodied in a shape hardly less enormoushalf-glaring license, half sombre asceticism-in many of the pious comedies termed de santos, which relate the transformation into confessors and martyrs of subjects of either sex, wallowing in the very slough of crime; the change from foul to fair being usually aided, when not wholly produced, by some of the sacred specifics above mentioned, and the result, in very earnest, an example of the jesting rule the greater the sinner the greater the saint.'* The poet ransacks the hagiology for startling contrasts of this kind, and the warmth with which he colours the vicious side of the story is deemed the more edifying, as an improvement on the bare outline in the Flos Sanctorum, or the Golden Legend, the more it seems to enhance the virtue of the remedy by aggravating the disease.

Among these extraordinary compositions, some of which are monstrous enough, not a few will be found that, granting their principle, must be allowed to rank with the highest efforts of the drama. But on this indispensable condition, who can now attempt to do them jus

433

tice? With every desire to take the poet's side, there is something in this preposterous theory of vice and atonement so repulsive to the moral sense, that it is all but impossible to arrive at the position from which only works of the kind can be fairly surveyed.

In conclusion, I must repeat, that the sketch in this chapter is designedly partial, noting those features only in which some strangeness of character appears; and that, being strange, such lineaments, drawn in bare outline, on a scale somewhat enlarged, will naturally seem harsh, if not forbidding. It may be believed that what here is shown in naked abstract, has a very different air when presented in all the liveliness of action and clothed with every grace of poetry. Nor should it be forgotten how much a tracing on this plan omits of elements common to every stage, the chief resource of dramatists, and which none have managed with more vivacity, force, and pathos than the Spanish. These may safely be left to produce their natural effect on the spectator's eye; what is here needed being to accustom it to impressions for which it is unprepared by habit, and which, without previous allowance for their distance from any modern point of view, will be imperfect or erroneous.

As here described, and, I hope, not overstated, the particulars of this abstract will not indeed be found complete in any single character or play. They have been taken here and there, from a wide surface, as they occur in various combinations. No doubt they often appear in bold relief; but they are also to be sought in less obvious traits, and completed by various indications, negative as well as positive. In any case, single instances cannot be expected to correspond at all points with the result

VOL. LX. No. CCCLVIII.

FF

of a compression of many into a general type, in order to show, if possible, the sum of a series of meanings diffused throughout the whole body of the drama. In these lie the elements of its special character; and when not expressly embodied in word and act, they are not the less perpetually implied,forming a basis familiar to the audience of its day, on which its propriety and significance rested-a basis, as we have now seen, very

remote from ours.

Hence the necessity, for those who would know this drama as written and acted, of a course of discipline leading as nearly as possible to the position from whence it was originally viewed; hence the error of viewing it at a distance, through a medium of opinions and feelings wholly unknown to the poet and to his audience.

Hence, also, the impossibility of reopening a theatre like this for popular entertainment a design which has nevertheless been recommended by some of its admirers,

among whom it is surprising to find one so generally judicious as Von Schack. It seems that it is possible to become so thoroughly at home in this far-off world, as to forget that the way by which it has been sought is one which the public at large can never be expected to take the trouble of finding. Yet this being so, it would be idle to suppose that there can be any sufficient understanding or relish-while there lies, so to speak, a whole continent of thought, persuasion, and habit, between the original sense of the performance and the sense in which it must be taken by any miscellaneous modern audience. The attempt to advance this kind of exhibition, therefore, could only expose the masterpieces of genius to contempt, by placing them in a light where they must inevitably appear in false drawing, tame and flaccid in some parts, in others distorted, in all unpleasing and unnatural. Those who best appreciate their excellence will be the last to encourage any such experiment.

HARD [ARD held in the sinewy grasp of honest Dymocke, whose features expanded into grim smiles with the excitement of a rousing gallop, the sorrel's regular stride swept round the park at Boughton, despite the heat of the afternoon sun and the hardness of the ground. Such a proceeding was indeed a flagrant departure from the rules of stable discipline, which would have enjoined the serving-man to bring his charge quietly home, and bed him up incontinently for the night. To judge, however, by Hugh's countenance, he had good reasons for this unusual measure, and after half-anhour's walk through the cool shade of the avenues, he jumped from the saddle in the stable-yard, and contemplated the still reeking sides of

SECRETS.

his favourite with an expression of grave and critical approval.

'Aye,' said he, as the sorrel, after snorting once or twice, raised his excited head, as if ready and willing for another gallop, you could make some of them look pretty foolish even now. Regular work and good food has not done you any harm since you left off your soldierin'; and after this bit of a breather to-night, if you should be wanted to-morrow, why -whew!'

The prolonged whistle which concluded this soliloquy denoted an idea of such rapidity as words were totally inadequate to convey; and Dymocke proceeded to wash his charge's feet, and rub down his bright glossy sides in the cool air of