oj Lope Felix d 



asserts t!iat an observance of ihein would 

 disgust a Spanish audience: 



jjue la colera 

 De un Espanol sentado no se templa, 

 Sinole representan ea dos horas 

 Nasca e' tiiial juicio desileel Genesis. 



Who seated once, disdiin to go away, •% 



Unless in two short hours they see the pby J. 

 Bruughtdown ftomGenesis to judgment day. } 



Butthouf^h lie justifies, or at least pal- 

 liates, such irregularities, he considers 

 the unity of action, and the preservation 

 of character, as two essential requisites in 

 a good play. In practice he had fre- 

 quently neglected ihetn, but he oders no 

 apology for such a licen.se in this poem. 

 On the contrary, he enforces tlie observ- 

 ance of fhem by injunctions as positive as 

 those of Boileau, or of Aristotle himself. 



Alter some common-place maxims on 

 the choice of the subject and the con- 

 duct of the fable, he recommends adapt- 

 ing, the metre to the nature of the senti- 

 ments and situations, and makes some 

 observations on the different species of 

 Castilian verse, which are not reckoned 

 yery distinct by Spaniiird^, and are utterly 

 incomprehensible to forei?;ners. 



He is yet more particular in his rules 

 for the length of a comedy and its com- 

 ponent parts, and assigns some plausible 

 arguments for dividing dramatic works 

 into three rather than five acts. The 

 propriety of never leaving the stage 

 vacant, so earnestly insisted upon by 

 later writers in France, is not omitted in 

 Lope's art of making comedies. Nor is 

 that the solitary instance in which his 

 judgment has been sanctioned by sub>e- 

 quent critics and general practice. He 

 eniorces the necessity of adapting the 

 scenery and the dresses to the country, 

 times, end character of the persons re- 

 presented, and ridicules with some plea- 

 santry the ruffs of Turks and the hose of 

 Romans, which the theatre of his day 

 was in the habit of exhibiting. His 

 remarks on the subject anpear to us ob- 

 vious, but they had then the merit of 

 novelty as well as truth. Many years 

 elapsed before the practice, he so judi- 

 ciously reconnnended, was generally 

 adopted. It prevailed indeed m Spain, 

 though to a limited extent, at an earlier 

 perirjd than cither iti England or France, 

 Alany Castilian plays were founded on 

 facts in their national history or fictions 

 immediately connected with the manners 

 of some particular age in their country. 

 In all such pieces the respective cos- 

 tumes of their ancestors and countrymen 

 wer^ rigidly obsvtved, Wh^re ihp scene 



e Vega Carpio. 625 



was laid in antient times or in distant 

 countries, the tabk of appropriating the 

 dresses to the characters was not so easy, 

 nor was the deficiency so palpable to an 

 ignorant audience. Accordingly it was 

 on such occasions neglected from indo- 

 lence, from frugfility, or from despair. 

 Indeed, no inconsiderable stock of dili- 

 gence and knowledge is requisite to carry 

 such a practice to any perlection, as majr 

 well be inferred from the tardy progress 

 it made for many years on the more 

 refined and expensive theatres of Paris 

 and London. We can all remember 

 Macbeth in an uniform, and Alexander 

 with powder and a ribband in his hair. 

 The Cato of Addison origiiuilly stabbed 

 himself in a dressing gown and a full- 

 bottomed wig. The general observance 

 of the costume, which adds a fresh charm 

 to dramatic representation, is almost an 

 invention of our own lime; and our na- 

 tional stage in particular is chiefly in- 

 debted fur the improvement to a con- 

 temporary in whom singular accuracy of 

 research is united to great professional 

 success and authority. 



HIS FABLES. 



Lope was contemporary with both 

 Sliakspeare and Fletcher. In the choice 

 of their subjects, and in the conduct of 

 their fables, a resemblance may often be 

 found, which is no doubt to be attributed 

 to the taste and opinions of the times, 

 rather than to any knowledge of each 

 other's writings. It is indeed in this 

 point of view that the Spanish poet can 

 be compared with the greatest advantage 

 to himself, to the £;reat fouiider of our 

 theatre. It is true that his imagery may 

 occasionally remind the English reader 

 of Sliakspeare; but his sentiments, espe- 

 cially in tragedy, are more like Drydea 

 and his contemporaries than their prede. 

 cessors. The feelings cf Sliakspeare's 

 characters are the result of passions 

 common to all men; the extravagant 

 sentiments of Lope's, as of Dryden's 

 heroes, arc derived from an artificial 

 state of society, from notions suggested 

 by chivalry and exaggerated by romance^ 

 In his (lelincalinn of character he is yet 

 more unlike, and, it is scarce necessary 

 to add, greatly inferior; but in the 

 choice and conduct of his subjects, if he 

 equals him in extravagance and impro- 

 bability, he does not fall short of him ia 

 interest and variety. A rapid .succes- 

 sion of events, and sudden ciianges in 

 the situation of the personages, are the 

 charms by which he interests us so forci- 

 bly in his plots. These are the only I'ea- 

 tuies of the Spanish stage which Cur- 



neUle 



