DRAM A. 



95 



Drain*, and the intrigue exposed with sufficient clearness ; and 

 y ""~,'""*' the language of the lovers supported with warmth and 

 sensibility. But the first anonymous author had left 

 the action incomplete ; he had only interested us in the 

 love which the beautiful Melibcea had cherished for 

 Calixtus; had apprised us of the obstacles which their 

 ly Fcrnand relations opposed to their union; and had introduced to 

 de Rojas, Calixtus a sorceress named Celestina, who had engaged 

 A.D- 11 JO. to assist him in his love. Fernand de Rojas continued 

 this imperfect comedy about the year 1510, and pro- 

 longed it to twenty acts ; a length which precluded its 

 representation. He makes the personages pass through 

 the most romantic adventures, and gives the drama a 

 tragic denouement. Celestina introduces herself into 

 the house of Meliboea, corrupts her domestics, bewitches 

 the young woman by her spells, and brings her to guilt. 

 Scarcely is Meliboea plunged in dishonour, than her re- 

 lations avenge it. The different domestics who had 

 been employed by Celestina perish by the sword or 

 poison ; she herself is poignarded, Calixtus is also kil- 

 led, and Melibcea throws herself from the top of a tower. 

 Thus, romance succeeds to comedy, and the interest of 

 fancy to that of curiosity. In spite of this, few works 

 have been greater national favourites than this of Celes- 

 tina, whose enthusiastic admirers in Spain, have consi- 

 dered it as the first lesson of morality ever exhibited by 

 the drama. There were many Spaniards, however, who 

 thought its tendency very different. To decide the con- 

 troversy, the church was consulted. The issue of this 

 appeal was, that in Spain it was prohibited, in Italy ap- 

 proved ; Mid it should be noticed, that, in point of 

 time, we are sj>eaking of a tragi-comedy begun in 1-140, 

 finished in 1.010; begun sixty and finished five years 

 before the appearance of Trissino's Sophoni.sba, and 

 yet of sufficient importance to divide the public opinion 

 of Europe, and to have Italy on the side of the debated 

 pl:iy. This cireimi.-tance shews, that the popularity of 

 Spanish literature was more early and important than 

 is generally supposed. 



Such was the .state of the Spanish theatre, pleasantly 

 described by Cervantes, when Lope de Rueda, whose 

 comedies and acting the author of Don Quixote had ad- 

 mired in his youth, headed his strolling company. His 

 theatrical wealth, says Cervantes, consisted in four white 

 'hepherd's dresses, garnished with gilt leather, four 

 beards and trains of false hair, and four crooks, more or 

 less. The comedies were only conversations, like eclogues, 

 l>etween two or three shepherds and a shepherdess, which 

 were embellished and prolonged by two or three inter- 

 ludes of Negresses, clowns, and Biscayans. * Naharro, 

 Sjays Cervantes,) a native of Toledo, succeeded to Lope 

 e Rueda in celebrity as a comic actor and author. He 

 made some small addition to the decorations of his na- 



Dram*. 



Lope de 



Kuala. 



tive theatre, and changed the sack which had conveyed 

 its moveables into boxes. He brought forward the mu- *""" 

 sic, which had been kept behind the curtain, in front 

 of the scene, and took away the false and farcical beards 

 from the performers, except from those who played the 

 characters of old men. He was also the first to imitate 

 clouds, thunder and lightning, and battles, by artificial 

 means on the stage. But nothing of this kind, Cervan- 

 tes adds, was brought to perfection, until his own plays 

 were performed ; and he boasts of being the first who 

 exhibited moral and allegorical figures in the Spanish 

 theatre, as well as of reducing the representation from 

 five to three acts. In this latter circumstance, however, 

 Cervantes appears to have been ignorant, that Torres 

 Naharro had anticipated him. The name of Cervantes Cervan((Jj 

 himself forms an interesting epoch in the Spanish dra- ^ j 

 ma. He composed, he tells us, from twenty to thirty a e Vega. 

 comedies. (The word comedy was at this time ap- 

 plied, in a very strange manner, to productions 

 fraught with representations of the terrible and pathetic.) 

 Lope de Vega possessed a lively and magic volubili- 

 ty, for rendering absurdity itself entertaining. Cervan- 

 tes was no more than his great contemporary, seriously 

 disposed to give a classical harmony of design to the 

 Spanish drama. They both of them laughed at their 

 own inferiority to the ancients, and Lope even speaks 

 of his preparing himself for the composition, by put- 

 ting the ancient authors out of his study, lest they 

 should chill him by their condemnation ; but both he 

 and Cervantes were probably, in their own predilec- 

 tion, as much disposed to the fantastic drama, as their 

 audience were exclusively disposed to receive it. Lope 

 succeeded, and Cervantes, we find, was comparatively 

 unfortunate. No great weight needs to be attached to 

 the decision of their contemporaries, if we consider a 

 tasteless and barbarous age as standing umpire between 

 them. But whatever the genius of the Spanish drama 

 might be, Lope de Vega contrived to make it popular, 

 while the nervous precision of thought, and the solid 

 talent of Cervantes, seems to have been ill calculated to 

 deal with its mass of intrigues and adventures. His. 

 comedies are therefore, in general, (and it would seem- 

 with great justice) accused of being cold and fatiguing; 

 and in the dispute between this great man and the 

 contemporary public, respecting the degree of his dra- 

 matic genius, the public opinion, which rated it lower 

 than he did himself, appears in this, as in most cases 

 of the same kind, to be right, t 



There is nevertheless one of his early pieces, writ- 

 ten before his rivalship with Lope de Vega began, 

 which may well qualify any general decision against 

 his talents for the drama ; this is his tragedy on the 

 siege of Numantia. It is altogether a distracting medley 



* It was probably owing to this want of a regular theatre in Spain, that the pieces of Torres, a comic poet anterior to Lope de Rueda, and 

 !ip, though not mentioned by Cervantes, was really the father of Spanish comedy, never were acted in his native country; at least there 

 proof that they were acted, although, according to Bouterwjk, they were printed as early as 1533. Torres Naharro U also supposed to 

 l.t the first wlio divided Spanish comedy into three acts or juurnailas. It does not even appear that Torres Naharro's pieces were ever popu- 

 lar, for they were immediately forgotten in the reputation of those prose comedies of Lope de Rueda, which Cervantes speaks of having seen 

 ia hii youth. Torre* Naharro is to be distinguished from another Naharro, whc i, mentioned by Cervantes as the successor of Rueda in 

 reputation for comic compositions and acting. Without rinding it possible to enter individually into the merits of those who commenced the 

 career of the Spanish drama, it would be injustice, even in the shortest sketch, to omit the name of Geronymo Bermudez. This writer was 

 a Dominican of Gallicia, who was so diffident, that he would not venture to publish at first, but under a feigned name. He is the author of 

 two tragedies on the subject of Inez de Castro ; one of which contains some passages highly tragical and elevated. Taken altogether, his tra- 

 gk poetry u poor and imperfect ; but his taste is entitled to respect for the attempt which he made to give a classical turn, and an eleva- 

 tJ tone of diction, to the language of tragedy ; an example on which so few dramatic writers of his country thought fit to improve. Had 

 there been but one or two men of genius to follow the hint of Bermudez, the Spanish stage would not have been disgraced by the wild ex- 

 travagance of its general character. Thit old Dominican, defective as his genius was, saw with the eye of taste, that while the classical form 

 of tragedy was desirable, the subjects of modern interest were fittest for a modern stage. He chose, therefore, the subject of the unfortunate 

 Inez de Castro, which Camotns has made poetically memorable, by embodying it in the Lusiad ; but Geronymo Bermudez wrote before tUe 

 Lusiad had appeared. 



j- It U generally allowed, however, that the interludes, or short comedies of Cervantes, possess considerable merit. 



