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D 11 A M A. 



BBS. hich an African hero, Muley, it made prisoner. This 

 "-""V ' Muley, who is in love witli tin- daughter of the King 

 i.t Morocco, relates hi* history to the Prince of Portu- 

 gal; and Fcniand. whose pi-nero-ity is moved by the 

 '. -, ts In : liberty. Scarcely lias Muley 



hml time to express his surprise and his gratitude, 

 when reint'orifinents arriving to the Moorish army, n 

 second battle ensues, in which Fcniand is defeated, 

 and in his turn taken prisoner. Here commences the 

 tragic interer-t, which is prepared by touching sitna- 

 nf a gentler description. The King of Morocco 

 - liln'rty to his prisoner in exchange for the fortress 

 of Ceuta, which the Portuguese possessed upon hi< 

 co-i>t-. I'.iit tin- Prince lie! hre* that lie will rather die 

 in the cruellest slavery, than see a Christian city de- 

 livered for his sake into the power of the infidels. The 

 Moorish sovereign sends an embassy to Portugal to re- 

 new the offer, which he thought the subjects of 1'er- 

 nand could not refuse. They agree, indeed, to it, but 

 the heroic Prince still refuses his lilwrty on such terms. 

 Enraged at this refusal, the infidels aggravate his mi- 

 series, and subject him to the torture; but his constan- 

 cy is proof against them all. In the mean time, the 

 heart of Muley is bursting with agony at beholding the 

 sufferings of his former deliverer. The Moorish Prin- 

 cess, who returns Muley 's love, is also deeply interest- 

 ed in behalf of the Christian Prince. They plead in 

 vain for him ; and a deej>er shade of melancholy inte- 

 rest is spread over this unfortunate pair in being torn 

 from each other. Their historv, it is true, is in sonic 

 degree episodical, and independent of Fernand's his- 

 tory ; but still it is chained to it by an unity which 

 the mind forms to itself in considering them as the only 

 friends of the hero in a barbarous foreign country. 

 Fernand dies an unyielding martyr the Kegulus of 

 his country. And here, it must be confessed, the uni- 

 ty of action ceases ; but the story is prolonged by the 

 arrival of a fresh army from Portugal. The scene 

 of it should IK? posthumous and disjointed, however 

 in itself imposing. It is the dead of night military 

 music is heard at a distance it approaches, and the 

 ghost of the martyr arrives with a torch in his hand, 

 and appears conducting the Christian troops against the 

 walls of Fez. Don Alphonso, the living leader of the 

 warriors of Portugal, calls the King of Morocco to a 

 parley, tells him that he liad made his daughter Pheni- 

 eia, and her lover, the generous Muley, his prisoners. 

 A treaty is concluded, by which the corpse of Fernand 

 i.t restored in return for the Moorish Princess and Mu- 

 ley ; and the Christians obtain as a stipulation, that 

 they shall he -uttered to marry her as a reward for their 



(ion towards the dead Fernand. 



Inferior .id-t those great names which constitute epochs in 



Spanuli the Spanish drama, we have forborne to speak of seve- 

 ' *ran>"stt- ral intermediate writers, who, although generally their 

 imitator.-., might probably, in some instance, improve 

 upon their models : but to give a list of all the drama- 

 tic writers of this theatre, would be to encroach too se- 

 riously on the boundaries of any F.neyclop:edia. Among 

 the writers i-f the genuine Spanish school, who suc- 

 ceed'-:i l.'ilderon, are Antonio de Solis, and Aimiistia 

 >>. The former has paid i;re,it attention t-i ei 



:iic character-, a circumstance in which 

 i If was deficient the latter is really the 

 lie of all Spanish writers. Many others 

 might be mentioned, as Juan de Hoz, Tisso de Moli- 

 na, and the Che\,dier Francisco de Hops, or Hoxas, 

 and (uiillen de Castro, from whose pieces it is to be 

 hoped Uiat a selection will yet be formed, sufficient- 



ly worthy of the national honour; for in the editions I 

 of the Sjianish poets, the fault has been to make collec- . ' 

 lions, of which many pieces are falsely attributed to 

 great name- instead of making -election - 

 intrinsically valuable. The facilitv of style in which 

 Lope de Vega and the primitive authoress indulged, i-, 



C-tly remarked by Lord I loll. mil to h.-n e. in all pro- 

 biiity, given ri>e to the revolution in ta-tc and st\le. 

 which took place in the latter part of the century. 

 This revolution const-ted in passing from the cxtrer 

 of licence, and simple carele.-sin.ss, to that manner of 

 artificial bombast which is, in Spanish literature, called 

 Gongfritwt, from the author Gongara, who first brought 

 it into fashion. 



This obscure and inflated school of wri: ( 



however, at no time to have had possession of the in clranurtk 

 >tage. Another revolution was approaching at the tnitc - 

 commer.cement of the eighteenth century, which, for 

 a time, was scarcely less fatal. This was the influ- 

 ence of French taste, which, in the a^e of Louis 

 XIV. was extended all over F.urope. l\,n in the 

 18th centurv, it is true Spain has to boast of the names 

 of Candamo I. a Mora, and Cam/arcs, who were the 

 last of the school of Culderon. Hut the influence of a 

 foreign taste began to be sensibly felt when Lu/an pub- 

 lished his Art of Poetry ; and while he allowed no in- 

 considerable portion of genius to the great dramatic 

 names of his country, yet measure:! their merits so 

 strictly by the code of Aristotle and Horace, that he 

 left them, as far as his cold verdict extended, only the 

 shadow of their fame. When we express ourselves 

 with this apparent partiality for the old Spanish drama 

 which was thus attacked, we wish by no means to be 

 understood to be its implicit advocates. It is only from 

 a conception that the critical code of one nation is not 

 to be coldly or rashly applied to the poetical practice of 

 another. The French writer- have .1 system of beau- 

 ties in their style and execution, which cannot be made 

 ndard without abundant qualification to the poe- 

 try of any people but thcm-clvc< ; and it would be 

 equally absurd to demand, in a French tragedy, the 

 same romantic traits which a Spanish tragedy possesses, 

 or to expect, in the works of Lope de \ eya or of Cal- 

 deron, the entire regularity of Haeine or Voltaire. 

 With regard to Luzan the critic, (a poet who was the 

 apostle of the Gallician taste), his system of poetical 

 criticism is in its essence and principles utterly cold 

 and bad. He was a pedant in the strict spirit and' sense 

 of the word ; and while he maintained that the natu- 

 ral, the useful or moral, and the elcgant,,wcrc the fun- 

 damental principles of poetry, he was totally blind to 

 irregular inspiration of genius, .so often displayed by 

 his cniintryiiH n, in which the beautiful rises above ele- 

 gance and correctness, and in which morality and senti- 

 ment, however noble and true, i.s not to be submitted 

 to the frigid rules of logical calculation. For half ;: 

 century, more or less, the Spaniards submitted to hear 

 their ancient and once boasted authors criticised with 

 indignity, till at last the plays written, or pretended 

 to be written, on tl. of French elegance, though 



the true spit it of French tragedy wa- in reality far from 

 them, cured the nation of this predilection more effec- 

 tually tli-in any critical dissertations of this taste for 

 tame correctness and (^tllicism. 



About the commencement of the latter part of the 

 18th century, Vincent < Jarcia de la I Inerta dared t 

 raise his \oiee again-t the fashion and the learning, 

 which undervalued the primiti\c dramatic school of hi.- 

 country. 1 1U poetical reputation, and some tragedies 



