"Imparadised in one another's arms,"
"Imparadised in one another's arms,"
the servants of Calisto quarrel, a conflict ensues, in which Celestina loses her life. The law interferes, seizes upon the malefactors, and condemns them to the gallows. The friends of the servants agree to revenge their death. They beset the house, in which Calisto and his beloved have met again. Calisto, who wishes to encounter them, is slain. Melibœa, distracted with remorse and sorrow, and resolved not to survive her lover, ascends a lofty tower, and, after informing her parents of her errors, and of the death of him who shared them, precipitates herself from its summit. Such is the outline of this primitive effort of dramatic art, the eloquence of which is as various and astonishing as the plot is simple and inadequate. There are passages in it which may remind the reader ofClarissa Harlowe; and it is very possible that it may have suggested hints to Richardson. Bouterwek's remarks upon theCelestinaare trivial and insignificant.
"I may boldly say it, because I have seen it," says Stephen Gosson, in 1581, writing under the influence of those puritanical feelings which were soon to play so conspicuous a part in our dramatic history, "that thePalace of Pleasure, theGolden Ass, theÆthiopian History,Amadis of France, and theRound Table, indecent histories in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, have been thoroughly ransacked to furnish the playhouses in London." Robert Green, the author ofFriar Bacon, one of the most eminent of Shakspeare's immediate predecessors, tells us that he had travelled in Spain. There are several expressions in Shakspeare which indicate an acquaintance with Spanish literature—among others, the remarkable phrase, "this is mischief malikin," which is evidently a corruption of "mucho malhecho." The origin of theTaming of the Shrewis Spanish. The alternate rhymes ofLove's LabourLost prove, beyond a doubt, a Spanish model. The advice from Polonius to his son is said to be a literal translation from a Spanish dramatist. The resemblance betweenTwelfth Nightand an anonymous comedy,La Española in Florencia, is too striking to be merely accidental. It is, indeed, most improbable that Shakspeare who was acquainted with French, and has inserted in his works—in theTempestfor instance—several paraphrases of Montaigne, should have been ignorant of Spanish, which was not only a more popular language, but one which contained far more to reward and stimulate the labour of the student. And here we may observe, that the prodigy of the Spanish stage, Lope de Vega—the "monster of nature," as Cervantes calls him, and certainly the most surprising instance of the combination of facility and genius which the modern world has seen—was born on the 25th November 1562, at Madrid, two years before Shakspeare. If we pursue our examination of the influence of Spanish literature on the English drama, we shall find a close resemblance between Fletcher's beautiful play of theElder Brother—which was mutilated to please our barbarous grandfathers by Cibber,—and Calderon'sTwo Effects from one Cause, (De una Causa dos Efectos;) theMaid of the Mill, by Beaumont and Fletcher, and Lope'sQuinta de Florencia; Webster'sDuchess of Malfi, and Lope de Vega'sMayor Domo de la Duquesa de Amalfi. So theSeñora Cornelia, a novel of Cervantes', is the foundation of the brilliant play of theChances. The third scene of the third act of theLittle French Lawyer, is taken from the fourth chapter of the second part of the first book of Aleman'sGuzman d'Alfarache.The Knight of the Burning Perkle, shows thatDon Quixotewas commonly read in England. TheSpanish Gipsyof Middleton and Rowley, andBeggars' Bushof Fletcher, are taken from theFuerza de la Sangre, andGitanillaof Cervantes; and the plan ofLove's Pilgrimageis borrowed from theDos Doncellasof the same author.The Spanish Curateis taken from theGerardoof Gonzalo de Cerpedes; andThe History of Alphonso, or a Wife for a Month,is that related by many Spanish writers of Sancho, the eighth King of Leon. To this list may be added a remarkable passage in Milton'sAreopagitica, in which he alludes to Spanish poetry as we should allude to Manzoni and Lamartine. "The villages also must havetheirvisitors, to inquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebec reads even to the gamut of every municipal fiddler; fortheseare thecountryman'sArcadias and his Monte Mayors." In 1663 was printed,The Adventures of Five Hours, from the Spanish comedy,Los Empeños de Seis Horas. Lord Digby's'Tis better than it wasis taken from Calderon'sMejor está que estaba. HisWorse and WorsefromPeor está que estaba. HisElvira, or the Worst not always True, from Calderon'sNo siempre lo Peor es Cierto. There can be little doubt, as a careful and elaborate writer, Shack, remarks in his instructive work on the Spanish stage, that a more accurate inquiry than has yet been instituted into the English drama, would lead to the conclusion, that many of the works of Lope de Vega were familiar to the great writers of Elizabeth's time; not, indeed, that it is contended, or that with any shadow of plausibility it can be maintained, that the Spanish is the origin of the English drama, or, indeed, that it ever exercised a decided influence on the English stage. The rapid intrigue, the brilliant accumulation of incidents, which the peasant of the South follows with delight and ease in scenic representation, would confound and bewilder the most educated classes of which a Northern audience is composed. Let an English or German reader try the experiment of reading one of Calderon's most agreeable plays,Tambien, hay duelo en las Damas, which may be freely translated, "There may be Trust in Women," and see whether, even in the quiet of his study, his brain does not grow dizzy withthe complicated intrigue that it describes.
The truth is, that both in Spain and England, the drama, at the period of its greatest splendour, was drawn from the inmost sources of the national character and genius. It spoke the language of the different races amid which it appeared, and the peculiarities of each were wrought into the stamina of its existence. Before that time, and while it was seeking the track which it was to illuminate with such a flood of glory, before the days of Shakspeare and Lope de Vega, its effects had been feeble and unsuccessful.Ferrex and Porrex,Ralph Royster,Doyster,Damon and Pythias, bear, like the contemporary works of Spanish and Italian authors, traces of the attempt to substitute, as in theSophonisbaof Trissino, a cold, stiff, and affected imitation of ancient models for the appeal to those passions, and the image of those manners, with which man has an unchangeable and an everlasting sympathy. In the rude comedies of that day, as in the Spanish farces in the middle of the sixteenth century, coarse buffoonery and the realities of vulgar detail predominate. After this phasis, there may be still observed, in the dramatists of the day, a want of power to manage the materials which they had just begun to discover and appreciate. In the plays of Green, as well as of Juan de la Cueva, the sudden and inartificial incidents, the actions without a motive, and the want of a regularly constructed plot, betray the authors' want of experience and self-command. Marlow and Christoval de Vines resemble each other in their love of what is horrible and extravagant, and their use of a turgid and inflated diction. Neither in Peele, Kyd, or Lily, in our country, nor in Arguesda, Artieda, or Cervantes, (considered exclusively as a dramatist,) in the other, is any fixed, systematic, matured, independent, national drama distinctly to be traced. They were, however, the harbingers, in their respective lands, of the meridian light which was fast travelling to its maturity of splendour, and rejoicing as a giant to run its course. A lustre then was shed over the Western skies, which more than rivalled the earlier glories of the East. How did this come to pass? to what are we to ascribe the surprising resemblance of dramatic literature, in so many essential points, of Spain and England? this simultaneous outbreak of genius, this selection of the same path, and this arrival at the same goal—a goal which the utmost exertions of other modern nations have never enabled them to come within sight of, much less to reach? What is the seed of the noble and stately plant that shot up at once in such prodigality of magnificence? Shall we content ourselves with the cant of a romantic school, which, after it had wearied the Continent, has, of course, been put forward as a great discovery by our wretched sciolists, in explanation of this curious epoch in the history of the human mind? Or shall we look to the national feelings, sympathies, tastes, and legends, which the masters of the Greek, as well of the Spanish and of the English drama, unveiled in their immortal creations to the very depths? This is the true reason why these nations alone possess a drama of their own—this is the reason which accounts for the triumph of ancient as well as modern art—not an ambiguous and obscure phrase, but a principle which must insure the originality of the drama, so long as man is man.
If we pursue the comparison between the drama of Spain and England, we shall find the period of its golden age far more circumscribed in the latter than in the former. In the latter, it cannot be said to reach beyond the time of Charles the First; and from the time of Shakspeare its decline is visible. But in Spain, from the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century, during a period when poetry was almost forgotten throughout the rest of Europe, the stream of the Spanish drama held on its majestic course, supplied from an ever-gushing fountain, and reflecting from its radiant surface all the varieties of human life. If Shakspeare has reached the very summit of all poetry, and a height to which no Spanish dramatist has ascended, the interval which divides him from every other of his countrymen is enormous. But the drama in Spain is not bound up with a single name, or with individualgenius; it can exhibit a galaxy of light, and many constellations contribute to its lustre.
The starry host, of which Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca are the Lucifers, far surpasses in numbers and splendour that which any other country can exhibit; nor would the dull, brutal, stupid, hard-hearted, and obscene ribaldry which (Congreve excepted) is the prevailing characteristic of the popular writers of Charles the Second's time, and especially of Wycherley, have been endured by the Spanish peasant for a moment.
Christoval Suavey de Figueroa, who lived towards the end of the sixteenth and about the beginning of the seventeenth century, was of all enemies to the theatre of his day the most bitter and the most implacable. The influence of the priesthood had been early turned against the drama, especially on the grounds which had induced the Catholic Church of all ages to oppose itself to the drama, but in reality because the secular plays had superseded the rude and gross religious representations from which they sprang in Spain, as well as in France and England, and which had long been a principal means by which the priests had preserved their influence over the vulgar. Figueroa's animadversions are to be found in two works, one, thePlaya universal de todas las Ciencias, published at Madrid, 1615; the other,Advertencios utilissimas a la Vida humana, Madrid, 1617. The writer complains that the nourishment which the writers of plays furnish for the diseased appetites of the vulgar is poisonous; and that, far from intermixing with their levity any moral or instructive sentences, the sole object of the writers is to provoke the laughter of the audience. Hence men, who are scarcely able to read, venture to write comedies, as is proved by theTailor of Toledo, theWeaver of Seville, and other instances of success equally disgraceful. "Hence it happens that scandalous comedies, full of obscene language and trivial conceptions, are represented on the stage, in which all respect for sovereigns is trampled under foot, together with the rules of reason and morality. In these pieces the valet speaks without shame, the maid without modesty, and the old man without discretion."
In thePasagero, which is a dialogue, the principal person says that "if Plautus and Terence were now living they would be driven from the stage, as a certain person, (Lope de Vega,) who considers himself beyond all rule, has invented a particular kind of farce, as lucrative as it is monstrous." But the exhortations of Figueroa were in vain. The passion for writing plays, far from diminishing, increased with tenfold fury, in spite of the Church and the critic, and even Philip the Second's edict. Nor can it be denied that, amid the prodigious and almost incredible mass of plays which increased with every year, some were of a very moderate description. But the very worst were above the level of the great majority of plays in other countries, and especially in our own. It would be difficult to find a single play in the time of Lope de Vega or of Calderon, in which some redeeming quality, happy incidents, or fiery invective, or beautiful language did not appear. Some of these writers, however, acquired an imperishable reputation. Of these, Gabriel Tellez, who wrote under the name of Tirso de Molina, was the most illustrious.
It may be quoted, as a proof of the profound disregard for Spanish literature in Europe, that Bouterwek never mentions this extraordinary dramatist; and that Schlegel, who affected such profound knowledge of the Spanish drama, and whose remarks on Euripides and Molière are so thoroughly unjust and absurd, has been to all real purpose equally silent concerning him; though no man, not even Lope de Vega, or Calderon himself, whom Schlegel praises (not because he was a great poet, but because he was a bigoted Roman Catholic,), bears a stronger impress of true Castilian genius, or is more identified with the drama of his country. Gabriel Tellez was considerably younger than Lope de Vega: he was born about 1570. Little is known of his life till he became a monk at Madrid. He became a doctor of theology, and died in 1648, prior of the monastery at Soria. His comedies are second only, in point of number, to those ofLope de Vega—a circumstance which makes Schlegel's absolute omission of all but his very name, and perhaps of that, the more unpardonable; and he was, besides, the author of many other works—among others, of a defence of the national drama of Spain against the champions of the unities. This was written twelve years beforeThe Cidof Corneille, and therefore anticipated a controversy to which we invariably assign a more recent, as well as a Gallic origin. The following are extracts from this admirable vindication.
"The delightful interest excited by the drama, the skill of the actors, and the succession of various incidents, make the time appear so short, that no man, though the representation had lasted three hours, would find aught to censure but its brevity. This at least was the judgment of the unprejudiced—I mean of those who attend a dramatic representation, not so much to find fault as to procure for themselves a poetical gratification. The drones who do not themselves know how to labour, but how to rob the industrious bees, could not indeed renounce their nature, and plunged their stings, with a malignant hum, into the honeyed treasures of genius. One says the piece is intolerably too long; another says it is unseemly; a pedantic historian said the poet should be chastised, because he has, against the truth of Portuguese history, made the Duke Pedro of Coimbra a shepherd—though he was in fact slain in battle against his cousin, King Alonzo, and left no posterity. It is an affront to the house of Aveiro, and its great duke, that the daughters of the last should be described as reckless damsels, who, in defiance of all the laws of decency, turn their garden into a scene of their licentiousness—as if the liberties of Apollo were tethered to historical accuracy, and might not raise the fabric of poetry on true historical foundations. In the mean time there were not wanting defenders of the absent poet, who maintained his honour, and struck to earth the argument of the envious censurers; although besotted minds, who are in love with their own opinion, and display their acuteness rather in the censure of others' works than in any productions of their own, never will allow that they are overcome.... Among many absurdities," says the critic to be refuted, "it has most shocked me to observe the impudence with which the poet has transgressed the limits assigned to their art by the inventors of the drama; for though the action required by them is one which is complete in twenty-four hours at the most, he has crowded months into his play, crammed with love adventures; and even that time is not long enough for ladies of rank and education to fall blindly in love with a shepherd, to make him their secretary, and enable him to decipher their real purpose amid the riddles with which it is expressed.... Moreover, I am at a loss to comprehend with what propriety a piece, in which dukes and counts make their appearance, can be called a comedy." So far the malignant censurer proceeds, when he is interrupted by Don Alejo, the other speaker in the Dialogue. "I cannot assent to your opinion, inasmuch as, setting aside the rule that, in common courtesy, the guest is bound not to quarrel with the viands set before him, this particular comedy does comply with the rules which still are valid; and, in my opinion, which is common to all who are free from prejudice with myself, the dramas actually represented in our Spain have a great advantage over those of antiquity, although they depart from the rules laid down by the creators of the stage. If they establish this principle, that a play should only represent such transactions as can by possibility be compressed within the space of twenty-four hours—can there be a more flagrant absurdity than that a man in his senses should, in so short a period, fall passionately in love with a woman equally in possession of hers, and carry the matter on so rapidly, that the love, which is announced in the morning, ends in a marriage at night? Is that time enough to represent jealousy, despair, hope—in short, all the passions and incidents, without which love is a mere word, without any signification? These evils are, according to the judgment of all persons competent to form an opinion, far greater than those arising from the circumstance that the spectators,without moving from their seats, see and hear things which must occupy several days. For as he who reads a history of a few pages, informs himself of events which have occurred in remote countries during many centuries, even so may comedy, which is the image and representation of that on which it is founded, in describing the events which befall two lovers, paint in the most vivid colours all that can take place on such an occasion; and as it is improbable that all these incidents should occur in one day, may feign also for itself the longer time, of which it stands in need. Not improperly has poetry been called a living picture; and as the pencil represents on a few feet of canvass remote distances, which cheat the eye with an appearance of reality, so must the same privilege be conceded to the pen; and so much the rather, as the latter is incomparably more energetic than the former, inasmuch as articulated syllables are more intelligible than silent images, which can explain thought by signs only. And if you object to me, that, under pain of being esteemed presumptuous and ungrateful, we must obey the precepts of the first inventors of the drama, I reply to you, that we owe them indeed reverence for having triumphed over the difficulties which belong to a beginning in any matter, but that we are bound to bring what they have discovered to perfection; so that, without impairing the substance, we may change the manner of proceeding, and improve it by the lessons of experience.
"It were indeed a precious state of things if the musician, because the inventors of music studied harmony of sound from the blows of the hammer on the anvil, were at the present day to use the instruments of Vulcan, and incur censure because they introduced a harp with strings, and thus brought to perfection what originally was imperfect. Herein it is that art differs from nature, because what the one has established since the creation remains immutable—as the pear-tree always produces pears, and the oak its acorns (for we shall not now stop to consider the exceptions arising from soil and climate, and the skill and graftings of the gardener); while in art, the roots of which grow in the shifting qualities of men, use causes the most important changes and modifications. What reason is there for surprise, then, if comedy transgresses the rules of our forefathers, and, according to the analogy of nature and of art, grafts the comic on the tragic, while it combines these opposite kinds of poetry in a fascinating whole, in which sometimes the serious characters of the one, sometimes the ludicrous and playful characters of the other, make their appearance. Moreover, if the pre-eminence of Æschylus and Menander in Greece, and that of Terence and Seneca in Rome, were sufficient to make their rules immutable, the excellence of our Lope de Vega, the pearl of the Manzanares, the Tully of Castile, the phœnix of our nation, so far surpasses these in the quantity as well as the quality of his writings, that his authority is abundantly sufficient to weigh down the doctrine I have cited; and as he has brought comedy to the perfection and consummate refinement in which we now behold it, we must think ourselves fortunate in having such a teacher, and zealously defend his school of poetry against its passionate antagonists. For when he says, in many passages of his writings, that he has deviated from the rules of the ancients only out of condescension to the taste of the multitude, this is only said from the modesty of his nature, and in order that the malevolence of the ignorant should not ascribe that to arrogance which is in fact aiming at perfection. But it is incumbent on us who are his followers, for the reasons which I have enumerated, as well as many others which I will not now allege, to look upon him as the reformer of the new comedy, and to hold in honour modern writers as more beautiful and more instructive than those of former ages." It is difficult to conceive a more ingenious and solid defence of the Spanish drama than Tellez has here put forward; and it is time to examine how far his practice exemplifies his theory. Many of our readers will be surprised to hear that Tirso de Molina, or Gabriel Tellez, is the first author who brought Don Juan and the famous story of thestatue-guest upon the stage, under the title of theBurlador de Sevilla, or theConvidado de Piedra. The name of the hero is Don Juan Tenorio. The story still lives in the tradition of the people of Seville, in which city the Tenorios were a distinguished race, though the name exists no longer. It was one of the famous twenty-four, the "veinti-cuatros" of Seville. The basis of the story is, that, after seducing the daughter of the Comendador Ulloa, Don Juan killed the father, who was buried in the convent of San Francisco. Don Juan's birth and connections placed him above the reach of legal punishment; but the monks of San Francisco contrived to get him within their walls, where they put him to death, and propagated a rumour that Don Juan had gone to the chapel in which the statue of the Comendador was placed, for the purpose of insulting his memory, when the statue had seized him and precipitated him into the infernal regions. Such is the legend on which restsEl Burlador de Sevilla. It became extremely popular in Spain, and even more so in foreign countries. In 1620 it was transplanted to the Italian stage. Three translations of it appeared in France, under the not very happily chosen title of theFestin de Pierre; the first in 1659 by De Villiers; the second 1661, by Dorimon; the third 1665, by Molière. In Spain the same subject was dramatised by Zamora, in a play which still keeps possession of the stage.
As a specimen, we subjoin a translation from one of his most amusing plays,The Pious Martha, (Martha la Piadosa) in which long before the Tartuffe, and in Spain, hypocrisy was exposed to ridicule. A girl, in order to get rid of a rich and aged suitor, pretends to be seized with a fit of piety, and an aversion to marriage. Her father, after some little resistance, allows her to follow the bent of her inclination without restraint, under pretence of visiting the sick in hospitals. She contrives to obtain repeated interviews with her favoured lover, who—the trait is thoroughly Spanish—has killed her brother in a duel; and at last to procure admittance for him, under the disguise of a palsied and penniless student, into her father's house to teach her the Latin grammar. Some of the scenes are in the highest vein of comedy:—one, where the student pretends to faint from weakness, and her father desires her to hold him up, and bids him lean upon her without scruple; another where the lady, having given vent to her jealousy in a very vivid exclamation which her father overhears, escapes from the detection of her hypocrisy by pretending that the student has said it, and that she is repeating it in anger. The expression is tantamount to "By heavens!" (vive Dios;) and the father tells her she is too severe. The lover pretends that his feelings are too much hurt for him to stay any longer in the house: the father desires the daughter to appease him; and with wit equal to Molière, the girl, in her father's presence, goes down on her knees before her lover, and kisses his hand, which is the only condition upon which he has said that he will remain.
Martha.—Forgive me, brother,—stay.Felip.—Yes, if you kiss upon your knees my hand.
Martha.—Forgive me, brother,—stay.
Felip.—Yes, if you kiss upon your knees my hand.
(Martha kneels.)
Martha.—This is an act to mortify the flesh.The Father.—What matchless virtue!Martha, (aside.)—Were I to say the truth, the kiss was honey.
Martha.—This is an act to mortify the flesh.
The Father.—What matchless virtue!
Martha, (aside.)—Were I to say the truth, the kiss was honey.
As a farther specimen of Molina's style, we subjoin the following translation. The lover and his friend Pastrana, a man full of dry caustic wit, are present at a bull-fight. The following dialogue ensues:—
Pastrana.—Think not to see me at the bull-fight here,Unless indeed upon the platform perched,Or looking from a window.Felip.—Friend Pastrana,That is a woman's post, and not a man's,Unless he's wool and water. Let us dareWhat fate may bring us, so may we acquirePerchance eternal blazon and renown.Pastrana.—No, brother; death sits on the pointed horn.Felip.—Talk not so fondly; but that well I knowYour lofty spirit and your courage tried,I'd call it cowardice.Pastrana.—I give you leave.Call my resolve by any name you please,So long as we remain no longer here.Felip.—And can it be that you, who swallow men,Now tremble at a beast?Pastrana.—'Tis true, indeed.Wonder at my opinion as you may,To fight with two men, or with three men, oftIs valour rather than temerity.Since courtesy or valour furnish meansOf safety—and much more the cunning artTaught by Cararvza of the dextrous thrust,Strait or oblique—the science of revenge.Then one may say, if one is hardly pressed,"Sir, my experience shows me, that your worshipIs an epitome of human valour;So I will never haunt this street again,Nor speak with Donna Mencia any more.And if you will accept me as a friend,My services attend you from this day."Words soft as these control a gentleman—Money the robber. If your foe be brave,He must to greater pride and courage yield.In short, there's always hope, however fierceHis wrath and keen his passion for revenge,To soothe the fury of the incensedman,If he be one whom gold or breeding win.But when abullhas rent your cloak to shreds,And bellows at the shoulders of its owner,In hot pursuit—then try your time—advance,And whisper in the yelling monster's ear,"Sir Bull, a gentle bearing sets off valour—Put some restraint upon your boiling rage.Indeed, that constant tossing of the headCan only suit a madman or a fool."And you will see the fruit of your advice.Offer your friendship to him, turn your head,You'll find the light at once shine through your back,Through two clear holes, each half a yard in length.
Pastrana.—Think not to see me at the bull-fight here,Unless indeed upon the platform perched,Or looking from a window.
Felip.—Friend Pastrana,That is a woman's post, and not a man's,Unless he's wool and water. Let us dareWhat fate may bring us, so may we acquirePerchance eternal blazon and renown.
Pastrana.—No, brother; death sits on the pointed horn.
Felip.—Talk not so fondly; but that well I knowYour lofty spirit and your courage tried,I'd call it cowardice.
Pastrana.—I give you leave.Call my resolve by any name you please,So long as we remain no longer here.
Felip.—And can it be that you, who swallow men,Now tremble at a beast?
Pastrana.—'Tis true, indeed.Wonder at my opinion as you may,To fight with two men, or with three men, oftIs valour rather than temerity.Since courtesy or valour furnish meansOf safety—and much more the cunning artTaught by Cararvza of the dextrous thrust,Strait or oblique—the science of revenge.Then one may say, if one is hardly pressed,"Sir, my experience shows me, that your worshipIs an epitome of human valour;So I will never haunt this street again,Nor speak with Donna Mencia any more.And if you will accept me as a friend,My services attend you from this day."Words soft as these control a gentleman—Money the robber. If your foe be brave,He must to greater pride and courage yield.In short, there's always hope, however fierceHis wrath and keen his passion for revenge,To soothe the fury of the incensedman,If he be one whom gold or breeding win.But when abullhas rent your cloak to shreds,And bellows at the shoulders of its owner,In hot pursuit—then try your time—advance,And whisper in the yelling monster's ear,"Sir Bull, a gentle bearing sets off valour—Put some restraint upon your boiling rage.Indeed, that constant tossing of the headCan only suit a madman or a fool."And you will see the fruit of your advice.Offer your friendship to him, turn your head,You'll find the light at once shine through your back,Through two clear holes, each half a yard in length.
But the most popular play of this great writer, and one which is always received with the most rapturous applause, isGil de las Calzas Verdes, (Gil of the Green Trousers.) A lady has been abandoned by her lover for a rich beauty of Madrid. She calls herself Don Gil—follows him thither, dresses herself in male attire, of which the green trousers are the most conspicuous part—torments him with letters from the convent where he supposes her to be, describing her suffering, her illness, and at last her death; interrupts his remittances, destroys his credit, carries off his mistress, who falls desperately in love with her; thwarts him at every turn; obliges him to believe that he is really haunted by the ghost of her whom he has wronged; and at last causes him to be arrested for her murder. The rage, amazement, confusion, repentance and despair of the faithless lover are portrayed in the most brilliant colours. Do what he will, mean what he will, attempt what he will, Gil of the Green Trousers, though invisible, has been beforehand with him. He goes to his bankers: the check is paid to Don Gil of the Green Trousers. He endeavours to mislead his intended father-in-law: the plot is unravelled by Don Gil of the Green Trousers. He tries to soften his mistress: she raves of nothing butDon Gil of the Green Trousers. As Don Gil is so successful with his green trousers, other suitors of the Madrid lady dress in green trousers, and assume his name in the dark under her window. There are at one time four persons in the street, each calling himself Gil with the Green Trousers. The faithless suitor of the true Gil is one of them. His rival challenges him; but no sooner does the challenged see the fatal garment, than his conscience smites him, and he addresses his furious rival as the ghost of his injured mistress.
"O soul most innocent! by that sweet loveWhich once thou cherished for me, and which nowDelights my memory, I charge thee, restMy punishment, thy rigour, are completeIf haply to disturb my present love,Thou hast assumed a body here on earth,And at Madrid calling thyself Don Gil,In such attire, and bearing such a name,Dost meditate to wreak revenge on me,* * * * *O cease, blest spirit! from thy fierce pursuit."
"O soul most innocent! by that sweet loveWhich once thou cherished for me, and which nowDelights my memory, I charge thee, restMy punishment, thy rigour, are completeIf haply to disturb my present love,Thou hast assumed a body here on earth,And at Madrid calling thyself Don Gil,In such attire, and bearing such a name,Dost meditate to wreak revenge on me,
* * * * *
O cease, blest spirit! from thy fierce pursuit."
The other lover, who hears this grotesque invocation, thinks it a mere trick of his rival to escape a duel, and overwhelms him with every epithet of abuse.
The play ends by the marriage of Don Gil with her fickle suitor. We are almost ashamed to add, that this was the favourite play of Ferdinand VII., and was ordered for him on all solemn occasions by the municipality of Madrid. Without the refinement of Calderon or Lope de Vega, Molina surpasses both in his verve and gaiety. His satire is unlimited; it spares neither the authorities of earth, nor the ministers of heaven—nay, it does not even spare the great national amusement. Epigram after epigram is poured out upon every object that attracts his notice; his brilliant and sparkling wit is inexhaustible; and his "malice" as boundless as it is subtle. Of all French writers, it has been said, by a very competent judge, that he resembles Beaumarchais most closely; and however strange it may seem, that the Spanish monk of the seventeenth century should bear so close an analogy to the Parisianbel espritof the eighteenth, the remark is undoubtedly correct. We have dwelt more especially on this writer, because he is not well known in Europe, and because even Mr Ticknor, in his accurate and valuable work on Spanish literature—a work we hail both for what it proves, and for what it makes us expect, with the greatest delight—has failed to do him complete justice. Shack seems to us to have appreciated him more justly in his excellent and useful dissertation. But our limits are exhausted for the present.
Impelled by motives which we own to be with difficulty effectively justifiable, and which we must resolve into an overmastering anxiety to behold how doomed human nature can confront terror-inspiring circumstances, felt sufficient to palsy one's own soul, we found ourselves, on Sunday morning, the 5th of July 1840, in the front seat of the stranger's gallery in the Chapel of Newgate, in order to hear the condemned sermon preached to Benjamin Courvoisier, and witness the demeanour of one who was to be publicly strangled on the ensuing morning, and in the ensuing evening buried within the precincts of the prison. Callous must he have been who could witness the scene of that morning without being profoundly affected. It was the house of God; and yet, (with reverence be the allusion made,) in one sense, alas! aden of thieves—of outcasts from society; whose laws they had, or were charged with having, disregarded and openly violated. Some were there under the pressure of violent suspicion—amounting to a moral, soon to pass into a legal, certainty—of various kinds and degrees of guilt: others bore the blighting brand of established crime, and were suffering, or about to suffer, its penalty. With what feelings would they enter the house of Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity—to Whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid! Would any of that guilty throng take their places there, brutally ignorant, indifferent, reckless, or desperate? Would their polluted souls be swelling with ill-suppressed feelings of impiety and blasphemy? Would any approach with broken and contrite spirits, having been shaken, by the stern hand of offended human law alone, out of a life's lethargy and insensibility? How would the holy accents of warning, of expostulation, of mercy, of dread denunciation, sound in the ears of those who were presently to fill that dismal chapel—dismal, only from its locality, and the character of its occupants? With what feelings wouldoneenter—the death-doomed—for whom, and for whom alone, was reserved that solitary, central, ominous black bench? who was so terribly far advanced in his passage from a human tribunal to that of the dread Eternal!—on whose brow already faintly glistened the dread twilight between here and hereafter,—the black night of time breaking before the dawning of an eternal day!
They come! Yonder gallery, curtained off, is filling with the female prisoners; no sounds audible but their rustling dresses, and perhaps a half-choked sigh or sob. It is well, poor souls! that you are hidden from the public gaze—from the rude eye of your male comrades in crime!Theyare now entering below, silent and orderly, the eye of the governor upon them, as they are led by burly turnkeys and inspectors to their appropriate places, classed as untried and convicted—the latter according to their respective kinds and degree of punishment. All, at length, are seated. What an assemblage! Almost all clad in prison costume; many with sullen, determined countenances—others with harassed features and downcast look—one or two exhibiting unequivocally an air of insolent and reckless defiance—but all conscious of the stern surveillance under which they sate. Alas,those boys!some already, others about to be, condemned—all gazing, terror-struck, at the black seat in the centre!
The chaplain enters the desk immediately under the pulpit, which, attached to the blank wall, faces the communion-table.He, also, casts an ominous glance at the black benchbefore him, in the centre of the floor, to which all faces are directed, amidst moody and troubled silence. At length a door on the left is heard being unbolted; a turnkey enters, followed by the great criminal—one whose name was ringing in the ears of the public—one on whom every eye is instantly fixed with sickening intensity. It is Courvoisier—the monster who, a few weeks before, had barbarously murdered his sleeping lord!—He was led to his seat, a glass of water being placed near him, in case of his faintness, and on one side of him sate a turnkey. Courvoisier knelt down; and then, a prayer-book having been given him, (which he held in an untrembling hand,) took his seat, not far from the reading-desk, covering his eyes for a few moments with his left hand. His demeanour was signally calm and self-possessed, and his motions were deliberate. He was a man about twenty-four years of age. His countenance wore such an expression of pensive good-nature and docility, as rendered it a consolatory reflection that he had unequivocally and spontaneously confessed the fiendish act of which the law had pronounced him guilty, and for which, under holy sanctions, it was on the morrow to take away his life.[3]Yes—there he sate, where we had seen sitting, also, his blood-stained predecessor Greenacre; and, moreover, Fauntleroy the forger; also a young banker's clerk—a widowed mother's sole support, her only child—for forging a trifling check. Alas, alas! how he wept during the whole service!—but how calmly he behaved the next morning on the gallows!
After gazing long and earnestly on the central figure in the gloomy picture, our eyes were casually attracted by a very different one,—that of a youth sitting on the steps of the altar, as though he had been a privileged spectator. We regarded him as a friend of some subordinate functionary of the gaol. He seemed a silly, vulgar, little dandy, who had put on his very best clothes for the occasion. He looked about eighteen or nineteen years old, and was of slender figure, and a little under the average height. His hair was full and curly—displayed in a very affected style. He wore a sort of second-hand blue surtout with velvet collar, a black satin stock, a light figured waistcoat, and light slate-coloured trousers—the latter a trifle too short, and strained down by a pair of elongated straps, so as to reach as nearly as possible to the brightly-polished boots. Beside him was a hat, of which he seemed very careful, and smoothed it round delicately, once or twice, with his hand. His eyes were quick, and inquisitive; and he seemed to share the interest with which others contemplated Courvoisier. Several times, during the service, his fingers passed jauntily through his hair, as if to dispose it effectively round his temples. A prayer-book was handed to him, to which he seemed tolerably attentive; but during the sermon he was evidently more occupied with his dress than the exciting and instructive topics of the chaplain—frequently pulling off and putting on his gloves, and arranging different portions of his dress, as though he feared they did not sit upon him sufficiently becomingly. When, however, the chaplain addressed himself personally, and with fearful solemnity, to the murderer before him, the young occupant of the altar-steps was roused into attention, and he listened a few minutes—his eyes fixed now on the preacher, then on the condemned. When the service was over, Courvoisier (whose demeanour had been throughout most satisfactory—solemn, composed, and reverent) was beckoned out to the door through which he had entered, and he obeyed, walking with complete self-possession.—We had looked our last on him!—"Do you see that youngfellow on the altar-steps?—do you know who he is?" said a gentleman who approached us for the purpose. "No; he seems a vulgar little puppy," we exclaimed, "whoever he may be." "It is Oxford, who shot at the Queen, and is to be tried this week!" was the reply; and while we turned round to gaze at him, he was in the act of quitting the chapel, holding his hat very carefully, and gazing towards the gallery with an expression of cheerful inquisitiveness. Had it occurred to him that, in all human probability, a week or two would beholdhiman occupant of the black bench just quitted by the murderer?
Yes! that was Edward Oxford, the little caitiff, first of a small and ignominious series of similar ones, who had, on the preceding 9th of June, twice deliberately fired at his young Queen, as she was driving, in fancied security, with her consort, up Constitution Hill, and on each occasion apparently with ball! The following was his own free-and-easy account of the matter, on being examined before the Privy Council:—
"A great many witnesses against me. Some say I shot with my left, others with my right. They vary as to the distance. After I had fired the first pistol, Prince Albert got up, as if he would jump out of the coach, and sate down again, as if he thought better of it. Then I fired the second pistol. This is all I shall say at present."
"A great many witnesses against me. Some say I shot with my left, others with my right. They vary as to the distance. After I had fired the first pistol, Prince Albert got up, as if he would jump out of the coach, and sate down again, as if he thought better of it. Then I fired the second pistol. This is all I shall say at present."
(Signed) "Edward Oxford."
In the case of this young miscreant, (for it is difficult to speak of him temperately,) however, was, within four days' time, to be resolved a problem of unspeakable difficulty and moment, by such means as the law of the country could command,—viz., responsibility or irresponsibility for criminal acts, according to the state of mind existing at the time of committing them. It is needless to affirm that this is a question of public, permanent, universal interest; one in which every individual, young or old,maybecome personally concerned; one which no humane jurist, practical or speculative, can approach without lively anxiety; one worthy of frequent and deep consideration by every one concerned in the administration of criminal justice. To punish an individual utterly unconscious of the difference between right and wrong at the time of committing the alleged crime, shocks one's sense of natural justice, and confounds all the principles on which it can be administered by man. How can we hang a maniac who, in a paroxysm of madness, kills the keeper who was endeavouring to soothe or to restrain him? Or one who shoots another whom, under the veritable and sole influence of delusion, he believed to be in the act of killinghim, and that he was therefore acting solely in self-defence? These are plain cases, as stated; but still they require, of course, very clear proof of the facts from which the law is to deduce a perfect irresponsibility for his acts. The subject is one environed with immense practical difficulties, which are often unexpectedly visible in applying apparently clear and correct principles to simple combinations of fact. The most sagacious judges, the most conscientious juries, have grievously miscarried in such cases; some sending persons to the scaffold under circumstances far weaker than those held by others demonstrative of irresponsibility, and, consequently, demanding an acquittal. Many painful and dreadful cases might be cited; but two shall suffice. In the year 1837, an industrious, affectionate, poverty-stricken father strangled his four children, avowedly to prevent their being turned into the streets. They all slept in one room. Having strangled two, he left the room; but, after meditating for some time, came to the conclusion that he might as well be hanged for killing all four; on which he returned, and strangled the other two—having shaken hands with them before he did it! He then quitted the house, and went to a neighbour's, to whom he did not mention what he had done; but on being apprehended the next day, and taken before the coroner, he confessed the above facts. No witness had ever observed a trace of insanity about him. The physician to a lunatic asylum offered to prove that the prisoner's grandmother and sister had been under his care, the latter for entertaining a desire to destroy herself and her children—evidence which the judge rejected; and under his direction the jury convicted, and he passedsentence of death on the prisoner.[4]In the year 1845, a young servant girl, quiet and docile, having taken a knife from the kitchen, on some trivial pretence, went up to the room where her master's child lay, and killed it. She then went downstairs, and told the horrifying fact to her master. She was quite conscious of the crime she had committed, and showed much anxiety to know whether she would be hanged or transported. There was not the slightest tittle of evidence that she had been labouring under any delusion; yet she was acquitted on the ground of insanity![5]Can anything be more grievously unsatisfactory than such a state of things as this, in the administration of the criminal justice of the country? One of the causes which conduced to such results was the too ready deference paid to speculative medical men, professing to have made disordered intellects their peculiar study, and who came forward, from time to time, confidently and authoritatively pronouncing that such and such circumstances indicated unequivocally the existence of "insanity," of "moral insanity," at the time of the act committed. Nay, they would sit in court, listening to a detail of facts, from which they would then enter the witness-box, and authoritatively declare their opinion that, if such were the facts, the prisoner wasinsane, and therefore irresponsible, when the act in question was committed! Many held that the mere absence of assignable motive indicated such insanity! and many, that the mere committal of the particular act should be so regarded! Notions more dangerous and monstrous cannot be conceived. Well might the late Mr. Baron Gurney declare, "that the defence of insanity had lately grown to a fearful height, and the security of the public required that it should be watched."[6]There are two Trials contained in Mr Townsend's first volume, which afford memorable illustrations of the difficulty with which these questions are encountered in our courts of justice. They are those of Oxford, for shooting at the Queen, and of M'Naughten for the murder of Mr Drummond, the private secretary of the late Sir Robert Peel. In both cases there were acquittals, on the alleged ground of insanity; and we take leave to intimate that, in our opinion, there should have been convictions in both. The escape of the cold-blooded murderer, M'Naughten, who deliberately shot his unsuspecting victim in the back, horrified and disgusted the public. "It had not been anticipated," says Mr Townsend, "and created a deep feeling in the public mind, that there was some unaccountable defect in our criminal law. People of good sense appeared panic-stricken, by this new danger, from venturing into the London streets; and called upon the legislature to discover some preservative against the attacks of insane passengers in public thoroughfares."[7]Indignation was loudly expressed in Parliament. In the House of Commons, an honourable Irish baronet moved for leave to bring in a bill to abolish the plea of insanity in cases of murder, except where it could be proved that the person accused was publicly known and reputed to be a maniac; and he asked the House to suspend the standing orders to accelerate the progress of his bill. His motion, however, found no seconder. A similar casualty had befallen Mr Windham, in 1800, who, in the course of a debate which ensued in bringing in a bill to meet such cases as that of Hadfield, (who had just been acquitted, on the ground of insanity, from the charge of firing at George III.,) suggested that an offender,even if insane, should be subjected to some sort of punishment, for the sake of example! On the same evening in which the attempt of Sir Valentine Blake was made in the House of Commons, the matter was discussed anxiously in the House of Lords, by Lords Lyndhurst, Brougham, Cottenham, Campbell, and Denman. Lord Campbell expressed the general feeling of the House, when he said—"There may be great difficulty in convicting personswho are not in a state of mind to be responsible for their actions; but it is monstrous to think that society should be exposed to the dreadful dangers to which it is at present liable, from persons in that state of mind going at large."[8]At length, on the suggestion of the Lord Chancellor, (Lord Lyndhurst,) it was agreed that the judges should be called upon to declare the true state of the criminal law on this momentous subject; and five questions were carefully framed for that purpose, and submitted to them for grave consideration. The following are these questions and answers—both of which, as containing a solemn and authoritative enunciation of the law of the land, we shall present to our readers, whom we request to give them a careful perusal, before proceeding to read what we have to offer on the two trials above alluded to. We are the more anxious that they should do so, because of the recent very remarkable case of Pate, who struck her Majesty with a cane last summer; and whose case was dealt with in strict conformity with the rules which follow:—