THE SPANISH DRAMA.

Chrysanthus.120 pixelAh me, to findWords, that might affect thy mind!Melt thy heart!

Daria.100 pixelAh, me, who e'erSaw a martyrdom so rare?—

Polemius.Wouldst thou then the torment fly,Thou hast only to denyChrist.

Chrysanthus.60 pixelThe Saviour of mankind?This I cannot do.

Daria.180 pixelNor I.

Polemius.Let them instantly from thisTo their punishment be led.—

Escarpin.Do not budge from what you said.It is excellent as it is.

Chrysanthus.Woe is me! but wherefore fear,O beloved betrothéd mine?—Trust in God, that power divineFor whose sake we suffer here:—Hewill aid us and be near:—

Daria.In that confidence I live,For if He His life could giveFor my love, and me select,He His honour will protect.

Chrysanthus.These sad tears He will forgive.Ne'er to see thee more! thus driven. . .

Daria.Cease, my heart like thine is riven,But again we 'll see each other,When in heaven we 'll be, my brother,The two lover saints of Heaven.(They are led out.

Scene II.—The hall of a bordel.

Soldiers conducting Daria.

A Soldier.Here Polemius bade us leave her,The great senator of Rome.14(exeunt.)

Daria.As the noonday might be leftIn the midnight's dusky robe,As the light amid the darkness,As 'mid clouds the solar globe:But although the shades and shadows,Through the vapours of Heaven's dome.Strive with villainous presumptionLight and splendour to enfold,Though they may conceal the lustre,Still they cannot stain it, no.And it is a consolationThis to know, that even the gold,How so many be its carats,How so rich may be the lode,Is not certain of its value'Till the crucible hath told.Ah! from one extreme to anotherDoes my strange existence go:Yesterday in highest honour,And to-day so poor and low!Still, if I am self-reliant,Need I fear an alien foe?But, ah me, how insufficientIs my self-defence alone!—O new God to whom I offerLife and soul, whom I adore,In Thy confidence I rest me.Help me, Lord, I ask no more.

(Enter Escarpin.)

Escarpin.Where I wonder can she be?But I need not farther go,Here she is:—At length, Daria,My good lady, and soforth,Now has come the happy moment,When in open market sold,All thy charms are for the buyer,Who can spend a little gold;And since happily love's tariffIs not an excessive toll,Here I am, and so, Daria,Let these clasping arms enfold . . .

Daria.Do not Thou desert Thy handmaidIn this dreadful hour, O Lord!—

Cries of people within.

A Voice(within).Oh, the lion! oh, the lion!

Another Voice(within).Ho! take care of the lion, ho!

Escarpin.Let the lion care himself,I 'm engaged and cannot go.

A Voice(within).From the mountain wilds descending,Through the crowded streets he goes.

Another Voice(within).Like the lightning's flash he flieth,Like the thunder is his roar.

Escarpin.Ah! all right, for I 'm in safety,Thanks to this obliging door:Lightning is a thing intendedFor high towers and stately domes,Never heard I of its fallingUpon little lowly homes:So if lion be the lightning,Somewhere else will fall the bolt:Therefore once again, Daria,Come, I say, embrace me. . . . .(A lion enters, places himself before Daria, and seizes Escarpin.)

Daria.180 pixelOh!Never in my life did ISee a nobler beast.

Escarpin.160 pixelJust so,Nor a more affectionate oneDid I ever meet before,Since he gives me the embracesThat I asked of thee and more:O god Bacchus, whom I worshipSo devoutly, thou, I know,Workest powerfully onbeasts.Tell our friend to let me go.

Daria.Noble brute, defend my honour,Be God's minister below.

Escarpin.How he gnaws me! how he claws me!How he smells! His breath, by Jove,Is as bad as an emetic.But you need n't eat me, though.That would be a sorry blunder,Like what happened long ago.Would you like to hear the story?By your growling you say no.What! you 'll eat me then? You 'll find meA tough morsel, skin and bone.O Daria! I implore thee,Save me from this monster's throat,And I give to thee my promiseTo respect thee evermore.

Daria.Mighty monarch of these deserts,King of beasts, so plainly knownBy thy crown of golden tressesO'er thy tawny forehead thrown,In the name of Him who sent theeTo defend that faith I hold,I command thee to release him,Free this man and let him go.

Escarpin.What a most obsequious monster!With his mane he sweeps the floor,And before her humbly falling,Kisses her fair feet.

Daria.120 pixelWhat moreNeed we ask, that Thou didst send him,O great God so late adored,Than to see his pride thus humbledWhen he heard thy name implored?But upon his feet uprising,The great roaring Campeadór15Of the mountains makes a signalI should follow: yes, I go,Fearless now since Thou hast freed meFrom this infamous abode.What will not that lover doWho for love his life foregoes!— (Goes out preceded by the lion.

Escarpin.With a lion for her bullyReady to fight all her foes,Who will dare to interrupt her?None, if they are wise I trow.With her hand upon his mane,Quite familiarly they goThrough the centre of the city.Crowds give way as they approach,And as he who looketh onKnoweth of the game much moreThan the players, I perceiveThey the open country seekOn the further side of Rome.Like a husband and a wife,In the pleasant sunshine's glow,Taking the sweet air they seem.Well the whole affair doth showSo much curious contradiction,That, my thought, a brief discourseYou and I must have together.Is the God whose name is knownTo Daria, the same GodWhom Carpophorus adored?Why, from this what inference follows?Only this, if it be so,That Daria He defends,But the poor Carpophorus, no.And as I am much more likelyHis sad fate to undergo,Than to be like her protected,I to change my faith am loth.So part pagan and part christianI 'll remain—a bit of both. (Exit.

Scene III.—The Wood.

(EnterNisidaandCynthia,flying.)

Cynthia.Fly, fly, Nisida.

Nisida.120 pixelFly, fly, Cynthia,Since a terror and a woeThreatens us by far more fearfulThan when late a horror frozeAll our words, and o'er our reasonStrange lethargic dulness flowed.

Cynthia.Thou art right, for then 't was onlyOur intelligence that ownedThe effect of an enchantment,A mere pause of thought alone.Here our very life doth leave us,Seeing with what awful forceStalks along this mighty lionTrampling all that stops his course.

Nisida.Whither shall we fly for shelter?

Cynthia.O Diana, we imploreHelp from thee! But stranger still!—Him who doth appal us so,The wild monarch of the mountainSee! a woman calm and slowFollows.

Nisida.60 pixelO astounding sight!

Cynthia.'T is Daria.

Nisida.140 pixelI was toldShe had been consigned to prison:Yes, 't is she: on, on they goThrough the forest.

Cynthia.120 pixelTill the mountainHides them, and we see no more.

(Enter Escarpin.)

Escarpin.All Rome is full of wonder and dismay.16

Nisida.What has occurred?

Cynthia.60 pixelOh! what has happened, say?

Escarpin.Chrysanthus, being immuredBy his stern sire, a thousand ills endured.Daria too, the same,But in a house my tongue declines to name.It pleased the God they both adoreBoth to their freedom strangely to restore,And from their many painsTo free them, and to break their galling chains,Giving Daria, as attendant squire,A roaring lion, rolling eyes of fire:—In fine the two have fled,But each apart by separate instinct ledTo this wild mountain near.Numerianus coming then to hearOf the event, assuming in his wrath,That 't was Polemius who had oped the pathOf freedom for his son and for the maid,Has not an hour delayed,But follows them with such a numerous band,That, see, his squadrons cover all the land.

Voices(within).Scour the whole plain.

Others(within).100 pixelDescend into the vale.

Others(within).Pierce the thick wood.

Others(within).60 pixelThe rugged mountain scale.

Escarpin.This noise, these cries, confirm what I have said:And since by curiosity I 'm ledTo sift the matter to the bottom, IWill follow with the rest.

Cynthia.160 pixelI almost dieWith fear at the alarm, and yet so greatIs my desire to know Daria's fate,And that of young Chrysanthus, that I tooWill follow, if a woman so may do.

Escarpin.What strange results such strange events produce!The very wonder serves as an excuse.

Nisida.Well, we must only hope that it is so.Come, Cynthia, let us follow her.

Cynthia.160 pixelLet us go.

Escarpin.And I with love most fervent,Ladies, will be your very humble servant. [Exeunt.

Scene IV.—A wilder part of the wood near the cave.

(EnterDariaguided by the lion.)

Daria.O mighty lion, whither am I led?Where wouldst thou guide me with thy stately tread,That seems to walk not on the earth, but air?But lo! he has entered thereWhere yonder cave its yawning mouth lays bare,

[The lion enters a cave.]

Leaving me here alone.But now fate clears, and all will soon be known;For if I read arightThe signs this desert gives unto my sight,It is the very place whence echo gaveResponsive music from this mystic cave.Terror and wonder both my senses scare,Ah! whither shall I go?

Chrysanthus(within).160 pixelDaria fair!

Daria.Who calls my hapless name?Each leaf that moves doth thrill this wretched frameWith boding and with dread.But why say wretched? I had better saidThrice blesséd: O great God whom I adore,Baptize me in those tears that I outpour,In no more fitting form can I declareMy faith and hope in thee.

Chrysanthus(within).140 pixelDaria fair.

Daria.Who calls my name? who wakes those wild alarms?

(Enter Chrysanthus.)

Chrysanthus.Belovéd bride, 't is one to whom thy charmsAre even less dear than is thy soul, ah! me,One who would live and who will die with thee.

Daria.Belovéd spouse, my heart could not demandThan thus to see thee near, to clasp thy hand,A sweeter solace for my long dismay,And all the awful wonders of this day.Hear the surprising tale,And thou wilt know . . .

Voices(within).100 pixelSearch hill.

Others.140 pixelAnd plain.

Others.180 pixelAnd vale.

Chrysanthus.Hush! the troops our fight pursuingHave the forest precincts entered.17

Daria.What then shall I do, Chrysanthus?

Chrysanthus.Keep thy faith, thy life surrender:—

Daria.I a thousand lives would offer:Since to God I 'm so indebtedThat I 'll think myself too happyIf 't is given for Him.

Polemius(within).140 pixelThis centreOf the mountain, whence the sunScarcely ever is reflected—This dark cavern sure must hold them.Let us penetrate its entrails,So that here the twain may die.

Daria.One thing only is regrettedBy me, in my life thus losing,I am not baptized.

Chrysanthus.160 pixelReject thenThat mistrust; in blood and fire18Martyrdom the rite effecteth:—

(Enter Polemius and Soldiers.)

Polemius.Here, my soldiers, here they are,And the hand that death presents themMust be mine, that none may thinkI a greater love could cherishFor my son than for my gods.And as I desire, when wendethHither great Numerianus,That he find them dead, arrest themOn the spot, and fling them headlongInto yonder cave whose centreIs a fathomless abyss:—And since one sole love cementedTheir two hearts in life, in deathIn one sepulchre preserve them.

Chrysanthus.Oh! how joyfully I die!

Daria.And I also, since the sentenceGives to me the full assuranceOf a happiness most certainOn the day this darksome caveDoth entomb me in its centre. (They are cast into the abyss.)

Polemius.Cover the pit's mouth with stones.(A sudden storm of thunder and lightning: Enter Numerianus, Claudius, Aurelius, and others.

Numerianus.What can have produced this tempest?

Polemius.When within the cave they threw them,Dark eclipse o'erspread the heavens.

Claudius.Shadowy shapes, phantasmal shadowsAre upon the wind projected.

Cynthia.Lightnings like swift birds of fireDart along with burning tresses.

Claudius.Lo! an earthquake's awful shudderMakes the very mountains tremble.

Polemius.Yes, the solid ground upheaveth,And the mighty rock descendethO'er our heads.

Nisida.100 pixelWhile on the instantDulcet voices soft and tenderIssue from the cave's abysses.

Numerianus.Rome to-day strange sights presenteth,When a grave exhibits gladness,And the sun displays resentment.

(A choir of angels is heard singing from within the cave.)"Happy day, and happy doom,May the gladsome world exclaim,When the darksome cave becameSaint Daria's sacred tomb".(A great rock falls from the mountain, and covers the tomb, over it is seen an angel.)

Angel.This great cave which holds to-dayIn its breast so great a treasure,Never shall by foot be trodden;—Thus it is I 've sealed and settledThis great mass of rock upon it,Which doth shut it up for ever.And in order that their ashesOn the wind be ne'er disperséd,But while time itself endurethShall be honoured and respected,This brief epitaph, this simpleLine shall tell this simple legendTo the ages that come after:"Here the bodies are preservédOf Chrysanthus and Daria,The two lover-saints of Heaven".

Claudius.Wherefore humbly we entreatPardon for our many errors.

3The whole of the first scene is inasonanteverse, the vowels beingi, e,as in "restricted", "driftless", "hidden", etc. These vowels, or their equivalents in sound, will be found pretty accurately represented in the last two syllables of every alternate line throughout the scene, which ends at p. 25, and where the verse changes into the full consonant rhyme. [Return]

4The resemblance between certain parts of Goethe'sFaustandThe Wonder-Working Magicianof Calderon has been frequently alluded to, and has given rise to a good deal of discussion. In the controversy as to how much the German poet was indebted to the Spanish, I do not recollect any reference toThe Two Lovers of Heaven.The following passage, however, both in its spirit and language, presents a singular likeness to the more elaborate discussion of the same difficulty in the text. The scene is in Faustus's study. Faustus, as in the present play, takes up a volume of the New Testament, and thus proceeds:

"In the beginning was the Word".Alas!The first line stops me: how shall I proceed?"The word" cannot express the meaning here.I must translate the passage differently,If by the spirit I am rightly guided.Once more,—"In the beginning was the Thought".—Consider the first line attentively,Lest hurrying on too fast, you lose the meaning.Was it thenThoughtthat has created all things?Can thought make matter? Let us try the lineOnce more,—"In the beginning was the Power"—This will not do—even while I write the phrase,I feel its faults—oh! help me, holy Spirit,I 'll weigh the passage once again, and writeBoldly,—"In the beginning was the Act".Anster'sFaustus,Francfort ed., 1841, p. 63. [Return]

5The same line of argument is worked out with wonderful subtlety of thought and beauty of poetical expression by Calderon, in one of the finest of his Autos Sacramentales, "The Sacred Parnassus".Autos Sacramentales,tom. vi. p. 10. [Return]

6The metre reverts here again to the asonante form, which is kept up for the remainder of this act. The vowels here used aree, e,or their equivalents. [Return]

7"This Clytie knew, and knew she was undone,Whose soul was fix'd, and doted on the sun".Ovid,Metamorphoses,b. iv. [Return]

8In the whole of this scene the asonante vowels area-e,or their equivalents. [Return]

9The asonante ine-e,recommences here, and continues until the entry of Chrysanthus. [Return]

10The metre changes to the asonante ina-efor the remainder of this Act. [Return]

11The asonante in this scene is generally ino-e, o-o, o-a,which are nearly all alike in sound. In the second scene the asonante is ina-e,as in "scatter", etc. [Return]

12Seenotereferring to theauto,"The Sacred Parnassus", Act 1, p. 21. [Return]

13The asonante changes here into five-lined stanzas in ordinary rhyme. Three lines rhyme one way and two the other. Poems in this metre are called in SpanishVersos de arte mayor,from the greater skill supposed to be required for their composition. [Return]

14The asonante is single here, consisting only of the long accentedo,as in "Rome", "globe", "dome", etc. [Return]

15Champion, or combater, the name generally given the Cid. [Return]

16The metre changes to an irregular couplet in long and short lines. [Return]

17The metre changes to the double asonante ine-e,which continues to the end of the drama. [Return]

18Baptism by blood and fire through martyrdom.Calderon refers here evidently to the words of St. John the Baptist: "He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire"—St. Matth.,c. iii. v. ii. The following passage in the Legend of St. Catherine must also have been present to his mind:

"Et cum dolerent, quod sine baptismo decederent, virgo respondit: Ne timeatis, quia effusio vestri sanguinis vobis baptismus reputabitur et corona".Legenda Aurea,c. 167. [Return]

THE SPANISH DRAMA.CALDERON'S DRAMAS AND AUTOS,Translated into English VerseBY DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.

From Ticknor'sHistory of Spanish Literature.London: 1863.

"Denis Florence M'Carthy published in London (in 1861) translations of two plays, and anautoof Calderon, under the title of 'Love, the greatest Enchantment; the Sorceries of Sin; the Devotion of the Cross, from the Spanish of Calderon, attempted strictly in English Asonante, and other imitative Verse', printing, at the same time, a carefully corrected text of the originals, page by page, opposite to his translations. It is, I think, one of the boldest attempts ever made in English verse. It is, too, as it seems to me, remarkably successful. Not thatasonantescan be made fluent or graceful in English, or easily perceptible to an English ear, but that the Spanish air and character of Calderon are so happily preserved. Mr. M'Carthy, in 1853, had published two volumes of translations from Calderon, to which I have already referred; and, besides this, he has rendered excellent service to the cause of Spanish literature in other ways. But in the present volume he has far surpassed all he had previously done; for Calderon is a poet who, whenever he is translated, should have his very excesses, both in thought and manner, fully produced, in order to give a faithful idea of what is grandest and most distinctive in his genius. Mr. M'Carthy has done this, I conceive, to a degree which I had previously considered impossible. Nothing, I think, in the English language will give us so true an impression of what is most characteristic of the Spanish drama; perhaps I ought to say, of what is most characteristic of Spanish poetry generally".—tom. iii. pp. 461, 462.

Extracts from Continental Reviews.From"Bläater für Literarische Unterhaltung". 1862. Erster Baude, 479 Leipzig, F. A. Brockhans.

"Erwähnenswerth ist folgender Kühne versuch einer Rachdildung Calderon' scher stücke in Englishchen Assonanzen.

"Love, the greatest enchantment; The Sorceries of Sin; The Devotion of the Cross, from the Spanish of Calderon, attempted strictly in English Asonante, and other imitative verse. By Denis Florence Mac-Carthy".

Diese Uebersetzung ist dem Verfasser der"History of Spanish Literature", George Ticknor,zugeeignet, der in einem Schreiber au den Uebersetzer die Arbeit"marvellous"nennt und dam fortfährt:

"Richt das sie die Assonanzen dem englischen Ohr so hörbar gemacht hätten, wie dies mit den Spanischen der Fall ist; unsere widerhaarigen consonanten machen dies unmöglich; das Wunderbare ist nur, das sie dieselben überhaupt hörbar gemacht haben. Meiner Meinung nach nehme ist Ihre Assonanzen so deutlich wahr, wil die Von August Schlegel oder Gries und mehr als diejenigen Friedrich Schlegel's. Aber dieser war der erste, der den versuch dazu machte, und ausserdem bin ich Kein Deutscher. Wurde es nicht lustig sein, wenn man einmal ein solches Experiment in französchicher Sprache wolte?"

"Ohne zweifel würde MacCarthy Ohne den vorgaug deutscher Nachbilder des Calderon ebenso wenig darauf gekommen sein englische Assonanzen zu versuchen, als man ohne das ermunternde Beispiel deutscher Dichter und Uebersetzer darauf gekommen sein wurde, in Uebersetzungen und originaldichtungen unter welchen letztern wol besonders Longfellow's'Evangeline',zu nennen ist, englische Hexameter zu versuchen, was in letzter zeit gar nicht selten geschehen ist".

From"Boletin de Ferro-Carriles".Cadiz: 1862.

"La novedad que nos comunica de la existencia de traducciones tan acabadas de nuestro grande é inimitable Calderon, ostendando, hasta cierto punto, las galas y formas del original, estamos seguros será acogida con favor, si no con entusiasmo, per los verdaderos amantes de las letras españolas. A ellos nos dirijimos, recomendándoles el último trabajo del Señor Mac-Carthy, seguros de que participaran del mismo placer que nosotros hemos experimentado al examinar su fiel, al par que brillante traduccion; y en cuanto á la dificil tentativa de los asonantes ingleses, nos sorpende que el Señor Mac-Carthy haya podido sacar tanto parido, si se considera la indole peculiar de los dos idiomas".

Extracts from Letters addressed to the Author.From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Esq.Cambridge, near Boston, America, April 29, 1862.

Cambridge, near Boston, America, April 29, 1862.

"I thank you very much for your new work in the vast and flowery fields of Calderon. It is, I think, admirable; and presents the old Spanish dramatist before the English reader in a very attractive light.

"Particularly in the most poetical passages you are excellent; as, for instance, in the fine description of the gerfalcon and the heron in 'El Mayor Encanto'.—11Jor.

"Your previous volumes I have long possessed and highly prized; and I hope you mean to add more and more, so as to make the translation as nearly complete as a single life will permit. It seems rather appalling to undertake the whole of so voluminous a writer. Nevertheless, I hope you will do it. Having proved that you can, perhaps you ought to do it. This may be your appointed work. It is a noble one.

"With much regard, I am, etc.,

"Henry W. Longfellow.

"Denis Florence Mac-Carthy, Esq.".

From the Same.Nahant, near Boston, August 10, 1857.

Nahant, near Boston, August 10, 1857.

"My Dear Sir,

"Before leaving Cambridge to come down here to the sea-side, I had the pleasure of receiving your precious volume of 'Mysteries of Corpus Christi'; and should have thanked you sooner for your kindness in sending it to me, had I not been very busy at the time in getting out my last volume of Dante.

"I at once read your work, with eagerness and delight—that peculiar and strange delight which Calderon gives his admirers, as peculiar and distinct as the flavour of an olive from that of all other fruits.

"You are doing this work admirably, and seem to gain new strength and sweetness as you go on. It seems as if Calderon himself were behind you whispering and suggesting. And what better work could you do in your bright hours or in your dark hours than just this, which seems to have been put providentially into your hands!

"The extracts from the 'Sacred Parnassus' in theChronicle,which reached me yesterday, are also excellent.

"For this and all, many and many thanks.

"Yours faithfully,

"Henry W. Longfellow.

"Denis Florence Mac-Carthy, Esq.".

From George Ticknor, Esq., the Historian of Spanish Literature."Boston, 16th December, 1861.

"Boston, 16th December, 1861.

"In this point of view, your volume seems to me little less than marvellous. If I had not read it—indeed, if I had not carefully gone through with theDevocion de la Cruz,I should not have believed it possible to do what you have done. Titian, they say, and some others of the old masters, laid on colours for their groundwork wholly different from those they used afterwards, but which they counted upon to shine through, and contribute materially to the grand results they produced. So in your translations, the Spanish seems to come through to the surface; the original air is always perceptible in your variations. It is like a family likeness coming out in the next generation, yet with the freshness of originality.

"But the rhyme is as remarkable as the verse and the translation; not that you have made the asonante as perceptible to the English ear as it is to the Spanish; our cumbersome consonants make that impossible. But the wonder is, that you have made it perceptible at all. I think I perceive your asonantes much as I do those of August Schlegel or Gries, and more than I do those of Friederich Schlegel. But he was the first who tried them, and, besides, I am not a German. Would it not be amusing to have the experiment tried in French?"

From the Same."Boston, March 20, 1867.

"Boston, March 20, 1867.

"The world has claims on you which you ought not to evade; and, if the path in which you walk of preference, leads to no wide popularity or brilliant profits, it is, at least, one you have much to yourself, and cannot fail to enjoy. You have chosen it from faithful love, and will always love it; I suspect partly because it is your own choice, because it is peculiarly your own".

From the Same."Boston, July 3, 1867.

"Boston, July 3, 1867.

"Considered from this point of view, I think that in your present volume ["Mysteries of Corpus Christi", or "Autos Sacramentales" of Calderon] you are always as successful as you were in your previous publications of the same sort, and sometimes more so; easier, I mean, freer, and more happily expressive. If I were to pick out my first preference, I should take your fragment of the 'Veneno y Triaca', at the end; but I think the whole volume is more fluent, pleasing, and attractive than even its predecessors".

From the first of English religious painters.April 24, 1867.

April 24, 1867.

"I cannot resist the impulse I have of offering you my most grateful thanks for the greatest intellectual treat I have ever experienced in my life, and which you have afforded me in the magnificent translations of the divine Calderon; for, surely, of all the poets the world ever saw, he alone is worthy of standing beside the author of the Book of Job and of the Psalms, and entrusted, like them, with the noble mission of commending to the hearts of others all that belongs to the beautiful and true, ever directing the thoughtful reader through the love of the beautiful veil, to the great Author of all perfection.

"I cannot conceive a nation can receive a greater boon than being helped to a love of such works as the religious dramas of this Prince of Poets. I have for years felt this, and as your translations appeared, have read them with the greatest possible interest. I knew not of the publication of the last, and it was to an accidental, yet, with me, habitual outburst of praise of Calderon, as the antidote and cure for the trifling literature of the day, that my friend (the) D—— made me aware of its being out".

[The work especially referred to in the latter part of this interesting letter is the following: "Mysteries of Corpus Christi (Autos Sacramentales), from the Spanish of Calderon, by Denis Florence Mac-Carthy". Duffy, Dublin and London, 1867.]

Extracts from American and Canadian Journals.From an eloquent article in the "Boston Courier", March 18, 1862, written by George Stillman Hillard, Esq., the author of "Six Months in Italy"—a delightful book, worthy of the beautiful country it so beautifully describes.

"Calderon is one of the three greatest names in Spanish literature, Lope de Vega and Cervantes being the other two. He is also a great name in the universal realm of letters, though out of Spain he is little more than a great name, except in Germany, that land so hospitable to famous wits, and where, to readers and critics of a mystical and transcendental turn, his peculiar genius strongly commended him. To form a notion of what manner of man Calderon was, we must imagine a writer hardly inferior to Shakespeare in fertility of invention and dramatic insight, inspired by a religious fervour like that of Doune or Crashaw, and endowed with the wild and ethereal imagination of Shelley. But the religious fervour is Catholic, not Protestant, Southern, not Northern: it is intense, mystical, and ecstatic: like a tongue of upward-darting flame, it burns and trembles with impassioned impulse to mingle with empyrean fire. The imagination, too, is not merely southern, but with an oriental element shining through it, like the ruddy heart of an opal". . .

"But our purpose is not to speak of Calderon, but of his translator Mr. MacCarthy; and to make our readers acquainted with his very successful effort to reproduce in English some of the most characteristic productions of the genius of Spain, retaining even one of the peculiarities in the structure of the verse which has hardly ever been transplanted from the soil of the peninsula". . . .

"Mr. MacCarthy's translations strike us as among the most successful experiments which have been made to represent in our language the characteristic beauties of the finest productions of other nations. They are sufficiently faithful, as may be readily seen by the Spanish scholar, as the translator has the courage to print the original and his version side by side. The rich, imaginative passages of Calderon are reproduced in language of such grace and flexibility as shows in Mr. MacCarthy no inconsiderable amount of poetical power. The measures of Calderon are retained; the rhymed passages are translated into rhyme, and what is more noticeable still, Mr. MacCarthy has done what no writer in English has ever before essayed, except to a very limited extent—he has copied theasonantesof the original". . . .

"We take leave of Mr. MacCarthy with hearty acknowledgments for the pleasure we have had in reading his excellent translations, which have given us a sense of Calderon's various and brilliant genius such as we never before had, and no analysis of his dramas, however full and careful, could bestow".

From a Review of "Love the Greatest Enchantment", etc., in the "New York Tablet", July 19, 1862, written by the gifted and ill-fated Hon. Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee, of Montreal.

"This beautiful volume before us—like virtue's self, fair within and without—is Mr. Mac-Carthy's second contribution to the Herculean task which Longfellow cheers him on to continue—the translation into English of the complete works of Calderon. Two experimental volumes, containing six dramas of the same author, appeared in 1853, winning the well-merited encomium of every person of true taste into whose hands they happened to fall. The Translator was encouraged, if not by the general chorus of popular applause, by the precious and emphatic approbation of those best entitled by knowledge and accomplishments to pronounce judgment. So here, after an interval of seven years, we have right worthily presented to us three of those famousAutos,which for two centuries drew together all the multitude of the Madrilenos, on the annual return of the great feast of Corpus Christi. On that same self-same festival, in a northern land, under a gray and clouded sky, in the heart of a city most unlike gay, garden-hued, out-of-door Madrid, we have spent the long hours over these resurrected dramas, and the spell of both the poets is still upon us, as we unite together, in dutiful juxtaposition, the names of Calderon and Mac-Carthy.

"How richly gifted was this Spanish priest-poet! this pious playwright! this moral mechanist! this devout dramatist! How rare his experience! how broad the contrasts of his career, and of his observation. . . . . Happy poet! blessed with such fecundity! Happy Christian! blessed with such fidelity to the divine teachings of the Cross. . . .

"Very highly do we reverence Calderon, and very highly value his translator; yet, if it be not presumptuous to say so, we venture to suggest that Mac-Carthy might find nearer home another work still worthier of his genius than these translations. Now that he has got the imperial ear by bringing his costly wares from afar, are there not laurels to be gathered as well in Ireland as in Spain? The author of 'The Bell-Founder', of 'St. Brendan's Voyage', of 'The Foray of Con O'Donnell', and 'The Pillar Towers', needs no prompting to discern what abundant materials for a new department of English poetry are to be found almost unused on Irish ground. May we not hope that in that field or forest he may find his appointed work, adding to the glory of first worthily introducing Calderon to the English readers of this century, the still higher glory of doing for the neglected history of his fatherland what he has chivalrously done for the illustrious Spaniard".

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