milar picture of the life of a common servant, without the least dramatic plan or colouring, and with a continual intermixture of foreign languages, among which we find the Portuguese. But, there were one or two, which, perhaps, had a favourable effect on the style and spirit of the Spanish stage, as it was afterwards developed in Spain itself. The Jacinta has a crude plan and little appearance of character drawing, but the versification is often happy and harmonious; and the Hymenea contains the earliest traces we have observed of that peculiar tone of love making, intrigues, jealousies, and quarrels, which was afterwards established on the Spanish theatre, and brought to perfection by Lope and his followers.

But though this attempt was made in Italy, and though Villalobos translated from Plautus at about the same time, still it is apparent the Spanish character was not turned in earnest to the Theatre, till half a century later. An attempt was then made by Lope de Rueda, a gold-beater by profession, of whose efforts Cervantes, when he wrote the preface to his plays in 1615, retained a lively admiration, which is, in itself, no common eulogy. Lope certainly began in the right way, though he did not advance far in it. His purpose was evidently to please a general audience, and having joined a company of actors about 1560, and finding himself above the vulgar dulness of a common pantomime, he wrote short farces, which were publicly represented, and in which he bore his part with great applause. In all his efforts, he seems to have thought of the effect he could produce at the moment, and this satisfied him so completely, that hardly any thing he wrote, was published until after his death. The volume we have before us, contains four comedias and two coloquias pastoriles, the whole of which we should now call, farces. There is certainly little order in them, and little finish, but there is much vigour and spirit. The dialogue is natural, and they have preserved more of the distinction of characters, have more of a dramatic air, and more dramatic situations, than any thing written before them. They were, too, greatly in advance of the means then provided for theatrical representation. Cervantes says, that "in the time of Lope de Rueda, the whole wardrobe of a theatre consisted of a few coarse dresses, which could be put into a single sack; that they had neither scenes nor machinery; that the stage was formed of loose boards placed across benches; and that the curtain was a coverlet suspended to a cord." Lope de Rueda must have been a remarkable man to do so much with means so humble. Cervantes frequently saw him act at Seville on such a stage, and admired him ; and above half a century afterwards, Lope de Vega, declared him the first founder of a proper national theatre.

Lope de Rueda, had several imitators, such as Alonzo de la Vega and John de Timoneda ; and from his time, to the present,

farces have never ceased to be acted on the Spanish stage. But, while this attempt to begin a merely popular theatre was going forward so successfully, though so silently, because it was confined to the lower classes, some efforts were making to satisfy the upper classes, who were partly acquainted with the works of the ancients, and to whom the adventurous and splendid expeditions of Charles V. had opened the poetry and theatres of Italy, where regular tragedies had been represented from 1520. These efforts were made partly in the way of translations from the ancients, like those made by Oliva from Sophocles, Euripides, and Plautus, or those made by Abril from Terence; and partly in the way of dramas modelled or intended to be modelled on those of the ancients, of which the most remarkable, were those by Geronimo Bermudez, in 1577, on the story of Inez de Castro, and those by Argensola in 1585, of which the canon gives so interesting an account in the first part of Don Quixote. But these attempts produced no lasting effect. It was no more in the Spanish character than in the English, to follow in the footsteps of antiquity, and, therefore, while Lope de Rueda found successors, the efforts of Bermudez and Argensola, though in some respects higher and more poetical, remained unimitated.

Indeed, though Lope de Rueda has been sometimes called the founder and father of the Spanish drama, yet up to this period, it may be truly said, that no proper theatre existed. For besides, that, in three centuries, very few efforts had been made, and these few, of the most different and inconsistent kinds, in eclogues, farces, translations from the ancients, and tragedies in the ancient manner, it is also true, that no spot could be found in Spain, at the time of Lope de Rueda's death, in 1567, where a drama could be represented so as to give to it a dramatic effect. In this point of view, indeed, as an entertainment for the people, it was not thought of before the year 1492, if it was before the time of Lope de Rueda, above half a century later. Even then, the persons, who represented the very few pieces which were known, were companies of strolling players, who stopped but a few days even in the largest cities, and were sought when there, only by the commonest classes of the people. The first notice we have of any thing approaching a regular theatre, and this is far removed from one-is in 1568, when an arrangement was begun, which subsists at Madrid down to our own time. Recollecting, no doubt, the origin of dramatic exhibitions in Spain for religious edification, it was then ordered by the government, that no actors should make any exhibition in Madrid, except in some place appointed by two religious houses, who should receive a rent for the privilege; an order, in which, the General Hospital of the city was included in 1583, and which, with this addition, remains, we believe, in force, down to the

present time. Under this order, plays were acted in Madrid, but only in the open area of a court-yard, without seats, decorations, roof, or machinery, except such as is humorously described by Cervantes to have been packed with all the dresses of the company into one vast sack. In this state, things continued for about a dozen years. Only strolling parties of actors were known, and they remained but a few days. No fixed place was settled for their reception; but sometimes they were sent to one courtyard, and sometimes to another; they acted in the daytime and in the open air; and so small was the concourse of spectators, and so inconsiderable the sum paid for admission, that the profit derived from them to the two convents and the hospital by whose permission they acted, never exceeded ten dollars. At last, in 1579, and 1583, two court-yards were fitted-up with stage and benches; but still without a roof; the spectators sat in the open air, or at the windows of the house whose court they occupied ; and the actors performed under a very slight shelter, and with decorations and scenery, which did not deserve the name. In short, the theatre in Madrid, was, down to 1586, in the condition in which the stages of mountebanks are now; and, of course, was entirely unfit to aid any efforts, that might be hazarded to produce a national drama.

But though the proper foundation was not laid, all was tending to it, and preparing for it. The stage, rude as it was, had yet the advantage of being fixed to two spots; the number of authors, though small, was still sufficient to settle the question, that plays would be wanted; and finally, the public, if those who then resorted to the theatre, deserve a name so respectable, though they had not determined what kind of a drama should become national, had yet determined, that they would be suited and satisfied; and that the drama to be produced, should go forth from the rich and abundant soil of the popular character.

At this point of time, an individual appeared as a writer for the stage, whose uncommon talent had well nigh given it a direction materially different from the one it finally pursued. This remarkable person was Cervantes. He had already lived at Rome, had fought for Christendom, and been maimed at the battle of Lepanto; and had passed five years of suffering and captivity at Algiers. On his return in 1581, after an absence from Spain of ten years, he found his family broken down, and himself poor and unknown, in a land almost of strangers. One of his early efforts to obtain a decent subsistence, was on the stage, which offered strong attractions to one, who seems in his youth to have been fond of the theatre, and who was now in serious want of immediate and profitable success. He wrote, at this time, or about 1585,-as he tells us, many years afterwards, with characteristic carelessness,-twenty or thirty pieces, which

were well received, but which he does not seem to have thought of consequence enough to print or preserve. In his own simple account of what he now attempted to do, not only for himself, but to create a Spanish theatre, he tells us, that he "was so bold as to reduce his plays to three acts or jornadas, from five which they had before"-and that he "represented imaginations," or allegorical personages, like War, Disease, and Famine. The twenty or thirty dramas, in which these changes were attempted, disappeared before the success with which Lope de Vega, a few years later, was followed, and were forgotten. Two of them, however, were discovered in 1782, and printed in 1784. They show with sufficient distinctness, both what was his purpose, and what was his success.

The first of them is, El Trato de Argel, or Life at Algiers; and resembles in its structure, its rude predecessors, which, as Cervantes himself tells us, were little more than conversations, like eclogues, lengthened out with episodes and interludes. His purpose seems to have been, to set before his audience, a lively dramatic picture of the life and sufferings of the Christians in Algiers, then so fresh in his own recollections. He introduces us, therefore, into the midst of the captives, and exhibits to us what he had himself witnessed or undergone, making himself one of his own dramatis personæ. We have, therefore, a lovestory, which really happened as it is related, and which we find again in his little tale of the Generous Lover; and we have episodes, more important even than the story that connects them, such as the relation of the burning of Miguel de Aranda as it really occured, the escape of Pedro Alvarez, a sale of Christian captives, and several more, all of which are intended to set before us, what is implied in the title of the piece, "Life at Algiers." There are, however, passages, which show the poetical spirit of the author with great power, and prove, that he aspired after a degree and form of dramatic excellence, unknown, at that time, in Europe. Take, for instance, a single specimen; not because it is the best, but, because it illustrates, in a characteristic manner, one of the changes he wished to introduce into the national drama. Aurelio, who is a Christian, affianced to Sylvia, is loved by Zara, a Moorish lady, and two immaterial agencies are introduced upon the stage, Necessity and Opportunity, who, like Mephistopheles, in the church scene in Goethe's Faustus, are invisible to Aurelio, though to the spectators they are visible, and prompt the evil thoughts which come into his mind, soliciting him to yield to the seductions of the fair infidel. When they are gone, he thus discourses with himself, trembling at the thought of having almost yielded and followed the seducing Zara:

Aurelio adonde vas? Para do mueves, etc.

"Aurelio, whither goest thou? Whither bend

Thy wandering steps their course? What hand conducts thee?
Darest thou indulge thy mad and wild desires

And cast aside the fear of God forever?

Can light and easy opportunity

So far provoke thy soul to guilty pleasure
That thou wouldst trample virtue down at once
And yield thyself a prey to wanton love?
Is this the elevated thought? Is this

The firm intent, which thou didst vow to keep,
That no offence to God should stain thy soul
Though torture rack'd the remnant of thy days?
So soon hast thou offended? to the winds
Released the anticipations of a lawful love,
And taken to thy memory instead

Thoughts vain, dishonest, light and infamous ?
Begone, ye base suggestions! far away
Each wish impure of evil! Let the hand
Of chaste and blameless love destroy the web,
Which the seducer strives to wind around thee.
The faith which I profess, that faith I'll follow,
And though it lead to dark extremities,

Nor gift nor promise, artifice nor guile,

Shall make me swerve one instant from my God."

The conception of this passage, and of the scenes preceding. it, may not be very dramatic, but it is very poetical. The whole piece, indeed, is a mixture of feeling and enthusiasm struggling against the condition of the theatre, as it then existed in Spain. Perhaps the Trato de Argel should not strictly be called a drama, since it is only an attempt to give dramatic effect to series

of disconnected events, so that when Cervantes has carried us through the scenes and circumstances he thought necessary to produce the impression he intended, he, at last, as he said afterwards, brings it to no conclusion at all.

The other play of Cervantes, that remains to us from this period of his life, is founded on the tragical history of Numantia, which, having resisted the Roman arms fourteen years, was taken by famine; the Roman army under Publius Emilianus Scipio, consisting of eighty thousand men, and the Numantian of less than four thousand, all of whom perished; for when Scipio entered the city, he found not a soul alive: those who had not perished from famine, having fallen by their own hands. This siege, with its public and private horrors, from the arrival of Scipio to the fall of the city, is the subject of Cervantes' Numancia. And surely never was the romance of real life exhibited in such bloody extremity. The whole piece is crowded with the heart-rending effects of the famine on the Numantians; of their desperate efforts to break up the siege; and of the dreadful details involved in their final resolution to perish. With all this are mingled the discourses and predictions of allegorical existences, like the genius of Spain and the river Douro, and in