of Villancicos, is one which merely says, “If you tend my cows, my love, I will give you a kiss; but give me a kiss and I will tend yours.”271 Productions of this description found favour with the readers for whom they were intended. His humorous poems, which are all more or less disguised under an air of seriousness, contain a tale (historia) imitated from Ovid, which may be called an idyl according to the literary terminology of the Spaniards. The second book contains conversational and diverting pieces, (obras de conversacion y de pasatiempo.) At the commencement appear the railleries of Castillejo against the Petrarchists. The longest poem in this book is a Dialogue on Women, (Dialogo de la Condicion de las Mugeres,) which is here and there enlivened by admirable sallies of wit;272 but upon the whole it is nothing more than burlesque prose ideas dressed in easy verse.273 The third book, which contains moral works, (obras morales,) is most prolix of all. The satires contained in this third book have certainly a moral tendency, though that object is in a great measure defeated by Castillejo’s sportive style. The moral is lost in a torrent of words, while the serious thoughts of which the verse is the vehicle, are for the most part trivial.274 Notwithstanding the moral design of this third book, the Spanish inquisition was for some time undecided with respect to its fate. The publication of all the poems of Castillejo was prohibited; but after some further deliberation the inquisition permitted the sale of an edition, after it had undergone a rigid revisal by the censor.
HISTORY OF SPANISH DRAMATIC POETRY, DURING THE FIRST HALF AND TEN SUCCEEDING YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
In the reign of Charles V. amidst a throng of diversified talent, and during the conflict between the old and new poetic styles, the Spanish drama began to flourish. Considered in a literary point of view, it can scarcely be said to have existed before that period; but it arose under happier auspices than those which about the same period accompanied the birth of the Italian drama, to which the struggle between the learned and the popular burlesque styles afforded less hope of success. The sacred and profane pastoral dialogues of Juan de la Enzina were, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, still the only dramatic compositions in the Spanish language, to which any degree of literary respect was attached, and they were, by especial favour, allowed to be performed at court.275 With the exception of mysteries, spiritual moralities, and burlesque representations of religious ceremonies, the Spanish nation, at this time, knew nothing of dramatic entertainments. No poet of reputation had hitherto devoted his attention to this species of composition; but the nation evinced by its attachment to those rude exhibitions, that tenacity which is a great feature in its character, and which even in matters of taste permits no reform to take place which does not perfectly accord with the inclination of the public. This constancy of the national character must never for a moment be lost sight of, while tracing the history of the Spanish drama; but even with this peculiar circumstance carefully kept in view, it is still impossible to give a very satisfactory account of the early progress of dramatic poetry among the Spaniards; for the notices which must be resorted to for that purpose, are both defective and confused.276
It is above all things necessary to begin by distinguishing the three or four parties, which on totally different principles endeavoured to cultivate dramatic poetry in Spain, and which appear to have been hitherto overlooked by the writers on Spanish literature, merely because each of those parties pursued its object, without openly declaring war against the others. Critical cultivation was not yet so far advanced in Spain as to open a field for literary warfare. But the heterogeneous nature of the Spanish dramas of the first half and ten following years of the sixteenth century, renders it evident, on a very slight examination, that the authors who composed them must have been influenced by different views.277
The party called the erudite, was the first which at that period laboured to introduce into Spain a style of dramatic literature, worthy to be called national. This party consisted of men of information and taste, though possessing but little knowledge of the true art of dramatic poetry, and still less of imagination. These men, like a similar party in Italy, endeavoured to form the modern drama on the model of the antique. As, however, the most zealous among them did not possess sufficient talent to imitate the ancient models, they began to translate them, and performed their task in prose. A Spanish translation of the Amphitryon of Plautus, by Villalobos, physician to Charles V. was printed in 1515. Shortly afterwards there appeared a new translation of the same drama, by Perez de Oliva, a prose writer of considerable merit, who will be further noticed in the course of this history. Perez de Oliva even ventured to make a prose version of the Electra of Sophocles. This unfortunate attempt appeared under the title of La Venganza de Agamemnon.278 He also translated the Hecuba of Euripides. At a somewhat later period the Portuguese comedies of Vasconcellos, written in the manner of Plautus, were published in the Castilian language. Translations of several comedies of Plautus subsequently appeared, and at length Pedro Simon de Abril published a complete translation of Terence, which is still much esteemed by the Spaniards.279 Thus it was not the fault of the erudite party that the Spanish drama did not resemble the ancient. But to introduce in Spain the tragic style of the classic drama, in all its poetic purity, or even the style of the ancient comedies in iambic verse, was an idea which could only have originated with scholars who did not understand the character of the Spanish public. The translators, therefore, even those who endeavoured to conciliate the public taste by prose versions, formed, with their learned friends, a solitary party. No first rate poet arose in Spain, like Ariosto in Italy, to amuse and instruct the public by original dramatic compositions on the classic model. It is possible that essays in the ancient manner may have been performed on some Spanish stage, particularly at Seville, but they are now totally lost; and no attempt seems ever to have been made to represent Spanish translations of Greek and Latin plays.
The party of the dramatic moralists approximated the closest to that which has just been described. The interlocutory romance of Cœlestina,280 or Calistus and Melibœa, poor in invention, but possessing in its natural descriptions of common life, an attraction for many readers, was, on account of its moral tendency, admired as a master-piece of dramatic art. As this dramatic romance was called a comedy or tragi-comedy, some of its admirers conceived themselves bound to write comedies and tragi-comedies in the same style for the moral benefit of society. Whether these productions were, or were not, calculated for representation, seems never to have been a subject of consideration with their authors. They were content if the scenes which they strung together exhibited in natural language the lowest pictures of common life, and forcibly marked the dangers attendant on vice. To do this requires only an ordinary share of talent, and accordingly Cœlestina was followed by a torrent of similar “Mirrors of Sin” in the Castilian language. The greater number appeared during the first half of the sixteenth century, or shortly afterwards; and among them were Policiana, entitled a tragedy;281 Perseus and Tibaldea, a comedy; De la hechicera (of the Witch), a comedy; Florinea, a comedy, &c. The author of a work of this kind, entitled La Doleria del Sueño del Mundo, (the Anguish of the Sleep of the World,) mentions in his title-page, that it is a comedy in the style of philosophic morality, (Comedia tratada por via de philosophia moral.) All these insipid moral lessons were read and admired in their day; but their extreme length prevented them from getting possession of the stage.282
Equally removed from the moral and the erudite party, was Bartholomè Torres Naharro, a man doubtless of extraordinary talent. He was the founder of a third party, which uniting with a fourth, that had for a short interval preceded it, ultimately triumphed as the only national party, and obtained exclusive control over the Spanish drama. It is a singular circumstance, and yet one to which the historians of Spanish literature have not called the attention of their readers, that Cervantes in his comic sketch of the early History of the Spanish Drama, mentions not a syllable respecting Torres Naharro, while the editor of Cervantes’s comedies, who has prefixed to them that sketch, declares, in his preface, Torres Naharro to be the real inventor of the forms of the Spanish comedy. Torres Naharro was born in the little town of Torre, on the Portuguese frontiers, and flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Of the history of his life but little is known. All accounts, however, agree in describing him to have been an ecclesiastic and a man of learning. After a shipwreck which involved