this time in England and the Continent; collecting books on Spanish literature, with the assistance of a scholar well known for his aid to American authors, Don Pascual de Gayangos, Professor of Arabic in the University of Madrid. In 1840, after his return to America, completely armed by his studies in Europe, the mental experience of his previous course of lectures, and with the rich resources of an unexampled collection of Castilian literature in his library, Mr. Ticknor commenced his important work on Spanish literature. It had been his intention at first to prepare an edition of his lectures; but these he soon laid aside for his more comprehensive undertaking. The History of Spanish Literature was published in three volumes in 1849, in London and New York; being stereotyped under the author's careful supervision at the Harvard University Press at Cambridge. The book at once took its position among scholars, and those best qualified to weigh its merits, on both sides of the Atlantic, as a standard contribution to the history of literature-a department which from some neglect, or from the inherent difficulties of such themes, has secured comparatively few classic productions. Though Spain had received more attention in this way than some other countries in the works of Bouterwek and Sismondi; yet from the partial attempts of these eminent writers, and from the hitherto unexplored fields of investigation now opened by Mr. Ticknor, the book of the latter was essentially a new production. The extent of its research was universally admired, and not less the extreme faithfulness with which the author had disclosed to the reader in the text and notes the exact means of information. There is certainly no work of the kind which surpasses this in diligent, conscientious research. The style was no less an indication of this faithful habit of mind. At once modest and dignified, and associated with a sound judgment, it followed the subject without prejudice, or those affectations which are the besetting and almost inevitable sins of writers on taste. The History of Spanish Literature is divided by the author into three periods: from the first appearance of the present written language, to the early part of the reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, or from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the sixteenth; from the accession of the Austrian family to its extinction, to the end of the seventeenth century; and from the accession of the Bourbon family to the invasion of Bonaparte, or from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the early part of the nineteenth. To the first belong a valuable essay on the Origin of the Spanish Language; the early literature of the ballad, including the national poems of the Cid, the chronicle, the romance, and the drama, topics all of curious historical as well as literary interest, opening many points of learned and philosophical investigation. The second period introduces us to the glories of the Castilian, the theatre of Lope de Vega and Calderon, the novels of Cervantes, the historical and lyric schools-with the varied development of a rich, fertile, original literature. The third is the broken age of decline under historic influences which are skilfully traced. In addition to the research and display of critical powers required in such a work, Mr. Ticknor had on his hands no inconsiderable care in translation both in prose and poetry. Here his labors are acknowledged to be exact and felicitous. He renders a dramatic sketch or a ballad poem with elegance and spirit. In fine, to adopt the authority of a most competent judge of the whole matter, Mr. Prescott, "Mr. Ticknor's history is conducted in a truly philosophical spirit. Instead of presenting a barren record of books, which, like the catalogue of a gallery of paintings, is of comparatively little use to those who have not previously studied them, he illustrates the work by the personal history of their authors, and this, again, by the history of the times in which they lived; affording, by the reciprocal action of one and the other, a complete record of Spanish civilization, both social and intellectual. It would be difficult to find a work more thoroughly penetrated with the true Castilian spirit, or to which the general student, or the student of civil history, may refer to no less advantage than one who is simply interested in the progress of letters."* The History of Spanish Literature has been translated into Spanish and German. The literary productions of Mr. Ticknor, besides this work, have been few. In 1837 he edited The Remains of Nathaniel Appleton Haven, with a Memoir of his Life; a tribute to the memory of an accomplished friend, of estimable character, who died the year previously at the early age of thirty-six, after he had given proofs of ability in several departments of literary effort. Mr. Ticknor also published in 1825, in the North American Review, to which he was a contributor, a life of Lafayette, which, after being enlarged, passed through several editions in the United States and England, and was translated in France and Germany. Mr. Ticknor was also an early contributor to the Monthly Anthology. In his character and pursuits, he is in the best sense of the word a liberal scholar, freely rendering his information to others, and assisting in the literary and benevolent or refined social moveinents of the day.‡ THE AUTHOR'S KEY-NOTE TO SPANISH LITERATURE There are two traits of the earliest Spanish literature which are so separate and peculiar, that they must be noticed from the outset,-religious faith and knightly loyalty,-traits which are hardly less apparent in the "Partidas" of Alfonso the Wise, in the stories of Don John Manuel, in the loose wit of the Archpriest of Hita, and in the worldly wisdom of the Chancellor Ayala, than in the professedly devout poems of Berceo, and in the professedly chival North American Review, January, 1850. An admirable analysis of the whole work. +N. A. Haven was born in Portsmouth, N. H., January 14, 1790, of an eminent family in the state. He was educated at Harvard, studied law, became versed in history and literature, and appeared as an orator on several public occasions. In 1814. he delivered a Fourth of July Oration at Portsmouth, the next year visited Europe, and settled on his return at Portsmouth. In 1816 he delivered a Phi Beta Kappa Address at Dartmouth. Between 1821 and 1825 he edited "The Portsmouth Journal." He delivered an oration at Portsmouth, May 21, 1823, on the second Centennial celebration of the landing of the first settlers. He wrote on several philanthropic topics, papers which are included in the Remains. He died at Portsmouth, June 8, 1826 Men of the Time, 1852. rous chronicles of the Cid and Fernan Gonzalez. They are, therefore, from the earliest period, to be marked among the prominent features in Spanish literature. were Nor should we be surprised at this. The Spanish national character, as it has existed from its first development down to our own days, was mainly formed in the earlier part of that solemn contest which began the moment the Moors landed beneath the rock of Gibraltar, and which cannot be said to have ended, until, in the time of Philip the Third, the last remnants of their unhappy race cruelly driven from the shores which their fathers, nine centuries before, had so unjustifiably invaded. During this contest, and especially during the two or three dark centuries when the earliest Spanish poetry appeared, nothing but an invincible religious faith, and a no less invincible loyalty to their own princes, could have sustained the Christian Spaniards in their disheartening struggle against their infidel oppressors. It was, therefore, a stern necessity which made these two high qualities elements of the Spanish national character,-a character all whose energies were for ages devoted to the one grand object of their prayers as Christians and their hopes as patriots, the expulsion of their hated invaders. But Castilian poetry was, from the first, to an extraordinary degree, an outpouring of the popular feeling and character. Tokens of religious submission and knightly fidelity, akin to each other in their birth, and often relying on each other for strength in their trials, are, therefore, among its earliest attributes. We must not, then, be surprised, if we hereafter find, that submission to the Church and loyalty to the king constantly break through the mass of Spanish literature, and breathe their spirit from nearly every portion of it,-not, indeed, without such changes in the mode of expression as the changed condition of the country in successive ages demanded, but still always so strong in their original attributes as to show that they survive every convulsion of the state, and never cease to move onward by their first impulse. In truth, while their very early development leaves no doubt that they are national, their nationality makes it all but inevitable that they should become permanent. "Old aunt will be sent To take us to masa, With the girls as we pase. "And mark who goes by, If I peep through the blind, In looking behind. "Thus for your idle follies And, though nothing I've done, "O, sister Miguela, Your chiding pray spare ;— Old Juan's fair youth; I loved all he said; I fear he is fled! "He is gone of free choice, Without summons or call, "Nay, rather do thou To God pray above, And again you should love," As she answered poor Jane; "For when love has been bought At cost of such pain, "What hope is there, sister, Unless the soul part, "Your years will increase, But so will your pains, And this you may learn From the proverb's old strains : "If, when but a child, Love's power you own, Pray, what will you do When you older are grown !'" HYMN ON THE ASCENSION-FROM THE SPANISH OF LUIS DE LEON. And dost thou, holy Shepherd, leave, While thou ascend'st thy glorious throne? And who shall lay his tranquil hand DON QUIXOTE. This honor, if we may trust the uniform testimony of two centuries, belongs, beyond question, to his Don Quixote, the work which, above all others, not merely of his own age, but of all modern times, bears most deeply the impression of the national character it represents, and has, therefore, in return, enjoyed a degree and extent of national favor never granted to any other. When Cervantes began to write it is wholly uncertain. For twenty years preceding the appearance of the First Part he printed nothing; and the little we know of him, during that long and dreary period of his life, shows only how he obtained a hard subsistence for himself and his family by common business agencies, which, we have reason to suppose, were generally of trifling importance, and which, we are sure, were sometimes distressing in their consequences. The tradition, therefore, of his persecutions in La Mancha, and his own averment that the Don Quixote was begun in a prison, are all the hints we have received concerning the circumstances under which it was first imagined; and that such circumstances should have tended to such a result is a striking fact in the history, not only of Cervantes, but of the human mind, and shows how different was his temperament from that commonly found in men of genius. His purpose in writing Don Quixote has sometimes been enlarged by the ingenuity of a refined criticism, until it has been made to embrace the whole of the endless contrast between the poetical and the prosaic in our natures,-between heroism and generosity on one side, as if they were mere illusions, and a cold selfishness on the other, as if it were the truth and reality of life. But this is a metaphysical conclusion drawn from views of the work at once imperfect and exaggerated; a conclusion contrary to the spirit of the age, which was not given to a satire so philosophical and generalizing, and contrary to the character of Cervantes himself, as we follow it from the time when he first became a soldier, through all his trials in Algiers, and down to the moment when his warm and trusting heart dictated the Dedication of " Persiles and Sigismunda" to the Count de Lemos. His whole spirit, indeed, seems rather to have been filled with a cheerful confidence in human virtue, and his whole bearing in life seems to have been a contradiction to that discouraging and saddening scorn for whatever is elevated and generous, which such an interpretation of the Don Quixote necessarily implies. Nor does he himself permit us to give to his romance any such secret meaning: for, at the very beginning of the work, he announces it to be his sole purpose to break down the vogue and authority of books of chivalry, and at the end of the whole, he declares anew, in his own person, that "he had no other desire than to render abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in books of chivalry;" exulting in his success, as an achievement of no small moment. And such, in fact, it was; for we have abundant proof that the fanaticism for these romances was so great in Spain, during the sixteenth century, as to have become matter of alarm to the more judicious. Many of the distin guished contemporary authors speak of its mischiefs, and among the rest the venerable Luis de Granada, and Malon de Chaide, who wrote the eloquent "Conversion of Mary Magdalen." Guevara, the learned and fortunate courtier of Charles the Fifth, declares that "men did read nothing in his time but such shameful books as Amadis de Gaula,' 'Tristan,' 'Primaleon,' and the like; the acute author of the "Dialogue on Languages," says that "the ten years he passed at court he wasted in studying Florisando,' Lisuarte,' 'The Knight of the Cross,' and other such books, more than he can name;" and from different sources we know, what, indeed, we may gather from Cervantes himself, that many who read these fictions took them for true histories. At last, they were deemed so noxious, that, in 1553, they were prohibited by law from being printed or sold in the American colonies, and in 1555 the same prohibition, and even the burning of all copies of them extant in Spain itself, was earnestly asked for by the Cortes. The evil, in fact, had become formidable, and the wise began to see it. To destroy a passion that had struck its roots so deeply in the character of all classes of men, to break up the only reading which at that time could be considered widely popular and fashionable, was certainly a bold undertaking, and one that marks anything rather than a scornful or broken spirit, or a want of faith in what is most to be valued in our common nature. The great wonder is, that Cervantes succeeded. But that he did there is no question. No book of chivalry was written after the appearance of Don Quixote, in 1605; and from the same date, even those already enjoying the greatest favor ceased, with one or two unimportant exceptions, to be reprinted; so that, from that time to the present, they have been constantly disappearing, until they are now among the rarest of literary curiosities;-a solitary instance of the power of genius to destroy, by a single well-timed blow, an entire department, and that, too, a flourishing and favored one, in the literature of a great and proud nation. The general plan Cervantes adopted to accomplish this object, without, perhaps, foreseeing its whole course, and still less all its results, was simple as well as original. In 1605, he published the First Part of Don Quixote, in which a country gentleman of La Mancha-full of genuine Castilian honor and enthusiasm, gentle and dignified in his character, trusted by his friends, and loved by his dependants-is represented as so completely crazed by long reading the most famous books of chivalry, that he believes them to be true, and feels himself called on to b.come the impossible knight-errant they describe,— nay, actually goes forth into the world to defend the oppressed and avenge the injured, like the heroes of his romances. To complete his chivalrous equipment-which he had begun by fitting up for himself a suit of armor strange to his century-he took an esquire out of his neighborhood; a middle-aged peasant, ignorant and credulous to excess, but of great good-nature; glutton and a liar; selfish and gross, yet attached to his master; shrewd enough occasionally to see the folly of their position, but always amusing, and sometimes mischievous, in his interpretations of it. These two sally forth from their native village in search of adventures, of which the excited imagination of the knight, turning windmills into giants, solitary inns into castles, and galley-slaves into oppressed gentlemen, finds abundance, wherever he goes; while the esquire translates them all into the plain prose of truth with an admirable simplicity, quite unconscious of its own humor, and rendered the more striking by its contrast with the lofty and * * courteous dignity and magnificent illusions of the superior personage. There could, of course, be but one consistent termination of adventures like these. The knight and his esquire suffer a series of ridiculous discomfitures, and are at last brought home like madmen, to their native village, where Cervantes leaves them, with an intimation that the story of their adventures is by no means ended. This latter half of Don Quixote is a contradiction of the proverb Cervantes cites in it,-that second parts were never yet good for much. It is, in fact, better than the first. It shows more freedom and vigor; and if the caricature is sometimes pushed to the very verge of what is permitted, the invention, the style of thought, and, indeed, the materials throughout, are richer, and the finish is more exact. The character of Samson Carrasco, for instance, is a very happy, though somewhat bold, addition to the original persons of the drama; and the adventures at the castle of the duke and duchess, where Don Quixote is fooled to the top of his bent; the managements of Sancho as governor of his island; the visions and dreams of the cave of Montesinos; the scenes with Roque Guinart, the freebooter, and with Gines de Passamonte, the galley-slave and puppet-show man ; together with the mock-heroic hospitalities of Don Antonio Moreno at Barcelona, and the final defeat of the knight there, are all admirable. In truth, every thing in this Second Part, especially its general outline and tone, show that time and a degree of success he had not before known, had ripened and -perfected the strong manly sense and sure insight into human nature which are visible everywhere in the works of Cervantes, and which here become a part, as it were, of his peculiar genius, whose foundations had been laid, dark and deep, amidst the trials and sufferings of his various life. But throughout both parts, Cervantes shows the impulses and instincts of an original power with most distinctness in his development of the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho; characters in whose contrast and opposition is hidden the full spirit of his peculiar humor, and no small part of what is most characteristic of the entire fiction. They are his prominent personages. He delights, therefore, to have them as much as possible in the front of his scene. They grow visibly upon his favor as he advances, and the fondness of his liking for them makes him constantly produce them in lights and relations as little foreseen by himself as they are by his readers. The knight, who seems to have been originally intended for a parody of the Amadis, becomes gradually a detached, separate, and wholly independent personage, into whom is infused so much of a generous and elevated nature, such gentleness and delicacy, such a pure sense of honor, and such a warm love for whatever is noble and good, that we feel almost the same attachment to him that the barber and the curate did, and are almost as ready as his family was to mourn over his death. The case of Sancho is again very similar, and perhaps in some respects stronger. At first, he is introduced as the opposite of Don Quixote, and used merely to bring out his master's peculiarities in a more striking relief. It is not until we have gone through nearly half of the First Part that he utters one of those proverbs which form afterwards the staple of his conversation and humor; and it is not till the opening of the Second Part, and, indeed, not till he comes forth, in all his mingled shrewdness and credulity, as governor of Barataria, that his character is quite developed and completed to the full measure of its grotesque, yet congruous proportions. Cervantes, in truth, came at last, to love these creations of his marvellous power, as if they were real, familiar personages, and to speak of them and treat them with an earnestness and interest that tend much to the illusion of his readers. Both Don Quixote and Sancho are thus brought before us, like such living realities, that at this moment, the figures of the crazed, gaunt, dignified knight, and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire, dwell bodied forth in the imaginations of more, among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of human talent. The greatest of the great poets-Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton-have no doubt risen to loftier heights, and placed themselves in more imposing relations with the noblest attributes of our nature; but Cervantes —always writing under the unchecked impulse of his own genius, and instinctively concentrating in his fiction whatever was peculiar to the character of his nation has shown himself of kindred to all times and all lands; to the humblest degrees of cultivation as well as to the highest; and has thus, beyond all other writers, received in return a tribute of sympathy and admiration from the universal spirit of humanity. * * The romance, however, which he threw so carelessly from him, and which, I am persuaded, he regarded rather as a bold effort to break up the absurd taste of his time for the fancies of chivalry than as any thing of more serious import, has been established by an uninterrupted, and, it may be said, an unquestioned, success ever since, both as the oldest classical specimen of romantic fiction, and as one of the most remarkable monuments of modern genius. But though this may be enough to fill the measure of human fame and glory, it is not all to which Cervantes is entitled; for, if we would do him the justice that would have been dearest to his own spirit, and even if we would ourselves fully comprehend and enjoy the whole of his Don Quixote, we should, as we read it, bear in mind, that this delightful romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance of feeling and a happy external condition, nor composed in his best years, when the spirits of its author were light and his hopes high; but that-with all its unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright views of the world, and his cheerful trust in goodness and virtue -it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of a life nearly every step of which had been marked with disappointed expectations, disheartening struggles, and sore calamities; that he began it in a prison, and that it was finished when he felt the hand of death pressing heavy and cold upon his heart. If this be remembered as we read, we may feel, as we ought to feel, what admiration and reverence are due, not only to the living power of Don Quixote, but to the character and genius of Cervantes;-if it be forgotten or underrated, we shall fail in regard to both. LA DAMA DUENDE OF CALDERON. "The Fairy Lady," is another of Calderon's dramas that is full of life, spirit, and ingenuity. Its scene is laid on the day of the baptism of Prince Balthasar, heir-apparent of Philip the Fourth, which, as we know, occurred on the 4th of November, 1629; and the piece itself was, therefore, probably written and acted soon afterwards. If we may judge by the number of times Calderon complacently refers to it, we cannot doubt that it was a favorite with him; and if we judge by its intrinsic merits, we may be sure it was a favorite with the public. Doña Angela, the heroine of the intrigue, a widow, young, beautiful, and rich, lives at Madrid, in the house of her two brothers; but, from circumstances eJanected with her affairs, her life there is so retired, that nothing is known of it abroad. Don Manuel, a friend, arrives in the city to visit one of these brothers; and, as he approaches the house, a lady strictly veiled stops him in the street, and conjures him, if he be a cavalier of honor, to prevent her from being further pursued by a gentleman already close behind. This lady is Doña Angela, and the gentleman is her brother, Don Luis, who is pursuing her only because he observes that she carefully conceals herself from him. The two cavaliers not being acquainted with each other,-for Doa Manuel had come to visit the other brother, a dispute is easily excitel, and a duel follows, which is interrupted by the arrival of this other brother, and an explanation of his friendship for Don Manuel. Don Manuel is now brought home, and established in the house of the two cavaliers, with all the courtesy due to a distinguished guest. His apartments, however, are connected with those of Doña Angela by a secret door, known only to herself and her confidential maid; and finding she is thus unexpectedly brought near a person who has risked his life to save her, she determines to put herself into a mysterious communication with him. But Doña Angela is young and thoughtless. When she enters the stranger's apartment, she is tempted to be mischievous, and leaves behind marks of her wild humor that are not to be mistaken. The servant of Don Manuel thinks it is an evil spirit, or at best a fairy, that plays such fantastic tricks; disturbing the private papers of his master, leaving notes on his table, throwing the furniture of the room into confusion, and-from an accident-once jostling its occupants in the dark. At last, the master himself is confounded; and though he once catches a glimpse of the mischievous lady, as she escapes into her own part of the house, he knows not what to make of the apparition. He says: She glided like a spirit, and her light Did all fantastic seem. But still her form But the tricksy lady, who has fairly frolicked herself in love with the handsome young cavalier, is tempted foo far by her brilliant successes, and, being at last detected in the presence of her astonished brothers, the intrigue, which is one of the most complicated and gay to be found on any theatre, ends with an explanation of her fairy humors and her marriage with Don Manuel. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, the historian, is the son of William Prescott, a distinguished jurist, who died at Boston in 1844, and the grandson of Colonel William Prescott, who commanded at Bunker Hill on the memorable 17th of June, 1775. The father of Mr. Prescott, who was one of the wisest and best as well as one of the ablest men that New England has produced, was a native of Peppereil in Massachusetts, but lived in Salem from 1789 to 1808; and there the Historian was born, May 4, 1796: his mother being the daughter of Thomas Hickling, who for nearly half a century held Washington's commission as Consu. at St. Michael's. But Mr. Prescott's family having removed to Boston when he was hard ly twelve years old, his literary training was chiefly in that city and in Cambridge, where he was graduated in 1814 with honors suited to the classical tastes he had cultivated with much more than common success, both during his University course and earlier. His original intention was, to devote himself to the profession which his father's eminence had naturally made. attractive to him. But, just as he was closing his academical career in Harvard College, an accident deprived him instantly of the use of one eye; and the other, after much suffering, became so enfeebled and impaired, that it was soon plain that he could devote himself to no course of life in which his occupations would not be controlled more or less by the results of this infirmity. He struggled against it, however, as well as he might. Two years he spent in travelling through England, France, and Italy, and in endeavors to procure alleviations for his misfortune from the great oculists of London and Paris; but it was all in vain. His general health, indeed, was strengthened and his character developed by it; but the infirmity from which he sought relief was beyond the reach of re nedies, and had been so, no doubt, from the first. Soon after his return home, therefore, he looked round to see what course was still open to him for that active period of life on whose threshold he then stood; and with a deliberation of purpose rare in one so young, he determined to become a historian. But first he went through a careful course of intellectual discipline in the classics of antiquity which had always been his favorite study, and in the literatures of France, Italy, and Spain, which followed them in natural sequence. To this task, he devoted, on a well. considered plan, ten years; and, except that he often suffered severely from inflammations of the debilitated organ of sight, and that his reading and studies of all kinds were carried on to much disadvantage from the necessity of using the eyes of others rather than his own, they were years of great happiness to him. His industry never flagged; his courage never faltered; his spirits, buoyant by nature, never sank under the burdens imposed upon them. It was the period when he laid deep and sure the foundations of his coming success. His next task was to choose a subject. In this, he was eminently fortunate. Sixty years had just elapsed since, in 1769, Dr. Robertson had succeeded in fastening the attention of the world on the reign of Charles V., when the power of Spain was greater than it ever was before or than it has ever been since, and when that wide European system was consolidated, which was first broken up by Buonaparte and which Buonaparte's conquerors have so imperfectly reconstructed. But Robertson did not go far enough back in the annals of Spain to make his work all that it should have been. The central point in the history of modern Spain is the capture of Grenada, and he should have embraced it in the plan of a work intended to present that country in its entrance upon the grand theatre of European affairs. All before that decisive epoch, for eight centuries, had been, as it were, preparation; all that has happened since, for four centuries, has been results and consequences. The power which had beer. |