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woman! At the very moment when she thus blindly abandons herself to so culpable a boldness, her husband is actually accomplishing the first part of her punishment. Even now she hears, at a distance, upon the sea, a cry of despair.

Leonora. What is that (Que es esto)?

Don Juan (who at that instant joins her). Nothing, madam (Nada, Señora).

Leonora. Did not you hear?

Don Juan. Nothing: it was the wind moaning among the trees. Leonora. No! it was the voice of a man uttering the cry of death!

A moment after, and just as she and Don Juan, in the deepest agitation, were directing their looks to the agitated sea, there appears in sight a man, endeavouring to swim to the shore. It is Don Lopez; he holds in his hand a dagger!

Don Lopez (to himself). O land! O sweet abode of man!
Don Juan. What! Don Lopez, is it you?

Leonora (aside). My husband!

Don Lopez. I, myself!

And, having concealed the dagger, which the spectator alone has been permitted to see, he then proceeds to tell them, that by a dangerous accident, he and Don Luigi Benavedes, "his dear friend," were in great danger of losing their lives in the sea; the little boat, over which the waves washed, sank..

Leonora utters a piercing scream, and falls senseless to the ground. In an act which, to the more refined nations of the present day, would appear the very height of atrocity, but which the Spanish public, contemporary with Calderon, esteemed heroism, her husband bends anxiously over her, and raises her up, addressing her in tones of tenderness, and exerting every effort to conceal from the bystanders the fearful tempest of his mind, torn with jealousy, and but half sated with vengeance. While the attendants assist the scarcely conscious Leonora, he makes signs to have her conveyed to her own apartments, which is done. Left alone, Don Lopez breaks forth: "Now, my honour! have I with requisite prudence taken secret revenge for secret injury! Did not I seize the favourable moment, when, having loosed the boat, I pushed from the shore, under the semblance of wishing to reach the harbour? Have I not used this poignard with terrible dexterity against his life! Was not mine a cautious measure to split the boat, that no suspicion might arise? All's well! Now that, fulfilling the duty of a man of insulted honour, I have dispatched this gallant, now comes Leonora's turn. The King

shall not again have to counsel me not to accompany him, lest I should suffer from it in my own family. Leonora alas! inconstant as beautiful, nor less unhappy than inconstant! Fatal ruin of my happiness, and of my life, you, yes, you, also shall die this night!

Generally speaking, we certainly do not admire soliloquies, particularly long ones, for we do not think them probable, and scarcely possible: but classic romanticists all, by tacit convention, admit them;

and in this instance we shall not be more fastidious on the subject than they. After this soliloquy, then, Don Lopez reflects upon the manner and means of taking vengeance for the infidelity of his wife. He recoils from the thought of shedding her blood upon their marriage bed; he is unwilling that any vestige of the punishment should awake suspicion of crime. He had trusted the first act of revenge to the waters of the sea; to the devouring flames he will commit the care of the second. He himself will set fire to his own dwelling, and, at the instant when the flames shall rage most furiously . . . . . .! This idea pleased him, from the certainty that the two elements, to which he entrusted his secret, would never betray him. "It must be that to-morrow-to-morrow, and no later; the sun of my honour shall rise all radiant above this wreck, and these ruins!"

This deep imagination of terrible evil, this species of horrid fever, stifles in the bosom of the outraged husband every breath of humanity, and places vengeance in despotic sway over every thought and action. The spectator is already prepared to behold the consummation of the atrocity; he sees the victim sacrificed upon the altar of implacable revenge. It seems as if nothing could interrupt the progress of the action. But not so: the poet introduces a sweet picture. Don Lopez has withdrawn: the King, accompanied by his Court, enters. He contemplates the beautiful view, seen by the pale light of the moon, and in the soft silence of night.

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The azure heaven is reflected in the placid waters of the sea, like another Narcissus enamoured of his own charms"..... And then, observing the distant vessels with their watchlights and unfurled sails, he adds: "And they seem so many illuminated swans, in the act of spreading their snowy wings to sail upon the deep. Hail, my sweet country, hail!" &c. By some, this pas

sage has been criticised as useless; but we are inclined to say, with a certain critic, that he would be much deceived, who should imagine this beautiful description, which mingles the soft hues of the idyll with the exquisite sadness of the elegy, to be introduced without any object. This brief and placid colloquy was a masterly thought of the poet; it is destined to soothe the mind of the spectator, and to lull him into delicious ecstasy, from which to be suddenly startled by the fearful cries that are about to disturb that deep silence, and by the red glare that is presently to burst forth, making pale the tremulous light of the beauteous stars. The palace of Don Lopez is on fire. and sparks issue from the roof. It is like a volcano: every thing is enveloped in flames." Different individuals are seen

"Dense volumes of smoke

flying in terror from the burning pile. Don Juan exclaims, that the fire has broken out so fiercely, and spread with such rapidity, that all must quickly be reduced to ashes. He is hastening to the rescue of his friend and his wife, when suddenly Don Lopez himself, half-dressed, appears, bearing in his arms the corpse of Donna Leonora. Firm to the full accomplishment of his design, the fierce Spaniard persists in his dissimulation, "O! pitying heaven,

restore the breath of life to my Leonora, to my beloved wife!" he exclaims.

The King. Is it you, Don Lopez ?

Don Lopez. Yes, Sire; if my heavy misfortunes leave me enough of myself to see and address you in the midst of this horrible tragedy.... This lady, Sire, whom you behold lifeless, is my wife, noble, exalted, worthy, in short, of the eternal praises of fame. This lady is my wife, whom I have loved with the tenderest love, only to experience more acutely the bitter grief of losing her. I had succeeded in entering into her room, and was preparing to bear her from destruction, when, suffocated by the smoke, she expired on my bosom... This dreadful event!" &c. Then, turning cautiously to his friend, Don Juan, he said, in an undertone, "And you, valiant Don Juan, to him who may take counsel with you, you can now teach what measures to adopt, if he wishes that the vengeance should not betray that which was not betrayed by the outrage."

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These last words of Don Lopez bring again before us the whole terrible moral of the drama; depict an epoch in which a whole people is swayed by their sanguinary prejudices of honour; portray an entire society bending beneath the yoke of the passions, but holding passion itself in subjection to that tyrannical law of life; they display the Eastern principle still unsubdued by the Western; reveal the existence of a perpetual struggle between the Gospel and the Khoran, which we have before mentioned. Through the principal Spanish dramas of the age of chivalry, this inexorable idol of honour stalks like a spectre, invading every thought and affection, mingling in every grief and every joy. In the Spanish tragedy it is, we repeat, the vis motrix, the fatality, which reigns dominant in the tragedy of the Greeks.

The modern Spanish theatre has undergone many changes of form and idea, according to the different epochs, and the various political commotions it has experienced, still, however, preserving a certain character of originality.

We purpose a demonstration of this remark in subsequent analyses of some portions we shall select from the present beautiful edition of the "COLECCION DE LOS MEJORES AUTORES ESPAÑOLES, ANTIQUOS Y MODERNOS." That we may not exceed the limits of an article, we must now draw to a conclusion, with the intention of resuming the subject at a future period; nor will it be difficult to us to prove that the theatre of Spain, together with her literature, has preserved a physiognomy, an air, wholly her own, peculiar in all her political changes, as well as in the political unity violently imposed upon her in the reigns of Isabella I., Charles V., and Philip II., descending thus to our own times, to the days of the political tragala, and to the hymn of the unfortunate Riego. Throughout this vast literature, from which we shall, in future numbers, give some translations, the two elements, eastern and western, Mussulman and Christian, continually present themselves before us, occasionally, however, assuming certain modifications, according with the six divisions, or nations, Asturias and Galicia, Biscay

and Navarre, Arragon and Catalonia, Valencia and Murcia, Andalusia and Castille-nations which, though differing in costume, and even in language, constitute the great Spanish family. Spain, little known in its arts and literature, by some too lightly judged, and unworthily condemned, shows herself deserving of a better fate. And if General Foy, in his Spanish history, speaks of the country as "une noble et grande ruine," we foster the hope that, after so much wailing and bloodshed, she will yet again exhibit herself a noble and grand nation! Then, restored to peace, Spain may preserve in her customs, in her theatre, in her literature, those inspirations alone which spring from the perfumes of Arabia, and free herself from the Moorish fierceness, to which nothing is pleasing but the awful and tremendous!

THE VILLAGE-CLERK AND THE WIDOW.

A RIGHT-HUMOUROUS AND MERRILY-CONCEITED TALE.

CHAPTER I.

In which we introduce our veritable Parish-Clerk to the Reader. In the village of H-, situate not twenty miles from London, lived Mr. Benjamin Bender, by trade, a hatter, and by office, parish-clerk. The length of Mr. Bender, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, was somewhere about five feet nothing; and his breadth, from side to side, about three feet nine inches, he rejoicing in what may be considered a somewhat impassable corporation.

This same Mr. Bender was a man of no little consequence in his way. He had lived in the parish some fourteen years, and, therefore, considered himself in the light of an old inhabitant of the place, and would often talk, with all the dignity of a personage sensible of his own importance, about the office which he held within it; and I can assure the reader that he manifested no small degree of pride, when, on a Sunday, he strutted from the vestryroom, clad in his robes of office, and squeezing his unwieldy bulk into the desk, pronounced the responses in a loud, sonorous, and measured tone, sometimes pulling the front of his gown together, with an air which seemed to say, "I am Sir Oracle: let no dog

bark."

The possession of this gown was also a subject of great selfgratification to him. The parish-clerks of the three neighbouring parishes were without gowns, and he therefore rightly considered it no little distinction to be able to say, when giving an account of any little event which had occurred in the vestry-room, “As Mr. Steele and I were putting on our gowns," and particularly if he happened to be speaking to a stranger.

But, however, Mr. Bender was very far from being rich; for, although he was the only hatter in the place, yet, as the good

people of Halways thought twice before spending their money, he found it difficult to make them buy more than two hats a-year a-piece, namely, one for common wear, and a "bettermost" for Sundays. Now this, as the place was not very populous, afforded but a scanty maintenance for a family of six children. He therefore endeavoured to make both ends meet more easily, by keeping a little toy-shop; but he found this to be, as he expressed himself, "no go," for the farmers' unsophisticated boys laughed at his mimic horses and carts, and other gew-gaws, while the good housewives shook their heads at such a waste of money ;" and accordingly having, in the course of a year, sold only three rockinghorses, for the amusement of the " young masters at the Hall," he

gave up the speculation in despair.

His first wife being dead, his next expedient was to improve his estate by matrimony, which he determined should be to him a real matter of money, as he thereby hoped to be enabled to discharge sundry debts into which he had fallen through apprenticing his son to a tea-dealer: besides, he fancied that his eldest daughter had spent too much money in house-keeping since his "poor dear wife's death;"-at any rate, he was never before so pushed up into a corner for money" in his life.

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However, as every person of substance in H— knew his circumstances too well to encourage his addresses to their daughters, he determined to put his arts into practice against some stranger. Soon he found a widow reported rich, and in every respect a person to his mind. What if she were bandy, blind of one eye, and took copious potations of what she politely termed " cream of the valley?"—what mattered all this, I say, since it appeared that her pockets were far from empty? She lived in a house nicely furnished; and certainly the orders given to the village butcher, baker, &c. &c., were very large. Mr. Bender determined to try his fortune with her.

CHAPTER II.

The matter contained in which is too important to be forestalled. BUT how he was to get introduced to Mrs. Wombell, was the first question which suggested itself to Mr. Bender. For a long while the ways and means of effecting this desirable object sadly puzzled him; until, one day, looking over his books, he discovered that Mrs. Wombell's poor's-rates were still unpaid. Now the reader must know, that Mr. Bender, besides being parish-clerk, held the further office of collector of the poor's-rates. Here, therefore, was an excuse for a first visit; and he then would at least be able to see in what manner the house was furnished; and, if every thing pleased him, he trusted to his own ingenuity to give occasion for a second interview, he not having the least doubt, but that when once admitted to her presence, he should soon do the business.

Having thus determined, one morning he put on his best black cloth coat, which hitherto he had only worn upon Sundays, his

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