Some of the most beautiful specimens of this architecture were erected for Christians or for Jews. Arabic inscriptions used as ornaments are still to be seen on the altar of the Cathedral of Gerona, in the Shrine of San Isidore at Leon; Arabic architecture is seen in the palace of the archbishops of Toledo, in a chapel in Alcala de Henares, and in more than one synagogue of the Jews. Christian bishops used as episcopal seals rings on which were engraved the praises of Allah. Long after the conquest of the great cities of the centre and of the south, Moorish and Mudejar architects were retained in the pay of Christian monarchs to keep in repair the cathedrals and palaces, the beauty of whose architecture the Christians could appreciate but could not imitate, much less surpa.s.s. It is this fact, and the mingling of style and ideas consequent thereon, which gives its sole peculiar characteristic to Spanish art.
Meanwhile, contemporaneously with the flourishing period of Arabian art in the south, a Christian architecture, strikingly in contrast from its poverty of style and of invention, was slowly being reconstructed in the north. Of the eighth century we have the crypt of the Church of Santa Cruz, at Cangas in the Asturias, and some remains in parts of the churches of Oviedo. To the tenth century belong parts of the Church of San Pablo at Barcelona, and other Catalan churches, with here and there a chapel in the Western Pyrenees. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the more important churches of Northern Spain were almost reproductions of those of Southern France; the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella is almost a copy of the Church of St. Sernin at Toulouse; but the Romanesque (semi-Byzantine) style lingered somewhat longer in Spain than in the neighbouring country, and especially in North-eastern Spain. In the twelfth century edifices of real beauty are beginning to be built; such are the cloisters of Tarragona and the cathedrals of Lerida and of Tudela. The cathedrals of Avila and Siguenza are of more native Spanish character; while those of Toledo, Burgos, and Leon show the influence of French artists in their general plan, but with an added ornamentation derived from the richer and more florid fancy of the south. Of these perhaps Leon is the n.o.blest and Burgos the richest example in Spain. Segovia, Salamanca, and Seville, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, are the latest of the great Gothic churches of Spain, before the rise of the Renaissance.
Nowhere had the cla.s.sical revival in architecture more influence than in Spain. The almost exclusive type of church which, both in Spain and in her vast colonies, is pointed out as the Spanish church, is that either of the Renaissance or of the styles which have sprung from it. This soon became fashionable, but its semi-pagan additions frequently harmonize but ill with the deeper religious feeling of the preceding styles. Still it has many fine examples; the works of Berruguete and Herrera are well worthy of study. The Escorial, the work of the latter, is redeemed from ugliness or meanness by the n.o.ble proportions of its central chapel and pantheon. But to this semi-cla.s.sical style succeeded, in the eighteenth century, the Churrigueresque, the most debased of all styles, wherein plaster took the place of sculpture, sham that of reality, and ma.s.ses of gilding and an incongruous medley of meaningless ornament concealed the blunders in proportion and poverty of idea. The adoption of this style by the Jesuits procured its prevalence in many districts of Spain and of her colonies; occasionally the size of the buildings constructed gives a certain grandeur and hides the debas.e.m.e.nt of the methods.
The domestic, palatial, and castellated architecture of Spain has little peculiar beyond what has been already indicated. The royal palace at Madrid, however, is one of the most successful architectural efforts of the eighteenth century. The sculptured coats of arms on mean dwellings are perhaps the most notable distinction of Spanish houses. Traces of the influence of Moorish traditions may not unfrequently be observed. In the north, the cottages and farms of the Basques, with overhanging roofs and wooden galleries, recall in some degree those of Switzerland; in the south the iron bars or rails (rejas) before the lower windows, and the lattices (celosias) in the upper stories tell of insecurity and of habits of almost Oriental seclusion of women.
Finer even than the architecture and the exterior of the buildings is the church furniture in Spain. It is unsurpa.s.sed for beauty and interest. The carved and sculptured wood-work in some of the cathedrals is finer than even that of the Netherlands and of Germany. The storied screens and choir stalls at Toledo; the retablos of Gerona and Salamanca, of Avila and Seville; the choir fittings of Santiago, Zamora, and of Burgos; the lecterns and pulpits both of bra.s.s and wood; and the rails and gates and screens of n.o.blest metal-work are often of simply grand proportion; nay, even the polychrome wooden statues in the churches will often be found to be of rarest beauty. The monuments erected to the memory of the dead are equal to anything which affection and piety have raised elsewhere, from that of Archbishop Maurice at Burgos, in the thirteenth century--of the tombs of the constable and of those of Juan II. and Isabel of Portugal, in the Cartuja de Miraflores, of the fifteenth century; and that of Prince Juan, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, at Avila, erected in 1497--down to the n.o.ble mausoleum of inlaid metal-work by Zuloaga, lately placed in the Church of the Atocha to the memory of Prim. In these and many more, Spain can show a sequence able to vie with that of any other land. Hardly less beautiful are the minor accessories of Catholic worship; the gold and silver smiths" work of the chandeliers, the jewelled work of crosses, custodias or shrines, and sacred vessels is often worthy of admiration.
In all such works of art, before the pillage of the French in the war of liberation, and the destruction of the convents, Spain was probably one of the richest of Christian lands. If we seem to insist too much on ecclesiastical art in Spain, it is because, as we shall see still more clearly in the case of painting, art has here concentrated its choicest effort on religious subjects, and in them has won its greatest triumphs.
Except, perhaps, in arms and in porcelain, in portrait-painting and in furniture, all the masterpieces of Spanish art are in some sense ecclesiastical. Take away religion from her art, how poor would be the residue, for even Arabian and Moslem art in Spain were essentially religious.
_Painting._
Though Spain cannot rival some other countries, Italy for example, in the number of her great painters; though she has founded no great technical school; yet is she worthy of greatest admiration; in one or two of her artists she has attained the very highest rank. As a religious painter, especially in expressing in form and colour the heights of mystic ecstasy, Murillo stands unrivalled. As a portrait-painter of courtly grace and distinction, Velazquez has few equals. It is not in landscape, or as interpreters of the ever-varying beauty of external nature, that Spanish painters excel, but in the delineation of the human form, and especially in the rendering of those religious emotions which lead through asceticism to ecstasy. Not the glorification of merely sensuous beauty, but the triumphs of the spirit over the flesh are the conquests which they prefer to delineate.
Spanish painters may be divided among three great provinces: the Valencian, Andalusian, and Castilian schools. Of these the Andalusian, and especially the school of Seville, has produced by far the greatest artists.
The earliest specimens of Spanish painting are of the decorative kind, and are employed in subordination to architecture, to add colour to form, and to heighten and make more evident the details of sculpture in churches or convents. Much of this phase of art, in which they stand very high, they probably learned from the Moors. From these labours in churches and convents art in Spain received a religious imprint and direction which it has never lost, and from which it is only now turning in the present generation. Goya and Fortuny are perhaps the only considerable painters of Spain in whose works religious subjects do not preponderate. Spanish art reflects in a peculiar degree the characteristic of Spanish theology. The mystic grace, the transport of love which seems almost too human and tender when fixed on the Divine, which moves us in the writings of St. Teresa, St. Juan de la Cruz, Xavier, and others, touches us no less in the pictures of Murillo. Stern and sombre, as these are lovely, are the paintings which remind us that we are in the land of the inquisition. Figures of martyrs serene in tortures, whose horrors are laid bare as by no other artists, figures of saints of primitive, mediaeval, or of later times, who have carried asceticism to excess, portraits of men who were as severe to themselves as they were pitiless to others; such are the subjects which are faithfully rendered by the pencils of Ribalta, Ribera, Zurbaran, and many others. Later on, when the old const.i.tutional liberties of Spain had almost utterly fallen, and when the worship of the king had begun almost to rival that of the Blessed Virgin, Velazquez and others give us portraits of the royal family of Spain. The fun and wit which really existed in Spanish life, and which her novelists have depicted with such relish in innumerable novels, is but poorly represented in Spanish art by any of her great masters. Murillo"s beggar-boys are almost the only pictures which answer to the "picaresque" side of Spanish literature till the advent of Goya and of Fortuny.
The expressions of the plastic arts of Spain are neither so idealized as the Italian, nor so intellectual as the German, nor so sensuous as the Flemish, nor so realistic as those of the Dutch school; but they are far more powerful in colouring and truer and deeper in feeling than are those of the French school. The Spaniard painted the types and characters of his native land, but he delighted to throw around them the magic lights that never were on sea or land; through the intense darkness of his asceticism ever peers a ray of heavenly light; but the type of the figure is ever Spanish; never, in the best days of art, was inspiration sought from a reproduction of the forms of pagan cla.s.sical ism, or from a mere eclecticism of beauty. Though the drawing is correct, we feel that it has not been learned from a mere study of ancient statuary or from anatomical preparations, but from the living type and figure. Here and there we find painters like Juande Joannes (Vicente Macip) and Domenico Theotocopuli (El Greco), who might have lived on Italian soil; but generally the tone of Spanish painters is local and unmistakable. Through all his styles--the _frio_ (cold), _calido_ (warm), and the _vaporoso_ (mystic)--Murillo remained faithful to Spanish, nay, to Andalusian models; none can mistake his saints and virgins, his boys and beggars, as belonging to any other race. He does not tell the wondrous story of the Incarnation with so grand an appeal to the intellect as do the Italian painters. The "woman blessed throughout all generations" does not look out to us from his canvas from the serene heights of perfect woman-hood which has found its crown in the mystery of the Motherhood of the Son of G.o.d, but in younger and more girlish forms he paints for us the maiden rapt in adoring ecstasy as she experiences the wonders of love divine, bathed in the golden light of a rapture which none but the very purest can ever feel, and which the very angels are represented as reverencing.
s.p.a.ce forbids our giving even an approximate catalogue of Spanish painters; we can merely single out for mention the two or three of highest rank in their respective provinces. In Valencia we have Ribalta (1551-1628), Juan de Joames (Vicente Macip) (1523-79), and the great but gloomy Ribera (1588-1609). To this school also belong the artists of Catalonia and of the Balearic Isles. In Castile are Navarette (El Mudo) (1526-79), Morales (1509-86), Theotocopuli (El Greco) (died 1578), and the younger Herrera (died 1686). But the greatest painters are from Andalusia and from Seville. The well-known names of Herrera the Elder (1576-1656), Zurbaran (1598-1662), Murillo (1618-82), Velazquez (1623-60), suffice to show its pre-eminence. The eighteenth century, in art as well as in literature, was a time of utter decadence; Goya (1746-1820), the caricaturist, is the only artist we need mention; but, like its literature, Spanish art is now at length rising from its long sleep. Fortuny (1838-74), has made himself a European reputation; though, through his early death, the pictures he has left give promise only of what his future might have been. Rosales (1840-73), though less known by foreigners, is of equal, if not of greater merit; like Fortuny, he died in his early prime. Madrazo, Jimenez, Fradilla, and others, though not of more than national reputation, yet prove that art is not extinct in Spain.
In what have been called the industrial arts Spain was formerly very rich, and, but for the wretched economical policy and administration of the Government since the seventeenth century, would probably have held her own against other countries. The gold and silver ornaments still worn by the peasantry in a few districts perpetuate designs and methods of workmanship originally derived from the Moors, and much of the church work is still of great excellence. No less beautiful is the iron-work, in which a grand effect is often produced by simply n.o.ble proportions in the gates, _rejas_, and screens of her cathedrals and churches; and in another sphere, in the manufacture of arms, and of inlaying steel or iron with arabesque patterns of gold and silver, an art which has been lately revived with great success in Biscay and the Basque Provinces. In porcelain and pottery the majolica ware, made at Valencia, was renowned throughout Europe; and the Moorish glazed and l.u.s.tred ware, the manufacture of which remained a secret till the present century, is greatly sought after by amateurs. The wine-jars (_tinajas_ and _alpujarras_), the porous pottery (_bucaros_), the _azulejos_ or decorated tiles, continue traditions originally derived through the Arabs from the East, but which had almost expired when the manufacture was faintly revived under royal patronage in the times of Charles III., to start again on a stronger life with the aid of English capital in our own times. Spanish gla.s.s is sometimes curious, and much of the stained and painted windows in the cathedrals is excellent, especially that of Toledo and of Leon; but this art was undoubtedly learned from foreign workmen, and only became naturalized in Spain. Of carvings in wood and marble and ivory we have already sufficiently spoken. In textile fabrics and embroidery, especially in lace, Spain was formerly very rich. The mantillas of the ladies, the dresses of the sacred images, the copes of the clergy, gave full opportunity for the production of this fabric; but the chief effort is now directed to the manufacture of the best foreign laces, all of which are most successfully imitated by hand-workers in Valencia and Murcia, where they can be produced at a lower cost than is possible in colder and more northern climes. Everything in Spain, even the common use of colour and of flowers by the Andalusian peasants, shows a natural feeling for art; and its production is hindered more by indolence, and by the mischievous economical conditions of almost all Spanish industry, than by any want of talent in the native workman or artisan.
Though, perhaps, there is no country in Europe in which music is more appreciated or practised than in Spain, it is singular that she has produced no really great master. She has many composers of "zarzuelas,"
a species of lighter opera; her traditional dance and ballad tunes are some of the most inspiriting possible; and her guitar playing is renowned, but more for the romantic sentiment of the words and the occasion on which it is used than for the music itself. Well-nigh the only name for which even Spaniards claim equality with the great European masters in serious music is that of Don Manuel Doyague, of Salamanca (1755-1842). His _Miserere_, _Te Deum_, and various _Ma.s.ses_ are said to equal those of any master of his time.
_Literature._
It is not necessary to repeat here what has been said above on the Spanish authors who wrote during the silver age of Latin literature, or to trace again the origin of the Spanish language. It is evident that all we can do is to give a very brief sketch of Spanish literature. This literature is, perhaps, the richest in Europe in ballads and romances, and these, which make one of its chief glories, are among its earliest monuments. While the "Chanson de Roland" and other "Chansons de Gestes"
were being written in Northern France in the form of continuous epic poems, Spain was celebrating her hero--the Cid--in a series of ballads.
These, if united, would tell almost the whole story of his life; but each could be sung or recited alone as a separate and complete poem.
This form of verse continued for many ages to be the favourite literature of the common people, and attained a development in Spain beyond that which it did in any other land. For spontaneity, for movement, for grace of expression, for sudden turns from martial ardour to the most pathetic tenderness, the Spanish ballad is unrivalled. It embraces and handles with almost equal success the most varied subjects: war and chivalry and love, patriotism, wit, amus.e.m.e.nt, and religion, have all been treated of in these romances, and the collections of each kind would fill many volumes.
The first prose works in the Spanish language seem to have been a translation of the Bible, under Alphonse X., and of two codes of law, the "Fuero Juzgo" and "Las Siete Partidas," in the middle of the thirteenth century. It seems to have been almost by accident that Alfonzo wrote in the dialect of Leon and Castile in preference to that of Galicia and Portugal. Had he chosen the latter, probably Portuguese would have become the language of the whole Peninsula. Under his reign, too, may have been commenced the first history written in Spanish, "La Gran Conquista de Ultramar," telling the story of the Crusades, with many romantic episodes. The next production that calls for remark is the epic of Alexander the Great, by J. L. Segura, of the latter part of the same century. This poem gives the name "Alexandrine" to all European verse written in the same metre. In the early part of the fourteenth century we have a collection of tales, with morals attached, called "El Conde Lucanor," by Don Juan Manuel, nephew of Alphonse X. (1282-1347); and Alfonso XI. continues the list of royal authors with a "Libro de la Monteria,", or treatise on hunting. The arch-priest of Hita, Juan Ruiz (1330-43), about the same time took up the strain of love and war in a romance of mingled prose and verse, ent.i.tled "Guerras Civiles de Granada." In the latter half of the fifteenth century we meet with a remarkable production, the tragi-comedy of Celestina, which, in its two-fold character of novel and of drama, has been the parent of a double offspring, both of the comedy and of the _picaresque_ novel of Spain. The Spanish rogue, at least in fiction, has been said to be the only amusing rogue in Europe. The chief representations of him in literature are in the novel of "Lazarillo de Tormes" (1554), by Hurtado de Mendoza; "Guzman de Alfarache" (1599), by Mateo Aleman; and "La Picara Justina" (1605), by the Dominican monk, Andreas Perez. The whole series of these works culminated in a masterpiece, "Gil Blas," written, not by a Spaniard, but by the Frenchman Lesage, in 1668; perhaps the most graphic description of the manners of another nation ever written by a foreigner.
The serious drama in Spain arose, probably, like that of other European nations, from the mysteries and moralities of the Middle Ages, such as are still continued to be performed occasionally at Elche and in other districts. In the "Autos" of Calderon and others it bore clear marks of this origin to a later date than any other contemporary drama. The first plays of any consequence we hear of are those of Lope de Rueda (1544-67), who, both as actor and as author, was greatly admired by Cervantes. From him the Spanish drama, like the almost contemporary Elizabethan drama in England, sprang at once to its full height.
Cervantes, in his tragedies "Los Banos de Argel," and in "El trato de Argel" in which he described incidents in his own captivity, and in the "Numancia," telling the story of the siege by the Romans, imitated and surpa.s.sed his friend. In lighter pieces, comedies and _entremeses_, he was less successful. Almost coeval with Cervantes is Lope de Vega (1562-1635), perhaps the most prolific dramatic writer of any value that ever lived. His pieces are numbered at from 1500 to 2000, and the best of these are equal, if not superior, to those of Calderon in delineation of character and in plot, and are inferior only in poetical merit. We can only mention Tirso de Molina (1588-1648), Montahran (1602-38), and Ruiz de Alarcon (died 1639) as dramatists of merit, whose best pieces, especially those of the latter, approach very nearly to those of Lope and of Calderon. Calderon de la Barca (1600-81), with the German, Gothe, is the only dramatist of modern Europe who has been seriously put forward as a rival, or even superior, to Shakspere. This we think to be a mistake; in rich poetical imagery, in gorgeousness of fancy, in harmony of verse, in stately dignity, in depth of religions feeling, in knowledge of stage effect--in all these things he may be compared to our English master; but he is very far inferior to him in width of sympathy, in wit and rollicking fun, or in thoughtful humour; his comedy will not bear comparison with that of Shakspere; but he falls most short in his delineation of individual character. In comparison with Shakspere"s, his figures are but well-dressed puppets compared to living men and women; not one of them lingers in the memory like a person whom we have known.
We remember Calderon"s verses, we revel in his splendid poetry, but we utterly forget who it is that utters these dazzling strains. Calderon"s dramas and comedies are reckoned at 120, and his Autos, religious or sacramental pieces, generally performed by religious or civil corporations in the open air, are numbered at about seventy. In these plays abstract qualities take the place of living personages, and it is perhaps the greatest proof of Calderon"s genius that he has by his brilliant poetry and serene religious feeling made some of even these acceptable to a modern reader.
But while the drama and comedy and the picaresque novel had been thus developing themselves, a whole literature of quite a different kind had sprung up into favour, flourished, and died away. This consisted of the prose books of chivalry, and of the pastoral romances both in prose and verse. They are remembered now chiefly through mention of them in the pages of the immortal work, the "Don Quixote," of Cervantes, which crushed them for ever. The most celebrated of them was the "Amadis de Gaul," written probably at the end of the fourteenth century. The imitations of it were innumerable, each more wild, extravagant, more insipid, and in worse taste than the last. Of the pastoral romances the only one we need to note is the "Diana Enamorada," of Montemayor (1520-61), and perhaps the most successful after this is the "Galatea,"
of Cervantes himself, who could never entirely shake off the influence of the writings he delighted to satirize, and of which he was the literary executioner. The one Spanish book which has become really European, in a degree which has been attained by no other purely secular work, is the "Don Quixote" of this author (1547-1616). Into this extraordinary production, under the guise of the adventures of his hero, the last of the knights-errant, with his squire, Sancho Panza--a story full of mirth, incident, and humour--Cervantes has put all the wisdom which, by his observation on mankind and literature, he had collected during a singularly varied life as writer, soldier, seaman, Algerine slave, poet, and man of business. Though hardly belonging to the school of the cla.s.sical Renaissance, yet we see in Cervantes a specimen of the marked and distinguishing excellence of the men at that time--the width of their sympathies; so that each more eminent man seemed to contain in himself an epitome of the experience of mankind. It is, perhaps, to this many-sidedness of his experience, and of his culture, that is owing the genial character, the pathetic humour, and the total absence of bitterness in this masterly satire. Thus Cervantes, while laughing down and extinguishing for ever the absurdities of the chivalrous and pastoral romances, yet retains his sympathy for all that was really n.o.ble, though exaggerated, in them. His "Don Quixote," though moving irrepressible laughter, will for ever remain one of the choicest representations of a brave, pure-minded, honourable gentleman, and tears of pity for him are not far distant from our smiles at his quaint insanities. Since the days of Cervantes one kind only of the chivalrous romances has really survived in literature, and that is the historical romance, of which the "Guerras Civiles de Granada" of the arch-priest Hita, mentioned above, is so good an example. Another satirist, less known than Cervantes, to whom his life bears some resemblance, Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645), is even a more versatile writer. In prose and verse his writings are very numerous, but his style, learned and obscure, often laboured in the extreme, though pregnant with thought and wit, contrasts unfavourably with the clearness of Cervantes; he holds now in Spanish literature a place nearly a.n.a.logous to that of Swift among British writers.
But we must hurry on. With the downfall of Granada, the discovery of America, the consolidation of the kingdoms of the Peninsula into one nation, real historical study began in Spain. Thus we have in quick succession many works of considerable merit, such as the "Annals of Aragon," by Zurita (1512-80); the "Comunidades of Castille," by Mejia (1549); the great "History of Spain," by the Jesuit Mariana (1536-1632); Herrera"s "General History of the Indies" (1549-1625); the "Commentaries on Peru," by the Inca, Garcila.s.so de la Vega (1540-1616); the monographs of Hurtado de Mendoza on the "Wars of Granada" (1610); the "Expedition of the Catalans," by Moncada (1623); the "Wars of Catalonia," by Melo (1645); and, in literary form superior to all these, the "Conquest of Mexico," by Solis (1685).
Of poetry, apart from the stage and from the romances, there is not much of real value to engage our attention. The grandest verses of early Spain are undoubtedly the "Coplas" of Manrique (1476), which have been often translated into English, and which form one of the finest elegies extant in any language. After Garcila.s.sa de la Vega (1503-36), Spanish poets fell into an unworthy imitation of the Italian; and subsequently Gongora (1561-1627) set the example of a still more debased and stilted style, full of affected conceits and mistaken cla.s.sicalism. The only tolerable epic poem which Spain has yet produced is the "Araucana" of Ercilla, which tells the story of the wars with Indians of that name in Chili, and in which the author had personally taken part.
From the close of the seventeenth and through the greater part of the eighteenth century, literature partook of the progressive decadence of all things in Spain. It withered and declined under the double censure and oppression of the king and of the inquisition. The theatre, which had striven hard in Spain to become the ally, or even the handmaid, of the Church, was contemptuously thrust aside by the latter, and within a century of Calderon"s death, not even an Infanta could procure permission from the inquisition for a comedy in time of carnaval. No history of any value could be written under such conditions; the only outlet for literary skill lay in religious and mystic writings, which are of singular beauty. The cla.s.sical and grammatical movement of the Renaissance which had begun so well under the patronage of Juan de Cisneros, Cardinal Ximenes, the great minister of Charles V., and the chief monument of which is the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1514-17, and its greatest scholar, Antonio de Nebrija, soon died away, and the Spanish universities, which for a while had been the admiration, became, in the eighteenth century, the laughing-stock of Europe. Of the earlier period we may mention among the religious writers Luis de Granada (1505-68), Santa Teresa (1515-82), the Jesuit, Ribadeneyra (1527-1611), Juan de la Cruz (1542-91); but even this literature degenerated into casuistry and mere technical scholasticism. Spanish religious poetry is, however, far more copious and of greater excellence than is generally supposed. It has been studied and collected in our own day by the opposite schools of the Spanish Protestants, and by the champion of orthodoxy, Menendez Pelayo.
There is little to notice in Spanish literature from this time until the rise of the doctrinaire and economical writers of the reign of Carlos III., who for the most part closely followed the contemporary school of French publicists and encyclopaedists. Among these are Padre Benito Feyjoo, who was the first to protest against the absence of science and true learning in Spain; the Padre Isla (1703-81), decidedly one of the wittiest of Spanish writers and satirists; Jovellanos (1744-1811), the best statesman and political writer of his time, and in the purer walks of literature the two Moratins (1737-1828). One or two philological works, far in advance of their age, made now their appearance, such as the tracts of Padre Sarmiento (1692-1770) on the Spanish language; the works of the Jesuits Larramendi (1728-45) on the Basque, and of Hervas (1735-1805) on general philology. To this period also belongs the magnificent collection ent.i.tled, "La Espana Sagrada," commenced by Florez (1754-1801), and, after many interruptions, completed only in 1880.
Towards the close of the eighteenth century, however, a reaction set in against the French and so-called cla.s.sical school, and the attention of Spanish writers was recalled to the masterpieces of their own earlier literature. The movement was accelerated by the course of political events, and the successes of the war of independence against the French.
One of the earliest defenders of the romantic against the cla.s.sical school was Bohl de Faber, a Hamburg merchant settled in Cadiz. He published in 1820-3, in his native town, selections from works of the early poets and dramatists of Spain; and his daughter, Cecilia, under the name of Fernan Caballero, has attained the highest rank among the lady novelists of Spain. The admission of Bohl de Faber into the ranks of the Spanish Academy, under Martinez de la Rosa, marks the definite triumph of the national school. At first it seemed as if the movement would produce simply a change of French for English and German models.
Fiction became a stiff imitation of Sir Walter Scott. In poetry the influence of Byron reigned supreme. Esp.r.o.nceda (1810-42) has equalled his master in his cynical odes. "The Beggar," "The Executioner," "The last day of the Condemned," and "The Pirate," might almost have been penned by Byron; and "El Mundo Diablo" will long live in Spanish literature. Zorilla, born in 1817, still living, has been more successful in his dramas than Esp.r.o.nceda, especially in "Don Juan Tenorio," but his poems are inferior in force, though rich in colouring and in the melody of his verse. Gustavo Becquer (1836-70) is another poet who fed his genius with the legends of the past, but his models were Edgar Poe and Hoffmann; some of his weird fantastic tales and poems are excellent examples of their kind. Of an opposite character are the realistic novels of Fernan Caballero above mentioned (1797-1877). These are exquisite rose-tinted photographs of Spanish life and character taken by one who sees everything Spanish with a favourable eye. Her writings are distinguished by a delicate aristocratic grace and tenderness which she throws over all subjects which she handles, whether of high or lowly life. As an artist her plots are inferior to those of many worse novelists; her descriptions of scenery are beautiful and exact; as a delineator of individual character she fails, but as a painter of type and cla.s.s she is unrivalled. Her sketches abound in humour and in gentle melancholy; a deep and true religious feeling pervades every line, but she fails in strength and pa.s.sion. Thus she can be cla.s.sed only in the second rank of female novelists, and does not approach the genius of Georges Sand or of George Elliot. Trueba, in the north, essays to imitate her, but he often sinks into puerility, nor are his studies marked by the conscientious regard for fact which distinguishes those of the lady writer. Pereda, who delineates the peasants of Santander, is a less prolific writer but of higher literary merit. Of living novelists we should place in the first rank Juan Valera with his powerful novels, "Pepita Jimenez," "El Doctor Faustino," and "Dona Luz." Next to him is, perhaps, Perez Galdos, who, in the series ent.i.tled "Episodios Nacionales," rivals the national romances of Erckmann-Chatrian in French. Pedro Alarcon has a greater fund of wit and humour, and his "Sombrero de tres picos" is a most mirth-provoking tale.
Fernandez y Gonzalez, in the number, if not in the quality of his works, may almost compete with the elder Alexandre Dumas, whose semi-historical style he repeats. Feliz Pizcueta, a Valencian writer, has also written many novels, whose scenes are laid in his native province. Among dramatists now living, or lately dead, we may mention Hartzenbusch (1806-80), whose "Amantes de Teruel" is one of the most successful tragedies of the romantic school; Breton de los Herreros (1800-70); Gertrudis de Avellaneda, the first Spanish female dramatist, born in Cuba in 1816; Gutierrez, who, born in 1813, sought refuge, like Zorilla, in Spanish America; Lopez de Ayala; and lastly, J. Estebanez, whose best work is ent.i.tled "Un Drama Nuevo," and who reaches a high level of dramatic art. Of more extravagant style, inferior to these, and already marking a decadence, is Jose Echegaray, a man of most versatile and opposite talents, and one of the first mathematicians of Spain, the best of whose plays is "Locura o Santidad." Of lyric poets we may mention Campoamor, an original but languid and graceful writer of minor verse, and Selgas, whose grace is seasoned with wit and satire, but whose prose is much superior to his verse. But by far the greatest of living Spanish poets, though like Tennyson he has failed comparatively on the stage, is Gaspar Nunez de Arce. His "Gritos del Combate," and "La Ultima Lamentacion de Lord Byron," contain some n.o.ble verses. He writes in the spirit of purest patriotism, with a stern morality, and with severe and chastened art.
But more important than in the movement of fiction and poetry has been the influence of the romantic school in history. The attention of Spaniards has been at length turned to the study of their original records, and especially to that of the early Arabic writers. The first to attempt this, but with insufficient means, was J. A. Conde (1757-1820) in his "Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espana."
This has since been superseded by the exacter learning of Don Pascual Gayangos, in the "Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain," by many foreign writers, and by the labours of Fernandez y Gonzalez in "Los Mudejares de Castilla" (1866) and others. The labours of Don Modeste and Don Vicente Lafuente, the one in ecclesiastical, the other in civil history, must be mentioned with approval, and the works of Amador de los Rios, on the literature of Spain and on the history of the Jews in Spain, do honour to his country. Among other historians, we may mention F. Castro and Sales y Ferrer, whose works are the popular manuals in education.
Fernandez Guerra in the ancient, and Coello in the modern, Geography of Spain, are authors of the highest cla.s.s; nor must we omit the Englishman Bowles, who wrote on the Natural History of Spain in 1775. In Geology another English name, Macpherson, attains the highest rank, together with the surveyors employed on the "Comision de la Mapa Geologica" of Spain. On the history of property in Spain and Europe, are two remarkable essays by Cardenas and de Azcarate. In theology, on the Roman Catholic side, are the writings of Balmes (1810-48); of Donoso Cortes (1809-53), of the present Bishop of Cordova, Ceferino Gonzalez; and, still publishing, the remarkable production of Menendez Pelayo, "Historia de los Heterodoxos in Espana;" while in the Protestant theology, Usoz, a.s.sisted by B. Wiffen in England and Boehmer in Germany, has rescued from oblivion the works of the Spanish reformers. In philology the Jesuit, Padre Fita y Colome, worthily continues the traditions of Larramendi and of Hervas. Fernandez Guerra, and F. Tubino, and the Barcelona school pursue archaeological studies with success. The influence of outside European thought is every day more evident in Spain. Ardent disciples of the school of Comte, of Darwin, and of Schopenhauer, are to be found among her publicists. In political economy Figuerola, G. Rodriguez, Colmeiro, Azcarate, and others, follow keenly the teaching of the English liberal school. Face to face in parliamentary eloquence and in politics stand Canovas del Castello and Emilio Castelar; the latter distinguished by a florid oratory which is unsurpa.s.sed in Europe, but whose style is far more effective when spoken than when read; the former, with greater learning and a more cultivated taste, would undoubtedly be known as a writer but for his devotion to political life. The periodical and daily press of Spain, though not to compare with that of England, or of the United States, is almost on a par with that of most continental countries; the scientific and literary reviews and magazines are yearly increasing both in numbers and in value.
This sketch, however brief, would be incomplete without a glance at what may be called the provincial literature of Spain. The publishers of Barcelona, especially in ill.u.s.trated works, vie with those of Madrid. It is not in the Castilian tongue alone that the awakening is apparent. In Catalonia and in Valencia the study of the native idiom and of their ancient authors has been taken up with zeal, and with happiest results in history and philology. Victor Balaguer, the Catalan poet and dramatist is equal to all contemporary Spanish poets save Nunez de Arce.
The dramas of Pablo Soler (Serafi Petarra) are received with an enthusiasm unknown to audiences in Madrid. Mila y Fonta.n.a.ls, Bofarull, and Sanpere y Miquel are investigating with success the language, history, and archaeology of their country. A like, though necessarily a less important, movement is taking place in Andalusia, in the Basque Provinces, in the Asturias, and in Galicia; everywhere what is worth preserving in these dialects is being sought out, edited, and given to the press. The archives of Simancas are at length thrown open to the world, and guides and catalogues are being industriously prepared.
Sevillian scholars are also studying the archives of the Indies, and the treasures of Hebrew and Arabian lore.
Thus, if Spain can at present boast no writer whom we can place undoubtedly and unreservedly in the very first rank, she shows an intellectual movement which, though confined at present to a comparatively small portion of her inhabitants, may, if it spread and continue, place her again in her proud position of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as one of the first of European nations, not perhaps in arms and power, but in literature, if not in science.
CHAPTER IX.
EPILOGUE.
A few words in conclusion. Spain is far from being a worn-out country.
On the contrary, both in the character and capacities of its varied populations, in the mineral riches of its soil, in its agricultural wealth, in industrial resources, and in the artistic taste of its workmen, it is capable of vast development.
Two things hinder this, and will probably hinder it for some time. These are the political separation of Spain and Portugal, so ill-adapted to the geographical conformation of the Peninsula. The great rivers of Spain run westward, but the benefit of these fluvial highways is entirely lost to the country through the intercalation of Portugal into the western sea-board, thus making useless to Spain her natural system of river transport, and cutting her off from her best and most direct Atlantic ports. It is Lisbon, and not Madrid, which should be the capital of the whole Peninsula. Scarcely less an evil to Spain is the possession of Gibraltar by the English, which, besides the expense of watching the fortress, and the loss to Spain of the advantage of the possession of the great port of call for the whole maritime traffic of the East, is a school of smuggling and contraband, and a focus of corruption for the whole of South-western Spain. Were the whole Atlantic and Mediterranean sea-board in sole possession of one nation, the expenses of the custom-house would be greatly lessened, while the smuggling on the Portuguese and British frontiers would wholly disappear. In no point was the effect of the narrow and jealous policy of Philip II. more disastrous, than in his failure even to attempt to attach the Portuguese to his rule when the kingdoms were temporarily united under his crown.
The second evil, and one of still graver proportions, is that of the exceedingly corrupt administration of the central government, and of almost every branch of public employment. It is difficult to exaggerate this mischief. It is not bad external political government, it is not a faulty const.i.tution, but it is an administration in which corruption has become a tradition and the rule, that is the real evil in Spain. It is this which baffles every ministry that tries to do real good. Only a ministry, or succession of ministries, composed of men of thorough honesty, of iron will, and of competence in financial administration, supported by strong majorities, can hope to deal with this gigantic growth. Even then it must be a work of time. With an honest administration, and prudent and sagacious development of her resources, Spain would soon regain financial soundness and recover her place among the nations.
The contest between the opposite commercial systems of protection and free trade is not yet concluded, nor is likely to be, in Spain. As long as England, which has the greatest interest of any foreign power in the establishment of the latter system, maintains a tariff which unduly favours the wines of France in comparison with those of Spain free trade is not likely to be popular. From the varied character of her products, Spain is of all European countries naturally the most self-sufficing.
Her north-western provinces furnish her with cattle in abundance; no finer wheat is grown than that on the central plateau, and it could easily be produced in quant.i.ty more than sufficient for her wants; wine, oil, and fruits she possesses in superfluity; even sugar is not wanting in the south; cotton, indeed, she has not; but wool of excellent quality is the produce of her numerous flocks, and it needs only the establishment of efficient manufactories for Spanish cloth and woollen stuffs to regain their ancient renown. All the most useful minerals abound, and are of the finest quality, especially the iron, and the development of the working of the Asturian and Andalusian coal-fields renders Spain yearly more and more independent of England in this respect. True it is that foreign capital is, and will for some time be necessary to a.s.sist in extracting this hidden wealth; but if the ordinary Spaniard of the educated cla.s.ses, instead of seeking a bare, and too often a base, subsistence in petty government employment or in ill-paid professions--instead of seeking the barren honour of a university degree--would apply himself to scientific, industrial, or agricultural enterprise, he might soon obtain his legitimate share of the profits which now go mainly into the hands of foreign speculators and shareholders.
Spaniards are commonly said to be cruel and bloodthirsty, with little regard for the sufferings of others or respect for human life; and undoubtedly there is some truth in this charge, but it does not apply to the whole Peninsula. Many of Spain"s best writers deplore it, and inveigh strongly against it and against the bull-fights, which, in their present form, are not more than a century old. As a national sport, the modern bull-ring, with its professional torreadors and its hideous horse-slaughtering, differs from the pastime in which Charles V. and his n.o.bles used to take part as much as a prizefight from a tournament. The appeals of Fernan Caballero to the clergy, the efforts of Tubino, Lastre, and others to arouse the public against this wanton cruelty have hitherto been of no avail. We can only hope in the future. On the other hand, it is unjust to shut our eyes to the n.o.ble charities of Spain. She was the first to care for lunatics. Many of her hospitals and asylums for the aged were conducted with a tenderness and consideration unknown in other lands. Even a beggar is treated with respect, and is relieved without contumely. The treatment of her prisoners and the condition of her prisons, which was long so foul a blot, is now being efficiently removed; she is at least making an earnest effort to attain the level of European civilization in this respect.
Intellectually, in science, and especially in literature, Spain is advancing rapidly. The historical treasures long buried in the archives of Simancas, and those of the Indies at Seville, are now thrown open to the world, and are eagerly consulted by native historians. Her literary and scientific men, though comparatively few in number, are full of zeal and intelligence. There needs only a larger and more appreciative audience to encourage them in their labours in order to bring the literature of Spain to a level with that of any European country of equal population.
APPENDIX I.
PROVINCES OF SPAIN AND THEIR POPULATION IN 1877.