Criticism

CHISPA."

CHISPA. And here we are, half way to Alcala, between cocks and midnight. Body o' me! what an inn this is! The light out and the landlord asleep! Hola! ancient Baltasar!

BALTASAR. [waking]. Here I am.

CHISPA. Yes, there you are, like a one-eyed alcalde in a town without inhabitants. Bring a light, and let me have supper.

BALTASAR. Where is your master?

CHISPA. Do not trouble yourself about him. We have stopped a moment to breathe our horses; and if he chooses to walk up and down in the open air, looking into the sky as one who hears it rain, that does not satisfy my hunger, you know. But be quick, for I am in a hurry, and every one stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet. What have we here?

BALTASAR. [setting a light on the table]. Stewed rabbit.

CHISPA. [eating]. Conscience of Portalegre! stewed kitten you mean!

BALTASAR. And a pitcher of Pedro Ximenes, with a roasted pear in it.

CHISPA [drinking]. Ancient Baltasar, amigo! You know how to cry wine and sell vinegar. I tell you this is nothing but Vino Tinto of La Mancha, with a tang of the swine-skin.

BALTASAR. I swear to you by Saint Simon and Judas, it is all as I say.

CHISPA. And I swear to you by Saint Peter and Saint Paul that it is no such thing. Moreover, your supper is like the hidalgo's dinner- very little meat and a great deal of tablecloth.

BALTASAR. Ha! ha! ha!

CHISPA. And more noise than nuts.

BALTASAR. Ha! ha! ha! You must have your joke, Master Chispa. But shall I not ask Don Victorian in to take a draught of the Pedro Ximenes?

CHISPA. No; you might as well say, "Don't you want some?" to a dead man.

BALTASAR. Why does he go so often to Madrid?

CHISPA. For the same reason that he eats no supper. He is in love. Were you ever in love, Baltasar?

BALTASAR. I was never out of it, good Chispa. It has been the torment of my life.

CHISPA. What! are you on fire, too, old hay-stack? Why, we shall never be able to put you out.

VICTORIAN [without] Chispa!

CHISPA. Go to bed, Pero Grullo, for the cocks are crowing.

VICTORIAN. Ea! Chispa! Chispa!

CHISPA. Ea! Senor. Come with me, ancient Baltasar, and bring water for the horses. I will pay for the supper tomorrow. [Exeunt.]

Now here the question occurs- what is accomplished? How has the subject been forwarded? We did not need to learn that Victorian was in love- that was known before; and all that we glean is that a stupid imitation of Sancho Panza drinks in the course of two minutes (the time occupied in the perusal of the scene) a bottle of vino tinto, by way of Pedro Ximenes, and devours a stewed kitten in place of a rabbit.

In the beginning of the play this Chispa is the valet of Victorian; subsequently we find him the servant of another; and near the denouement he returns to his original master. No cause is assigned, and not even the shadow of an object is attained; the whole tergiversation being but another instance of the gross inconsequence which abounds in the play.

The authors deficiency of skill is especially evinced in the scene of the eclaircissement between Victorian and Preciosa. The former having been enlightened respecting the true character of the latter by means of a letter received at Guadarrama, from a friend at Madrid (how wofully inartistical is this!), resolves to go in search of her forthwith, and forthwith, also, discovers her in a wood close at hand. Whereupon he approaches, disguising his voice:- yes, we are required to believe that a lover may so disguise his voice from his mistress as even to render his person in full view irrecognizable! He approaches, and each knowing the other, a conversation ensues under the hypothesis that each to the other is unknown- a very unoriginal, and, of course, a very silly source of equivoque, fit only for the gum- elastic imagination of an infant. But what we especially complain of here is that our poet should have taken so many and so obvious pains to bring about this position of equivoque, when it was impossible that it could have served any other purpose than that of injuring his intended effect! Read, for example, this passage: VICTORIAN. I never loved a maid;

For she I loved was then a maid no more.

PRECIOSA. How know you that?

VICTORIA. A little bird in the air

Whispered the secret.

PRECIOSA. There, take back your gold!

Your hand is cold like a deceiver's hand!

There is no blessing in its charity!

Make her your wife, for you have been abused;

And you shall mend your fortunes mending hers.

VICTORIAN. How like an angel's speaks the tongue of woman,

When pleading in another's cause her own!

Now here it is clear that if we understood Preciosa to be really ignorant of Victorian's identity, the "pleading in another's cause her own" would create a favourable impression upon the reader or spectator. But the advice- "Make her your wife, etc.," takes an interested and selfish turn when we remember that she knows to whom she speaks.

Again, when Victorian says:

That is a pretty ring upon your finger,

Pray give it me! and when she replies:

No, never from my hand

Shall that be taken, we are inclined to think her only an artful coquette, knowing, as we do, the extent of her knowledge, on the hand we should have applauded her constancy (as the author intended) had she been represented ignorant of Victorian's presence. The effect upon the audience, in a word, would be pleasant in place of disagreeable were the case altered as we suggest, while the effect upon Victorian would remain altogether untouched.

A still more remarkable instance of deficiency in the dramatic tact is to be found in the mode of bringing about the discovery of Preciosa's parentage. In the very moment of the eclaircissement between the lovers, Chispa arrives almost as a matter of course, and settles the point in a sentence: Good news from the Court; Good news! Beltran Cruzado,

The Count of the Cales, is not your father,

But your true father has returned to Spain

Laden with wealth. You are no more a Gipsy. Now here are three points:- first, the extreme baldness, platitude, and independence of the incident narrated by Chispa. The opportune return of the father (we are tempted to say the excessively opportune) stands by itself- has no relation to any other event in the play- does not appear to arise, in the way of result, from any incident or incidents that have arisen before. It has the air of a happy chance, of a God-send, of an ultra-accident, invented by the play-wright by way of compromise for his lack of invention. Nec Deus intersit, etc.- but here the God has interposed, and the knot is laughably unworthy of the God.

The second point concerns the return of the father "laden with wealth." The lover has abandoned his mistress in her poverty, and, while yet the words of his proffered reconciliation hang upon his lips, comes his own servant with the news that the mistress' father has returned "laden with wealth." Now, so far as regards the audience, who are behind the scenes and know the fidelity of the lover- so far as regards the audience, all is right; but the poet had no business to place his heroine in the sad predicament of being forced, provided she is not a fool, to suspect both the ignorance and the disinterestedness of the hero.

The third point has reference to the words- "You are now no more a Gipsy." The thesis of this drama, as we have already said, is love disregarding the prejudices of caste, and in the development of this thesis, the powers of the dramatist have been engaged, or should have been engaged, during the whole of the three acts of the play. The interest excited lies in our admiration of the sacrifice, and of the love that could make it; but this interest immediately and disagreeably subsides when we find that the sacrifice has been made to no purpose. "You are no more a Gipsy" dissolves the charm, and obliterates the whole impression which the author has been at so much labour to convey. Our romantic sense of the hero's chivalry declines into a complacent satisfaction with his fate. We drop our enthusiasm, with the enthusiast, and jovially shake by the hand the mere man of good luck. But is not the latter feeling the more comfortable of the two? Perhaps so; but "comfortable" is not exactly the word Mr. Longfellow might wish applied to the end of his drama, and then why be at the trouble of building up an effect through a hundred and eighty pages, merely to knock it down at the end of the hundred and eighty-first?

We have already given, at some length, our conceptions of the nature of plot- and of that of "The Spanish Student", it seems almost superfluous to speak at all. It has nothing of construction about it. Indeed there is scarcely a single incident which has any necessary dependence upon any one other. Not only might we take away two-thirds of the whole without ruin- but without detriment- indeed with a positive benefit to the mass. And, even as regards the mere order of arrangement, we might with a very decided chance of improvement, put the scenes in a bag, give them a shake or two by way of shuffle, and tumble them out. The whole mode of collocationnot to speak of the feebleness of the incidents in themselvesevinces, on the part of the author, an utter and radical want of the adapting or constructive power which the drama so imperatively demands.

Of the unoriginality of the thesis we have already spoken; and now, to the unoriginality of the events by which the thesis is developed, we need do little more than alude. What, indeed, could we say of such incidents as the child stolen by Gipsies- as her education as a danseuse- as her betrothal to a Gipsy- as her preference for a gentleman- as the rumours against her purity- as her persecution by a roue- as the irruption of the roue into her chamber- as the consequent misunderstanding between her and her lover- as the duel- as the defeat of the roue- as the receipt of his life from the hero- as his boasts of success with the girl- as the ruse of the duplicate ring- as the field, in consequence, abandoned by the lover- as the assassination of Lara while scaling the girl's bed-chamber- as the disconsolate peregrination of Victorian- as the equivoque scene with Preciosa- as the offering to purchase the ring and the refusal to part with it- as the "news from court," telling of the Gipsy's true parentage- what could we say of all these ridiculous things, except that we have met them, each and all, some two or three hundred times before, and that they have formed, in a great or less degree, the staple material of every Hop-O'My-Thumb tragedy since the flood? There is not an incident, from the first page of "The Spanish Student" to the last and most satisfactory, which we would not undertake to find bodily, at ten minutes' notice, in some one of the thousand and one comedies of intrigue attributed to Calderon and Lope de Vega.

But if our poet is grossly unoriginal in his subject, and in the events which evolve it, may he not be original in his handling or tone? We really grieve to say that he is not, unless, indeed, we grant him the need of originality for the peculiar manner in which he has jumbled together the quaint and stilted tone of the old English dramatists with the degagee air of Cervantes. But this is a point upon which, through want of space, we must necessarily permit the reader to judge altogether for himself. We quote, however, a passage from the second scene of the first act, by way of showing how very easy a matter it is to make a man discourse Sancho Panza: Chispa. Abernuncio Satanas! and a plague upon all lovers who ramble about at night, drinking the elements, instead of sleeping quietly in their beds. Every dead man to his cemetery, say I; and every friar to his monastery. Now, here's my master Victorian, yesterday a cow-keeper and to-day a gentleman; yesterday a student and to-day a lover; and I must be up later than the nightingale, for as the abbot sings so must the sacristan respond. God grant he may soon be married, for then shall all this serenading cease. Ay, marry, marry, marry! Mother, what does marry mean? It means to spin, to bear children, and to weep, my daughter! and, of a truth, there is something more in matrimony than the wedding-ring. And now, gentlemen, Pax vobiscum! as the ass said to the cabbages!

And we might add, as an ass only should say.

In fact, throughout "The Spanish Student," as well as throughout other compositions of its author, there runs a very obvious vein of imitation. We are perpetually reminded of something we have seen before- some old acquaintance in manner or matter, and even where the similarity cannot be said to amount to plagiarism, it is still injurious to the poet in the good opinion of him who reads.

Among the minor defects of the play, we may mention the frequent allusion to book incidents not generally known, and requiring each a Note by way of explanation. The drama demands that everything be so instantaneously evident that he who runs may read; and the only impression effected by these Notes to a play is, that the author is desirous of showing his reading.

We may mention, also, occasional tautologies, such as: Never did I behold thee so attired

And garmented in beauty as to-night! Or What we need

Is the celestial fire to change the fruit

Into transparent crystal, bright and clear!

We may speak, too, of more than occasional errors of grammar. For example: "Did no one see thee? None, my love, but thou."

Here "but" is not a conjunction, but a preposition, and governs thee in the objective. "None but thee" would be right; meaning none except thee, saving thee. Earlier, "mayest" is somewhat incorrectly written "may'st." And we have: I have no other saint than thou to pray to.

Here authority and analogy are both against Mr. Longfellow. "Than" also is here a preposition governing the objective, and meaning save or except. "I have none other God than thee, etc" See Horne Tooke. The Latin "quam te" is exactly equivalent. [Later] we read: Like thee I am a captive, and, like thee,

I have a gentle gaoler.

Here "like thee" (although grammatical of course) does not convey the idea. Mr. L. does not mean that the speaker is like the bird itself, but that his condition resembles it. The true reading would thus be: As thou I am a captive, and, as thou,

I have a gentle poler. That is to say, as thou art and as thou hast.

Upon the whole, we regret that Professor Longfellow has written this work, and feel especially vexed that he has committed himself by its republication. Only when regarded as a mere poem can it be said to have merit of any kind. For in fact it is only when we separate the poem from the drama that the passages we have commended as beautiful can be understood to have beauty. We are not too sure, indeed, that a "dramatic poem" is not a flat contradiction in terms. At all events a man of true genius (and such Mr. L. unquestionably is) has no business with these hybrid and paradoxical compositions. Let a poem be a poem only, let a play be a play and nothing more. As for "The Spanish Student," its thesis is unoriginal; its incidents are antique; its plot is no plot; its characters have no character, in short, it is a little better than a play upon words to style it "A Play" at all.