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loves, the graces, and the scenes of pastoral happiness, his soul, winging its flight beyond the visible diurnal sphere,' centres at last in that kingdom of bliss, the true Royaume d'Amour;' where the Good Shepherd, crowned with purple flowers, pastures his happy flocks, wandering amidst vales of eternal bloom,

Con immortales rosas,

Con flor que siempre nace,

Y quanto mas se goza mas renace.

On flowers that ever spring,

Immortal roses-for their heavenly food,

Which, evermore enjoyed, are evermore renewed.

Time, eternity, the soul of man and its passions, the 'adorned earth' and its seasons,

On their eternal swift course running,

religion and its mysteries-all these form the materials of those singular Autos. It is not surprising, that the Romanticos of Germany have exhausted on his character all their beau ideal of a poet. There is something in this wild love of novelty, congenial to the spirit of a people, to whom, in the distribution of the universe, the empire of the air has been allotted for a portion. Shelley, in his Posthumous Poems, has left an elegant version of part of the Magico Prodigioso,' in which, though much is improved, the spirit of the original is exactly caught. That an idea may be formed of Calderon's style, we extract a scene from this play, where a lady withstands the temptations of the Evil One, with the constancy of her sister, the Lady of Milton's Comus. The whole of Shelley's remnant cannot fail to charm the reader.

SCENE III.

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(The DEMON tempts JUSTINA.)

DEMON. Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,

Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy,
From thy prison-house set free

The spirits of voluptuous death,

That, with their mighty breath,

They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts,

Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes,

Be peopled from thy shadowy deep,

Till her guiltless phantasy

Full to overflowing be,

And with sweetest harmony

Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move

To love, only to love.

Let nothing meet her eyes

But signs of love's soft victories,
Let nothing meet her ear

But

But sounds of love's sweet sorrow,

So that from faith no succour she may borrow:
But, guided by my spirit blind,

And, in a magic snare entwined,

She may now seek Cyprian.
Begin! while I in silence bind

My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast begun.

(A Voice within.)—What is the glory far above

All else in human life?

(All) Love, love!

(While these words are sung, the DEMON goes out at one door, and JUSTINA enters at another.)

(The first voice.)-There is no form in which the fire
Of love its traces has impressed not,
Man lives far more in love's desire,

Than by life's breath,- -soon possessed not.
If all that lives must love or die
All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,
With one consent to heaven cry,
That the glory far above

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JUSTINA. Thou melancholy thought which art
So fluttering and so sweet, to thee
When did I give the liberty

Thus to afflict my heart?

What is the cause of this new power,
Which doth my fevered being move?
Momently raging more and more,
What subtle pain is kindled now
Which from my heart doth overflow
Unto my senses?

(All) Love, O love!

JUSTINA. "Tis that enamoured Nightingale
Who gives me the reply.

He ever tells the same soft tale
Of passion, and of constancy,
To his mate who, rapt and fond,
Listening sits a bough beyond—
Be silent, Nightingale! No more
Make me think in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
If a bird can feel his so,
What a man would feel for me.

And voluptuous Vine,-O thou!

Who seekest most when least pursuing,
To the trunk thou interlacest,

Art

Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,
No more, with green embraces, Vine !—
Make me think on what thou lovest,
For, whilst thou thus thy boughs entwine,
I fear, lest thou shouldst teach me, Sophist!
How arms might be entangled too.
Light enchanted Sunflower, thou,
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun's revolving splendour,
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance.
Nor teach my beating heart to fear
If leaves can mourn without a tear

How eyes must weep. O Nightingale!
Cease from thy enamoured tale!
Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower!-
Restless Sunflower! cease to move,
Or, tell me all what poisonous power
Ye use against me?

(All) Love, love, love!

JUSTINA. It cannot be! whom have I ever loved?
Trophies of my oblivion and disdain
Floro and Lelio, did I not reject?

And Cyprian?

(She becomes troubled at the name of CYPRIAN.)
Did I not requite him

With such severity, that he has fled

Where none has ever heard of him again?
Alas! I now begin to fear that this

May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
As if there were no danger. From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
Cyprian is absent-O me, miserable!

I know not what I feel. It must be pity
To think that such a man, whom all the world
Admired, should be forgot by all the world,
And I the cause.-And yet, if it were pity
Floro and Lelio might have equal share!
For they are both imprisoned for my sake.
Alas! what reasonings are these? It is
Enough I pity him, and that in vain-
Without this ceremonious subtilty.

And woe is me! I know not where to find him now,
Even should I seek him through this wide world.

It would plainly have exceeded our limits to have given outlines of all the pieces contained in these volumes-and, indeed,

it would have been to little purpose. Enough has already been done by Sismondi, Bouterwek, and others, to give a general idea of them. It only now remains to make that acquaintance more particular, by bringing some of them before the public in an English dress; and certainly, we hope, without the barbarism of curtailing them to suit any foreign rules or taste. That theatre, whose pomp, romance, brilliant description, and captivating poetry were once the admiration of Europe, is no longer studied in England; and France, the country of Corneille, Racine, and Molière, regards as barbarous that stage, of which its own was but the beautiful firstborn. To the scholar, who studies the Spanish drama with some higher aim than a mere passing interest or superficial curiosity, the mind of this great Castilian will probably seem, notwithstanding the ridicule of Voltaire, as much endowed by nature with that instinct of perfection, called genius, as that of the author of Zaire,' though he did not compose his plays after the strictest models of Grecian taste. Without going the length of the eminent German critic, who places him next to Shakspeare, we would, nevertheless, assign to him a foremost rank among the imaginative and the wise of the earth

Those starry lights of virtue that diffuse

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Through the dark depth of time their vivid flame.

No

And conclude, by again expressing regret, that an author, so well known and translated on the continent, should not have found admirers in England, to point out to the lovers of poetry the many beautiful compositions that issued from his pen. poet, after his death, appeared in Spain to form an era in the drama, as Metastasio or Alfieri in Italy. He was the last representative of true Spanish genius. The introduction of French rules and criticism, with a Bourbon dynasty, cast into the shade the national comedies; which, after a long interval, revived in the two Moratins-we fear only to fall into a second slumber at their decease.

ART. VII.— De l'Origine de la Nature du Progrès de la Puissance Ecclésiastique en France. Par M. le Comte de Montlosier. Paris. 1829.

THAT country must be lapsing towards a dangerous crisis where the middling classes of society have not only lost all love of God, but even discarded all outward semblance of religious

religious duties. The highest and the lowest ranks are, in this respect, but uncertain landmarks for the guidance of a right judgment. The aristocracy are the Corinthian capital of society,' according to the eloquent similitude of Burke; yet its beauty is lost entirely, if it be suffered to lie on the ground, and eaten away by corrosion, or if it be not placed on its elevating shaft. When there, however, and raised aloft for the admiration of spectators, its exquisite ornaments and florid workmanship will not lose aught of their effect, or be less the subject for commendation, notwithstanding that certain specks and flaws do really exist in the sculptured imagery, which, to be closely inspected, requires an altitude equal to its own elevation. The base, again, derives all its beauty from the elegance of the shaft, and the shaft is the means of connexion between the lofty capital and the lowly pediment: without the shaft, or if the shaft be broken, these two would be entirely useless. The perfect shaft, therefore, is the principal feature in the composition of a perfect column.

By the similitude of the column may be here signified, Society; by the shaft, the Middle Rank; and the conclusion is equally forcible.

The middle classes in France are in a woful condition; they seem not to have preserved amongst them one particle of religion; there is neither manifestation of God's worship in their churches, nor an evidence of its existence in their hearts. Old men, with one foot in the grave, or women or children, are the only persons seen within her temples of belief. commands of the Church are disobeyed, fast days are never observed, confession is seldom attended to;-there is a thorough disregard of religion.

The

These circumstances are grievous signs in a nation; yet they exist, and are manifested in every day's intercourse, in France. A change, too, has come over the phase of the superficial character of the people: the citizen of France has cast off that sprightliness and gaiety, which were formerly his mark of nationality; he has become a moody, stern thinker; a talker of privileges and rights which are denied him; and he curses the priesthood-the ministers of that very religion, under whose influence his ancestors incurred the inexpiable guilt of a St. Barthélemi. These things we have ourselves witnessed in a late visit to the metropolis of France; and the whole secret of the mischief is to be explained in one short sentence-the patience of the people has been exhausted by the tyranny of the priesthood. If the griefs of that people be well sifted and

examined,

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