those keener lacerations of the mind, those stripes of the spirit which no styptic can heal and no balsam can assuage.' Does a husband seek redress from the seducer of his fragile spouse-he is young, generous, confiding, honourable in rank, affluent in his fortunes, and seeking in his lovely spouse a friend to adorn his fortunes and deceive his toils. As for the lady herself, "Virtue never found a fairer temple-beauty never veiled a purer sanctuary-in the dawn of life with all its fragrance round her, and yet so pure, that even the blush which sought to hide her lustre, but disclosed the restal deity that burned beneath it." (Vestal as she is, she does burn.) Then the poor defendant, “with the serpent's wile and the serpent's wickedness, steals into the Eden of domestic life, poisoning all that is pure, polluting all that is lovely, defying God, destroying man-a demon in the disguise of virtue, a herald of hell in the paradise of innocence!!!!" Then of course passion subsides, satiety succeeds. "But thus it is with the votaries of guiltthe birth of theircrime is the death of their enjoyment, and the wretch who flings his offering on its altar falls an immediate victim to the flume of his devotion!!!" Bravo! King Cambyses. Now, Sir, if this speech extracts some hundreds for damages from twelve honest and soundheaded hucksters, and sells to the thinking public to the extent of fortyone editions, you will readily agree with me, that nonsense is as eminently serviceable and successful at the Bar as I have shewn it to be in other pursuits and departments of life; and I trust I have said enough, though I could say much more, to induce you to relax a few of your stubborn, old-fashioned, and misplaced prejudices against so interesting and invaluable a quality. I am, Sir, Quack Villa, Flummery Place. Your humble servant, STANZAS. I MAY not think, I must not moralize ! Of sense and consciousness that feeling sleeps And woos her to her own forgetfulness. Onward I must! But how, or where, or wherefore, Is more than mystery. No hope shall hallow The bitter hardships of a dreary day; No dream of lightness shall divert the sleep P. ON THE INTERLUDES OF THE EARLY SPANISH THEATRE. : Ar the period when the brilliant imaginations of Lopez de Vega, of Calderon, and of Moreto, had conferred upon Spain a national theatre, and even during the greatest vogue of their long comedies in five acts, it was the custom to give entremeses, or interludes, which, as the name implies, were played in the interval between the principal pieces, or more frequently between the acts of those pieces. The same custom prevailed during a long time in Italy and France, where these interludes were not limited to one act, but often extended to two, three, and four and the singular arrangement, or rather disarrangement, was followed, of playing an act of the comedy and an act of the interlude alternately, and so on to the end; leaving to the ingenuity and tact of the audience the care of unravelling the various threads of these entangled intrigues. This practice became so deeply rooted in Italy, that the traces remain even to this day, for it is not an unfrequent occurrence there to give the two first acts of two different operas the same evening, adjourning the two other acts and the curiosity of the audience to a future opportunity. It even sometimes happens, that in order to gratify some great personage, who may not be either able or willing to remain during the entire representation, they commence with the last act of an opera (when it is the more celebrated of the two), and finish with the first; without the audience shewing the slightest dissatisfaction at this too literal adoption of the scriptural dispensation, that "the last shall be first." The old Spanish interludes seldom exceed one act; in a dramatic point of view they differ widely from the comedies (properly so called), possessing neither their beauties nor blemishes. The chief intent of the writers seems to have been to rouse and exhilarate the spectators, whose attention had been fatigued by the long, declamatory, and oftentimes half-devout comedies of the great masters. For this purpose it was more necessary to strike strongly than justly, and consequently coarse humour and farcical buffoonery were scattered through these pieces with no sparing hand. Thence it is that many of them have scarcely any other merit than that of producing a broad grin. The plot is generally extremely simple, and the dialogue rapid and abrupt, forming a remarkable contrast with the complicated intrigues, and interminable monologues of the more regular dramas. If the Spanish comedies have been sometimes termed dramatized novels or romances, the interludes may be called anecdotes thrown into action. It is, therefore, useless to seek for either poetry or beauty of style in them, their chief merit being the comic idea upon which they are founded. Some of them exhibit a wild and reckless jollity, from which we may judge of the frank and unrestrained joyousness of the old Spanish character, before bigotry and the Inquisition had rendered hypocrisy a duty, and thrown a deep and sombre tint over the manners of the people. It must, however, be confessed, that the farcical humour of some of these interludes is pushed to grossness, so much so, that it appears not a little astonishing that a devout government should have tolerated a public exhibition of such excesses. We can only suppose that they considered the piety with which some of the more regular Entremeses. comedies were seasoned, as a sufficient antidote to the licentiousness of the interludes. Lopez de Vega has not disdained (at least in the beginning of his dramatic career) to exercise his genius in the invention of these minor pieces: there are several to be found in the first volumes of his dramatic works; but the last volumes are entirely free from them, owing probably to his having considered such compositions incompatible with his character as an ecclesiastic. I shall here give an account of a few of these popular farces: they may be valuable as presenting a fresher and more faithful picture of the manners and sentiments of the lower classes of society, at the period to which they belong, than the more elaborate, artificial, and embellished sketches exhibited in the higher dramatic writings of the time. In the old popular anecdotes of most countries, there is to be found one of a woman, who, not willing to obey the commands of her husband, pretends to be dead, and yields not until she is upon the point of being buried. This trait of female obstinacy forms the subject of an old Spanish entremese, entitled Los Huebos, "The Eggs." The obstinate couple are called Bendito and Merga: the scene is in a village. Bendito wishes to have some fried eggs for breakfast, but his wife refuses to fry them, as she is occupied in preparing a dress in which she is to appear at the procession of Corpus Christi, which is to take place the next morning at Seville. Bendito, nevertheless, persists in his intention of breakfasting upon fried eggs. Merga. "But I shan't fry any for you." Bendito, threatening to strike her. "Will you fry them?" Merga. "No, I shan't fry them." Bendito. "I insist upon it." At this critical moment a neighbour enters, and endeavours to put an end to the dispute, by offering to fry the eggs for Bendito; but the mulish husband will not allow any one but his wife to cook the eggs, and upon her still refusing, he proceeds to lay violent hands upon her : they are separated, and Merga escapes from the house. One of the neighbours reproaches Bendito with his brutality. "Fye, gossip," he says to him, "what a man you are! a box with the right hand, and another with the left, might have passed, but thus to continue beating your wife is not creditable:" he concludes by inviting him and his wife to breakfast. They depart together. The scene then changes to the interior of the church opposite the door of the sacristy. The curate calls the sacristan, who enters half-dressed in his ecclesiastical robes: they rehearse the ceremony of the Fête Dieu; that is, they execute a chorus and dance in honour of the holy sacrament. They are interrupted by a knocking at the door, and a villager called Llorente rushes in to say that Merga is at the point of death, in consequence of the ill treatment of her husband. They were both at table with Llorente, when the wife, all of a sudden, took it into her head not to eat of the eggs that were prepared for breakfast. The husband put a plate of them before her, and said " You shall eat them." Merga. "I will not eat them." Bendito. "By G—you shall eat them." On hearing which, the wife, without farther ceremony, took the plate and dashed it on the ground. The husband became farious, and recommenced beating his wife, who cried out so bravely, that she drew a crowd round the house; but Bendito still continued to beat her, swearing that she should eat them, or he would kill her. Merga then exclaimed, that she was dying, and Llorente came off for the priest and the doctor. The scene again changes, or rather it is supposed to change, for in those times there was but one decoration, which remained during the entire representation. We are now in Merga's bedchamber: the doctor arrives, feels the "pulse of the castigated wife, and prescribes her a dose of fresh eggs! a singular remedy certainly for black eyes and bruises; but the author had need of the eggs, and the audiences of those days were not very #fastidious, provided they were made to laugh. "At present," says Bendito, "my wife will not refuse to eat the eggs." "Yes, but I will," replies Merga; "eat them I will not." Bendito again falls to beating her, saying, "The doctor orders you." One of the by-standers interposes, and says, "She will eat them, if I offer them to her." Merga. No, if the devil should offer them to me, I should not eat them." The husband quits the room; and Merga says to one of her female neighbours," I shall pretend to be dead, and I hope that when my husband sees me borne out to be buried, he will repent of his obstinacy. The expedient is approved of, and Merga affects to be dead. The neighbour utters a cry of distress, which brings in the husband. Bendito. "What's the matter?"-"Your wife is dead."-" And the eggs, has she eaten them?"—" No, she refused to the last moment."Bendito (aside) "She pretends to be dead, in order not to eat them; (aloud) I must go out, and prepare her funeral: he goes out." The neighbour."Oh God! he is gone for the priest and the bearers." Merga. "No matter, let him do so." The sacristan and the priests in their surplices arrive, followed by Bendito in mourning, and the musicians. Whilst they are singing a requiescat, Bendito approaches his wife with an egg in his hand, and says in a whisper to her, "Will you eat it?" To which she replies, "No, I will allow myself to be buried first." They repeat the prayers for the dead, and at the word Amen, Bendito reiterates his demand-" Will you eat it?" "No." The sacristan orders the bearers to lift up the body; the priests and musicians recommence chanting, and the procession sets forward; when, on a sudden, Merga starts up and cries, "Stop, stop, I'll eat the eggs." The priests, the sacristan, the musicians, and the crowd, all scamper away in a panic, making the sign of the cross, and crying, "Oh Jesus, save us!" Bendito goes up to his wife, and says, "Will you eat the eggs?"-" Oh yes, yes, yes."-" How many?"--" A whole basket full, if you require it."- -Certainly, there is more of puerility than art in this manner of treating a dramatic subject; yet it cannot be altogether denied, but that the predominant idea is a comic one, and which, if managed with more skill and tact, might even at the present day be made eminently pleasant upon the stage. La Cueva, "The Cradle," is an interlude of a still ruder description: it is such a farce as Thespis might be supposed to have represented on his waggon before the Grecian populace. There are but four characters in it --a farmer, his female servant, a peasant in his service, and a sacristan. The farmer having learned that the peasant has debauched his servant maid, wishes to have them married, to avoid scandal in the village; for which purpose he goes to the curate: while he is away, the sacristan enters, and says to the peasant, "Ah, it is reported in the village that Theresa is with child by you. What abominable conduct! take care that the vengeance of God does not fall upon you, and that in going to Theresa the devil does not run away with you. But tell me, how : 66 do you contrive to get into her chamber?" The peasant. Oh, good Lord! you are right, I must leave off this wicked conduct. You wish to know how I contrive to have a meeting with Theresa :—well, I bark outside the house like a dog; Theresa recognises me by this signal, and opens the door." After this dialogue the peasant goes out; the sacristan congratulates himself on having learned the signal, and proposes to make use of it. The scene changes, or is supposed to change, to Theresa's room, in a corner of which is a cradle. The barking of a dog is heard. Theresa exclaims, "Oh, God! here is Paul coming :" she opens the door, and the sacristan stands before her. "Jesus Maria! what has brought you here?" "To see you, my dear child; don't be alarmed." A second barking is heard. "Just Heaven!" cries Theresa, "here is my husband: she opens the door, the peasant enters, and the sacristan begins to bark at him. The peasant. "What, you son of a b-! I have taught you to bark, and you now wish to bite me. Wife, what is the meaning of all this? Why do you receive priestlings in your room? Get away: instead of marrying you, I will expose you to your master." He goes out. Poor Theresa is embarrassed her master is coming, and will find the sacristan with her. No other expedient occurs to her than to hide the sacristan in the cradle, and pretend that she has given birth to a child. The peasant enters with the farmer, saying, "Yes, master, as I told you, I found the sacristan here with Theresa." A noise resembling the cries of a new-born infant is heard from the cradle, and the farmer says, "Go girl, give that child the breast." The peasant, anxious to see his offspring, goes over to the cradle, and exclaims, "Oh, God! what a monstrous infant! he has come into the world with shoes upon him;-it is the child of a Philistine." The peasant sees that it is full time to call the curate to give the nuptial benediction, and so the piece concludes.-In this farce, the character of the sacristan is remarkable. He commences as a preacher, and finishes as a profligate. It is under this mélange of hypocrisy and libertinism that this class of characters is generally represented in the Spanish interludes. The comic poets of Spain have frequently brought upon the stage these amphibious personages, half-lay, half-clerical, whose twofold nature offers a source of comic developement. And it may be observed, that upon the stage, as well as in the world, those persons who unite the manners and sentiments of the lower classes of society to the pretensions of the higher ranks, afford a fitting subject for burlesque and ridicule. Of this description are the country schoolmasters in England and Germany; the scriveners and village bailies in France; and the sacristans in Spain. These last have a superiority, in a dramatic point of view, over the former, from the more exagger. ated nature of their pretensions. These petty officers, though belonging to the last rank of society, yet are in frequent communication with their superiors; and though tinctured with the grossness and vulgarity of their origin, yet they endeavour to exact that degree of respect which they see paid to those in a more elevated rank, and to whom they seek to make it appear that they appertain. Nor are their efforts entirely vain; for in Spain they do, or did, enjoy a certain sort of consideration from their being attached to the church, and filling a place, though the very lowest one, in the hierarchy. They are always saluted by the people with the title of Senor Beneficado, Senor Letrado, sweet |