This absurd comparison, which might be tolerated as a joke in the mouth of the gracioso, but which in Calderon is given with all gravity, occurs a second time in Mejor esta que estava, and a third time in Los Tres Mayores Prodigios.

If, then, within the limited portion of Calderon's works with which we profess to be acquainted, so many repetitions of the same images, comparisons, or thoughts occur, it may fairly, we think, be assumed, that in the vast mass of his plays with which we are not familiar, many other instances of this system of making the most of an idea might be pointed out. We certainly are not disposed, therefore, implicitly to subscribe to the opinions of his German critics as to the unbounded variety of his imaginative powers. On the contrary, we think his range of imagery, on the whole, rather limited, and that his dexterity is chiefly shown in giving an air of novelty to ideas with which we were formerly familiar, by the new situations in which they are introduced.

On the whole, we feel disposed to give a very decided preference to Cal

La Vida es Sueno.

deron's comic over his tragic plays. Of pathos we think he has very little, at least we must confess our insensibility to the pathetic effect even of the Constant Prince, which is generally referred to as a favourable specimen of his powers; and the mere stateliness and elevation of his manner, seem to us but a poor substitute for the profundity, and the deep human feeling, of Shakspeare. He carries our sympathies with him when he paints scenes of chivalrous honour, loyalty, or courtesy; but when he seeks to move the tender feelings, we cannot recognise the master of the human heart. In plays of a mystical character, we readily admit the wild and gloomy grandeur-the strange visionary effect, like that of a troubled dream, which he imparts to such themes as La Vida es Sueno, (Life a Dream,) and En esta Vida todo es Verdad y todo Mentira, (In this life all is truth and all is falsehood ;) both of which illustrate nearly the same idea, viz., that of the hollow and unreal character of that "little life" of ours which is "rounded by a sleep."

But in his comedies, which, like Shakspeare's, often deal with matters of very serious interest, though terminating in a happy conclusion, we acknowledge with less qualification Calderon's mastery over the subject. His comic powers are great; while the principle upon which his dramas are constructed, making human conduct seem the sport of mere accident, suits better with the lighter interests, em

La Vida es Sueno, Act II. barrassments, and distresses of comedy, than with the more earnest passions which it is the province of tragedy to delineate.

In our next Number we shall resume our translations from the Spanish theatre, and present to our readers ample specimens from one of the best of Calderon's comedies of the Cloak and Sword.

new farming senses that you have adopted I will be "durus" harden'd against you as Old Philip.

There now, is a piece of rascally callous philosophy for you, worthy of Philippus himself. Come to me-ay, at any hour by night and by day, mocked, laughed at, cheated, beggar'd, like the prodigal son, sneezing from the husks of your own swine-I will re. ceive you, welcome you, caress you, and never breathe a syllable of your past folly; for were we not "nursed upon the self-same hill," but never, never will we "Feed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill." You cannot surely have been deluded by poetry-by your reading Virgil and Theocritus and Hesiod. You don't imagine either would have handled a plough, but in verse. Eclogues and Georgics indeed! In the former the very shepherds are miserables, all lamentation and regrets, and richly deserve the stick they contend for; and in the latter the poet does not even colonize his Australia with respectable people. The pastor Aristæus would disgrace any parish, running after another man's wife, and being the death of her. Here was a pretty fellow to pop his nose into a bee-hive, and (serve him right) find his colony defunct. But the poet was sick of his apprenticeship to ploughmaking, and was glad to plunge into episode and fable.

And in truth, the fabulous part of ancient rusticity is pleasant enough, when there was a sort of golden age, and no taxes, and shepherds had nothing to do but pipe, and nymphs to dance but now we must "pay the piper"- and who now-a-days ever sees Chawbacon like Alphesibeus dancing the "satyrs?" The only tune the Farmer delighteth to dance to, is "Money in both pockets"-I wish he may get it!-for "he danceth well to whom Fortune pipeth." The country pipes now-a-days, are terribly fusticated with tobacco, not the bacca, hederæ, and olivæ. And can my friend-my classical, my tasteful friend -jog with bumpkins to fairs? Can he bear to fumigate away all his better ideas in the Cacus dens of "entertainment for man and horse, his damp clothes reeking of stall, stable, wool, and the weed." You have been reading about "the Divine Swineherd," and want to "go the whole hog." It

won't do it is altogether a mistakeyou are not "natural born and bred to it."-You will be cheated by your servants, laughed at by your neighbours; and, worst of all, detested by yourself, before you have been initiated-if initiated you ever are. Your sheep will die of the rot, and your hay will be burned in the making-you have no Pan as the "ovium custos," and so you will be out of the frying-pan into the fire. Your cattle will go astray, and your neighbours bring actions of trespass against you. You will be so sick of, and mad with troubles, that, like poor old King Lear in the storm, you'll bid them " Blow and crack their cheeks." Yes-the "pitiless storm" - it will come down, well directed upon your hay-field; whilst your host of labourers, your Damons, your Thestylus', and Phillis', are enjoying their idleness, and drinking you up by the gallons. In vain will you be classical, and cry out upon the "ilia messorum" - down pours the inexorable torrent, and the living tottering cider-casks and beerbarrels drink to you in their "swilled insolence," and then fall off and snore like pigs in your presence. You must positively contrive to lose the delicacy of every sense; seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, hearing. There has been a story going the rounds, of a musical genius in the back settlements, for lack of other instruments, arranging his pigs. What think you of studying the gamut of grunts, in exchange for your "ancient concerts?" You that are wrapt in Elysium with Handel and Mozart, to be put off with a chorus of butchers cheapening your cattle! You used to delight in the song of birds, and would stay at the chirping of a hedge-sparrow, and say it was the very note of inquisitive happiness; you fed them with crumbs-but now, your innocent delight is gone, they are no longer your sweet choristers, but feathered depredators; you even teach poor children mercenary cruelty, by instigating the churchwarden to put a price upon their heads-a penny a dozen-nay, those you used to feed so familiarly from your window, you immolate into a sparrow pudding. You will no longer go out to admire nature, with your sketch-book and colours; your portfolio will contain nothing but maps and terriers; the

earth will be estimated by chain-acres. In vain will the sun's gleams glide before you, enticing you into wood and glen, you will bid them begone to ripen your mangel-wurzel. Do you remember showing your Italian landscape (a veritable old master) to Farmer S-, who asked you the value of it, and when you told him, was astonished, and enquired" If that sort of paint was particularly dear, for he had painted all his front paling for fifty shillings?" - You will soon be like him. You will prefer coaltar to ultramarine; sublime effects of cloud and vapour will no longer attract your eyes upward; your utilitarian aspect will be to the ground; you will not enjoy the weather Providence thinks fit to give you, without grumbling. In sunshine you will want rain, in rain sunshine; you will perpetually put on the crying philosopher, alternating your sorrows between arable and pasture.

Oh! you miserable man-and you must turn to farming! - to make yourself wretched indeed. I was much amused the other day by a little anecdote, (if it deserves the name,) and I will tell it you, for it is in point. Old M., the East Indian, wishing to invets some of his large fortune in land, went to look at the several estates advertised, among the rest at -, in Somersetshire. It was a sombre place, and, as he was alighting at the lodge, an old woman who had been born and bred on the estate under the old family, and relished not the change and new comers, came forth, and looking at his bilious and care-worn face, said to him-"What, hav'n't you had care and trouble enough already, old man, but you must come to put your foot on this estate?" It was a bad omen; he was superstitious, and did not make the purchase. Now you would have been a bolder man, and would have walked boldly up the old avenue, though all the owls of the ancient patrimony were hooting you at every step-nay, you would have slept in the haunted chamber, unscared by the frowning portraits of ancestors to be disinherited by you. Your present scheme is all of a piece with this rashness. And do you really think you have the making of a farmer in you? - not a bit of it. have heard you declare that nature made men specially for their occupations. Have you looked in a glass

I

lately? Have you the broad hand and the large foot, to handle well the spade and press it into the soil, which is the very stamp and mould of a natural-born agriculturist; not forgeting, however, the broad shoulders and stout calves, to help a cart-wheel out of a rut, and if need be for breastploughing? Then how different are the "Fruges consumere nati!" Small hands and feet, of little worth for sturdy work-a goodly paunch, no very large head, but an undue proportion of mouth. Then comes the artisan, slender throughout, somewhat pinched, nimble fingers and a busy eye. Whatever of either of the two there may be in your compound, there is not an atom of the agriculturist. You are an offset, as it were, of an artisan, shooting out somewhat eccentric branches, and budding literature and the arts. Yet must you leave your natural bent, and try to invest your new vagary with something of yourself! You will spout continually

"O Fortunati nimium sua si bona norint Agricolæ!"

And then mark their discontent. Virgil tells you they don't know when they are well off. So will you prate on of the praises of agriculture; a second Cincinnatus, if any one would take you from your plough for any thing but out of pure charity. Your bungling work at it would sicken all that would offer you other employment. And you will fancy you are leading a life of simplicity! A life of absurdity and nonsense! Man was not created for a life of simplicity, and to be always stooping over clods. He was originally gifted with imagination, with faculties of investigation and invention, to make life an artificial acquirement-" Vitam excoluere per artes." Oh, the life of simplicity indeed! An agriculturist's eyes have but one speculation-arable and pasture; all else is a desert. When you and I asked farmer John Turnsoil, who had gone to and returned from London, what he thought of St Paul's what was his reply? "I don't think much o't; 'tseems there's a good deal of ground throw'd away."

And you think to lead a life of simplicity in the very calling that, above all others, as it appears to me, has come under the most artificial arrangement. You will not be allowed to sow, and reap, and eat alone; you must take upon yourself much of the management of the country, and have to direct the vexatious detail, through the proper government of which the rest of the world live tolerably quiet-all of which you are as unfit for as you are to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and you are about as fit for that as Spring Rice. You must buy and sell, _there now is one of the nuisances of life from which Adam was exempt; and that answers satisfactorily the well-known questioning distich

"When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman ?

You will have not only to pay rates and taxes, but to understand them, and collect them too. You must be versed in poor-laws, high-ways and by-ways; and the more you are versed in them, to see things going wrong a thousand ways, where you now see nothing. Often have I wondered how this world is managed at all. I am born asleep, in understanding at least: Iawake by degrees, and find myself in an organized, well-arranged state of things, that for the life of me, study as much as I will, I cannot account for it is all past my power of finding out; and I bless myself that the greater part of all this order is done for me. Now, the mystery of all this, you must plunge into. You must be one of the managers for me. You must be perpetually pulling the strings of the puppet-show, for my admiration, use, and advantage. I shall never see sheriff, nor javelinmen, but from my heart I shall pity you, who have to pay for and trick up the whole court. You must remember all this order of things beautiful to the Philosopher, but detestable to other people and in other lights, must be paid for out of the land-out of the land! You will never find your share of it out of yours. You will stand aghast and talk of these things; all the while you try to be deep in ways and means, like a man fumbling in his breeches pockets, and wondering where the minister gets his supplies. To be "Ignoramus in the fine arts," like your friend C., is to be a fine fellow; but to be an ignoramus in parochials, before a whole vestry of farmers, is to be stung by hornets, to be kicked by asses, ay-and reversing all order of things-to be saddled by them too; for you need not doubt having a double share of the burthens. With your helpless incapacity, (excuse me for the

plainness,) how long will it take you, map in hand, to know your own lands, - and for the minutest trespass, you will suffer by encroachments, or worse penalties. You will cut your neighbours' hedges for your own, by mistake, and not have the wood; and your neighbour will cut yours, and carry away all-and no mistake. Then you must have farming-servants-locustseating up the land, and their ignorant master too. Do you flatter yourself you can manage them? Can you bluster and swear at them? You will not even know if they have done what they ought to have done. Out of your genuine kindness you will thank them, and the first time you do so, you will be laying down a measure for their idleness, to say no worse of it, for their perquisites shall be measured by it, till they exceed all measure. You must have a hind to manage for you, who will inevitably be your master-the worst of masters-a semi slave-master -your taskmaster, whom, like any other madman, you will have to pay for being your keeper. He will whistle and sing all about your house, that used to be so quiet, and, if you gently remonstrate with him, won't keep his mouth shut, nor his tongue and teeth idle, but will sulkily fling himself upon your bench, and sit down to your beef and pudding with a vindictive appetite. And all under him, and that have the run of your house, will think themselves bound to observe the fugleman, and do likewise-such is the esprit de corps. Do you remember the anecdote I once told you of the great Miss G-, who undertook the management of some of her land? She thought herself clever enough to manage John Chawbacon, and the rest of them: so one day she stood by when John was at his dinner and he did not make the worse dinner for that. Now, knowing the elasticity of John's stomach, as he was rising to his work, time up, she said, "John, I think it would save time of coming and going if you would sit down again and take your supper." No objection in the world," said John, and down he sits, and instanter despatches another pound or two, and drink in proportion, ending with her ladyship's health, and many thanks. "Now then, John," quoth the Lady Bountiful, " you may go to your work." "Work, Ma'am!" said John, with a grin, " I never works, ma'am, after supper," and so he threw