very favourite thought of Lope, that a life of misery is a protracted death, and that to the unhappy, death is life:

No hay vida como la muerte

Para el que muriendo vive.

Arias enters, and delivers the King's message, which Sancho answers in ambiguous terms: "Let those," he says, "whose duty it is to speak, speak; my duty was to act, and I have acted." On Arias retiring, Clarindo and his master discuss the subject of honour; and Sancho's passion, mixed with his romantic notions, very naturally persuades his servant that he is mad. On such occasions the poet very often criticises himself, and puts into the mouth of the Gracioso the censures which he is conscious that the improbability of his hero's sentiments deserves to incur. At length enters a lady veiled, to whom, in virtue of the King's order, the prisoner is delivered over. She offers him his liberty, which he refuses to accept, unless she

unveils herself. She, after some impor tunity, consents, and discovers herself to be Estrella. Sancho, struck with her love, thinks some flight of generosity equally extravagant is required of him, and obstinately refuses to leave his prison. After several witticisms on his conduct, they separate; both resolving to die-one literally on a scaffold, the other figuratively of love. This scene, where the situation seems to suggest some fine sentiments, is, in my judgment, the coldest and worst in the play.

SCENE III.

The KING and ARIAS.

The King, stung with remorse for his conduct, is nevertheless overruled by the sophistry of Arias, and. consents to avail himself of Sancho's generosity, by not acknowledging himself the criminal; but at the same time to exert his influence with the judges to procure an acquittal of Sancho Ortiz, or at least a mitigation of the sentence, which would

enable him, under pretence of banishment, to reward Sancho Ortiz for his fidelity.

The Alcalde of Triana enters, and reports what had passed between the prisoner and Estrella; which excites the King's admiration, and he directs Sancho Ortiz to be secretly conveyed to him. In the mean while he speaks with the judges, who profess great attachment and obedience to their sovereign; which he misinterprets into a compliance with his wishes. In this scene there is an observation,

Montes la lisonja allana

Flattery can level mountains

which, in the modern play, has, with great propriety, been transferred to the King's soliloquy, when he thinks he has won over the judges, and is there enlarged upon with great success. The judges, to the King's great dismay, return with the sentence of death, and ex

culpate themselves from the charge of breaking their promise to the King, by appealing to the nature of their office, or rather to that of their wands, which are the insignia of it. If there is much quaintness in this appeal, it is at least in the character of the times which they represent. Many of these sayings and maxims, conveyed in quaint language, which are so common in the plays on early Spanish history, and which are hastily condemned by foreigners as instances of bad taste, form part of the traditions on which the stories are founded; and the omission of them would destroy that air of truth and originality, from which they derive much of their merit in the eyes of a Spanish audience. Shakspeare has preserved some colloquial phrases of Henry the VIIIth and Richard the IIId, which had been handed down to him by traditional report; and I believe most English critics will acknowledge, that though they would be grotesque were

they of his invention, yet, as historical traits, they give an appearance of reality to the speeches, which enhances the interest of the representation.

To return to Lope: The King, unable to shake the integrity of the judges, promises to marry Estrella to a grandee of Castile, on condition that she shall withdraw the prosecution against her brother's murderer. To this she consents. The King pronounces the pardon of Ortiz; but the judges loudly remonstrate against such a proceeding, and at length extort from the King the confession of the murder having been committed at his instigation. Estrella, pressed by the King to marry Sancho Ortiz, while she acknowledges her love for him, is unable to overcome her repugnance at seeing the man who murdered her brother at her bed and board, en mesa y en cama, and obstinately persists in her refusal. This conduct produces