The few, by which we mean those who think, in contradistinction from the many who think they think- the few who think at first hand, and thus twice before speaking at all- these received the play with a commendation somewhat less pronounced- somewhat more guardedly qualified- than Professor Longfellow might have desired, or may have been taught to expect. Still the composition was approved upon the whole. The few words of censure were very far indeed from amounting to condemnation. The chief defect insisted upon was the feebleness of the denouement, and, generally, of the concluding scenes, as compared with the opening passages. We are not sure, however, that anything like detailed criticism has been attempted in the case- nor do we propose now to attempt it. Nevertheless, the work has interest, not only within itself, but as the first dramatic effort of an author who has remarkably succeeded in almost every other department of light literature than that of the drama. It may be as well, therefore, to speak of it, if not analytically, at least somewhat in detail; and we cannot, perhaps, more suitably commence than by a quotation, without comment of some of the finer passages:
"And, though she is a virgin outwardly,
Within she is a sinner, like those panels
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary
On the outside, and on the inside Venus."
"I believe
That woman, in her deepest degradation,
Holds something sacred, something undefiled,
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light."
"And we shall sit together unmolested,
And words of true love pass from tongue to tongue
As singing birds from one bough to another."
"Our feelings and our thoughts
Tend ever on and rest not in the Present,
As drops of rain fall into some dark well,
And from below comes a scarce audible sound,
So fall our thoughts into the dark
Hereafter, And their mysterious echo reaches us."
"Her tender limbs are still, and, on her breast,
The cross she prayed to, ere she fell asleep,
Rises or falls with the soft tide of dreams,
Like a light barge safe moored."
"Hark! how the large and ponderous mace of Time
Knocks at the golden portals of the day!"
"The lady Violante bathed in tears
Of love and anger, like the maid of Colchis,
Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut,
Having won that golden fleece, a woman's love,
Desertest for this Glauce."
"I read, or sit in reverie and watch
The changing colour of the waves that break
Upon the idle sea-shore of the mind."
"I will forget her. All dear recollections
Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a book,
Shall be tom out and scattered to the winds."
"Oh yes! I see it now Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,
So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail thither,
Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged,
Against all stress of accident, as, in
The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide
Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains."
"But there are brighter dreams than those of Fame,
Which are the dreams of Love! Out of the heart
Rises the bright ideal of these dreams,
As from some woodland fount a spirit rises
And sinks again into its silent deeps,
Ere the enamoured knight can touch her robe!
'Tis this ideal that the soul of Man,
Like the enamoured knight beside the fountain,
Waits for upon the margin of Life's stream;
Waits to behold her rise from the dark waters,
Clad in a mortal shape! Alas, how many
Must wait in vain! The stream flows evermore,
But from its silent deeps no spirit rises!
Yet I, born under a propitious star,
Have found the bright ideal of my dreams."
"Yes; by the Darro's side
My childhood passed. I can remember still
The river, and the mountains capped with snow;
The villages where, yet a little child,
I told the traveller's fortune in the street;
The smugglers horse; the brigand and the shepherd;
The march across the moor; the halt at noon;
The red fire of the evening camp, that lighted
The forest where we slept; and, farther back,
As in a dream, or in some former life,
Gardens and palace walls."
"This path will lead us to it,
Over the wheatfields, where the shadows sail
Across the running sea, now green, now blue,
And, like an idle mariner on the ocean,
Whistles the quail."
These extracts will be universally admired. They are graceful, well expressed, imaginative, and altogether replete with the true poetic feeling. We quote them now, at the beginning of our review, by way of justice to the poet, and because, in what follows, we are not sure that we have more than a very few words of what may be termed commendation to bestow.
"The Spanish Student" has an unfortunate beginning, in a most unpardonable, and yet to render the matter worse, in a most indispensable "Preface: "The subject of the following play," says Mr. L., "is taken in part from the beautiful play of Cervantes, La Gitanilla. To this source, however, I am indebted for the main incident only, the love of a Spanish student for a Gipsy girl, and the name of the heroine, Preciosa. I have not followed the story in any of its details. In Spain this subject has been twice handled dramatically, first by Juan Perez de Montalvan in La Gitanilla, and afterwards by Antonio de Solis y Rivadeneira in La Gitanilla de Madrid. The same subject has also been made use of by Thomas Middleton, an English dramatist of the seventeenth century. His play is called The Spanish Gipsy. The main plot is the same as in the Spanish pieces; but there runs through it a tragic underplot of the loves of Rodrigo and Dona Clara, which is taken from another tale of Cervantes, La Fuerza de la Sangre. The reader who is acquainted with La Gitanilla of Cervantes, and the plays of Montalvan, Solis, and Middleton, will perceive that my treatment of the subject differs entirely from theirs."
Now the autorial originality, properly considered, is threefold. There is, first, the originality of the general thesis, secondly, that of the several incidents or thoughts by which the thesis is developed, and thirdly, that of manner or tone, by which means alone an old subject, even when developed through hackneyed incidents or thoughts, may be made to produce a fully original effect- which, after all, is the end truly in view.
But originality, as it is one of the highest, is also one of the rarest of merits. In America it is especially and very remarkably rare:- this through causes sufficiently well understood. We are content perforce, therefore, as a general thing, with either of the lower branches of originality mentioned above, and would regard with high favour indeed any author who should supply the great desideratum in combining the three. Still the three should be combined; and from whom, if not from such men as Professor Longfellowif not from those who occupy the chief niches in our Literary Temple- shall we expect the combination? But in the present instance, what has Professor Longfellow accomplished? Is he original at any one point? Is he original in respect to the first and most important of our three divisions? "The [subject] of the following play," he says himself, "is taken [in part] from the beautiful play of Cervantes, 'La Gitanilla.' To this source, however, I am indebted for [the main incident only,] the love of the Spanish student for a Gipsy girl, and the name of the heroine, Preciosa."
The [brackets] are our own, and the [bracketed words] involve an obvious contradiction. We cannot understand how "the love of the Spanish student for the Gipsy girl" can be called an "incident," or even a "main incident," at all. In fact, this love- this discordant and therefore eventful or incidental love is the true thesis of the drama of Cervantes. It is this anomalous "love," which originates the incidents by means of which itself, this "love," the thesis, is developed. Having based his play, then, upon this "love," we cannot admit his claim to originality upon our first count; nor has he any right to say that he has adopted his "subject" "in part." It is clear that he has adopted it altogether. Nor would he have been entitled to claim originality of subject, even had he based his story upon any variety of love arising between parties naturally separated by prejudices of caste- such, for example, as those which divide the Brahmin from the Pariah, the Ammonite from the African, or even the Christian from the Jew. For here in its ultimate analysis, is the real thesis of the Spaniard. But when the drama is founded, not merely upon this general thesis, but upon this general thesis in the identical application given it by Cervantes- that is to say, upon the prejudice of caste exemplified in the case of a Catholic, and this Catholic a Spaniard, and this Spaniard a student, and this student loving a Gipsy, and this Gipsy a dancing-girl, and this dancing-girl bearing the name Preciosa- we are not altogether prepared to be informed by Professor Longfellow that he is indebted for an "incident only" to the "beautiful 'Gitanilla' of Cervantes."