Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/259

235 ROMANTIC FICTION AND POETRY. 235 The general texture of the plot is exceedingly chapter clumsy, yet it affords many situations of deep and. - — varied interest in its progress. The principal char- acters are delineated in the piece with considerable skill. The part of Celestina, in particular, in which a veil of plausible hypocrisy is thrown over- the deepest profligacy of conduct, is managed with much address. The subordinate parts are brought into brisk comic action, with natural dialogue, though sufficiently obscene ; and an interest of a graver complexion is raised by the passion of the lovers, the timid, confiding tenderness of the lady, and the sorrows of the broken-hearted parent. The execution of the play reminds us on the whole less of the Spanish, than of the old English thea- tre, in many of its defects, as well as beauties ; in the contrasted strength and imbecility of various passages ; its intermixture of broad farce and deep tragedy ; the unseasonable introduction of frigid metaphor and pedantic allusion in the midst of the most passionate discourses ; in the unveiled volup- tuousness of its coloring, occasionally too gross for any public exhibition ; but, above all, in the general strength and fidelity of its portraiture. The tragicomedy, as it is styled, of Celestina, it opened uie ^ ^ way to dra was obviously never intended for representation, to P^'= ^- which, not merely the grossness of some of the details, but the length and arrangement of the piece, are unsuitable. But, notwithstanding this, and its approximation to the character of a ro- mance, it must be admitted to contain within itself the essential elements of dramatic composition ; and.