Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/266

242 242 CASTILIAN LITERATURE. PART ment. The dialogue, especially in the lower parts, '- is sustained with much comic vivacity; indeed ]a- haiTO seems to have had a nicer perception of char- acter as it is found in lower life, than as it exists in the higher ; and more than one of his plays are de- voted exclusively to its illustration. On some occa- sions, however, the author assumes a more elevated tone, and his verse rises to a degree of poetic beau- ty, deepened by the moral reflection so characteris- tic of the Spaniards. At other times, his pieces are disfigured by such a Babel-like confusion of tongues, as makes it doubtful which may be the poet's ver- nacular. French, Spanish, Italian, with a variety of barbarous patois, and mongrel Latin, are all brought into play at the same time, and all compre- hended, apparently with equal facility, by each one of the dramatis personce. But it is difficult to con- ceive how such a jargon could have been compre- hended, far more relished, by an Italian audience. ^^ Similar in Naliarro's comedies are not much to be com- cpint Willi dramar mcndcd for the intrigue, which generally excites but a languid interest, and shows little power or adroitness in the contrivance. With every defect, however, they must be allowed to have given the first forms to Spanish comedy, and to exhibit many of the features which continued to be characteristic of it in a state of more perfect developement under Lope de Vega and Calderon. Such, for instance, 46 In the argument to the " Se- Que hablan quatro lengiiagea. raphina,"hethuspreparestheaudi- rilieTd^^rm cfe^ra ence for this colloquial oUa podnaa. por Lutin e Italiano Castellano y Valenciano " Mas haveia de cstar nlerta que ninguno desconcierta." por scntir los persounges Propaladia, p. 50.