Note 438 — Chapter II · THE ITALIAN DECADENCE AND THE SPANIARDS.

“The inexorable Cascales,” as Señor Menéndez calls him in a passage which I had not read when I wrote the text. Of Cascales, as of Pinciano (v. infra), the Señor thinks far more highly than I do. Both seem to me (though Cascales more than Pinciano) to be simply uncompromising Aristotelians who borrowed from the Italians; but, like most borrowers and imitators, hardened and emphasised what they borrowed. Both were forced to allow little “easements” in regard to the drama; but only such as are consistent with Aristotle’s text, though not with some glosses on him. And Pinciano simply translates the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, while Cascales, doubtless with reference to the different heresies of Castelvetro and Giraldi, is quite Athanasian in his doctrine that poetic verities are absolutely unchangeable, and independent of custom and time.