Note 429 — Chapter XIII

Puibusque, Hist. Comparée des Littératures Espagnole et Française, Paris, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 478;—the Essay prefixed to the French translation of Lavigne, Paris, 1841, 12mo;—Montiano y Luyando, Discurso sobre las Tragedias Españolas, Madrid, 1750, 12mo, p. 9, and post, c. 21. The “Ingeniosa Helena” (1613) and the “Flora Malsabidilla” (1623) are by Salas Barbadillo, and will be noticed hereafter, among the prose fictions of the seventeenth century. The “Eufrosina” is by Ferreira de Vasconcellos, a Portuguese, and why, in 1631, it was translated into Spanish by Ballesteros Saavedra as if it had been anonymous, I know not. It is often mentioned as the work of Lobo, another Portuguese, (Barbosa, Bib. Lusit., Tom. II. p. 242, and Tom. IV. p. 143,) and Quevedo, in his Preface to the Spanish version, seems to have been of that opinion; but this, too, is not true. Lobo only prepared, in 1613, an edition of the Portuguese original.

Of the imitations of the Celestina mentioned in the text, two, perhaps, deserve further notice.

The first is the one entitled “Florinea,” which was printed at Medina del Campo, in 1554, and which, though certainly without the power and life of the work it imitates, is yet written in a pure and good style. The principal personage is Marcelia,—parcel witch, wholly shameless,—going regularly to matins and vespers, and talking religion and philosophy, while her house and life are full of whatever is most infamous. Some of the scenes are as indecent as any in the Celestina; but the story is less disagreeable, as it ends with an honorable love-match between Floriano and Belisea, the hero and heroine of the drama, and promises to give their wedding in a continuation, which, however, never appeared. It is longer than its prototype, filling 312 pages of black letter, closely printed, in small quarto; abounds in proverbs; and contains occasional snatches of poetry, which are not in so good taste as the prose. Florian, the author, says, that, though his work is called comedia, he is to be regarded as “historiador cómico,” a dramatic narrator.

The other is the “Selvagia,” by Alonso de Villegas, published at Toledo, in 1554, 4to, the same year with the Florinea, to which it alludes with great admiration. Its story is ingenious. Flesinardo, a rich gentleman from Mexico, falls in love with Rosiana, whom he has only seen at a window of her father’s house. His friend Selvago, who is advised of this circumstance, watches the same window, and falls in love with a lady whom he supposes to be the same that had been seen by Flesinardo. Much trouble naturally follows. But it is happily discovered that the lady is not the same; after which—except in the episodes of the servants, the bully, and the inferior lovers—every thing goes on successfully, under the management of an unprincipled counterpart of the profligate Celestina, and ends with the marriage of the four lovers. It is not so long as the Celestina or the Florinea, filling only seventy-three leaves in quarto, but it is an avowed imitation of both. Of the genius that gives such life and movement to its principal prototype there is little trace, nor has it an equal purity of style. But some of its declamations, perhaps,—though as misplaced as its pedantry,—are not without power, and some of its dialogue is free and natural. It claims everywhere to be very religious and moral, but it is any thing rather than either. Of its author there can be no doubt. As in every thing else he imitates the Celestina, so he imitates it in prefatory acrostic verses, from which I have spelt out the following sentence: “Alonso de Villegas Selvago compuso la Comedia Selvagia en servicio de su Sennora Isabel de Barrionuevo, siendo de edad de veynte annos, en Toledo, su patria”;—a singular offering, certainly, to a lady-love. It is divided into scenes, as well as acts.