Of the two we shall first notice the English theatre, because it
arrived at maturity earlier than the Spanish. In both we must occupy
ourselves almost exclusively with a single artist, with Shakespeare in
the one and Calderon in the other; but not in the same order with
each, for Shakespeare stands first and earliest among the English; any
remarks we may have to make on earlier or contemporary antiquities of
the English stage may be made in a review of his history. But Calderon
had many predecessors; he is at once the summit and almost the close
of dramatic art in Spain.

The wish to speak with the brevity which the limits of my plan demand,
of a poet to the study of whom I have devoted many years of my life,
places me in no little embarrassment. I know not where to begin; for I
should never be able to end, were I to say all that I have felt and
thought, on the perusal of his works. With the poet, as with the man,
a more than ordinary intimacy prevents us, perhaps, from putting
ourselves in the place of those who are first forming an acquaintance
with him: we are too familiar with his most striking peculiarities to
be able to pronounce upon the first impression which they are
calculated to make on others. On the other hand, we ought to possess,
and to have the power of communicating, more correct ideas of his mode
of procedure, of his concealed or less obvious views, and of the
meaning and import of his labors, than others whose acquaintance with
him is more limited.

Shakespeare is the pride of his nation. A late poet has, with
propriety, called him "the genius of the British isles." He was the
idol of his contemporaries during the interval, indeed, of puritanical
fanaticism, which broke out in the next generation and rigorously