"
"This path will lead us to it,
Over the wheatfields, where the shadows sail
Across the running sea, now green, now blue,
And, like an idle mariner on the ocean,
Whistles the quail."
These extracts will be universally admired. They are graceful,
well expressed, imaginative, and altogether replete with the true
poetic feeling. We quote them now, at the beginning of our review,
by way of justice to the poet, and because, in what follows, we are
not sure that we have more than a very few words of what may be termed
commendation to bestow.
"The Spanish Student" has an unfortunate beginning, in a most
unpardonable, and yet to render the matter worse, in a most
indispensable "Preface:-
"The subject of the following play," says Mr. L., "is taken in
part from the beautiful play of Cervantes, La Gitanilla. To this
source, however, I am indebted for the main incident only, the love of
a Spanish student for a Gipsy girl, and the name of the heroine,
Preciosa. I have not followed the story in any of its details. In
Spain this subject has been twice handled dramatically, first by
Juan Perez de Montalvan in La Gitanilla, and afterwards by Antonio
de Solis y Rivadeneira in La Gitanilla de Madrid. The same subject has
also been made use of by Thomas Middleton, an English dramatist of the
seventeenth century.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219