s_,
and, to take an extreme instance, the second act of his _Cabellos de
Absalon _is transferred almost bodily from the third act of Tirso's
_Venganza de Tamar_. It would be easy to add other examples of Calderon's
lax methods, but it is simple justice to point out that he committed no
offence against the prevailing code of literary morality. Many of his
contemporaries plagiarized with equal audacity, but with far less success.
Sometimes, as in _El Alcalde de Zalamea_, the bold procedure is completely
justified by the result; in this case by his individual treatment he
transforms one of Lope de Vega's rapid improvisations into a finished
masterpiece. It was not given to him to initiate a great dramatic movement;
he came at the end of a literary revolution, was compelled to accept the
conventions which Lope de Vega had imposed on the Spanish stage, and he
accepted them all the more readily since they were peculiarly suitable to
the display of his splendid and varied gifts. Not a master of observation
nor an expert in invention, he showed an unexampled skill in contriving
ingenious variants on existing themes; he had a keen dramatic sense, an
unrivalled dexterity in manipulating the mechanical resources of the stage,
and in addition to these minor indispensable talents he was endowed with a
lofty philosophic imagination and a wealth of poetic diction. Naturally, he
had the defects of his great qualities; his ingenuity is apt to degenerate
into futile embellishment; his employment of theatrical devices is the
subject of his own good-humoured satire in _No hay burlas con el amor_; his
philosophic intellect is more interested in theological mysteries than in
human passions; and the delicate beauty of his style is tinged with a
wilful preciosity. Excelling Lope de Vega at many points, Calderon falls
below his great predecessor in the delineation of character. Yet in almost
every department of dramatic art Calderon has obtained a series of
triumphs. In the symbolic drama he is best represented by _El Principe
constante_, by _El Magico prodigioso_ (familiar to English readers in
Shelley's free translation), and by _La Vida es sueno_, perhaps the most
profound and original of his works. His tragedies are more remarkable for
their acting qualities than for their convincing truth, and the fact that
in _La Nina de Gomez Arias_ he interpolates an entire act borrowed from
Velez de Guevara's play of the same title seems to indicate that