m the well known drama
"La Vida es Sueno") first commenced this interesting labour in Germany,
was of course a Catholic. But Eichendorff and Braunfels, who both
preceded Dr. Lorinser, were Protestants. Augustus Schlegel and Baron
von Schack, who have written so profoundly and so truly on the Autos,
are expressly referred to by Dr. Lorinser, and it is superfluous to say
that they too were Protestants. Sir F. H. Doyle, in using my
translation of the passage which will presently be quoted, changes the
word 'thoroughly' into 'properly', as if it were a more correct
rendering of the original. Unfortunately, however, there is nothing to
represent either word in the German. Dr. Lorinser says, that by many,
not by all, Calderon cannot be enjoyed as much as he deserves, because a
great number of persons best competent to judge of his merits are
deficient in the knowledge of Catholic faith and Catholic theology which
for the understanding of Calderon is indispensible--"welche fuer
Calderons Verstaendniss unerlaesslich ist". Sir F. H. Doyle says that
to him these Autos are not "incomprehensible at all" (p. 112), but then
he understands them all the better for being a scholar and a churchman.

Sir F. H. Doyle thus continues his reference to Dr. Lorinser. "Even
learned critics", he says, "highly cultivated in all the niceties of
aesthetics, are deficient in the knowledge of Catholic faith and
Catholic theology properly to understand Calderon" (Lectures, p. 110,
taken from the Introduction to my volume, p. 3). "Old traditions",
continues Dr. Lorinzer, "which twine round the dogma like a beautiful
garland of legends, deeply profound thoughts expressed here and there
by some of the Fathers of the Church, are made use of with such
incredible skill and introduced so appositely at the right place,
that . . . . frequently it is not easy to guess the source from whence
they have been derived" (Lectures, p. 111, taken from the Introduction
to my volume, p. 6).

This surely is unquestionably true, and the argument used by Sir F. H.
Doyle to controvert it does not go for much. These Autos, no doubt,
were, as he says, "composed in the first instance to gratify, and did
gratify, the uneducated populace of Madrid". Yes, the crowds that
listened delighted and entranced to these wonderful compositions, were,
for the most part, "uneducated" in the ordinary meaning of that word.
But in the special education necessary for their thorough en