arrogance which is in fact aiming at perfection. But it is incumbent on us who are his followers, for the reasons which I have enumerated, as well as many others which I will not now allege, to look upon him as the reformer of the new comedy, and to hold in honour modern writers as more beautiful and more instructive than those of former ages." It is difficult to conceive a more ingenious and solid defence of the Spanish drama than Tellez has here put forward; and it is time to examine how far his practice exemplifies his theory. Many of our readers will be surprised to hear that Tirso de Molina, or Gabriel Tellez, is the first author who brought Don Juan and the famous story of the statue-guest upon the stage, under the title of the _Burlador de Sevilla_, or the _Convidado de Piedra_. The name of the hero is Don Juan Tenorio. The story still lives in the tradition of the people of Seville, in which city the Tenorios were a distinguished race, though the name exists no longer. It was one of the famous twenty-four, the "_veinti-cuatros_" of Seville. The basis of the story is, that, after seducing the daughter of the Comendador Ulloa, Don Juan killed the father, who was buried in the convent of San Francisco. Don Juan's birth and connections placed him above the reach of legal punishment; but the monks of San Francisco contrived to get him within their walls, where they put him to death, and propagated a rumour that Don Juan had gone to the chapel in which the statue of the Comendador was placed, for the purpose of insulting his memory, when the statue had seized him and precipitated him into the infernal regions. Such is the legend on which rests _El Burlador de Sevilla_. It became extremely popular in Spain, and even more so in foreign countries. In 1620 it was transplanted to the Italian stage. Three translations of it appeared in France, under the not very happily chosen title of the _Festin de Pierre_; the first in 1659 by De Villiers; the second 1661, by Dorimon; the third 1665, by Molière. In Spain the same subject was dramatised by Zamora, in a play which still keeps possession of the stage.