In the old Spanish plays, the imaginary scenes were no less full of intrigue than were the real streets; then the point of honour was nice, women were immured in jealous hareems, and access to them, which is easier now, formed _the_ difficulty of lovers. The curiosity of the spectators was kept on tenter-hooks, to see how the parties could get at each other, and out of the consequent scrapes. These imbroglios and labyrinths exactly suited a _pays de l’imprévu_, where things turn out, just as is the least likely to be calculated on. The progress of the drama of Spain was as full of action and energy, as that of France was of dull description and declamation. The Bourbon succession, which ruined the genuine bull-fight, destroyed the national drama also; a flood of unities, rules, stilted nonsense, and conventionalities poured over the astonished and affrighted Pyrenees: now the stage, like the arena, was condemned by critics, whose one-idead civilization could see but one class of excellence, and that only through a lorgnette ground in the Palais Royal. Calderon was pronounced to be as great a barbarian as Shakspere, and this by empty pretenders who did not understand one word of either;--and now again, at this second Bourbon irruption, France has become the model to that very nation from whom her Corneilles and Molières pilfered many a plume, which aided them to soar to dramatic fame. Spain is now reduced to the sad shift of borrowing from her pupil, those very arts which she herself once taught, and her best comedies and farces are but poor translations from Mons. Scribe and other scribes of the vaudeville. Her theatre, like everything else, has sunk into a pale copy of her dominant neighbour, and is devoid alike of originality, interest, and nationality. [Sidenote: SPANISH TRAGEDY.]