The Spanish Drama had been in a progressive state of decay from the death of Candamo, till Moratin’s {14b} attempts to introduce the regularity and unity of the Parisian theatre were crowned with complete success. It is a different, and will be considered as a lower order of merit, by all who place Nature and Shakespeare above Art and the French Drama. If, however, Calderon and Lope, Moreto and Montalvan, Solis and Candamo, seldom occupy the Spanish stage, it is because the national taste, or the national indifference, has chosen to sanction or permit the puerile trifles imported from the other side of the Pyrenees, to occupy the seats which might be so much more honourably filled by native genius. An active controversy is going on as to the respective merits of the French and Spanish theatres; but it does not seem to excite much interest beyond the immediate circle of combatants. A new dramatic writer (Gorostiza {15}) has lately appeared, and his first effort, “Indulgencia para todos,” in spite of some improbabilities in the story, and some vulgarisms in the style, gives fair hopes for the future. By way of conclusion, I would remark, that ultra-royalism and bigotry may receive from the present wretchedness of Spain a _salutary_ and _corrective_ lesson. They may there see the unalloyed triumph of their principles, and study the consequences in the degradation, the disquietude and the wretchedness of a once renowned and illustrious nation. They have there a king reigning in “all the glory” of uncontrolled majesty, and a state-religion undisturbed by heretics or schismatics;—there is the dull death-like silence of abhorred submission, unbroken by any hated shouts of liberty—“the prostration of the understanding and the will,” that neither dares nor wishes to inquire. As to the character of Ferdinand, it has been greatly misunderstood or greatly misrepresented. It has been well said of him, that he has all the crimes and none of the merits of his ancestors. He appears to care little about the church or the clergy, except inasmuch as he can make them the instruments of civil despotism. {16} His habits are gross and licentious; yet he is inaccessible to any sentiment of benevolence or generosity.—He never forgave a fancied enemy, and perhaps he never possessed a real friend.—From his very childhood his untameable and barbarous propensities made him the object of fear and dread; and adversity (that touchstone of character) has served only to excite and heighten the dark ferocity of his disposition. What, indeed, could be expected from an ingrate, who rewarded those that replaced in his worthless hand the sceptre he had cast away, with persecution and exile, imprisonment and death?