the other of these works.1 What more natural, then, than that in composing the essays thus inspired Bacon should have selected as the medium most appropriate to their subject-matter the style, not of his Essays of 1597, but of the specimen treatises which he had introduced into the Advancement?

2

Again, it is not impossible that his adoption in the essays of at least one feature of the style used in the Advancement was the result of conscious conviction. In several passages in the section of the latter work devoted to "moral and civil knowledge," Bacon laid particular stress upon the value of history and poetry as sources of precepts and illustrations. Thus, apropos, of the neglect of the "part of knowledge touching the several characters of natures and dispositions," he wrote that ". . . this kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry ; wherein our fault is the greater, because both history, poesy, and daily experience are as goodly fields where these observations grow; whereof we make a few posies to hold in our hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary, that receipts might be made of them for use of life." Similarly, for "the inquiry touching the affections," he thought that the "best doctors" were "the poets and writers of histories" in them "we may find painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves, how they work, how they vary, how they gather and fortify, how they are inwrapped one within another, and how they do fight and encounter one with another, and other like particularities: amongst the which this last is of special use in moral and civil matters. . . And again, in the course of his treatment of "civil knowledge" he remarked that "the form of writing which of all others is fittest for this variable argument of negotiation and occasions is that which Machiavel chose wisely and aptly for government; namely, discourse upon histories or examples. For knowledge drawn freshly and in our view out of particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars again.” ♦ After these declarations, it is not difficult to understand the prominence which he gave to "ex

See above, pp. 91, 93.

'III, 435. The point is made even more emphatic in the De Augmentis. Cf. I, 733-34.

3

III, 438. Cf. above, pp. 90-91.

III, 453.

amples" from historians and poets in such later essays as "Of Seditions and Troubles," "Of Empire," "Of Counsel," "Of Friendship, "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates," "of Prophecies," "Of Vain-glory," and "Of Vicissitude of Things."

Finally, we must not forget that when Bacon began to prepare the second edition of the Essays toward 1607, the memory of his work on the Advancement was still sufficiently fresh in his mind. so that even if he had desired to do so, he would doubtless have found it difficult to escape entirely the influence of its style.

In view of these considerations we are perhaps justified in concluding that the change of manner in Bacon's later essays was due chiefly, not to any external influence or to any fundamental change in their author's mental constitution, but rather to the renewed momentum given to writing in "methods" by his labors on the Advancement of Learning-a momentum which all the more easily carried over into the essays written after 1605 because of the close relationship in purpose and theme which existed between many of these essays and the work in which the distinguishing features of their style were most clearly foreshadowed.

THE PÍCARO IN THE SPANISH DRAMA OF THE

I

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

J. P. WICKERSHAM CRAWFORD,

Professor of Romanic Languages, University of Pennsylvania

N the study of the Spanish antecedents of Lazarillo de Tormes, whose adventures first appeared in print, so far as we know, in the year 1554, the comedies of the first half of the sixteenth century have been almost entirely overlooked. We are not concerned here with the pícaro as a member of a particular social class, whose status was occasionally defined by municipal regulations. The picaro of literature might be a vagabond or thief, or for a time a respectable member of society. The name of pícaro was applied to Guzmán de Alfarache and his progeny because of their philosophy of life rather than by virtue of their trade or the lack of one. The picaro knew no other principle of conduct than the law of self-interest; over against the selfishness of others he constantly asserted his own right to food and drink; life was for him a relentless battle and his sharp wits were his only weapons; his confidence in his own resourcefulness raised him above the mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, though he was keenly conscious of the social injustice of which he was often a victim. From the literary standpoint, he was an anti-hero; the antithesis of the matchless knight and sentimental lover.

Most of these characteristics are found in the person of Sempronio in the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. In the early

In his essay Los picaros cervantinos, published in a volume entitled Cervantes y su obra, Madrid, 1916, Señor Bonilla y San Martín summarizes as follows the chief characteristics of the picaro as found in Spanish literature. He is a youth, poor and ragged; a homeless vagabond; he has no respect for the property of others; he is not convinced that other men are better than himself, and therefore readily assumes the rôle of censor of society; in spite of his pessimism he is a merry fellow; he is superstitious, addicted to wine, without a sense of honor, brave-hearted and cheerful in adversity. Señor Bonilla regards him as a stoic and cynic combined.

'The Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea first appeared in a version of twenty-one acts in 1502, following a version in sixteen acts entitled Comedia

part of the story he is an amusing rascal whose practical common sense serves to emphasize the exaggerated sentimentality of his master. When the grief-stricken Calisto refuses to allow Sempronio to stay with him in the first act, the latter hesitates for a moment. "Shall I leave him alone? or shall I go in to him? If I leave him alone, he will kill himself. If I go in, he will kill me. Let him stay alone, I care not. Better it be that he die, whose life is hateful to him, than that I die, when life is pleasant unto me.” 1 This is a fair measure of his loyalty. He shows no reluctance in joining hands with Celestina to extort as much money as possible from Calisto; he stoutly asserts his readiness to stand by his master to the death, but takes to his heels at the first sign of danger, and kills Celestina herself over the division of the spoils.

His companion Pármeno gradually adopts the philosophy of the pícaro as a result of his association with Sempronio and Celestina. The old hag undermines his loyalty to Calisto by provoking what we now call class hatred. "Do not rely upon the vain promises of masters who deprive servants of their substance with hollow and idle promises. As the horse-leech that sucks blood, they are ungrateful, commit injustice, grow forgetful of services and refuse reward. Woe be unto him that grows old in service!" 2 Pármeno still objects that he wishes no ill-gotten gains, but his scruples are finally overcome, and he joins wholeheartedly in the exploitation of his

master.

We can not here follow the careers of Sempronio's descendants in the long series of dialogued novels written in imitation of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, but must restrict ourselves to their appearance in the drama. The picaro is found for the first time in a Spanish play in the Comedia Himenea of Torres Naharro, first published in a volume entitled Propaladia at Naples in 1517. Naharro made use of the twelfth, fourteenth and twentieth acts of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, but substituted a happy de Calisto y Melibea, first published in 1499. References are made to the edition of Čejador y Frauca, published at Madrid in 1913 with the title La Celestina.

La Celestina, Act I, p. 37.

. Ibid., pp. 101-102.

Propaladia de Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, Vol. II, Madrid, 1900.

M. Romera-Navarro, "Estudio de la Comedia Himenea de Torres Naharro," Romanic Review, XII (1921). These correspond approximately to the twelfth, fourteenth and fifteenth acts of the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea.