recognized in unexpected quarters, Goethe and Shelley uniting with
Augustus Schlegel and Archbishop Trench to pay him homage. My father
was, I think, first led to the study of Calderon by Shelley's glowing
eulogy of the poet ("Essays," vol. ii., p. 274, and elsewhere). The
first of his translations was published in 1853, the last twenty years
later. They consist[4] of fifteen complete plays, which I believe to be
the largest amount of translated verse by any one author, that has ever
appeared in English. Most of it is in the difficult assonant or vowel
rhyme, hardly ever previously attempted in our language. This may be a
fitting place to cite a few testimonies as to the execution of the work.
Longfellow, whom I have myself heard speak of the "Autos" in a way that
showed how deeply he had studied them in the original, wrote, in 1857:
"You are doing this work admirably, and seem to gain new strength and
sweetness as you go on. It seems as if Calderon himself were behind you
whispering and suggesting. And what better work could you do in your
bright hours or in your dark hours that just this, which seems to have
been put providentially into your hands." Again, in 1862: "Your new
work in the vast and flowery fields of Calderon is, I think, admirable,
and presents the old Spanish dramatist before the English reader in a
very attractive light. Particularly in the most poetical passages you
are excellent; as, for instance, in the fine description of the
gerfalcon and the heron in 'El Mayor Encanto.' I hope you mean to add
more and more, so as to make the translation as nearly complete as a
single life will permit. It seems rather appalling to undertake the
whole of so voluminous a writer; nevertheless, I hope you will do it.
Having proved that you can, perhaps you ought to do it. This may be
your appointed work. It is a noble one."[5] Ticknor ("History of
Spanish Literature," new edition, vol. iii. p. 461) writes thus:
"Calderon is a poet who, whenever he is translated, should have his very
excesses and extravagances, both in thought and manner, fully