Mother. Then let me speak. I charge thee, let not threats,
Bribes, nor allurements of enticing pleasure,

Nor scourge, nor blow, nor cunning artifice,
Nor any treasure, which this earth contains,
Draw thee, a renegade from Christian faith,
To yield thyself a convert to these Moors.

Francisco. Mother, if my weak powers their purpose hold,
And heavenly aid be added, 'twill be seen

That threats are futile, and that bribes will fail
To shake the faith, in which my soul delights.
Crier. A pretty, obstinate young Christian this!
Now, I'll be bound that we shall find a way

To make him raise his hand and point his finger.*
These Christian youths are very coy at first;

But when the fit is over, they turn Moors,

And keep our creed much better than the old ones. Jornado 2.

Francisco, however, continues firm; but the Crier's prediction is fulfilled as regards the other boy (Juanico, literally Johnny), who re-appears, in the fifth act, metamorphosed into a complete Mahometan.

With one more passage we will close our extracts. It is from the scene wherein Aurelio is tempted by Necessity and Opportunity. There is something grand in the conception, wild and extravagant as it is considered with a view to theatrical representation, which embodies an immaterial agency, visible to the aedience, but invisible to the person acted upon, and appearing to prompt the suggestions that rise uncalled for-those suggestions of evil, which " into the mind of man will come and go,” like the dreams of Banquo,

"Cursed thoughts that Nature Gives way to in repose!”

The phantons have departed, and Aurelio thus soliloquizes:

Aurelioolus). Aurelio, whither strayest thou? Where bend Thy wanderng steps their course? What hand conducts thee? Wouldst thou dulge thy mad and wild desires,

And cast aside be fear of God for ever?

Can light and eas, opportunity

So far provoke thy ul to guilty pleasure,

That thou wouldst trample virtue down at once,
And yield thyself a pre to wanton love?

Is this the elevated thought? is this

The firm intent, which tho didst vow to keep,
That no offence to God shoun stain thy path,
Though tortures rack'd the remnant of thy days?
So soon hast thou offended, to the winds

*The action with which the Mahometans accompany their profession of faith: "There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet." For this note, we are indebted to the Editor of this play in the correct and neatly printed "Teatro Espanol," published by Messrs. Boosey and Sons.

Released the anticipations of a lawful passion,
And taken to thy memory instead

Thoughts vain, dishonest, light and infamous?
Begone, ye base suggestions, far away
Each wish impure of evil! let the hand

Of chaste and blameless love destroy the web,
Which the seducer strives to wind around thee.
The faith which I profess, that faith I'll follow;
And, though it lead to dark extremity,

Nor gift, nor promise, artifice, nor guile,

Shall make me swerve one instant from my God.

Such are the two plays of Cervantes. They were written ere the dramatic muses had shaken off their long slumber. They are literary curiosities, and, as such only, we present them to our readers. In the passages we have translated, we have sacrificed every attempt at poetry, and have only aimed to give the sense in a version as literal as the rhythm would permit: were we indeed equal to the task of perfect translation, we should despair of transferring to English blank verse the happy simplicity of the Spanish redondillas. We should be glad to tread still farther within the pleasing precincts of the Spanish drama; but in our next we must proceed to notice other productions of the author of Don Quixote, in that style of composition wherein he has few, if any competitors; and which the English public, who have successively patronised the translations of that most popular novel by Motteux, by Jarvis, and by Smollet, and republications of them in every form, from the splendidly embellished quarto to the humble duodecimo, have hitherto suffered to lie in neglect, and almost oblivion.

M.

ON THE CONFESSION OF IGNORANCE.

“WHOEVER would be cured of ignorance," says Montaigne, must confess it." If every one were to act on the Seigneur's recommendation, what a strange revelation of ignorance would there be! In justice, however, to this most candid of all philosophers, who has stripped his heart naked with his own hands, and presented it without any covering, either of shame or falsehood, to the gaze of all posterity, it should be remembered that he has, with the strictest impartiality, declared his own deficiencies in knowledge. "Great abuse in the world is begot," says he, "or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses in the world are begot, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance." Accordingly, he tells us that people, who hear him declare his ignorance in husbandry, whisper in his ear that it is

disdain, and that he only neglects to know the instruments of husbandry, its season and order-how they dress his vines-the names and forms of herbs and fruits-how meat is dressed-the names and prices of the stuffs he wears-because he has set his heart on higher knowledge. "They kill me," says the philosopher, "in saying so. This is folly, and rather brutishness than glory: I had rather be a good horseman than a good logician.” Seigneur Michael can afford to make these confessions, but how few are there among the common herd that can speak such truths without injury to their reputation-and ought they to do this? Nay, would it even be useful?

That ode of Anacreon, which describes the attributes which nature has conferred on different animals, might be well applied to the present subject; and it might be shown how the various species of knowledge are confined to certain individuals or classes of men. A Divine, for instance, if he were consulted on a point of law, might very well answer that he knew nothing about the matter; and the lawyer in his turn, if questioned in divinity, might generally reply, with too much truth, that he was wholly ignorant on the subject; and this want of information may certainly be acknowledged without any feeling of shame. The question, therefore, which Sir Thomas More, when abroad, undertook to argue against all the doctors and learned men of Italy, "Anne averia carucæ capta in vetito namio sint irreplegibilia, that is to say, "whether beasts of the plough taken in withernam are irreplevisable," was not a fair one, because no one could argue it but a lawyer, and he too an English lawyer. In fact, he might as well have propounded that very abstruse and philosophical query "Anne chimera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones?" But when I enquire from a divine, whether I ought rather to tell a lie or commit a theft; or from a gentleman of the long robe, whether I am most nearly related to my paternal grandfather or my maternal grandmother, I expect to receive an answer; and if either the former or the latter is unable to give me one, I consider him as ignorant of what it is his duty to know; and if he scruples not to confess his ignorance, I say he is also devoid of shame. There is a certain degree of knowledge, which from the daily occupations of life, and from an intercourse with the world, it is almost impossible, that we should not attain: such is the knowledge of common substances and the general operations of nature; yet Montaigne, it seems, was ignorant of many of these things. You see this ignorance in children, and it sometimes happens that they do not lose it when of a larger growth. This continued ignorance proceeds from different causes; sometimes, and perhaps frequently, it is merely the effect of dull perception and slow

observation; sometimes it proceeds from the want of proper opportunities of improvement, and occasionally it is the consequence of the mind being too exclusively devoted to one pursuit. An occupation, which necessarily directs all the rays of the intellect to one centre, must prevent them from being diffused over a more extensive field; and, in this view, I believe all professions, strictly pursued, tend to incapacitate the mind from higher and nobler exertions. Lawyers are said to make bad statesmen. I believe it. Their minds have been long accustomed to all the pettiness and minute accuracy of their profession, and they can not embrace the magnitude of an important question. They are examining every part, when they should be attending to the great whole. A Brahmin will hold his arm in one position, until its power of motion is lost; but it takes less time to give a fixed habit to the mind. A man who is devoted to mathematical studies is seldom good for any thing else. In some instances indeed, a favourite pursuit will so absorb the whole intellect as to banish even common sense from the mind. I know a man in the lowest situation of life, an absolute pauper, who has applied himself with unceasing energy and perseverance to the study of languages, and to that study alone, and who might say with Eiron in the Muses' Looking-Glass,

-If I have any skill, it is

In languages. To confess truth,

I might in their own proper speech instruct
All Europe, Asia, and Africa too;

But, in America and the new-found world,
I very much fear there be some languages,
That would go near to puzzle me.

And yet this man, who reads the Chaldee and Hebrew, who speaks almost all the modern languages of Europe, and who has acquired all his knowledge by his own unassisted exertions, is so devoid of common sense that he will almost attempt to walk through the wall. Can it be that his mind has been so passionately devoted to these acquisitions as to prevent him from giving his attention to any other objects?

Let us examine a little more narrowly Montaigne's advice to confess our ignorance. If ignorance be shameful, and shameful it is where a man has had opportunities of getting rid of it; or where, by his profession, he holds himself out to the world as possessing knowledge which in fact he has not, then I can not conceive why a man should confess it. I acknowledge that if there were no other way of acquiring information than by exposing our want of it, such an exposure would then become necessary, and one should submit to it, as one does to any other inevitable necessity; but, in this age of books and book-makers,.

a man may with infinitely greater ease acquire more satisfactory information from consulting his library than by applying to any living Cyclopædia. If I go and consult a book, it does not despise me for my want of knowledge-it does not laugh, or curl the corners of its mouth in good-natured contempt it does not expose me--I do not humiliate myself before it—I do not pray to be instructed; and when I have gained my information, I am under no obligation to it, seeing that when it came into my possession, I paid for it the price it was worth. By the by, this is the great advantage of books, that they are both deaf and dumb, and that they never interrupt you or give you advice. My books are my companions, and I enjoy their society in the same way as I do that of my friends, except that I have never the trouble of talking, and that they are always good-humoured and complaisant, and rather more instructive than most of my other acquaintance. I have always found them the most faithful friends; they never desert you in your extremity, but always afford either philosophy to enable one to bear, or amusement to seduce one from the contemplation of pain. I can not say with Cicero that I am not like those who are ashamed to confess their ignorance, Nec me pudet ut istos, fateri nescire, quod nesciam, for I should be very much ashamed to do so; and I scarcely know when I have more severely felt what may truly be called shame, than when I have been found wanting in something which I ought to have known; and I have always thought this sensation of shame the strongest spur to the acquisition of knowledge. So forcibly do I feel this sentiment, that I am always ashamed when another man is exposing his ignorance in my presence. If it be not shameful to confess your ignorance, then ignorance itself is not shameful. To keep it out of the sight of the world is not to assume a virtue without possessing it; it is merely to conceal a vice: and I never yet heard that it was laudable in a man to declare his own faults. Perhaps it is not worth while to conceal it studiously and industriously; far less should a man resort to falsehood to avoid such an exposure. It is however a thing which should be kept in the background, and never forced on the view and attention of others. This is very different from pretension to knowledge, which, like every other species of hypocrisy, is wholly detestable, and to be abjured. If people choose to judge of my knowledge on one subject from my information on another, it is their fault, and not mine; I never pretended to know any thing about the matter; and if they are good and foolish enough to think I do, though it would not become me to assist in the deception by a pretension to knowledge, yet it certainly is not my duty to tell them, uncalled on, that I am entirely ignorant on the subject.

How many persons are there, if this rule should be put into