which the great body of sub-tenants was without representation. But this third estate was growing in wealth and power. The machinery for representation was ready at hand, and in the constant struggles between king and barons, it was inevitable that it should sooner or later be utilized. Thus, when in his difficulties John summoned his council in November, 1213, in addition to the tenants-in-chief, he summoned through the sheriff four "discreet men" from each shire. Forty years elapse before the shires are again invited to send representatives to the great council of the nation.

But when in 1254 the prelates and the magnates composing the parliament were unwilling to vote Henry III. the aid demanded by him, the regents summoned a great council to which each shire was directed to send as its representatives two chosen knights. From this time on to 1295 the practice of summoning chosen representatives of the shires to the great council grew in frequency. And in his famous parliament of 1265, Simon de Montfort inaugurated an extension of the principle by summoning representatives from the cities and boroughs, as well as those from the shires. Again to the great council of Edward I. in 1295, the representatives of the towns as well as the shires were summoned,-and since that time attendance of representatives from both shires and towns has been practically continuous. This council may thus be said to mark the point at which the principle of representation of the third estate of the realm in a national parliament secured an undisputed place in the English constitution. The ancient practice of the townships of sending up the “ reeve and four select men" to represent them in the larger areas of local government endured through all the processes of feudalization, through all the modifications wrought by the Conquest, and through the centralization that followed, until it finally widens into the practice of sending representatives to the national parliament; thus establishing itself as a part of the machinery of the national government, and working out the solution of the problem of how small tribes may develop into a great nation without sacrificing the essentials of self-government.

In the primitive Teutonic constitution, when the state was a small aggregation, the legislative organ was the assembly of all the freemen. It was only when the principles of feudalism had modified the character of the state that this popular assembly, -the old institution known to early Greek and Roman, as well as to the later Teuton-dwindled into the small aristocratic body of the king's feudal vassals. The re-entrance, then, of the representatives of the shires and towns into the king's council, the parliament of the nation, was only the restoration to the people of the prerogative that had once been theirs. And it came back to them the more easily, because in their local government the machinery of representation had never been discarded.

In the centuries that have followed since Edward I, the successors to the representatives of the shires and the towns, then invited to confer with the king and his great council, touching affairs of state, have transformed themselves from advisors into dictators. Beginning as suppliants they have ended as masters. The whole process is thus concisely summed up by Mr. Taylor: "The way in which the nation worked out this result was by building up alongside of the older national assembly a new body, composed of the representatives of the local self-governing communities, which, from humble beginnings, won first the right to participate in taxation, then to participate in legislation, then to impeach the ministers, and finally to participate in the control of the royal administration, and in the deposition of the king himself. The whole process is one of struggle and of growth. At the outset, Vos humbles, pauvres communs prient et supplient pour Dieu et en œuvre de charité,' that their petitions may be granted. Next they establish the principle that not until their grievances, as set forth in their petitions, are redressed will they grant the supplies expected of them. With this weapon in their hands they next claim the right to examine the royal accounts, to regulate the royal expenditures, and to hold responsible to themselves the ministers, who in earlier days answered not to the nation, but to the king. The final result of this process, which has only been fully worked out

in our own time, has been a virtual transfer of the fiscal, political and administrative powers of government from the king and his council to the representatives of the people."

The representatives of the commons have gradually grown in power until they dominate the aristocratic chamber, to which they at first seemed to be only an appendage, until they even dominate the royal power which nominally created them, and until, "under the ancient and still useful forms of the throne and the regalia, the people is king."

CHARLES P. NEILL.

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF CALDERON.

While preparing a bibliography for the study of the influence of Calderon upon Dryden, I found-with much surprise that out of one hundred and twenty formal plays, seventy autos, and some entremeses,' as near as can be determined, only sixteen that were wholly translated into English, and a few others analyzed or partially put into our own tongue. Of the prose works,' which are of little value, mention is seldom made. In various conversations upon literary subjects, and in my search for critical or commentative articles upon the plays of Calderon, I discovered that even these few translations were very little known.

It seems that we have overlooked in great measure the influence of the Spanish upon many of our own writers. During the time of the renaissance in England, under the Tudors, travellers brought back into their own country the literature of Italy, France, and Spain. English writers borrowed the manner, and often took over the incidents of these books of other lands. "We must say that the European drama is saturated with the Spanish influence. Take from the French, and from Beaumont and Fletcher and their contemporaries, from Dryden, Congreve, Wycherly, Shadwell, from Goldoni, Nota, Giraud, and others, all that they borrowed directly or indirectly from Spain, and you beggar them in respect to situation and incident.""3

. It is not to be wondered at that most English readers are satisfied with the knowledge that his works were classics; his plays are not for the latter-day fancy; yet it is a mistake on the part of students of the older English drama to pass him by without consideration. He is valuable to us for his influence on Dryden and the older dramatists, and for his own great1 Spanish Literature. Fitzmaurice Kelly, p. 320.

erato."

A treatise on the dignity of painting, in Mariano Nifo's "Cajon de Sastre Lit3 The Spanish Drama. G. H. Lewes. London : 1846, p. 6.

ness. In the histories of the Spanish literature he is held forth as the leader of an epoch whose writings hold in concrete form the spirit of the supreme age of a great country. We are told that after he died, "as the swan, singing," a new and lesser period began.

2

Beyond the histories of Spanish literature,1 the few general references to him and his times, and some few selections in general compilations of literature, most readers have little knowledge of him and his work.

3

In Germany the Schlegels undertook to bring Calderon before the people. They sang his praises with, perhaps, a little too much ardor, yet with much truth. Among the German commentators are Malsburg, Gries, the Schmidts, and Schultze. There is, besides, a goodly list of translators. Though the French lament that they have so few of Calderon's plays in their own language, they can yet boast of having more than we.

In English, so far as I have been able to determine, the plays or autos that have been translated wholly or partially are included in the appended list—with one or two additionsprepared by Denis Florence MacCarthy, and prefixed to the first of his two volumes of "Dramas, translated principally in the metre of the original."'5

1 Histories of Ticknor, Schaak, Kelly, Sismondi, Bouterwek, Lemcke and Chasles.

"Catholic World. Vol. XXXIII. Calderon de la Barca. M. F. Egan.

Library of the World's Best Literature, Vol. VII, p. 3071, Calderon, by Maurice Francis Egan.

Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, by August Wilhelm Schlegel, p. 501. Translated by John Black.

5 Quarterly Review, Vol. XXV, Amigo Amante y leal; El Principe Constante. Blackwood's Magazine: Agradacer y no Amar; La Devocion de la Cruz, Vol. XVIII; El Maestro de Danzar, Vol. XX; La Dama Duende, Vol. XLVII. Monthly Magazine: La Vida es Sueño, Vol. XCVI. Monthly Chronicle: La Vida es Sueño, Vol. III; El Magico Prodigioso, Vol. VI; El Magico Prodigioso, translated in part by Shelley; The Spanish Drama, G. H. Lewes, London, 1846. Irish Catholic Magazine, Dublin, 1847: El Purgatorio de San Patricio, Vol. I. Justina (El Magico Prodigioso) a play translated from the Spanish of Calderon de la Barca, by J. H. (D. F. MacCarthy). Dublin University Magazine: El Secreto a Voces, Vol. XXXII; Amar despues de la Muerte, Vol. XXXVI; El Medico de su Honra, Vol. XXXVIII; El Principe Constante, Vol. XXXVIII; La Banda y la Flor, Vol. XXXIX. Fraser's Magazine: Los tres Mayores Prodigios, Vol. XL. Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature. Westminster Review, Vol. LIV. Hallam's Intro. duction to the Literature of Europe. Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, translated by Thomas Roscoe. Bouterwek's History of Spanish Literature, translated by Thomasina Ross. Spanish Literature, by Alexander Forster. Six Dramas of Calderon, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Select Plays of Calderon, Norman Maccoll. Life and Genius of Calderon, R. C. Trench. Spanish Literature; Fitzmaurice Kelly.