PARENT source of what is called realism, The Book the Celestina has for its most striking characteristic a quality of perennial freshness, beside which the most of Calderón, howbeit a hundred and fifty years younger, shows withered and scentless and stale. The book, indeed, is near four centuries old, but its youth is well-nigh unabated; and so much will be admitted even by those rigid reprehenders-if any there be left-whose censure Mabbe encountered with defiance. Its vogue, immense from the outset, is wofully diminished now; but its authority rather waxes than dwindles with time. fruict que produict ce livre, said the old French translator,'pour vieillir ne perd iamais saison; and he said