semblances are superficial, and the character of Don Juan, the
incarnation of perverse sensuality and arrogant blasphemy, may be
considered as the creation of Tirso de Molina, though the ascription to
him of _El Burlador de Sevilla_ has been disputed. The Spanish drama was
apparently more popular in Italy than in Spain, and was frequently given
in pantomime by the Italian actors, who accounted for its permanent
vogue by saying that Tirso de Molina had sold his soul to the devil for
fame. A company of these Italian mimes took the story into France in
1657, and it was dramatized by Dorimond in 1659 and by De Villiers in
1661; their attempts suggested _Le Festin de pierre_ (1665) to Moliere,
who, apparently with the Spanish original before his eyes, substituted
prose for verse, reduced the supernatural element, and interpolated
comic effects completely out of keeping with the earlier conception.
Later adaptations by Rosimond and Thomas Corneille were even less
successful. The story was introduced into England by Sir Aston Cokain in
his unreadable _Tragedy of Ovid_ (1669), and was the theme of _The
Libertine_ (1676), a dull and obscene play by Shadwell. Goldoni's _D.
Giovanni Tenorio osia Il Dissoluto_, based upon the adaptations of
Moliere and Thomas Corneille, is one of his least interesting
productions. Tirso de Molina's play was recast, but not improved, by
Antonio de Zamora early in the 18th century. A hundred years later the
character of Don Juan was endowed with a new name in Espronceda's
_Estudiante de Salamanca_; Don Felix de Montemar is plainly modelled on
Don Juan Tenorio, and rivals the original in licentiousness, impiety and
grim humour. But the most curious resuscitation of the type in Spain is
the protagonist in Zorrilla's _Don Juan Tenorio_, which is usually
played in all large cities during the first week in November, and has
come to be regarded as an essentially national work. It is in fact
little more than an adaptation of the elder Dumas' _Don Juan de Marana_,
which, in its turn, derives chiefly from Merimee's novel, _Les Ames du
purgatoire_. Less exotic are Zorrilla's two poems on the same
subject--_El Desafio del diablo_ and _El Testigo de bronce_. Byron's
_Don Juan_ presents a Regency lady-killer who resembles Ulloa's murderer
in nothing but his name.

The sustained popularity of the Don Juan legend is undoubtedly due in
great measure to Mozart's incomparable setting of Da Ponte's mediocre
libretto. I