Pedro Calderón de la Barca 
St Cyprian: the wonder working magician 

The second drama in this volume, ‘The Wonderful Magician’, is perhaps better known to poetical students in England than even the first, from the spirited fragment Shelley has left us in his ‘Scenes from Calderon.’ The preoccupation of a subject by a great master throws immense difficulties in the way of any one who ventures to follow in the same path: but as Shelley allowed himself great licence in his versification, and either from carelessness or an imperfect knowledge of Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author, it may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the form as well as substance of the original may be some compensation for the absence of those higher poetical harmonies to which many of my readers will have been accustomed.