[291] Book Fourth. The compliment to the actor shows, of course, that the piece was acted. Indeed, this is the proper inference from the whole Prologue. Obras, Tom. V. p. 347.

[292] Miñana, in his continuation of Mariana, (Lib. X. c. 15, Madrid, 1804, folio, p. 589), says, when speaking of the marriage of Philip III. at Valencia, “In the midst of such rejoicings, tasteful and frequent festivities and masquerades were not wanting, in which Lope de Vega played the part of the buffoon.”

[293] In Book Second.

[294] Lope boasts that he has made this sort of commutation and accommodation, as if it were a merit. “This was literally the way,” he says, “in which his Majesty, King Philip, entered Valencia.” Obras, Tom. V. p. 187.

[295] See ante, p. 90, and Comedias, Madrid, 1615, 4to, Prólogo. The phrase monstruo de naturaleza, in this passage, has been sometimes supposed to imply a censure of Lope on the part of Cervantes. But this is a mistake. It is a phrase frequently used; and though sometimes understood in malam partem, as it is in D. Quixote, Part I. c. 46,—“Vete de mi presencia, monstruo de naturaleza,”—it is generally understood to be complimentary; as, for instance, in the “Hermosa Ester” of Lope, (Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621), near the end of the first act, where Ahasuerus, in admiration of the fair Esther, says,—

Cervantes, I have no doubt, used it in wonder at Lope’s prodigious fertility.

[296] Lope must have been a writer for the public stage as early as 1586 or 1587, and a popular writer at Madrid soon after 1590; but we have no knowledge that any of his plays were printed, with his own consent, before the volume which appeared at Valladolid, in 1604. Yet, in the Preface to the “Peregrino en su Patria,” licensed in 1603, he gives us a list of three hundred and forty-one plays which he acknowledges and claims. Again, in 1618, when he says he had written eight hundred, (Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, Prólogo), he had printed but one hundred and thirty-four full-length plays, and a few entremeses. Finally, of the eighteen hundred attributed to him in 1635, after his death, by Montalvan and others, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 49), only about three hundred and twenty or thirty can be found in the volumes of his collected plays; and Lord Holland, counting autos and all, which would swell the general claim of Montalvan to at least twenty-two hundred, makes out but five hundred and sixteen printed dramas of Lope. Life of Lope de Vega, London, 1817, 8vo, Vol. II. pp. 158-180.

[297] This curious list, with the Preface in which it stands, is worth reading over carefully, as affording indications of the history and progress of Lope’s genius. It is to Lope’s dramatic life what the list in Meres is to Shakspeare. It is found in the Obras Sueltas, Tom. V.

[298] In his “New Art of Writing Plays,” he says, “I have now written, including one that I have finished this week, four hundred and eighty-three plays.” He printed this for the first time in 1609; and though it was probably written four or five years earlier, yet these lines near the end may have been added at the moment the whole poem went to the press. Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 417.

[299] In the Prólogo to Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618;—a witty address of the theatre to the readers.

[300] Comedias, Tom. XIV., Madrid, 1620, Dedication of “El Verdadero Amante” to his son.

[301] Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, Preface,—where he says, “Candid minds will hope, that, as I have lived long enough to write a thousand and seventy dramas, I may live long enough to print them.” The certificates of this volume are dated 1624-25.

[302] In the “Índice de los Ingenios de Madrid,” appended to the “Para Todos” of Montalvan, printed in 1632, he says Lope had then published twenty volumes of plays, and that the number of those that had been acted, without reckoning autos, was fifteen hundred. Lope also himself puts it at fifteen hundred in the “Egloga á Claudio,” which, though not published till after his death, must have been written as early as 1632, since it speaks of the “Dorotea,” first published in that year, as still waiting for the light.

[303] Fama Póstuma, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 49.

[304] Art. Lupus Felix de Vega.

[305] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. pp. 3, 19.

[306] “All studied out and written in five days.” Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 72. b.

[307] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52. How eagerly his plays were sought by the actors and received by the audiences of Madrid may be understood from the fact Lope mentions in the poem to his friend Claudio, that above a hundred were acted within twenty-four hours of the time when their composition was completed. Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 368.

[308] As early as 1603, Lope maintains this doctrine in the Preface to his “Peregrino”;—it occurs frequently afterwards in different parts of his works, as, for instance, in the Prólogo to his “Castigo sin Venganza”; and he left it as a legacy in the “Egloga á Claudio,” printed after his death. The “Nueva Arte de Hacer Comedias,” however, is abundantly explicit on the subject in 1609, and, no doubt, expressed the deliberate purpose of its author, from which he seems never to have swerved during his whole dramatic career.

[309] Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, 4to, f. 22, etc.

[310] I know this play, “Dineros son Calidad,” only among the Comedias Sueltas of Lope; but it is no doubt his, as it is in Tom. XXIV. printed at Zaragoza in 1632, which contains different plays from a Tom. XXIV. printed at Zaragoza in 1641, which I have. There is yet a third Tom. XXIV., printed at Madrid in 1638. The internal evidence would, perhaps, be enough to prove its authorship.

[311] Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, f. 277, etc., but often reprinted since under the title of “La Melindrosa.”

[312] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, f. 1, etc.

[313] Comedias, Tom. XI, Barcelona, 1618, f. 1, etc. The Preface to this volume is curious, on account of Lope’s complaints of the booksellers. He calls it “Prólogo del Teatro,” and makes the surreptitious publication of his plays an offence against the drama itself. He intimates that it was not very uncommon for one of his plays to be acted seventy times.

[314] The “Azero de Madrid,” which was written as early as 1603, has often been printed separately, and is found in the regular collection, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, f. 27, etc.

[315]

Comedias de Lope de Vega. Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, f. 27.

[316] The facts relating to this play are taken partly from the play itself, (Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 68. b), and partly from Casiano Pellicer, Orígen y Progresos de la Comedia, Madrid, 1804, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 174-181.

A similar entertainment had been given by his queen to Philip IV., on his birthday, in 1622, at the beautiful country-seat of Aranjuez, for which the unfortunate Count of Villamediana furnished the poetry, and Fontana, the distinguished Italian architect, erected a theatre of great magnificence. The drama, which was much like a masque of the English theatre, and was performed by the queen and her ladies, is in the Works of Count Villamediana (Çaragoça, 1629, 4to, pp. 1-55); and an account of the entertainment itself is given in Antonio de Mendoça (Obras, Lisboa, 1690, 4to, pp. 426-464);—all indicating the most wasteful luxury and extravagance.

[317] Lope himself, in 1624, published a poem on the same subject, which fills thirty pages in the third volume of his Works; but a description of the frolics of St. John’s eve, better suited to illustrate this play of Lope, and much else on St. John’s eve in Spanish poetry, is in “Doblado’s Letters,” (1822, p. 309),—a work full of the most faithful sketches of Spanish character and manners.

[318] Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 45, etc.

[319]

Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635. f. 47.

[320] Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 158, etc.

[321] Ibid., f. 243, etc. It has often been printed separately; once in London.

[322] Comedias, Tom. VIII., Madrid, 1617, and often printed separately; a play remarkable for its gayety and spirit.

[323] Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, f. 187, etc.

[324] Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, f. 96, etc.

[325] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 410.

[326] Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, ff. 177, etc. It is entitled “Tragedia Famosa.”

[327] It is worth while to compare Suetonius, (Books V. and VI.), and the “Crónica General,” (Parte I. c. 110 and 111), with the corresponding passages in the “Roma Abrasada.” In one passage of Act III., Lope uses a ballad, the first lines of which occur in the first act of the “Celestina.”

[328] This scene is in the second act, and forms that part of the play where Nero enacts the gracioso.

[329] Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 121, etc.

[330]

Comedias de Lope de Vega, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 143, 144.

This passage is near the end of the piece, and leads to the dénouement by one of those flowing narratives, like an Italian novella, to which Lope frequently resorts, when the intriguing fable of the drama has been carried far enough to fill up the three customary acts.

[331] Comedias, Tom. IV., Madrid, 1614; and also in the Appendix to Ochoa’s “Teatro Escogido de Lope de Vega” (Paris, 1838, 8vo). Fernando de Zarate took some of the materials for his “Conquista de Mexico,” (Comedias escogidas, Tom. XXX., Madrid, 1668), such as the opening of Jornada II., from this play of Lope de Vega.

[332]

El Nuevo Mundo, Jorn. I.

[333]

El Nuevo Mundo, Jorn. I.

[334] The story was well known, from its peculiar horrors, though the events occurred in 1405,—more than two centuries before the date of the play. Lope, in the Preface to his version of it, says it was extant in Latin, French, German, Tuscan, and Castilian.

[335] This play contains all the usual varieties of measure,—redondillas, tercetas, a sonnet, etc.; but especially, in the first act, a silva of beautiful fluency.

[336] I possess the original MS., entirely in Lope’s handwriting, with many alterations, corrections, and interlineations by himself. It is prepared for the actors, and has the certificate to license it by Pedro de Vargas Machuca, a poet himself, and Lope’s friend, who was much employed to license plays for the theatre. He also figured at the “Justas Poéticas” of San Isidro, published by Lope in 1620 and 1622; and in the “Justa” in honor of the Vírgen del Pilar, published by Caceres in 1629; in neither of which, however, do his poems give proof of much talent, though there is no doubt of his popularity with his contemporaries. (Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. IV. p. 199.) At the top of each page in the MS. of Lope de Vega is a cross with the names or ciphers of “Jesus, Maria, Josephus, Christus”; and at the end, “Laus Deo et Mariæ Virgini,” with the date of its completion and the signature of the author. Whether Lope thought it possible to consecrate the gross immoralities of such a drama by religious symbols, I do not know; but if he did, it would not be inconsistent with his character or the spirit of his time. A cross was commonly put at the top of Spanish letters,—a practice alluded to in Lope’s “Perro del Hortelano,” (Jornada II.), and one that must have led often to similar incongruities.

[337] Comedias, Tom. II., Madrid, 1609. Thrice, at least,—viz., in this play, in his “Fuente Ovejuna,” and in his “Peribañez,”—Lope has shown us commanders of the great military orders of his country in very odious colors, representing them as men of the most fierce pride and the grossest passions, like the Front-de-Bœuf of Ivanhoe.

[338] Old copies of this play are excessively scarce, and I obtained, therefore, many years ago, a manuscript of it, from which it was reprinted twice in this country by Mr. F. Sales, in his “Obras Maestras Dramáticas” (Boston, 1828 and 1840); the last time with corrections, kindly furnished by Don A. Duran, of Madrid;—a curious fact in Spanish bibliography, and one that should be mentioned to the honor of Mr. Sales, whose various publications have done much to spread the love of Spanish literature in the United States, and to whom I am indebted for my first knowledge of it. The same play is well known on the modern Spanish stage, and has been reprinted, both at Madrid and London, with large alterations, under the title of “Sancho Ortis de las Roelas.” An excellent abstract of it, in its original state, and faithful translations of parts of it, are to be found in Lord Holland’s Life of Lope (Vol. I. pp. 155-200); out of which, and not out of the Spanish original, Baron Zedlitz composed “Der Stern von Sevilla”; a play by no means without merit, which was printed at Stuttgard in 1830, and has been often acted in different parts of Germany.

[339] Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 91, etc., in which Lope has wisely followed the old monkish traditions, rather than either the “Crónica General,” (Parte II. c. 51), or the yet more sobered account of Mariana, Hist., Lib. VI. c. 12.

[340] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, ff. 369, etc. It is called “Tragicomedia.”

[341] The first edition of the first volume of Lope’s plays is that of Valladolid, 1604. See Brunet, etc.

[342] The first two of these plays, which are not to be found in the collected dramatic works of Lope, have often been printed separately; but the last occurs, I believe, only in the first volume of the Comedias, (Valladolid, 1604, f. 98), and in the reprints of it. It makes free use of the old ballads of Durandarte and Belorma.

[343] The “Siete Infantes de Lara” is in the Comedias, Tom. V., Madrid, 1615; and the “Bastardo Mudarra” is in Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641.

[344] Thus, the attractive story of “El Mejor Alcalde el Rey” is, as he himself tells us at the conclusion, taken from the fourth part of the “Crónica General.”

[345] “El Gran Duque de Muscovia,” Comedias, Tom. VII., Madrid, 1617.

[346] “Arauco Domado,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. The scene is laid about 1560; but the play is intended as a compliment to the living son of the conqueror. In the Dedication to him, Lope asserts it to be a true history; but there is, of course, much invention mingled with it, especially in the parts that do honor to the Spaniards. Among its personages is the author of the “Araucana,” Alonso de Ercilla, who comes upon the stage beating a drum. Another and earlier play of Lope may be compared with the “Arauco”; I mean “Los Guanches de Tenerife” (Comedias, Tom. X., Madrid, 1620, f. 128). It is on the similar subject of the conquest of the Canary Islands, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and, as in the “Arauco Domado,” the natives occupy much of the canvas.

[347] “La Santa Liga,” Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621.

[348] “El Valiente Cespedes,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. This notice is specially given to the reader by Lope, out of tenderness to the reputation of Doña María de Cespedes, who does not appear in the play with all the dignity which those who, in Lope’s time, claimed to be descended from her might exact at his hands.

[349] In “Roma Abrasada,” Acto II. f. 89, already noticed, ante, p. 193.

[350] Jornada II. of “Exemplo Mayor de la Desdicha, y Capitan Belisario”; not in the collection of Lope’s plays, and though often printed separately as his, and inserted as such on Lord Holland’s list, it is published in the old and curious collection entitled “Comedias de Diferentes Autores,” (4to, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633), as the work of Montalvan, both he and Lope being then alive.

[351] “Contra Valor no hay Desdicha.” Like the last, it has been often reprinted. It begins with the romantic account of Cyrus’s exposure to death, in consequence of his grandfather’s dream, and ends with a battle and his victory over Astyages and all his enemies.

[352] We occasionally meet with the phrase comedias de ruido; but it does not mean a class of plays separated from the others by different rules of composition. It refers to the machinery used in their exhibition; so that comedias de capa y espada, and especially comedias de santos, which often demanded a large apparatus, were not unfrequently comedias de ruido. In the same way, comedias de apariencias were plays demanding much scenery and scene-shifting.

[353] “La Moza de Cantaro” and “La Esclava de su Galan” have continued to be favorites down to our own times. The first was printed at London, not many years ago, and the last at Paris, in Ochoa’s collection, 1838, 8vo, and at Bielefeld, in that of Schütz, 1840, 8vo.

[354] Comedias, Tom. VI., Madrid, 1615, ff. 101, etc. It may be worth notice, that the character of Mendo is like that of Camacho in the Second Part of Don Quixote, which was first printed in the same year, 1615. The resemblance between the two, however, is not very strong, and I dare say is wholly accidental.

[355]

Comedias, Tom. VI, Madrid, 1615, f. 117.

[356] There is in these passages something of the euphuistical style then in favor, under the name of the estilo culto, with which Lope sometimes humored the more fashionable portions of his audience, though on other occasions he bore a decided testimony against it.

[357] This play, I think, gave the hint to Calderon for his “Alcalde de Zalamea,” in which the character of Pedro Crespo, the peasant, is drawn with more than his accustomed distinctness. It is the last piece in the common collection of Calderon’s Comedias, and nearly all its characters are happily touched.

[358] This is among the more curious of the old popular Spanish tales. N. Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 9) assigns no age to its author, and no date to the published story. Denis, in his “Chroniques de l’Espagne,” etc., (Paris, 1839, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 285) gives no additional light, but, in one of his notes, treats its ideas on natural history as those of the moyen âge. It seems, however, from internal evidence, to have been composed after the fall of Granada. Brunet (Table, No. 17,572) notices an edition of it in 1607. The copy I use is of 1726, showing that it was in favor in the eighteenth century; and I possess another printed for popular circulation about 1845. We find early allusions to the Donzella Teodor, as a well-known personage; for example, in the “Modest Man at Court” of Tirso de Molina, where one of the characters, speaking of a lady he admires, cries out, “Que Donzella Teodor!” Cigarrales de Toledo, Madrid, 1624, 4to, p. 158.

[359] The popular English story of “Fryer Bacon” hardly goes back farther than to the end of the sixteenth century, though some of its materials may be traced to the “Gesta Romanorum.” Robert Greene’s play on it was printed in 1594. Both may be considered as running parallel with the story and play of the “Donzella Teodor,” so as to be read with advantage when comparing the Spanish drama with the English.

[360] Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 27, etc.

[361] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, ff. 231, etc.

[362] These passages are much indebted to the “Trato de Argel” of Cervantes.

[363] See, passim, Haedo, “Historia de Argel” (Madrid, 1612, folio). He reckons the number of Christian captives, chiefly Spaniards, in Algiers, at twenty-five thousand.

[364] Lope, Obras Sueltas, Tom. III. p. 377. I am much disposed to think the play referred to as acted in the prisons of Algiers is Lope’s own moral play of the “Marriage of the Soul to Divine Love,” in the second book of the “Peregrino en su Patria.”

[365] The passages in which Cervantes occurs are on ff. 245, 251, and especially 262 and 277, Comedias, Tom. XXV.

[366] The fusion of the three classes may be seen at a glance in Lope’s fine play, “El Mejor Alcalde el Rey,” (Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635), founded on a passage in the fourth part of the “General Chronicle” (ed. 1604, f. 327). The hero and heroine belong to the condition of peasants; the person who makes the mischief is their liege lord; and, from the end of the second act, the king and one or two of the principal persons about the court play leading parts. On the whole, it ranks technically with the comedias heróicas; and yet the best and most important scenes are those relating to common life, while others of no little consequence belong to the class of capa y espada.

[367] How the Spanish theatre, as it existed in the time of Philip IV., ought to have been regarded may be judged by the following remarks on such of its plays as continued to be represented at the end of the eighteenth century, read in 1796 to the Spanish Academy of History, by Jovellanos,—a personage who will be noticed when we reach the period during which he lived.

“As for myself,” says that wise and faithful magistrate, “I am persuaded there can be found no proof so decisive of the degradation of our taste as the cool indifference with which we tolerate the representation of dramas, in which modesty, the gentler affections, good faith, decency, and all the virtues and principles belonging to a sound morality, are openly trampled under foot. Do men believe that the innocence of childhood and the fervor of youth, that an idle and dainty nobility and an ignorant populace, can witness without injury such examples of effrontery and grossness, of an insolent and absurd affectation of honor, of contempt of justice and the laws, and of public and private duty, represented on the stage in the most lively colors, and rendered attractive by the enchantment of scenic illusions and the graces of music and verse? Let us, then, honestly confess the truth. Such a theatre is a public nuisance, and the government has no just alternative but to reform it or suppress it altogether.” Memorias de la Acad., Tom. V. p. 397.

Elsewhere, in the same excellent discourse, its author shows that he was by no means insensible to the poetical merits of the old theatre, whose moral influences he deprecated.

“I shall always be the first,” he says, “to confess its inimitable beauties; the freshness of its inventions, the charm of its style, the flowing naturalness of its dialogue, the marvellous ingenuity of its plots, the ease with which every thing is at last explained and adjusted; the brilliant interest, the humor, the wit, that mark every step as we advance;—but what matters all this, if this same drama, regarded in the light of truth and wisdom, is infected with vices and corruptions that can be tolerated neither by a sound state of morals nor by a wise public policy?” Ibid., p. 413.