[456] Like some other distinguished authors, however, he was inclined to undervalue what he did most happily, and to prefer what is least worthy of preference. Thus, in the Preface to his Comedias, (Vol. XV., Madrid, 1621), he shows that he preferred his longer poems to his plays, which he says he holds but “as the wild-flowers of his field, that grow up without care or culture.”

[457] This might be inferred from the account in Montalvan’s “Fama Póstuma”; but Lope himself declares it distinctly in the “Egloga á Claudio,” where he says, “The printed part of my writings, though too much, is small, compared with what remains unpublished.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 369.) Indeed, we know we have hardly a fourth part of his full-length plays; only twelve autos out of four hundred; only twenty or thirty entremeses out of the “infinite number” ascribed to him.

[458] Bisbe y Vidal, “Tratado de Comedias,” (1618, f. 102), speaks of the “glosses which the actors make extempore upon lines given to them on the stage.”

[459] Viardot, Études sur la Littérature en Espagne, Paris, 1835, 8vo, p. 339.

[460] Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles, (Madrid, 1778, 4to, Tom. I. pp. 89-91), in which there is a curious narrative by Diego, Duke of Estrada, giving an account of one of these entertainments, (a burlesque play on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice), performed before the viceroy and his court.

[461] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52.

[462] A diffuse life of Quevedo was published at Madrid in 1663, by Don Pablo Antonio de Tarsia, a Neapolitan, and is inserted in the tenth volume of the best edition of Quevedo’s Works,—that of Sancha, Madrid, 1791-94, 11 tom., 8vo. A shorter, and, on the whole, a more satisfactory, life of him is to be found in Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. pp. 137-154.

[463] In his “Grandes Anales de Quince Dias,” speaking of the powerful President Acevedo, he says, “I was unwelcome to him, because, coming myself from the mountains, I never flattered the ambition he had to make himself out to be above men to whom we, in our own homes, acknowledge no superiors.” Obras, Tom. XI. p. 63.

[464] The first is the very curious paper entitled “Caida de su Privanza y Muerte del Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the Seminario Erudito (Madrid, 1787, 4to, Tom. III.); and the other is “Memorial de Don F. Quevedo contra el Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the same collection, Tom. XV.

[465] This letter, often reprinted, is in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas Morales,” etc., Valencia, 1773, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 151. Another letter to his friend Adan de la Parra, giving an account of his mode of life during his confinement, shows that he was extremely industrious. Indeed, industry was his main resource a large part of the time he was in San Márcos de Leon. Seminario Erudito, Tom. I. p. 65.

[466] Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. IV. p. xxxi.

[467] His nephew, in a Preface to the second volume of his uncle’s Poems, (published at Madrid, 1670, 4to), says that Quevedo died of two imposthumes on his chest, which were formed during his last imprisonment.

[468] Obras, Tom. X. p. 45, and N. Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 463. A considerable amount of his miscellaneous works may be found in the Seminario Erudito, Tom. I., III., VI., and XV.

[469] Besides these dramas, whose names are unknown to us, he wrote, in conjunction with Ant. Hurtado de Mendoza, and at the command of the Count Duke Olivares, who afterwards treated him so cruelly, a play called “Quien mas miente, medra mas,”—He that lies most, will rise most,—for the gorgeous entertainment that prodigal minister gave to Philip IV. on St. John’s eve, 1631. See the account of it in the notice of Lope de Vega, ante, p. 185, and post, p. 324, note 21.

[470]

is in Pedro Espinosa, “Flores de Poetas Ilustres,” Madrid, 1605, 4to, f. 18.

[471] “Not the twentieth part was saved of the verses which many persons knew to have been extant at the time of his death, and which, during our constant intercourse, I had countless times held in my hands,” says Gonzalez de Salas, in the Preface to the first part of Quevedo’s Poems, 1648.

[472] Preface to Tom. VII. of Obras. His request on his death-bed, that nearly all his works, printed or manuscript, might be suppressed, is triumphantly recorded in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 425.

[473] “Los equívocos y las alusiones suyas,” says his editor, in 1648, “son tan frequentes y multiplicados, aquellos y estas, ansí en un solo verso y aun en una palabra, que es bien infalible que mucho número sin advertirse se haya de perder.” Obras, Tom. VII., Elogios, etc.

[474] They are at the end of the seventh volume of the Obras, and also in Hidalgo, “Romances de Germania” (Madrid, 1779, 12mo, pp. 226-295). Of the lighter ballads in good Castilian, we may notice, especially, “Padre Adan, no lloreis duelos,” (Tom. VIII. p. 187), and “Dijo á la rana el mosquito,” Tom. VII. p. 514.

[475] Obras, Tom. VII. pp. 192-200, and VIII. pp. 533-550. The last is somewhat coarse, though not so bad as its model in this respect.

[476] See the cancion (Tom. VII. p. 323) beginning, “Pues quita al año Primavera el ceño”; also some of the poems in the “Erato” to the lady he calls Fili, who seems to have been more loved by him than any other.

[477] Particularly in “The Dream,” (Tom. IX. p. 296), and in the “Hymn to the Stars,” p. 338.

[478] There are several poems about cultismo, Obras, Tom. VIII. pp. 82, etc. The “Aguja de Navegar Cultos” is in Tom. I. p. 443; and immediately following it is the Catechism, whose whimsical title I have abridged somewhat freely.

[479] Perhaps there is a little too much of the imitation of Petrarch and of the Italians in the Poems of the Bachiller de la Torre; but they are, I think, not only graceful and beautiful, but generally full of the national tone, and of a tender spirit, connected with a sincere love of nature and natural scenery. I would instance the ode, “Alexis que contraria,” in the edition of Velazquez (p. 17), and the truly Horatian ode (p. 44) beginning, “O tres y quatro veces venturosa,” with the description of the dawn of day, and the sonnet to Spring (p. 12). The first eclogue, too, and all the endechas, which are in the most flowing Adonian verse, should not be overlooked. Sometimes he has unrhymed lyrics, in the ancient measures, not always successful, but seldom without beauty.

[480] “Poesías que publicó D. Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, Cavallero del Órden de Santiago, Señor de la Torre de Juan Abad, con el nombre del Bachiller Francisco de la Torre. Añadese en esta segunda edicion un Discurso, en que se descubre ser el verdadero autor el mismo D. Francisco de Quevedo, por D. Luis Joseph Velazquez,” etc. Madrid, 1753, 4to.

[481] Quintana denies it in the Preface to his “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1807, 12mo, Tom. I. p. xxxix.). So does Fernandez (or Estala for him), in his Collection of “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1808, 12mo, Tom. IV. p. 40); and, what is of more significance, so does Wolf, in the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1835, Tom. LXIX. p. 189. On the other side are Baena, in his Life of Quevedo; Sedano, in his “Parnaso Español”; Luzan, in his “Poética”; and Bouterwek, in his History. Martinez de la Rosa and Faber seem unable to decide. But none of them gives any reasons. I have in the text, and in the subsequent notes, stated the case as fully as seems needful, and have no doubt that Quevedo was the author, or that he knew and concealed the author.

[482] We know, concerning the conclusion of Ercilla’s life, only that he died as early as 1595; thirty-six years before the publication of the Bachelor, and when Quevedo was only fifteen years old.

[483] It is even doubtful who this Bachiller de la Torre of Boscan was. Velazquez (Pref., v.) thinks it was probably Alonso de la Torre, author of the “Vision Deleytable,” (circa 1465), of which we have spoken, Vol. I. p. 417; and Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. IV. p. 169) thinks it may perhaps have been Pedro Diaz de la Torre, who died in 1504, one of the counsellors of Ferdinand and Isabella. But, in either case, the name does not correspond with that of Quevedo’s Bachiller Francisco de la Torre any better than the style, thoughts, and forms of the few poems which may be found in the Cancionero of 1573, at ff. 124-127, etc., do with those published by Quevedo.

[484] He was exiled there in 1628, for six months, as well as imprisoned there in 1620. Obras, Tom. X. p. 88.

[485] It is among the suspicious circumstances accompanying the first publication of the Bachiller de la Torre’s works, that one of the two persons who give the required Aprobaciones is Vander Hammen, who played the sort of trick upon the public of which Quevedo is accused; a vision he wrote being, to this day, printed as Quevedo’s own, in Quevedo’s works. The other person who gives an Aprobacion to the Bachiller de la Torre is Valdivielso, a critic of the seventeenth century, whose name often occurs in this way; whose authority on such points is small; and who does not say that he ever saw the manuscript or the Approbation of Ercilla. See, for Vander Hammen, post, p. 273.

[486] These works, chiefly theological, metaphysical, and ascetic, fill more than six of the eleven octavo volumes that constitute Quevedo’s works in the edition of 1791-94, and belong to the class of didactic prose.

[487] Watt, in his Bibliotheca, art. Quevedo, cites an edition of “El Gran Tacaño,” at Zaragoza, 1626; but I do not find it mentioned elsewhere. I know of none earlier than that of 1627. Since that time, it has appeared in the original in a great number of editions, both at home and abroad. Into Italian it was translated by P. Franco, as early as 1634; into French by Genest, the well-known translator of that period, as early as 1644; and into English, anonymously, as early as 1657. Many other versions have been made since;—the last, known to me, being one of Paris, 1843, 8vo, by A. Germond de Lavigne. His translation is made with spirit; but, besides that he has thrust into it passages from other works of Quevedo, and a story by Salas Barbadillo, he has made a multitude of petty additions, alterations, and omissions; some desirable, perhaps, from the indecency of the original, others not; and winds off the whole with a conclusion of his own, which savors of the sentimental and extravagant school of Victor Hugo. There is, also, a translation of it into English, in a collection of some of Quevedo’s works, printed at Edinburgh, in 3 vols., 8vo, 1798; and a German translation in Bertuch’s Magazin der Spanischen und Portug. Litteratur (Dessau, 1781, 8vo, Band II.). But neither of them is to be commended for its fidelity.

[488] They are in Vols. I. and II. of the edition of his Works, Madrid, 1791, 8vo.

[489] The “Cartas del Cavallero de la Tenaza” were first printed, I believe, in 1635; and there is a very good translation of them in Band I. of the Magazin of Bertuch, an active man of letters, the friend of Musäus, Wieland, and Goethe, who, by translations and in other ways, did much, between 1769 and 1790, to promote a love for Spanish literature in Germany.

[490] I know of no edition of “La Fortuna con Seso” earlier than one I possess, printed at Zaragoza, 1650, 12mo; and as N. Antonio declares this satire to have been a posthumous work, I suppose there is none older. It is there said to be translated from the Latin of Rifroscrancot Viveque Vasgel Duacense; an imperfect anagram of Quevedo’s own name, Francisco Quevedo Villegas.

[491] One of these Sueños is dated as early as 1608,—the “Zahurdas de Pluton”; but none, I think, was printed earlier than 1627; and all the six that are certainly by Quevedo were first printed together in a small collection of his satirical works that appeared at Barcelona, in 1635, entitled “Juguetes de la Fortuna.” They were translated into French by Genest, and printed in 1641. Into English they were very freely rendered by Sir Roger L’Estrange, and published in 1668 with such success, that the tenth edition of them was printed at London in 1708, 8vo, and I believe there was yet one more. This is the basis of the translations of the Visions found in Quevedo’s Works, Edinburgh, 1798, Vol. I., and in Roscoe’s Novelists, 1832, Vol. II. All the translations I have seen are bad. The best is that of L’Estrange, or at least the most spirited; but still L’Estrange is not always faithful when he knew the meaning, and he is sometimes unfaithful from ignorance. Indeed, the great popularity of his translations was probably owing, in some degree, to the additions he boldly made to his text, and the frequent accommodations he hazarded of its jests to the scandal and taste of his times by allusions entirely English and local.

[492] The six unquestioned Sueños are in Tom. I. of the Madrid edition of Quevedo, 1791. The “Casa de los Locos de Amor” is in Tom. II.; and as N. Antonio (Bib. Nov., I. 462, and II. 10) says Vander Hammen, a Spanish author of Flemish descent, told him that he wrote it himself, we are bound to take it from the proper list of Quevedo’s works.

[493] Obras, Tom. VII. p. 289.

[494] A violent attack was made on Quevedo, ten years before his death, in a volume entitled “El Tribunal de la Justa Venganza,” printed at Valencia, 1635, 12mo, pp. 294, and said to be written by the Licenciado Arnaldo Franco-Furt; probably a pseudonyme. It is thrown into the form of a trial, before regular judges, of the satirical works of Quevedo then published; and, except when the religious prejudices of the author prevail over his judgment, is not more severe than Quevedo’s license merited. No honor, however, is done to his genius or his wit; and personal malice seems apparent in many parts of it.

In 1794, Sancha printed, at Madrid, a translation of Anacreon, with notes by Quevedo, making 160 pages, but not numbering them as a part of the eleventh volume, 8vo, of Quevedo’s Works, which he completed that year. They are more in the terse and classical manner of the Bachiller de la Torre than the same number of pages anywhere among Quevedo’s acknowledged works; but the translation is not very strict, and the spirit of the original is not so well caught as it is by Estévan Manuel de Villegas, whose “Eróticas” will be noticed hereafter. The version of Quevedo is dedicated to the Duke of Ossuna, his patron, Madrid, 1st April, 1609. Villegas did not publish till 1617; but it is not likely that he knew any thing of the labors of Quevedo.

[495] Quintana, Historia de Madrid, 1630, folio, Lib. III., c. 24-26. Cabrera, Historia de Felipe II., Madrid, 1619, folio, Lib. V., c. 9; where he says Charles V. had intended to make Madrid his capital.

[496] The “Comedia Jacobina” is found in a curious and rare volume of religious poetry, entitled “Libro de Poesía, Christiana, Moral, y Divina,” por el Doctor Frey Damian de Vegas (Toledo, 1590, 12mo, ff. 503). It contains a poem on the Immaculate Conception, long the turning-point of Spanish orthodoxy; a colloquy between the Soul, the Will, and the Understanding, which may have been represented; and a great amount of religious poetry, both lyric and didactic, much of it in the old Spanish measures, and much in the Italian, but none better than the mass of poor verse on such subjects then in favor.

[497] It is ascertained that the Canon Tarrega lived at Valencia in 1591, and wrote eleven plays, two of which are known only by their titles. The rest were printed at Madrid in 1614, and again in 1616. Cervantes praises him in the Preface to his Comedias, 1615, among the early followers of Lope, for his discrecion é inumerables conceptos. It is evident from the notice of the “Enemiga Favorable,” by the wise canon in Don Quixote, that it was then regarded as the best of its author’s plays, as it has been ever since. Rodriguez, Biblioteca Valentina, Valencia, 1747, folio, p. 146. Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Valencia, 1747, Tom. I. p. 240. Fuster, Biblioteca Valentina, Valencia, 1827, folio, Tom. I. p. 310. Don Quixote, Parte I., c. 48.

[498] This farce, much like an entremes or saynete of modern times, is a quarrel between two lackeys for a damsel of their own condition, which ends with one of them being half drowned by the other in a public fountain. It winds up with a ballad older than itself; for it alludes to a street as being about to be constructed through Leganitos, while one of the personages in the farce speaks of the street as already there. The fountain is appropriately introduced, for Leganitos was famous for it. (See Cervantes, Ilustre Fregona, and D. Quixote, Parte II., c. 22, with the note of Pellicer.) Such little circumstances abound in the popular portions of the old Spanish drama, and added much to its effect at the time it appeared.

[499] The “Enemiga Favorable” is divided into three jornadas called actos, and shows otherwise that it was constructed on the model of Lope’s dramas. But Tarrega wrote also at least one religious play, “The Foundation of the Order of Mercy.” It is the story of a great robber who becomes a great saint, and may have suggested to Calderon his “Devocion de la Cruz.”

[500] Laurel de Apolo, (Madrid, 1630, 4to, f. 21), where Lope says, speaking of Tarrega, “Gaspar Aguilar competia con él en la dramática poesía.”

[501]

Mercader Amante, Jorn. I.

Ibid., Jorn. II.

[502] The accounts of Aguilar are found in Rodriguez, pp. 148, 149, and in Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 255, who, as is often the case, has done little but arrange in better order the materials collected by Rodriguez. Aguilar’s nine plays are in collections printed at Valencia in 1614 and 1616, mingled with the plays of other poets. A copy of the “Suerte sin Esperanza” which I possess, without date or paging, seems older.

[503] In the note of Cerdá y Rico to the “Diana” of Gil Polo, 1802, pp. 515-519, is an account of this Academy, and a list of its members.

[504] Rodriguez, p. 177; Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 305; Fuster, Tom. I. p. 235. The last is important on this subject.

[505] Both these plays are in the first volume of his Comedias, printed in 1614; but I have the Don Quixote in a separate pamphlet, without paging or date, and with rude wood-cuts, such as belong to the oldest Spanish publications of the sort. The first time Don Quixote appears in it, the stage direction is, “Enter Don Quixote on Rozinante, dressed as he is described in his book.” The redondillas in this drama, regarded as mere verses, are excellent; e. g. Cardenio’s lamentations at the end of the first act:—

and so on. Guerin de Bouscal, one of a considerable number of French dramatists (see Puybusque, Tom. II. p. 441) who resorted freely to Spanish sources between 1630 and 1650, brought this drama of Guillen on the French stage in 1638.

[506] It is in the second volume of Guillen’s plays; but it is also in the “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” etc., Madrid, 1652.

[507] This comedia de santo does not appear in the collection of Guillen’s plays; but my copy of it (Madrid, 1729) attributes it to him, and so does the Catalogue of Huerta; besides which, the internal evidence from its versification and manner is strong for its genuineness. The passages in which the lady speaks of Christ as her lover and spouse are, like all such passages in the old Spanish drama, offensive to Protestant ears.

[508] Fr. Santos, “El Verdad en el Potro, y el Cid resuscitado,” (Madrid, 1686, 12mo), contains (pp. 9, 10, 51, 106, etc.) ballads on the Cid, as he says they were then sung in the streets by the blind beggars. The same or similar statements are made by Sarmiento, nearly a century later.

[509]

Mocedades del Cid, Primera Parte, Jorn. II.

[510] This impeachment of the honor of the whole city of Zamora, for having harboured the murderer of King Sancho, fills a large place in the “Crónica General,” (Parte IV.), in the “Crónica del Cid,” and in the old ballads, and is called El Reto de Zamora,—a form of challenge preserved in this play of Guillen, and recognized as a legal form so far back as the Partida VII., Tít. III., “De los Rieptos.”

[511] The plays of Guillen on the Cid have often been reprinted, though hardly one of his other dramas has been. Voltaire, in his Preface to Corneille’s Cid, says Corneille took his hints from Diamante. But the reverse is the case. Diamante wrote after Corneille, and was indebted to him largely, as we shall see hereafter. Lord Holland’s Life of Guillen, already referred to, ante, p. 121, is interesting, though imperfect.

[512] “Las Maravillas de Babilonia” is not in Guillen’s collected dramas, and is not mentioned by Rodriguez or Fuster. But it is in a volume entitled “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” Madrid, 1652, 4to.

[513] Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 68, and Montalvan, Para Todos, in his catalogue of authors who wrote for the stage when (in 1632) that catalogue was made out. Guevara will be noticed again as the author of the “Diablo Cojuelo.”

[514] Crónica de D. Sancho el Bravo, Valladolid, 1554, folio, f. 76.

[515] Quintana, Vidas de Españoles Célebres, Tom. I., Madrid, 1807, 12mo, p. 51, and the corresponding passage in the play. Martinez de la Rosa, in his “Isabel de Solís,” describing a real or an imaginary picture of the death of the young Guzman, gives a tender turn to the father’s conduct; but the hard old chronicle is more likely to tell the truth, and the play follows it.

[516] The copy I use of this play was printed in 1745. Like most of the other published dramas of Guevara, it has a good deal of bombast, and some Gongorism. But a lofty tone runs through it, that always found an echo in the Spanish character.

[517] The “Luna de la Sierra” is the first play in the “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” 1652.

[518] The plays last mentioned are found scattered in different collections,—“The Devil’s Lawsuit” being in the volume just cited, and “The Devil’s Court” in the twenty-eighth volume of the Comedias Escogidas. My copy of the “Tres Portentos” is a pamphlet without date. Fifteen of the plays of Guevara are in the collection of Comedias Escogidas, to be noticed hereafter.

[519] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 157;—a good life of Montalvan.

[520] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XI. pp. 501, 537, etc., and Tom. XII. p. 424.

[521] Para Todos, Alcalá, 1661, 4to, p. 428.

[522] It went through several editions as a book of devotion,—the last I have seen being of 1739, 18mo.

[523] Para Todos, 1661, p. 529, (prepared in 1632), where he speaks also of a picaresque novela, “Vida de Malhagas,” and other works, as ready for the press; but they have never been printed.

[524] “Lágrimas Panegiricas á la Temprana Muerte del Gran Poeta, etc., J. Perez de Montalvan,” por Pedro Grande de Terra, Madrid, 1639, 4to, ff. 164. Quevedo, Montalvan’s foe, is the only poet of note whom I miss.

[525] “Orfeo en Lengua Castellana,” por J. P. de Montalvan, Madrid, 1624, 4to. N. Ant., Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 757, and Lope de Vega, Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, in the Preface to which he says the Orfeo of Montalvan “contains whatever can contribute to its perfection.”

[526] His complaints are as loud as Lope’s or Calderon’s, and are to be found in the Preface to the first volume of his plays, Alcalá, 1638, 4to, and in his “Para Todos,” 1661, p. 169.

[527] The date of the first volume is 1639 on the title-page, but 1638 at the end.

[528] It should perhaps be added, that another religious play of Montalvan, “El Divino Nazareno Sanson,” containing the history of Samson from the contest with the lion to the pulling down of the Philistine temple, is less offensive.

[529] I shall have occasion to recur to this subject when I notice a long poem published on it by Yague de Salas, in 1616. The story used by Montalvan is founded on a tradition already employed for the stage, but with an awkward and somewhat coarse plot, and a poor versification, by Andres Rey de Artieda, in his “Amantes,” published in 1581, and by Tirso de Molina, in his “Amantes de Teruel,” 1635. These two plays, however, had long been forgotten, when an abstract of the first, and the whole of the second, appeared in the fifth volume of Aribau’s “Biblioteca” (Madrid, 1848); a volume which contains thirty-six well-selected plays of Tirso de Molina, with valuable prefatory discussions of his life and works. There can be no doubt, from a comparison of the “Amantes de Teruel” of Tirso with that of Montalvan, printed three years later, that Montalvan was largely indebted to his predecessor; but he has added to his drama much that is beautiful, and given to parts of it a tone of domestic tenderness that, I doubt not, he drew from his own nature. Aribau, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Tom. V. pp. xxxvii. and 690.

[530] “El Principe Don Carlos” is the first play in the twenty-eighth volume of the Comedias Escogidas, 1667, and gives an account of the miraculous cure of the Prince from an attack of insanity; the other, entitled “El Segundo Seneca de España,” is the first play in his “Para Todos,” and ends with the marriage of the king to Anne of Austria, and the appointment of Don John as generalissimo of the League.

[531] Henry IV. is in “El Mariscal de Viron”; Don John in the play that bears his name.

[532] Both of them are in the fifth day’s entertainments of his “Para Todos.”

[533] Preface to “Para Todos.”

[534] The story of “El Zeloso Estremeño” is altered from that of the same name by Cervantes, but is indebted to it largely, and takes the names of several of its personages. At the end of the play entitled “De un Castigo dos Venganzas,” a play full of horrors, Montalvan declares the plot to be—

Almost all his plays are founded on exciting and interesting tales.

[535] Pellicer de Tobar, in the “Lágrimas,” etc., ut supra, gives this account of his friend Montalvan’s literary theories, pp. 146-152. In the more grave parts of his plays, he says, Montalvan employed octavas, canciones, and silvas; in the tender parts, décimas, glosas, and other similar forms; and romances everywhere; but that he avoided dactyles and blank verse, as unbecoming and hard. All this, however, is only the system of Lope, in his “Arte Nuevo,” a little amplified.

[536] Para Todos, 1661, p. 508.

[537] Ibid., p. 158.

[538] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 202.

[539] Quevedo, Obras, Tom. XI., 1794, pp. 125, 163. An indignant answer was made to Quevedo, in the “Tribunal de la Justa Venganza,” already noticed.

[540] Deleytar Aprovechando, Madrid, 1765, 2 tom., 4to, Prólogo. Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. p. 267.