his comedies. In the former he ad dresses him thus: Insigne poeta, acuyo verso o prosa Distinguished bard, whom no one of our time The passage in the prologue we shall have occasion to refer to in another place. Whether these expressions of praise were the genuine sentiments of Cervantes, and whether they satisfied Lope and his friends, we cannot now ascertain. Lope had not long to contend with so formidable a rival; for Cervantes died soon after this publication, and left his enemy in full possession of the admiration of the public. How different has been the judgment of posterity on the writings of these two men ! Cervantes, who was actually starving in the same street* where Lope *Pellicer. was living in splendour and prosperity, has been for near two centuries the delight and admiration of every nation in Europe; and Lope, notwithstanding the late edition of his works in twenty-two volumes, is to a great degree neglected in his own. Before the death of Cervantes, which happened on the same day as that of Shakspere*, the admiration of Lope was become a species of worship in Spain, It was hardly prudent in any author to withhold incense from his shrine, much less to interrupt the devotion of his adherents, Such indeed was their intolerance, that they gravely asserted that the author of the Spongia, who had severely censured his works, and accused him of ignorance of the Latin language, deserved nothing short of death for such literary heresy. Nor * Pellicer. was Lope himself entirely exempt from the irritability which is supposed to attend poets: he often speaks with peevishness of his detractors, and answers their criticisms, sometimes in a querulous, and sometimes in an insolent tone. The word Vega in Spanish signifies garden. In the title-page of his book was engraved a beetle expiring over some flowers, which he is point of attacking. That the emblem might not be misunderstood, this distich was also subjoined: upon the Audax dum Vegæ irrumpit scarabæus in hortos, At Vega's garden as the beetle flies, The vanity of the above conceit is at least equal to the wit. But in the prologue to the Pelegrino, and in some posthumous poems*, * he most unreasonably complains of the * Huerto deshecho. neglect, obscurity, and poverty in which his talents have been left. How are the expectations of genius ever to be fulfilled, if Lope, laden with honours and with pensions, courted by the great, and followed by the crowd, imagined that his fortunes were unequal to his deserts? He seldom passed a year without giving some poem to the press; and scarcely a month or even a week without producing some play upon the stage. His Pastores de Belen, a work in prose and verse on the Nativity, had confirmed his superiority in pastoral poems; and rhymes, hymns and poems without number on sacred subjects had evinced his zeal in the profession he embraced. Philip IV., the great patron of the Spanish theatre, to which he afterwards is said to have contributed * composi *Conde de Sex (Earl of Essex) o dar la vida por su dama, and others under the name of the Ingenio de esta corte are ascribed to him; but, I suspect, upon very slight authority. tions of his own, at the era of his accession, found Lope in full possession of the stage, and in the exercise of unlimited authority over the authors, comedians, and audience. New honours and benefices were immediately heaped on our poet, and in all probability he wrote occasionally plays for the royal palace. He published about the same time Los Triumphos de la Fe; Las Fortunas de Diana; three novels in prose (unsuccessful imitations of Cervantes); Circe, an heroic poem, dedicated to the count duke of Olivarez; and Philomena, a singular but tiresome allegory, in the second book of which he vindicates himself in the person of the nightingale from the accusation of his critics, who are there represented by the thrush. Such was his reputation that he be. gan to distrust the sincerity of the public, and seems to have suspected that there was more fashion than real opinion |