[82] Feyjoo IV. p. 401. “Seguramente podemos creers in alguna rebaxa.” The Bibliotheca Hispana enumerates twelve languages, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, French, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, and English. I. p. 207.
[83] This is, strange as it may seem, the lowest computation, and rests on Lope de Vega’s own testimony, written in 1630, five years before his death. Speaking of the number of his dramatic fictions, he says to his friend,
Mil y quinientos fabulas admira.
By other authors the number is made much greater. According to some, as his friend, Montalvan, he wrote eighteen hundred plays; and Bouterwek, in his History of Spanish Literature, puts it down at the enormous estimate of two thousand. “Spanish Literature,” I. p. 361.
[84] Montalvan says four hundred. The Bibliotheca Hispana says (vol. iv., p. 75) “eighteen hundred plays, and above four hundred sacred dramas.”
[85] A long list of grammars, vocabularies, dictionaries, catechisms, &c., in more than forty-five different languages, compiled by the Spanish missionaries, is given in the Bibliotheca Hispana, vol. IV. pp. 577-79.
[86] M. d’Abbadie assures me that Father Paez is still spoken of as “Ma alim Petros” by the professors of Gondar and Bagënndir.
[87] Neale’s History of the Patriarchate of Alexandria (London, 1837) II. 405.
[88] Letter to M. Le Leu de Wilhem, quoted by Neale, II. 402.
[89] Biographie Universelle, IX. 301.