Whether Francisco de Tarrega, who can be traced from 1591 to 1608, was one of those who early came from Valencia to Madrid as writers for the theatre is uncertain. But we have proof that he was a canon of the cathedral in the first-named city, and yet was well known in the new capital, where his plays were acted and printed.[497] One of them is important, because it shows the modes of representation in his time, as well as the peculiarities of his own drama. It begins with a loa, which in this case is truly a compliment, as its name implies; but it is, at the same time, a witty and quaint ballad in praise of ugly women. Then comes what is called a “Dance at Leganitos,”—a popular resort in the suburbs of Madrid, which here gives its name to a rude farce founded on a contest in the open street between two lackeys.[498]
After the audience have thus been put in good-humor, we have the principal play, called “The Well-disposed Enemy”; a wild, but not uninteresting, heroic drama, of which the scene is laid at the court of Naples, and the plot turns on the jealousy of the Neapolitan king and queen. Some attempt is made to compress the action within probable limits of time and space; but the character of Laura—at first in love with the king and exciting him to poison the queen, and at last coming out in disguise as an armed champion to defend the same queen when she is in danger of being put to death on a false accusation of infidelity—destroys all regularity of movement, and is a blemish that extends through the whole piece. Parts of it, however, are spirited, like the opening,—a scene full of life and nature,—where the court rush in from a bull-fight, that had been suddenly broken up by the personal danger of the king; and parts of it are poetical, like the first interview between Laura and Belisardo, whom she finally marries.[499] But the impression left by the whole is, that, though the path opened by Lope de Vega is the one that is followed, it is followed with footsteps ill-assured and a somewhat uncertain purpose.
Gaspar de Aguilar was, as Lope tells us, the rival of Tarrega.[500] He was secretary to the Viscount Chelva, and afterwards major-domo to the Duke of Gandia, one of the most prominent noblemen at the court of Philip the Third. But an allegorical poem which Aguilar wrote, in honor of his last patron’s marriage, found so little favor, that its unhappy author, discouraged and repulsed, died of mortification. He lived, as Tarrega probably did, both in Valencia and in Madrid, and wrote several minor poems, besides one of some length on the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, which was printed in 1610. The last date we have relating to his unfortunate career is 1623.
Of the nine or ten plays he published, only two can claim our notice. The first is “The Merchant Lover,” praised by Cervantes, who, like Lope de Vega, mentions Aguilar more than once with respect. It is the story of a rich merchant, who pretends to have lost his fortune in order to see whether either of two ladies to whose favor he aspires loved him for his own sake rather than for that of his money; and he finally marries the one who, on this hard trial, proves herself to be disinterested. It is preceded by a prólogo, or loa, which in this case is a mere jesting tale; and it ends with six stanzas, sung for the amusement of the audience, about a man who, having tried unsuccessfully many vocations, and, among the rest, those of fencing-master, poet, actor, and tapster, threatens, in despair, to enlist for the wars. Neither the beginning nor the end, therefore, has any thing to do with the subject of the play itself, which is written in a spirited style, but sometimes shows bad taste and extravagance, and sometimes runs into conceits.
One character is happily hit,—that of the lady who loses the rich merchant by her selfishness. When he first tells her of his pretended loss of fortune, and seems to bear it with courage and equanimity, she goes out saying,—
Heaven save me from a husband such as this,
Who finds himself so easily consoled!
Why, he would be as gay, if it were me
That he had lost, and not his money!
And again, in the second act, where she finally rejects him, she says, in the same jesting spirit,—