Se quiere hazer á la Mar.
Ay quien se quiera embarcar?
El Peregrino en su Patria, Sevilla, 1604, 4to, f. 36. b.
[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,—
Tanta belleza
Monstruo será de la naturaleza.