[305] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. pp. 3, 19.
[306] “All studied out and written in five days.” Comedias, Tom. XXI., Madrid, 1635, f. 72. b.
[307] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52. How eagerly his plays were sought by the actors and received by the audiences of Madrid may be understood from the fact Lope mentions in the poem to his friend Claudio, that above a hundred were acted within twenty-four hours of the time when their composition was completed. Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 368.
[308] As early as 1603, Lope maintains this doctrine in the Preface to his “Peregrino”;—it occurs frequently afterwards in different parts of his works, as, for instance, in the Prólogo to his “Castigo sin Venganza”; and he left it as a legacy in the “Egloga á Claudio,” printed after his death. The “Nueva Arte de Hacer Comedias,” however, is abundantly explicit on the subject in 1609, and, no doubt, expressed the deliberate purpose of its author, from which he seems never to have swerved during his whole dramatic career.
[309] Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, 4to, f. 22, etc.
[310] I know this play, “Dineros son Calidad,” only among the Comedias Sueltas of Lope; but it is no doubt his, as it is in Tom. XXIV. printed at Zaragoza in 1632, which contains different plays from a Tom. XXIV. printed at Zaragoza in 1641, which I have. There is yet a third Tom. XXIV., printed at Madrid in 1638. The internal evidence would, perhaps, be enough to prove its authorship.
[311] Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, f. 277, etc., but often reprinted since under the title of “La Melindrosa.”
[312] Comedias, Tom. XXV., Çaragoça, 1647, f. 1, etc.
[313] Comedias, Tom. XI, Barcelona, 1618, f. 1, etc. The Preface to this volume is curious, on account of Lope’s complaints of the booksellers. He calls it “Prólogo del Teatro,” and makes the surreptitious publication of his plays an offence against the drama itself. He intimates that it was not very uncommon for one of his plays to be acted seventy times.
[314] The “Azero de Madrid,” which was written as early as 1603, has often been printed separately, and is found in the regular collection, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, f. 27, etc.