[456] Like some other distinguished authors, however, he was inclined to undervalue what he did most happily, and to prefer what is least worthy of preference. Thus, in the Preface to his Comedias, (Vol. XV., Madrid, 1621), he shows that he preferred his longer poems to his plays, which he says he holds but “as the wild-flowers of his field, that grow up without care or culture.”
[457] This might be inferred from the account in Montalvan’s “Fama Póstuma”; but Lope himself declares it distinctly in the “Egloga á Claudio,” where he says, “The printed part of my writings, though too much, is small, compared with what remains unpublished.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 369.) Indeed, we know we have hardly a fourth part of his full-length plays; only twelve autos out of four hundred; only twenty or thirty entremeses out of the “infinite number” ascribed to him.
[458] Bisbe y Vidal, “Tratado de Comedias,” (1618, f. 102), speaks of the “glosses which the actors make extempore upon lines given to them on the stage.”
[459] Viardot, Études sur la Littérature en Espagne, Paris, 1835, 8vo, p. 339.
[460] Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles, (Madrid, 1778, 4to, Tom. I. pp. 89-91), in which there is a curious narrative by Diego, Duke of Estrada, giving an account of one of these entertainments, (a burlesque play on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice), performed before the viceroy and his court.
[461] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52.
[462] A diffuse life of Quevedo was published at Madrid in 1663, by Don Pablo Antonio de Tarsia, a Neapolitan, and is inserted in the tenth volume of the best edition of Quevedo’s Works,—that of Sancha, Madrid, 1791-94, 11 tom., 8vo. A shorter, and, on the whole, a more satisfactory, life of him is to be found in Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. pp. 137-154.
[463] In his “Grandes Anales de Quince Dias,” speaking of the powerful President Acevedo, he says, “I was unwelcome to him, because, coming myself from the mountains, I never flattered the ambition he had to make himself out to be above men to whom we, in our own homes, acknowledge no superiors.” Obras, Tom. XI. p. 63.
[464] The first is the very curious paper entitled “Caida de su Privanza y Muerte del Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the Seminario Erudito (Madrid, 1787, 4to, Tom. III.); and the other is “Memorial de Don F. Quevedo contra el Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the same collection, Tom. XV.
[465] This letter, often reprinted, is in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas Morales,” etc., Valencia, 1773, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 151. Another letter to his friend Adan de la Parra, giving an account of his mode of life during his confinement, shows that he was extremely industrious. Indeed, industry was his main resource a large part of the time he was in San Márcos de Leon. Seminario Erudito, Tom. I. p. 65.