[515] Quintana, Vidas de Españoles Célebres, Tom. I., Madrid, 1807, 12mo, p. 51, and the corresponding passage in the play. Martinez de la Rosa, in his “Isabel de Solís,” describing a real or an imaginary picture of the death of the young Guzman, gives a tender turn to the father’s conduct; but the hard old chronicle is more likely to tell the truth, and the play follows it.
[516] The copy I use of this play was printed in 1745. Like most of the other published dramas of Guevara, it has a good deal of bombast, and some Gongorism. But a lofty tone runs through it, that always found an echo in the Spanish character.
[517] The “Luna de la Sierra” is the first play in the “Flor de las Mejores Doce Comedias,” 1652.
[518] The plays last mentioned are found scattered in different collections,—“The Devil’s Lawsuit” being in the volume just cited, and “The Devil’s Court” in the twenty-eighth volume of the Comedias Escogidas. My copy of the “Tres Portentos” is a pamphlet without date. Fifteen of the plays of Guevara are in the collection of Comedias Escogidas, to be noticed hereafter.
[519] Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 157;—a good life of Montalvan.
[520] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XI. pp. 501, 537, etc., and Tom. XII. p. 424.
[521] Para Todos, Alcalá, 1661, 4to, p. 428.
[522] It went through several editions as a book of devotion,—the last I have seen being of 1739, 18mo.
[523] Para Todos, 1661, p. 529, (prepared in 1632), where he speaks also of a picaresque novela, “Vida de Malhagas,” and other works, as ready for the press; but they have never been printed.
[524] “Lágrimas Panegiricas á la Temprana Muerte del Gran Poeta, etc., J. Perez de Montalvan,” por Pedro Grande de Terra, Madrid, 1639, 4to, ff. 164. Quevedo, Montalvan’s foe, is the only poet of note whom I miss.