[541] Of these five volumes, containing fifty-nine plays, and a number of entremeses and ballads, whose titles are given in Aribau’s Biblioteca, (Madrid, 1848, Tom. V. p. xxxvi.), I have never seen but four, and have been able with difficulty to collect between thirty and forty separate plays. Their author says, however, in the Preface to his “Cigarrales de Toledo,” (1624), that he had written three hundred; and I believe about eighty have been printed.
[542] There are some details in this part of Lope’s play, such as the mention of a walking stone statue, which leave no doubt in my mind that Tirso de Molina used it. Lope’s play is in the twenty-fourth volume of his Comedias (Zaragoza, 1632); but it is one of his dramas that have continued to be reprinted and read.
[543] For the way in which this truly Spanish fiction was spread through Italy to France, and then, by means of Molière, throughout the rest of Europe, see Parfaicts, “Histoire du Théatre François” (Paris, 12mo, Tom. VIII., 1746, p. 255; Tom. IX., 1746, pp. 3 and 343; and Tom. X., 1747, p. 420); and Cailhava, “Art de la Comédie” (Paris, 1786, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 175). Shadwell’s “Libertine” (1676) is substantially the same story, with added atrocities; and, if I mistake not, is the foundation of the short drama which has often been acted on the American stage. Shadwell’s own play is too gross to be tolerated anywhere now-a-days, and besides has no literary merit.
[544] That the popularity of the mere fiction of Don Juan has been preserved in Spain may be seen from the many recent versions of it; and especially from the two plays of “Don Juan Tenorio,” by Zorrilla, (1844), and his two poems, “El Desafío del Diablo,” and “Un Testigo de Bronce,” (1845), hardly less dramatic than the plays that had preceded them.
[545] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, ad ann.
[546] The “Vergonzoso en Palacio” was printed as early as 1624, in the “Cigarrales de Toledo,” (Madrid, 1624, 4to, p. 100), and took its name, I suppose, from a Spanish proverb, “Mozo vergonzoso no es para palacio.”
[547] “Todo es dar en una Cosa.”
[548] “Por el Sotano y el Torno.”
[549] “Escarmientos para Cuerdos.”
[550] Cigarrales de Toledo, 1624, pp. 183-188.