[696] The plays of Cubillo that I have seen are,—ten in his “Enano de las Musas” (Madrid, 1654, 4to); five in the Comedias Escogidas, printed as early as 1660; and perhaps two or three more scattered elsewhere. The “Enano de las Musas” is a collection of his works, containing many ballads, sonnets, etc., and an allegorical poem on “The Court of the Lion,” which, Antonio says, was published as early as 1625, and which seems to have been liked and to have gone through several editions. But none of Cubillo’s poetry is so good as his plays. See Prólogo and Dedication to the Enano, and Montalvan’s list of writers for the stage at the end of his “Para Todos.”
[697] There are a few of Leyba’s plays in Duran’s collection, and in the Comedias Escogidas, and I possess a few of them in pamphlets. But I do not know how many he wrote, and I have no notices of his life. He is sometimes called Francisco de Leyba; unless, indeed, there were two of the same surname.
[698] Obras de Don Gerónimo Cancer y Velasco, Madrid, 1761, 4to. The first edition is of 1651, and Antonio sets his death at 1654. The “Muerte de Baldovinos” is in the Index of the Inquisition, 1790; as is also his “Vandolero de Flandes.” A play, however, which he wrote in conjunction with Pedro Rosete and Antonio Martinez, was evidently intended to conciliate the Church, and well calculated for its purpose. It is called “El Mejor Representante San Gines,” and is found in Tom. XXIX., 1668, of the Comedias Escogidas,—San Gines being a Roman actor, converted to Christianity, and undergoing martyrdom in the presence of the spectators in consequence of being called on to act a play written by Polycarp, which was ingeniously constructed so as to defend the Christians. The tradition is absurd enough certainly, but the drama may be read with interest throughout, and parts of it with pleasure. It has a love-intrigue brought in with skill. Cancer, I believe, wrote plays without assistance only once or twice. Certainly, twelve written in conjunction with Moreto, Matos Fragoso, and others, are all by him that are found in the Comedias Escogidas.
[699] “Academias Morales de las Musas,” Madrid, 4to, 1660; but my copy was printed at Barcelona, 1704, 4to.
[700] Flor de las Mejores Comedias, Madrid, 1652, 4to. Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 227. A considerable number of the plays of Zabaleta may be seen in the forty-eight volumes of the Comedias Escogidas, 1652, etc. One of them, “El Hijo de Marco Aurelio,” on the subject of the Emperor Commodus, was acted in 1644, and, as the author tells us, being received with little favor, and complaints being made that it was not founded in truth, he began at once a life of that Emperor, which he calls a translation from Herodian, but which has claims neither to fidelity in its version, nor to purity in its style. It remained long unfinished, until one morning in 1664, waking up and finding himself struck entirely blind, he began, “as on an elevation,” to look round for some occupation suited to his solitude and affliction. His play had been printed in 1658, in the tenth volume of the Comedias Escogidas, and he now completed the work that was to justify it, and published it in 1666, announcing himself on the title-page as a royal chronicler. But it failed, as his drama had failed before it. In the “Vexámen de Ingenios” of Cancer, where the failure of another of Zabaleta’s plays is noticed, (Obras de Cancer, Madrid, 1761, 4to, p. 111), a punning epigram is inserted on his personal ugliness, the amount of which is, that, though his play was dear at the price paid for a ticket, his face would repay the loss to those who should look on it.
[701] The plays of Zarate are, I believe, easiest found in the Comedias Escogidas, where twenty-two of them occur;—the earliest in Tom. XV., 1661; and “La Presumida y la Hermosa,” in Tom. XXIII., 1666. In the Index Expurgatorius of 1792, p. 288, it is intimated that Fernando de Zarate is the same person with Antonio Enriquez Gomez;—a mistake founded, probably, on the circumstance, that a play of Enriquez Gomez, who was a Jew, was printed with the name of Zarate attached to it, as others of his plays were printed with the name of Calderon. Amador de los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 575.
[702] His “Coro de las Musas,” at the end of which his plays are commonly added separately, was printed at Brussels in 1665, 4to, and in 1672. In my copy, which is of the first edition, and which once belonged to Mr. Southey, is the following characteristic note in his handwriting: “Among the Lansdowne MSS. is a volume of poems by this author, who, being a ‘New Christian,’ was happy enough to get into a country where he could profess himself a Jew.” There is a long notice of him in Barbosa, Biblioteca Lusitana, Tom. III. p. 464, and a still longer one in Amador de los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, pp. 608, etc.
[703] The “Comedias de Diamante” are in two volumes, 4to, Madrid, 1670 and 1674; but in the first volume eight plays are paged together, and for the four others there is a separate paging; though, as the whole twelve are recognized in the Tassa and in the table of contents, they are no doubt all his.
[704] The “Cid” of Corneille dates from 1636, and Diamante’s “Honrador de su Padre” is found earliest in the eleventh volume of the Comedias Escogidas, licensed 1658. Indeed, it may be well doubted whether Diamante was a writer for the stage so early as 1636; for I find no play of his printed before 1657. Another play on the subject of the Cid, partly imitated from this one of Diamante, and with a similar title,—“Honrador de sus Hijas,”—is found in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIII., 1662. Its author is Francisco Polo, of whom I know only that he wrote this drama, whose merit is very small, and whose subject is the marriage of the daughters of the Cid with the Counts of Carrion, and their subsequent ill-treatment by their husbands, etc.
[705] Huerta, who reprints the “Castigo de la Miseria” in the first volume of his “Teatro Hespañol,” expresses a doubt as to who is the inventor of the story, Hoz or María de Zayas. But there is no question about the matter. The “Novelas” were printed at Zaragoza, 1637, 4to, and their Aprobacion is dated in 1635. See, also, Baena’s “Hijos de Madrid,” Tom. III. p. 271. In the Prólogo to Candamo’s plays, (Madrid, Tom. I., 1722), Hoz is said to have written the third act of Candamo’s “San Bernardo,” left unfinished at its author’s death in 1704. If this were the case, Hoz must have lived to a good old age.