[716] These and many others, now entirely forgotten, are found in the old collection of Comedias Escogidas, published between 1652 and 1704, where they occur in the later volumes; e. g. of Lanini, nine plays; of Martinez, eighteen; and of Rosete and Villegas, eleven each. I am not aware that any one of them deserves to be rescued from the oblivion in which they are all sunk.
[717] Two volumes of the plays of Cañizares were collected, but more can still be found separate, and many are lost. In Moratin’s list, the titles of above seventy are brought together. Notices of his life are in Baena, Tom. III. p. 69, and in Huerta, Teatro, Parte I. Tom. II. p. 347.
[718] The “Dómine Lucas” of Cañizares has no resemblance to the lively play with the same title by Lope de Vega, in the seventeenth volume of his Comedias, 1621, which, he says in the Dedication, is founded on fact, and which was reprinted in Madrid, 1841, 8vo, with a Preface, attacking, not only Cañizares, but several of the author’s contemporaries, in a most truculent manner. The “Dómine Lucas” of Cañizares, however, is worth reading, particularly in an edition where it is accompanied by its two entremeses, improperly called saynetes;—the whole newly arranged for representation in the Buen Retiro, on occasion of the marriage of the Infanta María Luisa with the Archduke Peter Leopold, in 1765.
[719] The habit of using too freely the works of their predecessors was common on the Spanish stage from an early period. Cervantes says, in 1617, (Persiles, Lib. III. c. 2), that some companies kept poets expressly to new-vamp old plays; and so many had done it before him, that Cañizares seems to have escaped censure, though nobody, certainly, had gone so far.
[720] See Appendix (F).
[721] Mariana, in his treatise “De Spectaculis,” Cap. VII., (Tractatus Septem, Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 1609, folio), earnestly insists that actors of the low and gross character he gives to them should not be permitted to perform in the churches, or to represent sacred plays anywhere; and that the theatres should be closed on Sundays. But he produced no effect against the popular passion.
[722] For Hardy and his extraordinary career, which was almost entirely founded on the Spanish theatre, see the “Parfaits,” or any other history of the French stage. Corneille, in his “Remarks on Mélite,” says, that, when he began, he had no guide but a little common sense and the example of Hardy, and a few others no more regular than he was. The example of Hardy led Corneille directly to Spain for materials.
[723] D. Quixote, Parte I. c. 48. The Primera Dama, or the actress of first parts, was sometimes called the Autora. Diablo Cojuelo, Tranco V.
[724] Villegas was one of the last of the authors who were managers. He wrote, we are told, fifty-four plays, and died about 1600. (Roxas, Viage, 1614, f. 21.) After this, the next example of any prominence is Diamante, who was an actor before he wrote for the stage, and died about 1700. The managing autor was sometimes the object of ridicule in the play his own company performed, as he is in the “Tres Edades del Mundo” of Luis Vélez de Guevara, where he is the gracioso. Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXVIII., 1672.
[725] Pasagero, 1617, ff. 112-116.