The quatrains need not any more distress me.
To the first tercet I have got at last,
And travel through it with such right good-will,
That with this line I've finished it, I ween.
I'm in the second now, and see how fast
The thirteenth line comes tripping from my quill—
Hurrah, 'tis done! Count if there be fourteen!"
The foregoing list of Lope's exploits in literature, curtailed as it is, suffices for fame; but it would not suffice to explain that matchless popularity which led to the publication—suppressed by the Inquisition in 1647—of a creed beginning thus:—"I believe in Lope de Vega the Almighty, the Poet of heaven and earth." So far we have but reached the threshold of his temple. His unique renown is based upon the fact that he created a national theatre, that he did for Spain what Shakespeare did for England. Gómez Manrique and Encina led the way gropingly; Torres Naharro, though he bettered all that had been done, lived out of Spain; Lope de Rueda and Timoneda brought the drama to the people; Artieda, Virués, Argensola, and Cervantes tore their passions to tatters in conformity with their own strange precepts, which the last-named would have enforced by a literary dictatorship. Moreover, Argensola and the three veterans of Lepanto wrote to please themselves: Lope invented a new art to enchant mankind. And he succeeded beyond all ambition. Nor does he once take on the airs of philosopher or pedant: rather, in a spirit of self-mockery, he makes his confession in the Arte Nuevo de hacer Comedias (New Mode of Playwriting), which his English biographer, Lord Holland, translates in this wise:—
"Who writes by rule must please himself alone,
Be damn'd without remorse, and die unknown.