Meanwhile his reputation as an author was rising to that height which it afterwards reached. In 1598, the canonisation of St. Isidro, a native of Madrid, was the occasion of prizes being given to the authors of verses written in his honour. Each style of poetry gained its reward, but above one could not be gained by the same person. Lope succeeded in the hymns; but he had tried in all. He wrote a poem of ten cantos in short verse, numberless sonnets and ballads, and two comedies. These were published under the feigned name of Tomé de Burguillos, and are among the best of Lope's compositions. Already his dramas were in vogue, and the public were astonished by their number and excellence. In this year also he published the "Arcadia," written long before. Afterwards he published others of his younger productions; for it is singular that he printed nothing while a very young man, and that he had established his reputation by his plays before he deluged the world with his lyric and epic poetry. The "Hermosura de Angelica" did not see light till 1604; and thus was it with many other of his productions, which he wrote probably at Valencia during his exile, and which when he found profit by so doing, he bestowed on the public.
The reputation he attained awakened the enmity of rivals and critics. When Cervantes published "Don Quixote," in 1605, Lope was risen high in popular estimation; he was generally applauded—almost adored. The abundance and facility of his verses, and the amiableness of his character, were in part the occasion of this; but the eminent cause was his theatre, which we delay considering, not too much to interrupt the thread of his history, but whose originality, novelty, vivacity, and adaptation to the Spanish taste, secured unparalleled success. Cervantes did not feel the merits of his innovations, and he considered himself also the unacknowledged originator of many of the improvements attributed to Lope. We have seen in what Cervantes's dramatic pretensions consisted—high wrought and impassioned scenes connected, not by the intricacies of a methodical plot, but by the simple texture of their causes and effects, such as we find in life itself. He felt that he had written well; he was unwilling to acknowledge that Lope wrote better, nor did he, as a master of the human heart, and as presenting more affecting situations; but he did, as comprehending and representing more to the life the manners and feelings of his day. Cervantes easily perceived the faults of his rival; he discovered his incongruities, and noted the vanity or cupidity which made him more abundant than correct, and the currying to the depraved taste of the times, through a desire of popularity. In short, Lope was not perfect, but he had something that while he lived stood in the stead of perfection—he hit the public taste; he supplied it with ever fresh and ever delightful food; he pleased, he interested, he fascinated. To act posterity, and judge coolly of his works, was an invidious task; and though it was natural that a man so profound and sagacious as Cervantes should be impelled so to do, yet, by attacking him and proving him in the wrong, he could not weaken his influence, while he made an enemy. There is a sonnet against Lope attributed to him, of which the point is not acute; but it displays contempt for his pastorals and epics, and sarcastically alludes to his superabundant fertility. However, it is more than probable that Cervantes did not write this sonnet; for he wrote in praise of Lope in other works, and it was unlike the noble disposition of that single-hearted and excellent man to have contradicted himself. Still less likely is it that Lope wrote the answer. It is vulgarly abusive and ridiculously assuming: he calls Cervantes the horse to Lope's carriage; bids him do Lope honour, or evil will betide him; and sums up by saying that "Don Quixote" went about the world in wrappers to parcels of spices. It looks more like the spurt of an over-zealous disciple than of a man of Lope's judgment and character.[97]
His war with Gongora was of a more grave description, and we defer farther mention of it till in the life of Gongora we give some account of his poetic system.
Meanwhile Lope rose higher and higher in the estimation of the public. There is scarcely an example on record of similar popularity. Grandees, nobles, ministers, prelates, scholars—all solicited his acquaintance. Men came from distant lands to see him; women stood at their balconies as he passed, to behold and applaud him. On all sides he received presents; and we are even told that when he made a purchase, if he were recognised, the seller refused payment. His name passed into a proverb; it became a synonyme for the superlative degree,—a Lope diamond, a Lope dinner, a Lope woman, a Lope dress, was the expression used to express perfection in its kind. All this might well compensate for attacks; yet as these were founded in truth, and he must sometimes have dreaded a reaction of popularity, he felt at times nettled and uneasy. 1616.
Ætat.
54. His part was, however, warmly taken by his adherents. Their intolerance was such that they gravely asserted that the author of the "Spongia," who had severely censured his works and accused him of ignorance of the Latin language, deserved death for his heresy.[98]
His works were more numerous than can be imagined. Each year he gave some new poem to the press; each month, and sometimes every week, he brought out a play; and these at least were of recent composition, though the former consisted frequently in the productions of his early years, corrected and finished. He tried every species of writing, and became celebrated in all. His hymns and sacred poems secured him the respect of the clergy, and showed his zeal in the profession he had embraced. When Philip IV. came to the crown, he immediately heaped new honours on Lope; for Philip was a patron of the stage; and several plays of considerable-merit, published as written "By a Wit of the Court" (Por un Ingenio de esta Corte), are ascribed to him. 1621.
Ætat.
59. Lope published at this time his novels, imitated from Cervantes—whom he graciously acknowledges to have displayed some grace and ease of style, and whom he by no means succeeds in rivalling—and several poems—which that they were ever read is a sort of miracle; and the Lope mania must have been vehement indeed that could gift readers with patience for his diffuseness.
Still the taste was genuine, (though it seems to us perverted), as is proved by a rather dangerous experiment which he made. He published a poem without his name, for the sake of trying the public taste. It succeeded; and the favour with which his unacknowledged "Soliloquies on God," were received must have inspired him with great reliance on his own powers. The death of the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots at this time spread a very general sensation of pity for her and hatred for her rival through Spain. Lope made it the subject of a poem, which he called the Corona Tragica, which he dedicated to pope Urban VIII.; who thanked him by a letter written in his own hand, and by the degree of doctor of theology. This was the period of his greatest glory. Cardinal Barberini followed him in the streets; the king stopped to look at him as he passed; and crowds gathered round him whenever he appeared.
The quantity of his writings is incredible. It is calculated that he printed one million three hundred thousand lines, and this, he says, is a small part of what he wrote.
"The printed part, though far too large, is less
Than that which yet unprinted still remains."[99]
Among these it is asserted that 1800 plays and 400 sacramental dramas have been printed. This account long passed as true. Lord Holland detected its fallacy; and the author of the article in the Quarterly follows up his calculations, and proves the absurdity of the account. He himself says, in the preface to the "Arte de Hacer Comedias," that he had brought out 483. There are extant 497. Some may be lost certainly, but not so many as this computation would assume. Many of his pieces for the theatre, indeed, consist of loas and entremeses, small pieces in single acts, which may have been taken in to make up this number, but which do not deserve to rank among plays.
With regard to the number of verses he wrote there is also exaggeration. He says he often wrote five sheets a day; and the most extravagant calculations have been made on this, as if he had written at this rate from the day of his birth, till a month or two after his death. It is evident, however, that the period when he wrote five sheets a day, and a play in the twenty-four hours, was limited to a few years. With all this he is doubtless, even in prolific Spain, the most prolific of writers, and the most facile. Montalvan tells us, that when he was at Toledo, he wrote fifteen acts in fifteen days, making five plays in a fortnight; and he adds an anecdote that fell under his own experience. Roque de Figueroa, a writer for the theatre of Madrid, found himself on an occasion without any new play, and the doors of his theatre were obliged to be shut—a circumstance which shows the vast appetite for novelty that had arisen, and the cause wherefore Lope was induced to write so much, since the public rather desired what was new than what was good. But to return to Montalvan's story. Being carnival, Figueroa was eager to open his theatre, and Lope and Montalvan agreed to write a play together; and they brought out the "Tercera Orden de San Francisco," dividing the labour. Lope took the first act and Montalvan the second, which they completed in two days; and the third they partitioned between them, eight pages for each; and as the weather was bad, Montalvan remained all night in Lope's house. The scholar finding that he could not equal his master in readiness, wished to surpass him by force of industry, and rising at two in the morning, finished his part by eleven. He then went to seek Lope, and found him in the garden, occupied by an orange-tree, which had been frost-bitten in the night. Montalvan asked how his verses speeded? Lope replied, "I began to write at five, and finished the act an hour ago. I breakfasted on some rashers of bacon, and wrote an epistle of fifty triplets, and having watered ray garden, I am not a little tired." On this he read his act and his triplets, to the wonder and admiration of his hearer.