848 
occasionally satirised the’style with- 
out naming the authors. | Even in 
his plays are to be found several 
strokes of ridicule on this subject. 
Thus, when Severo come to recom- 
mend himself as a poet to a bride- 
groom in the Améstad y Obligacion, 
Lope the bridegroom asks him : 
Lop. Sois vulgar o culterano? 
Sev. Culto soy. 
Lop. Quedaos en casa 
Y escribireis mis secretos. 
Sev. Sussecretos! por que causa ? 
Lop. Porque nadie los entienda... 
Lop. A plain or polish’d bard ? 
Sev, My style’s polite. 
Lop. My secrets then remain with me to 
write, 
Ser. Your secrets? Why? 
Lop. Because, politely penn’d, 
Their meaning sure no soul shall 
comprehend. 
*¢ And again in the Bizarrias de 
Belisa, the heroine of that piece, in 
describing the bad qualities of her 
rival, represents her as a pupil of ’ 
the new school: : 
“ Aquella que escribe en culto, 
Por aquel Griego lenguage ; 
Que no le supo Castilla, 
Ni se le enseno su madre. 
She who writesin that fine polish’d style, 
That language so charmingly Greek, 
Which never was heard in Castile, 
And her mother ne’er taught her to 
speak,” 
In the contest with Gengora, 
Lope demeaned himself with unu- 
sual moderation, calmly investigated 
the faults of his style, exposed it by 
a few good-humoured parodies, and 
was generous enough, in one of his 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1806. 
: . 4 ‘ 
poems, to celebrate his unquestion- — 
4 
able merits, without any allusion to © 
these defects. 
his latter days, he yielded in some 
degree to the fashion, and wrote in 
the cultivated style himself. 
Whenever Cervantes has mention- 
ed him in his printed works, it is 
not only with respect, but admira- 
tion. How diflerent were the fates 
of these two men! ‘* Cervantes was 
actually starving in the same street 
where Lope was living im splen- 
dour!’ Lope is now almost neg- 
lected in his own country, and Don 
Quixote is the only book which is 
read with the same interests in every 
country in Europe! 
Lope dedicated another long 
poem, of which Mary Queen of 
Scots was the heroine, to Pope Ur- 
ban VIII. 
‘¢ Upon this occasion he received 
from that pontiff a letter written in 
his own hand, and the degree of 
doctor of theology. Such a flat. 
tering tribute of admiration sanc- 
tioned the reverence in which his 
name was held iu Spain, and spread 
his fame through every catholic 
country. The cardinal Barberini 
fellowed him with veneration in the 
strects; the king would stop to 
gaze at sucha prodigy ; the people 
crowded round him wherever he 
appeared: the learned and the 
studious * thronged to Madrid from 
every part of Spain to see this phoc- 
nix of their country, this *¢ monster 
of literature ;’? and even Italians, 
no extravagant admirers in general 
of poetry that is not their own, 
made pilgrimages from their country 
for the sole purpose of conversing 
with Lope. So associated was the 
idea 
« Montalvan, Parnaso Espanol, &c. 
It is curious, thatin — 
