The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-10-02 00:00:00

,EMENT TO THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

ran away from college to see the world ; and in
the following year entering the army, serving both
in Portugal and in Africa, under the Marquis of
Santa Cruz The next year he came home again,
and engaged himself as page and secretary to the
Bishop of Ayala, working away, of course, at his
poetry all the while, as none but Lope de Vega or
a steam-engine could work, and producing,
amongst various other things, a pastoral comedy
in three acts, called La Pastoral de Jacinto, the
author-soldier-secretary being then sixteen years
of age I Sent by his patron, the bishop, to the
University of Alcala, he went to work at the solid
fare of philosophy, theology, and mathematics,
taking at the same time, by way of a relish, the
Italian, Portuguese, and French languages. But
even all this was insufficient for his voracious ap-
petite. So—to carry out the simile—he flew to
the occult sciences, as to a lump of bread and
cheese, to finish up with. And now he was never
happy but when in the midst of crucibles, fur-
naces, and alembics. If any one could have found
out the grand secret, it would surely have been
Lope de Vega. He didn't ;so we must needs sup-
pose the alchemists were labouring under a mis-
take.
Next, Lope de Vega fell in love. Some say
with one lady ; some say with two. We should
incline to think the latter—one at a time could
hardly be enough for him. He didn't marry
them, nor either of them. Some time afterwards,
thinking it time to settle down in life, he made
his mind up to become a priest. He underwent
the necessary preparations, and was on the very
eve of being ordained, when he fell in love again.
The church and priestly vows were no more to be
thought of. He married. This was in 1584.
Scarcely was he married, however, than—just
by way of a change—he got into prison, owing to
a duel. He escaped, of course ; it was not likely
he could wait until his time of imprisonment was
over. He went to Valencia, remained there some
time writing, until, upon the death of his wife,
he flew once more to battle, for excitement, and
embarked on board the Invincible Armada, which
Philip the Second was then fitting out to invade
the English coasts. The Invincible Armada being
thoroughly destroyed, Lope next visited Italy,
spending some years in Naples, Parma, and
Milan. Returning once more to Madrid, he mar-
ried again, and by his second wife was soon made
a happy father.
Now he was writing in earnest for the stage,
poverty and himself, as he tells us, " having en-
tered into partnership as traders in verses ;" and
a very large proportion of his plays were the pro-
duction of this trading firm during the tranquil
years of his second marriage. He lost his second
wife in the year sixteen hundred and seven, some
sixteen years after he had marrried her, and then
he joined the Inquisition, and finally became a
priest.
His priestly duties were numerous, but even
yet he managed to find time for the theatre, and
the very year that he was made a priest (sixteen
hundred and nine) he wrote his Arte Nuevo de
hater Comedias, and we would rather not venture
upon saying how many plays.
One more short anecdote in illustration of the
wonderful rapidity of Lope's pen, and we have
done. We find it in Montalvan.

The writer for the theatre at Madrid was at
one time at such a loss for comedies that the
doors of the Theatre de la Cruz were shut ; but as
it was in the Carnival, he was extremely anxious
on the subject, so Lope and his friend Montalvan
were applied to, and they agreed to compose a
joint comedy as fast as possible. It was the
Tercera Orden de San Francisco, and is the very
one in which Arias acted the part of the Saint

(we beg the pardon of leading tragedians now
living—the criticism is Montalvan's, not our
own) more naturally than was ever witnessed on
the stage. The first act fell to Lope's lot, the
second to Montalvan's. These were despatched
in two days, and the third act was to be divided
equally between the two authors, each doing
eight leaves. Montalvan went home at night,
and being well aware that he could not equal
Lope in the execution, he thought (misguided
Montalvan !) that he would try and beat him in
the despatch of the business. For this purpose
he got up at two o'clock in the morning, and
managed to complete his portion of the act by
eleven. Montalvan then went out—not a little
proud of what he'd done, no doubt—to look for
Lope. He found him in his garden, very deeply
occupied with an orange-tree that had been frost-
bitten in the night. What ! not at work ? Mon-
talvan doubtless thought he'd got him noW! He
asked him how he had got on with his task,
when Lope answered,
I set about it at five ; but I finished the act
an hour ago ; took a bit of ham for breakfast,
wrote an epistle of fifty triplets ; and have watered
the whole of the garden, which has not a little
fatigued me."
Then, taking out the papers, he read to his
collaborateur the eight leaves and the triplets,- " a
circumstance," Montalvan adds, " that would
have astonished me, had I not known the fertility
of his genius, and the dominion he had over the
rhymes of our language."
Well might it have astonished him, indeed ! •It
would have surprised us, if anything could. But
then it can't—at least when it relates to Lope de
Vega.
" The Little Chorister" is a charming story in
five chapters, which may be read with profit and
pleasure by people of every age, sex, and station.
—Household Words.