Art. I. Some Account of the Lives and Writings of Lope
Felix de Vega Carpio, and Guillen de Castro. By Henry
Richard Lord Holland." 2 vols. London. 1817. N O name among the Spanish poets is so generally known out of N its own country as that of Lope de Vega, but it is only the name ; and perhaps no author whose reputation is so widely extended has been so little read. The good fortune, however, of this
phænix of Spain' has not wholly forsaken him, and he has been as happy now in a biographer, as he was during his life in obtaining the patronage of the great, and the favour of the public.
This celebrated man was born at Madrid on the 25th of November, 1562: both his parents were persons of good family in that city, and the father, according to the son's testimony, was deserving of praise as a poet : it may, indeed, frequently be noticed, that an aptitude for metre is hereditary, like that for drawing, or the more analogous art of music. At five years of age young Lope is said to have composed verses, and exchanged them with his school-fellows for prints and sweetmeats :-school-boys in Spain must be very different from those in other parts of the world, if such wares were saleable among them. It is said also, that at this early age he could read Latin; and that at eleven he was master of the Latin idion, with rhetoric, eloquence, and poetry :-but however complete his classical education may have been thought, the Latin verses which he ventured to publish in after-life would not have passed muster in the fourth form at Westminster. He was taught also to dance, to sing, and to fence. When he was about fourteen he ran away from school, being actuated, according to his frieud and eulogist, Montalvan, by a restless desire of seeing the world, another biographer, with more propriety, hints at this as one of the vagaries and scrapes of his youib. One of his school-fellows accompanied him in his elopement; they bought a mule at Segovia, and got as far as Astorga before they perceived that the state of their finances made it prudent for them to return home. This measure, which in itself was not very palatable, was accelerated by an unpleasant adventure at Segovia on their way back. Having offered some trinkets for sale, the tradesman to whom they applied took them before a magistrate upon a suspicion that they had stolen them, and the magistrate, with a moderation which, from the · VOL. XVIII. N(). XXXV.
A
praise