Well may another of his biographers, Mr.
G. H. Lewes, say, "It really takes one's
breath away to hear of such achievements."
But we have not yet done.  At the imminent
risk of having our veracity impugned, we
must go on to tell what else Lope de Vega
wrote.  As though the fifteen hundred plays
were not enough for one man's work, we
find he wrote besides about three hundred
interludes and autos sacramentales (a species
of dramatic composition resembling our
ancient miracle-plays); ten epic poems; one
burlesque poem, called La Gatomaquia;
various descriptive and didactic poems; a
host of sonnets, romances, odes, elegies, and
epistles; several works written in mingled
prose and verse; eight prose novels; not to
mention other prose writings, or his numerous
prefaces and dedications!  What a labour
for one lifetime!   Were it for nothing more
than the stupendous quantity of his
productions—leaving quality altogether out of the
consideration—Lope de Vega would be one
of the greatest wonders in the whole history
of literature.

And yet his wonderful rapidity was not a
mere flow of words unhampered by ideas.  In
speaking of the quantity of his productions
without regard to quality, we would by no means
insinuate, that in the latter respect
they would not bear examination. We will
not, it is true, go to such lengths as his friend
and pupil, Montalvan, does, when he declares
that if the works of Lope de Vega were
placed in one scale, and those of all ancient
and modern poets in the other, the weight of
the former would not only decide the comparison
in point of quality, but would also "be
a fair emblem of the superiority in point of
merit of Lope's verses over those of all other
poets together."  But setting aside the
exaggerations of his devoted admirer, this much
is pretty certain:  not only did Lope de Vega
actually produce fifteen hundred dramas, but
they were—as our friend Johnson tells us
his own five were—all successful!  They
delighted all Spain, charmed even the sombre
spirit of Philip the Second, and—sure test of
success—
            In present dramas, as in plays gone by,
they brought in money to the theatres'
treasuries, and secured a competence to their
author.

We have already stated that the number
of his works given above is that recorded by
M. Damas Hinard, and others. But, as if
this were not sufficiently miraculous, some
of his biographers adopt a considerably
higher figure.  Montalvan, above alluded to,
asserts in his Fama Postuma (a work
published in honour of Lope de Vega, in sixteen
hundred and thirty-six, a few months only
after the poet's death) that he had written
EIGHTEEN hundred plays, and FOUR hundred
autos sacramentales !  This is the number
also quoted by Lord Holland, in his Life of
Lope de Vega, published in eighteen hundred
and six.

Bouterwek, in the volume of his Geschichte
der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, which treats
on Spanish literature (published about
eighteen hundred and eight) surpasses even
Montalvan in his estimate of Lope de Vega's
fecundity.  He says that "Lope de Vega
required no more than four-and-twenty hours
to write a versified drama of three acts in
redondillas, interspersed with sonnets,
tercets and octaves, and from beginning to end
abounding in intrigues, prodigies, or interesting
situations.  This astonishing facility
enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre
with upwards of TWO THOUSAND original
dramas."  He tells us that the theatrical
managers would wait at Lope's elbow, carrying
off the acts as fast as he could write
them, not giving the poet time even to
revise his work;  and that, immediately upon
one play being finished, a fresh applicant
would prevail on him to commence
a new piece!  A wholesale manufactory of
dramas, truly!  What would friend Johnson
think of orders coming in like this?

Another calculation Bouterwek goes into,
as to the amount of paper Lope used. He
tells us, "According to his own (Lope's) testimony
he wrote on an average five sheets per
day; it has therefore been computed that the
number of sheets which he composed during
his life must have amounted to one hundred
and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and
twenty-five."  This computation, however,
strikes us as somewhat doubtful, inasmuch
as it proceeds on the supposition that Lope's
average of five sheets per diem extended
throughout the whole seventy-three years of
his existence, commencing at his birth—when,
for a day or two, at least, he would not do
much, precocious though we know him to
have been—and finishing with his death.  We
should hardly think that Lope quite meant
this when he laid down the average, though
really we feel so bewildered amongst all
these high figures, that we know not exactly
what to think.  We feel as if we were working
out sums in astronomy, and calculating
distances of stars, instead of reckoning a literary
man's productions.  However, come we at
once to the last grand total right or wrong.
Bouterwek says it is estimated, "that allowing
for the deduction of a small portion of
prose, Lope de Vega must have written
upwards of twenty-one million three hundred
thousand verses."

Lord Holland also adopts this estimate,
but, like all the rest of them, manages still
to magnify it, even while he quotes.  He tells
us "twenty-one million three hundred thousand
of his lines are said to be actually
printed."   And yet we find Lope de Vega
himself, in the Eclogue to Claudio, one of his
latest works, declaring that, large as is the
quantity of his printed works, those which
still remain imprinted are even yet more