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His genius is uneven, but when at his best Palacio Valdés is one of the most charming of modern novelists. His better known works are probably La hermana San Sulpicio and La alegría del capitán Ribot.

And it is a matter of history that he composed his well-known La Noche de San Juan for the favorite, Olivares, in three days. This, in addition to his other works, offers us a slight insight into the wonderful fertility of the man's genius and gives reason to Cervantes and his contemporaries for calling him "el monstruo de la naturaleza" and "el Fénix de los ingenios."

This interesting comedia was written in the last decade of the life of Lope de Vega, in the most fertile period of his genius. Hartzenbusch is authority for the statement that it was written towards the close of the year 1625 and revised in 1632. It is evident that the closing lines of it were written in 1632, for the author says in the

In his rôle of manager and playwright Lope de Rueda showed no remarkable genius, but he began a movement which was to reach its culmination and perfection under the leadership of no less a personage than the great Lope himself. Between the two Lopes there lived and wrote a number of dramatic authors of diverse merit.

Of his childhood and early youth we have no definite knowledge, but it appears that his parents died when he was very young and that he lived some time with his uncle, Don Miguel del Carpio. From his own utterances and those of his friend and biographer, Montalvan, we know that genius developed early with him and that he dictated verses to his schoolmates before he was able to write.