Note 54 — Front matter
Reading edition
His enemies having declared that De Vega's dramas were not judged upon their merit, but were popular because they bore his name,—to try the public taste he wrote and published a book of poems anonymously, entitled "Soliloquies on God." Their merit was undisputed, and they were vastly popular, until the carping critics threatened him with the unknown author as a rival. His triumph when he claimed them as his own was complete.