Note 295 — Chapter XV

See ante, p. 90, and Comedias, Madrid, 1615, 4to, Prólogo. The phrase monstruo de naturaleza, in this passage, has been sometimes supposed to imply a censure of Lope on the part of Cervantes. But this is a mistake. It is a phrase frequently used; and though sometimes understood in malam partem, as it is in D. Quixote, Part I. c. 46,—“Vete de mi presencia, monstruo de naturaleza,”—it is generally understood to be complimentary; as, for instance, in the “Hermosa Ester” of Lope, (Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621), near the end of the first act, where Ahasuerus, in admiration of the fair Esther, says,—

Cervantes, I have no doubt, used it in wonder at Lope’s prodigious fertility.