Note 535 — Chapter XX

Pellicer de Tobar, in the “Lágrimas,” etc., ut supra, gives this account of his friend Montalvan’s literary theories, pp. 146-152. In the more grave parts of his plays, he says, Montalvan employed octavas, canciones, and silvas; in the tender parts, décimas, glosas, and other similar forms; and romances everywhere; but that he avoided dactyles and blank verse, as unbecoming and hard. All this, however, is only the system of Lope, in his “Arte Nuevo,” a little amplified.