Note 561 — Chapter XXI

Philip IV. was a lover of letters. Translations of Francesco Guicciardini’s “Wars in Italy,” and of the “Description of the Low Countries,” by his nephew, Luigi Guicciardini, made by him, and preceded by a well-written Prólogo, are said to be in the National Library at Madrid. (C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 162; Huerta, Teatro Hespañol, Madrid, 1785, 12mo, Parte I., Tom. III. p. 159; and Ochoa, Teatro, Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. V. p. 98.) “King Henry the Feeble” is also among the plays most confidently ascribed to Philip IV., who is said to have often joined in improvisating dramas, an amusement well known at the court of Madrid, and at the hardly less splendid court of the Count de Lemos at Naples. C. Pellicer, Teatro, Tom. I. p. 163, and J. A. Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, Tom. I. pp. 90-92, where a curious account, already referred to, is given of one of these Neapolitan exhibitions, by Estrada, who witnessed it.