Note 685 — Chapter XXV

These few meagre facts, which constitute all we know about Moreto, are due mainly to Ochoa (Teatro Español, Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. IV. p. 248); but the suggestion he makes, that Moreto was probably concerned in the violent death of Medinilla, mourned by Lope de Vega in an elegy in the first volume of his Works, seems to rest on no sufficient proof, and to be quite inconsistent with the regard felt for Moreto by Lope, Valdivielso, and other intimate friends of Medinilla. As to Moreto’s works, I possess his Comedias, Tom. I., Madrid, 1677 (of which Antonio notes an edition in 1654); Tom. II., Valencia, 1676; and Tom. III., Madrid, 1681, all in 4to;—besides which I have about a dozen of his plays, found in none of them. Calderon, in his “Astrólogo Fingido,” first printed by his brother in 1637, alludes to Moreto’s “Lindo Don Diego,” so that Moreto must have been known as early as that date; and in the “Comedias Escogidas de los Mejores Ingenios,” Tom. XXXVI., Madrid, 1671, we have the “Santa Rosa del Perú,” the first two acts of which are said to have been his last work, the remaining act being by Lanini, but with no intimation when Moreto wrote his part of it. This old collection of Comedias Escogidas contains forty-six plays attributed in whole or in part to Moreto.