Note 708 — Chapter XXV

In the Comedias Escogidas, there are, at least, twenty-five plays written wholly or in part by Matos, the earliest of which is in Tom. V., 1653. From the conclusion of his “Pocos bastan si son Buenos,” (Tom. XXXIV., 1670), and, indeed, from the local descriptions in other parts of it, there can be no doubt that Matos Fragoso was at one time in Italy, and very little that this drama was written at Naples, and acted before the Spanish Viceroy there. One volume of the plays of Matos Fragoso, called the first, was printed at Madrid, 1658, 4to. Other separate plays are in Duran’s collection, but not, I think, the best of them. Villaviciosa wrote a part of “Solo el Piadoso es mi Hijo,” of “El Letrado del Cielo,” of “El Redentor Cautivo,” etc. The apologue of the barber, in the second act of the last, is, I think, taken from one of Leyba’s plays, but I have it not now by me to refer to, and such things were too common at the time on a much larger scale to deserve notice, except as incidental illustrations of a well-known state of literary morals in Spain. Fragoso’s life is in Barbosa, Tom. II. pp. 695-697. I have eighteen of his plays in separate pamphlets, besides those in the Comedias Escogidas.