Note 366 — Chapter VI

He says, near the end, that his purpose was “to show how plays are written in the French style.” Plays arising from the circumstances of the times, and more in the forms and character of the preceding century, were sometimes represented, but soon forgotten. Of these, two may be mentioned as curious. The first is called, like one of Lope’s, “Sueños hay que son Verdades,” an anonymous drama, beginning with a dream of the king of Portugal and ending with its partial fulfilment in the capture of Monsanto, by the forces of Philip V., in 1704. The other is by Rodrigo Pero de Urrutia, entitled “Rey decretado en Cielo,” and covers a space of above six years, from the annunciation by Louis XIV. to the Duke of Anjou, in the first scene, that the will of Charles II. had made him king of Spain, down to the victory of Almansa, in 1707, which is its catastrophe. Both are of no value, and represent fairly, I believe, the merit of the few historical plays produced in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in Spain.