Note 83 — MEMOIRS OF EMINENT LINGUISTS.

This is, strange as it may seem, the lowest computation, and rests on Lope de Vega’s own testimony, written in 1630, five years before his death. Speaking of the number of his dramatic fictions, he says to his friend,

By other authors the number is made much greater. According to some, as his friend, Montalvan, he wrote eighteen hundred plays; and Bouterwek, in his History of Spanish Literature, puts it down at the enormous estimate of two thousand. “Spanish Literature,” I. p. 361.