Thus baldly told, the story resembles a thousand others; under Lope's hand it throbs with life and movement and emotion. His dialogue is swift and strong and appropriate, whether he personifies the blind passion of the King, the incorruptibility of Busto, the feudal ideal of Sancho Ortiz, or the strength and sweetness of Estrella. Of dialogue he is the first and best master on the Spanish stage: more choice, if less powerful, than Tirso; more natural, if less altisonant, than Calderón. The dramatic use of certain metrical forms persisted as he sanctioned it: the _décimas_ for laments, the _romance_ for exposition, the _lira_ for heroic declamation, the sonnet to mark time, the _redondilla_ for love-passages. His lightness of touch, his gaiety and resourcefulness are exampled in _La Dama Melindrosa_ (The Languishing Lady), as good a cloak-and-sword play as even Lope ever wrote. His gift of sombre conception is to be seen in _Dineros son Calidad_ (Money is Rank), where his contrivance of the King of Naples' statue addressing Octavio is the nearest possible approach to Tirso's figures of the Commander and of Don Juan. Whether or not Tirso took the idea from Lope cannot well be decided; but if he did so, he was no worse than the rest of the world. For ages dramatists of all nations have found Lope de Vega "good to steal from," and in many forms he has diverted other countries than the Spains. Alexandre Hardy is said by tradition to have exploited him vigorously, and probably we should find the imitations among Hardy's lost plays. Jean Mairet is reputed to have borrowed generously, and an undoubted follower is Jean Rotrou, many of whose pieces—from the early _Occasions perdues_ and _La belle Alfrède_ to his last effort, _Don Lope de Cardonne_—are boldly annexed from Lope. D'Ouville, in _Les Morts vivants_ and in _Aimer sans savoir qui_, exploited Lope to the profit of French playgoers. It is a rash conjecture which identifies the _Wild Gallant_ with the _Galán escarmentado_, inasmuch as the latter play is even still "inedited," and could scarcely have reached Dryden; but it cannot be doubted that when the sources of our Restoration drama are traced out, Lope will be found to rank with Calderón, and Moreto, and Rojas Zorrilla.