Tirso's earliest printed volume is his _Cigarrales de Toledo_ (1621 or 1624), so called from a local Toledan word for a summer country-house set down in an orchard. The book is a collection of tales and verse, supposed to be recited during five days of festivity which have followed a wedding. Tirso, indeed, announces stories and verse which shall last twenty days; yet he breaks off at the fifth, announcing a Second Part, which never appeared. Critics profess to find in Tirso's tales some traces of Cervantes, who is praised in the text as the "Spanish Boccaccio": the influence of the Italian Boccaccio is far more obvious throughout, and—save for a tinge of Gongorism—_Los Tres Maridos burlados_ might well pass as a splendid adaptation from the _Decamerone_. Still, even in the _Cigarrales_ the born playwright asserts himself in _Cómo han de ser los Amigos_, in _El Celoso prudente_, and in one of Tirso's most brilliant pieces, _El Vergonzoso en Palacio_. A second collection entitled _Deleitar Aprovechado_ (Business with Profit), issued in 1635, contains three pious tales of no great merit, and several _autos_, one of which—_El Colmenero divino_—is Tirso's best attempt at religious drama. Essentially a dramatist, he is to be but partially studied in his theatre, of which the first part appeared in 1627, the third in 1634, the second and fourth in 1635, and the fifth in 1637. A famous play is the _Condenado por Desconfiado_ (The Doubter Damned), of which some would deprive Tirso; yet the treatment is specially characteristic of him. Paulo, who has left the world for a hermitage, prays for light as to his future salvation, dreams that his sins exceed his merits, and is urged by the devil to go to Naples to seek out Enrico, whose ending will be like his own. Paulo obeys, discovers Enrico to be a rook and bully, and in despair takes to a bandit's life. Meanwhile Enrico shows a hint of virtue by refusing to slay an old man whose appearance reminds the bully of his own father, and kills the master who taunted him with flinching from a bargain. He escapes to where Paulo and his gang are hidden. Garbed as a hermit, Paulo vainly exhorts Enrico to confess, though the criminal finally repents, and is seen by Pedrisco—Paulo's servant—passing to heaven. Duped by the devil, Paulo refuses to believe Pedrisco's story, and dies damned through his own distrust and pride. The substance of this play, which is contrived with abounding skill and theological knowledge, is the old conflict between free-will and predestination. Some would ascribe the play to Lope, because the pastoral scenes are in his manner, but the notion that Lope would publish under Tirso's name is untenable. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo will not be suspected of a prejudice against Lope; and he avers, in so many words, that the only playwright in Spain with enough theology to write the _Condenado_ was Tirso, who, had he written nothing else, would rank among the greatest Spanish dramatists.