studied in _Lo que son Mujeres_ (What Women are) and in _Entre Bobos anda el Juego_ (The Boobies' Sport). A very notable talent is that of AGUSTÍN MORETO Y CAVAÑA (1618-69), whose popularity as a writer of cloak-and-sword plays is only less than Lope's. In 1639 Moreto graduated as a licentiate in arts at Alcalá de Henares. Thence he made his way to Madrid, where he found a protector in Calderón. He published a volume of plays in 1654, and is believed to have taken orders three years later. Moreto is not a great inventor, but so far as concerns stagecraft he is above all contemporaries. In _El Desdén con el Desdén_ (Scorn for Scorn) he borrows Lope's _Milagros del Desprecio_ (Scorn works Wonders), and it is fair to say that the _rifacimento_ excels the original at every point. Diana, daughter of the Conde de Barcelona, mocks at marriage: her father surrounds her with the neighbouring gallants, among whom is the Conde de Urgel. Urgel's affected coolness piques the lady into a resolve to captivate him, and she so far succeeds as to lead him to avow his love for her: he escapes rejection by feigning that his declaration was a jest, and the dramatic solution is brought about by Diana's surrender. The plot is ordered with consummate skill, the dialogue is of the gayest humour, the characters more life-like than any but Alarcón's; and as evidence of the playwright's tact, it is enough to say that when Molière, in his _Princesse d'Élide_, strove to repeat Moreto's exploit he met with ignominious disaster. In the delicacy of touch with which Moreto handles a humorous situation he is almost unrivalled; and in the broader spirit of farce, his _graciosos_—comic characters, generally body-servants to the heroes—are admirable for natural force and for gusts of spontaneous wit. In _El lindo Don Diego_ he has fixed the type of the fop convinced that he is irresistible, and the presentation of fatuity which leads Don Diego into marriage with a serving-wench (whom he mistakes for a countess) is among the few masterpieces of high comedy. Moreto's historical plays are of less universal interest; in this kind, _El Rico Hombre de Alcalá_ is a powerful and sympathetic picture of Pedro the Cruel—the strong man doing justice on the noble, Tello García—from the standpoint of the Spanish populace, which has ever respected _el Rey justiciero_. In his later years Moreto betook him to the _comedia devota_; his _San Francisco de Sena_ is extravagantly and almost ludicrously devout, as in the scenes where Francisco wagers his eyes, loses, is struck blind, and repents on recovering his sight. The devout play was not Moreto's calling: in his first and best manner, as a master of the lighter, gayer comedy, he holds his own against all Spain.