It is, of course, to his dramatic works that Lope de Vega owes his splendid pre-eminence in the history of literature. He was much more than a great dramatist: in a very real sense he was the founder of the national theatre in Spain. It cannot be denied that he had innumerable predecessors—men who employed the dramatic form with more or less skill; and he himself joined with Cervantes in acclaiming the metal-beater Lope de Rueda as the patriarch of the Spanish stage. But even the joint and several authority of Cervantes and Lope do not suffice in questions of literary history. No doubt Lope de Rueda is a figure of historical importance, and no doubt his actual achievement is considerable in its way. There is, however, nothing that can be called ‘national’ in Rueda’s formal plays, which are mostly adaptations from the Italian, and the bluff hilarity of his clever interludes is primitive. The later practitioners in the Senecan drama are of less significance than Miguel Sánchez and than Juan de la Cueva, both of whom foreshadow the new developments which Lope de Vega was to introduce. So far as the drama is concerned Miguel Sánchez is represented to posterity by two plays only, and it is therefore difficult to estimate the extent of his influence on the Spanish drama. Cueva’s innovating tendency is manifest in his choice of themes and his treatment of them: he strikes out a new line by selecting a representative historic subject, develops it regardless of the unities, and occasionally strikes the note of modernity by approximating to the comedy of manners—the cloak-and-sword play. Withal, Cueva is more remarkable as an intrepid explorer than as a finished craftsman, and he inevitably has the uncertain touch of an early experimenter. Lope de Vega is on a higher plane as an executant, and is moreover a great original inventor. In its final form the Spanish theatre is his work, and whatever he may once have said of Lope de Rueda, he finally claimed the honour which undoubtedly belongs to him. Anticipating Tennyson, he pointedly remarks in the _Égloga á Claudio_ that Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.