is found in Guillén de Castro’s _El Narciso de su opinión_; but for Castro’s rough sketch Moreto substitutes a finished, final portrait of the insufferable, the fatuous snob who pays court to a countess, is as elated as a brewer when he marries her and fancies himself an aristocrat, but wakes up with a start to the reality of things on discovering that the supposed countess is the sharp little servant Beatriz who has seen through him all along, and has exhibited him in his true character as a born fool. Don Diego is always with us—in England now, as in Spain three centuries ago—and _El lindo Don Diego_ might have been written yesterday. Still better is _El desdén con el desdén_, a piece which shows to perfection Moreto’s unparalleled tact in making a mosaic a beautiful thing. Diana, the young girl who knows no more of the world than of the moon, but who imagines men to be odious wretches from what she had read of them—Diana is taken from Lope’s _La Vengadora de las mugeres_; the behaviour of her various suitors is suggested by Lope’s _De corsario á corsario_; the quick-witted maid is from Lope’s _Los Milagros del desprecio_; the trick by which the Conde de Urgel traps Diana is borrowed from Lope’s _La Hermosa fea_. Not one of the chief traits in _El desdén con el desdén_ is original; but out of these fragments a play has been constructed far superior to the plays from which the component parts are derived. The plot never flags and is always plausible, the characters are full of life and interest, and the dialogue sparkles with mischievous gaiety. All this is Moreto’s, and it is a victory of intellectual address. It clearly impressed Molière, who set out to do by Moreto what Moreto had done by others: the result is _La Princesse d’Élide_, one of Molière’s worst failures. Gozzi renewed the attempt, and failed likewise in _La Principessa filosofa_. _El desdén con el desdén_ outlives these imitations as well as others from skilful hands in England and in Sweden, and surely it deserves to live as an example of what marvellous deftness can do in contriving from scattered materials a charming and essentially original work of art.