[Footnote 63: It is usually said, and Viardôt repeats it, that Cervantes was driven from his theatrical labours by the success of Lope de Vega. This is not the fact. Lope sailed with the Invincible Armada, and it was not until his return that he began his dramatic career. The fact seems simply to have been that Cervantes, feeling the animation of genius within him, yet not having discovered its proper expression, was, to a certain degree, successful as a dramatist, though he could not originate a style which should give new life to the modern drama: thus his gains were moderate, and he found himself unable to support those dependant on him. The place of commissary offered itself to rescue him from this state of poverty. Afterwards, when Lope began his career, Cervantes found indeed, that, he filled the public eye, and had hit its taste; and that his dramas, with their jéjune plots and uninterwoven incidents, however, adorned by poetry and the majesty of passion, were thrown aside and forgotten.] [Footnote 64: This monument excited attention in the capital--Lope de Vega in his comedy of "La Esclava de su Galan," "The slave of her Lover" makes a lady living in great retirement in this country, say, "I visited Seville but twice: once to see the king, whom heaven guard! and a second time to see the wondrous edifice of the monument; so that I was only to be tempted out by the grandest objects which heaven or earth contains."] [Footnote 65: "AL TUMULO DEL REY EN SEVILLA. 'Voto á Dios que me espanta esta grandeza, y que diera un doblon por describilla, porque ¿ á quien no suspende y maravilla esta maquina insigne, esta braveza? Por Jesu Christo vivo, cada pieza vale mas que un millon, que es mancilla que esto no duré un siglo.--O gran Sevilla; Roma triunfante en animo y riqueza. Apostare que el anima del muerto, por gozar esto sitio, hoy ha dexado el Cielo de que goza eternamente!' Esto oyo un valenton, y dixo: 'Es cierto lo que dice voace, seor soldado, y quien dixere lo contrario miente.' Y luego en continente caló el chapeo, requirio la espada, miro al soslayo, fuese, y no hubo nada."] [Footnote 66: Los Rios--Pruebas de la Vida.] [Footnote 67: "When I was at Valladolid, a letter was brought to my house which cost a rial. It contained a bad, silly discourteous sonnet, without wit or point, speaking ill of 'Don Quixote,'--so that I grudged the rial infinitely."--_Postcript to the "Voyage to Parnassus._"] [Footnote 68: Torres Marquez, master of the pages to the archbishop of Toledo, was a friend of Cervantes, and took every occasion to proclaim his genius and worth. It was through him, probably, that the archbishop bestowed a pension on him.]