It is curious to read the epithets of praise heaped on this favourite of his age, during his life and immediately on his death. His friend and disciple Montalvan adopts a phraseology very similar to that in use with the emperor of China, when he is styled "Brother of the sun" and "Uncle of the stars." He with all the pomp of Spanish hyperbole, names him "the portent of the world; the glory of the land; the light of his country; the oracle of language; the centre of fame; the object of envy; the darling of fortune; the phoenix of ages: prince of poetry; Orpheus of sciences; Apollo of the muses; Horace of poets; Virgil of epics; Homer of heroics; Pindar of lyrics; the Sophocles of tragedy; and the Terence of comedy. Single among the excellent, and excellent among the great: great in every way and in every manner." Such was the usual style of speaking of Lope,--his common appellation being the phoenix of Spain. And now, while editions of "Don Quixote" are multiplied, and each hour adds to the fame of Cervantes, we inquire concerning Lope, principally for the sake of discovering the cause of the excessive admiration with which he was regarded in his own time. The life written by Montalvan, the biography compiled with such care and elegance by Lord Holland, and various researches given to light in several numbers of the "Quarterly Review," (written we believe, by Mr. Southey), are (in addition to the works of Lope himself) our principal guides in tracing the following pages. Lope de Vega Carpio was born at Madrid[74], in the house of Geronimo de Soto, near the gate of Guadalaxara, on the 26th of November, 1562, on the day of St. Lope, bishop of Verona, and was baptized on the 6th of December following, in the parish church of San Miguel de les Octeos. His parents were in the same situation as these of Cervantes--hidalgos, but poor. We have an account of Felix de Vega, father of the poet, which shows him to have been a good and pious man, and a careful father. He was very attentive to his religious duties, and had rooms in the Hospital de la Corte, whither his children accompanied him, and they performed several menial offices, and washed the feet of the poor--comforting and helping the convalescent with clothes and money. The good example thus implanted imparted a charitable and pious turn to Lope's life,--and still more to that of his elder sister, Isabel de Carpio, who was singularly pious, and died in 1601.[75] Felix de Vega was also a poet, as his son informs us in the "Laurel de Apolo," in some verses of respectful and graceful allusion[76]; so that he added the inheritance of a poetical temperament to his pious instructions.