The dates of the various events of Lope's life are very uncertain, and none more so than that of his second marriage. He mentions it as happening soon after his return from the expedition to England. Yet he speaks of taking orders soon after his wife's death, and he took orders 1609. The term of his second marriage, however, endured only for eight years. It would therefore appear that several years elapsed after his return to Madrid before he married a second time. As diligent a researcher as M. Viardôt in old parish books and official documents, would clear up this obscurity. As it is, we can only give the facts, as we find them stated, obscurely. The effect of his bereaved condition was, as has been mentioned, to induce him to take vows, and be ordained. He prepared himself, by retiring from gay society, assumed a priestly dress, served in hospitals, and performed many acts of charity; and finally, visiting Toledo, took orders, and said his first mass in a Carmelite church. He entered a fraternity of priests dedicated to the performance of good works and the assistance of the poor, and fulfilled his duties zealously, so that he became named head chaplain, and was as generous as conscientious in the exercise of his office. To his other sacred employments he added that of being a familiar of the inquisition. His piety, which was catholic and excessive, led to this; but it is a painful circumstance, in our times especially, when we are told that he presided over the procession of the confraternity of familiars of the holy office, on the occasion of an _auto da fé_, when a relapsed Lutheran was burned alive. We feel sure that Cervantes would never have been led to a similar act. Meanwhile his reputation as an author was rising to that height which it afterwards reached. In 1598, the canonisation of St. Isidro, a native of Madrid, was the occasion of prizes being given to the authors of verses written in his honour. Each style of poetry gained its reward, but above one could not be gained by the same person. Lope succeeded in the hymns; but he had tried in all. He wrote a poem of ten cantos in short verse, numberless sonnets and ballads, and two comedies. These were published under the feigned name of Tomé de Burguillos, and are among the best of Lope's compositions. Already his dramas were in vogue, and the public were astonished by their number and excellence. In this year also he published the "Arcadia," written long before. Afterwards he published others of his younger productions; for it is singular that he printed nothing while a very young man, and that he had established his reputation by his plays before he deluged the world with his lyric and epic poetry. The "Hermosura de Angelica" did not see light till 1604; and thus was it with many other of his productions, which he wrote probably at Valencia during his exile, and which when he found profit by so doing, he bestowed on the public.