He gained considerable profit by his writings. The presents made him by various nobles amounted to a large sum. His plays and autos, and his various publications, brought him vast receipts. He had received a dowry with each wife. The king bestowed several pensions and chaplaincies. The pope gifted him with various preferments. With all this he was not rich; his absolute income apparently amounted to only 1500 ducats, and profuse charities and prodigal generosity emptied his purse as fast as it was filled. He spent much on church festivals; he was hospitable to his friends, extravagant in his purchase of books and pictures, and munificent in his charities, so that when he died he left little behind him. We cannot censure this disposition; indeed it is inherent in property gained as Lope gained it, to be lost as soon as won; for being received irregularly, it superinduces irregular habits of expense. That Lope, the observed of all, he to whom nature and fortune had been so prodigal, should have been grasping and avaricious would have grated on our feelings. We hear of his profusion with pleasure: the well-watered soil, if generous in its nature, gives forth abundant vegetation; the receiver of so much showed the nobility of his mind in freely imparting to others the wealth so liberally bestowed on him. In his epistles and other poems, Lope gives very pleasing pictures of the tranquillity of his life as he advanced in age. Addressing don Fray Placido de Tosantos, he says: "I write you these verses, from where no annoyance troubles me. My little garden inspires fancies drawn from fruits and flowers, and the contemplation of natural objects." In the epistle before quoted to Amaryllis, he says, "My books are my life, and humble content my actions--unenvious of the riches of others. The confusion sometimes annoys me; but, though I live in Madrid, I am farther from the court than if I were in Muscovy or Numidia. Sometimes I look upon myself as a dwarf, sometimes as a giant, and I regard both views with indifference; and am neither sad when I lose, nor joyful when I gain. The man who governs himself well, despises the praise or blame of this short though vile captivity. I esteem the sincere and pure friendship of those who are virtuous and wise; for without virtue, no friendship is secure; and if sometimes my lips complain of ingratitude, this is no crime." To Francisco de Rioja he writes: "My garden is small; it contains a few trees, and more flowers, a trained vine, an orange tree, and a rose hush. Two young nightingales dwell in it, and two buckets of water form a fountain, playing among stones and coloured shells." "My hopes are fallen," he says in another place, "and my fortune shuts herself up with me in a nook, filled with books and flowers, and is neither favourable nor inimical to me." In the "Huerto Deshecho," or Destroyed Garden, he gives further testimony of his love for his garden, which had just been laid waste by a tempest. He thus