Nature would have overstepped her bounds and have produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this rapidity of invention and composition, attained perfection in any department of literature. Nature, however, did her utmost for Lope de Vega; for even the rudest, most incorrect, and verbose of his works, are imbued with a poetic spirit which no methodical art can create. This poetic spirit is, at the same time so national and so completely Spanish, that without an intimate acquaintance with the works of other Spanish poets, and particularly those who flourished at an early period, it is impossible to perceive Lope de Vega’s merits and defects, or to understand their connection with each other. On this account, however, he was in a peculiar manner the poet of the Spanish public, the favourite of all ranks; and on this account have his writings always been partially or erroneously judged. Lope de Vega was born for dramatic poetry. In every other class of composition, he was merely an accurate imitator, or if he struck out a new course, it was in so imperfect a way, that his example was injurious to the cause of literature. But as a dramatic poet, if he did not create the Spanish comedy, properly so called, his inexhaustible fancy and the fascinating ease of his animated composition confirmed to it that character which has since distinguished it. All subsequent Spanish dramatic poets trod in the footsteps of Lope de Vega, until genius was banished from the sphere it occupied by the introduction of the French taste in Spain. The successors of Lope de Vega merely improved on the models which he had created. He fixed for a century and a half the spirit and the style of nearly all the different kinds of dramatic entertainment in Spain. It may therefore be proper to unite with a notice of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, a sketch of the characteristics of the various species of plays then performed in Spain; and this sketch will at the same time serve as a key to all the peculiarities of the Spanish drama.