As to the time when the Celestina was written, we must bring it into the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, before which we cannot find sufficient ground for believing such Spanish prose to have been possible. It is curious, however, that, from one and the same passage in the third act of the Celestina, Blanco White (Variedades, London, 1824, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 226) supposes Rojas to have written his part of it before the fall of Granada, and Germond de Lavigne (Celestine, p. 63) supposes him to have written it either afterwards, or at the very time when the last siege was going on. But Blanco White’s inference seems to be the true one, and would place both parts of it before 1490. If to this we add the allusions (Acts 4 and 7) to the _autos da fé_ and their arrangements, we must place it after 1480, when the Inquisition was first established. But this is doubtful. [421] Blanco White gives ingenious reasons for supposing that Seville is the city referred to. He himself was born there, and could judge well. [422] The Trota-conventos of Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, has already been noticed; and certainly is not without a resemblance to the Celestina. Besides, in the Second Act of “Calisto y Melibœa,” Celestina herself is once expressly called Trota-conventos. Thus far Cota had proceeded in his outline, when, from some unknown reason, he stopped short. The fragment he had written was, however, circulated and admired, and Fernando de Rojas of Montalvan, a bachelor of laws living at Salamanca, took it up, at the request of some of his friends, and, as he himself tells us, wrote the remainder in a fortnight of his vacations; the twenty acts or scenes which he added for this purpose constituting about seven eighths of the whole composition.[423] That the conclusion he thus arranged was such as the original inventor of the story intended is not to be imagined. Rojas was even uncertain who this first author was, and evidently knew nothing about his plans or purposes; besides which, he says, the portion that came into his hands was a comedy, while the remainder is so violent and bloody in its course, that he calls his completed work a tragicomedy; a name which it has generally borne since, and which he perhaps invented to suit this particular case. One circumstance, however, connected with it should not be overlooked. It is, that the different portions attributed to the two authors are so similar in style and finish, as to have led to the conjecture, that, after all, the whole might have been the work of Rojas, who, for reasons, perhaps, arising out of his ecclesiastical position in society, was unwilling to take the responsibility of being the sole author of it.[424]