seemed sedulously to avoid it; and thus obtained a kind and degree of fame he could never otherwise have reached. [279] Philomena, Segunda Parte, Obras Sueltas, Tom. II. p. 458. It is not possible to determine the year when Lope first began to write for the public stage; but whenever it was, he found the theatre in a rude and humble condition. That he was very early drawn to this form of composition, though not, perhaps, for the purposes of representation, we know on his own authority; for, in his pleasant didactic poem on the New Art of Making Plays, which he published in 1609, but read several years earlier to a society of _dilettanti_ in Madrid, he says expressly,-- The Captain Virues, a famous wit, Cast dramas in three acts, by happy hit; For, till his time, upon all fours they crept, Like helpless babes that never yet had stepped. Such plays I wrote, eleven and twelve years old; Four acts--each measured to a sheet’s just fold-- Filled out four sheets; while still, between, Three _entremeses_ short filled up the scene.[280] [280] El capitan Virues, insigne ingenio, Puso en tres actos la Comedia, que ántes Andaba en quatro, como pies de niño; Que eran entonces niñas las Comedias: Y yo las escribí, de once y doce años, De á quatro actos y de á quatro pliegos, Porque cada acto un pliego contenia: Y era que entonces en las tres distancias Se hacian tres pequeños entremeses. Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 412. This was as early as 1574. A few years later, or about 1580, when the poet was eighteen years old, he attracted the notice of his early patron, Manrique, the Bishop of Avila, by a pastoral. His studies at Alcalá followed; then his service under the young Duke of Alva, his marriage, and his exile of several years; for all which we must find room before 1588, when we know he served in the Armada. In 1590, however, if not a year earlier, he had returned to Madrid; and it does not seem unreasonable to assume that soon afterwards he began to be known in the capital as a dramatic writer, being then twenty-eight years old.