But it was during the period of his exile that he seems to have really begun his public dramatic career, and prepared himself, in some measure, for his subsequent more general popularity. Much of this interval was passed in Valencia; and in Valencia a theatre had been known for a long time.[281] As early as 1526, the hospital there received an income from it, by a compromise similar to that in virtue of which the hospitals of Madrid long afterwards laid the theatre under contribution for their support.[282] The Captain Virues, who was a friend of Lope de Vega, and is commemorated by him more than once, wrote for this theatre, as did Timoneda, the editor of Lope de Rueda; the works of both the last being printed in Valencia about 1570. These Valencian dramas, however, except in the case of Lope de Rueda, were of moderate amount and value; nor was what was done at Seville by Cueva and his followers, about 1580, or at Madrid by Cervantes, a little later, of more real importance, regarded as the foundations for a national theatre. [281] Dramatic entertainments of some kind are spoken of at Valencia in the fourteenth century. In 1394, we are told, there was represented at the palace a tragedy, entitled “L’ hom enamorat e la fembra satisfeta,” by Mossen Domingo Maspons, a counsellor of John I. This was undoubtedly a Troubadour performance. Perhaps the _Entramesos_ mentioned as having occurred in the same city in 1412, 1413, and 1415, were of the same sort. At any rate, they seem to have belonged, like those we have noticed (_ante_, Vol. I. p. 259) by the Constable Alvaro de Luna, to courtly festivities. Aribau, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1846, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 178, note; and an excellent article on the early Spanish theatre, by F. Wolf, in Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, 1848, p. 1287, note. [282] Jovellanos, Diversiones Públicas, Madrid, 1812, 8vo, p. 57. Indeed, if we look over all that can be claimed for the Spanish drama from the time of the eclogues of Juan de la Enzina, in 1492, to the appearance of Lope de Rueda, about 1544, and then, again, from his time to that of Lope de Vega, we shall find, not only that the number of dramas was small, but that they had been written in forms so different and so often opposed to each other as to have little consistency or authority, and to offer no sufficient indication of the channel in which the dramatic literature of the country was at last destined to flow. We may even say, that, except Lope de Rueda, no author for the theatre had yet enjoyed a permanent popularity; and he having now been dead more than twenty years, Lope de Vega must be admitted to have had a fair and free field open before him.