A similar entertainment had been given by his queen to Philip IV., on his birthday, in 1622, at the beautiful country-seat of Aranjuez, for which the unfortunate Count of Villamediana furnished the poetry, and Fontana, the distinguished Italian architect, erected a theatre of great magnificence. The drama, which was much like a masque of the English theatre, and was performed by the queen and her ladies, is in the Works of Count Villamediana (Çaragoça, 1629, 4to, pp. 1-55); and an account of the entertainment itself is given in Antonio de Mendoça (Obras, Lisboa, 1690, 4to, pp. 426-464);--all indicating the most wasteful luxury and extravagance. The subject of the play of Lope is happily taken from the frolics of the very night on which it was represented;--a night frequently alluded to in the old Spanish stories and ballads, as one devoted, both by Moors and Christians, to gayer superstitions, and adventures more various, than belonged to any other of the old national holidays.[317] What was represented, therefore, had a peculiar interest, from its appropriateness both as to time and place. [317] Lope himself, in 1624, published a poem on the same subject, which fills thirty pages in the third volume of his Works; but a description of the frolics of St. John’s eve, better suited to illustrate this play of Lope, and much else on St. John’s eve in Spanish poetry, is in “Doblado’s Letters,” (1822, p. 309),--a work full of the most faithful sketches of Spanish character and manners.