[430] “San Nicolas de Tolentino,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 171. [431] “Arauco Domado,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. After reading such absurdities, we wonder less that Cervantes, even though he committed not a few like them himself, should make the puppet-show man exclaim, “Are not a thousand plays represented now-a-days, full of a thousand improprieties and absurdities, which yet run their course successfully, and are heard, not only with applause, but with admiration?” D. Quixote, Parte II. c. 26. But all these violations of the truth of fact and of the commonest rules of Christian morals, of which nobody was more aware than their perpetrator, were overlooked by Lope himself, and by his audiences, in the general interest of the plot. A dramatized novel was the form he chose to give to his plays, and he succeeded in settling it as the main principle of the Spanish stage. “Tales,” he declares, “have the same rules with dramas, the purpose of whose authors is to content and please the public, though the rules of art may be strangled by it.”[432] And elsewhere, when defending his opinions, he says: “Keep the explanation of the story doubtful till the last scene; for, as soon as the public know how it will end, they turn their faces to the door and their backs to the stage.”[433] This had never been said before; and though some traces of intriguing plots are to be found from the time of Torres de Naharro, yet nobody ever thought of relying upon them, in this way, for success, till Lope had set the example, which his school have so faithfully followed. [432] “Tienen las novelas los mismos preceptos que las comedias, cuyo fin es haber dado su autor contento y gusto al pueblo, aunque se ahorque el arte.” Obras Sueltas, Tom. VIII. p. 70. [433] Arte Nuevo, Obras, Tom. IV. p. 412. From an autograph MS. of Lope, still extant, it appears that he sometimes wrote out his plays first in the form of _pequeñas novelas_. Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 19.