[18] “Las Quatro Comedias y Dos Coloquios Pastorales del excelente poeta y gracioso representante, Lope de Rueda,” etc., impresas en Sevilla, 1576, 8vo,--contains his principal works, with the “Diálogo sobre la Invencion de las Calzas que se usan agora.” From the Epistola prefixed to it by Juan de Timoneda, I infer that he made alterations in the manuscripts, as Lope de Rueda left them; but not, probably, any of much consequence. Of the “Deleytoso,” printed at Valencia, 1577, I have never been able to see more than the very ample extracts given by Moratin, amounting to six _Pasos_ and a _Coloquio_. The first edition of the Quatro Comedias, etc., was 1567, at Valencia; the last at Logroño, 1588. The four Comedias are merely divided into scenes, and extend to the length of a common farce, whose spirit they generally share. The first of them, “Los Engaños,”--Frauds,--contains the story of a daughter of Verginio, who has escaped from the convent where she was to be educated, and is serving as a page to Marcelo, who had once been her lover, and who had left her because he believed himself to have been ill treated. Clavela, the lady to whom Marcelo now devotes himself, falls in love with the fair page, somewhat as Olivia does in “Twelfth Night,” and this brings in several effective scenes and situations. But a twin brother of the lady-page returns home, after a considerable absence, so like her, that he proves the other Sosia, who, first producing great confusion and trouble, at last marries Clavela, and leaves his sister to her original lover. This is at least a plot; and some of its details and portions of the dialogue are ingenious, and managed with dramatic skill. The next, the “Medora,” is, also, not without a sense of what belongs to theatrical composition and effect. The interest of the action depends, in a considerable degree, on the confusion produced by the resemblance between a young woman stolen when a child by Gypsies, and the heroine, who is her twin sister. But there are well-drawn characters in it, that stand out in excellent relief, especially two: Gargullo,--the “miles gloriosus,” or Captain Bobadil, of the story,--who, by an admirable touch of nature, is made to boast of his courage when quite alone, as well as when he is in company; and a Gypsy woman, who overreaches and robs him at the very moment he intends to overreach and rob her.[19] [19] This is the _Rufian_ of the old Spanish dramas and stories,--parcel _rowdy_, parcel bully, and wholly knave;--a different personage from the _Rufian_ of recent times, who is the elder _Alcahuete_ or pander. The story of the “Eufemia” is not unlike that of the slandered Imogen, and the character of Melchior Ortiz is almost exactly that of the fool in the old English drama,--a well-sustained and amusing mixture of simplicity and shrewdness.