A large income naturally followed such popularity, for his plays were liberally paid for by the actors;[452] and he had patrons of a munificence unknown in our days, and always undesirable.[453] But he was thriftless and wasteful; exceedingly charitable; and, in hospitality to his friends, prodigal. He was, therefore, almost always embarrassed. At the end of his “Jerusalem,” printed as early as 1609, he complains of the pressure of his domestic affairs;[454] and in his old age he addressed some verses, in the nature of a petition, to the still more thriftless Philip the Fourth, asking the means of living for himself and his daughter.[455] After his death, his poverty was fully admitted by his executor; and yet, considering the relative value of money, no poet, perhaps, ever received so large a compensation for his works. [452] Montalvan sets the price of each play at five hundred reals, and says that in this way Lope received, during his life, eighty thousand ducats. Obras, Tom. XX. p. 47. [453] The Duke of Sessa alone, besides many other benefactions, gave Lope, at different times, twenty-four thousand ducats, and a sinecure of three hundred more per annum. _Ut supra._ [454] Libro XX., last three stanzas. [455] “I have a daughter, and am old,” he says. “The Muses give me honor, but not income,” etc. (Obras, Tom. XVII. p. 401.) From his will, an abstract of which may be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 19, it appears that Philip IV. promised an office to the person who should marry this daughter, and failed to keep his word.