It should, however, be remembered, that no other poet ever wrote so much with popular effect. For, if we begin with his dramatic compositions, which are the best of his efforts, and go down to his epics, which, on the whole, are the worst,[456] we shall find the amount of what was received with favor, as it came from the press, quite unparalleled. And when to this we are compelled to add his own assurance, just before his death, that the greater part of his works still remained in manuscript,[457] we pause in astonishment, and, before we are able to believe the account, demand some explanation that will make it credible;--an explanation which is the more important, because it is the key to much of his personal character, as well as of his poetical success. And it is this. No poet of any considerable reputation ever had a genius so nearly related to that of an improvisator, or ever indulged his genius so freely in the spirit of improvisation. This talent has always existed in the southern countries of Europe; and in Spain has, from the first, produced, in different ways, the most extraordinary results. We owe to it the invention and perfection of the old ballads, which were originally improvisated and then preserved by tradition; and we owe to it the _seguidillas_, the _boleros_, and all the other forms of popular poetry that still exist in Spain, and are daily poured forth by the fervent imaginations of the uncultivated classes of the people, and sung to the national music, that sometimes seems to fill the air by night as the light of the sun does by day. [456] Like some other distinguished authors, however, he was inclined to undervalue what he did most happily, and to prefer what is least worthy of preference. Thus, in the Preface to his Comedias, (Vol. XV., Madrid, 1621), he shows that he preferred his longer poems to his plays, which he says he holds but “as the wild-flowers of his field, that grow up without care or culture.” [457] This might be inferred from the account in Montalvan’s “Fama Póstuma”; but Lope himself declares it distinctly in the “Egloga á Claudio,” where he says, “The printed part of my writings, though too much, is small, compared with what remains unpublished.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IX. p. 369.) Indeed, we know we have hardly a fourth part of his full-length plays; only twelve _autos_ out of four hundred; only twenty or thirty _entremeses_ out of the “infinite number” ascribed to him.