In the time of Lope de Vega, the passion for such improvisation had risen higher than it ever rose before, if it had not spread out more widely. Actors were expected sometimes to improvisate on themes given to them by the audience.[458] Extemporaneous dramas, with all the varieties of verse demanded by a taste formed in the theatres, were not of rare occurrence. Philip the Fourth, Lope’s patron, had such performed in his presence, and bore a part in them himself.[459] And the famous Count de Lemos, the viceroy of Naples, to whom Cervantes was indebted for so much kindness, kept, as an _apanage_ to his viceroyalty, a poetical court, of which the two Argensolas were the chief ornaments, and in which extemporaneous plays were acted with brilliant success.[460] [458] Bisbe y Vidal, “Tratado de Comedias,” (1618, f. 102), speaks of the “glosses which the actors make extempore upon lines given to them on the stage.” [459] Viardot, Études sur la Littérature en Espagne, Paris, 1835, 8vo, p. 339. [460] Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles, (Madrid, 1778, 4to, Tom. I. pp. 89-91), in which there is a curious narrative by Diego, Duke of Estrada, giving an account of one of these entertainments, (a burlesque play on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice), performed before the viceroy and his court. Lope de Vega’s talent was undoubtedly of near kindred to this genius of improvisation, and produced its extraordinary results by a similar process, and in the same spirit. He dictated verse, we are told, with ease, more rapidly than an amanuensis could take it down;[461] and wrote out an entire play in two days, which could with difficulty be transcribed by a copyist in the same time. He was not absolutely an improvisator, for his education and position naturally led him to devote himself to written composition, but he was continually on the borders of whatever belongs to an improvisator’s peculiar province; he was continually showing, in his merits and defects, in his ease, grace, and sudden resource, in his wildness and extravagance, in the happiness of his versification and the prodigal abundance of his imagery, that a very little more freedom, a very little more indulgence given to his feelings and his fancy, would have made him at once and entirely, not only an improvisator, but the most remarkable one that ever lived. [461] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. pp. 51, 52. CHAPTER XIX. QUEVEDO.--HIS LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICE, AND PERSECUTIONS.--HIS WORKS, PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED.--HIS POETRY.--THE BACHILLER FRANCISCO DE LA TORRE.--HIS PROSE WORKS, RELIGIOUS AND DIDACTIC.--HIS PAUL THE SHARPER, PROSE SATIRES, AND VISIONS.--HIS CHARACTER.