After the audience have thus been put in good-humor, we have the principal play, called “The Well-disposed Enemy”; a wild, but not uninteresting, heroic drama, of which the scene is laid at the court of Naples, and the plot turns on the jealousy of the Neapolitan king and queen. Some attempt is made to compress the action within probable limits of time and space; but the character of Laura--at first in love with the king and exciting him to poison the queen, and at last coming out in disguise as an armed champion to defend the same queen when she is in danger of being put to death on a false accusation of infidelity--destroys all regularity of movement, and is a blemish that extends through the whole piece. Parts of it, however, are spirited, like the opening,--a scene full of life and nature,--where the court rush in from a bull-fight, that had been suddenly broken up by the personal danger of the king; and parts of it are poetical, like the first interview between Laura and Belisardo, whom she finally marries.[499] But the impression left by the whole is, that, though the path opened by Lope de Vega is the one that is followed, it is followed with footsteps ill-assured and a somewhat uncertain purpose. [499] The “Enemiga Favorable” is divided into three _jornadas_ called _actos_, and shows otherwise that it was constructed on the model of Lope’s dramas. But Tarrega wrote also at least one religious play, “The Foundation of the Order of Mercy.” It is the story of a great robber who becomes a great saint, and may have suggested to Calderon his “Devocion de la Cruz.” Gaspar de Aguilar was, as Lope tells us, the rival of Tarrega.[500] He was secretary to the Viscount Chelva, and afterwards major-domo to the Duke of Gandia, one of the most prominent noblemen at the court of Philip the Third. But an allegorical poem which Aguilar wrote, in honor of his last patron’s marriage, found so little favor, that its unhappy author, discouraged and repulsed, died of mortification. He lived, as Tarrega probably did, both in Valencia and in Madrid, and wrote several minor poems, besides one of some length on the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, which was printed in 1610. The last date we have relating to his unfortunate career is 1623. [500] Laurel de Apolo, (Madrid, 1630, 4to, f. 21), where Lope says, speaking of Tarrega, “Gaspar Aguilar _competia_ con él en la dramática poesía.”