Of the nine or ten plays he published, only two can claim our notice. The first is “The Merchant Lover,” praised by Cervantes, who, like Lope de Vega, mentions Aguilar more than once with respect. It is the story of a rich merchant, who pretends to have lost his fortune in order to see whether either of two ladies to whose favor he aspires loved him for his own sake rather than for that of his money; and he finally marries the one who, on this hard trial, proves herself to be disinterested. It is preceded by a _prólogo_, or _loa_, which in this case is a mere jesting tale; and it ends with six stanzas, sung for the amusement of the audience, about a man who, having tried unsuccessfully many vocations, and, among the rest, those of fencing-master, poet, actor, and tapster, threatens, in despair, to enlist for the wars. Neither the beginning nor the end, therefore, has any thing to do with the subject of the play itself, which is written in a spirited style, but sometimes shows bad taste and extravagance, and sometimes runs into conceits. One character is happily hit,--that of the lady who loses the rich merchant by her selfishness. When he first tells her of his pretended loss of fortune, and seems to bear it with courage and equanimity, she goes out saying,-- Heaven save me from a husband such as this, Who finds himself so easily consoled! Why, he would be as gay, if it were _me_ That he had lost, and not his money! And again, in the second act, where she finally rejects him, she says, in the same jesting spirit,-- Would you, Sir, see that you are not a man,-- Since all that ever made you one is gone,-- (The figure that remains availing but To bear the empty name that marked you once),-- Go and proclaim aloud your loss, my friend, And then inquire of your own memory What has become of you, and where you are; And you will learn, at once, that you are not The man to whom I lately gave my heart.[501] [501] Dios me guarde de hombre Que tan pronto se consuela, Que lo mismo hará de mí. Mercader Amante, Jorn. I. Quieres ver que no eres hombre, Pues el ser tuyo has perdido; Y que de aquello que has sido, No te queda sino el nombre? Haz luego un alarde aquí De tu perdida notoria; Toma cuenta á tu memoria; Pide á tí mismo por tí, Verás que no eres aquel A quien dí mi corazon. Ibid., Jorn. II. What, perhaps, is most remarkable about this drama is, that the unity of place is observed, and possibly the unity of time; a circumstance which shows that the freedom of the Spanish stage from such restraints was not yet universally acknowledged.