[366] He says, near the end, that his purpose was “to show how plays are written in the French style.” Plays arising from the circumstances of the times, and more in the forms and character of the preceding century, were sometimes represented, but soon forgotten. Of these, two may be mentioned as curious. The first is called, like one of Lope’s, “Sueños hay que son Verdades,” an anonymous drama, beginning with a dream of the king of Portugal and ending with its partial fulfilment in the capture of Monsanto, by the forces of Philip V., in 1704. The other is by Rodrigo Pero de Urrutia, entitled “Rey decretado en Cielo,” and covers a space of above six years, from the annunciation by Louis XIV. to the Duke of Anjou, in the first scene, that the will of Charles II. had made him king of Spain, down to the victory of Almansa, in 1707, which is its catastrophe. Both are of no value, and represent fairly, I believe, the merit of the few historical plays produced in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in Spain. [367] Accounts of the theatre during this sort of interregnum, from about 1700 to about 1790, are found in Signorelli (Storia Critica dei Teatri, Napoli, 1813, 8vo, Tom IX. pp. 56-236); L. F. Moratin (Obras, 1830, Tom. II. Parte I., Prólogo); and four papers by Blanco White (in Vols. X. and XI. of the New Monthly Magazine, London, 1824). The facts and opinions in Signorelli are important, because from 1765 to 1783 he lived in Madrid, (Storia, Tom. IX. p. 189,) and belonged to the club of the Fonda de San Sebastian, noticed, _ante_, p. 274, several of whose members were dramatic writers, and one of the standing subjects for whose discussions was the theatre. Obras Póstumas de N. F. Moratin, Londres, 1825, p. xxiv. The Spanish theatre, in fact, was now at its lowest ebb, and wholly in the hands of the populace, from whom it had always received much of its character, and who had been its faithful friends in the days of its trial and adversity. Nor could its present condition fairly claim a higher patronage. All Spanish plays acted for public amusement in Madrid were still represented, as they had been in the seventeenth century, in open court-yards, with galleries or corridors that surrounded them. To these court-yards there was no covering except in case of a shower, and then the awning stretched over them was so imperfect, that, if the rain continued, and those of the spectators who were always compelled to stand during the performance were too numerous to find shelter under the projecting seats of the corridors, the exhibition was broken up for the day, and the crowd driven home. There was hardly any pretence of scenery; the performance always took place in the day-time; and the price of admission, which was collected in money at the door, did not exceed a few farthings for each spectator.