WHILE these great affairs were enacted in the dis-
tant background of Philip's stage, quite different
matters went on in front. What these were, we learn
from a Court Gazette, published in 1636-1637. The
park in Madrid, or that part of it known as el
Buen Retiro, was originally laid out by the orders
of the Conde-duque. It soon became a fashionable
place of resort, and many of Lope de Vega's scenes
take place there, or near by. Gallants, young ladies
and duennas, old noblemen, ecclesiasts, ambassadors,
officers of the guards, poets, and so forth, made it
a place of sauntering and rendezvous. I now quote
from the Gazette:

In the evening there was a sort of festa [in el Buen Re-
tiro] such as never was seen in Spain before. The poet
Atellano, who has just come back from the Indies, may be
justly called a monstruo de naturaleza, for such he showed
himself. His poetic inspiration is so great that he will pour
forth on the spot a torrent of verses on any subject pro-
posed and withal in suitable style, spiced with appropriate
quotations from Holy Writ and the classics, with com-
parisons, emphases, digressions, and poetical figures that
fill the audience with admiration and astonishment. It
seems like the black art, for his verses never drop a foot,
nor omit a syllable, nor make a mistake, whatever the
metre. After him came another poet; then dwarfs per-

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