In one of his agonies of repentance he exclaimed: ‘A curse on all unhallowed love!’ But the punishment of his own transgressions was long delayed. Marta, indeed, died blind and mad; but Lope still had his children, and, with all his faults, he was a fond and devoted father. We may well imagine that none of his own innumerable triumphs thrilled him with a more rapturous delight than the success of his son Lope Félix at the poetic jousts in honour of St. Isidore. Strengthened by the domestic happiness which he now enjoyed, Lope underwent a striking change. He wrote more copiously than ever for the stage, but yielded no longer to its temptations; his stormy passions lay behind him—part of a past which all were eager to forget. In 1628 he became chaplain to the congregation of St. Peter, and was a model of pious zeal. It was an astonishing metamorphosis, and there may have been an unconscious histrionic touch in Lope’s rendering of a virtuous _rôle_. But the transformation was no mere pose. Lope was too frank to be a Pharisee, and too human to be a saint; but whatever he did, he did with all his might, and he became a hardworking priest, punctual in the discharge of his sacred office. Towards the close he occupied an unexampled pre-eminence. Urban VIII. conferred on him a papal order; though not a favourite at court, he was invited by Olivares to exercise his ingenious fantasy for the entertainment of Philip IV., who was assuming the airs and graces of a patron of the drama. With the crowd Lope’s popularity knew no bounds. Visitors hovered about to catch a glimpse of him as he threaded his way through the streets: his fellow-townsmen gloried in his glory. There is nothing in history comparable to his position.
Blessings and prayers, a nobler retinue Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, Followed this wondrous potentate.
No man of letters has ever received such visible proofs of his own celebrity, and none has retained it so long. For something like half a century Lope had contrived to fascinate his countrymen, but even he began to grow old at last. Yet the change was not so much in him as in the rising generation.
The swelling tide of _culteranismo_ was invading the stage; the fatal protection of Philip IV. was beginning to undermine the national theatre. Lope had always opposed the new fashion of preciosity, and he could not, or would not, supply the demand at court for a spectacular drama. One could scarcely expect him to help in demolishing the work of his lifetime. In his youth, and even in middle age, he looked down upon his plays as being almost outside the pale of literature. He lived long enough to revise his opinion, though perhaps to the last he would have refused to admit that his plays were worth all his epics put together. He lived long enough to revise his opinion, and a little too long for his happiness. His latest plays did not hit the public taste: his successor was already hailed in the person of the courtly Calderón whom he himself had first praised. To his artistic mortifications were added poignant domestic sorrows. He had dissuaded his son, Lope Félix, from adopting literature as a profession: the youth joined the navy, went on a cruise to South America, and was there