1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Solís, Antonio de

SOLÍS, ANTONIO DE (1610–1686), Spanish dramatist and historian, was born in 1610 at Alcala de Henares (less probably, Plasencia), and studied law at Salamanca, where he produced a comedy entitled Amor y obligación, which was acted in 1627. He became secretary to the count of Oropesa, and in 1654 he was appointed secretary of state as well as private secretary to Philip IV. Later he obtained the lucrative post of chronicler of the Indies, and, on taking orders in 1667, severed his connexion with the stage. He died at Madrid on the 19th of April 1686. Of his ten extant plays, two have some place in the history of the drama. El Amor al uso was adapted by Scarron and again by Thomas Corneille as L’Amour à la mode, while La Gitanilla de Madrid, itself founded on the novela of Cervantes, has been utilized directly or indirectly by P. A. Wolff, Victor Hugo and Longfellow. The titles of the remaining seven are Triunfos de amor y fortuna, Euridice y Orfeo, El Alcázar del secreto, Las Amazonas, El Doctor Carlino, Un Bobo hace ciento, and Amparar el enemigo. Amor y obligación survives in a manuscript at the Biblioteca Nacional. The Histotia de la conquista de Méjico, covering the three years between the appointment of Cortes to command the invading force and the fall of the city, deservedly ranks as a Spanish prose classic. It was published in 1684; an English translation by Townshend appeared in 1724.