CASTRO Y BELLVIS, GUILLEN DE Spanish dramatist, was a Valencian by birth, and early enjoyed a reputation as a man of letters. At one time a captain of the coastguard, at another the governor of Scigliano, near Naples, Castro was nominated a knight of the order of Santiago in 1623. He settled at Madrid in 1626, and died there in such poverty that his funeral expenses were defrayed by charity. Lope de Vega dedicated to him a celebrated play entitled Las Almenas de Toro (1619), and when Castro's Comedies were published in 1618-21 he dedicated the first volume to Lope de Vega's daughter. The drama that has made Castro's reputation is Las Mocedades del Cid (1599?), to the first part of which Corneille was largely in debted for the materials of his tragedy. The two parts of this play, like all those by Castro, have the genuine ring of the old romances; and were among the most popular pieces of their day. Castro's Fuerza de la costumbre is the source of Love's Care, a play ascribed to Fletcher. He is also the reputed author of El Prodigio de los from which Calderon derived El Mdgico prodigioso.