a greater gravity
of tone; but in other respects there is no difference between them and
the cloak-and-sword comedies with which they share the element of comic
underplots. Occasionally Lope condescended in the opposite direction, to
(3) plays of which the scene is laid in common life, but for which no
special name appears to have existed.[56] Meanwhile, both he and his
successors were too devoted sons of the church not to acknowledge in
some sort her claim to influence the national drama. This claim she had
never relinquished, even when she could no longer retain an absolute
control over the stage. For a time, indeed, she was able to reassert
even this; for the exhibition of all secular plays was in 1598
prohibited by the dying Philip II., and remained so for two years; and
Lope with his usual facility proceeded to supply religious plays of
various kinds. After a few dramas on scriptural subjects he turned to
the legends of the saints; and the _comedias de santos_, of which he
wrote a great number, became an accepted later Spanish variety of the
miracle-play. True, however, to the popular instincts of his genius, he
threw himself with special zeal and success into the composition of
another kind of religious plays--a development of the Corpus Christi
pageants, in honour of which all the theatres had to close their doors
for a month. These were the famous _autos sacramentales_ (i.e. solemn
"acts" or proceedings in honour of the Sacrament), which were performed
in the open air by actors who had filled the cars of the sacred
procession. Of these Lope wrote about 400. These entertainments were
arranged on a fixed scheme, comprising a prologue in dialogue between
two or more actors in character (_loa_), a farce (_entremes_), and the
_auto_ proper, an allegorical scene of religious purport, as an example
of which Ticknor cites the _Bridge of the World_,--in which the Prince
of Darkness in vain seeks to defend the bridge against the Knight of the
Cross, who finally leads the Soul of Man in triumph across it. Not all
the _entremeses_ of Lope and others were, however, composed for
insertion in these _autos_. This long-lived popular species, together
with the old kind of dramatic dialogue called _eclogues_, completes the
list of the varieties of his dramatic works.

The school of Lope.

The example of Lope was followed by a large number of writers, and Spain
thus rapidly became possessed of a dramatic literature almost
un