ss of style, and
more especially in fire of imagination. In his _autos_ (of which he is
said to have left not less than 73), Calderon probably attained to his
most distinctive excellence; some of these appear to take a wide range
of allegorical invention,[60] while they uniformly possess great beauty
of poetical detail. Other of his most famous or interesting pieces are
_comedias de santos_.[61] In his secular plays he treats as wide a
variety of subjects as Lope, but it is not a dissimilar variety; nor
would it be easy to decide whether a poet so uniformly admirable within
his limits has achieved greater success in romantic historical
tragedy,[62] in the comedy of amorous intrigue,[63] or in a dramatic
work combining fancy and artificiality in such a degree that it has been
diversely described as a romantic caprice and as a philosophical
poem.[64]

Contemporaries of Calderon.

Moreto and the comedia de figuron.

During the life of the second great master of the Spanish drama there
was little apparent abatement in the productivity of its literature;
while the _autos_ continued to flourish in Madrid and elsewhere, till in
1765 (shortly before the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain) their
public representation was prohibited by royal decree. In the world of
fashion, the opera had reached Spain already during Calderon's lifetime,
together with other French influences, and the great dramatist had
himself written one or two of his plays for performance with music. But
the regular national drama continued to command popular favour, and with
A. Moreto may be said to have actually taken a step in advance. While he
wrote in all the forms established by Lope and cultivated by Calderon,
his manner seems most nearly to approach the masterpieces of French and
later English comedy of character; he was the earliest writer of the
_comedias de figuron_, in which the most prominent personage is (in
Congreve's phrase) "a character of affectation," in other words, the
Spanish fop of real life.[65] His masterpiece, a favourite of many
stages, is one of the most graceful and pleasing of modern
comedies--simple but interesting in plot, and true to nature, with
something like Shakespearian truth.[66] Other writers trod more closely
in the footsteps of the masters without effecting any noticeable changes
in the form of the Spanish drama; even the _saynete_ (tit-bit), which
owes its name to Benavente (fl. 1645), was only a kind of _ent