Lope also wrote many sacred dramas and Autos Sacramentales. Some of these are allegorical; others founded on the lives of the saints. God Almighty, the Virgin, the Saviour, and Satan are among his dramatis personæ. But in this species of writing he was far surpassed by Calderon. It required sublimity to give a proper tone to such subjects, and to this quality Lope cannot pretend. His _entremeses_ or interludes, farces they may be called, are full of merriment; his vast facility in inventing plots enabled him to bestow a subject that might easily be drawn out into a comedy of five, on a piece of one act. French and English writers have consulted him as a mine. In him originated also the introduction of the Grazioso, or jester--a clown who makes ludicrous observations on what is going on, and turning tragic sentiment into burlesque, acts as censor upon the motives and actions of the personages, and often disturbs the current of interest excited; but often also the sprightly wit he thus introduces, relieves the monotony of passion on stilts, and he is always a convenient personage in explaining away a difficulty, and disclosing a secret. Lope, of course, wholly disregards unity of time and place. The incongruities of his plots are manifold. Success, popular success, was what he aimed at, and he gained it; but he was aware of the barbarism of many of his dramas, and has himself warmly censured his plays. In his "Arte de hacer Comedias" he says[103]:-- "I, doomed to write, the public taste to hit, Resume the barbarous dress 'twas vain to quit: I lock up every rule before I write, Plautus and Jerome drive from out my sight, Lest rage should teach those injured wits to join, And their dumb books cry shame on works like mine. To vulgar standards then I square my play, Writing at ease, for, since the public pay, 'Tis just methinks we by their compass steer, And write the nonsense that they love to hear:" And again in the same poem:-- "None than myself more barbarous or more wrong, Who, hurried by the vulgar taste along, Dare give my precepts in despite of rule, Whence France and Italy pronounce me fool. But what am I to do? who now of plays, With one complete within these seven days, Four hundred eighty-three, in all have writ, And all, save six, against the rules of wit." And in his eclogue to Claudio:-- "Then spare, indulgent Claudio, spare The list of all my barbarous plays; For this with truth I can declare, And though 'tis truth, it is not praise, The printed part, though far too large, is less Than that which yet unprinted waits the press." To this severe censure of his own works was joined considerable study of the dramatic art. It had engaged his attention, he says, since he was ten years old; and in the "Dramatic Art" from which we have just quoted, he shows great good taste and penetration in his observations.