some Spanish stage, particularly at Seville, but they are now totally lost; and no attempt seems ever to have been made to represent Spanish translations of Greek and Latin plays. The party of the dramatic moralists approximated the closest to that which has just been described. The interlocutory romance of Cœlestina,[280] or Calistus and Melibœa, poor in invention, but possessing in its natural descriptions of common life, an attraction for many readers, was, on account of its moral tendency, admired as a master-piece of dramatic art. As this dramatic romance was called a comedy or tragi-comedy, some of its admirers conceived themselves bound to write comedies and tragi-comedies in the same style for the moral benefit of society. Whether these productions were, or were not, calculated for representation, seems never to have been a subject of consideration with their authors. They were content if the scenes which they strung together exhibited in natural language the lowest pictures of common life, and forcibly marked the dangers attendant on vice. To do this requires only an ordinary share of talent, and accordingly Cœlestina was followed by a torrent of similar “Mirrors of Sin” in the Castilian language. The greater number appeared during the first half of the sixteenth century, or shortly afterwards; and among them were _Policiana_, entitled a tragedy;[281] _Perseus and Tibaldea_, a comedy; _De la hechicera_ (of the Witch), a comedy; _Florinea_, a comedy, &c. The author of a work of this kind, entitled _La Doleria del Sueño del Mundo_, (the Anguish of the Sleep of the World,) mentions in his title-page, that it is a comedy in the style of philosophic morality, (_Comedia tratada por via de philosophia moral_.) All these insipid moral lessons were read and admired in their day; but their extreme length prevented them from getting possession of the stage.[282]