But whatever may have been the fate of the comedies of Naharro, with respect to the stage in Spain, they were certainly printed along with the other poetic works of the author, in the year 1521, or at latest in 1533, under the learned title of _Propaladia_, intended to signify exercises in the school of Pallas.[284] Judging from the accounts given of these dramas by various writers, there is very little doubt that Torres Naharro was the real inventor of the Spanish comedy. He not only wrote his eight comedies in redondillas in the romance style, but he also endeavoured to establish the dramatic interest solely on an ingenious combination of intrigues, without attaching much importance to the developement of character, or the moral tendency of the story. It is besides probable, that he was the first who divided plays into three acts, which being regarded as three days labour in the dramatic field, were called _jornadas_.[285] It must, therefore, be unreservedly admitted, that these dramas, considered both with respect to their spirit and their form, deserve to be ranked as the first in the history of the Spanish national drama; for in the same path which Torres Naharro first trod, the dramatic genius of Spain advanced to the point attained by Calderon, and the nation tolerated no dramas except those which belonged to the style which had thus been created. It would appear, however, that there was something in the plays of Naharro which did not precisely harmonize with the taste of the Spanish public, for they were banished from literature and thrown into oblivion by the prose dramas which Cervantes saw represented in his youth. The author of these pieces, in which songs are sometimes episodically introduced, was Lope de Rueda, a native of Seville. This man, who was a gold-beater by trade, and who had received no literary education, was notwithstanding endowed with a strong genius for the dramatic art. Cervantes styles him the great Lope de Rueda. He did not compose his plays in the character of an author. He was at the head of a little company of players of whom he was himself the ablest; and his own taste and that of the public required only such pieces as could be easily represented on his wretched stage which consisted merely of a few planks of wood. The most prominent characters in Lope de Rueda’s dramatic compositions, were those which the author himself performed, and which, according to the testimony of Cervantes, he delineated in a highly natural style. In fools, roguish servants, biscayan boors, and such like characters, he particularly excelled. He did not neglect to avail himself of the accidental union of the Spanish drama with pastoral poetry, and he wrote some pastoral dialogues (_coloquios pastoriles_) in prose. On this account his theatrical wardrobe, of which Cervantes gives a humorous description, contained four shepherds dresses of white fur, trimmed with gold, an equal number of wigs and