Thus the piece is a comedy from beginning to end. Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedies, afford a picture of the religious notions of the Spaniards in the age in which he lived, not less faithfully pourtrayed than that by which his dramas of intrigue represent the manners of Spanish society. Pure piety, according to catholic ideas, wildly blended with the most contradictory chimeras, and these chimeras again ennobled by the boldest flights of imagination, form altogether a monstrous and extravagant patch-work; but this heterogeneous variety is, nevertheless, united by the ramifications of a poetic spirit, into a whole, to which no European imagination could now be expected to produce a resemblance. But Lope de Vega seems not to have come to a positive determination respecting what ought to have been the true spirit of these dramatic pictures of religious faith. The mixture of poetic and unpoetic elements is very unequal in his different spiritual comedies. His Lives of the Saints possess far more dramatic spirit than his Autos Sacramentales; while on the other hand, allegory imparts a higher dignity to the religious mysticism of the latter. Both, however, have in common a kind of operatic style, combined with the display of theatrical machinery and decoration, calculated to captivate the senses. Of all the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, the Lives of the Saints are in every respect the most irregular. Allegorical characters, buffoons, saints, peasants, students, kings, God, the infant Jesus, the devil, and all the most heterogeneous beings that the wildest imagination could bring together, are introduced. Music seems always to have been an indispensable accessary. Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedy, entitled the Life of Saint Nicolas de Tolentino,[373] commences with a conversation maintained by a party of students, who make a display of their wit and scholastic learning. Among them is the future saint, whose piety shines with the brighter lustre when contrasted with the disorderly gaiety of those by whom he is surrounded. The devil disguised by a mask joins the party. A skeleton appears in the air; the sky opens, and the Almighty is discovered sitting in judgment attended by Justice and Mercy, who alternately influence his decisions. Next succeeds a love intrigue between a lady named Rosalia, and a gentleman named Feniso. The future saint then re-enters attired in canonicals, and delivers a sermon in redondillas. The parents of the saint congratulate themselves on possessing such a son; and this scene forms the conclusion of the first act. At the opening of the second a party of soldiers are discovered; the saint enters accompanied by several monks, and offers up a prayer in the form of a sonnet. Brother Peregrino relates the romantic history of his conversion. Subtle theological fooleries ensue, and numerous anecdotes of the lives of the saints are related. St. Nicolas prays again through the medium of a sonnet. He then rises in the air, either