Lope de Vega’s _Loas_, and more particularly his _Entremeses_ and _Saynetes_, seem to have been intended to indemnify the audience for the theological allegory of the sacramental dramas; for it is only in connection with the Autos that these preludes and interludes are to be found. The Loas are not always comic, and are sometimes only spirited monologues. The interludes, or Entremeses and Saynetes, may also be called preludes, for though they were performed after the Loa, which was properly the prologue, yet they preceded the Auto: these interludes are burlesque from beginning to end, and form a preparation for the devotion of the Auto, quite in the Spanish taste. Farces of this kind, pourtraying the incidents of common life, never destitute of genuine comic spirit, and written for the most part in verse, soon became indispensable to the Spaniards, and even to this day are never omitted in their dramatic performances. The interludes of Lope de Vega and Cervantes seem to have been the models of all that succeeded them. The dramatic genius of Lope de Vega has rendered him immortal. In the seventeenth century his plays were universally read and performed throughout Spain. In general they were first published singly, and for the most part with the bookseller’s epithet--_Comedia Famosa_, (the Celebrated Comedy), which subsequently became a universal device, affixed to all comedies printed in Spain. In this manner Lope de Vega’s most popular comedies were, partly during the life of the author, and partly after his death, collected in five-and-twenty volumes;[378] exclusively of the Autos, preludes, and interludes, which afterwards formed a separate publication.[379] Among Lope’s scattered dramas which have been printed at a later period, are some which are expressly denominated tragedies.[380]