birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which shows how the angel came to the shepherds and how he told them Jesus Christ was born, and, moreover, of his appearance when the Three Kings came to worship him, and of his resurrection, which shows how he was crucified and rose the third day. Such things as these, which move men to do well, may the clergy make, as well as to the end that men may have in remembrance that such things did truly happen. But this must they do decently, and in devotion, and in the great cities where there is an archbishop or bishop, and under their authority, or that of others by them deputed, and not in villages, nor in small places, nor to gain money thereby.”[409] [407] Remains of Roman theatres are found at Seville (Triana), Tarragona, Murviedro (Saguntum), Merida, etc. [408] _Juegos por Escarnio_ is the phrase in the original. It is obscure; but I have followed the intimation of Martinez de la Rosa, who is a good authority, and who considers it to mean short satirical compositions, from which arose, perhaps, afterwards, _Entremeses_ and _Saynetes_. (Isabel de Solís, Madrid, 1837, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 225, note 13.) _Escarnido_, in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. xxi.,) is used in the sense of “trifled with.” [409] Partida I. Tít. VI. Ley 34, ed. de la Academia. But though these earliest religious representations in Spain, whether pantomimic or in dialogue, were thus given, not only by churchmen, but by others, certainly before the middle of the thirteenth century, and probably much sooner, and though they were continued for several centuries afterwards, still no fragment of them and no distinct account of them now remain to us. Nor is any thing properly dramatic found even amongst the secular poetry of Spain, till the latter part of the fifteenth century, though it may have existed somewhat earlier, as we may infer from a passage in the Marquis of Santillana’s letter to the Constable of Portugal;[410] from the notice of a moral play by the Marquis of Villena, now lost, which is said to have been represented in 1414, before Ferdinand of Aragon;[411] and from the hint left by the picturesque chronicler of the Constable de Luna concerning the _Entremeses_[412] or Interludes, which were sometimes arranged by that proud favorite a little later in the same century. These indications, however, are very slight and uncertain.[413] [410] He says that his grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, who lived in the time of Peter the Cruel, wrote scenic poems in the manner of Plautus and Terence, in couplets like _Serranas_. Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. lix.