Two things, however, should be noted, when considering these dramatic efforts of Juan de la Enzina as the foundation of the Spanish drama. The first is their internal structure and essential character. They are eclogues only in form and name, not in substance and spirit. Enzina, whose poetical account of his travels in Palestine proves him to have had scholarlike knowledge, began by translating, or rather paraphrasing, the ten Eclogues of Virgil, accommodating some of them to events in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, or to passages in the fortunes of the house of Alva.[437] From these, he easily passed to the preparation of eclogues to be represented before his patrons and their courtly friends. But, in doing this, he was naturally reminded of the religious exhibitions, which had been popular in Spain from the time of Alfonso the Tenth, and had always been given at the great festivals of the Church. Six, therefore, of his eclogues, to meet the demands of ancient custom, are, in fact, dialogues of the simplest kind, represented at Christmas and Easter, or during Carnival and Lent; in one of which the manger at Bethlehem is introduced, and in another a sepulchral monument, setting forth the burial of the Saviour, while all of them seem to have been enacted in the chapel of the Duke of Alva, though two certainly are not very religious in their tone and character. [437] They may have been represented, but I know of no proof that they were, except this accommodation of them to personages some of whom are known to have been of his audience on similar occasions. The remaining five are altogether secular; three of them having a sort of romantic story, the fourth introducing a shepherd so desperate with love that he kills himself, and the fifth exhibiting a market-day farce and riot between sundry country people and students, the materials for which Enzina may well enough have gathered during his own life at Salamanca. These five eclogues, therefore, connect themselves with the coming secular drama of Spain in a manner not to be mistaken, just as the first six look back towards the old religious exhibitions of the country.