The _first_ class of plays that Lope seems to have invented--the one in which his own genius seemed most to delight, and which still remains more popular in Spain than any other--consists of those called “Comedias de Capa y Espada,” or Dramas with Cloak and Sword. They took their name from the circumstance, that their principal personages belong to the genteel portion of society, accustomed, in Lope’s time, to the picturesque national dress of cloaks and swords,--excluding, on the one hand, those dramas in which royal personages appear, and, on the other, those which are devoted to common life and the humbler classes. Their main and moving principle is gallantry,--such gallantry as existed in the time of their author. The story is almost always involved and intriguing, and almost always accompanied with an underplot and parody on the characters and adventures of the principal parties, formed out of those of the servants and other inferior personages. Their titles are intended to be attractive, and are not infrequently taken from among the old rhymed proverbs that were always popular, and that sometimes seem to have suggested the subject of the drama itself. They uniformly extend to the length of regular pieces for the theatre, now settled at three _jornadas_, or acts, each of which, Lope advises, should have its action compressed within the limits of a single day, though he himself is rarely scrupulous enough to follow his own recommendation. They are not properly comedies, for nothing is more frequent in them than duels, murders, and assassinations; and they are not tragedies, for, besides that they end happily, they are generally composed of humorous and sentimental dialogue, and their action is carried on chiefly by lovers full of romance, or by low characters whose wit is mingled with buffoonery. All this, it should be understood, was new on the Spanish stage; or if hints might have been furnished for individual portions of it as far back as Torres Naharro, the combination, at least, was new, as well as the manners, tone, and costume. Of such plays Lope wrote a very large number; several hundreds, at least. His genius--rich, free, and eminently inventive--was well fitted for their composition, and in many of them he shows great dramatic tact and talent. Among the best are “The Ugly Beauty”;[309] “Money makes the Man”;[310] “The Pruderies of Belisa,”[311] which has the accidental merit of being all but strictly within the rules; “The Slave of her Lover,”[312] in which he has sounded the depths of a woman’s tenderness; and “The Dog in the Manger,” in which he has almost equally well sounded the depths of her selfish vanity.[313] But perhaps there are some others which, even better than these, will show the peculiar character of this class of Lope’s dramas, and his peculiar position in relation to them. To two or three such we will, therefore, now turn. [309] Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, 4to, f. 22, etc.