thought of the greatest of all the masters of the historical drama, that “the best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.” [348] “El Valiente Cespedes,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. This notice is specially given to the reader by Lope, out of tenderness to the reputation of Doña María de Cespedes, who does not appear in the play with all the dignity which those who, in Lope’s time, claimed to be descended from her might exact at his hands. [349] In “Roma Abrasada,” Acto II. f. 89, already noticed, _ante_, p. 193. [350] Jornada II. of “Exemplo Mayor de la Desdicha, y Capitan Belisario”; not in the collection of Lope’s plays, and though often printed separately as his, and inserted as such on Lord Holland’s list, it is published in the old and curious collection entitled “Comedias de Diferentes Autores,” (4to, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633), as the work of Montalvan, both he and Lope being then alive. [351] “Contra Valor no hay Desdicha.” Like the last, it has been often reprinted. It begins with the romantic account of Cyrus’s exposure to death, in consequence of his grandfather’s dream, and ends with a battle and his victory over Astyages and all his enemies. CHAPTER XVII. LOPE DE VEGA, CONTINUED.--DRAMAS THAT ARE FOUNDED ON THE MANNERS OF COMMON LIFE.--THE WISE MAN AT HOME.--THE DAMSEL THEODORA.--CAPTIVES IN ALGIERS.--INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON THE DRAMA.--LOPE’S PLAYS FROM SCRIPTURE.--THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.--THE CREATION OF THE WORLD.--LOPE’S PLAYS ON THE LIVES OF SAINTS.--SAINT ISIDORE OF MADRID.--LOPE’S SACRAMENTAL AUTOS FOR THE FESTIVAL OF THE CORPUS CHRISTI.--THEIR PROLOGUES.--THEIR INTERLUDES.--THE AUTOS THEMSELVES. The historical drama of Lope was but a deviation from the more truly national type of the “Comedia de Capa y Espada,” made by the introduction of historical names for its leading personages, instead of those that belong to fashionable and knightly life. This, however, was not the only deviation he made.[352] He went sometimes quite as far on the other side, and created a variety or subdivision of the theatre, founded _on common life_, in which the chief personages, like those of “The Watermaid,” and “The Slave of her Lover,” belong to the lower classes of society.[353] Of such dramas he has left only a few, but these few are interesting. [352] We occasionally meet with the phrase _comedias de ruido_; but it does not mean a class of plays separated from the others by different rules of composition. It refers to the machinery used in their exhibition; so that _comedias de capa y espada_, and especially _comedias de santos_, which often demanded a large apparatus, were not unfrequently _comedias de ruido_. In the same way, _comedias de apariencias_ were plays demanding much scenery and scene-shifting.