Perhaps one of the most amusing instances of incongruity in Lope, and their number is not few, is to be found in the first _jornada_ of the “Trabajos de Jacob,” where Joseph, at the moment he escapes from Potiphar’s wife, leaving his cloak in her possession, says in soliloquy,-- So mayest thou, woman-like, upon my cloak Thy vengeance wreak, as the bull wreaks his wrath Upon the cloak before him played; the man Meanwhile escaping safe. Y assi haras en essa capa, Con venganza de muger, Lo que el toro suele hacer, Del hombre que se escapa. Yet, absurd as the passage is for its incongruity, it may have been loudly applauded by an audience that thought much more of bull-fights than of the just rules of the drama. Still, even these dramas were not able to satisfy audiences accustomed to the more national spirit of plays founded on fashionable life and intriguing adventures. A wider range, therefore, was taken. Striking religious events of all kinds--especially those found in the lives of holy men--were resorted to, and ingenious stories were constructed out of the miracles and sufferings of saints, which were often as interesting as the intrigues of Spanish gallants, or the achievements of the old Spanish heroes, and were sometimes hardly less free and wild. Saint Jerome, under the name of the “Cardinal of Bethlehem,” is brought upon the stage in one of them, first as a gay gallant, and afterwards as a saint scourged by angels, and triumphing, in open show, over Satan.[378] In another, San Diego of Alcalá rises, from being the attendant of a poor hermit, to be a general with military command, and, after committing most soldier-like atrocities in the Fortunate Islands, returns and dies at home in the odor of sanctity.[379] And in yet others, historical subjects of a religious character are taken, like the story of the holy Bamba torn from the plough, in the seventh century, and by miraculous command made king of Spain;[380] or like the life of the Mohammedan prince of Morocco, who, in 1593, was converted to Christianity and publicly baptized in presence of Philip the Second, with the heir of the throne for his godfather.[381] [378] “El Cardenal de Belen,” Comedias, Tom. XIII., Madrid, 1620. [379] This play is not in the collection of Lope’s Comedias, but it is in Lord Holland’s list. My copy of it is an old one, without date, printed for popular use at Valladolid. [380] Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 91, etc. [381] “Bautismo del Príncipe de Marruecos,” in which there are nearly sixty personages. Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 269, etc. C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Tom. I. p. 86.