[391] The most lively description I have seen of this procession is contained in the _loa_ to Lope’s first _fiesta_ and _auto_ (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. pp. 1-7). Another description, to suit the festival as it was got up about 1655-65, will be found when we come to Calderon. It is given here as it occurred in the period of Lope’s success; and a fancy drawing of the procession, as it may have appeared in 1623, is to be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1846, p. 185. But Lope’s _loa_ is the best authority. [392] A good idea of the contents of the _carro_ may be found in the description of the one met by Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 11), as he was returning from Toboso. This procession--not, indeed, magnificent in the towns and hamlets of the provinces, as it was in the capital, but always as imposing as the resources of the place where it occurred could make it--stopped from time to time under awnings in front of the house of some distinguished person,--perhaps that of the President of the Council of Castile at Madrid; perhaps that of the alcalde of a village,--and there waited reverently till certain religious offices could be performed by the ecclesiastics; the multitude, all the while, kneeling, as if in church. As soon as these duties were over, or at a later hour of the day, the actors from the cars appeared on a neighbouring stage, in the open air, and performed, according to their limited service, the sacramental _auto_ prepared for the occasion, and always alluding to it directly. Of such _autos_, we know, on good authority, that Lope wrote about four hundred,[393] though no more than twelve or thirteen of the whole number are now extant, and these, we are told, were published only that the towns and villages of the interior might enjoy the same devout pleasures that were enjoyed by the court and capital;--so universal was the fanaticism for this strange form of amusement, and so deeply was it seated in the popular character.[394] [393] Montalvan, in his “Fama Póstuma.” [394] Preface of Joseph Ortis de Villena, prefixed to the Autos in Tom. XVIII. of the Obras Sueltas. They were not printed till 1644, nine years after Lope’s death, and then they appeared at Zaragoza. One other _auto_, attributed to Lope, “El Tirano Castigado,” occurs in a curious volume, entitled “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” collected by Isidro de Robles, and already referred to.