First of all, in its more completed state, came the _loa_. This was always of the nature of a prologue; but sometimes, in form, it was a dialogue spoken by two or more actors. One of the best of Lope’s is of this kind. It is filled with the troubles of a peasant who has come to Madrid in order to see these very shows, and has lost his wife in the crowd; but, just as he has quite consoled himself and satisfied his conscience by determining to have her cried once or twice, and then to give her up as a lucky loss and take another, she comes in and describes with much spirit the wonders of the procession she had seen, precisely as her audience themselves had just seen it; thus making, in the form of a prologue, a most amusing and appropriate introduction for the drama that was to follow.[396] Another of Lope’s _loas_ is a discussion between a gay gallant and a peasant, who talks, in his rustic dialect, on the subject of the doctrine of transubstantiation.[397] Another is given in the character of a Morisco, and is a monologue, in the dialect of the speaker, on the advantages and disadvantages of his turning Christian in earnest, after having for some time made his living fraudulently by begging in the assumed character of a Christian pilgrim.[398] All of them are amusing, though burlesque; but some of them are any thing rather than religious. [396] This is the first of the _loas_ in the volume, and, on the whole, the best. [397] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 367. [398] Ibid., p. 107.