Others of the _autos_ are more uniformly grave. “The Harvest” is a spiritualized version of the parable in Saint Matthew on the Field that was sowed with Good Seed and with Tares,[408] and is carried through with some degree of solemnity; but the unhappy tares, that are threatened with being cut down and cast into the fire, are nothing less than Judaism, Idolatry, Heresy, and all Sectarianism, who are hardly saved from their fate by the mercy of the Lord of the Harvest and his fair spouse, the Church. However, notwithstanding a few such absurdities and awkwardnesses in the allegory, and some very misplaced compliments to the reigning Spanish family, this is one of the best of the class to which it belongs, and one of the most solemn. Another of those open to less reproach than usual is called “The Return from Egypt,”[409] which, with its shepherds and gypsies, has quite the grace of an eclogue, and, with its ballads and popular songs, has some of the charms that belong to Lope’s secular dramas. These two, with “The Wolf turned Shepherd,”[410]--which is an allegory on the subject of the Devil taking upon himself the character of the true shepherd of the flock,--constitute as fair, or perhaps, rather, as favorable, specimens of the genuine Spanish _auto_ as can be found in the elder school. All of them rest on the grossest of the prevailing notions in religion; all of them appeal, in every way they can, whether light or serious, to the popular feelings and prejudices; many of them are imbued with the spirit of the old national poetry; and these, taken together, are the foundation on which their success rested,--a success which, if we consider the religious object of the festival, was undoubtedly of extraordinary extent and extraordinary duration. [408] “La Siega,” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 328), of which there is an excellent translation in Dohrn’s Spanische Dramen, Berlin, 1841, 8vo, Tom. I. [409] “La Vuelta de Egypto,” Obras, Tom. XVIII. p. 435. [410] “El Pastor Lobo y Cabaña Celestial,” Ibid., p. 381.