§ 3 _The Drama_ After Gil Vicente’s death the _autos_ continued to flourish in number if not in excellence, and evidently answered to a very real popular demand. It was in vain that the Jesuits produced their Latin plays and that serious poets of high reputation sought to wean the affections of the people from the _auto_ to the classical drama.[353] This opposition of the educated did, however, conduce to the swift deterioration of the _auto_, although some of those of a religious character, chiefly the Nativity plays, still succeeded in reflecting a part of the charm that characterized the Vicentian drama. To Gil Vicente’s lifetime probably belongs the _Obra famosissima tirada da Sancta Escriptura chamada da Geração humana, onde se representam sentenças muy catolicas & proueitosas pera todo christã: Feita por huũ famoso autor_ (1536?). Indeed, the verse runs so easily, the peasants are so natural, that one might almost suspect him of having had a hand in its composition. But the metre (8 8 4 8 8 4) is more monotonous than he would have used throughout. The _dramatis personae_ are angels, peasants,[354] Adam, Justice, Reason, Malice, two devils, a priest, four saints and doctors of the Church, a Levite, the Church, the Heavenly Samaritan. Adam in a scene closely resembling that of the _Auto da Alma_ is tempted by Malice. Justice intervenes, and finally the Samaritan leads him to the _estalagem_ of Holy Mother Church. The _Auto de ds [Deus] padre & justiça & mia [Misericordia]_ belongs to the same period. It is written in octosyllabic verse and contains a similar medley of peasants, prophets, and abstract virtues. In the first part the angels in Portuguese announce to the Virgin the birth of Christ, and in the second part the peasants, who speak Spanish, go to offer rustic gifts to _el muy chiquito donzel_. Another early and anonymous play is the _Auto do Dia do Juizo_, included in the _Index_ of 1559, which for its subject closely follows Gil Vicente’s _Auto da Barca do Inferno_. A peasant, a false and lying notary, a market-woman who had offered weekly bread and wax to Santa Catharina but had ’robbed the poor people’, a butcher, a miller who had mixed bran in his sacks of flour, are introduced in turn and duly consigned by Lucifer to Hell.