as are the other plays of Chiado, describes the acting of an _auto_ in a private house in the reign of João III, and bears witness to the frequency of such representations at Lisbon and to their extraordinary popularity. BALTHASAR DIAZ, a blind poet (or _jogral_) of Madeira, in the first half of the sixteenth century wrote plays which have retained their popularity. He versified at great length traditions of chivalry and of mediaeval saints. We do not possess his _Trovas_ written on the death of D. João de Castro (1548), and many of his plays, _Auto da Paixam de Christo_, _Auto de El Rei Salomão_, _Auto da Feira da Ladra_, have become rare or unknown. One of the best of them, the _Auto de Santo Aleixo_, perhaps owes its survival to its subject, akin to the popular theme of a prince in disguise. The rich and noble Aleixo wanders in rags to the Holy Land. The Devil, who tempts him in the form of a wayfarer, declares that now--the eternal querulous ‘now’ of the poets--only the rich are honoured and learning is neglected. Later the Devil becomes a courtier and again tempts St. Aleixo, who is defended by an angel. The _Auto de Santa Catherina_ is a long devout play of which the persons are St. Catherine, her mother, her page, the Emperor Maxentius, a hermit, three _doutores_, Christ, the Virgin, angels. The saint, who receives news of her mother’s death with admirable equanimity, suffers martyrdom at the end of the play with equal fortitude. Diaz also dramatized the story of the Marques de Mantua. Although devoid of dramatic or lyric talent, he is sometimes interesting. Women, whose dresses and fashions are contrasted in the _Auto de Santo Aleixo_ with the hard toil of the men, are represented in the _Auto da Malicia das Mulheres_ as treating their husbands ‘like negroes’. We do not know whether Diaz spoke from experience, his life is very obscure; but he may have spent his last years in Beira if the passage in his _O Conselho para bem casar_: estou nesta Beira tão remoto de trovar (1680 ed., p. 2) be not merely a reference to Boeotia, any place far from Lisbon. Traces of Vicente and the _Celestina_[356] are apparent in ANRIQUE LOPEZ’ _Cena Policiana_ or _O Estvdante_, in which a _fidalgo_ and a student[357] figure. The poor _escudeiro_ and his fasting _moço_ are prominent in JORGE PINTO’S _Auto de Rodrigo e Mendo_. Spanish romances are quoted with great frequency, and Vicente’s _En el mes era de Abril_ is parodied by the _moços_.[358] Indeed, their knowledge of literature was become embarrassing since, when his master’s guest, invited to a dinner which did not exist, recites some verses that he has made, Rodrigo has already read them in Boscán and heard them sung in the street.[359]