Sufficient has now been said in regard to the history and mode of representation of the _autos_ to enable us to understand the essentially popular character of these plays--a fact very necessary to be kept in mind, and which will explain, if not palliate, the many abuses which gradually were introduced, and which led to their suppression by a royal decree in 1765. They have, however, left traces of their influence in plays still performed on Corpus Christi in some parts of Spain, and in the sacred plays represented during Lent in all the large cities.[10] II. We have seen the primitive condition of the _autos_ when Lope de Vega took possession of the stage. He did for the _autos_ what he did for the secular drama: with his consummate knowledge of the stage and the public, he took the materials already at hand, and remodelled them to the shape most likely to interest and win applause. The superior poetic genius of Calderon found in the _autos_ the field for its noblest exercise, and it is now admitted that he carried the secular as well as the religious drama to the highest perfection of which it was capable. It is perhaps not generally remembered that Calderon, in common with many men of letters of that day, took Holy Orders when he was fifty-one years old (1651), and was appointed chaplain at Toledo. This, however, involved his absence from court, and twelve years later he was made chaplain of honor to the king; other ecclesiastical dignities were added, which he enjoyed until the close of his life, in 1681. Mr. Ticknor (_Hist. of Span. Lit._, ii. 351, note) says: “It seems probable that Calderon wrote no plays expressly for the public stage after he became a priest in 1651, confining himself to _autos_ and to _comedias_ for the court, which last, however, were at once transferred to the theatres of the capital.” For nearly thirty-seven years he furnished Madrid, Toledo, Granada, and Seville with _autos_, and devoted to them all the energies of his matured mind. Solis, the historian, in one of his letters says: “Our friend Don Pedro Calderon is just dead, and went off, as they say the swan does, singing; for he did all he could, even when he was in immediate danger, to finish the second _auto_ for Corpus Christi. “But, after all, he completed only a little more than half of it, and it has been finished in some way or other by Don Melchior de Leon.” Calderon evidently based his claim for recognition as a great poet on his _autos_; of all his plays he deemed them alone worthy of his revision for publication, and he would now without doubt be judged by them, had not the spirit in which and for which they were written passed away, to a great extent, with the author. Before we examine his _autos_ in detail we must notice some of their most striking peculiarities, and see in what respect they differ from plays on religious subjects.