178 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
1. The secular may be subdivided into: (1) The historical; 
e.g., The Constant Prince. (2) Tragedies; e.g., The Alcalde of 
Zalamea. (3) Comedies of the cloak and sword; e.g., A Man 
his own Jailer. (4) Mythological ; of the nature of operas, being 
dramatizations of Ovid's Metamorphoses. (5) Martyr plays ; e.g., 
The Wonder-working Magician, a portion of which is translated 
by Shelley. It is said to have given Goethe his idea of Faust, 
(6) Philosophical plays ; e.g., Life is a Dream. 
2. The religious plays, or autos, are peculiar to Spain, and 
were employed to represent theological dogmas, or, as in the autos 
sacramentales, the mysteries of the eucharist, or were ethical. 
They were a further development of the mystery plays, and 
were sanctioned by the church. Calderon wrote several — e.g., The 
Theatre of the World, The Poison and the Antidote — but their 
subjects, being religious, cannot be described in these pages. 
Shelley speaks with rapture of the "starry autos" of Calderon, 
and Schlegel describes enthusiastically their beauty and religious 
feeling. Calderon's skill as a dramatist consists chiefly in his 
wonderful power of plot construction. Schiller and Goethe speak 
admiringly of this power, which is indeed fully admitted by all 
who have any knowledge of his works. His characterization is 
not equally strong, though in one play he shows that he does 
possess it in a marked degree. In the Alcalde of Zalamea we 
have Crespo and Don Lope depicted with clear lines, and they 
stand out as real men. In other plays his characters are rather 
types than individuals, and are drawn from the artificial life of 
Courts. 
Calderon never employs prose, but the great variety of metre 
which he uses prevents monotony and illustrates changes of 
thought and feeling. The use of assonant as well as consonant 
rhymes allows greater freedom than English poetry admits. The 
plays are all divided into three jornadas or acts. The Spanish 
language lends itself to grandeur of thought. This " most stately 
of the daughters of Latin " is at her best in Calderon's plays, 
though we must miss much of the beauty when in English dress. 
The stories which Calderon presents to us in dramatic form are 
beautified by his poetic conception of life, his brilliant imagination, 
and high-toned thought. Life is idealized, and this idealism is a 
pleasant and refreshing thing in these days of realism, offered in 
modern plays and novels. 
