In all pastoral novels there is a family likeness, and Montemôr is not successful in avoiding the insipidity of the _genre_. He endeavours to lighten the monotony of his shepherds by borrowing Sannazaro's invention of the witch whose magic draughts work miracles. This wonder-worker is as convenient for the novelist as she is tedious for the reader, who is forced to cry out with Don Quixote's Priest:—"Let all that refers to the wise Felicia and the enchanted water be omitted." The bold Priest would further drop the verses, honouring the book for its prose, and for being the first of its class. Montemôr accepts the convention by making his shepherds—Sireno, Silvano, and the rest—mouth it like grandiloquent dukes; but the style is correct, and pleasing in its grandiose kind. The _Diana's_ vogue was immense: Shakespeare himself based the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ upon the episode of the shepherdess Felismena, which he had probably read in the manuscript of Bartholomew Young, whose excellent version, although not printed until 1598, was finished in 1583; and Sidney, whose own pastoral is redolent of Montemôr, has given Sireno's song in this fashion:— "_Of this high grace with bliss conjoin'd No further debt on me is laid, Since that is self-same metal coin'd, Sweet lady, you remain well paid. For, if my place give me great pleasure, Having before me Nature's treasure, In face and eyes unmatchèd being, You have the same in my hands, seeing What in your face mine eyes do measure._ _Nor think the match unev'nly made, That of those beams in you do tarry; The glass to you but gives a shade, To me mine eyes the true shape carry: For such a thought most highly prizèd, Which ever hath Love's yoke despisèd, Better than one captiv'd perceiveth, Though he the lively form receiveth, The other sees it but disguisèd._"