_Ocios_, (Leisure Hours), proves that Count Rebolledo, though he only travelled in a long beaten tract, and even in that tract did not shine above his contemporaries, possessed, nevertheless, a degree of poetic cultivation, which was probably unparalleled in Copenhagen in the age in which he lived. He was particularly successful as a writer of elegant madrigals;[524] and he is the author of a play, entitled, _Amor Despreciando Riesgos_,[525] (Love Dreads no Danger), which possesses considerable interest. But Rebolledo’s name has been rendered still more remarkable in the history of Spanish literature by his dull Forests, for which he himself claimed the title of poetic, though they exhibit only the last traces of Spanish poetry. Other writers had already done their utmost to give importance to the rhymed prose of these Forests. But Rebolledo so completely mistook the essence of poetry, that he really conceived he was executing works of high poetic merit, when he put into verse a compendium of the History and Geography of Denmark, entitled, _Selvas Danicas_, and a treatise on the Art of War and State Policy, entitled, _Selva Militar y Politica_. Whoever attempts to travel through Rebolledo’s Danish Forests, will soon find, especially if he have any recollection of genuine Spanish poetry, that he has undertaken a very disagreeable task. In the first half of the work, not a single poetic or even ingenious trait enlivens the dry enumeration of facts. What the author intended for a narrative poem, is found to be merely an account of the History of Denmark, related in the lowest style of common place prose; and the multitude of northern names, which partly retain their original spelling, and are partly hispanized, have a peculiarly grotesque effect.[526] The geography of Denmark, which constitutes the second part of the work, presents a few poetic passages.[527] But the Military and Political Forest, which is intended for a didactic poem, is rhymed prose from beginning to end. It is difficult to say whether the principles of tactics,[528] or the instructions in the art of government,[529] appear most ridiculous in the versified garb in which Rebolledo has clothed them. The worthy author might with more propriety have applied the title of poems to his _Selvas Sagradas_, (Sacred Forests), which are translations of the psalms in the loose forms of the Forests. CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.