In lieu of those poetic works which are styled dramatic in the true sense of the word, and which afterwards formed the most brilliant portion of Spanish poetry, the Spaniards of the fifteenth century possessed merely spiritual or temporal farces, written in the style which prevailed in the middle ages, and which can scarcely be said to belong to literature. At Saragossa, the residence of the Court of Arragon, attempts towards the improvement of dramatic amusements were earlier made than in the Castilian court. There, as has already been observed, the Marquis de Villena devoted his learning and inventive talents to the drama. Allegorical dramas, indeed, do not seem to have been in favour at the court of Castile, notwithstanding the taste for allegory which distinguished the poets of the reign of John II. A singular union of pastoral and satirical poetry first gave birth to a species of dramatic poem in the Castilian language. In the reign of John II. an anonymous poet amused himself by describing the court of that monarch in satirical coplas. It is impossible to account for the whim which induced him to throw his rhymes into the form of a dialogue, and to select shepherds for his interlocutors. The work extends to thirty-two coplas, and critics have sometimes classed it among the eclogues, and sometimes among the first satirical productions of the Spanish poets. Some make Rodrigo de Cota the author of these coplas; and others, who ascribe them to Juan de Mena, seem to forget that the latter was zealously devoted to the court party. This singular composition is usually mentioned under the title of Mingo Rebulgo, from the names of the two shepherds who carry on the dialogue. Supposing pastoral poetry to have been in vogue at that period in Spain, and particularly at the court of John II. it would be easy to explain how a witty author might conceive the bold idea of converting a pastoral dialogue into a satire; but in that case the ideas of a poetic pastoral existence must have been diffused through Spain, as they were through Italy. It is probable, however, that in both countries the revived study of classical literature, and particularly of Virgil’s eclogues, gave rise to the practice of clothing modern ideas in a garb imitated from the ancient bucolic poetry; and it seems the effect of mere accident that a Spaniard should have been the first to devote a work of this kind to the purposes of satire.[126]