The Diana of Montemayor is one of the few romantic works which belong entirely to the soul of the inventor, which are embued throughout with individual interest, and which on that very account exercise the more influence over unsophisticated minds, because the author possessed sufficient poetic genius successfully to convey the joys and sorrows of his own heart under the forms of a general interest. But this romance can never be to any other cultivated people what it was to the Spaniards of the sixteenth century. Still less can it be regarded as a classical fragment, even though judged according to the lenient rules by which every fragment is estimated; unless, indeed, after the manner of some modern critics, new rules of art be deduced from defective examples, for the sake of admiring as incomparable the grossest absurdities, under the title of romantic complexity. But with all its faults, this unfinished pastoral romance (for it was not brought to a conclusion by Montemayor) possesses a poetic merit, which entitles it to the esteem of all ages. The design of the work, so far as Montemayor’s ideas render his intention obvious, sometimes charms by its graceful simplicity, and at others becomes grotesque, through an illegitimate romantic combination of heterogeneous species of composition. The shepherd Sireno, who represents the poet himself, on his return to his native country, visits the scene of the innocent joys which the inconstant shepherdess Diana once shared along with him. Overwhelmed with grief, he draws out first a lock of hair belonging to his mistress; and then one of her letters, which he reads. While he is thus communing with himself, he is joined by another romantic adorer of the beautiful Diana. This shepherd, whose love had always been unrequited, now joins his lamentations to those of the once happy Sireno, and each vies with the other in claiming to himself the heaviest load of misery. They are joined by a shepherdess, named Selvagia, who has been no less unfortunate in love than themselves. She relates her history very circumstantially, and thus terminates the first book. In the second, the conversation of these lovers is continued, until three nymphs appear, one of whom relates Sireno’s history in a song of some length. Up to the conclusion of this song, the pastoral simplicity of the story is preserved uninterrupted by any incident approximating to the terrible; but suddenly a party of savage robbers completely armed appears. The nymphs are about to fly, but are detained by the robbers. A battle then ensues between the robbers and the shepherds, the latter attacking the former with stones. The robbers are on the point of overcoming their rustic antagonists, when a heroine, habited as a huntress, rushes from a wood, and bending her bow, pierces the robbers with her arrows, and liberates the nymphs. The fair huntress then joins the party of nymphs and shepherds, and in her turn also relates her history.