But Rodriguez Lobo’s _Corte na Aldea_ is entitled to honourable distinction, for even something more than its general merits, as the first book in classical prose produced in Portugal. By the anecdotes and tales which are interwoven with the dialogue and didactic passages, it furnished the Portuguese with the first model of light narrative style in their native tongue.[215] The letters from the Ciceronean collections, and other ancient and modern works, which Rodriguez Lobo has translated, and introduced as illustrations of his theory of the epistolary style, are likewise very judiciously chosen. Finally, this copious theory of epistolary composition is the first successful attempt at any thing beyond a mere scholastic guide to eloquence in Portuguese literature. Previously to the production of this work, no rhetorical models were known in Portugal, save those of Aristotle, which were transmitted through the second and third hand in so barbarous a form, that a writer found it necessary to forget them in order to learn to express himself without pedantry. Thus a Portuguese poet was the first who made his countrymen acquainted with the spirit of genuine and elegantly cultivated prose in their native tongue; and, therefore, of all the writings of that poet, the work by which he extended the boundary of the polite literature of his nation, deserves, in the history of that literature, to hold the most conspicuous place. But Rodriguez Lobo ranks still higher among poets than among prose writers, though he neither introduced a new style nor a new form of poetry into Portuguese literature. His three connected pastoral romances, are the most luxuriant blossoms of this old branch of Portuguese poetry. Such a treasure of romantic bucolics as the united works present, is no where else to be found. The prose with which Rodriguez Lobo has incorporated the pastoral poems, can only be regarded as a poetic groundwork. In the present age these romances would not easily find, except in Portugal, and perhaps not even there, a reader possessing sufficient patience to peruse them throughout with attention. Were they even two thirds shorter than they are, their monotony would still be intolerably tiresome except to persons accustomed,--like the polite world of Portugal and Spain, in the time of Rodriguez Lobo,--to pastoralize their joys and sorrows, and to be satisfied with the constant sameness of pastoral composition, if it in some degree flatter the heart and the senses. In describing the subject of this romance, nothing further can be said, than that this or that shepherd and shepherdess occasionally meet, and occasionally separate. The general story unfolds no action which excites particular interest; and as little do the individual descriptions exhibit any character properly fitted for originating action. It may with tolerable certainty be inferred, that the story is a disguised picture of the romantic events of real life, in which the author was engaged.