But though the disguises be less mysterious and singular than those of Ribeyro’s old pastoral romance,[216] still they present not the slightest attraction for posterity. If Lobo’s pastoral romance be compared with Montemayor’s Diana, the monotony of its subject will be found to be still more striking. However, notwithstanding that monotony, and also some ornamental excrescences of the old romantic kind, this romance well merits literary distinction, on account of the narrative and descriptive parts, which combine the most pleasing polish of language with a poetic tenderness of style, in which Lobo is not surpassed by Montemayor himself. The descriptions of scenery which frequently occur, are in particular remarkable for exquisite touches of romantic simplicity. They are, doubtless, sketched from nature: the scene is invariably laid in Portugal, and the country is sometimes accurately traced out by the rivers.[217] But the parts in verse are by far the most beautiful of the whole; and the best of the cantigas and canções which occur in this delicate representation of romantic pastoral life, may be regarded as classic models in their kind. _Primavera_ (Spring) is the title of the first of Lobo’s pastoral romances. Pastoral images of spring are here exhibited in contrast with the complaints of unhappy love. The inexhaustible fertility which Rodriguez Lobo has evinced in the execution of this contrast, seems totally incredible in this prosaic age; for the same impressions and situations are continually recurring in an ever varied form. A descriptive song of spring, full of cheerfulness, opens the beautiful gallery.[218] The spirit of a shepherd, who has been transformed into a fountain, sings the history of his tender passion. Sonnets, canções, tercets, octaves, and redondilhas, are by turns gracefully introduced in the succeeding cantos. Sometimes at the close of these lyric effusions the reader is surprised by ideas, which, however, were in some degree to be expected.[219] In general the enthusiasm of love is represented with somewhat less quaintness by Rodriguez Lobo than by Montemayor. When plays of sentiment running through several stanzas turn on a prevailing idea occurring in the last line of each stanza, Lobo, like Montemayor, usually expresses this idea merely by a simple exclamation. These plays of sentiment are also very pleasingly combined with the usual reflections on the perishableness of all earthly things.[220] The poetic salutations to nature, which to the poet appeared as though she sympathized with him, present, in this pastoral romance, all the charm of the tenderest simplicity.[221] Then again the same melancholy reflections recur in another form.[222] In many of these songs, however, the romantic complaints are carried to an excessive prolixity. That which might be sufficiently well expressed in five or six stanzas, sometimes occupies from thirty to forty. Scope