is, however, advantageously given to romantic wit in the style of the age, by the poetic questions and answers with which Rodriguez Lobo’s shepherds and shepherdesses occasionally maintain conversation. In this way antiquated quaintness is successfully avoided, while the poetic character of these sportive exercises is carefully preserved. The plays of wit acquire indeed an augmented interest by being combined with a kind of poetic competition. Thus, for example, the question:--Whether love with or without hope be the truest love? is answered in two different songs.[223] The question in what degree love and jealousy are allied? receives three answers in three songs.[224] Rodriguez Lobo has not been surpassed by any ancient or modern poet in the ingenious simplicity and elegance of these fanciful compositions. But had he been less successful in productions of this class, still the poetic truth, intensity, delicacy and graceful ease of his pastoral cantigas and canções would have entitled him to one of the highest places among the lyric poets of all nations. The reader readily pardons the tedious length of the _Primavera_, as it could not otherwise include so many lyric poems. Even the antiquated division into _Florestas_ (flower-beds), will not displease, if the exquisite lyric effusions which are scattered through the work, be allowed to represent the flowers. That this romance is arranged in geographical divisions according to the rivers of the district in which the scene is laid, must also be excused, though such a plan may not, perhaps, appear quite congenial with the spirit of romantic poetry. The other two pastoral romances of Lobo are merely continuations of his Spring, which according to the plan on which it is written, might be protracted to infinity. The first continuation is entitled, _O Pastor Peregrino_, (the Wandering Shepherd). It is arranged in divisions, which, like the acts of the Spanish comedies, bear the name of _jornadas_. The second continuation, or the conclusion of the whole romance, is entitled, _O Desenganado_,[225] (the Disenchanted), and its divisions are called _discursos_ (discourses). Here also a rich harvest of lyric flowers charm the reader, though the romance itself becomes even less interesting. Rodriguez Lobo has endeavoured to render this last portion of his romance in a peculiar way instructive. Towards the close, as the events become more romantic, he introduces a portion of his geographical, historical, and physical knowledge. Still sound judgment and a delicate spirit of observation are here manifest.