The predilection which Rodriguez Lobo unconsciously and almost exclusively entertained for pastoral poetry, is more than sufficiently proved by the ten eclogues which are included among the works of this poet, independently of the three pastoral romances already noticed. He wished to combine didactic with bucolic poetry. On this idea he has explained himself in a preface to his didactic eclogues. Man, he says, has abandoned the state for which nature destined him, since he has exchanged the quietude of his rural occupations and wishes, for a restless and dissatisfied life by sea and by land. Abel was a shepherd, and all the succeeding patriarchs, on whom God bestowed his favour, devoted themselves to the care of flocks and herds. Amidst rustic occupations the virtues of the ancient Romans were fostered; and there have arisen in the pastoral state many great men who have been called to fill thrones. Country life must therefore be regarded as the only natural state of existence, and consequently it is that state to which all the precepts of morality have reference. Thus poetry cannot be more suitably combined with morality than through the medium of pastoral composition. It is therefore nothing surprising that the discourse of shepherds should be the vehicle of practical philosophy. The shepherd in his smock-frock has not less correct notions of virtue and vice than the courtier and man of the world. But poetry is, generally speaking, merely the clothing of truth.[228] According to these principles which may be regarded as a portion of the Portuguese art of poetry in the sixteenth century, Rodriguez Lobo chose for his didactic eclogues, a particular moral point of view. The first is directed against rudeness and ignorance; the second against hatred and envy; the third against avarice. In like manner each of the remaining eclogues censures some particular vice, and the censure is conveyed in a style of rural gentleness, while the opposite virtue is recommended by pleasing images. The simple morality which Rodriguez Lobo puts into the mouths of his shepherds is certainly not unnatural in their situation. Far removed also as the critic may be from the scholastic prejudices which formed the basis of the poetic art of the sixteenth century, and which would render poetry a mere robe for morality, still it is impossible entirely to reject the idea of this species of didactic eclogue. But such a homely morality, in union with pastoral poetry, could possess poetic interest, only at a time when the commonest remarks on moral relations, if divested of theological and monastic forms of expression, had all the charm of novelty. In the present age, however, when philosophy has long nourished poetry with more invigorating aliment, the didactic eclogues of Rodriguez Lobo cannot claim any particular favour among readers, who justly require that morality should not directly mix in the business of poetry, when it has nothing new to tell.