Ribeyro’s poetic style is in its principal features the old romance style, only here and there somewhat more luxuriant, and occasionally interspersed with antiquated conceits. The unaffected truth of some of the descriptions is heightened by a peculiar kind of rural grace,[30] and even the uniform repetitions and plays of words in the lyric passages are, in general, not destitute of poetic interest.[31] The enthusiast must be forgiven for the application, certainly not very ingenious, of his own name, which he has sometimes allegorically disguised by the word _Ribeyra_, (a river,) and sometimes introduced as the real name of a shepherd; but the shepherd is in the same way reminded of a beautiful river, which is intended as the allegorical representative of a lady, who under the name of _Ribeyra_, is the object of _Ribeyro’s_ adoration.[32] Some of these antiquated conceits are, however, dignified by warmth of expression.[33] But upon the whole, Ribeyro’s eclogues are nothing more than the heartfelt effusions of a poet, who with all his tenderness and depth of sentiment had not sufficient energy to strike out a new course for himself.[34] The _Cantigas_ of Bernardim Ribeyro unquestionably bear the characteristic stamp of the fifteenth century. They may be ranked on an equality with the best pieces of the same kind in the old Spanish _Cancionero_. Like them they paraphrase an idea which is set down at the head of the poem, and thus appear in the form of glosses, without being confined within a certain number of lines. The idea is as in Spanish, called the _mote_ (motto). That which the Spaniards term a _glosa_, is by the Portuguese denominated a _volta_ (turn); and the title _Cantiga_, which the Portuguese give to a composition of this kind, seems, like the Spanish term _Villancico_, to have been borrowed from the ecclesiastical hymns.[35] One of Ribeyro’s Cantigas is remarkable for the boldness with which the poet, in his character of a married man, very unequivocally marks the distinction between his wife and the lady who is the object of his regard, and assures this lady that only his hand and not his heart is wedded.[36] If this Cantiga be really founded on truth, a question with which the critic has, generally speaking, little concern, it not only weakens the authenticity of the accounts respecting Ribeyro’s tender attachment to his wife, but also serves to explain the studied obscurity of the allusions which prevail throughout the whole of his writings; and in this last respect the question is of some interest to the critic. A sextina imitated from the Italian forms, but in trochaic verses, which are besides pure redondilhas, is likewise among the number of Ribeyro’s poems. In addition to these Cantigas, which are, however, but little known,[37] there has been preserved a narrative romance of the idyllic kind, which by some favourable accident has even found a place in one of the old Spanish Cancioneros, where it is also attributed to