Ribeyro.[38] This romance, which is allegorical, contains plays on the name of Ribeyro, and veils the glowing anguish of the poet under a singular obscurity of ideas and images. The romantic mysticism and deep fervour of expression, which distinguish it, sufficiently attest its authenticity.[39] But a work, by this author, which is of greater extent, and which exhibits the first remarkable attempt towards the improvement of romantic prose in the Portuguese language, remains to be noticed. This work is a kind of romance which Ribeyro appears to have written in his mature years, and which he did not complete. The name given to it _Menina e Moça_, (meaning “a young and innocent maiden,”) is a repetition of the three first words with which the story begins, and therefore is not susceptible of precise translation in the form of a title.[40] In point of intricacy this fragment has no parallel in the whole range of romantic literature. The mysterious Ribeyro has here employed all the powers of his inventive fancy, in giving utterance to his enthusiastic feelings, and in minutely expressing the sentiments of his heart; while at the same time he has confounded and changed characters and events so as to secure every circumstance and allusion against malicious interpretation. Thus a reader in the nineteenth century is at a loss to unravel the entangled composition, and it being merely a fragment, is a circumstance which increases the difficulty. No alchymist ever bestowed more pains on the enigmatical dressing of his doctrine of the philosopher’s stone, than Ribeyro has taken to envelope his romance in a veil of obscurity. It is asserted, nevertheless, that with all this caution he was afraid to lay it openly before the public; and in fact the book did not become known until after his death. It is impossible to form any probable conjecture as to the ultimate object of the author. The commencement of the tale, or if it must be so called, the preface, is put into the mouth of a sentimental female character who has withdrawn from the gay world to a wild solitary spot on the Portuguese coast. This lady, whose name is not mentioned, relates that while she was yet _Menina e Moça_, she was carried from her father’s house to foreign lands. From that period, doomed to lead a life of wretchedness, alone, among the rugged cliffs, she bewails her never-ending sorrows, beholding only on the one hand the unchangeable mountain tops, and on the other the ever restless waves of the sea.[41] In this manner the anonymous female continues her narrative, and describes her inconsolable condition. She states, that by way of amusement, though of a melancholy kind, she has devoted herself to the task of writing “this little book,” (_este livrinho_), which is intended to unfold her sufferings and her errors. From this introduction the reader impatiently expects the history of the nameless lady, who has now excited his interest. But here the confusion and intricacy commences.