It would be impossible to furnish an abstract of the tale of love and heroism which forms the subject of this romance. Even on a perusal of the whole, so great is the obscurity, that nothing can be comprehended of the circumstances, without the utmost effort of attention. That Ribeyro has clothed in the disguise of this story, the most interesting events of his own life, is a fact which admits of no doubt; for the contrivance which he adopted with the view of concealing his personal implication, by the intricate arrangement of his romance, is disclosed with the greatest simplicity. The really artless Ribeyro, having so far disguised himself, conceived that by transposing the letters of real names, he did all that was necessary to avoid compromising the individuals of his acquaintance, whom he introduced in his romance, arrayed in the garb of ancient chivalry. Thus _Alvaro_ is converted into _Avalor_, _Joana_ into _Aonia_, and _Bernardim_, the christian name of Ribeyro himself, is changed into _Bimnarder_ and _Narbindel_. The unconscious simplicity of these transpositions corresponds with the whole tone and style of the romance. The monotony of incessant love complaints renders the prolixity of the narrative still more tedious; but even amidst that monotony and prolixity, it is easy to recognise a spirit truly poetic, more remarkable, however, for susceptibility than for energy. Some of the sentimental passages are distinguished by the charm of a most tender and pathetic sweetness. This characteristic appears even in the introduction, where a story is told of the death of a nightingale, which being perched on the branch of a tree overhanging a brook, dies while singing, and dropping into the brook is carried away by the current, along with the fallen leaves.[42] The reader is surprised by these delicate plays of feeling, no less than by many occasional reflexions, which though trivial in the present day, were at the commencement of the sixteenth century by no means common. Thus allusion is made to the absurd notion of women in imagining they can secure the heart of a lover by the same persevering service which pleases themselves in the other sex.[43] By traits of this kind, and by the simple truth of description, this old Portuguese romance is sufficiently distinguished from the common class of romances of chivalry, which during the sixteenth century, became in a great measure the fashionable reading of the Spaniards and Portuguese. Spanish literature at that period could not boast of any work written in so cultivated a style, and yet that style soon afterwards became somewhat antiquated. From some passages in which allusion is made to Galician phrases, it is evident that the Portuguese in the age of Ribeyro, carefully distinguished their native tongue as a cultivated language, from the Galician, which had now become a common popular idiom.