Revulgo replies, that the state of the flock, governed by so unfit a shepherd, is the cause of his squalid condition; and then, under this allegory, they urge a coarse, but efficient, satire against the measures of the government, against the base, cowardly character of the king and his scandalous, passion for his Portuguese mistress, and against the ruinous carelessness and indifference of the people, ending with praises of the contentment found in a middle condition of life. The whole dialogue consists of only thirty-two stanzas of nine lines each; but it produced a great effect at the time, was often printed in the next century, and was twice elucidated by a grave commentary.[416] [416] Velazquez (Orígenes, p. 52) treats Mingo Revulgo as a satire against King John and his court. But it applies much more naturally and truly to the time of Henry IV., and has, indeed, generally been considered as directed against that unhappy monarch. Copla the sixth seems plainly to allude to his passion for Doña Guiomar de Castro. Its author wisely concealed his name, and has never been absolutely ascertained.[417] The earlier editions generally suppose him to have been Rodrigo Cota, the elder, of Toledo, to whom also is attributed “A Dialogue between Love and an Old Man,” which dates from the same period, and is no less spirited and even more dramatic. It opens with a representation of an old man retired into a poor hut, which stands in the midst of a neglected and decayed garden. Suddenly Love appears before him, and he exclaims, “My door is shut; what do you want? Where did you enter? Tell me how, robber-like, you leaped the walls of my garden. Age and reason had freed me from you; leave, therefore, my heart, retired into its poor corner, to think only of the past.” He goes on giving a sad account of his own condition, and a still more sad description of Love; to which Love replies, with great coolness, “Your discourse shows that you have not been well acquainted with me.” A discussion follows, in which Love, of course, gains the advantage. The old man is promised that his garden shall be restored and his youth renewed; but when he has surrendered at discretion, he is only treated with the gayest ridicule by his conqueror, for thinking that at his age he can again make himself attractive in the ways of love. The whole is in a light tone and managed with a good deal of ingenuity; but though susceptible, like other poetical eclogues, of being represented, it is not certain that it ever was. It is, however, as well as the Couplets of Revulgo, so much like the pastorals which we know were publicly exhibited as dramas a few years later, that we may reasonably suppose it had some influence in preparing the way for them.[418]