It must not, however, be supposed that the “Representations,” as he calls them, of Juan de la Enzina have much dramatic merit. On the contrary, they are rude and slight. Some have only two or three interlocutors, and no pretension to a plot; and none has more than six personages, nor any thing that can be considered a proper dramatic structure. In one of those prepared for the Nativity, the four shepherds are, in fact, the four Evangelists;--Saint John, at the same time, shadowing forth the person of the poet. He enters first, and discourses, in rather a vainglorious way, of himself as a poet; not forgetting, however, to compliment the Duke of Alva, his patron, as a person feared in France and in Portugal, with which countries the political relations of Spain were then unsettled. Matthew, who follows, rebukes John for this vanity, telling him that “all his works are not worth two straws”; to which John replies, that, in pastorals and graver poetry, he defies competition, and intimates, that, in the course of the next May, he shall publish what will prove him to be something even more than bucolic. They both agree that the Duke and Duchess are excellent masters, and Matthew wishes that he, too, were in their service. At this point of the dialogue, Luke and Mark come in, and, with slight preface, announce the birth of the Saviour as the last news. All four then talk upon that event at large, alluding to John’s Gospel as if already known, and end with a determination to go to Bethlehem, after singing a _villancico_ or rustic song, which is much too light in its tone to be religious.[440] The whole eclogue is short and comprised in less than forty rhymed stanzas of nine lines each, including a wild lyric at the end, which has a chorus to every stanza, and is not without the spirit of poetry.[441] [440] The _villancicos_ long retained a pastoral tone and something of a dramatic character. At the marriage of Philip II., in Segovia, 1570, “The youth of the choir, gayly dressed as shepherds, danced and sang a _villancico_,” says Colmenares, (Hist. de Segovia, Segovia, 1627, fol., p. 558,) and in 1600, _villancicos_ were again performed by the choir, when Philip III. visited the city. Ibid., p. 594. [441] This is the eclogue beginning “Dios salva acá buena gente,” etc., and is on fol. 103 of the “Cancionero de Todas las Obras de Juan de la Encina; impreso en Salamanca, a veinte dias del Mes de Junio de M.CCCC. E XCVI. años” (116 leaves, folio). It was represented before the Duke and Duchess of Alva, while they were in the chapel for matins on Christmas morning; and the next eclogue, beginning “Dios mantenga, Dios mantenga,” was represented in the same place, at vespers, the same day.