The first thing, however, that strikes us in relation to them is, that their air is so Spanish, and that so many of them are written in the Spanish language. Of the whole number, ten are in Castilian, fifteen partly or chiefly so, and seventeen entirely in Portuguese. Why this is the case, it is not easy to determine. The languages are, no doubt, very nearly akin to each other; and the writers of each nation, but especially those of Portugal, have not unfrequently distinguished themselves in the use of both. But the Portuguese have never, at any period, admitted their language to be less rich or less fitted for all kinds of composition than that of their prouder rivals. Perhaps, therefore, in the case of Vicente, it was, that the courts of the two countries had been lately much connected by intermarriages; that King Manuel had been accustomed to have Castilians about his person to amuse him;[448] that the queen was a Spaniard;[449] or that, in language as in other things, he found it convenient thus to follow the leading of his master, Juan de la Enzina;--but, whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that Vicente, though he was born and lived in Portugal, is to be numbered among Spanish authors as well as among Portuguese. [448] Damião de Goes, Crónica de D. Manoel, Lisboa, 1749, fol., Parte IV. c. 84, p. 595. “Trazia continuadamente na sua Corte choquarreiros Castellanos.” [449] Married in 1500. (Ibid., Parte I. c. 46.) As so many of Vicente’s Spanish verses were made to please the Spanish queens, I cannot agree with Rapp, (Pruth’s Literärhistorisch Taschenbuch, 1846, p. 341,) that Vicente used Spanish in his Pastorals as a low, vulgar language. Besides, if it was so regarded, why did Camoens and Saa de Miranda,--two of the four great poets of Portugal,--to say nothing of a multitude of other proud Portuguese, write occasionally in Spanish? His earliest effort was made in 1502, on occasion of the birth of Prince John, afterwards John the Third.[450] It is a monologue in Spanish, a little more than a hundred lines long, spoken before the king, the king’s mother, and the Duchess of Braganza, probably by Vicente himself, in the person of a herdsman, who enters the royal chambers, and, after addressing the queen mother, is followed by a number of shepherds, bringing presents to the new-born prince. The poetry is simple, fresh, and spirited, and expresses the feelings of wonder and admiration that would naturally rise in the mind of such a rustic, on first entering a royal residence. Regarded as a courtly compliment, the attempt succeeded. In a modest notice, attached to it by the son of Vicente, we are told, that, being the first of his father’s compositions, and the first dramatic representation ever made in Portugal, it pleased the queen mother so much, as to lead her to ask its author to repeat it at Christmas, adapting it to the birth of the Saviour.