But though, with the exception of what relates to the apocryphal Spanish adventurers, the series of historical events in that brilliant crusade is followed down with some regard to the truth of fact, still we are so much confused by the visions and allegorical personages mingled in the narrative, and by the manifold episodes and love-adventures which interrupt it, that it is all but impossible to read any considerable portion consecutively and with attention. Lope’s easy and graceful versification is, indeed, to be found here, as it is in nearly all his poetry; but even on the holy ground of chivalry, at Cyprus, Ptolemais, and Tyre, his narrative has much less movement and life than we might claim from its subject, and almost everywhere else it is languid and heavy. Of plan, proportions, or a skilful adaptation of the several parts so as to form an epic whole, there is no thought; and yet Lope intimates that his poem was written with care some time before it was published,[248] and he dedicates it to his king, in a tone indicating that he thought it by no means unworthy the royal favor. [248] See the Prólogo. The whole poem is in Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIV. and XV. CHAPTER XIV. LOPE DE VEGA, CONTINUED.--HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCH.--HIS PASTORES DE BELEN.--HIS RELIGIOUS POEMS.--HIS CONNECTION WITH THE FESTIVALS AT THE BEATIFICATION AND CANONIZATION OF SAN ISIDRO.--TOMÉ DE BURGUILLOS.--LA GATOMACHIA.--AN AUTO DA FÉ.--TRIUNFOS DIVINOS.--POEM ON MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.--LAUREL DE APOLO.--DOROTEA.--HIS OLD AGE AND DEATH. Just at the time the Jerusalem was published, Lope began to wear the livery of his Church. Indeed, it is on the title-page of this very poem that he, for the first time, announces himself as a “Familiar of the Holy Inquisition.” Proofs of the change in his life are soon apparent in his works. In 1612, he published “The Shepherds of Bethlehem,” a long pastoral in prose and verse, divided into five books. It contains the sacred history, according to the more popular traditions of the author’s Church, from the birth of Mary, the Saviour’s mother, to the arrival of the holy family in Egypt,--all supposed to be related or enacted by shepherds in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem, at the time the events occurred.