the vaguer effusions of most Portuguese poets. And if Queen Lianor’s goldsmith, like the troubadour _ourives_ Elias Cairel, or, to come to the fifteenth century, like Diogo Fernandez and Afonso Valente of the _Cancioneiro de Resende_,[245] set himself to write verses, this would call for no comment. Every one wrote verses. Had a celebrated poet--say the Gil Vicente of 1520--wrought the _custodia_ his contemporaries might have recorded the fact, but Gil Vicente was not a famous poet when the _custodia_ was begun in 1503. Stress was therefore naturally laid on the plays of Gil Vicente the goldsmith, not on the art of Gil Vicente the poet. The historian Barros refers in 1540 to Gil Vicente _comico_,[246] and since 1517 he had certainly been more _comico_ than _ourives_. But the _comico_ who was dramatist and lyric poet, musician, actor, preacher in prose and verse, may also have been a goldsmith. His versatility was that of Damião de Goes a little later or of his own contemporary Garcia de Resende, with genius added. The fact that the official document in which _Gil Vicente lavrador da Rainha Lianor_ is appointed to his post in the Lisbon _Casa da Moeda_ (Feb. 4, 1513[247]) has above it a contemporary note _Gil Vᵗᵉ trouador mestre da balãça_ should in itself be conclusive evidence that the poet was the goldsmith of the queen. This modest but intimate position at Court accords well with what we know of the poet and with the production of his plays. The offerings at the end of the _Visitaçam_ seem to have suggested to Queen Lianor the idea of its repetition on Christmas morning, but Gil Vicente, considering its matter inappropriate, wrote a new play with parts for six shepherds. This _Auto Pastoril Castelhano_ is four times as long as the _Visitaçam_. The shepherds pass the time in dance and song, games, riddles, and various conversation (the dowry of the bride of one of them is catalogued in the manner of Enzina[248] and the Archpriest of Hita). To them the Angels announce the birth of the Redeemer, and they go to sing and dance before _aquel garzon_. The principal part, that of the mystic shepherd Gil Terron, ‘inclined to the life contemplative’, well read (_letrudo_) in the Bible, with some knowledge of metaphysics and perhaps of the _Corte Imperial_, devoted to Nature and the _sierras benditas_, was evidently played by Gil Vicente himself. A fortnight later, for the Day of Kings, he had ready the _Auto dos Reis Magos_ (1503), again at the request of Queen Lianor, who had ‘been very pleased’ with what Vicente himself called a _pobre cousa_. This brief interval of time limited the length of the new play. Its action is as slight. A shepherd enters who has lost his way to Bethlehem. He meets another shepherd and then a hermit, whom they ply with irreverent problems. To them enters a knight of Araby, and finally the three kings, singing a _vilancete_. The _Auto da Sibila Cassandra_ has been assigned to the same year, but is probably a later