St. John of the Cross has absorbed the mystic essence of the _Song of Solomon_, and he introduces infinite new harmonies in his re-setting of the ancient melody. The worst that criticism can allege against him is that he dwells on the very frontier line of sense, in a twilight where music takes the place of meaning, and words are but vague symbols of inexpressible thoughts, intolerable raptures, too subtly sensuous for transcription. The _Unknown Eros_, a volume of odes, mainly mystical and Catholic, by Coventry Patmore, which has had so considerable an influence on recent English writers, was a deliberate attempt to transfer to our poetry the methods of St. John of the Cross, whose influence grows ever deeper with time. The Dominican monk whose family name was Sarriá, but who is only known from his birthplace as LUIS DE GRANADA (1504-88), is usually accounted a mystic writer, though he is vastly less contemplative, more didactic and practical, than San Juan de la Cruz. He is best known by his _Guía de Pecadores_, which Regnier made the favourite reading of Macette, and which Gorgibus recommends to Célie in _Sganarelle_:— "_La Guide des pécheurs est encore un bon livre: C'est là qu'en peu de temps on apprend à bien vivre._" Unluckily for Granada, his _Guía de Pecadores_ and his _Tratado de la Oración y Meditación_ were placed on the Index, chiefly at the instigation of that hammer of heretics, Melchor Cano, the famous theologian of the Council of Trent. Certain changes were made in the text, and the books were reprinted in their amended form; but the suspicion of _iluminismo_ long hung over Granada, whose last years were troubled by his rash simplicity in certifying as true the sham stigmata of a Portuguese nun, Sor María de la Visitación. The story that Granada was persecuted by the Inquisition is imaginary. His books have still an immense vogue. His sincerity, learning, and fervour are admirable, and his forty years spent between confessional and pulpit gave him a rare knowledge of human weakness and a mastery of eloquent appeal. He is not declamatory in the worst sense, though he bears the marks of his training. He sins by abuse of oratorical antithesis, by repetition, by a certain mechanical see-saw of the sentence common to those who harangue multitudes. Still, the sweetness of his nature so flows over in his words that didacticism becomes persuasive even when he argues against our strongest prepossessions. It may interest to quote a passage from the translation made by that Francis Meres whose _Palladis Tamia_ contains the earliest reference to Shakespeare's "sugared sonnets":—