The Segovian poet, Alonso de Ledesma Buitrago (1552-1623), founded the school of _conceptismo_ with its metaphysical conceits, philosophic paradoxes, and sententious moralisings, as of a Seneca gone mad. His _Conceptos espirituales_ and _Juegos de la Noche Buena_ (1611) lead up to the allegorical gibberish of his _Monstruo Imaginado_ (1615), and to the perverted ingenuity of Alonso de Bonilla's _Nuevo Jardín de Flores divinas_ (1617). _Conceptismo_ was no less an evil than _culteranismo_, but it was less likely to spread: the latter played with words, the former with ideas. A bizarre vocabulary was enough for a man to pass as _culto_; the _conceptista_ must be equipped with various learning, and must have a smattering of philosophy. Under such chiefs as Ledesma and Bonilla the new mania must have died; but _conceptismo_ was in the air, and, as Carrillo seduced Góngora, so Ledesma captured FRANCIS GÓMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS (1580-1645): (it should be said, however, that Quevedo nowhere mentions Ledesma by name). Like Lope, like Calderón, Quevedo was a highlander. His family boasted the punning motto:—"I am he who stopped—_el que vedó_—the Moors' advance." His father (who died early) and mother both held posts at court. At Alcalá de Henares, from 1596 onwards, Quevedo took honours in theology, law, French, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. He is also said to have studied medicine; and certainly he hated Sangrado as Dickens hated Bumble. When scarcely out of his teens he corresponded with Justus Lipsius, who hailed him as _μέγα κῦδος Ἱβήρων_, and at Madrid he speedily became the talk of the town. Strange stories were told of him: that he had pinked his man at Alcalá, that he ran Captain Rodríguez through the body rather than yield him the wall, that he put an escaped panther to the sword, that he disarmed the famous fencing-master, Pacheco Narváez. This last tale is true, and is curious in view of Quevedo's physical defects. His reply to Vicencio Valerio in _Su Espada por Santiago_ is well known:—"He says I hobble, and can't see. I should lie from head to foot if I denied it: my eyes and my gait would contradict me."