Herrera is a great favourite with those Spanish critics who prefer loftiness to simplicity of style, and the ideas of the head rather than the emotions of the heart: the sublime style at which he aimed gained for him the surname of Divine. Boscan, Garcilaso, and Luis de Leon, adopted the Italian metres, and with greater diffuseness, and therefore less classical elegance, but with equal truth and poetic verve, and informed the Spanish language with powers unknown to former poets. But this did not suffice for Herrera. He delighted in the grandiose and sonorous. He altered the language, introducing some obsolete and some new words, and, attending with a sensitive ear to the modulations of sound, endeavoured to make harmony between the thought and its oral expression. Lope de Vega held Herrera's versification in high esteem: quoting a passage from his odes, he exclaims, "Here, no language exceeds our own--no, not even the Greek nor the Latin. Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight." Quintana, whose criticism is rather founded on artificial, rather than genuine and simple taste, as is apt to be the case with critics, is also his great admirer. He considers that he contributed more than any other to elevate, not only the poetic style of the Spanish language, but the essence of its poetry, in gifting it with more boldness of imagination and fire of expression than any preceding poet. Sedano is less partial: while he praises and admits his right to his name of "divine," he observes, that in endeavouring to purify and elevate his diction, he erred in rendering it harsh and barren, wanting in suavity and flow, and injured it by the affectation of antiquated phrases. His odes are certainly grand: we feel that the poet is full of his subject, and rises with it. It is rash of a foreigner, indeed, to give an opinion; still, we cannot help saying that while we admire the fervour of expression, the grandeur of the ideas, and the harmony of the versification, we miss the while a living grace more charming than all. It is the poetry of the head rather than the heart. And thus, among Herrera's poems, the one we admire most is his Ode to Sleep; for, joined to elegant chasteness and great purity of language, we find a pure genuine feeling, feelingly expressed. Suave sueño, tu que en tarde buelo las alas perezosas blandamente bates, de adormideras coronado, por el puro, adormido, vago cielo, ven á la ultima parte de Ocidente, y de licor sagrado baña mi ojos tristes que cansado y rendido al furor de mi tormento, no admito algun sosiego, y el dolor desconorta al infrimiento. Ven a mi humilde ruego: ven a mi ruego humilde, amor de aquella que Juno te ofreciò, tu Ninfa bella.