The greater portion of the poetic works of Luis de Leon consists of translations; but these translations form an epoch in the department of literature to which they belong. Those in the second book of the collection are the first classical specimens, in modern literature, of the art of renewing the ancient poetry in modern forms. Luis de Leon has himself explained the principles by which he was guided in bringing the ancient poetry within the sphere of the romantic. He endeavoured to make the ancient poets speak, “as they would have expressed themselves, had they been born in his own age in Castile, and had they written in Castilian.”[237] However bold this attempt may appear, and whatever defects a translation of this kind may present to the eye of the connoisseur who wishes for a faithful resemblance of the original, and not a flowery imitation, yet if the validity of the principle be once admitted, Luis de Leon will be found to have fulfilled all that the most rigid critic can desire. Besides, it must be considered that translations of a more literal character would scarcely have found readers in Spain at that period. Luis de Leon translated Virgil’s eclogues, partly in tercets, and partly in coplas;[238] a considerable series of Horace’s odes in the same romantic syllabic measure which he chose for his own odes;[239]--and a portion of Virgil’s georgics in stanzas. But the easy flowing style of his Spanish version of Pindar’s first ode, excels all the rest.[240] To these translations are also added two imitations of Italian sonnets, which prove that he succeeded very well in that species of composition, though among his own original poems there is not a single sonnet. He translated the psalms of David, according to the rule he had prescribed to himself. His translations speedily obtained the rank in Spanish literature to which they were entitled; and they have served as models for all succeeding versions of Greek and Latin poetry in the Spanish language. Luis de Leon may indeed be blamed for having thwarted, by the style of translation which he introduced, all the attempts made to form Spanish poetry on the model of that of the ancients. But on the other hand, to his example the Spaniards are indebted for numerous translations of Greek and Latin poetry, which have all the air of Spanish originals.