This party which soon became powerful, imitated the negligence of Lope de Vega. But Lope de Vega was not a pedant; and when he failed in producing real beauties, he did not coin false ones. His pretended imitators, however, used the alloy of pedantry most unsparingly, and thereby carried the affectation of ingenious thoughts, in the style of the Italian Marinists, to an incredible height. GONGORA AND HIS ESTILO CULTO--THE CULTORISTOS--THE CONCEPTISTOS. Luis de Gongora de Argote was the founder and the idol of the fantastical sect, which at this period led the fashion in literature, and attempted to create a new epoch in Spanish poetry by dint of exquisite cultivation and refinement. Gongora was a man of shrewd and powerful mind; but his natural faculties were perverted by a systematic prosecution of absurd critical reveries. Through life he had to maintain a constant struggle with the frowns of fortune. He was born in Cordova, in the year 1561; and after completing his studies in his native city found himself without any provision for the future. He took holy orders, and after eleven years of solicitation at the court of Madrid, obtained a scanty benefice. The dissatisfied turn of mind, occasioned by his adverse fortune, contributed to develope that caustic wit, for which he was particularly distinguished. He wrote satirical sonnets, which for bitterness of spirit can scarcely be exceeded;[442] and he was still more successful in romances and songs in the burlesque satirical style. Works of this kind, did not, it is true, possess the merit of novelty in Spanish literature; but Gongora’s satirical poems are vastly superior to those of Castillejo. It would be scarcely possible to preserve, in a translation, the caustic spirit of Gongora’s romances and songs. To give full effect to these compositions, the genuine national spirit of the serious romances and canciones must never be lost sight of. In Gongora’s satirical works the language and versification are correct and elegant, and the piquant simplicity of the whole style would never lead to the supposition that the ambition of marking an epoch in literature could have betrayed the author into the most intolerable affectation.[443] He was less successful in seizing the cordial tone of the old narrative romances. But his canciones in the ancient Spanish style are in general masterly compositions, full of true natural and poetic feeling.[444]