favourite maxim, “to be common in nothing,” (_en nada vulgar_), which in order to be valid would require a totally different interpretation from that which he has given it. Gracian’s _uncommon_ prose was formed according to certain principles. His book on the Art of Ingeniously Thinking and Writing,[566] is no inconsiderable contribution to criticism in Spanish literature. He refines to an incredible degree on subtle distinctions and antitheses, with the view of systematically bringing the style of his countrymen to the level of his own. His illustrative examples are selected from Italian and Spanish poets, particularly from Marino, Gongora and Quevedo. Throughout the whole work, ingenious thoughts (_conceptos_,) are constantly the subject of consideration. A man of genius, he says, may receive these ideas from nature; but art enables him to create them at pleasure. “As he who comprehends such ideas is an eagle, so he who is capable of producing them must be ranked among angels; for it is an employment of cherubims and an elevation of man which raises him to sublime hierarchy.”[567] He then proceeds to describe those _conceptos_, which he pronounces to be undefinable, because “they are to the understanding what beauty is to the eye, and harmony to the ear.”[568] Next follows an enumeration and explanation of the numerous combinations by which the various classes of these ideas, for example, the proverbial, the pathetic, the heroic, &c. may be produced. Poetic figures are examined in rotation; and the style of true eloquence is defined according to the same principles. Thus throughout the whole book good sense and good taste are most ingeniously abused. This art of poetry and rhetoric by Gracian was, in the seventeenth century, the only work of the kind which produced any influence on the taste of writers and the public. Gongorism peeps forth even in the published letters of the eminent men of this period, which exhibit a strained formality and an affected elegance. The letters of Quevedo form in this respect no exception. Even in those of Antonio de Solis the facility of the true epistolatory style is wanting.[569] BOOK III. HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE FROM ITS DECLINE IN THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.