In order to form a just estimate of the spirit of Luzan’s labours, it is necessary to bear in mind that the theoretical literature of Spain furnished him with scarcely a single trace of sound criticism; that even those Spanish poets who possessed the justest feeling for poetic beauty, propounded, in their theoretic explanations, the most erroneous notions on the value and the essence of poetry; that only a critical tact, and an instinctive imitation of good models, had preserved the most correct among the Spanish poets from wanderings of the imagination and perversions of judgment; and that in the age of Luzan, the only art of criticism which was theoretically taught in Spain, had issued from the school of Gongora, and was consequently only calculated to assist the systematic propagation of absurdity and affectation. Moreover, the elegant correctness of the French poets was, in that age, calculated to dazzle by the charm of novelty. Finally, the delicate subtleties whereby the principles of French criticism and of French poetry, since the age of Moliere and Corneille, were derived from the classic school of antiquity, and the moral syllogisms with which those principles were entrenched behind Aristotle’s Art of Poetry, as their last bulwark, were well calculated to seduce a man of Luzan’s erudition. His partiality for the French school, and his efforts to reform the Spanish taste according to the principles of that school, are therefore no proofs of narrowness of mind, though genuine poetic feeling certainly was not within the sphere of his talent. He possessed a delicate sense for elegance and the dress of poetry, but not for the energy and loftiness of poetic genius. It is thus easy to account for his having, with the best intentions, theoretically misunderstood the essence and design of poetry; and for his also having, in conformity with the spirit of French criticism, confounded the objects of the poet with the duties of the orator and the moralist.