The Marquis of Santillana possessed no uncommon poetic talent. But he studied to give to the poetry of his age a moral tendency, to extend its sphere by allegorical invention, and to adorn poetic description with the stores of learning. Two poems, in which he has best succeeded in realizing these objects, are also the most celebrated of his works. The first is an elegy on the death of the Marquis of Villena;[76] a lyric allegory in twenty-five dactylic stanzas, constructed according to the ancient form. The idea is very simple, and the commencement of the piece brings to recollection the hell of Dante, of which it is probably an imitation.[77] The poet loses himself in a desert, finds himself surrounded by wild and frightful animals, advances forward, hears dismal tones of lamentation, and finally discovers some nymphs in mourning, who bewail the loss and chaunt the merits of the deceased Marquis of Villena. On this poem, which does not discover much ingenuity of invention, the Marquis of Santillana probably expended all his stock of learning. He cites as many deities and ancient authors, as the nature of his work will permit him to notice.[78] Such a display of erudition had never before been seen in the Castilian language. No genial poetic spirit is to be found except in the descriptions and in some other scattered passages of this lyric allegory;[79] but the verse is not destitute of harmony. The other considerable poem of the Marquis, consists of a series of moral reflections, occasioned by the unfortunate fate of Don Alvaro de Luna, the favourite of John II.; the Marquis called this work, _El doctrinal de Privados_, (the Manual of Favourites.) It must be regarded as the earliest didactic poem in the Spanish language, unless that title be given to any series of moral maxims in verse. The work which is divided into fifty-three stanzas in redondillas, receives a poetic colouring from the manner in which the shade of Don Alvaro is introduced confessing his faults, and uttering those moral truths, which the author wished to impress on the hearts of the restless Castilians.[80] He was less successful in his love songs composed in the Castilian manner, to which he unfortunately thought a new dignity would be given, by rendering them the vehicles of learned allusions. He possessed, however, the art of reconciling this pedantry with a pleasing style of versification.[81] A kind of hymn, which he composed, under the title of _Los Gozos de neustra Señora_, (the Joys of our Lady) has been preserved, but it possesses no poetic merit.[82] He also wrote a collection of proverbs and maxims in verse, for the use of the Prince Royal of Castile, who afterwards ascended a tottering throne under the title of Henry IV.[83] However low a critical examination might reduce the value of these works, still the Marquis of Santillana deserves to retain the place assigned to him in the history of Spanish literature by his contemporaries, by whom he was generally