His chief fault--besides the indecency of some of his poetry, and the obscurity and extravagance that pervade yet more of it--is the use of words and phrases that are low and essentially unpoetical. This, as far as we can now judge, was the result partly of haste and carelessness, and partly of a false theory. He sought for strength, and he became affected and rude. But we should not judge him too severely. He wrote a great deal, and with extraordinary facility, but refused to print; professing his intention to correct and prepare his poems for the press when he should have more leisure and a less anxious mind. That time, however, never came. We should, therefore, rather wonder that we find in his works so many passages of the purest and most brilliant wit and poetry, than complain that they are scattered through so very large a mass of what is idle, unsatisfactory, and sometimes unintelligible. Once, and once only, Quevedo published a small volume of poetry, which has been supposed to be his own, though not originally appearing as such. The occasion was worthy of his genius, and his success was equal to the occasion. For some time, Spanish literature had been overrun with a species of affectation resembling the euphuism that prevailed in England a little earlier. It passed under the name of _cultismo_, or the polite style; and when we come to speak of its more distinguished votaries, we shall have occasion fully to explain its characteristic extravagances. At present, it is enough to say, that, in Quevedo’s time, this fashionable fanaticism was at the height of its folly; and that, perceiving its absurdity, he launched against it the shafts of his unsparing ridicule, in several shorter pieces of poetry, as well as in a trifle called “A Compass for the Polite to steer by,” and in a prose satire called “A Catechism of Phrases to teach Ladies how to talk Latinized Spanish.”[478] [478] There are several poems about _cultismo_, Obras, Tom. VIII. pp. 82, etc. The “Aguja de Navegar Cultos” is in Tom. I. p. 443; and immediately following it is the Catechism, whose whimsical title I have abridged somewhat freely.