Like other works of the same sort, the Galatea is founded on an affectation which can never be successful; and which, in this particular instance, from the unwise accumulation and involution of the stories in its fable, from the conceited metaphysics with which it is disfigured, and from the poor poetry profusely scattered through it, is more than usually unfortunate. Yet there are traces both of Cervantes’s experience in life, and of his talent, in different parts of it. Some of the tales, like that of Sileno, in the second and third books, are interesting; others, like Timbrio’s capture by the Moors, in the fifth book, remind us of his own adventures and sufferings; while yet one, at least, that of Rosaura and Grisaldo, in the fourth book, is quite emancipated from pastoral conceits and fancies. In all, we have passages marked with his rich and flowing style, though never, perhaps, with what is most peculiar to his genius. The inartificial texture of the whole, and the confusion of Christianity and mythology, almost inevitable in such a work, are its most obvious defects; though nothing, perhaps, is more incongruous than the representation of that sturdy old soldier and formal statesman, Diego de Mendoza, as a lately deceased shepherd.[102] [102] The chief actors in the Galatea visit the tomb of Mendoza, in the sixth book, under the guidance of a wise and gentle Christian priest; and when there, Calliope strangely appears to them and pronounces a tedious poetical eulogium on a vast number of the contemporary Spanish poets, most of whom are now forgotten. The Galatea was abridged by Florian, at the end of the eighteenth century, and reproduced, with an appropriate conclusion, in a prose pastoral, which, in the days when Gessner was so popular, was frequently reprinted. In this form, it is by no means without grace.