As it was modelled almost exactly after the form of the French Academy, the first project of its members was that of making a Dictionary. The work was much needed. From the time of Fernando de Herrera the language had not received large additions, but it had received some that were of value. Mendoza and Coloma had introduced a few military terms, that have since passed into common use; and both of them, with Ercilla, Urrea, and many others, had been so familiar with the Italian, as to seize some of its wealth for their own. Cervantes, however, had, perhaps, done more than any body else. That he was insensible neither to the danger of a too free intermixture of foreign words, nor to the true principles that should govern their introduction when needed, he has shown in the conversations of Don Quixote with the printers at Barcelona, and with Sancho at the Duke’s castle; but still he felt the rights of genius within him, and exercised them in this respect as boldly as he did in most others. His new compounds, his Latinisms, his restoration of old and neglected phrases, and his occasional recourse to the Italian, have all been noted; and, in nearly every instance, the words he adopted now enter into the recognized vocabulary of the language. Other writers ventured in the same direction, with less success; but still, from the glossaries added to the poems of Blasco in 1584, and of Lopez Pinciano in 1605, there can be no doubt that many words, which were then thought to need explanation, have long since become familiar, and that the old Castilian stock, during the reigns of Philip the Second and Philip the Third, was receiving additions, which ought, in some way, to be recognized as an important part of its permanent resources.[279] [279] Garcés, Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1791, 2 tom. 8vo, Prólogo to each volume. Mendoza used reluctantly such words as _centinela_, and Coloma introduced _dique_, etc., from his Dutch experience. Navarrete (Vida de Cervantes, pp. 163-169) and Garcés (loc. cit.) show the value of what Cervantes did, and Clemencin (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. V. pp. 99, 292, and 357) gives a list of the Latin, Italian, and other words used by Cervantes, but not always naturalized, on which, in various notes elsewhere, he seems to look with less favor than Garcés does. Quite as curious as either are the words, which Blasco (Universal Redencion, 1584) and Lopez Pinciano (El Pelayo, 1605) thought it necessary to put into vocabularies at the end of their respective poems, and to define for their readers, among which are _fatal_, _natal_, _fugaz_, _gruta_, _abandonar_, _adular_, _anhelo_, _aplauso_, _arrojarse_, _assedio_, etc.,--all now familiar Castilian.