Luzan took no notice of either of them. He followed the poetical system of Boileau and Lebossu, not, indeed, forgetting the masters of antiquity, but everywhere accommodating his doctrines to the demands of modern poetry, as Muratori had done just before him, and enforcing them by the example of the French school, then more admired than any other in Europe.[304] His object, as he afterwards explained it, was “to bring Spanish poetry under the control of those precepts which are observed among polished nations”; and his work is arranged with judgment to effect his purpose. The first book treats of the origin and nature of poetry, and the second, of the pleasure and advantage poetry brings with it. These two books constitute one half of the work, and having gone through in them what he thinks it necessary to say of the less important divisions of the art,--such as lyric poetry, satire, and pastorals,--he devotes the two remaining books entirely to a discussion of the drama and of epic poetry,--the forms in which Spanish genius had long been more ambitious of excellence than in any other. A strict method reigns through the whole; and the style, if less rich than is found in the older prose-writers, and less so than the genius of the language demands, is clear, simple, and effective. In explaining and defending his system of opinions, he shows judgment, and a temperate philosophy; and his abundant illustrations, drawn not only from the Castilian, the French, the Greek, and the Latin, but from the Italian and the Portuguese, are selected with excellent taste, and applied skilfully to strengthen his general argument and design. For its purpose, a better treatise could hardly have been produced. [304] Blanco White (Life by Thom, 1845, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 21) says Luzan borrowed so freely from Muratori, “Della Perfetta Poesia,” that the Spanish treatise helped him (Mr. White) materially in learning to read the Italian one. But Luzan has not in fact copied from Muratori with the unjustifiable freedom this remark implies, though he has adopted Muratori’s general system, with abundant acknowledgment and references. The effect was immediate and great. It seemed to offer a remedy for the bad taste which had accompanied, and in no small degree hastened, the decline of the national literature from the time of Góngora. It was seized on, therefore, with eagerness, as the book that was wanted; and when to this we add that the literature of the age of Louis the Fourteenth, which it held up as the model literature of Christendom, was then regarded throughout Europe with almost unmingled admiration, we shall not be surprised that the “Poética” of Luzan exercised, from its first appearance, a controlling authority over opinion at the court of Spain, and over the few writers of reputation then to be found in the country.[305]