[27] The “Egemplar Poético” of Cueva was first printed in the eighth volume of the “Parnaso Español,” 1774; and the “Inventores de las Cosas,” taken generally from Polydore Virgil, and dated 1608, was first published in the ninth volume of the same collection, 1778. How absurd the last is may be inferred from the fact, that it makes Moses the inventor of hexameter verse, and Alexander the Great the oldest of paper-makers. Pablo de Céspedes, a sculptor and painter of the same period,--now better known as a man of learning and a poet,--came nearer to success than Cueva. He was born in 1538, at Córdova, and died there, a minor canon of its magnificent cathedral, at the age of seventy; but he spent a part of his life in Italy and at Seville, and devoted much of his leisure to letters. Among other works, he began a poem, in _ottava rima_, on “The Art of Painting.” Whether it was ever finished is uncertain; but all we possess of it is a series of fragments, amounting, when taken together, to six or seven hundred lines, which were inserted in a prose treatise on the same subject by his friend Francisco Pacheco, and printed above forty years after their author’s death. They are, however, such as to make us regret that we have received no more. Their versification is excellent, and their poetical energy and compactness are uniform. Perhaps the best passage that has been preserved is the description of a horse,--the animal of whose race the poet’s native city has always been proud,--and of which, it is evident, a single noble individual was pictured before his mind as he wrote. But other portions show much talent,--perhaps more than this does; especially one in which he explains the modes of acquiring practical skill in his art, and that more poetical one in which he discusses color.[28]