If Juan de Mena and Manrique could then have manifested any regret, it would have been for not having had the new versification established when they wrote. The fiery and daring genius of the one, the grave and sedate spirit of the other, would have found for the expression of their thoughts and pictures, a fit instrument in endecasyllabic verse. They would instantly have known that the _coplas de arte mayor_, reduced to their elements, were one continued and wearying combination of verses of six syllables; that the rhymed octosyllabics serve rather for the epigram and the madrigal than for sublime poetry, and that _coplas de piè quebrado_,[F] essentially opposed to all harmony and pleasure, ought not to be defended. This Castillejo could not know; he wrote indeed the Castilian language with propriety, facility, and purity; but the inspiration, the invention, sublime and animated imagery, force of thought, warmth of emotion, variety, harmony,--all these qualities, without which, or without many of which, no one can be considered a poet--all were wanting in him. Hence it is nothing extraordinary, that, entrenched in his coplas, all sufficient for the acute and ingenious thoughts in which he abounds, he perceived not the need that Spanish poetry had for the new versification to issue from its infancy. The latter had more freedom and ease, gave opportunity to vary the pauses and cesuras; and the variety of combinations of which long and short verses are capable, supplied a flexible instrument for the various purposes of imitation. Such were the advantages gained by the new system, and they were all recognised by the new geniuses who adopted it; but it was an exact touchstone of the quality of a poet, and Castillejo, finding it a rigorous one, would not hold with it. This circumstance was of much more consequence to the dispute than at first sight appears; for though there had not been the great difference which there was between the two metres, that party would have borne away the palm, which could have produced in its favour the most, and the most agreeable verses and compositions. In this point of view, the single talent of Garcilasso should diminish and reduce to nothing, as he did, all the partisans of the Copla. A thing truly extraordinary, not to say admirable! A youth who died at the age of thirty-three, devoted to the bearing of arms, without any regular studies, with only his native genius, assisted by application and good taste, drew Spanish poetry suddenly forth from its infancy, guided it happily by the footsteps of the ancients, and of the most celebrated moderns then known; and coming into rivalry with each in turn, adorned it with graces and appropriate sentiments, and taught it to speak a language, pure, harmonious, sweet, and elegant! His genius, more delicate and tender than strong and sublime, inclined him by preference to the sweet images of the country, and to the native sentiments of the eclogue and elegy. He had a vivid