Such, in ancient times, was the character of the ode; which modern nations have since introduced into their poetry with more or less success. But, stript of the accompaniment of song, and removed from solemnities and numerous assemblages, it has been but a weak reflection of the first inspiration. The modern poets of Spain have thought that, to restore it to the exalted and divine character which it held at its origin, it was necessary to transplant it again to the regions whence it sprung, and to fill it with antique ideas, images, and even phrases. Herrera was the first that thought so. Horace would have adopted with pleasure his ode to Don Juan of Austria; his hymn on the battle of Lepanto breathes throughout the most fervent enthusiasm, and is adorned with the rich images and daring phrases that characterise Hebrew poetry; whilst the elegiac cancion to King Don Sebastian, animated with the same spirit as the hymn, but much more beautiful, is full of the melancholy and agitation which that unhappy catastrophe should produce on a vivid imagination. Even in songs, little interesting in their subject and composition, are found flights daring and worthy of Pindar. So absolutely superior to all others is his assiduous attention to diction and the poetry of style, that never can three of his verses be possibly mistaken for those of any other poet. The following passage may serve as a specimen here, extracted from his song to San Fernando, which is not one of the best. "The sacred Betis strewed the wavy shore With purple flowers, fine emeralds, golden ore, And tender pearls; toward heaven he raised his head, Adorned with grasses, reeds, and corals red; Spread o'er the sands the moving glass that shot Capricious lustres round his shadowy grot; Then stretched his humid horns, increasing so His affluent floods, dilated in their flow;-- Swift roll his billows, murmuring, pure, and cool, And into ocean far extend his rule." Lope de Vega, quoting these verses as a model of poetic elevation, so opposite to the extravagances of _Purism_,[I] exclaimed with enthusiasm, "Here no language exceeds our own; no, not the Greek nor the Latin. Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight."