The age then, it will be said, was barbarous, that tolerated such errantries, and that gave so much applause to a writer so defective. It was not barbarous, but excessively compliant. There were many men of talent who deplored this abuse; but they could not resist the popular approbation which the nature of Lope's writings carried with it, and which in some degree his genius authorized. The general sweetness and fluency of his verse; the lucidness of his expression, intelligible almost always to the most illiterate; the fine and polished language of gallantry which he invented, and brought into use in his comedies; the decorum and ornament with which he invested the stage;[R] the vivid and delicate touches of sensibility which he from time to time presents; the eminent and brilliant parts which the women generally sustain in his works; in short, his absolute dominion in the theatre, where acclamations have most solemnity and force; are all circumstances which concur to excuse the public of that day, who were not unjust in admiring most the individual that gave them most delight.[S] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote J: "But when to lash loose vices you aspire, And seek to catch the true satiric fire, All others' leaves pass over, all neglect, But Juvenal's, the shrewd and circumspect; None to the high court-taste with such success Feels the town's pulse--ev'n Horace's is less."] [Footnote K: "What of the swain Anchises shall I say, But ask Idalian Venus by the way Who is the gardener of those flowers of hers, Or Ida's pencil who her fancy stirs? Did not Ulysses farm the watery waste? How then could he Calypso's fruitage taste?" What ridiculous nonsense! Will any one believe that these are by the same author, and found in the same piece as the following?-- "Come, then, fair mountaineer, hide not nor flee, Thou, by thy marriage with this stream, shalt be Queen of the sweetest waves that in their sweep Love to give lustre to the shady deep. 'Tis just that thou respond to love's light pain, With kind acknowledgment, not coy disdain."] [Footnote L: One of his sapphics is written with so much delicacy and beauty that I cannot resist the temptation of translating it. _To the Zephyr._ "Sweet neighbour of the green, leaf-shaking grove, Eternal guest of April, frolic child Of a sad sire, life-breath of mother Love, Favonius, zephyr mild! If thou hast learned like me to love--away! Thou who hast borne the murmurs of my cry; Hence--no demur--and to my Flora say, Say that 'I die!' 'Flora once knew what bitter tears I shed; Flora once wept to see my sorrows flow; Flora once loved me, but I dread, I dread Her anger now.'