"Now, all pomp, the Moorish hero, Whilst his robes sweet perfumes throw, Lays aside his crooked sabre, Hangs on high his moony bow. His hoarse tambours, hoarse no longer, Seem like amorous turtle-doves; And his pendants streaming favours, Favours given by her he loves. She goes forth with bosom naked, Loosely flow her golden locks; If she stays them, 'tis with jasmines, Chains them, 'tis with pinks and stocks. All things serve their gentle passion, Every thing fresh joy assumes; Flattering, if not babbling breezes, Stir their robes and toss their plumes. Green fields yield them mossy carpets, Trees pavilions, flowers the vales, Peaceful fountains golden slumber, Music love-lorn nightingales. Trunks their bark, whose tablets better Keep their names than plates of brass; Better far than ivory pages, Than the marble's sculptured mass. Not a beech but bears some cipher, Tender word, or amorous text; If one vale sounds Angelina, Angelina sounds the next." How could a writer possessing this strength and richness afterwards abandon himself to the pitiable frenzies in which he lost himself, without preserving even a shadow of their excellences! Thinking that the poetic period was enervated, and looking upon nature as poverty, purity as subjection, and ease as looseness, he aspired to extend the limits of the language and poetry, by the invention of a new dialect which should re-elevate the art from the plain, dull track into which, according to him, it was reduced. This dialect was distinguished by the novelty of the words, or by their application; by the singularity and dislocation of the phrase, or by the boldness and profusion of its figures; and in it he not only composed his _Soledades_ and _Polifemo_, but distorted, after the same manner, almost all his sonnets and songs, sprinkling as well with a sufficient number of false ornaments his romances and letrillas. If Góngora, to the excellent qualities he possessed, had joined the judgment and good taste he wanted; if he had made the same profound study of the language as Herrera, both meditating on the resources which the idiom presented, and attending to its character, richness, and harmony, then would have followed the result he desired, and he would, perhaps, have gained the glory of being the restorer, and not the opprobrium of having been the corrupter of the art. But the same circumstance befel him which befals all who seek to erect a building without foundations; he gave into a world of freaks and extravagances, into an abominable gibberish, as opposite to truth as to beauty, and which, whilst it was followed by a multitude of the ignorant, was censured by as many as yet preserved a spark of sense and judgment.