to add fresh ornaments to his language. It was with this kind of labour that he wrote his Soledades, his Polyphemus, and some other poems. These are all fictions without any poetic charm, full of mythological images, and loaded with a pomp of fanciful and obscure phrases. Gongora's lot in life was not, however, ameliorated by the celebrity which this new style bestowed on his writings. He survived some time longer in poverty; and when he died, in 1627, he was no more than titular chaplain to the king.

It is extremely difficult to give to foreign nations a just idea of the style of Gongora, since its most remarkable quality is its indistinctness; nor is it possible to translate it, for other languages do not admit of those labyrinths of phrases, in which the sense wholly escapes us; and it would be the translator and not Gongora, who would be charged by the reader with want of perspicuity. I have, however, attempted the commencement of the first of his Soledades, by which word, of rare occurrence in Spain, he expresses the solitude of the forest. There are two of these poems, each of which contains about a thousand verses:

* "Twas in that flowery season of the year,
When fair Europa's spoiler in disguise,

* Era del año la estacion florida,

En que el mentido robador de Europa

(On his fierce front, his glittering arms, arise
A half-moon's horns, while the sun's rays appear
Brightening his speckled coat,)-the pride of heaven,
Pastured on stars amidst the sapphire fields;
When he, most worthy of the office given
To Ida's boy to hold Jove's cup that yields
Immortal juice-was wreck'd in savage sea,
Confiding to the waves his amorous pains;
The sea relenting sends the strains

To the far leafy groves, glad to repeat

Echoes than old Arion's shell more sweet.

The Polyphemus of Gongora is one of his most celebrated poems, and the one which has been most frequently imitated. The Castilian poets, who were persuaded that neither interest nor genius, sentiment nor thought, were any part of poetry, and that the end of the art was solely the union of harmony with the most

(Media luna las armas de su frente,
Y el sol todos los rayos de su pelo)
Luciente honor del cielo,

En campos de zafiro pace estrellas;
Quando el, que ministrar podia la copa
A Jupiter, mejor que el garçon de Ida,
Naufragó, y desdeñado sobre ausente
Lagrimosas de amor, dulzes querellas
Dá al mar, que condolido,

Fue a las hondas, que al viento`

El misero gemido

Segundo de Arion, dulze instrumento.

Brussels edition, 4to, 1659,

p. 497.

brilliant images, and with the riches of ancient mythology, sought for subjects which might furnish them with gigantic pictures, with a strong contrast of images, and with all the aid of fable. The loves of Polyphemus appeared to them a singularly happy subject, since they could there unite tenderness and affright, gentleness and horror. The poem of Gongora consists of only sixty-three octave stanzas; but the commentary of Sabredo has swelled it into a small quarto volume. In the literature of Spain and Portugal, we find at least a dozen or fifteen poems on this subject. I shall here insert a few stanzas of that which has served as a model to all the others:

Cyclops-terrific son of Ocean's God!

Like a vast mountain rose his living frame;
His single eye cast like a flame abroad

Its glances, glittering as the morning beam:
A mighty pine supported where he trod

His giant steps, a trembling twig for him,
Which sometimes served to walk with, or to drive
His sheep to pasture, where the sea-nymphs live.

* Era un monte de miembros eminente
Este, que de Neptuno hijo fiero

De un ojo ilustra el orbe de su frente,
Emulo casi del mayor Luzero,
Ciclope, a quien el pino mas valiente
Baston le obedecia tan ligero,

Y al grave peso jungo tan delgado,
Que un dia era baston y otro cayado.

His jet-black hair in wavy darkness hung,
Dark as the tides of the Lethean deep,
Loose to the winds, and shaggy masses clung

To his dread face; like a wild torrent's sweep,
His beard far down his rugged bosom flung
A savage veil; while scarce the massy heap
Of ropy ringlets his vast hands divide,
That floated like the briny waters wide.

Not mountainous Trinacria ever gave

Such fierce and unform'd savage to the day; Swift as the winds his feet, to chase or brave The forest hordes, whose battle is his play, Whose spoils he bears; o'er his vast shoulders wave Their variegated skins, wont to dismay

The shepherds and their flocks. And now he came Driving his herds to fold 'neath the still twilight beam.

Negro el cabello, imitador ñudoso,
De las escuras aguas del Leteo,
Al viento que lo peina proceloso
Buela sin orden, pende sin aseo.
Un torrente es su barba impetuoso,
Que adusto hijo deste Pireneo,

Su pecho inunda, o tarde, o mal, o en vano
Sulcada aun de los dedos de su mano.

No la Trinacria, en sus montañas, fiera
Armó de crueldad, calcó de viento,
Que redima feroz, salve ligera.
Su piel manchada de colores ciento ;
Pellico es ya, la que en los montes era
Mortal horror, al que con passo lento
Los bueyes a su albergue reducia,
Pisando la dudosa luz del dia.

With hempen cords and wild bees' wax he bound
A hundred reeds, whose music wild and shrill,
Repeated by the mountain echoes round,

Shook every trembling grove, and stream, and hill.
The ocean heaves, the Triton's shells resound

No more; the frighted vessel's streamers fill
With the shook air, and bear in haste away :
Such was the giant's sweetest harmony.

Those who understand the Spanish language, will perceive that the translation has rather softened than overcharged the metaphors. It was these, however, which were admired as the true sublime of poetry and the highest productions of genius. Polyphemus, after having expressed his passion and vainly solicited Galatea, furiously assails with fragments of rock the grotto whither she had retired with Acis her lover. One of these kills Acis, and thus the poem terminates.

The effect produced by the poetry of Gongora on a people eager after novelty, impatient for a new career, and who on all sides found themselves restrained within the bounds of authority,