a caustic wit. In this patriotic task he was for a time
aided by an organist of the cathedral at Granada, Gregorio
Silvestre (1520-1569), of Portuguese birth. Silvestre,
however, who is noted for the delicacy of his poems in
whatever style, was later attracted by the popularity of
the Italian meters and adopted them.

This literary squabble ended in the most natural way,
namely, in the co-existence of both manners in peace and
harmony. Italian forms were definitively naturalized in
Spain, where they have maintained their place ever since.
Subsequent poets wrote in either style or both as they
felt moved, and no one reproached them. Such was the habit
of Lope de Vega, Góngora, Quevedo and the other great
writers of the seventeenth century.

A Sevillan Italianate was Fernando de HERRERA
(1534?-1597), admirer and annotator of Garcilaso. Although
an ecclesiastic, his poetic genius was more virile than
that of his soldier master. He wrote Petrarchian sonnets
to his platonic lady; but his martial, patriotic spirit
appears in his _canciones_, especially in those on the
battle of Lepanto and on the expedition of D. Sebastian of
Portugal in Africa. In these stirring odes Herrera touches
a sonorous, grandiloquent chord which rouses the page xxii
reader's enthusiasm and places the writer in the first
rank of Spanish lyrists. He is noteworthy also in that
he made an attempt to create a poetic language by the
rejection of vulgar words and the coinage of new ones.
Others, notably Juan de Mena, had attempted it before, and