a Chinese musical instrument of percussion, formed entirely of metal, which yields a very loud and peculiarly harsh sound when struck with force. It is made of an alloy of tin and copper, and in form it nearly resembles the common tambourine. Gongs are much used in China for making loud sonorous signals, particularly on the canals, as well as for adding to the clangour of martial instruments.

GONGORA Y ARGOTE, Luis de, a gentleman of Cordova, was born Jan. 11, 1561, and educated at Salamanca, where it was intended by his father, himself an eminent lawyer, that he should qualify himself for the legal profession. It was too late; his taste for poetry was already developed; and the only permanent result of his university studies may be found in numerous ballads and other light compositions, often written in a bitter satirical vein, yet with simplicity and spirit. In fact, the greater part of his satirical, jocose, and amatory pieces, were written during his stay at the university, and are justly considered the best of his compositions as to style, language, and versification. Gongora's sarcastic muse was unfortunately but evidently embittered by his frequent struggles with poverty. At last, however, he took holy orders in his forty-fifth year, and received a scanty prebend in the cathedral of his native city. To improve his inadequate means, he went to Madrid, where, after eleven years of weary expectation, he was appointed one of the chaplains of Philip III., in whose court his peculiar talents found ample scope and appreciation. But suddenly a severe illness deprived him of memory, and he retired to Cordova, where he died, May 24, 1627.

The disciples of the Spanish classic school were already tainted with the extravagant ideas of the Italian Marinists, when Gongora arose, and brought them into full fashion. His mind was shrewd and powerful; yet it was perverted by pursuing the most absurd critical reveries. His early satirical sonnets, romances, and songs, have seldom been exceeded in bitterness. In language and versification they are elegant and correct; and from the piquant simplicity of the style it could never have been anticipated that the ambition of introducing something new in literature would have betrayed the author into the affectation which afterwards distinguished him. It was, no doubt, in some of his fits of vexation that Gongora conceived the idea of distinguishing himself by the invention of a peculiar poetic phraseology which he called estilo culto, "polished style." In order to accomplish this, he formed with great labour and research an affected, obscure, and ridiculously allegorical language, totally at variance with all the ordinary modes of speaking or writing. Not only did he seek the most uncommon words, but attached to common ones a new signification, and laid mythology under contribution for fresh ornaments. He used in Spanish the boldest inversions of Greek and Latin, and invented a new system of punctuation to determine the sense. The most obvious feature of his style, however, is, that it consists almost entirely of metaphors heaped upon each other in so grotesque a mass that it is often difficult to discover the real meaning. In this manner Gongora wrote his Soledades, his Poliphemus, and several other pieces. In the former he speaks of a maiden so beautiful that she might parch up Norway with her two suns, and bleach Ethiopia with her two hands. In translation, it is impossible to do justice to this style, for we cannot display in our own language those labyrinths of phrases which make the original so obscure. None of the imitators of Gongora had his native talent; and soon they divided into the two sects—the "Culturistas," retaining only the pedantry of their founder; and the "Conceptistas," aspiring to his genius by revelling in the wildest regions of fancy, and searching after strange ideas as well as eccentric language.

There are various compositions of Gongora still unpublished, but a romancero, under the title of Delicias del Parnaso, contains all his romances and letellas. The Culturista Alonso Castillo Solozano extended Gongorism even to America, where he published his own works in Mexico in 1625; and the earliest German romances were imitations of Gongora by Gleim.