He also seems to have composed new melodies with lyrics; this indicates a musical competency, but not necessarily broad expertise. While he once had a classical literary collection in 24 fascicles, most of it has been lost. If, as a child, he had nurses, that would have been their language. If one reads many of the lesser lyricists of the era, one sees that they are generally fluent and easy; they are also predictable. As with classical poems, there were simply too many facile and pleasant song lyrics written by too many people trying their hand at it. This was immensely attractive for a large population of aspiring, but merely mortal poets. His lessons, however, did not translate easily into song lyric. Certainly, following the mood of the times, lyricists became more learned and ever more inclined to the old practice of working lines of earlier poetry into song lyric.