THE
WORKS
OF
GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA,
ETC. ETC.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, GREVILLE STREET.

Louis Parez ddin.Rob^t. Cooper Sculp
Garcilasso de la Vega.
Nat. 1503.Ob. 1536.
Published March 1^st. 1823. by Mess^rs. Hurst & Robinson.

THE
WORKS
OF
GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA,
SURNAMED
THE PRINCE OF CASTILIAN POETS,
Translated into English Verse;
WITH
A CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAY ON SPANISH POETRY,
AND
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

By J. H. WIFFEN.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO.
90, CHEAPSIDE, AND 8, PALL MALL.

1823.

TO
JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD,
IN PUBLIC LIFE
THE STEADY FRIEND AND ASSERTOR OF OUR LIBERTIES;
IN PRIVATE LIFE
ALL THAT IS GENEROUS, DIGNIFIED, AND GOOD;

This Translation,
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE LITERARY EASE
THAT HAS LED TO ITS PRODUCTION,

IS, WITH DEEP RESPECT AND ADMIRATION,
Inscribed
BY THE AUTHOR.

[Pg vii]

PREFACE.

Till within the last few years but little attention appears to have been paid in England to Castilian verse. Our earliest poets of eminence, Chaucer and Lord Surrey, struck at once into the rich field of Italian song, and by their imitations of Petrarch and Boccaccio, most probably set the fashion to their successors, of the exclusive study which they gave to the same models, to the neglect of the cotemporary writers of other nations, to those at least of Spain. Nor is this partiality to the one and neglect of the other to be at all wondered at; for neither could they have gone to more suitable sources than the Tuscans for the harmony and grace which the language in its first aspirations after refinement wanted, nor did the Spanish poetry of that period offer more to recompense the researches of the student than[Pg viii] dry legends, historical ballads, or rude imitations of the Vision of Dante. But it is a little singular that this inattention should have continued when the influence of the Emperor Charles the Fifth became great in the courts of Europe, and the Spanish language, chastised into purity and elegance by Boscán, Garcilasso, and their immediate successors, obtained a currency amongst the nations correspondent with the extent of his conquests. The hostile attitude in which England stood to Spain under Elizabeth, may be regarded as perhaps the principal cause why we meet in the constellation of writers that gave lustre to her reign, with so few traces of their acquaintance with the literature of that country; whilst the strong jealousy of the nation to Spanish influence, catholicism, and jesuitical intrigue, no less than the purely controversial spirit of the times, had, I doubt not, their full effect under the Stuarts, in deterring the scholars of that period from any close communion with her poets. Meanwhile the corruption of style which had so baneful an effect on her literature,[Pg ix] was silently going forward under Gongora, Quevedo, and their numerous imitators. Before the reign of Philip the Fifth, this corruption had reached its height; his accession to the crown of Spain, and the encouragement he gave to letters, might have re-established the national literature in its first lustre, if the evil had not struck root so deeply, and if another cast of corrupters had not opposed themselves to the views of this monarch, viz. the numerous translators of French works, who disfigured the idiom by forming a French construction with native words. Thus the curiosity of the poets of Queen Anne's time, if it was ever excited, must have been speedily laid asleep; and (though we may notice in Dryden, and perhaps in Donne, a study of Castilian,) it was scarcely before the middle of the last century that this study began permanently to tinge our literature. To Mr. Hayley, who first directed public attention to the great merits of Dante, must be ascribed the praise also of first calling our notice in any great degree to the Spanish poets. Southey followed,[Pg x] and by his "Chronicle of the Cid" and "Letters from Spain," quickened the curiosity excited by Mr. Hayley's analysis and translated specimens of the Araucana of Ercilla. Lord Holland's admirable dissertation on the genius and writings of Lope de Vega, gave us a clearer insight into the literature of Spain, whilst the French invasion brought us into a more intimate connexion and acquaintance with her chivalrous people; nor could the many English visitants which this drew to her shores view the remains which she keeps of Arabian and Moorish magnificence, or even listen to her language, which preserves such striking vestiges of oriental majesty, without having their imagination led back to her days of literary illumination, and without deriving some taste for the productions of her poets. The struggle which she then made, and that which she is now making, first against the unhallowed grasp of foreign coercion, and next of that priestly tyranny which has so long cramped her political and intellectual energies, have excited in every British bosom[Pg xi] the most cordial sympathy; and it is evident that from these causes, there is a growing attention amongst us to her language and literature. Since the present volume was begun, a translation has appeared of the excellent work of Bouterewek, on Spanish and Portuguese poetry; another is going through the press of Sismondi "Sur la Littérature du Midi de l'Europe;" and Mr. Lockhart has just given us a choice selection of those beautiful old Spanish ballads, which, as Mr. Rogers observes of the narratives of the old Spanish chroniclers, 'have a spirit like the freshness of waters at the fountain head, and are so many moving pictures of the actions, manners, and thoughts of their cotemporaries;' like rough gems redeemed from an oriental mine, they have assumed under his hand a polish and a price that must render them indispensable to the cabinets of our men of taste. Nor, in speaking of those whose labours have tended to spread a knowledge of Hesperian treasure, must we pass over without due praise the masterly notices on Spanish poetry, which Mr. Frere and[Pg xii] Mr. Bowring are understood to have given forth in the Quarterly and Restrospective Reviews.

In this situation of things, it may not be wholly unacceptable to the public to receive, though from an inferior hand, a translation of Garcilasso de la Vega, the chastest and perhaps the most celebrated of the poets of Castile. A desire to vary the nature of my pursuits, with other reasons not necessary to mention, first led me to his pages; but the pleasure I derived at the outset from his pastoral pictures and harmony of language, soon settled into the more serious wish to make his merits more generally known, and thus to multiply his admirers amongst a people ever inclined, sooner or later, to do justice to foreign talent. I would, however, deprecate any undue expectations that may be raised by the high title bestowed on Garcilasso by his countrymen—a title conferred in their enthusiastic admiration of his success in giving suddenly so new and beautiful an aspect to the art, and in elevating their language to a point of perfection, truly surprising, if we consider all the circumstances connected with that[Pg xiii] revolution; but this peculiar merit, so far at least as relates to the language, must necessarily from its nature be wholly untranslateable, and he is thus compelled to lose much of the consideration with the merely English reader that is his real due. But it would be unjust in an English reader, who glances over the subjects of his fancy, to conclude that because Garcilasso has written little but Eclogues and Sonnets, compositions, he may say, at best but of inferior order, he is therefore worthy of but little regard in this age of poetical wonders. I will be bold to assert, that the poets, and readers of the poets of the day, will be no way degraded by coming in contact with his simplicity: our taste for the wilder flights of imagination has reached a height from which the sooner we descend to imitate the nature and unassuming ease of simpler lyrists—the Goldsmiths and Garcilassos of past ages, the better it may chance to be both for our poetry and language. Nor let the name of Eclogues affright the sensitive reader that has in his recollection the Colins and Pastoras that sickened[Pg xiv] his taste some thirty or forty years ago. The pastorals, as they were called, of that period, are no more to be compared with the rime boschereccie of Garcilasso, than the hideous distortion of the leaden Satyr that squirts water from its nostrils in some city tea-garden, and that is pelted at irresistibly by every boy that passes,—with the marble repose and inviolable beauty of the Piping Faun in a gallery of antique sculptures.

Whilst employed on this translation, I was struck with the lucid view which Quintana gives, in the Essay prefixed to his "Poesias selectas Castellanas," of the History of Spanish Poetry, and I thought that it might be made yet more serviceable to the end which its author had in view, by a translation that would disclose to the English reader what he might expect from a cultivation of the Spanish language. The only fault perhaps of this Essay is, that Quintana has judged his native poets too strictly and exclusively by the rules of French criticism and French taste, which ought not I think to be applied as tests to a[Pg xv] literature so wholly national as the Spanish is, so especially coloured by the revolutions that have taken place upon the Spanish soil, and so utterly unlike that of any other European nation. Still the Essay will be found, if I mistake not, as interesting and instructive to others as it has proved to me: from it a more compact and complete view of the art in Spain may be gathered, than from more extensive histories of the kind; nor was I uninfluenced in my purpose by the advantage which the judgment of a native, himself one of the most distinguished of the living poets and lettered men of Spain, would have over any original Essay derived from the writings of foreigners, who, whatever may be their critical sagacity and literary repute, can neither be supposed to be so intimately acquainted with the compositions of which they treat, nor such good judges of Castilian versification.

It is time to conclude these prefatory observations; yet I cannot forego the pleasure of first acknowledging the great advantage I have derived[Pg xvi] from the kind revision of my MSS. by the Rev. Blanco White. That gentleman's desire to aid in any thing that might seem to serve the reputation of his country—the country, whose customs and institutions he has pourtrayed with such vivid interest, originality, and talent, joined to his native goodness of heart, could alone have led him to volunteer his services, in a season of sickness, to one nearly a stranger; and if I submit the following pages to the public with any degree of confidence in its favour, it is from the many improvements to which his friendly and judicious criticisms have led.

To Mr. Heber also, who, with the spirit of a nobleman, throws open so widely the vast stores of his invaluable library, I feel bound to express my obligations for the use of Herrera's rare edition of the works of Garcilasso, which I had in vain sought for in other collections of Spanish books, both public and private: his voluntary offer of this, on a momentary acquaintance, enhances in my mind the value of the favour.

[Pg xvii]

The astonishing number of authors which the Bibliotheca Hispanica of Don Nicolás Antonio displays, is a sufficient proof of the great intellect that Spain would be capable of putting forth, if her mind had a play proportioned to its activity. No nation has given to the light so many and such weighty volumes upon Aristotle, so many eminent writers in scholastic theology, so many and such subtle moral casuists, or so many profound commentators on the Codices and Pandects. And if she has produced these works in ages when the withering influence of political and religious despotism, like the plant which kills the sylvan it embraces, searched into every coigne of her literary fabric, what may not be expected from her, when the present distractions, fomented by the accursed gold of France, are composed into tranquillity, and the inquiries of her talented men embrace under free institutions a wider range of science than they have yet dared to follow, except by stealth! There is not one lettered Englishman but will rejoice with his whole heart when the[Pg xviii] winged Genius that is seen in Quintana's poems, chained to the gloomy threshold of a Gothic building, looking up with despondency to the Temple of the Muses, may be represented soaring away for ever from the irons that have eaten into its soul.—

The present work will be shortly followed by a Spanish Anthology, containing translations of the choicest Specimens of the Castilian Poets, with short biographical notices, and a selection of the Morisco ballads.

Woburn Abbey,
4th Month 8th, 1823.

CONTENTS.

⁂ The Drawing of Garcilasso is by Mr. Louis Parez; the Designs and Engravings of the Wood-cuts by Mr. S. Williams.

[Pg 1]

ESSAY ON SPANISH POETRY.

CHAPTER I.
OF THE ORIGIN OF SPANISH POETRY, AND ITS PROGRESS TO JUAN DE MENA.

To poetry is given by general assent the first place amongst the imitative arts. Whether we regard the antiquity of its origin, the range of objects which it embraces, the duration and pleasure of its impressions, or the good it produces, we must be struck alike with its dignity and importance; and the history of its advances must ever go hand in hand with that of the other branches of human improvement. It is said that poetry and music civilized the nations; and this proposition, which, rigorously examined, is exaggerated, and even false, shows at least the influence that both have had in the formation of society. The lessons given by the first philosophers to men, the first laws, the most ancient systems, all were written in verse; whilst the fancy of the poets, the flattering pictures and pomp of rites, which they invented, interrupted, with a pleasing and necessary relaxation, the fatigue of rural labours.

It is true that poetry does not afterwards present itself with the dignity attendant upon the absolute and[Pg 2] exclusive exercise of these various services; yet it preserves an influence so great in our instruction, in our moral perfection, and our pleasures, that we may consider it as a dispenser of the same benefits, though under different forms. It serves as an attraction to make truth amiable, or as a veil to screen her; it instructs infancy in the schools, awakens and directs the sensibilities of youth, ennobles the spirit with its maxims, sublimes it with its pictures, strews with flowers the path of virtue, and unbars to heroism the gates of glory. So many advantages, united with charms so fascinating, have excited in mankind an admiration and a gratitude eternal.

Its primary and essential business is to paint nature for our delight, as that of philosophy is to explain her phenomena for our instruction. Thus, whilst the philosopher, observing the stars, inquires into their proportions, their distances, and the laws of their motion, the poet contemplates and transfers to his verses the impression they make upon his fancy and feelings, the lustre with which they shine, the harmony that reigns amongst them, and the benefits which they dispense to the earth. The difficulty of fulfilling worthily and well the object of poetry is extreme, even though, considering the rapid progress which it sometimes makes, it might appear easy. From the vague maxim or insipid tale, rendered vigorous by the charm of an uncertain rhyme or rude measure, to the harmony and sustained elegance of the Iliad or Eneid; from the waggon and winelees of Thespis to the grand[Pg 3] spectacle offered by the Iphigénie or Tancrède, the distance is immense, and can only be overcome by the greatest efforts of application and genius.

Some nations, the favourites of Heaven, accomplish it with more promptitude, and pass quickly from the feebleness of first essays to the vigour of thoughts more grand, and combinations more perfect. Such was the case with Greece, where the genius of poetry, scarcely numbering a few moments of infancy, grew and raised itself to the height of producing the immortal poesies of Homer. Such, though with less brilliancy and perfection, was the case with modern Italy, where in the midnight of the barbarous ages that succeeded Roman refinement, appeared on the sudden Dante and Petrarch, bringing with them the dawn of the arts and of good taste. Other nations, less fortunate, wrestle entire centuries with rudeness and ignorance, and become more slowly sensible to the blandishments of elegance and harmony; and perfection, in the degree that men can attain it, is conquered by them solely by force of time and toil. This is found to be the case with the greater number of modern nations, and amongst them, we must of necessity mention Spain.

In Spain, as in almost all countries, written verse was anterior to prose; the Poem of the Cid having appeared, being the first known book in Castilian, as well as the first work of poetry. In the midst of the confusion of languages caused by the invasion of the northern barbarians, the Romance, which was afterwards to[Pg 4] be presented with so much splendour and majesty in the writings of Garcilasso, Herrera, Rioja, Cervantes, and Mariana, was assuming a definite form. Considering the work for the argument alone, few would have the advantage over it, at the same time that few warriors might dispute with Rodrigo de Bivar the palm of prowess and heroism. His glory, which eclipsed that of all the kings of his time, has been transmitted from age to age down to the present, by means of the infinite variety of fables which ignorant admiration has accumulated in his history. Consigned to poems, to tragedies, to comedies, to popular songs, his memory, like that of Achilles, has had the fortune to strike forcibly and occupy the fancy; but the Castilian hero, superior without doubt to the Greek in strength and in virtue, has not had the advantage of meeting with a Homer.

It was not possible to meet with one at the period when the rude writer of that poem sat down to compose it. With a language altogether uncouth, harsh in its terminations, vicious in its construction, naked of all culture and harmony; with a versification devoid of any certain measure and marked rhymes, and a style full of vicious pleonasms and ridiculous puerilities, destitute of the graces with which imagination and elegance adorn it; how was it possible to produce a work of genuine poetry, that should sweetly occupy the mind and ear? The writer is not however so wanting in talent, as not to manifest from time to time some poetic design, now in invention, now in sentiment, and[Pg 5] now in expression. If, as Don Tomas Sanchez, the editor of this and other poems previous to the fifteenth century, suspects, there be wanting to that of the Cid merely a few verses at the beginning, it is surely a mark of judgment in the author that he disencumbered his work of all the particulars of his hero's life anterior to his banishment by Alfonso the Sixth. There the true glory of Rodrigo begins, and there the poem commences; relating afterwards his wars with the Moors and with the Count of Barcelona, his conquests, the taking of Valencia, his reconciliation with the king, the affront offered to his daughters by the Infantes of Carrion, the solemn reparation and vengeance which the Cid took for it, and his union with the royal houses of Arragon and Navarre, with which the work finishes, slightly indicating the epoch of the hero's death. In the course of his story, the writer is not wanting in vivacity and interest, great use of the dialogue, which is a point most to the purpose in animating the narration, and in occasional pictures that are not without merit in their art and composition. Such, amongst others, is the farewell of Rodrigo and Ximena, in the church of San Pedro de Cardeña, when he departs to fulfil the royal mandate. Ximena, prostrate on the steps of the altar where divine service is celebrated, makes a prayer to the Eternal in behalf of her husband, which concludes thus:

There is doubtless a great distance between this parting and that of Hector and Andromache in the Iliad, but the picture of a hero's sensibility at the time of separation from his family is always pleasing; beautiful is that turning of his head when at a distance, and fine[Pg 7] the idea that those same warriors to whom he gives in battle an example of fortitude and constancy, should then fortify and cheer him. Superior, in my opinion, for art and dramatic effect, is the act of accusation which the Cid makes against his traitor sons-in-law before the Cortes assembled to receive it. The first shock of the Infantes and the champions of Rodrigo in the lists has much animation and even style.

No record is left for us to ascertain who was the author of this first faint breath of Spanish poetry. Two writers flourished in the following age, in whom we trace the improvement and progress which the versification and language had now made. In the sacred poems of Don Gonzalo de Bercéo, and in the Alexandro of Juan Lorenzo, are discovered more fluency, more connexion, and forms more determinate. The march of these authors, although difficult, is not so trailing and jejune as that of the preceding poet.[Pg 8] The difference that subsists between the two later poets is, that Bercéo, if we except his narrative and some of his moral counsels, shows neither copiousness of erudition, variety of knowledge, nor fancy for invention; a deficiency arising from the nature of his subjects, which for the most part turn upon legends of the saints. Juan Lorenzo, on the contrary, is more rapt with his subject, and manifests an information so extensive in history, mythology, and moral philosophy, as to make his work the most important of all that were written in that age. The following verses on the same subject may serve to show the style of both.

Alfonso the Tenth was then reigning in Castile; a prince, to whom, to render his glory complete, fortune ought to have given better sons, and vassals less ferocious. Posterity has given him the surname of The Wise; and beyond all doubt it was merited by the extraordinary man, who in an age of darkness could unite in himself the paternal and beneficent regards of the legislator, the profound combinations of the mathematician and astronomer, the talent and knowledge of the historian, and the laurels of the poet. He it was who raised his native language to its due honours, when he gave command that the public instruments, which before were engrossed in Latin, should be written in Spanish. Mariana, less favourable to his merits, asserts that this measure was the cause of the profound ignorance that afterwards ensued. But what was known before? The Latin then in use was as barbarous, was yet more barbarous than the Romance. The new uses to which the Romance was applied by that decree, the dignity and authority it acquired, influenced its culture, its polish, and its progress. Can it by any chance be believed that these advantages of the language had no literary influence, or that there can be diffused knowledge and a national literature, whilst the native language remains [Pg 10]uncultivated? The assertion of Mariana then must be considered as a result of the somewhat pedantic prejudices of the age in which he lived; but, even leaving out of consideration the political convenience of the law, let us regard it as one of the causes, which having had an influence on the improvement of the language, must necessarily have influenced also the advancement of Spanish poetry.

There is an entire book of Cantigas or Letras to be sung, composed in the Galician dialect by this king, specimens of which are to be seen in the Anales de Sevilla of Ortiz de Zuñiga; another entitled El Tesoro, which is a treatise on the philosopher's stone, as far as can be judged, for to the present day a great part remains undeciphered; and to him likewise is attributed that of Las Querellas, of which two stanzas only are preserved. Both are written in verses of twelve syllables, with rhymes crossed like those of the sonnet, to which is given the name of coplas de arte mayor, and which was a real improvement in Spanish poetry; as the rhythm of the Alexandrine verse, the measure used both by Bercéo and Lorenzo, was insufferable from its heaviness and monotony. Let us compare the coplas with which the book El Tesoro commences, with the stanzas alluded to.

The two coplas with which the book of Las Querellas began, are altogether superior in style, harmony, and elegance.

[Pg 12]

There seems to be a century between verse and verse, between language and language; but what is yet more remarkable, to meet with coplas de arte mayor of equal merit, as well in diction as in cadence, we must overleap almost two centuries more, and look for them in Juan de Mena.[B]

[Pg 13]

If the impulse which this great king gave to letters had been continued by his successors, Spanish literature would not only be two centuries forwarder, but would have produced more works, and those more perfect. The ferocious character of the times did not allow it. The fire of civil war began to blaze in the last years of Alfonso, with the disobedience and rebellion of his son, and continued, almost without intermission, for a whole century, till it arrived at the last pass of atrocity and horror in the tempestuous and terrible reign of Pedro. The Castilians, during this unhappy period, seem to have had no spirit but for hatred, no arms but for destruction. How was it possible, amidst the agitation of such turbulent times, for the torch of genius to shine out tranquilly, or for the songs of the muses to be heard? Thus only a very scanty number of poets can be named as flourishing then: Juan Ruiz, archpriest of Hita; the Infante Don Juan Manuel, author of Conde Lucanór; the Jew, Don Santo; and Ayala, the historiographer. The verses of these writers are some of them lost, others exist wholly unedited, and those only of the archpriest of Hita have seen the light, which, fortunately, are the most worthy, perhaps, of being known. The subject of his poems is the history of his loves, interspersed with apologues, allegories, tales, satires, proverbs, and even devotions. This author surpassed all former writers; and but few of those by whom he was succeeded, excelled him in faculty of invention, in liveliness of fancy and talent, or in abundance of jests and wit; and if he had taken care to choose[Pg 14] or to follow more determinate and fixed metres, and had his diction been less uncouth and cumbrous, this work would have been one of the most curious monuments of the Middle Age. But the uncouthness of the style makes the reading insufferable. Of his versification and manner, let the following verses serve as specimens, in which the poet begs of Venus to interpose her influence with a lady whom he loved, who was, according to his pencil,

[Pg 15]

Venus, amongst other counsels, says to him:—

Other passages much more striking might be quoted; and amongst them the description of the power of money, which has a severity and freedom, of which it would be difficult to find examples in other writers of that time, either in or out of Spain, though the independent Dante were to enter into the comparison; or the facetious apology and praise of little women, which begins:

But the examples already quoted will suffice for our assertion. Sometimes the poet, weary perhaps of monotony and heaviness, varies from the measure which[Pg 16] he generally uses, and introduces another combination of rhymes in songs which he mingles with his narrative; as, for instance, the following:—

Don Tomas Antonio Sanchez has published the works of almost all the authors mentioned, with illustrations, excellent, as well for the notices given of them, as for the elucidation of the text, which the antiquity and rudeness of the language, and the errors of manuscripts, by their complication, obscured. There, as in an armoury, rest these venerable antiques, precious objects of curiosity for the learned, of investigation for the grammarian, of observation for the philosopher and historian, whilst the poet, without losing time in studying them, salutes them with respect, as the cradle of his language and his art.

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER II.
OF SPANISH POETRY TO THE TIME OF GARCILASSO.

Both language and versification present themselves more fully formed and more vigorous, in the verses written by the poets of the fifteenth century; and this progress is matter of no surprise, if we attend to the multitude of circumstances which at that time concurred to favour poetry. The floral games, established at Tolosa in the middle of the former century, and introduced by the kings of Arragon into their states towards the conclusion of the same; the concourse of wits who contended for the prizes proposed at these solemnities; the ceremonies observed in them; the rank and consideration given to the art of song; the favour of princes; a more extended knowledge of ancient books; the light which now broke forth from all parts, and dispersed the dark mists of so many barbarous centuries; a growing acquaintance with Italy, which, with a happier and more mercurial genius, had been enlightened before the rest of Europe;—all contributed powerfully to the kind reception of this art, the first that becomes cultivated when nations approach their civilization. Thus, in casting our eyes upon the ancient Cancioneros wherein the poetry of this period was collected, the first thing that surprises us is the multitude of authors, and the second, their quality. Juan the Second, who found much pleasure in listening to their[Pg 18] rhymes, and who occasionally rhymed himself, introduced this taste into his court, and thus all the grandees, in imitation of him, either protected or cultivated it. The Constable Don Alvaro made verses; the Duque de Arjona made verses; the celebrated D. Enrique de Villena made verses; the Marques de Santillana made verses; in fact, a hundred others more or less illustrious than they.

The form which had now been given to versification was much less imperfect than that of former ages. Coplas de arte mayor and octosyllabic verses prevailed over the tedious heaviness of the Alexandrine: their crossed rhymes struck upon the ear more delightfully, and stunned it not with the rude and heavy hammered sounds of the quadruplicate rhyme; whilst the poetic period, more clear and voluminous, came from time to time upon the spirit with some pretensions of elegance and grace. The writers of this period sweetened down a little the austere aspect which the art had hitherto presented, and abandoning the lengthy poems, devotional legends, and wearisome series of dry precepts and bald sentences, devoted themselves to subjects more proportioned to their powers, and the murmurs of the love-song and tone of the elegy were now most commonly felt upon their lips. Lastly, a more general reading of the Latin writers taught them sometimes the mode of imitation, and at others, furnished those allusions, similes, and ornaments, which served to embellish their verse.

Amongst the great number of poets which flourished[Pg 19] then, the one that most excels all others for the talent, knowledge, and dignity of his writings, is Juan de Mena. He raised, in his Laberinto, the most interesting monument of Spanish poetry in that age, and with it left all cotemporary writers far behind him. The poet in this work is represented as designing to sing the vicissitudes of Fortune: whilst he dreads the difficulty of the attempt, Providence appears to him, introduces him into the palace of that divinity, and becomes his guide and tutor. There he beholds, first, the earth, of which he gives a geographical description, and afterwards the three grand wheels of Fortune, upon which revolve the present, past, and future times. Each wheel is composed of seven circles, allegorical symbols of the influence which the seven planets have upon the lot of men, in the inclinations which they give them; and in each circle are an innumerable multitude of people, who receive their temper and disposition from the planet to which the circle belongs; the chaste from the moon, the warlike from Mars, the wise from the sun, and so on of the rest. The wheel of time present is in motion, the other two at rest; whilst that of future time is covered with a veil, so that although forms and the images of men are apparent, they are but dimly distinguishable. The work, conceived upon this plan, naturally divides itself into seven divisions: and the poet in describing what he sees, or in conversing with Providence, paints all the important personages with whom he was acquainted; recounts their celebrated actions, assigns their causes, displays great information[Pg 20] in history, mythology, natural, moral, and political philosophy, and deduces, from time to time, admirable precepts and maxims for the conduct of life, and the government of nations. Thus the Laberinto, far from being a collection of frivolous or insignificant coplas, where the most we have to look for is artifice of style and rhyme, must be regarded as the production of a man learned in all the compass of science which that epoch permitted, and as the depository of all that was then known.

If the invention of this picture, which, without doubt, is the product of a comprehensive and philosophical mind, had belonged exclusively to our poet, his merit would be infinitely greater, and we must have conceded to him, in a plan so noble, the gift of genius. But the terrible visions of Dante and the Trionfi of Petrarch being now known in Spain, the force of fancy necessary to create the plan and argument of the Laberinto, appears much less; Mena having done nothing more than imitate these writers, changing the situation of the scene in which he places his allegorical world. His sentiments are noble and grand, his views just and virtuous. We see him take advantage of his subject, and apostrophize therein the monarch of Castile, reminding him that his laws should not be like spiders' webs, but curb alike the strong and the weak: elsewhere he prays him to repress the horror of a practice that was then growing common, of poisonings between the closest connexions; now he is indignant at the barbarism which had burnt the books of D. Enrique de[Pg 21] Villena;[C] and now he represents the slaughters and disorders in Castile, as a punishment for the repose in which the grandees were leaving the infidels, in order to attend solely to their own ambition and avarice.

Juan de Mena expresses himself generally with more fire and energy than delicacy and grace; his course is unequal; his verses at times are bold and resonant, at others, they grow weak for want of cadence and metre; his style, animated, vivid, and natural at times, occasionally borders on the turgid and the trivial: language, in fine, in his hands is a slave that he holds but to obey him, and follow willingly or by compulsion the impulse which the poet gives it. No one has manifested, in this way, either greater boldness or loftier pretension; he suppresses syllables, modifies phrases at his will, lengthens or contracts words at his pleasure, and when he does not find in his own language the expressions, or modes of expression, which he wants, he sets himself[Pg 22] to search for them in the Latin, the French, the Italian, in short, where he can. Spanish idiom not being yet finished in its formation, gave occasion and opportunity for these licenses,—licenses which would have been converted into privileges of poetic language, if the talents of this writer had been greater, and his reputation more permanent. The poets of the following age, whilst polishing the harshnesses of diction, and making an innovation in the metres and subjects of their compositions, did not preserve the noble freedom and acquisitions which their predecessors had gained in favour of the tongue. Had they followed their example in this, the Castilian language, and, above all, the language of its poetry, so harmonious, so various, so elegant and majestic, would have had no cause to envy the richness and flexibility of any other. The Laberinto has met with the fate of all works which, departing from the common sphere, form epochs in an art. It has been several times printed and reprinted: many have imitated it, and some respectable critics have written commentaries on it, and, amongst them, Brocensis. Thus it has been transmitted to us: if it has not been read throughout with delight, from the rudeness of the language and monotony of the versification, it has at least been dipped into with pleasure, occasionally quoted, and always mentioned with esteem. The author would have conciliated greater respect, if, when he imposed on himself the task of writing on the events of the day, he had removed at a distance from the tumults and intrigues which were then passing in Castile. This would have been the[Pg 23] way both to see them better, and to judge of them with greater freedom. Juan de Mena took upon himself a duty which a courtier could not satisfactorily fulfil; and his vigorous spirit, employing but half its power in regard to circumstances, was left far below the dignity and eminence to which, with greater boldness, it could easily have attained.

The other most distinguished poets of this century were the Marques de Santillana, one of the most generous and valiant knights that adorned it, a learned man, and an easy and sweet love poet, just and serious in sentiment; Jorge Manrique, who flourished after, and who, in his coplas on the death of his father, left a fragment of poetry, the most regular and purely written of that time; Garci Sanchez de Badajoz, who wrote verses with much fire and vivacity; and, lastly, Macías, anterior to them all, the author of only four songs, but who will never be forgotten for his amours and melancholy death.[D]

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Whoever looks in the old Cancioneros for a poetry constantly animated, interesting, and agreeable, will be disappointed. After perusing one or two pieces, wherein indulgence towards the writer supplies their frequent want of merit, the book drops from our hands, and we have little inclination to stoop to resume it. It is true that we often meet with an ingenious thought, an apposite image, and a stanza well constructed; but it is equally true, that we stumble, at the same instant, upon ideas puerile, mean, and trivial, upon uncouth verses, and indeterminate rhymes. The writer is seen to struggle with the rudeness of the language, as well as with the heaviness of the versification, and, in spite of all the efforts he makes, entirely overcome by the difficulty, he neither strikes out true expression nor elegant harmony. They knew, and they handled Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, and other ancient poets; but if occasionally they subjected them to their service with propriety, they more frequently drew from those sources incoherent allusions, and a learning that degenerated [Pg 26]into inapposite and puerile pedantry.[E] They did not succeed in imitating either the simplicity of their plans,[Pg 27] or the admirable art with which, in their compositions, they knew how to unfold a thought with vigour, and to sustain and graduate the effect from first to last. Finally,—their verses, though more tolerable than[Pg 28] those of a more ancient period, have the great disadvantage of monotony, and inability to accommodate themselves to the variety, elevation, and grandeur which the poetic period ought to possess in correspondence with the images, affections, and sentiments it developes.

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CHAPTER III.
FROM GARCILASSO TO THE ARGENSÓLAS.

To Juan Boscán is generally attributed the introduction into Spanish poetry of endecasyllables, and Italian measures. Andreas Navagero, ambassador of Venice to the court of Spain, recommended to Boscán this novelty, which, begun by him, and followed by Garcilasso, Mendoza, Acuña, Cetina, and other fine spirits, effected an entire change in the art. Not that endecasyllabic verse was unknown in Castile before. There are some specimens of it in the Conde Lucanór, written in the fourteenth century; and the Marques de Santillana in the fifteenth, composed many sonnets in the mode of the Italians. But these essays had not obtained consequence, and it was only in the time of Boscán that the poets generally devoted themselves to this species of versification. And herein, if rightly I judge, the intimate relation that now subsisted between the two nations had more influence than the authority of a second-rate poet like Boscán; it is, notwithstanding, without dispute much to his glory to have been the author of so happy a revolution, and to have contributed by his example and his talents to its establishment.

But those who were sufficiently satisfied with the old versification, instantly rose in clamour against the innovation, and treated its favourers as guilty of treason[Pg 30] against poetry and their country. At the head of these, Christoval de Castillejo, in the satires which he wrote against the Petrarquistas (for so he called them) compared this novelty to that which Luther was then introducing in religion, and making Boscán and Garcilasso appear in the other world before the tribunal of Juan de Mena, Jorge Manrique, and other troubadours of earlier time, he puts into their mouth the judgment and condemnation of the new metres. To this end he supposes that Boscán repeats a sonnet, and Garcilasso an octave, before their judges, and presently adds:

If Juan de Mena and Manrique could then have manifested any regret, it would have been for not having had the new versification established when they wrote. The fiery and daring genius of the one, the grave and sedate spirit of the other, would have found for the expression of their thoughts and pictures, a fit instrument in endecasyllabic verse. They would instantly have known that the coplas de arte mayor, reduced to their elements, were one continued and wearying combination of verses of six syllables; that the rhymed octosyllabics serve rather for the epigram and the madrigal than for sublime poetry, and that coplas de piè quebrado,[F] essentially opposed to all[Pg 32] harmony and pleasure, ought not to be defended. This Castillejo could not know; he wrote indeed the Castilian language with propriety, facility, and purity; but the inspiration, the invention, sublime and animated imagery, force of thought, warmth of emotion, variety, harmony,—all these qualities, without which, or without many of which, no one can be considered a poet—all were wanting in him. Hence it is nothing extraordinary, that, entrenched in his coplas, all sufficient for the acute and ingenious thoughts in which he abounds, he perceived not the need that Spanish poetry had for the new versification to issue from its infancy. The latter had more freedom and ease, gave opportunity to vary the pauses and cesuras; and the variety of combinations of which long and short verses are capable, supplied a flexible instrument for the various purposes of imitation. Such were the advantages gained by the new system, and they were all recognised by the new geniuses who adopted it; but it was an exact touchstone of the quality of a poet, and Castillejo, finding it a rigorous one, would not hold with it. This circumstance was of much more conse[Pg 33]quence to the dispute than at first sight appears; for though there had not been the great difference which there was between the two metres, that party would have borne away the palm, which could have produced in its favour the most, and the most agreeable verses and compositions. In this point of view, the single talent of Garcilasso should diminish and reduce to nothing, as he did, all the partisans of the Copla. A thing truly extraordinary, not to say admirable! A youth who died at the age of thirty-three, devoted to the bearing of arms, without any regular studies, with only his native genius, assisted by application and good taste, drew Spanish poetry suddenly forth from its infancy, guided it happily by the footsteps of the ancients, and of the most celebrated moderns then known; and coming into rivalry with each in turn, adorned it with graces and appropriate sentiments, and taught it to speak a language, pure, harmonious, sweet, and elegant! His genius, more delicate and tender than strong and sublime, inclined him by preference to the sweet images of the country, and to the native sentiments of the eclogue and elegy. He had a vivid and pleasing fancy, a mode of thought noble and decorous, an exquisite sensibility; and this happy natural disposition, assisted by the study of the ancients, and intercourse with the Italians, produced those compositions which, though so few, conciliated for him instantly an estimation and a respect, which succeeding ages have not ceased to confirm.

There are some who wish that he had given himself[Pg 34] up more fully to his own ideas and sentiments; that, studying the ancients with equal devotedness, he had not allowed himself to be led away so much by the taste of translating them; that he had not abandoned the images and emotions which his own fine talent could suggest, for the images and emotions of others; that, as for the most part he is a model of purity and elegance, he had caused some traces which he keeps of antique rudeness and negligence to disappear; they wish, lastly, that the disposition of his eclogues had preserved more unity and connexion between the persons and the objects introduced in them. But these defects cannot counterbalance the many beauties which his poetry contains, and it is a privilege allowed to all that open a new path, to err without any great diminution of their glory. Garcilasso is the first that gave to Spanish poetry wings, gentility, and grace; and for this was needed, beyond all comparison, more talent, than to avoid the errors into which his youth, his course of life, and the imperfection of human powers, caused him to fall.

To the supreme endowments which he possesses as a poet, is added that of being the Castilian writer who managed in those times the language with the most propriety and success. Many words and phrases of his cotemporaries have grown old and disappeared: the language of Garcilasso, on the contrary, if we except some Italianisms, which his constant intercourse with that nation caused him to contract, is still alive and flourishing, and there is scarcely one of his modes of[Pg 35] speech which cannot be appropriately used at the present day.

So many kinds of merit, united in a single man, excited the admiration of his age, which instantly gave him the title of the Prince of Castilian poets—foreigners call him the Spanish Petrarch; three celebrated writers have illustrated and written comments on him; he has been printed times innumerable, and all parties and poetical sects have respected him. His beautiful passages pass from lip to lip with all who relish tender thoughts and soothing images; and if not the greatest Castilian poet, he is at least the most classical, and the one that has conciliated the most votes and praises, who has maintained this his reputation the most inviolate, and who will probably never perish whilst Castilian language and Castilian poetry endure.

The impulse given by Garcilasso was followed by the other geniuses of his time; by D. Hernando de Acuña, Gutierre de Cetina, D. Luis de Haro, D. Diego de Mendoza, and a few others, but all very unequal to him: and to meet with a writer in whom the art made any progress, we must look for him in Fray Luis de Leon. This most learned man, versed in every kind of erudition, familiar with the ancient languages, connected by ties of friendship with all the learned of his time, was one of those writers to whom the Spanish language has owed most, for the nerve and propriety with which he wrote it; and as the one who gave to its poetry a character hitherto unknown. The[Pg 36] songs and sonnets of Garcilasso were written in the elegiac and sentimental tone of Petrarch, and his Flor de Gnido was the only one of his compositions in which he approaches near to the character of ancient lyric poetry. Luis de Leon, full of Horace, whom he was constantly studying, took from him the march, the enthusiasm, and the fire of the ode; and in a diction natural and without ornament, he knew how to assume elevation, force, and majesty. His profession and his genius inclined him more to the moral lyric than to the epic, yet his Profecía del Tajo[2] shows what he could have accomplished in this; in that he has left some excellent odes, which very nearly approach, if they do not equal, the models which he proposed to himself for imitation. His principal merit and character in them, is that of producing majestic and forcible thoughts, grand images, and sententious maxims, without effort, and with the greatest simplicity. His style and diction are animated, pure, and copious, as though they gushed from a rich and crystal spring. He is not so fortunate in his versification; although sweet, fluent, and graceful, his verse wants stateliness, and fails not unfrequently from want of harmony and fulness. With this defect must be named another, greater yet in my estimation, which is, that no one shows less poetry when the heat abandons him: languid then and prosaic, he neither touches, nor moves, nor elevates; the merit remains alone of his diction and style, which are always sound and pure, even when they preserve neither life nor colour.

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To this same epoch belongs, in my opinion, the poetry of Francisco de la Torre, published by Quevedo in 1631. No one doubted then that these were the works of a poet anterior to the editor; but in these later days, a gentleman of much merit, D. Luis Velasquez, reprinted them with a preliminary discourse, wherein he assures us they were the production of Quevedo, who wished to publish his amatory verses under a feigned name. The absolute ignorance that existed of the quality and particulars of this Francisco de la Torre; the example of Lope de Vega, who published, under the name of Burguillos, poetry known to be his own; the similarity of style which Velasquez thought he saw between these verses and those of Quevedo, with other less important reasons, were the foundation of this opinion, which at that time was followed without any contradiction.

But these proofs not only pass for mere conjectures, but being moreover unconfirmed by any positive fact, vanish the instant we examine the nature and character of the poetry. He who might not know how to distinguish the verses of Quevedo from those of Garcilasso, or any other poet of the former age, could alone confound Francisco de la Torre with him. Verses gleaned from the works of both writers, drawn from their places, and jumbled together, are not proof sufficient of similarity; nor, even taken in this manner, will they, if they are well examined, show the similarity so well as is supposed. To know if the poetry of Francisco de la Torre be, or be not that of Quevedo, it is absolutely necessary, after read[Pg 38]ing the former, to seek out in the Erato or Euterpe of the latter, the verses which he there gives for pastoral poetry: it is then that the vast difference which subsists between them becomes palpable; whether we examine the diction, the style, the verses, the images, or nature of the composition. It is not possible to mistake them, as it is impossible ever to confound women that are naturally beautiful with those who torture themselves to appear so.[G]

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In fact, these poems of Francisco de la Torre are the most exquisite of the fruits which the Parnassus of Spain had then produced. All of them pastorals, his images, his thoughts, and his style, detract nothing from this character, but preserve the most rigorous keeping with it. His most eminent qualities are simplicity of expression, the liveliness and tenderness of his emotions, the luxury and smiling amenity of his fancy. No Castilian poet has known how to draw from rural objects so many tender and melancholy sentiments: a turtle-dove, a hind, an oak thrown down, a fallen ivy, strike him, agitate him, and excite his tenderness and enthusiasm. The imitations of the ancients, in which his poems abound, are recast so naturally in his character and style, as to be entirely identified with him. It is a pity that to the purity of his language was not added greater study of elegance, which suffers at times from trivial words and prosaic expressions. At times, also, the diction becomes obscure from dislocations and omissions of expression, the results perhaps of negligence, and a corruption of the manuscript. Lastly, we miss in his eclogues variety, knowledge of the art of dialogue, and opposition and contrast in his situations and interlocutors: the poet who paints and feels with so much delicacy and fire when he speaks for himself, does not succeed in making others speak, and loses himself in uniform and prolix descriptions, which at last weary and grow tiresome.

Hitherto poetry preserved the natural graces and[Pg 40] simplicity which it had caught from Garcilasso; and Luis de Leon had succeeded in giving it some sublimity and grandeur: Francisco de la Torre inclined more to subjects that require a middle style, such as those which rural nature presents. He had ornaments of taste, but without ostentation or wealth, and his language was more pure and graceful than brilliant and majestic. The best supporters of this style were Francisco de Figueroa, who in his eclogue of Tirsi gave the first example of good blank verse in Spanish; Jorge de Montemayor, who, with his Diana, introduced the taste and love of pastoral novels; and Gil Polo, one of his imitators, who, less happy than he in invention, had much the advantage of him in versification, and almost arrived at the point of throwing him into the shade. But, passing from these writers to the Andalusians[H], the art will now be seen to take a change in taste, to assume a tone more lofty and vehement, to enrich and adorn the diction, and to manifest the intention of surprising and ravishing; in short, to aspire to the mens divinior atque os magna soniturum, by which Horace characterises true poetry.

At the head of these authors must indisputably be named Fernando de Herrera, a man to whom poetic elocution owes more than to any other. His genius was equal to his industry; and, familiar[Pg 41] with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he devoted himself to the imitation of the great writers of antiquity, to form a poetic language which might compete in pomp and wealth with that which they used in their verses. He was not, it is true, circumstanced like Juan de Mena; he had not the license to suppress syllables, syncopate phrases, or change terminations. This physical part of the language was now fixed by Garcilasso and his imitators, and could not suffer alteration. But the picturesque part might, and in fact, did receive from him great improvements: he made much use of the compound epithets that already existed, he introduced other new ones, he re-established many forgotten adjectives, to which he imparted new strength and freshness by the fitness with which he applied them, and used in fine more phrases and modes of speech distinct from usual and common language than any other poet. To this careful attention, he added another quality, not less essential, that of painting to the ear by means of imitative harmony, making the sounds bear analogy with the image. He breaks them; he suspends them; he drags them wearily along, he precipitates them at a stroke; he rubs them into roughness, he touches them into mildness;—in short, they sometimes roll fluently and easily along, at others they pierce the ear with a calm and quiet melody. These effects, which the verses of Herrera produce by the mechanism of their language, distinguish them from prose in such a manner, that though they may be broken up, and lose[Pg 42] their measure and cadence, they still preserve the picturesque and poetic character which the poet stamped upon them.

If from the exterior forms we pass to the essential qualities, it may be said that no one surpasses Herrera in force and boldness of imagination, very few in warmth and vivacity of emotion, and none even equal him, if we except Rioja, in dignity and decorum. The greater part of his poems consists of elegies, songs, and sonnets, in the taste of Petrarch. It was Petrarch who first, deviating from the manner in which the ancients painted love, gave to this passion a tone more ideal and sublime. He refined it from the weakness of the senses, converting it into a species of religion; and reduced its activity to be constantly admiring and adoring the perfections of the object beloved, to please itself with its pains and martyrdom, and to reckon its sacrifices and privations as so many other pleasures. Herrera having, throughout his life, a passion for the Countess of Gelves, gave to his love the heroism of Platonic affection; and under the titles of Light, Sun, Star, Eliodora, consecrated to her a passion fiery, tender, and constant, but accompanied by so much respect and decorum, that her modesty could not be alarmed, nor her virtue offended. In all the verses which he devoted to this lady, there is more veneration and self-denial, than hope and desire. This taste has the inconvenience of running into metaphysics nothing intelligible, into a distillation of pains, griefs,[Pg 43] and martyrdoms, very distant from truth and nature, and which, consequently, neither interests nor affects. To this error, which may occasionally be remarked in Herrera, must be added that his diction, too much studied and refined, offends, almost always, by affectation, and not seldom by obscurity. The style and language of love must flow more easy and unencumbered, to be graceful and delicate. Thus Herrera, who, no doubt, loved with vehemence and tenderness, seems, in uttering his sentiments, to be more engaged about the manner of expressing them, than with the desire of interesting by them; and to this cause must be attributed, that, of the Spanish poets, he is the one whose love-verses are the least calculated to pass from lip to lip, and from nation to nation.

But the composition in which this rich poetic diction shines equally with his ardent and vigorous imagination, is the elevated Ode, which Herrera, a happy imitator of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin poetry, knew how to fill with his fire, and thus to become the rival of the ancients. Lyric poetry, in its origin, was very distant from the range of ordinary ideas. The poet, possessed by an afflatus which it was not in his power either to moderate or to rule, chanted his verses before the altars of the temples, in the public theatres, at the head of armies, in grand national solemnities. The genius that inspired him caused him then to take flight to other regions, and to see things hidden from the ken of common mortals. Thence, in a language of fire, and through all their wonderful circumstances, in grand[Pg 44] and forcible addresses to the people, he made Truth descend from on high, he opened the gates of destiny, and announced the future; tuned hymns of gratitude and praise to gods and heroes; or, filling with patriotic and martial fury armed squadrons, called them on to battle and to victory. In this situation of things, the lyric poet should not appear a mortal like the rest of mankind; his agitation, his language, the numbers to which he reduced it, the music with which he sang it, the boldness of his figures, the grandeur of his conceptions,—all should concur to the consideration of him, in these moments of enthusiasm, as a supernatural being, an interpreter of the Divinity, a sibyl, and a prophet.

Such, in ancient times, was the character of the ode; which modern nations have since introduced into their poetry with more or less success. But, stript of the accompaniment of song, and removed from solemnities and numerous assemblages, it has been but a weak reflection of the first inspiration. The modern poets of Spain have thought that, to restore it to the exalted and divine character which it held at its origin, it was necessary to transplant it again to the regions whence it sprung, and to fill it with antique ideas, images, and even phrases. Herrera was the first that thought so. Horace would have adopted with pleasure his ode to Don Juan of Austria; his hymn on the battle of Lepanto breathes throughout the most fervent enthusiasm, and is adorned with the rich images and daring phrases that characterise Hebrew poetry; whilst the elegiac[Pg 45] cancion to King Don Sebastian, animated with the same spirit as the hymn, but much more beautiful, is full of the melancholy and agitation which that unhappy catastrophe should produce on a vivid imagination. Even in songs, little interesting in their subject and composition, are found flights daring and worthy of Pindar. So absolutely superior to all others is his assiduous attention to diction and the poetry of style, that never can three of his verses be possibly mistaken for those of any other poet. The following passage may serve as a specimen here, extracted from his song to San Fernando, which is not one of the best.

Lope de Vega, quoting these verses as a model of poetic elevation, so opposite to the extravagances of Purism,[I] exclaimed with enthusiasm, "Here no lan[Pg 46]guage exceeds our own; no, not the Greek nor the Latin. Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight."

His countrymen gave him the surname of Divine; and of all the Castilian poets on whom that title has been bestowed, none deserved it but he. In spite of this glory, and the praises of Lope, his style and principles of composition had then but few imitators; nor, till the re-establishment of good taste in our own times, has the eminent merit of his poetry, and the necessity of following his steps to elevate the poetic above the vulgar language, been properly appreciated. Don Juan de Arguijo imitated him in his sonnets, a little curtailing the style of that excessive ornament which sparkles in Herrera; but the poet who improved infinitely upon Arguijo was Francisco de Rioja, a Sevillian like the other two, and a disciple of the same school, although he flourished several years afterwards.

Equal in talent to Herrera, and superior in taste, Rioja would, doubtless, have fixed the true limits between the language of poetry and prose, if he had written more, or if his compositions had but been preserved. How is it possible that a man of so great a genius, and who lived so many years, should have written no more than one ode, one epistle, thirteen silvas, and as many sonnets? It is easier to believe that his writings were lost in the different vicissitudes[Pg 47] which his life sustained, or that they lie forgotten with the many other literary monuments which, in Spain, wrestle still with dust and worms. The few that he has left are sufficient, notwithstanding, to give us an idea of his poetic character, superior to others for nobleness and chasteness of phrase, for novelty and choice of subject, for the force and vehemence of his enthusiasm and fancy, and for the excellency of a style always pure without affectation, elegant without superfluity, without tumidity magnificent, and adorned and rich without ostentation or excess. A merit which particularly distinguishes him is the happy success with which he constructs his periods, which neither grow dull from brevity, nor cumbrous from prolixity; a great and frequent defect amongst the poets of Spain, whose sentences, ill distributed, fatigue the voice when recited. I am well aware that, even in these few compositions, there are traces of that prosing which marked the poets of the sixteenth century, and of the tinsel of the following one; but, besides that these are very rare, it should be kept in mind that he neither polished nor arranged his verses for publication; a circumstance that would sufficiently excuse yet greater errors. But whatever importance may be attributed to such defects, none will be able to deprive the delicate Silvas to the flowers, the magnificent ode on the ruins of Italica, and the almost perfect moral epistle to Fabio, of the foremost rank which they enjoy amongst the poetical treasures of Spain.

To the last third division of the sixteenth century[Pg 48] belong other poets, celebrated then, but of a merit and order very inferior to those already named:—Juan de la Cueva, who more properly belongs to the history of comedy, is considered amongst its first corrupters; Vicente Espinel, to whom music owes the introduction of the fifth chord in the guitar, and poetry the combination of rhymes in octosyllabic verses, to which was then given the name of espinela, but which are now better known under that of decima; Luis Barahona de Soto, author of Las Lagrimas de Angelica, a poem very celebrated then, and read by no one now; Pablo de Cespedes, sculptor, painter, and poet, in whose didactic poem on Painting breathes, at times, the vigorous and picturesque style of Virgil; Pedro de Padilla, whom some esteemed highly for his pure diction and fluent versification, but poor of fancy and fire; and lastly, others less noted, who cultivated the art, and who, if they did not obtain a great reputation in it, contributed with the rest to give to verse and style more ease, harmony, and copiousness.

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CHAPTER IV.
FROM THE ARGENSÓLAS AND OTHER POETS TO GONGÓRA.

None of the authors of this time equalled the Argensólas in severity of sentiment, facility of rhyme, or correctness and propriety of language. They are so paramount in this last quality, that Lope de Vega says of them, that they came to Castile from Arragon to teach the Castilian language. Their learning, the dignity of their maxims, their connexions, and the great protection extended to them by the Count de Lemus, were the causes of that kind of sovereignty which they exercised over their cotemporaries, and of that authority recognised and confirmed by the praises that were lavished on them from all quarters. They have been entitled the Horaces of Spain, and have ever been regarded as poets of the first rank, preserving a reputation almost as inviolate as Garcilasso himself.

Without intending to diminish the just esteem which is their due, or to contend with their many admirers, we may observe, that their fame appears to us much greater than their merit; and that if language owes them much for the exact attention and propriety with which they wrote it, poetry is indebted to them less, and that their reputation appears to rest more on their freedom from the vices, than on any great display of the virtues of composition. In lyric poetry they are easy, pure, and ingenious; but generally devoid of enthusiasm, majesty,[Pg 50] and fancy. As little have they in their love pieces the grace and tenderness which erotic poetry requires; and if we except some sonnets of Lupercio, not one of their compositions in this class can be quoted as deserving to arrest the attention, or be recommended to the memory of lovers. I will not speak of the Isabella and the Alexandra, as it is evident to all, even without the necessity of a profound acquaintance with the subject, that these compositions have nothing of the tragedy in them but the name, and the coolly atrocious deaths with which they end. Their severe character, the bias of their disposition, more ingenious and neat than florid and expansive, the wit and mirth which at times they knew how to fling forth, were more fit for moral and satiric poetry, in which they have succeeded best. There are in them an infinite number of strokes, some valuable for their depth and boldness, and many for that ingenuity of thought, that facility and propriety of expression, which has rendered them proverbial.

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These passages, extracted from various satires of Bartolomé, and many others of equal or superior merit, which might be quoted as well from him as from Lupercio, prove their happy genius for this kind of poetry. They have been compared to Horace, and undoubtedly bear most similarity to him, notwithstanding the preference that Bartolomé gave to Juvenal.[J] But at what a distance do they stand from him! The vivacity, the freedom, the variety, the conciseness, the exquisite and delicate mixture of praise and censure, the amiable disdain, and spirit of friendship, which enchant and despond in that ancient model, are all wanting in them, and condemn the excessive condescension or want of taste which led their cotemporaries to give them the title of Horaces. Facility of rhyming led them to string tercetos together without end, in which, if we meet with no unnecessary words, we find plenty of unnecessary thoughts. This causes their satires and epistles frequently to appear prolix, and even at times wearisome. Horace would have counselled Lupercio to shorten the introduction of his satire on the Marquesilla, and many of the tales that occur in it; and Bartolomé to suppress, in his fable of the Eagle and Swallow, the long enumeration of birds,[Pg 53] useless and unseasonable for a poet, superficial and scanty for a naturalist; he would have reminded both, in short, that strokes of satire, like arrows, should carry feathers and fly, to wound with certainty and force. It is painful, on the other hand, to find that they never leave the tone of ill-temper and suspicion which they once assume; and that neither indignation against vice, nor friendship, nor admiration, can draw from them one warm sentiment or gleam of enthusiasm. We choose friends amongst the authors we read, as amongst the men we have to deal with: I confess that I am not for those poets who, to judge by their verses, never appear to have loved nor esteemed any body.

Villegas was a disciple of the younger Argensóla, and if to the native talent he had joined some portion of the judgment and good sense of his master, he would have left nothing to desire in the department which he cultivated. He was the first that introduced Anacreontics in Spanish poetry, and, in spite of their defects, his Cantilenas and Monostrophes are read with delight, and remain imprinted on the minds of youth. The cause of this is, that there is vivacity in them, playfulness, grace, and cadence, which are the qualities that characterise this class of compositions, charming alike the imagination and the ear. His longer verses have not had equal success, because their ease, their harmony, and learning, do not compensate for the dissatisfaction caused by affectation, pedantry, and want of enthusiasm, for the violent transpositions, vicious modes of[Pg 54] speech, and, lastly, the ringing changes and puerile antitheses in which they abound.[K]

He attempted another innovation, which required for its establishment greater powers than his. He set himself to compose Castilian sapphics, hexameters, and distichs; and although the specimens he published are not altogether unsuccessful, especially the sapphic, from its analogy to endecasyllabic verse,[L] he has had[Pg 55] no successor in this enterprise. The hexameter demands a prosody more determinate and fixed than the Spanish language possesses, to satisfy the ear; and therefore the imitation of it is so much the more difficult, not to say impossible. He would, doubtless, however, have enriched the art by establishing this novelty, had it not been necessary, for this purpose, that the art were then in its infancy, in order that the docile and flexible language might accommodate itself to the will of the poet, and had he been the colossal genius that could subjugate others, and dictate to them a law of like versification. It was an unfortunate time to introduce fresh measures, when the fine endecasyllabics of Garcilasso, Leon, and Herrera were known, and when the[Pg 56] consistency and fixedness of the language and poetry did not permit them to retrocede to their infancy, which was absolutely necessary to exercise them in the manège of Latin versification.

The reputation of this poet did not then correspond to the proud hopes he cherished when he published his book. In this, he insulted Cervantes, scoffed at Góngora, jested with Lope de Vega; and, fancying himself some superior star about to eclipse his cotemporaries, he represented himself at the head of his Eroticas, as a rising sun extinguishing the stars with its rays, and raised the arrogant note,—Sicut sol matutinus: me surgente, quid istæ? Even if he had united in himself the talents of Horace, Pindar, and Anacreon, in all their extent and purity, from which he was yet far distant, this would have been an unpardonable boast, which not even his youth could excuse. The public is always greater than any writer, how great soever he may be; and it is necessary for him to present himself before it with modesty, unless he wishes to pass for a madman or a fool. Villegas, after impertinently irritating his equals, caused no sensation on the public, but attracted the rude and biting sarcasms of Góngora, and the just and moderate reprehension of Lope.[M] He was consigned to oblivion till[Pg 57] the appearance of the Parnaso Español, in which collection he had an eminent place; from that time, he was again printed, with a prefatory discourse, in which Don Vincente de los Rios, a man of vast learning and exquisite taste, but on this occasion too good-natured, assigned to him the palm of lyric poetry, which no subsequent critic has confirmed.

The Spanish poets had cultivated up to this time almost every species of Italian versification. The harmonious and rounded octave, the exact and laborious terza, the artificial sonnet, the trifling sextine, the canzone in its infinite combinations, and blank verse, although for the most part extremely ill managed[N]—were the forms of all their compositions, which came to be reflections, more or less luminous, of ancient, and of Tuscan poetry. Some coplas and trobas were made, though very few, in which the taste prior to Garcilasso [Pg 58]prevailed; but when the use of the asonante[O] became general in the last third division of this sixteenth century, the taste and inclination for Romances became equally in vogue, and in them were continued, and, as it were, perpetuated, the old Castilian poesies.

Utterly stript of the complexity and force, to which imitation in other kinds of writing obliged them to have recourse, their authors little caring for a resemblance with the odes of Horace, or the canzone of Petrarch, and composing them more happily by instinct than by art, the Romances could not have the pomp and loftiness of the odes of Leon, Herrera, and Rioja. Yet were they peculiarly the lyric poetry of Spain: in them music employed its accents; they were heard at night in the halls and gardens to the sound of the harp or guitar; they served as the vehicle and the incentive of love, as well as shafts for satire and revenge; they painted most happily Moorish customs and pastoral manners, and preserved in the memory of the vulgar the prowess of the Cid and other champions. In fine, more flexible than other kinds of composition, they accommodated themselves to all kinds of subjects, made use of a language rich and natural, clothed themselves with a mezzo-tinto soft and sweet, and pre[Pg 59]sented on every hand that facility and freshness which rise from originality, and which flow without effort and without study.

There are in them more fine and energetic expressions, more delicate and ingenious passages, than in the whole range of Spanish poetry besides. The Morisco ballads, in particular, are written with a vigour and a sprightliness of style that absolutely enchant. Those customs in which prowess and love are so beautifully blended, those Moors so gallant and so tender, that so romantic and delicious country, those names so sweet and so sonorous, each and all contribute to give novelty and poetry to the compositions wherein they are portrayed. The poets afterwards grew weary of disguising gallantries under the Morisco dress, and had recourse to the pastoral. Then to challenges, tournaments, and devices, succeeded green meads, brooks, flowers, and ciphers carved on trees; and what the Romances lost in vigour by the change, they gained in sweetness and simplicity.

The invention in both kinds was beautiful, and it is wonderful to see with how little effort, and with what conciseness, they describe the scenery, the hero, and the feelings that agitate him. Now, it is the alcayde of Molina, who, entering the town, alarms the Moors by the report that the Christians are ravaging their fields;[Pg 60] now, it is the unfortunate Aliatar, borne bloody and lifeless to his grave in melancholy pomp through the very gate whence the day before he was seen to issue, full of gaiety and life: there it is a simple beauty, who having lost her earrings, the keepsake of her lover, is in great affliction, dreading the reproaches that await her; and here it is the solitary and rejected shepherd, who, indignant at the sight of two turtles billing in a poplar, scares them away with stones.

The defects of these compositions spring from the same source as their beauties, or, to speak more correctly, are the excess or abuse of those very beauties. Their facility and freedom often degenerated into negligence and slovenliness, their ingenuity into affectation; puns, conceits, and false ornaments were introduced with so much the more liberty, as they more assisted those flights of gallantry which passed for refinements of speech, and as they appeared more excusable in works written merely for self-amusement. The principal authors of this poetry cannot be decidedly ascertained; but the golden epoch of the Romances was before Lope de Vega, Liaño, and a thousand others, not even remembered, introduced the bad taste which afterwards corrupted the whole literature of Spain; it comprises the youth of Góngora and Quevedo, and terminates in the Prince de Esquilache, the only one after them that succeeded in giving to the Romances the colouring, grace, and lightness, which they formerly possessed. But this taste, if on the one hand it tended to popularize poetry, to give it greater[Pg 61] ease and sweetness, and to remove it from the bounds of imitation, to which former poets had restricted it, had an equal influence in making it incorrect and careless, the same facility of composition inviting to this looseness. Thus it is that the poets who flourished at the end of the sixteenth, and commencement of the succeeding century, more harmonious, more easy, more delightful, and above all, more original than their predecessors, will be found at the same time more negligent, and to exhibit less artifice and polish, less purity and correction in their style and diction.

At this period lived the three poets whose verses have possessed most amenity, richness, and facility. The first is Balbuena, born in La Mancha, educated in Mexico, and author of El Siglo de Oro and of Bernardo. No one, since Garcilasso, has had such command over the language, versification, and rhyme; and no one, at the same time, is more slovenly and unequal. His poem, like that New World in which the author lived, is a country spacious and immense, as fruitful as uncultivated, where briers and thorns are mingled in confusion with flowers, treasures with scarcity, deserts and morasses with hills and forests more sublime and shady. If at times he surprises by the freedom of his verse, by the novelty and vividness of his expression, by his great talent for description, in which he knows no equal, and even occasionally by his boldness and profundity of thought, he yet more frequently offends by his unseasonable prodigality, and inconceivable carelessness. The greatest defect of the Bernardo, is its[Pg 62] excessive length; it being morally impossible to give to a work of five thousand octaves the sustained and continued elegance necessary to give pleasure. The eclogues of the Siglo de Oro have not the same defects of composition as the poem, and in the public estimation enjoy the nearest place to those of Garcilasso. They undoubtedly deserve it, considering the propriety of style, the ease of the verse, the suitableness and freshness of the images, and the simplicity of the invention. If his shepherds were not at times so rude, if he had had a more constant eye to elegance in diction, and beauty in the incidents; if, in short, he had thrown more variety into his versification, reduced almost entirely to tercetos,—there is no doubt but that good taste would have conceded to him in this branch of the art an absolute supremacy.

The second of these poets is Jauregui, celebrated for his translation of the Aminta, a florid poet, an elegant and harmonious versifier. He is the one who expressed his thoughts in verse with the most ease and elegance; but he had little nerve and spirit, and was, besides, poor of invention. His taste in early life was very pure, as his Rimas show. But after having been one of the sharpest assailants of Purism, he ended in suffering himself to glide with the current, and in his translation of the Pharsalia, and in his Orpheus, he has abandoned himself to all the extravagances he had before burlesqued.

But the man who received from nature the most poetical endowments, and who most abused them, was,[Pg 63] without doubt, Lope de Vega. The gift of writing his language with purity, elegance, and the deepest clearness; the gift of inventing, the gift of painting, the gift of versifying in whatever measure he desired; flexibility of fancy and talent to accommodate himself to all sorts of writing, and to all sorts of colouring; a richness that never knows impediment or dearth; a memory enriched by a vast range of reading; and an indefatigable application, which augmented the facility he inherited from nature: with these arms he presented himself in the arena, knowing in his bold ambition neither curb nor limit. From the madrigal to the ode, from the eclogue to the comedy, from the novel to the epic—he ran through all, he cultivated all, and has left in all signs of devastation and of talent.

He brought the theatre under his subjection, and fixed upon him universal attention,—the poets of his time were nothing compared to him. His name was the seal of approbation for all; the people followed him in the streets; strangers sought him out as an extraordinary object; monarchs arrested their attention to regard him. He had critics who raised the cry against his culpable carelessness, enviers who murmured at him, detractors who calumniated him,—a mournful example, in addition to the many other instances which prove that envy and calumny are born with merit and celebrity; for neither the amiable courtesy of the poet, nor the placidity of his genius, nor the pleasure with which he lent himself to commend others, could either disarm his slanderers or[Pg 64] temper their malignity. But none of them could snatch away the sceptre from his hands, nor abrogate the consideration which so many and such celebrated works had acquired for him. His death was mourned as a public calamity; his funeral drew an universal attendance. A volume of Spanish poetry was composed upon his death, another of Italian; and, living and dying, he was always hearing praises, always gathering laurels; admired as a prodigy, and proclaimed "the Phœnix of Wits."

What, at the end of two centuries, remains of all that pomp, of all the loud applauses which then fatigued the echoes of fame? When we see that, of all the poetry and poems he composed, there are few, perhaps none, which can be read through without our being shocked at every step by their repugnance; when we see that his most studied and favourite work, the Jerusalem,[P] is a compound of absurdities, wherein the little excellence we meet with, makes the abuse of his talent but the more deplored; when we see that of so many hundreds of comedies, there is scarcely one that can be called good; and finally, that of the many[Pg 65] thousands of verses which his inexhaustible vein produced, there are so few that remain engraved on the tablets of good taste,—can we do less than exclaim, where are now the foundations of that edifice of glory raised in homage of a single man by the age in which he lived, and which still surprises and excites the envy of those who contemplate it from afar?

It was not possible for works written with so much precipitation to have any other result, with his utter forgetfulness of all rules, and neglect of all great models; without plan, without preparation, without study, or attention to nature. The necessity of writing hastily for the theatre, when he had accustomed the public to almost daily novelties, unsettled, and, as it were, relaxed all the springs of his genius, carrying the same hurry and negligence into all his other writings.[Q] Hence it is that, with the exception of[Pg 66] some short poems in which he improved the happy inspiration of the moment, there are, in all his others, unpardonable faults of invention, of composition, and of style. Fatal facility! which corrupted all his excellencies, which led him to obscure the clearness, the harmony, the elegance, the freedom, the affluence, and even the strength with which he was alike gifted; giving place to unappropriate figures, to historic or fabulous allusions pedantic and ill-timed; to frigid and prolix explanations of the very thing he had said before; to weakness in short, to shallowness, to an insufferable tone, into which the rich abundance and amiable purity of his diction and versification degenerated.

The age then, it will be said, was barbarous, that tolerated such errantries, and that gave so much applause to a writer so defective. It was not barbarous, but excessively compliant. There were many men of talent who deplored this abuse; but they could not resist the popular approbation which the nature of Lope's writings carried with it, and which in some degree his genius authorized. The general sweetness and fluency of his verse; the lucidness of his expression, intelligible almost always to the most illiterate; the fine and polished language of gallantry which he invented, and brought into use in his comedies; the decorum and ornament with which he invested the stage;[R] the vivid and delicate touches of[Pg 67] sensibility which he from time to time presents; the eminent and brilliant parts which the women generally sustain in his works; in short, his absolute dominion in the theatre, where acclamations have most solemnity and force; are all circumstances which concur to excuse the public of that day, who were not unjust in admiring most the individual that gave them most delight.[S]

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CHAPTER V.
OF GÓNGORA, QUEVEDO, AND THEIR IMITATORS.

To restore to Castilian poetry the tone and vigour which were failing it, the powers of Horace and Virgil, with all the grandeur of their genius, the perfection of their taste, and the high protection they enjoyed, would scarcely have sufficed. Two men in Spain applied themselves to this task; both of great talent, but of a depraved taste, and of different pursuits. Their defects, which they sometimes relieve by better qualities, had the effect of a contagion, and produced consequences more fatal than the evil itself which they sought to remedy.

The first was Don Luis de Góngora, the father and founder of the sect called Purists. All know that after a century of adoration by the followers of his style, Luzán and the other professors who re-established good taste, set themselves to destroy the sect by decrying their founder; and with them Góngora and the detestable poet, were terms synonymous. But this was unjust; and in him, the brilliant, gay, and pleasant poet, should ever be distinguished from the extravagant and capricious innovator. His independent genius was incapable of following, or of imitating any body; his imagination, fiery and vivid in the extreme, could not see things in a common light; and the weak and pallid colouring of other poets will not bear comparison with[Pg 69] the rich emblazonry, if we may so say, of his style and expression. In which of them are poetical periods met with, that in wealth of language, brilliancy, and music, can be compared with the following?

In which are images more delicate and appropriate, or more naturally expressed, than these?

There is not in all Anacreon a thought so graceful as that of the song, wherein, presenting some flowers to his lady, he begs from her as many kisses as he had received stings from the bees that guarded them.

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If from Italian measures we pass to Letrillas and the Castilian Romance, Góngora will be found king of that class, which has received from no one so much grace, so many splendours, and so much poetry. His merit indeed, in this department, is so great, and specimens of his success in it are so common, that there remains no other difficulty to prove it than that of choice. This fragment will suffice for our purpose.

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[Pg 72] 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.

"He sought," says Lope de Vega, "to enrich the art, and even the language, with such figures and ornaments, as were never, till his time, imagined or beheld. In my opinion, he fully succeeded in what[Pg 73] he aimed at, if this was his aim; the difficulty is in receiving it. According to many, he has raised the novelty into a peculiar class of poetry, and they are not at all mistaken; for, in ancient times, men were made poets by the study of a whole life; in the modern, they become poets in a day; as, with a few transpositions, four precepts, and six Latin words or emphatic phrases, you will see them elevated where they neither know nor understand themselves. Lipsius wrote that new Latin which good judges in these matters say Cicero and Quintilian laughed at in the other world. The whole foundation of the structure is transposition; and what makes it the more harsh is the so far separating the substantive from the adjective, where the parenthesis is impossible: it is a composition full of tropes and figures; a face coloured in the manner of angels with the trumpet of judgment, or of the winds in maps. Sonorous words and figures enamel an oration; but if the enamel covers all the gold, it is no longer a grace to the jewelling, but a notable deformity." And in another part he says, "..., without going in search of so many metaphors on metaphors, wasting in rouge what is needed in features, and enfeebling the spirit with the weight of such an excessive body. This it is that has destroyed a great number of talented men in Spain, with such deplorable effect, that an illustrious poet, who, writing with his native powers and in his proper[Pg 74] language, was read with general applause, since he has abandoned himself to purism, has lost it all."

Not satisfied with these demonstrations of severity, this placid man, who scarcely knew what malignity was, thought it his duty to persecute the pest as with fire and sword, and in his comedies, in the burlesque poetry of Burguillos, in the Laurel de Apollo, and in a thousand other places, ridiculed and cursed this kind of poetry, which he characterized as "an odious invention to make the language barbarous." He was aided in this warfare by Jauregui, Quevedo, and some others; but their efforts were unavailing, and they themselves were at length forced to yield to the contagion. For though they cannot be called Purists in all the rigour of the term, they adopted some of the elements which composed the dialect, such as violent transpositions, extravagant hyperboles, and incoherent figures. Góngora, meanwhile, as he had never known restraint or subjection, fulminated against his adversaries the grossest taunts; and, fierce and proud from the applauses of the ignorant, internally exulted with all the glory of a triumph. This was increased by the support given to his party by the celebrated preacher, Fray Hortensio Paravicino, from the great influence which he had with the theologians and sacred orators, and by the unfortunate Count de Villamediana, in the secret and powerful favour which he was supposed to have at court. Both imitated Góngora, and drew after them other writers of less note, propagating thus this barbarous[Pg 75] language till the middle of the century in which Luzán and other admirable critics entirely succeeded in weaning the nation from it.

At the same time with the Purists appeared the Concettisti, punsters, and utterers of grave saws in frigid and sententious language: D. Francisco de Quevedo surpassed all, as well by his merit as influence, in the progress of these different sects. Quevedo, according to some, is the father of laughter, the treasury of jests, the fountain of wit, the inventor of a number of happy words and phrases, in a word, the Comus of Spain. According to others, he is, on the contrary, a writer inauspicious to the beauty and decorum of wit: his humour, say they, instead of being festive, is low buffoonery; he has impoverished the language, depriving it of an infinite number of modes of speech, once noble and becoming, now, thanks to him, low and indecorous; and if he at any time amuses, it is by the original extravagance of his follies. These two judgments, so contradictory, are yet both true; and if we consider attentively the character of this writer, we shall see what foundation both the one and the other have for their censures and applauses. Quevedo was every thing in excess: no one, in the same manner, displays in the serious a gravity so rigid and morals so austere; no one, in the jocose, shows a humour so gay, so free, and so abandoned to the spirit of the thing. In the choice of his subjects, we are alike sensible of this contrariety. Alguazils, scriveners, procuresses, compliant husbands, ruffians, and women of easy access,[Pg 76] generally form the subject matter of his buffooneries; and we must, in justice, acknowledge that he very often lashes them in a masterly manner. At another time a theologian and stoic, he translates Epictetus, comments on Seneca, interprets Scripture, and entangles himself in the useless labyrinths of metaphysics; lost labours, which, for the most part, are no longer read, and which have scarcely any other merit than their astonishing erudition.

From this contradiction springs so often the effort and difficulty with which he writes in both kinds of composition. His style, in prose as in verse, in serious as in jocose, is always struck forth without connexion or graduation, sacrificing almost always truth and nature to exaggeration and hyperbole. His imagination was most vivid and brilliant, but superficial and negligent; and the poetic genius that animates him, sparkles but does not glow, surprises but does not agitate, bounds with impetuosity and force, but neither flies nor ever supports itself at the same elevation. The rage of expressing things with novelty made him call the brink of the sea the law of the sand; love, the civil war of the born; trunks of trees on which lovers' names are engraved, a rural book written in enamel. In burlesque verse, he heaps together forced allusions, ambiguities, and paragraphs of nonsense. A ruffian, to denote how keenly he has felt his disgrace, will say, that he has wept rope for rope, and not, at every lash; he will say, that he has had more grasshoppers than the summer, more tenants than the tomb, more bookstrings[Pg 77] than the missal. I am well aware that Quevedo often diverts with what he writes, and raves because it is his pleasure: I know that puns have their proper place in such compositions, and that no one has used them more happily than he. But every thing has its bounds; and, heaped together with a prodigality like his, instead of pleasing, they create only weariness.

The same incorrectness and bad taste that mark his style, composed of words and phrases noble and sublime, united with others as mean and trivial, are found in his images and thoughts, which are mixed together without economy, judgment, or decorum. The following sonnet will show this miserable confusion better than any description:—

In spite of these defects, which are certainly very great, Quevedo will be read with respect, and be justly[Pg 78] admired in many passages. In the first place, his verse is for the most part full and sonorous, his rhyme rich and easy, and yet this merit, the first which a poet should possess, is not the principal one; our author knows how to accompany them with many touches, excellent, some from the brightness of their colouring, others from their spirit and boldness. His poetry, strong and nervous, proceeds impetuously to its end; and if his movements betray too much of the effort, affectation, and bad taste of the writer, their course is yet frequently seen to have a wildness, an audacity, and a singularity, that is surprising. His verses oft-times spring from his own imagination, and without extraneous aid strike the ear with their loud and strong vibration, or sculpture themselves in the mind by the profundity of the thought they develope, or by the novelty and strength of the expression. From no one can such beautiful isolated verses be quoted as from him; from no one, poetic periods so stately and so strong.

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Rome buried in her Ruins.

On meeting in his works with these brilliant passages, after paying them the high admiration they deserve, we cannot restrain a feeling of indignation, to see the deplorable abuse which Quevedo has made of his talents, in employing on the useless evolutions and balanced movements of a tumbler, the muscular limbs and strength of an Alcides.

Don Francisco Manuel Melo was a friend of Quevedo, a Portuguese, and as indefatigable a writer as he was an active warrior and politician. He managed the Castilian idiom with equal facility as his own, and poet, historian, moralist, author political, military, and even religious, he excels in some of these departments, and is contemptible in none. The volume of his verses is extremely rare, and though some have made him the imitator of Góngora, he has more points of[Pg 80] resemblance to Quevedo; the same taste in versification, the same austerity of principles, the same affectation of sententiousness, the same copiousness of doctrine. He has besides conformed to the example of Quevedo in publishing his poems, in divisions of the nine Muses, though three of them are in Portuguese. There are in the Spaniard colours more brilliant, and strokes more strong; in Melo more sobriety and fewer extravagances. His style, though elegant and pure, is barely poetical; and his amatory verses are deficient in tenderness and fire, as are his odes in enthusiasm and loftiness. He is as little happy in the many burlesque verses with which the large volume of his poetry abounds; but when the subject is grave and serious, then his philosophy and doctrine sustain him, and his expression equals his ideas. Naturally inclined to maxims and reflections, he was most at home in moral poetry; in the epistle particularly, where strength and severity of thought best combine with a tempered and less profound fancy. Here, if he is not always a great painter, he is at least chaste and severe in style and language, in his verse sonorous, grave and elevated in his thoughts, a respectable moralist in character and principles. Notwithstanding these distinctions, the claims of his glory as a writer are more firmly grounded on his prose works; on the Eco politico for instance, on his Aula militar, and, above all, on the Historia de las alteraciones de Cataluña, the most excellent production of his pen, and perhaps the best work of its kind in the Castilian language.

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Poetry was meanwhile expiring; tortured by such demoniacs, it could not recover its beauty and freshness from the aid of the few who yet composed with care, and wrote with greater purity. Rebolledo had neither force nor fancy, and his verses are nothing more than rhymed prose: Esquilache, with somewhat more grace in his romances, was spruce and affected, and had neither the talent nor strength which are necessary for higher compositions: Ulloa wrote nothing good but his Raquel: and lastly, Solis, who sometimes shows himself a poet in his comedies, and often in his history, is a mere rhymester in his lyrics, which now are read by none. How could these emasculated writers raise the art from the abyss into which it had fallen? The thing was impossible. This vicious taste was reduced to a system in the extravagant and singular work of Gracian, Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio, which is an art of writing in prose and verse, founded on the most absurd principles, and supported by good and bad specimens, jumbled together in the most discordant manner. This Gracian is the same that composed a descriptive poem on the seasons, under the title of Silvas del Año; the first I fancy that was written in Europe on this subject, and most assuredly the worst. As a specimen of his manner, and of the laughable degradation to which poetry had fallen, the following verses will suffice, selected from the opening of Summer:—

[Pg 82]

This is beyond every thing: the whole poem is written in the same barbarous and ridiculous manner, and it is a proof as evident as mournful, that there now remained no memory of the principles of composition, no vestiges of eloquence. Ornaments, suited to the madrigal and epigram, were transferred to the higher kinds of composition, and the whole was changed into concetti, conundrums, puns, and antitheses. Thus Castilian poesy came to an end! In her more tender youth, the simple flowers of the field which Garcilasso gathered sufficed to adorn her; in the fine writings of Herrera and Rioja, she presents herself with the pomp of a beautiful lady, richly attired; in Balbuena, Jauregui, and Lope de Vega, although too free and gay, she yet preserved traits of elegance and beauty; but first spoiled by the contortions taught her by [Pg 83]Góngora and Quevedo, she afterwards gave herself up to a crowd of Vandals, who completed her ruin. Thenceforward her movements became convulsions, her colours paint, her jewels tinsel, and old and decrepid, there was nothing more for her to do than madly to act the girl, to wither, and to perish.

[Pg 84]

CHAPTER VI.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS; RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF GOOD TASTE.

If in this state a glance is cast at the steps which the art in little more than a century of its existence had taken, it will be seen that nothing had been left unattempted. There were translations of all, or of the greater number, of the ancient authors: epics of all kinds had been written; the theatre had taken a compass, and presented a fruitfulness so great as to have communicated of its wealth to foreigners; lastly, the ode in all its forms, the eclogue, the epistle, the satire, descriptive poetry, the madrigal, and epigram, all had been noticed, and all cultivated.

If this compass and variety do honour to its flexibility and boldness, the success of its accomplishments in all these various kinds of composition is not equal. For, in the first place, the translations are almost all bad or indifferent. Who, in good truth, can say that that of the Odyssey, by Gonzalo Perez; of the Eneid, by Hernandez de Velasco; or of the Metamorphoses, by Sigler, are real substitutes for the originals? What person, possessing the least taste in poetic language and versification, can read two pages of these versions, wherein the greatest poets of antiquity are metamorphosed into trivial rhymers, without elegance and harmony? Spain has a number of epic poems; and[Pg 85] although some fragments of good poetry may be culled from them, not one can be looked upon as a well-arranged fable, or as corresponding in dignity and interest with its title and argument. Of Spanish comedies, it is notorious that the defects exceed the beauties. Happier in shorter kinds of composition, her odes, elegies, sonnets, romances, and letrillas, approach nearer to perfection. But even in these, what forgetfulness of propriety, what negligence at times, and at times what pedantry and false taste exist! In the best writers, in the choicest pieces, the mind is offended by finding too frequently joined to a fine turn a harsh extravagance, and a sharp thorn to an incomparable flower.

There is one thing extraordinary in the good poets of the sixteenth century, that their genius never rises to the level of the events which passed around them. The compositions of Virgil and of Horace in Rome correspond with the dignity and majesty of the empire. Lucan afterwards, though very distant from the perfection of his predecessors, preserved in his poem the bold and fiery tone adapted to the subject on which he wrote, and to the patriotic enthusiasm with which he was animated. Dante, in his extraordinary poem, shows himself inspired by all the sentiments which the rancour of faction, civil dissension, and the effervescence of men's minds, stirred up. Petrarch, if in his love-sonnets he sacrificed to the gallantry of his time, rises, in his Trionfi, to a level with the elevation to which the human mind was rising at that period. It[Pg 86] was not so with the poets of Spain. The Moors expelled from the peninsula; a discovered world opening a new hemisphere to Spanish fortune; fleets sailing from one extremity of the ocean to the other, accompanied by terror, and exchanging the riches of the east and west; the church torn by the reformation of Luther; France, Holland, Germany, convulsed and desolated by civil wars and religious dissensions; the Ottoman power rolled away on the waters of Lepanto; Portugal falling in Africa, to be then united to Castile; the Spanish sword agitating the whole world with the spirit of heroism, of religion, of ambition, and of avarice;—when was there ever a time more full of astonishing events, or more suited to sublime the fancy? Yet the Castilian muses, deaf and indifferent to this universal agitation, could scarcely inspire their favourites with aught but moralities, rural images, gallantry, and love.[T]

This deficiency of grandeur is compensated in part by a moral quality which distinguishes those poets, and recommends them infinitely. Neither in Garcilasso, nor in Luis de Leon, nor in Francisco de la Torre, nor in Herrera, are to be found any traces of rancour and literary envy, of gross indecency, or of servile[Pg 87] and shameless adulation. The praises which they sometimes pay to power are restricted within those bounds of moderation and decorum which make them endurable. Till the corruption of literary taste, there was no appearance of this moral degradation, made up of meanness towards superiors, of insolence towards equals, and of utter forgetfulness of all respect towards the public; vices unfortunately sufficiently contagious, and which defame and destroy the nobleness of an art, that from the nature of its object, and the means it uses, has in it something superhuman.

There cannot be denied to a great number of the Spanish poets admirable talent, extensive learning, and great acquaintance with the ancient classics, although it is an uncommon thing to meet in them the sustained elegance and perfection of taste which other modern authors have drawn from the same fountains. Many causes contributed to this. One is, that these poets communicated little with each other: there wanted a common centre of urbanity and taste, a literary legislature, that should draw the line between bombast and sublimity, exaggeration and vigour, affectation and elegance. The universities, where dwelt the greatest knowledge, could not become such, from the nature of their studies, more scholastic than classical. The court, where the tone of society and fashion is most quickly perfected, would have been more to the purpose; but wandering under Charles the Fifth, severe and melancholy under the Second Philip, it gave not till Philip the Third to poetical talent the encourage[Pg 88]ment necessary for its perfection; even then, but much more in the time of his successor, taste was vitiated, and the encouragement given by princes and grandees, and even the occasional share they took themselves in poetical pursuits, could do nothing but authorize the corruption. In short, there wanted in Spain a court like that of Augustus, of Leo the Tenth, of the dukes of Ferrara, and of Louis the Fourteenth; where polite and refined conversation, devotion to the Muses, culture and elegance, with other fortunate circumstances, powerfully contributed to the perfection of the great writers that flourished therein.

Another cause is the secondary place which poetry held with many of those who cultivated it. They wrote verses to unbend themselves from other more serious occupations; and he who writes verses to amuse himself, is not usually very nice in the choice of his subject, nor very careful in its execution. Fatal lot to Spain in the finest and most difficult of all arts! Poetry, which is a recreation and amusement for those who enjoy it, should be a very serious and almost exclusive occupation with those who profess it, if they aspire to hold any distinguished rank in reputation. When it is considered that Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Horace, Tasso, Ariosto, Pope, Racine, and others, were at once the greatest poets and the most laborious, it should not be thought extraordinary that those have remained so far behind, who, even supposing them to have possessed equal talent, equalled them neither in application nor perseverance.

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To this evil was added another and a worse, arising in a great measure from the same cause. Very few of the good poets of Spain published their works in their lifetime. The works of Garcilasso, Luis de Leon, Francisco de la Torre, Herrera, the Argensólas, Quevedo, and others, were published after their death by their heirs or friends, with more or less judgment. How much would they not have rejected, if they had published their writings in their own name! how many corrections would they not have made in the selection, and how many spots of slovenliness, bad taste, and obscurity, would they not have expunged!

But even though the want of perfection from this cause should seem less imputable to them, it is not on that account less certain. It has given cause to a diversity of opinion on the merit of the ancient poets of Spain, whom some value as admirable models, whilst others depreciate them so far as to think them unworthy of being read. In this, as in all cases, partiality and prejudice are wont to carry critics to their conclusions more than truth and justice; and to exalt or depress the dead is often with them nothing but an indirect mode of exalting or depressing the living. But setting this consideration aside, it may be said that this vast difference arises from the different points of view which are taken for the comparison. Comparing Leon, Garcilasso, Herrera, Rioja, and a few others, with the monstrous extravagances introduced and sanctioned by Góngora and Quevedo, there is no doubt that the former should be regarded as classical writers, perfect,[Pg 90] and worthy to be imitated and followed: if compared even with the great authors of antiquity, or with the few moderns that have approached near, or have excelled them, we have yet to discover the reason why many treat them with such excessive rigour. As to myself, without pretending to lay down for a rule my particular opinion, and judging by the effect produced on me in the perusal, I would say, that though I consider the ancient Spanish poesies as sufficiently distant from perfection, they yet convey to my mind and ear sufficient pleasure for me to overlook in their graces the negligences and blemishes I meet with. I would, moreover, be bold to say, that if the poets of Spain had cultivated the loftier kinds of poetry, the epopee and the drama, with the same successful diligence as the ode and other shorter species, Spain would have been satisfied with the praises that would have fallen to her lot in this delightful department of literature. I will add, lastly, that, in my judgment, it is absolutely necessary to read and study these poets, in order to learn the purity, propriety, and genius of the language, to form the taste and ear to the harmony and flow of its verse, and to acquire the structure of the true poetic period. It would not be difficult, nor perhaps foreign to my subject, to show in her modern compositions the influence which exclusive admiration or exaggerated depreciation of the fathers of Spanish poetry has had upon her authors; but this application, necessarily odious, enters neither into my character nor design.

Castilian poetry, buried in the ruins wherein sank[Pg 91] the other arts, sciences, and power in the time of Charles the Second, began to be revived towards the middle of the last century, by the laudable efforts of some literary characters who devoted themselves wholly to the re-establishment of classical study. The principal glory of this happy revolution is due to D. Ignacio de Luzán, who, not satisfied with pointing out the path of good taste in his Poetica, published in 1737, gave no less the example of treading in it, by the poetical beauties which are visible in the few compositions of his that have been published. His poetry, like that of all professed critics, is recommended more by its dignity, circumspection, and propriety, than by any sublimity or boldness; but his memory will be always respected as that of the restorer of Spanish poesy. Others followed in the same career: the Count of Torrepalma, whose Deucalion, notwithstanding some touches of bombast and purism which it preserves, is one of the strongest and best pieces of descriptive poetry in Castilian; D. Josef Porcel, author of some hunting eclogues, much praised by all his cotemporaries, but which I have not read, nor indeed have they been collected for publication; D. Augustin Montiano, a learned man and of good taste, though deficient in imagination and genius; D. Nicolas de Moratin, a poet gifted with a lively and flexile fancy, and an original and forcible expression, who for his whole life has been struggling with indefatigable zeal in favour of the principles and rules of correct composition: and, lastly, Don Josef Cadalso, in whose hands,[Pg 92] the Anacreontic, which had been buried with Villegas, revived towards the end of the century. In this gay and agreeable writer terminate the trials and efforts for the revival of the art. From that period a new epoch in Castilian poetry commences, upon another foundation, with another character, with other principles, and it may even be said, with other models; an epoch, the description and judgment of which posterity will know how to give with more justice, authority, and propriety, than it is generally supposed can be given by a cotemporary.

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LIFE OF GARCILASSO.

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Of the many distinguished men, to whom, in the enterprising reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain had the honour of giving birth, there are few perhaps much more admired by herself, or that come recommended to the notice of a stranger with so much interest as Garcilasso de la Vega. Whether considered as the cultivated spirit, who, shaking from the Spanish lute the dust of ages, imparted to it by the force of his genius, a more harmonious string and a more polished tone; or whether as a young warrior, brought up in the court of the most celebrated prince of his age, qualified both by birth and education to take part, and actually taking part in that prince's enterprises, till doomed to fall the victim of his too rash valour, his story is calculated to strike forcibly the attention, and to touch the springs of admiration and of sympathy in no common degree. The character of the times in which he lived, of the monarch whom he served, his own adventures, his deep devotion to the muses during the few hours of leisure which alone he was able[Pg 96] to snatch from the hurry and alarm of war, the amiable qualities and classic taste developed in his writings, and the new impulse which these writings gave to Spanish poesy,—all offer to the biographer a theme more fertile than usually falls to his lot in recording the lives of poets, and upon which he would love to bestow the illustration they deserve. But unfortunately for such a desire,—a desire in which every one must participate, who peruses the fine relics which his fancy has left of its sweetness,—the pen of his cotemporaries was unemployed in the record of his actions, and centuries were suffered to elapse before any of his countrymen set themselves to the task. It was then too late; the anecdotes that marked the character of the man, and all those slighter traits which in a more particular manner give life and individuality to biography, had perished with his intimate associates; and those who admired his talents, and desired to illustrate them, were obliged to gather from his works, and from the common voice of fame, their scanty particulars, and to make up the deficiency of incident by excessive compliments and eulogies. The consequence is, that although he lived on terms of close intimacy with many who were admirably qualified to depict the lights and shadows of his amiable mind and eventful life, a writer of the present day can hope[Pg 97] alone to offer to the world a bare outline of his actions, unenriched by any of those distinctive touches which give value to a portrait. An industrious research into such of the Spanish annalists and cotemporary historians as are to be met with in our public libraries, and the interest I have naturally taken in his story, have enabled me to glean several particulars and incidents unnoticed by any of his commentators; but these must be still too few to satisfy our common curiosity, and it must always remain a subject of regret that we know so little of him, who has ever been considered by his countrymen as one of their most elegant writers, as the one in short who contributed most to the polish and refinement of their language.

Garcias, or, as he is commonly called, Garcilasso de la Vega, was born of one of the noblest titled families in the ancient city of Toledo. His ancestors from remote antiquity were persons of opulence and high consideration, as is evident from the frequent mention of them in the old chronicles of the kingdom. They originally sprang from the mountains of Asturias, having their seat on the banks of the river Vesaya, a league from Santillana, but making in course of time Toledo their principal residence. The first of our poet's ancestors, whom I find chronicled in[Pg 98] Spanish story, is Don Diego Gomez, a very rich and distinguished knight in the reign of Don Alonzo the Seventh, a prince cotemporary with our Henry the First. From him sprang Gonzalo Ruyz, who lived in the time of Don Ferdinand the Third and Alonzo the Wise. His descendant, Don Pedro Lasso, was in the year 1329 Admiral of Castile; his son Garcilasso arrived at yet greater honours, being the principal favourite of Alonzo the Eleventh. He was made High Judge and Superintendent of sheep-walks in Castile, as well as Chancellor of the kingdom, and was entrusted with the education of the lady Blanche, daughter of prince Pedro who had fallen in battle against the Moors, no less than with the care of her estate. So rich was he become, that he purchased, says Mariana, the whole lordship of Biscay, of the lady Mary, mother of Don John, who aspiring to the marriage of the infant Blanche, in order to obtain the great estates whereof she was the heiress, had been treacherously invited to a banquet in the palace, and by the king's orders cruelly put to death. Garcilasso was employed by the king in several important negotiations, and amongst others, in that of thwarting the designs of D. John Manuel, who had renounced his allegiance to the crown, and was in arms to revenge the affront put upon him by the king in[Pg 99] divorcing his daughter to make way for a second marriage. But in these turbulent times the highest distinctions of court-favour served only to mark out those who enjoyed them for destruction, either by the common vice of courts, intrigue, or by the more decisive dagger. The nobles of the kingdom, piqued at the elevation of one who was no noble to such high offices of trust, or envying his favour and influence with the king, conspired together, and he was assassinated in the church of Soria during the celebration of mass, A.D. 1328. Alonzo was seized with the greatest concern when the news of the murder was brought him; nor was his grief overcome, though his revenge was gratified, by the swift justice executed on the principal conspirators. The lordship of Biscay did not long remain in the family of the purchaser, being at the king's desire restored to the heiress of the attainted family on her marriage with Don John de Lara. The murdered Chancellor left two sons, Garcilasso and Gonzalo Ruyz, who in the grand battle of Salado, 1340, were the first that in spite of the Moors passed the river. The former was made Lord Chief Justice of Spain, as appears by the deeds of the year 1372; and this knight it was, who for his valour in slaying a gigantic Moor that had defied the Christians by parading in the[Pg 100] Vega, or plain of Granada, with the words 'Ave Maria' fixed to his horse's tail, took the surname De la Vega, and for his device the Ave Maria in a field d'or;[U] as is seen in the scutcheon of[Pg 101] Garcilasso de la Vega, a son of one of the brothers, who followed the party of King Henry against the king Don Pedro, was slain in the battle of Najara, and lies buried in the royal monastery of that city, in the chapel de la Cruz, near Donna Mencia, queen of Portugal. He had married Donna Mencia de Cisneros, and left a daughter, Leonora de la Vega, who married Don[Pg 102] Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, High Admiral of Castile, a knight much celebrated in the annals of that period for his naval and military actions. From this marriage sprang D. Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, who in 1445 was created Marques de Santillana, Gonzalo Ruyz de la Vega, and two daughters, the elder of whom, Elvira Lasso de la Vega, marrying Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, continued the line of descent. Their son, Don Pedro Suarez, acquired the estate of Los Arcos and Botova by marriage with the lady Blanche de Sotomayor, and Don Pedro Lasso was the fruit of their union. The father of our poet, who was likewise named Garcilasso, was the fourth lord of Los Arcos, Grand Commendary of Leon, a knight of the Order of St. James, and one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, being appointed Counsellor of State to their Catholic Majesties, and sent as their ambassador to Pope Alexander the Sixth;[V] his wife, Donna Sancha, of the illustrious house of Toral, was lady of Batres, a considerable domain in Leon, where a fountain, the same our poet describes in his second eclogue, is still seen to play, and bears the name of Garcilasso's fountain,[Pg 103] an illustrious monument of the estimation in which his writings were held.[W] According to the best accounts, Garcilasso, who was destined to rival, if not eclipse in battle the valorous deed of the first De la Vega, was born at Toledo, in the year 1503, a few years only after the birth of the celebrated Charles the Fifth; and when, on that prince's accession to the crown, he was persuaded to visit Spain, in the resort which the nobility made to him at Barcelona, Garcilasso, then in his fifteenth year, was not left behind. The office which his father had held under Ferdinand, rendered his attendance on such an occasion indispensable, and Garcilasso was presented to the prince. With a graceful person, frank address, and the most amiable dispositions, it may easily be conceived that he soon recommended himself to the notice and favour of Charles. What confirmed these first prepossessions, was his skill in those martial and gymnastic exercises, which formed in that age the chief pride of persons of rank, and to which the prince always showed an excessive fondness: to ride at full speed, to leap, to wrestle, to fence, to tilt, to swim the Tagus—in these accomplishments,[Pg 104] Garcilasso, who, as a younger son, was probably early devoted to the profession of arms, bore the palm from his competitors, and in these severe amusements their hours were frequently spent together. Garcilasso knew, however, and loved to temper the exercises of the gymnasium with those more elegant pursuits and studies to which his royal companion showed but little inclination. Of music, from his earliest years, he was passionately fond, and on the harp and the guitar, already played with extreme sweetness.[X] Music called into exercise the poetical powers with which he now began to feel that he was gifted, and refined both his ear and taste to perceive the wide distance subsisting between the songs and coplas of his native poets, and the writings of those Latin, Greek, and Tuscan masters, to whose works his studies were directed. His acute judgment at once perceived the error into which the generality of Spanish poets had fallen, in contenting themselves with their merely natural endowments, without giving attention to art, as though impatient of the toil of culture. Dissatisfied with the little they had accomplished, he set himself sedulously to the study of more classical[Pg 105] models than his countrymen had yet taken as standards of good writing; and the pure elegance of the Greeks, and harmonious numbers of the Tuscans, alternately engrossed his attention. In these pursuits was associated with him Juan Almogavar Boscán, a young man of honourable family, born at Barcelona, with whom he probably became first acquainted on his visit to that city with his father; for whom he entertained through life the warmest affection, and of whose amiable mind and poetical talent he has left in his writings many interesting testimonies. They applied themselves to their purpose with all the devotedness of youthful enthusiasm, newly conscious of its latent powers. Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, were ever in their hands, and the reputation of cotemporary poets amongst the Italians, of Bernardo Tasso, Tansillo, Sannazaro, and Bembo, quickened their literary ambition. But the poet whom above all others Garcilasso evidently studied with the most partiality, was Virgil. The mild and tender spirit which pervades and shines throughout his beautiful writings, was in peculiar concordance with the disposition and character of Garcilasso, naturally inclined to the gentle and the affectionate, to the love of rural images and the tranquillity of a country life, though drawn by circumstance into a ruder sphere, and compelled[Pg 106] by passing events so frequently to cast aside the pages of the poet and the tones of the lyre, for the sword of battle and those military exertions which his country shortly claimed of him.

Although the nobility and nation at large had hailed Charles's arrival with delight, it was not long before they began to regard his proceedings with extreme mistrust and jealousy. For this there were many causes; but that which excited the greatest discontent was his almost exclusive partiality for his Flemish favourites, and the ascendancy of a Flemish minister. The great Ximenes, whose commanding genius had secured from a murmuring nobility the peaceful recognition of his title, was gone; weighed down by years, and by mortification at being refused an interview by the king, in which his prophetic spirit hoped to expose the calamities impending over the country from the insolence and rapacity of foreign minions, he expired. His death freed Chievres from those fears with which he could not but regard his superior talents, and for awhile he ran his round of misgovernment without restraint. He engrossed, or exposed to sale all offices and appointments, exported into Flanders all the treasures he could amass in the collection of the taxes, imposed new ones, and sedulously guarded the king's ear from the[Pg 107] language of complaint. But this system of arbitrary peculation could not long escape the indignant remonstrances of a high-spirited and free people. Already Toledo, Segovia, Seville, and several other cities of the first rank, had entered into a confederacy for the defence of their rights and privileges, had laid before the king complaints of the mal-administration under which they suffered; and the first rumour of his intended departure for Germany to receive the imperial crown of Maximilian, was a signal for every hitherto suppressed discontent to burst forth in open violence. The nobles of Valencia refused to admit the Cardinal, afterwards Pope Adrian, as the royal representative, and firmly declared, that by the fundamental laws of the country, they could grant no subsidy to an absent sovereign: exasperated by their obstinacy, Charles countenanced the people who had risen against their privileges; he rashly authorized them to continue in arms, and sanctioned the association into which they entered under the fatal name of the Germanada or Brotherhood.

The civil dissensions which followed in the king's absence, the alliance of the commons in the principal cities, under the title of the Junta, the actions and death of their heroic leader John de Padilla, and the final extinction of the Ger[Pg 108]manada, are historical events generally known. Less generally known, however, is the honourable and distinguished part which Don Pedro, the elder brother of Garcilasso, took in these commotions, and we may with little impropriety devote a few pages to its consideration. Our English historians, seizing upon the leading features of the struggle, have celebrated alone the proceedings of Padilla, whose deeds in arms and tragical end seemed to mark him out as the principal personage of the drama. They have not communicated the fact, that Don Pedro Lasso was thought by the Junta to be more worthy of the distinction of Captain-General, was indeed elected such, and that it was only by low intrigues with the meanest of the people that Padilla had the election reversed in his favour.[Y] Young, generous, brave, of an open and sweet disposition, and intolerant of every species of injustice and oppression, Don Pedro Lasso pursued the views he meditated for the freedom and welfare of his country, with a simple sincerity and straight-forwardness of action, which showed clearly that he was swayed by no personal motives of aggrandizement or popularity; he dared the frowns of his sovereign, without stooping to pay court to[Pg 109] the passions of the people. Equally brave and zealous, but with views less purely patriotic, and an ambition more daring, John de Padilla threw himself into their ranks, and sealed his devotion to the cause he embraced, by a death which he met with the utmost fortitude and boldness. But if the springs of his conduct are closely examined, they will furnish us with but too certain grounds for belief, that his own aggrandizement in the minds of men occupied quite as much of his thoughts as the good of his country; and if any mode seemed likely to facilitate his ends, he did not stand upon niceties in the use of them. Don Pedro, when he saw the unconstitutional excesses into which the Germanada were hurrying, laboured to lead them back by ways that would have secured from the monarch a recognition of the rights and claims for which they fought: with a blinder or less disinterested policy, Padilla led them on to fresh enterprises, which extinguished the high hopes in which the people indulged. Had the series of events led Don Pedro to the scaffold, he would have met his doom with calm and unpretending dignity, sufficiently rewarded by the testimony of a good conscience; Padilla bent his thoughts to the last to stand high in the applause of men, and the address to the citizens of Toledo, which he caused to be circulated at his[Pg 110] death, noble and fine-spirited as it was, betrayed not merely a satisfaction with being, but a thirst to be considered the martyr in their cause he was.

So soon as it was known that the king intended to leave Spain, and that the calling of the Cortes together would only increase their taxes, the principal cities sent either petitions or protests against what they deemed so mischievous a measure. The citizens of Toledo, who considered themselves, on account of the great privileges they enjoyed, as guardians of the liberties of the Castilian commons, and were especially discontented, took the lead; they wrote to the other cities of Castile, exhorting them to send messengers to the king for the redress of their grievances: all, except Seville, returned for answer, that the representatives whom they sent to the approaching Cortes should act conformably to their desire. The persons who interested themselves most in this affair were Don Pedro, Padilla, and Fernando de Avalos, a gentleman of high extraction, and allied to the first nobles of Spain, all commissioners of the juntas in the city. They perpetually urged the expediency of a general assembly being held of those states that sent votes to the Cortes, to petition for a reformation of the abuses of government; it was at length debated in junta, but met with much opposition from the[Pg 111] king's party; the dispute waxed hot, insomuch that Padilla and Antonio Alvarez de Toledo drew their daggers at each other. After some disturbances in the city, it was at last voted that they should send two of their regidores as Procuradores, and two Hurados to the king to demand redress: Don Pedro and Alonzo Suarez were appointed Procuradores, and departed with their equipages for Valladolid. They came into the palace as the king, with his dukes, bishops, and ministers of state, were rising from dinner, and requested audience; he, being already acquainted, through Alvarez de Toledo, with the nature of their embassy, pleaded haste, and was retiring; but Don Pedro pressed so urgently the importance of the business they were charged with, that he was obliged to appoint them to meet him at Benavente, on his way to St. Jago, where he had appointed the Cortes to be held, and meanwhile referred their petition to his Council of Justice. It will readily be imagined that no very favourable reception was given by the Council to a petition complaining, not merely of the monarch's leaving the kingdom, but of his ministers' lavishing all offices on strangers, and their rapacity in engrossing the treasures of Spain to enrich a foreign nation. The Council gave their judgment to the king, that the framers and supporters of a[Pg 112] petition so dangerous deserved punishment rather than satisfaction; upon which he sent for the Procuradores to his chamber, and with a severe frown told them he was not pleased with their proceedings, and that if he did not consider from what parents they were descended, he would punish them as they deserved; then, referring them to the President of his Council, without listening to their excuses, he retired. The President desired them to return and prevail with their city to send commissioners to the approaching Cortes, who might present a memorial of what they desired, which should be disposed of as might best suit the general good: they refused compliance, and followed the king to St. Jago.

The Cortes was convoked: Charles opened it in person, and stating the circumstances that rendered it necessary for him to leave the kingdom, requested the usual subsidy, that he might appear in Germany with the splendour suitable to his dignity. The Commissioners of Salamanca refused to take the oath, unless he would first grant them what they desired: for this act of court-disrespect they were forbidden to come any more into the assembly. Then rose Don Pedro: he said he had brought a memorial from the city of Toledo, of what he was to do and grant in Cortes, which his majesty might see; that he[Pg 113] could not go beyond his commission, yet would perform it as should be most agreeable to his sovereign; "but, my Lord and Señors," said he with a generous enthusiasm, "I will sooner choose to be cut in pieces, I will sooner submit to lose my head, than give my consent to a measure so mischievous as this which is contemplated, and so prejudicial to my city and my country." This bold speech, coming upon an assembly already sufficiently indignant at the innovation of transferring the Cortes to so remote a province, and at the demand for a new subsidy before the time for paying the former one was expired, operated most powerfully: the commissioners of Seville, Cordoba, Salamanca, Toro, Zamora, and Avila, supported Don Pedro's remonstrance, refused their assent, and the king, perceiving the present temper of the assembly, adjourned it to a more convenient season.

The Council meanwhile were not inactive; they thought it would be well, on their part, to send some of the chief officers in opposition back to their cities, that their places might be supplied by others that would be more pliant to the wishes of the king. This was accordingly done, and other regidores were commanded under heavy penalties to attend the court, that Toledo might revoke the powers given to Don Pedro and his[Pg 114] colleague: John de Padilla was one of the persons cited. But, with one exception, these regidores excused themselves; and the delegates from Toledo and Salamanca made a request to the others, that as their Commissioners were not yet come to the Cortes, or not admitted, nothing should be granted,—protesting that if any vote of money were passed, it should not be to the prejudice of their cities. This protest was sent in to the new Assembly; but, though many voted in its favour, they would neither receive it, nor suffer the delegates from Toledo to enter. Whereupon they made their protest at the door, declaring, that as they could not form a Cortes without their commissioners, the acts they might pass should be null and void, both as respected their cities and the kingdom at large; requiring them moreover as citizens, not to assemble as a Cortes till they could do so constitutionally. Charles, hearing that Don Pedro and his companions slighted his commands, issued on Palm Sunday immediate orders for their banishment. Don Pedro was ordered within forty days to go and reside in the government of the fort of Gibraltar, which was his own inheritance; and not to depart from thence without the king's permission, under penalty of losing, not only that command, but all his estates whatsoever: but they, ill brooking[Pg 115] such rigorous and arbitrary measures, went within two hours of night to the palace, and strongly remonstrated with the minister; the result was an agreement for them to retire only a few miles from St. Jago, leaving the Hurado Ortiz behind, to remind Chievres to solicit the revocation of their sentence of banishment; but no sooner had they followed this crafty advice, and left the town, than the treacherous Fleming opposed it in Council, and no relaxation could be obtained.

Toledo heard of the banishment of their messengers and failure of their embassy, and were exasperated beyond measure. Of this spirit of discontent, John de Padilla took all possible advantage. "Seeing," says the Spanish historian,[Z] "things go forward as they wished, he and Avalos, the other summoned regidor, made a show of complying with the king's command. Hereupon the armed populace, to the number of six thousand men, withstood their apparent intention, and a great tumult was raised, Padilla all the while desiring them to let him fulfil the king's command, which renewed the people's resolve to detain them; and the crowd led them away as honourable prisoners, set a guard over them, still protesting against, though inly rejoiced at[Pg 116] the violence, and obliged the governor, at the sword's point, to forbid them on their oath from leaving the city." Not satisfied with this, they seized the bridges and fortified gates, and attacked the alcazar, or castle, which they soon obliged the governor to surrender. Emboldened by this success, they deprived of all authority every one whom they suspected of being in any wise attached to the court, established a popular form of internal government, and levied troops in their defence. Thus, by the evil counsels of an arrogant ministry, was kindled the first spark of that rebellious flame which afterwards burned in men's bosoms with so much fury, and involved the whole kingdom in civil discord; another instance to the many others which history furnishes,—if warning were of any avail,—of the terrible consequences arising from an administration's slighting the voice of an aggrieved and proud-spirited people.

Meanwhile Don Pedro and his companions were come again to St. Jago; and though some gentlemen, their friends, had counselled them to be gone, lest the king, already sufficiently incensed against the Toledans, should imagine them to have abetted the commotion in their city, and punish them accordingly, they yet continued there, without much fearing what might befal them. But Garcilasso, who in this crisis could[Pg 117] not avoid feeling a brother's anxiety and alarm, earnestly desired the king's solicitor to go with all expedition to St. Jago, and persuade him to depart, as now only five days remained of the forty limited for his retirement. The solicitor took post, communicated the entreaties of Garcilasso, and with added arguments at length prevailed. Passing through Zamora, Don Pedro arrived by the expiration of the fifth day at Cueva, a village of his, on his way to Gibraltar. The Toledans, hearing of his arrival there, sent messengers to request him to return to the city; but this he refused, and prepared to prosecute his journey. Upon this, they ordered a party of horse to intercept and bring him thither, which he was forced to attend, and got as privately as he could to his own home: he could not, however, keep himself long retired; the people in immense numbers flocked round his house, obliged him to come forth, set him on horseback, then, forming a triumphal procession, escorted him to the church, and with loud acclamations of joy extolling to the skies his patriotism, his courage, the resolution he had shown in defence of their liberties, saluted him with the title of the Deliverer of his Country.[AA]

If the history of these events were followed up,[Pg 118] Don Pedro would be found acting uniformly the same part of a pure and fearless patriot. He it was who when the nobles, jealous of the rising freedom of the commons, opposed in arms its progress, was principally instrumental in prevailing on Queen Joanna to come from her retirement, and to use in this state of civil disorder the constitutional authority with which she had been invested on the accession of Charles. Upon him was conferred, after the rash indiscretion of Don Pedro Giron, the office of Captain-General, which Padilla by his artifices caused to be revoked in his own favour: it was no personal offence however that could cool his ardour in the cause of freedom and his country; he led the vanguard of cuirassiers in the battle with the royalists which terminated in the defeat near Tordesillas. It was not till he saw the Junta bent upon pushing their demands and measures to an excess which threatened the extinction of the rights and privileges of the nobility, that he ceased taking an active part in their proceedings; but even then he exerted his good offices in the negotiations carried on between them, and would have persuaded the people to accept the terms offered by the nobility, who, on condition of the Junta's conceding a few articles subversive of the royal authority and their own unalienable[Pg 119] privileges, engaged to procure the Emperor's consent to their other demands, and to join with them in order to extort it, if the influence of evil counsellors should lead to a refusal. Unfortunately for the liberties of Spain, the Junta, elevated by success or blinded by resentment, refused assent to any such reasonable conditions; the army of Padilla was shortly after defeated by the Count de Haro, the royalist general; Padilla himself, disappointed of the death he sought on the lost field, was taken and executed; and this bold attempt of the commons did but contribute, as is the case with all unsuccessful insurrections, to extend the power it was intended to abridge.

The return of the Emperor to Spain filled his subjects who had been in arms against him with deep apprehensions; and if they escaped punishment, it was rather from Charles's own generous nature than from the forbearance of his minister, who endeavoured, but in vain, to stir his mind up to revenge. A general pardon was published, extending to all crimes committed from the first of the insurrections, from which a few only were excepted, and these few rather for the sake of intimidating others, than from the wish to seize them. "Go," said the monarch to an officious courtier who offered to inform him where one of[Pg 120] the most considerable lay concealed, "I have now no reason to be afraid of that man, but he has some cause to keep at a distance from me, and you would be better employed in telling him that I am here, than in acquainting me with the place of his retreat." By this prudent line of conduct, by adopting the manners and language of Spain, and by breaking from the pupillage in which Chievres had studied to keep him, he effectually conciliated his subjects. The invasion of Navarre by the French determined him to engage in open war with the French king; and without consulting his minister, whose aversion to a war with Francis might have thwarted his design, he had entered into an alliance with the pope to expel the French out of the Milanese, and to secure Francis Sforza in possession of that duchy. No sooner was the treaty signed and imparted to him, than Chievres was well assured he had lost his ascendancy; his chagrin on this account is said to have shortened his days, and his death left the Emperor to exercise without control the unbiassed wishes of his own great mind.

The declaration of war against France called Garcilasso from his studies, and though little more than eighteen, he commenced his career of arms in this campaign. Lautrec, to whom the French forces in Milan were committed, was forced, not[Pg 121]withstanding his vigilance and address, to retire toward the Venetian territories before Colonna and Pescara, the papal and imperial generals; by the bravery of the Spanish fusiliers, the city of Milan was surprised; Parma and Placentia were reduced by the former, and in a short time the whole Milanese, except the citadel of Cremona, submitted to Sforza's authority. To efface the disasters of this campaign, Francis in 1524 assembled a numerous army, and determined, notwithstanding the approach of winter and the dissuasions of his generals, to march into Italy, and attempt the recovery of the lost territory. Crossing Mount Cenis, he advanced with an activity and strength that disconcerted the Imperialists. They retired precipitately from the city of Milan; but instead of seizing upon that favourable moment to attack and disperse them, the evil genius of Francis led him to turn aside to besiege Pavia. The battle of Pavia set the final seal upon his misfortunes. After romantic deeds of personal bravery, and not till he had seen the flower of his nobility perish around him and the fortune of the field hopeless, he delivered up his sword, and submitted himself a captive. It does not appear whether in this memorable engagement Garcilasso fought under the flag of Pescara or the[Pg 122] Marques del Vasto: it is certain, however, that he distinguished himself by his courage and heroism, as the emperor, in acknowledgment of the high regard in which he held his conduct, conferred on him shortly after the Cross of the order of St. James.

Previously to the emperor's descent upon Milan, the state of Venice had been in league with Francis, and it was the last of his allies who abandoned him. So long as Charles had to struggle with his insurgent subjects, and with formidable enemies elsewhere, he had avoided increasing their number, and had consented not to consider the Venetians as at war with him, notwithstanding the succour which they gave to France; but now that he felt his power unfettered, he assumed a loftier tone, and declared that he would no longer suffer a State almost surrounded by his own territories, to enjoy the advantages of peace whilst engaged in constant hostilities against him.[AB] The regret which they felt to renounce the friendship with France, for which they had made the greatest sacrifices, caused the Venetians to hesitate a long time which of the two powers they should join with. The ascendancy which Charles was acquiring in[Pg 123] Italy at length cut short their deliberation; a treaty of alliance was entered into with the emperor, and Andreas Navagero and Lorenzo Priuli, afterwards doge, were appointed ambassadors to the Spanish court. At Pisa, however, they received orders to await the issue of the siege of Pavia; and it was not till they had received intelligence of the defeat of Francis, that they proceeded on their embassy. They were met on their entrance into the city of Toledo,[AC] where the court at that time was, by the Admiral of the Indies, who was a young son of Columbus,[AD] by the Bishop of Avenea, and the whole suite of foreign ambassadors. Navagero was a scholar and a poet. Born of one of the noblest families of Venice, and naturally inclined to letters, he had devoted his youth to study with so much severity, as to occasion a melancholy which he was obliged to divert by frequent travel and relinquishment of the pursuits he loved. He was no less distinguished for Greek learning than for the ease and elegance of his Latin compositions, and for his taste in Italian poetry, a taste so fastidious that he was rarely satisfied with any thing he wrote, so that he is said to have de[Pg 124]stroyed, a few hours before his death, not only the greater part of a History of Venice, which he had been charged to write when appointed librarian of the public library of Saint Mark, but many of his Italian poems, which fell short of his high standard of excellence. Such as are extant are sufficient to justify the great applause which he received from his cotemporaries.[4] Navagero enjoys the additional distinction of having originated the improvement that was derived to Spanish poesy from the naturalization of Italian metres and Italian taste, as hitherto both Garcilasso and Boscán had restricted their genius to compositions in the redondilla measure. The circumstance that first led to their relinquishment of the antique models, is narrated by Boscán himself, in the Dedication of the second volume of his poems to the Duchess of Soma.[AE]

"Conversing one day," says he, "on literary subjects, with Navagero the Venetian ambassador (whom I wish to name to your ladyship as a man of great celebrity in these days), and particularly upon the different genius of many languages, he inquired of me why in Castilian we had never attempted sonnets and other kinds[Pg 125] of composition used by the best writers in Italy; he not only said this, he urged me to set the example. A few days after I departed home, and musing on a variety of things during the long and solitary journey, frequently reflected on Navagero's advice, and thus at length began the attempt. I found at first some difficulty, as this kind of versification is extremely complex, and has many peculiarities different from ours; but afterwards, from the partiality we naturally entertain towards our own productions, I thought I had succeeded well, and gradually grew warm and eager in the pursuit. This however would not have been sufficient to stimulate me to proceed, had not Garcilasso encouraged me, whose judgment, not only in my opinion, but in that of the whole world, is esteemed a certain rule. Praising uniformly my essays, and giving me the highest possible mark of approbation in following himself my example, he induced me to devote myself exclusively to the undertaking."

The noiseless tenour of a country life and calm domestic pleasure which Boscán now enjoyed, so different from the agitations of the camp to which his friend was subjected, fortunately concurred to favour the poet's scheme. He had for the last four years travelled much, or devoted[Pg 126] his principal attention to the education of Fernando de Toledo, afterwards the celebrated Duke of Alva; but having married the lady Anna Giron de Rebolledo, an amiable woman of noble family, he seems now to have given himself up without distraction to his favourite pursuit, and to have presented himself as a reformer of the lyric poetry of his nation, in pursuance of Navagero's advice. He began to study with greater closeness the Tuscan poets, the sonnets of Petrarch, the terze rime of Dante, and the octaves of Bembo, Politian, and Ariosto. The Castilian songs, so pleasing to his nation, compared with those more perfect models, seemed to him comparatively barbarous; he resolved to effect the overthrow of the existing laws of Castilian versification, and to introduce new ones, on a system directly the reverse. The old Castilian measure in short verses, which constituted the actual national poetry, proceeded always from long to short; it consisted of four trochees in succession; Boscán substituted iambics as in Italian, and made the movement of the verse proceed from short to long. The old poets scarcely ever made use but of redondillas of six and eight syllables, and of verses de arte mayor of twelve. Boscán took a medium between both, in adopting the heroic[Pg 127] Italian endecasyllabic verse of five iambics with a conclusive breve; a measure which wonderfully enlarged the powers and sphere of Spanish poetry, as the redondillas were by no means fitted for any of the higher kinds of composition. The outcry, however, that was raised at first against this innovation by the host of poets who could conceive nothing excellent but what accorded with their own habits, caused him to reflect seriously on his enterprise. Some of his opponents alleged that the old measures were sufficiently melodious; some, that the new verses had nothing to distinguish them from prose; and others even that the poesies which Boscán took for his model, had something in them effeminate, and were fit only for Italians and for women. It was then, when encouragement was most needed, that Garcilasso, returned from Italy, gave his voice in favour of the poet, and confirmed him in the undertaking by his own effective example. His Sonnets were the first of his compositions which Garcilasso wrote on the new system. The form of the sonnet had been long known in Spain, but the genius of the language had seemed repugnant to its successful structure. Boscán however fully succeeded in naturalizing it, though he failed to communicate to it the sweet reverie of the Tuscan melodist. Garci[Pg 128]lasso approached much nearer the softness and sweetness of his model, and has left a few pre-eminently beautiful, which may be placed, without fear from the comparison, by the side of even Petrarch's: several of them, it is true, exhibit a refinement of thought that often verges upon hyperbole and affectation; but in extenuation of this fault, let it not be forgotten that the language of gallantry of those times was made up wholly of artifices of thought, and that the practice of Petrarch had sanctioned their adoption in song. Garcilasso's admiration of Petrarch, which led him to imitate his tone of lamenting love, would be strengthened in that choice of subject by his passion for an Arragonese lady, a cousin-german to the Count of Miranda, and maid of honour to Leonora, Queen of France, to whom it is probable many of them were addressed, and who it would appear from them as well as from his odes, subjected the sincerity and steadiness of his attachment to an ordeal sufficiently severe. More kind however than the Laura of Petrarch, or unpreoccupied in her affections, Helen de Zuñiga at length acknowledged her sense of his merit, and yielded him her hand. Their marriage was celebrated in the palace of the Queen of France,[AF] in 1528, in our poet's[Pg 129] twenty-fifth year. It would seem from some coplas of his, which must have been written early in life, that he had been unsuccessful in his first choice, the verses in question exhibiting all that resentment and reproach softening into tenderness, which is the natural course of feeling under disappointment to a mind warm in the hopes and visions it indulges and proudly conscious of its own deserts, yet unchanging in the current of that one emotion into which all its thoughts have set. But whatever might have been his sufferings under this severe privation, it is natural to suppose that time had softened them into that mild melancholy which we trace in almost all his writings, and that they were recompensed by the happiness he now enjoyed in a home, where, in the words of one who has realized himself the picture—

At this time, the celebrated 'Libro del Cortegiano' of Castiglione first made its appearance. It was every where read in Italy with the greatest avidity. The moral and political instruction which her people met in every page of that charming performance, enriched as it was with the flower of Greek and Roman wit, of the sciences[Pg 130] and liberal arts, the easy and natural style of elegance in which its precepts were conveyed, the lively pictures it presented of characters whom all Italy knew, and above all, its pure and beautiful Tuscan, that 'poetry of speech' so dear to them, used too with such grace by a Lombard writer, delighted and surprised them. From Italy it passed immediately into Spain, where it was equally well received. The Spaniards read it with the greater interest, having before their eyes the fine qualities of Castiglione himself. This accomplished nobleman had been sent by Pope Clement in 1520, as ambassador to Spain, where he acquired, in a singular degree, the esteem and affection of the Emperor, and of the gentlemen of his court. Desirous that a work of so much merit should be naturalized in Castile, Garcilasso urged Boscán to translate it. It was done, and immediately printed, with a prefatory letter from Garcilasso to the lady Geronyma Palova de Almogavar, who seems to have originated the task; a composition no less interesting from its ingenuity and grace of thought, than from its being the only one that remains to us of our poet's letters.[5] It must have been highly gratifying to Castiglione to see his "Book of Gold," as the Italians in their admiration call it, circulated through Spain by[Pg 131] the medium of her two principal geniuses. But he did not live long to enjoy this literary reputation. Falling sick at Toledo, he died in February 1529, to the extreme grief of the Emperor, who commanded all the prelates and lords of his court to attend the body to the principal church there; and the funeral offices were celebrated by the Archbishop with a pomp never before permitted to any but princes of the blood.

The invasion of Hungary by Solyman, the Turkish Sultan, in 1532, summoned Garcilasso from the blandishments alike of Beauty and the Muse. At the instigation of John, the Waywode of Transylvania, that daring prince had laid siege to Vienna; but finding it bravely defended by Philip the Count Palatine, he was obliged to abandon it with disgrace. To repair the discredit of that retreat, he now prepared to enter Austria with more numerous forces. Charles, resolving to undertake the campaign in person, raised on his part the forces of the empire, and all Europe with eager attention expected the contest. But either monarch dreaded the power and talent of his antagonist, each conducted his operations with great caution, and Solyman, finding it impossible to gain ground upon an enemy so wary, marched back towards the end of autumn. Garcilasso was engaged in several[Pg 132] skirmishes with the Turks, and has drawn in his second eclogue some interesting pictures of the events of the campaign. Whilst at Vienna, a romantic adventure at court drew upon him the displeasure of the emperor. One of his cousins, a son of Don Pedro Lasso, fell in love with Donna Isabel, daughter of D. Luis de la Cueva, and maid of honour to the empress; and as his views were honourable, Garcilasso favoured by all means in his power this passion of his relative. The resentment which Charles displayed on a discovery of the amour can scarcely be accounted for, but by supposing the lady to have been a favourite of the monarch himself. As a punishment for their indiscretion or presumption, Charles banished the cousin, and confined Garcilasso in an isle of the Danube, where he composed the ode in which he proudly deplores his misfortune, and celebrates the charms of the country watered by the divine Danube (Danubio, rio divino). The marriage he had laboured to promote did not take effect, and the lady became afterwards Countess of Santistévan. How long Garcilasso remained in confinement is not now to be ascertained, but it is probable the monarch's severity soon softened towards him; the expedition he meditated against Tunis would remind him of the bravery he had[Pg 133] displayed in past engagements, and suggest the propriety of forgiveness and reconciliation. He was recalled, and desired to attend the Emperor to Tunis.

The daring courage of the corsair Barbarossa, the son of a potter at Lesbos, had recommended him to the friendship of the king of Algiers: having made himself master of twelve galleys, he was received as an ally, murdered, and seized the sceptre of the monarch to whose assistance he had sailed. Putting his dominions under the protection of the Grand Seignior, he was offered the command of a Turkish fleet, availed himself of the rival claims that distracted Tunis, made a descent upon the city, and obliged Muley Hascen the king to fly before him. Muley Hascen escaped to Spain, and presented himself a suppliant before the Imperial throne. Compassionating his misfortunes, and animated at once by a thirst for fame, and a desire to punish the pirate, whose depredations were the subject of continual complaint, Charles readily yielded to his entreaties; he declared his design to command in person the armament destined for the invasion of Tunis; and the united strength of his vast dominions was called out upon the enterprise. Nor was Barbarossa destitute of either vigour or prudence in preparing for his defence. He strengthened the citadel of Tunis, fortified[Pg 134] Goletta, and assembled 20,000 horse, and a considerable body of foot; but his chief confidence was placed in the strength of the Goletta. This was a castle on the narrow straits of a gulf formed by the sea, extending nearly to Tunis, of which it formed the key. This fort he garrisoned with 6,000 Turkish soldiers, under the command of Sinan, a renegado Jew, one of the bravest and most experienced of the corsairs. The Emperor, landing his forces, invested it the 19th of June, 1535. Frequent skirmishes took place with the Turks and Arabs, who sallied from the fortress with loud shouts to the sound of trumpets and of cymbals, and once or twice surprising the Imperial forces before break of day, committed great slaughter. In one of these fierce encounters, Garcilasso was wounded in the face and hand, as he himself declares in a sonnet to his friend Mario Galeota. Notwithstanding the resolution of Sinan, however, and the valour of Barbarossa, the breaches of the Goletta soon became considerable. The Spaniards battered the bastion on the shore; the Italians the new works which the Moors had raised towards the canal. The battery continued for six or seven hours without remission, in which time above four thousand bullets were fired, but to great effect, bringing down a great part of the fort with the cannon on it. The Emperor having sent to view the breach,[Pg 135] conferred with his officers, and addressing a few words to the soldiers of each nation, gave orders for the last assault. Led and encouraged by a Franciscan friar, carrying a crucifix, the Spaniards pushed fiercely forward, and in a short time all the four nations made their way through the breaches, driving the Moors before them, who at first gave way gently, but soon fled with precipitation, throwing away their arms. To men who were taught to consider it meritorious to destroy the Infidels, pity was a thing unknown: the slaughter was great, and those of the enemy that guarded the entrenchment towards the canal, unable to get over by reason of the throng, threw themselves into the water to escape. Upwards of 80 galleys were taken, and 400 pieces of cannon, many of them marked with fleurs de lys. The same day the emperor entered Goletta through the breach, and turning to Muley Hascen, who accompanied him—"Here," said he, "is the open gate by which you shall return to take possession of your throne."

Barbarossa, though sufficiently concerned for the fall of Goletta, lost not his accustomed courage. He mustered for the defence of Tunis all his forces, amounting to 150,000 men, Moors, Turks, Arabs, and Janizaries, of which 13,000 had muskets or cross-bows, and 30,000 were mounted on fleet horses. Confident in his[Pg 136] numbers, he resolved to hazard a battle, and marched out to meet the enemy, having in vain attempted to persuade his officers to massacre 10,000 Christian captives confined in the citadel, lest in the absence of the army they should overpower their guards. Knowing that the Imperialists were in great want of water, he took possession of a plain divided into orchards and olive-grounds, where there were numerous wells among certain ruins of old arches by which the Carthaginians used to convey water to the city. There he placed about 12,000 Turks and renegadoes, all musqueteers, who formed his chief confidence; 12,000 horse he marshalled along the canal, and disposed several other squadrons of horse among the olive-gardens, to shelter them from the scorching sun; his multitudes of foot he placed in the rear. Then, distributing amongst them abundance of water brought upon mules and camels, and inculcating on his men how easy the victory would be over so few Christians, and those spent with thirst, fatigue, and heat, he awaited the Emperor's approach. Arrived within sight of the Africans, Charles posted his Italian foot on the side of the canal, the pikes close to the water, and next to them the Germans. On the right towards the olive-gardens, together with the light-horse, were the veteran Spaniards that had served in Italy; between[Pg 137] these wings was the cannon, guarded by the choicest of the army; and the new-raised Spaniards brought up the rear with some horse, commanded by the Duke of Alva. The Emperor himself rode about with his naked sword, ranging and encouraging his men. With loud shouts of Lillah il Allah, the Moors and Arabs rushed to the attack. The latter, taking a compass by the olive-gardens, fell on the rear, where they were warmly received by the Duke of Alva, and the battle became general. The barbarians tossing their darts, and shooting their arrows from the trees, greatly galled the Imperialists, which the emperor perceiving, sent forward the Italians, several of the German veterans, and his Spanish cohorts, commanded by the Marquis de Mondejar, who had been set to guard the baggage between the artillery and the rear. For awhile it was fought with various success, as although the foot went on prosperously, the Spanish cavalry were wavering before the impetuous charge of the Numidian and Turkish horse. The Marquis de Mondejar was deeply wounded in the throat by a Moorish lance, and was with difficulty saved. It was then that Garcilasso rushed forward amongst the thickest of the enemy, and amply atoned for the absence of the general. With his invincible sword, he[Pg 138] clove in two the shields and turbans of the bravest Turks, and by his example quickened the drooping courage of those about him. But the Africans in fresh swarms poured around; and inclosed on all sides, and already wounded, he must have fallen a victim to his valour, if a noble Neapolitan, Federico Carafa by name, had not at the imminent peril of his own life generously resolved upon his rescue; by great efforts he at length succeeded in dispersing the multitude, and bore him back in safety, but half-spent with toil, thirst, and loss of blood.[AG] Meanwhile the Duke of Alva had put to flight the Arabs, and the Imperial musqueteers keeping up a constant fire did great execution, so that the foe shortly quitted their posts in the utmost confusion; and though Barbarossa did all he could to rally them, the rout became so general, that he himself was hurried with them in their flight back to the city, leaving the Christians in possession of his cannon, and of the wells of water, which prevented the pursuit; for the soldiers, almost mad with thirst and heat, ran to drink in such confusion, that the infidels might have redeemed the lost field if their panic had been less. The victory however was complete, and[Pg 139] gained, according to Sandoval, with the loss of only twenty men. Barbarossa, on gaining Tunis, found his affairs desperate; some of the inhabitants flying with their families and effects, others ready to set open the gates to the conqueror, and the Christian slaves in possession of the citadel. These unhappy men, on the defeat of the army, had been consigned to destruction. A Turk came with powder and a lighted match to blow them up, when one of the captives near the gate ran forward in desperation, snatched a target and scimeter from the nearest officer, and drove the Turk out; the rest having gained two of the keepers, by their assistance knocked off their fetters, burst open the prisons, overpowered the Turkish garrison, and turned the artillery of the fort against their former masters. Barbarossa, cursing at one time the false compassion of his officers, and at others the treachery of the Prophet, fled precipitately to Bona; upon which a Xeque came from the suburbs, and submitted to the emperor the keys of the city. Muley Hascen, restored to his throne, consented to do homage for the crown of Tunis; and Charles, setting at liberty the Christian slaves of all nations without ransom, re-embarked for Europe, and returning through Italy, was every where honoured[Pg 140] with triumphs, and complimented in panegyrics by her orators and poets.

Garcilasso, on his return from this expedition, spent some time in Sicily and Naples, in the society perhaps of the young Neapolitan who had so nobly saved his life; and in communion with the Italian literati, and in the composition of his eclogues, the autumn months doubtless rolled delightfully away. The romantic scenery of Sicily would suggest to his fancy a thousand charming images; and passionately fond as he ever was of the country, its quiet and repose would after the tumult of battle fall upon his spirit with peculiar sweetness. He in fact, notwithstanding some melancholy anticipations arising from the chequered incidents of his past life, which are met with in his poems of this period, seems to have luxuriated in the delicious idlesse of such a cessation, in so beautiful a country, at so enchanting a season, with a delight similar to that which Rousseau describes himself as tasting in his solitary summer rambles in Switzerland; whilst the Genius of Poesy, amid the steeps and shades which he haunted, unlocked in his mind her divinest reveries, and casting round his footsteps 'her bells and flowerets of a thousand hues,' submitted to his lips the pastoral[Pg 141] flute of Theocritus and Virgil, from which in the mellow noon, amidst the rich red chesnut woods, he struck out sounds that had not for many ages been listened to by the ear of Dryad, or of Faun. In Sicily, from the foot of Mount Etna, he sent to Boscán and the young Duke of Alva, his pensive elegies; at Naples, penetrated with all the spirit of Maro and Sannazaro, he composed the first and finest of his eclogues, which has served as a model to a crowd of imitators, who have been all unable to approach it. The celebrity he had acquired by his actions and his compositions, caused his society to be courted by all of illustrious birth or intellectual endowments, whilst his engaging manners and amability of disposition increased the admiration excited by his talents, and caused him to be beloved wherever he went. Cardinal Bembo, whose Italian writings he always admired, and sometimes imitated, and whose Spanish poems are highly praised by Muratori for their purity and elegance, thus writes of him in Tuscan to one of his friends, the monk Onorato Fascitelo, in a letter dated from Padua, Aug. 10, 1535:—"I have seen the letter of the Rev. Father Girolamo Seripando; concerning the Odes of Sig. Garcilasso which he sent me, I can very easily and willingly satisfy him, assuring him that that gentleman is indeed a[Pg 142] graceful poet, that the Odes are all in the highest degree pleasing to me, and merit peculiar admiration and praise. In fine spirit, he has far excelled all the writers of his nation, and if he be not wanting to himself in diligent study, he will no less excel those of other nations who are considered masters of poetry. I am not surprised that, as the Rev. Father writes me word, the Marquis del Vasto has wished to have him with him, and that he holds him in great affection. I beg you to take care that the Signior may know how highly I esteem him, and how desirous I am to continue to be loved as I perceive myself to be by a gentleman so illustrious."[AH]

Amidst the Cardinal's Latin letters, I find one of great elegance to Garcilasso himself, filled with the same kind expressions of esteem and admiration.[AI]

"Naples.

CARDINAL BEMBO TO GARCILASSO THE CASTILIAN OFFERS HEALTH AND PEACE.

From the verses which you have written for my perusal, I am happy to perceive, first, how much you love me, since you are not one who would else flatter [Pg 143]with encomiums, or call one dear to you whom you had never seen; and, secondly, how much you excel in lyric compositions, in splendour of genius, and sweetness of expression. The first gives me the greatest pleasure, for what is comparable to the love and esteem of a fine poet? All other things, how dear and honourable soever they are considered by mankind, perish in a very short time, together with their possessors. Poets only live, are long-lived, and immortal, and impart the same life and immortality on whom they will. As concerns the latter division of your qualities, you have not only surpassed in the poetical art all your fellow Spaniards who have devoted themselves to Parnassus and the Muses, but you supply incentives even to the Italians, and again and again excite them to endeavour to be overcome in this contest and in these studies by no one but yourself. Which judgment of mine, some other of your writings sent to me at Naples have confirmed. For it is impossible to meet in this age with compositions more classically pure, more dignified in sentiment, or more elegant in style. In that you love me, therefore, I most justly and sincerely rejoice; that you are a great and good man, I congratulate, in the first place yourself, but most of all your country, in that she is thus about to receive so great an increase of honour and of glory. There is, however, another circumstance which greatly increases the pleasure I have received; for lately, when the monk Onorato, whom I perceive you know by reputation, entered into conversation with me, and [Pg 144]amongst other topics, asked me what I thought of your poems, the opinion I gave happened to coincide exactly with his own, (and he is a man of very acute perception, and extremely well versed in poetical pursuits.) He told me what his friends had written to him of your very many and great virtues, of the urbanity of your manners, the integrity of your life, and accomplishments of your mind; adding, that it was a fact confirmed by the assurances of all Neapolitans that knew you, that no one had come from Spain to their city in these times wherein the greatest resort has been made by your nation to Italy, whom they loved more affectionately than yourself, or one on whom they would confer superior benefits. Thus I consider it an advantage to have received your good wishes, by no trouble of my own, and that you should have so far loved me as even to adorn me by the illustrious herald of your muse. Wherefore, if I do not in the highest degree love and esteem you in return, I shall think I act by no means as a gentleman. But from the first I have resolved to give you a proof of my respect and love, and earnestly recommend to your notice the said Onorato, who has a great affection for you, and who is now setting out to pay you a visit; that hence you may best know what to promise yourself respecting me, when you see that I dare ask of you what I have decided to be most desirable for myself. I believe you know that the patrimony of his brothers, worthy and harmless men, was plundered in the Italian wars, from no provocation on their part; I will therefore say [Pg 145]nothing on this head. But now that they have come to a resolution to solicit of the emperor, the best of kings and princes, what they have unjustly lost, they will have hopes, if they obtain your assistance, of recovering easily what they honourably desire; so great is your friendship, influence, and authority with him, and with all who are dearest to him. I therefore earnestly solicit you to take up the matter, that by your kind mediation his brothers and family may be restored to their former state of fortune: you will thus firmly secure to yourself the most honourable of men, but me you will so highly oblige, that I shall consider the gift of their patrimony made as to myself; for I love Onorato as a brother, I esteem him more than the generality of my friends; and so desirous am I that through your obliging offices this affair may have the issue which he hopes, that his own brother could not more ardently wish or labour for it than I really do. But I trust that as you love me of your own good pleasure, you will quickly relieve me of this concern by the address in which you excel, and by that amiable ingenuity which endears you so to all. Which that you may do, relying on the excellence of your disposition, not as a new friend modestly and submissively, but as old and peculiar friends are wont, I again and again entreat you. Farewell."[6]

The quiet enjoyment, however, of alternate study and society which Garcilasso thus pos[Pg 146]sessed, was of no long continuance. It was his fate to be called perpetually from his favourite pursuits to scenes of strife from which his mind revolted, and his writings show how keenly he felt the change. A fresh war summoned him to the field. Francis had taken advantage of the emperor's absence to revive his claims in Italy, and the death of Sforza strengthened the ground of his pretensions. Charles acted the part of a skilful diplomatist; he appeared to admit the equity of the claim, and entered into negotiations respecting the disputed territory, till he should be better able to cope with his antagonist. But no sooner had he recruited his armies and finances, than he threw off the mask of moderation, and driving the forces of his rival from Piedmont and Savoy, invaded, though contrary to the advice of his ministers and generals, the southern provinces of France. Garcilasso, on his way from Naples to join the army, wrote from Vaucluse his Epistle to Boscán, concluding it with a gaiety in which he seldom indulges, and which, coupled in our mind with the reflection that his end was near, has something in it singularly affecting. To the period also of this campaign, I should ascribe the composition of his third eclogue, avowedly written in the tent.

[Pg 147]

In this ill-starred expedition, Garcilasso was entrusted with the command of thirty companies of Spanish troops. The Marechal de Montmorency, to whom the French army was committed, resolved to act wholly on the defensive, to weary out the enemy by delay, and by laying waste the country around to deprive him of subsistence. This plan, to which he inflexibly adhered, had all the effect he desired. After unsuccessfully investing Marseilles and Arles, with his troops wasted by famine or disease, the emperor was under the necessity of ordering a retreat. In this retreat, effected with much disorder and with more precipitation, his army suffered a thousand calamities. Crowds of peasants, eager to be revenged on a foe, through whom their cultured fields had been turned into a frightful desert, lying ambushed in the lanes and mountainous defiles which overhung their way, by frequent attacks, now in front, now in the rear, kept them in perpetual alarm; nor was there a day passed without their being obliged, every two or three hundred paces, to stand and defend themselves. The farther they advanced, the more their difficulties increased. At Muy, near Frejus, the[Pg 148] army was put to a stand. A body of fifty rustics, armed with muskets, had thrown themselves into a tower, and inconsiderable as they were in number prevented its progress. The emperor ordered Garcilasso to advance with his battalion, and attack the place. Gratified with this mark of his sovereign's confidence, and eager for distinction, he planted his scaling-ladders, and prepared for the ascent. The simple peasants, seeing the decorated garment which he wore over his armour, and the high honour that was every where paid him by the soldiers whose motions he directed, supposed it to be the emperor himself, and marked him out for destruction.[AJ] With showers of missiles and the fire of musquetry, they saluted the assailants, whom however they could neither check nor dismay. Garcilasso himself, cheering on his men, was the first that mounted the ladder, and was perhaps the only individual who in this disastrous campaign acquired any splendid addition to what would be considered his military glory. But his life was destined to be the price of this distinction. A block of stone, rolled over the battlements by the combined strength of numbers, fell upon his shielded helmet, and beat him to the ground. He was borne to Nice, where after lingering four[Pg 149] and twenty days he expired, November 1536; showing, says D. T. Tamaio de Vargas, no less the spirit of a Christian in his last moments, than that of a soldier in the perils he had braved. Every one was penetrated with sorrow at the loss of one so deservedly dear; but the Emperor was so deeply afflicted, that having taken the tower, he caused twenty-eight of the peasants, the only survivors of the escalade, to be instantly hung; giving thus a strong, though at the same time a barbarous proof of the esteem and affection he entertained for Garcilasso. Thus perished, at the early age of thirty-three, Garcilasso de la Vega, a youth of whom no record remains but what is honourable to his character and talents, and who conferred more real glory on his country by his pen, than all the conquests of the mighty Charles, achieved by his ambitious sword. With every mark and ceremonial of public respect, his body was conveyed to the church of St. Domingo, at Nice; whence it was afterwards in 1538 removed to Spain, and finally deposited in a chapel of the church of San Pedro Martyr de Toledo, the ancient sepulchre of his ancestors, the Lords of Batres.

Garcilasso left three sons and a daughter. His eldest son, named also Garcilasso, as he grew up was highly distinguished by the emperor, who[Pg 150] seemed to find a melancholy pleasure in having him near his person. He too fell in the field at the yet earlier age of twenty-four, fighting valiantly at the battle of Ulpian: he lies beside his father. Francisco de Figueroa has celebrated his fall in a sonnet, too beautiful to be here omitted.

His second son, Francisco de Guzman, entered a convent of Dominicans, and became a great theologian. Lorenzo de Guzman, his youngest son, was distinguished by much of his father's genius, and highly esteemed as such by Don Ant. Augustin, most illustrious, says Vargas, in dignity and doctrine, who, being banished to Oran for a lampoon, died upon the passage. Donna Sancha de Guzman, the poet's daughter,[Pg 151] married D. Antonio Portocarrero de Vega, a son of the Count of Palma, who had married Garcilasso's sister. The grandson of Don Pedro Lasso was created Count of Los Arcos, and Charles the Second created his descendant, D. Joachim Lasso de la Vega, the third Count of Los Arcos, a Grandee of Spain, October, 1697.[AK]

Garcilasso in person was above the middle size; with perfect symmetry of figure, he had such dignity of deportment, that strangers who knew him not were sensible at once that they were in the presence of some superior personage. His features corresponded with his deportment; his countenance, not without a shade of seriousness, was expressive of much mildness and benevolence; he had most lively eyes, his forehead was expansive, and his whole appearance presented the picture of manly beauty. Graceful and genteel in his address, courteous and gallant in his behaviour, he is said to have been a first favourite with the ladies; by the most winning manners he engaged his own sex, and accomplished as he was in all the duties of knighthood, he may with much propriety be called the Sidney or the Surrey of Spain. Notwithstanding the great favour he enjoyed at court, he passed[Pg 152] through life without incurring the jealousy of the courtiers; a rare piece of good fortune, which he owed to some happy art or sincerity of conduct that disarmed envy. With a disposition peculiarly affectionate, he was more inclined to praise than to censure; in the whole course of his writings, we meet with but one passage that bears the least approach to satire or severity, and this he immediately checks, as though it were something foreign to his nature. He has preserved in his verses the names of his particular friends. Boscán was evidently the one whom he loved with most devotedness; but his attachment seems also to have been great to the Countess of Ureña, Donna Maria de la Cueva, to the Marchioness of Padula, Lady Maria de Cardona, to the Marquis del Vasto, the Duke of Alva, Don Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca, Julio Cæsar Caracciola, a Neapolitan poet, and other distinguished characters, whom he celebrates in his poems. Boscán charged himself with performing the last honour to his memory, and published in 1544 their joint productions, under the title of 'Obras de Boscán y Garcilasso.'[AL]

Had Garcilasso lived longer, his poems would[Pg 153] probably have been made yet more deserving of cotemporary praise and the perusal of posterity, for the relics he has left are to be considered rather as the early flowers than as the fruits of his genius; yet from these few blossoms we may imagine how rich would have been the autumn of his muse. His style is unaffected, his thoughts ingenious; the language he uses, though employed upon lowly subjects, never sinks into poverty or meanness; he is full of the lights, the colours, and ornaments which the place and subject require; and not satisfied often with the mere production of his sentiments, he amplifies, he compounds, he illustrates them with admirable elegance, yet not without suffering his wealth of ideas frequently to run into diffuseness. He had at his command a rich variety of significant words, which he sometimes selects and combines with so much skill, that the beauty of the words gives splendour to their disposition, and the lucidness of disposition lustre to the words; yet, in some cases, it must be acknowledged, there is too much involution in the structure of his sentences. His feelings and sentiments are either new, or if common, set forth in a certain manner of his own, which makes them seem so. The passages he translates from other authors seem introduced from no ostentation of classical[Pg 154] pride, but simply to effect the intention he has in view, and are inlaid with so much art that it becomes a question whether they give or receive the ornament. The flowers with which he sprinkles his poetry seem to spring up spontaneously, the lights he introduces to fall like unconscious sunshine to adorn the spot where he has placed them. His versification, simple, clear, and flowing, has a purity, music, and dignity of numbers, that ever and anon seems to bring upon the ear the mellifluous majesty of Virgil: he tempers the gravity of his style with such a continuous sweetness as to form in their union a harmony equally proportioned. The pause of his verses is always full of beauty, the closing melody of the sentence gratifying the reader as he rests. With all his delicacy of expression and artful sweetness, he has remarkable pliancy and ease; his only constraint is that which he himself imposes, when, abandoning his natural tone of thought, he becomes a sophist on his feelings, and consents to surprise by ingenuity when he should affect by tenderness. Tender, however, he always is in an eminent degree, whenever he ceases to reason on his sensations, and gives himself up without reserve to the promptings of his native sensibility. His first eclogue breathes throughout a spirit of melancholy tenderness that speaks eloquently[Pg 155] to the imagination and the heart. Under the name of Salicio he unquestionably introduces himself, and I cannot help thinking that the shepherd's beautiful lament over the inconstancy of his mistress owes half its sweetness and pathos to his own remembrances of the lady whom he loved in youth. There is a truth and a warmth of expression in the feelings that could originate alone from real emotion: nothing can excel the touching beauty of some of the descriptions.

The song and sorrow of Salicio seem to carry[Pg 156] our interest to the highest point; but the lamentations of Nemoroso[AM] surpass them in depth of regret, and in the greater variety of sentiments and images with which the emotions are illustrated. [Pg 157]The whole eclogue is in fact full of poetry, and from the elegance of its language, its choice imagery, its soft sweet harmony, and the pastoral air that pervades it, it must be pronounced the first composition of its class, not only in Castilian but Italian poetry. Almost equally admirable, though different in character, is the third eclogue. It does not appeal so to the heart, it is less eloquent, but it is characterised by a finer fancy, a yet more classical taste, and a more continuous harmony; and being written in octaves, though octaves are perhaps somewhat too sounding for a pastoral, succeeds in gratifying the ear by its periodical reposes, as well as by its music. In the whole compass of poetry, I do not remember a more delicate image than the following:—

The second eclogue is decidedly inferior to the other two; it is justly to be censured for its heterogeneous character, its unsatisfactory con[Pg 158]clusion, and its great lengthiness;[AN] but it abounds with beautiful passages, and the poet's description of the sculptures on the Urn of Tormes, an elegant conception, however unsuitably introduced, is given with an almost lyrical spirit that half redeems the fault of the episode. Finally, something very like the light romantic touch of Lorraine in his delicious landscapes, is to be met with in the pastoral poetry of Garcilasso; the same freshness, the same nature, the same selection of luxuriant images, and harmony of hues. His elegies are less perfect of their kind; with somewhat of the softness and philosophy of Tibullus, they are too frigid and verbose. That to the Duke of Alva, principally translated from Fracastor, has however many touches of sensibility; and a few stanzas, charged with poetical fire, might be selected from that to Boscán; though from the excessive and unnatural refinement of thought it presents upon the whole, it is what I might have been excused the trouble of translating, if the[Pg 159] omission would not have rendered the volume incomplete. The same fault of frigidity and overmuch refinement of thought, though variously modified, applies to many of his sonnets; others are free from all affectation, and of singular beauty. His odes are more uniformly excellent. In the last of them, Garcilasso shows some approach to a sublimer height than he had yet aspired to; his lyre assumes in its tones somewhat of the fervid grandeur that was soon to be exhibited in the lyric poetry of Torquato Tasso. In this the shades are darker, the colours more burning, the thoughts, if I may so say, more gigantic than in any other of his poems whatever; yet I cannot consider, the prolonged personification of Reason, and of its combat with the passions, which indeed both Boscán and he are apt to dilate upon till they displease by their monotony, as the product of a pure taste. I am aware that Muratori, 'suono magnifico,' praises this ode for the very thing I am condemning;[AO] I shall therefore forbear,[Pg 160] in deference to his authority, to say more; I will only remark that this example from Garcilasso comes opportunely for the illustration of his theory on the personification of speculative thoughts, and that on this account he may have looked upon the ode with a somewhat more favourable eye than his judgment would otherwise have allowed him to do. He must have admitted that though personification gives life and action to images that would else strike the fancy but feebly, the same artificially extended through a whole cancion, offends as something too unnatural to be reconciled to the mind, even by the beautiful expressions in which it may be clothed. But whatever difference of opinion may exist on this, there can be but one sentiment on the merit of the Ode to the Flower of Gnido. Elegance, delicacy, harmony, and lyrical spirit, are all combined in its composition, and fully authorize the opinion of Paul Jovius, that it has the sweetness of the odes of Horace; an opinion confirmed by the praises of our own countryman, Sir William Jones. Had Garcilasso written nothing else, this graceful composition would have sufficed to give his name all the immortality that waits upon the lyre: it shows with what success he had studied the classics of antiquity, and how deeply his mind was imbued[Pg 161] with their spirit. This pervading spirit it is that has advanced Garcilasso to the distinction of being entitled the most classical of all the Spanish poets; and although from their not having received his last polish, and from the unfavourable circumstances under which they were written, his poems may present some defects unpleasing to the cultured minds of a more refined age, such blemishes can be allowed to subtract neither from this classical reputation, nor from the deserved admiration with which their many beauties must be regarded, and the genius that could give at once, amid the tumult of the camp, to Spanish poetry a consideration, and to Spanish language a charm, which in other countries, are commonly communicated by many, in the slow course and literary ease of years.

The Works of Garcilasso have engaged in their illustration the talents of three distinguished Commentators. The first comment that appeared was Fernando de Herrera's, published at Seville in 1580, in small 4to. Living, as Herrera evidently did, in habits of intimacy with Portocarrero, it is much to be regretted that he did not increase the value that was attached to his work by that full account of the life of Garcilasso which he had so favourable an opportunity of obtaining. He excuses himself from the task by the observation, that it would require a mind[Pg 162] more at leisure than his was, and one gifted with a happier style of writing; but the world would probably, with very great willingness, have given up a part of his commentary, turning as it often does upon idle disquisitions, to have had its curiosity gratified on the private habits of his author; whilst the Lyrist of the battle of Lepanto should have known that the disclaiming of a style sufficiently elegant, was a species of mock-modesty that would not pass wholly uncensured by posterity. In the year 1612, Sanchez, better known under the Latin name Brocensis, the most learned grammarian of Spain, published at Madrid in 12mo. his commentary, under the title of 'Obras del excelente Poeta Garcilasso de la Vega; con anotaciones y emiendas del Maestro Francisco Sanchez, Catedratico de retorica de Salamanca.' His illustrations, however, were principally restricted to a restoration of the text, for which he deserves very high praise, and to point out in his author the passages imitated or translated from other writers, an elucidation rather curious than useful, as a poet's works will of themselves, to every scholar

whilst his blind admirers will be apt to quarrel[Pg 163] with an exposition that may seem at first sight to detract something from the merit of their idol. Thus Sanchez, on the publication of his comments, was assailed by the small wits of the day with much severity, and some smartness, as will be seen by the following

SONNET
Against the Annotations of Master Sanchez, found in the house of a Knight of Salamanca.

On the back of this paper, Sanchez wrote a reply.

The third annotator is D. Thomas Tamaio de Vargas. His edition was published in 24mo. at Madrid, in the year 1622: his comments, filled with Greek and Latin, with the opinions of Rabbi Onkelos and St. Cyprian, and quotations from Geronymo Parabosco, Boethius and Arnobius, seem to have been written rather to show his learned reading than to clear up any obscurity he might find in his author: affixed to his volume is a 'Life of Garcilasso gathered from his writings,' which is necessarily meagre and unsatisfactory. Don Nicolas de Azara, the elegant translator of Middleton's life of Cicero, has also illustrated Garcilasso, whose MSS. are deposited in the library of the Escurial.

The commendations which Garcilasso bestowed on cotemporary talent, were echoed back with[Pg 165] equal admiration and sincerity by them and by succeeding geniuses. Of the Italians, Tansillo has written two sonnets in his praise, Minturno two sonnets, Marino a madrigal; Camoens celebrates him in his letters, Guillaume de Salluste in his poems. Of his own nation, besides a host of writers whose names Vargas chronicles with a jealous care, Herrera, Villegas, and Góngora, Cristoval de Figueroa, Medina, and Barahono de Soto, wrote Spanish verses, Pachecho and Giron, Latin verses to his memory. The Abbé Conti has translated with fidelity and grace several of his poems into Tuscan,[AP] and Mr. Walpole published, some few years ago, an English translation of the First Eclogue, under the title of "Isabel, with other poems translated from the Spanish;" which however I have not been able to meet with, as the author is understood to have called it in from circulation. Mr. Nott, the industrious commentator and accomplished scholar, in his Works of Surrey and Wyatt, pays an elegant tribute to the talents of Garcilasso, and draws a happy parallel between him and our Surrey. "They[Pg 166] both," he observes, "glowed with a generous love of enterprise, and both were distinguished by their military ardour in the field. They both devoted the short intervals of their leisure to the improvement of their native tongue; they both formed themselves on Virgil and the Italian school; both had minds susceptible of love and friendship; both were constant in their attachments; both died immaturely, and left in the bosoms of the good and learned unavailing regret at their untimely loss."[AQ] Yet with this regret the good and the learned may blend the happier feeling of dignified delight. There is no stain on the treasures they have left. The talents with which they were gifted, were properly cultivated; the instruments of music which they touched with so much tenderness, were wreathed around with none but innocent flowers—were devoted alone to the gratification of the generous sensibilities of our nature. Not a single string of those they struck, had in its sound the dissonance of vice—that one grand discord, which not the harmonies of all the others can in the ear of true Taste ever overpower. Let this be their most successful title to applause; there can be no nobler[Pg 167] aim marked out for young genius, in an age when the sister-melodies of Virtue and the Lyre are in danger of becoming, like Helena and Hermia, separate and estranged, than the ambition to have it said of him in after days: 'he had nothing to reproach himself with in his devotion to the Muses; he sang like Surrey and Garcilasso de la Vega.'

[Pg 169]

VERSES ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

[Pg 171]

BOSCÁN, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

Garcilasso, que al bien siempre aspiraste.

[Pg 173]

VILLEGAS, IN PRAISE OF GARCILASSO.

Si al apacible viento.

[Pg 176]

FLORENCIO ROMANO, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

Chi audace osera mai tue lodi sparte?

[Pg 177]

HERRERA, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

Musa, esparze purpureas frescas flores.

[Pg 179]

THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO.

ECLOGUES.

[Pg 180]

[Pg 181]

ECLOGUE I.
TO DON PEDRO DE TOLEDO, VICEROY OF NAPLES.

[Pg 196]

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA I.

[Pg 221]

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA II.

[Pg 243]

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA III.

[Pg 266]

ECLOGUE III.
TO THE LADY MARIA DE LA CUEVA, COUNTESS OF UREÑA.