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
Date: 2015-07-10T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Spanish poetry -- History and criticism; Spanish poetry -- 16th century -- Translations into English

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Title: The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Surnamed the Prince of Castilian Poets, Translated into English Verse

Author: Garcilaso de la Vega

Translator: Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen

Release date: July 10, 2015 [eBook #49410]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Judith Wirawan, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA, SURNAMED THE PRINCE OF CASTILIAN POETS, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE ***

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

LONDON:
PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, GREVILLE STREET.

Louis Parez ddin.Robt. Cooper Sculp
Garcilasso de la Vega.
Nat. 1503.Ob. 1536.
Published March 1st. 1823. by Messrs. 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.

"Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his book,
Boscán or Garcilasso; by the wind
Even as the page is rustled whilst we look,
So by the poesy of his own mind
Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook."
Lord Byron.

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.

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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

PAGE
ESSAY ON SPANISH POETRY | 1
LIFE OF GARCILASSO | 93
VERSES ON THE DEATH OF GACILASSO | 169
ECLOGUES.
I. | TO DON PEDRO DE TOLEDO, VICEROY OF NAPLES | 181
II. | 196
III. | TO THE LADY MARIA DE LA CUEVA, COUNTESS OF UREÑA | 266
ELEGIES.
I. | TO THE DUKE OF ALVA | 283
II. | TO BOSCA'N | 293
EPISTLE TO BOSCA'N | 300
ODES, &c.
I. | TO THE FLOWER OF GNIDO | 305
II. | TO HIS LADY | 309
III. | TO THE SAME | 312
IV. | WRITTEN IN EXILE | 315
V. | THE PROGRESS OF PASSION FOR HIS LADY | 319
SONNETS.
I. | "WHEN I SIT DOWN TO CONTEMPLATE MY CASE." | 327
II. | "AT LENGTH INTO THY HANDS I COME—TO DIE." | 328
III. | "AWHILE MY HOPES WILL TOWER ALOFT IN AIR." | 329
IV. | "LADY, THY FACE IS WRITTEN IN MY SOUL." | 330
V. | "BY RUGGED WAYS I REACH TOWARDS A BOURN." | 331
VI. | "HE WHO HAS LOST SO MUCH, STERN DEITY." | 332
VII. | "FROM THAT ILLUMINED FACE, PURE, MILD, AND SWEET." | 333
VIII. | "IF I LIVE ON, DEAR LADY, IN THE VOID." | 334
IX. | "OH LOVELY GIFTS, BY ME TOO FATAL FOUND!" | 335
X. | "IN ORDER TO RESTRAIN THIS MAD DESIRE." | 336
XI. | "STRANGE ICY THROES THE ARMS OF DAPHNE BIND." | 337
XII. | "AS A FOND MOTHER, WHOSE SICK INFANT LIES." | 338
XIII. | "IF LAMENTATIONS AND COMPLAINTS COULD REIN." | 339
XIV. | EPITAPH ON HIS BROTHER, D. FERNANDO DE GUZMAN. | 340
XV. | "FATE! IN MY GRIEFS SOLE AGENT, HOW HAVE I." | 341
XVI. | "THINKING THE PATH I JOURNEYED LED ME RIGHT." | 342
XVII. | "IF I AM WAX TO THY SWEET WILL, AND HENCE." | 343
XVIII. | TO JULIO CÆSAR CARACCIOLA | 344
XIX. | "SO STRONGLY ARE THE CRUEL WINDS COMBINED." | 345
XX. | TO D. ALONSO DE AVALO, MARQUIS DEL VASTO. | 346
XXI. | "WITH KEEN DESIRE TO SEE WHAT THE FINE SWELL." | 347
XXII. | "AS, LOVE, THE LILY AND PURPUREAL ROSE." | 348
XXIII. | "PROSTRATE ON EARTH THE LOFTY COLUMN LIES." | 349
XXIV. | FROM AUSIAS MARCH | 350
XXV. | TO BOSCA'N | 351
XXVI. | "WILD DOUBTS, THAT FLOATING IN MY BRAIN DELIGHT." | 352
XXVII. | "WITHIN MY SPIRIT WAS CONCEIVED IN TRAIN." | 353
XXVIII. | "I AM FOR EVER BATHED IN TEARS, I REND." | 354
XXIX. | "PAST NOW THE COUNTRIES OF THE MIDLAND MAIN." | 355
XXX. | TO BOSCA'N, FROM GOLETTA | 356
XXXI. | "I THANK THEE, HEAVEN, THAT I HAVE SNAPT IN TWAIN." | 357
XXXII. | TO MARIO GALEOTA | 358
XXXIII. | "MY TONGUE GOES AS GRIEF GUIDES IT, AND I STRAY." | 359
XXXIV. | "ENTERING A VALLEY IN A SANDY WASTE." | 360
XXXV. | "LOUD BLEW THE WINDS IN ANGER AND DISDAIN." | 361
XXXVI. | TO THE MARCHIONESS OF PADULA | 362
XXXVII. | "FAIR NAIADS OF THE RIVER| THAT RESIDE." | 363
TO HIS LADY, HAVING MARRIED ANOTHER | 364
TO THE SAME | 365
ON A DEPARTURE | 366
IMPROMPTU TO A LADY | 367
TRANSLATION FROM OVID | 368
COMMENT ON A TEXT | 369
TO FERNANDO DE ACUÑA | 370
APPENDIX | 371

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

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 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 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 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 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:

'Oh God, thou art the King of kings, and Sire of all mankind!
Thee I adore, in thee I trust with all my heart and mind;
And to divine San Pedro pray to help me in praying still,
That thou wilt shield my noble Cid the Campeador from ill,
And since we now must part, again to my embrace restore!'
Her orison thus made, high mass is offered, and is o'er;
They leave the church, they mount their barbs—with sad and solemn pace,
The Cid to Donna Ximena went to take a last embrace;
Donna Ximena, she bent down to kiss the hand of the Cid,
Sore weeping with her bright black eyes, she knew not what she did;
He turned, and kissed his little girls with all a father's love,
'Bless you, my girls,' he said, 'I you commend to God above,
To your sweet mother and ghostly sire! When we shall meet again
God only knows, but now we part.' Not one could say Amen.
Thus, weeping in a way that none e'er saw the like, at length
They part like nail from finger torn with agonizing strength.
My Cid with his vassals thought to ride, and took the onward track;
Waiting for all, his plumed head he evermore turned back.
Out then, with gallant unconcern, Don Alvar Fanez spake:
'Come, come, my Cid, what means all this? cheer up for goodness' sake;
In happy hour of woman born! fast wears the morn away;
Since we must go, let us begone, nor dally with delay;
A happier time shall turn to joy the very ills we rue;
God, who has given us souls to feel, shall give us counsel too.'

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 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.

They grasp their shields before their hearts; down, down their lances go;
Bowed are their crested helms until they touch the saddle-bow;
Fiercely they strike their horses' sides with streaming rowels red,
And onward to the encounter run: earth trembles to their tread.
****
Don Martin Antolinez, with the drawing of his sword,
Illumined all the field.——

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. 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.

"I, hight Gonzalo de Bercéo, going
On pilgrimage, came one day to a mead,
Green, and well-peopled with fair plants, which blowing
Made it a place desirable indeed
To a tired traveller; the sweet-scented flowers
Gave forth a smell that freshened not alone
Men's faces, but their fancies, whilst in showers
Clear flowing fountains to the sky were thrown,
Each singing to itself as on it rolled,
Warm in midwinter, and in summer cold."
Bercéo.

"It was the month of May, a glorious tide,
When merry music make the birds in boughs,
Dressed are the meads with beauty far and wide,
And sighs the ladye that has not a spouse:
Tide sweet for marriages; flowers and fresh winds
Temper the clime; in every village near
Young girls in bevies sing, and with blythe minds
Make each to each good-wishes of the year.
Young maids and old maids, all are out of doors,
Melting with love, to gather flowers at rest
Of noon—they whisper each to each, amours
Are good—and the most tender deem the best."
Lorenzo.

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 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 strange intelligence then reached my ears
That in the land of Egypt lived a man,
Who, wise of wit, subjected to his scan
The dark occurrences of uncome years:
He judged the stars, and by the moving spheres,
And aspects of the heavens, unveiled the dim
Face of futurity, which then to him
Appeared, as clear to us the past appears.
A yearning toward this sage inspired my pen
And tongue that instant, with humility
Descending from my height of majesty;
Such mastery has a strong desire o'er men:
My earnest prayers I wrote—I sent—with ten
My noblest envoys, loaded each apart
With gold and silver, which with all my heart,
I offered him, but the request was vain.
With much politeness the wise man replied,
'You, sire, are a great king, and I should be
Most glad to serve you, but in the rich fee
Of gold and gems I take no sort of pride:
Deign, then, yourself to use them; I abide
Content in more abundant wealth; and may
Your treasures profit you in every way
That I can wish, your servant.' I complied;
But sent the stateliest of my argosies,
Which reached, and from the Alexandrian port
Brought safe this cunning master to my court,
Who greeted me with all kind courtesies:
I, knowing well his great abilities,
And learning in the movement of the spheres,
Have highly honoured him these many years,
For honour is the birthright of the wise.

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

'Cousin, friend, faithful vassal, all and each,
Diego Perez Sarmiento, thee
The ills which from my men adversity
Makes me conceal, do I intend to teach;
To thee who, far, alas! from friendship's reach,
Hast left thy lands for my concerns in Rome,
My pen flies; hearken to the words that come,
For mournfully it grieves in mortal speech.

How lonely lies the monarch of Castile,
Emperor of Germany that was! whose feet
Kings humbly kissed, and at whose mercy-seat
Queens asked for alms; he who in proud Seville
Maintained an army sheathed from head to heel,
Ten thousand horse and thrice ten thousand foot,
Whom distant nations did with fear salute,
Awed by his wisdom[A] and his sword of steel.'

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]

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 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,

"Of figure very graceful, with an amorous look, correct,
Sweet, lovely, full of frolic, mild, with mirth by prudence checked,
Caressing, courteous, lady-like, in wreathed smiles bedecked,
Whom every body looks upon with love and with respect.
Lady Venus, wife of Love, at thy footstool low I kneel,
Thou art the paramount desire of all, thy force all feel.
O Love! thou art the master of all creatures; all with zeal
Worship thee for their creator, or for sorrow or for weal.
Kings, dukes, and noble princes, every living thing that is,
Fear and serve thee for their being; oh, take not my vows amiss!
Fulfil my fair desires, give good fortune, give me bliss,
And be not niggard, shy, nor harsh; sweet Venus, grant me this!
I am so lost, so ruined, and so wounded by thy dart,
Which I carry close concealed and buried deep in my sad heart,
As not to dare reveal the wound; I dare not e'en impart
Her name; ere I forget her, may I perish with the smart!
I have lost my lively colour, and my mind is in decay;
I have neither strength nor spirits, I fall off both night and day;
My eyes are dim, they serve alone to lead my steps astray,
If thou do not give me comfort, I shall swoon and pass away."

Venus, amongst other counsels, says to him:—

"Tell all thy feelings without fear or being swayed by shame,
To every amorous-looking miss, to every gadding dame;
Amongst a thousand, thou wilt scarce find one that e'er will blame
Thine unembarrassed suit, nor laugh to scorn thy tender flame.
If the first wave of the rough sea, when it comes roaring near,
Should frighten the rude mariner, he ne'er would plough the clear
With his brass-beaked ship; then ne'er let the first word severe,
The first frown, or the first repulse, affright thee from thy dear.
By cunning hardest hearts grow soft, walled cities fall; with care
High trees are felled, grave weights are raised; by cunning many swear:
By cunning many perjured are, and fishes by the snare
Are taken under the green wave; then why shouldst thou despair?"

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:

I wish to make my speeches suit the season,
Short; for I always liked, the more I read,
Short sermons, little ladies, a brief reason;
We fructify on little and well said, &c.[1]

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

Near the vale's fresh fountain,
Having past the mountain,
I found relief, at play
Of the first beams of day.
I thought to die upon
The mountain summits lone,
With cold and hunger, lost
Mid glaciers, snows, and frost.
Beside the sparkling rill,
At foot of a small hill,
A shepherdess I met,—
I see her smiling yet:
Her cheeks made e'en the red
Ripe roses pale; I said
To her, 'Good morrow, sweet,
I worship at thy feet!' &c.

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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]

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 into inapposite and puerile pedantry.[E] They did not succeed in imitating either the simplicity of their plans, 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 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.

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 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:

"Juan de Mena, when he through
Had heard the polished stanza new,
Looked most amused, and smiled as though
He knew this secret long ago;
Then said: 'I now have heard rehearse
This endecasyllabic verse,
Yet can I see no reason why
It should be called a novelty,
When I, long laid upon the shelf,
Oft used the very same myself.'
Don Jorge said: 'I do not see
The most remote necessity
To dress up what we wish to say
In such a roundabout fine way;
Our language, every body knows,
Loves a clear brevity, but those
Strange stanzas show, in its despite,
Prolixity obscure as night.'
Cartagena then raised his head
From laughing inwardly, and said:
'As practical for sweet amours,
These self-opinioned troubadours,
With force of their new-fangled flame
Will not, it strikes me, gain the game.
Wondrously pitiful this measure
Is in my eyes,—a foe to pleasure,
Dull to repeat as Luther's creed,
But most insufferable to read!'"

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 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 consequence 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 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 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 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.

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 reading 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]

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

"The sacred Betis strewed the wavy shore
With purple flowers, fine emeralds, golden ore,
And tender pearls; toward heaven he raised his head,
Adorned with grasses, reeds, and corals red;
Spread o'er the sands the moving glass that shot
Capricious lustres round his shadowy grot;
Then stretched his humid horns, increasing so
His affluent floods, dilated in their flow;—
Swift roll his billows, murmuring, pure, and cool,
And into ocean far extend his rule."

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 language 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 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 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.

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, 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.

"Well say the vulgar, that the man's an ass,
Who, having his own villa roofed with glass,
Wreaks or his hate or spleen, from all aloof,
In flinging stones upon his neighbour's roof.
*****
The grave authority of gold,
Never provoked by harsh asperity,
Because it never heard a harsh reply.
*****
The nuptial bed your industry profanes
With lawless tires, and even the cradle stains;
Into the winepress throws, ere half matured,
The virgin grapes; delay is not endured;
Picks locks, breaks bars, climbs walls however steep,
And drugs the total family with sleep.
*****
So the genteel adult'ress, on her charms
Relying, with feigned warmth and false alarms,
Stands sure of her soothed consort; now she faints,
Now, agitated, pours forth wild complaints;
From her disloyal bosom breathes deep sighs,
And for a flood of tears prepares her eyes;
Storms at the servants for their lawful zeal,
And acts the indignant rage she does not feel:
Her honest husband, credulous, beholds,
And growing tenderer as she louder scolds,
Gives useless satisfaction to his wife,
Embraces, kneels to her to end the strife,
Drinks with warm kiss the atrocious tears that rise
To his dear Portia's well commanded eyes:
But, though her protestations more renew,
Her escritoire will tell thee if they are true;
Search but the desk, and, gracious Gods! what schemes
Must be found out, in what perfidious reams!
*****
And if the jug's of plate, engraved with cost,
Or with a Satyr's laughing face embossed,
'Twill more, forsooth, assuage thy thirst than e'er
Did the plain jug of horrid earthenware!
When from plain vessels, filled with water pure,
I wet the thirsty lip, I drink secure:
Say, would a vase whereon rich sculptures live,
Filled in a palace, like assurance give?
No! the Greek tyrants for their guests of old,
Mixed poison always in a vase of gold."

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 presented 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; 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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]

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 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?

Deep king of other streams, whose waters go
Renowned in song, and crystal in their flow;
Let a rough coronal of dark green pine
Bind thy broad brow and wandering locks divine!
****
Rise, glorious sun, illuminate and print
The laughing mountains with thy golden tint;
Chase the sweet steps of rosy-red Aurora,
And loose the reins to Zephyrus and Flora!

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

Sleep, for your winged Lord in guardianship
Keeps watch, the finger on his serious lip.
Lovers! touch not, if life you love, the chaste
Sweet smiling mouth that wooes you to its taste!
For 'twixt its two red lips armed Love reposes,
Close as a poisonous snake 'twixt two ripe roses.
*****
Each wind that breathes, gallantly here and there
Waves the fine gold of her disordered hair,
As a green poplar-leaf in wanton play
Dances for joy at rosy break of day.

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.

"From my summer alcove, which the stars this morn
With lucid pearls o'erspread,
I have gathered these jessamines, thus to adorn
With a wreath thy graceful head.
From thy bosom and mouth they, as flowers, ere death,
Ask a purer white and a sweeter breath.

Their blossoms a host of bees, alarmed,
Watched over on jealous wing;
Hoarse trumpeters seemed they all, and armed
Each bee with a diamond sting:
I tore them away, but each flower I tore
Has cost me a wound which smarteth sore.

Now as I these jessamine flowers entwine,
A gift for thy vagrant hair,
I must have, from those honey-sweet lips of thine,
A kiss for each sting I bear:
It is just that the blooms I bring thee home,
Be repaid by sweets from the golden comb."

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.

"Now, all pomp, the Moorish hero,
Whilst his robes sweet perfumes throw,
Lays aside his crooked sabre,
Hangs on high his moony bow.
His hoarse tambours, hoarse no longer,
Seem like amorous turtle-doves;
And his pendants streaming favours,
Favours given by her he loves.
She goes forth with bosom naked,
Loosely flow her golden locks;
If she stays them, 'tis with jasmines,
Chains them, 'tis with pinks and stocks.
All things serve their gentle passion,
Every thing fresh joy assumes;
Flattering, if not babbling breezes,
Stir their robes and toss their plumes.
Green fields yield them mossy carpets,
Trees pavilions, flowers the vales,
Peaceful fountains golden slumber,
Music love-lorn nightingales.
Trunks their bark, whose tablets better
Keep their names than plates of brass;
Better far than ivory pages,
Than the marble's sculptured mass.
Not a beech but bears some cipher,
Tender word, or amorous text;
If one vale sounds Angelina,
Angelina sounds the next."

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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:—

"Cæsar, the fortunate and forceful, bled;
Pity and warning know it not—a wreath
This of his glory, for there is a death
Even to the grave that sepulchres the dead.
Dies life, and like life, dies, and soon is fled
The rich and sumptuous funeral; time flies,
And, in his unseen circuit, stills the cries,
Shouts, and huzzas, that fame delights to spread.
The sun and moon wind night and day the web
Of the world's life robust, and dost thou weep
The warning which age sends thee? all things ebb!
Auroras are but smiling illnesses,
Delight the lemon of our health, nor less
Our sextons the sure hours that seem to creep."

In spite of these defects, which are certainly very great, Quevedo will be read with respect, and be justly 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.

"Pure, ardent virtue was a joy divine."

"The' unbounded hemisphere fatigued his rage."

"I felt my falchion conquered by old age."

"Lashed by the waves, before, around, behind,
And rudely lashed by the remorseless wind;
The storm's thy glory, and its groans, that tear
The clouds, move more thy triumph than thy care.
Then, daring cliff, thou reign'st in majesty,
When the blast rages and the sea rides high."

Rome buried in her Ruins.

"Pilgrim, thou look'st in Rome for Rome divine,
And ev'n in Rome no Rome canst find! her crowd
Of mural wonders is a corse, whose shroud
And fitting tomb is the lone Aventine.
She lies where reigned the kingly Palatine,
And Time's worn medals more of ruin show
From her ten thousand fights than ev'n the blow
Struck at the crown of her Imperial line.
Tiber alone remains, whose rushing tide
Waters the town now sepulchred in stone,
And weeps its funeral with fraternal tears:
Oh Rome! in thy wild beauty, power, and pride,
The durable is fled, and what alone
Is fugitive, abides the ravening years."

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 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.

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:—

"After, in the celestial theatre,
The horseman of the day is seen to spur
To the refulgent Bull, in his brave hold
Shaking for darts his rays of burning gold.
The beauteous spectacle of stars—a crowd
Of lovely dames, his tricks applaud aloud;
They, to enjoy the splendour of the fight,
Remain on heaven's high balcony of light.
Then in strange metamorphosis, with spurs
And crest of fire, red-throated Phœbus stirs,
Like a proud cock amongst the hens divine
Hatched out of Leda's egg, the Twins that shine,
Hens of the heavenly field."

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 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.

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 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 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 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 encouragement 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.

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, 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 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, 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.

LIFE OF GARCILASSO.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 Germanada, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, notwithstanding 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 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 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 destroyed, 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 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 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 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. Garcilasso 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 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—

—Love and lore might claim alternate hours
With Peace embosomed in Idalian bowers.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 possessed, 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.

"Midst arms, with scarce one pause from bloody toil,
Where war's hoarse trumpet breaks the poet's dream,
Have I these moments stolen, oft claimed again,
Now taking up the sword, and now the pen."

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 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 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 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.

"Oh tender slip of the most beauteous tree
That fruitful earth e'er nourished, full of flowers,
And to that other glory of the bowers,
Thy parent sylvan, equal in degree!
The same tempestuous wind, by the decree
Of Eolus that plucked up by the roots,
Far from its native stream, thy trunk, its shoots
Stript off to flourish in a greener lea.
One was your doom; the same fond Angel too
Transplanted you to heaven, where both your blooms
Produce immortal fruits; your fatal case
I weep not, as the wont is, but to you,
On my raised altar burn all sweet perfumes,
With hymns of gladness and a tearless face."

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, 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 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 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 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 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.

"In the charmed ear of what beloved youth
Sounds thy sweet voice? on whom revolvest thou
Thy beautiful blue eyes? on whose sworn truth
Anchors thy broken faith? who presses now
Thy laughing lip, and hopes thy heaven of charms,
Locked in the embracings of thy two white arms?
Say thou, for whom hast thou so rudely left
My love, or stolen, who triumphs in the theft?
I have not yet a bosom so untrue
To beauty, nor a heart of stone, to view
My darling ivy, torn from me, take root
Against another wall or prosperous pine,
To see my virgin vine
Around another elm in marriage hang
Its curling tendrils and empurpled fruit,
Without the torture of a jealous pang,
Ev'n to the loss of life."

The song and sorrow of Salicio seem to carry 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. 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:—

"All with dishevelled hair were seen to shower
Tears o'er the nymph, whose beauty did bespeak
That Death had cropt her in her sweetest flower,
Whilst youth bloomed rosiest in her charming cheek;
Near the still water, in a cypress bower,
She lay amongst the green herbs, pale and meek,
Like a white swan that, sickening where it feeds,
Sighs its sweet life away amidst the reeds."

The second eclogue is decidedly inferior to the other two; it is justly to be censured for its heterogeneous character, its unsatisfactory conclusion, 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 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, 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 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 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

whisper whence they stole
Their balmy spoils,

whilst his blind admirers will be apt to quarrel 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.

They have discovered a rare theft; the thief,
One Garcilasso's taken at his tricks,
With three silk canopies and pillows six,
Stolen from Queen Dido's bed; young Cupid's sheaf
Of darts; the shuttle of the Fates; but chief,
Three most somniferous kegs of Lethe wine,
And his own lady's golden clasp, a sign
Of turpitude that staggers all belief.
For full seven years the sly Arcadian
Has been at work; on shops of Tuscan ware, he
Made some attempts too—Bembo's and Politian's:
'Tis pitiful to hear the' unhappy man,
His feet fast in the stocks of Commentary,
Declaim against these tell-tale rhetoricians.

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

Poets are found whose fame we may immerse
In Lethe's wave, who to make up some sonnet
Stuff it with pillows till we slumber on it;
And have recourse for rhymes for their lame verse,
To the sad shuttle of the Fates, or worse,
Young Cupid's darts; whose lines have no more sense
Than their own lady's golden clasp: yet hence
Will they denounce our comments for a curse
On Garcilasso, without knowing why
Barking like curs; amusing 'tis to see
The sapient animals, with long sharp teeth
And short dull wits, far falser than the sly
Quick fidgetings of horses, to get free
Of half the imposed light load they bend beneath.

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 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 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 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.'

VERSES ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

BOSCÁN, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

Garcilasso, que al bien siempre aspiraste.

1.

Tell me, dear Garcilasso, thou
Who ever aim'dst at Good,
And in the spirit of thy vow
So swift her course pursued,
That thy few steps sufficed to place
The angel in thy loved embrace,
Won instant, soon as wooed,—
Why took'st thou not, when winged to flee
From this dark world, Boscán with thee?

2.

Why, when ascending to the star
Where now thou sitt'st enshrined,
Left'st thou thy weeping friend afar,
Alas, so far behind!
Oh, I do think, had it remained
With thee to alter aught ordained
By the Eternal Mind,
Thou wouldst not on this desert spot
Have left thy other self forgot.

3.

For if through life thy love was such,
As still to take a pride
In having me so oft and much
Close to thy envied side—
I cannot doubt, I must believe
Thou wouldst at least have taken leave
Of me, or if denied,
Have come back afterwards, unblest
Till I too shared thy heavenly rest.

VILLEGAS, IN PRAISE OF GARCILASSO.

Si al apacible viento.

1.

To the soft wind, the' eternal guest
Of these delicious skies,
Thou yet, sweet lute, hast been but prest
In beauty's cause, at love's behest,
To sing of bright blue eyes.

2.

But leave these idle themes, and sound
His glory to the stars,
Whose footsteps ranged on classic ground,
Till Garonne saw him deal around
The battle-bolts of Mars.

3.

Woe to the heart of Aquitaine!
Woe to the men she bred!
When, sheathed in steel, with fierce disdain,
He loosed a stream in every vein,
And dyed her ramparts red.

4.

But, freed from war, he bound his brow
With myrtle leaves again,
To Venus paid a votary's vow,
And hymned her birth, assuming now
The falchion, now the pen.

5.

Sweet as the swan, when death was nigh,
On Danube's willowed banks,
He held the waters roaring by,
With magic of his melody,
Congealed in crystal ranks.

6.

Long, long that tune the stream shall keep,
And whisper as it flows;
Let Love too tell in murmurs deep
The noble words she heard him weep,
For well those words she knows.

7.

Well as his song, grave, tender, sweet,
Beneath the beechen shade,
The wild brook babbling at his feet,
When he bewailed the chaste deceit
Of his beloved maid.

8.

But hush the chords, for there, ah there,
Salicio too grew mute,
And broken-hearted with despair
For the too false, forsaking fair,
Hung up his useless lute!

FLORENCIO ROMANO, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

Chi audace osera mai tue lodi sparte?

1.

What daring hand may hope to raise
To thee the double trophy due,
Whom not alone the poet's bays
Distinguished, but the warrior's too?
What tributary voice in one
Collect thy various praises? None.

2.

In thy melodious verse, where yet
Thy spirit breathes, thy glory glows,
Immortal shalt thou live, till set
The stars in darkness whence they rose.
Shower, virgins, shower with sad concern,
Wild thyme and rose-leaves round his urn!

3.

Whilst I his glories, dumb with grief,
Point to the frequent passer-by,
Worthy the blazoning bas-relief,
The sculptured bust, the speaking die:
'Lo! 'midst green ivies, flowers, and palms,
Lasso's hushed lyre and rusting arms!'

HERRERA, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

Musa, esparze purpureas frescas flores.

1.

With purple flowers, oh Muse, each morn,
The freshest flowers in bloom,
Scattered with pious hands, adorn
Thy Lasso's holy tomb;
In grief for the lamented dead,
Thy golden tresses, Venus, spread
Dishevelled;—mourn his doom,
His timeless doom, ye little Loves,
In concord with your Mother's doves!

2.

As burns the bird whose perished frame
Arabian herbs inter,
Your broken bows give to the flame
With rosemary and myrrh;
And oh, for his lamented sake,
Apollo, to thy temples take
The wreath of funeral fir,
And sadly to the solemn string
His glory and thy sorrows sing!

3.

His name, Parnassus, whose proud song,
Pure, sweet, and tender, gave
Fame to thy rosy peaks, prolong
Through each revering cave;
Lasso, through whose harmonious shell
Tagus rich Tiber does excel,
And Arno's purer wave,—
For whose hushed voice a nation grieves,
Lies dead amidst green amaranth leaves!

THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO.

ECLOGUES.

Dum sint volucres, Lasse, Cupidines,
Dum cura dulcis, dum lachrymæ leves,
Blandæque amatorum querelæ,
Silvicolis amor et magistris;
Vivent labores, et numeri tui,
Dulcesque cantus; nec fuga temporis
Obliviosi, nec profani
Vis rapiet violenta Fati:
Sive è supremis axibus ætheris
Nos triste vulgus despicis, aureâ
Seu fistulâ doces Elisam
Elysias resonare sylvas.

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

SALICIO, NEMOROSO.

The sweet lament of two Castilian swains,
Salicio's love and Nemoroso's tears,
In sympathy I sing, to whose loved strains
Their flocks, of food forgetful, crowding round,
Were most attentive: Pride of Spanish peers!
Who, by thy splendid deeds, hast gained a name
And rank on earth unrivalled,—whether crowned
With cares, Alvano, wielding now the rod
Of empire, now the dreadful bolts that tame
Strong kings, in motion to the trumpet's sound,
Express vicegerent of the Thracian God;
Or whether, from the cumbrous burden freed
Of state affairs, thou seek'st the echoing plain,
Chasing, upon thy spirited fleet steed,
The trembling stag that bounds abroad, in vain
Lengthening out life,—though deeply now engrossed
By cares, I hope, so soon as I regain
The leisure I have lost,
To celebrate, with my recording quill,
Thy virtues and brave deeds, a starry sum,
Ere grief, or age, or silent death turn chill
My poesy's warm pulse, and I become
Nothing to thee, whose worth the nations blaze,
Failing thy sight, and songless in thy praise.
But till that day, predestined by the Muse,
Appears to cancel the memorial dues
Owed to thy glory and renown—a claim
Not only upon me, but which belongs
To all fine spirits that transmit to fame
Ennobling deeds in monumental songs,—
Let the green laurel whose victorious boughs
Clasp in endearment thine illustrious brows,
To the weak ivy give permissive place,
Which, rooted in thy shade, thou first of trees,
May hope by slow degrees
To tower aloft, supported by thy praise;
Since Time to thee sublimer strains shall bring,
Hark to my shepherds, as they sit and sing.
The sun, from rosy billows risen, had rayed
With gold the mountain tops, when at the foot
Of a tall beech romantic, whose green shade
Fell on a brook, that, sweet-voiced as a lute,
Through lively pastures wound its sparkling way,
Sad on the daisied turf Salicio lay;
And with a voice in concord to the sound
Of all the many winds, and waters round,
As o'er the mossy stones they swiftly stole,
Poured forth in melancholy song his soul
Of sorrow with a fall
So sweet, and aye so mildly musical,
None could have thought that she whose seeming guile
Had caused his anguish, absent was the while,
But that in very deed the unhappy youth
Did, face to face, upbraid her questioned truth.

SALICIO.

More hard than marble to my mild complaints,
And to the lively flame with which I glow,
Cold, Galatea, cold as winter snow!
I feel that I must die, my spirit faints,
And dreads continuing life; for, alienate
From thee, life sinks into a weary weight,
To be shook off with pleasure; from all eyes
I shrink, ev'n from myself despised I turn,
And left by her for whom alone I yearn,
My cheek is tinged with crimson; heart of ice!
Dost thou the worshipped mistress scorn to be
Of one whose cherished guest thou ever art;
Not being able for an hour to free
Thine image from my heart?
This dost thou scorn? in gentleness of woe
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
The sun shoots forth the arrows of his light
O'er hills and valleys, wakening to fresh birth
The birds, and animals, and tribes of earth,
That through the crystal air pursue their flight,
That o'er the verdant vale and craggy height
In perfect liberty and safety feed,
That with the present sun afresh proceed
To the due toils of life,
As their own wants or inclinations lead;
This wretched spirit is alone at strife
With peace, in tears at eve, in tears when bright
The morning breaks; in gentleness of woe,
Flow forth my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
And thou, without one pensive memory
Of this my life, without the slightest sign
Of pity for my pangs, dost thou consign
To the stray winds, ungrateful, every tie
Of love and faith, which thou didst vow should be
Locked in thy soul eternally for me?
Oh righteous Gods! if from on high ye view
This false, this perjured maid
Work the destruction of a friend so true,
Why leave her crime of justice unrepaid?
Dying I am with hopeless, sharp concern;
If to tried friendship this is the return
She makes, with what will she requite her foe?
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
Through thee the silence of the shaded glen,
Through thee the horror of the lonely mountain
Pleased me no less than the resort of men;
The breeze, the summer wood, and lucid fountain,
The purple rose, white lily of the lake,
Were sweet for thy sweet sake;
For thee the fragrant primrose, dropt with dew,
Was wished when first it blew!
Oh how completely was I in all this
Myself deceiving! oh the different part
That thou wert acting, covering with a kiss
Of seeming love, the traitor in thy heart!
This my severe misfortune, long ago,
Did the soothsaying raven, sailing by
On the black storm, with hoarse sinister cry,
Clearly presage; in gentleness of woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
How oft, when slumbering in the forest brown,
(Deeming it Fancy's mystical deceit,)
Have I beheld my fate in dreams foreshown!
One day, methought that from the noontide heat
I drove my flocks to drink of Tagus' flood,
And, under curtain of its bordering wood,
Take my cool siesta; but, arrived, the stream,
I know not by what magic, changed its track,
And in new channels, by an unused way,
Rolled its warped waters back;
Whilst I, scorched, melting with the heat extreme,
Went ever following in their flight, astray,
The wizard waves; in gentleness of woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
In the charmed ear of what beloved youth
Sounds thy sweet voice? on whom revolvest thou
Thy beautiful blue eyes? on whose proved truth
Anchors thy broken faith? who presses now
Thy laughing lip, and hopes thy heaven of charms,
Locked in the' embraces of thy two white arms?
Say thou, for whom hast thou so rudely left
My love, or stolen, who triumphs in the theft?
I have not yet a bosom so untrue
To feeling, nor a heart of stone, to view
My darling ivy, torn from me, take root
Against another wall or prosperous pine,
To see my virgin vine
Around another elm in marriage hang
Its curling tendrils and empurpled fruit,
Without the torture of a jealous pang,
Ev'n to the loss of life; in gentle woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
What may not now be looked for to take place
In any certain or uncertain case?
What are too adverse now to join, too wild
For love to fear, too dissonant to agree?
What faith is too secure to be beguiled?
Matter for all thus being given by thee.
A signal proof didst thou, when, rude and cold,
Thou left'st my bleeding heart to break, present
To all loved youths and maids
Whom heaven in its blue beauty overshades,
That ev'n the most secure have cause to fear
The loss of that which they as sweet or dear
Cherish the most; in gentleness of woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
Thou hast giv'n room for hope that now the mind
May work impossibilities most strange,
And jarring natures in concordance bind;
Transferring thus from me to him thy hand
And fickle heart in such swift interchange,
As ever must be voiced from land to land.
Now let mild lambs in nuptial fondness range
With savage wolves from forest brake to brake;
Now let the subtle snake
In curled caresses nest with simple doves,
Harming them not, for in your ghastly loves
Difference is yet more great; in gentle woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
My dairies always with new milk abound,
Summer and winter, all my vats run o'er
With richest creams, and my superfluous store
Of cheese and butter is afar renowned;
With as sweet songs have I amused thine ear
As could the Mantuan Tityrus of yore,
And more to be admired; nor am I, dear,
If well observed, or so uncouth or grim,
For in the watery looking-glass below
My image I can see—a shape and face
I surely never would exchange with him
Who joys in my disgrace;
My fate I might exchange; in gentle woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
How have I fallen in such contempt, how grown
So suddenly detested, or in what
Attentions have I failed thee? wert thou not
Under the power of some malignant spell,
My worth and consequence were known too well;
I should be held in pleasurable esteem,
Nor left thus in divorce, alone—alone!
Hast thou not heard, when fierce the Dogstar smites
These plains with heat and drouth,
What countless flocks to Cuenca's thymy heights
Yearly I drive, and in the winter breme,
To the warm valleys of the sheltering south?
But what avails my wealth if I decay,
And in perpetual sorrow weep away
My years of youth! in gentleness of woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
Over my griefs the mossy stones relent
Their natural durity, and break; the trees
Bend down their weeping boughs without a breeze,
And full of tenderness, the listening birds,
Warbling in different notes, with me lament,
And warbling prophesy my death; the herds
That in the green meads hang their heads at eve,
Wearied, and worn, and faint,
The necessary sweets of slumber leave,
And low, and listen to my wild complaint.
Thou only steel'st thy bosom to my cries,
Not ev'n once rolling thine angelic eyes
On him thy harshness kills; in gentle woe,
Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!
But though thou wilt not come for my sad sake,
Leave not the landscape thou hast held so dear;
Thou may'st come freely now, without the fear
Of meeting me, for though my heart should break,
Where late forsaken I will now forsake.
Come then, if this alone detains thee, here
Are meadows full of verdure, myrtles, bays,
Woodlands, and lawns, and running waters clear,
Beloved in other days,
To which, bedewed with many a bitter tear,
I sing my last of lays.
These scenes perhaps, when I am far removed,
At ease thou wilt frequent
With him who rifled me of all I loved;
Enough! my strength is spent;
And leaving thee in his desired embrace,
It is not much to leave him this sweet place.
Here ceased the youth his Doric madrigal,
And sighing, with his last laments let fall
A shower of tears; the solemn mountains round,
Indulgent of his sorrow, tossed the sound
Melodious from romantic steep to steep,
In mild responses deep;
Sweet Echo, starting from her couch of moss,
Lengthened the dirge, and tenderest Philomel,
As pierced with grief and pity at his loss,
Warbled divine reply, nor seemed to trill
Less than Jove's nectar from her mournful bill.
What Nemoroso sang in sequel, tell
Ye, sweet-voiced Sirens of the sacred hill!
Too high the strain, too weak my groveling reed,
For me to dare proceed.

NEMOROSO.

Smooth-sliding waters, pure and crystalline!
Trees, that reflect your image in their breast!
Green pastures, full of fountains and fresh shades!
Birds, that here scatter your sweet serenades!
Mosses, and reverend ivies serpentine,
That wreathe your verdurous arms round beech and pine,
And, climbing, crown their crest!
Can I forget, ere grief my spirit changed,
With what delicious ease and pure content
Your peace I wooed, your solitudes I ranged,
Enchanted and refreshed where'er I went!
How many blissful noons I here have spent
In luxury of slumber, couched on flowers,
And with my own fond fancies, from a boy,
Discoursed away the hours,
Discovering nought in your delightful bowers,
But golden dreams, and memories fraught with joy!
And in this very valley where I now
Grow sad, and droop, and languish, have I lain
At ease, with happy heart and placid brow;
Oh pleasure fragile, fugitive, and vain!
Here, I remember, waking once at noon,
I saw Eliza standing at my side;
Oh cruel fate! oh finespun web, too soon
By Death's sharp scissors clipt! sweet, suffering bride,
In womanhood's most interesting prime,
Cut off, before thy time!
How much more suited had his surly stroke
Been to the strong thread of my weary life!
Stronger than steel, since in the parting strife
From thee, it has not broke.
Where are the eloquent mild eyes that drew
My heart where'er they wandered? where the hand,
White, delicate, and pure as melting dew,
Filled with the spoils that, proud of thy command,
My feelings paid in tribute? the bright hair
That paled the shining gold, that did contemn
The glorious opal as a meaner gem,
The bosom's ivory apples, where, ah where?
Where now the neck, to whiteness overwrought,
That like a column with genteelest scorn
Sustained the golden dome of virtuous thought?
Gone! ah, for ever gone
To the chill, desolate, and dreary pall,
And mine the grief—the wormwood and the gall!
Who would have said, my love, when late through this
Romantic valley, we from bower to bower
Went gathering violets and primroses,
That I should see the melancholy hour
So soon arrive that was to end my bliss,
And of my love destroy both fruit and flower?
Heaven on my head has laid a heavy hand;
Sentencing, without hope, without appeal,
To loneliness and ever-during tears
The joyless remnant of my future years;
But that which most I feel,
Is to behold myself obliged to bear
This condemnation to a life of care;
Lone, blind, forsaken, under sorrow's spell,
A gloomy captive in a gloomy cell.
Since thou hast left us, fulness, rest, and peace
Have failed the starveling flocks; the field supplies
To the toiled hind but pitiful increase;
All blessings change to ills; the clinging weed
Chokes the thin corn, and in its stead arise
Pernicious darnel, and the fruitless reed.
The enamelled earth, that from her verdant breast
Lavished spontaneously ambrosial flowers,
The very sight of which can soothe to rest
A thousand cares, and charm our sweetest hours,
That late indulgence of her bounty scorns,
And in exchange shoots forth but tangled bowers,
But brambles rough with thorns;
Whilst with the tears that falling steep their root,
My swollen eyes increase the bitter fruit.
As at the set of sun the shades extend,
And when its circle sinks, that dark obscure
Rises to shroud the world, on which attend
The images that set our hair on end,
Silence, and shapes mysterious as the grave;
Till the broad sun sheds once more from the wave
His lively lustre, beautiful and pure:
Such shapes were in the night, and such ill gloom
At thy departure; still tormenting fear
Haunts, and must haunt me, until death shall doom
The so much wished-for sun to re-appear
Of thine angelic face, my soul to cheer,
Resurgent from the tomb.
As the sad nightingale in some green wood,
Closely embowered, the cruel hind arraigns
Who from their pleasant nest her plumeless brood
Has stolen, whilst she with pains
Winged the wide forest for their food, and now
Fluttering with joy, returns to the loved bough,
The bough, where nought remains:
Dying with passion and desire, she flings
A thousand concords from her various bill,
Till the whole melancholy woodland rings
With gurglings sweet, or with philippics shrill.
Throughout the silent night she not refrains
Her piercing note, and her pathetic cry,
But calls, as witness to her wrongs and pains,
The listening stars and the responding sky.
So I in mournful song pour forth my pain;
So I lament,—lament, alas, in vain—
The cruelty of death! untaught to spare,
The ruthless spoiler ravished from my breast
Each pledge of happiness and joy, that there
Had its beloved home and nuptial nest.
Swift-seizing death! through thy despite I fill
The whole world with my passionate lament,
Impórtuning the skies and valleys shrill
My tale of wrongs to echo and resent.
A grief so vast no consolation knows,
Ne'er can the agony my brain forsake,
Till suffering consciousness in frenzy close,
Or till the shattered chords of being break.
Poor, lost Eliza! of thy locks of gold,
One treasured ringlet in white silk I keep
For ever at my heart, which, when unrolled,
Fresh grief and pity o'er my spirit creep;
And my insatiate eyes, for hours untold,
O'er the dear pledge will, like an infant's, weep:
With sighs more warm than fire anon I dry
The tears from off it, number one by one
The radiant hairs, and with a love-knot tie;
Mine eyes, this duty done,
Give over weeping, and with slight relief
I taste a short forgetfulness of grief.
But soon, with all its first-felt horrors fraught,
That gloomy night returns upon my brain,
Which ever wrings my spirit with the thought
Of my deep loss, and thine unaided pain;
Ev'n now, I seem to see thee pale recline
In thy most trying crisis, and to hear
The plaintive murmurs of that voice divine,
Whose tones might touch the ear
Of blustering winds, and silence their dispute;
That gentle voice (now mute)
Which to the merciless Lucina prayed,
In utter agony, for aid—for aid!
Alas, for thine appeal! Discourteous power,
Where wert thou gone in that momentous hour?
Or wert thou in the grey woods hunting deer?
Or with thy shepherd boy entranced? Could aught
Palliate thy rigorous cruelty, to turn
Away thy scornful, cold, indifferent ear
From my moist prayers, by no affliction moved,
And sentence one, so beauteous and beloved,
To the funereal urn!
Oh, not to mark the throes
Thy Nemoroso suffered, whose concern
It ever was, when pale the morning rose,
To drive the mountain beasts into his toils,
And on thy holy altars heap the spoils;
And thou, ungrateful! smiling with delight,
Could'st leave my nymph to die before my sight.
Divine Eliza! since the sapphire sky
Thou measurest now on angel-wings, and feet
Sandalled with immortality, oh why
Of me forgetful? Wherefore not entreat
To hurry on the time when I shall see
The veil of mortal being rent in twain,
And smile that I am free?
In the third circle of that happy land,
Shall we not seek together, hand in hand,
Another lovelier landscape, a new plain,
Other romantic streams and mountains blue,
Fresh flowery vales, and a new shady shore,
Where I may rest, and ever in my view
Keep thee, without the terror and surprise
Of being sundered more!
Ne'er had the shepherds ceased these songs, to which
The hills alone gave ear, had they not seen
The sun in clouds of gold and crimson rich
Descend, and twilight sadden o'er the green;
But noting now, how rapidly the night
Rushed from the hills, admonishing to rest,
The sad musicians, by the blushful light
Of lingering Hesperus, themselves addressed
To fold their flocks, and step by step withdrew,
Through bowery lawns and pastures wet with dew.

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA I.

ALBANIO. SALICIO.

ALBANIO.

Temperate, when winter waves its snowy wing,
Is the sweet water of this sylvan spring;
And when the heats of summer scorch the grass,
More cold than snow: in your clear looking-glass,
Fair waves! the memory of that day returns,
With which my soul still shivers, melts, and burns;
Gazing on your clear depth and lustre pure,
My peace grows troubled, and my joy obscure;
Recovering you, I lose all self-content:
To whom, alas, could equal pains be sent!
Scenes that would soothe another's pangs to peace,
Add force to mine, or soothe but to increase.
This lucid fount, whose murmurs fill the mind,
The verdant forests waving with the wind,
The odours wafted from the mead, the flowers
In which the wild bee sits and sings for hours,
These might the moodiest misanthrope employ,
Make sound the sick, and turn distress to joy;
I only in this waste of sweetness pine
To death! oh beauty, rising to divine!
Oh curls of gold! oh eyes that laughed with light!
Oh swanlike neck! oh hand as ivory white!
How could an hour so mournful ever rise
To change a life so blest to tears and sighs,
Such glittering treasures into dust! I range
From place to place, and think, perhaps the change,
The change may partly temper and control
The ceaseless flame that thus consumes my soul.
Deceitful thought! as though so sharp a smart
By my departure must itself depart:
Poor languid limbs, the grief is but too deep
That tires you out! Oh that I could but sleep
Here for awhile! the heart awake to pain,
Perchance in slumbers and calm dreams might gain
Glimpse of the peace with which it pants to meet,
Though false as fair, and fugitive as sweet.
Then, amiable kind Sleep, descend, descend!
To thee my wearied spirit I commend.

SALICIO.

How highly he may rate
His fortunate estate,
Who, to the sweets of solitude resigned,
Lives lightly loose from care,
At distance from the snare
Of what encumbers and disturbs the mind!
He sees no thronged parade,
No pompous colonnade
Of proud grandees, nor greedy flatterers vile,
Ambitious each to sport
In sunshine of a court;
He is not forced to fawn, to sue, to smile,
To feign, to watch of power each veering sign,
Noticed to dread neglect, neglected to repine.
But, in calm idlesse laid
Supine in the cool shade
Of oak or ilex, beech or pendant pine,
Sees his flocks feeding stray,
Whitening a length of way,
Or numbers up his homeward-tending kine:
Store of rich silks unrolled,
Fine silver, glittering gold,
To him seem dross, base, worthless, and impure;
He holds them in such hate,
That with their cumbrous weight
He would not fancy he could live secure;
And thinking this, does wisely still maintain
His independent ease, and shuns the shining bane.
Him to soft slumbers call
The babbling brooks, the fall
Of silver fountains, and the unstudied hymns
Of cageless birds, whose throats
Pour forth the sweetest notes;
Shrill through the crystal air the music swims;
To which the humming bee
Keeps ceaseless company,
Flying solicitous from flower to flower,
Tasting each sweet that dwells
Within their scented bells;
Whilst the wind sways the forest, bower on bower,
That evermore, in drowsy murmurs deep,
Sings in the silent ear, and aids descending sleep.
Who breathes so loud? 'Tis strange I see him not;
Oh, there he lies, in that sequestered spot!
Thrice happy you, who thus, when troubles tire,
Relax the chords of thought, or of desire!
How finished, Nature, are thy works! neglect
Left nought in them to add to, or perfect.
Heightening our joy, diminishing our grief,
Sleep is thy gift, and given for our relief;
That at our joyous waking we might find
More health of body and repose of mind:
Refreshed we rise from that still pause of strife,
And with new relish taste the sweets of life.
When wearied out with care, sleep, settling calm,
Drops on our dewless lids her soothing balm,
Stilling the torn heart's agonizing throes,
From that brief quiet, that serene repose,
Fresh spirit we inspire, fresh comfort share,
And with new vigour run the race of care.
I on his dreams will gently steal, and see
If I the shepherd know, and if he be
Of the unhappy or contented class:
Is it Albanio slumbering there? Alas
The unhappy boy! Albanio, of a truth;
Sleep on, poor wearied, and afflicted youth!
How much more free do I esteem the dead,
Who, from all mortal storms escaped, is led
Safe into port, than he who living here,
So noble once, and lively in his cheer,
Cast by stern fortune from his glorious height,
Has bid a long, long farewell to delight!
He, though now stript of peace, and most distressed,
Was once, they say, most blissful of the blest,
In amorous pledges rich; the change how great!
I know not well the secret of his fate;
Lycid, who knew the tale, sometime ago
Told me a part, but much remains to know.

ALBANIO.

Is it a dream? or do I surely clasp
Her gentle hand, that answers grasp for grasp?
'Tis mockery all! how madly I believed
The flatterer sleep, and how am I deceived!
On swift wings rustling through the ivory door,
The vision flies, and leaves me as before,
Stretched lonely here; is't not enough, I bear
This grievous weight, the living soul's despair;
Or, to say truly, this uncertain strife,
And daily death of oft-renewing life!

SALICIO.

Albanio, cease thy weeping, which to see,
Grieves me.

ALBANIO.

Who witnesses my weeping?

SALICIO.

He
Who by partaking will assuage the smart.

ALBANIO.

Thou, my Salicio? Ah, thy gentle heart
And company in every strait could bring
Sweet solace, once; now, 'tis a different thing.

SALICIO.

Part of thy woes from Lycid I have heard,
Who here was present when the' event occurred;
Its actual cause he knew not, but surmised
The evil such, that it were best disguised.
I, as thou know'st, was in the city, bent
On travelling then, and only heard the' event
On my return; but now, I pray relate,
If not too painful, specially, the date,
The author, cause, and process of thy grief,
Which thus divided will find some relief.

ALBANIO.

Relief is certain with a friend so sure,
When such the sickness as admits of cure;
But this, this pierces to my marrow! Still,
Our shared pursuits by fountain, grove, and hill,
And our vowed friendship to thy wishes win
My else-sealed lips;—yet, how shall I begin?
My soul, my brain, with clouds is overcast,
At but the mere remembrance of the past—
The alarm, the mortal wound, the sudden pain,
Then every earlier feeling felt again,
Linked with the blighted present, all prevail,
And, like a spectre, scare me from the tale.
But yet, methinks, 'twere wisdom to obey,
Lay bare the wound, and sorrowing bleed away
From anguish and from life; and thus, dear friend,
From the commencement to the fatal end,
My woes will I relate, without disguise,
Though the sad tale my soul reluctant flies.
Well have I loved, well shall love, whilst the ray
Of life celestial lights this coil of clay,
The maid for whom I die! No free-will choice,
No thoughtless chase at Folly's calling voice
Led me to love, nor, oft as others aim,
With flattering fancies did I feed the flame;
But from my tenderest infancy, perforce,
Some fatal star inclined me to its course.
Thou know'st a maiden, beautiful and young,
From my own ancestors remotely sprung,
Lovelier than Love himself; in infancy
Vowed to Diana of the woods, with glee,
Amidst them, skilled the sylvan war to wage,
She passed the rosy April of her age:
I, who from night till morning, and from morn
Till night, to challenge of the sprightly horn,
Followed the inspiring chase without fatigue,
Came by degrees in such familiar league
With her, by like pursuits and tastes allied,
I could not stir an instant from her side.
Hour after hour this union stricter grew,
Joined with emotions precious, pure, and new:
What tangled mountain has been left untraced
By our swift feet? What heath, or leafy waste
Of forests, has not heard our hunting cry?
What babbling echo not been tired thereby?
Ever with liberal hands, when ceased our toils,
To the chaste patron who decreed our spoils,
We heaped the holy altars, talking o'er
Past risks, now offering of the grisly boar
The grim and tusked head, and nailing now
The stag's proud antlers on the sacred bough
Of some tall pine; and thus when evening burned,
With grateful, happy hearts, we home returned;
And when we shared the quarry, never went
From us one word or look of discontent.
Hunting of all kinds charmed, but that the most
Of simple birds, snared ever with least cost
Of toil; and when desired Aurora showed
Her rosy cheeks, and locks like gold that glowed,
With dew impearling all the forest flowers,
Away we passed to unfrequented bowers,
In the most secret valley we could find,
Shut from the tread and talk of humankind;
Then, binding to two lofty trees, unseen,
Our tinctured webs of very perfect green,
Our voices hushed, our steps as midnight still,
We netted off the vale from hill to hill;
Then, fetching a small compass, by degrees
We turned toward the snares, and shook the trees,
And stormed the shadiest nooks with shout and sling,
Till the whole wood was rustling on the wing:
Blackbirds, larks, goldfinches, before us flew,
Distracted, scared, not knowing what to do.
Who shunned the less, the greater evil met,
Confusedly taken in the painted net;
And curious then it was to hear them speak
Their griefs with doleful cry and piercing shriek;
Some—for the swarms were countless—you might see
Fluttering their wings and striving to get free,
Whilst others, far from showing signs of rage,
In dumb affliction drooped about the cage;
Till, drawing tight the cords, proud of the prey
Borne at our backs, we took our homeward way.
But when moist autumn came, and yellow fell
The wild-wood leaves round bowerless Philomel;
When August heats were past, a different sport,
But no less idle, we were wont to court,
To pass the day with joy; then, well you know,
Black clouds of starlings circle to and fro:
Mark now the craft that we employed to snare
These birds that go through unobstructed air.
One straggler first from their vast companies,
Alive we captured, which was done with ease;
Next, to its foot a long limed thread we tied,
And when the passing squadron we descried,
Aloft we tossed it; instantly it mixed
Amongst the rest, and our success was fixed;
For soon, as many as the tangling string,
Or by the head, or leg, or neck, or wing,
In its aërial voyage twined around,
Flagged in their strength, and fell towards the ground,
Yet not without long strugglings in their flight,
Much to their mischief, and to our delight.
Useless to it was the prophetic croak
Of the black rook in the umbrageous oak;
When one of them alive, as oft occurred,
Fell in our hands, we made the captive bird
Decoy to many a captive; to a plain
Spacious, and sowed perchance with winter grain,
Where flocks of rooks in company resort,
Our prize we took, and instant to the sport.
By the extreme points of its wings, to ground,
But without breaking them, the bird we bound;
Then followed what you scarce conceive; it stood
With eyes turned upward, in the attitude
Of one that contemplates the stars; from sight
Meanwhile we drew, when, frantic with affright,
It pierced the air with loud, distressful cries,
And summoned down its brethren from the skies.
Instant a swift swarm which no tongue could name,
Flew to its aid, and round it stalking came.
One, of its fellow's doom more piteous grown
Than cautious or considerate of its own,
Drew close—and on the first exertion made,
With death or sad captivity it paid
For its simplicity; the pinioned rook
So fast clung to it with the grappling-hook
Of its strong claws, that without special leave
It could not part: now you may well conceive
What our amusement was to see the twain,
That to break loose and this fresh aid to gain,
Wrestling engage; the quarrel did not cool
Till finished by our hand, and the poor fool
Was left at mournful leisure to repent
Of the vain help its thoughtless pity lent.
What would'st thou say, if, standing centinel
With upraised leg when midnight shadows fell,
The crane was snared betwixt us? Of no use
Was its sagacious caution to the goose,
Or its perpetual fame for second-sight
Against the snares and stratagems of night.
Nought could its strength or sleight at swimming save
The white swan, dwelling on the pathless wave,
Lest it by fire, like Phaëton, should die,
For whom its shrill voice yet upbraids the sky.
And thou, sad partridge, think'st thou that to flee
Straight from the copse secures thy life to thee?
Thy fall is in the stubble! On no bird,
No beast, had nature for defence conferred
Such cunning, but that by the net or shaft
It fell, subdued by our superior craft.
But were I each particular to tell
Of this delightful life, the vesper bell
Would sound ere it was done: enough to know
That this fond friendship, this divine-faced foe,
So pure from passion, undisturbed by fears,
To different colour changed my rising years.
My ill star shone; the spirit of unrest,
And love, excessive love, my soul possessed;
So deep, so absolute, I no more knew
Myself, but doubted if the change were true.
Then first I felt to mingle with the stir
Of sweet sensations in beholding her,
Fearful desires that on their ardent wings
Raised me to hope impracticable things.
Pain for her absence was not now a pain,
Nor even an anguish brooding in the brain,
But torment keen as death—the ceaseless smart
Of fire close raging in the naked heart.
To this sad pass I gradually was brought
By my ill star, and ne'er could I have thought
Its baneful power reached farther, were it not
Proved but too surely by my present lot,
That, when compared with these, my former woes
Might be considered as a sweet repose.
But here 'tis fit the hated tale that swells
My soul with grief, and thrills the tongue that tells,
Should find a close, nor sadden, though it sears
Albanio's memory, kind Salicio's ears.
Few words will speak the rest;—one hour, but one—
Wrecked my last joy, and left me quite undone.

SALICIO.

If, my dear friend, you spoke with one who ne'er
Had felt the dangerous flame, the restless care,
The bitter-sweets of love which thus you feel,
Wisdom it were the sequel to conceal:
But if I share the sorrows of thy breast,
Why as a stranger hide from me the rest?
Think'st thou that I on my part do not prove
This living death, this agony of love?
If skilled experience should not wholly end
Thy heavy grief, the pity of a friend,
Himself sore wounded by the marksman's dart,
Will fail not to at least assuage the smart.
Since, then, I candidly disclose my share
In such concerns (and even yet I bear
Marks of the arrow), it is quite unkind
To be so shy: whilst thou hast life, thy mind
Should cherish hope; I may, as Love's high priest,
Counsel some cure, or weep with thee at least.
No harm can come from subjecting thine ear
To the kind counsels of a friend sincere.

ALBANIO.

Thou would'st that I should fruitlessly contend
With one who must o'ercome me in the end.
Love wills my silence, nor can I commence
The tale requested without great offence:
Love chains my tongue, and thus—indeed, indeed—
Spare me, I feel that I must not proceed.

SALICIO.

What obstacle forbids thee to reveal
This ill to one who surely hopes to heal
In part the wound?

ALBANIO.

Love, love that doth deny
All comfort,—Love desires that I should die;
Knowing too well that for a little while
The mere relation would my grief beguile,
More swiftly to destroy, the God unjust
Has now deprived my bosom of the gust
Which late it had, to candidly avow,
And thus conclude its sorrows; so that now
It neither does become thy truth to seek
For farther knowledge, nor myself to speak,—
Myself, whom fortune has alone distressed,
And who alone in dying look for rest.

SALICIO.

Who is so barbarous to himself as e'er
To' entrust his person to a murderer's care,
His treasures to the spoiler! Can it be,
That without discomposure thou canst see
Love make in frolic, for a flight of skill,
Thy very tongue the puppet of his will?

ALBANIO.

Salicio, cease this language; curb thy tongue;
I feel the grief, the insult, and the wrong:
Whence these fine words? what schoolman did commit
To thee this pomp of philosophic wit,
A shepherd of the hills? with what light cheer
The careless lip can learn to be severe,
And oh, how easily a heart at ease
Can counsel sickness to throw off disease!

SALICIO.

I counselled nothing that deserved to call
An answer from thee of such scorn and gall:
Merely I asked thee—ask thee to relate
What it is makes thee so disconsolate.
I shared thy joy, and can I fail to be
Touched with thy grief? be free with me, be free.

ALBANIO.

Since I no longer can the point contest,
Be satisfied—I will relate the rest;
One promise given, that when the tale is done,
Thou wilt depart, and leave me quite alone;
Leave me alone, to weep, as eve declines,
My fatal loss amid these oaks and pines.

SALICIO.

Well! though thy wisdom I cannot commend,
I will prove more a fond than faithful friend;
Will quit the place, and leave thee to thy woes:

ALBANIO.

Now then, Salicio, hear what I disclose;
And you, the Dryads of this leafy grove,
Where'er you be, attend my tale of love!
I have already told the prosperous part,
And if in peace I could have fixed my heart,
How happy had I been; but the desire,
The constant striving to conceal my fire
From her, alas! whose sweet and gentle breath
But fanned it, brought me to the gates of death.
A thousand times she begged, implored to know
What secret something vexed my spirit so;
In my pale aspect she too plainly read
Grief of some sort, and gaiety was fled;
Thus would she say, thus sue to me, but sighs
And tears of anguish were my sole replies.
One afternoon, returning from the chase
Fatigued and fevered, in the sweetest place
Of this wide forest, even where now we sit,
We both resolved our toil to intermit.
Under the branches of this beech we flung
Our limbs at ease, and our bent bows unstrung.
Thus idly lying, we inspired with zest
The sweet, fresh spirit breathing from the west.
The flowers with which the mosses were inlaid,
A rich diversity of hues displayed,
And yielded scents as various; in the sun,
Lucid as glass, this clear, shrill fountain shone,
Revealing in its depth the sands like gold,
And smooth, white pebbles whence its waters rolled;
Nor goat, nor stag, nor hermit, nor the sound
Of distant sheepbells, broke the stillness round.
When with the water of the shaded pool
We had assuaged our thirst, and grew more cool,
She, who with kind solicitude still kept
The' intent to know why I so often wept,
With solemn prayers adjured me to confess
The cause or object of my sore distress;
And if 'twas love, not to be swayed by shame,
But own it such, and write the lady's name;
Vowing that as she always from her youth
Had shown me an affection full of truth,
So in this instance she with pure good-will
Would aid my views, and prove a sister still.
I, who no longer could my soul contain,
Yet dared not openly the truth explain,
Told her that in the fountain she might read
Her name whose beauty made my bosom bleed.
Her eager mind was instant on the wing,
She rose, she ran, and looked into the spring,
But seeing only her own face there, blushed
With maiden shame, and from the water rushed,
Swift as if touched with madness, not a look
She deigned me, but her way disdainful took,
And left me murmuring here, till life shall fail,
My rash resolve for ever to bewail.
My folly I accused—all, all engrossed
In vain reflections on the' advantage lost.
Thus grew my grief; thus fatally misled,
What sighs did I not breathe, what tears not shed;
For countless hours stretched here I lay, with eyes
Rigidly fixed upon the vacant skies;
And as one grief in hand another brought,
The ceaseless tear, the phantasies of thought,
The frequent swoon, remorse for felt offence,
Regret, despair, the senselessness of sense,
And a benumbing consciousness of pain
Perpetual, almost, almost whirled my brain.
I know not how I found my friends, nor what
Led my stray footsteps homeward to my cot;
I only know four suns had risen and past,
Since fasting, sleepless, motionless, aghast,
I had lain here; my herds too had been left
All this long time, of wonted grass bereft;
The calves that lately frisked it o'er the field,
Finding their udders no refreshment yield,
Lowing complained to the unheeding skies;
The woods, alone considerate of their cries,
Rebellowing loudly, gave back the lament,
As though condoling with their discontent.
These things yet moved me not; the many—all
In fact, that now upon me came to call,
Were frightened with my weeping; rumour led,
And curious wonder, numbers to my shed;
The shepherds, herdsmen, pruners of the vines,
Anxious to serve me, with sincerest signs
Of pity, pleaded, prayed me to declare
The cause of my mad grief and deep despair;
Stretched on the earth, to them my sole replies
Were broken groans, fast tears, and fiery sighs;
Or if at times I spoke, one answer came
From my wild lips—the same, and still the same:
"Swains of the Tagus, on its flowery shore,
Soon will you sing, 'Albanio is no more!'
This little comfort I at least shall have,
Though I be laid within the wormy grave,
Sad you will sing, 'Albanio is no more,'
Swains of the Tagus, on its flowery shore!"
The fifth night came: my ill star then inspired
My brain to dare what had been long desired—
The shuffling off life's load, and out I rushed
With wild resolve—creation all was hushed;
Through the dusk night I hurried to descry
Some lonely spot where I might fitly die.
As chance would have it, my faint footsteps drew
To a high cliff which yet far off I knew,
As pendant o'er the flood, scooped into caves
By constant sapping of the restless waves.
There, as I sate beneath an elm, o'erspent,
A sudden ray returning memory lent:
I once, with her, had to the neighbouring trees
Come at midnoon to take the cooling breeze.
On this my fancy fixed; the thought like balm
Assuaged my frenzy, and I grew more calm.
And now the dawn with roses had begun
To pave the path of the resplendent sun,
To which the green trees bowed, and, woke from rest,
The smiling Ocean bared her heaving breast;
When, as the melancholy swan, that feeling
Life's latest anguish o'er her spirit stealing,
Sings with her quivering bill and melting breath,
Sad, but most sweet, the lullaby to death;
So I, in equal pain and sickness lying,
The immortal passing, and the mortal dying,
Took my last farewell of the skies and sun,
In passionate laments that thus might run:
"Oh! fierce as Scythian bears in thy disdain,
And as the howling of the stormy main
Deaf to my plaints, come, conqueress, take thy prey,
A wretched frame fast hastening to decay!
I faint—I die, and thus will put an end
To thy dislike; no longer shall offend
The' enamoured breast where thy dear beauty lies,
My mournful face, rash lips, or weeping eyes.
Then thou, who in my lifetime scorned to move
One step to comfort me, or even reprove,
Stern to the last,—then thou wilt come, perchance,
And as thine eyes on my cold relics glance,
Repent thy rigour, and bewail my fate;
But the slow succour will have come too late.
Canst thou so soon my long, long love forget,
And in a moment break without regret
The bond of years? hast thou forgotten too
Childhood's sweet sports, whence first my passion grew,
When from the bowery ilex I shook down
Its autumn fruit, which on the crag's high crown
We tasted, sitting, chattering side by side?
Who climbed trees swinging o'er the hoarse deep tide,
And poured into thy lap, or at thy feet,
Their kernelled nuts, the sweetest of the sweet?
When did I ever place my foot within
The flowery vale, brown wood, or dingle green,
And culled not thousand odorous flowers to crest
Thy golden curls, or breathe upon thy breast?
You used to swear, when I was absent far,
There was no brightness in the morning star,
For you no sweetness in the noon's repose,
Taste in the wave, nor fragrance in the rose.
Whom do I wail to? Not a single word
Is heard by her by whom it should be heard.
Echo alone in pity deigns to hear me,
And with her mimic answers strives to cheer me,
Remembering sweet Narcissus, and the pain
Which she herself endured from shy disdain;
But ev'n kind Echo pity deems a fault,
Nor stands revealed within her hollow vault.
Spirits! if such there be, that take the care
Of dying lovers, and attend their prayer,
Or personal genius of my life! receive
The words I utter, ere my soul takes leave
Of its frail tenement! oh Dryades!
Peculiar guardians of these verdant trees,
And you, swift-swimming Naiads who reside
In this my native river! from the tide
Upraise your rosy heads, if there be one
That sighs, and weeps, and loves as I have done;
That I, white Goddesses, may have to say—
Though my weak plaints and unmelodious lay
Moved not one human eye to pitying tears,
The mournful dirge could touch diviner ears.
Oh fleet-foot Oreads of the hills! who go
Chasing through chestnut groves the hart and roe,
Leave wounding animals, draw near, and scan
The last convulsions of a wounded man!
And you, most gracious Maidens, that amid
The night of woods till summer noons lie hid,
Then, crowned with roses, issue from your oaks,
Your white breasts covered with your golden locks;
Sweet Hamadryads! hear my plaints forlorn,
And if with angry Fate ye are not sworn
Against me, to the causes of my death
Give celebration and perpetual breath.
Oh wolves! oh bears! that in the deep descents
Of these o'ershaded caves to my laments
Are listening now, as oft my flute could move
Your shaggy ears, and lull you into love,
Repose in peace! farewell each high-browed mountain!
Green crofts, farewell! Adieu thou fatal fountain!
Still waters, foaming streams, and you, ye strong
Sonorous cataracts, farewell! live long,
Long ages after me, and as ye sweep
To pay rich tribute to the hoary deep,
Oft sound my sad voice through the stony vales;
Oft to the traveller tell autumnal tales
Of him whose tuneful ditties charmed of old
Your living waves, rejoicing as ye rolled;
Who watered here his heifers, day by day,
And crowned with wreaths of laurel and of bay,
The brows of his strong bulls:"—and saying this,
I rose, from that tremendous precipice
To fling myself, and clambered up the hill
With hasty strides, and a determined will;
When lo! a blast sufficient to displace
The huge sierra from its stable base,
Arose and smote me to the earth, where long
I lay astonished from a stroke so strong.
But when at length I came to recollect,
And on the marvel seriously reflect,
I blamed my impious rashness, and the crime
That sought to end before the destined time,
By means so terrible, my life of grief,
Though harsh, determinate, though bitter, brief.
I have since then been steadily resigned
To wait for death, when mercilessly kind
It comes to free me from my pangs; and now,
See how it comes! Though heav'n did not allow
Me to find death, the assassin is left free
To find, and shake his fatal dart o'er me.—
I have now told thee the true cause, the cross
Occurrence, pain, and process of my loss;
Fulfil thy promise now, and if thou art
Indeed my friend, as I believe, depart;
Nor give disturbance to a grief so deep—
Its only solace is the wish to weep.

SALICIO.

On one point only now
Would I remark, if thou
Would'st not imagine it was meant to' advise;
I'd ask thee, what can blind
So utterly thy mind,
And warp thy judgment in so strange a wise,
As not at once to see
Instinctively, that she
Who so long charmed thee with her grateful smile,
With, or without regret,
Can never all forget
Your past fond friendship in so short a while;
How dost thou know but that she feels no less
Grief for her own coy flight, than pain for thy distress?

ALBANIO.

Cease, flattering sophist, cease
This artificial peace,
Nor with false comfort make my sufferings more;
Or I, far, far exiled,
Must seek some hideous wild
Where human footstep never stamped the shore.
She is entirely changed
From what she was, estranged
From all kind feelings; this too deemest thou,
Howe'er thy lips unwise
With rhetoric would disguise
The fatal truth, or seem to disallow;
But thy dear sophistry indulge alone,
Or for more credulous ears reserve it; I am gone!

SALICIO.

All hope of cure is vain,
Till less he dreads the pain
Of the physician's probe;—here then alone,
Indulging his caprice,
I'll leave him, till disease
Has passed its raging crisis, and is grown
More tractable, until
The storm of a self-will
So passing strong, has raved itself to rest:
And to yon bower of birch
I'll meanwhile pass, in search
Of the sweet nightingale's secreted nest;
And, beautiful Gravina, it shall be
Thine for one rosy kiss: I know the ivied tree.

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA II.

CAMILLA. ALBANIO. SALICIO. NEMOROSO.

CAMILLA.

Echo the sound did much misrepresent,
If this is not the way the roebuck went
After 'twas struck; how swift it must have fled,
And with what strength, considering how it bled!
So deep the bearded shaft transfixed its side,
That the white feather was alone descried;
And now the search of what eludes my sight
Tires me to death. It can't have stretched its flight
Beyond this valley; it must surely be
Here, and perhaps expiring! oh that she,
My Lady of the Groves, would of her pack
Lend me a hound to follow up the track,
The whilst I sleep away the hours of heat
Within these woods!—Oh visitants most sweet!
Fresh, amorous, gentle, flavourous breezes, blow
In deeper gusts, and break this burning glow
Of the meridian sun! at length, I pass
My naked soles upon the cold green grass;
Thy sylvan toils this raging noon commit
To men, Diana, whom they best befit!
For once I dare thy horn to disobey;
Thy favourite chase has cost me dear to-day.
Ah my sweet fountain! from what paradise
Hast thou too cast me by a mere surprise?
Know'st thou, clear mirror, what thy glass has done?
Driven from me the delightful face of one,
Whose kind society and faith approved
I now no less desire than then I loved,
But not as he supposed; God grant that first
Her heart may break, ere vowed Camilla burst
The virgin band that binds her with the maids
Of dear Diana, and her sacred shades!
With what reluctance thought renews the sense
Of this sad history, but the youth's offence
Exculpates me; if of his absence I
Were the prime cause, I would most willingly
Myself condemn, but he, I recollect,
Both wilful was, and wanting in respect.
But why afflict myself for this? I yet
Would live contented, and the boy forget.—
These clear cool springs a lulling murmur make,
Here will I lie, and my sweet siesta take;
And when the sultry noon is over, go
Again in search of my rebellious roe:
Still 'tis a mystery and surprise to me
With such a wound how it so far could flee!

ALBANIO.

Methought, or frolic fancy must delight
With false presentments to deceive my sight,
I saw a wood-nymph, gliding through the groves,
Reach the near fountain; haply, if she loves,
She may advise me of some charm, may name
Some dear deceit to ease this painful flame:
No given advice but aggravates my grief,
If 'tis in discord with my own belief,
And to the hopeless harm can none accrue:
Oh holy Gods! what is it that I view?
Is it a phantom changed into the form
Of her whose beauty makes my blood run warm?
No, 'tis herself, Camilla, sleeping here;
It must be she—her beauty makes it clear!
But one such wonder Nature wished to make,
Then broke the die for admiration's sake.
How could I then suppose her not the same,
When Nature's self no second such can frame!
But now, though certain is the bliss displayed,
How shall I venture to awake the maid,
Dreading the light that lures me to her side?
And yet—if only for the pleasing pride
Of touching her, methinks that I might shake
This fear away; but what if she should wake?
To seize and not to loose her—soft! I fear
That daring act might make her more austere;
Yet, what is to be done? I wish to reach
My former seat beneath the shady beech,
And hers is slumber deep as death; she lies,
How beautifully blind! the bee that flies
Near her, the quarrelling birds, that old sweet tune
Hummed by the spring, all voices of the noon
Tease, but disturb her not; her face is free—
A charming book—to be perused by me,
And I will seize the' occasion; if the boughs
In being parted should from slumber rouse,
Strong to detain her I am still, though not
As when we last were seated on this spot:
Oh hands, once vigorously disposed to end me!
See you how much your power can now befriend me?
Why not exert it for my welfare!—small
The risk—one effort will suffice for all.

CAMILLA.

Aid me Diana!

ALBANIO.

Stir not! from my hold
Thou canst not break; but hear what I unfold.

CAMILLA.

Who would have told me of so rude a stroke?
Nymphs of the wood, your succour I invoke!
Save me, oh save! Albanio, this from thee?
Say, art thou frenzied?

ALBANIO.

Frenzy should it be,
That makes me love—oh more than life,—the cause
Of all my grief, who scorns me and abhors.

CAMILLA.

I ought, methinks, to be abhorred by thee,
To make thy speeches with thy deeds agree;
To seek to treat me so, at such a time!
Outrage on outrage heaping, crime on crime.

ALBANIO.

I commit outrage against thee! May I
In thy disgrace, my dear Camilla, die,

CAMILLA.

Hast thou not
Infringed our friendship on this very spot,
Seeking to turn it by a course amiss
From placid thoughts?

ALBANIO.

Oh holy Artemis!
Must the distraction of a single hour
Whole years of fond attention overpower,
When, too, repentance mourns the fault, and when—

CAMILLA.

Ah, this is always the sly way with men!
They dare the crime, and if the' event goes wrong,
Cry your forgiveness with the meekest tongue.

ALBANIO.

What have I dared, Camilla?

CAMILLA.

It is well;
Ask these dumb woods, this fountain, it shall tell;
There it remains in face of the pure skies,
The living witness of thy wrong device.

ALBANIO.

If death, disgrace, or pain can expiate
My fault, behold me here prepared to sate
Thy anger to the full.

CAMILLA.

Let go my wrist!
Scarce can I breathe; let go, I do insist!

ALBANIO.

Much, much I fear that thou wilt take the wing
Of the wild winds, and flee.

CAMILLA.

Fear no such thing!
With pure fatigue I am quite overcome;
Unhand me! Oh, my dislocated thumb!

ALBANIO.

Wilt thou sit still, if I my grasp forego,
Whilst by clear reasons I proceed to show
That without any reason thou with me
Wert wroth?

CAMILLA.

A pretty reasoner thou wilt be!
Well, free me that I may.

ALBANIO.

Swear first in sooth,
By our past friendship and our bygone youth.

CAMILLA.

Soothly I swear by the pure law sincere
Of our past friendship, to sit down and hear—
Thy chidings, sure enough; to what a state
Hast thou reduced my hand in this debate
By thy fierce grasp!

ALBANIO.

To what a state hast thou
Reduced my soul by leaving me till now!

CAMILLA.

My golden clasp, if that be lost—woe's me!
Unlucky that I am! 'tis gone, I see,
Fallen in this fatal vale! what mischief more?

ALBANIO.

I should not wonder if it dropped before,
In the deep Vale of Nettles.

CAMILLA.

I desire,
Where'er it dropped, to seek it.

ALBANIO.

That will tire
Still more my dear Camilla; leave that toil!
I'll find the clasp; I cannot bear the soil
Should scorch my enemy's white feet;—

CAMILLA.

Well, well,
Since you're so good—behold that beechen dell
In sunshine, look straight forward, there, below;
A full round hour I've there been spending:

ALBANIO.

So!
I see it now; but meanwhile pray don't go.

CAMILLA.

Swain, rest assured that I will die before
Thy apprehending hands affright me more.

ALBANIO.

Ah, faithless nymph! and is it in this mode
Thou keep'st thy plighted oath? Oh heavy load
Of curst existence! oh false love, to cheer
My drooping soul with hopes so insincere!
Oh painful mode of martyrdom! oh death,
Cool torturer, slow to claim my hated breath!
You give me cause to call high Heaven unjust;
Gape, empty earth, and repossess the dust
Of this rebellious body, which debars
The swift-winged soul from soaring to the stars!
I, I will let it loose; let them that dare
Resist—resist me?—of themselves take care,
It much concerns them! Can I not fulfil
My threats? die, go—here—there—where'er I will,
Spirit or flesh?

CAMILLA.

Hark! he desires to do
Himself some mischief; my worst fears were true,
And his mind wanders.

ALBANIO.

Oh that here I had
The man whose malice seems to drive me mad!
I feel discharged of a vast weight! it seems
I fly, disdaining mountains, woods, and streams,
My farm, flock, field, and dairy! Are not these
Feet? yes, with them I fly where'er I please.
And now I come to think, my body's gone;
It is the spirit I command alone.
Some one has stolen and hid it as I gazed
On the clear sky, somewhat too much amazed;
Or has it stayed behind asleep? I swear
A figure coloured like the rose was there,
Slumbering most sweetly; now, if that should be
My shape—no, that was far too fair for me.

NEMOROSO.

Poor head! I would not give a coin of brass
For thy discretion now.

ALBANIO.

To whom, alas,
Shall I give notice of the theft?

SALICIO.

'Tis strange,
And passing sad, to see the utter change
In this once sprightly youth, with whom we two,
My Nemoroso, have had much to do;
Mild, pleasant, good, wise, sociable, and kind,
The sweetest temper and sincerest mind.

ALBANIO.

I will find witness, or small power is left
Me 'gainst the man that did commit the theft,
And though my body's absent, as a foe
Will drive him on to death; ah, dost thou know
Aught of the thief, my gentle fountain fair?
Speak, if thou dost! so may the swart star ne'er
Sear thy fresh shades, or scorch thy silver spring,
But still green fairies round thee dance and sing.
There stands a man at bottom of the brook,
With laurel crowned, and in his hand a crook
Shaped like mine own, of oak: ho! who goes there?
Answer, my friend! Heaven help me! I declare
Thou' art deaf or dumb, some mortal foe I fear
To life's humanities; holla! give ear;
I am a disembodied soul; I seek
My body, which, in a malicious freak,
Some cruel thief has stol'n, it much has stirred me;
Deaf or not deaf I care not—have you heard me?
O gracious God! either my wayward brain
Wanders, or I behold my shape again;
Ha, my loved body! I no longer doubt thee,
I clearly see thy image; whilst without thee
I have been most unhappy—come, draw nigher,
End both thy exile and my lorn desire.

NEMOROSO.

I much suspect that his continual thought
And dreams of death, have in his fancy wrought
This pictured separation.

SALICIO.

As in sleep,
Ills which awake perpetually we weep,
Fraught with the grief that haunts the soul, remain,
And print their shadowy species on the brain.

ALBANIO.

If thou art not in chains, come forth to' endow
Me with the true form of a man, who now
Have but the title left; but if thou' art bound
By magic art, and rooted to the ground,
I pray thee speak! for if my piteous pleading
Should fail to touch the ear of Heaven unheeding,
I to the bowers of Tartarus will depart,
And storm fierce Pluto's adamantine heart,
As for his absent consort, unalarmed,
Did the fond lover, who with music charmed
Hell's grisly maids, and hushed, sweet harmonist,
The raging snakes that round their temples hissed!

NEMOROSO.

With what good arguments does he enforce
His mad opinions!

SALICIO.

The accustomed course
Of ingenuity awhile holds on,
When genius fails, and apprehension's gone;
Thus, though now frenzied, still a lucid vein
Runs through the dark ideas of his brain,
Having been what we knew him once.

NEMOROSO.

No more,
Praise him not to me, for my heart runs o'er
With grief to see him in so lost a strait.

ALBANIO.

I was considering what a painful state
This strange, sad exile is; for, to my mind,
Nor woods, nor oceans warred on by the wind,
Nor moated towers, nor mountains, pathless proved,
Nor others' sweet society beloved,
Cuts us asunder, but a slender wall
Of water, lucid, but preventing all
The blissful union we desire so much;
For from that surface where we all but touch
Thou never dost depart, and seemest never
Satiate with gazing, by each fond endeavour
Of becks, and smiles, and gestures, signifying
Desire of junction, duteous, but denying;
Brother, reach out thy arm, that we may shake
Hands like good friends, and for past friendship's sake,
Once more embrace! ha! mock'st thou me? dost thou
Fly from me thus? 'tis acting not, I vow,
As a friend should; I from the fountain's froth
Am dripping wet, and thou, too, art thou wroth—
Poor Sir Unfortunate? ha! ha! how swift
Thy—what is it? thy figure thou dost shift;
Ruffled, disturbed, and with a writhen face!
That this unlucky thing now should take place!
I was consoled in seeing so serene
Thy amorous image and thy smiling mien.
No happy thing with me will now endure!

NEMOROSO.

Nothing at least that will thy frenzy cure.

SALICIO.

Let us depart; fresh furies now begin
To storm his soul.

ALBANIO.

Oh heav'n! why not leap in,
And reach the centre of the fountain cold?

SALICIO.

What foolish fancy's this, Albanio? hold!

ALBANIO.

Oh the clear thief! but how? what? is it well
To' invest thyself with my secreted shell
Of flesh, before my face? oh insolence!
As if I were a block devoid of sense
And common feeling; but this hand shall slay,
And pluck thy daring spirit out.

SALICIO.

Away!
Come thou; I am not equal to the task
Of mastering him.

NEMOROSO.

What would'st thou?

SALICIO.

Canst thou ask,
Kinsman unkind, what would I? disengage
My hand and throat, if his malicious rage
Give me but power.

NEMOROSO.

Act no such petty part;
Thou canst but do thy duty where thou art.

SALICIO.

Is this a time for pleasantry and play?
Sport'st thou with life? come instantly, I pray!

NEMOROSO.

Anon: I'll stand awhile aloof, and see
How from a madcap thou thyself canst free.

SALICIO.

Alas! I strike for self-defence.

ALBANIO.

Although
You die—

NEMOROSO.

It is too true; madman, let go!

ALBANIO.

I'll end him; but one moment let me be.

NEMOROSO.

Off, off this instant!

ALBANIO.

Why, how harm I thee?

NEMOROSO.

Me? not in any wise.

ALBANIO.

Then homeward turn,
And meddle not in what you've no concern.

SALICIO.

Ha, madman! pinion him and hold him tight,
For mercy's sake; I'll do for thee, sir knight!
Hold fast his elbows whilst the cord I tie;
Sound of the switch perchance may terrify
His proud soul to submission.

ALBANIO.

Noble lords,
If I be still, will you put up your swords?

SALICIO.

No.

ALBANIO.

Would you kill me?

SALICIO.

Yes.

ALBANIO.

A harmless gnat!
Look how much higher this rock is than that.

NEMOROSO.

'Tis well; he shortly will forget his vaunt.

SALICIO.

Soft; for 'tis thus they use such minds to daunt.

ALBANIO.

What! lashed and pinioned?

SALICIO.

Hush, give ear.

ALBANIO.

Woe's me!
Dark was the hour when first I strove with thee,
So harsh thou smitest; were we not before
As brothers fond; shall we be such no more?

NEMOROSO.

Albanio, friend beloved, be silent now;
Sleep here awhile, and move not.

ALBANIO.

Knowest thou
Any news of me?

SALICIO.

Mad, poor fool!

ALBANIO.

Agreed.
Soft, for I sleep.

SALICIO.

Indeed dost thou?

ALBANIO.

Indeed!
Sound as the dead! what motion do I make?
Only observe me.

SALICIO.

Hush! the wand I shake
Shall pay the price of thy rebellious will,
If thou unclose an eye.

NEMOROSO.

He is more still
And tranquil than he was: Salicio,
What are thy thoughts; can he be cured, or no?

SALICIO.

To use all gentle methods that may tend
Or to the life or health of such a friend,
Is our just duty.

NEMOROSO.

Hark then for a space
To what I say; a singular strange case
Will I relate, of which—but let that pass—
I both the witness and the subject was.
On Tormes' banks, the sweetest stream of Spain,
Mild, sacred, clear, extends a spacious plain,
Green in mid-winter, green in autumn, green
In sultry summer as in spring serene;
At the far end of which, the eye's delight,
Charming in form, and of a pleasing height,
A hill o'erlooks the scene, whose wood-crowned crest
Fair towers surmount, whereon heaven seems to rest:
Towers of strange beauty, not so much admired
For their fine structure, although Toil has tired
Thereon his curious chisel, as renowned
For their grand Lords by glory haloed round.
All that is deemed desirable and great
May there be found, rank, wisdom, virtue, state,
The gifts of Nature, and the stores of Art,
Whatever Taste can wish, or Power impart.
There, dwells a man of genius, whose rare touch
Of the melodious lyre and pipe is such
As ne'er to satiate with its notes of grace
And flavourous tones, the Spirit of the place.
On Trebia's field stood his paternal home,
Trebia the red, the' Aceldama of Rome,
And still, though numerous years have intervened,
The favourite refuge of the same fierce fiend—
Of war, whose crimson sword its turf has stained,
Its green bowers ravaged, its pure waves profaned.
He, seeing this, abandoned it to find
Some scene more suited to his gentle mind:
Good fortune led his footsteps to the hall
Of Alba, so that splendid seat they call,
Severo him; the God of wit and light
Pours all his rays on his sciential sight.
He, when he wills, by signs and murmured spells,
Can curb the swiftest, mightiest stream that swells;
Change storms to golden calms, change night to noon,
Bid thunders bellow, and pluck down the moon,
If to his signals she will not reply,
And check the car that whirls her through the sky.
I fear, should I presume to speak in praise
Of all his power and wisdom, I should raise
His wrath, but this I must declare, above
All other things, the pangs of slighted love
He in an instant cures, removes the pain,
Converts impassioned frenzy to disdain,
Sadness to smiles, and on the soul's tuned keys
Rewakes its old familiar melodies.
I shall not know, Salicio, I am sure,
To tell the means and method of my cure,
But this I know, I came away quite sound,
Pure from desire, and vigorous from my wound.
I well remember that by Tormes' stream
I found him rapt in some pathetic theme,
Singing in strains whose sweetness might imprint
The soul of feeling in a heart of flint:
When me he saw, divining my desire,
He changed the mode, and rectified his lyre;
The praise of liberty from love he sings,
And with a sprightlier spirit smites the strings;
Reflected in his song, I stand confest
The slave of sense, and alien from all rest,
Shamed and surprised, till—how shall I explain
That strange effect?—the fascinating strain
The tincture takes of medicine, which, in brief,
Flows through my veins, and, grappling with my grief,
Roots out the venom: then was I as one
Who all night long o'er break-neck crags has run,
Not seeing where the path leads, till at last
Light dawns, and looking back, the perils passed
Rush on his sight, now so distinctly kenned,
The mere idea sets his hair on end:
So thunderstruck stood I, nor to this day
Can I, without a shudder of dismay,
Eye my past danger; my new scope of sight
Presented all things in their proper light,
And showed what I before with such a gust
Had grasped for gold, to be but worthless dust.
Such was the talisman, and such the skill
With which that ancient sage uncharmed my will;
My mind its native liveliness regained,
And my heart bounded as from bonds unchained.

SALICIO.

Oh fine old age! ev'n fruitful in thy snows,
That to the soul thus bring'st its lost repose,
Weaning the heart from love, the ungentle gust
That blasts our hopes, or weds them with the dust.
Merely from that with which thou hast amazed
My ear, I feel strong wishes in me raised,
To see and know him.

NEMOROSO.

Does thy wonder mount
So high, Salicio, at this poor account?
More could I say, if I were not afraid
To tire thy patience.

SALICIO.

What is this thou' hast said,
Unthinking Nemoroso? Can there be
Aught half so charming, half so sweet to me,
As listening to thy stories? Tell me more
Of sage Severo; tell me, I implore.
Nought interrupts the tale; our flocks at rest,
The fresh soft wind comes whispering from the west;
Sweet weeps the nightingale in song that moves
In amorous hearts the sadnesses she proves;
The turtle murmurs from her elm; the bee
Hums; the shy cuckoo shouts from tree to tree;
The wood a thousand flowers presents; the flowers
A thousand hues; and, hung with nodding bowers,
This babbling fountain with its voice invites
To social ease and interchanged delights.

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA III.

NEMOROSO. SALICIO.

NEMOROSO.

Hark then awhile, and I will tell of things
Strange and amazing: Spirits of these springs,
Nymphs, I invoke you! Silvans, Satyrs, Fauns,
That haunt the glens, the greenwoods, and the lawns!
Sweet from my lips let each clear accent part,
All point or grace, all harmony or art,
Since neither pastoral pipe, Arcadian quill,
Nor syrinx sounds in concord with my will.
To such rare heights Severo's powers aspire,
His chanted verse and smooth harmonious lyre
Can stay fleet whirlwinds in their mid career,
His golden words and messages to hear,
And make them from austere, rebellious lords,
Obsequious slaves to dance around his chords
In voluntary song; old Tormes knows
His incantation, and, commanded, shows
The Senior all his secrets: once he led
The mighty master to his fountain-head,
And showed him where mid river-flowers and fern
He lies, incumbent o'er a crystal urn;
On this he saw a thousand things embossed,
Foreseen, and sculptured with surprising cost;
With so divine a wit the sage has wrought
This vase, each object seems instinct with thought.
On every side the figured bas-reliefs
Depict the deeds and virtues of the chiefs,
Who by illustrious titles dignified,
And ruled the tract through which his waters glide.
There the brave youth, Don Garcia, stood confessed
By his disdainful mien, dilated chest;
He 'gainst a wise and potent king that held
His sire in bondage, gallantly rebelled,[7]
Each bold retainer summoning, to aid
His pious aims; with him the God pourtrayed
His son, who showed, whilst earth enjoyed his light,
At court a Phœbus, and a Mars in fight:
Young though he seemed, he promised in his look
Supreme success in all he undertook;
Ev'n in his youth, upon the Moors he dealt
Severe rebukes, and made his puissance felt;
And as the chieftain of the Christian band,
Confirmed his heart and exercised his hand.
Elsewhere, with more assured renown, and now
With more of manhood on his martial brow,
He harassed the fierce Franks: sublime he stood
To sight, his armours red with hostile blood.
Long in the straitened siege had he sustained
The woes of want; no measure now remained,
But through the breaches of the rending wall
In furious sally on the foe to fall.
What numbers died that day beneath his spear!
What other numbers fled like hunted deer!
No pictured tale, no sculptured argument,
No poet's flame could fitly represent
How fierce Fadrique smote them as they fled,
The chaser's rage, and the pursued one's dread.
Near him is seen in bold relief his son,
Don Garcia, equalled upon earth by none,
Unless by his Fernando! who could view
The ardent light of his dear beauty, who
The expression of his frank fair countenance,
Nor own his grandeur in that single glance?
Alas! in cruelty the Furies hurled
War's fires abroad, and snatched him from the world,
The world so happy in his light! sad Spain,
Thy weeping eyes how oft didst thou in vain
Roll toward Gelves! Acting his sad part,
The youth is sculptured with such lively art,
That should you see it, you would say each stroke
Was fraught with life, and that the crystal spoke.
The broad sands burned, the sun of bloody red,
His soldiers round him fell down faint or dead;
With earnest vigilance he only cursed
That dull delay, and reckless as at first,
Praised glorious death; when suddenly the sound
Of Illa Allah shook the skies, the ground
Rang with strong trampling, and a dusty host
Of fierce barbarians the young chief enclosed;
But he, nought daunted, cast to them his gage,
In generous frenzy of audacious rage,
And bore up bravely, making many pay
The price of their temerity; these lay
In deep disorder, some whose vital threads
He had already slit, with cloven heads,
Wallowing in blood; some silent dying; some
Yet breathing free, not wholly overcome,
Showed palpitating bowels, strangely gored
By the deep gashes given by his sharp sword.
But Fate was in the conflict, and at last,
Deaf with the din, his spirits failing fast,
Pierced through with thousand swords, and craving grace
For all his sins, he laid his pallid face
On the burnt soil, and sighed away, forlorn,
His soul of beauty like the rose of morn,
That smit by the hot season, sickening grieves,
Hangs its gay head, and pales its crimson leaves;
Or as a lily which the passing share
Leaves cruelly cut down, whereby its fair
Transparent hue, though not all perished, now
That its maternal earth neglects to throw
Juice through its veins, fades soon as noontide tells
Her wonted rosary on its dewy bells;
So on the mimic sands, in miniature,
Shows thy fair face, fresh rose, white lily pure!
Next a strange sculpture draws and so detains
The' observer's notice, that he entertains
No curiosity aught else to view,
How wild soe'er, or beautiful, or new.
The three sweet Graces there are seen pourtrayed
With Phidian skill, transparently arrayed;
One only garment of celestial white
Veils their soft limbs, but shuts not out the sight.
Drawn are they cheering, strengthening for the throe,
A noble lady in her hour of woe.
Soon the dear infant is seen born; ne'er smiled
The ripening moon upon a lovelier child;
Upon his little cradle, overspread
With flowers, the name of Don Fernando's read.
From sweetly singing on the shady crown
Of Pindus, the Nine Lights of life come down;
And with them Phœbus, rosy and unshorn,
Goes, like the moon amidst the stars of morn,
With graceful step; arriving, they confess
His charms, and long and tenderly caress.
Elsewhere winged Mercury is drawn beholding
Mars, the plumed warrior, cautiously enfolding
The new-born infant in his rude embrace,
Soon giving courteous and respectful place
To Venus, smiling at his side; in turn
She kissed his cheek, and from a golden urn
Sprinkled Elysian nectar o'er the boy
With lavish hand, and fond familiar joy:
But Phœbus from her arms the child displaced,
And gave the office to his sisters chaste.
They were delighted with the sweet employ;
Time waves his wings, the babe becomes a boy,
Rising and flourishing in youthful grace,
Like a tall poplar in a shady place.
Talents he showed untaught, and undisguised
Gave now such proofs of genius, as surprised
The associate nymphs, and they the boy consigned
To one of blameless life and cultured mind,
Who to the world might make more manifest
The rich endowments which the child possessed;
An ancient man, whose face, ungiven to guile,
Expressed severeness sweetening to a smile,
Received the youth; Severo, when his gaze
Fell on this form, stood spell-bound with amaze;
For as within a looking-glass he viewed
Himself depicted, air, age, attitude,
All were conformable, just so he trod,
So looked, so greeted; turning to the god,
He saw him smiling at his frank surprise;
"And why this so great wonder?" Tormes cries;
"Seem I so ignorant as not to' have known,
Ere to thy yearning mother thou wert shown,
That thou wouldst be, when future suns should shine,
The wise Director of his soul divine?"
The Ancient, with deep joy of wonder bred,
His eager eyes upon the picture fed.
Next, as his looks along the sculptures glanced,
A youth with Phœbus hand in hand advanced;
Courteous his air, from his ingenuous face,
Informed with wisdom, modesty, and grace,
And every mild affection, at a scan
The passer-by would mark him for a man,
Perfect in all gentilities of mind,
That sweeten life and harmonize mankind.
The form which lively thus the sculptor drew,
Assur'd Severo in an instant knew,
For him who had by careful culture shown
Fernando's spirit lovely as his own;
Had given him grace, sincerity, and ease,
The pure politeness that aspires to please,
The candid virtues that disdain pretence,
And martial manliness, and sprightly sense,
With all the generous courtesies enshrined
In the fair temple of Fernando's mind.
When well surveyed, his name Severo read,
"Boscán!!" whose genius o'er the world is spread:
In whose illumined aspect shines the fire
That, streamed from Delphos, lights him to the lyre,
And warms those songs which with mankind shall stay,
Whilst endless ages roll unfelt away!
More ripeness marked the youth, as to his rules
Listening, he culled the learning of the schools;
These left at length, he in gymnastic games,
War's mimic symbols, strives with youths, whose names
Had never else been known to after years
In the wide world; the tilt of canes and spears,
Wrestling, the course, the circus, toil and dust,
Gave his arm skill, and made his limbs robust.
Next, amorous Venus shows her rosy face,
Seizing his hand, she leads him for a space
From the severe gymnasium, and aside
Points out his fault with all a lecturer's pride;
Tells him how ill he acts; that some few hours
The roughest soldier wreathes his sword with flowers,
And that in endless turmoil so to waste
The May of life was treason to good taste.
Entering a myrtle bower, she shows him, laid
Midst leaves and violets blue, a slumbering maid:
Flushed was her cheek, and as she slept she smiled,
As some delightful dream her brain beguiled:
He saw, the crimsoning cheek his passion spoke;
The bowers they rustled, and the nymph awoke.
Smit with her beauty, he desired to wed
The enchanting shape—the Goddess shook her head—
As if she feared the parties to unite;
He gazed—he gazed, insatiate with the sight!
From her dear side he could not, could not move,
Wept on her neck, and vowed eternal love.
Next, angry Mars, imperious to behold,
Advancing, gave the youth a crown of gold:
Threatening the illustrious youth, a knight was seen,
Of a fierce spirit and insulting mien.[8]
In cautious wise beneath the setting moon
They timed their steps, and met on a pontoon;
Well had the sculptor shadowed out the fight,
His clouding crystal spoke the noon of night.
Mars was their umpire; he condemned the foe,
And placed his crown upon the conqueror's brow;
Graced with the gold, the hero shone from far,
As in blue heaven the beautiful bright star
That ushers in Aurora: thence his name
Spreads to all parts, and gathers greater fame.
Soon other happier arts he meditates
To steal from death, elusive of the Fates,
Much of himself, and live admired, unfled,
When the blind vulgar might lament him dead.
Hymen came moving to the crotal's clash,
His right foot sandalled with a golden sash;
A choir of virgins sing; on dancing feet
They part alternate, and alternate meet;
Then softly lay upon the bridal couch
A blushing girl, whom Venus did avouch
To be the same that, bowered in myrtles deep,
Erst smiled so sweetly in her dreaming sleep—
A dream as sweetly realized! she showed
Worthy the youth on whom she was bestowed;
Her pillow bore the words, impaled in flame,
Donna Maria Enríquez, her name;
Anxious to be admitted, scarce the choir
Of nymphs could check Fernando's forward fire:
At length he was received, and left beside
His virtuous, pure, and beautiful young bride.
Elsewhere, on one foot standing, never stable,
Capricious Fortune did the sculptor fable,
Calling to Don Fernando that he led
A life of idleness, and now must tread
A toilsome path, but she would be his guide,
And venture first: he with her wish complied,
Made her his boon companion, and pursued
Her who, unveiled, as beautiful is wooed,
But, veiled from sight, deemed fearful, nothing worth,
Virtue her name, the rarity of earth!
Whom does she guide along with equal pace,
But him whom thus her beauty leads to face
Each fresh fatigue, for glory to aspire,
And scorn the chains of delicate desire.
The mighty Pyrenees, which seem to shoot
To heaven their summit as to hell their root,
They traversed in mid-winter; white the snow
Colours the clime, and mute the torrents flow
Under cold crystal bridges that confine
Their tides, smooth sliding through the frozen mine;
Whilst, if a blast but stirs the pines, they bend,
And with the weight of ices crashing rend.
Through all they strive, nor will be held at bay
Or by the length or wildness of the way.
By constant toil the hero makes advance,
Till the gained summit shifts the scene to France;
His swiftness Fame renewed—his spirits cheered,
On flying wings beside him she appeared,
And signified, in act and attitude,
That the hill-tracks would soon become less rude.
Of various guides the Duke selected one,
And on they rode beneath the mounting sun;
Faint wax their horses, but they reached at last
The walls of Paris, and its portals passed.
There the gaunt form of Sickness stands to sight,
The healthy duke assisting to alight;
Touched by her hand, his colour seems to fade,
He droops, he faints, and sickens to a shade.
Soon, crossing from a shady thicket green,
The form of Esculapius might be seen
With balms and herbs, nor did he slack his tread
Till he arrived beside Fernando's bed:
With his right foot he entered, and at length
Restored the patient to his usual strength.
His way he took where white-wall'd convents shine,
And reached the passage of the lucid Rhine.
The rich romantic river on its breast
Received him, glorying in so great a guest,
And called to mind the hour when to the same
Embarking point the Latin Cæsar came.
He seemed not scanty of his waves, but swelled
Floods like a sea, and the light bark impelled,
Which flying left behind green viny bowers,
High castled crags, and old romantic towers.
Blythely his impulse the swift bark obeyed,
And passed the spot where erst a ravished maid,
And thousand virgins with her, stained the sod
With blood, recorded in the book of God.
The espoused pure virgin, Ursula, was seen
Casting her dying eyes to heaven serene,
The tyrant looking on, who, at a word,
From breast to beauteous breast the sword transferred.
Thence through wide Germany he shaped his way
To where in doubt the Christian army lay,
Till to his sight the rapid Danube gave
His affluent floods; he launched upon the wave.
From the spurned shore the refluent currents strong
Winged through cleft crags his bounding boat along,
Whilst the strained oars with forcible descent
Raised showers of silver wheresoe'er it went:
On—on like lightning was it seen to fly,
Its very motion sculptured to the eye.
The heroic duke, a little farther on,
Was pictured disembarked at Ratisbon,
Where for the Imperial crown on every hand
War had convoked the magnates of the land.
Amidst his peers and princes Charles was placed,
Our Spanish Cæsar, and the duke embraced,
Charmed with his coming; all in pleased surprise
Fixed on Fernando their saluting eyes,
And the same instant they perceived him, grew
Sure of the victory when the trumpet blew.
With much vain-glory, haughtiness of mien,
And barbarous boasting, the Grand Turk was seen,
Armed, and in rich costume; pitched far and wide
Near weeping Hungary was his camp descried.
So strange a multitude o'erspread the plain,
That scarce the region could the host contain,—
A host so vast, the country, you would think,
Would fail for pasture, and the stream for drink.
Cæsar, with pious zeal and valiant soul,
These hosts despised, and bade his flags unrol;
His tribes convoked, and shortly you might see
An army form—bold, resolute, and free;
See various nations in one camp combined,
Various in speech, but influenced by one mind.
They swarmed not o'er the land in such parade
Of numbers as the Moslem, but displayed
That which these failed to show—a brave freewill,
Faith, courage, firmness, discipline, and skill.
Them with a generous zeal, by apt applause,
Fernando heartens in the common cause,
That numbers of them in his views took part,
Won to his flag with admirable art.
The fierce yet docile German he addressed
In his own style, and so to all the rest
Conformed in custom, humour, mood, and tongue,
Grave with the age'd and sprightly with the young,
That the phlegmatic Fleming would have said,
In Lisle or Antwerp he was born and bred,
In Spain the excelling Spaniard; the astute
Italian marks him, with amazement mute,
His nation's ease so well he seems to hit,
Her past proud valour, and her modern wit.
He seems in him to see arise again
Rome's last, sole hope, the youth who passed to Spain,
And closed her long, long warfare in the fall
Of rival Carthage and grim Hannibal,
Whose crimson sword, to Nemesis devote,
So oft was pointed at her naked throat.
Next sickening Envy on the crystal stood,
Severely sculptured, adverse to his good,
Gathering against Fernando, face to face,
The unfavoured faction, loud for his disgrace.
With them she armed, but in all points, with pain,
Found her arts baffled and her influence wane.
He with mild tongue and with extended hands
The tumult hushed of the censorious bands,
And by degrees soared with so high a flight,
The eyes of Envy could not reach his height,
So that successless, blinded by the blaze
Of his clear virtue, she her passion sways,
And forces her proud self, in suppliant weed,
On earth to kneel, and for forgiveness plead.
The monster's spoils he carelessly received,
And, from these rude anxieties relieved,
Walked in the cool serene of eve beside
The lonely stream, and near its tossing tide
Encountered Cæsar, full of doubt and care
For the success of the approaching war;
Since, though he banished sadness, still the thought
Of the vast stake he ventured, with it brought
Wish for wise counsel; this the duke bestowed;
They there agreed on a convenient mode
To' obstruct the plans of Solyman, destroy
His high-raised hopes, and blast his promised joy.
Their counsels ended, weary they repose
On the green turf, and as their eyelids close,
Hear the dim Danube's voice, so it might seem,
Murmur approval of their golden scheme.
Then to the pausing eye the chisel gave
The clear stream's Genius issuing from the wave,
Aged, on tiptoe moving mute, with reeds
And willows crowned, and robed in sea-green weeds;
He in that sleep uncertain showed them clear
All that concerned their ends; it would appear
That this sweet idlesse crossed their good, for swift
(As though some precious gem or cherished gift
Was burning in the flames) they start, they rise,
With terror touched and a divine surprise;
Divine surprise, that ceasing leaves behind
Hope to the heart, and gladness to the mind.
The stream without delay appeared to urge
The chiefs aboard, and smoothed its eddying surge,
That the Armada which it had to guide
O'er its broad waters might more gently glide.
What favour to the fleets its Genius bore,
Was seen in the calm wave and feathering oar.
With admirable speed you next might mark
A well-ranged army instantly embark;
The sturdy movement of dipt oars, combined
With little hindrance from the wave or wind,
Swift through the deep sonorous waters works
That fleet, obnoxious to the tyrant Turks.
No human artist could, though born to' excel,
Have framed a picture which expressed so well
The fleet, the host, the speed, the waves' rich fret;
Scarce in the forge at which the Cyclops sweat,
And, tired, change arms at every hammering blow,
Could their grand Master have expressed it so.
Through the clear current who had seen them bear,
Would on that missal have been apt to swear
That the sharp prows provoked the blue profound,
And clove the billows with a silver sound;
Grey foam before, bright bubbles danced behind;
Anon the banners, trembling in the wind,
Mimicked the moving waters; on the coast
Like living things appeared the adverse host,
Shy and incredulous, which, filled of late
With barbarous scorn and haughtiness sedate,
Thought not to meet with men that would prevent
Their march; ours, piqued by such injustice, went
Measuring their way so furiously and wroth,
That the whole stream fermented into froth.
The other host, affrighted at the view,
From tent to tent in wild distraction flew,
Eager to gather from the public breath
The' unknown intelligence of life or death;
Like a vast stream by wintry breezes crost,
Through bones and marrow ran an icy frost,
Till, the whole camp in uproar, each one placed
His hopes of safety in immediate haste.
The camp is raised in tumult; on their way
They march, they speed in shameful disarray;
Leaving behind in terror, unconcealed,
Their gold and jewels strewed o'er all the field.
The tents wherein sloth, murder, revelling,
And rape, found place with each unholy thing,
They part without; armed steeds run masterless;
On their scared lords the scared dependants press;
Whilst the fierce Spaniard, hovering round their rear,
Strains the red sword, and shakes the lifted spear.
Cæsar is seen attempting to restrain
Fernando, ardent above all to stain
His sword in unbelieving blood; with bold
And eager action, not to be controlled,
He struggles with the king; as the fierce hound
Of generous Erin, on the spring to bound
After the bristly boar, restricted, whines,
And quarrels with the leash that scarce confines
His passionate desire and fleet-foot flight,
Which makes his master draw the string more tight—
So, imaged to the life, contending stand
The fixt to fly, the settled to withstand;
So Cæsar curbs, just so Fernando grieves,
As whoso views them at a glance perceives.
Next on the clear pictorial urn is feigned
Victory, contented with the laurels gained;
Cæsar embraced—unthinking, without check,
She throws her arm around Fernando's neck;
He turns away with spleen but ill concealed,
And mourns the easy triumphs of the field.
A foreign car does next the crystal grace,
Filled with the spoils of the barbaric race,
And in accompaniment the sculptured seals
Of conquest, captives fettered to the wheels,—
Mantles, and purple silks of various realms,
Brast lances, crescents, gonfalons, and helms,
Light vant-braces, cleft shields, turbans emblazed
With gems, and swords, into a trophy raised,
Shine forth, round which, as with one heart and voice,
Cities and nations gather and rejoice.
The Tyrrhene next was whitening with the sails
Of the vast ships blown home by willing gales;
Glorious, renowned, with foamy prows they sweep,
And like majestic fishes swim the deep.
Till greenly crowned with laurel, they at last
In Barcelona Bay glad anchor cast.
Thence, promised vows fulfilled, with offered prayers
And consecrated spoils, the duke prepares
To hurry instant, glowing with the fire
Of amorous hope and long-chastised desire.
He passes Catalonia, leaves behind
The towns of Arragon, and swift as wind,
Without alighting, ever with his heel
Striking his courser, treads in sweet Castile.
To home's near joys—his lady's wished embrace,
He yields his heart—he reserenes his face,
And from his eyes and from his thought drives far
Death, dangers, doubts, vexations, wounds, and war.
Then, held alone by ecstasy in thrall,
The crystal shows him in his happy hall.
On tiptoe meeting him, with many a kiss,
His wife, half dubious of so great a bliss,
Flings round his neck with all the wife's delight
Her well-shaped arms, so delicately white,
And smiling strains him to her heart, whilst rise
Unconscious tears to her rejoicing eyes;
Those lucid eyes that the clear sun outshine,—
Glittering they gush, and make them yet more fine.
With her beloved Fernando, earth again,
The field, the stream, the mountain, and the plain,
Were deeply,—in her view, divinely blessed,
And under various modes their bliss expressed;
More lofty rise the walls; the breathing bowers
Of lovelier colours pour forth sweeter flowers;
Tormes himself is pictured in the tale,
With all his Naiads, pouring through the vale
In greater affluence his abundant streams;
With stags the face of the green mountain teems,
Roebucks and fallow deer, that sportive browze
The savoury herb, or crop the leafy boughs;
More verdant spreads the plain, extending even
Till her charmed eye beholds it blend with heaven;
And heaven is hers, deep joy, and deeper peace,
A joy whose sense exaggerates all it sees,
Full of his presence of whose praise earth sings,
And glorying Valour tells immortal things.
This saw Severo palpably and clear,
They were no dreams, no fictions; should'st thou hear
His tale, thou would'st religiously believe
The truth of it, as though thou didst perceive
Thyself the sculptures; as the urn he eyed,
He vows he in the forms such force descried—
That had even life been given to what were wrought,
They could not look more animate with thought.
What to the mind or eye obscure remained,
The courteous River lucidly explained.
"He, the young chieftain of that army," said
The God, "from pole to pole his rule shall spread;
And that his glorious deeds, when by thy lyre
Divinely hymned, mankind may more admire,
Know that these many acts, these perils sought,
And victories won by him, shall all be wrought,
With every deed with which the vase is rife,
Within the first five lustres of his life;
Now thou hast all foreseen, go forth—the Urn
To its accustomed place I must return."
"Yet first," Severo said, "to me unfold
What that may be which blinds me to behold,
Which glitters on the shaded crystal bright
As a red comet in the noon of night?"
"More knowledge, friend, than Heav'n metes out to man,"
Said he, "can ne'er be conquered by his scan;
If I not clearly picture that which draws
Thy notice thus, thou art thyself the cause;
For whilst a veil of flesh your spirit shrouds,
A thousand things are circumfused with clouds,
Which mock the curious eyes that would inquire
Into their secrets; with inferior fire
I could not work them: know then (to thy ear
I well may trust it) that what glitters here
With an excess so radiant, hue so warm,
That the dazed vision fails to fix its form,
Is what Fernando's hand and soul sublime
Shall gloriously perform in after-time;
Deeds which, compared with what he yet has done,
Are as a sparkling star or summer sun
To an obscure low vapour; thy weak view
Is not sufficient for such warmth of hue,
Till grown accustomed to the gaze; to him
Who long has languished in a dungeon dim,
Sunshine is agony—so thou, who caged
In depths of gross obstruction wert engaged
In contemplating one that might appear,
The differing native of a lovelier sphere,
Must not much wonder that thy shrinking sight
Was dazzled by such luxury of light.
But see, within my waves the sun's bright eye
Closes—is closed—ere thou canst make reply!"
Thus saying—with a pleasant parting look,
The Senior by the hand Severo shook.
Oh wonderful! the waves where the sun sank
Were on each side restricted in a rank,
And, deep albeit before, did now disclose
The bed between them, and as high they rose,
Deepening the part near which the prophet stood,
He gave a spring, and leaped into the flood;
White flew the foam to heaven, and loud to land
Roared the stirred waters mixed with golden sand.
In a new science versed, Severo grey
Was for collecting without vain delay
Its fruits for future hope, and unbesought
Wrote down the' events exact as Tormes taught;
And though he well might judge my mind would fail
To apprehend aright the' impressive tale,
Yet not for this did he refuse to' unrol
For my survey the strange prophetic scroll;
Insatiably I read, yet thou, sweet friend,
Art wondering when the tale will have an end.

SALICIO.

No! ravishment is mine
At this strange tale divine,
So well set forth by thy enchanting tongue;
Within my breast I felt,
Long as thine accents dwelt
On the rare virtues of a prince so young,
My throbbing heart beat higher,
And glow with the desire
To contemplate him present—the foretold
Of Fame, whose visnomy,
Though absent from mine eye,
By thy divine account I now behold:
Who but must wish to see the storied scrolls,
Since o'er the lively urn the silent billow rolls!
After what thou hast told,
Religiously I hold
The opinion that Severo's powers can shed
Light on the clouded brain,
Albanio's frenzy chain,
Health to the sick, and almost to the dead
Give being; it is just
We put our perfect trust
In him to whom such secrets were revealed,
As one whose skilful hand
Disorders can withstand,
Bid ev'n disease itself fresh vigour yield,
And by his subtle wisdom quickly raise
To bloom whatever droops, or sickens, or decays.

NEMOROSO.

To this result since thine opinions tend,
Salicio, what with our distracted friend?

SALICIO.

Act a friend's part; take presently our course
From hence, and ere his frenzy gathers force
Or from indulgence or delay, present
Our patient to Severe:

NEMOROSO.

I consent.
We on the morrow, ere the clear warm ray
Of the arising sun is seen to play
Upon the purple hills, will go; and sure
I feel, his skill will work an easy cure.

SALICIO.

Fold now the flock, for from the mountain's head
Cool airs descend, and longer shadows spread.
Look round, and see how from the farms whereto
Those labourers trudge, the calm smoke, rising blue,
Curls in a column to the rosy sky!
Seek with our flocks the usual vale, whilst I
Attend the youth—since he has lain so long
In quiet swoon, his fit cannot be strong.

NEMOROSO.

If thou should'st first reach home, go not to bed,
But speed the supper, and see Lyca spread
The cloth—'tis much if yet her fire's alight:

SALICIO.

I will; I will; unless in my despite
Albanio hurl me down some breakneck dell:
Farewell, dear friend!

NEMOROSO.

Salicio, friend, farewell!

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

TYRRENO. ALCINO.

The pure ambition and sincere desire,
Most beautiful Señora, that whilere
Was wont my soul in secret to inspire,
To sing thy beauty, wit, and virtue rare,
Spite of strong Fortune, that unstrings my lyre,
And turns to other paths my steps of care,
Glows, and shall glow within me, whilst the flame
Of soul lights up this perishable frame.

I fancy even, that after life this flow
Of song shall live; that when my heart grows chill,
And my lips cease to call, in joy or woe,
Eolian murmurs to my pastoral quill,
Freed from its narrow cell my ghost shall go
O'er the dark river, celebrating still
Thy glorious name, and curbing with the sound
Oblivion's waters, slowly stealing round.

But Fate, not satisfied with crossing, rives me
From every good; grief but to grief gives place;
Now from my country, from my love she drives me,
Now proves my patience in a thousand ways;
But what I feel more, is that she deprives me
Of these fond papers where my pen thy praise
Inscribes, and in their room nought, nought supp'ies
But fruitless cares and mournful memories.

Yet, let her try her utmost force, my heart
She shall not change; the world shall never say
She moves me to forsake so sweet an art;
In poesy's still walks, embowered with bay,
Apollo and the Nine shall yet impart
Leisure, and life, and language, to display
The least of thine accomplishments, the most
My feeble powers can ever hope to boast.

Let it not irk thee if I sing meanwhile
The scenes and sylvans thou hast loved, nor deem
Ill of this untrimmed portion of my style,
Which once thy goodness held in kind esteem;
Midst arms—with scarce one pause from bloody toil,
Where war's hoarse trumpet breaks the poet's dream,
Have I these moments stolen, oft claimed again,
Now taking up the sword, and now the pen.

To the wild music of my oaten reed
Listen thou then, though, naked and ungraced
With ornamental touches, it indeed
Is all unmeet to strike thine ear of taste;
But oft pure thoughts from artless lips succeed,
Chaste witnesses of sentiments as chaste,
To win the will, and pleasure more impart
Than all the' elaborate eloquence of art.

I, for this cause, though others failed my theme,
Merit thine ear; the gift which at thy feet
I cast, receive with favour; I shall deem
Myself, sweet friend, enriched by the receipt.
Of four choice Nymphs that from loved Tagus' stream
Proceed, I sing; Phyllodoce the sweet,
Dynamene, fair Clymene, and last,
Nyse, in loveliness by none surpassed.

In a sweet solitude beside the flood,
Is a green grove of willows, trunk-entwined
With ivies climbing to the top, whose hood
Of glossy leaves, with all its boughs combined,
So interchains and canopies the wood,
That the hot sunbeams can no access find;
The water bathes the mead, the flowers around
It glads, and charms the ear with its sweet sound.

The glassy river here so smoothly slid
With pace so gentle on its winding road,
The eye, in sweet perplexity misled,
Could scarcely tell which way the current flowed.
Combing her locks of gold, a Nymph her head
Raised from the water where she made abode,
And as the various landscape she surveyed,
Saw this green meadow, full of flowers and shade.

That wood, the flowery turf, the winds that wide
Diffused its fragrance, filled her with delight;
Birds of all hues in the fresh bowers she spied,
Retired, and resting from their weary flight.
It was the hour when hot the sunbeams dried
Earth's spirit up—'twas noontide still as night;
Alone, at times, as of o'erbrooding bees
Mellifluous murmurs sounded from the trees.

Having a long time lingered to behold
The shady place, in meditative mood,
She waved aside her flowing locks of gold,
Dived to the bottom of the crystal flood,
And when to her sweet sisters she had told
The charming coolness of this vernal wood,
Prayed and advised them, to its green retreat
To take their tasks, and pass the hours of heat.

She had not long to sue,—the lovely three
Took up their work, and looking forth descried,
Peopled with violets, the sequestered lea,
And toward it hastened: swimming, they divide
The clear glass, wantoning in sportful glee
Through the smooth wave; till, issuing from the tide,
Their white feet dripping to the sands they yield,
And touch the border of that verdant field.

Pressing the' elastic moss with graceful tread,
They wrung the moisture from their shining hair,
Which, shaken loose, entirely overspread
Their beauteous shoulders and white bosoms bare;
Then, drawing forth rich webs whose spangled thread
Might in fine beauty with themselves compare,
They sought the shadiest covert of the grove,
And sat them down, conversing as they wove.

Their woof was of the gold which Tagus brings
From the proud mountains in his flow divine,
Well sifted from the sands wherewith it springs,
Of all admixture purified and fine;
And of the green flax fashioned into strings,
Subtile and lithe to follow and combine
With the bright vein of gold, by force of fire
Already drawn into resplendent wire.

The subtile yarn their skill before had stained
With dyes pellucid as the brightest found
On the smooth shells of the blue sea, engrained
By sunbeams in their warm and radiant round:
Each nymph for skill in what her fingers feigned,
Equalled the works of painters most renowned,—
Apelles' Venus, or the famous piece
Wherein Timanthes veils the grief of Greece.

Phyllodoce, who of that beauteous band
Was for her majesty considered queen,
Had figured with a bold and dexterous hand
The river Strymon: on one side were seen
Green plains, on the reverse, a mountain grand
And savage, where no human foot had been,
Until the sweet, sad melodist of Thrace
Charmed with his lyre the' inhospitable place.

Beauteous Eurydice was pictured, stung
In her white foot by the small snake that lay
Collecting venom, closely coiled among
The herbs and flowers that blossomed in her way;
She was discoloured as the rose, yet young,
Plucked out of season, waning to decay:
And in her rolling eyes the soul divine
Seemed on the wing to quit its charming shrine.

Broidered at length the history was told
Of her fond lord; how, daring to descend
To the pale king of ghosts, by love made bold,
He the lost lady by his lyre regained;
How, mad once more her aspect to behold,
He turned, again to lose her, and arraigned—
Ever arraigned to mountain, cave, and spring,
The cruel terms, and unrelenting king.

Dynamene with no less skill and grace
Adorned the tale her fancy had designed;
She drew robust Apollo, to the chase
In echoing woods exclusively resigned;
But soon revengeful Love, reproached as base,
Changed the blythe scene; with grief Apollo pined;
The God had pierced him with his gold-tipt shaft,
And clapped his wings, and at his victim laughed.

Daphne with long dishevelled hair was hieing
So without pity to her tender feet,
O'er briers and rocks, that fond Apollo, sighing,
Seemed in the chase to move with steps less fleet,
For her sweet sake; he following, she still flying,
Thus the race held; he, flushed with amorous heat;
She, cold as though she froze beneath the dart
Of hatred lodged in her disdainful heart.

But at the last her arms increase and shoot
Into stiff boughs; those tresses turn to leaves,
That wont the palm of splendour to dispute
With the fine gold, whilst to the mountain cleaves
In thousand tortuous roots each lily foot;
Her frantic lover the swift change perceives;
Looks her late features in the tree to find,
And clasps and kisses the yet panting rind.

Blending the radiant threads and sparkling wire
With the most exquisite address and skill,
Of beeches, oaks, and caverns hung with brier,
Rapt Clymene pourtrayed a mighty hill,
Where ran a boar whose red eye darted fire,
With gnashing teeth—all eagerness to kill
A youth who in his hand a boar-spear shook,
Handsome in form, and spirited in look.

Anon the boar was dying of a wound
From the too valiant and adventurous youth,
And he himself lay stretched upon the ground,
Gored by the outrageous brute's avenging tooth;
His sunbeam-tinted tresses drooped unbound,
Sweeping the earth in negligence uncouth;
The white anemonies that near him blew
Felt his red blood, and red for ever grew.

This spoke the youth Adonis, and close by
Venus accordingly was seen to grieve;
Viewing the deep wound in his snowy thigh,
She o'er him hung, half dying, to receive,
Lip fondly pressed to lip, the last faint sigh
Of that sweet spirit that was wont to give
Life to the form for which, in blest accord,
She walked the world, and held high heaven abhorred.

White-bosomed Nyse took not for her theme
Memory of past catastrophes, nor twined
In her fine tissue aught that poets dream
In antique fable, for her heart inclined
To the renown of her dear native stream;
The glorious Tagus therefore she designed,
There where he blesses with his sinuous train
The happiest of all lands, delightful Spain!

Deep in a rocky valley was compressed
The wealthy river, winding almost round
A mountain, rushing with impetuous haste,
And roaring like a lion as it wound;
Mad for its prey, high flew its foaming crest;
But it was labour lost, and this it found;
For soon, contented with its wrack, the wave
Lost its resentment, and forgot to rave.

On the high mountain's airy head was placed
Of ancient towers a grand and glorious weight;
Here its bare bosom white-walled convents graced,
There castles frowned in old Arabian state;[9]
In windings grateful to the eye of taste,
Thence the smooth river, smilingly sedate,
Slid, comforting the gardens, woods, and flowers,
With the cool spray of artificial showers.

Elsewhere, the web, so richly figured o'er,
Showed the fair Dryads issuing from a wood,
With anxious haste all tending to the shore,
The grassy margin of the shaded flood;
In sable stoles, with aspect sad, they bore
Baskets of purple roses in the bud,
Lilies and violets, which they scattering poured
On a dead nymph whom deeply they deplored.

All with dishevelled hair were seen to shower
Tears o'er the nymph, whose beauty did bespeak
That death had cropt her in her sweetest flower,
Whilst youth bloomed rosiest in her charming cheek:
Near the still water, in a myrtle bower,
She lay amongst the green herbs, pale and meek,
Like a white swan that, sickening where it feeds,
Sighs its sweet life away amidst the reeds.

One of the Goddesses whose charms outshined
Her sisters, charming though they were, whose vest
Disordered, whose pale face, and eyes declined,
The deep affliction of her soul expressed,
Was duteously engraving on the rind
Of a fair poplar, separate from the rest,
The lovely nymph's memorial epitaph,
Which thus, deciphered, spoke on her behalf.

"Eliza I, whose name the vocal grove,
Whose name the mountain murmurs through its caves,
In faithful record of the grief and love
Of Nemoroso, as for me he raves,
Calling Eliza in loud shrieks that move
Responding Tagus, whose sonorous waves
Bear my name with them toward the Lusian sea,
Where heard, I trust, and reverenced it will be."

Last on this web, which we divine might deem,
Figured the history at full was found,
That on the banks of this romantic stream
Of Nemoroso was so far renowned;
For all sweet Nyse knew, and in his theme
Of sorrow took an interest so profound,
That as his exclamations reached her ears,
A thousand times she melted into tears.

And that the mournful theme might not avail
To be resounded in the woods alone,
But with o'ermastering tenderness prevail
Where'er in Tethys the blue wave is blown,
Therefore it was fond Nyse wished the tale
Of the lost nymph should in her web be shown,
And publish thus her beauty and his love
Through the moist kingdoms of Neptunian Jove.

With these fair scenes and classic histories
The webs of the four sisters were inlaid,
Which sweetly flushed with variegated dyes,
In clear obscure of sunshine and of shade,
Each figured object to observant eyes
In rich relief so naturally displayed,
That, like the birds deceived by Zeuxis' grapes,
It seemed the hand might grasp their swelling shapes.

But now the setting sun with farewell rays
Played on the purple mountains of the west,
And in the darkening skies gave vacant place
For Dian to display her silver crest;
The little fishes in her loving face
Leaped up, gay lashing with their tails the breast
Of the clear stream, when from their tasks the four
Arose, and arm in arm resought the shore.

Each in the tempered wave had dipt her foot,
And toward the water bowed her swanlike breast,
Down to their crystal hermitage to shoot,—
When suddenly sweet sounds their ears arrest,
Mellowed by distance, of the pipe or flute,
So that to listen they perforce were prest;
To the mild sounds wherewith the valleys ring,
Two shepherd youths alternate ditties sing.

Piping through that green willow wood they roam
Amidst their flocks, which, now that day is spent,
They to the distant folds drive slowly home,
Across the verdurous meadows, dew-besprent;
Whitening the dun shades, onward as they come,
Clear and more clear the fingered instrument
Sounds in accord with the melodious voice,
And cheers their task, and makes the woods rejoice.

These shepherd youths were wealthy of estate,
And skilled in singing above all that feed
Their flocks along the stream,—Tyrreno that,
Alcino this was named; their years agreed;
One was their taste; prepared now to debate
The palm of pastoral music they proceed;
In turn the voice, in turn the pipe they try,
One sings, and one makes apposite reply.

TYRRENO.

Oh gentle Flerida! more sweet to me
And flavourous than the grape, than milk more white,
And far more charming than a flower-filled lea,
When April paints the landscape with delight;
If the true love Tyrreno bears to thee
Thou dost with equal tenderness requite,
Thou to my fold wilt surely come, before
The reddening orient tells that night is o'er.

ALCINO.

Beautiful Phyllis, who so stern as thou!
May I to thee be bitterer than the broom,
And severed from thee, sorrow like the bough
Stript of its leaves before the tree's in bloom,
If the grey bat that flits around me now
More hates the light, and more desires the gloom,
Than I to see this day of anguish o'er,
To me much longer than a year before!

TYRRENO.

As Spring, attended by the laughing Hours,
After long storm is wont to reappear,
When the mild Zephyr, breathing through the bowers,
Brings back its former beauty to the year,
And goes enamelling the banks with flowers,
Blue, white, and red, all eyes and hearts to cheer;
So when returning Flerida is seen,
My heart too gladdens, and my hope grows green.

ALCINO.

Have ye the fury of the wind beheld,
When down the rough Sierra's crags it shoots,
How it hurls down the reverend rocks of eld,
And tears the quivering pines up by the roots,
Nor thus content, how with its pride upswelled,
It loudly with the frightful sea disputes?
Less fierce this rage is of the wind-borne Jove,
Than Phyllis angry at Alcino's love.

TYRRENO.

The vine and olive flourish; the green lea
Yields plenteous pasture for the flocks at morn;
Mountains the goats, the blossom feeds the bee,
And Ceres joys amidst the growing corn:
Where'er my Flerid looks, it seems to me
That generous Plenty pours forth all her horn;
But if she take away her smiling eyes,
The landscape weeps, and nought but briers arise.

ALCINO.

The field, the flock, with barrenness oppressed,
Pines fast away, each living thing conceives
Corruption, mildew—Ceres' fatal pest—
Poisons the grass and taints the wheaten sheaves;
The bird abandons its dismantled nest,
That was hedged in before with lively leaves;
But if sweet Phyllis chance to pass that way,
The flock revives, and all again looks gay.

TYRRENO.

For Daphne's laurel Phœbus gave his voice,
The towering poplar charmed stern Hercules,
The myrtle sweet, whose gifted flowers rejoice
Young hearts in love, did most warm Venus please;
The lithe green willow is my Flerid's choice,
She gathers it amidst a thousand trees:
Thus laurel, poplar, and sweet myrtle now,
Where'er it grows, shall to the willow bow.

ALCINO.

All know that in the woods the ash reigns queen,
In graceful beauty soaring to the sky,
And that in grandeur and thick shade the green
And lofty beech all sylvans does outvie;
But whoso sees the beauty of thy mien,
Thy comely shape and austere dignity,
Will own, fair Phyllis, that thy charms impeach
The ash's grace and grandeur of the beech.

Thus sang the youths in challenge and reply,
And having finished now their rural hymn,
With blythe attention to their charge apply,
Pacing with faster steps the pastures dim;
The Sisters, hearing now the rumour nigh,
Threw themselves forth into the stream to swim;
The shaded waves with froth were whitened o'er,
And murmurs spread along the silent shore.

ELEGIES AND EPISTLES.

ELEGY I.
TO THE DUKE OF ALVA,

ON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER, DON BERNARDINO DE TOLEDO.

Although this heavy stroke has touched my soul
With such regret, that I myself require
Some friend my deep depression to console,
That my spent fancy may afresh respire;
Yet would I try, if chance the' Aonian choir
Give me the requisite assistance, just
To strike a little comfort from the lyre,
Thy frenzy to assuage, revive thy trust,
And raise once more thy head and honours from the dust.

At thy distress the pitying Muses weep;
For neither, as I hear, when suns arise,
Nor when they set, giv'st thou thy sorrows sleep,
Rather by brooding o'er them as one dies,
Creat'st another, with disordered eyes
Still weeping, that I fear to see thy mind
And spirit melt away in tears and sighs,
Like snows on hill-tops, which the rainy wind
Moaning dissolves away, and leaves no trace behind.

Or if by chance thy wearied thought finds rest
For a few moments in desired repose,
'Tis to return to grief with added zest;
In that short slumber thy poor brother shows
Pallid as when he swooned away in throes
From his sweet life, and thou, intent to lift
His dear delusive corse, dost but enclose
The vacant air; then Sleep revokes her gift,
And from thy waking eye the mimic form flies swift.

Yet cherishing the dream, with sense at strife,
Thyself no more, thou anxiously look'st round
For that beloved brother, who through life
The better portion of thy soul was found,
Which, dying, could not leave it wholly sound;
And thus, forlorn, distracted, dost thou go,
Invoking him in shrieks and groans profound,
How changed in aspect! hurrying to and fro,
As mad Lampecia erst beside the fatal Po.

With the like earnest exclamations, she
Her Phaëton bewailed; "wild waves, restore
My poor lost brother, if you would not see
Me too die, watering with my tears your shore!"
Oft, oh how oft, did she the stream implore!
How oft, revived by grief, her shrieks renew!
And oh, as oft, that active frenzy o'er,
Whispering, 'twas all she could, green earth adieu,
Pale on the poplar shore her faded foliage strew.

Yet, I confess, if any accident
In this for-ever shifting state should bend
The noble soul so loudly to lament,
It were the present, since a mournful end
Has thus deprived thee of so dear a friend,
(Not a mere brother) one who not alone
Shared thy deep counsels, taught thee to unbend,
And knew each secret that to thee was known;
But every shade of thought peculiarly thine own.

In him reposed thy honourable, discreet,
And wise opinions, used but as the case
Chimed with his own; in him were seen to meet
Thy every virtue, excellence, and grace,
With lovely light, as in a crystal vase
Or glassy column, whose transparence shows
All things reflected in its lucid face,—
Sunlight, gem, flower, the rainbow, and the rose,
Clear in its vivid depth plays, sparkles, smiles, or glows.

Oh the dark doom, the miserable lot
Of human life, that through such trouble flies!
One storm comes threatening ere the last's forgot,
Fast as one ill departs, severer rise;
Whom has not war snatched from our weeping eyes!
Whom has not toil worn out! who has not laved
In blood his foeman's sword! who not seen rise
A thousand times the phantom he has braved,
But by hair-breadth escapes miraculously saved!

To many, oh how many, will be lost
Home, son, wife, memory, undistracted brain,
And fortune unincumbered! of this cost,
What rich returns, what vestiges remain?
Fortune? 'tis nought; fame? glory? victory? gain?
Distinction? would'st thou know, our history read;
Thou wilt there find that our fatigue and pain,
Like dust upon the wind is driven with speed,
Long ere our bright designs successfully proceed.

Invidious Death oft from the unripe ear
Gathers the grain; but in this cruel turn,
Not satisfied with being but so severe,
Has neither spared his youth, nor our concern;
Who could have prophesied a stroke so stern!
Whom had not hope deceived, alas, to vow
That one so virtuous from the dreary urn
Was surely charmed by that ingenuous brow,
O'er which the furrowing years had not yet driven their plough!

Yet is it not his losses, but our own
That we should weep; remorseless Death has made
A thousand clear discoveries, he has shown
Long life a torment, joy a posting shade,
And youth, grace, beauty, gems but to be paid,
Poor Nature's tax, at his tyrannic shrine;
Yet could not Death so far thy form degrade,
But that, when life itself was past, each line
Should yet of beauty speak, and workmanship divine.

'Tis true, it was a beauty unattended
By the rose-hues which Nature with such skill
Had with the virgin lily's whiteness blended
During thy life; the Spoiler had turned chill
The flame that tempered its chaste snows, but still
'Twas beauty most emphatic! thou didst rest
Calm and composed, as though 'twas but thy will
To sleep; a smile upon thy lips impressed
Told of the life to come, and spoke thy spirit blest.

What will the mother of thy love do now,
Who loved thee as her soul? ah me, I hear
The sound of her laments! what shrieks avow
Her agony! shrieks ringing far and near,
Which thy four sisters echo back, whose drear
Distress augments her grief; I see them go,
Forlorn, distracted, scattering o'er thy bier
Of their long ravished locks the golden flow,
Outraging every charm in concord with her woe.

I see old Tormes, full of sad concern,
With his white choir of nymphs forsake the waves,
And water earth with tears; not o'er his urn
Couched in the sweet cool of moist shady caves,
But on hot summer sands outstretched, he braves
The flaring sunbeams; flung abandoned down,
He with hoarse groans for Bernardino raves;
The yellow daffodils his locks that crown,
Tears with his tangled beard, and rends his sea-green gown.

His weeping Nymphs stand round him, unadorned,
Uncombed their yellow tresses; weep no more,
Your radiant eyes sufficiently have mourned,
Beauteous frequenters of the reedy shore!
With more availing sympathy restore
The mother, standing on distraction's verge;
Soon shall the dear chaste relics you deplore,
Inurned in marble, sleep beside your surge,
And your melodious waves prolong my funeral dirge.

And you, Nymphs, Satyrs, Fauns, that in green bowers
Live free from care, search each Sicilian steep
For salutary herbs and virtuous flowers,
To cure Fernando of a grief so deep;
Search every secret shade, as when you peep
After the lightfoot nymphs, and bounding go
O'er vales and rocks, so may they when asleep
You in their solitudes surprise them, show
Kind as yourselves can wish, and with like fervour glow.

But thou, Fernando, thou whose deeds both past
And recent, deeds which to a loftier aim
Oblige thee to aspire, such splendour cast,
Consider where thou art! for if the name
Which thou, the great and glorified of Fame,
Hast gained among the nations, find its date,
Thy virtue somewhat must relax, and blame
Be thine; and not to brave the storms of fate
With a serene resolve consists not with the Great.

Not thus the shaft, shot by some fatal star
In its due course, should pierce the noble soul;
Ev'n if the heavens should in the dreadful jar
Of maddening elements together roll,
And fall in fragments like a shrivelled scroll,
It should be crushed rather than entertain
Dejection; crags conduct to the high goal
Of immortality, and he whom pain
Leads to decline the' ascent, can ne'er the crown attain.

Call it not stern: for nature's due relief,
To human weakness freely I concede
The natural tears of overflowing grief,
But the excess which would delight to feed
On its own vitals, and indulged proceed
To all eternity, I must assail;
And Time at least, who lessens in his speed
All mortal things beside, if reason fail,
Should o'er thy grief at length be suffered to prevail.

Hector was not for ever so lamented
By his sad mother, or his more sad sire,
But when the fierce Achilles had relented
To his submissive tears, at his desire
Yielding the corse, and when funereal fire
Those dear devoted relics had possessed,
The shrieks they silenced of the Phrygian choir,
Their own acute soliloquies suppressed,
Stifled the rising groan, and soothed their sighs to rest.

Venus, in this point human, what did she
Not feel, perceiving forest, field, and flower,
Flushed with her darling's blood! but taught to see
That clouding her bright eyes with shower on shower
Of tears, might harm herself, but had no power
To purchase her beloved boy's return
From ruthless Proserpine's Cimmerian bower,
She dried her eyes, subdued her vain concern,
And with calm hand entwined her myrtles round his urn.

And soon with light and graceful steps once more
Idalia's verdurous paradise she pressed,
Her usual ornaments and garlands wore,
And round her clasped her beauty-breathing cest;
The winds in wanton flights her locks caressed,
And with fresh joy her looks and rosy bloom
All ocean, earth, and sky divinely blessed:
So look I forward to see thee resume
Wisely thy firmness past, and banish fruitless gloom.

Let thy desire to reach the skies, where care,
And death, and sorrow lose their dues, suffice
Without fresh instance; thou wilt notice there
How little Death has hurt the memories
Of his illustrious victims; cast thine eyes
Whither Faith calls thee, where the ransomed soul
Rests purified by fire, not otherwise
Than was Alcides, to its heavenly goal
When his purged spirit flew from Oeta's topmost knowl.

Thus he for whom such thousand tears are shed,
Who by a difficult and arduous way
Was from his mortal stains refined, is fled
To realms of glory, whence in broad survey
He sees blind mortals in the dark, astray,
And pitying, musing on these pangs of ours,
Joys to have spread his wings abroad, where day,
Day without night, leads on immortal hours,
And Bliss his sapphire crown wreathes round with amaranth flowers.

He Heaven's pure crystalline walks hand in hand
With his brave grandsire and his sire renowned,
The image of their virtues; to the band
Of angels, pleased they point each radiant wound;
This high reward his heroism has found,
The only vengeance granted in the skies
To earthly foes; the ocean flowing round
This globe of ours—the globe itself he eyes,
And learns its petty toys and trifles to despise.

He there beholds the mystic glass which shows
The past, the present, and the future joined;
He sees the period when thy life shall close;
He sees the place to thee in heaven assigned;
Thrice happy soul, freed from the affections blind
With which on earth so fruitlessly we yearn!
Who liv'st in peace and blessedness enshrined,
And shalt live long as, lit at love's bright urn,
With fire of joy divine celestial spirits burn.

And if kind heaven the wished duration lend
To this my sorrowing Elegy, I vow
Whilst shade and sunlight o'er the world extend
Their robes of gloom or glory, whilst winds bow
The woods, whilst lions haunt the mountain's brow,
Or fish the ocean, long as oceans roll,
The world shall sing of thee; since all allow
That one so young, enriched with such a soul,
Will ne'er again be seen from Pole to sparkling Pole.

ELEGY II.
TO BOSCÁN,

WRITTEN AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT ETNA.

Boscán! here, where the Mantuan has inurned
Anchises' ashes to eternal fame,
We, Cæsar's hosts, from conquest are returned,
Some of their toils the promised fruits to claim—
Some who make virtue both the end and aim
Of action, or would have the world suppose
And say so, loud in public to declaim
Against such selfishness; whilst yet, heaven knows,
They act in secret all the meanness they oppose.

For me, a happy medium I observe;
For never has it entered in my scheme
To strive for much more silver than may serve
To lift me gracefully from each extreme
Of thrifty meanness, thriftless pride; I deem
The men contemptible that stoop to use
The one or other, that delight to seem
Too close, or inconsiderate in their views:
In error's moonlight maze their way both worthies lose.

But whither rove I? I stand pledged to send
An elegy, and find my language fast
Sliding toward satire; I correct, sweet friend,
My wandering course; and prosecute at last
My purpose, whither thou must know the past
Has ever led, and where the present still
Leads Garcilasso: on the green turf cast,
Here, midst the woods of this stupendous hill,
On various things I brood, not unperplexed by ill.

Yet leave I not the Muses, but the more
For this perplexity with them commune,
And with the charm of their delicious lore
Vary my life, and waste the summer noon;
Thus pass my hours beguiled; but out of tune
The lyre will sometimes be, when trials prove
The anxious lyrist: to the country soon
Of the sweet Siren shall I hence remove,
Yet, as of yore, the land of idlesse, ease, and love.

There once before my troubled heart found rest
With the sad turtle; but it is not now
So much by sadness as chill fear possessed,
Which, shooting through my veins, I know not how
To' endure and still exist; did sadness bow
My spirit but as then, 'twere a mere name;
Short absence from one's love, I even allow,
Enlivens life; slight water poured on flame
Brightens its blaze—in love short absence does the same.

But if much water on the flame is shed,
It fumes, it hisses, and the splendid fire
Decays into dark ashes; absence spread
Into great length, so deals with the desire
Kindled by love, and o'er the smouldering pyre
Of passion coldness creeps: I only wrong
This one result; the love that would expire
With all else lives in me, and, short or long,
Absence augments my ills, and makes desire more strong.

And reason, it might almost be presumed,
Confirms the paradox thus made of me,
And me alone; for doomed, as I was doomed
By heaven to love's sweet fires eternally,
Absence to quench the flame should also be
Infinite without end, unlimited
In its duration—a most startling plea,
True though it is, for absence can but spread
Through life, which finite is—it not disturbs the dead.

But how, oh how shall I be sure, that here
My evil Genius, in the change I seek,
Is not still sworn against me? this strong fear
It is that chills my heart, and renders weak
The wish I feel to visit that antique
Italian city, whence my eyes derive
Such exquisite delight, with tears they speak
Of the contrasting griefs my heart that rive,
And with them up in arms against me here I strive.

Oh fierce—oh rigorous—oh remorseless Mars!
In diamond tunic garmented, and so
Steeled always in the harshness that debars
The soul from feeling! wherefore as a foe
Force the fond lover evermore to go
Onward from strife to strife, o'er land and sea?
Exerting all thy power to work me woe,
I am so far reduced, that death would be
At length a blessed boon, my refuge, fiend, from thee!

But my hard fate this blessing does deny—
I meet it not in battle; the strong spear,
Sharp sword, and piercing arrow pass me by,
Yet strike down others in their young career,
That I might pine away to see my dear
Sweet fruit engrossed by aliens who deride
My vain distress; but whither does my fear
And grief transport me without shame or pride?
Whither I dread to think, and grieve to have descried?

Where the seen evil (from despair's revealings
Being already lost) can ne'er augment
My pain a tittle; such are now my feelings—
Yet if, when come, it should unveiled present
Its face of horror, what I now lament
Would gain in brightness; I should always feel
Grateful to Fortune, if she would consent
Merely on what my anxious fears reveal
Of pictured ills in store, to' affix her final seal.

It is, I know, the way to soothe the heart
With self-deceit, and dwell alone thereon,
As the sick man to whom true friends impart
His hopeless state, and warn him that anon
His failing, fluttering spirit must be gone,
Soothed by his wife's fond clamours that his case
Is not so bad, to fresh assurance won,
Casts at the word his eyes on her dear face,
And glad at heart expires, endeavouring her embrace.

'Tis wise—'tis well; thus Garcilasso too
Will leave each dark reflection, and rely
On Hope's gay dreams, no matter false or true,
And in his dear deceit contented die.
Since the clear knowledge that my end is nigh
Can never cure the ill, I too will play
With death, and as lost patients when they try
Warm baths, and perish in unfelt decay,
From love and life alike most sweetly faint away.

But thou, who in thy villa, blest with all
That heart can wish, look'st on the sweet sea-shore,
And undistracted, listening to the fall
And swell of the loud waves that round thee roar,
Gatherest to thy already rich scrutoire,
Fresh living verses for perpetual fame,
Rejoice! for fires more beauteous than of yore
Were kindled by the Dardan prince, inflame
Thy philosophic breast, and light thy laurelled name.

Fear not that Fortune with thwart blast will e'er
Vex thee—these lucid fires will calmness shed
On her wild winds; for me, I well see where
She forces me along, not to the dead,
For that is my desire; my hope is fed
By a deceit most slight, which does but just
Endure, whilst if I weave not the thin thread
Day after day, it breaking leaves my trust
Past fresh revival fallen, and darkening into dust.

This sole return my servitude obtains
From stepdame Fortune, that she should deny
Her common changes in the griefs and pains
That vex my being; whither shall I fly,
A moment to shake off the misery
That loads my heart? alas, it is decreed
That distance to my anguish should supply
No rest, no ease, but that where'er I speed,
My arm from cankering chains should never more be freed!

If where the burning sun his splendour flings
On the scorched sands of Africa the wild,
Nurse of all venomous and savage things,
Or where his fire is quenched by ices piled
On ices to the clouds, where flower ne'er smiled,
Nor save the hoarse blast aught endured the clime,
I by imperious Fortune were exiled,
There to consume my melancholy time,
Smit by the' unshadowed blaze, or rained on by the rime;—

There, with his icy hand Fear still would seize
On my sad heart, and here, mid silent snows,
Where the sharp wind seems ev'n the stars to freeze,
Curdling to ice the flood that swiftest flows;
Ev'n here, I know that I could interpose
No screen to shield me from the vivid fire
Wherein chastised my ardent spirit glows,
Wasting away I trust by slow desire,
And thus 'twixt clashing ills distractedly expire.

EPISTLE TO BOSCÁN.

Who loves like me for his friend's eye to frame
Thoughts even on things that have no Spanish name,
Can never want materials for his sheet,
Clothed in a style brief, simple, easy, neat,
And chaste in ornament, as best befits
The chitchat writing of familiar wits.
Amidst the' advantage which with other things
To minds like ours perfected friendship brings,
Is this same careless freedom which one gains
From the nice pomp of ceremonial chains.
Thus free, thus easy, I proceed to tell
In the first place, that I'm arrived—and well
As one can be, who in a time so brief
Has rid the distance noted over-leaf.
A looser rein I give, as I proceed,
To my winged fancy than my trotting steed;
At times it bears me onward by a way
So smooth and pleasant, with a step so gay,
As makes me quite forget my past fatigues;
At times o'er ruts so rough, by such long leagues,
That in the present pain I lose no less
The vexing thought of undergone distress;
But times there are again, when I create
A middle course, both temperate and sedate,
When taste and temper, scene and season suit
With the ingenious thought and nice dispute.
Thus as I musing rode one day, and thought
On his endowments who so well has taught
The paths to friendship,[AR] almost instantly
My thoughts, beloved Boscán, recurred to thee,
And feelings rose, which singular appear,
At least to me, which therefore thou shalt hear.
Whilst much reflecting on the sacred tie
Of our affection which I hold so high,
The' exchange of talent, taste, intelligence,
Shared gifts and multiplied delights which thence
Refresh our souls in their perpetual flow—
There nothing is that makes me value so
The sweetness of this compact of the heart,
Than the affection on my own warm part.
Such force it has, that (not disparaging
The other pleasures that from friendship spring)
The aid—the advantage each to each has dealt,
With this alone my soul has seemed to melt,
And I well know that I am otherwise
Influenced in this than by the joys that rise
From things as useful; seeing then the' effect
So strong within me, led me to reflect
And search into the cause; I have thus traced
The pleasure, profit, ornament, and taste
Which the blest chain of love to me imparts,
(The chain some Angel tangled round our hearts)
To their true source, as things that do not mount
From me, but tell alone to my account;
But love itself (whence all things may have birth)
When it is seen to furnish aught of worth
To thee, dear friend, joy, taste, or benefit,
Is the grand reason of my valuing it
Above all selfish interests, as it is
More godlike to bestow imparted bliss,
Than to receive it; thus the loving makes
My good—a good that of no ill partakes.
Such were my thoughts. But oh, how shall I set
Fully to view my shame and my regret,
For having praised so at a single glance
The roads, the dealings, and hotels of France!
Shame—that with reason now thou may'st pronounce
Myself a fabler, and my praise a bounce;
Regret—my time so much to have misused
In rashly lauding what were best abused;
For here, all fibs apart, you find but jades
Of hacks, sour wines, and pilfering chambermaids,
Long ways, long bills, no silver, fleecing hosts,
And all the luxury of lumbering posts.
Arriving too from Naples by the way,
Naples,—the choice, the brilliant, and the gay!
I left no treasure buried there, except
You say that's buried which I might have kept;
Embrace Durál[10] for me, nor rate my Muse:
October twelfth, given forth from sweet Vaucluse,
Where the fine flame of Petrarch had its birth,
And where its ashes yet irradiate earth.

ODES AND SONGS.

I. TO THE FLOWER OF GNIDO[11].

1.

Had I the sweet resounding lyre,
Whose voice could in a moment chain
The howling wind's ungoverned ire,
And movement of the raging main,
On savage hills the leopard rein,
The lion's fiery soul entrance,
And lead along with golden tones
The fascinated trees and stones
In voluntary dance;

2.

Think not, think not, fair Flower of Gnide,
It e'er should celebrate the scars,
Dust raised, blood shed, or laurels dyed
Beneath the gonfalon of Mars;
Or, borne sublime on festal cars,
The chiefs who to submission sank
The rebel German's soul of soul,
And forged the chains that now control
The frenzy of the Frank.

3.

No, no! its harmonies should ring
In vaunt of glories all thine own,
A discord sometimes from the string
Struck forth to make thy harshness known
The fingered chords should speak alone
Of Beauty's triumphs, Love's alarms,
And one who, made by thy disdain
Pale as a lily clipt in twain,
Bewails thy fatal charms.

4.

Of that poor captive, too contemned,
I speak,—his doom you might deplore—
In Venus' galliot-shell condemned
To strain for life the heavy oar.
Through thee no longer as of yore
He tames the unmanageable steed,
With curb of gold his pride restrains,
Or with pressed spurs and shaken reins
Torments him into speed.

5.

Not now he wields for thy sweet sake
The sword in his accomplished hand,
Nor grapples like a poisonous snake,
The wrestler on the yellow sand:
The old heroic harp his hand
Consults not now, it can but kiss
The amorous lute's dissolving strings,
Which murmur forth a thousand things
Of banishment from bliss.

6.

Through thee, my dearest friend and best
Grows harsh, importunate, and grave;
Myself have been his port of rest
From shipwreck on the yawning wave;
Yet now so high his passions rave
Above lost reason's conquered laws,
That not the traveller ere he slays
The asp, its sting, as he my face
So dreads, or so abhors.

7.

In snows on rocks, sweet Flower of Gnide,
Thou wert not cradled, wert not born,
She who has not a fault beside
Should ne'er be signalized for scorn;
Else, tremble at the fate forlorn
Of Anaxárete, who spurned
The weeping Iphis from her gate,
Who, scoffing long, relenting late,
Was to a Statue turned.

8.

Whilst yet soft pity she repelled,
Whilst yet she steeled her heart in pride,
From her friezed window she beheld,
Aghast, the lifeless suicide;
Around his lily neck was tied
What freed his spirit from her chains,
And purchased with a few short sighs
For her immortal agonies,
Imperishable pains.

9.

Then first she felt her bosom bleed
With love and pity; vain distress!
Oh what deep rigours must succeed
This first sole touch of tenderness!
Her eyes grow glazed and motionless,
Nailed on his wavering corse, each bone
Hardening in growth, invades her flesh,
Which, late so rosy, warm, and fresh,
Now stagnates into stone.

10.

From limb to limb the frosts aspire,
Her vitals curdle with the cold;
The blood forgets its crimson fire,
The veins that e'er its motion rolled;
Till now the virgin's glorious mould
Was wholly into marble changed,
On which the Salaminians gazed,
Less at the prodigy amazed,
Than of the crime avenged.

11.

Then tempt not thou Fate's angry arms,
By cruel frown or icy taunt;
But let thy perfect deeds and charms
To poets' harps, Divinest, grant
Themes worthy their immortal vaunt;
Else must our weeping strings presume
To celebrate in strains of woe,
The justice of some signal blow
That strikes thee to the tomb.

II.
TO HIS LADY.

1.

If e'er in howling deserts wide, unhabitable lands,
Distressed by equatorial suns and solitary sands;
Or heaped with pathless snows untrod but by the hoarse bleak blast,
By any accident or change of fortune I were cast,
And knew that in that wilderness, that world of fire or frost,
Thy cruel frowns awaited me at every tract I crossed,
Still would I on in search of thee, through simoom, sand, and sleet,
Till by unintermitted toil stretched dead before thy feet.

2.

Let now thy pride and coyness end, since ended is the strength
Of him on whom they were discharged, be satisfied at length
That Love, since he desires that all his votaries should enjoy
Their life, and act as safety bids, is angry with the coy;
Time must pass on, remorse will come for treatment so severe,
Anguish and shame remain for thee, I know it and I fear;
For though I sorrow for myself, since thou must bear a part
For thy disdains, these sorrows pierce more sensibly my heart.

3.

Thus go my hours increasing still materials for regret,
Which, ev'n as though my bitter cup were not o'erflowing yet,
In nothing serves me, but to show as in a lucid glass,
The ruined state in which I stand—the perils that I pass.
Heaven grant that this may profit me to think of some remead,
As I behold thee ever bent to break the bruised reed;
Here am I pointing out to thee the symptoms of my death,
Whilst like the fatal bird thou sitt'st, and steal'st away my breath!

4.

If paleness past, unconscious sighs breath'd forth for thy stern sake,
And the long silence I have kept, have had no power to wake
In thee one touch of tenderness, not ev'n enough to raise
The recollected sense that I had ever met thy gaze,
Let my deep sufferings now at length from this time forth suffice,
Making me understand that 'twas my contrast in thine eyes,
My sickness rather than thy scorn that kept my suit at bay,
So will my grief become my good, and sickness prove my stay.

5.

Ode! thou hast nothing more to do with me in bale or bliss,
Treat me as one unknown, with her it will not be amiss;
If fearful of offending me, oh seek not to persuade
By citing more my griefs, by them was all this mischief made.

III.
TO HIS LADY.

1.

Given up to my fate, shunning notice, I go
To the woods that first offer their glooms to my eye;
Scattering through them a thousand lamentings of woe
To the wind, on whose wings they but wander to die.
Though thine ear they deserve not, I cannot but sigh
To behold them go ruined the very same way
They would take if redressed, to me back they must fly,
Where, alas, they for ever and ever will stay!

2.

But what shall I do, Lady? where for relief
Can I turn, if thou fail'st my kind angel to be,
Or whose aid will avail me in seasons of grief,
If my mournful complaints find not pity in thee?
Thou alone hold'st my soul so enchanted—I know
From my plaints that thou always turn'st smiling away,
Yet still I adore and plain to thee, as though
Thou would'st really care aught if I perished to-day.

3.

I appeal to the trees that o'ershadow the dell;
They have heard what from thee I conceal, and their tongue,
If it can give account of distraction, will tell
What I murmured their green summer branches among.
But who can speak calmly my grief? let them then
Wrong me not, fear no longer my speech shall repress;
Who from year to year's end would consent to complain,
Without hope or expectance of any redress?

4.

But redress is refused with such cruel commands,
As were never imposed upon any before,
For if others have ceased setting forth their demands,
Weeping only in secret the evils they bore,
It will hardly have been without some slight relief
To their pangs, but with me pain so melts into pain,
That my fancy ev'n fails to set bounds to my grief,
So I still suffer that which I cannot explain.

5.

If e'er through my long brief of wrongs and defeats,
I at any time chance my regards to extend,
It is only by dealing in brilliant deceits,
That my still cherished cause I can hope to defend.
But thy quick expositions—one dim frown of pride,
One warm blush of resentment cuts short my defence,
And, outpleaded, I turn from thy beauty to chide,
If not curse both my want of perception and sense.

6.

Yet what harm have I done thee? what wrong? not a shade!
Save that—Anger herself might forgive me the sin—
I have wished myself ruined, if only, stern maid,
To take vengeance on thee, tyrannising within.
Song of sorrow, go forth! I've already said more
Than they charged me, yet less than I trusted to say;
Let them ask me no further, lest further the store
Of my Lady's defects in my wrath I betray.

IV.
WRITTEN IN EXILE.

1.

With the mild sound of clear swift waves the Danube's arms of foam
Circle a verdant isle which Peace has made her chosen home;
Where the fond poet might repair from weariness and strife,
And in the sunshine of sweet song consume his happy life.
Here evermore the smiling Spring goes scattering odorous flowers,
And nightingales and turtle-doves in depth of myrtle bowers,
Turn disappointment into hope, turn sadness to delight,
With magic of their fond laments, which cease not day nor night.

2.

Here am I placed, or sooth to say, alone, 'neath foreign skies
Forced in arrest, and easy 'tis in such a paradise
To force a meditative man, whose own desires would doom
Himself with pleasure to a world all redolence and bloom.
One thought alone distresses me, if I whilst banished sink
'Midst such misfortunes to the grave, lest haply they should think
It was my complicated ills that caused my death, when I
Know well that if I die 'twill be because I wish to die.

3.

My person's in the power and hands of him who can require,
And at his sovereign pleasure do what else he may desire,
But he shall ne'er have power to force my discontents to stay,
Whilst nothing more of me than this is subject to his sway.
When now the' inevitable doom shall come, my fatal hour,
And find me in the self-same place, the prisoner of his power,
Another thing more keen than death it is will deal the blow,
As whosoever has endured the like too well must know.

4.

Idle it were at greater length on such a theme to speak,
Since my necessity is strong, and hopeless all I seek,
Since in the course of one short hour was all this ruin sent,
Since upon that the tears and toils of my whole life were spent.
And at the finish of a course like this, shall they presume
To scare me? let them know that now I cannot face my doom
But without dread, that Fortune when she caused to disappear
In one day all my happiness, grudged ev'n to leave me fear.

5.

River divine, rich Danube! thou the bountiful and strong,
That through fierce nations roll'st thy waves rejoicingly along,
Since only but by rushing through thy drowning billows deep,
These scrolls can hence escape to tell the noble words I weep,
If wrecked in undeciphered loss on some far foreign land,
They should by any chance be found upon thy desert sand,
Since they upon thy willowed shore must drift, where'er they err,
Their relics let the kind blue waves with murmured hymns inter.

6.

Ode of my melancholy hours! last infant of my lyre!
Although in booming waves it be thy fortune to expire,
Grieve not, since I, howe'er myself from holy rites debarred,
Have seen to all that touches thee with catholic regard.
Less, less had been thy life if thou hadst been but ranked among
Those without record that have risen and died upon my tongue;
Whose utter want of sympathy and haughtiness austere
Has been the cause of this, from me thou very soon shalt hear!

V.
THE PROGRESS OF PASSION FOR HIS LADY.

1.

Once more from the dark ivies my proud harp!
I wish the sharpness of my ills to be
Shown in thy sounds, as they have been shown sharp
In their effects; I must bewail to thee
The occasions of my grief, the world shall know
Wherefore I perish, I at least will die
Confessed, not without shrift:
For by the tresses I am dragged along
By an antagonist so wild and strong,
That o'er sharp rocks and brambles, staining so
The pathway with my blood, it rushes by,
Than the swift-footed winds themselves more swift;
And to torment me for a longer space,
It sometimes paces gently over flowers,
Sweet as the morning, where I lose all trace
Of former pain, and rest luxurious hours;
But brief the respite! in this blissful case
Soon as it sees me, with collected powers,
With a new wildness, with a fury new,
It turns its rugged road to repursue.

2.

Not by my own neglect into such harm
Fell I at first, 'twas destiny that bore,
And gave me up to the tormenting charm,
For both my reason and my judgment swore
To guard me as in bygone years they well
Had guarded me in seasons of alarm;
But when past perils they compared with those
They saw advancing, neither could they tell
Or what to make of such unusual foes,
How to engage with them, or how repel;
But stared to see the force with which they came,
Till, spurred on by pure shame,
With a slow pace and with a timid eye,
At length my Reason issued on the way,
And more and more as the fleet foe drew nigh,
The more did aggravating doubt display
My life in peril; dreading lest the die
Of that day's battle should be lost, dismay
Made the hot blood boll in my veins, until,
Reclaimed, it sank into as cold a chill.

3.

I stood spectator of their chivalry;
Fighting in my defence, my Reason tired
And faint from thousand wounds became, and I,
Unconscious what the insidious thought inspired,
Was wishing my mailed Advocate to quit
The hopeless quarrel,—never in my life
Was what I wished fulfilled with so much ease,
For, kneeling down, at once she closed the strife,
And to the Lady did her sword submit,
Consenting she should have me for her slave,
As Victory urged, to slaughter or to save,
Whichever most might please.
Then, then indeed I felt my spirit rise,
That such unreasonable conditions e'er
Had been agreed to; anger, shame, surprise,
At once possessed me, fruitless as they were;
Then followed grief to know the treaty done,
And see my kingdom in the hands of one
Who gives me life and death each day, and this
Is the most moderate of her tyrannies.

4.

Her eyes, whose lustre could irradiate well
The raven night, and dim the mid-day sun,
Changed me at once by some emphatic spell
From what I was—I gazed, and it was done.
Too finished fascination! glassed in mine,
The glory of her eyeballs did imprint
So bright a fire, that from its heat malign
My sickening soul acquired another tint.
The showers of tears I shed assisted more
This transformation; broken up, I found,
Was my past peace and freedom, in the core
Of my fond heart, an all-luxuriant ground,
The plant whereof I perish struck its root
Deep as its head extended high, and dense
As were its melancholy boughs; the fruit
Which it has been my wont to gather thence,
Sour is a thousand times for one time sweet,
But ever poisonous to the lips that eat.

5.

Now, flying from myself as from a curse,
In search of her who shuns me as a foe,
I speed, which to one error adds a worse;
And in the midst of toil, fatigue, and woe,
Whilst the forged irons on my bound limbs ring,
Find myself singing as of old, but oh
How soon are checked the causeless songs I sing,
If in myself I lock my thoughts! for there
I view a field where nought but brambles spring,
And the black nightshade, garlanding despair.
Hope in the distance shows me, as she flies,
Her fluttering garments and light step, but ne'er
Her angel face,—tears rush into my eyes
At the delusion, nor can I forbear
To call her false as the mirage that kills
The thirsty pilgrim of the sandy waste,
When he beholds far-off, 'twixt seeming hills,
The stream he dies to taste;
With eager eye he marks its lucid face,
And listens, fancying that he heard it roar,
But when arrived in torment at the place,
Weeps to perceive it distant as before.

6.

Of golden locks was the rich tissue wove
Framed by my sympathy, wherein with shame
My struggling Reason was entrapped like Love
In the strong arms of Appetite, the fame
Whereof drew all Olympus to regard
The Fire-God's capture; but 'twere out of place
For me this capture to go gaze, debarred
Of that whereby to contemplate the case.
So circumstanced I find myself! the field
Of tournament is cleared, the foe descried,
Alarmed I stand, without or spear or shield,
Closed are the barriers, and escape denied.
Who at my story is not terrified!
Who could believe that I am fallen so low,
That to the grief I hurry from, my pride
Is oft-times found so little of a foe,
That at the moment when I might regain
A life of freedom, I caress my chain,
And curse the hours and moments lately lent
To freer thoughts, as mournfully mis-spent.

7.

This fancy is not always paramount,
For of a brain so wild the phantasies
Sleep not a moment; Grief at times will mount
The throne of Slavery, and her sceptre seize,
So that my fancy shrinks as from its place,
To shun the torture of its frightful face.
There is no part in me but frenzied is,
And wailed by me in turn; on my wild track,
Afresh protesting at the blind abyss,
I turn affrighted back.
Not urged by reason, not by judgment, this
Discretion of the mind is wholly lost;
All is become a barrenness or blot,
But this one grief, and ev'n the rising ghost
Of dead joy, gliding by, is heeded not;
I keep no chronicle of by-gone bliss,
But feel alone, within my heart and brain,
The fury and the force of present pain.

8.

In midst of all this agony and woe
A shade of good descends my wounds to heal;
Surely, I fancy, my beloved foe
Must feel some little part of what I feel.
So insupportable a toil weighs down
My weary soul, that did I not create
Some strong deceit, of power to ease the weight,
I must at once die—die without my crown
Of martyrdom, a registered renown,
Untalked of by the world, unheard, unviewed!
And thus from my most miserable estate
I draw a gleam of good.
But soon my fate this train of things reverses,
For if I ever from the storm find peace,
Peace nurtures fear, and fear my peace disperses,
Swift as a rainbow arched o'er raging seas;
Thus from the flowers which for a space console,
Springs up the serpent that devours my soul.

9.

Ode! if men, seeing thee, be seized with fright
At the caprice, inconstancy, and shock
Of these conflicting fancies of my brain,
Say that the cause thereof—tormenting pain,
Is stable, fixt, and changeless as a rock.
Say thou, that its fierce might
So storms my heart that it must yield, ere long,
Ev'n to a foe more terrible and strong;
To him, from whom all cross themselves—to save;
The Power whose home is in the lonely grave!

SONNETS,
ETC.

I.

When I sit down to contemplate my case,
And to review the stages of the way,
I find from where my steps went first astray,
They might have lost me in a darker maze:
But when these memories pass, around I gaze,
And wonder whence could come a doom so dark;
I know I die, and suffer more to mark
My care conclude with my concluding race.
Yes, die I will, and so my spirit free
From her who well will know to' undo and slay me
If so she wishes,—such her wish will be,
For since my own will does to death betray me,
Hers, which is less my friend, must compass too
My death—if not, what is it she will do?

II.

At length into thy hands I come—to die;
For sure I am that ev'n the poor relief
Of lightening with laments my weight of grief,
Is a desire thy rigour will deny.
How my life has so long been borne, or why
So guardedly sustained, I cannot tell,
Unless for proof how willingly and well
The sword will act that cuts so firm a tie.
My tears have fallen where barrenness and drought
Small fruit have yielded, let what I have wept
For thee suffice—their wasted springs have kept
Pace with my pining; but if still you crave
Tears, cruel Lady, be they henceforth sought
Where the yew weeps o'er Garcilasso's grave!

III.

Awhile my hopes will tower aloft in air
On cheerful wings, till, weary with their flight,
They fall relaxed from their Icarian height,
And leave me on the surges of despair.
This change from bliss to ruin who could bear?
Oh wearied heart! in this thy dark estate
Of wretchedness be vigorous and elate,—
Calms follow storms, and frowning ends in fair.
By force of arm myself will undertake,
Though fraught with danger and alarming ill,
To break a barrier none beside would break;
Death—durance—nought shall countervail my will,
To come to thee, my Beauty, saved or lost,
Or as a living form, or naked ghost!

IV.

Lady, thy face is written in my soul,
And whensoe'er I wish to chant thy praise,
On that illumined manuscript I gaze,
Thou the sweet scribe art, I but read the scroll.
In this dear study all my days shall roll;
And though this book can ne'er the half receive
Of what in thee is charming, I believe
In that I see not, and thus see the whole
With faith's clear eye; I but received my breath
To love thee, my ill Genius shaped the rest;
'Tis now that soul's mechanic act to love thee,
I love thee, owe thee more than I confessed;
I gained life by thee, cruel though I prove thee;
In thee I live, through thee I bleed to death.

V.

By rugged ways I reach towards a bourn
Which awes me not, and if I strive to slack
My usual pace, or for a change draw back,
There am I dragged with cruel unconcern;
But still, with death at hand, for life I yearn,
And seek fresh means my footsteps to reverse;
I know the better, I approve the worse,
Either from evil custom, or the stern
Fatality of woe. Yet, my brief time—
The wandering process of my wayward years
Alike in manhood as in early prime,—
My will (with which I war not now) in fact,
Sure Death, whose peaceful slumber dries all tears,
Make me not care the harm to counteract.

VI.

He who has lost so much, stern Deity,
Can lose no more! oh Love, let what has past
Suffice thee—let it profit me at last
Ne'er to have shrunk from thy supreme decree.
On the white walls of thy pure sanctuary
My pictured tablets and dank robes I hung,
Ev'n as a shipwrecked solitary, flung
Safely ashore from thy tempestuous sea.
Then vowed I never more to trust the bliss,
At my command and option, to the guile
Of such another syren, but from this
How shall vows save me? in the risk I run
I break no vow, for neither is her smile
Like others' smiles, nor in my power to shun.

VII.

From that illumined face, pure, mild, and sweet,
A living spirit in keen lightning flies;
And by perception of my eager eyes,
I feel it stays not till their orbs repeat
Its ardour; blandly on the track they meet,
Which my charmed spirit, winged with warmth, pursues,
Undone, and clamouring for the good it views:
When absent, Memory in her holy heat
Paints its passed beauty, till my soul will glow,
Thinking it real, and divinely stirred,
On tiptoe fly to its embrace, but meeting
Nought but repulse from its angelic foe,
Whose aspect guards the gate, it dies with beating
Its heart against it, like a captive bird.

VIII.

If I live on, dear Lady, in the void
Caused by your absences, I seem to' offend
Him who adores you, and to discommend
The bliss that in your presence I enjoyed.
Soon by another thought am I annoyed—
If I of life despair, I forfeit too
The good I hope for in beholding you;
By ills so varying is my peace destroyed.
My feelings in this variance all take part
So fiercely, that I know not what decreed
Me to such grievances—I never look
On their dissensions without swift rebuke,
But night and day they war with nicest art.
And in my ruin are alone agreed.

IX.

Oh lovely gifts, by me too fatal found!
Lovely and dear indeed whilst Heaven was kind;
In mine immortal memory ye are joined,
And sworn with her to give my dying wound;
Who would have said, sweet seasons past, when crowned
With the ecstatic hope your emblems lent,
That one day you would have to represent
Despair so dark, affliction so profound?
Since in an hour ye made unpitying theft
Of those Elysian dreams, do not deny
To take as well the sorrow you have left;
Else, can I but suspect ye raised so high
My youthful joys, to wish that I should die
Midst mournful memories of the bliss bereft!

X.

In order to restrain this mad desire,
Impossible and rash, and thus to miss
The fall from danger's crag, ah, if for this
My proud thoughts, blind with what they most admire,
Still fail to see what safety would require,
Me as I am, too timid or too bold,
In such confusion that I dare not hold
The reins of that which sets my soul on fire;
What can it serve to see the pictured tale
Of him who, falling with scorched wings, gave name
And celebration to the Icarian seas;
Or that where (poplars now) seven maids bewail
Their Phaëton's past frenzy, and the flame
Whose rage the' Italian waves could scarce appease?

XI.

Strange icy throes the arms of Daphne bind,
Which shoot, and spread, and lengthen into boughs;
And into green leaves metamorphosed shows
The head whose locks, wooed by the summer wind,
Made the fine gold seem dim; the rigorous rind
Clothes the soft members that still pant; her feet,
Snowy as swift, in earth fast rooted meet,
By thousand tortuous fibres intertwined.
The author of an injury so great,
With virtue of his tears this laurel fed,
Which flourished thus, perpetual greenness keeping;
Oh fatal growth! oh miserable estate!
That from his weeping each fresh day should spread
The very cause and reason of his weeping.

XII.

As a fond mother, whose sick infant lies
Weeping, importunate for what she knows
If giv'n will double all his pangs and woes,
In tenderest mercy his desire denies;
Till, moved to pity by his streaming eyes,
She can withstand no longer, but in haste
Submits the flavourous mischief to his taste,
And seals his ruin, though she stills his cries;
So to my sick and frenzied thoughts that yearn
And plead to me for thee, I would deny
The fatal fruit with merciful concern;
But night and day they murmur, weep, and pine,
Till I, alas, consent to soothe their cry,
Forgetful of their death, and ev'n of mine!

XIII.

If lamentations and complaints could rein
The course of rivers as they rolled along,
And move on desert hills, attired in song,
The savage forests, if they could constrain
Fierce tigers and chill rocks to entertain
The sound, and with less urgency than mine,
Lead tyrant Pluto and stern Proserpine,
Sad and subdued with magic of their strain;
Why will not my vexatious being, spent
In misery and in tears, to softness soothe
A bosom steeled against me? with more ruth
An ear of rapt attention should be lent
The voice of him that mourns himself for lost,
Than that which sorrowed for a forfeit ghost!

XIV. EPITAPH ON HIS BROTHER, D. FERNANDO DE GUZMAN,

Who died of the Pestilence at Naples, in the twentieth year of his age, serving in the army of the Emperor against the French.

Neither the odious weapons of the Gaul,
In anger brandished at my breast, nor sleet
Of poisonous arrows, than the winds more fleet,
Shot by the warders of the mounted wall,
Nor skirmish, nor the roaring thunderball—
The dreadful counterpart of those above,
Forged by Vulcanian artifice, when Jove
In wrath would the rebellious world appal—
Could for a single moment haste my death,
Though much I braved the risks of cruel war;
But 'twas the fatal air bereaved my breath,
In one short day, and to thine urnless hand,
Parthenope, consigned my ashes—far,
Alas! so far from my dear native land!

XV.

Fate! in my griefs sole agent, how have I
Felt thy harsh rule! my vine, with hurtful hand,
Thou hast cut down, and scattered on the sand
Both flower and fruit; in little compass lie
My loves—the joys of summers far-flown by—
And every happier expectation turned
To scornful ashes, which, though scarce inurned,
Hear not the wrath and clamour of my cry.
The tears which thou to-day hast seen me shower
On this lone sepulchre, receive, receive!
Though there they may be fruitless, till the hour
When the brown shadows of an endless eve
Shall shroud these eyes, which saw on earth thy power,
Leaving me others which thou canst not grieve.

XVI.

Thinking the path I journeyed led me right,
I have fallen on such mishap, that not the pleas
Of fancy, nor the wildest images
Can for an instant minister delight.
The green field seems a desert,—starry night
Obscure—the sprightliest conversation dead—
Sweet music harsh, and my most favourite bed
Of odorous violets, the hard field of fight.
Of sleep—(if sleep I have) that part alone
Visits my weary soul, which surely is
The frightful synonym of death, and last,
I deem, whate'er may be my spirit's tone,—
Ere half run out its sands of weariness,
Each passing hour still heavier than the past.

XVII.

If I am wax to thy sweet will, and hence
Sun myself only in thy sight, (and he
Who views thy radiance uninflamed, must be
Void of all feeling) whence, Señora, whence
Rises a circumstance, whose strange offence
Against the laws of reason, had it been
Less seldom proved on me—less seldom seen,
Had led me to mistrust my very sense—
Whence comes it, that far-off I am inflamed
And kindled by thy aspect, even until
My melting heart its fervour scarce sustains,
Whilst if encountered near by thine untamed,
Untameably bright eye, an instant chill
Makes the blood curdle in my crimson veins?

XVIII. TO JULIO CÆSAR CARACCIOLA.

Julio! when weeping I have left the friend
That never leaves my thought, the better part
Of my cleft soul, that like another heart
Did life and strength to my existence lend,
After my sum of bliss I seem to send
An eye of strict inquiry, and so fast
Find it consuming, that I fear at last
Peace must depart, and ev'n existence end.
And in this fear my tongue strives to converse
With thee, dear friend, of that remembered day,
When I began, sad wanderer to thy shrine
Of beauty, from my own far, far away,
News of thy soul to send in plaintive verse,
And learn from thee intelligence of mine.

XIX.

So strongly are the cruel winds combined
My ruin to concert, that they disperse
My tender fancies soon as framed, and worse,
Leave all my keen anxieties behind,
That like tenacious ivies darkly twined
Round some old ruin, fix their vigorous root
Deep in my heart, and their wild branches shoot
O'er all the fond affections of my mind.
Yet on the other hand I murmur not,
Now that the winds in their tempestuous strife
Have stolen my bliss, that thus my sorrows stay;
I rather gather comfort from the thought;
For in the process of so hard a life,
They lessen the long toil and weary way.

XX. TO D. ALONSO DE AVALO, MARQUIS DEL VASTO.

Illustrious Marquis, on whom Heaven showers down
All the bliss this world knows! if to the light
Of thy resplendent valour—to the height
Whereto the voice of thy sublime renown
Calls me, I climb, as to the flaming crown
Of some stupendous mountain, thou shalt be
Eternal, peerless, sole, and I through thee
Scornful of winged Time's destructive frown.
All that we wish from heaven, and gain on earth,
Are in thy high perfections met; in short,
Thou art the unique wonder, at whose birth
Her world of bright conceptions Nature scanned,
Singled the best, and with Dædalian hand,
Thrice livelier than her cast the statue wrought.

XXI.

With keen desire to see what the fine swell
Of thy white bosom in its core keeps shrined,
If the interior graces of the mind
Its outward shape and loveliness excel,
I have my sight fixed on it; but the spell
Of its voluptuous beauty holds mine eyes
In such enchantment, that their curious spies
Pass not to mark the spirit in its cell,
And thus stay weeping at the portal, made
To grieve me by that hiding hand which even
Holds its own bosom's beauty unforgiven;
So I behold my hope to death betrayed,
And love's sharp lances, rarely known to fail,
Serve not to pierce beyond its muslin mail.

XXII.

As, love, the lily and purpureal rose
Show their sweet colours on thy chaste warm cheek,
Thy radiant looks, angelically meek,
Serene the tempest to divine repose,
And as thy hair, which for its birthright chose
The opal's dye, upon the whitest neck
Waved by the winds of heaven without a check,
In exquisite disorder falls and flows;
Gather the rich fruit of thy mirthful spring,
Ere angry Time around thy temples shed
The snows of hasting age; his icy wing
Will wither the fresh rose, however red;
And changing not his custom, quickly change
The glory of all objects in his range.

XXIII.

Prostrate on earth the lofty column lies,
That late sustained my life; oh how much joy,
How many hopes did one dark day destroy!
And on the wind each blest idea flies.
How sure to fail is Fancy, when she tries
To build aught durable for me! fresh woes
Come with the force of persecuting foes,
And like abandoned things my hopes chastise:
Oft times I yield, yet oft my tyrants face,
With a new fury that might break in twain
A mountain placed to bar my way—impell'd
By the desire some day to turn again—
Turn to behold her loveliness and grace,
Whom it were better ne'er to have beheld.

XXIV. FROM AUSIAS MARCH.[AS]

Love! I have dressed myself in robes of white,
Shaped by thy scissors; as I put them on,
I find them loose and easy, but anon
They grow uneasy, cumbersome, and tight.
After consenting with a child's delight
To wear them, such repentance has possessed
My soul, that oft, by pure impatience pressed,
I try to tear them off in thy despite.
But who can free himself from such a suit,
When his thwart nature has become thereto
Conformed? if of my reason any part
Remains unparalyzed, it has not heart
To abet my cause, for in this stern dispute
Of circumstance, it knows it would not do.

XXV. TO BOSCÁN.

Boscán, you are now revenged upon my play
Of past severe unkindness, who reproved
The tenderness of that soft heart which loved
With such excessive warmth; now, not a day
Passes, but for the things I used to say
With so much rudeness, I myself chastise;
Still, times there are when I at heart despise,
And blush for the abasement I betray.
Know that, full grown, and armed against desire,
With my eyes open I have vailed my plume
To the blind boy you know,—but soft, my lute,
Never, oh never did man's heart consume
In so divine and beautiful a fire;
If you her name solicit, I am mute.

XXVI.

Wild doubts, that floating in my brain delight
To war with my fond feelings, tempesting
In your suspicious flight with angry wing
My melancholy bosom, day and night!
Now is my force of mind extinguished quite,
And all resistance, vain is my lamenting,—
Vanquished, I yield myself at length, repenting,—
E'er to have striven in such a hopeless fight.
Bear me to that lone tower whose gate alarms
The quick,—my death I saw not graven there,
Blindness has sealed my eyes till now; my arms
I cast aside; since their misfortunes bar
Help from the unhappy—the proud pomp prepare,
And hang my spoils on your triumphal car!

XXVII.

Within my spirit was conceived in train
Of amiable esteem a love most sweet,
Whose birth, with all the joy with which men greet
Their first-born's birth, long wished for, but in vain,
I hailed,—but soon from it was born a bane
Which has entirely conquered that fond flight
Of feeling, and transformed my first delight
Into sharp rigour and tormenting pain.
O cruel grandson, that to thy meek sire
Giv'st life, yet strik'st thy mournful grandsire dead,
Why so unlike thy parent! what black scowl
Wear'st thou, stern Jealousy, beneath thy cowl,
When ev'n thine own fierce mother, Envy dire,
Shrieks to behold the monster which she bred!

XXVIII.

I am for ever bathed in tears, I rend
The air with sighs, and suffer more from dread
To tell thee 'tis through thee I have been led
To such a state that, seeing where I tend,
And the long distance I have come, sweet friend,
In following thee, if I desire to leave
The vain pursuit, my heart sinks to perceive
The way behind me lengthening without end.
And if I wish to reach the onward height,
Sad thoughts of those who in the wilderness
Have fallen, at every step awake my fear;
Now above all things then I need the light
Of hope, by which I have been wont to steer
Through the dim tract of thy forgetfulness.

XXIX.

Past now the countries of the Midland Main,
Wretched—I lose the bliss of former times,
Borne farther every day from Christian climes,
Realms, customs, tongues, and from my native Spain.
And now despairing to return again,
I muse on remedies of fancied power;
The most assured one is the fatal hour
That will conclude at once my life and pain.
I should be charmed from whate'er ills close o'er me,
With seeing you, Lady, or might hope to be,
If I could hope without the certainty
Of losing what I hope; but not seeing you,
Save death, I see no remedy before me,
And if death be one, it will fail me too.

XXX. TO BOSCÁN, FROM GOLETTA.

Boscán! the sword, the shout, and trumpet shrill
Of Mars, who, watering with his own red blood
The Lybian soil in this tremendous feud,
Makes our green Roman laurel flourish still,—
Have to my memory brought the ancient skill,
And old Italian valour, by whose force
All Africa was shook, from the coy source
Of Nile's young fountain to far Atlas' hill.
Here, where the steady Roman's conquering brand
And fiery torch tipt with licentious flame,
Have left poor Carthage nothing but a name,
Love with his whirling thoughts on every hand
Wounds and inflames me in his fearful sway,
And I in tears and ashes waste away.

XXXI.

I thank thee, Heaven, that I have snapt in twain
The heavy yoke that on my neck I wore,
And that at length I can behold from shore,
Void of all fear, the black tempestuous main;
Can see, suspended by a slender chain,
The life of lovers who enchanted rest
In error, slumbering upon Beauty's breast,
To warning deaf, and blinded to their bane.
So shall I smile when mortals are undone,
Nor yet be found so cruel to my kind
As may appear,—I shall but smile as one
To health restored, whom sickness long confined,
Not to see others suffering, but to see
Myself from similar afflictions free.

XXXII. TO MARIO GALEOTA.

WRITTEN FROM GOLETTA.

My friend, ungrateful Love, who well must know
With what pure constancy my faith I keep,
Exerting his base pride, which is to heap
Upon his dearest friend his heaviest woe,—
Fearing that if I write, and publish so
His deeds, his grandeur I abate, his force
Not equalling his spite, has had recourse
To the fierce intervention of my foe;
And in the noble part with which I wield
The sword, and that which gives intelligence
Of our conceptions, I have wounded been;
But I will take good care that the offence
Shall cost the offender dear, now I am healed,
Offended, free, and for repayment keen.

XXXIII.

My tongue goes as grief guides it, and I stray
Already in my grief without a guide;
We both must go, howe'er dissatisfied,
With hasty step in an unwished-for way.
I, but companioned by the dark array
Of images that frenzy does create,
And that, as forced along by grief to state
A thousand things it never wished to say.
The law to me is most severe—it knows
My innocence, yet makes not mine alone,
But others' faults, my torturers! why should I
Smart for the madness of my tongue, when woes
Beyond endurance lift the lash on high,
And Reason trembles on her tottering throne?

XXXIV.

Entering a valley in a sandy waste
Which none was journeying save myself alone,
A dog I noticed, which with piteous tone
In disconcerted grief the wild sands paced;
Now to the sky it howled, its way now traced
Snuffing the dew, now ran, now turned, now stayed,
And its concern by every mark betrayed
Of desolate delay or restless haste.
It was that it had missed its lord that morn,
And felt the separation; mark the pain
Of absence! Much did its distraction move
My pity, and 'have patience, poor forlorn,'
I cried—'I, thy superior, from my love
Am absent too, yet my regret restrain.'

XXXV.

Loud blew the winds in anger and disdain,
And raged the waves, when to his Sestian maid,
Leander, ardent of her charms, essayed
For the last time to swim the stormy main.
Conquered with toil, o'erwearied, and in pain,
More for the bliss which he should lose by death,
Than sorrowful to breathe out his sweet breath
On the vext surge he buffeted in vain,—
Feebly, 'twas all he could, the dying boy
Called to the waves, (but never word of woe
Was heard by them) "if me you must destroy,
This melancholy night, look not so stern;
Vent as you will your rage on my return,
But spare, kind waters, spare me as I go!"

XXXVI. TO THE LADY DONNA MARIA DE CARDONA, MARCHIONESS OF PADULA.

Lady, whose name to high Cardona brings
Fresh praise, whose talents and fair deeds require
Immortal accents from Minturno's lyre,
Tansillo's harp, and polished Tasso's strings;
If force, if fire, if spirit whilst he sings,
Fail not at need thy Lasso's Spanish lute,
Through thee I shall arrive, with daring foot,
At Helicon's steep crown and sky-born springs,
By dulcet sounds that might the waves command,
Accomplishing with ease the ambitious aim:
By ways a wilderness till now, the land
Of storied valour, of romantic fame,
And Tagus, rolling o'er a golden sand,
Pay happy tribute to thy noble name.

XXXVII.

Fair Naiads of the river, that reside
Happy in grottos of rock crystal veined
With shining gems, and loftily sustained
On columns of pure glass! if now ye glide
On duteous errands, or weave side by side
Webs of fine net-work, or in groups remove
To hear and tell romantic tales of love,
Of Genii, Fays, and Tritons of the tide,—
Awhile remit your labours, and upraise
Your rosy heads to look on me—not long
Will it detain you. Sweet'ners of my song!
For pity hear me, watering as I go
With tears your borders, and for such short space,
In heavenly notes sing solace to my woe!

TO HIS LADY, HAVING MARRIED ANOTHER.

1.

To love thee, after what thy vow,
Slighting my truth, has made thee now,
Must be a crime, but one, false fair,
Which thou wilt have to expiate, where
None will know thee for having known
So ill the heart thou leavest lone.

2.

Loving so passionately thy free
Seducing smile, I thought to be
Lost, but not guilty; but, alas,
By all I am, by all I was,
'Tis proved too surely, to my cost,
I guilty am, as well as lost!

3.

Oh that I loved not with the zeal
Thou'rt but too well assured I feel!
That I exultingly might say,
'Tis joy to think that thou wilt pay,
In unknown modes of future woe,
For what none save ourselves shall know.

TO THE SAME.

1.

I will now cease, nor ruffle more
Thy beauteous cheek with speech so free;
My silent dying shall restore
Its peace, and mutely speak for me.

2.

I have already deeply erred
In saying what were best unsaid,
Thy gentle heart I have but stirred,
Not staunched a single wound that bled.

3.

Henceforth I heave no fruitless sighs,
No tears but unseen tears I shed;
The injured heart that silent dies,
Has that which speaks in Injury's stead!

ON A DEPARTURE.

1.

Perhaps the youth who seemed so cold
In leaving thee so soon, to seek
Scenes where he will no more behold
Thy lustrous eye and smiling cheek,
Yet loved thee much,—the hope to meet
Once more, makes ev'n departure sweet.

2.

It is not possible that one
Like him considerate—Love forbid!
Thinking he knew thee, could have known,
Enchanted mortal, what he did,
When he empowered thee thus to weave
His joy and grief the self-same eve.

3.

He took perhaps the readiest way
He could have done thy worth to know;
From thy fine face and finer play
Of wit he could not, could not go,
And seeing thee but once, remain
Content to see thee ne'er again.

TO A LADY,

Who threw to Garcilasso whilst walking with a friend, her spindle, and the net she had begun to weave, saying it was all the work she had done that day.

1.

Lady! from this net and coil
We must gather, that you cast
From you, in an hour, the toil
Of the four and twenty past.

2.

If at passers-by you send
The fair work your fingers do,
How think you to discommend
That which others weave for you!

FROM OVID.

1.

Since I have lost my bridal name,
Sichæan Dido, when the gloom
Of death has quenched my vital flame,
Be this the legend on my tomb:

2.

"The worst of Trojans gave, alas,
The cruel cause—the sword unjust;
Poor Dido, brought to life's last pass,
Could furnish nothing but the thrust!"

COMMENT ON THIS TEXT:

"Why, what calumnious charge is this
That you against him would advance?
All that the good knight did amiss
Was, that he ever joined the dance."

Count they then this a great offence?
I do not think it such; his sin
Is quite excused by the defence
That 'twas the woman drew him in.
She, she it was that caused his fall
More, much more than the having set
His mind upon surpassing all
In the fantastic pirouette.[12]

TO FERNANDO DE ACUÑA.

Whilst thou, Fernando, strikest from thy strings
The illustrious deeds of heroes and of kings,
Whilst men, whilst Gods stand spellbound at thy strain
Of barbarous nations tamed by sceptred Spain,—
From Pindus' sacred crown and tuneful falls,
Thee with sweet words Calliope thus calls:
"Hail, youth, whose temples, late alone entwined
By Mars' red hand, now bays Phœbean bind!
This grants Apollo, this the God of wine,
The lightfoot Nymphs, and whole harmonious Nine,
That with the kings that to thy lyric fire
Owe half their fame, thyself that smit'st the lyre,
Shall unborn nations join—admire, and praise,
And no dark night succeed thine endless days."[13]

APPENDIX.

I. Page 15.
PRAISE OF LITTLE WOMEN.

I wish to make my preaching short, as all good things should be,
For I was always fond, I own, of a short homily;
Of little women, and in courts of law a most brief plea;
Little well said makes wise, as sap most fructifies the tree.

His head who laughs and chatters much, the moon I'm sure must sway,
There's in a little woman love—nor little, let me say;
Some very tall there are, but I prefer the little,—nay,
Change them, they'd both repent the change, and quarrel night and day.

Love prayed me to speak well of all the little ones—the zest
They give, their noble qualities, and charms:—I'll do my best;
I will speak of the little ones, but don't think I'm in jest;
That they are cold as snow, and warm as fire, is manifest.

They're cold abroad, yet warm in love; shy creatures in the street;
Good-natured, laughing, witty, gay, and in the house discreet,—
Well-doing, graceful, gentle, kind, and many things more sweet
You'll find where you direct your thoughts,—yes, many I repeat.

Within a little compass oft great splendour strikes the eyes,
In a small piece of sugar-cane a deal of sweetness lies;
So to a little woman's face a thousand graces rise,
And large and sweet's her love; a word's sufficient for the wise.

The pepper-corn is small, but yet, the more the grain you grind,
The more it warms and comforts; so, were I to speak my mind,
A little woman, if (all love) she studies to be kind,
There's not in all the world a bliss you'll fail in her to find.

As in a little rose resides great colour, as the bell
Of the small lily yields a great and most delightful smell,
As in a very little gold exists a precious spell,
Within a little woman so exceeding flavours dwell.

As the small ruby is a gem that clearly does outshine
For lustre, colour, virtues, price, most children of the mine,
In little women so worth, grace, bloom, radiancy divine,
Wit, beauty, loyalty, and love, transcendently combine.

Little's the lark, the nightingale is little, yet they sing
Sweeter than birds of greater size and more resplendent wing;
So little women better are, by the same rule,—they bring
A love more sweet than sugar-plums or primroses of spring.

The goldfinch and Canary-bird, all finches and all pies,
Sing, scream, or chatter passing well—there's quaintness in their cries;
The brilliant little paroquet says things extremely wise;
Just such a little woman is, when she sweet love outsighs.

There's nothing that with her should be compared—'tis profanation;—
She is a walking Paradise, a smiling consolation,
A blessing, pleasure, of all joys a sparkling constellation,
In fact—she's better in the proof than in the salutation!

Small women do no harm, kind things, though they may sometimes call
Us angry names, hard to digest; men wise as was Saint Paul
Say, of two evils choose the least,—by this rule it must fall,
The least dear woman you can find will be the best of all!

II. Page 36.
THE PROPHECY OF TAGUS.

1.

As by Tagus' billowy bed
King Rodrigo, safe from sight,
With the Lady Cava fed
On the fruit of loose delight;
From the river's placid breast
Slow its ancient Genius broke;
Of the scrolls of Fate possessed,
Thus the frowning prophet spoke:

2.

"In an evil hour dost thou,
Ruthless spoiler, wanton here!
Shouts and clangours even now,
Even now assail mine ear;
Shout, and sound of clashing shield,
Shivered sword and rushing car,—
All the frenzy of the field!
All the anarchy of war!

3.

Oh what wail and weeping spring
Forth from this, thine hour of mirth,
From yon fair and smiling thing,
Who in evil day had birth!
In an evil day for Spain
Plighted is your guilty troth!
Fatal triumph! costly gain
To the sceptre of the Goth!

4.

Flames and furies, griefs and broils,
Slaughter, ravage, fierce alarms,
Anguish and immortal toils
Thou dost gather to thine arms,—
For thyself and vassals—those
Who the fertile furrow break,
Where the stately Ebro flows,
Who their thirst in Douro slake!

5.

For the throne—the hall—the bower—
Murcian lord and Lusian swain,
For the chivalry and flower
Of all sad and spacious Spain!
Prompt for vengeance, not for fame,
Even now from Cadiz' halls,
On the Moor, in Allah's name,
Hoarse the Count—the Injured calls.

6.

Hark, how frightfully forlorn
Sounds his trumpet to the stars,
Citing Afric's desert-born
To the gonfalon of Mars!
Lo, already loose in air
Floats the standard, peals the gong;
They shall not be slow to dare
Roderick's wrath for Julian's wrong.

7.

See, their spears the Arabs shake,
Smite the wind, and war demand;
Millions in a moment wake,
Join, and swarm o'er all the sand:
Underneath their sails the sea
Disappears, a hubbub runs
Through the sphere of heaven alee,
Clouds of dust obscure the sun's.

8.

Swift their mighty ships they climb,
Cut the cables, slip from shore;
How their sturdy arms keep time
To the dashing of the oar!
Bright the frothy billows burn
Round their cleaving keels, and gales
Breathed by Eolus astern,
Fill their deep and daring sails.

9.

Sheer across Alcides' strait
He whose voice the floods obey,
With the trident of his state,
Gives the grand Armada way.—
In her sweet, subduing arms,
Sinner! dost thou slumber still,
Dull and deaf to the alarms
Of this loud inrushing ill?

10.

In the hallowed Gadite bay
Mark them mooring from the main;
Rise, take horse, away! away!
Scale the mountain, scour the plain!
Give not pity to thy hand,
Give not pardon to thy spur,
Dart abroad thy flashing brand,
Bare thy fatal scimeter!

11.

Agony of toil and sweat
The sole recompense must be
Of each horse and horseman yet,
Plumeless serf and plumed grandee.
Sullied in thy silver flow,
Stream of proud Sevilla, weep!
Many a broken helm shalt thou
Hurry to the bordering deep.

12.

Many a turban and tiar,
Moor and Noble's slaughtered corse,
Whilst the Furies of the war
Gore your ranks with equal loss!
Five days you dispute the field;
When 'tis sunrise on the plains—
Oh loved land! thy doom is sealed,
Madden, madden in thy chains!"

III. Page 101.

"The king fortified his camp according to the rules of art, and in a single night a town was built, consisting of four streets in the form of a cross, with as many gates; and from the centre, where the streets crossed each other, all the town might be viewed at the same time. The plan was undertaken and completed by four Grandees of Castile, every one furnishing his share, and the whole was encircled with wooden bulwarks covered with waxen cloth, which resembled a strong wall. Towers and bastions were also fabricated, to appear as if built by regular machinery. In the morning, the Moors were prodigiously astonished to see a town so near Granada, fortified in so formidable a manner. When it was finished, the king granted it the rights of a city, naming it Santa Fé, and endowed it with many privileges, which it enjoys to the present day. It is recorded in the next ballad:—

Built is Santa Fé; its bulwarks
With much waxen cloth o'erlaid,
And within shine tents unnumbered,
Tents of silk and gold brocade.

Dukes, and lords, and noble captains,
Famed for valour, heroes all,
Here are brought by King Fernando,
To effect Granada's fall.

When, behold, a Moor at daybreak,
Of tall stature meets their sight,
Mounted on a noble charger,
Spotted o'er with flakes of white.

On it comes with cleft lips chafing
High against the rider's rein,
Whilst the Moor at all the Christians
Grinds his teeth in fell disdain.

Underneath his robes of scarlet,
White, and blue, a shirt of mail
Fortifies his heart most strongly,
Should a thousand darts assail.

Two strong swords of tempered metal
Grace his thigh, his hands a spear
And tough target in Morocco
Made, and purchased passing dear.

This gruff dog, in dreadful mockery,
To his horse's tail had tied
The adored Ave Maria,
As was but too soon descried.

At the camp arrived, he shouted,
"Who will so fool-hardy be
As to fight me? I defy you
All,—come one, come two, come three!"

Out the Alcayde of Los Doncelos,
Out the Count of Cabra stept,
Both brave men, whose active falchions
In the scabbard seldom slept.

Out came Gónzalo Fernandez,
Out Martin Galindo came,
With the bold Portocarrero,
Palma's lord of mickle fame.

Out he stept too who so frankly
Fetched the glove midst lions thrown,
Frankly fetched it forth, the gallant
Manuel Ponce de Leon.

With them ev'n King Don Fernando
Rides, exclaiming, "Forward, ho!
Soon we'll teach the ruffian whether
We dare fight with him or no!"

On they rode, rejoiced to hear him
Praise his vassals so, and each
Begged that he that useful lesson
To the infidel might teach.

Garcilasso too, a stripling
Brave and daring, with great glee
Rode with them, and begged the battle,
Begged it on his bended knee.

"You're too young, good Garcilasso,
You're yet much too young to die;
There are numbers in my kingdom
Fitter far the fight to try."

Deeply vexed at this refusal,
Much confused the youth withdrew,
But put on strange arms in secret,
So that none his person knew.

On a coal-black steed, with ventail
Down, he pricks to meet the Moor,
And says to him—"Level lances
Quickly; thou shalt see, be sure,

"If our noble king has gentles
Bold enough to tilt with thee;
I'm the least of all, yet beard thee,
Beard thee by that king's decree."

Soon as seen, the bluff Moor scorned him,
Saying, "Pray go back again;
I'm accustomed to do battle,
Not with boys, but bearded men:

"Pray go back, and let some other
Who has passed his teens, advance!"
Garcilasso, stung with fury,
Spurred his steed, and couched his lance.

He a glorious stroke has dealt him!
On his helm red sparkles burn;
Like a thunderbolt the Paynim
Wheels, the insult to return.

Striking, stricken; stricken, striking;
Thus the round of combat ran;
Garcilasso, though an infant,
Showed the metal of a man.

He at length beneath the armpit
Dealt the Moor a mortal wound:
From his saddle fell the giant,
Pale and groaning to the ground.

Garcilasso, quick alighting
From his horse, approached the foe,
Cut his head off, and in triumph
Hung it at his saddle-bow.

Tore away the sacred Ave
From its former place of shame,
On his knees devoutly kissed it,
Kissed the blessed Mary's name.

On his lance's point he bears it
For a pendant, mounts his steed,
With the Moor's in hand, returning,
All the court applaud the deed.

Lords, and dukes, and noble captains,
All were struck with great amaze,
Whilst the king and queen, with plaudits
Cheerly urged, repeat his praise.

Wonder some, and some amazement,
Kept quite dumb, to see a Childe
So exceeding young, triumphant
O'er that big-boned Paynim vilde.

Garcilasso de la Vega
They the youth thenceforward call,
For his duel in the Vega
Of Granada chanced to fall.

"The king, and the queen, and all the court, were, as the ballad says, most astonished at this valiant deed of Garcilasso, and the king commanded him to place on his arms the words Ave Maria, with just reason, for having quitted himself so well upon that ruffian Moor, and for having cut off his head."—Hist. de las Guerras Civiles de Granada, fol. 454-9.

A manuscript in the Bodleian Library—of Rawlinson's Collection, No. 43,—says that Garcilasso, at the time this combat took place, was but eighteen years of age. The manuscript bears this title, 'Armas de los mas nobles Señores de Castilla, sus nombres, apellidos, casas y rentas; con algunos puntos de sus hazañas; los Arcobispos, Obispos, Visoreyes y Embaxadores, Consejos y Inquisiciones, y otras cosas curiosas de aquel Reyno: en Paris, y compuesto por Ambrosio de Salazar, Secretario Interprete del Rey Cristianissimo. 1623.' This writer, however, follows the general error of imputing the action to the father of the poet. His account of the family arms differs also from Imhof's: according to his account, they bear, or, a castle on a field vert, with the words Ave Maria, Gracia Plena, in letters azure: but as this association of tinct would be false heraldry, it has seemed preferable to follow the authority of Imhof. It may not be amiss to mention in this place, that although Garcilasso is said to have been dignified with the cross of the Order of St. James, the badge represented in paintings of him is that of the Order of Alcantara.

IV.—Page 124.

The volume of Navagero's writings being but rarely met with, and his poetical compositions exhibiting much delicacy of thought and elegance of style, I shall perhaps be doing an acceptable thing in presenting to the reader a few of his smaller verses. His longer pieces, the pastoral entitled 'Iolas,' the sapphics 'In Auroram,' and the lines 'In Vancium vicum Patavinum amænissimum,' are perhaps yet more beautiful in imagery than those I have selected; but short as these are, they may serve to show the grounds which his cotemporaries had for the praises they bestowed upon him.

VOTA AD AURAS.

Auræ, quæ levibus percurritis aëra pennis,
Et strepitis blando per nemora alta sono:
Serta dat hæc vobis, vobis hæc rusticus Idmon
Spargit odorato plena canistra croco.
Vos lenite æstum, et paleas sejungite inanes,
Dum medio fruges ventilat ille die.

TO THE AIRS.

Gentle airs, that on light wing
Through the high woods softly sing
In low murmurs! these sweet wreaths,
Violets, blue-bells, woodbines, heaths,
Rustic Idmon loves to throw
To you thus in handfuls, so
Temper you the heat of day,
And the thin chaff blow away,
When at noon his van again
Winnows out the golden grain.

THYRSIDIS VOTA VENERI.

Quòd tulit optata tandem de Leucade Thyrsis
Fructum aliquem, has violas dat tibi, sancta Venus!
Post sepem hanc sensim obrepens, tria basia sumsi:
Nil ultra potui, nam propè mater erat.
Nunc violas; sed plena feram si vota, dicabo
Inscriptam hôc myrtum carmine, Diva, tibi:
'Hanc Veneri myrtum Thyrsis quòd amore potitus
Dedicat, atque unà seque suosque greges.'

THYRSIS' VOW TO VENUS.

These violets, holy Power, to thee
With grateful mind does Thyrsis cast,
For that from long-loved Leuca, he
Has gained some fruit of love at last.
Creeping behind the lilach trees,
I snatched three kisses, sweet and choice;
I could no more, for in the breeze
We surely heard her mother's voice.
Blue violets now; but, should'st thou grant
All my heart beats for, Power Divine,
Engraved with this rude rhyme, a plant
Of deathless myrtle shall be thine.
'This myrtle, faithful to his vow,
Thyrsis to Venus gives, and more,
Himself and flocks, as tasting now
Love's gracious sweets, but wished before.'

THYRSIDIS VOTA ET QUERCUI ET SYLVÆ.

Et quercum, et silvam hanc ante omnia Thyrsis amabit,
Et certo feret his annua vota die:
Dum potuit memor esse, quod hâc primum ille sub umbrâ
Ultima de carâ Leucade vota tulit.

THYRSIS TO THE OAK AND GROVE.

This green oak and sapling grove
Before all will Thyrsis love,
And to them, each May-day, rare
Tributes of sweet incense bear,
Long as memory lives to say,
'Twas upon that happy day
He first gained, beneath their boughs,
His dear Leuca's marriage vows.

QUUM EX HISPANICA LEGATIONE IN ITALIAM REVERTERETUR.

Salve, aura Deûm, mundi felicior ora,
Formosæ Veneris dulces salvete recessus;
Ut vos post tantos animi, mentisque labores
Aspicio, lustroque libens! ut munere vestro
Sollicitas toto depello e pectore curas!
Non aliis Charites perfundunt candida lymphis
Corpora; non alios contexunt serta per agros!

ON HIS RETURN TO ITALY FROM THE SPANISH EMBASSY.

Hail, dear region of my birth,
Care of Heaven and pride of earth,
Sweetest seats of Venus, vale,
Rock, wood, mountain, hail, all hail!
Oh with what deep joy I view,
Gaze at, traverse, talk to you,
After such laborious hours,
Mental toils and wasted powers!
How at sight of you each care
And vexation melts in air!
Never may the virgin Graces
Look in other shady places
For shy streams to bathe in, ne'er
Braid with other flowers their hair,
Than the ones so sweet and dear
Which I taste so freshly here!

INVITATIO AD AMÆNAM FONTEM.

Et gelidus fons est, et nulla salubrior unda,
Et molli circum gramine terra viret;
Et ramis arcent soles frondentibus alni,
Et levis in nullo gratior aura loco est;
Et medio Titan nunc ardentissimus axe est,
Exustusque gravi sidere fervet ager.
Siste, viator, iter: nimio jam torridus æstu,
Jam nequeunt lassi longius ire pedes.
Accubitu languorem, æstum aurâ, umbrâque virenti,
Perspicuo poteris fonte levare sitim.

INVITATION TO A PLEASANT FOUNTAIN.

Cold the fountain is, no wave
More salubrious, green herbs pave
All its margin; its thick roof—
Leaves and boughs—is sunshine proof;
No where does the Zephyr blow
Half so pleasantly, and now
Titan on his mid-day tower
Scorches forest, field, and flower;
Rest thee, Traveller, rest thy feet,
Thou art fainting with the heat,
And canst walk no farther! here,
In this babbling fountain clear,
Thou may'st slake thy thirst, beneath
These green branches; in the breath
Of the fresh breeze, dry the dews
Off thy throbbing brows, and lose
All thy languor on the bed
Gadding thyme and mosses spread.

DE CUPIDINE ET HYELLA.

Florentes dum fortè vagans mea Hyella per hortos
Texit odoratis lilia cana rosis,
Ecce rosas inter latitantem invenit Amorem,
Et simul annexis floribus implicuit.
Luctatur primò, et contrà nitentibus alis
Indomitus tentat solvere vincla puer;
Mox ubi lacteolas, et digna matre papillas
Vidit, et ora ipsos nata movere Deos,
Impositosque comæ ambrosios ut sensit odores,
Quosque legit diti messe beatus Arabs:
"I," dixit, "mea, quære novum tibi, mater, Amorem,
Imperio sedes hæc erit apta meo!"

CUPID AND HYELLA.[AT]

As my Hyella chanced to rove
Of late her garden grounds, and there,
Of roses and white lilies wove
Sweet wreaths to bind her flowing hair;

Amidst the roses clustering thick,
She spied young Cupid slumbering sound,
And with strong chains of woodbine, quick,
The rosy infant, laughing, bound.

At first his radiant wings he flapped
Rebelliously, and strove—in vain—
Indignant to be so entrapped,
To break the verdant bonds in twain.

But when within a little while
Breasts white as Venus's he saw,
And looked in her sweet face, whose smile
The Gods themselves might languish for:

And when from every braided tress
The' ambrosial odours he perceived,—
Rose-odours rich as those which bless
The Arab when his harvest's sheaved:

"Go, go," he cried, "Mamma, and seek
Another Love,—my only shrine
Henceforth shall be this lady's cheek
And laughing eyes: good b'ye to thine."

AL SONNO.

Sonno, che all' affannate, e stanche meuti
D'ogni fatica lor riposo sei,
Deh moviti a pietà de' dolor miei,
E porgi qualche pace a miei tormenti!
Lasso, le notti mie son sì dolenti,
Che quando più riposo aver devrei,
Allor più piango, e mi doglio di lei,
Che sprezza gli angosciosi miei lamenti.
Tu ch' acqueti ogni pena acerba e rea,
Vien, Sonno, ad acquetar i miei martiri;
E vinci quel ch' ogni altro vince, Amore,
Così sempre sian lieti i tuoi desiri;
E il sen della tua bella Pasitea
Sempre spiri d' ambrosia un dolce odore!

TO SLEEP.

Slumber, blest balm for all the cares that tease
Sad spirits weary and o'ertoiled, oh deign
To bring, in kind compassion of my pain,
A little interval of rest and ease!
My nights are such, that when I most should seize
On soft repose, then most I have to weep
That it disdains to lull my pangs asleep,
Deaf to my murmured prayers and earnest pleas.
Come thou who calm'st all agony and woe,
Come now, calm mine, and conquer him whose power
Oppresses all beside, fierce Cupid,—so
Happy be thy desires in bed and bower;
And wreaths of breathed ambrosia without end,
Thy beauteous Pasithea's steps attend!

V.—Page 130.
GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA TO THE VERY MAGNIFICENT LADY, THE LADY GERONYMA PALOVA DE ALMOGAVAR.

If I had not already known the correctness of your ladyship's judgment, the value which I see you set upon this work would suffice to assure me of it. But you already stood so high in my opinion, that though I before considered it excellent on many accounts, my principal reason now for this consideration is, that you have set your stamp on it in such a manner, that we might almost say it was your own work, as it is through you we possess it in the language we best understand. For, so far from thinking of being able to prevail on Boscán to translate it, I should not even have dared to ask it of him, well knowing his constant dislike to the writers of romances, (though this he could scarcely call a romance) had I not assured myself that, being commanded by your ladyship, he could not excuse himself. With myself I am extremely well satisfied, as before the book reached your hands, I esteemed it as it deserves; whereas had I only become acquainted with its merits, now that I see you deem them great, I might imagine that I was influenced in my judgment of it by your ladyship's opinion. But now, I not merely suspect, but am convinced it is a book that deserves to be commended to your hands, that it may afterwards without danger go forth into the world. For it is a most necessary thing wherever there are gentlemen and ladies of distinction, that they should not only consult whatsoever serves to increase the point of honour, but guard against every thing that has a tendency to lessen it: both the one and the other are treated of in this performance with so much wisdom and address, that it seems to me there is nothing more to be wished for than to see the whole realized in some gentleman, and likewise in—I was going to say, some lady, but I recollected that you were in the world to take me to account for the idle words. We may moreover remark on this work of Castiglione, that as highly successful performances always go beyond their promise, so the Count has laid down the duties of a finished courtier with such absolute completeness as not to leave one of any rank unacquainted with what he ought to do and be. So that we may see how much we should have lost in not possessing it. Nor must we pass over the very essential benefit rendered to our language by having written in it things so deserving of perusal; for I know not what misfortune has ever been ours, in scarcely possessing an author that has written in Castilian any thing but what might very well be dispensed with,—though this indeed would be difficult to prove to the satisfaction of those who pore over the volumes which instruct mankind in slaughter. And well did your ladyship know what person to fix upon to be your medium in producing this benefit to all. For notwithstanding it is as difficult a matter, in my judgment, to translate a book well, as to write it in the first instance, so admirably has Boscán performed his part, that every time I sit down to read this work of his, or, to speak more accurately, of yours, it seems to me to have been written in no other language. Or if at any time I remember to have read the Italian, my thoughts immediately return to the pages in my hands. One thing he has guarded against, which very few have done; he has avoided affectation without incurring the sin of stiffness, and with great purity of style has made use of expressions especially polite and agreeable to refined ears, and of words neither novel in appearance, nor disused amongst the people: he has proved himself also a very faithful translator, and by not restricting himself to the rigour of the letter, but to the truth and spirit of the thoughts, has transfused in his version by a variety of ways, all the force and ornament of the original. He has thus given every thing so much in the manner of his author, and has found his author such, that the defenders of the work may with little trouble answer those who wish in any respect to carp at its contents. I do not address myself to men whose dainty ears, amidst a thousand elegant things contained in the volume, are offended with one or two that may not be quite so good as the rest, being inclined to think that these one or two are the only points that please them, whilst they are offended with all the rest; and this I could prove, if I were inclined, by what they approve in other cases.

We are not, however, to lose time with these captious geniuses, but referring them to him who himself answers them on these very points, let us turn to those who with some show of reason might desire satisfaction in what offends them, where the author treats of all the numerous methods of saying genteel things, and smart repartees to excite mirth. Some there are given as specimens, which do not appear to reach the excellence of others, nor deserve perhaps to be considered as very good for one who has so admirably treated of the rest; and hence they may suspect that he has not the great judgment and penetration we ascribe to him. To this we would answer, that the author's intention was to furnish a variety of modes of saying graceful things, and hence, that we might better know the difference between them, he gave an equal variety of examples: in discoursing on all these many ways, there could not possibly be so many clever flights in each; some of those therefore which he gave for examples, of necessity fall short of the merit of others, and such, I have good reason to believe, without deceiving himself in the least as to their inferiority, an author of his good sense considers them; so we see that in this respect also he is free from blame. I only must plead guilty and deserving of censure, for having been so tedious in my communication. But these impertinences really make me angry, and compel me to write so long a letter to so faultless a personage. I frankly confess that I so greatly envied you the thanks that are your due in the production of this book, that I wished, so far as I could, to have myself some concern in it, and for fear any one should employ himself in translating, that is to say, in spoiling the original, I earnestly entreated Boscán to print his own version without delay, in order to stop the hurry which those who write ill are accustomed to use in inflicting their performances on the public. And although this translation would give me revenge sufficient on any other that might be put forth, I am such a foe to contention, that even this, though attended with no possible danger, would yet annoy me. For this reason, almost by force, I made him put it to press with all expedition, and he chose to have me with him at the final polish, but rather as a mere man of sense than as his assistant in any emendation. Of your ladyship, I beg that as his book is under your protection, it may lose nothing for the little part I take in it, since in return for this act of goodness, I now lay it at your feet, written in a better character, wherein your name and accomplishments may be read and admired of all.

VI.—Page 145.
PETRUS BEMBUS GARCILASSO HISPANO, S. P. D.

Neapolim.

Ex iis carminibus quæ ad me pridem scripsisti, et quantum me amares, libentissimè perspexi, qui neque familiarem tibi hominem, neque de facie cognitum tam honorificè appellavisses, tantisque ornares laudibus; et quantus ipse esses in lyricis pangendis, quantúmque præstares ingenii luminibus amabilítatéque scribendi, facilè cognovi. Quorum alterum ejusmodi est, ut nihil mihi potuerit accidere jucundius. Quid est enim quod possit cum præstantissimi poetæ amore atque benevolentiâ comparari? Reliqua enim omnia, quæ et honesta et chara homines habent, unà cum iis qui ea possident, brevi tempore intereunt: Poetæ uni vivunt, longævique ac diuturni sunt, eandémque vitam ac diuturnitatem, quibus volunt, impartiuntur. In altero illud perfecisti, ut non solùm Hispanos tuos omneis, qui se Apollini Musisque dediderunt, longè numeris superes et præcurras tuis, sed Italis etiam hominibus stimulum addas, quo magis magisque se excitent, si modò volent in hoc abs te certamine atque his in studiis ipsi quoque non præteriri. Quem quidem meum de te sensum atque judicium, alia tua nonnulla ejusdem generis mihi Neapoli nuper missa scripta confirmaverunt. Nihil enim legi ferè hâc ætate confectum aut elegantius, aut omnino probius et purius, aut certè majori cum dignitate. Itaque quod me amas, mihi verissimè justissimèque lætor; quod egregius es vir atque magnus, cùm tibi in primis gratulor, tum verò plurimum terræ Hispaniæ, patriæ atque altrici tuæ, cui quidem est hoc nomine amplissimus bonæ laudis atque gloriæ cumulus accessurus. Tametsi est etiam aliud, quod quidem auget magnopere lætitiam ex te conceptam meam. Nam cùm nuper mecum Honoratus monachus, quem tibi famâ notum esse video, in eum sermonem esset ingressus, ut quid de tuis carminibus sentirem, me interrogavisset, ego verò illi meum judicium patefecissem, quod quidem accidit ei par, atque simillimum suo, (est autem peracri vir ingenio atque in poeticis studiis pererudito) ea mihi de tuis plurimis maximisque virtutibus, de morum suavitate, de integritate vitæ, de humanitate tuâ dixit, quæ amici ei sui per literas significavissent, ut hoc adderet, omnium Neapolitanorum qui te novissent, sermonibus attestationibusque confirmari, his temporibus, quibus maximè Italiam vestræ nationes referserunt, quem omnes planè homines te uno ardentius amaverint, cuique plus tribuerint, illam ad urbem ex Hispaniâ venisse porrò nullum. Quamobrem magnum me fecisse lucrum statuo, qui nullo meo labore in tuam benevolentiam pervenerim, tuque ita me complexus sis, ut etiam ornes Musæ tuæ præconio tam illustri. Quibus quidem fit rebus, ut nisi te contrà ipse quamplurimùm et amavero et coluero, hominem profectò esse me nequaquam putem. Sed amoris erga te mei atque observantiæ studium, testatum tibi facere hoc ab initio decrevi, ut eundem Honoratum, de quo suprà commemoravi, qui te impensè diligit, ad teque in præsentiâ proficiscitur, summâ tibi diligentiâ commendarem. Ut hinc potissimùm cognosceres, quid de me tibi ipse polliceri possis, cùm me videas id abs te audere petere, quod mihi esse maximum maximèque expetendum statuissem. Illius fratrum, hominum innocentium et planè bonorum patrimonium, quemadmodum nullâ ipsorum culpâ, in Gallici belli præda fuerit, scire te arbitror; itaque de eo nihil dicam. Nunc autem cùm hi ab Carolo Imperatore, omnium qui unquam nati sunt, regum atque principum optimo, injustè amissa repetere statuerint, si te unum ejus rei adjutorem habebunt, sperant se, quod honestè cupiunt, etiam facilè consequi posse; ea tua est et apud Imperatorem ipsum gratia, et apud illos, qui ei charissimi sunt, autoritas, familiaritas, necessitudo. Quare magnopere te rogo, ut rem suscipias, fratresque illos atque familiam in pristinum fortunæ statum tuâ curâ procurationeque restituas. Homines honestissimos tuique studiosissimos tibi in perpetuum devincies; mihi verò tam gratum feceris, ut illo ipso patrimonio me abs te iri auctum et ornatum putem. Honoratum enim tam diligo, quàm si mens esset frater; tanti facio, ut æquè perpaucos; tam illi cupio hâc in re tuo beneficio et usui et voluptati esse, ut ipse, cujus fratrum interest, magis idem cupere non possit, aut magis animo laborare, quàm ipse planè laboro. Sed hunc laborem meum tu, qui me tuâ sponte diligis, dexteritate illâ tuâ, quâ excellis, et ingenio, quo te charum et peramabilem apud omnes homines reddis, mihi, ut spero, celeriter eripies. Quod ut facias, naturæ bonitati ac lenitati confisus tuæ, non jam ut novus tibi amicus pudenter atque subtimidè, sed quemadmodum veteres necessarii solent, etiam atque etiam abs te peto. Vale. VII Calend. Septembres. M.D.XXXV.

Pet. Bemb. Epist. Famil. Lib. Sex.

VII. Page 244.

He 'gainst a wise and potent king that held
His sire in bondage, gallantly rebelled.

During one of the many tumults that distracted Castile in the reign of king D. Juan II. Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, earl of Alva, was seized by the monarch, and kept close prisoner, under the charge of having designed to bring in the king of Navarre, though this the people regarded as a mere invention. Don Garcia, his son, who was afterwards the first duke of Alva, took up arms to liberate his father, joined the king of Arragon, and from the castle of Piedrahita, did much harm to the king of Castile in laying waste the frontier country. Don Fernando remained, however, in prison till the accession of king Henry, when he was voluntarily set free by that prince.

D. Fadrique de Toledo, the second duke of Alva, a son of D. Garcia, was in his youth general of the Christian forces on the frontiers of Grenada. He greatly signalized himself in the war of Navarre, gathering a considerable force to co-operate with the English, under the command of the marquis of Dorset. To secure the pass into France, he crossed the mountains and took St. John de Pie de Puerto, which commanded the pass of Valderronças. The king of Navarre succeeded, however, in effecting a passage with his army through that of Valderronçal, and J. Fernando Valdez, and other commanders, amongst the mountains, hemmed in the duke of Alva; but learning that the king of Navarre was marching to invest Pampluna, the Duke resolved to fling some succour into its citadel, and leaving the castle of St. John under the command of James de Vera, sallied out upon Valdez, and killing that general, succeeded, with the loss of 400 men, in carrying his camp, and relieving Pampluna.

His son, D. Garcia de Toledo, being employed in 1510, with count Pedro Navarro, in a military expedition on the coast of Africa, passed to the conquest of the Isle of Gelves, and disembarking his men, penetrated into the interior of that desert country. It was a season of such excessive heat, that some of the soldiers dropped dead from thirst, so that the whole army fell into disorder. D. Garcia and the Count, however, cheered them on with fond expressions, and such promises as the necessity of the case required. They issued at length from the sands, and entering thick groves of palm and olive trees, discovered unexpectedly some wells of water, with many pitchers and buckets attached to ropes. The eager desire of every one to drink doubled the disorder, more particularly as there was no enemy in sight; for the whole had been arranged by the Moors, who secretly waited in a corner of the wood, till the appearance of 4,000 foot and 200 horse, when they rushed upon them with loud outcries, and casting their darts, caused them to fly in the greatest confusion, although many desired rather to drink than to fly, or even live. Don Garcia seeing this, alighted, and with his pike pricked forward many who had, betwixt despair and faintness, cast themselves on the ground, and with every expression of military endearment, endeavoured to animate them against the Moors. With only fifteen around him, he attacked the foe with such brave impetuosity, that they began to give way, and if at this juncture he had been supported by the rest, he would assuredly have furnished triumph instead of tribulation to his country. But whilst Navarro was attempting to bring back the fugitive troops, the Moors made a fresh attack on his little band, wounded several, and killed D. Garcia. His death doubled the terror and distress of all, and notwithstanding that Navarro implored them with tears to turn their faces, they fled with the utmost precipitation to their vessels: and hence they still say in Castile, 'Mother Gelves, the spell-word of misfortune!'[AU]

The Emperor Charles the Fifth, on the taking of Tunis, discovered amongst the booty the arms of Don Garcia, and presented them to his youthful son, afterwards the celebrated duke of Alva. Pointing out to him the marks of wounds received by his unfortunate parent, he exhorted him to imitate his valour, but wished him a happier doom. The duke received these arms with the most lively joy, and caused them to be transported to Spain, and hung up in the arsenal of the dukes of Alva.[AV]

VIII.—Page 250.

Threatening the' illustrious youth, a knight was seen,
Of a fierce spirit and insulting mien.

It happened that a gentleman of Burgos courted a lady to whom Fernando of Alva also paid his addresses. It was in the year 1524, when harquebusses were just coming into use, but they were considered as very ungentlemanly weapons to do slaughter with, by those who had been trained to the exercises of the sword. This gentleman boasted that he was a most excellent firer of the harquebuss, when, being both in the presence of the lady, Fernando took out his pocket handkerchief, and putting it to his nose, exclaimed, "What an odious fume of powder there is in the room!" at which the lady smiled greatly, and the gentleman's face became overspread with blushes. Taking the duke afterwards aside, he challenged him to meet him with sword and capa, at a certain hour of the night, on the bridge San Pablo. The duke arriving, his rival asked him what arms he brought. "Sword and dagger." "I have but a sword," rejoined the gentleman; whereupon the duke threw his dagger into the river. They fought—were reconciled, and agreed to conceal the duel; but it soon became the theme of conversation, for on taking up their mantles from the ground, they chanced to make an exchange; and the duke, paying no attention to it, appeared in the palace with his opponent's mantle, upon which were emblazoned the arms of the Order of St. Jago, which led to a discovery of the whole quarrel.

IX.—Page 274.

The city of Toledo.

X.—Page 302.

Mosen Dural, a distinguished gentleman of Barcelona, and Grand-Treasurer of the city.

XI.—Page 305.
To the Flower of Gnido.

The title of this Ode is derived from a quarter of the city of Naples, called Il Seggio de Gnido, the favourite abode then of people of fashion, in which also the lady lived to whom the Ode was addressed. This lady, Violante San Severino, a daughter of the duke of Soma, was courted by Fabio Galeota, a friend of Garcilasso, in whose behalf the poem was written. In the original, Garcilasso plays upon the names of the parties, comparing the paleness of the lover, not to the lily, but to the white violet, and representing him as a galley slave in the boat, or, to speak more poetically, the shell in which the Queen of Beauty at her birth sailed along the ocean. If I have been guilty of preserving any trace of this idle play upon words, it is only that it has chimed in necessarily with the sense. Mention is made by Sanchez, of an elegy addressed by Fabio to Violante, beginning

Andate senza me, chara Violante?

Wilt thou then go without me, in thy wrath,
Dear Violante?

the pathos of which has led me to look for it, but without success, in various old collections of Tuscan verses.

XII.—Page 369.
In the fantastic pirouette.

As none of the commentators of Garcilasso offer a word in explanation of these verses, it was difficult to conceive exactly either to what they alluded, or what had given rise to them. I find, however, in Boscán who has written on the same text, a complete elucidation. They were sported on Don Luis de la Cueva, for dancing in the palace with a lady who was called La Páxara—the bird, probably from the elegance with which she flew down the dance;[AW] it would appear that D. Luis fell whilst attempting a difficult step, and that in reply to the universal banter of the assembly, he had unfortunately said, it was after all no great crime in him to dance. This seems to have excited great amusement, and to have set a number of gentlemen, and some titled heads to work, to write bad verses to prove the contrary. As, however, these verses show some wit, and at the same time best serve to clear up the obscurity of my author, I subjoin translations.

THE DUKE OF ALVA.

Why, what a terrible affair
Is this! you were too bad by half;
You've really made it, I declare,
Your business to make people laugh.
I'm one who feels it! to see you,
Of all men, to the Bird advance!
I counsel you, whate'er you do,
You take no farther care to dance.

GARCILASSO.

Count they then this a great offence, &c.

THE PRIOR OF SANTISTÉVAN.

It might not be a first-rate sin,
But all who dance like this good knight,
Must pay for it most surely in
The laugh of even the most polite.
Let those who wish to dance, not take
Him for an omen! He advanced,
And practised—but, for mercy's sake,
Let not the gallant say he danced!

BOSCÁN.

He touched forbidden fruit—the debt
Must thus be paid—he danced! and now
'Tis clear he'll live but by the sweat,
Henceforth, of his laborious brow.
Himself he cruelly deceived,
And well he might, when, countenanced
By such assurance, he conceived
We laughed, because he merely danced.

D. FERNANDO ALVAREZ DE TOLEDO.

This gentleman would quite have lost
His credit in this curious case,
Had not the little Bird he crossed
So sweetly sang him into grace.
But if from this he turns away,
And shows at all discountenanced,
I'd wish to comfort him, and say,
As he says, that he only danced!

THE TREASURER OF ALCANTARA.

All were astonished that the king
So quickly freed you, but he freed
You, not to be in that bright ring
So very forward; no, indeed!
Right forward has he been, but yet
Why laugh with such extravagance?
He only maims a pirouette,
He only dislocates a dance.

D. LUIS OSORIO.

Know that the laws, to his disgrace,
Condemn Don Luis now to fall,
For (only think) he had the face
To dance in the king's palace-hall!
Dance with the Bird! oh fatal even!
And yet, as he seems circumstanced,
He ought perhaps to be forgiven,
Since, as he says, he only danced.

D. GARCIA DE TOLEDO.

The Emperor set you free, but not
Without a rigorous penance had,
Sentencing you upon the spot
To dance—it really was too bad!
All say it was a cruel thing,
Beyond all mortal sufferance,
For 'tis not just in any king
To' oblige his subjects so to dance!

XIII.—Page 370.
AD FERDINANDUM DE ACUÑA.

Dum reges, Fernande, canis, dum Cæsaris altam
Progeniem nostri, claraque facta Ducum,
Dum Hispanâ memoras fractas sub cuspide gentes,
Obstupuere homines, obstupuere Dii;
Extollensque caput sacri de vertice Pindi
Calliope blandis vocibus hæc retulit:
Macte puer, geminâ præcinctus tempora lauro
Qui nova nunc Martis gloria solus eras;
Hæc tibi dat Bacchusque pater, dat Phœbus Apollo,
Nympharumque leves, Castalidumque chori,
Ut, quos divino celebrâsti carmine Reges,
Teque simul curvâ qui canis alma lyrâ,
Sæpe legant, laudent, celebrent post fata nepotes,
Nullaque perpetuos nox fuget atra dies.

This is the only specimen extant of Garcilasso's Latin compositions, which are spoken of by several writers of his day as marked by extreme elegance, and amongst others by Tansillo: nor can I close my volume, written in the hope of placing in the clear light it deserves the merit of this amiable poet, with more propriety and grace, than by adopting the words of one who loved him for his virtues, and admired him for his genius.

Spirto gentil, che con la cetra al collo,
La spada al fianco, ogn'or la penna in mano,
Per sentier gite, che non pùr Hispano,
Ma Latin pie fra noi raro segnollo!
Felice voi, ch'or Marte, ed or Apollo,
Or Mercurio seguendo, fuor del piano,
V'andate a por del volgo si lontano,
Che man d'invidia non vi puo dar crollo,—
Tutte le chiuse vie, sassose, ed erte,
Che vanno al tempio, ove il morir si spregia,
Spianate innanzi a voi sono, ed aperte.
E perchè vadan per la strada egregia
Vostre virtù d'abito altier coverte,
Bellezza, e nobiltà l'adorna, e fregia.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Tablas, in allusion to those celebrated calculations drawn up under the superintendence of this monarch, and called, after him, the Alphonsine Tables, a work truly extraordinary for the age.

[B] Some learned men question whether these two works do actually belong to the time and author to whom they are ascribed; and the improvement which the versification and language present, forms a very strong presumption in favour of this doubt.

[C]

"Again and yet again do I deplore
This injury; dissatisfied Castile
Has lost a treasure, whose rare worth, I feel,
The thoughtless nation never knew before.
She lost thy books, all unappreciated!
In funeral expiation some were thrown
To the devouring flames, and others strewn
About, in ruinous disorder spread.
Surely, in Athens, the false books of fled
Protagoras, esteemed so reprobate,
Were to the fire consigned with greater state,
When to the angry Senate they were read."

[D] Macías was a gentleman of the Grand Master's, Don Enrique de Villena. Among the ladies who attended on this nobleman was one with whose beauty our poet became captivated; and neither the seeing her married to another, the reproofs of the Grand Master, nor, in fact, the prison into which he ordered him to be consigned, could conquer his fatal attachment. The husband, fired with wrath, concerted with the alcaide of the tower in which his rival was imprisoned, and found means to dart at him, through a window, the lance he bore, and with it pierced him to the heart. Macías was at that moment singing one of the songs he had composed upon his mistress, and thus expired with her name and love upon his lips. The two qualities of troubadour and lover united in him, made him an object of celebrity, and almost of reverence, with the poets of the age. Most of them celebrated him, and his name, to which was joined the title of Enamorado, is still proverbial, as a designation for devoted lovers. The reader will not be displeased to see the verses which Mena devoted to him in the Laberinto: they may serve to show the character of that poet's fancy.

"We in this radiant circle looked so long,
That we found out Macías; in a bower
Of cypress, was he weeping still the hour
That ended his dark life and love in wrong.
Nearer I drew, for sympathy was strong
In me, when I perceived he was from Spain;
And there I heard him sing the saddest strain
That e'er was tuned in elegiac song.
'Love crowned me with his myrtle crown; my name
Will be pronounced by many, but, alas,
When his pangs caused me bliss, not slighter was
The mournful suffering that consumed my frame!
His sweet snares conquer the lorn mind they tame,
But do not always then continue sweet;
And since they caused me ruin so complete,
Turn, lovers, turn, and disesteem his flame:
Danger so passionate be glad to miss;
Learn to be gay; flee, flee from sorrow's touch;
Learn to disserve him you have served so much,
Your devoirs pay at any shrine but his:
If the short joy that in his service is,
Were but proportioned to the long, long pain,
Neither would he that once has loved, complain,
Nor he that ne'er has loved despair of bliss.
But even as some assassin or night-rover,
Seeing his fellow wound upon the wheel,
Awed by the agony, resolves with zeal
His life to' amend, and character recover;
But when the fearful spectacle is over,
Reacts his crimes with easy unconcern:
So my amours on my despair return,
That I should die, as I have lived, a lover!'"

[E] This song of Santillana, not entirely devoid either of grace or pathos, may serve as a specimen of the manner in which these writers applied their learning.

1.

First shall the singing spheres be dumb,
And cease their rolling motion,
Alecto pitiful become,
And Pluto move devotion,
Ere to thy virtues, printed deep
Within my heart, I prove
Thoughtless, or leave thine eyes to weep,
My soul, my life, my love!

2.

Successful Cæsar first shall cease
To fight for an ovation,
And force defenced Priamedes
To sign a recantation,
Ere, my sweet idol, thou shalt fret,
Neglect in me to trace,
Ere I one lineament forget
In all that charming face.

3.

Sinon shall guilelessly behave,
Thais with virtue, Cupid
Meekly—Sardanapalus brave,
And Solomon grow stupid,
Ere, gentle creature, from my mind
Thine image flits away,
Whose evermore I am, resigned
Thy biddings to obey.

4.

Swart Ethiopia shall grow chill
With wintry congelation,
Cold Scythia hot, and Scylla still
Her boiling tide's gyration,
Ere my charmed spirit shall have power
To tear itself away,
In freedom, but for one short hour,
From thy celestial sway.

5.

Lions and tigers shall make peace
With lambs, and play together,
Sands shall be counted, and deep seas
Grow dry in rainy weather,
Ere Fortune shall the influence have
To make my soul resign
Its bliss, and call itself the slave
Of any charms but thine.

6.

For thou the magnet art, and I
The needle, oh my beauty!
And every hour thou draw'st me nigh,
In voluntary duty;
Nor is this wonderful, for call
The proudest, she will feel
That thou the mirror art of all
The ladies in Castile.

[F] The Spaniards call quebrado those shorter verses which are, as it were, broken from, and intermingled with their redondillas mayores, or octosyllabic lines, as for example:

"Recuerde el alma adormida,
Avive el seso y despierte,
Contemplando
Como se pasa la vida,
Como se viene la muerte,
Tan callando."
Manrique.

They do not however strike an English ear as destitute of harmony, but it is a harmony that in any long composition would become very monotonous.

[G] These signs I think sufficient for my purpose. Whoso desires yet farther proofs may compare the ode of Torre, which begins "Sale de la sagrada," with the two canciones of Quevedo, "Pues quitas primavera al año el ceño," and "Dulce señora mia," placed in Euterpe, whence Velasquez took the verses which he cites here and there in his discourse, to prove the resemblance. He may do more; he may look in Melpomene for the funeral Silva of the Turtle, and compare it with the very beautiful cancion of Torre, to the same bird. What a troublesome ingenuity, what exaggeration, what hyperbole, what coldness in the first; what melancholy, tenderness, and sentiment in the second! It is quite impossible that the same object could produce an inspiration so different in the same fancy. The example of Lope is cited, in the poetry of Burguillos; but the real and absolute similarity that exists between these verses and the diction of Lope and Burguillos, notwithstanding the difference of subject and character, the insinuation of Lope himself, that of Quevedo in his approbation of the same poems, the conclusive authority of Montalban and Antonio de Leon, friends and cotemporaries of Lope, who attribute them to him, make the identity of Lope with Burguillos as evident, as the reasons already alleged do the diversity of Francisco de Torre and Quevedo.

[H] Luis de Leon, although a native of Granada, finished his studies and lived in Salamanca, and consequently does not contradict this general observation.

[I] The meaning of this term will be fully understood by the English reader, when he is reminded of the style of writing which was prevalent in the time of Elizabeth, under the name of Euphuism; rich specimens whereof are exhibited by the author of Waverley, in the delectable speeches of sir Piercie Shafton.

[J]

"But when to lash loose vices you aspire,
And seek to catch the true satiric fire,
All others' leaves pass over, all neglect,
But Juvenal's, the shrewd and circumspect;
None to the high court-taste with such success
Feels the town's pulse—ev'n Horace's is less."

[K]

"What of the swain Anchises shall I say,
But ask Idalian Venus by the way
Who is the gardener of those flowers of hers,
Or Ida's pencil who her fancy stirs?
Did not Ulysses farm the watery waste?
How then could he Calypso's fruitage taste?"

What ridiculous nonsense! Will any one believe that these are by the same author, and found in the same piece as the following?—

"Come, then, fair mountaineer, hide not nor flee,
Thou, by thy marriage with this stream, shalt be
Queen of the sweetest waves that in their sweep
Love to give lustre to the shady deep.
'Tis just that thou respond to love's light pain,
With kind acknowledgment, not coy disdain."

[L] One of his sapphics is written with so much delicacy and beauty that I cannot resist the temptation of translating it.

To the Zephyr.

"Sweet neighbour of the green, leaf-shaking grove,
Eternal guest of April, frolic child
Of a sad sire, life-breath of mother Love,
Favonius, zephyr mild!

If thou hast learned like me to love—away!
Thou who hast borne the murmurs of my cry;
Hence—no demur—and to my Flora say,
Say that 'I die!'

'Flora once knew what bitter tears I shed;
Flora once wept to see my sorrows flow;
Flora once loved me, but I dread, I dread
Her anger now.'

So may the Gods, so may the calm blue sky,
For the fair time that thou, in gentle mirth,
Sport'st in the air, with love benign deny
Snows to the earth!

So never may the grey cloud's cumbrous sail,
When from on high the rosy daybreak springs,
Beat on thy shoulders, nor its evil hail
Wound thy fine wings!"

[M]

"Spanish Anacreon! none your Highness meets,
But says most courteously, that though your lines
Move elegiacally sad, your sweets
Have all the tasty syrup of new wines!
They say that they should like to see each song
With scrupulous exactness, for a freak,
Translated well into Anacreon's tongue,
Your honest eyes not having seen the Greek."
Góngora.

"Although he said that all would hide from shame,
When the fine splendours of his genius came."
Lope.

[N] The eclogue of Tirsi of Figueroa, and the translation of the Aminta by Jauregui, are the only exceptions to this general decision, and the only examples that can be quoted among the ancient Spanish poets, of blank verse well constructed.

[O] The Asonante is a sort of imperfect rhyme peculiar to the Spaniards; it consists in the uniformity of the two last vowels, counting from the accent, as for example:

Tras una mariposa
Qual zagalejo símple
Corriendo por el valle
La senda á perder víne.

Their perfect rhymes are termed Consonantes.

[P]

Until the surety comes whom I oblige
With my Jerusalem, which I indite,
Prune, polish, and correct from morn till night.
Epistle to Gaspar de Barrionuevo.

What ideas of taste, correctness, elegance, and order, must the writer have had, who with such diligence and study, produced so wild a work!

[Q]

If my free neck had not been broke
To strict necessity's hard yoke,
I should have seen around my head
Some honour due to merit shed,
That would have given, as honour goes,
Green lustre to its hoary snows.
I ever have invoked the laugh
Of the vile vulgar on behalf
Of love-intrigues, meet or unmeet,
Oft dashed off at a single heat;
So—but far less impolitic,
Great painters daub their canvass quick.
Lope; Eclogue to Claudio.

[R]

Achilles' pictured wrath to Greece,
In gold-illumined palaces
Decorum kept, vile flatterers shamed,
The headstrong youth with love inflamed,
The beauteous lady under ban
Of some stern sire, the rich old man
Shrewd and sententious as a Jew,
To whom are these creations due?

[S] After his death, Calderon, Moreto, and others, who in his lifetime were contented with the title of his pupils, eclipsed him in the scene, though his name was always respected as a writer. This respect was, however, daily diminishing under a more attentive observation of the principles of taste and of good models, till the representation in later days of some of his comedies with general applause served to re-establish his tottering reputation. In France, a very good translation of some of his poems, has within these few years been made by the Marquis d'Aguilar; and in England, a man respectable as well for rank and character as for learning, philosophy, and taste (Lord Holland), has published an excellent essay and criticism on his life and writings. A vicissitude sufficiently singular; and which at least proves, that although Lope may be a very faulty writer, he is yet very far from being an object of but little interest in the history of Spanish literature.

[T] Three odes of Herrera, and some fragments little interesting, are no more than an exception of this general position. Neither the Gulf of Lepanto, nor the Carolea, nor the Austriada, approach at all near to the dignity and importance of their subjects. Even in the Araucana itself, if there is any thing well painted, it is not the Spaniards, but the Indians.

[U] The author of that very delightful old work, half romance, half history, Las Guerras Civiles de Granada, whence Bishop Percy translated the ballad, "Gentle river, gentle river," has introduced amongst others a Romance which perpetuates this action; only that he attributes it to the father of Garcilasso the poet, saying that it was performed by that personage in his youth, during the siege of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. But this is evidently a great mistake, as the surname De la Vega is ascribed to the family in chronicles of a far earlier time. This contradiction could not escape Lord Holland's perspicacity; he makes mention of it in his life of Lope de Vega, but seems somewhat disposed to doubt the truth of the story altogether, as it is related, he observes, of another knight, with little variation, in the Chronicle of Alonzo the Eleventh. But I would say, with great deference to the judgment that dictated this remark, that the popular ballads of a nation generally take their rise from some event of commanding interest, universally recognised at the time as true, and like our own beautiful ballad of Chevy Chase, perpetuate the memory thereof to long posterity, with the authority and assuredness of history. The language of this ballad, it is true, precludes us from giving it a date of greater antiquity than the author of the above imaginative work; and it may be rational to suppose that finding a Garcilasso at the siege of Granada, he chose to embellish his book as well as his hero, by ascribing to him the deed, known either from its mention in the chronicle or from current tradition. But a full confirmation of the truth of the story is, I think, to be found in the family arms; they bear, or, the words Ave Maria, Gracia Plena, per pale in letters azure; and the house of Mendoza show the same words in their scutcheon, only per pale a bend dexter, assumed, I am inclined to think, on the marriage of D. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza with Leonora de la Vega. I at one time thought that the incident specified in the Chronicle of Alonzo the Eleventh, might refer to the Garcilasso so favoured by that monarch, more particularly as Mariana gives him the surname; but subsequent research satisfies me in ascribing it to his son, which I do on the authority of Sandoval. Appended to the Chronicle of Alonzo the Wise in the British Museum, is a work by this historian with MS. notes of his own, under this title: Genealogies de algunos grandes Cavalleros que florecieron en tiempo de Don Alonzo VII. Emperador de España. Cuyos descendientes ay oy dia A. D. 1600, por Fr. Prudencio de Sandoval, predicador de la orden de San Benito. His words I have translated in the text, and there is a MS. note in the margin to much the same effect. I should have been glad to give the incident alluded to by Lord Holland, but the chronicle I consulted was printed so villanously in Gothic type, that it is little wonder I missed finding it: the reader may not however be displeased to see a translation of the Romance.[3]

[V] Don Nicolas Antonio: Bibliotheca Hispana. Art. Garcias Lassus.

[W] Don T. Tamaio de Vargas. Anotaciones, p. 45.

[X] Pelegrin. Hispania Bibliotheca, p. 579.

[Y] Sandoval: Historia de Carlos V. vol. i. fol. 428.

[Z] Sandoval, l. v. fol. 211.

[AA] Sandoval, lib. v. fol. 214, 274.

[AB] Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, t. xv. p. 47.

[AC] June 11th, 1525.

[AD] Naugerii Opera; Viaggio in Ispagna, p. 352.

[AE] Las Obras de Boscán y algunas de Garcilasso de la Vega, 1547.

[AF] Herrera. Anotaciones, fol. 15.

[AG] Jovii Fragmentum, p. 119, 120. Brit. Mus.

[AH] Lettere di M. Pietro Bembo, vol. i.

[AI] Petri Bembi Epistolæ, lib. vi.

[AJ] Bellaii Comment. lib. vi. p. 277.

[AK] Imhof. Histoire de Trente Fam. d'Espagne, p. 131.

[AL] There is a copy of this first edition in the British Museum, printed in old English characters.

[AM] It was supposed originally that Nemoroso was intended to represent Boscán, and that the word was formed from an allusion to his name, Bosque—nemus, as that of Salicio is an anagram of Garcilasso. Herrera was the first that combated this opinion, applying the name to Don Antonio de Fonseca, the husband of Donna Isabel Freyre, who died in childbed. [Anotaciones, p. 409, 410.] From that time this became the prevailing supposition, till D. Luis Zapata in his Miscellanea affirmed, in contradiction of it, that Antonio de Fonseca was at no time intimate with Garcilasso, whilst Boscán had been the suitor, or servidor of Donna Isabel before her marriage, to whom it is highly probable the verses in the first book of his poems were addressed, beginning—

"Señora Doña Isabel,
Tan cruel
Es la vida que consiento,
Que no mata mi tormento," &c.

For my own part, setting aside the circumstance that Nemoroso, in the second eclogue, in describing the urn of Tormes passes a handsome eulogy on Boscán, a circumstance which does not necessarily enter into the consideration, I am inclined to believe that it was Boscán who was signified, and moreover, that the eclogue was designed to commemorate the sadness they both felt in the memory of their first loves.

[AN] To obviate as much as possible the effect of this error, I have divided it into three silvas, a term quite common in Spanish, and which in a scholar's ear may, as applied to the divisions of an eclogue, have a better grace than any other that could be adopted.

[AO] "Questa battaglia sensibile tra la Ragione e il Senso, mi fa pur sovvenire d' alcuni bellissimi versi di Garcilasso de la Vega, uno de piu riguardevoli poeti della Spagna. Racconta egli in una sua Canzone, come senza avvedersene s' innamorò:

Estava yo a mirar, i peleando
En mi defensa mi Razon estaba," &c.
Della Perfetta Poesia Italiana.

[AP] Scelta di Poesie Castigliane tradotte in verso Toscano, e illustrate dal Conte Giovambatista Conti. 3 Tomi. Madrid, 1782.

[AQ] Vol. i. p. cclxv.

[AR] Aristotle: Ethici, lib. viii. c. 3.

[AS] A Valencian troubadour of the fifteenth century.

[AT] This elegant little piece has been already translated by Mr. Moore, in the notes to his Anacreon; I should not have thought of attempting it after him, had not the heroic measure which he has chosen struck me as less fitted to convey the playfulness of the original than a lighter, though more diffusive stanza.

[AU] Sandoval, l. i. cap. 40, p. 30.

[AV] Histoire du Duc d'Albe, l. i. ch. 10. p. 32.

[AW] Páxaro, or Páxara, is also a cant word, expressing sharpness or cunning. Ese es paxaro, is equivalent with the vulgar expression, he is a knowing one: hence perhaps some of the allusions that will be found in these jeux d'esprit.

THE END.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, GREVILLE STREET.

NEW TRANSLATION
OF THE
"JERUSALEM DELIVERED."

PROPOSALS
FOR PUBLISHING BY SUBSCRIPTION
A NEW TRANSLATION
OF
TASSO,
In English Spenserian Verse.

BY J. H. WIFFEN,
AUTHOR OF "AONIAN HOURS," "JULIA ALPINULA," "THE DEATH OF MUNGO PARK," ETC.

"You will, perhaps, be inclined to laugh at the warmth with which I express myself; but I feel that the not having good modern translations of Ariosto and Tasso is a disgrace to our literature, and conceive that we are only debarred from this by Mr. Hoole's lumbering vehicle having so long stopped the way."—Stewart Rose's Letters from the North of Italy.

At a time rich beyond all former ages but that of Elizabeth, and scarcely less prodigal than that in works of imagination; at a period when our Poetry, following in the steps of our refinement as a nation, and becoming, from the industry and success with which it is cultivated, no less the theme of the aged than the passion of the young,—whilst some superior intellects of the day, in their thirst for distinction, are spending their great powers on startling and vain experiments, it were surprising if there were not some more willing to confine their ambition within the boundaries of classical study, and, tracing the improvements which English Poetry has undergone in its progress, to the Tuscan Muses as their principal source, to explore, as their adventure, the treasures confined under the golden key of Italian language. Never has the inspiration of those Muses been invoked without the most signal advantage, not only to our literature, but our language. It softened, under Chaucer, the Saxon roughness of our early tongue; it ruled and regulated the cadences of Surrey and Wyatt, till from an uncouth and often arbitrary metre, our Poetry grew into proportion, harmony, and grace; it gave to the lyres of Spenser, Milton, Collins, and Gray, much of their compass, richness, and luxury of sound. The advantages have indeed been such, and of so permanent a nature, as to lead the historians of our literature to assert, that all the grand renovations which have been made from time to time in our Poetry, have either originally sprung from the Italian school, or been promoted by it. Nor can the increasing taste for Italian literature, spread by the excellent productions of Roscoe, Foscolo, and Matthias, nor the farther cultivation and extension of it by Commentators and Translators, lead to less important results.

But little, however, has yet been accomplished in giving to England the Poets of Italy; and our writers may with justice observe, that this neglect is a disgrace to our national literature. If we except the Amynta of Tasso, recently given in a good translation by Mr. Hunt; if we except Fanshaw's old version of Guarini's Pastor Fido, so justly eulogised by Sir John Denham, Lloyd's Alfieri, and the Dante of Mr. Carey, where shall we look for adequate pictures of her thousand Spirits of Song? This deficiency has arisen from neglect, from disdain, from any thing but inability. What Italy has been in the possession of her Dantes, her Ariostos, her Petrarcas, and her Tassos, England is in her Byrons, her Scotts, her Campbells, and her Moores; not omitting others that have powers little less, if at all inferior, who might, if they desired it, by Translations almost as original in composition as are those glorious types themselves, become at once personifications of their beauties, and inheritors of their fame. The severe simplicity and wrathful grandeur of Dante is already transfused with spirit and condensity. There is perhaps but one living poet possessed of an equal versatility of talent, of the same various powers of passionate description, fancy, wit, and whim, to transfuse the Proteus-spirit of Ariosto, the Prince of Romancers; and but one gifted with an equal feeling, melody, and charm of language, who could, with a graceful hand, pour out music and lamentation from the Urn of Petrarch: but they could do it to the life; nor may it be altogether a vain expectation that some of their future hours will be consecrated to the service, and that their names will thus become consociated in immortal brotherhood with the names of these Patriarchs of Italian verse.

But if the writer does not calculate amiss, it is to a Translation of Tasso,—of Tasso, who possesses much of the sublimity and fervour, with nothing of the obscurity of Dante,—the romance and the picture, the fantasy and fire of Ariosto, without his eccentricity and caprice,—the melody, tenderness, classical elegance, and transpicuousness of Petrarch, without his subtilty: of Tasso,—who, by the specific account of Serassi, his best biographer, had passed, at the time when he was writing, through one hundred and thirty editions, and had been translated into twenty languages and dialects of Europe, that the liveliest sympathy is likely to be accorded, and the greatest favour shown, by a People whose pride must be gratified by the celebrity which he has given in his Poem to the exploits of their ancestors, with minds sufficiently imaginative to abandon themselves at will to the spells of his delightful genius, and with hearts that cannot avoid taking a warm part in the generous heroism of his Rinaldo and Tancred, in the enchanting beauty of Armida, and the yet more interesting fortunes of his sensitive Erminia.

In speaking of the ten former attempts that have been made to give Tasso an English dress, the writer has no desire to undervalue, or unjustly to decry them,—they may all have been more or less serviceable: he is admiringly alive to the harmonies and graces of our most masculine Fairfax, as well as to the stoical fidelity of antique Carew; but he cannot be blind to their great defects, still less can he shut his eyes upon those empiric pretensions and empty performances of the Usurper of their honours, which have led "the Ariosto of the North" (whom Britain also tenaciously claims for her Boccaccio) to observe with his characteristic truth and humour, that "to rescue this charming Poet from the frozen paws of poor Mr. Hoole, would be to do our literature a service at which he must rejoice." Stimulated by the approbation accorded by his mighty mind, no less than by that of other literary characters whom it would be ostentatious to mention, the task commenced under favourable auspices, and in which great progress is made, will be prosecuted with the care and devotedness which so exquisite a poet demands, and the nature of the measure chosen as most true to his genius, of necessity enforces. It has been observed that Translation is but little popular in England: to render it so with the mass of readers it may be requisite to aim at giving it the air and charm of original composition; but with the very many to whom the Italian poem must be familiar, it cannot be doubted that their pleasure must be doubled in having added to their contemplation of the original their criticism of the artist, more particularly if, as in the fine Translation of Coleridge from Schiller,—that criticism should fortunately derive gratification from his skill. Neither is the Iliad of Pope unpopular, nor Sotheby's Oberon, nor any Translator who has trod with freedom and spirit in the steps of the Master with whom he has endeavoured to identify himself. But if the name of Tasso should be insufficient to bespeak attention to a project which cannot be perfected but with great labour of thought, the Author will look for it in the story and the subject, and believe it impossible but that those who view with interest the present exertions of Christian Greece against the Mussulman Ottomite, will still find emotion and amusement in a transcript, though it may prove a too unworthy one, of the celebrated pages in which all Europe stands in banner-array against the despotic Ottomite of the Middle Ages, in a land full of the most sacred recollections.

The Translator submits to the Public the following

PROPOSALS:

The "Jerusalem Delivered" to be translated stanza for stanza from the original, in the measure of the "Fairie Queene:" to be printed in the finest manner, with a beautiful new type cast on purpose for the Work, in Two Volumes Royal Octavo, accompanied with a Biographical Account of the Life and Writings of Tasso, with his Portrait engraved in the first style, and, if the number of Subscribers prove sufficient, with other Embellishments.

PRICE TWO GUINEAS,
To be paid on delivery of the Work.

As the object of the Translator is principally to place a work of some value in the libraries of men of letters, no more copies of this Edition will be struck off than are subscribed for: and as the Translation is now near its completion, those Gentlemen who may be desirous of possessing copies are requested to forward their names without delay.

⁂ Names of Subscribers are received by Hurst, Robinson, and Co. 90, Cheapside, and 8, Pall Mall; Mr. Hookham, Old Bond Street; Treuttel, Wurtz, and Richter, Soho Square; and by the Author, Woburn Abbey. A List of Subscribers will be printed collectively with the Volumes, as well as individually after the Dedication leaf.

NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS ALREADY RECEIVED.

HIS GRACE the DUKE of BEDFORD, 5 Copies. | H. R. H. the PRINCE of DENMARK.
Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford. | H. R. H. the Princess of Denmark.
Lord William Russell. | Signor Ugo Foscolo.
Lord Tavistock. | Sir Walter Scott.
Lady Tavistock. | Thomas Campbell, Esq.
Lord George William Russell. | Samuel Rogers, Esq.
Lord John Russell, 2 Copies. | Thomas Moore, Esq.
Miss Russell. | A. A. Watts, Esq.
Lord Wriothesly Russell. | W. Sotheby, Esq.
Lord Edward Russell. | Barry Cornwall, Esq.
Lord C. J. F. Russell. | Bernard Barton, Esq. Woodbridge.
Lord Francis John Russell. | Dr. Frederic Thackeray, Cambridge.
Countess of Jersey. | Dr. Thackeray, Bedford.
Lady Mandeville. | John Grant, Esq. Leighton.
Sir Matthew Tierney. | W. Exton, Esq. Leighton, 2 Copies.
Sir Robert Inglis. | Francis Darby, Esq. Colebrook Dale.
Lady Inglis. | Richard Darby, Esq. ditto.
Miss M. L. Inglis, Milton-Bryant. | Mr. Thomas Grimes.
Hon. Mrs. Douglas, Lower Grosvenor Street. | Dr. J. B. Brown, Camden Town.
Hon. Henry Anson. | Mr. Whitworth, Bedford.
Henry Seymour, Esq. Woburn. | J. C. Prattent, Esq. Whitehaven.
Benjamin Oakley, Esq. Tavistock Place. | Mr. James Bucknall, Ketley.
Miss Hanson. | Rich. Mountford, Esq. Prior's Lee.
Miss Corbet, Acton Reynald Hall. | Joshua Sharpies, Esq. Hitchen.
Dr. Du Gant, Shrewsbury. | Newton Bosworth, Esq. Cambridge.
Samuel Tudor, Esq. Shrewsbury. | J. D. Parry, Esq. Rectory, Woburn.
Matthew Webb, Esq. Wellington. | T. K. Hall, Esq. Holly Bush, Staffordshire.
W. C. Holder, Esq. Taynton House. | Mr. Charles Fletcher, Nottingham.
Mr. Thomas Parker, Aspley. | T. B. Whitehurst, Esq. Westoning.
Mr. Thomas Parker, Woburn. | Mr. Thomas Green, Woburn.
Mr. James Hatchard, Pimlico. | Mr. Louis Parez, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
Thomas Gent, Esq. | C. H. Smith, Esq. Portland Road.
W. Chippendall, Esq. Islington. | Mr. Richter, Soho Square.
John Parry, Esq. Newman Street. | Mr. Joseph Edmondson, Penketh.
Mr. G. Sinclair, Abbey Gardens. | S. Woolriche, Esq.
Richard Matthews, Esq. Histon. | G. J. Strutt, Esq. Percy Street.
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Mr. Marshall, Kendal. | James Harvey, Esq. Crayford.
R. A. Reddall, Esq. Woburn. | John Kenyon, Esq. London.
John Anster, Esq. Brury, Ireland. | Mr. F. C. Lewis, Paddington.
The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles. | Mr. Triphook, Old Bond Street.
Rev. Dr. Maltby. | Joseph Beldam, Esq. Royston.
Rev. Dr. Collyer. | Miss Lea, Broughton, near Chester.
Rev. George Croly. | W. Jeffery Locket, Esq. Derby.
Rev. Thomas Roy, Woburn. | Mr. Rich. Ratliffe, Little Brickhill.
Rev. Neville White, Norwich. | Mr. Benj. Abbot, Bermondsey.
Rev. Thomas Raffles, Liverpool. | H. Brandreth, jun. Esq. Middle Temple.
Rev. James Reed, Eversholt. | Mrs. Trowell, Thorn Hill, Derby.
Rev. John Fisher, Wavendon. | John Moilliet, Esq.
Rev. Richard Pain, Aspley. | Miss Todd.
Rev. M. Castleden, Woburn. | The London Literary Society of Friends.
Rev. T. Belgrave, South Kilworth. | Henry Corbould, Esq. Crescent Place, Burton Crescent.
Rev. W. T. Birds. | Messrs. Ogle, Duncan, and Co. Paternoster Row, 2 Copies.
Mr. B. Willmore, Leighton. | Messrs. Thomas and George Underwood, Fleet Street, 2 Copies.
Mr. Richard Oddie, Warrington. | Mr. Moyes, Greville Street.
Miss Taylor, Purle Hall, Batley, near Leeds. | Henry Harker, Mansfield.
Mrs. Howard Galton, Spring Hall. | E. Smith, Fir Vale, near Sheffield.
Joseph Strutt, Esq. Derby. | C. Ridgway, Leighton.
Miss Caroline Strutt. | Miss Becker.
W. Strutt, Esq. Derby. | Mr. W. Wilson, Nottingham.
G. B. Strutt, Esq. Belper, near Derby. | John Sharland, Leighton.
Mr. Lawford, Leighton. |
Thomas Edmonds, Esq. High Wycomb. |

In Octavo, price 5s. 6d.
JERUSALEM DELIVERED,
BOOK FOURTH:
BEING
THE SPECIMEN OF AN INTENDED NEW TRANSLATION,
In English Spenserian Verse,
WITH
A PREFATORY DISSERTATION ON EXISTING TRANSLATIONS.

BY J. H. WIFFEN.

PUBLISHED BY HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO.
90, CHEAPSIDE, AND 8, PALL MALL.

"There are certain ages in the history of the world, on which the heart dwells with interest and affection; but there are none which excite our curiosity, our admiration, and our love, more intensely than the days of chivalry."—

Campbell.

"Il existe en Angleterre plusieurs traductions de la Jérusalem Délivrée; mais elles ont presque toutes de grands défauts. Celle de Hoole est sans contredit la plus mauvaise. Fairfax en a publié une où l'on rencontre de très-beaux passages, à côté de choses triviales; il franchit souvent l'espace qui sépare le sublime du ridicule. M. Hunt a publié une traduction du poème du Tasse, mais la mesure de vers qu'il a adoptée ne convient point au poème héroique, et nuit à l'effet général: on peut aussi lui reprocher d'être diffus, et de ne pas toujours choisir le tour le plus neuf et le plus concis. M. Wiffen, si l'on en juge d'après l'essai qu'il offre au public, est appelé à faire enfin passer les beautés du poète Italien dans la langue Anglaise. Sa traduction, élégante et fidèle, a parfois le charme et la magie des vers du Tasse: on voit qu'il s'est d'abord pénétré des pensées de son modèle, afin de parvenir à les rendre sans les dénaturer, comme cela n'arrive que trop souvent aux traducteurs vulgaires."—La Revue Encyclopédique de Paris, Avril, 1822.

"In conclusion, we must state our opinion, that this Specimen is highly creditable to the taste and talents of Mr. Wiffen. He possesses strong powers of versification, which are absolutely necessary to a translator of Tasso, and he manifests a warm and vigorous imagination. His acquaintance with poetical phraseology, also, is various and extensive. A poet himself, he is delighted with his labour, and appears, like Ariel, to do 'his spiriting gently.' The task which he has undertaken is most difficult and arduous, on which the highest minds might enter with diffidence and distrust: but Mr. W. certainly has the power of producing a work which will be honourable to the literature of his country and to his own fame; and we hope he may meet with the encouragement which the attempt deserves."—Monthly Review, June, 1821.

"The present Specimen is prefaced by a sensible and liberal criticism on the merits of those who have preceded the Translator in this great work. The pretensions of Hoole, which, to the astonishment of all who are acquainted with the subject, have been so long suffered to pass unquestioned, are ably and judiciously exposed; and the version of Fairfax, so much talked of, and so little known, receives the tribute of praise which is its due, unmixed, however, with any portion of that slavish admiration which mistakes blemishes for beauties, and want of taste for exuberance of genius. The result of Mr. Wiffen's inquiry is inevitable—that a new Translation is necessary, and that at present we possess none which gives any adequate idea of the original. * * * * * But we must set limits to our extracts. Indeed, we should transcribe the whole Pamphlet, if we were to show all that has pleased and delighted us. The whole is splendidly and powerfully written, and the sense and style of the original scrupulously preserved. Some of the extracts we have given, beautifully as they are versified, are almost literal transcripts from Tasso. Most sincerely do we congratulate Mr. Wiffen on the success of his labours, and we hope that it will not be long before he fully realizes the hopes which so promising a specimen must necessarily excite."—Monthly Magazine, April, 1821.

"Upon the whole, we have never met with a translation possessing more of the spirit and interest of the original; and we can confidently recommend it to our readers as a work abounding with merit, and likely to add much to the already well-earned reputation of its author. Mr. Wiffen possesses a genuine vein of his own, and has given to the present work a life and intrinsic interest very seldom met with in productions of this class. He displays a fervency, an enthusiasm, an instinct of beauty, a seriousness of tone and manner, which accord admirably with the spirit of his author. We have no hesitation in affirming, that very many of his stanzas equal the originals in every thing but the language; and we think we could point out more than one or two that are absolutely superior."—Investigator, April, 1823.

By the same Author,

AONIAN HOURS and OTHER POEMS. Price 7s.

JULIA ALPINULA, with the CAPTIVE OF STAMBOUL, and OTHER POEMS. Price 7s. 6d.

Transcriber's Notes:

Symbol inverted asterism (three asterisks arranged as inverted triangle) is presented as ⁂ (asterism) in this e-text.

In this book, there are Footnotes (marked with letters) and Endnotes (marked with numbers). In the original book, the footnotes are located at the bottom of the relevant pages and the endnotes are located in the Appendix. In this e-book, the footnotes are relocated to the end of the book, after the Appendix.

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent spellings have been kept, including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g. "by-gone" and "bygone") and diacritical marks (e.g. "Góngora," "Gongora," and "Gongóra).

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA, SURNAMED THE PRINCE OF CASTILIAN POETS, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE ***

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Table of Contents

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

PREFACE.

CONTENTS.

ESSAY ON SPANISH POETRY.

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

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

- CHAPTER III. FROM GARCILASSO TO THE ARGENSÓLAS.

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

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

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

LIFE OF GARCILASSO.

VERSES ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

- BOSCÁN, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

- VILLEGAS, IN PRAISE OF GARCILASSO.

- FLORENCIO ROMANO, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

- HERRERA, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

ECLOGUES.

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

- ECLOGUE II.

- SILVA I.

- ECLOGUE II.

- SILVA II.

- ECLOGUE II.

- SILVA III.

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

ELEGIES AND EPISTLES.

- ELEGY I. TO THE DUKE OF ALVA,
- ELEGY II. TO BOSCÁN,
- EPISTLE TO BOSCÁN.

ODES AND SONGS.

- I. TO THE FLOWER OF GNIDO[11].

- II. TO HIS LADY.

- III. TO HIS LADY.

- IV. WRITTEN IN EXILE.

- V. THE PROGRESS OF PASSION FOR HIS LADY.

SONNETS, ETC.

- I.

- II.

- III.

- IV.

- V.

- VI.

- VII.

- VIII.

- IX.

- X.

- XI.

- XII.

- XIII.

- XIV. EPITAPH ON HIS BROTHER, D. FERNANDO DE GUZMAN,

- XV.

- XVI.

- XVII.

- XVIII. TO JULIO CÆSAR CARACCIOLA.

- XIX.

- XX. TO D. ALONSO DE AVALO, MARQUIS DEL VASTO.

- XXI.

- XXII.

- XXIII.

- XXIV. FROM AUSIAS MARCH.[AS]

- XXV. TO BOSCÁN.

- XXVI.

- XXVII.

- XXVIII.

- XXIX.

- XXX. TO BOSCÁN, FROM GOLETTA.

- XXXI.

- XXXII. TO MARIO GALEOTA.

- XXXIII.

- XXXIV.

- XXXV.

- XXXVI. TO THE LADY DONNA MARIA DE CARDONA, MARCHIONESS OF PADULA.

- XXXVII.

- TO HIS LADY, HAVING MARRIED ANOTHER.

- TO THE SAME.

- ON A DEPARTURE.

- TO A LADY,

- FROM OVID.

- COMMENT ON THIS TEXT:

- TO FERNANDO DE ACUÑA.

APPENDIX.

- I. Page 15. PRAISE OF LITTLE WOMEN.

- II. Page 36. THE PROPHECY OF TAGUS.

- III. Page 101.

- IV.—Page 124.

- V.—Page 130. GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA TO THE VERY MAGNIFICENT LADY, THE LADY GERONYMA PALOVA DE ALMOGAVAR.

- VI.—Page 145. PETRUS BEMBUS GARCILASSO HISPANO, S. P. D.

- VII. Page 244.

- VIII.—Page 250.

- IX.—Page 274.

- X.—Page 302.

- XI.—Page 305. To the Flower of Gnido.

- XII.—Page 369. In the fantastic pirouette.

- XIII.—Page 370. AD FERDINANDUM DE ACUÑA.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's Notes:

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