CABINET OF BIOGRAPHY. (continued 3)

It could not be, however, but that a heart so truly pious would find relief in prayer, and feel at intervals strong animating confidence in heaven. Thus, in contrast with these laments, we have a description of another mood of mind, which he gives in an epistle to a friend on his liberation. "Cut off," he writes, "not only from the conversation and society of men, but even from seeing them, I remained for five years shut up in darkness and a dungeon. I then enjoyed a peace and joy of mind that I often miss, now that I am restored to light, and the society of my friends."

He was at length liberated. Sedano tells us, that "at last his trial being over, in virtue of the proofs and exculpations which he was enabled to bring in support of his innocence, he was set at liberty at the end of the year 1576, and restored to all his honours and employments." It is some consolation to find that his imprisonment caused great scandal and outcry, and that his liberation was hailed with exultation and delight. The university had, from respect, never filled the professor's chair, vacated during his imprisonment; and, on his return to Salamanca, the most distinguished persons of the town met him on his way, and conducted him thither in triumph.

Few events after this are recorded of his life. He visited Madrid; and the royal council confided to him the task of the revision and correction of the works of St. Theresa de Jesu, which were much mutilated, and of preparing them for the press. About the same time, there was attempted the reform of his order in Portugal, a work of importance and difficulty to the catholic church. The assistance of Luis de Leon was required, and it is supposed that he even made a journey to Portugal for that purpose. In 1591, he was named vicar-general of his province, and soon afterward elected provincial; but he did not long enjoy this honour: nine days after his election he was attacked by some acute malady. The Spanish biographers take pains to assure us of the edifying piety of his end; and we can easily believe that a man who in youth was entirely dedicate to religion, should in the calmness of old age and in the hour of death, reap from his belief the composure of spirit that makes a happy end. He died on the 23d of August 1591; in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

In person, Luis Ponce de Leon is described as of fair height, well-proportioned in person, vigorous and robust. His countenance was manly, and the expression, despite the vivaciousness of his eyes, serious and calm. His mind was ever bent on religious objects: he seems to have forgotten his high birth and the splendour of his name, and to have aspired only to Christian humility. Love of poetry and classical literature were the only objects that ever called his attention from pious contemplations; and these he followed chiefly in his youth. "God gifted him," says Sedano, "with a noble birth he adorned him with understanding and extraordinary talents; he made him the son of a house abounding in riches and prosperity, and bestowed on him religious and literary honours; and it was necessary, for the sake of proving his virtues and purifying his soul, to visit him with the misfortunes belonging to the age in which he lived, proportionate to the greatness of his gifts." Sad as it is to reflect on an age and country in which virtues so exemplary, and talents so exalted, met with unmerited persecution, we are almost glad to find that one of the pillars of the very institutions that exercised such barbarous sway, was visited by its cruelty and injustice, to prove that no obedience and no excellence could shelter even the submissive slaves of despotism from its tyranny. Luis de Leon had indeed a soul at once above submission and suffering. He bowed before a higher than earthly power, and was exalted above persecution through his very humility—a proud humility, mixed with a consciousness of strength and worth. On his liberation from prison, and restoration to his professor's chair, all Salamanca flocked to hear his first lecture, drawn thither by reverence and curiosity. Luis de Leon appeared serene and cheerful, and commenced as if nothing had happened; nor alluded to the long interval, filled with such misery, that had intervened since his last lecture, beginning thus:—"We said yesterday that he had a willow for his symbol, and at its foot a hatchet, with this inscription, 'Through injury and death.' Nobleness, virtue, and generosity spring up under the very attacks of adversity and persecution. A willow the more it is cut, so much the more vigorously does it throw out its shoots; and for this cause has it its name (salix) from the vigour with which it sprouts, and the swiftness of its growth."[25] And thus he adopted for his emblem, a pruned tree with the knife at its foot, and the motto "Ab ipso ferro."

As a theologian, his works are held in high repute. It is to his praise that, though austere and regular as a monk, he yet studied the liberal arts with assiduity and success. He was well versed in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, besides being entire master of his native Castilian. His poetry is held in great estimation: the purity and elegance of his style are unsurpassed. Those Spaniards, who are addicted to the tinsel of versification, accuse him of want of loftiness; but nothing can exceed the harmony and flow of his verse, the grace and propriety of his ideas, and the truth and simplicity—the extreme ease and animation, of his style. It is unornamented—but for that very reason, more purely poetic. The most perfect of his compositions is his "Ode to Tranquil Life," in which he dwells with brooding, earnest delight on all the objects, and all the reveries that bless a man, content in solitude. His religious poetry comes less home to our hearts: it is so entirely catholic, but all is marked by enthusiasm and sincerity.

As a translator, he holds a high place; though he may be said rather to paraphrase than translate his models. He thus rendered into Spanish many of the odes of Horace, and various others selected from Pindar, Tibullus, and Theocritus. He translated all the Eclogues of Virgil, and the first book of his Georgies. He tells us, that he endeavoured to make the ancient poets speak as they would have expressed themselves, had they been born in his own age, in Castile, and had written in Castilian. In an inferior poet this attempt had been indiscreet and rash, but Luis de Leon was so much master of style and harmony, that it is impossible to regret the new costume with which he invests our old favourites. He is chiefly blamed because the beauty of his paraphrases is so great: and they have taken such hold of Spanish readers, that they preclude all future attempts at more literal translation. This is of slight import. If the poems he gives us in Castilian are in themselves beautiful, the Spanish reader must be satisfied. A vigorous desire to have a perfect understanding of the originals ought to lead to the study of them in their native language—the only way really to attain it, and, to a Castilian, not a difficult one.

Were there a good translation of the ode

we should prefer quoting it, as most characteristic of the peculiar imagery and feeling of the poet. As it is, we are tempted to present Mr. Wiffen's spirited translation of his ode on the Moorish invasion: the animation and fire which it breathes has made it a favourite, and shows that Luis de Leon was confined to didactic subjects rather from choice, than by the necessity or narrowness of his genius.

HERRERA, SAA DE MIRANDA, JORGE DE MONTEMAYOR, CASTILLEJO, THE DRAMATISTS.

1500-1567.

HERRERA

There are several other poets whose names belong to this age, of whom very little is known except by their works. Yet to complete the history of Spanish literary men, it will be necessary to mention what has come down to us.

The first on the list is Herrera. Fernando Herrera was a native of Seville. We learn nothing of his family, and even the date of his birth is unknown. It is conjectured that he was born at the beginning of the sixteenth century. He was an ecclesiastic; but it is believed that he adopted this profession late in life, and we are ignorant of the position he held in the hierarchy, and of all the events of his life. It is believed that he died at a very advanced age; but when and where we are not told. In the midst of all these negatives as to events, we get at a few affirmatives with regard to his qualities. There is an inedited work, entitled "The illustrious Men, Natives of Seville," written by Rodrigo Caro, who thus mentions him:—"Herrera was so well known in his native town of Seville, and his memory is so regarded there, that I may be considered in fault if my account of his works is brief: however, I will repeat all I have heard without futile additions, for I knew, though I never spoke to him,—I being a boy when he was an old man; but I remember the reputation he enjoyed. He understood Latin perfectly, and wrote several epigrams in that language, which might rival the most famous ancient authors in thought and expression. He possessed only a moderate knowledge of Greek. He read the best authors in the modern languages, having studied them with care; and to this he added a profound knowledge of Castilian, carefully noting its powers of expressing with nobleness and grandeur. He evidently wrote prose with great care, since his prose is the best in our language. As to his Spanish poetry, to which his genius chiefly impelled him, the best critics pronounce his poems correct in their versification, full of poetic colouring, powerful and forcible as well as elegant and beautiful; although, indeed, as he did not write for every vulgar reader, so that the uneducated are unable to judge of the extent of his erudition. He excelled in the art of selecting epithets and expressions, without affectation. He was naturally grave and severe, and his disposition betrays itself in his verses. He associated with few, leading a retired life, either alone in his study, or in company, with some friend, who sympathised with him, and to whom he confided his cares. Whether from this cause, or from the merit of his poetry, he was called the 'divine Herrera:' as a satirist of those days mentions:—

"His poems were not printed during his life; Francisco Pacheco, a celebrated painter of this city, whose studio was the resort of all clever men of Seville and the environs, performed this office. He was a great admirer of his works, and collected them with great care, and printed them under the patronage of the count de Olivarez. Herrera's prose works are the best in our language. They consist of the Life and Martyrdom of Thomas More, president of the English parliament in the time of the unhappy Henry VIII., leader and abettor of the schism of that kingdom (translated from the Latin of Thomas Stapleton); the Naval Battle against the Turks at Lepanto; a Commentary on Garcilaso; all of which display deep reading in Greek, Latin, and modern languages, and which he published while living. He employed himself on a general History of Spain, to the time of the emperor Charles V., which he brought up to the year 1590. He was well versed in philosophy: he studied mathematics, ancient and modern geography, and possessed a chosen library. The reward of all this was only a benefice in the parish church of St. Andres in this city. But he has many associates in the moderation of his fortune; for though every one praises merit, few seek and fewer reward it."[27]

The praise of Caro is echoed by others of more note. Cervantes, when he resided at Seville, frequented the society of Herrera; in his "Voyage to Parnassus" he calls him the "Divine," and says that the "ivy of his fame clung to the walls of immortality." Lope de Vega in his "Laurel de Apollo," calls him the "learned," and speaks of him with respect and admiration. Sedano tells us that he was a handsome man; tall, of a manly and dignified aspect, lively eyes, and thick curled hair and beard. In addition, we learn that the lady of his love, whom he celebrates under the names of Light, Love, Sun, Star—Eliodora, was the Countess of Gelves. He loved her, it is said, all his life, to the very height of platonic passion, which burnt fiery and bright in his own heart, but revealed itself only by manifestations of reverence and self-struggle. This sort of attachment, when true, is certainly of an heroic and sublime nature, and demands our admiration and sympathy; but we must be convinced of the reality of the sufferings to which it gives rise, and of the unlimited nature of its devotion, or it becomes a mere picture wanting warmth and life. Petrarch's letters give a soul to his poetry: the various accounts they contain of his solitary struggles at Vaucluse, make us turn with deeper interest to his verses, which, otherwise, might almost be reasoned away into a mere ideal feeling. Knowing nothing of Herrera but that he loved "a bright particular star," shining far above, we are willing to find an accord between this love of the elevated and unattainable, and the grandeur of the subjects he celebrates in his poetry, and the dignity of his verse.

Herrera is a great favourite with those Spanish critics who prefer loftiness to simplicity of style, and the ideas of the head rather than the emotions of the heart: the sublime style at which he aimed gained for him the surname of Divine. Boscan, Garcilaso, and Luis de Leon, adopted the Italian metres, and with greater diffuseness, and therefore less classical elegance, but with equal truth and poetic verve, and informed the Spanish language with powers unknown to former poets. But this did not suffice for Herrera. He delighted in the grandiose and sonorous. He altered the language, introducing some obsolete and some new words, and, attending with a sensitive ear to the modulations of sound, endeavoured to make harmony between the thought and its oral expression. Lope de Vega held Herrera's versification in high esteem: quoting a passage from his odes, he exclaims, "Here, no language exceeds our own—no, not even the Greek nor the Latin. Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight." Quintana, whose criticism is rather founded on artificial, rather than genuine and simple taste, as is apt to be the case with critics, is also his great admirer. He considers that he contributed more than any other to elevate, not only the poetic style of the Spanish language, but the essence of its poetry, in gifting it with more boldness of imagination and fire of expression than any preceding poet. Sedano is less partial: while he praises and admits his right to his name of "divine," he observes, that in endeavouring to purify and elevate his diction, he erred in rendering it harsh and barren, wanting in suavity and flow, and injured it by the affectation of antiquated phrases. His odes are certainly grand: we feel that the poet is full of his subject, and rises with it. It is rash of a foreigner, indeed, to give an opinion; still, we cannot help saying that while we admire the fervour of expression, the grandeur of the ideas, and the harmony of the versification, we miss the while a living grace more charming than all. It is the poetry of the head rather than the heart. And thus, among Herrera's poems, the one we admire most is his Ode to Sleep; for, joined to elegant chasteness and great purity of language, we find a pure genuine feeling, feelingly expressed.

SAA DE MIRANDA

At this same period, so fertile in Spain with poetic genius, there flourished two Portuguese poets, whose names are introduced here from their connection with Spanish poetry. Saa de Miranda was horn in 1494, and died in 1558. His Spanish poems are bucolic, and more truly imbued with rural imagery than that of those warrior poets, whose love of the country was that of gentlemen who enjoy the beauties of scenery and the blandishments of the odorous breezes, rather than of persons accustomed to the detail of pastoral life. Saa de Miranda sometimes mingled a higher tone of description with his rural pictures; thus imitating nature, who associates the terrible with the lovely, the storm and the soft breath of evening. At the same time, none excels Saa de Miranda in the union of simplicity and grace: some of his verses remind the Italian reader of the odes of Chiabrera, such as these, describing the wanderings of a nymph, with which his fancy adorned a woodland scene:—

Nor does his poetry want the charm of melancholy sentiment, nor the vehemence of passion; while all that he writes has the peculiar merit of a harmony and grace all his own.

JORGE DE MONTEMAYOR

Jorge de Montemayor is another Portuguese poet, whose name belongs rather to Spain than Portugal. His real appellation is unknown. He adopted that of the place of his birth, Montemor, a town in the jurisdiction of Coimbra in Portugal, which he in a manner translated into Spanish, and called himself Jorge or George de Montemayor. He was born about the year 1520, of humble origin, and slight education. In his youth he entered the military profession. His talent for music first brought him into notice: he emigrated into Castile, and endeavoured to gain his livelihood by music: he succeeded in being incorporated in the band of the Royal Chapel; and when the Infante don Philip, afterwards Philip II., made his celebrated progress through Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries, having in his suite a band of choice musicians and singers, Montemayor made one among them.

These travels tended to enlarge his mind; and, although unacquainted with the learned languages, he became a proficient in various foreign ones, and joined to these accomplishments a taste for literature. His love for music was allied closely to a talent for poetry; and when on his return to Spain, he resided at the city of Leon, he established his fame as an author, by writing his "Diana." The fame of this book spread far and wide: it was imitated by almost every poet that wrote in those days, and the style in which it was composed became the fashion throughout Spain.

The "Diana" is a pastoral of such an ideal species, that it sets chronology and history at defiance. Of these, our Shakspeare made light, when he wrote "Cymbeline" and the "Winter's Tale;" but the "Diana" is even more confused in its costume. The scene of it is placed at the foot of the mountains of Leon; and the heroine is said to be the object of a real attachment of the author. This lady in other poems is called Marfisa: he is said to have loved her before he left Spain with the court: on his return he found her married; and his grief and her infidelity he personified in the Sireno and Diana of his pastoral. Thus many modern events are spoken of; and the adventures of Abindarres and Xarifa, contemporaries of king Ferdinand, are mentioned as of old date, at the same time that Apollo and Diana, nymphs and fauns, are the objects of adoration among the shepherds; for, indeed, in those days the gods of the Greeks made as it were an integral portion of poetry, and it would have been considered a solecism to have omitted the names and worship of these deities. The story is conceived in the same heterogeneous manner. There is infinite simplicity in all the part that strictly appertains to Diana and her lover; and much of what is romantic and even supernatural in the other portions.

The first book commences with the return of Sireno to the valleys of the mountains of Leon. He has already heard of the falsehood of his mistress, who is married to another. The romance opens with the songs of his complaints. In one of these he addresses a lock of hair belonging to Diana; and nothing can be more simple, yet touching and true, and elegant, than the opening of this poem. He is joined by Silvano, another lover of Diana, who has always been disdained; and his resignation is truly exemplary: these two hapless lovers are joined by a shepherdess, who is also suffering the woes of unfortunate passion; and her history concludes the book. In the second, events of more action are introduced: the scene even changes to a sort of fairy tale; but though the machinery of the story alters, the sentiments remain the same, conceived in the language of passion and reality. It is not until the sixth book that Diana herself is introduced, and the canzoni placed in her mouth are among the best in the book: she lays the blame of her infidelity on her parents, who forced her to marry a rich shepherd. The romance concludes without any change in the situation of the hero and heroine.

It is singular, that a work founded on such strange and unnatural machinery should have seized on the imagination, we may almost say, of the world; since this sort of pastoral became universally imitated; but there is something in the rural pictures and out-of-door life which composes the scenery of such works., grateful, we know not why, to our hearts. The style of the "Diana" is, indeed, peculiarly beautiful. Nothing can be more correct, yet less laboured; nothing more elegant, yet less exaggerated. To express vividly and truly, yet gracefully and in harmonious measure, the emotions of the various personages, appears to be the author's chief aim. Thus we read on, attracted by the melody of the style, the heartfelt truth of the sentiments, and the beauty of the descriptions, even while we are quite careless of the developement of the plot, and tolerably uninterested in any of the personages. To translate the poetry of this book would be difficult, as the style forms its charm; but it is impossible to read it in the original without being carried away by the flow of the versification, and the unaffected expression of real feeling.

The "Diana" superseded for a time the books of chivalry, of which the Spaniards were so fond. Since Amadis first appeared, no work had been so popular. Cervantes, who imitated it in his "Galatea," thus mentions it in the scrutiny the curate and barber make of Don Quixote's library. Speaking of pastorals in general, the curate says: "These books do not deserve to be burned with the rest, because they have never done nor will do the harm of which tales of chivalry are guilty; they are mere books of amusement, and hurt no one." Of the pastoral in question itself, he says: "Let us begin by the "Diana" of Montemayor: I am of opinion that we tear out all that relates to the wise Felicia and the enchanted water, and almost all the poems in long measure, and let the prose remain, and the merit of its being the first of this species of books."

Such was the reputation that Montemayor acquired by this romance, that the queen of Portugal was desirous that he should return to his native country. He was, accordingly, recalled, and nothing more is known of him than that it is supposed that he died a violent death[29],—where, even, is not known; for some say in Portugal, some in Italy: the dates tolerably agree, those named being 1561 and 1562, so that he was scarcely more than forty at the time of his death.

CASTILLEJO

To give a catalogue raisonnée of all the poets that flourished in Spain in this age would be of little avail, as little is known of them and their poetry: though much of it is beautiful, and much more of it agreeable, it does not bear the stamp of the originality and genius necessary to form an era in literature. Sedano gives brief notices of some of them. From him we learn that Fernando de Acuna, a nobleman of Portuguese extraction, a distinguished courtier in the court, a gallant soldier in the camp of Charles V., was also an intimate friend of Garcilaso de la Vega, and imitated him and Boscan in the style of his poetry. He died in Granada about the year 1580. There is elegance, and a certain degree of originality in his poems. Sedano almost places him above his friend Garcilaso. He mingled the Italian and old Spanish styles together, introducing metres more adapted to the Castilian language than the terzets of his predecessors, being shorter, more airy, and more graceful.

Gil Polo, a native of Valentia, flourished about the year 1550. He continued the Diana of Montemayor, and called his work "La Diana Enamorada." He is chiefly famous for the praise that Cervantes bestows on him, when in "Don Quixote" the curate says to the barber "Take as much care of Gil Polo's work, as if it were written by Apollo himself." Posterity has not confirmed this preference, and it is chiefly praised for elegance and purity of style.

Cetina, an anacreontic poet of merit, also finds a place in the "Parnaso Español." The same honour is not bestowed on Castillejo, who, however, deserves peculiar mention as the great partisan of the old Castilian style, and the antagonist of Boscan. Cristoval Castillejo flourished also in the time of Charles V., in whose service he went to Vienna, remaining there as secretary to Ferdinand I.; as, notwithstanding, the imperial crown of Germany was separated from the regal one of Spain, on the death of Charles V., there continued to subsist for some years intimate relations between the courts of Vienna and Madrid. The greater part of Castillejo's poems were written at Vienna, and are full of allusions to the gaieties of the court. He admired and celebrates a young German lady, named Schomburg, whose barbaric appellation he translates into Xomburg. Late in life he returned to Spain, became a Cistercian monk, and died in a convent in 1596.

Some Spanish critics raise Castillejo to a high rank among the poets of that nation, while others give him a juster place, and perceive that it was the want of strength to soar beyond, that led him, in his own compositions, to confine himself to the old coplas, and want of penetration that made him so violent an enemy of those whom he named the Petrarquistas. His satires against them are witty, and not without some justice; and certainly prolixity is a fault to be attributed to these poets he attacks. He begins with the true Spanish taste for persecution, exclaiming,—

Upon this, he institutes a ghostly tribunal, presided over by Juan de Mena, Jorge Manrique, and other ancient poets, before whom Bosean and Garcilaso are forced to appear—of course, to their utter discomfiture and disgrace. While it is impossible to accede to this sentence, and while we must look on Castillejo as an inferior poet, he merits great praise within the boundaries which he prescribes himself. His lyrics are light, airy, graceful; and though they possess a fault little known in Spain—that of levity,—this defect is with him akin to that animation and wit which is the proper charm of poetry of this class.

FERNANDO DE ROXAS

THE DRAMATISTS

As in no long process of time, dramatic poetry became the distinctive and national turn of Spanish poetic genius, it would be ungrateful towards the originators of a species of composition imitated all over the world, and extolled by every man of taste, not to make mention of them. The first dawn of the drama has been mentioned: the representation of mysteries and autos being permitted by the clergy, leave was taken to exchange the purely religious for the pastoral or the moral. Besides the pastoral dialogues of Juan de Encina, before mentioned, there existed a moral Spanish play, whose origin is lost in obscurity. It is named, "Celestina, Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea." The first act is supposed by some to have been the work of an unknown priest or poet of the reign of John II. It was finished in the fifteenth century, by Fernando de Roxas. The drama consists of twenty-one acts, and is rather a long-drawn tale in dialogue than a play. It is more didactic than dramatic; descriptive and moral. Its purpose was to warn youth by displaying the dangers of licentiousness; and many an odious personage and scene is introduced to conduce to this good end; with considerable disdain, meanwhile, of good taste. The first act, of ancient date, brings forward the story—the loves of Calisto and Melibea, two young persons nobly born, divided from each other by their respective families. Melibea is perfectly virtuous and prudent, and submits to the commands that prevent all communication between her and her lover. Calisto is less patient: he applies to Celestina, an old sort of go-between, such as is frequent in a land of intrigue like Spain. Her artifices, her flatteries, her philtres, are all described and put in action; and the act breaks off under the expectation of what may be the result of such an engine. Roxas added twenty acts to this one. He increases the romantic and tragic interest of the tale. Celestina introduces herself into Melibea's house. She corrupts the servants by presents; deludes the unfortunate girl by incantations, and induces her, at last, to yield to her lover. Her parents discover the intrigue; Celestina is poisoned; Calisto stabbed; and Melibea throws herself from the top of a tower. According to some writers, where crime is punished in the end, the tale is moral: thus, this drama was regarded as a moral composition; at all events, it was popular: doubtless, it pictured the manners of the times, and interested the readers as the novels of the present day do, by shadowing forth the passions and events they themselves experienced.

This was the first genuine Spanish play. In the beginning of the reign of Charles V., the theatre began to interest classic scholars; and the first step made towards improving the drama, was an attempt to introduce antique models. Villalobos, a physician of Charles V., translated the Amphitryon of Plautus, which was printed in 1515. Perez de Oliva made a literal translation of the Electra of Sophocles. Oliva was a man of infinite learning and zealous inquiry: passing through the universities of Salamanca and Alcala, he visited first Paris, and afterwards Rome, where he gave himself up to the study of letters. The road of advancement was open to him in the papal palace at Rome, but he renounced it to return to Spain. He became professor of philosophy and theology in the university of Salamanca. One of his chief studies was his own language, and he is much praised for the classical purity of his style. Sedano goes so far as to say that the diction of his translation, which he entitles "La Venganza de Agamemnon," or, Agamemnon Avenged, "is so perfect in all its parts—so full of harmony, elevation, purity, sweetness, and majesty, that it not only excuses the author for not having written in verse, but may rival the most renowned poetry." It seems strange to read this sentence, and to turn to the bald phraseology of the work itself: we cannot believe that this translation was ever acted. The first original tragedy published in Spain was the work of Geronimo Bermudez, a monk of the order of St. Dominic, a man of austere and pious life; but who joined a love of letters and poetry to his theological studies. He wrote "Nise Lastimosa," and "Nise Laureada." Ines de Castro, of whose name in the title he makes the anagram of Nise, but who is properly named in the play, is the heroine of these dramas. The first is by no means destitute of merit. The tale itself is of such tragic interest, that it naturally supports the dialogue, which is too long drawn, and interrupted by choruses. The fourth act, however, rises superior to the rest, and is extremely beautiful. Ines pleads before the king for her life. She uses every argument suggested by justice, mercy, and parental affection to move him. The language is free from extraneous ornament; tender elevated, and impassioned. It is impossible to read it without being moved by the depth and energy of its pathos. The second play, the subject of which is the vengeance the infante don Pedro took on her murderers when he ascended the throne, is a great falling off from the other. The plot is deficient—the dialogue tiresomely long—and the catastrophe, though historically true, at once horrible and unpoetic.

Besides these more classical productions, there were written various imitations of Celestina. They were all moral, for they all displayed in an elaborate manner the course of vice, and its punishment. Long drawn out—too real in their representation of vulgar crime, they neither interested on the stage, nor pleased in the closet.

The greatest obscurity has enveloped the earliest regular dramas written in Spanish. They were the work of Bartolomé Torres Naharro, a native of Estremadura, and a priest. Torres Naharro was born in the little town of Tore, near Badajos, on the frontiers of Portugal. Little is known of him, except his reputation as a man of learning. After a shipwreck, which involved him in various adventures, he arrived at Rome, during the pontificate of Leo X., and was patronised by that accomplished pope. Naples was then in the hands of the Spaniards, and Naharro's comedies were doubtless represented in that city, whither Naharro himself removed, driven from Rome by the difficulties in which his satirical works involved him.[31]

Cervantes does not mention Naharro in his preface to his comedies, which contains the best account we have of the origin of the Spanish drama. But other writers, and among them the editor of Cervantes's comedies, mention him as the real inventor of the Spanish drama. His plays were written in verse; there is propriety in his characters and some elegance in his style. He brought in the intrigue of an involved story to support the interest of his plays. They did not, however, obtain possession of the stage in Spain.

Lope de Rueda followed him. The "great Lope de Rueda" Cervantes calls him, adding that he was an excellent actor and a clever man. "He was born," he continues, "at Seville, and was a goldbeater by trade. He was admirable in pastoral poetry, and no one either before or after excelled him in this species of composition. Although when I saw him I was a child, and could not judge of the excellence of his verses, several have remained in my memory, and, recalling them now at a ripe age, I find them worthy their reputation. In the time of this celebrated Spaniard, all the paraphernalia of a dramatic author and manager was contained in a bag: it consisted of four white dresses for shepherds, trimmed with copper gilt, four sets of false beards and wigs, and four crooks, more or less. The comedies were mere conversations, like eclogues, between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess, adorned and prolonged by two or three interludes of negresses, clowns or Biscayans. Lope performed the various parts with all the truth and excellence in the world. At that time there were no side scenes, no combats between Moors and Christians on horseback or on foot. There was no figure which arose, or appeared to rise, from the centre of the earth, through a trapdoor in the theatre. His stage was formed of a few planks laid across benches, and so raised about four palms above the ground. Neither angels nor souls descended from the sky: the only theatrical decoration was an old curtain, held up by ropes on each side: it formed the back of the stage, and separated the behind scenes from the front. Behind were placed the musicians, who sang some old romance to the music of a guitar."

As an actor himself Rueda doubtless could judge best of the public taste. His own parts were those of fools, roguish servants, and Biscayan boors. His plays were collected by Timoneda, a bookseller of Valencia, but, like the witticisms of the masks of the old Italian stage, they lose much in print. His plots consist of chapters of mistakes: there are a multitude of characters in his dramas, and jests and witticisms abound. These generally consist of ridiculous quarrels, in which a clown plays the principal part.[32] Spanish critics call him the restorer, it would be better to say—the founder of the Spanish theatre.

After Rueda, Cervantes tells us, came another Naharro, a native of Toledo; he was also an actor and manager. "He augmented the decorations of the comedies; he substituted trunks and boxes for the old bag. He drew the musicians out from behind the curtain, where they were previously placed. He deprived the actors of their beards; for before him no actor had ever appeared without a false beard. He desired that all should show an unmasked battery, except those who represented old men, or were disguised. He invented side scenes, clouds, thunder, lightning, challenges, and battles.

Such were the commencements of the Spanish theatre, destined to take so high a place hereafter in the history of the drama.

We now come to a new era, and names more known. We have arrived at the age of Cervantes: these were the men who preceded him.

There is something very peculiar in the state of literature at this time. The infancy of Spanish poetry was such as might have been expected from a chivalrous nation; its themes were love and war, its heroes national, and its style such as to render it popular. The continued struggle with a foreign conqueror gave an ardent and gallant turn to the national character: and while the superior excellence of the enemy in arts and literature imparted some portion of refinement, national enthusiasm inspired independence. But now the enemy was quelled, the country overflowed with money, the harvest of the most nefarious cruelties, and the inquisition was established. Even these circumstances were not enough to subdue the heroism of the Spanish character: they made a stand for freedom against the encroachments of the monarchs; their disjointed councils caused them to fail, and from that moment they sank. The wars of Charles V. drained the country of men and money; the Lutheran heresy put fresh powers into the hands of the inquisition; a career of arms in a foreign country was all that was left; the gates of inquiry and free thought were closed and barred.

Intercourse with Italy opened fresh fields of poetry, which all other countries have found unlimited in the variety of subjects, and manner of treating them. Not so the Spaniards; they stopt short at once with elegies, and pastorals, and songs. Boscan, a man of gentle disposition and retired habits, naturally dwelt with complacency on descriptions of rural pleasures, or the sentiments of his own heart. Garcilaso de la Vega, a gallant soldier, found in poetry a recreation, a mode to gratify his taste; and retired from the world of arms to brood over the graceful and passionate reveries of a young lover. Mendoza, a man of harder temperament, was the servant of a king: a sort of worldly philosophy, Horatian in its expression, or the passion of love, inspired his writings at first; and when, later in life, he might be supposed to entertain the design of making his talents subservient to the good of mankind, he found, when he wrote the wars of Granada, the political and inquisitorial yoke so heavy that he could only hint at injuries, and allude to wrongs. The poets who came after were men of an inferior grade; they wrote in a great measure to please their contemporaries; they adopted, therefore, pastoral themes, they wrote elegies, sonnets; and love and scenic descriptions were the subjects of their compositions.

In all this, it is not to be supposed that they were servile imitators of the Italians; they were at first their pupils, but nothing more. Originality is the great distinctive of the Spanish character. Every line each author wrote was in its turn of thought and expression national. The conceits resulting from a meeting of ardent imaginations with ardent passions, which brought the whole phenomena of nature in the poet's service,—the burning emotions, the very constant brooding on one engrossing subject,—all belonged to a people whose souls were fiery, proud, and concentrated.

Still the Spaniards had found no peculiar form in which to embody the characteristics of the nation. Perhaps the gay sally of a youthful student. Lazarillo de Tormes, of Mendoza, was the most national work yet produced. In Italy the sort of free epic, introduced by Bojardo, became the expression of national tastes and character. This sort of composition never took deep root in Spain. The authors were too circumvented by the inquisition to dare say much; thus we shall find in the end, that the theatre became the body informed by Spanish poets with a soul all their own, where passions and imaginations, the most ardent and the most wild, the most true and the most beautiful, found expression.

All the authors hitherto mentioned were horn at the very commencement of the sixteenth century. By the time they had arrived at the age of manhood, the policy and success of Charles V. had established him firmly on the Spanish throne, and was extending far and wide the glory of his name. To fight for and to serve him was the Spaniards' duty: they had not yet suffered by the yoke, but they had yielded to it. At first the nobles of the land were the sole authors, while writing was merely a taste, a study, or an amusement; soon it was followed, for purposes of gain and reputation by men of inferior rank, who were endowed with genius; authorship became general; and poetry grew into one of the chief pleasures of the court.

ERCILLA

1533-1600.

The Spanish muse has produced numerous epic poems, most of which are unknown beyond the limits of Spain, and many even there have been consigned to merited oblivion. The Araucana alone has been admitted to a station in general literature. This is owing partly to its own intrinsic merits, but in a greater degree to the novelty of its argument, and to the circumstances under which it was written. Unlike other poets, Ercilla was himself an actor in the scenes which he describes. The chronicler of his own story, he avowedly rejects the aid of fiction. Veracity and accuracy are the qualities in winch, as a poetical writer, he is peculiar. His descriptions and characters are portraits taken from nature; invention is therefore a talent which he never exerts. If his imagination has any play, it is only in the grouping and distribution of his pictures. His scenery, his manners, his personages, are all copied from originals which he had actually before his eyes. The objects of his observation, the subject-matter of his poetry, were, moreover, of a class strikingly novel,—a new world, savage nations, for the first time brought into contact and collision with civilised man: on one side the love of independence; on the other, the thirst of plunder, the fury of religious zeal, and a misguided spirit of chivalrous enterprise. No ordinary talents were required to do justice to so rich a theme, whilst even ordinary abilities were sufficient to give interest to a poem founded on such a basis. To great genius the Spanish poet cannot lay a claim; he is indeed inferior to his labour: yet he had that cleverness requisite to produce a work not totally devoid of interest, occasionally abounding in beauties; such, in short, as entitles him to a respectable though not a very high station in the literary world.

Don Alonso de Ercilla was born in Madrid on the 7th of March, 1533. [Note 1.] His family was noble; by which word a meaning is conveyed different from that attached in this country to the notion of nobility, it being tantamount to saying that his ancestors were and had been for a long time gentlemen. Fortun Garcia de Ercilla, the father of Ercilla, a native of Biscay, was an industrious writer, whose labours as a jurist were highly prized, and obtained for him the cognomen of the "subtle Spaniard." He wrote generally in Latin, though a Spanish manuscript work of his upon the challenge sent by the emperor Charles V. to Francis I. king of France is recorded by the author of the Bibliotheca Hispana. [Note 2.] Fortun's wife. Doña Leonor de Zuñiga (ladies in Spain do not take their husband's names), was a woman of illustrious descent, the feudal lady of the town of Bobadilla, the domain of which, after her husband's death, was transferred to the crown, she having been admitted into the household of the empress. Three sons were the offspring of their union, of whom Alonso the poet was the youngest. He received his education at the royal palace, and since his tender years became a menino [Note 3.], or page of the heir to the crown, prince Philip, afterwards so famous as Philip II. of Spain. What sort of education he received under such circumstances we are not enabled to say. It is not probable that it was one suited to a man intended for literary pursuits. His works, however, prove him not to have been unacquainted with the Latin and Italian poets; and though his knowledge of the latter was probably acquired in the course of his travels, he must have been indebted to his early studies for his introduction to the former. The words "gentleman" and "soldier" were at that time nearly synonymous; and Don Alonso, though bred a courtier, and following his royal master in that capacity, was probably considered to be intended for the military profession. In his earlier years Philip was directed by his father to travel over his future extensive dominions, which formed a very considerable, and, with the exception of France, at that time the best, part of Europe. In this tour Ercilla was a constant attendant of the young prince, profiting, as he himself boasts[33], by his travels, indulging his own inquisitive propensities, and, in imitation of Ulysses, acquiring an ample store of information and wisdom, derived from his observations of nations and manners. [Note 4.]

The ambition of Charles V. was not satisfied with the possession of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, great part of Italy, and the countries recently discovered in America. The rich inheritance which he intended to transmit to his son was to be increased, and as a compensation for the loss of the empire of Germany, to which his brother Ferdinand had been elected successor, he aspired to the crown of England for the future king of Spain. A marriage between Philip and the English queen Mary was brought about; the young prince repaired to London, attended by Ercilla. During their residence in this metropolis, news reached them that the Araucanos, an Indian tribe in South America, had risen against the power of Spain. The insurrection appeared of a more serious nature than those which had hitherto occurred in the annals of Indian warfare. The charge of subduing the refractory patriots, or, as they were called by their invaders, the rebels, was committed to Geronimo de Alderete, who had come over from Peru to England, and soon set out again on his return, having been appointed, by the king, adelantado of Chili,—a title since become obsolete, which was equivalent to hat of military commander of a district. To a man of Ercilla's adventurous disposition, this opportunity of military honour was too tempting to be resisted. He left the personal service of the prince, to follow the adelantado in his distant expedition, and girded on his sword[34], as he himself says, for the first time, being then in the twenty-first year of his age. Geronimo de Alderete, however, did not reach the scene of warfare, having died while on his way, in Taboga near Panama. His young companion proceeded alone to Lima, the metropolis of Peru, to join the expedition.

Those distant possessions, which, for the most part, had been annexed to the Spanish crown by the prowess of obscure and enterprising adventurers, had already begun to rank high in the public estimation, and individuals of noble birth and courtly favour sought to reap the fruits of the labours of the neglected discoverers and conquerors.

Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, marquis of Cañete, was at that time viceroy of Peru; a man belonging to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Spain.

This nobleman entrusted his son, Don Garcia, with the command of the forces destined to subdue the Araucanos. The expedition consisted of a corps of two hundred and fifty men, who went by sea—a brilliant and well armed and equipped band, as we are told by the Spanish historians [Note 5.]; and a nearly equal number which had been sent by land across those extensive regions. With such inconsiderable forces did the Spaniards attempt to conquer and hold in subjection those immense regions of South America!

The expedition having reached the point of its destination, the war proved of a far more important nature than those hitherto waged with the natives of the American continent. Unlike the Indians of the torrid zone, the Araucanos were a hardy and valiant race, whose courage was not less impetuous than persevering. They are described by a Spanish historian as "a people exceedingly brave, robust, and swift, who outstrip the deer in the race; and of so strong a breath, that they persist in the course for a whole day; superior to other Indian tribes, as well in the strength of their frames as in the vigour of their intellects; strong, ferocious, arrogant; filled with a generous spirit, and thus averse to subjection, to avoid which they readily peril their lives.[35] "Though masters," says Ercilla[36], "only of a district of twenty leagues' extent, without a single town, or a wall, or a stronghold in it, destitute even of arms, inhabiting an almost flat country, surrounded by three Spanish towns and two fortresses, they, by dint merely of their valour and tenacity of purpose, not only recovered, but supported and maintained, their freedom." Their gallant stand against the invaders of America was at last crowned with success. Instead of the subjects, they became the honourable foes, and in process of time the allies and friends, of the Spanish monarchy. The poverty of their native land proved their best auxiliary; it deterred the Spaniards from persisting in a contest in which nothing was to be gained which could repay their exertions; and so completely was the animosity of those nations changed into feelings of mutual esteem, that in the late events, which have severed the colonies from their mother-country, the Araucanos have constantly shown, and still preserve, the most decided partiality to the cause and fortunes of the old Spaniards.

In the conflicts of that Indian war Ercilla was eminently distinguished, according to the testimony of nearly all the Spanish writers [Note 6.], and to his own rather boastful account. He had an ample opportunity to indulge his daring spirit of enterprise and his habits of observation. After the tumult of a battle, or the toils of a march, he devoted the hours of night to write his half poetical, half historical, narration; wielding, as he says, by turns the sword and the pen, and writing often upon skins, and sometimes upon scraps of paper so small as to contain scarcely six lines. The ordinary duties, which he shared in common with his fellow-soldiers, were insufficient for his aspiring ambition, and as little did the matter for observation on men and countries, although the supply was unusually copious, satisfy the cravings of his inquisitive mind. Determined to accomplish more, he penetrated into the furthermost parts of the South American continent; left the army, in company with ten of his fellow-soldiers; crossed twice, in a small boat, the dangerous pass of the archipelago of Ancudbox; and in the same manner, though with less of gasconade [Note 7.] than was long after shown by an enterprising French traveller, in an opposite region of the earth, carved upon a tree a record of his having, first of all human beings, reached that distant spot.

Upon his return from this expedition, Don Alonso narrowly escaped an early and disastrous end. News having been received at the city of La Imperial, where the head-quarters of the Spanish army were fixed, that Philip II. had succeeded to the Spanish crown in consequence of the abdication of his father, it was thought proper to solemnise the event by holding a tournament, after the fashion of those days of martial spirit, chivalrous feeling, and imperfect civilisation. Among the various shows and feats of skill there was an estafermo, a figure of wood or pasteboard, in striking which knights made a trial of their strength and dexterity. Don Alonso de Ercilla and a cavalier called Don Juan de Pineda had a dispute, each pretending to have struck the best blow. They soon passed from mock to real battle, drew their swords, and were followed by their respective partisans; so that the games, as not unfrequently happened in those martial amusements, were converted into strife and confusion. The general having, it is said, previously suspected the existence of a plot against his authority, concluded that this encounter at the games was meant to be the precursor of its execution. The civil wars, which had arisen in rapid succession among the invaders and conquerors of that part of South America, gave countenance to this impression. The pretended ringleaders were therefore committed to prison; and the irritated general, being desirous of making a salutary example, to preserve discipline among his troops, ordered that the heads of the criminals should be cut off. The riot being quelled, and more correct information having convinced Don Garcia that the quarrel had been accidental, the severe sentence was revoked.[37] Of the treatment which he then suffered, Ercilla complains bitterly in his poem. He states that he was actually taken to a public place, there to be beheaded by sentence of a young and hasty general[38]; nay, that he had been already upon the scaffold, and had stretched out his neck for the axe, whilst he was only guilty of having unsheathed his sword, which he never drew without being most clearly in the right.[39] The historian of Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, on the other side, pretends that he had been justly condemned by the general, a person, in the opinion of his panegyrist, to whom, by confession of all, no blame could attach, of an exceedingly mild and humane disposition[40], endowed with great equanimity, an acute intellect, and a fine memory, a perfect Christian, of marvellous prudence and activity, no gambler, a zealous restorer of discipline, highly abstemious, never tasting wine, and, to crown all, constantly keeping in hand his rosary to tell his beads.[41] He, moreover, affirms that our poet was indebted to Don Garcia for many favours; but that he hated Ortigosa, the general's secretary, whom he taxed with cowardice and incompetency for his office.[42] It is impossible, and would be foreign to our present purpose, to settle this question. If Ercilla's testimony in his own case ought to be little attended to, the adulatory style of Don Garcia's eulogiser renders his assertions and opinions no less liable to suspicion and unworthy of credit.

Though the sentence of death passed upon Don Alonso was revoked, he had to undergo a long imprisonment, which terminated, as we are informed, in his being banished. We are at a loss how to reconcile this statement with his own assertion, that he was, nevertheless, present at the several sieges and engagements which took place in those countries after the accident of which mention has been made. Not long after, he left Chili in disgust, without having been duly rewarded for his services. This fact appears to contradict Suarez de Figueroa, who says that he was under many obligations to Don Garcia[43]; but what these obligations were the historian has not stated; and, as has been observed by the writer of Ercilla's life prefixed to the edition of the Araucana of 1776 (p. 22.), it is evident from the narration of that prejudiced author, that in a distribution of rewards, which took place under the general, our poet received none.

A new field of exertion seemed now opened to the martial bard. A spirit of dissension and civil strife had prevailed among the conquerors of Peru ever since their establishment in those regions, where, to borrow the expression of the chief historian of Spanish America, "there had occurred frequent instances of disloyalty and disobedience, cruel murders, and various other crimes, two of the king's lieutenants having been deprived of their authority and imprisoned; the tribunals having been reduced to utter insignificance; the power of the crown and justice usurped and trampled upon; and five civil wars had taken place, in which men became furiously enraged against each other, and fought with inhuman ferocity, till ultimately the prince prevailed."[44] One of the most famous "tyrants" of those times (for such was the appellation bestowed by the Spaniards upon those who usurped the royal authority) was Lope de Aguirre, a native of Guipuzcoa, who, having been sent upon an expedition to quell some Indians, raised the standard of revolt against the Spanish commanders, and ruled for a time over the provinces of Venezuela. Of his extraordinary cruelties much has been said, and they are still preserved by tradition, though, perhaps, with that exaggeration of blame which constantly attaches to the memory of an unsuccessful rebel. In the style of the age, Ercilla compares him to Herod and Nero[45]; he having caused his own daughter to be put to death. But before our poet had been able to reach the scene of this civil war, the usurper had been defeated, taken, and executed. Nothing now remained for him to do, as the country was peaceable. He therefore determined to return to Europe, which at that time, however, a long and painful illness prevented. Having at length recovered, he left the American continent, proceeded to the Terceiras, and thence to Spain. At this period (1562), his age being only twenty-nine years, he was in the full and active vigour of life, and had lost none of that spirit which impelled him to enterprise and discovery. He accordingly had scarcely returned to his native country, when the restless energy of his mind sent him forth upon new travels. He visited France, Italy, Germany, Silesia, Moravia, and Pannonia.[46] Having gone back to Spain, he married, at Madrid, Doña Maria de Bazan, a damsel of rank, whose mother held a place at court as lady of the bedchamber to the Spanish queen. The manner in which he speaks of his marriage is quaint and singular: he represents himself to have been carried away by Bellona, in a dream, over a widely extended and flowery meadow, where, while he was intent upon devoting himself to amorous songs, he felt an invincible curiosity to be informed of the names of the beautiful damsels who inhabited that region, especially of one of them, who was such that he suddenly lay prostrate at her feet. She was of tender age, yet she showed a maturity of judgment and talent much above her time of life. While the poet felt compelled to gaze upon her, and while entranced and captivated by the contemplation of her beauty, he anxiously wished to know her name, he saw at her feet the motto, or inscription, "This is Doña Maria, a branch of the stem of Bazan."

Though the emperor and queen of Spain had stood sponsors to the happy pair ]Note 8.] Ercilla does not appear to have obtained any rewards or promotion. The emperor of Germany, Maximilian II., however, appointed him his chambellan, a distinction which did little to better his fortune. In 1580, he lived in Madrid, poor and neglected, and accordingly complaining of the disregard with which his services both at court and in the camp had been treated. The stream of fortune (he says) ran constantly against him: he was now in a state of perfect destitution and abandonment, yet he had the consciousness of having merited, by a long course of honourable service, the just recompence which was withheld from him; a consciousness which is itself a. reward, of which the man of rectitude and honour can never be deprived by external circumstances.[47]

The following anecdote is recorded respecting Ercilla at this time:—Having waited to pay his court to the king, and wishing to speak to his majesty, he felt so disconcerted that he could not find words to declare the nature of his requests; and the king being well aware of the temper of the man who was before him, and sure that his timidity arose from the respect he bore to royalty, told him—"Don Alonso, address me by writing." So Ercilla did (says the author from whom this story has been taken[48]), and the king granted his request.

What the nature of this request was it is impossible to ascertain, because Ercilla constantly complains of his having been totally neglected and forgotten. The anecdote, moreover, seems doubtful. Though a soldier, Don Alonso was not a blunt one: he had been brought up at court, nay, within the precincts of the palace, and as a youthful attendant on the person of that prince, whom now he is represented to have looked upon with such feelings of reverential terror. On the other hand, the account is not entirely devoid of probability, and if not true, is, at least, well imagined. The gloomy and stem disposition of Philip appears to have struck even his confidential servants with a sort of respect bordering upon fear; and the notions of the divine attributes of royalty were then carried to the most extravagant lengths by the Spaniards; a feeling which can be traced in the Spanish writers down to a very recent period, and which has only disappeared in consequence of the late revolutions in the Peninsula.

The last years of Ercilla's life were spent in obscurity. The disappointments he had met with engendered a spirit of gloomy devotion, to which his countrymen were, in those days, peculiarly liable.[49] His morals in his juvenile years had been loose, as is proved by the circumstance of his having had a numerous illegitimate offspring. He now bitterly repented of his frailties; and lamented that he had devoted the best years of his life to worldly pursuits and vanities.[50] The year of his death is not known. In 1596 he was still alive, and is said to have been engaged in writing a poem to commemorate the exploits of Don Alvaro Bazan, marquis of Santa Cruz, the bravest and most fortunate of the Spanish naval commanders. This work, if it ever existed, has been lost; and Ercilla is only known in the literary world by his poem La Araucana, and by a few lines printed in the Parnaso Español[51], which, though they were highly extolled by Lope de Vega, certainly do no credit to his poetical powers.

Respecting Ercilla's personal character we possess little information. He appears to have been brave, active, and clever, of an adventurous disposition, impatient of control, restless and querulous. That he, like most of the literary men of Spain, was shamefully neglected by his own countrymen, is an incontrovertible fact. In his account of the Indian war, and of his own share in the events of it, he shows himself to have been actuated by a more liberal spirit, towards the aboriginal natives, than was evinced by the generality of his fellow-soldiers and fellow-writers. That this arose from his discontent has been malignantly asserted by his enemies, but without sufficient evidence. The execution of Caupolican, the Indian general, which he so indignantly condemns, was a fact of glaring and atrocious injustice, though, unfortunately, of a class by no means uncommon, not only in the annals of Spanish warfare in those regions, but in the history of all conquests; where the assertion of independence has been held and treated as rebellion, and punishment the more severely inflicted in proportion as the right to inflict it was more doubtful or untenable. But as the name of Ercilla belongs rather to the literary than to the political history of Spain, the qualities of his poetry demand our attention in preference to the actions of his life.

The Araucana, though often quoted, is little known out of Spain. No English version of it has been published, but it is stated in an article in the Quarterly Review[52], that there exists one in manuscript from the pen of Mr. Boyd, known as one of the English translators of Dante. The writer of Ercilla's life, in the French Biographie Universelle, speaks of a French translation by M. Langlès, also unpublished. We are not aware that either the Italians or the Germans, the latter of whom have latterly directed their attention to Castilian poetry, possess any complete translation of that Spanish poem.

Voltaire was the first, amongst the French, who called the attention of his countrymen to the Araucana. In his very indifferent Essay upon Epic Poetry, he praises the speech of Colocolo in the 2d canto, which he places above that of Nestor in the first book of the Iliad, and says that the remainder of the work is as barbarous as the nations of which it treats.[53] Of the excellence of the speech so praised (without meaning to enter into a comparison with Homer) no doubt can exist, and the judgment passed upon it by Voltaire deserves the more to be relied upon, as, according to Bouterwek's acute remark[54], he was a better judge of rhetorical than of poetical excellence. The unqualified condemnation of the rest of the poem cannot, indeed, be assented to; for, though the Araucana is far from being a work of first-rate merit, yet it contains some manly beauties, which Voltaire's notions of poetry rendered him unable to perceive. [Note 9.] In an article of Moreri's Dictionnaire we find a more just though still a severe criticism of Ercilla's poem. Latterly the writer in the Biographic Universelle already quoted has expressed a more favourable opinion of the Araucana, and has perhaps erred on the other side. [Note 10.]

It is to Hayley that the English are indebted for a knowledge of the work in question: his analysis and partial translations of it, and his eulogium upon the author, are contained in the notes and body of his Essay upon Epic Poetry. [Note 11.] Hayley thought of Ercilla, perhaps, more highly than he deserves; though, upon the whole, his notice of the Araucana is judicious. In his translations he was not quite so felicitous: his prosaic style was not ill calculated to give a just notion of the tenour of the Spanish poet's composition; but he wanted that force of expression which constitutes the highest recommendation of Ercilla's poetry. The translator, besides, adopted the couplet, a very improper medium to convey to an English reader a just notion of a work originally written in the stanza. It would be needless to point out to those who are acquainted with the Spenserian stanza, or with the Italian and Spanish octava, so happily adopted by Fairfax in his Tasso, how far the mechanism of this measure affects the original conception and distribution of the poet's thoughts, and how much the structure of the couplet differs from it; whence it follows, as a necessary consequence, that conceptions originally adapted to the former must appear distorted when brought by a forced adaptation to the latter.

From the discordant opinions of critics of all nations respecting the Araucana, we may safely infer that, although its defects may be great and numerous, and although even in the Castilian language it cannot be esteemed a first-rate poem, still it possesses just pretensions to a rank in literature above that which some would assign to it.

That Ercilla only meant to write a rhymed history cannot be justly asserted. His fictions, though most of them infelicitous, and unconnected with the main subjects of his story; his machinery; his imitations of Ariosto in the first stanzas of all his cantos, and especially at the opening of the work; his frequent similes;—all clearly prove that he intended to write a poem. But the novel nature of his arguments naturally suggested the idea of rendering his poem a composition far differing from those hitherto existing. He aimed at producing a work, striking from its subject-matter, recommended by the veracity and accuracy of the information [Note 12.] which it was destined to convey, yet clothed in a poetical style, and embellished by episodes where historical fidelity might be easily departed from, and would not, indeed, be expected on the part of the reader.

Don Alonso, however, was deficient in many of the qualities which constitute the poet: he wanted invention and command of language and versification; on the other hand, that which he conceived he could express with force, if not with correctness or delicacy. His adventurous disposition seems to prove that the elements of poetry were in his mind. He had no eyes for the beauties of nature; but he understood the workings of the human heart. His warlike habits directed his attention to those fierce passions which rage in the warrior's breast. He could interpret the feelings of the natives of those remote regions fighting for their homes, their altars, and their personal independence, against the invaders of their country; in his description of their characters and exploits, his style rises and his fancy kindles. By the force of mental association, he is thence led to the contemplation of animated nature; hence the frequency and beauty of his similes, drawn mostly from the animal creation.

In his delineation of character there is abundant matter for praise: his Indians are well pourtrayed, though his Spaniards are all failures. From this latter circumstance he has been accused of bearing ill-will to his fellow-soldiers; but upon a consideration of his peculiar powers, the reason of that difference will be easily explained without admitting the invidious imputations thus cast upon him. Neither could his mind seize, nor his pen delineate, the complex character of civilised man; whilst the bolder and simpler lineaments of the physiognomy of the savage were perfectly adapted to the nature of his genius and the extent of his abilities.

The want of unity is one of the greatest faults in the Araucana, as the poem is rendered thereby uninteresting. This defect does not arise solely from the want of a hero; but likewise from the poet's inability to invent a story. Yet there are frequent instances of works, the plot of which is loose and unconnected, without losing much of their attractions. But in Ercilla, we miss the power of imparting interest, even to the separate stories which form his poem.

Ercilla's poem, on the whole, is rather deserving of censure than of praise; and, if read through, will certainly be found tedious; but parts of it may be perused with pleasure and admiration. The epithet of Homeric has been both applied and misapplied when bestowed upon his genius. Those qualities which have been praised in him must be admitted by an impartial judge to savour a little of the style of the father of epic poetry. That Ercilla was at an immense distance from his model must, however, be confessed, even by his warmest admirers.

NOTES.

Note 1.—This date is taken from the life of Ercilla prefixed to the edition of the Araucana, of Madrid, 1776. The author of Ercilla's life in the French Biographie Universelle fixes his birth at Bermeo, in Biscay, in 1525. He was led into error as to the place by the collector of the Parnaso Español: in assigning the year he confesses that he had no foundation but his own conjecture. This spirit led him to fix a date for our poet's death, which is uncertain.

Note 2.—Nicolaus Antonius. Bibl. Hisp. Nov. p. 395. Madrid, 1783. It is a remarkable fact, that while Ercilla the poet is slightly mentioned in this work, his father, whose labours are now forgotten, has nearly two columns devoted to a notice of his life and writings.

Note 3.—The Meninos were young gentlemen attached to the court. The word is no longer used, though the office is preserved in that of the king's pages.

Note 4.—The pedantic allusion, it is needless to say, is made by Ercilla himself, in the taste of his age.

Note 5.—Herrera Historia general de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano. Dec. VIII. lib. VII. C. X. Our poet is there mentioned as the famous poet and honourable gentleman, Don Alonso de Ercilla.

Note 6.—Licentiate Cristoval Mosquera de Figueroa speaks of Ercilla's prowess at the battle of Millarapue, and the engagement at Puren, where, followed by eleven fellow-soldiers, he climbed up a mountain defended by the Indians, and won the day. The writer of Ercilla's life quotes the Chronicle of Philip II., by Calvete de la Estrella, as a testimonial of the poet's exploits, but this must be a mistake. There exists no such chronicle. Suarez de Figueroa only praises Don Alonso's gallant bearing at a mock fight or field-day (p. 60.); but he was prejudiced against him.

Note 7.—The last line of the inscription here alluded to,

was written by the French comic poet Regnard, in Lapland, in 1681. Though the thought is liable to the imputation of gasconade, it is spirited and beautiful. Ercilla's inscription was of a more unpretending nature. He merely says:—

"Here, where no one had reached before, arrived Don Alonso de Ercilla, who, first of all men, crossed this pass in a small boat without ballast, attended only by ten companions, in the year of fifty-eight above fifteen hundred, on the last day of February, at two o'clock in the afternoon, returning afterwards to his companions whom he had left behind."

This inscription forms a stanza of the Araucana. It is very prosaic. This instance is not the only one where dates are mentioned in the poem. In order to accommodate them to measure and rhyme, the author is often driven to very curious shifts, and strange phraseology.

Note 8.—Luis de Salazar Advertencias Historicas, p. 13. It has however, been remarked by the writer of Ercilla's life, that this author is wrong in stating, that Elizabeth, Philip's consort, or Isabel de Valois, acted as sponsor; she having died in 1568, and Ercilla having married in 1570, according to Garibay. Possibly the queen alluded to was Philip's fourth wife, Ann of Austria.

Note 9.—Dictionnaire Historique de Moreri, art. Ercilla. The subject of the Araucana (says the critic) being novel, has suggested some novel thoughts to the poet; but his poem is too long, and abounds with low passages. There is great animation in his battles, but no invention, no plot, no variety in his descriptions, no unity in his general outline of the work, &c.

Note 10.—Biographie Univ., Paris, 1815, art. Ercilla. The merits of the Araucana (says this writer) consist in a correct style, proper imagery, beautiful descriptions, a plot constantly increasing in interest, a sort of unity of action, and a spirit of heroism spread over the whole work. The work is inferior to Tasso's Gerusalemme, and superior to Voltaire's Henriade. There occur in it some feeble lines, and vulgar or common-place thoughts.

Note 11.—Ercilla's poetical character is drawn by Hayley in the following lines:—

Note 12.—It is a curious fact, that, to the Antwerp edition of the Araucana, 157., and to several others, there is affixed an approbation from captain Juan Gomez, praising Ercilla for his historical veracity, which he, the captain, could vouch for, from his having resided twenty-seven years in Peru, near the scene of the Araucan war. A strange recommendation of an epic poem!

CERVANTES

1547-1616.

It is most certain, that all those capable of feeling a generous interest in the fate of genius will turn with eager curiosity to the page inscribed with the name of Cervantes: not even Shakspeare has so universal a reputation. While the sublime character of Don Quixote warms the heart of the enthusiast, the truth of the sad picture which his fortunes present tickles the fancy of the man of the world. Children revel in the comedy, old men admire the shrewdness, of Sancho Panza. That this work is written in prose increases its popularity. Imperfect as all translations must be, none fail so entirely as those which attempt to transfuse the etherial and delicate spirit of verse into another language. But though to read "Don Quixote" in its native Spanish infinitely increases the pleasure it affords, yet so does its mere meaning speak to all mankind, that even a translation satisfies those who are forced thus to content themselves.

For the honour of human nature, and to satisfy our own sense of gratitude, we desire to find that the author of "Don Quixote" enjoyed as much prosperity as is consistent with humanity, and that he tasted to its full the triumph due to the writer of the most successful hook in the world. This satisfaction being denied us—for he was "fallen on evil days," a poor and neglected man—we are anxious, even at this distance of time, to commiserate his misfortunes, and sympathise in his sorrows. We desire to learn with what spirit he endured adversity—whether, like his heroic creation, he consoled himself at the worst by the sense of conscious worth and virtuous intention. We feel sure that his romantic imagination, and keen sense of humour, must often have elevated him above his griefs or blunted their sting; but we wish to learn whether they were borne with moral courage; and how far, like his hero, he preserved a serene and undaunted spirit in the midst of blows and derision.

We are disappointed at the outset by finding how little is known of so renowned an author. Neglected during life, his memory also was unhonoured. His contemporaries gave themselves no trouble to collect and bequeath the circumstances of his life, so that they quickly became involved in obscurity. When, at last, it was endeavoured to do honour to his name, eulogy, rather than biography, was written; and it was only towards the end of the last century that pains were taken to make researches, which so far succeeded, that such discoveries were made as place various portions of his life in an interesting and romantic light. The Spanish Academy published an edition of "Don Quixote," to which is prefixed a biography, written by don Vicente de los Rios, who, with all the ardour of an admirer of genius, spared no pains to render his work full and accurate. At about the same time, don Juan Antonio Pellicer made similar researches, and threw some new lights on his situation and circumstances. Much more, however, has been done lately by a French gentleman of the name of Viardôt. He travelled in Spain, and exerted himself to the utmost to discover the yet hidden circumstances of Cervantes's life. By searching the archives of various cities where he had resided, and by a careful examination of contemporary writers, he has brought a mass of information together, the authenticity of which adds to its interest. Some circumstances, indeed, are important only as they are true, and appertain to Cervantes; others throw a great light on his character, and show his fortitude in suffering, his devoted courage when others depended on him, his cheerful content in poverty, his benevolence, and the dignity and animation of his mind, which raised him above his fortunes.

The first point to be decided was the place of his birth: this had been attributed to various cities and towns of Spain—to Madrid, Seville, Esquivias, and Lucena. An allusion in "Don Quixote" led one of his biographers (Sarmiento) to conjecture that he was born at Alcalà de Henares, a town of some consequence, not far from Madrid. Another writer, following up this trace, discovered a baptismal register in the parish church of Santa Maria la Mayor of that town, which certified, that on Sunday, the 9th of October, 1547, the reverend señor Bachiller Serrano baptized Miguel, the son of Rodrigo Cervantes and donna Leonora, his wife.

While the question seemed thus put to rest, it was unsettled again by the discovery of another register. This was found in the parish books of Santa Maria, of Alcanzar de San Lugar, a town of La Mancha. It certified, that on the 9th November, 1558, was baptized, by the licentiate Alonso Diaz Pajares, a son of Blas Cervantes Saavedra and Catalina Lopez, who received the name of Miguel. A marginal note to this register declared, "This was the author of 'Don Quixote.'" In addition, there were various traditions in Alcanzar of the house in which he was born. The name of Saavedra was another testimony in its favour. Cervantes always adopted this additional name; and no trace of it is to be found in the town of Alcalà; however, it would seem that the different families of these two towns were connected, as Cervantes had an uncle, Cervantes Saavedra, of Alcanzar. And thus, on minute examination, and bringing the aid of chronology to decide the question, the balance inclined uncontrovertibly in favour of Alcalà: the date of the battle of Lepanto, and the mention Cervantes makes of his own age in several of his later works, prove that he was born in 1547, and not so late as 1558. Another document, hereafter to be mentioned, discovered by Los Rios in the archives of the society for the redemption of captives in Algiers, declares him to be a native of Alcalà de Henares, and the son of Rodrigo Cervantes and donna Leonora de Cortina. 1547. Thus the question is set at rest; and it becomes matter of positive history that Cervantes was born at Alcalá de Henares, and baptized (probably on the day of his birth, as is usual in catholic countries,) on Sunday, the 9th of October, 1547.

His family, originally of Gallicia, and afterwards established in Castile, belonged to the same class in society, in which he places Hon Quixote. They were hidalgos (hijos de algo, sons of somebody,) and, therefore, by right of birth, gentlemen, though not noble. The name of Cervantes is honourably mentioned in the Spanish annals, as far back as the thirteenth century. Warriors bearing that appellation fought under the banners of St. Ferdinand, and had a part in the taking of Baeza and Seville, and received a share in the distributions of land conquered from the Moors, then made. Others of that name figure among the first adventurers in the New World. His grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, was corregidor of Osuna. The mother of Miguel was of a noble family of Barajas; she married his father about the year 1540. Four children were the fruit of the union; donna Andrea and donna Luisa, daughters; Rodrigo, and youngest of the four, Miguel. His parents were poor, and he could inherit little from them except his honourable rank.[55]

Very little is known of his early life. The town of Henares is but a few miles distant from Madrid, and it contains a university, where it is probable that Cervantes prosecuted his early studies. He tells us, in a poem written late in life,

and this taste gave the bias to his life. While still a boy he was attracted by the drama, and frequented the representations of Lope de Rueda; these recitations, and his taste for reading, which was such that he never passed the meanest bit of paper in the streets without deciphering its contents, were the early proofs he gave of that love of inquiry which always accompanies genius.

Having attained the proper age, Miguel repaired to Salamanca, where he entered himself as a student, and remained for two years.[56] It is ascertained that he lived in Calle los Moros. He afterwards returned to Madrid, and was placed to study with the learned Joan Lopez de Hoyos, a theologian, who filled the chair for Belles Lettres in that city. It is conjectured that in giving him a literary education his parents meant that he should pursue one of the liberal professions; but we have no other token that such was intended. He acquired, however, a taste for literature, and aspired in his turn to be an author. He wrote, he tells us, an infinite number of what in Spain are called romances, being ballads and ditties; of which later in life, he says, he considered a few good among many bad. He wrote also a pastoral, called "Filena," which he boasts attained celebrity. "The woods resounded with her name," he says; "and many a gay song was echoed by them;—my many and pleasant rhymes and the light winds were burdened with my hopes, which were themselves light as the breezes, and shifting as the sands."