Note 786 — Chapter II

Francisco Sanchez—who was named at home El Brocense, because he was born at Las Brozas in Estremadura, but is known elsewhere as Sanctius, the author of the “Minerva,” and other works of learning—published his edition of Garcilasso at Salamanca, 1574, 18mo; a modest work, which has been printed often since. This was followed at Seville, in 1580, by the elaborate edition of Herrera, in 8vo, filling nearly seven hundred pages, chiefly with its commentary, which is so cumbersome, that it has never been reprinted, though it contains a good deal important, both to the history of Garcilasso, and to the elucidation of the earlier Spanish literature. Tamayo de Vargas was not satisfied with either of them, and published a commentary of his own at Madrid in 1622, 18mo, but it is of little worth. Perhaps the most agreeable edition of Garcilasso is one published, without its editor’s name, in 1765, by the Chevalier Joseph Nicolas de Azara; long the ambassador of Spain at Rome, and at the head of what was most distinguished in the intellectual society of that capital. In English, Garcilasso was made known by J. H. Wiffen, who, in 1823, published at London, in 8vo, a translation of all his works, prefixing a Life and an Essay on Spanish Poetry; but the translation is constrained, and fails in the harmony that so much distinguishes the original, and the dissertation is heavy and not always accurate in its statement of facts.