Note 461 — Chapter XXII

Antonio bestows unbounded praise on a poem of the epic class, the Bernardo of Balbuena, published at Madrid, in 1624, though he complains that in his own age it lay hid in the corners of booksellers’ shops. Balbuena, in his opinion, has left all Spanish poets far behind him. The subject of his poem is the very common fable of Roncesvalles. Dieze, a more judicious and reasonable critic than Antonio, while he denies this absolute pre-eminence of Balbuena, gives him a respectable place among the many epic writers of Spain. But I do not find him mentioned in Bouterwek; in fact most of these poems are very scarce, and are treasures for the bibliomaniacs.