Upon A Burning Throne Ashok K Banker download

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-burning-throne-ashok-k-
banker-46821508

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Upon A Burning Throne Ashok K Banker Ashok K Banker

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-burning-throne-ashok-k-banker-
ashok-k-banker-32625256

Upon A Burning Throne The Burnt Empire Ashok K Banker

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-burning-throne-the-burnt-empire-
ashok-k-banker-50328934

Upon A Midnight Clear And Season Of Joy Gail Gaymer Martin Virginia
Carmichael

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-midnight-clear-and-season-of-joy-
gail-gaymer-martin-virginia-carmichael-46441312

Upon A Nations Honour John Sutton

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-nations-honour-john-
sutton-48935640
Upon A Frosted Star Ma Kuzniar

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-frosted-star-ma-kuzniar-52399380

Upon A Sea Of Stars A Bertram Chandler

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-sea-of-stars-a-bertram-
chandler-33999980

Upon A Midnight Clear Mulvany Catherine

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-midnight-clear-mulvany-
catherine-8464270

Upon A Starlit Tide Kell Woods

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-starlit-tide-kell-woods-231824944

Upon A Starlit Tide Kell Woods

https://ebookbell.com/product/upon-a-starlit-tide-kell-woods-231826432
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
[670] The best life of Cibdareal is prefixed to his Letters (Madrid, ed. 1775, 4to).
But his birth is there placed about 1388, though he himself (Ep. 105) says he was
sixty-eight years old in 1454, which gives 1386 as the true date. But we know
absolutely nothing of him beyond what we find in the letters that pass under his
name. The Noticia prefixed to the edition referred to was—as we are told in the
Preface to the Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna (Madrid, 1784, 4to)—prepared by
Llaguno Amirola.

[671] It is the last letter in the collection. See Appendix (C), on the genuineness
of the whole.

[672] Cibdareal, Epist. 51.

[673] The longest extracts from the works of this remarkable family of Jews, and
the best accounts of them, are to be found in Castro, “Biblioteca Española,” (Tom.
I. p. 235, etc.,) and Amador de los Rios, “Estudios sobre los Judios de España”
(Madrid, 1848, 8vo, pp. 339-398, 458, etc.). Much of their poetry, which is found
in the Cancioneros Generales, is amatory, and is as good as the poetry of those
old collections generally is. Two of the treatises of Alonso were printed;—the
“Oracional,” or Book of Devotion, mentioned in the text as written for Perez de
Guzman, which appeared at Murcia in 1487, and the “Doctrinal de Cavalleros,”
which appeared the same year at Burgos. (Diosdado, De Prima Typographiæ
Hispan. Ætate, Romæ, 1793, 4to, pp. 22, 26, 64.) Both are curious; but much of
the last is taken from the “Partidas” of Alfonso the Wise.

[674] The manuscript I have used is a copy from one, apparently of the fifteenth
century, in the magnificent collection of Sir Thomas Phillips, Middle Hill,
Worcestershire, England. The printed poems are found in the “Cancionero
General,” 1535, ff. 28, etc.; in the “Obras de Juan de Mena,” ed. 1566, at the end;
in Castro, Tom. I. pp. 298, 340-342; and at the end of Ochoa’s “Rimas Ineditas de
Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza,” Paris, 1844, 8vo, pp. 269-356. See also Mendez,
Typog. Esp., p. 383; and Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 14, 15, 20-22.

[675] The “Generaciones y Semblanzas” first appeared in 1512, as part of a

rifacimento in Spanish of Giovanni Colonna’s “Mare Historiarum,” which may have
been the work of Perez de Guzman. They begin, in this edition, at Cap. 137, after
long accounts of Trojans, Greeks, Romans, Fathers of the Church, and others,
taken from Colonna. (Mem. de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. VI. pp. 452, 453, note.)
The first edition of the Generaciones y Semblanzas separated from this
connection occurs at the end of the Chronicle of John II., 1517. They are also
found in the edition of that Chronicle of 1779, and with the “Centon Epistolario,”
in the edition of Llaguno Amirola, Madrid, 1775, 4to, where they are preceded by
a life of Fernan Perez de Guzman, containing the little we know of him. The
suggestion made in the Preface to the Chronicle of John II., (1779, p. xi.,) that
the two very important chapters at the end of the Generaciones y Semblanzas are
not the work of Fernan Perez de Guzman is, I think, sufficiently answered by the
editor of the Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna, Madrid, 1784, 4to, Prólogo, p. xxiii.

[676] Generaciones y Semblanzas, c. 10. A similar harshness is shown in

Chapters 5 and 30.

[677] Generaciones, etc., c. 11, 15, and 24.

[678] Chrónica de Don Juan el II., Año 1437, c. 4; 1438, c. 6; 1440, c. 18.

[679] Pulgar, Claros Varones, Tít. 13. Cancionero General, 1573, f. 183. Mariana,
Hist., Lib. XXIV. c. 14.

[680] The poetry of Gomez Manrique is in the Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 57-
77, and 243.

[681] Adiciones á Pulgar, ed. 1775, p. 239.

[682] Adiciones á Pulgar, p. 223.

[683] Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 265. To these poems, when speaking of Gomez
Manrique, should be added,—1. his poetical letter to his uncle, the Marquis of
Santillana, asking for a copy of his works, with the reply of his uncle, both of
which are in the Cancioneros Generales; and 2. some of his smaller trifles, which
occur in a manuscript of the poems of Alvarez Gato, belonging to the Library of
the Academy of History at Madrid and numbered 114,—trifles, however, which
ought to be published.

[684] Such as the word definicion for death, and other similar euphuisms. For a
notice of Gomez Manrique, see Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. p. 342.

[685] These poems, some of them too free for the notions of his Church, are in
the Cancioneros Generales; for example, in that of 1535, ff. 72-76, etc., and in
that of 1573, at ff. 131-139, 176, 180, 187, 189, 221, 243, 245. A few are also in
the “Cancionero de Burlas,” 1519.

[686] The lines on the court of John II. are among the most beautiful in the
poem:—
 Where is the King, Don Juan? where
Each royal prince and noble heir
Of Aragon?
Where are the courtly gallantries?
The deeds of love and high emprise,
In battle done?
Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye,
And scarf, and gorgeous panoply,
And nodding plume,—
What were they but a pageant scene?
What but the garlands, gay and green,
That deck the tomb?

Where are the high-born dames, and where

Their gay attire, and jewelled hair,
And odors sweet?
Where are the gentle knights, that came
To kneel, and breathe love’s ardent flame,
Low at their feet?
Where is the song of the Troubadour?
Where are the lute and gay tambour
They loved of yore?
Where is the mazy dance of old,
The flowing robes, inwrought with gold,
The dancers wore?

These two stanzas, as well as the one in the text, are from Mr. H. W.
Longfellow’s beautiful translation of the Coplas, first printed, Boston, 1833, 12mo,
and often since. They may be compared with a passage in the verses on Edward
IV. attributed to Skelton, and found in the “Mirror for Magistrates,” (London, 1815,
4to, Tom. II. p. 246,) in which that prince is made to say, as if speaking from his
grave,—

“Where is now my conquest and victory?

Where is my riches and royall array?
Where be my coursers and my horses hye?
Where is my myrth, my solace, and my play?”

Indeed, the tone of the two poems is not unlike, though, of course, the old
English laureate never heard of Manrique and never imagined any thing half so
good as the Coplas. The Coplas were often imitated;—among the rest, as Lope de
Vega tells us, (Obras Sueltas, Madrid, 1777, 4to, Tom. XI. p. xxix.,) by Camoens;
but I do not know the Redondillas of Camoens to which he refers. Lope admired
the Coplas very much. He says they should be written in letters of gold.

[687] For the earliest editions of the Coplas, 1492, 1494, and 1501, see Mendez,
Typog. Española, p. 136. I possess ten or twelve copies of other editions, one of
which was printed at Boston, 1833, with Mr. Longfellow’s translation. My copies,
dated 1574, 1588, 1614, 1632, and 1799, all have Glosas in verse. That of Aranda
is in folio, 1552, black letter, and in prose.
At the end of a translation of the “Inferno” of Dante, made by Pero Fernandez
de Villegas, Archdeacon of Burgos, published at Burgos in 1515, folio, with an
elaborate commentary, chiefly from that of Landino,—a very rare book, and one
of considerable merit,—is found, in a few copies, a poem on the “Vanity of Life,”
by the translator, which, though not equal to the Coplas of Manrique, reminds me
of them. It is called “Aversion del Mundo y Conversion á Dios,” and is divided,
with too much formality, into twenty stanzas on the contempt of the world, and
twenty in honor of a religious life; but the verses, which are in the old national
manner, are very flowing, and their style is that of the purest and richest
Castilian. It opens thus:—
 Away, malignant, cruel world,
With sin and sorrow rife!
I seek the meeker, wiser way
That leads to heavenly life.
Your fatal poisons here we drink,
Lured by their savors sweet,
Though, lurking in our flowery path,
The serpent wounds our feet.

Away with thy deceitful snares,

Which all too late I fly!—
I, who, a coward, followed thee
Till my last years are nigh;
Till thy most strange, revolting sins
Force me to turn from thee,
And drive me forth to seek repose,
Thy service hard to flee.

Away with all thy wickedness,

And all thy heartless toil,
Where brother, to his brother false,
In treachery seeks for spoil!—
Dead is all charity in thee,
All good in thee is dead;
I seek a port where from thy storm
To hide my weary head.

I add the original, for the sake of its flowing sweetness and power:—
 Quedate, mundo malino,
Lleno de mal y dolor,
Que me vo tras el dulçor
Del bien eterno divino.
Tu tosigo, tu venino,
Vevemos açucarado,
Y la sierpe esta en el prado
De tu tan falso camino.

Quedate con tus engaños,

Maguera te dexo tarde,
Que te segui de cobarde
Fasta mis postreros años.
Mas ya tus males estraños
De ti me alançan forçoso,
Vome a buscar el reposo
De tus trabajosos daños.

Quedate con tu maldad,

Con tu trabajo inhumano,
Donde el hermano al hermano
No guarda fe ni verdad.
Muerta es toda caridad;
Todo bien en ti es ya muerto;—
Acojome para el puerto,
Fuyendo tu tempestad.

After the forty stanzas to which the preceding lines belong, follow two more
poems, the first entitled “The Complaint of Faith,” partly by Diego de Burgos and
partly by Pero Fernandez de Villegas, and the second, a free translation of the
Tenth Satire of Juvenal, by Gerónimo de Villegas, brother of Pero Fernandez,—
each poem in about seventy or eighty octave stanzas, of arte mayor, but neither
of them as good as the “Vanity of Life.” Gerónimo also translated the Sixth Satire
of Juvenal into coplas de arte mayor, and published it at Valladolid in 1519, in
4to.

[688] Mariana, Hist., Lib. XXIV. c. 19, noticing his death, says, “He died in his
best years,”—“en lo mejor de su edad”; but we do not know how old he was. On
three other occasions, at least, Don Jorge is mentioned in the great Spanish
historian as a personage important in the affairs of his time; but on yet a fourth,
—that of the death of his father, Rodrigo,—the words of Mariana are so beautiful
and apt, that I transcribe them in the original. “Su hijo D. Jorge Manrique, en
unas trovas muy elegantes, en que hay virtudes poeticas y ricas esmaltes de
ingenio, y sentencias graves, a manera de endecha, lloró la muerte de su padre.”
Lib. XXIV. c. 14. It is seldom History goes out of its bloody course to render such
a tribute to Poetry, and still more seldom that it does it so gracefully. The old
ballad on Jorge Manrique is in Fuentes, Libro de los Quarenta Cantos, Alcalá,
1587, 12mo, p. 374.

[689] Cancionero de las Obras de Don Pedro Manuel de Urrea, Logroño, fol.,
1513, apud Ig. de Asso, De Libris quibusdam Hispanorum Rarioribus,
Cæsaraugustæ, 1794, 4to, pp. 89-92.
En el placiente verano,
Dó son los dias mayores,
Acabaron mis placeres,
Comenzaron mis dolores.

Quando la tierra da yerva

Y los arboles dan flores,
Quando aves hacen nidos
Y cantan los ruiseñores;

Quando en la mar sosegada

Entran los navegadores,
Quando los lirios y rosas
Nos dan buenos olores;

Y quando toda la gente,

Ocupados de calores,
Van aliviando las ropas,
Y buscando los frescores;

Dó son las mejores oras

La noches y los albores;—
En este tiempo que digo,
Comenzaron mis amores.

De una dama que yo ví,

Dama de tantos primores,
De quantos es conocida
De tantos tiene loores:

Su gracia por hermosura

Tiene tantos servidores,
Quanto yo por desdichado
Tengo penas y dolores:
Donde se me otorga muerte
Y se me niegan favores.

Mas nunca olvidaré

Estos amargos dulzores,
Porque en la mucha firmeza
Se muestran los amadores.
[690] The monk, however, finds it impossible to keep his secret, and fairly lets it
out in a sort of acrostic at the end of the “Retablo.” He was born in 1468, and
died after 1518.

[691] The “Doze Triumfos de los Doze Apóstolos was printed entire in London,
1843, 4to, by Don Miguel del Riego, Canon of Oviedo, and brother of the Spanish
patriot and martyr of the same name. In the volume containing the Triumfos, the
Canon has given large extracts from the “Retablo de la Vida de Christo,” omitting
Cantos VII., VIII., IX., and X. For notices of Juan de Padilla, see Antonio, Bib.
Nov., Tom. I. p. 751, and Tom. II. p. 332; Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 193; and
Sarmiento, Memorias, Sect. 844-847. From the last, it appears that he rose to
important ecclesiastical authority under the crown, as well as in his own order.
The Doze Triumfos was first printed in 1512, the Retablo in 1505. There is a
contemporary Spanish book, with a title something resembling that of the Retablo
de la Vida de Christo del Cartuxano;—I mean the “Vita Christi Cartuxano,” which
is a translation of the “Vita Christi” of Ludolphus of Saxony, a Carthusian monk
who died about 1370, made into Castilian by Ambrosio Montesino, and first
published at Seville, in 1502. It is, in fact, a Life of Christ, compiled out of the
Evangelists, with ample commentaries and reflections from the Fathers of the
Church,—the whole filling four folio volumes,—and in the version of Montesino it
appears in a grave, pure Castilian prose. It was translated by him at the
command, he says, of Ferdinand and Isabella.

[692] My copy is of the first edition, of Çamora, Centenera, 1483, folio, 23

leaves, double columns, black letter. It begins with these singular words, instead
of a title-page: “Aqui comença un tratado en estillo breve, en sentencias no solo
largo mas hondo y prolixo, el qual ha nombre Vita Beata, hecho y compuesto por
el honrado y muy discreto Juan de Lucena,” etc. There are also editions of 1499
and 1541, and, I believe, yet another of 1501. (Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer,
Tom. II. p. 250; and Mendez, Typog., p. 267.) The following short passage—with
an allusion to the opening of Juvenal’s Tenth Satire, in better taste than is
common in similar works of the same period—will well illustrate its style. It is
from the remarks of the Bishop, in reply both to the poet and to the man of the
world. “Resta, pues, Señor Marques y tu Juan de Mena, mi sentencia primera
verdadera, que ninguno en esta vida vive beato. Desde Cadiz hasta Ganges si
toda la tierra expiamos [espiamos?] a ningund mortal contenta su suerte. El
caballero entre las puntas se codicia mercader; y el mercader cavallero entre las
brumas del mar, si los vientos australes enpreñian las velas. Al parir de las
lombardas desea hallarse el pastor en el poblado; en campo el cibdadano; fuera
religion los de dentro como peçes y dentro querrian estar los de fuera,” etc. (fol.
xviii. a.) The treatise contains many Latinisms and Latin words, after the absurd
example of Juan de Mena; but it also contains many good old words that we are
sorry have become obsolete.
[693] The oldest edition, which is without date, seems, from its type and paper,
to have come from the press of Centenera at Çamora, in which case it was
printed about 1480-1483. It begins thus: “Comença el tratado llamado Vision
Deleytable, compuesto por Alfonso de la Torre, bachiller, endereçado al muy noble
Don Juan de Beamonte, Prior de San Juan en Navarra.” It is not paged, but fills
71 leaves in folio, double columns, black letter. The little known of the different
manuscripts and printed editions of the Vision is to be found in Antonio, Bib.
Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. pp. 328, 329, with the note; Mendez, Typog., pp. 100
and 380, with the Appendix, p. 402; and Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. pp.
630-635. The Vision was written for the instruction of the Prince of Viana, who is
spoken of near the end as if still alive; and since this well-known prince, the son
of John, king of Navarre and Aragon, was born in 1421 and died in 1461, we
know the limits between which the Vision must have been produced. Indeed,
being addressed to Beamonte, the Prince’s tutor, it was probably written about
1430-1440, during the Prince’s nonage. One of the old manuscripts of it says, “It
was held in great esteem, and, as such, was carefully kept in the chamber of the
said king of Aragon.” There is a life of the author in Rezabal y Ugarte, “Biblioteca
de los Autores, que han sido individuos de los seis colegios mayores” (Madrid,
1805, 4to, p. 359). The best passage in the Vision Deleytable is at the end; the
address of Truth to Reason. There is a poem of Alfonso de la Torre in MS. 7826,
in the National Library, Paris (Ochoa, Manuscritos, Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 479); and
the poems of the Bachiller Francisco de la Torre in the Cancionero, 1573, (ff. 124-
127,) and elsewhere, so much talked about in connection with Quevedo, have
sometimes been thought to be his, though the names differ.

[694] Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. p. 325. Mendez, Typog., p. 315. It
is singular that the edition of the “Valerio de las Historias” printed at Toledo,
1541, folio, which bears on its title-page the name of Fern. Perez de Guzman, yet
contains, at f. 2, the very letter of Almela, dated 1472, which leaves no doubt that
its writer is the author of the book.

[695] The volume of the learned Alonso Ortiz is a curious one, printed at Seville,
1493, folio, 100 leaves. It is noticed by Mendez, (p. 194,) and by Antonio, (Bib.
Nov., Tom. I. p. 39,) who seems to have known nothing about its author, except
that he bequeathed his library to the University of Salamanca. Besides the two
treatises mentioned in the text, this volume contains an account of the wound
received by Ferdinand the Catholic, from the hand of an assassin, at Barcelona,
December 7, 1492; two letters from the city and cathedral of Toledo, praying that
the name of the newly conquered Granada may not be placed before that of
Toledo in the royal title; and an attack on the Prothonotary Juan de Lucena,—
probably not the author lately mentioned,—who had ventured to assail the
Inquisition, then in the freshness of its holy pretensions. The whole volume is full
of bigotry, and the spirit of a triumphant priesthood.
[696] The notices of the life of Pulgar are from the edition of his “Claros
Varones,” Madrid, 1775, 4to; but there, as elsewhere, he is said to be a native of
the kingdom of Toledo. This, however, is probably a mistake. Oviedo, who knew
him personally, says, in his Dialogue on Mendoza, Duke of Infantado, that Pulgar
was “de Madrid natural.” Quinquagenas, MS.

[697] Claros Varones, Tít. 3.

[698] Ibid., Tít. 13.

[699] Claros Varones, Tít. 17.

[700] The letters are at the end of the Claros Varones (Madrid, 1775, 4to);
which was first printed in 1500.

[701] The Coplas of San Pedro on the Passion of Christ and the Sorrows of the
Madonna are in the Cancionero of 1492, (Mendez, p. 135,) and many of his other
poems are in the Cancioneros Generales, 1511-1573; for example, in the last, at
ff. 155-161, 176, 177, 180, etc.

[702] “El Desprecio de la Fortuna”—with a curious dedication to the Count

Urueña, whom he says he served twenty-nine years—is at the end of Juan de
Mena’s Works, ed. 1566.

[703] Of Nicolas Nuñez I know only a few poems in the Cancionero General of
1573, (ff. 17, 23, 176, etc.,) one or two of which are not without merit.

[704] Mendez, pp. 185, 283; Brunet, etc. There is a translation of the Carcel into
English by good old Lord Berners. (Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, London,
1806, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 241. Dibdin’s Ames, London, 1810, 4to, Vol. III. p. 195; Vol.
IV. p. 339.) To Diego de San Pedro is also attributed the “Tratado de Arnalte y
Lucenda,” of which an edition, apparently not the first, was printed at Burgos in
1522, and another in 1527. (Asso, De Libris Hisp. Rarioribus, Cæsaraugustæ,
1794, 4to, p. 44.) From a phrase in his “Contempt of Fortune,” (Cancionero
General, 1573, f. 158,) where he speaks of “aquellas cartas de Amores, escriptas
de dos en dos,” I suspect he wrote the “Proceso de Cartas de Amores, que entre
dos amantes pasaron,”—a series of extravagant love-letters, full of the conceits of
the times; in which last case, he may also be the author of the “Quexa y Aviso
contra Amor,” or the story of Luzindaro and Medusina, alluded to in the last of
these letters. But as I know no edition of this story earlier than that of 1553, I
prefer to consider it in the next period.

[705] The “Question de Amor” was printed as early as 1527, and, besides
several editions of it that appeared separately, it often occurs in the same volume
with the Carcel. Both are among the few books criticized by the author of the
“Diálogo de las Lenguas,” who praises both moderately; the Carcel for its style
more than the Question de Amor. (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 167.)
Both are in the Index Expurgatorius, 1667, pp. 323, 864; the last with a seeming
ignorance, that regards it as a Portuguese book.

[706] Accounts of the Cancionero of Baena are found in Castro, “Biblioteca

Española” (Madrid, 1785, folio, Tom. I. pp. 265-346); in Puybusque, “Histoire
Comparée des Littératures Espagnole et Française” (Paris, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. pp.
393-397); in Ochoa, “Manuscritos” (Paris, 1844, 4to, pp. 281-286); and in
Amador de los Rios, “Estudios sobre los Judios” (Madrid, 1848, 8vo, pp. 408-419).
The copy used by Castro was probably from the library of Queen Isabella, (Mem.
de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 458, note,) and is now in the National Library,
Paris. Its collector, Baena, is sneered at in the Cancionero of Fernan Martinez de
Burgos, (Memorias de Alfonso VIII. por Mondexar, Madrid, 1783, 4to, App.
cxxxix.,) as a Jew who wrote vulgar verses.
The poems in this Cancionero that are probably not by the persons whose
names they bear are short and trifling,—such as might be furnished to men of
distinction by humble versifiers, who sought their protection or formed a part of
their courts. Thus, a poem already noticed, that bears the name of Count Pero
Niño, was, as we are expressly told in a note to it, written by Villasandino, in
order that the Count might present himself before the lady Blanche more
gracefully than such a rough old soldier would be likely to do, unless he were
helped to a little poetical gallantry.

[707] See ante, Chapter XVII. note 543.

[708] The Cancionero of Lope de Estuñiga is, or was lately, in the National
Library at Madrid, among the folio MSS., marked M. 48, well written and filling
163 leaves.

[709] The fashion of making such collections of poetry, generally called

“Cancioneros,” was very common in Spain in the fifteenth century, just before and
just after the introduction of the art of printing.
One of them, compiled in 1464, with additions of a later date, by Fernan
Martinez de Burgos, begins with poems by his father, and goes on with others by
Villasandino, who is greatly praised both as a soldier and a writer; by Fernan
Sanchez de Talavera, some of which are dated 1408; by Pero Velez de Guevara,
1422; by Gomez Manrique; by Santillana; by Fernan Perez de Guzman; and, in
short, by the authors then best known at court. Mem. de Alfonso VIII., Madrid,
1783, 4to, App. cxxxiv.-cxl.
Several other Cancioneros of the same period are in the National Library, Paris,
and contain almost exclusively the known fashionable authors of that century;
such as Santillana, Juan de Mena, Lopez de Çuñiga [Estuñiga?], Juan Rodriguez
del Padron, Juan de Villalpando, Suero de Ribera, Fernan Perez de Guzman,
Gomez Manrique, Diego del Castillo, Alvaro Garcia de Santa María, Alonso Alvarez
de Toledo, etc. There are no less than seven such Cancioneros in all, notices of
which are found in Ochoa, “Catálogo de MSS. Españoles en la Biblioteca Real de
Paris,” Paris, 1844, 4to, pp. 378-525.

[710] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. lxi., with the notes on the passage
relating to the Duke Fadrique.

[711] Fuster, Bib. Valenciana, Tom. I. p. 52. All the Cancioneros mentioned
before 1474 are still in MS.

[712] Mendez, Typog., pp. 134-137 and 383.

[713] For the bibliography of these excessively rare and curious books, see
Ebert, Bibliographisches Lexicon; and Brunet, Manuel, in verb. Cancionero, and
Castillo. I have, I believe, seen copies of eight of the editions. Those which I
possess are of 1535 and 1573.

[714] A copy of the edition of 1535, ruthlessly cut to pieces, bears this
memorandum:—
“Este libro esta expurgado por el Expurgatorio del Santo Oficio, con licencia.
F. Baptista Martinez.”
The whole of the religious poetry at the beginning is torn out of it.

[715]
Imenso Dios, perdurable,
Que el mundo todo criaste,
Verdadero,
Y con amor entrañable
Por nosotros espiraste
En el madero:

Pues te plugo tal passion

Por nuestras culpas sufrir,
O Agnus Dei,
Llevanos do está el ladron,
Que salvaste por decir,
Memento mei.
Cancionero General, Anvers, 1573, f. 5.

Fuster, Bib. Valenciana, (Tom. I. p. 81,) tries to make out something

concerning the author of this little poem; but does not, I think, succeed.
[716] In the Library of the Academy of History at Madrid (Misc. Hist., MS., Tom.
III., No. 2) is a poem by Diego Lopez de Haro, of about a thousand lines, in a
manuscript apparently of the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth
century, of which I have a copy. It is entitled “Aviso para Cuerdos,”—A Word for
the Wise,—and is arranged as a dialogue, with a few verses spoken in the
character of some distinguished personage, human or superhuman, allegorical,
historical, or from Scripture, and then an answer to each, by the author himself.
In this way above sixty persons are introduced, among whom are Adam and Eve,
with the Angel that drove them from Paradise, Troy, Priam, Jerusalem, Christ,
Julius Cæsar, and so on down to King Bamba and Mahomet. The whole is in the
old Spanish verse, and has little poetical thought in it, as may be seen by the
following words of Saul and the answer by Don Diego, which I give as a favorable
specimen of the entire poem:—

Saul.
En mi pena es de mirar,
Que peligro es para vos
El glosar u el mudar
Lo que manda el alto Dios;
Porque el manda obedecelle;
No juzgalle, mas creelle.
A quien a Dios a de entender,
Lo que el sabe a de saber.

Autor.
Pienso yo que en tal defecto
Cae presto el coraçon
Del no sabio en rreligion,
Creyendo que a lo perfecto
Puede dar mas perficion.
Este mal tiene el glosar;
Luego a Dios quiere enmendar.

Oviedo, in his “Quinquagenas,” says that Diego Lopez de Haro was “the mirror
of gallantry among the youth of his time”; and he is known to history for his
services in the war of Granada, and as Spanish ambassador at Rome. (See
Clemencin, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 404.) He figures in the
“Inferno de Amor” of Sanchez de Badajoz; and his poems are found in the
Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 82-90, and a few other places.

[717] He founded the fortunes of the family of which the Marquis of Pescara was
so distinguished a member in the time of Charles V.; his first achievement having
been to kill a Portuguese in fair fight, after public challenge, and in presence of
both the armies. The poet rose to be Constable of Castile. Historia de D.
Hernando Dávalos, Marques de Pescara, Anvers, 1558, 12mo, Lib. I., c. 1.

[718] Besides what are to be found in the Cancioneros Generales,—for example,

in that of 1573, at ff. 148-152, 189, etc.,—there is a MS. in possession of the
Royal Academy at Madrid, (Codex No. 114,) which contains a large number of
poems by Alvarez Gato. Their author was a person of consequence in his time,
and served John II., Henry IV., and Ferdinand and Isabella, in affairs of state.
With John he was on terms of friendship. One day, when the king missed him
from his hunting-party and was told he was indisposed, he replied, “Let us, then,
go and see him; he is my friend,”—and returned to make the kindly visit. Gato
died after 1495. Gerónimo Quintana, Historia de Madrid, Madrid, 1629, folio, f.
221.
The poetry of Gato is sometimes connected with public affairs; but, in general,
like the rest of that which marks the period when it was written, it is in a courtly
and affected tone, and devoted to love and gallantry. Some of it is more lively and
natural than most of its doubtful class. Thus, when his lady-love told him “he
must talk sense,” he replied, that he had lost the little he ever had from the time
when he first saw her, ending his poetical answer with these words:—

But if, in good faith, you require

That sense should come back to me,
Show the kindness to which I aspire,
Give the freedom you know I desire,
And pay me my service fee.

Si queres que de verdad

Torné a mi seso y sentido,
Usad agora bondad,
Torname mi libertad,
E pagame lo servido.

[719] Memorias de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 404. The “Lecciones de Job,”
by Badajoz, were early put into the Index Expurgatorius, and kept there to the
last.

[720] The Cancionero of 1535 consists of 191 leaves, in large folio, Gothic
letters, and triple columns. Of these, the devotional poetry fills eighteen leaves,
and the series of authors mentioned above extends from f. 18 to f. 97. It is worth
notice, that the beautiful Coplas of Manrique do not occur in any one of these
courtly Cancioneros.

[721] The Canciones are found, ff. 98-106.

[722]
No se para que nasci,
Pues en tal estremo esto
Que el morir no quiere a mi,
Y el viuir no quiero yo.

Todo el tiempo que viviere

Terne muy justa querella
De la muerte, pues no quiere
A mi, queriendo yo a ella.

Que fin espero daqui,

Pues la muerte me negó,
Pues que claramente vió
Quera vida para mi.
f. 98. b.

[723] These ballads, already noticed, ante, Chap. VI., are in the Cancionero of
1535, ff. 106-115.

[724] “Saco el Rey nuestro señor una red de carcel, y decia la letra:—

Qualquier prision y dolor

Que se sufra, es justa cosa,
Pues se sufre por amor
De la mayor y mejor
Del mundo, y la mas hermosa.

“El conde de Haro saco una noria, y dixo:—

Los llenos, de males mios;

D’ esperança, los vazios.

“El mismo por cimera una carcel y el en ella, y dixo:—

En esta carcel que veys,

Que no se halla salida,
Viuire, mas ved que vida!”

The Invenciones, though so numerous, fill only three leaves, 115 to 117. They
occur, also, constantly in the old chronicles and books of chivalry. The “Question
de Amor” contains many of them.

[725] Though Lope de Vega, in his “Justa Poética de San Isidro,” (Madrid, 1620,
4to, f. 76,) declares the Glosas to be “a most ancient and peculiarly Spanish
composition, never used in any other nation,” they were, in fact, an invention of
the Provençal poets, and, no doubt, came to Spain with their original authors.
(Raynouard, Troub., Tom. II. pp. 248-254.) The rules for their composition in
Spain were, as we see also from Cervantes, (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 18,) very
strict and rarely observed; and I cannot help agreeing with the friend of the mad
knight, that the poetical results obtained were little worth the trouble they cost.
The Glosas of the Cancionero of 1535 are at ff. 118-120.

[726] The author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes,
Tom. II. p. 151) gives the refrain or ritornello of a Villancico, which, he says, was
sung by every body in Spain in his time, and is the happiest specimen I know of
the genus, conceit and all.

Since I have seen thy blessed face,

Lady, my love is not amiss;
But, had I never known that grace,
How could I have deserved such bliss?

[727] The Villancicos are in the Cancionero of 1535 at ff. 120-125. See also
Covarrubias, Tesoro, in verb. Villancico.

[728] Galatea, Lib. VI.

[729] The Preguntas extend from f. 126 to f. 134.

[730] The complete list of the authors in this part of the Cancionero is as
follows:—Costana, Puerto Carrero, Avila, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Count
Castro, Luis de Tovar, Don Juan Manuel, Tapia, Nicolas Nuñez, Soria, Pinar, Ayllon,
Badajoz el Músico, the Count of Oliva, Cardona, Frances Carroz, Heredia, Artes,
Quiros, Coronel, Escriva, Vazquez, and Ludueña. Of most of them only a few
trifles are given. The “Burlas provocantes a Risa” follow, in the edition of 1514,
after the poems of Ludueña, but do not appear in that of 1526, or in any
subsequent edition. Most of them, however, are found in the collection referred
to, entitled “Cancionero de Obras de Burlas provocantes a Risa” (Valencia, 1519,
4to). It begins with one rather long poem, and ends with another,—the last being
a brutal parody of the “Trescientas” of Juan de Mena. The shorter poems are
often by well-known names, such as Jorge Manrique, and Diego de San Pedro,
and are not always liable to objection on the score of decency. But the general
tone of the work, which is attributed to ecclesiastical hands, is as coarse as
possible. A small edition of it was printed at London, in 1841, marked on its title-
page “Cum Privilegio, en Madrid, por Luis Sanchez.” It has a curious and well-
written Preface, and a short, but learned, Glossary. From p. 203 to the end, p.
246, are a few poems not found in the original Cancionero de Burlas; one by
Garci Sanchez de Badajoz, one by Rodrigo de Reynosa, etc.
[731] This part of the Cancionero of 1535, which is of very little value, fills ff.
134-191. The whole volume contains about 49,000 verses. The Antwerp editions
of 1557 and 1573 are larger, and contain about 58,000; but the last part of each
is the worst part. One of the pieces near the end is a ballad on the renunciation
of empire made by Charles V. at Brussels, in October, 1555; the most recent date,
so far as I have observed, that can be assigned to any poem in any of the
collections.

[732] There is a short poem by the Constable in the Commentary of Fernan

Nuñez to the 265th Copla of Juan de Mena; and in the fine old Chronicle of the
Constable’s life, we are told of him, (Título LXVIII.,) “Fue muy inventivo e mucho
dado a fallar invenciones y sacar entremeses, o en justas o en guerra; en las
quales invenciones muy agudamente significaba lo que queria.” He is also the
author of an unpublished prose work, dated 1446, “On Virtuous and Famous
Women,” to which Juan de Mena wrote a Preface; the Constable, at that time,
being at the height of his power. It is not, as its title might seem to indicate,
translated from a work by Boccaccio, with nearly the same name; but an original
production of the great Castilian minister of state. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist.,
Tom. VI. p. 464, note.

[733] Obras Sueltas, Madrid, 1777, 4to, Tom. XI. p. 358.

[734] The bitterness of this unchristian and barbarous hatred of the Moors, that
constituted not a little of the foundation on which rested the intolerance that
afterwards did so much to break down the intellectual independence of the
Spanish people, can hardly be credited at the present day, when stated in general
terms. An instance of its operation, must, therefore, be given to illustrate its
intensity. When the Spaniards made one of those forays into the territories of the
Moors that were so common for centuries, the Christian knights, on their return,
often brought, dangling at their saddle-bows, the heads of the Moors they had
slain, and threw them to the boys in the streets of the villages, to exasperate
their young hatred against the enemies of their faith;—a practice which, we are
told on good authority, was continued as late as the war of the Alpuxarras, under
Don John of Austria, in the reign of Philip II. (Clemencin, in Memorias de la Acad.
de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 390.) But any body who will read the “Historia de la Rebelion
y Castigo de los Moriscos del Reyno de Granada,” by Luis del Marmol Carvajal,
(Málaga, 1600, fol.,) will see how complacently an eyewitness, not so much
disposed as most of his countrymen to look with hatred on the Moors, regarded
cruelties which it is not possible now to read without shuddering. See his account
of the murder, by order of the chivalrous Don John of Austria, (f. 192,) of four
hundred women and children, his captives at Galera;—“muchos en su presencia,”
says the historian, who was there. Similar remarks might be made about the
second volume of Hita’s “Guerras de Granada,” which will be noticed hereafter.
Indeed, it is only by reading such books that it is possible to learn how much the
Spanish character was impaired and degraded by this hatred, inculcated, during
the nine centuries that elapsed between the age of Roderic the Goth and that of
Philip III., not only as a part of the loyalty of which all Spaniards were so proud,
but as a religious duty of every Christian in the kingdom.

[735] Bernaldez, Chrónica, c. 131, MS. Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, Tom. I.

p. 72; Tom. II. p. 282.

[736] Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, Part I. c. 7.

[737] Mariana, Hist., Lib. XXIV. c. 17, ed. 1780, Tom. II. p. 527. We are shocked
and astonished, as we read this chapter;—so devout a gratitude does it express
for the Inquisition as a national blessing. See also Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition,
Tom. I. p. 160.

[738] The eloquent Father Lacordaire, in the sixth chapter of his “Mémoire pour
le Rétablissement de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs,” (Paris, 1839, 8vo,)
endeavours to prove that the Dominicans were not in anyway responsible for the
establishment of the Inquisition in Spain. In this attempt I think he fails; but I
think he is successful when he elsewhere maintains that the Inquisition, from an
early period, was intimately connected with the political government in Spain, and
always dependent on the state for a large part of its power.

[739] See the learned and acute “Histoire des Maures Mudejares et des
Morisques, ou des Arabes d’Espagne sous la Domination des Chrétiens,” par le
Comte Albert de Circourt, (3 tom. 8vo, Paris, 1846,) Tom. II., passim.

[740] It is impossible to speak of the Inquisition as I have spoken in this chapter,

without feeling desirous to know something concerning Antonio Llorente, who has
done more than all other persons to expose its true history and character. The
important facts in his life are few. He was born at Calahorra in Aragon in 1756,
and entered the Church early, but devoted himself to the study of canon law and
of elegant literature. In 1789, he was made principal secretary to the Inquisition,
and became much interested in its affairs; but was dismissed from his place and
exiled to his parish in 1791, because he was suspected of an inclination towards
the French philosophy of the period. In 1793, a more enlightened General
Inquisitor than the one who had persecuted him drew Llorente again into the
councils of the Holy Office, and, with the assistance of Jovellanos and other
leading statesmen, he endeavoured to introduce such changes into the tribunal
itself as should obtain publicity for its proceedings. But this, too, failed, and
Llorente was disgraced anew. In 1805, however, he was recalled to Madrid; and
in 1809, when the fortunes of Joseph Bonaparte made him the nominal king of
Spain, he gave Llorente charge of every thing relating to the archives and the
affairs of the Inquisition. Llorente used well the means thus put into his hands;
and having been compelled to follow the government of Joseph to Paris, after its
overthrow in Spain, he published there, from the vast and rich materials he had
collected during the period when he had entire control of the secret records of
the Inquisition, an ample history of its conduct and crimes;—a work which,
though neither well arranged nor philosophically written, is yet the great store-
house from which are to be drawn more well-authenticated facts relating to the
subject it discusses than can be found in all other sources put together. But
neither in Paris, where he lived in poverty, was Llorente suffered to live in peace.
In 1823, he was required by the French government to leave France, and being
obliged to make his journey during a rigorous season, when he was already much
broken by age and its infirmities, he died from fatigue and exhaustion, on the 3d
of February, a few days after his arrival at Madrid. His “Histoire de l’Inquisition” (4
tom., 8vo, Paris, 1817-1818) is his great work; but we should add to it his
“Noticia Biográfica,” (Paris, 1818, 12mo,) which is curious and interesting, not
only as an autobiography, but for further notices respecting the spirit of the
Inquisition.

[741] Traces of this feeling are found abundantly in Spanish literature, for above
a century; but nowhere, perhaps, with more simplicity and good faith than in a
sonnet of Hernando de Acuña,—a soldier and a poet greatly favored by Charles V.
—in which he announces to the world, for its “great consolation,” as he says,
“promised by Heaven,”—

Un Monarca, un Imperio, y una Espada.

Poesías, Madrid, 1804, 12mo, p. 214.

Christóval de Mesa, however, may be considered more simple-hearted yet; for,

fifty years afterwards, he announces this catholic and universal empire as
absolutely completed by Philip III. Restauracion de España, Madrid, 1607, 12mo,
Canto I. st. 7.

[742] The facts in the subsequent account of the progress and suppression of
the Protestant Reformation in Spain are taken, in general, from the “Histoire
Critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagne,” par J. A. Llorente, (Paris, 1817-1818, 4 tom.,
8vo,) and the “History of the Reformation in Spain,” by Thos. McCrie, Edinburgh,
1829, 8vo.

[743] The Grand Inquisitors had always shown an instinctive desire to obtain
jurisdiction over books, whether printed or manuscript. Torquemada, the fiercest,
if not quite the first of them, burned at Seville, in 1490, a quantity of Hebrew
Bibles and other manuscripts, on the ground that they were the work of Jews;
and at Salamanca, subsequently, he destroyed, in the same way, six thousand
volumes more, on the ground that they were books of magic and sorcery. But in
all this he proceeded, not by virtue of his Inquisitorial office, but, as Barrientos
had done forty years before, (see ante, p. 359,) by direct royal authority. Until
1521, therefore, the press remained in the hands of the Oidores, or judges of the
higher courts, and other persons civil and ecclesiastical, who, from the first
appearance of printing in the country, and certainly for above twenty years after
that period, had granted, by special power from the sovereigns, whatever licenses
were deemed necessary for the printing and circulation of books. Llorente, Hist.
de l’Inquisition, Tom. I. pp. 281, 456. Mendez, Typographía, pp. 51, 331, 375.

[744] I notice in a few works printed before 1550, that the Inquisition, without
formal authority, began quietly to take cognizance and control of books that were
about to be published. Thus, in a curious treatise on Exchange, “Tratado de
Cambios,” by Cristóval de Villalon, printed at Valladolid in 1541, 4to, the title-page
declares that it had been “visto por los Señores Inquisidores”; and in Pero Mexia’s
“Silva de Varia Leccion,” (Sevilla, 1543, folio,) though the title gives the imperial
license for printing, the colophon adds that of the Apostolical Inquisitor. There
was no reason for either, except the anxiety of the author to be safe from an
authority which rested on no law, but which was already recognized as
formidable. Similar remarks may be made about the “Theórica de Virtudes” of
Castilla, which was formally licensed, in 1536, by Alonso Manrique, the Inquisitor-
General, though it was dedicated to the Emperor, and bears the Imperial authority
to print.

[745] Peignot, Essai sur la Liberté d’Écrire, Paris, 1832, 8vo, pp. 55, 61. Baillet,
Jugemens des Savans, Amsterdam, 1725, 12mo, Tom. II. Partie I. p. 43. Father
Paul Sarpi’s remarkable account of the origin of the Inquisition, and of the Index
Expurgatorius of Venice, which was the first ever printed, Opere, Helmstadt,
1763, 4to, Tom. IV. pp. 1-67. Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. I. pp. 459-464,
470. Vogt, Catalogus Librorum Rariorum, Hamburgi, 1753, 8vo, pp. 367-369. So
much for Europe. Abroad it was worse. From 1550, a certificate was obliged to
accompany every book, setting forth, that it was not a prohibited book, without
which certificate, no book was permitted to be sold or read in the colonies.
(Llorente, Tom. I. p. 467.) But thus far the Inquisition, in relation to the Index
Expurgatorius, consulted the civil authorities, or was specially authorized by them
to act. In 1640 this ceremony was no longer observed, and the Index was printed
by the Inquisition alone, without any commission from the civil government. From
the time when the danger of the heresy of Luther became considerable, no books
arriving from Germany and France were permitted to be circulated in Spain,
except by special license. Bisbe y Vidal, Tratado de Comedias, Barcelona, 1618,
12mo, f. 55.

[746] Cardinal Ximenes was really equal to the position these extraordinary
offices gave him, and exercised his great authority with sagacity and zeal, and
with a confidence in the resources of his own genius that seemed to double his
power. It should, however, never be forgotten, that, but for him, the Inquisition,
instead of being enlarged, as it was, twenty years after its establishment, would
have been constrained within comparatively narrow limits, and probably soon
overthrown. For, in 1512, when the embarrassments of the public treasury
inclined Ferdinand to accept from the persecuted new converts a large sum of
money, which he needed to carry on his war against Navarre,—a gift which they
offered on the single and most righteous condition, that witnesses cited before
the Inquisition should be examined publicly,—Cardinal Ximenes not only used his
influence with the king to prevent him from accepting the offer, but furnished him
with resources that made its acceptance unnecessary. And again, in 1517, when
Charles V., young and not without generous impulses, received, on the same just
condition, from the same oppressed Christians, a still larger offer of money to
defray his expenses in taking possession of his kingdom, and when he had
obtained assurances of the reasonableness of granting their request from the
principal universities and men of learning in Spain and in Flanders, Cardinal
Ximenes interposed anew his great influence, and—not without some suppression
of the truth—prevented a second time the acceptance of the offer. He, too, it
was, who arranged the jurisdiction of the tribunals of the Inquisition in the
different provinces, settling them on deeper and more solid foundations; and,
finally, it was this master spirit of his time who first carried the Inquisition beyond
the limits of Spain, establishing it in Oran, which was his personal conquest, and
in the Canaries, and Cuba, where he made provident arrangements, by virtue of
which it was subsequently extended through all Spanish America. And yet, before
he wielded the power of the Inquisition, he opposed its establishment. Llorente,
Hist., Chap. X., Art. 5 and 7.

[747] Llorente, Tom. I. p. 419.

[748] Llorente, Tom. II. pp. 183, 184.

[749] Ibid., Tom. II., Chap. XX., XXI., and XXIV.

[750] Llorente, Tom. II., Chap. XIX., XXV., and other places.

[751] See note to Chap. XL. of this Part.

[752] Ginguené, Hist. Lit. d’ltalie, Paris, 1812, 8vo, Tom. IV. pp. 87-90; and more
fully in Historia de Don Hernando Dávalos, Marques de Pescara, en Anvers, Juan
Steelsio, 1558, 12mo;—a curious book, which seems, I think, to have been
written before 1546, and was the work of Pedro Valles, an Aragonese. Latassa,
Bib. Nueva de Escritores Aragoneses, Zaragossa, Tom. I. 4to, 1798, p. 289.
[753] The coronation of Charles V. at Bologna, like most of the other striking
events in Spanish history, was brought upon the Spanish theatre. It is
circumstantially represented in “Los dos Monarcas de Europa,” by Bartolomé de
Salazar y Luna. (Comedias Escogidas, Madrid, 1665, 4to, Tomo XXII.) But the play
is quite too extravagant in its claims, both as respects the Emperor’s humiliation
and the Pope’s glory, considering that Clement VII. had so lately been the
Emperor’s prisoner. As the ceremony is about to begin, a procession of priests
enters, chanting,—

In happy hour, let this child of the Church,

Her obedient, dutiful son,
Come forth to receive, with her holiest rites,
The crown which his valor has won.

To which the Emperor is made to reply,—

And in happy hour, let him show his power,

His dominion, and glorious might,
Who now sees, in the dust, a king faithful and just
Surrender, rejoicing, his right.

But such things were common in Spain, and tended to conciliate the favor of the
clergy for the theatre.

[754] P. de Sandoval, Hist. del Emperador Carlos V., Amberes, 1681, folio, Lib.
XII. to XVIII., but especially the last book.

[755] The Dictionary of Torres y Amat contains a short, but sufficient, life of
Boscan; and in Sedano, “Parnaso Español,” (Madrid, 1768-78, 12mo, Tom. VIII. p.
xxxi.,) there is one somewhat more ample.

[756] Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Italiana, Roma, 1784, 4to, Tom. VII., Parte I.
p. 242; Parte II. p. 294; and Parte III. pp. 228-230.

[757] Andrea Navagiero, Il Viaggio fatto in Spagna, etc., Vinegia, 1563, 12mo, ff.
18-30. Bayle gives an article on Navagiero’s life, with discriminating praise of his
scholarship and genius.

[758] Letter to the Duquesa de Soma, prefixed to the Second Book of Boscan’s
Poems.

[759] Letter to the Duquesa de Soma.

[760] It is mentioned in the permission to publish his works granted to Boscan’s

widow, by Charles V., Feb. 18, 1543, and prefixed to the very rare and important
edition of his works and those of his friend Garcilasso, published for the first time
in the same year, at Barcelona, by Amoros; a small 4to, containing 237 leaves.
This edition is said to have been at once counterfeited, and was certainly
reprinted not less than six times as early as 1546, three years after its first
appearance. In 1553, Alonso de Ulloa, a Spaniard, at Venice, who published many
Spanish books there with prefaces of some value by himself, printed it in 18mo,
very neatly, and added a few poems to those found in the first edition;
particularly one, at the beginning of the volume, entitled “Conversion de Boscan,”
religious in its subject, and national in its form. At the end Ulloa puts a few pages
of verse, attacking the Italian forms adopted by Boscan; describing what he thus
adds as by “an uncertain author.” They are, however, the work of Castillejo, and
are found in Obras de Castillejo, Anvers, 1598, 18mo, f. 110, etc.

[761] Góngora, in the first two of his Burlesque Ballads, has made himself merry
(Obras, Madrid, 1654, 4to, f. 104, etc.) at the expense of Boscan’s “Leandro.” But
he has taken the same freedom with better things.
The Leandro was, I think, the first attempt to introduce blank verse, which was
thus brought by Boscan into the poetry of Spain in 1543, as it was a little later
into English, from the versi sciolti of the Italians, by Surrey, who called it “a
strange meter.” Acuña soon followed in Castilian with other examples of it; but
the first really good Spanish blank verse known to me is to be found in the
eclogue of “Tirsi” by Francisco de Figueroa, written about half a century after the
time of Boscan, and not printed till 1626. The translation of a part of the Odyssey
by Perez, in 1553, and the “Sagrada Eratos” of Alonso Carillo Laso de la Vega,
which is a paraphrase of the Psalms, printed at Naples in 1657, folio, afford much
longer specimens that are generally respectable. But the full rhyme is so easy in
Spanish, and the asonante is so much easier, that blank verse, though it has been
used from the middle of the sixteenth century, has been little cultivated or
favored.

[762] Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. Croker, London, 1831, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 501.

[763] The first edition of it is in black letter, without the name of place or printer,
4to, 140 leaves, and is dated 1549. Another edition appeared as early as 1553;
supposed by Antonio to have been the oldest. It is on the Index of 1667, p. 245,
for expurgation.

[764] Ginguené, Hist. Lit. d’Italie, Tom. VII. pp. 544, 550.

[765] “I have no mind,” he says in the Prólogo, “to be so strict in the translation
of this book, as to confine myself to give it word for word. On the contrary, if any
thing occurs, which sounds well in the original language, and ill in our own, I shall
not fail to change it or to suppress it.” Ed. 1549, f. 2.
[766] “Every time I read it,” says Garcilasso in a letter to Doña Gerónima Palova
de Almogovar, prefixed to the first edition, “it seems to me as if it had never been
written in any other language.” This letter of Garcilasso is very beautiful in point
of style.

[767] Morales, Discourse on the Castilian Language, Obras de Oliva, Madrid,

1787, 12mo, Tom. I. p. xli.

[768] Cancionero General, 1535, f. 153.

[769] Petrarca, Vita di Madonna Laura, Canz. 9 and 14. But Boscan’s imitations
of them are marred by a good many conceits. Some of his sonnets, however, are
free from this fault, and are natural and tender.

[770]
Y no es gusto tambien assi entenderos,
Que podays siēpre entrambos conformaros:
Entrambos en un punto entrísteceros,
Y en otro punto entrambos alegraros:
Y juntos sin razon embraueceros,
Y sin razon tambien luego amanssaros:
Y que os hagan, en fin, vuestros amores
Igualmente mudar de mil colores?
Obras de Boscan, Barcelona, 1543, 4to, f. clx.

[771] Pedro Fernandez de Villegas, Archdeacon of Burgos, who, in 1515,

published a translation of the “Inferno” of Dante, (see ante, p. 409, n.,) says, in
his Introduction, that he at first endeavoured to make his version in terza rima,
“which manner of writing,” he goes on, “is not in use among us, and appeared to
me so ungraceful, that I gave it up.” This was about fifteen years before Boscan
wrote in it with success; perhaps a little earlier, for it is dedicated to Doña Juana
de Aragon, the natural daughter of Ferdinand the Catholic, a lady of much literary
cultivation, who died before it was completed.

[772] The best life of Garcilasso de la Vega is to be found in the edition of his
works, Sevilla, 1580, 8vo, by Fernando de Herrera, the poet. A play, comprising
no small part of his adventures, was produced in the Madrid theatre, by Don
Gregorio Romero y Larrañaga, in 1840.

[773] The story and the ballad are found in Hita, “Guerras Civiles de Granada,”
(Barcelona, 1737, 12mo, Tom. I. cap. 17,) and in Lope de Vega’s “Cerco de Santa
Fe” (Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, 4to). But the tradition, I think, is not
true. Oviedo directly contradicts it, when giving an account of the family of the
poet’s father; and as he knew them, his authority is perhaps decisive.
(Quinquagenas, Batalla I. Quin. iii. Diálogo 43, MS.) But, besides this, Lord
Holland (Life of Lope, London, 1817, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 2) gives good reasons against
the authenticity of the story, which Wiffen (Works of Garcilasso, London, 1823,
8vo, pp. 100 and 384) answers as well as he can, but not effectually. It is really a
pity it cannot be made out to be true, it is so poetically appropriate.

[774] Sandoval, Hist. del Emperador Carlos V., Lib. V.,and Oviedo in the Dialogue
referred to in the last note.

[775] Obras de Garcilasso, ed. Herrera, 1580, p. 234, and also p. 239, note.

[776] Soneto 33 and note, ed. Herrera.

[777] Elegía II. and the Epístola, ed. Herrera, p. 378.

[778] Obras, ed. Herrera, p. 18.

[779] Obras, ed. Herrera, p. 15. Sandoval, Hist. de Carlos V., Lib. XXIII. § 12,
and Mariana, Historia, ad annum. Çapata, in his “Carlos Famoso,” (Valencia, 1565,
4to, Canto 41,) states the number of the peasants in the tower at thirteen; and
says that Don Luis de la Cueva, who executed the Imperial order for their death,
wished to save all but one or two. He adds, that Garcilasso was without armour
when he scaled the wall of the tower, and that his friends endeavoured to prevent
his rashness.

[780]
Tomando ora la espada, ora la pluma;

a verse afterwards borrowed by Ercilla, and used in his “Araucana.” It is equally

applicable to both poets.

[781] I am aware that Herrera, in his notes to the poetry of Garcilasso, says that
Garcilasso intended to represent Don Antonio de Fonseca under the name of
Nemoroso. But nearly every body else supposes he meant that name for Boscan,
taking it from Bosque and Nemus; a very obvious conceit. Among the rest,
Cervantes is of this opinion. Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 67.

[782]
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com