Chapter 13

Suave sueño, tu que en tarde buelolas alas perezosas blandamentebates, de adormideras coronado,por el puro, adormido, vago cielo,ven á la ultima parte de Ocidente,y de licor sagradobaña mi ojos tristes que cansadoy rendido al furor de mi tormento,no admito algun sosiego,y el dolor desconorta al infrimiento.Ven a mi humilde ruego:ven a mi ruego humilde, amor de aquellaque Juno te ofreciò, tu Ninfa bella.Divino Sueño, gloria de mortales,regalo dulce al misero afligido:Sueño amoroso, ven a quien esperacesar del egercicio de sus males,y al descanso bolver todo el sentido.¿ Como sufres que mueralejos de tu poder quien tuyo era?¿ No es vileza olvidar un solo pechoen veladora pena,que sin gozar del bien che al mundo has hecho,de tu vigor se agena?Ven, Sueño alegre: Sueño, ven, dichoso:vuelve a mi alma ya, vuelve el reposo.Sienta yo en tal estrecho tu grandeza:baja, y esparce liquido el rocio:huya la alba, que en torno resplandece,mira mi ardiente llanto y mi tristeza,y quanta fuerza tiene el pesar mio:y mi frente humidece,que ya de fuegos juntos el Sol crece.Torna, sabroso Sueño, y tus hermosasalas suenen aora,y huya con sus alas presurosasla desabrida Aurora;y lo che en mi falto la noche fria,termine la cercana luz del dia.Una corona, o Sueño, de tus floresofrezco: tù produce el blando efectoen los desiertos cercos de mis ojos,que el ayre entrevgido con oloresalhaga, y ledo mueve en dulce afecto:y de estos mis enojosdestierra, manso Sueño, los despojos.Ven pues, amado Sueño, ven liviano,que del ruo OrienteDespunta el tierno Febo el rayo cano.Ven ya, Sueño clemente,y acabara el dolor; asi te veaen brazos de tu cara Pasitea."

Divino Sueño, gloria de mortales,regalo dulce al misero afligido:Sueño amoroso, ven a quien esperacesar del egercicio de sus males,y al descanso bolver todo el sentido.¿ Como sufres que mueralejos de tu poder quien tuyo era?¿ No es vileza olvidar un solo pechoen veladora pena,que sin gozar del bien che al mundo has hecho,de tu vigor se agena?Ven, Sueño alegre: Sueño, ven, dichoso:vuelve a mi alma ya, vuelve el reposo.

Sienta yo en tal estrecho tu grandeza:baja, y esparce liquido el rocio:huya la alba, que en torno resplandece,mira mi ardiente llanto y mi tristeza,y quanta fuerza tiene el pesar mio:y mi frente humidece,que ya de fuegos juntos el Sol crece.Torna, sabroso Sueño, y tus hermosasalas suenen aora,y huya con sus alas presurosasla desabrida Aurora;y lo che en mi falto la noche fria,termine la cercana luz del dia.

Una corona, o Sueño, de tus floresofrezco: tù produce el blando efectoen los desiertos cercos de mis ojos,que el ayre entrevgido con oloresalhaga, y ledo mueve en dulce afecto:y de estos mis enojosdestierra, manso Sueño, los despojos.Ven pues, amado Sueño, ven liviano,que del ruo OrienteDespunta el tierno Febo el rayo cano.Ven ya, Sueño clemente,y acabara el dolor; asi te veaen brazos de tu cara Pasitea."

[27]Sedano.

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:—

Gently straying,Gently staying,She breathed the fragrance of the breezy field;And, singing, fill'd her lap with flowers,The which the meadows yield,Painting their verdure with a thousand colours.[28]

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.

[28]"Graciosamente estando,graciosamente andando,blando ayre respirava al prado amenoella cantava, y juntamente el senoinchiendose yva de diversas floresen que el prado era llenosobre verde variado en mil colores."

[28]

"Graciosamente estando,graciosamente andando,blando ayre respirava al prado amenoella cantava, y juntamente el senoinchiendose yva de diversas floresen que el prado era llenosobre verde variado en mil colores."

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 calledMarfisa: 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 concludeswithout 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.

[29]Sedano tells us that the queen Catalina of Portugal, on recalling him, conferred on him an honourable situation in the royal household. The date of his death is ascertained through an elegy which is printed in all the editions of the "Diana;" and which mentions that he died in 1562.

To give a catalogueraisonnéeof 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 bestowson 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,—

As the holy InquisitionIs apt, with saintly diligence,To make eager perquisition,And punish too with violence,Each novel heresy and sect,I would that it were found correctTo castigate in native SpainA heresy as bad as anyThat Luther, to our grief and pain,Has introduced in Germany.The Anabaptists' crime they share,And well deserve their punishment:Petrarchists—the new name they bear,Which they assume with bad intent;And they are renegades most fierceTo the old Castilian measure;Believing in Italian verse.Finding there more grace and pleasure.[30]

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.

[30]"Pues la santa Inquisicionsuele ser tan diligente,en castigar con razonqualquier secta y opinionlevantada nuevamente:resucitese luzeroá castigar en Españauna muy nueva y estraña,como á quello de Luteroen las partes de Alemaña.Bien se pueden castigará cuenta de Anabaptistaspues por ley particularse tornan á baptizary se llaman PetrarquistasHan renegado la féde la trobas Castellanasy tras las Italianasse pierden, diziendo, queson mas ricas y galanas."

[30]

"Pues la santa Inquisicionsuele ser tan diligente,en castigar con razonqualquier secta y opinionlevantada nuevamente:resucitese luzeroá castigar en Españauna muy nueva y estraña,como á quello de Luteroen las partes de Alemaña.Bien se pueden castigará cuenta de Anabaptistaspues por ley particularse tornan á baptizary se llaman PetrarquistasHan renegado la féde la trobas Castellanasy tras las Italianasse pierden, diziendo, queson mas ricas y galanas."

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. Heincreases 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 phraseologyof 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 ofhim, 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 andChristians 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 hiswritings 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 firmlyon 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.

[31]Bouterwek. Pellicer.

[32]Bouterwek.

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,Ercillawas 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, occasionallyabounding 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 amenino[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 militaryprofession. 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. Heleft 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 aslittle 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 ofLa 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 anestafermo, 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 thereforecommitted 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 statementwith 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 whichconstantly 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 happypair ]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 sortof 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 reliedupon, 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 ofmental 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.

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.—TheMeninoswere 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,

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