_Spanish Verses on the Invasion of England_ (Vol. v., p. 294.).--L. H.
J. T. will find the Spanish verses which form the subject of his Query
in Southey's _Quarterly Review_ article on Lord Holland's _Life and
Writings of Lope de Vega_ (_Quarterly Review_, vol. xviii. p. 6.),
together with the following lively version:
"My brother Don John
To England is gone,
To kill the Drake,
And the Queen to take,
And the heretics all to destroy;
And he will give me,
When he comes back,
A Lutheran boy
With a chain round his neck;
And Grandmamma
From his share shall have
A Lutheran maid
To be her slave."
Southey's reference is, _Romancero General_. _Medina del Campo_, 1602,
ff. 35. The lines form part of "a child's poem, or, more properly, a
poem written in the character of a child (a species of playful
composition at that time popular among the Spaniards)," and are quoted
by Southey, together with an Ode by Luis de Gongora, to show the
exultant anticipation with which the success of the Armada, in which
expedition Lope de Vega had entered himself as a volunteer, was expected
by the Spaniards.