CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS; RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF GOOD TASTE.

If in this state a glance is cast at the steps which the art in little

more than a century of its existence had taken, it will be seen that

nothing had been left unattempted. There were translations of all, or of

the greater number, of the ancient authors: epics of all kinds had been

written; the theatre had taken a compass, and presented a fruitfulness

so great as to have communicated of its wealth to foreigners; lastly,

the ode in all its forms, the eclogue, the epistle, the satire,

descriptive poetry, the madrigal, and epigram, all had been noticed, and

all cultivated.

If this compass and variety do honour to its flexibility and boldness,

the success of its accomplishments in all these various kinds of

composition is not equal. For, in the first place, the translations are

almost all bad or indifferent. Who, in good truth, can say that that of

the Odyssey, by Gonzalo Perez; of the Eneid, by Hernandez de Velasco; or

of the Metamorphoses, by Sigler, are real substitutes for the originals?

What person, possessing the least taste in poetic language and

versification, can read two pages of these versions, wherein the

greatest poets of antiquity are metamorphosed into trivial rhymers,

without elegance and harmony? Spain has a number of epic poems; and

although some fragments of good poetry may be culled from them, not one

can be looked upon as a well-arranged fable, or as corresponding in

dignity and interest with its title and argument. Of Spanish comedies,

it is notorious that the defects exceed the beauties. Happier in shorter

kinds of composition, her odes, elegies, sonnets, romances, and

letrillas, approach nearer to perfection. But even in these, what

forgetfulness of propriety, what negligence at times, and at times what

pedantry and false taste exist! In the best writers, in the choicest

pieces, the mind is offended by finding too frequently joined to a fine

turn a harsh extravagance, and a sharp thorn to an incomparable flower.

There is one thing extraordinary in the good poets of the sixteenth

century, that their genius never rises to the level of the events which

passed around them. The compositions of Virgil and of Horace in Rome

correspond with the dignity and majesty of the empire. Lucan afterwards,

though very distant from the perfection of his predecessors, preserved

in his poem the bold and fiery tone adapted to the subject on which he

wrote, and to the patriotic enthusiasm with which he was animated.

Dante, in his extraordinary poem, shows himself inspired by all the

sentiments which the rancour of faction, civil dissension, and the

effervescence of men's minds, stirred up. Petrarch, if in his

love-sonnets he sacrificed to the gallantry of his time, rises, in his

Trionfi, to a level with the elevation to which the human mind was

rising at that period. It was not so with the poets of Spain. The Moors

expelled from the peninsula; a discovered world opening a new hemisphere

to Spanish fortune; fleets sailing from one extremity of the ocean to

the other, accompanied by terror, and exchanging the riches of the east

and west; the church torn by the reformation of Luther; France, Holland,

Germany, convulsed and desolated by civil wars and religious

dissensions; the Ottoman power rolled away on the waters of Lepanto;

Portugal falling in Africa, to be then united to Castile; the Spanish

sword agitating the whole world with the spirit of heroism, of religion,

of ambition, and of avarice;--when was there ever a time more full of

astonishing events, or more suited to sublime the fancy? Yet the

Castilian muses, deaf and indifferent to this universal agitation, could

scarcely inspire their favourites with aught but moralities, rural

images, gallantry, and love.[T]

This deficiency of grandeur is compensated in part by a moral quality

which distinguishes those poets, and recommends them infinitely. Neither

in Garcilasso, nor in Luis de Leon, nor in Francisco de la Torre, nor in

Herrera, are to be found any traces of rancour and literary envy, of

gross indecency, or of servile and shameless adulation. The praises

which they sometimes pay to power are restricted within those bounds of

moderation and decorum which make them endurable. Till the corruption of

literary taste, there was no appearance of this moral degradation, made

up of meanness towards superiors, of insolence towards equals, and of

utter forgetfulness of all respect towards the public; vices

unfortunately sufficiently contagious, and which defame and destroy the

nobleness of an art, that from the nature of its object, and the means

it uses, has in it something superhuman.

There cannot be denied to a great number of the Spanish poets admirable

talent, extensive learning, and great acquaintance with the ancient

classics, although it is an uncommon thing to meet in them the sustained

elegance and perfection of taste which other modern authors have drawn

from the same fountains. Many causes contributed to this. One is, that

these poets communicated little with each other: there wanted a common

centre of urbanity and taste, a literary legislature, that should draw

the line between bombast and sublimity, exaggeration and vigour,

affectation and elegance. The universities, where dwelt the greatest

knowledge, could not become such, from the nature of their studies, more

scholastic than classical. The court, where the tone of society and

fashion is most quickly perfected, would have been more to the purpose;

but wandering under Charles the Fifth, severe and melancholy under the

Second Philip, it gave not till Philip the Third to poetical talent the

encouragement necessary for its perfection; even then, but much more in

the time of his successor, taste was vitiated, and the encouragement

given by princes and grandees, and even the occasional share they took

themselves in poetical pursuits, could do nothing but authorize the

corruption. In short, there wanted in Spain a court like that of

Augustus, of Leo the Tenth, of the dukes of Ferrara, and of Louis the

Fourteenth; where polite and refined conversation, devotion to the

Muses, culture and elegance, with other fortunate circumstances,

powerfully contributed to the perfection of the great writers that

flourished therein.

Another cause is the secondary place which poetry held with many of

those who cultivated it. They wrote verses to unbend themselves from

other more serious occupations; and he who writes verses to amuse

himself, is not usually very nice in the choice of his subject, nor very

careful in its execution. Fatal lot to Spain in the finest and most

difficult of all arts! Poetry, which is a recreation and amusement for

those who enjoy it, should be a very serious and almost exclusive

occupation with those who profess it, if they aspire to hold any

distinguished rank in reputation. When it is considered that Homer,

Sophocles, Virgil, Horace, Tasso, Ariosto, Pope, Racine, and others,

were at once the greatest poets and the most laborious, it should not be

thought extraordinary that those have remained so far behind, who, even

supposing them to have possessed equal talent, equalled them neither in

application nor perseverance.

To this evil was added another and a worse, arising in a great measure

from the same cause. Very few of the good poets of Spain published their

works in their lifetime. The works of Garcilasso, Luis de Leon,

Francisco de la Torre, Herrera, the Argensólas, Quevedo, and others,

were published after their death by their heirs or friends, with more or

less judgment. How much would they not have rejected, if they had

published their writings in their own name! how many corrections would

they not have made in the selection, and how many spots of slovenliness,

bad taste, and obscurity, would they not have expunged!

But even though the want of perfection from this cause should seem less

imputable to them, it is not on that account less certain. It has given

cause to a diversity of opinion on the merit of the ancient poets of

Spain, whom some value as admirable models, whilst others depreciate

them so far as to think them unworthy of being read. In this, as in all

cases, partiality and prejudice are wont to carry critics to their

conclusions more than truth and justice; and to exalt or depress the

dead is often with them nothing but an indirect mode of exalting or

depressing the living. But setting this consideration aside, it may be

said that this vast difference arises from the different points of view

which are taken for the comparison. Comparing Leon, Garcilasso, Herrera,

Rioja, and a few others, with the monstrous extravagances introduced and

sanctioned by Góngora and Quevedo, there is no doubt that the former

should be regarded as classical writers, perfect, and worthy to be

imitated and followed: if compared even with the great authors of

antiquity, or with the few moderns that have approached near, or have

excelled them, we have yet to discover the reason why many treat them

with such excessive rigour. As to myself, without pretending to lay down

for a rule my particular opinion, and judging by the effect produced on

me in the perusal, I would say, that though I consider the ancient

Spanish poesies as sufficiently distant from perfection, they yet convey

to my mind and ear sufficient pleasure for me to overlook in their

graces the negligences and blemishes I meet with. I would, moreover, be

bold to say, that if the poets of Spain had cultivated the loftier kinds

of poetry, the epopee and the drama, with the same successful diligence

as the ode and other shorter species, Spain would have been satisfied

with the praises that would have fallen to her lot in this delightful

department of literature. I will add, lastly, that, in my judgment, it

is absolutely necessary to read and study these poets, in order to learn

the purity, propriety, and genius of the language, to form the taste and

ear to the harmony and flow of its verse, and to acquire the structure

of the true poetic period. It would not be difficult, nor perhaps

foreign to my subject, to show in her modern compositions the influence

which exclusive admiration or exaggerated depreciation of the fathers of

Spanish poetry has had upon her authors; but this application,

necessarily odious, enters neither into my character nor design.

Castilian poetry, buried in the ruins wherein sank the other arts,

sciences, and power in the time of Charles the Second, began to be

revived towards the middle of the last century, by the laudable efforts

of some literary characters who devoted themselves wholly to the

re-establishment of classical study. The principal glory of this happy

revolution is due to D. Ignacio de Luzán, who, not satisfied with

pointing out the path of good taste in his _Poetica_, published in 1737,

gave no less the example of treading in it, by the poetical beauties

which are visible in the few compositions of his that have been

published. His poetry, like that of all professed critics, is

recommended more by its dignity, circumspection, and propriety, than by

any sublimity or boldness; but his memory will be always respected as

that of the restorer of Spanish poesy. Others followed in the same

career: the Count of Torrepalma, whose _Deucalion_, notwithstanding some

touches of bombast and purism which it preserves, is one of the

strongest and best pieces of descriptive poetry in Castilian; D. Josef

Porcel, author of some hunting eclogues, much praised by all his

cotemporaries, but which I have not read, nor indeed have they been

collected for publication; D. Augustin Montiano, a learned man and of

good taste, though deficient in imagination and genius; D. Nicolas de

Moratin, a poet gifted with a lively and flexile fancy, and an original

and forcible expression, who for his whole life has been struggling with

indefatigable zeal in favour of the principles and rules of correct

composition: and, lastly, Don Josef Cadalso, in whose hands, the

Anacreontic, which had been buried with Villegas, revived towards the

end of the century. In this gay and agreeable writer terminate the

trials and efforts for the revival of the art. From that period a new

epoch in Castilian poetry commences, upon another foundation, with

another character, with other principles, and it may even be said, with

other models; an epoch, the description and judgment of which posterity

will know how to give with more justice, authority, and propriety, than

it is generally supposed can be given by a cotemporary.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote T: Three odes of Herrera, and some fragments little

interesting, are no more than an exception of this general position.

Neither the Gulf of Lepanto, nor the Carolea, nor the Austriada,

approach at all near to the dignity and importance of their subjects.

Even in the Araucana itself, if there is any thing well painted, it is

not the Spaniards, but the Indians.]

LIFE OF GARCILASSO.

Of the many distinguished men, to whom, in the enterprising reign of

Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain had the honour of giving birth, there are

few perhaps much more admired by herself, or that come recommended to

the notice of a stranger with so much interest as Garcilasso de la Vega.

Whether considered as the cultivated spirit, who, shaking from the

Spanish lute the dust of ages, imparted to it by the force of his

genius, a more harmonious string and a more polished tone; or whether as

a young warrior, brought up in the court of the most celebrated prince

of his age, qualified both by birth and education to take part, and

actually taking part in that prince's enterprises, till doomed to fall

the victim of his too rash valour, his story is calculated to strike

forcibly the attention, and to touch the springs of admiration and of

sympathy in no common degree. The character of the times in which he

lived, of the monarch whom he served, his own adventures, his deep

devotion to the muses during the few hours of leisure which alone he was

able to snatch from the hurry and alarm of war, the amiable qualities

and classic taste developed in his writings, and the new impulse which

these writings gave to Spanish poesy,--all offer to the biographer a

theme more fertile than usually falls to his lot in recording the lives

of poets, and upon which he would love to bestow the illustration they

deserve. But unfortunately for such a desire,--a desire in which every

one must participate, who peruses the fine relics which his fancy has

left of its sweetness,--the pen of his cotemporaries was unemployed in

the record of his actions, and centuries were suffered to elapse before

any of his countrymen set themselves to the task. It was then too late;

the anecdotes that marked the character of the man, and all those

slighter traits which in a more particular manner give life and

individuality to biography, had perished with his intimate associates;

and those who admired his talents, and desired to illustrate them, were

obliged to gather from his works, and from the common voice of fame,

their scanty particulars, and to make up the deficiency of incident by

excessive compliments and eulogies. The consequence is, that although he

lived on terms of close intimacy with many who were admirably qualified

to depict the lights and shadows of his amiable mind and eventful life,

a writer of the present day can hope alone to offer to the world a bare

outline of his actions, unenriched by any of those distinctive touches

which give value to a portrait. An industrious research into such of the

Spanish annalists and cotemporary historians as are to be met with in

our public libraries, and the interest I have naturally taken in his

story, have enabled me to glean several particulars and incidents

unnoticed by any of his commentators; but these must be still too few to

satisfy our common curiosity, and it must always remain a subject of

regret that we know so little of him, who has ever been considered by

his countrymen as one of their most elegant writers, as the one in short

who contributed most to the polish and refinement of their language.

Garcias, or, as he is commonly called, Garcilasso de la Vega, was born

of one of the noblest titled families in the ancient city of Toledo. His

ancestors from remote antiquity were persons of opulence and high

consideration, as is evident from the frequent mention of them in the

old chronicles of the kingdom. They originally sprang from the mountains

of Asturias, having their seat on the banks of the river Vesaya, a

league from Santillana, but making in course of time Toledo their

principal residence. The first of our poet's ancestors, whom I find

chronicled in Spanish story, is Don Diego Gomez, a very rich and

distinguished knight in the reign of Don Alonzo the Seventh, a prince

cotemporary with our Henry the First. From him sprang Gonzalo Ruyz, who

lived in the time of Don Ferdinand the Third and Alonzo the Wise. His

descendant, Don Pedro Lasso, was in the year 1329 Admiral of Castile;

his son Garcilasso arrived at yet greater honours, being the principal

favourite of Alonzo the Eleventh. He was made High Judge and

Superintendent of sheep-walks in Castile, as well as Chancellor of the

kingdom, and was entrusted with the education of the lady Blanche,

daughter of prince Pedro who had fallen in battle against the Moors, no

less than with the care of her estate. So rich was he become, that he

purchased, says Mariana, the whole lordship of Biscay, of the lady Mary,

mother of Don John, who aspiring to the marriage of the infant Blanche,

in order to obtain the great estates whereof she was the heiress, had

been treacherously invited to a banquet in the palace, and by the king's

orders cruelly put to death. Garcilasso was employed by the king in

several important negotiations, and amongst others, in that of thwarting

the designs of D. John Manuel, who had renounced his allegiance to the

crown, and was in arms to revenge the affront put upon him by the king

in divorcing his daughter to make way for a second marriage. But in

these turbulent times the highest distinctions of court-favour served

only to mark out those who enjoyed them for destruction, either by the

common vice of courts, intrigue, or by the more decisive dagger. The

nobles of the kingdom, piqued at the elevation of one who was no noble

to such high offices of trust, or envying his favour and influence with

the king, conspired together, and he was assassinated in the church of

Soria during the celebration of mass, A.D. 1328. Alonzo was seized with

the greatest concern when the news of the murder was brought him; nor

was his grief overcome, though his revenge was gratified, by the swift

justice executed on the principal conspirators. The lordship of Biscay

did not long remain in the family of the purchaser, being at the king's

desire restored to the heiress of the attainted family on her marriage

with Don John de Lara. The murdered Chancellor left two sons, Garcilasso

and Gonzalo Ruyz, who in the grand battle of Salado, 1340, were the

first that in spite of the Moors passed the river. The former was made

Lord Chief Justice of Spain, as appears by the deeds of the year 1372;

and this knight it was, who for his valour in slaying a gigantic Moor

that had defied the Christians by parading in the _Vega_, or plain of

Granada, with the words 'Ave Maria' fixed to his horse's tail, took the

surname De la Vega, and for his device the Ave Maria in a field d'or;[U]

as is seen in the scutcheon of Garcilasso de la Vega, a son of one of

the brothers, who followed the party of King Henry against the king Don

Pedro, was slain in the battle of Najara, and lies buried in the royal

monastery of that city, in the chapel de la Cruz, near Donna Mencia,

queen of Portugal. He had married Donna Mencia de Cisneros, and left a

daughter, Leonora de la Vega, who married Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza,

High Admiral of Castile, a knight much celebrated in the annals of that

period for his naval and military actions. From this marriage sprang D.

Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, who in 1445 was created Marques de Santillana,

Gonzalo Ruyz de la Vega, and two daughters, the elder of whom, Elvira

Lasso de la Vega, marrying Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, continued the line

of descent. Their son, Don Pedro Suarez, acquired the estate of Los

Arcos and Botova by marriage with the lady Blanche de Sotomayor, and Don

Pedro Lasso was the fruit of their union. The father of our poet, who

was likewise named Garcilasso, was the fourth lord of Los Arcos, Grand

Commendary of Leon, a knight of the Order of St. James, and one of the

most distinguished gentlemen in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella,

being appointed Counsellor of State to their Catholic Majesties, and

sent as their ambassador to Pope Alexander the Sixth;[V] his wife, Donna

Sancha, of the illustrious house of Toral, was lady of Batres, a

considerable domain in Leon, where a fountain, the same our poet

describes in his second eclogue, is still seen to play, and bears the

name of Garcilasso's fountain, an illustrious monument of the

estimation in which his writings were held.[W] According to the best

accounts, Garcilasso, who was destined to rival, if not eclipse in

battle the valorous deed of the first De la Vega, was born at Toledo, in

the year 1503, a few years only after the birth of the celebrated

Charles the Fifth; and when, on that prince's accession to the crown, he

was persuaded to visit Spain, in the resort which the nobility made to

him at Barcelona, Garcilasso, then in his fifteenth year, was not left

behind. The office which his father had held under Ferdinand, rendered

his attendance on such an occasion indispensable, and Garcilasso was

presented to the prince. With a graceful person, frank address, and the

most amiable dispositions, it may easily be conceived that he soon

recommended himself to the notice and favour of Charles. What confirmed

these first prepossessions, was his skill in those martial and gymnastic

exercises, which formed in that age the chief pride of persons of rank,

and to which the prince always showed an excessive fondness: to ride at

full speed, to leap, to wrestle, to fence, to tilt, to swim the

Tagus--in these accomplishments, Garcilasso, who, as a younger son, was

probably early devoted to the profession of arms, bore the palm from his

competitors, and in these severe amusements their hours were frequently

spent together. Garcilasso knew, however, and loved to temper the

exercises of the gymnasium with those more elegant pursuits and studies

to which his royal companion showed but little inclination. Of music,

from his earliest years, he was passionately fond, and on the harp and

the guitar, already played with extreme sweetness.[X] Music called into

exercise the poetical powers with which he now began to feel that he was

gifted, and refined both his ear and taste to perceive the wide distance

subsisting between the songs and coplas of his native poets, and the

writings of those Latin, Greek, and Tuscan masters, to whose works his

studies were directed. His acute judgment at once perceived the error

into which the generality of Spanish poets had fallen, in contenting

themselves with their merely natural endowments, without giving

attention to art, as though impatient of the toil of culture.

Dissatisfied with the little they had accomplished, he set himself

sedulously to the study of more classical models than his countrymen

had yet taken as standards of good writing; and the pure elegance of the

Greeks, and harmonious numbers of the Tuscans, alternately engrossed his

attention. In these pursuits was associated with him Juan Almogavar

Boscán, a young man of honourable family, born at Barcelona, with whom

he probably became first acquainted on his visit to that city with his

father; for whom he entertained through life the warmest affection, and

of whose amiable mind and poetical talent he has left in his writings

many interesting testimonies. They applied themselves to their purpose

with all the devotedness of youthful enthusiasm, newly conscious of its

latent powers. Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, were ever in their hands,

and the reputation of cotemporary poets amongst the Italians, of

Bernardo Tasso, Tansillo, Sannazaro, and Bembo, quickened their literary

ambition. But the poet whom above all others Garcilasso evidently

studied with the most partiality, was Virgil. The mild and tender spirit

which pervades and shines throughout his beautiful writings, was in

peculiar concordance with the disposition and character of Garcilasso,

naturally inclined to the gentle and the affectionate, to the love of

rural images and the tranquillity of a country life, though drawn by

circumstance into a ruder sphere, and compelled by passing events so

frequently to cast aside the pages of the poet and the tones of the

lyre, for the sword of battle and those military exertions which his

country shortly claimed of him.

Although the nobility and nation at large had hailed Charles's arrival

with delight, it was not long before they began to regard his

proceedings with extreme mistrust and jealousy. For this there were many

causes; but that which excited the greatest discontent was his almost

exclusive partiality for his Flemish favourites, and the ascendancy of a

Flemish minister. The great Ximenes, whose commanding genius had secured

from a murmuring nobility the peaceful recognition of his title, was

gone; weighed down by years, and by mortification at being refused an

interview by the king, in which his prophetic spirit hoped to expose the

calamities impending over the country from the insolence and rapacity of

foreign minions, he expired. His death freed Chievres from those fears

with which he could not but regard his superior talents, and for awhile

he ran his round of misgovernment without restraint. He engrossed, or

exposed to sale all offices and appointments, exported into Flanders all

the treasures he could amass in the collection of the taxes, imposed new

ones, and sedulously guarded the king's ear from the language of

complaint. But this system of arbitrary peculation could not long escape

the indignant remonstrances of a high-spirited and free people. Already

Toledo, Segovia, Seville, and several other cities of the first rank,

had entered into a confederacy for the defence of their rights

and privileges, had laid before the king complaints of the

mal-administration under which they suffered; and the first rumour of

his intended departure for Germany to receive the imperial crown of

Maximilian, was a signal for every hitherto suppressed discontent to

burst forth in open violence. The nobles of Valencia refused to admit

the Cardinal, afterwards Pope Adrian, as the royal representative, and

firmly declared, that by the fundamental laws of the country, they could

grant no subsidy to an absent sovereign: exasperated by their obstinacy,

Charles countenanced the people who had risen against their privileges;

he rashly authorized them to continue in arms, and sanctioned the

association into which they entered under the fatal name of the

Germanada or Brotherhood.

The civil dissensions which followed in the king's absence, the alliance

of the commons in the principal cities, under the title of the Junta,

the actions and death of their heroic leader John de Padilla, and the

final extinction of the Germanada, are historical events generally

known. Less generally known, however, is the honourable and

distinguished part which Don Pedro, the elder brother of Garcilasso,

took in these commotions, and we may with little impropriety devote a

few pages to its consideration. Our English historians, seizing upon the

leading features of the struggle, have celebrated alone the proceedings

of Padilla, whose deeds in arms and tragical end seemed to mark him out

as the principal personage of the drama. They have not communicated the

fact, that Don Pedro Lasso was thought by the Junta to be more worthy of

the distinction of Captain-General, was indeed elected such, and that it

was only by low intrigues with the meanest of the people that Padilla

had the election reversed in his favour.[Y] Young, generous, brave, of

an open and sweet disposition, and intolerant of every species of

injustice and oppression, Don Pedro Lasso pursued the views he meditated

for the freedom and welfare of his country, with a simple sincerity and

straight-forwardness of action, which showed clearly that he was swayed

by no personal motives of aggrandizement or popularity; he dared the

frowns of his sovereign, without stooping to pay court to the passions

of the people. Equally brave and zealous, but with views less purely

patriotic, and an ambition more daring, John de Padilla threw himself

into their ranks, and sealed his devotion to the cause he embraced, by a

death which he met with the utmost fortitude and boldness. But if the

springs of his conduct are closely examined, they will furnish us with

but too certain grounds for belief, that his own aggrandizement in the

minds of men occupied quite as much of his thoughts as the good of his

country; and if any mode seemed likely to facilitate his ends, he did

not stand upon niceties in the use of them. Don Pedro, when he saw the

unconstitutional excesses into which the Germanada were hurrying,

laboured to lead them back by ways that would have secured from the

monarch a recognition of the rights and claims for which they fought:

with a blinder or less disinterested policy, Padilla led them on to

fresh enterprises, which extinguished the high hopes in which the people

indulged. Had the series of events led Don Pedro to the scaffold, he

would have met his doom with calm and unpretending dignity, sufficiently

rewarded by the testimony of a good conscience; Padilla bent his

thoughts to the last to stand high in the applause of men, and the

address to the citizens of Toledo, which he caused to be circulated at

his death, noble and fine-spirited as it was, betrayed not merely a

satisfaction with being, but a thirst to be considered the martyr in

their cause he was.

So soon as it was known that the king intended to leave Spain, and that

the calling of the Cortes together would only increase their taxes, the

principal cities sent either petitions or protests against what they

deemed so mischievous a measure. The citizens of Toledo, who considered

themselves, on account of the great privileges they enjoyed, as

guardians of the liberties of the Castilian commons, and were especially

discontented, took the lead; they wrote to the other cities of Castile,

exhorting them to send messengers to the king for the redress of their

grievances: all, except Seville, returned for answer, that the

representatives whom they sent to the approaching Cortes should act

conformably to their desire. The persons who interested themselves most

in this affair were Don Pedro, Padilla, and Fernando de Avalos, a

gentleman of high extraction, and allied to the first nobles of Spain,

all commissioners of the juntas in the city. They perpetually urged the

expediency of a general assembly being held of those states that sent

votes to the Cortes, to petition for a reformation of the abuses of

government; it was at length debated in junta, but met with much

opposition from the king's party; the dispute waxed hot, insomuch that

Padilla and Antonio Alvarez de Toledo drew their daggers at each other.

After some disturbances in the city, it was at last voted that they

should send two of their regidores as Procuradores, and two Hurados to

the king to demand redress: Don Pedro and Alonzo Suarez were appointed

Procuradores, and departed with their equipages for Valladolid. They

came into the palace as the king, with his dukes, bishops, and ministers

of state, were rising from dinner, and requested audience; he, being

already acquainted, through Alvarez de Toledo, with the nature of their

embassy, pleaded haste, and was retiring; but Don Pedro pressed so

urgently the importance of the business they were charged with, that he

was obliged to appoint them to meet him at Benavente, on his way to St.

Jago, where he had appointed the Cortes to be held, and meanwhile

referred their petition to his Council of Justice. It will readily be

imagined that no very favourable reception was given by the Council to a

petition complaining, not merely of the monarch's leaving the kingdom,

but of his ministers' lavishing all offices on strangers, and their

rapacity in engrossing the treasures of Spain to enrich a foreign

nation. The Council gave their judgment to the king, that the framers

and supporters of a petition so dangerous deserved punishment rather

than satisfaction; upon which he sent for the Procuradores to his

chamber, and with a severe frown told them he was not pleased with their

proceedings, and that if he did not consider from what parents they were

descended, he would punish them as they deserved; then, referring them

to the President of his Council, without listening to their excuses, he

retired. The President desired them to return and prevail with their

city to send commissioners to the approaching Cortes, who might present

a memorial of what they desired, which should be disposed of as might

best suit the general good: they refused compliance, and followed the

king to St. Jago.

The Cortes was convoked: Charles opened it in person, and stating the

circumstances that rendered it necessary for him to leave the kingdom,

requested the usual subsidy, that he might appear in Germany with the

splendour suitable to his dignity. The Commissioners of Salamanca

refused to take the oath, unless he would first grant them what they

desired: for this act of court-disrespect they were forbidden to come

any more into the assembly. Then rose Don Pedro: he said he had brought

a memorial from the city of Toledo, of what he was to do and grant in

Cortes, which his majesty might see; that he could not go beyond his

commission, yet would perform it as should be most agreeable to his

sovereign; "but, my Lord and Señors," said he with a generous

enthusiasm, "I will sooner choose to be cut in pieces, I will sooner

submit to lose my head, than give my consent to a measure so mischievous

as this which is contemplated, and so prejudicial to my city and my

country." This bold speech, coming upon an assembly already sufficiently

indignant at the innovation of transferring the Cortes to so remote a

province, and at the demand for a new subsidy before the time for paying

the former one was expired, operated most powerfully: the commissioners

of Seville, Cordoba, Salamanca, Toro, Zamora, and Avila, supported Don

Pedro's remonstrance, refused their assent, and the king, perceiving the

present temper of the assembly, adjourned it to a more convenient

season.

The Council meanwhile were not inactive; they thought it would be well,

on their part, to send some of the chief officers in opposition back to

their cities, that their places might be supplied by others that would

be more pliant to the wishes of the king. This was accordingly done, and

other regidores were commanded under heavy penalties to attend the

court, that Toledo might revoke the powers given to Don Pedro and his

colleague: John de Padilla was one of the persons cited. But, with one

exception, these regidores excused themselves; and the delegates from

Toledo and Salamanca made a request to the others, that as their

Commissioners were not yet come to the Cortes, or not admitted, nothing

should be granted,--protesting that if any vote of money were passed, it

should not be to the prejudice of their cities. This protest was sent in

to the new Assembly; but, though many voted in its favour, they would

neither receive it, nor suffer the delegates from Toledo to enter.

Whereupon they made their protest at the door, declaring, that as they

could not form a Cortes without their commissioners, the acts they might

pass should be null and void, both as respected their cities and the

kingdom at large; requiring them moreover as citizens, not to assemble

as a Cortes till they could do so constitutionally. Charles, hearing

that Don Pedro and his companions slighted his commands, issued on Palm

Sunday immediate orders for their banishment. Don Pedro was ordered

within forty days to go and reside in the government of the fort of

Gibraltar, which was his own inheritance; and not to depart from thence

without the king's permission, under penalty of losing, not only that

command, but all his estates whatsoever: but they, ill brooking such

rigorous and arbitrary measures, went within two hours of night to the

palace, and strongly remonstrated with the minister; the result was an

agreement for them to retire only a few miles from St. Jago, leaving the

Hurado Ortiz behind, to remind Chievres to solicit the revocation of

their sentence of banishment; but no sooner had they followed this

crafty advice, and left the town, than the treacherous Fleming opposed

it in Council, and no relaxation could be obtained.

Toledo heard of the banishment of their messengers and failure of their

embassy, and were exasperated beyond measure. Of this spirit of

discontent, John de Padilla took all possible advantage. "Seeing," says

the Spanish historian,[Z] "things go forward as they wished, he and

Avalos, the other summoned regidor, made a show of complying with the

king's command. Hereupon the armed populace, to the number of six

thousand men, withstood their apparent intention, and a great tumult was

raised, Padilla all the while desiring them to let him fulfil the king's

command, which renewed the people's resolve to detain them; and the

crowd led them away as honourable prisoners, set a guard over them,

still protesting against, though inly rejoiced at the violence, and

obliged the governor, at the sword's point, to forbid them on their oath

from leaving the city." Not satisfied with this, they seized the bridges

and fortified gates, and attacked the alcazar, or castle, which they

soon obliged the governor to surrender. Emboldened by this success, they

deprived of all authority every one whom they suspected of being in any

wise attached to the court, established a popular form of internal

government, and levied troops in their defence. Thus, by the evil

counsels of an arrogant ministry, was kindled the first spark of that

rebellious flame which afterwards burned in men's bosoms with so much

fury, and involved the whole kingdom in civil discord; another instance

to the many others which history furnishes,--if warning were of any

avail,--of the terrible consequences arising from an administration's

slighting the voice of an aggrieved and proud-spirited people.

Meanwhile Don Pedro and his companions were come again to St. Jago; and

though some gentlemen, their friends, had counselled them to be gone,

lest the king, already sufficiently incensed against the Toledans,

should imagine them to have abetted the commotion in their city, and

punish them accordingly, they yet continued there, without much fearing

what might befal them. But Garcilasso, who in this crisis could not

avoid feeling a brother's anxiety and alarm, earnestly desired the

king's solicitor to go with all expedition to St. Jago, and persuade him

to depart, as now only five days remained of the forty limited for his

retirement. The solicitor took post, communicated the entreaties of

Garcilasso, and with added arguments at length prevailed. Passing

through Zamora, Don Pedro arrived by the expiration of the fifth day at

Cueva, a village of his, on his way to Gibraltar. The Toledans, hearing

of his arrival there, sent messengers to request him to return to the

city; but this he refused, and prepared to prosecute his journey. Upon

this, they ordered a party of horse to intercept and bring him thither,

which he was forced to attend, and got as privately as he could to his

own home: he could not, however, keep himself long retired; the people

in immense numbers flocked round his house, obliged him to come forth,

set him on horseback, then, forming a triumphal procession, escorted him

to the church, and with loud acclamations of joy extolling to the skies

his patriotism, his courage, the resolution he had shown in defence of

their liberties, saluted him with the title of the Deliverer of his

Country.[AA]

If the history of these events were followed up, Don Pedro would be

found acting uniformly the same part of a pure and fearless patriot. He

it was who when the nobles, jealous of the rising freedom of the

commons, opposed in arms its progress, was principally instrumental in

prevailing on Queen Joanna to come from her retirement, and to use in

this state of civil disorder the constitutional authority with which she

had been invested on the accession of Charles. Upon him was conferred,

after the rash indiscretion of Don Pedro Giron, the office of

Captain-General, which Padilla by his artifices caused to be revoked in

his own favour: it was no personal offence however that could cool his

ardour in the cause of freedom and his country; he led the vanguard of

cuirassiers in the battle with the royalists which terminated in the

defeat near Tordesillas. It was not till he saw the Junta bent upon

pushing their demands and measures to an excess which threatened the

extinction of the rights and privileges of the nobility, that he ceased

taking an active part in their proceedings; but even then he exerted his

good offices in the negotiations carried on between them, and would have

persuaded the people to accept the terms offered by the nobility, who,

on condition of the Junta's conceding a few articles subversive of the

royal authority and their own unalienable privileges, engaged to

procure the Emperor's consent to their other demands, and to join with

them in order to extort it, if the influence of evil counsellors should

lead to a refusal. Unfortunately for the liberties of Spain, the Junta,

elevated by success or blinded by resentment, refused assent to any such

reasonable conditions; the army of Padilla was shortly after defeated by

the Count de Haro, the royalist general; Padilla himself, disappointed

of the death he sought on the lost field, was taken and executed; and

this bold attempt of the commons did but contribute, as is the case with

all unsuccessful insurrections, to extend the power it was intended to

abridge.

The return of the Emperor to Spain filled his subjects who had been in

arms against him with deep apprehensions; and if they escaped

punishment, it was rather from Charles's own generous nature than from

the forbearance of his minister, who endeavoured, but in vain, to stir

his mind up to revenge. A general pardon was published, extending to all

crimes committed from the first of the insurrections, from which a few

only were excepted, and these few rather for the sake of intimidating

others, than from the wish to seize them. "Go," said the monarch to an

officious courtier who offered to inform him where one of the most

considerable lay concealed, "I have now no reason to be afraid of that

man, but he has some cause to keep at a distance from me, and you would

be better employed in telling him that I am here, than in acquainting me

with the place of his retreat." By this prudent line of conduct, by

adopting the manners and language of Spain, and by breaking from the

pupillage in which Chievres had studied to keep him, he effectually

conciliated his subjects. The invasion of Navarre by the French

determined him to engage in open war with the French king; and without

consulting his minister, whose aversion to a war with Francis might have

thwarted his design, he had entered into an alliance with the pope to

expel the French out of the Milanese, and to secure Francis Sforza in

possession of that duchy. No sooner was the treaty signed and imparted

to him, than Chievres was well assured he had lost his ascendancy; his

chagrin on this account is said to have shortened his days, and his

death left the Emperor to exercise without control the unbiassed wishes

of his own great mind.

The declaration of war against France called Garcilasso from his

studies, and though little more than eighteen, he commenced his career

of arms in this campaign. Lautrec, to whom the French forces in Milan

were committed, was forced, notwithstanding his vigilance and address,

to retire toward the Venetian territories before Colonna and Pescara,

the papal and imperial generals; by the bravery of the Spanish

fusiliers, the city of Milan was surprised; Parma and Placentia were

reduced by the former, and in a short time the whole Milanese, except

the citadel of Cremona, submitted to Sforza's authority. To efface the

disasters of this campaign, Francis in 1524 assembled a numerous army,

and determined, notwithstanding the approach of winter and the

dissuasions of his generals, to march into Italy, and attempt the

recovery of the lost territory. Crossing Mount Cenis, he advanced with

an activity and strength that disconcerted the Imperialists. They

retired precipitately from the city of Milan; but instead of seizing

upon that favourable moment to attack and disperse them, the evil genius

of Francis led him to turn aside to besiege Pavia. The battle of Pavia

set the final seal upon his misfortunes. After romantic deeds of

personal bravery, and not till he had seen the flower of his nobility

perish around him and the fortune of the field hopeless, he delivered up

his sword, and submitted himself a captive. It does not appear whether

in this memorable engagement Garcilasso fought under the flag of Pescara

or the Marques del Vasto: it is certain, however, that he distinguished

himself by his courage and heroism, as the emperor, in acknowledgment of

the high regard in which he held his conduct, conferred on him shortly

after the Cross of the order of St. James.

Previously to the emperor's descent upon Milan, the state of Venice had

been in league with Francis, and it was the last of his allies who

abandoned him. So long as Charles had to struggle with his insurgent

subjects, and with formidable enemies elsewhere, he had avoided

increasing their number, and had consented not to consider the Venetians

as at war with him, notwithstanding the succour which they gave to

France; but now that he felt his power unfettered, he assumed a loftier

tone, and declared that he would no longer suffer a State almost

surrounded by his own territories, to enjoy the advantages of peace

whilst engaged in constant hostilities against him.[AB] The regret which

they felt to renounce the friendship with France, for which they had

made the greatest sacrifices, caused the Venetians to hesitate a long

time which of the two powers they should join with. The ascendancy which

Charles was acquiring in Italy at length cut short their deliberation;

a treaty of alliance was entered into with the emperor, and Andreas

Navagero and Lorenzo Priuli, afterwards doge, were appointed ambassadors

to the Spanish court. At Pisa, however, they received orders to await

the issue of the siege of Pavia; and it was not till they had received

intelligence of the defeat of Francis, that they proceeded on their

embassy. They were met on their entrance into the city of Toledo,[AC]

where the court at that time was, by the Admiral of the Indies, who was

a young son of Columbus,[AD] by the Bishop of Avenea, and the whole suite

of foreign ambassadors. Navagero was a scholar and a poet. Born of one

of the noblest families of Venice, and naturally inclined to letters, he

had devoted his youth to study with so much severity, as to occasion a

melancholy which he was obliged to divert by frequent travel and

relinquishment of the pursuits he loved. He was no less distinguished

for Greek learning than for the ease and elegance of his Latin

compositions, and for his taste in Italian poetry, a taste so fastidious

that he was rarely satisfied with any thing he wrote, so that he is said

to have destroyed, a few hours before his death, not only the greater

part of a History of Venice, which he had been charged to write when

appointed librarian of the public library of Saint Mark, but many of his

Italian poems, which fell short of his high standard of excellence. Such

as are extant are sufficient to justify the great applause which he

received from his cotemporaries.[4] Navagero enjoys the additional

distinction of having originated the improvement that was derived to

Spanish poesy from the naturalization of Italian metres and Italian

taste, as hitherto both Garcilasso and Boscán had restricted their

genius to compositions in the redondilla measure. The circumstance that

first led to their relinquishment of the antique models, is narrated by

Boscán himself, in the Dedication of the second volume of his poems to

the Duchess of Soma.[AE]

"Conversing one day," says he, "on literary subjects, with Navagero the

Venetian ambassador (whom I wish to name to your ladyship as a man of

great celebrity in these days), and particularly upon the different

genius of many languages, he inquired of me why in Castilian we had

never attempted sonnets and other kinds of composition used by the best

writers in Italy; he not only said this, he urged me to set the example.

A few days after I departed home, and musing on a variety of things

during the long and solitary journey, frequently reflected on Navagero's

advice, and thus at length began the attempt. I found at first some

difficulty, as this kind of versification is extremely complex, and has

many peculiarities different from ours; but afterwards, from the

partiality we naturally entertain towards our own productions, I thought

I had succeeded well, and gradually grew warm and eager in the pursuit.

This however would not have been sufficient to stimulate me to proceed,

had not Garcilasso encouraged me, whose judgment, not only in my

opinion, but in that of the whole world, is esteemed a certain rule.

Praising uniformly my essays, and giving me the highest possible mark of

approbation in following himself my example, he induced me to devote

myself exclusively to the undertaking."

The noiseless tenour of a country life and calm domestic pleasure which

Boscán now enjoyed, so different from the agitations of the camp to

which his friend was subjected, fortunately concurred to favour the

poet's scheme. He had for the last four years travelled much, or

devoted his principal attention to the education of Fernando de Toledo,

afterwards the celebrated Duke of Alva; but having married the lady Anna

Giron de Rebolledo, an amiable woman of noble family, he seems now to

have given himself up without distraction to his favourite pursuit, and

to have presented himself as a reformer of the lyric poetry of his

nation, in pursuance of Navagero's advice. He began to study with

greater closeness the Tuscan poets, the sonnets of Petrarch, the terze

rime of Dante, and the octaves of Bembo, Politian, and Ariosto. The

Castilian songs, so pleasing to his nation, compared with those more

perfect models, seemed to him comparatively barbarous; he resolved to

effect the overthrow of the existing laws of Castilian versification,

and to introduce new ones, on a system directly the reverse. The old

Castilian measure in short verses, which constituted the actual national

poetry, proceeded always from long to short; it consisted of four

trochees in succession; Boscán substituted iambics as in Italian, and

made the movement of the verse proceed from short to long. The old poets

scarcely ever made use but of redondillas of six and eight syllables,

and of verses _de arte mayor_ of twelve. Boscán took a medium between

both, in adopting the heroic Italian endecasyllabic verse of five

iambics with a conclusive breve; a measure which wonderfully enlarged

the powers and sphere of Spanish poetry, as the redondillas were by no

means fitted for any of the higher kinds of composition. The outcry,

however, that was raised at first against this innovation by the host of

poets who could conceive nothing excellent but what accorded with their

own habits, caused him to reflect seriously on his enterprise. Some of

his opponents alleged that the old measures were sufficiently melodious;

some, that the new verses had nothing to distinguish them from prose;

and others even that the poesies which Boscán took for his model, had

something in them effeminate, and were fit only for Italians and for

women. It was then, when encouragement was most needed, that Garcilasso,

returned from Italy, gave his voice in favour of the poet, and confirmed

him in the undertaking by his own effective example. His Sonnets were

the first of his compositions which Garcilasso wrote on the new system.

The form of the sonnet had been long known in Spain, but the genius of

the language had seemed repugnant to its successful structure. Boscán

however fully succeeded in naturalizing it, though he failed to

communicate to it the sweet reverie of the Tuscan melodist. Garcilasso

approached much nearer the softness and sweetness of his model, and has

left a few pre-eminently beautiful, which may be placed, without fear

from the comparison, by the side of even Petrarch's: several of them, it

is true, exhibit a refinement of thought that often verges upon

hyperbole and affectation; but in extenuation of this fault, let it not

be forgotten that the language of gallantry of those times was made up

wholly of artifices of thought, and that the practice of Petrarch had

sanctioned their adoption in song. Garcilasso's admiration of Petrarch,

which led him to imitate his tone of lamenting love, would be

strengthened in that choice of subject by his passion for an Arragonese

lady, a cousin-german to the Count of Miranda, and maid of honour to

Leonora, Queen of France, to whom it is probable many of them were

addressed, and who it would appear from them as well as from his odes,

subjected the sincerity and steadiness of his attachment to an ordeal

sufficiently severe. More kind however than the Laura of Petrarch, or

unpreoccupied in her affections, Helen de Zuñiga at length acknowledged

her sense of his merit, and yielded him her hand. Their marriage was

celebrated in the palace of the Queen of France,[AF] in 1528, in our

poet's twenty-fifth year. It would seem from some coplas of his, which

must have been written early in life, that he had been unsuccessful in

his first choice, the verses in question exhibiting all that resentment

and reproach softening into tenderness, which is the natural course of

feeling under disappointment to a mind warm in the hopes and visions it

indulges and proudly conscious of its own deserts, yet unchanging in the

current of that one emotion into which all its thoughts have set. But

whatever might have been his sufferings under this severe privation, it

is natural to suppose that time had softened them into that mild

melancholy which we trace in almost all his writings, and that they were

recompensed by the happiness he now enjoyed in a home, where, in the

words of one who has realized himself the picture--

--Love and lore might claim alternate hours

With Peace embosomed in Idalian bowers.

At this time, the celebrated 'Libro del Cortegiano' of Castiglione first

made its appearance. It was every where read in Italy with the greatest

avidity. The moral and political instruction which her people met in

every page of that charming performance, enriched as it was with the

flower of Greek and Roman wit, of the sciences and liberal arts, the

easy and natural style of elegance in which its precepts were conveyed,

the lively pictures it presented of characters whom all Italy knew, and

above all, its pure and beautiful Tuscan, that 'poetry of speech' so

dear to them, used too with such grace by a Lombard writer, delighted

and surprised them. From Italy it passed immediately into Spain, where

it was equally well received. The Spaniards read it with the greater

interest, having before their eyes the fine qualities of Castiglione

himself. This accomplished nobleman had been sent by Pope Clement in

1520, as ambassador to Spain, where he acquired, in a singular degree,

the esteem and affection of the Emperor, and of the gentlemen of his

court. Desirous that a work of so much merit should be naturalized in

Castile, Garcilasso urged Boscán to translate it. It was done, and

immediately printed, with a prefatory letter from Garcilasso to the lady

Geronyma Palova de Almogavar, who seems to have originated the task; a

composition no less interesting from its ingenuity and grace of thought,

than from its being the only one that remains to us of our poet's

letters.[5] It must have been highly gratifying to Castiglione to see

his "Book of Gold," as the Italians in their admiration call it,

circulated through Spain by the medium of her two principal geniuses.

But he did not live long to enjoy this literary reputation. Falling sick

at Toledo, he died in February 1529, to the extreme grief of the

Emperor, who commanded all the prelates and lords of his court to attend

the body to the principal church there; and the funeral offices were

celebrated by the Archbishop with a pomp never before permitted to any

but princes of the blood.

The invasion of Hungary by Solyman, the Turkish Sultan, in 1532,

summoned Garcilasso from the blandishments alike of Beauty and the Muse.

At the instigation of John, the Waywode of Transylvania, that daring

prince had laid siege to Vienna; but finding it bravely defended by

Philip the Count Palatine, he was obliged to abandon it with disgrace.

To repair the discredit of that retreat, he now prepared to enter

Austria with more numerous forces. Charles, resolving to undertake the

campaign in person, raised on his part the forces of the empire, and all

Europe with eager attention expected the contest. But either monarch

dreaded the power and talent of his antagonist, each conducted his

operations with great caution, and Solyman, finding it impossible to

gain ground upon an enemy so wary, marched back towards the end of

autumn. Garcilasso was engaged in several skirmishes with the Turks,

and has drawn in his second eclogue some interesting pictures of the

events of the campaign. Whilst at Vienna, a romantic adventure at court

drew upon him the displeasure of the emperor. One of his cousins, a son

of Don Pedro Lasso, fell in love with Donna Isabel, daughter of D. Luis

de la Cueva, and maid of honour to the empress; and as his views were

honourable, Garcilasso favoured by all means in his power this passion

of his relative. The resentment which Charles displayed on a discovery

of the amour can scarcely be accounted for, but by supposing the lady to

have been a favourite of the monarch himself. As a punishment for their

indiscretion or presumption, Charles banished the cousin, and confined

Garcilasso in an isle of the Danube, where he composed the ode in which

he proudly deplores his misfortune, and celebrates the charms of the

country watered by the divine Danube (Danubio, rio divino). The marriage

he had laboured to promote did not take effect, and the lady became

afterwards Countess of Santistévan. How long Garcilasso remained in

confinement is not now to be ascertained, but it is probable the

monarch's severity soon softened towards him; the expedition he

meditated against Tunis would remind him of the bravery he had

displayed in past engagements, and suggest the propriety of forgiveness

and reconciliation. He was recalled, and desired to attend the Emperor

to Tunis.

The daring courage of the corsair Barbarossa, the son of a potter at

Lesbos, had recommended him to the friendship of the king of Algiers:

having made himself master of twelve galleys, he was received as an

ally, murdered, and seized the sceptre of the monarch to whose

assistance he had sailed. Putting his dominions under the protection of

the Grand Seignior, he was offered the command of a Turkish fleet,

availed himself of the rival claims that distracted Tunis, made a

descent upon the city, and obliged Muley Hascen the king to fly before

him. Muley Hascen escaped to Spain, and presented himself a suppliant

before the Imperial throne. Compassionating his misfortunes, and

animated at once by a thirst for fame, and a desire to punish the

pirate, whose depredations were the subject of continual complaint,

Charles readily yielded to his entreaties; he declared his design to

command in person the armament destined for the invasion of Tunis; and

the united strength of his vast dominions was called out upon the

enterprise. Nor was Barbarossa destitute of either vigour or prudence in

preparing for his defence. He strengthened the citadel of Tunis,

fortified Goletta, and assembled 20,000 horse, and a considerable body

of foot; but his chief confidence was placed in the strength of the

Goletta. This was a castle on the narrow straits of a gulf formed by the

sea, extending nearly to Tunis, of which it formed the key. This fort he

garrisoned with 6,000 Turkish soldiers, under the command of Sinan, a

renegado Jew, one of the bravest and most experienced of the corsairs.

The Emperor, landing his forces, invested it the 19th of June, 1535.

Frequent skirmishes took place with the Turks and Arabs, who sallied

from the fortress with loud shouts to the sound of trumpets and of

cymbals, and once or twice surprising the Imperial forces before break

of day, committed great slaughter. In one of these fierce encounters,

Garcilasso was wounded in the face and hand, as he himself declares in a

sonnet to his friend Mario Galeota. Notwithstanding the resolution of

Sinan, however, and the valour of Barbarossa, the breaches of the

Goletta soon became considerable. The Spaniards battered the bastion on

the shore; the Italians the new works which the Moors had raised towards

the canal. The battery continued for six or seven hours without

remission, in which time above four thousand bullets were fired, but to

great effect, bringing down a great part of the fort with the cannon on

it. The Emperor having sent to view the breach, conferred with his

officers, and addressing a few words to the soldiers of each nation,

gave orders for the last assault. Led and encouraged by a Franciscan

friar, carrying a crucifix, the Spaniards pushed fiercely forward, and

in a short time all the four nations made their way through the

breaches, driving the Moors before them, who at first gave way gently,

but soon fled with precipitation, throwing away their arms. To men who

were taught to consider it meritorious to destroy the Infidels, pity was

a thing unknown: the slaughter was great, and those of the enemy that

guarded the entrenchment towards the canal, unable to get over by reason

of the throng, threw themselves into the water to escape. Upwards of 80

galleys were taken, and 400 pieces of cannon, many of them marked with

fleurs de lys. The same day the emperor entered Goletta through the

breach, and turning to Muley Hascen, who accompanied him--"Here," said

he, "is the open gate by which you shall return to take possession of

your throne."

Barbarossa, though sufficiently concerned for the fall of Goletta, lost

not his accustomed courage. He mustered for the defence of Tunis all his

forces, amounting to 150,000 men, Moors, Turks, Arabs, and Janizaries,

of which 13,000 had muskets or cross-bows, and 30,000 were mounted on

fleet horses. Confident in his numbers, he resolved to hazard a battle,

and marched out to meet the enemy, having in vain attempted to persuade

his officers to massacre 10,000 Christian captives confined in the

citadel, lest in the absence of the army they should overpower their

guards. Knowing that the Imperialists were in great want of water, he

took possession of a plain divided into orchards and olive-grounds,

where there were numerous wells among certain ruins of old arches by

which the Carthaginians used to convey water to the city. There he

placed about 12,000 Turks and renegadoes, all musqueteers, who formed

his chief confidence; 12,000 horse he marshalled along the canal, and

disposed several other squadrons of horse among the olive-gardens, to

shelter them from the scorching sun; his multitudes of foot he placed in

the rear. Then, distributing amongst them abundance of water brought

upon mules and camels, and inculcating on his men how easy the victory

would be over so few Christians, and those spent with thirst, fatigue,

and heat, he awaited the Emperor's approach. Arrived within sight of the

Africans, Charles posted his Italian foot on the side of the canal, the

pikes close to the water, and next to them the Germans. On the right

towards the olive-gardens, together with the light-horse, were the

veteran Spaniards that had served in Italy; between these wings was the

cannon, guarded by the choicest of the army; and the new-raised

Spaniards brought up the rear with some horse, commanded by the Duke of

Alva. The Emperor himself rode about with his naked sword, ranging and

encouraging his men. With loud shouts of Lillah il Allah, the Moors and

Arabs rushed to the attack. The latter, taking a compass by the

olive-gardens, fell on the rear, where they were warmly received by the

Duke of Alva, and the battle became general. The barbarians tossing

their darts, and shooting their arrows from the trees, greatly galled

the Imperialists, which the emperor perceiving, sent forward the

Italians, several of the German veterans, and his Spanish cohorts,

commanded by the Marquis de Mondejar, who had been set to guard the

baggage between the artillery and the rear. For awhile it was fought

with various success, as although the foot went on prosperously, the

Spanish cavalry were wavering before the impetuous charge of the

Numidian and Turkish horse. The Marquis de Mondejar was deeply wounded

in the throat by a Moorish lance, and was with difficulty saved. It was

then that Garcilasso rushed forward amongst the thickest of the enemy,

and amply atoned for the absence of the general. With his invincible

sword, he clove in two the shields and turbans of the bravest Turks,

and by his example quickened the drooping courage of those about him.

But the Africans in fresh swarms poured around; and inclosed on all

sides, and already wounded, he must have fallen a victim to his valour,

if a noble Neapolitan, Federico Carafa by name, had not at the imminent

peril of his own life generously resolved upon his rescue; by great

efforts he at length succeeded in dispersing the multitude, and bore him

back in safety, but half-spent with toil, thirst, and loss of blood.[AG]

Meanwhile the Duke of Alva had put to flight the Arabs, and the Imperial

musqueteers keeping up a constant fire did great execution, so that the

foe shortly quitted their posts in the utmost confusion; and though

Barbarossa did all he could to rally them, the rout became so general,

that he himself was hurried with them in their flight back to the city,

leaving the Christians in possession of his cannon, and of the wells of

water, which prevented the pursuit; for the soldiers, almost mad with

thirst and heat, ran to drink in such confusion, that the infidels might

have redeemed the lost field if their panic had been less. The victory

however was complete, and gained, according to Sandoval, with the loss

of only twenty men. Barbarossa, on gaining Tunis, found his affairs

desperate; some of the inhabitants flying with their families and

effects, others ready to set open the gates to the conqueror, and the

Christian slaves in possession of the citadel. These unhappy men, on the

defeat of the army, had been consigned to destruction. A Turk came with

powder and a lighted match to blow them up, when one of the captives

near the gate ran forward in desperation, snatched a target and scimeter

from the nearest officer, and drove the Turk out; the rest having gained

two of the keepers, by their assistance knocked off their fetters, burst

open the prisons, overpowered the Turkish garrison, and turned the

artillery of the fort against their former masters. Barbarossa, cursing

at one time the false compassion of his officers, and at others the

treachery of the Prophet, fled precipitately to Bona; upon which a Xeque

came from the suburbs, and submitted to the emperor the keys of the

city. Muley Hascen, restored to his throne, consented to do homage for

the crown of Tunis; and Charles, setting at liberty the Christian slaves

of all nations without ransom, re-embarked for Europe, and returning

through Italy, was every where honoured with triumphs, and complimented

in panegyrics by her orators and poets.

Garcilasso, on his return from this expedition, spent some time in

Sicily and Naples, in the society perhaps of the young Neapolitan who

had so nobly saved his life; and in communion with the Italian literati,

and in the composition of his eclogues, the autumn months doubtless

rolled delightfully away. The romantic scenery of Sicily would suggest

to his fancy a thousand charming images; and passionately fond as he

ever was of the country, its quiet and repose would after the tumult of

battle fall upon his spirit with peculiar sweetness. He in fact,

notwithstanding some melancholy anticipations arising from the chequered

incidents of his past life, which are met with in his poems of this

period, seems to have luxuriated in the delicious idlesse of such a

cessation, in so beautiful a country, at so enchanting a season, with a

delight similar to that which Rousseau describes himself as tasting in

his solitary summer rambles in Switzerland; whilst the Genius of Poesy,

amid the steeps and shades which he haunted, unlocked in his mind her

divinest reveries, and casting round his footsteps 'her bells and

flowerets of a thousand hues,' submitted to his lips the pastoral flute

of Theocritus and Virgil, from which in the mellow noon, amidst the rich

red chesnut woods, he struck out sounds that had not for many ages been

listened to by the ear of Dryad, or of Faun. In Sicily, from the foot of

Mount Etna, he sent to Boscán and the young Duke of Alva, his pensive

elegies; at Naples, penetrated with all the spirit of Maro and

Sannazaro, he composed the first and finest of his eclogues, which has

served as a model to a crowd of imitators, who have been all unable to

approach it. The celebrity he had acquired by his actions and his

compositions, caused his society to be courted by all of illustrious

birth or intellectual endowments, whilst his engaging manners and

amability of disposition increased the admiration excited by his

talents, and caused him to be beloved wherever he went. Cardinal Bembo,

whose Italian writings he always admired, and sometimes imitated, and

whose Spanish poems are highly praised by Muratori for their purity and

elegance, thus writes of him in Tuscan to one of his friends, the monk

Onorato Fascitelo, in a letter dated from Padua, Aug. 10, 1535:--"I have

seen the letter of the Rev. Father Girolamo Seripando; concerning the

Odes of Sig. Garcilasso which he sent me, I can very easily and

willingly satisfy him, assuring him that that gentleman is indeed a

graceful poet, that the Odes are all in the highest degree pleasing to

me, and merit peculiar admiration and praise. In fine spirit, he has far

excelled all the writers of his nation, and if he be not wanting to

himself in diligent study, he will no less excel those of other nations

who are considered masters of poetry. I am not surprised that, as the

Rev. Father writes me word, the Marquis del Vasto has wished to have him

with him, and that he holds him in great affection. I beg you to take

care that the Signior may know how highly I esteem him, and how desirous

I am to continue to be loved as I perceive myself to be by a gentleman

so illustrious."[AH]

Amidst the Cardinal's Latin letters, I find one of great elegance to

Garcilasso himself, filled with the same kind expressions of esteem and

admiration.[AI]

"_Naples._

CARDINAL BEMBO TO GARCILASSO THE CASTILIAN OFFERS HEALTH AND

PEACE.

From the verses which you have written for my perusal, I am

happy to perceive, first, how much you love me, since you

are not one who would else flatter with encomiums, or call

one dear to you whom you had never seen; and, secondly, how

much you excel in lyric compositions, in splendour of

genius, and sweetness of expression. The first gives me the

greatest pleasure, for what is comparable to the love and

esteem of a fine poet? All other things, how dear and

honourable soever they are considered by mankind, perish in

a very short time, together with their possessors. Poets

only live, are long-lived, and immortal, and impart the same

life and immortality on whom they will. As concerns the

latter division of your qualities, you have not only

surpassed in the poetical art all your fellow Spaniards who

have devoted themselves to Parnassus and the Muses, but you

supply incentives even to the Italians, and again and again

excite them to endeavour to be overcome in this contest and

in these studies by no one but yourself. Which judgment of

mine, some other of your writings sent to me at Naples have

confirmed. For it is impossible to meet in this age with

compositions more classically pure, more dignified in

sentiment, or more elegant in style. In that you love me,

therefore, I most justly and sincerely rejoice; that you are

a great and good man, I congratulate, in the first place

yourself, but most of all your country, in that she is thus

about to receive so great an increase of honour and of

glory. There is, however, another circumstance which greatly

increases the pleasure I have received; for lately, when the

monk Onorato, whom I perceive you know by reputation,

entered into conversation with me, and amongst other

topics, asked me what I thought of your poems, the opinion I

gave happened to coincide exactly with his own, (and he is a

man of very acute perception, and extremely well versed in

poetical pursuits.) He told me what his friends had written

to him of your very many and great virtues, of the urbanity

of your manners, the integrity of your life, and

accomplishments of your mind; adding, that it was a fact

confirmed by the assurances of all Neapolitans that knew

you, that no one had come from Spain to their city in these

times wherein the greatest resort has been made by your

nation to Italy, whom they loved more affectionately than

yourself, or one on whom they would confer superior

benefits. Thus I consider it an advantage to have received

your good wishes, by no trouble of my own, and that you

should have so far loved me as even to adorn me by the

illustrious herald of your muse. Wherefore, if I do not in

the highest degree love and esteem you in return, I shall

think I act by no means as a gentleman. But from the first I

have resolved to give you a proof of my respect and love,

and earnestly recommend to your notice the said Onorato, who

has a great affection for you, and who is now setting out to

pay you a visit; that hence you may best know what to

promise yourself respecting me, when you see that I dare ask

of you what I have decided to be most desirable for myself.

I believe you know that the patrimony of his brothers,

worthy and harmless men, was plundered in the Italian wars,

from no provocation on their part; I will therefore say

nothing on this head. But now that they have come to a

resolution to solicit of the emperor, the best of kings and

princes, what they have unjustly lost, they will have hopes,

if they obtain your assistance, of recovering easily what

they honourably desire; so great is your friendship,

influence, and authority with him, and with all who are

dearest to him. I therefore earnestly solicit you to take up

the matter, that by your kind mediation his brothers and

family may be restored to their former state of fortune: you

will thus firmly secure to yourself the most honourable of

men, but me you will so highly oblige, that I shall consider

the gift of their patrimony made as to myself; for I love

Onorato as a brother, I esteem him more than the generality

of my friends; and so desirous am I that through your

obliging offices this affair may have the issue which he

hopes, that his own brother could not more ardently wish or

labour for it than I really do. But I trust that as you love

me of your own good pleasure, you will quickly relieve me of

this concern by the address in which you excel, and by that

amiable ingenuity which endears you so to all. Which that

you may do, relying on the excellence of your disposition,

not as a new friend modestly and submissively, but as old

and peculiar friends are wont, I again and again entreat

you. Farewell."[6]

The quiet enjoyment, however, of alternate study and society which

Garcilasso thus possessed, was of no long continuance. It was his fate

to be called perpetually from his favourite pursuits to scenes of strife

from which his mind revolted, and his writings show how keenly he felt

the change. A fresh war summoned him to the field. Francis had taken

advantage of the emperor's absence to revive his claims in Italy, and

the death of Sforza strengthened the ground of his pretensions. Charles

acted the part of a skilful diplomatist; he appeared to admit the equity

of the claim, and entered into negotiations respecting the disputed

territory, till he should be better able to cope with his antagonist.

But no sooner had he recruited his armies and finances, than he threw

off the mask of moderation, and driving the forces of his rival from

Piedmont and Savoy, invaded, though contrary to the advice of his

ministers and generals, the southern provinces of France. Garcilasso, on

his way from Naples to join the army, wrote from Vaucluse his Epistle to

Boscán, concluding it with a gaiety in which he seldom indulges, and

which, coupled in our mind with the reflection that his end was near,

has something in it singularly affecting. To the period also of this

campaign, I should ascribe the composition of his third eclogue,

avowedly written in the tent.

"Midst arms, with scarce one pause from bloody toil,

Where war's hoarse trumpet breaks the poet's dream,

Have I these moments stolen, oft claimed again,

Now taking up the sword, and now the pen."

In this ill-starred expedition, Garcilasso was entrusted with the

command of thirty companies of Spanish troops. The Marechal de

Montmorency, to whom the French army was committed, resolved to act

wholly on the defensive, to weary out the enemy by delay, and by laying

waste the country around to deprive him of subsistence. This plan, to

which he inflexibly adhered, had all the effect he desired. After

unsuccessfully investing Marseilles and Arles, with his troops wasted by

famine or disease, the emperor was under the necessity of ordering a

retreat. In this retreat, effected with much disorder and with more

precipitation, his army suffered a thousand calamities. Crowds of

peasants, eager to be revenged on a foe, through whom their cultured

fields had been turned into a frightful desert, lying ambushed in the

lanes and mountainous defiles which overhung their way, by frequent

attacks, now in front, now in the rear, kept them in perpetual alarm;

nor was there a day passed without their being obliged, every two or

three hundred paces, to stand and defend themselves. The farther they

advanced, the more their difficulties increased. At Muy, near Frejus,

the army was put to a stand. A body of fifty rustics, armed with

muskets, had thrown themselves into a tower, and inconsiderable as they

were in number prevented its progress. The emperor ordered Garcilasso to

advance with his battalion, and attack the place. Gratified with this

mark of his sovereign's confidence, and eager for distinction, he

planted his scaling-ladders, and prepared for the ascent. The simple

peasants, seeing the decorated garment which he wore over his armour,

and the high honour that was every where paid him by the soldiers whose

motions he directed, supposed it to be the emperor himself, and marked

him out for destruction.[AJ] With showers of missiles and the fire of

musquetry, they saluted the assailants, whom however they could neither

check nor dismay. Garcilasso himself, cheering on his men, was the first

that mounted the ladder, and was perhaps the only individual who in this

disastrous campaign acquired any splendid addition to what would be

considered his military glory. But his life was destined to be the price

of this distinction. A block of stone, rolled over the battlements by

the combined strength of numbers, fell upon his shielded helmet, and

beat him to the ground. He was borne to Nice, where after lingering

four and twenty days he expired, November 1536; showing, says D. T.

Tamaio de Vargas, no less the spirit of a Christian in his last moments,

than that of a soldier in the perils he had braved. Every one was

penetrated with sorrow at the loss of one so deservedly dear; but the

Emperor was so deeply afflicted, that having taken the tower, he caused

twenty-eight of the peasants, the only survivors of the escalade, to be

instantly hung; giving thus a strong, though at the same time a

barbarous proof of the esteem and affection he entertained for

Garcilasso. Thus perished, at the early age of thirty-three, Garcilasso

de la Vega, a youth of whom no record remains but what is honourable to

his character and talents, and who conferred more real glory on his

country by his pen, than all the conquests of the mighty Charles,

achieved by his ambitious sword. With every mark and ceremonial of

public respect, his body was conveyed to the church of St. Domingo, at

Nice; whence it was afterwards in 1538 removed to Spain, and finally

deposited in a chapel of the church of San Pedro Martyr de Toledo, the

ancient sepulchre of his ancestors, the Lords of Batres.

Garcilasso left three sons and a daughter. His eldest son, named also

Garcilasso, as he grew up was highly distinguished by the emperor, who

seemed to find a melancholy pleasure in having him near his person. He

too fell in the field at the yet earlier age of twenty-four, fighting

valiantly at the battle of Ulpian: he lies beside his father. Francisco

de Figueroa has celebrated his fall in a sonnet, too beautiful to be

here omitted.

"Oh tender slip of the most beauteous tree

That fruitful earth e'er nourished, full of flowers,

And to that other glory of the bowers,

Thy parent sylvan, equal in degree!

The same tempestuous wind, by the decree

Of Eolus that plucked up by the roots,

Far from its native stream, thy trunk, its shoots

Stript off to flourish in a greener lea.

One was your doom; the same fond Angel too

Transplanted you to heaven, where both your blooms

Produce immortal fruits; your fatal case

I weep not, as the wont is, but to you,

On my raised altar burn all sweet perfumes,

With hymns of gladness and a tearless face."

His second son, Francisco de Guzman, entered a convent of Dominicans,

and became a great theologian. Lorenzo de Guzman, his youngest son, was

distinguished by much of his father's genius, and highly esteemed as

such by Don Ant. Augustin, most illustrious, says Vargas, in dignity and

doctrine, who, being banished to Oran for a lampoon, died upon the

passage. Donna Sancha de Guzman, the poet's daughter, married D.

Antonio Portocarrero de Vega, a son of the Count of Palma, who had

married Garcilasso's sister. The grandson of Don Pedro Lasso was created

Count of Los Arcos, and Charles the Second created his descendant, D.

Joachim Lasso de la Vega, the third Count of Los Arcos, a Grandee of

Spain, October, 1697.[AK]

Garcilasso in person was above the middle size; with perfect symmetry of

figure, he had such dignity of deportment, that strangers who knew him

not were sensible at once that they were in the presence of some

superior personage. His features corresponded with his deportment; his

countenance, not without a shade of seriousness, was expressive of much

mildness and benevolence; he had most lively eyes, his forehead was

expansive, and his whole appearance presented the picture of manly

beauty. Graceful and genteel in his address, courteous and gallant in

his behaviour, he is said to have been a first favourite with the

ladies; by the most winning manners he engaged his own sex, and

accomplished as he was in all the duties of knighthood, he may with much

propriety be called the Sidney or the Surrey of Spain. Notwithstanding

the great favour he enjoyed at court, he passed through life without

incurring the jealousy of the courtiers; a rare piece of good fortune,

which he owed to some happy art or sincerity of conduct that disarmed

envy. With a disposition peculiarly affectionate, he was more inclined

to praise than to censure; in the whole course of his writings, we meet

with but one passage that bears the least approach to satire or

severity, and this he immediately checks, as though it were something

foreign to his nature. He has preserved in his verses the names of his

particular friends. Boscán was evidently the one whom he loved with most

devotedness; but his attachment seems also to have been great to the

Countess of Ureña, Donna Maria de la Cueva, to the Marchioness of

Padula, Lady Maria de Cardona, to the Marquis del Vasto, the Duke of

Alva, Don Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca, Julio Cæsar

Caracciola, a Neapolitan poet, and other distinguished characters, whom

he celebrates in his poems. Boscán charged himself with performing the

last honour to his memory, and published in 1544 their joint

productions, under the title of 'Obras de Boscán y Garcilasso.'[AL]

Had Garcilasso lived longer, his poems would probably have been made

yet more deserving of cotemporary praise and the perusal of posterity,

for the relics he has left are to be considered rather as the early

flowers than as the fruits of his genius; yet from these few blossoms we

may imagine how rich would have been the autumn of his muse. His style

is unaffected, his thoughts ingenious; the language he uses, though

employed upon lowly subjects, never sinks into poverty or meanness; he

is full of the lights, the colours, and ornaments which the place and

subject require; and not satisfied often with the mere production of his

sentiments, he amplifies, he compounds, he illustrates them with

admirable elegance, yet not without suffering his wealth of ideas

frequently to run into diffuseness. He had at his command a rich variety

of significant words, which he sometimes selects and combines with so

much skill, that the beauty of the words gives splendour to their

disposition, and the lucidness of disposition lustre to the words; yet,

in some cases, it must be acknowledged, there is too much involution in

the structure of his sentences. His feelings and sentiments are either

new, or if common, set forth in a certain manner of his own, which makes

them seem so. The passages he translates from other authors seem

introduced from no ostentation of classical pride, but simply to effect

the intention he has in view, and are inlaid with so much art that it

becomes a question whether they give or receive the ornament. The

flowers with which he sprinkles his poetry seem to spring up

spontaneously, the lights he introduces to fall like unconscious

sunshine to adorn the spot where he has placed them. His versification,

simple, clear, and flowing, has a purity, music, and dignity of numbers,

that ever and anon seems to bring upon the ear the mellifluous majesty

of Virgil: he tempers the gravity of his style with such a continuous

sweetness as to form in their union a harmony equally proportioned. The

pause of his verses is always full of beauty, the closing melody of the

sentence gratifying the reader as he rests. With all his delicacy of

expression and artful sweetness, he has remarkable pliancy and ease; his

only constraint is that which he himself imposes, when, abandoning his

natural tone of thought, he becomes a sophist on his feelings, and

consents to surprise by ingenuity when he should affect by tenderness.

Tender, however, he always is in an eminent degree, whenever he ceases

to reason on his sensations, and gives himself up without reserve to the

promptings of his native sensibility. His first eclogue breathes

throughout a spirit of melancholy tenderness that speaks eloquently to

the imagination and the heart. Under the name of Salicio he

unquestionably introduces himself, and I cannot help thinking that the

shepherd's beautiful lament over the inconstancy of his mistress owes

half its sweetness and pathos to his own remembrances of the lady whom

he loved in youth. There is a truth and a warmth of expression in the

feelings that could originate alone from real emotion: nothing can excel

the touching beauty of some of the descriptions.

"In the charmed ear of what beloved youth

Sounds thy sweet voice? on whom revolvest thou

Thy beautiful blue eyes? on whose sworn truth

Anchors thy broken faith? who presses now

Thy laughing lip, and hopes thy heaven of charms,

Locked in the embracings of thy two white arms?

Say thou, for whom hast thou so rudely left

My love, or stolen, who triumphs in the theft?

I have not yet a bosom so untrue

To beauty, nor a heart of stone, to view

My darling ivy, torn from me, take root

Against another wall or prosperous pine,

To see my virgin vine

Around another elm in marriage hang

Its curling tendrils and empurpled fruit,

Without the torture of a jealous pang,

Ev'n to the loss of life."

The song and sorrow of Salicio seem to carry our interest to the

highest point; but the lamentations of Nemoroso[AM] surpass them in depth

of regret, and in the greater variety of sentiments and images with

which the emotions are illustrated. The whole eclogue is in fact full

of poetry, and from the elegance of its language, its choice imagery,

its soft sweet harmony, and the pastoral air that pervades it, it must

be pronounced the first composition of its class, not only in Castilian

but Italian poetry. Almost equally admirable, though different in

character, is the third eclogue. It does not appeal so to the heart, it

is less eloquent, but it is characterised by a finer fancy, a yet more

classical taste, and a more continuous harmony; and being written in

octaves, though octaves are perhaps somewhat too sounding for a

pastoral, succeeds in gratifying the ear by its periodical reposes, as

well as by its music. In the whole compass of poetry, I do not remember

a more delicate image than the following:--

"All with dishevelled hair were seen to shower

Tears o'er the nymph, whose beauty did bespeak

That Death had cropt her in her sweetest flower,

Whilst youth bloomed rosiest in her charming cheek;

Near the still water, in a cypress bower,

She lay amongst the green herbs, pale and meek,

Like a white swan that, sickening where it feeds,

Sighs its sweet life away amidst the reeds."

The second eclogue is decidedly inferior to the other two; it is justly

to be censured for its heterogeneous character, its unsatisfactory

conclusion, and its great lengthiness;[AN] but it abounds with beautiful

passages, and the poet's description of the sculptures on the Urn of

Tormes, an elegant conception, however unsuitably introduced, is given

with an almost lyrical spirit that half redeems the fault of the

episode. Finally, something very like the light romantic touch of

Lorraine in his delicious landscapes, is to be met with in the pastoral

poetry of Garcilasso; the same freshness, the same nature, the same

selection of luxuriant images, and harmony of hues. His elegies are less

perfect of their kind; with somewhat of the softness and philosophy of

Tibullus, they are too frigid and verbose. That to the Duke of Alva,

principally translated from Fracastor, has however many touches of

sensibility; and a few stanzas, charged with poetical fire, might be

selected from that to Boscán; though from the excessive and unnatural

refinement of thought it presents upon the whole, it is what I might

have been excused the trouble of translating, if the omission would not

have rendered the volume incomplete. The same fault of frigidity and

overmuch refinement of thought, though variously modified, applies to

many of his sonnets; others are free from all affectation, and of

singular beauty. His odes are more uniformly excellent. In the last of

them, Garcilasso shows some approach to a sublimer height than he had

yet aspired to; his lyre assumes in its tones somewhat of the fervid

grandeur that was soon to be exhibited in the lyric poetry of Torquato

Tasso. In this the shades are darker, the colours more burning, the

thoughts, if I may so say, more gigantic than in any other of his poems

whatever; yet I cannot consider, the prolonged personification of

Reason, and of its combat with the passions, which indeed both Boscán

and he are apt to dilate upon till they displease by their monotony, as

the product of a pure taste. I am aware that Muratori, 'suono

magnifico,' praises this ode for the very thing I am condemning;[AO] I

shall therefore forbear, in deference to his authority, to say more; I

will only remark that this example from Garcilasso comes opportunely for

the illustration of his theory on the personification of speculative

thoughts, and that on this account he may have looked upon the ode with

a somewhat more favourable eye than his judgment would otherwise have

allowed him to do. He must have admitted that though personification

gives life and action to images that would else strike the fancy but

feebly, the same artificially extended through a whole cancion, offends

as something too unnatural to be reconciled to the mind, even by the

beautiful expressions in which it may be clothed. But whatever

difference of opinion may exist on this, there can be but one sentiment

on the merit of the Ode to the Flower of Gnido. Elegance, delicacy,

harmony, and lyrical spirit, are all combined in its composition, and

fully authorize the opinion of Paul Jovius, that it has the sweetness of

the odes of Horace; an opinion confirmed by the praises of our own

countryman, Sir William Jones. Had Garcilasso written nothing else, this

graceful composition would have sufficed to give his name all the

immortality that waits upon the lyre: it shows with what success he had

studied the classics of antiquity, and how deeply his mind was imbued

with their spirit. This pervading spirit it is that has advanced

Garcilasso to the distinction of being entitled the most classical of

all the Spanish poets; and although from their not having received his

last polish, and from the unfavourable circumstances under which they

were written, his poems may present some defects unpleasing to the

cultured minds of a more refined age, such blemishes can be allowed to

subtract neither from this classical reputation, nor from the deserved

admiration with which their many beauties must be regarded, and the

genius that could give at once, amid the tumult of the camp, to Spanish

poetry a consideration, and to Spanish language a charm, which in other

countries, are commonly communicated by many, in the slow course and

literary ease of years.

The Works of Garcilasso have engaged in their illustration the talents

of three distinguished Commentators. The first comment that appeared was

Fernando de Herrera's, published at Seville in 1580, in small 4to.

Living, as Herrera evidently did, in habits of intimacy with

Portocarrero, it is much to be regretted that he did not increase the

value that was attached to his work by that full account of the life of

Garcilasso which he had so favourable an opportunity of obtaining. He

excuses himself from the task by the observation, that it would require

a mind more at leisure than his was, and one gifted with a happier

style of writing; but the world would probably, with very great

willingness, have given up a part of his commentary, turning as it often

does upon idle disquisitions, to have had its curiosity gratified on the

private habits of his author; whilst the Lyrist of the battle of Lepanto

should have known that the disclaiming of a style sufficiently elegant,

was a species of mock-modesty that would not pass wholly uncensured by

posterity. In the year 1612, Sanchez, better known under the Latin name

Brocensis, the most learned grammarian of Spain, published at Madrid in

12mo. his commentary, under the title of 'Obras del excelente Poeta

Garcilasso de la Vega; con anotaciones y emiendas del Maestro Francisco

Sanchez, Catedratico de retorica de Salamanca.' His illustrations,

however, were principally restricted to a restoration of the text, for

which he deserves very high praise, and to point out in his author the

passages imitated or translated from other writers, an elucidation

rather curious than useful, as a poet's works will of themselves, to

every scholar

whisper whence they stole

Their balmy spoils,

whilst his blind admirers will be apt to quarrel with an exposition

that may seem at first sight to detract something from the merit of

their idol. Thus Sanchez, on the publication of his comments, was

assailed by the small wits of the day with much severity, and some

smartness, as will be seen by the following

SONNET

_Against the Annotations of Master Sanchez, found in the house of a

Knight of Salamanca._

They have discovered a rare theft; the thief,

One Garcilasso's taken at his tricks,

With three silk canopies and pillows six,

Stolen from Queen Dido's bed; young Cupid's sheaf

Of darts; the shuttle of the Fates; but chief,

Three most somniferous kegs of Lethe wine,

And his own lady's golden clasp, a sign

Of turpitude that staggers all belief.

For full seven years the sly Arcadian

Has been at work; on shops of Tuscan ware, he

Made some attempts too--Bembo's and Politian's:

'Tis pitiful to hear the' unhappy man,

His feet fast in the stocks of Commentary,

Declaim against these tell-tale rhetoricians.

On the back of this paper, Sanchez wrote a reply.

Poets are found whose fame we may immerse

In Lethe's wave, who to make up some sonnet

Stuff it with pillows till we slumber on it;

And have recourse for rhymes for their lame verse,

To the sad shuttle of the Fates, or worse,

Young Cupid's darts; whose lines have no more sense

Than their own lady's golden clasp: yet hence

Will they denounce our comments for a curse

On Garcilasso, without knowing why

Barking like curs; amusing 'tis to see

The sapient animals, with long sharp teeth

And short dull wits, far falser than the sly

Quick fidgetings of horses, to get free

Of half the imposed light load they bend beneath.

The third annotator is D. Thomas Tamaio de Vargas. His edition was

published in 24mo. at Madrid, in the year 1622: his comments, filled

with Greek and Latin, with the opinions of Rabbi Onkelos and St.

Cyprian, and quotations from Geronymo Parabosco, Boethius and Arnobius,

seem to have been written rather to show his learned reading than to

clear up any obscurity he might find in his author: affixed to his

volume is a 'Life of Garcilasso gathered from his writings,' which is

necessarily meagre and unsatisfactory. Don Nicolas de Azara, the elegant

translator of Middleton's life of Cicero, has also illustrated

Garcilasso, whose MSS. are deposited in the library of the Escurial.

The commendations which Garcilasso bestowed on cotemporary talent, were

echoed back with equal admiration and sincerity by them and by

succeeding geniuses. Of the Italians, Tansillo has written two sonnets

in his praise, Minturno two sonnets, Marino a madrigal; Camoens

celebrates him in his letters, Guillaume de Salluste in his poems. Of

his own nation, besides a host of writers whose names Vargas chronicles

with a jealous care, Herrera, Villegas, and Góngora, Cristoval de

Figueroa, Medina, and Barahono de Soto, wrote Spanish verses, Pachecho

and Giron, Latin verses to his memory. The Abbé Conti has translated

with fidelity and grace several of his poems into Tuscan,[AP] and Mr.

Walpole published, some few years ago, an English translation of the

First Eclogue, under the title of "Isabel, with other poems translated

from the Spanish;" which however I have not been able to meet with, as

the author is understood to have called it in from circulation. Mr.

Nott, the industrious commentator and accomplished scholar, in his Works

of Surrey and Wyatt, pays an elegant tribute to the talents of

Garcilasso, and draws a happy parallel between him and our Surrey.

"They both," he observes, "glowed with a generous love of enterprise,

and both were distinguished by their military ardour in the field. They

both devoted the short intervals of their leisure to the improvement of

their native tongue; they both formed themselves on Virgil and the

Italian school; both had minds susceptible of love and friendship; both

were constant in their attachments; both died immaturely, and left in

the bosoms of the good and learned unavailing regret at their untimely

loss."[AQ] Yet with this regret the good and the learned may blend the

happier feeling of dignified delight. There is no stain on the treasures

they have left. The talents with which they were gifted, were properly

cultivated; the instruments of music which they touched with so much

tenderness, were wreathed around with none but innocent flowers--were

devoted alone to the gratification of the generous sensibilities of our

nature. Not a single string of those they struck, had in its sound the

dissonance of vice--that one grand discord, which not the harmonies of

all the others can in the ear of true Taste ever overpower. Let this be

their most successful title to applause; there can be no nobler aim

marked out for young genius, in an age when the sister-melodies of

Virtue and the Lyre are in danger of becoming, like Helena and Hermia,

separate and estranged, than the ambition to have it said of him in

after days: 'he had nothing to reproach himself with in his devotion to

the Muses; he sang like Surrey and Garcilasso de la Vega.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote U: The author of that very delightful old work, half romance,

half history, Las Guerras Civiles de Granada, whence Bishop Percy

translated the ballad, "Gentle river, gentle river," has introduced

amongst others a _Romance_ which perpetuates this action; only that he

attributes it to the father of Garcilasso the poet, saying that it was

performed by that personage in his youth, during the siege of Granada by

Ferdinand and Isabella. But this is evidently a great mistake, as the

surname De la Vega is ascribed to the family in chronicles of a far

earlier time. This contradiction could not escape Lord Holland's

perspicacity; he makes mention of it in his life of Lope de Vega, but

seems somewhat disposed to doubt the truth of the story altogether, as

it is related, he observes, of another knight, with little variation, in

the Chronicle of Alonzo the Eleventh. But I would say, with great

deference to the judgment that dictated this remark, that the popular

ballads of a nation generally take their rise from some event of

commanding interest, universally recognised at the time as true, and

like our own beautiful ballad of Chevy Chase, perpetuate the memory

thereof to long posterity, with the authority and assuredness of

history. The language of this ballad, it is true, precludes us from

giving it a date of greater antiquity than the author of the above

imaginative work; and it may be rational to suppose that finding a

Garcilasso at the siege of Granada, he chose to embellish his book as

well as his hero, by ascribing to him the deed, known either from its

mention in the chronicle or from current tradition. But a full

confirmation of the truth of the story is, I think, to be found in the

family arms; they bear, _or_, the words AVE MARIA, GRACIA PLENA, per

pale in letters _azure_; and the house of Mendoza show the same words in

their scutcheon, only per pale a bend dexter, assumed, I am inclined to

think, on the marriage of D. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza with Leonora de la

Vega. I at one time thought that the incident specified in the Chronicle

of Alonzo the Eleventh, might refer to the Garcilasso so favoured by

that monarch, more particularly as Mariana gives him the surname; but

subsequent research satisfies me in ascribing it to his son, which I do

on the authority of Sandoval. Appended to the Chronicle of Alonzo the

Wise in the British Museum, is a work by this historian with MS. notes

of his own, under this title: Genealogies de algunos grandes Cavalleros

que florecieron en tiempo de Don Alonzo VII. Emperador de España. Cuyos

descendientes ay oy dia A. D. 1600, por Fr. Prudencio de Sandoval,

predicador de la orden de San Benito. His words I have translated in the

text, and there is a MS. note in the margin to much the same effect. I

should have been glad to give the incident alluded to by Lord Holland,

but the chronicle I consulted was printed so villanously in Gothic type,

that it is little wonder I missed finding it: the reader may not however

be displeased to see a translation of the Romance.[3]]

[Footnote V: Don Nicolas Antonio: Bibliotheca Hispana. Art. Garcias

Lassus.]

[Footnote W: Don T. Tamaio de Vargas. Anotaciones, p. 45.]

[Footnote X: Pelegrin. Hispania Bibliotheca, p. 579.]

[Footnote Y: Sandoval: Historia de Carlos V. vol. i. fol. 428.]

[Footnote Z: Sandoval, l. v. fol. 211.]

[Footnote AA: Sandoval, lib. v. fol. 214, 274.]

[Footnote AB: Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, t. xv. p.

47.]

[Footnote AC: June 11th, 1525.]

[Footnote AD: Naugerii Opera; Viaggio in Ispagna, p. 352.]

[Footnote AE: Las Obras de Boscán y algunas de Garcilasso de la Vega,

1547.]

[Footnote AF: Herrera. Anotaciones, fol. 15.]

[Footnote AG: Jovii Fragmentum, p. 119, 120. Brit. Mus.]

[Footnote AH: Lettere di M. Pietro Bembo, vol. i.]

[Footnote AI: Petri Bembi Epistolæ, lib. vi.]

[Footnote AJ: Bellaii Comment. lib. vi. p. 277.]

[Footnote AK: Imhof. Histoire de Trente Fam. d'Espagne, p. 131.]

[Footnote AL: There is a copy of this first edition in the British

Museum, printed in old English characters.]

[Footnote AM: It was supposed originally that Nemoroso was intended to

represent Boscán, and that the word was formed from an allusion to his

name, Bosque--_nemus_, as that of Salicio is an anagram of Garcilasso.

Herrera was the first that combated this opinion, applying the name to

Don Antonio de Fonseca, the husband of Donna Isabel Freyre, who died in

childbed. [Anotaciones, p. 409, 410.] From that time this became the

prevailing supposition, till D. Luis Zapata in his Miscellanea affirmed,

in contradiction of it, that Antonio de Fonseca was at no time intimate

with Garcilasso, whilst Boscán had been the suitor, or servidor of Donna

Isabel before her marriage, to whom it is highly probable the verses in

the first book of his poems were addressed, beginning--

"Señora Doña Isabel,

Tan cruel

Es la vida que consiento,

Que no mata mi tormento," &c.

For my own part, setting aside the circumstance that Nemoroso, in the

second eclogue, in describing the urn of Tormes passes a handsome eulogy

on Boscán, a circumstance which does not necessarily enter into the

consideration, I am inclined to believe that it was Boscán who was

signified, and moreover, that the eclogue was designed to commemorate

the sadness they both felt in the memory of their first loves.]

[Footnote AN: To obviate as much as possible the effect of this error, I

have divided it into three _silvas_, a term quite common in Spanish, and

which in a scholar's ear may, as applied to the divisions of an eclogue,

have a better grace than any other that could be adopted.]

[Footnote AO: "Questa battaglia sensibile tra la Ragione e il Senso, mi

fa pur sovvenire d' alcuni bellissimi versi di Garcilasso de la Vega,

uno de piu riguardevoli poeti della Spagna. Racconta egli in una sua

Canzone, come senza avvedersene s' innamorò:

Estava yo a mirar, i peleando

En mi defensa mi Razon estaba," &c.

_Della Perfetta Poesia Italiana._]

[Footnote AP: Scelta di Poesie Castigliane tradotte in verso Toscano, e

illustrate dal Conte Giovambatista Conti. 3 Tomi. Madrid, 1782.]

[Footnote AQ: Vol. i. p. cclxv.]

VERSES ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

BOSCÁN, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

_Garcilasso, que al bien siempre aspiraste._

1.

Tell me, dear Garcilasso, thou

Who ever aim'dst at Good,

And in the spirit of thy vow

So swift her course pursued,

That thy few steps sufficed to place

The angel in thy loved embrace,

Won instant, soon as wooed,--

Why took'st thou not, when winged to flee

From this dark world, Boscán with thee?

2.

Why, when ascending to the star

Where now thou sitt'st enshrined,

Left'st thou thy weeping friend afar,

Alas, so far behind!

Oh, I do think, had it remained

With thee to alter aught ordained

By the Eternal Mind,

Thou wouldst not on this desert spot

Have left thy other self forgot.

3.

For if through life thy love was such,

As still to take a pride

In having me so oft and much

Close to thy envied side--

I cannot doubt, I must believe

Thou wouldst at least have taken leave

Of me, or if denied,

Have come back afterwards, unblest

Till I too shared thy heavenly rest.

VILLEGAS, IN PRAISE OF GARCILASSO.

_Si al apacible viento._

1.

To the soft wind, the' eternal guest

Of these delicious skies,

Thou yet, sweet lute, hast been but prest

In beauty's cause, at love's behest,

To sing of bright blue eyes.

2.

But leave these idle themes, and sound

His glory to the stars,

Whose footsteps ranged on classic ground,

Till Garonne saw him deal around

The battle-bolts of Mars.

3.

Woe to the heart of Aquitaine!

Woe to the men she bred!

When, sheathed in steel, with fierce disdain,

He loosed a stream in every vein,

And dyed her ramparts red.

4.

But, freed from war, he bound his brow

With myrtle leaves again,

To Venus paid a votary's vow,

And hymned her birth, assuming now

The falchion, now the pen.

5.

Sweet as the swan, when death was nigh,

On Danube's willowed banks,

He held the waters roaring by,

With magic of his melody,

Congealed in crystal ranks.

6.

Long, long that tune the stream shall keep,

And whisper as it flows;

Let Love too tell in murmurs deep

The noble words she heard him weep,

For well those words she knows.

7.

Well as his song, grave, tender, sweet,

Beneath the beechen shade,

The wild brook babbling at his feet,

When he bewailed the chaste deceit

Of his beloved maid.

8.

But hush the chords, for there, ah there,

Salicio too grew mute,

And broken-hearted with despair

For the too false, forsaking fair,

Hung up his useless lute!

FLORENCIO ROMANO, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

_Chi audace osera mai tue lodi sparte?_

1.

What daring hand may hope to raise

To thee the double trophy due,

Whom not alone the poet's bays

Distinguished, but the warrior's too?

What tributary voice in one

Collect thy various praises? None.

2.

In thy melodious verse, where yet

Thy spirit breathes, thy glory glows,

Immortal shalt thou live, till set

The stars in darkness whence they rose.

Shower, virgins, shower with sad concern,

Wild thyme and rose-leaves round his urn!

3.

Whilst I his glories, dumb with grief,

Point to the frequent passer-by,

Worthy the blazoning bas-relief,

The sculptured bust, the speaking die:

'Lo! 'midst green ivies, flowers, and palms,

Lasso's hushed lyre and rusting arms!'

HERRERA, ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASSO.

_Musa, esparze purpureas frescas flores._

1.

With purple flowers, oh Muse, each morn,

The freshest flowers in bloom,

Scattered with pious hands, adorn

Thy Lasso's holy tomb;

In grief for the lamented dead,

Thy golden tresses, Venus, spread

Dishevelled;--mourn his doom,

His timeless doom, ye little Loves,

In concord with your Mother's doves!

2.

As burns the bird whose perished frame

Arabian herbs inter,

Your broken bows give to the flame

With rosemary and myrrh;

And oh, for his lamented sake,

Apollo, to thy temples take

The wreath of funeral fir,

And sadly to the solemn string

His glory and thy sorrows sing!

3.

His name, Parnassus, whose proud song,

Pure, sweet, and tender, gave

Fame to thy rosy peaks, prolong

Through each revering cave;

Lasso, through whose harmonious shell

Tagus rich Tiber does excel,

And Arno's purer wave,--

For whose hushed voice a nation grieves,

Lies dead amidst green amaranth leaves!

THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO.

ECLOGUES.

_Dum sint volucres_, LASSE, _Cupidines,

Dum cura dulcis, dum lachrymæ leves,

Blandæque amatorum querelæ,

Silvicolis amor et magistris;

Vivent labores, et numeri tui,

Dulcesque cantus; nec fuga temporis

Obliviosi, nec profani

Vis rapiet violenta Fati:

Sive è supremis axibus ætheris

Nos triste vulgus despicis, aureâ

Seu fistulâ doces Elisam

Elysias resonare sylvas._

[Illustration]

ECLOGUE I. TO DON PEDRO DE TOLEDO, VICEROY OF NAPLES.

SALICIO, NEMOROSO.

The sweet lament of two Castilian swains,

Salicio's love and Nemoroso's tears,

In sympathy I sing, to whose loved strains

Their flocks, of food forgetful, crowding round,

Were most attentive: Pride of Spanish peers!

Who, by thy splendid deeds, hast gained a name

And rank on earth unrivalled,--whether crowned

With cares, ALVANO, wielding now the rod

Of empire, now the dreadful bolts that tame

Strong kings, in motion to the trumpet's sound,

Express vicegerent of the Thracian God;

Or whether, from the cumbrous burden freed

Of state affairs, thou seek'st the echoing plain,

Chasing, upon thy spirited fleet steed,

The trembling stag that bounds abroad, in vain

Lengthening out life,--though deeply now engrossed

By cares, I hope, so soon as I regain

The leisure I have lost,

To celebrate, with my recording quill,

Thy virtues and brave deeds, a starry sum,

Ere grief, or age, or silent death turn chill

My poesy's warm pulse, and I become

Nothing to thee, whose worth the nations blaze,

Failing thy sight, and songless in thy praise.

But till that day, predestined by the Muse,

Appears to cancel the memorial dues

Owed to thy glory and renown--a claim

Not only upon me, but which belongs

To all fine spirits that transmit to fame

Ennobling deeds in monumental songs,--

Let the green laurel whose victorious boughs

Clasp in endearment thine illustrious brows,

To the weak ivy give permissive place,

Which, rooted in thy shade, thou first of trees,

May hope by slow degrees

To tower aloft, supported by thy praise;

Since Time to thee sublimer strains shall bring,

Hark to my shepherds, as they sit and sing.

The sun, from rosy billows risen, had rayed

With gold the mountain tops, when at the foot

Of a tall beech romantic, whose green shade

Fell on a brook, that, sweet-voiced as a lute,

Through lively pastures wound its sparkling way,

Sad on the daisied turf Salicio lay;

And with a voice in concord to the sound

Of all the many winds, and waters round,

As o'er the mossy stones they swiftly stole,

Poured forth in melancholy song his soul

Of sorrow with a fall

So sweet, and aye so mildly musical,

None could have thought that she whose seeming guile

Had caused his anguish, absent was the while,

But that in very deed the unhappy youth

Did, face to face, upbraid her questioned truth.

SALICIO.

More hard than marble to my mild complaints,

And to the lively flame with which I glow,

Cold, Galatea, cold as winter snow!

I feel that I must die, my spirit faints,

And dreads continuing life; for, alienate

From thee, life sinks into a weary weight,

To be shook off with pleasure; from all eyes

I shrink, ev'n from myself despised I turn,

And left by her for whom alone I yearn,

My cheek is tinged with crimson; heart of ice!

Dost thou the worshipped mistress scorn to be

Of one whose cherished guest thou ever art;

Not being able for an hour to free

Thine image from my heart?

This dost thou scorn? in gentleness of woe

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

The sun shoots forth the arrows of his light

O'er hills and valleys, wakening to fresh birth

The birds, and animals, and tribes of earth,

That through the crystal air pursue their flight,

That o'er the verdant vale and craggy height

In perfect liberty and safety feed,

That with the present sun afresh proceed

To the due toils of life,

As their own wants or inclinations lead;

This wretched spirit is alone at strife

With peace, in tears at eve, in tears when bright

The morning breaks; in gentleness of woe,

Flow forth my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

And thou, without one pensive memory

Of this my life, without the slightest sign

Of pity for my pangs, dost thou consign

To the stray winds, ungrateful, every tie

Of love and faith, which thou didst vow should be

Locked in thy soul eternally for me?

Oh righteous Gods! if from on high ye view

This false, this perjured maid

Work the destruction of a friend so true,

Why leave her crime of justice unrepaid?

Dying I am with hopeless, sharp concern;

If to tried friendship this is the return

She makes, with what will she requite her foe?

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

Through thee the silence of the shaded glen,

Through thee the horror of the lonely mountain

Pleased me no less than the resort of men;

The breeze, the summer wood, and lucid fountain,

The purple rose, white lily of the lake,

Were sweet for thy sweet sake;

For thee the fragrant primrose, dropt with dew,

Was wished when first it blew!

Oh how completely was I in all this

Myself deceiving! oh the different part

That thou wert acting, covering with a kiss

Of seeming love, the traitor in thy heart!

This my severe misfortune, long ago,

Did the soothsaying raven, sailing by

On the black storm, with hoarse sinister cry,

Clearly presage; in gentleness of woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

How oft, when slumbering in the forest brown,

(Deeming it Fancy's mystical deceit,)

Have I beheld my fate in dreams foreshown!

One day, methought that from the noontide heat

I drove my flocks to drink of Tagus' flood,

And, under curtain of its bordering wood,

Take my cool siesta; but, arrived, the stream,

I know not by what magic, changed its track,

And in new channels, by an unused way,

Rolled its warped waters back;

Whilst I, scorched, melting with the heat extreme,

Went ever following in their flight, astray,

The wizard waves; in gentleness of woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

In the charmed ear of what beloved youth

Sounds thy sweet voice? on whom revolvest thou

Thy beautiful blue eyes? on whose proved truth

Anchors thy broken faith? who presses now

Thy laughing lip, and hopes thy heaven of charms,

Locked in the' embraces of thy two white arms?

Say thou, for whom hast thou so rudely left

My love, or stolen, who triumphs in the theft?

I have not yet a bosom so untrue

To feeling, nor a heart of stone, to view

My darling ivy, torn from me, take root

Against another wall or prosperous pine,

To see my virgin vine

Around another elm in marriage hang

Its curling tendrils and empurpled fruit,

Without the torture of a jealous pang,

Ev'n to the loss of life; in gentle woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

What may not now be looked for to take place

In any certain or uncertain case?

What are too adverse now to join, too wild

For love to fear, too dissonant to agree?

What faith is too secure to be beguiled?

Matter for all thus being given by thee.

A signal proof didst thou, when, rude and cold,

Thou left'st my bleeding heart to break, present

To all loved youths and maids

Whom heaven in its blue beauty overshades,

That ev'n the most secure have cause to fear

The loss of that which they as sweet or dear

Cherish the most; in gentleness of woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

Thou hast giv'n room for hope that now the mind

May work impossibilities most strange,

And jarring natures in concordance bind;

Transferring thus from me to him thy hand

And fickle heart in such swift interchange,

As ever must be voiced from land to land.

Now let mild lambs in nuptial fondness range

With savage wolves from forest brake to brake;

Now let the subtle snake

In curled caresses nest with simple doves,

Harming them not, for in your ghastly loves

Difference is yet more great; in gentle woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

My dairies always with new milk abound,

Summer and winter, all my vats run o'er

With richest creams, and my superfluous store

Of cheese and butter is afar renowned;

With as sweet songs have I amused thine ear

As could the Mantuan Tityrus of yore,

And more to be admired; nor am I, dear,

If well observed, or so uncouth or grim,

For in the watery looking-glass below

My image I can see--a shape and face

I surely never would exchange with him

Who joys in my disgrace;

My fate I might exchange; in gentle woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

How have I fallen in such contempt, how grown

So suddenly detested, or in what

Attentions have I failed thee? wert thou not

Under the power of some malignant spell,

My worth and consequence were known too well;

I should be held in pleasurable esteem,

Nor left thus in divorce, alone--alone!

Hast thou not heard, when fierce the Dogstar smites

These plains with heat and drouth,

What countless flocks to Cuenca's thymy heights

Yearly I drive, and in the winter breme,

To the warm valleys of the sheltering south?

But what avails my wealth if I decay,

And in perpetual sorrow weep away

My years of youth! in gentleness of woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

Over my griefs the mossy stones relent

Their natural durity, and break; the trees

Bend down their weeping boughs without a breeze,

And full of tenderness, the listening birds,

Warbling in different notes, with me lament,

And warbling prophesy my death; the herds

That in the green meads hang their heads at eve,

Wearied, and worn, and faint,

The necessary sweets of slumber leave,

And low, and listen to my wild complaint.

Thou only steel'st thy bosom to my cries,

Not ev'n once rolling thine angelic eyes

On him thy harshness kills; in gentle woe,

Flow forth, my tears, 'tis meet that ye should flow!

But though thou wilt not come for my sad sake,

Leave not the landscape thou hast held so dear;

Thou may'st come freely now, without the fear

Of meeting me, for though my heart should break,

Where late forsaken I will now forsake.

Come then, if this alone detains thee, here

Are meadows full of verdure, myrtles, bays,

Woodlands, and lawns, and running waters clear,

Beloved in other days,

To which, bedewed with many a bitter tear,

I sing my last of lays.

These scenes perhaps, when I am far removed,

At ease thou wilt frequent

With him who rifled me of all I loved;

Enough! my strength is spent;

And leaving thee in his desired embrace,

It is not much to leave him this sweet place.

Here ceased the youth his Doric madrigal,

And sighing, with his last laments let fall

A shower of tears; the solemn mountains round,

Indulgent of his sorrow, tossed the sound

Melodious from romantic steep to steep,

In mild responses deep;

Sweet Echo, starting from her couch of moss,

Lengthened the dirge, and tenderest Philomel,

As pierced with grief and pity at his loss,

Warbled divine reply, nor seemed to trill

Less than Jove's nectar from her mournful bill.

What Nemoroso sang in sequel, tell

Ye, sweet-voiced Sirens of the sacred hill!

Too high the strain, too weak my groveling reed,

For me to dare proceed.

NEMOROSO.

Smooth-sliding waters, pure and crystalline!

Trees, that reflect your image in their breast!

Green pastures, full of fountains and fresh shades!

Birds, that here scatter your sweet serenades!

Mosses, and reverend ivies serpentine,

That wreathe your verdurous arms round beech and pine,

And, climbing, crown their crest!

Can I forget, ere grief my spirit changed,

With what delicious ease and pure content

Your peace I wooed, your solitudes I ranged,

Enchanted and refreshed where'er I went!

How many blissful noons I here have spent

In luxury of slumber, couched on flowers,

And with my own fond fancies, from a boy,

Discoursed away the hours,

Discovering nought in your delightful bowers,

But golden dreams, and memories fraught with joy!

And in this very valley where I now

Grow sad, and droop, and languish, have I lain

At ease, with happy heart and placid brow;

Oh pleasure fragile, fugitive, and vain!

Here, I remember, waking once at noon,

I saw Eliza standing at my side;

Oh cruel fate! oh finespun web, too soon

By Death's sharp scissors clipt! sweet, suffering bride,

In womanhood's most interesting prime,

Cut off, before thy time!

How much more suited had his surly stroke

Been to the strong thread of my weary life!

Stronger than steel, since in the parting strife

From thee, it has not broke.

Where are the eloquent mild eyes that drew

My heart where'er they wandered? where the hand,

White, delicate, and pure as melting dew,

Filled with the spoils that, proud of thy command,

My feelings paid in tribute? the bright hair

That paled the shining gold, that did contemn

The glorious opal as a meaner gem,

The bosom's ivory apples, where, ah where?

Where now the neck, to whiteness overwrought,

That like a column with genteelest scorn

Sustained the golden dome of virtuous thought?

Gone! ah, for ever gone

To the chill, desolate, and dreary pall,

And mine the grief--the wormwood and the gall!

Who would have said, my love, when late through this

Romantic valley, we from bower to bower

Went gathering violets and primroses,

That I should see the melancholy hour

So soon arrive that was to end my bliss,

And of my love destroy both fruit and flower?

Heaven on my head has laid a heavy hand;

Sentencing, without hope, without appeal,

To loneliness and ever-during tears

The joyless remnant of my future years;

But that which most I feel,

Is to behold myself obliged to bear

This condemnation to a life of care;

Lone, blind, forsaken, under sorrow's spell,

A gloomy captive in a gloomy cell.

Since thou hast left us, fulness, rest, and peace

Have failed the starveling flocks; the field supplies

To the toiled hind but pitiful increase;

All blessings change to ills; the clinging weed

Chokes the thin corn, and in its stead arise

Pernicious darnel, and the fruitless reed.

The enamelled earth, that from her verdant breast

Lavished spontaneously ambrosial flowers,

The very sight of which can soothe to rest

A thousand cares, and charm our sweetest hours,

That late indulgence of her bounty scorns,

And in exchange shoots forth but tangled bowers,

But brambles rough with thorns;

Whilst with the tears that falling steep their root,

My swollen eyes increase the bitter fruit.

As at the set of sun the shades extend,

And when its circle sinks, that dark obscure

Rises to shroud the world, on which attend

The images that set our hair on end,

Silence, and shapes mysterious as the grave;

Till the broad sun sheds once more from the wave

His lively lustre, beautiful and pure:

Such shapes were in the night, and such ill gloom

At thy departure; still tormenting fear

Haunts, and must haunt me, until death shall doom

The so much wished-for sun to re-appear

Of thine angelic face, my soul to cheer,

Resurgent from the tomb.

As the sad nightingale in some green wood,

Closely embowered, the cruel hind arraigns

Who from their pleasant nest her plumeless brood

Has stolen, whilst she with pains

Winged the wide forest for their food, and now

Fluttering with joy, returns to the loved bough,

The bough, where nought remains:

Dying with passion and desire, she flings

A thousand concords from her various bill,

Till the whole melancholy woodland rings

With gurglings sweet, or with philippics shrill.

Throughout the silent night she not refrains

Her piercing note, and her pathetic cry,

But calls, as witness to her wrongs and pains,

The listening stars and the responding sky.

So I in mournful song pour forth my pain;

So I lament,--lament, alas, in vain--

The cruelty of death! untaught to spare,

The ruthless spoiler ravished from my breast

Each pledge of happiness and joy, that there

Had its beloved home and nuptial nest.

Swift-seizing death! through thy despite I fill

The whole world with my passionate lament,

Impórtuning the skies and valleys shrill

My tale of wrongs to echo and resent.

A grief so vast no consolation knows,

Ne'er can the agony my brain forsake,

Till suffering consciousness in frenzy close,

Or till the shattered chords of being break.

Poor, lost Eliza! of thy locks of gold,

One treasured ringlet in white silk I keep

For ever at my heart, which, when unrolled,

Fresh grief and pity o'er my spirit creep;

And my insatiate eyes, for hours untold,

O'er the dear pledge will, like an infant's, weep:

With sighs more warm than fire anon I dry

The tears from off it, number one by one

The radiant hairs, and with a love-knot tie;

Mine eyes, this duty done,

Give over weeping, and with slight relief

I taste a short forgetfulness of grief.

But soon, with all its first-felt horrors fraught,

That gloomy night returns upon my brain,

Which ever wrings my spirit with the thought

Of my deep loss, and thine unaided pain;

Ev'n now, I seem to see thee pale recline

In thy most trying crisis, and to hear

The plaintive murmurs of that voice divine,

Whose tones might touch the ear

Of blustering winds, and silence their dispute;

That gentle voice (now mute)

Which to the merciless Lucina prayed,

In utter agony, for aid--for aid!

Alas, for thine appeal! Discourteous power,

Where wert thou gone in that momentous hour?

Or wert thou in the grey woods hunting deer?

Or with thy shepherd boy entranced? Could aught

Palliate thy rigorous cruelty, to turn

Away thy scornful, cold, indifferent ear

From my moist prayers, by no affliction moved,

And sentence one, so beauteous and beloved,

To the funereal urn!

Oh, not to mark the throes

Thy Nemoroso suffered, whose concern

It ever was, when pale the morning rose,

To drive the mountain beasts into his toils,

And on thy holy altars heap the spoils;

And thou, ungrateful! smiling with delight,

Could'st leave my nymph to die before my sight.

Divine Eliza! since the sapphire sky

Thou measurest now on angel-wings, and feet

Sandalled with immortality, oh why

Of me forgetful? Wherefore not entreat

To hurry on the time when I shall see

The veil of mortal being rent in twain,

And smile that I am free?

In the third circle of that happy land,

Shall we not seek together, hand in hand,

Another lovelier landscape, a new plain,

Other romantic streams and mountains blue,

Fresh flowery vales, and a new shady shore,

Where I may rest, and ever in my view

Keep thee, without the terror and surprise

Of being sundered more!

Ne'er had the shepherds ceased these songs, to which

The hills alone gave ear, had they not seen

The sun in clouds of gold and crimson rich

Descend, and twilight sadden o'er the green;

But noting now, how rapidly the night

Rushed from the hills, admonishing to rest,

The sad musicians, by the blushful light

Of lingering Hesperus, themselves addressed

To fold their flocks, and step by step withdrew,

Through bowery lawns and pastures wet with dew.

[Illustration]

ECLOGUE II.

SILVA I.

ALBANIO. SALICIO.

ALBANIO.

Temperate, when winter waves its snowy wing,

Is the sweet water of this sylvan spring;

And when the heats of summer scorch the grass,

More cold than snow: in your clear looking-glass,

Fair waves! the memory of that day returns,

With which my soul still shivers, melts, and burns;

Gazing on your clear depth and lustre pure,

My peace grows troubled, and my joy obscure;

Recovering you, I lose all self-content:

To whom, alas, could equal pains be sent!

Scenes that would soothe another's pangs to peace,

Add force to mine, or soothe but to increase.

This lucid fount, whose murmurs fill the mind,

The verdant forests waving with the wind,

The odours wafted from the mead, the flowers

In which the wild bee sits and sings for hours,

These might the moodiest misanthrope employ,

Make sound the sick, and turn distress to joy;

I only in this waste of sweetness pine

To death! oh beauty, rising to divine!

Oh curls of gold! oh eyes that laughed with light!

Oh swanlike neck! oh hand as ivory white!

How could an hour so mournful ever rise

To change a life so blest to tears and sighs,

Such glittering treasures into dust! I range

From place to place, and think, perhaps the change,

The change may partly temper and control

The ceaseless flame that thus consumes my soul.

Deceitful thought! as though so sharp a smart

By my departure must itself depart:

Poor languid limbs, the grief is but too deep

That tires you out! Oh that I could but sleep

Here for awhile! the heart awake to pain,

Perchance in slumbers and calm dreams might gain

Glimpse of the peace with which it pants to meet,

Though false as fair, and fugitive as sweet.

Then, amiable kind Sleep, descend, descend!

To thee my wearied spirit I commend.

SALICIO.

How highly he may rate

His fortunate estate,

Who, to the sweets of solitude resigned,

Lives lightly loose from care,

At distance from the snare

Of what encumbers and disturbs the mind!

He sees no thronged parade,

No pompous colonnade

Of proud grandees, nor greedy flatterers vile,

Ambitious each to sport

In sunshine of a court;

He is not forced to fawn, to sue, to smile,

To feign, to watch of power each veering sign,

Noticed to dread neglect, neglected to repine.

But, in calm idlesse laid

Supine in the cool shade

Of oak or ilex, beech or pendant pine,

Sees his flocks feeding stray,

Whitening a length of way,

Or numbers up his homeward-tending kine:

Store of rich silks unrolled,

Fine silver, glittering gold,

To him seem dross, base, worthless, and impure;

He holds them in such hate,

That with their cumbrous weight

He would not fancy he could live secure;

And thinking this, does wisely still maintain

His independent ease, and shuns the shining bane.

Him to soft slumbers call

The babbling brooks, the fall

Of silver fountains, and the unstudied hymns

Of cageless birds, whose throats

Pour forth the sweetest notes;

Shrill through the crystal air the music swims;

To which the humming bee

Keeps ceaseless company,

Flying solicitous from flower to flower,

Tasting each sweet that dwells

Within their scented bells;

Whilst the wind sways the forest, bower on bower,

That evermore, in drowsy murmurs deep,

Sings in the silent ear, and aids descending sleep.

Who breathes so loud? 'Tis strange I see him not;

Oh, there he lies, in that sequestered spot!

Thrice happy you, who thus, when troubles tire,

Relax the chords of thought, or of desire!

How finished, Nature, are thy works! neglect

Left nought in them to add to, or perfect.

Heightening our joy, diminishing our grief,

Sleep is thy gift, and given for our relief;

That at our joyous waking we might find

More health of body and repose of mind:

Refreshed we rise from that still pause of strife,

And with new relish taste the sweets of life.

When wearied out with care, sleep, settling calm,

Drops on our dewless lids her soothing balm,

Stilling the torn heart's agonizing throes,

From that brief quiet, that serene repose,

Fresh spirit we inspire, fresh comfort share,

And with new vigour run the race of care.

I on his dreams will gently steal, and see

If I the shepherd know, and if he be

Of the unhappy or contented class:

Is it Albanio slumbering there? Alas

The unhappy boy! Albanio, of a truth;

Sleep on, poor wearied, and afflicted youth!

How much more free do I esteem the dead,

Who, from all mortal storms escaped, is led

Safe into port, than he who living here,

So noble once, and lively in his cheer,

Cast by stern fortune from his glorious height,

Has bid a long, long farewell to delight!

He, though now stript of peace, and most distressed,

Was once, they say, most blissful of the blest,

In amorous pledges rich; the change how great!

I know not well the secret of his fate;

Lycid, who knew the tale, sometime ago

Told me a part, but much remains to know.

ALBANIO.

Is it a dream? or do I surely clasp

Her gentle hand, that answers grasp for grasp?

'Tis mockery all! how madly I believed

The flatterer sleep, and how am I deceived!

On swift wings rustling through the ivory door,

The vision flies, and leaves me as before,

Stretched lonely here; is't not enough, I bear

This grievous weight, the living soul's despair;

Or, to say truly, this uncertain strife,

And daily death of oft-renewing life!

SALICIO.

Albanio, cease thy weeping, which to see,

Grieves me.

ALBANIO.

Who witnesses my weeping?

SALICIO.

He

Who by partaking will assuage the smart.

ALBANIO.

Thou, my Salicio? Ah, thy gentle heart

And company in every strait could bring

Sweet solace, once; now, 'tis a different thing.

SALICIO.

Part of thy woes from Lycid I have heard,

Who here was present when the' event occurred;

Its actual cause he knew not, but surmised

The evil such, that it were best disguised.

I, as thou know'st, was in the city, bent

On travelling then, and only heard the' event

On my return; but now, I pray relate,

If not too painful, specially, the date,

The author, cause, and process of thy grief,

Which thus divided will find some relief.

ALBANIO.

Relief is certain with a friend so sure,

When such the sickness as admits of cure;

But this, this pierces to my marrow! Still,

Our shared pursuits by fountain, grove, and hill,

And our vowed friendship to thy wishes win

My else-sealed lips;--yet, how shall I begin?

My soul, my brain, with clouds is overcast,

At but the mere remembrance of the past--

The alarm, the mortal wound, the sudden pain,

Then every earlier feeling felt again,

Linked with the blighted present, all prevail,

And, like a spectre, scare me from the tale.

But yet, methinks, 'twere wisdom to obey,

Lay bare the wound, and sorrowing bleed away

From anguish and from life; and thus, dear friend,

From the commencement to the fatal end,

My woes will I relate, without disguise,

Though the sad tale my soul reluctant flies.

Well have I loved, well shall love, whilst the ray

Of life celestial lights this coil of clay,

The maid for whom I die! No free-will choice,

No thoughtless chase at Folly's calling voice

Led me to love, nor, oft as others aim,

With flattering fancies did I feed the flame;

But from my tenderest infancy, perforce,

Some fatal star inclined me to its course.

Thou know'st a maiden, beautiful and young,

From my own ancestors remotely sprung,

Lovelier than Love himself; in infancy

Vowed to Diana of the woods, with glee,

Amidst them, skilled the sylvan war to wage,

She passed the rosy April of her age:

I, who from night till morning, and from morn

Till night, to challenge of the sprightly horn,

Followed the inspiring chase without fatigue,

Came by degrees in such familiar league

With her, by like pursuits and tastes allied,

I could not stir an instant from her side.

Hour after hour this union stricter grew,

Joined with emotions precious, pure, and new:

What tangled mountain has been left untraced

By our swift feet? What heath, or leafy waste

Of forests, has not heard our hunting cry?

What babbling echo not been tired thereby?

Ever with liberal hands, when ceased our toils,

To the chaste patron who decreed our spoils,

We heaped the holy altars, talking o'er

Past risks, now offering of the grisly boar

The grim and tusked head, and nailing now

The stag's proud antlers on the sacred bough

Of some tall pine; and thus when evening burned,

With grateful, happy hearts, we home returned;

And when we shared the quarry, never went

From us one word or look of discontent.

Hunting of all kinds charmed, but that the most

Of simple birds, snared ever with least cost

Of toil; and when desired Aurora showed

Her rosy cheeks, and locks like gold that glowed,

With dew impearling all the forest flowers,

Away we passed to unfrequented bowers,

In the most secret valley we could find,

Shut from the tread and talk of humankind;

Then, binding to two lofty trees, unseen,

Our tinctured webs of very perfect green,

Our voices hushed, our steps as midnight still,

We netted off the vale from hill to hill;

Then, fetching a small compass, by degrees

We turned toward the snares, and shook the trees,

And stormed the shadiest nooks with shout and sling,

Till the whole wood was rustling on the wing:

Blackbirds, larks, goldfinches, before us flew,

Distracted, scared, not knowing what to do.

Who shunned the less, the greater evil met,

Confusedly taken in the painted net;

And curious then it was to hear them speak

Their griefs with doleful cry and piercing shriek;

Some--for the swarms were countless--you might see

Fluttering their wings and striving to get free,

Whilst others, far from showing signs of rage,

In dumb affliction drooped about the cage;

Till, drawing tight the cords, proud of the prey

Borne at our backs, we took our homeward way.

But when moist autumn came, and yellow fell

The wild-wood leaves round bowerless Philomel;

When August heats were past, a different sport,

But no less idle, we were wont to court,

To pass the day with joy; then, well you know,

Black clouds of starlings circle to and fro:

Mark now the craft that we employed to snare

These birds that go through unobstructed air.

One straggler first from their vast companies,

Alive we captured, which was done with ease;

Next, to its foot a long limed thread we tied,

And when the passing squadron we descried,

Aloft we tossed it; instantly it mixed

Amongst the rest, and our success was fixed;

For soon, as many as the tangling string,

Or by the head, or leg, or neck, or wing,

In its aërial voyage twined around,

Flagged in their strength, and fell towards the ground,

Yet not without long strugglings in their flight,

Much to their mischief, and to our delight.

Useless to it was the prophetic croak

Of the black rook in the umbrageous oak;

When one of them alive, as oft occurred,

Fell in our hands, we made the captive bird

Decoy to many a captive; to a plain

Spacious, and sowed perchance with winter grain,

Where flocks of rooks in company resort,

Our prize we took, and instant to the sport.

By the extreme points of its wings, to ground,

But without breaking them, the bird we bound;

Then followed what you scarce conceive; it stood

With eyes turned upward, in the attitude

Of one that contemplates the stars; from sight

Meanwhile we drew, when, frantic with affright,

It pierced the air with loud, distressful cries,

And summoned down its brethren from the skies.

Instant a swift swarm which no tongue could name,

Flew to its aid, and round it stalking came.

One, of its fellow's doom more piteous grown

Than cautious or considerate of its own,

Drew close--and on the first exertion made,

With death or sad captivity it paid

For its simplicity; the pinioned rook

So fast clung to it with the grappling-hook

Of its strong claws, that without special leave

It could not part: now you may well conceive

What our amusement was to see the twain,

That to break loose and this fresh aid to gain,

Wrestling engage; the quarrel did not cool

Till finished by our hand, and the poor fool

Was left at mournful leisure to repent

Of the vain help its thoughtless pity lent.

What would'st thou say, if, standing centinel

With upraised leg when midnight shadows fell,

The crane was snared betwixt us? Of no use

Was its sagacious caution to the goose,

Or its perpetual fame for second-sight

Against the snares and stratagems of night.

Nought could its strength or sleight at swimming save

The white swan, dwelling on the pathless wave,

Lest it by fire, like Phaëton, should die,

For whom its shrill voice yet upbraids the sky.

And thou, sad partridge, think'st thou that to flee

Straight from the copse secures thy life to thee?

Thy fall is in the stubble! On no bird,

No beast, had nature for defence conferred

Such cunning, but that by the net or shaft

It fell, subdued by our superior craft.

But were I each particular to tell

Of this delightful life, the vesper bell

Would sound ere it was done: enough to know

That this fond friendship, this divine-faced foe,

So pure from passion, undisturbed by fears,

To different colour changed my rising years.

My ill star shone; the spirit of unrest,

And love, excessive love, my soul possessed;

So deep, so absolute, I no more knew

Myself, but doubted if the change were true.

Then first I felt to mingle with the stir

Of sweet sensations in beholding her,

Fearful desires that on their ardent wings

Raised me to hope impracticable things.

Pain for her absence was not now a pain,

Nor even an anguish brooding in the brain,

But torment keen as death--the ceaseless smart

Of fire close raging in the naked heart.

To this sad pass I gradually was brought

By my ill star, and ne'er could I have thought

Its baneful power reached farther, were it not

Proved but too surely by my present lot,

That, when compared with these, my former woes

Might be considered as a sweet repose.

But here 'tis fit the hated tale that swells

My soul with grief, and thrills the tongue that tells,

Should find a close, nor sadden, though it sears

Albanio's memory, kind Salicio's ears.

Few words will speak the rest;--one hour, but one--

Wrecked my last joy, and left me quite undone.

SALICIO.

If, my dear friend, you spoke with one who ne'er

Had felt the dangerous flame, the restless care,

The bitter-sweets of love which thus you feel,

Wisdom it were the sequel to conceal:

But if I share the sorrows of thy breast,

Why as a stranger hide from me the rest?

Think'st thou that I on my part do not prove

This living death, this agony of love?

If skilled experience should not wholly end

Thy heavy grief, the pity of a friend,

Himself sore wounded by the marksman's dart,

Will fail not to at least assuage the smart.

Since, then, I candidly disclose my share

In such concerns (and even yet I bear

Marks of the arrow), it is quite unkind

To be so shy: whilst thou hast life, thy mind

Should cherish hope; I may, as Love's high priest,

Counsel some cure, or weep with thee at least.

No harm can come from subjecting thine ear

To the kind counsels of a friend sincere.

ALBANIO.

Thou would'st that I should fruitlessly contend

With one who must o'ercome me in the end.

Love wills my silence, nor can I commence

The tale requested without great offence:

Love chains my tongue, and thus--indeed, indeed--

Spare me, I feel that I must not proceed.

SALICIO.

What obstacle forbids thee to reveal

This ill to one who surely hopes to heal

In part the wound?

ALBANIO.

Love, love that doth deny

All comfort,--Love desires that I should die;

Knowing too well that for a little while

The mere relation would my grief beguile,

More swiftly to destroy, the God unjust

Has now deprived my bosom of the gust

Which late it had, to candidly avow,

And thus conclude its sorrows; so that now

It neither does become thy truth to seek

For farther knowledge, nor myself to speak,--

Myself, whom fortune has alone distressed,

And who alone in dying look for rest.

SALICIO.

Who is so barbarous to himself as e'er

To' entrust his person to a murderer's care,

His treasures to the spoiler! Can it be,

That without discomposure thou canst see

Love make in frolic, for a flight of skill,

Thy very tongue the puppet of his will?

ALBANIO.

Salicio, cease this language; curb thy tongue;

I feel the grief, the insult, and the wrong:

Whence these fine words? what schoolman did commit

To thee this pomp of philosophic wit,

A shepherd of the hills? with what light cheer

The careless lip can learn to be severe,

And oh, how easily a heart at ease

Can counsel sickness to throw off disease!

SALICIO.

I counselled nothing that deserved to call

An answer from thee of such scorn and gall:

Merely I asked thee--ask thee to relate

What it is makes thee so disconsolate.

I shared thy joy, and can I fail to be

Touched with thy grief? be free with me, be free.

ALBANIO.

Since I no longer can the point contest,

Be satisfied--I will relate the rest;

One promise given, that when the tale is done,

Thou wilt depart, and leave me quite alone;

Leave me alone, to weep, as eve declines,

My fatal loss amid these oaks and pines.

SALICIO.

Well! though thy wisdom I cannot commend,

I will prove more a fond than faithful friend;

Will quit the place, and leave thee to thy woes:

ALBANIO.