Chapter XXIV: Book VI (4)

[154] Lope Félix de Vega Carpio was born at Madrid on November 25, 1562, and died there on August 27, 1635. A soldier, a poet, a novelist, a dramatist, and a priest, he ranks next to Cervantes in the history of Spanish literature. It is impossible to give any notion of his powers within the compass of a note. According to Pérez de Montalbán, Lope was the author of 1800 plays and 400 _autos_: some 400 plays and some 50 _autos_ survive, apart from innumerable miscellaneous works. Lope's _Obras completas_ are now being issued by the Royal Spanish Academy under the editorship of Sr. D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, and each succeeding volume--thirteen quarto volumes have already been issued to subscribers--goes to justify his immense reputation. A short summary of his dramatic achievement is given in my lecture on _Lope de Vega and the Spanish Drama_ (Glasgow and London, 1902); for fuller details of this amazing genius and his work see Professor Hugo Albert Rennert's admirable biography (Glasgow, 1903).

[155] Francisco Pacheco, uncle of the author of the _Arte de la pintura_, was born in 1535 and died in 1599. Some specimens of his skill in writing occasional Latin verses are extant in Seville Cathedral--of which he was a canon. A Latin composition from the same pen will be found in Herrera's edition of Garcilaso, for which see note 39.

[156] Fernando de Herrera, the chief of the Seville school of poets, was born in 1534 and died in 1597. Herrera, who was a cleric but not a priest, dedicated many of his poems (1582) to the Condesa de Gelves, and there is interminable discussion as to whether these verses are to be taken in a Platonic sense, or not. Besides being a distinguished lyrical poet, Herrera proved himself an excellent critic in the _Anotaciones_ in his edition of Garcilaso de la Vega (1580). This commentary was the occasion of a clever, scurrilous attack, circulated under the pseudonym of Prete Jacopín, by Juan Fernández de Velasco, Conde de Haro, who resented the audacity of an Andaluz in presuming to edit a Castilian poet. Haro evidently thought that invective was an ornament of debate, for in _Observación XI._ he calls his opponent _ydiotíssimo_, and in _Observación XXVII._ he calls Herrera an ass: "sois Asno y no León."

Cervantes was a great admirer of Herrera whose death he commemorated in a sonnet. Moreover, he wove into the short dedication of the First Part of _Don Quixote_ (to the Duque de Béjar) phrases borrowed from the dedication in Herrera's edition of Garcilaso: see vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), pp. 3-4.

[157] That _el culto Cangas_ had a high reputation appears from the allusion in the _Restauración de España_ (lib. x. est. 108) of Cristóbal de Mesa who also dedicated a sonnet to him in the _Rimas_ (Madrid, 1611), f. 230.

[158] Two sonnets by Cristóbal de Villaroel are given in Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres de España_ (1605). This extremely rare work, together with the supplementary _Flores_ (1611) gathered by Juan Antonio Calderón, has been edited with great skill by Sr. D. Francisco Rodríguez Marín who, fortunately for students, undertook to finish the work begun by Sr. D. Juan Quirós de los Ríos. Two additional sonnets by Villaroel precede Enrique Garcés's rendering of Petrarch: see note 68.

[159] Francisco de Medina was born at Seville about 1550 and died there in 1615. This pleasing poet was of great assistance to Herrera in the work of editing Garcilaso. Herrera's edition, which includes examples of Medina's verse, also contains a preface by Medina which was utilized by Cervantes in the dedication of the _First Part of Don Quixote_: see note 39 and vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), pp. 3-4.

[160] Baltasar del Alcázar was born in 1540 and died in 1606. His graceful, witty poems were reissued in 1878 by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Andaluces. Alcázar's Sonnet on a Sonnet (see note 21) lacks a line in the version printed by Gallardo, _op. cit._, vol. i., col. 75.

[161] Cristóbal Mosquera de Figueroa was born in 1553 and died in 1610. He is best known as the author of a _Comentario en breve compendio de disciplina militar_ (Madrid, 1596) for which Cervantes wrote a sonnet on the famous Marqués de Santa Cruz. Specimens of Mosquera de Figueroa's verse are to be found in Herrera's edition of Garcilaso.

[162] The Sevillian priest, Domingo de Becerra, as appears from Fernández de Navarrete's _Vida de Cervantes Saavedra_ (Madrid, 1819, pp. 386-387), was a prisoner in Algiers with Cervantes, and was ransomed at the same time as the latter. Becerra was then (1580) forty-five years of age. He translated Giovanni Della Casa's _Il Galateo_, and published his version at Venice in 1585.

[163] Vicente Espinel was born in 1550 and is conjectured to have died between 1624 and 1634. He is said to have added a fifth string to the guitar, and to have introduced _espinelas_: "perdónesele Dios," is Lope's comment in the _Dorotea_ (act. i. sc. vii.). Espinel's _Diversas rimas_ (1591) are now only known to students; but his picaresque novel, _Marcos de Obregón_ (Madrid, 1618), still finds, and deserves to find, many readers. In the 1775 edition of the _Siècle de Louis XIV._ Voltaire alleged that _Gil Blas_ was "entièrement pris du roman espagnol _La Vidad de lo Escudiero Dom Marcos d'Obrego_." It will be observed that, in transcribing the title, Voltaire makes almost as many mistakes as the number of words allows. His statement is a grotesque exaggeration, but it had the merit of suggesting a successful practical joke to José Francisco de Isla. This sly wag translated _Gil Blas_ into Spanish, mischievously pretending that the book was thus "restored to its country and native language by a jealous Spaniard who will not allow his nation to be made fun of." Unluckily, the naughty Jesuit did not live to see the squabbles of the learned critics who fell into the trap that he had baited for them. It is, by the way, a curious and disputed point whether the Comte de Neufchâteau's celebrated _Examen de la question de savoir si Lesage est l'auteur de Gil Blas ou s'il l'a pris de l'espagnol_ (1818) was, or was not, taken word for word from a juvenile essay by Victor Hugo: see _Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa vie_ (Bruxelles and Leipzig, 1863), vol. i., p. 396. In the _Adjunta al Parnaso_ Cervantes calls Espinel "uno de los más antiguos y verdaderos amigos que yo tengo." In his _Rimas_ Espinel had been most complimentary to Cervantes. But Pellicer and Fernández de Navarrete have spoken harshly of him for being (as they imagined) jealous of the success of _Don Quixote_; and Mr. Henry Edward Watts (_op. cit._, p. 157, _n._ 1) asserts that Espinel "took occasion after Cervantes' death to speak of his own _Marcos de Obregón_ ... as superior to _Don Quixote_." This is not so. There may be authors who suppose that their immortal masterpieces are superior to the ephemeral writings of everybody else: but they seldom say this--at least, in print. Nor did Espinel. It must suffice, for the moment, to note that the above-mentioned fable is mainly based on the fact that the Gongoresque poet and preacher, Hortensio Félix Paravicino y Arteaga, wrote as follows in his _Aprobación to Marcos de Obregón_: "El Libro del Escudero, que escriuio el Maestro Espinel, y V. M. me manda censurar, he visto, y no hallo en el cosa que se oponga à nuestra santa Fè Catolica Romana, ni ofenda à la piedad de las buenas costumbres della, antes de los libros deste género, que parece de entretenimiento comun, es el que con más razón deue ser impreso, por tener el prouecho tan cerca del deleyte, que sin perjudicar enseña, y sin diuertir entretiene: el estilo, la inuencion, el gusto de las cosas, y la moralidad, que deduze dellas, arguyen bien la pluma que la ha escrito, tan justamente celebrada en todas naciones. A mi alomenos de los libros deste argumento me parece la mejor cosa que nuestra lengua tendrà, y que V.m. deue darle vna aprouacion muy honrada. Guarde nuestro Señor à V. M."

It is Paravicino, not Espinel, who speaks: and the eulogistic phrases which he uses do not exceed the limits of the recognized convention on such occasions.

[164] Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza was introduced to England by Ben Jonson as an authority on honour and arms. Bobadil, in _Every Man in his humour_ (Act 1, sc. 4) says:--"By the foot of Pharaoh, an' 'twere my case now I should send him a chartel presently. The bastinado, a most proper and sufficient dependence, warranted by the great Carranza." Carranza wrote the _Philosophia y destreza de las armas_ (Sanlúcar de Barrameda, 1582); a later treatise, the _Libro de las grandezas de la espada_ (Madrid, 1600) was issued by the counter-expert of the next generation, Luis Pacheco de Narváez. I need scarcely remind most readers that Pacheco de Narváez, the famous fencing-master, was ignominiously disarmed by Quevedo--an incomparable hand with the foil, despite his lameness and short sight. Pacheco naturally smarted under the disgrace, and seems to have shown his resentment in an unpleasant fashion whenever he had an opportunity. The respective merits of Carranza and Pacheco divided Madrid into two camps. Literary men were prominent in the fray. Suárez de Figueroa, Vélez de Guevara, and Ruiz de Alarcón declared for Pacheco. Among Carranza's partisans were Luis Mendoza de Carmona and, as might be expected, Quevedo who mentions the _Libro de las grandezas de la espada_ in his _Historia de la vida del Buscón_ (lib. i. cap. viii.).

[165] Two sonnets by Lázaro Luis Iranzo are given in Rivadeneyra, _op. cit._, vol. iv., pp. 180, 364.

[166] Baltasar de Escobar is represented in Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres_: a complimentary letter addressed by Escobar to Cristóbal de Virués is printed in Rivadeneyra, _op. cit._, vol. lxii., p. 37.

[167] A sonnet on the sack of Cádiz by Juan Sanz de Zumeta is given in Juan Antonio Pellicer's edition of _Don Quixote_ (Madrid, 1797-1798), vol. i., p. lxxxvi.

[168] The correct, full form of this writer's name seems to be Juan de la Cueva de Garoza. He is conjectured to have been born in 1550 and to have died in 1609. This interesting dramatist was among the most distinguished of Lope de Vega's immediate predecessors, and in such plays as _El Cerco de Zamora_ he comes near anticipating Lope's methods. In his _Exemplar poético_ (1609) Cueva declares that he was the first to bring kings upon the stage, an innovation that was censured at the time:--

A mi me culpan de que fuí el primero
que Reyes y Deydades di al teatro
de las Comedias traspasando el fuero.

Evidently Cueva did not know that Torres Naharro introduces a king in his _Aquilana_. A reprint of Cueva's plays is urgently needed: his purely poetic work is of slight value. An edition of _El Viage de Sannio_, with an admirable Introduction by Professor Fredrik Amadeus Wulff will be found in the _Acta Universitatis Lundensis_ (Lund, 1887-1888), (Philosophi, Språkvetenskap och Historia), vol. xxiii.

[169] Nothing by Adán Vivaldo has survived, apparently. Cervantes assigns this surname to a minor character in _Don Quixote_ (Part I., chap. xiii.).

[170] It would be interesting to know how far this panegyric on Juan Aguayo was justified. I have failed to find any information concerning him or his works.

[171] The dates of the birth and death of the Cordoban poet, Juan Rufo Gutiérrez, are given conjecturally as 1530 and 1600. Cervantes esteemed Rufo's _Austriada_ inordinately: see note 2. In truth the _Austriada_ is a tedious performance, being merely a poor rhythmical arrangement of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's _Guerra de Granada_. Mendoza's history was not published till 1627, long after the author's death (1575). It was issued at Lisbon by Luis Tribaldos de Toledo who, in the previous year, had brought out a posthumous edition of the poems of Francisco de Figueroa--the Tirsi of the _Galatea_. Evidently, then, Rufo read the _Guerra de Granada_ in manuscript: see M. Foulché-Delbosc's article in the _Revue hispanique_ (Paris, 1894), vol. i., pp. 137-138, _n._

[172] Luis de Góngora y Argote was born in 1561 and died in 1627. His father, Francisco de Argote, was Corregidor of Córdoba, and it has been generally stated that the poet assumed his mother's maiden name. However, the Sra. Doña Blanca de los Ríos y de Lampérez alleges that Góngora's real name was Luis de Argote y Argote: see an article entitled _De vuelta de Salamanca in La España moderna_ (Madrid, June 1897). I do not know precisely upon what ground this statement is made. Despite the perverse affectations into which his _culteranismo_ led him, Góngora is one of the most eminent Spanish poets, and unquestionably among the greatest artists in Spanish literature. A passage in the _Viaje del Parnaso_ (cap. vii.) seems to imply that Cervantes admired Góngora's very obscure work, the _Polifemo_:--

De llano no le déis, dadle de corte,
Estancias Polifemas, al poeta
Que no os tuviere por su guía y norte.
Inimitables sois, y á la discreta
Gala que descubrís en lo escondido
Toda elegancia puede estar sujeta.

M. Foulché-Delbosc has in preparation a complete edition of Góngora's works.

[173] Barrera conjectures that this Gonzalo Cervantes Saavedra may be the author of a novel entitled _Los Pastores del Betis_, published at Trani in 1633-4. I do not know this work, which may have been issued posthumously. It seems unlikely that Gonzalo Cervantes Saavedra began novel-writing when over seventy years old: for we may take it that he was over twenty when his namesake praised him, as above, in 1585.

[174] Gonzalo Gómez de Luque wrote the _Libro primero de los famosos hechos del príncipe Don Celidon de Iberia_ (Alcalá de Henares, 1583); but the only works of his with which I am acquainted are the verses in Padilla's _Jardín espiritual_ and López Maldonado's _Cancionero_: see notes 27 and 23.

[175] Two sonnets by Gonzalo Mateo de Berrío are included in Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres_. Espinel refers to him in the preface to _Marcos de Obregón_: Lope mentions him in the _Laurel de Apolo_ (silva ii.) and in the _Dorotea_ (Act iv., sc. ii.) Berrío signed the _Aprobación_ to Cairasco de Figueroa's _Templo militante_: see note 73.

[176] Luis Barahona de Soto was born in 1548 at Lucena (Lucena de Córdoba and not Lucena del Puerto, as Barrera supposed). After some wanderings he settled at Archidona where he practised medicine. He is said to have died _ab intestato_ on November 6, 1595. A complimentary sonnet by him appears in Cristóbal de Mesa's _Restauración de España_ (Madrid, 1607): it would seem, therefore, that Mesa's _Restauración_ must have been in preparation for at least a dozen years. Some verses by Barahona de Soto are given in Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres_: four of his satires, and his _Fábula de Acteón_ are printed in Juan José López de Sedano's _Parnaso Español_ (Madrid, 1768-1778), vol. ix., pp. 53-123. Barahona de Soto's best known work is _La primera parte de la Angélica_ (Granada, 1586) which, in the colophon, has the alternative title of _Las lágrimas de Angélica_. There is a famous allusion to this work in _Don Quixote_ (Part I., chap. vi.):--"I should have shed tears myself," said the curate when he heard the title, "had I ordered that book to be burned, for its author was one of the famous poets of the world, not to say of Spain, and was very happy in the translation of some of Ovid's fables." As Mr. Ormsby observed:--"The anti-climax here almost equals Waller's:--

'Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke'."

See vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), p. 53, _n._ 3. It has often been questioned whether Barahona de Soto ever wrote a Second Part of the _Angélica_. Since the publication of the _Diálogos de la Montería_ (Madrid, 1890) by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles, under the editorship of Sr. D. Francisco R. de Uhagón, it seems practically certain that he at all events began the Second Part, if he did not finish it. The _Diálogos de la Montéria_ contain numerous passages quoted from the Second Part; and in a biographical, bibliographical and critical study, which Sr. D. Francisco Rodríguez Marín is now correcting for the press, it will be shown that Barahona de Soto was, in all probability, himself the author of these _Diálogos_.

[177] A sonnet by Francisco de Terrazas figures in Pedro Espinosa's _Floresta de poetas ilustres de España_: three more sonnets by Terrazas will be found in Gallardo, vol. i., _op. cit._, cols. 1003-1007.

[178] Barrera does not help us to discover anything of Martínez de Ribera, who may have published in the Indies.

[179] Barrera vaguely infers from the text that Alonso Picado was a native of Peru.

[180] Alonso de Estrada is conjectured by Barrera to have been born in the Indies.

[181] Nothing seems to be known of Avalos y de Ribera.

[182] I have never met with any of Sancho de Ribera's writings: a sonnet to him is found among Garcés's translations from Petrarch: see note 68.

[183] A sonnet by Pedro de Montesdoca, _El Indiano_, is prefixed to Vicente Espinel's _Diversas rimas_ (1591).

[184] A sonnet by Diego de Aguilar precedes Garcés's translation of Camões's _Lusiadas_: see note 68. I presume him to be the author of another prefatory sonnet in López Maldonado's _Cancionero_.

[185] No information is forthcoming as to Gonzalo Fernández de Sotomayor or his works.

[186] Henrique Garcés published _Los sonetos y canciones del Poeta Francisco Petrarcha_ (Madrid, 1591), and _Los Lusiadas de Luys de Camoes_ (Madrid, 1591).

[187] The _vena inmortal_ of Rodrigo Fernández de Pineda does not seem to have expressed itself in print.

[188] The name of Juan de Mestanza recurs in the _Viaje del Parnaso_ (cap. vii.).

[189] An American, so Barrera thinks: there is no trace of his writings.

[190] Another American, according to Barrera; there is no trace of his writings either.

[191] Bartolomé Cairasco de Figueroa was born at the Canaries in 1540, became Prior of the Cathedral there, and died in 1610. His _Templo militante, flos santorum, y triumphos de sus virtudes_ was issued in four parts: (Valladolid, 1602), (Valladolid, 1603), (Madrid, 1609), and (Lisbon, 1614). Selections are given in Juan José López de Sedano's _Parnaso español_ (Madrid, 1768-1778), vol. v., pp. 332-363, and vol. vi., pp. 191-216. Cairasco de Figueroa wrote a prefatory poem to Carranza's _Libro de las grandezas de la espada_: see note 47. According to the Spanish annotators of Ticknor's _History_, Cairasco left behind him a version (unpublished) of Ariosto's _Gerusalemme_.

[192] Barrera states that a sonnet by Damián de Vega is prefixed to Juan Bautista de Loyola's _Viaje y naufragios del Macedonio_ (Salamanca, 1587). I do not know this work.

[193] The celebrated scholar, Francisco Sánchez, usually called _El Brocense_ from his native place, was born at Las Brozas (Extremadura) in 1523, became professor of Greek and Rhetoric at Salamanca, and died in 1601. He edited Garcilaso (Salamanca, 1581), Juan de Mena (Salamanca, 1582), Horace (Salamanca, 1591), Virgil (Salamanca, 1591), Politian's _Silvae_ (Salamanca, 1596), Ovid (Salamanca, 1598), Persius (Salamanca, 1599). To these should be added the _Paradoxa_ (Antwerp, 1582), and a posthumous commentary on Epictetus (Pamplona, 1612). _A Practical Grammar of the Latin Tongue_, based on Sánchez, was published in London as recently as 1729. _El Brocense_ was prosecuted by the Inquisition in 1584, and again in 1588. The latter suit was still dragging on when Sánchez died. See the _Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España_ (Madrid, 1842, etc.), vol. ii., pp. 5-170.

[194] The lawyer Francisco de la Cueva y Silva was born at Medina del Campo about 1550. His verses appear in Pedro Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres de España_; he wrote a prefatory poem for Escobar Cabeza de Vaca's _Luzero de la tierra sancta_, and is said to be the author of a play entitled _El bello Adonis_. Lope de Vega's _Mal Casada_ is dedicated to Cueva whose high professional reputation may be inferred from the closing lines of a well-known sonnet by Quevedo:--

Todas las leyes, con discurso fuerte
Venció; y ansí parece cosa nueva,
Que le vinciese, siendo ley, la muerte.

Cueva is mentioned, together with Berrío (see note 58), in the _Dorotea_ (Act. iv. sc. ii.): "Don Francisco de la Cueva, y Berrío, jurisconsultos gravísimos, de quien pudiéramos decir lo que de Dino y Alciato, interpretes consultísimos de las leyes y poetas dulcísimos, escribieron comedias que se representaron con general aplauso."

[195] The famous mystic writer and poet Luis Ponce de León was born at Belmonte (Cuenca) in 1527, joined the Augustinian Order in 1544, and was appointed professor of theology at Salamanca in 1561. He became involved in an academic squabble and was absurdly suspected of conspiring with the professors of Hebrew, Martín Martínez de Cantalapiedra and Juan Grajal, to interpret the Scriptures in a rabbinical sense. A plot seems to have been organized against him by Bartolomé de Medina, and, perhaps, by León de Castro, the professor of Greek at Salamanca. Luis de León was likewise accused of having translated the _Song of Songs_ in the vernacular, and it has hitherto been thought that this charge told most heavily against him in the eyes of the Holy Office. It now appears that the really damaging accusation in the indictment referred to the supposed heterodoxy of Fray Luis's views as to the authority of the Vulgate: see a learned series of chapters entitled _Fray Luis de León; estudio biográfico y crítico_ published by the Rev. Father Francisco Blanco García (himself an Augustinian monk) in _La Ciudad de Dios_ (from January 20, 1897 onwards, at somewhat irregular intervals). Luis de León was arrested in March 1572 and imprisoned till December 1576, when he was discharged as innocent. In 1579 he was appointed to the chair of Biblical History at Salamanca, his chief competitor being Fray Domingo de Guzmán, son of the great poet Garcilaso de la Vega. In 1582 Fray Luis was once more prosecuted before the Inquisition because of his supposed heterodoxy concerning the question _de auxiliis_: see the _Segundo proceso instruído por la Inquisición de Valladolid contra Fray Luis de León_ (Madrid, 1896), annotated by the Rev. Father Francisco Blanco García. In 1591 Fray Luis was elected Provincial of the Augustinian Order: he died ten days later. While in jail he wrote what is, perhaps, the noblest mystic work in the Spanish language, _Los Nombres de Cristo_, the first two books of which were published in 1583--the complete work (including a third book) being issued in 1585. In 1583 also appeared his _Perfecta casada_. Fray Luis, in a fortunate hour for mankind, edited the writings of Santa Teresa, rescuing from the rash tamperings of blunderers works which he instantly recognized as masterpieces. His verses were published by Quevedo in 1631: they at once gave Fray Luis rank as one of the great Spanish poets, though he himself seems to have looked upon them as mere trifles.

[196] Matías de Zúñiga, whose genius Cervantes here declares to have been divine, does not appear to have published anything.

[197] Certain poems ascribed to Damasio de Frías are given by Juan José López de Sedano in _El Parnaso Español_ (Madrid, 1768-1778), vols. ii. and vii.

[198] Barrera merely states that Andrés Sanz del Portillo resided in Castilla la Vieja: his writings have not reached us.

[199] Possibly this writer may be identical with the Pedro de Soria who contributed a sonnet to Jerónimo de Lomas Cantoral's _Obras_: see note 83.

[200] The _Obras_ of Jerónimo de Lomas Cantoral appeared at Madrid in 1578. They include translations of three _canzoni_ by Luigi Tansillo.

[201] Jerónimo Vaca y de Quiñones contributed a sonnet to Pedro de Escobar Cabeza de Vaca's _Luzero de la tierra sancta, y grandezas de Egypto, y monte Sinay_ (Valladolid, 1587): see note 77.

[202] Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola was born in 1559, and died in 1613 at Naples, whither he had accompanied the Conde de Lemos three years earlier. His admirable poems, and those of his brother, were issued posthumously in 1634: see note 86. His _Isabela_, _Fílis_ and _Alejandra_ are praised in _Don Quixote_ as "three tragedies acted in Spain, written by a famous poet of these kingdoms, which were such that they filled all who heard them with admiration, delight, and interest, the ignorant as well as the wise, the masses as well as the higher orders, and brought in more money to the performers, these three alone, than thirty of the best that have since been produced": see vol. iv. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), p. 214. The _Fílis_ seems to be lost. The _Isabela_ and _Alejandra_, neither of them very interesting, were first published in 1772 by Juan José López de Sedano in _El Parnaso Español_ (Madrid, 1768-1778), vol. vi., pp. 312-524. There may be a touch of friendly exaggeration in Cervantes's account of their success on the boards. At all events, the author of these pieces soon abandoned the stage, and, when the theatres were closed on the death of the Queen of Piedmont, he was prominent among those who petitioned that the closure might be made permanent. A Royal decree in that sense was issued on May 2, 1598. In the following year Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola was appointed chief chronicler of Aragón. The _Isabela_ and _Alejandra_ are reprinted in the first volume of the Conde de la Viñaza's edition of the Argensolas' _Poesías sueltas_ (Madrid, 1889).

[203] Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola was born in 1562 and died in 1631. He took orders, became Rector of Villahermosa, and succeeded his brother as official chronicler of Aragón. He published the _Conquista de las Islas Malacas_ (Madrid, 1609), and the _Anales de Aragón_ (Zaragoza, 1631)--the latter being a continuation of Jerónimo de Zurita's _Anales de la Corona de Aragón_ (1562-1580). The poems of both brothers were issued by Lupercio's son, Gabriel Leonardo de Albión, in a volume entitled _Las Rimas que se han podido recoger_ _de Lupercio, y del Doctor Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola_ (Zaragoza, 1634). Lope de Vega had a great esteem for the Argensolas whose polished diction, rare in men of Aragonese birth, he regarded as an antidote to the extravagances--the _frases horribles_, as he says--of _culteranismo_. The very considerable merits of the Argensolas were likewise appreciated by Cervantes who, however, seems to have cooled somewhat towards the brothers when the Conde de Lemos, on his appointment as Viceroy of Naples, attached them to his household. It is said that Cervantes himself hoped to form part of Lemos's suite, and that he was annoyed with the Argensolas for not pushing his claims as vigorously as he expected of them. At this distance of time, it is impossible for us to know what really happened; but a passage in the _Viaje del Parnaso_ (cap. iii.) does appear to imply that Cervantes had a grievance of some kind against the Argensolas:--

Que no sé quien me dice, y quien me exhorta,
Que tienen para mi, á lo que imagino,
La voluntad, como la vista corta.

[204] The writings of Cosme Pariente are unknown to Barrera, and to later bibliographers.

[205] Diego Murillo was born at Zaragoza about 1555, joined the Franciscans, and became a popular preacher. He is the author of the _Instruccion para enseñar la virtud á los principiantes_ (Zaragoza, 1598), the _Escala espiritual para la perfección evangélica_ (Zaragoza, 1598), the _Vida y excelencias de la Madre de Dios_ (Zaragoza, 1610), and six volumes of _Discursos predicables_, published at Zaragoza and Lisbon between 1602 and 1611. The most accessible of Murillo's works are the _Fundación milagrosa de la capilla angélica y apostólica de la Madre de Dios del Pilar_ (Barcelona, 1616), and a volume entitled _Divina, dulce y provechosa poesía_ (Zaragoza, 1616). His verse (some specimens of which are given in Böhl de Faber's _Floresta de rimas antiguas castellanas_) is better than his prose, but in neither does he fulfil the expectations raised by Cervantes's compliments.

[206] Juan Coloma, Conde de Elda, is responsible for a _Década de la Pasión de Jesu Christo_ (Cádiz, 1575).

[207] Pedro Luis Garcerán de Borja is also introduced by Gil Polo in the _Canto del Turia_: see note 94. He held the appointment of Captain-General of Oran, where Cervantes may have met him: at the time of his death in 1592 he was Captain-General of Catalonia.

[208] Alonso Girón y de Rebolledo is likewise introduced by Gil Polo in the _Canto del Turia_: see note 94. His _Pasión de nuestro Señor Jesu Christo según Sanct Joan_ (Valencia, 1563) met with considerable success. It contains a complimentary sonnet by Gil Polo: in the following year Girón y de Rebolledo repaid the attention by contributing a sonnet to Gil Polo's _Diana enamorada_.

[209] Jaime Juan de Falcon, like Garcerán de Borja and Girón y de Rebolledo, figures in Gil Polo's _Canto del Turia_: see note 94. He was born in 1522 and died in 1594, having (as he believed) squared the circle. Amongst other works he published the _Quadratura circuli_ (Valencia, 1587): his _Obras poéticas latinas_ (Madrid, 1600) appeared posthumously.

[210] Andrés Rey de Artieda was born in 1549 and died in 1613. His youth was one of rare promise. Though not yet fourteen years old when Gil Polo wrote the _Diana enamorada_, he is introduced to us as a poet in the _Canto del Turia_:--

y prometernos han sus tiernas flores
frutos entre los buenos los mejores.

This phrase may have been in Cervantes's mind when writing of his own play, _La Confusa_: "la cual, con paz sea dicho de cuantas comedias de capa y espada hasta hoy se han representado, bien puede tener lugar señalado par buena entre las mejores" (see the _Adjunta al Parnaso_).

Artieda graduated in arts at the University of Valencia in 1563, and studied later at Lérida and Tolosa, taking his degree as doctor of both civil and canonical law at the age of twenty. This brilliant academic success was received _con aplauso y pronósticos extraños_, and a great future seemed to await him. However, he was something of a rolling stone. He practised for a short while at the bar, but abandoned the profession in disgust and entered the army. Here, again, he seemed likely to carry all before him. In his first campaign he was promoted at a bound to the rank of captain, but his luck was now run out. Like Cervantes, he received three wounds at Lepanto. He was present at the relief of Cyprus, and served under Parma in the Low Countries. His intrepidity was proverbial, and he is said to have swum across the Ems in midwinter, his sword gripped between his teeth, under the enemy's fire. These heroic feats do not appear to have brought him advancement, and, in the _Viaje del Parnaso_ (cap. iii.), Cervantes, who would seem to have known him personally, speaks of Artieda grown old as--

Más rico de valor que de moneda.

Artieda is said to have written plays entitled _El Príncipe vicioso_, _Amadís de Gaula_, and _Los Encantos de Merlín_: he is the author of a mediocre tragedy, _Los Amantes_ (Valencia, 1581) which may have been read by Tirso de Molina before he wrote _Los Amantes de Teruel_. Artieda published an anthology of his verses under the pseudonym of Artemidoro: _Discursos, epístolas y epigramas de Artemidoro_ (Zaragoza, 1605). Some passages in this collection express the writer's hostility to the new drama, and betray a certain pique at the success of his former friend, Lope de Vega. Lope, however, praises Artieda very generously in the _Laurel de Apolo_ (silva ii.).

[211] Gaspar Gil Polo published the _Diana enamorada_ at Valencia in 1564. The Priest in _Don Quixote_ decided that it should "be preserved as if it came from Apollo himself": see vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), p. 51. It is unquestionably a work of unusual merit in its kind, but some deduction must be made from Cervantes's hyperbolical praise: he evidently succumbed to the temptation of playing on the words Polo and Apollo.

Gaspar Gil Polo is said by Ticknor to have been professor of Greek at Valencia. There was a Gil Polo who held the Greek chair in the University of that city between 1566 and 1574: but his name was not Gaspar. Nicolás Antonio and others maintain that the author of the _Diana enamorada_ was the celebrated lawyer, Gaspar Gil Polo, who appeared to plead before the Cortes in 1626. This Gaspar Gil Polo was a mere boy when the _Diana enamorada_ was issued sixty-two years earlier. He was probably the son of the author: see Justo Pastor Fuster, _Biblioteca Valenciana de las escritores que florecieron hasta nuestros días_ (Valencia, 1827-1830), vol. i., pp. 150-155, and--more especially--Professor Hugo Albert Rennert, _The Spanish Pastoral Romances_ (Baltimore, 1892), p. 31.

As already stated in note 91, Gil Polo contributed a sonnet to Girón y de Rebolledo's _Pasión_, which appeared a year before the _Diana enamorada_. Another of his sonnets is found in Sempere's _Carolea_ (1560). In the _Serao de Amor_, Timoneda speaks of him as a celebrated poet; but, as we see from the _Canto de Calíope_ itself, these flourishes and compliments often mean next to nothing. It is somewhat strange that Gil Polo, who is said to have died at Barcelona in 1591, did not issue a sequel to his _Diana enamorada_ during the twenty-seven years of life which remained to him after the publication of the First Part in 1564. At the end of the _Diana enamorada_ he promised a Second Part as clearly as Cervantes, after him, promised a Second Part of the _Galatea_: "Las quales (fiestas) ... y otras cosas de gusto y de provecho están tratadas en la otra parte deste libro, que antes de muchos días, placiendo á Dios, será impresa." Gil Polo is believed to have been absorbed by his official duties as Maestre Racional of the Royal Court in the Kingdom of Valencia. His _Canto del Turia_, inserted in the third book of the _Diana enamorada_, is one of the models--perhaps the chief model--of the present _Canto de Calíope_. Cervantes follows Gil Polo very closely.

[212] The dramatist, Cristóbal de Virués, was born in 1550 and died in 1610. Like Cervantes and Artieda, he fought at Lepanto. His _Obras trágicas y líricas_ (Madrid, 1609) are more interesting than his somewhat repulsive _Historia del Monserrate_ (Madrid, 1587-1588) which Cervantes praises beyond measure: see note 2.

[213] I have failed to find any example of Silvestre de Espinosa's work.

[214] García Romeo (the name is sometimes given as García Romero) appears to have escaped all the bibliographers.

[215] _Romero_ in Spanish means _rosemary_. A. B. W.

[216] The Jeromite monk, Pedro de Huete, contributed a sonnet to the _Versos espirituales_ (Cuenca, 1597) of the Dominican friar, Pedro de Encinas.

[217] Pedro de Láinez joined with Cervantes in writing eulogistic verses for Padilla's _Jardín espiritual_: see note 27. Examples of his skill are given in Pedro Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres de España_ (1605). Fernández de Navarrete, in his biography of Cervantes, states (p. 116) that Láinez died in 1605: he is warmly praised by Lope de Vega in the _Laurel de Apolo_ (silva iv.).

His widow, Juana Gaitán, lived at Valladolid in the same house as Cervantes and his family: she is mentioned, not greatly to her credit, in the depositions of some of the witnesses examined with reference to the death of Gaspar de Ezpeleta; but too much importance may easily be given to this tittle-tattle. Luisa de Montoya, a very respectable widow, corroborated the evidence of other witnesses who assert that the neighbours gossiped concerning the visits paid to Láinez's widow by the Duque de Pastrana and the Conde de Concentaina--"que venian a tratar de un libro que había compuesto un fulano Laynez, su primer marido."

The contemptuous phrase--_un fulano Laynez_--would imply that Luisa de Montoya was not a person of literary tastes: she was, however, widow of the chronicler, Esteban de Garibay Zamalloa, author of the _Ilustraciones genealogicas de los catholicos reyes de las Españas, y de los christianissimos de Francia, y de los Emperadores de Constantinopla, hasta el Catholico Rey nuestro Señor Don Philipe el II y sus serenissimos hijos_ (Madrid, 1596). The words--_su primer marido_--which are likewise used by another witness (Cervantes's niece, Costanza de Ovando), might be taken, if construed literally, to mean that Láinez's widow had married again shortly after her husband's death: for the evidence was taken on June 29, 1605. But, apparently, the inference would be wrong. When examined in jail, to which she was committed with Cervantes and others, Juana Gaitán described herself as over thirty-five years of age, and as the widow of the late Pedro Láinez. She accounted for Pastrana's visits, which had given rise to scandal, by saying that she intended to dedicate to him two books by her late husband, and that Pastrana had merely called to thank her in due form. A reference to Pastrana in the _Viaje del Parnaso_ (cap. viii.) seems to suggest that Pastrana was a munificent patron:--

Desde allí, y no sé cómo, fuí traído
Adonde ví al gran Duque de Pastrana
Mil parabienes dar de bien venido;
Y que la fama en la verdad ufana
Contaba que agradó con su presencia,
Y con su cortesía sobrehumana:

Que fué nuevo Alejandro en la excelencia
Del dar, que satisfizo á todo cuanto
Puede mostrar real magnificencia.

It is a little unlucky that these works by Láinez, concerning the publication of which the author's zealous widow consulted Pastrana, should not after all have found their way into print. For details of the evidence in the Ezpeleta case, see Dr. Pérez Pastor's _Documentos Cervantinos hasta ahora inéditos_ (Madrid, 1902), vol. ii., pp. 455-527.

[218] Francisco de Figueroa, _el Divino_, was born at Alcalá de Henares in 1536 and is conjectured to have died as late as 1620. Very little is known of this distinguished poet. He is said to have served as a soldier in Italy where his verses won him so high a reputation that he was compared to Petrarch. He married Doña María de Vargas on February 14, 1575, at Alcalá de Henares, and travelled with the Duque de Terranova through the Low Countries in 1597. After this date he disappears. He is stated to have died at Lisbon, and to have directed that all his poems should be burned. Such of them as were saved were published at Lisbon in 1626 by Luis Tribaldos de Toledo. As noted in the _Introduction_ (p. xxxi. _n._ 2) to the present version, Figueroa is the Tirsi of the _Galatea_. There is a strong family likeness between the poems of Figueroa and those of the Bachiller Francisco de la Torre, whose verses were issued by Quevedo in 1631. So marked is this resemblance that, as M. Ernest Mérimée has written:--"Un critique, que le paradoxe n'effraierait point, pourrait, sans trop de peine, soutenir l'identité de Francisco de la Torre et de Francisco de Figueroa." See his admirable _Essai sur la vie et les œuvres de Francisco de Quevedo_ (Paris, 1886), p. 324.

[219] _Brasa_, f., means red-hot coal. The word for 'charcoal' is _carbón_, m.

[220] The Spanish for 'letter' is _carta_, f.; for a 'pack of cards' _pliego de cartas_, m.

[221] i.e. a riddle. The Spanish is _¿qué es cosa y cosa?_ a phrase equivalent to our 'What may this pretty thing be?'

END OF GALATEA.

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GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.