Chapter XIII: Part 13

Early one morning, before sunrise, I found myself at the house of Antonio; it was a small mean building, situated in a dirty street. The morning was quite dark; the street, however, was partially illumined by a heap of lighted straw, round which two or three men were busily engaged, apparently holding an object over the flames. Presently the gipsy's door opened, and Antonio made his appearance; and casting his eye in the direction of the light, exclaimed, "The swine have killed their brother; would that every Busnó was served as yonder hog is. Come in, brother, and we will eat the heart of that hog." I scarcely understood his words, but following him, he led me into a low room, in which was a _brasero_, or small pan full of lighted charcoal; beside it was a rude table, spread with a coarse linen cloth, upon which was bread and a large pipkin full of a mess which emitted no disagreeable savor. "The heart of the _balichó_ is in that _puchera_," said Antonio; "eat, brother." We both sat down and ate--Antonio voraciously. When we had concluded he arose. "Have you got your _li_?" he demanded. "Here it is," said I, showing him my passport. "Good," said he; "you may want it, I want none: my passport is the _bar lachí_. Now for a glass of _repañi_, and then for the road."

We left the room, the door of which he locked, hiding the key beneath a loose brick in a corner of the passage. "Go into the street, brother, whilst I fetch the _caballerias_ from the stable." I obeyed him. The sun had not yet risen, and the air was piercingly cold; the gray light, however, of dawn enabled me to distinguish objects with tolerable accuracy; I soon heard the clattering of the animal's feet, and Antonio presently stepped forth, leading the horse by the bridle; the _macho_ followed behind. I looked at the horse, and shrugged my shoulders. As far as I could scan it, it appeared the most uncouth animal I had ever beheld. It was of a spectral white, short in the body, but with remarkably long legs. I observed that it was particularly high in the _cruz_, or withers. "You are looking at the _grasti_," said Antonio: "it is eighteen years old, but it is the very best in the Chim del Manró; I have long had my eye upon it; I bought it for my own use for the affairs of Egypt. Mount, brother, mount, and let us leave the _foros_--the gate is about being opened."

He locked the door, and deposited the key in his _faja_. In less than a quarter of an hour we had left the town behind us. "This does not appear to be a very good horse," said I to Antonio, as we proceeded over the plain: "it is with difficulty that I can make him move."

"He is the swiftest horse in the Chim del Manró, brother," said Antonio; "at the gallop and at the speedy trot, there is no one to match him. But he is eighteen years old, and his joints are stiff, especially of a morning; but let him once become heated, and the _genio del viejo_ comes upon him, and there is no holding him in with bit or bridle. I bought that horse for the affairs of Egypt, brother."

About noon we arrived at a small village in the neighborhood of a high lumpy hill. "There is no Caló house in this place," said Antonio: "we will therefore go to the _posada_ of the Busné and refresh ourselves, man and beast." We entered the kitchen and sat down at the board, calling for wine and bread. There were two ill-looking fellows in the kitchen smoking cigars. I said something to Antonio in the Caló language.

"What is that I hear?" said one of the fellows, who was distinguished by an immense pair of mustaches. "What is that I hear? Is it in Caló that you are speaking before me, and I a _chalan_ and national? Accursed gipsy, how dare you enter this _posada_ and speak before me in that speech? Is it not forbidden by the law of the land in which we are, even as it is forbidden for a gipsy to enter the _mercado_? I tell you what, friend, if I hear another word of Caló come from your mouth, I will cudgel your bones and send you flying over the house-tops with a kick of my foot."

"You would do right," said his companion; "the insolence of these gipsies is no longer to be borne. When I am at Merida or Badajoz I go to the _mercado_, and there in a corner stand the accursed gipsies, jabbering to each other in a speech which I understand not. 'Gipsy gentleman,' say I to one of them, 'what will you have for that donkey?' 'I will have ten dollars for it, _Caballero national_,' says the gipsy: 'it is the best donkey in all Spain.' 'I should like to see its paces,' say I. 'That you shall, most valorous!' says the gipsy, and jumping upon its back, he puts it to its paces, first of all whispering something into its ear in Caló; and truly the paces of the donkey are most wonderful, such as I have never seen before. I think it will just suit me; and after looking at it awhile, I take out the money and pay for it. 'I shall go to my house,' says the gipsy; and off he runs. 'I shall go to my village,' say I, and I mount the donkey, 'Vamonos,' say I, but the donkey won't move. I give him a switch, but I don't get on the better for that. What happens then, brother? The wizard no sooner feels the prick than he bucks down, and flings me over his head into the mire. I get up and look about me; there stands the donkey staring at me, and there stand the whole gipsy _canaille_ squinting at me with their filmy eyes. 'Where is the scamp who has sold me this piece of furniture?' I shout. 'He is gone to Granada, valorous,' says one. 'He is gone to see his kindred among the Moors,' says another. 'I just saw him running over the field, in the direction of ----, with the devil close behind him,' says a third. In a word, I am tricked. I wish to dispose of the donkey: no one, however, will buy him; he is a Caló donkey, and every person avoids him. At last the gipsies offer thirty _reals_ for him; and after much chaffering I am glad to get rid of him at two dollars. It is all a trick, however; he returns to his master, and the brotherhood share the spoil amongst them: all which villainy would be prevented, in my opinion, were the Caló language not spoken; for what but the word of Caló could have induced the donkey to behave in such an unaccountable manner?"

Both seemed perfectly satisfied with the justness of this conclusion, and continued smoking till their cigars were burnt to stumps, when they arose, twitched their whiskers, looked at us with fierce disdain, and dashing the tobacco-ends to the ground, strode out of the apartment.

"Those people seem no friends to the gipsies," said I to Antonio, when the two bullies had departed; "nor to the Caló language either."

"May evil glanders seize their nostrils," said Antonio: "they have been _jonjabadoed_ by our people. However, brother, you did wrong to speak to me in Caló, in a _posada_ like this: it is a forbidden language; for, as I have often told you, the king has destroyed the law of the Calés. Let us away, brother, or those _juntunes_ may set the _justicia_ upon us."

Towards evening we drew near to a large town or village. "That is Merida," said Antonio, "formerly, as the Busné say, a mighty city of the Corahai. We shall stay here to-night, and perhaps for a day or two, for I have some business of Egypt to transact in this place. Now, brother, step aside with the horse, and wait for me beneath yonder wall. I must go before and see in what condition matters stand."

I dismounted from the horse, and sat down on a stone beneath the ruined wall to which Antonio had motioned me. The sun went down, and the air was exceedingly keen; I drew close around me an old tattered gipsy cloak with which my companion had provided me, and being somewhat fatigued, fell into a doze which lasted for nearly an hour.

"Is your worship the London Caloró?" said a strange voice close beside me.

I started, and beheld the face of a woman peering under my hat. Notwithstanding the dusk, I could see that the features were hideously ugly and almost black; they belonged, in fact, to a gipsy crone at least seventy years of age, leaning upon a staff.

"Is your worship the London Caloró?" repeated she.

"I am he whom you seek," said I; "where is Antonio?"

"Curelando, curelando; baribustres curelós terela," said the crone. "Come with me, Caloró of my _garlochin_, come with me to my little _ker_; he will be there anon."

I followed the crone, who led the way into the town, which was ruinous and seemingly half deserted; we went up the street, from which she turned into a narrow and dark lane, and presently opened the gate of a large dilapidated house. "Come in," said she.

"And the _gras_?" I demanded.

"Bring the _gras_ in too, my _chabó_, bring the _gras_ in too; there is room for the _gras_ in my little stable." We entered a large court, across which we proceeded till we came to a wide doorway. "Go in, my child of Egypt," said the hag; "go in, that is my little stable."

"The place is as dark as pitch," said I, "and may be a well for what I know; bring a light, or I will not enter."

"Give me the _solabarri_," said the hag, "and I will lead your horse in, my _chabó_ of Egypt--yes, and tether him to my little manger."

She led the horse through the doorway, and I heard her busy in the darkness; presently the horse shook himself. "_Grasti terelamos_," said the hag, who now made her appearance with the bridle in her hand; "the horse has shaken himself, he is not harmed by his day's journey; now let us go in, my Caloró, into my little room."

We entered the house, and found ourselves in a vast room, which would have been quite dark but for a faint glow which appeared at the farther end: it proceeded from a _brasero_, beside which were squatted two dusky figures.

"These are Callées," said the hag; "one is my daughter and the other is her _chabi_. Sit down, my London Caloró, and let us hear you speak."

I looked about for a chair, but could see none: at a short distance, however, I perceived the end of a broken pillar lying on the floor; this I rolled to the _brasero_, and sat down upon it.

"This is a fine house, mother of the gipsies," said I to the hag, willing to gratify the desire she had expressed of hearing me speak; "a fine house is this of yours, rather cold and damp, though; it appears large enough to be a barrack for _hundunares_."

"Plenty of houses in this _foros_, plenty of houses in Merida, my London Caloró, some of them just as they were left by the Corahanós. Ah! a fine people are the Corahanós; I often wish myself in their _chim_ once more."

"How is this, mother?" said I; "have you been in the land of the Moors?"

"Twice have I been in their country, my Caloró--twice have I been in the land of the Corahai. The first time is more than fifty years ago; I was then with the Sesé, for my husband was a soldier of the Crallis of Spain, and Oran at that time belonged to Spain."

"You were not then with the real Moors," said I, "but only with the Spaniards who occupied part of their country."

"I have been with the real Moors, my London Caloró. Who knows more of the real Moors than myself? About forty years ago I was with my _ro_ in Ceuta, for he was still a soldier of the king; and he said to me one day, 'I am tired of this place, where there is no bread and less water; I will escape and turn Corahanó; this night I will kill my sergeant, and flee to the camp of the Moor,' 'Do so,' said I, 'my _chabó_, and as soon as may be I will follow you and become a Corahani.' That same night he killed his sergeant, who five years before had called him Caló and cursed him; then running to the wall he dropped from it, and amidst many shots he escaped to the land of the Corahai. As for myself, I remained in the presidio of Ceuta as a sutler, selling wine and _repañí_ to the soldiers. Two years passed by, and I neither saw nor heard from my _ro_. One day there came a strange man to my _cachimani_; he was dressed like a Corahanó, and yet he did not look like one; he looked more like a _callardó_, and yet he was not a _callardó_ either, though he was almost black; and as I looked upon him, I thought he looked something like the Errate; and he said to me, 'Zincali, chachipé!' and then he whispered to me in queer language, which I could scarcely understand, 'Your _ro_ is waiting; come with me, my little sister, and I will take you unto him.' 'Where is he?' said I, and he pointed to the west, to the land of the Corahai, and said, 'He is yonder away; come with me, little sister, the _ro_ is waiting.' For a moment I was afraid, but I bethought me of my husband, and I wished to be amongst the Corahai; so I took the little _parné_ I had, and locking up the _cachimani_, went with the strange man. The sentinel challenged us at the gate, but I gave him _repañí_, and he let us pass; in a moment we were in the land of the Corahai. About a league from the town, beneath a hill, we found four people, men and women, all very black like the strange man, and we joined ourselves with them, and they all saluted me, 'little sister.' That was all I understood of their discourse, which was very crabbed; and they took away my dress and gave me other clothes, and I looked like a Corahani; and away we marched for many days amidst deserts and small villages, and more than once it seemed to me that I was amongst the Errate, for their ways were the same. The men would _hokkawar_ with mules and asses, and the women told _baji_, and after many days we came before a large town, and the black man said, 'Go in there, little sister, and there you will find your _ro_;' and I went to the gate, and an armed Corahanó stood within the gate, and I looked in his face, and lo! it was my _ro_.

"Oh, what a strange town it was that I found myself in, full of people who had once been Candoré, but had renegaded and become Corahai! There were Sesé and Laloré, and men of other nations, and amongst them were some of the Errate from my own country; all were now soldiers of the Crallis of the Corahai, and followed him to his wars; and in that town I remained with my _ro_ a long time, occasionally going out to him to the wars; and I often asked him about the black men who had brought me thither, and he told me that he had had dealings with them, and that he believed them to be of the Errate. Well, brother, to be short, my _ro_ was killed in the wars, before a town to which the king of the Corahai laid siege, and I became a _piuli_, and I returned to the village of the renegades, as it was called, and supported myself as well as I could; and one day, as I was sitting weeping, the black man, whom I had never seen since the day he brought me to my _ro_, again stood before me, and he said, 'Come with me, little sister, come with me; the _ro_ is at hand;' and I went with him, and beyond the gate in the desert was the same party of black men and women which I had seen before. 'Where is my _ro_?' said I. 'Here he is, little sister,' said the black man, 'here he is; from this day I am the _ro_ and you are the _romi_. Come, let us go, for there is business to be done.'

"And I went with him, and he was my _ro_, and we lived amongst the deserts, and _hokkawar'd_ and _choried_ and told _baji_; and I said to myself, 'This is good; sure, I am amongst the Errate in a better _chim_ than my own.' And I often said that they were of the Errate, and then they would laugh and say that it might be so, and that they were not Corahai, but they could give no account of themselves.

"Well, things went on in this way for years, and I had three _chai_ by the black man; two of them died, but the youngest, who is the Calli who sits by the _brasero_, was spared. So we roamed about and _choried_ and told _baji_; and it came to pass that once in the winter time our company attempted to pass a wide and deep river, of which there are many in the Chim del Corahai, and the boat overset with the rapidity of the current, and all our people were drowned, all but myself and my _chabi_, whom I bore in my bosom. I had no friends amongst the Corahai, and I wandered about the _despoblados_ howling and lamenting till I became half _lili_, and in this manner I found my way to the coast, where I made friends with the captain of a ship, and returned to this land of Spain. And now I am here, I often wish myself back again amongst the Corahai."

Here she commenced laughing loud and long; and when she had ceased, her daughter and grandchild took up the laugh, which they continued so long that I concluded they were all lunatics.

Hour succeeded hour, and still we sat crouching over the _brasero_, from which, by this time, all warmth had departed; the glow had long since disappeared, and only a few dying sparks were to be distinguished. The room or hall was now involved in utter darkness; the women were motionless and still; I shivered and began to feel uneasy. "Will Antonio be here to-night?" at length I demanded.

"_No tenga usted cuidado_, my London Caloró," said the gipsy mother in an unearthly tone; "Pepindorio has been here some time."

I was about to rise from my seat and attempt to escape from the house, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and in a moment I heard the voice of Antonio:--

"Be not afraid; 'tis I, brother. We will have a light anon, and then supper."

The supper was rude enough, consisting of bread, cheese, and olives; Antonio, however, produced a leathern bottle of excellent wine. We dispatched these viands by the light of an earthen lamp, which was placed upon the floor.

"Now," said Antonio to the youngest female, "bring me the _pajandi_, and I will sing a _gachapla_."

The girl brought the guitar, which with some difficulty the gipsy tuned, and then, strumming it vigorously, he sang:--

"I stole a plump and bonny fowl,
But ere I well had dined,
The master came with scowl and growl,
And me would captive bind.

"My hat and mantle off I threw,
And scoured across the lea;
Then cried the _beng_ with loud halloo,
'Where does the gipsy flee?'"

He continued playing and singing for a considerable time, the two younger females dancing in the meanwhile with unwearied diligence, whilst the aged mother occasionally snapped her fingers or beat time on the ground with her stick. At last Antonio suddenly laid down the instrument, exclaiming:--

"I see the London Caloró is weary; enough, enough, to-morrow more thereof. We will now to the _charipé_."

"With all my heart," said I: "where are we to sleep?"

"In the stable," said he, "in the manger; however cold the stable may be, we shall be warm enough in the _bufa_."

We remained three days at the gipsies' house, Antonio departing early every morning on his mule, and returning late at night. The house was large and ruinous, the only habitable part of it with the exception of the stable being the hall, where we had supped; and there the gipsy females slept at night, on some mats and mattresses in a corner.

"A strange house is this," said I to Antonio, one morning as he was on the point of saddling his mule, and departing, as I supposed, on the affairs of Egypt; "a strange house and strange people. That gipsy grandmother has all the appearance of a _sowanee_."

"All the appearance of one!" said Antonio; "and is she not really one? She knows more crabbed things and crabbed words than all the Errate betwixt here and Catalonia. She has been amongst the wild Moors, and can make more _draos_, poisons, and philtres than any one alive. She once made a kind of paste, and persuaded me to taste, and shortly after I had done so my soul departed from my body, and wandered through horrid forests and mountains, amidst monsters and _duendes_, during one entire night. She learned many things amidst the Corahai which I should be glad to know."

"Have you been long acquainted with her?" said I. "You appear to be quite at home in this house."

"Acquainted with her!" said Antonio. "Did not my own brother marry the black Calli, her daughter, who bore him the _chabí_, sixteen years ago, just before he was hanged by the Busné?"

In the afternoon I was seated with the gipsy mother in the hall; the two Callées were absent telling fortunes about the town and neighborhood, which was their principal occupation.

"Are you married, my London Caloró?" said the old woman to me. "Are you a _ro_?"

_Myself_--Wherefore do you ask, O Dai de los Calés?

_Gipsy Mother_--It is high time that the _lacha_ of the _chabi_ were taken from her, and that she had a _ro_. You can do no better than take her for _romi_, my London Caloró.

_Myself_--I am a stranger in this land, O mother of the gipsies, and scarcely know how to provide for myself, much less for a _romi_.

_Gipsy Mother_--She wants no one to provide for her, my London Caloró: she can at any time provide for herself and her _ro_. She can _hokkawar_, tell _baji_, and there are few to equal her at stealing _à pastesas_. Were she once at Madrilati, where they tell me you are going, she would make much treasure; therefore take her thither, for in this _foros_ she is _nahi_, as it were, for there is nothing to be gained: but in the _foros baro_ it would be another matter; she would go dressed in _lachipé_ and _sonacai_, whilst you would ride about on your black-tailed _gra_; and when you had got much treasure, you might return hither and live like a Crallis, and all the Errate of the Chim del Manró should bow down their heads to you. What say you, my London Caloró; what say you to my plan?

_Myself_--Your plan is a plausible one, mother, or at least some people would think so; but I am, as you are aware, of another _chim_, and have no inclination to pass my life in this country.

_Gipsy Mother_--Then return to your own country, my Caloró; the _chabí_ can cross the _paní_. Would she not do business in London with the rest of the Caloré? Or why not go to the land of the Corahai? In which case I would accompany you; I and my daughter, the mother of the _chabí_.

_Myself_--And what should we do in the land of the Corahai? It is a poor and wild country, I believe.

_Gipsy Mother_--The London Caloró asks me what we could do in the land of the Corahai! _Aromali_! I almost think that I am speaking to a _lilipendi_. Are there not horses to _chore?_ Yes, I trow there are, and better ones than in this land, and asses, and mules. In the land of the Corahai you must _hokkawar_ and _chore_ even as you must here, or in your own country, or else you are no Caloró. Can you not join yourselves with the black people who live in the _despoblados_? Yes, surely; and glad they would be to have among them the Errate from Spain and London. I am seventy years of age, but I wish not to die in this _chim_, but yonder, far away, where both my _roms_ are sleeping. Take the _chabí_, therefore, and go to Madrilati to win the _parné_; and when you have got it, return, and we will give a banquet to all the Busné in Merida, and in their food I will mix _drao_, and they shall eat and burst like poisoned sheep.... And when they have eaten we will leave them, and away to the land of the Moor, my London Caloró.

During the whole time that I remained at Merida I stirred not once from the house; following the advice of Antonio, who informed me that it would not be convenient. My time lay rather heavily on my hands, my only source of amusement consisting in the conversation of the women, and in that of Antonio when he made his appearance at night. In these _tertulias_ the grandmother was the principal spokeswoman, and astonished my ears with wonderful tales of the land of the Moors, prison escapes, thievish feats, and one or two poisoning adventures, in which she had been engaged, as she informed me, in her early youth.

There was occasionally something very wild in her gestures, and demeanor; more than once I observed her, in the midst of much declamation, to stop short, stare in vacancy, and thrust out her palms as if endeavoring to push away some invisible substance; she goggled frightfully with her eyes, and once sank back in convulsions, of which her children took no further notice than observing that she was only _lili_, and would soon come to herself.

JUAN BOSCAN

(1493-?1540)

The reign of Juan the Second of Spain (1406-1454), characterized as it was by a succession of conspiracies and internal commotions, represents also one of the most important epochs in the history of Spanish poetry, which up to that period had found expression almost exclusively in the crude though spirited historical and romantic ballads of anonymous origin: Iliads without a Homer, as Lope de Vega called them. The first to attempt a reform in Castilian verse was the Marquis of Villena (died 1434), who introduced the allegory and a tendency to imitate classical models; and although he himself left nothing of consequence, his influence is plainly revealed in the works of his far greater pupils and successors, the Marquis of Santillana and Juan de Mena. Strangely enough, the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the Austrian Charles the Fifth, covering the most brilliant and momentous period in Spanish history, are yet marked by comparative stagnation in letters until after the first quarter of the sixteenth century. During the greater part of this period the increasing pomp and formality of the court rendered the poetry correspondingly artificial and insincere. It was not in fact until after many years of constant intercourse with Rome, Naples, and Florence, while the bulk of the noble youth of Spain resorted to the universities of those cities for higher education, that a wide-spread and profound admiration for Italian culture and refinement began to pave the way for another and more important revolution in Castilian poetry than that inaugurated by Villena.

Juan Boscan Almogaver, who was the first of his nation to compose verses after the manner of Petrarch, and whose successors in the sixteenth century include some of the most brilliant and inspired lyrists of Spain, was born in 1493 at Barcelona, a city which had witnessed the recent triumphs of the Provencal Troubadours. Boscan, however, from the beginning of his career, preferred to write in Castilian rather than in the Limosin dialect. Of patrician descent, and possessed of ample means, he entered the army like the majority of the young nobles of his age. After a brief but honorable service as a soldier he traveled extensively abroad, which led to his becoming deeply interested in the literature and art of Italy. Meanwhile he had produced verses in the ancient lyric style, but with only a moderate measure of success.

The year 1526 found Boscan at Granada, where Andrea Navagiero, Ambassador from Venice to the Court of Charles the Fifth, was then in residence. A common love of letters drew the two young men into closest intimacy with each other. "Being with Navagiero there one day," says Boscan in his 'Letter to the Duquesa de Soma,' "and discoursing with him about matters of wit and letters, and especially about the different forms they take in different languages, he asked me why I did not make an experiment in Castilian of sonnets and the other forms of verse used by good Italian authors; and not only spoke to me of it thus slightly, but urged me to do it.... And thus I began to try this kind of verse. At first I found it somewhat difficult; for it is of a very artful construction, and in many particulars different from ours. But afterwards it seemed to me--perhaps from the love we naturally bear to what is our own--that I began to succeed very well; and so I went on little by little with increasing zeal." Little dreamed the Venetian diplomat that, owing to his friendly advice, a school was destined to arise shortly in the poetry of Spain which would by no means have ceased to exist after the lapse of nearly four centuries. From that day Boscan devoted himself to the exclusive composition of verses in the Italian measure, undeterred by the bitter opposition of the partisans of the old school. The incomparable Garcilaso de la Vega, then scarcely past his majority, warmly supported the innovation of his beloved friend, and soon far surpassed Boscan himself as a writer of sonnets and _canzones_.

The Barcelonese poet spent the remainder of his life in comparative retirement, although he appeared occasionally at court, and at one time superintended the education of the young Duke of Alva, whose name afterwards became one of such terror in the annals of the Netherlands. Boscan's death took place at Perpignan about 1540.

An edition of Boscan's poems, together with those of his friend Garcilaso, was published at Barcelona in 1543. The collection is divided into four books, three of which are devoted to the productions of the elder poet. The first consists of his early efforts in the old style, songs and ballads--'Canciones y Coplas.' The second and third books contain ninety-three sonnets and _canzones_; a long poem on Hero and Leander in blank verse; an elegy and two didactic epistles in terza rima, and a half-narrative, half-allegorical poem in one hundred and thirty-five octavo stanzas. The sonnets and _canzones_ are obvious imitations of Petrarch; yet at the same time they are stamped with a spirit essentially Spanish, and occasionally evince a deep passion and melody of their own, although they may lack the subtle fascination of their exquisite models. The 'Allegory,' with its cleverly contrasted courts of Love and Jealousy, suggests the airy, graceful humor of Ariosto, and is perhaps the most agreeable and original of all Boscan's works. The 'Epistle to Mendoza' is conceived in the manner of Horace, and amidst a fund of genial philosophic comment, contains a charming picture of the poet's domestic happiness. He also left a number of translations from the classics.

While in no sense a great poet, Boscan united simplicity, dignity, and classical taste in a remarkable degree; and, inclined as he seemed to entirely banish the ancient form of verse, he yet beyond question introduced a kind of poetry which was developed to a high degree of perfection in the Castilian tongue, and which may be studied with keen delight at this day in some of the noblest poetical monuments of Spanish literature.

The best modern edition of Boscan's works is published under the title of 'Las Obras de Juan Boscan' (Madrid, 1875).

ON THE DEATH OF GARCILASO

Tell me, dear Garcilaso,--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, Boscan with thee?

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!

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.

Translation of Wipfen.

_DOMESTIC HAPPINESS_.

Photogravure from a Painting by Eugen Klimsch.

A PICTURE OF DOMESTIC HAPPINESS

From 'Epistle to Mendoza'

This peace that makes a happy life,--
And that is mine through my sweet wife;
Beginning of my soul, and end,
I've gained new being through this friend;--
She fills each thought and each desire,
Up to the height I would aspire.
This bliss is never found by ranging;
Regret still springs from saddest changing;
Such loves, and their beguiling pleasures,
Are falser still than magic treasures,
Which gleam at eve with golden color,
And change to ashes ere the morrow.

But now each good that I possess,
Rooted in truth and faithfulness,
Imparts delight to every sense;
For erst they were a mere pretense,
And long before enjoyed they were,
They changed their smiles to grisly care.
Now pleasures please; love being single,
Evils with its delights ne'er mingle.

* * * * *

And thus, by moderation bounded,
I live by my own goods surrounded,
Among my friends, my table spread
With viands we may eat nor dread;
And at my side my sweetest wife,
Whose gentleness admits no strife,--

Except of jealousy the fear,
Whose soft reproaches more endear;
Our darling children round us gather,--
Children who will make me grandfather.
And thus we pass in town our days,
Till the confinement something weighs;
Then to our village haunt we fly,
Taking some pleasant company,--
While those we love not never come
Anear our rustic, leafy home.

For better 'tis to philosophize,
And learn a lesson truly wise
From lowing herd and bleating flock,
Than from some men of vulgar stock;
And rustics, as they hold the plough,
May often good advice bestow.
Of love, too, we may have the joy:
For Phoebus as a shepherd-boy
Wandered once among the clover,
Of some fair shepherdess the lover;
And Venus wept, in rustic bower,
Adonis turned to purple flower.
And Bacchus 'midst the mountains drear
Forgot the pangs of jealous fear;

And nymphs that in the water play
('Tis thus that ancient fables say),
And Dryads fair among the trees,
Fain the sprightly Fauns would please.
So in their footsteps follow we,--
My wife and I,--as fond and free,
Love in our thoughts and in our talk;
Direct we slow our sauntering walk
To some near murmuring rivulet,
Where 'neath a shady beech we sit,
Hand clasped in hand, and side by side,--
With some sweet kisses, too, beside,--
Contending there, in combat kind,
Which best can love with constant mind.

* * * * *

Thus our village life we live,
And day by day such joys receive;
Till, to change the homely scene,
Lest it pall while too serene,
To the gay city we remove,
Where other things there are to love;
And graced by novelty, we find
The city's concourse to our mind;
While our new coming gives a joy
Which ever staying might destroy.
We spare all tedious compliment;
Yet courtesy with kind intent,
Which savage tongues alone abuse,
Will often the same language use.

* * * * *

And Monleon, our dearest guest,
Will raise our mirth by many a jest;
For while his laughter rings again,
Can we to echo it refrain?
And other merriment is ours,
To gild with joy the lightsome hours.
But all too trivial would it look,
Written down gravely in a book:
And it is time to say adieu,
Though more I have to write to you.
Another letter this shall tell:
So now, my dearest friend, farewell.

JACQUES BÉNIGNE BOSSUET

(1627-1704)

BY ADOLPHE COHN

Jaques Bénigne Bossuet, sacred orator, historian, theologian, and controversialist, was born in Dijon, capital of the then Burgundy, on September 27th, 1627. There is no question but he is the greatest Catholic divine whom France ever knew, and one of the greatest, some say _the_ greatest, of prose writers and orators of that country. His importance in the literary history of France is due, moreover, not simply to the high excellence of his productions, but fully as much to their representative character. The power that was wielded with absolute authority by Louis XIV. found in Bossuet the theorist who gave it a philosophical basis, and justified to the Frenchmen of the seventeenth century the conditions under which they lived.

The future educator of Louis XIV.'s son sprang, like most of the great Frenchmen of that time, from the upper ranks of the _bourgeoisie_. The Bossuet family had been for a long time honorably connected with the legal profession and the judiciary: the father of Jacques Bénigne was in 1627 a counselor practicing before the "Parlement de Dijon," where his own father had sat as "Conseiller," or Associate Justice. Later in life he was himself called to a seat on the bench, when a new Parlement was organized in the city of Metz for the province of Lorraine (1638). Ten years later (January 24th, 1648) Bossuet, who had received his education partly from the Jesuits of Dijon, partly in the celebrated Collège de Navarre in Paris, and who had been shriven for the Catholic priesthood when only eight years of age, made what may be called his first public appearance when he defended his first thesis in theology. With this important event of his life we find connected the name of the most brilliant Frenchman of that time, the celebrated Prince de Condé,--famous already by many victories, though hardly twenty-six years of age,--who attended the disputation and had allowed the young theologian to dedicate his thesis to him. Thirty-nine years later, after a long period of close friendship, their names were again associated when the illustrious Bishop of Meaux delivered the funeral oration of the great warrior, and announced, at the close of a magnificent eulogy, that this would be the last occasion on which he would devote his oratory to the praises of any man; a promise which he kept, though he outlived his friend for no less than seventeen years.

Bossuet's period of study lasted until the year 1652, when at the age of twenty-five he was appointed Archdeacon of Sarrebourg. By virtue of his position he thenceforward, for no less than seven years, resided in Metz, a city whose peculiar position, especially in religious matters, exerted a powerful influence over the direction of his whole intellectual life. He found there what was very rare then in France, representatives of three religions. In addition to the Catholics to whom he was to minister, there were in Metz numerous Protestants,--both Lutherans, and Calvinists or Presbyterians,--and a not inconsiderable number of Jews; and the city was used to continuous theological controversy between minister, rabbi, and priest. The Protestants of Metz received the teachings of two brilliant ministers, David Ancillon and Paul Ferri, the latter of whom soon published a Catechism which was considered by the whole body of French Protestantism the clearest exposition of its doctrines. The Catholic clergy of France had then not yet renounced the hope of bringing all the inhabitants of the country to place themselves voluntarily under the spiritual guidance of Rome; and the conversions that were announced from time to time from the upper ranks both of Protestantism and Judaism to a certain degree justified such a hope.

Bossuet, while constantly improving his knowledge of the writings of the Fathers, especially of St. Augustine, threw himself into the contest with characteristic energy. As against the Jews he tried to demonstrate that the coming of Christ is clearly foretold in the Prophecies. He thus became more familiar with the Old Testament than any other Catholic theologian of his time, and so far molded his style on that of the Bible that it soon became difficult to distinguish in his productions that which came out of the sacred writings from the utterances which belonged only to him. This was done, however, strange to say, without any knowledge of the Hebrew language. Bossuet never read the Bible except in Greek or Latin. There was no good French version of the Bible; and it may be stated here that there is none to the present day which occupies in the French language anything like the position held in English by the Bible of King James, or in German by Luther's version.

His attitude in regard to the Protestants is more interesting, because more characteristic of the time in which he lived. France in the seventeenth century had become convinced that harmony, unity, fixedness, are the clearest manifestations of truth, the best guarantees of peace, happiness, and prosperity; that variety and change are signs of error and harbingers of disaster. Bossuet's whole effort in his controversy with Protestantism was directed towards demonstrating that Protestantism lacks and that Catholicism possesses the traits which were considered by his contemporaries to clearly belong to truth; and as his opponents were not unwilling to follow him on his chosen ground, as they never for a moment denied his main proposition,--his statement of the characteristics of truth,--as he even managed during the controversy to bring about a number of conversions to Catholicism, he left Metz fully convinced that he was waging a successful warfare upon unassailable ground.

He had been in Paris less than a year when an event happened which made him doubly sure of the soundness of his position, and tenfold increased his belief in the ultimate victory of his Church over all other denominations. The Commonwealth of England collapsed, and Charles II. was called to the throne from which his father had been hurled by Oliver Cromwell. Nothing can give any idea of the shock experienced by France on hearing of the development and success of the Great Rebellion in England. No Frenchman at that time understood what the English Constitution was. The course of French history had led the people of France to put all the strength they possessed in the hands of their kings, and to treat as a public enemy any one who resisted, or even attempted to limit in any way, the royal authority. To people holding such opinions the English nation after the month of January, 1649, appeared as a nation of parricides. And the feeling was intensified by the fact that the wife of the beheaded king, Henrietta Maria, was a sister of the King of France, a daughter of the beloved Henry IV., whose death by Ravaillac's dagger was still mourned by every French patriot. The triumph of Cromwell, the proud position which England occupied in Europe during his protectorate, left however hardly any hope that the rebellious nation would ever acknowledge the errors of her ways; and lo! in a moment, without any effort on his part, without any struggle, the dead king's son resumed his rights, and every one who had been in arms against him lay prostrate at his feet. The same nation that had rebelled against the levying of the "ship money" and the proceedings of the Star Chamber allowed Charles II. almost as absolute an authority as ever the King of France possessed. Once cured of her political errors, was England not to be soon cured of her theological errors? After repenting her rebellion against the King, was she not to repent her rebellion against the Pope? Such were the questions which Bossuet, which the whole of France, began to ask. Or rather, these were to them no longer questions: the people of France began to look across the Channel with confident expectation of a religious counter-revolution. The collapse of the Commonwealth could not but be followed by the collapse of the Reformation.

When Louis XIV., after Cardinal Mazarin's death, took in his own hands the management of the affairs of the State; when the marriage of the brilliant Henrietta of England with the Duke of Orleans made the sister of the English King a sister-in-law to the King of France; when triumph after triumph on the field of war, of diplomacy, of literature, of art, added to the power and glory of France, which had never swerved in her allegiance either to King or Church,--the feeling grew that only in unity of Faith, Law, and King were truth and prosperity to be found by nations. The saying "Une foi, une loi, un roi" (one faith, one law, one king), which may be said to sum up Bossuet's religious, social, and political beliefs, seemed to all an incontrovertible and self-evident axiom.

These were the times when Bossuet's utterances grew in power and magnificence. He was heard in a number of Parisian churches; he was heard at court, where he several times was appointed preacher either for Advent or Lent; he delivered panegyrics of saints, and was called upon to eulogize in death those who had held the highest rank in life. He had just delivered the most splendid and the most touching of his funeral orations, those on Henrietta of France, widow of Charles I. of England (November 16th, 1669), and less than a year later, on her unfortunate daughter, Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans (August 21st, 1670), when the King, at the request of the upright Duke de Montausier, called him to court from the bishopric of Condom to which he had been raised, and intrusted to him the education of his son and heir-apparent, the Dauphin of France.

Bossuet's royal pupil never reigned. He died in 1711, four years before his father's death: and it must be admitted that during the thirty-one years that elapsed between the moment when he came out of Bossuet's hands and the end of his life, he gave no evidence of being anything except a very commonplace sort of a man. No such halo surrounds him as surrounds his unfortunate son, the Duke of Burgundy, whose death two years after that of the Dauphin was mourned as a public calamity. Whether Bossuet's failure to make a great prince out of the Dauphin was due to a faulty system of education or to the unresponsive nature of the pupil, can hardly be considered to-day a matter of great interest. But French literature was certainly the gainer by the appointment of Bossuet to the post of tutor to the Prince. Three of his most remarkable works--his 'Discourse upon Universal History,' his 'Policy according to the Holy Writ,' and his 'Treatise on the Knowledge of God and Man'--were written especially for the Dauphin, and read by him as textbooks a long time before their publication. The opening sentence of the 'Discourse' tells us clearly the author's purpose: "Were history useless to other men, it would still be necessary to have it studied by princes."

In 1680 Bossuet left the Dauphin, who then married a Bavarian princess, and one year later he was called to the bishopric of Meaux. Louis XIV. was then taking steps leading to the important and fatal venture by which three years later he repealed the Edict of Nantes, and forbade the existence in France of the Protestant religion. No one can deny Bossuet's share in determining the king to follow a policy so fatal to the interests of France, but at the same time so much in accord with the views of Rome. A natural outcome would have been the raising of Bossuet, who was certainly then the greatest orator, the greatest writer, and the greatest theologian in the Catholic clergy, to the Cardinalate. Still Bossuet was never a cardinal.

The explanation lies in Bossuet's conduct in the year 1682. The King of France in that year called together a General Assembly of the clergy of France, a kind of National Council. His object was to have the clergy assert its national character, and to state that in civil matters it was subject not to the Pope, but to the King. The various statements to that effect constitute what is known as 'The Liberties of the Gallican Church.' The statements were adopted after being drafted by Bossuet, who had at the opening of the sessions delivered before the Assembly his celebrated 'Sermon on the Unity of the Church,' the main part of which is an eloquent defense of the above-stated views. France was too powerful then for the see of Rome not to yield, but no favors were thenceforth to be expected for the spokesman of the French national clergy.

Still the great divine continued his efforts, and in 1688 he put forth the most complete and masterly exposition of his beliefs, his 'History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches.' The Revolution of 1688-89 in England did not in the least, sad though it seemed, weaken his faith in the ultimate triumph of Catholicism. In France at that time the English revolution was not considered an assertion by the people of political and religious rights, but the carrying out of a detestable family conspiracy of a daughter and son-in-law with their father's enemy. This better than anything else explains the hatred which was harbored against William III., and which found expression in the works even of as free-minded a writer as La Bruyère. It is during the period of the fiercest struggle between Louis XIV. and William III. that Bossuet carried on with the German philosopher Leibnitz a series of negotiations, the object of which was the return to Catholicism of Protestant Germany. We need hardly state that the negotiations utterly failed.

In another controversy which occupied Bossuet's last years he was entirely successful. The most eloquent of his disciples, Fénélon, then Archbishop of Cambrai, seemed to him to have fallen into dangerous errors. He had adopted the mystic doctrine of Quietism, which had been made known to him first by an erratic woman, Madame Guyon. Bossuet determined that the eloquent archbishop must be compelled to recant. A number of works were published by him in support of his position, the most important one being his 'Relation on Quietism'; and he did not rest until the Pope had condemned his rival, and Fénélon had submitted to censure in his own cathedral at Cambrai. Some accuse Bossuet of too much harshness in the contest. The Pope himself was reported to have said, "The Archbishop of Cambrai sinned by too much love of God, the Bishop of Meaux by too little love of his fellow-man."

Bossuet was then a very old man, but neither growing age nor the care that he took of what he considered the general interests of Catholic Christianity ever kept him from giving the closest attention to the spiritual government of his flock. He was a model bishop. He died April 12th, 1704, aged seventy-six years, six months, and sixteen days.

Bossuet was a very prolific writer. In the best edition, that of Abbé Caron, begun in Versailles in 1815, his writings fill not less than forty-one volumes. But it must be stated at once that a great deal of this production belongs decidedly more to theology than to French literature. Some of it is not even in French, but in Latin; for instance, Bossuet's letter to the Pope on the subject of the education of the Dauphin. Although in French, such works as the 'Treatise on Communion' or the 'Explanation of John the Baptist's Revelation' are decidedly outside the pale of literature, as the word is usually understood. We shall mention here only those works of Bossuet which, by virtue of their perfect form and the accessibility of the subject to the general reader, are to this day more or less familiar to the best educated people in France.

The first to be mentioned among these are the 'Sermons,' the 'Funeral Orations,' and the 'Discourse upon Universal History.'