a

ship towards him, and, as an Eng. lishman, it gives me pleasure to find cardinal Pole amongst them, entitled, "suo amicissimo." Ippolito de' Medici was particularly partial to him, and understanding that Michel Angelo admired Turkish horse he possessed, he sent it to his house, with ten mules load ed with corn, and begged his acceptance of the gift as a mark of his esteem. Notwithstanding he ranked in the number of his acquaintance the most distinguished names of his time, he was also pleased with the harmless comedy of human life, and occasionally amused with the eccentric good nature of those who had little else to recommend them. But the person of all others who absorbed his affections and esteem, was that excellent and accomplished woman, the celebrated Vittoria Co. Jonna, marchioness of Pescara; her superior mind and endowments, and her partiality for his genius, impressed him with the most lively sense of esteem. For many years before her death she resided at Viterbo, and occasionally visited Rome for no other purpose than to enjoy his society. To her Michel Angelo addressed three sonnets and a madrigal, and wrote an epitaph, on her death, in which his admiration of her beauty and accomplishments is tempered with the most profound respect for her character. In her last moments Michel Angelo paid her a visit, and afterwards told Condivi he grieved he had not kissed her cheek as he did her hand, since there was then but little hope of his ever seeing her again. The same writer also observes, that the recollection of her death constantly produced dejection in his mind."

Some Account of the Life and Writings of Lope Felix de Vega Carpio. From his Life by Lord Holland.

This extraordinary man was born at Madrid, on the 25th of Novem ber, 1562: his father had been se cretly addicted to poetry; there are so many similar facts recorded, as to justify an opinion that the propensity to poetry, or aptitude for it, is hereditary. Lope's talents were early manifested. The un common quickness and brilliancy of his eyes in infancy, indicated a corresponding vivacity of mind, and before his hand was strong enough to guide the pen, he recited verses of his own composition, which he bartered with his play-fellows for prints or toys. Thus, says lord Holland, even in his childhood, he not only wrote poetry, but turned his poetry to account, an art in which he must be allowed after wards to have excelled all poets, ancient or modern. The bishop of Evila was his first patron; his second was the duke of Alva, at whose instance he wrote his Arcadia.

Pastoral works, however, in prose and verse, had already met with considerable success in Spain; of which the Diana by Montemayor was the first in point of merit, and I believe in time. The species of composition is in itself tedious, and the conduct of the Arcadia evidently absurd. A pastoral in five long books of prose run mad, in which the shepherds of Arcadia woo their Dulcineas in the language of Amadis rather thau of Theocritus, in which they occasionally talk theology, and discuss in verse the origin and nature of grammar, rhetoric, arith. metic, geometry, music, astrology,

and

and poetry, and which they enliven by epitaphs on Castilian generals, and a long poem on the achievements of the duke of Alva, and the birth of his son, is not well adapt. ed to the taste of common readers, or likely to escape the censure of critics. In most instances, however, the abstract of a work of this nature, for it must be considered as a poem, forms a very unfair criterion of its merit. The chief objects of poetry are to delineate strongly, the characters and passions of mankind, to paint the appearances of nature, and to describe their effects upon Our sensations. To accomplish these ends the versification must be smooth, the language pure and impressive, and the images just, natural, and appropriate; our interest should be excited by the nature of the subject, and kept up by the spirit of the narration. The probability of the story, the connexion of the tale, the regularity of the design, are indeed beauties; but beauties which are ornamental rather than necessary, which have often been attained by persons who had no poetical turn whatever, and as often neglected by those whose genius and productions have placed them in the first rank of the province of poetry. Novels and comedies derive, indeed, a great advantage from an attention to these niceties. But in the higher branches of invention they are the less necessary, because the justness of the imitation of passions inherent in the general nature of man, depends less upon the probability of the situations, than that of manners and opinions resulting from the accidental and temporary forms of society.

"To judge," says Lord H. “by another criterion of the parts of the Arcadia which I have read, and especially of the verses, there are in it many harmonious lines, some eloquence, great facility and occasionally beauty of expression, and above all, a prodigious variety of maxims, similes, and illustrations. These merits, however, are disfigured by great deformities. The language, though easy and fluent, is not the language of nature; the versification is often eked out by unnecessary exclamations, and unmeaning expletives, and the cloquence is at one time distorted into extravagant hyperbole, and at another degenerates into low and tedious commonplace. The maxims, as in all Spanish authors of that time, are often trivial and often untrue. When they have produced an antithesis, they think they have struck out a truth. The illustrations are sometimes so forced and unnatural, that though they may display erudition, and excite surprise, they cannot elucidate the subject, and are not likely to delight the imagination. They seem to be the result of labour, and not the creation of fancy, and partake more of the nature of conun-, drums and enigmas, than of similes and images. Forced conceits, and play upon words, are indeed common in this as in every work of Lope de Vega; for he was one of the authors who contributed to in. troduce that taste for false wit, which soon afterwards became so universally prevalent throughout Europe. Marino,* the champion of that style in Italy, with the highest expressions of admiration for his model, acknowledges that

be

he imbibed this taste from Lope, and owed his merit in poetry to the perusal of his works."

After he had been married a few years, Lope de Vega lost his wife, and to fly from painful recollections, embarked with his brother in the famous armada. The conquest of England was fully expected from this powerful armament, and the Spanish poets, at its outset, wrote odes and sonnets of prophetic triumph, which it would have been prudent not to have published before the event, and to have destroyed after it. Gonzara upon the occasion addressed his country in an ode, of which one passage is remarkable, as having been so completely verified in favour of Eogland, instead of Spain. He says to Spain,

Lope de Vega bade the armada go forth and burn the world! he lost his brother in the expedition, and wrote nothing about it on his return. During the voyage, he composed the Hermosura de Angelica, one of his longest poems, which professes to take up the story of that princess where Ariosto had dropped it. The Spaniards have several continuations of the Orlando Furioso. That by Luis Baraliona de Soto has been highly praised by Lope himself, whose praise, however, was so indiscrimi nating, as to be of no authority; and also by Cervantes: but Cervantes extols some poems which are of little merit, and there is some reason to think that this is of the same character, as it is so seldom met with, and little known. Araucana, the only heroic poem in the language of real merit, has often been reprinted, nor can the Spaniards be accused of neglecting their early poets. It may therefore be suspected, that those which are neglected, deserve to be so.

The

The Hermosura de Angelica is as ridiculous in fable as possible, but it contains many spirited passages, and is certainly of all Lope's long poems, that which may be read with most pleasure, or perhaps more accurately speaking, with least fatigue. Lord Holland, in his life of Lope de Vega, has given two specimens, well chosen, and happily translated.

Lord Holland quotes from this work, a Latin stanza, as being perhaps the only eight Latin lines of found in modern metre, and in a titles and names which are to be a modern lan. poem written in guage. It is an inscription under a golden statue of Philip III. A proof,

proof, it may be observed, that though he might have begun the poem when on board the armada, this part was not written till the following reign:

"Phillippo Tertio, Cæsari invictissino,
Omnium maximo regum triumpha-
tori,
Orbis utriusque et maris felicissimo,
Catholici secundi successori,
Totius Hispaniæ principi, dignissimo,
Ecclesiæ Christi et fidei defensori,
Fama, præcingens tempora alma lauro,
Hoc, simulacrum dedicat ex auro."

Lope de Vega in whose epics every thing which is odd and extravagant may be found, has in like manner inserted a Latin epitaph upon Rodrigo in his Jerusalem Conquistada. It is worth transcribing.

Hoc jacet in sarcophago Rex ille
Penultimus Gothorum in Hispaniâ.
Infelix Rodericus, viator sile,

Ne forte pereat tota Lusitania:
Provocatus Cupidinis missile

Telo, tam magnâ affectus fuit insaniâ, Quam tota Hiberia vinculis astricta Testatur mæsta, lachrimatur victa.

Execrabilem Comitem Julianum

Abhorreant omnes, nomine et remoto Patrio, appellent Erostratum Hispanum, Non tantum nostri, sed in orbe toto, Dum current cœli sidera, vesanum Vociferent, testante Mauro et Gotho, Cesset Florindæ nomen suave CAVA viator est, a CAVA cave.

In the same volume with the Angelica, he published a collection of sonnets, and another narrative poem of some length upon sir Francis Drake, who of course receives no more mercy at his hands, than he would have done, had he been made prisoner upon the coast of Peru. Lope had little reason to love sir

2

Lope's Dragontea is a dull poem. An historical subject of such recent date, will not bear the intermixture of invention; we know the truth so well, that all the fiction has the effect of falshood. This, however, is only the case, in this instance, with an English reader. Spaniards might believe sir Francis Drake to be a tyrant, a slave, and a coward, but the poet who could flatter the passions ofhis contemporary countrymen, by ealling him so, might have known would be temporary as well as lothat the reputation of his poem

cal.

Another of his long poems is his St. Isidro, in honour not of the great St. Isidore, who procured for his nephew Hermenegild the honours of canonization, by instigating him to commit rebellion and attempt parricide, but of a labourer in the vicinity of Madrid, who was sainted by the ingenuity of others in inventing miracles for him, not by any knavery of his own in enacting them. The Isidro is a wearying collection of miraculous stories, with no other Connection