[145] Criados en el gremio de la dulce filosofia. This he says in particular reference to Ferdinand and Isabella.
[146] Quanta diferencia aya del Musico al Cantor, y del Geometra al Pedrero, tanta debe haver entre Poeta é Trobador. The third comparison follows afterwards.
[147] An unpardonable neglect of chronology has given rise to a confusion of dates, by which this period of Spanish literature has been made to include two distinct epochs. This confusion is particularly striking in the work of Velasquez. In his third age of Castilian poetry, which he commences with the introduction of the Italian style, but which ought really to be called the second, he reckons all the Spanish poets, who appear to have formed their manner after Italian models down to the reign of Philip IV.; and in the following age, which he calls the fourth, he places Virnes, Lope de Vega, and others, who flourished half a century before.
[148] [See page 25]. In the Cancionero general there are some spiritual sonnets, but they are all equally aukward and repulsive.
[149] The history of the opposition which Boscan’s poetical reform experienced, is briefly related by himself in the dedication to the Duchess of Soma, which precedes the second volume of his poems.
[150] The eighth volume of the Parnaso Español, by Sedano, contains a supplement to the biographical notices which Nicolas Antonio collected under the article Boscan, and Dieze adopted in his notes on Velasquez. The Noticias Biographicas, which Sedano has added to the Parnaso Español, deserve, from this epoch downward, to be carefully consulted.
[151] The library of the university of Göttingen possesses a copy of perhaps the oldest edition of the works of this author, viz. Obras de Boscan, Lisboa 1543, in 4to., and another edition, Anvers 1569, in 8vo.
[152] The first strophe runs thus:—
El sentir de mi sentido
Tan profundo ha navegado,
Que me tiene ya engolfado,
Donde vivo despedido
De salir ni a pie ni a nado; &c.
[153] The spirit of Petrarch breathes in the following sonnet; though it is accompanied in the latter verses with a portion of romantic subtilty.