The Works of Garcilasso have engaged in their illustration the talents of three distinguished Commentators. The first comment that appeared was Fernando de Herrera's, published at Seville in 1580, in small 4to. Living, as Herrera evidently did, in habits of intimacy with Portocarrero, it is much to be regretted that he did not increase the value that was attached to his work by that full account of the life of Garcilasso which he had so favourable an opportunity of obtaining. He excuses himself from the task by the observation, that it would require a mind more at leisure than his was, and one gifted with a happier style of writing; but the world would probably, with very great willingness, have given up a part of his commentary, turning as it often does upon idle disquisitions, to have had its curiosity gratified on the private habits of his author; whilst the Lyrist of the battle of Lepanto should have known that the disclaiming of a style sufficiently elegant, was a species of mock-modesty that would not pass wholly uncensured by posterity. In the year 1612, Sanchez, better known under the Latin name Brocensis, the most learned grammarian of Spain, published at Madrid in 12mo. his commentary, under the title of 'Obras del excelente Poeta Garcilasso de la Vega; con anotaciones y emiendas del Maestro Francisco Sanchez, Catedratico de retorica de Salamanca.' His illustrations, however, were principally restricted to a restoration of the text, for which he deserves very high praise, and to point out in his author the passages imitated or translated from other writers, an elucidation rather curious than useful, as a poet's works will of themselves, to every scholar
whisper whence they stole
Their balmy spoils,
whilst his blind admirers will be apt to quarrel with an exposition that may seem at first sight to detract something from the merit of their idol. Thus Sanchez, on the publication of his comments, was assailed by the small wits of the day with much severity, and some smartness, as will be seen by the following
SONNET
Against the Annotations of Master Sanchez, found in the house of a Knight of Salamanca.
They have discovered a rare theft; the thief,
One Garcilasso's taken at his tricks,
With three silk canopies and pillows six,
Stolen from Queen Dido's bed; young Cupid's sheaf
Of darts; the shuttle of the Fates; but chief,
Three most somniferous kegs of Lethe wine,
And his own lady's golden clasp, a sign
Of turpitude that staggers all belief.
For full seven years the sly Arcadian
Has been at work; on shops of Tuscan ware, he
Made some attempts too—Bembo's and Politian's:
'Tis pitiful to hear the' unhappy man,
His feet fast in the stocks of Commentary,
Declaim against these tell-tale rhetoricians.
On the back of this paper, Sanchez wrote a reply.
Poets are found whose fame we may immerse
In Lethe's wave, who to make up some sonnet
Stuff it with pillows till we slumber on it;
And have recourse for rhymes for their lame verse,
To the sad shuttle of the Fates, or worse,
Young Cupid's darts; whose lines have no more sense
Than their own lady's golden clasp: yet hence
Will they denounce our comments for a curse
On Garcilasso, without knowing why
Barking like curs; amusing 'tis to see
The sapient animals, with long sharp teeth
And short dull wits, far falser than the sly
Quick fidgetings of horses, to get free
Of half the imposed light load they bend beneath.
The third annotator is D. Thomas Tamaio de Vargas. His edition was published in 24mo. at Madrid, in the year 1622: his comments, filled with Greek and Latin, with the opinions of Rabbi Onkelos and St. Cyprian, and quotations from Geronymo Parabosco, Boethius and Arnobius, seem to have been written rather to show his learned reading than to clear up any obscurity he might find in his author: affixed to his volume is a 'Life of Garcilasso gathered from his writings,' which is necessarily meagre and unsatisfactory. Don Nicolas de Azara, the elegant translator of Middleton's life of Cicero, has also illustrated Garcilasso, whose MSS. are deposited in the library of the Escurial.
The commendations which Garcilasso bestowed on cotemporary talent, were echoed back with equal admiration and sincerity by them and by succeeding geniuses. Of the Italians, Tansillo has written two sonnets in his praise, Minturno two sonnets, Marino a madrigal; Camoens celebrates him in his letters, Guillaume de Salluste in his poems. Of his own nation, besides a host of writers whose names Vargas chronicles with a jealous care, Herrera, Villegas, and Góngora, Cristoval de Figueroa, Medina, and Barahono de Soto, wrote Spanish verses, Pachecho and Giron, Latin verses to his memory. The Abbé Conti has translated with fidelity and grace several of his poems into Tuscan,[AP] and Mr. Walpole published, some few years ago, an English translation of the First Eclogue, under the title of "Isabel, with other poems translated from the Spanish;" which however I have not been able to meet with, as the author is understood to have called it in from circulation. Mr. Nott, the industrious commentator and accomplished scholar, in his Works of Surrey and Wyatt, pays an elegant tribute to the talents of Garcilasso, and draws a happy parallel between him and our Surrey. "They both," he observes, "glowed with a generous love of enterprise, and both were distinguished by their military ardour in the field. They both devoted the short intervals of their leisure to the improvement of their native tongue; they both formed themselves on Virgil and the Italian school; both had minds susceptible of love and friendship; both were constant in their attachments; both died immaturely, and left in the bosoms of the good and learned unavailing regret at their untimely loss."[AQ] Yet with this regret the good and the learned may blend the happier feeling of dignified delight. There is no stain on the treasures they have left. The talents with which they were gifted, were properly cultivated; the instruments of music which they touched with so much tenderness, were wreathed around with none but innocent flowers—were devoted alone to the gratification of the generous sensibilities of our nature. Not a single string of those they struck, had in its sound the dissonance of vice—that one grand discord, which not the harmonies of all the others can in the ear of true Taste ever overpower. Let this be their most successful title to applause; there can be no nobler aim marked out for young genius, in an age when the sister-melodies of Virtue and the Lyre are in danger of becoming, like Helena and Hermia, separate and estranged, than the ambition to have it said of him in after days: 'he had nothing to reproach himself with in his devotion to the Muses; he sang like Surrey and Garcilasso de la Vega.'