[432]. Quem nova concepit olla servabit odorem. It may be observed that, on the principles of Low Latin scansion from Commodian downwards, the first four words will do well enough.
[433]. I have used the somewhat later Grenville copy in the British Museum Salamanca, 1509, fol.; and Señor Menéndez' reprint in the Appendix to his second volume, which also contains one or two other early documents.
[434]. The plural was used in the version of Mayans y Siscar (Origenes, v. supra), which was long the only one accessible. In 1860 a better text appeared at Madrid with the singular, which Ticknor and Mr Kelly approve. For any one who professes no Spanish scholarship to set himself against these authorities may seem absurd. But in the book itself sub finem the author writes “habiendo considerado estas tres lenguas,” and the changes are rung on Latin, Tuscan, and Spanish throughout.
[435]. After a conversation with Navagero which he has reported, and which is, in its way, also a critical document.
[436]. Señor Menéndez refers to two Poetics anterior to Rengifo, neither of which I have seen. The first, by Miguel Sanchez de Lima (sometimes called de Viana), Alcala, 1580, has a slight interest in the wording of its title, “El Arte Poética en romance castillano.” The second—which from its date (1593) would seem to be a little later than Rengifo, though the historian mentions it first—is Hierónymo de Mondragon’s Arte para componer en metro castillano (Saragossa, 1593).
[437]. The above paragraph was written from notes taken while reading Rengifo at the British Museum. In subsequently reading Señor Menéndez on him I was surprised to find the learned historian protesting against the Labyrinth, and other such things, as having been foisted in cir. 1700-1720, and referring to the editions of 1592 and 1606 as alone genuine. But the British Museum copy is that of 1606! Let it by us even be said to Rengifo’s credit that, like Sidney, he felt the charm of old romance. See M. y P., p. 320.
[438]. “The inexorable Cascales,” as Señor Menéndez calls him in a passage which I had not read when I wrote the text. Of Cascales, as of Pinciano (v. infra), the Señor thinks far more highly than I do. Both seem to me (though Cascales more than Pinciano) to be simply uncompromising Aristotelians who borrowed from the Italians; but, like most borrowers and imitators, hardened and emphasised what they borrowed. Both were forced to allow little “easements” in regard to the drama; but only such as are consistent with Aristotle’s text, though not with some glosses on him. And Pinciano simply translates the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, while Cascales, doubtless with reference to the different heresies of Castelvetro and Giraldi, is quite Athanasian in his doctrine that poetic verities are absolutely unchangeable, and independent of custom and time.
[439]. The book appeared in 1616; but I have had to use the reprint of 1779. I have not seen Mesa’s Compendio de la Poética (Madrid, 1607) or Carillo’s Libro de Erudicion poética.
[440]. Madrid, 1596.
[441]. The Filosofía Antigua is extremely rare, and does not appear to be in the British Museum either under “Pinciano” or under Lopez, his real name. Fortunately there is a recent reprint (Valladolid, 1894), ed. by Professor Don Pedro Muñoz Peña, which I duly possess. It may be observed that bibliographers and librarians are particularly hard on the laity in the Spanish department. It is surely needless to make one hunt in vain for an author of world-wide reputation under his world-name till one runs him to earth as Gómez de Quevedo [y] Villegas.