[810] Francisco de Portugal, in his “Arte de Galantería,” (Lisboa, 1670, 4to, p. 49,) says, that, when Mendoza went ambassador to Rome, he took no books with him for travelling companions but “Amadis de Gaula” and the “Celestina.”
[811] Mendoza’s success as an ambassador passed into a proverb. Nearly a century afterwards, Salas Barbadillo, in one of his tales, says of a chevalier d’industrie, “According to his own account, he was an ambassador to Rome, and as much of one as that wise and great knight, Diego de Mendoza, was in his time.” Cavallero Puntual, Segunda Parte, Madrid, 1619, 12mo, f. 5.
[812] Mendoza seems to have been treated harshly by Philip II. about some money matters relating to his accounts for work done on the castle of Siena, when he was governor there. Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, Madrid, 1819, 8vo, p. 441.
[813] One of his poems is “A Letter in Redondillas, being under Arrest.” Obras, 1610, f. 72.
[814] There is but one edition of the poetry of Mendoza. It was published by Juan Diaz Hidalgo at Madrid, with a sonnet of Cervantes prefixed to it, in 1610, 4to; and is a rare and important book. In the address “Al Lector,” we are told that his lighter works are not published, as unbecoming his dignity; and if a sonnet, printed for the first time by Sedano, (Parnaso Español, Tom. VIII. p. 120,) is to be regarded as a specimen of those that were suppressed, we have no reason to complain.
There is in the Royal Library at Paris, MS. No. 8293, a collection of the poetry of Mendoza, which has been supposed to contain notes in his own handwriting, and which is more ample than the published volume, Ochoa, Catálogo, Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 532.
[815] This epistle was printed, during Mendoza’s lifetime, in the first edition of Boscan’s Works (ed. 1543, f. 129); and is to be found in the Poetical Works of Mendoza himself, (f. 9,) in Sedano, Faber, etc. The earliest printed work of Mendoza that I have seen is a cancion in the Cancionero Gen. of 1535, f. 99. b.
[816] The Hymn to Cardinal Espinosa is in the Poetical Works of Mendoza, f. 143. See also, Sedano, Tom. IV., (Indice, p. ii.,) for its history.
[817] Obras, f. 99.
[818] See the sonnet of Mendoza in Silvestre’s Poesías, (1599, f. 333,) in which he says,—