[473] “Los equívocos y las alusiones suyas,” says his editor, in 1648, “son tan frequentes y multiplicados, aquellos y estas, ansí en un solo verso y aun en una palabra, que es bien infalible que mucho número sin advertirse se haya de perder.” Obras, Tom. VII., Elogios, etc.
[474] They are at the end of the seventh volume of the Obras, and also in Hidalgo, “Romances de Germania” (Madrid, 1779, 12mo, pp. 226-295). Of the lighter ballads in good Castilian, we may notice, especially, “Padre Adan, no lloreis duelos,” (Tom. VIII. p. 187), and “Dijo á la rana el mosquito,” Tom. VII. p. 514.
[475] Obras, Tom. VII. pp. 192-200, and VIII. pp. 533-550. The last is somewhat coarse, though not so bad as its model in this respect.
[476] See the cancion (Tom. VII. p. 323) beginning, “Pues quita al año Primavera el ceño”; also some of the poems in the “Erato” to the lady he calls Fili, who seems to have been more loved by him than any other.
[477] Particularly in “The Dream,” (Tom. IX. p. 296), and in the “Hymn to the Stars,” p. 338.
[478] There are several poems about cultismo, Obras, Tom. VIII. pp. 82, etc. The “Aguja de Navegar Cultos” is in Tom. I. p. 443; and immediately following it is the Catechism, whose whimsical title I have abridged somewhat freely.
[479] Perhaps there is a little too much of the imitation of Petrarch and of the Italians in the Poems of the Bachiller de la Torre; but they are, I think, not only graceful and beautiful, but generally full of the national tone, and of a tender spirit, connected with a sincere love of nature and natural scenery. I would instance the ode, “Alexis que contraria,” in the edition of Velazquez (p. 17), and the truly Horatian ode (p. 44) beginning, “O tres y quatro veces venturosa,” with the description of the dawn of day, and the sonnet to Spring (p. 12). The first eclogue, too, and all the endechas, which are in the most flowing Adonian verse, should not be overlooked. Sometimes he has unrhymed lyrics, in the ancient measures, not always successful, but seldom without beauty.
[480] “Poesías que publicó D. Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, Cavallero del Órden de Santiago, Señor de la Torre de Juan Abad, con el nombre del Bachiller Francisco de la Torre. Añadese en esta segunda edicion un Discurso, en que se descubre ser el verdadero autor el mismo D. Francisco de Quevedo, por D. Luis Joseph Velazquez,” etc. Madrid, 1753, 4to.
[481] Quintana denies it in the Preface to his “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1807, 12mo, Tom. I. p. xxxix.). So does Fernandez (or Estala for him), in his Collection of “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1808, 12mo, Tom. IV. p. 40); and, what is of more significance, so does Wolf, in the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1835, Tom. LXIX. p. 189. On the other side are Baena, in his Life of Quevedo; Sedano, in his “Parnaso Español”; Luzan, in his “Poética”; and Bouterwek, in his History. Martinez de la Rosa and Faber seem unable to decide. But none of them gives any reasons. I have in the text, and in the subsequent notes, stated the case as fully as seems needful, and have no doubt that Quevedo was the author, or that he knew and concealed the author.
[482] We know, concerning the conclusion of Ercilla’s life, only that he died as early as 1595; thirty-six years before the publication of the Bachelor, and when Quevedo was only fifteen years old.