[483] It is even doubtful who this Bachiller de la Torre of Boscan was. Velazquez (Pref., v.) thinks it was probably Alonso de la Torre, author of the “Vision Deleytable,” (circa 1465), of which we have spoken, Vol. I. p. 417; and Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. IV. p. 169) thinks it may perhaps have been Pedro Diaz de la Torre, who died in 1504, one of the counsellors of Ferdinand and Isabella. But, in either case, the name does not correspond with that of Quevedo’s Bachiller Francisco de la Torre any better than the style, thoughts, and forms of the few poems which may be found in the Cancionero of 1573, at ff. 124-127, etc., do with those published by Quevedo.
[484] He was exiled there in 1628, for six months, as well as imprisoned there in 1620. Obras, Tom. X. p. 88.
[485] It is among the suspicious circumstances accompanying the first publication of the Bachiller de la Torre’s works, that one of the two persons who give the required Aprobaciones is Vander Hammen, who played the sort of trick upon the public of which Quevedo is accused; a vision he wrote being, to this day, printed as Quevedo’s own, in Quevedo’s works. The other person who gives an Aprobacion to the Bachiller de la Torre is Valdivielso, a critic of the seventeenth century, whose name often occurs in this way; whose authority on such points is small; and who does not say that he ever saw the manuscript or the Approbation of Ercilla. See, for Vander Hammen, post, [p. 273].
[486] These works, chiefly theological, metaphysical, and ascetic, fill more than six of the eleven octavo volumes that constitute Quevedo’s works in the edition of 1791-94, and belong to the class of didactic prose.
[487] Watt, in his Bibliotheca, art. Quevedo, cites an edition of “El Gran Tacaño,” at Zaragoza, 1626; but I do not find it mentioned elsewhere. I know of none earlier than that of 1627. Since that time, it has appeared in the original in a great number of editions, both at home and abroad. Into Italian it was translated by P. Franco, as early as 1634; into French by Genest, the well-known translator of that period, as early as 1644; and into English, anonymously, as early as 1657. Many other versions have been made since;—the last, known to me, being one of Paris, 1843, 8vo, by A. Germond de Lavigne. His translation is made with spirit; but, besides that he has thrust into it passages from other works of Quevedo, and a story by Salas Barbadillo, he has made a multitude of petty additions, alterations, and omissions; some desirable, perhaps, from the indecency of the original, others not; and winds off the whole with a conclusion of his own, which savors of the sentimental and extravagant school of Victor Hugo. There is, also, a translation of it into English, in a collection of some of Quevedo’s works, printed at Edinburgh, in 3 vols., 8vo, 1798; and a German translation in Bertuch’s Magazin der Spanischen und Portug. Litteratur (Dessau, 1781, 8vo, Band II.). But neither of them is to be commended for its fidelity.
[488] They are in Vols. I. and II. of the edition of his Works, Madrid, 1791, 8vo.
[489] The “Cartas del Cavallero de la Tenaza” were first printed, I believe, in 1635; and there is a very good translation of them in Band I. of the Magazin of Bertuch, an active man of letters, the friend of Musäus, Wieland, and Goethe, who, by translations and in other ways, did much, between 1769 and 1790, to promote a love for Spanish literature in Germany.
[490] I know of no edition of “La Fortuna con Seso” earlier than one I possess, printed at Zaragoza, 1650, 12mo; and as N. Antonio declares this satire to have been a posthumous work, I suppose there is none older. It is there said to be translated from the Latin of Rifroscrancot Viveque Vasgel Duacense; an imperfect anagram of Quevedo’s own name, Francisco Quevedo Villegas.
[491] One of these Sueños is dated as early as 1608,—the “Zahurdas de Pluton”; but none, I think, was printed earlier than 1627; and all the six that are certainly by Quevedo were first printed together in a small collection of his satirical works that appeared at Barcelona, in 1635, entitled “Juguetes de la Fortuna.” They were translated into French by Genest, and printed in 1641. Into English they were very freely rendered by Sir Roger L’Estrange, and published in 1668 with such success, that the tenth edition of them was printed at London in 1708, 8vo, and I believe there was yet one more. This is the basis of the translations of the Visions found in Quevedo’s Works, Edinburgh, 1798, Vol. I., and in Roscoe’s Novelists, 1832, Vol. II. All the translations I have seen are bad. The best is that of L’Estrange, or at least the most spirited; but still L’Estrange is not always faithful when he knew the meaning, and he is sometimes unfaithful from ignorance. Indeed, the great popularity of his translations was probably owing, in some degree, to the additions he boldly made to his text, and the frequent accommodations he hazarded of its jests to the scandal and taste of his times by allusions entirely English and local.
[492] The six unquestioned Sueños are in Tom. I. of the Madrid edition of Quevedo, 1791. The “Casa de los Locos de Amor” is in Tom. II.; and as N. Antonio (Bib. Nov., I. 462, and II. 10) says Vander Hammen, a Spanish author of Flemish descent, told him that he wrote it himself, we are bound to take it from the proper list of Quevedo’s works.