[840] “Obras Poéticas de Lomas de Cantorál,” Madrid, 1578, 12mo. It opens with a translation from Tansillo, and the lyrical portions of the three books into which it is divided are in the Italian manner; but the rest is often more national in its forms.
[841] Figueroa, (born 1540, died 1620), often called El Divino, was perhaps more known and admired in Italy, during the greater part of his life, than he was in Spain; but he died at last, much honored, in Alcalá, his native city. His poetry is dated in 1572, and was circulated in manuscript quite as early as that date implies; but it was not printed, I think, till it appeared in 1626, at Lisbon, in a minute volume under the auspices of Luis Tribaldo de Toledo, chronicler of Portugal. It is also in the twentieth volume of the collection of Fernandez, Madrid. But, though it is highly polished, it is not inspired by a masculine genius.
[842] “Diversas Rimas de V. Espinel,” Madrid, 1591, 18mo. His lines on Seeking Occasions for Jealousy (f. 78) are very happy, and his Complaints against Past Happiness (f. 128) are better than those on the same subject by Silvestre, Obras, 1599, f. 71.
[843] Montemayor, as we shall see hereafter, introduced the prose pastorals, in imitation of Sannazaro, into Spanish in 1542; and a collection of his poetry, called a “Cancionero,” was printed in 1554. In the edition of Madrid, 1588, 12mo, which I use, about one third of the volume is in the Castilian measures and manner; after which it is formally announced, “Here begin the sonnets, canciones, and other pieces in the measures of Italian verse.” A cancion occurs in the first book of the “Diana,” on the regrets of a shepherdess who had driven her lover to despair, which is very sweet and natural, and is well translated by old Bartholomew Yong in his version of the Diana (London, 1598, folio, p. 8). Polo, who continued the Diana, pursued the same course in the poems he inserted in his continuation, and good translations of several of them may be found in Yong.
“The works of Montemayor touching on Devotion and Religion”—those, I presume, in his “Cancionero”—are prohibited in the Index of 1667, and in that of 1790.
[844] The lyric poetry of Barahona de Soto is to be sought among the works of Silvestre, 1599, and in the “Flores de Poetas Ilustres,” by Espinosa, Valladolid, 1605, 4to.
[845] “Las Seyscientas Apotegmas de Juan Rufo, y otras Obras en Verso,” Toledo, 1596, 8vo. The Apotegmas are, in fact, anecdotes in prose. His sonnets and canciones are not so good as his Letter to his Son and his other more Castilian poems, such as the one relating to the war in Flanders, where he served.
[846] “Libro de Poesía, por Fray Damian de Vegas,” Toledo, 1590, 12mo, above a thousand pages; most of it religious; most of it in the old manner; and nearly all of it very dull.
[847] “Pedro de Padilla, Eglogas, Sonetos,” etc., Sevilla, 1582, 4to, ff. 246. There are many lyrics in this collection, glosas, villancicos, and letrillas, that are quite Castilian, some of them spirited and pleasant. Others may be found in his “Thesoro de Varias Poesías,” (Madrid, 1587, 12mo), where, however, there are yet more in the Italian forms.
[848] The “Cancionero” of Maldonado was printed at Madrid, 1586, in 4to, and the best parts of it are the amatory poetry, some of which is found in the third volume of Faber’s “Floresta.” One more poet might have been added here, as writing in the old measures,—Joachim Romero de Çepeda,—whose works were printed at Seville, 1582, in 4to, and contain a good many canciones, motes, and glosas; among the rest, three remarkable sonnets, presented by him to Philip II. as he passed through Badajoz, where Çepeda lived, to take possession of Portugal, in 1580. But the whole volume is marked with conceits and quibbles.