De mi caro tesoro ya perdido.
p. 94.
This passage is so nearly word for word, that it is not worth while to copy the Italian, and yet its fluency and ease are admirable.
There is a translation of the “Pastor Fido,” by a Jewess, Doña Isabel de Correa, of which I know only the third edition, that of Antwerp, 1694, 12mo. It is one of the few trophies in poetry claimed by the fair sex of its author’s faith; but it is not worthy of much praise. Ginguené complains of the original, which extends to seven thousand lines, for being too long. It is so; but this translation of Doña Isabel is much longer, containing, I think, above eleven thousand lines. Its worst fault, however, is its bad taste. There is a drama with the same title, “El Pastor Fido,” in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. VIII., 1657, f. 106;—but, though it is said to be written by three poets no less famous than Solís, Coello, and Calderon, it has very little value.
[80] Antonio (Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 251) gives a list of nine of the works of Figueroa, some of which must be noticed under their respective heads; but it is probably not complete, for Figueroa himself, in 1617, (Pasagero, f. 377,) says he had already published seven books, and Antonio gives only six before that date; besides which, a friend, in the Preface to Figueroa’s Life of the Marquis of Cañete, 1613, says he had written eight works in the ten years then preceding.
[81] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 179-181, and elsewhere. The very curious notices given by Figueroa of his own life, which have never been used for his biography, are in his “Pasagero,” from f. 286 to f. 392, and are, like many other passages of that singular book, full of bitterness towards his contemporaries, Lope de Vega, Villegas, Espinosa, etc.
[82] Pasagero, f. 96. b.
[83] “El Premio de la Constancia y Pastores de Sierra Bermeja, por Jacinto de Espinel Adorno,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo, 162 leaves. I find no notice of it, except the slight one in Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 613; but it is not worse than some that were more valued.
[84] “El Pastor de Clenarda de Miguel Botelho de Cavalho,” Madrid, 1622, 8vo. He wrote, also, several other works; all in Castilian, except his “Filis,” a poem in octave stanzas. Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. III. p. 466.
[85] “Experiencias de Amor y Fortuna, por el Licenciado Francisco de las Cuevas de Madrid,” Barcelona, 1649, 12mo. See, also, Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. pp. 172 and 189. Francisco de Quintana dedicated this pastoral to Lope de Vega, who wrote him a complimentary reply, in which he treats Quintana as a young man, and this as his first work. There were editions of it in 1626, 1646, 1654, as well as the one at Barcelona, above noted, and one at Madrid, 1666, 12mo; and in the nineteenth volume of Lope’s Obras Sueltas, pp. 353-400, is a sermon which Quintana delivered at the obsequies of Lope, in the title of which he is called Lope’s “intimate friend.”