[1171] P. 267.
[1172] Lord Holland has given a fuller account of the poetry of Lope de Vega than either Bouterwek or Velasquez and Dieze; and the extracts in his “Lives of Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro,” will not, I believe, be found in the Parnaso Español, which is contrived on a happy plan of excluding what is best. Las Lagrimas de Angelica, by Barahona de Soto, Lord H. says, “has always been esteemed one of the best poems in the Spanish language,” vol. i. p. 33. Bouterwek says he has never met with the book. It is praised by Cervantes in Don Quixote.
The translation of Tasso’s Aminta, by Jauregui, has been preferred by Menage as well as Cervantes to the original. But there is no extraordinary merit in turning Italian into Spanish, even with some improvement of the diction.
Araucana of Ercilla. 38. Voltaire, in his early and very defective essay on epic poetry, made known to Europe the Araucana of Ercilla, which has ever since enjoyed a certain share of reputation, though condemned by many critics as tedious and prosaic. Bouterwek depreciates it in rather more sweeping a manner than seems consistent with the admissions he afterwards makes.[1173] A talent for lively description and for painting situations, a natural and correct diction, which he ascribes to Ercilla, if they do not constitute a claim to a high rank among poets, are at least as much as many have possessed. An English writer of good taste has placed him in a triumvirate with Homer and Ariosto for power of narration.[1174] Raynouard observes, that Ercilla has taken Ariosto as his model, especially in the opening of his cantos. But the long digressions and episodes of the Araucana, which the poet has not had the art to connect with his subject, render it fatiguing. The first edition, in 1569, contains but fifteen books; the second part was published in 1578, the whole together in 1590.[1175]
[1173] P. 407.
[1174] Pursuits of Literature.
[1175] Journal des Savans, Sept. 1824.
Many epic poems in Spain. 39. The Araucana is so far from standing alone in this class of poetry, that not less than twenty-five epic poems appeared in Spain within little more than half a century. These will be found enumerated, and, as far as possible, described and characterised, in Velasquez’s History of Spanish Poetry, which I always quote in the German translation with the valuable notes of Dieze.[1176] Bouterwek mentions but a part of the number, and a few of them may be conjectured by the titles not to be properly epic. It is denied by these writers, that Ercilla excelled all his contemporaries in heroic song. I find, however, a different sentence in a Spanish poet of that age, who names him as superior to the rest.[1177]
[1176] P. 376-407. Bouterwek, p. 413.
[1177] Oyle el estilo grave, el blando acento,
Y altos concentos del varon famoso
Que en el heroyco verso fue el primero
Que honro a su patria, y aun quiza el postrero.
Del fuerte Arauco el pecho altivo espanta
Don Alonso de Ercilla con el mano,
Con ella lo derriba y lo levanta,
Vence y honra venciendo al Araucano;
Calla sus hechos, los agenos canta,
Con tal estilo que eclipsó al Toscano:
Virtud que el cielo para sí reserva
Que en el furor de Marte esté Minerva.