His Hero y Leandra is frankly based upon Musæus, and it is characteristic of Boscán's mode that he expands Musæus' three hundred odd hexameters into nigh three thousand hendecasyllabics. Professor Flamini has demonstrated most convincingly that Boscán followed Tasso's Favola, but he comes far short of Tasso's variety, distinction, and grace. He annexes the Italian blank verse—the versi sciolti—as it were by sheer force, but he never subdues the metre to his will, and his monotony of accent and mechanical cadence grow insufferable. Not only so: too often the very pretence of inspiration dissolves, and the writer descends upon slothful prose, sliced into lines of regulation length, honeycombed with flat colloquialisms. Conspicuously better is the Octava Rima—an allegory embodying the Court of Love and the Court of Jealousy, with the account of an embassage from the former to two fair Barcelonese rebels. Of this performance Thomas Stanley has given an English version (1652) from which these stanzas are taken:—
"In the bright region of the fertile east
Where constant calms smooth heav'n's unclouded brow,
There lives an easy people, vow'd to rest,
Who on love only all their hours bestow:
By no unwelcome discontent opprest,
No cares save those that from this passion flow,
Here reigns, here ever uncontroll'd did reign;
The beauteous Queen sprung from the foaming main.
Her hand the sceptre bears, the crown her head,