The praise of Caro is echoed by others of more note. Cervantes, when he resided at Seville, frequented the society of Herrera; in his "Voyage to Parnassus" he calls him the "Divine," and says that the "ivy of his fame clung to the walls of immortality." Lope de Vega in his "Laurel de Apollo," calls him the "learned," and speaks of him with respect and admiration. Sedano tells us that he was a handsome man; tall, of a manly and dignified aspect, lively eyes, and thick curled hair and beard. In addition, we learn that the lady of his love, whom he celebrates under the names of Light, Love, Sun, Star—Eliodora, was the Countess of Gelves. He loved her, it is said, all his life, to the very height of platonic passion, which burnt fiery and bright in his own heart, but revealed itself only by manifestations of reverence and self-struggle. This sort of attachment, when true, is certainly of an heroic and sublime nature, and demands our admiration and sympathy; but we must be convinced of the reality of the sufferings to which it gives rise, and of the unlimited nature of its devotion, or it becomes a mere picture wanting warmth and life. Petrarch's letters give a soul to his poetry: the various accounts they contain of his solitary struggles at Vaucluse, make us turn with deeper interest to his verses, which, otherwise, might almost be reasoned away into a mere ideal feeling. Knowing nothing of Herrera but that he loved "a bright particular star," shining far above, we are willing to find an accord between this love of the elevated and unattainable, and the grandeur of the subjects he celebrates in his poetry, and the dignity of his verse.

Herrera is a great favourite with those Spanish critics who prefer loftiness to simplicity of style, and the ideas of the head rather than the emotions of the heart: the sublime style at which he aimed gained for him the surname of Divine. Boscan, Garcilaso, and Luis de Leon, adopted the Italian metres, and with greater diffuseness, and therefore less classical elegance, but with equal truth and poetic verve, and informed the Spanish language with powers unknown to former poets. But this did not suffice for Herrera. He delighted in the grandiose and sonorous. He altered the language, introducing some obsolete and some new words, and, attending with a sensitive ear to the modulations of sound, endeavoured to make harmony between the thought and its oral expression. Lope de Vega held Herrera's versification in high esteem: quoting a passage from his odes, he exclaims, "Here, no language exceeds our own—no, not even the Greek nor the Latin. Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight." Quintana, whose criticism is rather founded on artificial, rather than genuine and simple taste, as is apt to be the case with critics, is also his great admirer. He considers that he contributed more than any other to elevate, not only the poetic style of the Spanish language, but the essence of its poetry, in gifting it with more boldness of imagination and fire of expression than any preceding poet. Sedano is less partial: while he praises and admits his right to his name of "divine," he observes, that in endeavouring to purify and elevate his diction, he erred in rendering it harsh and barren, wanting in suavity and flow, and injured it by the affectation of antiquated phrases. His odes are certainly grand: we feel that the poet is full of his subject, and rises with it. It is rash of a foreigner, indeed, to give an opinion; still, we cannot help saying that while we admire the fervour of expression, the grandeur of the ideas, and the harmony of the versification, we miss the while a living grace more charming than all. It is the poetry of the head rather than the heart. And thus, among Herrera's poems, the one we admire most is his Ode to Sleep; for, joined to elegant chasteness and great purity of language, we find a pure genuine feeling, feelingly expressed.

Suave sueño, tu que en tarde buelo
las alas perezosas blandamente
bates, de adormideras coronado,
por el puro, adormido, vago cielo,
ven á la ultima parte de Ocidente,
y de licor sagrado
baña mi ojos tristes que cansado
y rendido al furor de mi tormento,
no admito algun sosiego,
y el dolor desconorta al infrimiento.
Ven a mi humilde ruego:
ven a mi ruego humilde, amor de aquella
que Juno te ofreciò, tu Ninfa bella.

Divino Sueño, gloria de mortales,
regalo dulce al misero afligido:
Sueño amoroso, ven a quien espera
cesar del egercicio de sus males,
y al descanso bolver todo el sentido.
¿ Como sufres que muera
lejos de tu poder quien tuyo era?
¿ No es vileza olvidar un solo pecho
en veladora pena,
que sin gozar del bien che al mundo has hecho,
de tu vigor se agena?
Ven, Sueño alegre: Sueño, ven, dichoso:
vuelve a mi alma ya, vuelve el reposo.

Sienta yo en tal estrecho tu grandeza:
baja, y esparce liquido el rocio:
huya la alba, que en torno resplandece,
mira mi ardiente llanto y mi tristeza,
y quanta fuerza tiene el pesar mio:
y mi frente humidece,
que ya de fuegos juntos el Sol crece.
Torna, sabroso Sueño, y tus hermosas
alas suenen aora,
y huya con sus alas presurosas
la desabrida Aurora;
y lo che en mi falto la noche fria,
termine la cercana luz del dia.

Una corona, o Sueño, de tus flores
ofrezco: tù produce el blando efecto
en los desiertos cercos de mis ojos,
que el ayre entrevgido con olores
alhaga, y ledo mueve en dulce afecto:
y de estos mis enojos
destierra, manso Sueño, los despojos.
Ven pues, amado Sueño, ven liviano,
que del ruo Oriente
Despunta el tierno Febo el rayo cano.
Ven ya, Sueño clemente,
y acabara el dolor; asi te vea
en brazos de tu cara Pasitea."

[27]Sedano.

[SAA DE MIRANDA]

At this same period, so fertile in Spain with poetic genius, there flourished two Portuguese poets, whose names are introduced here from their connection with Spanish poetry. Saa de Miranda was horn in 1494, and died in 1558. His Spanish poems are bucolic, and more truly imbued with rural imagery than that of those warrior poets, whose love of the country was that of gentlemen who enjoy the beauties of scenery and the blandishments of the odorous breezes, rather than of persons accustomed to the detail of pastoral life. Saa de Miranda sometimes mingled a higher tone of description with his rural pictures; thus imitating nature, who associates the terrible with the lovely, the storm and the soft breath of evening. At the same time, none excels Saa de Miranda in the union of simplicity and grace: some of his verses remind the Italian reader of the odes of Chiabrera, such as these, describing the wanderings of a nymph, with which his fancy adorned a woodland scene:—

Gently straying,
Gently staying,
She breathed the fragrance of the breezy field;
And, singing, fill'd her lap with flowers,
The which the meadows yield,
Painting their verdure with a thousand colours.[28]