[67]"When I was at Valladolid, a letter was brought to my house which cost a rial. It contained a bad, silly discourteous sonnet, without wit or point, speaking ill of 'Don Quixote,'—so that I grudged the rial infinitely."—Postcript to the "Voyage to Parnassus."
[68]Torres Marquez, master of the pages to the archbishop of Toledo, was a friend of Cervantes, and took every occasion to proclaim his genius and worth. It was through him, probably, that the archbishop bestowed a pension on him.
[69]The Argensolas were men much esteemed in their day, and are so often mentioned by Cervantes and Lope de Vega, that they must not be passed over in silence. But as there is nothing very original in their writings, we shall take the liberty of dismissing them in a note. The elder, Lupercio, the historiographer for Aragon, secretary to the empress Maria of Austria, and secretary of state to the count of Lemos when viceroy of Naples, died in that city in 1613, at the age of forty-eight. He founded an academy at Naples, and was a studious and laborious man. He burned a considerable portion of his poems just before his death, as not worthy to survive him. Bartolomé was an ecclesiastic. He followed his brother to Naples. On his death he quitted Italy. He continued the "Annals of Aragon," and wrote a history of the conquest of the Molucca islands; a work written with judgment and elegance. His secular poetry is so similar to his brother's that they cannot be distinguished one from the other. Following the same school, adopting the same tastes, and neither of them original, it is not surprising that their productions bore a close resemblance. The best works, however, of Bartolomé are his sacred Canzoni. He died at Saragossa, in the year 1531, at the age of sixty-five.
[70]Coleridge's summary of the character and life of Cervantes, though not correct in letter, is admirable in spirit: "A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman true to religion, and true to honour. A scholar and a soldier; he fought under the banners of don John of Austria, at Lopanto, and lost his arm, and was captured. Endured slavery, not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and, by the superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his barbarian owner. Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny—the awful task of achieving fame; and for that reason died poor, and a prisoner, while nobles and kings, over their goblets of gold, gave relish to their pleasures by the charms of his divine genius. He was the inventor of novels for the Spaniards; and in his "Persiles and Sigismunda" the English may find the germ of their "Robinson Crusoe."
"The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, in spite of poverty and sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth. He painted only what he knew, and had looked into; but he knew, and had looked into much indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modify the world of his experience. Of delicious love he fabled, yet with stainless virtue."
[71]Quarterly Review, vol. XXV.
[72]There is an excellent translation of ten from among them; we may also mention that there is an admirable old English translation of Don Quixote, by Shelton.
"De la quilla á la gavia, ó estraña cosa!
toda de versos era fabricada,
sin que se entremiese alguna prosa.
Las ballesteras eran de ensalada
de glosas, todas hechas á la boda,
de la que se llamó Malmaridada:
era la chusma de romances toda
gente atrevida, empero necesaria
pues á todas acciones se acomoda.
La popa de materia extraordinaria,
bastarda, y de legitimos sonetos,
de labor peregrina en todo y varia.
Eran dos valentisimos tercetos
los espaldares de la izquierda y diestra,
para dar boga larga muy perfetos.
Hecha ser la cruxia se me muestra
de una luenga y tristisima elegia,
que no en cantar, sino en llorar es diestra.
Por esta entiendo yo que se diria
lo que suele, decirse á un desdichado,
quando lo pasa mal, pasó cruxia.
El árbol hasta el cielo levantado
de una dura cancion prolixa estaba
de canto de seis dedos embreado.
El y la entena que por el cruxaba
de duros estrambotes—la madera
de que eran hechos claro se mostraba.
La racamenta, que es siempre parlera,
Toda la componian de redondillas,
Con que ella se mostraba mas ligera,
las xarcias parecian seguidillas,
de disparates mil y mas compuestas
Que suelen en el alma hacer cosquillas.
las rumbadas, fortisimas y honestas
estancias, eran tablas ponderosas,
que llevan un poema y otro á cuestas.
Era cosa de ver las bulliciosas
vanderillas que a ayre tremolaban,
De varias rimas algo licenciosas.
Los grumetes, que aqui y alli cruxaban
de encadenados versos parecian,
puesto que como libres trabajaban,
todas las obras muertas componian
O versos sueltos, ó sextinas graves
que la galera mas gallarda hacian."