In spite of these defects, which are certainly very great, Quevedo will be read with respect, and be justly admired in many passages. In the first place, his verse is for the most part full and sonorous, his rhyme rich and easy, and yet this merit, the first which a poet should possess, is not the principal one; our author knows how to accompany them with many touches, excellent, some from the brightness of their colouring, others from their spirit and boldness. His poetry, strong and nervous, proceeds impetuously to its end; and if his movements betray too much of the effort, affectation, and bad taste of the writer, their course is yet frequently seen to have a wildness, an audacity, and a singularity, that is surprising. His verses oft-times spring from his own imagination, and without extraneous aid strike the ear with their loud and strong vibration, or sculpture themselves in the mind by the profundity of the thought they develope, or by the novelty and strength of the expression. From no one can such beautiful isolated verses be quoted as from him; from no one, poetic periods so stately and so strong.
Rome buried in her Ruins.
On meeting in his works with these brilliant passages, after paying them the high admiration they deserve, we cannot restrain a feeling of indignation, to see the deplorable abuse which Quevedo has made of his talents, in employing on the useless evolutions and balanced movements of a tumbler, the muscular limbs and strength of an Alcides.
Don Francisco Manuel Melo was a friend of Quevedo, a Portuguese, and as indefatigable a writer as he was an active warrior and politician. He managed the Castilian idiom with equal facility as his own, and poet, historian, moralist, author political, military, and even religious, he excels in some of these departments, and is contemptible in none. The volume of his verses is extremely rare, and though some have made him the imitator of Góngora, he has more points of resemblance to Quevedo; the same taste in versification, the same austerity of principles, the same affectation of sententiousness, the same copiousness of doctrine. He has besides conformed to the example of Quevedo in publishing his poems, in divisions of the nine Muses, though three of them are in Portuguese. There are in the Spaniard colours more brilliant, and strokes more strong; in Melo more sobriety and fewer extravagances. His style, though elegant and pure, is barely poetical; and his amatory verses are deficient in tenderness and fire, as are his odes in enthusiasm and loftiness. He is as little happy in the many burlesque verses with which the large volume of his poetry abounds; but when the subject is grave and serious, then his philosophy and doctrine sustain him, and his expression equals his ideas. Naturally inclined to maxims and reflections, he was most at home in moral poetry; in the epistle particularly, where strength and severity of thought best combine with a tempered and less profound fancy. Here, if he is not always a great painter, he is at least chaste and severe in style and language, in his verse sonorous, grave and elevated in his thoughts, a respectable moralist in character and principles. Notwithstanding these distinctions, the claims of his glory as a writer are more firmly grounded on his prose works; on the Eco politico for instance, on his Aula militar, and, above all, on the Historia de las alteraciones de Cataluña, the most excellent production of his pen, and perhaps the best work of its kind in the Castilian language.
Poetry was meanwhile expiring; tortured by such demoniacs, it could not recover its beauty and freshness from the aid of the few who yet composed with care, and wrote with greater purity. Rebolledo had neither force nor fancy, and his verses are nothing more than rhymed prose: Esquilache, with somewhat more grace in his romances, was spruce and affected, and had neither the talent nor strength which are necessary for higher compositions: Ulloa wrote nothing good but his Raquel: and lastly, Solis, who sometimes shows himself a poet in his comedies, and often in his history, is a mere rhymester in his lyrics, which now are read by none. How could these emasculated writers raise the art from the abyss into which it had fallen? The thing was impossible. This vicious taste was reduced to a system in the extravagant and singular work of Gracian, Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio, which is an art of writing in prose and verse, founded on the most absurd principles, and supported by good and bad specimens, jumbled together in the most discordant manner. This Gracian is the same that composed a descriptive poem on the seasons, under the title of Silvas del Año; the first I fancy that was written in Europe on this subject, and most assuredly the worst. As a specimen of his manner, and of the laughable degradation to which poetry had fallen, the following verses will suffice, selected from the opening of Summer:—
This is beyond every thing: the whole poem is written in the same barbarous and ridiculous manner, and it is a proof as evident as mournful, that there now remained no memory of the principles of composition, no vestiges of eloquence. Ornaments, suited to the madrigal and epigram, were transferred to the higher kinds of composition, and the whole was changed into concetti, conundrums, puns, and antitheses. Thus Castilian poesy came to an end! In her more tender youth, the simple flowers of the field which Garcilasso gathered sufficed to adorn her; in the fine writings of Herrera and Rioja, she presents herself with the pomp of a beautiful lady, richly attired; in Balbuena, Jauregui, and Lope de Vega, although too free and gay, she yet preserved traits of elegance and beauty; but first spoiled by the contortions taught her by Góngora and Quevedo, she afterwards gave herself up to a crowd of Vandals, who completed her ruin. Thenceforward her movements became convulsions, her colours paint, her jewels tinsel, and old and decrepid, there was nothing more for her to do than madly to act the girl, to wither, and to perish.
If in this state a glance is cast at the steps which the art in little more than a century of its existence had taken, it will be seen that nothing had been left unattempted. There were translations of all, or of the greater number, of the ancient authors: epics of all kinds had been written; the theatre had taken a compass, and presented a fruitfulness so great as to have communicated of its wealth to foreigners; lastly, the ode in all its forms, the eclogue, the epistle, the satire, descriptive poetry, the madrigal, and epigram, all had been noticed, and all cultivated.
If this compass and variety do honour to its flexibility and boldness, the success of its accomplishments in all these various kinds of composition is not equal. For, in the first place, the translations are almost all bad or indifferent. Who, in good truth, can say that that of the Odyssey, by Gonzalo Perez; of the Eneid, by Hernandez de Velasco; or of the Metamorphoses, by Sigler, are real substitutes for the originals? What person, possessing the least taste in poetic language and versification, can read two pages of these versions, wherein the greatest poets of antiquity are metamorphosed into trivial rhymers, without elegance and harmony? Spain has a number of epic poems; and although some fragments of good poetry may be culled from them, not one can be looked upon as a well-arranged fable, or as corresponding in dignity and interest with its title and argument. Of Spanish comedies, it is notorious that the defects exceed the beauties. Happier in shorter kinds of composition, her odes, elegies, sonnets, romances, and letrillas, approach nearer to perfection. But even in these, what forgetfulness of propriety, what negligence at times, and at times what pedantry and false taste exist! In the best writers, in the choicest pieces, the mind is offended by finding too frequently joined to a fine turn a harsh extravagance, and a sharp thorn to an incomparable flower.
There is one thing extraordinary in the good poets of the sixteenth century, that their genius never rises to the level of the events which passed around them. The compositions of Virgil and of Horace in Rome correspond with the dignity and majesty of the empire. Lucan afterwards, though very distant from the perfection of his predecessors, preserved in his poem the bold and fiery tone adapted to the subject on which he wrote, and to the patriotic enthusiasm with which he was animated. Dante, in his extraordinary poem, shows himself inspired by all the sentiments which the rancour of faction, civil dissension, and the effervescence of men's minds, stirred up. Petrarch, if in his love-sonnets he sacrificed to the gallantry of his time, rises, in his Trionfi, to a level with the elevation to which the human mind was rising at that period. It was not so with the poets of Spain. The Moors expelled from the peninsula; a discovered world opening a new hemisphere to Spanish fortune; fleets sailing from one extremity of the ocean to the other, accompanied by terror, and exchanging the riches of the east and west; the church torn by the reformation of Luther; France, Holland, Germany, convulsed and desolated by civil wars and religious dissensions; the Ottoman power rolled away on the waters of Lepanto; Portugal falling in Africa, to be then united to Castile; the Spanish sword agitating the whole world with the spirit of heroism, of religion, of ambition, and of avarice;—when was there ever a time more full of astonishing events, or more suited to sublime the fancy? Yet the Castilian muses, deaf and indifferent to this universal agitation, could scarcely inspire their favourites with aught but moralities, rural images, gallantry, and love.[T]
This deficiency of grandeur is compensated in part by a moral quality which distinguishes those poets, and recommends them infinitely. Neither in Garcilasso, nor in Luis de Leon, nor in Francisco de la Torre, nor in Herrera, are to be found any traces of rancour and literary envy, of gross indecency, or of servile and shameless adulation. The praises which they sometimes pay to power are restricted within those bounds of moderation and decorum which make them endurable. Till the corruption of literary taste, there was no appearance of this moral degradation, made up of meanness towards superiors, of insolence towards equals, and of utter forgetfulness of all respect towards the public; vices unfortunately sufficiently contagious, and which defame and destroy the nobleness of an art, that from the nature of its object, and the means it uses, has in it something superhuman.
There cannot be denied to a great number of the Spanish poets admirable talent, extensive learning, and great acquaintance with the ancient classics, although it is an uncommon thing to meet in them the sustained elegance and perfection of taste which other modern authors have drawn from the same fountains. Many causes contributed to this. One is, that these poets communicated little with each other: there wanted a common centre of urbanity and taste, a literary legislature, that should draw the line between bombast and sublimity, exaggeration and vigour, affectation and elegance. The universities, where dwelt the greatest knowledge, could not become such, from the nature of their studies, more scholastic than classical. The court, where the tone of society and fashion is most quickly perfected, would have been more to the purpose; but wandering under Charles the Fifth, severe and melancholy under the Second Philip, it gave not till Philip the Third to poetical talent the encouragement necessary for its perfection; even then, but much more in the time of his successor, taste was vitiated, and the encouragement given by princes and grandees, and even the occasional share they took themselves in poetical pursuits, could do nothing but authorize the corruption. In short, there wanted in Spain a court like that of Augustus, of Leo the Tenth, of the dukes of Ferrara, and of Louis the Fourteenth; where polite and refined conversation, devotion to the Muses, culture and elegance, with other fortunate circumstances, powerfully contributed to the perfection of the great writers that flourished therein.
Another cause is the secondary place which poetry held with many of those who cultivated it. They wrote verses to unbend themselves from other more serious occupations; and he who writes verses to amuse himself, is not usually very nice in the choice of his subject, nor very careful in its execution. Fatal lot to Spain in the finest and most difficult of all arts! Poetry, which is a recreation and amusement for those who enjoy it, should be a very serious and almost exclusive occupation with those who profess it, if they aspire to hold any distinguished rank in reputation. When it is considered that Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Horace, Tasso, Ariosto, Pope, Racine, and others, were at once the greatest poets and the most laborious, it should not be thought extraordinary that those have remained so far behind, who, even supposing them to have possessed equal talent, equalled them neither in application nor perseverance.
To this evil was added another and a worse, arising in a great measure from the same cause. Very few of the good poets of Spain published their works in their lifetime. The works of Garcilasso, Luis de Leon, Francisco de la Torre, Herrera, the Argensólas, Quevedo, and others, were published after their death by their heirs or friends, with more or less judgment. How much would they not have rejected, if they had published their writings in their own name! how many corrections would they not have made in the selection, and how many spots of slovenliness, bad taste, and obscurity, would they not have expunged!
But even though the want of perfection from this cause should seem less imputable to them, it is not on that account less certain. It has given cause to a diversity of opinion on the merit of the ancient poets of Spain, whom some value as admirable models, whilst others depreciate them so far as to think them unworthy of being read. In this, as in all cases, partiality and prejudice are wont to carry critics to their conclusions more than truth and justice; and to exalt or depress the dead is often with them nothing but an indirect mode of exalting or depressing the living. But setting this consideration aside, it may be said that this vast difference arises from the different points of view which are taken for the comparison. Comparing Leon, Garcilasso, Herrera, Rioja, and a few others, with the monstrous extravagances introduced and sanctioned by Góngora and Quevedo, there is no doubt that the former should be regarded as classical writers, perfect, and worthy to be imitated and followed: if compared even with the great authors of antiquity, or with the few moderns that have approached near, or have excelled them, we have yet to discover the reason why many treat them with such excessive rigour. As to myself, without pretending to lay down for a rule my particular opinion, and judging by the effect produced on me in the perusal, I would say, that though I consider the ancient Spanish poesies as sufficiently distant from perfection, they yet convey to my mind and ear sufficient pleasure for me to overlook in their graces the negligences and blemishes I meet with. I would, moreover, be bold to say, that if the poets of Spain had cultivated the loftier kinds of poetry, the epopee and the drama, with the same successful diligence as the ode and other shorter species, Spain would have been satisfied with the praises that would have fallen to her lot in this delightful department of literature. I will add, lastly, that, in my judgment, it is absolutely necessary to read and study these poets, in order to learn the purity, propriety, and genius of the language, to form the taste and ear to the harmony and flow of its verse, and to acquire the structure of the true poetic period. It would not be difficult, nor perhaps foreign to my subject, to show in her modern compositions the influence which exclusive admiration or exaggerated depreciation of the fathers of Spanish poetry has had upon her authors; but this application, necessarily odious, enters neither into my character nor design.
Castilian poetry, buried in the ruins wherein sank the other arts, sciences, and power in the time of Charles the Second, began to be revived towards the middle of the last century, by the laudable efforts of some literary characters who devoted themselves wholly to the re-establishment of classical study. The principal glory of this happy revolution is due to D. Ignacio de Luzán, who, not satisfied with pointing out the path of good taste in his Poetica, published in 1737, gave no less the example of treading in it, by the poetical beauties which are visible in the few compositions of his that have been published. His poetry, like that of all professed critics, is recommended more by its dignity, circumspection, and propriety, than by any sublimity or boldness; but his memory will be always respected as that of the restorer of Spanish poesy. Others followed in the same career: the Count of Torrepalma, whose Deucalion, notwithstanding some touches of bombast and purism which it preserves, is one of the strongest and best pieces of descriptive poetry in Castilian; D. Josef Porcel, author of some hunting eclogues, much praised by all his cotemporaries, but which I have not read, nor indeed have they been collected for publication; D. Augustin Montiano, a learned man and of good taste, though deficient in imagination and genius; D. Nicolas de Moratin, a poet gifted with a lively and flexile fancy, and an original and forcible expression, who for his whole life has been struggling with indefatigable zeal in favour of the principles and rules of correct composition: and, lastly, Don Josef Cadalso, in whose hands, the Anacreontic, which had been buried with Villegas, revived towards the end of the century. In this gay and agreeable writer terminate the trials and efforts for the revival of the art. From that period a new epoch in Castilian poetry commences, upon another foundation, with another character, with other principles, and it may even be said, with other models; an epoch, the description and judgment of which posterity will know how to give with more justice, authority, and propriety, than it is generally supposed can be given by a cotemporary.
Of the many distinguished men, to whom, in the enterprising reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain had the honour of giving birth, there are few perhaps much more admired by herself, or that come recommended to the notice of a stranger with so much interest as Garcilasso de la Vega. Whether considered as the cultivated spirit, who, shaking from the Spanish lute the dust of ages, imparted to it by the force of his genius, a more harmonious string and a more polished tone; or whether as a young warrior, brought up in the court of the most celebrated prince of his age, qualified both by birth and education to take part, and actually taking part in that prince's enterprises, till doomed to fall the victim of his too rash valour, his story is calculated to strike forcibly the attention, and to touch the springs of admiration and of sympathy in no common degree. The character of the times in which he lived, of the monarch whom he served, his own adventures, his deep devotion to the muses during the few hours of leisure which alone he was able to snatch from the hurry and alarm of war, the amiable qualities and classic taste developed in his writings, and the new impulse which these writings gave to Spanish poesy,—all offer to the biographer a theme more fertile than usually falls to his lot in recording the lives of poets, and upon which he would love to bestow the illustration they deserve. But unfortunately for such a desire,—a desire in which every one must participate, who peruses the fine relics which his fancy has left of its sweetness,—the pen of his cotemporaries was unemployed in the record of his actions, and centuries were suffered to elapse before any of his countrymen set themselves to the task. It was then too late; the anecdotes that marked the character of the man, and all those slighter traits which in a more particular manner give life and individuality to biography, had perished with his intimate associates; and those who admired his talents, and desired to illustrate them, were obliged to gather from his works, and from the common voice of fame, their scanty particulars, and to make up the deficiency of incident by excessive compliments and eulogies. The consequence is, that although he lived on terms of close intimacy with many who were admirably qualified to depict the lights and shadows of his amiable mind and eventful life, a writer of the present day can hope alone to offer to the world a bare outline of his actions, unenriched by any of those distinctive touches which give value to a portrait. An industrious research into such of the Spanish annalists and cotemporary historians as are to be met with in our public libraries, and the interest I have naturally taken in his story, have enabled me to glean several particulars and incidents unnoticed by any of his commentators; but these must be still too few to satisfy our common curiosity, and it must always remain a subject of regret that we know so little of him, who has ever been considered by his countrymen as one of their most elegant writers, as the one in short who contributed most to the polish and refinement of their language.
Garcias, or, as he is commonly called, Garcilasso de la Vega, was born of one of the noblest titled families in the ancient city of Toledo. His ancestors from remote antiquity were persons of opulence and high consideration, as is evident from the frequent mention of them in the old chronicles of the kingdom. They originally sprang from the mountains of Asturias, having their seat on the banks of the river Vesaya, a league from Santillana, but making in course of time Toledo their principal residence. The first of our poet's ancestors, whom I find chronicled in Spanish story, is Don Diego Gomez, a very rich and distinguished knight in the reign of Don Alonzo the Seventh, a prince cotemporary with our Henry the First. From him sprang Gonzalo Ruyz, who lived in the time of Don Ferdinand the Third and Alonzo the Wise. His descendant, Don Pedro Lasso, was in the year 1329 Admiral of Castile; his son Garcilasso arrived at yet greater honours, being the principal favourite of Alonzo the Eleventh. He was made High Judge and Superintendent of sheep-walks in Castile, as well as Chancellor of the kingdom, and was entrusted with the education of the lady Blanche, daughter of prince Pedro who had fallen in battle against the Moors, no less than with the care of her estate. So rich was he become, that he purchased, says Mariana, the whole lordship of Biscay, of the lady Mary, mother of Don John, who aspiring to the marriage of the infant Blanche, in order to obtain the great estates whereof she was the heiress, had been treacherously invited to a banquet in the palace, and by the king's orders cruelly put to death. Garcilasso was employed by the king in several important negotiations, and amongst others, in that of thwarting the designs of D. John Manuel, who had renounced his allegiance to the crown, and was in arms to revenge the affront put upon him by the king in divorcing his daughter to make way for a second marriage. But in these turbulent times the highest distinctions of court-favour served only to mark out those who enjoyed them for destruction, either by the common vice of courts, intrigue, or by the more decisive dagger. The nobles of the kingdom, piqued at the elevation of one who was no noble to such high offices of trust, or envying his favour and influence with the king, conspired together, and he was assassinated in the church of Soria during the celebration of mass, A.D. 1328. Alonzo was seized with the greatest concern when the news of the murder was brought him; nor was his grief overcome, though his revenge was gratified, by the swift justice executed on the principal conspirators. The lordship of Biscay did not long remain in the family of the purchaser, being at the king's desire restored to the heiress of the attainted family on her marriage with Don John de Lara. The murdered Chancellor left two sons, Garcilasso and Gonzalo Ruyz, who in the grand battle of Salado, 1340, were the first that in spite of the Moors passed the river. The former was made Lord Chief Justice of Spain, as appears by the deeds of the year 1372; and this knight it was, who for his valour in slaying a gigantic Moor that had defied the Christians by parading in the Vega, or plain of Granada, with the words 'Ave Maria' fixed to his horse's tail, took the surname De la Vega, and for his device the Ave Maria in a field d'or;[U] as is seen in the scutcheon of Garcilasso de la Vega, a son of one of the brothers, who followed the party of King Henry against the king Don Pedro, was slain in the battle of Najara, and lies buried in the royal monastery of that city, in the chapel de la Cruz, near Donna Mencia, queen of Portugal. He had married Donna Mencia de Cisneros, and left a daughter, Leonora de la Vega, who married Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, High Admiral of Castile, a knight much celebrated in the annals of that period for his naval and military actions. From this marriage sprang D. Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, who in 1445 was created Marques de Santillana, Gonzalo Ruyz de la Vega, and two daughters, the elder of whom, Elvira Lasso de la Vega, marrying Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, continued the line of descent. Their son, Don Pedro Suarez, acquired the estate of Los Arcos and Botova by marriage with the lady Blanche de Sotomayor, and Don Pedro Lasso was the fruit of their union. The father of our poet, who was likewise named Garcilasso, was the fourth lord of Los Arcos, Grand Commendary of Leon, a knight of the Order of St. James, and one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, being appointed Counsellor of State to their Catholic Majesties, and sent as their ambassador to Pope Alexander the Sixth;[V] his wife, Donna Sancha, of the illustrious house of Toral, was lady of Batres, a considerable domain in Leon, where a fountain, the same our poet describes in his second eclogue, is still seen to play, and bears the name of Garcilasso's fountain, an illustrious monument of the estimation in which his writings were held.[W] According to the best accounts, Garcilasso, who was destined to rival, if not eclipse in battle the valorous deed of the first De la Vega, was born at Toledo, in the year 1503, a few years only after the birth of the celebrated Charles the Fifth; and when, on that prince's accession to the crown, he was persuaded to visit Spain, in the resort which the nobility made to him at Barcelona, Garcilasso, then in his fifteenth year, was not left behind. The office which his father had held under Ferdinand, rendered his attendance on such an occasion indispensable, and Garcilasso was presented to the prince. With a graceful person, frank address, and the most amiable dispositions, it may easily be conceived that he soon recommended himself to the notice and favour of Charles. What confirmed these first prepossessions, was his skill in those martial and gymnastic exercises, which formed in that age the chief pride of persons of rank, and to which the prince always showed an excessive fondness: to ride at full speed, to leap, to wrestle, to fence, to tilt, to swim the Tagus—in these accomplishments, Garcilasso, who, as a younger son, was probably early devoted to the profession of arms, bore the palm from his competitors, and in these severe amusements their hours were frequently spent together. Garcilasso knew, however, and loved to temper the exercises of the gymnasium with those more elegant pursuits and studies to which his royal companion showed but little inclination. Of music, from his earliest years, he was passionately fond, and on the harp and the guitar, already played with extreme sweetness.[X] Music called into exercise the poetical powers with which he now began to feel that he was gifted, and refined both his ear and taste to perceive the wide distance subsisting between the songs and coplas of his native poets, and the writings of those Latin, Greek, and Tuscan masters, to whose works his studies were directed. His acute judgment at once perceived the error into which the generality of Spanish poets had fallen, in contenting themselves with their merely natural endowments, without giving attention to art, as though impatient of the toil of culture. Dissatisfied with the little they had accomplished, he set himself sedulously to the study of more classical models than his countrymen had yet taken as standards of good writing; and the pure elegance of the Greeks, and harmonious numbers of the Tuscans, alternately engrossed his attention. In these pursuits was associated with him Juan Almogavar Boscán, a young man of honourable family, born at Barcelona, with whom he probably became first acquainted on his visit to that city with his father; for whom he entertained through life the warmest affection, and of whose amiable mind and poetical talent he has left in his writings many interesting testimonies. They applied themselves to their purpose with all the devotedness of youthful enthusiasm, newly conscious of its latent powers. Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, were ever in their hands, and the reputation of cotemporary poets amongst the Italians, of Bernardo Tasso, Tansillo, Sannazaro, and Bembo, quickened their literary ambition. But the poet whom above all others Garcilasso evidently studied with the most partiality, was Virgil. The mild and tender spirit which pervades and shines throughout his beautiful writings, was in peculiar concordance with the disposition and character of Garcilasso, naturally inclined to the gentle and the affectionate, to the love of rural images and the tranquillity of a country life, though drawn by circumstance into a ruder sphere, and compelled by passing events so frequently to cast aside the pages of the poet and the tones of the lyre, for the sword of battle and those military exertions which his country shortly claimed of him.
Although the nobility and nation at large had hailed Charles's arrival with delight, it was not long before they began to regard his proceedings with extreme mistrust and jealousy. For this there were many causes; but that which excited the greatest discontent was his almost exclusive partiality for his Flemish favourites, and the ascendancy of a Flemish minister. The great Ximenes, whose commanding genius had secured from a murmuring nobility the peaceful recognition of his title, was gone; weighed down by years, and by mortification at being refused an interview by the king, in which his prophetic spirit hoped to expose the calamities impending over the country from the insolence and rapacity of foreign minions, he expired. His death freed Chievres from those fears with which he could not but regard his superior talents, and for awhile he ran his round of misgovernment without restraint. He engrossed, or exposed to sale all offices and appointments, exported into Flanders all the treasures he could amass in the collection of the taxes, imposed new ones, and sedulously guarded the king's ear from the language of complaint. But this system of arbitrary peculation could not long escape the indignant remonstrances of a high-spirited and free people. Already Toledo, Segovia, Seville, and several other cities of the first rank, had entered into a confederacy for the defence of their rights and privileges, had laid before the king complaints of the mal-administration under which they suffered; and the first rumour of his intended departure for Germany to receive the imperial crown of Maximilian, was a signal for every hitherto suppressed discontent to burst forth in open violence. The nobles of Valencia refused to admit the Cardinal, afterwards Pope Adrian, as the royal representative, and firmly declared, that by the fundamental laws of the country, they could grant no subsidy to an absent sovereign: exasperated by their obstinacy, Charles countenanced the people who had risen against their privileges; he rashly authorized them to continue in arms, and sanctioned the association into which they entered under the fatal name of the Germanada or Brotherhood.
The civil dissensions which followed in the king's absence, the alliance of the commons in the principal cities, under the title of the Junta, the actions and death of their heroic leader John de Padilla, and the final extinction of the Germanada, are historical events generally known. Less generally known, however, is the honourable and distinguished part which Don Pedro, the elder brother of Garcilasso, took in these commotions, and we may with little impropriety devote a few pages to its consideration. Our English historians, seizing upon the leading features of the struggle, have celebrated alone the proceedings of Padilla, whose deeds in arms and tragical end seemed to mark him out as the principal personage of the drama. They have not communicated the fact, that Don Pedro Lasso was thought by the Junta to be more worthy of the distinction of Captain-General, was indeed elected such, and that it was only by low intrigues with the meanest of the people that Padilla had the election reversed in his favour.[Y] Young, generous, brave, of an open and sweet disposition, and intolerant of every species of injustice and oppression, Don Pedro Lasso pursued the views he meditated for the freedom and welfare of his country, with a simple sincerity and straight-forwardness of action, which showed clearly that he was swayed by no personal motives of aggrandizement or popularity; he dared the frowns of his sovereign, without stooping to pay court to the passions of the people. Equally brave and zealous, but with views less purely patriotic, and an ambition more daring, John de Padilla threw himself into their ranks, and sealed his devotion to the cause he embraced, by a death which he met with the utmost fortitude and boldness. But if the springs of his conduct are closely examined, they will furnish us with but too certain grounds for belief, that his own aggrandizement in the minds of men occupied quite as much of his thoughts as the good of his country; and if any mode seemed likely to facilitate his ends, he did not stand upon niceties in the use of them. Don Pedro, when he saw the unconstitutional excesses into which the Germanada were hurrying, laboured to lead them back by ways that would have secured from the monarch a recognition of the rights and claims for which they fought: with a blinder or less disinterested policy, Padilla led them on to fresh enterprises, which extinguished the high hopes in which the people indulged. Had the series of events led Don Pedro to the scaffold, he would have met his doom with calm and unpretending dignity, sufficiently rewarded by the testimony of a good conscience; Padilla bent his thoughts to the last to stand high in the applause of men, and the address to the citizens of Toledo, which he caused to be circulated at his death, noble and fine-spirited as it was, betrayed not merely a satisfaction with being, but a thirst to be considered the martyr in their cause he was.
So soon as it was known that the king intended to leave Spain, and that the calling of the Cortes together would only increase their taxes, the principal cities sent either petitions or protests against what they deemed so mischievous a measure. The citizens of Toledo, who considered themselves, on account of the great privileges they enjoyed, as guardians of the liberties of the Castilian commons, and were especially discontented, took the lead; they wrote to the other cities of Castile, exhorting them to send messengers to the king for the redress of their grievances: all, except Seville, returned for answer, that the representatives whom they sent to the approaching Cortes should act conformably to their desire. The persons who interested themselves most in this affair were Don Pedro, Padilla, and Fernando de Avalos, a gentleman of high extraction, and allied to the first nobles of Spain, all commissioners of the juntas in the city. They perpetually urged the expediency of a general assembly being held of those states that sent votes to the Cortes, to petition for a reformation of the abuses of government; it was at length debated in junta, but met with much opposition from the king's party; the dispute waxed hot, insomuch that Padilla and Antonio Alvarez de Toledo drew their daggers at each other. After some disturbances in the city, it was at last voted that they should send two of their regidores as Procuradores, and two Hurados to the king to demand redress: Don Pedro and Alonzo Suarez were appointed Procuradores, and departed with their equipages for Valladolid. They came into the palace as the king, with his dukes, bishops, and ministers of state, were rising from dinner, and requested audience; he, being already acquainted, through Alvarez de Toledo, with the nature of their embassy, pleaded haste, and was retiring; but Don Pedro pressed so urgently the importance of the business they were charged with, that he was obliged to appoint them to meet him at Benavente, on his way to St. Jago, where he had appointed the Cortes to be held, and meanwhile referred their petition to his Council of Justice. It will readily be imagined that no very favourable reception was given by the Council to a petition complaining, not merely of the monarch's leaving the kingdom, but of his ministers' lavishing all offices on strangers, and their rapacity in engrossing the treasures of Spain to enrich a foreign nation. The Council gave their judgment to the king, that the framers and supporters of a petition so dangerous deserved punishment rather than satisfaction; upon which he sent for the Procuradores to his chamber, and with a severe frown told them he was not pleased with their proceedings, and that if he did not consider from what parents they were descended, he would punish them as they deserved; then, referring them to the President of his Council, without listening to their excuses, he retired. The President desired them to return and prevail with their city to send commissioners to the approaching Cortes, who might present a memorial of what they desired, which should be disposed of as might best suit the general good: they refused compliance, and followed the king to St. Jago.
The Cortes was convoked: Charles opened it in person, and stating the circumstances that rendered it necessary for him to leave the kingdom, requested the usual subsidy, that he might appear in Germany with the splendour suitable to his dignity. The Commissioners of Salamanca refused to take the oath, unless he would first grant them what they desired: for this act of court-disrespect they were forbidden to come any more into the assembly. Then rose Don Pedro: he said he had brought a memorial from the city of Toledo, of what he was to do and grant in Cortes, which his majesty might see; that he could not go beyond his commission, yet would perform it as should be most agreeable to his sovereign; "but, my Lord and Señors," said he with a generous enthusiasm, "I will sooner choose to be cut in pieces, I will sooner submit to lose my head, than give my consent to a measure so mischievous as this which is contemplated, and so prejudicial to my city and my country." This bold speech, coming upon an assembly already sufficiently indignant at the innovation of transferring the Cortes to so remote a province, and at the demand for a new subsidy before the time for paying the former one was expired, operated most powerfully: the commissioners of Seville, Cordoba, Salamanca, Toro, Zamora, and Avila, supported Don Pedro's remonstrance, refused their assent, and the king, perceiving the present temper of the assembly, adjourned it to a more convenient season.
The Council meanwhile were not inactive; they thought it would be well, on their part, to send some of the chief officers in opposition back to their cities, that their places might be supplied by others that would be more pliant to the wishes of the king. This was accordingly done, and other regidores were commanded under heavy penalties to attend the court, that Toledo might revoke the powers given to Don Pedro and his colleague: John de Padilla was one of the persons cited. But, with one exception, these regidores excused themselves; and the delegates from Toledo and Salamanca made a request to the others, that as their Commissioners were not yet come to the Cortes, or not admitted, nothing should be granted,—protesting that if any vote of money were passed, it should not be to the prejudice of their cities. This protest was sent in to the new Assembly; but, though many voted in its favour, they would neither receive it, nor suffer the delegates from Toledo to enter. Whereupon they made their protest at the door, declaring, that as they could not form a Cortes without their commissioners, the acts they might pass should be null and void, both as respected their cities and the kingdom at large; requiring them moreover as citizens, not to assemble as a Cortes till they could do so constitutionally. Charles, hearing that Don Pedro and his companions slighted his commands, issued on Palm Sunday immediate orders for their banishment. Don Pedro was ordered within forty days to go and reside in the government of the fort of Gibraltar, which was his own inheritance; and not to depart from thence without the king's permission, under penalty of losing, not only that command, but all his estates whatsoever: but they, ill brooking such rigorous and arbitrary measures, went within two hours of night to the palace, and strongly remonstrated with the minister; the result was an agreement for them to retire only a few miles from St. Jago, leaving the Hurado Ortiz behind, to remind Chievres to solicit the revocation of their sentence of banishment; but no sooner had they followed this crafty advice, and left the town, than the treacherous Fleming opposed it in Council, and no relaxation could be obtained.
Toledo heard of the banishment of their messengers and failure of their embassy, and were exasperated beyond measure. Of this spirit of discontent, John de Padilla took all possible advantage. "Seeing," says the Spanish historian,[Z] "things go forward as they wished, he and Avalos, the other summoned regidor, made a show of complying with the king's command. Hereupon the armed populace, to the number of six thousand men, withstood their apparent intention, and a great tumult was raised, Padilla all the while desiring them to let him fulfil the king's command, which renewed the people's resolve to detain them; and the crowd led them away as honourable prisoners, set a guard over them, still protesting against, though inly rejoiced at the violence, and obliged the governor, at the sword's point, to forbid them on their oath from leaving the city." Not satisfied with this, they seized the bridges and fortified gates, and attacked the alcazar, or castle, which they soon obliged the governor to surrender. Emboldened by this success, they deprived of all authority every one whom they suspected of being in any wise attached to the court, established a popular form of internal government, and levied troops in their defence. Thus, by the evil counsels of an arrogant ministry, was kindled the first spark of that rebellious flame which afterwards burned in men's bosoms with so much fury, and involved the whole kingdom in civil discord; another instance to the many others which history furnishes,—if warning were of any avail,—of the terrible consequences arising from an administration's slighting the voice of an aggrieved and proud-spirited people.
Meanwhile Don Pedro and his companions were come again to St. Jago; and though some gentlemen, their friends, had counselled them to be gone, lest the king, already sufficiently incensed against the Toledans, should imagine them to have abetted the commotion in their city, and punish them accordingly, they yet continued there, without much fearing what might befal them. But Garcilasso, who in this crisis could not avoid feeling a brother's anxiety and alarm, earnestly desired the king's solicitor to go with all expedition to St. Jago, and persuade him to depart, as now only five days remained of the forty limited for his retirement. The solicitor took post, communicated the entreaties of Garcilasso, and with added arguments at length prevailed. Passing through Zamora, Don Pedro arrived by the expiration of the fifth day at Cueva, a village of his, on his way to Gibraltar. The Toledans, hearing of his arrival there, sent messengers to request him to return to the city; but this he refused, and prepared to prosecute his journey. Upon this, they ordered a party of horse to intercept and bring him thither, which he was forced to attend, and got as privately as he could to his own home: he could not, however, keep himself long retired; the people in immense numbers flocked round his house, obliged him to come forth, set him on horseback, then, forming a triumphal procession, escorted him to the church, and with loud acclamations of joy extolling to the skies his patriotism, his courage, the resolution he had shown in defence of their liberties, saluted him with the title of the Deliverer of his Country.[AA]
If the history of these events were followed up, Don Pedro would be found acting uniformly the same part of a pure and fearless patriot. He it was who when the nobles, jealous of the rising freedom of the commons, opposed in arms its progress, was principally instrumental in prevailing on Queen Joanna to come from her retirement, and to use in this state of civil disorder the constitutional authority with which she had been invested on the accession of Charles. Upon him was conferred, after the rash indiscretion of Don Pedro Giron, the office of Captain-General, which Padilla by his artifices caused to be revoked in his own favour: it was no personal offence however that could cool his ardour in the cause of freedom and his country; he led the vanguard of cuirassiers in the battle with the royalists which terminated in the defeat near Tordesillas. It was not till he saw the Junta bent upon pushing their demands and measures to an excess which threatened the extinction of the rights and privileges of the nobility, that he ceased taking an active part in their proceedings; but even then he exerted his good offices in the negotiations carried on between them, and would have persuaded the people to accept the terms offered by the nobility, who, on condition of the Junta's conceding a few articles subversive of the royal authority and their own unalienable privileges, engaged to procure the Emperor's consent to their other demands, and to join with them in order to extort it, if the influence of evil counsellors should lead to a refusal. Unfortunately for the liberties of Spain, the Junta, elevated by success or blinded by resentment, refused assent to any such reasonable conditions; the army of Padilla was shortly after defeated by the Count de Haro, the royalist general; Padilla himself, disappointed of the death he sought on the lost field, was taken and executed; and this bold attempt of the commons did but contribute, as is the case with all unsuccessful insurrections, to extend the power it was intended to abridge.
The return of the Emperor to Spain filled his subjects who had been in arms against him with deep apprehensions; and if they escaped punishment, it was rather from Charles's own generous nature than from the forbearance of his minister, who endeavoured, but in vain, to stir his mind up to revenge. A general pardon was published, extending to all crimes committed from the first of the insurrections, from which a few only were excepted, and these few rather for the sake of intimidating others, than from the wish to seize them. "Go," said the monarch to an officious courtier who offered to inform him where one of the most considerable lay concealed, "I have now no reason to be afraid of that man, but he has some cause to keep at a distance from me, and you would be better employed in telling him that I am here, than in acquainting me with the place of his retreat." By this prudent line of conduct, by adopting the manners and language of Spain, and by breaking from the pupillage in which Chievres had studied to keep him, he effectually conciliated his subjects. The invasion of Navarre by the French determined him to engage in open war with the French king; and without consulting his minister, whose aversion to a war with Francis might have thwarted his design, he had entered into an alliance with the pope to expel the French out of the Milanese, and to secure Francis Sforza in possession of that duchy. No sooner was the treaty signed and imparted to him, than Chievres was well assured he had lost his ascendancy; his chagrin on this account is said to have shortened his days, and his death left the Emperor to exercise without control the unbiassed wishes of his own great mind.
The declaration of war against France called Garcilasso from his studies, and though little more than eighteen, he commenced his career of arms in this campaign. Lautrec, to whom the French forces in Milan were committed, was forced, notwithstanding his vigilance and address, to retire toward the Venetian territories before Colonna and Pescara, the papal and imperial generals; by the bravery of the Spanish fusiliers, the city of Milan was surprised; Parma and Placentia were reduced by the former, and in a short time the whole Milanese, except the citadel of Cremona, submitted to Sforza's authority. To efface the disasters of this campaign, Francis in 1524 assembled a numerous army, and determined, notwithstanding the approach of winter and the dissuasions of his generals, to march into Italy, and attempt the recovery of the lost territory. Crossing Mount Cenis, he advanced with an activity and strength that disconcerted the Imperialists. They retired precipitately from the city of Milan; but instead of seizing upon that favourable moment to attack and disperse them, the evil genius of Francis led him to turn aside to besiege Pavia. The battle of Pavia set the final seal upon his misfortunes. After romantic deeds of personal bravery, and not till he had seen the flower of his nobility perish around him and the fortune of the field hopeless, he delivered up his sword, and submitted himself a captive. It does not appear whether in this memorable engagement Garcilasso fought under the flag of Pescara or the Marques del Vasto: it is certain, however, that he distinguished himself by his courage and heroism, as the emperor, in acknowledgment of the high regard in which he held his conduct, conferred on him shortly after the Cross of the order of St. James.
Previously to the emperor's descent upon Milan, the state of Venice had been in league with Francis, and it was the last of his allies who abandoned him. So long as Charles had to struggle with his insurgent subjects, and with formidable enemies elsewhere, he had avoided increasing their number, and had consented not to consider the Venetians as at war with him, notwithstanding the succour which they gave to France; but now that he felt his power unfettered, he assumed a loftier tone, and declared that he would no longer suffer a State almost surrounded by his own territories, to enjoy the advantages of peace whilst engaged in constant hostilities against him.[AB] The regret which they felt to renounce the friendship with France, for which they had made the greatest sacrifices, caused the Venetians to hesitate a long time which of the two powers they should join with. The ascendancy which Charles was acquiring in Italy at length cut short their deliberation; a treaty of alliance was entered into with the emperor, and Andreas Navagero and Lorenzo Priuli, afterwards doge, were appointed ambassadors to the Spanish court. At Pisa, however, they received orders to await the issue of the siege of Pavia; and it was not till they had received intelligence of the defeat of Francis, that they proceeded on their embassy. They were met on their entrance into the city of Toledo,[AC] where the court at that time was, by the Admiral of the Indies, who was a young son of Columbus,[AD] by the Bishop of Avenea, and the whole suite of foreign ambassadors. Navagero was a scholar and a poet. Born of one of the noblest families of Venice, and naturally inclined to letters, he had devoted his youth to study with so much severity, as to occasion a melancholy which he was obliged to divert by frequent travel and relinquishment of the pursuits he loved. He was no less distinguished for Greek learning than for the ease and elegance of his Latin compositions, and for his taste in Italian poetry, a taste so fastidious that he was rarely satisfied with any thing he wrote, so that he is said to have destroyed, a few hours before his death, not only the greater part of a History of Venice, which he had been charged to write when appointed librarian of the public library of Saint Mark, but many of his Italian poems, which fell short of his high standard of excellence. Such as are extant are sufficient to justify the great applause which he received from his cotemporaries.[4] Navagero enjoys the additional distinction of having originated the improvement that was derived to Spanish poesy from the naturalization of Italian metres and Italian taste, as hitherto both Garcilasso and Boscán had restricted their genius to compositions in the redondilla measure. The circumstance that first led to their relinquishment of the antique models, is narrated by Boscán himself, in the Dedication of the second volume of his poems to the Duchess of Soma.[AE]
"Conversing one day," says he, "on literary subjects, with Navagero the Venetian ambassador (whom I wish to name to your ladyship as a man of great celebrity in these days), and particularly upon the different genius of many languages, he inquired of me why in Castilian we had never attempted sonnets and other kinds of composition used by the best writers in Italy; he not only said this, he urged me to set the example. A few days after I departed home, and musing on a variety of things during the long and solitary journey, frequently reflected on Navagero's advice, and thus at length began the attempt. I found at first some difficulty, as this kind of versification is extremely complex, and has many peculiarities different from ours; but afterwards, from the partiality we naturally entertain towards our own productions, I thought I had succeeded well, and gradually grew warm and eager in the pursuit. This however would not have been sufficient to stimulate me to proceed, had not Garcilasso encouraged me, whose judgment, not only in my opinion, but in that of the whole world, is esteemed a certain rule. Praising uniformly my essays, and giving me the highest possible mark of approbation in following himself my example, he induced me to devote myself exclusively to the undertaking."
The noiseless tenour of a country life and calm domestic pleasure which Boscán now enjoyed, so different from the agitations of the camp to which his friend was subjected, fortunately concurred to favour the poet's scheme. He had for the last four years travelled much, or devoted his principal attention to the education of Fernando de Toledo, afterwards the celebrated Duke of Alva; but having married the lady Anna Giron de Rebolledo, an amiable woman of noble family, he seems now to have given himself up without distraction to his favourite pursuit, and to have presented himself as a reformer of the lyric poetry of his nation, in pursuance of Navagero's advice. He began to study with greater closeness the Tuscan poets, the sonnets of Petrarch, the terze rime of Dante, and the octaves of Bembo, Politian, and Ariosto. The Castilian songs, so pleasing to his nation, compared with those more perfect models, seemed to him comparatively barbarous; he resolved to effect the overthrow of the existing laws of Castilian versification, and to introduce new ones, on a system directly the reverse. The old Castilian measure in short verses, which constituted the actual national poetry, proceeded always from long to short; it consisted of four trochees in succession; Boscán substituted iambics as in Italian, and made the movement of the verse proceed from short to long. The old poets scarcely ever made use but of redondillas of six and eight syllables, and of verses de arte mayor of twelve. Boscán took a medium between both, in adopting the heroic Italian endecasyllabic verse of five iambics with a conclusive breve; a measure which wonderfully enlarged the powers and sphere of Spanish poetry, as the redondillas were by no means fitted for any of the higher kinds of composition. The outcry, however, that was raised at first against this innovation by the host of poets who could conceive nothing excellent but what accorded with their own habits, caused him to reflect seriously on his enterprise. Some of his opponents alleged that the old measures were sufficiently melodious; some, that the new verses had nothing to distinguish them from prose; and others even that the poesies which Boscán took for his model, had something in them effeminate, and were fit only for Italians and for women. It was then, when encouragement was most needed, that Garcilasso, returned from Italy, gave his voice in favour of the poet, and confirmed him in the undertaking by his own effective example. His Sonnets were the first of his compositions which Garcilasso wrote on the new system. The form of the sonnet had been long known in Spain, but the genius of the language had seemed repugnant to its successful structure. Boscán however fully succeeded in naturalizing it, though he failed to communicate to it the sweet reverie of the Tuscan melodist. Garcilasso approached much nearer the softness and sweetness of his model, and has left a few pre-eminently beautiful, which may be placed, without fear from the comparison, by the side of even Petrarch's: several of them, it is true, exhibit a refinement of thought that often verges upon hyperbole and affectation; but in extenuation of this fault, let it not be forgotten that the language of gallantry of those times was made up wholly of artifices of thought, and that the practice of Petrarch had sanctioned their adoption in song. Garcilasso's admiration of Petrarch, which led him to imitate his tone of lamenting love, would be strengthened in that choice of subject by his passion for an Arragonese lady, a cousin-german to the Count of Miranda, and maid of honour to Leonora, Queen of France, to whom it is probable many of them were addressed, and who it would appear from them as well as from his odes, subjected the sincerity and steadiness of his attachment to an ordeal sufficiently severe. More kind however than the Laura of Petrarch, or unpreoccupied in her affections, Helen de Zuñiga at length acknowledged her sense of his merit, and yielded him her hand. Their marriage was celebrated in the palace of the Queen of France,[AF] in 1528, in our poet's twenty-fifth year. It would seem from some coplas of his, which must have been written early in life, that he had been unsuccessful in his first choice, the verses in question exhibiting all that resentment and reproach softening into tenderness, which is the natural course of feeling under disappointment to a mind warm in the hopes and visions it indulges and proudly conscious of its own deserts, yet unchanging in the current of that one emotion into which all its thoughts have set. But whatever might have been his sufferings under this severe privation, it is natural to suppose that time had softened them into that mild melancholy which we trace in almost all his writings, and that they were recompensed by the happiness he now enjoyed in a home, where, in the words of one who has realized himself the picture—