[599] The best account of them is in Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, loc. cit. I am sorry to add, that the specimen given of the translation from Virgil, though short, affords some reason to doubt whether the Marquis was a good Latin scholar. It is in prose, and the Preface sets forth that it was written at the earnest request of John, King of Navarre, whose curiosity about Virgil had been excited by the reverential notices of him in Dante’s “Divina Commedia.” See, also, Memorias de la Academia de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 455, note. In the King’s Library at Paris is a prose translation of the last nine books of Virgil’s Æneid, made, in 1430, by a Juan de Villena, who qualifies himself as a “servant of Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza.” (Ochoa, Catálogo de Manuscritos, Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 375.) It would be curious to ascertain whether the two have any connection, as both seem to be connected with the Marquis of Santillana.

[600] The “Trabajos de Hercules” is one of the rarest books in the world, though there are editions of it of 1483 and 1499, and perhaps one of 1502. The copy which I use is of the first edition, and belongs to Don Pascual de Gayangos. It was printed at Çamora, by Centenera, having been completed, as the colophon tells us, on the 15th of January, 1483. It fills thirty leaves in folio, double columns, and is illustrated by eleven curious woodcuts, well done for the period and country. The mistakes made about it are remarkable, and render the details I have given of some consequence. Antonio, (Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. p. 222,) Velasquez, (Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana, 4to, Málaga, 1754, p. 49,) L. F. Moratin, (Obras, ed. de la Academia, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 114,) and even Torres Amat, in his “Memorias,” (Barcelona, 1836, 8vo, p. 669,) all speak of it as a poem. Of the edition printed at Burgos, in 1499, and mentioned in Mendez, Typog. Esp., (p. 289,) I have never seen a copy, and, except the above-mentioned copy of the first edition and an imperfect one in the Royal Library at Paris, I know of none of any edition;—so rare is it become.

[601] See Heeren, Geschichte der Class. Litteratur im Mittelalter, Göttingen, 8vo, Tom. II., 1801, pp. 126-131. From the Advertencia to the Marquis of Villena’s translation of Virgil, it would seem that even Virgil was hardly known in Spain in the beginning of the fifteenth century.

[602] Another work of the Marquis of Villena is mentioned in Sempere y Guarinos, “Historia del Luxo de España,” (Madrid, 1788, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 176-179,) called “El Triunfo de las Donas,” and is said to have been found by him in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, “with other works of the same wise author.” The extract given by Sempere is on the fops of the time, and is written with spirit.

[603] The best account of Macias and of his verses is in Bellermann’s “Alte Liederbücher der Portuguiesen” (Berlin, 1840, 4to, pp. 24-26); to which may well be added, Argote de Molina, “Nobleza del Andaluzia,” (Sevilla, 1588, folio, Lib. II. c. 148, f. 272,) Castro, “Biblioteca Española,” (Tom. I. p. 312,) and Cortina’s notes to Bouterwek (p. 195). But the proofs of his early and wide-spread fame are to be sought in Sanchez, “Poesías Anteriores” (Tom. I. p. 138); in the “Cancionero General,” 1535 (ff. 67, 91); in Juan de Mena, Copla 105, with the notes on it in the edition of Mena’s Works, 1566; in “Celestina,” Act II.; in several plays of Calderon, such as “Para vencer Amor querer vencerlo,” and “Qual es mayor Perfeccion”; in Góngora’s ballads; and in many passages of Lope de Vega and Cervantes. There are notices of Macias also in Ochoa, “Manuscritos Españoles,” Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 505. In Vol. XLVIII. of “Comedias Escogidas,” (1704, 4to,) is an anonymous play on his adventures and death, entitled “El Español mas Amante,” in which the unhappy Macias is killed at the moment the Marquis of Villena arrives to release him from prison;—and in our own times, Larra has made him the hero of his “Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente,” already referred to, and of a tragedy that bears his name, “Macias,” neither of them true to the facts of history.

[604] Perez de Guzman, Generaciones y Semblanzas, Cap. 9.

[605] This great family is early connected with the poetry of Spain. The grandfather of Iñigo sacrificed his own life voluntarily to save the life of John I. at the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385, and became in consequence the subject of that stirring and glorious ballad,—

It is found at the end of the Eighth Part of the Romancero, 1597, and is translated with much spirit by Lockhart, who, however, evidently did not seek exactness in his version.

[606] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1414, Cap. 2.

[607] It is Perez de Guzman, uncle of the Marquis, who declares (Generaciones y Semblanzas, Cap. 9) that the father of the Marquis had larger estates than any other Castilian knight; to which may be added what Oviedo says so characteristically of the young nobleman, that, “as he grew up, he recovered his estates partly by law and partly by force of arms, and so began forthwith to be accounted much of a man.” Batalla I. Quinquagena i. Diálogo 8, MS.

[608] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1428, Cap. 7.

[609] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. v., etc.

[610] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1438, Cap. 2; 1445, Cap. 17; and Salazar de Mendoza, Dignidades de Castilla, Lib. III. c. 14.

[611] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1432, Capp. 4 and 5.

[612] Ibid., Año 1433, Cap. 2.

[613] Ibid., Año 1449, Cap. 11.

[614] Ibid., Año 1452, Capp. 1, etc.

[615] The principal facts in the life of the Marquis of Santillana are to be gathered—as, from his rank and consideration in the state, might be expected—out of the Chronicle of John II., in which he constantly appears after the year 1414; but a very lively and successful sketch of him is to be found in the fourth chapter of Pulgar’s “Claros Varones,” and an elaborate, but ill-digested, biography in the first volume of Sanchez, “Poesías Anteriores.”

[616] In the “Introduction del Marques á los Proverbios,” Anvers, 1552, 18mo, f. 150.

[617] Pulgar, Claros Varones, ut supra.

[618] See the preceding notice of Villena.

[619] In the Introduction to his Proverbs, he boasts of his familiarity with the Provençal rules of versifying.

[620] It is in the oldest Cancionero General, and copied from that into Faber’s “Floresta,” No. 87.

[621] The Serranas of the Arcipreste de Hita were noticed when speaking of his works; but the six by the Marquis of Santillana approach nearer to the Provençal model, and have a higher poetical merit. For their form and Structure, see Diez, Troubadours, p. 114. The one specially referred to in the text is so beautiful, that I add a part of it, with the corresponding portion of the one by Riquier.

Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. xliv.

The following is the opening of that by Riquier:—

Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. III. p. 470.

None of the Provençal poets, I think, wrote so beautiful Pastoretas as Riquier; so that the Marquis chose a good model.

[622] See the Letter to the Constable of Portugal.

[623] Cancionero General, 1573, f. 34. It was, of course, written after 1434, that being the year Villena died.

[624] Faber, Floresta, ut sup.

[625] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. xx., xxi., xl. Quintana, Poesías Castellanas, Madrid, 1807, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 13. There are imperfect discussions about the introduction of sonnets into Spanish poetry in Argote de Molina’s “Discurso,” at the end of the “Conde Lucanor,” (1575, f. 97,) and in Herrera’s edition of Garcilasso (Sevilla, 1580, 8vo, p. 75). But all doubts are put at rest, and all questions answered, in the edition of the “Rimas Ineditas de Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza,” published at Paris, by Ochoa (1844, 8vo); where, in a letter by the Marquis, dated May 4, 1444, and addressed, with his Poems, to Doña Violante de Pradas, he tells her expressly that he imitated the Italian masters in the composition of his poems.

[626] They are found in the Cancionero General of 1573, ff. 24, 27, 37, 40, and 234.

[627] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 143-147.

[628] It received its name from Ochoa, who first printed it in his edition of the Marquis’s Poems (pp. 97-240); but Amador de los Rios, in his “Estudios sobre los Judios de España,” (Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 342,) gives reasons which induce him to believe it to be the work of Pablo de Sta. María, who will be noticed hereafter.

[629] Faber, Floresta, No. 743. Sanchez, Tom. I. p. xli. Claros Varones de Pulgar, ed. 1775, p. 224. Crónica de D. Juan IIº, Año 1448, Cap. 4.

[630] Cancionero General, 1573, f. 37.

[631] Two or three other poems are given by Ochoa: the “Pregunta de Nobles,” a sort of moral lament of the poet, that he cannot see and know the great men of all times; the “Doze Trabajos de Ercoles,” which has sometimes been confounded with the prose work of Villena bearing the same title; and the “Infierno de Enamoradas,” which was afterwards imitated by Garci Sanchez de Badajoz. All three are short and of little value.

[632] For example, Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1435, Cap. 9.

[633] In the letter to Doña Violante de Pradas, he says he began it immediately after the battle.

[634] Speaking of the dialogue he heard about the battle, the Marquis says, using almost the very words of Dante,—

[635] As a specimen of the best parts of the Comedieta, I copy the paraphrase from a manuscript, better, I think, than that used by Ochoa:—

[636] There is another collection of proverbs made by the Marquis of Santillana, that is to be found in Mayans y Siscar, “Orígenes de la Lengua Castellana” (Tom. II. pp. 179, etc.). They are, however, neither rhymed nor glossed; but simply arranged in alphabetical order, as they were gathered from the lips of the common people, or, as the collector says, “from the old women in their chimney-corners.” For an account of the printed editions of the rhymed proverbs prepared for Prince Henry, see Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 196, and Sanchez, Tom. I. p. xxxiv. The seventeenth proverb, or that on Prudence, may be taken as a fair specimen of the whole, all being in the same measure and manner. It is as follows:—

A few of the hundred proverbs have a prose commentary by the Marquis himself; but neither have these the good fortune to escape the learned discussions of the Toledan Doctor. The whole collection is spoken of slightingly by the wise author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas.” Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 13.

The same Pero Diaz, who burdened the Proverbs of the Marquis of Santillana with a commentary, prepared, at the request of John II., a collection of proverbs from Seneca, which were first printed in 1482, and afterwards went through several editions. (Mendez, Typog., pp. 266 and 197.) I have one of Seville, 1500 (fol., 66 leaves). They are about one hundred and fifty in number, and the prose gloss with which each is accompanied seems in better taste and more becoming its position than it does in the case of the rhymed proverbs of the Marquis.

[637] In the Preface to the “Coronacion,” Obras, Alcalá, 1566, 12mo, f. 260.

[638] This important letter—which, from the notice of it by Argote de Molina, (Nobleza, 1588, f. 335,) was a sort of acknowledged introduction to the Cancionero of the Marquis—is found, with learned notes to it, in the first volume of Sanchez. The Constable of Portugal, to whom it was addressed, died in 1466.

[639] I do not account him learned, because he had not the accomplishment common to all learned men of his time,—that of speaking Latin. This appears from the very quaint and rare treatise of the “Vita Beata,” by Juan de Lucena, his contemporary and friend, where (ed. 1483, fol., f. ii. b) the Marquis is made to say, “Me veo defetuoso de letras Latinas,” and adds, that the Bishop of Burgos and Juan de Mena would have carried on in Latin the discussion recorded in that treatise, instead of carrying it on in Spanish, if he had been able to join them in that learned language. That the Marquis could read Latin, however, is probable from his works, which are full of allusions to Latin authors, and sometimes contain imitations of them.

[640] The chief materials for the life of Juan de Mena are to be found in some poor verses by Francisco Romero, in his “Epicedio en la Muerte del Maestro Hernan Nuñez,” (Salamanca, 1578, 12mo, pp. 485, etc.,) at the end of the “Refranes de Hernan Nuñez.” Concerning the place of his birth there is no doubt. He alludes to it himself (Trescientas, Copla 124) in a way that does him honor.

[641] Cibdareal, Epist. XX., XXIII.

[642] Ibid., Epist. XLVII.

[643] Ibid., Epist. XLIX.

[644] For the first verses, see Castro, Bibl. Española, Tom. I. p. 331; and for those on the Constable, see his Chronicle, Milano, 1546, fol., f. 60. b, Tít. 95.

[645] The verses inscribed “Do Ifante Dom Pedro, Fylho del Rey Dom Joam, em Loor de Joam de Mena,” with Juan de Mena’s answer, a short rejoinder by the Infante, and a conclusion, are in the Cancioneiro de Rresende, (Lisboa, 1516, folio,) f. 72. b. See, also, Die Alten Liederbücher der Portugiesen, von C. F. Bellermann, (Berlin, 1840, 4to, pp. 27, 64,) and Mendez, Typographía (p. 137, note). This Infante Don Pedro is, I suppose, the one alluded to as a great traveller in Don Quixote (Part II., end of Chap. 23); but Pellicer and Clemencin give us no light on the matter.

[646] See the Dialogue of Juan de Lucena, “La Vita Beata,” passim, in which Juan de Mena is one of the principal speakers.

[647] He stood well with the king and the Infantes, with the Constable, with the Marquis of Santillana, etc.

[648] Ant. Ponz, Viage de España, Madrid, 1787, 12mo, Tom. X. p. 38. Clemencin, note to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 44, Tom. V. p. 379.

[649] Cibdareal, Epist. XX. No less than twelve of the hundred and five letters of the courtly leech are addressed to the poet, showing, if they are genuine, how much favor Juan de Mena enjoyed.

[650] The last, which is not without humor, is twice alluded to in Cibdareal, viz., Epist. XXXIII. and XXXVI., and seems to have been liked at court and by the king.

[651] The minor poems of Juan de Mena are to be found chiefly in the old Cancioneros Generales; but some must be sought in the old editions of his own works. For example, in the valuable folio one of 1534, in which the “Trescientas” and the “Coronacion” form separate publications, with separate titles, pagings, and colophons, each is followed by a few of the author’s short poems.

[652] The author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 148) complained of the frequent obscurities in Juan de Mena’s poetry, three centuries ago,—a fault made abundantly apparent in the elaborate explanations of his dark passages by the two oldest and most learned of his commentators.

[653] Juan de Mena has always stood well with his countrymen, if he has not been absolutely popular. Verses by him appeared, during his lifetime, in the Cancionero of Baena, and immediately afterwards in the Chronicle of the Constable. Others are in the collection of poems already noticed, printed at Saragossa in 1492, and in another collection of the same period, but without date. They are in all the old Cancioneros Generales, and in a succession of separate editions, from 1496 to our own times. And besides all this, the learned Hernan Nuñez de Guzman printed a commentary on them in 1499, and the still more learned Francisco Sanchez de las Brozas, commonly called El Brocense, printed another in 1582; one or the other of which accompanies the poems for their elucidation in nearly every edition since.

[654] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1436, c. 3. Mena, Trescientas, Cop. 160-162.

[655] Cibdareal, Epist. XX.

[656] Ibid., Epist. XLIX.

[657] Ibid., Epist. XX.

[658] They are printed separately in the Cancionero General of 1573; but do not appear at all in the edition of the Works of the poet in 1566, and were not commented upon by Hernan Nuñez. It is, indeed, doubtful whether they were really written by Juan de Mena. If they were, they must probably have been produced after the king’s death, for they are far from being flattering to him. On this account, I am disposed to think they are not genuine; for the poet seems to have permitted his great eulogies of the king and of the Constable to stand after the death of both of them.

[659] Thus fi, Valencian or Provençal for hijo, in the “Trescientas,” Copla 37, and trinquete for foresail, in Copla 165, may serve as specimens. Lope de Vega (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 474) complains of Juan de Mena’s Latinisms, which are indeed very awkward and abundant, and cites the following line:—

I do not remember it; but it is as bad as some of the worst verses of the same sort for which Ronsard has been ridiculed. It should be observed, however, that, in the earliest periods of the Castilian language, there was a greater connection with the French than there was in the time of Juan de Mena. Thus, in the “Poem of the Cid,” we have cuer for heart, tiesta for head, etc.; in Berceo, we have asemblar, to meet; sopear, to sup, etc. (See Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, 1835, Tom. IV. p. 56.) If, therefore, we find a few French words in Juan de Mena that are no longer used, like sage, which he makes a dissyllable guttural to rhyme with viage in Copla 167, we may presume he found them already in the language, from which they have since been dropped. But Juan de Mena was, in all respects, too bold; and, as the learned Sarmiento says of him in a manuscript which I possess, “Many of his words are not at all Castilian, and were never used either before his time or after it.”

[660] The accounts of Villasandino are found in Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. p. 341; and Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 200, etc. His earlier poems are in the Academy’s edition of the Chronicles of Ayala, Tom. II. pp. 604, 615, 621, 626, 646; but the mass of his works as yet printed is in the Cancionero of Baena, extracted by Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. pp. 268-296, etc.

[661] Sanchez, Tom. I. p. lx.

[662] The Hymn in question is in Castro, Tom. I. p. 269; but, as a specimen of Villasandino’s easiest manner, I prefer the following verses, which he wrote for Count Pero Niño, to be given to the Lady Beatrice, of whom, as was noticed when speaking of his Chronicle, the Count was enamoured:—

But as the editor of the Chronicle says, (Madrid, 1782, 4to, p. 223,) “They are verses that might be attributed to any other gallant or any other lady, so that it seems as if Villasandino prepared such couplets to be given to the first person that should ask for them”;—words cited here, because they apply to a great deal of the poetry of the time of John II., which deals often in the coldest commonplaces, and some of which was used, no doubt, as this was.

[663] The notices of Francisco Imperial are in Sanchez (Tom. I. pp. lx., 205, etc.); in Argote de Molina’s “Nobleza del Andaluzia” (1588, ff. 244, 260); and his Discourse prefixed to the “Vida del Gran Tamorlan” (Madrid, 1782, 4to, p. 3). His poems are in Castro, Tom. I. pp. 296, 301, etc.

[664] Castro, Tom. I. pp. 319-330, etc.

[665] Ferrant Manuel de Lando is noted as a page of John II. in Argote de Molina’s “Sucesion de los Manueles,” prefixed to the “Conde Lucanor,” 1575; and his poems are said to have been “agradables para aquel siglo.”

[666] That is, if the Juan Rodriguez del Padron, whose poems occur in Castro, (Tom. I. p. 331, etc.,) and in the manuscript Cancionero called Estuñiga’s, (f. 18,) be the same, as he is commonly supposed to be, with the Juan Rodriguez del Padron of the “Cancionero General,” 1573 (ff. 121-124 and elsewhere). But of this I entertain doubts.

[667] Sanchez, Tom. I. pp. 199, 207, 208.

[668] It is published by Ochoa, in the same volume with the inedited poems of the Marquis of Santillana, where it is followed by poems of Suero de Ribera, (who occurs also in Baena’s Cancionero, and that of Estuñiga,) Juan de Dueñas, (who occurs in Estuñiga’s,) and one or two others of no value,—all of the age of John II.

[669] Castro, Tom. I. pp. 310-312.

[670] The best life of Cibdareal is prefixed to his Letters (Madrid, ed. 1775, 4to). But his birth is there placed about 1388, though he himself (Ep. 105) says he was sixty-eight years old in 1454, which gives 1386 as the true date. But we know absolutely nothing of him beyond what we find in the letters that pass under his name. The Noticia prefixed to the edition referred to was—as we are told in the Preface to the Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna (Madrid, 1784, 4to)—prepared by Llaguno Amirola.

[671] It is the last letter in the collection. See Appendix (C), on the genuineness of the whole.

[672] Cibdareal, Epist. 51.

[673] The longest extracts from the works of this remarkable family of Jews, and the best accounts of them, are to be found in Castro, “Biblioteca Española,” (Tom. I. p. 235, etc.,) and Amador de los Rios, “Estudios sobre los Judios de España” (Madrid, 1848, 8vo, pp. 339-398, 458, etc.). Much of their poetry, which is found in the Cancioneros Generales, is amatory, and is as good as the poetry of those old collections generally is. Two of the treatises of Alonso were printed;—the “Oracional,” or Book of Devotion, mentioned in the text as written for Perez de Guzman, which appeared at Murcia in 1487, and the “Doctrinal de Cavalleros,” which appeared the same year at Burgos. (Diosdado, De Prima Typographiæ Hispan. Ætate, Romæ, 1793, 4to, pp. 22, 26, 64.) Both are curious; but much of the last is taken from the “Partidas” of Alfonso the Wise.

[674] The manuscript I have used is a copy from one, apparently of the fifteenth century, in the magnificent collection of Sir Thomas Phillips, Middle Hill, Worcestershire, England. The printed poems are found in the “Cancionero General,” 1535, ff. 28, etc.; in the “Obras de Juan de Mena,” ed. 1566, at the end; in Castro, Tom. I. pp. 298, 340-342; and at the end of Ochoa’s “Rimas Ineditas de Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza,” Paris, 1844, 8vo, pp. 269-356. See also Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 383; and Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 14, 15, 20-22.

[675] The “Generaciones y Semblanzas” first appeared in 1512, as part of a rifacimento in Spanish of Giovanni Colonna’s “Mare Historiarum,” which may have been the work of Perez de Guzman. They begin, in this edition, at Cap. 137, after long accounts of Trojans, Greeks, Romans, Fathers of the Church, and others, taken from Colonna. (Mem. de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. VI. pp. 452, 453, note.) The first edition of the Generaciones y Semblanzas separated from this connection occurs at the end of the Chronicle of John II., 1517. They are also found in the edition of that Chronicle of 1779, and with the “Centon Epistolario,” in the edition of Llaguno Amirola, Madrid, 1775, 4to, where they are preceded by a life of Fernan Perez de Guzman, containing the little we know of him. The suggestion made in the Preface to the Chronicle of John II., (1779, p. xi.,) that the two very important chapters at the end of the Generaciones y Semblanzas are not the work of Fernan Perez de Guzman is, I think, sufficiently answered by the editor of the Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna, Madrid, 1784, 4to, Prólogo, p. xxiii.

[676] Generaciones y Semblanzas, c. 10. A similar harshness is shown in Chapters 5 and 30.

[677] Generaciones, etc., c. 11, 15, and 24.

[678] Chrónica de Don Juan el II., Año 1437, c. 4; 1438, c. 6; 1440, c. 18.

[679] Pulgar, Claros Varones, Tít. 13. Cancionero General, 1573, f. 183. Mariana, Hist., Lib. XXIV. c. 14.

[680] The poetry of Gomez Manrique is in the Cancionero General, 1573, ff. 57-77, and 243.

[681] Adiciones á Pulgar, ed. 1775, p. 239.

[682] Adiciones á Pulgar, p. 223.

[683] Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 265. To these poems, when speaking of Gomez Manrique, should be added,—1. his poetical letter to his uncle, the Marquis of Santillana, asking for a copy of his works, with the reply of his uncle, both of which are in the Cancioneros Generales; and 2. some of his smaller trifles, which occur in a manuscript of the poems of Alvarez Gato, belonging to the Library of the Academy of History at Madrid and numbered 114,—trifles, however, which ought to be published.

[684] Such as the word definicion for death, and other similar euphuisms. For a notice of Gomez Manrique, see Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. p. 342.

[685] These poems, some of them too free for the notions of his Church, are in the Cancioneros Generales; for example, in that of 1535, ff. 72-76, etc., and in that of 1573, at ff. 131-139, 176, 180, 187, 189, 221, 243, 245. A few are also in the “Cancionero de Burlas,” 1519.

[686] The lines on the court of John II. are among the most beautiful in the poem:—

These two stanzas, as well as the one in the text, are from Mr. H. W. Longfellow’s beautiful translation of the Coplas, first printed, Boston, 1833, 12mo, and often since. They may be compared with a passage in the verses on Edward IV. attributed to Skelton, and found in the “Mirror for Magistrates,” (London, 1815, 4to, Tom. II. p. 246,) in which that prince is made to say, as if speaking from his grave,—

Indeed, the tone of the two poems is not unlike, though, of course, the old English laureate never heard of Manrique and never imagined any thing half so good as the Coplas. The Coplas were often imitated;—among the rest, as Lope de Vega tells us, (Obras Sueltas, Madrid, 1777, 4to, Tom. XI. p. xxix.,) by Camoens; but I do not know the Redondillas of Camoens to which he refers. Lope admired the Coplas very much. He says they should be written in letters of gold.