dignity which distinguishes the Greek and Roman poetry. This opinion induced him to form for himself a new style. He classed words according to his fancy, into elegant and inelegant, and was careful to employ in his verse only those to which he attributed the former character. He connected words, under significations which they do not bear in common language; and in contradistinction to the spirit of prose, he regarded certain repetitions, for example, the conjunction and as very appropriate to poetry. He also introduced into his verse, a free arrangement of words, after the model of the latin construction. Finally, he thought he could enrich the language of poetry by new words, which he formed by analogy from existing Castilian words, or adopted immediately from the latin.213 This peculiarity of style was regarded as the perfection of poetry, by the party who idolized Fernando de Herrera.214
Those, however, who have no inclination to confound pompous with poetic language, or diction with the essence of poetry, must still allow to Herrera the possession of poetic ideas and precision of manner, as well as a true dignity of expression, and an elegant harmony of versification. His language is not always affected, and his thoughts and descriptions, though frequently overstrained, are never trivial.215 Notwithstanding all the faults of his style, he must be accounted the first classical ode writer in modern literature, for the attempts of the Italian poet Chiabrera to emulate Pindar, are of more recent date; and here it is worthy of remark, that the Spanish odes of Herrera and the Italian odes of Chiabrera resemble each other in a mixture of the style of the Pindaric ode, with the style of the canzone. Through the medium of that lyric form only, was the spirit of Pindar felt by these imitators; and both were the more easily deceived, as the genius of the Spanish and Italian languages has a relation to the metrical structure of the canzone, somewhat similar to that which the genius of the Greek language bears to Pindaric verse. But the rapid and bold succession of thoughts and images, which animates the odes of Pindar, could not be imitated by poets, who, even in their boldest flights of fancy were bound down by the laws of the Italian canzone, to the luxurious harmony of its protracted verbose periods. Thus Herrera’s odes, like those of Chiabrera, bear only a remote resemblance to their prototypes. Odes, however, they must be termed, though Herrera himself has classed them, under the general title of canciones, along with imitations of the Italian style, purely romantic, but versified according to similar rules. In his celebrated odes on the battle of Lepanto, in which the Spaniards under Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V. obtained a brilliant victory over the Turks, the magnificence of the rhythm would be sufficiently attractive, though the ideas conveyed in the torrent of sonorous syllables possessed less poetic beauty than really belong to them.216 Occasionally, however, Herrera’s ideas degenerate into fantastical hyperboles; for instance, when boasting of his hero, he says, that Don John of Austria, that glorious conqueror of the infidels and the elements, combines within himself “whatever of heavenly power animates terrestrial bodies;” and that therefore “the fixed earth, the extended waters, the circumambent air, and the ever glowing flames depend on him, so that through the secret control which he exercises over earth, water, air, and fire, all these elements are his works.”217 But passages of real beauty occur in Herrera’s odes, which afford a sufficient compensation for this sort of bombast.218 Among the odes for which Herrera has chosen a softer theme, the prize of superiority has been justly awarded to the Ode to Sleep. It is one of those compositions which may be said to be single in their kind. The graceful choice of language, the picturesque effect, the delicate keeping in the composition, and the finish given to all the details in strict conformity with the true spirit of the theme, impart to this ode or cancion a lyric beauty which must render it in all ages an object of admiration, not only to the lover, but to the critic of poetry.219
The other poems of Herrera, though extremely numerous, require only a slight notice.220 His best sonnets, which are among the happiest imitations of Petrarch in the Spanish language, are characterized by the recurrence of some of the author’s favourite images, as for example, the comparison of his mistress to light, or the evening star,221 &c. He is frequently very successful in the management of these similes; but at other times he falls into strange absurdities, such as making the “curling waves of gold of his sweet light float in the wind.”222 But extravagant tropes of this kind could not be very offensive to Spanish taste, which had been accustomed to indulge the orientalisms of the old national style, and they were indeed not only tolerated but esteemed. It might have been expected that a writer possessing so much critical judgment as Herrera, would, as an imitator of Petrarch, have endeavoured to naturalize in his native tongue, the simplicity of the Italian poet; but he was too much a Spaniard to be pleased with such simplicity. His elegies, and other lyric compositions in the Italian syllabic measure, have all the same character.
Herrera endeavoured, by other means than poetical composition, to give to the national taste of the Spaniards a direction conformable to his own principles. He wrote a “Critical Commentary on the Poems of Garcilaso de la Vega.”223 This commentary has served as a model for many similar works, which have been the means of circulating various kinds of useful knowledge without having contributed in any remarkable degree to the advancement of taste. Herrera, as a theorist, failed to establish any fixed point or station from which he might have taken a clear and consistent view of the whole region of poetry. His criticism everlastingly turns on detached ideas and words; and whenever opportunities for displaying his learning occur, he digresses into all the regions of philosophy and literature. Of the indistinctness of his notions, relative to the different species of poetry, some idea may be formed from his definition of the elegy. He says—“an elegy should be simple, soft, tender, amiable, terse, clear, and if it may be so called, noble; affecting to the feelings, and moving them in every way; neither very inflated nor very humble, nor obscured by affected phrases or far-fetched fables.”224
LUIS DE LEON.
Luis Ponce de Leon, the next lyric poet to be noticed, pursued a course very different from that of Herrera, whose contemporary he was. He is usually called, by abbreviation, merely Luis de Leon, and did not obtain the surname of divine, to which, however, he might have laid claim with infinitely more justice than Herrera, if his pious humility would have permitted him to entertain the idea of maintaining any competition for earthly honours.225
This poet, who for classical purity of style and moral dignity of ideas, had never been surpassed in Spanish literature, was, like Herrera and Mendoza, a native of the south of Spain. He was born at Granada, in the year 1527, where the family of the Ponces de Leon, which was connected with the most distinguished of the Spanish nobility, flourished. At an early period of life, Luis de Leon felt a poetic inspiration, and cherished a love of retirement, which rendered him indifferent to outward show, and all the pleasures of the great world. He found only in poetry and in the contemplation of a superior existence that food for which his soul longed. His tranquil and gentle mind exhibited none of the gloomy features of monkish fanaticism, but was devoted to moral and religious meditation. As soon as he had finished his scholastic studies, he entered, of his own free choice, into the ecclesiastical state. He was sixteen years of age when he made his profession in the order of St. Augustine at Salamanca. Theology now became his proper occupation. In Spain, especially at that period, a man of the character of Luis de Leon, even if he possessed a mind capable of divesting itself of prejudice, could scarcely be expected to doubt the dogmas of the catholic faith; but his poetic imagination, which was not to be satisfied with their dry and scholastic interpretation, irresistibly impelled him to adorn them. Luis transferred the mild enthusiasm of his pious feelings into the theological studies, to which his vocation devoted him. On religious subjects he was a learned and diligent author; but his heart found, at least during the first years of his monastic life, only in poetry, the faithful interpreter of his love for that pure truth, to the attainment of which all his arduous efforts were directed. Though invested in his thirty-third year with the dignity of doctor of theology, he maintained, even within the cloister, his intimacy with the classic writers of antiquity. The Hebrew poetry also worked powerfully on his imagination; and on one occasion he nearly fell a martyr to an attempt to translate and comment on the Song of Solomon. He was very far from wishing to give a too liberal interpretation of the amatory language of the original. He explained the sacred poem in perfect accordance with