But the inquisition had, at that time, strictly prohibited the translation of any part of the bible into the vulgar tongue. Luis de Leon, therefore, ventured to communicate his version in confidence to one friend only; but that friend was not faithful to his trust, and the translation found its way into the hands of several individuals. It was soon denounced to the inquisition, and the author was immediately thrown into prison by that terrible tribunal. He himself mentions, in one of his letters, that for the space of five years he was deprived of all communication with mankind, and was not even permitted to see the light of day.226 Conscious of his innocence, he enjoyed during his captivity, according to his own testimony, a tranquillity and satisfaction of mind which he never afterwards so fully experienced, when restored to freedom, and the society of his friends.227 At length justice was done to him, he returned in triumph to his monastery, and was reinstated in his ecclesiastical dignities. From that period, he appears to have been wholly devoted to the duties of his order and the study of theology. He died in 1591, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, being at that time general and provincial vicar of Salamanca.
The poems of this amiable enthusiast are, according to his own testimony,228 for the most part the productions of his youth; but no other Spanish poet has succeeded in expressing the intense feelings of the heart under the control of so sound a judgment. It is only by reference to the pious tranquillity of a cultivated mind wrapt up in self communion, that the extraordinary correctness of this author’s style can be explained, for Luis de Leon is, without exception, the most correct of all the Spanish poets, though he constantly regarded the metrical clothing of his ideas as a very secondary object. To use his own language, he wrote poetry rather in fulfilment of his destiny, than purposely and by dint of study. At an early age he became intimately acquainted with the odes of Horace, and the elegance and purity of style which distinguish those compositions made a deep impression on his imagination. Classical simplicity and dignity were the models constantly present to his creative fancy. He, however, appropriated to himself the character of Horace’s poetry, too naturally ever to incur the danger of servile imitation. He discarded the prolix style of the canzone, and imitated the brevity of the strophes of Horace, in romantic syllabic measures and rhymes. More just feeling for the imitation of the ancients was never evinced by any modern poet. His odes have, however, a character totally different from those of Horace, though the sententious air which marks the style of both authors, imparts to them a deceptive resemblance. The religious austerity of Luis de Leon’s life was not to be reconciled with the epicurism of the latin poet; but, notwithstanding this very different disposition of the mind, it is not surprising that they should have adopted the same form of poetic expression, for each possessed a fine imagination, subordinate to the control of a sound understanding. Which of the two is the superior poet, in the most extended sense of the word, it would be difficult to determine, as each formed his style by free imitation, and neither overstepped the boundaries of a certain sphere of practical observation. Horace’s odes exhibit a superior style of art, and from the relationship between the thoughts and images, possess a degree of attraction which is wanting in those of Luis de Leon; but on the other hand, the latter are the more rich in that natural kind of poetry, which may be regarded as the overflowing of a pure soul, elevated to the loftiest regions of moral and religious idealism.229
Luis de Leon himself published a collection of his poetic works, divided into three books. The first, contains his original poems—the second, translations from some of the ancient classics—and the third, metrical versions of several of the psalms, and some parts of the book of Job.
The reader who peruses the poems of Luis de Leon, which are all odes, in the spirit in which the author wrote them, will fancy himself transported to a better world. No furious zeal disturbs the gentle piety that pervades them; no extravagant metaphor destroys the harmony of the ideas and expression; and no discordant accent breaks the pleasing melody of the rhythm. The idea of the perishableness of all earthly things,230 is united with smiling pictures of nature.231 The imitations of Horace are only introduced to aid the poetic light in which the poet views those objects which were peculiarly interesting to his contemporaries.232 One of Luis de Leon’s most celebrated odes is the Noche Serena, but the concluding stanzas do not correspond with the beauty of the commencement.233 In the ode to Felipe Ruiz, the ardent aspiration for heavenly truth is very picturesquely expressed.234 But the exalted inspiration and tender enthusiasm in which Luis de Leon so widely departs from Horace, are most prominently evinced in his ode on Heavenly Life (De la Vida del Cielo). Here his fancy is bold without launching into extravagant metaphors. What an etherial effulgence glows through his lyric picture of “the soft bright region, the meadow of holiness, never blighted by frost, nor withered by the sun’s rays;—where the good shepherd, his head crowned with blossoms of purple and white, without either sling or staff, leads his beloved flock to the sweet pasture covered with everblooming roses;—where the shepherd, reclining in the shade at noon, blows his heavenly pipe, whose feeblest tone, should it descend on the ear of the poet, would transform his whole soul to love.”235 The ode in which the genius of the Tagus prophecies to King Roderick the misfortunes of Spain, is more in Horace’s style, and possesses a very happy uniformity of character. In some other imitations of a similar kind, the fancy of the pious poet willingly descends from the heavenly regions. The poems contained in the first part of the collection are few in number. Those which Luis de Leon himself inserted, amount only to twenty-seven, and among them is an indifferent elegy, and a cancion in the Italian style of not much greater merit. Several other compositions, which he seems to have rejected, have been recently printed from manuscripts.236
The greater portion of the poetic works of Luis de Leon consists of translations; but these translations form an epoch in the department of literature to which they belong. Those in the second book of the collection are the first classical specimens, in modern literature, of the art of renewing the ancient poetry in modern forms. Luis de Leon has himself explained the principles by which he was guided in bringing the ancient poetry within the sphere of the romantic. He endeavoured to make the ancient poets speak, “as they would have expressed themselves, had they been born in his own age in Castile, and had they written in Castilian.”237 However bold this attempt may appear, and whatever defects a translation of this kind may present to the eye of the connoisseur who wishes for a faithful resemblance of the original, and not a flowery imitation, yet if the validity of the principle be once admitted, Luis de Leon will be found to have fulfilled all that the most rigid critic can desire. Besides, it must be considered that translations of a more literal character would scarcely have found readers in Spain at that period. Luis de Leon translated Virgil’s eclogues, partly in tercets, and partly in coplas;238 a considerable series of Horace’s odes in the same romantic syllabic measure which he chose for his own odes;239—and a portion of Virgil’s georgics in stanzas. But the easy flowing style of his Spanish version of Pindar’s first ode, excels all the rest.240 To these translations are also added two imitations of Italian sonnets, which prove that he succeeded very well in that species of composition, though among his own original poems there is not a single sonnet. He translated the psalms of David, according to the rule he had prescribed to himself. His translations speedily obtained the rank in Spanish literature to which they were entitled; and they have served as models for all succeeding versions of Greek and Latin poetry in the Spanish language. Luis de Leon may indeed be blamed for having thwarted, by the style of translation which he introduced, all the attempts made to form Spanish poetry on the model of that of the ancients. But on the other hand, to his example the Spaniards are indebted for numerous translations of Greek and Latin poetry, which have all the air of Spanish originals.
If Luis de Leon had not confined his prose writings exclusively to spiritual subjects, he would doubtless have also exercised a very decided influence on the rhetorical cultivation of Spain. His sermons (oraciones) are, however, invariably mentioned in terms of praise by Spanish writers, whenever they allude to the theological literature of their country.241 Among his other works intended for edification, The Woman as she should be, or The Perfect Wife, (La Perfecta Casada), will perhaps be found the most interesting to the untheological class of readers; though it constantly turns on the positive morality of Catholicism, and therefore, like every mixed treatise of theology and morals, is no legitimate specimen of the developement of ideas in the didactic style.242
Luis de Leon terminates the series of distinguished Spanish authors, who during the first half of