Boscán's influence manifested itself in diverse ways. His friend, Garcilaso de la Vega, sent him the first edition of Castiglione's _Cortegiano_, printed at Venice in 1528. This—"the best book that ever was written upon good breeding," according to Samuel Johnson—was triumphantly translated into Castilian by Boscán at Garcilaso's prayer; and, though Boscán himself held translation to be a thing meet for "men of small parts," his rendering is an almost perfect performance. Moreover, it was the single work published by him (1534), for his poems appeared under his widow's care. Once more, in an epistle directed to Hurtado de Mendoza, Boscán re-echoes Horace's note of elegant simplicity with a faithfulness not frequent in his work; and, lastly, it is known that he did into Castilian an Euripidean play, which, though licensed for the press, was never printed. Truly it seems that Boscán was conscious of his very definite limitations, and that he felt the necessity of a copy, rather than a direct model. If it were so, this would indicate a power of conscious selection, a faculty for self-criticism which cannot be traced in his published verses. His earlier poems, written in Castilian measures, show him for a man destitute of guidance, thrown on his own resources, a perfectly undistinguished versifier with naught to sing and with no dexterity of vocalisation. Yet, let Boscán betake himself to the poets of the Cinque Cento, and he flashes forth another being: the dauntless adventurer sailing for unknown continents, inspired by the enthusiasm of immediate suggestion. His _Hero y Leandra_ is frankly based upon Musæus, and it is characteristic of Boscán's mode that he expands Musæus' three hundred odd hexameters into nigh three thousand hendecasyllabics. Professor Flamini has demonstrated most convincingly that Boscán followed Tasso's _Favola_, but he comes far short of Tasso's variety, distinction, and grace. He annexes the Italian blank verse—the _versi sciolti_—as it were by sheer force, but he never subdues the metre to his will, and his monotony of accent and mechanical cadence grow insufferable. Not only so: too often the very pretence of inspiration dissolves, and the writer descends upon slothful prose, sliced into lines of regulation length, honeycombed with flat colloquialisms. Conspicuously better is the _Octava Rima_—an allegory embodying the Court of Love and the Court of Jealousy, with the account of an embassage from the former to two fair Barcelonese rebels. Of this performance Thomas Stanley has given an English version (1652) from which these stanzas are taken:—