His illustrious descent, his ostentatious valour, his splendid presence, his seductive charm, his untimely death: all these, joined to his gift of song, combine to make him the hero of a legend and the idol of a nation. Like Sir Philip Sidney, Garcilaso personified all accomplishments and all graces. He died at thirty-three: the fact must be borne in mind when we take account of his life's work in literature. Yet Europe mourned for him, and the loyal Boscán proclaimed his debt to the brilliant soldier-poet. Pleased as the Catalan was with his novel experiments, he avows he would not have persevered "but for the encouragement of Garcilaso, whose decision—not merely to my mind, but to the whole world's—is to be taken as final. By praising my attempts, by showing the surest sign of approval through his acceptance of my example, he led me to dedicate myself wholly to the undertaking." Boscán and Garcilaso were not divided by death. The former's widow, Ana Girón de Rebolledo, gave her husband's verses to the press in 1543; and, more jealous for the fame of her husband's friend than were any of his own household, she printed Garcilaso's poems in the Fourth Book. Garcilaso is eminently a poet of refinement, distinction, and cultivation. What Boscán half knew, Garcilaso knew to perfection, and his accomplishment was wider as well as deeper.[6] Living his last years in Naples, Garcilaso had caught the right Renaissance spirit, and is beyond all question the most Italianate of Spanish poets in form and substance. He was not merely the associate of such expatriated countrymen as Juan de Valdés: he was the friend of Bembo and Tansillo, the first of whom calls him the best loved and the most welcome of all the Spaniards that ever came to Italy. To Tansillo, Garcilaso was attached by bonds of closest intimacy, and the reciprocal influence of the one upon the other is manifest in the works of both. This association would seem to have been the chief part of Garcilaso's literary training. His few flights in the old Castilian metres, his songs and _villancicos_, are of small importance; his finest efforts are cast in the exotic moulds. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that fundamentally he is a Neapolitan poet.