A nearer approach to the right epical poem is the _Araucana_ of ALONSO DE ERCILLA Y ZÚÑIGA (1533-95), who appeared as Felipe II.'s page at his wedding with Mary Tudor in Winchester Cathedral. From England he sailed for Chile in 1554, to serve against the Araucanos, who had risen in revolt; and in seven pitched battles, not to speak of innumerable small engagements, he greatly distinguished himself. His career was ruined by a quarrel with a brother-officer named Juan de Pineda; he was judged to be in fault, was condemned to death, and actually mounted the scaffold. At the last moment the sentence was commuted to exile at Callao, whence Ercilla returned to Europe in 1562. With him he brought the first fifteen cantos of his poem, written by the camp-fire on stray scraps of paper, leather, and skin. The first book ever printed in America was, as we learn from Señor Icazbalceta, Juan de Zumárraga's _Breve y compendiosa Doctrina Cristiana_. The first literary work of real merit composed in either American continent was Ercilla's _Araucana_. It was published at Madrid in 1569; and continuations, amounting to thirty-seven cantos in all, followed in 1578 and 1590. Ercilla never forgave what he thought the injustice of his general, García Hurtado de Mendoza, Marqués de Cañete, and carefully omits his name throughout the _Araucana_. The omission cost him dear, for he was never employed again. His is an exceeding stately poem on the Chilian revolt; but epic it is not, whether in spirit or design, whether in form or effect. In the Essay Prefatory to the _Henriade_, Voltaire condescends to praise the _Araucana_, the name of which has thus become familiar to many; and, though he was probably writing at second hand, he is justified in extolling the really noble speech which Ercilla gives to the aged chief, Colocolo. It is precisely in declamatory eloquence that Ercilla shines. His technical craftsmanship is sound, his spirit admirable, his diction beyond reproach, or nearly so; and yet his work, as a whole, fails to impress. Men remember isolated lines, a stanza here and there; but the general effect is blurred. To speak truly, Ercilla had the orator's temperament, not the poet's. At his worst he is debating in rhyme, at his best he is writing poetic history; and, though he has an eye for situation, an instinct for the picturesque, the historian in him vanquishes the poet. He himself was vaguely conscious of something lacking, and he strove to make it good by means of mythological episodes, visions by Bellona, magic foreshadowings of victory, digressions defending Dido from Virgil's scandalous tattle. But, since the secret of the epic lies not in machinery, this attempt at reform failed. Ercilla's first part remains his best, and is still interesting for its martial eloquence, and valuable as a picture of heroic barbarism rendered by an artist in _ottava rima_ who was also a vigilant observer and a magnanimous foe. His omission of his