Among the unsuccessful attempts at epopee, particular distinction is due to the _Araucana_ of the heroic and amiable Alonzo de Ercilla y Zuñiga, a poem which has the accidental advantage of being better known on this side of the Pyrenees than many other Spanish works of far superior merit. Ercilla has recorded the most remarkable events of his own biography in the _Araucana_, and the remainder of the poem also reflects an interest on the author. He was born at Madrid in 1540, or according to some in 1533, and became page to the prince of Asturias, Don Philip, with whom he travelled to Italy, the Netherlands, and England. At the age of twenty-two, he embarked as an officer for America, along with a newly appointed viceroy of Peru. He distinguished himself in the war against the Araucans, the bravest of the South American tribes. In the midst of his exploits, he conceived with a youthful ambition the plan of writing a narrative of the conquest of Arauco in an epic form, but with the strictest regard to historical truth. He executed his project in spite of the dangers which surrounded him, and the fatigues he had to undergo. In a wilderness inhabited by savages, in the midst of enemies, and under no other cover than that of heaven, he composed at night the verses which were to be the memorials of the events of the day. In prosecution of his purpose, he was obliged to use scraps of waste paper, which often could not contain more than six lines, or to make pieces of leather supply the total want of paper. In this way he completed the first part of his poem, consisting of fifteen cantos. Before he was thirty years of age he returned to Spain, full of hope, both as a soldier and a poet; but the gloomy Philip, to whom he enthusiastically dedicated the _Araucana_, took little notice of him, and less of his work. Ercilla deeply felt this neglect; but nothing could damp his romantic attachment to his cold-hearted sovereign, whom he still persisted in celebrating in the sequel of his poem. He received no mark of favour except from the Emperor Maximilian II. who appointed him one of his chamberlains. Dissatisfied with his fate, Ercilla travelled from place to place; but his journies did not prevent him from proceeding with his poem until he completed it by the addition of a third part. When he died is not known, but it was after he had attained his fiftieth year.