The other circumstances of Boscan’s life, in so far as they are known, have little interest for the literary historian. The mature part of his age was chiefly spent in his native city Barcelona, or in the neighbouring country. The urbanity of his manners and his talents recommended him to the family of Alba, which was then one of the most brilliant of the noble houses of Castile, and to which the homage of the Spanish poets was from that time constantly paid. Boscan was for some time Ayo, or first governor of the young Don Fernando de Alba, who was afterwards the terror of the enemies of the Spanish monarchy. He appears, however, to have soon resigned this employment, in order to divide his time between study and the society of literary friends. The year in which he died is not exactly known; it is only ascertained that his death happened before the year 1544.[150] He prepared for the press a collection of his poems, to which he added those of his friend Garcilaso; but the work was not published until after his death.[151] From the point at which Boscan found Castilian poetry, to that in which it was necessary it should be placed before he could open for himself a new path, the distance was considerable, and the transition was to be accomplished by a single bound. That he succeeded in this undertaking was owing not so much to his genius, as to a natural susceptibility for the real beauties of Italian and ancient poetry, accidentally excited at the favourable moment, and to a talent for the imitation of classical models, without altogether discarding that tone of feeling which was properly his own. To estimate, however, the full value of Boscan’s talent, it is not only necessary to examine the works by which he introduced a new style into Spanish poetry, but to take a retrospective view of the productions of the Castilian muse in the ancient manner. It is only by this comparison that a just conception can be formed of the surprise with which the Spaniards must have regarded the bold attempt of Boscan. He was the first among his countrymen who had an idea of classical perfection in works of imagination; and though the greater part of his poems fall below that standard, they all afford evidence of his endeavours to reach it. An aspiration so entirely unaffected and unembarrassed, had never been manifested by any previous Spanish poet. Between the kind of poetry which he introduced into his native land and that which he abandoned, there was no visible passage. But lest the merits of Boscan should be too highly rated, it is proper to observe, that at this time a reform of the Spanish poetry, precisely such as that to which his efforts gave birth, was, notwithstanding the clamour of his opponents, desired by the more cultivated part of the Spanish public, though, perhaps, there no where existed any distinct perception of the wished-for object. Had it been otherwise, Boscan must have stood alone, and the numerous poets