of his nation, who have equalled or surpassed him in the new style, never would have followed his example. The early productions of Boscan, which form the first book of his works, are scarcely distinguishable by any trace of superior delicacy or correctness from the poems of the same descriptions contained in the _Cancionero general_. The very title of the longest of these youthful essays, namely, _Mar de Amor_ (the Sea of Love) excites an anticipation of the fantastic flights of the old Spanish muse; and it is impossible to read the first strophe without being convinced that the author still adhered to the original character of Castilian song.[152] It was, however, only at the request of his friend Garcilaso de la Vega, who said that he received from these poems the same sort of pleasure as from pretty children, that Boscan renounced his intention of entirely suppressing them. The second book of Boscan’s poems, contains _sonetos_ and _canciones_, in the style of the Italian _sonetti_ and _canzoni_. They all betray, in a greater or less degree, the disciple of the school of Petrarch; but the spirit of Spanish poetry still displays itself throughout the whole. The language, though it successfully imitates the precision of Petrarch, seldom attains the sweetly flowing melody of its model. In painting the feelings, the shadows are charged with stronger colours than the Italian Petrarchists of the sixteenth century permitted themselves to employ. Impetuous passion, which, with higher pretensions, was, on account of its very violence, less capable of commanding sympathy than a mild enthusiasm, strikingly distinguished Boscan’s poetry from that which was the object of his imitation. The contrast was farther increased by the constantly recurring picture of a struggle between passion and reason. But these were precisely the traits which disclosed the true Spanish character. It was not individual feeling that prevented Boscan from equalling the delicacy and softness of the Italian sonetto and canzone, for as his biography, and still more his other poems, shew he was a man of a very mild disposition. But it was necessary that the language of love, to appear natural and true to a Spaniard, should burn and rage. At the same time, to satisfy Spanish taste, reason was to be introduced to deliver her precepts amidst the storm of passion, to prove its force by her feebleness, and to give to lyric composition a moral gravity which was not desired by the Italians. In so far however as the Spanish character permitted the experiment to go, the fascinating tone of Petrarch was very happily seized by Boscan;[153] and in the expression of tender passion he has even sometimes surpassed the Italian poet.[154]