[481] Quintana denies it in the Preface to his “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1807, 12mo, Tom. I. p. xxxix.). So does Fernandez (or Estala for him), in his Collection of “Poesías Castellanas” (Madrid, 1808, 12mo, Tom. IV. p. 40); and, what is of more significance, so does Wolf, in the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1835, Tom. LXIX. p. 189. On the other side are Baena, in his Life of Quevedo; Sedano, in his “Parnaso Español”; Luzan, in his “Poética”; and Bouterwek, in his History. Martinez de la Rosa and Faber seem unable to decide. But none of them gives any reasons. I have in the text, and in the subsequent notes, stated the case as fully as seems needful, and have no doubt that Quevedo was the author, or that he knew and concealed the author. The question certainly is among the more curious of those that involve literary authorship; but it can hardly be brought to an absolute decision. The argument, that the poems thus published by Quevedo are really the work of an unknown Bachiller de la Torre, is founded, first, on the alleged approbation of them by Ercilla,[482] which, though referred to by Valdivielso, as well as by Quevedo, has never been printed; and, secondly, on the fact, that, in their general tone, they are unlike the recognized poetry of Quevedo, being all on grave subjects and in a severely simple and pure style, whereas he himself not unfrequently runs into the affected style he undoubtedly intended by this work to counteract and condemn. [482] We know, concerning the conclusion of Ercilla’s life, only that he died as early as 1595; thirty-six years before the publication of the Bachelor, and when Quevedo was only fifteen years old. On the other hand, it may be alleged, that the pretended Bachiller de la Torre is clearly not the Bachiller de la Torre referred to by Boscan and Quevedo, who lived in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and whose rude verses are found in the old Cancioneros from 1511 to 1573;[483] that, on the contrary, the forms of the poems published by Quevedo, their tone, their thoughts, their imitations of Petrarch and of the ancients, their versification, and their language,--except a few antiquated words which could easily have been inserted,--all belong to his own age; that among Quevedo’s recognized poems are some, at least, which prove he was capable of writing any one among those attributed to the Bachiller de la Torre; and finally, that the name of the Bachiller Francisco de la Torre is merely an ingenious disguise of his own, since he was himself a Bachelor at Alcalá, had been baptized Francisco, and was the owner of Torre de la Abad, in which he sometimes resided, and which was twice the place of his exile.[484]