[74] The materials for the life of Luis de Leon are to be gathered from the notices of him in the curious MS. of Pacheco, published, Semanario Pintoresco, 1844, p. 374;--those in N. Antonio, Bib. Nova, _ad verb._;--in Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. V.;--and in the Preface to a collection of his poetry, published at Valencia by Mayans y Siscar, 1761; the last being also found in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas de Varios Autores” (Valencia, 1773, 12mo, Tom. IV. pp. 398, etc.). His birthplace has been by some supposed to have been Belmonte in La Mancha, or else Madrid. But Pacheco, who is a sufficient authority, gives that honor to Granada, and settles the date of Luis de Leon’s birth at 1528, though it is more commonly given as of 1526 or 1527; adding a description of his person, and the singular fact, not elsewhere noticed, that he amused himself with the art of painting, and succeeded in his own portrait. But besides the character in which we have thus far considered him, Luis de Leon was a poet, and a poet of no common genius. He seems, it is true, to have been little conscious, or, at least, little careful, of his poetical talent; for he made hardly an effort to cultivate it, and never took pains to print any thing, in order to prove its existence to the world. Perhaps, too, he showed more deference than was due to the opinion of many persons of his time, who thought poetry an occupation not becoming one in his position; for, in the prefatory notice to his sacred odes, he says, in a deprecating tone: “Let none regard verse as any thing new and unworthy to be applied to Scriptural subjects, for it is rather appropriate to them; and so old is it in this application, that, from the earliest ages of the Church to the present day, men of great learning and holiness have thus employed it. And would to God that no other poetry were ever sounded in our ears; that only these sacred tones were sweet to us; that none else were heard at night in the streets and public squares; that the child might still lisp it, the retired damsel find in it her best solace, and the industrious tradesman make it the relief of his toil! But the Christian name is now sunk to such immodest and reckless degradation, that we set our sins to music, and, not content with indulging them in secret, shout them joyfully forth to all who will listen.”