And another, of the same period, which was on a Sigh, and became the subject of more than one gloss, was hardly less simple:-- O gentle sigh! O gentle sigh! For no more happiness I pray, Than, every time thou goest to God, To follow where thou lead’st the way.[20] [20] O dulce suspiro mio! No quisiera dicha mas, Que las veces que á Dios vas Hallarme donde te envio. Ubeda, 1588, was the first, I think, who paraphrased this epigram; but where he discovered it I do not know. But of those a little longer and more elaborate a favorable specimen may be found in Camoens, who wrote such with tenderness and beauty, not only in his own language, but sometimes in Spanish, as in the following lines on a concealed and unhappy passion, the first two of which are probably a snatch of some old song, and the rest his own gloss upon them:-- Within, within, my sorrow lives, But outwardly no token gives. All young and gentle in the soul, All hidden from men’s eyes, Deep, deep within it lies, And scorns the body’s low control. As in the flint the hidden spark Gives outwardly no sign or mark, Within, within, my sorrow lives.[21] [21] De dentro tengo mi mal, Que de fora no ay señal. Mi nueva y dulce querella Es invisible á la gente: El alma sola la siente, Qu’ el cuerpo no es dino della: Como la viva sentella S’ encubre en el pedernal, De dentro tengo mi mal. Camões, Rimas, Lisboa, 1598, 4to, f. 179. Several that precede and follow, both in Spanish and Portuguese, are worth notice. The number of such compositions, in their different serious forms, is great; but the number of the second kind--those in a lighter and livelier tone--is still greater. The Argensolas, Villegas, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, the Prince Esquilache, Rebolledo, and not a few others, wrote them with spirit and effect. Of all, however, who indulged in them, nobody devoted to their composition so much zeal, and on the whole obtained so much success, as Francisco de la Torre, who, though of the _culto_ school, seemed able to shake off much of its influence, when he remembered that he was a fellow-countryman of Martial. He took for the foundation of his humor the remarkable Latin epigrams of John Owen, the English Protestant, who died in 1622, and whose witty volume has been often translated and printed at home and abroad down to our own times;--a volume, it should be noted, so offensive to the Romish Church as to have been early placed on its Index Expurgatorius. But La Torre avoided whatever could give umbrage to the ecclesiastical authorities of his time, and, adding a great number of original epigrams quite as good as those he translated, made a collection that fills two volumes, the last of which was printed in 1682, after its author’s death.[22]