Contemporary with Lope de Rueda and Cervantes was Domingo de Bercerra, who was born in the city in 1535. During the campaign with the Turks, he was seized by Moorish pirates and taken prisoner with Cervantes to Algiers. De Bercerra is known for his translation of Giovanni della Casa's _Il Galateo_. Hieronimo Carranza, who wrote _Philosophia y destreza de las Armas_, and Juan de la Cueva, writer of plays and poems, lived in Seville at this time. We now enter upon an era memorable in the literary annals of the city. This is the period when Seville could boast of her scholars, poets, dramatists and historians, and lay claim to distinction as possessing the most cultured circle of writers and artists in the whole of Spain. Fernando de Herrera, born in 1534, in Seville, holds a high position among Spanish poets. His _Canción á Lepanto_, a poem in celebration of the victory of Lepanto, 'deserves,' says Mr. Butler Clarke, 'to be placed side by side with the first eclogue of Garcilaso as one of the noblest monuments of the Spanish tongue.' Rodrigo Caro, the historian, and one of the Sevillian authors, says in his _Illustrious Men, Natives of Seville_, that Herrera 'understood Latin perfectly, and wrote several epigrams in that language, which might rival the most famous ancient authors in thought and expression. He possessed a moderate knowledge of Greek.' The prose writings of 'the divine Herrera' are marked with the same beauty as his poetry. He wrote a great general history of his country, up to the reign of Carlos V., and earned from Lope de Vega the title of 'the Learned.' We learn that Fernando de Herrera was a tall man, with a handsome countenance, thick curling hair, and a beard. The love of his life appears to have been 'spiritual'; he was enamoured of Eliodora, Countess of Gelves. This adoration was of the nature of that manifested by Dante for Beatrice. The poet calls his divinity 'Love,' 'Sun,' and 'Star,' but there is an unreality in his odes to the Countess. We read, too, that Herrera was well read in philosophy, and expert in mathematics.