THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA, ETC. ETC. LONDON: PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, GREVILLE STREET. [Illustration: _Louis Parez ddin. Rob^t. Cooper Sculp_ _Garcilasso de la Vega._ Nat. 1503. Ob. 1536. _Published March 1^{st}. 1823. by Mess^{rs}. Hurst & Robinson._] THE WORKS OF GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA, SURNAMED THE PRINCE OF CASTILIAN POETS, Translated into English Verse; WITH A CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAY ON SPANISH POETRY, AND LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. By J. H. WIFFEN. * * * * * "Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his book, Boscán or GARCILASSO; by the wind Even as the page is rustled whilst we look, So by the poesy of his own mind Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook." LORD BYRON. * * * * * LONDON: PRINTED FOR HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. 90, CHEAPSIDE, AND 8, PALL MALL. 1823. TO JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD, IN PUBLIC LIFE THE STEADY FRIEND AND ASSERTOR OF OUR LIBERTIES; IN PRIVATE LIFE ALL THAT IS GENEROUS, DIGNIFIED, AND GOOD; This Translation, IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE LITERARY EASE THAT HAS LED TO ITS PRODUCTION, _IS, WITH DEEP RESPECT AND ADMIRATION,_ Inscribed BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. Till within the last few years but little attention appears to have been paid in England to Castilian verse. Our earliest poets of eminence, Chaucer and Lord Surrey, struck at once into the rich field of Italian song, and by their imitations of Petrarch and Boccaccio, most probably set the fashion to their successors, of the exclusive study which they gave to the same models, to the neglect of the cotemporary writers of other nations, to those at least of Spain. Nor is this partiality to the one and neglect of the other to be at all wondered at; for neither could they have gone to more suitable sources than the Tuscans for the harmony and grace which the language in its first aspirations after refinement wanted, nor did the Spanish poetry of that period offer more to recompense the researches of the student than dry legends, historical ballads, or rude imitations of the Vision of Dante. But it is a little singular that this inattention should have continued when the influence of the Emperor Charles the Fifth became great in the courts of Europe, and the Spanish language, chastised into purity and elegance by Boscán, Garcilasso, and their immediate successors, obtained a currency amongst the nations correspondent with the extent of his conquests. The hostile attitude in which England stood to Spain under Elizabeth, may be regarded as perhaps the principal cause why we meet in the constellation of writers that gave lustre to her reign, with so few traces of their acquaintance with the literature of that country; whilst the strong jealousy of the nation to Spanish influence, catholicism, and jesuitical intrigue, no less than the purely controversial spirit of the times,