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LETTER XIII

Remarks made in the library of the Escurial, on Spanish commentators, poetical translations of Greek and Latin classics, and Italian authors.

Escurial, August 2d, 1778.

I have taken this opportunity to come to the Escurial in order to view this grand edifice more at leisure, when the court is not here, and to indulge a few hours study and research in this very curious library, of which you have already heard so much, as well as of the famous building of the Escurial, the great work of the gloomy Philip the second, which cost him six millions of ducats. His long reign furnished him moreover the pleasure of seeing it perfected, with the additional satisfaction of the whole having been completed under the direction of two Spanish architects, John Baptist de Toledo, and his pupil Juan de Herrera; a structure of which you have of late seen so many accurate accounts, that it leaves me little to add on the subject, more than to inform you, that, as to the exaggeration of this building having eleven thousand windows, fourteen thousand doors, and eight hundred pillars, it is denied by their own writers, as well as what has been said of the tabernacle on the great altar being of porphyry, with eighteen pillars of agate, and being fourteen years making; also that the ceiling of the choir was painted by Titian: that the glass windows were fixed in frames of silver gilt, and that the library contained an hundred thousand volumes; all which are fabulous inventions, introduced by novel writers and book-makers, to amuse the credulous public in foreign countries.

The library may contain about thirty thousand volumes, and may undoubtedly be esteemed as a very curious and valuable collection: I spent a considerable time there with great delight. It would be an herculean labour to attempt giving a series of the numerous collections of Spanish poets, commentators and translators, from the Greek, Latin and Italian poets, I mean to confine myself only to poetical books. The most antient collection of poems is that made by Baena in the reign of John the 2d, mentioned before; which is in manuscript in this library, and continued by Hernando del Castillo. —Lorenzo de Ayala published at Valencia, in 1588, another collection, entitled Jardin de amadores, “The garden of lovers;” to which may be added the Romancero general of Miguel de Madrigal, in 1604, that of Flores in Madrid in 1614, and the first part of the Tesoro de divina poesia from various writers. Pedro de Espinosa compiled the first part of the Flores de poetas ilustres de España, printed at Valladolid in 1605, where in the compiler also makes a conspicuous figure.

It was the misfortune of letters, at that time in Spain, to be loaded with commentators, who equally pressed good and bad authors into the service, and burthened them with the weight of their dullness; those who had not the temerity to attempt the Greek and Latin classics, because they did not understand them, fell without mercy on the works of their countrymen, and some would comment upon their own works, which gave birth to the most monstrous productions. Even the learned Marquiss de Santillana commented upon his own Proverbios; the poets Juan de Mena and Garcilaso de la Vega had numerous commentators; and the obscure Gongora had three such writers, who were so unsuccessful that they require another commentator for themselves.

The translations of poets in the Spanish language are numerous, taken from Greek and Latin authors, as well as from the Provenzal, Italian, Portuguese, and latterly from the French. Gonzalo Perez translated the Odyssey of Homer, and Christoval de Mesa the Iliad, which last is still in manuscript. The Medea of Euripides was translated by Pedro Simon Abril in Barcelona, in 1599. Boscan translated from the Greek poet Museus, as Lewis de Leon did from Pindar, and Villegas from Theocritus. Of Virgil there are several translations besides that of the Marquiss of Villena. Juan de la Encina translated the eclogues in 1516, at Saragossa, Juan de Guzman, a scholar of the famous Sanctius Brocensis, that is Sanchez of Brozas in Estremadura, translated the Georgics in blank verse at Salamanca in 1586. Christoval de Mesa translated the Aeneid in octave rhymes in 1615, but that by Luis de Leon, published by Quevedo at Madrid in 1631 is far superior, and may be considered as an excellent performance.

The art of poetry of Horace has been excellently translated by Espinel as well as by Luis de Zapata, printed in Spanish verse at Lisbon in 1592.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses have been translated into Spanish by several hands, particularly by Philip Mey at Tarragona in 1586, with great success, which shews the taste of Don Antonio Agustin archbishop of Tarragona, who kept Mey in his palace as a printer, whom he employed in his own valuable and learned works. This great prelate notwithstanding his serious occupations had a favourable opinion of the muses: He began a poem in praise of the fountain of Alcover, which he had observed in a visitation of his diocese, and directed Mey to finish it. The epistles of Ovid were translated in blank verse by Don Francisco de Aldana a captain in the army under Philip II. but when the author’s brother Cosmo printed his other poems at Madrid in 1591, this work was so scarce that he was obliged to omit it. Many other translations from the Greek and Latin classics are to be found, and I have this moment received a new book on that subject from Madrid, by Don Juan Antonio Pellicer of the king’s library, who has just published an introductory essay to a future work, which is to comprehend all the learned Spaniards who have translated the fathers, philosophers, Greek and Latin historians and poets. 1

The Italian poets were introduced at an early period into Spain. It is somewhat remarkable that all their great geniuses owed their improvement To the Italian school. It was there that Mendoza, Boscan, Garcilaso de la Vega, Quevedo, Ercilla, and many others formed their taste, and when the Spaniards lost their dominions in Italy at the death of Charles II it seems to have been the principal cause of the decline of literature amongst them.

The learned Marquiss of Villena had at a very early period given a translation of Dante at the desire of the Marquise of Santillana, and the same poet was afterwards translated in verse with notes by Don Pedro Fernandes de Villegas archdeacon of Burgos, and printed in that city in 1515, at the end of which the 10th satire of Juvenal is added by the author’s brother Geronimo de Villegas prior of Cuevas Rubias. —The Triomfi of Petrarch was turned into Spanish verse and published at Medina del Campo in 1554. The Orlando furioso of Ariosto was translated at Toledo in 1510 and again by Don Geronimo de Urrea, printed at Lyons in 1556. The Tears of St. Peter by Tansillo, an Italian poet of the twelfth century, has been twice given in Spanish, first by Lewis Galvet de Montalvo, at Toledo, in 1587, and then by Don Juan de Sedeno. Tansillo having written a licentious poem in his youth, it was suppressed at Rome, and inferred in the Index of prohibited books, which affected him so much, that it occasioned this elegant poem of the Tears of St. Peter, which the famous Malherbe has also translated into French. Tansillo has been sometimes compared to Petrarch. The Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso has been translated into Spanish by Juan de Sedeno at Madrid, in 1587. —There are two translations of the Pastor Fido of Guarini, the first by Suarez de Figueroa, of Valencia, in 1609, the second by the fair hand of a lady, Dona Isabela de Correa, and printed at Antwerp in 1694. But to return to Tasso, Faria, a Portuguese writer, proves in his life of Camoens, that the poem of the Lusiad is prior to Tasso, as the Lusiad was published in 1572, and the first edition of the Gierufalemme Liberata appeared imperfect in 1581, and complete at Venice in 1582, which is nine years later than the Lusiad; from whence it is evident the Portuguese had a correct epic poem before the Italians. Faria even goes further, and endeavours to shew that Tasso has borrowed some of his most beautiful passages from the Lusitanian bard: it is moreover singular, that while Voltaire endeavours to depreciate the Lusiad with the seeming jealousy of a rival, he extols some passages of the Araucana, a Spanish poem by Don Alonso de Ercilla, wherein the French poet compares the speech of the Indian chief Colocolo to his people, with that of Nestor to Achilles and Agamemnon in the first book of the Iliad, and gives the superiority to the Spaniard over Homer. You will of course be curious to hear something further of such a distinguished writer. Don Alonso de Ercilla, a gentleman of Biscay, was a knight of the order of St. James, and gentleman of the bed chamber to the emperor Rudolph the 2d. He was brought up at court from his youth, having been page to the emperor Charles and Philip his son, whom he attended in all his expeditions to Italy, Flanders, Germany, and England. Being in London, when he heard that a rebellion had broken out in the town of Arauco in South America, he immediately quitted England and embarked for America, as a volunteer in the cause of his country, where he distinguished himself with extraordinary valour against the Indians, writing by night the actions he had been witness of by day, and for want of other conveniences, composing his poem on scraps of paper, or pieces of leather, taking up alternately the sword or the pen; —after many acts of heroism, he had the good fortune to return to the court of his master, and produce a beautiful poem which was perfected at the age of twenty-nine; the first part of which was printed in 1577, so that he holds a distinguished rank amongst the poets of the golden age, though I had not mentioned him before; as does also Don Francisco de Borja prince of Esquilache, knight of the golden fleece, and viceroy of Peru till the death of Philip the 3d, in 1621, on receiving news of which, he embarked for Spain, and retired to Valencia, his native country, though he went again to the court of Madrid, where he died in his 80th year. In his leisure hours, he principally devoted himself to the muses, and chiefly excelled in lyric compositions, insomuch that he has been classed amongst the nine muses of Spain, which, with himself consisted of Garcilaso de la Vega, Villegas, Quevedo, the count de Rebolledo, the two Argensolas, Lewis de Leon, and Lope de Vega.

I say nothing to you of the fine collection of Arabic manuscripts, in the library of the Escurial, many of which are curiously painted and emblazoned: Were I to speak to you of a sister art, or had I the musical talents of a Burney, I might give you a further description of a curious book in this collection, being a treatise upon music, with designs of upwards of thirty different musical instruments, which would give infinite pleasure to the lovers of that fine art, if there were any means of obtaining a copy of them, in order to acquire a more perfect knowledge of the state of music in this country under the dominion of the Arabs. The authors name is Abbi Nassar Ben Mahommed Alpharaibi, with the following title, as translated by Casiri, the king’s librarian, in his account of these manuscripts:

N°. CMVI. Abbi Nassar Ben Mahommed Alpharaibi, MUSICES ELEMENTA; Adjectis notis musicis et instrumentorum figuris plus triginta, &c.

After a long conversation in this library with an ingenious friend, who is a passionate admirer of Cervantes, we were going away highly pleased, when the librarian who at tended us with much courtesy and good manners, recalled our attention to a small chest of antient coins, which he acknowledged to have no extraordinary merit; but they had a very singular one in my eyes, as I discovered them to have belonged to the great archbishop of Tarragona, Don Antonio Agustin, (whose curious library is also here) and to have been the original coins which served him to draw up those learned dialogues on medals, so universally admired in all countries, and which have been translated into Italian and Latin. —I was pleased to see there, a coin of the island of Rhodes, with the head of the famous Colossus, and the name of the city stamped on it, POION, which the archbishop tells us, in dialogue the second, they shewed him at Rome in the church of Santa Croce di Gierusalemme, as one of the thirty pieces of money with which Judas betrayed our Saviour; but this had little effect on the learned prelate, who states the improbability thereof, and that Judas was more likely to have been paid with Sicles, or other coin of the country, as he was rewarded out of the money belonging to the public treasury. The observation that follows I shall give you in the archbishop’s own words: “B. Why then do they hold this coin as a relic in Rome? A. For the same reason they have at the convent of Poblet (in Catalonia) for shewing a large dice four times as large as the common ones, and of a jasper colour, which they say is one of those, with which the soldiers played for the garments of our Lord; all these kind of things are very uncertain, and do not deserve so good a name as relics, since they were used as instruments of sin.” —But I am again falling into digressions; indulge me with one reflection more before I quit this desultory letter; and that is, that after reviewing such a variety of commentators which the Spanish language affords, I lament that the great Cervantes is no longer understood by his countrymen, and that this classic writer, so well acquainted with the inmost recesses of the human heart, and who abounds with the most beautiful allegories, yet remains without a single commentator! —Let me exhort you then to continue your attention to this great author, in whom nature herself speaks her own language, and I hope when I have the pleasure of seeing you again, I may without being a minister of state, or yourself a suitor for court favour, make you the same compliment which the earl of Oxford did to Rowe the poet, and give you joy that you can read Don Quixote in the original.

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