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MS has not survived. Previously published: Monthly Magazine, 2 (October 1796), 697–700 [from where the text is taken] under pseudonym ‘T.Y.’. For attribution to Southey, see Kenneth Curry, ‘Southey’s contributions to The Monthly Magazine and The Athenaeum’, The Wordsworth Circle, 11 (1980), 215.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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I NOW proceed to perform the promise I made, of presenting the public with farther particulars relative to the poetry of Spain and Portugal.
Towards the close of the fifteenth century, was born Mosen Juan
Boscan Almogavar,
Before this period, the poetry of Spain was harsh and barbarous;
some of their old ballads, indeed, possess that simplicity which is superior to
all art, and which no art can bestow; there is, however, in the art of
versification something which, though it may fail to charm us, will at least
prevent us from being disgusted; how would the insipidity of Addison’s
Boscan himself tells us, in his dedication to the duchess de
Soma, that it was by the advice of Andres Nabagero, the Venetian ambassador,
that he introduced Italian metres and Italian taste into the Castilian poetry.
“We were conversing together at Grenada (says he) upon literary subjects, and
particularly upon the difference of languages, when he observed to me, that in
the Castilian tongue we had never attempted sonnets, and other kinds of
composition used by the best authors of Italy; and he not only said this to me,
but urged me to set the example. A few days afterwards, I departed for my home,
and musing upon many things during the long and solitary journey, frequently
thought upon what Nabagero had advised: and thus I began to attempt this kind of
verse. At first I found some difficulty, because it is very complex (muy artificioso) and has many peculiarities different from
our own: afterwards, from the partiality we naturally feel towards our own
productions, I thought that I had succeeded well, and gradually grew warm and
eager in the pursuit. This, however, would not have been sufficient to stimulate
me to proceed, had not Garcilaso encouraged me, whose judgment, not only in my
opinion, but in that of the whole world, is esteemed as a certain rule.”
This innovation, like all other improvements, was not introduced
without opposition. Inigo Lopez de Mendoza,commit a pastoral; and none but a Spanish or Portuguese
poet would ever have extended one to upwards of seventeen hundred lines!
All persons of unvitiated tastes love the country: descriptions
of rural scenery, and images drawn from rural life, never worry us; but a
shepherd and a crook, and a pipe, is quite as unnatural as one of the cannibal
giants of romance, and infinitely less agreeable as a companion by the
fire-side. The Spanish Parnassus is very much infested by these gentry, and they
are equally troublesome on the Portuguese side of the mountain. Yet, if the
following defence of shepherds be not convincing, it is at least curious and
amusing. It is prefixed to the Eclogues of Francisco Rodriguez Lobo.
“Nature has hidden in rough shells, at the bottom of the sea, those pearls to which man has affixed such value; she has hidden that gold with which our souls are fettered, in the bowels of the earth, amid barbarous nations, and in distant countries: she has guarded the sea with rocks, and sown it with dangers, to place boundaries to our desires, and lengthen the period of our lives: but Evil, to deprive us of our tranquillity, laid open these secrets, and hid from us the true knowledge where real tranquillity is to be found. Then did this malignant spirit disfigure the shepherds with coarse vile garments, and represent their life of contentment as a life of mean and despicable labour; and by these magical delusions were we taught to despise the only treasure which the earth affords to render the mind happy: but when this fascination is removed, and we see things clearly, how much more beautiful appear the various colours with which the fields are apparelled, and the trees, and the sun, and the horizon beautiful when he sets, than all the deceitful trappings of Vanity! How much more delightful to our ears is the song of innocent birds, than the sound of flattering tongues, that endeavour to entrap our reason! Is not the rock that hangs over the stream, in whose caverns the birds dwell, and under whose shade the fishes sport, more to be admired than the sumptuous and superb edifice, that cannot so well resist the force of the tempest, or the secret sap of time? Where can life pass more delightfully or more tranquilly than among the flocks and herds? How much more secure is the enjoyment of these than the hopes of the court, and the deceits of the city! And if we have so often sighed for that happy age of gold, it is for this advantage, exceeding all others, that men lived then like shepherds, and followed their flocks, and cultivated the earth: and this truth is clearly proved; for the first man whom God created held this office, and the title which God gave him, was that of lord of the animal world; and Abel, the first martyr, in whom the church began, and the other children of Adam, tended their flocks: so likewise did Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob with his beloved Rachel, and Esau; Joseph and his brethren were shepherds, as they confessed to Pharaoh. Moses and Zipporah, Saul and David, kings of Israel, and Mesa, king of Moab, had executed this honourable office; and king Cyrus had exercised it among the ancient Persians. Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, with Faustulus, who educated them, kept sheep; and among those valiant Romans, the fame of whose exploits has echoed over the world, we read of many whose names discover their origin, such as the Vituli, the Vitellii, the Porcii, the Capri, the Tauri and the Bubulci. Many persons have risen to the highest dignities, from the pastoral state: Giges, king of Lydia; Sophy, king of the Turks; Primislaus, king of Bohemia; Tamerlane, emperor of the Scythians; Justin, emperor of the Romans; Viriatus, captain of the Portuguese; and Sixtus the first, the Roman pontiff: and, in truth, what is the life of a shepherd, but the similitude of empire? but a system of government, with moderation and mildness? For what can be more similar to the government of a kingdom than the management of a flock? To defend them from wild beasts, to secure them from robbers, to guide them to good pastures, cool shades, and clear waters; to threaten them with his voice, to chastise with the crook those who stray; to amuse them with the pipe and with the song, to cure them with herbs when they are sick; to be clothed with their wool, to feed upon their milk, and thus to pass peaceably through life? Among the vain deities whom the blinded Gentiles worshipped, Apollo, Mercury, Daphne, and Pan, and Proteus, and Paris, and Polyphemus, were shepherds; and the true God whom we serve, is frequently styled a shepherd, in the holy Scriptures; so ancient and so honourable is the pastoral life, which the avarice of men has now made despicable!
“Much knowledge is certainly necessary for a shepherd; an acquaintance with the nature of soils and pastures, the virtues of herbs, the changes of weather, the movements of the heavenly bodies, the effects of the sun, and the qualities of animals; and this life, though the most quiet, produces in its employments all things necessary for our subsistence: wool, milk, skins, the flesh of animals, herbs, grain, fruit. What life, then, can be more delightful than the pastoral life? or what prejudice can be greater than that which denies this truth?
“What style can be more conformable to reason, or less vitiated,
than the simple style of the shepherd? and therefore is it that the ancient
writers have delivered their precepts in the pastoral language, as being most
pure and natural. Under this allegory, Solomon veiled the mysteries of our
faith, in his Songs to his beloved; instructing us, by his lofty theme, and by a
strain of poetry as sublime in itself, as it is humble in its similitude; which
example alone would be sufficient, with the men of this age, to dignify pastoral
productions. In this style the Greeks and Romans, and the Italians, the
Spaniards, and our Portuguese, have written works, many in number, and rare in
quality; marvellous works, to enumerate which would be another new undertaking!
Therefore, curious reader, I present to you the manners and language of
shepherds, as the true doctrine of wisdom. I do not give you gilded pills of
poison, nor offer to you flowers that conceal a viper; instead of these you have
pearls in the shell, and plain honesty instead of polished falsehood.”
So curiously has this ingenious Portuguese defended pastoral poetry! But though we may agree with him that the life he describes is the most natural and most honourable state of man, we shall be very far from acknowledging, that either his eclogues, or those of any other poet, fairly represent it.
Garcilaso de la Vega, in the most enormous of his eclogues, has
introduced almost action enough for a drama.Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,”siesta — her evening’s nap. Albanio finds her, and seizes
her, but releases her on her solemn promise to remain and hear him, which she,
as soon as released, breaks, and runs away, and Albanio runs mad. Salicio now
enters, with Nemoroso: Nemoroso tells a long story about a magician, which is a
panegyric upon the family of Alva; and the eclogue concludes with their
resolution to get Albanio cured by this magician.
In this very ill-planned poem, Garcilaso has perpetuated his friendship for Boscan, and perhaps no lines in the poem can be perused with more pleasure than these, in which he bears testimony to the virtues of his friend:
Garcilaso has, in his second eclogue, introduced a Moorish metre, which has been seldom imitated, and, indeed, which did not deserve to be imitated at all: it is making the middle of the second line rhyme to the end of the first: the middle of the third to the end of the second, &c. Sir Philip Sidney, who was always trying experiments in versification, and making innovations instead of improvements, has left us some specimens of this:
This novelty, however, is to the eye and not to the ear; it is
only rhyming regularly in short and irregular lines. A peculiarity similar to
this, though infinitely superior, is much used by the Welsh poets; and the Welsh
bard, Edward Williams, has given a very happy specimen in English:
In this the objection to the Moorish metre is removed, by the alternation of a regular rhyme.
Both Boscan and Garcilaso possessed more learning than taste, and more taste than genius. Their poems, particularly those of the latter, are full of imitations from the ancients; they seldom disgust the reader by bombast, but they never elevate his mind by the sublime. There is more prettiness in Boscan, more tenderness in Garcilaso. The following little piece of Boscan is not unhappy, and by the many imitations of it, it appears to have been a favourite conceit:
TO A MIRROR.
The sonnets of Garcilaso are the most interesting of his works: there are some as beautiful, but none superior, to the following:
Boscan paraphrased the Hero and Leander of Musæus, of course he
injured it; for to paraphrase is to dilate, and to dilate, to weaken.