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      Her beauty’s high perfection

      To sing, and all her witcheries

      Of feature and complexion:

      With master pencil to portray

      Her snowy neck and forehead,

      And eyes that round so roguish play,

      And lips like carmine florid.

      And let the Catos go at will,

      To where they most prefer it,

      Who withering frowns and sneerings still

      Give me for my demerit.

      In spite of all, with wrinkled pate,

      The censures each rehearses,

      Enarda I will celebrate

      For ever in my verses.

       TO ENARDA.—II.

      Cruel Enarda! all in vain,

      In vain, thou view’st with joyful eyes

      The tears that show my grief and pain,

      Thyself exulting in my sighs.

      The burning tears that bathe my cheek,

      With watching shrunk, with sorrow pale,

      Thy lightness and caprice bespeak,

      Thy guilt and perfidy bewail.

      Those signs of sorrow, on my face,

      Are not the obsequies portray’d

      Of a lost good, nor yet the trace

      Of tribute to thy beauties paid.

      They are the evidence alone

      There fix’d thy falsehood to proclaim;

      Of thy deceits the horror shown,

      Of my delirium the shame.

      I weep not now thy rigours o’er,

      Nor feel regret, that lost to me

      Are the returns, which false before

      Thou gavest, or favours faithlessly.

      I weep o’er my delusions blind;

      I mourn the sacrifices made,

      And incense to a god unkind

      On an unworthy altar laid.

      I weep the memory o’er debased

      Of my captivity to mourn,

      And all the weight and shame disgraced

      Of such vile fetters to have borne.

      Ever to my lorn mind return’d

      Are thoughts of homage offer’d ill,

      Disdains ill borne, affection spurn’d,

      And sighs contemn’d, recurring still.

      Then, ah, Enarda! all in vain

      Thou think’st to please thee with my grief:

      Love, who now looks on me again

      With eyes of pity and relief,

      A thousand times has me accost,

      As thus my tears to censure now,

      “To lose them thou hast nothing lost;

      Poor creature! why then weepest thou?”

II.

       TOMAS DE IRIARTE.

       Table of Contents

      Of all the modern Spanish poets, Iriarte seems to have obtained for his writings the widest European reputation. He was born the 18th September 1750, at Teneriffe in the Canary Islands, where his family had been some time settled, though the name shows it to have been of Basque origin. His uncle, Juan de Iriarte, also a native of the same place, was one of the most learned men of his age, and to him the subject of this memoir was indebted for much of the knowledge he acquired, and means of attaining the eminence in literature he succeeded him in possessing. Juan de Iriarte had been partly educated in France, and had afterwards resided some time in England, so as to acquire a full knowledge of the language and literature of those countries. He was also a proficient in classical learning, and wrote Latin with great precision, as his writings, published by his nephew after his death, evince; Madrid, two volumes, 4to. 1774. Having been appointed keeper of the Royal Library at Madrid, he enriched it with many valuable works, in upwards of 2000 MSS. and 10,000 volumes. He was an active member of the Royal Spanish Academy, and one of the principal assistants in compiling the valuable dictionary and grammar published by that learned Society, as well as other works.

      At the instance of this uncle, Tomas Iriarte went to Madrid in the beginning of 1764, when not yet fourteen years of age, and under that relative’s able guidance completed his studies, learning at the same time the English and other modern languages. He was already far advanced in a knowledge of classical literature, and it is stated that some Latin verses he wrote, on leaving his native place, showed such proficiency as to surprise his friends, and make them entertain great expectations of his future success. Some of his Latin compositions, published afterwards among his works, prove him to have been a scholar of very considerable acquirements. Classical literature does not seem in modern times to be much studied in Spain, and Iriarte is the only distinguished writer among the modern Spanish poets who can be pointed out as conspicuous for such attainments. Thus they have failed in apprehending one of the chief beauties of modern poetry, so remarkable in Milton and Byron, and our other great poets, who enrich their works with references that remind us of what had most delighted us in those of antiquity.

      In 1771 his uncle died, and Tomas Iriarte, who had already been acting for him in one of his offices as Interpreter to the Government, was appointed to succeed him in it. He was afterwards, in 1776, appointed Keeper of the Archives of the Council of War; and these offices, with the charge of a paper under the influence of the government, seem to have been the only public employments he held. From one of his epistles, however, he appears to have succeeded to his uncle’s property, and thus to have had the means as also the leisure to give much of his time to the indulgence of literary tastes. He was very fond of paintings and of music, to which he showed his predilection, not only by his ability to play on several instruments, but also by writing a long didactic poem on the art, entitled ‘Musica.’ This he seems to have considered as giving him his principal claim to be ranked as a poet, though the world preferred his other writings.

      When yet under twenty years of age, Iriarte had already appeared as a writer of plays, some of which met with considerable approbation. Of these it will be sufficient for us here to observe, that Moratin, the first great dramatic poet of Spain in modern times, pronounced one of them, ‘The Young Gentleman Pacified,’ to have been “the first original comedy the Spanish theatre had seen written according to the most essential rules dictated by philosophy and good criticism.”

      Besides several original plays, Iriarte translated others from the French, from which language he also translated the ‘New Robinson’ of Campe, which passed through several editions. From Virgil he translated into Spanish verse the first four books of the Æneid, and from Horace the Epistle to the Pisos. These, though censured by some of his contemporaries so as to excite his anger, were altogether too superior to those attacks to have required the vindication of them he thought proper to publish. Horace seems to have been his favourite author; but he had not learned from him his philosophical equanimity, wherewith to pass over in silent endurance the minor miseries of life. Thus he allowed himself, throughout

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