, 
_— wae 7 
Lg 
fn 
. CHARACTERS 
| proof, it may be observed, that 
though he might have begun the 
poem when on board the armada, 
this part was not written till the 
following feign: 
“ Phillippo Tertio, Cesari invictissimo, 
Omnium maximo regum triumpha- 
tori, 
Orbis utriusque et maris felicissimo, 
- Catholici secundi successori, 
Totius Hispanie principi, dignissimo, 
Ecclesiz Christi et fidei defensori, 
Fama, precingens tempora alma lauro, 
‘Hoc, simulacrum dedicat ex auro.” 
Lope de Vega in whose epics 
every thing which is odd and extra- 
vagant may be found, has in like 
manner inserted a Latin ‘epitaph 
‘upon Rodrigo in his Jerusalem 
‘Conquistada, It is worth tran- 
‘scribing. 
‘Hoc jacet in sarcophago Rex ille 
* Penultimus Gothorum in Hispania. 
‘Tnfelix Rodericus, viator sile, 
Ne forte pereat tota Lusitania: , 
_ Provocatus Cupidinis missile 
_, Telo, tam magna affectus fuit insamia, 
Quam tota Hiberia vinculis astricta 
| Testatur mesta, lachrimatur victa. 
Wexccrabitem Comitem Jalianum 
-Abhorreant omnes, nomine et remoto 
Patrio, appellent Erostratum Hispanum, 
Non tantum nostri, sed in orbe toto. 
Dum current Cceli sidera, vesanum 
_ Vociferent, testante Mauro et Gotho, 
. - Cesset Florindz nomen suave 
Eava viator est, a Cava cave. 
2 
vw“ 
_ In the same volume with the An- 
: gelica, he published a cellection of 
"sonnets, and another narrative poem 
‘of some length upon sir Francis 
Drake, who of course receives no 
“more mercy at his hands, than he 
_ would have done, had he been made 
5 aed upon the coast of Peru. 
‘Lope had little reason to love sir 
2 
845 
Francis Drake, and for Elizabeth 
he entertained a right catholic ab- 
horrence, it is amusing to read the 
iuvectives in which. the Spanish 
poets vented their hatred against 
her. Gongora in his ode upon the 
Armada, says of England, 
How art thou doom’d to everlasting 
shame 
For her accursed sake, 
Who for the distaff dares to take 
The sword and sceptre in*her bastard 
hand ! 
She-wolf libidiaous, and fierce for blood. 
Thou strumpet offspring of the adul- 
trous bed. 
Soon may avenging heaven hurl down 
Its lightning-vengeance on thy impious 
head. 
Lope’s Dragontea is a dull poem. 
An historical subject of such recent 
date, will not bear the intermixture 
of invention ; we know the truth so 
well, that all the fiction has tbe ef. 
fect of falshood. ‘This,-however, is 
only the case, in this instance, with 
an English reader. Spaniards might 
believe sir Francis Drake to be a ty- 
rant, a slave, and a coward, but the 
poet who could flatter the passions 
ofhis contemporary countrymen, by 
ealling him so, might have known 
that the reputation of his poem 
would be temporary as well as lo- 
cal. 
Another of his long poems is his 
St. Isidro,in honour not of the great 
St. Isidore, who procured for his 
nephew Hermenegild the honours 
of canonization, by instigating him 
to commit rebellion and attempt 
parricide, but of a labourer in the 
vicinity of Madrid, who was sainted 
by the ingenuity of others in invent- 
ing miracles for him, not by any 
knavery of his own in enactivg them. 
The Isidro is a wearying collection 
of miraculeus stories, with no other 
connection 
