ABSTRACT
From early youth Boscan was a poet; at first he wrote in the old Spanish style; but he was still young when his attention was called to the classic productions of Italy, and he was incited to adopt the Italian versification and elegiac style, so to enlarge the sphere of Spanish poetry. Every thing combines to give us the idea of Boscan as a good and a happy man, enjoying so much of prosperity and rank as would make him feel satisfied and complacent, and endowed with such talents as rendered poetry a pleasing occupation, and the fame he acquired delightful. Boscan commences, in imitation of Horace, by commending the tranquillity enjoyed in a middle station of life. He then goes on to adorn his canvass with a picture of conjugal attachment and happiness. Boscan’s poem has nothing of the ideal creativeness which sheds a halo round its object, making one feel as if Laura fed upon different food.
