Boscan seems to have been one of those rare beings, a poet endowed
with all the favours of fortune, including contentment and happiness.
His friends Garcilaso di Vega and Mendoza aided greatly in the
formation of Spanish poetry, all three having studied the Italian
school and Petrarch. This century, rich in poets, gives us also Luis
de Leon, Herrera, Saade Miranda, Jorge de Montemayor, Castillejo, the
dramatists; and Ercilla, the soldier poet, who, in the expedition for
the conquest of Peru went to Arauco, and wrote the poem named
_Araucana_. From him we pass to one of the great men of all time,
Cervantes, to one who understood the workings of the human heart, and
was so much raised above the common level as to be neglected in the
magnitude of his own work. Originally of noble family, and having
served his country in war, losing his left hand at the battle of
Lepanto, he received no recognition of his services after his return
from a cruel captivity among the Moors. Instead of reward, Cervantes
seems to have met with every indignity that could be devised by the
multitudes of pigmies to lower a great man, were that possible.
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