ARGEN'SCLA, LurEncro and BAirroLo_wE LEONARDO DE, two of the first among the Spanish poets iu the " golden age." were b. at Barbastro, in Aragon; the former in 1565, the latter in 1566. They studied at the university of Huesca. Lupercio afterwards went to Madrid, while Bartolome entered the church. In character and fortune, how ever, they were closely united throughout the whole of their career. Both were patron ized by Marie of Austria, who appointed the one her chaplain, and the other her private secretary. The latter was subsequently made chamberlain to the archduke Albert of Austria, and Philip III. appointed him historiographer of Aragon. Bartolome was em ployed by the count de Lentos to edit the Conquista de las Molucas (Madrid, 1609); and when this nobleman was appointed as viceroy of Naples, both the brothers A., who had acquired fame as poets, attended his court at Naples, where Lupercio, who then filled the office of secretary of state, died in 1613. Bartolome returned to Spain with the viceroy in 1616, and occupied the position formerly held by his brother, as histori ographer of the kingdom of Aragon, where he proceeded with the work left unfinished by Lupercio—a continuation of Zurita's Annals of Aragon. While engaged in this work,
he d. Feb. 26, 1631. The collected poems of the two brothers were first published in 1634, by the son of Lupercio, and passed through several editions. These poems (Riffles) consist of epistles, odes, sonnets, and satires, and are singularly alike in character. They are imitative of the style of the Latin poets (especially Horace, for which reason the brothers have been styled "the Spanish Boraces"), and display more care and polish than originality of invention or richness of fancy. Bartolome A.. as a prose-writer, is reckoned among the Spanish classics. The style of his continuation of Zurita is a great advance on the original, especially in correctness.