History of Spanish Literature, vol. 1 (of 3)

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, it is obvious that the age for chronicles had gone by in Spain. Still it was thought for the dignity of the monarchy that the stately forms of the elder time should, in this as in other particulars, be kept up by public authority. Charles the Fifth, therefore, as if his ambitious projects as a conqueror were to find their counterpart in his arrangements for recording their success, had several authorized chroniclers, all men of consideration and learning. But the shadow on the dial would not go back at the royal command. The greatest monarch of his time could appoint chroniclers, but he could not give them the spirit of an age that was past. The chronicles he demanded at their hands were either never undertaken or never finished. Antonio de Guevara, one of the persons to whom these duties were assigned, seems to have been singularly conscientious in the devotion of his time to them; for we are told, that, by his will, he ordered the salary of one year, during which he had written nothing of his task, to be returned to the Imperial treasury. This, however, did not imply that he was a successful chronicler.[885] What he wrote was not thought worthy of being published by his contemporaries, and would probably be judged no more favorably by the present generation, unless it discovered a greater regard for historical truth, and a better style, than are found in his discussions on the life and character of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.[886]

Florian de Ocampo, another of the more distinguished of the chroniclers, showed a wide ambition in the plan he proposed to himself; beginning his chronicles of Charles the Fifth as far back as the days of Noah’s flood. As might have been foreseen, he lived only so long as to finish a small fragment of his vast undertaking;—hardly a quarter part of the first of its four grand divisions.[887] But he went far enough to show how completely the age for such writing was passed away.[888] Not that he failed in credulity; for of that he had more than enough. It was not, however, the poetical credulity of his predecessors, trusting to the old national traditions, but an easy faith, that believed in the wearisome forgeries called the works of Berosus and Manetho,[889] which had been discredited from their first appearance half a century before, and yet were now used by Ocampo as if they were the probable, if not the sufficient, records of an uninterrupted succession of Spanish kings from Tubal, a grandson of Noah. Such a credulity has no charm about it. But besides this, the work of Ocampo, in its very structure, is dry and absurd; and, being written in a formal and heavy style, it is all but impossible to read it. He died in 1555, the year the Emperor abdicated, leaving us little occasion to regret that he had brought his annals of Spain no lower down than the age of the Scipios.

Juan Ginez de Sepúlveda was also charged by the Emperor fitly to record the events of his reign;[890] and so was Pero Mexia;[891] but the history of the former, which was first published by the Academy in 1780, is in Latin, while that of Mexia, written, apparently, after 1545, and coming down to the coronation at Bologna, was never published at all.[892] A larger history, however, by the last author, consisting of the lives of all the Roman emperors from Julius Cæsar to Maximilian of Austria, the predecessor of Charles the Fifth, which was printed several times, and is spoken of as an introduction to his Chronicle, shows, notwithstanding its many imperfections of style, that his purpose was to write a true and well-digested history, since he generally refers, under each reign, to the authorities on which he relies.[893]

Such works as these prove to us that we have reached the final limit of the old chronicling style; and that we must now look for the appearance of the different forms of regular historical composition in Spanish literature. But before we approach them, we must pause a moment on a few histories and accounts of the New World, which, during the reign of Charles the Fifth, were of more importance than the imperfect chronicles we have just noticed of the Spanish empire in Europe. For as soon as the adventurers that followed Columbus were landed on the western shores of the Atlantic, we begin to find narratives, more or less ample, of their discoveries and settlements; some written with spirit, and even in good taste; others quite unattractive in their style; but nearly all interesting from their subject and their materials, if from nothing else.

In the foreground of this picturesque group stands, as the most brilliant of its figures, Fernando Cortés, called, by way of eminence, El Conquistador, the Conqueror. He was born of noble parentage, and carefully bred; and though his fiery spirit drove him from Salamanca before his education could be completed, and brought him to the New World, in 1504, when he was hardly nineteen years old,[894] still the nurture of his youth, so much better than that of most of the other American adventurers, is apparent in his voluminous documents and letters, both published and unpublished. Of these, the most remarkable were, no doubt, five long and detailed Reports to the Emperor on the affairs of Mexico; the first of which, and probably the most curious, dated in 1519, seems to be lost, and the last, belonging, probably, to 1527, exists only in manuscript.[895] The four that remain are well written and have a business-like air about them, as well as a clearness and good taste which remind us sometimes, though rarely, of the “Relazioni” of Machiavelli, and sometimes of Cæsar’s Commentaries. His letters, on the other hand, are occasionally more ornamented. In an unpublished one, written about 1533, and in which, when his fortunes were waning, he sets forth his services and his wrongs, he pleases himself with telling the Emperor that he “keeps two of his Majesty’s letters like holy relics,” adding, that “the favors of his Majesty towards him had been quite too ample for so small a vase”;—courtly and graceful phrases, such as are not found in the documents of his later years, when, disappointed and disgusted with affairs and with the court, he retired to a morose solitude, where he died in 1554, little consoled by his rank, his wealth, or his glory.

The marvellous achievements of Cortés in Mexico, however, were more fully, if not more accurately, recorded by Francisco Lopez de Gomara,—the oldest of the regular historians of the New World,[896]—who was born at Seville in 1510, and was, for some time, Professor of Rhetoric at Alcalá. His early life, spent in the great mart of the American adventurers, seems to have given him an interest in them and a knowledge of their affairs which led him to write their history. The works he produced, besides one or two of less consequence, were, first, his “History of the Indies,” which, after the Spanish fashion, begins with the creation of the world, and ends with the glories of Spain, though it is chiefly devoted to Columbus and the discovery and conquest of Peru; and, second, his “Chronicle of New Spain,” which is, in truth, merely the History and Life of Cortés, and which, with this more appropriate title, was reprinted by Bustamente, in Mexico, in 1826.[897] As the earliest records that were published concerning affairs which already stirred the whole of Christendom, these works had, at once, a great success, passing through two editions almost immediately, and being soon translated into French and Italian.

But though Gomara’s style is easy and flowing, both in his mere narration and in those parts of his works which so amply describe the resources of the newly discovered countries, he did not succeed in producing any thing of permanent authority. He was the secretary of Cortés, and was misled by information received from him, and from other persons, who were too much a part of the story they undertook to relate to tell it fairly.[898] His mistakes, in consequence, are great and frequent, and were exposed with much zeal by Bernal Diaz, an old soldier, who, having already been twice to the New World, went with Cortés to Mexico in 1519,[899] and fought there so often and so long, that, many years afterwards, he declared he could sleep with comfort only when his armour was on.[900] As soon as he read the accounts of Gomara, he set himself sturdily at work to answer them, and in 1558 completed his task.[901] The book he thus produced is written with much personal vanity, and runs, in a rude style, into wearisome details; but it is full of the zealous and honest nationality of the old chronicles, so that, while we are reading it, we seem to be carried back into the preceding ages, and to be again in the midst of a sort of fervor and faith which, in writers like Gomara and Cortés, we feel sure we are fast leaving behind us.

Among the persons who early came to America, and have left important records of their adventures and times, one of the most considerable was Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo. He was born at Madrid, in 1478,[902] and, having been well educated at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, as one of the pages of Prince John, was sent out, in 1513, as a supervisor of gold-smeltings, to San Domingo,[903] where, except occasional visits to Spain and to different Spanish possessions in America, he lived nearly forty years, devoted to the affairs of the New World. Oviedo seems, from his youth, to have had a passion for writing; and, besides several less considerable works, among which were imperfect chronicles of Ferdinand and Isabella and of Charles the Fifth, and a life of Cardinal Ximenes,[904] he prepared two of no small value.

The most important of these two is “The Natural and General History of the Indies,” filling fifty books, of which the first portions, embracing twenty-one, were published in 1535, while the rest are still found only in manuscript. As early as 1525, when he was at Toledo, and offered Charles the Fifth a summary of the History of Hispaniola, he speaks of his desire to have his larger work printed. But it appears, from the beginning of the thirty-third book and the end of the thirty-fourth, that he was still employed upon it in 1547 and 1548; and it is not unlikely, from the words with which he concludes the thirty-seventh, that he kept each of its larger divisions open, and continued to make additions to them nearly to the time of his death.[905]

He tells us that he had the Emperor’s authority to demand, from the different governors of Spanish America, the documents he might need for his work;[906] and as his divisions of the subject are those which naturally arise from its geography, he appears to have gone judiciously about his task. But the materials he was to use were in too crude a state to be easily manageable, and the whole subject was too wide and various for his powers. He falls, therefore, into a loose, rambling style, instead of aiming at philosophical condensation; and, far from an abridgment, which his work ought to have been, he gives us chronicling, documentary accounts of an immense extent of newly discovered country, and of the extraordinary events that had been passing there,—sometimes too short and slight to be interesting, and sometimes too detailed for the reader’s patience. He was evidently a learned man, and maintained a correspondence with Ramusio, the Italian geographer, which could not fail to be useful to both parties.[907] And he was desirous to write in a good and eloquent style, in which he sometimes succeeded. He has, therefore, on the whole, produced a series of accounts of the natural condition, the aboriginal inhabitants, and the political affairs of the wide-spread Spanish possessions in America, as they stood in the middle of the sixteenth century, which is of great value as a vast repository of facts, and not wholly without merit as a composition.[908]

The other considerable work of Oviedo, the fruit of his old age, is devoted to fond recollections of his native country and of the distinguished men he had known there. He calls it “Las Quinquagenas,” and it consists of a series of dialogues, in which, with little method or order, he gives gossiping accounts of the principal families that figured in Spain during the times of Ferdinand and Isabella and Charles the Fifth, mingled with anecdotes and recollections, such as—not without a simple-hearted exhibition of his own vanity—the memory of his long and busy life could furnish. It appears from the Dialogue on Cardinal Ximenes, and elsewhere, that he was employed on it as early as 1545;[909] but the year 1550 occurs yet more frequently among the dates of its imaginary conversations,[910] and at the conclusion he very distinctly declares that it was finished on the 23d of May, 1556, when he was seventy-nine years old. He died in Valladolid, the next year.

But both during his life and after his death, Oviedo had a formidable adversary, who, pursuing nearly the same course of inquiries respecting the New World, came almost constantly to conclusions quite opposite. This was no less a person than Bartolomé de las Casas, or Casaus, the apostle and defender of the American Indians,—a man who would have been remarkable in any age of the world, and who does not seem yet to have gathered in the full harvest of his honors. He was born in Seville, probably in 1474; and in 1502, having gone through a course of studies at Salamanca, embarked for the Indies, where his father, who had been there with Columbus nine years earlier, had already accumulated a decent fortune.

The attention of the young man was early drawn to the condition of the natives, from the circumstance, that one of them, given to his father by Columbus, had been attached to his own person as a slave, while he was still at the University; and he was not slow to learn, on his arrival in Hispaniola, that their gentle natures and slight frames had already been subjected, in the mines and in other forms of toil, to a servitude so harsh, that the original inhabitants of the island were beginning to waste away under the severity of their labors. From this moment he devoted his life to their emancipation. In 1510 he took holy orders, and continued as a priest, and for a short time as Bishop of Chiapa, nearly forty years, to teach, strengthen, and console the suffering flock committed to his charge. Six times, at least, he crossed the Atlantic, in order to persuade the government of Charles the Fifth to ameliorate their condition, and always with more or less success. At last, but not until 1547, when he was above seventy years old, he established himself at Valladolid, in Spain, where he passed the remainder of his serene old age, giving it freely to the great cause to which he had devoted the freshness of his youth. He died, while on a visit of business, at Madrid, in 1566, at the advanced age, as is commonly supposed, of ninety-two.[911]

Among the principal opponents of his benevolence were Sepúlveda,—one of the leading men of letters and casuists of the time in Spain,—and Oviedo, who, from his connection with the mines and his share in the government of different parts of the newly discovered countries, had an interest directly opposite to the one Las Casas defended. These two persons, with large means and a wide influence to sustain them, intrigued, wrote, and toiled against him, in every way in their power. But his was not a spirit to be daunted by opposition or deluded by sophistry and intrigue; and when, in 1519, in a discussion with Sepúlveda concerning the Indians, held in the presence of the young and proud Emperor Charles the Fifth, Las Casas said, “It is quite certain, that, speaking with all the respect and reverence due to so great a sovereign, I would not, save in the way of duty and obedience as a subject, go from the place where I now stand to the opposite corner of this room, to serve your Majesty, unless I believed I should at the same time serve God,”[912]—when he said this, he uttered a sentiment that really governed his life and constituted the basis of the great power he exercised. His works are pervaded by it. The earliest of them, called “A very Short Account of the Ruin of the Indies,” was written in 1542,[913] and dedicated to the prince, afterwards Philip the Second;—a tract in which, no doubt, the sufferings and wrongs of the Indians are much overstated by the indignant zeal of its author, but still one whose expositions are founded in truth, and by their fervor awakened all Europe to a sense of the injustice they set forth. Other short treatises followed, written with similar spirit and power, especially those in reply to Sepúlveda; but none was so often reprinted, either at home or abroad, as the first,[914] and none ever produced so deep and solemn an effect on the world. They were all collected and published in 1552; and, besides being translated into other languages at the time, an edition in Spanish, and a French version of the whole, with two more treatises than were contained in the first collection, appeared at Paris in 1822, prepared by Llorente.

The great work of Las Casas, however, still remains inedited,—a General History of the Indies from 1492 to 1520, begun by him in 1527 and finished in 1561, but of which he ordered that no portion should be published within forty years of his death. Like his other works, it shows marks of haste and carelessness, and is written in a rambling style; but its value, notwithstanding his too fervent zeal for the Indians, is great. He had been personally acquainted with many of the early discoverers and conquerors, and, at one time, possessed the papers of Columbus, and a large mass of other important documents, which are now lost. He says he had known Cortés “when he was so low and humble, that he besought favor from the meanest servant of Diego Velasquez”; and he knew him afterwards, he tells us, when, in his pride of place at the court of the Emperor, he ventured to jest about the pretty corsair’s part he had played in the affairs of Montezuma.[915] He knew, too, Gomara and Oviedo, and gives at large his reasons for differing from them. In short, his book, divided into three parts, is a great repository, to which Herrera, and through him all the historians of the Indies since, have resorted for materials; and without which the history of the earliest period of the Spanish settlements in America cannot, even now, be properly written.[916]

But it is not necessary to go farther into an examination of the old accounts of the discovery and conquest of Spanish America, though there are many more which, like those we have already considered, are partly books of travel through countries full of wonders, partly chronicles of adventures as strange as those of romance; frequently running into idle and loose details, but as frequently fresh, picturesque, and manly in their tone and coloring, and almost always curious from the facts they record and the glimpses they give of manners and character. Among those that might be added are the stories by Vaca of his shipwreck and ten years’ captivity in Florida, from 1527 to 1537, and his subsequent government for three years of the Rio de la Plata;[917] the short account of the conquest of Peru written by Francisco de Xerez,[918] and the ampler one, of the same wild achievements, which Augustin de Çarate began on the spot, and was prevented by an officer of Gonzalo de Pizarro from finishing till after his return home.[919] But they may all be passed over, as of less consequence than those we have noticed, which are quite sufficient to give an idea, both of the nature of their class and the course it followed,—a class much resembling the old chronicles, but yet one that announces the approach of those more regular forms of history for which it furnishes abundant materials.

END OF VOL. I.