[213] “Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano,” Madrid, 1601-15, 4 vols. fol.—“Historia General del Mundo del Tiempo del Señor Rey Don Felipe II., desde 1559, hasta su Muerte,” Madrid, 1601-12, 3 vols. fol.—Five books on the History of Portugal and the Conquest of the Azores were printed, Madrid, 1591, 4to; the History of the League, Madrid, 1598, 4to; and the History of the Troubles in Aragon, in 1612, 4to; the last being only a tract of 140 pages. A work on the History of Italy, from 1281 to 1559, printed at Madrid in 1624, folio, I have never seen. The of Historia General del Mundo is on the Index of 1667, for expurgation.

[214] “Conquista de las Islas Molucas,” Madrid, 1609, folio. Pellicer, Bib. de Trad., Tom. I. p. 87. The love-story of Durante, an ensign, in the third book of the “Conquista,” is good and probable; and the account of the Patagonian giants, in the same book, turns out to be almost true, like some of the long-discredited stories of Marco Polo and Mendez Pinto.

[215] “La Traduccion del Indio de los Tres Diálogos de Amor, de Leon Hebreo, echado de Italiano en Espagnol, por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega,” Madrid, 1590, 4to. A Spanish translation of it, which I have seen, had appeared at Venice in 1568, and I believe there was another at Zaragoza in 1584, of which it seems strange that Garcilasso knew nothing. (Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. II. p. 920; Castro, Bib., Tom. I. p. 371; and Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 232.) The letter of Garcilasso to Philip II., with additional remarks by its author, containing interesting materials for his own life, is prefixed to the first edition of the second part of the Commentaries on Peru. “La Florida” was printed at Lisbon in 1606, 4to; the first part of the Peru at Lisbon, 1609, folio; and the second part at Córdova, 1617, folio. Both of the historical works are to be found in several other editions, and both have been translated into most of the languages of modern Europe.

Two striking examples may be given of the opposite kinds of that credulity in Garcilasso which so much impairs the value of his Commentaries. He believed that the subjection of Peru by the Spaniards was predicted by the last of the Incas that reigned before their arrival, (Parte I. Lib. IX. c. 15, and Parte II. Lib. VIII. c. 18,) and he believed that all the Spaniards in the army of Peru, who were notorious blasphemers, perished by wounds in the mouth (Parte II., Lib. IV. c. 21).

[216] “Expedicion de los Catalanes contra Griegos y Turcos, por Francisco de Moncada, Conde de Osona,” Barcelona, 1623, and Madrid, 1772 and 1805, 12mo. There is an edition, also, of Barcelona, 1842, 8vo, edited by Don Jaime Tió, with a poem at the end by Calisto Fernandez Campo-redondo, which is on the same subject with the History, and in 1841 gained a prize at Barcelona for its success at a festival, that reminds us of the days of the Floral Games and of the Marquis of Villena.

[217] “Las Guerras de los Estados Baxos, desde Maio, 1588, hasta el Año 1599,” Amberes, 1625 and 1635, 4to, and Barcelona, 1627. Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 338. He was ambassador to James I. of England, viceroy of Majorca, etc., and died in 1637, sixty-four years old.

[218] “Historia de los Movimientos, Separacion, y Guerra de Cataluña, por Francisco Manuel de Melo,” Lisboa, 1645, and several other editions; one by Sanchez, 1808, 12mo, and one at Paris, 1830. His poetry in Spanish has been mentioned, ante, II. 529. For his life and multitudinous works, see the “Bibliotheca Lusitana” of Diogo Barbosa Machado, (Lisboa, 1741-59, 4 tom. folio,) which I have often referred to, as to the great authority on all matters of fact in Portuguese literary history, though of little or no value for the literary opinions it expresses. It is one of the amplest and most important works of literary biography and bibliography ever published; but, unhappily, it is also one of the rarest, a large part of the impression of the first three volumes having been destroyed in the fire that followed the great earthquake at Lisbon in 1755. Its author, who gives some account of himself in his own work, was born in 1682, and died, I believe, in 1770.

[219] The work of Saavedra was continued, very poorly, by Alonso Nuñez de Castro, through the reign of Henry II., the labors of both making seven volumes in the edition of Madrid, 1789-90, 12mo, of which the first two only, coming down to 716, are by Saavedra.

[220] Mad. d’Aulnoy (Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. II. pp. 17, 18) explains this custom, and shows to what an absurd and ridiculous length it was carried in the time of Solís.

[221] There are many editions of the “Conquista de México,” the first being that of Madrid, 1654, folio, and the best in two vols. 4to, Madrid, 1783. The author of the life prefixed to his poems says: “Solís left materials for a continuation of the History of Mexico, but they are not now known to exist.” A few of his letters, with a sketch of his life, by Mayans y Siscar, were published, as I have already noticed, in 1733. They appear again, carefully revised, in the “Cartas Morales,” etc., 1773. See, ante, II. 420, 549, III. 136.

[222] From the times of Charles V. and Philip II., when, in Aragon and Castile, chroniclers were multiplied as a part of the pageantry of the court, the rest of the kingdoms that entered into the united Spanish monarchy began to desire to have their own separate histories, as we can see in Valencia, where those of Beuter, Escolano, and Diago were written. Besides this, a great number of the individual cities obtained their own separate annals from the hand of at least one author,—sometimes works of authority, like that on Segovia by Colmenares, and that on Seville by Avila y Zuñiga. But though more of such local histories were written in Spain between the middle of the sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth centuries, than were written during the same period, I believe, in any other country in Europe, none of them, so far as I know, has such peculiar merit as to be noticeable in the literary history of the country. Still, the spirit that produced them in such great numbers, and especially the spirit which, during the reign of Philip II., made, with so much care and cost, the vast collections of documents yet to be found in the Castle of Simancas and the convent of the Escurial, should not be overlooked.

When the chapter on the Chronicles of the fifteenth century (First Period, Chap. IX.) was printed, I had not seen the Chronicle by the Prince of Viana, “Crónica de los Reyes de Navarra,”—of which there is only one edition, that of Pamplona, 1843, 4to, by Don José Yanguas y Miranda. It was written in 1454 by the Prince Don Carlos, to whom I have already alluded, (Vol. I. p. 332, note,) who died, forty years old, in 1461, and whose translation of Aristotle’s Ethics was printed at Saragossa in 1509. (Mendez, Typographia, 1796, p. 193.) The Chronicle was carefully prepared for publication from four manuscripts, and it embraces the history of Navarre from the earliest times to the accession of Charles III. in 1390, noticing a few events in the beginning of the next century. Besides the life of the author, it makes about 200 pages, written in a modest, simple style, but not so good as that of some of the contemporary Castilian chronicles. A few of the old traditions concerning the little mountain kingdom, whose early annals it records, are, however, well preserved; some of them being told as they are found in the General Chronicle of Spain, and some with additions or changes. The portions where I have observed most traces of connection between the two are in the Chronicle of the Prince of Viana, Book I. chapters 9-14, as compared with the latter portion of the General Chronicle, Part III. Sometimes the Prince deviates from all received accounts, as when he calls Cava the wife of Count Julian, instead of calling her his daughter; but, on the whole, his Chronicle agrees with the common traditions and histories of the period to which it relates.

[223] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 39.

[224] In the great contest between the two liturgies, the Roman and the Gothic, which disturbed the Church of Spain for so long a period, Alfonso VI. determined to throw a copy of each into a fire duly kindled and blessed for the purpose, and give the supremacy to the one that should come out unconsumed. The Gothic MS. was successful; but the king broke his word, and tossed it back into the flames, thus giving rise, it is said, to the proverb, “Alla van leyes adonde quieren reyes”; or, freely translated, “Laws obey kings.” (Sarmiento, § 411.) A similar historical origin is given to the proverb, “Ni quito rey, ni pongo rey”; which is traced to the personal quarrel of Peter the Cruel and his brother and successor, Don Enrique. Clemencin, ed. Don Quixote, Tom. VI., 1839, p. 225.

[225] Dissertation of Cortés in Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 211.

[226] Chrónica General, 1604, Parte III. f. 61, and Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 7.

[227] For example: “Ayudad vos, y Dios ayudarvos ha,”—“Help yourself and God will help you,”—near the end; and “El Bien nunca muere,”—“Good never dies,”—which is in the first tale.

[228] “Quien en l’arenal sembra, non trilla pegujares,”—“He that sows on the sea-beach reaps little for himself.” Stanza 160. Pegujares, a singular word, which occurs once in Don Quixote, is said by Clemencin (Tom. IV. p. 34) to come from peculio. See, also, Partida IV. Título xvii. Ley 7.

[229] Reprinted in Mayans, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 179-210. See also, the Proverbs from Seneca by Pero Diaz, mentioned in note 33 to Period I. chap. 19, and pp. 376, 377, of Vol. I.

[230] I have never seen the Proverbs collected by Pedro Valles, the Aragonese, but Mayans y Siscar had in his library a copy of them, which is described in the “Specimen Bibliothecæ Hispano-Majansianæ, etc., ex Musæo Davidis Clementis,” Hannoveræ, 1753, 4to, p. 67. The “Cartas de Blasco de Garay” have been often printed; but the oldest and most complete edition I have seen is that of Venice, 1553, 12mo; probably not the first. The second of the letters of Garay is not in proverbs, and, in this edition, is followed by a devout prayer; the whole being intended, as the author says, “to win the attention not so much of the wise as of those who are wont to read nothing but Celestina and such like books.” The “Proverbios” of Francisco de Castilla, in the volume with his “Theórica de Virtudes,” (1552, ff. 64-69,) are not proverbs, but an exhortation in verse to a wise and holy life.

[231] “Refranes, etc., que coligio y gloso, el Comendador, Hernan Nuñez, Profesor de Retórica en la Universidad de Salamanca,” Madrid, 1619, 4to. The preface, by Leo de Castro, implies that the volume was printed during the life of Nuñez, who died in 1553; but I find no edition older than that of 1555. See the note of Pellicer to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 34.

[232] “La Filosofía Vulgar de Juan de Mal Lara, Vezino de Sevilla,” (Sevilla, 1558, Madrid, 1618, 4to, etc.,)—a person of note in his time, whom we have mentioned (ante, II. 26) among the dramatic poets, and who died in 1571, forty-four years old. (Seman. Pintoresco, 1845, p. 34.) The collection of Lorenzo Palmireno is reprinted in the fourth volume of Nuñez, ed. Madrid, 1804, 12mo. Oudin’s collection was reprinted at Brussels in 1611, 12mo. Juan Sorapan de Rieros, “Medecina Española, en Proverbios Vulgares de Nuestra Lengua,” was printed at Granada, 1616-17, 4to, in two parts. “Refranes Castellanos con Latinos, etc., por el Licenciado Gerónimo Martin Caro y Cejudo,” Madrid, 1675, 4to; reprinted 1792. I do not notice the “Apotegmas” of Juan Rufo, (1596,) nor the “Floresta de Apotegmas of Santa Cruz,” (first printed in 1574, and often afterwards; e. g. Bruselas, 1629,)—the last of which is a pleasant hook, praised by Lope de Vega in his first tale,—because both of them are rather jest-books than collections of proverbs. The “Proverbios Morales” of Christ. Perez de Herrera (Madrid, 1618, 4to) are in rhyme, and too poor to deserve notice, even if they had been in prose.

[233] Vargas y Ponce, Declamacion, Madrid, 1793, 4to, App., p. 93.

[234] Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. I. pp. 188-191, and the Diálogo de las Lenguas, p. 12, where the author says, “In our proverbs, you see the purity of the Castilian language”; and p. 170, where he says, “The purest Castilian we have is in our proverbs.” The “Don Quixote” will occur to every body as a book that proves how much proverbs enter into Spanish literature; but I should rather cite the “Celestina,” where their number is, I think, equally great in proportion, and their serious application more effective.

[235] “Jardin de Flores Curiosas, etc., por Ant. de Torquemada,” 1570, 1573, 1587, 1589. The edition of Anveres, 1575, 18mo, fills 536 pages. “The Spanish Mandeville of Miracles, or the Garden of Curious Flowers,” (London, 1600, 4to,) is a translation into good old English, by Ferdinand Walker. The original is strictly prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 68. The “Coloquios Satíricos,” by the same author, (1553,) I have never seen.

[236] “Tractado de las Drogas y Medicinas de las Indias Orientales, por Christóval Acosta,” Burgos, (1578, 4to,) where its author was a surgeon; but there are other editions, (1582 and 1592,) and early Italian and French translations. The “Tractado en Loor de las Mugeres, por Christóval Acosta, Affricano,” was printed at Venice, 1592, 4to, and I know no other edition. Barbosa, in his life of Acosta, spells his name Da Costa.

[237] Preface to Obras de Luis de Granada, Madrid, 1657, folio, and Preface to Guia de Pecadores, Madrid, 1781, 8vo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 38. Llorente, Hist., Tom. III. p. 123. His works are numerous, and he enjoys the singular honor of having had an edition of them published by Planta, at the expense of the Duke of Alva, the minister and general of Philip II.

[238] Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, Sevilla, 1703, folio, twelfth edition.

[239] Obras de Santa Teresa, (Madrid, 1793, 2 tom. 4to,) Tom. I. p. 393. Of her letters I have spoken, ante, p. 135, and an excellent discussion of her character, and that of the mystical school to which she belonged, may be found in the Christian Examiner, No. 152, Boston, March, 1849. Her works are accompanied with many offers of indulgence to those who read a chapter or a letter of any of them, or hear it read. For her troubles with the Inquisition, see Llorente, Tom. III. p. 114. Santa Teresa was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622; besides which, in 1617 and 1626, the Cortes chose her to be the co-patroness and advocate of Spain with Santiago; an honor that was long resisted, but was urged anew by the testament of Charles II., and confirmed by the Cortes of 1812, June 28, at the urgent petition of the Carmelites, in a spirit worthy of the age in which she lived. See Southey’s Peninsular War, London, 1832, 4to, Tom. III. p. 539.

[240] Malon de Chaide was an Augustinian monk, and Professor at Salamanca; and there are editions of his Magdalen of 1592, Alcalá, 12mo, of 1596, 1603, 1794, etc. A somewhat similar book had preceded it, “The History of the Queen of Sheba, when she discoursed with King Solomon in Jerusalem.” It was written by another Augustinian monk, Alonso de Horosco, a somewhat voluminous writer, and was printed at Salamanca, in 1568, 12mo. But it is little more than a collection of ordinary sermons, some of which do not mention the Queen of Sheba at all, and is to be regarded only as a courtly offering to Isabella, wife of Philip II., whose chaplain Horosco was.

[241] An edition of 1583 is cited by Antonio, (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 178,) but this cannot be. See Viage, Madrid, 1640, 12mo, f. 66. a. The first edition must be that of Madrid, 1603, cited in the Index Expurgatorius, 1667, where it is roughly handled, but since which it has been often reprinted. Clemencin, (Don Quixote, Tom. III. p. 395,) when speaking of Spanish actors, rightly calls the Viage of Roxas “libro magistral en la materia.” Another work, imputed to Roxas, which I have never seen, called “El Buen Repúblico,” was wholly prohibited.

[242] “El Pasagero, Advertencias utilíssimas á la Vida Humana, por el Doctor Christ. Suarez de Figueroa,” Madrid, 1617, 12mo, ff. 492. Figueroa also published (Madrid, 1621, 4to) a volume of five hundred pages, entitled, “Varias Noticias importantes á la Humana Comunicacion,” which he divides into twenty essays, entitled “Variedades.” It is less well written than the Pasagero, falling more into the faults of the time. The seventeenth Essay, however, which is on Domestic Life, with illustrations from Spanish history, is pleasant. His “Plaza Universal de las Ciencias,” first printed at Madrid, in 1615, 4to, and reprinted in folio, with large changes and additions, in 1737, is an attempt at a compendium of human knowledge, curious in the first edition, as showing the state of knowledge and opinion at that time in Spain, but of little value in either.

A more serious book of travels might here have been added; that of Pedro Ordoñez de Cevallos, entitled “Viage del Mundo,” and first printed at Madrid, 1614, 4to. It is an agreeable and often interesting autobiography of its author, beginning with his birth at Jaen and his education at Seville, and giving his travels, for thirty-nine years, all over the world, including China, America, many parts of Africa, and the northern kingdoms of Europe. Its spirit is eminently national, and its style simple and Castilian.

[243] “El Governador Christiano, deducido de las Vidas de Moyses y Josua, por Juan Marquez.” There are editions of 1612, 1619, 1634, etc., with translations into Italian and French. The same author wrote, also, “Dos Estados de la Espiritual Jerusalem,” 1603. He was born in 1564, and died in 1621. Capmany (Eloquencia, Tom. IV. pp. 103, etc.) praises him highly.

[244] “El Embaxador, por Don Juan Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga,” Sevilla, 1620, 4to, 280 leaves. I have noticed him as an epic poet, Vol. II. p. 500.

[245] “El Perfecto Privado, Carta de Lelio Peregrino á Estanislao Bordio, Privado del Rey de Polonia.” It was first printed in 1625, (Antonio, Bib. Nov.,) but I know it only in a collection called “Varios Eloquentes Libros recogidos en uno,” (Madrid, 1726, 4to,) a volume which, besides the above work of Navarrete, contains the “Retrato Político del Rey Alfonso VIII.,” by Gaspar Mercader y Cervellon, (see Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 99,) the “Govierno Moral” of Polo, noticed, II. 544, III. 111, with some discussions which it excited, and the “Lagrimas de Heraclito defendidas,” a tract by Antonio de Vieyra, read before Christina of Sweden, at Rome, to prove that the world is more worthy of being wept over than laughed at; all of them attempts at wisdom and wit in the worst taste of their times.

[246] “Empresas Políticas, Idea de un Príncipe Christiano, por Diego Saavedra Faxardo.” The number of editions is very great, and so is that of the translations. There are, I think, two in English, one of which is by Sir J. Astry, London, 1700, 2 vols. 8vo. A Latin version which appeared at Brussels in 1640, the year in which the original Spanish appeared at Munster, has also been reprinted.

[247] “El Perfeto Señor, etc., de Antonio Lopez de Vega,” 1626 and 1652, the latter, Madrid, 4to. He published, also, (Madrid, 1641, 4to,) a series of moral Dialogues, on various subjects connected with Rank, Wealth, and Letters, under the title of “Heraclito y Demócrito de nuestro Siglo,” and giving the opposite views of each, which the names of the interlocutors imply; a book that affords sketches of manners and opinions at the time it was written, that are often amusing, and generally delivered in an unaffected style. The poetry of Antonio de Vega has been noticed, II. 529.

[248] “Obras y Dias, Manual de Señores y Príncipes, por Juan Eusebio Nieremberg,” Madrid, 1629, 4to, ff. 220. His father and mother were Germans, who came to Spain with the Empress of Austria, Doña Maria, but he himself was born at Madrid in 1595, and died there in 1658. Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 686) and Baena (Tom. III. p. 190) give long lists of his works, chiefly in Latin. The “Contemplations on the State of Man,” published in 1684, seventeen years after the death of Jeremy Taylor, as his work, turns out to have been substantially taken from a treatise of Nieremberg, first published as early as 1654, and entitled “Diferencia de lo Temporal y Eterno”; the “Contemplations,” however, being a rifacimento of an English translation of the work of Nieremberg, by Sir Vivian Mullineaux, published in 1672. (See an interesting pamphlet on this subject, “Letter to Joshua Watson, Esq., etc., by Edw. Churton, M. A., Archdeacon of Cleveland,” London, 1848, 8vo.) Why the fraud was not earlier detected, since Heber and others had noted the difference between the style of this work and that of Bishop Taylor’s works generally, it is difficult to tell. The treatise of Nieremberg has always been valued in Spanish, and, besides being early translated into Latin, Italian, French, and English, was published in Arabic in 1733-34, at the Convent of St. John, on the Mountain of the Druses. See Brunet.

[249] “Advertencias para Reyes, Príncipes, y Embaxadores, por Don Christóval de Benavente y Benavides,” Madrid, 1643, 4to, pp. 700. It a good deal resembles the “Embaxador” of Vera y Zuñiga; and, like the author of that work, Benavente had been an ambassador of Spain in other countries, and wrote on the subject of what may be considered to have been his profession with experience and curious learning.

[250] His “República Literaria” is a light work, in the manner of Lucian, written with great purity of language, and was not printed till 1670. A spirited dialogue between Mercury and Lucian, on “The Follies of Europe,” in which Saavedra defends the House of Austria against the attacks of the rest of the world, remained in manuscript till it was produced, in 1787, in the sixth volume of the Seminario Erudito.

[251] “Primera Parte de la Rhetórica, etc., por Juan de Guzman,” Alcalá, 1590, 12mo, 291 leaves. It is divided affectedly into fourteen “Combites,” or Invitations to Feasts. Its author was a pupil of the famous Sanctius, “El Brocense.”

[252] The “Galateo” was several times reprinted. It is a small book, containing, in the edition of Madrid, 1664, only 126 leaves in 18mo. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 17.

[253] “Libro de la Gineta de España, por Pedro Fernandez de Andrada,” Sevilla, 1599, 4to, 182 leaves.—“Modo de pelear á la Gineta, por Simon de Villalobos,” Valladolid, 1605, 18mo, 70 leaves.

[254] “Eloquencia Española en Arte, por el Maestro Bartolomé Ximenez Paton,” Toledo, 1604, 12mo. The extracts from old Spanish books and hints about their authors, in this treatise, are often valuable; but how wise its practical suggestions are may be inferred from the fact, that it recommends an orator to strengthen his memory by anointing his head with a compound made chiefly of bear’s grease and white wax.

[255] “Ortografía Castellana, por Mateo Aleman,” Mexico, 1609, 4to, 83 leaves.

[256] “Noches Claras, Primera Parte, por Manoel de Faria y Sousa,” Madrid, 1624, 12mo, a thick volume. Barbosa, Tom. III. p. 257.

[257] Francisco de Portugal, Count Vimioso, left a son, who published his father’s poetry with a life prefixed, but I know no edition of the “Arte de Galantería,” etc., earlier than that of Lisbon, 1670, 4to.

[258] Before we come into the period when bad taste overwhelmed every thing, we should slightly refer to a few authors who were not infected by it, and who yet are not of importance enough to be introduced into the text.

The first of them is Diego de Estella, who was born in 1524, and died in 1578. He was much connected with the great diplomatist, Cardinal Granvelle, and published many works in Latin and Spanish, the best of which, as to style and manner, are “The Vanity of the World,” 1574, and “Meditations on the Love of God,” 1578.

Several treatises in the form of biography, but really ascetic and didactic in their character, were published soon afterwards, which are written with some purity and vigor; such as the Life of Pius V., (1595,) by Antonio Fuenmayor, who died at the early age of thirty; the Life of Santa Teresa, (1599,) by Diego de Yepes, one of her correspondents, and the confessor of the last dark years of Philip II.; and the Lives of two devout women, Doña Sancha Carillo, and Doña Ana Ponce de Leon, (1604,) by Martin de Roa, a Jesuit, who long represented the interests of his Society at the court of Rome.

To these may be added three other works of very different characters.

The “Examen de Ingenios,” or How to determine, from the Physical and External Condition, who are fit for Training in the Sciences, by Juan de Huarte, (Alcalá, 1640, 12mo, first published in 1566,) is one of them. It enjoyed a prodigious reputation in its time, was often published in Spanish, and was translated into all the principal languages of Europe; into English by Richard Carew, 1594; and, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, into German by a person no less distinguished than Lessing, whose version, entitled “Prüfung der Köpfe,” was printed for the second time at Wittenberg, 1785, 12mo. It is a work full of striking, but often wild, conjectures in physiology, written in a forcible, clear style, and Lessing aptly compares its author to a spirited horse, that, in galloping over the stones, never strikes fire so brilliantly as he does when he stumbles. It is praised by Forner, (Obras, Madrid, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 61,) and is on the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 734. The “Examen de Maridos,” a spirited play of Alarcon, (see, ante, II. 322,) and the “Vexamen de Ingenios,” a lively prose satire of Cancer, (Obras, 1761, p. 105,) were, I suppose, understood by their contemporaries to have reference to the title of the “Examen de Ingenios,” then very popular. A work not unlike the “Examen de Ingenios” appeared at Barcelona, (1637, 4to,) entitled “El Sol Solo, etc., y Anatomía de Ingenios,” taking a view of the same subject more in the nature of Physiognomy, and not without an approach to what has since been called Phrenology. It was written by Estevan Pujasol, an Aragonese; and is curious for its manner of treating the subjects it discusses,—half anatomical, half spiritual; but is not otherwise interesting.

The second is the “Historia Moral y Philosóphica” of Pero Sanchez of Toledo, published at Toledo, 1590, folio, when its author, who was connected with the cathedral there, was already an old man. It consists of the Lives of distinguished men of antiquity, like Plato, Alexander, and Cicero, and ends with a treatise on Death;—each of the Lives being accompanied by moral and Christian reflections, which are sometimes written in a flowing and fervent style, but are rarely appropriate, and never original or powerful.

The last is by Vincencio Carducho, a Florentine painter, who, when quite a boy, was brought to Spain in 1585, by his brother Bartolomé, and died there in 1638, having risen to considerable eminence in his art. In 1634, he published, at Madrid, “Diálogos de la Pintura, su Defensa, Orígen,” etc. (4to, 229 leaves); but the licencias are dated 1632 and 1633. It is written in good plain prose, without particular merit as to style, and is declared by Cean Bermudez, (Diccionario, Tom. I. p. 251,) in his notice of the author, to be “el mejor libro que tenemos de pintura en Castellano.” At the end is an Appendix, in which are attacks of Lope de Vega, Juan de Jauregui, and others, on a duty laid upon pictures, which, Cean Bermudez says, “the efforts of Carducho and his friends succeeded in removing in 1637.”

[259] See Declamacion, etc., of Vargas y Ponce, 1793, App., § 17; Marina, Ensayo, in Memorias de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1804; Liñan y Verdugo, Avisos de Forasteros, 1620, noticed (ante, p. 103) under the head of Romantic Fiction; and “El Filosofo del Aldea, y sus Conversaciones Familiares, su Autor el Alferez Don Baltazar Mateo Velazquez,” Zaragoza, por Diego de Ormer, 12mo, 106 leaves, s. a.; a singular book, didactic in its main purpose, but illustrating with stories its homely philosophy. I find no notice of it, though the author, in his Dedication, intimates that it is not his first published work. It seems to have been written soon after the death of Philip III. in 1621, and its last dialogue is against cultismo, of the introduction of which into Spanish prose I have spoken when noticing the “Pícara Justina” of Andreas Perez, 1605, ante, p. 67.

[260] There are editions of Gracian’s Works, 1664, 1667, 1725, 1748, 1757, 1773, etc. I use that of Barcelona, 1748, 2 tom. 4to. His Life is in Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. pp. 267, etc., and a pleasant account both of him and of his friend Lastañosa is to be found in Aarsens, Voyage d’Espagne, 1667, p. 294, and in the dedication to Lastañosa of the first edition of Quevedo’s “Fortuna con Seso,” 1650. His poem on “The Four Seasons,” generally printed at the end of his Works, is, I believe, the worst of them; certainly it would be difficult to find much in any language more absurd and extravagant in its false taste.

[261] Juan de Zabaleta flourished as an author from 1653 to 1667; and his works, which were soon collected, have been frequently printed, 1667, Madrid, 1728, 4to, 1754, etc. (Baena, Tom. III. p. 227.)—Christóval Lozano (noticed, pp. 91, 108) was known as an author from 1656, by his “David Arrepentido,” to which he afterwards added his “David Perseguido,” in three volumes, and yet another work on the subject of David’s Example illustrated by the Light of Christianity; all of little value.—Juan Francisco Fernandez de Heredia wrote “Trabajos y Afanes de Hercules,” Madrid, 1682, 4to. He makes it a kind of book of emblems, but it is one of the worst of its conceited class. Latassa (Bib. Nov., Tom. IV. p. 3) notices him.

Of Antonio Perez Ramirez, I know only the “Armas contra la Fortuna,” (Madrid, 1698, 4to,) which is a translation of Boëthius, with dissertations in the worst possible taste interspersed between its several divisions.

One other author might, perhaps, have been placed at the side of Lozano,—Joseph de la Vega,—who published (at Amsterdam in 1688, 12mo) three dialogues, entitled, “Confusion de Confusiones,” to ridicule the passion for stockjobbing which came in with the Dutch East India Company, in 1602, and was then at the height of its frenzy. They are somewhat encumbered with learning, but contain anecdotes, ancient and modern, very well told. The author was a rich Jew of Antwerp, who had fled thither from Spain, and published several works between 1683 and 1693, but none, I think, of much value. Amador de los Rios, Judíos Españoles, p. 633.

[262] There is a remarkable paper, in the sixth volume of the “Seminario Erudito,” on the causes of the decline of Spain;—remarkable because, though written in the reign of Philip IV., by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, an ecclesiastic of rank, whom Charles III. afterwards asked to have canonized, it yet attributes the origin of the prostration under which Spain suffered in his time mainly to the war with the Netherlands.

[263] There is a great discrepancy in the accounts of the number of Moriscos expelled from Spain, 1609-11,—several making it a million, and one reducing it so low as a hundred and sixty thousand. But, whatever may have been the number expelled, all accounts agree as to the disastrous effects produced on a population already decaying by the loss of so many persons, who had long been the most skilful manufacturers and agriculturists in the kingdom; effects to which the many despoblados noted on our recent maps of Spain still bear melancholy testimony. (Clemencin, Notes to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 54.) In stating six hundred thousand to have been the number driven out, I have taken the reckoning of Circourt, (Tom. III. p. 103,) which seems made with care.

These unhappy persons had among them a good deal of Castilian culture, whose traces still remain in manuscripts, which, like that of the old poem of Joseph, already described, (Period I. chap. 5,) are composed in Spanish, but are written throughout in the Arabic character. Of parts of two such manuscripts I possess copies, through the kindness of Don Pascual de Gayangos. The first is a poem written in 1603, and entitled, “Discourse on the Light, and Descent, and Lineage of our Chief and Blessed Prophet, Mohammed Çalam, composed and compiled by his Servant, who most needs his Pardon, Mohammed Rabadan, a Native of Rueda, on the River Xalon.” It is divided into eight Histories, of which I possess the fourth, entitled, “History of Hexim,” who was one of the ancestors of the Prophet. It contains above two thousand lines in the short, Castilian ballad measure, and is remarkably Arabic and Mohammedan in its general tone, though with occasional allusions to the Greek mythology. It is, too, not without poetical merit, as in the following lines, which open the second canto, and describe the auspicious morning of Hexim’s marriage.

In the preface to the whole poem, the author says Allah alone knows how much labor it has cost him to collect the manuscripts necessary for his task, “scattered,” he adds, “as they were, all over Spain, and lost and hidden through fear of the Inquisition.”

The other work to which I refer is chiefly in prose, and is anonymous. Its author says he was driven from Spain in 1610, and was landed at Tunis with above three thousand of his unhappy countrymen, who, through the long abode of their race in a Christian land and under the fierce persecutions of the Inquisition, had not only so lost a knowledge of the rites and ceremonies of their religion, that it was necessary to indoctrinate them like children, but had so lost all proper knowledge of the Arabic, that it was necessary to do it through the Castilian. The Bashaw of Tunis, therefore, sent for the author, and commanded him to write a book in Castilian, for the instruction of these singular neophytes. He did so, and produced the present work, which he called “Mumin,” or the Believer in Allah; a word which he uses to signify a city populous and fortified, which is attacked by the Vices and defended by the Virtues of the Mohammedan religion, and in which one of the personages relates a history of his own life, adventures, and sufferings; all so given as to instruct, sometimes by direct precept and sometimes by example, the newly arrived Moriscos in their duties and faith. It is, of course, partly allegorical and romantic. Its air is often Arabic, and so is its style occasionally; but some of its scenes are between lovers at grated windows, as if in a Castilian city, and it is interspersed with Castilian poems by Montemayor, Góngora, and the Argensolas, with, perhaps, some by the author himself, who seems to have been a man of cultivation and of a gentle spirit. Of this manuscript I have eighty pages,—about a fifth of the whole.

Further notices on the Morisco-Spanish literature may be found in an account by the Orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy, of two manuscripts in France, like those just described (Ochoa, Manuscritos Españoles, 1844, pp. 6-21); but a more ample and satisfactory discussion of it occurs in a learned article in the British and Foreign Review, January, 1839.

It should be remembered that Morisco was substituted for Moro, after the overthrow of the Moorish power in Spain, as an expression of the contempt with which the Christian Spaniards have never ceased to pursue their old conquerors and hated enemies, from the time of the fall of Granada to the present day.

Encouraged by the expulsion of the Jews, in 1492, and by that of the Moors, in 1609-11, Don Sancho de Moncada, a professor in the University of Toledo, addressed Philip III., in a discourse published in 1619, urging that monarch to drive out the Gypsies. But he failed. His discourse is in Hidalgo, “Romances de Germania,” (Madrid, 1779, 8vo,) and is translated by Borrow, in his remarkable work on the Gypsies (London, 1841, 8vo, Vol. I. chap. xi.). Salazar de Mendoza, at the end of his “Dignidades de Castilla,” published in 1618, says he had himself prepared a memorial to the same effect, for driving out the Gypsies; and he adds, in a true Castilian spirit, that “it is being over-nice to tolerate such a pernicious and perverse race.”

[264] Comentario de la Guerra de España, por el Marques de San Phelipe, Genova, s. a., 4to, Tom. I. Lib. II., año 1701.