[265] Tapia, Hist. de la Civilizacion Española, Madrid, 1840, 12mo, Tom. III. p. 167.

[266] The details—disgusting enough—are given by L. F. Moratin, in the notes to his edition of the “Auto da Fé de Logroño, del Año 1610,” a work originally published for general edification, by one of the persons concerned in the auto itself, and certified to be true by others; but reprinted (Cadiz, 1812, 12mo) by Moratin, the comic poet, to show the ignorance and brutality of all who had a hand in it. There is a play on the subject by Gil y Zarate, 1837; but it does not respect the truth of history.

[267] Tapia, Hist. de la Civilizacion, Tom. III. p. 77 and p. 168. Sandoval, Hist., Tom. II. p. 657.

[268] Llorente, Hist., Tom. II., 1817, p. 239.

[269] Ibid., Tom. II. p. 385, Tom. IV. p. 3.

[270] Tapia, Hist., Tom. III. p. 88.

[271] One of the most remarkable books that can be consulted, to illustrate the character and feelings of all classes of society in Spain at the end of the seventeenth century, is the “Relacion,” etc., of this “Auto General” of 1680, published immediately afterwards at Madrid, by Joseph del Olmo, one of the persons who had been most busy in its arrangements. It is a small quarto of 308 pages, and gives, as if describing a magnificent theatrical pageant, the details of the scene, which began at seven o’clock in the morning of June 30th, and was not over till nine o’clock of the following morning, the king and queen sitting in their box or balcony, to witness it, fourteen hours of that time. Eighty-five grandees entered themselves as especial familiares, or servants, of the Holy Office, to do honor to the occasion; and the king sent from his own hand the first faggot to the accursed pile. The whole number of victims exhibited was one hundred and twenty, of whom twenty-one were burnt alive; but it does not appear that the royal party actually witnessed this portion of the atrocities. From the whole account, however, there can be no doubt that devout Spaniards generally regarded the exhibition with favor, and most of them with a much stronger feeling. Madame d’Aulnoy (Voyage, Tom. III. p. 154) had a description of the ceremonies intended for this auto da fé given to her, as if it were to be an honor to the monarchy, by one of the Counsellors of the Inquisition; but I think she left Madrid before it occurred.

[272] See the first of Doblado’s remarkable Letters, where he says, “You hear from the pulpit the duties that men owe to ‘both their Majesties’; and a foreigner is often surprised at the hopes expressed by Spaniards, that ‘his Majesty’ will be pleased to grant them life and health for some years more.” The Dict. of the Academy, 1736, verb. Magestad, illustrates this still further.

[273] Partida Segunda, Tit. XIII.

[274] Tapia, Hist., Tom. IV. p. 19.

[275] See the end of “El Segundo Scipion,” and that of “El Segundo Blason de Austria,” by Calderon; and the Dedication of his History to Charles II., by Solís, in which, with a slight touch of the affectations of cultismo, which Solís did not always avoid, he tells this “king of shreds and patches”: “I find, in the shadow of your Majesty, the splendor that is wanting in my own works.” In the same spirit, Lupercio de Argensola made the canonization of San Diego a sort of prophetical canonization of Philip II., in a cancion of no mean merit as a poem, but one that shocks all religious feeling, by recalling the apotheosis of the Roman emperors.

[276] Lord Mahon’s excellent “History of the War of the Succession in Spain” (London, 1832, 8vo) leaves the same general impression on the mind of the reader, as to the effect of that war on the Spanish character, that is left by the contemporary accounts of it. It is, no doubt, the true one.

[277] The Royal Library, now the National Library, at Madrid, which was strictly the earliest literary project of the reign of Philip V., was founded in 1711; but for several years it was an institution of little importance. El Bibliotecario y el Trovador, Madrid, 1841, folio, p. 3.

[278] “Historia de la Academia,” in the Preface to the “Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana, por la Real Academia Española,” Madrid, Tom. I. 1726, folio. Sempere y Guarinos, Biblioteca, 1785, Discurso Preliminar, and Tom. I. p. 55.

[279] Garcés, Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1791, 2 tom. 8vo, Prólogo to each volume. Mendoza used reluctantly such words as centinela, and Coloma introduced dique, etc., from his Dutch experience. Navarrete (Vida de Cervantes, pp. 163-169) and Garcés (loc. cit.) show the value of what Cervantes did, and Clemencin (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. V. pp. 99, 292, and 357) gives a list of the Latin, Italian, and other words used by Cervantes, but not always naturalized, on which, in various notes elsewhere, he seems to look with less favor than Garcés does. Quite as curious as either are the words, which Blasco (Universal Redencion, 1584) and Lopez Pinciano (El Pelayo, 1605) thought it necessary to put into vocabularies at the end of their respective poems, and to define for their readers, among which are fatal, natal, fugaz, gruta, abandonar, adular, anhelo, aplauso, arrojarse, assedio, etc.,—all now familiar Castilian.

[280] It is impossible to open the works of Count Villamediana, and the other followers of Góngora, without finding proofs of their willingness to change the language of Spanish literature; but there is a small and very imperfect list of the words and phrases these innovators favored, to be found in the “Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua Castellana,” by Vargas y Ponce, p. 150, which will at once illustrate their general purpose.

[281] There is an edition of the Tesoro of Covarrubias, by Benito Remigio Noydens, (Madrid, 1674, folio,) which is better and ampler than the original work.

[282] The “Ortografía de la Lengua Castellana,” (Mexico, 1609, 4to, ff. 83) is a pleasant and important treatise, which, as the novelist intimates, he began to write in Castile and finished in Mexico. It proposes to reverse the letter ↄ in order to express the soft ch as in mucho, to be printed muↄo; uses two forms of the letter r; writes the conjunction y always i, as Salvá now insists it should be; and claims j, ll, and ñ to be separate letters, as they have long been admitted to be.

In speaking of Aleman, I am reminded of his “San Antonio de Padua,” printed in 12mo, at Valencia, in 1607, ff. 309. It belongs to the same class of books with the “San Patricio” of Montalvan, (see, ante, Vol. II. p. 298,) but is more elaborate and more devout. The number of the Saint’s miracles that it records is very great. Whether he invented any of them for the occasion, I do not know; but they sometimes read as much like novelas as some of his stories in the “Guzman” do, and are always written in the same idiomatic and unadulterated Castilian. It is introduced by a cancion in honor of it by Lope de Vega; but I cannot find that it was ever reprinted;—why, it is difficult to say, for it is an uncommonly attractive book of its class.

[283] The difficulties in Castilian orthography are set forth in the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. pp. 47-65); but the ingenious author of that discussion is more severe than was necessary on Lebrixa. An anonymous writer of an excellent essay on the same subject, in the first volume of the Repertorio Americano, (Tom. I. p. 27,) is a great deal more judicious. But how unsettled much still remains in practice may be seen in the “Manual del Cajista, por José María Palacios,” Madrid, 1845, 18mo, where (pp. 134-154) is a “Prontuario de las Voces de dudosa Ortografía,” containing above 1800 words.

[284] Of Lebrixa’s Grammar I have already spoken, (Vol. I. p. 549,) and the memory of it was now so much revived that a counterfeit edition of it was published, about 1775, in small folio, hardly, I should judge from its appearance, with the intention of deceiving. But such things were not uncommon about that time, as Mendez says, who thinks the edition in question had been printed about twenty years when he published his work in 1796. (See Typog., p. 242.) It is, however, already so rare, that I obtained a copy of it with difficulty.

That of Gayoso was first printed at Madrid, in 1745, 12mo, and that of San Pedro in Valencia, 1769, 12mo, which last Gayoso, disguising himself under a sort of anagram, attacked, in his “Conversaciones Críticas, por Don Antonio Gobeyos,” (Madrid, 1780, 12mo,) where he shows that San Pedro was not so original as he ought to have been, but treats his Grammar with more harshness than it deserved. Salvá’s “Gramática de la Lengua Castellana como ahora se halla” was first printed in 1831, and the sixth edition appeared at Madrid in 1844, 12mo; a striking proof of the want of such a book.

[285] Gregorio Garcés, whose “Fundamento del Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua Castellana” was printed at Madrid, 1791, 2 tom. 8vo, was a Jesuit, and prepared this excellent work in exile at Ferrara, in which city he lived above thirty years, and from which he returned home in 1798, under the decree of Charles IV. abrogating that of his father for the expulsion of the Order from Spain, in 1767.

[286] See, ante, Part II. c. 5, and note, Vol. I. p. 537.

[287] For an account of these Academies, see Guarinos, “Biblioteca”; and for a notice of the origin of the Royal Academy of History, see the first volume of its Memoirs. The old Academias, in imitation of the Italian,—such as are ridiculed in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco IX.,—had much gone out of fashion and been displaced by the modern Tertulias, where both sexes meet, and which in their turn have been ridiculed in the Saynetes of Ramon de la Cruz and Castillo.

[288] There is an edition of the “Nuevo Mundo,” printed at Barcelona, 1701, 4to, containing many blanks, which the author announces his intention to fill up. Of the “Alfonso, ó la Fundacion del Reyno de Portugal,” there are editions of 1712, 1716, 1731, and 1737. There is a notice of the author—Francisco Botelho Moraes e Vasconcellos—in Barbosa, (Tom. II. p. 119,) and at the end of the edition of the Alfonso, Salamanca, 1731, 4to, is a defence of a few peculiarities in its orthography. “Las Cuevas de Salamanca” (s. l. 1734) is a small volume, divided into seven books, written, perhaps, at Salamanca itself, which Moraes loved, and where he retired in his old age. He published one or two works in Spanish, besides those already mentioned, and one or two in Latin, but no others of consequence.

[289] “Lima Fundada, Poema Heróico de Don Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo,” Lima, 1732, 4to, about 700 pages; but so ill paged that it is not easy to determine.

[290] “Santa Casilda, Poema en Octavas Reales, por el R. P. Fr. Pedro de Reynosa,” Madrid, 1727, 4to. It is in seven cantos, and each canto has a sort of codicil to it, affectedly called a Contrapunto.—“La Eloquencia del Silencio, Poema Heróico, por Miguel de la Reyna Zevallos,” Madrid, 1738, 4to. Of the mock-heroic poems mentioned in the text, one is “La Prosérpina, Poema Heróico, por D. Pedro Silvestre,” Madrid, 1721, 4to,—twelve mortal cantos. The other is “La Burromaquia,” which is better, but still not amusing. It is unfinished, and is found in the “Obras Póstumas de Gabriel Alvarez de Toledo.” The divisions are not called “Cantos,” but “Brayings.” I have seen very ridiculous extracts from a poem by Father Butron on Santa Teresa, printed in 1722, and from one on St. Jerome, by P. M. Lara, 1726, but I have never happened to fall in with the poems themselves, which seem to be as bad as any of their class.

[291] “Obras Poéticas Lýricas, por el Coronel D. Eugenio Gerardo Lobo,” Madrid, 1738, 4to.—“Poesías Lýricas, y Joco-Serias, su Autor D. Joseph Joachim Benegasi y Luxan,” Madrid, 1743, 4to.—Gab. Alvarez de Toledo, ut ante.—Antonio Muñoz, “Aventuras en Verso y en Prossa,” (sic,) no date, but licensed 1739.

[292] “Sagradas Flores del Parnaso, Consonancias Métricas de la bien Templada Lyra de Apolo, que á la reverente Católica Accion de haver ido accompañando sus Magestades el Ssmo Sacramento que iba á Darse por viatico á una Enferma el Dia 28 de Novembre, 1722, cantaron los mejores Cisnes de España,” 4to. I give the title of the first collection in full, as an indication of the bad taste of its contents. Both collections, taken together, make about 200 pages, and contain poems by about fifty authors, generally in the worst and most affected style,—the very dregs of Gongorism.

[293] The “Sátira contra los Malos Escritores de su Tiempo” is commonly attributed to José Gerardo de Herbas; but Tapia (Civilisacion, Tom. IV. p. 266) says it was written by José Cobo de la Torre, besides which it is inserted in the “Rebusco de las Obras Literarias de J. F. de Isla,” (Madrid, 1790, 12mo,) as if it were unquestionably Isla’s. It first appeared in the second edition of the sixth volume of the “Diario de los Literatos”;—the earliest periodical work in the spirit of modern criticism that was published in Spain, and one so much in advance of the age that it did not survive its second year, having been begun in 1737, and gone on one year and nine months, till it made seven small volumes. It was in vain that it was countenanced by the king, and favored by the leading persons at court. It was too large a work; it was a new thing, which Spaniards rarely like; and it was severe in its criticisms, so that the authors of the time generally took the field against it, and broke it down.

To the same period with the Satire of Pitillas belongs the poem on “Deucalion,” by Alonso Verdugo de Castilla, Count of Torrepalma. It is an imitation of Ovid, in about sixty octave stanzas, somewhat remarkable for its versification. But in a better period it would not be noticed.

[294] “Los Tobias, su Vida escrita en Octavas, por D. Vicente Bacallar y Sanna, Marques de San Phelipe,” etc., 4to, pp. 178, without date, but licensed 1709.—“Monarchia Hebrea,” Madrid, 1727, 2 tom. 4to.—“Comentarios de la Guerra de España hasta el Año 1725,” Genoa, no date, 2 tom. 4to. Of the last there is a poor continuation, bringing the history down to 1742, entitled, “Continuacion á los Comentarios, etc., por D. Joséph del Campo Raso,” Madrid, 1756-63, 2 tom. 4to.

[295] Pitillas, Sátira. Isla, Á los que degenerando del Carácter Español, afectan ser Estrangeros. Rebusco, p. 178.

[296] Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. V. p. 12, and Preface to the edition of Luzan’s Poética, by his son, 1789. His poetry has never been collected and published, but portions of it are found in Sedano, Quintana, etc. The octaves he recited at the opening of the Academy of Fine Arts, in 1752, and published at p. 21 of the “Abertura Solemne,” etc., printed in honor of the occasion (Madrid, folio); and the similar poems recited by him at a distribution of prizes by the same Academy, in 1754, and published in their “Relacion,” etc., (Madrid, folio, pp. 51-61,) prove rather the dignity of his social position than any thing else. Latassa gives a long account of his unpublished works.

[297] It is prefixed to the edition of Enzina’s Cancionero, 1496, folio, and, I suppose, to the other editions; and fills nine short chapters.

[298] “Arte Poética Española, su Autor Juan Diaz Rengifo,” Salamanca, 1592, 4to, enlarged, but not improved, in the editions of 1700, 1737, etc., by Joseph Vicens.

[299] “Philosophía Antigua Poética del Doctor Alonso Lopez Pinciano, Médico Cesareo,” Madrid, 1596, 4to.

[300] “Tablas Poéticas del Licenciado Francisco Cascales,” 1616. An edition of Madrid, 1779, 8vo, contains a Life of the author by Mayans y Siscar. Cascales is presumptuous enough to rearrange Horace’s “Ars Poetica” in what he regards as a better order.

[301] “Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua, ó Illustracion Ultima al libro Singular de Poética de Aristóteles, por Don Jusepe Ant. Gonçalez de Salas,” Madrid, 1633, 4to.

[302] Of the treatise of Argote de Molina, prefixed to his edition of the “Conde Lucanor,” 1575, and of the poem of Cueva, I have spoken (I. 507, II. 569). A small tract, called “Libro de Erudicion Poética,” published in the works of Luis Carrillo, 1611, and several of the epistles of Christóval de Mesa, 1618, might be added; but the last are of little consequence, and the tract of Carrillo is in very bad taste.

[303] Gracian has been noticed in this volume (p. 192). The “Epítome de la Eloquencia Española, por D. Francisco Joseph Artiga, olim Artieda,” was licensed in 1725, and contains above thirteen thousand lines;—a truly ridiculous book, but of some consequence as showing the taste of the age, especially in pulpit oratory.

[304] Blanco White (Life by Thom, 1845, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 21) says Luzan borrowed so freely from Muratori, “Della Perfetta Poesia,” that the Spanish treatise helped him (Mr. White) materially in learning to read the Italian one. But Luzan has not in fact copied from Muratori with the unjustifiable freedom this remark implies, though he has adopted Muratori’s general system, with abundant acknowledgment and references.

[305] The first edition of the “Poética” of Luzan was printed in folio at Saragossa, in 1737, with long and extraordinary certificates of approbation by Navarro and Gallinero, two of the author’s friends. The second edition, materially improved by additions from the manuscripts of Luzan, after his death, was printed at Madrid, in 2 tom. 8vo, in 1789. When the first edition appeared, it was much praised in the “Diario de los Literatos” (Tom. VII., 1738); but, as one of the reviewers, Juan de Iriarte, who wrote the latter part of the article, made a few exceptions to his general commendations, Luzan, who was more sensitive than he needed to be, replied in a small bitter tract, under the name of Iñigo de Lanuza, Pamplona, [1740,] 12mo, pp. 144, with cumbrous and learned notes by Colmenares, to whom the tract is dedicated.

[306] Cean Bermudez, Memorias de Jovellanos, Madrid, 1814, 12mo, cap. x. p. 221.

[307] Vida, Ascendencia, etc., del Doctor Diego de Torres Villaroel, Madrid, 1789, 4to;—an autobiography, written in the worst taste of the time, i. e. about 1743. He says of a treatise on the Sphere, by Padre Clavio: “Creo que fue la primera noticia que habia llegado á mis oidos de que habia ciencias matemáticas en el mundo.” (p. 34.)

[308] Doblado’s Letters, 1822, p. 113.

[309] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inq., Tom. II. p. 446. It may be deemed worthy of notice, that Oliver Goldsmith pays an appropriate tribute to the merits of Father Feyjoó, and relates an anecdote of his showing the people of a village through which he happened to pass that what they esteemed a miracle was, in truth, only a natural effect of reflected light; thus exposing himself to a summons from the Inquisition. (“The Bee,” No. III., Oct. 20, 1759, Miscellaneous Works, London, 1812, 8vo, Vol. IV. p. 193.) But after Feyjoó’s death, the Inquisition ordered only a trifling expurgation of his “Teatro Crítico,” in one passage. Index, 1790.

[310] The “Teatro Crítico” and “Cartas Eruditas y Curiosas,” with the discussions they provoked, fill fifteen and sometimes sixteen volumes. The edition of 1778 has a Life of Feyjoó prefixed to it, written by Campomanes, the distinguished minister of state under Charles III.; the same person who, on the nomination of Franklin, was made a member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. Clemencin says truly of Feyjoó, that “to his enlightened and religious mind is due the overthrow of many vulgar errors, and a great part of the progress in civilization made by Spain in the eighteenth century.” Note to Don Quixote, Tom. V., 1836, p. 35.

[311] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. IV., 1818, pp. 29, 43. The “Papel” of Macanaz is on the Index of the Inquisition, 1790.

[312] Mahon, War of the Succession, 1832, p. 180. Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV. p. 32. San Phelipe, Comentarios, Lib. XIV.

[313] Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. pp. 420, 424, Tom. IV. p. 31. The data of Llorente are not so precise as they ought to be, but any thing approaching his results is of most fearful import. In a pamphlet, however, printed in 1817, (as he declares in his Autobiography, p. 170,) he asserts that, between 1680 and 1808, there perished in the fires of the Inquisition fifteen hundred and seventy-eight persons, and that eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight more were subjected to degrading punishments, making a grand total of fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-four victims, of which the fifteen hundred and seventy-eight burnt alive must all have perished between 1680 and 1781, when, as we shall see in the next chapter, the last victim was immolated.

[314] Noticia del Viage de España hecha de Orden del Rey, por L. J. Velazquez, Madrid, 1765, 4to, passim. Llorente, Tom. IV. p. 51. Tapia, Tom. IV. p. 73.

[315] “El Pelayo, Poema de D. Alonso de Solís Folch de Cardona Rodriguez de las Varillas, Conde de Saldueña,” etc., (Madrid, 1754, 4to,) twelve cantos in octave stanzas, written in the most affected style.—Joseph Moraleja, “El Entretenido, Segunda Parte” (Madrid, 1741, 4to); a continuation of the Entretenido of Sanchez Tortoles, containing the amusements of a society of friends for four days; entremeses, stories, odds and ends of poetry, astronomical calculations, etc., a strange and absurd mixture. Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 81) has a life of the author. The “Noches Alegres” of Isidro Fr. Ortiz Gallardo de Villaroel, (Salamanca, 1758, 4to,) is a shorter book, and nearly all in verse. Both are worthless.

[316] Luzan, Arte Poética, ed. 1789, Tom. I. pp. xix., etc.

[317] Luis Joseph Velazquez, “Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana,” Málaga, 1754, 4to, pp. 175. J. A. Dieze, who was a Professor at Göttingen, and died in 1785, published a German translation of it in 1769, with copious and excellent notes, which more than double, not only the size of the original work, but its value. The Life of Velazquez, who was Marquis of Valdeflores, though he does not generally allude to his title in his printed works, is to be found in Sempere y Guarinos, Bib., Tom. VI. p. 139.

[318] Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, who wrote and edited a great many books in Latin and Spanish, was born in 1699, and died in 1782. His life and a list of his works may be made out from the united accounts of Ximeno, Tom. II. p. 324, and Fuster, Tom. II. p. 98.

[319] There was a severe answer made at once to Blas Nasarre, by Don Joseph Carrillo, entitled “Sin Razon impugnada,” 4to, 1750, pp. 25; besides which, his Preface was attacked by Don T. Zabaleta, in his “Discurso Crítico,” etc., (4to, 1750, pp. 258,) which is a general, loose defence of Lope and his school. But neither was needed. The theory of Nasarre was too absurd to win adherents.

[320] Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV. c. 15.

Many of the best materials for the state of culture in Spain, during the reign of Charles III., are to be found in the “Biblioteca de los Mejores Escritores del Reynado de Carlos III., por Juan Sempere y Guarinos,” Madrid, 1785-89, 6 tom. 8vo. When the author published it, he was about thirty-five years old, having been born in 1754; but he was afterwards much more distinguished as a political writer, by his “Observaciones sobre las Cortes,” (1810,) his “Historia de las Cortes,” (1815,) and other labors of the same kind. His first acknowledged work was a free translation, from Muratori, of an essay, with additions, which he printed at Madrid, in 1782, in 12mo, with the title, “Sobre el Buen Gusto,” and which he accompanied by an original tract, “Sobre el Buen Gusto actual de los Españoles en la Literatura,”—the last being afterwards prefixed, with alterations, to his “Biblioteca.” He was a diligent and useful writer, and died, I believe, in 1824. A small volume, containing notices of his life to the time when it appeared, probably derived from materials furnished by himself, was printed at Madrid, by Amarita, in 1821, 12mo.

[321] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. IV. Doblado’s Letters, 1822, Appendix to Letters III. and VII.

[322] Sempere y Guarinos, Bibliot., Tom. IV., Art. Planes de Estudios. Tapia, Tom. IV. c. 16. Llorente, Tom. IV. p. 270. The Marquis de Langle, in his “Voyage d’Espagne,” (s. l. 1785, 12mo, p. 45,) says the poor woman burnt at Seville was “jeune et belle.”

[323] Tapia, Tom. IV. pp. 124, etc. When the Emperor Charles V. came to the throne, Spain counted ten and a half millions of souls; at the time of the treaty of Utrecht, it counted but seven millions and a half; a monstrous falling off, if we consider the advancement of the rest of Europe during the same period.

[324] Vida de J. F. de Isla, por J. I. de Salas, Madrid, 1803, 12mo.

[325] Juventud Triunfante, Salamanca, 1727, 4to. Dia Grande de Navarra, 2a ed., Madrid, 1746, 4to. Semanario Pintoresco, 1840, p. 130.

[326] Vida de Isla, § 3. Sermones, Madrid, 1792-93, 6 tom. 8vo. Vulgar preaching in the streets was common as early as 1680, when Madame d’Aulnoy was in Spain. Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. II. p. 168.

[327] “Historia del Famoso Predicador, Fray Gerundio de Campazas,” Madrid, 1813, 4 tom. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 307. In the first edition, as well as in several other editions, it is said to be written by Francisco Lobon de Salazar, a name which has generally been supposed to be a fictitious one; but which is, in fact, that of a friend, who was a parish priest at Villagarcia, where Father Isla, who mentions him often in his letters, wrote his Friar Gerund.

[328] Cartas Familiares, 1790, Tom. VI. p. 313.

[329] Fray Gerundio, Tom. I. p. 309.

[330] Cartas Familiares, Tom. II. p. 170.

[331] Vida de Isla, p. 63. Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. p. 450. Cartas Familiares de Isla, Tom. II. pp. 168, etc., and Tom. III. p. 213. There are several amusing letters about Fray Gerundio in the second volume of the Cartas Familiares. The Inquisition (Index, 1790) not only forbade the work itself, but forbade any body to publish any thing for or against it.

[332] Watt, Bibliotheca, art. Isla. Wieland, Teutsche Merkur, 1773, Tom. III. p. 196. Baretti’s Proposals for Printing the Translation of Friar Gerund, prefixed to that work, London, 1772, 2 tom. 8vo.

[333] The autograph manuscript of “El Ciceron,” neatly written out in 219 folio pages, double columns, with the corrections of the author and the erasures of the censor, is in the Boston Athenæum. It is accompanied by three autograph letters of Father Isla; by the opinion of the censor, that the poem ought not to be published; and by an answer to that opinion;—the last two being anonymous. These curious and valuable manuscripts were procured in Madrid by E. Weston, Esq., and presented by him to the Library of the Athenæum, in 1844.

[334] The works alluded to are,—“El Mercurio General,” (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) being extracts from accounts claimed to have been written by Father Isla for that journal, in 1758, of the European events of the year, but not certainly his;—“Cartas de Juan de la Enzina,” (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) a satirical work on the follies of Spanish medicine;—“Cartas Familiares,” written between 1744 and 1781; published, 1785-86, also in a second edition, Madrid, 1790, 6 tom. 12mo;—“Coleccion de Papeles Crítico-Apologéticos,” (1788, 2 tom. 18mo,) in defence of Feyjoó;—“Sermones,” Madrid, 1792, 6 tom. 8vo;—“Rebusco,” etc., (Madrid, 1790, 18mo,) a collection of miscellanies, some of which are probably not by Father Isla;—“Los Aldeanos Críticos”; again in defence of Feyjoó;—and various papers in the Seminario Erudito, Tom. XVI., XX., and XXXIV., and in the supplementary volume of the “Fray Gerundio.” A poem, entitled “Sueño Político,” (Madrid, 1785, 18mo,) on the accession of Charles III., is also attributed to him; and so are “Cartas atrasadas del Parnaso,” a satire which is not supposed to have been written by him, though it reminds one sometimes of the “Ciceron.”

[335] “Aventuras de Gil Blas de Santillana, robadas á España, adoptadas en Francia por Mons. Le Sage, restituidas á su Patria y á su Lengua nativa, por un Español zeloso, que no sufre que se burlen de su Nacion,” Madrid, 1787, 6 tom. 8vo, and often since. Though in great poverty himself, Isla gave any profit that might come from his version of the Gil Blas to assist a poor Spanish knight.

[336] Another continuation of Gil Blas, less happy even than that of Father Isla, appeared, in 2 tom. 8vo, at Madrid, in 1792, entitled “Genealogia de Gil Blas, Continuacion de la Vida de este famoso Sujeto, por su Hijo Don Alfonso Blas de Liria.” Its author was Don Bernardo Maria de Calzada, a person who, a little earlier, had translated much from the French. (Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. VI. p. 231.) This work, too, the author declared to be a translation, and, like Isla, set forth on his title-page that it was “restored to the language in which it was originally written.” But the whole is a worthless fiction, title-page and all, though the attempt to make out for Gil Blas a clear and noble genealogy on the side of his mother must be admitted to be a truly Spanish fancy. (See Libros III. y IV.) The story is unfinished.

[337] Voltaire, Œuvres, ed. Beaumarchais, Tom. XX. p. 155. Le Sage, Œuvres, Paris, 1810, 8vo, Tom. I. p. xxxix., where Voltaire is said to have been attacked by Le Sage, in one of his dramas; besides which it is supposed Le Sage ridiculed him under the name of Triaquero, in Gil Blas, Lib. X. c. 5. But the most important and curious discussion concerning the authorship of Gil Blas is the one that was carried on, between 1818 and 1822, by François de Neufchâteau and Antonio de Llorente, the author of the History of the Inquisition. It began with a memoir, by the first, read to the French Academy, (1818,) and an edition of Gil Blas, (Paris, 1820, 3 tom. 8vo,) in both of which he maintains Le Sage to be the true author of that romance. To both Llorente replied by a counter memoir, addressed to the French Academy, and by his “Observations sur Gil Blas,” (Paris, 1822, 12mo,) and his “Observaciones sobre Gil Blas” (Madrid, 1822, 12mo); two works not exactly alike, but substantially so, and equally maintaining that Gil Blas is Spanish in its origin, and probably the work of Solís, the historian, who, as Llorente conjectures, wrote a romance in Spanish, entitled, “El Bachiller de Salamanca,” the manuscript of which coming into the possession of Le Sage, he first plundered from it the materials for his Gil Blas, which he published in 1715-35, and then gave the world the remainder as the “Bachelier de Salamanque,” in 1738. This theory of Llorente is explained, with more skill than is shown in its original framing, by the late accomplished scholar, Mr. A. H. Everett, in an article which first appeared in the North American Review, for October, 1827, when its author was Minister of the United States in Spain, and afterwards in his pleasant “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays,” published in Boston, 1845, 12mo.

[338] “Le Point d’Honneur” is from “No hay Amigo para Amigo,” which is the first play in the Comedias de Roxas, 1680;—and “Don Cesar Ursino” is from “Peor esta que estaba,” in Calderon, Comedias, 1763, Tom. III. The errors of Gil Blas in Spanish geography and history are constantly pointed out by Llorente as blunders of Le Sage in the careless use of his original; while, on the other hand, Fr. de Neufchâteau points out its allusions to Parisian society in the time of Le Sage. But of his free use of Spanish fictions, which he took no pains to conceal, the proof is abundant. I have already noticed, when speaking of Espinel, (ante, pp. 67-70,) how much Le Sage took from “Marcos de Obregon”; but, besides this, the adventures of Don Rafael with the Seigneur de Moyadas in Gil Blas (Lib. V. c. 1) are taken from “Los Empeños del Mentir” of Mendoza (Fenix Castellano, 1690, p. 254);—the story of the Marriage de Vengeance in Gil Blas (Lib. IV. c. 4) is from the play of Roxas, “Casarse por Vengarse”;—the story of Aurora de Guzman in Gil Blas (Lib. IV. c. 5 and 6) is from “Todo es enredos Amor,” by Diego de Córdoba y Figueroa;—and so on. See Tieck’s Vorrede to his translation of Marcos de Obregon (1827); Adolfo de Castro’s Poesías de Calderon y Plagios de Le Sage, (Cadiz, 1845, 18mo, a curious little pamphlet); and the fourth book of the same author’s “Conde Duque de Olivares” (Cadiz, 1846, 8vo). In his “Bachelier de Salamanque,” Le Sage goes one step further. On the title-page of this romance, first printed three years after the last volume of Gil Blas appeared, he says expressly, that “it is translated from a Spanish manuscript,” and yet the story of Doña Cintia de la Carrera, in the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth chapters, is taken from Moreto’s “Desden con el Desden”; a play as well known as any in Spanish literature.